This is not that post.
one
I woke up on Friday to snow, wet soft flakes falling past my window. I opened up the kitchen window and drank my coffee with my elbows on the inside ledge. I had plans to study with tanglethis, and I sent her a text message along the lines of "ick, snow." She was at school, though, so I put on my layers and went out.
I'll admit that it was peaceful. Snow mutes everything, not just sound but smell, sight, breath, thought. I walked to the train station with my hands in my holey coat pockets, listening to the shushslosh of my boots on the sidewalk and thinking about a particular smile.
When I got there, there was Tangle, who is a sort of beaming person. I keep telling people that they have to vibrate at the universe to get it to vibrate back, and I think of her as embodying that sort of constant thrum. We sat in her overwarm office and studied in an amiable way. Neither of us got a terrible amount done, but just enough to justify the time and the companionship.
Tangle has been getting back into the piano after years away. She did it with painting, too, after a long drought. "I'm not sure why I am," she said, walking across campus with me, and I said something like, "Maybe you're trying not to do what you did back when you were crazy." That's my answer to all my impulses these days, anyway.
But before that, before that we were waiting for the elevator, and Tangle tested the door of the lounge by the elevator and found that it was open. She looked back at me, and I grinned. Adventurers in a new land! We went in. She sat down at the little electric piano they keep there, took her sheet music out of her bag, and put it on the ledge. "I loved playing this in high school," she said, and played me a song, the title of which I can't remember. One of the keys continually got stuck. She struggled with the order of the notes a couple of times, lost her place and had to go back.
But the music was like a stone in a pond; the water rushes up, the ripples go out, the pond shakes and shudders, says hey hi hello, and gets on your shoes. The wrong notes were like little signposts, see, that would have been the wrong note to put there, here is the right one, isn't that better. And it was Tangle, blonde hair shaking over her forehead, giggling and cursing at the keyboard.
two
The piano made me think of a conversation I had with this random guy I met recently. We were talking about peer counseling in a jokey sort of way, and I said, "Oh, they always send me the dudes and the dykes. If they look stoic, they sent them off to me." He laughed and said something about how I was just obnoxious enough. "Sure," I said, "but like, for example-- say your friend got raped." His mouth went to one side, and he nodded. "She comes to you, and you have to take care of her, right?"
"Sure."
"Take her to the hospital, all that jazz."
"Sure."
"Let's say you go to peer counseling. Why?"
"I guess for, like, more information for her? Or, like, how I should talk to her?"
"Okay," I said, "What about you?"
"What?"
"What about you? You just went through trauma."
And talk about dropping a rock in a pond. "Oh," he said. He stopped, his mouth open. His face went slack, and then it jerked into motion again. He looked down at the floor, and then over at the mutual friend who had introduced us. "Guess I should've gone to therapy, huh?" he said. Their faces were slightly shamed, a little sad and scared. I glanced away, and changed the subject.
Think about what it's like to be impenetrable. It makes me think of Rogue from the X-Men, a woman who will never touch skin to skin. What is the drama of that, the trauma, the fear and the horror? What so horrifies us about never being able to touch? Even if she didn't want to fuck, didn't want to kiss, what does she lose without touch? I'm not saying I know; this is not rhetorical. I'm really asking.
When I told her about the conversation, Tangle said, "Gender isn't easy, like. You know why you had to work through it? It wasn't working for you."
"I'm stealing that," I said.
three
I told Young Sir about a concert I'd been to. The singer had sung a song that I loved, and it was like a rock in a pond, the music spreading out over the room and making me thrum impatiently with something. You know how it is, you've felt it, I'm sure.
I told him about a dream I always have. I used to go out to my babysitter's pool in November; I would get in, fold my knees up against my chest, and let myself sink. Above me, my hair would float. In the dream, I'm back in that pool, endlessly blue, syrupy water swallowing me down, endless honeyblonde hair eddying around me. "The song felt like that dream, you know," I said, "Like--" but he was already nodding.
The bed was warm, and the room smelled spicy, and his stomach was warm under my hand. We curled around one another, kissing. His eyes were unfocused and different without their frames, softer.
I fell asleep without meaning to, and woke up shocked. "I slept," I said, and touched the knobs of his spine, "huh."
"Huh," he said, and laughed.
four
Talking to my mother about literature, she mentioned that a lot of the teachers at the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) conference talked about the "experience" of literature. My mom frames this in terms of sex and gender, since she teaches at an all-boys school. She called the other way of dealing with literature "muscular," which helped me rethink something.
It's not quite a question of how boys and girls deal with literature. Girls aren't any more flighty and emotional than boys, nine times out of ten. But there's a difference between appreciating literature -- what many english teachers want to do -- and participating in it. There's a difference between asking what literature does to the reader and asking what it can do for them.
Barbara Christian writes in "The Race for Theory" that "I write to save my life." Both Tangle and I were struck by that; we quote it at each other at random points, and I think of it often. You mean that writing about literature can still be writing to save my life? Do you mean it might be legitimate? Do you mean I need to respond?
It's the same thing as participating in the text. I underline, I make notes, I write papers, I write fanfiction, I write erotica, I outline chapters. I rewrite my history into my papers and my notes and my fanfiction and my erotica and my outlines. It all makes more sense, eventually.
"I have to do something to this text, or it's going to do something to me."
Isn't that the rallying cry of fanfiction? Of anything, really.
one: Cat Power - Say
two: Bonnie Raitt - Luck of the Draw
three: Magnolia Electric Co. - Hard to Love a Man
four: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Down Boy
Melville's grave is really cheesy, but there's a graveyard in Yonkers that is really super awesome.
