Friday, August 2, 2013

How it Could Happen

Hi, it's me. Tara.   
 
I know I usually try to be lighthearted, but I'd like to say something about the Lisa Gibson story.  If you live in Winnipeg, MB, Canada, as I do, you've probably heard of Lisa Gibson.  She was suffering with postpartum depression and allegedly drowned her two children in a bathtub.  Then she committed suicide.  I only know what I have read and the pictures I have seen, but she was young, beautiful, smart.  And extremely ill.

Postpartum depression and mental illness are very real.  I know some people don't "get it," so I wrote a story to explain myself better.   Although it is fiction, it contains very difficult subject matter. I feel strongly that the stigma surrounding mental illness needs more dialogue. It's easy to say: "this person is ill" but hard to understand unless you've been there.  

I wanted to reach out and show others how mental illness can destroy a person's life.   I tried not to sentimentalize a tragedy, but write with compassion. I know what I would be like if it had happened to me.


I entitled it How It Could Happen because that's the question you hear when something like this occurs.  How could something like this happen?  

This is how I think it could happen. 

How it could happen
by Tara Robinson


She is on the precipice between dozing and true sleep when she hears the baby crying. The sound jolts her wakes instantly, but the fog of exhaustion means she's still hazy, groping around for her glasses, focusing on the baby monitor, which is silent. The baby hasn't been crying at all.  She's hallucinated that he was -  she's that sleep deprived. 
    She's been having this particular hallucination frequently in the past few weeks, always when she's about to fall asleep. It bolts her awake every time and she knows very shortly the baby will wake up and need her. She looks at the clock and feels like crying. 
    She can't seem to get comfortable in her own bed anymore. She's been experiencing a lot of anxiety, her mind can't seem to shut down. It's racing, always racing, even when she is bone-tired and can barely speak. If she finally starts sinking down into unconsciousness something will tug her awake: the need to pee, the baby crying (real or imaginary) or she'll be too hot under the blankets, too cold without them. If she manages to find the perfect temperature and distribute her limbs correctly so that she is finally comfortable, she'll realize that a part of her body – a fist, her jaw – will need to be unclenched. 
   
