Dear John

Our second wedding anniversary is on Sunday.  I just wanted to let you know what you mean to me.  I still don't really think of you as a "husband", I think of you more as my universe.  Like the universe, in the last 11 years our relationship has been constantly expanding.  Every experience, memory and hardship adds to our existence as a couple.

You woke me up.  I was drifting in a dream before I met you, and I love you for that.  You touched me and I woke up.  The first time we met.  You made contact with me.  You made it okay to touch, to feel, to hold.  I am forever grateful to you.  You listened to me for hours.  We spoke, we laughed, we cried.  You understood why I need you.  I understood why you need me.  You made me whole.  You still make me whole.

Thank you for everything you have done for us.  Thank you for sleeping with me on the bottom bunk.  Thank you for picking me up from UB on 9/11.  Thank you for the trip to Cleavland.  Thank you for listening to my issues and making me feel like they are important.  Thank you for coming to Thanksgiving Dinner.  Thank you for bring Beatles CDs to the ICU.  Thank you for sleeping next to me every night you can.  Thank you for living with all the fuzzy things in our home.  Thank you for putting up with my insanity.  Thank you for returning the fruit.  Thank you for knowing how to talk to people.  Thank you for making me laugh.  Thank you for making everyone around you laugh too.  Thank you for taking me to the park.  Thank you for letting me have Toci.  Thank you for Lennon.

I love you.  I love when you look at my eye ball.  I love when you draw ducks and clouds jumping on trampolines.  I love that you touched that deer in the forest.  I love that you had a hippo sticker in your Corolla.  I love you for laughing at the rubber hand on the roof of the dirty youth hostel in London.  I love you for getting a B in SCIENCE.  I love that you think Lennon is going to bump his head.  I love that you love cartoons.  I love that old ladies love you.  I love that you talk to gas station attendants for 15 minutes about their life.  I love that you actually really care about the gas station attendant's life. I love that you dream of being Italian.  I love that you are a great dad.  I Love that you are my universe.

I Love You Phillip Morris - Review

I just finished watching "I Love you Phillip Morris" starring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor.  A dark romantic comedy based on a true story, about Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) coming to terms with his identity.


I love true love stories.  Love doesn't always come easy, and usually that is because of personal demons we have to face in our life.  I think that is where Steven Russell is coming from.  He has love all around him.  He loves perfectly.  Even the loves in is life that don't work out, like his ex-wife and his first boy friend, seem to not work out in a pleasant way.  He destroys his relationships with lies, but lies he tells are for the people he loves.  Like a gift.  If he didn't love he wouldn't lie.  Even from the  the beginning of the film Steven lies about his sexuality and marries a women to be a "good son" for his mother.  His lies eventually lead him down a path where he repeatedly looses his identity.


Steven's lies turn into insurance fraud and land him in prison.  There he meet Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor) and falls deeply in love.  This was not a traditional atmosphere for two people to be romantic.  What I loved about the movie though was that it didn't matter.  When Steve and Phillip were together they where the only two people in the universe.  That is the kind of love that touches me.  That is the kind of love that I can relate to.  It doesn't matter what you do, or where you are because you are together and that is all that matters.  There is a scene when Phillip bribes another inmate to play romantic music on the prison PA (very Shawshank),  Phillip and Steve dance in there cell as if they are in Paris.  It was touching, real, and the perfect illustration of new love.


Unfortunately after being released from prison Steve falls back into his old patterns and begins to live his life as a lie again in order to make money to provide Phillip with anything his heart desires, despite Phillip's heart desiring only Steve.  As Steve becomes more involved in his web of lies he looses track of what is important.  Phillip and Steve now live in a huge mansion, but they have lost the intimacy they had when they shared their prison cell.  Phillip is no longer the only person in Steve's universe.  He now has a growing list of colleagues that he must impress and deceive in order to keep up his lie and keep the money rolling in.  


In the end Steve must discover his true self, he is a man that lies, but loves too, and loves Phillip Morris with all his heart.


I loved this movie.  Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor where completely believable as two people deeply in love.  I found myself routing for them the whole time.  Despite their many flaws ( they did meet in prison after all), it was such a pure love.  A love that kept drawing these two men back together.  Everything Steve did illegal, or unethical I found completely forgivable because he did it with love.  He truly felt he was doing the best he could to provide for his mother, his wife, his daughter his lover, it was all done in love, every lie unselfish.  At least in movie land I find that forgivable and even beautiful.

