Does My Hair Make My Ass Look Big?

Weight: 155 / BMI: 26% / Height: 5'6" / Target Weight: 137-145

This is what the internet tells me as I click through site after site of weigh loss advice.
Oh, there is no lack of information on the web for how to get your skinny on.
The problem, no one is getting skinnier by sitting on their ass at the keyboard.
Some people want to get slimmer, some people want to gain weight, and a very few and select special people love their body just the way it is.
That's right, they are the special ones.
Realistically, I know there isn't any reason for me to lose weight except for my own desire to get in shape and trim up or whatever my newest body ambition turns out to be.
At this point, I am relatively comfortable with my body.
80% comfortable. That's a pretty good number.

But I believe most women aren't happy with their body (I'll not be sexist and say that a majority of men aren't satisfied as well). But this is about women in particular. At one time or another most every woman with which I've had a conversation talks about their weight. Some in a very direct way, "Oh, I've gotten fat since...(insert minor traumatic or life changing experience here)" or "I've lost so much weight since...(insert minor traumatic or life changing experience here)." Some ladies go about it in a very round-about way, "I've stopped eating wheat and sugar, and drinking. And I feel great!" (An apology for my composite characterization of a few select friends). Some in a very understated way, "I just don't feel like myself anymore." I like to think I avoid conversations about weight with my people because it's a conversation that has become as casual as, "How's the weather out there." It's a conversation that doesn't necessarily need to happen. I really want to know about you as a person, not the size of your ass or your muffin top.

So, I try (and I emphasize try) to avoid the weight conversation because I think we women obsess and ultimately damage our confidence and self-esteem when we talk about our weight. There are far too many people in the world with eating disorders that are so consuming they become life threatening. Once upon a time (earlier this year), I teetered on the edge of Bulimia when I found myself eating so much my stomach would ache - so I would purge afterward and found it was the best possible solution to ease the bloating. For those of you who haven't engaged in repeititve self-induced puking, I am here to tell you that after a while of forcing yourself to puke, it gets real easy to do it over again despite the fact that you consider the acidity taking the enamel right off your teeth and a myriad of other health issues associated with the process as you tickle the back of your throat and proceed to fill up the porcelain bowl.
I'm beyond this stint at this point in my life, likely because these days I am happier.

Anyway, I am far less concerned with the weight of other people than I am my own. The women in my family, at least the generation ahead of me, are always on diets and because of this I am always worried my ass is going to get big and I will have no control over it. About once a week I say to myself, "I want to start running now that I've quit smoking (almost 5 months now)," usually after I eat dinner and desert and watch The Biggest Loser. I say to myself, "If only I had a trainer like Jillian to yell at me, or a treadmill in my living room, or the ability to put my laptop in the book holder of the elliptical machine at the gym, or if I had better shoes, or an Ipod holder, and some Mace, and if the sun didn't go down so early, then I would run."

Boy... Turns out it takes a lot for me to get my ass up and exercise.

This is what I've found in my life-long search for the right exercise program:

1. I hate: Yoga (what kind of liberal hates Yoga: the new-age spiritual exercise of choice).
2. I can run but it takes a while to do a mile without stopping. When I finally reach that goal I go back to letting my imagination run instead of my feet.
3. The pool is the best place for me to exercise and meditate at once. I don't care that my ass looks bigger in a bathing suit. The problem: it does nothing for the slimming of my ass-tree-trunk-kankle-legs.
   
4. I have to do the elliptical in the student rec. center - usually within eye-shot of a student who is gliding away, all 105 lbs of them, as I push buttons frantically trying to figure out how to start a program.
   

Now there are other methods for losing weight that don't involve exercise and this is what I've learned from those excursions:

1. Meth or any form of amphetamine is a quick way to drop the pounds. But like the commercials depict, you will pick every pore on your body, be gross, have awesome (in the not so awesome sense) Kate Moss like black circles under your eyes, and your new found community will likely take more away from you than your weight.
2. Break ups and divorces. Nothing is better for my figure than heartache, loneliness, and a general dislike of myself. I lose my appetite, drink more, stay up late, and go out too often, all in effort to keep myself busy and all the while the deep pit in my stomach helps me to get my skinny on.
   
3. I love dancing. Throughout my life, my commitment to shaking my ass on the dance floor has been in flux. I spent my late teens at the underage night club and various all night Raves. My early twenties in the bars and a few clubs, my mid-twenties at queer nights and then came my late twenties and thirties - and I lost all my enthusiasm for second-hand smoke and hangovers.
   

With all this in mind, I believe the time has come for me to get in shape again. I am going to fore go all the methods of weight loss that don't involve exercise and try to go to the gym and do it the hard way. But I would like to make a couple of suggestions to the community at large in order to help us all be a little more in shape and a little less concerned with our bodies.

1. Can we bring the portion sizes down a tid-bit. Christ people, no one needs to eat that much.
   
2. I wanna see more "fat" girls in advertisements. You know, women that reflect my own body type so I can be reminded that I'm not, god forbid (cyber-sarcasm here), a "big girl" (all 5'6" / 155 lbs of me - a whole twenty pounds heavier than I was in Jr. High School (and last year for a few weeks, but lets not go there again)).
3. And can we make exercise "fun" and cool again? For instance, Jazzercise sounds like so much fun - but no one has been brave enough to resurrect this lost exercise program of the 80s. Boy, it's really too bad. I have my leotard ready and everything. Besides, when the current fad passes, it will be a great way to put those leg warmers to good use.

For now, I am going to put my laptop to rest and shut off the light and hope that tomorrow I get up in time to go to school, change, and with my Ipod recharged and my tennis shoes in hand, and my fingers fumbling with the freaking buttons on the elliptical machine, get a freaking workout.

Gay Purgatory

Mr. Williamson, my high school biology teacher, made his position on homosexuality clear. He posted "Yes on Measure 9" propaganda all over his desk: bumper stickers, fliers, signs, etc. He wore a button on his suspenders, which cuddled the sides of his round belly, everyday. He turned on Rush Limbaugh and let him rattle away his conservative values while we worked away at our labs three days a week.

I sat at a table with four people who I remember very distinctly: three who, although they couldn't yet vote, were against Measure 9 (including myself), and one who was for it. I don't know if my table mates knew my mothers were gay and had been together, by that time, nearly 13 years. I certainly didn't out us. Maybe the mask I'd put on for the world was so affixed that not even I wanted to admit to myself that my parents were gay.

I'm not a unicorn. There are kids all over this world; biological, adopted, fostered, or otherwise; who have parents, aunties, uncles, cousins, or grandparents who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transexual, transgendered, or queer. And they're not going away. And they will remain both out and faceless. The will not be heard from, they may not be asked or they may not speak out. The will need to be protected and they will need to be consoled. They will not understand and they will understand very clearly what the consequences of hate has upon their families.

