Wish by Joseph Monninger, and the three types of people met in Chronic/degenerative illnesses

I read Wish by Joseph Monninger, recently published book about 11 year old Tommy with Cystic Fibrosis who is on a ‘Make a wish’ trip with his 15 year old sister Bee, who is surrogate mom and caregiver. Grace, the mom spends her energy landing loser guys and disappearing for nights and days. Wish shows a lot about how people interact to those with obvious chronic diseases, and life shortening ones. Bee, as narrator, shows the real and fake faces people put on, the assumptions people place on Tommy and as the caregiver, is a strong voice as she wants Tommy to get his dream trip. Also, it gives the physical aspects of living with Cystic Fibrosis (a patient with Cystic Fibrosis also features in Mercy: The Complete Series, the TV series about Nursing, and thus, includes chronic illness, as doctors may only care about the disease, but the nurse must advocate and care for the person).

Tommy loves sharks, the great white in particular and he wrote up his wish so that he could go out to California, where he is friends online with Ty, a big wave surfer out of Mavericks who had a shark attack him, and chomp his board. He is supposed to go down in a cage, to see the great white shark. That’s his dream, his wish. Except that everyone but Bee assumes about Tommy, no one listens, but decides for him what his wish is, what he must mean, that he is just a kid after all. So he is greeted at the airport by a volunteer who has a cap with a shark fin on it, and plunks it on Tommy’s head. This is not the way to greet a marine biologist. Tommy talks online to marine biologists, he is on shark online boards: he knows every attack, every kill zone, and why the great White is dark on top (they get sunburned), how they put their eye above the water to look for splashing, he is serious.

What happens when you want to be taken seriously, and people don’t because you are sick? Talking about his ‘wish trip’ to the dive cage:

“Still,” Charlene pretended to shiver. “You’re brave.”
People always said that kind of thing to Tommy, as if saying he was brave or smart and daring covered the fact he had cystic fibrosis. They figured the teeter-totter had dipped so far down against him that they could put anything on the other side and he wouldn’t notice it was phony.

While they had approved his trip, the group had no intention of him going into a cage. Cystic Fibrosis stops the body from absorbing fat from food like other people and the lungs are always full of fluid. So Tommy is thin, and takes vitamins, but is still undersized and doesn’t put on weight, a stick boy at 80 lbs, who will die in his 20’s. It is a Chromosome 7 genetic transmitted carrier, and to keep breathing he wears a $10,000 vest that vibrates, to free up the crap on the walls of his lung. And he has to have inhalers around at all times, Pulmozyme for when he can’t breath, because if he can’t do the vest or the inhaler, then he dies. And one part of this book which shows that the author doesn’t have CF, is that going on a trip without the fear that the vest may break down. Because at home, there is always a back-up, the hospital or something, just as there is for me, but to go out on a trip, with a vest that they can’t afford to replace, that is walking the tightrope without a net.

Grace is busy making the moves and phoning Bob, who she met on the plane, and Tommy finds out that the boat which was supposed to take him out to see the sharks is going to have a group of kids on it. Because people decided ‘it is all for the best’ or ‘he isn’t serious’ or ‘he won’t mind’ and after writing the essay over and over and getting his wish approved, it is only hours before he finds his wish isn’t his. It is a vacation for his mother, and it is just a wish to be bundled with other ‘good works’ for the organization. Finally at Pier 39, he sees seals, just after finding out that his boat and trip aren’t ‘his’ and his mother was trying to be a public figure of the ‘perfect mom’ before ducking out for calls to Bob (who didn’t know she had kids) trying for a hookup, using the money given by the organization to cover costs for Tommy’s “Wish Trip”. And so when she demands he stop watching the Seals and take a picture instead to show how much fun he is having he doesn’t turn, or respond:

..he had taken the shark hat and worn it like a good sport, and he had accepted the news that the other kids might be on the shark boat tomorrow, all without protest. But now the seals lay right in front of him, the real animals, his shark’s favorite food, and no one on earth was going to interfere with that….He had finally reached his shark’s world and though it’s probably crazy to care so much about something that you refuse to undermine it in the smallest way, he did and I admired the heck out of him for that.

The next day, a bus load of kids from a school for the disabled and they are going to be on the boat for whale watching and the shark trip is a far second thought. But they thought it wouldn’t matter to Tommy. The volunteer who brought the hat, Mr. Cotter finally understands that his idea of what Tommy should want is not the same as listening and accommodating Tommy:

“You look after him, don’t you?” (Mr. Cotter to Bee)
I shrugged.
“Taking care of someone can teach you a great deal,” he said. “It’s troublesome, and it’s easy to get annoyed, but your heart, well it gets stronger. You do it for Tommy, of course, but you do it for yourself too. I took care of my wife at the end and I wouldn’t trade that time.”
“Was she sick for very long?”
“For quite a while. More than two years. I learned to love her in a different way.”

Back from the trip, Tommy cries and Bee says what those with chronic illness experience know all too well:

(Tommy) “I thought it would be different. I thought I was going to dive in the cage. That’s what they said. That was the whole point of coming out here. But it didn’t happen.”
“You saw a shark,” I said. “And blood.”
“Anyone could do that.”
(Bee) “I’m sorry. I get what you are saying.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know. But I understand what you mean. It was nearly what you wanted, but it wasn’t, and now you have to pretend that is was, right?”

Grace has gone and doesn’t come back that night, or the next day. So Bee decides to salvage the trip and they take some of the money from the envelope and go up to see Ty (and his little brother, also 15, called Little Brew). With Ty, Tommy can be Tommy, no expectation or projections, and they adjust to the living of Tommy, making jokes about his voice in the vest. They and Tommy play along so that the thing you have to do with a gun pointed at your head twice a day, for as long as you can remember, and as long as you live becomes fun for one out of the 8,000 days.

Ty is going to take them surfing the next day, before they take the plane back. And Tommy sees the board with a great white shark bite in it, and while it isn’t the shark cage, it is having friends for the first time, and people who groove with you on your disability time and wavelength. Ty makes money filming big wave surfing for hangouts and clubs and other sports where the reels are projected on the wall, and then change every month. First Bee rides down the wave cradled by Ty (in his 20’s) and then it is Tommy’s turn, in his life vest, with his surfer name they gave him the night before from his pale skin, Snow Pony.

It was obvious they had all talked about Tommy’s Condition and they all tried to help. Tommy ignored them. I saw his jaw set as he tried to climb up onto Ty’s board as I had done, but his arms were too weak…then Honey came over and let Tommy use his board as a second point of balance, and with everyone helping, Tommy finally clambered onto Ty’s back. Little Brew gave out a whoop, but you could tell it was forced.

I wanted to stop Tommy. It wasn’t a good idea to let him run the waves. I knew it. Everyone there suddenly knew it…

Then Tommy surprised us all.

With extraordinary effort, he pushed himself onto his knees. Then inch by inch, he lifted the top half of his body so that he knelt on Ty’s back, his hands slowly leaving the safety of the board…He raised himself, only for a second but for that second he surfed as others surfed. He stood, as much as could, proving something to himself. ..He was a boy and he was on a surfboard and he did not want to be the sickly kid. But he was of course, and that was in his movement, too.

And things go very wrong. But would Tommy have chosen to do it again? Yes. For there are some moments, which are stolen from the drudery of chronic illness living, and the disappointment of what people have turned our dreams into, and our disappointment at what dreams we have left. For us, things take extraordinary effort, because that just is, it isn’t brave or inspirational any more than studying hard at school to get into a good college. We want a better life, and that’s going to cost, in effort and body, even if that better life is just a day or a moment.

