journal FAQ favorite entries cast & crew get notified email contact more journals slushpile pit stops get all entries   last • next • current
	November 1st, Two Thousand Four: Dia de los Muertos. Zen buddhists don't really have holidays, per se. Wicca-Bus tend to make up their own, use what needs be used, honor what needs honoring, create opportunity and ritual. I do...what it is I do, but certain annual rituals of mine are important and appreciated. So, while I don't celebrate many holidays, longtime readers may recall that this is one I really like having. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to, remember and commune with those now gone from me, even when my feelings about them are mixed, troubled or unclear. So, I lay out a beautiful cloth, and on it the photos and artifacts of those I've been close to, my ancestors, friends, lovers, pets. I pour them a collective shot of tequila, pour myself a glass of wine. I give them a fresh plant and golden light. This year, I set the trash-based cross made by a Peruvian street healer I found in Austin last year atop the window behind it all. I meditate for a while, then we hang out. I chat (I mention this year to them that if my folks don't stop dying soon, I'm going to need a bigger table.) I turn on some songs for them. I hold the photos and artifacts in my hands: tell my father's mother I'm still so sad we didn't get much time together, I find my eyes in hers. I tell my great-grandmother, looking at her in a photo, old as shit and still hoeing her own land, that she's one hell of a role model, and that I still cook her lasagne and cannelloni, albeit with some dietary adjustments, and I can almost hear her scoff. I tell my material grandparents that I both love of forgive them for things in need of forgiveness. I play some Joy Division for Matthew because I know he'd appreciate it: I remember how he changed my life, and both laugh and cry for him, missing him still almost 20 years later, wishing he could have lived to be my oldest, dearest friend, and that we could have both cheered our survival from the separate hells we both went through, and thanked our lucky stars we so strangely met and changed everything. I sigh and I shake my head at Aaron, and I do think -- all the craziness aside, all the awful and confusing stuff I'm still working on finding forgiveness for, all around -- he gets it, the sigh, the headshake, the smile that's tough to muster. I get the odd feeling he's surprised to be on the table this year, and I'm not sure why, and wonder if I'm projecting, surprised I could bring myself to it. I think of the other spirits and souls I've felt blessed by, who have given me something vital, who I never knew and who never knew me, but who I carry with me all the same. I play them music on the piano, on the dulcimer, just with my voice, and this year, this song sounds like a surging hymn, speaking so clearly for those in my heart in such a unified way: no one on my table lived an easy life, all had so much tragedy, all should have lived and died with so much less pain, with far more joyful moments than they were given. Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings and learn to fly All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these sunken eyes and learn to see All your life You were only waiting for this moment to be free Blackbird fly Blackbird fly Into the light of the dark black night Blackbird fly Blackbird fly Into the light of the dark black night Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings and learn to fly All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise You were only waiting for this moment to arise You were only waiting for this moment to arise I'm heading back to the rest of the night, I and my souls, my memories, what I hold in my heart which is passed, gone but not gone. This year, this week, this is just the most perfect thing. I've run myself so ragged with election and volunteer stuff (I went out independently pamphleteering today since there weren't any scheduled volunteer events -- should you have need for any yourself, they're here, one serious and one rather silly, and I also made copies of another from NOW, and one from MoveOnPac), I've needed so much solace I haven't been able to find, and here it is, quiet and intense, filled with warmth and a subtle but clear feeling of love, of being cared for and watched over and a part of something so much bigger, that chain that binds all of us even when we've gone. Good thoughts and wishes for everyone tomorrow, for all of us, whatever life brings.   October 30th, Two Thousand Four: Yesterday was a good day. It was beautiful outside: leaves turning, falling swirling, the air balmy and warm, as if it were spring. I had a good cry that morning, reading these two things. Certainly none are good things, but it is good that I keep feeling, keep remembering all of the things which are important to me, which have been for as long as I could remember. And reading some of this did give me a nice moment of remembering how very many people I've seen gather at different antiwar protests in my life, and that's hope I can use right now. The night before, at a DFL meetup, everyone was so shiny and excited (though I do have to say that post-election, I'm looking forward to getting more involved with the Greens, because party-wise, it's always spoken to my own sensibilities far better). A gift for The Girl that'll make her mighty happy arrived. I got a good night's sleep the night before, after spending the evening with Becca, Heather and pals. I had a long and very pleasant phone conference with a new Scarleteen volunteer. I got a warm personal e-mail from Peggy Flanagan, the candidate I was leaning towards for school board here, who let me know she's been greatly supportive of comprehensive sex ed. Sofi and I also had this little cutie, a mix of miniature Alaskan and something else, over for the evening to see if she's ready for another dog companion yet (verdict not in on that at this point, but she was a sweet, sweet puppy from a dog rescue who liked to lie on my lap while I played piano). I woke up very early this morning, while it was still pitch black, which makes me happy because I've been sleeping too late for my taste of late. I'll be heading out to go box shortly. But I have to say something. I'm finding myself pretty disappointed in many of my friends and colleagues over the last couple of weeks. So many people I know have so much energy, and plenty more have the ears of so many. The same people have kvetched to high heaven about our current administration to me, or publicly, over the last few years, and yet. I'm seeing little to no activism, even just to get out the vote in general right now, among way too many of them, even in the easiest ways possible. Mind you, I'm aware everyone is sick to death of this election. I'm aware everyone is sick of talking politics, and my threshold for addressing these sorts of matters is often markedly higher than that of others. (My father's legacy, that: I wonder how often he got in trouble for bringing it to bed himself. I'll need to ask him the next time I can track him down.) So, I'm asking a favor of everyone I know, and while I won't apologize if I've asked it already, I do promise that per this issue, I won't ask it again. Bloody well DO SOMETHING THIS WEEKEND. Please. It doesn't have to be huge. If you have a journal or a website, talk about your feelings right now, share your experiences and what you know in terms of why you want change. Leave a small note asking people to vote. Heck, do it in my journal comments if you have no other avenue. (Just don't speak for me: speak for you. It should be patently obvious by now that I've no trouble speaking for myself.) Provide a link to something which provides voter assistance, no matter the platform, such as these printable cards in the case people have trouble at the polls, or remind people that at many polling places, if they show up in partisan gear, they may be denied access to vote at all. If you're taking kids out trick-or-treating Sunday, find a way to use that opportunity for some political visibility (heck, if you're short a costume, you could adapt a hat so a carrot and a stick are dangling in front of your face and go as an American voter). Volunteer over the next few days, or on Tuesday, to help voters with accessibility issues get to the polls, or to canvass door-to-door. Take a risk, take a damn stand. And while you voting is crucial, that's not even close to all you can do. We may well have record numbers of voters in the election this year (and due to, in many ways, energized activism to get people to vote), which no matter what, is a good thing, an incredible thing. Americans have a propensity for apathy that is alarming, and any signal that might pass, even momentarily, is really fucking fantastic. If you have kids of any age, they learn from you, you know: if they see you being proactive, that's what they learn, too. If they see you being an apathetic whiner, that's what they learn. I know a lot of people think there's little point because people are very educated about these issues, but that's generally a false assumption. People have been supersaturated by the media, by television, by advertising, sure, but that doesn't equal being informed in a very real way, and it can't possible equal hearing from friends, authors, publishers, artists they respect. All too many people don't keep up with all these issues over time, daily, even weekly, so trying to hurriedly process what they all mean in the span of a couple weeks isn't atypical. Ads and the mainstream media also tend to only address what candidates want addressed and the most generic issues: all too many people aren't aware of huge matters like who might be elected to the supreme court, like how much of a difference who is elected locally can make, like what incredible difference keeping or overturning the Global Gag Rule (which will also effectively be decided Tuesday) makes, nationally and internationally, like what the heck has been going on at Guantanamo Bay and other very big issues. In case I haven't said so yet, I will be voting for Kerry this election (and I'll also be one of those annoying people making the lines longer on election day, because I've always liked voting on election day: it gives me a rush). Over the last few weeks, I've felt increasingly more impressed with him (obviously voting for Bush wasn't something I was going to do, but I was considering still voting within my party if my state was clearly going to be a Kerry state by Tuesday). Which isn't to say he's perfect. Heck, I'd give my right arm just to not to have to vote for a man all the damn time, or someone so moneyed or white. But I am impressed, and I do feel confident in terms of goals and aims he's already set, and things he's already done. I also feel confident that per the stances of his I don't agree with, I've got a much better shot in terms of working to change his mind and that of his administration than I could dream of having with BushCo. (And boy, have I never been more glad over the last few months that I don't watch television: I'm not at all surprised the ad onslaughts and such, from any side of the fence, confuse the heck out of most people.) So, last pitch: do something besides just voting, eh? Especially if you've already got people's eyes, ears and personal respect. And if you don't? You'd be wise to remember for at least a few months after this election not to even remotely bitch about how unhappy you are with the results to me unless you're also wearing industrial-strength earplugs.   