Random

I need stress to write. I need stress to write?? That feels so cliche, so "tortured artist", so... counter intuitive. It's true though. I'm forcing myself to write this out, hoping something will get me going. One neuron will kick another, some idea will float down and land on my head (or more likely, plonk down and stare at me accusingly until I do something about it). Right now, there's just no push. The little bit of my brain that works like a typewriter, always clicking and spinning, slows down when I'm actually focused. When I'm busy, I need to daydream, leave myself for a bit, and that typewriter picks itself up and starts producing, all by itself. Sometimes I feel I'm just a vehicle for mad and strange ideas, bits of poetry, fragments of someone else's writing that filter down through the layers of the universe.

Drained

Two papers, one job, a thousand words I won't be speaking tomorrow.
Six classes, two thousand meters, too many people I encounter.
Is it bad I don't have the capacity to deal with Day of Silence right now?
Too many things pile up (even worse, beyond my control) and I can't move beneath the mental weight of decisions that change my outcomes and relationships.
Two weeks, two papers, one memorial service: the worst possible time for everything to come together.
Mental bills pile up: I'm sure they'll be collecting at some point.
Fuck.

These Days

Spring break saps the motivation from my limbs. Time moves at a slower pace (or so it seems), allowing me the gift of a whole book in a day, devoured slowly over many hours. It's been a while since I read for pleasure. Long bus rides make knitting a necessity, and a whole pair of socks sits ninety nine percent completed in my knitting bag. College decisions happened, and still, I'm stuck in limbo. Waitlists happen. With two full days left of pure free time, I'm starting to feel the clouds of doubt descend. Work, this break, has simply... passed me by. A paycheck came for me in the mail today, and I simply read the number and set it aside. I take my job for granted, these days. Even heavy chains of potential probation don't seem to drag me down. These days, I'm floating, and I'm not sure how to come back down. Apathy has set in, and the only things I feel passionate about are those the larger world says don't matter, or those I do on my own time. College has never seemed so far off.

Supernothing (Effort, and Why It Sucks)

Did I mention that effort doesn't come naturally to me?
Have I ever told you that if it weren't for my friends
family
teachers
I'd be a nothing (supernothing, going nowhere fast
and I don't care).
Take today, for example:
Right now, I'm meant to be at a
Dance
(of all things)
Meeting other queer kids and generally having a
Good
Time
(capital letters merited).
And yeah, that'd be awesome but
Effort
Doesn't come easily to me who
Will probably end up on the streets in five years because I
Blow all my money
On knitting needles and
Stolen library books.

Identity

Some days, the Internet can be a really, really bad place for me. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, photos and faces and articles flashing past as quickly as I want. Some days, I get sucked in. I read articles for hours, ogle more photos than I can count, open tabs upon tabs until I cannot fathom the amount of information I have on my screen. Some days, I look too hard.

I identify myself as queer. I've slowly come around to carrying that label, because it fits as well as any I've used, more so than lesbian or bisexual. It's open for interpretation, and I like that. It doesn't force me to make a decision, or force people to make a split-second decision about me the way I feel some other labels do. I have fluidity in my sexuality, and I've come to terms with that. I love my queer self, and I'm proud of me for who I am.

I also identify myself as female. I've never felt uncomfortable in my body. It may be that I'm incredibly lucky and privileged  but I've always loved my body. I have strong rower's shoulders, muscular arms, rower's thighs, and the core of the equestrian I used to be. I have a Nike-swoosh scar on my face from a riding accident, calluses on my hands from oar handles, bike riding and rowing induced scars on my legs. One of my ankles locks up from an old injury, and I can't touch my toes. When I see myself naked, I'm proud. I've occasionally had bouts of thinking that other people don't find me attractive, but I've never felt like I had to change everything about me. Just occasionally overlooked.

