I love this image, & I love the story behind it. Such a simple act, but such an unmistakeable one. Honestly, I think it’s vital to say no even when it isn’t important so that you can say no when it is.
Category: navel gazing
Cho Fierce
Posted by – January 13, 2012
Wow. Margaret Cho rightfully lost her shit & in so doing wrote us all a manifesta:
I grew up hard and am still hard and I don’t care. I did not choose this face or this body and I have learned to live with it and love it and celebrate it and adorn it with tremendous drawings from the greatest artists in the world and I feel good and powerful like a nation that has never been free and now after many hard won victories is finally fucking free. I am beautiful and I am finally fucking free.
I fly my flag of self-esteem for all those who have been told they were ugly and fat and hurt and shamed and violated and abused for the way they look and told time and time again that they were “different” and therefore unlovable. Come to me and I will tell you and show you how beautiful and loved you are and you will see it and feel it and know it and then look in the mirror and truly believe it. If you are offended by my anger and my might at defending my borders and my people you do not deserve entry into my beloved and magnificent country.
Read the whole thing at Jezebel or on Cho’s blog.
I am beautiful and I am finally fucking free.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re not pretty enough, that you curse too much, that you don’t like the right things, that you are “‘different’ and therefore unlovable”. They are only keeping you from your freedom.
It’s profoundly moving to see that someone like Margaret Cho – famous, funny, rude Margaret Cho – still needs to punch back so hard against someone who is telling her to be something other than what she is. Makes me feel an ounce better about having felt the need to do the same thing when I was told what I needed to do to fit in here. Sometimes I wonder if those of us who “grew up hard and am still hard” get read as a lot tougher than we are, & so people feel free to critique when they might not if a person were obviously vulnerable. Hrm.
Standing on the Shoulders Of
Posted by – January 8, 2012
It’s been five months since my dad’s death and I can’t think of a better way to honor his memory today than to say: Go Giants!
(& He would have known full well what it cost me to say that, too.)
I miss him in ways those of you who haven’t lost parents couldn’t begin to understand – although some people, even without knowing, have been amazing and kind and present in ways that have blown my mind. Thank you, with as much graciousness as I can manage, to those of you who do understand, who have experienced this kind of loss before me, and who have had such helpful words.
Both Sides: Missing Appleton Too
Posted by – December 22, 2011
And yes, for your snarky types who think there is no life outside of the coasts, I do miss Appleton: I love the Lawrence campus, because it’s beautiful and peaceful; I miss the big skies and stars and the clear, clear air on cold winter nights; I miss the bunnies and raccoons and geese and cormorants and songbirds that are a daily sight. I miss teaching, and I miss the students when I’m not teaching too, and I miss living in a community of intellectual community engagement.
I am also in awe of anyone who grew up outside of a city like New York and who has found a way NOT to conform in a small city like Appleton; I find maintaining my independence and artsiness really, really challenging there. I have had to change so much, and only now, back in New York, am I aware of the daily small compromises: no good bagels, no gas stoves, no good cheap Italian food or inexpensive salons for manicures, pedicures, or waxing; no radiator heat. It is often a struggle to explain that “tea” does not mean chamomile to a coffee culture. Add to that not liking beer, being professionally queer and a vegetarian, and having a conscientious objector relationship with football — let’s just say it hasn’t been a tidy landing for me, and I’m sure I’ve complained plenty. This trip home has given me at least some perspective on what kinds of ways I might try to adjust going forward, and in the meanwhile, I am more thankful for the progressive politicians, artistic friends and other displaced coasties than anyone might imagine, but especially to those who have expressed empathy while they watched me try to fit this square peg into the round hole that is Appleton.
So as much as it’s been one of the most difficult experiences of my life, I still find life in Appleton lovely in ways I could have never imagined as a lifelong New Yorker and alt urbanite.
