Monday, December 7, 2009

Lick it, Australia.

Otherwise entitled, Birth Control

Went out for First Friday with Stip on Friday night and had an absolute blast. Went to a couple galleries, nommed on some free food, and enjoyed some wonderful company.

We learned a few lessons that night:

1) The people who charge the most for their art have the best food. Nachos, gushers, red vine, gingerbread cookies. Hells to the ye-ah.

2) Always check in advance to see if there is a Pimps and Hoes theme that you don't know about. We saw a guy in a full length fur coat, and another guy with a fur collar on his coat that was popped. We also saw a girl in white fur gogo boots, a grey skirt, and a silver sequined tank top. Well, it was either a girl or a tranny in training. In either case, we clearly missed the memo on the Pimps and Hoes theme for the art gallery.

3) I'm not cool enough because I didn't buy your multicolored hair bracelets.

4) I'm cooler than you because I didn't buy your ugly, god-forsaken multicolored hair bracelets.

5) Studios sometimes aren't so much a place to sell art as they are a cool high school party that you weren't invited to. More than once we walked into a room and were clearly intruding on some secret cult proceedings because everyone stopped talking.

I had an absolute blast. I've been putting off going for awhile, but I can't imagine anyone I'd rather have gone with than Stip. Also, I bought Frankincense and Myrrh soap, eeek!

Huzzah for awesome friends and First Friday!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Rocket Ride.

"Thought I might get a rocket ride when I was a child but it was a lie that I told myself when I needed something good. 17 had a better dream."

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Listening to Counting Crows and feeling a little sorry for myself. The holidays are ever an exercise in delicacy and grace. I can't help but feel a little down as the year comes to a close. I wish I had a list of things that I was unsatisfied with so that I could cross them off one by one and move on about my business. Unfortunately, there isn't a list. There isn't a source. Just an overwhelming and suffocating feeling of not having done as much as I should have. I'm at least a little unsatisfied with almost everything in November. I think it's because I already miss October so much.

"I am not worried, I am not overly concerned." Tonight I will be with my family, and all will be right. Late tonight, I'll be with Leslie and all will be right then too. But eventually I will be alone. Friday I will be alone, will wake up in bed alone with myself and this feeling of dissatisfaction. I want to start a fire, deep inside, in the dark places where electric light doesn't reach. I want a spark, a sizzle, and smoldering sensation of doing something worthwhile. It's as if I'm walking across a bank of snow, sinking with each step, and my legs are fatigued and refusing to go on... I'm feeling a little helpless right about now.

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I need a change of scenery, a task, a hobby, something to complete, something to say I finished, a craft, a class, a talk, a book, a friend. I feel stagnant and static. I never wanted to be a beauty queen. I'd rather write a book.


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Quickly now, before it's lost, give me a shiny day with sparkling grass and a freezing breath. Give me a long drive and some time to think and cry alone. Give me a friend, give me a good book, give me an experience that I'll never forget. Give me an opportunity that I can't refuse. Give me the chance to create, anything. Anything.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Let fall the flowers from from your hair.

Bold lines credit to Empty by Ray LaMontagne

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She lifts her skirt up to her knees, walks through the garden rows with her bare feet, laughing. That child in me lies sheltered under the eaves of country summer and the in the subtle shadow of fire-fly light. I embrace her still with my toes in the mud and a gleam in my eye. I wonder if there's a beaten path to get back to that place where the simple pleasure of grass on your skin is enough to fuel optimism for weeks? Maybe (you) never learned to count your blessings. You choose instead to dwell in your disaster. I see me standing on that countryside hill, knees dirty and scabbed from a will too strong to contain, hair whipping around my face, chased by a wind carrying on it's back the gentle smell of jasmine. (I'd give anything to be 10 again.) I reach back to those summers spent in sun and shade, alternating rest and play, and I take the hand of that little girl so lonely, so confused. I walk down the hill through grass, grown tall and brown and still it's hard somehow to let go of my pain. On past the busted back of that old and rusted Cadillac that sinks into this field, collecting rain. Will I always feel this way? So empty, so estranged?

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There's a quiet time between the high noon of 19 and the high, full moon of 23 when things grow dark and decayed, and stand about mildewing in the puddles of tears that once christened your most loved dreams. No one warns us about that time, how desperate and distant that child of 10 can be. No one writes newsletters warning of depression and anxiety and sorrow so deep that years spent at the well can't run it dry. Of these cut-throat busted sunsets, these cold and damp white mornings I have grown weary. And on the dawn of my 26th year, I have a thousand words for you, and not one that would truly illuminate this path for you that I know you're doomed to follow me down. If through my cracked and dusted dime-store lips I spoke these words out loud, would no one hear me? There's a bond in our blood that cannot be defeated, and still I have nothing in my arsenal that will prepare you for what's to come.

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I find my rest and ease at night, in the peace of the space between your arms reserved for my heat alone. Lay your blouse across the chair, let fall the flowers from your hair and kiss me with that country mouth, so plain. Outside the rain is tapping on the leaves. To me it sounds like they're applauding us the quiet love we've made. Your skin gives me a strength to pass through walls that once have made me weary. I've traveled up and down the line looking for something that shines out past the grey dimness of these days. I looked my demons in the eyes, laid bare my chest, and said "Do your best, destroy me. You see, I've been to hell and back so many times I must admit you kind of bore me." I've been given a place to retreat to escape the sudden defeat that threatens to crucify the chances that I gave. You are that place

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There's a lot of things that can kill a man,
there's a lot of ways to die.
Listen, some already did that walked beside me.
There's a lot of things I don't understand,
why so many people lie.