Wish is an excellent book about the interaction of chronic illness’ and the way people react. Some, in fact most, run away in various ways, distance themselves, or ‘if they happen to have a free afternoon’ they might see you. Which is like announcing they have no intention of friendship, for friends make regular meetings, plan things together. So there are those who, like ‘Whack a mole’ pop up a few times a year, because they can’t get past the barrier of what they imagine (either that you are, or what limits they have around illness) to find the real you.
In chronic illnesses, in visual degenerative illnesses, in life shortening illnesses there are the three types of friends who stay. One group will never admit that you are sick. No matter how bad it gets, they never use the word ill, or sick or dying. They talk about leaving the hospital like inquiring about a train schedule. And the numbers who do this are more than one would expect: about 25-30% of those who stay.

They project their assumptions on you, like the volunteer did on Tommy, like the organization did. Because it was ‘for the best…because…you know.’ Being around these people is hard and tiring. They drain your energy whether you try to live up to their expectations or not, the fact that you are still ill seems a burden on them, a sadness you have forced on them. And as they continue to not acknowledge it, they can’t express dislike of the disease when things go wrong or for example I have to cancel a meeting or activity. They are mad at me: because if you can’t talk about the disease, you don’t know me, because the aspects of the disease are failings in my (insert assumption: character, will, positively, etc).

As it can become surreal, they can only be honest when I or Tommy is hospitalized and unconscious. I have watched while someone who refuses to accept that a person has cancer is irritated because they have to go to the hospital to ask if the person is done with the book they lent them, while the person is helpless and having their clothes changed. Do they think if they ignore anything that implies illness it makes the person feel better? The person is suffering and grieving, and they can’t be a part of it, because they refuse to accept it happened, like someone refusing to accept a suicide occurred.

I’ve had careworkers quit (people to take care of ill people) because they didn’t want to care for me, because they don’t want to think about something (getting ill themselves?) and I remind them of that.

The second group are the ones who ‘accept’ you like those who ‘accept’ your being gay, but still hate pride parades. While they want to know all about your illness they either cut you off half way, saying ‘That’s enough’ or just ignore what you say. Then, over time they constantly act in ways that endanger or exhaust you, showing that they might know things in the head, but aren’t planning on changing attitudes, habits or their life to be willing to accommodate you. The mouth says they care, but the actions say they care…about themselves, but not you. Because going left or right is a choice; but taking heart medication at a precise time isn’t. And to treat both as the same makes them scary, and dangerous.

Do they refuse to accommodate because it is easier than changing? Or because they want to see themselves as a friend, but aren’t willing to change to do that? Virtually every day, a person, today is was a woman who KNOWS and states how I can’t remember, can’t remember beyond a day, but then asks me questions about the last time we met (me: “I don’t know”).

It took a couple years before I stopped adding, “I’m sorry” to “I don’t know.” Why am I apologizing for a disease symptom? Why am I ashamed, or need to ask forgiveness for being ill to anyone, much less to a ‘friend’? If the disease does this TO me, then I am the one who is being inconvenienced far more than the other person. For the women, my answer was ignored (as it always is) and the questions continue, including her asking what movies I have seen in the last few weeks that are worth recommending. Maybe I used to recommend good films to her. If so, she isn’t talking to me, but to a past ‘me’: the ‘me’ she wants. People often want the ‘other’ you, the active you, the you in remission. But they forget the baggage and stuff that happened during those periods, just that you weren’t like THIS. So they blunder on, demanding that I or Tommy BE what we are not.

This second group CAN be made to accommodate you, but only after they make a large fuss and then mention the trouble in accommodating you many times when you are there. Would a friend want to distance you like this?

All this only humiliates me. It humiliates everyone with a chronic illness, degenerative illness. But we take it, because they tell us how they are our friend in the same way they imply how difficult that is, and we take it because we are so lonely. And because these are often the individuals in charge of care, of health facilities.

The last group, which is small, and 10% if you are very lucky, but honestly maybe just one or two people: those few who know that you can’t have the thick juicy happy times without the thin and horrid times. These few are those who accommodate without a fuss. Who recognize what parts of life are grey and try to make those bright, they bring themselves to the worst parts, so that you are not alone. They accommodate you at best and at worst. For Tommy that was Ty and the surf crew, who helped him reach a dream, a dream with the danger of life and death (not a lot of 11 year old C.F. 50 foot wave surfers), who gave him a nickname, a place to forget how different he is. These are the ones who make us feel a full person again.

Most of the time I don’t feel like a person, but a problem. What does Tommy think of a mother who disappears on sex hook-ups, no wonder he idolizes his sister. The way people treat me or react to what is just the crappy part of the day to me says I am not part of the ‘human’ experience. When I am too exhausted to try and fit in anymore, when I am too exhausted to accommodate those who are able bodied, then I find those who know I am dying grow frustrated, and have reasons to go.

For me, who has such little human contact, even a not so great human contact is better than none. So the leaving hurts, double so because I was unable to pretend to be something they already mentally know, even if they haven’t emotionally processed it. How can I tell myself it isn’t my fault when they just disappear, or I see them leave?

This third group, who know I will not remember a postcard I sent them and send me a picture of it, or describe it in detail without making an issue of it are the small times when I feel that I still have worth, and that I am still human, or mostly human.

I was fortunate to spend a Xmas dinner with some people who were in the third group and didn’t need to finish my sentences (due to brain fog, and speech problems, I am often lucky to get out two word with the first group before they finish my sentences for me…incorrectly; while the second group gives me a chance, then steps in as I get tired and not only finishes sentences but starts and gives the whole sentence for me…..also incorrect – the energy it takes to say over and over, trying to get enough steam to get the sentence fully out is so draining, I begin to wonder if this is some sort of game to them, as I begin to gasp for air).

So to spend an hour, but in this case a whole evening with people who let me stop for seconds, for even up to a minute so I can breathe, and gasp and then continue as if it was nothing is a blessing. That is what makes an experience great. A bad experience is when the food server finishes your sentences…wrongly, on your order, and leaves. Why? It is because they are intolerant or scared of speech problems. But those who bring the food cut up for me, who listen to what I have to say and engage me at the level of intellect I am at that time are somehow more than friends. I realize the level of energy they must put out to be calm, to be deliberate with me. Often they are those who have had illnesses, chronic illnesses, or accidents themselves. They understand how important it is to have a voice. And to have a group that, yes, slows down to the speed of the slowest member – which is now me.

That is true friendship and love.

They asked later how I was, and Linda said that I passed out as soon as the car went down the road a bit. They were concerned but Linda said it was good, “She spent all her energy being happy.” Those are the diamond experiences of this part of my life.

From Wish:

Later on Tommy sighed and said he didn’t really know why he loved sharks, but that it didn’t matter. You didn’t have to explain why you love something.

He said sometimes he thinks he likes sharks because his illness made other people leery, made them afraid that what he had could pass to them somehow….creatures ran not only for their lives but because a shark was the other side of their characters. So he was not afraid of sharks, he was a shark, and CF marked him among other people. That is why Ty and Little Brew meamt so much. That was why one day, filled all the way up, meant so much to him. In the California sun he had shed his sharkness, left it for a moment and he had risen up, a surfer, a boy again.

So, to each and every person who spends the time and effort to accommodate a person with a stroke or seizure disorder, or chronic illness, degenerative illness or other conditions, please know that it is noticed. Those hours filled up, those days filled and the sense of ‘other’ disappearing, along with the feeling of frustration…for the first time in a long time.

Any event with someone like that is better, even if it is just a cup of tea together. These few, they know they don’t have to fill up the silence with speedy chatter, or know when I need the chatter to help me focus from the pain. They speak at my speed, the slower speaking so I can understand and process what they are saying. For everyone who has ever done that, it is a great gift, and thank you. Each person you helped feel this way, they may not have been able to say it but thank you for not making us feel a burden, or pointing out our differences from the rest of humanity.

