what have you eaten? meme

from curate:

What have you eaten?

somethingchanged:

From the food blog Chocolate and Zucchini:

1. Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2. Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3. Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

via forwhenifeellikesharing: (via grayandgreen) Chocolate and Zucchini

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

on why i take the presidential elections personally, or, three reasons why not to vote for mccain

okay,
so i'm back in the u.s. of a. now and right away i became engrossed in the presidential election. not surprisingly to people who know me, i already know who i'm voting for. no, he is not the messiah as he is being touted. and yes, i have beef with many of his platforms. i think his healthcare platform is weak and his foreign policy is not the best. and, there is no way he won't let us down. come on! he really is too good to be true.

that said, i have been looking at the mccain/palin ticket. with palin on board, many moderates are actually entertaining the idea of voting for mccain/palin. if you are one of those people, i'm including a few reasons why voting for mccain/palin would offend me personally. if you do vote for them, seriously, don't tell me.

1. the arts
obama supports the nea. big woop, right? well, the last 8 years have consisted of arts funding being slashed and burned, including complete elimination of arts education in public schools. obama has promised increased funding to the nea. he also has recognized the positive influence arts education has on raising general scholastic aptitude and has sat on arts boards. his platform also promotes arts-based cultural diplomacy (something most first world countries invest pretty heavily in), deeper tax breaks for artist, and health care for artists (which is included in the national healthcare plan. i don't believe he has singled out artists as a special group that will get healthcare or anything).

mccain has not published an arts policy, but has a record of voting for cutting nea funding. he is on record stating that he is against government subsidies of the arts, stating that tax payers shouldn't have to pay for "obscene" projects. he has stated that he supports giving money to states so that they can fund arts education programs (not necessarily in schools, however), but that's it.

nader, mckinney, baldwin, and barr do not seem to have any platforms on the arts.

2. the gays
if you know me, hell, even if you don't, you prolly know i identify as queer. i am legally female and have been with a female partner for over seven years. i have mixed feelings about marriage. if it were up to me, i would do away with the institution on a governmental level and leave it to individual religious institutions to sanctify monogamous relationships. instead, i would want the government to recognize domestic partnerships, which could include: "gay" partnerships, "straight" partnerships, sibling partnerships (where siblings live together and share household responsibilities/childcare, etc.), inter-generational partnerships (i.e. grand parents live with a parent and all adults care for a child or children--one of the most common forms on "non-traditional parenting"), non-blood partnerships (two friends live together for a long time and share bank accounts, parenting, etc.) and multi-party partnerships (polyamorous family units where three or more people share household responsibilities). these domestic partnerships would enable any parties involved to receive tax breaks, inheritance rights, citizenship/green card preferential treatment, visitation rights, and common-law privileges. but alas, only the leftest of the left queeroids are thinking of such institutions.

none of the candidates comes even close to thinking about this. however, i should say right here that i plan to marry my partner of seven years. we will most likely go to canada to do it. in canada, if either of us gets a job, the other will receive health care, be eligible for permanent residence, have visitation rights, etc. even if we don't get lawfully married! (i KNOW!)

the thing is, so-called "gay marriage" is a civil rights issue. it's about saying, "hey, you love that person and you want to profess to god or whoever that you plan to be with them until you die? well alright, then. here's a goodie bag full of privileges that we've given other people who have said the same!" if straight married people can get shit-loads of resources (shared healthcare plans, spousal hires, free usage of spouse's facilities), money (tax breaks and non-taxed inheritance rights), and recognition (visitation rights, and just plain empathy and love), then FUCK YEAH, I WANT THOSE THINGS, TOO! even if i have qualms about the institution. straight people who don't think gay marriage is an issue, or who think it is wrong, or who don't understand it are basically saying: love between people of the same sex is inherently inferior. this to me says: queer people are inherently inferior to straight people. ergo: queers are subhuman.

i don't like that.

obama says he supports civil unions. yes, it's kinda like the whole "separate but equal" thing. not nearly enough. that said, the mccain/palin ticket supports introducing a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BANNING GAY MARRIAGE. now and forever more. did i say that loud enough? according to my pristine logic outlined above, that means mccain/palin supporters are saying: queers are subhuman. incidentally, sarah palin's church minister believes prayer can "un-gay" people. yes, i know she has not said that (publicly) herself. and we've already gone down a dark road of slandering people because of their pastors. i'm not sayin'... i'm just sayin'...

nader supports gay marriage. mckinney says its "an important issue." baldwin is anti anything giving rights to queers. barr was a sponsor of the clinton era DOMA act and sees same-sex marriage as a state issue.

3. the gooks
let's not forget that mccain refers to asian people as "gooks," both in his head and in public. as a member of the racial group of "gooks," i find it really difficult to not get angry. it's true he said it long ago (in 2000), and he apologized for it since. but really. REALLY. think if someone said the "n" word in an interview. i'd take that personally, too.

so. really. mccain/palin makes me mad. particularly palin scares me. for a while i had some respect for mccain, thought that of the republicans, he had the most integrity. however. with the choice of palin as running mate, he lost that. considering that according to life insurance calculations, he has a one in three chance of dying during his presidency, voting for mccain as president is a one-third vote for palin as president. and really, i want to scream: they hate queers! they hate immigrants! they hate people of color! they hate artists! they want to kill us all!

i have other reasons why mccain/palin makes my skin crawl. but those are merely ideological. i don't take them personally. but really they go against what i do (art) and what i am (queer/asian american). and that's why i take a vote for them personally. really. if i have to emotionally blackmail you to not vote for mccain/palin, i will. vote for nader, vote for mckinney. hell, write-in hillary, if you want. just please, please, please: don't vote for mccain/palin.

thanks. us queer asian/asian american artists thank you.

on disaster

just a note about all the crazy disasters happening in the world. first myanmar, then the tornadoes through the U.S. midwest, then the earthquake in western china.