October 28th, Two Thousand Four: Synchronicity is my friend. So, I'm barely waking up, sitting at my desk with my first cup of coffee, feeling still tired and drained from the day before and a night not slept soundly. Slowly, it starts drizzling outside my windows (which are all around me now that I moved my office into the front sunroom of the apartment). I toss iTunes on random play. The drizzling quickly turns into a big downpour. The Dead's Box of Rain comes on. Walk into splintered sunlight Inch your way through dead dreams to another land Maybe you're tired and broken Your tongue is twisted with words half spoken and thoughts unclear What do you want me to do to do for you to see you through A box of rain will ease the pain and love will see you through Just a box of rain - wind and water - Believe it if you need it, if you don't just pass it on Sun and shower - Wind and rain - in and out the window like a moth before a flame   It's just a box of rain I don't know who put it there Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare But it's just a box of rain or a ribbon for your hair Such a long long time to be gone and a short time to be there. So, what would Jerry do? 'Nuff said. Addendum: I'm feeling a little more hopeful today, trying to think of the proverbial box of rain as the past four years. I become afraid of getting hopeful sometimes: letting one's hopes raise often only makes a fall, should it happen, all the more difficult and painful. I've had that happen so many times in the past handful of years: politically, personally, with both my creative and my activist work, with various opportunities that loomed large then sank like a sunset out of my reach. And that stinks, because you know, I don't want to be that person. It's very difficult to do the sort of things I do when I lose my hope and my optimism. A big part of being any sort of activist is that you've just got to believe that what you do can net good results, that what you aim for isn't outside your reach. I read this in a reprint from the Washington Post in the American Prospect this afternoon, a sentiment I also saw echoed in the Christian Science Monitor a little while back (and yes, a Buddhist can read that: over the years, I've actually fund it an incredibly balanced source much of the time): "After four years in the White House, George W. Bush's most significant contribution to American life is this pervasive bitterness, this division of the house into raging, feuding halves. We are two nations now, each with a culture that attacks the other. And politics, as the Republicans are openly playing it, need no longer concern itself with the most fundamental democratic norm: the universal right to vote. As the campaign ends, Bush is playing to the right (I'd actually butt in on this, since the new ploy this week seems to be to try and convince those who know far better that really, he's down with those of us who aren't heterosexual, et cetera) and Kerry to the center. That foretells the course of the administrations that each would head. The essential difference between them is simply that, as a matter of strategy and temperament, Bush seeks to exploit our rifts and Kerry to narrow them. That, finally, is the choice before us next Tuesday: between one candidate who wants to pry this nation apart to his own advantage, and another who seeks to make it whole. " And I direly hope that's so. I can't imagine, you know, voting against anyone's basic rights because of their color, nationality, gender, orientation, religion, what have you. I can't imagine envisioning any nation as separate and unaccountable from others. I don't see how it's impossible that the nation I live in can't figure out a way to be inclusive. I know, certainly many don't want that inclusion, they want bigotry defended, upheld and excused, they want ownership of rights which are exclusive. Butcha know, I wasn't raised that way, and I'm grossly thankful for that. Man, do I wanna feel hopeful about this stuff again, and to be able to do so outside my own communities, my own enterprises, my own self-constructed world. I think half the reason I feel so tired with a lot of the work I do is that I feel like I'm trying so hard to drive hope and energy, and the truth is that every now and then, it'd be really cool to ride it instead.   October 26th, Two Thousand Four: The Good News is... that The Girl and I seem to have gotten through our impasse and have for the past handful of days been enjoying a revisited honeymoon period. I'm not sure what exactly did it. Likely, it was a combination of things. Seeing her perform this weekend helped a lot. Not only did she pick a song for both of us that really got to me, just seeing her in the arena where she's just so shiny and happy was huge. That she's also smoking hot when she's doing drag didn't hurt, either, and neither did her doing a number which had her stripping down to her skivvies. Too, her medications this time seem to be leveling out, finally, and leaving her in a good place, a place similar to where she was at when we first started dating at the tail end of last year. As well, I was able to talk to her about some of the things I last talked about, which I felt really uncomfortable (and like an asshole) saying, but she fielded it all so sympathetically and like a pro. By the end of Saturday night, when all our friends were going to grab the drinks we all often do after the last show, I declined for both of us, stating very clearly that I'd much rather take her home. And home we went, where we stayed up very late, which was exceptionally nice. Know those orgasms you have now and then where the physical and the emotional are both so intense that you're this close to weeping? Oh, yeah. Sunday night, she came over after work and enjoyed a meal with me here that I was all jittery cooking, because I was that excited to see her. Then we sat in the bath together cuddling until the water just got too damn cold. So nice. I think, too -- and she agreed with me, having gotten to the same place herself last week -- that getting to the point where I was evaluating things, figuring out what to do and considering how I'd feel if our romantic or sexual relationship ended and realizing I'd be totally okay with that was a huge thing. maybe it took some pressure off? Hard to say. But it's all good, and it feels so good to be in the space we got back into again. I don't think my issues were all about her issues: the depression, the medication rollercoaster, et cetera, or even about us wanting radically different things. I also think I was perhaps being something of a booboohead, having what is a pretty typical inner conflict for me about relationships past a certain point. When I add it all up, I feel pretty lame. I haven't been with anyone so unilaterally supportive of my work, for instance, in over a decade, and at this point, being okay and supportive of absolutely everything I do and the way it takes over my life, would be a challenge for anyone. I don't know that I've ever been with someone so patient with some of my particular issues and struggles. It's been a long, long time since anyone could make me laugh as much as she does and at the same time, be so tender and sensitive. She's massively appreciative of the small things I do and has a big lot of tolerance for the things I suck at. She's thoughtful as hell. She's beautiful. Long story short? She's a gem. She has issues. I have issues. Right now, neither person's set seem to be impassable. (Do me a favor though? Please don't let us turn into one of those lesbian couples who every other week are vascillating, or do that continual and constant high-on- high-off again thing. If you see me doing that, virtually smack me, eh?) The Bad News is... I've gotten to the point with election crap that I'm starting to have both panic attacks and crying fits, one of which I just calmed myself out of last night. I cannot stand feeling so terrified, and I really cannot stand feeling so helpless. When I know I am literally doing all I can and then some -- voting, informing tens of thousands of people about voting and the Bush administration, doing loads of outreach on election day after I vote -- and it STILL may not do jack, it's just too much. I've been thinking about my paternal grandparents a lot this week. About how my great-grandmother and grandmother were perceptive enough to pick up, early on, that Mussolini was a very, very bad thing and that if they stayed, something awful was probably going to happen (certainly, Italy wasn't Germany or Poland, but there were still about 8,000 Italian Jews deported, around 7,600 of which were murdered in Auschwitz and other camps). About how my grandfather volunteered, once they had emigrated and things hit fever pitch in Europe, for the American military effort and died to preserve others and from a country he was already safe from. About how sad it is I barely got to know my grandmother or great-grandmother before a drunk trucker killed the former and my youngest uncle, and because some bastard out there decided that robbing, raping and murdering my 76-year-old great-grandmother was the thing to do. And how tragic it is that they left their homes to what they thought was a much better place and met their ends the way they did, not naturally, in safety and comfort. Of course, it's equally tragic that in this country, my father, my mother and I would have to live in veritable hiding for the first few years of my life because my father opposed the war and worked for other socially responsible causes actively, and that I'd live to watch the government harass him covertly thereafter. And that he's now homeless and I'm so poor despite working my ass off that I can't do jack to help him. But mostly, I've been thinking about how tragic it is that my grandparents abandoned their property and their homes (to live in poverty here, no less) to prevent themselves, their children and the family that'd come after from what would come at the hands of a man like Mussolini, and here I sit, only two generations later, having to make a plan to leave a home I've grown to love very much because of the same sort of man, in this country, where they brought their families to be safe. Certainly and obviously, I'm not likely to die in a death camp if Bush gets elected another term. But, especially with the book coming out, it is entirely possible that I may find it less safe to remain living here, that I might even find myself facing criminal charges at some point for sex ed, for providing information on birth control, abortion or emergency contraception, or for taking photographs of the nude or