Introverts, Redux
Posted by – December 12, 2011
Another interesting piece about introverts: this one the “10 myths about” model. Here are my favorites, or the ones that are the best expression of my version of introvert:
Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk.
This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days.Myth #3 – Introverts are rude.
Introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. They want everyone to just be real and honest. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so Introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting.Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people.
On the contrary, Introverts intensely value the few friends they have. They can count their close friends on one hand. If you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend, you probably have a loyal ally for life. Once you have earned their respect as being a person of substance, you’re in.Myth #6 – Introverts always want to be alone.
Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts. They think a lot. They daydream. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve. But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. They crave an authentic and sincere connection with ONE PERSON at a time.Myth #7 – Introverts are weird.
Introverts are often individualists. They don’t follow the crowd. They’d prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living. They think for themselves and because of that, they often challenge the norm. They don’t make most decisions based on what is popular or trendy.
I’d add that even though he points out that introverts aren’t shy, they aren’t shy because they’re introverts, but sometimes we are independent of the introvert thing.
Easy.
Posted by – November 24, 2011
I am thankful for happiness, whenever and wherever I find it. Today I woke up in a good mood and suspect I had good dreams I can’t remember. I am thankful to sleep with someone who loves me, to have a view of the river, a short walk to work, and that I have found both meaning and purpose working with a community I love.
I am thankful to have known my father for 42 years, and Aeneas for 11. I am thankful, even, for the loss of them both because they’ve reminded me that time speeds by too quickly, and that the small joys of taking care of and being taken care of are what it’s all about.
I am thankful for #OWS and the Occupy movements around the world, and for the people standing in the cold collecting signatures on petitions to recall WI Governor Scott Walker. I’m thankful to live in an ailing but still viable democracy.
I am thankful that my only food concern is making sure I don’t eat too much of the stuff.
I am thankful for daily opportunities to read, listen to music, and learn new things.
I am thankful that – despite distance of various kinds – I have found both solace and joy in conversation and companionship with friends new & old.
I am thankful that someone invented Zyrtec, which in turn makes it possible for me to go out on my bike and enjoy the big skies and quiet roads of Wisconsin.
I am thankful for a body that works well most of the time, the skin I live in, and a sexuality that unites my mind and body. I am thankful to live in a time and place where my body and my sexuality are mine to self-determine. I am thankful to all of those who work to free all of us from shame, trauma, and violence.
Mostly I am thankful for the kind of life that gives me time to look around and think, to write and ponder and feel. I am thankful that my complaints are mostly bourgeois, that my love and friendship is usually returned by those I love and befriend, and that I can still feel a sense of wonder, beauty and joy despite my natural Taoist tilt.
Happy Thanksgiving: give thanks, give love, and do your art.
Gen X Is Sick of Your Bullshit
Posted by – October 19, 2011
Right now, Generation X just wants a beer and to be left alone. It just wants to sit here quietly and think for a minute. Can you just do that, okay? It knows that you are so very special and so very numerous, but can you just leave it alone? Just for a little bit? Just long enough to sneak one last fucking cigarette? No?
Whatever. It’s cool.
I especially like this bit:
But that’s okay. Generation X is used to being ignored, stuffed between two much larger, much more vocal, demographics. But whatever! Generation X is self-sufficient. It was a latchkey child.
Generation X is used to disappointments.
Oh yes we are.
In Mimicry of Life
Posted by – September 7, 2011
It is hard to describe the sheer brutality of mourning, the distractedness: it will be a miracle if I hold onto my wallet & keys for a month; it’s as if half of my head isn’t there at all. I am astonished by how little I have to work with; I stop talking mid-sentence, mid-thought, and don’t even notice. And it’s not just memory, scenes of remembrance, it’s the emotions of them, too: how clear what it was like being taught to ride the yellow Schwinn I received for my 7th birthday; my dad was only 48 then and that seems miraculous, somehow, in retrospect. I wish my 42 year old self could talk to his 48 year old one. I recall so many moments, so many of them blurring together, like the numerous rides to my favorite record store when I was a teenager, which was called Slipped Disc but which he called Broken Back, and suddenly too the memory of which awful car we owned at the time, and the mismatched sneakers I was wearing, on purpose of course, and even what I had written on the thick white rubber wall of the right one. The tiniest details come back that I had wholly forgotten: how the fabric of one car’s interior had come undone and hung like some kind of harem tent.
