Normalish. . .

 The trouble with normal is,

there is no normal

we're all our own normal

"Wait, this is normal right?"

a fair question,

a valid rumbling

But there are so many things
worth chasing

like being kind & looking
Divine ♡

Uncertain Acceptance

 

Uncertain Acceptance

I told my dad this weekend I started HRT a month ago. I mentioned something about it in July and ever since there’s been this cloud of tension every time we talk. He broke the ice when I was about to drive back to Laramie, “We need to talk about this… hormone stuff” he rubs his palms and his leg is shaking. This is new to me. My dad was in the military and was raised on a ranch in North Dakota, there was a right and wrong way of doing things with no exceptions. He’s straight to the point and doesn’t put up with bullshit which in all fairness I respect him for. But seeing him so apprehensive was unnerving. I felt more scared of this than the accustomed screaming match I grew up with. “I’m already on it. I have been for a month now,” I quickly get it out of the way. I did this on purpose, if I was already taking the testosterone he couldn’t have tried to persuade me against it. “What do you want out of this? How are you going to change?” I know no matter what answer I give him it’ll frighten him. I tell him it’s going to help me be perceived more as a man, while this partially true it was more of a point to him that I am valid. He’s criticized me before “Why do you think you’ll be viewed as a male if you wear feminine stuff and put on makeup?” and it’s kind of hard to justify your choices to a person who only sees gender and sexuality and life in binaries. He just nods. God this is terrifying. “What about… relationships… friendships… and…yeah?” I know he’s really asking, “What are my family and friends going to think about this?” I explain it’s hard socially and that it’s like coming out all over again but more permanent. I tell him with a straight face that I feel guilty for ruining our father daughter relationship and I wish I wasn’t like this. I wish I could have been like my peers, content with my body. I’ve explained this more times than I would have liked in my lifetime, so this comes off cold. His eyes well up with tears and my mouth runs dry unable to form another word. I’m unable to decipher what I’m feeling or what I should feel. Am I sick for feeling relief? That finally something I say got through to him. Should I hug him or just stare? If I give any comfort, will it be used against me? “I love you and I’m so proud of who you have become.” This might be more intimidating than his antipathy. I apprehensively stood up and approached him and we hugged. For what felt like an entirety we held each other while my father wept. Once we let go of each other, he wiped his face off and said, “Well, it’s getting late you should probably start driving back home.” I nodded and that was that. 

Museums and Queerness

    Through my Museum Studies class, I have learned that museums are much queerer than I had once thought. Museums are very political; they always have been. At first, only the rich and powerful were able to acquire and admire collections. Now, even though many museums are accessible to everyone, the government still has some power in what is and is not shown. There is also a certain story that museums try to tell with their art, and that is why it is so important to look at things through different lenses. You might initially see one story, but if you dig deeper, you can see another story unfolding. The whole reason I bring this up is because I believe art is a very versatile hobby, and I feel like art is queer. The act of making something no one else is done is usually considered outside the norm, which is literally what “queer” is. Overall, I believe that it is important to continue to support artists, and museums, because they are the ones representing queerness and telling the stories everyone else is too afraid to tell.

The Agreement

In response to Cancel Marriage: Merav Michaeli at TEDxJaffa: https://youtu.be/tTf8jKMGsGE?si=eC-UNOvQIZUt6cMU

The Agreement

In Youngstown, in Gary, in the flats along the river, where the mills went dark, my mother sewed her own wedding dress at nineteen, pins in her mouth, already yelling through gritted teeth about how life isn’t fair…but she never believed there was another way.

Nineteen ninety-one. My father's shift bell still ringing in a building with no more shifts to ring. Everyone said hold on. Everyone said this is what we have.

I hear the woman on the screen, saying love was never what the paper was for. That the paper was a way of saying who owns whom, who carries the unpaid weeks home in her body like a second job nobody clocks in for.

I knew that before I had the words; watched it in the kitchen, in the quiet that passed for peace, in how easy it was to keep saying yes, because disagreement cost something none of us in that town could afford twice.

Regret doesn't announce itself in a place like that. It sits at the table. Refills the coffee. It looks like making do. It looks like love, if you've been squinting since 1990.

I don't blame her. I don't blame any of them; the whole rusted county who signed what they were handed, because the alternative had no shape, no exits on the interstate.

But I heard that woman say the quiet part…the contract was never between two hearts, it was between two hands shaking over what the heart would be made to carry.

Easier, always, to meet the agreement. Harder, and later, and mine to ask what I would have chosen, if choosing had ever been on the table.

the trouble with normal - lea blasko

my childhood house had all different color walls

the living room red 

my basement room yellow

my brothers purple

my socks mismatched on each foot mimicking the rainbow in our home

the only difference were the bottoms of mine were brown from being worn in with freedom

my mom would talk about this freedom

she was proud of this freedom

I kissed my best friend for the first time when I was 5

playing doctor 

I was saving her life

she was saving mine 

my socks are still rainbow but my walls are white now 

Vulgar is My Moms Favorite Word

 She wears rouge lip stain, the kind that comes in a polish container. She paints her nails with it too, she does it with dirty hands. Her house is full of bookshelves. Books about bodies, art, sex, music, rebellion. She owns enough books you could build castles out of them and hide in the shapes of their stories. Her favorite perfume is Chanel number 5. She thinks it smells like an old woman but wears it as a badge of honor cause she bought it with her hard-earned money. There is a scarf draped over every lamp in the house casting the walls in kaleidoscope patterns and colors. Each lamp threatens to start a fire dancing on the dull edge of catastrophe. The floors and corners of the house littered with fur from pets she can’t afford but her heart is just that big she has the room to spare. She owns miscellaneous pairs of tights, each pair is ripped, and she won’t ever throw them away. Her closet is congested with millions of heels, she simply can’t help herself. She journals her fantasies and wears her body proud. She daydreams about museums and the daughter she will name after her father’s mother. Before bed every night she looks in the mirror, paints her lips red and gives herself a kiss goodnight. She is wholly, devoutly, absolutely in love with herself.  

 I bend the word normal

And it creaks

The sound is pleasant

The floorboards of a cabin

Summer retreat

Trees swaying in the breeze

Granddad’s screen door

Just a little more and it grows a little louder

Revealing words and groans

The nicest things said:

Leave

You’re not wanted here

I’ve searched through the language
For a home that doesn’t close itself off

Granddad’s screen door

And so I run

And so it rains

I find shelter in the dark

I remove the word from my pocket

Through the tears I wrench on normal

Break, damnit!

It groans and bends

And bends and groans

And does not break

But doubles back on itself

And I shut my eyes and wait for the crack

Song

Singing

Harmony

Melody

It’s certainly crooked

The timing is off

The words are a little stretched here 

A little short there

But in time 

And out of it as well

I tap my feet 

And it continues to rain

But I just drink the water because

My god, I’m thirsty!