just for being so vocal an activist on so many issues that stand counter to the Bush administration. There's no way, given the work I do and have done, that in an administration like this one I'll ever be able to teach Kindergarten again. Scarleteen has no chance of being funded, no matter what other organizations and amazing people say it's fantastic and accurate and direly needed. Without a doubt, no matter how bleeding hard I work, I'll remain broke and without healthcare, and may find myself with continually less income, no less. Being both female and same-sex partnered, I can rest assured I won't have the rights I should and will be privy to even more discrimination and allowable harassment that I'm used to. As a pacifist, my heart will hurt more than it already does. My father will absolutely remain homeless. I'm not saying Kerry or anyone else hs the power to repair all of these things immediately, or to perfection, ever. But I know I won't be guaranteed the things I am above, not by a long shot. I know that Kerry and other candidates, unlike Bush, do not DESIRE those things, do not consider them sound and fair. I know I won't have to live anticipating them constantly until they eventually happen (some part of me cannot forget that again, while I don't feel it's close to the same, when my grandparents left Italy, the idea of actual genocide was held as histrionic and ridiculous by many). I know, if anyone else is elected, anyone at all, I won't have to live in the kind of fear and worryI have for the last four years. I know that my country is not going to be allowed and encouraged to be run by or for the religious right. (I confess, some of these feelings have been made worse by discovering in the past couple weeks that there are a substantial group of young twentysomething women -- who identify as pro-choice, often as feminist, certainly as progressive, who are middle-class hipsters of a certain flavor -- actively supporting Bush, at least one of whom is a volunteer at Scarleteen. I can't make sense of it, save that I can see that it might appear an incredibly safe way for them to rebel -- safe for them, in their view, anyway. But it makes me positively soulsick and awfully confused.) Given the years I had to grow up with abuse, given various things I've been through in my life, I've had enough of living in fear and terror -- and isn't it funny that still, so many people can't figure out that the greatest terrors are often those closest to or at home? -- for five people already. So, a viable smart option for me, if Bush does get reelected is to leave my home and emigrate to another country, and financially, practically, Canada is the only place I could go at this point. Certainly, it is an option to stay here, to protest even more so and more visibly, to use that as an opportunity to make incredible, intense art based in my own fear and oppression. But not only is it possible I'll be unable to do those things well, I find I do have limits of what I am and am not willing to do: I do not want to end up in some of the places my father wound up in, in large part because of his visible protest and activism. I do not want to go to jail, I do not want to be systematically hounded, and I've zero interest in being a martyr, even though, you know, my dead Irish catholic maternal grandmother would be pleased as punch. I can still create powerful art and do good work in an environment where I'm not afraid, where I know I can live more fairly and freely, with more rights and freedoms as available to me as they are to others of a different proffession, economic strata, gender, orientation or history. But sweet Jesus, how I don't want to leave. I have richer community here in Minneapolis than I have ever had, anywhere, in my life. I'm able to live affordably in a really beautiful apartment, which is huge when most of where you've lived in your life is in slums. The city I'm in is a safe city, where I can walk alone at night confidently. It's beautiful here, even in the damnable frigid winter. People tend not to bulldoze fields and trees here: there is actual green left. I have wonderful friends here, and I finally feel at home. Last night, my downstairs neighbor showed up at my back door up to share some smoke with me, commiserate, then her husband came up later bringing their incredibly cute baby and whizzed her around my messy apartment like Superman. My neighbor mentioned how much she likes meeting my friends when they're around because I seem to know so many great people. She's right. I have a really good life here. It's just gross, given what a motherfucking simple life it is, that it's iffy as to whether or not I can keep it. It's difficult to express this stuff. I'm not exactly a typical patriot. I don't use phrases like "my people" or "my country" because I'm not a nationalist: borders have no emotional resonance for me. When I hear any politician talking about "making America great, like it started," I just have to roll my eyes. Wonderful ideals aside, robbing, raping, murdering and slowly starving and syphilis-izing an indigenous population to death isn't made better by good intentions for one's own group (huh, that's sounding awfully familiar right now). When my friend in Canada says that it's always seemed to him that until now, American people were united, not divided by their differences, I can't help but laugh to know the US has done such a great spin job. Those of us who aren't affluent, white, male, married, heterosexual, what have you, have never been united within this country, because it's been necessary to trample us for the folks on top to get and stay there. Hell, in some cases take away even one or two of those things and you land in minority territory: Grey is partially white and male, but as a once-single, young father of four girls, as a teacher, as ex-military, as kinky, he's outta the Big Boys Club, big time. We've always been divided, it's simply that it's gotten to the point where some of our anger at that is more palpable (which, IMO, is a good thing -- complacency is never helpful to any oppressed group). There's so much that's really wrong here and so much of that has ALWAYS been wrong here. But I love this actual land. I like visiting other places, but the land here, of the midwest in the United States, is my home. Nowhere else has the smells, the colors, the landscape, the memories, the flavor, the feeling that this place has for me. Nowhere else feels like home, and home is something I searched an awfully long time for. And I don't believe that things have to be as atrocious here as they have been, and as they certainly are and are heading further towards now. We've had some amazing visionaries here (most of whom have gotten killed for being so, of course), and some amazing things have happened here sometimes. I want to stay here; I want to work for the things I work for here. I hope to hell I can, but hell if I know what else to do right now, and how to deal with this lingering dread. Obviously, if anyone has any super-inspired ideas of what else I can do to help with this election beyond what I'm doing already, shout 'em out. At this point, it's so difficult for me to think about anything else that dropping everything to do more would be a really small sacrifice. The Girl and I are going to spend the day together today. We're going to go to IKEA (where she works) and hang out, see if her discount and shopping with budgety eyes can't net me enough passable frames for the pieces I'm auctioning off at the District 202 benefit the first weekend of December: showing in bags and boards tends to net far fewer sales than having things framed. I may have to ask, afterwards, for the longest snuggle session in recorded history, for the allowance to cry and babble about all this stuff nonsensically, something I'm sure she'll allow me. (We were brainstorming in the tub the other night about what Sofia could do to help out with the election, but all we came up with was a slogan for her which stated "I like peeing on Bushes." Which isn't even necessary so, since she'd need a stepladder to reach one.)   October 22nd, Two Thousand Four: It's wet and chilly outside. I'm photoediting, passing some emails back and forth about the benefit I'm participating in and doing some organizing for at District 202, and doing a little housecleaning when I need breaks. It's a slower day than the last few have been, by far. Yesterday was especially packed: full of work and errands, as well as the Kerry rally and then the drag show (where The Girl wound up this close to naked in one act. Nice surprise, that.) So, slightly mellow workday, wet, overcast and cold. I start to feel hungry and think, "You know, it's a perfect soup day. Little could be better than a beautiful soup today." I raid the kitchen and dig up an onion, spinach and some carrots from my farm share (Only one more week of that! Sniff!), pull out some celery, a mix of wild rices, a couple organic mushrooms and some beautiful dry blue lentils and yellow split peas. By the time they've all been sautéed, and water added with some lemon thyme and sage from my window box, a good dose of pepper and parsley, my apartment and my heart already feel warmer and the air smells beautiful, safe and cozy. And I realize: whimsy is such an incredibly important thing to me. Caprice, fancy, impulse, whimsy. It's a big part of why I loved teaching the wee ones so much. It's part of why I drove my mother crazy growing up and why I didn't drive my father nuts. It's a huge aspect of my creative energy. When I see people being whimsical, it turns me on; I feel my love for them more profoundly, I see their spark more clearly. And it's why, often, when I clearly experience the bad parts of being a working artist and activist, being the most freelancy sort of freelancer, I can almost always still find a positive on a personal level. because it allows me plenty of room, pretty much all the time, for whimsy, even when I'm broke and tired. I and my whimsy can always just decide -- nay, declare -- that it's a soup day, and waltz on over, humming to ourselves gladly, and start brewing beautiful soup. Photography: (guest models) members • samples • sign up   October 19th, Two Thousand Four: Sunday, I worked from seven in the morning until after seven at night, nonstop, on a piece for Scarleteen to do my damnedest to get our American over-18 users to sodding vote. (By the by, do I need to talk to any of my American readers about not supporting Bush? I'd assume and hope the hell not, but if I do, let me know.) Around nine, I realized I hadn't yet eaten. Oops. By Monday afternoon, when I finally got the thing up, my brain was seriously tired. It's a crazy thing about listing the litany of nasties from the Bush administration. To a certain degree, no matter how plainly you frame this stuff, it makes one sound like a hysteric because all that has been done is just that whack. Even if I hadn't limited the issues addressed to sexuality, women's, queer and young adult issues, I don't know WHAT I could have listed that was good that came out of the Bushies, and I don't think that's because of