Some days though, despite my solid grounding in my identity as a queer female, I feel inadequate. I'm fine with my naked body- hell, I'd wear less clothes during the summer if I could, it's too hot where I live. It's my clothed body that brings me down. I've been toying, picking, worrying at my gender presentation for a while. It's been hand in hand with the issue of my sexuality, but up until recently, it was a non-issue. I didn't know who I was, or how to present that person. Now that I have inner balance (most of the time), I've been struck by the problem of outer harmony. I've never been a girly-girl. I chopped my hair into a short, fauxhawk-ish thing over a year ago, and I've been dyeing it various colors for almost three years. My hair has allowed me to explore my appearance, and my confidence has grown a thousandfold because of my experimentation. I shook the first couple of times I went out in public with short hair, but eventually I got used to it and just embraced it as part of my overall changing identity.

Yesterday, I went to a fancy mother-daughter tea-thing at my school for graduating seniors. It was lovely, and I had a great time, despite less than high expectations. True to form, 99% of my class was in dresses or skirts and heels or nice flats. For me, a dress was not an option. For the past year, I've grown more and more attached to pants, button down shirts, ties, and blazers. So, true to form, I threw on a black and white checkered shirt, my black dress pants, my trusty Doc Marten boots, a blazer, and a skinny black silk tie. With my hair looking extra spiky and my tie perfectly knotted, I looked damn good. Or so I thought. When I got downstairs, my mother (who, by the way, has a Masters degree in Women's Studies and as a pretty radical feminist, should GET THIS) looks at me and goes, "Why aren't you wearing a skirt?"

I just looked at her. She's always been very accepting of my sexuality (even though I haven't *exactly* come out officially, but she definitely knows), so this was just kind of an unexpected blow. I know it wasn't her fault that she mentioned it at a bad time, but she brought me crashing down from the high I'd been on. I was so confident in how I looked, feeling really dapper, and suddenly that just... disappeared.

For the last twenty four hours, I've been brooding. I was home sick today, so I had ample amounts of time to distract myself with the internet. This proved to be a rather bad idea. Instead of a pick-me-up, I got a downer slipped to me by mistake. Each article I read, each photo I saw, made me question myself a little more. And each question brought up more bad feelings. I'm not unhappy with my physical body, but even so, this new sense of dysphoria made me feel extremely off center. I'm unhappy with my presentation. I'd love to have a more masculine of center, androgynous appearance. I want my jeans to skim my curves, not hug them, my shirts to show off my shoulders and not my breasts. I want to wear bowties and blazers and oxfords and cool sneakers and dress like a hipster boy and be a dapper queer and wear snapbacks, even though I look bad in hats. Almost everything in my closet feels... wrong, and that makes me sad. I don't feel very confident in myself anymore, and that makes me even more sad. I want my confidence back, my assurance in my queerness. I want to find my swagger.

But.
Where do I look?

Posed

In their eyes, you are not you anymore.
Reduced to a series (collection, grouping, abundance)
Of lines and planes, dark and light,
Shadows and highlights,
Tones.
You look at them but they do not see you,
Only
The precise geometry of your ratios:
Eyes to nose to mouth to chin and shoulders, beyond.
Pure, spatial construction, no
Judgement tweaking fixing just
Faithful recording
Setting your lines down on paper
Capturing
In a moment
What you truly look like.

None For Me

Two for you
None for me
Uneven math, of course. It's what I
deserve.
One plus one is two that's
Two for you and
One plus zero (one) for me.
Hint: that one is
Me.
Is that fair?
Hint: (it's not.)
But I guess that's how
It has to be.
Two for you and
One (none) for me.

Sunday

After a week of clouds and heaviness, stepping outside this morning felt like heaven. Still cold, but the clean, snapping kind of cold that comes with the lingering breath of winter, not the sticky oppressiveness of a damp, 40 degree spring. A wind came through last night, and whisked aside any traces of moisture. Even this morning, we still felt the briskness, heating our cheeks and roughly slapping our chins with bouts of cold. Above our hatted heads, the sky seemed washed clean, taking up more space than allotted. It flew down between buildings and scraps of cloud, piggybacking on the wind, a force of depth as much as temperature. The sun glinted, stinging our eyes with a light as bright and cutting as ice. Even in winter, the sun can wound. Trailing tears of cold and light, we continued on our way, still aware of the vastness of the sky, falling away around our heads. We encountered a busy intersection, and paused. Almost unnoticed, we spiraled up and out of ourselves and flew with the clouds, skimming over previously unnoticed buildings and hidden rooftops. The world, for a moment, distilled, small crystalline images forming and melting quickly as snowflakes. When we touched down again, I looked at you and remembered sitting down here and now to write this, on this particular blustery Sunday, just one in a string of Sundays that connect our weeks. In a year, will you even remember?