Being accepted, free at last to dream, to try, to BE, it is the greatest gift. And to accept is to know that it costs us, and that we already know the risks and would trade safety or play life and death for a single good day. We know that standing by to support us will be painful emotionally, and yes, I will die, and with that support I can be ME before I die, or writhe alone, an ‘other’.

From Wish:

What we both understood, I think, was that we would meet again like this. We knew it. The day would come when we would stand on either side of a hospital bed, Tommy between us, and that would be a different day. That would be a day without end

(part of this was posted in my blog for those who have life shortening illnesses, are terminal, or caregive or care for those who are: My undead life. Comments posted there should not be about ego, or memo's or 'Hey Beth, hope you're okay': I need someplace to write what I can't write here. Because I'm end stage. And because I need somewhere to talk, as I have no one to talk with (and few 'get it'))

I will be posting 2-3 times a week again. I got ill, and now I am recovering. The first part is scary, the second part is slow, slower than I used to but in this game, I’d rather be the slowest player and IN the game than not.

Secret Shames and Wish/Bucket Lists Part II with pics of fire.

I thought we could use a little brightening up, a lighter post for the weekend, thank you for all who responded and emailed regarding the last post about my condition. That post took me a week to write. Thank you also for reading it (since it is over 5,000 words long! – see, do that for 8 weeks and I have a Teen fiction book!). Here are some of the packages we sent out last week as part of the 32 or more in 8 days. Gifting Ho! Also the postcards we worked on through the night are laid out here (65+) and I will try to do a postcard project blog or two on them and the group before them. They are really nice postcards, from Singapore, Patagonia, Cambridge, Tasmania and other places of the world thanks to readers: they send them to me, I send them to you.

While I was writing this blog, the smoke and fire alarm went. Which is a jolt and a half and really emphasizes how vulnerable I am as all I could do was sit and listen, hearing the approaching sirens and hope. Assistant manager came in to say it was a pot left on an element while the tenants were out. The building was evacuated (except for me) and Linda took the pictures of this many alarm fire as the Victoria Fire Department arrived. I assume it is either many alarm as there were five or six fire trucks including TWO ladder trucks AND three emergency vehicles which included two police cars. While they might have all been annoyed at coming to a hallway of smoke but nothing burning, I for one, as much as I love fire, love it less when I have to wait while the building burns. I supposed I am supposed to be the tragic person at the window going, "Help, you forgot me!" which the ladders rescue in the nick of time? Oh, I am the tragic character from Emergency One (my favorite TV show when under 5 - I still remember never to stick my toe into the faucet outlet!).
Well, secret shame is that I have had NO desire to be a firefighter, except for making sure there were more female representation for fighting bush and forest fires. I like fire! (pictures following are of Victoria Fires or Nearby)
There is, in BC, which often has hundreds of forest fires burning, rapid attack helicopter repelling/absell crews (which I tried out for but was denied due to having contacts, and since you go off a helicopter INTO the fire, having contacts burnt to eyeballs is a no-no), I hoped for more females in higher positions as I think there is one female crew chief down in the southern US. Bah! So no, didn’t want to be a fire fighter since I kinda like fires. My grandfather put his house on a hill and could, my mother attests, tell as soon as the sirens sounded tell by hearing where they were going.Quick, the whole family into the car and he would follow the sound of the engines to arrive on the scene early and get all the fun. The Canadian National Railway fire of 1977 was supposed to be the biggest, seen across the strait in Port Angeles, and attracted thousands. My grandfather taught me a lot about the joy of watching things burn, and MAKING things burn even when it is raining, which seems sort of anti-fire fighting. Not that I am opposed to female firefighters, since this is my favorite commercial……well, ever. Youtube deleted it but click here, and after a (Cantonese?) short ad (hit pause when you hear 'sink to the bottom', it is below the commercial screen until the whole line lights up - you want to see this in one go, honest! Once line is lit, press play!) you will see why um, firefightiers keeps showing up in Linda’s romance picks.

Secret Shame #14: I have not followed in the family tradition of being a nympho sex addict. For reasons I am not sure about, ALL the women on my mother’s side of the family end up as hard-core Nymphomaniac sex addicts, which includes my grandmother, her sister, her mother’s sister
(my great grandmother I can’t confirm since what I remember most as a child were her taxidermy and skinning hobbies). Once a female turns about 65, they blow, so I am keeping an eye on my mother. The short version, my grandmother, after my grandfather died had three lovers and doctors out regularly to verify which sexual positions were safe for her paralyzed leg and hip (in her mid 80’s, she really was horny), then used the government money for those ‘my life story’ to have someone record and print a book of : ‘my various lovers’. My mother was not amused. Meanwhile, grandmothers sister has lived off of men for six decades and had four simultaneous lovers for over 30 years (free labour, free booze, free cars, morgage paid, AND sex). My great aunt (my grandmothers mother's sister who lived over 100) however lived her way through four husbands, numerous affairs and flirted with anything over 14 with a Y chromosome (including resuming affairs AFTER 30+ years). She had a great deal of money from her many husbands so she had a gigolo service her multiple times a week, through her late 70s and 80’s. I am not sure how much sex she GOT in her 90’s but she wanted it. I never really enjoyed going over since she would verbally and sometimes physically get intimate with both my father and grandfather (and always wanted him to go up the ladder to pick her fruit so she could watch his hot 75 year old man-ass!). When it came to men, she was very 'hands on'. She also blew up her dog by accident, but that is another story.

I on the other hand am virtually a virgin, one relationship, never ran off with anyone twice my age in my teens, never slept my way into a cruise trip or a car like my other relatives. Nor was I the ‘other woman’ like grandmother, sleeping with a married man in a retirement community and getting him to give her money gifts (oh boy did that make visiting day awkward when the daughter came). Nor have I paid for sex – I mean if you think about it, my great aunt stood up for sex rights (well, lay down, stood up, used the kitchen table) for women decades before it became a feminist issue.

I felt like the old fuddy in the UK, when at work women would be, ‘I fancy a good shag tonight, going to the club to see what’s on offer, you coming?” I did kind of feel I was missing out on the buffet. But then stats show that UK and European women aren’t having sex more, they just talk about it more and use lots of protection so hopefully less unwanted pregnancies. I also miss that, because as far as I can tell all of my dozens and dozens of care workers are nuns. Geez, what happened to comparing vibrators or talking about your brazilian wax in the workplace? Dunno.

Wish #11, To do: Live another year.

I hope that is conscious and able to wheel or use a wheelchair. At some point I am going to be only able to just lie there in the bed. But, hey, I have next years Sakura-con to go to. And then I can live long enough to go on another vacation, read another 500 books, and put a dent in all the good films and TV out there. I am waiting to watch a film called ‘Let the Right One In’ from Sweden (I have it here from Pic a Flic). It is a coming of age story about Oskar who has a dream for a friend. This comes true with Eli, a girl, moves next door. She is pale and only comes out at night and is unaffected by the freezing temperatures. As the story of his childhood innocence and romance are the growing number of murders which occur in the neighborhood. Trailer here.
I think I wish to live as me, not one of the living dead however.

Wish #2, to do: GET OUTSIDE! Yes. Go see the outside world, now that there is sun and such. And specifically, I would like to go wheel in the woods. The pain and weakness I have right now make the difficult but I am trying to sweat to improve my circulation and healing and when that pain finally goes away, I hope I will be in better condition to go outside. I really would like to go to the woods, and into the trees, smell the loam, the fallen needles, and the vines of blackberries, fallen old blackberries giving it a scent of sweet blackberry and dusky dark earth, a hint of mushroom and warm bark. That is what I would like to see again, wheel through again. Maybe there is somewhere special to you, some special place. I think if I had to choose a second thing it would be to play a night game at one of the 3 par courses near suicide bridge in Pasadena. I used to do that a lot, so instead of being the oddity I am now, off time with people, I used to go play golf with my 9 iron and my putter on a three par course at 10:30 or midnight. There was a freedom, call a friend to play and if they say no, go anyway. Yes, I was a golfer.