When she's awake, there's a disturbing, growing distance between herself and everyone else. When people talk around her, there's just a drone of noise. It's increasingly difficult for her to focus on words, untangle their meaning and reply. She finds herself asking for questions to be repeated a lot. Better is when they left her alone. It's taking too much energy to engage with other people.
    The well's run dry, she might have said or at least thought. But in some way she can't fully explain, she feels like she is the well, or stuck inside one, trapped at the bottom. People ringed in sunlight she can see above her, but can't feel the warmth for herself. It's too cold and damp and dark where she is. The sun blots out their features, making one person indistinguishable from the next. They all seem very far away from her. No wonder their voices are muffled. 
    She went a few days ago to a doctor and was diagnosed with postpartum depression, given some pills. She knows exactly how these pills are supposed to work; she's familiar with terms like selective serotonin uptake inhibitors and neural receptors, but these clinical words seem meaningless. Her faith in medicine, in its ability to cure her, seems ludicrous to her right now. 
     She mourns this loss. She used to know so much, but her identity has been pared down, stripped away. The things she was absolutely certain about, all the things she knew, have been smudged or erased. 
    The baby really is crying now. She swings her legs off the bed, sits up, stands. She's lost a lot of weight recently and she was thin to start with, but her body has never felt heavier to her. Her legs wooden blocks as she moves towards the door.  Her movements might be slow, but her routine is so ingrained that she moves on auto-pilot. Changing the diaper, putting a fresh onesie on her son, hefting him up to carry him downstairs. She opens the fridge and puts the bottle in the bottle warmer. She feels the same sense of guilt that she always feels when she looks at the bottles. She hadn't been able to breastfeed. She tried initially, but it became just another stressor on her body and her milk dried up almost instantaneously after she gave birth. 
    Despite knowing this was probably for the best - (the best for whom? You or the baby?) - guilt prods her yet again. What's best for me is best for the baby, she reminds herself, not entirely convinced. This hackneyed, worn, often parroted phrase does not reassure her. Guilt flares, she nudges it aside; angles the bottle better to decrease the amount of air bubbles, pats the baby's back when he's finished until he lets out a soft burp. Seeing but not really looking at him, her mind ensnared with her own thoughts.
    Her daughter awake now and calling, she's stuck at the top of the stairs because of the baby gates. Carrying her son with her, she opens the gate and she and her daughter exchange a good morning kiss. Her daughter can descend by herself, but she likes to keep an eye on her. Her daughter holds each bannister rung in turn, placing both feet on each step before she moves down to the next one. She chatters excitedly to her mother, a two-year-old's combination of words and sounds. Her daughter likes to hum, squeal, sing, grunt; she likes to taste different tones as they come out of her mouth.
    She puts her son in his baby swing, but she knows from experience that this won't keep him happy for long. She changes her daughter's wet diaper, throws it in the garbage, washes her hands. Her daughter has carried downstairs her favourite stuffed animal, a white rabbit. She selects a few other toys to play with – soft blocks, a picture book, a few dolls and a firetruck that has battery-operated flashing lights and a siren. The baby cries when the siren starts. Wait, no.  He's wide-eyed in his swing, but not disgruntled, not yet. 
    She pours some dry cereal in a bowl and puts her daughter in her high chair. She locks the tray in place and her daughter automatically upturns the bowl and begins spreading out the cereal as if looking for irregular shapes or prizes. Finding none, she selects a piece, puts it in her mouth, chews. The mother starts rummaging around the kitchen for more food. She pours a sippy cup of milk for her daughter. She isn't hungry herself, she never is these days, everything tastes like ash in her mouth.
     She will have to get groceries today; there doesn't seem to be any in the house. The thought of packing up the kids and taking them out, just the image of it, overwhelms her. To orchestrate a successful outing requires a diaper bag to be packed – clothes, toys, snacks, sippy cups, diapers, burp cloths – not to mention putting the baby in the car seat he hates (she can already hear the screaming,) it all requires more energy than she has.
    Her daughter starts pushing her cereal on to the floor, a sure sign she wants something else to eat. The mother goes through the inventory of what they have: banana, no. Oatmeal, no. Peanut butter on toast, no. Egg, no. Yogurt, no. Back to banana, yes. She had known all along this would be her daughter's selection, but every day they have to go through this routine or she wouldn't eat. By the time the banana is consumed, half of it squished into the seat of the high chair and around her hands, her son is making distressed sounds in his swing. She picks him up and carries him about. Her daughter wants to be let out of her high chair now, saying: “down, down, Mommy, down,” as she bangs a banana-and-cereal coated fist on her tray. A cloth is produced, her hands and face are swabbed, one-handed and not very cleanly, but with the baby fussing on one arm and her daughter not holding still, it will have to do. She unlocks the tray, unbuckles the straps and her daughter runs off. The high chair a total mess of banana goop and cereal, the floor sticky. 
    She's tired of cleaning up these messes. She's tired, period. It's a constant racket between the two kids, the phone that never stops ringing, her cell phone bleeping with text messages, and the blaring cartoons she resorts to putting on to keep her daughter occupied. Friends and family members are worried about her and constantly barging in. Their dismayed eyes take in her messy house, their voices distressed chirps she can't understand. She finds herself irritated with them, although she knows she shouldn't be. They mean well, but an increasing part of her wants to slam the door in their faces, just so they can't see what she has become.  
    Her days, her life, used to be orderly. Her house clean, her clothes free of sticky messes, her hair styled. There is only unstructured, chaotic mess in her life now. People tell her it will get better, it's just a phase, they will help. Their voices only add to the churning, nerve-racking noise bearing down on her. 
    Her mind is pulled back to the present when a louder noise overrides the others. She focuses and finds herself back in the living room, her daughter yelling at her. Her daughter has repeatedly asked her to play something, but she wasn't answering. Tears splash down her cheeks. Her daughter looks up with concern, but no surprise. She has seen her mother crying before. Her daughter requests her favorite show be put on. She complies, watching her daughter hum along to the show's intro song, running the firetruck back and forth absentmindedly.  After a few moments, her daughter's voice becomes indistinct, blending into the babble all around her. The television. The toy firetruck. Her son fussily wanting to be carried a different way. 
   Her head fills with other people talking to her; meaningless dialogue with that quack doctor and his useless, stupid fucking pills that don't even help worth shit anyway. She used to understand so much and now it's like everyone around her is speaking Chinese. She is a foreigner in her own land, her own home. Worse, she's a foreigner in her own body. She doesn't recognize anything about herself anymore.  
    She can't articulate any of this; language has deteriorated. There's only the ceaseless, unrelenting noise bombarding her. She has to stop the noise. She lays her son down on a play mat, her daughter mesmerized by the television. She has to get out of this room, away from the commotion. She hurries out of the room, goes upstairs. She enters her bedroom – piles of dirty laundry, the unmade bed mocking her inability to sleep – no sanctuary here. She goes into the bathroom, leans against the counter, breathes deeply, relishes that she is alone for five seconds. 
 
