suddenly, i feel a bit lost.

why, when for the first time this week it's above freezing, and i have this little list of things to do for work, and projects to finish to put in the mail, &...

i should know myself better. i know when these periodic slumps are coming, i should know not to read certain things on certain days,

i should figure out gender.

and friendships. where is my support coming from?

and i'm suddenly so uninspired about this job. last week i was stoked, and happy to be better friends with my coworkers, & ok, and this morning i wonder whether i should maybe not try to have my contract renewed in february, and leave somehow.

and i'm going to apply to nursing school, dammit.

[i just write so much faster on a keyboard. my thoughts don't get caught at my fingertips, they just tap out so swiftly as to feel natural. ironic, i know.]

coming back feels so good and yet i'm feeling so anxious. maybe i do need to travel, despite my oft-vaunted love of montreal. maybe i need to go to the west coast & visit all those lovelies that i met this past week. go to portland, victoria, vancouver, sleep on some couches & go to shows & pretend that i'm not slowly & weirdly growing up.

not that growing up means anything if you don't want it to.

maybe i need to just be on a train by myself across canada (when i have one million dollars to spend. wtf is wrong with this country when trains are more expensive than planes?) or on a bus or stopping in cities in between & trusting that i'll find queers who have couches i can sleep on.

or maybe i just need to feel more useful in this city of mine: volunteer with p10, actually get involved in the childcare collective. make more things. apply to schools? or not.

fuck, fuck. i'm just feeling a bit out of place while also feeling so relieved to be back.

and how could i even be thinking of leaving this place of love & comfort & skin on skin & stories & drawings & eyes & mouth. i have, in fact, promised not to.

i'm so grateful.

for:
+ a date who makes the most beautiful things and just gives them to me like it's nothing, who organizes alleykat/scavenger hunts in this city that we love and stencils hir arms around me on walls that have seen our stories
+ a bestfriend who knows me so well & knows who i want around me & that i don't want to have to organize those logistics on my birthday
+ a chosen family of amazingly smart, caring & lovely queers
+ a blood family of amazingly smart & hilarious siblings
+ a city that i love so much that i feel literally heartsick when i leave it
+ a bike that gets me where i'm going fast and reliably (even when it makes little worrying ticking noises)
+ wrestling & mosh pits on the days when i need to fight some(one/thing)
+ cuddles & movies on the days when i need to retreat
+ enough money to pay for my home, delicious food (or extremely bland food on those increasingly frequent nauseous days), alcohol for the nights when i need it, and ink under my skin.

maybe i'm doomed to having intense crushes on people who work out for a second but not longer than that.

up against a brick wall in an alleyway we kissed nervously at first and then harder, and then my hand crept up and pushed you, harder & harder until i imagined lines of brick in your shoulders & you gasped.

i'm working on suppressing it, trying not to check you out, not think about lifting you onto my cock and the way you shook when my fingers brushed your hipbones. avoiding the eye contact that would bring me back to the brick wall in a second.

one moment it's easier to refrain because i understand that decision that you made, understand not wanting drama and not risking that lovely friend of mine. the next i forget and just want to push you up against the bricks again.

i can't think what to write.

there' s so much going on, some so nice and some so stressful. i guess the stressful stuff is actually not happening. like i haven't yet wrtiten letters of intent, found a second reference,
figured out how i'm going to boost my cgpa.

but i have spent quality time with friends
+ on out-of-nowhere lunch dates
+ in conversations about post-apocalyptic pick-up lines
+ on bike rides to verdun
++++ i guess that's all.


i've been retreating, i think. maybe it's the fall. i only ever have urges to lie in bed & watch tv on dvd. i want to be able to write eloquently, cohesively, well. i want a penpal and someone to exchange mixtapes with and a rugby team. i'm at a loss & maybe it's because i'm not in school or maybe it's because i just don't have any plans for what happens next or maybe i wish i was starting out again, somehow.

i always get nostalgic around my birthday, i think. two years ago, was it only two? i rode home on the 24 and couldn't breathe, didn't have the friendships i wanted. last year was amazing - final fantasy and parking and mix cds and biking around this city that i love.

what'll happen this time? i want to get nice mail, but the only people who care about me are in this city.

i want to feel good in my skin.

resolutions?
- make nice mail to get nice mail.
- use that typewriter more
- go to craft night tonight
- find a grad program i'm interested in
- learn a fucking instrument already
- plan a new tattoo...

but i don't want to be productive in this work-related way. i want to lie around and doodle and cuddle and watch buffy and make things and type and be a good writer and not feel pressured into being in school and mostly just draw things.