I was once one of those kids. Now, I am one of those adults who endured a lifetime barrage of anti-gay legislation. There have been many in my time: Measure 8, Measure 36, Measure 13, Prop 8, and so many more I can't recall, and so many more to come.

Today, with the passage of California's Prop. 8, I can't help but consider so many things. To a degree, I am still closeted, blog and all. I am in Idaho and although my peers here are my allies, I am still afraid and careful of how much I am visible. How much can I be visible in the Idaho collegiate system? How can I be an advocate for my students who are in the process of developing their own identity? How can I be an activist in this community and be safe? How safe can I be when my partner is in town for a visit?

I am in gay purgatory, and have always been. Somewhere between being out but not being identifiable. Pass me on the street and you would never know I had gay parents or that I myself, identify as queer. And although I've sat before rooms full of people at city hall, at conferences, in colleges, and community meetings, I am still hesitant to engage people in conversations about gay rights. I know people sit at their desks reading the news about protests in California and roll their eyes? "Well, the people have spoken and you have to accept that." I've heard the apathy from our own community, "Oh well, it's been this way for a long time." I know both of these responses because I've responded the same.

Yes. It's been this way for a long time. Ballot measure comes up, gay rights come into question, and measure passes. We are used to defeat and elated by scraps of separate-but-not-equal rights we get.

Rights? These are the rights I have: I have the right to look over my shoulders in public, before I give my partner a good-bye kiss on the lips. I have the right to consider my vacation destinations because my partner and I could be killed in state parks while camping, in small towns as we leave the bar, on hiking trails, in our own town, and in foreign nations across the globe. I have the right to hide my identity from my landlords for fear that my relationship will have my lose my housing. I have the right to hesitantly hold hands in public. I have the right to determine what actions may cause me and my partner to be gay bashed. I have the right to fear small towns and rural communities. I have the right to be unionized or partnered in counties or states but as soon as I cross the state-line, lose that recognition. I have the right to, god forbid something happens while we are together, be separated from my partner in an emergency room because we are not family.

I am tired. I am sad. And I am fucking angry.

The View From Here.

When I woke up a half hour ago, my eyes were dry from the pumpkin beer I shared with friends last night. They were dry from staying up too late trying to beat one of my peers in a game of Wordtwister on Facebook. My eyes were dry because, although it rained last night, I now live in the Inland Northwest where we've seen a deliciously crisp and dry run of fall days. It's the season of dark, both in the morning and night.

I didn't want to get up. My eyes could not get wet. I blinked. And blinked.

My warm and soft little wiener dog curled up next to my hand and I rubbed her belly. My phone went off and my girlfriend sent a text message from Portland: Wish you were here.
Me too. I replied.

NPR was blaring from my bedside (an unreasonable volume for 6 AM) and Lakshmi Singh was saying People are lined up in Carson, Nevada where the polls have just opened.

It's a big day. I thought to myself.
And in an instant I was overcome with emotion and for just a second my bleeding liberal heart took a few deep pumps in my chest and I wept.

I know better than to put a moment of tears or crying into my writing. It's an action that needs to be written with a delicate hand (or typing since this is 2008). But since this is a blog and well, I don't filter and revise much here, I am going to tell you how it is and how it happens.

It was maybe three tears. Just three.

From 2001 to 2006, I fought the good fight. I was in the streets the day Bush decided to drop bombs on Afghanistan and Iraq with my best friend. We stayed in the streets until night fell. We blocked the freeways to demonstrate our need to stop our dependence on foreign oil. I sat in on anarcho-feminist meetings with friends and other revolutionary minded individuals and we looked at ways to serve disadvantaged populations in Portland. I worked in the Women's Resource Center with a group of women and we served women and men who were sexually assaulted, needed housing, support, education, supplies, food, resources of all kinds. We fought oppression in all forms. We called each other out on our shit. We had discussions about queer identity and the role of feminism in just about anything you can imagine. We educated. I spoke to people about being raised by lesbian mothers and how anti-gay legislation effected our household and my mind. I was out and fighting against Measure 36, the Oregon Constitutional Amendment to Ban Same-sex Marriage. I was anti-Bush and truly wanted Dennis Kucinnich in office ( a long shot) but voted for Kerry anyway. I sat before the television that night and watched as Bush, again, took office.

How could it be? I thought. All this work. All these people. This war. How could this happen?
And then I watched Oregon vote for the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and I couldn't believe my ears, my eyes. My state. My blue state. My liberal enclave on the West coast. Voted no for families like mine. For relationships like mine. For equality.

And I quit a certain kind of fighting that I had been doing for so long. I stopped being involved with politics and started talking to people and having conversations. I lost my faith in democracy. I still don't believe a true democracy exists here and I'm not sure it ever has or will. There is too little we, the American people, know.
So when the hype for this election started some 2 years ago, my enthusiasm was already lost. My will to fight, the get excited, to be involved dissolved with my state's, my nation's, inability to include me and my family (given and chosen) as an equal member or this society. I had it.

I felt a moment of exhilaration when I put my ballot in the mail and sent it back to Oregon.
And this morning, I felt another moment when I realized that no matter who is elected today, as cliche and repetitious as this is, history will be made.
And this is when my eyes got wet.
Provided that Obama (likely) takes office, we will have breached the rein of white-supremacy in our highest office. And if Obama takes office I believe I will feel a collective sigh come like a wave across the oceans, from the furthest reaches of the globe. To me, having Obama elected is asking the world to give Americans another chance. We don't want to be stereotyped as gluttonous consumers of the world resources, disregarding of our pacts with allies, our-way-or-the-highway war mongers.

We want a chance to show you another side of the American people.

And I get to be a part of it. My vote (hopefully) counts. That bottle of Champagne in my fridge might finally be opened because there may be a real reason to crack it. I might go dance in the streets of Moscow in the company of my friends and professor and students here in Idaho. I may...

But because I've been excited before, because I had hope and dreams, because I fought with all my intellectual strength and stood on my feet through the night and stood up against the police blockades and sat in meetings and protest Bush and worked hard for my community and STILL I was denied and STILL I watched my community both small and wide, denied. Still there is a chance I will, we will, be denied again.

And so, I put on my work clothes. I sit at my kitchen table with my laptop. I start writing my paper that is due at noon and I look out the window and see that although the world could change, the view may be the same.

Or the view could change and the world will never be the same.

I Get Around.

The temperature for tonight is supposed to dip to just below freezing. 31 degrees to be exact. I'm neither excited nor disappointed by this. At some point, I am going to have to learn to love the cold crisp weather of the inland northwest. Might as well start right away. Two days ago, it was damn near ninety and today, I'm not sure it got over fifty-five. I turned on my thermostat for the first time this morning. When I woke up it said it was a bullshit-nineteen-degrees in my house. I started pressing buttons. The highest my thermostat will reach is thirty. On came the fans and out came warm air. Everyone was excited - even Nugget crawled out from under her comforter and napped in the open. I walked around in my underwear a while and before I left, turned the heat back off. Oh by the way, I did put on pants before I left.

