Jungle Fever And The Suckasses Who Hate It

I rarely talk about politics or social injustices on my blog, but this story out of Louisiana has really pissed me off. Apparently a Justice of the Peace REFUSED to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of “concern” (my fat ass) for any children they might have. I’m not going to link the story because you can find it all over the internet right now. The JotP then goes on to say that he’s not racist, yet he doesn’t believe in mixing races that way (the hell?), but he has tons of Black friends (the words of every in the closet racist). He says he refuses to marry interracial couples because, in his own narrow minded and bigoted world, those marriages don’t last long and they are bad for any children that result from said marriage.

Do you want to know WHY this pisses me off so badly? I’m a mixed race baby. My dad is Mexican and Greek (my Mexican great-grandmother married a Greek man…they were well ahead of their time!) and my mom is from Okie and Indiana White-bread stock. My parents have been married for a little over thirty years with no signs of divorcing, although they like to get on each other’s nerves (sorry Mom). To further rile me up, I am also in an interracial marriage and have a mixed race child who is Chinese, Greek, Mexican, and White. He has the pleasure of having two loving parents that dote on him and are not divorcing anytime soon or causing him any amount of grief by being from different backgrounds. My husband and I are coming up on our five year wedding anniversary, and we’ve been together a little over six years.

These are two examples of interracial relationships working out, and I can give you a ton more if I had the time and room on this page. I will concede that the judge has it right in some (very extreme) cases that a mixed race child is not accepted, mainly by people like him. I have felt the sting of that myself, but that was some twenty-odd years ago. I am thankful to say that my son hasn’t felt that, although his last name does cause some mild interest because he looks like me, and I look….White. My husband and I usually get some annoyed stares from Asian people when we’re walking, but we just chuckle because it’s such ass-backwards thinking.

I have honestly never understood why the color of someone’s skin or their ethnicity is so bloody important to some people. We’re all human. What is the big deal? Is it going to affect anyone else? Is it going to cause the world to end? Is Jesus Christ going to come down from the heavens and slap the shit out of us for falling in love? NO.

Keith Bardwell, you may kiss the fattest part of my mixed race ass. I hope Karma bitch slaps you in the face. HARD.

Twenty Years Later

October 17, 1989, 5:04PM, the Monterey Bay Area. The Loma Prieta earthquake, 6.9 on the Richter Scale (7.1 according to other people). I remember it like it was yesterday. I even remember what I was wearing, how hot it was, and what I was eating for dinner. I lived through this, I experienced it, I thought the world was going to end. I didn’t sleep for four days. I was nine years old.

It was the most terrifying event of my life, even though I wasn’t in a majorly affected area. My dad worked as a custodian at a high school in a town that was pretty much flattened by it. They made him crawl under the high school to check the foundation. We were having aftershocks every hour. I remember the tent cities set up by people that lost everything. I remember the roar of it, the ground buckling, the screaming of my mom, the terror in my aunt’s voice. I remember when I heard that the Nimitz Freeway collapsed, I remember hearing that the Bay Bridge had fallen, I remember the horror of seeing how Santa Cruz and the Marina District in San Francisco looked afterwards.

We had no power for a week after it happened. We lived a nightmare of trying to stay sane during the thousands of aftershocks afterwards. We followed my dad around to his various jobs because we did not want to stay at home. Our little alleyway neighborhood banded together during that time and pooled resources so we fared well in that department. Our parents tried to keep the youngsters distracted so as not to dwell on the fact that a major aftershock could hit and knock down our homes. I’m pretty sure I was in shock for three days after, until the night of major aftershocks when I snapped out of it and started screaming.

I remember. I don’t think I will ever forget. Twenty years have passed, but when I think about it, it is as fresh as the day it happened. That was the day that I learned that Mother Nature doesn’t give a shit about what us puny humans have planned. It was a telling lesson.

Sitting In The Corner, Sucking My Thumb

Apparently I’m not as at peace with myself as I thought. Right now I feel an ache so deep that I can’t even describe it. Why? I don’t know. The mind and heart are funny like that sometimes. I feel like bursting into tears. I don’t know why. Maybe the week has just been crammed with too many things going on at once. I’m not used to so much activity, I guess. Doctor appointments, tests, a six hour stay at the ER last night for yet another MRSA outbreak on my face, and then. THEN. Another email. Right now I don’t feel like explaining the whole story of this email, but I will eventually. As a matter of fact, I was working on that explanation earlier today when I just started feeling really melancholy.

I’m so tired of rehashing the same old bullshit pertaining to this email. I’m 99% certain my friends are tired of hearing about it, which is why I’m typing this quick entry (two blog posts in one day….shocking for me) so I don‘t have to bitch to them in private anymore. They can‘t fix all my problems, and I‘m an adult.

None of this stress is helping me. Last night I could feel myself stop breathing when I went to bed. It scared me enough to wake me up out of that “almost asleep” point. I laid in that bed, terrified that if I went to sleep, I wouldn’t ever wake up. I daresay I will experience that same terror tonight. My sleep study can’t come fast enough. I’m also having a slight panic/anxiety/asthma attack. It is just as it sounds. I feel like I can’t breathe, which could be caused by anxiety, which causes me to panic. I’m just trying to keep myself calm and concentrate on other things. I have taken the proper meds already, but I still feel ill.

