i’ll keep this short (since i’m actually working on tidying things up around here):
last year choir sang along with some songs that the bundles were recording, and now you can listen to them through the magic of c.d. or on white vinyl! i haven’t picked a favorite yet, but i’m really into “desert bundles” at the moment. …which you can conveniently listen to here!
photo (of some of us) by berd!
the first class i ever took in college was called “philosophy of women in world cultures,” a look at how women were reflected in religions and cultural histories throughout the world. mostly the class was me and some army wives, as this was san diego. the main text was the subordinated sex: a history of attitudes toward women, which was pretty interesting. we were also supposed to read the bible, which i didn’t… so i guess i’m making up for it now.
i’ve been a little into reclaiming the bible lately. i’m pretty much an agnostic pagan nutjob, but when the bible isn’t being used to hurt people or take money from folks, it can be pretty wise. i’m learning the way that all those strange numbers tell you where you are, which makes them a lot less confusing.
we went to church with my (lutheran) grandmother this sunday, and the sermon was about unconditional love, which is something i can get behind. at choir last week i went and talked to a man who had peeked his head in and listened for a while, usually i invite them in to sing with us. trying to figure out who we were, he asked “is this church?!” …i didn’t really know how to respond. for me, the love that we bring to choir *is* religion.
so, 1 Corinthians 12:14-26. it begins (14-17):
Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?
it seems like this has been interpreted a lot around different religions being part of the church, but if you’re going to tell me that there’s nothing in the bible about the gays or what have you, i’m going to point you here. this is accepting everybody as they are, not kicking them out for being different than you are.
remember in april when i was freaking out about not being a part of my community? i still get frazzled about it, which is part of why i was excited about corinthians. above talks about folks not detaching, not isolating themselves for their differences, but look at what 21-26 says about taking care of the parts “that seem to be weaker:”
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
i’m excited here about a lot of things, about not throwing people out. about questioning our judgment of “honor” and what’s “unpresentable.” maybe the bible *does* want us to be socialist freaks, or maybe we should just take care of each other.
as the minister tried to get at unconditional love, something seemed to come up to the congregation about fear, fear of some kind of responsibility or catch to this unconditionality. this culture of fear is pervasive, and i think that the only way to work on it is by loving big. you wanna help?
i know that sometimes it seems like choir is the only thing i talk about, probably because it… is the only thing i talk about. i started grad school and quit my job (again!) since i last posted, but really.
election day marked a year of choir, in which it has grown exponentially in awesomeness and more than doubled in the amount of time we meet each week. yesterday was kimya’s birthday, and she was super sick. she requested that her friends post videos of themselves singing soft rock, but instead of soft rock i decided to have choir work on a response to this new song of hers… we recorded it and i made it into a moving picture. hooray!
this weekend is gender jam: olympia’s 2009 lad.i.y. and trans fest. i’m greatly anticipating many of the awesome workshops (nat and i are taking our little brother to chelsea baker’s “comics aren’t just for boys” workshop – it’s one of chelsea’s comics that closes out the video), and then sunday’s free choir practice is going to be part of gender jam as well, from four to six, in fertile ground guesthouse’s living room. it’d be a great first visit to choir, if you’ve been holding back – there should be lots of other new folks too, and we’re focusing on making sure that everybody is able to feel super welcome.
of course now that we’ve got the computers figured out at home and the internet all set up, i’m writing this from the deliciously free wireless at sacramento airport.
which makes sense – i got in early and my flight to san diego is late, so what else should i be doing than catching up on the last two months with you Strangers From The Internets?
since i have that penchant for reverse chronology (and the bad memory, i’m sure that has a lot to do with it), i’ll start with last night’s double-stuf’d amazingness. the evening started with a free choir practice/performance at what i’ve been calling the stretch pants summer jam. it’s always fun to get out of our rut (as we’re doing next week at the shelton library, as well), especially in stretch pants. mine were purple lame and quite glam.
the glam continued with tragic magic at northern, where i promptly fell in love with all of the performers. i had a theater mentor tell me once that he thought i’d make a great performance artist – after seeing these kids, it’s firmly in the compliment column (again).
golly, if there was stuff that happened in the past two months that wasn’t choir and/or awesome queers, i don’t remember it. also it doesn’t seem likely to have been my life.
i have a new job, starting on tuesday – thus the trip to san diego now. i went to san francisco for the national conference on volunteering and service (huge! overwhelming!) over pride weekend and was elated by trans march. while i was there i was able to catch Chagall and the Russian Jewish Theater, which was spectacular. so much of his work was done so quickly, i learned, that it could only be almost a stream-of-consciousness.
the first piece i saw of his, like most people i’m sure, is america’s windows. i actually have a tote bag of it, which was one of my favorite bags to carry around when i was high school. he’s done a lot of work, i’m not sure if that was his only stained glass (research finds that no, there are lots of amazing glass pieces of his around!), but the most stunning part of the russian jewish theater exhibit was a set that he had created for a show… i could have stood there for hours staring at the details, and apparently i should have. one of the museum guards yelled at me for trying to take a picture of my favorite bit, and of course i can’t find it online. i wish my memory was better; i’m tired of things i love being so ephemeral. anyhow, the beauty that i can’t find is part of “chagall’s box,” and you can read more about it here.
