September 30th, Two Thousand Five: I need a little journal sabbatical.
Basically, my life is reaching a point where it's becoming clear
that something's got to give. I'm feeling at a similar point I
did way back in the day when I was both teaching full-time, and
when all the web stuff was starting (it is so, so bizarre that
was eight years ago): I'm trying to cram, pretty much daily, more
into every day than is not only humanly possible, but than is
Heather-possible. I've been nasty-sick for the past couple of
days, and I've no doubt that I wouldn't have fallen ill -- a-fricking-gain
-- were everything not so breakneck all the damn time.
The next six to eight months are going to get even more insane,
unfortunately. The ACLU COPA case I'm part of is picking up. The
Bush administration keeps doing more and more per the gross assault
of women's rights/interests and sexuality issues, which means
even more work for me. (I tell you, this period of U.S. history will either end up creating
more activists than ever -- this is my hope -- or shoving more
of us into retirement from sheer exhaustion than ever.) By mid-March, I also have to find a new place to live and then
move. Anyone who has ever been to my apartment can easily envision
what a Herculean task moving is for me. The takeover of our building
ends up meaning less hours I can work, as the construction noise
becomes more constant, more pronounced and more head-splitting.
I've got at least four or five more extended trips away from home
in that time. My apartment is currently a total disaster area.
I have GOT to find a home for my poor Zoe-cat, like, yesterday,
because my allergies to her have become so pronounced anymore
that I can hardly breathe or sleep without itching all night,
and the poor girl can only get any sort of physical affection
from visitors to my place taking pity on her. I have photo clients
coming out of my ears, and I am woefully behind on processing
for many of them. However, most of them are pro-bono or low-bono,
and I have got to either stop doing that, or figure out a way
to make doing so actually pay me, since the portrait work is pretty
much the one thing (save the grant for Scarleteen) that pays me
a reasonable wage for the work required. SL needs its rehaul.
Scarleteen needs it's daily care and watering, and boy howdy,
do we seem to be feeling the effects of this administration, with
increased traffic (we do above 12,000 uniques a day now, oy),
with more and more young women dealing with battering and rape
crisis who can't find help, more and more people needing sexual
health and abortion services and information and unable to find
it.** I have at least two more art shows likely to happen in that time,
and I have two huge pieces that need doing and lots of work (safe as houses, the domestic abuse door, and then the women's sexual history
quilt that's still in progress). There's the still-tangly book
limbo dilemma, which involves my agent doing his thing, me waiting
impatiently and feeling like two years of solid, brain-breaking
work was for naught, and me also not knowing if at any given time,
I will then have even more work suddenly in my lap with a limited
deadline, or if I can go ahead and start a new book project. I've
been asked to do one extra self-defense class, but I'm not sure
I can manage. I have people I said I'd do things for weeks ago,
which, in my scatterbrainedness, I just totally spaced. Per usual,
I have finances to be creative about the way a professional starving
artist and activist does. Plus, then, there's like... my life.
I have close friends who end up begging for my time, and then
there's that Great Big Love O'My Life thang which I sorta kinda
have just a wee bit of investment in nurturing and enjoying. Anymore,
I feel guilty when I want to take a day off for myself, even to
write or do artwork that isn't paying or owed to anyone, or guilty
for an hour or so to talk to Mr. Price in a day, even when I work
double-time to "earn" that luxury, and that's just plain silly.
It has also become clear that at 35, my body no longer feels that
five or six hours of sleep a night at a maximum is ideal. Balls.
I was on the phone briefly the other night with a young woman
attending my alma mater who was seeking out some communion from
the one other person who went there who ended up in sexual activism,
and I couldn't tell her enough to perhaps plan things so that
the most active part of her activism was sooner, rather than later,
as I was sadly discovering of late that seemingly endless energy
stores just aren't.
Fret not: the journal isn't going away. I enjoy it still, it's
an excellent sort of notebook and ongoing creative brainstorm
session for me. I just need a few weeks or so where it's not one
of the three thousand things I try to cram into the day, so I
can regroup, figure out how to best manage my time, figure out
what CAN go or get delegated elsewhere. As it is now, I find some
time to write, and end up with these crazy, pages-long entries
with ridiculously constructed sentences because I'm rushing, and
then half the time can't even find the time to code and upload
them. To top it all off, mostly when I do journal lately, it's
either bleed-over from a day of the political pissies, schmoopy-poo
notes to my equally-overextended boyfriend disguising themselves
as journal entries, or some form of list -- much like this one
-- of everything I am incapable of doing. This my or may not be
the stuff of compelling reading (and I most sincerely doubt that
it is), but it's most assuredly not the stuff of compelling writing.
Site updates will still be posted on the main page and I'll be
tossing photos and little notes into Flickr with some regularity:
I'm hoping to have time to get photos and comments from the march
last weekend up there today, and will also have a site photo update
up in the next couple of days.*
So, that's that: I gots lots to say, but absolutely no time or
energy to say it in, so it'll all just have to wait until I can
somehow reconfigure things to have the time.
* Just an FYI: subscription rates to this site are going up in
the next two weeks. I haven't increased my rates in quite some
time, and while I've cultivated a fine reputation as a cheap date
in my life, a girl's gotta eat and find a way to pay for her equipment.
Current subscribers will retain their rate now for at least the
next year or so, so if you want in at the current rates, now's
the time to queue up.
** One more FYI: I'm planning to do an all-ages Scarleteen benefit
sometime in March, likely something fun, like renting out the
roller rink for an evening. Anyone in the Twin Cities up for volunteering
for planning and helping me pull the thing together? A group of
say, five people or so, who could meet once every few weeks between
now and then would be a huge help.
One completely random note: I just had to defend my right to take my dog over to the coffeehouse
sporting a pair of brightly blue-striped knit pajama pants, sneakers
and a Cookie Monster t-shirt. The pants were referred to, less
than politely, by someone I did not know, sporting corporate business
attire, as "clown pants." I felt the need to point out that the
benefits package at my place of employment -- AKA, home -- was
less than stellar, and wearing pajamas as office attire was one
of the few amenities I was given. I take my bennies where I get
them, which not only entitles me to stumble into the coffeehouse
in the morning wearing clown pants, if I wanted, it'd also entitle
me to clown shoes, facepaint (after all, she clearly was entitled
to such) and a squeaky red nose if I so desired. But not a clown
car, sadly. Must work on that. You know, in my spare time. |
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September 21st, Two Thousand Five: I've observed that when I am very scared, not feeling brave
or energized emotionally and interpersonally, I become far more
energetic and brave politically.
I'm not sure why that might be: perhaps I figure I have to ever
be brave, I must be fighting in some arena at any given time,
and when I cannot do it in the one, I must at least do it in the
other. Or, perhaps, I do it where I can manage, when I can manage;
perhaps I just don't know how to live without fighting with something
all the time. Perhaps it is my charade, my deceptive hiding place:
if I am being brave and vocal in one place, no one will know that
I am terrified and mute elsewhere, that when I say I'm fine, I'm
not being truthful, that more times than not, much of my bravery
is but bravado, and my incessant, lifelong machisma often sickens
me.
Wavering in a bit of a solitary, dark place as of late, in case
that hasn't been obvious. Not a whole lot to say about it, but
I know that when I start to fall into these hidden minefields,
it always seems to happen at unfortunate times when everyone around
me needs lots of help, leeway or hand-holding, and so I become
even worse than usual at voicing that I, too, need my hands held
sometimes, even when they appear to be balled into fists. Speaking
that aloud, even if it is only to the air, seems of some value,
especially as most of the time, I don't even allow myself that
much. |
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September 21st, Two Thousand Five: Just a few quickies, before I head out of town Friday for the
march.
• Is ANYONE marching Saturday in D.C.? If you are, or know someone
who is, can you toss me an email? Everyone who had told me they
were going is bowing out. Now, I can deal with marching by myself;
after all, other people will be marching, I just don't know them
yet. But it'd be really nice to have at least SOME company. And
of course, if you can go march on Saturday, I can't urge you enough
to do so. Especially if you're nearby and/or have any intention
of bitching to me about this administration or Iraq ever again.
• To be filed with The Department of Yet More "Acceptable" U.S. Terrorism: "There was actually a mandate from the network saying we want
only shows that perpetrate violence against women," executive
producer Mark Gordon quipped. "We're just trying to get on the
air.
• On that note, why do people who enable or execute violence upon
or towards women so often say they would do (though they often
do not, not that them doing so would be an improvement or make
the excuse any less flimsy) the same to men, as if that somehow
makes it all better?
• This week, we had a few users at Scarleteen ask about the IUD.
We don't discuss it much there, because -- primarily because of
STI issues -- it's generally not a suitable method for teen women.
But since I'd been doing some research on it on my own anyway,
I ended up doing a couple days of digging about IUDs. Why? because,
in medical references, in information from doctors and manufacturers,
at reproductive health sources, I kept seeing information which
didn't seem to have any sound reasoning. In short, nearly all
information about IUDs suggests they are best used for women who
have "had at least one child." And yet, there wasn't anything
to explain WHY. I'm a curious girl. The days of digging resulted
in a curious discovery: namely that, actually, IUDs have greater
success rates (lesser rates of expulsion, greater comfort in use
and insertion) in women who have been pregnant at least once before:
been pregnant, NOT had a child. In other words, these success
rates, from everything I have found in reliable contraception
reference books, have shown to be so whether a woman has brought
a pregnancy to term and given birth OR miscarried OR terminated
a pregnancy: nulliparity -- not having given BIRTH -- is not the
issue here. So, from what I can tell, basically, a bias that women
should at least bear one child in their lives -- or, a bias that
if a woman has become pregnant, she OBVIOUSLY gave birth -- has
managed to misrepresent actual medical information, even among
sources who you'd think wouldn't have this bias, or would want
to counter it. I could get all conspiracy theory about it -- and
I do think, absolutely, there are plenty who very much do NOT
want women to have such reliable and inexpensive contraception
which is inside their bodies and far more goofproof than most
other methods -- but in most cases, I think it'sa matter of a
simple game of telephone, where the actual studies and data have
gotten skewed as they've passed from one source to another, mixed
in with a heapin' helpin' of bias, to net this inaccurate result.
