Rehearsal had been going well. I’m kind of slow when it comes to picking up choreography, so I was really pleased that we’d knocked out most of the moves for “Sh-boom” as performed in Crybaby. I ran down to my car to grab my Drag Bag, which had a CD so that we could bring the music to the open-mic drag show we’d be performing at. I ran back upstairs.

“Either you’ve gotten me very high without me knowing and I’ve forgotten where I parked, or my car’s been towed,” I said, a bit incredulous.

“Shit, son,” current said. Margaux, who lived in the apartment we were using to rehearse, asked me if I had parked in their parking lot. I confirmed, and she told me that sometimes they did tow. I had parked in the lot because I’d done so a few weeks back, for almost six hours, with no negative consequences.

Margaux and I went back out to the parking lot, and I retraced my steps; indeed, my car was no longer parked in front of the row of electric meters I’d used as a landmark. I called the towing company advertised on the placards around the lot.

“Yeah?” some guy answered.

I gave him my name and asked if they’d towed my car. I described the car. I told them the name of the apartment complex from which they might’ve towed. Then, the most mortifying thing happened: silence. Probably ninety seconds of it. At this point, my brain kicked into overdrive, and fears boosted my thoughts like nitrous. Oh no. What if they haven’t towed my car, and it’s been stolen? That’d suck. I wonder how one goes about filing the appropriate paperwork. This is going to be such a pain.

The sound of the man taking a dip brought me back to the conversation. “Yeah, yeah, we got that one just a little bit ago. You want an address?”

I thought he was asking for our address, so I asked Margaux, who was standing next to me in the space that my car had occupied a few minutes before. The man on the other end of the phone got impatient and reiterated that he would give me an address, “because if I give you directions, you’ll get lost.” [For the record, the directions merely needed to be: "we are between the blahblah and yadayada exits on the northbound side of suchnsuch highway," so I don't know what his issue was.] I got the address, and we went back upstairs.

We made a few phone calls to line up a ride to the tow yard; I called my roommie and my roommie’s girlfriend, but they were at a fancy dinner, and I didn’t want to take them away from it. current called our friend Jessie, who acquiesced.

We climbed into Jessie’s car and headed off, and I was all-too-aware of the $200 in borrowed cash sitting in my pocket. We gave our driver directions, and she told us amusing stories as we rode towards my ransomed car [named Luna], which made me feel less-stupid about what had happened. I made horrible bitter jokes, which I figured were better than getting aggressively angry.

We pulled up to the tow place, which was essentially a parking lot ringed in razorwire with a reinforced bunker on one corner. The dipping man sat in the bunker behind bulletproof glass and controlled the gates in and out of the towyard. I clambered out of the car, feeling just a bit sick at the financial ramifications of my screwup.

There was [what appeared to me to be] a straight, white, middle-aged couple already at the window. The man, who looked like a strange hybrid between a guy that I work with and my cousins’ grandfather [the one that I don't share with them], was decked out in his UT regalia, and it quickly became apparent that they’d been at the game.

“Two hundred fockin dollars!” the man said angrily. I wanted to bitterly correct him, tell him that it’s actually $193.50- $150.0o for filing and reporting, $20.00 for towing, $20.00 for impound, and $3.50 for taxes- but decided not to.

“This is fockin ridiculous!” He was slapping money down with the bitter resignation of someone who’d lost a bet they were sure they’d win. “Do you know how fockin many beers this would buy? I mean, we were in the stadium, so only like three there, but otherwise! Otherwise do you know?!” I felt like I was back at the QPR game, listening in on the fans in line to buy pints and chips and brats.

His wife smiled and asked him not to be rude to the man behind the bulletproof glass after her husband said that the man was “a fockin dirty filthy fockin vulture”. Her husband responded by getting even more aggressive, telling the man behind the glass that he’d hunt him down, or find him on the street, blah blah blah. I wondered how many times the man behind the bulletproof glass had heard that, and how many times he’d had to call in the police on assault charges with folks who got too aggressive. I wondered how many times the dipping man had been shot at. The man behind the glass looked completely nonplussed.

“It’s not his fault,” the man’s wife said. She looked vaguely like the matron of the first family I babysat regularly for, which was comforting to me.  She smiled at me, and I smiled back.

“I’m having this same conversation in my own head,” I said. She smiled an exasperated smile and told me that they’d debated parking without a permit or paying what seemed at the time an exorbitant rate to park in a lot.

The knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade popped into my head to inform me that we both had chosen poorly. As if I didn’t already know. Thanks.

