the moon

After a night of music (the Shotgun Jazz Band, finishing their set with a soulful "Basin Street Blues"), my pal and I stopped on our walk home at a quickie mart for a snack.
I stood around outside. A young woman exited. Did you see the moon? she said, excited.
She pointed. I looked. The moon hung low in the sky like a chunk of nibbled cheese.
How had I not seen it?
A guy exited the store so we showed him too.
My pal and I enjoyed our snacks later on, standing on a rooftop balcony in the warm evening, looking at the moon in wonder.

f.l.u.id.i.t.y

Even as cynical, hard-hearted right-wingers ramp up their anti-gay and anti-trans attacks, some of my dearest pals are exploring their sexuality. Both have alluded to fluidity over the past months and years. Have sent me evocative, gorgeous photos and assumed feminine names.

One went through a time in their earliest phases of questioning of experiencing temporary blindness first thing every morning. They were unable to see for long minutes. It seemed so telling. The new name is also their mother’s.

The other assumed a feminine identity first in performance art, fully realizing a powerful, sexy shape with sculpted legs and a mop of tossable hair, but silent in each video, unable to find a voice they found palatable. I don’t know how to talk in her voice, they said, and this seemed deeply metaphorical. (They’d also put away one of her wigs, twisted it up tight and put it away in a drawer and couldn’t find it for a week.) On the apps as Her, they're taken aback at experiencing men’s vileness and capriciousness toward women.

I’m excited for my friends. Worried. Protective.

I know how wonderfully freeing it is to say yes to that inner voice, the one saying, go, do, be.

You.

its been a week yes it has

It's been a week of making moves. 

Of cleaning out storage containers, schlepping, driving, packing, re-packing, schlepping some more. Dodging hail and snow, a closed Hood Canal Bridge and cancelled ferry.

Of cancelling one internet provider and starting up with another and saying no to any and all sales pitches.

Of signing things, thinking up new passwords, nervously checking bank account balances and imagining balmier days ahead. 

In the meantime, this made me laugh (no sound the narration is cringe).

 

@blaaackone #monkey #monkeyingaround #fall #lol #clumsy #trickster #apple #friends #fruit #nature #green #caring #aww ♬ Coffee - XIANZ

And I love this series. "Take me to your favorite place and keep the meter running."

@keepthemeterrunning “ROMAN” PART 1 // Kareem’s hails a cab and takes a ride with Roman, a Russian who’s been driving a cab for 29 years. They travel to Queens to Romans favorite restaurant. COMMENT FOR PART TWO 🚕 🚖 created by @kareem.rahma  #nyc #newyork #taxi #cab #queens #russia #food #anthonybourdain #conversation ♬ original sound - KEEP THE METER RUNNING

 

a man hit me today and a man hit me on some other days too

A man hit me today. A stranger. Less than an hour ago.

I made it home and am sitting here feeling numb. Wondering why I’m not angry or crying.

Mostly I’m just weary. I don’t think of myself as more or less of a target than anyone else.

Walking with my sibling a couple months ago in another city, a man was weaving around on the sidewalk approaching us, then lunged and hit me in the leg. He kept going. I yelled something, I can’t remember what. He disappeared into the crowd. Then I felt outrage. Nauseated. Violated once again. Touched without my permission.

*

It happened in DC in September. I sat on a bus with family and a man was waiting to exit, talked to me, tried to shake my hand. I politely said I’d prefer not to and he began screaming at me, calling me a stuck-up bitch. My family did nothing. The bus driver. The other passengers. Everyone just sat. I was frozen in fear and anxiety until he stepped off the bus. Later I wept, feeling so unprotected, so undefended. So vulnerable.

*

Today, as I walked home from a bakery run, I dodged some squirrelly-looking characters on a corner, and took a right onto a busy street. Saw a man approaching on the sidewalk. It was nine a.m. Lots of cars. I heard a shout. Was it the man who was now just a few yards away? He wasn’t tall, but compact, young, fit-looking. Normally if I had even a sliver of worry I’d cross the street, but there was orange construction netting blocking the opposite sidewalk. So I kept going. It was broad daylight. Rainy.