But I tell you: it sure makes any information about something
as vital as contraception, even from sources one'd trust, uncomfortably
suspect.
• It may seem like a no-brainer, but just think about it: if a
woman complains about women as a whole, to another woman, saying
that she can't relate to them because they're all "catty," by
definition, isn't she being catty herself?
• Slightly related to that, if certain (or all) forms of sex work
are exploitation, in which it is the (female, for the purposes
of this statement) worker is who is being exploited, how then
is any feminist who is demonizing, shunning or scolding sex workers
not blaming the victim
| • I love a good, soft hoodie. I love what baked tofu can do for
me. I love my dog. I love my bike, and think I need to take a
break from work in a bit to go take a quick spin on it, as one
never really knows here when the good weather will come to a frigid,
sudden end. I love my boyfriend, even when we're both stressed
out, and I love how incredibly free I feel to be able to love
the way I have been, to feel that love as I have been, and how
transformative that is. I love people who step up, and people who find fun, inspired and/or potentially subversive ways of doing so. I love that my domicile has, over the years,
turned into a place where all sorts of women feel free to come,
even unannounced, to seek solace, comfort and laughter. I love
impromptu slumber parties with dear friends, especially when they
involve making music, even when you're both more than a bit rusty.
I love young feminists who write me thank you letters which make me blink, cry and force me to snap out of low moments
of feeling unappreciated or ineffectual. But today, more than
anything else, I love finally having had a solid nights sleep
for the first time in a week so I can construct a coherent sentence
without wanting to put my head through a wall. 'Cause that's swell. |
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Photography: 09.22 (self-portraits)
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September 19th, Two Thousand Five: Views from a Broad (or, War and Peace: Uncut Version)
(penned 09.06.05)
It's day four here at Casa Zero, the sun just barely getting low
enough for me to sit out back with the laptop and see a damn thing
on the screen. I've got the base for dinner for the lot of us
simmering on the stove, and the mix of sweet onions, garlic, tomato,
orange, lemon, red pepper, red wine and rosemary smells mighty
nummy at the moment. I've got about an hour until one Mr. Price
gets his sweet tushie home from the office and... ow. I think
I got some domesticity in my eye. Just a second.
There, better. Let's review the past few days, shall we?
I don't want to talk about when I had to wake up Saturday, but
between my incomnia, the alarm clock, the pug, and three different
wakeup calls, I did pull waking up on time off. When I got to
the airport, I was still so sleepy, having limited myself to one
cuppa in hopes I'd be able to fall back asleep on the plane (so
didn't happen), that I was stumbling through the place like a
zombie. At some point, mid-yawn I stumbled over my own feet, and
managed to save myself from a tumble with some jaunty sidestepping
action, which prompted a chubby businessman I did not know to
grin and tell me he loved me. This incident instilled a sudden
terror in my that with the surrealism starting, I was perhaps
DREAMING I was at the airport and dreamt all those wakeup calls,
and was, at this moment still sleeping at home and about to miss
my plane. I managed to trip again, hurting my toe (a theme which
will recur), which made clear I was, indeed, really awake.
On the plane, it just so happened that my ex-roomate from when
I first moved to Minnesota, who I run into in the oddest places
very regularly, was on the plane. We'd run into each other once
at the airport, but this truly topped it.
When the plane landed, we hooked up again, and I chatted with
he and his boyfriend until we got to baggage claim. According
to the rommate-at-hand, I suddenly took on the appearance of a
hyperactive, rabid weasel at that point, so he sent me off to
look for Mark, who I found in two seconds, and was so shocked
to find him right around the corner, I screeched, thus making
sure EVERYONE in the airport was awake. After waiting for my bag,
my usual high eneregy elevated quite a lot by my excitedness,
which promted Brian's boyfriend to look at Mark with big eyes
and ask, "Is she ALWAYS like this?" and resulted in long nods from all present, we flew off to the
house, in a jumble of manic conversation and many kisses.
What we did at the house for several hours before both passing
out for a long nap, I just don't know. I do, however, think we
may now know the answer to the previously-mysterious little red
stripes on Mark's wall which just happened to match my usual toenail
polish. Miss Marple, look out!
Saturday night we grilled ourselves a fine meal, then melted into
the hot tub, then drifted off to sleep so we could have The Morning
Sex.
Sunday, we miraculously got out of the house at a reasonable hour
to head to Vancouver, to meet Lauren and Emira for lunch. For
whatever reason, my normally excellent navigational senses get
completely skewed when driving in the Pacific Northwest, so I
was second-guessing nearly every navigational decision Mark --
who was annoyingly right every damn time -- made. When we finally
arrived, a little late (only in part due to my blunders, thank
you very much), everyone else had soup and yummy sandwiches for
lunch. I had a big plate of crow. Am embarrassingly spendy trip
to Lush followed, and then we hopped in the car to head down to
White Rock. I might add that my directions WERE helpful this time
around. Maybe I just get out-of-sorts heading north: perhaps my
genes are trying to revolt.
White Rock was FABULOUS. The insanely reasonable B&B I had found for us was gorgeous:
bed, perfect, tub, perfect, view, perfect. The owners did a good
job of not expressing the usual amount of surprise I'm accustomed
to between the woman I sound like on the phone (years of voice
lessons make one often sound a bit more proper than one may be)
and the woman I look like (read: not proper). We took a walk down
to the dock, then strolled up and down the promenade searching
for a dinner that'd suit us both. As it turns out, we ended up
at a place which not only served us an incredible meal, but by
virtue of our mood, dining right next to the water, the lighting,
the fine choices in jazz, and both of us simply still being starry-eyed
in general, turned out to be the most romantic dinner either of
us had ever had.
(This was not the only waterside meal we enjoyed on my trip. I
find myself ever amazed in the Pacific Northwest, that dining
sull'acqua is not a luxury. It's like, something you can do every
day if you like. So, you could feasibly be all, "Hey, want to go have dinner on the water tonight?" and your other person might say, with an air of tired ennui,
"Oh, we did that last night," and you might reply, "Oh, but we were at Penelope's Pier last night, we could go eat
on the dock at Bob's Barnacle tonight," or what have you. Crazy.)
Perhaps it was the dinner, perhaps the getaway, who knows -- but
when we got back to our room, some truly delicious and magnificent
hedonism followed. Which resulted in my having the easily-voted
very best orgasm of my life. Intense. Floaty. Then intense again. Then floaty again. Like
sailing a boat in a very big storm. Never-bloody-ending. Very,
very nice. To say the least.
Of course, we always have great sex (thus far, anyway -- one doesn't
want to be too unrealistic), and lucky for you, I don't talk about
it much. And I tend to have been lucky in a long life of excellent
sex overall. But. There is a photo I felt inclined to take the
next morning simply so that one could have a historical record
of where my best orgasm to date and remembrance was had.
See? Right THERE.
It's good I had such great sex, it really is. Because the next
morning, when we went downstairs for breakfast, had I not been
very relaxed, it might have gotten ugly.
To be clear: the proprietors really WERE wonderful, good people.
They even adapted breakfast to my tricky dietary needs and allergies.
The smaller talk was fine. Until the female-half of the ownership
decided to bring up Katrina. Some of my favorite highlights of
the conversation:
She: Why do they have to make it about race?
Me: They who?
She: You know, The Blacks.
Me (gripping Mark's knee and clearing my throat): Well, because
it kind of IS?
She: Yes, but only The Blacks are saying so.
Me (poor, poor Mark's knee): Well, it's entirely possible that's
because they suffer the most due to racism. Just maybe.
She: Why do you think they (aka, "The Blacks") live there anyway?
Because of the weather?
Me (trying not to choke): What? (And working hard not to finish
that "what" with "the FUCK?")
She: Well, because it's warm down there, do you think that's why
they live there?
And here's the running monologue in my head, while, apparently,
Mark and her husband are looking at one another in sheer desperation:
Bummer I wasn't in the sun this summer as much as the year I lifeguarded
in college when I got mistaken for being mixed-race more than
once, because any reply that started with, "Well, my gay, black
father from Outer Mongolia says that...." would bring this to
a nicely swift end. But, gee, it just MIGHT have something to
do with the fact that when we STOLE people to use as chattel,
we held out on that the longest in the south, where, while slavery
is not illegal, we somehow do not classify paying people minimum
wage or below (especially if we're Halliburton doing rebuilding
and Bush gives us -- how, I do not know -- legal permission to
pay whatever wage we like!), keeping the poor as poor as possible,
and thus as immobile as possible, slavery. Or you're right, it
might be because of the weather, just like, you know, all us whites
move up north because we're pale, right? So we can blend in with
the snow and camoflauge ourselves so when we hunt yetis, they
don't see us coming!
What I said instead, was simply, "Well, no, I don't think so.
Speaking of weather, gee, what a beautiful day! I think Mark and
I should go clean up and then go out in it RIGHT NOW. I can't
wait ANOTHER MINUTE." Or something to that effect.
I really don't think that this woman was trying to be a putz.
From our conversations previous, it was clear she was rather sheltered,
and perhaps by virtue of living in an Ontario suburb her whole
life, she'd just never seen or heard much from or about The Blacks
before. She really, truly did not seem at all aware that she was
being a serious dope. Oy gavalt.
After we'd left the bed and breakfast, my sweetheart said, sweetly,
"That was such a great place. We should totally tell all our white
friends about it."
That's my guy.
(penned 09.07.05)
A morning exchange for either your general amusement or utter
horror: you pick.
Heather walks out of the bedroom in the morning in a trademark
tiny t-shirt (her current excuse for living in tight t-shirts
is that she missed her calling as a hardcore gymfag), running
into Mark in the hall as he whizzes about getting ready for work
in a rush.
Mark (as he makes a crazy nosedive for Heather's nipple): "Whoah,
check out that T.H.O!"
Heather: "What are you do-- that WHAT?!?"
Mark (flying into the bathroom with a grin): "Titty hard-on! There's
always time for a sexist remark!"
Ah, the romance. It's justabout enough to give you a cavity.
This incident may, however, have been fatefully balanced by the
latter half of my day, during which, having a cancelled social
engagement, I decided to walk up the street here to the nail salon
place to get someone with a machete to shave off the always-thick
callouses that live on the bottom of my feet, since I am barefoot
as often as possible.
