| January 22nd, 2001, I began work on my memoirs. It didn't seem like work. After all, it was just a retelling of memories. While nowhere near completion, I've edited and expounded on the rough beginnings shared here, and hope to publish the final draft in the future. Who am I? Not the sum of a mirror's reflection. I am an only child. I am my parents daughter. I was raised by a warm, intelligent, down-to-earth man and a woman. They encouraged both my artistic aspirations and to be myself. They put up with the tantrums and rages and frustration I displayed from the age of seven until twelve. At twelve the migraines set in, and I missed a lot of school as a result. I was too tired and stressed from the headaches to feel the uncontrollable rages I had felt for years prior. Thinking back on it, I feel that my out-of-the-blue swells of rage were a result of the slow onset of the Friedreich's Ataxia. Even back then, when I just a clutz, I knew something was wrong with my body. I had dreams of being in a wheelchair, and it seemed a natural thing. For years I told my friends, my parents, and my teachers something was wrong with me, but I was too young to have a voice. At fourteen, when I became noticeably gimp-like and suddenly everyone became concerned, I thought to myself, "told you so!" Am I the little girl who looked like Laura Ingalls and roamed the mountain trails, fell in the water trying to cross rivers, and stood at the cliff's edge soaking in the sunset's view over the forests and peaks? I drew and read when not running about. My life would have been complete with my art, my books, the great outdoors, and music. School brought me down, because it mired me in reality. For the most part my peers never accepted my presence, as I wasn't a jock and had no physical grace - two important attributes in a remote ski resort community. My parents owned the only other music store in town, which saved me from complete ostracism. For quite awhile I was a latch key kid. I would come home after school, make a snack, watch Dr. Who on PBS, then play a bit outside before doing homework. The folks had to mind the music store. This never bothered me, although after it got dark I remember being terrified by every outside noise I heard. I would turn up the TV and every stereo in the house to block out any background noise. My favorite thing, though, was to sit in my attic window and sing Blondie, ABBA, and Pat Benetar at the top of my lungs. After the music store went under, we relocated to an even more remote wooded area, though I stayed in the same school. The bus ride was forty-five minutes! The new area was an amazing dreamscape of mountains, hills, cliffs, trees, creeks, lakes, and meadows. I felt as if I'd died and gone to a kind of heaven. I firmly felt beings from mythology dwelt there, and pantheons of all beliefs resided there. I never felt alone scampering about in that wild. I learned what being alive was out there, trying to memorize each sunset, each lightning storm, each rainbow. Crouching at the cliff's edge behind my house, I felt beyond the shadow of a doubt that if I jumped off I'd transform into an eagle. Everyday I'd crouch there, poised, knowing that this would happen. What kept me from taking that leap was that I knew that once I did, I would be an eagle forever and forget that there ever was a Sarah. Am I the country mouse who became a city mouse? When I left my mountain home and moved to the city at age thirteen, there was a whole lot of culture shock to work through. We lived in a trailer on a friend of the family's farm. My yard was an apple orchard surrounded by a trim lawn and a pasture with cattle and two horses. Everything was so flat and the mountains so distant. Junior high in the farming community on the edge of a major city was amazing. The farm kids were an accepting lot, and for the first time ever I was popular. I also was exposed to the darker side of new wave music. I had been devoted to the new wave and pop of the late `70's and `80's, namely Duran Duran, Nik Kershaw, A Flock of Seagulls, Paul Young, Naked Eyes, Adam and the Ants, Blondie, and ABBA. Now, at thirteen going on fourteen, in a little farming junior high school, I was introduced to Depeche Mode, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Smiths, Xymox, David Bowie, The Cure, Kate Bush, and a slew of other similar artists. I became style conscious for the first time. I was most comfortable in a long-sleeve shirt and tie, knickers, black stockings, and spats. I cut my long hair into a do reminiscent of "Let's Dance" era Bowie. I was coming into my own and brimming with confidence. Then my health took a nosedive. What had been clumsiness gave way to unsteadiness. It became increasingly difficult to lift my feet when walking, or to walk in a straight line. My gym teacher, alarmed by my constant falling when we had to run laps, notified my parents and my teachers that something was amiss. Then the hospital visits began, and I became a medical oddity. I endured test upon test, scan upon scan, prods and pokes, and still no one knew what was wrong with me. The doctors knew it was neurological, and decided to call it Spinal-Cerebellar Degeneration. Then we relocated suddenly to another city an hour away. Am I the insecure teen whose world went upside down? I knew no one in the city, and the school was huge. Cops patrolled the halls. I was completely out of my element. My walk was a stagger by the last year of junior high, and I hugged the walls for support. I fell more often then not. My peers laughed and thought I was either a junkie or retarded. Even the principal accused me of being intoxicated due to my ataxic gait. Ridicule became the norm, and not a day went by without being threatened or hit. It was "hip" to "beat the cripple" or "knock down the retard". I couldn't concentrate in such an atmosphere and my grades plummeted. Art and English, which had always been my areas to shine, now served to exclude me further. I created some of my best acrylics during that time, and the art teacher, Mr. R., told me that I was nothing but a cripple and shouldn't try to do something I couldn't. English was worse, and I was told that I lacked imagination. I was missing school frequently for doctor's appointments, and running through the almost routine rigmarole of tests. Still no one knew what was wrong, and they changed my tentative diagnosis to another tentative one: Charcot-Marie Tooth, another degenerative neuromuscular disease. There seemed to be more emphasis on my mortality around this time, an unspoken undercurrent of agitation from my parents. The high point of that year was my first gothic concert. It changed me in many ways. My parents loved what they had heard of The Cure, and we caught them on the "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me" tour. I had never seen so many gothed-out people in real life. I felt an immediate connection to the fashion, the music, the atmosphere. I knew that I belonged in this black-clad subculture. From then on I studied gothic culture, the music's history, the bands, everything I could before dressing in the attire. I didn't want to break into the scene without being educated first. Unfortunately, there were no goths in my junior high, so I began corresponding with pen pals through a fan club of The Cure. Finally my dismal grades and constant harassment convinced my parents to withdraw me from public school, and my freshman year of high school I was enrolled in a private college run school. It was much smaller, and I figured nothing could be worse than what I'd just escaped from. However, the same harassment went on, only now it was from snotty rich kids. Regardless, I managed to make a handful of friends. I was even asked to Prom by a senior, though I was so uncoordinated by then I had to sit through most of it. At the end of the evening he was so upset that I refused to go back to his place to have sex , a friend of mine had to take me home. A few days later I began using a wheelchair, which helped me tremendously. My fatigue from trying to stagger around had been so great that when I would come home from school I would be a zombie for hours, unable to move or think. With the chair, suddenly I could think again and even be creative. I took control of my situation and proposed the notion of home schooling to my parents. They agreed, and at sixteen I left standard schooling behind and saw a tutor once a day. I did much better, and produced some smashing art and stories. I began a rebirth, a reclamation of myself. Despite the horror of the recent years, I did miss the camaraderie of people. I still hung out with a few kids from the private school, and went to a lot of concerts. I went to the PiL/Sugarcubes/New Order show and met a girl named J.B. My life changed upon meeting her. She was also being home schooled, and lived within walking distance from me. We met at Denny's the following day and became instant friends. She was into my kind of music, but also hardcore punk. I was so enamored with her that I threw myself into the hardcore music, and relished it. One day she shaved the sides of my head with a bic razor, and for years after I couldn't bear to be without a mohawk. I'll save the rest of her story for the "People who have shaped my life" section, but suffice it to say she was the one who awakened my sexual feelings, my desire, and my confusion. I met the local punks at this time through J.B., and began dating a Sid Vicious clone. I enjoyed making out with him, but never thought below the belt. Eventually he broke up with me because I wouldn't put out. I saw "The Hunger" and it dawned on me that lesbians could be hot femmes. That led me to wonder about my own feelings, and why I'd never had the urge to do more with a guy than kiss. I wanted so badly to confide in others about my confusion, but there was still such denial in me I couldn't articulate my own thoughts. When J.B. got a boyfriend I was crushed, and I had to get away. I had been corresponding with my favorite comic book author/artist, and threw myself into a heavy year long phone and letter romance with him. At seventeen I moved to Michigan to live with him, with my parents' consent. Where is that changed girl who made her dream come true? Michigan was like a foreign country. I'd never previously been outside Colorado. I knew no one there save for my boyfriend. Everything was flat, and it was congested with buildings. There was no open space. Even the forested areas were thick and almost jungle-like. It was much more humid than anything I'd experienced. During the winter it was difficult to keep track of time; with the constantly overcast sky, it always appeared to be early evening. In the summer the mugginess and extreme heat caught me by surprise. After the initial shock of the climate and terrain, I had another shock. I had gotten on the pill before leaving home. I continually staved off my boyfriend's sexual advances by claiming that I had to wait for the pill to take effect. Either the pill made me mental, or the impending crisis over my sexuality. I broke down sobbing hysterically one day and blurted out, "I think I love women!" He said it was okay, he was bi, and that he would help me find a woman to experiment with. My boyfriend introduced me to his fellow comic book professionals and friends, and I felt a strong sense of self among them. I submitted two stories, one illustrated by my boyfriend and one by his best friend. They were both published. I have never felt that amount of pride since. I met my lifelong goal of breaking into comics. I went to comic book conventions and sat *behind* the table. Me with my neon green mohawk, my boyfriend with his fire engine red liberty spikes. We were the talk of the comic book convention circuit. We were constantly asked by passers by if we were in a band. Everyone wanted to talk to us. Everyone remembered us. Though his comic series had reached critical acclaim and was up for best new comic of the year, money was a real problem. We had to borrow money from his folks and my folks to cover rent, and we barely ate most of the time. The idea of top ramen still makes me nauseous. Our diet was mostly Saltines, top ramen, store brand 33 cent pizzas, and cans of soup. There was pop and sometimes milk to drink. Our apartment was a filthy place, unkempt and insect-infested. Yet, somehow, our place was a popular hangout. My boyfriend did help me find a woman, and she happened to be one of the big wigs in the MI gay and S&M scene. She knew more lesbians than you could shake a stick at, though she was outspokenly bi. She was the first woman I made out with, which awakened me to a new world. The sexual feelings that I feared I didn't have began to bloom. I still had no desire to be touched below the belt, but I loved everything else. At eighteen I phoned my parents and came out to them. They were supportive though believed it was only a phase at the time. Through her we met a cast of characters, and everyone wanted to hang with us. My esteem swelled, and for the first time in a long time I felt truly loved by a group of friends. I went through the hassle of paperwork involved with switching my Medicaid benefits to a new state, and with transferring to a new physician. My first appointment there, the hot shot neurologist knew precisely what was wrong with me: Friedreich's Ataxia. Before an explanation of the condition, he asked what antidepressant I'd like a prescription to. I declined. He explained that F.A. was a degenerative neurological disease that scrambled nerve receptors in the cerebellum. I could think of how to walk, and picture the action in my brain, but the nerve impulses got screwed up relaying the message and I couldn't make my legs move like I wanted them too. As the disease progressed, the rest of my body would become like my legs. My nerves would die slowly and muscles would weaken. Diabetes would become likely in the later stages of the disease. He said that because I had juvenile onset F.A., I would probably die before I turned thirty. There was no treatment or cure. We set up an appointment for a six month check up, he gave me a booklet on F.A., and that was that. It was... Surreal. I had to call my folks and tell them over the phone, which was hard. I refused to let the prognosis control me, so I focused on other things. I moved on, literally, for various reasons. Am I the girl who came home a grown up? At 19 I returned home. The highs from my Michigan experiences began to dwindle. Depression set it. I had a curfew again, no transportation, no friends. I turned angst into energy and produced my own `zine. I offered it through mail order in Factsheet Five. I had exchanges going between Hothead Paisan and several other gay `zines of the time. After a year I was giving so many copies of my `zine to friends or as exchanges that it left me bankrupt. I joined a gay sci