mary oliver reminds me

When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider
the orderliness of the world. Notice
something you have never noticed before, 

like the tambourine sound of the snow-cricket
whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb. 

Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain,
shaking the water-sparks from its wings. 

Let grief be your sister, she will whether or not.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves. 

A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life. 

Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance. 

In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling. 

Live with the beetle, and the wind. 

the internet is so confusing

what is the precedent for the kind of jumbling produced here in this nonspace--

"Female escorts Webcam sex District.9.720p.BluRay.x264-METiS diggu1GQfE,
Couples dating Teen dating in Grantsville WV
RT DenmarkLeo To love, work, study and travel in Denmark: Salary in Denmark, how to calculate it? 3Msnsb Disconcerting: The toilet paper of the stall you're in being changed through the wall from the
proof required: need to clarify the claim that Jon Campbell is the 5th most sampled songwriterproducer in the world 8sLImA Let me correct myself. Dont Take the Girl by Tim McGraw is by far the best song ever written.,
Saving aerospace in Washington State - sharKECN LaDainian Tomlinson No doubting Thomas fantasyspplayernflLaDainianTomlinson676780 NFL SD,"

also, in other news, i have a big crush on this song right now.

proserpina by martha wainwright

OH MY GOSH ALSO I'M STILL ALIVE!
the new world is beginning--
what are your visions intentions dreams for the beginning of the new world?

oh not much

geez it is pouring out here in the west hills of portland and it sounds like the ocean crashing into the back of this mansion.

putting things in bags, this dance i have been dancing of touching things and shuffling papers,
scrounging for toothbrushes (i'm at 4 now)
flipping through books
sorting into piles
rolling up clothes
putting liquids in plastic bags.
oh geez home again home again jiggity jig.

headed to pittsburgh tonight on a bird that walks on clouds slurping gasoline
or something
it's funny to be excited about not paying rent
for a few weeks
in the house
i grew up in
for years

i'm hoping to find some ways that are satisfying for me and easy gentle for my sister brother parents to celebrate welcome acknowledge the solstice on the 21st and the full moon (the 28th?). lots of things. and a family reunion in tennessee. my mum sent out an email suggesting cabins for the "kids" based on gender and then another email suggesting instead a division of quarters based on "comfort."

yup yup,
it's portland,
everything's fuckin cute
even in the rain!
pink and purple narwhals,
uniporn,
restaurants with "toast" in the name,
splashy umbrellas,
tiny inventions
apps galore

it's been a whirlwind here, and really really fuckin lovely. lovely to walk around and say "oh i don't live here anymore!" (we just got officially "approved" to rent a house with a fruit room near wolf creek. mmmmmmhmmmm) also busy and wet and occasionally totally overwhelming.

all of these words
feel a little hollow
right now

i have a new tattoo!

first post in months!

a good spanish word that nobody uses is "chispiante" which literally means "sparky". i'm not even sure i'm spelling it right anymore.
does nobody use it because it's not even a real word?
me and my chilean friends used it between 10 and 100 times a couple years ago. so it's not completely fabricated like the stuff they have at the macys in the shopping center in pittsburgh.
by which we presume i mean that it has some emotion to it, love even, a meaning deeper than the dollar or literal communication.
chispiante is a clever-sharp combo with a side of new.
prometheus was the only one to do something chispiante, as above and also literally, at the same time. ha.

what can i say? pittsburgh is seeping into my veins like jungle juice at a frat party. i could be soberer (metaphorically), but i'm not doing much about it, although everybody around me is doing their part by either dropping me a ladder or putting some distance between themselves and this trainwreck. or at least that's how it feels.
if i could only relax.
life is a state of mind. i'll be happy when i'm relaxed when i'll be happy. i'll relax when i can relax. being home? not actually helping. my fault for sure.

today at the park i met a pleasant fellow. a 31yrold asian cmu grad student. loves computer programming and economics. grand ambition - to write programs for faster-than-human trading companies, make millions.
i had to ask: what will you do with all that money? buy a fancy car?
no, he said, i think i'll buy lots of gold and then bury it with me in one of those things.
a sarcophagus?
yeah.

what happened to my optimism?