I do usually mention, for the record, that a machete will be required
for the task, and everyone always thinks I'm being cute. They
giggle, smile, and say "Oh no, it won't be that bad." Then they look at my feet. Then they say, "Oh." And we nod, silently as the big tools come out.
In any event, like many low-rent nail salons, this one was staffed
with a bunch of Korean women. (Cheryl made the fine observation
that in high-rent salons, men who do pedicures are "aesthetic
technicians," while women who do them in the low-rent places are
sans title. Go figure.) I never feel right reading a book or magazine
while someone is doing something as intimate and kind as taking
care of my yucky feet, plus I'm always up for a little cultural
anthropology, so we all started gabbing a bit. Small talk opened
the day, talking about where we'd all lived, for instance. A bond
was made when the pedicurist working on me asked about a severely
broken and painful-looking toenail, to which my reply was "My boyfriend likes to dance." Another of the staffers then whipped off her sandal to point
excitedly at a bruised toe of hers, and the woman working on my
feet, laughing, pointed out that the staffer's boyfriend liked
to dance, too.
I was asked if I was married or single, and replied that I was
in a relationship, but had no plans to marry. My pedicurist replied
to this, sagely, in broken English:
"Single, better. You do what you want, your time is your own.
The people, they get married, they say they will not have the
babies." She tosses up her hands and laughs mockingly and blithely: ha,
ha ha. Then her face becomes gravely serious, as if the world
is coming to an unstoppable, sudden end.
She looks at me and says, firmly, finger pointed towards me, head
heavily moving back and forth, eyes stern, "They say they will not have the babies.
YOU WILL HAVE THE BABIES. Single: BETTER."
Well, then.
At some point, she also asks me if I want flowers painted on my
toes. I politely decline. She then takes in my old cargo pants,
my hiking sandals, my lack of makeup (and perhaps the previous
state of my feet), and the conversations we have had thus far
and remarks, "You look mostly like girl, but you act more like boy. Simple.
That's good for you. Good for you!"
Eventually, there were a batch of about four of us, with everyone
talking so excitedly that even when they remembered to speak English,
they were talking so fast, I could barely keep up. While massaging
my legs, when we'd already started to end up in a sort of ad-hoc
feminist collective, the pedicurist asked if I shaved every day,
to which I responded, "For myself? Are you kidding? Hell, no." For some reason, this was intensely amusing and somehow seen
as incredibly important, to the point that it made all the discussion
more fever pitch, and by the time I left the place -- two hours
later, mind you, with two of them shouting "Single!" as I shut the door -- the women were ready to quit shaving, and
one was even about to go on strike with cooking. I swear I don't
do this stuff on purpose.
Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me. But next time I go back
to visit, you bet your rump I'm heading back there, and bringing
it, possibly with some information on union organizing. Those
women were seriously one of the highlights of my trip this time.
* * *
Later that day, I get a phone call from Mark, right?
We'd planned to drive to Portland the following night because
Robyn had a gig down there, and him being that close was an easy
essential road trip. I've had this longstanding bad timing when
it comes to my favorite bands and musicians and seeing them live:
Robyn and the Jazz Butcher both, for instance, I had never seen,
despite being a fan for about the same length of time, since my
teens. But it never failed that wherever I was at a given time,
they were not. The Jazz Butcher still has that sad distinction,
even though I have since cultivated a friendship with someone
who is a close friend of theirs. I also still have yet to ever
see Joni Mitchell, even though she's both a favorite and a serious
sheroine for me. And I never did get to see Nina before she died,
nor George Harrison. Le sigh. I did get to see Siouxsie Sioux
in a small enough venue in my teens that I literally could look
up her skirt, though. I even unknowingly talked on the phone to
Iggy Pop once, and many times when living with Michael heard Pete
Seeger on the phone -- I say heard because it was always like
God calling: I could never feel worthy enough to even utter a
word, instead, I'd just pass the phone over to Michael with a
wordless, gaping maw. Poor Pete probably thought I was a mute.
But I digress.
So, I get this phone call Wednesday whereupon Mark asks me if,
perchance, I might just want to see Robyn THAT evening instead.
Because it just so happens that one of his unannounced, unpublicized
gigs is going on at the Two Bells that evening.
SQUEAL!
By the time Mark got home, he had to deal with a full-on twittering
fangirl. He had to oversee numerous outfit changes. There was
much bouncing in the car seat he had to endure, and much "Is he here yet, is he really coming, are you pulling my leg,
is he here yet, where is he -- ishehereishehereISHEHEREWHERETHEHELLISHE,
HUH? HUH?!?" at the bar before Robyn's arrival.
...which did happen eventually. At which time, and for the next couple hours, I alternated between
sitting utterly slack-jawed, whispering his name in Mark's ear
repeatedly, keeping myself from poking him to see if he was real
when he was sitting THREE INCHES BEHIND ME, and beaming like a
goddamn lighthouse at high tide.
Robyn played a short set. Someone's guitar string broke and Robyn
put on his glasses and fixed it. Robyn had the love of HIS life
with him, and she was LOVELY. Robyn made with the funny. Robyn
drank lots of wine. And when Robyn was nearly through with the
evening, my boyfriend settled up to go talk to him, at which point
I also told him to go talk to him. And stayed right in my chair,
emphasis on the "YOU go talk to him."
"Uh uh. No WAY. You're going," were the rather toward words he uttered. Okay, if I must.
He thanked Robyn for an enjoyable set, stating he'd enjoyed the
last set at Two Bells as well, the set during which he stalked
Robyn outside the bathroom, an endeavor which resulted in Robyn
and I having a lovely discussion on the phone.
Which he remembered. Robyn remembered me, man.
"Ah yes," in fact, Robyn said, "Last time you had me talk to some girlfriend or other who was
in some other city...."
At which point I waved frantically, the cross-continent girlfriend
in question, representing. And thought to myself that it sure
was good for mark he wasn't here with some other date, because
most likely, after that comment from Robyn, he probably wouldn't
have gotten laid.
And then Robyn and I chatted briefly, shaking my hand, he recalling
it was Minneapolis, asking me about it there, us discussing something
imminent, and then he riffed about how the trees is Seattle made
him happy because they resembled English trees, and then he wished
us a Happy Halloween. Yep. That's Robyn. Holy cats.
It should be noted that I did NOT squeal in his presence. I believe
I also did not bounce, though I'd have to double check with Mark
to be sure. I know I did not poke him because I could. That was
good. I know I very much did grin ear to ear like a moron, but
he was a bit tipsy, so I'm sure he just thought I had some sort
of unfortunate overbite which he'd never have been rude enough
to mention.
Upon leaving the bar, of course, the very second I got outside
every single bit of overexcited energy I had harnessed for hours
went kablooie, and I hopped around the vacant parking lot beside
it like a possessed pogo stick on a three-day-cocaine bender,
squealing like a demented piglet. In the car on the way home,
I kept sniffing my hand and making Mark sniff it, trying to determine
if Robyn had a scent (I felt he did not, but Mark assured me my
palm smelt like neither of us, nor fags or beer, so Robyn must
have a scent.)
Mark got laid quite properly by his date, I should add. So did
I, for the record. As evenings go? It'll do.
* * *
I met Mark's day job people this trip, too.
They've been bugging him for a meeting since I came into the picture,
because, apparently, Mark once was the bane of their existence
at work, often arriving in trenchcoat and hangover, ordering coffee
"as black as my heart," being a general black cloud. An Eeyore.
Apparently, this is no longer the case: I may have contributed
to the Tiggerfication of Mark Price.
Plus, Mark's day job is the mecca of hardcore geekdom, so no one actually believed that the
hot, sex-writer girlfriend was for real. he does have en excellent
imagination, so the suspicion was not entirely off-base. We had
lunch in a mall, which would normally be seriously out-of-bounds
for me, but I have discovered that an all-asian mall is not as
offensive to me as the White People malls are.
In any event, it's always an adventure to take Heather out among
people who live in The World of Normal, because I have become
so progressively tuned out in my life -- starting from a place
already outside the borders, no less -- that I have to try to
remember how to operate in that arena.
Apparently, filed under NPA (Normal People Approved) in my book
is the story of how, when under a certain influence, I tend to
keep a little file of ongoing sticky notes on my desktop when
I'm convinced I have had an epiphany of the utmost brilliance.
Sometimes, that actually turns out to be so: I've woken up some
days to find some seriously insightful cultural theory or some
very inspired art ideas. But as I was telling his co-workers,
unable to stop my mouth from moving, sometimes I awake and find
a note jotted down and thus, assumed -- nay, assured -- the night before to be profound brilliance, one of which reads:
It was later reported to me that one of the co-workers thought
I was expressing a screenplay idea, rather than actual incidents
from my life. Not sure if that's better or worse. It certainaly
would be a lousy screenplay, that's for sure.
After lunch, we headed to the office itself, to meet a few other
folks. The report there is that bringing the cute girl to Geek
Central tends to make my boyfriend BMOC for a bit. One coworker
informed him that he'd either been a saint in his previous life,
or he was being gifted now because his next life was going to
be terribly, horribly bad. Oh dear.
I also met his trainer, which was good, as I'd sent her thank
you notes for Mark's backside second-party before, so it seemed
only polite to deliver a thanks in person. She seemed very nice,
though she made the dreaded Tori Amos comparison and followed
that up by saying that she still liked me even though her ex-boyfriend
would have liked me too much because he had a Tori Amos Crush
Problem. Umm, thanks?
I like geeks, though. I also like that my partner doesn't have
to live with any more accusations that he devised an incredible
fictional girlfriend. That's a good thing.
(I did orchestrate something which I now somewhat regret: one
of the coworkers mentioned that Mark kept saying they'd have a
scotch-drinking evening, but it never came together. Saying things
like this to a natural group-organizer isn't wise. Within ten
minutes, I had a date and a time for a few of them to do this.
This was foolish because a) Mark doesn't normally drink scotch,
b) Mark is as competitive a person as I, c) Mark reacts to thrown
gauntlets the same as someone else we know and d) I thus became
part of this incident, which occurred this past Friday evening.
