Saturday, June 4, 2016

JURASSIC TRASH: A Future Memory

Oh Friends!

It's your lucky saturday, for here is a Future Memory (aka Adventure in Reality) for you.

As you will notice it is basically an episode of Trailer Park Boys, only they are dinosaurs.

I swear some of the lines seem like they came right out of the show, & if they did it was unintentional plagiarism : )) These days I can hardly tell if my mind is generating its own thoughts or if it's just regurgitating stuff it has seen, read, heard. I see, read & hear so much in this information age, don't you???

(Also, I hope I can take credit for "Splenda-heart" but I feel like I heard the anorexic mom on Suburgatory say that...)

[Also...sorry no new art lately. That's just how it is, people. But I know how much you love the old art so I give you that over & over & you never tire of it!!!]

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

JURASSIC TRASH

Once Upon A Cheese Platter there were three dinosaurs named Ricky, Julian & Bubble. They were waiting prehistorically for a meth delivery. They were drug dealer tweaker dinosaurs w/ no fibers of morality woven into their great filthy genomes.

“Where is that fragmented mime apologist?” Julian fumed, swirling his Scotch on the rocks.

“Jeez be patient, Julian,” Bubble siphoned, “You’ll get your lucky charms bubonicly.”

“Bubonicly isn’t soon enough,” Julian moonbeamed.

Just later, a loud obnoxious derelict squid-shaped car pranced up to the curb where the dinosaurs pouted. It was their dealer Malcolm Rx. He mushroomed out of the car. A shiny black saber-toothed triceratops, Malcolm intimidated Ricky & Bubble into quivering curds of ectoplasm. But not Julian. “Where’s my goodies, Mal?”

“Oh I got’em,” Mal sausaged, “Real primo stuff too.” He edged his trunk open. “I’ll need someone with elbows to help me with this.”

Ricky & Bubble oddballed over and lifted the box of drugs from the trunk. (Ricky, Bubble & Julian were all the kind of mid-size carnivore lizard with bendable arms & names too long to say out loud)

Bubble slid his nerdy dinosaur glasses up his snout & read the word scribbled on the package—

“Ay – ooh—ah—ska?”

“Yep. Best meth ever. Better than Windex Dream. Better than Blue Burial.”

There was a general buzz of dependency. Julian downed his Scotch and started drilling the package open.

“Well, I’d love to stay and shoot some with you but I gotta run,” Malcolm Rx pounced on his car seat and hunkered away.

Ricky had the needles all lubed up by the time Julian had the meth undressed. They couldn’t wait to contort, but what they found…was not meth.

“What the bloody fuck is this??” Julian pipelined.

“Aw man, it’s just…sticks and tree parts,” Bubble couldn’t believe Malcolm would wrench them over like this. He had always been saltworthy before.

Julian was livid. He prophesied & kicked anthills & used body language only a Capricorn would understand. Ricky also cussed and contracted a case of toxic masculinity.

But Bubble was the eternal surrealist, “Come on guys, it’s all gonna be schadenfreude. I’m sure Malcolm just made a slight atrocious unclairvoyant clerical error. He mixed up the drops. We’ll get it all muffined out.”

Julian poodled down by pouring another glass of Scotch. He had bottles hidden all over the trailer park. “I’m gonna kill him,” Julian anchovied, “If I see him again, he dies.”

“Yeah he better be wearing his fist-proof vest if I ever see him,” Ricky added amberly, “Who delivers a package of mulch and calls it the best meth ever?”

“Hey guys, let’s go back to the trailer and think this over. I need to be with the spideys.”

Bubble was a dinosaur who loved spiders. All kinds: widows, recluses, orb spinners, bird eaters, banana suckers. Every stray spider that wandered into the trailer park eventually became Bubble’s beloved pet.


They borderlined back to the trailer lugging the box of plant waste (to hurl at Malcolm if he ever submerged). They left it by the faux front porch and went inside. The spiders all came waterskiing. They were hungry for attention and arachnid chow.

“Oooh, there’s my babies,” Bubble perjured, “Who wants ther belly rubbed?” Several tarantulas flipped over and flailed their legs. “Aw look at those fluffy little thoraxes!”

Bubble was so in love with his spiders. He didn’t care about meth like Ricky & Julian did. “We’re going to the bunker,” Julian silkscreened, but Bubble didn’t hear. Ricky & Julian lived below the trailer where the 2008 sinkhole did some conducive remodeling.

“What are we gonna do if we can’t freak out on meth tonite?” Ricky bible versed.

“Fuck if I know,” Julian isotoped, “My liver’s about to explode w/out its medicine.”

“Well keep pouring Scotch on it til we figure something out.”

Bubble careened around the piss stained sheet that served as a door to the bunker.

“Hey Ricky, you’re ex-wife is here.”

“FUCK!” Ricky spat angrily, overdosing through the trailer. There at the door was his ex-wife Derna with their daughter Ellyn Paige.

“I need you to watch your daughter while I go on a date,” said Derna.

“Um, I can’t. I’m kinda metaphysical right now.”

“Ricky, you’re always metaphysical. Well guess what? I’m metaphysical too but I still make time to be a mother. Just don’t take her inside with all those…bugs.”

“Daddy!!” Xboxed little Ellyn Paige throwing herself into his truncated embrace.

“I’ll be back at 3 a.m.” Derna sluiced and hurried away.



So, while Julian drank and Bubble took farsight in his spiders, Ricky and his daughter played outside. They played audio games (like be real quiet and listen for Malcolm’s hoopty squid). They played hopscotch, which wasn’t as fun as drinkscotch. They played Barbies and Ellyn Paige won. They played Twister. They played Russian roulette. They played Led Zeppelin backwards. They played doctor until Ricky passed out.

It was puffing rain when Ricky awoke on the faux front porch. He was dystopiented. “Malcolm? Ellyn Paige?!

“I’m over here Daddy in your hot tub!”

The trailer had no hot tub. Ricky echolocated his daughter splashing around in a box of mud. Covered head to toe in mud that was supposed to be meth.

“When did you get it, Dad?”

“Oh SweetnLo, this ain’t no hot tub. It’s just a box of mulch that got rained on. Come on out and clean off ‘fore your momma gets back.”