fi/fantasy writers' group, and we self-published an anthology. I had a portfolio of artwork in it, as well as a cyberpunk story. The writers' group disbanded soon after. I began attending GLBT meetings on the local campus to connect with other gay folk. I wasn't as consumed with the politics as they were, nor did I agree with the "we, they" mentality. I had never held straights and gays apart as separate people before. I still attended the meetings, and hooked up with a girl who remembered me from Junior High. She pursued me, then I pursued her, and soon we were dating. It was my first relationship since Michigan. She was the first girl I ever penetrated with my fingers and tongue. I began masturbating during that time and experimented with penetrating myself. After seven months my girlfriend returned to her boyfriend out of the blue, and moved away. I began getting involved with live action role-playing White Wolf's Vampire: the Masquerade and tabletop role-playing Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Am I the woman who sought her independence? At twenty-two I left the security of home and procured my own apartment nearly an hour away. I lived alone for five years. I was heavily involved in both table top and live action role-playing with White Wolf's Vampire: the Masquerade system by then. I had met a very close group that I played with every week, and socialized exclusively with. After two years the close-knit group dissolved under it's own inclusive, incestuousness nature. At the suggestion of a friend, I purchased a computer. The computer was a godsend, and I made a host of new friends locally and abroad. I had a few net stalker experiences that were taken care of, and I got a little smarter about trusting folks on-line. I met many people who still figure prominently in my life. I learned a lot about the sorry state of state-run home health care agencies. I learned how underpaid home health care workers are. I also learned how many home health care workers are untrained or lacking the social skills for their job. I got diabetes as had been forewarned years prior, and it took awhile to adjust to. Finally my health was catching up with me, and I had to return home. Who am I? Where am I going? At twenty-seven I returned home, relieved and yet defeated. I was furious at watching my independence slip away. I felt that everyone had abandoned me. I felt I had lost everything, and was going home to fade away in peace, forgotten. It's taken a year to climb out of that self- deluded hole. What turned me around? A large part of it was realizing that things weren't always about me. A lot of people had drifted apart for no reason - it wasn't a "me, they" issue. I slowly began realizing my insignificance. Nothing happened to *me*, things just *happened*. Along with this realization, I began questioning my place in the world, and my purpose. Where had my inspiration gone? Where was my motivation? What did I want? And so, here I am. The following are pivotal experiences, followed by key relationships. Core pieces of a life. It's my hope that I will be enlightened by writing them down and reading them as an observer. My parents and I moved to a remote ski resort town near the Continental Divide when I was eight. It was their dream to open a music store. Before then we lived in a major Colorado city. We had a quaint little house. We had a sheepdog and standard poodle mix named Pepper. I would scoot around on all fours wearing my parents' sheepskin rug and pretend I was a dog too - a "sheep dog". We also had a calico short hair cat, Nookie. Nookie was very pleasing to the eye, but extremely antisocial. I loved our animals and everything else around me. I danced with my parents in the basement, where my Dad had his recording studio set up. I remember standing on his feet while we danced to The Beatles. I was always surrounded by my Dad's musician buddies. When my Mom was pregnant and she went to clubs to see my Dad play, she said I would kick harder when he sang or played a guitar solo. I had lots of dreams then that are still clear to me now. I often dreamed of hovering a few inches off the ground and floating silently, checking on the house at night - making sure my parents were asleep, the clocks were in working order, the pets were okay, etc. One dream was of my Mom trying to kill me in a lab experiment. The worst were the nightmares surrounding dolls. I dreamed they would come to life at night, crawl into my bed, and eat my toes off. The dolls evolved into mannequins in later dreams, and they would try to strangle me to death. I purchased comic books before I knew how to read. I remember Red Sonja, Isis, Batman and Robin, and Spiderwoman were my favorites. As I flipped through them I made up my own stories. The Addams Family, Isis and Shazam, Wonder Woman, Laverne & Shirley, and Batman were my favorite shows on TV. My Catwoman obsession began then, and has never stopped. To get me to brush my teeth, my Mom convinced me that by brushing my teeth would be as bright as Wonder Woman's. When Star Wars came out, it made a huge impact on me, changed the way I saw things. I became obsessed with Star Wars and it's related merchandise. I had Mom wake me up for school by slipping a pair of headphones hooked up to our stereo over my ears and playing the Star Wars soundtrack on the turntable. I spent hours sitting on the living room floor piecing together the puzzles on the back of Star Wars bubble gum cards. I got a cat of my own, Pye, a gray and white shaggy tabby. I wanted to name him AliceinWonderland, but my parents made me shorten it. I was watching the movie National Velvet, and named him Pie after the horse. A few years later I started studying witches in history, and changed the spelling of Pie to Pye, after Pyewacket, a witch's familiar. At seven we packed up, loaded up the pets, and moved four hours away. To me it seemed sudden, though it had been planned for awhile. I didn't care, I just went with the flow. My father was a singer, songwriter, and guitarist. I wanted to be an artist, but I also wanted to be just like Dad. I loved music, and was always singing along with my favorite artists on vinyl and tape. At the music store I would sing and ask people in the store for a nickel tip if they liked my interpretations of the hits of the time. Of course, I almost exclusively sang Blondie, Pat Benetar, The Clash, and ABBA. In fourth grade we had to write a song for music class. I wrote a Blues song and illustrated it. My music teacher loved it so much she wanted my Dad and I to perform it in front of the school at an assembly. Dad and I practiced and practiced. On stage, at the assembly, I completely froze when the curtains parted. Dad began his acoustic guitar intro twice, but I didn't utter a peep. The entire school laughed and I ran off stage. I haven't sung a note since, not even to myself. As soon as I had the dexterity to grasp a pencil I was always drawing. I wanted to illustrate comic books from the age of six until seventeen. I was laughed at by my peers for proclaiming this. I quickly learned not to tell others my goal. I won awards in elementary for my art. I had one piece go to a national art show but it didn't win an award. It was a scratch board of a realistic coyote in a desert at night with a full moon. I also won a competition for the sixth grade Christmas Songbook cover which was released in our town newspaper. It featured three geese flying toward a diamond- like star. I had a great art teacher in elementary school and a great art teacher in eighth grade. In eighth grade I won an award for a quill and ink illustration of Neptune commanding an army of mermen on sea horses in a storm-tossed ocean. I had a hellish art teacher in ninth grade who did his best to make me feel like a failure. In the following years I produced a lot of art for various `zines and got paid to produce some art for private parties. Since I turned twenty-seven my hand dexterity has begun to deteriorate, making it difficult to hold the utensils for drawing. I haven't produced much art in three years. When I was in fifth grade, we were assigned to keep journals for a year. We had to write in them daily and turn them in for a grade. I wrote about being an alien, and of my home planet, complete with anatomical diagrams, sketches of my native flora and fauna, and a dictionary of my native language. The first entry I turned in, my teacher wrote in the margin: "A+. By the way, you don't believe this, do you?" I still have the journal in a strongbox in the basement. That was my first exercise in creative writing. Elfquest the comic book came out and captivated me. I began writing stories based on Elfquest for my own entertainment. I slowly began writing short stories with original characters based in a Dungeons & Dragons setting or in Tolkein's Middle Earth. At thirteen I started writing poetry. I wrote stories about werewolves almost exclusively. At sixteen I wrote short horror fiction for various `zines. At seventeen and eighteen I had two stories published by a comic book company in Michigan. One was "The Chosen", a vampire tale too close to "The Hunger", and a vignette from "The Plague" about a priest encountering the devil. I then wrote music reviews, poetry, and stories for my own `zine. I wrote a cyberpunk story for a self-published anthology. I began work on an autobiography of sorts, but after so many years it no longer speaks to me. It was too metaphorical, and too negative. It was my life for a time, but no longer. I post to many on-line forums. I maintain many penpals. I'm always writing and expressing myself. My homepage is an extension of me. My words are me. I want to be heard. My parents were always very loving and affectionate. We were, and continue to be, exceptionally open with each other. They answered any sexual questions I had regardless of my age. By ten I understood the scientific aspects of sex as well as some of the possible emotions resulting from the act. My parents taught me well, far better than sex education in schools. I never felt curious to explore sex as a child; it was nothing mysterious to me. I didn't wear make-up or adhere to any gender role while growing up. Girls in school often said how pretty I would be if I only wore make-up and more feminine clothes. At fourteen when I did become fashion savvy, I wore what made me feel good. I never thought I looked like a dyke or a boy by having short hair and wearing long-sleeved button-up shirts with ties. Boys hit on me right and left. I would date them but never do anything more than talk comics or music. The first sexual dream that I can remember having was when I was sixteen and dreamed of touching a woman's breasts; we were both clothed and in an elevator. The dream confused me. I didn't understand why my first sexually arousing dream was of a woman. Prior to then I'd never thought of anyone, male or female, in a suggestive way. A friend of mine constantly teased me for my Siouxsie obsession and told me that I wanted her *so* bad. I suddenly became very defensive at the notion of being thought of as gay. When I met J.B. at the PiL/Sugarcubes/New Order show, I felt an immediate attraction to her. I told myself it was a platonic, sisterly love. I even dated a guy briefly after J.B. and I met. As my and J.B.'s friendship progressed I knew it was more, which led in part to me moving to another state to escape the obvious. When I first kissed a woman at seventeen it was divine. It was as if waking from a long sleep. I knew without a doubt that this was how it was meant to be. I had kissed boys before, but it never left me feeling so happy and so aroused. When I turned eighteen I had my first sexual encounter. I performed oral sex on a woman. It was scary at first, just seeing a woman's sex organ up close and knowing I could touch it and explore it. Then instincts kicked in, and I knew precisely what to do. I lived with my boyfriend at the time. Though he and I never had intercourse, we did kiss some and give each other oral sex. I never got off on this though it was fun. I truly loved him, though it was the love of deep friendship and not passion. I returned home and began dating a friend from the campus's Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Alliance. It was a very sexual relationship. I mistook lust for love, and fostered a deep attraction to this girl. She was the first I penetrated with my fingers. It was a thrilling experience to feel a woman from the inside in the throes of ecstasy. At the same time it made me curious, and for the first time I began masturbating. I slowly worked up to penetration, and found it to be an enjoyable sensation. After I moved to my own apartment, I took it upon myself to have intercourse with two separate men. I felt I owed it to myself to experience straight sex. I flew back to Michigan for a friend's wedding, and had sex with my old boyfriend in the hotel. We had become closer friends after I moved from Michigan. I knew it would be safe, intimate, and fun with him, and it was. Yet there was still no spark that I felt with women. A year later I had a one night stand of sorts. It was a well known fellow in the local gothic scene who wore make-up and was a bit feminine. We were friends, but his long term girlfriend dumped him and he came to me "seeking solace". The next minute we were having sex. It was a lot of fun, but again no spark. No wonderful, happy feeling afterwards. No orgasm on my part, of course. No one had ever brought me to orgasm, of the three who tried over the years. In twenty-eight years I've had six romantic relationships, and one wasn't even sexual. I was a late bloomer I guess, but it was nice to explore sex on my own terms, when I was comfortable with it, and when I wanted to. It never bothered me that most of my girlfriends never expressed an interest in me below the belt. I felt natural in the role of the "doer", and received my satisfaction from my partner's pleasure. When attention was given to my sexual satisfaction, I froze. I didn't like the pressure of someone expecting me to orgasm. I'm still like this, though my disability has gotten to the point where I can't be as mobile as I was even five years ago. This lack of mobility has made it difficult to assume adequate positions and to be as aggressive as I used to be. I wonder if I'll ever get used to being on the bottom, having to be positioned. The lack of control makes me want to give up the notion of sex entirely sometimes. There were always cats in the house and sometimes dogs. When I was young we had Pepper the standard poodle and sheepdog mix. He was big, shaggy, and gray. He was an exceedingly gentle dog and let me wrestle with him and tug at him without so much as a growl. We had him for seven years. There was Nookie, an abused short hair calico cat we took in. She was antisocial and didn't trust people, though she felt secure