She’s doing fine, no motion-related illnesses to report, and she’s been doing her best to keep the anxiety and nervousness at bay.  She’s finding her way around the ship and said that the crew members and passengers have all been friendly and nice.  She may even take in a matinee performance of a Shakespeare piece but mostly she’s trying to relax and enjoy the journey.

Keiti will have plenty of photos and stories to share when she arrives so make sure to come back for those.  Until then she sends her best to everyone!

Have a great weekend!

DC

My mom made me cry at the train station yesterday morning as I was getting ready to board the train.  We were both in tears, though we both also knew it would happen.  My mom and I are criers - she’s the one who gets me all wrapped up in stupid TV shows and I find myself tearing up at the goofiest things - my favorite thing to say to her is, “Why do you make me watch this trash?” but it’s something we share and giggle at together.

My dad was the rock, as usual, and made sure me and L. O’Balls got to the station on time - we actually arrived way early, but we didn’t have to rush and that was the whole point.  I hate having to rush.  It makes me cranky and anxious.

Now I find myself in a hotel room in Brooklyn, NY, mere blocks from where I’ll catch the cruise ship tomorrow.  My normal anxiety has thankfully been at the barest minimum and I hope it stays that way for the duration of the trip.  I’m a little bit anxious with too much time to think at the moment.  Hopefully a good night’s sleep will help rectify that.  I’ve probably slept a total of 7 hours since yesterday morning, and that includes the 2-hour nap I fell prey to when I checked into the hotel.

Even though all I’ve experienced of NYC is Penn Station (which was in-sane!) and a car ride through downtown to the hotel, I can say with some degree of certainty that I’d never be able to live here.  It’s too busy.  The drive to the hotel was quite the experience - no one (and I mean NO ONE) uses their signals and they all seem to share an affinity for straddling two lanes, hedging their bets on which lane they need to be in.  It astounds me that I got to the hotel unscathed!  But I did get to see the Empire State Building from the train, the Statue of Liberty from the car and drive across the Brooklyn Bridge, which was really cool.  Part of me wishes I had more time to check out the city, but it’s probably just as well - I’d be an absolute basket case by the time I left.  Sensory overload and all of that.  There was a time when I was younger that I’d have loved to live in a city like NYC - but now the constant motion and forever being “on” hold little appeal.

While I’m on the ship, DC, the illustrious and mojo-laden webmaster, has agreed to post on my behalf - the general idea is that I’ll send him email from the ship (at a cost, of course) and he’ll make sure everything gets posted.  I’m going to try to include lots of pictures - I mean, it’s the freakin’ QM2! - so stay tuned for that.  I’ll try to send something along at least every other day, if not every day.

So, make sure to leave a note for DC and thank him for going way above and beyond!  I don’t know what I’d do without him!

But I’m happy to say that everything seems to be running smoothly once again.

And just in time - I leave for NYC on Tuesday morning and will be mostly without internet access until I get to school on the 13th.  I’m sure there’s access aboard the QM2, but I won’t know what the set up is until I get underway.  Hopefully I’ll be able to post sometime between now and then, but if not, please stay tuned until after 15 Sept when I’ll be at school and should have full-time access to all things net-related.

In the meantime, enjoy the latest trip into the depths of my brain.

The dream starts off with me on the train to NYC - the train morphed into the Queen Mary 2, which was dark & kind of elegantly seedy.  I was wandering around by myself (and have the distinct impression that I was kissing random people).  I ran into the Divine Ms. D and we were hanging out in our pajamas and watching a show of some sort - something to do with people sliding down a massive water slide.

The QM2 started undulating and began breaking off into sections which would undulate independently.  As each section of the boat undulated, they turned into buses (complete with seats) but were still capable of navigating in water.  Divine Ms. D and I slid down the boat trying to reach a section further up.  When we landed on the section where we stayed, I felt like I was naked, but somehow pulled sweat pants and a shirt out of a hoodie pocket (I have no idea where the hoodie came from since I was naked…).  Divine Ms. D disappeared and I was surrounded by a bunch of people I didn’t know, including QM2 employees.

As I was getting dressed, I realized that I didn’t have my passport or any of my paperwork or I.D.  I kept asking everyone how to get back to my cabin and was told repeatedly to go to bus 40, but no one could or would tell me how to get there, which pissed me off.

