#my stepdad who also plays has issued me a challenge which is to learn Master of Puppets and Orion by Metallica

[patchworkgargoyle]

Practiced with my bass for like two hours and jesus my fingers HURT

But I'm getting better which is fun c:

[iamheretohelpyougrieveandda-blog]

after orlando and zac efron- a fugue

[written june 2016. thought i posted here but didn't. updating the archive] some raw words after first exposures to the news of the tragedies in orlando. a bit of a fugue- those of you who read my master's paper or saw my integrative seminar will understand a bit more what i mean when i say that. can think of the pieces that follows like a dream- lots of associated significances that could be unpacked, processed, and more clearly articulated later. but hell with it- i'm doing this for me anyway. (for our collective liberation, but my work on that project starts with me). 'after orlando and zac efron- a fugue' man. i'm sitting in my grandmother's house. mama's house. i'm sitting in mama's house. on a bed in the guestroom with a really nice comforter that she won in the christmas white elephant. it has a pattern like the shapes i see in the playa dust when i've taken mushrooms. shapes that are sacred to me. divine, beautiful, frightening. i have been reading, slowly, some of what's on the internet about the shooting in orlando at pulse night club. i spoke with tim about it. i read a couple facebook posts by finn and my cousin, justin, and others. i cried as i read it in a chair in the living room, a yard away from my grandmother, the tv blasting high school musical 2. i feel conflicted about high school musical 2. it's nostalgic for me, the styles, the feelings and ideas of high school, popularity, activities, gender, sexuality. it's evocative. it makes me sad. parts of me confused, scared, LONGING. parts of me in pain. such a candied drama and narrative. so much privilege that i longed for. freedom, joy. also the trappings and challenges of a gendered society, poor communication, poor emotional fluency of parents, frustrations, etc. class issues of money and college and access, though even those 'struggling' in the cast with so much privilege and access. heart feelings around the 'best friend' characters being people of color- a huge step forward from what was on tv when i was growing up. and the main character is still a conventionally 'pretty' white boy. so many confusing feelings. i like him. i like her. i like him because he has her attention and their attention. how do i like him? i want to be with him? i want him? i want to be him? i want to be her? i want to be with her? i'm a confused adolescent. never figured it out. people 'like that' would have been put off by me. i'm too much. i'm not calm and gentle like them. i wasn't calm and gentle. i was intense and urgent and my energy was pretty aggressive and violent in terms of intensity, even in my play and my longing. i was holding so much trauma and fear and terror and wanted connection so bad. didn't even know i was wanting to cry and scream because of how unsafe and confused i felt. learned to stuff it down so good. learned to cement it over. i wanted that fucking privilege. i got a fair amount. but i busted my ass off. i couldn't really enjoy it. i was still peddling so hard to earn what i was getting and to try to keep the flow coming. in such a trauma hole. such a frozen blindness. screaming, but not an organic, real grieving with my voice and body, to be seen and held by the earth and my community. a shut down, disembodied, masked grieving. the screaming was there but it done through the intensity of my shutdown and freeze. it found its way out through sports and the intensity of food. i screamed with the pace at which i devoured and ran and pushed. it supercharged my play, my longings, my attempts to connect. what's zac efron doing? am i that masculine? could i be like him some day? questions i could feel these young, longing parts of me asking today as i watched. a less young part: man if i could have been like that... why couldn't i have been like that? and the fuck. anger and grief at a society that told me that was the only avenue to what i needed. the connection and support i needed to grow and become. reading an article about the shooting, narrating a text exchange by a man in a bathroom at pulse