It is astonishing how each detail opens up a hundred more, and so on & so on, until you’re lost in an ocean of it: not bad, not good, but absolutely overwhelming.
So if you see me looking around distractedly for something, or just standing stock still, it may be that I’m remembering some shirt my dad was wearing in 1979, or it may be that I’m looking for my wallet, or my keys, or maybe, even, I will just be remembering my own name or looking at my own hand & noticing, for the first time, how much my fingers are like his.
Friday Cat Blog: Aeneas.
Posted by – June 24, 2011
Look at those eyes, would you?
What a beauty. Rest in Peace, SpideyCat.
The other day I really saw the pile of prescriptions and pill bottles,the syringes, the plastic bags and pages of Discharge Instructions. My poor boy went through a lot of meds in a dozen weeks. That was when the tumor on his leg really went nuts, & we had to decide to amputate or not. We did, which is probably what gave us the two months we had with him. I think it might have been quicker otherwise, because it was an aggressive cancer.
But it was in late December that he first had a thing on his leg, and because it appeared so overnight, we thought it was a sprain. We didn’t even wait to take him to the vet. We did x-rays, blood tests. The blood work turned up nothing weird – which, interestingly, it never really did. Our vet here couldn’t find anything, so I sent the x-rays and blood work to a vet friend in NJ and she didn’t find anything either. Because it turned up out of the blue, it looked like a sprain, and everything you read about cats & sprains is that they take a long time to get better, because cats tend not to rest. Now, I feel stupid for waiting as long as we did for this thing that wasn’t a sprain to heal. We iced it, and it got smaller; other days it was bigger, which is what you’d expect of a sprain on a patient who couldn’t be told not to jump up on the sink. I feel stupid for not realizing it wasn’t a sprain sooner, but then I think that even if we had caught it sooner, there was probably another in him ready to go.
Still, it’s hard not to wonder if we could have done anything differently. Really, really hard. & That’s the thing about parenting, furry critter or human: you do your best, & sometimes that’s not enough, & the powerlessness & pain that causes is pretty fucking tremendous.
So I’m happy the 6 months is over, but terrifically angry the 11 years is. It’s very hard to find balance in that equation. He put me to bed every single night – climbed up when I got into bed and got under the covers to be petted and when I was just dropping off he would leave quietly, stepping around my head or Rachel’s. I’d hear the soft thump of him jumping from bed to floor, and go to sleep smiling. Every single night for 11 years until the last few months. How do you not miss that kind of gentle loyalty & affection? It is especially hard because Endymion was always Rachel’s cat, as is Aurora. Aeneas was entirely mine. Of course I take care of the other two, but it’s not the same. I used to call Aeneas my shadow, my heart, my momma’s boy. He was my own Great Stone Face, my tiny Buster Keaton. He loved me so much – sat on my desk next to me for hours, usually in my inbox, which he didn’t really fit in.
Because they don’t speak, you always have a flawless, empathetic relationship with them, sensing moods but never knowing. He was such a stoic – the vets were regularly amazed over these past months at how high a pain tolerance he had, & how much poking he tolerated, too – and I cried on him too many times. He’s been my deepest friend for all these years, when others were busy, or perplexed, or judgmental, or too tired, when I didn’t want advice but only company. Trans people out there know what I’m talking about, and so do all of you others who have been through it in one way or another, who know what it’s like to come home at the end of a day whether you’re 14 or 40 and feel like you just don’t fit into the human race very well. These furry kids remind us that if you have food, a place to live, and someone warm to sleep near, or even two out of three, life is good.
