Band Fags

Back in olden times when I was in high school, the band kids were called “Band Fags”.  I was a Band Fag.  I played the most GEEKY instrument EVER:  the bass clarinet.  It was as skinny and as tall as I was and it was the only clarinet part I could play when I joined band in the tenth grade.  My desire to become a Band Fag started when I started twirling a flag in the color guard.  The more immersed I got in Band Fag culture, the more I realized that I had found MY people.

I am prouder than proud to say that four out of my six kids are fellow Band Fags now.  I was looking for a way to test my new Smugmug plugin so I decided to post the album of my son Kyle and his trombone.  I’m so proud of my little…um…Band Fag.  Is it wrong to call your kids fags on the internet?

View photos at SmugMug

An App For That?!

I can now blog from my Iphone. Be prepared for a stream of ridiculous, random, meaningless to you posts. I am SO excited to tell you my thoughts-on-the-go! The iPhone is aMAzing! Better than…well…ice cream! I am one with it. I live in a perfectly happy little touch screen world in which I can bond with other iPhone users I meet in elevators. She sees me with mine and says, “Iphone?”. I say, “Yes…isn’t it amazing? If the whole world had iPhones we’d all live in peace.”. She says, “I know, right?!?”. That is all that needed to be said. Elevator doors open and we both step out knowing we each make the world a better place.

Things That Make Me Feel Old

So my oldest daughter is graduating from high school soon. She’s amazing, we’re proud, she’s going to college, blah, blah, blah. All of this progression is making me feel old. It must be coincidental that several other things are making me feel old as of late, right? I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I am being thrust toward FORTY.  I’ve heard from several female people that FORTY is the magic age at which your body starts to tell you that your fabulousness better lie in something other than your physical vessel or you are doomed.  I’ve been actively working on my inner fabulousness since late 2005 and it’s coming along well but this does not make this other thing, the inklings of physical degradation, any easier at ALL.   So here are the things that I believe may be a sign of impending elderliness:

• Increasing satisfaction in and anticipation of the wearing of stretchy pants.
• Subtle adjustments of reading material along the X-axis.
• Awareness of bowel movement patterns.
• Beer gut (see first point).
• Knowledge that I will, very likely, be a grandmother at some point in the next ten years (the oldest will be twenty-seven in ten years…F*CK!)
• Memory of my parents at my age…and they were OLD.
• Thoughts that my menstrual cycle is pretty much useless and could disappear without me caring too much (yes, I know, it’s early for these thoughts but I have SIX children…did I just blog the word menstrual?).
• Realizing that the giggling female med students at work are closer in age to my daughter than they are to me…F*CK!!!

And finally…the big one…

• When dropping my girl off for her university placement exams this past Saturday, the sudden and violent nausea, then tears, then visions of her life flashing before my eyes as if all of those little curly-haired fits of stubborn rage were literally just last week.  *SOB*

Blogging Blogginess

I miss blogging. I get way too hung up on the idea of being witty and funny and perfect and then I don’t write anything. Lately the energy and creativity has escaped me but there have so many moments that I’ve wanted to write about. I need to find a balance.

How do I do this? How do I write my most deep, very personal thoughts without offending someone? How do I write to protect my children, my husband, my workplace, myself or the Mormons? I want to write about everything. Sex, motherhood, my job, my regrets and my wishes; but something holds me back. It may be my unfortunate need to coddle the feelings of others or it could be my imperfect grip on the use of a semicolon. Who knows. So, here’s what we’re gonna do. The three people who read this blog will be okay with what I write. They will love me for who I am, as they already do. Even if I say the word fuck or have one of my famous “TMI” moments. I hope they will. Will they? Do you think?

Am I Still Here?

I ask myself this all the time as my life has become a swirl of long, wakeful nights intermingled with short, sleepy days off. Since March I’ve been working three twelve-hour night shifts as a clinical coordinator (supervisor) and coming home, trying to meld myself back into the day shift mom I have to be for my four or six kids who haven’t seen me for three whole days. That part of it aside (and it is a huge part), being a part of a new hospital has been THE most stressful experience of my work life; hands down. Taking this job was making a leap for me in so many ways and it still is, every day, a challenge to walk into that place. The last four months have brought me tears, true anxiety, sleeplessness, uncertainty, and insecurity. They have provided a disconnect from my family, from my amazing husband, from organization (not that my connection with THAT was ever very strong), and from my confidence as a professional with sixteen years of really good experience doing something I have loved. I ask myself if going to work should be so much a struggle that it infiltrates my whole life? Is it worth it? Why do I do it when I frequently wonder to myself if I am even still here?

My professional predicament reminds me of what it feels like to birth a baby, or to coach someone through that experience. Since I’m a birth junkie, everything must relate back to that. When someone is in labor, all you can really tell them when they are suffering is to hang on, that it will be worth it, that the end product will blow them away and that all the pain and suffering will melt away when their baby is handed to them in all of it’s screaming and slimy glory.  I do tell myself this many times every week.  Unfortunately…I so asked for this.  I, like an idiot, couldn’t be happy with staying where I was.  I HAD to reach for a challenge.  Why do I DO that to myself?

Sometimes when I write, I feel I have to wrap everything up into a tidy little package of a conclusion.  There must be a moral to the story that can make the reader feel all good…that their time was well spent with my five paragraphs.  Well the moral here is, you get what you ask for.  Get bored with your job?  Land a shiny new coordinator position at a new hospital?  Put your head between your knees, grab your ankles, get a Xanax prescription from your doctor and hold on for dear life because, honey, it’s gonna be a wild ride.  For now, I’m going to stay on the ride.  I’m going to hang on.  I do feel myself growing as a nurse, as a resource to the nurses I work with, as a person, as a woman.  This job WILL benefit me.  I already feel my skin getting thicker…getting lambasted by the chief of the department in front of your staff will do that to you.  I do see growth in my ability to consider the source, as my Dad has always told me to do.

So, Xanax at the ready, head between my knees, dark circles under my eyes…I will continue to torture myself and wonder if it’s worth it.  Until it isn’t.

Playing the Piano Can Be a Pleasant Experience!

END of Falling Into Life: A Gay Exmormon’s Journey

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