Too Young for This

Ancient History 3 Responses »
Nov 022011

This morning, I found out that a man I know died. He died yesterday.

His name was Darin. We weren’t extremely close, but he was part of a group of friends that were an important part of my life in the 1990s.

Back then, Darin was first a student activist, and then worked for the University of Wisconsin’s statewide student lobbying organization, United Council. I’m pretty sure that he was also part of the group my friend Mindy, and probably other US Student Association activists and staff referred to as “the straight, white, guys from Wisconsin.”

From 1993-1998, and especially in the fall of 1995 and the summer of 1996 to spring of 1997, a LOT of my social life revolved around UC staff and USSA. We hung out a lot, excessively at a bar called the Echo Tap, and I came in dead last in the one and only football pool I’ve ever joined (although I think ultimately all that money went to guys from The Onion).

I learned to follow football games from these guys; before I started hanging out with the UC crew, I found the game completely bewildering and boring. And although I was probably closest to David, Sachin, Michelle, Tim, and Dean, who shared my political obsessions, Darin was always there if we had an event, or were watching a game, and he was often with us out drinking Uff Da Bock.

Like many of the UC staff, both from that era and otherwise, Darin remained politically active, stayed in Madison, and was working for the state. He was married. He was 40 years old. He had a son who was 3 years old — Josie’s age.

And yesterday, he collapsed while playing basketball with his friends. He was rushed to the hospital, but they weren’t able to revive him.

As Sachin put it when we talked this evening, go hug your kids, and make sure your life insurance is in order. You just never know what’s going to happen.

And if you are they praying type, pray for Darin, and especially for his widow, and his 3 year old son.

Posted by Liza at 9:36 pm

National Coming Out Day

Ancient History, Books, Opinion, Personal 5 Responses »
Oct 112010

I have 2 other time-sensitive posts brewing in the back of my head: Yesterday should have been the “Letter to Noah” post for the month, and this weekend I was at the awesome and amazing Blogalicious Weekend conference in Miami. Those posts will be forthcoming.

I wanted to title this post “Happy National Coming Out Day,” but then I realized that this year, that title just doesn’t fit.

In the wake of four young men — really, one young man and three boys — committing suicide, and two more teens and an adult being kidnapped and tortured, all for either being gay or being perceived as being gay, 2010 isn’t a year where I feel celebratory about coming out.

There are bright spots. Dan Savage and his partner Terry launched the It Gets Better project, designed to give young gay teens hope and encouragement. Tim Gunn, of Project Runway, has a particularly moving video contribution.

And my own life with my family is a very nice life indeed. I am out pretty much everywhere — everywhere that it makes sense in context. I’m out in the neighborhood, I’m out at church, I’m out to the people in my PhD program (both students and faculty), I’m out at the kids’ school.

At the wonderful Blogalicious conference last weekend, there was a contextually appropriate way for me to come out on my panel — we were talking about finding your voice as a blogger, and I really found mine about 6 months after I started blogging, when I became pregnant with Noah and got obsessed with finding other pregnant lesbians and their blogs. I was out to the people I knew at the conference before that moment, but as the “lawyer-panelist” there was a good chance that there would be no contextually appropriate opportunity for me to come out on the panel, which would have been fine.

Really, the only time I’m not out is when I can’t find a contextually appropriate way to come out. (Or when I forget that I haven’t found one yet and think I’m out, but my absentmindedness is a separate issue.)

For example, I doubt I’m out to the people at Walgreen’s. It would be weird, right? “I’ll have 2 packs of diapers, a bottle of generic headache medicine, and by the way, I’m a lesbian!” Looking the way I look, coming out is nearly always something I get to choose.

Which puts me in a very different position from all those dead and tortured boys.

They had no choice.

They look the way they look, and the people around them perceived them as gay, as different, and as so wrong that it was deserving of humiliation and violence.

And in the cases of the boys who killed themselves, they internalized those judgments, and it was fatal.

In spite of how my life has turned out, and that I was not treated that way for being gay, I do know how that feels.