I knew I would get home after dark so I on my way out of the house this morning, I put on a pair of gloves, a wind/water proof coat and my beenie. Thankfully. It was damn cold coming home on my bike (with my new headlight and rear flasher) at eight pm. I gained a little warmth peddling up that godforsaken 3rd Street hill. No, there is really no way around it. It reminds me of trying to get from downtown into NE Portland by bike. Eventually, you have to go up a hill. The choices are the steep ass quick incline (NE. 15 th Avenue for example) or the slow graduated incline (N. Vancouver). It's much quicker just to put it into gear and peddle up the steep hill. Either way, your ass cheeks are going to hurt. Either way, every time a car passes I am going to say to myself "If I only had a car. If I only had a car."

I had a car for a while, you might remember it: The Chevy Corsica. My mother gave me the car to drive because she didn't feel safe having me come home to North Portland at midnight from swing shifts at the Y. It broke down at will and preferred to stall mid-intersection. One time, the car stalled near Lloyd Center mall in an on-street parking spot. My friend Tessa and I couldn't get the damn thing to start no matter what we did. Out of frustration or pure absurdity, we took turns jumping into the air and landing our nice plump asses onto the hood. We both did this a couple of times until a nice round dent appeared. I called my mom who said to me, "Just try to turn it over after in a while. Give it sometime, I bet you it will start." One of us got back into the car and low and behold, it started.

That car was a lady getter - let me tell ya - not like I was out cruisin' for chicks or anything. The girls (my sisters) had plastered stickers on the back windows. Inside, it had a pleasant smell of mildew, cigarettes, gas, and stale soda. Mildew from the rusty-rotted floor boards, cigarettes from - well - what was left from Jeff and what I occasionally contributed, gas from a can that tipped over in the trunk, and stale soda from the bums I believed to sleep in my car at night because I left the fucking thing unlocked 24-7. What exactly is the use of locking your car in a neighborhood where your loose (uninstalled) 1989 Panasonic CD Player (which is propped up on two red fluffy dice) gets stolen. Come on now, can a crack-head get enough money for a rock from a stereo like that? I'm not so sure.

Anyways, when I am peddling up that hill, I would do just about anything for a car. I don't ride my bike because it's ecologically more sound. I don't ride my bike because it saves me money - although, that is a perk. I don't even ride my bike to "put the fun between my legs". I ride my bike because it gets me around this small town in a jiffy and it's the fastest transportation I have. It is not, however, my favorite.

You know I prefer my roller skates but since moving to Moscow, I've resisted being 'the weird girl on roller skates'. This is totally acceptable in North Portland where you are apt to see far weirder shit such as the guy who is posted on the corner of MLK and Killingsworth who wears what? A life-jacket. On rainy days he actually latches the front clasps. On sunny days they stay open. Anyway, a few days ago, I gave into the fact that I am that freaky-girl on roller skates and I got out the Reidells (and plugged myself into my Ipod) and tended to my chores on eight wheels: I took Nugget to the vet and back, and I skated to school to what? Pick up my bike. This was probably about 5 miles worth of skating. By the time evening rolled around I had developed a thumb-sized blood blister on each of my feet. I had to cancel my fun for both Saturday and Sunday night because I was hobbling around like a old man with gout (and because I had a hang-over from Friday night, let's just be honest).

The problem with roller skating is that I have to control my urge to jam-out (not with my clam out, thank you). Because I started roller skating at the age of eleven, I have 1) a catalogue of bad eighties music that 2) makes me want to dance on my roller skates, preferably in sync with anyone who will roller skate with me (but preferably, my best friend who has done such a thing with me since I was eleven). Unfortunately, real like isn't an Ipod commercial and I am not so uninhibited to allow myself to dance on my roller skates like no one is watching. No. I can't do it. When was the last time you saw someone jammin' out on a corner - just dancing - to the music in their headphones (that's so eighties) or if your more contemporary, a MP3 player of some sort? What did you think? You know what you did? You smiled and thought to yourself - Ha! What a nut! (and then you secretly thought: I wish I could do that). Well, me too. I wish I could do that and sometimes I do, albeit in short bursts between main streets in back neighborhoods in the middle of the day when everyone is at work and I have a hat on.

The more pressing problem is this: roller skates are expensive and I it's time to replace mine. They were never mine to begin with. I bought them from my best friend and former synchronized-dance-skating-buddy for a mere fifty bucks when I moved to Seattle. They are exactly one size to small for me, have no boot lining, and no stoppers. They have been in this condition since 2000 and I have still used them to get around, to run the dog, to go skating at actual skating rinks and now, I cannot handle it any longer, I need comfort. I am old. Late into last night I started pricing skates and this is what I found. I new set up, the kind that I want, will cost me around $300. You know I am serious about skating when I consider that a pretty good deal.

So I scrapped buying skates for now and I am going to rely on my trusty Target bought Schwinn "Built for Women" bike (that was actually a gift from dear Sharla - Thank you love). It's a nice sturdy ride with a nice cushiony seat for my nice cushioned tush. I have a stolen milk crate strapped on the back which I often put more than the recommended maximum of fifteen pounds (I'm a grad student and a teacher for fuck-sakes). It carries my books, my Mac, my lunch, my water bottle (now if I could only figure out how to put Nugget in it). It has chunky mountain bike type wheels which I think will fare better when it starts to snow out here on the Palouse and it has a low bar - like 'women's' bikes have - so I can wear a skirt on sunny fall days and giggle at the silliness of riding down hill while not trying to expose your fundies.

Seems there are many different ways to get around, some more practical than others, some more fun, some more comfortable. Turns out you can get around without actually owning a car. Turns out cars are the warmer lot of transportation options and I have to say, I am a sucker for comfort.

But comfort will come when I retire... Oh wait, I'm going to be a teacher, who am I kidding.

For now, or until I get enough money for new skates, or until I get enough money for a car or one is given to me, or until I get a different kind of quad (the motorized-jazzy kind), I'll peddle my bike into the cold morning and be thankful I am able-bodied enough to do so, think of the trees I am saving and the cleaner air everyone is breathing one less car is on the road, and I'll curse the assholes who drive by me smiling with their heater running and their windows rolled up, rockin' out to the best of the eighties - something warm and superficially island sounding like Kokomo - on their way to the empty lot across town where they will do cookies in the fresh powder of winter, spewing a freshly unleashed cloud of fossil fuels back into my face reminding me that I ride because, I have to.

A bump in time...

