Human Thing

Human Thing, The Be Good Tanyas

Yer a human thing
Who yah think that you're foolin”
Yer not foolin”, not foolin' me
Yer a human thing
Yer so busy frontin'
Confusin” courage and acting
Move me
Move me
Could it really be so wrong
To let somebody, somebody see.
Move me
Move me
A girl can keep it together
Come on now, you know you we'll take the weather
Come on now, you know we love your weather
You got roots cannot be torn from under
Won't you shake it like you've never done before
You've got roots cannot be torn from under
Won't you shake it like you've never done before
You're a human thing


--

sex and the city circa season four...

So I am having a Carrie Bradshaw moment. Of course I have just gotten back from going out and while I could never afford the clothing that she wears while I sit here in my underwear and tank top (minus black bra-although that would be so poetic) I feel that my skinny jeans, black and red checked shirt, and grey ankle boots have done me justice tonight. But I am thinking about more than that. And I have to write ths before I can write the essay I want to write for the nca convention with my professo. I mean it is a challenge to write when other things are on one's brain. I am thinking about all the fucking shit my friends are going through and while I wouldn't write their experiences here I will say that I feel in this month alone I have been affected by friends than maybe ever before in my life. And I am writing about them mostly because I see how fucked up things are and how I really have it pretty simple. Simple enough to have these post-feminist inklings of romanticizing Carrie Bradshaw's life and desiring it for my own. But I am thinking of this episode called the Good Fight where Carrie moves in with Aidan and the SSB (Secret Single Behavior) and how the whole issue of moving in with someone and the meeting of needs. Carrie is so frustrated by Aidan's taking over of her space and his desire for her to give away some of her precious things, clothes, shoes etc. Right so Carrie talks about her desire to have her own space her own time to decompress, to be her own person. In the end she tells Aidan of his desires and he is so comfortable with it, he allows her to go into the bedroom and engage he SSB and once she is there she realizes it isn't what she wants. Once her needs are met then she finds they don't take the precedent any longer. While I find this sort of simplistic I do think that there is some truth to the words.

So I am trying this new thing called honesty and fidelity-two things that are a challenge for me, as any of you out there know me know. I don't believe in monogamy as an instituted sexual practice, however, I wouldn't consider myself polyamorous because I don't engage relationships other than sexual outside my primary relationship. And I truly believe that we do things-stupid things when we feel our needs aren't being met to our satisfaction. So what happens when one's needs are met? what happens when someone says ok, we won't be monogamous-and really means it. "I don't care if you sleep with someone it's just sex, I know you'll come home to me and that's fine." To an extent I find it easier to be more faithful, to really give relationships a shot and to give them what they are due-instead of the immature reactions I have sported in the past when someone says ok take your non-normative views, hold them close, I respect them. I respect how you live and how you challenge me to live. Of course in the middle of all of this I hear some beautiful Sade music playing in the background, "Oh when you're low I'll be there, hold you tight to me to me now." And I think about needs and what it means to have needs and to have needs met. To have an hour or more to watch x-files totally alone in my bed even though she my be in the next room cooking or doing something to take care of me. It;s strange my needs-which are often conflated with my wants, but to me some of my wants are needs as white and privileged as that may sound. So maybe when you feel happy, and not just happy but content in this really blissful way then maybe it is easier to be honest and faithful-to achieve the goals one has set for themself.

And by the way I think Carrie chose the wrong person in the end. I think she should have chosen Aidan because he really loved her and it wasn't just a sexual lustful connection. It was true, deep, and meaningful. While she and Big have always had this thing-is it fair to keep giving someone chance and chance again when all they want to do is hurt you and leave you questioning who you are. "when you're lost and you're alone and you cant get back again
i will find you darling and i will bring you home..." right so how do we deal with the balance of need and desire. And maybe we deal by choosing the person who is in some ways toxic because they do make us challenge, and because they don't automatically meet needs But maybe just maybe we choose what is simple because in some ways that is queer-when everything else is a challenge to have someone to cook you dinner, pack your lunch, and listen toyour dumb stories may be more queer than trying to fight an uphill political battle to end the institution of marriage. Maybe we rewrite the narrative where we end happy (as happy as we can be) instead of traumatized, hurt, and engaged in a powerful debate.

