Losing it/Finding it

Tomorrow night I'm supposed to get on an airplane to Florida.  I have airplane phobia.  I haven't been on a plane in years, and hopefully I won't be on this one either...  the Dr. has given me enough pills to tranquilize a large elephant.  So it should be as if I wasn't even there... Unless it's like the time I took a short flight from Argentina to Brazil.  I was so anxiety-ridden that I took Valium.  Once on the plane I took more, and kept on piling it on because it just wasn't working.  That was, of course, until the plane landed, came to a full stop and all anxiety dissappeared... the Valium took over where the anxiety left off and I was on my ass.  To make things worse, we ran into people we knew and I suddenly couldn't pronounce the hard letters, like P and T, or focusing my eyes on a fixed image, or anything that required any kind of muscle power, be it my tongue (which seemed to have grown to twice its size) or my legs... I was Jell-O from head to toe.  Fortunately those people already knew I was strange, so they only asked if I felt okay.  "I'm fffine", I said "I jus tsook tsoo mmmuch Alium".  I slowly shrugged my shoulders and leaning heavily on my husband, wabbled away, my legs fighting for position, one crossing in front of the other as if they were starlets fighting to be in front of a TV camera...

Another time they had to bring the plane back from the runway because I was having a moment.

So today I started to freak out about the flight and I must have really needed the help because God reached down to me on this one:  I found a little paper with three paragraphs, but the only one I read (in the middle) referred to what I was struggling with exactly.  It was a prayer that said "teach me to discern what can be changed and to endure what must be endured" and also "Lift my spirits and calm my anxieties"... and that is only part of it.  So I was content, and kept on my merry day.

I'm more afraid of being afraid than of the flight at this point.  I'm so frightened that I will chicken out and not go, or have a crying fit, or hyper-ventilate or any one of the numerous things I've done before involuntarily, like spit up water at the flight attendant...  Ah, the memories!  To say I once looked like Linda Blair in the exorcist during an especially bumpy flight is putting it lightly. Between the sweat, tears and water I kept spitting up, my hair was soaked and stuck to my face.  My eyes were swollen with tears and my lips red and puffy from crying...  I didn't mean to spit up water, but the flight attendant insisted I drink the water, and with every bump my stomach would tighten and in turn I was a human sprinkler.

Kudos to my husband for putting up with such an unglamorous wife.  Congratulations to him for sticking by my side through very disgusting pregnancies.  Hats off to him for loving me even more when I look like he probably never thought I would, sans curlers and a face-mask...

So I lost it and found it, because He and he love me.  Let's see what I'll lose tomorrow night, on that red-eye flight...

And one more...

PLEASE CLICK ON "VIEW LARGER"

Giving in...

I've given in to the fairly common practice of posting my own photographs on my blog.  So many people do this, it made me unsure I would ever want to follow the crowds, but seemingly I do...  Anyway, I finally got a really cool camera (something I've wanted forever) and will finally be doing something I've wanted to do forever as well.  I'm hoping to get some great photos and start hanging them up around the house, or at the very least in rooms that are more personal or the kids' rooms.

So, for the photo above I used a Nikon Coolpix 8800 and it is unaltered, with my half-assed effort at trying to erase the date.  I don't know why I set it to show the date to begin with, but there you go.  Lesson number one in taking photos as art:  Do not have the date show up on your photos in bright red numbers.  It just doesn't look good.

Does anyone know how to make the layout so the photo shows up larger?

PLEASE CLICK ON "VIEW LARGER" TO GET THE FULL EFFECT, TRUST ME!!!

Another dog story

Those who know me personally know I love dogs...  so everytime I find a moving story about one, I'll post it.  For example:

Click here: AOL News - Dog Saves 7-Year-Old From Churning Waters

I really think dogs are God's gift to humans...

My Big Shit (or: I kid you not)

I lost a baby a few years ago.  It was my first and only time and it took about a week or so for the baby to finally exit my body.  It was only about 8 weeks old...

Just in case, even though everything was ok, my mom and I decided it was best to go to the hospital.  Fortunately for me (and because of those strange we're-very-good-friends sort of thing) my friend Linda surprised me that night by calling to tell me she was coming over.  Even more fortunately for me, she brought along some "Mystery Science Theater 3000" movies, which for some reason don't seem as funny to me as to when she's there, as she is the Woodstock to my Snoopy.

So between "tee-hee-hees" and cramps/contractions I survived something very painful both physically and emotionally, thanks in particular to Linda.

My mom was another story.  She can't handle it when she sees her children suffer, so she was a mess.  Breaking down in tears when the baby came out, she hid in the kitchen, but I found her anyway and tried to make her feel better.

Ok, so going back to the hospital saga:  All three of us got in the car and drove there close to midnight.  As we arrived at the Ormond hospital E.R., we saw that there was only one nurse there, and nobody in line ahead of us "Oh, joy!" I thought, we won't be here long...

I was still in a lot of pain, which we couldn't understand why as the baby was out, but seemingly there is a lot of "other" stuff there...  So I asked the nurse for a bathroom, where I could privately push and hope for the day to come to an end.

In comes the nurse with a little bounce to her step.  Along with her comes a wheeled, portable potty, I kid you not.  She promptly parked it smack dab in the middle of the room we were in and said:

 "There you go!"