... and resulted in me being passed around via phone from person
to person at an ungodly hour when I had to train and teach early
in the morning. All of whom were SHITFACED, and my boyfriend the
most shitfaced of all (and the last to admit it), who kept saying
to me, as if he had Tourette's, every time the phone was passed
back to him, "Mark. Mark Price." I tried to make clear that while
he may need reminding of who he was, I was still quite aware of
his identity. My conversations with Mark that evening were something
in the general vicinity of:
Me: "Christ, you're pissed."
Him: "No, no I'm fine. I'm not drunk. Mark. Mark Price."
Me: "Okay, babe. If you say so. How's it going with th--"
Him: "Shit, I am DRUNK."
Me; "Yes, yes you are."
Him: "Mark. Mark Price. How are ya? I'm fine. I'm fine."
Wash. Rinse. repeat. Ad nauseum. Literally.
I also had a conversation-on-endless-loop with a female co-worker
of his (who I suspect I may hang out with again, though when everyone
is not quite so hammered) who kept telling me how much Mark loved
me and how amazing we are together, and how she just cannot thank
me enough for doing my part to make her workday more manageable
by improving the mood of one Mr. Price.
* * *
There was a whole lot more to this visit: it was a long one. There
were awesome friend dinners, much walking, car trip goofiness,
a hotel adventure, drinks in The Red Dress, excited future plans
ruminated upon, snuggly mornings, the viewing of Little Marky
on old Super-8, and other details which probably don't interest
any of you in the least.
It becomes more and more difficult to log these trips. Some of
the trouble is that the majority of them is spent with Mark and
I:
a) kissing and snuggling
b) shagging
c) sitting in hot water
d) cooking
e) being the pacing, walking, bouncing, hyperactive lunatics we
both tend to be
f) talking a lot of mush at one another, prattling on endlessly
about how damn great we are together, and ever voicing our constant
amazement at how one bitter asshole and one well-on-her-way-to-becoming-a-bitter-asshole
managed to have this thing fall in their laps at all, and/or
g) kissing and snuggling and shagging some more.
This is not to say I find these things uninteresting. I find them
to be quite fabulous. But one cannot go on about these things
incessantly to others standing outside, for they are by no means
as compelling to innocent bystanders.
I suspect -- though I can't promise -- that in time, perhaps even
we may become bored with spending the vast majority of our time
just ka-blinking at each other in awe, amazement and marginal
disbelief, and have more to report. Maybe. Actually, probably
not.
( I also realize it's possible I don't represent Mr. Price here
accurately sometimes, reporting all to often the ridiculous things
he says, and less often the gobstoppingly beautiful things he
says to me. I just don't feel at liberty to report those things
without stopping to ask him in advance, because it seems far more
personal and private. But I could have this backwards.)
Oh balls, here I go. Drats: the floodgates have opened.
* * *
It's so, so strange for someone my age, with my level of life
experience to seriously question if I even understood what love
was before. I mean, I know -- I KNOW -- I have loved people before.
I have. But not like this; not in this way. I certainly haven't
trusted anyone like this before, nor do I think I've accepted
a partner entire to this degree before (even when it would have
been easier to accept everything because whoever and I were more
similar). I've never been quite so thrilled that the person I
feel in love with is the person they ARE before. And save the
excitement one has when the whole idea of these things are shiny
and new, and so are you, I've never been this perpetually excited
about anyone before with those feelings only growing, rather than
gradually -- and often quickly -- becoming more subdued.
I am, for instance, a woman who very much enjoys her personal
space and her solitude. And yet, even in an extended visit, on
the few days where Mark went to the day job, I was always sorry
to see him go in the mornings, and always thrilled to see his
face when we saw each other again at the end of the day. It's
been common, even with people I have loved and really liked, even
in other long-distance relationships, that in just one or two
days spent together nonstop, even near the beginning of relationships,
that I have HAD to direly finagle a way to get a few hours away
by myself, and when I got them, it felt like I had air to breathe
again after drowning. That still has yet to happen: it may still,
but that it hasn't happened yet, especially given how much concentrated
time we spend together when we do see one another, is unprecedented.
In the rare event that a day passes when it hasn't worked for
us to be able to connect by phone and talk for at least an hour,
it's as if the day is incomplete: it feels off-kilter and half-baked,
as if it weren't a real day.
There are big exceptions made for Mark, too, that I have not been
willing to make for other people, even when it's been reasonable
and safe to do so. For instance, at this point, we have gone ahead
and fluid bonded: the last person whose man-bits touched these
O'Keefish folds unsheathed was over a decade ago, and I didn't
okay that until a good two years into the relationship. Mind you,
he's also followed all the rules per doing this, but other people
have as well. Stuff like this is a BFD to me, because I know full
well that a while plenty of my previous boundaries with others
were seriously wise, at the same time, they just as often were
to purposefully keep myself at a safe distance.
I have, in the past, often given people a litany of what personal
stories/experiences of mine, aspects of myself, which I've shared
with them they may share with other people. For whatever reason,
I've just not felt the need to do so with Mark, who at this point,
knows pretty much all of the trickiest, most volatile stuff --
in fact, he's privy to a couple things that no one else, not even
friends, have been privy to. I have an oddly easy trust with him,
figuring whatever he deems fit to tell someone else about me and
my life will be both appropriate and safe for me.
(I have been dealing, for the record, with some ex-issues with
exceptions made or with things being planned between Mark and
I which I have refused to even consider with others. That's been
tough. I don't feel it's fair to be angry with me for wanting
things with one person I have not wanted with others, but I do
also understand the feeling of envy or sadness when someone you
were in love with wants things with someone else you wanted which
they did not want with you. That was a doozy of a sentence, sorry.)
Certainly, given all of this, some of the difference is MY level
of openness with him: a level of openness that, for whatever reason,
I have not felt willing or able to have with anyone else, not
even my father, and that's really saying something. I'm not even
sure I realized until recently how very UNopen I've been with
so many people. In my defense, I can pinpoint things that enable
my willingness to allow myself a greater vulnerability than before:
for instance, he's been willing to do the same. He's trusted me
to have private dialogues with his family and friends. Shit, his
parents are driving 15 hours just to meet me next month because
they don't want to wait: because they're simply excited to meet
me.
The biggest part of this is that I am simply kookoo-batty, kee-razy
in love, and having the same level of kookoo-batty kee-razy chucked
right back at me. I'm not used to my sustained level of earnest
love, nor to someone else's. I'm not used to someone wanting to
be with me out of want, rather than need; I'm not used to someone
really getting to know me and not being freaked out by me, scared
to death, or dusting off a pedestal to put me on. I'm not used
to being with someone who does not ask me in any way to change
myself to become more manageable, more mainstream or more presentable.
I'm not used to waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm used to
having the damn thing fall on my head before I even have the time
to look up for it.
I still get a bit panicky about this. Not often, but now and then.
I worry that maybe I've blind spots: that there are hidden conflicts
or burgeoning problems I'm just not seeing, or that the differences
we do have will turn into chasms. I worry that one or both of
us with somehow irreparably fuck this up (and that it'll probably
be me), and end up losing the thing we both found and made that
was far and beyond better than anything either of us has had with
anyone before. I don't worry about either of us hurting the other
intentionally, not at all, but I do worry either or both of us
might do it unintentionally, and that I or he will end up broken.
I worry that at some point, one or both of us will want things
which are a Big Deal which the other one does not, and we'll be
at an insurmountable impasse. I worry that little things will
upset me more than they should and I'll overreact. I worry that
I'll take out some of the negativity I've experienced from others
about aspects of this on Mark. I worry that one of these days,
I will wake up and either something catastrophic will have happened,
or I'll stop dreaming, wake up and this'll just be pooftah. I
remember how my friend Liam met the love of his life when he was
elderly, and they were only able to be together for a few years
before he died -- my email exchanges with his ladylove after he'd
passed on were so incredibly sad: part of me is terrified that'll
be one of us. I'd love to be able to be all Zen about it and say
that even were that to happen, we'd have had this at all and isn't
that miraculous and enough, but I can't. Likely in part because,
as we all know by now, the very first time I fell big in love
catastrophic death DID happen.
Again, these are but occasional niggles, which I only have when
we're not together, and I'm actually sort of glad I have them:
they seem to assure me of my sanity. It also strikes me as necessary
to voice them, to put them out there so that I (hopefully) neither
inflate nor diminish them inappropriately. It also strikes me
as necessary to point out that I just got my period, and it does
tend to make me a little more emotional than usual, as does feeling
as ungrounded in my space as I've felt of late.
I'm used to either knowing what I'm doing like a total pro, or
being exceptionally good at flying by the seat of my pants with
nigh unto anything, to the degree that most people don't seem
to know that's what I'm doing. The truth is, I do NOT know what
I am doing here, at all, as this is totally out of my orbit and
I AM flying by the seat of my pants, but we all know that's what
I'm doing. Being involved in this requires a level of bravery
on my part that's difficult to explain to anyone who either doesn't
know the sum of my life experience, or who hasn't experienced
it or similar. It's also difficult to explain given that so many
other things which I do or have done seem so much more brave,
when, for me, this really tops the list.
I've said it before, but I'll say it once more: this shit scares
the bejeezus out of me sometimes. Again, not when we're in the
same space: for whatever reason, when perhaps it is more actual
and less abstract, it can still feel overwhelming, but it's all
good. I told Mark when I got home from this last trip, that the
next morning, I was nearly horrified to wake up, turn over and
feel seriously sad to be in my bed alone. I LIKE being in my bed alone. A lot. That isn't to say I don't mind
sharing it sometimes, especially for not-sleeping, but to deeply
miss sleeping with another person, to discover that sleeping,
once a perfectly pleasant function, has now turned into a sort
of luxury which is not at all as luxurious alone...well, bloody
hell.
(There's funny gender bias in this stuff, too. I've found that
talking to a few people about it, I've gotten a sort of default
response more than once which basically boils down to the idea
that it'd be perfectly normal for a man to be wiggy about this
stuff, but that women are supposed to automatically be right as
rain with it and pleased as punch, because it's purportedly what
we wait for our whole lives. Women, no matter our orientation,
are supposed to wig out when we're alone: men are supposed to
wig out in relationships. One friend basically said I was acting
like a guy before she -- a bit horrified with her own bias and
surprised by it -- realized what she'd said.)
