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Yeah, I called you and we had one of our rambling pointless conversations in which you talk about SGA and I mock you, because seriously, how would you know it's your life if we didn't do shit like that? And now I'm posting to LJ anyway, because I want my birthday salutations on record. I almost got you a leash for your snorkelator mask, and then I almost got you a bunch of cleaning supplies and an air mattress, and then I almost got you a blowtorch, because seriously it sounds like a controlled prairie burn might be the best way to get your apartment under control, not that I would know, thank god, because we've been meeting at my house or on neutral con territory for the past couple of years and I think that's just as well — your apartment might depress me without the futon that we made each other crazy attempting to assemble (incompatible spatial perception modes FTW!) and that I later turned into a giant green calzone. (I've found that it's never safe to be nostalgic about something until one can be absolutely certain there's no chance of it ever coming back.) I can't get you media, because you'd probably already have it. (And even if you didn't you'd put it down and never find it again or else forget to watch it.) I can't write you porn, because hi, have you met me? (Plus I don't know anything about John and Rodney fucking except that apparently they do it all the time.) I can't get you time off from your job to go to cons or even just take a week off to read fic and eat whatever bizarre food-like object you're into these days. (I'm relieved that that thing with the cottage cheese seems to be over, though, because ew.) And that pretty much exhausted my non-hateful gift ideas. And then I thought about how you went and got the snorkelator so I could get some sleep when we're at VividCon, and how you open your house to people who might need it because that's the kind of person you are (even if they really shouldn't take you up on it unless they bring a life raft), and how yelling at each other about futon assembly generally ends with hysterical laughter and possibly with MST3King Anaconda, although that might possibly have been a different visit, and how you let me turn your futon into a giant green calzone so I could catch an early flight to go get interviewed for the job that turned out to be my dream job and led me to my little life on the prairie, and how we talk on the phone all the fucking time so that you can tell me about libraries and hockey and why your boys are made for each other (and sometimes the latter two at the same time) and I can tell you about students and vegetables and cats, and how sometimes you visit and sometimes I even remember to get the case of Diet Coke and then we go eat hashbrowns, and how you still get excited about Your Vids That I Made For You That Are Yours and will watch them many times in a row, which makes me happy even or maybe especially when I am rolling my eyes at you. So I have no present for you except this reminder that I love you. And someday we will manage another TV-marathoning visit, or at least watch "Triangle" and then sit around saying "Can it be babies?" and cracking ourselves up with our total dorkitude, because you are my favorite person in all the world to be dorktastic with, which is pretty much the logical corollary of being my favorite, period. Happy birthday! Happy weekend! ::throws confetti:: Tags: birthdays, favorites!
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Last week I took a break from Audre Lorde, mostly because I didn't want to haul the (large, heavy) Collected Poems along on my research trip. So instead I took Mark Turcotte's Exploding Chippewas, which I'd picked up while in Madison for WisCon. I love this book. Love, love, love. The person who recommended it to me focused on the first section, "The Back When Poems" (all the poems begin with "Back when I used to be Indian"), but my favorite was the middle section, "Road Noise," a sequence of poems about the funeral of Turcotte's estranged father, which is one of the most profound expressions of ambivalence and rage and, ultimately, forgiveness that I think I've ever read. This poem is from the last section, "Exploding Chippewas," because I can't bear to take any of the poems in the first two sections out of the context of their larger narratives. Meanwhile In America
Big Tooth, the bottle prophet, once said to me,
very seriously, you are lucky to be both Indian and white.
That is, if it don't make you crazy.
And it is said that Grandma, scared of dying maybe,
rosary wrapped on her knuckles once said, I'm no dirty
Indian, I tell you, I'm Italian. Jesus told me so.
Meanwhile, I'm eleven years old, fistfighting
my way back and forth to school each day. The
freckle-faced kids holler, hey Chinese hey Chinese boy.
Mother says it takes a bigger man to walk away.
I think about this as I erase where someone
has scribbled TONTO on my desk at school.
In the mirror my Indian hair sticks straight up.
The kids with cheeks the color of tomato
soup holler, hey porky-pine hey porky-pine boy.
I sleep each night with a tight cap made from my mother's
panty hose. Brylcreem in the mornings.
Alone in the white world, I sit and poke at the dirt
with a stick.
My friend Willie is the only one allowed to call me Chief.
I am the only one allowed to call him Cocoa. He says
to me, at least you don't have to be black.
I think about this as I erase where someone
has scribbled NIGGER LOVER on my desk at school.
My teacher speaks of history, so I ask, why did the
Europeans take away the Indians' land, anyway?
She pats me on my head, says, well they didn't know
how to take care of it, now did they?
Later, I was taught that we did not know how to take care
of our tongues, our minds, our ghosts, our children, anything
that we loved.
That summer back on the rez my cousins ask what happened
to my hair, and they say they're joking when they call me
white boy white boy.
Alone in the Indian world, I sit and poke at the dirt
with a stick.
– Mark Turcotte
from Exploding Chippewas Tags: monday poems
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July 3, 2007: I reported on handing off the BMVD. (Still happy about that OMG.) July 3, 2006: No post; I was having a meltdown about moving and vidding and, uh, pretty much my entire life. July 3, 2005: Okay, this one is the reason I decided to do this post. I reported on my sudden tumble into mainlining Gilmore Girls and mentioned my first Gilmore Girls vid idea... which is the vid I finished last week for this year's VVC Premieres show. Whee! July 3, 2004: I reported on my farmers' market visit and on preparations to help get ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) truepenny and mirrorthaw's house ready for move-in. July 3, 2003: I moved my vids and vidsite to my very own domain. July 2, 2002: Didn't have an LJ yet, but I posted a new vid ("Real"). It was the second vid I'd posted within ten days. (Pardon me while I weep with laughter for a moment.) I'd posted a puzzled musing on blogs and LiveJournals on June 26; I got my own LJ account about seven weeks later. Heh. Tags: lj meta, memes, vid: gg
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