Friday, June 30, 2006

Me and Ryan


052706_1844a.jpg
Originally uploaded by forty-three.
This is my favorite currrent picture of us. This is at Kris and Shawna Meaders-Grafing wedding in Charleston, SC, in which I served as minister.

My hair was completely held by itself. It was hot and, scared of Rye getting over-dehydated, I kept after him with water. He appreciated it.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

fucking Jorane


0606250049
Originally uploaded by kyooverse.
Someone replied, "Wow" and it made my world.

People don't realize how important feedback is.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Kiwi plants are our friends!


0606250060
Originally uploaded by kyooverse.
Hey, thought you might wanna know that I have uploaded the month of June (finally) for your viewing pleasure. I am not yet done, tho! Without sounding like I am begging, I need a pro account! :(

Anyway, go have a look-see, comment, favorite, make notes, what-have-you. Bringing life and beauty to you is my service to you. (And it lets you know I am not always frowning!)

Peaches and rain,

Quentin Ergane

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Music Video: "Air" by Ern McKeown (presented by the BCC)

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

"I am made to fly..."


Air
by Erin McKeown, from We Will Become Like Birds


Air! In my bones where the marrow should be
But what I lack for guts and blood
I make up for in dreams

Love! And you're wondering how it works
The heart in the natural world
It's a wonder that science can hurt

I am made to fly
You are made for flight
From the structure of our cells
To the chambers we share inside
So let's become like birds
We will become like birds

Hope! It's the one thing that science will prove
What you don't have hope for you lose
Evolution is what you choose

I am made to fly
You are made for flight
From the structure of our cells
To the chambers we share inside
So let's become like birds
We'll become like birds

Air! In my bones where the marrow should be
But what I lack for guts and blood
I make up for in dreams (3x)

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Grring

I don't mean to be nit-picky (ok, maybe just a little), but I really hate the title of this article, "More Victims Than Just Kevin."

I could make this really clear if I asked, "Would anyone had written an article entitled, "Not Just Matthew?"

No. They would have considered it tacky although on the same night on the otherside of the country, a transwoman (whose name escapes me which makes me feel very ashamed... so many names... I should be better than this. Anyone reading this, please remind me of her name so it can be committed to memory... it is so fucking sad... I remember people like Matthew Shepard but have trouble remembering my own. Rashawn gets remembered, Steen Keith Fenrich gets forgotten. Sakia Gunn is only kinda remembered, but Arthur "J.R." Carl Warren Jr. is nearly forgotten. Most people have moved away from Gwen Araujo, too... and then there's that gay Indian dude who was beaten to death... no one can claim the mainstream gay community cares about everyone equally... not without needing to go to hell) who died would have warrented that just as much truth.

I understand. I get it. Folks want to get the word out that gay folks are being particularly prayed upon in our Pride months, however the folks who want to get this word out ignore that it never stopped or ceased, not for one moment. In fact, they won't even acknowledged that since "gay marriage" hostilities towards GBLT(and ESPECIALLY T) people have risen like "wo."

Everything is in the wording because the wording displays the intent. And when I read the title, and then skimmed the article (... dock me points if you wish), it was obvious to me that Kevin Aviance, someone I hadn't even heard about until this tragedy happened, was being removed... "Just Kevin" indeed.

And then the way in which everyone was painted with a "gay" brush... sorry, it makes the knot in my stomach tighten.

Excuse me everyone while I go shit.

QE

Thursday, June 15, 2006

..considering my dick...

"Dude, I probably should comment on this somewhere in my journal. I just realized you are the only biological male on my friends list. Feel special :)" – Anon.

***

If I ever felt special about being a biological male... perhaps. *giggles*

You wanna know something? I was four when it dawned on me, horribly, that the world was always going to make a lot more out of my penis that was ever going to. I guess the "special" I feel is the being singled out, harmed, abused even. I mean, I get it. I gotta dick. An outy. However, that does not rule my existance -- it really doesn't. If I wasn't so sure that my project this life is to show that having one of these things does not mean I have to run to socialization (although I am aware of it and what I have absorbed, too, both as survival technique and also to understand my own misandry) and perhaps I can show the younger males of my family (which is as wide and as varied as... as anything) that to have a dick does not trap one in the jaws of patriarchy, that one can make a life with as little of that crap as possible...

