post-christmas

i haven't been writing enough lately. but when am i ever?

christmas 2012 in two words: bacon ham.

C decorating for the holiday was the cutest thing ever. our home is covered in greenery, candles, and sparkly things.

strange to hear people moving about in the apartment

the dining room suddenly became a center for gathering and conversation

wine, godspell, and apples to apples

waking up early enough to see the snow that fell for about an hour...technically a white christmas!

giving a few very well-received gifts...a privilege i appreciate more and more as i get older

the relief of having our home back to myself and my partner...we love my family, especially in small doses. privacy is a blessing. (curious to see how my opinions change as we grow out of the "newlywed" phase)

looking forward to the new year...2013 is going to be big!

Brattle Sq, October 24

last night i walked into a Tibetan Freedom rally in Brattle Square
i heard him singing from a half-mile away,
ten minutes
that voice and that throaty roar in the microphone drew me in

eye contact
woman with bowed head and american flag
young man dancing waving the flag of tibet
this throat-singer chanting words in a language my body had learned,
years before,
lifetimes before.

before life, when words
meant no meaning had been exchanged,
but where the vibrations of the earth and the trees and the human throat
were all expressions of the divine in the universe.

i loved it then and i love it now,
i listen for meaning above words.
i am trapped in the words of my body,
my limited shell attempting to capture the likeness of the invisible divine
so far removed from me that i could not hope to ever achieve it.
i escaped my freedom.

purgatory is life.

we know we have suffered here, in this lifetime
we know we have earned no suffering

i stood there transfixed,
brought in by the call to prayer.
i responded in a language i did not understand.
stop. pray. breathe. stand.

tears of fear and pain and sorrow built behind my eyes.
i could not say why. i heard
the truth of his suffering.

it got bad enough that he was here, instead of there.

i began, after standing for some minutes
feeling on the verge of tears and held in deep respect,
to nod my head in agreement
and laugh.

there is joy, there is hope, there is compassion
and we will still be here, somewhere.

Tibet is not a part of China.

on neighbours

today i was reminded to pay attention to my neighbors. the people in closest proximity to me, who are experiencing the same things as i am on a moment-to-moment basis. today my neighbors included:

-the non-heteronormative appearing Black woman who sat across from me on the T and made faces at a toddler whose mama was more interested in her phone than in her child.

-Dave, the working-class man with a strong Boston accent (which neighborhood, i could still not tell you) who struck up a conversation with me at the trolley stop by asking about my hair (buzzed again, surprise!) and proceeded to carry a conversation with me for at least 45 minutes until i got off the train. he was super friendly and really interesting to listen to and connect with. he has a daughter about my age. and he told me he'll give me a copy of his demo cd the next time we see each other.

 -the two young Asian women who said "excuse me" while i was talking with a friend on a street corner and asked me to take their picture...how do you say no to that? 

-the Latino family taking wedding pictures...the bride and the little girl were both in elaborate dresses. the flower girl looked like she was thoroughly enjoying poofing her big skirt.

-the employees at the liquor store and the chain burrito place where we stopped on the way home. who looked me in the eyes, and who didn't.

-the boy (college-aged?) who thanked me as he moved past me to get out of the crowded train, and the way i thanked him for making it so convenient for me to sit down. (lessons in femme courtesy only ever happen naturally and by accident.)

-the gaggle of irish students staying in boston for a 7-week term, especially the girl sitting on the end of the row with her bright red hair who sang, "i cannot wait to go back to ireland!" the others asked her why, and she told them she misses her good friends and her good family and a gestural expression of frustration with people from here that i would do a disservice by describing. i asked her how long she's staying here, and she told me five more weeks. she asked me where i'm from. i only thought about it for a moment before saying, "pittsburgh." she repeated it, "pittsburgh," with an unmistakably knowing nod. "do you like it here?"



"not as much as i liked it there."
"so are you often making long trips?"
"not often enough."
"ah, because of like work stuff?"
"yeah, stuff like that."

as i got off the train i made sure to tell them to have fun and enjoy their stay. there's so much cool stuff to explore.

highlights from the walk i just took

walking through where Vietnam collides with Latin America, the urban Black community, and old Irish names

statues of Mary and Joseph with flowers laid at their feet

dot2dot cafe has an open mic the last friday of every month, and they might be a good place to eat breakfast

gas costs about 30 cents less in dorchester than it does in brookline

why are white people so unfriendly?

julie andrews constantly playing outside the strip mall, met by a reggae cover of "when i'm 64" by the beatles inside the liquor store, where the cashiers are probably never going to stop addressing me as "young lady"

i love triple deckers

this morning's saturday drive through the "bad part of town" with the top down was also educational. catholics build the biggest churches. crowning moment: reading the huge "START THE PEACE" sign in the corner park, and a police car blazes through the intersection, all sirens and blue lights.

moment:

i saw two Black lesbians cross the street holding hands in my new neighborhood today, and it made me feel better about everything.

assorted frustrations

it's about time for another installation of "things i'm too frustrated to post to facebook about."


