Edison's Stigmata & the Art of Cupping Your Hands

I had gotten up early this AM to do some reading, homework and to act like I am a person who gets up early every morning.  So far I have a cup of coffee, some downloaded readings, and a stack of jalapeño bagels in a crinkly plastic bag.

One step at a time.

If you have not read it yet, I would suggest reading Sonya Renee Taylor's The Body is Not an Apology. In particular, I would recommend the audio version of it, if it is accessible to you. Sonya Renee Taylor was in some of the same circles as I was at a point in time, and her reading voice - her reading or spitting her own words, in particular- is amazing.  The epigraph and prologue, alone, had me tearing up. She writes an ode to her mother's belly in the very beginning of the book that will squeeze, ruin and save you- all in the course of less than two minutes.

It is a necessary read.

As I sit here, gearing up, I am surrounded by a string of lights that have bulbs on them the exact size of my palm. It creates the feeling of light illuminating from my palms, and I find it both comforting and sublime.


be well; be loved,

k.

(image: Anjelica Huston, 1972, Bob Richardson via Secretcinema1 Tumblr)

The Scent of Menthol and the Opening of Eyes

I am swaddled in fleece blankets on a couch, propped up by two, immaculate pillows.  My toes are cold, although they are in woolen socks. I am not sick.  I am merely taking the day to hide out, to read, to write, and to drink coffee while no less than seven candles burn around me - even though it is just after noon.

My nails are a gold-ish, gun metal color.

My favorite incense (a kind I am able to find from time to time- it comes in an orange and white box and is called Autumn Leaves) is releasing a thin stream of smoke from the corner.

(pause)

This semester has offered thick, yet stress-less (knock on wood) lesson. When I think of the things I have learned in just the past year, I realize how little I knew when starting this endeavor. It is a good feeling. A necessary one.

I have been thinking about love and about solitude these days.  About introversion and connection. About holding hands in cold weather. About the cologne you leave on your sweatshirts for me, and my refusal to wash them until I know another will be coming in order to exchange it.

I've been reading a lot lately. Extracurricular tales of witches and Gods and myths and estranged siblings. Listening, too, to Pod Save the People and to various interviews with various people throughout various points in time. Here's one to watch just because of it. Something about assumptions and lessons and learning Guess My Disability.

This Tuesday will see the case of Aimee Stephens in front of the Supreme Court. It revolves around the question of if it is constitutional to fire someone for being trans. If you aren't familiar with this case, this summary is worth watching. It involves a number of trans celebrities reading the beautifu letter that Aimee wrote to her co-workers when she came out.  You can see it, here: Aimee.

This has implications for everyone.


Keep watching. Even when this world gives you all of the reason to look away.



be well, be loved,

k.

(image: A la Vivian Maier via giampixxx tumblr)

Diving Days Falling Into the Slumber of Sweaters

A fat slice of lemon bobbing in the depths of black tea and ice; sweat sliding down the cylinder of the glass.

Escaping Scientology, white fragility, forensic science and plant science and the training of bloodhounds used together to find dead bodies, Black Lives Matter leaders, disabled gay men and their stories, graphic novel representation of Deafness, the relationship between a father and son when the father is an alcoholic underwater welder, comedy, a graphic novel about the use of they/them pronouns, and a Minnesotan murder mystery.

These are some of the themes and story lines of the books I read this summer, the last of which I ended earlier today.

Yes, there is overlap with the fall as far as I'm concerned: Another year of grad school started last week, but one must savor the final drops of blueberry sweet tea before trading it in for a mug full of something warm.

(pause)

I've been thinking of presence as of late.  And how, when in doubt, your body knows the answer. Try it sometime. Try it now. What is something you have been feeling uncertain about? Something that you overthink when trying to find an answer. Close your eyes. Focus on it. Get real still and then, while silently sitting, feel where the pulls are within your body. Does your heart beat wildly in excitement and hope? Does your stomach drop and you get that pull from the side of your abdomen that says "Stay away from that..."?

It's both strange and beautiful that we have such clear compasses within us if we can just matte the sound. (Here I think of any person who is unfamiliar with how sound changes just after a first and heavy snow.  Promise yourself that you will find out its texture and hum.)

be well; be loved,

k.


P.S. I read the oddest reference to disability that I think I have ever read thus far.  An academic starts out a sentence with "The most extreme disability, death itself, (blah blah blah)".  I don't think I've ever heard death be referenced as a type of disability. As if one would see a dead body and think "Wow. That person has a very extreme disability."

(image: Andre Paul Pinces via untrustyou tumblr)

Have You Felt the Spring in Your Step? Curled Up with Coffee and Our Argyle'd Walk Toward the Fall

I'm awake with the weight of toast, avocados and veggie sausage in my stomach.  A side of sliced up banana coins with cinnamon sprinkled upon them. It feels good to have already been up, driven, gone to the store, made breakfast and held a loving person all before 7:30am.

I've been reading a lot lately.  While this comes as no surprise, it has offered variety in topic and kinship in the company that ends up reading the same books. Haphazard and accidental "book clubs" and the desire to connect within this world that is falling apart. It is, after all, the splitting of the earth that brings us together in hopes to mend it, no? Only time will tell.

More input than output these days and, for the most part, this is how I like this heart-run machine to hum.


be well; be loved,

k.

(image: Tal Barel via untrustyou tumblr)

You Take Me Back to Where I Belong

Tonight was absolutely lovely. Some of my favorite people and I went to go see Kieślowski's Red. It was beautiful and interwoven and romantic and exactly what was called for on a night with such perfect weather.  I left the theater thinking of ink pens and hand written notes, timing and the panic that landline phones used to spread in the sharp of their ring.

While it has been summer for a long time, tonight was the first night it felt like it.

It's been so long but you're still such a new song to me, baby.  

I can't wait to see you again.

k. 