with me and would sleep with me at night. We had her for nine years. Then came Pye, my beloved gray and white medium hair tabby. Pye was my constant companion and best friend for seventeen years. Peeper came along. She was a short hair tabby and calico mix, and looked like a gray and white tabby with orange blotches. Peeper was Pye's buddy and Mom's baby, and Peeper was with us for sixteen years. Once on my own I picked up Miriam, a tuxedo short hair, from the Humane Society. She's a very loving, devoted, one person cat. She's attacked people who are spending too much time with me. I've had Miriam for six years now. Mom picked up Meeka, a black short hair Manx, from a nearby farm. Meeka was born with a herniated cyst which would have been fatal unless she had an operation. The owner was going to let her die naturally, so Mom bought her, got her operation, and gave her to me. She's one of the cutest, mellowest, most affectionate cats I know. I've had Meeka for four years. There have been a few critters who have entered the family's life for a brief period over the years, including: the gerbil I had for a few years that gnawed the covers of some of my favorite books... Henry, the dingo puppy we were given that bit a preschooler, so we gave him to a rancher rather than put him to sleep... The husky puppy, Mona, who I loved immensely and thought of as a wolf. She got pregnant before we had her fixed, and we couldn't afford to take care of puppies. I came home from school one day and she was gone. I was never told what happened, but I assume the parents gave her away... There was Elvis the cockatiel, who was blown into a tree in my parents yard. We coaxed it into the house and called the humane society. They traced the number on the band around its leg, but the owners had moved. We decided to keep Elvis, and did all sorts of cockatiel research. Eventually we discovered Elvis was a girl when she laid an eggshell (AKA a calcium deposit). After a few near misses with my parents cats, they decided to hand over Elvis to one of my Dad's coworkers who raises cockatiels. I've toyed with the idea of applying for a service dog. I would feel safer riding the bus and being out and about on my own with a dog escorting me. Being spiritual means a lot to me. It's a very personal, individual thing. No one else shares my beliefs or understands them as I do, just as I can't share or understand anyone else's beliefs exactly as they perceive them. I can only respect others beliefs, take pleasure in similarities, or blow off what I feel is bullshit. I'm a skeptic: I'm very picky about believing in what folks choose to believe in. Anything that allows people to shirk off personal responsibility raises a big red flag with me. Blaming external forces for one's poor choices, bad habits, or laziness is obvious BS to me. I loved ghosts, fairies, and the notion of the Force from Star Wars while young. This evolved as I delved into Dad's philosophy books, namely Joseph Campbell's _Hero With a Thousand Faces_. Spurred by this book, I checked out every book on mythology I could find in the school library. I also reread Tolkein's _Silmarillion_, _The Hobbit_, and the Ring trilogy. At eleven I was introduced to the world of Dungeons and Dragons, and it was a great outlet for my imagination. Around twelve I got on a witches in history kick, and read all of the old books in the public library on the subject - most were `70's reprints of old legal texts and historical documents from bygone eras. This bled over into my interest in lycanthropy. I was immensely passionate in my study of lycanthropy. Soon it clouded out most other areas of esoteric study. That year the made for TV movie, Stephen King's Salem's Lot, aired. Mr. Barlow, the malformed Nosferatu-ish head vampire, terrified me so acutely that for weeks I would wrap my blanket around my neck to stave off any would-be bloodsuckers lurking beneath my bed or outside. Finally, as a coping mechanism, one night I suddenly felt like a werewolf and acted as such. I realized that no vampire could harm me because a werewolf has too much fur on their neck to bite through <grins>. I became wholly obsessed with lycanthropy from then on. I subjected myself to awful werewolf fiction, goofy werewolf movies, the negative information on the mental disorder, and the gems of the genre media as well . Yet I had a gut feeling it was all so much more. I wondered why, if someone honestly believed they were a wolf, they would blame their negative all-too-human behavior on "the wolf". If they truly felt they were a wolf, they would probably be hit by a car running around bewildered by the city and its strangeness. Or if they believed they had a wolf in them that would make itself known at inopportune times, it might snap but it would probably cower shyly, or just leave the surroundings if people were present. Why are so many negative attributes associated with the wolf, and predatorial animals in general, when humans are the only animals capable of the notion of evil? As I mulled this over, I continued to read up on real wolves, big cats, werewolves, lycanthropy, and mythology. At fourteen I was taken by the notion of physically shape shifting into a typically Hollywoodish werewolf. I found a cross between the werewolf in American Werewolf In London and the werewolves in The Howling to be physically ideal and more representative of me than my human face. I looked in the mirror in the bathroom drawing self-portraits, altering my features slightly and adding a muzzle and wolf ears or feline features. My dreams of shape shifting and hunting prey animals were extremely vivid, no doubt fueled subconsciously by a lifetime of nature documentaries, books, and movies, as well as my own desire to *be* this creature. I started thinking of myself as apart from humanity, yet not a cat or a wolf. Then the TV series Beauty and the Beast aired. It captivated me immediately. Vincent, the half-lion half-man played by Ron Perlman, was the personification of everything beautiful, noble, intellectual, and gentle I considered a true "were-animal" to be. Part predatorial animal, but not some mindless killing machine. Someone untainted by the negative aspects of humanity. A poet and a beast. I started to make up my own were-cat mythology and fictional worlds. I've since been able to find a few books on feline mythology, shape shifting legends, symbolism, etc. Becoming disabled wasn't a shock to me. I had always known something wasn't working right with my body. I felt guilt over my lack of coordination before it was diagnosed as something abnormal. I thought I must not be applying myself hard enough and if I did I'd be normal, graceful, and as fast as the other kids. I was still able to run, jump, and walk wherever I wanted to go, just not as well as others, until I turned fifteen. After being diagnosed with a neurological "mystery" disease I felt my first measure of fear. I became afraid that nothing would be normal again. With the frequent hospital visits and scores of tests I felt like an object more than a person. I didn't feel human, which suited me fine in one regard: I would have much rather been a creature or an alien. As my coordination degenerated, my fears of being harassed, beat up, and falling were constant. I had a basement bedroom from the age of fifteen to sixteen, and though scaling the stairs were difficult I refused to give up the room. I remember at least once a week tumbling down them. A few times when I fell I smacked my head against the concrete wall. Amazingly, of all of my falls, I've yet to break a bone or to suffer a concussion. After I was finally diagnosed with Friedreich's Ataxia, I felt immense guilt: I didn't want to burden my parents or my friends with my future physical needs. I remember my parents and I joined a Friedreich's Ataxia support group, but after two sessions we knew it wasn't working. Seeing those other kids, who were a few years younger than me, crippled beyond belief and spiritually dead inside, made me eager to leave. When I acquired diabetes, it wasn't a big deal. Diabetes is related to having F.A. The part of diabetes that almost broke me was when I first went on insulin. I didn't know the body often rejected insulin in the beginning. My body did not like insulin. My blood sugars would fluctuate and I retained fluid to the point where I couldn't wear shoes. I took diuretics which made me pee a lot but the swelling wouldn't go down. The fluid entered my chest causing mucus buildup, making breathing a problem. After a month, the rejection subsided. Sometimes my blood sugars fluctuate wildly for no reason, and there's some swelling, but it's manageable. The F.A. has been more difficult to deal with because it is a degenerative neuromuscular disease. Just when I adjust to the loss of one ability, another changes. It's hard to get used to having an unpredictable body. Most of my friends are able-bodied. Most places I go to aren't wheelchair accessible. Most media is catered to the able-bodied. Thus it's been a long road to finding self esteem... Its had to come completely from within. Some may mistake this for egotism; so be it. Confidence can't be had without some amount of ego. Being waist-high in a walking world has allowed me a different perspective on human behavior and the struggles a majority of the population don't even think about: lack of curb cuts, skinny bathroom stalls, hills, basement clubs with no elevators, often being talked down to by folks who won't get on my level, etc. I can't get mad about these things because they're just a part of life. I *am* a minority, despite the ADA and other such disability acts that have cropped up in the past twenty years. As a minority, I can't expect any place to cater to my needs. I just make sure to surround myself with folks capable of getting me where I want to go by any means necessary. It's worked for twelve years now <grins>. Mortality has never bothered me. We're all dying. It only makes me hesitant to be a mother, though I would love to be a mom someday. I find it difficult to ask for things I need because I depend on people doing so much for me throughout the day. I feel that I need so much all of the time I must be greedy. I need to accept others help, and my own needs. I need to accept being physically dependent. It's a tough road to hoe. Added February 15th, 2001 My mother and my father are remarkable people. They encouraged me from the start to pursue my art. They didn't bat an eye when I shaved my head, dyed my mohawk green, wore ripped spray-painted clothing, or wore black vinyl and fishnets. They never judged me based on appearance, my areas of interest, or my beliefs. They instilled me with a strong sense of right and wrong. They have always trusted me to do the right thing. Dad met Mom on a base in the Azores. He had gone into the air force to find discipline, though he learned in basic training that it wasn't the kind of structure he needed. He avoided being sent to Vietnam through sheer luck, and instead ended up on the Azores Islands near Portugal. He pursued his love for music there, playing in a band on the military base. My Mom, the daughter of a General there, went to see the band and when my Dad first saw her he *knew* she was the one. Mom, however, took a little convincing. Her father was very conservative and didn't want Mom dating some hippie musician, despite the fact that he was still in the air force at the time. Mom and Dad continued to see one another, and after awhile they eloped to Morocco to be wed just like John Lennon and Yoko Ono had. When they found a justice of the peace, he couldn't wed them because they didn't have their birth certificates. They returned to the States, and Mom moved in with Dad. They wed at a courthouse without any relatives present. They didn't believe some elaborate ceremony was needed to prove their devotion. Afterwards I was conceived. Dad played guitar and sang some in a hot band in Denver, H.H. Z. He missed my birth because he had a gig that night, but after the show he and his buzzed band mates all came to the hospital to see me. Dad describes it pretty funny, as they were ogling me and remarking, "whoa, far out man, Spanky's got a baby!" Spanky was my Dad's nick name from way back. As a child he looked like Spanky from "The Little Rascals". H.H. Z almost got a major record deal, but some band members were caught up in drugs and didn't have the sense to sign the contract. The band broke up and Dad was pretty upset. Then he began discussing the idea of selling the house and some of our belongings and moving up in the mountains to open a music store. Mom and Dad followed their dream, and we started from scratch up there. The store was so exciting! I loved it, being around guitars and albums and related merchandise. I loved talking to customers and singing to the vinyl we spun. After three years the store went under. This was due to the only other music store in town. The owner of that store had no passion for music, but a passion for business. He was dabbling in the drug trade, and guaranteeing repeat customers that way. Things were tense in the household after that. Money was incredibly tight and we had to sell a bunch of stuff. We had to move to a hotel on one of the major ski mountains. We got the room free, or at a reduced rate, because Mom and Dad cleaned rooms at the hotel for their livelihood. I remember sitting on the fold-out couch with them and watching the TV as MTV first aired. We were all excited at the advent of it. After I had gone to bed that night, Mom thought she was having a heart attack. Half awake, I went when Mom & Dad to the ER. I wasn't scared until I saw Dad on the verge of tears. They kept Mom overnight, and the next day we discovered she had had a complete nervous breakdown from losing the store, worrying about money, etc. She saw a counselor for awhile. Things were tense again, but Mom and Dad rarely argued and were always loving and affectionate. Lack of money meant nothing to me, because I had Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad got a job forty minutes out of town, and we moved up there. It was remote and wild, and I loved it. My parents worked at the general store and we rented the house across the street. There are so many fond memories of that time. When not tending the store, Dad played in night clubs with a local band. After a year we had a falling out with the boss/landlord, and left the mountains behind to return to city life. Dad went through some crappy jobs to support us, especially once my medical bills started adding up. He worked as a furniture salesman, as a used car salesman, at a music store, and at a steel company. He's been at the steel company now for nine or ten years. All that time he's been recording demo tapes and now CDs. Joe Cocker showed interest in his work, though nothing came of it. Dad's never given up his goal