texting his mother while the shooter was in the bathroom also, moments before his death. a scream started to find its way out of me. i'm starting to tear up some right now as i write. i was crying and a scream was starting to find its way awkwardly out. weak, through flattened, weak muscles. like something only half-inflated, not supplied with enough blood. coming out through a crack on the side. i've shut down for so long, so tight, my body doesn't know how to do it. even when i want to or feel like it's best. i know it's in there. but i can't force it. i want the real thing. and i feel awful that i can't find access to it. i've hidden it from myself so well. so well to survive. a stepdad who scoffed at gays. hated them, as far as i was concerned. judged. a mom who tried to get me to convince my stepdad that i was gay as a joke because it would be funny. a gay man dragged to death behind a pickup. tv shows hating on gays. hypermasculine, mysogynistic, heterosexist media, culture. don't you dare be gay. don't be feminine. shove that shit away. people on the screen 'i will beat that shit out of you.' 'you better back off, i'm not gay, i will fucking kill you.' my stepdad rolling his eyes. my parents judging and teasing the 'faggy' neighbor (who is also a bitter, unsavory person- maybe in part because of this shit). so much fear and shutdown i don't even know what i feel about him or her on the tv screen. binary sexism. bi'phobia'. 50 people killed in a nightclub. i used to dance for money in gay clubs. i wanted to meet a beautiful man. and a beautiful woman. i wanted to have it all. i wanted to have gay sex and a sweet girlfriend i could hold and the disney movie pretty picture of nice fashion. he was texting his mom. he was going to die. he was shot. he wanted to have fun. maybe he wanted to meat a pretty boy. someone he could feel vulnerable with and free to expand and feel pleasure and unbound and accelerated with. he died pleading with his mom to call the police. please help. i need help. please help. i didn't know how to say it. i didn't know i needed help. i didn't know what i needed help from. this is terrifying. something is wrong. nobody can see this. nobody knows. the scream started coming out. it creaked and was crackly. i put it into the pillow. i cried silently back on the chair, just a yard from my grandmother. i figured she could easily see me. she might not, but i imagine she'd notice. i figured a good chance she wouldn't say anything as i scrolled through my phone and cried. i figured she might not want to have a conversation about that level of emotion. i figured even if she did, she might not know how to have the conversation i'd set the stage with my honest replies. i did not have enough confidence i'd get what this part of me was wanting, so yielded to the intersubjective inertia of the moment. continuing our family's conditioned legacy of lack of emotional fluency, a rule to not talk about some of the hard stuff, some of the stuff we don't have clear language for, some of the stuff that might be related to bad stuff. leave that locked up. pray. spiritual bypass. we don't talk to mama about that kind of stuff. it's only recently we can talk to our parents about that kind of stuff. so what the fuck do we do with that stuff? what does a child do with that stuff? a man dragged to death behind a pickup for being gay. being gay is a sin. sex is a sin. if you have those thoughts, try not to. pray. ask for forgiveness. go to confession. you are bad, but you can work hard to gain forgiveness. you can work to not have the thoughts and feelings. to that 5-year-old that wanted to do gymnastics but his stepdad and mom wouldn't let him because there were only girls- there's no answer for why these things that aren't supposed to be coming up in your body and mind, these longings, why they're coming up. there's encouragement toward 'masculinity'- hypermasculinity. there's nudging away from femininity. you convinced your aunts to buy you the pink oshkosh when you were 5. they tried to convince you for the blue. you wanted the pink. mom took it away. they're nudging. later stronger nudges. a man dragged behind a truck. dead. bloody. parts of his body scraped away. tease the girly kids. tease the fags. 