To whom it may concern,

I will say the definite challenge is feeling as though I may have done something wrong. That I have been unfaithful. When what I care about most is not hurting, anyone else and also myself. I am sick of hurting other people because in the end I am the one who ends up the most hurt. And so I try to reconcile how I might be hurting you, when I actually do not even know you. And more importantly you do not know me.

And I need you to understand that I am trying to get over this to find some sort of reclamation of this us-ness, that does not include you. Some place that I can find both ease and discomfort and a space between that feels right, although I do not know exactly how to get there. Only that it cannot be worse than it was before-nothing can be worse than the burden of bearing someone else's pain, someone's pain who you have no investment in hauling around. Yet it is there, nagging. and maybe there is something to this that is important. Everything has meaning.

And it pains me that you do not want to be included. I cannot say why, except that it feels like some sort of judgment towards me. And again you do not know me. You do not know what I value, and whom I hold most dear. Preciousness, my dear, preciousness. Maybe I want you to see me for the monster I am not. I want to know you because sometimes I think we are so alike you and I. And maybe that's why we would never get along, we are actually too similar. Funny to hear that. You can never be too different or too similar. Have to fit just exactly in the middle.

Maybe I want to know you so that I stop disliking you. Because what I know of you, I am not too fond of, although, I think for the most part I do a good job keeping that to myself. And maybe when I see you, I see a little bit of myself. And I think maybe we could know that about each other and it would all be o.k. Because actually I hold you in a very high regard. I was willing to give it all up for you-to make sure you wouldn't lose what you hold most dear. Preciousness, my dear, preciousness.

So to whom it may concern. Please do not judge what you do not know. Please do not judge me. This has never been my burden to bear, but I do it because I have to think it is worth it somehow. I know I won't actually have the chance to ease your mind, to come clean about my part in all of this. But that is just it. I am clean. Not always, not even usually. But this time I am clean.

I am hoping maybe somehow you could actually take this into consideration as you paint this really ugly portrait of me.

Sincerely yours,

me

Sex and the City I Want Love

One of my favorite Carrie Bradshaw scenes and my favorite CB dress of all time:

Sweet Gypsy

Beautiful song...did they write this one or is it a cover?

Sweet Gypsy, Indigo Girls

Sweet gypsy blowing through my mind
And through my heart so full and empty
Well these days seem strange somehow
A billion years isn't what it appears to be

Now you tell me that you're losing hold of time
You can't seem to find your peace of mind
Well Im so far away and Im trying to see you through
I can't help but feel I may be losing you

Should I let you go
For your own sake
Should I hold you close
For mine

Anyway I love you and I couldnt be more sure
These tears cry out please don't let go
Oh but their words
They keep haunting me

You can't build your life around a dream
Well it's too late
Now my world is you
There's nothing they could say or do

Well I remember the first time that I fell
I swear I never thought I'd make it up again
Ive been flying on the wings of your love
And Im not getting down just to fall again

Don't it seem like the road is oh so long
Well everybodys moving out
And were staying on
In this absurdity

Now you don't let go of me
Im begging you
Now you don't let go of me

Anyway I love you

2 great Indigo Girls Songs

This is an amazing song and can be found at the end of Faye Tucker on "Come on Now Social."

I highly recommend it.

Philosophy of Loss, Indigo Girls

Welcome to why the church has died
In the heart of the exiled in the kingdom of hate
Who owns the land & keeps the commands
And marries itself to the state
Modern scribes write in Jesus Christ

Everyone is free

And the doors open wide to all straight men & women
But they are not open to me
And who is teaching kids to be soldiers
To be marked by a plain white cross
And we kill just a little to save a lot more

The philosophy of loss
There are a few who would be true out of love
And love is hard

And don't think that our hands haven't shoveled the dirt
Over their central American graveyards
Doctors & witch hunters stripped you bare
Left you nothing for your earthly sins
Yeah but who made this noise just a bunch of boys
And the one with the most toys wins
Who is teaching kids to be gamblers
Life is a coin toss
And of course what you give up is what you gain

The philosophy of loss

Whatever has happened to anyone else
Could happen to you & to me
And the end of my youth was the possible truth
That it all happens randomly
Who is teaching kids to be leaders
and the way that it is meant to be
the philosophy of loss

Second is a song that I came by through a friend in my undergrad and grad program. It's called Life's So Strange and is another very interesting song that I think was on a cd burned from Kazzaa(sp?) or Napster. Oh remember those lovely days. I do...

