re-calibrating my thrifty skills

part one

2010-12-18T19:38:00.000-08:00

a memory, 1999

my mother is sitting next to me in the car, driving. i'm a youngun just starting to be aware of BODY HAIR. my best friend shaves her legs and i am ashamed that i don't yet because i'm convinced that the girls who sit behind me and whisper are whispering about me (even though my leg hair was and has always been basically invisible). i'm afraid to even ask about shaving because that would be admitting that i even have leg hair in the first place. my mother - the image of a southern femme with her tan legs, big permed hair, dark red lipstick - is unaware of her part in the internal battle within me.

my mother doesn't shave her legs above her knees, so against her tan lies a downy coat of blonde hair that disappears under the hem of her shorts. the hairs are curly but calm, neither short nor long, dense like a suburban lawn.

i'm 11, and i think it's gross. i tell her i think it is weird. those are my words. "that's weird, ma," i tell her. "why don't you shave your whole leg?" and she looks at me, eyebrows raised over her sunglasses. "i like how it looks," she says. my memory is conflicted, because i remember in that moment that her reaction meant she didn't give a shit. also in my memory is that she didn't have that downy coat the following summer.

now, i think about it and am irritated by the insecure asshole child i was. then, i only saw what i imagined my friends would see and judge: d rene's bizarre mom with the hairy legs and no-bra. now, i think about her hairy legs and our complicated relationship and i wish that, just once, i had rested my head in her lap to feel it on my face. ma, if only i could grow leg hair thick like yours. so lush, and soft, and oh how it shone golden in the texas summer.

jbdb

2010-08-21T16:50:00.001-07:00

moving to baltimore on monday with charm city and there's a huge part of me that is very excited and ready, but right now i am just sad. my room is sorta almost packed and i'm listening to robyn which is pretty ridiculous and i puked a while ago from either nerves or acid-tummy. who knows. the sky is getting dark and it's making me panic.

i really want to take a shower but the hot water heater went off, again, so i have to wait an hour after i reset it. this has been a plague upon our house all summer, where the hot water heater randomly turns itself off. the first time, we called the super, she sent over her brother, and he did some magic in the basement for us. or so we thought. after it happened 4 or 5 more times, the brother agreed to show us how to do it ourselves (instead of, you know, fixing it) where previously he had refused saying it really was a better idea for him to do it himself. so we follow him into the basement, which is mad creepy by the way, and he says: "this one, on the right, is your house. see how it says #15 on it. follow the power cord, like this," as he moves the flashlight beam, "to the outlet." he proceeds to unplug it, then plug it back in, and the heater starts up again. it was that easy.

my housemate and i said goodbye, twice, and after each time i cried pretty helplessly for a while. i'm even crying now! i'm such a softie. guthrie and i haven't known each other for years but i'm still very sad to leave our house, aka the homestead, and a friendship that i feel did not have nearly enough time. our schedules this summer were so like ships passing in the night that i regret not making more time for just hangin out with them... and even though i know we will see each other soon, it's really more the symbolism than anything else. saying goodbye to people that i've been through so much with, who stuck with me and i with them. it makes me so sad that i can't even wax anything about it. it just is what it is. i usually spend more time on my blog entries, making them interestingly written and less like a stupid captain's log, but i just can't right now y'all.

maybe someday we'll actually do karaoke to 'somethin like that' by tim mcgraw.

brought to you by the letters A and P

2010-07-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

so this is how my afternoon went after i got home from work: first i laid in bed and didn't do anything but read everything the internet has to say and was surprised to realize that i was in the dark cause it had been gradually getting darker but i hadn't noticed. then i was grossed out by how lazy that is and got up to Be Productive, i.e. feed myself or clean my room, ideally both, and instead drank some RC cola out of the bottle in my underwear and thought about how tasty a sandwich would be but decided to have a photoshoot with the cat and write a blog post instead.

this summer is not as hot as last summer when i was in new york city but it's still fucking hot, y'all. most of my time is spent at the ice cream shop where i work, swimming, taking cold showers, and finding the exact position of my fan for maximum breeze. it's a good life. i have a lot of time to get in trouble and a lot of time to do nothing. at night i watch arnold palmer the cat purrsue (!) a fruitless relationship with owl cat from Outside, who comes every night to sit on the banister next to my window and they mournfully meow at each other and i feel bad for standing in the way of what could be a beautiful relationship but damn. owl cat is creepy. (owl cat is called owl cat cause he has black spots right below his eyes so at night / in low lighting he looks like his eyes are fucking huge and totally black.)

anyway, the point of this thing is that now i've done something and maybe will go on to do more things! like play lasers with the cat or other things with the cat since i'm obsessed.

dedicated to the few

2010-05-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

a lot of people talk about how great facebook is for reuniting with people who have fallen by the wayside over the years - former classmates, estranged relatives, whatever - but it does not help at all with the people who you sometimes miss, but have burned bridges with. when that kid who taunted you mercilessly in middle school friends you, saying "fuck off asshole" and clicking "deny" feels good and is easy. but what about those people, those "friends," who you can still stalk and check up on, but would never ever let them know about it?

the people who have been significant in my life that i now intentionally no longer talk to are a blessed few. for one of them, it was my own decision that i am (usually) glad i made. another, it was her decision to cut ties with me for what i imagine was self-preservation, hurt, or not knowing how to deal. i can't say for sure because, well, she cut ties with me. there was one i ceremoniously un-friended from facebook and i doubt that he ever even realized it.

i wonder sometimes if these people ever think of me, ever mourn the way things ended, ever talk about me. what do they say? what do these people take away after knowing me?

does it matter? probably not. is it curiosity that makes me wonder, or insecurity?

in moments of weakness i am tempted (and have, at times) reached out just one more time to the other half of a broken relationship. today i was thinking about one person who is rarely in my thoughts these days, wondering where she is, wondering if she's changed, and dare i say it, missing her presence in my life. part of it is nostalgia for a period of my life that was, in almost all ways, miserable. what's that about? but i think about sitting on that porch in the summertime, about riding bikes together, those first few weeks of dizzying lust, and i feel weird. not good-weird, or bad-weird. i just wonder if she thinks about those times.

i can "discuss" (read: argue) for hours without feeling satisfied. i can say my fiercest goodbyes to a terrible influence on my self-worth and two years later contemplate inviting them back into my life. for me, there's no such thing as enough closure.