'mike is a little girly man' my neighbor would tease my dad. girly is bad. my fear of death is more than gender and sexuality-based. i'm brown. i've internalized so much racism. from my white stepdad. from all my parents. from disney channel programs. from school. black people, slavery. native americans- 'indians' killed. blood. blood. pain. blood. screams. burning. lynching. blood. bloodbaths. i can write pages eloquently describing the transgenerational transmission of trauma, the legacies of colonization, decimation, oppression; the institutionalization of attitudes and conventions that keep this trauma ungrieved and the violence and imbalance alive subtly, invisibly, under the skin, under the muscle, in the nerves. blocking my screams. shutting them down. pulling my emotions far far away. years of therapy. a master's degree in feelings and in context and intergenerational trauma. i can see it. i know it's there. i can feel it. i still can't scream. like a weak little newborn. pathetic. arching, extending, clumsy uncoordinated movements. a stretch, a gesture that won't happen. a longing incomplete, unarticulated. like lighting a really poorly made firework where the powder is leaking out so it kinda sputters and stops. not even like that. i could write pages about it. i have. dumb. numb. can't speak. can't feel. off. i started to scream and my hip started to open up. it had been gripping so tight. always so tight, especially noticable the last 5 years. associated with my fear. associated with my existential terror. i ran a training this weekend. so my shame and fear was up big time. it resonates with the parts of me that fear for my life if i'm seen. if my fraudulence is seen. if my unworthiness is seen. if my wrongness is seen. doing it wrong. hurting them. didn't hide my faults enough. don't belong. they'll attack me. i'll lose my job. access to my passion. access to money, to food, to housing. i could write pages breaking this down eloquently, the science of resonance, the organismic terror it reawakens, the reenactment of early trauma imprinting that plays out in the present. i could write pages, nailing it. i have. it helps. it helps bring some contact to that part of me. 'you're not alone,' this knowing part of me tells it. 'i see you. i'm showing other people, too.' it helps. it's making way for the screaming to be heard. not the actual screaming. people are scared of screaming in this culture. they tell you to shut up. they tell you to calm down. get a hold of yourself. focus on other things. you're so sensitive. you make a big deal out of every little thing. yes, because every little thing is a reminder of the big invisible thing, terrifying thing we never addressed because you told me to stuff my scream. black people from trees. black people on fire. people scalped. people shot. a man dragged behind a truck. the fuck. i learned to stuff my scream. and 'every little thing' reawakens the unvocalized scream. i cannot help it. we're not addressing this deeply social, deeply historical, deeply spiritual, deeply human problem, pain, grief, terror, trauma. i've written pages and pages. my professors want me to move toward publication and i will. but i'm still afraid. i'm still stuffing my voice, even when i don't want to. stuffing it before i notice it. my body has learned and does its job, even after the mind that wired it up has moved on and forgotten. like the story of colonization. poka laenui talks about colonization, like the colonization of the hawaiian people. where hula was allowed to happen in schools and in society again, only after colonization had sunk in its fangs and the poisoning and deadening was already complete- the language forgotten, the will to resist squelched, the adoption of western values celebrated and centralized. the colonizers left but the colony is now alive and propagating colonialism on its own. the brain has moved on but the body is already wired to keep doing 'its job.' my body does 'its job.' i still stay silent and away from publishing this radical stuff. i don't reach out to my grandmother as i'm crying with high school musical playing on the television. my body knows 'better' than to scream. and when it starts to come out into the pillow.-just a few clumsy limp sort of ones- my hip opens. feels better than i can remember for a long time in that moment. for a while, my hip opens and can breathe.