Regret

I was looking through my old journal.  I wrote this a few weeks before I lost Marlee in 2007.  I clearly was having issues with morning sickness.  Shortly after I miscarried I remember looking at it and I have been kind of scared to write in my journal since.  Please don't mind me, in a weird way this is therapeutic for me.  Here is what I wrote:


Eat, double over, eat, double over...  Meet me in paradise.  I will never see you there... Every thing smells like sweet berry vomit.  I can't.  My headaches are gone.  The bad ones are gone. The spot and bugs and invisible images are gone.  The voices are gone, the sparks are gone.  The adventure and love and beauty are gone.  The trees fell down and died.  The perfect trees.  The water froze over.  The homes fell down.  The money destroyed them all.  The child eats me from the inside out.  But I need reason.  I have it but I don't.  I am not me.. I am her... I summond her and lost myself.  I invoked a spirit with the price of my life.  You cannot return a gift from paradise.  Double over.

My Life and Death Part II -"...for in that sleep of death what dreams may come."

I remember waiting to go into the OR for my DNC.  I remember the nurse telling me I would be out soon.  I remember seeing the nurse and doctors pushing me into the room lifting me off the bed and laying me on the cold operating table.  I thought I was screaming for them to stop.  I thought I was crying.  Thinking back I couldn't have been because even if I was concious, I couldn't breath enough to yell out or cry.  After that I was out.

When I woke up what happened over the next couple of days was the closest thing to a living hell  and heaven I have experienced.  I am not a religious person.  I cannot really put the events into chronological order because time lost all meaning.  I was in a waking dream. Eternity was now and everywhere.  There was no past and no future.  There is peace in that.

I remember first thinking where is my baby and where am I, in that order.  Then I remember taking a breath and nothing happening.  Nothing at all.  People in uniforms quickly reconnected several tubes.  Breath came back, but it was painful. I noticed then that my face was full of tubes to breath for me.  I had to think of every breath.  Every breath brought pain.  My OBGYN came in and told me my heart had stopped and I had died in the OR.  He also told me how riddled with MRSA my body was.  It was in my blood, my lungs, my heart, my brain, my spine and anywhere else that mattered.  During my week in the ICU I would hear nurses outside my room discussing my imminent death between shifts.

I could not cry or mourn my daughter's death, because if I did I would stop breathing.  My days were spent counting breaths and having tests done.  The tests were bad.  The worst is what I believe is called an air gas test?  I don't really know what it is for, but they took a needle and put it in my wrist, and it felt like they were scraping it around in my veins.  I am cringing remembering it.  When ever I was able to sleep I would always be woken up by x-ray technician lifting my onto a cold metal slab.  Th IVs were horrible as well.  I woke up one morning with three in one arm and two in the other.  The worst IVs were those in the hands and wrists.  The worst medicine was the potassium.  They had it pumping into my arm through an IV, it burned.

Every thought that made my cry I had to box up in my mind.  Put it in a box and concentrate on breathing, look at the monitor, look at the numbers, listen to the beeps, wiggle my toes, breath, repeat.   Talk to the nurse, does she have a family, whats her name, why is she here.  Listen to the girl dieing in the next room, she had cancer, she sounded young, a girl, maybe a teen, maybe she doesn't drive yet, maybe she never made love, maybe she has a dog, maybe the dog will miss her... don't cry, put that in a box.

I saw my Grandma Roth.  She was in a blue light, it was not blue, it was another color that is not real but it was her aura.  She was with another woman, a tall strong woman I did not know, she held a blanket.  They wrapped Marlee Kay in the blanket and loved her and loved me.  A tall man in a long coat came.  I did not say goodbye because there was no reason too, Marlee Kay is with me even now in my heart.  Why say goodbye if she is always with you?  I left the light.  The man took me through a series of crumbling structures when we emerged from the final structure there was a tree.  We seemed to be standing in front of one of my childhood homes.  The tree was huge.  We watched a branch crack, pop and fall from the tree and land in its twisted roots.  It twisted into the roots and became a part of them, supporting the life of the tree.  Death was beautiful.