Secret Shame #17: I don’t get fishing. You can try to explain the joys and wonders of it to me, but know that many have tried before. Dont. Get. Fishing.I even watched a fishing show for a while, trying to understand why a guy got air time standing in a river going, “Oh, oh, I think he interested, good thing I used the red autumn dangler lure today, as there is shade over that part of the stream. Oh….oh…..notice how I reel it in slow (do they EVER reel it in quick?)…..oh, I think he’s getting interested.” Never got it. Never. And the idea of spending a WHOLE DAY in a boat with someone who didn’t want to talk but just stare at the water and wasn’t a requirement by an institution or a sign of mental instability just gives me the shudders.

I think a major problem is that every time I go fishing I catch something in about 10 minutes or less. And then I have a fish, and I hate the taste of fish. However, that is nothing compared to the gross aspects of GUTTING and cleaning the fish. When I was, um, six, maybe we went fishing with my aunts and uncles, I caught a fish (only one), and they kept demanding I hold it up, with my fingers THROUGH THE GILLS. So, yes, take a six year old out and tell her to put her fingers through a still live flopping around a bit fishes HEAD from behind. Wow, are we having fun yet? Plus, people would run over wanting to know what bait I used or my lure ('a shining one?'.) I used what looked nice – pink salmon eggs, they look nice, or a lure that was pretty. Then I would think, “I am a very stupid and bored fish in a tiny stocked pond, what would interest me.” So I throw out the lure, and drag it a bit and wait and drag and wait and then next throw drag it in at a steady rate, then next throw drag a little and wait. This assumes the fish has seen it by now and is going to investigate, and after a few minutes, I pull it in a little, rest, pull rest and WHAMMO, bored fish who wants to eat something to not be as bored is now on my fishing line. I’m done!

Well, apparently that is wrong, I am supposed to do this for HOURS, not 10 minutes. I am not sure why. To me it is like doing Story Problems in math: you figure them out and do them, you don’t just sit there for hours staring at the problem because…..(uh, this is where they try to explain to me what fishing is about and use words like Zen and meditation and stuff). I do the math problem and shut the book and go do something else, like climb rocks without a rope.

Wish #15: Become a cat girl. Life is better as a cat girl. Yes. I think if I am a cat girl, then my hypersomnia ISN’T problem it is just me being a cat girl. Same with me rolling on things I love, or demanding people walking by give me food or attention. Or throwing my body in front of people in order to be petted. Or jumping atop things. Being a cat girl solves ALL these problems. Plus, you can dress up in all the ways I like now, like be a lolita but be a lolita cat girl and that’s even better! Surely if there is a guy at Sakura-con who can make crowns for giving people a vampire teeth for $50, can they not give you ears to twitch and the ability to purr and a tail to twitch when I am annoyed?

Also, I think being a cat girl, while we are going with that, a cat-girl with LARGER BREASTS! Hey, if we are going for ‘to do’ wishlists, I wouldn’t mind leaving the announcements of ‘Oh, no we never carry small sizes like that…there just isn’t any demand’ said in loud voice at Victoria Secret and other shops or the fact that there is only one sports bra I use, one which has ‘form holders’ so it isn’t a flattener, but holds your breasts so that no one asks you where your mother is, or have to stand next to someone complaining how hard jogging is on their DD’s while saying, “Guess you have it lucky…..that way” – yeah, in the way that for most of the public bigger is better. So, cat-girl, with big boobs – combine this with secret shame of overplaying ignorance/cuteness in order to get tires changed and I would get away with just about anything! Because sad cat girls just make people want to cheer them up. Not sure how to achieve this goal since I am still looking for sleepwear with a hood with ears.

Anthro-con is coming up June 24th. Click on the link and they will explain what a ‘Furry’ is, as well as how to treat those in fursuits. Another reason to buy the genius DVD set ‘The Middle Man’ is when our superhero walks in on his female sidekick’s roommate doing her ‘creative dance’ in her bear suit. She asks him not to laugh and he serious says (as the Middle Man who saves the earth regularly) that he regularly as a youth wore a Mole suit which gave him great comfort and creativity. Yes, Furries in TV, not mocked! Oh, and the PJ’s, I am a TALL, XL in juniors and Medium/large in adults, just in case that is something at Anthro-con and anyone decides to go.

Cat girls have not yet caught on here, but they will, ‘nyah’. I was reading a yaoi boy love book (everything even reading books is cuter with cat girls)

and the person had fallen out of bed and the other guy held out his hand and said, “shake hands” and the guy on the floor said, “So, does that mean you want me to do it puppy style?” and starts licking him (turns out the other guy was ticklish). Funny, ‘Nyaow’

Secret Shame #6: and probably my most well known secret shame is my proclivity to going naked. A trip in Europe at 18/19 without parents, and lots of saunas where I learned that communities coming together in the winter getting naked was…normal (not erotic, just normal). Plus, when I get really depressed I take off my clothes as a ‘I don’t care, they can’t take anything else away from me’ and then either run up against a window, climb on to the roof, or try to go for a walk, which at one point there was a policeman with his back to me and Linda dragged me inside with an odd hissing sound. She can be really strong.

I went hiking and bought a Gregory Pack, which makes great packs BUT has an oddity, in that Gregory demanded that a mesh be made not just for him (because he liked to hike NUDE in Alaska in the summer, with all those flies), but for all Gregory packs. So they bought him out. But I got his pack which came with a long guide WITH pictures of how to hike nude using the Gregory Pack. The guide also had WAY too many pictures of Gregory's willie. So, after hiking for several months on the Appalachian Trail, I, well, thought it would be something I should at least TRY. I mean, I hadn’t seen anyone for seven days. And so each couple miles I took another piece of clothing off, sort of ‘strip hiking’. When I was just down to panties, that is when the family with two children under 10 came around the corner. I didn’t see them, just hear the ‘MY GOD!’ from the mother. And you know, small trail and all, I had to pass them and try to explain while the husbands eyes just sort of boggled, and the mother tried to sort of get between me and her children. So, if you were traumatized as a child in, I think um, Pennsyvania, by a nude hiker with long brown hair, grey socks and a really big pack (there was mesh on the straps so they didn’t rub, same for the belt!), I’m sorry, that was me and uh, sorry. You know usually women are encouraged in media to be ‘free spirited’ and nude and when it is all guys, that is true, but with another women who is a mother, in the bible belt….not so true.

Also, tried early to convert Linda, involving some moss, some very thick moss and being horny and that failed pretty badly when she became convinced a cougar was in the woods, or a wolf. And I don’t know if she has ever been skinny dipping much less nude hiking (only suicidal people who love ticks and bug bites are nudists in Manitoba). So, you have a nudist story?

Wish #7 AND Secret Shame #5: Knitting. I never learned how to knit. I learned how to cross stitch but that was it. I think my grandmother tried to teach me, but I just never quite understood the attraction. Now with the Yarn Harlot the Diva of Hobbies and everyone into knitting, I am once again not in the ‘cool group’ who all get together and show pictures of stacks of ‘skeins’ like it is erotica, and talk about knitting, thinking about knitting, dreaming about knitting, blog about knitting and I can’t knit, never have. If I can figure out how to live another year, surely with maybe my teeth or something I can figure out what the crack-cocaine type addiction lives in knitting. Then the ‘cool group’ would talk to me. To be honest, I think I want to learn knife throwing first but knitting is on the list. It just seems that knife throwing and me are more suited to each other – if there was a way to combine the two maybe? Same with looms, I know HOW to do it, I just don’t kinda get why I would want to.

All that being said, if it was not for knitters helping me out with socks in exchange for stuff, my feet would be in bad, bad shape, since they need light strong socks in the summer and thick warm ones in the winter and thanks to knitters, I have both. One person did a perfect fit, without ever seeing my feet, it was absolutely perfect, a second skin, of knitted sock. And I hear socks are really hard to knit.

