Paging Dr Zoo

Guess its time I post a PhD update for those of you not on Facecrack:

Full draft by the end of the month.
Intention to Submit handed in very early in the new year.
Spend three months proofing etc.
Submit around the end of March.

Then:
Wait for it to come back as passed with emendations! Or (preferably) no emendations, but definitely PASSED.
Fix up any emendations, and graduate sometime later in the year.

And:
Play more with Monster.
Chill.
Get me some part-time/casual work around Uni. Data entry and coding as I have been doing, copy centre, maybe some research assistant gigs. Something I don't have to take home with me, preferably no more than 3 or 4 days a week, and with reasonable monetary reward.
Hang out in lots of art galleries.
Generally be more hands-on. Learn to drive. Learn to sew. Make stuff with glass. Etc.
Save some $$$ to travel and get a decent camera and stuff.
Volunteer. Not sure where. Maybe something with youth? Or adult literacy.
Get to some outdoor festivals/doofs etc. Wander about the countryside for a bit with the Monster, seeing where we end up.
Write some journal articles.
Write more creative stuff.
Do some photo shoots.
Sleep a lot.
Party a lot.
Feel kind of chuffed with myself.

Much to do, but getting there. Somehow I think it will all work out just fine.

A Man After Midnight

This may seem odd given the number of 'woman' events I have been at recently (not woman-only, but woman-focused and mostly woman-attended), or maybe not? Anyway...

Think I am going through a boy-phase again. Not as in chasing them, but wanting to be around piles of sweaty hairy men, sniffing pits and drinking beer. I LOVE Mandy and Feisty (VERY MUCH) but last night just couldn't face heading to Dirty after the Wicked Women retrospective. I was too knackered to last long there anyway, but somehow the idea of being around that many hot dancing leather dykes sealed the decision to head home-- even though normally this is one of the major things pulling me there! Odd, but not that uncommon for me at some points I guess. Its just such a different energy when there is a bigger proportion of girls, a different way of interacting and even dancing and somehow I just feel more at 'home' with the bears/boys a lot of the time. Sure, the odd one does a double-take and has a minor head readjust but for the most part they get me, I get them, and its all much simpler.

Woof!

Food For Thought

The more I write, the more I eat. I get incredibly hungry when working on the PhD, with different cravings on different days. Sweet, savoury, slimy, sticky... my body/brain demands cheese, toast with jam, chocolate soy milk, baklava, tea, sultanas, almonds, cereal (at any time of day or night), rice cakes, fruit, fizzy drinks, fried rice, pancakes, juice, eggs-- sometimes many of these within a few hours. Its bizarre.

(Its either the writing or some sort of wormy condition. Daresay it ain't itchy where the sun don't shine, but maybe should get the Monster out with the torch just in case?)

Long Time No Post

Umm... kinda busy with PhD-ing, travelling about, PhD-ing, playing with Monster and... ummm... will try and write more soon!

Growing Old Disgracefully

Worked out one of the things that unsettles me most in Perth yesterday-- people seem to accept that growing UP is somehow compulsary. Was asking some mates whether they were participating in the Pride Parade, and the general consensus was that this was something one did when one was young and then you retired gracefully to watch it from the sidelines. Fair enough if these mates were 70 years old, but a bit odd to me when most of them hadn't even hit 30. Hmm. It happens in other ways too, people past their mid-20s here don't play dress-ups nearly as much as my crusty old mates back home, and, well... they are all just so sensible and ADULT with careers and cars and mortgages and baby plans and whatnot. I'm beginning to feel like some sort of juvenile deliquent...

Soggy Serviettes

Went out for a lovely walk on Beucott St with the Monster this morning, and stopped to grab a coffee and a spot of something tasty. When our lemon slice appeared, it was presented on a small plate, as expected, but between plate and slice was A PAPER SERVIETTE (NAPKIN).

This practice has always bewildered me. Why would you serve food, and often food designed to be eaten with a knife and fork, on top of a piece of PAPER when it alraedy on a nice ceramic plate? The paper goes soggy from the cream/sauce/grease whatever leeching out of the food, the soggy paper then gets all stuck onto your food... its just SILLY-- a waste of trees and a messy inconvenience (which then requires extra serviettes to clean up).

