Here we are now, Fukazawa

First, please excuse the title of this post. It is a difficult illusion. I will give an A+ to anyone who can guess intelligently about why I named this post after a Japanese translator, though.

So, for the past ten years, almost, I have felt this incredible nostalgia for my home town. Every place I have lived there was always a twinge of disappointment that there weren't more hills or more trees or more lakes. I lamented the lack of cheap diner food and distrusted the newness of everything. I missed knowing how all the ridiculous non-sensical streets secretly fed into one another.

I missed knowing a place through and through, smells, sounds, emotions, everything.

Having been back in my hometown for much longer than I ever intended I can now say with a large dose of confidence: I will not be overcome with nostalgia again.

Right now I miss healthy food. I miss open-minded neighbors. I miss cultural happenings. I miss old friends. I miss these things far more than I have ever missed anything. I will be leaving soon and it is with only a mild regret that I say, honestly, I may never come home again.

Fire Pit of Shame

I just threw the most shamefully unattended bonfire of all time. Julie and I invited friends from high school and a few folks I know from the bar and whatnot. FOUR PEOPLE CAME. Kudos to those four for sticking it out as long as they did. I would feel bad, but it was so ridiculous that all we could do once the crowd cleared was laugh at ourselves uproariously.

Credits

In the movie version of my life the sound track will be the asshole song.

I'm an asshole. That's me.

Please forgive the mess. We are are restructuring.

I went to see a speech by Leslie Feinberg last night. The event was put on by the folks at the Binghamton Pride Coalition.

Leslie talked about going to see Sylvia Rivera before she died. Leslie asked Sylvia what it was she was fighting for at Stonewall- race, class, trans issues, protection from police brutality, so on and so forth.

Sylvia said, "I was fighting for my life." She meant it literally.

Some of you probably read the long diatribe I left on KC's blog the other day. But, I would like to revisit it here, because I think I actually had a small epiphany recently that is causing me to restructure my brain and the way I think about things. I have bolded major points and cut out some off-topic banter.

At 8:30 PM Billy said...
To make up for lost posts: I once used a kung-foo move on a gay man who felt me up at this park thinking I was a dude looking to be cruised. I don't know what was more shocking to him, the breasts or the sudden blow to his upper body . . .

At 8:41 PM kc said...
Why didn't you ever tell me that?! (Did you think you would have gotten in trouble for being out late in unsavory places? You would have.)

At 12:56 AM Billy said...
. . . If you wanted to do something truly wonderful and radical - one night when I get back we should get a bunch of people together and create a safety booth at the park and give out free whistles and phone numbers for victims of queer violence and hate crimes . . .

Around midnight KC and I talk on the phone. At which time she said something I found horribly offensive. I won't repeat what she said because I think she didn't really mean it.

(Also, excuse my use of the term "non-vanilla" in the following passage, it was late and I was having trouble coming up with a better phrase. I realize vanilla sort of implies race and that wasn't my intention.)

At 2:58 AM Billy said...
. . . Earlier this evening you said that you feel like I am a very sexually oriented individual. I don't think I am. Not any more so than most folks. I think I just feel the need to talk about sex and gender because I feel under-represented. I do not see images of myself in the world. Nor do I see images of many non-vanilla sexualities in the world. And I have no desire to conform to the images of gender and sex that I do see. It has been hard to get to this place. I may be able to help others have a better go of it.

It is challenging to think of a film (children's movies included) (film because it is ubiquitous) that is devoid of sexual content and sexual relationships. Sex is a major part of our lives. It is elementary. We are biological creatures. We need sex to survive. Literally. Figuratively.

It is only slightly less challenging to think of films that portray non-vanilla sex. Specifically, healthy non-vanilla sex. Healthy non-vanilla sex is far less prevalent in film than sexual violence.

I think a lot of people have vanilla sex because they just don't know anything else. It is what they have seen time and time again.

The options go like this: Man humps woman, OR, now this is only if you are really kinky, woman blows man. I can count on one hand the number of male on female oral sex scenes I have seen in films. Ditto the number of woman on woman oral sex scenes, but I couldn't begin to count the number of male to female penetration scenes or female to male oral sex scenes.

I feel ignored. I feel marginalized. I feel invisible. I feel as if I almost don't exist. I feel lost. I feel alone. I feel despised. I feel diseased. I feel like people wish I didn't exist. I feel like people would prefer it if I would shut up. I feel like people want me to change, fundamentally, to better fit into their one hundred and twenty eight minute running time romantic equation: boy meets girl, boy likes girl, circumstances threaten to keep boy and girl apart, boy, heroically, risks embarrassment to overcome circumstances, girl falls in love with boy for this, boy humps girl, boy purposes to girl, girl is overjoyed, sex is replaced by love and they live happily ever after until Woody Allen flies in the face of convention and dares to make a movie about straight married life after 35.

Give me a break. Just because I am not Lillian Faderman or Adrienne Rich doesn't mean that I don't have valid, meaningful and important things to say about sex. And I am sorry, and I don't mean this next statement to be confrontational, but I feel what you said earlier, I am paraphrasing, "That nobody wants to know what you (meaning me, Billy) do in bed" is untrue. I think a lot of people want to know, but not for the puerile reasons prude people think, not because they want to get off hearing me talk about sex, but for the same reasons I like to read ancient poetry, for the same reasons children flock to other children at the park, and for the same reason some people like watching vanilla-centric pop films, because they want to know that there are other people who think and feel and experience the same kinds of things they do.

Then, there are another group of truly amazing people. The people that I am really after. Who like to know that there are people in the world who think and feel and experience the world in a completely DIFFERENT way than they do. That there is something more to all of this than just my version of the story and that is wonderful and freeing and so incredibly, serendipitously great. That is what I meant earlier by saying, "It is okay if we disagree."

So, yes, I WOULD really go out and set up a booth at the gay male cruising park. Because I recognize a serious threat to that community that I feel has every right to exist even if I am not a member of it. I would do this even though it may never be reciprocated for me. Yes, I would sign petition after petition to send peacekeeping troops to Darfur. Yes, I would protest against legislation that discriminates against migrant workers. Yes, I would stop eating meat because I recognize that industrial farming is bad not only for our environment but harmful to farmers and animals. Yes, I would join the American Indian Movement and the Labor Party even though the efforts of those groups are not likely to benefit me directly.

Why? Because it is the right thing to do. Why? Because diversity and equality benefit all members of society. Why? Because I am not free and equal so long as the person next to me is not free and equal.

Last week I had sex with a girl in a bathroom stall. I picked her up, leaned her against the wall and humped her . . . Does that make me a man? Does that make her a woman? If one hundred dykes come in a bathroom and nobody yells out, "We fucked in the bathroom." Does anybody hear it? Did any of it really happen? And, can it be protected under the law?