(image is of robert mitchum from night of the hunter)

The Importance of Being an Anchor, or, The Unnatural Tides of Planned Loss

I sat next to and by the same loved ones I did ten years ago.

This time, the child that was growing in G's body back then stood ten years old and somber.

When R, A, D, T and the two small, tiny-faced children went up to do a cover of Iron and WIne (and Calexico)'s He Lays in the Reins as a familly-and-friend band to do the last tribute to him, it killed me.

One more gift to bring
we may well find you laid;
Like your steed in his reins,
Tangled too tight and too long to fight.

How much pain does a family have to see, and how many friends have to keep from drowning?

When we first saw each other, we said nothing. We just walked toward each other, put our arms around each other, and I held him as strongly as any man could as he sobbed into my shoulder.

Such moments are the gold and the privilege I am blessed with.

There are no words but the sunlight that poured down on us that day amidst the rain and thunder and lightening that made green of the grass sublime.

I am home now.  I arrived at the airport to the beauty waiting for me with a handful of flowers. I know when I need her to, she will hold me as strongly as any woman can and I will sob her into her shoulder.

But such things unravel slowly. Bathing and tending to a death by one's own hand is such an odd and dark blossoming in its opening.

It will be my time to come undone, soon.

But for now, my arms are still wrapped around him in that funeral home from a few days ago. The futile, albeit romantic, gesture of trying to suck venom from the bite of a snake.



be well; be loved,

k.

(image: Ahndraya Parlato via untrustyou tumblr)

Concurrent Truths Within the Guild of Endings

I.

I booked my ticket this week to fly to the same state that I have been to on only three occasions. Once to meet a family of a loved one.  Once to go to the funeral of an incredibly sad murder (not all murders are sad, I suppose). And now, this third time, to attend the funeral of a person who has died by suicide whose body has been delivered there.

Death can be a strange one.

It will always be a particularly gutting one.

Murder and suicide are different.

It makes sense that their survivors are, at times, put together for support.

These deaths are something different.  The scars these deaths deliver are different. Lonely and singular in how each person experiences the ramifications, without a doubt, but there is something more hollow that these deaths unlock.

II.

I am currently in a field with grass as far as the eye can see.  The sun is out.  I have just finished reading a graphic novel called Your Black Friend by Ben Passmore (recommended), and have just made plans to lay and read in the sun in the park on a Friday evening with one of my favorite people in the world. Pizza and a blanket included.

The highlights of this week include being tangled up in bed with my favorite taking turns reading paragraphs to each other in order to learn more about the history of the art of Albert von Keller- laughing and doing deep dives into the odd corners of the occult we have been overlooking.

(pause)

Life is fragile, glorious, and odd.

Hold onto the people you love and who somehow- simultaneously- lift you up and anchor you down.

Those other weights?

Let them go, my love.

Let them go.



Be well; be loved,

k.

(image: painting by Albert von Keller Gisela von Wehner with Daughter Ilka, 1906.)

Light Upon Glass

9:59am on a Thursday morning.  I'm in a towel, hair wet and dripping, sitting on a couch in an apartment that is not mine with the adorable little dogaroo I've come to love snoring a few yards away from me.

This morning at roughly 1:03am marked the end of my semester and the end of my first year of grad school. When I crawled into bed, I was met with kisses, leg straddling, and words of encouragement and pride from the gorgeous gender explosion girl-lad I have been in a relationship with for the past several months.

Today is the seven year anniversary of when I first thought to get her attention in a way that she would remember. ["Foundation for the pound-ation" we exclaim, and laugh ourselves silly.]

You know me.

I'm all about the slowest burn.


A year ago, I was contemplating if I would miss the coffee my last date would make me in the morning.  It seems funny now. I'm dating someone who literally has photographs of her espresso rosettas framed and hanging in multiple cafes around the city.  Let me tell you the dream it is to wake up to her pours and carefully selected mugs at 5:30 in the morning.

(pause)

Today is slow and clean and gorgeous.  It feels good to be supported. It feels good to be loved in a way that has so many chapters and seeds.

I sit here alone and still in a towel, my hair now slightly damp.

I am thirsty. A tall glass of water sits on a table to my right- the light hitting it in an almost blue-white light.  The birds chirp outside- talking shit or talking love.  I'll slide my fingers around the glass and lift it toward the window and drink deep.

For now, I toast the summer.


be well; be loved,

k.

(image: Pasamanos que se retuercen en La Casa del Fascio, Terragni, via moriras-lejos tumblr)

From Out of the Forest

There are a lot of things I feel grateful for.  This room, that is not mine, lit by a salt lamp and with birds chirping outside of its window is one of them.

At random, some updates:

The last few weeks were held by the strongest, gentlest arms.  I'm not really sure how she did it. It was one of those events in life where, if someone were to ask you what you need or don't need, you'd have no idea how to answer.

A few weeks left to go and this year of grad school will officially come to a close. I have enjoyed and loved this semester, although nothing will ever quite take the place of the first.

This year at the trilingual event, I met people who matter. Sometimes the world blows my mind with where, who and how it places people in your path who will mentor and support you. From grandmas with big hearts, to people who know the ropes you will need to climb and are holding them steady for you as you embark on uncertain excitement.

(pause)

In other news, I have been reading.  More impactfully, I've been into Timbaland posting videos of him completely feeling beats he has made. If you get a chance, head over to his instagram @ timbaland. Look for any video where the still is a close up of his face. It's the best. (Particularly into the April 15th one).

There is more to say. Things that are so much deeper and perhaps obscure but, for now, I just have to scratch the surface.  It has been a while, and the fingers that I feel in this moment are my own.


be well; be loved,

k.

(Into the Trees, April 2019 via secretcinema1 tumblr)

The Beauty of Hands; The Beauty of Hearts

Just before 9am on a Thursday.

This Saturday will be an anniversary. 