The grumpy man slapped down the rest of his money and waited for the dipping man to fill out some paperwork; they played a game of passing little bits of paper and plastic back and forth throug hthe little slot under the bulletproof glass, a sort of cubby that dipped under so that anyone irate enough to take a shot at the dipping man wouldn’t have an opening like they would at a cinema ticket window. The dipping man buzzed the couple through the little gate to the towyard, and as they passed through, the grumpy man turned back and yelled a string of insults which ended with, “…fockin vulture faggot queer.”

Anyone who knows me knows that I can jam my foot pretty far into my mouth pretty quickly. I yelled after him; “Sir! Neither faggot nor queer are insults! Pick different ones!” I yelled largely because there was a grumbling towtruck right next to us, purring as it lined up its next kill for the evening. I repeated the gist of what I said again, though before I could finish, Jessie was right next to me, leaning over me [even though I had to stand on a raised platform to talk to the dipping man].

“Eli!” she hissed at me, “I could hear you from inside my car! Repeat after me: I will not get gay bashed at the tow yard. I will not get gay bashed at the tow yard.”

After that, I paid up, stumbled around the lot with Margaux looking for Luna, found Luna, and drove off into the night. I pulled out money to pay current back, and when I paid her back she backed out of the show due to feeling extra sick. We ended up getting to the show an hour late. I went on ten minutes after getting to the club [with my friend Artie Chokehearts, doing a number to "Bowie's in Space" by Flight of the Chonchords], with the most slapdash facial hair I’ve ever done [which still looked pretty alright].

I think I kept my cool relatively well, and didn’t really get all that upset about it. Also, this is pretty much the worst thing that’s happened to me for a while, and I’m totally alright with that being the case, because it was small beans.

Uno, dos, tres, cho- Uno, dos, tres, co- Uno, dos, tres, la- Uno, dos, tres, te. Bate, bate, cho-co-la-te!

Things are still stirring. They’re no longer in a really-overwhelming state of constant extreme turmoil/upheaval/explosion, but they’re definitely still shifting around. I’m still experiencing things that throw me ever-so-slightly off of my stride, that require me to make those little adjustments on-the-spot that will eventually become habit. I could totally both whine a whole lot about that and blow my wad prematurely regarding a potentially-really-neat stirring, but I’m sure that you’re sick of the former and I’m still holding out on the latter. Therefore, instead, it’s gender-rambling time! [Because somehow there's not enough of that on here. Or whatever.] [Also, salient/pertinent things kept happening as I delayed publishing this post, which explains the length.]

It’s hard being genderqueer. Blah blah blah, right? But I’m not talking about systemic oppression or day-to-day gender policing or getting duffed up by peers or whatever. I’m talking about being read explicitly as genderqueer, rather than as a butch dyke or a nelly fag. I’m talking about systemic invisibility in a negative-negative way. [This is opposed to the systemic invisibility of "white"ness, which I feel is a positive-negative invisibility in that it carries more immediate and sustained benefits for those carrying the invisible label, though the label does end up undercutting the labeled group in a lot of ways.]

So, instead of existing in only one iteration that is not successfully externally identified as explicitly genderqueer [as far as I can tell], I live a multigendered life. In certain spheres, different facets of my genderqueer identity [which, at its intermediate level of explanation is an amalgamation of myriad queer/gendered identities] are emphasized. Therefore, I interact with people who call me by both of my names, who use various pronouns, and that would probably, if asked, use various gendering labels to describe me. [Granted, I'm thinking of multiword genderings that go beyond female/male/woman/man/girl/boy. Things like "quasi-pretentious butchdyke nerdfag" and "almost-androgyne almost-hipster almost-awesome" and such.]

Let me just say, that this facet of my existence is AWESOME. My “ideal” is that of an explicitly genderqueer/thirdgender existence. Of course, this becomes more of a Weberian ideal in practice than [what I see as] a conventional ideal; I will probably never lead an existence in which I am consistently recognized as genderqueer. Instead of getting really cheesed off at my inability to pass as something that’s just beginning to exist [and therefore in its nascent definitions], I get what I see as the next-best-thing, which is to have the various facets of my genderqueerness recognized in various circles.

[Another awsome thing about this? In discussing my genderqueer identity with friends and acquaintences, I learn volumes about their conceptualizations of and feelings regarding gender, both their own and social constructs thereof.]

In a cute sort-of related tangent: my family is awesome. They came to see Drag Kings: the Musical the night after it opened. Not only were they really really cool about the impromptu intermission entertainment [as we had a very unfortunate sound system malfunction that was resolved in the most jank manner possible], but they were great about my gender performance. In the first piece I performed in, I walked out on stage with very low-hanging trousers. My mother, in the spirit of interactivity [which KNT is all about, as far as I can tell], yelled “Eli, pull up yer pants!” She used my kinging name; my friend reported to me [she sat next to my family] that my mother used it almost reflexively, that she didn’t think twice about what to call me. That same friend also told me that my family used my kinging name and male pronouns to refer to me even when quietly discussing my performances amongst themselves. Also, my mother got really flustered and had to think about what gendered spawn-related noun to use for me after the show. She settled on daughter, which I feel totally fine about. I feel even better about the fact that she thought about which noun to use.

