rhythm is a dancer.

“purple represents, brings about, and is present during radical transformation from one state of being to another. purple appears at twilight and predawn. it stands at the gate between the land of material flesh in one world and the land of the spirit or soul in another and is present in the envelope of energy that surrounds the body, usually called the ‘aura’. [...] I asked a traditional Witch to tell me the qualities of purple. [...] [she said,] ‘purple has always meant power, spiritual power. it’s connected to the birth and death and all kinds of transformations, and to the number seven. And it’s also a color associated with the moon. but more than anything, it means power.’” -judy grahn, another mother tongue: gay words, gay worlds [an amaaaazing book! please read!]

so. i feel a little silly being 30 and dyeing my hair purple. but you know what? i never got to be 16 when i was 16. i had a job and a lot of family burdens and i was very old back then. and having fun hair was impossible (mainly because my job wouldn’t allow it).  i’m not so old now. and then i thought that anyone who might criticize me for this probably got to be a teenager at the age-appropriate time, and to them i have nothing to say but: fuck you! i’m reclaiming my youth, now that i’m old enough to enjoy it.

anyway. i just came back from a trip down south with two of my favorite heart-friends. it was wonderful. we slept outside & made a lot of silly jokes. listened to mix cd’s and talked openly. amanda went to a wedding in durham, NC while ben & i rode our bikes all around and cooled our hot feet in a fountain. it was just perfect.

i asked them, “did you ever have good vacations with your family?” amanda had. ben & i hadn’t. family vacations, for me, were just a new place for us all to fight and be unhappy. in fact, we often fought more and were more unhappy because there was the stress of traveling. i said that this vacation we were on now felt like a good family vacation. the way they’re supposed to (& yes i know they’re a privilege and i was lucky to go on any at all, no matter how miserable). i felt relaxed and loved. got to see some new things. i messed up a few times but it was okay. nobody yelled at me, we all worked together to figure out how to make things right again. and i did the same when amanda or ben needed me to. amanda said i was the MVP of snack-sharing on the trip & i’m glad.

last night i was biking home from my sweetie’s house at 2am. i’d been wearing a miniskirt and biking around all day. it made me feel awkward, the skirt, but i wanted to wear it. but i didn’t want to give pervy guys a thrill when i rolled by on my byke. but at 2am nobody was out. i felt safe. just hiked my skirt up so i could pedal faster. i thought, “soon there will be no more feeling safe at 2am. there will be no more sweetheart. [at least not this particular one]. soon i will be on guard every second again.” but i think it’s okay. think i’ve been nurtured enough, think i’ve been safe enough, to be able to fight again. safety. i never had it before i came here. and it has changed my life. i hope i don’t forget.

i know i talk a lot of smack on fb. but sometimes it leads you to truly wonderful things…

….like this. i found it on my old pal theresa’s fb page, but she got it off of leslie feinberg’s fb. i lived with theresa 11 years ago, when she read “stone butch blues” and it made her cry. this picture & this dedication almost made me cry. so fucked up and yet so amazing.

i have other things to say but they all seem irrelevant. let’s remind ourselves what we’re capable of, despite everything. let’s remember to fight back always & resist in any way we can. refusing to give in to despaid can sometimes be resistance. & most importantly, let’s take care of each other.

to learn more about cece, go here.

to learn more about leslie feinberg, go here.

 

STONE BUTCH BLUES DEDICATION

for CECE McDONALD

I have taken back my author rights

to Stone Butch Blues.

I am working on plans for a

20th-anniversary author edition

of Stone Butch Blues

for Spring 2013.

 A digital multi-media edition

 will be available free online.

A not-for-profit, at-cost print edition

will be available for order online, as well.

During our visit in jail,

I asked CeCe McDonald

if I could dedicate

Stone Butch Blues to her.

I’m thrilled to announce:

She said “Yes!”

When I saw this attached photo

for the first time, it was clear to me,

 that this is the dedication photograph!!

More information on novel publication as it develops.

Soon, I’ll also post information regarding translations.

FREE CECE!

 

super moon & mayday & love & living.

whoa, this weekend was off the CHAIN! i don’t think i’ve ever had a day like the one i had on friday. or saturday.

friday was the mayday variety show in bloomfield. i had one of those moments, sitting in a sweaty clump surrounded by friends, watching etta and suzy on stage–suzy dressed like a beautiful & strange & ethereal tree, etta draped in christmas lights. i tried to take a picture with my phone, but of course it doesn’t capture the moment at all–suzy is a mass of blinding white light (aura?). but it was one of those moments, so safe and cozy, where i realized how desperately i will miss all this, that weird magic that i’ve only found in pittsburgh. how will i live without it, & what will happen to my heart? i don’t know. but i guess i’ll find out. i guess i’ll manage.