I know you are going to delete this post, or I will delete it, then we won't talk to each other for a week, then this amazing thing will happen. We will miss each other. We will apologize. I will wish we had met later in life. You will wish we had met earlier and been childhood friends. I will scream at the world about everything I know and hear and see. You will call and tell me the things you can't tell anyone else, not because I am special, but because there is no guarantee that anyone else wants to hear it, and I will accept you, totally, while disagreeing with your view of the world, and you will begrudgingly be grateful for my candor, though, most of the time, it embarrasses you to death. And the only things that I will keep secret are the things that you, and only you, ask me to . . .

At 3:05 AM Billy said...
Although, you might just prove me wrong.

Anyhow, I need to figure out what all this means.

I think I AM definitely ready to go to grad school. I know I want to work in video but I am so scared because I recognize that there is a HUGE sweeping change that is about to happen in my life. It is something I am excited about, but I know I am going to make a lot of mistakes, not just little mistakes, like, "Oops should have called that person back right away," big mistakes, like things that are offensive to people. And sometimes being offended is healthy, but I hope people will recognize I am trying to become a better person and they will forgive me when I blunder.

Meta Blog: Saving Face

During a recent NPR fund drive our local public radio station played a lot "best of" programming from A Prairie Home Companion, This American Life, Democracy Now and so on and so forth.

It was really interesting to hear the Ira Glass and Garrison Keillor of 5 and 10 years ago. Not only has the climate changed in which they are broadcasting allowing or demanding changes in subject matter, but their diction and voices have changed. Ira Glass has become, well, smoother, more confident and less whiny, though I still think of him as having an iconic whine. Garrison Keillor has become more middle American, less Minnesota and mainstream USA, though I still think of him as a Saint Paul kind of guy. I wonder how much of my interpretation of these individuals is based on my first encounters with their programs and how much is actually based on their programs today.

I realized, while listening to the radio that Sunday that once upon a time these guys were young bloods, maverick radio pioneers, doing something which must have felt more like a crazy experiment in earning a paycheck than an institution in the American intellectual landscape.

In a similar vein, although, admittedly my little blog isn't as well produced as either of these programs, yet (wink wink), I have purposefully begun taking to only republishing my index (main page for you non-bloggers) and not my entire site when I make changes to my css template or profile picture. Any post that I wrote 6 months ago, when pulled up from the archive, should look just as it did 6 months ago, old profile picture and all. And any comments I have posted to other blogs in the past will display my old profile pictures.

In a year or two from now, provided I am still at this blogging thing, one could hypothetically go back through my old posts and have a visual record of how I have changed physically over the course of time to reinforce the equally inevitable changes in my ideas and writing style.

This Morning's Shave

I have a confession to make. I love the little flash 'games' that overpower the masthead on Myspace pages. I know that they are shameless marketing tools. I know that the game is designed to be all but impossible to lose. Playing should almost always result in a big red bubble proclaiming me a "WINNER" and and the appearance of a popup window where all I have to do to claim my new ipod, cell phone, laptop, pda, gpu, abcdefg device is divulge an incredible amount of personal financial information, add myself to a slough of spam mail lists, click 129 ads and buy a small product from a smaller e-store front.

Honestly, I just play the game to play it. I close the popup window and play again, and sometimes again.

This morning I saw my favorite fake game ever. It is a race with the computer to be the fastest to shave the sheep. I think they should have been more to the point, though, and called it "shave a moment off of your life."

Happy Birthday, Mr. Pres-i-dent

There was a day after I first went to college, when I was sitting in a hot roach-infested dorm room that had formerly been an army barrack with tin walls and a gun rack in every cell. If I had balls they would have been glued to my leg, it was that hot, and I had been getting my hat handed to me all day in the gauntlet of preseason soccer madness. Moreover, I was home sick as all get out and my sister (yes, the advertising executive) called to tell me she was at a party in NYC with Lil Kim and Dr J.

I was suddenly overcome with the awareness that I was in the middle of nowhere slaving away at something where no one would ever notice whilst my sister was kicking back rubbing elbows with the rich and famous. And all of a sudden the two of us, born a year and a half apart, having shared a bunk bed and bicycles and toys our whole lives, seemed to be worlds apart.

When I look back on it now I don't feel like I missed a thing. In fact if you gave me the choice, today, and if my body could handle it still, I would rather be in that dorm room preparing for another day on the pitch in the middle of nowhere and I would be happy as a clam to know it wasn't going to get me anywhere in life. But at the time it was hard to be happy for her or for myself.

----

That same semester I sat and watched a certain US president on the television screen in my room. I was typing a paper on post-apocalyptic literature (I am underwhelmed by my former self) while I watched. Although I thought him the best president in my lifetime I was appalled by some of the words that came out of his mouth and by some of the programs he proposed which to me, in my very literal political period, seemed like blatant violations of state's rights.

----

Nowadays my sister and I chat most frequently through text messages or on IM.

She sends me little notes:

South by Southwest rocks. Spent the day with Belle and Sabastian. Check the pics.

In London. Haven't eaten all week. Everything has curry in it. Beer is gross.

This is your sister, your hungover sister. How's Wyoming?

Saw Bowie last night. Begged him to sign my pay stub. He said no.

----

A few weeks ago my sister told me what I have come to think of as a typical Julie story. That is to say it involved famous people, making a fool of yourself, and coming out of the whole ordeal on top, somehow.

So, my sister's pal who works for an undisclosed former president, the same president I sat watching in my dorm room at Clemson, sent my sister an email inviting her to sign said ex-president's birthday card. My sister who imagines herself to have a keen nose for bullshit smelled a practical joke and decided to take steps to keep herself atop the haha-wave.

She went to the website and wrote a terse and heartfelt birthday greeting. It read:

Happy Birthday Big Boy,
Am I allowed to call you that? Here's to 60 more years of sexy. Enjoy.

She then replied to her friend's email saying:

I just sent a little message to the birthday boy. I'’m now waiting for secret service to pick me up from work.
Thanks.

When recounting the story to me she said that her email, "Naturally prompted an urgent phone call," from her friend during which she became very aware that this had not, in fact, been a practical joke. It was a real birthday card. A real birthday card that she had signed, in a moment of great flair, with her real name. Her full name. You may or may not be aware of the fact that my sister and I inherited two last names from our incredibly indecisive parents. So she signed the note, hyphen and all, Julia Xxxxx-Xxxxxxxxxx. So, there was no mistaking her for a different Julia Xxxxx. It was definitely THE Julia Xxxxx-Xxxxxxxxxxx.