2010-05-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

as i sit here in my pajamas, heating pad on my achin' back, it occurs to me that i'm really happy.

i am graduating college. wait what? i'm graduating college. out of school for the first time in 17 years. what does that even mean?

so things are great, i have a million hours a day to do whatever the fuck i want, and that includes writing interesting blog posts. maybe tomorrow.

thoughts

2010-04-16T12:08:00.001-07:00

"what would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? the world would split open."
muriel rukeyser, from käthe kollwitz

things i intend to do after div iii:
eat more gd vegetables

2010-04-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

finish finish finish finish finish

i love writing about the lesbian avengers but right now i'm over it.

and another thing

2010-04-05T18:00:00.001-07:00

i miss texas so much. so fucking much. barton springs and the intersection of lamar and 6th and the drive out to my house and my dogs and my parents and the horses and my stupid evil cat and sagan's house and drinking coronas under covered patios or on a boat out on the lake. camping and driving my mama's big truck and, dare i say it, kase 101 radio. the rusty spur and the capitol lawn and the bat bridge and just everything.

week of brutal honesty

2010-04-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

two events are the impetus for this:

1. one of my oldest friends from junior high is getting a tattoo. she and i and our other friends were very close with a particular teacher at our school who was young and hip and allowed us to fuck around like the fuck ups we were. he died a year after we went to high school on april first. it's hard to explain the significance of this briefly, but i still think about him seven years later and wonder how my life would've been had he not died. i am almost positive that his death is what made me appreciate the study of history, among other things. cooking, too. so my friend is getting a tattoo of his glasses which, today, would be real stylish y'all. but back then they were nothing more than one of the many distinguishing characteristics of this man. i should probably write about mr owens sometime because he was the first person close to me to die among other more important things. i wrote a song about him once. every year for maybe 5 years after he died i would write him a letter.

2. on saturday evening i went to a seder, put together by some of my friends. it was my first time so i don't have anything to compare it to, but i'm still thinking about it so i think that means it was good. for one of the parts of the seder, i had my hands washed by the person next to me and was supposed to state something i wanted to learn to let go of. everyone went through the same process, either silently or not.

i wanted to let go of not being able to let go. i didn't say it out loud because, at first, i didn't realize that that was what i was thinking. i was thinking about the people and the things and the moments in my life right now that still make me uneasy, upset, or just sad, depending on the time of day. they were connected by my inability or unwillingness to let go of them. i don't think that's an uncommon human tradition, but for some reason my way of executing it feels different and a little more frantic. a little more desperate. what's that about?

anyway, the same friend getting said tattoo used to do this thing in high school called the "week of brutal honesty" where she would list 7 lies she allowed people to believe and 7 truths she often denied.

and so i give you, my week of brutal honesty.

some lies i usually allow people to believe:

- the majority of my break-ups have been truly mutual (maybe it looks that way on the surface but i'm pretty sure i'm almost always the saddest about it ending)

- i'm totally comfortable with myself

- i'm over it

- i don't get jealous

- i brush my teeth every night

some truths i often deny:

- i don't really trust people to treat me well

- sometimes i'm scared of the dark

- if i got in a fist fight, i don't know if i would win

- i'll argue a point even if i don't believe entirely in it just because i don't like to be wrong

- i absolutely hate feeling left out

- one time a few years ago i knowingly drank the rest of my housemate's juice out of revenge

that last one has never really come up but it sure feels good to get that off my chest. and, here is something that i will never let go of:

i fucking loved that truck.

ripe as a peach

2010-03-27T09:36:00.001-07:00

also:

handle with care

2010-03-05T04:56:00.001-08:00

this morning, i took charm city to the airport and instead of going immediately back to bed, i decided to enjoy the morning that i rarely see. so i'm sitting at the haymarket with a warm(!) oatcake and tea. i guess this means i'm becoming an adult, all with the being up early thing.

i'm not even going to talk about the time between me and graduating. but i am forming plans including buying a scooter and a summer spent reveling in being out of school for the first time since i was 5 and drinking beers.

which is all i have to say.

that grrl thinks she's the queen of the neighborhood

2010-02-20T11:10:00.000-08:00

here's a collection of thoughts:

- i wish la roux wasn't such a terrible person.
- i'm starting to come around to the word "pussy" (hah get it, "come" around)
- i may be one of those people who likes to make my bed everyday now (thanks charm city)
- i wonder how much time i actually waste in relation to how much time i think i waste
- i pass div iii on my birthday
- i stopped taking birth control 3 weeks ago and it was the best decision i've made in a long time, because now my moods are back to normal and i'm not 90% depressed all the time
- but my period is coming and the pain that will surely accompany it scares me cause i'm back at square one

the end, but here's this:

warning: vague

2010-02-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

well, this is unexpected.

so, have a poem, by e e cummings.
-
in spite of everything
which breathes and moves,since Doom
(with white longest hands
neatening each crease)
will smooth entirely our minds

-before leaving my room
i turn,and(stooping
through the morning)kiss
this pillow,dear
where our heads lived and were.

