Ergane in Retrograde

Here it is...

2009-01-24T04:48:00.000-08:00

I perceive most things on a different (not deeper!) level than most other people.

Those learned in astrology upon looking at my chart would point at the Mercury/Pluto conjunction.

You can think we are talking about baskets and eggs, but I am probably talking about the entire manner in which something is done based on pattern established by my observation.

So please, *please* just hear me out and try to see where I am coming from. Just because it is different does not mean it is ridiculous or invalid. Being dismissive, "whatever"-ing it only serves to make me hot because I have had a life where my individual personal expression and way of doing things was smashed down. (I love you, Martha, but you did that to me... and again, those learned in astrology would point to my Sun squaring Saturn.) And me, I want to not have that happen anymore.

I can kill with kindness. I can rule with kindness. My power comes through peace. And when I am ready, I am adios, muchacho.

I don't have to stand for people trying to diminish my power because they aren't quick-minded enough to understand that a hook is not simply a hook, that a courtesy is not simply a courtesy, that not allowing someone to express their point of view is not simply not allowing someone to express their point of view.

I don't have to stand for it. I don't have to be around it. I don't have to even engage it because I AM IN CONTROL.

Thus spake the Ergane.

----------------
Now playing: Kathleen Battle, Hubert Laws, James Levine/Chorus - Lord, How Come Me Here
via FoxyTunes

Worst Day Ever

2008-05-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

The fact I remain within this day challenged and learning as a stunned child grasping a bruised lily has me reeling.

It started: 1) I woke up to a clock that hadn't gone off that was saying it was 9:17.

Panic. Ok? Panic. I am going to miss my first class. *shame* Teresa isn't here and I wanted to do even BETTER in her absence than when she is here. *guilt* I should call people and let them know. *exposure*

Then I checked our messages... to find a call from Ryan. He took BOTH of our keys to work with him this morning. That means, if I decide to go anywhere... I cannot take my bike with me.

*back seizes*
*tries to stop mind from gibbering away in panic and fear*

Call Simone, appraise her of the situation. Starts to cry.

And cry.

And cry.

Then sob.

Then lose it.

I see Melodee and ask her for a cig. She doesn't smoke, but my other neighbor, Deborah (I think it was), did. She gave me two. I think they really liked that they could finally be there for me. They have seen me for almost a year and yet, our relationships haven't progressed very much than some light speech here and there. People are intimidated by me at home -- which I don't always mind, but I am glad everyone knows I'm a cream puff sometimes. She hugged me and talked to me a lot about perfection and being human. She also offered me her bike and gave me the key to it. I decided not to use her bike -- to just walk -- but I need to hold onto her key for a little longer....

Ryan's email:

Bear,

I somehow grabbed your keys when I was picking up my iPod headphones… it looks like they were tangled up a little bit, and didn’t realize I had until just now. I Have my keys too, which (I think) leaves you without a way to unlock your bike. I checked to see if I could leave and come back home to drop them off, but it looks like that’s a no-go. If you want to come by, I should be at or around my desk until 8:45. Give me a call, OK?

I’m so sorry!

Love,
BP

****

Today was sit down and sob for yourself day. The Great Lady had herself a cry.

I am so like my grandmother in that fashion... in being a Great, no, a GRAND lady. Spine erect. Looking just so. Poised. Controlled. Focused.

Some days, you lose.

But you gain so much more. Like honesty. Miss Schmidt booted me from her class today. I didn't feel hurt by it. I fet sad for her. My behavior hasn't been all that good and she has been the receiver of it.

Today, I realized, with some fright and ease, how connected I am to this tapastry of Cooper life -- how I am important, how what I am doing is important.

I cannot miss days. I cannot have crisises that mean I miss my classes. I have to step it up even more than I have without stressing myself completely out.

The bright spot of my day was having Alaina, Harley, and Kaitin all at once. H is more advanced than the other two, but I knew it could work. It was only a case of channelling H's energy, making sure K felt safe and secure and not shy and keeping A's ego aligned to her abilities and helping her understand that I had control of the class and Harley would not be a distubance. It went really well.

My first idea was to play Scrabble with them -- modified, of course, -- but I couldn't find the game anywhere. Heck, looking around, I STILL don't see it anywhere.

WASL is all I see

2008-04-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

So, things are trucking along. This week and next week, the students are taking the WASL. 3-5. Since my new office is around them, I can sorta feel their... nerves. I don't blame them, I am nervous, too.

You heard me right, new office. Autumn had a feeling she needed to get back into her work and that room _was_ really smell. It wasn't done as well as I would have liked which caused some friction. In the end, everything is fine. Under the bridge. We're back to being the dynamic duo.

Yesterday, I taught the guided reading by myself using a lesson my site supervisor, Teresa, and I came up with together. It was AMAZING! Amazing because I was scared, scared they would smell how I didn't know as much of the pedagogy as I feel I have to know (to that end, I have started reading _The Daily Five: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades_), but it really went well. Natalia was a bit of a pill, but then I believe it is because she doesn't read so well. ..

*break*

Went downstairs to Mrs. Woo's class to pick up Kaitleen -- although I am actually pretty tuckered out. I ate a gob of chocolate covered esperesso beans and nodded towards my goddess. So, no Kaitleen, BUT both of them later. That is agreeable with me. Autumn isn't here, Teresa isn't here, and I could read my book, and we both know I'll fall asleep. But that's nowhere. Nowhere.

We're supposed to go over reporting today. *moment* And we shall @ 2:30 pm.

Right now, I am watching Ebbisa. Isn't that a great name? Cute kid. Did something bad, but really, Mr. Finney is on edge. "Bad" is talking out of turn, shouting out answers instead of raising your hand. And while anyone will agree that this is bad, it still goes overboard to remove him (and now another) from class or take away a recess.

Another Day Down

2008-04-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

When I came into Mrs. Schmidt's class and noticed Alonzo doing his hiding thing while the other kids were clamouring to get my attention, I realized my tutorial with Alonzo was doomed.

Alonzo is one of those kids on the cusp, one of those sweet, precious kids so easy to lose. Everyday, I work with him on his reading comprehension. How good of a session we have totally depends on his mood. And lemme tell you, he is one moody kid. A Leo/Virgo cusp kinda moody if I remember correctly. His mother loves him pieces and he lives near me and has seen me before at Target. (The day someone asks me who was that guy whose hand I was holding is the day I realize I will need different... but it may never happen... and because I am thinking about it now, perhaps I will be prepared... both for the real world and school world of it.) I love the kid because he's beautiful in all senses and so smart and I know I can help him... but I have to wait on his moods.

Today, he was right on the cusp of going either way. With that in mind, I plunged forward. Today's reading comp featured the spittlebug. Immediately, he tried to con me by saying he had already read down to p. 5, but Jonathan gave it up -- not that I didn't see thru it... it's been, what, five weeks now? There are two things he likes/craves: Attention and Finishing. (Can't you just SEE the Leo/Virg working out through this one? To make a short story short, he saw other kids on the classroom computer, became discouraged and just stopped. At the same moment, Sheyanne asked for help, which didn't help him because he's *such* an Attention Hog. Mrs. Schmidt took him and I worked with Sheyanne. Both finished their papers at the relative same time.

Seperation Anxiety

2008-04-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

No longer do I share an office with Autumn. She has had enough. She needs her own space. She didn't really come right out an say it... and I can't be mad about that -- I wouldn't have either. But it does make everything feel weird.

So, onward with and to my "new life"!

Now, I am in a very spacious room that is full of stuff. Books and posters and all sorts of knick-knacks, things to capture, well, anyone's imagination. I like that I get to see sunlight if I want it. But also, it feels "better" in some undefineable way.

For example, I get to see Teresa more. While she is usually moving through the space, preparing for something else, it is nice to see her and allow our getting to know each other to commence in full.

More than anything, tho, I get to see my kids up here. Some like, Alaina, was never tutored in the small office. However, Kaitleen has been all over. Ladan was here, too, complaining because she wants stickers --- like the ones Autumn gives her kids. I am loathe to do so. I think I give my kids self-esteem, self-confidence and a real willingness. Not saying she doesn't! But I give of myself. Why do you need a sticker? I told her Monday I would have stickers. And I will, but maybe only for her since she is my only student in Mrs. Longo's class.

Ladan is new. I talked about her before Spring Break. She's nothing short of a diva at the age of 6. Knows what she wants and knows how to get it. Yeah, she's a touch scary!!!

LOL

Q

Ego Moments

2008-03-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

Waking up is getting easier and easier. I am learning to quickly analyze the reason why I am awake and tend to it so I can go back to sleep. Use the bathroom. Shake off my thoughts so my dreams move on. Last night, I was drying out. I decided to use Mucinex because I have been so stuffy lately! Well, I was looking for something like Benedryl, but we don't have any... so, the bo-bo Mucinex DM will do. And did. I didn't wake up for the remainder of the night.

But what I really want to write about is how cool it is to bike to school when the kids are in the yard.

Opening the gate when it is fully shut with my bike in tow is always a bit of a hassle and today, I was all bouncy as "Cherish" by Madonna rang in my ears.

"Perish the thought of ever leaving/ I never would!"

Then I heard Zaineb calling my name, "QUEN-TIN! QUEN-TIN!" I turned my iPod down real low, then acknowledged her. She started to run towards me, but I had no idea whether she could come that far, so I hurried up and finished my gate business and rode my bike over to her. She's in love with my horn. It is pink and terribly cute AND gay. She sqeaked it three times in quick procession. Then I told her I was going to chain up my bike -- and I was -- but also, I get a big kick out of beating the bus. The kids are always like, "You beat us! We saw you on your bike!"

See, what this is... is a feeling of belonging and constant acknowledgement. I feel like a pop star as kids that are "mine" come and greet me and kids that are not "mine" do, too. Especially since I have been listening to Mariah Carey's first album on my iPod, I feel like I am in highschool again and I am popular, but this time, I know it and knowing helps me do my job better because I *want* to be here.

Yesterday... didn't go as well. I left early thinking I would eat and then go home and take a nap. Only it took forEVER for a bus to come and I was outside, in the rain, with my back going out, thinking about how I ignored all these signs that told me to stay at school. I should have paid attention to that. I should have, but I did not.

Anyway, I need to talk to Teresa. I don't want to continue doing nothing until 9:40 am -- although it does suit me, or will once I start to do guided reading with my own crew of second graders -- and wouldn't you know they gave me the two most behaviorally difficult boys in the class. *flares nostrils* But I want to talk to her because I want to tutor that little girl whose mom asked that she be tutored. She wants to read and I have a slot for her! Maybe, just maybe I could take my oats home and breakfast at home. That worked out well this morning where I had an old whore's diet of veggie fried rice and a spring roll and fried chicken wings (... I know... it makes me scratch my head, too...)...

If I don't talk to her, it is because I am trying to stay in a beginner's mind and a beginner doesn't start suggesting ways in which their time can be best spent. (... do they?)

... yeah, I am working on my inner diva. Mediating her, not diminishing her... helping her to grow.

But it sure is humbling when kids know your name and are happy to see you and greet your smiles with little shiny smiles of their own.

*smiles*

P.S. Err... I like comments... even if it is to say hi. Blogger never caught on with me like LJ because it always seemed so.... lonely.

I'm a Libra cusp Scorp. The Scorp part doesn't mind being alone and finds it restorative even... but not the Libra part!

Peace.

Oh, and Adbi likes to get off the bus and be funny in his own Adbi way. He told me I am girl yesterday because of my long hair and earrings in my ears and nose. Oh, Abdi... if only it were THAT simple!

Also, Quinn (from Mr. Luke's class) has an older brother named Max who was trying to run up the wall. It was in a safe way, so I didn't say much of anything.

*hums happily*

... and some just think it goes too fast...

2008-03-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

It is lunch time for me here at Cooper Elementary. Boy, am I starving. In my mind's eye, I see myself flying down the hill into the arms of Subway at the bottom. The only thing conflicting with this vision and the activating of it is my tiredness.

While the 4/5th graders were sorta fun (they are a bunch of really cool kids that I am not sure why we tutor since they are so smart and engaged anyway -- you know, aside from some very *minor* focus issues), Kaitleen... was a mess. Well, she's always a mess in a manner, but a totally adorable one. When her bangs grow down into her face, over her eyes, it looks natural. Without them now for two/three weeks, she hides behind her hands. Sadness. She smiles a lot. Her voice a shade above a whisper. I adore her -- she doesn't even know my name. She has troubles with the ending phoneme. But that's not the part I have to have patience with... it's with the:

"Ok, I want you to point and sound each word for me and then blend the word together."

"/t/ /a/ /p/.... Tam?"

*head desk*

So, I am not really in the mood for anything but a little reflection... besides, I would have to time it perfectly for when the next 125 is passing... you know what? I might do that anyway. I'd miss Mr. Luke's class -- and I adore those kids, but I would get Mrs. Schmidt's class -- whom I adore as well... and they are 3rd graders!