[Also, my sister told me that the piece that I was most anxious about them seeing- a piece in which I wear very very short shorts and pack a huge freaking packer [Mr. Right by Vixen Creations] and engage in various really homoerotic shenanigans- was one of their favorites. Score.]

ETA: I came out to several of my coworkers today, at the Happiest Hour after work. I took an opportunity to label myself after the woman sitting next to me mentioned that she figured I was a “lesbian”. I tried not to cringe too much at the word [I dislike that word, for reasons I can't really put my finger on, though I know other folks feel the same way sometimes], and calmly informed her [and everyone else at the table] that I did not identify as “lesbian”, which led us down the long path of how-I-do-identify and how they identified [both themselves and me], especially with regards to gender. [This involved unconflating gender/sexuality and forging some different connections.] We had really constructive discussion surrounding transsexuality, transgender identities, and genderqueer identities. They were remarkably calm and relatively sensitive around the subject, which I appreciated. They all seemed to understand that I have no preference amongst names/pronouns, and that they could start calling me Eli and he,  if they’d prefer [though I doubt any of them would]. My co-workers are definitely queer and genderqueer allies, if not queer/genderqueer themselves, which I am eternally grateful for. I’m sure I’ll spend a CCPT [or several] thinking about the ramifications of this. If anything interesting arises, I’ll report back.

Things are starting to calm down, sort of. Or are at least gearing up to calm down. I think. Maybe.

Drag Kings: the Musical 3 opened last night. We slayed. It was amazing. I definitely enjoyed the experience of performing in an explicitly selected transmasculine setting and being recognized for/by my performance of transmasculinity. I was mostly worried about technical aspects of the show; I am in about half of the show, and there are some quick changes that need to happen in there. However, everything was pulled off without much of a hitch last night, which means that we can do it again tonight and tomorrow night. Most of the troupe thinks that I’m insane for being in so many pieces [and I won't try to dissuade anyone from that notion], but there is definitely a comfort and familiarity in being so overloaded with things that I love, with scrambling hecticly backstage to make it into my next costume and apply facial hair and look like I know what I’m doing. I’ll admit that I’m a stress junkie, especially with jank-ass theatre. And although it’s nice to be so involved, it’s also really nice to know that this will all be done in thirty-six hours, that only ephemera will remain as evidence of this massive effort.

Parts of work are settling into unsettling routines. The student that needs the most behavioral support in my classroom has had a hard week, and we suspect that things might get worse before they get better. Most of my co-workers are awesome and amazing, though apparently some of my co-workers are not addressing issues that they have with me to me, and instead are addressing them to other co-workers and my supervisor. And because this is all being filtered through those other co-workers and my supervisor, the issue-holders’ identities [I'm assuming there's more than one, as has been implied to me] are still anonymous, which means I can’t address them directly to ask them to address me directly. [Still following? Good.]

I’ve spent a good amount of Cycle Commute Pondering Time, especially the rides home, thinking about office politics. I like to be genial with everyone and try to maintain good relationships with all of my co-workers, including the ones that I differ greatly with on ideology and goals. I’m hoping this will be possible. However, every time I devote energy to thinking about office politics [usually from work until my short stint on 2222], I conclude that office politics are much more interesting for me when I observe them, rather than when I participate in them. Because seriously, folks, is there anyone more awkward and less politically adept than myself?

On the other hand, parts of work are awesome. Like the number of Burners on-campus, who talk about Burner things [tents and art pieces and who's going up when and coming back when and did you see that one guy?]  during lunch period, while helping students stab little pieces of well-rounded nutritionally-balanced meals with their forks. Like the number of GL employees and GL-friendly employees. [I still haven't encountered any explicitly-identified B or T employees. Granted, I'm not seeing a big queer presence, but I might just be looking in the wrong places. Or, I might be appropriating folks' identities; I'm sure that everyone sees me as a lesbian/dyke, and I might be oversimplifying others' queer identities in the same way that mine is simplified.]

The relationship that I mentioned earlier as having changed forms/energies has changed yet again, has swung back towards what it was [though, of course, it won't be the same, what with the whole mono no aware business]. I’m waiting to see where equilibrium will be for this relationship, as I suspect that failing to pay attention to where equilibrium might be [among other things on my part] is what led to the previously-mentioned ending. We’ll see what happens.