Does anyone know the WHY of this practice? Is it some sort of hygeine measure in case the plate isn't quite clean? Is it some sort of doily substitute, purely there for visual presentation? And if so, what time of person would be impressed by a plain paper napkin folded in half and stuck underneath their cheesecake? Perhaps its a display of wealth, as in, we're doing so well we can afford to provide a layer of soggy paper with every meal and dessert? Perhaps there is some perfectly simple reason for this which has eluded me and I am being an idiot. If so, please let me know via the comments box. Ta!

Mama Bear

sometimes i am astounded at the Mama Bear within me: growling and paused ready to tear the throat out of anyone and anything who threatens my kin... maybe it is because the older i get the more that i am sure of my own instincts, my own beliefs and my own ability to take on all comers?

On Sluts, and Ethics

Rules of the sandpit: Don't steal other people's toys or playlunch. Don't dump your mates for the new kid with the shiny Tonka truck. Say please and thankyou. Don't pee in your own patch. Be loyal to your mates.

Sure, certain 'non-conventional' relationship structures can require some extra thinking time to do well, but really, the basics are that simple.

And so it surprises me that some people seem to spend so much time sitting around bollocking on about complicated ethical and moral structures, trying to outdo each other on theoretical points of non-monog/poly/kinky/queer relationships, and continue to ignore the fact that if you just PLAY NICE and TREAT OTHERS HOW YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED then much pain and nonsense would be avoided.

Bah! Thank heavens for the Monster is all I can say!

Notes on The Art of Self Defence

* Apologies to anyone who may have been offended by that last post. Uncle Zoo is just very tired, and burnt out by the scene/community, and needs more tea and space and less folk to fix and manage.

* Please do not fret-- I am okay really. Monster is greater than ever (awww), Midsomer Murders is on tonight, the cat is purring, I'm about to have yummo vegan dinner with Monster and a mate, my thesis-writing has made grand leaps in the last week and I have a VERY hot new inkjob to perv at. Life is, overall, very very good. I just need to keep myself safe for a while, and that means devoting energy to things that bring me joy and hope and make me laugh and remind me that the world is a grand place. At this point of writing and thinking I just don't have the brainspace or time to deal with much else.

The Art of Self-Defence

The city is a dangerous place.

Went away with the Monster and some mates for the weekend, a getaway gift that was too good to refuse. Gorgeous big farmhouse, alpacas, vegie patches, wombats, rabbits, a huge bath, comfy lounges, grand beds, fireplace and PEACE AND QUIET. It was a perfect place to write, to read, to just BE and think and... I didn't want to leave, just get broadband set up and my books and papers sent there and stay for the next six months.

Back to the ghetto now. And I am panicked already-- its too noisy, too crazy, too many people wanting something from me, too much stimulation, too many people clogging up the footpaths, too many trains going past my window. I feel totally drained by this place and this community sometimes, and despite my very conscious efforts before I left here not to surround myself with mad (in a bad, messy, manipulative, destructive,not-playing-well-with-others way) folks, it seems that yet again I am collecting broken things and wondering why I am stressed every time my phone makes a text beep at me, why I jump every time the land line rings or Monster tells me she has spoken to one of our friends. Its almost always something very dramatic, and predominately negative, or so it seems, and I am frigging exhausted by it, by them, by the social worker energy I feel I am expected to maintain all of the time.

Yes, I am more than aware that I am in many ways a broken thing too. I freak and I panic and get into quite mad cycles of thinking and rant and rave. Pot, kettle, black.

All the same, this is not a healthy place for me to be in. Compassionate burnout, an attack of selfishness, whatever you call, I can't do much more of this at the moment.

So will be pulling back on more social things than I had intended-- going to far less events, having many less coffee dates with the energy vampires, staying off chat from time to time, going offline entirely for days, hibernating, doing what I need to do (writing, creating, sleeping, reading, cuddling).

Damn, I hope it works.

