The Hotness of Your Mouthguard, or, The Foreplay of ASMR

It is the final pile of hours for 2018.

I don't have much to say in the form of a closing or a beginning- only that I raise my glass to my efficient hoes tonight and to anyone, ever, who knows how to take the most plunging of risks.

May you all find your exact and pleasurable descent.

be well; be loved,

k.
(image: shoe & bikini  photographed by David Bailey c. 1973 via sendommager tumblr)

Shipyards and the Beat of the Rain

I.

Sitting here, at 12:22am waiting for the ferry back home makes me think of you.  I don't use the ferries as much as you do, so being here at night makes me think of sitting and waiting for a ferry with you in your car almost a year ago exactly- my legs stretched out across your lap.

The wind is making my car rock. It's so dark out here, and I am the only car waiting. The drive to the terminal made my eyes grow wide wondering how people see the roads out here at night. Maybe their eyes adjust like some weird animal.  It was incredible, though. Seeing the top of the road so high above me, flanked with the dark silhouettes of majestic pines and being able to see the headlights of a car on the other side of the hill slowly illuminate the peak of the road.

It's magic out here.  You were right about that.


II.

Today was spent in the company of a person I admire that I've known for over a decade. We hung out and talked and ate and walked for eleven hours straight. He showed me his world; his town.  We talked racial justice, gender, family, white supremacy, tactics, disability justice, community, kink, desire, experience and femme.

In the past week, people have been commenting on how I am glowing.  Not just people I know, but strangers. It feels good to be feeding myself such good, good things. People, minds, ideas, art. It radiates, evidently, in literal ways.

I've been reading a lot about neuroscience and meditation and brain states and all the quantum physics/unified field shit that the true science ballers all believed in (what up Tesla; Edison)  and that I've believed in for a long ass time. It's day 215 of meditation. It's all connected and it's some truly sci-fi shit at root. Our minds - unhigh and undrunk while simultaneously tapped into- are f-ing amazing in the level of bad ass and witchy shit that they can do.

It feels good to feel my life shifting in ways that I value and aspire to. 2018, strictly on an individual level, was a really good year. It taught me a lot about the value and experience of love that lifts you up, teaches you, encourages you and holds you with trust.

To come full circle and quote A (the person I was hanging out with today) from something he wrote in a card he sent to me much earlier this year:

 It's next level toughness to not always go it alone.



Here's to the loves and the light that shine brighter than our fears and solo-rolls.  There are plenty of people who feel like monsters. There are plenty of people who march around with armored hearts. Shed the weight of this shame and of this self-reliance.

Collectivism, friendship, trust and struggle is where it's at.


be well; be loved,

k.

P.S.  If you get the chance, pick up a copy of Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarainha's book Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice.  There is a piece in it entitled Two or Three Things I Know for Sure about Femmes and Suicide: A Love Letter that has both gutted me and set me free. Sometimes there are weights upon your body you don't even recognize are there until someone traces them with their words. Holy fuck, Leah.  Reason #56239 that I feel grateful to even indirectly be in community with you.

 (image: Thomas Albdorf)

Technology in Boating

It may be silly, but it is absolutely incredible to be on a ferry typing this as I watch the water and land go by. It fills my stomach with excitement- not just of destination, but of the journey.

Here is to enjoying and learning from the loves in your life, and the gorgeousness of the mist surrounding me this still-feeling-early morning.

be well; be loved

sailor style,

k.

The Beauty of Being Welcome: Ode to the Riff Raff

Tonight I feel humbled and appreciative.

I want to walk outside and just scream I'M SO FUCKING GRATEFUL out into the night sky.

It is incredible what can happen when you love the shit out of yourself and the people in (and out) of your life.

First, a nerdy aside:  I got 100% on my second final. I'm pretty proud of the fact that, in both classes, I got a 99.5% out of 100. (Oh, don't front. You know how these profs are. Giving out 100s as final grades for the class makes them look bad hahaha - I am currently showing all of my teeth in the widest smile I have. Which, admittedly, is pretty damn wide).

