HALLOWEEN!!!

Today was Halloween. I skipped my ASL class so I could pop by to see Love Bug's costume. He was dressed as Captain America.

Captain America.

In lieu of ASL I give you this comic.

Cartoon of two witches facing each other on a double-seater broom. The text says "A custom broom for deaf witches."

After that Joy and I took Mini T trick or treating. Here are some photos from trick or treating:

Me dressed up as Coraline.

Mini T dressed up as a panda bear.

Joy dressed up as a wind-up doll.

Me and Mini T ready to go trick or treating.

Mini T and Joy walking down the street.

Mini T gets candy.

Mini T and Joy lit up with halloween lights.

I found Anthony way!

Creepy house with a huge blow-up spider on the porch.

Me, Joy, and Mini T.

Test and Pumpkins

Today was my pharmacology test. I am NOT a fan of pharmacology.

Gollum meme. It says "We must study the pharmacology... but we hates it!"

At least I got to dress up in Halloween attire for the occasion?

Me ready to behead my pharmacology test like I've beheaded the metal skulls in my necklace. 

After my test I visited Joy and Mini T for pumpkin carving!

Me carving a pumpkin.

Joy carving a pumpkin. She'll probably kill me for putting up this photo since she her hair isn't done.

The finished pumpkins.

Mini T trying to make a vampire face like the pumpkin.

Mini T even drew a picture of the experience...

Mini T and her drawing.

I'm the blue dude with glasses because "I didn't have any white people skin color."

Mini T's drawing.

I think her drawing is cute and I'm putting it up on my fridge when I get home. Pumpkin carving definitely made today better.

Goth Me And Rainbows

Not much happened today. I saw Belle and Joy briefly, I saw a pretty rainbow, and I dressed goth since it's almost Halloween.

Me in my goth outfit. black shirt, black jacket, black cap, skeleton hands necklace, screw earrings.

The pretty rainbow. Don't worry - I was a passenger when I took this photo.

Trans Rights Protest

Today after church I met up with Bruno at the trans rights protest in support of Proposition 3 which would keep rights for trans folks in MA by ensuring that people in MA can use the public facilities (such as bathrooms and locker rooms) that correspond to their gender identities. I was surprised at the size of the crowd!

The crowd.

One side of sign says “Let My People Pee” and the other side says “Keep Your Agenda Off Of My Genda."

Me and Bruno with my sign.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to stay too long since I had to leave for work. But I was glad I was able to come out.

This Week.

It's almost Halloween! Yesterday's costume has me thinking about Halloween costumes and how I love dressing up in costumes but I have never been someone who does those "sexy" costumes like other gay men do. This meme seemed to capture the gay men Halloween costume situation perfectly:

Top half says "Straight Guys on Halloween" with a bunny dressed as a cop and men dressed as Darth Vader, Jason, and Mario. The bottom says "Gay Guys on Halloween" and has the same characters in "sexy" versions of the same costumes. 

This week was nice and fairly uneventful. On Wednesday I had lab and ASL class. On Thursday I had brunch in Gloucester MA with Surrogate. On Friday I went through Mom's things to donation, visited my friend Alice in the morning, and visited other friends in the afternoon. Today I've got work at 3pm but I'm happy about that since it means I get to see Love Bug.

Restaurant Trick or Treat

Today I gave a group presentation on marijuana and pregnancy to a bunch of women in a drug treatment program. Then I went to a pharmacology review. But the most important thing I did was hand out candy!

Waldo's mom owns a restaurant and today the town did trick or treat at local businesses. Waldo and I dressed up as Pennywise and Georgie to hand out candy. Look at our awesome costumes!

Me and Waldo aka Georgie and Pennywise.

Waldo, Waldo's mom, and me.

In case you're curious - or better yet if you want to give them business - Waldo's mom's restaurant is Ristorante Molise. It's co-owned by his mom and his aunt and they serve AMAZING Italian food.

Coffee Date and New Friends

Today I went on a coffee date, which will not be a repeat experience. I also hung out with my ASL classmate and her (Deaf) girlfriend, which hopefully WILL be a repeat experience since they are nice and fun to hang out with and vegan. How often do you meet Deaf queer vegans? Not often enough. I think the highlight of my evening was when they taught me the sign for Donald Trump.