Wish #9, to Do: I would like to go with Linda, take Linda to an observatory. I think I did this when we were dating and observatories are things you do and then you don’t do them for a few decades and there is no reason….you just forget. I used to go to the Griffith Observatory late night show when they had rock concerts with laser shows, with the stars. It was cool. They also used the lasers to make holograms of the different clusters and figures, like Orion. I would like to see the southern Cross too, but since I have seen the Aurora Borealis in triple or more sheets of glory, shimmering the sky over me, green and red night after night when I lived in Northern Sask., and people travel from all over the world just to see it from far away. And I lived in a small town with no other towns north or east or west for 200 miles and it was huge. And we went to the arctic ocean, and I think it was huge then as well. But still, seeing the Southern Cross would be neat.

Secret Shame #10: Worst Laundry experience Ever. I know we all have one, sure, we’ve turned everything pink, we’ve shrunk our favorite outfit. And one care worker managed to shrink and make unwearable (except as clamdiggers) about $400 of my jeans. But MY worst experiece? Setting clothes on fire? Well, kinda. I was entrusted to do the laundry and I went to a big Laundromat which had those industrial dryers. And those things got HOT on the top setting of 10 and stayed hot. And instead of feeding the meter every 6 or 10 minutes, I would put in 6 or 7 coins and then it would run constantly. Well, I kinda mighta, put a load of no-dryer, sort of hand-wash, sorta ultra delicate clothes in with some towels and put them on industrial hot for an hour. Nighties my mother had with Nylon and Rayon, and all the ‘on’s’ and well, I came back from my walk and there was a definite burning smell and I stopped the dryer but um, several of the items had MELTED right into the big metal round sides. One nightie was just a blue smudge on the grey drum of the dryer. It was still too hot to touch without getting burnt. And those clothes which were left were um, smaller, a LOT smaller, and missing edges where they had touched the side. That would be my WORST Laundry EXPERIENCE ever – that and when I brought the laundry home. A long, long talk about responsibility and ‘did I like making my mother cry?’ and ‘We gave you a chance to prove you are an adult but I guess that was TOO SOON!’ – the whole going for a walk thing while the dryer ran made good sense to me. But makes for a REALLY bad excuse. So, what is your worst laundry experience? (oh god, let’s not get into the worst IRONING experience).

Wish #12, to do: I want a tattoo. I really really do. And I want a tattoo that reflects me and won’t decay as my body decays or changes. I will see if I can find a place with no feeling at all and come up with a good design. I put it off for years because I always thought ‘If I think this is a great design in two years, then I will get it.' – needle phobia or not! But I never did think it was great two years later, I would think of another design. Other people mark their achievements with ink, and tattoos. That is cool but not me. I still don’t know what kind of tattoo I want to get, I think I want to get one which sums up how I live, not just what I did, but what I still plan to do. A tattoo of me. I don’t want an epee blade just because I like epee, or a book because I like to read or a typewriter (though that would be cool, and old underwood typewriter tattoo) because I like to write. I want a sort of ‘I am’ statement. And I REALLY want an ass like that. The idea from my cult that God would be so unhappy about a tattoo is, I think, a joke. God gave us a whole body which changes dramatically through our lives, a living altering mask and yet alteration is bad? I guess we should avoid getting fillings in our teeth then right? So no, now I don’t need to worry about what I am going to think in two years, or five, so if I can get a waxing and a eyebrow threading, I can get this. Which brings me to

Secret Shame #11: Never got drunk. Nope, never got drunk and used that as an excuse to kiss everyone in the room including the girl I was secretly crushing on. Never got up on a table and danced. Never got drunk. ‘All things in moderation’ – does that sound like me? Well, it is, I didn’t do any drugs, though they give them all to me now, and I didn’t get drunk. I did not Xerox my ass or breasts at work. I did not screech in loud drunken laughter. I have been around plenty of stoned and drunk people to see telepathy at work where they go,

Person A: “Hey, you know, like those bosses in suits, they are so, so….”

Person B: (laughing), “Yeah, so completely, so yeah, yeah…..

Both laughing hysterically

Person A: “They are like wearing a hat!”

More hysterical laughter

Person B: “No, they are like not wearing anything at all!” and laughs

Person A suddenly serious, “Don’t talk about my sister like that…..she not a slut!”

B: “Sorry.”

A stares for a while then breaks into laughter again, “But yeah, they are totally!”

Insert any conversation like a car, a person, a light, a rainbow and drunk or stoned and this repeats itself. Much like knitting, I was not part of the conversation, I was not ‘in’ the cool group who could telepathically communicate. Nor did I have stories about waking up on people’s/campus lawns with no memory or worse, having a habit of locking yourself in bathrooms and calling/texting everyone on your phone (this one is REALLY common and I have gotten several calls/texts from drunk people – to tell me, they were DRUNK, and they didn’t know WHERE!).

People have really cool drunk stories, stories I envy which end up using power tools to dig them out of a club, and somehow they don’t get arrested (guys get arrested, girls just get, I dunno, left with a friend who holds the hair for vomiting?). So my shame, no drunk stories at all. Alchoholic is not what I want, but NEVER drunk? I have seen that being drunk makes people more of what you are like in some way. I wonder what that would make me? What part would be ‘more’ and could the world take that?

Wish #19, to do: This is complex, a two parter. See, I have always wanted to be a hero. Not the quiet and real heroes, the people who for years raise three kids all by themselves, or caregive, or do all the non glory hero stuff. But I wanted to be the ACTION hero. I mean, geez, after Star Wars, who didn’t? Princess Leia fired guns, wrapped men around her fingers, was sarcastic to everyone including VADAR, and kicked some ass. And in the second movie she is a general AND shoots a blaster. That is WAY better than Charlie’s Angels – just the kick ass angel saving kids without creepy Charlie, more like Laura Holt in Remington Steele.

So I wanted to join the military, or police (often the police) the RCMP – I tried as soon as I became disabled), also thought about joining the british police, the CIA, M5, etc. Except I found out that they had two issues which caused me problems. #1) I really, really, really don’t get on well with authority. I mean, I did start doing lots of push ups and sit ups in prep for basic but I was determined I was going to break the Sgt. I was going to mind fuck him. Not the attitude they like in the military. Plus then there was all those rapes came out in the press about basic. And #2) Secret Shame #19 (coming up next) – plus the whole ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ thing, and I don’t even know what the Canadian or British version of that was.

I wanted to be a hero, I wanted to save kids. I also wanted to play with guns. Or better yet, I wanted to play with swords. I wanted to be batman, I read Dark Knight when it came out and while everyone seemed to latch onto the ‘will to power’ Ayn Rand philosophy I was entranced by the idea if you have the money, the discipline and the will to train, what could I become? I had the will for pain, I was often distracted by books, so I don’t know about the discipline (I mean, you don’t see Bruce Wayne going, “Not now Alfred, it’s the last chapter!”), and no, I didn’t have the money.

However after many years traveling the secret roads and learning how to walk and not look in the faces, to be forgotten or remembered but not as a threat in the streets of LA, I was pretty sure I could be a good super hero, or police officer. Linda was thankful that I wasn’t in LA when the riots occurred over Rodney King because she said she knew I would have tried to go down there and help the people getting beaten up and killed. Because she had seen me run toward danger before.

