thought:

Sometimes I wonder if the cats remember him. If so, do they miss him? Do they understand?

thought:

sometimes i think i would like to see video of myself walking, from behind. i'm curious how i would interpret my own gender.

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.

dreams/tattoo/marbles/thought/things

i've been having some crazy dreams lately. apparently there are some interactions my subconscious feels the need to complete, whether or not i'll get the opportunity in my waking life. last night i dreamed that i literally knocked somebody out of a performance they were hijacking and then told them, "you are a gluttonous, selfish exhibitionist. selfish. it's embarrassing, really." then my subconscious thought that sentence was so perfect that dream-me needed to go write it down. so i guess i can honor my subconscious for getting through that interaction for me by putting it here.

---

my tattoo is in the stage of healing where it's peeling in giant flakes. incredibly exciting, but also a little unnerving.

---

this town has literally brought me to tears at least three times in the last few days. i was driving into Lawrenceville past Wilson's Pharmacy and saw their LED sign in the window that read, "Good luck [4 random feminine names] at the National Marbles Championship!" this is the kind of place i am leaving, where a locally-owned and run business will recognize members of the community--youth--by name in their window, for marbles.

---

and a thought that's been floating around in my head for months if not longer:
by the time you decided to become a boy, i was ready to be with a man.

---

my belongings are in a big metal box on a truck on their way to a faraway place. panic is setting in, a little bit.

thought

i wonder how many times i'll have to say "I'm done" before i mean it.

thought:

i find very interesting
the relationship between
the person we want to be
& the person we want to be with.

scattered thoughts

i need to find a dvd copy of the movie The Point.
i want to drive for hours but i don't want to pay any tolls and i want to end up somewhere. i want a moon roof. and good music.
i am learning about and understanding Trust in ways i never have before, and in ways i didn't know i could.
i want to have a long conversation with my father, over drinks and vinyl records and other things.
my therapist suggested to me that maybe procrastination and time-management aren't mutually exclusive, and that maybe the fact that i've done well so far is in fact a sign that i know exactly how much time i have to procrastinate. i don't want to agree, but it kind of makes sense.
i need a cleansing period.
i need to see the ocean.
i like that there have been so many earthquakes lately and i'm excited to see what happens with this icelandic volcano.
i want to go to the grocery store and the exchange.
i'm not scared of parallel parking anymore.
i need to find the job that will make getting up at 6:00 on a Saturday easy, like my brother apparently has.
i am proud of my brother. never doubt that.
i want to see her again this weekend, but if i don't get the chance, sitting on her lap for a couple hours at the bar and talking to other people will have been enough.
i want to travel.
i want to travel.
i want to travel.
i am looking for a new place to live after pittsburgh. i love it here, but there is too much time left and too much left to see.
Pittsburgh will always feel like home, in all the most important ways. that conversation was too important to transcribe.
i want to be somewhere i can walk across bridges at 1AM with no concern for my safety, and have my breath taken away by a beautiful, familiar view.

the lesson for this week:
i deserve to have what i want, as long as i know how to ask for it.

thoughts from this evening:

i'm probably going to fail this assignment. i'm well past caring.

i wish i'd lightened up in high school. then maybe i could [have blown off more of undergrad and] have my shit back together by now.

one should probably not drink beer and do dishes at the same time, but i can't think of a good reason why. except for all the sharp knives in my sink. and all the glass involved. and bubbles.

thought

it's been a week so i have to post something, right?

human beings are afraid of difference because they are scared of evolution. nature loves diversity, because nature knows the way of things is to evolve. but humans have reached a point where they [believe they] control everything, so they are afraid something could evolve that would take that control. this is why humans try to beat difference into submission, to force as much into conformity as possible: they are genetically afraid of change.

thought:

despite periodic awkwardness, there are definite perks to living on-campus as a grad student. naps between classes are one of them. trouble-free access to library databases in my place of residence is another.

thought:

i like to think that most people wouldn't share their favorite books unless they were pretty sure the other person already got whatever the book was trying to say.

i mean, i don't think i'd want my favorite book wasted on somebody who didn't get it.

a few thoughts:

i think i'm aware of pretty much every muscle in my body right now. and they all feel awesome.