I'm not going to keep going on about this endlessly: this entry
is way too long as it is. It just feels good to voice this stuff,
both for myself emotionally, and to do some little part at dispelling
the myth that when women fall deeply in love and are loved back
-- perhaps even find it's not a myth that there is a Great Love
O' Ones Life --we don't just sink into a sort of gooey, Pepto
Bismol-pink-coated state of grace. We get freaked out, too, we
worry about being stifled, too, we worry about vulnerability,
too, we feel discomfort in the comfort, too.
* * *
I didn't mean to sour the log of a great trip with my neuroses.
Because it was great. Each trip, actually, gets progressively
greater, so that's likely part of why my inner neurotic gets louder
post-visit. Mark and I were also commenting the other day that,
for whatever reason, after each of these visits, the time between
them feels progressively longer. I only like time getting all
taffy-stretchy when it's for my personal benefit or gain, thank
you kindly. I don't care for this stuff where it lengthens in
a way that makes me or us unhappy. Make it stop. My insomnia is
also back this week, and it brought guests: that's not helping
any, especially when I'm trying to make up for work missed while
in Seattle.
I'm looking forward to the march in D.C. this weekend: doing what
I do with my life, not only does it always feel good to be politically
active -- like, really active, where my feet are moving, too,
not just my hands and my mouth -- it is a big comfort to see big
bunches of people being active, too. I'm also looking forward
to seeing Hanne, who I've missed a lot. And to seeing Malcolm.
And, to just being around them both: they're two of the few people
I know who appear to have the sort of thing that Mark and I have
going, and they've sustained it for a very long period of time,
without their gooshy seeming to quell, through thick and thin
and a bunch of shifts and changes over the years. Things can feel
so unreal with all this that it's really helpful to me to see
other people with stuff like it because it makes me feel less
delusional.
My sincerest apologies for the length and disorganization of this
entry. My schedule has gotten so crazy, my routine so... well,
nonexistent, that it's become harder for me to find time to journal
in small bits, but I need to work that out. I've also got other
things I want to talk about: like an interesting discovery on
how certain biases can profoundly influence accurate birth control
information even from what should be reliable, women-focused sources,
like the strange state of life here at our quickly-emptying building,
like the ACLU COPA case I'm part of (hello Ben!), like some cool
things Cheryl and I discussed on our last visit, like thoughts
on how to bridge gaps so that women in sex work can feel comfortable
and able to seek out feminist community, like new ruminations
on the ever-present issue of straight women saying they can't
have friendships with other straight women for all the usual,
but deceptive, reasons.
I'll get it together, really I will. Right after I finish my brilliant
screenplay about mangomangomangoes and epiphanies-that-aren't,
rediscover my sense of direction, and get some damned sleep, all while I am very much avoiding
having the babies as instructed. |
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September 16th, Two Thousand Five: I'm all set for the D.C. March next Saturday; I'll be taking
the train in from Hanne's in Baltimore. Who's with me? (Now, if only I could find the strap for my conga: marching is
always that much more energized with plenty of drumming.)
Still way behind and catching up, but between a million other
things scheduled today, I'll be compiling the whopper of a journal
entry/photobucket from the last Seattle visit. Here's a wee tease until then. Hint: we didn't have to go to Portland, after all. We just had
to go to a neighborhood bar the night before. And this was by
no means as close as I got to one of my favorite icons, because
my boyfriend is Just. That. Rad. More news at nine. |
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September 15th, Two Thousand Five
- Do we feel for them selflessly --
they, sunken-eyed, windswept and waterlogged,
clinging to roofs, one hand now ever-empty and grasping --
or is it our own pain we put upon on their faces;
our heartache, not sprung from their tragedies, but our own?
Do their drowned domiciles
elicit dread and sorrow because they are
but one more step forward, downward,
from where we barely stand?
Is that unhinged door, bent and rent open
all the more painful to see
because it, like my heart, appears so unsheltered?
Does the breath of the rabid elements
feel all the more cruel, the sound of their bray so brutal,
because the shutters I'd barely held tight for so long
are of late blown away?
* * *
I'd already felt those slow gusts of cold:
frostbitten fingers that crept under the window,
left open a crack for want of warm breeze,
then unable to shut out the chill.
I'd already known
what it is to feel hard force press in,
press and push against the doors, floors
when it merely rattled the chain or
when it battered then shattered my walls;
When it was familiar, when it was faceless,
when it wore the wrong clothes --
when I played the part,
when the part played me.
I'd already known
getting lost in the storm.
I started lost, gifted no compass at birth,
and was pushed and tossed
further into Tartaros, and no Aeolus am I.
I'd already seen the splintered wood;
seen it marred, scarred by bullet holes,
the loose-springed, blood-painted outline on that sodden mattress
of what was lost, and what never would be.
* * *
Some cover themselves with silver crosses;
others with lightning-wielding gods and fathers,
and here I cling, orphan child with swamp-slippery fingers
to this threadbare blanket of security that never was.
I only now discovered how
poorly-constructed this old house was,
and perhaps I worry,
that like everything else, more the sweet than the sour,
all which it inherit, shall dissolve.
I worry that what of mine
I would give to you,
might leave me with less for myself.
I worry that if this substandard shelter is torn down,
I may, in time, find myself refugee,
in need of its worn insulation,
and the soggy pillows of its crumbling plaster.
I worry I will have to race to rebuild it again, without foundation,
bitterness and disappointment my only lumber,
that in my homeless haste, it will only cover my heart
as well as a shallow apology can heal wounds.
I worry that if ever what I have now
is sure to sink, that I, too, will remain tethered
alone, on tiptoe on its rooftop,
water filling my nostrils, as it
and I
sink together.
* * *
We see photos of Hel howling on her knees, half-corpse,
an infant held tight to her breast,
all else stripped and stolen; still she feeds and houses the dead.
We know her -- some from fearful dreams,
others from memory once submerged, now
mercilessly floating, damp and spoiled
amidst the ruined artifacts
that swim away before our swollen eyes.
Anger, grief, loss, the fear
of the cold, of isolation,
of that battering ram or this
pulling, vortexed canyon
are long familiar (though no less frightening).
But this?
This, with all four walls and ceiling blown away,
and I, curled fetal and naked, soaked through my bones,
trying to find a faith I never had
in a thing which neither batters nor swallows whole,
but whose force is unfathomable?
I worry
that I do not understand
how to be weightless in the wind and the water,
that I do not know how to accept this rough magic,
this bedlam rebirth, and bellow:
Blow winds blow and crack your cheeks!
For if they've any faith left
in kin, compassion and charity,
in the ashes of their towers torn by tempest,
then I should have same
in this far gentler storm,
when all I've to lose is best washed away.
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September 14th, Two Thousand Five: I am back home. Sort of.
I arrived back home to an insanely clogged email box, as I rarely
checked it while I was away (without even thinking about it, which
is nothing short of a miracle for this little workaholic). In
the Scarleteen mailbag alone, there were over 8,000 pieces of
mail, mostly spam. There were activist alerts en masse I've only
just started responding to. Yesterday I organized six different folders of backlogged photos
to process for the sites, as well as proofs and such for clients.
I spent two hours scheduling meetings with new photo clients/subjects,
the ACLU, a print buyer, and various other characters. I have
a pile of mail on my desk tall enough for fine use as a stepstool.
I arrived back home and had the charger pin break off in my laptop,
looked for my dead cat for ten minutes before I remembered she
wasn't here anymore, got a call about picking up her ashes a day
later, which I still haven't had the heart to do. Nearly the second
I walked n the door, my nose started running the Boston marathon,
and I got slammed with a huge sinus headache and, thus, the giant
reminder that I have GOT to find a new home for one of my two
remaining cats to whom I have become so dreadfully allergic, I
can't even pet her most days for even a few minutes. I arrived
back home and remembered I left my place in quite a state of disarray.
I arrived back home and discovered I have a big moth problem,
which my favorite hoodie was an unfortunate victim of.
I arrived back home and, my body still stuck on Pacific time,
caught up with as much news as I could, and thanked my lucky stars
I had not followed it while I was away, because I'm much too sensitive
to collective suffering, and between the anger from political
bullshit and the sadness from Katrina and other issues, I got
whacked upside the head with a giant emotional whollop and a huge
helping of helplessness per being able to really do jack about
any of it. Over the next day, it also became clear I had a hefty
dose of the post-vacation blues.
I arrived back home and eventually managed to get to sleep, only
to wake up in the morning in a bed in which I was alone -- something
which has never depressed me or felt empty and which has begun
to and very much did Monday morning, the first morning in ten
or so I didn't wake greeted by a half hour or so of warm embraces
and many kisses. I woke up to the sound of jackhammers and the
discovery that half my building is already vacant. I woke up with
my familiar surroundings feeling awfully unfamiliar and rather
hollow. I woke up, in short, with my home no longer feeling like
home, in all too many respects. Elise and Brandon both came by
on the fly Monday afternoon, Becca and I had our weekly wine-night
last night and Christopher and I grabbed coffee today. I love
all of these people in my life and missed them while away, but
it all felt a little odd, like I was visiting them here at their
home, but not in mine. (And I am trying very hard to fight off
an automatic defensive response of distancing myself from Mark,
of trying to dampen my feelings, because it's so unusual and in
some ways, uncomfortable, for me to have begun feeling like my
life without him right in it is missing something vital. I don't
think I'm doing a very good job, unfortunately. I think some of
it is a matter of expending so much energy, setting up so many
failsafes for NOT having something like this, that to suddenly
have it, however astonishingly wonderful it truly is, is more
than a slightly tricky, sudden adjustment. I've spent so many
years putting interpersonal walls up, being in relationships where
a lot of effort was made to keep people from getting too close
to me, that sometimes it feels as if I've mislaid the tools to
knock those walls down.)
I have a beautiful trip to talk about, many excellent stories
to tell and a gazillion photos to share. But before I do that,
I have 357 other things to do first*, which have got me feeling utterly overwhelmed and not even sure
where to start. I also have got to find a way to shake my mopeyness
and emotional overwhelm off, because it's truly vexing and not
at all helpful when it comes to wanting to get anything at all
done. Becca brought over my CSA share last night, which has all
of the veggies and herbs a wonderful soup would require -- a simple
gift, sure, but fresh, pure food is as good a reminder of simple
gifts I've got as any -- so digging up some beans and starting
a stock would likely be very helpful aromatherapeutic comfort
in the shake-off-the-mopeys dep't. If nothing else, it'll make
the kitchen smell better than it currently does.
