Boise UCC LGBTQ First Annual Retreat at Pilgrim's Cove

Gina and I took our girls to our church retreat this weekend. We weren't able to be there the entire time because of work, school and custody commitments but what we lacked in time we well made up for in fun.

Rainbow Camp

My favorite memory of the trip was when we all tried to settle down to sleep. I suffer from "Sleep Fright" its when you are laying awake while everyone around you drifts off happily leaving you alone in the dark with your thoughts and the in ability to stay still. I discovered this weekend that my daughter Hannah suffers from the same thing. We both laid there in our discomfort and finally I whispered, "Do you want to take a walk?" and she was out of her bunk before my feet hit the floor. We bundled up, found the flash light and walked down to the dock. We walked out to the end and laid down on our backs and watched the stars and the moon sparkle off the water. We listened to the silence and the crickets. We listened to the dock creaking as the water rose up and down dancing with the pull of the almost full moon. We laid there until about 2am. Finally, we succumbed to the shivering and found our way back to the cabin. We were asleep in minutes. I didn't take my camera in our little excursion but perhaps it is one of those memories which will be burned perfectly and forever into our hearts and minds much clearer than a 4x6 ever could.

Better Living Through Pharmaceuticals

I suppose that the first medical law came into existence when the cave Medicine Man handed your cave mate a cup of something to help him feel better and then said, "oops!" (or whatever they said back then) as your friend keeled over and died.

Everyone must remember, because I am sure everyone is as old as I am, about the episode on the Andy Griffith show and Aunt Bee...



Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906- Created to prohibit the interstate transportation of sale of adulterated and misbranded food and drugs. It didn't require that drugs be labeled, only that the labels not contain false information about the drugs strength and purity. Perhaps our first "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. It also proved to be tragically deadly when the medical industry, all in a tizzy with the invention of new sulpha drugs needed it put in a suspension. They went to a chemist and asked him to do this for them. The chemist, made a suspension of diethylene glycol, what we know as antifreeze. "oops!" 107 people keeled over from sulpha and antifreeze. The chemist later committed suicide.

Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938- This is considered the most important piece of legistation in pharmaceutical history. It created the FDA and required manufacturers to file a new drug application (NDA) with each new drug before marketing. They had to prove it was safe for use by humans

Durham-Humphrey Amendment of 1951- established legend or prescription drugs and OTC drugs. This is where we got "Caution: Federal Law Prohibits Dispensing Without Prescription" warnings. We all love those!

Kefauver-Harris Amendment of 1962- was passed because of the horrific occurance of infants being born with severe congenital abnormalities because their mothers were prescribed thalidomide during pregnancy. This extended the 1938 Act to require drugs to be proven not only be safe for humans but also effective. See in 1938 drugs only had to be "safe". Kefauver-Harris now said it had to be "safe AND effective". uh huh

Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970- Began classifing drugs into 5 schedules and made the DEA responsible for enforcement. Schedule 1 drugs are considered street drugs with no medicinal value. However, by that definition nicotine should be a schedule 1 and marijuana should be a schedule 2. But don't get me started...

Poison Prevention Packaging Act of 1970- - 90% of adults and only 20% of children under 5 are statistically able to open these suckers. Unfortunately, we were short sighted on making medications tamper proof, who would have thought that in 1982, 7 people died from taking poisoned Tylenol capsules. oops.

Drug Listing Act of 1972- NDC codes are created. It helps in recalls, and double checking proper packaging of drugs. And are a pain in the ass when having to type them into the system really fast.

Orphan Drug Act of 1983- This provides tax incentives for manufacturers to continue product and research on extremely rare disease medications. There are currently over 250 orphan drugs on the approved FDA list for marketing.

Drug Price Competition and Patent-Term Restoration Act of 1984- Basically can extend a patent license for a drug company/researchers to recoup developement costs, as well as to provide an incentive to research new drugs for the marketplace. (read bribe)

Prescription Drug Marketing Act of 1987- This turned Senior Citizens into felons if they go to Canada to buy a drug cheaper that happened to be manufactured in the US. oops!

Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990- Made pharmacists responsible to do a (DUR) drug use review, for each new prescription filled. This tripled the work load of pharmacists and created an opening for pharmacy techs like me (thanks President Reagan!).

Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994- The FDA has very little oversight with these. They can only ding you if you use "false claims". Or if a drug is responsible for unsafe, for example ephedra or ma huang, which used to make Dexatrim ROCK. So what if some people fell over and died from strokes and junk, I bet they were thin and beautiful. Or if you lose your sense of smell from using Zicam. oops!

