ENTRE' ACT Happy Weekend

I'm going to help Sue to pick out new glasses then will spend some time at the pool (read my beach on 42nd St,) The deck is open and the roof is glass, Yay. Then dinner with a friend tonight and who knows what for tomorrow.
Think I'll go back to bed!

Conflagration for Catholic Lesbians

After many years away from my church of heritage, I was feeling vague longing for some spiritual connection. I wanted to find a church or group that felt familiar (read Catholic) but was accepting of my lesbianism. I visited Dignity in Manhattan, but found that the group was mostly men. They were very welcoming, but, well… it felt somewhat alienating when they were looking for a bar to go to after mass on Saturday night.

After more research I came upon a group I’ll call the Conflagration for Catholic Lesbians. I made contact with a couple of lovely women who offered to drive me to the mostly suburban meetings. I found them to be just the thing. Spiritual, friendly, welcoming sincere. I liked them a lot. Obviously, I was dependant on other people for rides to these far flung places as I was a non-car owner living in Manhattan. After about a year, my two friends mentioned that the group was going to a retreat-like affair at a camp in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. It sounded great to me and I had business that I could conduct there at the same time.

I attended this retreat and met interesting people including the two women who wrote Breaking the Silence (a book about lesbian nuns.) The spiritual element was woman centered and the break out groups were very informative. I met people that I would have never met. I loved it.

At the end of the long weekend, I tossed a hundred dollar check in the offering basket and suddenly became of great interest to the two organizing individuals. They offered me a ride back to San Francisco and included me in the activities of their inner circle. I was flattered. I didn’t think it was the check. That was a small amount to me at the time.

When we got back to the city, I got a phone call inviting me to the inner circle.) The inner inner circle was primarily a couple who held the reins tightly. Eventually one of the members of the couple (after much covert courting) told me she loved me and since I was single at the time, and found her attractive, went along for the adventure. (note to self, never get involved with an involved person.) There were protestations of passions, groans on the subway, romantic secret assignations.

Ultimately, after about 2 years, my lover, left her lover and me for my ex-lover's current lover. Dyke drama in the extreme. When I talk to my ex, we still talk about it and the wounds are still fresh.

Oh yes, I was invited to leave the governing body of the Conflagration which was really the point of it all and shamed enough to leave the organization. So I lost what I was looking for in the first place

Spirituality, Oy!

I excommunicated myself from the Catholic Church when I was in high school and realized that the feeling I had for other girls were real and valid. I kept attending the school until graduation but stopped receiving the sacraments. I kept going to Sunday mass until my mother stopped because of her depression-probably my sophomore year in college. Then I felt that I had no need to go. I never discussed it with my mother, and she was never diagnosed.
I dated boys in college. This was the lasted 60’s to early 70’s, but ultimately came our in 1971 at the Kent State Gay Liberation Front.
Immediately after graduation, I left Ohio and moved to NY to become a lesbian. I never thought about religion or spirituality, until some things happened in my late 30’s. I though about exploring what was happening with gays and lesbians in the Catholic Church. I attended Dignity, the g&L Catholic organization and found that, in NYC at least, it was primarily men. After much research I found the Conference for Catholic Lesbians. This was a small group that got together and met in each others homes, made their own liturgy and socialized. I was fine with this until I got involved with the politics of the organization. Then it didn’t work out for me.
Years passed. I met and settled down with my spouse. She is Jewish and when we met she said she said she was an atheist and I said I was agnostic-the easy out of fallen Catholics everywhere. Shortly after we met, her mother got sick and passed away. She started attending Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. Eventually she got more involved (in CBST) and we got more involved. She proceeded from attending to say Kaddish to attending every Friday and holidays, quoting the rabbi’s drash and serving as the committee chair for the Friday dinners. She asked me to attend some services, and I did. I started to enjoy the community, the music, and the exuberance. I didn’t enjoy the long services after a day’s work.
After 9/11 we decided we wanted to formalize our relationship, to marry in front of our friends and family. My idea was to go to a place where marriage was legal and find a justice of the peace, but Sue wanted a Jewish wedding. We went to the rabbi of the only glbt congregation in New York City. She said she could not marry a Jew and a non-Jew. (They would rent us the synagogue.)
We eventually found a wonderful rabbi and had a great wedding, but it changed the way we felt about CBST. (to be continued)

