Girl In A Coma

I heard about this great girl punk band, Girl in a Coma, and fell instantly. They are from San Anto! They should have been playing at the gay pride fest - they are really good. And their videos are genderqueer/questioning/feminist - well done. Even better, they are backed by Joan Jett's label. Sweet Joan Jett.

Here's one of my new faves:

fraud

I felt like such a fraud when I entered this weekend. I haven't completed the writing I've been wanting to, haven't completed even cleaning the house!, and felt as though I was holding myself back, wasn't allowing a clear view for anyone, even myself. I really felt like some dark cut of glass - transparent but with this coloring that doesn't let you decipher everything.

I was told by someone last week that they were checking on me by checking on my blog. This isn't all of me, I realized. This is very little. I mean, I've been up to so much, there have been so many changes that I can't keep up with them. Not in a physical way but mentally. It seems all these things in my life are having a tremendous impact on me.

For instance, I would not have thought that taking 6 little girls out for my daughter's birthday would have made me feel so feminist and capable of awaking young minds. And, conversely, would make me want to have more children so deeply.

Or, having a peach for breakfast on Friday that blew me away with its texture and smell. I haven't been awake in my body for a while so I was taken aback by such an incredible thing: dirt and humidity and sun and perfume and musk all at once. Or, in going to lunch with a faculty member here - the Indian food we ate intoxicated me. I love my body very open to experience. The textures and tastes filling me. It can be overload but it empowers too - and not just my writing.

I did settle down some after Carol and Lilia's arrive Friday evening. We went to go see Gaytino!, a performance piece by Dan Guerrero, son of the "father of Chicano music", Lalo Guerrero.

Conversations with my sister friend Carol this weekend let me talk something out - always helping me see more of something long before I would have on my own (mostly because of avoidance or denial). I always felt this dichotomous idea that I had to choose to be in a relationship or choose my creativity.

While my creativity is by no means destructive (i.e. Sylvia Plath), I've felt it spinning a little beyond my control. I can manage it but wonder if, given some foundation, it might come out more tactile. Right now it feels like a fire in me that threatens to take everything in the air and make it something else.

I'm mis-saying because it is not destructive - I just wonder if, with more avenues to express myself, I might be able to keep the emotional fuel of my creativity in check. That this might also encourage better sleep and more consistent self-care (right now I'm eating one end up eating one meal a day and way too many cups of coffee).

And while it's not specifically an intimate relationship but more like connections with people that can aid this, I of course think about relationships. Since moving here, this is the most personable I've been. I'm really feeling available, open, transparent. Or, at least trying for transparency. I have reminded myself people will like me if I'm this way - and if they don't, at least I wasn't lying and they weren't interested in some part of me that was not complete truth.

Before the gay pride festival on Saturday, Carol and Lilia and Delhi and I went to Casa Chiapas for lunch. The festival was sweet, much smaller than ones I've been to in San Francisco and Austin but also very community-oriented - no entrance fee, lots of community booths, local talent performing. Most of the larger ones do out of town talent and charge $10 to get in. We didn't get there until 5 p.m. or so and so I was surprised I didn't see more of the people I knew there. In looking at the website they were there - I guess I arrived too late. I did see a former co-worker from when I worked at the San Antonio Symphony. I knew she was family but I think I surprised her because she didn't clock me that way.

At Casa Chiapas, I felt all Kitchen Table Press, we were talking about defining as queer vs. lesbian vs. bisexual and how neither world cares for those who are not "gold-star lesbians". That was a huge discussion for me that I don't want to talk about now.

So, I felt a little better by the time the mujeres left late Saturday. Still lots to process and I would like to talk a little more about it. Of course, despite my increased socialness, I find myself alone tonight. . . and what I have in my head is way too big for some shallow conversation.