When I was 8 or 9 years old, I contemplated suicide. I wished I was dead, but I couldn’t figure out a way to do it that wouldn’t hurt. I had more physical fear than emotional misery, so I didn’t die.

I was in the 5th grade, younger than my classmates, socially inept, and both fashion and hygiene unconscious. I picked my nose, and I ate the boogers. My classmates called me Liz Lizard and Booger Girl.

I’ve been looking at that last paragraph and debating erasing it for 15 minutes. Here I am 40 years old, and admitting those things still makes me jittery with nerves.

But in the spirit of Coming Out Day and the It Gets Better Project, I can tell you, whether or not you are gay, if you are picked on or bullied in school, it does get better. It gets so much better. I was lucky. For me, it got better in high school, where I was lucky enough to find a whole cadre of smart, weird, interesting, funny friends. Even if you are not lucky enough for it to get better that quickly, I promise you, it still gets better.

If I had succeeded in coming up with a way to end it all back when I was a child, I wouldn’t have these two beautiful, heart-filling sources of joy in my life. Or their This Mommy.

Sib Love

PS In the universe of surface-unlikely but actually-perfect pairings, if you would like to read a totally charming story about how it can get better, I recommend Ernessa Carter’s novel 32 Candles. Her narrator Davidia Jones is poor, abused, and believes she is what her classmates call her, “ugly as a monkey and black as the night.” Her life gets better, with some very clever twists that I don’t want to spoil. (And the author is a Smith alumna.)

Posted by Liza at 6:21 am

Yikes!

Ancient History 7 Responses »
Mar 052009

Ok, I really did think that I had no embarassing clothing pictures, because my taste in clothing is generally too conservative and boring to provide much hilarity.

I was wrong.

Liza at Prom, 1987

Can you imagine a less flattering dress? Wide shiny band at the waist, giant bubble to make your hips, butt, and legs look big, strange hemline…. And even though my shoulders look as white as my legs, I assure you, I was wearing white nylons but not a white bodysuit.

Also? I am loving my obvious mad curling iron skillz. I was too lazy to do that every day, but apparently I could pull it off as needed.

Thanks to FaceBook, thanks to Jennifer Sommers and her picture taking skills, thanks to date Matt for the awesome yellow corsage, and thanks to senior prom in 1987.

Heeheehee. Hope you enjoyed the laugh as much as I did.

Posted by Liza at 10:18 pm Tagged with: ,

Surreal Weekend

Ancient History, Church-Related, Personal 1 Response »
Jun 162008

It was a strange and surreal weekend here at Casa Booski. Fun, but strange.

Friday night, Jill went to the WNBA game, while Noah and I relaxed at home. I’d had a long week and was very happy that she was willing to go without me.

Unfortunately, I made that one grave error in food judgment, which had me up for an excessive amount of misery in the middle of the night.

Still, Saturday morning, Noah and I got up and braved the crowds at the local library, at least for 20 minutes. It was honestly a zoo, and of course the first book he picked up and wanted me to read was a book for preschool/early elementary age kids on family members dying.

I’m glad there ARE such books, but I wasn’t up for reading him one at that particular moment. When he got distracted, I put it up on top of the shelves and opened a book about animals instead.

We adjourned to the playground, where Noah had a blast and I had fun chatting with the mom of a 4-and-a-half year old princess in extremely worn sparkling pink mary janes. (The third pair she’d nearly worn out so far.)

Noah decided that it was time to brave the spinning thing, so he stood on it, clinging to the pole, as I turned it slowly. He laughed and loved it…until he let go.

Then he fell on his face, first on the step, and then to the ground. Tears. Blood. Screaming. Fortunately, it was a very small cut, teeth against lip, and the drama and bleeding were done within about 2 minutes.

The next big event was my taking the subway to the airport for dinner.

I know. What???

Dave had been in Las Vegas, celebrating mutual non-blogging friend Richard’s 40th birthday with Richard and Scott. He had a 3 hour layover in Atlanta on his way home to Boston. Just enough time to get out of security, eat dinner and catch up, and go back in through security.

Still. Saturday night at the airport is an unquestionably odd experience.

