ghosts are good company

“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.

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.

May has been busy what with the sun being out and the houses being moved and the seedlings that *still* need to go into the ground… We have deer all over the place in our back acres, and I can’t stand the thought of planting the babes without some kind of deer protection.

Cable internet should show up next week, in which case I’ll have more of an opportunity to update – dial up, ah how I did not miss you.

last night i had a long and complicated dream, which isn’t so surprising… the surprising part is that i then remembered this dream when i woke up. this isn’t so much the “look at what a wacky dream i had” narrative as it is a “what does this mean about waking life?”

because in this dream i was having an argument with someone who was in to me, liked me a lot, wanted to be my friend, but flatly refused to accept that i was part of the trans community.

… and this is something that i’ve been worrying about a lot lately, as i explore what it means to be largely femme-identified in a female body. in my burlesque class i’ve been trying to choose between two pieces – one that’s pretty much just high femme, and one that’s obviously a genderqueer commentary. my analysis of these two pieces is that the genderqueer one would be easier and probably more interesting, and that the femme one would be more challenging, but also potentially boring.

i’m in burlesque 101 to challenge myself (i’m in this world to challenge myself?), but also to increase my strength as a performer. i was thinking seriously about starting hormones a few months ago, when i realized that the only thing holding me back was fear of societal repercussion (the alternate word that i was going to put there was “asshattery”)… i think that somehow i’ve come to believe that if i’m not challenged, if i’m comfortable, things aren’t worth my time.

this is everywhere in my life – work, relationships, gender – and it has such an amazing contradiction with my agoraphobia, i can’t even begin to fathom. i wonder if it comes from judging myself harshly for letting the agoraphobia win and not facing the challenges? and i wonder how the hell i might try to beat it.

this isn’t at all where i thought this entry was going to go. it was initially just going to be a reassertion of my place in the trans/gender/queer community, my role as a “militant genderqueer” … but then i wonder, if i feel the need to constantly remind everybody that i belong… am i feeling like i belong? obviously not. i have no way of knowing what everybody else is feeling, but i keep distancing myself from transmasculine spaces in particular because of my femme presentation – but other than being the most femme gay guy you might ever meet, i’m also pretty darn gay and man.

i don’t know, sweethearts. i have no idea.

( giant weekend field trip part three – monday )

part three includes going to the remains of never never land with nat’s friend ann.  there are a few pictures here.  it was a sad trip lacking the touchstones of its sweet memories, so it was an appropriate that it was in the middle of the forest that my mother called and learned about my great-grandmother’s passing.

it’s, unsurprisingly, still hard.  i visited her in the hospital a week before she died – she’d had a stroke – and she was looking not-so-awesome, but having trouble breathing.  i felt guilty going on the field trip, rather than staying in town to keep visiting her, but i think it’s best that i had adventures rather than watching her deteriorate – she was always more of the adventure type.  you can see a picture of her from the fifties (when she was 47) here, and her obituary is online here.  it was amazing to have the entire family in town, many folks whom i haven’t seen since her 90th birthday.

butter is currently cleaning his paw while it rests on my wrist.  nat is sleeping. 

i’m hoping to, sometime in the next few weeks, stop by the schilter family farm in order to do some pumpkin-buying and hayriding.  i’ve been wanting to do the like ever since october crisped in, and upon some research decided on schilter – which turns out to be a good choice, as it seems like they were family friends… some of them were at the funeral and, in looking at the history of the farm, they share a swiss and dairy-related heritage.

since the adventures and stresses chronicled above, i’ve mostly been working and sleeping and working and sleeping.  it’s so chilly here!  i’m currently wearing polarfleece socks and still have freezy feet.

(parts one and two.)

every so often, my favorite comic publishes a(nother) strip that makes me squeal “that’s my (new) favorite!” … i’ll admit that i was really behind on things, since it was published more than a year ago, but this is my favorite.  the trouble with claiming a favorite, though, is that not long after, i always find one like this one which argues and tries to take its place.

i save comics that i like a lot, so that i can devour in batches when i am sad about things like how my great-grandmother just had a stroke.

my small orange friend is back in town, which is fantastic.  he is getting along well in our new household.  i bought a car.  that’s how he got up here, me driving for thirteen hours from san francisco to olympia.  it was a good idea in my head.

it seems like my new apartment comes with built-in trans friends, and also crafty friends?  so that is pretty neat of it.  i’ve been stepping up my knitting game due to peer pressure, yarn donations and halloween (all combine, actually, to equal – remember what i said last year?).  knitting is good.

this is like i’ve taken all of my boring entries and combined them into one meta-boring-entry.  i mean, i got bored in the middle of it.  i’m going to go back to cleaning the house, and you know that means something.

i didn’t get the job. i mean, i might get the job in the future. but they’re not going to hire me as immediately as they had suggested. so i’m frustrated, and not sure where to go from here with some of my plans.

nat came home today and excitedly announced that he was surprising me with dinner guests (or an invitation to be dinner guests? i wasn’t paying too much attention, because). the response he got was perhaps not as he expected, as it involved me groaning (and whining!) in a fetal position. after consultation with said potential dinner companion as to where a low income health clinic could be found (yay after-hours and the lack of health insurance) and a visit to the doctor (i hate doctor visits), it was determined that i had a bladder infection. go go team awesome. i’m feeling a little better now, still not-so-great but stunned by nat’s rockstardom around a medical ‘emergency’ and the related anxiety/incompetence that builds in me around medical situations.

it was my mom’s birthday yesterday! it sounds like she had a great day, which is what she deserves. part of the frustration with changing plans is that i was hoping to see her this weekend, and now i’m not sure if i should head down there or not.

those are the things on my mind, this 3:35am. i’m heading back to sleep, and hope that your rest is better than mine.

although it’s been raining wonderfully for the past seven hours, and that’s perfect.

unsurprisingly, i have a paper to write – thus the post? but i’ve been a good kid lately. lots and lots and lots of school, because – i’m sure i’ve told you but just in case i haven’t – i’m graduating in three weeks. until then, so much work.*

so, life has been overwhelmingly busy, but pretty damn sweet. grave danger is playing the oly rollers tomorrow, my dad and stepmother and my favorite jaci are coming to the bout! it will be delightful to see all of them.

i wish that my great-grandmother wasn’t in the hospital – it puts quite a damper on the otherwise good. still, she is a strong one and i have faith that she’ll pull through again.

guess what’s winning the paper vs. sleep debate.

ah, well. goodnight, or good-whatever-it-is, to you. ♥

ohp.s.! i rasturbated my dino icon and it’s now on the wall, thirty sheets of paper, and it’s pretty grrreat.

*i just realized that this first paragraph is a summary of my last post. sorry.

i’ve been hesitant to post about this here since the last birthday i planned here went not so well, but… am going to anyway!!

this saturday the oly rollers‘ cosa nostra donnas are facing off against the rat city rollergirls‘ derby liberation front (aka my favorite team ever). it will be a challenging thing, me figuring out who i’m going to cheer for, but it will also be an awesome bout. i’m inviting everyone i run into to join me there, with the suggestion that they buy tickets online for $12 than risking it selling out and/or paying $17 at the door.

so! come! afterward there will probably be dinering, if anyone wants to just do that part… it should be a wonderful time at the bout, though!

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.