The holiday went beautifully. Leave it to loved ones who have either gotten kicked out of their families, are immigrants whose families are in other parts of the world, or who are both to be who I celebrate love with most years. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love the way the people in my life love me and love each other. I particularly love it when friends of mine who haven't met before, meet. It is simply the best. New and old, familiar and just wonderfully getting-closer-to.

It's been pretty magical to have family of origin sprinkled into the mix this year- somehow, they fit in the above categories as well. Healing can come in the most unfathomable forms, folks.  And one of them is me and my brother laughing and encouraging the fuck out of my nephew's beautiful antics and hilarity in exploring the world of his relatively new life.

Of a particular shout out is hanging out with Xavi one on one for a million hours. The amount of love I have for him is pretty ridiculous. We have had so many chapters and so many different kinds of adventures within them. On the top of my mind in this moment is his testimony that I'll never forget: Him sitting on the stand in his navy uniform and telling the truth about what happened that night. But, specifically, I will never forget his total badass-ness in taking down the lawyer that tried to fuck with him around his English while he was on the stand. The second that pants-suited dick said something and I saw Xavi lean forward on the stand, I knew it was over. FUCK YESSSSS.  I am still cheering that shit on.

In any case.

Really good things are culminating. I'm grateful for every single person in the mix that chooses to connect to something larger than fear. On all fronts and with hearts fully open and ready. What comes out of it is worth every single moment of courage-mixed-with-fear in order to create something different. In order to create something that matters.

I love you.

Let's do this.

This song, always and over and over again. 


K.

(image: Apollo 8 Coming Home, 1969, Robert McCall)

The Glow of Tree Lights and the Prick of the Needles

"If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash"

Earlier tonight, we went last minute holiday shopping. It's such a weird feeling. Families and couples are out and about getting wrapping paper and stocking stuffers. We were running around getting Legos for a 3 year old and some house warming stuff for the 3 year old's adults.

But, deliciously, now:

It's late, but not too late.
I'm excited.
My home is warm, my guests are gone, the living room smells like fir and eucalyptus and there is a fire going next to me.
The presents are wrapped.
The house is silent.
I'm content and cozy and grateful.

The blend of holiday and bliss, reading and warmth, the annual meet ups of the family-less faggots in the gay bars and actually-open donut shops is what I look forward to most. Family, family, family jewels. There is a warmth in the connection of what we have seen growing up and in what we have seen in the world as it has changed back and forth. Every year on these nights the taunt and playful chant is the same for a thousand different reasons of both dark and light:

Boot the grime of this world in the crotch, dear
And don't go home tonight
Come out and find the one that you love and who loves you
The one that you love and who loves you


See you over the next two days and nights and we will show the world why Christmas is always better with warmth of heart and a Santa in assless chaps,

be well; be loved

k.
(bolded words: Lyrics from Shelia Take a Bow by The Smiths)
(image: Leonard Cohen quote)

Dawn of a New Day After the Full Moon, or, From the Desk of the Nerd

There's this final paper I turned in that was one of two. I worked so hard on it, and truly did the best job I could. It was about things in this world that matter to me so fucking much.

I received word today from the professor on my grade. I got a fucking perfect score. The highest grade one could get, and a personal note from the professor saying that it was excellent, and why.

I don't think I've ever gotten a perfect score on a paper in years. (Okay, sure, because the essays I wrote for the last five years have been in Spanish and #grammarandspelling, but STILL.)

I'm proud not for the score (although that is a really nice feeling), but for the work, the research and the words from the prof. I truly enjoyed writing it, and became one obsessed motherfucker for about three weeks.


Love and learning,

k.

(image:  The man who will always win best hair of a philosopher from me. YOU may not be talking about making a porn about those two, Derrida, but *I* am.  From pleto tumblr.)