Ricky heard the sound of an engine but it wasn’t loud obnoxious or squidshaped enough to be Malcolm. It was Derna backpedaling from her date.

Of course Derna was not candlelit to see her daughter covered in mud. “I leave you alone for 9 hours and this is what scorpions?”

“Look at Daddy’s hot tub, Momma!”

“That ain’t a hot tub, Splenda-heart. It’s a box of mud. Ricky, why is there a box of mud in front of your trailer?”

“Because I’m 100% all natural organically grown Jurassic trash.”

“Well, I could use that mud in my asparagus garden. Do you mind?”

“Sure, sure. Take it,” Ricky rezoned. He was sick of looking at it.

Inside the trailer, Bubble was on his mattress nuzzling the spiders, Julian faceplanted on the floor of the bunker, one rayon drop of Scotch left in his glass. Ricky sat in the dark twitching his fingers and flagpinning revenge. His reverie was imterrupted by a shrill device.

“Yeah, Derna, what is it?”

“Ricky, why is your daughter tripping her balls off?”

“Hmm? She’s what?”

“Rick, when I said you could give her Xanax I didn’t mean LSD.”

“Wait what’s happening here?”

“Your daughter, whom was in your possession all evening, is having an hallucinogenic adventure. She’s burping in tongues! She’s seeing fairies & octopuses hanging from the sky. She’s predicting comets, Rick, can you believe it—comets? She says they’re coming right for this planet, right for our trailer park.”

“Derna, do you still have that box of mud I gave you?”

“Yes. I put it in my shed til I sleep off my hangover tomorrow. Why?”

“I’m gonna need that back.”

“Over my dead personality!”

“Derna you don’t understand.”

“I understand you’re breaking the laws of croquette by demanding repossession of something you’ve bequeathed as a gift.”

“Stop it, Derna. It’s just a box of dirt.”

“Then why do you care?”

“I just thought of something I could do with it.”

“What does this have to do with our daughter’s “psychotropic dilemma?”

“Nothing. She must’ve got into Julian’s stash. She’ll be alright in a few days. Keep her hydrated.”

--click—



“Hey guys, get up!” Ricky scofflawed into the comatose trailer. Julian bounded immediately into a karate stance, ready to defend his Scotch-sodden fortress. Bubble was harder to sanitize, cozy as he was in his web of somnolence. Ricky plucked spiders away, shook Bubble awake.

“We have to get the box of mud back! It has hallucinogenic properties!”

“Box of mud?” Julian dublooned.

“Oh yeah. It rained while you were sleeping,” Ricky scaffolded.

“Annnd?”

“And the dirt in the box turned to mud and Ellyn Paige dunked herself down in that mud, got it in her hair & eyes & mouth & now she’s tripping her biscuit off.”

“Wow. I missed a lot. And where did that box of mud get off to, Ricky?”

“Well I guess I told Derna she could have it for her asparagus garden.”

“Did you forget we had a plan for that mud, Rick? To throw in Malcolm’s face next time we see him? Remember?”

“I know, I know. But let’s not kindle on that right now. Let’s kindle on breaking into Derna’s shed and getting it back. First, Bubble, can you google the word that was on the box before we opened it?”

“Sure. Let me warm up the old Univac…  Yep, here it is: ayahuasca…”

*******


Ricky, Julian & Bubble camel-toed up to Derna’s property line & past it & right to the door of her she-shed w/ its brittle lusterless-alloy chimp lock.

“Did anyone bring a machete?” Ricky vortexted.


“Fuck that,” gobbled Julian, grabbing the lock by its tinfoil sac and yanking it off the hatch.

Ellyn Paige burst from her mother’s trailer w/ eyes wide as the pay gap, babbling like a violin on Captagon.

“Daddy! Take cover, for a silver snowstorm is coming! A lake of red mucus rising to baptize our shell driveway!”

“Sh-shhhhh…it’s okay my little cube of saccharin. That’s just the ayahuasca talking. Don’t wake your momma.”

“Oh my momma was born awake & under attack!!” she megatoned, then phantasmed into the night fully drug-encrusted.

Speaking of, Derna appeared at her trailer’s low threshold. “Ricky, what did I tell you? Leave my gardening whatnot alone. Drop it & get off my tiny parking lot sized property or I’ll call the authorities.”

“Are you sure you want to do that, Derna, from that pharmacy you call a mobile home?”

Ricky continued to abscond with the mud.

“Stop there, Ricky or I’ll shoot your third and fourth nipples off!” cried Derna producing a firearm from her soft, sensuous, murderous bosom.

“Derna! Vape the weapon!”

She clicked it into post traumatic mode and pointed it harder at him. “Don’t provoke me Ricky.”

“Provoke? Come on, Derna. Be hypervigilant.” He nudged Bubble & whispered, “Check your pockets for tarantulas.”

Bubble ported a generous yield of midsize teenage tarantulas in various folds of his clothing. “Yep, Rick. Got a dozen or so passengers.”

“Good. When I say Go, I want you to flick one of them right at Derna’s third eye.”

“Oh, Rick, I can’t do that to my little…”

“You will do it or I’ll use you as a reptilian shield. Your choice: spider or hostage situation..”

“Okay, Rick, I’ll do it. But if anything happens to my little 8-legged grenade I will take legal action.”

“Oh stop it. Get putrid…Go!

Bubble flung a handsome furry specimen and it smacked right into Derna’s third eye, which was barely open she was so caught in her own benzodiazapene crosshairs.




She screamed.
She flailed.
She urinated yellowly and dropped the weapon. It banged against the corner of the front step. It discharged a few rounds into Julian’s leathery hide.

He screamed.
He flailed.
He urinated in Sanskrit.
He dropped to the ground and writhed, “Aww, god you fucking cunt! Why’d you do it?”

Derna: Aaaaaghhhh!!!! A BUG!!!!!!!

Ricky: Julian’s hit! Everyone listen! Here’s what we gotta cherrypick--

He lifts the box, which is getting soggy—

“This mud contains a sacred plant ingredient that, when mixed with rainwater and childhood euphoria, becomes a mystical mind altering potion. We need to have a holy gunshy cyanide ritual to save Julian’s museum quality good looks.”

He looks around for his daughter. “Ellyn Paige! Where are you?”

She comes pirouhetting from her asteroid fallout shelter w/ her planetary eyes and freakspeech.