My sister's friend had invited her to sign the note because she was to be a guest at the ex-president's party the following week.

For ten or eleven straight days after my sister told me this story my mom and I walked around the house role-playing the following scenario:

Julie enters the gala-party-ball event like Cinderella in her gown. Trumpets blast. All eyes turn to her. She is radiant. She stands atop a long stairwell covered with a wide, lush red carpet. A loud voice calls out, "Presenting Miss Julie Xxxxx-Xxxxxxxxxxx of the Lower West Side." A light flashes in the ex-presidents mind. He knows he knows that name, but where? Where does he know this radiant creature from? He leans to his personal attendant and without being otherwise prompted his man whispers in his robotic attendant voice into the ex-president's ear, "Hello big boy. Is it okay if I call you that?"

Julie said that she went and read through the other signatures on the ex-president's card. They went on about his humanitarian efforts, about his strength of character, about his composure in the face of great adversity. But, I told her, "The thing he will always remember is that wonderful little tart that cut through the pomp and circumstance and made him feel alive. Joke or no joke."

While my sister was preparing for her big night with her big boy ex-president I was outside watching birds swoop and catch flies in mid air. The sun was setting through the trees. A child was laughing. The geese were flying south and my dog stood in her spot, whining at the fence, praying in her doggy language for the neighbor dog to come out and pine to copulate with her through the chain links of propriety that keep them apart.

On the phone I asked Julie if she had practiced her personal platform. She said, "I'm wearing a gown and heels. There are not going to be any platforms, shoes or otherwise." And I said to her, "If you can only say one thing, remember: gender equality, gen-der e-qual-ity."

My sister, in her own magical way, had no interest in the political aspects of the evening. She wanted to have a good time. She spent the night talking about normal things with a crowd of less than normal men who got to loosen their ties and put their respective hats on the hook for the evening to celebrate the most natural of things, the passing of another year.

In her way of keeping things in perspective she told me the following day, "The party was great. Big dicks swinging all over the place. No one remembered the card."

Of course, my sister gets invited to these things precisely for her ability to keep her personal politics - which are very enlightened for a heterosexual, white, blonde haired, blue eyed, upper middle class, 20-something advertising executive - to herself. I couldn't have done it and I will never get the chance to prove myself wrong. But in the end, I am glad it was her and not me that went. After all, what would I have written about if it had been me?

Great Love

I love KC.

A few days ago she wrote me an email. One of my posts, It's Lovely Down Here, upset her. It didn't upset her because of the message, but rather, it made her sad to think of me having relationships with other people.

Her email hurt my feelings. She said she didn't want to talk to me anymore and that I made her mom cry, not because I was mean, but because her mom loves me and I left. I like her mom a lot and I am sad that we aren't friends any more. It hurt me to think of her mom crying.

At the time, I was dealing with a lot of negativity and I sat down at my computer and tried to understand hurting people, intentionally. Violence is something that bothers me deeply. I am by nature a very peaceful and fun loving person. It is hard for me to imagine myself hurting someone else. So, I decided to conduct a little experiment and see if I could conjure up a violent persona, Parker.

I think I was alarmingly good at writing violence, but try as I might, I just was not capable of really feeling the things I wrote. I guess my natural tendency is actually towards conciliation, towards love and understanding. And I am pretty happy with that.

I like people. I care about people. All of them, even the ones that treat me badly, at times, especially the ones that treat me badly.

My sister read my post, Misanthropic Tendencies, and wrote to me on IM.

Julie: OH BOY
Me: What?
Julie: Are you trying to make KC hate you?
Me: No.
Julie: Why did you write that?
Me: Because I am tired of people walking all over me.
Julie: Good. Don't let them, now take the post down.
Me: No.

I had this knowledge that KC, unlike most of the people I currently spend time talking to has that wonderful ability to feel and think at the same time.

She wrote me an email after she read my post. It said, "Sorry."

I called her last night and explained to her that her email to me came at a bad time. That I had been recieving threatening emails and silly blog comments and hurtful, irresponsible messages in general from folks. I told her that the post was only partially directed at her, but that it was more of an exploration than a declaration of firmly held feelings.

She wrote me another email today it said, "I'm glad you called yesterday. You're awesome."

So, it turns out that we have become better people. That we are willing, at least with each other, to read between the lines. To accept each other's emotions as valid and meaningful, even when they are hard to witness. We have learned that there are minor feelings and major feelings. That we can be torn in a moment, but still resolute on the whole. And we have resolved, I think, to love each other and it is a great love.

Anonymous

Grow up.

Hate Mail #2

Another email from my myspace friend:

Just stay away from NAME WITHELD. She wants nothing to do with you. Believe me I'm not threatening you. I really will show up!! NAME WITHELD did not leave you the message but she did ask me to!!

Misanthropic Tendencies - Not for the faint of heart

My buddy, Midge, told me yesterday, "You give people too much credit, Billy. You are too nice. You give everyone the benefit of the doubt." I am not really all that nice. I mean I treat people with kindness. I value life, playfulness, openness and creativity.

----

(This is a good time to remind people that this is completely fictional, well almost completely fictional, I am exploring ideas and emotions, I do not actually have a schizoid psyche.)

----

There is a cold, raw marble-like piece of my psyche. I would like to let her out to play tonight. I am going to call her Parker.

From Parker:
I hate people. I disdain them. They bore me. Lazy, stupid cattle. All eating the same bland grass and thinking each and every one of their selves is unique or valuable. I'd like to show them the killing house, the meat grinder, the mind eraser. I would like to watch them stand there dumbly, looking at that great edifice of massacre, cowering, moaning, saying woe is me, chewing hay, farting, shitting on each other, not moving, fattening themselves up. I should like to say, “You are slaughtered for your sloth, for your passivity, for the way you taste,” you stupid fucking cow-humans.

From Parker:
I have nothing to say. You don't want to hear from me. Your creation. The smooth alabaster facade that held together Billy's fractured psyche after years of listening to you go to town, shredding every little tiny glistening teenage ideal she clung to. Fuck you bitch. Fuck your mother.

From Parker:
Dear not mom in law. Here is what I should have liked to tell you about your daughter. She needs help. She is a black hole. I have no emotions left to give her. She has sucked me dry. My intellect falters. I am hungry, I think. I can't tell anymore. I have forgotten how to eat. I lie awake in bed mornings hoping today is the day I will die and I can stop this charade. I am a toy. A pawn. An embarrassing reminder to your normal daughter that she can't be perfect and hold down a good man, a real man, a man's man. My skin grows cold. I don't want to touch or be touched. I have no opinion on paint color. I have no lingering fantasy of morning coffee eternally bathed in love and excitement. The gate has closed. I cannot open it without loosening the last little private piece of untouched happiness before the great sucking me-hole your daughter has collapsed into upon herself.