today's date is a palindrome

2010-01-02T14:49:00.000-08:00

goals for 2k10 / life:

1. pursue more of what makes me happy
2. let it go
3. worry less
4. eat more fruit
5. graduate college
6. spend less time on the computer
7. and more time outside, once it's not a fucking tundra
8. be less cautious and more deliberate
9. be a good daughter
10. be honest, always

2009-12-19T15:50:00.000-08:00

today i:
- got out of bed at 1
- thought about making coffee but then didn't
- found my collection of angel pins from when i was a kid who was convinced that going to church was the next new social scene, and everyone was invited but me
- took a bath, complete with sea salt scrub and a fancy french clay face mask
- re-read beloved by toni morrison

being home with very few friends left in this city leaves room for a lot of relaxing, but man oh man am i ready for some social interaction.

what i'm thankful for this holiday season

2009-12-09T20:31:00.000-08:00

how is it that i can spend a year writing about the lesbian avengers and work with two professors, both of whom are lesbians?

at least the cover art is neat

2009-11-18T12:04:00.000-08:00

today's installment of shit that pisses me off:

i woke at up at charm city's house after he left for work and was layin around with the cat on my belly reading books i found on his bookshelf. there was this one, evasion, that i've wanted to check out for a long time. it was borne out of a zine chronicling the experiences of this unnamed kid who goes around dumpstering and squatting and stealing and living off excess. it's interesting, kinda. and granted, i didn't read the whole thing, but i stopped at the first sentence of like, the second paragraph, and knew it was gonna piss me off. the author, who is anonymous, insists that poverty is the key to living a rich life. ugh. i kept reading for like 50 pages, cause that's what i do, and all he did was reinforce this notion that a lot of kids who grew up in the suburbs (he did) have - that not having money, being a "starving artist," is the most honest way to live and gives you some insight into something. that it will teach you secrets about humanity or whatever. fuck all these kids who grew up with money and so can risk not having it. this kid chose not to have a job cause he knew he could steal anything he wanted and not get caught cause he's a white kid with all the cultural capital of an upper-class person. it would be one thing if there was even an instance of reflexivity about the fact that can and does choose to not have a job and refers to what money he does have as "vinyl money" (to be spent on records)... but from what i read there's not. just arrogance and privilege that he's proud of. and that's not even all the fucked up shit - just what i remember.

and all these kids think evasion is a religion now or something. ugh fuck off.

honey and the moon

2009-11-11T22:18:00.000-08:00

so i should be writing for the bit that's due to my committee on friday, but instead i think i'll say this:

1. i am really touched that charm city came to visit me tonight bearing gifts (wings) and Xs and Os. he is a special one. the tenderness never really ceases to amaze. he's just right. and so queer he sweats glitter (not kidding).

2. i love div iii. i promise. which is why i'm avoiding it right now? it makes sense, i promise. i have been doing a lot of reading and a lot of note taking and a lot of processing information but i am constantly distracted by reading things related to it that it's hard to write. is this what it feels like to be one with your labor?

3. i have a queue of things to knit for people and i'm pretty excited for all of my prospective projects. i don't know why knitting isn't more popular with all the DIY punk kids i know.

this is getting boring.
dyke OUT.

scheme and scream and fight real mean

2009-10-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

yesterday i went to boston with the intention of stalking sarah schulman. i went to this.

so my division III project is going to be a history of the lesbian avengers (more later), but what i have discovered is that there is very little actually already written about them. which is terrifying. but mostly exciting. it means i get to interview the women i've been reading about for the past few years, and some who i am just learning of.

so in the middle of the screening i attended, i saw sarah schulman get up to leave. after a quick conference with a friend about whether or not it was appropriate to chase her, i ran out of the theater and caught her on the stairs. i tried to write down as much as i could from our conversation but everything was golden and amazing and i am consistently in awe by the whole thing. i wouldn't call the avengers my heroes because i don't really believe in heroes, but they are who i aspire to be.

unapologetic, strong, fierce, brilliant, confident, and brave. someday.

"we're not waiting for the rapture. we are the apocalypse."
lesbian avengers' dyke manifesto

2009-10-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

what can i say.

been busy.

with fangs of fire and a gentle heart

2009-09-05T15:40:00.001-07:00

i'm back in massachusetts, where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. that's the idea at least.

dear new york: you are gross, you are too hot or too cold, it hurts to breathe and i wake up nauseous in the mornings. i pay a lot of money for not a lot in return. i'm scared for the cyclists who ride without helmets. people are assholes and sometimes lack boundaries. but i'll miss the beautiful view from my fire escape, those two f subway stops above ground in brooklyn, the ambition of plants trying to grow. and i'll miss the artist formerly known as dino who has been once again taken by new jersey. and i'll miss the photo adventures, and the weekend run-aways into the city where i fall asleep in a different friend's apartment every night but the sounds outside are always the same. and trying to finish that handle of gin all summer. and the subway stop at waverly street, with the shitty bikes locked to it.

and the lesbians - always the lesbians - but that's a whole other story for another time. so there's no conclusion. instead i'll end with a quote said by martin luther king jr.:

"we must constantly build dykes of courage to hold back the flood of fear."

yes i will lock the door

2009-08-20T15:18:00.000-07:00

so maybe i'm in love or maybe just so
maybe just i'm in love with bodies on bodies i think
i think that's it
the summer came and the summer went and it was
it was sweet and salty and it was
a stone flinging over water
but the steam still rises in my bed at night
so no, summer is not gone from me alright
just there's no more riverstones in my head
and i hate when i try
but it just don't work, and the try falls away
today's chapter in why i'm too nice
in my heart lives behind my ears
in but i'm gunna do it anyway
so be quiet cause mom and dad might hear
boys don't suck cock in the basement at the sleepover
be quiet that's not what they do, be quiet

from my grandfather's will

2009-08-18T10:28:00.000-07:00

"together as our final gift, we leave each of you, curt, chris, cary, lesley, sharon, cindy, john, willie, dulcey, and sally, all the love that we shared with you and with each other. use it to add to our love and respect for each other. we rest easy knowing that in all your actions, you will be worthy of the great pride we took in each of you.

we made a gallant effort to live with honor and love and you are our greatest reward and legacy.

god bless you and keep you. we have done all we can."

i come from a long line of soft-hearted men. gives me hope.

more later.

oh yes

2009-08-17T09:56:00.001-07:00

come september, I lose so many people and places and things I've survived on for 8 months.

there are a lot of things I stand to gain but I'd rather wallow right now.

sometimes it just feels so good to be sad.

