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?
“Someone like that, who does those kind of things, and goes out in public, knows full well that this might happen to him.”
a nineteen-year-old from puerto rico was horribly murdered last week. the above statement was from the local police investigator assigned to the case.
nobody deserves that treatment, that bias. but the sentiment happens world-wide.
it’s the trans day of remembrance.
this is the eleventh year of transfolks worldwide making a conscious effort to get together on the same day and remember their dead.
too many people are killed, (unsurprisingly) skewed largely toward transwomen of color.
there are vigils today, yeah, you can vigil at home, but to me this is a day to be with your people and love them,
and then think about who aren’t your people.
who’s not with you? how can you expand your world to include everybody? how can we work together to stop folks from slipping through the cracks?
i’m caught between an idealistic “don’t ever let your posse be alone” with a feminist “i should be able to be alone if i fucking want to.” how can we unite those concepts by making the streets safe for everyone?
gender jam is this weekend, but that kind of space needs to be available to folks always. how can we create immediate support while still maintaining hope and building toward long-term change?
three things for you to work on tonight: light a candle. change the world. keep breathing.
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.
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!
i found my missing login information! that’s always a good thing.
i’ve been wandering around the puget sound region lately, sleeping on couches for the last month. currently i’m in des moines, at the kindness of my grandparents. their house is one of my favorite places, it has such a beautiful view of the water – i just wish that it were reasonably public transportationable.
the region is making me antsy, and i’m hoping that opportunities elsewhere pan out soon. for now i’ve been making mini-trips to pretend that i’m going somewhere; last weekend a friend and i explored bainbridge island. it was very very warm.
also last weekend i met up with some of my (now) favorite strangers from the internet, in BALLARD of all places. i got to go to archie mcpheeee where i found a fantastic green dinosaur finger puppet (see photo!) and spent too much money.
ALSO last weekend, the derby liberation front beat the throttle rockets, which was delightful but also sad as it was mommacherry’s last bout with the team. the team, mascots and all, did their introductions in aprons in homage to mommacherry, which amused me since i was wearing an apron that day anyway.
this weekend has, unsurprisingly, been calmer.
oh right, i graduated.
and got those seahorses in the previous post put on my body forever.
i’m antsily waiting to hear if i got a job – things sound promising, but they are taking their sweet time contacting my references. for now i’m (scouring job boards but also) living as if that is what’s going to happen, so i’m planning on couch surfing around seattolympia this summer (much like last summer, except under much lovelier circumstances).
yesterday was oly pride, which was ok – small town pride beats big city pride any day, except for when there’s not enough to do at littlepride and you’ve said hi to all your friends five times and don’t know what to do next.
so i went to a party and there was awesome music and square dancing (my favorite exhousemate was so amazed that i danced!) and babies and amazing gluten free cake, but then there was a “please save me there are no trannies at jake’s” so i went to the bars and the non-square dancing for a while.
saturday was the big gay bout, which was beauuutiful (and vagely offensive, if i want to read it that way), although the defeat of the pegacorns by the ligers was pretty devastating.
friday was solstice, monday the mariners lost to florida, which is just depressing, sunday was father’s day, friday was graduation, thursday i spoke up for washpirg to the board of trustees, tuesday i saw eli clare at u.w. (awesome) and then the sex and the city movie (not awesome), before that i was so swamped with school that i can’t begin to try to remember what was when. and the cosa nostra donnas kicked grave danger’s butt and i was sad.
so, we’re kind of caught up, yeah?
it’s strange, to have so many blogs in so many places. i’m also trying to get more involved with some online community that i love 
(i imagine that you all know who you are, but i would love to know who’s reading so i can make sure that i’m reciprocating!), because… they’re really nice kids.
that community loves to play picture your day, so i took my shot at it yesterday. you can see the album (with captions) heeeere. ♥
…now i have to start rushing for the bus again.
