Confessions Of A Tree Falling In A Forest

FRIENDINISTAS,

The other day I bought some plants for the yard. I know, that’s so unlike me. My relationship to any living things that aren’t cats is pretty questionable. [ask me about bamboo & pumpkins. No, don’t]

But we’re trying to create a lush green wall between us & the neighbors—just for our own privacy & comfort—no problems w/ the neighbors in this ‘hood.

So I scouted out a nice spot for the new plants—a sun dappled area between two large pines. I stood there a moment, picturing the potential lushness & fertility.  Moonchild joined me & we remarked what a nice part of the yard it was, how we should bring our chairs over & spend more time there.

Then we went inside because it was noon & too hot to start digging & planting. I planned to return later in the afternoon. So we did our indoor stuff for a few hours, which included binge-watching Kimmy Schmidt Season 3. We started an episode around 5 o’clock & after that one I was going to head out to the yard.

Well…about halfway through the episode we heard a loud boom. Moonchild asked Was that thunder?? And if I hadn’t caught sight of a shadowy figure that looked like one of Danaerys’s dragons flying through the yard I would’ve said Yeah, that was thunder.

Instead I ran to the window to see what the flying shadow was. And there, right where we’d been standing earlier, was a big chunky limb that had fallen from one of the pine trees. 15 minutes before I was scheduled to be standing there again. It was big enough to do some serious skull, neck, or shoulder damage. Possibly a fatal blow.

As we stood there in shock & puzzlement, I had three rapid-fire thoughts:

A) wow, our guardian angels are hard at work today

B) wow, what vengeful deity is out to get us??

and finally my inner Zen master came through with C) wow, timing may not be everything but it sure is something

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

Friends, I promised I was going to start a summer blog series called Adventures In Spirituality. And I am going to do that. I’m looking forward to doing it actually. I’ve been very busy, and…I must admit…

….I’m falling into a GREAT DEPRESSION again. I’m not (too) ashamed that I struggle with depression. I know a lot of people do. But I don’t like to go on & on about it in my sacred blog space which I reserve for fun stuff like stream-of-conscious poetry.

When I went through this in 2014, I only told a few close friends & didn’t write much about it. But I’m seeing lots of folks going through some size or shape of depression these days—and surprisingly, it’s mostly GUYS who are talking about it. So it feels kind of gender appropriate for me to join in.

Usually when I’m feeling depressed I stay busier than usual & refrain from bothering people; I do art therapy, I write, sing, read awesome books; I talk to Moonchild until he reminds me I’m not any worse at being human than anyone else. I seek professional help if needed.

I’ve already done all of those things ^^^^ this year and I keep spiraling down. Being “busy” doesn’t really cure depression—it often adds stress & anxiety to the equation. Or it holds it at bay until you’re un-busy again. But it’s impossible to sit still when you are deep in the shit, as I seem to be now.

The thing I didn’t get until recently is: if you struggled with depression in your youth it doesn’t necessarily get better with time, it usually gets worse. The more you know about the world, the harder it is to distract yourself. The more medications you’ve tried, the harder it is to find ones that work. All medications lose their effectiveness over time.

And some even leave you feeling worse over time. That’s why I tried so hard, for so long to manage without medication. But I caved in 2014 & latched onto the big pharma-tit…It was a necessary evil at the time. I felt relief from the indescribable anguish that was plaguing me, but I also felt exploited, gauged, monitored & profiled by the corporate health care beast.

[Oh, did I tell you I lost insurance coverage last week? They (United) decided my “condition” didn’t meet the standards of approval for coverage of the medication I’m using to treat it. I suppose this will be happening to many of us. It feels very violating to be reviewed as unfit for coverage.] 

I miss the days when the liquor store was my pharmacy.

The death of Chris Cornell really hit me hard. I’ve read a lot about his struggle in the week since he passed & I marvel at what a valiant fighter he was. Especially in light of the nihilistic movement he was part of. He was the one I’d assumed had found that magic combination of strength / love / creative talent / medicine / realistic expectations.

But even with that auspicious alignment of elements, depression can kick you right into the abyss.

Suicide has been a big presence in my life lately. Last summer a friend committed suicide & it left me questioning everything I’d assumed about “pushing through it” or “staying busy” or “not bothering people with your personal shit.” Because if anyone was able to push through & stay busy & not burden others it was her. 

Until she couldn’t do it anymore.

Then I read the Tiptree biography and found yet another literary hero who ended his(her) own life. So many, many literary heroes end their own lives. I used to take comfort in knowing this author or that one had been as depressed as me—that I at least was in good company. Now it scares me, and makes them much more human to me (though no less heroic).  

