Keeping it on the up and up

So, yes, after two weeks to the day+1, I am writing about break ups. This is not to defame ANYONE, really it isn't. But I feel like I have had this conversation with people a lot over the past two weeks, and I want to write about it. In a Carrie Bradshaw-esque moment (and yes, I have been religiously watching season 2) I ask: when is it the friends' responsibility to tell you what the fuck your significant other may or may not be doing with someone else when you are not around? I preface this with a caveat, which is, not all relationships are monogamous(2 people in a loving committed hetero/homo normative relationship), I don't even pretend to think that this is a norm for everyone, but if you have established monogamous norms, for your relationship, and especially if mutual friends are involved, do they have a responsibility to divulge when a little "sunthin sunthin" is happening to your unsuspecting mind?

When having these conversations, I have received varied response: some people not wanting to get involved in the private relationships of others; others feel a sense of gratitude when someone told them; while others do not tell out of more loyalty to one person over the other; while yet another feels the need to tell out of necessity for authentic community building. These are just a few of the responses, and honestly, I cannot say I have ever officially been put in a situation, although I tend to make my speculations about these things known. But why do I do this?

Because to me, no matter how hard you try to keep your relationship private, relationships are always public. Your friends/family/strangers on the street help build and maintain healthy functioning relationships. So these folks know many of the interworkings (although not all, and many would deny their involvement), especially if and when you fight in front of them, but relationships are public for many reasons. To me this is because relationships build off of affective ties to one another, impulses of relationality that drive people together or apart. So this complicates things right? I mean if relationships are public, then when you begin to form new relationships with people, the energy-the chemistry-the affective impulse becomes recognizable, even if you are pretending it is not there. Now, this is something people who are closer to the relationship, like friends and family can pretend not to detect, but affect is PUBLIC, so it is there. To me this also means, that the relationship becomes open for some sort of public consumption/judgement and thus, it is free reign for people to talk about, especially to the other person who is in the relationship. So once these affective ties are noticed, is there any responsibility for these outside folks to intervene.

Traditional marriage values would say yes. At weddings they always ask the crowd/audience/churchy folks if they will support the relationship that is being sanctioned by the state and often the church. While, I am not for these rigid confines of religion, there is something to be said about making relationships public. There are also problematics with this, only some people are allowed to make the relations public while others are not, or because certain relationships are more valued than others. So I don't want to fall on this faulty logic outright but, it seems a smart way to go to have those around you who care about you, keeping your best interest at heart. And this shouldn't have to be achieved through a wedding or marriage either.

Of course, there are moral and ethical implications and no one really likes being the center of conflict or controversy. But I'm gonna go ahead and throw this out there. Even if there are mutual friends, PICK A SIDE! Of course this reinforces a binary of one or the other and isn't as transgressive as many of my queer political leanings would normally entail, but when a break-up happens, (and only temporarily perhaps) PICK A SIDE!

My advisor's signature line of her e-mail reads, "Refusal to take a moral stand is itself a powerful statement of one's moral position" (Dwight Conquergood). And in the sense of break-ups there should be no less commitment to taking a stand for one side or the other. I am not saying it needs to be that way forever, but the dumb thing is, people choose sides all the time and then say they are not choosing those sides. So just be honest: You knew the other person longer, you don't like the one who was a cheater pants, you are more loyal, whatever...but pick a side. It's ok, in this white civil world to sometimes take a stand and break those stupid norms. Plus, the person who was broken up with, probably needs some friends who hate the dumper-at least for a minute. Be that friend/family member and then let the dumpee decide when you can stop the hating and start the reloving. If you are the dumper, you should recognize that this is o.k. for the time being. Sometimes friendship isn't a free for all and you have to take one for the team. That's what a good friend would do...

Holcomb County

2:13. Alarm set. Magistrate from Holcomb county. Always odd. Piece of you that lingers. Pressing, strung so tight. Nothing slips. Aromatage. Should be a word. Dry smells that stay. Yellow in you.

I stopped tonight to look at the moon. Bright, fresh night, wound up. I want to be wound with that darkness, but light occludes my desire, and rising, I am swept, a rush of breath. Flesh dances cold, prickling. Falling back, landing so softly in this, my place, my home. Looks like the robbers have been there, frames leaving sections of discolored wall. I am the robber.

