most thankful for
November 26, 2009
plastic applicators, glitter on anything but my hands, gourmet cupcakes, bangs, bobbypins, cheap jewelry, Japanese beer & liquor, Russell Martin, push-up bras, slippers, mutt-bitches with nothin’ but love, chunky as all hell ice cream, hips, boobs, other peoples’ babies, travel mugs, garlic, knee socks, park picnics, sand in my feet or in my shoes - who cares, Belgian waffles, aaaall my frenz, peacoats with big buttons, indoor plumbing, fruit punch, bendy straws, fried rice, camera phones, giggles, bamboo plants, Modern Family, heart shapes in my food, mashed potatoes, a good spatula, Rheanna Ryan, fried egg sandwiches, hoodies, vibrators, good books & booklights, Nag Champa, rainbows, my baby girl, robots, low brow art, your mom, my body pillow, boy soap, cheap wine, lavendar baby oil, hedgehogs, zebra blankets, sleepovers, road trips, koala bars, mimosas, all nighters, iced coffee, the moon, hotel rooms and orgasms.
Happy Thanksgiving. I’m off to Lake Havasu.
-CJ
re: your ironic pornstache
November 24, 2009
Again, this girl gets the win for awesome.
http://kittenhiccups.tumblr.com/post/240724768/fuck-i-am-so-fucking-sick-of-the-obsession-with
Ditto and amen and high five.
-CJ
tribute
November 24, 2009
In homage to Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio, I lit my tricep on fire… or so it feels fourty-eight hours later:
-CJ
yes means yes
November 24, 2009
A friend just unknowingly hooked me on yes means yes. They’re the kind of posts that make me want to scream, jump, hug and punch simultaneously. (ie impossible to comment on.) So I just push my glasses further up my nose and keep reading.
-CJ
I heart OB
November 17, 2009
Friday night saw me bounding out of the office and into the passenger seat of my car. Ree drove us the hour and a half er so out to Ocean Beach to meet up with some out of town friends I see maybe 2-3 times annually. The plan was to see Doug Stanhope at a little club but the universe had other ideas in mind.
The camera is totally drunk.
The air was perfect for my peacoat reunion, as we stayed just off the ocean at a little hotel with a kickass courtyard between us and the sand.
Those vases in the distance, over the stairs? At one point I was among them, hanging out and wondering what in the hell possessed me to climb up there when the trip down looked so much scarier.
Our friends, Kevin & Megan, arrived later than intended due to Friday evening traffuck and accidents and the like. They were still in good spirits and this was reason to toast and laugh our asses off for a bit at a little Irish pub with live music. The Stanhope show had started while they were on the freeway and probably ended around our third pint glass.
Next door was a-fucking-mazing pizza, a live bagpipe/drum group, and a funny shirt:
After dinner and some late night courtyard shenanigans involving us performing as caged animals to startled onlookers (don’t ask) at the hotel, there was beach walking, revisiting the Irish pub and then a quiet dumpy dive nearby that kicked us out at closing time.
On Saturday morning Kevin brought a damn good latte up to our room and I inquired as to whether or not I could pull off a ‘fancy hat’ (or what some people know as a newsboy cap) that I saw Shannyn Sossamon wearing on TV. The panel declared that I probably could though I don’t think they cared much.
Off to a beach front café, under the shade of an umbrella, in the perfect weather with mimosas by the plastic bucket.
It was very happy.
Tell me the bucket idea isn’t cute. YOU CAN’T.
Lazy wandering led to easily scoring several Christmas presents for assorted frenz & fam AND? I got a fancy hat. Which I wore for two days straight and took one super corny picture in. I think I love having a plaid clad dome.
One rooftop cantina + margarita pitcher later and we had to say our goodbyes and get back to hometown for a quick nap, a long shower and a birthday gathering. Ree and I met with Kristine and Robert to celebrate Kristine’s first annual 29th birthday at an amazing deli/bar. There were sandwiches and frosty drinks. It was love.