Although it is Aries season, the past few months have been that of Taurus. The bull and its silent swagger of loyalty and stubbornness. Protection and patience. Sexuality and intelligence. Gentleness that only a trained eye can recognize beyond its scraping foot.

I feel so lucky.

Loved.

Respected.

Relaxed.



The worlds and dimensions we build are ours. 

I would have it no other way.

(pause)

The other day we played a game. I took out a journal from back when we were first crossing paths- about eight years ago or so. I slid my hand in the book at random and opened it. Upon its page was a mention of her. Strangely and fittingly, the one and only mention of her in all of the pages.

Such things are of magic.  A built magic. A slow, steady, connected magic.

It is not the kind that happens at random. It is not the kind that involves slight of hand.

It is the kind that occurs when our hands are both open and empty- our eyes upon each others.

(pause)

Good things may come to those who wait, but it is those who expect more from the people who love them that will always be lifted to another, necessary, level. The way this love spreads to everyone (friends, neighbors, enemies, strangers) becomes palpable, and it is within this web we are connected and strengthened.

be well, and be loved well,

k.

(image: Guillermo Fornes, Origen. via yvonneconstance tumblr)
 

Time Bandits, or, Will You Tell Me What Matters Again With That Blush Upon Your Face

I.

Just under a year ago, I sung Happy Birthday into a recording device for a person who didn't want to talk to me.  It was recorded just after midnight- marking the beginning of their birthday.  She asked me for it at some point soon after, when she was talking to me again. I didn't send it. I still have the recording. I don't know why.

II.

Last week, the community stood up to a bully who somehow thought it appropriate to be on a panel for the local independent music radio station about 'how to create safer spaces in music'.  She got pulled from the panel. Victories and validation happen in small, but profound places.

III.

Today I sprawled across the fake lawn of a perk that is always overpopulated on sunny days with a beautiful heart. We talked about disguises and different moments of hiding from the police. While she told me about sitting very still at night as a search light ran over and past her body, I studied the complexity of color within her eyes that only the sun can reveal.

(pause)

Time is a strange one.

There are cyclical structures that serve to measure and haunt.

Make sure that the ghosts  you pluck from that universal web around us all

are those you want

to dwell within you.



be well; be loved,

k.

(image:  a book and fresh flowers made and sent to me not quite five years ago)




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Charmed Objects, or, Why Everyone in the Meeting Was Mesmorized By the Offwhite Mug You Gave Me

The universe is so beautiful in both its trickery of lesson, and its delivery of fate.

The past month has been incredible. I don't know if words will ever be able to aptly describe what has come into my life.

For tonight, I will simply enjoy the smells of cooking. Wild rice and steam; fresh bread and the heat of the oven.

I don't think I have been this consistently happy in, perhaps, the entirety of my life.

Be well; be loved:

The universe has a way of creating exactly what you believe you will get.

Keep your thoughts to glory's height.


k.

(image: Bird in Space, 1928, Brancusi via giampixxx tumblr)

Choosing What Matters, or, All Roads Lead to Here

What I've learned over the years is that sometimes people show you how love should be simply by being themselves.

So much light has been shed upon chapters that I never realized were dark simply by having light to compare them to.

(pause)


In the photograph, you are wearing my sweater.  It is greenish-yellow and your eyes are beautiful. Your hand is on your heart, and you are looking directly at the camera.

"I was imagining looking at you", she said.

There is a difference between a picture being taken for you
specifically
and one being taken for social media.

It will always and only be
a matter
of the important difference

between photographers.


be well; be loved,

k.

(image: by Jamie Noise via lickerishdreams tumblr)

The Beauty of Vision

The universe is gorgeous in what it grants you when you are on the right path.

Things the size of a paper cut.

Things the size of the sky at night.


be well; be loved,

k.

(image: Boris Eldagsen via untrustyou tumblr)

The Other Night When You Asked Her and I if We Were Going to Sleep Together and I Said "I Hope So"

The past week has involved the police, the coroner's office, a body bag, fourteen long hours that should never have had to happen, strange timing, a thump in the night, a play, a hotel, and the sad story of the bag of soil bought to cover up the blood of the dead man that was in my backyard.

This week will involve (something of a) double date, trust, sounds that I miss, and a funeral.

Be well and be loved this week and always:

What unfolds within a 48 hour period can be more than you bargained for on either end of the spectrum

and will probably involve an excess of both.

k.

(image: Jonathan Pivovar)

Smart Mouths: Snow Day Edition

A guy walked by and said
Get a room
and I said
I know, right? You want to get us one?

We were standing downtown
in a snowstorm
kissing

our fingers burning
and noses freezing

we were blocking the door to a restaurant.

when a straight couple had to walk around us
she stopped kissing me
just long enough to tell them


It's good for you to be around this




be well; be loved,

k.


(image: Barney Kulok, Untitled studio wall, 2009 via lecollecteur tumblr)

Charmers Move Slowly

As a general statement, for the record:

I am WAY the fuck out of my league

and I am totally into it.




be well; be loved,

k.
(image Larry Woodmann ph via giampixxx tumblr)

Blushless Matters

Today I read the play Bent, by Martin Sherman, recommended by my recent and well trained eye in such matters. It was, perhaps, the most perfect play for her to recommend, and yet, *damn*.  How is it that a play can have one of the hottest descriptions of a moment of resistance and energy and connection and sex all at once, yet also be so entirely gutting? [I had to look deeper into the lineage of storm troopers in Nazi Germany. I found what it was that I was missing.]

Act II Scene II.

Act II Scene II.

(pause)

Can you feel me touching your face when you wake up in the morning?

I know I am not there, but, if you hold very still, you will feel me.


be well; be loved,

k.
 (image via untrustyou tumblr)

Sex and the Red Room of Not Settling

So grateful that I didn't have to go into work today.

Instead, it has been coffee and baths and slow cooked meals and homework and reflecting on the last 72 hours of magic. I am so grateful and I am so excited for more of it as it unfolds.