Magistrate from Holcomb county is coming. Baptize me, performing a rich seance to rid me of spirits, that look like someone else's face. Her hands laid upon you, with humility, almost beautiful. To see you happy and excited. I press my palm into your stomach, flesh already indented, imprinted. Rest hands on my belly, place above the pubic bone, filling it, expand with night.

I stop and look at the moon. Magistrate from Holcomb county is coming.

Blessings upon you. And also with you.

Teaching...the most challenging thing I have even done

I am writing this. I should be working. My jobs in very particular order:

1.) Research-I am here to be a researcher and a student
2.) Teaching-I am supposed to be helping to co-construct knowledge with a whole bunch of 18-23 year olds about intercultural communication

There are probably jobs 3 and 4, but I want to focus on my negotiation with 1 and 2.

I should be working. I have two short papers due next week. I should be doing job one, 70% of the time and job two, 25%-30% of the time. Let alone making time for myself. I won't even talk about that negotiation.

I should be researching. But I am reading to teach tomorrow. When you have others relying on you it is much harder to only allow them 25% of your life. Especially when reading, grading, and discussing their shit seems to be much more important in my everyday than does my research.

I should be, but I'm not.

Tuesday, a conversation broke out in my classroom about ideologies about gender and sports culture. "Women's sports are just not as entertaining. They are not full-body contact." "Women's bodies just happen to be more frail than men's bodies so they could get really hurt playing a full contact sport." "Well women get their hair done and nails done and those things don't go with playing sports."

I look around the room. I see her, my one white lesbian student looking stunned, my two female students of color, and my one white female student, their faces hanging low. Silenced again.

Rapid-fire memories of my own place in classes like this. Classes where I felt silenced, when women feel silenced, devalued. I remember professors who have allowed this to continue and my favorite professors who have called those students out.

Red flush rises.

"I have to be really honest, Sam, That was really offensive. In fact you really offended me."

Some relief on stark faces. Those faces curl in a smile.

A teachable moment, maybe not handled in the best way. Not a long-term solution. That's ok. I stand by my choice. Stand as an ally to my female students.

"I think that when you say that it reinforces ideologies of gender that say men are stronger, and women are weak," Clea speaks quietly.

A teachable moment.

Maybe it got through to someone.

How can I not take this into my everyday? Where else can I put it, but in my heart, head, body. Consume flesh with flesh. An eros of teaching/teacher/taught. As in little separation of student and teacher, because I am always being taught by teachers who are my students.

I should get back to my number one job. To be a researcher, a student. But how can I be a researcher without thinking about teaching tomorrow? More on culture, power, and identity.

Triage.

Degrassi:The Boiling Point:

Yeah! Degrassi has finally gotten back to well at least a place of pseudo-going there! Again yeah!

I am mainly writing because I think it is very interesting that Degrassi decided to choose a transgendered teenaged storyline. It is about time. There are always gay and lesbian characters on television and even teeny-bopper t.v. shows! But finally somebody went there portraying some of the realities of a transgendered teenager.

What I liked about the storyline the most is that in the beginning when we first meet Adam, he is not introduced as transgendered, but as just another dude trying to fit in at Degrassi. I would say that it is definitely somewhat obvious that Adam is the trans character, but at least they do not automatically assert his storyline in a one-dimensional way.

When they do finally do explore Adam's storyline I think they did a pretty decent job. In the episode, "My body is a Cage" they show Adam binding breasts, and the problems that arise in families trying to deal with this new "coming-out." I also like that they show Adam flirting with Bianca, because at some point he is going to need to date someone, so as to not be asexualized, since none of the other characters are. Even the gay ones get dates and smooches! I however, detest Bianca's homophobic/transphobic attitude upon finding out that Adam is a transman.

The other thing I like about it, is Adam's extremely supportive brother, Drew. I didn't realize they were related until these episodes when upon finding out that Adam is harassed, Drew tries to fight the a-holes that did the beating. The rest of his family is also pretty supportive at the end with the whole burn situation at the end.

What I was not a big fan of-his mom's reaction to introducing Adam to grandma. Forcing him to choose to arrive at dinner with granny as Gracie was honestly something of cognitive dissonance. But at least the mom sort of comes around in the end.

Looking forward to seeing more of Adam's character development, which they started doing more of even just at the end of the season. The whole disaster with Fritz or whatever his name is at the end, the fight club stuff, all of that adding to the complexity of what it means to occupy the subject position of trans.

