Five things meme

Al from Blue Alto tagged me with this meme, I dunno, a week or more ago? I finally got it processed. I hope Al likes the answers. He seemed to be curious. :)

What were you doing five years ago?

One morning early in the summer of 2003 I was reading the newspaper, as is my want. I was perusing the employment section of the want ads and found a notice that the local school district was looking for school bus drivers. I thought to myself "Hmmm, I've always wanted to learn how to drive a truck. A school bus is similar enough to a truck to do in a pinch. If I drove a school bus I'd have the same work schedule as my school-age children. This could be interesting." So I went to the transportation office and filled out an application. I was instructed to attend the week-long training class, which I did. I of course passed with flying colors. Most of July I spent hot, sticky mornings either riding the bus while others learned to drive it, or driving it myself. By the time school started the first week in August I had taken the driving test and received my Commercial Drivers' License with passenger endorsement.

Five Things On My "To Do" List for Today

1. Go to my appointment with Dr. Shrink
2. Reschedule Diva's appointment with her therapist
3. Refrain from killing my children
4. Mail a check to the a/c repairman
5. Make sure the younger kids are in bed early enough so Superman and I can have some "alone time" before he gets too sleepy to do what needs to be done

Five Favorite Snacks

1. Vanilla yogurt with frozen blueberries stirred throughout
2. English muffins, toasted to golden brown, with orange marmalade
3. Reese's Crispy Crunchy Bar
4. Chocolate Malt milkshake
5. Chocolate in general
   

Five Things I Would Do If I Was a Billionaire

1. Sell this ugly house
2. Move away from South Carolina, probably to the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic region
3. Build a precision machining/manufacturing business for Superman
4. Travel
5. Philanthropize *

Five Bad Habits

1. Stress eating
2. Reading or blogging until way into the night when I should go to sleep
3. Letting my grumpiness affect the people I live with
4. Telling stories that include way too many details and digressions
5. Pretending to listen to my children when I'm really reading blogs
   

What Are Five Places I Have Lived

1. Daytona Beach, Florida (Don't remember it, though. I was born there but moved before I was 2 years old.)
2. Gainesville, Florida
3. Orlando, Florida
4. Macon, Georgia
5. New Bern, North Carolina
   

Five Jobs I Have Held

1. Caregiver in an institution for the mentally disabled- They called it "retarded" back then. Florida had these facilities scattered throughout the state. I worked there the summer of 1980, toward the end of that era when the "retarded" were sent away to live in these places.
2. Receptionist and repair scheduler in a TV repair shop
3. Nanny
4. Sales clerk, men's department at the Belk in Macon, GA (Christmas seasonal help)
5. School bus driver
   

Five Favorite Items Of Clothes (Al's contribution to the meme)

1. Butterfly print skirt
2. That one sports bra that I wish I could find another one of (subtract points for poor grammar)
3. Mobius apron (It probably deserves its own post)
4. Really old yellow t-shirt, stained, holey, 2 sizes too big, received as a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law many years ago

5. Purple knit nightgown, falling apart, probably 10 years old- Truly despicable

The only one I'm tagging is the happy retard, 'cause he asked for it.

* OMG!! Can you believe this is, like, a real word???

A brief history of my last 20 years – book eight

How we got here

Why we got here

What we're doing here

Book eight

Let's review, shall we? We've covered my history up to March of 2006. We live in this ugly little 3 bed/2 bath brick ranch in Greenwood, SC. The family consists of my husband and me, our two biological children, 2 adopted children, and one C, the sweet gay boy we took in when his mother kicked him out. Occasionally C's boyfriend S stays here, too.

Just for kicks and giggles, let's look at some of the things contributing to my stress level.

I hate living in this 3/2 brick ranch ugly thing in a neighborhood

There are 2 adults and 5 or 6 children aged 8-17 living in this 1600sq. ft. house

I drive a school bus, a regular route with large number of troublesome students

C lives with us now and needs a lot of attention

Everyone else still needs attention and is jealous of the time I spend with C

We are being sued by our ex-landlord

Sproing is having a LOT of trouble behaving himself in 2^nd grade

I am co-leading three different Girl Scout troops, 2 of which are outreach projects

I am working through a radical change in my fundamental belief system

That's as much as I can think of at the moment. As I look at it all written down it looks a bit overwhelming.

But wait! That's not all! If you act now you can receive additional Stress ™ for the price of your sanity! Operators are standing by.

Yes, things are about to get worse. I'm actually having trouble writing this down, reliving it in my mind. I don't want to write out the next bit. Deep breath. OK, into the breach…

One Monday evening in either late March or early April, S was at out house with C, and his mom had told him to be home by 8:00. Superman had taken Sproing to a cub scout meeting, which ended at 7:30. I was waiting for them to get home so I could take S home. I didn't want to leave Diva here by herself, or something. I forget the why of it all. Anyway, my scouts were late, and it was getting very close to 8:00. C and S and I got in the van and headed for S's home.

We drove out of our neighborhood and down the larger avenue toward downtown. As we approached the first major intersection we could see blue flashy lights and lots of unusual activity in the road ahead. I was about to turn down a side street to avoid the mess, but something in the back of my head told me to approach the intersection. As we got closer I saw a vehicle overturned in the road. Closer, and I realized it was a pick-up truck. A red pick-up truck. A small red pick-up truck. Sort of like the one Superman was driving. I pulled the van into the parking lot of a bank on the corner to get a closer look. My heart was still beating, my breathing still almost normal, because it could be a different truck. But when I pulled along side the wreck I saw on the tailgate of the truck the bumper sticker that identified our truck. At that point my heart stopped beating and I quit breathing.

