are you there, dog? It's me, kerensa

She is five years old, and although she is only five, she knows her parents do not have much money. She has asked them to take her to see ET in the movie theater and they have told her they will take her somewhere special, if only they can take a small nap. She asks them what she can do while they nap, and they say twiddle her thumbs. So she sits on the green couch in the living room, whose windows look over Hamilton Street, and spends a bit of time figuring out how to twiddle. When they get into the car, the drive seems very long. Madison Ave is far in the rearview mirror, and she is getting sleepy in the car. Perhaps when they get there, her parents can twiddle their thumbs while she naps. Suddenly, an enormous ferris wheel catches her eye, and she feels a flip flop in her belly. She must not get her hopes up, but oh they float to the surface despite how hard she pushes them down. It is only when they pull into the immense parking lot that she realizes those fireflies of hope are fre

The first time I met my uncle's partner, he bought me an ice cream sundae so large, I remember it to this day. We sat across from each other in a half empty ice cream shoppe before he gave me a Washington DC teddy bear and wished me a Happy Easter. I went home after my trip with stories about Uncle Tom's friend until my mother sat me down for the "talk". I was nine years old, and suddenly my world was bigger, and filled with a new kind of love. Through the years, Uncle George became a fixture in our family, as beloved as the rest of the spouses in the family, and I always felt a certain kinship for him, as we were the unbloods- the ones born outside of the bloodline, with our own perspective in. Knowing my uncles were gay from such a young age allowed me insight that other children my age did not have. I could recognize the boys in school who just didn't "get" the girl, as the other boys did. I was angered more easily than everyone else when words we

I am sitting in the parking lot of the video store, with my suddenly flatter belly, tearing up because I have left my four day old baby in the care of my mother for this errand. A small errand, to be sure, but the absence seems so thick, I am choking. I am flashing forward in my mind to six, eight weeks down the road, when I will have to put my tiny little person in the hands of a stranger, in hopes she will not be harmed, or lost in a shuffle. At the mere thought, I could vomit, and when I look into Jake's very young face, I know I am not alone. We are, at that moment, in agreement. Thus becomes my accidental occupation. Being a stay at home mom was not my plan. Growing up, I wrote stories, and planned my future down to minute details. Which car I would drive, how many children I would have, and coincidentally enough- that my husband's name would start with J (thank you twirled apple stems). And never for a moment did I waver in planning to become a doctor. And yet, just like