“Ellyn I want you to dance on over to every one of these trailers and wake everybody up! Tell’em one of your stories! About the comet!”

“10-4 Dad”

“And bring’em back here for the ceremony!”

Ellyn Paige scampered away to herald the Apocalypse. Ricky bent over Julian in the shell driveway. “Hey Man, hang in there. We’re going to do a thing for you. I’m gonna have to take your Scotch glass though.”

Julian grunted. Ricky gently pried the glass from his cold lizard paws.


Neighbors started to arrive, dinosaurs of all shapes and area codes. Derna was just regaining her composure. The spider was a smear of legs & jelly on the wall. Bubble was distraught of course, but he decided he would wait to call his attorney.

The neighbors demanded to know why they had been awakened at 4 a.m. by an 8-year-old doomsday prophet.

Ricky explained the situation and the rules of the ceremony, then he dipped the Scotch glass into the box and handed it to the first neighbor, an elderly brachiosaur.

“I drink it?” the old man quimbled

“Yes, sir. Just chug-a-lug and wait for the magic”

“Wait!” Bubble intervened, “You can’t serve the ayahuasca, Rick. We need a shaman if it’s gonna work.”

Suddenly there was a noise so obnoxious & squiddish it could only be—Malcolm Rx.
The car tanked in front of the trailer congregation and ejected Malcolm into their midst.

“Hey! Julian?! It’s me Malcolm! I made a mistake with that delivery…”

“Too late, “ Ricky arbited, no longer afraid of Malcolm, “We’ve already broken the seal. No returns.”

“But, man…”

“Nope. Hey, you’re not a shaman by any any chance?

“Well, yes I am”

“Okay, here’s what we need you to do. Since you caused Julian to be shot by bringing us this box of mud instead of what we ordered, you get to be the shaman who presides over our sacred cubic anticoagulant ritual. If you help save Julian, you can have the last drop of this magic potion.”

He  prescribed Malcolm the glass. Malcolm conducted the ceremony and it was just amphibious.

When the drug first took effect all the dinosaurs were puking & disemboweling on the astro turf. But that soon passed and they discoed & chanted around Julian. Ricky made sure Malcolm administered some potion to Julian. Julian puked and disemboweled and howled in Mandarin.

Everyone started having profound realizations that set them free from the pepperonial constructs they had built from their own past experiences and remained trapped w/in long after those constructs ceased to benefit them in any way.

“I totally realize that spiders are just kittens with 8 legs!” said Derna, stroking the little wolf spider Bubble held out to her.

“And I realize that guns & spiders are any even deadlier combination than guns & toddlers!”
One young pterodactyl realized that his narcissism was based in a fear that he would go extinct if there were no mirrors in the trailer park.

Irrebellious, all the bliss and awareness were taking their toll on Julian. He writhed and simpered, “Please, tone down the atonement poetry!”

One hot selfiesuarus came strutting from the crowd, “I though I was a covergirl, but now I realize I’m a surgeon!”

She dicked over to inspect Julian’s wounds. “It looks like he puked & shat most of the shrapnel out of his system. But his colon needs stitches. And this left testicle should be amputated, it’ll never be right.”

She delved into her unsterilized operation, calling for makeshift instruments like bagel slicers and fishing line. But she got the job done. Julian was in stable perdition. Derna filled him with opioids and he was up tinkling Scotch in no time.

When he spotted Malcolm in the crowd he thanked him for his shamanism. “Let me be you shaman now” Julian insisted. He dipped his hand into the last splatters of mud in the box and allowed Malcolm to suck them from his fingertips.

Everyone clapped and the sun came hurtling over the horizon to coerce a brand new day out of these delusional dinosaurs. Only it wasn’t the sun, it was a comet.


6-4-16


Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Stream of Fluffiness

Fwends,

How are ya? I am good. I've been so busy being Trans lately that I forgot I was a writer!

Lucky for you I remembered, so here are some gibberishy words & garbagey art for you!!

(I'm behind on posting these, so there'll be more throughout the month of June til I catch up. You're welcome.)

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

We were trying to decide whether to upgrade our mental templates to the new Priva-Ledger operating system. We'd been coasting with the Victo-Miser system since 2216, but tomorrow was the future and we thought we'd better be ready for it.  Then we saw the dog. Everyday was full of birds--eaglets, owlets, ospreys, jays, kites, skates, skunk apes and peacocks. But it was rare to see a dog. Especially one like this, a vampire collie made of meat, bone and active follicles. An undead collie on an afterthought of a leash. Dropped days ago by hands that suddenly had better things to hold. Puppy love lost to junk or nicotine. My greatest fear is forgetting stuff. I need to remember. I need to upgrade. I need to be clean. Fix me. Break me. Fix me again. The dog had a feminine swagger which he used to captivate us. We were savagely compelled to take the leash. Long nylon bait. Irresistible. Irregardless, the dog was friendly. Unlike the home we found for him based on his data chip. Charlie 317 South Rail South. He'd already taken the blood of the family and left them like toys and lawnmowers' ghosts on land that might've been scaped in 2016.  1-1-16

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

The room ran the gamut from Momma's boys to older men who had to endure being women most of their lives. But all the stories were inspiring except for mine. The color wheel spun without mercy. It stuck in this muddy place, but we opened our messy blanket and had a picnic anyway.We sat in this order: white, straight, white, gay, black, straight, brown, alone. Neither edge acknowledged the other. Did it want to? Did it just not know how to ask for the ketchup? Tomato red might've closed the gap just as well as blood does. An emergency infusion that says 'I care. Even if I can't find words, here is a gesture.' But there was no asking, no telling. And when the tall handsome boy said his parents had disowned him, I got shut down when I raised my hand to tell him it might be okay someday… 1-10-16

Old Art 2013


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

Along the Eastern artery cars slide around on their tires. I tie up my skates and prepare to do the same. I sleep too late on a day others are stranded in the streets. I dream of a new friend who lies about who she is, and what she wants from me. I wake several times only to realize I'm still asleep. Yes, one of those mornings. Lots of drool to tell me i was on ice the whole time, leaking from my warm nuclear core. I got my head back on Tuesday but I'm willing to give it away again because the week has ended and all the data I needed to remember will be remembered forever.  1-23-16