i read marge piercy’s poem “for two women shot to death in brookline, massachusetts” which got a good response. it was the first time i’ve read that poem aloud and not cried at the last stanza, which was good because i hate crying in public, but also a little strange. i blame the anti-depressants. & it’s a relief to take a vay-cay from being over-emotional but it’s a little strange too! anyway. the guy who went after me gave marshmallows to the audience & we all threw them at him & he tried to catch them in his mouth while jumping rope. i love that these two acts can co-exist side-by-side & i love that people cheered for us both.

afterwards there was a punk show under the bridge & people got arrested. don’t want to say anything besides that here. walking back to larryville to get my bike, i ran into j. who was fleeing a hipster bar and we drunkenly played on the playground.

the next day was the mayday parade! no time for 8 hours of sleep, just go go go! oatmeal, coffee, sunscreen. sequinned gold booty shorts. bike up that damn hill, fast, that hill that used to seem so imposing and impossible. herron ave, you ain’t no thing anymore, my thighs are practically machines now, you don’t fuckin’ scare me. made it there in time, lots of good people and fabulous costumes, gorgeously decorated umbrellas, amazing vibes. i passed this along the way:

& it was so appropriate. i felt like i was living up to the urgings of this little metal doodad chained to a random polish hill fence. & then a bbq full of delicious free food. jail solidarity meeting, we decided to head down there. i went home to change out of my booty shorts, shower, and frantically cook and bake. released prisoners need food, jail solidarity people also need food. lentils and peanutbutter oatmeal cookies.

the tone was serious at the jail but the vibes were good. we commandeered a corner, set up our food and umbrellas, making each other laugh throughout this shitty circumstance. don’t forget to bring beautiful things to ugly places.

i can’t even describe how jail solidarity was, so i won’t. all you need to know is that i accidentally brought a lady bug into the jail and felt terrible. a wild bunny visited us. we all had each others’ backs. i made so many new pals! i was there for 7 hours, some people were there for 12+. waiting until everyone gets out. nobody left behind. the day felt like it had months of activity crammed into it. like we lived and laughed and cried and raged enough for it to count for at least a month.

i crapped out before everyone got out, but i was there for the first 3, and it was so good, marching towards them twirling the umbrellas, their huge smiles at seeing us. M and P and some boy i don’t know & i were all watching the supermoon from the upper corner of the parking lot. the jail almost obscured it, but it couldn’t. it couldn’t reach that high. the eerie light made the glass-y weed-y parking lot gorgeous. M said, “i’m always going to remember this,” in a way that makes you notice. makes you look around at what’s going on, makes you aware that you’re really living it.

this little poem was propped up against the light pole when i got there. i like to think that it wasn’t one of our crew who placed it there, i like to think it was a random person who believed in words and synchronicity and strangeness. who believed in the power of little, tiny things like this. because we all know it’s the little things, right?

my friends are so smart.

kelsey says she wants to go to one place she’s never been every month this year. i text aaryn and tell him that the song “san francisco” keeps shuffling on my ipod and i think it’s a sign, and he texts me back, “follow the signs…take the detours…it’s time for change!!!’ he’s right, of course, and not only because he’s moving back to the bay and wants me to come, too.

at work, frank starts singing, loudly and off-key, a song about loving danger and not being afraid to die. barry sighs, “this is the best place ever.” and in that moment it feels that way.

i’m feeling confessional and so i tell arthur on the phone, in a furtive whisper: “i got a britney spears cd out of the library and i’ve been dancing around my kitchen to it! i can’t stop!” he sighs, “oh, you’re such a fag!” and i brightened because he always knows exactly what to say somehow. but that happened last winter, why am i pretending it was recently? now i dance around my kitchen to rihanna. so much has changed.

lying in bed with D i tell her that i am learning how to date people without throwing my whole life away. her face brightens up. she gasps and says, “that’s SUCH a good idea!” in a way that is so adorable that i can’t help but smooch her again. but it’s a good quest, a necessary quest. being on anti-depressants and dating multiple people and knowing that i’m leaving soon helps. loving fiercely but not overwhelmingly. it’s all a balance, right?

at work again, i tell myla that my name is actually ocean–or rather, my email address does it for me, when i send her something from my personal account. i expect her to think it’s weird. she says, “oh, that’s your nickname? my nickname is egypt!’ without missing a beat.

sharon n. (who is more of a friend of a friend than a friend) said, “when in doubt, freak ‘em out!” sharon k. said, years ago, perched on my toilet lid in brooklyn: “not all happiness is punishable. you have to understand that. you have to understand that!” and, oh, this is only a little, tiny bit. only a fraction of the good things that people tell me, that i am so lucky to hear. thanks.

that i had a really good birthday party! comprised of my dad & sister, housecleaning stress, over 90 cans of beer (cuz that’s how we roll in my family, i guess), all my favorite people in pgh, this amazing cake:

(sorry, i can’t flip this photo. i feel like a dumbass for admitting it, but it’s true) (but isn’t that cake amazing?!?!?) (even more amazing: it’s gluten free. even MORE amazing, it was partially inspired by my okcupid username, which is “bravelittlonion”).

there were lots of stories and laughing hysterically and too many things to write about. like all good parties, it ended with me drunkenly drilling a xylophone onto a utility pole. i don’t have any pics of the event, but here’s a picture of my sister playing the xylophone this morning, with my dad in the background:

30, here i come. thanks to everyone who helped me get this far. <3

a few things i have been thoroughly enjoying lately.