Something happens then. The world tilts off its axis and grey-black static rushes over her. Deranged images overtake her: the gurgling sound of water as it fills the bathtub, her daughter beside the tub. That's all she knows. There's an image of her precious son crying in her hands, but they couldn't be her hands, placing him gently on top of the water as if it were a solid surface. She doesn't remember anything else. The grey-blackness relents for an instant, pops like a light bulb and she's standing alone in her bedroom. She can hear her son crying. Another hallucination. She's furious with herself but oddly relieved, too. Her son is okay, her daughter is okay. They are downstairs. They need her. Then she sees the water on her arms.
    She runs to the bathroom, a sense of dread and panic overtaking her, even though this can't be happening, she has no memory of doing this, she would never do anything to hurt her children. For what surely must be the first time, she looks inside the bathtub. Looks. Sees.
    Pain unlike any she has ever known grips her. An inhuman, keening wailing fills the small room. She drains the water instantly. It's not too late, can't be too late, she would never harm, never harm her children. She feels a faint pulse on each neck but is terrified to touch them further. She knows now she can't trust herself. She needs to get them help fast, immediately. 
    She calls 911, she's disembodied but somehow still has a voice. She states her address, asks that someone come to the house and then hangs up the phone. It will be the last words she will ever speak, trying to help her children.
    Her brain erupts, explodes, shatters. Language has dissolved completely, for what she has done there are no words. Her broken mind is filled with uninterrupted howling, the sight of her son and daughter laying prone next to her, barely breathing. She crouches beside the bathtub, hands over her ears, sobbing uncontrollably.
    The police will be here soon. They will come, they will find her beside this bathtub. It wasn't me, she wants to say. In every possible way, it's the truth. She can't bear to look at her children for another moment, not like this. She needs to get out of this house. Now.
    She's suddenly outside. Shoes are on her feet but she has no recollection of putting them on. Still in her pajamas, no time to change. She forces herself to move. How long had the grey-black static overwhelmed her? Surely less than twenty minutes. How can everything change so completely in under twenty minutes? But it has. 
    The roaring in her ears continues unabated. Her throat closes and her eyes stinging as she finds a path she didn't even know she was seeking until she is walking on it. She'd thought the noise was external, but it never was. It wasn't the talking, the television, the phone. It was never her children. It was always inside of her and maybe she could have articulated that at one time, but failed. Failed in the worst possible way; failed the people she loves the most. The grey-black rushing noise destroying everything. 
 