I can't get my mind of my left breast - precisely, my left nipple. I can't tell if I imagining that occasional sharp pain or if I have put a tiny bump of fiction there, born of my little, but certainly not irrational fear. Somewhere in the textbooks of my seven year college stint I read that lesbians are more prone to breast cancer than heterosexual women - maybe due to the fact that we don't often use our breasts for milk delivery. I'm not sure. Ask the "God Hates Fags" crew and I am sure that lesbians are being punished and therefore, of course, breast cancer. I'm not going to indulge myself in the reasons why I might maybe be feeling a tinge of pain now and again. All I know is this, at my annual exam during a chatty moment between my doctor and I about the many ways to feel your breast for lumps, she finds something, brings it to my attention by pulling my index finger over it a few times, has the medical student take a feel for herself and in a very conversational tone tells me, "Check it out in a few weeks, after your period, if it's still there then call me, but don't lose any sleep over it."

Frankly, I'm not one to lose much sleep over anything except for an evening where I get caught up with youtube.com, unintentionally surfing videos of 12 year-old boys lip singing R&B with their shirts off. No, I swear, it's unintentional. But it's hard not to imagine the implications of a lump in you own breast especially in the wake of another family member's battle with the same beast. I'm not scared but I'm thinking about it with the loose ends of my mind - between the nonfiction stories of my peers and the lesson planning for my freshman class - there lingers a brevity of fear, a pictorial of myself in a variety of film-like scenes: crying in the shower, a unilateral scar across my chest, my partner's hand in mine, my hands roaming across my body, appointment upon appointment out on the Palouse, a sharp pin through my nipple.

The mind can go many places in it's exploration in managing distress and in search for meaning.  The fear of death is alight in the minds of many in my family, so it comes as no surprise to me that my own mortality came into question. The reverberations of age and illness permeate all the generational lines: my uncle passed of melanoma, my grandfather's age is taking him, my parents are aging and displaying signs of less vitality than I've known before, and I am at the age where invisibility is diminished by all these things. We can never be sure that we will survive, indefinitely, to see our retirement and certainly for my generation, a social security payment. And when I consider the monetary implications of a breast cancer diagnosis, I realize I don't come from money - no one in my family is rolling in it either - I am a student on a very minimal student health insurance plan with a clinic that doesn't do much more than treat you for the clap or a cough. Anything else is shipped out to an outside provider, someone you don't know who gets to touch your business, whether its Northern or Southern, and all you can do is hope that you like the doctor choices you get.

Which leads me back to existence in itself, you don't really get a lot of choices when it comes to biology or genetics (and if your on the "God Hates Fags" team - then you don't get a choice in what kind of punishment you receive for your sins). If there is a God, I don't think he's on their team. If there is a Goddess, I don't think she would deliver pain to our breasts. If there was a broader pantheon of great Spirits, my hope would be they'd reach a consensus: lets not inflict the human race with cancer - let alone put it in their pleasure places (not to mention mass genocides, war, poverty, etc.).

It's going to be rather hard to keep my fingers off my breast - as if I could magically press into this new found lump and like a zit, the source of the problem would come squirting out. But I am going to keep my hands off it until my next period, until a week after my next menstruation when my doctor says, "It could disappear." But I feel my chest on a regular basis and honestly, I've felt this before. I recall lying in bed a few years back doing my semi-monthly breasts exam, at the house that sat on top of I5. As I felt it up and down, I was wondering if the exhaust fumes from the freeway were as caustic as the log-like power lines they string above poor neighborhoods and reservations. And then I found it, square in the middle of my nipple and I thought to myself, Cystic breasts, and moved on. Nothing to be worried about. I went and felt it again. Round, isn't it. Not very hard. Hmmm... I'm tired. And with that, I was off to dreamland. Not losing any sleep. Nope. None at all.

And such is the case today. I am going to put my trust in my doc and do what she tells me. I will save my worries for when they are warranted. (And if you are my family or friends, do me a favor and do the same). There are better things to attend to: cooking dinner, spending time with friends, having a drink, loving your family or like me, you could be running off to teach freshman the art of writing the essay.  

Mosow and It's People.

Moving into Moscow has been quite an experience. Although I've only been here a little over a week, I feel as if I have been here for long time. Only now and then do I feel the awkwardness of the newcomer. Particularly when I am interacting with strangers here in this strange town. Morrison had it right, "people are strange when you're a stranger."
Yesterday morning, I was waiting at the shuttle stop for the Moscow Valley Transit free shuttle service, dressed up a bit for my first day of teaching, sweating in my button up blouse at the thought of standing before a room full of freshman, reading a novel for my nonfiction workshop class and catching a back draft of warm air off the wheaty hills. It was the first time in months that I dabbed a little bit of essential oil on my neck and wrists and the smell seemed overwhelming even though it was very faint. As I'm plowing through a memoir of childhood lived in Idaho, The Enders Hotel by Brandon Schrand (Coordinator of my program at UI) and waiting for my ride, this obnoxious yellow-jacket gets and starts taking interest in the book, or maybe it was my wrists, as if I was a freshly cracked cardboard bowl of fried chicken.
So I start doing my discrete 'leave me alone dance' which entails walking forward a few steps and moving my hands around while kindly asking the yellow-jacket to "Go find a flower or something." I have to do this trot up and down the gravel sidewalk a few times before the bee decides to go find some Peonies somewhere. Of course, I am afraid he has landed in the nest of hair on my head or in my vest so I am still paying close attention to the space around me and my clothes. So focused on being sure the bee is gone, that I don't notice a car has pulled up and stopped at the stop sign with the window rolled down.
"You ok?" the guy asks.
I am a bit startled because, in all honesty, I don't think that I am flailing over the yellow-jacket. Nothing that looks out of the ordinary as far as I am concerned but here is this guy, who seems to intuitively know that I am a bit distressed. I tell him it was a bee and he goes about his day.
Ok. Now that's just sweet. So onto today...
I had to stop into the local eye glass shop to get new pads put on my glasses. So, I park my bike outside the window, left unlocked with my bag in my basket and walk inside. The lady working has a slight limp and is obviously not getting around as well as she might like. I have class in fifteen minutes but am patient, happy to have a nice day to ride my bike to school. She takes care of everything efficiently, perfectly, charges me a few bucks for a new case and sends me on my way with a little friendly conversation and welcome to the city.
As I walk out the door, a woman passes by me and says "Great glasses! And a beautiful woman to go with them." Smiling, she keeps walking and says something to every person she passes on her way down the block. She's not crazy, no, she's happy actually. Happy in the way that Portland people used to be.
I'm not baggin' on the Portland folk because 99% of you reading this are likely of the Portland breed (as I am). But the whole reason I came running back from Seattle (besides Sept. 11th interrupting my sabbatical) was due to the friendly nature of the Portland horde. Seriously, what I loved (past tense) about Portland was the way people recognized each other. "Hello" or "Nice shirt!" or "I like your hair" or even something as impersonal as "Good day for a walk!" This is the whole reason I returned (and to go to school). And here I am, over 300 miles from Portland and I have found it again. A city that recognizes each other and I love it!
Is friendliness lost with the growth of a city? I'm curious. Or is it just the kind of community that a city creates? Maybe a kind of persona that a group of people collectively decide to embody? Whatever it is, I am grateful to be a part of this community. I feel as if all the doors opened on the journey to where I am and so far, nothing has indicated this decision wasn't the right one.