From Parker:
You silly little tart. Don't test me, bitch. I will fuck you up in ways you didn't know existed. I'll take that little butch tongue of yours and nail it to a board. I will nail the board to a truck bed. I will put the truck on a track. I will let you be drug around town by your stupid fucking tongue. I will dissect you alive, limbs pinned to wax tray. Removing fatty tissue and crop, gizzard, aorta. Your big doe eyes saying what your shredded tongue never had the brains to.

From Parker:
And you, you last shriveling, Gollum, glub little fuck. You think I forgot about you? You think you can hide in some dark recess of my mind, almost not a memory, almost not real anymore? You perverted little child fucker. I am going to take you to dinner one night, for old times sake. I will start a pot of water to boil. And then I will strip you naked. I will make a slit in your skin right at the top of your scrotum. You would like that, wouldn't you? I will peel back your skin, running it through a pasta roller directly into the boiling water. I will keep rolling and boiling until you are standing in front of me, completely fucking naked, exposed and bloody, then I will punch my hand through your chest and grab your bloody fucking heart and squeeze it so hard, so calmly, until it bursts and I can be reborn in a warm, salty blood bath, you fucking piece of slag shit. Die. Die and let it be horrible.

----

Of course what I really think and say is:

Oh, you want to shove a camera up my ass?
Oh, I am so sorry to have offended you, please, let's still be friends.

Oh, you are unhappy?
Oh, I am so sorry, let me give and give and give.

Oh, your mom hates me, she cries to you about me because I couldn't love you enough?
Oh, let me run back and prove her wrong, let me make it right, let me try, I know I can do better.

Oh, this is our little secret, no one has to know?
Oh, let me not tell a soul, let me worry decades on end, centuries on end, that somehow everything is my fault, that if I was only better, more morally incorruptible that none of this would have ever happened, that I invited it, that I cannot live without it.

----

The play within the play.

My sister, the advertising executive (so fun to say), was back in this manure pasture of a town a few weeks ago. She went to a local bar, known to us expats, us former expats, us soon-to-again-be expats as the kind of place locals go because they are bored and want to rassle up some trouble to make life more interesting.

Her best friend, a real doll who works for a former US president and also grew up here in slagsville, USA accompanied her to this bar. The two of them were going to go and dance and reminisce about their high school days.

At the bar my sister and her friend went to go to the bathroom. There were some other girls in there. Some words were said, unprovoked. Basically, one of these little trampy whores called my sister's friend, - who is an intelligent, soft spoken, self educated, incredibly successful young woman who never stands up for herself - a worthless small-time country bumpkin, or in Binghamtonian she said, "Go back to Norwich." (The irony is Norwich, in my opinion, is a much nicer community than Binghamton.)

My sister, in a moment of indignant righteousness, lost her mind, put a hand up on either side of the bathroom stall walls, got a small swinging start and, I kid you not, Karate kicked that little puke right out of the bathroom and back out into the bar.

She came home that night, incredibly embarrassed, saying, "I can't go out here ever again. I am a professional. I have a job. I can't be kicking girls in the bathroom. I can't lose my job over something some little tramp says to me in a bar in fucking Binghamton."

And here is the rub. Some places are just antithetical to intelligent, peaceful, loving and creative living. It sucks that our hometown happens to be one of those places. And maybe it doesn't seem that way to everyone, to the college kids from long island, to the Lockheed starfuckers, to the kids from connected or wealthy families, but to us, the girl's, the Keefe sisters who grew up on Chenango Street and had friends with switch blades and had to steal lunch money from our mom (okay I am being very selective in details here), but to us it is a reality. To us this place is a dangerous sink hole that has the ability to negate all the incredibly hard work we have done in our lives in order to be able to envision a world where happiness, kindness and love are all really possible. And please, before you rip me a new one for how I portray Binghamton, realize that this is MY experience of this town having grown up here and been very, very poor. Other people may have completely different feelings and that is fine and great. Leave a post. Write your own blog. But don't you dare tell me I am wrong about this.

----

Today I am going to sleep in. When I am done typing this I am going back to bed. I am not going to check my emails. I am not going to answer my phone. When I feel like waking up I am going to go to breakfast, then I am going to drive out in the hills, collect myself and make a plan.

It's Lovely Down Here

I had been sleeping with this very open minded gal for a while. We were lying around naked one morning and on a whim I decided to check out her genitalia in depth. I was surprised when she shooed me embarrassedly and acted like it was odd that I should want to see it.

After all I have one of my own, right? (Sarcastic eyebrow raise.)

It was silly, really, for her to suddenly be shy about her sex organs. I was acquainted with it in what I considered much more intimate ways than this, but somehow, seeing it in a moment of non-passion made her uncomfortable. Somehow, to my great surprise, the non-passionate moment was the more intimate moment.

I was gently and playfully insistent and, well, you get the idea.

Before that morning our sex had been just fine, but for me, once I could see exactly what it was I was working with and once I had asked her some specific questions about different techniques and areas, well, I had a wealth of new information and ideas. And technical and cold as it may sound it didn’t make any sex act perfunctory.

My mom, the midwife, and I have had some interesting discussions about female genitalia. For example, I was under the impression that squirting was really peeing. It turns out I was only part right. It is a small part. There is urine in the fluids released when a woman ejaculates, but it is actually a completely separate process from urination. It involves ducts and contractions and all types of things.

When I asked my mom in the form of a thinly-veiled, third-person scenario if female ejaculation was real and why some people do it and some don’t. She told me it was real and that if my “friend’s” lover was ejaculating then my “friend” must be doing something right because squirting is a sign of extreme relaxation and sexual enjoyment.

I would like to take credit for the squirting lover, but contrary to my mom’s professional opinion I don’t think it had much to do with me. My lover’s eyes were nearly always closed when she came and I am somewhat certain she was fantasizing about someone else while I was going down on her. I still enjoyed it and I miss her now that she is actually off with someone else.

My mom works closely with my gynecologist. This has been a source of extreme stress in my life for years. It is a tricky situation. The two of them are friends. I am always unsure of how much of our patient/doctor conversations get mixed back into normal friendship banter unintentionally or hypothetically or in thinly-veiled third person talk.

This particular gynecologist likes to converse about random stuff while she examines you. More specifically, she likes for YOU to talk about random stuff while she looks around in ways even lovers are embarrassed to do to each other. I think she figures talking about things will distract her patients from what she is doing.

It doesn’t work.

