bound

i've always secretly been satisfied whenever people have pointed out to me that i am full of contradictions.
for a long time i wasn't sure why i felt the contradictions in my life, my identity and my values to be a source of liberation. why did they secretly make me smile...
i ran across the following paragraph the other day while reading one of my favorite books, which articulated in words the idea that ive only known through feelings, for far too long.

"our contradictions and differences are more than political obstacles: they are reminders of our boundlessness, confirmations that we can never be fully captured or circumscribed, that no label or movement can ever hope to encompass all we are or hope to be. And that diversity is our strength in the face of the familiar, tyrannical Western project to impose the monolithic, all enveloping truths that have marginalized, suppressed, and erased so many of us all in the first place"

- rikki anne wilchins.

a monday afternoon

yesterday was a virile day :
* i borrowed 9 books from the library about gender and sexual subversion and grinned shamelessly all the way home
* i sat cross-legged beside the garden admiring said books for close to 40 minutes, and did "e-nee-me-ne-miney-mo" at least a dozen times inorder to figure out which one to start with....
* Optimus Prime, Bunny-of-Doom had her first bath
* i laid blissfully in the grass for several hours devouring "Read My Lips: sexual subversion and the end of gender" by rikki anne wilchins *i watchedandrew tinker in the carrots and every little while i nibbled on peas

* i not only witnessed the icecream-man in action for the first time in my whole life, buuut i met him too.
*i made lime green Shepard's pie for people i love

yes- it was a virile day indeed.

when andrew was fat.

rafters

last night andrew & i took some old boxes down from the garage rafters. these boxes contained me. fragments of who i once was, reminders of those i once loved and remnants of places and i once knew as home. they contained the photos, the scraps, the scribbles, the poetry, the letters and the doodlings that shaped me. from a simple note scrawled on a napkin from a past lover, to a cryptic collection of angsty teenage journals, these boxes hold my story. we sat cross-legged on the garage floor, as i introduced andrew to my childhood and my youth. to the friends i thought i couldn't live without, and to the memories i swore id never forget, but did. reminiscing may be one of my favorite things to do in life.
it's weird, i recall seeing the pictures and keepsakes billions of times, yet somehow they've transformed over the years and their meanings and significance have changed. i see and feel things with my adult eyes, that i hadnt in the past. part of me is amused by this, part of me terrified. looking through these boxes is especially fun with another person, because they point out odd things, that otherwise i would not notice.

andrew grudgingly brought to my attention, which i would have otherwise glanced over as normal, my utter teenage obsession with tom delonge from blink 182. it gets a little embarrassing. i was madly in love with tom. apart from the usual large collection of tom clipouts, a poster of him in a speedo with the word RAPTURE written under, and doodles of his name on all my school work, we found a ccreepy journal i did for school, where i was suppose to write from the perspective of when i was 27. in this journal i had married Tom, and because my mom thought being a punk star wasnt a promising future, i convinced this ravishing hunk to become a journalist instead. (which at the time i believed to be second best to punk star, as the sexiest profession ever). not only did we find an entire DETAILED scrapbook of the wedding i planned us (complete with pictures of the outfits, the budget, the guest list and the vows... and even a fake marriage licence where i forged his name beside mine), i even had a detailed account of the love child i mothered, whose last name was delonge as well. i suppose my unwavering love for tom was kind of creepy. we even found a crumpled up piece of paper- a letter to god which was written in sparkily brown gel pen and said: "dear lord god, i want to love and serve you forever. but please let me be a professional skate border, and please let me meet tom delonge. i love you god. i love you. amen".

chalk