Moscow, Moscow, Moscow...

I've arrived...

Since showing up in Moscow with my U-haul trailer packed full of accumulated odds and ends, I've experienced the great hospitality of the local folk. Betty, my sweet overtly religious piano instructing neighbor, showed up on my doorstep Saturday in 100 degree heat with a plate of veggies. "I would've baked cookies" she said "but, its just too hot, so welcome to the neighborhood. Here's some veggies from the farmers market."
Sweet huh? I had just come back from the farmer's market myself. Nugget and I tromped down there in the heat of the morning and got there just before closing. I scurried over to buy a few tomatoes and the guy behind the counter said to me, "Grab as much as you can for a dollar. It's gotta go." So there I was fiendishly filling this box with a bunch of produce: Cantaloupe, blueberries, cucumbers, zucchinis, squash, and tomatoes. "Five bucks." he said when I finished. The thing was, I had to lug that full box all the way back home, which entails going up one very steep hill. Since I have no upper arm strength I balanced that damn box on my head the whole way. About a mile and a half. I thought about the women in the Sahara who carry water on their heads or backs for many more miles regularly. Although I felt like the town weirdo with that box on my head, it made me consider why us Americans don't carry more on our heads. Is it a pride thing. Or am I just behind the times and don't have my rolling-cart.
Anyway, my landlords and next door neighbors on the other side are quite the opposite of Betty but just as friendly. They have loaned me their bike for the week so I can get to and from campus until I get my own ride. They invited me over for ice cream on one of these oh so exhausting days. They are dropping off a box of my things at Goodwill today and they have sent me links to god-knows-how-many resources in town. From local veterinarians to the Lentil Festival (happening this week), I've got plenty of local digs to check out.
And this week, I am in Comp. Camp with about twenty other TA's. We are essentially learning how to deal with incoming freshman. Now, I've taught women transitioning out of prison classes on Life Skills, Communication, Healthy Relationships, and Self Identity. But I am terrified of teaching incoming freshman. How does an instructor contend with the age of IPODs and Myspace?

Minam Mayhem

Life in Minam is not for the faint of heart...

Mothra and I have come to terms with each other. 'Round these parts, the evening light fluttering critter that I'm known to run screaming from, comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. There's no fear of moths in the canyon because I am far out numbered. In order to cope with the magnitude of the moth infestation, I ask myself "What Would Grandma Wilma Do?" (WWGWD?). This is a running joke in the family but good in times of question. So, I grab my Audubon Field Guide to the Pacific Northwest and start identifying.

Often found mid-day kickin' back on a screen door sippin' a Corona. Not very mouthy, just likes to look pretty and lay about. About 2"-4" big. I know, that's bad vocabulary but have you seen my spelling? And this other moth here is like your grandpa. Sits back with a bud light and watches shit go by. About 4"-5" big (country talk). Can't identify the damn thing - he's not in the book so WWGWD? We named it the Skunk Moth.

I don't fear moths anymore - I can't. Not with all these flying things around me.
Let me not fail to mention there are two flying insect events occurring at this time. The Flying of the Drones = when flying ants are leaving the nest, and the Mating of the Catis Flies = Doubled up two inch long flying fish foods with no sense of direction.

It's quiet here. You aren't surprised by this? These are the sounds of the Minam Valley: a car passing on the freeway, a mosquito in your ear, Nugget barking at deer, the river rushing by, rafters "puttin' in", the washer cleanin' linens, the coffee pot brewin' in the morning, the Red-winged Blackbirds trill.

These are the sounds from NoPo I don't miss: The sound of Bus 4 & 72 roaring by - sometimes in tandem - starting at five in the morning, the neighbors and their four-day-consecutive-two-a.m.-damned-domino-game, the teenagers from Jefferson and Rosemary Academy talking in their normal 200 decibel tone of voice at seven-thirty in the morning, the sound of drunk footsteps coming up the apartment stairs at two-thirty am.

Have I revealed that I don't like my sleep disturbed much?

There is so much to marvel at, here in Minam. I am looking forward to doing some bird identification. King Fishers cruise the river behind the motel. I am also enjoying keeping the motel in fine shape - cleaning the rooms while remembering the love and intention that Uncle Chuck put into maintaining this place. So far, it's what I think about while I am on my hands in knees scrubbing the bathrooms floors. It's an honor to be here - to be trusted to care for this magical place.

And my sisters are here with me for a week and a half. It's a pleasure to get some time with them before I head out to Idaho.

Some family came out to memorialize Chuck and enjoy a weekend in Minam - and help me relocate (thanks Hanna, Lindizzle, Dad, Mom...) At the memorial, we had a nice jam session and I sang some Bonnie Raitt songs with some amazing and kind musicians (friends of Chuck and Dawn).

Later, in the evening - we danced to records, played some Nurf football and Frisbee in the school house. Lots-o-liquid including a polishing off of a bottle of private reserve Bush's Pilot's whiskey - and potluck goods were consumed in great portions. In true Minam style - we partied our asses off - in remembrance.

I am taking Nugget into the vet now for a Buddy (my cat) related injury. Yesterday, Maggie & Jeff's Golden Retriever spooked Buddy who proceeded to attack Nugget - ripping off a quarter sized circle of flesh on Nugget's underside. Up until then, Nugget has been enjoying the freedom of roaming the grounds - chasing deer - and peeing freely. She's even got a tan - her skin has turned a tone of black/gray and her coat has become darker. Mine is staying white with all this sunblock. And that's the way we like it.

We love it here.

Rumors on the Rocks: Elk Rock Island’s mysterious and mischievous past

“When you’re a kid, you’re a sponge and you’ll take anything someone tells you as gospel”.

I agreed with Milwaukie Police Officer Ron Glenn during a recent conversation and told him my generation’s legend is about the ghost of Elk Rock Island, famed to walk on its knuckles and drag its feet around the island in search of human bait.

At a recent back yard campfire in my old hometown of Milwaukie, I asked some childhood friends if they remembered the stories about the ghost of Elk Rock Island. Jennifer grew up about a block from the park's entrance and nearly fell over in her lawn chair squealing when I brought up the ghost, she’d nearly forgotten the story.

On night, when Jennifer and I were in our early teens we took a boom box, a flashlight, and an Ouija board down to the banks of the Willamette River, just south of the Island and north of the Lake Oswego train trestle. We turned the flashlight on and sat it on top of the radio and placed our fingertips gently onto the heart-shaped planchette and after several bouts of giggling, calmly asked the oracle for any spirits present to make themselves known. And we asked again, and again, and again.

