If You Belonged Here

The Girls: Follow Up

So, as you all know I had breast reduction surgery and the results are, well, that I haven't bought a single new bra. Of course, the old bras fit a lot better now, and I've maybe put on a little weight since the surgery. I can't help that, people, I'm a stress eater and, what with  2008 being 2008, I've had more than my usual workload of anxiety and worry.

Anyway.

I'm not saying that I definitely put on weight. I don't know that. I haven't used a scale since some time last January, maybe longer. And I can't remember how tight my pants were when I went in for surgery, so there you go. They aren't tight now, but that's only because I bought new pants sometime back in August. In a larger size.

Let's just let that go.

Anyway.

So I went in for a follow-up appointment and the doctor told his assistant not to bother with pictures. Now, if you've ever had plastic surgery of any kind, you know that these people like their pictures. I'm pretty certain that the only reason they follow-up at all is to get you naked so they can snap pictures for their books. Only this time my doctor told me that they also follow up because, hey, that scarring looks heavy and you might need revision surgery.

Yikes.

Now, I think this is an out-patient procedure. I probably won't get anaesthesia but, those of you who have had the anaesthesia will get this, that was my favorite part of surgery. I mean I liked it a lot. I remember it fondly, and what I don't remember, well, I remember that even more fondly.

The narcotics were okay but once I got off the antibiotics my skin looked like I had taken to washing it in pizza grease. Horrible. I'm glad it's over. Except that maybe it's not over. Maybe narcotics are going to figure prominently in my not-too-distant future. Because, hey, no pictures.

I mean, I knew my scars weren't pretty. But, seriously, no pictures?

The doctor said he wanted to see me again in 3-6 months. I settled on 6. Just to give myself time to get feeling back in my right nipple. Because, while feeling came into the left nipple sometime around Labor Day, right nipple sensation is still on hiatus. Of course, the intermittent, sudden piercing pain that has come with the return of feeling in the left nipple isn't exactly pleasant, so maybe I'm better off. But still.

That's all there is to say about that until May.

Oh, I should probably mention that while I still fit in the same bras as before, I don't need them quite the way I used to, if you get my meaning. Everything is much more firm and upright and, well, perky.

How to "Get Acrost"

Did you read "The Grapes of Wrath," you know, that Great American Novel by Mr. John Steinbeck? It's Bookgirl's favorite. Alternately, it's the only book I've ever thrown across a room.

Don't worry, I wasn't throwing it at anybody.

The pen may be mightier than the sword but I've never used a book as weapon. I just chucked Grapes for the sake of the chucking because, seriously, it needed it. I had to get through it one page at a time, like the drunks do, and I only managed that because I kept promising myself that it would improve.

Improvement no happen. Chucking do.

I'm not saying don't read Steinbeck, I'm just recommending "Travels with Charlie" on account of it's not quite the same kick in the head. And while we're at it, I should probably mention, in case you haven't already learned it the hard way, "Of Mice and Men" isn't exactly a joy machine, either.

There's a point that I'm taking my sweet time getting to and if you are familiar with "The Grapes of Wrath" you might also be familiar with the following quote:

The fambly hadda get acrost.

As much as I needed to throw something to relieve my feelings over those sour grapes, I have to admit, this quote gives me a good deal of pleasure. It actually lives over my desk in the collage pictured in the upper left hand corner of this post. Just look south of the Pez-wrapper sun and west of the foil-based mountain range.

Ah.

My dear friend made me this collage and it has lived everywhere I have lived since 1992. This collage is made up of old homework, dance tickets, receipts, and bus passes. And, of course, a pez wrapper. The resulting hodge-podge is pulled together witha few water colors. Blue and grey mostly. But the sun is yellow: Pez-wrapper yellow.

Beautiful.

There are a lot of quotes out there that resonate with me but this one ranks pretty high up there. Because a lot of days, that's what I do, what we all do: get acrost.

I'm a person who worries. Sometimes I have big worries and sometimes they are little but it's a strange day when I am not worried about anything at all. I'm an experienced worrier. Some might even say prolific. I churn out worry the way Stephen King churns out stories. Only I'm not getting any personal satisfaction or huge payouts for what I do.

If worry is the secular form of prayer, then I'm kind of a worry monk whose taken a vow of poverty. Or a nun. You could even say I'm in the habit of worry.

So, by my very nature, I spend a lot of time just trying to get acrost.

I've got this way, that way, and the other way of managing my ever-flagging mojo. But my favorite way, the easiest way, is to remind myself that I just have to get acrost, and whatever I'm facing, I'm still better off than the Joads.

I mean, it's not like I need milk for the baby or anything.

Lately, it's working. It's more than working. So many things seem bright and shiny and new that it's hard to remember that just a week ago I was resigned and cynical. Everything seems possible. I feel so euphoric that I believe I could sing my way acrost.

Of course, there's Obama. Of course. But there are other things, like laughing until little anime tears squirt out of the corners of my eyes (mostly at cakewrecks and engrish, hanging out in step-in-time as of this post), and Secret Lulu finally pulling language (and other things) together in a way that seems to promise that we will, indeed, get acrost to fluency sooner than later. And everything.

Everything.

Because some days I look at that picture and I see a mantra, or a wish, and sometimes, even a threat (because what if they don't?). But today I see a promise.

I'm getting acrost. We're all getting acrost.