I wanted that whole, ‘Partner’ thing that cops have. I even now want to be like the cop in Life, or the one in Criminal Minds. How do these people get promoted? Or keep partners? I want to be the odd brainiac, who also can run any criminal down. But see, when I do amazing things in odd ways, I don’t get promoted, rather everyone above me gets really scared of me. Suck. I wanted if I couldn’t be police to be the one with the flag who charged the barricades! I just would never allow another person to use me to hurt or kill anyone because they decide it is right, or convenient, or in a way I don’t believe is right. And that is kind of what the military is about, and the police too in a way. Obeying orders. Obeying orders without thinking. I was taught to do that from before I could walk, my whole life taught and punished on Obedience. Told God wanted ‘Blind Obedience’. It might be why I am so crap at it now. I figured if God wanted to build robots, God could have. And if my choice and responsibility was up to me, then I better act like it.
Secret Shame #19: I REALLY, REALLY hate office work, particularly repetitive office work. It is boring to the point of physical pain. That’s not to say I haven’t done it, but what happens is no matter how I try, after about three weeks I get SO bored that like an animal in a trap, I start clawing and trying to bite off my own leg. In human speak it means I start destroying property, or deliberately sabotaging projects. I am totally honest about it, but for some reason they NEVER fire me. And I don’t want to quit, I’m not a quitter! And I do a job that takes someone 4 days and finish it in 2.5 hours which might be why they don’t fire me but oh the pain in my brain and so I try to tell all the big bosses my errors, and every time I am incompetent. They think the honesty is endearing and give me more projects. It is this horrible nightmare.

I mean in retail, when a customer demands you find the ‘yellow book’ they read as a teen which was really good and about a detective, or a space ship, or maybe remembered past life experiences and aren’t going to leave until I find it – I am NOT bored (because when I do find it, they decide they don't want it anymore). While giving me a task where I simply WATCH the Xerox machine I have programmed to copy AND staple and fold for me (because I was so bored I called up the Xerox company and had the rep teach me how to do really obscure things), and the supervisor walks in to find me rubbing body parts up against the copier while going ‘AHHHHHHH!’ and trying to get the warble from the vibrations. They ask me ‘Isn’t there something you need to be doing.” And I almost shout, “No!” and I explain how I programmed everything and hope they fire me. But no, now I am ‘if you need anything copied, get her to do it, she is a genius with the machine’. So, it turns out the police has a LOT of forms and paperwork. This is not a place for self destructive boredom behavior.

Secret Shame 18A) This one probably isn’t news to you but I have a some darkness shackled in me. I fight it, and it has never gotten free for long, but yeah, I have some darkness. And I think you might know that. I fight depression, I started cutting at 4 or 5. But I don’t hurt others, not intentionally, that is what I fight, what I worry about, hurting others.

Secret Shame 15) Sigh, I don’t know if I can even admit this. I have NEVER drawn on someone’s face while they are sleeping, never written on them. I did once write a poem on my body at college and tried to strip in class to do both a poem and performance – AND while a high school teacher I encouraged students to try it which then got me a talking to from my ‘mentor’ teacher because some parents who called in, and no, we were not teaching 'stripper class'. But no, I have NEVER written, “I’m with Idiot” on someone’s forehead while they were asleep. I feel that I oddly have missed something important.

Wish #10, to do: This is a big one. I have never been a BRIDESMAID. Yeah. I thought I would a few times when gay marriages came out but my ‘friends’ always had other friends or relatives and so no, not once have a worn a dress in a colour pattern you wouldn’t use for curtains in a trailer park. No blissful joy of spending 8 hours with the bride telling her EACH dress looks perfect and ‘the one’ only to have her go ‘ummm, I don’t know’ – I did decorations, I did organizing, I did lots of organzing. I was the one outside the door timing everything and telling the music cues and when people should walk in but that was it, me outside it all again.

So IF ANYONE, I mean ANYONE needs someone to wear a really big and strange bridesmaid dress for your wedding, I am volunteering. I mean, how can someone be married and never had been a bridesmaid, ‘always a bride, never a bridesmaid’ – that’s me. Never been to a ‘Hen Night’, never realized how empty my own life is, had to dance with some guy who seems to only be able to talk about football because is a groomsman, and gotten drunk and woken up in a hotel bed, out of dress, next to someone saying to myself, “Oh my god, how low did I go?” This seems, according to romances, romance movies, and North American culture to be an essential experience. LINDA was a bridesmaid – she has the dress she hasn’t worn again to prove it!

Look, I KNOW that I probably would have a horrid time, and be bored but it would be for a friend and that is what sacrifice is about and I guess it is part of the ‘grass is always greener….’ Thing but yeah, like the cheerleader, want to be a bridesmaid (I don’t want to be a cheerleader anymore!).

Which brings us to the LAST of this part 2 of the three part of Secret Shames and Wishes, bucket lists.

Secret Shame #22: Too scared to wear a tiara. Yeah, I have never worn a tiara and always wanted to. I am a tiara coward! Well think about it, teen girls and young girls wear tiaras. Except I was in a cult which forbade all ‘adornment’ including gold earrings, or large hoop earrings (ha, that is ONE secret shame I don’t have, picture of me with my big ole plastic hoop earrings, or said earrings caught in a tree I was walking by!). Then once I came out, well lesbians don’t wear tiara’s. At least not where there are a lot of butches around. Gay teen boys, twinks, they wear tiaras and angel wings, and ripped tight t-shirts. Drag queens wear tiaras. But lesbians? No, that just isn’t on. Plus what kind events can I wear one to, even if I had one? A dance, right – oh I could have worn one to Sakura-con, I guess. But you kind of need the whole elbow gloves and some people can pull off the over the top kind of giant hoop skirt elbow gloves and tiaras and I don't think I am. But I want to – yes, I want to be the versatile type of gal who can wear a tiara and then if needed, take off those gloves and throw knives. I guess we all have things we wanted to wear – maybe that is just me?

So that is today’s list – a bit of a read but I hope it was fun. Time to tell me how you destroyed your wash, or explain fishing to me (“First ya got to call it ‘fishin’!”), or what tattoos you have, or what interesting things you have done while drunk (or interesting places you woke up). How DO you write on people's faces when they are sleeping? And what do you write? And does this require drinking? Just comment on whatever this post inspired in you.

Birthday Wish, Bucket List, ‘To Do’ Plans, secret wishes and Secret shames named (part 1)

Well, this WAS my going out weekend except: the Korean BBQ place has gone out of business. Plus I have been working on my blog for the last two days straight, missed the art exhibit, missed the highland games, no postcards or packages done. I did ending up buying something for myself off the wishlist because, well, Saturn Apartments was put on sale.

I also bought ‘The Maze runners’ about a bunch of teen guys who try to escape the maze but can’t and the only safe space is the 1 acre center, but they are all mind wiped of the past. At night, a dome covers the acre and when the wake up the maze has been altered. No one has gotten out. When suddenly a girl arrives and things change. Okay, I love mazes and spent many years drawing 3-D mazes, and I also had a 3-D chess set which I played, um, with myself. This was 42% off, and not at our library, so I bought it, or borrowed from a friend the money to buy it. Also because the cover looks exactly like several drawings I made in 7th grade, when we had ‘art’ for the first time in our school (taught by an ‘outlander’, an ‘outsider’, ‘the unchosen’). I loved mazes Only not only did I have the labyrinth drawn from the floor perspective but my spikes had people who had failed the maze impaled on the spikes (and bleeding into pools on the ground). This lead to much discussion and a parent/school conference and I didn’t have to take art anymore (which is too bad because I sat next to the kid who started out drawing then by the end, had covered his entire sheet of art paper black. After several months, that starts to be a pretty impressive/scary portfolio, totally blacked out paper after totally blacked out paper. Anyway, I hope to be able to read this book and not have authorities watch me a lot.

This was going to be the ‘what I wish for..’ and ‘Secret Shames….’ Only doing that has 72 pictures. 72!!!! That is one giant blog. So today I am doing my birthday clothes, and then like four of my birthday wishes and four of my secret shames.