It is incredibly awkward to stammer through some anecdote about something like your first grade teacher, stuttering and pausing during moments of pinching pain or unexpected coldness and all the time worrying if the friend of your mother who has her fingers and a flashlight inside you has noticed you are inadvertently wet despite having no attraction to her whatsoever.

Anyhow, I have noticed that gynecological type people employ a series of socially standoff-ish techniques like this when with patients. Another wide-spread technique is avoiding eye contact. This is especially weird with my mom’s friend who comes over to the house regularly. As a younger person I was pretty sure that she wasn’t making eye contact with me because she was somehow keeping some important information from me, like, “you have an ugly-ass cooch.”

After a recent ultrasound during which an anonymous nurse checked in on my sadly cyst-engulfed ovaries, I asked my mom why gynecological doctors and nurses seem to avoid eye contact in the examination room. She brought up some really good points that I hadn’t thought of. For many women gynecological examinations are traumatic. Some women have their first gynecological examination as a result of a sexual assault and those two events become intertwined in their memories. Additionally, there are many women who have been assaulted that simply don’t like anyone touching them in their sexual area. My mom told me that there are women that cry all through gynecological exams, even with women gynecologists and some gals that will shake, black out or get extremely violent. I had never thought of any of this and it made me feel a bit silly for my run-of-the-mill awkwardness.

But I told my mom that this non eye contact thing made me feel extremely uncomfortable. That it was hard for me to go from sitting in a room with a doctor and talking very candidly about sex to immediately having her avoid eye contact with me while touching me, then hurry out of the room to let me “clean up” and dress before we could resume looking at each other in the face again.

Let me put it bluntly, avoiding eye contact, for whatever reason, feels like shame. The one place where there aught to be no form of sexual shame is at the sex doctor’s. But, hey that is just my opinion.

In light of my experiences and insecurities and those of the other women, queer women, that I sleep with and who, of all people, should have some sense of how their own genitalia compares to other women’s, I suggested to my mom that she and her coworkers might employ a new phraseology in the examining room.

Repeat after me.

“Everything looks LOVELY down here.”

“Great shape. Good coloring.”

“Absolutely positively normal.”

“Healthy across the board.”

“Aces”

Last night I was surprised when the gal I was with went on at length about how great my breasts are. I never really considered myself to have great breasts. To be honest I wish I didn’t have breasts at all, but she was adamant, and it made me feel good to know she meant it. I left being with her filled with that feeling we all dream of having after sex: acceptance. Oh, wait, that might just be me again.

So, for those of us who are not in the medical profession that find ourselves face to, uhm, face with a naked woman that we want to make feeeel good, here are some things you might try saying (seriously, practice this outloud):

“Your c-nt is so f-ing hot (wet or tight work as well). I want to f-ck (finger or lick) you.”

“Your clit (c-nt, p-ssy, vagina or tw-t) is amazing.”

“I love your p-ssy (etc).”

“You are so soft down there. I love it.”

(And yes, try to verbalize the intent of the dashes, that is hot.)

If you aren’t saying something along these lines to your partner when you are with her you are doing her a great disservice. And please, please, ask her how she feels. Be earnest and be honest. You are in the best position, literally, to give her positive feedback (accompanied with the magically reinforcing eye contact, small kisses, back scratches, and cuddling her doctor probably neglects) about an area that is likely mired in great insecurity. Take your job seriously, learn about her body then make her feel good, outside and in.

Rect(uhm)ify

Had this message waiting for me on Myspace when I got home from work tonight:

This is not NAME WITHELD but someone who is definately going to protect her ans someone who will most definately take care of anyone who thinks they can in anyway hurt her. You think you are such a smart ass taking pictures of her. Well let me tell you this If I ever see you you will wish you never snapped a pic of her. It is an invasion of her privacy and I will take that camera or pphone ans shove it so far up your ass you will wish and beg for me to stop.
A friend!!!!

As much as talk of shoving electronic devices up my ass really turns me on . . . I will let the letter stand for itself.

(And, just between us, there is no picture.)

Fleetingwood

Players only love you.



When they're playing.

Meta Blogger

I was at a retreat the other day and my friend, who has asked not to be mentioned in my blog, inadvertently coined a wonderful term, meta moments. These are moments when you talk about talking about moments. This type of talk seems to happen frequently at things like retreats, coalition meetings, subcommittee gatherings, etc.

I recently had a meta-type experience of my own when I put a site tracker on my blog. I did this purely out of curiosity because frequently I will be talking to someone who will say, "Oh yeah, I read what you said about that on your blog," and I will be surprised that they had gone to my blog and not left any comments. I sort of figured that the only people who read my blog belonged to a close group of friends, a couple of folks from myspace and a handful of big brother types who like to keep an eye on me.

Yesterday morning I got my first site tracking report and I was genuinely surprised to find out that I average several dozen hits per day. Not a whole lot, but not too shabby. My site tracker has only been active for 2 or 3 days now and I have hits from all over upstate NY, from NYC and the surrounding environs, from South Carolina and Georgia, from all over Kansas (KC, Lawrence, Topeka, Wichita and Newton) from the DC area and even a couple each from France and Singapore. While I can guess who a lot of these visitors are there are some that I am sure I don't know and that is exciting.

Anyhow, I would like to invite everyone to comment at will on my posts. I am genuinely interested in your thoughts.

Petrolatum, Mineral Oil, Fragrance

I have to admit a secret, sinful ulterior motivation for having male friends stay over: I love to go through their toiletries. A few weeks ago a couple of gay male friends of mine, Brian and Jeremy, stayed at my house.

It was like Christmas waking up early that first morning and going into the bathroom. Jeremy always smells divine and I couldn't wait to uncover a mass of secret boy chemicals to add to my shopping list.

This said, I really wasn't sure what to make of the bright orange, kitchy tin of pomade on my bathroom counter.

I have been using pomade, Crew, since shaving my head almost a year ago. Crew comes in a variety of finishes and strengths. It is what some people refer to as "product." Crew smells like shampoo and is a fairly pliable paste or gel that is easy to work into one's hand. It is water soluble and can be diluted in your palm for the desired consistency before applying to your hair. It works in wet or dry hair and is considered "workable" meaning that it doesn't stiffen and can be combed throughout the day.

So, I was surprised to open the can of Murrays and discover a thick sticky wax. Fearing I might be about to get in over my head in the secret life of men's bathroom supplies I closed the lid and commenced reading the instructions.

The lid prominently features a man and a woman. I liked the idea that this has been a unisex, multi-racial product since 1925.

Here is what I learned from the package:

MURRAY'S SUPERIOR HAIR DRESSING POMADE

A WONDERFUL DRESSING FOR THE HAIR

Holds hair in place. Perfectly harmless and does not contain any acids or alkalies. Controls bobbed hair.