+ SPRING!!!!!

+having very vivid, nuanced and colorful dreams that don’t haunt me.

+this quote by dean spade, who i honestly normally can’t really get into, but it says so much of what i need to hear:

One of my goals in thinking about redefining the way we view relationships is to try to treat the people I date more like I treat my friends—try to be respectful and thoughtful and have boundaries and reasonable expectations—and to try to treat my friends more like my dates—to give them special attention, honor my commitments to them, be consistent, and invest deeply in our futures together. In the queer communities I’m in valuing friendship is a really big deal, often coming out of the fact that lots of us don’t have family support, and build deep supportive structures with other queers. (i originally read this on amber’s tumblr)

+this fucking adorable and beautiful and amazing comic by cindy, about learning how to finally fucking be friends with your demons!

becoming friends with my demons is something i’ve been struggling to do for over a decade, ever since axi & i had a memorable conversation on our front porch in winter 2002, when i was freaking out about a shitty email my abusive ex had sent me, and we were talking about all the bad things, the haunting things, the horrible things, and she said i need to learn how to embrace my dark side. how that’s the only way i’m ever gonna be whole. i’ve got to go there.

& cindy’s writing & art is so fucking perfect, so poignant, because she goes places so fearlessly. that drawing of her holding hands with her demons, on the right, makes my heart hurt in the best best way. i’m gonna take it to the copy place & blow it up. hang it on my bedroom wall so it’s the first thing i see every morning. so i don’t forget. this image is from the excellent book the encyclopedia of doris, which i cannot recommend heartily enough. 

+all the readings i’ve been doing as of late! karen lillis and i just read at pitt and it went swimmingly. my next one, april 22nd at hambone’s in lawrenceville (42nd & butler!). i will be reading at a special library worker reading, even though i am not a library worker. i did go with amanda from branch library to branch library a few sleepy saturdays ago, where she showed up in neighborhoods like mt. washington (douchebag central, if yr not from pgh) and brookline (depressing) and inquiring at the front desk, “are there any writers working here?!” fortunately, i’m a library lurker, which is close enough i guess.

+

yeah! so many people find this blog by googling terms like “deleted facebook so happy” or “should i delete facebook.” my answer: YES!

+listening to your heart breaks, invincible, jawbreaker & the fuckin’ no alternative comp that i found at the lawrenceville goodwill for only three dollars! i was just thinking about it and i let out a shriek that terrified my shopping companion when i saw it. holy shit, it’s SO good. i especially like soul asylum’s cover of “sexual healing”. as oliver so brilliantly put it when i played this song for him, “wow, they’re taking it SO SERIOUSLY!”

talkin’ shit about a pretty sunset. blanket & opinions that i’ll probably regret soon.

this is what the view out my kitchen window occasionally looks like.

yesterday i was bikin’ up the hill and some teen boys were like, “damn, look at her go! how does she do that?” i sincerely regret not turning around and saying, “cuz i’m a toughass motherfucker, that’s how!” but i couldn’t figure out if they were making fun of me or not. i think this will be one of the major pitfalls of my life. not knowing when peeps are makin’ fun & when they’re serious.

“and i used to sleep with my books in piles all over my bed, and sometimes they were the only thing keeping me warm, and always the only thing keeping me alive. books and beer are the best and worst defense.” -sherman alexie

i’ve been spending the past week surrounded by words. piles and piles of good things to read, everywhere. another mother tongue: gay words, gay worlds by judy grahn is literally changing my life. teaching me about so much of our queer history that’s been stolen from us. delving into radical etymology and it explains so much, it’s taught me so fucking much about the world i live in and the traditions that i come from and didn’t even know it. teaching me about my people, and the people who aren’t my people but who i am tied to through invisible webs of sinew and blood and guts. am i making any sense here? through this book i learned that purple is historically the color of transformative change, which is part of the reason why lavender used to be a color associated with queers, and i think also part of the reason why purple items of clothing keep coming into my life. and why everyone i see is wearing purple these dayz. it stands out.