"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.

hark, it is the dawning of the

brrrrr i c symphonic collusions on all sides
reminds of a waterfall in a nether world
rush & shush & rush & shush
suddenly BLAM! KERPLAM! (just kidding).

at the dinner table i am an elitist
[and? so? i've traveled galaxies, fought wars, raised monuments - i've lived for so long my beginnings are lost to memory - i love myself and i love you - so yes, i am a lelitist]

at the gay club i am a spectacle
[and what about the 35 year old lumberjack wearing a thong and tight leather pants pulled down under the thong, grinding on a metal bar - why are all the middle-aged guys watching chris and i? why did we bother with 21+ night?]

at night, wrapped in sweaty limbs, believe it or not, i am a star -
[i didn't see it coming - they and they and they didn't see it coming - but in the end, everybody is coming]

but only in pittsburgh.

tonight i took time

to say hi-hellow to each of the trees
and most of the stars and a snowdrunk deer
...and they said hello back!

free glitter for all

phew...i tried to talk to my sister today about paying for glitter at a huge chain (or anything, really) is dumb.

she kept asking: if everyone stole, wouldn’t they shut down the store and then the people who worked there would be worse off? she said she could get on board with liberating bread/food (the necessaries) but not glitter since i make well enough money to buy glitter.
(of course, this isn’t quite the point...nobody should be paying $5 for glitter, unless they want to.) she was into the idea of gift economies, freestores, how dumb it is that all of the excess of clothes/craft supplies/etc. in peoples’ basements can’t somehow be put back into a free exchange system...but the idea of liberating glitter “made her stomach turn.”

any tips on sharing the pleasure of freeshopping? connecting these liberal-altruistic principles to a sense of injustice/outrage/subversion? or even just talking about “liberation” and getting past the stigma/fear/shame...? (do you see it as a way of coping in a shitty capitalist world and/or a strike against the chain itself?)

i imagine this is something many of you have talked/worked through in your own thinking or with others...any advice or zine/reading recs i could pass along, by comment or email, would be much much appreciated.

seven feet, four inches, five hundred and forty pounds

a quick shoutout (from my realm of pittsburghian sneakitude and snowaccrued) to the new squids and inkful mammals in our midst...heather [can fly], margaret inglosolunbe/terr[or]ence, and foxfur-beee[ankh]uh, welcome to this strange dwelling which perhaps you might return to enough to call some kind of home.

tmo's post about being home resounded a lot with me--the sneakitude, the stars, the weight of rules, regulations, and roofs in the name of "love." (here's a thought, snatched crudely from politics is not a banana: we kill each other more than we kill our enemies, and that's a problem.)

my attempts to break through the layers of gardentalk, jobtalk, schooltalk with my mother have resulted in the repeated prod: "whew, you like these deep conversations. i just want to enjoy your company while you're here." i turn over and over in my mind what kind of "pleasantry" is possible when every domestic conflict is a painful-to-watch-[for-me] spectacle of miscommunication, money money money and a desire to feel attached and together, gone about in all the wrong ways (faith, malls, movies...)

concretely, then,
i've been chilling with the lelster a lot, finding our way around the quiet pittsburgh nightlife scene (funny, since the last time i was here pittsburgh was full o riot-ready cops) looking for the loud queermos whose voices don't quite echo as far as the suburbs. on thursday we went to lawrenceville, in and out of bars too loud for talk and we played a game of pool at remedy. yesterday, we organized a meeting of families, went to the warhol museum and saw this exhibit on shepard fairy (OBEY/andre the giant has a posse/etc.) i wonder if my sneakers will ever be in a museum. my parents/sister had bought tickets to the pittsburgh renaissance choir (a gay men's choir and gay women's choir) show, which turned out to be a spectacle of charity and money and balding white sweatervested gay couples. i watched the ASL interpreter and learned the signs for "king" and "lord" and "christmas day." then i darted off to explore lawrenceville some more, danced a little to gaga et al at brillobox and then had a beer with some gorgeous drag queens at blue moon.

so-though,
as easy as it is to be critical, i've been struggling to find optimistic reframings. i've been fighting regret, refusing to entertain the concept in myself and rooting it out in others....regret (and the resulting shame, guilt, self-pitying, self-hatred, loss of agency, complaining, sadness) seems to me to invite a sense of paralysis. life is not as easily accessible and editable as a google doc. in lieu of existential "back" buttons, i'll keep you updated on my campaign against regret.

6. somehow half my clothes are too clean and the other half smell like pee and come. hmmmm.

7. i miss the baohaus already.

8. i hope you are all alive and in touch with your vitality. to new squidlings: post without thinking, don't wait for the "right" idea to strike and instead strike with something bumpy and malformed. (anyway, that's how i like it.)

love,
elz
(soundtrack: something bollywood...)

group of 8000

hi kids,
after an exhausting, exhilarating, and downright fucking sweet two days of protesting and naughtiness, i'm back in the burbs with my folks (that is, far from the action but part of the problem; but speaking personally, safe and mostly sound).