Ugh, point-blank, I am not going to be able to survive this day without something. And then I am calling to make appointments with a dentist and sleep study people who are NOT there because we have the same lunch and there are all these literary night events to sign up for and I have to do it because I could really use the hours -- especially as we move towards the END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR in a couple of months. Goodness... what then?!?!?!?!?!

Tonight, I have plans to go to Jes' literacy night, but Pat and Erica are at the other one and that makes me wanna go to it. (And Yvelle and Edmund....)

Five minutes... I have been checking bus schedules and thinking too much and now, all I really wanna do is go home. Grrr. I wish this computer wasn't a p.o.s. and I could at least see a terrain map if not a satellite... so I can think about where I am carting me and my... and whether I *should* take my bike.

I am super late for Mr. Luke's class now. I am being inudated with Autumn's kids who are looking for her -- they adore her. My kids adore me, too, and they know I am here. *le sigh* Lemme get back to them.

Two Minutes

2008-03-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

If I make it through this day, it won't be a miracle. It will be a feat.

I want to take a nap SO badly. Instead, I get to do guided reading (and comprehension) with 4th graders and THEN I get Kaitlen who is like SO adorb.

Ok, bell rang. Off I stumble.

Can we do it....

2008-03-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

So, I have George Michael on my mind. Blame Queerty.com. Anyway, I am back at the end of my day.

Today, we had a fire drill. This after Mrs. Schmidt's class where Alonzo was just... he nearly missed out on computer time, but he finished his work and was allowed to leave. Today, I worked with Alonzo, Ian, Najib, and Dylan -- if only because I always include Dylan. I *know* I've seen him before...

I spend time, sometimes, thinking about who these children will be when they grow up. Will they remember me? Will I have made enough difference on them that they will be accepting of all kinds of people? I can't know these answer unless I stay, somehow, connect to them and the community. But it isn't lost on me how darn fragile it all is.

The fire drill thwarted my intentions to have Hanouk read to me...even if I fell down in the process -- but I don't think he was here anyway. I have partially decided to replace Mrs. Rockwell's ELL (English language learer) with another one -- perhaps this one willl be right.

I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes opened and there's the most adorable 5th grader watching me weave in and out of sleep. Whatever's I've worked 8 hours.

The bell just rang. It is all I can do to not put on my bike gear and get the hell outta dodge.

Who am I kidding?

I did enjoy Mr. Luke's and Mrs. Schmidt's class.

Who am I kidding , tired HIPPO.

Th other sad thing?

I drank the rest of my shot this or yesterda's morning....

Moving back in... for real

2008-03-24T11:24:00.001-07:00

I have no choice. Most every outlet is blocked -- which isn't such a horrible thing. However, more than ever before, I have a need to write -- especially as I feel I am falling out of contact with my friends. I am not certain how much trash-talking I am going to engage in, but I know it really rides on my mood so I won't stress it.

Today is one of those magical given days. Not only is the moon newly in Scorpio, creating a personal new moon for me, but it is also in the same lunar phase as when I was born. The reason why moon in Scorpio is my personal new moon as opposed to moon in Libra is because my Sun is so close to Scorpio, moon in Libra doesn't effect my sun at all. The affect of a personal new moon is that you feel, generally, more energized and happy.

Last night, I fell asleep while twisting my locs. I woke up at 11:18, finished the few, and then got on-line for longer than I need. It's amazing -- no matter how sleepy I am, the internet never fails to awaken me... unless I am really tired at which point I fall off in my chair. This morning was a good morning. I started reading The Salt Ecstasies by James L. White. I get the feeling I am meant to meditate on them more. Check this one out:

Taken to a Room

Taken to a room with you asleep,
I want to touch you there
beneath the galaxy of star quilt.
You unfolf letting me into the warmth
and everything rises from my dick to my breath
saying we are here.

In my mind I kiss you away, your beard
and earring, the tattooed heart of Christ
on your chest, and remember
a prison boy named Rubio,
then I kiss down on all of you.

Now I'm taken to a room fully awake
and warned my imagination is out of hand.
They show me a solo screaming bed
and quilt of falling stars.
I pant hard over this poem
wanting to write your body again.

In this totally conscious poem
you're gone and they unplug my systems,
my heart, my lungs, my brains.
In front of the crowd they flash blinding lights
on my crotch and neuter me down to a smile.

I try to think about your eyes
and remember nothing.
Now they drag me off to the next room
where the real work begins.

***

Isn't that... hauntingly marvelous?

***

My first graders are on a field trip today. Which leaves only my second graders and third graders -- really. My 4/5th graders go to the computer room on Mondays. Autumn, my AmeriCorps mate, isn't here. So I am left to my own devices. I could be reading Sound Partners Implementation manual -- but I might need to read it over my school's Spring Break in order to get hours.

I feel like I am going too fast and telling the world, but not showing anything. I have been so wound tight without any place to really talk about what's been going on in my life since I decided to get back in the world of others. It's been.... quite a ride.

But maybe beginnings, as I have always suspected, are just really horrible ways to structure one's writing. "I was born." -- that's it. The rest is invention.

Too Long

2007-07-31T12:11:00.000-07:00

Usually, I use my LiveJournal for everything -- if I am going to make a post, but I hate not using this space when I actually really like it.... so, expect a rebirth of sorts.

Do You Know What Today Is?

2007-05-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

It's our anniversary: 8 years ago, I moved to Seattle and clapped eyes on this fella I had been talking to on mIRC #gayseattle and knew, all over again, what my gut had already told me about this man: I love him. I will meet him in that constantly re-occuring moment later tonight around 9. Unfortunately, he will be asleep and I will be on a bus with our drum travelling home from drum class (@ Fremont Drum for anyone interested). But it will happen and we will kiss again outside that house in starlight and wonder that our mouths could fit so perfectly, that spit could taste so good.

It's our anniversary: 2 years ago, I sat nervously in Mom and Pop Franson's bedroom with Kris and Xandi holding in my feelings about Merging with this man I love so much. Holding in the grief of my mothers not being there, holding in the love choking my throat, holding in and ready to boil out and over that is until I saw his face and man, I was a believer all over again. His smile took all my worry and concerns away. He extended his hand and I reached for it and we met in a kiss I can still feel. All the hunger and love and care.

Do you know what today is? It's our anniversary.

0703130018

2007-03-13T22:47:00.001-07:00

0703130018
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

First picture I have taken in a while that I really actually liked of myself.

Lake 22

2007-03-11T04:58:00.001-07:00

0703090047
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

Was very grounding... walking, I stared at the ground. Amazing that.

Big cedars, hemlocks, and a special Watermelon.

I need to get out more.

shiwil

2007-01-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

shiwil
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

Yeah, I am in love with this picture.

0610310001

2006-11-02T15:41:00.000-08:00

0610310001
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

... you have no idea how much I utterly adore my nightgown. Best. Purchase. EVER.

0610170003

2006-10-18T05:10:00.000-07:00

0610170003
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

Sometimes, I like what I do.

Hump Day

2006-10-18T01:50:00.000-07:00

Laugh:

Then read.

24/365 WORD CAME TODAY

2006-10-17T00:33:00.000-07:00

24/365 WORD CAME TODAY
Originally uploaded by billbear2000.

I put it every where but here, but, Thursday, I tested negative. Taking Steven Wakefield's advice, I celebrated it: the knowledge, the being negative...

I am so tired of our Tribe dying. I am tired of everyone being so focused on youth when the main people dying from the dis-ease are my age group: 30-39.

In my celebration, I was accused of being insensitive to people who are positive... as if I am saying I don't have to "deal" anymore. I wish everyone understood the truth: Whether negative or positive, we ALL LIVE with HIV/AIDS.

*deep breath*

So tired of our Tribe dying.

Poem

2006-10-08T09:35:00.001-07:00

Friday, after the conference, I made plans to meet Ryan at the comic store in Pike Place (Golden Age), for a date thingie... which we love to do since we don't get out of the house much (for various reasons). Anyway, since I got about two hours of sleep, I was dead on my feet. Anyway, standing outside of Left Bank Books, I looked through the books they had for sale for which the proceeds go towards books for prisoners. I spied a booked entitled, Reconstructing Gender: A Multicultural Anthology. It's a textbook from 2003 (which only means it's fairly relevant... and no, I don't know when I started thinking in terms of things being culturally relevant, but when I was at the conference, my comments were all over relevancy).

The clincher was a poem by the late, great Pat Parker. I brought it in joy of sharing this poem with you... I even made the left-leaning white altie chick behind the counter read it... not considering her reaction first (which is not how I work generally... I had a moment of *gulp*, then I was like, "fuck it" -- not my issue).

***

For the White Person Who Wants to Know How to Be My Friend

The first thing you do is to forget that i'm black.
Second, you must never forget that i'm black.
You should be able to dig Aretha,
but don't play her every time i come over.
And if you decide to play Beethoven -- don't tell me
his life story. They make us take music appreciation too.
Eat soul food if you like it, but don't expect me
to locate your restaurants
or cook it for you.
And if some Black person insults you,
mugs you, rapes your sister, rapes you,
rips your house or is just being an ass --
please, do not apologize to me
for wanting to do them bodily harm.
It makes me wonder if you're foolish.
And even if you really believe Blacks are better lovers than
Whites -- don't tell me. I start thinking of charging stud fees.
In other words -- if you really want to be my friend -- don't
make a labor of it. I'm lazy. Remember.

-- Pat Parker

0610060035

2006-10-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

0610060035
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

In my 365 days group, there were a bunch of women who have been taking pictures of their breasts (or breast) in honor of this being Breast Cancer Awareness month. In the light of that, I submitted this picture because, quiet as it's kept, male breasts get breast cancer, too.

sofsul

2006-09-27T00:23:00.000-07:00

sofsul
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

For two days in a row, Ani DiFranco's "The Story" has been playing in my head. Late at night like now.

I am reminded of my senior year of college when I listened to the first album all the time... would even listen to "Dog Coffee" before heading to my graduate level Fiction writing class with Robert Coover... with all those horribly BITCHY M.F.A. students who thought they were a consideration when it came to my work.

*sighs*

"I would have returned your greeting if it wasn't for the way you were looking at me."

0609240022

2006-09-26T01:09:00.000-07:00

0609240022
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

I wish I knew what it was... they came up right before it turned cold. Poor things! But it's been two weeks since I last saw them and they look find! In a way, they look like crocuses, but only in the way the flower looks before it blooms. Anyhoo, here's a picture I think is pretty and interesting of it. The succulent in the back is called Ice Flower.

sexy man with psoriasis

2006-09-19T02:35:00.000-07:00

sexy man with psoriasis
Originally uploaded by - Raphael Perez.

The juxtaposition of instincts make this one of the most stunning pictures I have seen in a while.

I knew it was gonna happen: Latest News of Cultural Production

2006-09-17T01:42:00.000-07:00

The big lie about gay men and sex

If straight men could find sex in public restrooms with women, we'd never be able to use the facilities for legit purposes.

By WAYNE BESEN
Sep. 15, 2006

*HUGE snip*

> Michael, for his part, implied that his behavior was
> a result of entrenched
> gay customs. "Are you gay?" he asked the
> paparazzi, "No? Then fuck off. This
> is my culture."

Bravo, Michael... it is.

> That may have been true in the 1970s, when gay
> culture had been set up to
> accommodate married men on the sly.

OH MY GOD! So, lemme get this str8. "Gay culture" is set up to accomodate married men... on the sly...

...

*shakes head* Everywhere I have seen in writing homosexual culture is that we've had to meet each other away from heterosexuals. OR where culture did not create a difference in the ways groups created themselves... because not every culture was so hung up on the men and women are around each other all the time thing that Eurocentric cultures LIE to themselves about (that's why they went fighting wars and "conquering" -- creating bullshit to be alone... with each other...).

This all makes me wonder... makes me realize that if we aren't producing our culture, to and for ourselves, "these people" are going to create our culture as something that only exists to be in service to otherwise pure and clean heterosexual men and I do not think that lie can afford to exist.

I am in love with the idea that we should mind who is speaking, etc., but sometimes, I wonder if the problem is not enough speaking... in general.

When I speak, I say, "There is more to me than attending heterosexual men. I don't. Even if I play at it, I do not. I stopped feeding breeders (sorry, I don't feel PC) when I was 19. Why? Because I realized it did not make me feel good about myself. Not because of his girlfriend or woman or marriage or any of that crap... *grins... I have never called or even thought of heterosexual marriages as being crap before... hells yeah! Score for Q!* but because it did not make me feel good about myself. I was young, but I could tell. I could tell it was for something else, not exploration of ourselves and our bodies and even our feelings, too, but that.. being there to exert power over for some reason or another... rules, and limitations... Sorry, I prefer other gay people as sexual partners. I am and was never here to help "serve" men in that capacity.

I mean... shit HAS happened to homosexuals before HIV/AIDS...

Anyway, back to the fiction that attends heterosexual panic:

> Back in those
> days, bathhouses were hugely
> popular and the gay bars had blackened out windows,
> creating a virtual
> cocktail-serving closet.

*gasp* WHO TOLD THEM ABOUT THE CLOSET?! DAMN!