I remember it all so clearly. I turned off the van and set the emergency brake. I opened the door and got out of the van. By then C and S had jumped out and were standing beside me. We walked toward the wreck and the law enforcement officer (deputy sheriff? police? state trooper? I don't remember that detail.) who was standing beside the mess. The boys were on either side of me, holding my arms, holding me up. I told the officer that was my husband's truck, he and my son were in it. He quickly told me they were alright. They had been put in an ambulance which was (for some strange reason unfathomable to me) parked behind the fast food place on the opposite corner of the intersection. I looked around the truck. I looked AT the truck. It looked bad. I picked up a couple of things that had been in the truck bed and were now scattered on the road. The boys stayed very close beside me. The officer asked me, urged me a few times to go to the ambulance to see my husband and son. So we got back in the van and drove to the restaurant parking lot on the other side of the street.

I vividly remember my thoughts during the previous scene. As I was trying to process the wreck, I was worried about how my actions would affect C and S. I was in mother mode. It was important to show them how to properly handle oneself in this situation. I had to be strong and level-headed to demonstrate responsible adult behavior in a crisis. Fucked up, I know. But whatever.

We got to the ambulance, I walked up to the back and the paramedics told me to get in and see my guys. I glanced very quickly at Superman, lying on a gurney on the left. I was checking for gushing bleeders, protruding bones, that sort of thing. The moment my head appeared in his field of vision, poor little Sproing reached out his arms and cried "Mommy!" He was lying on …something… on the right side of the vehicle. He was strapped to a backboard, his head immobilized in the soft helmet thing. I rushed right to him and held him as best I could. In their presence I was cool as a cucumber. I could tell right away that Superman was initially fine. I was aware that Sproing wasn't seriously injured as well. I held the boy for a moment. He cried. I soothed. I noticed that his shoe was perched atop his toes, not entirely on his foot. I lifted his shoe and asked him to wiggle his toes for me. He did. I might have had him move his arms again, I forget. I told him that he would be fine. I said the ambulance would take them to the hospital and I would be right behind them. I gave Superman a kiss and got out of the ambulance.

I was a bit calmer after seeing them. I was concerned about Superman because he has some problems with his back. He has a ruptured disk in his spine. He's a tall drink of water and back trouble runs in his family. But he was lucid and witty and I knew he'd live. I was OK to drive to the hospital, which I did.

We got there and we went in to see them. C and S walked beside me, holding me up every step of the way. Sproing had already been checked over by the time we got to there. He was fine. Not a scratch on the body. (He's had some emotional after-affects, though.) Somehow I arranged for a ride home for him. I don't even remember. Someone came and took him home.

The doctors wanted to run some more tests on Superman, so he stayed there another couple of hours. C and S and I stayed with him the whole time. I think C and S were afraid to leave me alone. S had called his mom to tell her everything, and she'd agreed to let him stay with us as long as necessary. He lived about 5 blocks from the hospital anyway, so he was within walking distance of home.

The immediate crisis was over and we all started to feel a bit more relaxed. So C and S began to do what comes natural to young lovers. Right there in the ER they started hugging and kissing. We were not in a closed off exam/treatment room. We were in a quite public area with nothing but a curtain available for privacy. But the curtain was open, I guess to let the nurses keep an eye on the patient. Anyway, the PDA was not well received. Things were kind of tense, and I was too emotionally and mentally distracted to handle the boys. Nothing really bad happened, but in my memory of the whole thing I'm pissed off at them for doing that. Water under the bridge.

Superman was discharged, we got S to his house and went home. Early the next morning I called my boss and told him I was unable to come in that day, explaining the situation. Sproing went to school that morning at his request, but we told him if he started feeling bad to go to the office and call us. When I took him to school I went in to tell the principal and office staff (including the school nurse) and his teacher all about the wreck. There was a picture on the front page of the local paper showing the truck upturned, wheels akimbo. The caption identified the truck's owner and driver at the time of the crash, none other than our Superman. Most of the school had seen the paper by the time I got there with Sproing so they already knew the news. We just filled in information.

I expected Superman to be very sore, but he was annoyingly chipper and spry. I was a total basket case. My nerves were shot to hell and back. We had to run a bunch of post-wreck errands; a trip to the insurance office, a check up with our family physician. Sproing called mid-morning and I picked him up from school. The whole day I was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

The following day I went to work. I felt a bit better. Superman was sore all over. This gave me great comfort. He was supposed to be sore. I was afraid something was wrong when he felt great the day after the wreck. He was off work for a few more days. I don't recall if he went in to work at all that week.

We were down to one car and 4 drivers (me, Superman, Light, and C) and people going in all directions. It was a pain. Shortly after that I bought my wonderful truck, Manny. That helped a lot, except that no one else knows how to drive Manny. Superman can do it; he knows how to drive a stick shift. But Manny doesn't work well for him. There are certain nuances of that truck that Superman just doesn't get. We also got a small old Nissan Maxima that I hated but everyone else liked. C wrecked it twice. Nothing serious, but a couple of fender-benders. Annoying, mostly. Transportation is always an issue around here.

So life resumed. Stressful and busy, things to do, people to take care of. Superman and Sproing recovered quickly. I went back to my daily routine, and life got back to our version of normal. But was I really alright?

