We'll See How Brave You Are

She Was Actually Just Distracting Me While Her Brother Stole My Pizza.

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:25:25 GMT

Readings! Books! Maine! So Exciting!

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:08:23 GMT

KLIK TO EMBIGGEN!

Hey! Did I mention I've got readings coming up? It doesn't look like I'll be doing any this month (which is really just as well -- we're so busy getting ready for Lobby Day -- which it would mean the world to me if you came to -- that I'd rather focus on MTPC this month anyway), but I've got TWO readings in the first week of February.

Tuesday, February 2nd I'll be making my triumphant return to Port Vertias (and Portland in general) with a feature at the North Star Café (225 Congress St., Portland, ME)! I'd like to come spend a couple days in Portland if my budget allows -- anyone have a couch I can crash on for a couple nights? I'll cook you dinner! :)

Then, after a week of not going to Creating Change (*sigh* Someday...), I'll be doing a mini-feature down here:

Sunday, February 8th I'll be part of a really fantastic line-up of writers coming out to support Queer Soup in Boston (details in the flyer above, even if they did misspell my middle name). I haven't decided who my gender icon will be yet -- I kind of want to go with Patti Smith, but I'm afraid someone else will beat me to her, so maybe I'll go with Katharine Hepburn. We'll see. Anyway, Queer Soup are really wonderful folks, and I can vouch for several of the other featured writers as being excellent... and what else were you going to do on a Sunday night, huh?

ALSO! Have I mentioned here I have copies of New Problems for sale? I don't think I have.

They're $11 (more than last time, I know, but this book's 20 pages longer than The Oxygen Catastrophe), and you can buy 'em in person or drop some money in our Paypal (if you want to drop an extra dollar or two for postage, that would be nice, but you don't have to).

Here's a sample, just because:

Jacob's Story

1: All night in the desert I tossed and turned
with my angel. In the morning my brother was coming
to murder me for what I did as a child.
I pinned my angel to my chest and hoped the night
would go on forever.

2: At first, we rolled and struggled against
each other's bodies, but as the moon
turned our skin into light, I forgot which limbs
were hers, which limbs were mine.
We were wearing one skin.

3: As we nested violently in the sand, she told me
about her childhood in the silver city, how she loved
her million sisters. I spat the names of my wives into her
ear and felt her fingers carve
ten moons into my back.

4: I learned to forget she was there at all. She was an extra
set of legs I never used; she was static interference
in the perfect whisper of the desert wind. I preferred the wind.
I was checking my watch. I was watching the moon as it
peaked above her back. I rolled, and took my turn on top.

5: I wondered if she remembered me at all. Her eyes
had not met mine in an hour. She was watching
the sand, she was counting the grains. Her lips moved a little
for every number. She prefers the sand to me, I thought, staring at her
as she stared at the sand. I wished she would turn
and look at me again.

6: The half circles on my back were white where the sand
had stuck against my brown skin. We rolled again
out of habit. There was nothing in the desert
except us.

7: The night went on forever. I wished my brother would come.

8: She spoke.
She forgot my name and used another and
I took it for my own. I would have taken anything
for a change. A new name, a new angel, my brother's
army, anything
but this. Anything.

9: The moons on my back began to sink.

___

Up on Radiosilent.org, I've also got Fashion and This Poem Could Never Be Good Enough

The Aborted "Best Music Of 2000-2009" List

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:47:53 GMT

So, I was generally just going to abandon the "Best of the zeroes" music post idea, but since feckalyn asked, here's the 15 I was down to when I said to myself, "Am I really going to cut Sun Kil Moon, The Roots, Modest Mouse and The White Stripes? Right, screw this," and gave up:

Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place
TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me
Joanna Newsom - Emily
Amanda Palmer - Ampersand (or possibly Astronaut -- I never could pick between those two)
The Mountain Goats - No Children
The Postal Service - Such Great Heights (or possibly Death Cab For Cutie - The New Year)
PJ Harvey - A Woman A Man Walked By/The Crow Knows Where All The Little Children Go
The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize??
St. Vincent - Now, Now
Of Montreal - The Repudiated Immortals
Erykah Badu - something off New Amerykah (probably Twinkle)
Bjork - Who Is It? (Vitalic Mix)
Regina Spektor - Chemo Limo
Iron and Wine - The Trapeze Swinger

That list isn't in any sort of order, of course, but I suspect The Trapeze Swinger would have taken the top spot. But who knows? Maybe not.