personal bias. I think it's because THERE ISN'T ANYTHING. And yet, even in a state as progressive as Minnesota, we've got a close race. That's just so damned crazy. I don't mind this sort of work: actually, I like it a lot. In another life, it'd be cool to be a union organizer. I think I'd be decent at it. Plus, you know, other fierce girls who like to work hard. Just sayin'. Today, tomorrow and Thursday are a set of days in which every small little detailed thing I've spaced out, procrastinated or just plain needed to do needs be done. A coding fix here, some more photo work there, a site update over here. Building repair calls, banking, little bills paid, budgeting. Paperwork and writing per the book (and for the record, I like online self-publishing a LOT more than I ever knew I did right about now), a phone call to my agent. Phone calls and emails. Grocery shopping, laundry, the packing away of summer clothes and housecleaning. Invoices. Hitting the tickle files for advertisers yet again; feeling it's fruitless at this point. Travel plans for Scotland (and I gotta say, I really want to go to Sabrina's wedding, but the idea of traveling when I've just gotten home makes me cranky), and trying to find invisible money. Photo shoot planning, marketing and scheduling. Subscription processor stuff. Vet, GYN and dentist appointment-making. A charity fundraiser meeting. A solo think-tank day about new books to get proposals going on for my agent and my fiscal well-being. I'm tired just looking at that list, but I need to, because it's the little stuff that is always my undoing. Damnable Aries sun and bloody Leo rising, I tell you. So, so bad at finishing things. In other news, The Girl and I seem to be at a sort of an impasse. It's tricky, complex stuff, and it's tricky and complex to find the right ways to talk about it. Some of it is just the matter of her unfamiliarity with the differences between how things go at the start of a relationship, and the normal changes once things become longer-term. Some of it is my still not knowing how to deal with all the facets of her depression and anxiety. Right now, my big hurdle with that is that she's on a new medication combination again, and I'm starting to feel like everytime that changes, I suddenly have a different person who I should know, because she's been here for some time now, but who exhibits such different things with any given med combo that often, she can feel like a total stranger. I think too, that the discussed prospect of going to support groups for partners of depressives and also adding couples counseling to our/my roster is just making me tired: it just feels like trying too hard, and I hate that I'm feeling that way about it, especially when I agreed that I'd try it. I can't help but feel like nine monthsish into an agreed upon part-time thing, that's...I don't know, conflicting with it not being full-time. This may be TMI, but we also haven't had sex in a while, and that's bothering us both, though I think it's bothering me less because I get the impression that I'm the one who just isn't feeling it lately with her. Some of that may be that if I've been in any sort of caretaker position, my sexual desire does tend to ebb, because it feels sort of strange. Given, it's bound to be imbalanced because even the times I do tend to need caretaking, I don't want it because it's so big a part of my nature to be incredibly independent. And some of it is just that in times of relationship upheaval or conflict, sex is just the last thing that feels right to me. The other morning, she was upset, and said that she worried this wasn't going to work out, which leads us to another impasse. To me, "not working out," means a horrible split of every sort of facet of a relationship, where people don't talk again or are forever angry. The nature or type of relationship changing is not filed under "not working out" for me, because I'm generally far more concerned with the quality of things, with my relationship as a whole with a given person than what type of relationship that is. That approach has been an issue for me before, but I'm not sure it's something I'd want to change even if I could. I like being more attached to who someone is to me than to what someone is to me. She's concerned we don't want the same things, which very well may be the case at this point. I still very much do not want a full-time relationship, anything live-in, et cetera. For me, still, my activist and creative work is my primary partner, and I get the impression it always will be, and that isn't something that bothers me in the least. I think that's tough on her because she's still trying to find her place, her niche, a big thing in her life to put her energy into, and it's got to feel a bit chilly standing outside of mine. I don't really know what that's like, because I've always had something: when I was younger, it was music, writing and art. In college it was everything I studied and my teaching jobs. Then it was the school I started and ran, then Montessori and doing all I do now at the same time, then for the last six and some years, all the stuff I do now. While a lot of that is just my nature, and my dedication to what I do, it wouldn't be surprising to me if some of the why of that isn't also because I don't want to put all my eggs in a relationship basket. I don't think I'm noncommittal, especially since I am so outrageously committed to some really hard things and have had my share of pretty long-term relationships, far longer than this one, but I do think that some of my very sad experiences where I did do that and lost, big, served as a very potent warning to my emotional self. (And if I'm being really honest, I just don't think it's all that healthy to make the biggest thing in your life one relationship, anyway. That may be personal bias talking, though.) I don't get the impression The Girl is looking for Juliet and Juliet here or anything, nor that she's made or is looking to make me the center of her universe. But it is starting to seem like the space, emotional energy and time I have available isn't enough for her wants and needs; can't give her enough. That's in no way a criticism of her; if anything, it's one of me, if it even is that. If I had to attach a theme to the last year or two, it may well be "In which Heather learns she has far more limitations than she initially thought." I can't say that's a good thing or a bad thing, it just is. What's funny, you know, is that I can dredge up things I wrote almost twenty years ago where I state very clearly, and with all the certainty and overconfidence of youth, that I felt I wasn't built for big, long relationships, but for more casual, shorter and free-flowing love affairs. I may well have ben right. Or, I may simply have been hurting from the tough death of the first person I put all my heart into. Or, I may simply have been reading far too much Anais Nin, Marge Piercy and Kenneth Patchen. Hard to say; probably all three. I don't know what's going to happen with this, and right now, I'm not sure how to address it, what to suggest, where to take it. (And I'm not asking for advice, just thinking out loud.) I find it so tough to determine, within myself, what is necessity and my nature, what is priority, what is simple independence, what is poor alchemy and what may be, instead or additionally, fear-based. It's just so easy for something that looks one way, very simply, to be not so simple at all. You can say of a person that they're needy just as easily as you could see them as committed and loving, depending on your perspective. You could say a person is independent, but you could just as easily say that person is afraid of being DEpendent. It might all be about spin, but it might not. And for me, right now, one of the toughest things is just that I can't find the time to evaluate these things about myself, because there is just so much more I have to do first, and so much more that seems compelling to do first. Or perhaps, I just want to do other things first? And lo, all this self-analyzing has gotten be behind on things on that list above which I really DO have to do first. Crap.   October 16th, Two Thousand Four: Home. Home. One of the tricky things for me about traveling, even about some vacation time is that I like my life here very much. So much of it has been expressly by my design, rather than a matter of my adapting to a job, a set of circumstances or an environment to make it suit me. I like the pace of my life, I like where I live, I like my office, I like my small rituals, and all the things I surround myself with -- plants, natural light, sentimental objects, my books, my animals, my friends, color, the way I eat, familiar walks. I like having a cup of coffee and a fag at my desk in the morning while checking email and the sites, then walking the dog, doing some stretches. I like going to sleep at night and reading a book in my own bed. I even like the fact that since nearly the minute I got home, I've been doing endless photo processing, and have already finished and delivered the proofs for three out of the four clients I photographed while away. That was a little manic, but I do like to get that part out of my hair quickly, and it was, for instance, extremely fun to find out how incredibly happy Audra and Mark were with their wedding photos. I also had to catch up with a gazillion messages, building issues and race to finish the revision of the sample chapters for my possible writing gig. Seska got some sort of bug the evening I left, which I thought I didn't catch myself, but unfortunately today, it seems I may have. So, I'm going to skip boxing today, sadly (another of the things I missed), because massive amounts of spinning tend not to be kind to tummy discomforts. I'll likely just do some intense yoga a little later on and take my much-missed puggie on a long walk instead. With no further adieu -- and drumroll, please -- the trip. Caveat emptor the first: This journal entry makes War and Peace look like a novella. Day One: As some of you may know, I am not a fan of flying. I am not a fan of the part of traveling where you actually travel at all, be it by plane, train, magic carpet, llama or automobile. I can enjoy being other places, just not getting back and forth from them. When we are able to be beamed, I'll be doing a lot more travel. But the flight to Toronto was uneventful. Slowly but surely, the flying part is getting easier, so long as I have an aisle seat and do a lot of deep breathing before and during. It's the airport stuff that makes me bonkers: the craziness, the whack energy of the place, the lack of fresh air, the security stuff, et cetera. The fact that I can't smoke, which is what I tend to do when I'm nervous. Not a whole lot of that nuttiness this time around, and it's a short flight. Audra and I did indeed squeal upon my arrival, then her lovely friend Barb whisked us off to an interview Audra was doing about clarification.ca. This was in an insanely upscale neighborhood, after which the slightly Stepford host earnestly informed the three of us that actually, the neighborhood was quite mixed