FOR PIT PAT, SLAIN BY TRANS FRANCES

Hey Girls (this includes you too, guys!)

You’ll be happy to know I’m almost done w/ Shelter Cat & Trust Fund Baby. I had wanted to be done today, but it just wasn’t happening. I’ll give you my laundry list of excuses for the delay later.

I want to address something else today, and that is the sinking feeling I have in my chest cavity every day now. Despite the fact that my life is a slice of peach pie on a gingham joy rag, I feel throughout the day that awful vertigo, that elevator lurch of oncoming dread. And I’m not even on an elevator most of the time.

For awhile, the world seemed to be expanding in its sociological scope and this brought me a peace I hadn’t known before in my life. 

But then the Current Era happened, the New World Order, the Ninth Tentacle, whatever you want to call it… and all the bigots who’d felt obliged to tone down their prejudices during the era of social enlightenment have emerged from their cognitive sinkholes—oh the president says we don’t have to be politickul currekt anymore?? Hallelujah!!! 

Now, I know never to read the “comments thread” on any site, but something rolled by my eyes on Facebook the other day and I had to roll it back and have a closer look. Here is what I found—

******************TRANS FRANCES THE DOLL THAT’S GONNA WARP YOUR KID’S GOD-GIVEN HETERONORMATIVE BIRTHRIGHT INTO A JOHN WATERS MOVIE MARATHON**************************

These comments were in response to an article about a “transgender doll.” I don’t even know if this is a real toy or if it’s just more fake news. I could care less about a “transgender doll”—any doll can be transgender if you want it to be—but perhaps marketing dolls to transgender children is where we’re at now. 

When I was a kid all baby dolls were girls. Then, when I was about 8, they marketed a boy doll (complete with penis!) and that caused all sorts of uproar. How inappropriate! Our neutered little girls should not be exposed to that! 

My only question at the time was, if the boy doll has a penis why do none of my girl dolls have vaginas? [Back in the ’70s vaginas were so taboo we didn’t even speak of them, medically or otherwise. I think that’s how it was so easy to molest girls back then; we couldn’t even say the words.]

But anyway…now we have this “transgender doll” who I’m guessing is genital-free but is dressed as a girl (we can only assume she has a penis under that skirt!) No word on whether they’re working on a FTM doll.

And this is what the Being Conservative flock posted in response:

“This is disturbing to me. Gender identity crisis is a serious disorder that seems to cause people a lot of pain and suffering. I think mainstreaming it is making light of a serious situation and will confuse kids. If a kid has this disorder it will usually be obvious from a young age but making suggestions about it to a child that shows no signs of it prior could lead to a misdiagnosis. Children are so impressionable. I mean should we make an OCD barbie or a depressed barbie or an anorexic barbie? I think children should just be taught to respect everyone even if they are different than them and some people go through tough things, but that doesn't mean we have to explain disorders in depth to children and make toys that have them I think that is going overboard.”

[^^^I like this woman because she is trying to understand. But she’s missing the mark so hard I’ve gotta chime in: Yes children are impressionable, but *not talking* about things often leaves a bigger impression than talking openly about them. I don’t know of any parent who would suggest to their child that they “give trans a try.” But they would say, hey trans children exist. Check them out. Embrace them. And hey, if you ARE trans, that’s okay too!

As for anorexic/OCD/depressed Barbie? Yes, maybe we should have those too! Teenagers deal with anorexia, OCD, depression and other illnesses all the time. Barbie is such a joke of a positive role model they’ve been trying to make her more realistic for decades. I’m sure regular Barbie is responsible for more anorexia than Trans Frances would be responsible for “turning kids trans.” Kids don’t “turn” trans by suggestion. If your child is really trans you will know by how much it distresses them to identify as their “biological sex.”]

“American Girl made a boy doll. Nothing wrong with that at all. But a transgender doll is ridiculous.”

[Nothing wrong with a boy doll as long as it’s just a boy, wearing boy clothes, no penis or anything, just externally a boy-identified doll. Could it possibly be a trans boy then? NO!!!!]

“It's not the doll that is disgusting. It's the indoctrination of kids that is. Leave them alone!”

[I used to think only left wing people believed in conspiracy theories : )) Well, most left wing conspiracies revolve around secret government operations; right wing conspiracies seem to focus on personal agendas. Conservatives generally dislike independent thought. I see the word “indoctrination” used an awful lot these days. Especially by the right. Oh, those liberal cucks are trying to indoctrinate us with all their perversions and inclusions. Isn’t indoctrinating what you do when you bring your child into a church and teach them from an early age all the moralistic bullshit that steers them far away from independent thought?

There are people in my family who have chosen to raise their children like this. And they do it not to protect the children from…what? I’m not sure…perverts?…but to protect themselves from having to deal with stuff that makes them uncomfortable. They don’t want to have to answer the hard questions. Because the hard questions about being human can lead to big questions about God & Jesus. And whether they are real or not.]

“The Devil is the author of confusion. Young minds are being overloaded.”

[Of course I don’t think the author of this comment meant “the devil” metaphorically. Look, it’s even capitalized — The Devil! That devil has been fact-checked and he’s coming to get your kids, meanwhile…

… all the medical/social/mental health research from the scientific community can’t convince you that being transgender is a real phenomenon. i know it seems like the whole phenomenon just came spiraling into your midst with no warning…

…but transgender people have been in your midst for ages. Watching you and your bizarre heteronormative antics. Your binary tragedy. How many times was I told girls don’t this, boys don’t that, men are superior to women but they belong together in holy union, superior & inferior bound together for life, no cheating! Yes, that sounds heavenly. 