-

there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.

[charles bukowski]

thoughts on dykehood

2009-07-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

being a dyke, and specifically identifying as a dyke, has 100% to do with my political and historical responsibility. it has maybe 80% to do with the person(s) I choose to sleep with*. bagel and I used to discuss our "percentages," - as in, the percentages of who we are attracted to, like, 90% women, 10% men, or whatever. we were younger and very cut and dry in how we looked at it and there wasn't any awareness of gender ambiguity, but we were 16, so, you know. the point is that even at that age I maintained that I am gay, so maybe I had a boyfriend at a point or two, it didn't change my overwhelming faggoty ways. attraction is fluid, but that doesn't mean I have to find a new identity every 3 months to match that if the one I have already still speaks to me. since when does my identity have to incorporate anyone else?

both historically and currently, dykes have always faced the "you're not a real dyke / lesbian / whatever for the following reasons" argument. it's divisive, heterosexist, sexist, racist, classist, and any other -ist you could think of probably. example: women who were involved in butch-femme dynamics were not seen as "real lesbians" by some because they either wanted to be men (the butches) or wanted to be with one (the femmes). nevermind the oppressive basis of this argument, who was leveling the charge against whom, and the assumptions it made. amber hollibaugh was one of those not-real lesbians who went to lesbian feminist consciousness raising groups by day and the butch-femme bars by night and had to grapple with these accusations. in her oral history, she makes an interesting comment about gay male culture, and why she found liberation in it:

"So I guess the other piece in here that I think is important is gay men were important to me because while they had this extraordinarily explosive and interesting sexual culture, they were not judgmental about each other’s sexual practices... The other thing that I think was really important for me during that period of time was that I kept gay men in my life because they gave me buffer and they didn’t judge me around my sexual desire when the world of women and the women’s culture and the separatist culture was an impossible place to be who I wanted to be sexually. And gay men might not get it, but they didn’t care. If I said I was a lesbian, I was a lesbian, and if I was a lesbian fem, so I was a lesbian fem, you know? I wasn’t inauthentically queer because of my sexual choices. In separatist women’s culture, I was always suspect and so, gay men ended up playing a fundamental role in keeping alive my options sexually, where separatism didn’t."

i'm a dyke, and i'll stay a dyke. it's my gender identity, it's my political identity, my historical context. my relationship history has mostly been with women, but those boys and genderqueers who have made an appearance are not any less of how they identify just for being with me. and i'm not any less of who I am for being with them. and although I ally myself with many different identities and movements, I locate myself politically and personally among the dykes. my activism exists in many different circles, but shit son, I spend most of my energy at the lesbian herstory archives, so anyone who wants to revoke my lesbo membership card cause of my broad attraction can just try to tell me that i'm not a devoted and responsible dyke activist.

maybe if I was lucky enough to be one of those good dykes who is only attracted to female bodied, female identified people, preferably not too boyish cause you know that's just hidden straightness, I wouldn't have to feel the need to answer for my own life. I could waste time and energy pursuing the ladies that I'm supposed to pursue to be the right kind of dyke or I could do me, and then do that person over there if I want to. I could consider myself lucky that people I find hot find me hot too. and consider myself lucky that my attraction spans from high femme shark women to queer pink-wearing bearded boys to tough as nails butches to freckle-faced tomboy girls. I am, after all, a taurus and a hedonist.

I'll probably revisit this soon and tweak it as my personal philosophy evolves. but at the end of days, my little bio up there says i'm a dyke extraordinaire**, and i wear it proudly.

*i'm a social science person, not a mathemagician. whatever.
**seriously. google image search it and my picture is the fourth one.

on being gay and angry

2009-07-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

okay seriously. I had no idea that my blog had gotten so weird and cryptic lately (thanks liz). it's easy to slip into a writing style that sounds good because it's mysterious and uses bizarre ways to explain things but it doesn't actually say anything to anyone else, and might as well just be in my paper journal.

so june was pride month. thanks a lot, obama, now I'm fucking exhausted from a whole month of being proud. In three words: drunk, hot, faggoty. I believe these are good things. In addition to that, conversations were had about the in/exclusivity of the nyc dyke march, the evolution of manhattan pride, whether or not it is appropriate to hate straight people, and how hot that-person-over-there is. seriously, my eyeballs fall out of my head whenever a horde of queers gathers. thanks, new york city, for being so damn pretty.