The bus made a couple of stops - it would crowded with standing room only - people entering to replace those who exited.  I was freaking out because not only did I not have my passport, but I didn’t know which stop I needed to get off at.

The minute the realization hit, the bus smoothly transitioned into the station & those of us on the bus simply started walking through the London station - as with the QM2 the colors were dark and muted.  I was trying to figure out how to get hold of my parents to have them overnight my passport, only I had no money and no identification - but I was carrying my laptop bag.

The train hallway turned into a huge auditorium with stadium seating - some people were hanging out, others were on tiny computers.  The place was pretty packed, but I finally found a place to sit near the computers.  I was mentally trying to decide if I wanted to break out my laptop or not when a guy near me said he’d help and he handed me a plastic shopping bag (the really big kind you get at a department store).  I asked what it was and looked in the bag - it was a computer that had to be assembled.  Just as I started pulling the different sections out of the bag, I woke up thinking about Rockstar.

Nope…I’m not stressed about the trip at all!

I’ll try to write a post or two before I leave, but if for any reason I don’t get a chance to, I’ll talk to everyone when I get to Scotland!

Pop on over to Twilightme and check it out!

If you missed any of the first three parts of the four-part blog series you can find them by clicking on the following links:

Part I, Part II, Part III

Between Two Women: Conversations About Love & Relationships can be purchased at either Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  Alternately, an eBook version is available at Outskirts Press.

Patricia herself can be found at her blog, TwilightMe, and her brand new website for writers, Editeyes (which has a great explanation for how she chose her website name).

Thanks to everyone who stopped by - now check out Patricia’s book, pop on over to her sites, and let her know The Misfit sent you. 

You state that you have a knack for “tricky self-deception” – I found Between Two Women to be open and honest, almost to the point of being brutal.  How difficult was it to move beyond the self-deception to fully examine your life both past and present?

This book has been through 5 full revisions and each chapter went through multiple drafts during the first complete draft of the writing. I worked with a truly marvelous writing group who insisted that I probe deeply and write an honest account. In a way, they drew the truth out of me with their unceasing questions and astute observations. Admittedly there were times when I did not want to look so closely at myself. It often took me days of reviewing notes from a writing group session to unravel the core of single incident. Sometimes awareness was a painful and other times it was exhilarating to “see” the real me.

You mention a picture that your father and uncle had taken of you as a baby – described as you being “fat and naked, in a roasting pan surrounded by potatoes and carrots” – a picture that you stated illustrates your dad’s sense of humor, but also a picture that caused some discomfort for your friends upon viewing it.  Why do you think such an innocuous picture brought about two completely different reactions?

People project their own experience onto stories and pictures. I think we all observe through the filters of our own experience and emotions. So what was humorous to me might feel disrespectful to someone else, probably because they suffered disrespect in some fashion from a person in a similar caretaking position as my father. It was not unusual during my talks with Carol for me to perceive an incident in her life quite differently than she experienced it. I think this happened because I brought my own history to bear on her experience. I don’t think we can avoid doing this.

You quote Adrienne Rich who states that “patriarchy is a system in which the female everywhere is subsumed under the male”, but I found it ironic that the men in your life (specifically your ex-husband and your son) seemed to be more accepting of your decision to embark on a journey of self-discovery and new life with Cindy than some of the women.  How did that, if at all, challenge your perception of the traditional patriarchal society?

I think that men and women alike are “victims” of the traditional patriarchal society. The relatively liberal minded men in my life, my father included, were no less influenced by the worst aspects of the tradition than were my women friends or myself. I think it took the earth-shaking experience of finding myself in a female-to-female relationship, a household without men, and a social support system that was predominantly female for me to see the pervasiveness of patriarchy. I admire women like Rich and Susan Griffin and Audre Lorde and Dorothy Allison and even some of my friends– lesbian and straight –who could more readily see the powerful effects of said system. This is a place where self-deception was wholly at work in me. I’m not saying my ex-husband or son or father were/are jerks. I’m just saying that they operated from a position that I’m no longer blind to nor do I wish to condone. I’m not a radical feminist or even much of activist. I simply no longer tolerate certain things I once thought were givens, and I’m acutely conscious of disparities between the place of men and women in our culture. I wish that I had seen this sooner but I’m glad to see more clearly now.

Can you give us an overview as to what Between Two Women: Conversations About Love & Relationships is about?