La Lupe... a su manera

Every once in a while I come back to this blog with a reminder of La Lupe, that incredible singer who doesn't compare. She's part of the reason I started writing this blog - to remind myself of the powerful women around me, to remember that, like her, I can take in all the world around me and then throw it back out - as an artist, as a woman, as a crazy healer.

Who can forget her song "Que te pedi", a song every incredible breakup should have in its soundtrack:

hoy pides tu las estrellas y el sol
no soy un dios
asi como soy
yo te ofresco mi amor, no tengo mas
[you ask for the stars and the sun - i'm not a god - but as I am I offer my love - I don't have more]

pero que te pedi,
tu lo puedes al mundo decir,
que supieras que no hay en la vida otro amor
como mi amor.
[but what did I ask of you - you can tell the world that there is no love like my love]

Or her "La Tirana", which deconstructed men's views of women:

Segun tu punto de vista

yo soy la mala

vampiresa en tu novela

la gran tirana

[according to your point of view, I'm the wicked/bad one - the vampire in your novel, the great tyrant]

That song has defined my work in destroying expectations of femininity or, better yet, removing masculinist silencing.

PBS' Independent Lens series featured La Lupe recently in a documentary. I missed the only showing because I was in class. And when it was due to air again, my local PBS decided to do a fundraiser instead. I shouted to the tv "I'll give 10 bucks if you put La Lupe on right now!" but they didn't listen to me.

Everyone should check out the website about the show, though. I'm not kidding. La Lupe expresses the pent up rage and passion that so many women carry (or wish they carried) but have trouble releasing. I love La Lupe and, wherever she is right now, she knows it. Bella!

happy mother's day

I got this card from mothers rising: http://www.momsrising.org/motherecard/

I spent last night running around. I developed a tremendous migraine on the way home and ended up sitting in the car for a few minutes with the air conditioner blowing on high right into my face.

Once that left, I had a good time with Delhi. She was in trouble with me earlier in the week for stealing my cell phone (a sign of the more difficult things that will come). We drove around looking at rental properties and making comments. Then I went home and cleaned up the house.

I'm feeling like my foundation's a little uneasy this week. It doesn't help I've not slept more than 4 hours in the last two weeks. It really doesn't help that my mother keeps putting this mini crisis about my niece in my lap or that she's being super controlling.

I hate that the city, long known for recognizing the needs of youth and admitting they have to address them, cannot offer true alternatives to after school care and summer care for kids. Maybe then I wouldn't have to hear from my mother that if I move 2 miles further and Delhi's school is further she wouldn't be happy to pick her up. I completely appreciate her help with my daughter. And I was super stoked to be able to help her with her car when she needed it - I don't often get the chance to help her, but I don't understand why driving a little more is that big a deal, and why she can't see how a move would be an improvement for me and for the little one. I mean, saving money and being in a safer neighborhood would be great, the chance of Delhi liking her school would be even greater.

So I find myself more than naturally upset that, for the things I want to accomplish, there aren't many resources available. How am I to work a full time job to support my child but not have adequate funding or spaces for quality child care? When I found out I was pregnant I went on assistance (food stamps, TANF, and child care assistance) for 3 months and was on WIC for a year. I needed the temporary support and it was helpful. My next job paid too much and I really was okay without the additional help. It's unfortunately, however, that unless you are without adequate income you can't find alternate ways of supporting. And I'm not exactly living in a co-op friendly city or I would see how to encompass alternative parenting circles so that my daughter could enjoy other children and parents can support each other.

I had a dream a couple of days ago that I was looking for a large home to rent with a couple and their kids. It seemed perfect. There was always someone to play with Delhi, I could cook and have people enjoy it (delhi's not a big veggie fan) and have other things taken care of and we were building community. It's a slow process, I suppose, building that trust and not giving a shit about what people on the outside might call you. I'm tired though. Just plain tired.