> Many of the patrons had to
> have sex away from home to keep the
> secret from an unsuspecting wife and kids.

Doesn't this sorta imply that... men have to start having sex with women before they start to have sex with men...

...

...

...

*shakes head sadly*

I don't have the heart to properly fill it in. However, I will point out an unkindness. I have long marvelled at heterosexual men who say and preach how they love women SO MUCH and yet treat them the way they do...

I bet, today, there are women who would PAY their husbands to sleep with another man if it would just make him feel better and get his shit together... or something like that. Wait... why am I considering this?

> Of course, there was a portion of men who did have
> options, just as Michael
> does today, but who enjoyed unfettered
> promiscuity for the thrill.

It AIN'T promiscuity if your husband knows you're out there sucking some knob, mkay? Why do homosexuals need to model their relationships after heterosexuals? If we're like... eh, yeah, he fucks this dude on Thursday and it isn't a deal for us, then why should it be called... promiscuity? I'm sure he checks each dick he sucks out as well as he could in the given situation. I mean, shit... he even puts it in his mouth!

> With time, the ease with which people could come
> out, combined with the fear
> of contracting HIV, sharply curtailed the carnal
> carnival the gay subculture
> once represented.

"Carnal Carnival"... Get these people some Treasure Island Media... STAT! Wait...ok... Raging Stallion... or Bacchus... hell... Falcon... SX... wait? Real life? Do a google search.

(Edit: And notice... "subculture"... Could someone please find me a faggot who enjoys being one to the point of not falling prey to her internalized processes?

*just did research on the author... it makes my punchline kinda better....*)

> The whole notion that gay men are more libidinous
> than straight men is a
> canard pushed by right wing fanatics in an effort to
> deny homosexuals basic
> rights. Indeed, one of the most guarded secrets of
> gay life is that a good portion
> of homosexuals are as undersexed as their straight
> counterparts.

... if gay folks are undersexed, it is because we do have added things to worry about which sometimes makes us cautiuous. And that ain't everybody, or every day, or every second... that ain't even you, reading this. The truth is we are more able to get it if we want it. However, *shrugs* it's true... HIV/AIDS holds back some of my socio-sexual needs... but I enjoy real intimacy, this way... and you know what? Pre-AIDS gay folks did, too. Not only did they enjoy real intimacy, but they created a society that learned how to not allow sex to become the only way they could relate and know each other. Oh, they fucked and it was great, but they talked to each other afterwards. They weren't rushing out to attend to... whatever we attend to these days.

The problem then, as is now, for undersexed gay COUPLES and some singles is that we do not live in a world where getting "someone pregnant" has been our reality for... time immemorial, however, heterosexuals have not had to deal with real restraints and conditions being placed on how they share themselves. We have to negotiate our whoredom. Str8 guys just go all "DL."

> Some of these lonely gay sorts keep long hours at
> the office and don't have
> time to pursue partners. Others are shy and have
> great difficulty meeting
> people. Many men, gay and straight, simply have low
> sex drives and hardly desire
> gratuitous encounters.

*head... palm...*

> From my observation, a surprisingly large portion of
> men find the notion of
> hooking up with strangers totally unappealing. It is
> not looks nor variety, but
> intimacy that is the greatest turn on.

... that's a fucking lie. I have been looking at single gay men since I was... *mumbles* and lemme tell you... gay men need this that and the other before they will even LOOK at you.

> FOR THE HYPER-AGGRESSIVE

*HAHAHHAHAHAHAH*

> men who fancy uninhibited
> sexual exploration, it is
> easier being gay because you can always find another
> man looking for the same
> thing.

So it'd seem.

> But, instead of being blamed for a lack of
> self-control, most gay men
> should get a medal for restraint.

Restraint ain't it. Right thing, right time... bam. But that's anybody.

> Heck, if straight men could have sex in public
> restrooms with women, would we
> ever again be able to use the facilities for
> legitimate purposes? If straight
> men could easily pick up women for sex in parks
> after midnight, would the
> grounds be so trodden that ants would become an
> endangered species?

Don't think we haven't seen those who do. *taps nose*

> Yeah, gay men have access to sex if they want it bad
> enough and are willing
> to take risks, like George Michael did, but the
> majority consistently chooses
> not to recklessly cruise.

Isn't a reckless cruise just one where you get caught? So what? He has a yen for anonymous dick. Eh. You try being straight and in the gayest band in the world called WHAM! Maybe THEY should get back together because WHAM! sure knew how to have fun and party! Besides, you need friends if you are gonna do something besides think about dick... how to get some, what it's gonna be like... how ya gonna get it, what it's gonna do... *shrugs* Object-oriented. Eh.

> George Michael may "want his sex," but placing
> the blame on "gay culture"
> no longer reflects modern reality. Given a full
> range of choices, including
> marriage, gay life increasingly looks as diverse as
> mainstream culture -- with
> monogamously oriented men finally having the option
> to choose monogamy.

*sighs*

Did HRC pay this guy?

Inhouse Barber

2006-09-15T23:41:00.000-07:00

Inhouse Barber
Originally uploaded by Dunny.

...

belholgla

2006-09-15T22:10:00.000-07:00

belholgla
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

Day 11, which is also a day of little or skipped sleep. You make up for it when you die, eh?

Beyond the Note

2006-09-15T07:15:00.000-07:00

I watched bloomed hope,
promise arrived and new spoon shiny
a peek of nubile petals
gently peeling towards
you
a Christmas golden puppy
a surprise Birthday pony
you
each new moment
the earth’s turning
the sound of the first sound
echoing still
poised on the edge of Life
dangling as the sun
broke-back and tended
goaded with water and tunes remembered
and lost, turning towards boys with the stupid
and systems all in fail
you
anchored and preserved perfect
hydrangea hanging from the wall
do I carry you in my hand,
or stick you in a vase?
do I worry the concept?
or believe in Santa Claus
and Easter Bunnies and fairies
who want something more than teeth?

One ring can’t be enough.

You rule me
even if I don’t like the touch
and we are all
because nothing else matters.
Not wars or JonBenet or 9/11 or Dumbya nothing
but that moment sostenuto without any effort
or measure by me.

You, Bear.

-- Quentin D. Ergane, 9-15-06

At the Urinal

2006-09-13T16:04:00.000-07:00

At the Urinal
Originally uploaded by mojohood.

again w/ the no words.

Oppedisano

2006-09-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

Oppedisano
Originally uploaded by mojohood.

Do I really need words?

Dawwwww! pinches cheeks

2006-09-04T01:02:00.000-07:00

0609020021
Originally uploaded by conschbtj.

Ryan took the best picture of Lux and Josalyn.

male nude painting

2006-09-02T06:49:00.000-07:00

male nude painting
Originally uploaded by - Raphael Perez.

It's just good... that's all.

2006-08-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

Shelby Lynne - Go With It

Possibly one of the sexiest songs ever. This version I don't feel as much because it is slower, but if you heard the orginal (or want it... I can send it to you)... that bass line... top or bottom, I just want it.

"Go with it, you know it feels good. Go with it, you know it feels good. Just doit doit doit doit -- just let go!"

SEX in a song.

Josalyn in 2005

2006-08-30T22:07:00.000-07:00

DSCF0077
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

Lately, I have been feeling low. I decided to upload my 2005 pictures. I love organizing them into sets and then writing descriptions. Mind-numbing and yet something to do that won't... we'll see. This really reminds me that I need to get out of the house and take some pictures and check into some things I have been meaning to check up on.

Maybe I will start writing more.

But when everything feels like mush inside and in your mind... it's hard.

Derma

2006-08-23T03:32:00.000-07:00

"Time may heal and birds may sing
Words may kill and truth may sting
And love may conquer many things
but derma covers all..."
- Little Annie, "Derma" from Songs from the Coalmine Canary

reahonre

2006-08-21T01:10:00.000-07:00

reahonre
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

"Can You Show Me Anything, But Surrender?" - Patti Smith, "Land"

2006-08-16T13:06:00.000-07:00

... ok.

So it just dawned on me, like really... I get it.

Most people feel that gay males get off from:
Patriarchy
Sexism
"being a man"

all that because they/we prefer the same sex.

This strikes me as odd... when did "gay" change again? I mean, Falcon videos notwithstanding: When did being "gay" become about being "man"? And not just anyman... but a man, steeped in patriarchy, thought given to hierarchies, masculinity...

When did this happen?

And

Can we change it back?

***

I haven't been feeling good as of late. Right now, I am fighting to keep down the contents of my stomach -- bidding them to find a different, more compatible with Q way of exiting the scene.

I am spending time perched on the toilet, thinking too much about everything and trying to process it or sitting in front of this machine where my thoughts are cool and more silent if my tummy not more rumbly.

This was supposed to be my writing week. Instead, I killed it for myself with unanswered pressure. That and no tap... but I think I am going back to that and living a really clean eating style. I am not addicted to nicotine, folks. I am addicted to salt.

I don't want to drink anything for a while.

I keep thinking to eat something, but my imagination does me in every time.

Anyway, when I am in front of this machine, I read the words and listen to the voice of and watch a video blogger (who is just really funny and cute and clever, too)....

Present tense: Someone is being evicted. My cats are not in their usual morning spots because the crashes are startling them. It is odd to think of Josalyn being afraid of something. Odder still to imagine them, somewhere in the bedroom, huddled together. Especially because while she has accepted he is here and harmless for the most part, she does not like him... It is a passive dislike. All he has to do is be himself.

I chuckle thinking about that sentence and how some people... that's all they have to do to activate passive dislike, just "be themselves."

I want to be asleep.

The sad thing is... I know I was never going to sleep today, I know that now. Now, with them hurling things from their balcony. I wonder how people can just leave their shit. And then I remember not everyone is as tied to my things as I am. I am tied to my things and my shit -- not wanting to let either go. Do not pity me so much. I am never sure my shit is my shit or my things are my things. Sometimes, my things are my shit and my shit my things and sometimes, you've guessed it, it's just shit.

I am telling myself that one does not reach to write... one writes or one does not. Right now, writing, on my own, in my box, would save me lots of arguments. It may even make me friends -- because want as one might, you can never make those wonderful friends who support you and go through things with you, never trying to influence or sway -- just getting you to get it out, to write it down... instead of telling everyone.

I am thinking about the other day, when I had to speak to people as if they were completely ignorant. I guess I did not have to talk to them that way, but it was as if they surrendered their will to mine and they were devoid of moving without my word. I do not know why men always think that is what I want from them. I have no need for that. I long for someone who can speak back, who knows how, who doesn't become a feral animal in the sound of thought -- to the point where I feel as if I need to tell them when to inhale and when to exhale.

Is that all men understand of power? Or has my conception of power via Foucault became such that I've rounded a corner other people haven't gotten to yet (that I was probably around in the first place, but the question becomes: can you realize you are doing something before identifying what you are doing?) and acting out of my position and folks are aware that they are missing something... missing that you don't treat me like you would most people. It's a built in equality. I won't treat you the way I would treat most people.

I have lost my path...

I am re-reading Patternmaster by Octavia E. Butler. It is my least favorite book. However, recently, I watched Kingdom of Heaven while stoned (and re-watched Rome with Ryan) and understood something about the genre I never understood before... what these guys valued. Oh! And the Inuyasha movie Saturday. Reading PM has become an exercise in galloping and anticipation. I am about to meet who might be... I should hold onto that.

I am thinking of my paper -- which is still in production amazingly. The only way of writing it that I can see is to assert what cannot be done if certain readings are forbidden or left out while making a sweep across the readings that would be left out of a discussion about Butler. Yeah, Xandi, if you are reading this, know that my paper has started to change and grow up some.

I am thinking about college. I am thinking about what I did whenever I was stuck. Back them, I knew them by automatically. My mind has grown and I know I wouldn't remember. But that's why I keep my shit: I do think real intelligence is knowing where and how to find information. Why cram your head with it, just know how to find it.

Yes, I know, that has holes in it.

In that moment, I pushed the piece-of-computer chair backwards and picked up Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student .

I am trying to see where it is and realizing it might have been a different book I am thinking off... not the Corbett... but... ah. I see it. There's another place this information is lodged... in a stack of cross-pollinated papers under the bed in the crate. I am SO not going through that today. This is what I have come up with, but I used to know the

HA!

I FOUND IT!

Exordium
Narratio
Confirmatio
Refutatio
Peroratio

I cannot reach for writing. Writing is all around me.

Now, I am studying different things for a while. Either I will write, vomit, or once my belly no longer threatens me with discomfort, I might go back to bed.

All the way around

2006-08-12T14:04:00.000-07:00

Things are not good. I am not sure how to talk about it. I am not sure I WANT to talk about it, but right now, I feel certain that things are so wrong, so out of wack... I fear I will do something drastic to stave off or to push a position, reaction or change.

It's mostly communication. Lately, it seems like I need communication and the people around me cannot communicate with me. I cannot find it in my tight isolated circle; I cannot find it on-line. That leaves, literally, only one last rung.