A brief history of my last 20 years book seven

How we got here

Why we got here

What we're doing here

Book seven

Now that C lives with us the house is even more crowded. After a week or two we started feeling the squeeze. There were no major blow-ups, nothing really bad happened. Everyone just got irritable.

C was suffering through a traumatic time in his life. He was still trying to get comfortable with the idea of being gay. He knew he couldn't deny it, but he was still working on accepting and embracing it. His years in the church made that more difficult.

His circle of friends was changing, as many of his old friends rejected him now that he was out. Of course having his mother reject him to the extent she did was very traumatic. He was living in a new home with lots of people in it. This home was very different from the one he'd been in. C is an only child, now suddenly he has 4 other "siblings" to deal with. Light has always been the oldest, now she has an older "brother." Light and C had been friends for a couple of years, but the friendship suffered for a while. They have since reconciled and are very close again, but it took at least a year to get that far. Light moving out of the house and into a dorm has helped, as has 2 more years of maturity for both of them.

C needed a lot of attention. He was uncomfortable with Superman, never having had a positive relationship with an adult male. I was extremely curious about what "gay" really is and had lots of questions for him. So we talked. A lot. Many times. Hours on end. And I still had to get up at 4:30 to drive the bus. I was very tired.

C and I spent so much time together that I didn't have much time to spend on anyone else in the family. I made sure to spend good quality alone time with Superman, and I hope it was enough. We are still happily married so I assume I did OK. The other kids were feeling pretty needy, and jealous of the time I spent with my "new baby." I was being pulled in lots of directions, and it was all very draining. I didn't mind. It was a labor of love, and I benefited greatly as well. That doesn't erase the fact that I was emotionally drained.

One of the issues that concerned me about C was his growing relationship with S. I thought the two of them were adorable and I encouraged them toward a healthy relationship. You know what it's like to fall in love. They were dreamy, distracted, and couldn't get enough of each other. As I said, adorable. However, they weren't always alone or in a private place when they were together. There was much public display of affection. Y'all, this is a small southern town. It is the 21^st century, but early yet. Greenwood isn't ready to see two boys hugging and kissing all over each other. Both of them were at the stage where they didn't care what others thought and wanted to prove a point, to teach tolerance through over exposure or something. I don't know. When the three of us were out together, I walked between them a lot. My warnings fell on deaf ears. Thankfully there were no major incidents.

Almost. There is now a court order preventing C from ever stepping foot on the campus of our county vocational school. S was taking a class there and C would drive him over. They sat in the car, spending as much time together as possible before S had to go to class. The deputy who is the school's resource officer saw some PDA and took out a warrant on C. She claims she saw a sex act. The boys swear they were just kissing. She's a bitch of the first order anyway, and neither of them is enrolled in the public schools now.

Speaking of sex, they needed to do that safely, too. I'm not referring to using protection, though I did encourage that strongly. They needed a safe place where they could be free to express their love intimately. (Sounds so flowery when I say it like that. Hehehe) Before C moved to our house that had been a problem. I was so afraid they'd get caught and bad things would happen. S was only 16, and I was afraid C would end up on the sex offender list forever. Turns out the age of consent in South Carolina is 16, but I still wasn't sure but what some homophobic lawyer or judge would find a way to make that charge stick. This is all worst case scenario stuff, but it's what mothers do.

So we discussed sex, specifically where and when. Not what or how, please! I wasn't ready for that information! With only a little bit of discomfort, I told them that our house, specifically C's room with the door locked was a safe place.

I was still a bit uncomfortable with the whole sex thing. It wasn't necessarily the homosexual part, but the idea that two unmarried young people were sexually active, and in my own house! It's a religious thing. I've been a fundamental Christian for over 20 years, y'all. These issues of faith don't change overnight. When I considered that the boys couldn't get married, that helped ease my conscience a little bit.

And I knew they were going to be intimate whether I liked it or not. I figured the best thing I could do in this situation was keep them as safe as possible. So we bought a keyed doorknob for their room to keep things secure and private.

Diva and Sproing presented another sticky issue. They were 8 years old and in the second grade. This had its problems and benefits. It's good for them to learn at such a young age that homosexuality is normal and nothing to get all crazy about. Considering that this attitude toward homosexuality is rare in our culture today, it was tricky getting them to know what to say and what not to say, whom to tell and who not to tell. Children talk without benefit of a filter for appropriate information. I told their teachers about the situation at home. I figured forewarned is forearmed. Both the teachers seemed pretty cool with everything.

Then there was the issue of TMI for the kids. I frequently had to remind C and S that there are things you don't do or say around young children. This continues to be an issue, though not as much as before.

C was living here, but S was still living at his mother's house. He spent a lot of time here, but usually went home in the evenings. Sometimes he would stay overnight. I don't recall there being any problems, though Light is better at remembering these details. C and I still talked. S and I talked a little bit, but he still didn't feel as comfortable opening up to me. He's not as forthcoming as C is anyway. He's had a tough life, and it has been hard for him to trust. I don't think he's seen a relationship last very long. Both his parents go through relationships in a most unhealthy way, IMHO. With the exception of his grandparents, I'm not sure anyone in his immediate family has stayed in a relationship as long as he and C have now. S has matured a lot in the last two years.

Coming soon in book eight: Even more stress, and its effect on my mental/emotional health.

