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September 24th, Two Thousand Four: The theme of this week appears to be how completely tuned out
I've gotten to be -- in the good way. It's funny how at a certain
point, it's hard to see how far you stand outside cultural norms,
"average" American life, because the further out you get the easier
it is to just forget a lot of it exists in any real way.
I'd hit upon some of this earlier this week, but it was punctuated
by the people at the gig I wrote the sample chapters for. They
asked me if I'd do a slight revision and add some extra character
development, make the lead characters more compelling, and suggested
I just add details and conversations from my own life.
Mind you, I'd already explained way back when when I was asked
to do this last May (and couldn't, because of my book and The
Girl being in the hospital with the Black Plague), that this plot
was going to be a bit of a stretch for me because the characters
are all a) very white, b) very middle-class, c) very corporate,
d) very heterosexual, e) very mainstream and f) the main action
of the book is the first time in all of their lives anything remotely
outside the norm has gone on with them, even though they're in
their late twenties. I've already asked the exactly one friend
I have who works in a corporate environment if, should I get this
gig full-stop, I can come with her to work for a couple of days
so I can have ANY idea about what goes on in a corporate environment.
So, I'm asked this week to do this edit, to add my life and conversations
to this, and I have to explain, as delicately as possible, that
I don't see that working out very well at all, because visiting
the environment of this plot and its denizens is, for me, not
like going next door. It is a trip to the aboriginal outback.
I wasn't sure it was possible to explain that suggesting this
to me was perhaps a bit like suggesting that someone who grew
up, lives in and has very rarely left rural Thailand breathe glowing
life into the iron lung of American mall culture.
The editor tells me, then, to just think of things from television.
I decide to skip telling her that I grew up largely without TV
and that Buffy was really the only TV I ever watched, most of which I saw on
DVD anyway. (Though Becca did turn me on to Freaks & Geeks when I was asking for resource list suggestions for good teen
media for the book, and it seriously rocks.)
Ugh. We'll see if I can pull it off. It'd really be nice, silly
as it is. And hey, then I'd have a Real Day Job for a while so
I could at least share that point of reference with the characters.
A little while back, there was a discussion on the Scarleteen
boards among the users and some volunteers about gendered clothing,
and to those who said they didn't like it, I suggested then that
they say to hell with it and opt out. I was then asked how one
did that, and it gave me a good deal of pause, because the pat
answer on my lips was "The same way you opt out of anything/everything
else." Yet I knew most opted out of very little, if anything.
I've come to realize opting out seems as simple as it does to
me because there's so much I never opted into, and because I'm
so tuned out to so much of the stuff most of the world is tuned
into that it often IS easy, because I'm used to it. Even when
it isn't easy, doing so just seems to really beat the alternative:
I can't imagine living in the world so many people seem to live
in. I don't feel like I have a place there: I'm not sure many
people do. I've had some frustrating days this week, but overall,
it's been one of those with many pauses where I realize that I
really love the life that I live.
I like that my workday starts by simply washing my face, pulling
my hair back, tossing on some jammies and starting t type while
I have my first cup of coffee. I like that my day doesn't have
a very segmented beginning and end; that what is Work and what
is Life are completely intertwined. I really appreciate that I
can work for a few hours, then take my dog for a walk, meditate,
go box or grab a bike ride, work for a few more, then grab a long
bath, watch a movie or catch up with a friend before working for
a few more. I like that I can choose whatever "days off" I want,
and that should cleaning my kitchen seem more important on a given
day, I can do that. I like that there is a lot of barter in my
finances.
There are no highways, no traffic jams, no time spent sitting
in a car with the asses of a million SUVs in my face. There really
aren't office politics, save issues with my volunteers, but I'm
distanced from that. The closest thing to actual office politics
I have going on around here is when the dog decides to start chasing
the cats. I love that I live and work in the exact same community,
that I know all the little old ladies who take afternoon walks,
and that if I want a change of scenery, I can just pop down the
block to the coffeehouse where they know exactly what I want and
need to work there. I haven't needed an umbrella in years because
it's completely okay for my hair to get fucked up or my clothes
damp in the middle of my workday. I love that I don't have to
rush eating or preparing food, that when I do need to commute
for a gig it means a walk, a bike or a bus ride. I'm elated that
fast food restaurants, frozen meals, support hose, hairspray,
road rage, talk shows, cubicles, credit cards, cell phones and
rushrushrushing while maniacally looking at a watch face have
no place in Heatherville. I love that friends of mine stop by
for coffee here. I love that I get to decide on a given day if
it's a day for writing or editing or photography or promotion
or coding or imagining something else entirely. I like that I
can sleep in on a Tuesday, but start work at 6 AM on a Sunday.
It's fantastic that I can dress however I want to, to the point
that my neighbors know pajama Heather and boxing Heather and yardwork
Heather and Fuck-a-Bath-Today-Stinky Heather and beach bum Heather
and going-out Heather and rarely blink. It's beyond fabulous that
I do not have to listen to people talk all damn day about their
diets or their spreading asses or some other woman's sex life
cattily; that much of what I'm exposed to I not only choose, but
it's of substance and it doesn't make me feel bad about myself.
I love that I get to decide what sort of environment I want to
be in at any given time.
I love that I often not only have no idea what time it is, save
where the sun is at, and that I often don't need to. My days are
stretchy rather than choppy. It's cool.
I love how I've managed to design my days, my life into something
that most of the time, is tailored expressly to my needs, my skills,
my patterns, my passions and causes. I love that I have one of
the most varied and unusual assortments of people in my life of
anyone I know, and I don't even mind being a lot of people's token
eccentric friend. I even love that I've got one of the toughest
bosses in the world, who just happens to be me. I'm feeling a
little sick today, and while telling her that isn't the best thing
ever, there's no added stress about calling in sick, what that
will mean, losing pay (thus, an upside to often not getting any:
ain't any to lose), what have you.