BBC NEWS | Africa | Zimbabwean drag queen reveals all

2006-08-11T11:39:00.000-07:00

BBC NEWS | Africa | Zimbabwean drag queen reveals all: "'A queen must protect her subjects even if the president refuses to do so,' he says."

I admit

2006-08-10T23:23:00.000-07:00

0608100029
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

Sometimes, I think I am beautiful.

swekitre

2006-08-09T05:42:00.000-07:00

swekitre
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

Josalyn has the SWEETEST face.

Strength to Endure

2006-08-07T21:08:00.000-07:00

Strength to Endure
Originally uploaded by AntonioPhotography.

Amazing.

Staying your path

2006-08-07T01:16:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest things to do, once you know what it is you want to do, is to stay your path.

Sometimes, especially after the AmeriCorps debacle, I have felt that I wandered off my path and into the jungle and goddess only knows if I would be seen again. And then today, de-cluttering my house, I came across something I wrote on the back of an envelop when I was 22, three names:

Jean Baudrillard
Jacques Derrida
Hakim Bey

and realized, with glee, that I am right where I am supposed to be as I have been reading Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation all year, reading about Derrida through secondary sources (and I watched the excellent documentary about him on Sundance last Jan. 05)... Bey is left.

What I am getting at here, is that we are always given sermons about how to cut and run, but no one talks about staying a course. Understanding that you are moving in a certain direction for a reason, to meet a purpose, and walking that/those paths. Maybe our ideas about freedom creates this impulse within us, and I am not saying it wrong, but I am saying that beside this impulse, besides these cut and run sermons, we should also talk about staying our path or, at the very least, realizing that our path is always before us -- no matter what.

Sometimes, I am so amazed by life. Amazed by how, no matter what happens or what is done, every move made is the "correct" move. Every one. Everything we go thru leads us to this moment and informs who we are within this moment, this context, and how... how holy that is.

... I have nothing else to say that would not be recirculation.

Consider staying your path and standing your ground(s) rather than cutting and running sometimes.

Peace,

Ergane

Creativity on BLAST

2006-08-04T18:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a recording of me reading "I Could Cry for Days" -- a poem I wrote today. It ain't great, but I likes it.

Here's a recording of a song my spirit called me to make for Brie that I call "Going Where."

Here's a recording of that same song put through my creative filters (meaning my percussion).

P.S. PLEASE let me know what you think if you bother -- it IS important, even if it is to say, "liked that!" or "hated it"... Artists need feedback. Without feedback, we can't grow. Also, I don't create for my bubble. When I do, you never see it.

Lessons of Light

2006-07-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

That sound a dog makes when it is smacked on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper has been my internal emotional state. Don't worry, I am bearing it well. All it does is make me remember that I have to return to my path, direct my emotions into myself instead of fretting about everyone else -- they'll be all right. But me... I worry about me.

I finished reading Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality vol. 1 and feel completely... rejuvenated by all the new thinking and ideas. I should probably start writing sometime soon -- decide I have enough material, but I don't know if that is ever true -- c'est la vie.

Jeanette Winterson's The Passion is what I have started reading alongside Spivak whom I adore.

I keep thinking about whether I will get in or not and realizing I have to try and make my case and sell myself as best as possible. Also, I have to figure out how to keep my emotional state as insulated as possible. Now, this may sound bad, but it is not... I have been an emotional sponge as of late and I am fucking tired of it.

Last week, tragedy did strike which lead to the ending of a friendship. However, I realized I was not actually attending to it -- it had become sentimental without growth. Anyway, Lux, our kitten, HID the entire time that ex-friend was here. I was distraught -- did this mean we should give him up? That he would never fit into to our household? As soon as that ex-friend left, Lux emerged. I learned something very important from my Cancer kitty: It's ok to hide in order to protect your emotionality.

Perhaps one of the things that makes me so formidable and intimidating to other people is that I tend to face my emotionality and yours dead on. "Bring it" has been my rallying call since I was 15. Fifteen years later, I think I am starting to really understand what it means to pick one's battles. Not every battle should be fought, the trick is to listen to my instinct because it does not mis-serve me -- my instinct is fucking brilliant. It's my emotional little Cancer Mars that takes offense and understands not only what it is being said but how it is all so horrible and must be answered.

However, if I can willfully avoid the world's dismalness, I can avoid social dismalness as well and the more power to me! How am I ever to learn how to... not control, but make useful my own sensitivities if I am always allowing myself to be sidetracked by others who are, really... just not where I am? I won't learn -- and so I take lessons from my cat.

Viva Lux0r!

Yep

2006-07-27T01:48:00.000-07:00

0607260061
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

There's another photo set coming and it promises to be a DOOZY! Tomorrow, I think I shall unviel.

Gotta love

2006-07-24T17:55:00.000-07:00

0607230084
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

those times when things come together with as much effort as possible and uncontainable joy and happiness.

This is a picture of the drum circle at the Seattle Black Pride Picnic. Most of the members are with Sistah Drum here in town. My hands ache from so much vigorous drumming... but oh, how grounded I feel! Oh, how STILL pumped I am!

The Seattle Black Pride Picnic was a complete success. Last numbers I heard was that there were 300 + people AND they managed to feed every single one of us, even the homeless lingering around, sharing with us. It was so beautiful.

re: Drumming: The Welcome I received from those ladies was *immense*.

Drumming at the Seattle Black Pride Picnic

2006-07-22T05:40:00.000-07:00

Greetings,

My name is Quentin Ergane and I am a drummer. I would like to invite all other drummers, dancers and others to join me for a drum circle Sunday, July 23, 2006 at the Seattle Black Pride BBQ and Picnic at Pratt Park at 2:00 pm.

The reason I would like to organize a drum circle is because I know there are at least two drumming groups that are GBLTQQISGLF and one that is composed of that community and B/black women (Sistah Drum and Different Drummers). It is not that I feel I am the most qualified to lead it, but I long to drum with people of my community and I feel it would an excellent way to see other drummers in our community, to get together, network, share knowledge, skill, and laughter, and find a whole new community together.

If you are reading this message and do not know about the Seattle Black Pride taking place this weekend (July 21 – 23, 2006), please check out http://www.seattleblackpride.org to learn more about the events taking place and about this wonderful organization which seeks to bring together everyone in our TIFSGLQQLBG community to celebrate the diversity of the B/black GBLTSGLIQQF community.

Please post this far and wide.

Direct any questions to kyooverse at gmail dot com and I hope to see you there.

Heart and Rhythm,

Quentin Ergane

Sunlight Yellow

2006-07-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

Sunlight Yellow
Originally uploaded by ArtLights.

look at it!

refreshed

2006-07-19T02:20:00.000-07:00

refreshed
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

New pics, in case you were interested.

Thyron will be here tomorrow and I am SO excited that he will be here. He's like family, the family you are told you can create when you first come out.

Things are going pretty well -- I can't complain. I hope I get my glasses soon because I am tired of being blind. I should go to bed, but I am still keyed up... I should not have drank that last soda!

Oh well.... between Rat Bohemia by Sarah Schulman and History of Sexuality vol. I by Foucault, I am sure I can find sleep with ease.

... Soul Food section in Safeway

2006-07-18T23:13:00.000-07:00

Does your local grocery store have a soul food section? Ours does!!!

*le sigh*

(more in my Flickr... I don't know how to cut the pictures so they are not taking up gobs of space -- if someone can tell me how, I am all ears and fingers!)

Dudley's

2006-07-16T05:50:00.000-07:00

Dudley's
Originally uploaded by cloudsdescendin.

Just wanted other people to see and share in it.

rhythm 041

2006-07-16T01:56:00.000-07:00

rhythm 041
Originally uploaded by Quentin Ergane.

There are new pictures in my blog from a drum circle I participated in at the Seattle Rhythm Festival.

2006-07-12T11:59:00.000-07:00

Click the picture if you want more information.

Intro: Audio Post

2006-07-10T13:14:00.000-07:00

Cranes

2006-07-09T23:25:00.000-07:00

staori7
Originally uploaded by kyooverse.

Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil

2006-07-08T02:17:00.000-07:00

Is my fucking hero.

Another article with a picture of Her Fierceness.

I have made tea for the Fae masses. Sweet tea: Cherry, Orange Pekoe, Jasmine Green... *smiles* then three unflavored bottles of three:

1) "For the ones that like mint" : Wild Blackcurrant (Stash), Gunpowder (green), Plantation mint (stash -- spearmint). It's hot.

2) "For the timid": Wild Sweet Orange (Tazo) crossed with honeybush rooibos. Profound joy.

3) "For the edgy": Passion fruit, hibiscus, and licorice spice. GOTdamn.

I can sleep... right?

prom 1993

2006-07-07T01:34:00.000-07:00

prom 1993
Originally uploaded by kyooverse.

2006-07-06T17:44:00.000-07:00

Mr Pregnant

I love this Mr. Pregnant!!!

Calm

2006-07-03T21:26:00.000-07:00

morglo
Originally uploaded by kyooverse.

Last year, last summer, this was my FAVORITE picture (that I took)... I mean, look at it!

Anyway, I found a group called, simply, "Flowers" and... I love it. Love it because the people in the group have SERIOUS talent, so serious, I was intimidated... until I saw my pictures in the mix and saw that I had little to worry about (ok, as long as I made sure to add my really, really good ones!) -- I'm not too shabby!

Ok, back to Guitar Hero and my kitchen.

Me and Ryan

2006-06-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

052706_1844a.jpg
Originally uploaded by forty-three.

This is my favorite currrent picture of us. This is at Kris and Shawna Meaders-Grafing wedding in Charleston, SC, in which I served as minister.

My hair was completely held by itself. It was hot and, scared of Rye getting over-dehydated, I kept after him with water. He appreciated it.

fucking Jorane

2006-06-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

0606250049
Originally uploaded by kyooverse.

Someone replied, "Wow" and it made my world.

People don't realize how important feedback is.

Kiwi plants are our friends!

2006-06-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

0606250060
Originally uploaded by kyooverse.

Hey, thought you might wanna know that I have uploaded the month of June (finally) for your viewing pleasure. I am not yet done, tho! Without sounding like I am begging, I need a pro account! :(

Anyway, go have a look-see, comment, favorite, make notes, what-have-you. Bringing life and beauty to you is my service to you. (And it lets you know I am not always frowning!)

Peaches and rain,

Quentin Ergane

Music Video: "Air" by Ern McKeown (presented by the BCC)

2006-06-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

"I am made to fly..."

2006-06-21T05:35:00.000-07:00

Air
by Erin McKeown, from We Will Become Like Birds

Air! In my bones where the marrow should be
But what I lack for guts and blood
I make up for in dreams

Love! And you're wondering how it works
The heart in the natural world
It's a wonder that science can hurt

I am made to fly
You are made for flight
From the structure of our cells
To the chambers we share inside
So let's become like birds
We will become like birds

Hope! It's the one thing that science will prove
What you don't have hope for you lose
Evolution is what you choose

I am made to fly
You are made for flight
From the structure of our cells
To the chambers we share inside
So let's become like birds
We'll become like birds

Air! In my bones where the marrow should be
But what I lack for guts and blood
I make up for in dreams (3x)

Grring

2006-06-18T02:06:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to be nit-picky (ok, maybe just a little), but I really hate the title of this article, "More Victims Than Just Kevin."

I could make this really clear if I asked, "Would anyone had written an article entitled, "Not Just Matthew?"

No. They would have considered it tacky although on the same night on the otherside of the country, a transwoman (whose name escapes me which makes me feel very ashamed... so many names... I should be better than this. Anyone reading this, please remind me of her name so it can be committed to memory... it is so fucking sad... I remember people like Matthew Shepard but have trouble remembering my own. Rashawn gets remembered, Steen Keith Fenrich gets forgotten. Sakia Gunn is only kinda remembered, but Arthur "J.R." Carl Warren Jr. is nearly forgotten. Most people have moved away from Gwen Araujo, too... and then there's that gay Indian dude who was beaten to death... no one can claim the mainstream gay community cares about everyone equally... not without needing to go to hell) who died would have warrented that just as much truth.

I understand. I get it. Folks want to get the word out that gay folks are being particularly prayed upon in our Pride months, however the folks who want to get this word out ignore that it never stopped or ceased, not for one moment. In fact, they won't even acknowledged that since "gay marriage" hostilities towards GBLT(and ESPECIALLY T) people have risen like "wo."

Everything is in the wording because the wording displays the intent. And when I read the title, and then skimmed the article (... dock me points if you wish), it was obvious to me that Kevin Aviance, someone I hadn't even heard about until this tragedy happened, was being removed... "Just Kevin" indeed.

And then the way in which everyone was painted with a "gay" brush... sorry, it makes the knot in my stomach tighten.

Excuse me everyone while I go shit.

QE

..considering my dick...

2006-06-15T16:02:00.000-07:00

"Dude, I probably should comment on this somewhere in my journal. I just realized you are the only biological male on my friends list. Feel special :)" – Anon.