I woke up on Friday to snow, wet soft flakes falling past my window. I opened up the kitchen window and drank my coffee with my elbows on the inside ledge. I had plans to study with tanglethis, and I sent her a text message along the lines of "ick, snow." She was at school, though, so I put on my layers and went out.
I'll admit that it was peaceful. Snow mutes everything, not just sound but smell, sight, breath, thought. I walked to the train station with my hands in my holey coat pockets, listening to the shushslosh of my boots on the sidewalk and thinking about a particular smile.
When I got there, there was Tangle, who is a sort of beaming person. I keep telling people that they have to vibrate at the universe to get it to vibrate back, and I think of her as embodying that sort of constant thrum. We sat in her overwarm office and studied in an amiable way. Neither of us got a terrible amount done, but just enough to justify the time and the companionship.
Tangle has been getting back into the piano after years away. She did it with painting, too, after a long drought. "I'm not sure why I am," she said, walking across campus with me, and I said something like, "Maybe you're trying not to do what you did back when you were crazy." That's my answer to all my impulses these days, anyway.
But before that, before that we were waiting for the elevator, and Tangle tested the door of the lounge by the elevator and found that it was open. She looked back at me, and I grinned. Adventurers in a new land! We went in. She sat down at the little electric piano they keep there, took her sheet music out of her bag, and put it on the ledge. "I loved playing this in high school," she said, and played me a song, the title of which I can't remember. One of the keys continually got stuck. She struggled with the order of the notes a couple of times, lost her place and had to go back.
But the music was like a stone in a pond; the water rushes up, the ripples go out, the pond shakes and shudders, says hey hi hello, and gets on your shoes. The wrong notes were like little signposts, see, that would have been the wrong note to put there, here is the right one, isn't that better. And it was Tangle, blonde hair shaking over her forehead, giggling and cursing at the keyboard.
two
The piano made me think of a conversation I had with this random guy I met recently. We were talking about peer counseling in a jokey sort of way, and I said, "Oh, they always send me the dudes and the dykes. If they look stoic, they sent them off to me." He laughed and said something about how I was just obnoxious enough. "Sure," I said, "but like, for example-- say your friend got raped." His mouth went to one side, and he nodded. "She comes to you, and you have to take care of her, right?"
"Sure."
"Take her to the hospital, all that jazz."
"Sure."
"Let's say you go to peer counseling. Why?"
"I guess for, like, more information for her? Or, like, how I should talk to her?"
"Okay," I said, "What about you?"
"What?"
"What about you? You just went through trauma."
And talk about dropping a rock in a pond. "Oh," he said. He stopped, his mouth open. His face went slack, and then it jerked into motion again. He looked down at the floor, and then over at the mutual friend who had introduced us. "Guess I should've gone to therapy, huh?" he said. Their faces were slightly shamed, a little sad and scared. I glanced away, and changed the subject.
Think about what it's like to be impenetrable. It makes me think of Rogue from the X-Men, a woman who will never touch skin to skin. What is the drama of that, the trauma, the fear and the horror? What so horrifies us about never being able to touch? Even if she didn't want to fuck, didn't want to kiss, what does she lose without touch? I'm not saying I know; this is not rhetorical. I'm really asking.
When I told her about the conversation, Tangle said, "Gender isn't easy, like. You know why you had to work through it? It wasn't working for you."
"I'm stealing that," I said.
three
I told Young Sir about a concert I'd been to. The singer had sung a song that I loved, and it was like a rock in a pond, the music spreading out over the room and making me thrum impatiently with something. You know how it is, you've felt it, I'm sure.
I told him about a dream I always have. I used to go out to my babysitter's pool in November; I would get in, fold my knees up against my chest, and let myself sink. Above me, my hair would float. In the dream, I'm back in that pool, endlessly blue, syrupy water swallowing me down, endless honeyblonde hair eddying around me. "The song felt like that dream, you know," I said, "Like--" but he was already nodding.
The bed was warm, and the room smelled spicy, and his stomach was warm under my hand. We curled around one another, kissing. His eyes were unfocused and different without their frames, softer.
I fell asleep without meaning to, and woke up shocked. "I slept," I said, and touched the knobs of his spine, "huh."
"Huh," he said, and laughed.
four
Talking to my mother about literature, she mentioned that a lot of the teachers at the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) conference talked about the "experience" of literature. My mom frames this in terms of sex and gender, since she teaches at an all-boys school. She called the other way of dealing with literature "muscular," which helped me rethink something.
It's not quite a question of how boys and girls deal with literature. Girls aren't any more flighty and emotional than boys, nine times out of ten. But there's a difference between appreciating literature -- what many english teachers want to do -- and participating in it. There's a difference between asking what literature does to the reader and asking what it can do for them.
Barbara Christian writes in "The Race for Theory" that "I write to save my life." Both Tangle and I were struck by that; we quote it at each other at random points, and I think of it often. You mean that writing about literature can still be writing to save my life? Do you mean it might be legitimate? Do you mean I need to respond?
It's the same thing as participating in the text. I underline, I make notes, I write papers, I write fanfiction, I write erotica, I outline chapters. I rewrite my history into my papers and my notes and my fanfiction and my erotica and my outlines. It all makes more sense, eventually.
"I have to do something to this text, or it's going to do something to me."
Isn't that the rallying cry of fanfiction? Of anything, really.
one: Cat Power - Say
two: Bonnie Raitt - Luck of the Draw
three: Magnolia Electric Co. - Hard to Love a Man
four: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Down Boy
Melville's grave is really cheesy, but there's a graveyard in Yonkers that is really super awesome.