Random Bits (My Day)

Last night: a random Target shopping cart, probably stolen and dumped, standing forlornly on the corner of a dark and rainy street. My dog sniffed it suspiciously.

Today: the unexpected surprise of early dismissal from practice, and then the complete letdown caused by a huge traffic jam of unknown origins. The firetrucks didn't seem in any hurry.

The Wasteland: phenomenal. Layers upon layers of words and meanings, waiting to be picked apart: the ultimate cake. Delicious.

Unexpected depth: velvet sky turned liquid, the moon suddenly giving light to thousands of unseen miles between Here and There.

Morning tea: arrived on the doorstep sometime during the night, heaven in a cardboard box. Perfect.

Lovely: a meeting of the minds, beyond class, of books and the power of wishlists. These things should happen more often.

Overall: fueled by caffeine, in the best way possible. Amen.

For Boston

Yesterday, I fell in love with a city. I didn't mean for it to happen. It just... Did. Boston felt right, from the moment I arrived at Logan Airport. Flying in from DC, all you get is this expanse of water, then a lighthouse perched on a little rocky island, and then the airport. There's almost no indication of the actual city, so I had no idea what to expect.

We took the Silver Line bus from the airport to South Station, where we hopped on a Red Line T headed out. I basked in the beauty of public transportation. Coming from a city where the Metro is overpriced and not very extensive, the T and the bus system in Boston felt like a savior. The ticket-buying machines were both simple and easy (miracle of miracles!) and the stations felt cozy and, oddly, less hostile than the ones in DC. The Davis Square station both smelled and looked like any station in the New York system, but felt infinitely more friendly. Wonderful.

I'm not entirely sure what got me, but before I knew it, I felt at home. Even though I embodied the lost tourist, iPhone map in hand, I could get around. The whole city (and outlying areas) felt laid back, almost welcoming, friendly. The bits that felt touristy were definitely that, but even more out of the way parts had something to offer. I didn't feel like an out-of-towner- in fact, I was asked on multiple occasions for directions! I guess I look like a college student, so people just assumed I knew where I was going. It was a pretty crazy experience, and I can't wait to go back again. Hopefully, (fingers crossed!) Ill be going to college there next year. I really, really hope so. 

Good Things

Morning sun, enough to take the edge off but
Will probably burn my face if I'm out all day.
Suddenly, spring seems within reach.
Good things are coming.

A good hair day, enough so hats
Aren't needed,
Warm enough to go without a scarf.
Good things are coming.

Meet up, new faces in familiar places
Old friends still at hand.
Across the bridge, adventure awaits.
Good things are coming.

Pick through old CD's, new music to my ears.
As reggae-dub plays over the radio,
I smile at the man behind the counter.
Good things are coming.

Too crowded for coffee, back to beat the streets.
Wrapped in the smell of warm pita, I take a bite.
Suddenly, everything feels perfect.
Good things are coming.

Tip my head up to catch the final rays of sun,
Back across the bridge towards home,
Where the downhill caresses my worn out knees.
Good things are coming.

Things On My Desk

My phone
My glasses that I never wear, complete with glasses case they are never in
Mini scissors shaped like a cat
Size 1.5 Addi Lace circs, still in their package
A just finished library book
One jar of bottle caps, 3/4ths full
One jar of pennies and soda tabs, also 3/4ths full
A hole punch
A container of Sharpies, mostly used
Miscellaneous papers, including some that are probably important
A single stitch marker, retrieved from the floor
An opened letter, still in the envelope
Two thumb drives, hardly used
Two tax information forms, left to die
One headphone case, unused
Multiple blocks of sticky notes, always scribbled
Welcome to the detritus of my life.

I'm A Car Dancer

There's a feeling, indescribable
Connected, infected, reflected
Up your arms, down your ears, warming you
From the inside out and
Outside
In
Crackle and pop
Radio static clears
And a song
Comes
Through
Crack a grin and sing
Bang your head and dance like
No one's watching
All alone in your car.