The show 13 Reasons Why slunk its cold tentacles around my heart in April.

And this week Cornell’s passing has me just … just….what? Asking for strength? Striving for clarity? Willing myself not to do the same thing to my own loved ones?

It’s a precarious time for me to be delving into Spirituality because I feel vulnerable to the temptation of Big Answers. I sometimes yearn for Bigger Answers than I’ve already received on this plane, but I’ve also come to terms with knowing that I’m not supposed to know everything. 

[Like why did a tree limb narrowly miss falling on my head the other day??]

I also know it’s risky to talk (write) about “religion & politics.” And for good reason—peoples’ religious & political beliefs tend to define the core of their beings. So I will try to tread carefully & not use my dickish Blog Emperor voice when relaying my personal stories.

So get ready! Next time in The Octopus Diary—Adventures in Spirituality: Xtianity Part One! 

I’lll also keep you updated on the “medical situation” if I can bear to write about it.

I’m also still accepting submissions of personal, political, heartfelt, newsworthy, ranting & surreally raving poetry.

Also….if you are not a Friendinista, you are not required to read this. You CAN look away.  

BLESS YOUR LITTLE TENTACLES

Hello Friends,

How’s everyone doing? Are we keeping our heads on despite how violently they might be spinning? It’s

the cognitive equivalent of the Gravitron out there and I hope we’re not all covered in vertiginous puke.

I don’t contribute much to the political cacophony because I don’t have much to add to what everyone else is already spewing. I know that means I’m a privileged white person* who “doesn’t have to care.” Wrong. I care. I have called (state & federal) officials and left them messages which I only hope they got. Now that my foot is healed I am going to volunteer at a place that’s being hard hit by reform, and which means a lot to me personally, and where I feel I can actually do some good. I do what I can without constantly bitching about it. 

I still have a lovely personal life which is as important to me as what’s going on in the world. Sorry for that. Sorry for being an individual in these times of collective outrage. But it’s the only way for me to stay sane and remember what the outrage is all about.

What I’m really waiting for is for the impeachment police to come knocking on the White House door. I’m waiting for our wonderful system of checks & balances to accuse our lunatic-in-chief of Treason. Most of all I’m waiting for a team of medical experts attended by international law enforcement to come and kindly Baker Act this motherfucker (and his loverboy Putin) for much longer than 72 hours.

I’m waiting for a do over of the whole thing. I’m waiting for New Rules—if an election and its results turn out to be so fraudulent it threatens the very fabric of our Constitution, we can do it all over again. And maybe that threatens the very fabric of the Constitution too, but we’re at a place where so many threads have been pulled, loosened from the loom, soon there may be no fabric left at all.

I’m tired of all the noise over each & every misstep. There are too many, every day, every hour; every tweet a talking point for days. Let’s get this over with. 

I’m sick of “While YOU were distracted by THIS, here’s what was really going on (big rape-y Trump administration move)” memes. We’re ALL being distracted by everything he does, it’s a multi-ring circus, and I’m a complex human who CAN pay attention to all of it. 

I’m not such a simpleton that I’m only concerned with trans bathroom issues, or the repeal of the ACA, or the death of the EPA, or how many hits this blog gets from Russia. I can see it all and still have time to care what the Kardashians are wearing and still have time to make more refrigerator art for you. Now that’s privilege.

*I was a poor white girl who grew up to be a middle class trans man, so I do qualify for the special snowflake Olympics, I just don’t get a medal.

*******

One thing that does scare me to death and makes my skin crawl like maggots is this Religious Freedom Order. Not so much the Order itself (which only concerns the fining of churches that align themselves with specific political issues), but the religious groups that are clamoring for MORE religious freedom than the Constitution already grants so they can use it to discriminate against a) women and their inconvenient childbearing bodies and b) the LGBT community. These extreme right conservatives who see Xtians as a persecuted group right here in America and want the Trump administration to Help Us! Help Us! Save us from these married queers and men in dresses! Save the precious little white babies because humans are such an endangered species!

If you know me, or read my last blog, you know I have very little patience for religion. Any religion really, especially the most orthodox & extreme versions of those religions. Nothing creeps me out more than indoctrination of thought-conformity, and the moralistic restrictions that thought conformity makes on the individual.

I would rather watch a roomful of gays & lesbians enjoying themselves in orgiastic bliss than see a bunch of people praying—whether they be a mass of Xtians in a church or a swarm of Muslims responding to their timed loudspeaker ululation. 