Later at a huge karaoke bar, I got fed the fuck up with women and the men that love them. Lesson learned: without clothing that appears to be painted on, abundant cleavage, and a high pitched laugh, you don’t deserve service or manners in general. It was a damn shame I left my cat suit at home and remembered to wear a shirt.
And then I met two very cute, very sweet, very funny girls in the bathroom and the faith in much of my douche-tastic generation started to restore.
Overall the weekend did nothing for my lingering, nagging cold but it did wonders for my overwhelmed mind, as good times with friends tend to do.
-CJ
lovers in a dangerous time
October 26, 2009
Through a fun little networking path (below) I came across this article on vulnerability. I have an issue with a capital I, in bold and italics, size grillion font, with vulnerability. And this tweaked the way I think in brilliant and much needed ways. It is so so so worth the read. If anything, skim the bold parts and see what you get from it. This shit’s inspiring.
(Credit where credit’s due: I originally came across this post through a link in this article on Tiger Beatdown. The full article is here on Feministe. It was written by Little Light. Original links remain in tact. All bold markings are my own, highlighting the parts I personally find the most influential.)
I am not doing so hot right now. I’m burnt out. I’m tired and I’m scared and I’m hurting. I’m disillusioned with online activism and it’s been so long since I posted in my actual blog–the one where it seems like every time I post, I get set on and taken apart by people who don’t respect my basic personhood and want me to know it–that last week I got a comment from a reader who thought I was dead in a ditch somewhere.
That looks like a statement of weakness, doesn’t it, to a lot of us? That’s like saying, hey, everyone, I’m super vulnerable right now, and here’s my wallet, not in the face, please. It’s like inviting everyone to know you’re right there and you can be hurt. There are a lot of good reasons we avoid admitting vulnerability. Most of us have been stomped somewhere, sometime. Most of us, along some axis or another if not many intersecting axes, have felt the sting of oppression–most people in a social justice movement like feminism, anyway, or they wouldn’t feel the need to care. Most of us have seen someone take advantage of that vulnerability. We have been taught over and over again to hide it, to not show our weak spots, to hide when we’re sick or bleeding and not let anyone know lest we be devoured. Whatever you are, don’t be vulnerable. Don’t tell them you’re scared. Don’t tell them there’s places to hurt you. At best, you’re not just being fatally foolish, you’re being weak. Whiny. Clearly you’re expecting someone else to clean up your mess, or otherwise infantilize you. You’re letting everyone down: family, friends, the however-you-define it movement, yourself. It’s, in many cultures, mine included, filthy like sin to admit your human limits and soft places.
What I am suggesting is that vulnerability is more than that: vulnerability is strength. Vulnerability is radical. And radicalizing vulnerability is vital.
It is vulnerable to connect with people intimately, and in the way that is necessary to build a better world in a lasting way. It is terrifying, and it is often hurtful, and it is very often sad. I have poured my heart and soul into organizations and projects that I threw myself open to, only to find them going up in a storm of flames and yelling, and pretending that doesn’t hurt is just nonsensical. How does pretending that vulnerability away make that stop? How does it help me do things better the next time? What’s so dirty about admitting disappointment or grief? I can’t think of anywhere I’m more vulnerable than the one place I’m safest: at home, with my partner, the person I trust most in the world. The person who can hurt me more than anyone. There is nowhere I would rather be than with this person to whom I am laid open, who knows everything about me and knows exactly where to put the knife if she were so inclined. She is, of course, not so inclined, but that was a risk I had to take, and sharing that risk is something transcendent. Those of you in relationships, especially really intimate ones, back me up here: that’s one of the most miraculous things about love. When you open yourself to loving someone and being loved, that’s one of the most frightening, unsafe things in the world. That’s part of what makes it so exhilarating. That’s part of what makes it so powerful.