I very much like that the sort of scenario in this writing gig
IS as foreign as it is to me.
All of that isn't to say there aren't downsides, because they
are. I have horrible house envy right now, for instance. I want
my own house so bad it even hurts sometimes. It'd be nice to be
able to go on a trip only to take a vacation, not for work (though
I can often finagle work trips into vacations --turns out that
after photographing Audra's wedding in a couple weeks in Toronto,
I'm skipping over to Montreal to see Seska and James, who I miss
something fierce). Health insurance would be truly special. Not
needing to call on friends when the only way to get somewhere
is by car would be cool. Some semblance of financial security
-- heck, a paycheck -- would be ducky. Being able to really help
my father would be wonderful. And I can get negative about all
of these sorts of things sometimes, feel low that I haven't achieved
all the things I want to yet, that things aren't often working
as I'd wish, that it often feels like such a struggle to glean
so little, and others seem not to have to struggle so much to
end up with a lot more.
But then I look at all the stuff I've rattled off above and see
how much it is. I remind myself that I just don't believe that
it has to be an either/or; that I CAN tune out to this degree
and still figure out ways to get by, to have at least some of
the things I need and want, and that's as good as it gets for
anyone, really, which isn't bad at all. I remind myself that I
need to find ways to make my admittedly unusual (though it seems
strange to call it that, because it's most other people's lives
which seem unusual to me) life mesh harmoniously with the other
lives around and within mine; to be able to protect and defend
my way of living while still honoring everyone else's the right
way.
Next week, I have two photo sessions booked, which mean that for
that one week, I will actually have the right amount of paying
work I should in a week, doing things just as I want to, without
compromising or having to opt into things I don't want to. One
of those jobs found me, I cultivated the other very directly.
Ideally, that'd happen every week, and you know, someday it just
might. But that it's happening for even one week -- one week in
which I can still start my day working in my jammies and looking
out my window, take a bath instead of taking a lunch, ride my
bike when the sun is out and let all the old ladies play with
my dog -- is pretty darn swell. |
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September 21st, Two Thousand Four: So, The Girl and I started the two-week break I asked for Sunday:
no seeing one another, no phone calls. I can only hope I’m making
a good choice here and that it has the effect I’m looking for
without too many unpleasant side effects.
For me, the break is mostly to get back on track. The bonus of
my personal brand of ADD is that it allows me to be hyper-focused
for ungodly lengths of time. The downside is that if I’m not all
the way in that, I’m very, very easily distractible and getting
there is hard as hell. So, a lot of what’s happened over the past
few months is that every time she calls or comes here in depression
or crisis, which became the norm, I can’t get my own stuff together
for a day or two after. So, my not getting my own shit together
has also become the norm, which is a real problem when you’re
self-employed.
It’s also a problem for my own emotional equilibrium. All the
little rituals that are a part of my life go a very long way in
terms of keeping me feeling good and focused, even when a lot
of things suck. I make myself a nice dinner pretty much every
night: when I’m too tried to do that, going out or ordering in
not only costs me more, it takes the peace that cooking gives
me away. If I start spending more time inside to appease someone
else, the time I lose being outside makes me feel funky and claustrophobic.
I tend to forget to take days off as it is, but when I end up
not taking them at all, because when I try they mean nursing someone
else or finding something to do to calm them, not me, it’s really
not good, especially when my days on aren’t focused.
Mostly, the point of the break is for her to learn some coping
mechanisms, to get started on some of the lifestyle stuff I know
will help her, but in 14 years of depression, she’s never really
had a handle on. I can’t nag about it anymore: I just need it
because she needs it. I need her (and me) to think about ways
that I can still be part of her support system without being the
whole system and without being support for depression and crisis
be all I do with her.
She asked me Sunday morning what I was going to do with the couple
of weeks, and the short answer is that I want to get my normal
life back. I need to get back into my little routines that keep
getting shoved aside, and I have hella work to catch up on, get
started, seek out, errands that kept getting pushed back, little
stuff that’s such a big pile now it’s all big stuff. Generally,
I'm a pretty happy person, even in times of Big Yuck, but I've
felt like I've had to fight way too hard lately for my right to
be so. That's got to change. My list for myself is as follows:
- At least once a week:
- try one new recipe
- take Sofi on an exceptionally long walk
- spend a few hours outside taking candid photos for no other reason
than to take them
- work on one poem or piece of written work that has no need to
be published
- take one full -- no, really, FULL -- day off
- visit sangha or have sitting session alone that’s longer than
fifteen minutes (I could also stand to set up a new space to sit,
for that matter)
- take one very long bath
- spend time with the plants
-
- Daily:
- drink more water (seems obvious, but I’m always horrible about
it and I’m feeling it)
- clean something up
- sit
- bike as much as possible while it’s still nice out
- get back on normal sleep schedule
-
- Over the next couple weeks:
- look into indie health insurance or file for MNCare;also renters
insurance
- find support group for partners of depressives
- reassess relationship needs & limits
- take care of update backlogs, expired links, etc. on sites
- touch base with editors who have queried about freelance
- create photography ad for queer paper (worry about cost of placing
the ad later)
- order needed lighting equipment (remember that its cost will be
made up for in the next three months with the clients currently
scheduled, so stop freaking out about it)
- order more bags and backing boards for prints
- do three days of raw foods only
- refill vitamins I’ve run out of
- scrub the holy hell out of the kitchen and bedroom
- talk to studio again re: kids kickboxing class, be pushy about
former teaching credentials
- start working on small extras for the book due by winter
email Elise re: foreword contact
- get a couple photoshoots in (thus, the heightened importance of
ordering the equipment)
- call Mom, Dad,
Maria, Roxane, Joan
- make version of portfolio site for people using old, tiny monitor
resolution (grrrr)
- throw away awful ratty blue chair cats have destroyed
- make vet appointments for Sofia and Flora
- call about Goodwill pickup
- call Sy about styling photo client on the 28th
- more yoga, limit boxing sessions to 2x week
- clean out file cabinets: box up all old papers and forms from
running the school ten years ago that are still in there - accept
that leaving them in the cabinet doesn't let me keep something
that's long gone
- do new fundraising and activism statement/call for Scarleteen
So far, so good. I woke up earlier this morning than I have in
weeks. I drank five glasses of water yesterday, and took Sofi
out on a nice, long walk. Becca and I went out Sunday afternoon
and I got some new plants, since the water here had killed most
of my old ones. I also got a filter for the faucet to fix the
water problem, hopefully. I did a shoot yesterday, but sadly,
only a few photos came out due to light and equipment issues (so,
an update is en route, but it’ll be a mix of a couple shorter
shoots). I got started on the new statement to push fundraising
at Scarleteen this morning (and made the mistake of looking at
net donations from this year, which put me in a not-very-good
mood, unfortunately. At least I knew better this time when I did
that: last time I went around comparing our donations to what
people had given to women asking for money for breast implants
and credit card debt and I became nearly homicidal). Got some
emails out. I have a phone conference this afternoon with the
folks I did those sample chapters for, which may mean I might
actually get a paying gig soon (think good thoughts, please).