Remember, more Conservatives have been caught doing crimes in the bathroom than any transgender person, ever. Because a lot of people who were indoctrinated with scripture from a young age are afraid to confront their own homosexuality and end up doing “perverted” things later, on the sly, in restrooms and motels. Dishonestly. Covertly. 

When someone dares to confront their own gayness or gender identity, it looks like the flaunting of a perversion to the indoctrinated Conservative. 

But golly, I’ve always thought of the church as kind of perverse. Any teaching that excludes women the way religion does reeks of ancient covert pederasty to me.]

“When it comes to brainwashing children, you bet we have a problem. Leave kids alone. You want to be transgender? Have at it. But, that is your problem. Not mine nor societies.”

[Oh, I’m so happy when nasty sentiments like this are misspelled because I get a glimpse of the ignorance behind them.

Man (or lady), no one wants to be transgender. Or at least no one did when it was considered the most laughable of the mental illnesses.

Nowadays, who knows. Maybe some kids DO want to be transgender. I’ve heard the word “transtrendering” which is so hard for me to take—I would be the first to be contemptuous of those who would adopt trans as some kind of fashion statement.

After all the years I hid in my hyper-feminine costume so no one would ever have a clue that i was living in a Twilight Zone episode?? 

But wait—have we come so far that kids…actually…want…to be transgender?? That’s great! Let’s celebrate!

When we celebrate being trans instead of denying it or punishing it, there is no problem! Not for you, not for society!]

“A well thought out comment about the dangers of pushing complex adult issues on children. There is nothing wrong with being transgendered but this doll is just ridiculous.”

{^^^another person who’s trying to understand and be an adult. Still a ways to go…but there is effort in this sentiment. Thank you.]

“I and most of America disagree, there's a whole lot wrong with being transgender.”

[^^^^ there’s a whole lot wrong with being ignorant too. If you haven’t had your eyes open to some of the smart talented transgender folks in the world, please wake up.

It does suck to be born in the wrong body, it hurts to be told that you are sick because you feel bad about the gender you were assigned, it can cause depression, it can make you suicidal, it can get you killed—yes, those are things that are wrong with being transgender.

But by that logic there’s a whole lot wrong with being autistic, or obese, or black, or red-headed, or having phocomelia, or diabetes or a heart murmur. There’s a lot wrong with being human for that matter. We aren’t that great.

But I think when the commenter says I and most of America disagree, I think he means it’s not okay to be transgender because it is perverted. There’s something inherently perverse about it because it has to do with sex/gender.] 

“BS!!! if you have a problem deciding what you are, you need to be in a mental institution period.”

[Transgender isn’t a ‘decision’ one makes. Haven’t we been through this already with homosexuality? Don’t we all get that being gay isn’t a ‘choice’? Well, it’s the same for being transgender, geniuses.

And trust me, I was threatened with mental institutionalization. Oh, and not just threatened with it—I did end up in the hospital after a suicide attempt (I drank Drano and was in the hospital for 2 weeks then I had to go into a mental hospital for another week.) I didn’t drink Drano and get put in the hospital because I was transgender. That all happened because I was NOT ALLOWED TO BE transgender.]

“Yes there is something wrong with being transgender you freaking moron”

[No, there’s something wrong with you ^^^ Plain and simple. Moron.]

“I believe it falls in the category of OCD type of disorders. Many people in the world suffer from some sort of disorder but unless they are trying to harm themselves or someone else due to the disorder putting them in a mental institution is not usually necessary. I mean would you be mean to an anorexic person or an OCD person? I believe gender identity disorder is something similar to that because from a young age the person obsessively believes they are in the wrong body and I have watched documentaries about it where some children have mutilated themselves, which has then presented the need for inpatient care. I think the person is already feeling enough anguish I think it's better to be a little more sensitive. I think (name) is trying to say society shouldn't ostracize people who suffer from disorders not necessarily that there is nothing wrong because if you think you are in the wrong body there is something wrong.”

[^^^This is from the same woman who posted the first comment. I really do appreciate her trying to reason with her sheeple-people, even though she herself doesn’t fully understand. She at least gets that this is a real disorder that needs compassionate care, not judgment and scorn. And that it’s nothing to be AFRAID of, we’re not going to come into your restroom and stick our fingers up your bum or pull your daughter’s innocent face into our forked crotches. We don’t have forked crotches. 

We just have human anatomy. You don’t even have to wonder about it, or ask if we’ve had the surgery. Because it doesn’t matter.] 

“I think we need some custom doll/toy shops where people can get toys tailored to their children. That would be nice so the child dealing with something can be comforted but all the children that aren't, aren't confused by it. Plus it could be something really special between the parents and their child. and not some ploy from the left to indoctrinate children.”  

[Same woman. Nice attempt to compromise with unreasonable folks. But just one more thing:

Being trans is not a left wing ploy. Trans children exist inside Conservative families—I know some of them. That precious little miracle you’re holding might announce they’re trans one day! Trying to get our children to accept those who are different is a progressive social idea, not an evil ploy. It’s called evolving and moving forward. Just because you have chosen to cling to notions that were founded in fear and ignorance doesn’t mean the rest of the world can’t PROGRESS. Forward. Expansion. Inclusion.]