Speaking in Tongues

'Our tongues, their tongues, tongueness. Tongue twisting, tongue lashing, tongue tying; on the tip of the tongue. Tongue wagging, tongue-and-groove, tongue-in-cheek, tongues of land; speaking in tongues. Sharp tongues, shoe tongues, harness tongues, bell tongues. Gift of tongues. Bite one's tongue, find one's tongue, hold one's tongue, lose one's tongue. Give tongue.'

-- Kathy Neustadt, 'The Folkloristics of Licking'

Ghosts

20 years I spent a semester in an adolescent psych facility (basically because I wouldn't go to school, and was pretty adament and stroppy about it). It was a strange time, sad but not entirely so, and it taught me a lot in ways that weren't in the program (smoking and cutting, for a start, but also more positive things). There were magnolia trees and an old boat shed and huge gardens and much magic in the making somehow-- the buildings were formerly a convalescent hospital. I wrote poetry there, I think, worked on my moontan, and read The Bell Jar. I met my first boyfriend there. He used to wear eyeliner, listen to Nick Cave and steal his mother's brain meds.

Last night we went to visit a young friend who is in the mental health facility right next door to the one I was in. Different institution as such, but was still a little odd to be driving down that road again. It has been a long time, and I wonder where that girl ever got to...

'I used to sometimes try to catch her, but never even caught her name'

(Kink-Queer-Trans-Poly-Sex Work-Etc-Friendly) Counsellor *NEWTOWN*

Most of us know how hard it can be to find a kink/queer/poly/trans/sex work-etc-friendly counsellor. One who won't blame all of your problems or concerns on the fact that you have five partners, are sometimes a puppy, like to sleep at the foot of the bed, pro-domme for a living, used to be a man/woman/ferret, have a fetish for armpits or don't have a nuclear family structure. Someone who is prepared to just deal with you as a person (or monster, or pony, whatever) and work on the things that you need to work on.

Well, a mate who is just such a counsellor has recently set up shop in Newtown, and I think this is pretty exciting. So I'm putting the word out on my networks, and encourage you to do the same-- please feel free to pass this on to anyone you think might benefit.

Oh yeah, and of course she's happy to work with folk who may not fit into any of those categories too! As she says:

'I am interested in working with people from all walks of life regardless of age, race, gender, sexuality, gender diversity and diverse sexual and relationship choices. In the counselling room I find that external differences drop away and we are two people on a journey of discovery and healing.'

You can find out more at Zan's website:
http://www.creatingdifferently.com

or for an appointment contact: PURE BOTANICALS, 322 Kings St, Newtown
Tel: (02) 9034 0555

and for any other queries email Zan--
zan@creatingdifferently.com

Where's Monster?

'Where is Monster?'

Obviously, if I am out and about on my own, or with somebody who is not Monster, then the world has gone mad and its time to call the authorities.

'Where is Monster?' is a reasonable question if I am out clubbing solo, at a party without my monstrous companion, or am going it alone some place we would usually inhabit together.

'Where is Monster?', in a tone suggesting mild curiosity as to what the Monster is up to, cool. I like that you like the Monster, and that you care about her whereabouts and welfare. She probably likes you too.

But 'WHERE IS MONSTER?' in that sort of bewildered, demanding, interrogating manner, said when I should have the audacity to wander along King St on my way home from gallivanting on my lonesome, say from work or being inked or doing some shopping or having coffee with a mate, well...

Monster could be at home working, she could be at her art class, she could be helping a friend with some handywork, she could be doing anything really! And, while its nice that you care, please note that we are INDIVIDUAL monsters, not some sort of monsterunit that cannot move about the ghetto without our other half.

Thanks.

Loosing My Religion

And my patience with the ongoing lose/loose confusion which seems to have affected almost everyone who is allowed to put finger to keyboard these days.

PLEASE NOTE

If you repeatedly misplace, cannot find, do not know the whereabouts of your car keys/underwear/mind then you do not write:

'Damn, I am always LOOSING my _____'

Unless you are to deliberately set these items free, as in:

'I cut my _____ LOOSE from the shackles of being possessed by a troll with an irresistable urge to use two Os where one O will do.'

Otherwise, you LOSE things. You are forever LOSING your ____. And if you are forever losing your underwear, you might just be loose but that is another matter...