Finally, in the dark silence, the flashlight rolled of the radio and hit the power button; we jumped with the blare of white-noise coming at us. One of us quickly flipped off the radio and from the darkness we heard the muffled shout of a voice nearby. We abandoned the radio, the board and maybe even the flashlight and started running back to the house. When we finally caught our breath safe inside, no one could recall the words that were shouted or if the voice was that of a man or woman. I was certain it was the ghost of Elk Rock Island.

In Officer Glenn’s multiple years with the Milwaukie Police Force, he has been called out to the island at all hours of the night and has never once felt scared.

But as a kid, Glenn was also told a story about the waters surrounding the Island. Back in the late 70s when Glenn was a young teen, a strange metal shoot use to stick out a rocky structure just below the island. During his annual boat trip with Portland Parks & Recreation to the island, two guides who took children from around the city on a river tour and stopped their boat near the Milwaukie waterfront to tell the kids the story of a Duke and Duchess that once lived in a castle above the shoot. The story told of an upstairs torture chamber that had a guillotine hanging in its doorway. Heads would roll from the bedroom, down the shoot and into the waters of the Willamette.

“They were trying to portray this as actual history” Glenn now says with a sardonic tone in his voice. But even to this day, Glenn is careful not to go down while water-skiing near this site.

The mysterious and mischievous Elk Rock Island is located just South of Milwaukie on the Willamette River. The island came to life 40 million years ago as an under-sea volcano larger than the current Mt. Hood. The Waverly Basalt lava flows created the large jagged rocks seen on the island today, which may be the oldest exposed rocks in the Portland area. As the prehistoric sea receded, sediment settled atop the rocky outcrop, and eventually, the volcano eroded down to its current position.

Native Americans are said to have run elk off a cliff on the opposing side of the river, floating their carcasses down towards the bank where they could gather them for food. This story claims to provide the area with its namesake.

With easy access to the river, the area surrounding the island became a logical site for early settlement. The land was part of the original donation land claim of Milwaukie pioneer Lot Whitcomb, and naturally, was known as Lot Whitcomb Island in the 1860s. At this time, Whitcomb utilized the island as a steamboat landing.

In the early 1900s, the island took on a more practical business venture and became home to a dancehall owned by the Rock Island Club. Officer Glenn said the rumor around the water cooler at the Milwaukie Police Department claims that the Oregon State Police eventually had to come down to the island and bust the partygoers for gambling and prostitution.

So it seems the good-times rolled just like heads at the Duke and Duchesses castle downstream, until grain exporter and Portland businessman, Peter Kerr, purchased the land in 1910. At that time, the dancehall went vacant and the land saw no further development.

88 year-old Bob Hatz didn’t actually dance in the famed dancehall, but when he was a teen in the 1930s and the dancehall was abandoned, Hatz took his roller skates out onto the island to roll around the dance floor.

Hatz spent a considerable amount of time on the island doing various recreational activities, but found the dancehall most interesting. “It was in such shape that we would take the shingles off the roof and use them to start fires for weenie roasts on the beach.”

It’s been a long time since Hatz has been out to the island, but he recalls a couple of one-room cabins on the island, that his friends rumored to be “houses of ill repute." In other words, the rumor was some prostitution went on down there.

In his long life as a Milwaukie resident, Hatz also hasn’t had a single ghostly experience on the island. However, when I asked local resident Mary Avalon, a self-proclaimed freelance environmentalist and Elk Rock Island enthusiast who spent four-years on the island doing restoration projects, what she thought about the ghost on the island she said, “Just one? I’ve heard there are a lot of ghosts!”

If its not already obvious, there are a lot of rumors about Elk Rock Island’s past. But the island has a ghostly existence itself, since it is only an island some of the time. It is actually a peninsula and only an island when the waters of the Willamette are high. Visitors can get to the island by crossing a wet and rocky area that connects to the mainland. Sometimes you have to wade through the water in this area in order to get to the island and other times you can tiptoe safely across or jump from rock to rock.

Today, Elk Rock Island and the adjoined Spring Park are preserved natural areas with large trees and a diverse bird population. In fact, a bald eagle pair that has been nesting on the island for years has decided this year, to nest in a Cottonwood on the shoreline.

Island Station Neighborhood resident Charles Byrd said it’s unusual that the pair don’t have offspring yet and that some residents of the Island Station Neighborhood believe that trains idling nearby are impacting their breeding habits. According to Byrd, the eagles use to nest on the island in order to better snatch up the young Blue Heron from their nests. Recently, the Heron’s have not been making their annual return to the island and Byrd believes the eagles have relocated to the shore to gain a better vantage point for hunting.

The eagle pair can be seen from the one and only street-level entrance to Elk Rock Island, behind the house closest to the parks entrance located on the corner of SE Sparrow Street and 19^th Avenue.

Strange bedfellows maintain the protected area. In the 1940s, Portland businessman Peter Kerr gave the park to the City of Portland with the requirement that it maintain its natural state. In order to get onto the Island, a Portland City Park, visitors have to cross through Spring Park, which is maintained by the City of Milwaukie.

The park has no facilities, not even a parking lot, so visitors park on the street. Nonetheless, this island of rumors provides visitors with a quiet retreat from the city. Visitors to the island can see the fiery barks of the Pacific Madrone and a variety of succulents along the shores. But the best way to experience the island and it many features is to find a quiet and comfortable spot and watch the island unleash.

But be forewarned, during summer months, motorboats in the Willamette River somewhat detract from the serenity of this protected natural area. But if you’re into boating Officer Glenn says there is a perfect inlet to pull a boat into on the backside of the island, complete with creepy concrete stairs carved right into the rock where the dancehall use to be.

"And Tango Makes Three" tops challenged literature list!

I may be behind the times a bit, since the book was released in 2005 but, speaking of behind the times...Oh, good lord...

And it appears that some of his followers are at it again.

This year, the top book with the most complaints made to the American Library Association are for a children's book titled "And Tango Makes Three" released in 2005 and written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell and illustrated by Henry Cole.

The children's story is abased on the true story of Roy and Silo, two males Chinstrap Penguins living in Central Park Zoo in New York City. The two were observed caring for a rock that resembled an egg. When zookeepers realized what the couple was up to, they gave them the second egg of a mixed-sex penguin couple who had been previously been unable to hatch two eggs from one delivery. Turns out, Roy and Silo successfully nursed the young egg and brought a female chick into the world named "Tango" by zookeeper. The three, naturally, were kept together as a family. And so, then came a book that follows the lives of the three penguins'. The message, of course, that it's ok to have a "non-traditional" family.

I don't have children and therefore, cannot imagine the kind of awareness parent's must have when determining what their children are exposed to and the appropriate time for exposure (if at all) so I cannot speak from the position of a parent. I can, however, speak from the position of a child with same-sex parents who did not have access to literature that included depictions of non-traditional families, such as my own.