I would rather have some creepy slimeball make trans-phobic remarks to me than have some churchlady say I’ll pray for you.

Why? I’m not sure. In the first instance I would feel able to defend myself, and I would feel justified in defending myself against the slimeball’s ignorance. In the second instance, I would feel that someone was trying to manipulate me with their (perceived) moral superiority.

It’s been many years since I’ve felt the encroachment of religious extremists. I felt them loud & clear in the 1980s when I first became aware of them. In the 90s they were still there, just not as loud. Then in the early 00s, the evil Muslim extremist v. the good Xtian people of America dynamic rose up like so much phoenix-shit from the twin towers.

It was a different sort of religious conversation, but the “moral superiority” of white Xtian Americans was still the underlying message.

Under the Obama administration, one thing I appreciated was that religion was put in its place, ie it was not invoked as a political talking point at every opportunity. Religion and state were kept separate, as they are intended to be.

I started to believe that the American people had grown up, come to their senses & realized what religion and/or spirituality were. That those were acceptable tools for personal growth, and for comforting one’s self in dark times, but they weren’t to be used as the basis for legislation. 

Of course, I was wrong to assume that. I made an ass of myself assuming that. For here we are, back in what looks like The Dark Ages to me.

I mentioned in my last blog that I have family members who take moral issue with my identification as a trans guy. They don’t want their precious children to be tormented by the sight of their “aunt” becoming their “uncle.”

[What they really don’t want is to have to answer difficult questions about gender or God’s will or Mommy, why can’t I dress up like a girl?  They don’t want their children to be aware of any options except the ones they present to them. Because it’s easier that way. Or so they think.]

[And some of you are probably shocked to know that after 11 years of estrangement, I am reunited with (most of) my family. That’s another story altogether…]

BUT, what I do want to do, in this Era of Seriousness, is explore my attitudes about religion. WHY do I hate it so? What life experiences led me SO far away from embracing conservative values?

In the past few months I’ve had to acknowledge and try to empathize with people who are as uncomfortable with who I am as I am uncomfortable with who they are. I really get it now that some people do see me as an abomination in the eyes of their god.

BUT—another big BUT here!—I want to refer back to this story that gendermom posted on her blog:

A southern Baptist mother whose child came out to her as trans at the age of 3, how she handled it, how she was treated by her “church family”, and what a wise therapist? pastor? said to shed light on who she was really trying to please—God or the congregation of sheeple who were judging her?

It also shed light on my own reason for disliking religious groups so passionately. Listen here

So…what I’m going to do in the coming weeks is write candidly about all my forays into different kinds of religion/spirituality.

I’ll bet lots of you will be surprised that I have tried to embrace Xtianity in my life. A few different times. I never did take to it, but next time in The Octopus Diary I give you

ADVENTURES IN SPIRITUALITY PART ONE: XTIANITY !!!!!

Keep your submissions coming. I still have only two. I’ll post the guidelines again soon.

May 6: The Year of the WriteDudes™ Metallic Neon Gel Pen

Fiendish Friends,

Happy Sesto de Mayo. I hope you’re all doing better than I am. Not that I’m doing poorly, but this year so far has been subpar. After a gorgeous year like 2016, I’m afraid all years are going to look a little inferior.

So far, 2016 was the most exciting year of my life (even counting those years before 1985 when my hyper-memory began). Childhood sucked. It was more like a miniature adulthood. But what can you say about the year you began transforming into the beautiful horny swan you were meant to be? Just good-bye Bowie, Prince, & Princess Leia, hello me.

This year has been full of worry, anxiety, injury, inertia, and lack of inspiration. And yet, I’m not complaining. My life is still very good—I’m just worried about the bigger picture because, ya’ll, it looks a little … forged, vandalized, just an empty quadrilateral on a dusty wall.  <<< [I’m trying to do an art heist metaphor here & it’s failing.]

Speaking of Art, I’ve already done 100% more art this year than last year, and it’s not because I’m inspired. It’s because art is my therapy & I didn’t need it last year.

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

Friends, I was watching Ellen the other day as I often do in the afternoons and I didn’t realize it had been 20 years since her “coming out” episode.

I never saw the episode even though I did Identify as a queer woman back in the 90s. I was very, very busy in 1997: going to school, working two jobs, drinking full time & hiding the fact that I was trans. Oh, the things you can do in your 20s!!

But I was aware of the episode. I heard all about it from those people who did have time to watch TV. Wow, it was such a big deal! But what I really didn’t know about was the huge backlash Ellen’s coming out cost not only her, but all gay people.