oh, and eat poutine.

ah, fuck.

this roiling anxiety feeling isn't going away, despite its apparent unfoundedness.

i just had the best weekend i've had in a long time, but i'm left today feeling like everything is out of control, nervous as hell about everything.

maybe it's because i just found out that there's nothing wrong with me.

since the age of 12 i've been told that i have a combined immunodeficiency - a situation in which one's immune system is not quite up to snuff: you tend to get a sick a lot, basically. today i was told that this diagnosis was in fact never made, and that though there is clearly something going strangely with my body, it has nothing to do with my immune system, which is perfectly 'normal'.

as the doctor (hilariously) put it 'you're a normal person having a problem, not an abnormal one'. i felt like saying 'what the fuck does normal mean to you?' but didn't. how many infections in a year is normal?

but i'm also weirdly, disconnectedly grateful for this: what you could call a reprieve, i guess. my immune system is fine. my lung capacity is at 115% of 'normal' (though apparently this doesn't preclude the possibility of exercise-induced asthma). my antibodies proliferate just as they should.

so what the hell? how, now, am i supposed to explain the way i fall ill constantly, tripping like shoelaces always undone into hacking & wheezing, or burning & pain?

+++++++

but this weekend was amazing, like remembering the things i've forgotten for the last six months: friends, pools, flea markets, dinners, trivia questions & random roadtrips.

and then there was that weird night last week that was straight out of last summer - hanging posters, drinking cocktails and making out shyly.

and now i wonder whether i read the signals wrong and whether i'll ever find out.

oh god.

there are just all these things making me nervous. my body feels out of whack, i'm feeling particularly aimless at work despite an abundance of rewarding projects piled on my desk. and listening to accounts of heinous situations (harassment at queer dance parties, inappropriate questions about gender..) makes my teeth chatter & arms break out in goosebumps & shakes more often than not.

and last night i dreamt...i dreamt of a lot of things, i think, but the main storyline was about being at a private school that was mostly boys, but with some girls, and some andro/butchy girls who were pegged as gay by bullying boys and harassed and eventually killed in the dream. i was left sobbing uncontrollably and screaming til my throat was sore in the dream, and then running through a huge airport on an island for hours, and finally realizing that my date to hang out with an unresolved ex-date was that night.

i woke up traumatized and aware of the fact that i'd yet to make a date to hang out at all with that person. and also hating the idea of biking up the mountain to do a lung function test.

later in the afternoon the ex-date texted me to see if i was available and now we're hanging out later. i just hope that the rest of it doesn't come true.

on the plus side my lung-testing person was awesome, and we talked about stupid gender expectations & how she raised her boy & girl-children to be able to take care of themselves, from laundry to relationships...and how surprised her (female) neighbour is when her husband does the laundry.

uh huh i'm feeling a bit disjointed, fine. how'd you know?

also last night, i had beer with an old friend who also happens to have been the long-term high school sweetheart of my current love. tiniest world ever, oui? oui.

if i was to flesh out where i wanted to go when i lost my breath with that kiss, it would probably lean towards those stories in macho sluts - the top who walks into a bar and sees someone waiting for her attention...someone who needs her to do those horrible, intimate things to them.

but which perspective am i coming from? i guess i'm never sure if i want the hand or the throat to be mine, but maybe i want both, but can i ever be good enough at one to justify doing both?

you keep asking me for details, for words to tell ou what's happening in my head and i keep copping out, kissing you instead, falling asleep, leaving the bed. you know this, you see it and you call me out on it, and then i'm ashamed, but i don't know how to change it.

and maybe that's another cop-out, because i know i need to learn how to talk to you, and let you know where i'm at (so we can meet somewhere). and isn't that at least some vague knowledge of 'how to change it'?

and yes, sometimes i process with myself, online. fuck off.

i haven't written in so long - here or in my book, but i feel like a lot has happened.

this is the part where i get terrified when i don't write things down: i can't remember anymore what's been said and what hasn't.

we had an extensive check-in last weekend, but so much has happened since then i can only remember bits of it: talking about how sometimes being unproductive is self-care; that i'm worried about my lack of communication and how frustrated it makes you; and that's all, i can't remember all the rest of those words that we exchanged and then let go and then were blown around by the fan.

and then this past week i've been working so hard, it feel like, to find some kind of balance between dates with friends and dates with you and work and meetings and feeling like i'm doing something productive with my life. and whenever you ask me to come visit i'm on my bike and pushing up the hill in a second, but when i ask you to come to my home you're so reluctant it's like pulling teeth.

and maybe this is all that i deserve for my lack, but it doesn't feel good. or maybe i'm especially sensitive today, and projecting, but it's hard not to sometimes. i feel like our connection is so weak occasionally: static disrupting our words.