Anyway, that's me (or at least halfway) -- what have you been rocking out to the last ten years?

End Of The Zeroes

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:09:00 GMT

So, there was a long (long) post looking back at the last decade that I finished, but ended up being unsatisfied with. And then I was going to do a "10 Best of the '00's" music post but my enthusiasm had waned by the time I'd winnowed the list down to 15. So instead, you just get a picture from the large subgenres of "Amanda being adorable", "Gwen being adorable", "Gwen on Amanda's shoulder" and "Gwen trying to be bipedal".

And that's it. So... bye, unpleasant decade! Don't let the door get wedged in any unfortunate orifices on your way out, jerk.

One Last Thing About LGBT Health Clinics I Hadn't Kvetched About

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:07:24 GMT

Ugh. Pardon the silence here (and the fact that no one but Amanda is getting presents until at least next week), I've had a sinus infection since last Thursday -- and not one of those "oh here, have some antibiotics" infections, but a viral one where the Nurse Practitioner can't offer anything more than a suggestion that you use a neti pot. Which actually has helped, even though I have yet to use said pot successfully -- the salt water always either pools in my nostril or heads down my throat and half-drowns me. I expect I'll have it figured out not too long after I don't need it anymore. So, It's been a week of monkey pajamas and black tea, though the kitties have been in paradise to have me in bed all day. K. climbs under the sheets and snuggles against me, then Gwen hops obliviously on her head as Cass tries to chomp my toes through the blankets.

As I said in the last post, I'm finally free of the Fenway (more or less) -- I've switched to seeing a trans doctor in Davis Square who I know through MTPC, and who, entirely by coincidence, is also Amanda's doctor. ("Uh... did you come here because you knew I was trans?" Dr. D asked hesitantly at Amanda's first appointment when Amanda mentioned her partner was trans. She actually hadn't.)

It sounds silly, but it makes a huge difference to have a doctor who's trans. You might think that after two years as a patient at an LGBT health clinc whose listed specialties include "transgender health" that I'd have had that experience before -- but if you did you'd be wrong, of course.

For example, there's nothing that bothers me worse -- or gets me misgendered more often -- than my dense, coarse black facial hair. Since I can't afford to get rid of it right now, my routine before I'm comfortable and feel safe going leaving the house or even having guests over is this: hot shower (to soften it up/open my pores), shave, touch up the areas that ignored the razor the first time (sometimes I have to just shave all over again), moisturize, give my face 15-20 minutes to heal and dry, then foundation makeup and powder. It's a big pain in the butt, and I often don't go places and do things because it just isn't worth the trouble.

And when I woke up yesterday I felt so bad I could hardly stand up, much less go through all that just to see the doctor. But if I'd been going all the way across Boston to the Fenway to see someone who isn't trans, I'd probably not have been comfortable doing it bare-faced. But going to Dr. D's clinc -- even to see her cis Nurse Practitioner -- which is only a mile or two away, I was comparatively comfortable just wrapping a scarf around my face a la 90's comic book character Chamber and calling it good. I didn't even feel obligated to keep the scarf on in the waiting room.

So, silly, maybe. But it makes a huge difference walking into a place where trans people aren't just supplicants coming to ask cis people for help (which they can choose to give or not give and no one can say "boo" either way since it's not illegal in MA), but are also actual staff members -- or, in this case, even running the joint. Being shown -- not told, but shown -- that I'm as valuable as any other patient makes me so much less afraid to have the people around me know I'm trans. Having concrete proof that the difference doesn't mean anything makes it clear how the difference really doesn't. Does that make sense?

You Can Choose To Say "Good Morning, G-d" or "Good G-d, Morning!"

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:07:04 GMT

So, I'm sitting here a bit fuzzy-headed from cold medicine, and I was thinking about doing one of the many end-of-the-year memes that everyone does on LJ in December, and I was about to do this whole long thing about what a difficult, rotten year this has been, going on and on about my cat this and my mother that and all the blah blah blah that I've been venting about this year.