Work Walk #3

The cold nips at your ears, reminding you yet again that you forgot a hat. Spurred on by the brisk weather, you stride around the corner of the library and swing your way across the street. Your breath plumes out in front of you, even though the thermometer reads thirty-six degrees. Practically balmy. Crossing the street, your gaze momentarily flies skyward. Clouds cover the previously clear sky, and you briefly, achingly, suddenly miss the stars you weren't used to seeing. Your long strides make your boots clump reassuringly down on the frozen sidewalk, and you're so taken with the sound and the glittering lights over the horizon you walk right across an alley without looking. A brief burst of panicked adrenaline propels you the rest of the way, and afterwords you laugh inwardly at the complete lack of trucks coming at you. Across the street, the new addition to the elementary school glows softly under streetlights. The stairs have a poetical air to them, like an unfurled seashell. Were they always there? There's a sneaking suspicion you are just noticing them now. Ahead of you, a couple laughs, boy and girl moving in harmony as they head to an unknown destination. You follow them, momentarily diverted onto a similar path. After all, you are going the same direction. Just before you reach your endpoint (almost caught up to them now), something catches your eye. Hulking and heavy, an orange snowplow sits at the corner, shyly peaking out from the darkness of a lesser known street. The plow in front almost looks like a smile, jauntily curved up towards you. And you? You smile back, in the face of the thirty-six degree weather that can't possibly include snow. Just you and the dinosaur snowplow, grinning.

Rain Walking

If you turn up your collar, just so, and scrunch your shoulders up around your neck like closed wings, the rain just... slides. It's possible to stay both warm and relatively dry just by keeping the rain off your neck.  You move through and around the drops, a little hutch of warmth and dryness braving the elements. When your hair is short, like mine, you learn these things quickly. As you walk, the rain floods around your feet, the kind of rain that rushes down so hard it continues right onto the sidewalk. You're wading through minuscule rivers, each one carrying its own load of trash and leaves. Slowly, as you continue on your way, you notice... not so much a smell but a feeling. The world slowly washes itself away, the sound of cars replaced by echoing rain and the underlying dirty scent of streets fading into rainy purity. The city, for a moment, feels clean.

Sunday Morning

This morning, I drank three cups of tea. "It's Sunday," I thought to myself. "Why not?" So instead of my usual one cup, Prince of Wales tea (I'm out of Scottish Breakfast), I went to my afternoon default. I found my bag of Lestrade tea by Adiago, and made a whole freaking pot. Bad idea. I'm shaking and can't sit still and I'm accidentally typing double letters because my fingers are jerky. Why do I always forget that tea is caffeinated? One cup in the morning gets me up, but I can go without it if I must. Two a day keeps me going through the afternoon, picking me up in the darker bits of early evening. But three? Three cups in about an hour period was a really, really poor decision. This has been a post.

I Have To Stop Spending Money

I have to stop spending money. I get paid every two weeks. I know when I'm getting paid. I know how much I'm getting paid. I know that I have an automatic withdrawal of $50 to my savings account every two weeks when I get paid. Yet I still spend money that I really shouldn't be spending. I just went to the yarn store, which I shouldn't have done because I cannot walk out of there without spending at least fifty dollars. Sure enough, it happened. I was only going to buy two sets of circular needles that I need for two at a time socks. But then... They had restocked all their yarn. ALL OF IT. It was so beautiful and colorful and soft and... two skeins of Manos del Uruguay later, I'm down $58 including needles. I have to stop doing this. It's the curse of having an income... now that I know it's coming, I feel better about spending it because I know there will be more in another two weeks. Thank the lord I set up my withdrawals to savings... otherwise I'd be dead broke, always.

Disagreement of the Hardest Order

If you don't agree with me
And I don't agree with you
We butt heads.
Even if we agree to be respectful
We butt heads.
Yes, I value you
And your friendship
And your opinion but really
Can't you see how this changes my view of you?
I
try
try
try
not to let your ideas
Poison my idea of you
But sometimes it's
really
really
hard.
I still love you for
Who you are and
The power of your beliefs but
Like I said before,
It's hard.