There’s a lot more little stuff I could write about today, like
my ill-fated choice to ride a horrifying 28-story-drop ride at
the amusement park Saturday, thus learning that my stomach has
no place being in my ear, or about how my day yesterday was full
of so many frustrations I would have given an eye to be someone
else just for a day but what I really should do is hop to things
on that list, starting with some photo editing and coding.
And drinking a glass of water.
(On a tangent, I’ll be very interested to see if Swaggart has
to pay for this the way Janet Jackson had to pay for her wayward boobie. And
oh-so-surprised if he doesn’t, because as we all know, boobies
are indecent, hate speech and death threats are as harmless and
American as apple fucking pie.) |
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September 17th, Two Thousand Four: It's always something.
1.) The Naked Lady Party went decently, save that almost everyone
invited canceled, making my cooking and ordering food and wine
for all of them a pretty fruitless endeavor.
2.) The nearly all-night discussion with The Girl did not exactly
go well in my book.
3.) I woke up this morning to discover that Flora, my calico,
was suddenly shedding giant clumps of hair and had little white
flakes all over her coat. At 12, she still acts like a kitten
and her behaviour was otherwise totally normal: while shedding
off all of her fur, she was happily playing with the carpet corner.
After talking to a friend of mine who should really be a vet (thanks,
Priscilla), I gave her a bath. Rather, I tried to give her a bath.
I ended up having to give her a forced scrubbing on the bathroom
floor, flooding it to try and rinse her off. She is very unhappy
with me, my arms look like I walked through a bramble bush, and
I'm worried sick.
4.) My finger really fucking hurts.
5.) For whatever reason, for the last few days, at a volume rising
so quickly that between the hours of ten and eleven this morning,
I got eight calls, every kind of solicitor that exists has decided
to spend all day calling me. I am so incredibly frustrated with
this, and trying to get any kind of work done with this going
on, that I even turned down the golden opportunity this morning,
via phone solicitation, to receive a free vacation to Branson,
Missouri.
6.) I had to issue the following notice to the tenants of the
building today after yet another incredibly disgusting venture
to the dumpsters yesterday, and an attempt to pull weeds from
the ground, getting two shoes full of dog shit.
A Tenant’s Dictionary
Dumpster (noun, from the Middle English dumpen, to fall suddenly or drop): Dumpsters are large green bins in
the back of the building, designed to contain refuse. Your garbage
goes in them. Yes, them, plural. There are now TWO of these large green bins whose use
is apparently mysterious to some, because garbage kept being found
around and outside the dumpsters, rather than within them. We
assumed this was an issue of a lack of space, rather than blindness
or a lack of care, and thus, ordered an extra dumpster.
Garbage men make a lot of money to pick up garbage, because picking
up other people's refuse is supremely grotesque, and there would
be no other way to convince them to do this nasty job. Building
caretakers do not make a lot of money to pick up garbage, but
when tenants do not put the garbage in the large bins, they have
to pick up the vile stuff anyway. Ultimately, this should not
continue to happen when neither of the two dumpsters are full
and yet, already, it has.
Cliff’s Notes: Put all of your trash in the dumpster, please. If discovered
by the aforementioned caretaker simply tossing trash to and fro
around the dumpster, or in the recycling bins, by said caretaker,
expect extreme crabbiness. If you discover other tenants or tenants
from another building throwing trash around all willy-nilly, feel
free to glare at them or curse them. There is a nice gaelic curse
which is suitable should you have need for it, which is this: Go salaí na gráinneoga cealgrúnacha do chuid calóga arbhair (loosely translated: may the malevolent hedgehogs soil your cornflakes).
Bags (noun, derived from the Scandinavian baggi, and often incorrectly pronounced locally as begs): Bags, soft, flexible containers often made of plastic, have
many uses. One is to contain and dispose of dog excrement, and
they come in many sizes to accommodate different volumes of such.
While ones canine may feel the yards and grounds are perfectly
acceptable places to leave their excrement, their owners are expected
to be marginally wiser than said canines and pick up the dog poop,
inserting it into one of these ingenious plastic receptacles,
and then bring the bag TO the dumpsters (see above) or their own
refuse containers in their dwellings. The receptacles in the lobbies
are NOT appropriate places for this malodorous waste.
Cliff’s Notes: Pick up your dog’s poop. Please. If you do not do so and are seen not doing so, the landlord has
now reverted to the charming traditional policy of charging offenders
the stiff fee of $25 per poop. This is a far smaller punishment
for this offense than your caretaker has been imagining of late.
Have a great day! :)
Suffice it to say, my hopes for the rest of the day are not high,
especially seeing that it is not even noon. On the other hand,
if it keeps up at this rate, I may have use for the extra bottles
of wine. |
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September 16th, Two Thousand Four: Yesterday may have been the laziest day in my entire existence.
