I enjoyed an art fair in Minneapolis. Here are a few pictures by Jay Long whose art pleased me greatly at this above average art fair.



This art fair had a booth selling deep fried cheese curd. Obviously, I ate the deliciousness. No regrets. None.

I offended an artist accidentally when I mentioned that I thought his style of art would lend itself well to the creation of a tarot deck. Ah well. Learning. Sometimes I forget that many things that are pleasant, dear, or interesting to me can be a bit scary or offputting to folks.

Outdoor celebrations of art and looking and being delight me. Seeing people's dogs, tattoos, children, facial expressions, and choices good and bad take my brain to a good place.

really using the second person

A warning: True is tinsel and lies that bad men say. Similarly, true is also the base of a tree as it holds or the breeze of the perfect day (in a car in England racing through old roads near Glastonbury, holding a blue stone).

I am about to quote someone else's words. The writer uses true as he means it. Perhaps not as you or I do. As with reality, artist, normal, rebel, magic, and other kaleidescopic ideas.

Rebellion is not a single act, or a pose, a phase that you go through where you listen to slightly louder music and dress in colors that clash slightly more than normal. Rebellion is a path. It demands that you question everything-how you've been educated, the social structures around you, the government, the media, gender relations, what's expected of you by others, what you've expected of yourself, how you spend your time, what you consume, where you've been, and most of all, where you're going. For me, rebellion that is content only with political radicalism is missing a large part of the picture. Any true radicalism has to extend itself to the way that reality itself is constructed. Rebellion has to take itself all the way to the scheme of manifestation itself, to the writing on the walls of eternity. Anything else is missing the forest for the trees.

A true rebel has to be an artist, somebody who can not only point out the weak points and contradictions in the system, but can also propose something better, and then guard its passage into manifestation That, to me, means magic. -- Christian Sedman

Caught in a massive thunderstorm in a sculpture park. A house lifted by art and strings. Warm wooden spheres in a boat. Melted car. Also, the shelter of good food from the warm rains and a boat upside down to the ceiling.

For me, this is a reminder. I want to be and do, rather than whine. None of it (the expectations) matters. All of it (the possibilities) matters.

I do not want to be the scarecrow/Cassandra (I'd rather start a book club)

I do have opinions. I'm only sharing some of them, but who knows if I share the right ones with the right people. Which hard things get said? Which easy ones?

When I am reaching out to untie a string, I do not strive.

My town is shaped like a chain of figure eights. They overlap predictably/constantly. Hipster. Tattoo. Drunk mess. Interesting haircut. False revelation. Fucking. Occasionally listenable soundtrack. This is not my life, but I see it all the time.

My life: Teach. Judge. Give up on humanity. Grade. Escape. Bad wrists. Good talks. Judge. Hope. Write. Withold. Procrastinate. Cuddle. Sleep.

It is hard to begin something new (with my whole being) after so many false starts. Changing my life is hard because I know it is mine, and that is weighty.

Nonetheless.

I want to grow and be more. Learn to still and relax more fully. Share with new people. Put tiny paper futures and possibilities out in the world (that ignored them last year). Create new and different possibilities that are more empowered. Most of all I want to finish and defend. I want my life to be more mine once the degree has been earned; it feels wrong to do any sort of change at all that could delay or endanger those magical three letters (that I do not actually believe are magic).

My last grandparent passed away this year at the start of summer. Staying in and sifting through her room (and other rooms) showed her freshly to me. I learned such incomplete things, but funny vibrant interesting things that she had not been able to share herself for many many years. Her mental deterioration in old age took so many years away from the person she was. I still want to know her (and so many of my family that are far away, unreachable, or no longer living). Here are a few of the bright spots of her life that make me curious and happy.

wet green brown and purple

The rains of spring have arrived, and with them have come bursts of color and inspiration and memory inside my brain. A good friend posted several photographs from college yesterday on a fairly public website; I've been enjoying them and thinking of those times since. Those pictures have stories; those stories have smells and textures and strange little jests. I do not want to forget these things. They must not disappear behind the cloudy eyes of days not yet born.

It makes me think of my parents telling me stories from their college days. They both maintain that the happiest days of their lives (at least until parenthood) were those in college. I remember a few of these stories, but not enough. My stories and memories matter to me, and so do the stories of my parents and family. We're not famous; I very much doubt any biographers are going to pieces together our miniature sagas in decades of the future. So, I want to save some snippets. I do not know where this will go.

-A sideshow performer hailed from the region of my mother's birth, and he still spent his time off the circuit in the area. The Knots of Knott County had small growths all over his face. They projected, dripped, bumped and stuck out from every part of his face; his specialty consisted of using his eyebrows to wiggle a long one that hung out over his eye. He did this to scare and amuse children. When he did this in my mother's direction, she was terrified and indignant.