- * the list as of today to be done by the end of next week, though
gawd knows how (immediate att'n in red):
- • web gallery proofs for Carol, Robert and Jenny
• create Flickr streams to make selling stock pieces easier and
streamline casual free galleries for the portfolio site and this
one
• edit approx. 300 photos (five folders in top file)
• fill two print orders
• two meetings with new clients
• schedule three shoots for next two weeks
• pay bills (phone, elec/gas, dentist, etc.)
• do research on buying unit here for turnaround sell
• map out ideas for four book proposals/print purchase sub. club/Michfest
workshops w/Cheryl
• create and distribute at least three clear activist actions
re: EC, abortion/contraception rights, general YA activism
• three editorial letters to positive media pieces on YA sex issues
• scrub the shit out of kitchen, bathroom, living room
• unpack
• map out ST and photo expenses to year's end
• finish two pending ST articles/ boards as usual/ideas for weekly consciousness raising & discussion
• get laptop repaired/investigate new laptop purchase by 2006
• investigate soft box purchase + archival printer Chris mentioned
• schedule powwow with agent
• Call Dante: figure which of us is teaching what boxing days when in next 3
mos.
• Thursday: train Molly AM/ ACLU phone mtg. 4PM
• do two-three page ST book promo/resell pages
• start reconfig for SL/contact writers & artists
• make acupuncture appt's
• clear email backlog
• start archiving all 2005 shoots on CDs/create WP template for
new logging of sessions/update releases
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September 1st, Two Thousand Five: I deprived myself of sleep rather seriously last night in the
hopes of being so exhausted at the end of the day today that I'll
fall into bed when the sun has barely gone down, and manage to
wake up on time before dawn tomorrow to catch my plane. Being
an insomniac who, when she does sleep, sleeps like the dead, isn't
so great when it comes to needing to be up at a fixed time. There
aren't enough digits in the world to count the number of mornings
when I worked jobs where I had to be up and out of the house very
early and the first twenty minutes of my day began with a start,
a gasp, and a twenty-minute endless tirade of: "FUUUUUUUCK! FuckfuckfuckfuckfckfuckfuckfuckityfuckfuckFUCK!"
So, I got three and a half hours of sleep. It helped that my passport
-- my only photo ID, and thus, my only way on the plane to see
my sweetheart tomorrow -- went missing, because it got me in enough
of a panic for the hours it took me to find it that I was wired
for sound until nearly 4 this morning. I've also arranged a wake-up
call from Mr. Price AND a dialer service. AND my alarm will be
set. And, per Becca's advice, I will drink several liters of water
before sleep so that if all that noise doesn't wake me, my near-to-bursting
bladder will.
(Told you I needed a vacation.)
Before I shove off , I just wanted to bring your attention to
the note at lower left. Through this month, I will be giving 30% of donations to Scarleteen and subscription dollars from this
site to Katrina relief efforts. Doing so is not only simply what one does, it's also completely
in line with all of the other work I do: this is a massive public
health crisis -- physical and mental -- and this is also an issue
of vital grassroots effort for the most basic human needs there
are. ST donations have been dismal over the last year, but if
they pick up a little, between those and site subscription funds
here, that 30% should end up being at least of a couple hundred
bucks: not a lot when it all comes down to it, but it's what I've
got to work with, and every little bit helps. And as noted below,
though at this point, everyone likely knows where to do it, if
you'd prefer to just donate directly to the Red Cross, or to donate
to them in larger amounts, the place to do that is here. Other organizations to consider supporting, or upping your existing
support to, which contribute during this sort of crisis are Oxfam, or Habitat for Humanity.
This is such a political gimme for our administration: you don't
have a torn citizenship with something like this, you don't need
to grapple with public sentiment divisions or conflicts. Everyone,
en masse, wants as much help to be provided as is humanly possible
in the quickest manner possible. While drumming up all the money
needed to deal with something on this scale is no walk in the
park, responding quickly and compassionately like, you know, a
person who gives a rat's ass about anyone but himself and his
bank account, shouldn't be all that difficult. For a President
or an administration who had not squandered their resources on
religious, capitalist and personal agendas and macho warmongering,
who knew how to give anything but lip service in vapid sound bytes,
who weren't so insanely divorced from their citizenry, who weren't
so classist and racist and just goddamn detached, nobody'd be
stalling or dragging their feet here for a SECOND. Certainly,
no one would be telling troops in states like Minnesota NOT to
allow forces to go help down South, but to remain ready to deploy
to Iraq.
And of course, fessing up to any accountability for HOW bad this
all has gone -- what can't be conveniently blamed on terrorism
or Mama Nature -- ain't never gonna happen. Think Shrub'll address
the fact that we don't have all the National Guard we need because
plenty are too busy making the quality of life worse for Iraqis
under his orders, or that Louisiana had been lobbying for funding
for years fro flood control and voicing environmental concerns
which Bush could give a crap about? Oh, wait! Are those pigs overhead?
Hey, check it out, man! Those four horsemen are delivering pizzas!
We may have massive flooding right now, but it sure isn't because
hell froze over.
(And how DARE that waste of breathable air compare what he's doing in Iraq to what America did in World
War II. Now, comparing it to what, say, Germany did? Maybe. But please:
you have got to be kidding me. Likening himself to Roosevelt?
Just beyond the fricking pale.)
It is really heartening to see discussions spring up from this tragedy about race and poverty; to see growing awareness
of how completely awful this administration is, and not just from
all the usual suspects. It's really heartening to see that growing
awareness -- which can easily turn into depression or feelings
of helplessness -- doesn't appear to be having that effect at
all. Stories of people simply setting up their own relief booths,
of people cross-country offering housing, of even those directly
hit bypassing their shock, grief and overwhelm to help those around
them and such give a girl a lot of hope who often enough, can get
fairly bitter herself about the apathy and grassroots inactivity
of too many people in her nation.
Per usual, Molly calls the appropriate parties to the carpet better than anyone. Cynthia Bogard did it pretty damn well, too. So did Sydney Blumenthal. Really, plenty of people Get It and have all along. If, by some
miracle, the next few months can result in BOTH the majority of
people of this country -- and the planet, if our administration
sodding LETS them -- doing everything they can to do the work
to take care of each other per relief help AND in an increased
awareness of the corrupt, self-absorbed and .. mess that is the
current administration, so help me Gaia, I can actually say that
this hippies-kid-radical-rabblerousing-leftie might just belt
out Gawd Bless America for the first time in her life.
(I do wonder how many times in this country poor black Americans
will have to go through literal hell to illustrate to everyone
else the folly, corruption and intentional blindness of the government,
of gross cultural stereotypes and bigotry. That in no way gets
my spirit up; it leaves my heart incredibly heavy. I wonder what
my father would say. I wish he had even his basic needs met to
have the energy and the resources to do what he's capable of,
what he once did, when it comes to stepping up and shouting out.)
How many readers here, FYI, are heading to DC in September? Sadly, my insides don't fare well on packed bus rides anymore,
so while I'd miss the community of group travel to a protest,
I'll need to look into flying out, but I think I might just be
able to swing the dates and cost this time around, which I unfortunately
could not do for The March for Women's Lives. It's simply so rare
anymore to really see the U.S. get galvanized in antiwar protesting
-- bless Cindy Sheehan, I tell you, what a fantastic woman she
is -- so I hate to pass the opportunity up. We had some great
protests when this started, but they stopped all too swiftly in
most cities. During the first Gulf War, I remember the same thing
happen: every weekend we'd drive up to D.C. the crowds just got
smaller and smaller much too fast. I always wish I had a kid for
things like this: I have such fantastic memories of being wee
and in the middle of energized protests. (Hey, oh cousin o'mine now reading: is time off college for this
a possibility for you?)
...but for now, I've got to energize for something much, much
more challenging and harrowing: my laundry.
Thanks, by the way, to everyone who sent such kind thoughts and
words about Rita. Y'all were a big comfort, and I really appreciate
it. |
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September 1st, Two Thousand Five: I really, really don't want to be perceived as one of those sad
single women whose pets are her life, I don't.
I bond really intensely with animals: pretty much all of them.
Except fish -- we just don't seem to know how to communicate with
one another, and I always kill them on accident -- and birds,
but primarily birds because seeing them in cages makes me want
to cry. I always have. When we were living in our on-the-lam way when
I was wee, one of the few jobs my Dad could get without being
reported was at a pet store: there are pictures of tiny me in
a pile of pet snakes, and we've almost always had pets, even when
we were shite poor. My animal companions have been my lone comfort
during some of the hardest parts of my life, so their lives are
sort of a big deal, and to me -- as may be obvious with some of
the lifestyle choices I make -- they're beings with the same weight
as people.
So, I'm sorry to post pathetic stuff up here -- and really, very
sad stuff -- about pets, but I have to write and get this out
of my system, out into the aether.
Thankfully, Elise and Sofia came with me to the appointment to put Rita down. I
can default to being a big stoic about handling this stuff on
my own a lot, but Elise had offered, and I caved and said yes,
and I'm very glad I did.
Sunday night, I had Rita sleep with me. It's clich?, fine, but
Mark and I have a big deal about how very much we like to just
sleep together when for both of us, even with partners we've liked
a lot in our lives, we're generally the sort that'd sleep far
better alone. So, this sleeping BETTER together thing has been
wacky. Part of that is just how nicely I fit in the crook of his
arm -- again, fine, possibly everyone in love thinks they have
THE perfect fit in these little spots, but whatever. Rita actually
fit perfectly in mine: she slept there religiously for at least
the first half of her life. The older she got, the less she did
that, both because of her joints and preferences and my allergies.
Sunday evening, I took her out of the litterbox she's been living
in (I know, gross -- but she's been sick, I wasn't going to fight
her on her choices), wiped her down a little, brushed her off,
and took the time to get her comfortable in my armpit, which took
some doing, since her joints have clearly been very painful and
tender anymore. She kept waking me up several times during the
night, placing her big, extra-toed paw on my cheek and just looking
at me with her half-blind eyes. Elise says she perceives this
sort of thing as the way cats say goodbye and tell you they know
what's up and that it's okay: I hope she's right.
Because, sweet jesus, every time she did that I'd just start weeping.