1) chik-fil-a. i've gotten into more than one conversation over on fb about this nonsense already. basically, if you give money to an organization that is known to give money to hate groups, you are giving money to hate groups. i don't understand how people can justify their patronage of organizations like this, especially by saying "the minimum wage workers in their restaurants will feel the heat faster than the COO." that may be true, but if they had $11 million to give to hate groups, i'm sure they're not sharing all of their money with their minimum wage employees anyway.


2) gun control. i've seen a few posts in the wake of the Colorado movie theater shooting suggesting that if more people owned guns, things like this wouldn't happen. that's just about the stupidest, most illogical thing i've ever heard. maybe if our gun control laws were stricter, a single civilian wouldn't be able to amass dozens of ASSAULT RIFLES. you don't go hunting with an assault rifle. you don't protect your family with an assault rifle. you use it to kill a larger number of people, very quickly. there is no reason anyone should have one of those. i'll make a possible exception for those in the military who are being actively shot at by others with assault rifles. but really, i just don't think guns should be a thing, and it saddens me to live in a world where they already are and there's nothing anyone can do about it.


i also don't buy the argument that if we outlaw guns, the only people who will have guns are criminals. that statement is necessarily true, which makes it a stupid argument. the fact is that guns are not outlawed, and criminals have much easier access to guns than they would if guns were outlawed. then they cry Second Amendment, without remembering that the Bill of Rights was authored at a time when there was no organized military in the U.S., and it fell on individual citizens to arm themselves and then show up when called to shoot at Indians, the British, wild animals encroaching on their farms, etc. the Second Amendment is obsolete, because we have an established military to defend civilians. see my comments above.



3) rental agents in my neighborhood. i live in a section of Boston that is primarily populated by immigrants/speakers of languages other than English and college students. there's some overlap there, too. as a result, landlords and the people who work for them expect that they can treat everyone like shit and no one will try to do anything about it. they also, as a general rule, don't show their own apartments. they hire brokers to show available units for them, and then usually (unless you wait until the last minute like we did, and like the person who will rent our apartment in september is apparently going to do) they make the tenant pay something called a "broker fee" which is essentially a finder's fee/commission for the brokers.

i am fucking sick of disrespectful brokers trying to force their way into my home. i am more familiar with the law as it pertains to non-tenants entering an apartment than most of them seem to be, and i know that the law requires "reasonable notice" before landlords or their agents enter a unit, and that although the law does not specify, court cases have established that reasonable notice is generally between 24-48 hours. i just expect everyone to follow the rules, which is difficult when so many rental agencies advertise that they accept walk-ins, and then think that leaving a voicemail while i am at work and my partner is sleeping because he works the night shift saying that they want to give me a "heads up" that they're showing my apartment within the hour  counts as "reasonable notice." NO! i should not have to explain the details of our personal life to each and every stranger who thinks they have the right to enter my home, and i don't think it's a stretch to assume that someone who works for a living might not be able to answer their phone/check messages at any given moment during the day.



*sigh* 4 days until we move....there will still be a month left on our current lease at that point, and i'm seriously considering posting friendly notes throughout the apartment about the awful experience we've had here.

moment:

"keep smilin'. it looks good on you."
-neighbor on the stoop

thoughts on Boston Pride

underwhelming and overexpensive.
tons of people, but no family.
the biggest rainbow flag i've ever seen.
a general lack of mostly-naked dancing boys.

non-gay-appearing profiteers trying to sell rainbow accessories at exorbitant prices. $5 for a flag? i'm sorry, you don't sell rainbow flags at pride. you give them away.

ALL the politicians had a contingent. and they all showed up in person. Mayor Menino led the parade (behind the Dykes on Bikes--none of whose signs said "Dykes on Bikes." they all had much more politically correct and less interesting club names.) Elizabeth Warren waved at us specifically! i wish i could have figured out what she said. i'm very excited to vote for her in November.

many, many queer families with children and/or dogs.
straight observers. confused Asian tourists.
PFLAGers and free-huggers.
more UU congregations than i've ever seen in a single metropolitan area.

the moment after i saw one sign that said "I <3 TRANS PEOPLE" when i noticed the sea of identical signs a few paces behind it. looked at C and both our hearts melted.

a friend described the scene overall as "less outlandish" than Pittsburgh Pride. the theory is that since being queer generally is much more widely accepted in Boston, it's less necessary to go out of the way to make a statement.

neighbors

in Allston, i am on nodding terms with all the men i see sitting on stoops in the afternoon. we are beginning to move into speaking terms, entire sentences exchanged: "i like your haircut! could be better though."