But you know what? No. I'm as tired of that as you probably are. So instead, at the risk of feeling like I'm writing a grant, let's look at what I actually have accomplished in 2009 -- because it's nothing to sneeze at:

* Abandoned the traditional "submit endlessly to literary journals that no one reads except other people trying to get published in literary journals" model for a more grassroots "do readings and sell books" approach to getting my work out there. Seriously, best decision I ever made.

* Actually made money off my art, which I'd always talked about doing -- when I was a teenager I'd defiantly look teachers whose classes I was failing in protest in the eye when they asked me what I was going to be when I grew up and say, "I'm going to be a poet" -- but never actually managed to do before.

* Self-published two books of poetry, doing everything except the actual printing myself (and doing it quite well, if I do say so myself). Half finished with the third, which I think is really going to be amazing.

* Also, the work I'm doing now is probably the best I've ever done (thanks in no small part to toniamato's workshops)

* There's a huge amount of stuff to be proud of that I've accomplished or helped accomplish for and with the MTPC -- the surveys, the Suicide Prevention brochures, Lobby Day 2009, and the Judiciary Committee hearing all stand out in particular.

* And on the subject of the Judiciary Committee hearing, can I just say for anyone who was involved in any way with it that we rocked that thing? I mean seriously, just because the Committee is taking its time to realize that we did an amazing job there doesn't mean that we didn't.

* And just working with the MTPC in general. It's really meant the world to me to be doing something with my days that feels... well, I just love feeling useful. Does that make sense?

* Oh, and getting elected to (and feeling like a useful part of) MTPC's Steering Committee.

* Also? Finally started hormones, and the money to do so was entirely from my own inspiration and initiative.

* Got the heck out of Fenway Health (finally!)

* Managed to get over my paralyzing social anxiety enough to be relatively functional without anti-anxiety meds. For those of you who didn't know me when I could hardly leave the house more than once a week, take my word for it, this is really something.

* Kittens! OK, that's not actually an accomplishment, but yay kittens!

No Hard Feelings.

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:38:25 GMT

He burst onto the Orange Line at Downtown Crossing, just behind a man dressed as Santa Claus in a cream-colored suit jacket and a Looney Tunes tie.

"Hope you guys have all said your prayers tonight!" he shouted, storming to the end of the train and back, and I held my breath for a moment and waited to see if he was armed. I thought about what a great story my friend from toniamato's writing group who had come to see me read at TranScriptions and who had passed him on her way off the train, would have to tell from now on if she'd just missed being on the train where her friend was shot to death.

But he was just drunk and yelling. A man who had gotten on with him turned to me smirking and said, "You already missed the best part of the show." The shouting man came up to him and pulled out a fifth of whiskey, which the smirking man declined. He started hollering and yammering about how he'd just been asking a Hatian cabbie what time it was and how the guy had said to him, "Youse t'ink I'm less American'n you?" and how he shoulda stuck a knife in that motherfucker, and then punching the wall above a terrified passenger's head. He seemed like he was punching the memory of the cab driver, and the wall just happened to be in the way. No hard feelings.

He turned to me. I put my head down and tried to disappear behind the brim of my cap. "Ain't that right, miss?"

"Sure," I murmured, not looking up.

He paused for a the first time and it was like the whole world had gone quiet. "Miss, no hard feelin's, buttayoo a man or a girl?"

"Girl," I whispered. I wanted the train to pull into his station. I wanted the train to pull into my station. (But definitely not both of those things at once.) I breathed in and held it. I put my head down low, wishing I could disappear.

"Oh, awright, ya just... ya sound like a dude," he said -- no malice in his voice, just matter of fact. No hard feelings. Then, falling back into his groove, he turned and shouted to his captive audience, "But what the hell, right? What the hell, it's 2009! IT'S 2009, AN' I'M FEELIN' FINE!"

"Almost the end of 2009," the smirking man (who'd obviously had a few himself -- half the fun of being a drunk is still being able to condescend to worse drunks) said, obviously thrilled with the show.

"Tha's right! That's right!" the shouting man said. "Yeah, it's 2009 an' the end 'a days a' almost hee-ah..." And he turned to talk apocalypse to Santa Claus and didn't look my way again.