i posted briefly before about being in japan when the earthquake happened in kobe. i watched the city burn and resolved to organize my high school to send aid. we raised several thousand dollars and sent a dozen volunteers to help rebuild over spring break.

something sinister is happening in the world. i can't help but feel like the earth is taking out her anger on humans for fucking with her for so long. the fucked up thing is, it seems the disasters hit the people who aren't really to blame: poor folks, rural folks, people of color, children, people of the third world.

as first world citizens, it's times like these that it's really important to at least attempt to account for our role in chaos. i don't know how possible it is to be completely accountable. when oe kenzaburo wrote about okinawa and post WWII, he talked about how it was a type of sacrificial lamb. about how japan was trying to use it as a perpetual indulgence, rather than grin and bear a full-on confession in search of absolution.

somewhere between absolution and perpetual indulgence lies charitable donations.

the first and easiest thing we can do as first world citizens is provide capital. and so, in line with kristina wong's post, i am requesting you readers to please donate. kristina follows the l.a. times in donating to unicef. i am following suit. unicef seems most strategically placed to provide for aid in myanmar. but now that there's so many disasters, the red cross and doctors without borders would lend tremendous help, too. funds are tight in my life right now, but i have a home and food and my health. i'm asking you to at least match kristina's donation of $20, as i just did.

bloggers, please re-blog kristina's call for matching donations. as individuals, many of us don't have the funds to give what we would like, but as a collective, we can raise a substantial amount in micro donations. let's do this, y'all!

on money, that's right, money

i came to a realization last week; i am working under the assumption that i will:
1. get a MAP grant
2. get a creative capital grant
or
3. win the lotto

i told ana this, and having read my proposal for MAP, she said very sweetly, "that's a fair assumption." i told kelly this, and she said, "it's a possibility. and staying positive can only invite more positive." linda, a cast mate from my play said, "this is excellent. you should live the way you want to live and the money will follow you!"

okay. that's all good and all. but it really is a faulty assumption. really. i don't know how my brain keeps doing this to me. the likelihood of getting either the MAP or CC is very low. i have a pretty thin resume. and, as much as i think my project proposal is pretty damn good, there will be at least 100 others just as good. it helps that i've included really awesome collaborators in one of the proposals, i'm sure. but still.

yet, i can't shake it. i'm full of anticipation of that next windfall.

to tell you the truth, my life has consisted of windfalls. i grew up solidly middle class, in a town that was too wealthy for my family. we were always running out of money, yet my folks insisted on living where we did and on sending all of us to private high schools and colleges. when i lived in wellesley, i was acutely aware that my family could not afford the clothes or stuff that my peers had. but i had a violin. and a piano.

when i was 15 or so, my grandparents started doling out their excess money. they were making twice as much being retired as they did working. and they were paying too much taxes for money they didn't need. they gave money to my father and aunts and then smaller sums to me, my brothers and my cousins in the form of mutual funds.

i didn't touch the money until college. i used a fair sum of it to pay for tuition. and even then, i still took out loans and my parents took out loans. oberlin was expensive. i am still paying for it. but there was something very special about having that chunk of change.

after college, i took a very low-paying job at oberlin. 16k a year working at least 50-60hrs a week. i used more of that windfall money from my grandparents to put a down payment on my car. but i mostly just got by with that 16k.

after my mom died, i received an inheritance. one from her insurance and one from my father downsizing his living quarters. i used that windfall to pay off about 10% of my student loans, put a down payment on our house, and try my hand at buying and selling stocks.

i've always been ambivalent about this money. on the one hand, i haven't forgotten what it's like to always be around people who were richer than me. on the other, i realized at oberlin just how lucky i had it. you know, befriending other workers in the dining hall, learning about "class" in class, someone "calling me out" as a "wellesley snob," those endless "privilege" workshops and whatnot.

money is power is responsibility. i had capital and i think i've used it relatively well. i used it for education, "stability," and family. i even gave a few friends some chunks of startup money or rent money with it.

but now, it's running out. wonderful partner finally confronted me about it earlier this week. she has noted that she wants a little more stability in our life. that's one thing that these past 14 months have not been: stable. i agreed that i would begin applying for jobs. as in, job jobs. full-time with benefits jobs.

so i bit my lip and combed through jobs at UT. there are four that i'm qualified for. at least one of them i would enjoy doing. if pushed to the limit of my earning potential, 50k would not be out of the question. but i have to start applying now. i can't wait for the money to run out and then scramble around, waiting to see if i can get something.

stability: she deserves as much. i deserve as much, too. but i'm torn. i spent my 20s domestically stable, though losing a parent and working through grad school was hardly emotionally stable. part of me feels like i missed out on the "finding yerself" part of the 20s.

now, i feel like i'm just on the cusp of figuring something out, about my art, about my life. but i also feel like i know how to keep working for myself even if i pick up a "day job." and then, i'm racked with guilt: i squandered away this past year. i squandered away my money. what, exactly, have i accomplished in this time? am i just a bum?

and then that thought--that assumption about two of the biggest grants someone at this stage in an art career can get--crosses my mind. maybe, it whispers, we WILL get it. maybe, it says, we DESERVE it. maybe, it cries, we're due for a windfall any day now. every tuesday and friday evening, i open up the lotto site with that taste of anticipation. maybe, just maybe....

the question is: am i naive? is my life charmed? or am i just a whiney middle-class brat who has nothing better to care about? fuck if i know. i suppose the next six months will tell.

on: seriously folks, there are REAL predators out there

so, wonderful partner read to me this story about how the fbi has been planting links in message boards to try to catch down-loaders of child porn.

the main reason she read it to me in the first place was she had only today told me about the phenomenon of rickrolling, that basically means putting a link on something (email, blog, IM, website) saying that the link is "x" (a kitty, a cool site, something...) and then it actually being a link to a youtube video of "never gonna give you up." yeah, i'm late to the scene, people.

so, the thing is, it seems that people have been (inadvertently or not) duck/rickrolling childporn links into some of their messages and thereby trapping unsuspecting link clickers in fbi snares.