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996- HIPAA nuff said?

Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act- It changed products labeled "legend" to read "RX Only". Our tax dollars at work.

Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003- Medicare part D as in dounut hole? at least Obama has cut it in half and the drug companies are paying the difference. Wonder how he did that? Thanks Mr. President.

Growing Up Without Communion

Growing up in the LDS church it was called Sacrament.

Growing up in the LDS church I was one of those children whose parents didn't go to church but sent me with my friends, smelling like cigarette smoke, dirty clothing and unwashed hair. Growing up in the LDS church I was looked at with pity and disappointment, I suppose, by those clean and polished Elders and their clean and polished wives and children.

Growing up in the 1970's there was no discernment made between sexual activities of young people. You didn't do it or you were "one of those girls". Regardless of whether or not that girl was barely 11 and the male was closing in on 17 and violent.

Growing up in the present, it would be called rape and child molestation.

Growing up in the 1970's she was called a whore and nothing was said about the boy. Which then gave license to the boy to continue his circle of violence and forced silence of the girl because it was after all, her shame she was hiding.

Growing up in the LDS church after rumors began about me, timed with my upcoming graduation into Mutual from Primary. I had to have an interview with the Bishop. There I was sitting across the desk from a scary authority figure in his scary office with pictures of LDS Presidents and Joseph Smith staring down upon me. He asked me many questions about my faith and such and then he asked me point blank if I was a virgin, or did he say "clean"? I remember looking at his eyes for a moment and then looking down at my hands horrified about the topic and what I was about to do. He had heard the rumors, I knew he knew. I looked at him and lied.

Growing up, at 11, I didn't know what else to do.

At graduation we each were given an article of faith to memorize and recite during the ceremony. I did the best I could and got through it. When it was over, I bolted to the door and ran into the closest bathroom, threw up and began weeping uncontrollably over the double life I was leading. I lied just to graduate with the girls I had gone to primary with. I didn't belong to this group of pure, "clean" girls. I hated myself. I blamed myself. I was scared.

As rumors got harsher and lengthier and more easily proven that I did, indeed, have a boyfriend, I began to get the snickers and the nasty remarks from my peers that I really shouldn't be allowed to take sacrament because I was "that kind" of a girl. And then finally, the Bishop himself, asked me if perhaps I should study a little more about what the sacrament meant and the promises I am making to God each week and decide if I was really worthy right then to be continuing to take the sacrament. I wasn't living the gospel.

I never took sacrament again. I never went to church again.

Growing up, there was no one to save me during all this turmoil, no one, not God, not one grown up, parental or otherwise, stood up and said, "There is something bad happening here to this poor little girl." No one. I couldn't do it. To do it would reveal my lie, my sin and my shame. I couldn't save myself.

Growing up, I fell between the cracks of the LDS platform from the beginning. I, convinced that I had forever lost my way back to God, gave up, gave in, and became to know myself as the person they said I was. And they, in turn, told themselves and their children, "I told you so." and "I don't want you playing with her at school or around the neighborhood." And then they must have felt safer that they had weeded out another bad moral influence that may have threatened the lives of all the righteous.

Growing up, cut me off from God. Growing up cut me off from normal social events with friends. Growing up I lost my way back to ever understanding the meaning of worthiness in the eyes of the Lord. Now I walk a path I don't entirely trust or understand.

Externships are Out

In 5 weeks, I am heading to a hospital pharmacy for my 6 week externship. A coveted spot that could open doors to hospital positions across the valley. Or perhaps, there if I am a good fit and do well.

Not About Me, Well Okay its a Little About Me

AWOP- Butches

But then there is Margo Moon and the Left-Wing Nuts READ HER FIRST

525,600 pages....

525,600 pharmaceutical terms,
525,600 pages,
How do you measure two years of my life?




12 weeks this book will be my companion until I take my National Certification. 12 weeks and this book holds the key for a passing grade on my National Certification and I will finally, at (almost) 50 have letters listed after my name. Unless you know my story of fear of school, and my overwhelming solid belief that I was not smart enough to pull this off, you will not truly appreciate the personal hurdle I have jumped over.

To anyone thinking its too late to do it, you are wrong. If you need a cheerleader, email me. If you need comiseration, email me. Then call your school of choice, make an appointment and jump head long into the education you desire.

"Carrie whispers to me

School walls steal my breath
Bullies loom beyond my peripheral
Humiliation echoes, echoes, echoes...

I hardly even hear her anymore"

~nina~

What is Your Sin?