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

Me being feminine

Well, that was a lot of heavy shit. That’s okay, it needs to be said. When I was reading all this the first time around, my instinct was to jump in and attack everyone’s ignorance.

But I wanted to look at these comments again. Quietly, alone. I want to understand those who don’t understand me. 

I understand how questioning one’s gender identity could be confusing. Could make people uncomfortable—it is a big concept to grasp! But I’ll never understand religious, moral objections to social, scientific or medical progress. 

And now, we are entering what looks like a Dark Age. A time of moralistic oppression, separatism, “law” & “order”(aka dismantling and disorder). It is scary for me. I’ve just begun to unravel from my oppressive cocoon and I’m fighting the urge to ravel myself back in.

I know the people in this comment thread would love it if I did. And so I can’t.

A Comet & An Eclipse Walk Into A Bar...

OH HELLO FRIENDS,

It’s that time again—time to check in at the Octopus Front Desk Diary to let you know how I’m surviving the current era.

By staying really really busy, that’s for sure! You all know I love my solitude & my downtime (and I still do of course) but I feel compelled to stay connected, aware & active these days. So that’s what I (& Moonface) have been doing. We get out more. We’re rerouting our neural pathways to be more engaged with an external world we’ve shunned for over a decade.

It’s hard work, but it needs to be done. 

Also been working hard on creative projects like the long-awaited

*****SHELTER CAT & TRUST FUND BABY**********

Friends, I have an exciting announcement: I’ve finished pencilling the first episode of SC & TFB! And pardon me if I say—it’s ALL RIGHT. I do comics the old fashioned way—pencil first, inks & colors later. None of this electronic shit where the computer helps you draw & color your shit. I don’t even understand that. And no disrespect to those who do their comics that way…I just…don’t understand.

It doesn’t mean I don’t admire people whose style differs from mine—quite the contrary. But I like the act of story-building panel by panel. Figuring out which actions & dialogues will go together, what shape the panels will take, how it will all flow. I’ve been “insulted” many times by people who consider themselves to be FINE artists—“your art is JUST cartoony stuff.” 

And to them I say—there’s more to comic illustration than just doodling stick figures. But I understand that their haughtiness comes from…not understanding.

Anyway… I’m not even a good illustrator, but I enjoy doing it (sort of) and it adds color & pizzazz to this otherwise grey & peach blog.

******MY TECHNOLOGY IS DEADNAMING ME*********

Friends, last year I spent money and time filling out stacks and stacks of paperwork & then I entered a courtroom and stood before a judge and pleaded to have my name changed,

and the judge granted me that wish. And I was happy & I announced it on Facebook & everyone hit LIKE and all was well. 

But then, friends, my computer started asking me to update its operating system. Please, it said, update me soon or things might start going wrong. And I ignored my computer’s requests because, honestly, it seemed to be working fine. But then it started threatening me—if you don’t update me I will no longer “support your applications.” 

And my computer even crashed a few times because I didn’t answer its pleas for an update. I hate updating my computer because “updates” are usually “downgrades.” They fuck everything up and I have to go in & relearn all the shit I took so long to learn in the first place.

So one of my New Years resolutions was to update my computer. It was a big deal because I hadn’t done it in 5 years & I had to do some intermediate updates & I was on the phone with tech support for several hours. Which I hate. Phones, technology, talking to strangers, yuck.

But I got it done. With only minor hiccups [boy do I hate what Apple has done with their Photos!!]

The only thing is—now all my “communications” are blatantly, loudly marked & monogrammed with my DEAD name!!

All my emails & FB comments & perhaps even somewhere in this blog my computer is deadnaming me so disrespectfully. 

That atrocious name I wore like a slutty Halloween costume for the first 45 years of my life has risen from the dead! And I don’t know why, because all my email & FB settings are on my new, LEGAL name. 

That means it is embedded somewhere deep inside my technology and I will have to coax it out and stab it in the heart. I’m afraid this is going to be another “dangerous process’ like upgrading. I’ve already looked into how to do it & it’s one of those things that risks destroying all your files, or at least your access to them.

YAY!!!!!!

***************EPIC OR NOT??**********

Friends, I was actually going to share my latest long-winded verbose unconcise non-economic poem with you, but I’ve gone on & on about comics & technology downgrades

SO…I’m deciding…right now…out loud, on the page…do i want to share the poem today? Because next time I’m sharing comics…

So, yes, POEM TODAY!! You’re welcome…

First though, I have to bring up this one thing. It’s really important so pay close attention: 

FLANNEL, people, IT’S NOT JUST FOR LESBIANS.

In fact, most of the lesbians I know wear T-shirts and cargo shorts. OR long, flowy dresses (yeah, lots of lesbians are feminine). Or tank tops. Lots of tank tops. But not a lot of flannel.

HELL & DAMNATION & SULFUR FUMES & BRIMSTONE & TREACLE! Kurt Cobain didn’t even wear much flannel. He wore fuzzy cardigans & striped T’s.

But me, I’ve been grunge since 1989 and I’m not going to change my comfort-first flannel-flying ways just because of this persistent Lez-Lez Bean stereotype I keep hearing about. Shut up and look around you—

—even lumberjacks don’t wear flannel anymore. There’s nothing to stereotype here, move along.

And in case you’re wondering my flannel affinity came from being a homeless drunk person. Flannel was my couch-to-day look, my sleepless night uniform, my hangover woobie, my outdoor pajamas. Nothing less.

