gupshup gossip outta my head

after ade edmonson and rik mayall made "the young ones"
they made another sitcom named "bottom"
which they described as waiting for godot
but vulgar in the extreme
kd has had one sexual partner in the past year
when he was my sexual partner
i kind of wanted to die of embarrassment
and bf i totally know who you lost your virginity to and i didn't even ask
beyonce had a miscarriage
beyonce had a miscarriage and jay-z told everyone about it in a song
that nikki minaj song
that song is about lil kim
and like ade edmonson really doesn't have any hair anymore
and i really thought rik mayall was dead but turns out he's not
he just has crazy hair
like he collected all the wind of a thousand thrusts to thwop ade edmonson over the head with a foam frying pan
and stuffed them in his weird hair
beyonce is the happiest looking pop star of all the pop stars
maybe it's because she didn't go to boarding school like lana del rey
i think i know someone who writes for timeout london
i definitely know someone who writes for timeout london
man buns are really hot right now
chris's friend sam has had a man bun for at least a year
and demographically the students of sarah lawrence
are going to tend to be from new york or la
or like the one weird girl from their suburb
which constitutes a large portion when put together
because there are a lot of suburbs
america is made up of suburbs
which is not an overestimation like saying dominique strauss-kahn is still a socialist
he was a socialist
he's not anymore and his wife is running the huffington post in france
and france is not very close to here
and when he died in france, evariste galois said
"don't cry albert, it takes all my courage to die at twenty"
and he's buried near jim morrison and oscar wilde
but you wouldn't know it
it's a common grave
and the legend of his death is probably pretty outsize
and actually
my paycheck comes from the government not tuition
professors have to cover 60 percent of their costs through funding
the funding goes in a pot to the university (sort of)
my paycheck comes out of that
i know this because the system is the same down south as it is up north
and like
thwack thwack thwack
rik mayall totally has a consistent speech impediment throughout the 90s
there's an app
that let's you designate people to shut down your social networking
if you die
but they all have to be in agreement
that you're dead
and google thinks i'm female and 25-34 years old
which is not wrong
and i am into

Arts & Entertainment - Performing Arts - Acting & Theater Arts & Entertainment - Visual Art & Design People & Society - Family & Relationships People & Society - Social Sciences - Psychology

like he collected all the wind of a thousand thrusts to thwop ade edmonson over the head with a foam frying pan
like she could actually smile with all her teeth
and smiling with your teeth is totally a scare tactic and everyone should be afraid of other people smiling at them
if one lung pops there's a good chance the other other one will, but after that it's unlikely it will happen to either
it just happens
these things totally just happen
and bubblers exist as scientific pieces of equipment which leads me to think that people have been getting high via a technique invented by a bored chemistry grad student

there's more than one of all the types of people you know
ugh
ugh
ugh
the devil is in the details
none of which i strictly need to know

screaming in the tunnel under the metra is a beautiful thing

it is so good to be home.
last night, z shared a thought, something like
relationships are getting comfortable in the routine of someone else's patterns.
(this idea extracted from her actual words, which are alonso's words revoiced: "and perhaps you never know anyone as much as you know the rhythms you fall into when you're around them.")
stambam said, yeah, like comfort.

i love missing things,
leaving in order to return
("the return makes the leaving less nervewracking")

but also, when i would sit by the river and make necklaces or paint gourds or think or cry, i wondered whether i was missing being comfortable (rhythms of synchrony), or people (sparks of connection), or a culture of bäo (in which i am something which elsewhere it becomes hard to sustain)...
i concluded that my feelings of saudade were all and none of these things,
and one night over caipirinhas and candlelight az and i articulated our wonder and pleasure at what the bäohaus has become for us (in part)--
(i speak for myself now, my voice inspired by others,)--
a place where we've allowed and pushed ourselves open,
to transform each other, ourselves, allowed ourselves to be(come) transformed,
and celebrated (and respected--maybe respect is not so far from celebration?) community, togetherness, and the benefits reaped from breaking down walls and norms,
and seeking seeking finding building autonomy from codependence, independence and self-reliance through safe-sane-consensual-communicative relationships,
an alternative (to) education (born in the midst of a sometimes-suffocating academia),
(and of course a refrain of
fostering playfulness,
opposing racism, sexism, capitalism, homophobia, transphobia, structures and institutions which keep people so bound up that they can't see their ropes and our teeth become too dull to chew-spit-talk a way out,
making music, art of all kinds, encouraging self-expression,
care)