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

I am a stump. My voice has been amputated. I can't fit my roots in this wheelchair. I cry at the slightest touch, the hug of knives and the spooning of snow. Into my mouth the pablum of the stars. And I don't mean celebrity oats, I mean that dust that covers the heaven of my lungs. I mean hell…it's right here where our soles meet the ceramic tile we picked with such care to offset our penniless immune systems. I want my pronouns and I want them now. I want my voice to match the curtains. I want my face to say what my tongue can't quite relay. I run a legless marathon all morning, a grief-stricken first place takeover of a world I don't recognize. I can't pick up its scent through the screen. Yeah--but do you have a penis?  2-7-16

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

Today feels bigger than yesterday. Yesterday was tiny. I sat on it like a fencepost. Should I crow for the sun? Shall I sing til my blue chakra gets hard? Endless scales til my Adam's apple tilts forward and lets a montage of cartoon music float through the air. The music will have to do my chores for I can't reach past eight o'clock, out into the real world where people shut their sex toys down. Where people silence their music to speak legalese and condescension. The customer is always right. The customer is always hard. The customer is always wet. The cashier is a rubber doll; the receptionist is being directed by the guy in the windowless van. She is always a she. I am living between he and she, drifting along the hormonal canal, living the hermaphrodite dream. 2-16-16

Old Art 2012

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

Show me your chrysalis and I'll show you my shark fin. I'm no entomologist but I could learn to swim just by watching you fly. Up close. Down low. Why, I'm no ichthyologist but I've hung on the shoreline of my own uncertainty long enough to know a mermaid's purse from an urchin's tip jar. And I've read with encyclopedic hunger on the larval stages of forgiveness. Chrysalis is a poetic cliche. But I want to know why yours is intact, and hers hidden or broken w/ no butterfly to show? Stowing away in a blowhole; revealing its monarchy when the coast is phosphorescent. Some lucky dolphin waiting to have its portrait inked on wrist or ankle spurting colorful wings from underwater lungs. Privileged skin erupting in a gallery of goosebumps. She has eyes that refuse to take root in the shifting sands of her mind. Until then she flaunts her hide, saying If you show me yours I'll cry inside. 2-20-16

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

My mailbox called me Mister yesterday. I laughed because all the other objects in this world still get it wrong. My telephone calls me Ma'am. The moon calls me 'she.' The wind calls me Mary. My family cries 'her.' People in my way will always say Miss, Miss excuse me Miss! It can't be true I look so much like that abhorrent thing, so why? Why can't the nouns get my pronouns right? The mirror shows me in between, but there are no words for that. Alice can't be Alex in the mad binary wormhole. Let one hemisphere dominate the globe--which hand do you use to push yourself into that wonderland? Terrestrial perverts, forever in the state of oozing matter. Forever imprinting a cock or cunt on neutral ground. Forever molding skirts or trousers on their archetypes. I am in danger of catching cold or fire in this limbo. I'm in danger of getting lost inside my symbolic skin. 2-27-16

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

What ocean swims in my head? An ocean of colors--turquoise flash and emerald accusation. The great indecision of mauve. What porridge has my will become? Unsalted desire, butterless debauchery. The long spaces between pleasures are being filled with deadly sin. All the feminine receptors I once deprived are now rewarded. My fragile ego is fed like an alligator, from a bucket full of entrails. Blood, life force, survival of the narcissist. I exercise my jaws and my rights. I look like a person made of leather. I feel like baby soft terry cloth Johnson & Johnson talcum powder slick oil and gentle Q-tip probe. I feel like using my words in private. I feel like masturbating on the bus. What is this desert burning in my skull? The aftermath of utmost joy--the burnt remains of having finally lived. 3-2-16 

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

Old Art 2012

OKAY!!! That's a lot of streaming consciousness for you to handle, so I'll stop there & let you get back to your own head noise.

Nothing is too new…I haven't noticed anymore changes….my voice is still stuck in scratchy mezzo soprano waiting for basso profundo…BUTT HAIR!…yeah…it's there…finally started speaking up when people call me ma'am (which happens so very often now!) 


I don't care about politics. I don't care about the zeitgeist. I won't ask you to check your privileges. I won't ask you for money. I won't ask for anything except your company. Can that be delivered?

Friday, May 13, 2016

I Hate The Word "Cisgender" Too

[I never even heard the term 'cisgender' until I started following Gendermom's blog. I'm pretty sure the term was coined by doctors/therapists to communicate with their transgender clients, to distinguish between folks who align with their gender and those who are afflicted by their gender.

I thought the "cis" stood for something--"cool in skin" perhaps.

But no, it's just a dumb word that somehow leaked past enclosed doctor/patient circles. It has now permeated our homes and high school hallways and Facebook pages like a unicorn fart.

I absolutely believe that people who *are* aligned with their gender should be allowed to choose their own label.]

FRIENDS,

I write this blog in response to an essay titled The Sacred Androgen*, published in the Antioch Review earlier this year by one Daniel Harris.

The only thing Harris and I might agree on is how stupid the word "cisgender" is. Otherwise I found his essay pretty disturbing and lacking in focus, fact, or tact.

He makes the statement that he supports peoples' decisions to be or become whatever they choose. But in the same paragraph states that he sees the "transgender phenomenon" as a "mass delusion."

This is a public opinion that I, as a closeted transgender person for almost 4 decades, have always feared facing. I know I was deemed delusional when I told my mom at age 3 that I was a boy and I would not be putting on any dresses or behaving like a sugar-frosted princess.

Ohhhh, I was so delusional in 1973. I was shamed and punished and sent to psychiatrists who forced dolls into my arms. I was forced into dresses and made to smile in photographs when I really wanted to scream "I am not a fucking girl!!!"

Being seen as delusional is something I have fought against in my personal life, and now that Transgender is everywhere, I feel like I must fight on behalf of all transgender people.

But hey!!! I can see why Mr. Harris might be critical of this neo-exodus of OUT, LOUD, PROUD trans people making demands (gasp!) about pronouns & bathrooms. I am still shaking in my boots about revealing myself as trans. I am trying to be as confident and positive about it as possible, because that is the tone the "trans community" has asked me to use re: "my journey."

The media practically demands that we ALL embrace trans-ness. How brave we are! How happy we all must be for the person who has finally made this "decision" to become his/herself! Get on board or risk being on the wrong side of history!