A brief history of my last 20 years book six

How we got here

Why we got here

What we're doing here

Book six

From the last episode:

One student on my bus was a very attractive tall but slight boy with long hair and penetrating green eyes. His name was S. … One day as the senior prom was approaching I heard him tell the girl in the next seat that he wanted to wear a dress to the prom; a green one that would set off his eyes. I had my suspicions. J … He had been in some trouble and was now one of "the usual suspects" with the administration at school. I thought he was adorable.

One of [Light's] friends was a [17 year old] young man named C. …he was gay. … He got a lot of flack from most of the kids in the [church] youth group and a big dump of grief from the youth group leader. Many of the kids at school only spoke to him to condemn him. … Though I didn't understand it very well, I wasn't willing to hate him for being gay. … He was out to most everyone else, he knew his mom would find out soon from someone at church, so he took a deep breath and shook up his mama's world.

Coming out to Mom didn't go well. She cried. He was breaking her heart. I'm sure this is very painfully familiar to many of you, my beloved readers. It pains me greatly that this is so. More than this I cannot say.

C pleaded with his mother not to tell his step-father. The relationship between C and his step-father was very tense, and had been for the 10 years they'd lived together. Unfortunately Mom did not honor his wishes.

When the step-dad heard the news, he told C that he had 30 days to get out of the house. Mom did not come to C's defense. (the bitch) After about 2 weeks she did give him some conditions under which he could stay. These included not going anywhere for any reason at any time other than school, work, or church (of course). He was not allowed to see any of his friends, talk on the phone to anyone, or use the computer, if I recall. C didn't like these terms. (duh)
Part of the reason for all these restrictions is that C had "met someone." Oh, boy.
Back to that in a minute.

It was around the time he came out to his mother that I became a part of C's life. Light had kept me abreast of the situation and I was distressed at his mom's response. Remember that I still thought homosexuality was a choice, and a bad one. But damn, woman, don't disown the boy! I was very concerned about C and was keeping Superman updated on the story as well. Because of the me who I am, I of course thought to offer him a place here. Superman and I discussed the theoretical possibility. There were lots of reasons not to take him in. We were a family of 6 living in a house that was too small for all of us. Finances were (are, always have been, might always be) tight. There were a lot of things going on in our lives taking a lot of energy and to take on another responsibility like this was going to take a LOT more energy. So of course I was all for it. That's the me who I am. But it was all still theoretical.

I told Light to bring the boy around. I wanted to talk to him. She knows what I am about and knew I only had the best in mind for him. I have no idea what she said to him, or how he felt about coming to talk to me. I really don't remember a lot of detail, or even the specifics of our first talk.

I remember the first time I actually interacted with him on a meaningful level. Light was at church and needed a ride home, so I went to pick her up. I parked in the lot right beside C's truck (I knew his truck. Can't remember how I knew it. Could just be a Java-truck thing.) Light came out to the van, and C was close behind her. He came over to my window as I was sitting in the van and I gave a very friendly greeting, and offered a hug. I hugged him and he just melted in my arms. (He's very snuggly anyway!) He buried his face in my shoulder and hugged me so completely. It was kind of strange, since neither of us knew each other except by reputation. But I knew the poor fella' was lacking some maternal loving, and it was so obvious from that hug that he needed it!

I begin to get to know C. I was still hesitant, then confused about whether homosexuality is "right." He was/is obviously a very nice, loving, sincere, sensitive young man. Even if he is gay! And I really like him. How can God create this wonderful person, only to condemn him? That made no sense. It was this confusion that led to research that led to a complete turn-around in my belief about the acceptability of homosexuality.

So now I know C. I was beginning to accept the whole gay thing. And I have figured out that S is gay. (Can you say "DUH?") Hmmm. C doesn't really know anybody else who is openly gay, as far as I know. He needs some support and encouragement from others going through the same crap he is. Wouldn't it be interesting for C and S to meet?

I was in the early stages of this thought stream when one afternoon on the bus I heard S behind me talking to another girl, telling her this story about meeting a boy at the library. It was an interesting story, and I jumped into the conversation with a comment or question. I don't remember what all was said, but I recall S was excited in his understated way about this interesting encounter. I pondered these things in my heart.

It was either that night or the next that I overheard Light telling her dad about C having had an encounter with a very interesting boy at the library. Ding Ding Ding! I asked her for specifics. C obviously was excited about meeting this boy. Light told me how C had been at the library to research how to start a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at the high school. He was back in the stacks looking for a book. He and this other young man were looking for the same book. They reached for the book at the same time. Their eyes met, sparkling, and a thrill of electricity rushed through him as their hands touched. … Well, no, it didn't happen that way, and that's not what Light told me. But it sounds good, doesn't it? They did meet each other while looking for the same book. She was giddy about C meeting another boy, though, and told me the boys talked for a long time that day. I asked her if she knew this other boy's name. Yes, she said, it's S____.

HA! I hooted, and told her the other half of the story. We loved it! Superman got the full story and he was excited, too.

The boys exchanged phone numbers, and over the next week or so got together a couple of times. Acquaintance soon turned to friendship which soon turned to infatuation. I suspect this change took place very quickly. Half an hour, maybe? ;-)

Back in mother's little world, she realized C had met someone. This is when the severe restrictions took effect. At one point in there she took him to a "Christian" counselor to try reparative therapy. He refused to cooperate. Good for him!