in any case, I was working through my $2 pbr the other night at the metropolitan (god what a gross thing to say. who have I become?), arguing as I am wont to do, and I remember a friend telling me that what I was saying was well-spoken and eloquent, but for the life of me I don't remember what I said. it has been bothering me, and not just because I speak the best when I'm on my way to drunktown. I've been working on living the phrase "the courage of your convictions," and it's so easy to be brave when it comes in a can. I wonder often where the power is in non-intellectual retaliation, also. it takes a certain level of... something (stupidity? bravery? the jury is still out) to yell at the dudes who called you a faggot to suck your dick, and I'm not sure if it does anything other than make me feel better. although if we wanna get all meta about it, I think it also represents a reclamation of space and power that someone like me can say something like that (not to forget the privilege that I'm a young white grrl and the repercussions are likely to be specific to that part of my identity) - maybe it evens the score a little, even if some day I get my ass kicked. people who decide in a split second to start shit most likely don't expect their target to respond, which is why they say it in the first place, but as the great audre lorde said in that ever quotable quote: "your silence will not protect you." I stayed silent most of my life, save my flushed face and gritted teeth, while the jerk in my physics class asked me againandagainandagain how lesbians fuck or if I hate men cause my daddy raped me, and it did me no favors, and taught him no lessons. I'm still angry about that. so I guess if I need to rationalize mouthing off to drunk dudes (I don't), there you have it.

my name is not delilah

2009-07-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

but it's close enough.

there's probably a reason for why life happens the way it does, but I can't see it. maybe I need to learn a lesson or maybe I just need to keep being stupid and young. I guess I could call it opportunistic instead of stupid.

oh, the things we sacrifice.

dear bopu

2009-06-24T21:29:00.000-07:00

I am writing you a letter now, now that it is too late. a day late and a dollar short, and you could have used the dollar.

I remember living with you on madtom road, and the lilacs and tiny daisies and fat bumblebees across from your house, and the way summertime smells in the vermont countryside. it rains like the seas are falling out of the sky sometimes and everything is green and the air is chewable, but at night it is cool on my skin as I would read and you would drink and the game would play on your little television.

you leant me your car anytime I asked and it was your car I drove when I discovered western massachusetts and fell in love, and your car I drove when I picked up the hairy hitchiker at the general store down the street because he reminded me of what my father must have looked like at his age.

thank you for my father, for the amazing man he is and the amazing father he is to me. I am sure you are at least partially to blame for the softness of his heart and his willingness to fiercely love his only daughter. did you know he cried on the phone today, when he told me the news? that you died in your sleep, hands crossed, finally able to breathe in whatever ether you found yourself?

who will take me to northshire bookstore now, bopu? what will I do with the crystals you used to buy me? the cards, the letters, the books I never read, the books I did read, the jewelry? you bought me my first (and only, so far) pocket watch. I still use the box.

I mourned your death before you died, but now that you are gone I regret. my family is so small, and so scattered, and there are so few that I wish to know, and now that you are gone I am feeling stretched thin already. I will possibly have more to say later, after it hits me that you are truly gone, but maybe then I will just cry.

my emotional house story always goes like this:

2009-06-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

oh hello, welcome.
please come in.

sorry about the mess.
the dog chewed on the chair-leg, which then broke, and I just really need to vacuum. I know there are dishes in the sink and I cut my hair in the bathroom and didn't get all of the tiny pieces off of the floor, and then there's the laundry piles and I'm wearing my last clean pair of underwear. and I am down to dried beans and rice, and the trash needs taking out and the recycling needs sorting. please, please ignore the cat hair on the sofa.

but in any case, welcome, sit down.
can i get you something to drink, sugar?

there's a key under the mat.

come by any time at all.

timing

2009-05-27T12:57:00.000-07:00

my words for the present are: accountability and integrity.

when I work that the archives, I drink too much coffee that is too acidic for my stomach and it manufactures nervousness. unsettled and hungry, annoyed that pandora radio is following my life so closely.

I have been thinking a lot about texas lately. it is the most beautiful place on earth because it was, and always will be, my home. so much pride, so little perspective. not unlike my life as a 21 year old. I think about the skies, and the fire ants, and the cactus, and the dust in my nose, the hot hot asphalt and dead and dying all around me, the constant film of sweat, and the cold shower after mowing the lawn, and I fall in love over and over again. what a human tendency - to love dearly what is technically painful but undeniably home.

I'll leave it at that.

happy anniversary

2009-05-15T11:31:00.001-07:00

a year ago today was the day that I woke up and couldn't stop thinking about you. and here I am, and I still weaken at that look in your eye.

tender

2009-05-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

if the adjective to title my life's past few days was "tender," these two moments would explain why.

first, I was on the train platform, waiting for the C to take me home. i had my headphones in, as usual, quite loud, as there were crowds of people and it was rush hour. in a city with so many people, i spend an alarming amount of time not speaking to anyone, or interacting with them really. so i'm standing on the yellow stripe that, were there an advancing train, might be taunting death, but really there were just so many nauseous waves of people and imposing crowds that i felt like i could breathe in the yellow. then came a touch that was very soft at my elbow. it was so gentle. i looked down at a small hand on my arm, then looked up into the face of a wrinkled old man pushing a cart. he appeared to be homeless, with all of his belongings dangling off of his cart, and he lingered at my arm with such softness and, yes, tenderness, that even several days later I am still thinking of that moment.

the second moment happened today. first, you should know about my mother's cedar chest. in it, she stored all of her wools, her yarns, her shawls, and other fibrous things that she would use with her loom. i was always fascinated by the cedar chest, because it held such treasures, and it had the most heady, delicious smell. it was cedar, but also sheep, and oils, and age. so today, the UPS man brought me a birthday package from my parents. among the cute things, the recipe book, the candle, and the soap, snuggled hanks and spools of yarn. maybe twenty or thirty different balls of wools and cottons, because my mother knows that i recently started knitting. i nearly broke at that point, because these were hers, but did not until i found the largest hank. it is undyed, ivory wool, loosely looped and about the size and mass of a pillow. i held it to my face, and it was the cedar chest. at home, there are usually heavy things on top of it, so i haven't had my face in it in years and years, but i recognized the smell all the same. it was my mother, my youth, my curiosity and the beginning of my art consciousness, infused into this hank of wool. and i got weepy, and my heart softened and squished like an overripe banana.

tender.