sigh. i was gonna rickroll all y'all (yes, that IS the plural of y'all). but now i'm determined not to rickroll you or duckroll you in any way. because i don't want no errant child porn to somehow find itself in your cache, thereby subjecting you to unfettered fbi molesting. (not that i even have the slightest idea nor do i want to know how to find child porn.)

so, this story is pretty sad. wonderful partner and i just became speechless and agreed: why would they spend so much time and energy and money on these cases when there are REAL children being molested and put into porn? i just hate it. really.

real people. real children. our "justice" system can just get things all wrong. too often.

i want, or, erotica for myself

big wants:
1. i want to experience life as nam june paik described. with all 10 holes. ("Male human body has nine holes. Female body has ten. When all holes are filled, you have satisfaction. Purpose of inter-media art is to plug all holes as fast and efficiently as you can." though, he really miscounted. we technically have 12 functioning holes. bio-men, sorry, you still only have 9.)

2. i want my hands to be the source of the world. to build, to destroy, to love.

3. i want to sift and cull and eliminate: bullshit, boredom, and all things that tell me i should not exist in this world.

4. i want to fail miserably, in front of many people, with my heart and soul distended and raw. i want to pick up those pieces, reassemble them, and make anew. i want my successes borne of failure. exquisite, perfect, disastrous failure.

5. i want slow fucks. i want fast fucks. i want mind fucks and heart fucks. i want to fuck and be fucked. i want to fuck until i cry. i want to fuck until i laugh. i want to fuck alone. i want to fuck the world. fuck fuck fuck. don't stop.

6. i want to defy death but pass peacefully. i want to end war but never stop fighting. i want to conquer disease but never stop healing.

7. i want to know my fears. i want to live with them. i want to talk to them and learn about them. i want to wallow in my fears and learn to be brave.

8. i want to learn to live in my body. i want to know every inch of it and what it can and cannot do. i want to love its limitations and push its potential.

little wants (specifics):
1. i want to be working in my body with the opera by april. i want yvan to show me how to do that.

2. i want to finish this short story by next week.

3. i want to spend at least an hour every week by myself with my thoughts. no people, no dogs, just myself.

4. i want to show my work, my unfinished crap-ass work, to many people and listen to what they say.

5. i want to go to a show, reading, gallery, movie, at least every week.

6. i want momoko to visit me in my dreams and tell me why she became what she did.

7. i want to hit a home run every game. i want to sink 10 free throws in a row. i want to climb five flights of stairs and still breath easy.

8. i want creative capital to to invite me to apply. i want to write the best application i know how--specific, clear, persuasive. i want creative capital to award me a grant.

9. i want to book a space, advertise, and perform an in-progress show of my opera music. before the peaches in my yard become ripe.

10. i want to know who you are.

123 meme

la rebelde tagged all her readers with the following meme. since i've been itching to be tagged by someone, i took it personally.

here it is:
Pick up the closest book of 123 pages or more (no cheating!)
Find page 123
Find the first five sentences
Post the next three sentences

these are my three sentences:
"I wake at first light, even if I have blacked out every window in the room, no matter how late I got to bed the night before. It is as if I had slept myself out, used up that talent in that long terrible dragged-out yhear, and now I'm doomed to come awake early every morning, suddenly, completely, my heart pounding in my ears as if someone were screaming in the next room. [para break] 'It's your circadian rhythm,'Anna told me."

the passage is from dorothy allison's trash. i've been reading this book a helluva lot slower than i want to. mostly because the time before sleep is a bit more, uh, unpredictable than usual as of late. every time i open the book, i jump in and want to be drenched, but usually i have to emerge sooner than i would like. my reading has taken a toll in the last couple weeks or so. whereas i used to devour, i now mostly nibble. but there is something about this particular book that is so immediate and gripping for me. i think it's because it is allison before she became established, before the benchmark bastard or the breathtaking cavedweller. the writing is raw, unslick, and not nearly as virtuosic. and that is what is so compelling for me.

there's been a lot going around in the blogs i read about "failure." profacero and prof black woman among others. it's funny because i had only realized recently--while i was writing the MAP grant--that ideas of "failure" have been a part of my creative aesthetic for a very long time. of course, the other thing about these posts on failure is (at least with the academics) they will often reference judith halberstam's scholarship on queerness and failure. this is where i'm very happy i am not longer in academia because i don't feel obliged to analyze or block quote halberstam. (besides, prof bw does a good job of that anyway.)

and, i do take issue with some of halberstam's argument. something i discussed with her at length about two years ago when i met her. but in this creative moment, it does give me pause. i always thought i was steeped in failure (or imperfections) because i wasn't rigorous enough, or i was lazy. but i have come to realize that some of my most rigorous work is predicated on inevitable failure (my female body enacting icons of masculinity, obsession with "almost" unison notes, etc.). perfection in flaw. success in failure.

if halberstam's argument about queerness and failure is really true, does it mean that my aesthetic is that deeply rooted in my queerness? am i "hardwired" for failure? would my parallel universe straight kt twin be slick as slick can be? this reminds me of another theory i discussed at length in college that said that queerness is performance, and all performance is inherently queer. part of me shakes my head, and then part of me nods emphatically.

reading allison has brought me back to this. she is such a stunning writer. she creates intricate and nuanced sentences with deceptively simple words and prose. clear yet precise. and just beautiful. yet, especially in trash, there are moments of rupture. little specks of ugly mixed into the beauty. and i love those moments, even though i can actually feel allison trying to will those moments out of her writing. she eventually succeeds; it shows later on in cavedweller, where the language is so smooth and polished, it's butter.

anyway, thanks for the tag, la rebelde. i'm tagging everyone who wants to do this meme. it's fun, ya know?

on quantity

whatever people tell you, becoming a good artist is really about quantity.

no, hear me out.

in the artist's way, julia cameron talks about creating as an act of working through block. her two pillars of the artist's way focus on morning pages and the artist's date. morning pages start everything. the idea is, you let yourself write three pages of anything--ramblings, recipes, lists, or just plain unadulterated crapola. (the artist's date serves a different purpose, and one day, i will explore it here again.)