***

If I ever felt special about being a biological male... perhaps. *giggles*

You wanna know something? I was four when it dawned on me, horribly, that the world was always going to make a lot more out of my penis that was ever going to. I guess the "special" I feel is the being singled out, harmed, abused even. I mean, I get it. I gotta dick. An outy. However, that does not rule my existance -- it really doesn't. If I wasn't so sure that my project this life is to show that having one of these things does not mean I have to run to socialization (although I am aware of it and what I have absorbed, too, both as survival technique and also to understand my own misandry) and perhaps I can show the younger males of my family (which is as wide and as varied as... as anything) that to have a dick does not trap one in the jaws of patriarchy, that one can make a life with as little of that crap as possible...

This is not to say I am incapable of enjoying my penis, that would be a lie. But it is to say I feel a certain detachment from it that can never quite be bridged and I understand to be part of my own "gender identity dysphoria" (making me extremely giddy -- favorite joke there, I swear) (and alongside my other various and varied body issues... my bio grandfather was a linebacker... my body follows his genes... however, in my mind, I am maybe 5'6", 135 lbs, with long slender limbs and I move through the world with this intention... in a body that is 5'11", 25*lbs with large muscles that I force into grace...)...

No one gets it more than me. I got a dick. According to the rules of society, I am a male (sex) and then a man (gender)... but I am not society, I am me and who I am does not cohere with that. My maverick clit had other ideas and I get that, but I retain my space to not go along with society because it does not get along with me.

I get it. It is really interesting and you are trying to figure out how "it" and "I" work. Me, too. It doesn't always make "sense" to me either. But my reality is lived within my body and I have discovered, with some help from thinking over this kinda stuff with my friend S that I am most comfortable when I can exist as a body. I compromise on the sex thing because there's material proof, but I am starting to realize, out of those conversations with S, out of reading Butler, out of my own astrological study... I am compromising on that to the extent that I am losing my own damn point!

I am a body that has features that differ from other people's bodies. This body was raised and terrorized in order for it to cohere with the objectives and the lay of our society -- and it was wrong and terrible and is the site of much depression and heartache and break for this body that merely wants to exist in joy. You won't meet a person more open... when I was single and looking for love, I wasn't looking for a person with blah, blah, blah, I was looking for another body that could look at my body and partake of it with me without needing it to conform to some script it could never know, could never understand because the language was one it couldn't understand and what it learned to understand didn't WANT to understand...

So I get it... but I don't feel special when someone takes my whole body and makes it a male... or female... just as I HATE it when someone takes my whole body and makes it man... or woman. Because I am neither of those things. I am a body designed for biological purposes it will never take part in unless someone needs some of its material...

And please, don't take this wrong, it became a moment to make myself apparent to myself.

As I have gotten older, I have come to recognize (and/or search out) some of my barriers and boundaries. Like, although I like other bodies, I have a preference... and that is a REAL preference which means NOT to exclusion... it is hard these days to map identity and practice. I haven't had sex with a body that is called "woman" in nearly 8 years. Can I still call myself "gay-identified bisexual" or am I just gay now? And does it mean anything that I prefer bodies that look like mine? What does that *really* mean?), I am just me and my comfort comes from other people agreeing that me being me is much better than whatever they would make me.

I'm just more comfortable when the focus is not on my penis -- in *every* situation... don't believe me... talk to my partner about what he went through in order to give me head and it not freak me the fuck out... talk to one of my best friends (a sibling even) about all my body weirdness concerning my penis... I don't think about it outside the way one thinks of ears... needs washing, are there, hurt when hit or pressured, but part of everything, not special... sometimes very embarrassing... sometimes, I do think of it as a strap-on when I am topping and that's hot, but anything other than it as it... this is one of the ways I know and mark myself as a transgendered person... my relationship with my body, like all transgendered people, is just *different*. Markedly different. I keep most and much of it to myself because that is how I learned to keep myself safe and un-fucked with (when I was younger and couldn't hide and didn't have this body's dimensions which has a meaning all its own) -- but I do understand that it means to people outside of me.

Also, I don't want my body to be a part of other people's discourse. I have thought, sometimes, just to post a picture of my dick just so people who can't stop wondering about it would know that it is there in the hopes that they can then go about their business, but I am not interested in being judged on my body or how I conceive of it or how it works or does not work for me or you because that's all situational. Were I sexually attracted to you, you would experience my body much differently than if we were friends... even differently than if we were friends and I was sexually attracted to you (that happens... and I like it when people are ok with it because it does eventually transmute, but in many ways, I need labels less than a lot of other people -- or I see them as dresses one assumes *shrugs*... thank you Plath for that).

Maybe to bite Foucault and pervert him, I am interested in my body only within a discourse of relationship and context. Not law. Not science. Not societal -- not even social, but within closed relationships. Self and self that isn't confession or relying on power... which means... *grins* I have no clue! All I know is that I dread these kinds of conversations because I get some kind of pissed off and uncomfortable because I know it is something trying to make sense of me, trying to eat me in parts instead of just swallowing me whole.

Just swallow me whole. I'm actually better that way.

Oh my!... go... um... Fox?

2006-06-14T04:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, now, usually, I canNOT be bothered to even pay
this kinda stuff attention, but I have NEVER seen
someone like... just go OFF on someone for being,
well, insensitive and stupid and... well, I thought
you might like to see it, too, and snap your fingers
(or hiss as Feypropriate), too:

" Julie Banderas loses it as Shirley Phelps-Roper
proclaims the word of God to a nation laden with sin."

Heart,

Quentin Ergane

... now that that's over...

2006-06-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

June 5th was supposed to just be a poopy day. I didn't think it would be so bad for me (and it wasn't) because my natal Sun and Uranus are conjunct and the hard square between transiting Uranus and the transiting Sun just wouldn't mean as much -- and I was right.

I am starting to notice that without my glasses on, people smile at me... like all the time. Like ALL the time. People didn't randomly smile at me before so it's a bit strange to see someone flash pearls... in Seattle. Weird.

Last night I went to Sydney's. We discussed agency and perfomativity, ate poke (po-kay -- Hawaiian... basically raw tuna flavored with soy, green onions and hot mustard... I wanna make it myself -- that ish was GOOD!) and chicken fried rice (so, SO delish)... and talked. She is so good for me that I worry I don't hold up my end of the friendship... but I bet she'd tell me I am being silly. Anyway, I have Butler's _Gender Trouble_ now and a couple of other books which makes me feel I can write my Octavia Butler paper. I would LOVE to have Haberstam, too, so I can do a *proper* reading of performance theory via gender, but you know what? I'll live.

On the "lighter" side of life, I started reading JLA/Titans: Technis (maybe not the correct rendering of the title, but to get the trade and read it would make me sit down and finish it -- it is really good!). It's really cool because it tackles some issues that are in my mind -- like how *does* one bridge the generation gap? But also, in a really strange and creepy sort of way, because the storyline revolves around Vic (Cyborg, Cyborian -- it's complicated), it presents itself as a narrative dealing with absent B/black subjectivity. To bring Vic back into his subjectivity, a rhetoric of family is provided -- and it works (it would work, too, given that B/black cultures are relational at core... ), but there's still trouble... someone else wants to d/l Vic's soul (that or I don't recognize the character) -- it was late, I was stoned and reading on the bus, I'll have to re-check that... but damn it was good.

And the bus driver turned the lights up for me because he saw me reading and this is one of the drivers I would love to give long-extended head to.... mmmmm.

Last night, I pissed outside by a tree for these two girls (whom I called my "Golden Goddesses" -- they were hyper-thrilled about that, no sarcasm... Tara (Sag) and Jen-Jen (Aqu)) and when I was done, they applauded! I report this mainly for Kris who will get it... getting over my body one action at a time!

I am not sure what I should advance today, but I know I should advance. Yami is in the shower, but it dawns on me that maybe I shouldn't wait until I am alone, to go go go NOW! I only have the first two weeks of June to start projects I mean to finish even if I don't finish them now... you know?

Maybe I should do yoga... and then drink copious amounts of herbal tea like yesterday... I bet I could benefit from a good ol'fashioned detox, eh?

*sighs*

Pictures of things to sale, too, since Rye is *never* going to get around to it. Not really disappointing, but it is hard to stop my motion in order to attend to him right now. But it did know what it was talking about when it (the astrologyzone horoscope) said that this month... we'd be on two completely different wavelengths.

Oh! Can I mention that we totally needed (we being Sydney and I) Burke's "A Grammar of Motives" last night and there was no way to get it other than coming home and going back (which would have taken HOURS!).... I love that essay, tho. I have wanted to use it forever... ah well... someone will come to know the beauty that is "A Grammar of Motives." Rhetorical theory RULES!

Aimez-vous,

Quentin Ergane

P.S. for LJ and Blogger folks: It's the beginning of the month -- don't forget to read astrologyzone.com, however you will need to know your rising in order for it to be accurate. If you know your birth TIME, DATE, and PLACE I am willing to tell you what your rising is. (name, too, since I don't know everyone's rl name) Besides, it would be really cool to converse with other Gemini rising folks.

I am a Jann Arden song

2006-06-06T01:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you feel plain unloved. There's nothing you can do about it, you have to live through it. You wish like hell your special someone will make you feel loved, but there's nothing he can do (maybe he doesn't love you so much right now anyway)...

More than likely, I am being dramatic. But with only Yami's snores and my self, buzzing with life, and no one to share it with on all those levels, I find myself a bit hungry.

I hate living in hell.

Oh yes.

Drama. Queen.

Ok, white men who are only into B/black men

2006-06-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

Now, if you read that title and came here thinking I was going to start talking about Ryan, you would be mistaken because he is not like that.

That said, being someone who likes to peruse sights like Craigslist M4M and Adam4Adam and Gay.com and other places where I encounter white men who desire B/black men to near fetishistic exclusion, I started to realize something:

They consider themselves "real" and locate "realness" and "authenticity" (not to mention "real masculinity") in B/black males.

And so we are drifting in this idea where B/black masculinity makes one more "real"... and they feel their desire is true... and it is... but not because they actually desire B/black men or males as B/black men or males, but because they are attracted to their own understanding of their "realness."

Thus, the desire, the exotification really has nothing to do with the person in question, but the way in which another person can become the mirror for white authenticity and "realness."

****

... I wanna be really excited about this... but I know better... it ain't new.

And this is why I am pretty effectively sealed off from these guys... I tend to reflect people back to themselves until I become comfortable showing myself (I would say there's some sure-fire recipe to it, but really... it comes and goes with a rhyme and reason only I can understand or decipher and in the end come to a conclusion about)... and I can't help but reflect back their hatred... and show them myself as feminine opposition (I wish I could say it was for something other than test and games... but I could never take these folks serious because I do know myself as a person and I know it is bigger than they are able to conceive and gosh, who cares?... anyone who really knows me knows the flux of my energy and how it eventually settles... I digress) which usually sends them scuttling off or makes them think they love me. *rolls eyes*

****

Advice no one will take: If you are cruising the internets for a sexual encounter and putting up a whole bunch of stats, you are not really trying to find someone for sex, you are trying to find someone to fall in love with, to make you feel less empty, for some other reason than having sex with another person. When you are really horny, things like stats and fly out of the window -- it's just true. You can call it preferences or standards or whatever the fuck you want to because you are a liar and you are wrong. You are looking for someone to fill your empty soul. When one wants sex, they just want sex -- as sex.

So, I wish people would be honest and real about that shit. It's ok. It's ok to just want to connect to another person and to welcome sexual energy into that connection. (One of the main reasons why I prefer hanging with Ryan over anyone else, besides being in love with him and partnered to him, is that we are comfortable with the sexual energy and tensions we have with each other. It can turn into something else... or just be what it is... sometimes we snarl and snap at each other when we should just go somewhere and fuck... we like our battle of the will games sometimes... anyway...) The relationships of identified gay men (and males in order to include myself in the analysis... since I do not identify as a "man" and yet am in some strange way a part of this mass... I prefer to exist in this community in my complexity instead a performativity are such that the way we

****

I wonder for how many men are their "types" based on the first person they felt desire for... the type becoming the simulacra (I am using the term as informed by my reading of it in Baudrillard) for desire behind which is *nothing*... which is why their relationships, based off this tight-assed copy never can or never COULD work.

Is it awful... sometimes I do feel other people are so transparent and silly...

... arrogance vs confidence...

OK, real world beckons.

Kris and Shawna Meaders-Grafing Wedding

2006-06-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

Procession
Originally uploaded by cloudsdescendin.

Please stop by and see the rest of the pictures from this amazing wedding. (And comment, too!)

In the midst

2006-05-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

of everything going on right now... can I just tell you I love Patty Griffin? She makes me feel grounded and secure.

Top joints:

Useless Desires
Top of the World
Mother of God
Standing

So much to do and so little time and not enough earth for any of it.

From Charleston, SC,

Quentin Ergane

Bo-Red

2006-05-18T01:28:00.000-07:00

I have finally broken myself and slept for a long time. Long enough to feel like a completely new person awakened for a living dream of two weeks. I dunno.

Anyway, I am bored. Like painfully bored.