August 27: The day that does not exist

Drinking seven chakra tea. Hoping to press flesh into earth, wrap arms around ugly. Smell of horse shit and dandelions. I lock my mouth to dirt, bite a chunk. Move my hand between stomach and ground feeling rhythmic pulsations, while try to spit mud through the small space in front teeth. In the past month I have been called both an Empath and a Wordsmith. They are not mutually exclusive but indicative of one another.
--
Two years ago a bug infested couch by ashen fire pit, tears soaking chrysanthemums bright red. Dust drizzles spiked peaks, floating softly above purpling night.

Screaming at that bitch who tells me Obama is going to let Russians invade. Her hands, my hands, my grandmother's hands are a blur. Held it tight. "It's ok to leave grandma. We'll be fine." "I love you grandma." "Fuck you!" "Get away from me!" Ran up the street to my house. "Just don't leave me. Do not leave me. Ever." "Ok," she said. We sat and talked about dust forever that night. How I can see it. How I talk to animals, birds and dogs mostly. I wanted her hands inked on my body, never found the right spot. Sat for hours while she held me, into cold that turns hot with exhale.

One year ago to the day. His toxic-waste dump of a body slumped over in the bed. "He went to keep your grandmother company." "She was telling him to come to her." Daydreams of adults who need to hear childlike fantasies in order to feel better. I talked with her the night before asked her to keep him safe so he wouldn't be scared. He didn't want to die. Wasn't ready for the mess he left. The basement shakes with my mother's sobs. What the fuck are we gonna do now? Funerals, eulogies, to honor a memory. Someone loved. Someone despised. Doesn't matter now. We just honor.

A year later and the money is gone. Not a penny left. Another failed investment. Spent every last penny of the IRA, throwing it at a wing joint. Maybe the building was cursed, or maybe the slumlord was a 75 year-old lady, who refused to fix the broken sewer line. Now they had a beautifully remodeled building they didn’t own, and a backed up grease trap, from raw sewage left to rot pipes. He had left them a mess.
--
Some reflections that I may have written before but feel necessary to repost again.


My great grandmother and step-father died the same day a year apart exactly. August 27. I pretend this day does not exist, cross it off calendars with black permanent pen. I was asked to both write and deliver eulogies at both funerals, the last pieces of significance for me. I didn’t want to unveil anything else, afraid of being haunted by memories. It is recommended I create an alter, acquire a marigold skull, light candles, burn incense, work through loss. I wonder what doing all of this in combination with writing could reveal. A divinatory moment about profound loss I suppose.

I have been thinking a lot about witnessing the death of the other and not witnessing one’s
own death. Laying in bed, encouraging last breaths, holding bruised hands, it is hard to separate myself from the isolation of death. Death of language. I witness the demise of the other, am forced into writing and performing it in various ways, simultaneously feeling as though I am staging my mortality. In writing life I always feel I am writing death, writing without witnessing the ultimate mystery.

“What kind of seer do you want to be?” The kind who sees ugliness and beauty, who sees both the expected and unexpected, desiring to bridge them on a page and a stage. I have been perplexed by the interaction with “the leaf” and the “photo of the leaf.” It comes down to hermeneutics, the brain as part of the body still interprets even if faced with “the physical leaf.” As we see a “physical leaf,” as language users L-E-A-F enters the mind as a representative. This is mediated also. Skin wraps muscles, blood, and tissue still implicated, interpretation still exercised. Differently, with no less validity. They provide different experiences, but no less authentic. My writing has become a process of seeing and interpreting in varying ways, but never able to leave my body behind.

I have been told to put anger and emotion into writing. When trauma occurs writing ceases. Maybe that is my greatest weakness. I have not been able to write when distressed. Retreating, I do not write, not even my blog, let alone something critical or creative. I need ways to exist with ghosts and scars. I am not sure how to do this yet?
--
Postlude

I have been trying to write my emotion. This is just a taste. I wish I had something more significant than an attempt. But for now it is what I have. I will continue to struggle and process ways of dealing with the deaths of two people I loved very very much. I think writing at all is my attempt to be closer to where they are. To deal with death, instead of run from it. For now I have chakra tea, beads, and a stone. I pray that tomorrow comes and goes and that all I need is Shiraz and roses to survive.