We all have weaknesses. We all have areas in our lives where we fail time and time again. While doing some rather heavy introspection lately I have come to the conclusion that I am guilty of committing one sin more than any other.

The sin of omission.

It is an easy one to get sucked into because there are so many ways you can excuse yourself from not acting, not saying, not doing. And indeed my best and long suffering excuse is that I am weak and shy and I don't do well at standing up in a crowd of already raised voices to speak my mind. It's just an excuse. It doesn't negate the act (or non-action) nor heal the emotional or physical consequence of my habitual "not doing".

So many things I have chosen not to say. Leaving a void as wide as my guilt is deep. A void that people, being human and acting accordingly have chosen to fill with their own interpretations of what they think should go into that nice empty space. Or what serves them best. Not their fault, I left the empty space.

There was a story I was told a long time ago. It's about a woman who had gone about the town spreading rumors and hateful things about many of her neighbors. She felt remorse and wanted to find a way to fix the hurt she had caused. She consulted a wiseman who was known throughout the land for his far reaching intelligence. She told him what she had done. He listened to her story and her sadness. When she was finished he looked at her and said,

"The first thing you should do is take this basket of feathers. Place one feather on each doorstep of a person you have hurt with your words and then come back to me."

The woman thankfully took the basket and began her work. By dawn, she was finished and hurried back to the wiseman. She said,

"I have done what you have asked me to."

The wiseman smiled and said,

"This is very good. Now you must go back to each of those houses and retrieve each of the feathers from the doorsteps. Once you have all the feathers back in the basket everyone will forgive you and your sin against them will be forgiven and forgotten."

The woman stared at him. She said,

"But those feathers won't be there. The wind will have blown them away by now... they will be gone." The man smiled at the woman. "As are your words, like the feathers, gone, blown far and wide and gathering them and taking them back is impossible..."

Now granted, I differ from this woman because I am not in the habit of speaking falsehoods and ugliness of or towards people. But replace "rumors" with "things left unsaid" and I am not so different. I have never been one to weigh sin against sin. I have never been one to say one sin justifies another. No matter what someone else has done to me it does not justify mine done purposely or inadvertently against them. It just doesn't. I am busted. I am guilty.

Where do I go from here? Do I have the courage to stand amongst the screaming and speak my mind? Will I no longer hesitate when a space between me and a friend needs an "I love you"? Will I find the kindness and insight needed to say "I forgive you." when I would rather coddle my pride, furrow my brow and push away an already humble heart? Will I jump to say "I am sorry." before time stretches the chasm hopelessly wide?

What will I do? What would you do?

Under the Hood

Be of good cheer! Here I am making your IV meds. Now, the only question you have to answer for yourself is, "Do I WANT her making my IV?"

I passed my aseptic technique test under the hood yesterday.




This is what happens to those who don't pass. They have to keep coming back until they get it right. This guy has been around a LONG time.



I have 6 weeks of in-class study before I am sent to a pharmacy for my externship. I still have many things to pass in the next six weeks and of course, after my externship I will have to take my National Certification. The current national ratio for passing the test is 2/3. Nerves are becoming less like butterflies and more like jack hammers. Two years of my life I have put my heart and soul into this Associates Degree. I will make a difference in my future and that of my family's. I can't make it working for minimum wage. This is my last chance to achieve the financial security of having a career as opposed to a job. Being almost 50 without any skills to market has been a very scary place to be. It could be just about to change. Keep me in your thoughts, if you see the math fairy please tell her I need her and if you are 20 and reading this... GO TO SCHOOL NOW! I am the poster child for what NOT to do with your schooling decisions. GO NOW!

Fear and Loathing at Bedtime

I should be asleep. Drifting off happily. I can't do it. It seems that thoughts hover over my bed silently waiting for me to lay down, and once supine, it threatens to descend and smother me. I can't let go of the noise of the television because if I do I will be crushed. Crushed by silence. Crushed by thoughts that the noise from the tv staves off for me. I set the timer for 20 minutes thinking that I will be asleep by then. But if my time is running out, I have to give myself another 30 minutes of mind numbing babbling. Tonight, I couldn't take mind numbing babbling anymore, I came out here and ate some toast. I know the tv will be off when I go back in there. What is worse is I know my partner will have fallen asleep before I go back in. I feel rising panic in that fact. I panic every time she does fall asleep before I do. Its as if she has left me, didn't take me with her. I feel isolated from her/us. That's just dumb. But it is what it is, I suppose.

