here's a little piece of crap i wrote on a piece of paper when i was in a car a couple weeks ago.............
driving through Santa Barbara oh my gosh
so much yucky California
whiteness sunshiney pueblos palms,
the sunshine here poisons,
it rots, spoils the heart
with entitlement
and self-satisfaction
fermenting

I'm not bitter,
I'm pissed.
that all these motherfucking white people
look at this land and see paradise--
sun, salt, surf, tanlines, SUVs,
colonial walks,

This state, and all it promises,
a sick joke,
only made more disturbing
by its reality
---------------------------=============+++-

back in oregon now and indeed my California Cough is gone... plagued me for weeks.!
im here in portland feeling as uninspired the likes of which i have not felt in months,
wtf? why am i here?
i am bleeding,
bleeding as of last night,
i find that my emotional template during these weeks (these irregular, when are you where are you i need you blood when when, weeks) shifts to joylessness
ugh
i dont even know what i stand on
i have not danced because it is winter, because people like to dance at night and i like to sleep with the sun
that is my excuse
this life does not work,
the life of living in a kitchen and listening to music, dancing singing,
getting on the computer to look for homes,
and getting sad
nope nope nope
when i see wy'east (mt hood)
or the moon moon
look at me from over there i say
hey
what?
oh
fuck





can i please be grounded enough to speak to this person from my gut
to be here with my heart
and say hi

and can i also be crazy fucked up enough
to glue feathers to my ass
strap on my heels
and burrow into the soil?

trash can emeritus - eh eh eh eh pick pick pick pick pics on the internet - like we own the inner net - like we dunk that better bet - and if we like it we can keep it - all the twinks and tweakers surround the speakers and if you put your hand to floor you might find you wanna speak it - we saw the hurricane when it was coming cross the lake and the lifeguards called us in - photocopier emeritus - and anything we do, well i don't think it merits this but - go ahead and try it you should prolly try it - and if we like it we can keep it - and the people who aren't going to berlin on saturday night are moving to berlin for some crazy reason they can't explain - and everybody's shouting in german - and we are clutching each other - even the quiet part of the night that's just the wind and us in torn in two by the drunk boys and hobo bros and other bros - sure all the bros - and the street lamps make everything look suspended in orange jello - and we say oops and recuse ourselves like it's not our fault - like it happened to us - but our faces hurt from laughing and we run away from home - oops - and this week middle school teachers and grandmothers and professors emeritus die all within in our near vicinity and we write screeds in the woodchips of the playground with our piss - people are here for a year - for the next two and a half weeks - the people who say they are visiting might never actually show up - and you're probably moving in five or six months - so we all use the same towel - and say what we mean when it's past eight and we've been drinking since two - because somebody thinks we must own the inner net - and everybody thinks the other ones are hogging all the fun - you must be - we must be - if other people think we're having fun - we must be.

bug-eyes, holes in the ground, peeing on lawns

yesterday i fed the bunnies alfalfa pellets and hugged ruben from behind as he stirred mikey-the-goat-meat chili for lunch,

today i woke up in a mummybag on a white carpet of a floor of a house in columbia city in seattle in a different world.

i have not been posting much recently, though i've been reading avidly and thinking about it,

guess because relationships in my world were moving and shifting,

reading about the diggers in california in the 60s, the san francisco mime troupe and the free family setting up explosive cultural-overhaul communes left and right,

and what do i think? in any moment? and what am i doing, what are we doing?

i am full of vivid images...a winter picnic at the edge of the plateau we lived on, andrew communing with a twisting oak that leaned out over the edge. sarah and i dancing with finger puppets performing a drama of interspecial romance in high british accents as walt watched and smiled and occasionally muttered puns. the front stoop of my trailer. hands twisting in the dark, our last slumber party at windward, and where is the line between sensual and sexual. the feeling of the kitchen at night after everyone had gone to bed and i sat alone with a notebook.

driving into seattle was something

at first the lights were exciting

then i realized i couldn't look at things fast enough,

too much too fast,

so i closed my eyes and played seven with ethan.

the world is big! the universe is loving! all people are beautiful!

i am excited to set out soon (wednesday i think?) on my way down south, traversing new worlds and unknown territories, seeing how my life looks when i offer it in stories. i am excited to see my family-friends-community, thread together different worlds we live in. i am excited to walk outside and smoke a cigarette.

so hello and hello and hello...

i keep wanting

a new post to be here.
i mean
the picture of celery is nice
but i check this blog almost as often as i check my email.
and im a little bored.

i do many things in several days
hey yesterday i made a harness and rhubarb bread and stenciled patches with the breeders

(kind of a lewd-ish shot. sorry. i've taken to wearing that jumpsuit on buggy sunny days.)

(our neighbors james and chelsea. whom i like! I just rarely get to use the term 'breeders', and here I say it with affection)

now i suddenly have a lot of hindi work to do that i havent done. now i suddenly have 10 teenagers bike-tripping across the country crashing on my living room floor, now i suddenly prefer "they", now i suddenly find myself in a waiting room watching the dvd menu for marley and me play on repeat while i slowly fill in my forms.
suddenly i awoke at 6:12 this morning with an eerie terrified feeling of being touched by shakti, which could maybe be described as religious.
suddenly the days happen
&i know what that means
&i dont want to go



p.s. t'mo is the only person to have used the tag 'kissing'!

"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.

a draft of a larger dream

onto greener pastures and radiant sunglasses with rhinestones.
af