of breaking into the recording industry. Aside from recording his solo work, he plays gigs with local bands. Mom has learned to drive and has been teaching elementary for five years. Prior to that she was a stress management counselor and biofeedback technician. Mom always had an eye for art, and was always painting or doing crafts when I was very young. Then she stopped for a long time, but in recent years has gotten into painting funky folk art on chairs, frames, switch plates, and the like. She's done a few watercolors of flowers and probably cats too. Mom has always been a cat nut. She owns cats, has cat art, collects cat figures, reads about cats, watches shows on cats. When I was young I got jealous at the way she treated the cats and thought they meant more to her than me. I loved Mom, though I was definitely Dad's girl. I had, and still have, an immense bond with him. When I was sixteen Mom and I fought constantly. She was feeling misplaced guilt about my physical problems, and took it out on me verbally, blaming me. Sometimes she would hit me, and because I was so unsteady on my feet I would fall. She rarely hit me, but it didn't matter. It was the words that damaged me much more. I've had years to think about it and work on forgiving and forgetting. Mom and I argue, but we are definitely closer now than ever before. She is definitely a cool person. I love Mom and Dad so much. Pye was my best friend. He was always there for me. I would set up obstacles in the yard and pretend to be riding a horse, jumping the "fences". Pye would run beside me like a faithful hound. Pye chased dogs from our yard. I saw him fluff up and go after a Doberman once, and the dog panicked and ran. I would crouch and pretend to hunt with Pye. We would explore the woods together. He often went on adventures and would be gone for weeks; but he always came back, well fed and none the worse for wear. Once he snuck off with a bag of sunflower seeds and buried them like a dog. That Spring he dug them out and brought them in the house as if bringing home family dinner. They were black and moldy in the package. In later years he would snuggle with me and be a source of comfort when my world was chaotic. Pye was with me for seventeen full and wonderful years. I met J.S. in first grade. It was Valentine's Day and at school everyone was asked to exchange cards. J.S. handed me a cinnamon Jolly Rancher and sealed it with a kiss. From that day forward we remained inseparable, except for when other boys were around - I was a *girl*, after all, even if I did look like a boy, act like a boy, and play like a boy. Most days after school J.S. forced me to walk a block behind him to his house, to keep the neighborhood boys from suspecting that he and I were a couple. In fourth grade we vowed to get married at eighteen. Sex was furthest from our minds - we had only kissed that once in first grade. Our bond was genderless, sexless, innocent, and yet intense. We played D&D, thoroughly believed we were aliens, were obsessed with comic books and fantasy novels, and grew up in a magical world when not confronted by our peers. He aced through most of his classes in school, while I muddled through all but art and English/reading, which I excelled at. He had a difficult time with English, though he wrote amazing poetry. I tried to help him with his spelling to no avail. Years later he was finally diagnosed with dyslexia and received proper help. J.S. was a piano genius. He would practice after school and I loved to listen. At eight he was playing complicated pieces that sounded flawless to me. I was so proud when I accompanied his Mom to talent show competitions to cheer for him. I adored J.S.'s Mom, she was a warm, kind woman. J.S.'s Dad terrified me. He would roughhouse with J.S. and his brother to the point of making them cry. He would put me on the spot whenever he could just because I was neither Christian nor conservative. At dinner he would make me say a prayer before dinner. I didn't know what to say but always seemed to muddle my way through. J.S.'s brother unfortunately took after Dad, and he scared me as well. He would torment J.S. Once he stood over J.S.'s bed with an ax and threatened to chop him up. J.S.'s brother and his best friend would steal J.S.'s stuffed animals and "hold them hostage", burning them and breaking their eyes until we cried. Despite J.S.'s brother and Dad, I loved being a part of their family. I loved J.S., and his Mom, and their dogs, two golden retriever mixes. I loved the smell of their house, the sounds of their house, everything. It was as much my home as my parents' home. I spent as much time as I could there. When I turned twelve J.S.'s church underwent major changes. His church suddenly became charismatic and evangelical. They told his parents to destroy every fantasy book, comic book, and anything related to Dungeons & Dragons in the house. When J.S. and I were out seeing a matinee, they threw his collections in the dumpster and poured oil all over them. They melted his D&D metal miniatures in the BBQ grill. When we came home it was devastating. He was crying, I was crying, and then I got mad. That Halloween I had planned to go as an elf and he had planned to go as Merlin. We had our costumes made. J.S.'s Mom had made his costume months prior and it looked great. However, given the new church policy, anything fantasy-oriented was potentially evil. I showed up at his place, and he was sort of in the Merlin costume... His Mom had torn off the moons and stars on his robe and taken away the pointed hat. His Mom said he was now going as Moses! It was funny but also sad. I knew how embarrassed he was. His Mom made us watch a church issued video on the evils of D&D, some popular toys, and the celebration of Halloween before she let us go trick or treating. It was weird. Around that time J.S. became secretive. I felt a distance on his part, but figured it was due to my impending move from the mountains. After I moved we wrote constantly. We wrote in character, either as our alien personas or our favorite comic book heroes. Our communication slowed as my school and health problems became staggering. I felt so abandoned by him that I was beside myself for a good year. At seventeen, out of the blue, J.S. called. Ironically, he called an hour after I had arranged to move to Michigan with G.D.. J.S. told me what a fool he had been to let me slip away, and that he was going to be attending the university in my city just to be near me. I was elated and heartbroken simultaneously. It was hard to tell him I was leaving the state, with another man no less. He was understanding, but I could tell it crushed him. A year later J.S. began writing to me while I was in Michigan. I came out to him as bi. At the time I figured I had to be bisexual, because I lived with a man and dated women. J.S. was cool with it. When I moved back home, J.S. and I hung out like the old days. He hadn't dated since I left, and I made a joke about how ironic it would be if we were both gay. This made him very nervous. At twenty-one I proposed to him. I explained to him that I thought of him as J.S., not a man or a woman. He was everything I wanted. I gave him a ring after we saw "Age of Innocence". We saw ourselves in the film, he as Daniel Day Lewis and me as Michelle Pfieffer. J.S. didn't speak to me for a week after I gave him the ring. Finally he left a letter at my house, describing how he was like so many musicians and poets of yore... It was his extremely vague and flowery way of coming out to me. He contacted me a few weeks later and told me everything - that he had been molested by his brother's best friend, and that since he was sixteen he had been driving three and a half hours from the mountains on weekends to sneak into gay bars. I was glad he felt comfortable enough to come out to me. It still didn't make me feel less hurt by the rejection of our relationship. I felt hurt that J.S. had kept this part of his life secret from me. We had shared everything with each other growing up. He came out to everyone then, even to his parents. Despite their wacky religion, his Mom completely accepted him, and even his Dad accepted him in a "don't ask, don't tell" way. J.S. threw himself into the campus Gay/Bi/Lesbian/Transgender Alliance and other gay and political organizations. He began exclusively hanging out at gay clubs, gay bars, gay everything. He saw me less and less. Around the end of December, 1998, he called out of the blue. We had a good talk, and he wanted to rebuild our friendship. We planned a road trip to see his parents in the mountains, then we'd drive to San Francisco. In Las Vegas I woke in the middle of the night projectile vomiting. J.S. stuck me in the shower, but I couldn't stop throwing up. I could barely move, I was clammy and shaking. He took me to the ER, and I had a temp of 105. They put me on a fluid drip for a few hours, and I felt good enough to leave. I felt better once we reached San Fran. San Francisco was amazing to me. It was so... Gay! Unfortunately it was more of a boy's town than a dyke's town, but it was still a lot of fun. Expensive, but fun. That was the last time I saw J.S.. He saw me off on the plane from San Fran back to Colorado. I hope he finds himself, wherever he is now, and I hope he finds true happiness. Added February 26th, 2001 I had a small number of female friends growing up, but few I ever saw outside of school. There was T, whose mother and father were musicians and shopped in our music store. T and I hung out until she moved. She had been dropped in the delivery room and had a paralyzed hand. Once we put on her Mom's performance clothes and wobbled around in her high heels lip synching to "Islands in the Stream" by Dolly Parton as a gift for our Moms on Mother's Day. Another friend was S.S., who was incredibly shy. I stayed the night once at S.S.'s house. Her Dad scared me, he was very grumpy and never smiled. When it was time for bed, S.S. seemed terrified and left all of the lights on. S.S. hated to be touched. In retrospect I think she had been molested or raped, and I wish I could've helped her. Another friend was S.F., who was the neglected child of white trash parents. Once she wanted to run away, so we threw all of her model horses and Barbies in a sack and dragged it along the pavement for about an hour until we reached me house. When we opened the sack, two of the Barbies' breasts were completely shorn off from rubbing against the pavement *chuckles*. S.F. and I went to the town library and on our way back to the music store we had to cross a busy highway. S.F. wanted to dart across and I wanted to walk further down to the crosswalk. A truck pulled over and a creepy looking guy asked us if we needed a lift. I said "no" and immediately turned away, though S.F. stood there within his reach. I snatched her coat and yanked her with me, running into the park. The creepy guy circled the park twice, then left. We had to describe the truck and the fellow to the police. He was never caught. The girl I saw most frequently was R.R.. R.R. was a year older than me, and took great pleasure in frightening me, pinning me down, and attempting to physically hurt me. She was the first girl I kissed: she bribed me with wintergreen candy canes, which her family ordered from out of town. I wanted that candy badly enough to kiss her for it. We played "Hart to Hart", acting out the TV show, and I would have to be the husband, Jonathan Hart. R.R. told me we had to end each play session with a kiss to be true to the show. I always felt guilty and awkward kissing her. Despite my protests, I always gave in. R.R. was a troublemaker, the quintessential bad girl at the ripe old age of twelve. She was tall and well developed for her age, and wore make-up and tight clothes to accentuate it. She engaged in sex with multiple partners weekly, and took great pleasure in telling me every explicit detail. Making me uncomfortable brought her pleasure. During our friendship, I constantly asked myself why I felt such loyalty to her. In retrospect, it might have been my first subconscious blossoming of lesbian feelings. Perhaps I mistook her aggressiveness and bad behavior for strength and sense of self. At eighteen she became a born again Christian. She married an older man from the church who had two young sons from a previous marriage, and she was pregnant with his third. That was the last I heard from her. Occasionally I'll think of her and wonder what she's up to. After I moved from the mountains, I made great friends in the farm area school when I was thirteen. S.S. and A.E. were my best buds. We were the mad Duranies of the school. We would scrawl the names of Duran Duran's members on our arms in magic marker. For my birthday I was dismissed early and sent to S.S.'s house. Confused, I went there to be greeted by all of my friends! They had thrown me a surprise birthday party. The school faculty had okayed it (one of the advantages of a tiny school where everyone knows each other). The cake was white, blue, and silver and had Duran Duran's pic on it. It was such an exhilarating surprise. I spent as much time as I could at S.S.'s house. S.S.'s older sister was into Depeche Mode, The Cure, Siouxsie, The Smiths, Suicidal Tendencies, Christian Death, and other bands of a darker bent. She played "Blasphemous Rumors" by Depeche Mode for me, and I immediately fell in love with the darker aspect of new wave. I saw S.S.'s sister as someone to impress. She hinted at death rock and I researched what I could on death rock, and later goth after seeing The Cure in concert. One day S.S. pulled me aside and told me that her sister had told the family she was gay. S.S. was pretty upset. My immediate reaction was to talk to S.S.'s sister about it because I wanted to know what it felt like to be gay *snickers*. I was too shy and never did, though it probably would have helped me realize my own identity quicker. I began developing crushes on a lot of my female friends then, though I shrugged it off as platonic sisterly affection or admiration. When I moved to the horrible city, I eyed women with definite lust but convinced myself it was envy or admiration. I made a few short-lived friendships with women. One was a metalhead who was obsessed with cheesy hair bands like Poison. She was nice until she fell in with a gang. She was half Hispanic and half white, and to join the gang she had to prove that her white side meant nothing. Her initiation was to beat me up because I was her only white friend. It was so stupid and senseless. I refused to strike back, and just clutched my notebooks to my chest. Her gang loomed around cheering and egging her on. She was crying, but still kept punching. At the private school I met A, who was a straight laced Southern Baptist girl. A was into my kind of music, however, and I think she lived vicariously through my wild looks