M a n u f a c t u r e d b y :
MURRAYS SUPERIOR PRODUCTS CO.
1100 Woodward Heights
Ferndale, MI 48220

Also distributors of Murray's Hair-Glo a soft brilliantine glossine-like hair dressing for all grades of hair.

Ingredients: Petrolatum, Mineral Oil, Fragrance

D I R E C T I O N S
FOR MEN: First see that hair is clean. If hair is thick mix MURRAY'S HAIR-GLO with portion of pomade to be used on hair. Rub into palms of hands until it softens, then rub thoroughly into hair. Dampen the hair with hot water, or place hot, damp towel on head for a few minutes. Remove, comb all traces of pomade out of the hair, then comb and brush into style wanted. Place a special MURRAY'S HAIR PRESSING CAP on the head until hair dries.

Apparently, women are expected to already know how to use pomade since there aren't any directions for women.

So, I tried the pomade and to my great delight it works brilliantly. I used the faintest amount of the sticky gook and it held my hair for the entire day.

Later, I asked Brian how he had come across it:

"Well, I am obsessed with keeping my hair spiky. No matter what I did it would always get messed up or flat by the end of the day. So, I started asking some of the gals at work what I should use. One girl said, "Oh, do you want the kind of hair that doesn't move? The kind you can go swimming in the lake and come out and it will still be perfect? The kind you can drive with the windows down smoking a cigarette and still look good?" Then she recommended Murray's pomade."

Today, I was in CVS with my mom. My $25 container of Crew is empty and I have been scraping the sides and corners like a peanut butter jar to get out enough residual residue to keep my hair from becoming a frightening mass. I couldn't rightly ask her to buy me more Crew. So, I was ever-so-pleasantly surprised to discover that I could buy Murray's Pomade for $2.99.

What a great deal! There is enough insanely potent petrolatum in this tin to last me two years. Though, I am considering augmenting my supply with another product by Murray's, Nu-Nile.


It is for slightly more manageable hair.

If you would like to learn more about Murray's Hair Products or if you would like to buy me a kitchy shirt for Christmas, check out their groovey website: murrayspomade.com

Choked Up

I sat in the diner this morning, an alien. I was doodling concept sketches onto a stack of white paper while referring to a brainstorming list on my shiny Mac laptop.

I ordered tea instead of coffee. Yet another extravagance like drawing and portable electronic devices. Most folks at the Red Oak Diner (or the Red Choke as it is known to insiders) make liberal use of the endless pot of coffee. Tea, which costs the same price, 65 cents, is limited to one bag. My breakfast came to a whopping two dollars and ninety-five cents and consisted of four pieces of toast, an omelet and a generous dose of breakfast potatoes with the tea.

I had gone to the diner to think. Get out of the house. Get some work done away from the desk and chair I spend half of my day at. But instead of working I found myself ease dropping. The hostess at the diner is an older Russian woman. It is well known that most of the kitchen staff there is "right off the boat" but she is the only visible out-of-towner in the joint, a relative, from the old country of one of the owners. The hostess is endearing. She manages a certain softness and feminity despite her cascading affectations of American diner talk.

"Wvat can I geht you drink swveety?"

She is thin and easily 55 to 60 years old. But she wears a well cut designer shirt with a wrap-around print. Her hair is professionally colored and cut with freshly modern but relatively conservative lines. The color suits her, as does the well matched makeup and it isn't until you look at her closely at the check out counter that you notice the marks of years of hard living.

Today I sat across from two older gentlemen. They seemed to have gone to high school together. They were talking about football the way men that are well beyond the years of playing will. The one man lamented that now a days the boys are just picked for their physique, their brawn, that the scrappy hero of their childhood teams would never have been considered for the team today. They talked a while about their gym class and a particular boy who was unathletic and got picked on by the teacher. The second man kept saying, "I have to go and pick up my daughter." But the two of them were still sitting there, chattering away when I left.

Most of the tables were filled with men. Specifically, two men. Old pals.

My waitress was a middle-aged woman with soft features and a polite demeanor. Every customer who walked through the door was greeted as "honey" or "sweetie" except for a few ornery regulars who the staff privately refer to as "buster" or "buddy."

My waitress and the hostess were sitting at a table with another gal, who only had enough money for toast and coffee, a dollar and fifteen cents. Her name was Helen and I heard the hostess say, "Helen, wvaht Hellen? I have naht seen Helen." Which is Russian hostess for "the toast and coffee are on me."

It is raining outside. The sky is dark and the colors are alive and rich. The tables at the diner are covered in an odd creamy finish and they seemed to glow.

This diner was once famous for a stuffed deer head that sported a gold chain with an amulet. As a child I was alternately terrified and fascinated by the deer and I remember vividly the day I worked up the courage to pet the deer. My mother held me up and I timidly patted the dry coarse hair with my sweaty, plump diminutive hand. It was so shiny and demure that I had expected it to feel soft and fluffy. That amulet made it seem to have once been the king of the forest. I had assumed that only a most skilled hunter could have captured such a fine creature. After I touched it I couldn't get over the discrepancy between what this semblage of a living thing appeared to be and what it actually was. For years the feeling of dry dead hair would sneak up on me in the palm of my hand.

The table under the deer's head was a seat of honor. In high school my band of merry diner goers would choose that booth over all others for sitting at and eating and talking away the small hours of the morning.

As I sat at my table today, alone, sipping tea and watching the flat screen television that has replaced the deer I couldn't help but feel as though I had lost something.

I wondered how quickly we would disappear, the generations of deer petters.

My grandfather and I used to sit in this diner and eat breakfast together on Sunday mornings. His old pals from the old neighborhood would come in and say things like, "Hey hey billy-boy." And he would reply, "Well hello there you old scoundrel, you."

Say it. Say it.

As a young boy that is what I thought it should be like to become an old man. All your friends from around the way. Everyone, a friend from one adventure or another, who came together on a Sunday to eat and give thanks for being alive and eating.

Now I, with all of my childhood friends scattered to the wind and no one to sit and reminisce about childhood valor and conquests with, I with no scoundrels or heroes, plan my next move to an almost home. Where I will speak with an accent and care for my new friends the best I can having no shared history to make our eating and living momentous.

When in Samaria

I had to make a split decision last night when I saw a person enter the apartment building across from the bar where I work after he offered to sell me a tv complete with dangling frayed cable chords.

I would have let the whole thing pass and just made a joke about it the next night, except, I began to worry that someone might get hurt.

I was in a pickle. I sat and debated with myself what to do. But in the end I had to go with my gut. I called the police.

Here were my justifications 5 beers into sitting at the back door.

