A Mother's Musings and Mumblings

I’ve been working on an entry for a while now and finally decided to split it in two and put this part up first. The reasons I’ve hung onto them rather than just posting is because they’re both a bit on the rant/vent side of things and they both have potential to alienate some folk. So, diving right into vent #1, here’s today’s quiz from Blogthings:

You Are Bisexual

Girls or guys? You’ll take either. Or both. You can’t make up your mind. And why should you?

And that, dear reader, should serve as a cheat-sheet for the pop quiz that follows:

1. What do you call someone who “decides” to be gay?
2. What do you call someone who “decides” to be straight?

Those are trick questions because the answer is the same: Bisexual. Simply put, if you’re in a position to “decide” then you have the option of being either. And that means that you’re really bi. Sorry to break that to anyone reading who made the “decision” and thought it was more cut and dried than that.

Now I’m not saying that bisexual folks don’t make that “decision” everyday. They may not intend to, but they do. Because as a bi individual you have two options: pick a side or be promiscuous. And picking a side puts you back in the closet and/or in the position of supporting this widely held misconception that you “chose” to be one or the other. And the latter still puts you in the closet as a bisexual.

Case in point, and the inspiration for this post: I have a friend (more than one but we’ll focus on one) who was married for years and has a child. The marriage failed, as over half of marriages today do, and both parties moved on. My friend moved on to a same-sex relationship and now is widely regarded in the community as having “decided” to be gay. And, of course, that “decision” is why the marriage broke up. Truth be damned. Because, clearly, any story that either party to the marriage tells about why they really broke up is just a smoke screen designed to protect this outlandish “decision” to be gay. At least that’s what word is on the street. 

In short, my friend is now defined as “gay” based on the nature of their primary relationship. Just as I am defined as straight by the nature of Iggy’s plumbing and the nature of my relationship with him. Sure, I could change that. I could be “gay” if I chose a woman as a partner. But the only way to be “bi” would be to have multiple, more-or-less simultaneous partners of both genders and to be open enough about it that everyone knew. And then folks wouldn’t call me “bi”, they’d call me something worse. Rhymes with “store“. Or “hut”. Depending on the particular tone desired.

So the other day I was discussing this topic with someone who insisted that orientation was a choice. You know, “choice” like “tampons or pads” kind of choice. Deeply personal, influenced by upbringing but not by biology. Her “proof” was a woman she knew who was raped and then “decided” to be gay. In the mind of my partner in conversation, it was reasonable to “choose” to be gay. Or bi. And she defended this stance by saying that she’d support her own children’s’ “decision” regardless of what it was. Her “open mindedness” on the subject was offered as “proof” that her position was correct.

Now, her heart appears to be more-or-less in the right place – maybe a bit further to the right than Netter puts it but still functioning. So why do I take issue with this?

Because if you can just “choose” to be gay then what’s the big deal with limiting rights to gay people? They chose it knowing what the situation was, they can just “choose” to be straight if they don’t like it. You know, like the bisexuals can.

Which brings us to the other reason why bi-folk live deep in closets. It isn’t uncommon, in my experience, to not fit in well with the gay community. After all, we do have a choice that they don’t. We can “opt out”, they can’t. And we certainly don’t fit in with the straight community. Same-sex friends get nervous that we might be attracted to them (or might not – and they’re not sure which is worse). Opposite-sex partners seem to get more paranoid about infidelity because there are “twice as many people for you to cheat with.” Or worse, if you’re a bi-femme, are the guys who want to know if you have a “friend”. Serious ick factor on that.

So here I sit. Happy in my closet, sipping a glass of Chianti and watching my friends in the community having fun navigating the waters of the world. I suppose we all live with our “choices” – some of us just get to make more choices than others.

Stay tuned for Part II.

Somehow the date yesterday caught my eye. September 17th. I got to thinking and told Iggy that it was a year ago the 15th that Guido hit me and that’s why the date caught my attention.

I was wrong.

That alone is interesting to me. Interesting because here I am, one year later, and the events of that week are so distant to who and where I am now as to have been bumped out of memory. I actually had to check the calendar this morning to see if I had the date right. Turns out that September 15th was the day that Guido moved out. The 8th was the day he hit me. The 12th was the day my friends turned up to help.

What a year it has been. Early on, the drama was still thick as we saw our counselor a couple more times and Guido continued to lie to me while I continued to listen. He started dating and telling me he wasn’t. Then he tried to tell me that I had to take him back. And that was the last time I saw him in person. Telling him that I’d call security may have had something to do with that, but I could be wrong.

So what’s happened in a year? 369 days if you need to be exact (leap year, remember?).