It’s right there in that word: compassion. Co-passion. Shared suffering. If you open yourself to others, if you allow yourself to care about what happens to them, to struggle with them and fight with them and build with them, you have opened yourself. If you spend the whole time acting tough, it won’t work. You won’t connect. Your struggle, even if it’s “for” them, will end up being all about you and what you think other people need and want and how it will affect your career and your moment and your fifteen minutes of…well, what was it exactly? Are we doing this “feminism” thing for our careers, to make a buck and get our faces on TV? Are we doing this to be officially Great? Or are we doing something about compassion, community, and shared struggle that works for all of us and isn’t for the most part glamorous? Those connections and sacrifices aren’t easy, and neither is the courage necessary to care about each other and work together.
Vulnerability is radical, and without sharing our vulnerability, without getting all the cards on the table, I just don’t believe we can move forward together–not just as individuals getting ours and getting out, but together. Rather than introduce myself, I’m going to show you where you can hurt me.
I am tired. I don’t sleep enough. I spend too much time and energy on a job that doesn’t fulfill me and not enough pursuing my genuine aspirations. I have ugly feelings about who I see in a mirror every day. I miss people who were never good for me. Ever since a severe illness a couple of years back, my body has been totally shot–it doesn’t do the things I expect of it, forces me into accepting new limits, hurts. I am struggling hard with post-traumatic stress that leaves me, many days, shaking and unable to leave the house, bursting into tears at sudden noises, waking up from nightmares that make me want to run and throw up. Sometimes it barely affects my day and sometimes some little thing like a stray comment or a coworker handing me some paperwork from behind will get me shuddering and hyperventilating. It makes me exhausted and angry and frustrated and I want it to go away, but it won’t, so I’m working with it instead. I am dealing with a lot of grief right now, having lost a lot of important people in my life just as I’m planning a wedding, and for a while I insisted that it was fine, I was fine, but it’s not and I’m not. It gets to me. It should get to me. I am afraid–of more loss, of losing the people and chosen family I’m open to now, of an unjust world becoming more unjust. I should be.
See, I can refuse to admit vulnerability, but that won’t make me not vulnerable. There is nothing that can do that, not even covering myself up with layers and layers of the armor we all use to get through the day and pretending away the ugly things and the hard parts of my history and everyone else’s. This isn’t about complaining. I’m just stating facts that are, yes, relevant to who I am, why I participate in feminism and the greater movement toward social justice, why and how and what I write and contribute. Pretending it isn’t so forces me into a strange and inhuman position where we just posture at each other. You’re not vulnerable, I’m not vulnerable, let’s have an abstract debate about theories, and hey, justify your feelings, and hey, little lady, the grownups are talking and why are you so upset and come back, we were just having a friendly little debate about ideas, and what do you mean this is real life for you?
Social justice is about theories and ideas underpinning our actions, but if those theories and ideas are to mean anything, they have to be grounded in our real lives. They have to pay attention to what happens to us, and what can hurt us, and why some things–like a seemingly-innocent comment, like a sudden noise, like a bigoted slur, like making it through a day of work or classes when the only thing in your head is the rape you may never be over or how you’re going to be able to feed your children this month or when the water is getting shut off or just that thing your parents said that will never stop eating at you–affect some of us more than others. A functional movement isn’t one like the one we have, where people burn out and drop out and vanish because it’s all too much and they aren’t being supported and they just can’t take it any more, where everything we do is met with all of us tearing each other apart and always always always going for the throat until we stop being people to each other and start being…adversaries? interlocutors? enemies? objects? Have you noticed who suffers when we build a movement premised on never admitting that we can hurt each other, on never admitting that we’re tired and limited and human and just aren’t up for it today? Who stops making blog posts, who stops showing up to meetings and town halls and community projects, stops putting their work out there and speaking openly and honestly? Who stops making friends? Who stops taking risks? Have you noticed what happens in a world where we do this? Where we never talk about what we need, let alone what we want, all while we’re told all day what we should buy instead?
We fight an impossible battle against troubles we don’t even admit exist. We focus on enemies, and neglect ourselves and our loved ones, lose track of what we’re for in a storm of obsession with what we’re against. We don’t let it get to us, until it does. And then we go down in flames and everyone has to start over.