(hi charm city.)

what an odd phase this is

2009-04-14T15:59:00.001-07:00

in the hothot waters of my bath, I always bring a glass of ice
I set the cubes on the top of my head
the coldcold water trickles down through my hair
and licks my scalp, and it makes me think of
how it would feel
to crack an egg on my head
and let the yolk run down to sneak into my ears,
maybe
while the white
leaves slimy snail tracks on the back of my neck and
tickles the tiny hairs there
like a ghost

but it's just an ice cube, not an egg
which is hidden,
buried and cozy,
redred clots in the water

yesterday.

2009-04-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

the phone rings.
"hello, archives."
"do you allow females in the club?" she asks.
"I'm... sorry?" the word females throws me off. it sounds so clinical.
"do you allow females in the club," she repeats.
"um, I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. this isn't a club," I tell her.
"Isn't this a strip club?"
"no, we're an archives."
"what's that."
"kind of like a library."

she hangs up.

the funny thing is that apparently this sort of thing happens all the time. people call, thinking we are a sex club, a strip club, an escort service, a brothel. what surprised me the most was the idea that a "strip club" with the word lesbian in the title would not invite women.

it's national poetry month

2009-04-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

you get what you put in
I think, while at the laundromat
there is not nearly enough foam amidst my tshirts

and also, I'm alone
save her warmth at bedtime

a little thing

2009-03-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

I like her dust-spider-legs that clump together
when she cries
fringe that I want touching my nose
or my cheek
when she blinks

our hearts, when they touch,
rub together with a soft
shhh

the E train feels like a strange place to be

2009-03-08T16:04:00.000-07:00

two moments on the subway today:

I could see his penis through dowdy polyester khakis, lying like a benign, sleeping cucumber along his thigh. it bothered me, but I had a hard time looking away.

two people on opposite ends of a long bench seat seemed close to tears, at the same time. a girl was not wearing pants in that fashionable way, just leggings, with her thin calves disappearing into tall boots. her eyes glittered and her lips were red and pouty like they get after a good sob. on the other end of the bench a man held his face in a grimace like when you chew back tears, until a child lept into his lap and broke the spell.

furniture adventure

2009-03-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

an exciting piece of news in my life lately is that I now am the proud owner of a new (used) bed. with a frame. this is kind of mundane in the broad sense of things, I suppose, but the journey it took to get it safely in my room is worth noting. not unlike the fried chicken pursuit of 2 years ago, that marked the true downfall of my vegetarianism - probably also the downfall, or at least quashing, of other things as well. but back to the bed. 7 hours, one 10-foot moving van, 5 boroughs, 40 dollars in tolls, several bruises, and two states later, and I have a bed. the van only had two seats, so the artist formerly/currently known as dino sat in one (her legs are basically longer than, well, me) and noggin sat in the other. crouched on the floor, leaning against the edge of the seat, and able to see nothing but the street lights shoot by reminded me of high school - it seems that we always ended up crammed in, clown car style.

spoke to bagel, because these days we only call each other a) during a crisis and b) when we need directions. in this case, it was both. I do miss her. are you reading this, bagel? please do come visit me.

I had a lot of energy for this post, but suddenly it's gone. perhaps I'll revisit later.

2009-02-05T16:20:00.000-08:00

this is not anything fancy but

I love my parents so much it hurts sometimes.

awe

2009-01-29T21:25:00.000-08:00

around the time I realized that the cartoon of tintin on my watch could, and should, be a dyke, I became aware of how young I am. working at the archives, I am surrounded by lesbians of generations past and am often teased for being a youngster. dyvester teases me about being twenty years younger than she is, but I think it's because she likes me. toddy is brash and unafraid, yet she softened when she found my delicately embroidered hankie on the floor. not some paisley, hardy bandana, but one of soft white linen, the type you fold and arrange so the point peeks out of your breast pocket.

"no one gets these anymore," she sighed. "dykes who had these were always so dapper."

this year, the archives is thirty-five years old. these women who sit next to me, make me tea, and request I walk them through the apple interface have been at this for almost twice of my lifespan. yesterday, I changed a lightbulb for joan nestle. with my arms over my head, my shirt hitched up. as instinct tugged the hem down, she told me with a grin that my bellybutton was welcome to come out if it wanted. she is aging and has a bad knee, so I helped her up the stairs and back down again. she patted my lower back and told me, "I just love strapping young women."

I realized recently that I know history best by themes, rather than by dates or chronology. part of thematic history is the birth, death, and sustenence of community. a community is sustained by the young and the old and the new, by those born into it, brought into it, and in love with it; but above all, by those who need it. whether for survival or growth or both, it is the throbbing of need that breathes community alive.

tomorrow

2008-12-28T23:36:00.001-08:00

... I move to brooklyn. here are some things I am feeling:
- excited
- lonely
- scared
- dusty
- stressed

it is not the moving that makes me feel bad things. it's the packing. I hate packing. I do it so much. when I feel like losing it and whimpering, "I just want to go home" into an available shoulder, what home do I mean? right now I have 3. but none of them are really homes. I don't live in austin anymore, I am leaving northampton tomorrow, and I don't live in brooklyn yet.

my heart is heavy. I miss her but I don't know where she is.