You are encouraged in comments to a) Tell me how hot and sexy I am – this applies for just about any post, except ones on pain, death, and bits of my flesh rotting. b) share your own goals, since they don’t have to be something that you are going to do tomorrow, but can be something like a life goal. Since my life is counted in months (see, I am up from weeks, and some people don’t call me an optimist!), I HAVE taken, ‘Global Domination’ and ‘Learn to read 9 languages’ off of my list (or changed that to ‘learn to read six languages’). c) share your secret shames, hopefully reading mine will help you remember yours. Tomorrow is all about new and different ones and the following post as well.

Secret Shames: Okay, last time there was a misunderstanding about Secret Shames. They have to be something you kinda want to be a secret in most company. For example a lesbian saying they watched Charlies Angels….not a secret shame, a butch lesbian saying they had ‘my little pony’ collection….and they still play with them – that might be something they don’t want to tell someone right off. Or like when they tied their sibling to the hitch on the back of the car. Or when they set fire to the couch at Xmas! Secret shames. You’ll see.

So far on the birthday present front: two (I didn’t even get one from Linda!). SUCKS!

I had planned a birthday with me ala Birthday Suit but alas, I got ill again and b, not so good with trunk control these days (the plan was to be in my intimates and have my panties in my teeth as a SUBTLE sign).
Problem is if I can’t sit up to do that. And the care workers? Well, when asking care workers if they would assist in positioning me and toys for good masturbation/intimacy, hysterical laughter is one of the better replies (long stare and then walking out of the room murmuring a prayer one of the not so good).

“What?” I say, “I get horny too, just like you!” (more prayers/laughter) “We just put this under ‘Shower prep’ or ‘Sleep Prep’....you know female masturbation has been shown to be very effective for insomnia!”

Nada.

Linda did braid my hair for me (she find braids erotic, and so do I – mmmmmm, Gretchen!)

I just want to mention in passing that I am horny. I was expecting birthday sex, and I was planning a culmination of many days of birthday masturbation and neither happened. I am deeply undersexed right now. I need energy, an erotic story and a bit of friction...without a careworker or Linda popping in to check my temperature (actually right now I am so low on reserves an orgasm might make me pass out..but that could be fun too!). I deeply need bed days but the most I get is the ‘Pass out – end up in bed an hour – get back to work’ circle. But as you can see, even when I am working, I am..er...distracted.

Oddly, while the massive amount of drug dulls my sensate, and my nerves are kinda dead, my mind longs for the tingle in the nerves (maybe now dead), the tingle in the brain, as the ohhhhhhhh and ahhhhhhh, rise in the mind. Hey, I am not JUST about sex (just about it right now!).

On my list, wish and goal number 20 on my ‘wish list of things to do before I die’, right after ‘Get a medical degree’ is ‘Epee Fencing as Foreplay’. I have the epee gear, I have my good blade Val, from my last tournament, and now those tight leather wheelchair gloves. I only need the whole three piece lingerie kit (and body to match). I could use one of those. Most of my stuff is WAY too practical. What kind of tragedy does that say about a woman when most of her lingerie is PRACTICAL. Sigh. Anyway, red hair, check, red scarf (can do, might have skulls), little boots, well how about kicking kinky 5 inch high heels on PVC boots. See, standing up isn’t a problem, I just need a few people to prop me up against a wall somewhere. Then I can make erotic circles with my epee tip, or come ‘en guard’ and do the opening salute.

Hey, I never said the wish list needed to make rational sense. We live in altogether a far too rational world! Fantasy and fun seem secondary and that is kind of scary (what is point of being a ‘free world’ if you can’t get some epee fantasy sexy going?).

Of course Linda is no slouch on the blade herself, doing very well in the foil for a couple years and significantly progressing in tournaments on the epee. And NOW she has a Pirate Queen outfit, complete with corset. Whee! Oh, I know this one from the books. She is the dread Pirate and she takes over the ship where I have been sent off by my rather evil step-father into an arranged marriage wishing in my heart that I had not spent a life as a flower kept from life, sent off like a merchants’ goods but rather, finally seeing life for myself. And along comes my Pirate! Now at first, a few maidenly shrieks, then of course the ‘stow her in my cabin’ (which ends up with some other kind of shrieks later – hey, I’ve read my smut...er...erotica, I know how this goes!). That would be a fun fantasy.

‘Oh no’, I shrink before the Dread Pirate Linda, ‘What happens now?’ I ask as she slowly and gently strips my gauzy layers off me.

“I show you the world” Dread Pirate Queen Linda replies.

mmmmmm……

Oh, by the way, this would be a REALLY good time for your boss to walk by.

Hmm……the other birthday sex fantasy is Linda coming in and ‘rescuing me’ from my work and books. You know, the striding in and telling me to ‘put down that book’ before carrying me off to bed in her arms. (Yeah, okay, I can fantasize a bit of domination sex). Of course, the problem is that I am several inches taller than Linda and she isn’t currently working out for Ms. Canada Weightlifting. I mean if I was 5’2” (which by the way ALL the romance girls are, or they are 5’7” or 5’8” and 100-115 lbs – HAHAHAHA! I mean, of course they are. This actually bothered me SO MUCH that I asked every 5’7” and 5’8” female I met if they were within those weights and found ONE – and she was a professional ballet dancer.) then sure but not at 6’3.5”. I have been DRAGGED by a limb by Linda. But I don’t think huffing and puffing and ‘Oh GOD, I hope I don’t hurt my back’ counts as talking sexy and dirty to me. She has rolled me over onto a towel or sliding sheet but again, being hauled like a toboggan with grunting from Linda and being carried in one’s loves arms and placed on the bed with rose petals is rather different.
I just need to go on a diet. However, the last time I was severely anorexic Linda wouldn’t get intimate with me after bruising herself on my pelvic bone sticking out. Plus when I get super anorexic and she says, “No, stick insects don’t arouse me, and seeing ALL of your bones through your skin doesn’t either.” Sort of leaves me in a dilemma. See, I could lose weight if I stopped being able to leg brace but that would affect….

Wish #17 of things ‘to do’ – Be wild, tempestuous and learn the Tango! Yes, I have decided that I want to be WILDER, more, I am not sure what, just MORE. Maybe go around in red and black goth wear and give little skeleton candies to children or something. Or Tango with people in the center of city hall outdoor square (since that is right near the red light district, I might risk ‘solicitation’. “Want to Tango?” I ask. The police officer says, “Oh is that what they call it now? Put your arms out for the cuffs.” I bite back the thought of saying, “Okay officer but that will cost extra!” – did I mention I was HORNY!).

Okay, next is a secret shame unrelated to sex. Well sort of unrelated.
Secret shame #21: In high school, I wanted to be a..oh, I can hardly say it...a cheerleader. I even got to the point where I started to talk about wanting to apply. Friends intervened and I was talked down. (Let’s face it, it is hard to play varsity basketball and cheer for the guys team AND girls at the same time. Also, I seem to be born ‘cartwheel hindered’, which is beyond the arm pump and hip swivel a basic cheerleader move.

Secret Shame #8: Okay, and this is a secret shame that I don’t really talk about to anyone except Linda. I am afraid of underwater. Seriously. Even as a child, I totally freaked when they tried to teach me water-skiing because of the sharks. I was 8, and on a lake but I couldn’t SEE below, ergo, sharks. I mean, at our Olympic pool, the bad vision and HEAVY chorine made a giant whale shape down at the deep end. Yes, that’s right, I honestly was afraid of swimming the length of the pool due to Moby Dick living in it. And if you think it is better if I go underwater, no it gets WAY worse, because there are things everywhere – I have underwater agoraphobia….severely. I can’t watch a lot of films where they go down in the ocean – the descent is just TOO much to watch. Now, that doesn’t stop me from swimming or going to see Imax on the Titanic, it is just…I am terrified and Linda holds my hands a lot and I close my eyes a LOT.