Meditation

I took a class in Mindfulness Meditation several years ago. This is a kind of meditation that is primarily used for stress reduction and is also the subject of Jon Kabat-Zinn's best-selling book, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness (Delta, 1990) and Saki Santorelli's book, Heal Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine (Random House, 1999). Since I took this class, I did a group at the office which worked well and helped calm my day as well as that of my co-workers. I still automatically do this practice when I get into a stressful situation or want to refresh my day. I recomend it!

The Tale of My Horses Tail

I was a returning student after years in corporate life. I sensed that my career felt empty and I wanted to do something with more meaning so I went to graduate school to study counseling, rehabilitation counseling to be specific. This is a field working with individuals who were born with disabilities or who have acquired disabilities. The truth was I was a poor student in the late 60’s and early 70’s during the Viet Nam war. I was much more interested in demonstrating against the war and taking part in happenings than attending classes. I was an art and theatre student and worked in the theatre, and my gpa was not great. When I applied for social work school the only schools that would accept me I couldn’t afford. This opportunity came up at the last minute and the price was right. It seemed to fit my needs and I jumped at the opportunity, although I knew few individuals with disabilities and less about the disability rights movement.

I had some good professors. My first semester, my professor, the head of the department was able to connect the disability rights movement to the gay rights movement and the women’s rights movement-areas where I had much more experience. I learned how people with disabilities had been infantilized or put on pedestals or locked away and out of sight. I learned about the hard not-yet-won-fight for disability rights and the toothless Americans with Disabilities Act. This made my angry, in an abstract way; in the same way that I don’t like any group of people singled out and oppressed for what they look like and how they behave.

In Medical aspects of disabilities I learned about how certain disabilities actually affect functioning. I was shocked. I never thought about how the spinal cord really connected the brain to all the intimate functions of the body. If I really took the time to think about it, perhaps I would have figured it out, but I just didn’t. I was laid out for me in charts and diagrams. I had to take tests, answering questions about what an injury at C3-4 would impact re: function. All abstract, but sinking in.

Then I had a wonderful course by a woman professor who became a paraplegic who became injured on her way to an anti-Viet-Nam war demonstration. She taught through readings and films and through her own personal experience and her class had the greatest impact on me. She really drove home everything we had been learning. She still is teaching me by the books she has written since I have taken the class. Still, this was all theoretical.

My program was a two year master’s degree which I was doing in four because I was working at the same time. At the beginning of my second semester of my second year, I woke up one morning with a backache. Where I worked I had a choice of three health plans. I chose the most inexpensive because I was going to school without any financial aid and I was in good health. After about a week of steady pain, I went to my HMO doctor, an old fashioned woman. I was lucky to find her. She prescribed physical therapy, Naprosyn a non steroidal anti-inflammatory and a CT scan. I went to PT worked, did my practicum (kind of a pre-internship) and went to school two nights a week that winter and my back got progressively worse. I got to a point where I had a friend buying my groceries and walking a block and a half left me in sweating, nauseous, doubled over pain. Once I went to the restaurant we went to for lunch at work, and by the time I got there, I was unable to eat what I ordered-rarely a problem for me. I have never felt pain this severe before or since. Sick pain.

My PCP referred me to an hmo neurologist who did an exam then prescribes extra strength Vicodin, which barely touched my pain. He suggested to my PCP that I would eventually need surgery, but I was not told.

I continued my schedule. I had a professor for my practicum who was ageing and may have had Alzheimer’s disease. It was never clear, but she had a reputation for singling our one student to dislike and that semester, I was it. Fortunately, my practicum site liked me and invited me back for my internship.

Finally, my PCP referred my to an HMO Orthopedic Surgeon. I’ll refer them to the Practice of Drs. Harry, Curly and Mo. Harry because of his bad toupee being the back guy prescribed a series of 3 epidural injections, with bed rest in-between. It was great to have a week off and the epidural weren’t bad-kind of like a spinal tap. They take a large bore needle and inject medication under the dura layer of the spinal cord. This did not work. The next trick was steroids by mouth. This was very difficult and may have been the bleeding ulcer period because I felt very ill.

