12.15.08
Posted in Journal at 6:00 am by kat
It is cold today – bitter cold. I was talking to my parents in California yesterday and it was odd since it was actually warmer here in Chicago than in the Bay Area. Mother nature is once again playing with us homosapiens – trying to make us go crazy perhaps.
I was flying home from California last week at this time – thinking about someone beautiful that was not with us. making new friends on a plane and yet being sad at the same time. Time is a strange thing, as it seems to never end – it moves quickly when we wish to just take a moment – sometimes much too quickly – and yet it drags on and on when we want to forget.
I will never forget the joy that Jewels brought into my life. How can you when you snort soda out your nose. But I will forget the pain.
Today I am sitting in a warm home – with a fire going – ok so it is a fake fire with those sterno type flames in my fake fireplace, but it looks real. 
I am working on so many things. Photos, work, programming, and so much more. The life of a Gemini is a simple one – to multitask is to LIVE! That is what we do. And yet in all that I have been doing, I hear her voice, I see her face, I feel her touch.
Last night I played with David Kav at Uncommon Ground. We have played 5 or 6 shows together. I like him. He makes me laugh and he is a wonderful performer. I still have not found his “off” button – he seems to have an endless supply of energy, and it shows in his music and his life. I still thinks he injects caffeine directly into his veins or something though. Anyway, we played some wonderful music together. I sat with friends before. I ate, laughed and shared. And yet from moment to monent I was not sure if I was going to cry, laugh or just sit and say nothing. It is strange how time just plays games with you – with your mind the way it does.
I will get back to work now. I have little time to do a lot. Later tonight I will go to the other Uncommon Ground and listen to the performers of the Open Mic. Then I will return home late, and before I know it, it will be 4am again – my wakeup time.
Time moves quickly in my life and yet right now, it is simply not moving quickly enough.
Peace, love and light
Kat
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12.11.08
Posted in Journal at 6:00 am by kat
So I have been back in Chicago since Monday. It was a long journey to get from LA to Chicago. No, Chicago had not moved and they did not put me in a propeller driven airplane that made it longer than usual, and surprisingly, even the weather did not delay me. No, it was long because there was much to think about as I sat in the back of the plane, chatting with flight crew and doing readings for them as we flew.
I have always done readings for many of the crew members. I have flown for most of my life and I am a million miler on 2 airlines. I guess that is more miles than most people should have to fly. It is not always fun. But spending time making new friends and sharing my gift with them is something that can be enlightening.
As I did readings for Carol and Amber something came up of a lost love for Amber. It turns out she is lesbian as well and shared with me as I asked her about this person that had departed her life about 4 months ago – it was her ex, who passed from cancer. Not a reading I really wanted to do as I had just been to the funeral. But it was strong, and I heard the name of her ex, although I mispronounced it (a greek name) and we laughed. I shared with both of them of what I was returning from. I cried. I have been crying a lot this past week.
Tuesday morning when I woke up at 4am – my usual time, I went to shower. My kitties usually ignore me as they are much too comfy on the big fluffy comforter to be bothered with getting up at that hour. But this morning would be different. As I stepped out of the shower there was a fuzzy white face greeting me. Willow was sitting on the rug – looking up at me and meowing. I had to push her out of the way so I could get out and dry off. But then she just laid out on the carpet, stretched out and tried to wrap around my feet.. Have you ever tried to dry yourself off while there is a cat wrapped around your feet – it is not very easy.
Her fuzzy white paws seemed to just reach out as I dried my hair and put on my makeup. She was not going anywhere. Even if I moved my feet and tried to get away. She just snuggled up and laid there. Then, even stranger, Brie, my other kitty showed up in the doorway. Was she sick? What was wrong? She never does this! She sat in the doorway and laid down, stretching her feet out, but still leaving and escape route. She is still a bit skiddish and tends to run if you move unexpectedly. Her tail curled around her and she was very comfortable.
Why?
