Lesbian Dad | Monthly Archive

Archive | February, 2011

Now you see ‘em

By Lesbian Dad on February 25, 2011 in Seraphim/dakini

Kids making merry in mama’s theater .

Either it’s childhood that disappears, or the child itself.Â We’ve had both in our family, and as bittersweet as it is to watch one’s children grow older, it is an unspeakable gift to do so.

I was looking through my digital photo archives to find a picture of my children’s oldest nephew, who would have turned 16 this coming Sunday. I only had film cameras when Erik was alive. I borrowed a digital one for the first six months of my daughter’s life, which were his last six, and they were not something I was in any way capable of or inclined to documenting photographically. Even though I wanted to (selfishly), to me it felt invasive and opportunistic to take pictures of him, knowing what we knew. The pictures would outlive him; we were trying to steal what we could, when we could. Â An image.

My mother’s death a dozen years earlierÂ taught me that that’s what you’re left with: photographs, various physical ephemera, video — if you’re lucky, and memories which, over time and in an excruciating process, become simply memories of your memories. You’re also left with the love you still have. And your grief.

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Truer words were never splashed across a Band-Aid

By Lesbian Dad on February 21, 2011 in Metacommentary, Mostly a picture, Re: the lil' peanut, Sunrise Sunset file

Whenever he comes even close to skinning a knee — the surface of the skin isn’t even broken; maybe there’s just a wee abrasion — he calls out with a dramatic intensity on a par with graduates of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, “IS IT BLEEDING?!”

Don’t know when it will be that I stop keeping Band-Aids (the never-fail placebo) in my wallet. When that day comes, a major chapter of this parenthood will have come to a close. Of course there’ll be whole new ones to follow. Probably in which I turn around and apply the Band-Aid to myself. (“Is he even in this ZIP CODE?! This AREA CODE?! The frigging TIME ZONE!” Or, “Would it kill her to just text me back A SMILEY FACE EMOTICON SO I KNOW SHE STILL Â POSSESSES THUMBS AND EYEBALLS?!”)

That day will come. And I’ll be damn lucky to see it.

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Who loves ya, baby

By Lesbian Dad on February 14, 2011 in Mostly a picture, Re: the lil' peanut

Never have I loved a boy like I love this boy. Apparently, never have I been loved by one like I’m loved by this one, either. We’re both in the same, very happy boat.

May you, too, enjoy a handsome return on your affections, today and every day.

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One small squirt for boy, one giant squirt for parentkind

By Lesbian Dad on February 9, 2011 in Baba familias, Re: the lil' peanut

Yes. That means what you think it means.

Those fortunate readers who have not slogged through upwards of 5,000 diaper changes — ha! ya think I’m exaggerating! no, I AM ACTUALLY UNDERESTIMATING, I COUNTED — might think the above is merely an unremarkable, if slightly overshare-y image of somebody’s toilet. But that’s where you’d be sadly mistaken, my friend. The above is an image of victory! Triumph over recalcitrance! The onward march of youth toward their destiny, eventually fishing Mama and Baba out of the bowl of despair!

For months, nay, years, I would whimper quietly as I pulled the package of organic, free-range, fairly unbiodegradable diapers from the grocery store cart and placed it up onto the checkout counter. The larger the size on the diaper — 3, then 4, then 5, and then, finally and most humiliatingly, the dread 6 (and for you diaper-ignorami, they just don’t get any bigger than 6: next stop, Depend^Â® undergarments) — the more pitious my sotto voce whimpering. It got to the point where the clerks simply could not meet my eyes. I didn’t blame them. Â The beloved and I swap grocery store runs weekly with our co-housing in-laws, and whenever I would write in the word “diapers” on the list for them, I would follow it with a little sad face. Â We didn’t talk about it.

But today! Today, I strode into our neighborhood grocer’s, head held high, baseball cap cocked at a jaunty angle, just so, and I traipsed up and down those narrow aisles, and I hummed as I packed my cart full of all manner of items, NOT ONE OF WHICH WAS A PACKAGE OF DIAPERS! Ha! Ha ha!

You will forgive me the heady delerium.

I leave you now with a wee (!) musical selection, here. O hell, lemme just paste it:

[Note: youngsters ignorant of musical history and a bit impatient, give ~~what's on the other side of that link~~ this quaint ditty at least 30 seconds. Rest of youse: turn yer monitors up to 10.]

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Weekend bonus shot (Monday edition), 02.07.11

By Lesbian Dad on February 7, 2011 in From the vault, Mostly a picture, Weekend bonus shot

Window watchers, Berkeley, CA (July, 2010).

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Battered out in Alabama

By Lesbian Dad on February 4, 2011 in Anima animus, APB

I usually don’t pass on news items here, mostly because my discretionary time for posting is limited, and I know folks get news elsewhere, and my “beat” here tends mostly toward the parental. But I saw this at Towleroad, and felt compelled to draw it to wider attention: “Lesbian Beaten by a Dozen People at an Alabama Bar.”

The short version: a woman was jumped by 12 people; clear indications were made that she was being singled out for her appearance; she was the only one cuffed and arrested by local police.

Andy Towle embedded Â video from the local news station on it, and I’ll let you see it over at his blog. But Â I want to send you to it with a few quotations. Â From one of the men attacking Laura Gilbert:

If you want to look like a man, you’ll get hit like a man.

And from Laura Gilbert, to the reporter:

I’m an American just like the rest of us are. I have rights. I have the same right as y’all do. Supposedly.

Please go check it out here.

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I have no doubt

By Lesbian Dad on February 4, 2011 in Anima animus, Re: the lil' peanut

His sister loved this t-shirt (a beloved gift from a beloved chum, who now runs the women’s center at Ohio University, thankyouverymuch). I was tickled whenever I saw our daughter wear it, but must confess I am even more tickled to see it on the boychild. I wasn’t the one who dressed him this morning, but I can see him picking this one out because it’s a pretty color. That, and he remembers seeing it on his the sun rises and sets on her big sister.

I can’t recall whether she asked what a feminist was. If she had, back when she was little enough to fit into this shirt, I’m not sure what I would have said. I’d have been tempted to go to Rebecca West’s gem, from way back in 1913:

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a prostitute.

Problem with that is that then I’d have to explain what a door mat was.

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Comments { 9 }

2011 Bloggies voting on through Feb 20

By Lesbian Dad on February 2, 2011 in Metacommentary

Proof positive that the universe (& its blogospheric doppelganger) works in mysterious ways: Lesbian Dad is a finalist for Best LGBT Blog in the 11th Annual Weblog Awards!