I don't have a lot of heavy duty scary things going on in my life right now. Nothing that can't/won't work itself out in time. I'm getting through school, I am paying my bills, I have a roof over my head. Its highly self indulgent to be worrying over my little bag of stuff when there are so many others with so much more "stuff". I am like a child just unable to let go of "now" no matter how freakin tired I am.

I take meds to sleep. I was also put on Paxil for the panic attacks at night. I am titrating off Paxil because I swear, as God as my witness, the 20 pounds I have put on in the last year was not entirely the Twinkies fault. I take anxiety meds to counter the day time carry over of panic I didn't finish playing with the night before.

I fear bedtime and I loath having to medicate myself just to be brave enough to try to sleep. Come to think of it, I don't really care much for banana pudding either.

A World of Progress

Reflections of June (5)

I kissed a girl... and I liked it... *whew*

I will always remember Lydia

Reflections of June (4)

First loves are wonderful. The first break up of your first love sometimes feels as if your heart is being literally pulled out of your body. And although, she was not the reason I came out, she will always be tangled up in all those "firsts" and all those emotions.



Eve of Destruction

Reflections of June (3)

First love, first physical experience with my first love. Its hard to explain what emotions came over me but it was if my body had always known what it desired but it forgot to tell my head. Short poem I wrote, sitting on one of the top floors of The Grove Hotel. The sun was rising, she was sound asleep and I was awake for the first time in my 44 years.

First Breath

Laid bare,
your body and my sexuality.
I tangled my fingers in your hair
and pulled you closer.
I traced your curves from your breast to your belly with my eyes,
Not knowing if I was the lioness or the debutant
you allowed me in,
with teeth and tears
I finally began to breathe.

~nina~

Reflections of June (2)

A few weeks before I ran away from home I spent much time grieving for the things I knew I was losing. Scared to death of what was next. Trying to soak up as much beauty around me before it disappeared forever.



Roses in the Rain
I cut roses in the rain tonight,
it seemed where I belonged.
I was called to be a witness,
to know with my eyes, my breath, my body,
the heavens were weeping regardless of
the exquisite beauty that surrounded me.
The perfect irony, elation and despair,
dancing together each demanding center stage.
~nina~

Reflections of June

June is an intense time for me. I came out in June of 2006 (i have probably said that before, i tend to repeat myself as i age) I thought I would revisit some of the times in my life regarding this. Not all the same year but perhaps reflections of a plethora of "firsts" which any major life change or realization can bring. This post from my first blog in which my emergence began is about the week I ran away from home.

Loving, Safe Homes for Some

Our society screams the importance of intact families. It screams the importance of the protection of children, be it by making sure they have appropriate healthcare, full stomachs, proper schooling, loving and coheisive family dynamics. Parents who love each other and demonstrate this through their own commitment toward each other. Children thrive best when they are raised in a home full of love.

Yet in the same breath they will deny the ability to have those very things to those loving, committed parents which already exist, have always existed in the Gay and Lesbian community. They withold approriate healthcare from children, lowering income levels of our families through withholding marriage tax benefits for us. Shamefully, they would rather keep children in the Foster care system before they would allow us to adopt them.

It is incongruous to advocate Traditional Family Values then pull up short of children’s welfare if their parents happen to be gay.


Higher
by Creed

When dreaming I'm guided through another world
Time and time again
At sunrise I fight to stay asleep
'Cause I don't want to leave the comfort of this place
'Cause there's a hunger, a longing to escape
From the life I live when I'm awake
So let's go there
Let's make our escape
Come on, let's go there
Let's ask can we stay?
Can you take me higher?
To the place where blind men see
Can you take me higher?
To the place with golden streets
Although I would like our world to change
It helps me to appreciate
Those nights and those dreams
But, my friend, I'd sacrifice all those nights
If I could make the Earth and my dreams the same
The only difference is
To let love replace all our hate
So let's go there
Let's make our escape
Come on, let's go there
Let's ask can we stay?
Up high I feel like I'm alive for the very first time
Up high I'm strong enough to take these dreams
And make them mine

Sock Liberation Day

It has finally arrived...the day I have longed for...



Today marks my freedom from those pesky pieces of material we all call socks. Socks no more! is my war cry of the day. I invite all of you to put away your socks and walk barefoot with me. I urge you to throw away any unmatched socks still hanging around your dryer...but you must do it with a big evil laugh...tilt your head back and rub your stomach as you do it... look around your yard, if the neighbors didn't hear you, do it again.

Run to your driveway and stand...let your feet soak up the sun radiating from the cement. Walk in the grass...tall grass so it is soft and welcoming... go swing and see if your toes can brush the sky like they used to when you were a kid. Paint your toes a brilliant shade of something. Find a friend and play "This little piggy..."