She stumbles blindly along the path and comes to the river. The river. A bathtub. Her children will be waiting for her. 
    She doesn't really believe this, not after what she's done, but she hopes for it. It's the only thing she hopes for. She slides down the muddy bank, wades in, swims. She needs to get as far away from here as possible. She can't be seen, can't be caught. She needs to get to her children.
    As she swims, she wonders briefly if this is all a horrible mistake. She couldn't have hurt her children. This is a terrible nightmare or another hallucination. No. She knows with certainty that she cannot trust herself around them. She loves them so much, so much and she needs to tell them. She can't go back so she forces herself to move forward.
    Her body - the body that carried, nurtured and gave birth to those two incredible, perfect children - will carry a final message. She has gone to be with them. 
    Her tears are swallowed up and absorbed by the river as she pushes on. Other images intrude upon her. Husband, mother, father, sister, her family and her friends. These images cause the screams inside her skull to increase tenfold, the pain excruciating. All the words, all language wiped out. She wishes she could have explained better about the noise.
    She doesn't want to be here, in this dirty brown water. She wants to be at home, with her children. She sees herself in her own King-sized bed with them. Her son cradled on her right arm, not even four months old. Tiny. Perfect. She breathes in the impossibly sweet baby smell of him. Smiles as he makes small sucking noises as he sleeps. Her daughter slumped on her other side, her golden hair the exact same shade as her own. Her daughter's arm casually looped around her mother's waist.
    She squeezes her sleeping children a bit tighter. Their collective body heat seeps into her, warms her. She barely notices that the noises inside her head have stopped. It's calm and quiet. Her chin drops down and her eyelids flutter close. She can feel her son's small fist against her right breast. He's still so little that he's curled half on her arm, half on her lap. His heartbeat almost audible as his chest rises and falls. Her daughter on the left, pressed up against her side, her daughter's head on her chest, over her heart. As it always was. As it always will be.
    She feels herself being pulled down and she, too, can finally rest and sleep.
  

 

Friday, April 29, 2011

Royal Weddings Need More Meth...

So the Royal Wedding is finally over, with over a million people spending hours, if not days, huddled outside, waiting for something to happen.  In real life those people are called: "homeless meth addicts."  But in England, they are "spectators." 

I was thinking if I had meth, I'd have made a fortune out there.  Or a hot dog cart.  Either way, it was a bunch of processed chemicals to shove in the arteries.

I need a hot meth dog cart.  I'm totally calling it that, too.

Monday, January 24, 2011

The road less traveled...

This post was inspired by Jenny Lawson. http://thebloggess.com/2011/01/coming-out/

If you don't care to zoom off to her page straight away because you have restraint and a greater attention span then I do, I will briefly surmise Jenny's post.  Jenny herself suffers from depression, anxiety disorder, OCD, and (just to fuck with her a little more) Rheumatoid Arthritis.  She has spoken up before about her struggles with all of these things on her Blog.  I have been quietly reading about these things and not saying anything.

My own struggles with Depression started before I actually knew there was a mental illness called Depression.  I can narrow them down to the exact date:  June 8th, 1992.  The day my father committed suicide.  I was 18.

The grief of losing my father is still palatable, even almost 20 years later.  When I think about it. And I try to go days, even months without thinking about it.  Certain times it hits me like a fist in the throat:  that he didn't get to meet my husband.  That he never walked me down the aisle.  That he never got to see his grandsons.  Those are the "easy to explain my sadness" moments.  Understandable.

Mental Illness doesn't have many understandable moments.  When you suffer from Depression as I do, you take any proffered straw when it is given to you.  I took those straws as proof that I didn't need help or medication.  I just needed a moment.  Regular people without mental illnesses need moments.  I so desperately wanted to be one of those.  To not be my father's daughter.