When I didn’t even know how I felt or what I was thinking, he made me laugh and smile. He was a sweet, sweet kid. Some days, I have longed to be the kind of person who can live in shallower water, but Aeneas made swimming in the deep currents something like joyful.
Two Tune Tuesday: The Pretenders
Posted by – April 5, 2011
First: no listening until you go VOTE.
I have always been only a little bit Chrissie Hynde fan, but recently she’s hit me exactly the right way: every song, every lyric, every everything is just right. Maybe I had to get old enough to get her delicate mix of melancholy & anger, but either way: these two songs are very much the two moods I feel like I’ve been switching between for a year or so.
i shot my mouth off & he showed me what that hole was for she sings, which has to be one of the ruder lyrics ever sung by a woman: changing tires is slang for oral sex.
Personas
Posted by – February 9, 2011
I’ve always joked that my using a pen name connects me to the trans community in a way I never expected: I have an “old” name and a current name, and people get irritated if they feel I haven’t told them my “real” name. Transitioned people tend to get similar questions, albeit the gendered version. But this whole idea of having a “real” name is a funny one to me: Helen is my real name, in that it’s what people call me, and also it’s my legal middle name.
But the naming issue is really the tip of the iceberg, where the issue is more about having a “real” life compared to a persona’s life, and while I’m sure many people experience and understand this idea now, what with online handles and Second Life avatars, there is something about the aspect of being a public person that’s specific:
This fictional version of you is additionally compounded by the fact that, if you’re a writer, the version of you they’re building from isn’t the experience of you (as in, you’re someone they know in real life), but from the fiction you write and/or the public persona you project, either in writing (in blogs and articles) or in public events, such as conventions or other appearances. The fiction one writes may or may not track at all to one’s real-world personality or inclinations, and while one’s public persona probably does have something to do with the private person, it’s very likely to be a distorted version, with some aspects of one’s personality amped up for public consumption and other aspects tamped down or possibly even hidden completely.
All of which is to say these fictional versions of one’s self are to one’s actual self as grape soda is to a grape — artificial and often so completely different that it’s often difficult to see the straight-line connection between the two.
I might posit grape juice instead of grape soda, but you get the idea.
Wicked
Posted by – February 7, 2011
I went to see Wicked tonight – not intentionally to avoid football, although that was a benefit – and it was pretty damned amazing. That said, the story line goes: odd, earnest woman who doesn’t fit in grows up, falls in love with a handsome man who seems to be shallow and happy but is actually quite sad and serious, and he in turn is enamored with the pretty, but they do finally get together, but handsome man is magically transformed in order to save his life, and the new couple have to go into exile and leave their beloved city.
It sounds vaguely familiar but I can’t quite put my finger on why it seems so eerily familiar… wait… no. Hrm. It certainly does remind me of something.
(Now someone hand me my broom.)
Still & all, it wasn’t the easiest play in the world to watch at this point in my life: fitting in has never been my strong suit.
Two Tune Tuesday: What You (Didn’t) Say
Posted by – February 1, 2011
I heard the Toby Lightman on an episode of Bones the other day & the lyrics leapt out at me — as lyrics will when they are so close to what you’re already feeling. In looking for a song to go with it, I wanted Elvis Costello’s cover of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and found instead Via Tania’s — and I’d never heard of her before but was pretty stunned with how gorgeous and different her cover was.
Everyday is a struggle between what I wanna say
And what I should keep to myself
And the words that manage to leave my lips
Don’t hurt me, but they hurt everyone else More
Update: Life in WI
Posted by – January 15, 2011
Before I came to Wisconsin, the most common use of the word “packer” in my life was for these little dudes. Not so much anymore. Even the local gay bar is showing the game tonight. I find myself more cautious around the subject of football than of Christianity.