Haha! i’m glad I got to rant about that. Now here’s a poem as long as The Iliad that you will skim over for 2 minutes but never read all the way through, then reread to make sure you got it all…

13 mos on T

***********TREMENDOUS GIBBERISH**********************

This File Is Currently Empty, all wispy & appropriate

Would I advise any species to trace

Its anger back to its origins? Octopus, jellyfish,

Seahorse in prickly skin?

It's not for the feint invertebrate

The Social Networking Sickness of 2014

Tallest wave of sensitive geniuses under the spell of internet sorcery

There will be many more ’15 ’16 ’17

Profane & volcane! The big Facebook serpent quo

All the harlequin pretext covering

Footsteps;

A Litany of Tentacles—

1. Family

2. The Government

3. Gender/Sex

4. Science

5. Humanities

6. Friends

7. Enemies

8. The Higher Powers

And now 9. The New World Order

All hints of 33rd degree masonry once leaking through

The seams of architecture now smeared with stucco, Chinese drywall approved by Trumpo 

I am the most special spectral agent forced to spy on our own hot dog flavored corpses

I vote for your sainthood w/ a boogery finger swiping right 

Artificial lifeline swooping too perfectly

Over radial artery—that's how saints get elected!

St. President  please polish the whole internet w/ Q-tips before proceeding to friend me on Birdbook because friend is not a verb it's an onamotapoeia --the sound of a lone microbe radicalizing—tweet

Is it safe to have everyone's mind wandering all over the sky?

Who's the real Army of Me—

You, the bulbous many-headed? 

The tongue wagging the crowd

Through rumored cattle chutes?

Or the Me you're wagging about?

Tom Robbins said we humans were invented by water as a means of transportation

And as noble as that sounds, I believe we’re actually some kind of data storage unit

Each of us a drone here to collect our lifetime of data &

Return it to the great base in the cosmos

The great meme generator of our time

I think I just plagiarized a bumper sticker

My mother's conditional love lasted til I was 3, my doctor died after he touched me twice (appropriately) Knocked out by

My father before I was one

De-spider Efforts!

I ripened

In her asphyxiating suitcase

So I'll branch out through

Black holes and

Cradle the old lady

Like she's a fresh stardust baby

Dorian Grey days crayoned despondent male 

Alternating happy sad female tear-years

If boys don't cry neither do mermaids, dragons Pokemon & whales

If girls cry then senators astronauts bounty hunters & trolls do too

Never suspecting the other side's green grass was toxic mold

Alone in our human/ant colony’s war/miasma crooked line dance icy whirlpool scorching debriscape  Robot Tea Room

It's too sunny out today  We're leaving rainy season & entering dry, slanted sun season

Cherry-dominant suicide

An ideal spot for a metaphysical reunion

HelterCulture

Victim Culture 

7 of Swords  a journey by land?

Exhibitionist Culture? The Foreseeable Culture Act of 2037.

Geranium Radio Party

Finite Digest  Levity's Rainbow  Uriah's Crib

Does Sophie dream of electric twins?

Unfair in height, five-foot-one

Gun fart, intrusive muse

Skeletons in the closet getting ready for PRIDE

When Amanda Palmer says "You have a dick,

You always win" we know the 4th wave of feminism

Has crashed upon a glass shoreline & imploded

Into all the shards that break us & reshape us

Been there, done better than the ones who never came back

A chain is only as long as a dog's ego

Misery loves Atari

                      Nintendo

                 Second Life

                   Monopoly

                the pharmacy

            the cable company

                 

                     quit it

The posture concave, shoulders parachuting in, head down legs strutting in vain, dragging your heart behind like a bag of blood

Imprints don't just disappear

Scary concrete blockwork

Stare them down w/ your opioid coping sensors

You work hard to ignore them

But that first default moment in the morning?

How fast can you chant, caffeinate, network them away?

Incomplete failure…(excited phosphor dots) Yap Co copay procaine 

Product of iatrogenic labeling —label scars more than the thing it describes—

Opposite of bandAid covering bullethole

My feminine IQ

Wild from tears

A jellyfish memory outlined

Whiskers of DNA--these are my people

But they are the next wave--better at being me

Than I ever was

The planet's collective endocrine system

Finally realizes the perils of overpopulation

More & more young people embracing

My old world androgyny; asex, anti-natalist views

Catching on w/ the new Nationalists

But I want to save the big Earthy testicle not the sticky white human race

Never go to Walmart in January — the most depressing coordinates on the time-space continuum

Why would I from my ivory tooth-like tower?

The world is so unmysterious now

Not just standing naked before us, but spreading

Its buttcheeks

Stunt poetry in action

Bone bunny Man village

Desperate Living Theme Song

Empty zen French dressing?

I love these words for I am their God. Bedlambic pentameter!

Wholesome helpmate, infernal bang theorist

Crack the window w/ my head

If I make it out of the bathroom alive

I promise to piss on the moon

Used to be we spoke up for what we believed

And the gov't would visit things like AIDS and 9/11 upon us

But now that AIDS & 9/11 have happened

Who will dare speak out?

This is what the Illuminazi wanted

33rd degree burn victims Skin canker and a bold chess movie plot

Insert the demagogue dialogue & watch the social experiment

Backfire--it's time to start erasing history by installing new code into the Hardware of familial Zillennials

1 generation gone since 9/11 and all memory has been sanitized by

Angelic heroic patriotic jingo lingo jumble jargon word pardon

You left me alone w/ all that country music!!!