-When asked, my grandma would always say that she choose to marry my grandpa, a salesman eight years her senior, because he was the best dancer.

-When I was a very little girl I spent lots of time outdoors. One day my grandmother came with me to spend time near my tree in the apple orchard. We brought my little round basket filled with play jewelry and decorated the early tree with these sparkling baubles. Plastic hearts, rhinestones, and all my assorted treasure made my already special tree otherworldly in the bright sunshine. Somehow we even managed to gather most of the jewelry back into the basket though, if I recall correctly, that was much harder.

More to come.

Tonight I watched two episodes of television on my computer: episodes of Dark Shadows and Big Cat Diary. These are new shows to me and I know already that they will become favourites. Though on the surface they seem to have nothing in common in terms of narrative, genre, or aesthetics, they are appropriate for this winter. This is a dark winter, perhaps the darkest I've known. In different ways, these little bits of moving light on my eyes process that darkness with me and for me. It helps to see nature and the struggle for survival along with its beauties and stalemates when I see death, disease, and pain (moving slowly and quickly) on the edges. I love the black tear marks and yellow teeth of the cheetah when I cannot open my own mouth without pain. It is like the memory of this summer's stinging nettles or the urge to revisit a sort again and again before healing has taken place. It helps also to see the melodrama, and fun of sustained risk and danger. I can feel good getting lost in a story that can go on and on and develop without end in crazy limping circles vaguely inspired by literature. This helps with the uncertainty, fragility, and blindness with which our steps are followed. I hear the night rain outside and know I could be anywhere or nowhere in six months or a year.

New Year's Eve and New Year's day are not my sort of holidays at the best of times; the command to be merry makes me maudlin, but this year I worry that their spectacular ordinariness was positively dangerous. I fell ill on the last day of the calendar year and knew I was too catching to be around people. I stayed in and heard fireworks and heard of adventures and read about resolutions without having any. I didn't watch the border between 2010 and 2011 closely enough, and so far I've not yet had a good day in 2011. My lack of vigilance allowed the real year, the shining one, be replaced with a crying wooden doll. This year has proved a changeling thus far and it does not have the vitality necessary for twelve months and thirteen moons. Tomorrow, hopefully closer still to health, I board a plane to travel backwards. As I go back in time, I plan to toss this mannekin year to the sky and land to find the real 2011, Or, if I have to, make a new one.

All decadents need cats

"Seraphita was of a dreamy and contemplative disposition. She would remain for hours on a cushion, wide-awake and following with her eyes, with intensest attention, sights invisible to ordinary mortals. She liked to be petted, but returned caresses in a very reserved way, and only in the case of persons whom she honoured with her approbation, a most difficult thing to obtain. She was fond of luxury, and we were always sure to find her curled up in the newest arm-chair or on the piece of stuff that best set off her swan's-down coat. She spent endless time at her toilet; every morning she carefully smoothed out her fur. She used her paws to wash herself, and every single hair of her fur, having been brushed out with her rosy tongue, shone like brand-new silver. If any one touched her, she at once removed the traces of the touch, for she could not bear to be rumpled. Her elegance and stylishness suggested that she was an aristocrat, and among her own kind she must have been a duchess at the very least. She delighted in perfumes, stuck her little nose into bouquets, and bit with little spasms of pleasure at handkerchiefs on which scent had been put; she walked upon the dressing-table among the scent-bottles, smelling the stoppers, and if she had been allowed to do so would no doubt have used powder. Such was Seraphita, and never did a cat bear a poetic name more worthily."

Theophile Gautier

not yet restored

some queer thoughts

So, lately queerness has come up a lot in the media and in my experience of social media. Coming Out day was recently and lots of my friends were very gung ho about coming out... as allies. At first, I felt really proud and happy. I am glad to have so many allies and that they are proud. But eventually when I saw about 4 times as many allies and many ambiguous messages by the folks I know who are queer things started to look a bit different.

Coming out is complicated and has consequences.

I'm not fully out of the closet in all situations. I'm sure out in my current town and in my work place and with my friends. I even came out super awkwardly to my mom after my sister outed me herself and lied about it. But, that's a story for another time and the bad poetry involved will never see the light of day. But, I am not explicitly out to my father (he totally knows though) or my husband's parents or to everyone I ever met back in super rural Kentucky. I'd like to be, but Its complicated (I'm working on it).

So, when I didn't feel fully comfortable shouting out my queerness on Facebook, I started to feel alienated by all of the happy cheerful straight people enjoying their participation in queer visibility. Though there can be complication for allies, coming out as supportive of homosexuality doesn't strike me as the same level of magnitude as truly publicly coming out as gay, or queer, or bi, or trans, or asexual, or gender queer, or any number of the mindblowingly diverse flavors that sexuality holds.