I have not seen any live music that wasn’t jazz, classical, or world music. No punk, no alt, & definitely no pscyhobilly.
I find myself talking about the envelope of warm air I can create around my head & face with the clever use of a large hat & my coat’s hood. I have actually thought, “Oh, 15′s not so bad” when getting dressed to walk to my office.
For the first time in my life, when people find out my name is Kramer, they assume I’m German — not that I’m Jewish. Similarly, this is the first year I was not wished a Happy Chanukah.
After speaking with a woman from Chicago visiting this past week I realized I have not had a conversation with a woman in dreds and/or mudcloth since I moved here.
I have considered invitations to go snowshoeing (but haven’t yet).
I found out that ducks eat fish. Who knew? I thought they ate bread/grasses & assumed they were vegetarians.
I’m sure there will be more, but it really is a pleasure to discover that life really isn’t the same elsewhere, despite mass commercialism, cable, & the internet.
Louis CK on Doctor’s Advice for 40 Year Olds
Posted by – January 8, 2011
| Jokes.com | ||||
| Louis C.K. – Ankle Reconstruction | ||||
|
||||
This is exactly the kind of advice I’ve gotten about my PTT (posterior tibial tendonitis), & everyone else who is aorund my age and older knows it’s true. The clip is form the show we saw him do in Milwaukee this past year. In the meantime: Am I the only one who thinks he is ridiculously hot?
Wishing You an Even-Tempered 2011!
Posted by – January 1, 2011
A new day, a new year: I have so many resolutions to make – and probably plenty to break – it’s ridiculous. There’s no use in going into them, although I may try to do something I used to do: write out my top 3-5 changes I want to see, break those down into 12 components, and at the end of every month check the list to see if I’ve accomplished any of them. For example: if my resolution were “publish more” then I’d have a dozen smaller things on the list, like “get a short story published” or the like. As long as you make the lists when you’re in a mood that’s more pragmatic than euphoric, it works pretty well. You take the one you accomplished off the list & then paste the new, shorter list into the 1st day of the following month, & so on & so on. It’s good for more numerical goals, like weight loss or debt re-payment, too.
I for one would like to go on a month-long retreat somewhere, to rest and write and find some peace; my biggest challenge is often accepting what is instead of thinking about what was or what might be. Focusing on the what might be part of the equation is useful in terms of activism– but it can also cause you to overlook the good of the here & now.
Good riddance, 2010: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I have never had a year go so miserably and inexorably flat midway through before, and I’m hoping 2011, even if it isn’t brilliant, will be a little less uneven.
A very happy 2011 to you, my lovely readers, whomever you are: the emails and cards and comments you write me do more to keep me going than you might imagine.
Busy Holiday Season
Posted by – November 25, 2010
So for the first time in my life, I’m facing a huge holiday with no family and no old friends anywhere nearby, and it sucks.
First I’d like to apologize to anyone I’ve ever been around who wasn’t spending holidays with family when I was, as this week I’ve been awash in people telling me all about their plans – where they’re going, who’s coming in from how far away, what they’re eating, all of it. I’m sure I’ve done it myself because I was entirely clueless to what this is like. I’ve had many gracious invitations to join various festivities, too, but it doesn’t make being in a new place without my partner or any other family here any easier, really.
If you know anyone who doesn’t have anyone around, DO make plans with them around the holidays even if it’s not on the holiday itself. Ask them how they are. Let them talk. You won’t replace who they miss, but you might keep them sane, or even alive. All of us in the LGBT communities know family holidays are especially brutal – for many of us, the holidays are a reminder that our birth families don’t get it, or don’t accept us, or just don’t want our confusing identities & relationships getting in the way of their less complicated lives.
This year, then, I’m very thankful for a family who accepts me and her for who we are, because it’s easier to know I’m alone due to geography, not a lack of love, and I’m thankful too for the various new friends who have gone out of their way to find me something to do / somewhere to be this week.