Can we do something different, start from different premises? Like: I’m hurting right now. Like: I can’t do everything. Like: I get tired and hungry and scared and confused. Like: I’m grieving. Like: I’m human, and human beings are vulnerable, and I can be hurt, and I can hurt others. Like: if we’re all going to make it, we have to do this together, and that means being vulnerable, and we can either choose to avert our eyes from that fact or we can embrace it and build something more compassionate, more functional, that makes our lives different for the better.
Like: let’s let vulnerability be radical. Let’s embrace it. Let’s admit that even the best things in the world are unsafe and go into it with open eyes and held hands.
We can choose make it work, or we can choose not to. I am going to spend my two weeks here choosing to try to be as vulnerable with you all as I possibly can, and maybe some of you will feel more able to be vulnerable, too. A dear friend told me once that writing is like getting up in front of people, pulling open your ribcage, and saying, here are my organs. I hope you like them.
Here are my organs. I hope you like them. I hope for the next little while we can try something dangerous and new, and I hope that you won’t take advantage of it in the wrong ways, because yes, I’m vulnerable. So are you. And we have a lot of work to do.
Let’s get cracking.
-CJ
Prozac to the third power
October 20, 2009
By way of my awesome friend’s page, punctuated equilibrium, I came across this picture:
And it turned my entire day around.
Or life.
Yeah, it turned my life around. I’m in a better mood forever.
-CJ
etching the written word
October 15, 2009
Literary tattoos totally get me off.
http://www.yuppiepunk.org/2008/04/a-not-so-complete-history-of-literary-tattoos.html
This my p0rn.
-CJ
Sister Spit
October 8, 2009
I’m an anachronism at the mercy of my youth. The year I was born ensured I’d never see some of my favorite bands live, as they’ve long since disbanded or worse. I missed some fantastic trends and discovered some fascinating names after they’d perished. One thing I missed that has haunted me is Sister Spit. (wiki def: lesbian-feminist spoken word and performance art collective.) Founded by one of my favorite authors, Michelle Tea, I hated having missed the collection of women writers and the gathering that came to see them.
And then? They came back. Sister Spit Next Generation.
When BitchMedia sent out a tweet with a link to an article called Sister Spit: Then & Now I was on my lunch break and made a quick note in my Awesome Monster Journal to read the post and also post something of my own on how bitter I am that I’ve missed out on all those tours. ’Cuz I’m a resentful, sulky brat on a good day. When I returned the office and clicked the link I nearly short circuited when a tour schedule appeared. I’d missed the Los Angeles date by six days but before deep disappointment and self-loathing could fully take over, I saw a Claremont date for the following night.
So on Wednesday evening Kiddo and I rushed home, packed some snacks and juice boxes, and followed our Google Maps directions to Scripps College. After only a moment of wandering the (gorgeous) campus I passed an open door, leading to a small auditorium that housed about ten ladies ranging from femme to butch. A tiny, wild haired woman in glasses was up front, just before the stage, messing with a projector. I knew that was Michelle and still I guided Kiddo into the room slowly, lest I disturb a play in practice or a meeting I had no business barging into. We took third row seats and waited.
As the room filled up, the people in front of us were nice enough to keep the seats in front of Kiddo empty so she could see the stage. I was damn near losing my shit in anticipation. As the crowd grew, everyone that entered the room seemed to be greeting at least a handful of other people. Maybe the lesbian/artist scene is much smaller in Claremont but I like to think they were mostly all students there. Kiddo and I were virtual strangers to what felt like a room full of friends. And yet I’ve never really felt as welcome anywhere. She was the only kid in attendance and numerous people would wave and make faces at her, causing her to blush and bulldoze into my rib cage. Beth Lisick, one of the readers, sat next to me and offered, with a smile, a heads up on the graphic nature and partial nudity that could be on stage tonight. I promised Kiddo was more mature than most freshmen I know and had no worry about her seeing or hearing anything the room could offer.
Girls smiled and waved and said hi. This doesn’t happen. Ever. Not to me. Everyone was so fucking friendly and happy that I think if they’d allow it, I never would have left.