On Love

I'm really grateful for tonight. We had really good conversations about love. What it means and what it feels like when someone loves you as an entire person - with hopes, dreams, goals, needs, wants, intelligence(s), hilarity, habits, feelings, joys, pains, great dance moves and everything in between.

It's been good to be around Scoob again.

When I think of how we came to be in each other's lives all those years ago, and how fucking random and happenstance it all was, it blows my mind.  When I juxtapose that beginning with how much we have come to impact each other's lives between then and now, it feels so profoundly janky-angel sublimely celestial: A crass and divine intervention for us both when we arguably needed it most.

It reaffirms for me that love in friendships and in dating cares so much about each other's feelings. No shame, no shade; just total Tenderoni shit. No apologies for any feeling that may come up because we are here for it.  Always, always, always.

I'm proud of us all. There is something to be said about surrounding oneself with bad ass bitches who will stand up to a bullying bitch as easily as they will have the widest patience and love with a person who is really struggling.


It goes to show me, yet again, that

the best love is transformative

and will shift things in and about you in ways
you could have never
possibly

imagined.



"Motherfuckers quick to kiss:  Talk your shit but don't fuck with this."

Have a great and slow night/day out there:

Detroit Girl




be well; be loved,

k.


(quoted words:  Minor Threat)

The Movement of Motion; The Perpetuation of Joy

So close to reach but so hard to hold
the only chance you get is past your control

                                      --Rites of Spring (Drink Deep)

I.

What I love about T is that, no matter why or what art performance she contacts me about last minute having snagged two free tickets for us, I always know it's going to be good. She's just that good when it comes to art and theater. I'm endlessly glad that she approached me slightly tipsy at H's bar years ago to ask me what I was reading and then ended up running home to get me a copy of the play she had just finished reading. Kindred spirits like a motherfucker as it relates to art and the necessity for grime, limit-pushing and crass realism within performance. Tonight was no exception. I absolutely loved slipping out of City Hall to go see this thing with her. I felt like some kind of art fag batman of sorts. (Although, what else is new?)

There is nothing more beautiful than seeing a person tell their story in the pure love and light of who they are. The artist, tonight, radiated this. I learned a lot from it. There has been such a strong theme of people, unashamed, telling the truth and complexity of their lives. It palpably changes things.

The past two weeks has brought reminders of the impact a single person's actions and/or art can have in such beautiful and profound ways. It actually changes people's lives.

II.

Back at the very end of May I started meditating everyday. It's 206 days later. I know I've said this a thousand times over, but, it really does change you.

III.

I had a dream about you last night. It was only about a minute long, but it was so vivid.

It was nighttime.  I was closing the passenger side door of a black car for someone, the way a gentleman does. As the door shut, an orange-brown leaf circled in the wind and tried to slip into the car. The door shut on it, and half the leaf was sticking out of the bottom of the car door.

Somehow, I knew that the leaf was you.

I knelt down and said warmly to you, "Don't hurt yourself. I wish we would have had more time."



be well; be loved,

k.
(image: Wind Sculpture by Daniel Graffin)

Respect Ya Hustle...Baby, Win With Us

I. Reflection


As of 3 minutes ago I have, officially, finished this semester of grad school.


(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)



I am glowing. I am proud. I am grateful. I am grateful for having what I've needed in order to be able to do it. For the support that I have received. For every part, person and privilege that has gotten me here.  I don't take it lightly that I am here.

I don't fuck around.

This has been fifteen weeks of discipline and stretching; of learning and collaboration (in school and, in many ways more importantly, outside of it).

You have been a part of this.

Thank you for that.

From the very bottom of my heart and from my spine now crooked from giving up on positions to lay in while reading.

I love you.



k.


P.S ! !  I look forward to seeing all of you this Friday night to celebrate, and to celebrate the beautiful and tattooed hands of my queer fam's wins.


(Title: Yo Gotti lyric from Rake It Up. Full lyric = "Respect ya hustle, get ya money, baby win with us")
(Image: You know who it is. The one and only. It is also a perfect depiction of my mood right now.)