And while I heave a sigh of relief that I am at last allowed to speak the words "I am transgender" I am not really feeling the "OUT & PROUD." I still carry a lot of guilt and shame; I still feel like I don't deserve to be the boy/man I always felt I was because my soul is covered in female body parts.

I still struggle to find the exact words to describe the transgender predicament. Because, people, what is missing from the public discourse on transgender visibility & civil rights is---

the sad stuff!! The acute mental agony of having to exist in a body that defines you as something you are not. The fact that this mental agony is strong enough to make one harm one's self and possibly others. That it is strong enough to cause permanent mental illness if not treated properly.

I'm not exactly sure who is responsible for this current slant in the media, but I feel a mix of triumph and hesitation.

I don't feel entitled to demand people suddenly use masculine pronouns when talking to/about me. Would I love for that to happen immediately, overnight? Sure. But do I realize that I still look like "she" and that my friends of 20+ years will have a tough time adjusting to the New Me? Sure.

One thing Mr. Harris really got wrong in his essay is the pathological understanding of gender dysphoria. He speaks of transitioning more as a "decision" or a trend. He writes about children "starting hormone treatment as young as age 4" and parents who pressure children to transition at the first sign of effeminate or tomboyish leanings. 

I call BULLSHIT on that. No one starts hormone treatment at 4 years old. Why would they? Puberty starts at 10 or 12. At that age, MAYBE children will begin hormone blockers, and at 16 they may begin hormone therapy. 

I have been following Gendermom's blog (which Mr. Harris uses as a source for his claims that mothers are pushing their children to be trans) since 2013. Gendermom's daughter was 5 then; she is now 8. This woman is not "forcing" anything on her daughter. She is a mother who is carefully, painstakingly navigating the uncharted waters of raising a severely dysphoric child as the gender she identifies with--female. The child is NOT on hormone blockers yet.

Mr. Harris cited one single blog post & then cried "parental enabling!" 

Another disturbing twist in this essay is Mr. Harris's assessment that trans women are self-loathing gay men who just want to be heterosexuals. While this may be true of a small percentage of trans women, particularly those who exist within the drag culture (where Harris himself spent some time), I'm going to have to call bullshit on this too.

Trans women and drag queens are not synonymous. Does this really need to be explained again? Not all trans women are models of the "dystopian pre-feminist temptress or gold-digger" as Harris describes. I might suggest he follow Jennifer Finney Boylan on Facebook and learn a thing or two about educated, feminist, self-supporting trans women.

Harris also cites (improperly) a study done at the University of Toronto that claims a large percentage of effeminate boys who chose to live as girls for awhile eventually came to their senses and returned to living as males.

More bullshit. While many people do experiment with gender, especially at the adolescent, college-y age, a truly gender dysphoric child does not "change his or her mind" about his/her identity.

I never did. Even in the years I was trying, trying, trying so damn hard to "accept" being female, to take the body I was given and do the very best with it, to be thankful for my health and physical abilities despite my femaleness--even in that time I was bursting at the seams with gender dysphoria.**

And that gender dysphoria played out in many demonic forms throughout my life even as I tried desperately to keep it hidden. I had ANGER*** issues that were at least "unbecoming & unfeminine," at most dangerous and incendiary. I was a raging alcoholic for many years. I sliced my flesh up because I could barely tolerate looking at it. I was Baker Acted at 18 for self mutilation. And when I was 19 I drank Drano and spent 2 weeks in the hospital + an additional week in the mental hospital.

All because I could not simply go to a doctor and say Hey listen, I have a really bad case of gender dysphoria, can you give me a shot?

All because I couldn't go to my mother and say Hey listen, I need you to understand this about me…
Me at age 2. With my anger management pal, Huckleberry Hound

There was no understanding or accepting that the gender your genes & chromosomes churned out was not the correct one. It was a monstrous burden & it was up to me to keep it hidden, secret, and unspoken. Better to be an angry alcoholic psychopathic bitch than be a man trapped in a woman's body.

One thing I really want people to understand -- and I'm talkin' to you Mr. Daniel Harris --is that gender dysphoria is NOT this casual, frivolous thing the media has been painting for you. It is not just about pronouns or genitalia. It is life threatening. It is NOT a first world problem.

I'm willing to bet that there are five or ten Syrian refugees who have gender dysphoria. And that gender dysphoria does not go away just because "oh, something much worse has happened--I've been bombed out of my home & my country, so who cares about gender anymore?" No. They have been bombed out of their homes & countries AND they still have gender dysphoria. That's how it works, folks. The gender dysphoria is ALWAYS there, sitting like a cherry on top of whatever else comes out of life's soda fountain.

When I officially came out as trans last year, I felt I was up to the task of calmly educating the public about the whole transgender experience. I really want for the world to understand this. But all I have is my own story to tell.

And I have hesitated telling my own story to this younger generation of trans kids, not just because they are young & cute & I want them to be happy & protected from all the things I had to go through, but because I know if I tell my story I am going to OFFEND someone.

My story will definitely offend feminists, and possibly women in general, including trans women, because I describe my femaleness as a deformity.

I will seem "ableist" if I tell my story, because I describe my femaleness as an amputation.

I may seem too white & privileged because I am able to get the medical care I need. Trans people of color are often so marginalized & living in such poverty that they have no option to medically transition.

But I also feel the need to tell my TRUTH. It may not be the sanitized OUT & PROUD narrative we've all been asked to tell. But I'm done hiding yet more things about "my journey" because they don't conform to the media's slant. Or because I don't use the current terminology to describe things that happened to me in the 1970's or 80s.

Gender dysphoria is not some glamorous game of dress-up. Instagram & Tumblr may make it look that way, but you know what the memes say-- "A picture hides a thousand lies."

If you want to know how debilitating gender dysphoria can be--ask my mother. Ask my husband. Ask the loved ones of other transgender people.

Well…I'm tired & don't know if i've hit on all the facets of transgender/dysphoria because there are so goddamn many, but hopefully this all made sense, and maybe Daniel Harris will Google his name & stumble upon this and find answers to some of the questions he posed in his article. He is apparently a gay man who struggles with traces of his own self-loathing; I draw the conclusion that he grew up around the same time I did. 