I know it's best to take in as many different ideas and perspectives as possible, and I know that not everyone will agree with me or my opinions. Your ideas aren't even misguided or invalid or blatantly idiotic like the opinions of so many others; they're lovely, well thought out, logical and rational forces of will, but that's what makes them so hard to swallow. I know that you value your opinions just as much as I value mine, and even though we can talk about them and discuss without taking the other down, the undercurrent of "what if" lurks beneath the veneer of our polite conversation. There's always the backing tone of "I Do Not Agree". Disagreement happens, and I know it happens, but it still makes me sad when I see friends going down a path that I view as blinkered to the wider worldviews on the issue. I try to learn as much as possible, take in as many perspectives as I can, see from all sets of eyes and walk in multiple pairs of shoes. However, I've found that, even as it opens my mind, this strategy makes me more and more suspicious, more questioning, less likely to be bought by one perspective or another. I find it hard to form my own opinions without thorough research and contemplation. I can only hope that my friends do as much research as I do about their opinions, because I feel that one should take make their decisions only after they find at least one viewpoint opposing theirs, and they can still say that their opinion is valid after discussing and researching the other side. It's worked for me, and I can only hope it will work for others.

Printed News

I just spent two hours reading the paper.

Contrary to what most people seem to think about my generation, I love the newspaper and printed news, and most of all I love the Sunday New York Times. I usually start with the Magazine section, then Style, Arts and Leisure, Sports, Travel, Week in Review, then the Book Review, and lastly the Front Page. It really does take me close to two hours to get through all of that because (get this) I actually read most of it. I skim all the headlines and articles, and read about 1/3-1/2 of the stories on average. I love them Modern Love column in the Style section, the final essay in the Magazine, and the random articles in Week in Review. I tolerate the Sports section (mostly because I think the Washington Post sportswriters are better), but it usually has one or two good articles. I always read the music articles in Arts and Leisure, and at least one Front Page article.

I don't know why I stick so strongly to printed news. My family has always gotten the paper delivered: Washington Post during the week, New York Times on Sundays. We recently started getting the Sunday Post as well, except it's delivered on Saturday, so I get a preview of the greatness that is the Sunday Times. I've been reading the paper basically since I could read, starting with the comics (which I still read religiously) and working my way up. Even on a school day, I still sit down and read most of the front page, and the comics, and the Metro section if I have time. I skim Sports, and whatever extra excerpt there is (Food on Wednesday, Weekend on Thursday, Magazine on Sunday). Whatever I don't get to in the morning, I read when I come home, even if it's at 9:30 at night when I get home from work. It's just something I do. I feel uninformed if I don't read the paper, out of the loop, behind. I treasure that I'm able to pick up the paper in the morning, shake it out of its tight plastic covering, and flip it over to see the day's news. Even if I've already heard about some of the headlines via Facebook or regular Internet escapades, I always go back and read about them in the paper anyway.

Some may say my paper reading ways are a waste of time, that I could just get up to the minute news on the Internet, or save paper and subscribe online. Yeah, I could do that. But really, would it feel the same to sit down for two hours on a Sunday morning at my computer screen, or an iPad? Can I drink tea and not worry about accidentally spilling it on my my news? My computer doesn't smell like ink, doesn't leave a dusky trail on my fingertips. It's just not the same. So, to you, doubters, haters of the printed word, I say this: my two hours with the paper are some of the most relaxed and happy times I have during the week. It's my unwinding time, when I can fill my head with ideas and thoughts not my own, when I can learn about everything that's bigger than me, far off places and new ideas, music, art, lives. The Internet is just not the same, even if the words and articles are identical. My two hours with the paper ground me, and let my mind float, every single day.

Closed Doors

When tempers flare

Over

A brand new, inexplicably blank computer screen

The dirty (and clean) clothes piled on my floor

Running too late

Or not late enough

When the animals are underfoot

And my mother goes down the list of names

Calling us first the cat, then the dog

Before she finally gets to

Her own children

Names muddled in her frustration.

When tempers flare

Over

Words not said

Dishes not done

Meals not planned

Communication

Merely

Uncommunicative

I softly

Gently

Close my door

With the push of one outstretched index finger

Blocking out

The toxic creeping energy

Of arguments

Over such mundane things

As the clothes on my floor

And the dishes piled in the sink.