Unfurl your phantom plans!

Holy traffucking! Paranoid MayDay Rave!

Guns are black magic just as much as gibberish is

Vowels are the true music of speech

Verbs are the music of poetry

I use words like numbers, doorless frames

Adoreless fame

I have a blog because I don't have a talk show

We’ve cut the Humanities 

In favor of machinities

And the purple artichoke, impaled

On all the pointed buttery details

We won't tell ourselves, a lame dick joke now

Without blazing hard-on verdict, without sudden wet-fingered synthesis

Senatized counter-attack, playgroundian Intelligence

Hobbies: writing, believing conspiracy theories, reading books, ice skating, doing a radio show, worrying about the karmic price of words sent out over the airwaves  Surely not as heavy as this ink  Or as instant as a full frontal automatic FB assault

(curiosity made the cat vid go viral)

Millions of meek Donalds sold

Virgin uncooked meat

A needle plunges &

Strikes the sidewalk's vein

A lark beneath

The mask of ether

Cries like a streaky pane

She walks onstage 

Like a glaze

1-31-17

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

Did you make it? Are you okay? 

Lesbians

Well, I’m going to see if I can still post pictures of old art from my new Photo system. Next time I’ll have new art, if I can figure out how to post that…

I love you fuckers.

The Ninth Tentacle

COMRADES,

I am with you 1000% in your assessment 

That we are in the clutches of a sociopath

Who's more interested in comparing

Inauguration-size

Than establishing a healthy bond w/ Intelligence

This isn't just scary, it's not just odd or offbeat or Trump being Trump and that's why we like him

This is pure ignorance. Pure jingoistic juvenility, and I'm not just being alliterative because it makes me jolly. I really mean that.

His XTREME-of-consciousness makes my poetic streams look like dry riverbeds of legalese. In other words, my poetry would make for more presidential commentary than what was said yesterday at the CIA.

I am embarrassed by this. I am embarrassed for us. This is not cute, people. I would love to find humor in it but I just can't this time.

I am terrified of the masters behind this creepy clown-puppet. And of the hate that has bared its teeth on the internet & on the walls of the mosques & temples & soon perhaps biting into our own skins.

We watched footage from the Women's March on FB live before going out to SRQ's own march. The one person who really got through to me and made me feel like nothing regressive was going to happen on her watch:

Sen. TAMMY DUCKWORTH D-IL

Look her up if you missed her very short speech at the March. As a disabled Asian-American combat veteran, she has so much intersectional cred she might as well be God right now.

If things start going eggy, she is the person I will reach for. I will google her name if I'm feeling hopeless. I will write her a letter if I'm afraid. I will stalk her at her home & end up in jail if that's what I need to do. But I've chosen her as my person-in-power to hitch my wagon to.

(lovely schizoid metaphor going on here ^^^)

And hey COMRADES, especially you anti-Trump libtards (aka my people),

Please remember to go high. Don't jerk your knees so hard they come back to fracture your larynx. Think it through before you start smashing windows or plotting assassinations. The alt-right conspiracy theorists are already projecting a neo-liberal feminazi assassin…

…well, heh heh, I'm not going to tell you not to do it, but just…think it through…

[Speaking of alt-right nazis pretending to be good ol Johnny Appleseed rootsy folksy shucksy mankind is my mission I can save you all cuz I saved myself from the flames & my sizzling synapses hold all the answers Spreading the…not love, but TRUTH! TRUTH, that harsh tough gristly gift that's so different for each one of us! 

I like everyone, but all my black friends live in Africa where they belong, see?? 

Speaking of them and their lonely white dicks, and their fear of the pussyhat, and their hatred of what they can't own as property--Tthey are still here, living among us. 

Those guys who hate that my femininity went rogue on their exclusive chemical cocktail! The fear that they may give me a Very Good, Sir when I deserve only a Nice <3 i="">

Where Sir = bro, I am the weird zero, and you are the hypocrites addicted to your own mathless myth]

All right. I am a poet so I'm allowed to be all cryptic and mystical and kind of you know um…quirky solopsistic navel-picking shoe-gazing cherry-lickking jack-offative narcissist. But not our President, not our fearless communicator our impartial father figure our big old Uncle Grandpa Mohommed cartoon conjugal Jesus visitor! Not him! Oh please, not Him!!!

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

All right, again. I started doing my daily stream-of-consciousnesses

I really need them now…to get my brain farting again

Stabbed in another dimension! A hallway in my heart I never knew I had. Ever dreamt you found a room in your house that wasn't there before? You peek your head in--"Is this real?"--and the room goes from closet to attic to mezzanine to subconscious palace. But you can't make yourself enter--"Here it is inside my house but is it mine?" The property of dreams unrecorded on the table of elements. Ever dreamed you've grown new body parts? A limb, a genital, a slit in your side that vents when you start to feel fear? In my dreams my body always belongs to me for it's not property. We've grown a new president, a ninth tentacle. I no longer recognize this octopus I've analyzed for ages. We've grown apart, as legal aliens often do. Another midnight master who wakes a sunrise student, bereft of the lessons in a wet cartoon.  1-21-17 

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

AND HEY COMRADES! I hope you enjoy this crappy art--The Pre-Inaugural Nerve Doodles. I am out of practice. Obviously.