This scene has been replayed each morning this week – even today. Hmm, a tivo of kitties! Do they sense something? Something within me? I guess they do. I know I am not myself. I am trying, but I am all over the map with emotions this week. I try to do my music – and nothing comes out. I try to be my normal crazy self and find myself saying stupid things (more stupid than normal – even for me) or worse, just rambling about nothing. I was at the doctors for 2.5 hours yesterday and realized I had told my life story to a new doctor. And she listened?! It is all so strange.
I want to be myself again. Or do I? I think I do. I am going to a concert Saturday to see Linda Eder – I love her and wish she was a lesbian.. We would make a great couple. See – I am trying to be myself again. And yet…
I have so much to do – events to plan and get organized – I have not even begun my Christmas shopping. My own illness is causing so many other side-illnesses that for the first time it is slowing me down. So much is going on and I want to just yell – STOP! My kitties won’t let me. Their little furry paws wrapped around me saying, “It is OK – we understand.”
I miss Julie. I miss her with all my heart and soul. Everyone keeps trying to help me. They try to say things – to make me feel better. They hug me, or hold me, and yet I don’t know what to do – how to react. I don’t know what to say. I wish I did.
As I left my condo this morning, heading off to work, I unwrapped my kitty from my feet – I hugged her and kissed her on the top of her head and I said “Thank you.. if you only knew.”
I gave them both their favorite treats as I left. The ignored me after that as they inhaled them (do they really taste them?) I walked out into the dark morning – only 5:15am. As I drove out on to the expressway I saw the most beautiful full moon – orange and dull, not brilliant white like you normally see. Hanging on the horizon almost setting.. It hung there – staring at me as I drove to work – looking and staring silently. I was lost in my thoughts and have been for days.
Thank you to all my friends – to everyone who has tried to help. I am sorry if I don’t know what to say or how to respond. But maybe, if I were to say, “as I look at the fuzzy white feet entangled around me these past few mornings, I think of you – my friends – and know you are there for me and if I could, I would give you all your favorite treats as well,” would that let you know how much you all mean to me…
with love,
Kat
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12.07.08
Posted in Journal at 7:00 pm by kat
I went to a funeral today. I hate funerals. I have never been able to deal with death. Perhaps I am weak. Perhaps I need to find a counselor that could help. When you start your adult life watching your class valedictorian – a close friend and band member – put a gun in his mouth, or watch friends you grew up with die because they drove high, or perhaps even one of the most difficult – someone I went to college with was killed on 9/11 and they never found her body (she died at the Pentagon) it makes you wonder.
In my life, I have lost track of the people that were close to me who died. No one should ever have to lose track. No one should have so many people die that you can’t count. Not in 25 years – not in 10 years – it should not happen.
Recently, a dear friend lost her mother. She lost her to the same thing I have – more advanced. She fought so hard. At the funeral they talked about how you never saw her sick. Her friends, her family, she never let people see her sick. She would get up early to sneak out to chemo so her husband would not see her. Her makeup flawless, her outfit immaculate – it all changes when people see you sick. They think of you as being sick – as not being the person they once knew.
I saw Julie sick. I was one of very few people who did. Myself, her sister and mother and father. We were the only ones. She hated it. She denied it. She always refused to be sick. I loved her. This made her stronger than anyone I had ever met. I try to fight the cancer I have. I don’t want people to see me sick – I do all that I can to hide it. Julie saw me sick. I threw up in her room once – just after a treatment I had. We both ended up laughing so hard – but we started out crying. She started to make fun of me, in the loving way she could. She laughed and said she was going to see if I had been cheating and eating meat – I am vegetarian. Within 5 minutes I was laughing with her. I don’t know how she did it. I was so embarrassed that I had let her see this, and yet she turned it around.
She was an amazing woman. When she told of the story of her time in Atlanta, I sat in amazement. Almost 6 years ago she lived in ATL and had a beautiful girlfriend. They broke up. It destroyed her. After 3 months, she looked around the country and decided she would leave Atlanta for Chicago. Her lease was up. She packed everything, and moved to Chicago. She did not have a job when she moved. She had a place to live, but no job. In 18 days she had a new job. Nothing would stop her. She was amazing.