I'm not ashamed to be trans, and I don't regret that I am trans. Like crossing any nonsensical social taboo, it can be a pain in the tuchus, of course, but in a lot of ways I like being trans, and wouldn't necessarily choose to be cis if the option presented itself.

But I'm tired of having the very first thing -- and in many cases the only thing -- anyone knows about me be that I'm trans. Just once, I'd like the social benefits and the respect of passing for cis. Of being invisible. I just want to be treated as normal, even for a day.

Well now...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:13:42 GMT

...that was right up there with peace in the Middle East on the list of things I'd like but didn't expect within my lifetime. I mean, as you can tell from K.'s expression she was a teeny bit scandalized, but that Gwen cuddled up to her for 20 minutes and there aren't bits of shredded kitten all across the apartment? That's progress right there!

The Joys Of Self-Publishing

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:46:43 GMT

This is me today:

(linky)

I am exhausted and have decided to be completely lazy and irresponsible for the day instead of hopping straight into the pile of MTPC work I've fallen behind on in the last couple of crazy book-focused weeks. (Gunner's out of town anyway, so it's not like anything I do today would get looked at until later in the week anyway.)

Don't get me wrong, though I originally fell into it more or less by accident, I kind of enjoy self-publishing. I love the creative freedom, and I love, love, love designing and creating and making everything myself. Not just because I'm a total control freak (though I am), but because I really love, for instance, sitting in front of Photoshop for a few hours putting together an attractive cover (even if I have to do it multiple times) or searching around the internets for a nice (cheap or free) font to set the book in. I love knowing that the final product is, a to z, all mine. I mean, I'm not fantastic at the marketing part, but otherwise I probably enjoy putting things out on "Radiosilent Press" (my new imaginary small publisher) much more than I would just sending someone my manuscript to make into a book themselves.

But wow is it a lot of work for not much money! I don't think I've had a week this stressful since the week leading up to the Judiciary Committee hearing for the trans rights bill back in July. After staring at Word and Photoshop from the time I get up until 2 AM or later every day, I'm a little tired of the book, to be honest -- but, of course, now I have to get un-tired of it so I can sell the darn thing!

Still, it beats the heck out of writing cover letters and sending manuscripts all day, don't it?

Poetry-Related Announcements!

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:37:21 GMT

Did you know I'm featuring at TranScriptions this Thursday? Neither did I until Friday!

But it turns out I am, so you all should come be my shills and applaud and stuff. Barring a miracle I won't have copies of New Problems to sell yet, but I have a few Oxygen Catastrophes left.

It's December 10th, from 7:15-10 at Spontaneous Celebrations, 55 Danforth St. in JP (which is right next to the Stony Brook T stop on the Orange Line).

(*)

Also! Despite early pessimistic estimates as to New Problems's landing date (for those of you who saw the Facebook status update), I'll be placing an order for the first printing this afternoon thanks to a gracious advance on my reading fee which a member of the TranScriptions crew brought all the way up from Dedham this afternoon. So I should hopefully have copies to sell in person by early next week!

(*)

You know what's exciting? Realizing at the literal last moment possible that you need to completely redo the cover. Bizarro Rachel am so happy to realize her brilliance in not using low-resolution image on book cover! Hopefully, though, that's the last fire to put out and the book is finally done.

This book's been a little more emotionally taxing than I expected it to be. It's not all pre-transition poems like The Oxygen Catastrophe, but I'd guess as much as half of the work is from before 2007. I think I made good use of it -- the book has is loosely about living in the past and inability to adapt -- and the poems are good and I'm glad I found a good use for them. But I'm also glad that I've now used 80% of the pre-transition poems that I'd actually want to, because it's always surprisingly difficult to step back into that unhappy time. I'm relieved to put that part of my life to rest.

(*)

A little sample of New Problems:

This Poem Could Never Be Good Enough

This poem is a pool of
clear water crowded with shells, this
poem is writing itself as it is written

by me. This poem came
down from G-d, and is beautiful
simply for that, this poem

may never consider that
enough. This poem may
move through the world convinced

that it needs to be a poem
by Robert Creeley or Rae
Armantrout, this poem

wishes it was by Ellyn Maybe.
This poem wishes it could be Ellyn
Maybe. This poem thinks that you

would like it better if you knew
the poet. This poem
may be wrong about that.