It's the hurt I hide that fuels the fire inside me.

Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged?



Monday, November 2, 2009

Cowboys made you uneasy; you're a God-fearin' lesbian.

Over the past few years I have felt my relationship with God grow and take a new and unexpected form. If I make you a promise, will you keep reading? ... I promise that this won't be one of those preachy blogs. Just a collection of what I feel and think, as if spoken to a childhood friend over a cup of tea at the kitchen table.

It pains me the way that my gay and lesbian friends disassociate from God and disconnect from Him as if He's the reason that people are the way they are. I wish that I could pull all of my gay and lesbian friends near one by one and whisper a great and beautiful secret in their ear "The day I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, he accepted me as a lesbian." God is Love. It's the only real and complete truth about any religion or faith that we try to wrap our feeble minds around. Have you seen Dogma? Maybe we got it all wrong when we took a good idea and tried to make a belief system out of it.

It's gotten so that some people push God away so strongly that I'm scared to object, or to speak in His defense. I don't care if my friends share my beliefs, because faith is a very personal thing. I just wish that they didn't have to feel that alienation from God and what he can be in your life. I'm still growing, and my relationship with God is still evolving. But I trust it, and I know that it's something truly beautiful.



To my Gay and Lesbian friends:
I can say without a shadow of a doubt, with faith in my heart, that God loves me as a lesbian because he made me imperfectly. I'm imperfect, and he loves me just the same. Before you're up in arms, I don't mean that I'm imperfect because I'm gay. I mean that I'm imperfect because I'm human. God forgives me for despising people that act out against gays. God forgives me for the hate I let grow in my heart against them. God forgives me for the lies I've told and the hearts I've broken and the wrong I've done. And I don't believe for one second that me being a lesbian is very high on his list of concerns. God is Love. It's true, it's so very very true.

I wish you didn't feel the need to alienate Him to show those who act out against gays that the reason behind their hate means nothing to you. Those who act in hate on behalf of Him are wrong, and we know this to be true because hate and cruelty and bigotry are wrong on the most fundamental level. Please don't shun Him and banish Him from your heart because His name has been tainted on their lips. Draw Him near, draw near to Him. Hold him close in your heart and let Him be the place that you go when you need freedom from the slurs and the hate and the pain that they bring. Because God doesn't hate.

Much Love,
Stormi

Monday, October 26, 2009

Onward, October.

This year, this season, is different than any other that has ever been, and if we are smiled upon by fate, there won't be many more like it. October is usually when it starts, when we begin to plan and prepare for the holidays and for our family events. We start thinking about our needs, our wants, and the things that we would like to see one another accomplish. But this year everything has disassembled at an unexpected and alarming rate.

Shit fell to pieces. This promises to be the most trying and tear-filled holiday season that my family has seen in my adult life. I say 'my adult life' because I'm certain that there have been difficult holidays when I was younger; however, I've come to find that in some ways we voluntarily wear the bliders of convenience when we're young.

If I don't get to bring some smiles and laughter and happy times to my family this Christmas, I'm not really sure what I'll do. I can't imagine a holiday without showering them with gifts and affection. I can't bear to hold back when this is really the only time of year that we insist on doing things for one another and expecting nothing in return. The rest of the year, we do without and go without as part of the normal course of economic turmoil. We expect it, and we embrace it, and the Lord always provides for us; sometimes in the most unexpected ways. But Christmas is the one opportunity to do for our family without reserve. To give and give and give and smile so hard our faces hurt. It's our only chance to throw caution to the wind and get someone something that they truly need or desperately want. And this year, it promises to be bleak.

I think that we were prepared for this to a degree; however, that doesn't mean that it won't be a shattering experience when it comes down to the wire, and I've not been able to rush out and buy every single thing that I want my brother to have. Or everything that my mother wants but would never buy for herself. Or all of the crafty goodness that my grandma wants but can't make excuses to buy for herself. Or all of the great and wonderful things that I know Leslie would truly appreciate. This year will be different. It will be difficult, and I don't think that I'm yet prepared for how difficult it will be.

It seems so small and insignificant, but I feel like the lack of doing and giving has pulled me apart at the binding and revealed my tender, soft, vulnerable spots to the world. If I can't do Toys4Tots, I don't know what I'll do with myself.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Here's what I find about compromise...

"Here's what I find about compromise - Don't do it if it hurts inside, cause either way you're screwed, eventually you'll find that you may as well feel good. You may as well have some pride." - Second Time Around, Indigo Girls


It appears that I haven't touched my blog since May 2008. I'm not really surprised, because I was mostly married to the idea of managing my blog on myspace. However, I've developed a mild disgust for myspace and the nonsense that goes with it.

Last night I was supposed to learn an important lesson about compromise, but I don't think it got through. Sometimes the messages are lost on me, as if someone is intentionally screwing up the translation as part of a human nature experiment. The lesson is one of two things: Compromise, or, Don't Compromise. I haven't figured out which yet.

I've been writing letters that I never mean to send, but not for the theraputic effect that you might think. It's simply that seeing my writing develop on paper and watching smooth ink slide across fragile paper calms me down, it brings me back to a more centered place. Maybe it's the regulated breathing, maybe it's the focus... who knows. So, I've been writing these letters and the method as been working so far. I calm down, but I don't really reach a resolution.

Today I feel like I'm the bad guy with my principles intact. It's a feeling I'm getting used to.

Today's conundrum: Where do you draw the line on compromise?

This will be a test of my patience and self control, I'm sure. I wish I had something to be more confident about.