Finally, I woke up one day feeling even worse. It was a practicum day. I went in, but felt so bad, I left early. I took a nap, but when I woke up, the pain was magically gone. I stood up, and my knees buckled. I was able to actually get up and walk. The next day I had saw the shoulder Dr. who scheduled surgery for two weeks forward. I wonder why now. I went to sleep that night and woke up the next morning having been incontinent in the night. No-one had warned my of the symptoms, but working in the rehab. I visited the library and read about back injuries. I recognized this as a bad sign. I called the shoulder Dr., the back Dr. still being out of town. He was able to get a doctor who was recommended by my PT-a real doctor.

After that, things speeded up. My very supportive partner took me by cab to the emergency center of the Hospital for Joint Diseases. The surgeon was coming in from wherever. The surgery department was closed on Saturdays so they had to assemble various staff. I had a ct scan and discogram and various tests and finally had surgery that evening. I first had to have four units of blood because my blood count was dangerously low. It was that bleeding ulcer from those NSAIDS.

The day after surgery was Sunday. I was able to take things in. I thought I was going to finally get better. Little did I know! Monday, a urologist showed up to do a test-apparently to see if I could pee on my own. The answer was no. Hmmm.

The next major test to appear was an EMG, a test I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I was taken to an under heated room. A Phillipina nurse had just given me or tried to give me an enema-with no result. I tried to communicate this to the neurologist who did not seem to care whether there was about to be shit all over his sensitive equipment. The neurologist proceeded to insert needles in both of my legs, primarily the bony parts, the shins, the ankles, the feet-then send electrical stimulation through them to see what registered on him machine. Not much, apparently. It took at least an hour and could have been mistaken for torture from the medieval times. Then the neurologist left the room, and a female cohort entered and placed an electrode over my genitals and I thought “here we go” But, nothing.

Shortly, the neurologist re-entered the room and said, “you are permanently disabled.” He was short on bedside manner. I said “what do I do now.?” He had no answer. English was not his primary language and he probably should have left that kind of news to someone else.

I was wheeled back to my room. Unable to shit or pee for myself. Unable to stand without looking like a junkie on a nod. Unable to walk without a wheeled walker. Unable to feel my genitals! I had the lowest moment of the entire event..

I stayed in the hospital for two weeks. I had some PT. They taught me to walk with a cane, shakily. I still have problems with proprioception 12 years later and can fall down easily, and I do. I learned how to self catheterize, although they taught me with the hospital equipment which involved laying down and using a mirror which is not very handy for work. Later on I found a woman urologist who gave me with the right kind of catheters and I learned to do it over a toilet and eventually learned to do without. I still can’t predict when I have to go to the bathroom by feeling, but have to depend on a schedule and diarrhea really can ruin my day or week! Sexuality is entirely different for me as I have no feeling in my genitals.

I belong to a support group online, the Cauda Equina Support Group. There are many of us, but we are spread out and by the nature of our disability, we don’t elaborate on the details. But we have a lot of fun when we talk online and a there’s lot of rowdy humor. There are many ways to acquire this disability including a mistake while having anesthesia while giving birth


I have a hidden disability. I walk with a cane only outdoors. Inside I’m fine unless the lights are out or my eyes are closed. It irks me when someone says “you don’t need that cane.” I have a disability that has changed my life in significant ways. My disability takes up time that I used to have for other things. I spend money on it that I used to have for other things. It has changed my relationship in significant ways. It has changed the way I see the world.