and freedom. I spent a lot of time with A. She was very strict with her religion, yet never once judged me or frowned upon anything I said. Meanwhile, my focus on girls was making me wonder what was wrong with me. I didn't feel comfortable around most girls. Enter J.B.. J.B. and I met at the PiL/Sugarcubes/New Order concert at Red Rocks shortly after I had quit going to school. I was sixteen. J.B. was being home schooled, as was I, and we lived within walking distance of one another. When we shook hands at the concert I felt electricity at our touch. I knew there was an unspoken bond between us. The next day we met at Denny's. It amazed us both at how much we had in common. We were both artists, we were into the same music and movies, we shared the same esoteric interests. From that day forward we spent every scrap of time that we could together. I wanted her from the moment we met, yet fear kept me in denial. I convinced myself that yes, I did love her, though it couldn't be in a sexual way because that put a dirty slant on something pure and true. J.B. Had a mohawk and dressed hard-core punk. I was so enamored with her that I got a mohawk too, and threw myself into the music of the Dead Kennedy's, Circle Jerks, Minor Threat, Exploited, GBH, Black Flag, The Descendants, and the Vandals. I reveled in the aggression and the energy of the punk scene. J.B. was poor. Her mother was on Welfare. Her Mom couldn't work due to migraines, depression, and anxiety disorder. J.B.'s Mom was an old school punk and still dressed the part. J.B.'s mom was a scary woman who really needed counseling and meds. She would often have mood swings and attack J.B. and her brother either verbally or physically. Once J.B.'s Mom screamed at my parents from the street because she thought we were trying to make her look like a bad mother by inviting J.B. to dinner. Often J.B. had no food at home. J.B. and I had dreams of running away to California to open a punk and death rock store. Whenever I spent the night with her, I tried not to stare as she slipped off her shirt and bra to put a nightshirt on. I panicked, wondering why the sight of her topless mesmerized me so. We always slept in the same bed. I had to touch her, so I made up some lame story about being afraid of the dark. I told her that if she held my hand all night I wouldn't be afraid. Laying in bed together holding hands and talking was achieving perfection. One night we rented "The Hunger". We were silent the whole way through. I had never pictured lesbians as feminine or gorgeous until the lovemaking scene from the film. Suddenly a flood of confusion washed over me. So many things fell into place. I clung to the quickly dissolving life preserver of denial. After the movie we didn't talk, as we usually did until dawn. She wouldn't take my hand, either. After that she seemed to put up a wall. We saw one another less. She got a boyfriend, which made me boil over with rage and envy and despair. I had to escape. I had to retaliate. I had been writing the author/artist of my favorite comic book series, and he had helped me publish my first comic book story. I fell in love with him and leave Colorado, and J.B., behind. I didn't even tell her I had left. Some time after I had moved to Michigan, I got a letter from J.B.. A friend of my parents had given her my new address. She wanted to know why I had left without telling her. I decided to come clean about everything. I wrote to her and told her of my coming out, and that I'd loved her from the moment we met. She wrote back and confessed the same to me, and we began calling when we could afford to. We laughed at the irony of it all. We talked of living together if I returned to Colorado. I agreed, and after two and a half years I came home. J.B. greeted me with roses at the airport. We piled into my parents car and went back to my parents new house. J.B. and I had planned to make love upon my return, and we made a beeline for the bedroom to "rest". It was like no time had gone by. She was still my lovely J.B.. We undressed, though she immediately dove under the covers as if embarrassed. I felt as if I orgasmed each time I kissed her. At first she was receptive, and then suddenly she shut down. J.B. wouldn't even talk to me. I was perplexed. The next day she admitted to me that we couldn't live together. She was vegan and I wasn't. To her this meant we could not possibly be together. She was also moving to Oregon. She wanted to tell me weeks prior, but she didn't have the heart. She was living with a boyfriend who wasn't aware of me. I was devastated. That was when I was nineteen. I don't know where she is now or what's become of her. I hope she finds herself and finds happiness. Right about the time I met J.B., I began reading a great comic book. It was about Sherlock Holmes as a punk woman in an alternate modern reality. The art style was a crisp blend of animation and detailed line work. I sent the creator, G.D., a fan letter with a drawing. He wrote back much to my surprise and printed my fan art in the next issue of the comic. G.D. and I began a casual correspondence. I sent him a story that he showed his publisher, and was immediately published. I was thrilled beyond imagining. My life's goal had been met. I let my friendship with G.D. blossom into romance after J.B. got a boyfriend. G.D. and I racked up huge phone bills by the time I decided to move to Michigan to live with him. He took a train to Colorado to meet my parents and family friends before I returned with him to Michigan. Everyone liked him despite his punk attire and Day-Glo orange liberty spike hair cut. His first night in Colorado, my parents left the house to give us private time. G.D. wanted to make love, of course, and I was terrified at the idea. Kissing I could handle, and even groping. Anything below the belt made me panic. He tried to lift me from my chair and lay me on the bed, but he stumbled and rammed my head into the wall. He was crying and apologizing, and I was laughing with relief. I didn't have to have sex because of a headache! At the train station it truly hit me that I was leaving home and everything I knew. At Chicago the train had a layover, and in the hotel room G.D. wanted to fool around. I felt guilty for not putting out. I knew I had to wait a week for my birth control to start working fully. That became my excuse for almost two weeks. Then I broke down and confessed my feelings for the first time out loud: I loved women. G.D. was understanding and told me that he was bisexual. He told me that he would help me find a woman to experiment with. In the meantime, it was difficult living for the first time on my own. I was homesick. I had to clean the apartment and do the shopping, do bills, and paperwork with G.D.. It was intimidating at first and then it became empowering. The apartment was cheap and not in the safest of areas. It was hard to keep it clean when I tired so easily and couldn't bend over to scrub things. G.D.'s mother helped out when she could. Often the place was unsanitary and full of earwigs, centipedes, and large spiders. Still, it was home, and it never kept friends away. G.D. was an old school Anime (Japanese animation) fan, and had a wall full of Beta videos in Japanese with no subtitles as well as Manga (Japanese comic books). He studied them for the art, not for the story. While his comic book art didn't reflect any Anime influence, he insisted the flow of the animation helped him with action sequences. G.D. was my art mentor, so I sat on the couch and studied tape after tape of his Anime. I found that without being able to understand the language I focused solely on the art and movement. Then when I sketched I found it did make a huge difference on my work. It made me think in a more three dimensional way. It also made me appreciate the independent movement of clothing on a character. G.D. got me hooked on old Loony Tunes cartoons (pre-1960), in particular the works of Bob Clampett and Tex Avery. We had many inside jokes based on their cartoons. G.D. wanted to be a lesbian, or at least to be passable as a woman. My friends and I took him out a few times in drag. Though a little scary looking, G.D. got hit on by cute women. It made me jealous, `cause no one hit on me! G.D. had a strong mother hen streak, but an equally strong temper. Once in the drive through at Taco Bell, a car full of Frat boys in front of us shouted something about our hair. G.D. got out of the car and pulled the tire iron out of the trunk. The Frat guys were speechless. G.D. sneered at them and smacked the trunk of their car with the tire iron and kicked at their tail lights. G.D. returned to our car and we took off. On the highway one time some drunk hillbillies in their pickup truck threw an empty gin bottle at our windshield. G.D. sped up considerably and attempted to ram them from behind. They pulled off the highway before G.D. left a mark on their truck. G.D.'s best friend and fellow comic book artist, V.L., lived across the street. G.D. teased him a lot for his shyness and because he looked like the hippie Neil from the British sitcom The Young Ones. Actually, when G.D. had his spikes up he looked a little like Vivian, the punk from The Young Ones. V.L. was an amazing artist. His style differed from G.D., who was more cartoonish. V.L. was a painter, into airbrush and watercolor. V.L. could paint or sketch a perfect likeness of people. He painted a few pictures of Anais Nin on the inside of Nin's books that he gave me. It took awhile to crack V.L.'s shy veneer. After a month we began to talk more. We rapidly became close. Every week their publisher held a meeting at his shop and then we would all head over to V.L.'s apartment for pizza and to play video games. I met J.O., who became mega-famous three years later with the movie adaptation of his comic. He was never mean to me, though he was so pretentious, homophobic, and sexist is amazed me that he had (and continues to have) so many fans. G.D. and V.L. took great amusement in showing the ads from various magazines that J.O. had traced for panels in his comic book. J.O. would be furious and claim everything he drew was original. When you looked at the panel and the ad side by side, all that was different was the hair and the make-up <grins>. N.P. worked for the publishing company. We became friend because we had so much in common. He was a lot of fun to hang out with. N.P. was obsessed with all things Bjork and developed a crush on me. He said I looked like Bjork. While I don't think I do, that's a flattering notion because she's hot *grins*. G.D. and I stopped by a bookstore in the mall a few times. I thought the woman who worked there, H.M., was cute. G.D. agreed, and he urged me to talk to her. I was much too embarrassed to say anything. Finally she spoke to us one day, and I noticed with mounting excitement that she was wearing a pink triangle button on her leather jacket. She asked if we ever wanted to hangout and we got her number. I was too nervous to call H.M., but G.D. made me. She came over to our apartment and the three of us made small talk. G.D. began working on his comic at the drawing table beside the couch. The next thing I remember G.D. put on the Akira soundtrack while H.M. and I made out. At first I was terrified and shaking like a leaf. But H.M. let me kiss her and touch her, and she reciprocated with passionate abandon. I knew right then and there I was gay. I loved men as brothers and got along far better with them as a whole, but a woman's touch was heaven. Suddenly G.D. was there on the couch, and the three of us were exchanging kisses. I was scared by the situation, yet I trusted G.D.. H.M. stayed the night. Nothing below the belt happened. Come morning, after H.M. left for work, I touched the lipstick smear on her Pepsi can and cradled the pillow she had used. I was smitten. Later that week the three of us got together again. We watched some Anime and talked for awhile. Then we had sex, sort of. It was my first time in a truly sexual situation. I was naked beneath H.M, and G.D. was positioned behind her. H.M. and I made out as G.D. had intercourse with her. Logically I knew he wasn't hurting her, but hearing her moans made me cry. I had never heard the sounds a woman made during sex (at least not in real life). It wasn't until afterwards when we took a bath that I realized everything was happy and cool. The more we saw H.M. the more we learned about her. She was an outspoken bisexual and an activist in S&M awareness. She seemed to know every gay person in Ann Arbor and Royal Oak. H.M., G.D., and I decided to try a three-way relationship. I began feeling left out because I was sexually naive, and G.D. and H.M. were much more experienced and comfortable in that area. I felt that I was boring to them because I wasn't into S&M and I refused penetration at the time. After awhile we all agreed to end the relationship. We remained close friends and still fooled around as friends and not as lovers. G.D. and I had been regulars at the big lesbian bookstore in Ann Arbor and the owners were our friends. G.D. cajoled me into attending a lesbian and bi group that met there weekly. As I wheeled down the aisle to where the group was gathered, I immediately felt unwelcome. The women looked like stereotypical softball players and granola dykes. All eyes swept over me. I wore Egyptian-style eye make-up, a black bra beneath my black vinyl coat, red fishnet stockings, combat boots, and my neon-green mohawk. The group obviously didn't take me seriously based on my appearance. They mentioned how women who wear make-up are buying into the patriarchal standard of beauty while looking right at me. I shrugged and left. I had much better luck once H.M. entered my life. I went to a few all woman parties of H.M.'s. It was so wonderful to me to be surrounded by lesbians, and cool ones at that. H.M. took me to leather bars, which catered to the S&M crowd, but the folk were extremely accepting of me and very friendly. At H.M.'s all girl birthday party, I got drunk on peach schnapps and did a seductive wheelchair dance to "Red Light" by Siouxsie & the Banshees. One girl in particular, K, caught my eye, and we went to one of the bedrooms. H.M. had strung up red Christmas light in the bedroom. K shut the door and turned on the CD player. Patsy Cline played as we kissed, groped, and rolled drunkenly on the floor. After an hour we were shooed out of the bedroom and slept on the living room floor with everyone else. K sprinkled rose oil in her hair, and I nuzzled her hair to breathe in the scent. In the morning, the night before was fuzzy. I rolled over and saw K, and panicked. She didn't look like the woman I had been with the previous night. I felt no ounce of physical attraction to her. Suddenly she got up and stumbled to the bathroom. K's vomiting was loud enough to wake everyone up. I was so embarrassed. When K