I am upset that I can't bring the two bags of food with me because I can't take more stuff on the bus.

but tonight peter invited me to light the last chanukah candle. we sang a prayer, my broken unsure voice trying to follow his. we played dreidel and bet with pennies and chocolate coins. I won. he gave me a gift - an antique rintintin watch - and I gave him my favorite ll cool j tape and mc hammer tape. he loves tapes. the cat is sleeping on my suitcase and the dog is on my bed. I am surrounded by chaos and am trying to find some peace somewhere but I think it might be in sleep. I spent the whole day melting and leaking.

goodnight, northampton. I'll be back in the fall.

thank you, saint jude

2008-11-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

last night, amid the celebration, I spoke to my dear friend and old housemate. she is full of light and radical imagination, she is brilliant and always finds beauty within broken spirits and hope within despair. she is real, too, and has long since exchanged her rose colored glasses for naked eyes and open arms. I turned to her, because I did not know how to feel. I was sorely tempted to be swept up in the mob of excitement and joy, but I am also a cynic. I won't believe it until he's inaugurated.

she said to me: "I need this tonight. I need joy and hope, because tomorrow is when the real work begins. I need this tonight."

it was truly a beautiful night. the air was balmy, there were champagne bottles and fireworks. it felt like the new year. I imagine that in some ways it is. we have a black president. we have a black president!

but I was disappointed and not surprised when, this morning, the new york times named this the destruction of "the last racial barrier." I don't have the energy tonight to discuss how utterly false that is.

saint jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes. i'm not catholic. but there you go.

priorities

2008-10-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

as I am still registered in texas, I sent away for my absentee ballot several weeks ago. this is the third time that I have voted absentee (the first was the gubernatorial election in texas, the second was for the primaries), and I fear that it will also be the third time that I don't receive my ballot until the day before or the day of the election. the first time I paid too much money to overnight my ballot (the county clerk does not provide a stamp, which seems to be technically illegal, seeing as it is illegal to require people to pay to vote) and the second time I received it the very tuesday of the primaries. there are, what, 12 days left until the election? that's plenty of time, yeah, but my instinct tells me otherwise.

perhaps all of the headlines calling out the voter suppression that has already begun are making me wary and cynical. the most alarming and telling account I've read so far can be seen over here. if you've ever talked to me, about anything really, but especially about politics, then you know that I often can't keep myself from invoking history. but seriously. if I'm not mistaken, the heckling and intimdation of voters is a direct violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1964. further, the racialized rhetoric and bubbling violent tension is terrifying and particularly of note because of how reminiscent it is of voting during Reconstruction post-civil war.

sundays are for church, not voting, indeed. they are also apparently for bombing churches. don't give me that. you can't cover up acts of racism, ignorance, slander and libel, potential violence, and illegal voting intimidation with christianity. jesus would call a foul on that one, my friends. also, what are these folks doing, if church is what sundays are for?

perhaps my experience voting absentee (or not voting absentee, as the case may be) is simply one in misordered priorities. maybe the travis county early voting clerk has just too many papers in the In tray (I don't doubt it). the angry cynic-student in me wonders, though, and wants to suspect foul play. what feeds said misordered priorities? I wonder what the "protesters"above would name as their priorities.

I won't lie. I'm anxious about what may or may not happen in the next two weeks. and not just when it comes to my ballot. things are getting heavier every day.

[EDIT: more talk of voter suppression here at Democracy Now! and here at AngryBrownButch. AngryBrownButch mentions the Voting Rights Act argument, too.]

nude eel

2008-10-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

I tried to write a post for columbus day, but it just never seemed to work. so I gave up. maybe someday.

the artist formerly known as dino visited this weekend. she is my favorite boyfriend. as we leaned against the car before she left she looked down even though she's taller than I am and toyed with the drawstrings on my sweatshirt. I like the grey spot on her eye. I let her pop any zits she finds on my face. last night we saw chris pureka play at the iron horse and I played with the hair on the back of her neck and she played with the fringe of my scarf. when we walked home she whined at me until I buttoned her coat for her, and then she told a pair of drunk strangers that I smell like old spice. old spice and mint. that is what she says I smell like. she smells like warm skin and not like fresh bread but like the feeling of smelling fresh bread. this morning she tried to steal my brown shirt. now I am laying on my bed with benny the dog and I miss her.

marry me

2008-10-06T13:41:00.001-07:00

so, I'm planning a field study for the spring in new york city. it all started when a friend told me about StoryCorps and I decided that what I really need to do with my life is intern for them in brooklyn. because it's only a 20 hour per week internship, though, my field study needs some other things to bulk it up and make it count for an entire semester of Division II.

in my research, I came across an organization called REPOHistory. basically, it is exactly what I'm interested in, almost creepily so:

" REPOhistory began in Manhattan in 1989 as a study group of artists, scholars, teachers, and writers focused on the relationship of history to contemporary society. It grew into a forum for developing public art projects based on history and a platform for creating them. For the past ten years REPOhistory's goal has been "To retrieve and relocate absent historical narratives at specific locations in the New York City area through counter-monuments, actions, and events". The work is informed by a multicultural re-reading of history which focuses on issues of race, gender, class and sexuality. We choose to create public art because we wanted to expand the audience for art by going outside the confines of the museum and gallery structure. By choosing to create work with strong, alternative social commentary we are drawing on a tradition in art that is often ignored; the legacy of the Berlin Dadaists, Russian Constructivists, the New York Photo League and contemporary organizations like Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D), Group Material and Grand Fury.

Through 6 major public projects and many smaller events, REPOhistory has continued to pursue this goal as an artist/scholar cooperative, along the way adding to its goals "to raise questions about the construction of history, to provide multiple viewpoints that encourage viewers to think critically, to explore how histories and their interpretations affect us today, and to engage with specific communities in order to facilitate their efforts to construct their own public histories.""

clearly, I need to work with them. it's unfortunate that they are no longer functioning. their last project was in 2000, I believe, which is a cryin' shame.

however, one of their lapsed members is a professor at my college. holy moly. thanks to sketchydan, my housemate, for pointing me in her direction. he's a good guy who seems to know a little about everything. I e-mailed her and respectfully asked if I could pester her in the near future.