When I woke up I felt sad, peace, trapped, found and then lost again.  I craved death.  I wanted to be a part of the roots tangled with Marlee for eternity.  Loving.  Life changed.  Everything became abstract except the energy of life and the universe.  To die would to be pure again, to be away from what isn't real.  Time, Buildings, Money, Work, School, Food, Clothes, Religion, Politics, Vacation, Location.  Everything lost all meaning for me.  None of it was real.  I am still coping excepting the reality of some of these things, these unnecessary inventions of mankind.  Get over it people!!!!  Love you family!!!  The End!  That is it, there is no more.  You are important in NO other way, but in loving your family(which doesn't mean blood relations) you are the most important person.  You connect with every life you encounter.  Every connection will come back to you on you death bed.  When they say on your death bed life flashes before your eyes, they do not mean the vacation you took to Disney when you were 7.  Life is the connections you make and the love you disperse, so be wise.

John came in, he brought a CD player from Aunt Laurie's house.  It had a Beatles CD in it.  I listened to it.  The nurse liked the Beatles, so she let John stay in the ICU past visiting hours.  He wanted to hug me, but I had to many tubes.  I cannot even imagine his side to this story.  He has told me bits and pieces.  Like I said in my last post.  What happened to us is very difficult to revisit in conversation.

I wanted death, all I had to do was stop trying and I could die.  Stop counting the breaths.  I learned another important lesson in the ICU, instinct.  My instinct trumps my wish to die.  I craved death so bad it was one thing that at one point I could not box in and I started crying, next thing I knew every doctor on the floor was in my room because all of my monitors went off.  Every time I woke up from sleep I was disappointed.  I wanted to return to no pain, peace, no time and Marlee.  I knew John would be okay, I knew it would work out for him eventually if I was gone.  He would mourn, but life goes on.  Life went on for me as well.

I became stronger,  I could stop counting, I went "home"

Why I am not a teacher

I went to grad school for secondary social studies education.  I dipped my toe in the teaching ocean for about half a second and then ran for my life.  Everyone always asks me "why don't you just teach?"  They always reminded me of the short days, the summers off and the holidays.  I do not want to teach!  Teaching is bad.... I mean really bad!  Maybe some people out there like it, more power to them, but it is not for me.  Let me explain to you all my experience "teaching" the youth of this country.

First I think I should explain my motivation.  I want to say that I did not initially go to school to teach.  I earned my B.A. in History, concentrating in classical and ancient history.  When I finished my undergrad degree I knew I wanted to continue my education but I was not sure what I wanted to do.  I debated going all the way with history and eventually becoming a professor, but that would be a lot of time and money committed to a career that I was not positive I wanted.  I thought teaching might allow me to experiment with grad school and writing subject curriculum, public speaking and so on....  All things I figured would help me in the future if I did eventually decide to become a professor.

I love history.  I love talking about history.  I love learning about how cultures evolve and interact over space and time and discussing new ideas and theories about how past events played out and how they effect us today.   I got into teaching because I like standing in front of a group of people and running my mouth about what I love.  I did not get into teaching because I like kids (doesn't mean I don't like them, it just wasn't my reason).

I will try to keep this as short as I can.  My love of history ruined my ability to teach high school.  Social Studies in New York State (and I would imagine in the rest of the states) is a joke.  Like other subjects the curriculum is based exclusively off of the Regents exam.  So as a teacher it is your job to teach the students the skills to preform well on the Regents exam (this will lead to potential funding for the school district).  The Regents exam consists mainly of multiple choice questions and a short essay on a ridiculous topic.  The "facts" that are learned are extremely "american bias"  they show very little if any perspective of any other cultures.  There is very little history taught of any other region of the world.  By far the most frustrating aspect of American High School Social Studies is the complete and utter exclusion of geography!  I once asked a student to point to Japan on a world map.  They responded "that is the capitol of China, right?" and then pointed to Europe.

I could no longer participate in the Americanized version of reality that schools cram into students.  American perspective certainly has its place, but, you can not reflect without a mirror.  We need to teach our students that other, foreign, different perspectives are not bad, but help us learn more about ourselves and our place in this world.  I certainly could not compromise myself and these children.  It was a nightmare.