Pathological Pravda

FRIENDS, RUSSIANS:

Happy Goddamn Fucking New Year.

Unlike most of you who eschew new year's resolutions because you won't keep them anyway, I always make resolutions & stick to them.

For instance my resolutions last year were A) to forget more things B) to submit quality writing and get it published.

And I did that! All year long. I got more stuff published in 2016 than the previous 2 years combined. And boy--did I forget a lot of stuff. I can't even remember all the stuff I forgot last year!

[For my new friends (and Russians) who are wondering why I would want to forget stuff--I have one of those perfect biographical memories like MaryLu Henner and I really needed to clean out my brain, make room for all the highly classified data that's incoming

But I can still remember everything if you ask me by date---ie, what happened on Oct 9, 1985? (It was a Wednesday & we were working on the play 'Antigone' in my high school theatre class). But as far as remembering the painful details from each calendar square of my life? I'm purging some of the hurts & judgments & emotional propaganda I've been feeding myself since…1985.]

So what's on the docket for VT in 2017?

A) Retrieving my sense of humor from wherever I left it in 2014. I'm sure I won't find my sense of humor in the condition it was when I abandoned it, but I KNOW I will need a funhouse lens through which to view the nouvelle regime. I am scared shitless and know that is when levity is most essential. But I don't know how "leviticous" I can be about it. Plus I'm so unfunny now, I worry that I may be getting Alzheimer's. 

[Alzheimer's is my new thing to be unreasonably paranoid about. It's always something--sinkholes, blood clots… This year I will find every reason to believe I have early onset dementia. Is this really happening? Maybe not.]

2010 character: The Majestic Text-mouth Sparrow

B) This doesn't need repeating but --Writing, submitting, seeing more work in print. I actually feel really weird whenever I have a poem published. At first it's thrilling--yay, someone appreciates my words! But then it's a scary out-of-comfort-zone heebie jeebie vulnerability. I'm not cut out to be a person, let alone a person with a name. And cred. But I've worked my whole life to occupy this out-of-comfort zone, so I won't give up just because America isn't great yet, or I'm losing my mind.

C) Do more art. I don't need to say it but sorry I did no art in '16. That will not happen again.

D) Weaning off as much single-use plastic as possible. We were doing pretty good with this for awhile, then our cats destroyed our cloth grocery bags one by one & suddenly we had a cabinet full of plastics again. If we are saying good-bye to environmental protections for awhile, I want to contribute as little as possible to the shitpile.

[Of course transitioning means--syringes! Plastic ones! Unreusable disposable waste that usually gets incinerated. But I refuse to throw them out. I've been using them for watercolors and other constructions. So expect some needle-art this year : )]

E) Owning my transition. I'll never be super masculine, but I want to feel comfortable thinking of myself as male. I was such a boy when I was a little kid, and even up through high school I dressed femininely but was gruff & tomboyish as ever. And then something happened after high school…life without a net…and I felt this horrid obligation to play the role of female, and pretend to enjoy & be fine with it. And now that I've been released from that obligation it is still hard not to feel guilty when I think of myself as "he"--I let everyone misgender me because I don't want to be one of those militant "delusional" trans people who disavows all gender constructs.

I just want to pass as a guy and live a quiet life w/ my mate. I don't want to demand anything from anyone, but I need to demand of myself that I FORGET the forced femininity. And the guilt and the hatred and the overflowing misogyny I drowned in for decades. Once I do that, I know passing will come naturally.

Other than that, I have no "trans chores" this year! 

What else? Right now I'm training to do a run. I'll probably start with a 1K or even 5K if I'm feeling strong enough. Back in the days when I was crying so loud & uncontrollable that i thought it would scare the neighbors, I started running around my house, trying to calm myself down. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes I was running for hours. Hours, friends & Russians.

It felt awful at the time, but now I'm a pretty good runner for an old curmudgeon. I ran a 9 minute mile this morning and next week I hope to do it in 6, 'mmmmkay?

All right….that's all I have to say now. I hope everybody's year goes well…I mean, really well. If we all need to join forces we will. Until then, I'll be doing all that stuff up there ^^^

Zin Is A Type Of Vin

O' MERRY XMAS FRIENDS!!!

I hope this Xmas Eve finds you all drunk, stoned, in love, or at least not trapped at work with a heavy cold and 17 inches of snow between you and your yule log-infested hearth.

I've been meaning to check in at the Octopus Diary sooner, but friends… I have been getting so many hits from Russia that I'm downright paranoid about it. As you know 2016 was my 10 year anniversary of being an Octopus Diarist (you can read about it here). And I don't plan on quitting just because the Russians are either spying on me personally, or routing a fake news site anonymously through my blogspot address ---

----- OKILLAKATZE COMRADES!---------

but you know. These are silly fragile egg times. And though most of you shun diaryzing as something adults don't do, I will diarize the fuck out of 2017 because we face the reality of having our freedom of press taken away and 

I would rather die pressing freely than live w/ only freedom of speech as my means of getting across…

I have for you today an Epic Poem--now that Moonchild is officially a senior citizen he is eligible for colonoscopies. He is also eligible to be called MoonSenior. This long poem is about my time in the waiting room while he got his colon scoped. I've been writing such long poems lately & they get rejected by the presses for being too long. 

Small, economy-size poetry is in vogue these days. Long elastic odysseys are not. So I will share them here. Feel free to give me feedback if you can manage to read the whole thing.