Daniel, my friend, people don't resort to surgeries, needles, scrutiny from the medical community and ridicule from the public because they are delusional--they do it because they'd rather die than live another minute in the wrong body.

FOOTNOTES--

[HEY!!!!!!! I don't know any other trans guys who, like me, are married to a male partner. Are there any gay trans guys in the 941 area code??? Hit me up, GTGs. I'm lonely in my demographic here.]

*Did he mean Androgyne? Androgen is just a male hormone. But maybe that IS what he was referring to as sacred? Who knows?

**Gender is everywhere in our society. Try being gender neutral for a day. It won't happen, even if you force the issue. Gender is something even bigger than a body part or a biological fact. It is like God, an invisible yet ubiquitous force that controls so much of our lives we can't conceive of it unless we break it into bits & parts of our physical beings.

***ANGER is enough of a reason to seek help for anything. When you are humiliated by your gender (or race or size or shape) it is easy to become very ANGRY. It always made me so damn sad to be so angry. I didn't want to be angry.  I have since learned to manage my anger but I still do not own a firearm, or drive a motor vehicle, or spend too much time out & about among people. 

(I'm happy to say though, all of this has been improving since starting T -- I do drive a little bit now, and have been spending more time out of my house.)

Friday, April 29, 2016

Extra Celestial Shoe Sale

AHOY FRIENDS!!

How is your world?
The one I can't see unless you tell me all about it?
The one I could guess if your eyes contacted mine

But I have unlisted lenses
Private corneas
My pupils are not in your network

*******

Sorry I haven't been forthcoming with any ART or even the avalanche of WORDS you look forward to here in the Octopus Diary.

I'm getting used to my new brain/body chemistry. While I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea of the "male brain" and the "female brain", I definitely feel different with my new chemicals.

I haven't found a way to convince my brain that painting is just as fun as pornography. Don't worry--I will remember how to paint and write poetry again. I'm not too concerned about being suspended in a pubescent time warp for the last 3 months. It's been rather enlightening : ))

I am thrilled & amazed by the transition so far. I can't believe how great it is to not have the hormonal roller coaster of femininity controlling my every moment.

I can't believe my legs are like pork instead of porridge. 

I can't believe how well I sleep now. Sleep!!!! It is a gift I never dreamt I would receive!

I can't believe I have the energy to handle all the piddly little crap life always throws at you on top of all the big important stuff it throws at you too. 



Let's see…other changes include: 

Shady little coffee moustache making an appearance in the right light

More nose hair!! (must be vigilant for crusty goblins)

Losing all firmness of breast tissue. Atrophy. It feels so much better not to have big lumpy messes on my chest, but now they are pretty floppy & unperky & that creates a whole different level of dysphoria. But they are easier to deal with in their flaccid state.

I'm terribly self-conscious that everything I say is "mansplaining." I thought I would just adore being a Mansplainer, but I find myself censoring everything I say because I don't want to be THAT guy.

Like I said, I am loving the transformation. It sure fucking beats menopause, which is another terrific thing ladies have to look forward to after decades of involuntary hormonal torment. 

I realize that a lot of people still don't understand what it "feels like" to be Transgender. And a lot of people want me to explain it to them. And I try. I have tried. Hell, most of what I've posted in The Octopus Diary is about feeling dysphoric in a female body.

And despite the Trans Community's insistence that we don't say "HELP!!! I'm trapped in the wrong body!!!!" That is the only way I know how to describe it. To me, being female was the ultimate sickness, the ultimate amputation, the ultimate degradation of my fragile ego.

If I have to explain any further, I'm afraid you'll never understand.



**********

As far as the whole Bathroom Issue goes…I don't have much more to say about that either. It's being talked about in big media forums & it used to be something I only heard about in my support groups. 

All I can say is--some of the scariest bathroom incidents in my life took place in the girls' restrooms in middle & high school. Girl on girl violence. Eating disorders. Aqua Net fumes. Queen bees monopolizing the mirrors. Menstrual meltdowns. 

And like I said before, the Bathroom Issue may seem like a First World non-problem especially since some countries don't even have running water (a reason many girls stop going to school). And I still say any civil rights advancements that happen here will eventually benefit the rest of the world. Will it take time? Yes. But does it need to happen? Fuck yeah. 

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

NOW…the reason I am posting this boring repetitive blog!!

Most of you know I used fashion to feel better about being "femme" & I have a lot of girl clothes that I'm not using anymore. So I'm having a SALE!!!

Be excited because I'll be selling stuff for less-than-Goodwill prices.

Dresses (mostly Small/Medium sizes 2--6)

T's and Shirts (Small/Med)

Pants, Jeans, Shorts (mostly 3--7)

Shoes (6--7)

Plus hats, accessories, bathing suits, socks. It all needs to go!

So if you/your daughter/your girlfriend are looking for interesting & cheap additions to your closet--

Come to my garage on Saturday May 21 (PM me for details on how to get to my garage)

All proceeds from the Sale will go to renovating our garage into a creative space for podcasts, plays, and crash space for touring bands!!



**********


As always, thank you for reading my shallow, incoherent thoughts. I will have art--Trust Fund Baby & Shelter Cat comix--soon. I'm just waiting for Trumpf to pick a running mate so I know what name to give Shelter Cat.


Sunday, April 3, 2016

Excuse Me, Where's The Restroom For Zoroastrians?

FRIENDS,

My neural pathways were forged in satire. You know this already. 

But the world is saturated in satire. It's dripping off the walls of the internet and invading our very senses. 

I learned the language of satire in order to introduce my own unpopular worldview to humans who may not understand it if I tried to say it too directly. But through the collective spewings of the internet we've all learned that everyone's worldview is popular, unpopular, acceptable, unacceptable, flakey, snowy and unicornical.

I also know that satire comes in varying degrees of effectiveness. Sarah Silverman and Stephen Colbert are great at delivering satire. There are the legions of  faceless meme generators who are okay at satire. Me? I have come to terms with my utter mediocrity, my extreme averageness. Unspecial unicornitude. My satire skills are filed under "who the fuck cares what this lame dumpling is trying to say."

And really, what am I ever trying to say but "There are too many people on this planet and we're all kind of stupid about it."