I hate this. I want my mommy.

Tales Of The Lap Band Journey, Part II

Just a quick entry to say that I saw the psychologist for the Lap Band program yesterday. He was pretty cool, just asked the standard questions and made me fill out some questionnaire that said I was mildly depressed (duh). He also made sure that I understood the ramifications of such a surgery and quizzed me on how much I knew about it all (a lot, because I did my own research). I guess I did okay because he said I sounded perfectly ready for it, but he needs to hear from my regular psychologist and get her input. That kind of makes me nervous and I really have no idea why. So tomorrow I'll give her the card and info and hope she does it in a timely manner so we can move forward with all of this.

Next up: Pre-op classes (I think)!

The Beginning Of My Lap Band Journey

Yesterday I had my consult appointment with the surgeon. I was a bit scared of it all, thinking that he might find fault with me and that he would deny me. So I get to the hospital early, only to find that the Lap Band Clinic is not in the hospital. Whoops. It is across the street. So I head over thar, and find my way up to the office. The receptionist was a lovely woman who amused the hell out of me because she was perturbed by our answering machine message at home. It is rather rude, and I told my husband to change it, but I don't know if he has yet. But I digress...

So I wait around to see the surgeon and the dietitian. I am charged a whopping $2 co-pay (thank you, ObamafascistsocialistIslamKenyan healthcare program of Illinois....and really, people are fighting against an option like this?) for this visit. I'm finally called back to a room to be weighed on what I lovingly call a "cattle scale". Seriously, it's like a platform on the floor. I'm down to 395 (told you my weight is stupid), which didn't make me feel any better, but the nurse wasn't fazed by this at all. I guess you get used to the morbid obesity after awhile. So I wait around to see someone, and in walks the cheery nurse/dietitian lady from the seminar last month, which I completely neglected to write about. All you need to know is that the surgeon was hot, he was no nonsense, and some lady walked out after being informed she couldn't eat Big Macs after surgery. HA. But I digress again...

Anyway, the nurse lady takes my history, bows down to me for bringing her a list of the medicines I take (I'm way too prepared), and starts talking to me about why I want the surgery. She seemed pleased with my answers and we started talking about how easy the surgery is. She is also a Lap Band wearer, three years now, in her mid-fifties, and totally doesn't even look it. I freakin' adored her. Very cheerful and bubbly, which usually grates on my nerves, but it just seemed so natural with her. So after talking with her for about an hour, she goes off to get the surgeon. At this point I'm thinking, I bet this guy is going to be an ass and dislike me and not approve me. I was wrong.

He was very blunt, but not in a harsh way. He told me that I was a perfect candidate for the surgery: horrible BMI, but still active, has semi-normal eating habits, but splurges once in a while, and isn't completely immobile yet. So he agreed to do the surgery. I was completely giddy. He hands me the orders for all the fun tests: blood, urine, EKG, and xrays. I had to head back to the hospital for those again. So more walking! But it is good for me!

I managed to get all of those tests done yesterday and I have to go meet with a psychologist (wooo) on Thursday so he can make sure I'm sane enough to go through with this. The surgeon and the dietitian also want me to have a sleep study because I mentioned abnormal snoring when I lay on my stomach. So that is scheduled for November 17th. I also have to go through four pre-op class/workshops to understand better eating and what I will be going through. Once that is done, I will get a surgery date and begin a liquid diet for 2-3 weeks. Yes, that is right. Liquids, mainly weight loss shakes, water, and milk. Fun times.

So that is what is going on with the surgery. The updates will happen as things with the surgery happen. I still have other non-surgery posts to put up. Just so lazy....

Peace Came To Me

Peace will come to me
Peace will come to me

I'm leaving bitterness behind this time
I'm cleaning up my mind
There is no space for the regrets
I will remember to forget

Just look at me
I am walking love incarnate
Look at the frequencies of which I vibrate
I'm going to light up the world

Peace will come to me
Peace will come to me

I'm leaving anger in the past
With all the shadows that it cast
There is a radar in my heart
I should have trusted from the start

Just look at me
I'm a living act of holiness
Giving all the positivity that I possess
I'm going to light up the world

Peace will come to me
Just wait and see
Peace will come to me
It's meant to be
Peace will come to me
Just wait and see
Peace will come to me
It's an inevitability

-Depeche Mode

Peace. I feel it at long last. After hours of fretting, days of worrying, weeks of wondering, months of fearing, I feel it. Peace. It came upon me without fanfare just a few days ago. It is a tremendous feeling that I will never be able to describe properly.

I want to knock it, to say there is something wrong with me, to say that it’s all a false hope. I can’t. I feel strong. I feel invincible. I feel like I can get through anything without having the doubts and anxiety that usually plague me. I feel like I did pre-nervous breakdown.

I didn’t want to say anything for fear that I’d jinx myself and bring the pain crashing back into my life. However, I can’t stay silent about it. I’m joyful that I feel better. I’m grateful to God that my mind has decided to cooperate. I’m ecstatic that I can go six hours without thinking of gloom and doom, and, if I do, I forget it just as easily as it showed up. I know I am not completely fixed, and I don’t know if that will ever happen, but the way I feel now is an enormous leap forward in all the heartache I‘ve felt.

I feel like crying.