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July 2012

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My junior year I was single for the first time in years. I'm good with girls. They like me - the way I move, the way I don't apologize, or perhaps the way I look something like a boy, all long and lean and laughing. God knows I've had more than my fair share of supposedly straight girls eying me in what they probably thought was a surreptitious manner, the same way they looked at the football boys stretched out in full run during practice. Don't ask me why. I never went with any of them past the first one - it's the hardest way to get your heart broken, to be left simply because it turns out you are a woman and not a man. Still.

It's not that I minded being single. I'm not a girl who needs a lover all the time - I know how to be alone and how to be happy that way, and I have enough friends to make anyone happy. I don't even miss physical contact, because Jane still makes a thin line between friend and lover, and it's not uncommon for me to wake with her curled up beside me, dreaming like a young dog, eyes flickering beneath her lids and small sounds coming from her throat. I rarely have the heart to wake her, and instead slide out of bed carefully, body lithe and cautious, placing my feet oh-so-carefully on the bare wood floor, the cold traveling like a shock --

But I am not in love with Jane.

Tags:

06-13 (One Month)

Your arm snaking over my side, your hand
curled against my chest, my heart
beating soft beneath your palm. Breath
wisping my neck, your body
warm all down my back. One leg
draped over both of mine. The night
falling thundercloud soft, the rain
drumming me towards sleep. Let
me stay like this forever, riding
the outside edge of dreams; I cannot bear
to rise and face the coming dawn.

New Moon was delicious like cake.

(But seriously guys I have not laughed this hard at nor been so involved with such an abysmal movie since I made some of you watch The Summer Place with me five or six times you have to go see it I am so serious you have no idea I would see it again in a heartbeat.)

I fell off a horse on Thursday. More accurately, I flung myself off a horse going about 20 mph to avoid an uncontrolled and potentially much more dangerous fall, potentially under his hooves. Before you shriek about how horrifying this is, consider: I've fallen off well over thirty times in my life, including headfirst and onto rocks. It wasn't a big deal, and I'm actually totally okay except for my ankle.

My bright-purple, painful, thought-it-was-strained-but-actually-it's-fractured ankle.

It hurts, but not to a degree that is incapacitating. However, it's a transverse fracture across the medial malleolus (whatever, I don't really know, I'm pretty sure it's your inner ankle bone because that's what Hurts Like Fuck), with 4mm of separation. What that means in English is:holy god, your bone is coming off. Except slightly less theatrical, because it's not like it's really going anywhere.

However, I do need surgery. This sucks. A lot. It's because it's separated enough that he doesn't know if it will heal together normally. It's a short surgery, only 45 minutes. I'll be in the Wellness Center for a couple days.

Which brings me to the crux of things.

If you're around (some people tagged aren't), please come visit me? I will be bored out of my mind and in pain, and antsy because APPARENTLY THEY HAVE TO WATCH ME SO I DON'T GET UP AND WANDER ABOUT LIKE PEOPLE WITH ONE GOOD LEG ARE PRONE TO DO, and will need people to, like, play Bananagrams with me or something. Or just chat. My mother is around but I love you all tooooo.

(I'm actually quite a bit more freaked out about this than I'm letting on, but I'm too tired to really get into it right now.)

So. Um. Yeah. That's where I am the next few days.

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I was only ever frightened once. I was nervous coming out to my parents, but by that point I’d been in college for half a year, gotten a girlfriend, come out to professors. It no longer felt unnatural to say it: I like girls. And also by that time the truth was crashing forward like waves running up a beach, like the tide, and all I did was yield to the inevitable rush of water, let myself be carried like foam. And yes, perhaps I was afraid, but it was a fear that washed through me and away.

Not like the night I said it for the first time, out loud, two months after I kissed a girl who was not Cristina, the one who made me wonder and who I still don’t know if I wanted as friend or lover, and so avoided saying something that would pin me down. But by my senior year I knew, and knowing makes you want to tell, it pressures you like being underwater does, makes you feel like rising to the open air.