I was too busy in the real world—and there wasn’t The Internet back then—to feel the surge of conservatism that followed. But Ellen reminded us all of it on her daytime talk show last week. 

Not only was her sitcom canceled, not only did she receive death threats and become the butt of the late night comics’ jokes, and have to go underground for her own safety…

…but all the other actors on the show were targeted as well. And they weren’t even gay. Oprah and Laura Dern (who had cameos on the episode) were deemed lesbians-by-association. Dern couldn’t get any film roles for 2 years after that. Oprah was allegedly having an impure love affair with her best friend Gayle and lost a lot of viewer support.

Violence against gay people escalated—the brutal slaying of Matthew Shepard happened the following year. Not to mention the less-publicized incidents that we remain oblivious to.

2 versions of Tiptree Art

After the episode aired, Oprah did have Ellen on her show to try to talk through some of the backlash that was happening—

and Ellen showed some of that footage on her current show—These angry god-fearing, big-haired Xtian ladies shouting “Go ahead and be gay in your own home, but why do you have to announce it on television??? I don’t want my CHILDREN to see that!!!!”

Oh the fucking CHILDREN.

It was hard to watch. It was hard for me to learn that while I raced around in my own hectic, self-medicated world, all that was going on in the queer community. Part of me is glad I was unaware, but another part of me is like—why wasn’t I out there fighting, protesting, standing up against the ignorance? I was getting my own taste of sexist/homophobic treatment in the workplace, but I thought that was just what I deserved for…being.

The scary thing is, that’s what I hear the conservatives saying about transgender people now—

“Go ahead & dress up in your queer little uniforms behind closed doors, but don’t you dare bring yourself out in the light of day where my CHILDREN can see you [and possibly identify with you].”

Keep yourselves on the down-low, you perverts.

Not Suitable For Children

There are people in my own family who don’t want me near their CHILDREN. And that’s okay—I made up my mind quite awhile ago that I am a *Not Suitable For Children* adult.

But that doesn’t mean all gay & trans people are not suitable for children. Or that even unsuitable people like myself shouldn’t be seen by children. There are ALL sorts of people in this world, and you can only force your precious children not to see them for 18 years, then you’re out of luck.

Your children do become gross adults one day. Maybe gross gay or trans adults, no matter how closely you monitor their lives or gate their communities while they’re young. Gay & trans people do exist within conservative families—HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO LEARN THAT LESSON??? How many gay/trans kids have to end their own lives before we get it?

(and I know some conservatives will say, hopefully all of them)

Not Suitable For Children

I know lots of gay & trans people who do embrace Xtianity. A disturbing number actually. And that may be its own sort of backlash—like, look at me, I may be gay/trans but I accept the Lord & I know the Lord loves me as I am, so na-na-na. I don’t think I’d understand religion no matter how I identified, so it’s hard for me to understand why any marginalized group would embrace the institutions that marginalize them.

ANYWAY…back to ELLEN. I have always loved & appreciated her for her humor and kindness. But now I really do know how brave she was in the face of hostile criticism, mockery, potential danger. How much she deserved the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

It’s hard to tell how much things have improved when they keep going forward then backward—how much our cultural awareness has expanded when it suddenly contracts once again.

But, when I look at the big (stolen, forged, vandalized) picture, I can see that we are, mostly, moving in a forward direction. 

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

All right. That’s enough of that—I got kind of EMOTIONAL watching Ellen’s 20 year anniversary show, and I know you all love emotions.

But I’m trying to embrace my emotional nature lately rather than suppressing it. I’ve tried to suppress my emotions all my life, for your benefit, and I’m not doing it anymore, because it does not benefit me.

Not Suitable For Children

What I will be doing, however, is Taking your poetry submissions!!!!

That’s right. I would like to share this Octopus Space with other poets. It will be a total Vanity Project, so I expect I will get ZERO submissions from anyone, but here are some

OCTOPUS DIARY SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Send me your tired, your poor, your literary stepchildren rejected by all the other reputable journals.

I am open to a wide variety of topics and styles, but here’s what I don’t like:

▶︎Preachy stuff — the I-have-heard-the-voice-of-God-and-here-is-what-it-says type poems. 

If you use vague, general words like Universe, Fate, Chaos, God, Nature please get more specific—which aspect of nature? which of the many gods? Describe the chaos in great detail, don’t leave me hanging. I was a doomsday poet in my youth, but I at least managed to nail some of the details. Please give me details so I know what to expect from the current era’s day of doom.