Right now, I like how I am working against myself to make a point. Keep your hands inside the ride, Q, and do what is best for you.

Short trips.

I can't wait for it to be me and Rye... the thought of it makes my soul... exhale.

*sighs* What a weird last two weeks.

holding

2006-05-17T01:39:00.000-07:00

What is this theory of encapsulation or fixation which moves between the recognition of cultural and racial difference and its disavowal, by affixing the unfamilar to something established, in a form that is repetitious and vacillates between delight and fear? It is not analagous to the Freudian fable of fetishism (and disavowal) that circulates with the discourse of colonial power, requiring the articulation of modes of differentiation -- sexual and racial -- as well as different modes of discourse -- psychoanalytic and historical? - Bhabha, 1983: 26 (from the book Fear of the Dark: 'Race', Gender and Sexuality in the Cinema by Lola Young

Ryan

2006-05-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

0604290008
Originally uploaded by kyooverse.

Taken at Endolyne Joe for Rye's birthday dinner. Someone said it was a good portrait and so I want to share it.

... I can't believe we will be in South Carolina in FIVE days!

Letters I probably shouldn't write people even if I really mean them...

2006-05-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the other side!

When I met you, I was going through my Return. Now, I am being reminded of my Return because Saturn retrograded to a conjunction with my natal Saturn. I am being sorely reminded that I lack nerve... and so my ritual has been vomiting. Vomiting drawers that have had the same contents for years. Vomiting the recycling. Vomiting the dishes and the floors and the counters. Vomiting and creating order that looks like mess, but I am meeting my every objective head on. Also, I started a cleaning purification tea ritual. And found the name I want to be called, which is the name I am called, but the depth, the emotional meaning of it became clear.

Quentin Demarcus Ergane JohnFranson
Quentin D. Ergane
Quentin the Ergane
Quentin the Air

After my paternal Great Aunt Air.

I washed my hair and am in process of giving it a deep oiling. It was hot, but then it cooled and it feels divine... but I have to wash it off because I suspect it is the sweet orange that is keeping me awake.

I suspect you are largely solitary, but I would like to see if we can really be friends with one another.

Love and Air,

Quentin Ergane

Scratching the Back

2006-05-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

I didn’t tell him his taste in music sucked
because I liked the way confidence
fit around his shoulders
the way it felt to give him confidence
the way he looked at me with eyes
that could hold my gaze – level --
free of suspicion, doubt or worry.

I didn’t tell him I liked him
only when we were flirting
and being witty because I liked
the way I could like him because his heart
was good, and I knew it even if he didn’t.

I didn’t tell him I loved him nor
did I tell him goodbye.
I opened a door and scooted him out
deciding not to say another
Word I didn’t say a word.

Words like, “I know how this will end;
this will end badly,” but ah!
So-called straight boys and their daddy issues
faggots and their love:
This makes the world go ‘round.

--- Quentin JohnFranson

Let's really talk about language...

2006-05-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

Personally, I am not sure what that post about "retarded" in comparison to other words have to do with this community. The only way I can see it as being relevant is within a larger conversation about language.

When I was coming into a progressive consciousness, I liked to interrogate language, too, and use that as a means to feel that I was superior to other people and also to dismiss them. I want to ask that we are very careful...

But what about language?

I am a transgendered person who refuses to use "ze" and "hir" because I think they are stupid -- personally. I am a gay person. I don't feel implicated when people say something is "gay" and yet, I understand why "gay" is used in that manner. What I am trying to get at with these examples is that it is not that people use language that is potentially harmful and anti-progressive but WHY the language is used, what it is getting at.

When someone says that someone or something is "retarded" or "lame" I do not think they are referring to people who are differently able. Do you? Is it the usage that is problematic or the words themselves? Because if it is the word, get over it -- no, really. My argument is not one about words and power, but about words and usage and how you cannot stop people from using language that is potentially harmful: I *wish* I could obliterate the word "nigger" -- I wish no white person would use it evereverever because it can never be right to be, however, I have no control over that. The only "control" I have is not to associate with white people who would use that word or B/black people or people in between... or just people who would use it with the lightness of the word "the".

So, if we are going to think about usage (i.e. what is meant when a word is used), that means we should also consider ways in which we can guard against being simply reactionary and really thinking critically about it -- since words like these are usually used in lieu of something else. I mean, in what ways are we closing our ears to what is being really said and in what ways are we willing to be "ok" with that? Consider: You cannot be progressive if you are not listening to people. You have to know people in order to try and change the world, right (if that is even your goal)... how does policing language make that goal impossible and where do we draw lines between the language of friends, lovers, co-workers, activists?

Do we police language?

How do we police language?

How do we start thinking about language in a manner that gets us beyond "amen-cornering" and starts us really thinking critically about language and the power of words and learning when words mean and when words do not mean.

Take the n-word for example:

As a B/black Southerner, I had to learn when it meant and when it did not mean in order to not get my ass lynched (even social lynching is lynching). Later, I realized the ways in which my subjectivity was compromised and felt in a big bang, and then I returned to a place of listening. I can't create the kind of world I think I would want and I am glad for it because I would rather live in *this* world, you know -- ignorant so-and-sos and all.

How can I know what has to be done if I make it so I cannot listen to other people without dismissing them because they are not using the language I would prefer them to use?

As a person of color, my words are often dismissed and unheard because of who I am, because of what I am not, because I am not white. At 30 years old, I have had a rich life filled with the experiences of this. Dismissed, not heard, not recognized, because of language and the dynamics that go along with language that prescribe what is heard and what is not. However, I am just one person.

Being one person whose first job is to listen deeply and closely to other people (in order to not fall for bullshit... the folks at church always said, "The Devil can quote scripture, too." I allude to this to remind everyone that being able to *speak* the "right" language does not mean being able to internalize it, or own it, or act it, or even sit with it... it means you can convince everyone that you are not "like that" thus setting your own ability to "get free" even further out... ANYONE can use the "right words" -- speak the "right language." We have to have something other than language to determine the space of one's heart.), I know that the majority of people of color go voiceless, dismissed because of language. Look, for pop cultural instance, at Jade from America's Top Model. Sure, she talks out of her ass and creates words in order to perform what has been internalized for her is intelligence, but people act as if they cannot understand her, cannot understand the easily understandable logic of her language. And that's one small and even insignificant example (depending on perspective), but it begins to address the problem of language and the ways in which it is used to privilege those who can use it "correctly" without regard to that person's ultimate goal. Even the Devil can quote scripture.

Can we brainstorm on the ways in which language renders us deaf in the hopes of opening up our ears? Also, comment as you want, but I am not "arguing"/debating -- FYI for the ones of you who need that.

Peacefulness and Light,

Quentin Ergane

... troubled...

2006-05-08T19:19:00.000-07:00

The CDC is pushing for mandatory HIV/AIDS testing.

"Federal health officials say they'd like HIV testing to be as common as a cholesterol check."

The idea is to make those people who have seroconverted and don't know it aware of their status. But, I also think they hope to keep track of who has it and who does not.

I want to think this is a good measure, but I have my issues. Like, why is the CDC willing to do this, but not willing to confront the public on HIV/AIDS stigmatization which has been good and strong since, well, since the early 80's? What happens to the anonymity? the privacy of health conditions? And what about all the wacko nut-jobs who want to quarantine everyone who is positive?

Perhaps my view is a touch unique. After all, before I could start having sex, I was educated about HIV/AIDS, then scared to death when I finally did come out, and have had my life irrevocably changed, altered, by this fucking dis-ease's touch in my sphere... my father, my cousin, friends, even best friends dead at its behest. I watched as protease inhibitors brought people back from the brink of death, literally, like with my mentor. I have even watched HIV become a "chronic manageable illness" as people said it would back in the mid-90's. However, I have also wanted to raze the earth when I considered how quickly my father went and how that went hand-in-hand with the lack of access in B/black communities. I have felt rage at the rising suspicions of the sexualities of B/black men to the point where everyone understands "DL" and even someone like me who has been effectively out since I was 14 has been asked on multiple occasions whether I am on the "DL." There have been books and panic about it, even. Being gay, I get to watch as gay men throw away condoms as if HIV/AIDS has been cured and have been awash in my own sense of negative guilt and...

I would expect that people would stop going to their doctors out of fear. Our government has blocked proper, realistic sex education at every avenue. Abstinence does not fly in a realistic world of teenagers and it sure as fuck doesn't with adults. How do they expect to implement this measure without taking proper stock of the world -- these people really don't live in any reality you and I share.

Part of me wants to applaud because I *do* think knowledge is power, but the greater part of me believes this is a mistake without a vast and intense campaign aimed at educating everyone about sex so they can educate everyone about what measures one can take regarding HIV/AIDS transmission...

I mean... I have CAUGHT Poz men on Craigslist saying they are negative who say they are positive on manhunt, say. There are SCORES of young guys who think they can negotiate risk by putting strict limits on how "old" a person can be in order to have sex, never realizing that the numbers of young gay men who are sero-positive are immense and rising. There are those who are more comfortable thinking that HIV/AIDS affects "them" -- "them B/blacks," "them gays," "them B/black women," "them Latino/as" -- but HIV/AIDS affects us ALL. Connects us ALL in ways that are so simple and profound most people don't even recognize.

Every since HIV/AIDS came on the scene, there have been people who have wanted to separate them from the rest of humanity. (Hence "dis-ease") Does the CDC really think no one will try to make that kind of thinking a reality? And before you go thinking that's a good idea, remember, you could have it, too, and not even fucking know because the incubation period, last I was informed, was 10 years. For ten years you could be carrying this dis-ease and not know it because it has not gone active. This scares me more than I am ever able to admit. Scares me so much that I can't enjoy being told I am negative because, often, it does seem like a matter of time no matter what. People say, "But Quentin, you are with Ryan." And it is true, I *am* with Ryan. But there was a time I was not with Ryan. Time that will haunt me till the day I die. The same with you.

They make it sound so good... and it *does* sound good. It would be nice, for me, if I was tested every time I went in for some upper respiratory thing, but how many doctors would waive testing it for "straight" people? Already, I notice how I am treated differently by different doctors directly related to my race, perceived gender, and sexuality. What makes the CDC think this measure would be fail proof? Doctors are but people and no matter the myths of objectivity and science, being human, they are subjective creatures (and if they are not, they are monsters) and have biases and where bias does not work, heterosexism might.

Also... I find this interesting:

"We need to expand access to HIV testing dramatically by making it a routine part of medical care," said the agency's Dr. Kevin Fenton.

Notice -- he isn't talking care.

What is the use of knowing if no one has a plan -- besides quarantining -- to take care of these people?

Let's not forget, the world is making Africa pay a shit load of money for drugs. (Anyone remember that big ordeal a couple of years ago? It could have found a solution by now and I wouldn't know... but a parallel and justice is a parallel and justice.)

And the thing of it is... had we just socialized medicine...

Noted, ho.

2006-05-06T05:16:00.000-07:00

I went out tonight.

I went out last night.

I am going out tomorrow night.

I forgot that I don't mind being drunk.

And I can still get my shit done.

I am only posting this for memory, to fill it in.

I went out tonight (and have the pictures of this BEYOOtiful guy to prove it at R-Place)

I went out last night (Neighbor's 80's night).

I am going out tomorrow night (Hopefully to Traxx after the Chapel... a little diglossia [reworked from lingustics to look at culture -- melding high and low cultures or in this sense, establishments] for yo ass!).

Hrm.

2006-04-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I *do* feel profoundly selfish.

Lately...

2006-04-27T03:28:00.000-07:00

The thing that bothers me most about people considering Brokeback Mountain "a love story" is that it gives this idea that the only love possible for gay people is tragic love. Sure, it may call upon you to call that guy you were so in love with when you weren't out or whatever, but it cannot, that cannot substain a relationship.

I don't want that reflection.

I don't feel that the love I share with Ryan is built on tragedy. It does not need to be a tragic love in order to survive, to be.

I find it odd... People can see what other people will see wrong with movies like, say, Soul Plane which actually wasn't *that* bad -- shit, at least the gay guy in that movie HAD a fucking sexuality and he was treated as a part of instead apart from... , but not see what is wrong with a movie like Brokeback Mountain which will go down in history as something... really moving and great and all because white assimilationist faggots and white-identified assimilationist faggots of color and heterosexuals *liked it*.

Considered it daring.

*snorts and spits*

***

It is so hard, sometimes, talking to younger gay people. Mainly because they think they know everything and you know nothing. I remember people complaining about that when I was a kid (... a "know-it-all")...

Sometimes, I really hate biting my tongue.

JLA and Teen Titans -- I have been absorbing them whole... the way I have been drinking stuff as of late.

But I should really continue directing energy inwardly -- I don't have time to bother too much with stupid people with stupid opinions someone taught them had to be respected.

Shit, like my opinions are respected.

I live anyway.

Mars sauntered through his door

2006-04-09T16:05:00.000-07:00

tulcha
Originally uploaded by kyooverse.