Save taking some time to wax some dry spots on the floor, one
round of dishes, a pug walk or two and a phone meeting regarding
a wedding I'm photographing in Seattle in May I literally sat
on my ass all day, all evening watching Angel DVDs, almost an
entire season in one sitting.
(Season Four was one I'd seen exactly none of, so it was all new
to me. Plus, it was storming from the night before through most
of the day. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.)
I have other excuses, actually. Saturday through Tuesday I spent
writing the sample on-spec chapters, in hopes I can get what would
basically be a 100% day job situation in terms of writing: the
plot is not mine, it's already written, and very much not one
I would have written. I don't have any ethical objections to it,
it's just very mainstream, very heterosexual, and very not my
sort of work at all. But it'd pay better than any other gig I've
had before, and for considerably less effort and investment than
the other work I do and have done. Ladies and germs: it is HARD
to write run-of-the-mill stuff, I've discovered. It is tricky
to be formulaic and just plain silly. It can be funny, which was
the saving grace of doing the work, work which won't pay me unless
I get the gig (which if I get, will be written under a pen name,
so this may well be the last you hear about it). So, all the puns
and one-liners made writing it possible, but I was tired from
using my brain in a way that meant trying NOT to use my whole
brain. A strange paradox, that. On the other hand, if I get the
gig, I'll likely be pretty solvent for a while, and I figure it's
a good writing exercise, to be doing much of the exact opposite
with fiction as I usually try to. I haven't written any fiction
in an age, so it might unblock that pipe as well, which would
be nice.
The Girl has continued to be in a very extended (this has gone
on now from May to the present, for the most part) decline with
the depression and anxiety. There have been very few times when
our time together hasn't been spent with her arriving here crying
and staying that way or just ... flat, unaffected. She had a sort
of mental illness emergency the other day as well, when I was
in the midst of deadline hell to try and get this gig, and I just
couldn't stop to handle it. But having a partner who, save very
rare and short occasions, usually with a lot of effort on my part,
is continually in a state of depression or anxiety is starting
to take a big toll on me.
It's tricky: I entered into this relationship being very clear
that a part-time relationship was all I had room for in terms
of my time in terms of work and art and my need for a lot of time
alone. I expect, when in that situation I've been dating someone
for nearing a year at this point, that they might eventually decide
they need more time than that from me. That seems normal enough:
I'm well aware my needs tend to be a little outside the norm,
and that most people do not want or need so much time by themselves.
If she'd asked about this, we could talk about it, figure out
what to do, but she hasn't. However, her needs are pretty great,
and I've felt her slip-sliding into making me her sole support,
which I know isn't healthy for either of us, and I'm not at all
comfortable with it.
So, I'm going to ask for a couple weeks apart in the next couple
of days, not as a lame way to get out of a breakup, but in the
hope that it'll help reestablish my boundaries and motivate her
to create other support systems, make perhaps some lifestyle changes
that I think would be really helpful above and beyond western
medication. I just can't see her sit with a pail of ice cream,
a huge soda and a handful of hot dog anymore and tell me it doesn't
have an effect then see the effect I know it has an hour later:
that sort of thing. She's also been pushing some limits of mine,
unintentionally I think, but in ways I'm not okay with.
But it scares me to ask for this. I'm well aware I'm projecting
a little of something else right now unto all of this: that the
last depression and anxiety sufferer I dated was found dead last
week is weighing heavy on me. I've been trying to tell myself
that really, it's arrogance to assume she'd sink without me, but
then at the same time, I see the effects when I pull back, restate
limits and so forth, and lately, they've not been positive. And
I remember the times that Aaron flat-out told me if I cut him
off, if I didn't take care of him, he'd kill himself. I don't
think those were exactly sincere, I think statements like that
were ultimately meant to manipulate knowing the suicide I'd survived
in my teens, and the burdens I've carried with my Dad, but still,
in light of recent developments, they haunt more than a little.
I can't help but wonder if the extra distance I want -- which
is for her, but I do know is in part for me -- isn't a desire
for distance because I'm scared of being close to anyone I think
has even a remote possibility of harming themselves.
Point is, it's obvious that in several areas, I'm dealing with
some guilt, which isn't something I'm used to dealing with, as
well as some measure of resentment (that I'm used to in this regard:
"I can be happy, so why the hell can't everyone else just suck
it up and be happy, too?" is a constant and usually solitary bitch
of mine). Today, training with Dante, I could feel how much anger
and confusion I'm holding in my body. On the bag, I was lackluster.
But then when the pads got pulled out and there was a person in
front of me, I was throwing fast and hard punches like a powerhouse.
(And I seem to have fucked up something on the smallest finger
of my dominant hand, which sucks. It's hurting to type.) Moreover,
when I was holding for Dante, I felt part of me enjoying being
hit today, creating a context of punishment that wasn't at all
there, which is something I think is pretty destructive and NOT
what I want as a part of my training at all. Or my life, while
we're at it.
(Trouble with boxing is that it provides far too much metaphor
and simile a lot of the time.)
Time for more yoga and sitting, a little less boxing I think.
I'm having a gathering of my girlfriends over here tonight for
one of our Naked Lady Parties. That lone should be good, fun and
relaxing, and all the housecleaning and munchie-making I need
to do for the next few hours should release some of whatever it
is I've got pent up here lately.
And make up for the Big Day o'Lazy yesterday. |
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September 12th, Two Thousand Four: It seems like every single time I go to the grocery store, I
come back whinging about it.
Likely, that's because it's one of the few aspects of mainstream
American culture I truly find myself in the middle of with any
regularity, and one I can't really avoid: I need to eat. The farm
share once a week is only a few meals for me, and that's only
during this season anyhow. The co-op is a little far away to walk
back a big haul, it's pretty spendy for someone on my budget,
and for the most part, I still find similar experiences that I
have at the "regular" store.