 ▶︎Derivative stuff — I like Bukowski as much as the next guy, but what I want is YOU. I love the personal—can’t you tell? I don’t want copycat styles unless you want to try to copy e.e. cummings (that might be interesting). I know many publications frown on using the word ‘I’ too much, but I do not. I want your I’s. 

Just think, in this day & age, using capital letters and punctuation is rebellion at its finest. Use them rebelliously and I’ll love it.

▶︎Boring stuff about flowers or how pretty the sky is. Just don’t do that to me.

▶︎I don’t LOVE rhyming poetry, or formal styles (sonnets, ghazals) but if they’re good I DO love them. So it’s not an absolute ‘no’ on those, but please…make them interesting & personal in some way.

▶︎I like stuff ABOUT sexism, racism, homophobia, etc..just don’t BE racist, sexist, homophobic, capiche?

Give me your pain, your fears, your triumphs in a cruel world, your bizarre point of view and I’m sure I will enjoy it.

Send your darlings to me via Facebook messenger, or if we’re not friends on Facebook, friend me, then send them to me via Facebook messenger. That’s the only way I will be taking the first round of submissions. I would love to hear from my writer friends of course, but I would also like submissions from people who don’t usually submit poetry or even write it. I want you to dig deep and challenge yourself. 

It’s for the Octopusses. And the CHILDREN.

13 Reasons Why The Octopus Diary Will Be Taking Submissions

FREDS,

After learning from a friend about its evocative 80s soundtrack, I went ahead and watched a show called ’13 Reasons Why’ (out on Netflix now). The show is set in the present & I couldn’t wait to see what kind of drama would play out to the very songs that accompanied me through my own troubled youth.

I had no idea what I was getting into. The show was captivating right from the start—all character driven & narrated (on cassette tape!) by a girl who had recently killed herself. As compelling as it was, I kept expecting this all-too-human storyline to morph into something with vampires or zombies or cannibals or some idiotic supernatural (angels? fairies, maybe?) premise which would ruin the believable intensity. I absolutely hate the vampirization/zombification/superheroicazation of every fucking thing these days.

But this story did not turn into vampires & zombies, oh my.

It stuck to being uncomfortably human to the point where I was thinking—Okay, they can bring in the angels any time.

*******WHY THE SHOW WAS EFFECTIVE******

The show was effective for several reasons. The writing was honest. It wasn’t trying to impress by being too clipped & cool & “whatevs.” A lot of things written for the young adult gaze are just so, you know, Tumblr-y. Social networking was hinted at here, but it was a background character, lurking ominously behind real life. As it should in the televisionary medium.

It didn’t underestimate the intelligence of young people, or diminish the complexity of their emotions. Or gloss over what it’s really like to interact w/ the vampiric hormones & uncooked frontal lobes that swarm through high school hallways.

The haunting quality of the dead girl’s voice-over really gets under your skin, into your psyche, no matter what your age, gender, or level of disenchantment with the world. It’s one of those shows that makes you feel rather than think. Which is unusual these days.

Not too long ago, I wrote extensively about my formative years right here in this Octopus Diary. When I did, I was writing from a safe distance, a detached narration, here’s what happened to me…blah, blah, blah…I didn’t let myself get too involved in my own feelings about what had happened, I was just telling it, to myself and to you, my witnesses.

But this show, with its brutal, accusatory narration, really transported me back to my Senior year in high school in a way that writing about it did not.

[Brief recap: my senior year was riddled with very adult situations that were way out of my league. I found myself in a very controlling, abusive relationship that I couldn’t get myself out of, and I didn’t know how to ask for help. I was hit, punched, burned w/ cigarettes, stabbed with scissors, drugged (not with roofies, but LSD), sexually assaulted, and finally held at gunpoint for hours when I tried to break up with this troubled boy; this boy I had wanted to be an ally to, this boy I had wanted to help, this boy I had looked up to.

My reputation was slandered, my social skills suffered, I was basically traumatized for years afterward, and became “that weird person no one likes”  (and I sometimes still slip into that role, even now.)]

Watching this show brought the devastation of all that back to me on a visceral level. Watching other kids go through a modern day version of that was actually re-traumatizing. I mean, I laugh at trigger warnings, because, really? But I could’ve used a trigger warning before this show!

So this is not something to just let your teens or young adults look at without discussion. And for my friends with kids that age, just know that this stuff happens, can happen right under your nose without you having a clue. My parents had no idea that many of my injuries & problems were stemming from a mad, crazy relationship just like the kids in this show carried on & tried to handle their own drama without seeking adult intervention.

Until it was too late.

