Pride

Jen and I are at a second floor window at The Duplex, looking down on the crowd waiting for the Pride parade. We're sipping on our alchoholic pink lemonades and feeling very pleased with ourselves for snagging the prime viewing location.

Right below us there are a crowd of multicultural college kids, embodying fresh young queerness. Watching them for a while, we realize they are deaf, they are signing excitedly and you can almost hear different voices coming through in their gestures. The skinny black girl is high pitched. The guy with an afro has a drawl. The white boy has a gay accent. They remind me of my first few years at pride, pouring rum and vodka into supersized McDonald's sodas before my friends and I tore our way up and down fifth avenue.

Next to them there is a rowdy bunch of boys, flirting with all the guys and leading the crowd in chants. Two male cops linger near them, flirting with everyone.

The entire crowd is composed of little groups like these, friends and lovers and professionals and kids.

Right across the street from us, two women and thier baby have camped out. They've got chairs, coolers, friends, all surrounded by yellow CAUTION tape. The baby is a girl. She has peirced ears, and despite the hot sun and loud homosexuals, she remains unphased. The women aren't very like me or Jen. But, whatever our differences might be on the subject of knee length denim shorts worn with timberlands, we clearly agree that two women and a baby are a very real family. They just did what we're trying to do.

"Maybe we should go to that thing. That group" I say. "At the center. For lesbians trying to concieve. Maybe people have advice we can use."

Jen is non-committal.

"But" I continue, crunching an ice cube from my drink, "I hate taking advice."

Jen cozes me in the corner. "We know what to do. We just have to do it in the way that's right for us."

Pride rages.

We've decided our first insemination will be in august, because of finances mainly, and because things are kind of wild this month and next with work and weddings and acitivities. We need some quiet time, some time spent together, some time to organize our thoughts and do this proprely. August.

I'm frustrated though, since the insemination has had to be postponed. I belong to a livejournal community about women trying to conceieve (lesbians_ttc) and people just seem to be constantly posting about using fresh sperm and hey, since its fresh and free, why not just rush heedlessly into using it right this very second? Its just irritating when we have to be so deliberate about every move we make. I wish we had a lot more money, or some free fresh sperm. I wish someone would just crawl out of the woodwork, and be perfect and smart and generous and give us their semen for free until we conceive and then disappear again forever. What a fucked up wish. A magical semen font.

The other day, we went to a friend's party, a party that was chock full of lovely gay men. I was having a wonderful time, but I was also sitting there coveting their sperm. I'm really becoming disturbed.

I'm trying hard not to become bitter... I know the way we're doing things is the way we need to do them, what is appropriate for us. But I really want this. I feel like we're stuck at stage -1.

Stress.

Things were fine, we were ready for July, we set up our account at the sperm bank and everything. But then...jen had the weirdest cycle ever. She didn't ovulate until day 21, a full week later than usual! She still hasn't started her period, which means she's now on day 30 of her cycle, when she usually tops out at 24-26 days. WTF?

As we dealt with that weirdness...we realized how much fucking money we owe my mom for this Sicily trip. We're thrilled to be going and my mom is totally helping us out by covering our airfare, but we need to be saving money and lots of it over the next few months. Which means we can't afford to inseminate as much as we wanted to. That's just the reality of the situation. Which I found devestating. I am feeling slightly better realizing we can still insemenate, if on a smaller scale. I thought at first we couldn't do it at all and i was crying.

Its just been a rough week. And work is strange too. Stressful in new ways. Why is everying fine, but seeming dire?