C also refused to abide by his mother's rules. He began to pack his things, but had no idea where he would go. I hadn't heard anything from him, and neither had Light, for a couple of days. I told her if he should call her, to tell me right away and let me talk to him. One Saturday he had left his house to search for packing boxes. He called Light while he was out, and she brought her phone to me. I asked a few questions, got the scoop on what was going on, and told him to come over to our house right away because we needed to talk. He hesitated, because his mom would blow a fuse. I said this was bigger than her anger, and I'd help him deal with that. So he came over.

The previous day I had suffered a terrible bout of the stomach bug. Saturday I was feeling not-so-sick, but completely wasted. I was in bed, trying to rest. C came over and sat at the foot of my bed and we talked for at least 3 hours. I know his mom had to be having a conniption fit. That was the first day, I think, that he and I really connected. He talked about everything, I asked questions, he cried a lot.

Superman was out somewhere that day. He might have had to work, I don't remember. He came home at around 3 in the afternoon, after C and I had been talking for hours. I sent C out of the room so I could talk to Superman. I gave him the scoop, and asked about C moving in with us. We discussed it briefly, but he knew that I really wanted (maybe needed?) for C to live here. And C needed it, for sure! Superman's heart was right there, too. He was a bit more concerned with the practical aspects, like where C would actually sleep, how we'd afford to feed him, that kind of thing. I wasn't worried about it at all, because I know these things always take care of themselves. It all works out. We adjust. (Perhaps they work out because Superman makes it so while I blithely ignore those details.)

Our discussion didn't last very long at all. I think it was less than 15 minutes when I called C back into the room and we asked him if he'd like to move in with us. I don't even remember the reaction, but the answer was yes.

Superman and Light took our van and followed him home. C parked his truck (actually his step-dad's), never to drive it again. He didn't like that truck anyway. We had gotten some more packing boxes down from our attic, and Light and C finished packing his stuff. They carried it all out to the van. If I remember correctly, Superman stood and talked with the step-dad the whole time. Step-dad spent the entire time telling Superman what a horrible mess we were getting into, how C was such a problem. Superman later told me that step-dad was a real dumbass. Yeah, that had previously been established.

So C moved in with us. I don't remember exactly where we put him. I think he took over Sproing's room and Sproing moved back in with Diva. They've been sharing a room since they were very young. The short time they had their own rooms they'd end up with one of them in a sleeping bag on the floor of the other's room. I didn't feel too bad about putting them back together.

Adding another person to a household means lots of adjustment. The house was more crowded, but it was mostly a very happy place. We all enjoyed a honeymoon period when the excitement and novelty kept us from getting on each other's nerves.

Stay tuned for book seven (hopefully to be posted a lot sooner than this one was!) in which the honeymoon wears off and the family feels the growing pains.

Miscellany

A worthy quote:
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.-Desmond Tutu, clergyman (b. 1931)

There has been some discussion in the previous post about the term "bug ugly." I chose it for this application because I am intrigued by its assonance. Sometimes the term "butt ugly" is more appropriate, and there are other adjectival phrases concerning the designation "ugly" that one uses from time to time. In the case of this unfortunate vehicle, "bug ugly" seemed to be apt.

We had a terrible hormone storm last evening. The darling Diva, age 10, is starting to fall under the influence of puberty. The poor child (or rather, her poor parents) suffered utter despair because her daddy wouldn't help her bake a chocolate cake. Then she discovered a bag of her old dress-up play clothes I was throwing away and tried to sneak them back in the house. I saw her and directed her back outside with them. The world just about came to a stand-still. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. It matters not that she didn't take care of the dresses, left them on the floor to be stepped on or shoved under a bed. No, because "Light gave them to meee^eeee^ee." (^ = that sob-hiccup thing) When talking to Light later, she informed me that she'd already taken the dresses away from Diva for the exact same reason. I'm sure Diva remembers it quite differently. Throughout the evening much drama was endured by all. Superman let her fix a cherry cobbler he had planned to make for dessert, and that lifted her spirits considerably.

I am not looking forward to the next 6-8 years. At. All.

Coming soon, really, book six in my brief (HA!) history. I had a limited period of peace and quiet yesterday morning to either work on the history or check my blogs. I knew I'd have less restricted time later in the evening to do more. I chose to check blogs in the morning. The drama here last evening prevented any kind of contemplation (aside from infanticide) necessary to work on the history. So here we are, updateless.

A brief history of my last 20 years book five

How we got here

Why we got here

What we're doing here

Book five

Now then, where were we? We had settled fairly well into the new ugly house in the conveniently located yet stifling neighborhood. By now both of the older kids are at the high school, Twitch a freshman and Light a junior. The young whipper-snappers were in 2^nd grade and not doing too well, but I don't want to talk about that.

Light was developing some good friendships and was excelling in school. This is what she's like, though. It comes easier for her than for my other kids. Everybody likes Light. She was involved with a few clubs at school and in the youth group at the large Baptist church just up the road from the high school.

One of her friends was a young man named C. Yup, that's our gay… I mean guy! He was very active at the church. He was a senior, as were most of Light's friends that year. For a while she had a bit of a crush on him.

Light and I have a very close relationship. We communicate well. Although we've had our share of differences and aggravations with one another, we share a lot of stuff with each other. I've always respected her opinions and most of her boundaries. I hold her trust, and she mine. If she tells me something in confidence, it goes no further.