(interlude)

Dear What I Wouldn't Settle For,

Your beautiful smile and teeth and eyebrows recede into the past. Sadly, steadily, truthfully.

While they evaporate, I hear this clip of this song over and over again and it makes me think of you:

You can bring a bullet
bring a sword 
bring a morgue

but you can't bring the truth to me

(interlude over)


Here is to the best kind of honesty:

To the magic of the mind, heart, body and everything in between.

The view from here is breathtaking
and all who share it with me are
in fact

what creates the view in the first place.




be well; be loved,

k.

(lyrics: Kendrick Lamar from All the Stars)
(image: William Eggleston via lecollecteur tumblr)

Conjure, and, The Gutter of Your Pages

This seahorse gets Hedwig.

What's killing me is that it is less than one week from that last post re: Hedwig and, between then and now,  while out of town for work, I met this random queer woman who teaches and produces theatre.  We exchanged numbers and chatted a bit through text as I was trying to get a feel for where she lands on the theatre spectrum. (I'm always going to be political theatre over musical fluff, but recognize 100% the glorious overlap that can and does happen...) We chatted Brecht (YESSSS) and Sondheim (she knows all of him, I only know the obvious three...) and, unrelated,  how Emma Goldman shows up as a character in a lot of plays.

Before I fell asleep, I sent her that same link I posted and said:  

No matter what your feelings are on musical movies and musical musicals, the complexity of this moment and this version of the song will always get to me.

When I woke up, I saw she had responded:

Oh honey. Makes me cry every time I hear it. Saw it on Broadway. Changed my life. This song...oh my heart. (heart and broken heart emoji)

Fuck yes.

It looks like I have a new and beautiful and bad ass friend in my life.  I'm so grateful for how the universe looks out for me and just drops these theatre geniuses into my life (this is not the first nor the last time this will happen- Hi Taigé, David, Sadie, etc... out of nowhere.)  It is deeply appreciated, and I can't even begin to explain how much it matters.

(pause)

In other, unrelated news:

Bibliomancy and the tattoos on the fingers of the woman who told me she has been curious about me for years.

Both make me blush with superstition and knowing.


be well; be loved,

k.

P.S. What's written as the caption in this post by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about fear is pretty fucking bomb. You can read it here.  Fear leads us into courage. Sometimes it's not telling us to retreat, it's telling us to leap.  Let's do this.

(image: A seahorse. Look into the connection between seahorses and the trans community and/or why parts of the trans community use a lot of seahorse imagery and you'll totally get why this seahorse gets Hedwig.)

When You've Got No Other Choice, You Know You Can Follow My Voice

Turning points are always so informative about who you are and what you value.

We've all had them.

Think back to a turning point for yourself.  A moment that made you make a change, or something that shifted how you felt about some thing or some one or some situation in your life.

What was it that happened that made it shift so completely?

Can you recall how time slowed down a bit as you realized what you absolutely had to do?

(pause)

Not too long ago but also long ago, I went to go see a live/play version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

It's a play that has impacted more or less 90% of all queer and trans people I have ever known and, thus, also impacted me profoundly when I saw it for the first time ages ago.  During the more recent show, there was this queer boy sitting behind me and to my left.  We laughed and yelled and cheered for the exact same things while no one else did. (It was opening night.  There were a lot of funders of the theater there, season ticket holders and other people who just didn't get it.)

I recall after the show, going to share one of the songs with the person I had gone to the show with -  someone I had been dating, but was technically broken up with at the time.

Long story short:  She got mad and impatient and exploded. How she interacted with me that night after Hedwig made something shift for me.  It was something of the stark contrast in the meanness of her behavior with the incredible beauty of the story of that show.

What was I doing hanging out with someone who not only didn't get/have interest in the musical Hedwig and the genius of John Cameron Mitchell but, on top of and separate from that, was seemingly fine with speaking to the people she loves with such unkind words in such an explosive way?

It wasn't the first or second time it had happened. I was still getting to know her, but had seen her talk to people she loves in really cruel ways. Then she did it to me. It was why I had broken up with her. This was one of those attempts at friendship or a blurry date or, something that an aching heart tends to do. But that night things shifted for me.

After her outburst, she left in her car.  I sat in mine and listened to various versions of Wicked Little Town. Something had changed for me. It felt positive. Sad. Beautiful. Hard. Loving.  Much like the story I was listening to being sung, or the tale I had just seen on stage.

Love, no matter how it's struggling, would never be fine with those kinds of actions and words. I could love a person in their entirety, but I still - unapologetically and clearly- knew I deserved more than that.

Integrity matters in both words and actions.

['Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of 
Caring about ourselves]

Needless to say: I made some decisions, set some boundaries, and that night of Hedwig would serve as the last time I would interact with her in person.

(pause)

The universe, in its strange and funny way, put me in a gloriously queer context about a week later.  Drag queens and community organizers and djs and dogs. A femmey butch queer man with so much knowledge and incredible taste in/about music and I began chatting. I liked what he had to say. I liked his attitude, his friendliness, his style and what he was involved with.  We kept chatting. Exchanged music recommendations. We kept chatting and chatting and...

He pushed up his sleeves.  I stared.  "I love your tattoo. From Hedwig, right?" (I already knew the answer).

He said yes, paused, and added, "You know, part of why I have this tattoo because it's a way to know pretty immediately if someone is awesome or not.  Awesome people recognize it and, as soon as they do, I already know that they are incredible people."

Word.

(pause)


There will always be something to be said about people who understand the pain, love, tenderness, beauty, loss, gain, terribleness, forgiveness, vulnerability and complexity of this moment:

(From the movie musical) : God, watch their eye contact and exchange


Here is to the necessary turning points and glory of musicals-as-church-yet-of-course-one-of-the-main-characters-last-names-is-Gnosis.


Keep loving out there- yourselves and others. Keep celebrating every piece of the complexity of your beauty - inside and out.


be well; be loved,

k.

