A long absence.

I have a huge post fermenting about Steubenville, but it's going to take some time to put together. Mostly, I need some time to get less exhausted about being angry, so look for it in a week or so.

In the meantime: Boyfriend and I moved back to Traverse City last month, into a gorgeous house on the bay. It's heavenly, but I still need a job. The cat is still lazy; we still cook a lot; he's still with the same company; I still read anything I can about the Plantagenets and Tudors. It's just all in a much, much nicer environment than what I'm used to.

We rebuilt a kitchen in the process, which is almost exactly as much fun as it sounds, but now? Now, instead of a 1952-vintage and virtually unusable kitchen, we have a very light, airy, and modern workspace. And we're using it, boy howdy.

For the moment, the cat is looking at me begrudgingly (as though it's somehow my fault that he spent the entire day in bed instead of getting cuddled), the fire's cracking away in the fireplace, and I've got some reading to do.

A letter to Governor Snyder:

As a woman who self-identifies as queer, but is in a relationship with a man, I am lucky.

As a woman who is generally identified as straight, I am lucky.

As a citizen who enjoys full voting rights, full access to services that our state provides, and who deeply and fully loves our beautiful and great state of Michigan, I am lucky.

I am lucky because no one questions my orientation. I am lucky because no one would question my right to marry the man that I love. I am lucky because I live in the most beautiful place on the planet. I am lucky because I see, beyond the unemployment and the desperation, the richness that our state has to offer. I am lucky because I've had the opportunity to travel; to live all over our Lower Peninsula; and to never, ever be questioned about anything. I am lucky because when I walk down the street holding hands with my partner, no one bats an eyelash. I am lucky.

The fact that I'm in love with a man doesn't make me right: it makes me lucky.

I was recently offered health benefits at my job. I would love to take them. They're expensive, and they'd stretch our budget. I would love to be able to offer benefits to my partner. We may choose to marry or we may not, but that does not take away from our commitment to one another. 

Many of my friends are in loving, long-term partnerships--marriages--with a person of their same gender. That doesn't take away from their commitments. Michigan does not recognize same-sex marriages, and frankly, that is wrong. That takes a bit of humanity from people that I love, and it denigrates their relationships. They're effectively considered second-class citizens: they cannot add their partners (husbands and wives) to their insurance policies because their marriages are not allowed and because the current House and Senate bills exclude domestic partnerships from all public benefits.

Nearly fifty years ago, anti-miscegenation laws were struck down by the Supreme Court. Fifty years from now, I want to look back at this era and shake my head and wonder what people were thinking, in the same way we look at the laws in 1966 banning interracial marriage. I want to remember my state as one who stood up, head high, and said, "This is the right thing to do." I want to witness my friends' marriages and have those marriages afforded the same rights and privileges that my own would. I want to be proud of Michigan.

Right now, that doesn't seem likely.

A veto on the recently passed House and Senate bills banning benefits from unrelated adults would go a long way toward restoring my faith in our wonderful, beautiful state.

Long time, no write.

And I'm sorry about that. But! You can follow my OTHER blog at http://octobervoyage2011.blogspot.com and keep track of our adventures as we journey to, and around, England over the next month.

12/8/10

Thirty years ago today, the world lost one of its ... what? Voices? Spirits? Inspirations?

There aren't words for what John Lennon means to me. At all. We share a birthday, which okay, one in 365 people do. That's not so unusual. It didn't really even mean that much to me until I was in my teens and started to grasp what he meant--culturally, artistically, everything. I knew about the Ed Sullivan Show; I knew about the Fab Four and the British Invasion; hell, I'd been to a Rolling Stones concert. My parents were hippies, for goodness' sake. I knew. I understood on an intellectual level, but it didn't occur to me until I was about sixteen that he really had an impact.

There's a photo of me in the Munich airport in April 1998. I don't have it scanned, but the general idea is this: I'm laying on my back across a row of airport seats at about 6am, reading The Hunt For Red October in paperback. I'm wearing round glasses, bell bottoms, and a brown corduroy jacket, hair pulled into a ponytail, and resting my head on a backpack. This was back when we had to get photos developed, and I'm sure that if I'd had a preview of the picture I'd have freaked out and made the person who took it delete it immediately. Instead, when the picture came back I did a double take, because there's a very Lennon-esque quality to it.

I realized shortly thereafter that John Lennon died at about the same time that I was conceived, and for some reason--it really affects me, to this day. Hell, when my mother got her '68 Beetle, we named her Yoko. There wasn't any other name she could have. (Say what you will--she made John a happy man, and that's worth a lot to me.)

Today was a rare day; I got to change the radio station at work to NPR and so all day it was conversation about Lennon and McCartney and Yoko and Sean and Julian and frankly, I spent most of the day on the verge of tears. I remembered sitting in Grandville with Brian and Jen listening to music, about this time last year, after dinner and the boys' bedtime, and Brian pulling up a live video of "Hey Jude" and explaining to Jen that there was a really good reason that John looked pissy... remembering the first time I heard "Because" and getting the chills... downloading most of the Beatles' catalog last fall... spending a good chunk of time over the last two years bathing in that music...

Today is a sad day. We lost Elizabeth Edwards yesterday, and that wrenches my heart for her children. Thirty years ago today, we lost a generation's voice to the gun of a crazy man wielding a copy of The Catcher In The Rye.