Also--I have ART for you!!! Yes, I spent the Winter Solstice getting reacquainted w/ watercolors. But don't get too excited--they are just experiments. I literally made something from the rorschach stains on the palette paper leftover from my last painting (of Shelter Cat & Trust Fund Baby). But it was good to get the hands & wrists & brushes coordinated again.

Rorschach experiment #1  Pixel Pisses Off the Puscine Priestess

So here's the COLONOSCOPY POEM:

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

We are traffic drooling over the lip of sunrise

Who leaves these big gaps  2-3 car lengths untightened at lights

Texting "out of fuel" perhaps?

We turn and signal parkway pique;  once auto immunity's 4-door wall breaks, usually a surge in the stream of concrete

But speedy's distracted by copilot's 3" French caresses, cranking flow valve

To carb and nozzle to

Slow drip 

Now we've broken walls & laws no one saw

I agree to wait  [?]  hours in this snug McNugget box

Within  [?]  minutes

2 Trump cards shuffle in and slap gnarly hands on my arm rest/privacy fence

One believes her volume's set to Indoor but I endure this: 

I don't write anything from my own head,  just regurgitate content from 

Nooz-sites I believe in. One today re: Reagan calling from the 80s to put prayer back in school & she responds with a long thought from her own head! As if she knows everything!

To paraphrase, poor libtard network kin so brainwashed, reciting all the godless scripture of the classroom, babbling about progress when what we need is a brake pedal, a retraction

I mustn't misconduct this War on Conduct, wherein I'll need a brochure of trigger warnings after every intake of breath, that sublime feline tip off I'm about to claw your flipside to bits  Wherein sensual assault is no mere tone crime 

Bandaging my former armor's spastic knees, strengthening my anti-social core, softened turd-like by lack of use

I clutch my book like a steering wheel, words roll by my eyes but they have pirated one whole 

Brain hemisphere, filled my throat w/ fossilized frogs, 

All sphincters from anal to mental clenched around my spinal flagpole

Because these G-mas would have me carry stones 3K miles from home

To build a border so concrete in the franchise of consciousness

One could only stand before it & try to order tacos

Try to classify rapists, or outline some of the good ones in chalk

These old clucks muted by their own lack of authority, deafened by their

Blocked cockiness, silent bowels waiting to take the exam, 

Can't stop their liquid whisper's confluence 

Live-streaming into my well

Watch towering overprotective over families overvalued

But not appreciated

As if she knows everything!

These G-mas would stack pixels to add VIP room to the Constitution. They'd say it was the divine occult will of their departed Daddies who served 

Heroes, honey, forced Hitler to his hemlock hive

God's own image said the flag was sacred and not to be burnt in red-skinned blue-flamed white-hot protest

While those involuntary vaginas call it Symbol of our fatal design flaw, our flow of scoliosis, our unclasped, neckless genuflection, Daddy rises for the post-mortem anthem

For Him the new fascists cut coupons and throats, cut themselves off at the pituitary knees,

If you were black I'd color you all over & have you drink from the leaden fountain! 

If you were brown you'd be raptured back to Aztec temples, sacrificed to America's

Overnight jungle, to its overgrown honey-do, listing like a ship off a cliff!

And were you queer, you'd plead for Pentecostal boot camp--Make me in your atomic-saxon image!

Make *nameless genital configuration* swell!

O little old lady tilled by the patriarchy when America was ripe for

The pickin' of slim cotton dresses, linen winging it between fucks, 

When America was so well-fluffed everyone had a donkeyshow! Everyone had an acre of virgin g-spot soil!

Now general admission is an admitted mess

But these angels don't even sing in the shower

Before gassing the rainbowed gutter 

11-21-16 

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

Congratulations on reading that. You're good. I really hope this weekend is filled with love & joy for everyone.  2016 was one of those years that really rattled the scaffolding and threatened to collapse the structure, the jagged mystical steeple of an Illuminati that reached the pinnacle of its erudite elitism. Not the structure you were thinking, right?

Rorschach turned into self portrait

Anyway…I shuddered w/ dread to face the news of my world, my country each day…and yet…my life, at my house, in my head, was terrific. Fucking grand. I am happy to have my mind back, and I promise more art & less jacking off in 2017. But I am on alert, ready to take action or fight or flight whenever the time is right. No polite nazi here. Intelligent anger, no artifice, 'kay?

My Own Day of Infamy: 1 Year on T

FRIENDS,

A year ago today I began a journey I would never believe. (And please don't think I'm a new age meme-hippie for using the word "journey." It's too early to think of a better word.)

You all know how awed I've always been by the power of hormones. Why, being a lady is nothing but a hormone journey. Each day a new mix of hormones & you never know what you're going to get! I absolutely HATED living that way, and THEN…as if thirty years of unamusing rollercoaster dips were not reward enough for being born w/out a dick…along comes menopause…PRE menopause…PERI menopause….whatever name you give it, it is nothing short of being thrown from the wild carnival ride you've been bravely strapped to for decades….

But as I've said, I was afraid of playing with the hormones. The God juice. (Please…don't think I'm a magic jesus Xtian because I said "God juice" -- I just didn't want to say "higher power elixir." It's too early in the morning.)

In 2012 I stumbled across a blog by a young homeless trans man who could only afford his testosterone part of the time. So he was really on a hormone rollercoaster! It sounded like drug addiction. You have your T--you feel great! You can't afford your T--you slump into estrogen depression.