Instead of hoping to have an accident on the way to work everyday so I could go to the hospital instead of to the classroom, I decided to change my career path.  That is why I do not teach!

My Life and Death Part I

I felt like writing.  Not much has happened this week other then work, so I thought I might write a bit about what has happened to me over the past couple of years.  I have always thought of myself as someone who really has a grasp on who I am and how I fit into this life.  In the last three years my life has been torn apart put back together and torn apart again.   I had to leave the understanding of myself and my life behind and grasp on to pure instinct to stay alive.  All that makes me who I am I had to box up in my mind and leave behind.  I am still trying to re open the boxes, three years later.  I use to write a lot.  I kept a journal, I wrote poetry and short stories.  That all went into the box.  Writing about this topic tends to be to difficult for me.  I do try.  I get out a bit, then have to stop.  Even when talking about it with friends and family, it never comes out as a whole, but in bits and pieces.  I think I may drive people crazy with it.

For those of you who do not know, in the winter of 2007 I found out I was pregnant.  It was unexpected but not unwanted.  John and I were certainly scared, but excited too.  We knew a baby would be a challenge at the point we were at in our lives, but we knew everything would work out because it always does.  I still believe that.

My pregnancy was uncomfortable but nothing uncommon.  I had some pretty serious morning sickness all hours of the day.  The doctor said that was a sign of a healthy pregnancy.  Early into my second trimester I began to feel great again.  I was staying with a friend, Andrea and her roommate, Brad in Canada and they made me a real dinner one night.  I was able to eat everything they made for the first time in months.  I remember feeling so good.  That dinner felt so good.  I thought I was in the clear and the rest of my pregnancy would be a breeze.  I was with Andrea in Canada for about a week.  I was suppose to go home for the weekend and then return to Canada for the following week.  It was our company's annual user conference so I needed to be up there more then I usually do.  I didn't mind.  I enjoyed staying with Andrea.  We would have a lot of girl talk, watch period movies and pig out on Swiss Chalet chicken.  I always looked forward staying with her.

That weekend I came home.  A friend of John's invited us to go to church that Sunday.  This is all I remember from that weekend. We do not really go to church.  I am an atheist and John is Catholic.  When he feels like going I will occasionally go with him just to keep him company.  This only happens about once or twice a year.   This time I went with him.  The service was uneventful.  About half way through a little boy, about three or four years old, turned around, looked me straight in the eye and asked me, "Are you Lucifer?"  It was kind of creepy.  Looking back on the events to follow, it was really creepy.  I do not believe in good and evil, black and white, god or the devil.  I do believe that we humans, just like any animal, can sense when something is terribly wrong.  I think this little boy might have caught on to this, I think that is what he was trying to tell me.

The next morning I was still feeling great so I went to work (in Canada) and planned to spend the week.  Monday night I went to Andrea's house as usual.  She had a little get together that night.  Nothing crazy just girls hanging out.  This is when it started.   It was like I dropped, fell, completely fine to completely horrible.  The moment it happened was visible because the girls noticed I turned grey.  The nausea came storming back.  I could smell everything, just like earlier in the pregnancy.  I had a horrible pounding headache.  I went to bed early and hoped tomorrow would bring better health.

Tuesday morning I woke up still feeling like I had been hit by a train.  I did not go to work.  I stayed at Andrea's and slept the entire day waking up only at times that the nausea overcame me.  That is all I remember from Tuesday.

I slept in Wednesday and then convinced myself that I was well enough to go to work.  When I got there I sat at my desk and my boss, Linda, walked by, took one look at me and told me I need to go home.  I did.  The drive from the office in Burlington to my apartment in Tonawanda, NY was about an hour and a half depending on traffic and the border.  It took me about 4 hours that day.  I felt like I was going to pass out.  I had to keep pulling over to rest.  I kept telling myself that if I could just get as far as the border I would be okay.  There is a hospital right at the border so I think that was my logic.  When I got to the border the border agent took one look at me and knew something was wrong.  My parents live right over the border.  I think if they didn't, he would have not let me go.  I went to my parents house.  No one was home.  I went up stairs, called John to let him know where I was and then fell asleep.

