Magenta Is The New Ivory

Carefully Curated Friends,

The ocean is strong & outgoing

But it's deep & murky & mysterious too...

I look up to the ocean

As if it were the sky

And know someday I will 

Kick & splash its cloudiness away

And find hidden treasure

To make better

Lives on dry land

***BREAKING NEWS***

CNN is a FOX in the middle of the road

It says "worst case scenario"

When it means "nothing at all"

It says emergency

When it means false alarm

If I ever hear Anderson Cooper proclaim

In a journalistic tone

To be a "person of faith, but…"  --(dot, dot, dot implying

The right side of the bird is flapping

Maniacally & making circles around its

Destination)--

I'll lose my mind in front of the whole, impartial human race

***********************************

Friend Art #1  -- This friend used to astound me in high school w/ her pencil drawings. Here is one she copied on gel photo paper. It kinda gives the pencil a purplish hue. I really dig that!

It was finally time to become an 

Adult

(or just "adult" as a verb, as the hipsters say)

So I unpacked my heart &

Put all my unlived dreams away & the funny thing is--

They all fit in one suitcase

I've seen adults with dreams pushing

On their closet doors, screaming

From behind all the high school whatnot &

College what for

It may seem to some observers 

I got a heavy 45-year long-playing

Childhood rotation

But I assure you in childhood

I was a rotten old soul 

Dropping from a skeletal family tree

A filthy overachieving teen

Once I hit the dirt and got some traction

With my seeds

But barely survived my 20s

As every sunrise tried to take away from me

What fantasies irrigated my soul

Then around 33, I got to choose 

How many regressions per minute

I wanted to spin counterclockward

The big universal tiger roar

Told me to have a happy middle-age

And I did

I did

I did

I hid…and knew laughter & the creative spark &

Ice cream for breakfast & building forts w/ bourbon bottles &

The goosebumps of my own family's ghost stories

Friend Art #2 -- Here is one by a friend whose whacky imagination and sense of humor w/ shape & line I have admired for a long time

I'm not narcissistic

Because I'm in love w/ myself

I'm narcissistic 

Because I am alive & a science project &

A playground.

I've looked at you &

You are narcissists too

That is not a crime.

We can be narcissists, altruists. activists &

Contributors to the great 

Science experiment on the 

Playground…

Good day.

Friend Art #3 -- Here is a sketch done by my fabulous Moonface while we were doing our radio show. He is a very talented artist, designer & architect. 

[I hope you enjoy my friends' artwork as much as you've always adored mine. I like to see what our minds can do--we can all draw from the inside out…good, bad, impressions, expressions, realism, phantasm…don't judge…just 'NnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnjOy!!!!

I'll have plenty more art for ya this summer. And I will do something new in the goth garage---singing alone. Guitaring solo. Because really…I am not so great at doing them both in the same moment.

I'm happy. I'm scared. I'm panicking. I'm a person, still.]

Stream Of Mad Manliness

Friends & Allies,

I hope all is fine in your worlds, as I am battling a feeling of unease

With all the soft, nerfy tendrils of my heart

I feel an earthquake inside me

Again….every few months

Like a natural disaster I rumble

My tectonic chakras slamming into place &

Opening inner eyeball doors

Life is as safe as it is unsafe

And as fair as it is unfair

And as balanced as Fox News,

No just kidding…even Fox News is balancing something 

We may not be hearing over here

Over here over here in the U.S.A.

I try to keep my sense of humor,

But sometimes I give it away--

I donate it to the humorless void

I can't quite locate inside my frame

Is it in my skull?

My ribcage?

Sometimes it's a tremor located

In my legs and they collapse

Like third world infrastructure in 

A 7.3 quake

I have had 3 wonderful months in a row

Spring is my favorite season after Autumn

But here comes Summer, that bitch…

I fear her. Or him. I don't mean to

Gender the seasons…  SPEAKING

of GENDER:

I almost made it out to the 

Harvey Milk Festival--I planned on going

I wanted to go & show my support &

See the music & hear the murmur of progress

But I realized:

I am absolutely SATURATED with the LG(BT)Q dilemma

Right now, and I need to step back from it

I need to remember who I am besides someone

Who is changing slowly into

Who he really is…

Yes I said it: He. HE.

PEARL

So far I have shared mostly the shallow aspects 

Of transitioning--the clothes

The outward appearance, the attempts to

Avoid being called "Miss" or "Ma'am"

But now I am thinking of myself in male pronouns

I think "He" instead of "She"

And that is much harder than

Choosing what neutral, masculine outfit to wear

Because all my neurons scream

"No No NO NO NO  NO!!!!!!"

You are not allowed to be in that club!

You are not anatomically correct!

"You are too short to be a man. You've GOT to 

Accept that you're a female!!" (Mom's voice after my suicide attempt

always echoing in my head)

The laughter…the questions…the jokes…the

Unwanted gropes

There is a lot of POLITICS surrounding GENDER TRANSITION

We have polarizing figures like Bruce Jenner & Kristin Beck

So public, both hated & revered for doing what they're doing

There are TERMINOLOGY issues--

Apparently it's not okay to talk about "passing"

It triggers things in people who have made it

Through their transition already

But I am okay with the word "passing"

That's all I can do right now

There is issue with the phrase "born in the wrong body"

But that is EXACTLY how I describe my situation

I guess the preferred phrase is

"Assigned female at birth (AFAB)"

That seems a) like a mouthful b) euphemistic

c) it doesn't have the gravitas that accompanies the kind

of gender dysphoria I've experienced all my life

And there is friction between those who are public about

Their transition (Jenner/Beck)

And those who wish to remain "stealth" (just live as their

chosen gender w/out letting anyone know there was a "journey"

from one to the other)

And I can respect both of those decisions

I can understand why some people would go "stealth"

Even though I don't feel I could do that

I need this to be a "journey" I can share with

The world, no matter what 

And hey, I just have to ask--

Why has the "trans community" forgotten about

CHAZ??

He is a public figure; he shared his transition

On a mini reality called 'Becoming Chaz'; he was on

Dancing With The Stars, for chrissakes!!

I never hear his name lumped in with

The famous (mostly female) trans population.

Anyway…enough about all that

I am moving along slowly, slothfully, snailishly

Forgiving myself for all the years

Of anger and hate and frustration

And restlessness and fakery,

And any hurt that has caused the people around me

I'm trying to accept myself for who I am

Someone who WAS born in the wrong body

And who has come out in a time when it seems safe to do so…

Attempting to be who I really should've been

From age 2.

That is the truth, and sometimes it robs me of my happiness, humor & sanity

And sometimes it is the very

Source of those things

Aaahhhhh, LIFE. You mysteriously little angel w/

Devilish afterbite. I'm still with you.

And if you're still with me, here is an art project that didn't go so well

I wanted to draw "something shiny" in pencil. 

I chose scissors, but did not do a good job with the shininess…

Frustration ensued.

“I am so angry with myself because I cannot do what I should like to do,” he wrote in a letter as he tussled with mental illness —

FUCK