Summer of Books: Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Ah the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo this summer's Harry Potter, but with "dark subject matter." I think I am quoting the evening news on this. I wasn't going to read it simply because it is popular, and I have an aversion to most popular things at first. But after seeing the book on the news I decided maybe I should read it.

I am not going to write what the book is about too much, it is an International Best-Seller. Read the NYT review for goodness sake. But for people who were wondering, I thought that for a mystery novel, it was pretty good. A more intense, articulate, social commentary, type of mystery, crime novel. It is well thought-out, although, admittedly I guessed the ending. Well, not all of it. It is well-written and at almost six hundred pages, there's a lot of pretty good writing to read. It isn't a fast-mover, but it gets page-turnery as it moves along.

My favorite this is that the main anti/protagonist, Lisbeth Salander, well, she kicks ass. And she sleeps with women. At least she slept with one woman briefly in the first book, but does not consider herself bi-sexual as media outlets have portrayed her.

If you are not a big thriller, mystery, best-sellery, type person, then this will probably not be your cup of tea.

I did not find it too horrifying or graphic? Not really. But I watch Dexter, and Bones, and Law and Order, and have read a bunch of pretty cheesy mystery novels, with content that is more haunting. I hear that the series gets darker, and I have purchased the second book, and having read the preface/first chapter from the end of GWtDT it appears a bit creepier. But as a friend told me, "Kathryn, you are de-sensitized." So don't take my word on the creepy/dark factor.

Not-So-Guilty-Pleasure: Bones: Making it Look Super Cool to have a PhD

So I am not going to write a ton about this show. It has been on for five seasons now, but I just recently started watching it because it was recommended to me by...Netflix! This is based on my preferences for crime drama shows. While composing my syllabus, I find it necessary to keep myself entertained by putting this on for background noise. What I love about this show: It makes getting a PhD seem so so so cool!!

The main character Dr. Temperance Brennen is a forensic anthropologist who works for the Jeffersonian in Washington D.C., helping the FBI, specifically agent Seeley Booth, solve crime through analysis of you guessed it: Bones! Bones serves as a double entendre, as it also serves as a pet name for Brennan by Booth. In this show they use state-of-the-art technology to recreate faces of fragmented skulls, bug/environmental analysis to determine time of death/burial/site of remains, and cause of death through specific weapons/objects etc. I mean it seems so far-fetched, but even Brennan's nerdy team of squints seem to be pretty neat-o! The squints have these totally unreal jobs (although supposedly the show is based on series creator Kathy Reichs' life) and Brennan gets to go out solving cases kicking some @$$ with her taekwondo or whatever..something she probably learned traveling and living with various indigenous groups throughout the world. Oh if getting a PhD was only so glamorous...

I must admit, I do not buy into all of the science i.e. Dr. Temperance Brennan and her team can tell someone's ethnic/racial origins based on their skeletal remains. For example Brennen can often make the distinction between someone of African decent from someone of one of the many white European decendants' ethnicity/race. Sounds like an updated version of racist Phrenology. At least she is not in charge of discerning who is smarter based on skull size, bumps, and brains. Brennen has learned so much about "others" by identifying their remains, as she says, "It's like I know them." Uh huh? I want to think it is that cool, but I must admit I think human life is more than abstractions made from various skeletal remains. I do think Brennen is coming to terms with this throughout the show.

The other thing I am not a huge fan of: Making Emily Deschanel appear socially awkward and only understanding of human contact and interaction as a means of biological drives and positivistic science. I feel that someone who went through graduate school with an anthropology degree, even physical anthropology, would probably not be quite this dense. And Deschanel doesn't play this well. Every once and awhile her misunderstanding of a certain colloquial or pop cultural icon/moment/saying seems faked. For example, she questions what the expression, "What's up buttercup" means? Her socially awkward (and poorly portrayed social awkwardness at that) Zack, must explain to her what this means. While I understand this is a.) supposed to make her seem out of touch with reality b.) appear more intelligent than everyone else c.) not concerned with trivialities like such expression it makes the character look like she must have been living under a rock for her ENTIRE life. And I do believe at some point she was a child (we see flashbacks of this) and probably did not always have her PhD and may have been exposed to life outside academia for say 18 years or so of life. Even without a PhD, someone could probably discern what such a statement would mean, or give it an educated guess. So far I like season two's lack of this incredibly stereotypical representation of "Dr."

Below I offer a really horrible you tube clip of the show. I recommend just watching it on the ol' Netflix watch it now if that is a choice for you.