Coming to terms with one's own mediocrity is a tough proposition. It rearranges the feng shui of the once integrated self and there you are--strewn across your timeline like so much roadkill,

My ego has gone limp. It dangles between my temporal lobes like a mental ghost-penis. It no longer thrusts its way through time drooling on life's banquet. But something else has risen in its place. Something less hungry and more satisfied. Neutral. Peaceful.

And I want that to be what I project now--not my righteous anger at the way things are, but my confidence that things are changing into exactly what I envisioned.

Frankness, sincerity, authenticity are the communication devices of the day and I'm struggling to unlearn my own programming. Bear with me.
ART!!!!!!!


*******BATHROOMS and TRANS CIVIL RIGHTS

So…in my last blog I wrote a scathing & ineffectual satire on the current transgender battleground--public restrooms.

Now that people-of-transitioned-gender are known to exist among us--and in greater numbers than we ever dreamed--we have suddenly taken great interest in their bathroom habits.

Moonchild hates it when I'm reduced to talking about pee-pees & va-jayjays & chocolate starfishes, but I hope my readers understand it is the opponents of transgender rights who always make it about pee-pees and vjayjays. I mock them to highlight their immaturity at the risk of sounding immature myself.

It's still mostly religious opposition. I am blown away by the support I get from religious & non-religious people alike. But there is a certain segment of the Xtian faith that has always been slow to come around. These people have always angered & confused me and to them I would propose we divide our restrooms as following: XTIANS and ATHEISTS.

(Sorry, Muslims and Jews would have to find faith-neutral facilities, and there's no telling where those would be. And if you are of a faith I haven't even mentioned here, well…you're too marginal to have a restroom made just for you. You can shit where you lay.)

There you have it--more satire. Just what you didn't want. And for those who may be thinking--"Gee, transgender bathroom rights, sounds like a first world problem to me" The world looks to countries like Norway, Sweden, & even the U.S. for their human rights crusades. If the people of NCarolina can repeal the HB2 anti-LGBT laws, then maybe someday there will be girls' restrooms built at schools in Afghanistan and Uganda. (and someday after that, trans-friendly facilities EVERYWHERE!!! )
Remember these two?


But I'd like to ask what my friends really think--Does it gross you out to share the restroom with a trans person?

Most of this discussion revolves around transwomen in the ciswomen's bathroom. If men are allowed to "dress up as ladies" and go into that bathroom, then how many perverts are going to dress themselves as women just to have access to their prey? And if the transwoman is forced to use the men's room? Do we care what could happen to her then?

And what about trans guys? They are probably more at risk using the men's room than any cisgirl is sharing the restroom with a transgirl. And should trans guys be using the ladies room? 

Moonchild was always puzzled as to why I hated public restrooms so much. Often it was because a restroom door symbolically "outs" you every time you open it. People see you going in and out of the woman's restroom--you are a woman.

Should trans people have to "out" themselves to people who may have not pegged them as trans? Or to people who may not be cool with it?

I don't know. It may not be the most imperative issue on the planet, but it affects my life directly so I'm giving it some attention. I work from home, so I really can "leave my bladder at home." But most people don't have that option. They have to pee during working hours. If I know I'm going out, I monitor my fluid intake if possible. I just don't want to have to be forced to choose a restroom. This isn't possible for all trans people.

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

All right. I'm gonna go. This is where I tell you what projects You will find in upcoming episodes of the Octopus Diary. For now I'm not promising anything but always be on the lookout for

1. stream of consciousnesses

2. Shelter Cat & Trust Fund Baby comix

3. To be better humans, we need better bodies to be human in. That is why I designed an upgraded species of humanoid. 

a) They don't need to eat (or poop!)

b) Though there are 2 sexes (we'll still call them male & female until I figure something out) they are not so very different from each other that they are opposites on a lengthy spectrum. They are more…COMPLEMENTARY.

c) Incubation and childbirth happen OUTSIDE the body.

I'm stoked about these upgrades. I wish I could live long enough to see the fruits of this evolution. But the most I can do is write a book of love poems to & from people with alien genitalia.


*********when I envisioned an androgynous future, I didn't so much picture 80 million gender identities as I did 2 genders that were not too different from each other. But I'll take it any way it has to happen. And if that's 7 billion ways…then I can wait.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

I'm Not Dumb I'm Counter-intelligent

I always wanted to be an asshole. It's sad but true. I always wanted to be that guy who feels entitled to strut around like he's God's gift.

More recently I've yearned to be the internet version of that guy--the Troll. The one who feels entitled to instigate and antagonize because he's just that confident he will come out on top if any sort of intellectual showdown breaks out. 

The rooster who feels entitled to wake the world.

Now I'm afraid I will become one of those rooster-guys if my T-levels ever get past the 400 mark.

I went to the T-Doctor yesterday and she asked why my voice hasn't changed yet. My voice has gotten kinda scratchy & raspy but not deep. She thought it didn't seem right. So after my next injection and blood work, she's going to see about increasing my dose.

I'm writing today just to keep my beloved blog active. Not because I have anything to say. Certainly not because I have done any artwork lately. I know you all are CLAMORING for The Adventures of Shelter Cat & Trust Fund Baby…

…but my brain is operating in strange ways these days. My brain used to be this quick-flickering always turned-on thing. Now my brain works at a slower, more deliberate pace. And it's definitely turned on by things other than lyrical phrases and clairvoyant images.



Shelter Cat & Trust Fund Baby are the best of friends.

They go for walks in their wealthy gated community.

They find things on their walks.

They misinterpret what these things are and hilarity ensues. Their naivete is priceless.

I've written the script for the first episode. But I haven't found the will or concentration to sit down and draw it.

***********Speaking of Penises,

How did we go from the 20-oughts

To the 20-tens? 

I know history moves in little backward crescents, then surges forward in larger arcs

But the back pedaling of the past 2 years has been atrocious

It is the first time in my life that I would use the word

FAITH

To describe what I'm feeling rather than HOPE

I have (secular, humane) faith that the world will move forward again

Because I can't find hope anywhere inside me

And I guarantee you, I guarantee 

My dick is smaller than yours but I'm still grateful for what I have

I miss 2004 -- 2008

The Bush years, which made the Reagan years look like Utopian bliss, are looking

Very peachy under Trump's fluorescent-brassy-gumboesque lighting

*******************If we're not talking about penises

Then no one is listening.