"Ok, so where can I wheel it to?", said I.

"Oh, no" she said, "you have to go right here, we don't have a bathroom nearby." 

Crap. 

"Ok, can I at least close the door?" I asked, almost pleading.

"Well, not really, I'm the only one here and I need to keep an eye on the waiting room in case someone comes in". 

Which meant, if you can picture it, that there was a straight view from the waiting area into where I was to sit down sans any clothing from the waist down.

I turned the pot so my back would face this older man that popped out ofnowhere and worked the hospital gown so it would cover something.  My mom watching over me, the moment came when I realized I had to take a dump.  I pushed and pushed and once I was done I got away from that thing as fast as I could, as there were now even more people in the waiting room, they were now multiplying like gigantic, staring rabbits in a really bad, never-ending nightmare. 

The relief from the pain was immediate and I said so out loud, I truly felt much better.  For reasons known only to insane mothers, my mom walked over to the wheeled embarrasment contraption, looked down into it and exclaimed (I'm not making this up) "Oh, my God!!!  This thing is HUGE!!!"  Really...

"Gabriela, come here, have you SEEN this thing???" she kept getting louder, "I've NEVER seen anything this LONG in my life!!!"

I did try to get away from her, but by now Linda had gone from an amused giggle to she was laughing so hard she was going to need a wheeled pot herself.

"Linda, Linda, come here you have to see this!!"  It kept going.

Linda declined as any normal person would, and my mom, unsatisfied that no one wanted to share her amazement, called out even LOUDER!  "NURSE, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS??  THIS IS THE BIGGEST POOP I'VE EVER SEEN!!!!!"

The nurse had a heart and I'm sure felt my pain.  My mother was embarrasing me in a way never before, my best friend was on the floor laughing so hard she now couldn't breathe and I was standing in a room with my booty hanging out of the back of the hospital gown.  Kind nurse flushed the last bit of my pride down with my poop and took out the contraption so the fun would stop, thankfully.  I started thinking of ways to divorce my mom, unfortunately I was too old to be emancipated but young enough to still have my mom check my bowel movements... 

That was only the beginnig of my night, as I later met Dr. Frankenstein, but that's a whole separate story...

My Big Ship

It's good to have a Big Ship.  The one that when I was little I was going to save my family in during a catastrophe, or we would fly off into space if the world came to an end.  I would selectively imagine myself carrying those in despair to the warmth, comfort and safety of my Big Ship.  Where we went and what the future would bring were of no consequence as long as I had everyone I loved in one place...

My Big Ship morphed through the years and it increased in size.  As I grew, I added people:  my best friends, and of course their families and pets and in the end we had a small nation on one Very Big Ship.  Then in my twenties my Very Big Ship was a huge airplane (yes, me the airplane-phobic) and I would pay for an unbelievable vacation with my money that I would win in the Lottery and we would have the best of times somewhere like Rio during Carnival, with my favorite music playing even through the airport while dancing the whole time.  Sort of like a parade of drunk/happy people.  Oh, and even the tips would be taken care of ahead of time, so as not to cause my loved ones any expense in the slightest!

My Very Big Ship has changed again and now I use it as a Very Big point of reference...  It is where I go in my mind when I need to check myself and remember those I love the most.  It could be someone I haven't seen or spoken to in 20 years, or someone I wish I'd had the chance to know better, as well as family and friends.  In a sick and twisted version of "It's My Party" it's also a way to "invite" those I deem worthwhile against those I don't.  I wouldn't condemn the others, I just couldn't go out of my way to save them... as my Very Big Ship can only be so big, right?

Then I remember that that mentality is not p.c. or not even Christian...  but it's only where I go in my head -- where it's always my party, and those who are invited can do as they well please...

...as long as we do throw out lifeboats for everyone else.

Platonic Lesbian

In speaking to a friend of mine about how she spent 2004's new year, another one of my  thoughts started to take shape and develop until I thought it worthy to write about. 

Since I'm a very affectionate person, I've often wished I could gently approach the issue of affection with friends of mine.  The problem with being affectionate with men is that their ever-present thoughts of sex only grow in nature.  So my only other option is to be affectionate with women, but at the chance of being alienated, I've often chosen to let that unspoken measure of physical distance be my ally. 

When my friend told me that last year her New Year's kiss was with her best friend I wondered (like an ass) what kind of kiss it was.  It was just a surface smack, the kind I share with only some safe, selected friends of mine (male included, but no, I don't want to walk around kissing everyone on the lips).  I was so pleasently surprised to know that there are other women who can be affectionate with those they feel close to without any of the stigma that goes with it.

But going deeper into the subject, I have to admit that women are more beautiful to look at than men.  UGH.  Instinctively, heterosexual men (and women, on the most part) turn away at a provocative image of a naked man -- at least I do -- and not at those images where a man is in a casual setting (as in playing sports).  YET, why is it that when there's a picture of a naked woman I feel like I have to make myself stop looking??

I know I'm not a lesbian.  I know I'm a 100% certifiable "breeder", as does my husband, but why do I stare?  Why does I like the idea of holding hands with or cuddling with female friends not bother me in the least bit??

Is there such a thing as a platonic lesbian?