She is like that, too. She listens well to others and doesn't betray a confidence. However, the lives of teenagers are a lot more complicated sometimes than a teenager is mature enough to handle. She had friends who were going through some tough stuff who would talk to her about it. If she felt like she needed a sympathetic but more mature perspective on something, she'd talk about it to me, yet without revealing the identity of the friend in need.

In late autumn she began to talk to me a little bit about "a friend" who was dealing with "a difficult situation." Mainly she was asking me to pray for this friend. I think also she wanted to express the concern just to have someone to share the burden with. She didn't tell me anything about the problem or who was struggling. But she brought it up every week or so. I sympathized, which was about all I could do of course.

There were a few of her friends who were dealing with various struggles. These are 15-19 year olds. It's a hard time in their lives. I knew, or suspected, who some of the kids might be. But there was one in particular she was especially concerned about. She finally told me that it was C, although she didn't say what the issue was, and swore me to secrecy. Not a problem. I didn't know him at the time. She had pointed him out to me in a crowd of kids at the church once, but I wouldn't have recognized him if he came up and punched me in the nose.

Over Christmas break, a few days before New Years Day, C came over to the house so he and Light could dye their hair. This was the first time I'd spoken to the boy. Superman and I were sitting on the sofa in the living room and the kids walked by on the way to the bathroom with their boxes of hair dye. C was giggling like a school girl. I turned to Superman and jokingly said "I wonder if he knows he's gay?"

Sure enough he was struggling with coming out. He had come out to Light I think before Christmas, and after school resumed he came out to more of the kids, expanding his confession to a wider circle of acquaintances. As many of you know, once the news gets out to so many people it takes on a life of its own. Pretty soon anyone who gave a damn knew that C thought he was gay. (That's the way most people perceived it, I think: he thought he was gay.) He got a lot of flack from most of the kids in the youth group and a big dump of grief from the youth group leader. Many of the kids at school only spoke to him to condemn him. There was a core group who stuck by him, Light of course being one of them.

And by this time I knew all about it. I sympathized with his grief but still held the view I'd learned in church about homosexuality. I thought it was a bad idea. Wrong, even. Though I didn't understand it very well, I wasn't willing to hate him for being gay. I still hardly knew him. We'd never talked, just the two of us. But Light had spoken so lovingly about him and his trials that I couldn't help but feel sympathy.

Meanwhile, back on the bus, I'd been taken off of the special needs route that I'd substituted on for most of the year. Another one of the drivers was going out on maternity leave and the boss needed me to take over her route. It was a regular route, and a rough one. Not the worst, but far from the best. I'm much better with the special needs students. This crowd was primarily from the old mill villages in town. The mills are almost all closed now, so the villages are populated with a wide variety of people. The houses are small and most of them were built in the first quarter of the 20^th century. In other words, cheap housing. A few of the areas are known for drug activity and other violence. These kids had a tough life, and they expressed it in their behavior.

One of the students on my bus was a very attractive, tall but slight boy with long hair and penetrating green eyes. His name was S. He usually sat directly behind my seat, mostly away from the tougher kids in the back of the bus. He talked to some of the girls but rarely to any other boys. I had my suspicions. J One day as the senior prom was approaching I heard him tell the girl in the next seat that he wanted to wear a dress to the prom; a green one that would set off his eyes. I listened intently. This guy was the source of some very interesting conversation!

The thing about S: he's pretty much never been in any closet. He's not flamboyantly obvious, but he speaks his mind and has a few telling affectations. He speaks with no shame about who or what he is. At 16 years old this was impressive. He had a toughness about it, though. A chip on the shoulder attitude as a defense against the bullies. He also had a big mouth without much control over what came out of it. He had been in some trouble and was now one of "the usual suspects" with the administration at school. I thought he was adorable.

C's trials were increasing, as one might expect. One day he got a call at home from another boy who called to ask him out. C wasn't a bit interested in this guy, so of course said "no." His mom asked who called, and C told her it was a guy from school who wanted to get together with him. Innocuous enough, right? Well, not surprisingly, C didn't have a large number of friends and didn't do a lot of socializing. His mom innocently suggested it might be nice to get together with a friend. Can you recognize this golden opportunity to come out to Mom? He was out to most everyone else, he knew his mom would find out soon from someone at church, so he took a deep breath and shook up his mama's world.

What happens next? What is him mom's reaction? When do I get to talk to him? How do he and S meet? Stay tuned.

A brief history of my last 20 years- Book two

How we got here

Why we got here

What we're doing here

Book Two

This is a continuation of the story told in book one. We left off after Twitch's birth, wanting more children and considering adoption:

When Twitch was about 3 years old we began the adoption process. We tried to adopt through South Carolina's foster care/ child protection system. That was a total fiasco that still upsets me. We wanted to adopt children of color since we were well aware of how difficult it can be to find homes for those children. We were willing to adopt somewhat older children, though I wanted a child/children younger than Twitch. Didn't want to upset the birth order, as it was. We were willing to adopt a sibling group, up to 3 children. I figured I could raise 5 kids, but 6 was pushing it a bit too far. But I was open to considering options on a case-by-case basis. And as the process dragged on, Twitch got older, so the age range we were considering got larger.

For whatever reason we got nowhere with the state. I don't know why for sure, but I suspect the various social workers involved with our case didn't want to place African American children in our Caucasian family. Yet there were many children, including a few sibling groups I was aware of who we wanted to adopt. My philosophy on trans-racial adoption is this: children probably do better in families of their same race. However it is better for a child to have a permanent home in a family of a different race than for him to flounder around in foster care all his life, never having a forever family of his own. I feel VERY strongly about this still.