There was a tidal wave of grief when my father was found, it swept me away from everything I knew to feeling like a castaway on a desert island.  I blamed myself for not seeing it.  I blamed my step-mother who was in the midst of divorcing him for sending him over the edge.  Ultimately, I blamed him.  Coward.  Selfish asshole.  How could he do this to us?  I denounced him in my teenage way and went flung myself into a series of bad relationships that were fueled by recreational drug use.  I explained it all away.  I was young, reckless, rebellious.  All this is perfectly normal.  Experimenting, not escaping.

Oh ho ho, how we bullshit ourselves.  But we do it because we feel we have to.  To avoid sinking, to give us something to hang onto, sometimes bullshit is our only option.  And sometimes we realize it's all bullshit and cannot face it any more.  If we're strong enough, we ask for help.  We discover that help is there.  We reach out.  But some people aren't that lucky.  My father was physically very strong, on his way to a third degree black belt in Taekwondo, and worked as a martial arts instructor.  For years after his death, I had thought if only he was as mentally strong as he had been physically, he would still be here.  

My brother, sister and I all made a pact that whoever had the first Grandson would name him after our father.  At least as a middle name.  To keep his memory alive.  When the time came and I had the first grandson, I bulked at the idea of having my son carry a name with so much sadness and grief attached to it.  As consolation prize we choose Berlin as 1st son's middle name.  To honor my German heritage (inherited through my father's side) and the fact my husband had lived and worked in Berlin for three years before he came to Canada and married me.  It was a cop-out explained as a compromise; a skill I have perfected throughout the years. 
  
I had my second son (and last child) and still couldn't bare to give him my father's name.  I was too cowardly to face it.  But my sister had a son 18 months later and did it for me. 

Anything is better than the truth when you're mentally ill.  My Dad's truth and my truth, too.  I hide from it just as he did.  I went to therapy years ago and took antidepressants that made me feel detached from the rest of the world and made me completely unable to write. 

The truth is, mental illness isn't about strength.  It cannot be cured with push-ups or diet or Sucking It Up Like a Man.  All of that is bullshit.  And I'll let you know the worst bullshit of all.  That I think to myself:  "I went through today doing perfectly normal, mundane things and that makes me a perfectly normal person."  Because I am normal and struggling with mental illness.  And it's a struggle that shouldn't be happening in silence.

To all of you who are struggling, I want to say this. 

You have a voice.  You are worthwhile.  You are unique and deserve to be here.  You deserve happiness.  Speak up, reach out and that action: that one action of using your voice and speaking, which I know, I know is terrifying, because what if you speak up and no one hears you?  What if it just echoes into an endless scream?  For me, that was the unbearable, un-dislodgeable thought.  And that was (and still is) the Depression talking.

No.  Using your voice can only make things better.  Because the worst things, the most insidious things?  Those are part of your illness.  Speaking up will become easier as you do it, I promise you that.  Removing the silence is the first way to distinguish yourself from your disease.  It is part of you, don't let it take all of you. There are ways to live with it.  So that you can live.

If you don't feel ready to talk to a professional or your family, you can leave me a comment and I promise I will answer you. 

I'm dedicating this post to my Dad, Randy Liebrecht.  Sorry it took me so long to get here, Daddy.  x

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Not really a new post

I have insomnia and I thought this Facebook exchange was funny.  To be fair, I find rhyming words like "barbaric" with "hysteric" and "numeric" hysterically funny, too.  So you probably shouldn't be paying attention to me.  Actually, it's not so much an exchange as it is just me rambling to myself.  Although I do find terms like "computer whiz" funny.  He said "whiz."  *snicker*

I have insomnia.  I might have said that already.  I did say that already...like four sentences ago.  It was a long four sentences.  For me.  It was probably fine for you.  k, I need to stop talking now.  Also, I can't seem to resize this.  It's really hard to read...which is ironic because it's a Snip where I admit to being über-lame with computers.  Now I just rhymed "ironic" with "I'm on it" which probably doesn't even rhyme but in my head I think it does.  Like when singers mispronounciate words to make them work in a song.



