...like hearing the sound of her voice.

I just got off the phone with Sharon. She sounds strange, and scratchy, but alert. We didn't get to talk for a long time, but we did get to talk. These days, I'll take my blessings where I can get them.

This whole ordeal has been pretty traumatic for her. I found out she got bit by a snake in the middle of all this. They didn't know it had happened and were treating her for the seizures while the venom was working on her system. She lost about a week to the coma, so she's feeling disoriented. On top of that, the other girl in Sharon's room (they were both on the ventilator) died from complications just three days after Sharon was awake again. She told me that they were some comfort to one another in those few days.

She's feeling "dried up" from being in bed and intubated for so long. She's weary from everything that she's been through. Even so, being able to talk to one another was amazing. It's like a huge weight has been lifted off my chest. Time will tell if there are going to be any lasting negative effects from all that's happened, but for now, she's alive, she's improving, and I could hear the smile in her voice when she answered the phone and realized it was me calling.

I am thankful.

Is it obvious to you
When you walk into a room
Your face is all I see?

And my heart races so fast
I never knew a rush to feel like that
Every time you’re touching me

I never did believe in anything
I couldn’t hold between my fingers
But the way you make me feel
It’s just so real the way it lingers

I get lost inside your stare
Lost when you’re not there
When everything I have doesn’t mean a thing
If it’s without you

If it’s a dream, don’t wake me up
I’ll scream if this isn’t love
If bein’ lost means never knowin’
How it feels without you
I wanna stay lost forever
I wanna stay lost forever with you

No, this feeling doesn’t end
It’s with me everywhere I am
Hope it never goes away

It’s like defying gravity
Losin’ all control and bein’ free
And I always wanna stay

I never thought that I’d let go
Long enough to fall for someone so deeply
Who had the power to erase my fears
And find me so completely

I get lost inside your stare
Lost when you’re not there
When everything I have doesn’t mean a thing
If it’s without you

If it’s a dream, don’t wake me up
I’ll scream if this isn’t love
If bein’ lost means never knowin’
How it feels without you
I wanna stay lost

Don’t tell me where we’re goin’
I don’t wanna know
I like the mystery
I can’t believe we’ve come this far
So far away from where we started off
You found me when I wasn’t lookin’
You found me

And now I’m lost inside your stare
Lost when you’re not there
And everything I have doesn’t mean a thing
If it’s without you, without you

If it’s a dream, don’t wake me up
I’ll scream if this isn’t love
If bein’ lost means never knowin’
How it feels without you

Yeah, if bein’ lost means never knowin’
How it feels without you
Oh, bein’ lost means that I’m never
Gonna be without you
I wanna stay lost forever
I wanna stay lost forever with you

My partner, Sharon, is in the ICU and not doing well.

On Friday evening, she fell and hit her head. I don't know all the in-between details, but she was missing for several hours before we found her. Later that night, she started seizing repeatedly and was rushed to the hospital. Even with all the medicatons they gave her to stop her from seizing, she still continued to have small seizures in her legs until the next evening.

In the midst of all this, they had to use the paddles on her heart sometime Saturday morning. The medications that finally stopped the seizures made her blood pressure skyrocket, so they had to give her something to bring that back down. She's pretty much stable, although she's been in a chemically-induced coma and breathing with the help of a ventillator for a couple days now. They just put a main-line IV in her chest today because they're giving her so many medications that the small line in her arm couldn't handle it all.

It's killing me right now, being so far away. She has her own version of Napoleon named Charlie; he's been taking shifts with her mom to be there with her and he's calling me with updates. She's at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston. I don't know much about them. Charlie seems to think they're good.

I found out that she didn't actually arrest, which is what Charlie originally thought happened when they had to use the paddles. Something happened with her heart as a result of the seizures or something; I don't really understand. Either way, they used the paddles on her. The ventilator is because she's so medicated right now that if they didn't use it, she wouldn't breathe.