And so I turned my face up to the surface. The problem was that the girl I most wanted to tell – someone I loved, respected, admired, certainly one of my best friends in this small town – was the person I least wanted to lose. And I was terrified I would. It took all night to tell her, and I shook the whole time, because I was forcing the words out, struggling to reveal myself like the way a swimmer struggles when they’re down too far and in too deep, straining upwards towards sunlight, towards oxygen.

I shook so hard that she told me later, I thought you were going to tell me you were dying. It was that bad. I was that scared. I remember lying curled in on myself, tremors all through my body, facing the wall, and all I needed to say and all I said was just I’m gay. And then tears, salt like the sea, as she stared at me and said, That’s all? I thought something was really wrong. Relief, like water quenching thirst. I spent an hour crying and explaining, the words coming easy, and each one was easier to speak. The fear ebbing. By the next week I had come out – much more quietly – to all my high school friends, and no one was anything but supportive, amused that it had taken me this long.

When I talk of coming out I talk of water. Being in the closet feels like drowning. The same panic, the inability to breathe. And coming out is like rising to the surface, and riding the waves to shore, where you can stand and know that you are free. And finally draw breath.

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

lord_of_fools gave me

1. Horses. It says something, I think, that someone I knew for less than four months all told, and who I knew almost solely in the context of a queer wom*n's group and a queer history class, has 'horses' first on the list. It should be clear by now to everyone I know that I am a total horse maniac. I identify strongly as horse-hearted, I'm good with horses, and I think they're beautiful. I am constantly trying to get down what I think and feel about them into words and often fail, simply because I think there is so much about them that is unsayable. There aren't the words to describe what riding - and the connection with the horse - feels like.

Part of my Independent Study is poetry addressing the horse side of me. It's not easy.

2. Queer wom*n. This one makes more sense in context. I met [Bad username or unknown identity: lord_of_fools�] at the University of Melbourne's Queer Wom*n's group my first week of Uni, and proceeded to follow because she knew where my next class was, only to find out that she was IN my next class. I remember being terrified to go to that group, never mind that I've been out since I was nineteen and I'm 22 now, because I knew I wasn't going to know a soul. I am in fact a queer woman, and variously call myself that, a dyke, a lesbian, gay, or just a girl who really likes kissing other girls. It depends on my mood and who I'm talking to. I like my identity. I'm happy this way. I help run Allies and Queers at my college, but wish we had a queer group just for the ladies. I do also try to run girls-only LGBTeas.

3. Period costume. My favorite winter clothing item is a long heavyweight gray wool cloak. I think that probably just about sums this one up, but I will mention that I own not only Rennaisance gear but also 19th-century American outfits. Including a hoop skirt.

4. Purple. Um. I had this purple raincoat in Australia that I wore about a lot of the time, and I am quite fond of the color, but I am slightly puzzled as to why it's being associated with me. I love deep purple best, but I actually hardly own any clothing that color (except for one goooorgeous peasant shirt and a long purpley-red skirt, and yes, okay, a tee-shirt, and maybe I have more than I thought but whatever). I should remedy this lack of purple.

5. Jeans. In my 22 years on this planet I have destroyed or otherwise permanently incapacitated something like twelve pairs of jeans. That's not counting the ones I outgrew, guys. I'm talking about the ones that ended up ripped to pieces or worn through or stained beyond wearing out of the house. I am very, very hard on my clothes and I wear them into the ground. Out of the five pairs of regular jeans I currently own, two are nearing the critical point. I love jeans. It's exceedingly difficult for me to find a pair that fits, so once I do, I buy three of them and proceed to wear them every. single. day. I always have at least one pair of dress jeans and at least one pair of barn jeans. Please note that the former eventually becomes the latter, which eventually destroys them. Now that I don't spend 80% of my free time working at the barn anymore, the rate of destruction has decreased dramatically.

Any takers?

Fuck internet drama. Fuck real-life drama. I am wearing birthday socks and can't be bothered to care!

"No one's touched me all week," you say, when I reach up and put my hands against your face to say hello. Your cheeks are warm, and you lean into me, grateful, both of us forgetting for a moment that we are sometimes awkward with each other when it comes to reaching out. Our foreheads touch; I slide my hands down to rub the back of your neck and you sigh in a way that is terribly exhausted.