Remember the water, and the shells?
This poem doesn't. This poem has tiny fish
schooling inside it, vivid little red-finned

fish weaving among themselves in the blue-
green light filtering through the gaps
in my keyboard. Still

this poem would prefer to be a bird.

Yay!

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:57:42 GMT

Radiosilent.org is back up! I have e-mail again! And images on my Livejournal posts! And a website! Hooray!

In all fairness to 1&1, while the whole thing was a mess, it was partially my fault -- I realized later that the invoice was actually dated November 1st, and I just hadn't noticed it, so I don't begrudge them switching off my site. That having been said, the whole thing really was a mess, and the price seems to have gone up by $12 without them mentioning it, so in six months when it comes time to renew I'll probably switch anyway.

OK. Now to sift through a zillion e-mails, and then I'm buckling down to finish New Problems -- I'm hoping to have it to the printers tomorrow or Monday, which means I need to get my tuchus in gear!

Spontaneous New Project!

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:30:25 GMT

This morning I randomly decided to learn to make jewelry. Why not? I like to make things, I would really like to have more jewelry and don't have the money to buy any, and most importantly, with my camera having decided to bid this world adieu (*sob*) plus around $600 in vet bills for the kittens' first checkup + shots + getting them fixed we could really use a little extra money.

Just to be totally cynical and talk about the money side of doing books instead of the fun creative side, I'll admit that I'm hoping to bring in a couple hundred on New Problems if all goes well. But since this will be my first book with a fixed price (The Oxygen Catastrophe was originally only done as a thank you for donations to my transition fund and ended up being successful enough that I named a price and kept selling it) I don't really have a scale for comparison, so there's really no way to be sure how much it'll make or how soon. And even if it does meet my (optimistic) expectations, experience suggests that by mid-February I'll have sold 90% of the copies I'm going to sell.

So I went out to get a soldering iron and ring blanks (because I'd really like some rings -- the only one I own right now is my wedding ring). I was successful in finding the iron on the cheap, but I went all the way to Everett to find ring blanks and didn't even find a clerk who knew what ring blanks were. So, um... I guess I'll be starting with earrings.

Anybody who's done this before have advice on what not to do? Outside of burning all the flesh off my fingers with the soldering iron, I mean. I don't think there's any stopping me from doing that.

Some Thoughts On Reporting Gender

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:54:31 GMT

For those of you not familiar with the story, sportswriter Mike Penner announced in her column about two years ago that she was changing her name to Christine Penner and transitioning. A year later he announced that he was going back to Mike and let's forget the whole thing. And then this past weekend he or she committed suicide.

The media, relieved to be vindicated in referring to a dead (possibly) trans person as the gender they were assigned at birth, has simply gone ahead with Mike and he. But sentiment in the trans community seems to be that the obituaries should read Christine and she. And I think this brings up one of the difficulties of the system of deciding who is or is not trans that we currently work under.

See, for all the theories and studies about what makes someone trans, the only definitive method we have right now to figure out who's trans is by trusting trans people to self-identify. And I want to say here: I like this system. For all that it can be harder to fight for the rights of a group whose claims to existence can't be independently verified, I like that we trust people to know themselves best. Heaven knows the systems that people have tried to put into place over the years have been a better reflection of the transphobia, homophobia, classism, misogyny, etcetera of the doctors than of the patient's own identity. So why not just trust us?

This becomes awkward, though, when someone's self-identification isn't clear, possibly not even to themselves. Was Christine Penner a trans woman who detransitioned under the stress of being an out trans woman in the sports field? Or was Mike Penner a cis man with issues that he tried to solve by transitioning? I'd say the former was most likely, but... well, I would say that wouldn't I?

I think everyone's looking at this through the lens of their own experience -- trans people and cis allies assuming that anyone who's ever identified themselves as trans is definitely trans, even if they later say otherwise, and transphobic cis people assuming everyone is really cis underneath. But if self-identification is how you decide who's trans or not -- as it is and as I think it should be -- the only person who could have known for sure was Christine and/or Mike -- and hir history doesn't suggest that ze was clear on that point hirself.