We ended up finding our children through a private attorney. Private adoptions are a lot more expensive than adopting through the state foster system. Five to ten times more in some cases. The legal fees involved in adopting our two children put us in a financial tight spot that was totally unnecessary. Raising kids is expensive. To begin the parenting adventure with that big a monetary expense is really tough. It was worth it to have our children. I cannot put a price on that, or on them (for heaven's sake!!), and I have no regrets. I am, however, bitter about how the whole thing was done.

Now, to get us back on track, I'll tell you about the rest of the entourage. Or maybe I'll start with a bit more personal divulgement. (Evidently that is a word. Spell-check didn't flag it.) I never considered myself to be particularly gifted at hospitality. My house is and always has been in such chaos I'm embarrassed to invite anyone over. I'm always a bit unsure how to treat guests. Would you like a drink? Oh, I'm out of that. Let's see what I have to munch on… Cheerios is as good as it gets. And please don't ask to use the bathroom. It isn't quite clean enough to be on display.

There is another aspect to hospitality. I finally realized it was hospitality after I'd been practicing it for years. I don't have "guests" over. I invite strangers to live here.

A few years ago a family we know was moving back to town after having been gone for a year. He had tried to find work (he's in construction) with his brother in Idaho, and it didn't go as well as the brother had indicated it would. So they came back here with almost nothing except their 4 kids. Or was it 5 by then? Yes, it was 5 children when they came back. I had been there with her when she had her home birth to deliver the 5^th, shortly before they left for Idaho. (That was a fantastic experience, btw, but not a subject for this post.)

So we invited them to stay with us for a while until he started working and saved up enough to get a place of their own. At the time Diva and Sproing were 2 years old, and her kids ranged in age from 1 year old up to 7 or 8 years old, I can't remember exactly. Most of them were approximately 18 months apart.

We lived in a small rental house out in the country. It had a large lot, so there was a lot of room for the kids to run around outside. The kitchen was big, too. Everything else was small. It was an old farmhouse that had originally had 2 bedrooms and no bath. The bathroom was added at the other side of the bedrooms, with access doors from both rooms. In order to get to the bathroom one had to go through a bedroom. There was also a third bedroom off the side, accessible through the second bedroom. We were crowded in the house just with the 6 of us. So we added 7 more, just for fun. With my two youngest and her 3year old and almost 2 year old, we had four children being potty trained at the same time, with only one bathroom that had two doorways but broken sliding doors. There were curtains covering the doorways. Let me tell you, it was quite an adventure. It is mostly enjoyable to look back on. It was a lot more stressful and less enjoyable to live through.

We never had any specific arrangements, no distinct plans for a move out date or any kind of financial remuneration from them. They often bought a significant portion of the groceries and supplies like that. She and the older kids helped us keep the house sort of clean. She did a lot of babysitting for my kids, too. Light and Sproing weren't quite old enough to stay alone, and certainly not old enough to babysit the young siblings. But I was able to leave the house by myself quite often because she was there with all the kids. She handled that overwhelming menagerie better than I did. I'm much better with smaller groups of children. 9 kids under the age of 12 is ______________. (a) overwhelming, (b)ridiculous, (c) a baseball team, (d) all of the above.

We moved to a much larger old house in town while they lived with us. We fit into that house much better, and it had 3 bathrooms!!!! She also got pregnant again while they were here. They finally left the day after she gave birth to her 6^th child. (At home, in the bedroom in our basement.) It was a crazy time. I was a crazy lady. (Was? I hear you say)

Stay tuned for book three, in which we move again and become gay.

A brief history of my last 20 years

How we got here
Why we got here
What we’re doing here

Book One

Big Ass Belle posted a very personal account back in January on the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade decision that led to legal abortions in the US. I direct you there for her story, but say here that it really made me think.

I guess it begins with the essence of me. I don’t know how to put that into words, but I’ll try. I am a gentle soul. A peacemaker. Sympathetic to a fault. As long as I can remember I’ve been concerned about the welfare of others. Usually if I have something and someone else needs it, I’ll share or give it way. I draw the line at chocolate, though. I’m reluctant to share my chocolate.

The Christian faith appeals to my nature. The Bible teaches love, grace, compassion, and such. It also teaches judgment and condemnation, but as do all Christians I know, to some extent I just skim over those parts I don’t like. I have been a member of a church almost constantly since I was 13 years old.

One tends to pick up the ideas and philosophies of those with whom one associates. In my mid-twenties Superman and I joined a very conservative congregation. We had been somewhat conservative before that, but we became even more so in that church. As we have moved with his new jobs we joined churches of the same denomination and held firm to those ideologies.

I believe in the right to life. I have been against abortion for a long time, but recently have softened my stance there. I still don’t like the idea, but am no longer willing to dictate or judge someone else’s decision about it. But I still consider myself to be pro-life. Semantics is tricky with this subject, as it has been so politicized over the years. Can I claim to be pro-life but not anti-abortion? Tricky.

Beliefs come alive with action. I do what I can under the circumstances, but the point is that I do. This is passion. In the late 1980s when Superman and I first joined the church I was compelled to put action to my pro-life beliefs. He was at the very least supportive if not a driving force in this decision. I can’t recall exactly who decided or how it was done, but the outcome is that we worked with a local adoption agency as foster parents. This agency helped women in “crisis pregnancies” to make plans for their babies. Some women (and sometimes with their partners) chose to parent their children, others awarded custody of the child to a relative, and others chose to release the child for adoption.