So, for now, consider my bootstraps grabbed and my emotional state de-escalated or returned back to a space that is closer to the familiar and ordinary for me or whatever. Consider all that done quite some time ago- a week? A week and a half? Two weeks? Something like that. I told you I’d get it done.

Alright, so cycling to work has been awesome. It’s let me work on my legs, which I’m pretty sure I’ve been neglecting for what seems like years [which has probably been actually about eighteen months, max]. For the first couple of weeks of cycle-commuting, my legs would start burning after just a couple of miles, as if battery acid were coursing just underneath my skin. Now, my legs tire less easily [if even slightly so]. I have started to feel less-worn after my commutes, to bounce back more quickly and completely. I find myself wanting the ride; this weekend, I wanted the ride by mid-Sunday, and was sad I didn’t have work to ride to [or free time to take a ride] on Monday, and was almost-mad that I had to drive in today [to make it to other engagements after work on time].

But cycle-commuting has more than just positive physical externalities [ha] for me. Cycling to work gives me between twenty and thirty minutes of time for whatever thinking I’d like to engage in. No music, no phone, no others to talk to [except for quick "heys" said to other passing cyclists and walkers/joggers]. I used to have regular commutes that ranged between forty-five and seventy-five minutes that I took in my car. I can confidently say that I could not reliably think as much as I do now during those lengthier commutes, probably due to distractions [music, mobile phone, passengers].

The commute time is my own personal time, where I haven’t anyone else to focus on. I can think about whatever I’d like to during the rides, even if that whatever is actually nothing. I’ve thought about lots of innanities. I’ve thought about plenty of hefty things. [The $64,000 Questions don't stop coming, don't stop jockeying with each other to occupy my mind for stretches of time, stretches of road; from 49th to Nasco, all along Shoal Creek, between stopsigns, during those laps I take when the thoughts won't loose their visegrip hold.]

More about this later, as Cycle Commute Pondering Time makes more headway on my innanities and my $64,000 Questions.

I never experienced the veracity of the saying “bad things come in threes” until just recently. Glynn and Dr. Hime were far enough away from Vinny that I didn’t count them as three; instead, it was two and one. My previous breakups were usually all by their onesies, though I think one might’ve been accompanied by a short illness around the same time.

This time, I think I understand. While it isn’t three “bad things”, per se, it is three major stressors all colliding at once and running me down like a string of defensive linemen [I'm not much of a football fan, so I hope that analogy holds]. Work has been difficult in ways that I didn’t plan for it to be, as well as in the ways I did make mental preparations for. Sister just left for college. A relationship I was in just ended [or, if we want to get all metaphysical, changed forms/energies].

Considering these things, and factoring in for the hefty thinking that’s happened on account of the last event listed, I am actually doing fantastically. I’ve already developed something of a rapport with the one student in our classroom who requires the most behavioral support. I’ve been on-time to work every day this week, which is something I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do. I’ve stayed as jovial and lighthearted as I can while dealing with co-workers and students in the face of some issues with myself ["some issues" being an understatement] and serious issues with others [ex: having ~3cmsq of my skin torn/scraped off unexpectedly by a student].

I think that I could probably handle these better if they came one at a time, or even two and then one, because then at least I’d have some constant to go back to. Just like my students, I crave routinization and predictability and establishing known relationships with individuals- friends, family members, co-workers,  people I date. My friendships have been in a mild-to-moderate state of tumult since graduation, my go-to family member has just moved away, I barely know any of my co-workers, and am no longer dating the person that I was dating.

I know, I know, you’re probably thinking, C’mon, kid, pull yourself up by your bootstraps! Get a hold of yourself! and I assure you that 1) lots of people [even most people?] are not aware of this tumult unless I tell them about it and 2) I’ll pull myself up by my proverbial bootstraps once I’m done with a little bit of wallowing in my sad.

So, it’s exciting/awful that I can “pass” as untroubled during most of my workday. One of my co-workers, whom I told briefly of the break-up [in a half-sentence sort of way], said that I seemed amazingly with-it whenever she had seen me. I’ve become extremely distressed at one point this week, and that distress was caused by my three colliding stressors, but was triggered by the previously-mentioned skin-shearing incident. Nobody thought that there might be other underlying causes, what with the blood trickling down my arms and all.

Also, I’m really freaking lucky to have the proverbial bootstraps to help pull myself up by. I know full well that I’m privileged to have the tools and skills to help myself out. Lots of people can’t help themselves out of emotional turmoil because the systems we live under fail[ed] to equip them with the skills that I would think of as our proverbial bootstraps. [Also, note the parallels with proverbial economic bootstraps.] My favorite coping method that I am currently using is the cycling to and from work, which gives me time to think/process/feel/whatever while keeping my body busy, which helps me think/process/feel/whatever. More about that will come soon, I suspect.