P.S. Tonight RENT LIVE will be shown with Valentina as my favorite character !
P.S.S. A general reminder I received today: We need each other to heal. Bam

(image: one of nine zillion drawings related to The Origin of Love from Hedwig found on the internet.)
(italicized words: Lyrics from Under Pressure written by yet another beautiful gender maniac)

Perfect Pavement and Everything That Matters

This evening:

The perfect hooded-sweatshirt-and-a-jacket weather and sweet, sweet Sarah.  Philly librarian. I've known her since I was 19. I will never forget when I met her because we were in that punk house in Ohio. She had just gotten back into the country from Austria. I had heard about her forever from Mike and, there she was. Sitting in the kitchen on that shit-brown carpet of the stairs leading up to the bedrooms.  She was in a tank top, and the sun was catching her hair through the window.  I remember just staring at her like she was a ghost or, rather, an angel. If there was ever a moment I fell pretty instantly in obsession with someone, that was the moment. God, she feels so familiar every time we see each other. We have conversations that non-library people only sit through politely because they have no idea the depth of the obsession of language and words and information and the ability to locate information actually goes.

Being from the Midwest but living in Philly, she says shit and fuck every other word and says exactly what she means. My god it's so good to be around. So home. There was nothing better tonight than to see her and to wander through the downtown streets, together.


be well; be loved,

k.
(image: Valentin Fougeray via untrustme tumblr)

The Microscope Eyepiece I Slid Inside of You, or, Endulging Your Fetish of Exactness

I.

The other night evoked a conversation about the writing of Javier Marías. I will say that I absolutely respect and love his disregard for the unsaid rules of appropriate length of sentences and appropriate length of paragraphs.  I love the fact that a sentence can go on for half a page and that a paragraph can take up the majority of two pages.

I'm not going to pull a phrase succinct in its gorgeousness from one of his books. Rather, I will just pull a fragment of a fragment of one of his enjoyably drawn out ponderings and place it here:

But all this is pure conjecture and hypothesis, yet there are times when the lives of others, of another (the configuration of a life, its continuation, not a few mere steps), do depend on our decisions and vacillations, on our cowardice or daring, on our words and on our hands... 
                               
                                          -- from A Heart So White

(pause)

Everything feels so strangely alive. The people in my life, the conversations that have been happening, the connections that are coming out of thin air to lead me around the next corner and into the intriguing tunnel of stones and flickering lights.

I'm enjoying all that is unfolding.

There are points that I ponder the last year and all of its lessons. They all feel so good, so clear and so building.  Pieces of gold I take with me.  Not to barter with, but rather, to use to reflect the lights around me, to remind myself, and to share people who may need it more than I do. It's never a matter of depletion: Such giving has a way of offering unseen gifts, tenfold.

II.

There was such a cute, lovable child standing there.

Chubby face, chubby legs, blond hair and that expression that says "What planet have been I brought to this time?"

Such strange cards we are all dealt.

Help each other out in ways that matter
and let some of that tenderness extend
to your own heart
too



                                        


be well; be loved,

k.

(image: Marlon Teixeira via orphius tumblr)

What We Do About When We Do About Love

I. Saturday

I love the conversations that we have about art, language, the world, trauma and learning, literature and our relationships to ourselves, the people in our lives and the world. The conversations ignite me. They stay with me for months if not years afterward. I love getting to know more layers of the people I love. We slipped into an indoor soccer venue at night to watch strangers play and/or poke and prod lost balls out of the netting by the ceiling. Fluorescent lights hitting the ultra green field turf: It served as such a sweet and fitting backdrop to our conversations of balance and connection.

II. Sunday [Unfolding on the evening of the moon named for the season in which wolves mate. We are lone, but we also travel in packs]

One of the most incredible feelings in the world is being with someone who has loved and supported you in more ways you can imagine for a very long time.  There is a different feeling when someone kisses you or holds your hand who is a person who  has inspired you, treated you with thoughtful respect, made you laugh, made you dinner, and has supported you both in what you are aiming for and in what makes you feel safe. Respectful words, respectful actions and the simple truth of looking out for you.

When that same person buries their head in your neck, runs their fingers across your palm, slides their hand on your leg, places their mouth on the corner of yours - it changes you. Each and every time that it happens. It instills a self-love to leave situations that don't include the foundations of these things described, here. (It also allows for some of the most vulnerable and incredible sex, ever. It is within this trust, this love, this knowing that we can drown in the most beautiful of ways.)

I feel thankful of this, tonight.

It is something of reverence.



III.  Monday

Redaction in its sanitization sense (as distinguished from its other editing sense) is the blacking out or deletion of text in a document, or the result of such an effort. It is intended to allow the selective disclosure of information in a document while keeping other parts of the document secret.

I could live on the past 72 hours for a lifetime

and

on a cellular and blueprint level

I fully intend to.




be well; be loved

k.

(title: a play on Raymond Carver's book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. A book that, once I read it, was entirely underwhelmed by and, to this day, feel is overrated. Dig your hands into the soil, my love. This love is not one of observation and reporting; it is one of engagement with our minds, hearts and passions fully in tact.)

(image Une Semaine de Bonté (A Week of Kindness), 1933, Max Ernst via secretcinema1 tumblr)

The Beauty Beyond What You Know: A Story in Three and a Half Parts

Recently and inadvertently, I identified a gesture that makes me feel so loved. It's not the gesture, itself.  I would have never recognized it as something that made me feel loved except that it is something that almost all of the people in my life I feel incredibly loved by have in common. And so, in almost a reverse engineered manner: I feel loved when people do or say this because almost all of the people who have made me feel so, incredibly loved have this tendency:

When parting ways at night, they ask me to tell them when I get home.

(pause)

I.

Let me tell you about joy.

To do so, I will have to tell you about a person I have loved for many years. Someone I have been friends with, dated, been friends with again and who I negotiated away a wedding plan with at some point in there.