Before I forget to mention, Rye's folks, Rye and I went to Skagit Valley in order to look at the tulip and daffodil fields and take pictures. We also went to Deception Point and walked along the bridge and explored some... structure with a dead cat in it... that probably held cows or horses. Anyway, pictures await. We were SO TIRED (having gone to see Dina Martina and then going out to the Madison Pub where we drank like fishes. Goodbye to Pisces indeed.)

Anyway, see, comment, blah.

* - title is a quote from "Goodbye to Pisces" by Tori Amos, from The Bee Keeper.

Slaughter

2006-04-09T14:21:00.000-07:00

Ok, I am not on-line as much these days and I am not watching TV even an iota of the way I used to, but... Is there public outcry regarding the Israelis completely bugging the fuck out and shooting missles at Palestine? Have they really lost their fucking mind AND NO ONE IS SAYING SHIT ABOUT IT? Surely someone is talking about fear of Brown people with a plan (or Hamas), someone is talking about this gross reaction formation to their own fears that Hamas won't "say" they renounce violence (is it just me or that you can "say" anything... also, the fact that Israel doesn't have to say it will renounce violence, which wouldn't have mattered because WHO didn't know they were going to use military force to back up their fear, anxiety and panic.)

Are we just gonna let Israel carry out what could only be interpreted as genocide against these people of color?

... I hate feeling so fucking help-/use-/worthless.

a response to a father's talk of hybridity re: his son.

2006-04-08T04:35:00.000-07:00

I would like to offer:

Even those of us who are in the US, who live as "B/black" (i.e. "black" as a signifier that points to both an ethnic *and* racial identity) are often hybrids (albeit of culture, but also blood) as well -- and some of us are "racial" hybrids that are never recognized because it is all reduced to "black" or that which marks us as people of African descent.

I mention this because it would be a mistake if, in this moment of having to take an active role in showing your son how to survive on this terrain, you paint us all as people without hybridity (what Reid-Pharr calls "metropolitian"), however I think B/black people, in a sense, are the very definition of hybridity. Before culture, look at blood. My known ancestry includes Haitian, Lumbee, Scots-Irish, as well as African. Also, my culture is a hybrid as well as I fully recognize what is African-American (Black) about my culture and what is white about it as well (via white supremacy). However, I am a part of other cultures that futher "complicate" my identity as a hybrid... the least of which being some form of African and Hindi spiritualities, but also being a gender deviant/transgendered person who can sometimes, "pass," a percieved man who loves men, even a person involved in an interracial relationship and semi-open relationship (-- there are rules and he doesn't want to be a party to it) -- I join different aspects of myself and my identity in ways that could make anyone's head spin!

But B/black people are more diverse, more various and to paint us as being without hybridity is to paint us with one brush and one color, ignoring what else is there.

To say your son is not like you is to deny the ways in which your son IS like you. How you, as a hybrid yourself by blood and by culture, can hold onto cultural purity and authenticity is *laughable*. Is symptomatic of this idea that there is some "pure" cultural or racial (I have to assume you are using them interchangably because you aren't making distinctions between "culture" and "race") expression that leaves out the fact that "race" is NOT real (although an experienced reality) and treats race as if it is indicative of culture which deadens the spirit of being a hybrid in the first place.

***

I am not sending it because I am old enough to know that sometimes, on certain topics, people feel I am just out of line -- and that is a-ok.

start transmission

2006-04-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

I missed Utada Hikaru.

Don't be afraid to grow up (a response)

2006-04-04T02:35:00.000-07:00

That's nothing.

Something is having someone who is clearly on crack having a crack attack of some kind and acting like a rat caught in a can sitting on people, being pulled by some strange supersonic string and just being all together freaky.

HE was kicked off.

What is it about darky anger that makes Seattlites so jumpy and mad and defensive?

Calling the cops because of a difference of opinion. *tsk*

I watched this white guy completely treat a B/black bus driver like he was a "boy" driving his "coach."

All in the eye, eh.

That said, all's ok in Seattle imho. I see more cops these days, but I don't worry about it because I realize, finally, there are far better bad asses that my cream puff ass and... *shrugs* ok, yay -- as long as they don't talk to me either.

There's a lot of suppressed rage is all and people get grumpy when it is cold for too long.

caretaking in radical expression

2006-04-03T09:31:00.000-07:00

queer

I dyed my hair five times in one week
I dyed it red, white, plum, and silver.
On Friday I dyed it brown again.
I was on a quest.
"You look just like one of those fancy Polish chickens!"
That's what my brother said, a family man
on a family plan: one house, one wife, three kids.
"Just like a fancy Polish chicken!"
And yes, I was quite a show bird.
I call it my Circus Phase.

At Christmastime that chameleon year
I sat with my mother, in my doubtful drag,
sifting through her cedar chest.
I had been home three days and now
my mother didn't wince at my hair anymore:
dyed red and green for the season.
She pulled a small box from cedar scent,
sat it open on her lap, drawing out
the sum of her treasures:
baby bracelets spelling in infinitesimal beads
all of the names of her children,
twisted strings of plastic pearls,
rings her mother had worn,
rings she herself had won in courtings.

She then unearthed from under a mound
of braided strings, a small brooch.
Rhinestone, it glowed like one hundred flames,
kindling hope of diamonds in future days.
Saying nothing, she undid the clasp,
pushed the pin through the skin of my shirt.
Saying nothing, she snapped shut the pin,
pulled her hand away, as if I were suddenly
made of fire.

Assessing her work, she raised her eyes,
met my gaze a moment, and moved on,
told old jewel stories with every trinket upturned.
I listened, attentive, but kept looking down
at the sagging front of my thin shirt.
My mother had placed more than rhinestones
on my chest, more than a brooch.
She'd passed on fire in a web of glass and wire,
and though I wanted that new treasure,
sparkling on my skinny chest,
I did not know what to do with it,
with all of that burning.

- William Reichard, from A Faggots Lexicon

***

Yes, I could critique it, too. But I like it for sentiment and burning and searching -- not in that order.

Mooning Out (Lunacy)

2006-04-03T07:38:00.000-07:00

A Lunar Return is when the transiting moon lines up with/passes over your natal moon. There are whole charts and stuff about it, but that is not why I am here. I am here to talk about my lunar return as a 12th house mooner.

My moon is at 0 degrees Gem. It is behind my ASC. This aspect, including their conjunction, makes for, what I consider a really sad person. *grins* You see, I want to hide how I am feeling, but I can't. I want to hide my duality and my yes/no processing, everything... I am one of those people who are best taken as given -- reading between my lines usually results in insulting me (... again, in some discourses... when I am flirting, I welcome reading between my thighs... err, lines. *grins* <-- see?).

Anyway, when the moon passed into Gemini, I felt it. Suddenly, all the care I send out into the world became a projection of all the care I was not giving myself. I kept needling my partner, "What's wrong? What's wrong? I feel some strange energy coming off you. What's going on?"

Eventually, I would come to realize I was in open spongeland -- this is my time of the month... when I feel everything and I am too scared to use that perception to be more interested in myself rather than everyone else.

Slowly, I turned my attention back to myself -- enacted the habits I have been consciously learning in order to make the best of what is coming next.

I made tea (Yogi's Peach DeTox) in my newest teapot (named Aka Ryu -- thanks Xandi -- I'll take pictures sometime soon...) and sat in this chair, turning my attention slowly inward. I knew I would be up for a while because I always become an insomniac around this time so, I started thinking about the things on my list I wasn't doing, the work I will myself to forget because it is easier to fret and worry about other people than the state of me, right?

*grins*

I feel like writing this post is holding me up from my bath with rock crystal salt... which means I am trying to not take care of me.

I have learned one of the best things for me when my moon returns, is to take inventory and invest in some self-care. In four days the moon will be at it's nadir and life always sucks around then. I am planning to help things not suck.

I am planning a whirlwind... but I have to convince myself to wind down first!

Um... yeah.

quentin ergane

Mmmmm, ok

2006-03-29T23:32:00.000-08:00

So, I am watching The 750-Pound Man on TLC. This guy is like HUGE. He has been checked into a rehab for severely obese people, right? Here's what gets me, this is why I am writing: How are the nurses and stuff gonna bitch about his eating snacks when this mothafucka can't even roll out of his bed? He can't even ROLL ONTO HIS BACK!

I don't understand it. The nurses have to give him his food because he cannot go and get it himself so why are they giving him these bad foods they KNOW he shouldn't be eating and then complaining about it? Is there something I am missing?

Maybe, the lesson here is: Quentin should NOT be a nurse.

***

In other news, Rye and I have been pretty sick with influenza B -- or at least that is what Rye's doctor said. MY doctor, without looking, said it was oral gonorrhea.

*flat look*

I am trying to figure out what I am going to do about that asap.

Vagioplasty Redux

2006-03-22T01:29:00.000-08:00

So,

My friend, Yami, having thought some more about vagioplasty decided to do a research project on them. What she found is not for the faint of heart and should not be viewed at work as they are not work-safe. What she found, she said, changed her position in regards to this topic.

At the time being, Yami requests that everyone readjusts their *um* ... Um, I don't know (seriously, I feel my positioning changing... it is very odd. It makes me realize that perhaps... PERHAPS... I was too quick thinking it had anything to do with what men find desireable, but, as Yami says, "

... y'all... I don't know if I can type that...

Ok...

Centering.

Yami thinks looking at this picture helps re-orient the senses.

***

It dawns on me that another way of thinking about this is to consider that we *do* live in a culture where every woman is "beautiful" down there and so... that's something new to labor under. Not to have what is considered "beautiful" genitalia must be a horrible burden.

Now, my position here is as someone who is not only a feminist, but someone who has sat in circles of lesbian and bi women talking about how ugly they find dicks and even guys talking about how ugly they find dicks. You know what? MOST people, if asked, would tell you they think dicks are ugly and vaginas are beautiful. However, as a person who has seen many an ugly dick and who understands that to most people what is beautiful about a dick is its rigidity and size (and generally not in that order), not what it actually *looks* like.

Where are the doctors offering phalloplasty?

I am sure they exist, AND that is not my point. My point is that there is something underpining this idea of "beauty" (The "after" shots made me feel sad. Something safe for the picture frame indeed...)and makes it really... harmful and indicative of deeper, troubling issues. The lesson I am reminded of is how something is called "beautiful" sometimes means there's another hurdle to cross... especially if what you have you don't consider beautiful.

Or a majority does not consider beautiful.

And it's a damn shame.

If you only knew some of the UGLY penises I have seen in my life! *WHEW*

Comic La-La Land

2006-03-20T05:46:00.000-08:00

- Mister Miracle 4: Forever Flavored Man written by Grant Morrison, art by Freddie E. Williams II

I am posting this image because, gotdamnit, I am gonna force fed some culture into this community.

That picture up there is nominated for a Glyph.

I don't claim to be the most hardcore comic person or anything... I have a thing for Grant Morisson is all. My partner is more into graphic novels... but... damn -- wouldyalookatthat?.

Did anyone read that comic and sit back and went, "Damn."?

*dreamy*

Currently, I am having a Kali-ma movement of these proportions:

- Bulleteer 4: Bad Girls, written by Grant Morrison, art by Yanick Paquette

So, I am really into Seven Soldiers written by Grant Morrison with different artists, inkers, etc. ("of Victory" is part of the trade comic, but the comic books only have "Seven Soldiers"). Anyway, Ryan caught us up the other day -- I wanted to share with you all, but I have been mired in a project on the real life side that I call: "The Stop Lying to Yourself about Others" campaign. It includes necessary cleaning. You'd think, being as old as I am, I would not tremble before the challenge of making myself plain. But... I do. I am not the people pleaser I was/could be, but I can't shake wanting to be liked sometimes... even by people I know are unrepentant jerkfaces.

But enough is enough is enough is enough, eh?

I don't think enough people listen to Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Listening on my iPod the other day I heard:

2006-03-20T05:12:00.000-08:00

"some people wear their smile
like a disguise
those people who smile a lot
watch the eyes
i know it 'cuz i'm like that a lot
you think everything's okay
and it is...
'til it's not."

- Ani DiFranco, "Outta Me, Onto You" Dilate

I think I confuse people all the time in this regard. I can be a smiley sonishdaughter of a buscuit-eater. I smile easy and long. I communicate a lot through my smile. Sometimes, I communicate permissions I do not intend. Because it is not ok, and I stop smiling, people become terrified.

I swear, there are some days when, no matter what, you are just going to be big and B/black and there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it and, you know what? That's ok.

I had a very spiritual Sunday although I didn't make the Q-POC meeting. I had a conversation with myself about that and decided it is because I don't feel feel "in" right now... and that might actually be ok. My lessons are going to be different. Besides, I have done enough things this weekend -- this weekend in the month I am supposed to observe.

So, I have released people from friendships and plan for a few more... just to be real and authentic in my other journal on livejournal where I tend to like to make my unfiltered mish-mash of posts... one of the lessons I learned from my Return was how to end things peacefully and with grace and met with a full heart and no bitterness.