Drawing of how to do the Donald Trump sign. Basically you take your hand and pat it over your head like a combover. The other version is to do the same thing but wriggle your fingers like a combover flapping in the breeze. 

Church and God's Pronouns.

Ok. I have been looking for a local church for a while and I have finally picked one!

Hadwen Park Congregational Church

Hadwen Park is multiracial, friendly, and they host a well-attended coffee hour after the service. They have an active youth group, Bible study, an enthusiastic choir, and multiple ways to participate as a lay person. They have a food pantry, they host the LGBT Asylum Task Force, and they have a significant proportion of LGBT asylum seeker church members. Their pastor is a white woman and she uses both male and female pronouns for God, which I like. Every time I've gone there, folks were kind and welcoming to me.

Photo of a rosary lying on top of an open Bible.

In sort-of related news, I've decided to use female pronouns for God for the foreseeable future. Although Christians seem to agree that God is not male or female, most of us seem to use male pronouns. By using female pronouns I am questioning and counteracting that trend. After years of a male visualization of God, I think Christians need to tip the scales back the other way before coming to the neutral resting point where we really ought to be. At the very least I think this will help keep me from visualizing God as male gendered.

What A Week

Well, my weekend involved church, work, a movie date with friends, and an irksome school situation. Basically, our pharmacology professor emailed the class offering to push back our test by a week so we wouldn’t have two tests on the same day. The only catch is that we would all have to agree to this. Of course, one woman ruined it for everybody by saying she wants to take it as scheduled. I promise you I speak with 100% certainty when I say that my entire nursing class now hates this particular student.

Here we are, ready to watch a movie.

On Monday I spent the day attempting to study but my cats kept interrupting me with cuteness. I also talked to my dad and learned that because he was going to get drafted to Vietnam he signed up for the army and did aircraft maintenance/repair (helicopters were his specialty). He also learned to repair trucks and jeeps, and he’s trained to fire machine guns and whatnot from the air since the aircraft repair guys also doubled as shooters. He has never talked about this before so I had no idea. It was kind of weird to learn.

Me and my kitty Esh!

On Tuesday I took both tests - maternity and pharmacology. Then I had a work meeting and creole class. I was DONE by the end of all that so on Wednesday after my lab class I decided I needed to do something fun so I went to Salem with Joy and Mini T. Shenanigans ensued:

Me and mini T in front of the random gay doors.

Me, Mini T, and Joy waiting for our pizza.

Me and Mini T - we found fake eyebrows and a fake beard.

Mini T in the fake eyebrows and beard.

Joy drinks a beard in the fake eyebrows and beard.

On Thursday I had my maternity clinical, which was fairly uneventful this time. On Friday I studied, hung out with my cats, and visited Aquafabulous for dinner and gardening. Today I have work.

Now that things are in process I can finally mention it on here: my favorite patient recently became legally free for adoption and I have contacted his social worker to inquire about adopting him.

The big hurdles here are that:

1) This is not exactly an ideal time for me to adopt since I'm in school full time.
2) I'll need to move since he is a wheelchair user and there's no way to make my apartment accessible.

Ideally I would want to finish school, get a nursing job, buy an accessible house, and THEN adopt him. This may actually be feasible, since it's extremely unlikely that anyone else will apply to adopt him while I'm getting my act together. Most potential adoptive parents are looking for babies and young children, not disabled teens of color.

So in the meantime while I'm finishing school etc. his social worker suggested that I could become his visiting resource. Visiting resources undergo the same DCF background checks as foster and adoptive parents, and once they've been approved they can spend unsupervised time with the child and take them on outings to the playground or restaurants or museums or whatever. So now we've filled out the paperwork for that and are just waiting for the official approval to go through. Once it does, she'll let his family know that I'm becoming a visiting resource for him. They already know me because I've been at work when they've come to visit him so hopefully they'll be fine with it. Fingers crossed!

Anyway, since I'm likely to be blogging about him now I'm giving him a pseudonym: Love Bug.

Walking Dead Day

Poster for The Walking Dead day listing the time and date over a background of black and white zombies.

I will assume by now that everyone has either seen or heard of the TV show The Walking Dead. Or, if they're nerdy like me they will have already read the comics before the TV show came out. Well today my local comic book shop had The Walking Dead Day complete with a costume contest and several of the makeup artists who worked on the series.