ETA:  spellcheck has just informed me that mispronounciate isn't even a real word.  Since when?  I've been saying that for years. 

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

I'm pretty sure I can differentiate between being a Mom and becoming a Serial Killer.

I think my title needs work.

Clarification:  I don't want to become a serial killer.  First of all, that would require some sort of planning to even get to the "serial" stage.  Which as you probably can gather from the frequency of my Blog posts - that shit ain't going to happen.  

Maybe if I explain some things this wouldn't be so confusing and (more importantly) I wouldn't have cops knocking on my door intent on digging up the backyard.
 
A few days ago my oldest son lost his third tooth.  He's been slow at losing his teeth and it's been well over a year since I last saw one.  Husband and I were trying to remember how much money the Tooth Fairy normally gives.  I thought for the first tooth we gave $10 since it was the first.  The second one I think we gave $5.  Apparently teeth depreciate in value faster than a Dodge Caravan, because with two kids in the house with mouths full of baby teeth, Husband and I decided that we should move away from bills into Coin of the Realm.  In Canadian terms, that meant a paltry $2 (a toonie) was being offered up.

My husband volunteered to play the part of Tooth Fairy and came back to our bedroom looking successful, yet slightly confused, like a stockbroker with a new client (zing!)  Husband had the tooth pinched between two fingers and then offered it up to me:

"Here you go," he said, as if he wasn't sure if I'd want it, but knows he doesn't want it, so is going to pass-the-buck (tooth) to me. 

"Why would I want that?" I ask him.

"Don't you save these?"

"Um, no."

"Yes, you do.  Right here.  'My First Tooth.'  It says what's inside right on the box."   Husband takes off the lid of the box to confirm his victory.  Nestled inside is the incriminating tooth.

"That's for the first tooth.  I need that one."

"Why?"

There it was.  The question I never even asked myself.  Why did I need Baby's First Haircut clippings and why did I periodically go through my sons Baby Books and fudge information about what jarred baby food they first tried and when? 

Obviously it's all in case I'm asked the skill-testing question of Ultimate Motherhood:  "Did you save your children's first teeth in the requisite First Tooth boxes?" I can say: "yes, of course I did.  Here they are.  I held onto them for all these years just hoping someone would ask me about them.  Finally someone did.  Thank you."

"I'm not going to save every tooth,"  I reassured my husband.  "That's something a serial killer would do."

"Serial killers keep baby teeth?" Husband asked.

"No, but they keep trophies and sometimes that's like a ring from the victim, but a lot of times it's body parts."  I read Criminal Library.  I felt very authoritative on this matter. 

"Not even a serial killer would keep a full mouth of teeth."  Husband declared.

"What about mobsters?  They might knock all the teeth out and take them just to prevent the victim from being identified.  Plus, what about the Jeffrey Dahmer types?  They decapitate and keep the whole head.  With teeth."  I added, in case it wasn't totally obvious. 

"You're sick..."

"I'm not the one that's doing it!  That's what I'm trying to tell you!  I'm within the realms of socially acceptable behavior by keeping the first tooth.  To keep like twenty teeth strung on a necklace would make me criminally insane!  Plus, you offered that tooth to me!  You didn't mind me collecting them, but now that I point out how serial killerish that would be, you're suddenly saying how sick I am?!  What the hell, dude?!"

"Okay, sorry.   Sheesh...so I should just put this in the garbage then?"

"Please."

And that's the story of how I figured out that I'm merely a Mom and not a mass murderer after all.  Some people might question why I even need to try to figure shit like this out, but seriously?  It's good to know. 

Friday, March 5, 2010

The most useless person in the world

...is me.  I admit it.  I recently had my speakers die a grim death on my desktop computer.  No music as I type, no youtube, I can't play movies, it's awful.  I will stay in this shattered state until someone comes to save me.  Oh, people have tried to help me, good people.  But all to no avail, because I have no idea what they are talking about. 