returned she was very affectionate to me. G.D. picked me up and offered K a ride home. She wanted to see me and left me her number. I didn't want to see her, but G.D. made me call her the next day. K invited me to stay the night. G.D. dropped me off at the house she was renting with a few other bi and gay girls. K's bedroom was two flights of stairs up. I crawled up the stairs. K's room was comprised of surreal angles and a sloped ceiling. She had fabric draped everywhere. It was like a big Bedouin tent. We kissed a bit, which was fine. Then she put on a mix tape of 45 Grave, Concrete Blonde, and Tones on Tail. She stripped and laid down on the futon before me. It was the first time I had seen a woman's sex organ up close. It was the first time I was encouraged to explore it. Then my instincts took over. I felt no fear, no guilt, no doubt. I made a game of it, and told jokes in between acts, telling her that if she laughed out loud I'd stop. Eventually we ended up laughing loudly, holding each other. It was perfect. I made her orgasm repeatedly, and I began to fall for her. We dated for a good five or six months. Each time I made love to her K became more beautiful to me. Then came the Lush/Ride concert in Detroit. I was a diehard Lush fan, and it was their first time in the States. I had been sick for a week, but didn't let that stop me from going. N.P., my Bjork-loving friend, was also a big Lush fan. He agreed to take K and I to the show. K and N.P. got along okay. I felt horrible at the show. Right after Lush N.P. and K took me to the ER. I could barely breathe. They called G.D.. As I was wheeled away on a table K's hand slid from mine and she told me she loved me. I blacked out, but woke up a few hours later with G.D. there. I had bronchitis verging on pneumonia. With antibiotics in hand G.D. and I returned home. I asked where K was and he said she had ridden home with N.P.. That day I got a phone call from K. She ended our relationship. After she left the hospital with N.P., they spent the night talking and she fell in love with him. I was too sick and delirious to even reply. I never spoke to or saw either of them until I returned five years later for V.L.'s wedding. K and N.P. had settled into a tense marriage. K gained an immense amount of weight and barely resembled the woman I knew. We put the past behind us and made amends, as I did with N.P.. G.D. had a habit of adopting strays. One in particular was a sixteen year old girl who was in a psyche ward. She was a fan of his comic, and they began calling each other a lot. The girl's parents had abandoned her in an institution. He insisted we pay for her train ticket to visit us. The girl came out, and I knew right away we couldn't be responsible for her. She needed all sorts of therapy, supervision, meds, and she was diabetic. She had no insurance or Medicaid/Medicare. G.D. and I barely had money for food and rent. I caught them in bed together, and that was the final straw. It seemed unfair to this mixed up girl to throw sex into the relationship. She saw him as a father figure. I yelled at G.D. for it, and he slapped me in the face. He felt really bad for it and apologized, but I moved back to Colorado the next week. G.D. taught me so much. He made me view my body positively. He showed me the beauty of a woman's body, be it fat, skinny, hairy, or of any other variety. G.D. told me to never feel embarrassed about my disability or my physical needs. He helped me get published. He helped me become a part of the comic book community and to travel. While I was too young to fully understand the dynamics of a relationship, I was awakened there. I learned who I was. Thank you, G.D.! I got my first computer, an ancient used IBM, when I was twenty-three. I had no clue how to use it. Computer books bored me and I avoided them. I learned by trial and error, mostly error. I got on AOL and the first thing I did was a websearch for the word werewolf. It brought up a handful of sites. One was a newsgroup, Alt. Horror.Werewolves (AHWw for short). I didn't know what a newsgroup was. I had enough of a headache just figuring out how to use email and how to websurf. In a week I figured out the newsgroup thing and subscribed to AHWw. AHWw was like finding home. I lurked for awhile. I couldn't believe the camaraderie, acceptance, and intelligence that the majority of people there possessed. I thought it was merely a werewolf movie and werewolf book discussion group. While it was that, it was also focused on animal -based spirituality, from shamanism to Totemism to believing one was a given animal mistakenly placed in a human body, to animal possession, and so on. The people on ahww reminded me of myself in a lot of ways. It was amazing to be able to talk to others about how I had felt for so long. Soon individuals from AHWw began visiting me from all over the country. My apartment became known as the "were-hotel". Most of the people I met from AHWw back in 1994 are very close to me still. I've never known such true friends as those from AHWw. The newsgroup went to shit in 1997 and I left soon after. The few who ruined things left a lot of hurt in their wake. I experienced my first stalker from AHWw. Luckily no one was hurt. When AHWw fell apart it was like a family divorcing. After a few years I rejoined AHWw in the hopes of recapturing the magic of earlier days. It was awful and I quickly quit again, though not before someone local got in touch with me. C has been one of best friends since, and through him we've made a "pack" of six, one still remaining in Utah but soon to live here *grins*. Since my start on AHWw and its spin-off chat room, W and SW have been true blue friends despite living states away. W drove all the way out here and stayed with me for a good month or two, taking care of me when I first got on insulin and was quite ill. SW drove down to clean my entire apartment to help out. R, from AHWw's chat room, has known me for five years. He is the only other person I know with a debilitating and life-threatening disease. We deal with similar situations. We can bitch about Medicaid woes and illness to one another. He supports me in ways no one else can. R is my anchor, helping me to stay grounded. I still use IRC on the private AHWw-related server. After leaving ahww the first time, my IBM died, and I took out a loan to purchase an Acer. I still have it, despite its frequent crashes and problems. I became more confidant with the computer and decided to try a few different clients: Netcom, Pipeline USA, and MSN. I downloaded mIRC and decided to look at some non-AHWw-related chat rooms. I went to the Undernet server and entered a gothic channel. Twenty people were on it but none were talking. This happened time and time again. Then I ran into an old AHWw friend there. He and I joked that we should make a new gothic channel where people actually talked and did things. We decided to go for it. We registered our channel and he asked me to be manager of it. It's interesting how the sense of acceptance in the newsgroup ahww was unlike anything else. When I met individuals from ahww in person, there was for the most part an immediate, unspoken bond. In stark contrast was my gothic channel. Ironically the atmosphere there began with the same sense of acceptance, but rapidly spiraled into something different. Even the core people (most of the Ops) whom I liked on the channel scared me with their ever- sarcastic, wickedly intelligent, often cruel bravado. Perhaps I mistook this for independence and clung to their friendship in the hopes that what I mistook for independence would rub off on me. I trusted the core folks on the gothic channel to be as kind and polite as the majority of folks on the AHWw-related channel. I was horribly naive. In the beginning the channel became my baby. I would be on that channel from noon until 2:00 am. I made great friends there. I met a woman who introduced me to the local goth scene. It opened up a whole new world. She convinced me to join the recently formed Colorado goth mailing list. The woman informed me of a new local gothic- run ISP, Netherworld, and I've been with it since. She introduced me to the proprietor of the Colorado goth list and between the two they took me to clubs and parties. My esteem grew. When AOL altered their software to allow its users to log into any IRC servers, the IRC community was overrun by immature users. It was hard to take being on channel. I was oversensitive and took all of the taunting and blathering of those frequenting the channel personally. I made the mistake of giving everyone I liked operator status (Ops). The Ops decided to meet in Seattle for a week. It was an eventful trip, involving folks from New Orleans, Detroit, Vancouver, and Eugene. After that trip our group dynamics fell apart. I gave my manager status to one of my better friends from the channel and left IRC. The main reason for my leaving was S.O.. The second day of the channel's existence I met S.O.. S.O. was a DJ from Canada. Her Gaelic name was genderless. We typed back and forth for hours that night about music and S.O.'s experiences growing up in Ireland. That same night she asked me for a pic, which led to my initial thought that she was male. I went ahead and sent her a photo, an old close-up of me with a green mohawk. I followed up the pic with an "I'm a lesbian, btw" to diffuse any sexual curiosity on S.O.'s part. S.O. just laughed and replied that she was a lesbian too! She thought I was gorgeous. She called soon afterwards and I became smitten. We spent five months courting one another over the phone, through email, and on IRC. She was the perfect illusion for me: Irish with a thick accent, a gothic DJ with a CD collection to rival my own, compliant with every fantasy I had, and stunningly beautiful. Soon into our relationship she revealed to me why she had relocated to Canada. S.O. claimed she had been involved with the IRA. She had gotten in trouble with the law in Derry and had been flown to a safe house in Canada. She sent me photos of her with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and of her as a child with punked out hair and pointing a gun at the camera. It was a red flag but also exciting in a romantic spy drama sort of way. I gave in to the excitement and threw caution to the wind. I checked out books on the Irish Republican Army, watched documentaries and films on the subject, and did my best to educate myself on the subject. Finally we couldn't bear to be apart. We along with the other Ops from our channel decided to meet up in Seattle in 1997. I stayed in Eugene with a fellow Op and close friend, A.S., for a few days before we planned to drive up to Seattle. S.O. called constantly during that time, and we were beyond horny and sappy. That night as I lay asleep at A.S.'s, the phone rang. S.O. had driven all the way from Canada just to see me a day before we were to meet in Seattle! A.S. buzzed her into the apartment and S.O. came running into the bedroom and leapt on the bed. I was shy and ducked beneath the covers to hide my face. She begged to see me until I lowered the covers and our eyes met. She was more beautiful in person. She kept whispering how perfect I was while tracing the contours of my face. I went to kiss her cheek, and we fell asleep holding one another. The next day she barely spoke to me. We drove in her car to Seattle. She drove like a maniac, darting between cars and always speeding. I talked incessantly, telling her everything about me, my hopes and dreams and past experiences. I had to fill the silence. S.O. exposed me to some amazing CDs in the car to and from Seattle, most of which were EBM and Industrial compilations. I felt like this woman was an alien who had stolen S.O.'s identity. When we reached our hotel, S.O. threw a tantrum inside the room when she couldn't find her keys. She threw her box purse across the room and screamed. Our friends arrived just then and didn't know how to react. S.O. bolted downstairs. Everyone else wanted to get food. I was hungry but felt I should stay and wait for S.O. to return. The others left and an hour later S.O. returned. She had locked her keys in the car and had to have the agency her insurance was affiliated with come and unlock it. We ordered Chinese and suddenly she seemed nice and warm again. As we ate we curled up together on the couch. She showed me photos of her home in Ireland, and a plastic baggy with a rubber police bullet she'd been shot with. She showed me the scar on her shoulder blade. We talked some more, and I inched closer to her mouth to kiss her. She pushed me away. Stunned, I started to cry. She told me that prior to relocating to Canada, she had been gang-raped by Protestants and it was too fresh of a memory to be physically romantic with anyone. I felt horrible for her and wondered why she hadn't told me before. So many red flags had cropped up by this point that I put on my blinders and tuned out my instincts. Our friends returned, and we all went to bed. No one had thought to get an accessible room, which made for a stressful week. I had to use the bathroom at the end of the hallway that had an accessible stall. I was too shy to ask for help. At one point I couldn't get back into my chair and was stuck in that bathroom for forty minutes. I finally threw myself into the chair and dragged myself upright. The following days S.O. grew even more distant. We as a group went to two area clubs. One had a flight of stairs that the bouncers had no problem getting me down. The other club had two minor steps. My friend G pulled me over them but his arms suddenly gave way and he dumped me forward. I smacked the concrete sidewalk hard on my knees. People from the club helped me up. My channel friends made themselves scarce, probably out of embarrassment. S.O., who I hoped would comfort me, whisked me into the bathroom and washed off my bleeding knees, one which was swollen to the size of a baseball. She then quickly left. I sat in the bathroom trying to stop crying, then went out to where my friends were. S.O. wasn't with them. They weren't talking, so I finally decided, fuck it. I paid for this vacation from hell, so I had nothing to lose. I went on the tiny dance floor and strutted my stuff to mostly Industrial tracks. A woman approached me and asked me to dance with her. It made me feel good, and I happily obliged. S.O. returned just as the club was closing. I was mad as hell over the whole week and how badly she had treated me. I was frustrated with all of the so called friends I was with and the pain, both emotional and physical, that I was in. I asked S.O. to go with me to the parking lot. In the parking lot I asked her why she was acting so bizarre when we had been madly in love prior to meeting in the flesh. She trembled and rocked while repeating "I love you." Then she stormed off. The next day we missed my plane, then I