1. Guido is gone and the divorce is final. There is no more reason for me to have contact with him. Ever.

2. Witchlets appear to have “gotten over” Guido leaving. For Thing 1 that means no more sniper fire at either Guido or Spawn. For Thing 2 that means no more asking about them or telling me that she misses her step-sister.

3. I appear to have “gotten over” Guido. No anger about him or his actions, just gratitude that I got out and shame that I could make such a mistake. But for him? No emotion.

4. I’m making progress on processing the whole mess. I could write a novel on just that but suffice to say I think I’m starting to put some things together.

5. WF and Rat Terrier are separated. Who knows what will happen there but things are moving in a direction where the witchlets have less contact with that toxic woman.

6. I’ve met someone special and seem to have a better approach this time. Iggy is a good guy, we share many of the same cultural norms and communicate better than I have with anyone in a long time. The issues that have come up we’ve dealt with together as us against it rather than us against each other – this is a change from both Guido and WF. We’re moving our relationship along with our eyes open. And it feels pretty good.

7. I’m making progress on the job front. After years of laying groundwork it finally looks like maybe, possibly, hopefully something might shift. I’m not pulling out the streamers until I see something in writing but all indicators are happy ones.

8. I’m back on track in school. Taking classes and getting my program committee put together.

9. Thing 1 has started middle school. Four weeks in and I haven’t killed her yet. We’ll see what the update in another year looks like on that front.

So lots of shifting in life. Not as much maybe as the year when I had the air mask but it certainly does feel like I’ve come “unstuck” after a stretch of stagnation. So I’m starting to put some plans in place for the next stretch of time, being sure to hold space for mystery.

Please fasten your seat belts low and tight across your lap and return your tray tables to the upright and locked position for take-off. We’ll be on our way shortly.

Hello. My name is Witchlets’ Mom and I have a problem.

For nearly the last 12 years, I have kept my obsession at bay. Sure, there was that one 3-week lapse in 2002 but I quit cold-turkey right after I saw what was going on. Seriously – less than a month in over a decade. That’s pretty good control.

I know. I’m making excuses. Truth is, I’m falling off the wagon here. I see it coming and like a B-horror film in slow motion I can’t stop it.

It’s hard for me to trace back to the beginning of my fall from Grace. It would be easy to blame Iggy but, truth be told, this started before he arrived on the scene. I think that it began sitting in the waiting room at my Neurologist’s office. I’d brought a friend with to drive me and she’d brought her iPod. She pulled it out and began to watch something, giggling out loud.

Curiosity killed the cat and it didn’t do wonders for my self-control, either. I had to ask. I had to see. It was shiny. It was funny. It was Californication. It had David Duchovny. And the entire season was available on iTunes.

Can you say “Gateway Drug”? I knew you could.

I watched the entire season. There was no more. And slowly, oh so slowly, I began to forget about this “television” thing again. My decade of abstinence had given me some measure of self-control – or at least denial. There was no “habit” to be broken. I didn’t “need” to entertain myself watching pretty pictures on little boxes. At least not pretty pictures that come and go in episodic waves with recurrent characters facing similar problems penned by the same writers week after week.

You know it’s coming. Wait for it.

Then Iggy brought over “Firefly.” Just a couple of episodes, it’ll make the movie more comprehensible. Sure. And speed just helps you get through finals. I’d say “tell me another bedtime story” but my bedtime has been late enough for a while that I don’t need a story to get to sleep. Or rather, I don’t need another story. By the time I go to bed I’d already watched an episode or three of Firefly.

Yup, past tense. I’ve burned through Firefly now (great series, btw) and we’ve moved on to Dexter. I know full well where this is going. It’s September now and I expect that by the conclusion of 2008 the Witchlet home will have some form of broadcast television. You know, more than the kind we’ve been able to pick up with the rabbit ears for the last 12 years.

I’ve known this day would come. When I banished broadcast at Thing 1′s birth I knew that someday the educational benefits of the talking box would outweigh the evils. Two years ago I nearly gave in when I realized that there was a large, third-world country size hole in the witchlets’ knowledge base where most kids had an understanding of broadcast television. That realization came when Thing 1 couldn’t answer a question about TV news because she’d never seen it (and what is wrong with NPR?) during the same week when Thing 2 asked a friend to pause the TV show so she could go to the bathroom. But cultural literacy be damned – we were not about to have broadcast TV in our house!

So did I really change my mind over a sci-fi western and a show about a serial killer? Not really. Blockbuster has rented us their collection of Mythbusters and the witchlets keep wanting to watch again (and again, and again). The other day, Thing 1 couldn’t answer a very basic question on history. There’s educational programming out there that didn’t exist when she was born. Besides, it’s an election year – what better time to let the witchlets learn about fiction on broadcast television?