As we passed each other I moved to the left, saw a baton in the man’s hand, thought Surely he wouldn’t hit me, instinctively brought the umbrella up to shield myself and WHACK, down came the baton. Hard. It rattled the umbrella. My elbow wavered.

I said nothing. Felt a surge of fear. Walked as fast as I could away from him. Do I call someone? Did the construction workers across the street see anything? I vowed long ago never to call the cops on a black man. But this one just struck me.

I looked back. He was walking away. Yelled something.

I hurried home.

Over the weekend at a support group a man was ranting about a woman who shared too much information, in his opinion, in another venue. She’s opening herself up to all kinds of pervs or weird men attacking her, he sputtered. I said, You’re entitled to your opinion but all a woman has to do to be attacked in this world is simply exist.

I don’t have a neat wrap-up or insight. These things happen and happen. No one is punished or even admonished except me for daring to exist, I guess. For daring to be in public, getting ice cream or walking to a bakery.

a momash gift

The longer I don’t post here, the worse I feel, and also the harder it is to post.

Bsp has been on the road. In Canada for a week, enjoying family, projects, and delicious vegetarian food (a mezze feast here, vegan pizza here and a Rajasthani thali here). And some non-veg pastries, the best of which were pillowy donuts filled with the lightest of cream fillings. Incredible dining.

*

One of the projects was typing up a handwritten journal we found in a box of family items retrieved from the trash heap in Kansas. A diary my mother wrote when she was 17 years old, a handful of double-sided lined loose papers that covers only half a year or so, but it’s an engagingly immediate piece of writing, of her crushes and friendships and desires, her frustrations with the nuns who educated her -- and alternately, her desire to join the sisters because romance and life sometimes felt so difficult. She adored music and listed bands and songs that touched her: The Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Animals.

I never knew this Mom of course. I feel such a nostalgia for her. How could this vivacious, witty, petty, scheming, big-hearted, fun-loving teenager know that just a year later she’d be unexpectedly pregnant with me, and hastily marrying the father, a guy who never even appears in the journal?

As we draw closer to nineteen years since her passing, I am beyond grateful for this gift of my mother.

boon boona

 Good morning one and all.

what I'm reading late 2022

We haven't talked about reading lately!
OMG!
I truly am that excited. I read some incredible (and so-so) books in the latter part of 2022, including:

Memoir
Scenes from My Life/Michael K Williams
--Tough to read knowing he passed away shortly after it was written. Honest and sadly unforgiving.
I was Better Last Night/Harvey Fierstein
--Also honest and unforgiving. I didn't know of his deep history in equality and AIDS work
The Family Outing/Jessi Hempel
--Brilliant. Outing is explored in so many facets and Hempel is a thoughtful, incisive writer
A Visible Man/Edward Enninful
--I wanted more. It was interesting but I felt EE was holding back and a little star-crossed.
Putting the Rabbit in the Hat/Brian Cox
--Same. It felt self-aggrandizing (and it KILLS me to say this about Logan mf Roy).

Nonfiction
Five Days at Memorial/Sheri Fink
--About the 5 days following Hurricane Katrina. It felt factual (?) and also frustrating because I'm guessing most of the problems Fink identifies have not been solved.
The Palace Papers/Tina Brown
--This felt like a hit piece on Megan Markle, unfortunately. Shame, TB.
Red Notice and Freezing Order/Bill Browder
--These cover the Magnitsky murder and surrounding political activities. Fascinating.

Fiction
Maud's Line/Margaret Verble
--Even though the ending is a little rom-com, this story of Native American love, life, striving and loss is terrific.
Our Missing Hearts/Celeste Ng
--Great writing and characters, as always, and the sad ending cannot be avoided.
Murder on the Red River/Marcie Rendon
--Another strong story featuring a Native American woman protagonist who is stubborn, does and says and sleeps with whomever she pleases (and fights back, if necessary).
Who is Vera Kelly/Rosalie Knecht
--I'm working my way through these and I adore detective VK. They remind me of the Sara Gran/Clair DeWitt detective stories only slyer and with greater depth.
Yellow Wife/Sadeqa Johnson
--Another thoroughly researched take on a tough setting, enslaved peoples living, loving, and losing each other among the horrors. Imaginative and impossible to put down.