and we'd fit right in because there were several boarding houses on the block, and even a mental institution at the end of the street. I kid you not. (We were just a little happy to be together, as evidenced by the SCHS, Smooshy Cheek Huggies Syndrome, during a brief break at the wedding Saturday. And yes, we know we could easily be sisters, but we're actually not. What's really funny is telling that to someone's actual family, who knows the answer better than you do.) There was then ice cream for Barb, self-identified as "The Pregnant Lady," and a small sorbet for me. This was the first I'd eaten all day, and it was late afternoon already. You'll have to humour a short food fixation throughout this travel log, I'm afraid, but it is relevant, I promise. We stopped in at Kingi's to check on details for the workshop the next day, did a little browsing on Queen street, I made the first of yes, three, visits to Lush I'd make on the trip, then we headed out into the suburbs for a bridal shower for Audra, that no one, including Audra, was terribly excited about. At the shower, we were all promptly divided into what we'd call the commoners and the covenant, the group of matrons who seemed to make a big point of staying as far away from us as was humanly possible. Lisa, a member of the groom's party, also a martial artist and someone to whom I took quite immediately because she was uppity as hell, asked Audra if, as a female interloper in a groom's party and a single mother, she was the most offensive person there. Audra then pointed at me with the words, "Lesbian pornographer," and Lisa came over so we could bond. I believe it was at this point that I became the Cultural Attache to Lesbianism for the duration of the wedding. I was hungry. Plates and plates of cheeses, buttery crackers and dessert bars kept floating by, none of which I could eat. A fruit plate finally slid through, which I all but leapt on and devoured entire. A young cousin, who was both a kickboxer and a vegetarian, and who was saucer-eyed at my being vegan, went nuts clamoring through the cupboards until she found me some safe crackers for eating. After devising infinite ways to escape from the shower and kidnap Audra in the process, the gathering finally started winding up, so the commoners all headed out to a pub/coffeehouse/deli thing a decent drive away. After getting lost, that is. The pub sadly only had beer and what looked like Manichevitz to drink, so a beer it was, and a sandwich that looked safe for me and I'd hoped would be give me some actual vegetables and protein. Alas, it was basically white bread, iceberg lettuce, the occasional cucumber and -- because it was supposed to be an eggplant and tomato sandwich -- one teeny sliver of each. The lingering crabbiness of hunger and food dissatisfaction that'd consume me for the next couple days had begun. Caveat emptor the second: Vegans have staples that tend not to be the staples of most other diets. We need beans, we need nuts, we need soy products, we need serious greens, we need big-time whole grains and fiber. Without these things, we do not feel at all fed. We get crabby. Low-flying nonsequitur the first: I could not for the life of me figure out why the idea that a bar/coffeehouse/deli being ingenious didn't completely fit. It seemed ingenious, after all. Then I realized that pretty much every restaurant in Minneapolis has food, booze and coffee drinks, and that that combination was simply a regular restaurant. I feel silly. Audra and I stayed overnight at Mark's parents house, a charming old (or is that olde?) English couple with very smushy beds. I was so tired all three nights I stayed there that I didn't even get a chance to want to complain about sleeping in the once because the second I landed on one, I was down for the count. Day Two: There was tea in the morning. Not coffee. I need say no more. But there was also Audra in the morning, and Mark, who I got to finally meet. I liked him a lot, which was good, because I'd been having a moral quandary about what to do if I hadn't. There are just so few socially acceptable ways to suggest a marriage about to take place in a day be called off entirely. In due course, we set out to head into Toronto, so I could photograph The Pregnant Lady and then we could all head to Kingi's for the silk-screening workshop that afternoon. We were late getting to Barb, due to an emergency laundry episode by our driver, and then a complicated issue of navigation. But we got there eventually, and I got a cup of coffee on the drive, besides. Black, but beggars, choosers: it was the good caffeine, and that is all that mattered. The photographs went well (they were for her private use, so you don't get to see them: just take my word for it, she's an amazingly glowing madonna). We got to the silkscreening workshop and Kingi's store late, but that was okay. Caveat emptor the third: Do not tell an entire room of overachievers that it "does not matter" if things are imperfect, especially grossly so. This will net you a room of grumbles, and the crabby, hungry, perfectionist vegan will begin to scare everyone. So, perfectionist bouts and imperfect silk-screens aside, it was a very fun time, filled with meeting a pile of people I didn't think I knew, but most of whom have seen me naked, which is always a little strange, even though it vaguely resembles much of my life in Chicago before the Internet, so. I didn't manage to leave King's empty-handed, which I knew was going to happen, but I did leave relatively unscathed, as I got a really good deal on a dress that was already on the sale rack to begin with. I also took my screen with me. I was also getting hungry. Audra's incredibly ebullient and gorgeous friend Rebecca came at the end, having been picked up at the airport by Mark, and we then all sat in traffic for an ungodly length of time, where I performed some of my Cultural Attache duties, more than once I made clear that offending me on behalf of my country was impossible given I find my country generally offensive, and I was a little bitchy from the hunger-crabbies. By the time we got to the reception hall to decorate, we were two hours late, the chinese food -- and my tofu! Ordered especially for me from mark's Mom! Who loves me! -- had been stolen. I was sad. And crabby. new tofu was ordered. When it arrived, it looked about 300 years old but you know, it was protein, and I was so hungry it tasted like ambrosia. All hail the miraculous powers of tofu. Low-flying nonsequitur the second: I blushed at the hall, where we were setting it up for the next evening. I do not blush. Really, it doesn't happen. But when a group of people say they've all seen me naked and then the father of the bride chimes in as well, it appears that I blush. After the reception hall sprucing, and the engulfment of tofu, and meeting Audra's grandfather (who, when I said I was happy to meet him, replied, "How do you know? You don't even know me."), we headed to Audra's childhood home and stayed up late making guest books, where I was actually aware I was still a little snippy, but for the most part, I think I passed. The bonus of no one knowing you in person is that when you're crabby, they can't know quite how crabby you really are. That given, I may luck out and be described as occasionally ascerbic -- which sounds flattering, really -- rather than as a total crabapple. Day Three: Tea again. Feh. And wedding day. In a word... or fifty? Manic, nervous, crazy, weepy girls, improper cake icing, shower line, rush-rush, finally some coffee, hairdos, birdseed, much jogging in circles to take many photographs from many angles, many moments of thankfulness for being allowed to wear running shoes with my trousers, silly, funny, beautiful, tender, joyous, happy, happy, happy. The ceremony was beautiful. Audra was really happy and that made me really happy. Mark is the bomb and that's who she married and that made me really happy. The day was slightly overcast, giving me the world's largest scrim to avoid glare in the photos, and that made me really happy (I don't know if Audra wants to show her proofs to the whole world so for now, no wedding photos). Small children are silly and that made me really happy. There was a sandwich with lettuce and tomato, but it was on a whole-grain bun and that made me really happy. Amy Campbell looks fantastic in a suit and is going to send me font software and that made me really happy. Everyone was happy -- everyone -- and that made me really happy. After family shots were done, I did some more of the groom's party in goofy album-cover poses, then a pile of Audra and Mark alone, which was the only alone time they got the whole day, if you pretend I wasn't there. We eventually got to the reception, where there was, in fact, lovely potluck food I could eat, much wackiness, many hugs, gin and tonic, good music, pea-eating goldfish, geek talk and tired feeties. I was informed at least two times that someone someone else knew had a giant crush on me and was appropriately flustered by this information, since I've never any idea what to do with it. Low-flying nonsequitur the third: Once upon a time, in an argument at the Ms. boards about how I was an awful feminist and how much I suck in general, Audra interjected that Judy Rebick was down with what I do. This was hotly contested. Since Judy was at the wedding, I figured I'd do something -- like maybe a little jig -- then ask Judy what she thought of it, and thus be able to say that Judy approved of me. Instead I blurted out the whole story. Judy then told me she gave me unilateral approval for everything under the sun. I have thus been knighted. Ha! Caveat emptor the fourth: Be careful how you name your children, please. Mark's father's name is Randy. This may not have been a very good choice, for that is what he was from the moment the ceremony ended and he began sneaking round throwing birdseed at people and then, at the reception, being more than a little flirty with many women who were not at all receptive to his advances. Including me, who I think actually got the least of it, but who was still carrying the lingering food crabbies around enough that when at one point, he passed by me with an arm slinky around my waist and bottom, we had the following exchange, as I turned to look right at him. Me: What is your DAMAGE?!? Him: Why are you so BITCHY!?! Me: Because you're feeling everyone up! Bleck! Him: I didn't touch...I... (swift exit, stage left) I was more than a little concerned about this exchange, since I really don't like going off on people in public, especially older people in whose house I am staying and who have been quite lovely to me. But as it turns out, that exchange managed to turn me into Randy's best friend. We communed with our crabbiness and similar direct approaches to the world and the people within it. Turns out, my chutzpah has more appeal than my backside. Right on. After Audra and Mark left for their hotel, and Rebecca went to bed, Mark's parents and I stayed up, having a drink and talking politics, healthcare, sex education, life as a working artist, England, the joys of living alone and what