Today, on my walk there, I first walk past a bus stop sign for
Bacardi Rum which states it has "0 Sugar, 0 Carbs." Okay, kids:
unless we're talking about drinking absinthe or Drano, talking
about the nutritional value of a beverage which is meant to be
toxic is more than a little silly. I like my cocktails now and
then as much as the next person, but I'm not exactly sitting there
thinking if I, say, order a screwdriver, then I can get tipsy
AND get a little Vitamin C. The dietary values of hard liquor?
Come on.
Is that worse, though, than what I saw picking up my soy milks,
which are cartons of milk labeled "No Carbs?" Tough call.
I'm starting to wonder why we don't see or hear something like,
"Think you're eating too many carbs? Maybe it's time to up your
activity then, so that your body can use what you're eating."
or "Eating too many carbs? Add more legumes, fruits and vegetables!"
Of course, that's a dumb ponder because the answer is to easy:
the right people don't make money that way. I just never cease
to be amazed by how many people so stupidly fall for the bullshit
put forth by the diet industry, and then all of the companies
finding a way to profit from the diet industry.
Here's another favorite: "Curves for Women." Not only is that
a pretty funny joke since their aim is to take the curves FROM
women, I'm not understanding how something which is purportedly
"for women," can be so while using the money of those women to
directly work to remove their right to reproductive choice. But
that might be another worthless ponder: the value of a high tushie
often far exceeds the value of truly owning one's own tushie.
This stuff just makes me so sad, especially because to me, it's
fairly foreign. To a lot of women, it's daily, constant, in everything
they take in, hear and do.
Yesterday, while Dante and I were having coffee after training,
he started talking about where I was at with boxing. Here I am,
a woman, sitting with a very manly man, and he's not talking about
my body as an object, he's not talking about it in terms of beauty
or sex appeal, he's not talking about it as something he would
like to rent or acquire. He's saying things like, "Your punching
form has gotten incredible over the last couple years," and "The
movement of your hips has become very efficient," and "Your big,
strong legs are such an asset." I want every woman, no matter
her orientation, to be having that kind of address of her body
from men, if her body is going to be addressed. That's not to
say discussing your body as sexually desirable is noxious, but
ONLY having it addressed that way is. I want other women to see
women like this (thanks for the ping, Clare)...and be totally unsurprised. When
I was eating dinner the other night, having made a Moroccan stew
with couscous, raisins, sweet potato, carrot, zucchini, tempeh,
nuts, garbanzos and beautiful organic tomatoes, followed by several
heaping spoonfuls of the still-amazing raspberry-chocolate sorbet,
I was in bliss, savoring the taste of all of it on my tongue.
I even jumped up and down with the first bite: I couldn't help
it, it was really good, and I live alone for a reason.
Then I remembered all the young women who post at Scarleteen --
most of them modeling behaviors they've learned from their mothers,
sisters, "women's" magazines -- and so many women in the world
overall, not because of income, but because of appearance concerns,
who can't do that. They cannot fully or even partially enjoy a
beautiful, amazing and tasty meal because their senses are overridden
by the gremlins in their heads that look for hidden fats, tally
calories, are equate food with pounds. (And what foods they can
experience that with often turn out to be foods that make them
feel the most guilty, so their enjoyment ends up being more about
breaking their own taboos than about simple enjoyment of the food
itself. Sounds like a lot of people's approach to sex, really.)
That not only strikes me as such an incredible loss, of such a
simple, easy thing, but it makes sense of some things. Like why
a lot of Americans can't understand what it would be like to be
starving, and not on purpose. Not only is that feeling of perpetual
hunger becoming so common, but seeing food as a blessing, as something
wonderful, not laden at all with guilt, as a simple, sensual experience,
is vanishing. Reaching as it may seem, losses like this are what
I think of first, not last, when I get sex advice letters about
how much people's sex lives suck, AND when I see so many teenagers
latching on to sex SO profoundly, coming to it with such escalated
expectations. Sex is going to suck, and is going to get magnified
in importance, if it's the only sensual experience you're really
having. If the joy of things like eating, like movement for a
purpose that isn't about shedding pounds, like being out of doors,
like walking, not driving, like embracing your friends is removed,
purposefully most of the time, no duh people are going to both
cling to sex like a sensual lifeboat AND have a really hard time
having good sex. Why is it when I read other sexual advisors,
I never hear them talk about things like this, but instead about
this new position or that one, about talking to your partner,
about asking for more oral sex, what have you?
I had a very cool parent post at Scarleteen this week, a gynecologist
asking for help approaching talks about sexuality with his 13-year-old
daughter. (See, parents, even people who know all the facts still
have a hard time: it isn't just you.) Not only was he appalled
at the idea that at 13, his daughter was convinced her inner labia
could be surgically improved (!), he asked how to send the message
to her that her body was great, was all it needs to be, was wonderful
and beautiful, as-is. I told him to let me know when he found
someone with the answer to that because hell if I know: I've been
trying to get that message across to women of all ages for years
now, and it doesn't seem to be working, even though it seems like
such a no-brainer.
I tell you, more and more often, I thank my lucky stars that I
can opt out of so much of this stuff the way that I do. That it
makes zero difference if I go anywhere, do work or play, without
makeup, with my hair all ratty, with whatever unshaved I want.
That I can live and work 24/7 in comfortable clothes without moisture-sealing
my genitals in polyester shrink-wrap, and that pretty much always,
what I wear is only about what I want to wear: I can wear polka
dots with stripes when I want, a right I fought for ferociously
as a child (my Mom thinks it's cool now: she didn't use to). That
I don't own a scale, or any item of clothing with the word "support"
in it.. That I could care bloody less whether or not people find
me sexually attractive: and that took some doing and some getting
older, but heck do I not miss that, nor do I miss having to care,
being told I needed to care. I'm glad as hell that less and less
often do I have to listen to anyone talk about my body to me as
a sexual acquisition, as a thing to have or admire solely in that
fashion. I'm glad that over the years, I've finally started finding
myself able to get the message across that I don't really want
to hear about what someone thinks of the size of my breasts or
where they picture my mouth on their body because it isn't about
me, it's about them, and I just plain don't care what the heck
they fantasize about. I'm not sleeping with them, after all, I
don't even know these people: why would their fantasies be relevant
or useful to me? I'm not unhappy when people say they find me
beautiful, but I am unhappy when they're clearly not talking about
who I am and the whole of me, but what I look like, nd what I
look like in terms of what they want to have or use.