So, what can I say about it?

I'm afraid to die in the public restroom

When I was a girl, a sad angry little strumpet

In my black skirts & flannel shirts

With my long ebony locks & privileged goth complexion

I would go in the Men's room without blinking

Without caring who saw me or who I saw

It was usually fine. Usually no one saw & if they did

They laughed, or corrected me "This is the MEN'S room, hon"

Once a guy got angry though

"Hey!!!! Get outta here!!! You don't belong in here!!!!"

Crouching over his pissing dick, making me wonder if he had warts or

Some deformity ...

That was at Denny's.

And I did belong in there. It was 1993.

But now???????? Now that Transgender is on everyone's radar

And I'm not using the Men's room ironically

I know the rules have changed

And I could be slandered, or killed, or worse PREACHED at.

I think we should have separate restrooms for Pooping & Peeing

Not for Men & Women  

Nothing I hate more--besides violence & terrorism--

Than someone farting & shitting away right next to me in the public loo



Women don't have dicks. They suck. Yeah, they suck OUR dicks. Bro!!! Women deserve to pay more for health care. They deserve a tampon tax. They don't have dicks. How do they live with themselves??

I don't know, man.

Is this a poem? Yeah let's call it poetry!!!!

This is poetry of the highest artistic merit. 

Yurrr Majesty.

Starbucks on Beneva & Bee Ridge, FUCK YOU!! You are poorly laid out and the most uncivil engineering I've ever tried to navigate. What the fuck am I doing here?? Oh, TAXES. Hopefully not death.

What if I dropped a PUSSY bomb? Would riots break out? Would our faces contort in plasmatic disbelief? Let's try it…

Oh no…I can't…too gross….just kidding…

PUSSY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>^..^

=========> dickretaliation


(*) chocolatestarfish exit plan

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Kalashnikov Dysphoria

HEY!!! Friends!

I wanted to add this to my thoughts on 'PuberSpace'---

I get a little flipped out when I read accounts of people who transition (genderwise) and have somehow been deemed gender dysphoric but claim they have not experienced any distress about being born in the wrong body.

????????????????????????????????????????????????

Whaaaaa??????

I know this is the new THING in the transgender narrative. "Sure I felt the need to medically transition, but it wasn't because I felt bad about my body." I struggle to understand this, because….if it weren't for how bad I feel about this body I wouldn't have sought help to change it.

If I felt okay in a female body, but felt a little masculine-of-center, then I would be just fine "dressing the part." Carrying on as a tomboy or an unlady-like lady. (<< all things I've been accused of anyway)

But I've felt so bad in this body it has held me back in life. I don't even like going out of my house. I don't want to interact with my fellow humans because well…all interactions between humans are gendered & my body was a big flashing sign that said "Treat me like an inferior object!" No matter how I covered it up or acted detached from it---there it always was.

[On the flipside, I've also tried to enjoy being treated like a female--like an object. Pretty! Sexy! Nicely dressed! It was a game. It could be fun, but felt like such a clown-circus-lie-fest.]

Now I think I'm starting to understand why we would want to remove being Transgender from the category of being Mentally Ill.

We want Transgender to be something more like IBS. Something is not quite right, so we take our medication for it. But it doesn't mean we're Craaayyyyyy-zayyyyyyy! Or depressed or distressed or incapacitated in any way.

Right now, as mentioned in the previous blog, to receive medical treatment for gender dysphoria you need a note from a Mental Health Professional. Thus, being transgender is a mental illness. 

I was labeled mentally ill before I even started Kindergarten. But I have to say--I've always felt like I was the sane one in a world full of crazy, stupid people who weren't seeing things the way I was.

It was very frustrating. And it may have driven me to actually BE crayyy-zayyyy. I understand why it would be beneficial to all trans people moving forward to remove the stigma. For gender identity issues to be nothing more than a technical glitch---

Oops, we designated you female at birth because of some trifling anatomical features we detected on your neo-natal flesh.

It's hard for me to grasp being gender dysphoric without---the DYSPHORIA!!! 

It's also hard for me to take the lead of a younger generation. Because that's what I'm having to do. My generation & the generations before me were not allowed to have gender identity issues. It was more than the medical field or polite society could handle. So we sucked it up & became crazy people.

But now the world is listening, and people way younger than me understand how to communicate things I had to keep silent about. I am humbled by these kids. Why was I not brave enough to speak up?

Well…when I look at my whole life I know I was as non-conforming and outspoken as I could've been at the time. I have the scars to prove I wasn't just an accomplice in society's fairytale…

so…if we have to use sanitized phrases like 'designated female at birth' and 'gender confirmation surgery' to make Transgender more palatable to our fairytale society…

then I will do my best not to scream "Get me the fuck out of this vagina nightmare!!!!!! Aaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"



Okay. Now here's a poem about something truly insane---guns.

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

3rd poem in trilogy about guns: WHICH CAME FIRST,

The 2nd amendment
Or your balls blue from edging
All day in your chamber?

Lady trigger finger done in 
Two minutes flat while you
Enlist the help of concubines

Somehow this fetish gives 
Birth to the great equalizer
Death on a leather harness
God in your pocket

From the humble prototype--
Ornate barrel 
At the spear's  tipping point--
To the lubricated void
Of the A-K
The infinite loop

Of assassinations
William the Silent was the
First to be silenced on the shores of 
His own bloodline
History looped endlessly
To repeat this sound

In Lincoln's, Garfield's, McKinley's, 
Ferdinand's,
Gandhi's,
Kennedy's, X's, King's, Kennedy's,
Milk's, Lennon's,
Sadat's, Gandhi's, Rabin's, Bhutto's
Eternal ear drum machine

To repeat the question
Which came first
The chicken or the bully?
The sperm or the egg?
Which came first
The dick or the pussy?
The happy or the tragic
End?

The answer never comes.
The answer is celibate, ace
Frozen in bed
The answer is suicidal
The song holds the answer like a newborn
Quickly letting go
Of its divinity

A Cobain or Shakur,
A Hemingway, Thompson or 
Joan Burroughs whose angelhoods
Dead-ended in glory 

Whose persons turned to ash
While their legends grew bigger wings
Than middle management angels
Or arch enemies' unbending
Arms


2-9-16