"how are you today?"
"good, 'nyuhself?"

i never used to appreciate the "how are you" ritual, and i still don't in a lot of circumstances. i don't believe that words are worth exchanging without meaning. if you don't care how someone is that day, why would you ask? but now, it means something to me that these older black and latino men--these men who recognize the worth of words enough to withhold them--recognize me, a tiny white woman with a shaved head, enough to ask and to answer.

one saw me walking to the beer store on memorial day weekend, and we exchanged smiles and glances. then he saw me walking back from the beer store, with a 12-pack under one arm and a black plastic bag in the other, and he called out, "now i know why you're so happy!"
i smiled back and told him, "it's gonna be a good weekend!"
and it was.

second impressions

they can't be first impressions, because those were all formed over the summer and in september when i first arrived, when my life was immeasurably different than it is now (funny how quickly that can happen). i spent my first three months in Boston in complete and total unemployment, and it took me four months to start my full-time job. those kinds of impressions are different than the ones that are made when you settle into a routine.

this is something i had heard about bigger-city living, and i'm glad i'm getting the opportunity to experience it: i don't feel like i live in the city of Boston as much as i feel like i live in my neighborhood. my entire life--groceries, laundry, work, home, odds & ends--can be accomplished within walking distance. there's something to be said about that kind of insularity, something i didn't expect to find here.

it's kind of a cool feeling. i don't know my neighbors, per se, but there are familiar characters. it occurs to me that i might be a familiar character to some of them by now. i have a preference for the convenience store on my corner over the one on the next block. i'm friendly with the employees at the two closest beer stores. all of this takes place within a few blocks of the same street.

i like this part of living in a city, at least for right now.

mix tape x: MOVING

going through old posts, including one on which B made a request that i post my EPIC playlist from the road trip this summer, i realized i never did! here are the songs that are on my iPod under the playlist name MOVING:

1) "Boston" - Augustana
2) "All I Want" - Joni Mitchell
3) "Times Like These (Acoustic)" - Foo Fighters
4) "Home" - Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros
5) "No Rain" - Blind Melon (which is obligatory on any mixtape of significance i've made since 2003)
6) "The Weight of Lies" - The Avett Brothers
7) "What I Got" - Sublime
8) "Don't Stop" - unknown artist, discovered on a mix cd per chance ;)
9) "Come On Get Higher" - likewise
10) "Porch Songs" - Chris Pureka
11) "The Boys of Summer" - The Ataris
12) "Yoü and I" - Lady Gaga

new year's 2012

writing at new year's never seems to work out the way i hope it will, but i remembered that sometime this past january i had a better idea. having just gotten a new phone, tonight seemed like the perfect time to empty the old one of all remaining text messages.

what i found was a very telling picture of what we (i) value. whose messages are saved, which ones, and how that decision differs for different people. how many of the words i kept were my own compared to how many were sent to me by others. what relationships i built, and how, and why i felt it was important to remember.

right along with that is the razor's edge between benefit and detriment that we each walk by creating our own revisionist history. there truly are two sides to every story. but had those things been said during a phone call, rather than written, they would have been lost as soon as they were spoken, and memory--however faulty--would be our only reference.

thank god or whomever for the opportunity to start fresh.

an open letter to everyone on the T:

i'm the one staring.

i don't mean to be rude, really. it's just that you're all so fascinating. i love that there are so many ways of being in such a small space--so many styles of dress, so many shapes of body, so many expressions of face. i want to learn who this city is. so far, you are tired and excited and impatient and happy and frustrated and living. you are texting and listening to music and staring out the window and sleeping and reading and speaking so many different languages. you are carrying bags from the grocery store, victoria's secret, mike's pastry, aeropostale, and goodwill. you are wearing ugg boots and chuck taylors, high heels and nikes and toms, winter coats and t-shirts, short skirts and scrubs, hats for the sox AND the yankees. you are going to work and going to school and going home and calling your mother and taking care of your children, all at once.

i'm also the one reading your newspaper over your shoulder. i think that when you are the one reading, you don't notice, but when you are the other person watching everyone, you probably wonder why i don't get my own. i just like to read, and the words on the other side of you are a way i can learn about you without staring at your face or your shoes or the parts of you that are eye-level while you are standing so i may sit. because i'm shy, and when i get caught it's hard to smile, even though i think that's the only response that won't ever make you mad. it's so much easier to pretend i wasn't looking, because maybe you don't want to be seen.

i like that moment when we catch each other and understand.

Occupy Everywhere

15 october: the movement is global.