This is not to say I am incapable of enjoying my penis, that would be a lie. But it is to say I feel a certain detachment from it that can never quite be bridged and I understand to be part of my own "gender identity dysphoria" (making me extremely giddy -- favorite joke there, I swear) (and alongside my other various and varied body issues... my bio grandfather was a linebacker... my body follows his genes... however, in my mind, I am maybe 5'6", 135 lbs, with long slender limbs and I move through the world with this intention... in a body that is 5'11", 25*lbs with large muscles that I force into grace...)...

No one gets it more than me. I got a dick. According to the rules of society, I am a male (sex) and then a man (gender)... but I am not society, I am me and who I am does not cohere with that. My maverick clit had other ideas and I get that, but I retain my space to not go along with society because it does not get along with me.

I get it. It is really interesting and you are trying to figure out how "it" and "I" work. Me, too. It doesn't always make "sense" to me either. But my reality is lived within my body and I have discovered, with some help from thinking over this kinda stuff with my friend S that I am most comfortable when I can exist as a body. I compromise on the sex thing because there's material proof, but I am starting to realize, out of those conversations with S, out of reading Butler, out of my own astrological study... I am compromising on that to the extent that I am losing my own damn point!

I am a body that has features that differ from other people's bodies. This body was raised and terrorized in order for it to cohere with the objectives and the lay of our society -- and it was wrong and terrible and is the site of much depression and heartache and break for this body that merely wants to exist in joy. You won't meet a person more open... when I was single and looking for love, I wasn't looking for a person with blah, blah, blah, I was looking for another body that could look at my body and partake of it with me without needing it to conform to some script it could never know, could never understand because the language was one it couldn't understand and what it learned to understand didn't WANT to understand...

So I get it... but I don't feel special when someone takes my whole body and makes it a male... or female... just as I HATE it when someone takes my whole body and makes it man... or woman. Because I am neither of those things. I am a body designed for biological purposes it will never take part in unless someone needs some of its material...

And please, don't take this wrong, it became a moment to make myself apparent to myself.

As I have gotten older, I have come to recognize (and/or search out) some of my barriers and boundaries. Like, although I like other bodies, I have a preference... and that is a REAL preference which means NOT to exclusion... it is hard these days to map identity and practice. I haven't had sex with a body that is called "woman" in nearly 8 years. Can I still call myself "gay-identified bisexual" or am I just gay now? And does it mean anything that I prefer bodies that look like mine? What does that *really* mean?), I am just me and my comfort comes from other people agreeing that me being me is much better than whatever they would make me.

I'm just more comfortable when the focus is not on my penis -- in *every* situation... don't believe me... talk to my partner about what he went through in order to give me head and it not freak me the fuck out... talk to one of my best friends (a sibling even) about all my body weirdness concerning my penis... I don't think about it outside the way one thinks of ears... needs washing, are there, hurt when hit or pressured, but part of everything, not special... sometimes very embarrassing... sometimes, I do think of it as a strap-on when I am topping and that's hot, but anything other than it as it... this is one of the ways I know and mark myself as a transgendered person... my relationship with my body, like all transgendered people, is just *different*. Markedly different. I keep most and much of it to myself because that is how I learned to keep myself safe and un-fucked with (when I was younger and couldn't hide and didn't have this body's dimensions which has a meaning all its own) -- but I do understand that it means to people outside of me.

Also, I don't want my body to be a part of other people's discourse. I have thought, sometimes, just to post a picture of my dick just so people who can't stop wondering about it would know that it is there in the hopes that they can then go about their business, but I am not interested in being judged on my body or how I conceive of it or how it works or does not work for me or you because that's all situational. Were I sexually attracted to you, you would experience my body much differently than if we were friends... even differently than if we were friends and I was sexually attracted to you (that happens... and I like it when people are ok with it because it does eventually transmute, but in many ways, I need labels less than a lot of other people -- or I see them as dresses one assumes *shrugs*... thank you Plath for that).