John and I slept at my parents that night.  Honestly that Wednesday felt like it spanned about 4 days.  The next morning John drove me back to our apartment.  Thursday afternoon in addition to the other symptoms, I started wheezing.  Breathing was becoming difficult, especially when I lied down to try and sleep.  I tried so hard to sleep.  Night came.  I kept waking John up to tell him I couldn't breath.  I had a fever, a high fever, I was hot.  John took me to the ER.

I remember sitting in the waiting room.  A soap opera was on.  I don't watch soaps so I don't know which one it was.  A woman in the soap opera just lost her baby.  I panicked, John turned the channel.  I could feel everyone in the room.  I could feel their pity and pain for me.

The ER that night was uneventful.  I felt horrible.  More sick then I ever felt.  They watched me, tested me, medicated me and told me I had the flu.  The ultrasound could not find my baby's heartbeat.  The doctor said it was because of the position of the baby.  I now think that is bullshit.  I later found out that on my paperwork from that night someone stated that they did indeed find the heartbeat.  This is also bullshit.  They sent me home.

Friday was hell.  I was tired, my fever was rising and when I would lay down to rest, I could not breath.  That night John slept in the spare room to try and make me more comfortable.  I rotated between the bed and the coach trying to find a position I could breath in.  I remember crying and wishing I wasn't pregnant so I didn't have to feel the way I did.  I regret that.  Shortly after I fell asleep.  I woke up to a warm sensation, it was blood.

John took me back to the ER.  I hadn't "miscarried"  I was just bleeding.  They couldn't tell if the baby was dead or alive.  I knew.  That night was long.  The whole time I lay in the ER.  Each new shift of doctors, nurses and residents would come and require a re-telling the explanation of my condition.  I was still bleeding.  They still didn't know if my baby was dead.  I still had a high fever.  I still couldn't breath.  They put my on oxygen.  One resident with an African accent seemed concerned.  He wanted to test me for MRSA.  He seemed angry no one had tested me yet for MRSA.  It turned out that is what I had.  I would later discover that the MRSA was everywhere.  In my lungs, in my heart, in my blood and in my baby.

An OBGYN finally came to the ER to see me.  She sent me for an ultrasound.  I waited alone in a hall, waiting to go into the ultrasound room. I was scared.  I was wheeled on a hospital bed into the dark room where the machine waited.  The technician began her scan.  As she captured the images of my baby she would write letters over the image and draw arrows to different parts of my baby.  I asked her what they meant.  She looked upset.  I cried.  It was very hard to cry because I couldn't breath, but I did.  I don't know when my baby died, but I found out she was dead on Friday, April 13, 2007.  Her name was Marlee Kay.

I would die the following day.  I will write about that in part II.  I think I have to stop writing now because this has gotten pretty long.

No Religion - From a note I wrote on Facebook

I wrote this for a note on Facebook.  I think I will post it here.  It really describes my life philosophy.


The gods are the personalities we give to the parts of the world and the universe that we do not understand, but we know are true. We know the sky is above us, the earth is below us, we will all live and die, and we are capable of feeling love, but we don't always understand why. If we personify the earth, the sky, death and love, than we have someone to ask the questions that we cannot, or could not answer...that is if we can ask the right questions. Why does the earth shake? How did the sky come to be above the earth? What happens to our soul after death? Maybe if we can figure out the right questions to ask, the gods or god, we might get an answer. If we do not get an answer maybe the gods believe it is beyond our understanding, that we are not worthy, ready, or just were unable to ask the right question in the right way. As our questions change so do our gods. When our own knowledge answers our own questions about our world, certain gods disappear, merge together, or loose there purpose. We defeat the gods and religion with knowledge. In the garden of Eden the poison in the fruit was knowledge. Religion and the leaders and founders of religions demonize knowledge in fear of loosing control of there believers. The more we understand the less relevant religion is in our lives and the more we have to justify believing. There are still unanswered questions, and there will probably always be unanswered questions. Personally I do not think we need answers to all the questions. I think we all would be better off excepting we may never have all the answers and we are insignificant in the universe.
I have always internally fought the idea of religion and gods, but as a child questioned my “disobedience” to our culture, despite being raised with no particular religion or belief. I do not question anymore. I have been dead twice. My experience with death, for me, has justified my lack of belief and my lack of religion.
I am at peace with my insignificance in this world. I see its beauty everyday in the sky in the trees in my love for Lennon and for John. That is enough for me. The love and beauty that surround me everyday is enough to fill my heart. I do not need a god or a religion to tell me I am important, or life is important, or death is important. In the grand scheme of the universe I am not important, but I am happy and I love. That is enough for me.