We lived in Macon, Georgia. In those days the laws in Georgia allowed a 10 day grace period for parents to change their minds after signing the papers relinquishing parental rights. A child was considered to be in foster care for those ten days even if he was in the custody of the family who was to adopt him. Sometimes these young birth parents changed their minds, taking the baby back to raise themselves. You can imagine how traumatic that is for an adoptive family. The agency we worked with tried to put the babies in one of their foster homes rather than with an adoptive family for that waiting period.

Many of the clients were carrying minority or mixed race babies. Those are the little ones we cared for. These precious babies often have such vivacious personalities even in the first few weeks and months of life. It breaks my heart that it was (and still is) sometimes hard to find adoptive homes for these children.

We wanted to be parents, wanted to be responsible for our own children. Adoption was always a probable part of that plan, but we chose to try to have biological children first. I always said “Let’s have one, see how it goes, then decide what to do next.” I knew I didn’t want to have only one child, but beyond that I was open to many options. In 1989 I gave birth to Light. When she was about 8 or 9 months old we decided to try for another one. Twitch was born 19 months after Light, on Valentine’s Day 1991.

Pregnancy wasn’t nice to me. I didn’t have too much trouble physically; they weren’t high risk pregnancies from that perspective. The problem was with my hormone balance and the emotional turmoil I experienced. Part of the problem was that I was clinically depressed but undiagnosed, therefore untreated. After Twitch was born I suffered nasty post-partum depression that hung on for I don’t know how long. Years. Superman didn’t want me to go through any more pregnancies, and I suspect he didn’t want to suffer through another one of my pregnancies. He figured this out early. He scheduled a vasectomy before Twitch was even born, and had the procedure when Twitch was 3 weeks old.

Neither of us wanted to stop at only 2 children, though. As I mentioned, adoption was always something we’d planned to consider in the future. A major motivation for adoption was our pro-life belief. If we believe that unwanted pregnancies shouldn’t be terminated, we should be willing to want, to love the “unwanted” children. It makes perfect sense to me and always has. Frankly I have always felt that way, even when I was a young child myself. I remember figuring that out when I was about 12 or 13 years old, and wanting to someday adopt.

Stay tuned for Book Two, in which our family increases asexually (after a fashion)

some substance

It is my bed-time. The alarm goes off at 4:15, so I try to go to bed, to sleep, around 9:00. Rarely am I successful. Especially since I got so involved with the blogosphere.

I have a list of blogs I like, which I may at some later point add to my blog. Most of my favorites are written by fascinating, thoughtful gay men. I try to check most of them every day or two. Once again I have spent my entire Sunday checking out blogs.

My gay history: My boys like to say I am a gay man in a woman's body. Until spring of 2006 I was a fundie anti-gay Christian. Then I met my boys. My oldest daughter, "Light," was good friends with a young man, C. They were both in high school, and active in a large Baptist church in town. Then C came out of the closet. That was met with mixed reactions. Many of his friends were fine with it. His church was not. His mother was, OMG, not OK with this! She and her husband (C's step-dad) kicked him out. He was 17, a senior in high school, newly in love with his first real boyfriend. I was getting to know him pretty well, and falling in love with him. So my husband "Concolor" and I invited him to stay with us. We also met, and fell in love with, C's boyfriend S.

I loved and accepted C. But homosexuality was against what I had been taught in the church, all I believed. But I knew with all my heart that God made C. But how did C become gay? Was he really born that way? When did he first know? I had a ton of questions for him, and he graciously answered every one. And I answered all his questions, supported him, helped him through this coming out process. We spent hours and hours talking. I didn't get much sleep.

I had lots of questions about homosexuality. I needed to know if one is born gay or becomes gay. I checked out a lot of websites, both pro- and anti-gay. The pro-gay sites made more sense to me. I read books. The first one I read was Born Gay by Glenn Wilson and Qazi Rahman. That's heavy stuff. I started Queer Science by Simon LeVay. Still working on that one, very slowly. I've also read a couple of books by Ritch Savin-Williams.

We started going to P-FLAG meetings. I kept researching. I asked a lot of questions of Google, C, S. Wish I'd found these blogs earlier! But maybe I wasn't ready. I have learned a lot.

Interestingly, Light came out to me as bi-sexual shortly after C moved in. At the time I told her "I have too much other stuff going on in my life right now to worry about that." Or something of the sort. We have talked about it, and I have become more comfortable with it. I did say something along the lines of "it may only be a stage of your development," but in my memory I didn't dismiss the whole concept. I wasn't too upset, anyway.

(One thing about me: I tend to make short stories long. I ramble, especially when I am tired.)

As of now, C is still with us. He is a sophomore at the university in town. His boyfriend S lives here, too, and is trying to finish his senior year in high school. Light is a freshman at a women's college in-state. (Is that perfect for her, or what? All women, all the time.)

Also in the home are my three other children. My son "Twitch" is a junior in high school, age 16. My other son "Sproing" is 9, in the 4th grade. My youngest daughter "Diva" is also 9, also in 4th grade. There will be many more posts about them in the future, I am sure.

There are 7 of us living in a 1600 sqare foot house. With Light in college, she is a part-time 8th. My life is not boring.

Ooops! Past bed-time. Going to pretend to get ready for bed now.