The last couple of years she'd been on a considerable decline,
sometimes to a really scary degree, but every now and then she'd
have a few good days. So, when she did anything like that, when
she perked up, I'd think maybe she was going to get better. It
just kept making me wonder if I was doing the right thing by her;
making me terrified I wasn't.
Monday, I spent considerable time with her, made her the yucky
meals she likes but which make me gag. I couldn't find the kitty
brush anywhere in the last couple hours, and had this completely
ridiculous weepy meltdown about it, yelling out loud that I NEEDED TO FIND THE DAMN CAT BRUSH (these are the times I'm glad I live alone), as if the world would
end if she went to the vet unbrushed to go die. It just seemed
such an insult to her dignity to have her go looking so yucky,
so I ended up using my own hairbrush on her. While I did, I sat
with her and tried to tell her everything I could think of, even
though she's deaf and can't hear me. I told her some stories about
us and about her. Like how, when she was small, having been found
as an abandoned stay in the frigid winter, if you took her outside,
she'd stiffen her legs and arms and become PetrifiedKitty until
you took her back inside and how funny she looked; about the AWFUL
time she literally climbed out on a three-story window some moron
I slept with had opened the screen on and fell and about how my
whole world stopped until Is saw her catch herself literally eight
inches from the ground on a small pipe and how amazingly agile
that was. I reminded her that there was one person in my life
who'd died I thought she might have been once, and thanked her,
if I happened to be right, for finding me again. I thanked her
for finding me in the first place: again, no other being in my
life has stuck it out as long with me as this cat. I told her
I loved her 365 times, ad that if she wanted to come back and
find me again, I'd always take her in. I watched the clock feeling
really dreadful.
When Elise came over, she sat with Rita a bit and let me know
that had I said I was going to reconsider she would have begged
me not to, that Rita had all the signs of Done on her. That was
a big comfort. We put her in the carrier with none of her usual
struggle: she was really very calm. I then grabbed Sofia -- she
had a vet app't too -- and set off.
The receptionist was nice, but I was wishing she'd stop whispering
about what I was having done with Rita, as if it were some sort
of secret. When the vet called us in -- and I'd asked to have
Sofi's stuff taken care of first -- I was surprised to see it
was the other vet in the practice; not our usual vet, who I really
love, and who was WONDERFUL when I had to put Rosie down. We all
went in the office, and Sofia, who is usually a giant, wriggly
spaz at the vet -- as in, it once took FOUR people to hold this
little dog down just to get her nails clipped -- seemed to know
it was the day to step up. She was nearly ZenPuppy, even when
getting her blood drawn, and only got crazy when her very last
paw was being trimmed. She was such a good dog to me. (I love
my dog, man.)
The whole time, Rita was sitting in the carrier in Elise's lap,
still as anything: no freaking out, no nothing. For some bizarre
reason, this vet felt the need to bring up my files and mention
my last dying cat, Rosie, who I had to put down due to sudden
renal failure a few years back. I am not sure why bringing that
memory up was at all necessary.
Here comes the rough stuff.
When Sofi was done with her exam, I had Elise take her out, so
I could do this with Rita alone. She came unto the exam table
again, really calmly, nuzzling me. But this vet wouldn't let me
hold her as they gave her the injection. It suddenly struck me
that he seemed to be in some sort of hurry. The vet tech (who
was lovely actually), was holding her down, and I was kneeling
by the table stroking her head, telling her it was all okay, but
then the vet pressed her down more than a little aggressively
on the hard table, which caused her to howl out, probably because
of her awful, old joints and because of the weird vibe of it all.
When he then took the needle out, JUST as it was about to come
into contact with her leg, my cat had a heart attack and screamed
in what I assumed to be shock and pain as that happened and then
as the needle went in.
It was insanely awful. I wanted this to be a peaceful end for
her, and she'd been so mellow all day and right up to that point,
and then she howled her way into death, eyes wide, looking horrified.
I felt like a fucking monster, and burst into sobs myself. The
vet checked her heart and then left us: thankfully, her eyes did
fall closed, and I told her again and again how sorry I was, how
much I loved her, and how, should she choose to come back, I wanted
her to choose a beautiful place and a beautiful new life, but
oh god. It was so not nice. All I can hope is that it looked worse
than it was for her, and that my own feelings tempered how I saw
her experience it.
Euthanasia is so tricky. You know, one of my cousins, who is around
15 now, has had a brain tumor for some time, has apparently been
begging her mother, my aunt, to let her die. My aunt -- by marriage
-- is someone in my family I really like. She's been a great mother
to her BIG hoarde of kids, even though she and my uncle are poor
and have to work their buns off, and she's just such a goodhearted
woman. She's a born-again Christian, big-time, but manages to
even share that with aplomb. Now and then, she's got to share
a given Biblical passage in discussing something, but she'll say
it, then be ready, open and able to have anyone else say anything
else: she's also incredibly open to other ideas. She's good people:
one of the few in that family who I can say I never recall as
giving me a hard time or enabling/approving abusive stuff in my
life in any way. My terminally ill cousin is the youngest of her
children, the last to leave home. She is really confident she
can pray her better: whatever I or anyone else may or may not
think of that is pretty irrelevant. There's some mutterings in
my family about what the right thing is to do, but you know, I'm
not sure anyone can say that for her, nor say what they'd be capable
of if it was their young daughter dying, looking misshapen, not
having had a big life yet. Hell, if any of us has a hard time
doing this for our PETS....well, I honestly can't imagine where
she's at or what my aunt faces per the decisions that are hers
to make in this. I know one can't help but think of scenarios
in which, for instance, the person begging to be let die changes
their mind at the last minute, what have you. I'm scared for my
aunt, even though I only see her every few years: it strikes me
that she's set up to both lose her child and her faith, and those
would be two incredible losses. And I can't, in a million years,
see how any of her choices could be judged by anyone else.
I really hope, that should I ever be in such a state that living
holds no more quality for me and I can't let go on my own, that
I am helped along by someone who cares for me enough to put me
out of my misery. But lordisa, I'd be able to forgive anyone who
loved me and couldn't bring themselves to that: it's just so damn
hard.
I also really hope I don't have to put another animal down again
any time soon.
* * *
Life isn't all sad. My cat was a great cat, but dwelling too much
on that -- especially with states full of people rendered the
worst sort of homeless overnight and likely to remain so for an
ungodly amount of time -- just seems self-absorbed and small.
The night before last, I met my friend Al -- you know, one can
never have enough of old school butches, for the record, even
as platonic friends -- at my local Tuesday night haunt down the
street. The perfectly chosen wines are always 1/2 off in bottles,
and they are willing to alter nearly any of their amazing regional
Italian meals to suit my dietary needs. A bit later on, Elise
and Juan showed up with Carol and Robert, who were in town visiting,
and who I hadn't seen in about five years. This ended up resulting
in a LOT of wine. A lot of wine. A lot.
Enough that I allowed myself to be dragged back to Elise's Queendom
after stopping by my show with the motley crew, which resulted
in seriously silly BPAL sniffing, which may just make one high.
(It also resulted in my falling truly, madly and deeply in love
with Villain and Geek, both of which want to make me have sex
with myself, which is always a good thing: I'm coming to realize
that when it comes to BPAL, the scents which work on me either have to be hyper-masculine
or very dark and hyper-feminine. Anything in between just seems
to go ishy with my chemistry.) The mad giggling which wafted from
the room could easily have been mistaken for two preteen girls
being terribly naughty.
This resulted in the NEXT day being packed to the gills with photo
work. I had a model in the morning (who lucked out and got lovely
light, albeit a bit scarcer than I'd like), and then Elise, Carol and Robert came by when I was done with bags and bags full of crazy Elisian
mischief, which resulted in a series of INSANELY silly shots.
Go figure, Robert and Carol got crap light: I had to use an extra
halogen, and I hateithateitHATEit when I need to add artificial light. Bugger all: here's hoping
next time we all keep company with my camera, I actually get real
light so I can do my best work. But there are some perfectly ludicrous
gems in there, and it was fantastic to see them again, and have
a nice reminder that I am not the only dedicated sex activist
in the world with my brand of ethics and approach.
Last night, after a fine delivery of new, long, warm stripey socks
-- which always does one's mood good, if you ask me -- I spent
some time with my neighbor downstairs who is watching Sofia and
the cats this time. Sofia even gets her own boyfriend, a little
black pug named Elvis, who has been vying for her attention for
two years now, so his day is made. After several other phone calls
from the boi (see below), I was put to sleep very late with one
last phone call, in which, when I asked for a bedtime story, we
ended up collectively creating a tale in which there was me, arriving
in Seattle, then lots and lots of sex and kissing, and then planes
overhead dropping gumdrops and a million baby pugs (wearing mismatched
stripey socks themselves), floating down in little parachutes
whilst nibbling on cherry tomatoes, with Sofia on the ground acting
as traffic comptroller with those red-stick-wavie-whatchamahoozits.
(In case you wondered whose romance this was, moments like these
should provide clarity.)
Tonight I'm hopping over to the always-hysterical State fair with
Becca, then tomorrow I clean and pack like a crazy little beastie,
and do everything in my power to get to bed seriously early so
that I don't sleep through my flight in the morning. I suppose
if it starts looking like sleep isn't going to happen, I can just
make myself stay up all night and make up for the loss on the
plane and then Saturday night.
* * *
My boyfriend, FYI, was NOT a Robyn-fan before me. I feel the need
to say this, you know, just for the record. That said, my boyfriend
has not only seen him all up close and personal in these teeny
little private spaces twice now, he's talked to him once. (Then
again, because my boyfriend ROCKS THE WORLD, so have I.)
Which neither of us did last night when he went to an art show
from the love of Robyn's life. However, I got yet another mini-concert
broadcast to me via cell phone. Ah, my boyfriend luuuuuuurves me.
And I get to see him -- my boyfriend, not Robyn Hitchcock, is
a mere two days (more precisely, 45 hours from now, and let's
not talk about the 7AM flight out, shall we?). I get to see ROBYN
in a mere 8 days. Damn the luck, he's got a last-minute-announced
gig in Seattle the night BEFORE I get there. However, he's got
one in Portland on the 8th, and my swell fella will be abandoning
sleep on a school night for a reason other than staying up all
night having sex with me, for a change. Because, again, the man
fucking well rocks.