nearly missed the next one. I've never been happier to return home from a trip. A few days after I returned home, I wrote S.O. and asked her what the hell had happened. She felt horrible and claimed how suicidal she had felt after I left. I was so confused and hurt I felt completely helpless. Some desperate part of me was still in love with her. We agreed to try to work it out somehow. Meanwhile I poured my heart out over the phone to a friend from the channel who hadn't been to the meeting in Seattle, dr. Dr offered me his sympathy and a kind ear. He was very supportive. Dr was quite upset that S.O. had treated me so badly. He told me he would drive out to meet her and confront her for me. While the offer made me smile, I told dr not to contact her. He contacted her on his own however. A few days later I received a phone call from S.O.. It was the first time we had spoken since Seattle. It was awkward at first. S.O. sounded happier than I had heard her in awhile. I asked her what was up, and then she asked me not to be mad. Dr said "hi" next to the mouthpiece, and they both laughed. S.O. said that dr had come to visit her and the two ended up having sex. She was in love with him but didn't want to hurt me. I had to give up my channel and move on after that. S.O. contacted me four months later on ICQ, an instant message program. S.O. apologized and claimed she was an undiagnosed schizophrenic at the time we met, and that she was on meds and doing much better. A few months later she contacted me again to apologize and told me she had lied about everything. She said her name was really K.O., and that she had moved to Canada from London. She was married to an abusive husband, and I had been her "perfect dream person" to fantasize about. When we met face to face, she didn't know how to handle it and panicked. I got rid of ICQ after that and haven't heard from her since. I was a wreck for awhile, not trusting or believing in anyone. I hated myself for allowing myself to be victimized. I let P, a down-on- his -luck friend, stay with me rent-free. I had known P for years through Live-Action Role Playing. P helped me a lot during a time when I was vulnerable, skittish, and physically unsteady. He gave me a new perspective on many things. He was a gay HIV+ black man and I felt a definite kinship with him. P stayed with me for nearly a year. On my 26th birthday I had invited several people over who never showed. Another old LARP friend showed up a few hours late and told me that he wasn't sorry for being late. He told me he didn't care less about me. I told him to get the fuck out. Later, when P came home, I started to tell him what had happened. He yelled at me for dumping things on him and threw his keys at me. He stormed out of the apartment. That night was the closest I've ever been to committing suicide. I called a friend who calmed me down a bit. Another friend stayed the night with me, which helped a lot. In the morning P returned, calmer, but he never apologized for yelling at me on my birthday when I was already in tears and down. I wallowed in a mega depression after that. I delved headlong into Celtic mythology and historical research in search of a connection, something to anchor me in dark times. I trusted no-one except for my parents, who seemed so far away. I continued posting to the CO-goths list and that was my primary social outlet. I still went to concerts. When a goth club opened five blocks from my apartment I began going there regularly. I found a new outlet through dancing. I danced until I poured sweat and my fingers bled. Once my finger were so torn up by the spokes on my wheels I left a blood trail all over the dance floor. My tires were stained with blood for weeks. I decided it was more sanitary and less painful to invest in batting gloves, which were expensive but full-fingered and padded in the right spots. I received an email from someone on the CO-goths list who admired my dancing. He introduced himself at the club the following week along with his two friends. They were all very nice. I felt a little hope flickering in my gut. I went with them to the Renaissance Fair. We decided to throw a room party at Starcon (a huge sci-fi convention in Denver) for the CO-goths list. The party was awesome. Two of my ahww friends were there, one in a realistic werewolf suit who was scaring attendees and getting lots of photos taken. I brought him back to the room and got really drunk, laying on his lap while he scratched my tummy. Lots of folks took photos of the werewolf scratching the goth girl *grins*. Richard Hatch (Apollo from Battlestar Galactica) wandered into the party with his girlfriend. He was tipsy but a lot of fun. Soon everyone was coming into our party. Klingons with a vat of bloodwine (sangria mixed with everclear), a Xena wannabe with six guys in leashes in tow, and all manner of costumed alien, geek, and goth. The weekend wasn't without its petty drama, but overall it was amazing. It broke my funk, and I fully embraced the list members whom I had met at the party. I started holding monthly movie nights for the CO-goths list members. It was such fun! The movie nights rapidly became Truth or Dare with lots of drinking and movies in the background. They became fairly notorious. I was grateful, thankful, and incredibly happy to have made such good friends. When my 27th birthday rolled around, they threw me a surprise birthday party at my favorite Denver club! I was stunned. I cried with joy. There were balloons, streamers, even a diabetic- friendly cherry pie. The DJ played "Party's Fall" for me, my all time favorite Siouxsie song. It was like a wonderful dream. Around August of 1999 fewer people showed up for movie night. Soon only three or four people came. By December only two people showed. People said they were busy or didn't reply. I was angry because I felt abandoned. My health was catching up to me and I could no longer live on my own. Two friends helped me pack and move. I suppose the stress of leaving my independence combined with the sudden disappearance of the bulk of my friends was too much to take. I was furious and severely depressed for months. My new home was a small add-on to my parents house. It was out in the middle of nowhere. My heart sank. Only four friends from the CO-goths list, over a period of a year and a half, ever came to visit despite my pleas and invites. I retreated from the hope of things returning as they were, and shifted focus to my local ahww friends. They had gone clubbing with me, attended movie nights, and never failed to visit weekly. They gave me the strength to keep trusting in folks and not to abandon hope. I also posted more frequently to the pride-goth list, a mailing list for gay, bi, trans, and questioning goths. The clubs I regularly attended went under, and I was suddenly robbed of my dancing outlet. My 28th birthday came. One of my friends took me to a new club. The cover was $10.00! Literally no one showed up but us. The DJ played anything I wanted but unfortunately he had scant pickings to chose from. The club closed early due to lack of clientele, and I went home bummed. The next day I decided, fuck all of this, I'm going to Convergence in Seattle. Convergence is a big annual gathering of on-line goths, bands, merchants, and artists. I got my friend to go with me. Because it was a last minute decision, plane tickets were outrageously expensive. I delved into a relatives inheritance and covered the cost. Attending Convergence was an eye-opening and heart-opening experience. 800 gothic folks attended expressly to meet people. The atmosphere was laid back and accepting, completely the opposite of the goth channel meet a few years prior. I remembered the clubs from that first visit, and it offered me some closure to be in those same clubs with wonderful people this time and nothing but good vibes. I met many of my pride-goth list friends which was a godsend because I had never been around gothic lesbians before or more than two gay goth guys. I returned to Colorado with a stronger sense of self and a renewed faith in humanity. When I was sixteen, J.B. and a few of her punk friends would go dancing with me at a Denver club called Rock Island. In conjunction with a local PBS alternative video program called Teletunes, every Tuesday at Rock Island was all ages. It was the only alternative music club in Colorado at that time to have an all- ages night. J.B., the other girls, and I would spend hours teasing our hair or standing up our mohawks, painting precise Egyptian- style eyeliner on, and scrawling hieroglyphics or spider webs on our faces with eye pencil or even magic marker. J.B.'s mother would take us and pick us up. I first began dancing in my wheelchair then, my confidence bolstered by J.B.'s presence. Everyone on the floor was impressed or perplexed. They had never seen a girl with a mohawk and ripped-up clothes pounding the floor with her wheels and spinning about in a chair. I remember feeling an overwhelming urge to impress the cute gothic women there. One girl had teased white hair, Siouxsie make-up reminiscent of the "Arabian Nights" video, and moves more fluid and graceful than humanly possible. I danced near hear, and when she looked up and smiled I was on Cloud 9 for a week! The all-ages night lasted for at least a year. I stopped dancing after that, but started again at the age of twenty-five. When I turned twenty-one two of my lesbian friends from my gay sci-fi writers group and J.S. (years before he finally "came out") took me out all night to different local gay bars (none of which are still in existence). In preparation, my writer friends took me shopping at some of the more eccentric used clothing stores in Denver. I purchased my "birthday suit", a lemon yellow Prom suit from the `70's. It was such an eyesore I had to have it. My lesbian friends proceeded to make the ensemble even more sleazy by kissing the lapel, so it appeared I had been ferociously necking with a drove of dark-lipsticked women. My parents paid for a suite for us in one of downtown Denver's swankiest hotels. The first bar they took me to was supposedly the oldest lesbian bar in North America. We entered the place and all heads turned. It was like a scene from a movie. J.S. felt very insecure under the withering gaze of the diesel dykes at the bar, as did I. My lesbian friends and I happened to be quite feminine looking, and the lot of us were under twenty-five years in age. We were eyed with obvious scrutiny by the over thirty, manly, overweight clientele of the bar. I wanted to leave, but my friends wanted me to stay for at least one drink. One of my friends told the bartender it was my twenty-first birthday and she gave me free Jell-O shots. I felt more relaxed after shot number three. Then some drunk woman came out from the back room and handed out free roses to everyone who wanted one. She gave me three for my birthday, one black, one red, and one purple. Upon closer inspection I realized they were handmade from silk, with wire stems. After a few more shots we went to a different gay bar comprised mostly our age group. It was packed. I was so drunk by that point flirting was out of the question. I was also too shy to make the moves on anyone. The rest of the night was a blur, though I remember making it back to the hotel safely. In the Spring of 1995 J.S., his college chum L, and I took a spontaneous road trip to Los Angeles. I received a call at night from J.S., telling me to pack a bag and bring my check book. Their Spring break had begun, and they wanted to get out and do something. They brought along a dictation tape recorder to log our adventure. We took off at 10:00 p.m. and headed for Vegas. We got there and ate at Denny's, adrenaline still in overdrive. Then we debated where to go. I suggested LA, visions of Helter Skelter and energetic street life dancing in my head. They agreed, and off we went. J.S. drove the entire time, amazingly failing to fall asleep at the wheel. We drove on the Hollywood Strip in search of a hotel. We didn't take into account it was Academy Awards night. Everything was booked. We finally found a ramshackle hotel owned by some non-English speaking fellows. J.S. showed them money, and they gave us a room. It was around noon, and we all collapsed on the beds in the dirty little room with relief. We were sound asleep until yelling woke us up. With a start the door was kicked in and an extremely pissed-off guy was yelling at us in some Middle- eastern dialect. Terrified and disoriented, we scrambled to gather our stuff and get out. A couple were standing outside the door glaring at us. We didn't even get our money back. We drove up and down the Strip, and finally parked at a beach parking area. We were exhausted yet our adrenaline was pumped. L grabbed his acoustic guitar and the three of us walked out onto the beach. It proved to be too difficult to push my chair through the sand, so J.S. hoisted me over one shoulder and plopped me down a few feet from the water's edge. L sat next to me and played his guitar, a few old Violent Femmes and Concrete Blonde tunes. J.S. ran into the water and bodysurfed. It was maybe an hour before sunrise, and an occasional jogger passed by. I laid there making sand angels and staring up at the stars and the moon, thinking how perfect the moment was. We decided to drive down to San Diego and visit the zoo. We got there forty-five minutes before close, so there weren't many people about. We passed a cage of monkeys who looked bored and depressed. L took a recorder out of his inside coat pocket and played some notes on it for them. They immediately perked up and clambered over one another to get closer. We left the zoo and decided to hit Tiajuana. J.S. bought "Mexican car insurance" before crossing the Border and we got some cash converted. Tiajuana was eye-opening. Startling, even. At night it was crazy, bustling with lights and people, noise and food. We were pulled into a bar with a curtain for an outside wall. There was a walkway taking up the center of the room and a woman older than her years gyrating about it fully naked. A corner table was full of hooting, hollering American Navy guys. L and I agreed it was too campy to pass up. We got a table right up against the walkway. J.S. never looked up from the table. I looked towards the bar and spied the most stereotypical hooker I've seen in my life: platinum blonde Dolly Parton hairdo, tight blue spandex pants, baby-blue eye shadow and ultra-long fake eyelashes, bright red lipstick, a halter top, and white cowgirl boots with fringe. She smiled and winked at me. Horrified, I motioned for L to check her out. Suddenly she was heading our way! I hunkered down and tried to blend in with my chair. She whispered to L for a minute, and sauntered back to the bar. L burst out laughing. The hooker had told him to let me know what a cute *boy* I was. She bought