[iamheretohelpyougrieveandda-blog]

after orlando and zac efron- a fugue

some raw words after first exposures to the news of the tragedies in orlando. a bit of a fugue- those of you who read my master's paper or saw my integrative seminar will understand a bit more what i mean when i say that. can think of the pieces that follows like a dream- lots of associated significances that could be unpacked, processed, and more clearly articulated later. but hell with it- i'm doing this for me anyway. (for our collective liberation, but my work on that project starts with me). 'after orlando and zac efron- a fugue' man. i'm sitting in my grandmother's house. mama's house. i'm sitting in mama's house. on a bed in the guestroom with a really nice comforter that she won in the christmas white elephant. it has a pattern like the shapes i see in the playa dust when i've taken mushrooms. shapes that are sacred to me. divine, beautiful, frightening. i have been reading, slowly, some of what's on the internet about the shooting in orlando at pulse night club. i spoke with tim about it. i read a couple facebook posts by finn and my cousin, justin, and others. i cried as i read it in a chair in the living room, a yard away from my grandmother, the tv blasting high school musical 2. i feel conflicted about high school musical 2. it's nostalgic for me, the styles, the feelings and ideas of high school, popularity, activities, gender, sexuality. it's evocative. it makes me sad. parts of me confused, scared, LONGING. parts of me in pain. such a candied drama and narrative. so much privilege that i longed for. freedom, joy. also the trappings and challenges of a gendered society, poor communication, poor emotional fluency of parents, frustrations, etc. class issues of money and college and access, though even those 'struggling' in the cast with so much privilege and access. heart feelings around the 'best friend' characters being people of color- a huge step forward from what was on tv when i was growing up. and the main character is still a conventionally 'pretty' white boy. so many confusing feelings. i like him. i like her. i like him because he has her attention and their attention. how do i like him? i want to be with him? i want him? i want to be him? i want to be her? i want to be with her? i'm a confused adolescent. never figured it out. people 'like that' would have been put off by me. i'm too much. i'm not calm and gentle like them. i wasn't calm and gentle. i was intense and urgent and my energy was pretty aggressive and violent in terms of intensity, even in my play and my longing. i was holding so much trauma and fear and terror and wanted connection so bad. didn't even know i was wanting to cry and scream because of how unsafe and confused i felt. learned to stuff it down so good. learned to cement it over. i wanted that fucking privilege. i got a fair amount. but i busted my ass off. i couldn't really enjoy it. i was still peddling so hard to earn what i was getting and to try to keep the flow coming. in such a trauma hole. such a frozen blindness. screaming, but not an organic, real grieving with my voice and body, to be seen and held by the earth and my community. a shut down, disembodied, masked grieving. the screaming was there but it done through the intensity of my shutdown and freeze. it found its way out through sports and the intensity of food. i screamed with the pace at which i devoured and ran and pushed. it supercharged my play, my longings, my attempts to connect. what's zac efron doing? am i that masculine? could i be like him some day? questions i could feel these young, longing parts of me asking today as i watched. a less young part: man if i could have been like that... why couldn't i have been like that? and the fuck. anger and grief at a society that told me that was the only avenue to what i needed. the connection and support i needed to grow and become. reading an article about the shooting, narrating a text exchange by a man in a bathroom at pulse texting his mother while the shooter was in the bathroom also, moments before his death. a scream started to find its way out of me. i'm starting to tear up some right now as i write. i was crying and a scream was starting to find its way awkwardly out. weak, through flattened, weak muscles. like something only half-inflated, not supplied with enough blood. coming out through a crack on the side. i've shut down for so long, so tight, my body doesn't know how to do it. even when i want to or feel like it's best. i know it's in there. but i can't force it. i want the real thing. and i feel awful that i can't find access to it. i've hidden it from myself so well. so well to survive. a stepdad who scoffed at gays. hated them, as far as i was concerned. judged. a mom who tried to get me to convince my stepdad that i was gay as a joke because it would be funny. a gay man dragged to death behind a pickup. tv shows hating on gays. hypermasculine, mysogynistic, heterosexist media, culture. don't you dare be gay. don't be feminine. shove that shit away. people on the screen 'i will beat that shit out of you.' 'you better back off, i'm not gay, i will fucking kill you.' my stepdad rolling his eyes. my parents judging and teasing the 'faggy' neighbor (who is also a bitter, unsavory person- maybe in part because of this shit). so much fear and shutdown i don't even know what i feel about him or her on the tv screen. binary sexism. bi'phobia'. 