these things, i think, are awesome.
and we (i, i think we) marveled at how these things have also inspired-empowered-educated us, and perhaps other bäos, to build-create-question-challenge elsewhere (or perhaps this is what brought us together--it's hard to say exactly.)

anyway,
it's good to be back here,
but it's not the place i left, exactly, not just slipping back into rhythms of comfort
(although good hugs are good and knowing how the stove works is a nice perk and having a bed that doesn't get rained on...is different)
i think there's something about returning to this space
that makes me want to rip my skin off,
spit on my best friends,
apply and translate and stay awake late and get up early,
bomb the world and rebuild it (using principles of anarchist permaculture this time)
and learning learning listening listening changing always.
to me, the bäo is not static. not closed. never the same. never dead. somehow still home.

for a long time i defined home as a place to return to,
but it's funny to find my definition shifting--
realizing that i've taken the bäo with me, and that it's spread like seeds
created like a collage, modeled on junkheaps, collectives, birdsnests, and sidewalks.

thanks for a fab potluck last night...i'm thrilled in this moment and looking forward to taking chicago (the world?) by glitterheatdirtstorm, again and again and again.

(and i would love to hear your words-thoughts-images,
in life or internet,
about what this house is, has been, could be for you,
since these walls have been built, lived in, pierced, and patched together by all of you.)

"um guys i have a bit of a family announcement or something"

(four little bears, sitting at a table around the remains of beans and rice,
pan-latin-american-style,
and one little bear speaks up, something like)
so, you know what transgender means? i'm that.

(this is a prelude to a conversation loosely recorded in squidink and
carved-out moments of precarity,
proximity to trembling
which is proximity to tears of liminal confusion)

my dad said,
"yes, sexuality is really something that pervades everyday life
like i read this article in the new york times"
(yes! he's read something! he's gotten the nyt's view on the matter!)
"about this female soldier
who told her commanding chief that she was gay
and he asked, why do you have to say anything?
and she said, well, it's something that comes up all the time
people are always talking about what they did on the weekend
how they went out with their spouse or if not
their girlfriend
or boyfriend or
whatever
and she just couldn't say anything,
she had to either lie or stay silent,
and she just couldn't do it anymore.
it was like,
if you had to take off your wedding ring
and pretend all the time."
(a good point, this, about silence,
despite the fact that i'm not in the army
and i'm not talking about being gay. still, a good point. thanks, new york times.)

so i said,
yeah,
i wish i had come out as gay in a more graceful way.
(my mom said, yeah really.)
and i think gender is like that too,
maybe even more so,
like every time i have to choose a bathroom
or every time i go shopping
or whenever someone says "oh, you guys," "you girls,"
(do i need more examples or do they get it?
how sensitive is the average to these divisions, these separations?)
even though we live in a society where men and women are pretty equal,
you know, like,
that division is always made,
men and women are treated differently,
and it's always she or he.

my mom said,
"why didn't you tell me this earlier?
i asked you if you were feeling more male or female"
(about why i like wearing shorts like the rio boys)
um...i don't know, things change.
"but i asked you. three weeks ago. why didn't you give me a straight answer?"
(like she was asking why i hadn't warned them? or why i don't give straight answers?
i hate straight answers.
i think all answers should have nice bends.
it makes for much better conversation.
and much more room to slide around in your answer later,
when it's a different day and suddenly,
you find yourself a little different. three weeks is, in the life of a bat, a long time.)

my mom's eyes (red) didn't match her tone (angry),
"look, alison,"
(i haven't been alison since i was 7)
"i know you think of yourself as a boy,
but i don't think you are.
i mean, you're not a boy.
i know."
(because she stripped me down and gave me birdbaths when i was 3?
i liked birdbaths. better than baths. better than showers.
i didn't realize they would come back to bite me.)
"so how can i call you he?
you're not a he.
how can i call you eliot?
no one will know who i'm talking about."