Someday I want to be at the Dakota Hotel on December 8, to lay a flower and sing "Because" and hold that moment. I want to see Central Park's strawberry fields, stand on a rooftop and hope for the best. I want to lay in bed with a lover and make it matter. I want to create one single thing that has one-tenth the impact that he did.

John Lennon will never stop inspiring me. His art, his voice, his life: he is missed terribly. We did our small part to commemorate him tonight; the Wednesday night karaoke crowd sang a good many of his songs in celebration and remembrance. It wasn't enough. I want to live up to the legacy that I've made for myself from just sharing his birthday and one small photo.

I leave it with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5qXVODCvC8

Because the world is round

It turns me on

Because the world is round

Because the wind is high

It blows my mind

Because the wind is high

Love is all

Love is new

Love is all

Love is you

Because the sky is blue

It makes me cry

Because the sky is blue

Winter

This morning I woke up to a perfectly formed memory in my mind. It's one that comes up at least a few times every winter, usually when I'm feeling secure and warm and cozy, when snow starts falling.

When I was six, my parents and I moved from our tiny cottage on Lake Michigan to a normal suburban house outside of Lansing. The only things our new house had in common with the old were ourselves, our things, and our dog. We were on water, but the Grand River, while lovely in its own right, isn't Lake Michigan. I didn't have my friends, or my backyard, or my beach, or my little play area with my own tree stand. I lived in a neighborhood, with people around, instead of in a national park where the loneliness had its own beauty, the history was palpable, and breathing meant smelling cedar trees and sand. Nothing was familiar anymore. My father was home more since he wasn't traveling all over the state supervising a corporate restaurant culture; I couldn't ride with my mom on her home health visits anymore. I lived in a town. I'd had to leave my incredible Montessori school on Old Mission Peninsula and enroll in public school, which I hated because it turned out I needed glasses. Overall, the move hadn't been positive for me. At. All.

One day, I woke up to fresh snow falling. It was dark and cold when I got up for school, and I padded out to the kitchen, sat down at the table and found the warm spot on the floor for my feet, and my mom brought over cinnamon sugar toast and hot cocoa for breakfast.

It was a moment of pure, unadulterated comfort. Suddenly that house, that neighborhood, felt like home. The smell of buttered, cinnamon-y sweet toast and warm, creamy cocoa always makes me feel a little more whole inside. Today, I woke up and made that meal for breakfast. Because I'm home, in that same city, with snow falling, and I've finally found my place.

Edit: to complete today's theme, my dinner consisted of a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. I can't think of a meal more homey and more comforting.

A repost:

I just read a phenomenal essay by Terry Brock.

I hope you'll all read it, re-post it, take it to heart. Having recently experienced one of the best total-consent moments of my life, and also swimming in ire at the recent absolute catastrophe regarding the Michigan State men's basketball team, I've rarely read something more reassuring and calming.

There are truly men who are men. There are men who treat people, their partners, with respect, with dignity; who appreciate that strength isn't used to harm, but to heal; who understand that their sisters, lovers, friends, aunts, nieces, and lovers are likely one of the one-in-four.

So, here.

Thank you, Terry. And thank you to the men in my life who have been incredible--and to the women. We're all in this together, folks. It will take every single one of us to stop rape. Terry has some great tips on starting conversations and getting people to think about their words. I can't say enough positive things about his words.

A huge thank-you goes to Elizabeth Battiste, who was lucky enough to meet Vice President and Dr. Biden last week in her role as Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Prevention Program Peer Educator at Michigan State. She's a remarkable woman that I'm lucky to have as my friend.

varying levels.

Okay folks.

There's stress.

There's stress that's like.... okay, I've got to get the house clean before Mom gets here. And have dinner with my aunt and uncle and they're going to ask the questions that my parents quit asking, like "So, are you seeing anyone special and when are you having babies? AND OH YEAH, ABOUT THAT DEGREE...." It's annoying, but tolerable, and there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Situational stress, if you will. Dinner will end. The house will get clean (enough) in time. Lines will get memorized. The exam will happen. Whatever. The project, the Event, it'll be done and over and then the stressy bit goes away.

Then there's Stress.

This is the kind of Stress that has your day starting with a really sweet automated text from your bank letting you know your balance is low--and knowing beyond any shadow of a doubt that you don't have the ability to fix that any time soon. This Stress includes getting to walk right by your landlord's door without a check. It's ducking phone calls. It's making hard choices, like between cat food and self food. It's sending out what feels like thousands of resumes and cover letters and filling out applications and never getting an interview (because, you know, you're apparently not even able to staple papers in an office, only sling drinks at people. It's a very affirming feeling). It's realizing that you're drinking too much, and it's realizing that that's associated on some level with having to go to a job that you're so burned out at, it's the only way to make it through some days. It's trying to numb yourself. It's feeling excluded and alone all the time. It's feeling on the verge of tears more often than not. It's watching your grandmothers decline and feeling powerless to help anyone.

This is the stress that doesn't stop. There's no light--or if it's even vaguely present, it's immediately followed by a train whistle.

And days like today, even though there is a faint light--one that doesn't have a train whistle attached--it's almost too much to handle.

I know I'll get through this. I know that in a month or two, once I'm caught up and have my LSAT score firmly in hand and am starting work on a show that I love and my birthday's over, things are going to seem a lot sunnier than they do right now.

It's been a rough few weeks here, and I'm trying to keep my chin up. But keeping your chin up is awfully hard when you're barely keeping your head above water.