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.)