Maybe to bite Foucault and pervert him, I am interested in my body only within a discourse of relationship and context. Not law. Not science. Not societal -- not even social, but within closed relationships. Self and self that isn't confession or relying on power... which means... *grins* I have no clue! All I know is that I dread these kinds of conversations because I get some kind of pissed off and uncomfortable because I know it is something trying to make sense of me, trying to eat me in parts instead of just swallowing me whole.

Just swallow me whole. I'm actually better that way.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Oh my!... go... um... Fox?

Ok, now, usually, I canNOT be bothered to even pay
this kinda stuff attention, but I have NEVER seen
someone like... just go OFF on someone for being,
well, insensitive and stupid and... well, I thought
you might like to see it, too, and snap your fingers
(or hiss as Feypropriate), too:



" Julie Banderas loses it as Shirley Phelps-Roper
proclaims the word of God to a nation laden with sin."

Heart,

Quentin Ergane

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

... now that that's over...

June 5th was supposed to just be a poopy day. I didn't think it would be so bad for me (and it wasn't) because my natal Sun and Uranus are conjunct and the hard square between transiting Uranus and the transiting Sun just wouldn't mean as much -- and I was right.

I am starting to notice that without my glasses on, people smile at me... like all the time. Like ALL the time. People didn't randomly smile at me before so it's a bit strange to see someone flash pearls... in Seattle. Weird.

Last night I went to Sydney's. We discussed agency and perfomativity, ate poke (po-kay -- Hawaiian... basically raw tuna flavored with soy, green onions and hot mustard... I wanna make it myself -- that ish was GOOD!) and chicken fried rice (so, SO delish)... and talked. She is so good for me that I worry I don't hold up my end of the friendship... but I bet she'd tell me I am being silly. Anyway, I have Butler's _Gender Trouble_ now and a couple of other books which makes me feel I can write my Octavia Butler paper. I would LOVE to have Haberstam, too, so I can do a *proper* reading of performance theory via gender, but you know what? I'll live.

On the "lighter" side of life, I started reading JLA/Titans: Technis (maybe not the correct rendering of the title, but to get the trade and read it would make me sit down and finish it -- it is really good!). It's really cool because it tackles some issues that are in my mind -- like how *does* one bridge the generation gap? But also, in a really strange and creepy sort of way, because the storyline revolves around Vic (Cyborg, Cyborian -- it's complicated), it presents itself as a narrative dealing with absent B/black subjectivity. To bring Vic back into his subjectivity, a rhetoric of family is provided -- and it works (it would work, too, given that B/black cultures are relational at core... ), but there's still trouble... someone else wants to d/l Vic's soul (that or I don't recognize the character) -- it was late, I was stoned and reading on the bus, I'll have to re-check that... but damn it was good.

And the bus driver turned the lights up for me because he saw me reading and this is one of the drivers I would love to give long-extended head to.... mmmmm.

Last night, I pissed outside by a tree for these two girls (whom I called my "Golden Goddesses" -- they were hyper-thrilled about that, no sarcasm... Tara (Sag) and Jen-Jen (Aqu)) and when I was done, they applauded! I report this mainly for Kris who will get it... getting over my body one action at a time!

I am not sure what I should advance today, but I know I should advance. Yami is in the shower, but it dawns on me that maybe I shouldn't wait until I am alone, to go go go NOW! I only have the first two weeks of June to start projects I mean to finish even if I don't finish them now... you know?

Maybe I should do yoga... and then drink copious amounts of herbal tea like yesterday... I bet I could benefit from a good ol'fashioned detox, eh?

*sighs*

Pictures of things to sale, too, since Rye is *never* going to get around to it. Not really disappointing, but it is hard to stop my motion in order to attend to him right now. But it did know what it was talking about when it (the astrologyzone horoscope) said that this month... we'd be on two completely different wavelengths.

Oh! Can I mention that we totally needed (we being Sydney and I) Burke's "A Grammar of Motives" last night and there was no way to get it other than coming home and going back (which would have taken HOURS!).... I love that essay, tho. I have wanted to use it forever... ah well... someone will come to know the beauty that is "A Grammar of Motives." Rhetorical theory RULES!