*******WHY THE SHOW WAS PROBLEMATIC*********

Okay, so it was well-written, haunting, honest and realistic on one level, but I could hear all you social justice warriors in my head too.

This show probably wouldn’t have worked so effectively if the narrator had not been a beautiful white girl.

There were plenty of other characters getting “beat up” by life, and by each other. One girl, of mixed race, was raped while she was passed out at a party. 

One girl, black, gets into serious legal trouble when she runs over a stop sign after a night of partying, and another student is killed as a result. 

Another girl, Asian, was outed as a lesbian after the white girl’s stalker caught them kissing experimentally with his intrusive camera—

—why do movies & shows always need cameras & peeping Toms to give us that 3rd party angle?—

Any of those scenarios would be enough to make one suicidal, but would we care as much if our protagonist were black or Asian or Muslim or a transgirl? Why not?

And let’s not forget the boys here—the boys were being bullied & physically beat up, fighting each other, bleeding from their faces at a much higher rate, but hey, they’re boys and they can handle it, right? That’s just what boys do, right?

The boyfriend of the passed-out drunk girl was bullied and pushed to the floor by his big rich jock friend, who said “what’s mine is yours” as he proceeded to rape her. The smaller boy looked distraught that he could not protect her, or stop his friend’s selfish, criminal actions.

Another boy, a close friend of the dead narrator’s, ends up taking his own life a few weeks after she does. I think this was meant to show that ‘suicide begets suicide.’ That kids will follow one another to the grave if the grief is too much to bear. Which is true. But his death was glossed over compared to all the fanfare given the beautiful girl no one suspected was suffering.

Not to mention the boy who died in the car accident after the STOP sign was knocked over! He was just brushed under the rug like a one-dimensional prop. He was not a main character, but his death seemed to have such little impact on the school, and on the story itself. So wrong.

I had mixed feelings about the indicting tone on those cassette tapes too. First I was like—Yeah! You tell’em, girl!  But then as I saw how much shit was going on in everyone else’s life I just thought…

… damn girl, you’re just not …a survivor. You’re one of the ones who didn’t make it.

Okay…I think that’s all I will say about ’13 Reasons Why.’  I’m still a little disconcerted & it’s been over a week since I watched it. I will repeat this though—parents of teens, please know that all this can go on without a lot of obvious signs. Dig deep, keep your eyes wide, don’t be in denial & think ‘It can’t happen to my kid because s/he is a good student, or I raised him/her better than that.’ Kids are kids are humans are capable of just about anything…

*********13 Reasons Why The Octopus Diary Will Be Taking Submissions************

1. Because it’s the dawning of the Age of Aquarium

2.  Because Russia is waiting

3. Because the sky could turn orange any day

4. Because your brain is a microwave (it is—look into it)

5. Because words speak louder than actions

6. Because all tired old platitudes must be rewritten

7. Because I need the experience

8. Because you need the experience

9. Because 9 tentacles are not better than 8

10. Because this is the place to be seen & heard (scene & herd)

11. Because it’s for a good cause—Polycythemia Awareness & Prevention

12. Because all proceeds go to post nuclear clean-up and dandelion farming

13. Because I need you to be creative while I go through an Era of Seriousness

TaTa for now. I’ll have submission guidelines and new art—actually new versions of Tiptree art—for you next time. Be well, Fred.

Valentine Tremens: The Octuple Life of Zin Hitman

Friends,

What was it like to be trapped in the gender binary in the 1930s? I don’t even want to think about it.

But I did think about it when I read the biography of sci-fi author James Tiptree, aka Alice Bradley Sheldon. As a young girl—the only child of two wealthy socialites—Alice accompanied her parents on adventures all around the world, but they spent most of their time deep in the heart of Africa, where few American children dreamed of going. They explored and hunted in regions barely accessible by foot; they spent time in a cannibal village in the Congo; they slept in hammocks in the mouths of volcanoes.

Mary & Alice in Africa

Alice was always guarded like a rare jewel in Africa. She had big Congolese bodyguards, and was often left in their care while her parents hunted big game and did research on the tribal cultures. It was a dangerous place for a 6-yr-old white girl whose survival skills were pared in Chicago’s elite social circles. It was a unique set of environments that left young Alice feeling like some kind of valuable object—just another of her parents’ collectibles.

Alice knew her father would’ve rather had a son (like every father in America!). But her parents did the best they could for her. She went to good schools. She had several exciting careers. She joined the Army in the 30s and worked at the Pentagon during The War. She had an almost creepy-close relationship with her mother, but had difficulty connecting w/ other people her age. She was especially confused about men, women and dating.