Do you have a flat screen monitor?  First check your monitor as a lot LCD monitors have basic speakers built in.  If not, then do you need 5.1 sound, i.e. do you need rear speakers?  This requires that the computer supports 5.1, which most desktop do and some high end laptops do.  If not, then you have a choice of either 2.1 (two desk speakers and a separate subwoofer) which will give more bass but needs extra cables lying around and cost more. Or basic stereo speakers which would be cheaper and neater. 
 
He's trying to talk to me, I just know it.

Here's what you have to do:

1) tell me what I need.  What size, what brand, what price.
2) tell me where to find it (Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Joe's "blow your speakers UP!" Electronics)
3) spell things phonetically so I sound like I actually know what I'm talking about. (Bose? What is that? Bossy? Like hose but with a "b"? I honestly do. not. know.) Since I can't pronounce it, I probably could not appreciate the intricacies of owning such a quality sound system and therefore should not buy it.
4) Write it out for me on a piece of paper with the right specs. detailed on it.  I will mime to the salesperson that I am deaf to avoid them asking me follow-up questions regarding my sound system needs.
5) Why would a deaf person want speakers?  This is the beauty of the whole harebrained scheme.  See, as I came into the shop embarrassed by my lack of of tech. savvy, a salesperson would risk embarrassment by asking such a question to a physically handicapped person (insert derisive laughter) - well played. 
6) stand there until salesperson hands me speakers and steers my arm towards the till with a slackjawed expression on my face.
7) purchase required speakers
8) purchase a green jack to connect to said speakers so that I know what at least one cord connecting to the computer is supposed to be for.
9)  wait for husband to come home and put it all together for me.
10) I am victorious!  I am woman hear me...well, actually hear me sound pretty ashamed of being a woman, a member of the human race, or anything.  But let's not listen to me; listen to some fine tunes on these brand-new speakers!  

Yes, I am that useless.  "A word to the wise ain't necessary, it's the stupid ones who need the advice." - Bill Cosby. 

There's no such word as "ain't" Bill Cosby.  But other than that?  Point taken, Bill.  Point taken. 

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

I want a lesbian financial adviser...

Times are hard, life is tough, proverbs are rampant.

So I would really like a lesbian financial adviser to get me through it all.  Why a lesbian?  Because they are awesome and they tend to be rich.  Let's look at a few examples of great lesbians.  



 
Rosie O'Donnell 
Rosie O'Donnell


                         Wanda Sykes                      
 Wanda Sykes

Portia de Rossi and Ellen Degeneres
Portia de Rossi and Ellen Degeneres

                                                                                            Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey

And I know what you're thinking, because I thought the same thing.  None of these women are finanical advisers.  I know, that's why I said I needed a lesbian financial adviser.  But they all share a few common traits.  Noteably they are all actresses and talk-show hosts.  And I know you're going to say that Oprah Winfrey isn't even out of the closet yet.  I know, right?  It's like she's trying to make this difficult for me.

Why pick a lesbian for a financial adviser?  Because they are smart, honest and trustworthy.  No Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein running around in $8000 suits (who do you think paid for that suit?  That's right, you did, smart invester.)

Instead I'd love the butch lesbian adviser, preferably one that looks like Christine Marinoni.  Basic hair, no make-up, totally a kick-ass environmental activist and engaged to the lovely Cynthia Nixon. And you know how when you see a lesbian couple and wonder who will wear the pantsuit for the wedding ceremony and who will wear the dress?  I totally think Cynthia will be in the dress and Christine in the pantsuit.  Just remember I called it.  Also, sometimes I think how pretty some lesbians really are, and which ones I would be attracted to if I didn't love wiener.  Invariably, I pick the Portia de Rossi lesbian, which means if I were to marry Portia de Rossi, I'd be the one in the pantsuit. 

Somehow, that doesn't surprise me.