(Which, now that I think about it, is actually perfect for having dinner with someone whose warped sense of humor has matched and challenged mine for more than 20 years.)

In the meantime, Jill and Noah colored the picture he started the previous week at Sunday school — a life size outline of Noah. The theme of that class was “God Made Me” but Noah has interpreted that to mean that this is a picture of God. “I coloring God! This Mommy and I coloring God!”

On Sunday, Noah continued his new favorite Sunday School activity: stalking the big kids. In this case, that was 4 year old Liam. The previous weekend, it was 9 year olds Colin and Ava. “I helping big kids!” (Fortunately, both of the 9 year olds have younger siblings, so they were very kind about Noah’s “help.”)
Having steadfastly refused to nap on Saturday, Noah and I both had marathon naps on Sunday, while Jill spent the afternoon cleaning the bathrooms. Are Noah and I lucky, or what?

Posted by Liza at 8:20 pm

The Post About Trains That I’ve Been Not Writing

Ancient History, Personal, The Real Live Boy 7 Responses »
Sep 232007

So here’s the thing: Noah is choo-choo obsessed.

Airplanes and other things with engines are interesting, but the first word out of his mouth most mornings is choo-choo, and it is with sobbing reaches towards the choo-choos that we take him upstairs at night. He takes a choo-choo into the bath, in the car, in the stroller, to Sunday school, to have his diaper changed — absolutely everywhere he goes. When we drive past choo-choos, Noah gets superexcited, and when they’re gone, he whines for “more choo-choo?”

The only thing that can reliably distract Noah from a choo-choo is the sight of an actual airplane flying overhead.

Those of you who have known me for a long time may find this funny. Ironic, even. And you probably understand my vague, very low-level, unease with this particular obsession.

To the rest of you, it probably just sounds like a cute toddler obsession, which indeed it is.

But you see, once upon a time, I truly believed that I was going to get married to a man.

And that man was choo-choo obsessed.

His choo-choo obsession manifested itself a little bit differently than Noah’s — for example, he called them trains all the time, where Noah only does that about half the time. And he liked to read and write dense law review articles about choo-choo economics and legal issues. Noah only likes to read books with pictures of choo-choos.

And Noah’s paltry dozen actual choo-choos can’t even begin to compare with my ex’s 30,000 cars, mostly put together himself from modeling kits, and hand painted with a painstaking commitment to precise historical accuracy. Plus, Noah has never yet gone on a road trip for the express purpose of taking pictures of trains.

What they do have in common is the age at which the obsession began. You see, my ex has (or had) an audiotape of himself as a toddler. He didn’t speak any English, but even allowing for the fact that he was speaking in toddler Italian, the portion of the tape in which he talked about seeing a train is perfectly clear. That was one excited, train-obsessed boy. Who grew up to be one excited, train-obsessed man.

I truly believe that as “man hobbies” go, train obsession is about as innocuous as it gets. But I do have to admit two things: First, I didn’t miss the train obsession at all, at the end of that relationship.

Second, it feels a little strange to have this unexpected and frequent reminder of a relationship that was probably the most difficult of my life. Certainly it’s the relationship that cost me the most, and changed me the most. On the one hand, I love where I am in life, so I can’t really regret the journey. And the choo-choo man is a good guy. But it was the wrong relationship in so many, many ways, and I damaged so many of my friendships while I was in it.

So yeah, I wish Noah stayed all about the airplanes. But he’s not, at least right now. Right now, he’s all about the choo-choo. And I am all about supporting his interests. I guess the good thing is that if he stays train obsessed, I’m already familiar with the lingo and the supplies. Too bad for Noah, our house has no basement that could be converted in its entirety to a model railroad.

Posted by Liza at 1:11 pm

20 Year High School Reunion Recap

Ancient History, Personal 10 Responses »
Aug 172007

I’ve blogged some about my unusual high school experience, and my thoughts leading up to reunion, but I haven’t blogged about the Rufus King High School Class of 1987 reunion itself yet.

My thoughts about it are kind of scattered and surreal, much like the experience itself. Incidentally, someone I knew in high school, but don’t think I ever saw that evening, did an radio show bit about it the next week. (The first half is mostly about beer.)