I don't like that there's not more public acknowledgment of both possibilities, but it chafes on me to hear either side declare that the self-identification they'd prefer not to be true was definitely a mistake. If you're going to trust people to self-identify, you have to trust the journey -- even if the journey ends prematurely, without a clear destination.

But that's just my first impression -- what do you think?

Long Story Short: Look! Pretty Dress!

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:21:59 GMT

So last weekend I was trying to get to this discussion on fetishized identities that was part of the Theater Offensive's wonderful Out On The Edge Festival. I looked up the directions, hopped on the bus and then train convinced that even with my poor sense of navigation, I was 100% certain where I was going. Which turned out not to be the case, of course -- I ended up in Jamaica Plain instead of the South End, and was so far away from where I was trying to go that there was no chance of my actually getting there in time. So I gave up and just went to Boomerangs (since I was in the neighborhood anyway) and found this fantastic velvet dress for just ten bucks! (Scarf and kitten not included.) And in the end I heard from friends who did make it that the discussion wasn't that good anyway. The end!

Interview!

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:28:06 GMT

In keeping with my policy this month of being late for every single obligation, I'm doing these interview meme questions that rianwyn asked a day later than I said I would. Given my recent track record, that's actually not too bad...

1. Where did you get all of those comic book images that seem to fit your posts perfectly, and how do you store/catalogue/collect them?

I get asked this question all the time! Clearly these pictures are a source of fascination for many people.

So I'll come out here and admit that I'm a gigantic comic book geek. Comics are right up there with music and poetry on the list of things that get me all excited. And I read a lot of them, and when I read one that has particularly nice art, I'll go download a scan of the comic off a P2P network (I don't usually do my own scanning because A: that would be really time-consuming, and B: I'm lazy).

Then I use Paint Shop Pro 8 (which I've found is better suited to this kind of work than Photoshop) to clip out panels that are particularly beautiful and/or might be relevant in some way to a future post. I clean them up a bit if need be (scans of issues from before comics started being done on computer in the mid-90's often need quite a bit of work -- older comics in particular are usually yellowed and faded), add the credit for the artist and save them with a filename that includes any basic words that I might search for.

I've been doing this for probably five years now and have more images saved than I'll ever actually end up using probably (3k+).

The only thing I've never figured out is a good way to credit the writer and name the comic... I've tried doing it in the alt text, but I was skeptical that anyone actually read the alt text, I've tried including all the relevant information in the image itself, but that kind of swallows half the panel, and I've tried typing it out beneath the panel, but that was kind of clumsy too. Suffice to say, if you ever wonder, "what comic did that come from?", please do feel free to ask!

2. Lately all of my shirts/tops are just too short-waisted and I feel that my tummy is nearly hanging out and I tug it down a lot and I feel particularly sloppy. Do you have this problem, as well? Doesn't it suck?

I don't have that problem so much -- it's usually the sleeves that are a little short on me.

3. What is your favorite thing to cook? Why? Can I have a recipe?

Ooh, that's a tough one. Really, I love to cook anything so long as I've got other people to enjoy the fruits of my labors!

As for recipes, here's my famous pizza dough recipe -- I confess, I just toss all the ingredients in the bread machine and let it do the hard work, but this should work just as well kneaded and risen by hand:

3c flour -- I like to mix 2c white with 1c wheat or ½c white or wheat and ½c rye

1c very cold water

½c olive oil

1 tsp. yeast (optional)

salt, pepper, garlic powder

honey -- I don't measure it, I just slather the mix, but I'd guess 2-4 Tbsp.

If you're in a hurry, you can leave out the yeast and just mix and knead it, which makes a dense, doughy crust that I think is really delicious! Sometimes I make it that way even when I'm not in a hurry.

4. Creative writing that I look back on seems to be the best when it's sad and miserable. For you, does feeling down/depressed/bad make for good writing? How about feeling happy/excited/good? What about in-between feelings? Is there are particular 'mood' that's best for editing?

I think unhappiness can be more conducive to art than happiness because when you're unhappy you're more likely to really want to communicate. One only needs to look at Livejournal to see how much more people want to reach out to say "help me I'm hurting" than "I'm having a great time and everything's fine." Also, it's easier to make drama out of unhappiness -- "gosh isn't everything swell" is much more difficult to make interesting, I think.