50 people killed in a nightclub. i used to dance for money in gay clubs. i wanted to meet a beautiful man. and a beautiful woman. i wanted to have it all. i wanted to have gay sex and a sweet girlfriend i could hold and the disney movie pretty picture of nice fashion. he was texting his mom. he was going to die. he was shot. he wanted to have fun. maybe he wanted to meat a pretty boy. someone he could feel vulnerable with and free to expand and feel pleasure and unbound and accelerated with. he died pleading with his mom to call the police. please help. i need help. please help. i didn't know how to say it. i didn't know i needed help. i didn't know what i needed help from. this is terrifying. something is wrong. nobody can see this. nobody knows. the scream started coming out. it creaked and was crackly. i put it into the pillow. i cried silently back on the chair, just a yard from my grandmother. i figured she could easily see me. she might not, but i imagine she'd notice. i figured a good chance she wouldn't say anything as i scrolled through my phone and cried. i figured she might not want to have a conversation about that level of emotion. i figured even if she did, she might not know how to have the conversation i'd set the stage with my honest replies. i did not have enough confidence i'd get what this part of me was wanting, so yielded to the intersubjective inertia of the moment. continuing our family's conditioned legacy of lack of emotional fluency, a rule to not talk about some of the hard stuff, some of the stuff we don't have clear language for, some of the stuff that might be related to bad stuff. leave that locked up. pray. spiritual bypass. we don't talk to mama about that kind of stuff. it's only recently we can talk to our parents about that kind of stuff. so what the fuck do we do with that stuff? what does a child do with that stuff? a man dragged to death behind a pickup for being gay. being gay is a sin. sex is a sin. if you have those thoughts, try not to. pray. ask for forgiveness. go to confession. you are bad, but you can work hard to gain forgiveness. you can work to not have the thoughts and feelings. to that 5-year-old that wanted to do gymnastics but his stepdad and mom wouldn't let him because there were only girls- there's no answer for why these things that aren't supposed to be coming up in your body and mind, these longings, why they're coming up. there's encouragement toward 'masculinity'- hypermasculinity. there's nudging away from femininity. you convinced your aunts to buy you the pink oshkosh when you were 5. they tried to convince you for the blue. you wanted the pink. mom took it away. they're nudging. later stronger nudges. a man dragged behind a truck. dead. bloody. parts of his body scraped away. tease the girly kids. tease the fags. 'mike is a little girly man' my neighbor would tease my dad. girly is bad. my fear of death is more than gender and sexuality-based. i'm brown. i've internalized so much racism. from my white stepdad. from all my parents. from disney channel programs. from school. black people, slavery. native americans- 'indians' killed. blood. blood. pain. blood. screams. burning. lynching. blood. bloodbaths. i can write pages eloquently describing the transgenerational transmission of trauma, the legacies of colonization, decimation, oppression; the institutionalization of attitudes and conventions that keep this trauma ungrieved and the violence and imbalance alive subtly, invisibly, under the skin, under the muscle, in the nerves. blocking my screams. shutting them down. pulling my emotions far far away. years of therapy. a master's degree in feelings and in context and intergenerational trauma. i can see it. i know it's there. i can feel it. i still can't scream. like a weak little newborn. pathetic. arching, extending, clumsy uncoordinated movements. a stretch, a gesture that won't happen. a longing incomplete, unarticulated. like lighting a really poorly made firework where the powder is leaking out so it kinda sputters and stops. not even like that. i could write pages about it. i have. dumb. numb. can't speak. can't feel. off. i started to scream and my hip started to open up. it had been gripping so tight. always so tight, especially noticable the last 5 years. associated with my fear. associated with my existential terror. i ran a training this weekend. so my shame and fear was up big time. it resonates with the parts of me that fear for my life if i'm seen. if my fraudulence is seen. if my unworthiness is seen. if my wrongness is seen. doing it wrong. hurting them. didn't hide my faults enough. don't belong. they'll attack me. i'll lose my job. access to my passion. access to money, to food, to housing. i could write pages breaking this down eloquently, the science of resonance, the organismic terror it reawakens, the reenactment of early trauma imprinting that plays out in the present. i could write pages, nailing it. i have. it helps. it helps bring some contact to that part of me. 'you're not alone,' this knowing part of me tells it. 'i see you. i'm showing other people, too.' it helps. it's making way for the screaming to be heard. not the actual screaming. people are scared of screaming in this culture. they tell you to shut up. they tell you to calm down. get a hold of yourself. focus on other things. you're so sensitive. you make a big deal out of every little thing. yes, because every little thing is a reminder of the big invisible thing, terrifying thing we never addressed because you told me to stuff my scream. black people from trees. black people on fire. people scalped. people shot. a man dragged behind a truck. the fuck. i learned to stuff my scream. and 'every little thing' reawakens the unvocalized scream. i cannot help it. we're not addressing this deeply social, deeply historical, deeply spiritual, deeply human problem, pain, grief, terror, trauma. i've written pages and pages. my professors want me to move toward publication and i will. but i'm still afraid. i'm still stuffing my voice, even when i don't want to. stuffing it before i notice it. my body has learned and does its job, even after the mind that wired it up has moved on and forgotten. like the story of colonization. poka laenui talks about colonization, like the colonization of the hawaiian people. where hula was allowed to happen in schools and in society again, only after colonization had sunk in its fangs and the poisoning and deadening was already complete- the language forgotten, the will to resist squelched, the adoption of western values celebrated and centralized. the colonizers left but the colony is now alive and propagating colonialism on its own. the brain has moved on but the body is already wired to keep doing 'its job.' my body does 'its job.' i still stay silent and away from publishing this radical stuff. i don't reach out to my grandmother as i'm crying with high school musical playing on the television. my body knows 'better' than to scream. and when it starts to come out into the pillow.-just a few clumsy limp sort of ones- my hip opens. feels better than i can remember for a long time in that moment. for a while, my hip opens and can breathe.