Cold black coffee, incessant stream of cars

Cigarette ash lies sprinkled like a fistful of grey stars

Yesterday it rained silver rainbows on the ground
Today the rain's just water - it won't stop from falling down.
I get weary waiting for my muse
But in between the times she comes
I still have to tie my shoes
And get on with my day
There are mornings when I'm with (?)
And there are days I have to take the bus.
Life's so rich...
Life's so empty...
Secret rendezvous, long distance from a phone booth
Like two players in a mystery straight out of our youth
Well I'm finding that dramatics have lost their old appeal
I play the part of stoic lover, but I'm not sure how I feel
I get discouraged waiting for the world
To understand this love affair
To understand the girl
There are mornings when Amelia's right beside me
The next thing I know, I taste the salt of the sea.
Life's so rich...
Life's so empty...
Cold black coffee, incessant stream of cars
Cigarette ash lies sprinkled like a fistful of grey stars
Yesterday it rained silver rainbows on the ground
Today the rain's just water - it won't stop from falling down.
As I grow weary, I'm waiting for the world
To understand this love affair
To understand the girl
There are mornings when Amelia's right beside me
The next thing I know, I taste the salt of the sea.
Life's so rich...
Life's so empty...
Life's so strange

Performance West

So I will be performing at Performance West's Microfringe Festival this April. Yay!!

Check it out

http://performancewest.wordpress.com/about/

thank you rachel maddow

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The Bay Area

I have been trying to find inspiration. Lately this has been hard to come by. But I spent a few days in the Bay Area in California and was endowed with a renewed sense of hope. I do not know why I feel at home there--just that I do (maybe there is something about it's affect on me.) I am overcome with feelings of joy and really I have only been there three times in my life. I think at least for the last two I have been seeing people that I really love--people that make me remember what friendship in its simplest and most complex form can look and feel like.

What my trip really made me contemplate was the idea of friendship, and not necessarily in an interpersonal way, but in a cultural and often public form of friendship. What does it mean to perform the identity of friend? Does that look different depending on who you are around or speaking with at the moment? What is my role as a friend when my friend is hurting and in pain? Sick, emotionally, psychologically, physically, spiritually? How does my performance of friendship with certain friends affect my relationships with other friends, with lovers, parents, and or even pets?

How do friendships exist and maintain themselves when they began within a group, but when that group does not look, act, or even feel the same.

"Kathryn, it wasn't just you who lost it all in the fire, we all lost everything," I was recently reminded. In this moment this speech-act released me. I can't explain it but it made me able to let go of some of the personal hurt I had been experiencing because of things that had happened in my past. As much as I have tried to make losing my previous life about me, I am beginning to realize how far this is from the reality of the situation. Maybe it is my current understanding of the theory of affect, but I realize how public my feelings are, how public they have always been. It's not about me, or at least not just about me.

It's about cultures I have been a part of and helped to create. It is about the necessity it took to create them (whether that need was True doesn't matter, it was perceived as necessary). It is about people I have hurt in order to create those cultures to exclude them from participating in these cultures, it is about hurting people within those public cultures. It is about the "bad blood" that runs through those cultures, the blood that hurts to think about yet can never be forgotten.

While those cultures may seem to be more private or hidden (or are attempted to be kept this way,) they are always on display. The bodies that make up these cultures are often fetishized, made into a spectacle, and mostly cannot remain completely hidden. This is an affect of power on cultures, those in power have the ability to make those attempting to remain private, publicized, and publicized in a way that is often demeaning to the culture in question.

I don't want to become super theoretical here, I have to save that for my "scholarly projects," but it is valuable to think of friendship as public, to think of culture as public, and to think of the public feelings that help create and maintain cultures.

And I will continue to contemplate what it means to perform the role of friend. Does this mean listening to someone cry on the phone? Does this mean taking someone to the hospital? Or having an in depth conversation about gender? Does it mean reflexively looking at oneself to see one's flaws because a friend has suggested it? Does it mean letting go of a friend when your time together has ended? Does it mean forgiveness? What does performing "good friend" look like? And what does it mean to not perform adequately and commit to the performance of "bad friend?"

I don't have answers. I never have answers.