None of this sort of thing is exactly easier, but in retrospect,
it's a lot easier this way, even when I have to defend it, than
the other way round. It makes me happy, and when you're happy
about something in a real way, it's pretty hard to have that taken
away, even if you have your moments. I want more people to be
able to have this, especially people for whom there aren't national,
political, religious or economic barriers to do so, whose self-imprisonment
is pretty darn self-enforced. I just don't understand why anyone
wouldn't.
That said, I'm off to unload the groceries, with the fascination
I always do, in part because growing up poor, still being pretty
low-end, it's always a novelty to be able to bring home beautiful
food. I also feel the taste in my mouth of everything I put away,
so I know my mouth will water and I'll smile shelving the sesame
bread, the portabellas, the white miso, the bags of fresh greens,
the peppers, the avocados, the raspberries, the tofu, the maple
syrup, the grains. I'll likely make myself a nice lunch to enjoy
and to fuel me for a afternoon of writing, in all my bedheaded,
barefoot glory. If I can suggest something that'll likely sound
silly to you today, it's this: take five extra minutes to put
your food away the next time you go shopping. Think about what
it tastes like while you do, dig its color and shape and texture
(and if you can't because everything you buy is frozen, start
over, this time in the produce aisle). Be happy you have it, and
think about it in your mouth, not on your thighs.
Well, unless you want to literally put the food on your thighs.
That's different.
(I can't part without talking about The Cheese Pushers. I live
in the Midwest: this is a serious problem. Stealth cheese, for
instance, looms large: you ask a server at a restaurant to be
sure no cheese is in your meal, you may even explain that lactose
intolerance is no laughing matter, but still -- you discover,
in a world of crampy hell an hour later -- they find a way to
put it in there. And if you catch them, they are often completely
unapologetic. Today, because it's the weekend, the store is full
of food sample people, including a woman with plates full of cheese.
She bizarrely is not in front of the actual cheese section, but
in front of the SOY section.
She offers me cheese. I politely decline with a "No, thank you,"
as I'm loading my soy milks (and eyeing the "No Carbs" milk with
a grimace, also thinking it'd be funny if the soy milk people
would, in the same type face, put "No Cows" on their milk). She
offers again, telling me I really should try some. I tell her
I'm both allergic and vegan. She doesn't relent. She says I should
try it "just this once," as if anyone who has grown up in the
Midwest has somehow managed never to eat cheese once. I had to
run away: I just didn't see any other way out, save instead telling
her I didn't eat carbs, which she probably would have let me get
off the hook with. Not eating cheese because it'd go straight
to my hips is a far bigger deal then not eating it because of
animal cruelty, the ghost of my gallbladder and love for my small
intestine. Alevai!) |
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September 11th, Two Thousand Four: This entry needs to be private/members-only for the time being.
Boiled down to its root, for nonmembers and passersby, the schpeal
is this: all the little stuff is really important. Don't take
it for granted, don't blow it off, don't let it get lost in fear
or anger. Just don't, not for a minute.
And I needed a whole lot more processing this week than I thought
I did, clearly.
And I have some really wonderful longtime friends. Hanne, Jane
and Bri, I love you with an absolute ferocity. I want to hug all
three of you until your bones go squishy.
(And my arms and legs bloody well hurt. Kickboxing is a great
help in letting off steam and emotional overwhelm. Four solid
hours of it in less than 48 hours, however, might be overkill.)
And the new portfolio site is also basically done. |
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September 8th, Two Thousand Four: It's been a weird week. But this is my life, so perhaps that's
stating the obvious.
There's been fun stuff in it. The Girl and I did go canoeing on
Friday, which was really nice. Besides the comedy of my trying
to be all strong and impressive by swapping the oar from side
to side swiftly, which looked great until it'd result in my lobbing
a huge bunch of water in my eye, it was lovely. There was also
a house, hidden off the Cedar lake channel deep in the trees,
that I wanted so badly, I was drooling. It was a little witch
house, mostly hidden, with big piles of wood for the fireplace
on the side, hidden by green, it's yard ending at the lake where
a canoe was parked. We had a picnic on a little hidden outcropping
of shore not far from it, then spent the rest of the day after
canoeing walking around, in the used bookstore, out and about.
I found a new copy of Writer's market for $10, which I can actually
use not as intended, but to try and get some book cover photography
gis. I also found a new history of birth control devices, but
written from the historical perspective of use, not development,
which looks excellent. My allergies, which have been full-force
of late, even took most of the day off for a change.
Because of working on the portfolio, I've been doing a lot of
sitting. Being immersed in my work while trying to keep a few
paces back from it has been interesting, and in creating some
of the sections of the portfolio, I've had to ask myself a lot
of questions, and then take plenty of time afterwards to clear
my mind. Some of them I've asked myself numerous times over the
years, or been asked by others, but they require revisit. Some
are fairly new questions. What is my work about, all of it, when
I boil it all down to its lowest common denominators? What's the
point of self-portraiture? What do I try and see when I'm working?
Why do I do what I do? How is it different from what others do?
Here's a biggie: what do I really think about pornography at this
point? That sounds trite, likely, but it isn't for me, because
at this point, I feel pretty strongly that my work isn't porn,
and that while I'm not that invested in how others see it, or
if they affix that label, I don't want to identify it that way.