Wish #1, to do: Ug, enough of that, so lets go back to the positive, which is the wish number one. I want to go outside, and just watch the clouds and find shapes (more – more than zero). Like the art above, I see an Elephant and Linda sees Britain. I can only reconcile that in she must be looking at one cloud and I am looking at the spaces between the clouds. Or just what our minds are on, that is what finding stuff in clouds is about.

Secret Shame #12/To do #22: Yes, it is both a secret shame AND a ‘To do’ and it involves a trombone. And no, it doesn’t involves 76 of them. My secret shame is that I have never been able to put the phrase ‘spit valve’ into a normal sentence. I have twice been able to use ‘defenistrate’ when it made perfect sense, “Um, I think the main character is this film is about to defenistrate the villian”. There are other words, Gargoyle, Wyrd, Geuss (yeah, influenced by Clarke Ashton Smith and the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica – for those who don’t know, the 11th edition is the edition where Britannica got all the BEST experts of the field in Oxford, Cambridge, Sorbone, and other top experts to write these 20-60 page entries. After that, the Britannica went to using paid researchers, so you get the ‘Cambells’ soup answer or explanation instead of the ‘exclusive French Chef’s’ cuisine). But no, never been able to use the phrase ‘spit valve’ in a sentence.

BUT, I am also fascinated by the slide bar and have always, even before playing in an orchestra thought the slide bar would have wonderful potential for playing someone a solo and using it as erotic foreplay. The teasing sliding with a seductive look and wink seems potent for sexual foreplay, doesn’t it? So I guess I will need to learn the trombone.

Wish #8 to do: Write another great novel. I have been gearing up to do this now for a while (not being able to tell time, I can’t say) by doing what I do, reading as much and as vast a variety of literature as possible. Thanks to a good friend from Ergo, and a book swap, I have read a book this week I wouldn’t normally, ideas which still bounces in my head. I am reading Name of the Flower 4 (which is great, and the series finish, the manga follows the seasons of the flowers, through 4 seasons/volumes, finishing with can one person who has no way to share herself and only smiles and is quiet to stop being thrown out break out to be herself with a man who has been convinced by his past and family that he is only deserving of contempt?) Also reading The Stories of Ibis (amazing writing, and as a writer, a slap in the face to do MORE!), as well as a dozen other books. I read about 10-12 books a week minimum. Due to some intestinal problems that has gone up over 20 manga and 8 or 9 novels, so I am VERY thankful, since I am too ill to get out to the library, to those who have gifted me a novel or manga through the gift list.

I read east and west, old and new, so that I am a wheeling Meta-novel, the references to Buddha, to the Torah, to Christianity and the literature coming from them all turn in me. I have started putting up the slogans to writing, “10 words to get them to read 200: 200 words and they will read the chapter” – to remind me that we live in a jaded world, and need to write to make an impact, fast. Last time, with Zed, I had plot and the pain and humor was written in through rewrites. Right now, I have too much intensity, that I need a story which allows that to come through, or seeth, controlled beneath the surface. I write 1,000 words a day easy and that means if I live 60 days, it is a youth novel, if I live 100, a regular novel. I will likely have to write ‘This is my day’ blogs for a while and 1 or 2 ‘big theme’ blogs a week while I write. But I am getting ready. This is the first third, writing is the second third, and editing is the final third. Once I need a readers group, I will make an announcement.

Secret Shame #21: back in the bad old days before personal internet, I was living in different basement and only had access through university computers. And so I started going to university computers and reading erotic fiction at various member submitted sites. I was there, getting um, moist on campus, signed in for research and reading erotic (stuff that to 19-20 year old me seemed very, very DIRTY to me, but gosh and golly did it ever make me tingle!). Well, one day a member of my CHURCH comes out (I switch screens) and lets me know that they work at this university library and how am I? And then they say, “I just want you to KNOW that the university computer administrators can see EVERYTHING that you see on your screen and if you aren’t using the computers for research, they can go so far as take your computer pass away.” And then they wandered away.

The sweat popped out on me. And the screens that were immediately closed. And I stood up and walked out a normally as a horny jittery person could. Oh Great! Already internally tortured for being aroused but now guilty for being TOTALLY busted. Yup, that’s my secret shame, I was caught using research university computers to read dirty stories. True.

Wish #14 and #15 of to do: #14 is to have ‘more sex but not be caught by the caregivers’ and number #15 is ‘have more sex again!’ Look, I have strawberries and cherries in chocolate AND whipped cream! All of Linda's favorites - eat me, eat me! Okay, it is not like I have one track...um...mind. But I have been cared for, I have been working morning till sleep for as long as I know, and on vacations I do even more then spend 4 hours blogging about it before the next day. I just haven’t had the time to prioritize intimacy. And now I am, I am prioritizing it. And Linda just ‘proofed’ under my bed (The ‘five year old’ me when scared crawls under the bed and last time I passed out with my head stuck between two bars, according to Linda). Linda and I have talked about the type and kind of intimacy that is appropriate or comfortable for the ages and dementia levels. Basically a five year old you hug, a tween you play with, a late teen you fool around with, and a young adult is more than ready to go, but a little insecure, while me, um….I dunno, I’m just not sure that sex interests me. HAHAHAHA! I mean, yeah, tie me up, tie me down!
Okay, one last of each and the rest will come over the next couple posts. But I would like some feedback from this posts and maybe a secret shame (and a wish to do) from YOU in the comments.

Wish to do #11: (Yes, they really are numbered), LEARN TO THROW KNIVES. I guess I always thought that only odd psycho guys did this, that and movie heroines. But these days, I am pretty helpless. I might have ‘heart’ according to the boxing coach but I don’t want to live in fear. And throwing knives is something I have secretly wanted to do for about 15 years. I even tried to get a holder for the middle of my back for a throwing knife (based on a description from a Louis L’amour western book – that holder doesn’t exist). Now I would have leg holders and upper arm holders. And since I can’t touch my own nose and drop things about 15 times a day including: toothbrush, toothpaste, my pill container, my drink bottle (3 times), my book, and more, the hand eye coordination on a macro level could work with the hand-eye coordination on a micro level that I am starting to do with the PS2000 (largest hand controls), as prescribed by my doctor – the PS3000/2000, not the knife throwing. Any knife throwers out there?

Secret Shame #16: I have, SHAMELESSLY, overplayed my ignorance and clumsy aspects over the years in order to get guys/butchs to fix from cars to toasters for me. Like when the lesbian network newsletter came with a plumbing course offered and Linda and I looked at each other: “Isn’t that why men and landlords were invented?” I asked and she nodded and that was about it. Oh, I know all the components names, so that I can get them JUST wrong enough to have the person explain them to me as they are fixing it for free. Yeah, when it comes to a garage, I usually have a good idea what the problem is, and play the ‘dumb girl’ who says, ‘It makes a noise!” and if they start saying stuff all over the place then I go elsewhere. EXCEPT when it comes to my computer. Don’t mess with my computer! I don’t build it from the board up but I do determine what goes on it, and usually figure out what is wrong. I used to, it is one thing being so exhausted and mentally fogged that frustrates me, that this ‘smart’ part of me is going.

But yes, I have even gone so far as to go, “I don’t know, the handle goes up and down but nothing happens” when a guy/butch was over so THEY would remove the top and drop the rubber stopper down so I wouldn’t have to wash my hands of the old rubber smudges on them. Besides, the people who seem to like to make stuff or put it together or fix stuff seem so darn HAPPY to fix it, how can I deny them this pleasure by actually learning enough to fix it in front of them (then they just get sad).

I think I may not be the only one who has, at times, acted too dim to be able to fix a tire (because changing rusted lug nuts=hard and boring) when there are lots of guys around. But I am, somewhat ashamed as an independent woman to still have to ‘pretend’ (of course a lot of the ‘fix it type’ you could say exactly what the problem is and they wouldn’t believe you unless THEY look).

So, your secret shame?