(in a meeting about outreach for a program that my work is running on leadership for girls and young women. several outreach opportunities/networks have been discussed - i'll be reaching out to university and off-campus activist, blogs, cegeps, women's studies listservs, my friends/acquantainces. a question occurs to me)

me: wait, can i just ask a quick question?

exec direc: yep, sure

me: ok so i know that we're mandated to be trans inclusive, but i'm just wondering how trans people fit into our outreach plan: like i'm thinking of some pretty awesome activists, but they don't necessarily identify as girls - how does this fit in?
(people start jumping in)

1: well, i don't know..

2: it's never happened..

3: well it is supposed to be a safe space - if a person is, how do you say, man-bodied, then girls might not feel like they're in a safe space...

ED: well we are a gender specific organization, so if people don't identify with that then... anyway, i don't think that this is something we really need to struggle with right now

me (pacifying): no, certainly -

2: since we only have 10 minutes left in the meeting

me: yeah, i don't think we need to talk about this right now - i just think that we do need to figure that out in the larger scheme of our organization..

ED: well, and yes, i think that this is the deal: we are gender specific, there is a need for gender specific spaces for girls to feel safe in, and if people identify with that then they should definitely apply

2: yeah, i mean, a case-by-case basis..

ED: yes, i don't think we need a hard and fast policy, like "these people can be here, these people can't" - we just need to let people apply as needed....let it all be fluid, like queer theory (looking at me placatingly)

me: mm hmm.

*******

i mean ultimately, i'd guessed that some of the new people we had hired probably had no grasp of trans issues at all. as the janice raymond-esque comment by person 3 showed, i was right. the last trans 101 that happened here was 2 years ago, before i joined the organization...and we've hired like 6 new people since then. i think most of them are pretty trans-friendly, but some of them are just ignorant.

i had offered a couple of weeks ago to provide a trans 101 for the office, and my boss (ED) said she thought that would be fine - and i talked to her about it again today after the meeting and she agreed that we could definitely make time to do it.

the really interesting thing is that i know at least one of the other people in the room is friends with trans folk; like, good friends. and she didn't speak up at all. i felt like i was the only one in the room freaking out about that comment, and that even as an ally i didn't have any allies.

i love grey days like this one, with a slight chill in the air and rain coming but the streets still dry and a small wind that pushes bits of bangs into eyes while i fly down pavement on a bike that weighs next to nothing. and seeing the lights change and cars go, and standing up to slow down, pushing my weight back and trying to find a trackstand until i fall over.

i think this (borrowed) bike is why i dreamed last night that i was paddling: a tiny little racing C-1 pushing myself up river, muscle memories of the stretch in the arm and the satisfaction of pulling water back with your whole body, feeling it support you.

but lately i've felt off. sick, as usual, but dopey, stoned, like i can't open my eyes and don't want to talk to people. i shake it off occasionally and run around my city and catch every queer concert/dance party/zine launch that i can but then i'm back into hibernation and now is not the time. i need to be in this grey day with the wind in my face and the rain clouds menacing but instead i curl up, try to keep my eyes open, and remind myself that it's summer.

reading you makes my chest tight with some emotion that i can't name; your words tumble out like your voice in my ear, excited, exhausted, thoughtful. i look for patterns, look for me (narcissist that i am), see you.

reading you makes my fingers itch to type, to write, to touch you, to draw fantastic curling lines and serious eyes that are beyond my reach. i want my words to tell you all the things you've conveyed with yours, but from my side. i want to write you into my stories and write myself into yours.

you know how there are some conversations/snippets of interaction that you want to remember?
lately i've been so bad at writing down all the things i want to remember and it makes me feel lost. i always want to be able to open my book and look at the things that happened, read my story like it's someone else's.

i just finished and handed in this zine on femme invisibility/the privileging of andro/masculine identities in my queer community, and as soon as i finished it i wanted to change it so much.

i want to do some intense thinking about anti-racism and how it fits into how i live: not whether it should, since it obviously should, but how it does now and what i can change. i want to curl up and read books and books and books.

book club book club book club summer! i want it.

meanwhile, lately i've felt a) like i'm falling apart. sinusitis, UTIs, antibiotics, yeast from antibiotics, coughs, allergies, headaches from new glasses, stress and b) so collected. like i processed without crying, without even feeling sad, yesterday, about something that lately has made me angry whenever i think about it.

but collected only lasts as long as the person who's been keeping me grounded stays around, maybe.