That's also a hard question, because of so much propaganda from
every side of the porn debate. It's easy to dismiss the right-wing
stuff, but some of the pro-porn stuff that's really off the mark
(and there's plenty that isn't, but a whole lot that is) is more
difficult not to let seep in.
In revisiting that question, I made myself do what I try to remember
to do a couple times a year so I remember what I'm dealing with,
which is to spend a day looking at mainstream porn sites. Flatly,
anyone who tries to tell me that "rip her up good," isn't misogynist
or violent language isn't going to get very far, and so is anyone
who tells me that that sort of approach is the rarity, because
it really isn't. It's the norm anymore, and it's the norm in terms
of talking about women, not men.
Years back, it used to be that I could laugh some of this stuff
off, but I'm having that response to it more rarely as I grow
older. It makes me wonder. Over the years, one of the most common
advice letters I've gotten from straight women is how to deal
with insecurity about their male partners porn habits. The big
question is always something like this: "Is he comparing me to that?" or "How could I ever be that?" See, I'm starting to wonder if what those questions aren't really
are, "Does he think of me that way?" or "Will I become that?" In other words, that it's not about insecurity or worry one
could never live up to what's on the screen or the page, but the
fear that one COULD, or is already seen that way. To put it another
way, it's perhaps not insecurity at all, but anger and humiliation.
The idea of being compared to a porn star, of that being an unattainable
ideal is a whole lot scarier than the idea that that isn't at
all unattainable, but is an actual dynamic in actual sex lives,
already being played out in some aspects, or desired to be.
I don't think I'd say it gets me angry, personally, and not just
because I'm not dating men. Some of the politics of it can fire
me up: I feel that with any sort of sex work, if it's really not
being entered into by choice, but by economic desperation, by
a lack of other viable choices, and when it occurs in vastly unsafe
scenarios, then I'm angry. But about the actual product itself,
the marketing, the approaches, I just feel disgusted, really.
Disappointed, maybe? It's tricky for me, because, doing what I
do as a sex educator, I'm pretty much everyone in my friends'
sexual confessor, and I also get a lot of emails, mostly from
women, most of whom are heterosexual. So, when I hear people lobbying
for pornography -- not in terms of freedom of speech and expression,
but in terms of its value or lack of harm -- I have to wonder
if they hear the sort of things I do. I have to wonder why it
isn't obvious that actually, yes, it appears pretty obvious that
fantasy isn't just fantasy, that people carry it with them, and
that some pornography or uses of it are having a real impact on
people's sex lives that isn't wonderful. Harmful? Rarely. Flat
out lousy? Yes, and I can't wonder why that isn't a concern if
it's all really about more than making money. And I'm not just
talking about for women, either, but for men as well: standard
western pornography, among many things, solidifies the same male
sexual approach standard western culture does, in terms of removing
the entire body and mind as an erotic force, and centralizing
everything on one very small, limited area, on the penis. I always
can't help but wonder when I'm privy to overhearing conversations
or seeing discussions where men are lording it about with their
penises a veritable gods and icons if that's not so much machismo
or misogyny as it is the posturing of denial, the covering of
a feeling of loss and sadness one can't put one's finger on, because
that really IS a loss.
If I keep going on this topic and everything that branches from
it, I will literally be writing this entry for weeks, and since
I can't do that today as I need to finish the portfolio then get
started on some other work, we'll let it dangle for now, revisiting
later. (I have recently discovered that Germaine Greer and I seem
to land in similar places on this topic, so I figure I'm doing
okay. If it's good with Germaine, I'm down with it.)
I've also had to ask myself some of the things which seem simpler,
but which I like less because they're about money: how much do
I need to be charging now, and whatever I charge, how much does
that pay me above my expenses? Who DON'T I want as a client; who
wouldn't like me as a photographer or a writer? How do I most
clearly address those things so as to minimize opportunities that
are unlikely to be fruitful? What don't I want to do anymore in
terms of work (modeling for other photographers, definitely not
male ones anymore, female ones only rarely when it really affords
me creative fuel; erotica writing I'm likely also done with --
I wouldn't have classed most of my work published as such as erotica
anyhow. And I know I don't want to photograph any D/S stuff)?
What do I focus on which nets me the best income, but which also
both affords me the time to do all the low or pro bono work I'm
dedicated to and which also keeps my creative skills in use and
is in line with my ethics? How can I best manage my time? How
much hard-assness can I get on paper so I don't have to clean
up work-related messes or misunderstandings later? How would I
market me if I wasn't me (because I hate, hate, hate self-promotion
and self-marketing: it makes me feel like a total asshole)?
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Those sorts of questions are probably the more important ones,
because they're those I tend to either avoid or diminish, when
they're actually very important. Somewhere out there is a man
who taught a "Business for Artists" class at my arts school, and
he is likely STILL laughing at me for refusing to pay attention
in his class because of my ludicrous ideas and ideals about art
as business in my teens. heck, I'm still laughing at me about
it. My laugh is probably more bitter than his, since he's living
with his bank account, not mine.
So, I've been setting some goals for myself. The big one is that
I want a house by this time next year. It doesn't have to be a
big house, it doesn't have to be a fancy house. It just needs
to have a place where I can garden, walls I can paint, wood I
can shine up, a fire to sit in front of, a nice old bathtub to
soak in, in a neighborhood I can live with. It just has to be
mine, where I know I can settle in, knock out walls if I want,
know I don't have to leave until I want to.
I don't think this is undoable. Elise let me in on a mortgage
magician, a few friends here know a couple good dyke real estate
agents, who understand our wants, needs and women's economics. |
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Photography: (self-portraits)
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But I'm going to have to work even harder for it, and start dealing
with questions of a more practical nature. Start saying no more
often. Make some compromises in how much nonprofit work I do,
invest in some things that aren't all that exciting, but which
will help me financially. It all seems very daunting and like
drudgery, but it has to be done.