the artist's way has helped me a lot over the past year and a half, even though i have only gotten through the first five chapters. but that's okay.

because i've been "making."

the thing is, the difference between a working artist and a weekend artist is that the working artist knows and accepts that she will make crap. and lots of it. lots and lots of crap. and somehow, we decide to let the crap spew forth and then we cull and sort and sift to come up with "projects," to come up with "pieces." because in actuality, everyone, EVERYONE has the ability to create a masterpiece--so long as the stars line up. the difference is the working artist is continuously upping our chances and hedging our bets. the more we make, the more likely we can find that nugget of genius trapped in some dark corner of our cerebellum.

i see rigor, practice and craft not as a continuous search for my inner masterpiece, but rather a means to make my less masterful things more palatable. because "practice" and "craft" are just code words for, "i've worked really hard at this thing so that when i make crap, it seems more acceptable than the crap i made before i started working really hard at it."

in college, i once asked Mentor (who i will dedicate an entire entry to, i promise) whether i should continue editing a piece or move on. he said, at your age, just move on. write as much as possible. i followed his advice and for that winter term, i wrote one melody a day and kept a journal about it. almost all of those melodies were crap. i mean, super poor. but there was that one melody, i'm sure it was only 12 bars that came back from Mentor with the word "nice" written in red right next to it. and now, i know that even in my worst moments, i can write a decent, solid melody.

so i've been trying to concentrate on this "quantity" aspect of creating. it's a good exercise, because i have been known to be perfectionist to the point of paralysis. in fact, taking a page from cameron, i have a large piece of paper on my office wall that says, "dear god, i'll take care of the quantity, you take care of the quality." yes, a bit hokey, but something that i need.

i realized this evening that it's been a while since i've written my morning pages. but i'm okay with that. because thanks to this blog (and the myspace mistress), i've been writing pretty much everyday since the new year. and i see how that practice has seeped into my language, both written and spoken. it's tighter, it's smarter, it's closer to what i imagine in my head.

but of course, as the smart ones of you might have surmised, this means that the blog is my crap. yes, it is. and i thank you very much for reading my crap. or perhaps, i thank blogger for allowing me a venue to make things that i THINK people will read. it's really the same diff to me (although i admit that it strokes my ego oh so nicely when folk post comments).

here's to pure, unadulterated crap! long live arts and crap!

r.i.p. my ipod/natural disasters

i believe it has died. it was a hand-me-down from wonderful partner. it's at least four years old, if not five. so, as electronics go these days, we've had a good run.

but i am distraught. being that singing along to ipod has been one of my ways to convince myself i'm not steeped in mania or depression. i never even got a chance to name her. poor ipod. now you will be a very expensive paper weight.

as a stop gap, i have dug up my old discman. listening to cds in their entirety is so very different. SOOOOO different. my "shuffle" mind gets a little confused when the same voice comes on, yet again! i think, wait a second, my computer isn't "random!" oh, yeah.

i was tempted to set up a fund on here to beg for money to buy a new ipod. like a mental health thing. "gimme money so i don't go crazy listening to my thoughts!" but i can't do that in good conscience. i will endure with my out-moded technology for my car travels. it's okay. i'm okay!

i will be fine. so, instead of giving me money for my ipod, i thought, hell, peeps should shell out to help all those folks who have been hit by those damn tornadoes. (this post now takes a different turn.) i once lived through a tornado. it tempered my fear a bit. but ever since i was a child and up to this day, tornadoes are the most terrifying natural disaster to me. and i used to live in super-duper earthquake country. i watched kobe burn in 1995. still, tornadoes are the scariest.

i wish i could be a well-informed blogger and have info here to tell you where to put yer money. i don't, just yet. i do want to link to professor blackwoman's post on the matter. if i can find out a local somewhat obscure yet awesome org, i promise to post it here. (if you know of such orgs, please post in comment.) but for now, i've sent a meager, meager amount to the red cross. you can, too.

just wanted to finally note: this is too many huge natural disasters in too few years.
in my logical mind, there are three possible reasons for this: coincidence, armageddon, and global warming. i've ruled out coincidence because, it's just really too much. and i'm not a christian, and even if i were, i'd be the kind that didn't believe in hell or blanket events full of wrath and judgement. so that rules out armageddon. so, global warming (and i use that instead of the stupid term, "climate change"--"climate crisis" is okay, tho'). hot enough?

and that makes me think about how i was listening to japanese news today at the store and they had very robust coverage of the storm/tornado damage. just as much, if not more/better than our own media. and then theres that solipsist dipshit in the whitehouse who has watched this happen. fucker. i wrote a few weeks back that i love america. that's what makes it hurt so much when i hate it like i do now.

i wish ipod was still alive, so i could sing yuka honda's "god bless america" really loud.

"in this pile-of-waste-filled land."

arts stuff

it's super-fat tuesday, but we here in texas aren't voting, so. i'm taking a cue from wofflings and sharing this link. the dumb-ass monkey in the white house is proposing massive budget cuts in the arts (except for museums), including arts education (which is actually being eliminated), nea, neh and public tv and radio. look at woff's post for a good analysis. arts funding has been eroding for decades now. we artists feel it. and one day, all the visionary artists will suddenly realize that this country hates us, and we will stage a mass exodus to anywhere else--australia, japan, belize. that will be the day art dies in america. it would be nice to prevent this. please write stuff to your congress people.
tenks,
kt

on my body, myself

(note: if you don't want to hear about my body, my blood sugar, or my boobs [that might mean you, blood relatives!] please skip this entry)

i've lost weight. my scale has registered 149 twice in the last week. it's been a long time since i've weighed this little.