I ache for you, and I ache because after all this is all I can do for you now. But I still know you, and I still read the way your body moves, the way you relax around people you trust, the way you are relaxing into me, your hands sliding down from my shoulders to the crook of my elbows, your eyes closed.

You look tired. You look worn. Your sister's getting married in six days and you're stressed out and stretched thin. I wish I could do more, but for now I hug you, untie the knot you called me here to untie (because there's no one home, and it's tied around your waist, and you're too exhausted to handle it), and take my leave before I wear my welcome out. We part in peace these days.

"Are you doing alright?" I ask, before I go, hand on the door, and you smile, and say, "No. But we'll talk after this wedding's over, yeah?"

I nod, and walk on out into the night. I miss you, but not in a way that pulls my heart. It's going to be all right.

Either Austin Beer is gay or he's forgotten that I am. Opinions?

Unexpectedly nice and drama-free lunch with Sarah at her house, borrowed a frying pan, was given jam. Two peaceful friendly hours with her.

Downside. Getting sick. Sarah and Jonah both pointed this out.

Current Music: Great Big Sea - Billy Peddle | Powered by Last.fm

Making beer bread.

Being happy with who you are.

Adoring your roommate.

Hour-long car trips at 6:30 am.

Current Music: Sarah and Bobbie - Montpelier | Powered by Last.fm

Listening to the girl you have a crush on go on and ON about the crush SHE has on another girl.

Getting up at six am when you've gone to bed at three.

Watching the video your exgirlfriend sent you about grafting tomato plants, when it focuses on her hands, and goddamnit, you know her hands too well to deal with this right now.

Hanging laundry on the line when you're five feet tall.

Comforting your best (male) friend because you and he like the same girl (who is currently going on and on... see above) and it makes you stressed.

Getting up off your butt-eating hat-stealing sinking couch.

Life.

Current Music: Hanneke Cassel - Farewell to Mass. Ave./Cello Dude/ The Skye Chune | Powered by

And there's one of me - one of you -
Two of us, and one hundred questions
and two thousand reasons - ten's a perfect number.
We are twenty thousand hearts, full of hunger.
Twenty thousand hearts...

You sing the lower part and I take the melody, both of us barely audible, almost whispering, and we don't look at each other. We don't acknowledge that we are harmonizing without thinking about it, or that the words tell a story that echoes a little too close to our bones. And yet I find more peace here than I have all evening, in a song we both know, a song we came to from different directions, meeting somehow and moving around each other in the music.

And when the song ends I must swallow the words I miss you.

Tags:

Not sleeping enough, but I'm happy. It's been a good week... I love my house. My housemates are generally awesome. I need to decide on a senior thesis. First I have to go to a pizza party. Hurrah!

Also, when did I tell my LJ to sync up with my last.fm account?

Current Music: Lindsay Mac - Lucy | Powered by Last.fm

My room looks empty and yet ridiculously full. Some summer I will type up everything that is lying in notebooks EVERYWHERE, because honest to god, that's half of what makes the room look like this. But it's not so bad. I have too much stuff, though. It's not so bad, I suppose, but packing always makes me want to throw everything out while screaming wildly.

---

I have two large suitcase and a small one (backpack sized), one tupperware box (largish), two small tupperware boxes, a jewelry box. Riding boots. Helmet. FOUR boxes for Sarah, good lord woman, this better put us even when it comes to you carrying my horse stuff all the time. Food for the trip / to start me off at school. Um. Boots that I forgot to pack and was too lazy to make room for. That's not so bad, I suppose. Plus my usual backpack/computer bag nonsense. But eh. I literally left out everything I could do without, pared down to ONLY the clothes I actually wear. YET I STILL HAVE SO MUCH SHIT.

---

I'm ready to go back, though. Desperatly so. A touch worried about living with C and C, who I don't know as well. Excited about IS. Pleased about the fact that all the books I'm bringing back are horsey.