it's like being older parents. It is apparently unbelievable we had these conversations. Hmm. Eventually, crashage had to occur. Day Four: Which miraculously begins with coffee and soy milk (which Mark's mother kept carting around in a little plastic bottle for tea for me: she was very concerned about the soy milk, which was painfully charming). Bless. It then proceeds into teary goodbyes, especially from Randy who hugged me tightly sans grope, then lunch in Toronto with my longtime reader and Scarleteen volunteer Bob, who found an actual vegan restaurant, providing me ample amounts of protein and greens. Bob then gave me a small foot tour of downtown Toronto, which was enjoyable, and dropped me at the airport for my flight to Montreal. Caveat emptor the fifth: Understand that if you are walking around with something that looks like a piece of artwork at the airport, the airport staff will ask about it, often, for they are bored and often deprived of culture in their work environment. That's especially important when what you are carrying is a silk screen containing several pictures of your pug and the 1964 American Heritage Dictionary definition of a lesbian (which helpfully, lists lesbianism as a vice, so that we may be aware of our transgressions, or be acceptably warned). Low-flying nonsequitur the fourth: Before I went out of town, I discovered that a Crumpler messenger bag which I'd wanted and needed for an age had gone on serious sale at REI. My friend Leif, bless'im, tossed a donation at me for the cost of it's delivery. I LOVE this bag. This bag was a godsend through various parts of the trip. This bag is my new best friend. And it was a fine flight, where I bizarrely and unknowingly was on the plane with one of Seska's closest in-person friends. Everyone on the plane got their baggage way before me, which was scary for a minute there, but it was rectified shortly. Seska and james and I shared many hugs. Seska's secondary partner and I shared some form of shoulder punch or handshake. I forget which. We the had Thanksgiving at Seska's, where her sister also joined us, who I also hadn't seen in two years. There was a whole lot of delicious, yummy fully vegan food. Carafes of Cosmopolitans were made and inhaled. This resulted in Seska soonafter becoming very, very silly and us watching piles of home movies as she got all weepy. It was really rather charming, though I'm not sure she feels that way about it. Day Five: Coffee and even soy CREAMER. The best start to my day possible. Monday was a shopping day: another trip to Lush (the Toronto store was out of the only perfume I really like in the world, so I also waited to buy gifts for folks, too), much walking, cruising around downtown Montreal, and a lovely faux chicken sandwich for lunch. There are American Apparel stores in Canada. I want one. Wah. Later that night, we had dinner at Chu Chai, the best vegan asian restaurant in the whole, entire world. It may even be the best vegan restaurant, period. There is even warm, nondairy, non-gelatin tapioca pudding with a rich soy vanilla cream topping for dessert and spicy tea. Eating good. Like food. More eating. No travelogue is complete without the required group photo taken with outstretched arms shot. Subway fluorescent lighting and my mouth usurping my entire face, however, is what makes this one oh-so special. We went home and watched Grease while I maniacally kept calling my house here. I hadn't yet been able to get in touch with The Girl at all, and was starting to be concerned. Did she get in an accident? Did she die in the house? Were the pets eating her? Had my apartment burnt down? I didn't know, and could find even a small comfort in the idea that if she had died, and the pets were eating her, at least they weren't slowly starving to death or short of protein. James and I stayed up until four in the morning talking politics. We can't help it: we're talkers, and tend to have that vibe around one another, and the easy friendship where you can disagree, even vehemently, and know it's okay to do so. It's a cool thing, and rare, so I like to take advantage. Day Six: Even stronger coffee and soy creamer. It just kept getting better, even though we were slow starting due to the late night before. I FINALLY was able to get in touch with The Girl, after having realized that the email I thought was outgoing from Seska's wasn't doing any such thing. No one was eaten, burned alive or hit by a bus. This was very good. I photographed Seska and James in the early afternoon, after Seska introduced me to Desperate Housewives. Low-flying nonsequitur the fifth: Friends who are TV-watchers often seem to end up in the position of hosting me as if I were an alien life form when it comes to TV, and I confess, I do tend to approach the stuff not unlike Margaret Mead. I have to confess, I will never stop finding it comical to photograph couples for whom sex on camera is completely normal and routine. Because you know, when a person says, for instance, "Lick me," one expects a certain intensity of that demand, rather than a totally deadpan delivery. So, I always have to fight chuckling like an idiot in these situations, because I find it all so terribly funny. Some great photos though: expect them in an update in the next day or two. Shortly thereafter, Seska and I headed off so I could take some publicity shots for Leanne Franson, who I liked very much (and I didn't especially mind looking at, either, for the record). After an hour or so at Leanne's, we raced off to yet another fantastic restaurant, the Spitfire Lounge, which looked alarmingly like my apartment on a very, very good day. I need to steal their paint techniques, pronto. There were rules. Big rules. Delivered sternly and with emphasis. There were three portion sizes available, but you had to finish every drop on your plates or else not only did you have to fork over more money, you didn't get dessert. If you DID earn your dessert, and you didn't finish it, you were forever banned from the restaurant. I imagine there is some sort of Wall of Shame full of polaroids of patrons looking suitably guilty and a bit nauseous in some back room. We were told these rules were because they abhorred gluttony profusely, but I couldn't help but wonder if, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya, that word did not mean what they thought it meant. In any event, the soup, dinner and dessert were absolutely divine, in a style that was a lot like much of my own cooking, so it was a comfort when far, far away from home. Low-flying nonsequitur the sixth: It did remind me, though, that I need to expand my repertoire of sauces, which is why the night before last, I concocted a new port-wine and butternut squash sauce for over a vegetable, nut and pasta combination. Getting home was tough, because all three of us were quite literally stuffed to the gills (though apparently NOT like gluttons). We didn't stay up late because we were going to the Botanical Gardens the next morning, rather early. Caveat emptor the sixth: Should I ever be a guest in your home, I can assure you that there is absolutely no need to concern yourself for my sleeping through anything, be it a cat defecating, wild sex, stereos, cars, or even the place burning down. If where I was sleeping was on fire, I'd most likely barely manage to grumble to the firefighters to toss me another blanket before curling back up to snooze in the ash and rubble. I'm something of an insomniac, but when I do get to sleep, there is truly no waking me. I cannot say the same for any hosts, as I am also not awakened by my talking loudly in my sleep. Day Seven: Lovely coffee, a quick bath, then off to the gardens with us. Given the season, most of the good stuff was indoors. The entrance didn't exactly look gardeny. But thevacant dirt was a nice chocolate brown. No telling if the Turkish Peace Garden being nothing but dirt was seasonal or some sort of political commentary, though. But the inside was DIVINE. Large armies of small children -- cute as they may be -- notwithstanding, it was a really amazing place, and I got to geek out with my plants and flowers for a couple hours. In another life, I will come back as some from of rainforest denizen, if the fates be kind. That is, if I have another life. And there's still a rainforest anywhere outside the botanical gardens. There was also an insectarium. Caveat emptor the seventh: Even just one line of a song, one tiny opening, is more than enough to prompt a fisker. Case in point. In this case, James, upon looking at a lovely tarantula with me, just HAD to say "Hey Big Spider." Poor James. So, I give you this (and hey, credit me if you're going to repost it. It makes me sad when people flop around my little fisky tunes without doing so. They're not exactly MENSA material or the poetry of my tortured soul, butcha know, this stuff takes a lot of effort and usually at least one strong drink, so), to the rather obvious tune. Mandy, this one's for you, kid. The minute you crawled up my tree I could see you're an arachnid of conviction, a real big spider! Good looking, so maligned, Say, wouldn't you like to know what's going on in my mind? So, let me get right to the point, I don't chop the palp of ev'ry Latrodectus I see. Hey, big spider, spin...a little web with me!   Do you wanna avoid the sun (sun, sun)? I think I'll keep from your wrath (wrath, wrath). I could feed you a...big fly! If you bite me I...will cry!   The minute you started to moult I could see you give your bod an eviction, You real big spider! Nocturnal by design, Say, wouldn't you like to grow an exoskeleton fine? So, let me get right to the point, I don't scream and run from ev'ry arthropod that I see. Hey, big spider, spin...a little web with me!   Are you sick of my puns (puns, puns)? Can a spider even laugh (laugh, laugh)? Are you about to poke out...your eyes? Just one more verse and then... goodbye!   