my weight loss is psuedo-intentional. both my docs (my pcp and my doc-for-down-there) have been getting on my case to lose weight since i am at high risk of diabetes. so, i've been half-heartedly changing some eating habits and stuff. but my multiple neuroses since the beginning of this year have actually enforced these habits. when i mentioned in passim that i was having trouble eating a couple of weeks ago, i didn't go into detail about how bad that was. in the last month, there have actually been days when i would have to force myself to eat. i've been trying to monitor this problem. i've also been trying to exploit it. some days, i feel like eating--a lot. so i do. i figure, so long as i average 1800 calories a day over a week, it's okay if i only eat 1200 on day and 2400 the next. and so, i've lost about 13 lbs since the new year.

i have complex feelings about this. on the one hand, 13 lbs is a bit much. it toes the line for "safe weightloss rate." but people who have only my health in their best interests have been telling me to lose weight. to get below 150. and besides, i've been thinking it would be helpful to lose weight for my role in this play. but i'm developing some dangerously cheerleader-like thoughts about my body and my appetite. i'm enjoying the weight loss, it's helping me look at myself in the mirror. and i'm beginning to enjoy the hunger pangs in my stomach--this is something i know is bad. and having worked in student affairs for several years (not to mention once dating a former anorexic), i know that this is a first sign of an eating disorder...

that said, i'm at HIGH risk of getting type 2 diabetes. everyone in my dad's birth family is genetically predisposed to obesity. in fact, my dad is the only one in his family who doesn't have diabetes. my dad, who probably ran an average of 30 miles a week when i was a child. who made running marathons seem like a matter of just paying the fee and wearing the tacky t-shirt. my endorphin-addicted dad who eventually started cycling when his knees started giving, this time averaging about 50 miles a week on his bike. my dad, who hiked the entirety of the appalachian trail, who managed to hit every state capitol between new england and south dakota on his bike until he had to stop because of high blood pressure. when he was in his mid-60s.

my mother's family is rather thin. but that's partly because they eat a japanese diet. that said, they are also genetically disposed to high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and, oh yeah, every type of cancer under the sun. woohoo!

so you can see why losing weight is generally good news, even if i'm worried about how fast it's happening and my emotional state around it.

and then, last week, out of the blue, wonderful partner asked me my cup size. now, most of you will know that i'm not about my boobs. i wear sports bras. because my main goal in using bras is for compression. so it's probably been at least a decade since i've measure out my cup size. i said, i dunno, c? then wonderful partner sighed and said, good. because i just read that women with cup sizes d and above are at even higher risk of diabetes. i looked for the article, it is here. phew, i said. then, the next day, i got curious and pulled out our measuring tape, found a website on measuring your bust size and calculated.

i'm a d. i might even be a dd. woohoo! i wish i was a girl. then i'd probably really be glad about all this. when i was little, i always thought i would be an illustrious member of the itty-bitty-titty-committee. but i wasn't. my friends would often voice that they wish they had my breasts. and i woud shrug. i've never much cared for my ta-tas, even if people i've been with thoroughly enjoy(ed) them.

but i am genuinely surprised. especially in light of my recent weight loss. i think that most of the weigh i've lost has been from my belly. this is great, but i wish i could just lose all my breast fat first. sigh.

shortly after my mom died, i was convinced that i would die of cancer. it's one of those things you think, right? i even quit smoking because of it (that lasted long!). but now i'm like, maybe i'll die of diabetes. i know you can't really die of diabetes. but i have morbid fantasies about losing parts of myself to diabetes, one limb at a time, until i became just a torso and a head. then again, no one really dies of cancer, either. they always die of "cancer-related complications." stupid shit like staph infections, pneumonia, or (in the case of my mom) a bump on the head.

who knows, i'll probably just choke on a chicken bone like mama cass.

all this thinking, though, has really reminded me that i've been living inside my body like i'm some type of guest. i've learned to accept that this is the body i will have for life. i've accepted it, but i still don't like it. i really, really wish i could.

fuckitty fuckitty fuck fuck

what am i doing? blogging and reading other peoples' blogs obsessively. what should i be doing? feeding myself, bathing myself, editing the fucking prop. or, if nothing else, walk the dogs. how long do i have to do these things? the next three hours before i meet with my lone tutoring student to talk about either, a. SAT writing; b. SAT verbal; c. series counterpoint; or d. why he wants to study music composition in college and does he REALLY wanna do that.

ever get so fucking sick of yourself that you just wanna look in the mirror and say, "shut up, already!" that's me. i'm so fucking sick of myself. i'm sick of being so serious and so angsty and so stuck in my fucking head. i'm sick of how preciously i've been treating myself and the indulgences i've demanded from others. i'm sick of bleeding and bleeding and then saying, "hey look! i'm bleeding!" i'm sick of writing coherent sentences. bananas never set over the desert, though they might not quite look you in the eye. whine whine whine whine whine. and i'm getting sick of whining about whining.

fucking fuck fuck. i want my fucking shit damn sense of humor back. cussy cussy cussssssssssss. i'm ten years old, y'all!

南無阿弥陀仏。

fuckingshitassmotherfuckerjesusshitbloodycuntsuckingdamnshitfuckbuggercock. puppies.

on dirty little secrets

i have a couple of dirty little secrets. they traverse my brain and call out to me and giggle when i try to talk with them. but here, i can share a couple. and then they will no longer be dirty little secrets.

dirty little secret #1: (i must whisper this) i no longer care whether or not i win the lotto. in fact, if you were to give me a choice between hitting the lotto and getting this MAP grant, i'm pretty certain i would choose the grant. crazy? maybe. but i've learned through this piece that the more involved i am in my creative process, the less i think about abstract windfalls. i actually begin PLANNING. planning for how i will complete a project, and thusly, i plan a little for the funds. yes, i'm still strapped for cash. and my worldly things are slowly deteriorating into tattered and beat up artifacts of a once respectable wage. that said, i'm still purchasing tickets. it's a commitment i made and it IS an art piece, even if it is hardly noticed and rarely spoken about.