Combine 1) and 2), and I’m pretty sure that I can take my time and transition back to a mental state that I’m more used to being in without causing a big hulabuloo or drawing too much attention to myself. [Except, of course, here, though self-published writings are pretty intrisically egotistical, I think.]

I’m getting stressed out about my job. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks going to trainings and meetings and listening to specialist after specialist talk about what working with the students is like, and the challenges of one of my students in particular. I’m tired of that. I just want to get the students, to see what they’re like, to learn about them from them.

Instead, I’ve all this stress bottling up. It’s oozing out of my follicles and I spend a lot of time feeling the tickling prickle of bees’ pins-and-needles feet on my scalp. It’s leaking out of my extremities as it rushes down my limbs, finds no escape, but decides to make one through my fingers and toes nonetheless. It’s racing around my innards, twisting them into and out of knots that are impossibly complex. It’s taking over my brain, interfering with my rational thinking and my focus on kindness, and I have to work very hard not to get snippy or paranoid, and have been failing at both as of late.

And I know that there are resources to ameliorate that stress; teachers, experienced TAs, lead teachers, language/speech pathologists, OTs, PTs, work coaches, RIs, dorm managers, and behavior specialists. But these are also largely new people to me, which adds on another layer of stress.

There’s very little trepidation in me regarding the students that I’ll be working with, even with the student I’ll be primarily working with. He’s got a reputation as one of the most difficult students at the school [so, of course, they stick him with the new TA, which makes perfect sense]. My real fear involving him revolves around the fact that I am currently completely uninsured. Completely. I think that if something even minorly catastophic were to happen on-the-job that Worker’s Compensation would pick up the bill, but still, it’s nerve-wracking.

I’m anxious about actually getting the students, about getting to know them. I want to know what a typical day is going to be like in a very practical way, rather than in an I’m-going-to-talk-you-through-a-template way. I want to know how exhausted I’m going to be at the end of the day; am I going to have the energy to cycle back home? Will I ever have the energy to hang out with folks after work? Will I just want to drink and unwind? I want to know where the student I’ll be working with will target when he acts out. Should I avoid having previous injuries or bruises on a particular part of my body? Will I develop a bruising pattern that will never fully go away during the school year? Am I actually going to have to restrain a student?

‘Course, I know that there’s no real way to answer all of those questions.  All the folks that I talk to about it say that they were nervous, too, and get a wistful look in their eye for a time that incorporated less paperwork [but also a smaller check]. Instead, I’ve been gathering as much information as I can that is useful to me and helps me feel more secure. We’ve worked on where my student will be going each day, so that I know where we have to go. We’ve worked on thinking of activities that don’t feed his compulsions and obsessions.

At this point, all I can do is wait it out. I’m of course so stressed out right now because I’m so near actually getting the students and meeting them and all of that. I meet them tomorrow [yeah, working on a Sunday] and our first full day together will be Monday. In forty-eight hours, I’m pretty sure that a lot of this stress will have dissipated.

I look forward to it immensely.

grass withers and dies | veins pump battery acid | summertime commutes

I got back from our family’s vacation a couple of weeks ago, and have been meaning to ramble about it for a while here. We went to Cozumel for a week of diving and other topside adventures, which was exciting. It was quite an experience.

It was for the most part excellent, and was disappointing only in that we figured out halfway through the trip that we had experienced enough of the area for one run, and should’ve gone home. But we soldiered through the rest of the week, keeping in mind that we all quasi-wanted to go home, and trying not to get too grouchy or snippy.

Our hotel was quite nice. I remember our first trip to México [to Playa del Carmen, across the strait on the mainland, also of Q. Roo], during which we stayed in the Iberostar Quetzal. The Iberostar was definitely more luxurious than Casa del Mar, where we stayed this time, but I enjoyed this lodging experience much more. Instead of being isolated in an all-inclusive resort-style hotel, we were in a much more urban hotel that was surrounded by dive shops and eateries and convenience stores and people that were not the service staff of our hotel. Sure, my presence still left the disgustingly acrid taste of imperialist bullshit in my mouth, but it wasn’t nearly as overpoweringly awful as it had been at the IberoStar Quetzal.

Of course, we dove. Lots. I dove eight dives, my father dove seven, my sister dove six, and my mother dove a couple of dives without us to refresh her certification, and then she dove five dives with us to see stuff. There were amazing sights to be seen; at one location, we went through probably four or five swim-throughs, where we [theoretically] hovered just above the sand and just under the coral ceiling; at another location, we dropped down the side of a wall that just kept going into what our divemaster [Juan] called The Deep Blue; at another, we coasted along on a brisk current over sandflats, swimming against the current to stay in front of coral formations and look for seahorses [no luck]. I’m tempted to say that the reef chains along Cozumel had more biodiversity than the reef chains along Puerta Venturas [the locale from which we launched our dives while we were in Playa del Carmen], but I can’t be certain that it wasn’t just that I was more comfortable with diving, and was able to pay more attention to the environs.