They suctioned her lungs today to make sure there's no fluid built up and I guess she coughed or something, which they say is promising. Tomorrow or the next day they'll try lowering the dosages and trying to wake her up.

My friend, Rachel, is a nurse whose specialty is trauma/surgery ICU. She told me a few things that helped me understand better:

"There are only a few "shockable" cardiac rhythms (of which a stopped heart, asystole, or a flat line is not one), no matter what they show on TV. That means that her heart was pumping on its own, just not very effectively when they used the paddles. We do that to reset the electrical impulses so that they fire in the right order. It is very good that she has a gag/ choke reflex because it means she is just sedated or paralyzed chemically."

We still don't know what's wrong. Please say a prayer for us, light a candle, or do whatever you can to send healing energy her way.

Have you ever taken the time to look at the "plot keywords" section on IMDB? It's a veritable grocery list of giggles! For example, here's the list from the new movie, "American Pie Presents: The Book of Love". If you can read your way through it without laughing, I'll be thoroughly impressed.

You
- Fisher

It’s late now
Time to sleep
Close your eyes
Go to dreams

Clouds on walls
And blue skies
Mommy’s sun,
her moon, her stars

And you
You make me run
And you
You make me want to live

Your smiles
Well they make my day
You don’t know it yet
But you’re everything

This little song – well
It’s for you
These lovely years
here with you

And you
You make me run
And you
You make me want to live

And you
You make me run
And you
You make me want to live

For you

I'm getting used to the sound of me
All tripped up and fumbling
Picking words from that lovely stream
Of all the things that you mean to me
Cause it hurts
Oh it hurts to like you so much

How to thank the earth for you
The eyes the smile the wisdom too
You're all good things thrown into one
You put the flowers on my tongue that say
Yes
I love you this way

And there's so much that I should tell you
And there's so much that you should see
So many "Keep out: heart bound" places
You belong in me

I'm getting used to the sound of you
Volleying back this feeling too
Tasting all the things I wished
Waiting in that lovely kiss with you
Where there's no hiding the truth

And how you treat me like a queen
Like when I said my eyes were swampy green
And I saw you smile and I heard you say
"If your eyes are swamps, they're the Everglades"
And that you love them that way.

Sometimes it's hard for me to tell you
What is harder still to hide
And so I hold tight stay trite and never let my heart decide

But despite my fear
I've got no way of stoppin'
The sound of you from breaking through
The static in my mind
And I just won't hear
Another word of caution
I know it's dangerous
To love like us
But I feel safe enough in the sound of you

I remember how it used to feel
To try to make indifference real
To weed out love so skillfully
That you would never get to see
The flag that you were sticking in my heart those days

I knew gravity would get to me
And I'd be yours eventually
But never dreamed it could be so sweet
Watching you just talk to me
At night, when the city lights were burning outside

Sometimes it's hard for me tell you
But I'll tell you
Cause I know you sympathize
When I hold tight, stay trite, and just can't let my heart decide

Regardless of my feelings on people trying to collect money from my friends by way of MY CELL PHONE, I don't think that gay men should work in the collections field. They don't sound tough or intimidating, they just sound pissy. And really, who wants to call back a pissy gay man?

I think I'm going to petition the check cashing place to bring back that Valerie girl. At least I didn't mind taking her messages. Of course, I already told them that the person they're calling for is my roommate, and if he doesn't answer the house phone, he's probably not home, so calling MY CELL PHONE isn't going to get them anywhere. Stupid fuckers. Bah.

"That's a mispronunctuation."
(6/12/09/1425)

"I whacked a guy today. He got mad and came after me, so I punched him in the face."
(6/11/09/2330)

98.1 The Mix

I love this station.

point-by-point response to the National Organization For Marriage's "Gathering Storm" PSA

(I just thought you should know.)

"True genius does not fulfill expectation. True genius shatters it."
(3/31/2009)

"Paula's tits are so squoze they overlap each other."
(4/3/2009)

Lesson learned. Moving on...

I found this beautiful winter poem and thought it might be a comfort to you. It was to me, and it's very well written.