dirty little secret #2: i am suffering from hypergraphia. if you haven't noticed the sudden spike in my posts, well, now you know. in fact, i have to stop myself from blogging just so that i can let my computer and my mind rest. it sounds like a good thing, this hypergraphia. but in actuality, it is really me bordering on the edge of mania. and everyone knows that mania is usually balanced out with depression. thus, last week's sleep-all-day. when i'm not writing, i'm thinking about writing, or having conversations in my head with myself, with characters, with people i know but might not tell certain things to.

dirty little secret #3: to combat my hypergraphia, i have been reading. (combat writing by reading) i have been reading very specific blogs over and over again. to a stalker-like degree. i won't say which blogs those are, except that i actually find myself reading my own blog posts--over and over again. this seems very odd and egotistical to me, but i have trouble stopping. if i'm a stalker, i'm a multi-stalker, a self-stalker.

dirty little secret $4: (this one, not so secret) i want this fucking grant. i want it so very bad. i am trying not to put too much stock in it, because it is statistically highly unlikely i will get it. i'm not sure whether it's the idea of creative approval, or some other type of outside gratification. i know that my project is good, and i'm very certain i will still do it with no outside funding, even if it means racking up several tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt. that said, i would give up many things to get this grant. i would stop eating meat, i would stop drinking, i would shave every hair on my body, i would live in a tent, i would eat gruel three meals a day for a year...

dirty little secret #5: on wednesday, i listened to tchaikovsky's 5th and broke a sweat conducting to it. this is probably the most embarrassing thing. firstly, because tchai 5 is one of the most saccharine pieces of orchestral music ever (marin alsop diplomatically said that tchaikovsky suffered from the "need to edit"). secondly, i was conducting, with a baton, by myself. yes, i suppose it's a type of dancing, but really. and thirdly, broke a sweat!? i'm so out of shape, i can't even flail my arms to a trumpet march without panting. aging sucks.

okay, enough secrets. sigh. back to grant writing.

on cartography

the plane lies ahead. a blank, stark plane.

no lines, no grid. no cardinal directions.

i have been set to draw a map upon this plane.

"draw lines, any lines. just know, you must follow them."

the terrifying task of drawing a map in the ether. the endless possibilities of success, of failure. of happiness, of sorrow.

she walks behind me, sees the page still blank and gently nudges the rubbery eraser next to my hand, as if to say: these lines are not permanent. you can change your mind.

but what i know is, once you draw a line, it can never be completely deleted. it leaves imprints in the fibers. and even if no one else can see them, you still know they are there. and some lines clear easily, while others... the act of trying to remove them might cause damage, a rip or tear in the medium.

and we mustn't have that.

i see myself as charlie brown, crouched over the desk and paper, head cocked and tongue jutting absent-mindedly out of the corner of my mouth.

chuck would brood just as i do now. and after much pondering, perhaps with the help of linus, he would draw a line.

and everyone, including charlie brown himself, would know that the line is completely wrong.

this is what i fear. because it's not just a map.

every line, every shape, every destination holds pains and joys and demons and oracles.

and there's really no getting lost in a map and territory i've set out myself. in this task, any loss of direction is stubborn willfullness. is a self-imposed confusion, an imagined paralysis. a purgatory.

i've never drawn on a blank plane before.

every other map i've sketched began with the marks of others. sometimes i followed those other lines religiously, only tracing what already existed. sometimes i petulantly scribbled over what already was. sometimes the lines were so faint, i bled from them inadvertently. and sometimes i've asked for a line to be drawn, only find out it was false: written with vanishing ink, or with a stroke so broad it was impossible to continue on the same map.

i say i am surveying the land. but i have lingered long enough. the time has come to pull the first stroke.

i am deeply afraid.

grant update

okay,
i've been working on it, but i need to take some type of break. but i report to you what i have done.

i managed to write the "short description" of the piece:
Una Corda is an original solo performance opera about cancer. Drawing aesthetic influences from late minimalism, pop music, sacred text and music, this project juxtaposes the solo singing/speaking body with live and recorded music, video, and Buddhist and Catholic ceremonial rituals.

and then, as i was trying to tackle the long description, i drew a blank. and in my notes, i wrote this (warning, it is stream-of-consciousness and unedited):
how do I talk about the relationship between the sacred and the profane without seeming totally flippant or trite? This relationship is indeed vital, crucial, even to the idea of the piece. It is how I have managed to approach the piece in a specific and focused way as opposed to an abstract idea. The sacred text is a kind of map by which I can meditate on the pain and profanity of cancer as a disease and cultural marker. Because cancer is more than just an illness. It is not only that the process of sickness, healing and dying is painful, but cancer has established itself in our collective consciousness as a symbol of both a death sentence as well as ultimate redemption. This polarity in attitudes toward cancer is what I find the most problematic and interesting. Because, as a lived experience, it becomes difficult to just continue if the disease is only either death or redemption. Somewhere in between, we find different ways of examining our humanity, of how we interact with strangers as well as loved ones. Somehow, cancer becomes an organizing structure. It creates priorities that didn’t used to exist. It sets certain relationships and moralities into focus.

I say this as if I know. But really, I’m just writing about what I saw. What I have seen over and over again. There is a kind of “reckoning” that happens in cancer. Whether or not the patient lives on or dies. And this reckoning is probably both internal and external. But it’s the external reckoning—the one that involves community, family, and friends—that has touched me and called me to engage in this piece.

Because cancer is more than just about mourning. And it’s more than just blind hope. Because there is that glint of wisdom in the grief, and there is that shudder of reality in desire.