1. In entering someone’s home he was creating an inherently dangerous situation both for himself and the people around him.


2. He solicited me as an employee of a business that doesn't want illegal activity happening in the back of the bar (hence the creation of my position). This unwanted illegal activity includes black men doing crack and hocking hot TVs, but, just fyi, NOT white men smoking pot and having public sex.


3. This bar, which is the only well-attended gay bar in a 45 minute drive of town, had a noise complaint from one of the neighbors in that same apartment building I saw the guy with the stolen TV go into. The sad sort of irony is that it is well-known at the bar that the particular neighbor that calls to complain about us is himself a gay man. I had sort of a Jane Jacobs moment and thought, maybe if we watch out for our neighbor, he will watch out for us.


4. A few nights ago when the police came for the noise complaint they were very inappropriate with the patrons and staff at the bar and made a pretty clear and odd reference to the murder of a gay man that had happened here a few years ago. Many of the staff and older patrons of the bar had worked with this man or were friends of his and the reference was highly suspicious given the nature of the complaint. I kind of felt like perhaps if we let the police know we are looking out for the neighborhood they might be more accepting of our role in the community.

I knew instantly that none of my rationale mattered when the first words the cop said to me when he got out of his car were, "Black guy?"

How can I explain his inflection? It was a question, but not really a question. It was the way you ask a question when you know the answer and there is no reason for the other person to speak, but it is your job to ask the question. My heart sank. I described the man and explained what had happened and how I had seen him enter the apartment building across the way.

My heart was down in the bottom of my shoes by the time I walked back to my post at the bar and watched my gay friends, black, white, Latino, Paki, Japanese drinking, talking, finding comfort in one another.

I mentioned what had happened to a gal I know at the bar.

She said, “Did he have a hooded shirt on?”
Me: “Yes.”
Her: “Black guy, big, 40s.”
Me: (Thinking that describes a fairly broad range of people.) “Yes, but . . . “
Her: “That’s my friend’s man. Real crackhead.”
Me: “I feel badly.”
Her: “Don’t. It’s them or us. You have to make a choice.”

I should say that this gal is a Spanish-speaker and I have seen her drinking and talking with black people, white people and every color in between as well. So, I don’t think it was a racially motivated comment.

It’s them or us.

What does that mean? Have I come down on the side of the white police? Is that my ‘us’? Or am I on the side of the gay clientele of Merlins? Is that my ‘community’? And who is ‘them’? Blacks? Straights? Crackheads? TV thieves?

Coincidentally, I had a similar (though completely different) conversation with a social work professor earlier in the day when I began to use the term “quality of life.”

Her: “What do you mean by improving the ‘quality of life’ in Binghamton?”
Me: “I mean making things better.”
Her: “For whom?”
Me: “For everyone.”
Her: “Making things better for some necessitates making not making things better for others.”

I know on a very important level this is true. But I have a feeling that at the time, when we were at the retreat working to draft a mission statement for a local gender expression and sexuality pride coalition, we probably both agreed that the values we were espousing as a group - justice, visibility, stewardship, accessibility, queerness, diversity - are things that would make any community nicer to live in for any member, even those that feel that said values are in opposition to their own. Better, that is, if you believe that freedom within the confines of respect for other’s freedom is the basis of a free and just society.

This is stewardship, then, I guess. “I see how you feel, and I understand why, but let me show you the bigger picture . . . This is how we can all be free without hurting one another.“

I could have used a steward last night. Some little voice in my ear who had thought through this very issue thoroughly and could give me guidance on what to do.

I did not protect my brother’s freedom. Bottom line.

He was hurting someone, financially, but it was likely someone who had built their happiness profiting from a system that impinged upon his basic liberties. Obviously, he had the greater need for that TV. He presumably had less access through legal channels to the things he needed. And so he stole the TV.

In the retreat, the Reverend Miller (long, but wonderful story), defined access thusly:

“At the dojo where I train there is a rule. If two people are going to spar and one partner wants to spar at slow speed and the other at medium speed. Slow speed trumps.”

There is no such thing as equal access, really. It is an ideal, something we can approach infinitely without ever reaching. We talk about it as if it were real and obtainable. But any black crackhead could tell you it is a bunch of bullshit.

Does that mean we scrap the law? Not call the police when you see someone breaking into an apartment?

If I were asleep in my apartment, alone, well with Pip, and one of my neighbors saw person breaking in (gender, race, etc aside) I would want them to help me.

I have called the police on several other occasions in my life.

There was the time when I saw a man stop his truck at a stop sign and start punching a child in his car. I was rattled by it for days. The young boy who was getting beaten was cowering and then opened the truck door and fell out as the driver had started to pull away from the stop sign. He could have easily been run over.

I called the police about several injury accidents including the time I saw a bicycler get thrashed by a car full of kids late night on a weekend.

I called the police once when I was expecting KC to come up on a visit from Tulsa to Lawrence. She was supposed to leave early in the morning, but she hadn’t shown up. I paced the apartment all day, scared to leave, no way of finding out if she was okay, not being a legal relative of hers. She eventually did make it. She, I think, had had some car trouble. Her arrival coincided with that of the pizza I had ordered because I didn’t want to leave the house in case she showed up (pre cell phones). Just as I was hugging her and saying, “I was so worried about you”, the pizza person gave me an expecting look, so I paid him and hugged her at the same time.

There are these little moments in your life when you have the opportunity to seize things and prove once and for all that we are capable of greatness or at least great insight.

I should have hugged her and let the damn pizza guy wait.

With my crackhead, in retrospect, what I should have done is tried to talk to the guy. I should have gotten someone to cover the door for me and gone and talked to him. It would have seemed crazy, it would have probably been dangerous, it most likely wouldn’t have worked, but it is the only just thing I could have done. It would be the only thing that could bring our world’s to some type of consensus.

“Hey, I won’t buy that TV and I can’t let you go into that building because someone might get hurt. I don’t want to give you money that you will use to hurt yourself. But, I will talk to you for a while. I will listen. I will try to understand and however I can, I will help.”

When I was leaving work there was a man walking around in the other parking lot where my car was at. He had on a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. He was older, 50’s, and had pasty white skin showing everywhere. The boxers were split along the butt. He was bending over and running his fingers over the cement and rocks in the parking lot as if he was looking for something. Every time he bent down to touch the floor I saw the split in his pants widen and his old pasty ass crack appear. He started picking up small bits of asphalt or debris and putting them in his mouth.