5. What are some Maine-erisms that you find particularly obnoxious and/or horrifying? "Wick'it cunnin'" can count. So can recent legislative disasters. But some other I don't know about/haven't thought about recently would be nice as well.

None of them! While I don't especially want to go back to Maine anytime soon, I love the Maine accent and lament that it's fading and being pushed out of existence. The homophobia and transphobia I could certainly do without, but that's the case in quite a lot of rural areas and not at all native to Maine. (And for all that no one's going to call Maine a TBLG paradise after the recent marriage vote, it's worth noting that legally speaking, Maine's better for trans people than Massachusetts.)

TDOR 2009

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:29:18 GMT

For those of you not familiar with it, the Transgender Day Of Remembrance is when the transgender community and our friends and loved ones come together to memorialize people who've died as a result of transphobic violence.

One recent study suggests that we lose another transgender person every three days. I won't post the whole list here this year -- it's horrifyingly enormous, with a hundred-some-odd entries -- but go look at Ethan' site.

See y'all in Allston tonight -- or, if you're nowhere near Boston, here's a massive list of TDORs all over the world.

Anticipate
(for Rosa Pazos, Duana Johnson,
Michelle Carrasco, Amanda Milan,
Angie Zapata, and thousands of others)

Maybe
you'll tell all
your friends that you
are going to get
murdered, maybe
you'll be right

Maybe
it will be a
bullet on a dark
street, a low-key
assassination
for not shutting up

Maybe your empty
flesh gets tossed
by the side of the
road like trash
and the first name
they give it
is "whore"

Maybe cabbies clap
while you bleed
out, maybe
your boyfriend
breaks your skull
and calls
you "it"

and a jury's asked
if maybe
he had a point and you
made your choice
when you demanded
a name, maybe it's
what you wanted -- why

else would you walk
alone in this world
where you are not
welcome, where you barely
even exist? You were almost

a ghost already. Now you fit.

Coming Surprisingly Soon!

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:08:46 GMT

Change of plans! To make me be patient and not shove The Eye Saw out half-cooked, I've decided to bump that one back a bit. Instead, I'll be putting out a book with a cover vaguely similar to the one above in the very near future -- hopefully within the next month.

It's going to be a collection of new poems that don't fit the fairly rigid theme of TES, and poems from the period covered by The Oxygen Catastrophe that got overlooked when I was putting that one together. Honestly, I have enough poems just sitting around waiting for me to notice them again that I could put out another book every day of the week if I wanted to (and thought people would actually buy a new book of my poems every day of the week... and by the end of the month I'd be dipping into 15-year-old iambic-pentameter how-many-words-can-I-rhyme-with-pain poems, and no one wants that).

This'll be good for The Eye Saw, too -- it gives me an excuse to do something with several poems that I was going to try to weld uncomfortably to TES, and I won't want to release TES too soon after New Problems, so I'll have no choice but to hold off on that one 'til at least late spring if not next summer.

Ha! Checkmate! Take that, me!

The Obvious:

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:26:27 GMT

Now your turn! Go!

Your Daily Dose Of Kittinz

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:58:36 GMT

Gwen really, really, really wants to play with the chain on the ceiling fan in the living room. After two days of leaping up and down futilely from the sofa bed, she got inspired...

And one of Cass, for those of you who prefer boykittens.

I Bet Andy Would Have Approved

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:27:57 GMT

"Is it real? Too good (or crass) to be true? Well, maybe. Created by Boston-based artist Geoff Hargadon, the site was inspired by the “Cash for Your House” signs that Hargadon has seen in neighborhoods hit particularly hard by the recession. He commissioned the same Texas company that produces the “Cash for Your House” signs to create “Cash for Your Warhol” signs, which he has posted around Boston, including near Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum, whose future remain[ed at the time] uncertain after the president of Brandeis announced in January that the school would dissolve the museum and sell off its collection." (link)

Kittens Kittens Kittens Kittens Kittens (P.S.: Kittens)

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:28:20 GMT

You know what makes it difficult to work? When two small, warm, fuzzy critters climb up into your lap to cuddle, purr and nap.

