Nicole the Plant Lady Needs Your Help!

Hello everyone!

We all wander the world oblivious to what tomorrow might do to our health. Many of us get lucky, we are blessed with a lifetime of great health.

Then there are those of us who get into a car accident, total our car, experience numbness in our lower extremities and then we find out we actually have Multiple Sclerosis, and the car accident was just a warm up.

That's what happened to our beloved Nicole.

When was the first time you met Nicole? It could have been in a Lansing Mom's Group, or through one of her countless free videos on botany, maybe you learned about Norse or Irish mythology from her, or maybe one of her panels on mental health and her willingness to help others, enabled you to seek help.

Perhaps you are one of countless gay men who crush on her because she is just that fabulous, no one blames you, she's a glittering gravitational force for fabulous. Or you witnessed her juggling her child, an ancient text, a plant, a spatula, an eyeshadow palette and four jobs. That's right, FOUR jobs, Mama, entrepreneur, one job in administration and another one in healthcare. Nicole is our force of nature.

I first met Nicole at Con. I had attended one of her classes, and my brain was still spinning. Have you ever met someone so smart and articulate that your brain feels like it's regressed to one of its primate ancestors just learning to speak, and all you can do is awkwardly paw the air as they walk past, grunt and say “pretty?!” That's what it was like. She swooshed by me and Bill on her way to the elevator, leaving a wake of glitter, and the following conversation happened:

Me: I think I'm straight, but I have such a girl crush on Nicole B

Bill: I'm a gay man, and I have a crush on Nicole

Random Man: I also am a gay man and have a crush on Nicole.

Me: She's just fabulous

Them: So fabulous.

Somehow Nicole and I went from strangers to acquaintances, to friends terrorizing a lake on a giant purple dragon and hunting a unicorn. One time we even had hamburgers in Hell. We were busted more than once for riding the luggage carts at Con, and then we started hosting workshops together.

She has made me laugh so hard I snorted, repeatedly, so undignified, but everyone needs that friend who keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously.

Multiple Sclerosis is a potentially debilitating disease that can be aggravated by stress, and it doesn't care that Nicole is a force of nature. It can also be a disease where someone has a flare, goes into remission and never flares again. What if we had the power to make that happen? What if we converted some of that love, appreciation and community fabulousness into a tool Nicole could use to level up her healing now in the early stages? Isn't that the sort of alchemy we're here to do?

Nicole doesn't have PTO or sick leave, framily. Could you juggle four jobs and a life-altering illness? I couldn't.

Together, however, we can make it rain on this fundraiser. We can set Nicole up with a replacement vehicle and some fiscal breathing room for medical expenses so she can focus on treatment, and obtaining remission.

Donate because you love Nicole, because the world has disappointed you, or you've lost faith in humanity, for someone you loved and lost. Or because you're a gay man stuck in the gravitational pull of Nicole's fabulousness.

Here and now you can stick it to some of the awfulness in the world with a few clicks. If you have ever felt like you can't make a difference, here is proof that you can. We can all be that person picking up a starfish and throwing it back into the ocean, we are legion.

Until then, we wish you all that friend who can turn anything into an adventure, and makes you laugh until you snort in a most undignified manner.

Please share this to your social medias, and feel free to tell the world about how Nicole has touched your life.