Why not see what's shakin' at LJ? Folks who interest me seem to be leaving FB & I'll surely expire from the vapors if I lack an online outlet.

Who's still here?

I rejected my family quite a while ago. After years of ignoring my clearly stated desire to have nothing more to do with them, in the past year my family (by which I mean my sister) has finally almost left off contacting me. I occasionally get a bit of news garnished with the usual thick sauce of hostility, but not on a regular basis at least.

It is a relief. It is what I wanted.

I think most of us construct our identity partly from the culture of the family who raised us &/or contributed the DNA that makes us. Walking away from that, & being admittedly cynical about my "communities" (which I cannot type without the scare quotes), what am I?

I do remember at least some of what I experienced & was taught growing up, & noses like mine must be born, not built. I don't reject my entire past, but I have worked hard to free myself of its restrictions. At this point, I would consider it disrespectful of those who still live in those worlds for me to choose labels that include what they continue to live.

I'm cynical but still OK with being one of the communities I've hooked up with since. For example, I am queer. I am an artist. I am a happily sex-poz perv, regardless of the near celibacy I've fallen into. But other than "artist," I don't know whether I want to embrace any of that as an identity. "Queer" & "sex-poz" in particular seem more like stereotypes than proper communities or identities.

If I were a character I were building in a book, what would make up the thick black parts of my outline? Which crayons would I choose to color in the biggest parts of me?

I won't figure this out today. Now I have to shower & dress for work. (Although I love this job & didn't even feel tempted when I recently got a message from a headhunter about a job that would pay MUCH more & be interesting & suitable—in an intellectual, technical way only—this job is not "me." I regard it as temporary & as not comprising "me"—like any job.)

After working all day on the Invisible Girlfriend Manifesto, but finishing (to my satisfaction) too late to actually get to the reading, then watching "In the Realms of the Unreal" last night, I wonder if I am Henry Darger. The older & more quirky I get, the stranger & less straightforward my muse becomes, the more I resemble old Henry. If Blue were to wander off, I might well retreat completely into my own world.

Hmmm. Unsettling.

At 3164 words in, I'm only on suicide number 5 out of 10. Talkative little fucker my suicide artist turns out to be.

If I were 22, I'd put this away & force myself to write one (1) haiku every day for 2 weeks, nothing else. But I am a geezer & I cannot afford to squander any gift my muse happens to hand me, no matter how weird & incomprehensible.

So, thanks I guess. Thank you for being a persistent crazy-ass muse.

Self portrait in disturbed water.
Click to see it bigger.
No, you should:
Water's surface makes it all Seurat.




Three hours exploring Pipers Creek & the ridge trail in Carkeek Park.

Fed on the singing under the trees & the voice of water, interrupted.

Zazen between two falls, amid plenty.

Exactly what my soul needed.

Cal Anderson Park. Got two good hours of writing in. Watched moms & kids enjoy the water & sun. Too exhausted to move more than that.



About which...

Note to self & others whom it may concern:

If you have some energy-sucking autoimmune disease, DO NOT decide to move a shitload of furniture BEFORE you go for a tramp around the woods & beach in a 200-acre park. Because, you moron, that trampin' in the woods? Ain't happenin.

However, after a nap you might just have enough juice left to drive (DRIVE?!) to Cal Anderson.

FTW, I guess. Did get a good start on the OCD character who's been pestering me to write about him.

P.S. Sol, you're right. Blue "helped" me by putting a yellow filter on "my" camera. Even with color correction, everything turns out jaundiced. Gotta lose that filter now.

Took place at Ikea.

Totally flaunted it. Acted flamboyant.

Waved to the crowds. Celebrated my queerness.

Got a new rug to munch!

Madrona Woods is a mere 15-minute stroll from my home. There is a stream running through it, & at the east, lower end — just before it empties into Lake Washington — it cascades down some planted boulders. There's a flat rock that would be perfect place to sit & write or just listen (on a day with less traffic on the boulevard & cheerful picnicky racket from the lake).

Dyke March today, Pride Parade tomorrow. For those who are going, have fun!

I won't be.

I listened to my coworkers (all of whom are het) discussing their weekend plans this week. One of the entertainment options they discussed was attending the Pride Parade. That's always a good time, they said. They're right, it is! (I wasn't technically part of this conversation. It's a cube farm so I can't help eavesdropping.)

I watched my queer friends discuss their activities for this weekend — which they're going to attend, what parties they're throwing around it. I was even invited to a couple. I think it's great they're participating!

But I have zero interest in attending the march or parade. Why?

I'm not exactly bitter about the move from Broadway to downtown, although I do see that as the political dumbing down of the event. It's an inevitable evolution. We're not in that part of the revolution any more that properly celebrated by Taking Over Our Own Damn Neighborhood. That's so 1980! Things change. I get it. So that's not it.

I realized today that the real reason I don't attend these things is the ghosts. There are too many. It's not what IS there nowadays, but my memory of what is NOT, that keeps me away. I'm not capable of seeing today's fun, good stuff, the event as it is. For me, that gets crowded out by the no-longer-in-existence fun, good people. The ghost of flamboyance past, I suppose.

Life is in almost every way better for queers now than it was during the time I remember too damn clearly. I wish those ghosts could remanifest for one day to see it. That's not possible. So instead, they stand in front of today's celebration, blocking it, & they look at me with empty, longing eyes.

My celebration of pride, if you don't mind, is to sit shiva on all yesterday's parties.