Makeup artists working.

Makeup artists working some more.

I have a spare set of scrubs that don't fit well so I decided to sacrifice them to the cause and dress up as a zombie nurse. Then since they had an extra slot and it was free, I decided to see the makeup artists and they gave me a fake zombie bite on my arm.

Zombie nurse by UMass Memorial in Worcester.

More zombie nurse - doesn't that bite mark look awesome?!

Zombie nurse with syringe.

Zombie nurse has a syringe with fake blood.

Zombie nurse in front of my car. I think this is my favorite photo.

And although it has nothing to do with this post whatsoever, I would feel remiss if I didn't mention that today is my goddaughter Wolfie's birthday. Happy birthday Wolfie!!!

BUBBLE HE

You know you've studied too much when you wake up from a dream that you're performing a post partum assessment. In my dream Feather had just given birth and I was doing the post partum assessment there was a random dude in the background wearing a tutu and blowing bubbles. Why the random man? Because the acronym for post partum assessments is BUBBLE HE.

BUBBLE HE
Breasts
Uterus
Bowels
Bladder
Lochia
Episiotomy
Homan's sign
Emotional status

Yup. Thanks brain.

Anyway, today was an easy day. I visited my friend Belle and we ate some pie. I attended a review session for my maternity class. And then I came home. While I was chilling out on my porch, two adult men in fuzzy onesies biked past me on children’s bicycles. That's city life for you!

National Coming Out Day!!!

Today is National Coming Out Day! Yay!

Photo of a stethoscope on top of a pride flag.

I had my maternity clinical and ironically enough, I also had my first intersex baby today. I am so fucking grateful to my intersex friends for all of the years they've spent educating me since it made a huge difference in my ability to care for my tiny patient and family. I was able to give the parents plenty of resources and to tell them honestly that I know multiple intersex adults who are happy with their lives. Apparently this meant a lot to the parents, who were clearly struggling with despair and feeling overwhelmed. The mom told me towards the end of the shift that just having me come in and gush over their baby was huge for her. Apparently she had spent this entire time feeling like a failure for having birthed an intersex child so having me come in with a positive attitude telling her how adorable her baby is made her feel like maybe her child wasn't just a mistake. I told her I don't think any child is a mistake. We really need more public awareness about intersex people so that people having children know that having an intersex child is a possibility and that it's not a tragedy.

Cartoon of a white baby with a pacifier holding a stuffed bunny. Text says "Respect Intersex Babies: Don't Mutilate Them."

Bombed Exam and Secrets

Well, that test did not go well. I actually sought out my advisor to talk to her about it and had this conversation:

Me: So I’m freaking out because I bombed my pathophysiology test. 
Advisor: Wait what? I got a gigantic list of everyone who is failing the class and you’re not on it. 
Me: … 
Her: Oh! You did bomb the test! You’re still passing the class because you had a perfect grade before. Well I can tell you that you’re doing much better than a lot of people. 

Somehow this does not make me feel any better...

Black and white meme of guy from the 1950s that says "Don't Worry: Everyone Else Failed The Test Too."

The other big thing that's going on is not something I can post about. Sigh.

Indigenous People's Day

I didn't really do anything to commemorate the day, though. Instead I worked 7-3, studied for tomorrow's test, went to the LGBT Asylum Task Force Meeting, and studied some more. My day can basically be summed up in these two memes:

Picture of Jesus with text that says "I tried to return but Trump stopped me at customs."

Black and white photo of a crying little girl that says "My friends are out having fun and I'm stuck here studying diarrhea."

Apples, Hands, Feet, and Mouths

In happy news, yesterday I went apple picking with Belle!

Me with partially eaten apple.

Belle with her partially eaten apple.

Me and Belle picking apples.

In way less happy news, several of the patients at my work have HFMD (Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease).

Oprah meme with text "You get hand foot mouth disease, she gets hand foot mouth disease, we all get hand foot mouth disease!"

HFMD is common in young children and it's not particularly dangerous but it's also contagious and a pain in the butt because of how easily it seems to spread among little kids. Sigh. Basically my approach to this situation can be summed up by the following meme...

Comic meme saying "Bleach all the things."