I am choosing, for a change, to view this trip as a full-on vacation,
because I direly need one: I think I've underestimated the stresses
I've had on my plate for the last few months. Saturday is a schtuppapalooza
(I even get in early enough for us to have The Morning Sex, of
which we are ardent fans), punctuated by bouts of hot water, the
occasional sustenance, and possibly a show at night. Sunday we
head up to Vancouver to Lush-indulge, see Lauren and Emira, and are then off to a super-secret evening on the coast where,
thanks to not having to pay plane fare due to an accumulation
of miles, I was able to secure an incredibly swill B&B for the
night. Monday, we tool around on the beach, then likely pop back
to Bumbershoot at night because Flogging Molly are playing (unfortunately,
so are the Be Good Tanyas and the Decemberists, but too early
not to cut our beachy-break short). Tuesday I'm going to see if
I can't hook up some massage work to fix the right side of my
back which has been bugging me for two weeks now, then it's dinner-making
for Ross and Caroline. Wednesday, I'm up north for two days to
see Jane & Co, then Thursday night, to Portland we go. Friday, I'm off on the
ferry to hang out on Cheryl's land, then to make dinner with more friends again. Saturday and
Sunday we plan to toodle around the city, have lots of sex, eat
now and then, and Sunday afternoon, it's back on a plane with
me.
And so, off go I, to midwestern surrealism, to email and laundry
and cleaning and packing and such, to finishing a few spots of
work, to greeting the FedEx guy toting my plane woo, to get a
pile of last good miles in on my bike before I go, to sleep (perchance,
to dream of flying pugs and boyfriend-kisses), and back to the
west coast where the really good stuff waits for me, and we may
make people at the airport wish there were a vomitorium next to
the loo.
* * *
(On a less bright note, can I just say that the endless, endless
incest spam of late is seriously more than I can take? I am NOT
a supersensitive triggery-girl when it comes to abuse stuff, but
the onslaught of late has actually pushed me nearly into some
really bad spaces. Yes: spam is spam is spam, and we all have
to field it, but when you run several big websites for many years,
you get EXPONENTIAL spam, and my psyche has had far more than
enough of opening my email to lines like "Daughters fucked by
Dad!" Sometimes, you know, people really fucking suck. I desperately
need to think of an effective guerilla, yet nonviolent response
to this shit. Sadly, a violent response might actually be effective
(and this MAY be triggering, but I feel the need to make a point
-- do understand these comments are only made to do so, not because
they reflect my feelings in any way): I have a funny feeling that if men were finding their inboxes
chock-sodding-full of email that said abusive things like "Watch
women you adore treat you like total garbage and call you a big
loser just like in high school!" or "See these cute girls hack
your balls off and laugh at your small penis!" or "Get raped in
the locker room by your boss!" or "Saucy wives cheat with hairy
bulldaggers who make more money, give better head, and your ladies
don't have to fake it with like they are with you!" an end might
be called to it fairly swiftly, even though all of that stuff
isn't even as verbally abusive as most of the misogynist crap
that stuffs our inboxes daily. Not my personal style, and abusive
language yucks me out no matter WHAT sex it's lobbed at, just
sayin.'
The other sad thing is that with stuff like this, to even try
and think of anything you might be able to do to counter it, you
have to throw your lot in with the right-wing anti-porn lot. And
that's bloody nuts to me: why the hell is it that one can't --
still from a position of sex-positivity and freedom of expression
-- not have sexual violence hurled at them in every litle nook
and cranny against their will, or have to accept that in order
to support sexual expression? I should not have to be reminded
of abuses to myself or others, be triggered all the time, to support
healthy sexual expression. That's just absolute bullshit. I shouldn't
even have to feel in any way obliged to say this crap is in any
way okay to still be able to say I support free sexual expression.)
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August 27th, Two Thousand Five: Even amidst some chaos and uncertainty, amidst maddening things
going on in politics -- like this -- or in daily life -- like having to pay $130 to replace the
stolen back wheel of my bike and to buy extra cable for when I
have to lock it outside to keep more parts of my transport from
being stolen -- for the most part, I am still just trying to figure
out what the hell to do with all this happy.
I've been trying very, very hard of late to contain my gushing
about The Great Romance, both here at the journal and with my
in-person and long-distance friends. It's seriously difficult.
(Here's where the love-mush starts)
Why? Because I really, really don't want to contain myself. I
have never, ever had anything even remotely like this in my life;
I didn't even think stuff like this existed. If it did, I sure
didn't think it was something I'd ever have. I've not experienced, for instance, something starting
out so immediately and strongly, being all twitterpatted and getting
MORE twitterpatted as time went by. The other night, as I was
cooking dinner, for example, I was thinking about how much fun
Mark and I have cooking together -- how lovely it is he enjoys
that like I do, how groovy it is to stop stirring and have a mini-tango
and a kiss before stirring the pot some more. THAT led me to thinking
about how cool it is we're both bathing and water freaks. That
led to me thinking about how excellent our adventures are, how
fabulous it is to have someone as spontaneous and active as I
am in my life; someone as open to new experiences. THAT led me
to thinking about how fun it is to spoil the boy with surprises
and travels. THAT led me to thinking about how perfectly we travel
together, and how my usual travel-phobias don't seem to come into
play when we're in the air or on the road. This kept up for quite
some time -- interspersed, per usual, with barely-related tangential
thoughts about ungodly incredible sex -- until I became utterly
overwhelmed with the neverending pile of good stuff and happy
and had to do a happydance, sing a loud little song and send a
squishy note.
I've not experienced any sort of romantic love without heapin'
helpings of doubt before. I've never been so un-scared about a
relationship in my life, even when it comes to making plans and
decisions that'd normally send me into anaphylactic shock. I've
never felt so unilaterally accepted by someone else -- even when
they differ from me, and have no reticence to BE different --
and so earnestly celebrated at the same time.
The thing is, in case I haven't just come out and said it here,
I'm finding I have to accept the idea people have posed that there
is this one person out there in the world who is perfect for you,
as you are, to be with you in all respects, not simply to teach
you things and move on or vice-versa, and not just to make you
happy or give you what you want at a given time. Actually, let
me restate that: I kind of don't accept that, still. I'm pretty
sure there is more than one, but I sure don't think there are
more than a handful, and I think even meeting one is about the
rarest thing in the world. I'm having to accept some form of that
idea because this simply is something like that and that's just
that. I'm having to accept this because in my heart of hearts
I know I found the other person with whom and to whom I very clearly
belong.
(On our second "date," as it were, when Mark came here to be my
birthday present, when I made him the first airplane-woo package,
I enclosed a sheet to fill out with five wishes on it for him
to make. One of the wishes he made ended by asking me to consider
-- and understand that my beloved is a very cynical man, and was
all the more so before this time -- that we were made for each
other. So, I did consider it: had he not opened the door for me
to do that, I may have considered it anyway in time, my own cynicism
or jadedness notwithstanding, but I certainly wouldn't have considered
it then, and would have done so very furtively later had nothing
been said. I'm very, very glad he made that wish: it was a bold,
brave stroke on his part, and as it turns out, right on the mark.
As it were.)
One of the things that is outrageous to me about this is that
within about, oh, ten seconds of meeting, Mr. Price and I very
strongly and very energetically connected. I have experienced
immediate connections like that before, but not that resulted
in all THIS, and not where you find out over time -- as a surprise
-- that in every essential way, you are simpatico. We seem to
feel and demonstrate affection with the exact same sort of energy
and ebullience. Our intellectual minds operate incredibly similarly.
Our sexual energy is eerily harmonious. Our core values align,
even though they are not identical. We communicate so easily,
it's completely surreal (and that's especially surreal for me,
because the way I communicate and evaluate and demonstrate has
often been a big obstacle in most of my relationships, romantic
and otherwise). We have as little filter. We problem-solve similarly.
We are both driven and creative and artistic and outspoken and
silly and intense and.... and see, this is how I get.
I'm just so earnestly overwhelmed and still utterly surprised.
I'm not even waiting for the axe to fall or the other shoe to
drop anymore because -- and sure, I could be completely delusional,
but that's always a given -- I simply do not feel, in my bones,
that there is either shoe or axe anywhere in this. How completely
strange that is.
But what is REALLY strange, is how incredibly loved I FEEL. It's
been typical for me to be able to care for and love others and
very actively express and enable those feelings: in fact, by virtue
of what I choose to do with my life, it's pretty obvious, one'd
hope, I have an incredibly big heart and am in no way stingy with
my love and my compassion. (And if we want to address the ways
in which that can skate into dysfunction, we may as well acknowledge
that at least part of the reason I'm so philanthropic, so proactive,
so tireless in a lot of the work I do, the love I give people
in my life, is because I think I owe it to the world to be so
because I am not fully worthy of same: ah, the lovely results
of some of my upbringing.) However, because of my background and
history, it's pretty safe to say a big problem of mine has been
able to feel the love of others back. Now, to cut myself a break,
some of why is because it often either hasn't really been there,
it's been tacked on to some pretty heavy agendas, or the people
loving me were really wounded or unbalanced and that love was
based in need, desperation, entitlement or ownership more than
anything else. But there have been agenda-less folks in my life
who have loved me a lot, and for whatever reason, I just had a
very hard time feeling that love; having it seep through my skin
and into my heart, or believing it was really there. In fact,
it's safe to say that the common denominator in the relationships
or at the times where it's me who's been the dysfunctional git
are at those times: when good stuff was coming my way, but I just
couldn't feel it or let myself feel it, and any additional challenges
or conflicts made my inability to accept love even worse.
Yet: I can really feel the full force of this, and I have no idea
why. Mind you, Mark is demonstrative as hell with me. So, some
of why is that I'd have to be unconscious NOT to. But I think
some of the difference is in that I feel very loved JUST for being
me: not for the things I do for him, not because I demonstrate
the liked parts of me, and do my best to suppress the other parts,
or because the good/desired parts make up for them just enough.
In fact, I've been experiencing (on both sides) this fascinating
sort of love for the less desirable, or less harmonious, bits
that I'm completely unaccustomed to.
Put all that in with all the things I'm feeling for HIM, and whoo doggie. It's intense. And awfully hard to shut up about, still, even
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