tomorrow i’m going to a “first time homebuyers class.” i’m going to bring my padfolio (yes, i just said padfolio) and pretend to be a grown up. i really like this house, but it’d be a super-long commute to oly. still, it’d be amazing tto live on way to tipperary street. who thought that putting the word “way” in a street name was a good idea? i also love this one, but i think it’s a little to old for me to be able to keep it happy, it needs someone a little better at taking care of the puppy once they’ve brought the puppy home.
also tomorrow is nettlefest! where choir is singing. and my friend andrew is moving away, so he’s holding a party for us to kick him and tell him not to move away. at least i’m pretty sure what the party is for.
sunday i might go to look at the way to tipperary house! also it is blintzapalooza, which – oh my goodness exciting.
on monday i have my first burlesque 101 class! i’m excited and petrified. a few weeks ago i did a basic class and tassle twirling, but this six-week course ends with a performance which is… golly. it’s funny, though – at the tassle twirling class i had to ask about a “how to twirl your tassles” article i pulled out of the stranger when i was sixteen, it was illustrated by ellen forney… i knew even back then that i wanted to be a drag queen, and indeed the article was about miss indigo blue’s going-ons. it became suddenly obvious, afterward, that ellen had done the illustration of indigo that’s the academy logo.
……..i tend to get fixated on things. sometimes i check my email in the early morning, when i should be going back to sleep, and one day i got an email from sophie asking if ghosts are good company (the song, also the name of this blog probably maybe obviously also i am the fourth result for that phrase on google) was by bishop allen as it… is… or by the moldy peaches as it is often labeled. and instead of just going “no, it’s really bishop allen” i spent a good hour of my sleeping time on the internet being grumpy. and then listening to the song again and going “well, i can see how it sounds like the moldy peaches to some people, but it’s totally not kimya.” and then thinking about how much i love bishop allen and how much i love the moldy peaches kids and is the latter why i got so into the former? are more of their songs similar-sounding and i just didn’t know it? speaking of which, that comcast ad campaign? grr.
my extracurriculars have been making life pretty tasty lately. there’s been knitting, which is always fun but extra-fun since it’s full of good queers! and then, mostly, there’s been choir which has been great. i joked when i decided to stay in olympia that it was for sophie and the choir(, which at that point was pending), and now that sophie’s up and moved to portland, i have to say that choir’s almost worth it on its own (not to say that i don’t miss sophie. i just got an amtrak free companion ticket and i’m going to make nat come with me to visit her and erica at some point). i’ve found it’s the same with a few of us – that even if we don’t want to go be social, we go to choir and leave feeling awesome.
nat’s feeling awesome RIGHT NOW because his top surgery funding has just come through – he can pay for it!, he just needs to make an appointment. (he says, not actually in a monotone, “i feel like jumping up and down for joy.”) i’m excited for that too, and also because i’m typing this on my new tiny computer. it’s named after our “darling, dearest, dead” friend otka, and has only fallen on the floor once – when i got butter too excited about the toy he was chasing around, causing him and otka to go flying. i’ve hidden that toy, but he’s since found another one.
……and now he’s been sitting in the dryer for the last twenty minutes.
national mentoring month celebrations went well, and i had a good time and learned a lot at the guiding lights weekend, as well. it’s really strange to go from the hectic-ness of january to a february that has almost nothing on my to-do list.
but, i’m sure i’ll figure something out. knit-n-nature is one thing i really want to do. fort flagler is one of my favorite places, and combining that with knitting? yes please.
… which reminds me that i should get back to the argyle sweatervest that i’m knitting for butter.
oh oh oh oh.
it’s been a hectic month, while at the same time being dead slow. work was crazy-busy, preparing for national mentoring month, until suddenly i was snowed in. for a week. it’s just now becoming safe to drive, and has been dreadful and wonderful at the same time – but the festivities for national mentoring month are definitely going to be lessened due to the loss of so much prep time. angst.
a major force in my world lately has been the olympia free choir. we’re performing our first show on january sixteenth:
Grand reopeningThe Olympia Timberland Regional Library will celebrate its reopening from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Jan. 16. Local musicians and performers, including Kimya Dawson, will be on hand. The library is at 313 Eighth Ave. S.E.
this is the most snow i’ve experienced in my life, and i’m excited for it to go away so that things can get back to normal. it would be one thing if we were equipped to handle this at all, but… we’re not. nat and i walked over to see bolt (!! adorable) at the mall last thursday (the thursday before christmas), and the mall closed at six. i think it’s great that the mall was allowing their employees to, you know, get home safely – but i also think it’s a crazy illustration of how the snow broke down much of olympia’s capitalist system for a while.
butter has certainly been happy with the snow, though, because it means that i get to spend more time at home cuddling with him. at the point of this writing, he’s curled up in my lap with his nose buried in the crook of my elbow, asleep. he was drooling earlier.
i was going to plan a new-years-adventure for nat and i, but instead he is house sitting for his faculty, so it will be a new-years-stay-away-from-home thing (which will cost fantastically less money!) instead. we’re still trying to figure out what to do, if we want to go out or not, but i’m sure we’ll figure out something fun. free radio is having a new year’s eve disco.
i can’t wait until transit is back to normal again!