The minute I saw your carapace, I could see you were in danger of extinction, A real big spider! Poisonous to mankind. Say, wouldn't you like to sew a web where dinner's entwined? So, let me get right to the point, You don't chomp chelicerae for every guy you see! So, hey, big spider, Metamorphosizer! Hey, big spider! Spin...a little web with ...me! (Now I'm even starting to get tired of me. Y'all must be exhausted. Here, have some coffee. Not tea.) In any event, one last trip to Lush to finally get the perfume two other shops were out of, a quick yummy lunch, a couple photos of Mr. Catamanga and huggy goodbyes later, and I was off to the airport, for the third and final time. Low-flying nonsequitur the seventh: My French, flatly, sucketh egg. I can read it decently, sing it quite well, and understand people if they speak to me at the speed at which one speaks to very small children. I can pronounce well, but to do that I have to know many words which I do not know, or have them printed on a page in front of me. For whatever reason, when I am with others in Montreal, no one assumed I am French-speaking. But when I am alone, it seems to be assumed that I am the very best French speaker in the whole wide world. Much smiling and nodding on my part generally ensues, as "Je ne parle pas français" has little effect, even pronounced beautifully. It is for this reason that I have now learned the phrase, "Je suis un Américain stupide qui ne peut pas parler français assez bien à l'ordre une baguette." Caveat emptor the eighth: Beware traveling with an arsenal of Lush products, especially if, like me, you are always picked for every random security check that exists, and a few more, besides. For starters, you will have to, with little warning, and while the phase "bath bomb" is on the tip of your tongue, come up with another word to describe the thing being held which you are asked to describe. "Bath..bo -- nny little fizzy smelly thing," is about what I mustered. Then you will end up setting down your Cultural Attache to Lesbianism duties to become a representative of Lush as your customs person calls over ALL the other customs people to smell the entire contents of your bag, and you will be asked to explain how every single thing works, what scents are inside them, where every Lush store in Quebec is and their phone numbers. You will even consider giving away free samples so that you can make your plane. (If you are also the person still carrying the aforementioned silkscreen, you will also have to yet again, tell the story of the 1964 American Heritage Dictionary definition of lesbianism, which large men once smiling at you seem not to appreciate the humour of.) I got home, with The Girl meeting me at the airport. I doled out her presents (Lush goodies, a silly pair of bright red faux-boy undies and a t-shirt I silkscreened for her with the definition), and gave Sofia her silkscreened t-shirt, too, on which the text is too faint and spotty to make me happy, but since she can't read, I suppose that's no big. I pet the cats, I ate some food, I watched Buffy, and I slept soundly in my very own bed with the pug and all the cats. And the next morning, I had an espresso shot in my strong coffee with soy creamer, and even had a cigarette -- indoors! -- with it. I walked my dog, and I got right to work, quite gladly. At home: in all truth, my very favorite place to be, even though all my friends aren't here, I had a great time with them and the best vegan restaurant in the world is not in Minneapolis. (You know, the sad thing is, this was a severe abbreviation of the week in Canada. So, believe it or not, for once I can say I was NOT being verbose, even though I have bee writing this for four hours. In my house. Where the coffee lives.)   October 5th, Two Thousand Four: It's a bloody good thing I’m getting something of a vacation, because I really, really need one now. Since the last time I wrote here, I have: processed and edited over 100 photographs, some for print updated this site and am updating Scarlet Letters at the moment lost Tiny into the ether somewhere, and thus at the last minute, rearranged housesitting duties with The Girl at her generous urging ceased my break with the aforementioned girlfriend, and started to work on some of our stuff fixed a commercial-sized hot water heater when the handyman could not had three other tenant repair calls I’ve dealt with fought with the printer negotiated four more upcoming photo sessions created several different invoicing templates so I can keep my shit together in some semblance of order. And that’s just the big stuff. I am thoroughly WIPED right now. Now, if I can only find my passport (which is all I use for ID anyway, so it can't be too far), do some laundry and pack and have a hot shower, with the newly repaired water heater. By the way, how the heck did it get to be October? I’ve had this extended email conversation with a woman the past couple days who runs a site about the vagina (really, it's about the vulva, but I'll shut up about that for now), who was asking if I’d collaborate with her. After we got past some of my standard issues (I cannot, cannot do any more pro bono work at this point if that’s what's being asked, especially to fill someone else's pockets, and I will not, will not write anything Cosmo-style for anyone, even if they offer me a Villa in the south of France. Okay, maybe then. But only that once. And I’d feed and house homeless French vagrants in it sometimes, so there.), and some standard issues with my address of my standard issues (as in: I’m very direct, people aren't always prepared for it), we hit a road block. We hit a road block because she'd had enough women on her site ask about vulval cosmetic surgery (such as labiaplasty), that she put up a page of info for them. Trouble is, the page of info was exactly two links to promotional sites for plastic surgeons. That was all the info. I’ve been having a tough time explaining why that is so biased, and that it would NOT be a total no-go for me to write at a site addressing genital cosmetic surgery in general if the information provided was balanced, objective AND not from parties with a profound financial interest. This woman wants to be pro-choice in terms of respecting women's choices on this stuff, and I can understand and appreciate that. But. As it stands now, it looks a little like if I were to have a pregnancy site which listed nothing but upscale birthing centers and said I was being pro-choice per reproductive choices. And I gotta say, before and after pictures of labiaplasties make my face all crunchy and my heart all sad. It's just so gross to me to see beautiful labia mutilated to look like a Barbie crotch. It's like looking at someone who's had an ear sliced off their head. (Which I saw as a very small child at an accident scene with my mother, as a matter of fact. It was really gross, for the record. Poor Van Gogh.) Moreover, as I said to this woman, I’ll be way more open to reevaluating my opinions on genital cosmetic surgery when I EVER meet or hear from a woman who's had it who does NOT sleep with men. I haven’t yet. Not once. When the women I meet who have hopped on board the cosmetic surgery train (it's got no express line, there are umpteen stops along the way, and by the way, you apparently never get to get off the train) actually seem happier, rather than more insecure, sad and uncomfortable in their skin, then the women I meet who just watch that train whiz by the station gladly, no matter their shape, age or size. Food for thought: the kind that makes you wish you were bulimic. Speaking of Barbie crotches: for whatever reason, I popped over to Fleshbot today, which I tend to avoid because at least one thing -- and usually more than one -- there always puts me in a foul mood. So why I would pop over when I’m already in a foul mood, I couldn't begin to tell you. But what I found today actually didn’t put me in a foul mood. They had a link to someone showing Playboy centerfolds over the last forty years, roughly. Now, I know this stuff already, and probably you do too (and would that the young women who post at Scarleteen all the time talking labial surgery and pubic hairstyling and I’m too short/fat/hairy/brunette/tall/freckled/hairless for any man to see me did too). But it never hurts to have a visual reminder. While one can't exactly say that something like Playboy, and en masse sexual presentation of women's bodies as a whole, has ever done a good job of representing real women or any real diversity, one can safely say that they used to do a MUCH better job of it. (Normally, I wouldn't download someone else's stuff, but since this is for your educational purposes, I feel confident it falls under fair use.) Observe, compare and contrast, if you will: 1961, then 1993. 1965 (oh my WORD! Is that texture on her breasts, of all places?), then 1985. 1966, then 2000 (Lucky Miss December of 1966 even got to keep some of her face, unlike our gal in 2000. Isn’t that amazing? wasn’t she lucky?). 1973 (Holy CRAP! Are those....hips?) and the uber-terrifying 1998. 1970 and 1997. 1976 and 1990. 1968 (she loves her duckie, apparently) and 1989. And 1973, and really, a visual sonnet to photo retouchers everywhere, Miss June of 2000. There's some wackiness afoot in these older pictures! Women with big breasts also do not have popsicle stick legs; very thin women surprisingly do not have giant boobs. Women are not, apparently, 75% leg to begin with. Women actually have hips, pubic hair and-- gasp! -- little tummies. Women’s breasts actually come in different shapes, not just different sizes! Who’da thunk it? Thighs! (And some fucking natural LIGHT, for the love of gawd. You'd get the idea we live in some sort of post-apocolyptic subterranean underground looking at centerfolds these days.) So, the next time someone tells you women ALWAYS used to look like space mutants or Barbie dolls, bear even something like this in mind, kids. And bear in mind that evolution is a SLOW process: women don’t look this different thanks to mother nature in a mere 30 or 40 years. This is modern manufacturing having a good, long laugh at all of us. I did a photo shoot Sunday, so I could leave an update before I left. To me, I look stoned in at least half of them, even though I wasn’t stoned at the time. I think I was just tired. They're nice photos, but I look stoned. I guess the curious can now know what I look like stoned. That's something. I remember that my mother, without fail, would always accuse me of being wasted on something when I absolutely wasn't, and when I was, didn’t have a single accusation in her purse. And that memory truly has nothing to do with anything. (Except maybe that I just -- after my mother sounded despondent and envious about my traveling -- suggested we try and find a way to save up and go to Italy together next year. I may regret this. She may accuse me of being wasted at some point, though I’ve seen my mother get pretty fast and loose with the white wine when she's decompressing sometimes, so who knows, maybe the tables will be turn for a change. I confess, it'd be pretty fun to accuse my mother of being trashed. "Let me look at your eyes! Did you use eye drops? Empty your purse, little lady! Step away from the Visine NOW.") Photography: (self-portraits) members • samples • sign up Since I’m vaguely incoherent, I’m outta here for now to go finish my work so I can jet off to a country that isn’t this one the day after tomorrow and, save the wedding, a couple short photo sessions, and some copyedits while flying... not work at all. Have a good week, y'all. Do some work for me, will you? And do keep the scissors away from your tender bits, please.     