There are a bunch of people I still see or otherwise communicate with on a regular, if not as much as we’d like, basis. Some from my class, some from the few years ahead or behind mine, most who don’t blog or otherwise have websites.

Seeing those people who were able to make it or who live in Milwaukee, and their spouses and children, was wonderful. Only hearing Noah say Grandma and Grandpa was better, for the whole trip.

The real point, I think, of high school reunions, is to see and talk with the people you aren’t still in touch with regularly. And that was fabulous.

Thoughts (last names omitted, in case they want to protect their privacy):

I wish I’d been able to talk more with the organizers, Heather, Terri, Michelle, Craig, and Geneva.

I talked to a few of my old neighbors, like Steve, and people I knew all the way back to kindergarten, like Heidi. Why do you suppose we didn’t speak to one another in high school?

It was so wonderful to catch up with Colleen and her husband Mike. I wish we’d had more time together. I love that Jill calls her “smokin’ hot Colleen.”

One of the funniest moments of the evening for me was standing with Colleen and John, talking about Mike Cudz*?, with whom John is still friends. Colleen and I both liked Mike in the 8th grade, which put something of a strain on our friendship. Alas, Mike did not feel that way about me, and his “going with” Colleen didn’t last terribly long either.

As Colleen drifted away from the conversation and Judy drifted in, we told her that we’d been talking about Mike. She announced that he’d been her first kiss, back in middle school also. John and I cracked up, and I hope John has given Mike a lot of shit about that particular segment of the evening.

Most flattering moment for me? Robert said something to the effect of my being one of the top five girls he wished he would have asked out but didn’t. What a sweet and brave thing to say; I feel badly that we didn’t really wind up talking after that. And for the record, I probably would have said yes. I still remember hanging out after school at the library in 7th grade, and having a lot of fun.

Seeing Jeni, Tracy, Megan and Clare brought back so many memories, mostly younger than high school — elementary school and middle school. Katie, I so wish you could have been there with us. (Although really, you would have had to come to my parents’ and caught up with the whole family over more time.) Becca, you too! And Kelly & Shannon, the rest of the 5th grade posse.

Robin looks amazing! And she works for Noggin/The N, and has a toddler near Noah’s age. Even though we didn’t hang out a lot in high school, there was always a connection — her brother managed my Dad’s first Congressional campaign in 1982.

Tracy (the other Tracy) looks amazing too. I don’t think we’d connected in several years, and she’d lost tons of weight.

One of the most fun people to reconnect with was Michelle N, who has a cochlear implant! In high school, she was an amazingly articulate lip-reader and brilliant student. Now she hears well enough to have a conversation in a loud bar, and has a great career as a family practice & obstetrics doctor.

Incidently, Michelle, if you read this, did you know that your old neighbor Erin who went to University School is one of my closest friends? I don’t think she and I realized we both knew you until I was telling her about reunion and mentioned you by name. Her sister Clare is over there in the blogroll, and if you leave a comment, I will send you her email address.

It was great catching up with Dr K and hearing about his new adventures launching an IB elementary school.

Kimberley married a fellow King alum, but only 3 years ago, and now they have children just older and just younger than Noah. That was a fun conversation!

Dave, I did have the errand-for-Richard conversation with Carrie that you asked me to try to have. Give me a call and I’ll tell you all about it.

Regrets: Sad that Dave & Liz weren’t there with the rest of our buds. Sad that Eric & Otter didn’t make it and that I’ve completely lost touch with him. Sad that we didn’t get to catch up with Dr Stark during the trip.

There were so many people I talked with briefly — I don’t even want to start naming names because I’m sure I’ll forget half of them and then I’ll feel terrible. The amazing thing was how great people looked!

I think Jill had fun talking with Meredith, Gina, Eric, Dave, and Karen, all spouses who were wonderfully supportive and tolerant of our reunion ramblings.

I can’t wait for the 25th. The only thing I hope is that we have a few more activities, and a few that are quieter, like a picnic or school tours early in the day, so there’s more time to catch up.

Posted by Liza at 8:52 pm
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