Between diving [and snorkeling!], we saw the following; a carpet of big-eye that was probably 120 square feet [minimum, no shit] scattered by a barracuda, barracuda [all over the place], a bearded fireworm, a pufferfish [deflated, which I did not attempt to change, despite my desire to do so], sharks [napping under a coral arch- so freaking cute], rays rays rays [including a really cute yellowish spotted one on a snorkeling outing], eels [I got a little coral burn from a wispy piece of coral while taking one's picture], huge schools of blue tangs and seargent majors, and big big grumpy lobsters. I was bummed out about not finding any seahorses, and was also kind of bummed that nobody else was really up for a night dive from the shore; apparently, just a stone’s throw out from the dive shop we used, living in the hurricane-caused wreckage of the shop’s former dock, is a cute octopus that I would’ve liked to see.

Other’n that, I spent some good surface intervals doing fun things. I got slightly-sunburned thigh-tops, which was unfortunate [but not as unfortunate as my extremely-sunburned feet-tops from earlier in the summer]. I went and traipsed around San Gervasio with my father on switch-roommies-day [halfway through the trip, we spent a day with one of our not-roommies to give ourselves breaks from our roommies], and then we went to el Museo de la Isla de Cozumel and dallied there until it closed [and I learned that there isn't a very good idiomatic translation for "Achilles' Heel" in Spanish]. The snorkeling was a fun time that technically counted as a topside surface interval [since we weren't really at depth, except for very very short periods of time at very very shallow depths], and we followed that up with freaking parasailing.

“Parasailing,” my mother said on wobbly legs once we finally got back to shore, “is the sort of activity that I’ll do only once every coupla decades.” And I can understand why. After we’d all recovered our senses of stability, we figured out over lunch that we had all, at one point, thought about the same thing: what would I do if the line connecting me to the boat snapped? My thought most certainly would’ve gotten me killed; the most-likely-to-survive award went to Pops, who has Army Airborne training. Other than those morbid thoughts, the view was fantastic; I was winched out behind a boat on about 600 feet of rope, and got jerked about by the wind and the boat. I could see pretty muc the whole island; cruise ships docked near our diveshop and hotel, dive boats speeding along the coast to their next location, boats hovering together like flocks of gossiping birds, each waiting for their divers to surface so they can swoop in a pluck them up, the off-duty lighthouse. It was, for the large part, quite peaceful, much in the same way that diving is peaceful; it is near-silent [except for what becomes incidental white noise; regulator noises v. constant wind noises], isolating, and immersion in an element that people are not generally “supposed” to be immersed in [water v. air].

The day after parasailing, we re-immersed ourselves in the air [after a fashion] and landed much closer to home than we had been, and we drove ourselves back, enjoying the stretches stretches stretches of road that don’t terminate in turn-around-or-prepare-for-waterlogged-evacuation dichotomies. I re-acclimated to not speaking Spanish first, to not seeing people half in their wetsuits in convenience stores, to being once again read as ‘dyke’ [if not 'queer'] and potentially ‘genderqueer’.

Two relatively recent events surrounding the concept of “butch” identity have induced a bit of reflection for me. This is a bit long and rambly, folks. You’ve been warned.

The first event, or really string of events, started when Sinclair Sexsmith [the noted "kinky queer butch top" sexblogger behind Sugarbutch Chronicles] made and published a “100 Top Hot Butches” list. Initially, I thought that this was an amazing idea; after all, her intentions behind the project seemed well enough, and I agree that butches deserve more recognition of and esteem for their sexual desirability. Just a while after she posted the website, a lively debate flared up over her decision to include a number of transmen on the Top Hot Butches list. The flame war continued for another several days, with critical threads appearing on a number of bulletin boards and blogs. I’m not going to weigh in on this at length, except to point out that queers are used to spotting appropriation of our identities. Certainly, there are instances when we are less concerned. And sure, we may respond differently depending on who is doing the appropriating and the circumstances under which the appropriating is happening. Given everything I just said, I can see the issue/debate from both sides; I can see how Sinclair had honestly decent teleological justification, and I can see how hurtful her actions ended up being, deontologically.

