Thursday, October 15, 2009

queer discomfort

last night i saw a film at the red rattler about an intersex teenager living in uruguay.
then i went to the sly fox hotel.
a drag queen was performing on stage, but later revealed her breasts. and spoke about her 'plastic' vagina. a post-op trans woman performing drag, as a woman, to a crowd of mostly lesbians. it was a queer moment.
then she made a racist joke about young lebanese men stealing cars.
then a person from the audience took to the stage, and to the microphone, to highlight that this was a racist joke.
people cheered. a non-lebanese queer yells out "it's not only lebanese who steal cars", suggesting their own potential civil disobedience.
the drag performer gets defensive and slags off the rebuttal. she says that because she's greek she's not being 'racialist'. she makes a quip about it being like hey hey it's saturday.
a bunch of anarcho-queers line the front of the stage with their backs to her.
it's a bit hostile. and strange. and still very queer.
there are murmurings of a walk-out, hints of 'an action' being planned. someone tells someone who tells us about the walk-out. the queers leave, discretely, undefiantly. they probably had to finish their drinks.

today we're talking about nationalism in class and one student gets worked up about what 'we' give to aboriginal people - free education, housing, and everything. she suggests that black issues are still a problem in the US, but they're not here. it seems she's making a comparison between african-americans and aboriginal-australians. other students are looking uncomfortable. they're looking at me. i cut her off. another student starts asking her to justify her arguments. i cut him off too. i make a short statement about their being current and ongoing discrepancies in aboriginal health and... something, i can't remember exactly. a summation, in order to move back to where we were. i try and take the 'us/them' example to relate back to nationalism, and how this divide might be utilised in terms of race/gender and other difference. but she gets defensive. i assure her that i'm not referring to her, but to the ways in which we all speak (and indeed had been throughout the entire class) in terms of 'us' and 'them'.

she doesn't get it. it's uncomfortable. i'm losing my way. nobody has done the readings. i'm writing words on the whiteboard, but they may not make sense. a student jumps in and saves me, saying what i'm trying to, but with more clarity. but she still doesn't get it. she wants to talk about hey hey it's saturday.

i'm going now, to drink beer and play music trivia. if anyone mentions hey hey it's saturday, i might be compelled to slap them.

Monday, October 12, 2009

swim therapy

the first few laps of the pool were awakening. my arms pushed forward, then down through the water, strenching along the length of my body. pursed lips push out air at a metered pace. unconsciously counting. my legs move up and down in a gentle sway. my head points downward, moving sideways every three strokes, to take in air. my body expands itself beyond itself.

towards the end of the swim i'm feeling my shoulders, as though heavy and water-logged. i'm hearing my breath. i'm slowing down, but ocassionally finding reserves of energy to push on. and i push on.

i sit in the steam room and my shoulders melt. my arms feel like they're no longer there. my lungs take in the heat. my pulse slows. sweat trickles down my chest, my face, my everything.

i walk back to the desk, some photocopying on the way, and the purchase of a sandwich. i feel upright, walking with ease, eyes meeting eyes. this feeling grants me departure from where i was this morning, when things seemed impossible, too much, as though another kick to my stomach.

it's late, but i think i can write something now. and mark some essays. and point myself towards tonight, my bed, and a nice long sleep.

bad fortune

yesterday's fortune cookie told me:

Thursday, October 8, 2009

away then back

nice to be in my bed again. was hoping for an early night, but i've been reading in the bath, speaking on the phone, sending messages, and watching divinyls videos. like this one:

my family weekend left me disappointed. i don't want to talk about master chef. or football. or raising children and how boys are boys and girls are girls. "get. me out. of here".

then melbourne. it wasn't until day 3, my final day, that i felt happy. stupid of me to think i could leave my worries in sydney. i wear them in melbourne, like all places. my epidermis.

a week of seven virgos:

the 1st is my 1 year old nephew. upon meeting him, as though for the first time (given that we're now able to communicate), he puts his arms out, wanting to be held. strange, in comparison to his sister's ongoing suspicion and avoidance of me. so we bond on the first day. he points to things and i take him to those things. he picks leaves from trees and i discourage him from eating them. we like each other. my niece suggests that maybe he thinks that i'm his dad. he pulls funny faces to make people laugh. i like how my brother calls him a peanut.

2 virgos are people i sleep with. though their beds, their apartments, their bodies are not a comfortable fit. i'm still unsatisfied. i'm still not escaping.

2 virgos are present only in their absence. voids i fill with other men who are typically virgo.

virgo 6 is a friend with whom i confide in about most of the other virgos. we talk in small cafés, on the streets, and in a cinema foyer, where we discuss the politics of the power bottom whilst eating honeycomb choc-tops. later i watch him perform on stage.

virgo 7 presents himself as cheeky text messages asking for presents, feigning jealousy, joking about our marriage. on my last day, from a park bench at the state library, i speak with him for the first time.

i'm left with fond memories of the last day. the film and our shared laughter, conversations around food, coffee, wine. a dinner under fluorescent lighting. things that speak to me in ways that my family and rural victoria cannot. reminders that i have forged another world in which i'm comfortable. to an extent.

it seems there's an everlasting tension between my 2 worlds that render me bilingual. sometimes it feels good to speak with two tongues. but sometimes you're only reminded that some people can never understand certain aspects of you. so you don't even bother trying. instead, you present the half as the whole. within one realm i cannot speak freely of the other. arguably there are more than 2 realms. at this moment i'm aware of the two, their distinctions, and how they each have the power to render me incomprehensible.