So, this is what the piece is about? How do I express that in 800 words? How do I express it in 100?

on procrastination

okay,
i had budgeted this time to writing the MAP grant. i did work on it yesterday. but now i find myself blogging instead. writing this grant is terrifying. but i can't fail this year. i've enlisted the help of three collaborators whose work i admire greatly. part of me enlisted their help because i just need it. this opera will kick my ass even if i manage to have a whole broadway crew behind me. i'm beginning to accept that i just cannot do certain things alone.

but part of me enlisted their help just so that i would not flake out on the fund raising. it's still amazing that i need to have someone else help me finish things. or maybe it's just the tedium of the grant. since, well, i AM actually MAKING things. which is the revolution of the decade for me.

two of the collaborators are loved friends from college. corey dargel is a musician/composer/performer who is dead serious about humor and playfully brazen about serious music. even in college, we knew he was one of the most talented composers in the program. we were right. he's now making his way as a singer/songwriter as well as a concert singer/performer and a member of laboratory theater. i love corey very much. it seems a bit trite to write that here. i get the distinct feeling that he doesn't read this blog, so at least i don't have to feel embarrassed. his success as an artist has been slowly increasing. and while i might have felt jealous of him once, no longer. i just smile and think, it's good the world sees how stunningly talented he is. and now he's agreed to be a part of my project. it is intensely meaningful.

yvan greenberg is my other collaborator friend from college. i lived in the same house with him for a semester. we were in the same program, but somehow our paths crossed in multiple other ways. he is deceptively quiet. one of those people who might sit in a corner and most folks won't notice until he says something that makes all movement stop. or until he begins performing a tick or mannerism to the point of virtuosity. yvan taught me a lot about listening and seeing. he was never didactic or pedagogical, he just had stuff--in his room, in his head. he also has this thing for the absurd, and in college he was never shy about bringing the absurd to reality. i have so many memories about yvan that are wordless, but involve meaningful glances or a hug so vulnerable you might just melt into the ground. now yvan is the director and founder of laboratory theater. and i've asked him to direct my opera. i know that his eye and ear will somehow show me something about myself and my piece that i would never see on my own.

yvan, corey and i were part of an experimental music ensemble called "les moutons" with jim altieri and bill stevens (for a full score pdf of the music that inspired our name, go here). les moutons kept me alive for a semester. it was my life force. we would stage impromptu performances in lounges, in wilder bowl, almost anywhere. we performed a week-long piece. we took pieces from the "experimental music canon" and actually performed them. our work was playful, political, awkward, charismatic. and in hindsight, my relationship with "les moutons" managed to keep me from completely hating (white) men and becoming some type of lesbian separatist.

and now i listen to robert ashley's "dust," a piece i wouldn't even consider listening to if i didn't spend that time as part of les moutons. my opera will include a section much like ashley's "spoken" opera. i suppose it's a more modern version of sprechtstimme. jeez, i think i managed not to totally misspell that. (see pierrot lunaire.)

and i've managed to write through this morning's grant writing time. i have to go to rehearsal in an hour. so that gives me either time to shower, or i can poke at the grant for about 15 minutes. dear readers. please kick my ass about this. the grant is due feb 1. and when i think about it, it sends me back to memories and future memories. but now i must be pragmatic.

as an accountability measure, i will blog about the grant again within two days. if you don't hear from me. holler.

on sleeping and insomnia

okay, so i'm just gonna go out on a blogging cliche limb and indulge my megalomaniacal everyday minutiae middle-class self-important drabble and say it: i'm depressed.

there. much better.

well, not really. jeez people, i'm depressed. and when i look at my life, i really got nothin' for it. that is (for those of you who do not speak samwise gamgee), i have no reason to be depressed. i have a lovely partner, a house that is beautiful, and a couple of loving dogs to help warm it. i am in the most creative period of my life since i graduated from college. and i'm actually seeing small projects finish and come into fruition. i refuse to do any job that doesn't seem fulfilling to me. and i see friends on a fairly regular basis (regular basis for me, that is).

so what, pray tell, the FUCK is wrong with me?

i spent the entire day yesterday in bed. yes, in bed! and not in the good way. no, it was in that undeniably bad way. that, i-don't-want-to-face-the-world-so-i'm-just-not-gonna! way.

and my mind shoots all sorts of reasons at me. is it grief? is it some type of re-organizing of my life? is it my crazy neuroses around the play i am in? is it my saturn return? and fuck-it-all, i don't know! any reason seems just as good as the next.

and now, because of yesterday's all-day-in-bed debacle, where i actually think i slept for at least 16 hours, i'm having trouble sleeping. so i blog. and so, dearest readers, if you have made it thus far, please forgive me my indulgence. i needed to think that you would read this. and i needed to feel that i would be read. otherwise, i think i would have imploded from loneliness.

i HATE being DEPRESSED!

fuck depression. tomorrow, i shall buy a symbolic firearm, seek out depression and shoot it. (just in case there are some people out there who do not know me, i am generally opposed to firearms, thus the "symbolic" disclaimer.) i will kill it dead. it will plead and protest, and bargain with me, but i will look it in the eyes with my coldest stare and shoot it point blank in the forehead. and as its limp body hits the pavement, its fingers will twitch and i will be a little sad and dismayed. no one likes to put down a living being, even if it is depression itself.

but that's the plan. because i'm sick of depression. and if it's not going to leave me alone, well. it should know better.

be gone, depression. you're not needed here!

on music crushes

okay, synchronicity is my word.

so, i've been getting back into music (see previous posts) to a religious degree, even. well, last week, lovely partner (a baltimore native) sent me an article marin alsop, the new director of the baltimore symphony orchestra. she is currently being touted as the "first woman conductor of a major american orchestra."

since about the age of 11, or so, my dream was to become a conductor. i worked through high school pursuing this dream. i applied to oberlin because it had a masters program in conducting. i ended up in composition because it was the only thing i thought i could possibly be accepted into a conservatory doing. unfortunately, i only began taking conducting classes just as my ardor for classical music started to wane. i wanted out so bad, that i did not complete the conducting sequence and was therefore not able to apply for the MA in conducting. conducting seemed so elitist, so hegemonic, a symbol of the evils in the world i was working against. besides, i was supremely insecure about my musical talents and smarts, and i couldn't bare the thought of standing in front of hordes of musicians who i thought were better than me. so i let go of the dream. i don't regret it, but to this day, i have small fantasies of waving a baton for a local high school orchestra or community string ensemble. we'll see.