---

So I had my last contra the other night, Thursday. My friend Mitchell and LC came. It was lovely and I danced an entire contra dance blindfolded. If you don't understand why this is a big deal, go look up a Thursday Concord Contra on youtube and tell me if you think YOU could dance that, blindfolded or not. It was glorious, and a triumph, and a testament to the trust I have in my regular partner, Chris.

---

...

---

Time to crash, I think.

Current Music: Lindsay Mac - Small Revolution (Peter Pan) | Powered by Last.fm

I am going to say WHAT I want WHERE I want about WHOEVER I want in the LANGUAGE I want. I am not a child and I am not your mother and I do not care. You are going to have to grow the fuck up sometime. Get over your butthurt about being talked about behind your back, kids, because guess what? Even your friends do it all the time. Your boss will do it, and your coworkers, and there is NOTHING you can do about it. I can say whatever I like, so put on your big girl pants. I can say that Lauren is acting foolishly, that Lindsay and Chet are fine on their own but together or near Prince drive me up the wall, I can say that I have rarely disliked anyone as much as I dislike Glix. And you know what?

I HAVE ALWAYS SAID THINGS LIKE THIS ON LJ. INCLUDING ABOUT IRL PEOPLE. AND I HAVE LEFT THE ENTRIES UNLOCKED WHERE THEY COULD READ THEM.

This is not the forums. I am not linked on the forums. So frankly, if you have a problem with me talking about forumers, and want to go whine to the mods, here is what I have to say about it...

FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

I feel utterly vile. Ugh.

I'm going to do this entry backwards, and possibly in pieces. Look for another entry later that is actually about the parade. This happened after.

--

He peers at me with a look I think I recognize, a glimmer that says I really want to do something that is not exactly socially acceptable and am about to say something ridiculous, and then crooks his hands into a groping position and says "Can I touch your belly?"

Okay, that was not what I was expecting, and because of it I laugh out loud, full-throated. At least one rainbow-clad stranger turns to look at me, but I am no odder than everything else around me and they move on. Cid grins, but doesn't drop his hands. He's serious.

"Yeah alright," I say, recognizing Australia in the way I say the words, the unusual roundness of the vowels, hearing the way Fitzy gave in to things. Cid practically wiggles with glee, and lays his small hands on my stomach. I look down, and then up, raising one eyebrow. Cid's peculiar, but in this at least he has company; every girl I've dated has been fascinated by my belly, perhaps because they are all thin and tall without an extra ounce of fat on their bodies. I tell Cid this, and then go on to say, "Would that my mother thought like you. Or the girls. The second thing she said to me in New Zealand was 'Have you gained weight?' Which was let me tell you just awesome. And this summer we've joined a gym - which actually I enjoy, because I can do yoga there as much as I like - and mom talked me into Weight Watchers - "

"Why?" asks Cid, one hand still on my stomach. His touch is comfortable and comforting, as always. "That's silly. You're fine the way you are. If my parents went around telling me what I should eat there would be trouble."

I shrug. "To learn to eat better, I suppose. And cook. And it stops arguments, and I am pretty invested in an arguement-free summer."

Cid makes a face. Privately, I agree, and when he says only half jokingly that it will lose me girls, I cannot help but nod. I go through stages of loving and hating the way I look, although there are some things about myself I will always adore - my smile, my shoulders, the strength in my legs.

I think about it the whole rest of the day, and the whole rest of the week. And I wonder what price an arguement-free summer. I know I could stand to lose weight - I felt better in my riding when I was a little lighter, which I suppose is reason enough - but I worry about my reasons for doing so. Not about my reasons for working out - I like feeling strong, being able to move quickly and lift things and bend in interesting ways - but I am no longer sure I want to be doing this. It's good to know how to eat healthily and cook for yourself... but is this the right way to go about it?

Cid so often challenges my way of thinking.

I have rather a lot to say about yesterday and this morning, but I am already running late for a horseshow. I'll be back later.

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"My whole childhood has been one of loving horses and of heartbreak."

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Unedited and partially irrelevant crosspost from FB and TDF.

Today is National Coming Out Day.

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heh.

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Also.

Things That Are Unexpectedly Easy

Things That Are Unexpectedly Fucking Difficult

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Grumpy grumpy grumpy.

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Pride and associated tidbits.

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