[quick post because i'm too tired to make the right words.]

in boston: we marched. the anti-war rally that's been planned since before the occupation began turned into a rally for the entire movement. end the war and tax the rich. support unions. education is a human right.

we stopped in front of the armed forces recruiting center, verizon wireless, bank of america. and when we returned to dewey square (the home of the occupation here), it started all over again.

what started as a student solidarity march later in the afternoon turned into a full-fledged takeover of the city's streets. we walked for two solid hours through boston, stopping traffic and calling supporters to join us from the sidewalks, the shops, and the schools. we went hoarse. the police did their best to stay ahead of us and clear our path. and when we made it back to the camp, it felt like coming home.

this is what democracy looks like.

Occupy Boston (2)

today i spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 hours volunteering in the food tent, chopping vegetables for a salad and washing dishes and serving anyone who asked. i wrote down my name and phone number for anyone who might happen to need ASL services, making sure to tell the Logistics folks that "i'm NOT an interpreter, but i know enough that i can help." i did get to sign with somebody today, a man who just happened to come by the food tent looking for someone. we chatted a little bit when he grabbed a meal. we visited the General Assembly for a few minutes--direct democracy is a fascinating concept, but not one in which i personally have the patience to participate right now. told a woman that she misunderstands unions if she thinks their members are billionaires, and then watched her walk away from the entire demonstration in anger that the occupants will march with the verizon union tomorrow.

when we arrived at the food tent, one of our good friends (and fellow pittsburgh ex-pat) skipped over to greet us. and then i stood with my sweetheart and fed a community we share.

we were not there on monday night when protestors and police finally clashed in boston. it was the first time anybody at this occupation was arrested. it was also the first time they tried to expand the occupation to another part of the park. of course, the police and the protestors present different sides of the story, and i can see and agree with parts of both. the important part of the story i have to tell is that we are both safe. it was quite interesting to see the police stand by and watch a group of activists teach each other how to lockpick their way out of handcuffs, though.

Occupy Boston

wandered down to Occupy Boston today and collected some stories. like the homeless veteran who volunteers with the safety crew and talked to me about his experience with Pink Floyd right after Dark Side of the Moon came out (i was wearing my hoodie for exactly this purpose). and the young man with Asperger's Syndrome who came up to me in the sign-making tent and just started talking about what he's "learned from history." and the young woman who saw my "misogyny hurts your mother" sign and asked me if i'd been to a slutwalk. and the older woman who read it, looked at me with a grateful smile and touched her hand to her heart. and the men with accents different from my own who asked me what the word means. and the beautifully effective mode of communication that is a "mike check." and the way you can feel the meditation tent before you see it. and the big tent in the middle of the camp with "LOCAL IRONWORKERS 7" written on the side. and the verizon truck driver who went past with both hands pressed into his horn. and the middle-aged woman who, when asked if her dog was "a man or lady?" said, "this is Jack."

then we rode the T home and overheard a college-aged woman telling her friend that her mother is going to New York to Occupy Wall Street this weekend and invited her to join. the daughter's response was, "no way!" she then went on to say of her mother, "she's such a, like, activist." as if that were a bad thing.

i hope one day that girl understands that all of us are protesting for her right to feel like she doesn't need to.

on chivalry

there are a few things in Boston that are going to take some getting used to after living in Pittsburgh. i've thought to write about them, but one in particular has grabbed my attention lately.

it's so great to live in a city with functional mass transit. they have the T system really well worked out here: trains run frequently, fares are reasonable, and you can use them to get pretty much everywhere. but the subway cars are always crowded. the seats are arranged like a cross between the D.C. metro and the NYC subway, with some facing forward/backward and a fair number along the sides of the car. there's plenty of room for standers as well.

here's what i've noticed: the only people who offer to give up their seats to anyone are women. one man did offer his seat to me last week, but he was middle-aged and clearly from out of town (visiting his college-aged daughter and her boyfriend, who were both seated near him and his wife), and only after i offered my seat to an elderly woman who got on the train a few stops after us. outwardly-appearing male people under the age of 40 never offer their seats to anyone. not all outwardly-appearing female people do, but with that one exception, all the people i've seen do so have been women or girls.

this gets me thinking. ever since i figured out that gender roles are not black-and-white, i've tried to be chivalrous. that is, i try to treat people with respect, and i try to treat women with a special level of it. part of this is the lesbian in me, hoping she will notice, and part of this is the gender rebel in me, trying to make people go what-the-fuck. but i never expect other women to behave this way; i always expect that men should.

if there is one seat left on the train and Chance and i are together, i always get to sit down.

the conclusion i'm drawing is, chivalry is not dead. chivalry will not die as long as there are butches.
the subsequent question: how does this relate to the still-foreign concept of outwardly heteronormative women performing chivalrous acts that their masculine counterparts do not?