I love who he is. I love our connection and our absurd and constant hilarity, yet our seriousness when it matters.  I love the attention we pay to each other.  The details we retain of each other's histories, families, dates, irrational phobias, guilty pleasures and dreams.

We share the same love of scents. Each time we meet up we wear something complex because we know the other person will push their nose up to that curve behind the other's ear, and inquire; then discuss. (Who knew Viktor & Rolf released a second version of Spicebomb? Now I know. My God, now I know.)

I love, simply but fully, how much we enjoy each other. Make fun of each other. Know each other. How we don't even have to discuss the fact that, yes, there will be at least two kinds of hot sauce on the popcorn (each kind on a separate side of the bowl) while we watch some movie or idiotic television show at his house, talking a quarter of the time, all while under either a blanket or his elegant and beautiful dog that is almost bigger than I am.

II.

For the first part of the night we sat at a bar and, as is the annoying obligatory presence, some random white guy interrupted our conversation with the same tired ass line of "I'm sorry to interrupt you" (they never are) followed by some pseudo-intellectual crap of how they were trying to identify the exact accent of Spanish we were using (the punchline is that these dudes almost never know more than even three words of the language) which they then use as a launchpad to talk about their travels to Spanish-speaking countries. Like who gives a fuck, Chad?

In these situations, there is always a balance to feel out and to act upon: I name/jab at the interruption in order to check the person and situation for what it is (some weird, racist, colonizer attempt at monopolizing strangers' time to play out their Christopher Columbus and/or "adventurer" fantasies). At the same time, there's this fucked line of things.

Typically, being a woman-read person, if I'm a dick to a guy and am with another guy, the guy I'm a dick to doesn't go after me: He goes after the guy I am with. It's a bizarre function of sexism. It gets tricky. I have to know that the level of aggression I spit towards some idiot may end up making the person I am with a target in a way they hadn't bargained for. When the asshole is a white dude and the guy I'm with is a man of color who has English as a second language, the balance becomes even tighter/more important. This balance is something that I think about so much. So much of maintaining it has to do with the endless variables in endless situations that no one asked for.

III.

Let me tell you about joy.

When we left the bar and went to his house to continue hanging out, I had this moment of experiencing just the pure joy of us both laughing while he was asking and I was trying to explain the concept of "teenage angst". (Ask yourself: How would you explain this concept to someone? I can almost guarantee you that you will end up laughing while doing some kind of impersonation of the concept.) The conversations he and I have about language are different from any others I have. He used to work as a language assistant years ago. He and I are both so serious when it comes to understanding meaning and nuance, but also laugh like hell knowing that we will never fully understand each other's language. I love these conversations. I love things like him laughing at me when I forget the word for "comb" and, instead, use some janky circumlocution that involves the phrase "the plastic thing you organize your hair with".

(pause)

It got late. He welcomed me to stay. I knew I had to go home.

Before I left, he pulled out a worn leather bag from his closet.  It was a medical bag of sorts from WWII that he had gotten in Poland. I know that you love tijeras, Tía*- and he opened the bag that had about fifteen pairs of antique looking scissors- I love them, too. I picked up a few different pairs. My eyes widened. Each were both delicate and heavy all at once. When I picked up a particular pair, my pulse quickened. Admittedly, I don't think they even constitute being scissors- they are more of a surgical tool that look like scissors. They gave such a satisfying and heavy snap when you closed them. I thanked him, and slipped them in my bag.

He walked me outside.

We hugged.

I started making my way down the steps to my car.



Text me when you get home, Tía.







be well; be loved,


k.
(*= He calls me "Tía" because he's making fun of the accent and slang I have from some of my friends and teachers who are from Spain. He's always trying to scrub me of that slang and accent and, as part of it, he calls me Tía and, because of my ever-bratty-sister composure, I call him Tío in return. He hates it.)
(image: Javier Torok via untrustyou tumblr)

The Gentleness of a Knife: Necessary Diva Edition

I.

The room I am in smells like campfire and I absolutely love it. The flannel sheets and layers-of-clouds blankets I am smuggled away in just makes it even better.

II.

My first memory of the importance of femmes-supporting-femmes was back in the midwest. I was hanging out with my friend Zakiyyah, a femme presenting person, at a restaurant. A woman in a beautiful dress and heels walked by us and into the bathroom. Later, as Zakiyyah and I sat there talking, the same woman walked by leaving the bathroom. All of a sudden- mid conversation- Z got up and ran after her.  I turned around to see what was happening. As I did, I saw that the woman had a trail of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her shoe. Z ran up behind her, stepped on the toilet paper (causing it to detach from the woman's shoe), pick it up and throw it out.  All without the woman even knowing.

I'm not sure I will every be able to articulate how beautiful, strong, and tender this moment was. There was something about this femme running after another femme to do this. To assist another femme in her gender presentation. To assist in her looking and/or feeling flawless in a world that does nothing but point out one's flaws.

III.

There has been a friendship I have been cultivating for years (roughly around 8? 9?) with friend of mine that has meant a lot to me.  I mention it because, a year and some ago, I made a conscious choice to ask her to be involved in something I was scared to ask her to be involved in. Not scared as in "I'm going to die" but just scared as in "I might be rejected".  But, at the time, I knew that it would be such an important form of support for something I was going through at the time. I also knew that it could be a dive so that she and I could get closer.  I had been friends with her for so long but we always seemed hesitant to take the next step so to speak and become close friends in the way that involved things that felt like heavily weighted risks of trust.

Anyway, I asked her and she showed up- 150%.

Since then, we've continued getting closer. She actually reminds me, in a lot of ways, of J in the way that she is a tough ass femme. It's familiar to me. This quality of being seemingly entirely  unflappable on all levels.  "Femme armor" I have read it described as.  I can't think of a more apt description of way femmes hold themselves to all of the fucking bullshit that is thrown at them on an actual daily basis.