tmo's last post on fear was really fascinating for me to read in light of my experience in the past few days as well as this summer, playing around with so many scenes and headspaces and new experiences. after my last trip, i decided (to leli in the back o the station wagon) to eliminate fear from my life. to me, this meant shedding my fear of social repercussions for my actions--following through on my desires without fearing the law (or the dark.) but last night i dreamt of cops and woke up sweating. when i close my eyes i see riot cops. i can't shake off the feeling of running, not knowing when my clothes and actions will make me criminal since the rules don't really matter. in the past two days, i have become aware of more cop/military surveillance and experienced more fear of surveillance than ever in my life...and then there was the incredible polarization of pittsburgh, a rhetorical accomplishment by the state, police, and media that made "normal pittsburghers" cast their eyes aside as i walked down the sidewalk. that made ME an object of fear in college dorms and lunchrooms, and not for legit reasons. in contrast to the intense solidarity of protesters, fear had boarded up windows, shut down classes, and many students and business owners seemed rallied against these destructive outsider crazy whacko anarchists (what does that even mean). i heard they pee on people, hide in tunnels to slash tires, etc. etc.

i'm excited to come back and talk to you all and tell you about some crazy shit that went down. dunno if you've been following the news. many people were arrested and i am free, trying to construct a rationale for why things happened as they did. i'll see you all (or most) on sunday night.

with queeranarcholove and solidarity,
winknight

ink-spitters never run out of ink

as i swam through my hair amidst the rhythmic chirp of crickets, i felt my tentacles stirring. two emerged from the tips of my pelvic bones and i felt two burst from the middle of my back, rubbing pleasantly against my vertebrae. a fifth itch in my ankle became a squirming mess of suckers on the bathroom floor and a sixth slimy arm slithered soundlessly out of my belly button. from each palm explodes more than a handful of angry writhing seaflesh that triples my armspan. donning a pink bandanna and with a mouthful of ink, i am a bomb, borne from hard dirt and soft grass and speckled assholes.

the smoke of my cigarette hangs in the air and curls into a dragon, diving toward the light as i watch. i have three buttholes distributed around the back yard but i put it out under a rock and then, after spitting on the end, throw it into a large reedy bush.

path to knowledge

recently i am reading "the teachings of don juan: a yaqui way of knowledge." it is intriguing. more on that later because i am low on juices.

today i am in pittsburgh
this morning i was at oberlin college in oberlin, ohio, which alex tried to convince me was about 10 blocks by 10 blocks but i insisted was more like 12x15. probably more like 11x9 depending on how you count them.

last night presented 3 serendipitous events in close proximity (10 minutes):
1. on my way to a questionably compelling party "above the coffeeshop," i saw a familiar face and pointed and said "i know you!" he stared and started and it turned out to be theo, my ex-girlfriend's ex-roommate's boyfriend. too complicated. but a kid i met several times when i hung out at the shoreland 2nd year. possibly a little worse for the wear, but lovely once he overcame his shock.
2. someone found my lost bali shag tobacco pouch (nearly brand new) and returned it to me! of course i rolled em a spliff in return.
3. i met nikeel's (sp?) sister while smoking outside this too-full party. she did not deliver a philosophical manifesto. she was also lovely.

actually i realized that i visited oberlin exactly a year ago this weekend. upon my last visit, i wrote a love letter/thank you note (are they so dissimilar?) to oberlin (here if you's curious). what a strange regularity--when my plants grow in spurts and my period comes as often as now and laters to quik snax or rare as laundry day (that is, not often)...it is funny that such cycles would reveal themselves.

i took deep breaths and watched people work and live. i smoked too much and watched a college scene from the outside. it made me want to go back to school and also never go back to living in academia.
i also thought about how many young lives thrive in close proximity and how easy it is to not wear a helmet and accidentally get run over by an 18 wheeler. i think i'll start wearing a helmet. i advise you to consider it (if you haven't already).

all for now
love to the baohaus&others

this is not a blog post

blue day,

rue day,

i-want-to-moo day.

i've been meaning to post about camp trans but i don't quite know how, yet.

cats shedding,

vodka in the afternoon.

humid air and

sidewalk stares.

even when the bathrooms at work are always empty, choosing between the one down the hall and the one further down the hall is still an existential conflict.

sometimes revolution makes me happy

and sometimes my bone marrow aches with sadness for everything that is wrong.

(today is among the latter days.)

and yet

my garden flourishes

gabe and vlad have been sleeping with me

the lake is cold and bright with just a bit of a vomit-like skin

and i got free condoms from 5710.

anyone interested in going to pittsburgh with me for the G20 protest, september 24 & 25?

The future is now

A big "Hi" to all you cephalopod adventurers out there, women, children, squids - I'd like to discuss an important Topic today.
This Topic is a secret that I cannot disclose at the current time.
I will, however, mention that I am going to Pittsburgh tomorrow morning, and that in Pittsburgh they all talk about the Topic all the time, including the time that has not yet happened, and the time that already did happen.
Can you guess what it is?

leli