The other encounter with “butchness” revolved around a fundraiser that a few wonderful individuals put on in a local gay bar to earn money for the first annual Butch Voices Conference,  which will happen somewhere in the Bay Area sometime next month, I think. Almost as soon as the fundraiser [called the Gender Blender Splendor Variety Show] was confirmed, several people came to me and asked me to perform with them in various pieces. I told them that certainly I would love to perform with them. It wasn’t until later on that I thought about the significance of 1) my willingness to perform for Butch Voices and 2) other peoples’ willingness to ask me to perform. While not all of the performers were butch-identified [the event, in fact, was emceed by a woman who staunchly identifies as femme], I felt as though people were willing to ask me to perform because they assumed that I identify as butch [a couple of people that I worked with confirmed such assumptions], and that performing in such a show would reinforce the commonly-held notion that I do, in fact, identify as butch.

Which is very funny to me. I don’t really consistently identify as butch. I am read visually quite frequently as a butch lesbian, because I don’t know how to project genderqueerness in a more readable fashion, and even if I did, society doesn’t know what to do with that alien gender-language and so would reduce it down to its more familiar counterpart, butch lesbianism. So, even though I don’t personally consistently label myself as “butch” [although I do don the identifier with some frequency], society [including queer society] sees fit to label me as such.

As you may know, dear reader, this does not perturb me. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; I’m not particularly concerned with how other people identify me. They are the ones who have to fit me into their paradigm [or chose not to fit me into it, which essentially labels me as a non-entity]. I ask that others respect the labels I chose for myself, and recognize that those labels can change. Ideally, I’d hope for compassion and sensitivity from others when it comes to the labels they choose for me. I’m still bemused by the labels people chose for me. My sister said it best, once. She said, to paraphrase, that although I’m genetically and phenotypically female, she can’t imagine why anyone calls me “girl” or “woman”. She pointed out that she even thought it was weird when our mother calls me either of those things, or when she refers to me as her daughter. “You seem,” my sister said to me, “like precisely the sort of person who would prefer being called spawn or offspring or even just child or kid. Or even better yet, who would prefer that she use your name.”

I understand, also, the levels of labeling. There are the initial snap-judgement labels dropped by us the instant we see someone; then there are more and more and more layers of labels that come with getting to know a person. Even those who’ve known me for a very little time will agree with Matt R., a co-director of a play I just worked on for two weeks [and about which I will blog at a later date]; I’m really faggy. I feel as though very few people would label me as “faggy” based on physical appearance alone, but that a lot of people who fall beyond good/close-acquaintance on my friendship continuum would.

I’m sorry if this one doesn’t quite make sense, folks. It made sense in my head, but I always feel as though these identity ramblings don’t quite transfer from my brain to other media so well.

Today, I spent several hours at a local Nature Preserve and pool. Admittance is limited, since space in the park near the pool is extremely limited. Our group got there shortly after the park opened, paid our way in, and parked. We all geared up and made the quarter-mile steep-grade trek down to the pool.

We were there to celebrate the occasion of two birthdays that both fall somewhat around today’s date. I had met most of the individuals attending before, because we all [I'm pretty sure] attended the same small liberal arts college. Two of the coordinators of the event know about my self-identification as genderqueer, but opt to use female pronouns with me [which, as I have mentioned before, I am not perturbed by], and they tend not to refer to me as “woman” or “girl”. I’m pretty sure that the rest of the group knew of my from my various activisty roles on campus, but are unaware of my gender identity. They didn’t strike me as the sort of people who would care, really. Not in a bad way, but in an ambivalent way akin to how the two coordinators already felt. In an “isn’t-that-sweet-will-you-please-just-finish-that-story-you-were-telling” or “great-yeah-whatever-this-doesn’t-have-any-bearing-on-your-grilling-skills” sort of way.

The people who were most concerned with my gender were other people at the park. And, as is usually the case, people who were not me seemed more concerned with my biological gender than with my cultural gender or gender identity. [But what can we expect, when others seem to conflate the two, yeah?] I felt eyes on me at several points throughout the day; curious eyes crawling over me while I napped in the shade, while I bobbed around in the water, while I scuttled along the trails.

Fortunately, there only seemed to be curiosity today. It could have been worse. Aquatic situations are easily some of the most awkward for me; there is not really such thing as a gender-neutral or unisex swimsuit. Even lots of wetsuits are gendered, which is frustrating. [What is also frustrating is that neither men's nor women's wetsuits fit me, but is that really all that shocking? Oh wait no.] I had thought about going bound, and just wearing a rashguard over my binder, along with some quick-dry workout shorts. Then I realized that I would swelter to death in the Texas heat before we even got to the preserve, so I opted for the swimsuit with shorts and an a-frame.