Within all of this, I find that, per usual, when I'm hashing all
of this out, when I focus on it, when I send my wishes out strongly,
soundly, things start to manifest. Over the last week, I have
one new photography client and two new potential clients. A couple
of weeks back, I had a similar focus on getting my damn house
organized, and it's been far simpler to keep it tidy ever since:
as tidy as it gets for me, anyway. Also, very rarely in my life
have I remembered dreams. As well, I often tend towards insomnia,
I don't tend to sleep well a lot of the time (though when I do,
you could set my house on fire and hell if I'd know). I made a
point a little while back to start telling myself at night to
sleep soundly, for as long as I needed (self-employment does afford
me that), and to remember my dreaming, and lo: it's been happening
more often.
So much of this stuff comes down to needs: to looking at what
it is I need, to figuring out where to find it. A conversation
with a friend yesterday drove all of this home, while I was in
the midst of seeking out images which really spoke to what I do,
all of what I do and want to work with. Which led to me racing
into the studio to shoot this:
I've put up a printable PDF (a 5x7) for whoever wants this, and I'll tell you why: we forget,
we really do, that pretty much everything we need is really right
in the palm of our hands.
I'm nothing close to solvent right now, I'm still way short of
work and money, but I do have the tools within myself, if I can
figure out how to use them, to get there. I need care, I have
it, all by myself. I need to be inspired and nurtured, and it's
right in here. I need truth and beauty all around me, and whaddya
know, here it is. There are people gone from me in my life who
I have cherished, there are things, times and places past I miss,
but what they and those gave to me, and I to them, is all still
right here.
I confess, I've been short with a few people lately, and it's
largely because my patience is worn a bit thin with people either
not seeing that really, they do have everything (especially people
who are so blessed in so many ways, I'm almost envious), or knowing
that's the case, but choosing, knowingly, to wallow anyhow, to
focus on what's not present and available rather than all the
myriad things which are. To take for granted all that is there.
So, if you need a reminder, have a small print on me. I forget
too, so I printed one out for myself as well. It seems like an
affirmation one can never have enough of.
I've been plopping thoughts off and on in this entry all day,
and now it all seems a little weird in context.
I just got off the phone with Jen, who informed me that Aaron,
who had been missing since last week, was found dead today in
the lake in Chicago. It appears to have been a deliberate choice.
He hated swimming, so it being an accident seems pretty unlikely.
And I find -- as I thought I would when I was first asked about
where he might be when he was missing -- that I'm not feeling
as I think I should. (And I know my delivery on this stuff stinks:
I've encountered how bad it is around other situations. I've just
been exposed to so many sad, morbid things in my life, I've normalized
them and so when I speak about them, my tone or timbre sometimes
is hard for others to swallow, understandably. It is a failing
of mine.)
Maybe that's because I've just dealt with so much suicide and
so many troubled people in my life, maybe it's because (and crap,
does it suck to speak about someone who can't speak back) our
relationship and the dismount from it was so incredibly unpleasant
that I didn't even speak about it to anyone but my closest friends.
It feels grotesque and dirty, as someone who knows she is a compassionate
person, to feel yourself just run out of sympathy or energy for
someone else: it was hard as hell then, and it still sucks now.
Maybe that's because this sort of end or something like it seemed
so inevitable or likely, or maybe, worse still, it's because I
got Boy Cry Wolfed enough back then that it can't feel real now.
Maybe it's because after my first boyfriend killed himself, and
all the times my Dad seemed to be going that way, the times in
my teens when I was there, I just very strongly feel that life
is very much optional, and if someone decides they need to be
done living it, that's a valid choice, albeit one I think is terribly
sad and is far too hard on everyone involved.
I don't even think it's guilt, per se, which feels even more strange.
I feel like I should be going to that place where I say I could
have done more. But I know that I couldn't have, both because
it wasn't going to be accepted and because I really just didn't
want to do any more because what I did try and do felt so fruitless
and wasn't at all well received unless I became willing to do
things I could not and would not do. I think the most likely scenario
is that somewhere down the line, I did something I have done very
rarely in my life, which is to decide someone is simply a lost
cause as far as I'm concerned, and beyond working to get them
out of my life, I disconnected any emotional attachment to them
the way someone turns off life support. And I didn't do it accidentally:
at a certain point, I disconnected very intentionally and strongly.
I predict a lot of private processing for me over this one, because
of that last bit especially, because I don't know how to rectify
that right now. Private processing because my extended and private
in-person experiences with Aaron are almost completely cacophonous
with what I've heard said about online experience with him, about
him, or brief meetings in passing, and that just feels very strange:
it's weird to be an insider who feels like the outsider. Aaron
was someone who I'm fairly certain I saw both at his very best,
but also at his absolute worst, and it mucks the hell out of my
feelings on this. I find in life that you can never really feel
okay turning away from someone, ceasing to be invested, even when
it absolutely seems like the only right, sound thing to do. How
I feel right now feels disrespectful and lonely. I feel terrible
for not shedding a tear yet, because I normally would. I'm usually
such an emotional person; I'm usually a sharer.
Please -- pretty please -- don't pour sympathy on me, because
I am by no means the right place for it the way his family and
current close friends will be, to whom I send out much love and
support. (If I can do anything for any of you -- Karen, Valerie,
Kathleen, Michelle, Jen -- please let me know.)
I can say, with all the sincerity I have -- that I do very, very
much hope what he did was what he wanted and truly felt was best
for him and that it means the end of his suffering, his anger
and his confusion. I know what it's like to be troubled, and I
know what a lot of troubled people are like, but what I could
never imagine -- and can't still -- is what living life being
troubled and angry is like when you are simply unable to seek
a viable way out of that space; to say out loud, to everyone who
can hear, "I need more help, I am really not well." To be unable
to really understand, fully experience and feel that people love
and care for you. My sympathy has no bounds there: that can't
be anything but torment. I hope that torment is done.
I always like to think, to hope, that death means just another
beginning, and in situations like this, I hope that all the more,
because was always very clear he really needed one.
I'm glad I have that photo up there today, for many reasons. |
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