Aimez-vous,

Quentin Ergane

P.S. for LJ and Blogger folks: It's the beginning of the month -- don't forget to read astrologyzone.com, however you will need to know your rising in order for it to be accurate. If you know your birth TIME, DATE, and PLACE I am willing to tell you what your rising is. (name, too, since I don't know everyone's rl name) Besides, it would be really cool to converse with other Gemini rising folks.

I am a Jann Arden song




Sometimes, you feel plain unloved. There's nothing you can do about it, you have to live through it. You wish like hell your special someone will make you feel loved, but there's nothing he can do (maybe he doesn't love you so much right now anyway)...

More than likely, I am being dramatic. But with only Yami's snores and my self, buzzing with life, and no one to share it with on all those levels, I find myself a bit hungry.

I hate living in hell.

Oh yes.

Drama. Queen.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Ok, white men who are only into B/black men

Now, if you read that title and came here thinking I was going to start talking about Ryan, you would be mistaken because he is not like that.

That said, being someone who likes to peruse sights like Craigslist M4M and Adam4Adam and Gay.com and other places where I encounter white men who desire B/black men to near fetishistic exclusion, I started to realize something:

They consider themselves "real" and locate "realness" and "authenticity" (not to mention "real masculinity") in B/black males.

And so we are drifting in this idea where B/black masculinity makes one more "real"... and they feel their desire is true... and it is... but not because they actually desire B/black men or males as B/black men or males, but because they are attracted to their own understanding of their "realness."

Thus, the desire, the exotification really has nothing to do with the person in question, but the way in which another person can become the mirror for white authenticity and "realness."

****


... I wanna be really excited about this... but I know better... it ain't new.

And this is why I am pretty effectively sealed off from these guys... I tend to reflect people back to themselves until I become comfortable showing myself (I would say there's some sure-fire recipe to it, but really... it comes and goes with a rhyme and reason only I can understand or decipher and in the end come to a conclusion about)... and I can't help but reflect back their hatred... and show them myself as feminine opposition (I wish I could say it was for something other than test and games... but I could never take these folks serious because I do know myself as a person and I know it is bigger than they are able to conceive and gosh, who cares?... anyone who really knows me knows the flux of my energy and how it eventually settles... I digress) which usually sends them scuttling off or makes them think they love me. *rolls eyes*

****


Advice no one will take: If you are cruising the internets for a sexual encounter and putting up a whole bunch of stats, you are not really trying to find someone for sex, you are trying to find someone to fall in love with, to make you feel less empty, for some other reason than having sex with another person. When you are really horny, things like stats and fly out of the window -- it's just true. You can call it preferences or standards or whatever the fuck you want to because you are a liar and you are wrong. You are looking for someone to fill your empty soul. When one wants sex, they just want sex -- as sex.

So, I wish people would be honest and real about that shit. It's ok. It's ok to just want to connect to another person and to welcome sexual energy into that connection. (One of the main reasons why I prefer hanging with Ryan over anyone else, besides being in love with him and partnered to him, is that we are comfortable with the sexual energy and tensions we have with each other. It can turn into something else... or just be what it is... sometimes we snarl and snap at each other when we should just go somewhere and fuck... we like our battle of the will games sometimes... anyway...) The relationships of identified gay men (and males in order to include myself in the analysis... since I do not identify as a "man" and yet am in some strange way a part of this mass... I prefer to exist in this community in my complexity instead a performativity are such that the way we

****

I wonder for how many men are their "types" based on the first person they felt desire for... the type becoming the simulacra (I am using the term as informed by my reading of it in Baudrillard) for desire behind which is *nothing*... which is why their relationships, based off this tight-assed copy never can or never COULD work.

Is it awful... sometimes I do feel other people are so transparent and silly...

... arrogance vs confidence...

OK, real world beckons.
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Kris and Shawna Meaders-Grafing Wedding


Procession
Originally uploaded by cloudsdescendin.
Please stop by and see the rest of the pictures from this amazing wedding. (And comment, too!)