Until I was completely pinned under the bulldozer of perimenopause I wasn't ready to fuck around w/ hormones.

But oh my god how I wish I'd been braver! How I wish I'd known when I was 12 that I could do this! 

But…scratch that…I wouldn't really want to change anything about my life except how badly I felt about my feminine exterior…how that exterior trapped me in humanitor's binary loop, but kept me separate from the ladies, and the men…

No I wouldn't change the life I've already lived. It is a work of art. It is just right for me, no matter how crappy it looks to you. 

So enough about hormonephobia! I know all you guys want to know is-----

How big is your penis now? 

And I'll get to that in a moment. I want to mention some of the other changes, or lack of changes, first.

You may have noticed I did no art this year. Zero zip nada art. I didn't feel at all like making any art. This is a new thing--usually I crave arting as much as eating or drinking or sleeping.

But all I did this year was feel horny & jack off. [Sorry, I know that's not what you want to hear]

Except--just in the past week--I feel the art imperative rising up against the new hormone order! So get ready for some art in 2017.

Voice = getting better. For about 9 months I've sounded like I have laryngitis. But now I sound like an actual teenage boy w/ deeper pitches than I've ever had. I still have most of my female range too. I kind of like having a voice with so much range.

But it is not helping me pass as male in the world.

And that's another thing. LOOKS = still very feminine. Seemingly more feminine than before starting T. Except for my slight mustache & a few invisible chin hairs…not very much facial hair to be found. I'm of Native American stock & we are not a hairy people. But this is ridiculous.

I'm happy that I haven't had the ferocious outbreak of acne that usually precedes facial hair growth. But a year later, I'm ready & willing to get through that rite of passage.

I think this was right after my 2nd T shot. Who can guess which restaurant we're at? 

I broke down & got a haircut the other day. I get so frustrated that I'm still read as so feminine. But my experience at the barber shop was even more demoralizing--the (female) barber couldn't BELIEEEEEEVE I wanted a short/men's haircut. She kept saying "Are you sure this is okay? It's going to be very short."

Like what do I look like--a fucking Disney princess to these people????  I think I made her very uncomfortable, and I hardly said anything…

So my plans to be a long-haired freaky hipster dude were thwarted by my own insecurites, my fragile masculinity. Now I just look like an older lady w/ really short butch hair. Not even a real butch lesbian. Just an unfeminine unattractive ciswoman who has no sense of style.

Oh speaking of style---I have none right now. I can't find clothes that fit. Mens' shirts hit my upper thighs. The pants get trampled under my feet because they're so long. My manly cargo shorts are just too big & look like droopy diapers. I'm a mess. I will work on this. If anyone knows where a 5'2" 120# girly man can get some clothes, let me know.

I LOVE my chest, scars & all. This is my most masculine feature right now. I took a shirtless run the other day & my god it was gorgeousness & gorgeosity made flesh like a bird of the rarest spun heavenmetal or like silvery wine flowing in a  spaceship…yada yada, you know the rest… 

Anyway, I can't say how great it feels to not have boobs. Again, a part of me wishing I'd never gone through the wrong puberty because those boobs were the main focus of my self-hatred. I knew they were the most glaring attribute of femininity, the thing guys considered my "sex organs." Gross.

The testosterone makes me feel happier & stronger & more confident than I ever did despite how silly I look. This is nice. I was so used to judging myself on my looks & feeling bad most of the time because well…I didn't like how I looked. Now it's not so important.

Hormonal stability is …bliss…peace. I mention T-rage kind of casually here & there, and it's true I had more angry outbursts this year than I had in '14 or' 15.  But I'm really not sure if that was the T or just me getting back to my normal feisty self.

Mostly I just feel good all the time. I get a little sluggish & sleepy when it's time for a shot, but it's NOTHING like PMS was.

You guys don't know how lucky & privileged & advantaged you are. Don't argue w/ me until you've been on estrogen for a year.

How is Moonchild doing with all this? He seems fine--ever the golden lunar presence, the wise orb. I haven't changed overly much, but he has noticed that I am happier & that makes him happy. It doesn't seem like he's about to bolt for Heteronormative Cis-landia. We still speak of our future plans as enthusiastically as ever.

OH, and yes, my dick has gotten bigger, though it's still not as big as yours & I'm all right w/ that! 

So yeah, I can't believe it's been a year on T!!! I remember those 5 grueling months of waiting once I decided this was the path I wanted to take. In those months I studied every nuance of my upcoming identity on the internet. I followed Trans podcasts & blogs. I scrolled thru trans Tumblrs & Twitters & Youtube videos. I even posted my own videos of me singing to my cat because that's what all the trans guys were doing & my god I wanted to do it right!!!  [Note to self: Take down those stupid vids!!]

I had no idea how to "be trans." I knew I was older than most people who were transitioning, especially female-to-male. But I still thought there was "a way" to do it. Certain words to use, specific steps to take. And I was looking for those footsteps to follow.

Now I don't worry about that so much. I'm just doing it, man, winging it. I've taken all the big sanctioned steps, and the little steps are up to me each day. I am thankful & thrilled & transformed & enlightened. But not perfect. And not passing yet, but I'm patient, so, so fucking patient.

I had an epic poem I was going to share, but this T anniversary thought was much longer than expected. I'll share the poem at a later date, like the considerate motherfukker I am.

ARTWORK COMING IN 2017!!!! 

Promise.