i got a big envelope full of back issues of make/shift magazine this week, which is truly one of the best magazines i’ve ever read. completely mindboggling and nothing short of revolutionary. i don’t take that term lightly, by the way. the essay i am thinking about the most right now is by lenelle moise. writing about an encounter on a nyc subway with a taunting skinhead, while having the worst period of her life. she writes about how sometimes when she is having intense cramps, she is reminded of all the suffering in the world, she feels it intensely. she says that she can feel the pain of the world in her abdomen, and my jaw dropped, because i do that too. and i’ve never heard anyone else talk about it, not like that. but when i am crampy i sob at the injustice of the world. the things that i can bear the rest of the time. the birds with bellies full of plastic & my friend in solitary for years & human trafficking & sweatshops & the pile of trash in the pacific ocean that’s nearly the size of a country, or a continent, i forget what it is. i can feel it all then, and sometimes it’s the most debilitating part of all. it was a stunning essay, for many reasons besides that one. she writes that when she is being unfairly and obviously attacked she reminds herself that she is a writer, and her job is to record and remember. that she survived the bad things because she was able to document them. it meant so much to me.

i got this zine at the nyc feminist zinefest (which was really freakin’ awesome, by the way, if a touch overwhelming):

and it was SO FUCKING GOOD. i loved it! critical reflections on working to help people within “the system”. it’s by juniper who worked at a domestic violence agency & a homeless shelter. and about the ways that institutions and burnout and ignorance so often get in the way of actually helping people who desperately need it. i needed this zine. a lot of zinesters don’t “work”, in the traditional sense, for lots of valid reasons, or else have recordstore/coffeeshop jobs, or else write for a living. and a lot of the people you meet working at social work jobs aren’t creative, aren’t reflective, are just trying to get through the day in the least harmful way possible…so, reading a zine that blends these two worlds was really awesome. i want to write this person a letter, but they didn’t include any contact info! juniper, where are you?

and elvis wrote a zine on one of my favorite topics: 70′s feminism!!!! elvis is a generally delightful-seeming human being and i really adore their witty, adorable, thoughtful zines. i am so oddly fixated on 70′s feminism that i sometimes wonder if i participated in a past life…if i inhabited that land of women’s bookstores and coffeehouses, mimeographed newsletters and consciousness-raising, polite racism and infighting, and then died at some point in the late 70′s–early 80′s. and i wonder if this soul decided to come back as a little girl in the nyc suburbs, to live in this world that my 70′s self had fought so hard to change. a world of title IX and punky brewster and roseanne and bikini kill. it probably seemed pretty good to my 70′s feminist self. but that little girl was still going to have quite a time being a girl in this world, because it hasn’t changed enough.

i mean, doesn’t it kind of make sense? i remember identifying very strongly as a feminist as a really, really young child, like 7 or 8, when i insisted that i play little league and not softball because i wanted to be seen as equal to the boys, and i remember being so angry at the different ways that boys and girls were treated. so! new past life idea!

wow, this post is getting long. two more things: my reading with karen was wonderful, most of of my pgh favorites were there and i read really well and felt really loved. i read from a new project i’m working on, a memoir that is very painful to write & also a bit of an overshare. people were REALLY receptive to it, though. and karen’s reading was oddly parallel to mine. she wrote about how she felt the need to write tell-all books and she traced that back to being a former catholic, raised with the tradition of confessional. duh! of course! that’s why i feel the need to overshare on this blog, my zines, and my books. amazing! thanks, karen, for explaining me to me.

and, two, i have been dancing in my kitchen to invincible  and her work reminds me of all the reasons not to give up & all the work that is left to do. that’s all. the end.

 

p.s., pittsburgh,

if you missed the born in flames show last night, you missed the hell OUT. (madison, WI and detroit, you’ve still got the chance! go go go!) invincible & jean grae, for free! in a smoke free all ages environment! before i went i was despairing. i had an awful weekend. triggering and panicked and thinking the worst things. the worst things. monday i called off work cuz i didn’t trust myself to make it through the day without crying in public. and my head feels muddled and confused and dizzy and injured. so. was pondering calling off attending this show, pondering calling off attending the rest of my life because it all just hurts so fucking bad, but i went to the show and i am so glad i did.

beautiful people and beautiful voices, saying the truth, yelling the truth, in a way that feels accessible to everyone, everyone’s hands in the air. jean grae stopped the music to say we were boring cuz we weren’t dancing hard enough. so we danced. harder and harder. alice walker said that hard times require furious dancing, and how could i have forgotten? i almost did, i almost forgot.

i have more to say but my time on this computer is running out, and amanda already wrote a stunningly beautiful account of this evening here and i feel like i just can’t say anything beyond it.

this is amanda in the chillout room before the show. we were tired. but the music invigorated us. i love you.

yo, pittsburgh!

come see me! & karen lillis. free. thursday. i will be reading something new that nobody in pgh has ever heard before. i hope to rock yr world.