Her life was not that of a “typical girl.” Even among the privileged debutantes of Chicago, Alice’s life resume was packed with hijinx so uncommon for a young woman, it was hard for her to find a man she felt was her equal. (She was also super-intelligent, like CIA-intelligent, a brilliant artist & writer, and very ambitious career-wise). She felt stifled playing the role of “the pretty & helpless object” which was the only role for women within the bounds of 1930s heteronormativity. 

She had an attraction to other girls in high school and college, but if she had trouble finding a man who was her equal, she was surely bored to tears by the way girls’ thinking was limited to love, marriage, babies, home. She would always try to rouse the wildness she knew must exist inside these poor unenlightened girls, but they never took the bait. They were content to have boyfriends, marry, & make babies.

After Tiptree's short story "The Girl Who Was Plugged In"

Much of her adult life was spent in the male dominated military, where she was well-respected and received lots of male attention (oh yeah, she was also good looking. Imagine that.) But she always resented having to pretend to “be less” so that her dates wouldn’t be intimidated.

Even in her childhood in Africa, Alice lamented being a girl. She knew that if she’d been a boy she would’ve been given her own gun & taken out on the hunts. Later, she knew that she would have a much higher rank in the military if she were a man. By age 30, she was pretty ate up about how being a woman had cost her things that would’ve been within reach if she had been born in a different body.

She spent a lot of time thinking & writing about bodies. Women’s bodies and the sovereignty that eludes them. She was very much like me in that she hated being a woman but fought hard for women to obtain the basic status of “human being.”

There were many times while I was reading this book that I reached for my phone because I wanted to call this person I was reading about who was so much like me (minus the trips to Africa & the wealthiness). Who felt as much like I did that her body was a loathesome birth defect that kept her from living up to her full potential.

Alice struggled with dating & relationships, with being considered an inferior version of an Army officer. With the question of motherhood—could she? should she? why did she feel nothing for children?

She was 36 (ancient in those days) when she finally met a man who was at least her intellectual equal, and they actually carved out a nice life. They retired and bought a chicken farm in New England. Her husband, Ting, stayed on at the CIA and Alice stayed home with the chickens and started writing. At first she wrote articles for magazines, like her mother did, but Alice wasn’t as successful as her mother at writing about “lady things.”

Because of course, that’s what the magazines wanted from her. LADY STUFF!!! Gardening. marriage advice. Blah blah blah. After several years, Alice began writing short stories. Speculaltive fiction, aka sci-fi.

Again, not many magazines wanted to publish fantastic stories by a …lady.  So one day at the grocery store, after seeing the name “Tiptree” on a jar of jam, Alice came up with a pseudonym. James Tiptree Jr was born in aisle 3.

We got to be bunny-parents for 3 days in March

Writing under a pseudonym gave Alice all the confidence she had lacked in her writing before. She submitted some of her new stories and they were immediately published. And not only that—everyone loved them. All the budding sci fi authors of the 1950s & 60s really loved Tiptree. All the publishers loved “him.”

Alice, like many housewives in that day, took dexedrine to keep her peppy & productive around the house. Dexedrine was also a great drug for writing crazy speculative space-age shit. Lots of writiers used it too. Writing on dexedrine was jet fuel to their synapses.

By the time she harnessed her identity as James Tiptree and had a reputation as a force in the sci fi world, Alice was about 50 years old. But this close-knit community had no idea, and everyone thought “he” was some young, hip author who had just materialized out of nowhere. A savant of sorts.

This was fine with Alice. She was thrilled with living this double life where she could be who she wanted and no one could “see” her and diminish her importance as a wordsmith. She struck up elaborate friendships with all the other sci fi authors of the time—Ellison, Dick, LeGuin, Heinlein, et al—they all corresponded by mail like we do now on Snapchat.

After several years of publishing works under her pseudonym, people started to wonder about Tiptree’s identity. They all had met at writer’s conferences, sci fi conventions, Nebula award ceremonies. Of course, Tiptree was always invited to these events but he always declined. Year after year after year. Even the year “he” won the Nebula, he avoided the ceremony & they mailed it to him.

It got to the point where people were trying to find him. Stalking him. Trying to put a face to the name. He had become such a compelling & mysterious figure. Rumors started that he had some highly classified government job — that’s actually how Tiptree kept his followers at a distance, told them his career wouldn’t allow for much socializing. And at one point young Harlan Ellison got wind of Alice’s parents’ address in Chicago, from some careless comment Tiptree made in his correspondence. 