this all came flooding back to me as i read about alsop. i found one of her recordings of brahms in a used cd store. neither i nor lovely partner have ever liked brahms. but we somehow liked this recording. then, lovely partner and i spent last night watching the videos on her website. she's so enthusiastic and articulate about the music she directs and her vision. she loves new music and is committed to programming living composers at almost every concert.

every video clip we watched, we kept saying, "oh my god, she's amazing. and she's such a dyke!" and thus began our crush on marin alsop. because of my past as a conductor and conductor wannabe, my crush is much more evident than lovely partner's. so much so that she kept teasing me and saying, "i'd lend you out to marin alsop." it turns out that alsop is out and has a french hornist partner and a son.

regardless, we are converts now. we even planned a trip back to lovely partner's baltimore family around an alsop-directed bso concert. yes. we bought the concert and plane tickets in that order.

i know this crush is all part of my return to music. it seems that i'm meant to return to it with a new intensity and fervor. and that is exactly what is happening.

on jury duty

today, my "gig" was reporting for jury duty. it's a "gig" because i got paid for it (even though it's about $10).

and i performed it with aplomb.

it was actually an enlightening and somewhat empowering experience. i had arrived to inpaneling assuming that my girl body with boy looks would immediately disqualify me from serving. i thought i would be home in twenty minutes.

the twenty of us went into the courtroom, with a judge, and attorney, and the defendant. the attorney (for the state) asked the room questions like: has anyone here gotten a traffic citation? does anyone here feel very loyal to police officers? does anyone here feel particularly against police officers? etc. i spoke once about the traffic citation i got a couple years ago, but that's it. i made eye contact with the judge--purely by coincedence.

then they sent us out of the court. ten minutes later, the nice bailiff (his name was neil) calls us back into the courtroom. then the judge called off six names. i was one of them.

i was very, very surprised. i mean, really. and even though i've been complaining about jury duty for the past few weeks, i actually felt kinda proud that i was "chosen." weird, huh?

we heard the case, it was a traffic ticket. kinda boring, but the facts were a bit jumbled. when we adjourned to the locked jury room, neil told us our instructions: elect a foreperson, decide guilty or not guilty, if guilty, decide a fine.

the jury was all female. when neil left, i just said, "okay, i guess we need to elect a foreperson." to which the woman across from me said, "how about you?" i said, "it gives me neither pain nor pleasure. is that okay with the group?" everyone nodded. so now, not only was i serving on the jury, i was the representative of it.

we hashed it all out. because the defendant's testimony and the officer's testimony differed significantly, it was really difficult to rule at first. but i kept at task. i reiterated, well, we might know that intersection, and we might empathize with one side or the other, but we can only use the evidence presented to us, even if it is incomplete. i surprised myself at how by the book i was.

when all of us seemed to express, a sentiment of, well, i understand the defendant's feelings, but it really seemed like he broke the law, i astounded myself by saying, "well, we've been chosen because we have shown a certain trust in the process. our charge is to adjudicate based on the law and procedure, even if we personally disagree with it." the one person on the jury with a different verdict than the rest started to say she was leaning the other way. i said, "it sounds like you are changing your vote. is this true? if it is, i want to be sure you are changing it of your own volition rather than because the rest of us are voting the other way."

at that point, one of the other jurors said, "what do you do? it must be the law!" and i said, "well, we can talk about that after the verdict."

we decided he was guilty. he defended himself poorly and didn't present convincing evidence, and the prosecution did fulfill its burden of proof. but because we were so ambivalent about the context of the violation, we lowered the fine from $100 to $50. i had originally proposed fining $1, but after brief discussion, we all agreed on the fine.

i confirmed the "guilty, $50 fine" verdict with a show of hands and signed the "guilty" form. now my signature will be permanently housed in the municipal court.

and i left with a strange sense of importance or maybe even pride. i never say it aloud, but the fact is, i am a patriot. i am cynical and critical of the system and the administration. more often than not, you'll hear me saying "i hate america" than the opposite. but the fact is, i hate america now because i love its potential. i believe in our justice system as an idea. i actually believe it is the best justice system in the world--in theory. the problem that i have with our justice system is its execution. i believe in the constitution and i believe in the declaration of independence. we just have not been treating either document with the respect they deserve. and that bums me out so much that it turns to bile. but today, i was a part of it. and i believe that i executed my duties with fairness, intelligence, and good faith.

so here i am, mixed race, gender queer "socialist." underemployed artist. and foreperson of a municipal jury. maybe i am just a "good liberal."

we sure live in a crazy country, tho'.

dear jesus,
i pray to you not as one of your followers.

in fact, i pray to you as someone who holds many of your followers in contempt. i pray to you as an ancestor, a predecessor, as far-fetched and unlikely as that might be.

because today, you showed yourself to me. as i sat, writing music of praise as part of a piece about profanity and pain, you arrived. you saw that i was using words meant for you, and you helped me birth a piece. a finished piece.

bars and bars, not left languished and forgotten. but bars cohesive and devout, and most importantly, punctuated with double bars.

double bars! how long has it been since i've drawn double bars!

yes, it is only dots on a page. yes, it will need to be reworked, edited, rescored and polished. it is not perfect. and it is so simple, it might have even been written by someone else before. but it is done. and it came from me with the ease of a sigh. and i was in it. i listened to every note, i felt the timbres of my creaky piano. i actually let each tone wash over my body and into me and listened for the praise. listened for the pathos. listened for you.

perhaps the reason why your followers are so devout is not because you are the only begotten son. perhaps it is because you are the muse, the mentor, the spirit of creativity and making. perhaps it is because you have sat with many before me, writing, drawing, scribbling notes and just at the right moment, you have whispered, inaudibly, "yes, that's the one."

because that is what you were to me, today, just over an hour ago. setting old text written by old men, men who would probably never even deign to sit next to me, you knew that it needed your guidance.

and so.

alleluia.
laudate eum in sono tubae.
hossanna in excelsis.