It wasn't until 2003 that I ran across a book titled "Heather Has Two Mommies". Published in 1989 by Leslea Newman and Illustrated by Diana Souza, the children's book released by Alyson Publications (of course) features Heather and her two moms: Mama Jane and Mama Kate. The book, like "And Tango Makes Three" was one of the most challenged books of the 1990s, having repeatedly been accused of pushing a militant, political agenda. In an Afterword published in the 10th anniversary edition in 2000, Leslea Newman says, "My goal in writing the book was, simply, to tell a story."

A story that resonates with thousands of children and adults who raise children in same-sex headed families or that are raised by, friend with, live next door to, have family members or friends that are same-sex families with children. Since I can only speak from the place in which I live, here in Portland, most of us are not hiding our sexuality or our family structures away. In this little progressive mecca of liberalism, we can be out with our families and visible without much fear. That is not to say that we still don't experience discrimination or hate crimes because I have certainly experienced them myself, we just have it a little easier here.

But there are other families in rural and suburban areas that still lack the access to the resources that we have here in the metro area. There is a severe lack of community organizations that cater to the needs of children, particularly, involved in the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Queer/Questioning) community. For a brief stint I was involved with COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) and although I no am involved, I still get phone calls from all over the US from people seeking resources for their families and children.

I bring this up because there are not community functions for "Families Like Mine" (a book published by Abigail Garner) in places where, in order for safety, families remain closeted. Sometimes, the only resource, or the only way for a child or a family to know they are not alone is through media, alone. That is why it is so important that books like this exist.

In the final passage of her afterward, Leslea Newman writes, "All children, including children of lesbian and gay parents, will only benefit as more books on the subject of diversity get published... In the words of two such (grown) children, Stefan Lynch and Emily Omerek, codirectors of COLAGE in a letter dated January 1994 and written to Ten Percent magazine: 'Those of us raised in alternative families, especially lesbian and gay families, have grown up feeling invisible without knowing why. As the next generation grows up, they'll have resources like Newman's book in which they can see themselves reflected and therefore validated.'"

Whole heartedly agreed...

Side note - here is a brief list of other top-ten books which were/are often "challenged" with a formal or written complaint through the American Library Association (in no particular order):

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" - Maya Angelou
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" - Mark Twain
"The Golden Compass" - Philip Pullman
The Harry Potter Series – JK Rowling
"Of Mice and Men" – John Steinbeck
"Forever" – Judy Blume

And here is a link to the ALA's website for challenged literature.
Check it out: http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/challengesinitiator.cfm

Presence and the illusion of time...

Blather is what it's been called. The incessant rattling of thoughts that walk with me in a day. The voice that rarely takes reprieve during my journey. I'm a pensive fuck, it's true - contemplating the past and the future all at once - knowing that a part of me thrives that internal dialogs and neglects the now. Maybe it's requrged spiritual blather. I am 211 pages deep in A New Earth (by Eckhart Tolle); me and half a million other soccer moms, housewives, and stay-at-home dads across the US (thanks Oprah). It's a good read. Illuminates some things I already know in my core - what you give, you receive, ego thrives ..Time is an illusion, etc., etc. Thankfully, the content of the read has me at peace but also in a state of contemplation and careful consideration of how I live each day and what is in my life at this very moment. I am trying to keep my head out of the future, which is difficult, and out of the past, which is very easy. But my body keeps doing these strange emotional convulsions, in moments where I feel at complete peace. Its not a medical condition, no, it's as if my mind is working on something and I am not paying attention to it, but my body is responding. I just can't seem to put my mind on what is actually happening inside me.

I usually am in motion when it occurs. Public buses, walks, trains, even roller skates. I've been looking around a lot lately - taking inventory of what brings me happiness, you know, ridiculously cliche' things such as budding flowers, babies (the uncrying kind), sunny days, strangers laughing and smiling, and kind gestures. Then all the sudden I feel my diaphragm start to twitch, my eyes start welling up and I want to just start crying, or rather, sobbing wherever I am. But I don't. I mean, how weird is it to be riding a the public bus in the morning, sitting next to someone who seems perfectly composed one moment then all the sudden they start bawling?

No. I'm not pregnant damn it.
No. It's not that time of the month either.
C'mon now.

I really want to indulge and let this emotion come spewing out, but it just doesn't happen at home or at 'appropriate' time or place. It happens when I am at work or on the way to school or running errands or walking around campus between classes. So what do I do? Close my eyes, focus on the biology thats working its way through my body, holding my breath is key then slowly allowing myself to breathe methodically until it passes. And you know, it often comes up again in just a few moments.

I feel like a teapot. (Don't start singing I'm a little teapot just yet). I am completely unaware of what this liquid content inside me is - yet its boiling to escape and apparently, I am completely unaware that the burner is on so, when that emotional liquid starts to burp up through its only escape route I quickly allow some air in to calm it back down - then take it off the burner.

So this may come across as completely self-centered and I want you to know in advance that I am aware of it and attempting to make sense out of it. I feel as if this has been a year of listening. I am inpatient by nature - and it is something I am working on so when the people I care about need a sounding board for anything, I try really hard to shut my damn mouth, be present and listen. Not interject, stay aware if I redirect the conversation to my own experience, remain nonjudgmental and let my loves take their own path - not offer suggestions. I think I am pretty good at this. But in the interim of my listening year, I feel as if I have not had attempt to get to know whats going on in my core. Maybe thats my ego seeking attention - or maybe its a deeper need to connect with someone on a soulful level. The problem with this statement is that I am close with many people who I have soulful connections with but it feels as if everyone is in such transition at this moment in time, that no one has the capacity to mentally and emotionally explore the depth of another because, well, their own teapot is full and spouting.

And this motion that is causing me so much emotion? I think part of it is evident. I am in a process of evolution, relocation, and reacquaintance. There is a lot at stake right now - for a lot of people in my life for whom I care deeply, including myself. Time, that illusionary essence, seems to be nagging at me. "I'm running out!" it screams at me, every moment I spend trying to stabilize something (finances for example) outside of my soulful relationships. I know time and distance cannot dissolve those relationships - but I am fearful of my relocation to Idaho. Terrified that I cannot be myself there, that I will be 'closeted' for fear of my safety, that I will not have community, that i will experience isolation for a prolonged period. And I know myself well enough to know that I will make friends, build community and get over the sad period of feeling isolated. I know that.

That bubbling emotion that comes up seems to be a lack of outlet for a lot of things that are happening in my life right now and on my mind. This isn't a plea for someone to come running with an open ear to my rescue, but a regurged means of putting my feelings to words - in an attempt to make sense of it. That is exactly what those deep conversations that I am lacking, help accomplish. Its an opportunity to make sense of it all through the use of words.And you know me and my words...