I'm so excited that I might wet myself. not gonna lie.

"good evening, my friends"

2008-10-04T10:09:00.000-07:00

at the moment, I am holed up in bed on this beautiful saturday fall afternoon because I am so congested that I can hardly breathe. last night I took some sketchy evil-blue expired cold medicine in the cabinet that definitely put me to sleep but gave me totally wicked, crazy dreams. I'm pretty sure Sarah Palin was in at least one of them.

I listened to the VP debate on NPR (we don't have a tv). I hate politics. they are nothing but bad theatre. good theatre is hard enough to watch sometimes (especially when it involves musical numbers), but politics are just painful. Sarah Palin, however, is hilarious. I felt, and NPR analysts confirmed, that Palin and Biden were locked in this kitschy, folksy battle towards the end, with each trying to out-ordinary-american the other with wholesome anecdotes reminiscent of the fireside chat days - only with significantly less substance. I thought of this post by Tim Wise on the ridiculous ways politicians manage to get out of saying "white americans." the way whiteness is normalized, well, all the time, but especially in politics, is staggering. I thought of a drinking game where you take a drink every time there is a euphemism for "white" used, but I imagine you would be dead before the end.

I hate politics. I vote, yeah. and even though I take him with a grain of salt (per the advice of Glynn Owens, my first academic mentor and eighth grade history teacher), Howard Zinn explains why I spend so little energy on voting and politics better than I ever could:

"I'm talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes-the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.

But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice.
...
Yes, two minutes. Before that, and after that, we should be taking direct action against the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
For instance, the mortgage foreclosures that are driving millions from their homes-they should remind us of a similar situation after the Revolutionary War, when small farmers, many of them war veterans (like so many of our homeless today), could not afford to pay their taxes and were threatened with the loss of the land, their homes. They gathered by the thousands around courthouses and refused to allow the auctions to take place.

The evictions today of people who cannot pay their rents should remind us of what people did in the Thirties when they organized and put the belongings of the evicted families back in their apartments, in defiance of the authorities.
Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens."

that said, I kind of can't believe it's almost november and it's almost time for bush and cheney and their ilk to slink off into the night. 8 years with that man! jesus.

isms

2008-10-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

of the many things I don't have time for, this is definitely one of them. which, I imagine, is exactly the reason it's appealing. in any case, here is a place in which I will write things. in theory. probably about theory too.

this past weekend I was in new jersey with the artist formerly known as dino. dino and I went into the city one day, and were wandering about being sickly and grumpy, when we encountered a couple of different tagged advertisements. both of them said basically the same thing, which was something along the lines of "gay people give leukemia rabies." I was confused. leukemia gets rabies from us? or we give some sort of hybrid disease involving both leukemia and rabies? and what about AIDS? isn't that the go-to-guy when it comes to blaming disease on queers? anyways, I wondered what the graffiti in question was attempting to express. that heterosexist people are morons and should maybe read a book or seven? probably.

ignorance like that is bizarrely relieving, though, because it doesn't feel dangerous. it made dino and me laugh and speculate what it was trying to say, and then we forgot about it. as we walked through the east village with linked pinkies or some other innocuous display of affection, even the guy that yelled that we're the ones spreading AIDS didn't feel dangerous. I mean, I yelled right back at him because sometimes I can't keep my damn mouth shut, and I did not fear physical retaliation from him. I'm privileged that I've never been beaten up, raped, assaulted, or harassed in a way that made me fear for my safety as a result of my queerness. my very visible queerness.

it makes me think of the way that many people at my not-so-ivory college think about queerness and its visibility. I remember my first semester there when I lived on the "queer friendly" hall in one of the dorms. initially, there were no specific signs specifying our love of and for fags, which, as our intern explained later, was in case any of the parents helping on move in day might take issue with the hall's designation and keep their kid from living there. I think that was an unfortunate but thoughtful decision on the part of whoever decided that.

it brings up a whole pile of things. seajay and I were looking through a box of different forms of contraception today and talking about the vaginal film method - basically a listerine mouth strip for your cooz that goes over your cervix and makes the environment fairly lethal for sperm - and how both unpleasant and ineffective it seems to be. I think that it's so easy to just think, "well damn, if you don't want use condoms, take birth control or get an IUD. or just get over it and use condoms. or the reality condom. or anything else, really." however, I think it's also important to consider that for some folks, both birth control and keeping it a secret from one's partner are incredibly important for one's safety and health. and sometimes it has to be cheap.

basically, what I'm trying to say is that I have a lot of privilege in a lot of ways. one way is that I can be visibly and loudly queer in the town I live in and the campus where I go to school (this place is a dyke carnival) and not fear repercussion. I can go to new york city with my girlfriend and, at the end of the day, we get to take the bus back to the hotel and are once again safely ensconced in each others' very queer love. I am a fairly masculinely presenting queer, which also comes with a set of expectations when it comes to able-bodied-ness. I feel like the bright-eyed first years who are sneakily full of isms (racism, classism, etc.) yet come disguised in the appealing and beguiling packaging of progressive young (usually white) liberals have the first step down (i.e. "queer people should be able to be out and proud! I love queer people! my best friend is bisexual and I think my mom slept with a woman once back in her feminist days!"), but fail to see the privilege that comes with that, and how it's a conversation that spans race, class, and other identities beyond sexuality. I specify first years just because I overheard a handful of them on the pvta today, playing with their blonde dreads and talking about fair trade coffee and veganism, and I wanted to beat them.

anyway! the point is - I still don't understand how to give rabies to leukemia. that could potentially be a pretty rad skill.