So, I finally decided to get in the water. I love swimming, and I love lolling around in the water, but I don’t like doing that for hours and hours and hours unless I have a proper floaty, and am preferably not surrounded by scores of strangers. I flipped around, and swam around, and waded around, and enjoyed my little water-rat self stupid. I held my breath lots, and felt the amazing sensation of submersion [there's a reason I really like SCUBA, folks]. Eventually my compatriots returned to the water from a lunch-break, and I stood around in a circle chatting idly with them. [One of them is willing to loan me Buffy DVDs, so that I can stop watching the show on my laptop, which runs hot, loud, and slow. Excited!] At some point, we all shared a we-are-getting-a-bit-tired-of-this look and continued to come to consensus that yes, we should leave on the soonish side of the future continuum, using only eye contact. I dunked myself underwater for the last time, popped up, and immediately heard a child scream “It’s a girl! I told you!” to someone near them. I made quick eye contact with one of my coordinator friends, trying to ascertain that she heard it too and that I wasn’t just having more elaborate auditory hallucinations*. It was not, in fact, an auditory hallucination.

I think that several months ago, this sort of exclamation would have frustrated me more than it does now. I guess I’m just getting better at managing my expectations and honoring different interpretations of reality simultaneously or something? I mean, I understand how people [especially children; I didn't think to investigate the source of the exclamation, because I'm a goober] could be confused by my existence; short hair, wearing what look like swim trunks, but also a women’s swimsuit, but with some ambiguity in body shape [definitely breasts, but also musculature that could be confusing to someone who associates such development with masculinity]. Then, if I take into account the fact that we’re encouraged by our culture to conflate biological gender and social gender [or gender identity/performance or whatever], I can understand why folks are really confused. I just wish that I could sit down with people who are confused, one by one, and explain the difference between the types of gender to their understanding.

*Everyone at this gathering knows me first and foremost by Liz  [why my parents didn't just give me the nickname as my name totally baffles me, since they never really used the full version of my name, ever] and with female pronouns. Several of the attendees know about my drag activities, and one of them even managed to remember my king/male name.

Given that, I heard my king name like 304837 times while I was at this place. I’m prone to auditory hallucinations involving “Liz” as-is; folks can speculate all day as to why that is, I don’t particularly care. Fact of the matter is, that when I am around large groups of people, I tend to hear my name lots when it isn’t being said, and then manage to not hear it when it is being said. This has never happened to me with Eli [well, not the first part at least- I'm pretty sure I zone out enough around the troupe to require repetition of my name], especially not in a context pretty much entirely devoid of anyone who would know to call me that.

planes fly overhead | birds chatter breeze blows | anticipation

Life has been good to me, as of late.

The job search is still looking a bit dismal, though there are possibilities and tantalizing maybes and all sorts of almost half-realized plans just out of my grasp. My applications have largely ground to a halt; I’m down to perhaps an application a week as I try to wait patiently for other people to field the balls that are in their court. However, as people know, I am not the best at patience, but I promise promise promise that I’m working on it [at least with regards to the job hunt].

I’ve been hanging out with a totally rad group of queers that largely consists of people I’ve met through KNT, The Queertastiks, and Femme Mafia [the connective fiber between the three being  Cherry Poppins]. I think that I’ve been asked which name or pronoun set I prefer more times in the past two weeks than I have in my entire life, and it is simultaneously the most wonderful and frustrating thing ever. It is wonderful because people care. I mean, they genuinely care, and are willing to accommodate me. It is frustrating in that I don’t know how I want to be accommodated, is all. Female  pronouns don’t feel right, but male pronouns don’t feel particularly right, either. Gender-neutral pronouns are my favorite in that they are the least-uncomfortable, but I understand that some folks either don’t like or can’t handle using gender-neutral pronouns. And I understand that. I understand that some [my family] will never use anything other than female pronouns, and that some others may never use anything other than male pronouns, because that is easier for them.

I have taken a posture regarding my name and pronouns that I’m sure many see as a cop-out. I see it as staying in-line with my affinity for ambivalence and for acknowledging the [partial?] construction of reality by each individual for each individual. I find it to be quite fitting, if at times infuriating. So far it has been going well, especially as it manages my expectations regarding individuals’ actions, and keeps me from getting frustrated or upset relatively effectively. It combines my favorite M3 metaphysical recognition of the whole person with my subscription to Meredith O.’s idea of Level Five Thinking, to so-far-fantastic effect.

Everything else is looking kind of exciting, too. Possibilities for the nearish future are opening up. There’s a chance that I’ll end up working on some more jank-ass Boalian theatre of the oppressed, which I didn’t realize that I’d miss as much as I do. There’s an invitation to enter a whole new realm of fandorkery. [Alright, there's always been the invitation, but now there's a chance I'll actually take it up.] There’re opportunities for new interactions with new people. There’re opportunities to try new things and challenge myself and grow and learn and communicate and all that jazz. And I’m excited.

…I just need a job so that I can take advantage of some of these other opportunities without going terribly broke.