The corner of Nuance and Nostalgia

There I am, standing at the intersection of nuance and nostalgia, with a cell phone in my hand talking my old friend. The entryway to the Housing Authority of Portland is on my right, I am swinging slightly around this pole with a 90 minute parking sign posted an arms length above me. I am barely looking anywhere: antiquated building, cinder block sides, green solar parking meter, red car. I am lost in my chatter of lunch plans, waiting for the goodness of my friend to reemerge with her hands empty of that damned application. Instead, a big blue shirt emerges.
Big Blue Shirt is walking straight toward me, his chest puffed out like a pigeon, nostrils flaring so much that I can see a pocket of snot on the inside of his left nose hole. Suddenly I feel small, it’s been a long time since I felt this small, and Big Blue Shirt must be about a foot and a half taller than me. Dark complexion and angry as fuck he's coming right into my space and he's saying You gone call the fuckin' cops, You call them fuckin' cops. I am mid-cell-phone sentence so I say, I'm not callin' the cops man, I'm on the phone.
Big Blue Shirt throws down his right foot with a single stomp, pushes that big Blue Shirt further out, his eyes widen and he grows another foot wider Should I just rape you right fucking here, huh? There is a voice on the other end of the phone that I can't understand, my eyes shift from right to left as I take a step back, a step back, What?! Big Blue Shirt is taking steps with me, Huh? Huh? he's asking me. Backup man. I put out my free hand and he steps back a few steps from me. I have moved into the middle of the sidewalk, somehow, and it seems Big Blue Shirt is retreating You get on with yourself he says and mistakenly, I say, Yeah, you just get on goin' yourself when Big Blue Shirt pivots and starts back at me at the same time my free arm goes up and my cell phone arm and I squint, his arms are coming up too. He grabs them both.
What the fuck'd you say, What the fuck?
Stop, stop! My arms swinging about. He hits me, flat palmed, on my forearms and knocks my arms down. Stop! Stop! is all I can manage to get out as he walks me backwards down the street yelling - all his words gelling into, not even sound, now its just Blue coming at me.
Then Big Blue Shirt stops, pivots and starts walking the other direction. His mouth is moving but what's he saying. I put the phone up to my ear and the person on the other line says, So when are we going to meet? I look to the other side of the street Hold on I say. There is a couple walking, they aren't looking at me. There is man in a top hat, dressed in black on the sidewalk behind me, smoking. Um. Yeah. Genie's. We'll be there in a few.
I hang up and stand there. The sky is overcast. My friend emerges, her hands empty of the application, she is smiling, we are leaving, and I am shaking.


It's been a long time since a strange man has touched me. I have never had a man throw his hands at me or hit me. Not in my life. I said I would never tolerate it but in that moment I realized it didn't matter if I wouldn't tolerate it. I was small, much smaller than him. It made me refocus on the randomness of some events and that although I am 30 and far out of the range of targets for violent / sexual predators, it doesn't mean that it can't happen. Apparently it can even happen in the morning in downtown Portland in front of strangers. This event occurred at SW Third and Ash.
I'm shook. I haven't stopped thinking about it since it happened. Tonight, I would rather not be alone but I am going to be, and I am going to be fine. But I am deeply saddened by the event and the trauma it brought up, and once again, it brought up shit from past events. I have the resources inside me to deal with this emotionally and mentally but I am taking inventory. What could I have done differently? And I'm angry. Angry as fuck. Angry and fucking scared.
People. Don't disregard violence that is going on around you if you can, at all. I know we all got triggers and safety issues, don't get me wrong I understand this, but damn it no one came to ask me if I was ok and there were plenty people around - even watching.
I didn't call the cops. No. Why? You take a mentally ill person to jail, they get two hours and are free, and the repercussions are endless. Loss of housing, loss of income. Come on; call me out, excuses-excuses right? But you know the points I am making are true. We don't have the systems to help these people. It’s the streets or jail. Neither work.
I am prideful of my ability to navigate the mentally ill being that my other mother was the tyrant of my household for many years and I am saying, I usually know how to speak and act to keep myself safe and this time, I didn't have the words. Maybe I am out of practice.
Maybe I am fragile; not so tough as I thought I was.
Maybe this kind of assault shouldn't go unreported. But it does. And even though I advocate for others to report, I decided not to because I couldn't put a finger on what it was.

I can't end this rant without resources because this shit happens all the time.
Maybe I should call.

National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE
Portland Women's Crisis Line 503-235-5333
Multnomah County Crisis Line. a. 503-988-4888

Big News: Vandalized!

Vandalized.

March 4th. 9:00 a.m. Portland State University Cafeteria.

Coffee in hand, phone vibrating in pocket: a (208) area code on the screen. What's this call mean? I fumble with my coffee, head for a counter, and compose myself enough to sound professional.

Hello? I say.

Hello. He says, We've reviewed your application and were very impressed with the manner in which you handled your prose. We would like to offer you a position in our MFA program at the University of Idaho.

Composure is most necessary in this moment, not hopping around like some dingbat spilling coffee all over the floor and my shirt before I head off to poetry class. Oh my god! I mouth without my voice. Well Thank you! I verbalize.

The program's competitive. The top three selections have been offered at TA ship. If one of them decides to choose another school, I am right behind them in line. I am not sure of the likelihood that someone would turn down at Teaching Assistantship but, you never know. You never know what could happen in just a moment.

So this is it folks. This is the turning point for me. I will be relocating to a place where the summer is sunny and the winter is cold as fuck: Moscow, Idaho. My program is 2-3 years in length and when I am finished, I'll hold an MFA in Creative Nonfiction and I'll be prepared to teach writing.

And isn't it appropriate that the school mascot is The Vandal?

To those of you who have joined me in my writing classes, been enthusiastic about my endeavors, encouraged me to follow my dreams - Thank you. You are the reason why I've continued my journey.

And to Grandpa Rice, otherwise known as "Pops" - this is for you.

Carnal Discourse

Carnal Discourse

…when touch seems casual and only discourse intimate…

- John Hollander

you want me to write about our love

talk on the structure of touches

how they release uncontrolled emotion

that conquers the precision of our limbs

you wish I’d account for some details

the oceanic movement of our bodies

how our legs and arms wrestle for a grip

when we finally make time but

I hope you don't write about our sex life

when the whorls on your fingertips find the

arches leading to dark spots on my body

your kiss sits like salsa on my parted lips

I travel like the viscous droplets

that form and ease right down your spine

pausing like the weight of wine

a full-bodied finish in your mouth

but this isn’t the height of our intimacy

we are the odor of flint striking steel

destructive alone as fire and fire

embers burning into the morning

I ask if we can agree on anything

though I’m not sure I’d have it differently

By: Chelsia A. Rice

The Broken Word Volume Two

Church of Poetry 2007