Fanfare for Ms. E. F. C

Meine Dame Und Herren und everything in-between or beyond that spectrum,

I give you Em Le Fay
Erstwhile Englishwoman in the County of Fyfe (after the Thane thereof)
Scholar and Soon-to-be Asset Manager
Cross-Atlantic Nomad
All-Around Encyclopedia of Minutiae
Former Co-President of the Dramatic Society
Receiver of a Glass of White Wine
and
my friend, Former Citizen of My Heart

Quoth the Economics Student, "It's not like I'm going to be happy anyway, so I might as well do a job that makes me a good deal of money. Then I can retire and do what I like." Quoth the Follower of Dr. Johnson and Adam Smith, "It's hard to do a thing you love, why ruin it? Get out, while you can." Quoth she, "No one around me has got their head screwed on right."

I give you Em Le Fay
Wearer of Sensible Winter Coats and Good Jeans
Attendant of Assessment Pools
(which I gather are rather like group auditions)
Applicant to the Financial Giant J.P. Morgan Stanley
Half of Matt and Emma
Recaller of the Tiny Details of the Political Machinations of the Alma Mater
(and Extensive Recounter thereof)
Drinker of Blue Drinks
Giver of Earfuls
Former Partner-In-Crime

I can't really remember half the people she mentions in conversation. My mind is going is my excuse. That time I puked so hard vessels burst in my eyes cleared away most of 2004-2005. Don't mind me, I'm listening.

She says, "You know, [insert favorite teacher here] once told me that she was worried about you. Sort of unsure of where you would end up. Of who you'd be." I open my mouth to speak as this is news to me, but these days it's hard to get a word in edgewise. The last time we saw each other, she was but two days out of the removal of her wisdom teeth and still talked my ear off for nigh on seven turnings of the hour. I think, "We're not all that different, you and me, scrabbling for happiness on this unhappy plain."

I think, "Remember the evening when we were at school late and no one was around and it was pouring (like it is tonight) and we ran out onto the field made of ASTROTURF and dumped cans of Coke onto their precious and expensive lacrosse/field hockey pitch in an act of nascent radical violence? Before we knew those words? And how we howled in the night and ran giggling back inside to the stares of our less-bedraggled classmates and winked at each other for the offense we had committed? Do you remember? Well, do you?"

Exit Em Le Fay
Helena to my Hermia
Shylock to my Bassanio
One Half of a Pair of Strange Little Girls
Citizen of My Heart

BAO!

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...)

the winners rewrite history

it's funny, but I think being sick (finally! - the worst part was waiting for the inevitable) has helped focus me on a few things. things in my head.
I'm not suggesting the body as a distraction from anything important. A careful distinction - I'm suggesting involvement in the daily routine as a distraction, an involvement that normally requires a healthy body. It's been great to get out of the routine a bit and regroup.
reshrink.
recapitulate.
I don't know if anybody but me ever obsessed over the boardgame Risk (nevermore - I promise), but the winning strategy was always careful containment of power, to never spread oneself thin, until the very end - the moment of truth.
Social dynamics a bit like risk (where's the verb in this preceding sentence? hiiiiiding). We have multiple moments of truth in our game whose different sizes (importances? truthinesses?) are relative to the risk required to attain them (triumph over the moment, not the truth - but maybe it's the same thing [how cynical!]), but the basic strategy remains the same - keep your energy close around you until you really need it.
We can see another analogy in gravitational dynamics (as always - I hope this doesn't come as a surprise) - those heavy little stars last much, much longer then the big, spread out ones that end up collapsing or blowing up.
collapsing or blowing up - this is the consequence of overextension.
Not that I'm trying to judge - both of these are equally valid forms of creative-destruction/destructive-creation/change - but (applied to all the metaphors at once now) until I want my little pieces of star/plastic tanks and horses to mix with all the other colors and planets and shiny bits of flesh around me, that is to say, until someone buys a better board-game than Risk, I think I'll play it close and choose tact over excess.