"i'm a pixie
i'm a paperdoll
i'm a cartoon
i'm a chipper cheerful free for all
and i light up a room
i'm the color me happy girl
miss live and let live
and when they're out for blood
i always give"

- "Pixie" Ani DiFranco, Little Plastic Castles

Except, I am not that girl anymore, not quite. Somehow, I have managed to keep the paperdoll, the cartoon, but lose the "chipper cheerful free-for-all" and disarm people with the luxury I have in being able to be myself. The privilege of it -- something no one can take from me and no one should WANT from me. (Not that decentcy matters, really.) I look to bring light to darkness now... bless my gothish heart. And I am not giving blood anymore. (not that those fuckers really want it anyway)

I played nice, though. Why? Because I knew I had it in me to do so. It is nice when you can rely on yourself to do things without delivering a curse-out where, in the past, one should have occurred. However, I do find, as I get older, white people, especially gay white men, are just scared of me.

Which is just as well.

Some of them NEED to be scared of me.

Some PEOPLE need to be scared of me.

... I should stop trying to recreate myself in miniature.

I'll wise up one day, I figure.

Heart,

Quentin Ergane

March, the beginning

2006-03-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

artlig
Originally uploaded by kyooverse.

So, I have pictures here for this month and other pictures. I don't use my flickr account as much as I should, but I think that might be changing. So, I had the "day" from hell where I practiced more letting go only to realize that some of my "friendships" here suffer because of proximity -- I don't live within walking distance and everyone is too lazy. Somehow, however, it is my fault. Isn't it always like that?

Anyway, check out the pics, comment if you are so inclined.

Wow

2006-03-15T18:35:00.000-08:00

So I am watching Big Love (I'll link and shit later), and I am looking over my current life right now. The two, perhaps, should not be allowed together.

Anyway, in my real life, I have enacted a strict "Real and not Real" relationship dispersals. I find this hard. It is as if I am snipping off my every hope. My highest ideals, because I didn't real share the same as the person across from me. Right now, I have a very strong need for the world to make sense for me. Not merely because I need to exhibit control over my world, but because if I am ever going to get up, I need to make sure that, standing, I have the net beneath me that will give me the confidence I need to find the higher dark truths and the light that lies inside of it. Living, itself, is a kind of horror story. I need to know... it seems from everybody I know... I am demanding to know whether what I saw was real... or was it not real. Sometimes, I have to accept the truth there and move through it -- unbutton my soul like changing my relationships with the sensitivity that comes from wearing a collar for too long. "Change is God" indeed. (I think I want to read Kindred ... maybe my treasure lies elsehere... -- catch that drift.)

I like Big Love because YES human relationships are complex and miserable. However, why do I feel constantly under attack for insisting they don't have to be miserable? That everyone CAN be happy. That we can like each other again and make great things happen. Yes, we need to figure out how this thing we call civilization works. YES we need people who can communicate those stories we aren't talking about and I DON'T just mean the... well... horribly awkward hate and tough love shit white people expect from each other... we can all change that, know what that represents and

Ok, that little white girl just scared the shit out of me.

Late night thousand thoughts a minute thoughts

2006-03-14T04:22:00.000-08:00

drive-by:

I have a cd called African Rhythms. I am unclear how this works here... did these white guys play with the Aka Pymies? Did they copy their music and "make it their own?" Did they record these people and then forgot... A nasty thing my mind. But it isn't just this... you don't want to look at porn with me sometimes. You'd be amazed the kinds of issues I see popping up in porn... that go largely unexamined.

One day, I would like to write a paper about porn and how it passes on it's own personal signature in the construction of the white supremacist partiarchal capitalist machine (thanks bell).

My horoscope from Doublesign.com says things like:

Rabbit: "An ideal day to make friendship ties which will resist the test of time."

When all I wanna do is cut people from my life... maybe not permanently, but to allow myself to "grow" out of people and not be afraid of that so new people can be brought forward.

Libra: "Think to look for the company of people who share your interests as well as your ideal."

That's a motherfucker right there. I can find few people with my interests and no one with my ideal. *sighs* I wonder if it is because I don't make my ideal clear enough. But you know, even I am coming to realize it.

Life is not comfortable for those with nervous, sensitive temperments... especially when I start to wonder if I can ever communicate my ideal to another person, much less get paid for even fumbling around, blindly, looking for it.

God, tho, I want to know people who have my ideal.

I'm really disappointed with everything right now, no matter how good or not good. Regardless, I recognize it as a moment to turn inward just a bit so I am working on me instead of the world.

I will never fully understand how some people can be in a room with other people and not speak. I like to talk. I like conversation with people who can be open without feeling they are giving something away that will cost them later -- I haven't had one of those kinds of conversations in years. I don't understand why people stifle how they can feel -- I don't understand when *I* do it. That means I REALLY hate it when YOU do it.

My mom wishes me to be better than her -- that's what she said before I started screaming at her. (Guess you can't be any more unlike your mother if you don't mind and kinda prefer a good screaming and yelling thing -- although the loudness and force of your voice scares your poor mom shitless... I'll call her again this week just to check in -- don't nag, Constant, don't nag.

Lux is asleep on top of the computer, lulled by the roll of my keying, I guess. More than likely, Josalyn is sleeping beside Ryan in my space beside him. I think I am going to finish watching _Oz_ on On Demand... I like watching the story between Tobias and Keller.

But I would be str8 lying if I didn't tell you watching Kenny's torso and around his sexy little hips ain't about to make me bust a nut. (*winks* Always with an edge of crude...) Also, aren't the Muslim's just the sexiest brothas in Oz? GotDAYUM!

Sign.
Me.
UP!

(Err, just kidding.)

... I am jeopardizing my own project of going all Virgo Full Moon up on this place.... (with an eclipse, too...) by not being able to sleep because I am allowing myself writing.

*stretches*

Night folks.

Dawns

2006-03-14T03:07:00.000-08:00

on me that my life would be SO much better if, somehow, I could constantly feel the love in overt ways.

I love a million people
I am loved by a million people
and yet, I don't feel the love
(especially not on a continual basis).

I wonder, how many lives could be so much better
if
somehow
they could constantly "feel the love."

... *thinks*

Whattheworldneedsnowandotherthings...

Transiting Moon in Virgo (4th) square Natal Neptune in Sagittarus : visible drafting

2006-03-13T22:37:00.000-08:00

In a very obvious manner, I have been tracking my Lunar Returns. A Lunar Return is when the transisting moon forms an exact 0 degree conjunction with your natal moon. ~~My natal moon is at 0 degrees Gemini.~~ With a natal moon at 0 degrees Gemini, I realized I had to pay
attention to the moon in order to be aware when it was my "time of the
month."

This all started when I realized... I certainly did have "times of the month." Although I appropriate the language, I do mean a time where I feel a disturbance in my normally everyday existance. That was when I started to pay attention to the moon.

You see, when I lived in Tucson, AZ, I worked as a "courtesy officer." Call it the goody-two shoes within me set out into the world to maintain order, and then forgetting who I was dealing with. (... another story for another time...) -- moving...

~~I had always paid attention to the moon.~~ Working as a night courtesy officer in Tucson, AZ allowed me to sit in regular audience of the stages of the moon. Tucson has an ordinance that maintains as much natural darkness as a city like it can. Because the sky is generally cloudless, except during monsoon season, one can watch the moon nakely wax and wane in the sky. My obsession with moon-watching gave forth to research practices. For example, once I looked up the moon phrases and while making my rounds, I would try to notice the moon on a purely sensate level. If you have ever been outside during the Harvest Moon (which is a low moon, sitting low to the ground... in Tucson, you could see the earth beneath your feet. I would find myself straining to see people who looked like me in their fields, backs bent, getting in the harvest. I thought, how different my life is and then understood, just as immediately, the ways in which I *don't* have it better. Today, I find I walk around feeling too sensitive and hurt and yet, those are not the kinds of things you are supposed to talk about. This reminds me of one of my favorite moments in Tucson: I went with Cathy Busha to see Vagina Monologues back in '01 (maybe '02?). Anyway, Cathy and I gender deviate in a very similar fashion and, since I was going out with a stud, I decided to put on my favorite skirt for the occassion -- everyone should own at least one... and if you are in Seattle, I need help shopping, my ass is bigger than all the ones I have! -- ANYWAY, what I found interesting was seeing the only other B/black people in that audience in Tucson. A hopelessly beautiful sista and her boyfriend -- or just date... or just guy with her -- their relationship doesn't matter. The relationship that matters here is the sista having to elbow the dude with her who started whining about "what if everyone sees HIM and think I'M like that..."

My obsession with moon-watching gave forth to creative research investigative projects. For example, once I looked up the moon's phrases. While making my rounds, I took notice of the moon and tried to figure out the different logics to the different names.

I had grace. I smiled, knowing, the only people who think like that are people who ARE like this. Who is this? Everybody. *winks*), you'd see the immediate difference between it and the Hunter's Moon that hangs high in the sky like a spider waiting for something to shake its web is as apparent as the joy of seeing noctural desert creatures working out their games of survival in the Sonora desert. l~~ike knowing and understanding the phases of the moon passed down~~ ~~(... just struggling to divorce myself from the shit of knowing another people's history that demonstrates the colonialization/civilisation game the European nations were caught in).~~ ~~I found myself checking out the~~

Ah... all together now:

Working as a night courtesy officer in Tucson, AZ allowed me to sit in regular audience to the phrases of the moon and a love of full moon's in general. Tucson has an ordinance that maintains as much natural darkness as a city like it can. Because the sky is generally cloudless, except during monsoon season, one can watch the moon nakely wax and wane in the sky. My obsession with moon-watching gave forth to research practices. For example, once I looked up the moon's phrases. While making my rounds, I took notice of the moon and tried to figure out the different logics to the different names. A Harvest moon, for example really *does* lean low to the ground. In Tucson, during the cooler summer nights, while looking for would-be criminals, I found joy in watching noctural desert creatures working out their games of survival in the Sonora desert. However, the Hunter's Moon hangs high in the sky like a spider waiting for some "thing" to shake its web.

Eventually, I came to notice that "time" of the month (you know... I have heard that males have "periods" every 20 minutes. I think it was on a movie I saw when I was a kid and agreed with it so thoroughly it became a kind of scientific fact. Being a Pomo tran n yfaggotmisandrist is *hard* work! -- in the idea of creating gender/sex mythologies... and perhaps another essay tomorrow -- taken with more seriousness.... anyway) occured when the transiting moon crossed over my natal 12th house Chiron in Taurus. As aways, in the middle of intellectualizing my inner wounds, my emotions kicked in as the transiting moon moved over my natal moon. was in Gemini, returning to my natal moon home in the 12th house -- which means I started to feel them as if they were happening in present time ~~(something else in my chart is activated... and it's too hard to discuss astrology in any way that makes any kind of sane or rational sense... any way....).~~ Then, I *had* to be alone. Then, I needed darkness to sit and loosen myself from what became my life, shed and let go of all the hatred and shit that accumulated. I did this in Tucson religiously, living as close to the moon as I did, hating that place as much as I did (I have an actual and active hate of new moons....) -- we wouldn't have left there without that kind of focus. Living in Seattle again, I miss communing with the moon this way. I haven't figured out a relationship with the land here. As usual, I hate it when I get stuck between the now and then... don't you?

All together now:

Eventually, I came to notice that my "time" of the month occured first when the transiting moon crossed over my natal 12th house Chiron in Taurus. Then, in the middle of healing my inner wounds through intense intellectualizing, my emotions kick in just as the transiting moon moved over my natal moon in Gemini -- which means I started to feel my inner wounds as if they were happening in present time. I hate it when I get stuck between the then and now... don't you?

Anyway, since learning about Lunar Returns, I decided to attempt living within my emotions, constantly... which, I fear, is a horribly Piscean way to behave. Today, the transiting moon is in Virgo, moving conjunct my natal Virgoan Venus.

I feel really powerful and strong... I remember this feeling.

~~This is the surly, domme energy. In the Fourth house, this is the dark side of nurture.~~

The submissive I had broke it off -- in essence... wait, he was never submissive. Why do I have a knack for bringing out all that is "Uh-uh!" in people? I make people resistant to me and anything I might say or think and distrust meets my ever word because they are afraid... they have no idea what I am seeing, what I am doing, how I am moving, how I am living, whether I am actually living or not because the idea of bending Ryan over my knee and smacking his butt red is really appealing to me. However, being a Taurus, he is going to be skittish and on guard, watchful. Even Yami, who is a Taurus, seems to fear for her autonomy. I don't want to govern them... merely, I want to be around people who like to live in the world of the mind. *sniffles* I am so sad. Where can I find these people in real life? *whine*

*sigh*

Quentin Ergane

Addiction to Saturday, February 18, 2006

2006-03-09T00:39:00.000-08:00

Everyone has the equal opprotunity of being called or thought of as a "bitch" by me... it only bothers me when that someone is a female or/and woman because I am aware of how, at that moment, I am using a tool of patriarchy even if I don't consider myself a male or/an man (some third option....) and thus I am complicit with and perpetuating sexism.