Me: “Hey man.”
Him: “Hey, hey, hey, man, man.”
Me: “Are you okay. Do you need some help.”
Him: “Nope. Nuhuh”

I got in my car and sat for several moments as he continued gathering pebbles and eating them. He had moved to the other side of the lot near a wall. I watched him illuminated by my break lights the way a deer might be. And I feared hurting him, the way I would a wild animal who had accidentally strayed into the parking lot outside of the bar. He looked frightened in a general sort of animalistic way by my car, and I was quite sure he had no idea what a car was or how it could hurt him.

Yup, that's me

Usually my stupidity is limited to the garden variety type of things - adding incorrectly, forgetting someone's name, etc. Every once in a while I do something so incredibly stupid that I just want to bury my head in the sand. This week I crossed over into the realm of the paranoid idiot.

I think there are just too many things wearing on me right now.

So that my pals who read this know: I am tweaked out. I am stressed about money, food, moving, my 'career', applying to grad school, puppy's medical needs, a sore tooth, four painful impacted wisdom teeth, my Thursday night crush, the timing belt in my car, a possible warrant for my arrest in Nevada, and some other things that are more important, like my best buddy, Nick.

There was a day this week when I was actually paranoid about going outside to smoke because there was a great little kid out there riding her bike alone. I didn't want it to look like I was watching her on account of being the neighborhood gay. I should have known there and then that my mental state is a bit off. Everyone like watching cool kids who ride their bikes and talk to themselves. Anyone who doesn't like watching children play sucks.

Nick has talked to me before about his fear of interacting with straight people's children. I used to feel awkward as a weirdo gay art student, when I would be around children of people I didn't know. I worried that some parent would come chew me out for exposing their child to pinko-queer-radicalism. Then, I started coaching again and I developed my coaching persona. Working with kids day in and day out made my life so much nicer. They treat each other well. They say amazing things. They look up to you and trust you. And in turn you get to make good on that trust and treat them well and encourage them to do the things they show interest in.

But now that I am not actually coaching attempting to employ the coaching persona just seems creepy. And having things about me seem creepy makes me feel creepy. Feeling creepy makes me act funky. Acting funky makes people think I am creepy. It is a cyclical sort of rippling thing.

So now after weeks of not doing anything productive, having limited human interaction and worrying about a million things I can't control, I have loosened a few screws somewhere. This is like having one of those sleep walking sadnesses. You hardly realize how sad you have gotten until some insane idea slaps you awake, like, "I could drive into that cement wall."

Anyhow, I am worried, constantly. It would be one thing if I could blame it on drugs or something, but I'm not into drugs. So, I have to admit to myself that the cause of my tweakage is my inability to deal with being so disappointed in what has happened at work and being stressed out about money and personal stuff. If I had a million dollars I could afford that therapist I have had my eye on. I wish you could get things like that for your birthday. "Mom, instead of weird socks and a new coffee press, could you get me 50 hours of psychotherapy?"

I slept with a random girl two nights ago. I haven't decided if this was dumb or not. I mean I realize it was at least partly dumb. But it felt good. It is so nice just to have someone hold you once in a while. To hold you and mean it, like there is nothing they would rather be doing.

Last night I was worrying about Nick and I got all silly and paranoid and bugged out on someone that had nothing to do with him. I don't know if it makes it more understandable, but I was crying profusely when all the silly dumbness went down. Anyhow, because of my poopiness people's feelings were hurt. Folks took things personally and figured I was trying to be mysterious or intriguing or macho. Really I just was sad and freaked out and needed to vent a little without laying everything out there. I try to avoid saying things like, "Look how totally messed up and out of control my life is." I dunno, comments like that seem to make people leery of talking to me. Plus, all my close friends are far away and I have no one to talk to day to day except my sister, who I love dearly, but I just can't say everything that is on my mind to.

So, I called KC. This always makes me feel a little guilty. The subtext of our conversations are always, "Hey I don't want to be with you anymore, but I still need you to be emotionally engaged in my life." I am not using her, I genuinely want to be involved in her life, too. I just feel bad when I unload on her.

Obviously, I couldn't tell her about the sex thing because I thought it might make her sad (but she will probably read it here. "Sorry poop.") so I told her about the dumber thing with the paranoid bugging out business. She politely and cautiously told me a change of scenery was in order. She may have been thinking of a week at Shady Acres, but she was good at making less hurtful suggestions that were more along the lines of, "Move, asap."

Anyhow, apparently my Leaving post offended someone. I have a good idea it is the person I bugged out on. It wasn't directed at anyone in particular with the possible exceptions of: 1) this part of myself that is a little loopy right now, 2) the parents and coworkers who made me feel so shitty that I spent three weeks crying and sleeping, 3) the people that won't hire me for shit jobs at the pizza place, sandwich shop, etc so that I can buy food. It certainly wasn't directed at anyone I know socially.

I would also like to thank a couple of people for being very kind to me recently (Julie, Emily, Courtney, Lauren, Nina, Jen, Jeremy, KC). You have no idea how much your random kind words and acts, your emails and postcards have made the past month or two easier to get through. I wish I wasn't at the breaking point because normally these things make me feel absolutely awesome, but right now they are seriously helping me to barely hold it together. I know that you all think highly of me and I understand that the stuff I am going through is temporary, it is just hard to deal with everything alone.

La Violencia (Version One)

(There might be something here, eventually.)

It was like a snow day -
Home from work and school
We lay shaking beside each other
Big fluffy comforter to our chins
Side to side in our bed in Kansas
And our dogs at our feet.

I laughed, hysterically,
Until I cried, face red
Embarrassed and uncontrollable
The way that only these things
Can bring out in me

All cellular service was down
All internet service was down
And my sister, she was down

Phew. Hold me.

But do you remember the images
Of children dodging gunfire
Like heyenas the way they wefted
and split when they were attacked.

Let me put my head in your lap.

Of children running from their dead friends
their dead parents, from all everything
naked and on fire

Can I love you between attrocities?

I awoke this morning
Five years after we sat in bed
Watching bodies falling down
In that firey edifice to safely-
cropped images, flags, mourners

You are in Kansas. I am here.
We split. Weft and wane.

One semester I took a class on Latin America
And every day we studied La Violencia

La Violencia. It is a way of living.

I came home and showed you evidence
Woodcuttings, linocuts, broadsheets
With type big enough to cover us all

My best friend, out of his mind
His father dead two years ago or
was it three years ago today,
or yesterday, his father dead

And he is only one man.

My grandfather, life draining slowly from his chest
into a bin at the foot of his bed
while he still clung to life

And he was only one man.

And this
We die. We die. We die.

Every morning as steam rises from our coffee and cigarettes
Upon waking we die. We go to work. We make art. We die.

We will be conquered if not by our
insanity then by our humanity. And it means nothing
Outside of that bed, two girls and two dogs
No one else is watching nor cares to.