As soon as I completed the book, I discovered that I had to be able to give a brief overview to pitch my book to potential publishers. In struggling to find the perfect pitch, I came across the suggestion that one way to get a book idea across to others was to compare it to something that is already well known. That’s when I came up with these two references:  Segment 4 of “If These Walls Could Talk 2″ Or the feminization of “Brokeback Mountain” with same passion, confusion, and sorrow minus the tragedy.  But you asked for an overview, so let me try to speak more directly to that: Between Two Women: Conversations about Love & Relationships is a combination memoir/oral history that tells the story of two California women: Patricia and Carol. After leaving a 33-year marriage to live with her female lover, Patricia seeks the counsel of Carol, who knew from time she was a child that she was a lesbian. During their conversations, sixty-nine-year-old Carol tells the story of her closeted life in the 40s and 50s, living with and loving women. Their talk is lively with the wit of the elder woman and thoughtfully reflective as Patricia grapples with the consequences of her decision. Spirited and sensitive, their stories illuminate both the difficulties faced by women in same-sexed relationships and the fundamental love in such relationships.

What was your initial purpose for writing Between Two Women?  How much did that purpose change from the time you began to the time you finished?

I started the work as long personal essay describing my initial encounter with Carol and an audiotape she gave me to transcribe. She was trying to record her life story. Two things turned the essay into a book length project. First, the initial tape was such an abbreviated account of her life that I wanted to talk with her and delve more fully into the story. The personal essay was likewise a very collapsed account of both my story and hers and some of my writing mentors suggested that it was the outline for a book. After I decided to tape interviews with Carol for the purpose of writing her story, I found that my own story kept getting tangled with hers. I began to realize the degree to which I was trying to make sense of the monumental change in my life by exploring the story of her life. I also found myself writing to explain myself to my children and my friends and even projecting into the distant future a desire for my grandkids to hear my version of this family story. As I worked with my writing group on early drafts, I also discovered that the women in my group shared my curiosity about women loving women, which helped me see that this might be a story others would be interested in reading.

Stay tuned for the second part of the interview to be posted tomorrow.

Some of you may recall that Patricia and I co-authored Grammar Police for a time.  Grammar Police no longer exists, but our online friendship remains and when Patricia mentioned that her book had finally been published I was thrilled.  Then she extended an invitation for me to participate with the release, and I jumped at the opportunity.  I’d known of the impending publication but didn’t know much about the book – as most authors do, Patricia kept the specifics close to her chest.  Needless to say, my curiosity knew no bounds.  I was kind of nervous, really – I mean, how would I bow out gracefully if I didn’t like the book?

I needn’t have worried; Between Two Women: Conversations About Love & Relationships wasn’t only well-written, it was thoughtful and introspective and a firm reminder of the complexities of not only life in general, but the intricate nature of relationships be they between family members, lovers, or friends.

So to celebrate the publication of Between Two Women: Conversations About Love & Relationships the next three days will be filled with questions from me, answers from Patricia, further insights into her transition from one world to another, and where to find information about the book.

Tune in over the next three days and join me in congratulating Patricia on the release of her first book!

I don’t usually post pictures of my parents out of deference to my mom, but she gave me the go-ahead since it was a special occasion.

And, thanks to my dad’s sneakiness, it wasn’t only to celebrate their anniversary, but to also give me a bit of a send-off to Scotland.

I got the biggest giggle…not only because my dad pulled one over on me, but also because there was some miscommunication between my dad and the staff at the local grocery store.  The flag was supposed to be the Scottish Flag, but the flag should have looked like this:

Welcome to the wonderful world of Misfitdom!

I may have spoken too soon about the extent of damage created by that psycho gal, Fay.

No personal damage for us aside from a few loose boards in the privacy fence, but there was a tornado that touched down about a five minute drive from the house.  Extensive flooding in Jensen Beach, Port St. Lucie, and Fort Pierce (the three towns north of me) as well as tornado damage in Port St. Lucie and Brevard County (where my bro lives).  No reports of fatalities which is always a wonderful thing not to hear.  I don’t have access to transportation today so I haven’t been able to get out and take pictures, but you can go here if you want to look at the local coverage.

Not raining in Stuart at the moment, but the storm stalled last night further north and there’s some question as to whether my brother will be able to make the drive down tonight to celebrate my parents’ 41st wedding anniversary.

So…a big raspberry to Fay for hanging around far longer than decency permits and a big hearty congratulations to my parents on the big 4-1.