"it's like me asking you to call me sally,
when you've called me mom for twenty-two years
(um, i'm 21)
and it's not my name, it doesn't even have
anything to do with my name."
my sister stepped in,
"uh,"
(thank you thank you thank you i see your eyes are red and mine are too i don't trust my voice right now thank you thank you)
"i think that's pretty different.
eliot's talking about"
(the only time tonight i've heard my newname, my eliotname)
"their identity, and i think we should respect that."
(thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you for making me feel not alone in this moment, "there is a simple comfort in not being alone"...thank you thank you)

i talked a lot about
how much we all talk about gender
and yet how people respond so differently to trans people and their trans kids,
and just to let you know, m&d,
i have this awesome community in chicago
where i am supported and loved
and i know lots of genderfuckers and trans kids
and their parents have responded in all different kinds of ways,
some are really close to their parents
and some left their parents' houses
or were kicked out,
and those different models have helped me to figure out where i stand.
and i hope you can be supportive,
and i'm here telling you this because i want to be open
and honest
and i think you might support me
and regardless, this is important to me.
being honest, being myself.
(whatever that is, may become, may desire.)

(the big issue was)
"what about my mother's birthday?
it would be inappropriate for you to get up
in front of all these people
and make this announcement about your being 'transgender'"
(or whatever it is, the words are still being worked out--as much for me as you, i wanted to say,
but sometimes it's best to keep things kind of simple,
get out the basics,
my ambiguity has delayed this conversation a long time)
"i mean,
i don't go to work
and talk about my sexuality
or my intimate, well, sexual details
or whatever
i talk about physics!"
(mmyeah. different.)
setting the record straight--
(for once, this facile division between
sexuality
gender
becomes useful.)
and yet,
you talk about your wife,
your kids, your family,
and your gender--everyone recognizes you as a man
(is this the first time i've called my dad a man to his face? strange feeling)
everyone knows you're a man
and every time we describe someone
(you have two female students and one male, two indian and one chinese, my mother had a meeting with a woman today, we are all in all one son one daughter and one me)
the first thing we say is whether they are
male
or
female.

later,
my sister hugged me.
"i'm glad you said that."
i said,
i almost didn't.
(i almost thought it wasn't necessary,
that somehow the hints would add up and that would be enough,
casual mentions and back three years ago when i got my first pair of h&m boys jeans
and they were the best best best clothes i ever had and i wore them until they became holes.)
thanks for your support,
and then i texted some squids,
and the lovetentacles felt better than the cigarette
which felt better than the cold air
which was better than the inside
where words drift through
"it's so weird the thought that we'll have to psdsdsdsdssssptsdtt"
"i just don't know what to think about bsssspspbssddsdf"
"what are we going to do about fieieieeeiffsdspspssssssssspsdfff"

then my mom (sally?) helped me put lettuce, coriander, beet seeds in bags
and my dad and i talked about what is reasonable and what is respectful
and what is selfish
and what is not selfish
and of course (we're liberal) we all have to agree on everything,
a hint of opposition
is reconciled as a misinterpretation
until we're all saying the same thing
("i'm transgender." "me too!")
or something more like,
respect
love
life goes on,
same but different,
this one is an intentional change, an articulated change,
unlike many.

my brother said,
"oh yeah,
i know what transgender is."
where did you find out?
"around."
i mean, there are lots of ways to find out...friends, books, porn, the dictionary, wikipedia, a movie, mom and dad...around...
"around.
everyone knows."
(duh)
so yeah, i'm that.
"ah okay."
but you know, i just wanted you to know.
i feel like we've been bros for a long time.
"yeah."
okay.
well.
goodnight.
"good night."
i love you.
"yeah. you too."



ready to come home,
again.