I'm thinking about her tonight because we had quite a beautiful interaction both this weekend and today.  I had sent her a copy of that essay on femmes and suicide that I mentioned a few days ago after her and I had this whole conversation about a very common bullshit narrative that femmes tend to have to deal with. When I sent it to her, I wrote to her about what her friendship has meant and why. Today I received a message from her talking about an aspect of her life that she had struggled with that me and another femme have acted as role models of sorts for. I read it and started tearing up. I was completely floored.

Femme-read people have so much weight, expectation, violence and blame put on them. Tonight I'm just feeling very proud of and grateful for all of the femme-read people who have been in and/or are in my life. There is a particular type of connection in how we are able see each other.  There is a power in how we show up for each other when it matters most. And somewhere in the midst of this connection and this power, a pact is woven. Something less of "friends" and more of "coven".

Thank you for the things you have taught me.  Thank you for the risks you have taken.  Thank you for holding me stronger and in a more tailored way than anyone can when I dive or simply when I take a fall. And, most importantly, thank you for letting me hold you when you need it - and even when you don't.




Be well; be loved,

k.

(title: You know who. via yvonneconstance tumblr)

We Are All Boundaried as Fuck, or, Try Not to Hurt Yourself

What I love about my friends is that they are a unified front.

If someone fucks with or mistreats one of us, there are no weak links.

You should know that by now.

The parts where she's saying Don't Hurt Yourself and a few other lyrics on a loop and piped into every building you set foot in as a reminder for you to find your way:

It is no longer in the direction of any of us.


be well, be loved,

k.
(image: Dusan Reljin | Anais Pouliot)

The Purple of Royalty, or, Tradition and Sabotage

I just finished seeing the 2018 Alexander McQueen documentary. Each night was sold out when it opened, here.

Jesus fucking christ.

McQueen is someone I have painted before. He is someone who has inspired me in his strength of personality and pure obsessive, emotive creativity. His flamboyance. Parts of his vision.  Even the ones seemed more controversial. (I have to admit that I didn't agree with the critics about his Highlander Rape show.  I thought it was fucking bomb and that all of the women looked like bad asses that have just walked through nails and fire.)

I had no idea that one of his plans was to kill himself on stage at what he had decided would be his last show. I only knew that when he did kill himself, it was at home on the eve of his mother's funeral.

The shows, in particular, that struck me - and that there's way more footage of in the film- was the Spring/Summer 2001 show, Voss, (the one rooted in a concept of an asylum, but also involving a recreation of one of Joel Peter Witkins' photographs at the end).  Although this show is online, I would watch the footage in the film first because of sound. The ones online either have no sound, or have just music.  In the film, not only do you get more of an idea of the experience of the audience (via the two way mirrors), but the sound of one particular dress - which has weighted, almost flattened test-tube like plates on it- is incredible.  The model runs her hands up the dress and destroys some of them and the sound is just fucking amazing.


There's more to say to this. About him, his work, his death, his life.  But, for now, I want to sit with this film a bit. Let it digest and unfurl.


Be well; be loved,

k.



(image: from a collection of McQueen's. They represent gazelle horns. He had likened himself to the gazelle, but the aspect of which I'll leave to you to learn about in the documentary if you watch it.)
(title: (the second part) A person in the film briefly described the allure of the mixing of tradition and sabotage, and I was immediately enamored with the pairing/phrasing.)

Witchcraft and Hanging Out on Porches

Life gets weirder and weirder, yet better and better.

Is it strange to have had so many odd (and arguably terrible) things happen at once and walk out with the same glow that is, well, growing?

The excitement of anticipation and knowing is in the air and in my body and it feels incredible.

It's day 227 (shout out to anyone who ever knew, watched and loved that show. I remember once talking to Jodi because I was confused as to why no one who was roughly our peer in age seemed to know it and then she reminded me that we grew up in an area where there was actually black representation on television in both programming and newscasters- unlike the majority of the country. What up Doris Biscoe!) of meditation and next level weird ass mental wizardry.

To the people in my life who I find endlessly lovable:

Be good to yourself, be good to your body, be good to your brain, be good to your heart, be good to your feelings.

IT PAYS OFF.

In every imaginable way, and in a thousand even beyond that.

(Also, be good to your pets.)

[Side note: If you have a cat and it irrationally loves me let me just be honest in saying that your cat is, more than likely, my familiar. People tend to think that shit was left back in Midieval and Early Modern times, but bitch let me be real: It's 2019 and whether I love your cat or if I don't like your cat at all and it stares at me/follows me around like Jodi Foster's stalker, it's because it's helping me out with some bad ass magic. Make no mistake.]

I'm going to leave you with the song that gets stuck in my head if I ever hear it. (I also think it's fucking hilarious to see Bill Bonds' random ass in a boxing gym in the second one.)

I always remember the look on this woman's face haha

Here it is

You gotta love it.  It also subconsciously probably explains why, in my last entry, I just keep talking about standing up for people. Stand up and tell em you're from... bam!

Be well, be loved,


k.

(image: via boxfullofletters tumbler)

The Angel Protecting Your Future, or, For the Love of Lucas

I.

The issue with magic and the existence of angels is that if one does not believe in either or both, they will miss it and/or run it over with their car.

II.

It has been quite a (long) six days.

Friday afternoon I received an envelope mailed to my house by a former date of mine from a while back that included a beautiful letter of thank you and a handmade gift.

I will use this as my beginning simply because it was a notable moment of warmth before events, unrelated, fell directly into the toilet.

The next few days would go on to involve incidents I had to stop counting, multiple police departments, multiple nights, security footage, forced entry, and ending with the last 24 hours that involved a group of three men at night, me and a wooden baseball bat.

My head hurts.

I feel so grateful for the people who surround me.

These statements are true in equal amounts.

Here is to the beautiful balance of standing up for yourself, letting those that love you stand up for you, standing up for other people and standing up for the people that you love.