I think that the country needs to have done more to support women than just have it recognized by some male president and co-opted by consumerist culture. Oh, Anne Jarvis, where have we gone wrong?

spillover from my birthday, update on pumpkins, what else is happening? I know there's more I'm supposed to be writing down...

I haven't yet recounted my birthday hijinks and, thankfully, those photos people took haven't ended up on the internet or Bermuda Triangle's website!

I did meet up with Nancy who I then tried to convince to let me be her Two Week Girlfriend. She moved up to Austin last week. Of course she thought I was crazy but now we are talking nice. So much dreading about women and it's better if they do live far away. Yes, there's the missing but there's also all that time where I can actually do the things I need to do!

My new work is fantastic. Loads of paperwork but great support and just, overall, super funny and intelligent people. It's meant changing my schedule some and now I'm super tired on Mondays because I'm running like mad all weekend.

The new queer parenting group I'm in met up and went to Medina, Texas for a huge pumpkin patch held at Love Creek Orchards. It was so hot the last thing I needed to be carrying was a 10 pound white caspar pumpkin but it's a beauty! I got a tan too. So much for that cold front coming in.

Tigrette had a great time in the hay maze and painting another, much less heavy, orange pumpkin in all kinds of colors.

We knew we hit the right place when, at the entrance to the orchards there were individual flags forming the rainbow. It's like they were waiting for us. Like gay days at the pumpkin patch. You knew we had to find jokes in all this.

house of love, spy in the

I have had an incredibly hard week. I am so tired I haven't even thought about sex. And, if you know me, you know that's statistically impossible.

I have gotten a couple of calls this week and my mind is still in the denial of what I really want. I always tell Little Lion, when she is acting up or ugly, that the whole world denies the life we build, that the whole world could swallow our ideals, needs, contribution and belittles us, and so we must work hard to create a house of love.

And, unfortunately, I've realized I want a partner to do that with. Someone to share my life with. Someone who, if they cough in the bed in the middle of the night, I can rub their back and offer water. Someone who can reach for a can on a high shelf. Someone who tells me their day as they cut onions and I stir the black beans.

My body seems to be rejecting everyone who may have expressed an interest in me. I need to start again and those in my past who cannot become a part of these things, who want me part time, must step aside.

I cannot believe the way I broke down into this realization. I have been so busy with work I haven't even had the chance to buy myself a latte at Azul, let alone some milk to make my own coffee. So, when, at 10 a.m. this morning I saw the opportunity to buy a starbucks (I know, I know!) while on the way, again, to home depot for paint for the theatre space, I took it. I sat in the parking lot after getting my coffee through the drive through to actually enjoy a little of my coffee.

At this same time "Caramel" by Suzanne Vega came on the radio and I started crying. Drinking a cup of coffee for me is a small meditation, a reminder of the glorious warmth we have in our lives. The world was telling me to enjoy this moment. But damned if that song didn't say exactly what the past three days of attempted writing wasn't:

It won't do to dream of caramel,
to think of cinnamon and long for you.

It won't do to stir a deep desire,
to fan a hidden fire that can never burn true.

I know your name, I know your skin,
I know the way these things begin;

But I don't know how I would live with myself,
what I'd forgive of myself if you don't go.

So goodbye, sweet appetite, no single bite could satisfy...

I keep hearing from surrounding women that I am a good woman, that I have a lot to offer, have a great writing voice and heart but none of them are at a place where they can/want to start a t a life with me. I mean regardless of what has gone on in our past together. Start fresh. But I've realized that, despite the reasons they may have given for not making a commitment, it all comes to one thing: they don't believe the words they themselves say and so they can't act on them.

I will not be made to feel I am asking for too much. I'm asking to have someone who will hold me as we fall to sleep. Someone who'll believe in bettering our world. Someone who is ready to put aside some ego for a chance. But right now all I see is a clear horizon - I'm not looking to fall into someone's arms right now. There are things I have to accomplish for myself right now. BUT, if the opportunity presents itself, I am ready to work on building.