and last night ze ducked out for a second, and this intense connection we've had lately flickered like the lightbulb i watched burn out three days ago, a flash like droplets of light falling and then gone. that was the lightbulb, but hopefully not us.

today is dean spade and i'm so so so excited. all i've done lately (ok, definitely not ALL i've done) is read his writing online and it's made me think so much about anti-poverty, class attitudes, law stuff. shhiiiit. so smart.

sometimes it's easier to just close my eyes and write.

yesterday there was a combination of nausea from new glasses, anger and sadness at having my roommate, a fierce femme with an amazing history of activism and outspokenness, be assaulted on the street by some asshole who thinks its his god-given right to touch any female body that he wants. then there was anxiety at being in a space full of people. and anxiety over the 35 pages of writing i have to do in the next 14 days. and anxiety over what i'm going to do with my life when all of those papers are done. and anxiety over unrequited emotional attachments.

fuck maybe i should have stayed away from talking about this again, i'm getting another headache and this time i can't lie down and drink tea and be read to because i have to write at least 5 pages tonight.

i'm so happy when i organize to get shit done. i love putting together events, setting up workshops, making progress, stocking up the library, reading new books, attending talks. i want to do it more. i want to do it now. fuck school. as has been asked over and over again lately in my life : what's the point of academia?

hah.
one of the many fun things about presenting as an andro(gynous) queer is how fascinated babies are with me. especially because i love babies, and i'm happy to have them stare at me and offer me food across a room.

what's less fun, but still entertaining, is how disturbed their parents sometimes are. like the adult who just put their child in a high chair facing away from me so that the child couldn't look at me in happy fascination any more. they're just jealous cuz their baby loves me!

fine, it's hard to write a paper about feminist blogging without being distracted by all the fun blogs on the internet, including this tiny little secret one. but now i'm going to do it. i will elucidate, in 20 pages, how feminist blogs are excluded from the category of 'political' blogging! discursive constructions of blogs, beware!

it's hard to get enough of a distance from these topics - queer communities and aesthetic codes, feminism and blogging - to write about them clearly. some people (ie henry jenkins, margaret meade) incorporate(d) their personal participation in a given situation into their ability to report on it.....

but i don't feel like i have the background to present these issues the way they should be. i want to talk about how the valuing of an andro/butch/masculine dyke identity has ended up shutting out femmes..but it's hard to enough distance to feel like i'm not tearing apart my own identity. i know that we can have this community and be inclusive. i just need to find a way of describing how to get there.

dreaming big?

in reading becki ross’ description of the LOOT organization and lifestyle in toronto in the 70s, i found myself stirring uneasily in recognition. the descriptors are so very familiar – flannel shirts, jeans, workboots, an overtly politicized outlook and a focus on queer women’s spaces…the descriptions of the exclusivity of the community also ring true – the way that bisexual women, women of colour, punk dykes, femmes, trans women, working class lesbians and sex workers all felt uneasy or flat-out uncomfortable in this dynamic…

i find myself making a comparison point by point, and cringing a little with identification. the way that class differences are erased by an undiscussed front of lack of resources, despite my relatively middle-class background and the fact that this is shared with many of my friends.

i feel like there are changes, though. solidarity with and acceptance of sex workers could be one example in my particular community – or the way that ‘queer’ has replaced ‘lesbian’ as an identity for many women, facilitating in theory the acceptance of queer women who date men. punk kids are much more prevalent in my scene, and though i see queers of colour at a lot of events and have a few friends who are queers of colour i don’t know that they feel particularly comfortable at every event, and know that there is a strong queer & trans community of colour that overlaps a lot with the white queer community…this is a difficult subject for me to write about because though i am conscious of this scene and of the predominating whiteness of many social situations i am in, i worry about the tokenizing implications of saying ‘i wish more poc would come to our parties’ when i don’t feel comfortable with infringing on the queer of colour community- especially since i want to respect the strength of that community…and feel like i would be intruding upon it.

then there’s the issue of femmes and femme visibility – since developing a very close friendship with someone who has a very strong femme identity, i’ve become much more aware of the politics of gender expression in this community, and though i feel like there is a wide degree of acceptance for dressing up, people who are femme have consistently expressed to me the fact that they feel invisible in social and flirting situations, and the standard for attractiveness in our community has strongly androgynous/masculine overtones among queer women…

trans acceptance, on the other hand, as increased greatly, at least in my immediate community, but also, i feel, in the larger queer community of the city.

i'm trying to write an essay on this and my thoughts won't come together. i keep getting sidetracked by little details that bring me to an extremely personal space, and remove all objectivity.