us a round of tequila as well. I was embarrassed and amused. Me, mistaken for a boy? I was a bit gamy, as we all were, from roughing it. I had no make-up on, a flannel shirt and a backwards Skinny Puppy baseball cap on to hide my greasy hair. As we left the club, another whore hit on me and referred to me as a boy. Later at the hotel, while J.S. slept, L and I sat on the balcony and talked. L said something cool to me: "you don't act like you're in a wheelchair". He thought it was cool that I was so easygoing. I was, but only because J.S. was there to help me. J.S. and I grew up together and had a bond. He intuitively knew when to help me, and never left me feeling weak or helpless. We returned to Tiajuana the following afternoon, and seeing such poverty, untreated disability, and grime in the streets was overwhelming. We decided to go through Flagstaff, Arizona and New Mexico on the way home. We stopped at the Grand Canyon, which was amazing. It's depth and grandeur made me feel infantile. There were several spots without rails that could easily be deadly. I had a horrible notion of the weight of my chair causing loose dirt to give way and send me tumbling down the monstrous crevasse. I made sure to give those spots a wide berth. Shortly after J.S. "came out" to everyone, he took me to a new lesbian bar in Denver (which is no longer a lesbian bar, unfortunately). The first time, I was drooling over a punk/goth couple who were being romantic at their table. I wanted that so desperately, the obvious connection the two shared. I settled instead for a virgin margarita and whined to J.S. about how impossible it was to get a girlfriend. I was wearing a tank top which exposed my tattoos. I looked up as an unlikely trio entered the bar: two very tall, very large women with short blonde hair and matching white Izod shirts and a short, wiry woman in a Rockies baseball uniform. I pointed them out to J.S. and giggled. Next thing I knew, the waitress approached me and asked what I was drinking because the wiry woman in the baseball uniform wanted to buy me a drink. I was caught off guard, and accepted the offer. I looked at the bar and the baseball woman nodded at me. My heart sank and I told J.S. to bail me out if she came over, which of course she did. J.S. just sat back, amused, not helping me out at all *chuckles*. Baseball woman asked if she could sit next to me and pulled up a chair. She plopped down on the chair backwards and propped her elbows on the back of the chair. She asked about my tattoos, and I briefly described their meaning. She showed me the tattoo on her arm of a purple unicorn. She said it was her dream to start a lesbian dude ranch. She asked if I liked horses. I told her when I was eleven I adored them. She asked if I liked Melissa Ethridge. I told her what music I listened to and she looked at me blankly. One of her tall friends approached us. The tall woman was so inebriated that she reeked of gin and dribbled some as she spoke. The tall woman wanted to show me her tattoo, and the baseball woman scowled at her and told her to leave us alone. The tall woman was oblivious and showed me a heart tattoo on her bicep with several women's names, three of which were crossed out. The tall woman laughed and the baseball woman got up, grabbed her by the arm, and yelled at her. The tall woman returned to the bar and baseball woman sat beside me again. I eyed J.S., but he was thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. The baseball woman edged a little closer and asked if I could feel anything below the waist, then put her hand on my thigh. Perturbed, I placed her hand on the table and assured her that I could feel just fine. Undaunted, she asked if I wanted to go back to her place. I was annoyed yet I didn't want to hurt her feelings. I made up a story about having to work early in the morning and thanks but no thanks. She looked sad, and J.S. and I hightailed it out of there. The other time J.S. and I had been at that particular bar a woman who was actually cute and interesting approached me. We talked for a few hours while her gay male friend talked with J.S.. Convenient, that. Then, as the evening drew to a close, the woman gave me her phone number. I asked if she lived alone, and she answered that she lived with her husband. I asked if he was aware she hit on women in gay bars, and she said yes. I said I would call, but never did. I would never want to become the mistress, even if it truly was "okay" by the husband or S.O.. I used to regularly frequent clubs. I loved to dance and sweat and flirt and drink. It took many years of trial and error to figure out that most women in gothic clubs are bi-curious and nothing serious. It took me even longer to realize that I wouldn't find what I'm looking for at bars and clubs Added April 23rd, 2001 Millennium was a club five blocks away from my apartment in Boulder. I had gone there in its previous short-lived incarnations as Blue Steel, a lesbian bar, and Our House, the precursor to Millennium. Millennium had an all-ages night with an emphasis on Industrial, gothic, and `80s new wave music. I went weekly with my local ahww friends (the "pack", if you will) and a good number of the CO-goth list frequented the place. Each week was like a family gathering. The place was remarkably free of drama, though there were a few girls I flirted with who strung me along before making out with a guy in front of me to make a point... whatever that point was. There was many a wonderful, drunken night spent at Millennium. It closed after two years for various legal reasons. Once my friend C painted his torso, arms, and face like a wolf for our night at the club. Once he painted my face like a barn owl, and once in Pictish runes with special FX blood. Sometimes when a song C really liked came on, he would howl at the top of his lungs. It was barely audible above the din, but no one cared anyway. We would often step outside in the parking lot to stare at the moon, apart from the crowds of chain-smoking teens. There were times that we left early, drunk and happy (or at least drunk) to go run around the nature trails by the foothills. We would get to the nature trails by 1:00 AM or so, and deer, rabbits, and raccoons would be all over. It was like a different world. With people in bed or bars the town was quiet and the animals were ready to play. In Portland, Oregon, I went to a lesbian bar with a good male friend who did goth drag. I was just shy of twenty-seven. A couple had their dog, a German shepherd named Xena, inside the bar. The dog made a beeline for me and put her paws on my lap and licked my face profusely. The couple apologized and said Xena never behaved like that. The couple and I talked, and they were really nice. All of the lesbians in the bar were enamored with my drag friend. They thought he was great <grins>. In the back of the bar was a hallway the led to another room. It was striptease night. My friend and I sat right up against the performance area. I had never been to a lesbian strip show before. It was wonderfully erotic with realistic women, many of whom were goth-ish or punk. One stripper was obviously straight. She kept her eyes averted through her performance and didn't smile once. One girl seemed to like me and kept returning to my table, playing with wax while grinning at me. I didn't have much to tip her with and after I'd given away ten bucks I was all cashed out. A woman sat next to me and we discussed the bar's history. I told her I'd gone to the Castro in San Fran in search of the lesbian Mecca and she laughed. She told me that Portland, OR, was the lesbian equivalent of what the Castro is for gay men. The week my drag friend and I spent wandering Portland the more I believed what the lesbian at the bar had told me. Everywhere I turned there seemed to be women sporting lesbian tattoos or gay buttons and T-shirts. I hope to go back sometime and check it out specifically for the gay scene. I met A.S. on-line when I entered my first gothic channel on Undernet. We clicked right away. When G and I decided to form our own goth channel A.S. lent her support. I was drawn to her wit, her intelligence, her taste in music. I felt that I saw through her shield of biting sarcasm to the fragile soul beneath. As our friendship grew and graduated into phone conversations, she became key in keeping me as grounded as I could be during the S.O. affair. A.S. embodied what I thought I wanted to be: a self- assured, strong personality not dependent on anyone for anything. At the time I failed to realize I was those things already. I am and will always be dependent upon others physically, but internally I can survive and be creative on my own. And so I became attached to A.S., secretly hoping that the "mojo" I associated her with would somehow rub off on me. We agreed that meeting face to face would be a good thing, and in 1997 we arranged for the Ops of our goth channel to meet in Seattle. A.S. lived in Eugene, Oregon, and I arranged to arrive a few days prior to our leaving for Seattle so A.S. and I could go through her music collection and talk. G, who had developed an obsession with A.S., was also there while I was. I wanted to discuss ahww with G, which is where we met and spent time together, but all he would talk about was A.S.. It got old quickly. I think A.S. enjoyed G's lust and attention on some level. A.S. seemed to take pleasure in tormenting G, and in my foolishness I played along halfheartedly. I wanted to impress A.S. every bit as much as G, even if it meant acting against my nature and doing as A.S. did. Aside from picking on G, the days at A.S.'s were great. Nothing was accessible and the apartment was on the second floor with no elevator. We made do as best we could. It felt good bonding with A.S., and soon I would be with S.O.. What could be better? As mentioned in the S.O. section, she drove all the way down from Vancouver to A.S.'s apartment just to see me the night prior to the Seattle meet. Throughout the Seattle (head)trip, A.S. did her best to stay scarce and not talk to anyone. I made a dozen excuses in my head for A.S. and why she was so aloof. We had been so close prior. One night after clubbing we saw that the band Sheep On Drugs were playing an incredibly cheap show. It was 21+, and G was underage. The only reason G was able to get into local clubs was that S.O. had some sway there as an established DJ and who knows what else. This didn't seem like a big deal to anyone else, and the group told him to wait outside until the concert was over. I couldn't believe it! I told them I would stay with him, because leaving a friend in a strange city at night for a show is rude. I don't think they heard me or cared. Both G and I were horribly depressed by then, but I was determined to salvage something. I brought up AHWw, werewolves, and spirituality with him, hoping to spark a conversation that didn't involve A.S., S.O., or love. No such luck, of course. We wandered all over Seattle in the biting October wind. It was as miserable outside as we felt inside. When I returned to Colorado, I was a wreck. Dynamics among the goth channel Ops disintegrated, and I never could reconnect with A.S. in the same way. I signed over my managerial position on the goth channel to A.S. and left the place. A.S. and I started to reconnect via the computer after awhile. I still felt a great devotion to A.S. in spite of everything that happened in Seattle, and spite of what I perceived as her wrath at me for leaving our goth channel. We agreed to meet up again in the Spring of 1999. I went there with two local friends, one whom I barely knew. It was an enlightening trip. A.S. was now a well-paid professional of the HTML persuasion. She had a beautiful art deco apartment in Portland, Oregon. Most surprising, she had a boyfriend. For years she had spoken of the notion of relationships and sexual relations with derision soaked in sarcasm. She claimed no interest in such folly. A.S. worked most of the time we were there. J, his friend, and I would take the bus downtown every day. This was a pain in the ass (literally), as A.S. lived on the second floor. Unlike the Eugene experience, this complex had longer flights of stairs and a complicated angle. It was much more difficult to haul me up and down. J and I went to a nearby lesbian bar and had much fun. Once we all went out for Indian food and to see "Gods and Monsters". Another time J, A.S., and I went to see a small show with Trance To the Sun and two local bands. I felt that I was finally able to observe A.S. without rose-colored glasses. She seemed so lonely, despite her boyfriend. She was so shy, so afraid of human contact. Suddenly everything from the past Seattle trip made sense. All of A.S.'s on-line sarcasm made sense. I said nothing of course, but I knew. I wanted to hug her, but that wouldn't have been appropriate. A few nights I got frightfully drunk, and once while drunk to the point of passing out I admitted to A.S. that I felt I would die soon. I hadn't gotten on insulin yet and was feeling ill constantly from high blood sugars. The glucophage pills alone weren't helping anymore. She didn't respond. When we went back to the apartment I passed out in A.S.'s canopy bed. I drifted in and out of lucidity. My eyes barely opened when the lights went out. I watched A.S. come near, and feigned sleep. She bent down and kissed my forehead. There was such tenderness in that one gesture. It was that fragile soul beneath her self-imposed walls shining through. It was also a kiss good-bye. I haven't spoken much to A.S. since. There's no reason why. Something between us was resolved or brought to light during that last trip, and it seems wrong to intrude on that. The real A.S. will always lay safe in my heart. It's interesting how the mind paints its own illusion of who a person is. People we meet on-line are like connect-the-dots. Our imagination fills in the lines and adds color. Assumptions are made before we even meet the people in person. Some rare folk are how they write. For most, words are just smoke and mirrors. May 26th, 2001 At twenty-nine, I ask anew: who am I? Still the poet. Still the artist and dreamer. Still the warrior manning walls of carefully constructed stoicism. Still the dirty-cheeked tomboy running through the forests of the heart. Have I discovered myself in the select memories I've jotted down thus far? I see some of what's shaped my core personality, what environmental influences have made an impact on me. As someone very wise once said, there's no excuse for our behavior. We can blame our parents, our environment, our current situation, or our past for how we choose to behave, but it's really about us and now. We aren't our parents or our environment, and thus we can change and rise above. We aren't the sum of our victimization. We must actively seek our own happiness, it doesn't just happen. |