Allies, I appreciate your participation in queer activism. I really do.

So, I questioned this emotional response. I do not want to take away any support of queer issues, and I don't want to quash anyone's self-expression of sexuality or activism or visibility. I stand by this, but I do think my questioning led me to something a bit more complicated. What got me there was this. A very smart male straight pastor, for whom I have the deepest respect, posted to his FB wall a neat article by a queer female pastor. The gist of the article was a very rousing challenge for victims of bullying and other forms of oppression to do the Christian thing and bless their enemies and also to learn from them. It was very smart and thought provoking. I did find it uncomfortable to see this explicit challenge being shown to me by straight person. I didn't want to reject such a smart good thing, but I also don't want someone in a position of privilege (even the nicest, coolest, most open-minded person-in-a-position-of-privilege ever) to be telling queers how to deal with our bullies or oppressors. So, I went back to thinking.

Queer people are confronted with their identity in almost every space in culture at almost every moment. This is not our choice. As a result, there are parts of queerness that even the most intelligent, empathetic straight people may only catch a glimpse of, and because our allies are more numerous than we are, I think some of these perspectives and experiences risk being drowned out in the happy noise of the newly expanded pride parade.

I do not want to silence or censor folks. I especially don't want to do that to people fighting a good fight and showing their love. But I am totally willing to advocate for a bit of self-awareness. For everyone. I hope I can take my own medicine; I certainly try. I benefit from privilege, and I try not to forget that. So here's where I'm going with this.

Think about other people. Think about them when you advocate for their rights, or your own rights (for your rights will always affect others). Take time to put yourself in the position of people different from yourself and look at your own actions from the outside. Think about how other people feel. Think about people who have been thinking about this and working on this for longer than you've been alive. Think about people who have multiple minority statuses, all of which complicate each other. Think about the differences of opinion and desire and politics within the spectrum of queerness. Think about the very young and very old who don't necessarily have the freedoms many others enjoy. Think about the fact that not everyone defines queer in anything like the same way. Be a conscientious activist.

Hopefully the parade has room for everyone who wants to participate. I think it does. We just need to be sure that our participation doesn't overshadow or displace anyone else's.

------

Since writing this two amazing blog posts have come to my attention. Both deal with this same issue in different ways and I think they do an amazing job of sensitively but honestly addressing allies.


The Day After That

The Do's and Don'ts of Being a Good Ally

Leave a difference at all

I feel trapped sometimes, and weirdly enough I think it is partly the color of the light around me that affects this feeling. I hate yellow light. It is the part of fall and winter that holds no love or fascination.

Golden light I love; every photographer needs their golden hours of the day. That gentle gilded glow adds so much to any subject. No, what I cannot handle is harsh yellow light. Summer afternoons radiate with it and winter evenings do in the hours just after the sun has gone. Through most artificial light in these evenings, everything becomes stale, too warm, and itchy and yet toes stay slightly too cold. Escape and change become my inner chant at these times.

I want to run in the dark, tell secrets, and laugh airlessly with my friends far away and do it by the strange shadows of summer nights or the white brightness of winter mornings.

Fall gives birth to many urges and experiences, but sadly one of them has left me in these years living too far south for true seasons. Back in Ohio when fall turned cold and brown and deep after its earlier kaleidoscopes I would get what I called "land urges". It felt like longing and loyalty and fierceness all at once. I wanted to stand on a hill with a stick in my hand surrounded by wind and earth and belonging. This feeling rooted me to my place and told me of future connections that could grow even deeper. This cannot happen here; I feel nothing for this shifting sanddirt it isn't the earth and clay that I love. It holds biting ants and spiky strange growths. Lovely and wild yes, but never ever mine.

I wonder how connected everything is sometimes. If I exercise again today will I feel like I can live here longer without losing something precious? Does applying for lifetime jobs all over the country attune me to my gypsy self? Does growing older inspire rebellion? These answers elude me solidly.

My hands want to grasp and my eyes to scan. My location cannot change now, and my work requires me to be grounded for months and months yet. Sometimes it is all I can do to transubstantiate my desires into the realm of the possible. But then in the realm of reality, as always, I trip into conflict, compromise, contention.

Monday, I walk into the house of law. Interviewers will try to find out about me and make guesses like those addicted to horse races. Strangers and I might become a jury together and put on blindfolds so as to be many faces of justice. Sunday, my escapes appear like clockwork. Saturday, I could hunt and watch the gavel fall many times. But what about tonight? I do not know what I can do.