"That's the thing about needs, sometimes when you get them met you don't need them anymore."

"you think id leave you down when you're down on your knees i wouldn't do that" ahhh that lovely Sade.

The story of my life

I was going to post a song...

then i forgot what it was. it's ok i should be reading anyway.

from my performat-i-vity blog: Forgiveness

Precursor: This may seem like it is only in relationship to romantic love but I write it as a way to demonstrate my queer relationships with say my father, my mother, my friends, my high school experience, those who have sexually assaulted me-there are several to whom this post refers. But it also has to do with romantic love-are things easier because they are easy?
--
I have been thinking about forgiveness and I heard this song by edie carey called bonfire or something and in it she sings that snow and weather can put out any fire - like there is always reconcilliation after pain and fighting.

I do not believe in the sort of forgiveness propogated by the church that you need to forgive in order to absolve oneself and to give oneself peace. Sometimes I think that there are some things that cannot be forgiven some traumas that one cannot absolve themselves even as a victim or survivor as some people say.

But I am wondering how easy is it to forgive? How can we let go of things that hurt us so badly and what about the people that hurt us. Especially without closure when bandaids have been ripped off without the proper precautions of making sure the wound was properly healed. I'm sure this has larger implications in the world but I don't want to think about them now. I just think sometimes we hurt others and others hurt us and how do we forgive when there is so much pain and hurt. Layers upon layers of hurting constant hurting that may be abuse but may be even deeper than abuse what if that is the way we are as a human the way we have learned to be?

And can we ever go back to the way things were? Obviously not but what if we could? Before we realized how much hurt we were enduring and creating? Would my dad never have talked to reporters, would my mother have never taken money that wasn't hers? How do we really lean to trust after someone has broken that-killed it to an extent.


I believe in letting go and living in the moment but isn't that moment always shaped by our past our history our social positioning our culture and our physiology. And what do we have to give up to move on, our expectations, our friends, family even? What do we give up in ourselves in order to forgive especially when we can never forget?
--
So I edited out the other lyrics to that song because they were the wrong ones-if anyone knows where to find the right ones or if it is a different song let me know. The song I am talking about actually refers to a bonfire being able to melt the cold of winter. I take this as a metaphor for winter being hearts made cold through pain and bonfires easing the pain with forgiveness. By pouring flames onto the snow the ice can be melted.

year in review

Places I've Slept:
Estes Park, CO
a few places in Denver

Best Purchase: My grey ankle boot fer sure

Best Gift: My blackberry

Best Gift -- A necklace I received from India

Best Book:The Golden Compass Trilogy, and In a Queer Place and Time

Best Movie: X Files on DVD

Best Album: KBCO Studio C vol 20

Best Website: Twitter which, also happens to be the worst, or nataliedee so funny

Best Object: animate: My cat Hortense, inanimate-prolly my boots again

Best Transportation: Subaru Outback, you can sleep in it too

Best Meal: hmmm...indian food, or these delicious egg plant wroll-ups from the Tea House

Best Social Space: The Rock Inn, or the Med

Best Personal Space: Behind my house in the field clear view of Longs

Best Achievement: Three surgeries in six months and still being alive and in school and not having effed everything up in my life because of it

Life Additions: moving in with my gentleman caller. living in a cabin, our dog Indigo, my cat Hortense, a new MacBook, Twitter, prolly a few pounds, a newfound love for x-files, eating healthier, snow boots, hiking pants, long underwear, a humidifier, the desire to never bear children, candles, and some really great days in the subaru

argh-I'm always behind L Word Spoiler alert

In my disconnection from the world writing a paper on public deliberation, applying for the PhD program etc...I totally missed out on the whole L Word Jenny gets killed thing! OMG I must be the last person to know-seriously! So who did it? I think Niki or suicide didn't we all know Jenny's life would end tragically-oh the Opelia-esque poetry of it all.

--

yay school!

From natalee dee