Her funeral was simple – close friends and family. People from her high school that I had never met. She grw up in Santa Monica. But honestly, everyone felt like family. But what were we doing there?
I have always believed that the physical body is just a shell to hold a soul. When you pass, the body is like an egg shell – when you crack it and the insides fall out, the shell is empty and meaningless. We stood around – mostly in silence. Tears everywhere, but not knowing what to say. I never knoew what to say. Everything you can say to the family has been said in their own minds a million times – “why?”
I spent 2 days with her mother and father and sister. They liked me. I would come out monthly and in a previous blog I talked about how I tried to help all I could with her medical bills. It was meaningless – I knew I could never make a difference in the skyrocketing bills. And yet, we all knew – Julie knew – it was for nothing. There was no cure for this horrible condition that she faced. What was the point? We broke up because neither of us believed the other would live long enough to have a meaningful relationship. What is the point of fighting when you knew the outcome?
I sit here and write this. I miss her. There is no meaning.
I remember my cell phone bill from last month – even though I have unlimited minutes, I remember seeing how many were for calling her. Whenever I wanted to give up – I called her. Whenever I hurt, I called her. With the time change to California we could talk any time I needed her. I felt so good each time I talked to her. The strength within her would radiate to all those around her. Even over a cell phone.
Julie was in hospice and then moved to ICU for the last week of her much too short life. And yet this woman made sure she voted on Nov 4th. Not early or absentee, she wanted to be there – on election day. I remember how she told me how much it meant to her. Voting against Prop 8, and to elect our first ever black President. She wanted to be a part of history. This was a woman that no one could keep down. I called her on election night, right after I spoke to my mother. We were both crying. It was something that neither of us could believe. After 8 years of a horrible president – we had hope. She told me how she would be here to see Barack sworn in on Jan 20th. She was not going to miss it and wanted me to time my monthly visit to be with her. I told her I would. I never once thought she would not be here.
I said it before, but I don’t handle death well. I don’t think I ever will. I miss her and sitting in a room – knowing her shell was in the box in front of me made it harder. I sat with her family.
Julie only had 3 partners in her life and I was one. I never could understand what she saw in me. I knew what I saw in her. She was a goddess – not in the sense of beauty, but more like Wonder Woman – the power AND beauty that she held. Each time we were together I would always ask her “why?” She could do so much better. Besides, I was sick, I knew it. I could not give her a lifetime of happiness that she could give someone else. And then a few months later, she told me she was sick and she would be moving home. She wanted me to understand that she could not offer me what I could give her and thought that I should move on. I could not believe this. What was going on? Why was it that we both said the same thing to each other only a few months apart? I was supposed to understand because I said the same thing to her only a few months earlier. None of it made any sense then and it makes no sense now.
She is gone – I am still here. Why? She had more love in her pinky than I have in my whole body. I don’t understand it all. None of it makes any sense any more. Why her? The question so many people ask – “Why do good people have to die?” They say it is God’s plan. Sorry – I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that God took her for some reason that we simply don’t understand. I never will. I will never understand why she had this dealt to her. I will never understand why Ed put a gun in his mouth. I will never understand why friends took drugs, only to die when they were high. I will never understand why people died on 9/11 or during WWII or all the horrible wars before and after. None of it makes any sense – it doesn’t now and it won’t in a week or a month or a year.
I will fly home tomorrow. I will always carry part of Jewels within me. I loved her. I still do. She made me laugh and no one could ever make me laugh so hard that soda came out my nose. Only she could. I will meditate tonight, as I did the night before and the night before that. I
This all just sucks. Life – friends and family and lovers who leave us. I miss you so much Jewels. I want you back. I want you here – with me, in Chicago.. Snuggling on the couch – you sneezing because Willow made you. Please come back.. Please let me hold you – and kiss you. Please let me tell you how much I love you.
I will be with you soon… I promise.
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12.05.08
Posted in Journal at 8:00 am by kat
In the midst of all the turmoil in this world – the anger, hatred, wars, financial mess, religious craziness, us vs them mentality and so much more, in a brief moment we are reminded of what truly matters in life.