III.

(related to II. and a reoccurring theme both as of late and forever)

What you do, individually, matters.

Don't let people fuck with you about this and don't let people shit talk who don't have their sleeves rolled up and hearts exposed in what matters. If they don't, they really aren't much more than those asshole old white dudes who sat in the balcony during The Muppet Show and talked shit about everything. (Admittedly funny as fuck at times, but, what were they actually doing with their lives other than sitting on a couch and watching/judging people actually doing shit?)

On levels political and personal, I want to applaud and encourage folks who are engaging. Who aren't sure what to say or do, but say or do something that matters anyway. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be.

Thank you to those who are engaging in ways that feel scary or uncertain. It's important that this is happening on all levels. It's incredible how much matter can come out of one person's willingness to be a brave, bad-ass, imperfect motherfucker and address the things that need to be addressed in the world or in their lives all while being kind. (Being kind is what moves things forward in the world. That balance of bold truth and kindness.)

Those who stay on their couches in their balconies can have their husks
their scraps
their private frowns.

Perhaps one day they'll join us.

(pause)

I'm going to leave you with this quote. The ideas within the words have been sticking with me in past few weeks in ways that matter:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again...who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."

Here's to those who have gotten off their couches and stepped out of their balconies to engage in love and in what matters.



Be well; be loved,

k.


(title: 2nd half: Most of my life I have over related to Corey Haim's character in the movie Lucas. )
(Image: Chris Friel, 8:28 week 3 #6)
(quote from T. Roosevelt)

Learn Your Musicals, Faggot

My current mood is, somehow, both Sandy's pants and general message (emphasis on 1:15-1:19 delivery of statement) while simultaneously Danny's eyeliner and glorious topping-from-the-bottom in this iconic number. 

(Special shout out to heels-while-on-the-Shake-Shack and how they go down the stairs around 3:20.)

I can dance both parts. Practice, because an entire reenactment of this scene will need to ensue. 

be well; be loved,

k.

P.S. Grateful and loving how much dancing has been going on as of late. Here's to the reminder of how fabulous it is to dance with people who actually know how to dance. Also, lesson learned: I will keep a dance playlist with me at all times. Sorry, folks. I love a good Madonna song just like the nice guy, but it isn't a stand in for a seamless thread of fucking incredible dance songs.

P.S.S. Whole hearted shout out to the twins who taught me everything I know about this musical over and over again in their living room when I was a kid.

(image: Sara Imloul, Le Cirque noir, Sans titre #7, 2010 via yvonneconstance tumblr)

 .

You are Not Fit to be a King, or, It Was My Duty to Fight for What I Love

First of all, let's just be reminded that, generally speaking, I love Common's take(s) on love and on organizing. In addition, he remains to be the owner of one of the sexiest voices I've ever heard in my fucking life. I'm thinking about him and love because he posted this New Year's Day video on Instagram that was great. Mostly a push that everything will prosper if you "let love lead' and if you "let love have the last word".

Indeed.

Let love have the last word.

Sometimes people's families and lives break their hearts so deeply that their hearts fill with some kind of weird venom. At the bottom of it, the real deep down story, is that they're afraid they won't be loved. That somewhere, deep down and hidden even to themselves sometimes, they don't believe they are worthy of love. I'm both proud and in awe of the people in my life who have managed - who knows how- to grow open beyond what they experienced growing up. But I also have so much painful compassion for those in the world who haven't or weren't able to.

[If you need to, go and watch Black Panther again because I'm about to make an analogy. That film is about love on so many fucking vital levels.]

It's the difference between T'Challa and Erik Killmonger.  Goddamn did I cry at that last scene with Erik.  We all should have, or wanted to. Like *fuck*, Killmonger, I have seen so many people like you in life and it's so complicated. There are all of the reasons you would/could lack the love/generosity of love, but it's so goddamn hard to see the hate you bring and, ultimately, the sadness you bring into your own life.

(pause)

I'm thinking about love, community, inspiration, connection... all of it, and all of this, a lot.

We all grow.

It's a hopeful and beautiful feeling.

(pause)

I've also been thinking about the love I learned from a friend who passed many years ago.  Recently, I posted a miniature painting I did with an accompanying story that told one, particular and unforgettable story of this love. I was really surprised by overwhelming responses to it. I'm not sure why. Love breeds love, I guess/know. It still felt really good. An unforeseen piece to doing this is that I may have some pieces along with some stories up in an art show (like, in an actual art space that is part of art walks!? The thought of it kind of blows my mind.) That would/will be pretty amazing. More than I can really articulate right here and now.

Anyway.

I'll put a 2016 interview with Common here that was from The Breakfast Club. One, because it has both him and Charlamange Tha God in the same interview and thus is immediately more fabulous, but two because you can hear his voice when he is talking about the kind of energy he wants to be around and says "...man, this is my life.  I want to spend my life with people that I feel are at least going to do their best to bring their best energy." You can hear it in this tiny snippet at 6:53 of this interview. (He later talks about how there is love between him and the majority of his exes. Because of course there is. Exes as continued love as fam for the win.)

And...since I'm on my little Common trip, I'll also leave this song that was the first song that really turned me onto him (thank you, Matthew) so many moons ago. It's a song I think of a lot. Mostly because of the imagery of being able to recognize light in people. All of us have it. It tends to shine brighter for us with the people we love, but all of us have it. "It don't take a whole day to recognize sunshine".  So true in all of its meanings. Here it is:  The Light

That's all for tonight.

Love, love, love and 2019.

Let love lead and do your best to bring your best energy, indeed.


k.
(title: The first part is a part of a line said to Erik Killlmonger in Black Panther. The full line is "Your heart is so full of hatred. You are not fit to be a king."  The second part of the title is said by Nakia. So fucking good. The end.)
(image: from billykidd via le-nuage-sauvage tumblr)