In what I’m positive is the wrong order:
Beth Lisick took the stage and read an absolutely hilarious excerpt from Everyone in the Pool about an internal struggle with whether or not she (or the character, I’m not sure) was bisexual. I was laughing my fool head off partially with her and partially at myself.
Ariel Schrag, a fucking brilliant and funny-as-fuck comic writer showed a page for page excerpt on a projector and read in a multitude of perfectly comical pitches from her book Potential. She left off on a cliffhanger that ensured we’d all run out for the book immediately. It has been added to the grillionty page Amazon wish list though it will never be as fun to read as it is to have it read to you by the author herself.
Kirya Traber approached the mic with a small chapbook in hand, both of which, she soon ditched. She projected spoken word by memory across the room and shook me to the core of my being and brought tears to my eyes and nervous shakes to my fingers. I absolutely cannot accurately express just how profoundly she struck me. Often times a live performance gets deep under my skin but I felt something I’d yet to feel toward music or comedy or poetry – a deep sense of gratitude. You need Kirya in your life. You will be a better person for it. How do I know this? Because you’re human.
This is one of two poems she read: http://www.bodydiscrimination.com/download/creative/KiryaTraber-LaUltimaPalabra.pdf. Though the written word will never, ever do justice to seeing and hearing her, it is so very worth the read.
And because I’ve deleted a dozen sentences to attempt to say something about this piece, I’m admitting defeat and simply going to input a few parts:
“In a world where beauty is a subtraction problem
of infallible ideals minus
the body you were born with
I am not just unusual
I am a stunning abomination.”
and
“and if I make you uncomfortable
is it because I so greatly call to question
your shallow definition of what it means to be woman?
or because you can’t handle the fact
that my unabashed confidence makes me so damn sexy?”
Ben McCoy lip-synced to an audio reading of her piece French Drag Queens, My New Best Friends, which is easily leads a listener along the path of something humorous until it punches you deliciously in the gut at the end. I can speak for the room on this one – we had no idea if we were supposed to applaud or remain seated and slack-jawed. We did a combination of both.
Michelle Tea, host & author extraordinaire, read from a review she wrote of a show at the end of Fashion Week by The Gossip. I was selfishly hoping she’d read from The Beautiful because it’s her only book I don’t own/haven’t read but she could read in an alternate language on moss patterns in the South Pacific and I would have listened.
Rhiannon Argo read from her debut novel The Creamsickle while a kickass slideslow played behind her of women in various dress/poses/places made messes with Popsicles. I’d run into, almost literally, Rhiannon in the bathroom before the show. Had I known I’d adore her so much within a few hours, I might have tried to put my tongue in her mouth.
Sara Seinberg (doesn’t seem to have an up to date site of any kind) read from her very original modern tale of Greek Gods among us in Brooklyn. She was a fucking stud.
Post-show, when I’d normally slink out the side door no matter how bad I wanted to interact with the performers, especially in a tiny venue such as this, I loaded up my fifty-one pounds of sleeping, dead weight, took a few deep breaths and approached Kirya. It took a while to catch her alone but I would have waited all night if needed just to tell her, thank you. She gave me her card, which basically means she’s on board with me buying everything she’s ever touched so I can slowly cultivate and stroke this monster girlcrush I’ve got on her.
I couldn’t possibly leave, despite my numbing biceps, without thanking Michelle as well. For being alive and writing and Rent Girl and organizing a show such as this and bringing it to southern California and Rose of No Man’s Land which is a great book I used to introduce my little sister to her writing and The Passionate Mistakes & Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America which was the first book I ever found of hers and read greedily in my hairdresser’s chair when I was seventeen…
Among other things.
It was a wild good time.
No, fuck that.
It was an emotional, comedic, gut-wrenching, inspiring, motivating, warming, eye-opening fucking HELL of a night and I am fortunate as all get out to have been there.
-CJ
motivational speaking
October 7, 2009
“Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning, the devil says, “Oh crap, she’s up!”
-via DailyOffensive