Kitten update: still tiny, still adorable. Though Cass is starting to get big already -- if he grows into his gremlin ears and his 26 toes, that boy's going to end up stomping Tokyo -- and Gwen is somewhat less adorable when she wakes me up at 3 A.M. every morning either looking for love or wrapping herself up in my hair like a tiny burrito filled with claws and teeth. They're both rambunctious little balls of psychotic energy, of course, but you can tell already that Cass is going to be a big, mellow snuggler and Gwen will be the playful little cat running back and forth across the apartment chasing inanimate objects all day.

K. has more or less adjusted (as much as she plans to, anyway) and sometimes even toes the line between swatting them off her turf and playing with them. Naturally, when she chases them and they roll on their backs to play, she turns up her nose and storms off in a huff, insulted that they would even suggest she lower herself to anything so undignified.

Saturday Night

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:51:46 GMT

Of course, they don't stand out as much on Halloween, but at 11 o'clock sharp every Saturday night this group of people on whimsical custom bicycles -- including not just the pirate flag bike pictured (which is designed to be ridden while lying down), but a discoball bike and an accompanying speaker bike that blasts music, as well as a small fleet of mutant bicycles, choppers and tall bikes -- start out from my street corner and parade through the streets of Somerville.

If I'm not mistaken, they're with SCUL, "an anti-elite band of pilots testing out experimental ships, exploring the Greater Boston Starystems and occasionally other galaxies."

Tonight there was a small army of them, bikes of all sizes and shapes and LED configurations riding one after another through the gaps in the traffic and off into the evening with the the discoball glimmering at their tail. This is likely their last run of the season; we won't see them again until the snow melts.

I love the city.

And Now, Your Moment Of Vanity

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:23:00 GMT

I have new glasses! Photographs do not do their cuteness justice -- they're black on the front and fuschia in the back! I love them.

Kitten Pix!

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:40:51 GMT

They are seriously so sweet to each other! When they're not running in circles and causing mayhem, they're curled up together in the Death Metal Cat Bed napping or grooming one another.

And they're supersnuggly -- when we took them out of the box when they first got here, I expected they were going to be scared, but they just flopped into our arms and started purring like, "OK, so you two are the new moms? Great! Love now plz." They have yet to catch on that it's less adorable when they demand love at three in the morning, mind you, but...

Cass has Emily's fondness for climbing up and around the backs of chairs. Every once in a while, I catch myself calling him Embly, even though she wasn't really much like him, and then he gets confused as to why I'm so sad.

K.'s adjusting, though personal and geographical boundaries are still being established. For the first few days, the kittens sort of followed her at a distance (see Agent Gwen of the Itty Bitty Kitty Espionage Committee above) and she hissed and swatted at them a lot, but now that they've made it clear that they can fight back, she's grudgingly accepting their presence. (And thankfully, K. is secretly more gentle than a casual glance would tell you and holds back when they fight, because she outweighs them by a good six pounds apiece and could seriously hurt them in a real fight!)

Kittenses!

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:48:51 GMT

Amanda and I have no money, bad credit, we're a lesbian couple that includes a transgender partner and now we have 3 cats... Amanda and I will never be able to rent another apartment again, will we?

(Adorable kittens, though? Totally worth it.)

We've settled on Gwen for the tortoiseshell girl kitty -- the name came to Amanda in a dream, and I trust dreams -- and are leaning toward Cass for the black boy kitten. The first name to come up was "Spider" because he jumps around like one, but Amanda wasn't crazy about it.

K. is still miserable and hates everyone, but she seems to be adjusting just a little. She has Big Sister Syndrome: she's tangibly convinced that now that we have new kittens, we won't need her anymore. Not surprising, I suppose, considering that her first family moved out of their home and locked her in an empty condo without food or water around the age of one because she wasn't a cute kitten anymore. (Yes, six years after we adopted her that still makes me want to track them down and beat them up.)

I think it's helping that we can keep them separate here -- when we got Emily we lived in a much smaller place without any doors and just had to toss them in together until K. got tired of hissing.

(Why yes, this blog is going to be nothing but kitten pictures now -- but surely after all these entries about dying cats and mourning, that must be as welcome a change for you as it is for us, right?)