ghosts are good company

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?

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?

a few years ago i started a trans group at my college… now my baby group has grown up without me, and i’m back with exciting plans. the first year we did an open mic focusing on people talking about their bodies, generally specific parts of them. this quarter, i want to do it again, with a lot of prep time and beauty. we’re meeting tomorrow to iron more stuff out, and i’ve scheduled space for on editing workshop at the end of april. what’s next on the list is, of course: a name.

i was drawn the body project, until i remembered… that’s a book. that i just purchased for class. which you can see in the video in my last post. the body monologues is just too… yeah. i’m thinking maybe bodies talk? but that seems a little too talking heads. i want… something inviting and fairly obvious to folks seeing the fliers, something that mayyybe gets into gender, but also is open to other folks – largely this is about how people experience the world through their bodies, and how those bodies affect those experiences.

maybe i need to pull out a thesaurus. hmm.

moral of the story: advice, please?

ok internet, i have decided on what i want to do for my birthday. it will include a staple from both queer and hipster culture: camp.

that’s right, folks, it’s the tonga room. it must be recalled that perhaps one of my favorite things ever is the enchanted tiki room at disneyland.

then i wanted to go to either bonkers or portal one, but since happy hour at the tonga room ends at the same time bonkers closes, it seems like portal one. some other time, bonkers? you seem like a good warm afternoon place to go, but that’s just because i’m thinking you’ll be overly air conditioned. portal 1 is open until eleven.

hopefully cubbie doesn’t work too too late on friday (i’m afraid he works until ten) – if he does, can we make these thursday plans? that might be better, anyhow, with the less-busy, ja?

so, if you’re in san francisco and interested in doing these things starting at five on thursday the 26th, let me know – either in comments or by email. hurray!

edit: it’s friday again, actually. same plans, just change of date. xo

i’ve been busy (haven’t we all?) – with school, of all things! online classes have been doing me pretty well; i’m six weeks in and haven’t screwed anything up as badly as i tend to. my in person class is also going well – last wednesday we went to the glbt history archives. cubbie came along, and we both fell in love with the place. i got to take a tour of the museum of flight’s archives a few years ago, and that was fascinating (and huge), but these… smaller, quaint, and so much things i have worked with and wondered about for the past while. unlike airplanes.

i’ve been going through my music collection, culling out cds that i want to sell (…somewhere). recently, i’ve applied that practice to the music on my computer, deleting about six gigabyte’s worth of files. now i’m listening to all of the songs alphabetically. it’ll take a while. i’m currently listening to “act iii scene ii (shakespeare)” by saul williams. saul is pretty amazing – i got to work the show he played while i was at evergreen. actually, i asked if i could see his hand stamp at the door, and he looked at me and said in a very serious deep voice, “i’m saul.” pretty soon the person across from me doing the same job asked the opener to see her handstamp, so i felt a little less absurd.

speaking of live shows, i’m really looking forward to seeing the mountain goats with cubbie in a couple of weeks. i hope that the show will be as exciting as the one cubbie and i saw last summer, but without the long winters will be playing at the same venue. i miss seattle, and i don’t know if going to that show would help it, or make it worse.

it’s eight in the morning. i think that my neighbors are making stew or something. with pork. huh?
OH! this is the thing i really wanted to tell you about. i just finished reading this book, aaron renier’s spiral bound. i would like to recommend it to everyone, as, i imagine, would the author. it’s a deliciously drawn graphic novel with a fantastic group of characters, and an impeccable storyline. please, please, try to find a copy. especially if you like indie culture, or food, or children, or any combination of all of the above. or vegetables. no, not vegetables, anthropomorphized animals.

yes. once you have made an effort to acquire it, you may go about your regularly scheduled business. go, go!