It has nothing to do with possessions or wealth or cars or houses or any of that. I am sure everyone knows this, but sometimes, it is so easy to forget.
Last night a beautiful person – a loving daughter, a sister like no other, a treasured friend – a true angel on this earth, left us. 
I don’t even know what I am writing right now. I am rambling. I am sitting here – numb to it all. I wanted to take her place. I wanted to be with her one more time. I wanted to kiss her and tell her how much I loved her. I was selfish – I wanted her to be with me. I wanted to share our lives together. I wanted to give her my life. I wanted to make her smile – one more time – to laugh – to have soda come out our noses together. I wanted to fall asleep in her arms and with her head on my shoulder. I wanted to play a song for her – to listen to her smile – yes, you could hear it – it was so beautiful.
Julie loved rainbows – her room was covered in them. She always made them pale in comparison to her beauty. She lit up a room. She always made me smile. We dated for a few months and yet we both said it was illness that caused us to not date – but was it simply fear? Fear that neither of us could bear the thought of losing the other if we were together, that somehow just being friends would make it easier? But did it?
I don’t deal well with death. I never have. I don’t want to think of her as dying, but simply having passed on to a more beautiful place where she will feel no more pain. We used to laugh about who was on more pain meds – who had more crap in their body that should not be there. It made us both realize that we might someday beat these illnesses. Each day we spoke — and each day I wanted to take all her pain – all her illness and draw it in to me. I have lived my life and then some. She was only 31. She deserved more – so much more.
I am alone. I miss her. I have missed her for so many months since she moved away to be with her family. She urged me to continue doing what I do here in Chicago. Sometimes it all seems so meaningless. Without someone to share it – without her laughing (and sometimes crying) with me.
We met many years ago and yet I never knew it. I met her in Atlanta, or more correctly, she met me when I helped run a magazine for the lesbian community. I took everyone’s pictures – just like I do here. She met me several times and yet I just filed her away with so many people who are so out of my league, well, she was a goddess and I was simply a mortal. She moved away – from Atlanta to Chicago and yet I never even knew. She moved here 2 years before I ever even thought of Chicago. She left a broken relationship and started over – with nothing. I admired her and yet I did not know her. A few years later, I would find myself moving to chitown, with an ex that is long gone from my life. Then I met Jewels again – at a Starbucks in Andersonville. I was reading my own cards that day and she came over and said hi and asked if I was from Atlanta. She told me she knew me from the magazine there. I was shocked – this woman who was so incredibly beautiful even knew anything about me. She sat down and I read her Tarot for her. We become friends that day. My soul was touched – by someone so beautiful inside and out, that I could not put it into words.
We shared many more lattes and soon, well we kissed. We dated for a few months and then she told me what the doctors said – lymphoma. And yet she smiled as she said it. She said she would beat it. The same as I am winning over Cancer. I believed her and yet something inside – the part of me that is the “spiritual intuitive” – which I sometimes hate – felt this was not true.
I don’t know how to share what a wonderful person she was. I am still rambling in this blog – still wondering what to say or do about all of this. My hands shake as I type – my eyes are filled with tears but I want everyone – I want the world to know that we have lost someone so incredible…
I will go say goodbye to her. I don’t know how. But I think she already said it to me. For when we were last sitting together – and I was getting ready to leave and fly home to Chicago, there was a look in her eye that I simply can not explain. When I kissed her goodbye, there was a feeling. Now I think I understand the look an the feeling – she had said goodbye to me. She knew.
Life is precious. You have heard it a million times in person, in the movies, and more. But when someone so special leaves you, you realize what truly matters.
I don’t know what will happen to me in the coming months – I don’t know what to do anymore about my own fight. She gave me so much strength and right now, I feel so weak – so completely spent, but I won’t give up. I can’t. She wanted me to continue. I wished we could have continued together. I wish I knew what to say when I see her mother, her father and her sister. I wish I had said more when we were together last.
I wish I could hold her.. Just one more time..
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