Today is Sock Liberation Day! (formerly known as June 1st) its time to dance barefoot!




If you are still,
You may hear the sound of toes,
giggling in the tall summer grass.

Happy PRIDE 2009

It’s almost June,
the season of pride and appreciation.
Where the light shines late into the hour
illuminating even the darkest corners
of overgrown and untended gardens.

She has woken, lifting her voice above a whisper,
silence no longer her companion.
She will walk barefoot and dance to
the music which plays inside her;
it beckons her to follow, to reach out
and hold her beloved in the sunshine.

~nina~
'08

another Clavin moment

Hannah the allergy sufferer,

"Mom, my allergies are really bad this morning! achooo achooo! sniff sniff"

Poor baby we have tried everything OTC and finally went to the dr. for samples of prescription stuff to see if we can find something for her. It was like Christmas or a gift bag you get at a birthday party! Astepro, Singular, Nasacort. We started with Astepro but she is so miserable this morning. She brings me our stash. Out pops the Singular.

Me, "Oh, let's try this. Montelukast."

Hannah the reader says, "No, it says Singular."

Me, "Well, *clavin moment* that is its brand name but its chemical name is montelukast. It's a leukotriene receptor blocker."

Hannah the roller of eyes, says, "will it work or not?".

Me, "It might make you a little drowsy, they rather you take it at night. Its a 2nd generation allergy med so they tried to take the sedative properties out of it, but I can't promise anything."

Hannah the exasperated, repeats herself, "Will it work or not?"

"I dunno, lets give it a whirl."

I am holding out on the Nasecort because it is a steroid. I guess if monteluk...singular doesn't work we will try it. I guess I will need to Clavin up on my pharmacy facts for that one.

Solitary in All Things

Depression is a solitary pit that you will find yourself pulling yourself out of. Yes, sometimes there are people throwing you ropes made out of paroxetine, cheerleaders with promises of "betterness" and hand hold spotters for you all the way up. once we emerge, first we lie, prostrate on the ground unsure if we really made it. Then we begin feeling better. Joy sneaks back into our lives. We dance without music, we smile with no provocation but as we glance around we see that we are as alone in our celebration of recovery as we were in that pit.

Where do we put our love ? Our joy? We are brimming with it, so full inside us it hurts. If we could we would scoop some of it out of our hearts and pour it into those around us who need it.

What an unexpected lesson to learn. Your depression has affected everyone and everything around you but now your joy seems invisible or irritating to those who were rooting for you to make it to the top. Joy is deeply solitary.

nina

Through the Key Hole...

It is not a masterpiece by any means but it was so much fun! The one thing the church people could have done was to move the ladder that is standing in the middle of the aisle. But still, I sat there waiting patiently for the sun to come out from a cloud and shine in and across the pews. Totally worthi it!

If you want to see the rest of our Silver City pictures I have them in a folder on FaceBook.

We Don't Want to Take Over the Whole World, Just Your Half!

Come, lets face it. We are creepin' in everywhere. We have taken over triangles, Muppet songs and Teletubbies (well, the purple one) We own rainbows now and have even sneaked into your public schools and stole the " = " sign. October is Gay History Month and regardless of what anyone else wants to say about it, May 22nd belongs to Harvey Milk, period. There is Day Without a Gay. That's the day when all the homophobes scream, "Who needs them anyway!" and then bitches the loudest when he can't get his morning latte' in under 3 minutes and then is pissy at the grocery store on the way home when he finds he needs to bag his own groceries. Suck it up buddy, remember, who needs them? And don't forget, we now own the ENTIRE month of June!

So although it is a bit early, Happy Pride! Perhaps the Haters can take this as a heads up so they won't be surprised and have it sneak up on them!

I Am Blessed to Have Such Wonderful Cyber Friends

So many times they have been there to validate me. Validation for everything. Coming out is full of land mines and surprises and there is no manual or road map. Everytime I have felt frightened, I have been encouraged to breathe, to write and did I mention breathe?

You will find my first essay published here.

I have many people to thank, too many to name for fear of leaving out someone who inspired me, or held my hand, or spoke to me late at night on the phone when I couldn't fall asleep. So THANK YOU ALL.

(geez, i'm acting like Sally Field fer the love of pete, its just one essay)

Don't Fuck With Crazy...

New Mug to Start You or Your Loved One's Morning

Motherhood pt 2

After church on Mother's Day we went to the park and flew kites!


Kite frustration.




Gina's first flight, and she is talking on her cell phone at the same time!