sometimes i feel so alive it just about breaks my heart

Herniated disc.

A friend of mine who’s a chiropractor worked with me for 3+ hours Tuesday, which has definitely brought me a lot of relief; the searing pain is only intermittent. I still can’t stay in one position too long, though. Typing this entry is about 1 minute too long.

I hate astrology. Vehemently. When people start talking about the signs of various countries to explain the innate disposition of its citizens and their relationship to global politics, I get disgusted and leave the room. However, I do occasionally use astrology to justify one little thing. I love bags. Finding the perfect storage solution is a kind of quest that I will sacrifice almost anything in the name of–including grammar–and it is rife with woes and thrills. While guilt over this obsession should be superfluous–many people have obsessions..with makeup, shoes, finely tailored clothing, or truffles picked under armed guard, for example–I do feel a little awkward about it. That is why, when a friend of mine remarked that “bags are a capricorn thing–well, all kinds of containers, really,” I felt extremely relieved. I certainly don’t pull out this excuse at every opportunity, but I do use it as a kind of absolution. Obviously, I have agency over my behaviors, but gee golly, I can’t eradicate this lust, it’s inborn!

I have a bunch of really sexy bags.

I am obsessed with skeletons, specifically the bit crammed into my header above. First comes the acetabulum. My favorite word and the name of a pet fish, the acetabulum is a concave surface of the pelvis: the cup where the head of the femur sits. Then comes the sacrum that grounds mind into body, spine into pelvis. I love the pelvis and, more accurately, my own pelvis.

“LATEST MEDICAL NEWS: Talk Therapy Curbs Panic Disorder”

In other news, I almost passed out while I was driving today. SO NOT OKAY! I found a turnout and waited for the head rush and tunnel vision to pass, then went home, drank a litre of ginger water out of a reclaimed Skyy Vodka bottle & took a nap. I am okay, but dude that is so not safe.

Image Description: Today’s “Pearls Before Swine” comic. Rat tells Goat that he hates the world, but when he’s drunk he loves the world, therefore getting drunk is a selfless act of kindness. Obviously tipsy, he says to Goat, “You could at least buy the beer.”

The Pornography of the BicycleThursday January 3rd, 2008
Roxie
3117 16th street (at Valencia)
2 screenings 7:00 and 9:30 pm
$10 or $7 if you ride your bike

Reverend Phill presents his colection of bike films.

The Pornography of the Bicycle will be playing for one night only at the Roxie in San Francisco. The 90—minute showing will consist of 28 short films on the theme of Bike Porn. They range from the contemplative, to the inventive, to the downright illustrative. Included with the movies will be a live dramatic recreation of the World Naked Bike Ride where bike porn curator Rev. Phil Sano was hit by a drunk driver and then arrested*. Please be advised of adult content.

Get more info at http://bikeporntour.blogspot.com

I am trapped* in a room with two people arguing (going on their 3rd hour) about whether they live in a Euclidian or non-Euclidian universe. Frankly, I don’t live anywhere near their universe.

I thank my lucky stars that I am not an intellectual.

* technically, I could leave, but I want to use the internet

Zanele Muholi released a new exhibition in Cape Town over the summer called “Being.”

She writes about Being:

“I have the choice to portray my community in a manner that will turn us once again into a commodity to be consumed by the outside world, or to create a body of meaning that is welcomed by us as a community of queer black women. I choose the latter path, because it is through capturing the visual pleasures and erotica of my community that our being comes into focus, into community and national consciousness. And it is through seeing ourselves as we find love, laughter, joy that we can sustain our strength and regain our sanity as we move into a future that is sadly still filled with the threat of insecurities – HIV/AIDS, hate crimes, violence against women, poverty, unemployment.”

I am so moved by Zanele Muholi’s photographs. They are candid and tender and raw, and they don’t feel exploitative like photography sometimes does to me. What I love most is the intimacy they convey. I stopped taking photographs years ago because I looked at contemporary photography and I saw incredible objectification; her images show that there is an amazing alternative. She has said that capturing a picture “is not about beauty, but about issues that need to be discussed and dealt with – such as sexuality, illiteracy, poverty, HIV and Aids¹.” The photos are often taken against plain backgrounds–a brick wall, a white sheet on the bed, the sky–yet each one is incredibly expressive and full of emotion.

I also posted about the 2006 exhibit, Only Half The Picture. More recent exhibitions include Miss D’vine, Portraits, Faces & Phases.

I highly recommend following the links to view all of the photos–these two are not representative. Some are playful, some are serious, but I feel like they all have great integrity.

Those of us in the United States have a similar lack of loving images of black lesbians. I keep thinking about brownfemipower saying, “Women of color lesbians hadn’t even existed before Fall semester 2002, what more could I grapple with?” She’s not the only one.

The post begins with two photos from Muholi’s recent exhibition. The first is a woman lying on a bed staring into the camera. Her body from the shoulders up is visible. She is wearing latex gloves and folding her hands into an imaginary gun. The second photo is one woman sitting in another’s lap; they’re kissing. The one on top is smiling. In another photo (not shown), these same women are sitting on a sidewalk in their underclothes, arms and legs intertwined, smiling.

I don’t want the wonder to be killed, but I think I have stumbled upon one of the most important questions ever asked:

If moths are so attracted to light, why are they nocturnal?

If only we knew

as the carver knew, how the flaws
in the wood led his searching chisel to the very core,we would smile, too
and not need faces immobilized
by fear and the weight of things undone.

When we fight with our failing
we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself
and wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good.

And as we fight
our eyes are hooded with grief
and our mouths are dry with pain.

If only we could give ourselves
to the blows of the carvers hands,
the lines in our faces would be the trace lines of rivers

feeding the sea
where voices meet, praising the features
of the mountain and the cloud and the sky.

Our faces would fall away
until we, growing younger toward death
every day, would gather all our flaws in celebration

to merge with them perfectly,
impossibly, wedded to our essence,
full of silence from the carver’s hands.

David Whyte, “The Faces at Braga,” Where Many Rivers Meet