Powder Keg Festival - Buffalo, NY

Over the weekend my husband and I decided to take Lennon down town to the Powder Keg Festival. It is suppose to be the "new" local winter festival. I was pretty excited. The idea reminded me of when I was a kid growing up in Saranac Lake, NY. Every February the town would put on a winter festival complete with parades, games, crafts, and an ice castle with fireworks! I remember looking forward to it every year. I was thrilled that Lennon might have a chance to be a part of a similar tradition in his home town. Unfortunately we were greatly disappointed.

My Issues with the festival:

1. Total lack of organization. It just felt like complete chaos! People not knowing where to go or what to do.

2. Lack of visual stimulation. The organizers of this event had a huge opportunity to make Buffalo a winter wonder land! Parades with costumes, impressive ice sculptures and street performers could have all played a part in this. Maybe even some reindeer? Or Sleigh rides? Any thing to make it a little more "magical". They did have Ice sculpture presentations, but compared to other winter fests I have been to they were not impressive. There was an Ice labyrinth... that is a good idea, but it could have been better. Put sculptures in the labyrinth! Maybe add an ice slide?

3. The organizers seemed to steer clear of the water front. All the money and effort put into making a beautiful waterfront, and no one ever seems to use it! The whole festival doesn't have to be there, but set something up... use it for something!!!!

What they should do again next year:

1. Closing an off ramp and turning it into a tubing hill was a really cool idea! The line to use it was kind of insane, but that was because it was the only thing really worth doing at the festival.

2. The beer tent with band (this is never a bad idea)

3. The boy scouts demonstration of building an igloo. Good job boy scouts! My only suggestion would be to maybe have multiple troops involved. Like a boy scout igloo making contest.

4. The ice labyrinth. Good idea, but like I said before it could have been a lot better.

5. Summer sports in the snow... neat! They should play this up next year and add more sports.

I hope they make another attempt at this next year, and I hope they learn from their mistakes. I think this could have the potential to be a lot of fun.

Trying out the blogging thing

I thought maybe I should try blogging. I use to like writing and keeping a journal, but I haven't really done any writing since about 2007, so I am a little rusty.

I suppose I should write a little about myself. I have been married for 2 years but have been with my husband, John, for 11 years. We met at the end of my senior year of High School. He took me to my prom. I wasn't even going to go to prom, I am not really about social gatherings. I met John on his birthday, we hit it off and my friend Amy convinced me that asking him to prom would be a good idea. She was right. John and I have been together ever since. We have a 6 month old little boy, Lennon. He is adorable, and I am so happy to have him. He was born about two months premature and spent 2 months in the NICU. It was very difficult. I ended up suffering from postpartum depression and severe anxiety as a result of the experience. That will probably be another blog.

We live in upstate New York, where I have lived much of my adult life. I enjoy it here. I love the seasons, the natural wonders and the architecture in the area. John wants to leave the area but is sort of lost to which direction he wants to go. I am happy here until he figures it out. I don't think I have ever really been to or lived in a place that I can say I dislike. I think the people you surround yourself with are more important then where you happen to be located. That being said we do LOVE to travel! I love to escape to new places, meet new people and discover new ways to understand the world and myself. I will most likely blog about some of our adventures. We tend to get lost and end up in ridicules situations. It is a lot of fun. I can't wait to show Lennon the world.

In addition to our people family, I also have a fuzzy family. I love animals. I think I can probably say that I put them above people on the scale of who is more important in this world. I like how instinct dictates their decisions. I think a lot of people are in denial of their instinct. In my opinion instinct is one of the many pieces of ourselves that make us who we are, embrace it. Anyway, our home consists of three ferrets, two cats, a chihuahua mix pup, and a love bird. Having an animal family keeps us down to earth, reminds us what is important in life and most importantly helps us laugh everyday.

That is me in a nut shell. I will probably also be blogging about culture, religion/mythology, movies and other general interests.