September 30th, Two Thousand Four: Holy crap, am I tired. Good tired, though: that deep-in-your-bones tired, not just stressed-out-brain tired. I’ve had four different photo clients since Saturday, with only one day without a shoot in between. Overall, I did some really good work, and a couple shots that were seriously masterpiece. (Aside: It never, never fails that my very best work is the most simple and the most pure. The minute I have a set, hella props or clients even wearing beyond the barest makeup the quality declines. Someone shows up here in their favorite piece of jewelry or clothing and little else, the work is almost always phenomenal. People working with me, take note.) I’ve easily biked -- mostly for practical reasons, as in, I needed to get places -- 30 miles or so in the last handful of days. I clocked enough boxing time. I got the tix to Montreal from Toronto for next weekend. (Another aside: flying jetsgo is as cheap if not cheaper than the train and takes one hour rather than over four. Canadian travelers and commuters, take note.) Since last Saturday, I made a gross of around $800, and will have earned a little more when I finish editing everything, especially since one of those clients is big on the retouching. This is what I SHOULD be getting paid regularly. Though preferably with a little more time in between clients. All week I kept waiting for the Day Without People. I like my solitary life, so it's always an adjustment, even though I’m intensely social when there are people around. But looks like some of tomorrow and all of Sunday can be Days Without People, so that’s good. And those people worked with and paid me, so I can forgive them for being in my personal space bubble so much. It's actually been very fulfilling to have a week where I had a real income, the sort I sincerely hope I can manage to keep happening at least a couple times a month, not a couple times a year. But now, I am one tired puppy. While I’m heading to Toronto to photograph a wedding, it's Audra’s wedding, so that’s okay. Getting to meet someone you've clocked untold hours of both online social and work time with for at least five years is pretty damned groovy, especially at their wedding, this wedding. Audra and I have determined that when I arrive on Thursday afternoon, we have at least a few hours to say nothing but “SQUEEE!” Then next Sunday, after the Toronto leg -- where I’ll also get to meet one of my Scarleteen volunteers, a longtime reader and friend -- I get to go see Seska, who I haven’t had a visit with in two years. Plus, Lush. And, Kingi. Silkscreening workshop with Kingi for the wedding party, no less (I love learning to do things I have absolutely no idea how to do). All in all, it's looking like I’m getting something of a vacation. I even have a couple photo sessions lined up in at least one city so that I can fund said vacation. I do not get to take my pug, which makes it at least 50% less a vacation than it might be otherwise. (Yet another aside: where is the line of sanity when it comes to dogsitting? If I leave Tiny notes all over the house which state “Remember, this is NOT my dog. This is MY ONLY CHILD,” has that crossed the line? Does it guarantee Sofia will not be taken out of the house even once and spoon-fed? Future pug-sitters, take note. Then run. Far away.) I am greatly looking forward to the day I hope will come when I am the crazy old lady everyone at turns both loves and is annoyed to death by, whom no one, anywhere, in any setting, even considers keeping from always having her little dog under one arm. I am also getting vaguely neurotic about leaving the cats right now, because while Flora seems to be totally fine, that en masse dropping of hair thing really freaked me out. I am really, really tired. So, I’ve treating myself to a super-magnificent dinner. I stuffed a butternut squash from the farm share with a wild rice mix, dried cherries and cranberries, pecans, sautéed leeks and sweet onion, all mixed with some orange zest, cumin, cinnamon and maple, with a pile of streamed spinach beside. Pity I don’t have a whole orange: some orange slices in there would make it really fantastic. Speaking of food, here's the Moroccan Stew recipe a reader wanted a week or two ago: 5 big cloves garlic (roast first, then mash’em) 2 large yellow onions 2 sweet potatoes 4 zucchini squash, yellow and green 1 big honkin' carrot 2 roma tomatoes 1 red pepper 1 cup soaked garbanzo beans (or garbanzo bean sprouts, but for those, add’em in the last 15 min.) 1 cup dried cranberries, cherries, raisins or currants 1 tsp. each cumin, turmeric, paprika, cayenne and cinnamon Chop all the veggies coarsely. Sauté the onions, garlic, red pepper and spices in olive oil, then add the zucchini, tomatoes and potatoes until they're good n’juicy. Add a cup of water or veggie broth, then add the carrot. Let it all stew for 15 minutes, then add the rest of the ingredients, adding water as need be, cooking uncovered for about a half hour. I serve it over couscous, but rice or soba noodles would also work. I also top it with toasted pine nuts, but I put nuts in EVERYTHING. I have a nut PROBLEM. Photography: (self-portraits) members • samples • sign up Not speaking of food, the break The Girl and I have been taking is supposed to end Sunday. And I find I’m feeling nervous and possessive of my life. These past two weeks have been really good for me. I’ve tackled a good deal of what I had on my list to tackle, I’ve reclaimed most of my normal routines, I’ve gotten a whole lot of work done uninterrupted, and without feeling like I have to defend that time. It's been -- when I’m not shooting here or away -- beautifully quiet and peaceful here. I feel grounded again, and its made clear how off-balance I was really feeling. Maybe, if things went well on her end, it's just a matter of making my priorities really clear again. Maybe I need to cut our time back further if that works for her, from a couple days/nights a week down to one: could be that part of the problem I’m having isn’t the depression/anxiety stuff, but simply my own time and availability. It's so tricky, this stuff, when none of the standard relationship models, patterns and needs really fit. Most people, as they stay in a relationship, want more time, more commitment, more of their partner's life melded into theirs. You're supposed to talk about living together at some point, for instance, and I truly want to keep on living alone, possibly for always. I don’t want more time than a couple times a week with someone: I both just don’t have it, and I don’t want to have to give up aspects of my life and work I’d need to to do that. It's funny: I walk into pretty much every relationship in my life saying that I’m polyamorous with an existing primary partner: my creative life, often called "work," but it's a different application of the word than a lot of folks are used to. It's not something I force myself to do to glean a paycheck, I don’t have or want set or limited hours. And when you say that, there seems to be an unspoken expectation that if you fall head over heels in love, even after the NRE has worn off, you'll want that to change, you will or must want less time working and more time with another person. And really, I don’t. I don’t think that means I can't have a relationship at all, but those sorts of issues, the sort of life I want to live does often tend to conflict with what a lot of other people want. Toss in the business of her depression and anxiety and this all gets trickier. We'll see, I suppose, what happens. Hopefully before I leave town we can sit down and see where we’re both at right now, what was gleaned from the two weeks, where it's left us. The toughest thing for me now is that I do really feel okay about whatever happens happening. After B. and I split, with a few road bumps in between, I seemed to develop this kind of center about things like this, a certain acceptance that in many ways, is a surprisingly easy acceptance. Probably that’s because losing a relationship and a friendship that spanned so many years -- while it wasn’t easy and it still makes me sad to have lost my best friend -- didn’t kill me. I lived through it, I lost something of incredible value to me badly and I was still okay. I’d lost umpteen people and things before that in my life, often in very difficult ways. Moreover, it was clearly better to lose that relationship than to have it as it became, something I knew, even though it hurt like hell and I still miss my oldest friend terribly. Other things have gone on over the past few years which likely also contributed to being a whole lot better about attachment, too. But while for me it feels better -- I think it's a great place to be -- it makes navigating relationship impasses with people difficult because I’m not super-intense about holding tight, and because at times it's hard to know if what feels good to me about that is truly a healthy loss of attachment, or is emotional distance I’m putting between myself and other people. Tricky. Tired. (One last aside, I promise. It's needed for levity, besides. My dog is the cutest dog in the whole world. I save a couple walkie-routes for rare use, because when we go walking where she isn’t super-familiar with the route, she gets so excited that her whole little body stays wiggling, and she bounces so much as she explores that her little ears get all wiggly, too. This is not my dog, this is my child. Tiny, take note.)   September 27th, Two Thousand Four: I realize, sometimes, that why I'm so perplexed by people's fascination with other planets, with speculation about other places, is because I am so intensely, passionately in love with the one I already live on. I just can't imagine there is any place more amazing than this. When I was little, Horton Hears a Who was one of my favorite Dr. Suess stories. (When Dr. Suess died, the co-op I worked at gave me several days off without even asking: my boss knew the minute he heard that I was going to be beside myself, and he was right.) I didn't just love Horton because he totally rocked by saving the Whos and Whoville, but because Dr. Suess got that you could, essentially, visit other planets, other worlds ever few inches, just by letting yourself get sucked into the inside of any given flower. There are whole other worlds, outrageous life forms, unbelievable whorls and explosions of color, all of this varied texture within every single one. You stand in a garden or a field of them, seeing the macrocosm that becomes more and more intricate the closer you get. There's no end to it. Without thinking about it overmuch, you have to make yourself into the smallest thing imaginable to climb inside of them: even butterflies and bees look giant in comparison to the tiny details, the nearly microscopic doorways within. It's not difficult to feel, to become that small: it's a comfort to vanish inside all that color and texture and scent. It's so easy to be in the moment gazing at flowers, at what is outside: any expectation of permanence becomes irrelevant and pass?. These are clearly only moments in time: you know and expect that even one day later, it will not look, not be the same. They may come back the next year, they may not. What you have is only what is there, right now, and there's no want to cling to it. Half the beauty of the thing is that you were simply lucky enough to be passing when it was in whatever stage it was in, when the light hit it this way or that one. You savor that moment, you sit with it, you move along just as it will. And all of this nourishes mind, body and spirit. We can tend to it, we can nurture it all and even intentionally grow things, but even without our help -- so long as we aren't killing the planet we live on -- it is present, appears and thrives on its own.