i find it hilariously funny when straight boys trying to pick me up--even when they see me with her--just don't get it.

grad school is going to be way different from anything else that's ever happened to me. i hope i'm ready.

thought:

the interesting part about the solitude i practiced yesterday was the unexpected connections to other people. a letter. a phone call. i didn't expect these simple things to make me as happy as they did, or to be as unobtrusive as they were. and maybe they won't be always, and maybe it depends on which people they came from, but it's worth reflection.

thought:

hey, hey, remember all those muscles that felt really good yesterday?
they are totally killing me today.
let's go do it again.

hippy-dippy thought for the day:

water should never be sold. who was it who decided you could own water? this may be the stupidest idea ever. it's water. everybody needs it, and nobody can live without it. how can you own that? you'd never sell "bottled air"....

that said, there should be a mechanism to make water clean and safe to drink. and there are many, and those do have to be owned by someone. but you shouldn't have to pay to get clean water, at least not in the way that we currently do. there should never be anyone who "can't afford" water. it should be a tax: your taxes pay for the water company, and everybody can get water. like school, or roads, or other public goods that are less important.

thoughts on Pride 2009

there's something so different about a city Pride celebration from a college one.
at the huge dance party Saturday night and the parade & festival Sunday morning, i kept coming back to the realization that all of these people--and there were so many people--were here together, to celebrate the fact that we can all love each other.
in conversation yesterday, i was pleased to discover that i was not the only one who had felt it profoundly acceptable to just Be, as Whatever You Are.
i loved how you could pick out any given article of clothing and comment on it and the person would accept the compliment graciously.
there's nothing like drag queens.
and it felt so good to see so many families.
that may be my favorite picture ever, and i wish i knew what song was playing. so much about that moment was perfect.

thought:

there's the kind of gay where you're attracted to the same sex, and then there's the kind of gay where you're attracted to a similar gender.
i suppose any given person could be one, both, or neither, and at any given time.

has anyone thought this before? what do people make of it?

two thoughts:

while walking to work this afternoon:

Deviance is determined by the degree to which we make others uncomfortable.


would murder be a crime if we lived in a world where no one was afraid to die?

thoughts on Superbowl XLIII (from Pittsburgh)

i played in a riot last night.

you could probably say some negative things about it: destruction and violence are not the most appropriate ways to celebrate. but even though the results may not all have been entirely positive, you can't deny how amazing it is to be surrounded by that much happy.

thousands of people swarmed the streets, a sea of people so broad i couldn't see the other side. and i found myself more than once in the middle of it, people, people cheering and screaming and smiling and laughing and drinking and climbing and breaking and burning and loving. and to whatever ends that energy goes, it is fantastic, phantasmal, and i love every minute of it. (until it starts getting scary and the police on their horses push kids into walls and the embers from the bonfire are burning my clothes and the man who thinks i'm a dude who just tried some shit with his girlfriend grabs me by the collar and i'm convinced he's going to punch me in the face so i kick him as hard as i can and run, as much as one can run when one has a friend in either hand and a sea of people so dense and viscous the fluid friction is almost too great to overcome. but even those moments i love, because this is humanity--these are people--my people--and they are Real and Living and Alive.)

(i could rant about police behavior and whether the methods they choose to address this kind of celebration are appropriate, but i don't feel like it right now.)

thoughts on Creating Change 2009

hearing a transman validate my identity as a genderqueer person was probably the most affirming experience of the entire weekend.

you learn so much more from informal interactions with your peers than you do in any workshop.

my journey this year is focused on the telling of stories.

sleep is optional, but beneficial.

being 21 often just gives you new and more expensive places to be bored.

the intersectionality of identities is one of the most important things we ignore.

if all of the people who were in Denver this weekend as part of this movement can keep the energy that was present during the plenary sessions, particularly the first and last, Change is Coming and there is nothing they can do about it!! however, speaking from experience, it's hard to keep that energy for very long.

every time i go to Creating Change, i leave with some new concept of my identity. this year, i think that concept is that i need to keep thinking about it. i have a need to articulate my identity, and maybe that's what i need to work on: labels aren't (shouldn't be?) as important as we make them.