Cauda Equina Support Group
http://www.caudaequina.org/
Cauda Equina Information
http://www.oldcity.org.uk/cauda_equina/index.php

My New Battery

I purchased my shiny, beautiful, 15" Mac Powerbook about 1 1/2 years ago and have been living on the edge since the announcement that the batteries of a number- a very large number- of batteries were being recalled. Was one of them mine. I would check the website when I had time...one of these days. Maybe when Sue had time. Well, Sue doesn't like computers and if I waited for her to help me, I would be waiting forever and I'm the one who fixes things. Actually, I like to fix things. And this- in the end- was really quite simple. But, I just couldn't get to it. I put the laptop on my lap and it would get warm, no hot, then really hot. Lately, I was putting a pillow on my lap. Then I noticed a smell, the kind that an iron makes when you put it on cotton. Hmm... a multi-multi-multi tasking Mac.Icould use it to iron, if I ironed. Maybe it was time. I really noticed the difference when I missed House and watched the episode on my computer and apparently watching TV makes my computer hot. Or was it Youtube? Well, the battery arrived today. I have to discharge the old battery which shouldn't take long. Then I can charge my new battery.

You made it

My second week of my new job. Actually, it's a promotion. I found an article in the Chicago Tribune a number of years ago and it still rings true.

You Made It by David Graulich c 1996

Starting work at a new Company? Whether you're a junior staffer or a senior V.P., there are certain things to expect about the first day on the new job:

Your boss won't be there. He or she will be on an urgent trip, at a seminar, anyplace but around the office. This must be taught at the Boss Academy: Never, ever be around to welcome a nervous, new employee or make introduction's to the rest of the department.

No matter how you dressed for the first day, you will be wrong. If you're wearing a crisp suit and button-down shirt, your new co-workers are in jeans and Birkenstocks. If you wear Timberland boots and a flannel shirt, everyone else is in full Brooks Brothers.

You will eat lunch by your self in the employee cafeteria, reading a business magazine and feeling like you did in the seventh grade when you family moved to a different state and you were the geeky new kid in school.

You'll have nothing to do so you call up people at your old company and say, "Hi, Here I am in my new office!"

Three people will stop at your door, look confused and say, "Um, isn't this Gloria's office? Do you know where she moved to?"

In the hallway you'll pass the Human Resources person who hired you for this job. She won't recognize you.

Your phone will ring a couple of times. you'll get excited--anything to break the isolation. Turns out that two of Gloria's friends are trying to reach her.

You'll get lost trying to find the photocopy machine, the coffee machine, the ATM, the vending machine and the restroom.

Another phone call. It's the guy from Security, informing you that they've towed your car because you parked in the wrong zone and didn't have an employee sticker.

You keep entering your new salary on a pocket calculator to estimate your monthly take home pay.

The computer rejects your password.

The voice mail doesn't recognize your name.

There's no wastebasket in your office.

You find a stack of Gloria's business cards in the top drawer of your desk

you look out of your door at 5:27 and discover that everyone in your department has left except you.

That's it, your longest day is over It's time to go home. Now, if you could just find out where Security put your car.

You can't get there from here

We went to Lincoln Center to see the Ballet Sleeping Beauty this Sunday. It was the first ballet in a series I gave to my partner as a birthday gift. Sleeping Beauty is the traditional story of a woman who has a curse place upon her at her christening by an aunt- because she wasn't invited. These family squabbles never end but at least your aunt/mother-in/law, sister/in/law isn't a sorceress!) Well, indeed at her 16th birthday, she get's pricked by the spindle/gift and falls asleep for a hundred years (along with the rest of the castle community.) One hundred years the charming prince comes along and wakes her up.
There were at least two hundred little girls in the audience dressed in pink. These girls were extremly well behaved and the 6y/o next to me was transfixed for 2 1/2 hours.
After, we tried to go to Rosa Mexicana, a V nice mexican restaurant in the neignborhood. We had a short wait for our table, so we asked to use the restroom. I walk with a cane and have difficulty with stairs. This new and beautiful restaurant is not accesible. To reach the restroom, you leave the restaurant, walk down the block and around the corner and down that block, enter an entirely different building and take an elevator to the second floor where you enter the restaurant, go past the kitchen and enter a crowed restroon without wheelchair access. We took the stairs down and cancelled our reservation assuming that if we were seated we would have to go through the same thing and God forbid we should have to use the restroom during our meal. This restaurant was opened after the ADA was passed ( I think.) I was irked

Happy Birthday. I remember the day you died. I visited the site of many of the sit-ins in Nashville and remembered the turmoil that was happening in my own home town during the early 60's. It's sad that although a lot has changed, a lot has not changed since your assassination.