And right about here is where I leave off to sing Kumbaya, which translates to "come by here." Which is another way to say get yourself acrost.

Marriage, or Something Like It

I just read a comment somewhere that said same-sex couples "can have civil unions they just can't change the definition of marriage."

Sweet Pete, I wish the government would get out of the marriage business. And by marriage I mean doing anything that implies the joining of two souls.

But let's be real Mr. Civil Union, same-sex couples aren't the couples who have changed the definition of marriage. We mixed-sex couples have managed to do that all by ourselves.

For which I am truly thankful.

Marriage is no longer a transfer of property from father to husband. Personally, I really like that change but my friends who are into subjugation might have a different point of view. I get that. I just don't respect it.

Oh, and marriage is no longer all about procreation. I mean imagine someone suing for divorce on the grounds of infertility and the infertile party being found at fault or guilty of fraud or something like that.  Imagine having to return the dowry.

I'm being intentionally outlandish here, but seriously, imagine it.

Does anyone even remember what illegitimate children are? Bastards, I mean? Children without the rights and protections afforded to children born in wedlock? Children without legitimate claims to paternity. I mean, married or not, deadbeat dad or otherwise, nowadays the father of the child is still legally responsible for said child, which is more than could be said when marriage laws first hit the books.

So if it's not souls and it's not chattel and it's not children, then it's, what, romantic love?????

Well, with marriages of convenience being equally protected under the law, so long as they are mixed-sex, then it's not that either.

As far as the state is concerned, it should be simply the joining of households. The reason people are frustrated and confused is because we're trying to draw a logical conclusion from a faulty premise.

Now this is where I'm going to step over the line. Because there is a line people and gay marriage isn't anywhere near it. Gay marriage falls so short of addressing the real issue that it's downright reason to cry.

Here's what I think. I think marriage, like business partnerships, should not be limited to people who have sex or even to just two people. Now that people can't be property and birth control is ubiquitous, why on earth should we even have state sponsored marriage? Why not domestic partnerships (as opposed to the aforementioned business partnerships) for everyone? Why not have them be renewable licenses, kind of like how car registrations and drivers' licenses are renewable, and open them up to anyone who wants to set up joint finances and be legally entangled with another person(s).

Let me give you my favorite example: two widowed older women, both in their seventies, who have shared a household and finances for going on two decades. They have neither the inclination nor the stamina to share a bedroom and yet they are each other's family. In the event that one should become seriously ill, the other would need to act as next of kin. If death of one should occur, property should divert to the other. Only they have no legal rights to each other, or rather didn't until one adopted the other.

They should have been able to set up a domestic partnership.

So should anyone who requires domestically what marriage has afforded to mixed sex couples, even if there are more than two of them, even if they never want to see each other naked.

But we don't have that. We have something called marriage, which based on its intended definition should be obsolete as an institution and yet is still on the books, remarked upon as if marriage, sacred marriage, is, was, and has always been, although the reality is that our definition of marriage is hardly static.  And given how not static it really is, and how far we've come from its intended purpose, I think it's stupid that we still have state-sponsored marriage at all.

But we do have this ridiculous, stupid thing that is called marriage but is not really marriage, so let it be equal-opportunity stupid marriage, by all means. But let's not congratulate ourselves to heartily if we manage that, because we've still missed the point.

To my mind, what marriage has really come to mean is the ability to legally choose one's next of kin in a way that trumps all other kinship. We get to legally choose our most significant person and make that person our most immediate family.

I believe we should be allowed to do that regardless of gender, fertility, children, and without the assumption of romantic involvement. And I believe it should be subject to cancellation, with a regular renewal process built in, much like automobile registration.

And since Bookgirl brought it up, and I've had time to think about it, I'll add a little something about naturalization. I don't think that marriage should be a path to immigration. Parenthood of a citizen, maybe (just maybe), but not romantic inclination toward a citizen.

The right of sponsorship for citizenship should be just as equal opportunity as anything else. Every natural born citizen should be allowed access to that privilege of sponsorship regardless of whether or not we are in love. And it should be a difficult and lengthy process with full vetting and lots of nuisance and annoying intrusion because, after all, it's a big deal.

But the idea of only some people getting special rights and dominion because of some arbitrary intricacy of their personal relationships just sits wrong with me. Whatever wonkiness we're engaging in, we need to all have the choice of being engaged.

Pun intended.

And while I'm on my soapbox, I just want to admit that I don't think marriage inequality is an atrocity. It is an insult, an inconvenience, and a sad social commentary. But it's not being killed, beaten, denied housing or employment, or, oh yeah, raped and left for dead. The American Gay Rights Movement has accomplished an overwhelming shift in the social consciousness of this country. Think about what it must have meant to be a Gay American fifty years ago. Now consider that there was no such thing.

Marriage equality for same-sex couples is the home stretch. This is the time to be organized, to educate your friends and family, and your neighbors, and to assume the deal. That's right, I'm saying fake it until you make it. The dialogue of equality is wide open, and absolutely, it's right that all people be treated equal under the law, but think about the big picture. Remember Jim Crow. I may not be gay but I am a person and as far as this person is concerned, the point is not to be equal under the law, the point it to be so equal that it seems silly to even have such a law.

I am really looking forward to the day when we don't have all these qualifiers floating around in front of the word American because it just doesn't matter. I am looking forward to day when an American is an American is an American.

That will be my favorite day.