It was Ellison who did the detective work that led him to the home of Alice & Ting Sheldon one day, about 10 years in to Tiptree’s masquerade. Ellison and his friend rang the doorbell & Alice answered and when they asked for Tiptree she pretended she had no idea what they were talking about. But the word was out. The rumors were spreading that James Tiptree was a 50-year-old housewife on a New England chicken farm.

Bunny Farm w spider

Being found out was devastating to Alice. She loved her secret identity—the authority and relevance that never would’ve been been granted to an “Alice Sheldon.” She had a difficult “coming out” to all her sci fi pen pals, and though they all claimed it didn’t matter, that she would always be Tiptree to them—it did matter. The love & respect dwindled away slowly, the letters between them stopped, Alice could not be Alice with the people for whom she had been Tiptree.

And therefore she decided that she simply…couldn’t be. It wasn’t immediately after the Tiptree leak, but a few years later, depressed and robbed of all sense of belonging to the group that once held her in such high esteem, she proposed a murder/suicide pact to her husband. Ting was not in favor if the plan, but he was quite a bit older, losing his sight and becoming feeble. So—tragically—Alice carried out the plan without his consent. 

One night as he slept, she shot him in the head, then called a friend and told him to come right over, that he would find both of them dead, and she shot herself.  A terrible end to a brilliant mind, no matter how tormented by its own dysphoric perceptions.

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The story of Tiptree stuck with me for weeks, months after I read it. Shit, it’s still sticking to me. Another person who felt just as I felt, was damaged so hard by the gender binary that exists to box us in, to keep us separate & unequal, to define us as breeding machines, to label us “superior” & “inferior.”  

Most people don’t think about their gender anymore than they do about the color of the sky. Oh, it’s blue? Okay. That’s what it is. No need to question why the sky isn’t chartreuse. Most people don’t question the gender they’re “assigned” or the “role” that goes with it.

And that was always disappointing to me—I couldn’t relate to girls who were giggly & happy & cared so much about being pretty & having long hair & fingernails & which boy was cute. I was always like, let’s overthrow the regime!! And they were like, not now I’m playing with my little ponies!

I guess the 70s & 80s were not much better than the 30s & 40s. Anyway, I’ve always been terrible at communicating my issues with gender—

I’m too emotionally attached to the dilemma. I rant & spit upon myself like garbage. It scares people. But Alice at least came from a loving family who did everything to support her in her ambitions. And I think in those days, it was such a silent epidemic, absolutely nowhere to seek advice for gender dysphoria. Only destructive Freudian platitudes to turn to. It wasn’t as if she had any other way to communicate it except through sci fi, where all things are possible.

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“Women never seem to be zesty connoisseurs—Life not there for my savoring. But if women don’t sit around talking about wine, whiskey, cars or horses, What do they deal in? Are they alive?”  ~ Alice Sheldon (1972)

“Funny about that thrill; finally realized what it comes from: Subconsciously, a conviction that the really good writers aren’t human. That the works are messages in bottles from the writer’s world. You know? So when Sturgeon or Bunch or somebody turns out to be an actual Terran primate using—of all things—the U.S. mails, with zip number for god’s sake—I get about the same kick the Ozma people would if one of the pulsars began to rap out binary Yeats.”  

~ James Tiptree, to Phillip Dick after receiving complimentary correspondence from him (1969)

“The distasteful proof that my sexuality is bound up with masochistic fantasies of helplessness depressed me profoundly. I am not a man, I am not the do-er, the penetrator. And Tiptree was “magical” manhood, his pen my prick. I had through him all the power & prestige of masculinity. I was—though an aging intellectual—of those who own the world. How I loathe being a woman. Wanting to be done to…?

Tiptree’s “death” has made me face what I never really went into with Bob Harper—my self-hate as a woman. And my view of the world as structured by raw power… I want power. I want to be listened to. And I’ll never have it. I’m stuck with this perverse second-rate body; my life.”  ~ Alice’s journal entry in response to a report of child sexual abuse in the newspaper (1977)

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Your old pals Cody & Hillary from Singlewood. We watched a show called '13 Reasons Why' this weekend. It was disturbing and PROBLEMATIC and I may write about it here…in the Octopus Diary

I hope you enjoy the Tiptree Art. It’s hard for me to be creative these days. I feel worried & anxious much of the time. But I am going to do something different—

I’m going to keep painting the same thing over & over. I will paint the African landscape & the girl who was plugged in many times over the year. And we’ll see what subtle variations (or not so subtle) arise…

ARISE!!!!!