For those of you who are without anyone, hold tight. Seasons change. But she’s got way better advice than I do…
… and she makes me thankful, even, for kind-hearted poets. If there’s anyone out there who would feel a lot better getting an email from me, let me know, & I’ll send one.
Not Only the Lonely
Posted by – November 4, 2010
I thought, with the holidays coming up, that this little song and video might assuage a lot of lonely:
I know it did mine.
Guest Author: The Tyranny of “Happily Ever After”
Posted by – June 5, 2010
Kimberly Kael, a regular poster to our forums, wrote this recently & I thought it really stood repeating:
Here’s a question that has been bothering me lately and that I’ve been trying to put into words: does the social emphasis on happily ever after as the canonical goal for relationships do more harm than good?
Sometimes the notion of true love feels like the platonic ideals of male and female – it serves as an interesting point of reference but taken too seriously it becomes a source of frustration because none of us can really live up to the implied expectations. That’s not to say there isn’t merit in aspiring to a durable relationship. I’m sure it’s been reinforced in many ways. There are relationships that look perfect and effortless from the outside. There are times in our lives when we’ve had that kind of connection and we want to hang onto it forever.
Of course there are also good economic and emotional reasons to encourage stability by giving people an incentive not to split at the first sign of trouble. Indeed, I’ve never been in a rewarding relationship that didn’t involve working through rough spots. On the other hand, how many people fall into the trap of expecting love to be free of these kinds of challenges? I guess that’s a notion most of us take with a grain of salt by the time we get a little experience in balancing the needs of a partnership.
What’s more insidious is that society encourages us to make a lot of explicit or implied promises about the distant future that we simply may not be able to keep without making ourselves and everyone around us miserable. That sets unrealistic expectations for everyone involved, which evolve into a sense of entitlement: “Where’s my happily ever after?” It seems fundamentally implausible that so many relationships end in divorce and yet when people wind up there it seems to come as a complete surprise. They have no backup plan and only an incomplete set of life skills beyond those specialized for the role they played in the relationship.
At the root of it all is that unlike the male/female dichotomy there’s no spectrum implied by a single point. Where are the other archetypal relationships? Okay, so there’s the affair. The one-night stand. But is there anything else that doesn’t have a strong negative connotation?
I’ve personally been talking to an old friend about this idea a lot as she’s been unhappy recently & wondering if the source of her frustration was her relationship or the compromises it implies. That is, she wasn’t necessarily unhappy with her partner himself, but unhappy at the kind of compromises she’s made due to being in a relationship at all, with anyone. Her “pattern” – if she has one – is one of serial monogamy: relationships of several years that end when the compromise:satifaction ratio starts to fall short.
As someone who once was poly – although initially somewhat unwillingly & eventually quite happily – I’m not sure why we persist in believing that one person can be all that we need emotionally, sexually, romantically. We often expect someone (1) we have good sex with, (2) get all tingly around, (3) whose conversation & company we enjoy, and (4) with whom we can build a life, a home, a family. It’s kind of a lot, no? I remember many years ago, before meeting Betty, at feeling astonished I could manage even two of those with the same person in a short period of time — but over a lifetime? In speaking with more & more poly people, and perusing Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up
I know, for someone like me, no one really bats an eyebrow if I mention missing having a male husband. Betty & everyone else knows I intended to be in a relationship with a man. So while Betty & I are still happy as two peas in a pod, there are days when what I’ve lost, and what I miss, is pretty acute. I don’t suspect I will ever stop missing having a male husband, even if the missing grows less acute and less chronic over time. As someone who has always had strong emotional relationships with men – the adoptive “older brothers” I talked about in She’s Not the Man – I miss some kind of masculine energy in my life (and not just sexually, you big perverts). This stuff is gendered because I’m the partner of a person who transitioned from within our marriage, but it strikes me that there are about a million things that a person might miss, or need, over time.