Going Underground

'By dreaming and idleness and then by intense self-discipline does the artist live...'

--Winterson, Art Objects

And so to my thesis, my current and largest art project.

I have dreamed it, I have played with, I have slept on it, I have imagined it, I have read about it and talked about it and pondered it and now... The time has come to WRITE it. Properly. No holds barred.

Intense Self Discipline now. The winter has come and almost gone again, and the writing is starting to take shape. Maybe 40-50 000 words or so (out of 85-100 000) written up, more in draft form. Time to strap myself into the hard work of edit, rewrite, edit, rewrite, add, subtract, repeat. To this end, a note to my crew:

Please do not ask me to do any more shows until I have submitted the beast. If I get the urge to strut my stuff I'll contact you. At the moment I need to reserve most if not all of my creative juices for writing.

Please don't be offended if I don't make it out to a lot of events, or don't stay hugely long when I do. I still need the odd spot of trashiness and debauchery, but I also need plenty of shuteye and large chunks of time when I don't leave the house at all (except maybe for a wake-up walk or to fetch beer).

Visitors are often welcome though, so if you are in the hood and fancy a cuppa in our backyard then feel free to text. Just don't be offended if I say no, or postpone, or start getting twitchy when you're there and boot you out after an hour.

Creative fits are not predictable at all for me. My whims are erratic, and I my hours rather eccentric, and so I don't quite know what I will do next really. I will endeavour to behave responsibly, and not comitting to very much is the best way to avoid disappointing folk.

Still, deadline is February or thereabouts. Six months of Intense Self Discipline, lower levels of social activity, more chocolate, less beer and increased levels of incoherence adn delirium and it should be done.

Love you all! Wish me luck.

I Wanna Be Adorned

This is part of my latest inkjob, which starts getting coloured next Wednesday. Best mate of mine asked if the background was going to be coloured too, or whether you would be able to see my flesh behind the image. It had never occurred to me to colour the background, and the idea of it really irked me for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Then I realised that it was because I like the option to be unclothed sometimes. I am heavily adorned-- scars, tatts, piercings-- but to me they are jewellery more than clothing. An adornment rather than a covering.

My overall vision, how I imagine I would like my body to look, indeed, how it already looks I suppose, is like an old building (a temple and all *rolls eyes*). Bits of it damaged, cracked or missing altogether, worn smooth by the elements, dust collecting in the corners and crevices, random graffitti in places, the odd sparkle of stained glass and gilt...

The old grey mare ain't what she used to be...

(Ain't a 'she' no more, for a start)

Lately it has become increasingly apparent that the Zoo is getting on a bit. I can't drink ten beers in an evening and then make it to work in the morning. In fact, I would be lucky to even drink the ten beers. I can't really party three nights in a row, period. Sometimes I stuggle to do three or four different activities in a day (work, write, coffee date, art, play, whatever). The idea of afterparties exhausts me, and my perfect recovery is being in bed by dawn with a crumpet and a cup of tea. I don't do any chemicals anymore really-- never could really handle them but now they just floor me. Often I don't take as much pain as I did in days past, can't cop fifty needles or an hour-long beating with nearly the same ease as when I was first a painslut.

Sometimes, shock horror, even warmup (and in dire moments, foreplay) seem necesssary.

Much of this, I know, is to do directly with the thesis beast. It sucks a lot of energy, even when I am not working on it directly. If I write for more than four or five hours a day I pretty much don't want to do anything else afterwards. And the closer I get to the end, the more intense it becomes and the less energy I have for other things: making shows, socialising, dancing etc. The next six months is going to be HARD.

Much of this is also to do with my chronic sinus pain (8 or nine years now I reckon). This had been tenporiarily relieved by magical chinese herbs, but my therapist has left and I need to source another who can do the same thing for me cos nothing anyone else has given me has worked. Sneezing and wheezing for the first two hours of most days, and often an hour or more at the end, is quite debilitating. It makes one tired, and nauseasted, and eventually very flat and sad. Not to mention the pain, the day in day out pressure in one's face and gums and eyes and head. (Am trying to get details of an amazing chinese med dude in Marrickville pronto so I can get this all sorted. Its just foul, and has a massive impact on my everyday life.)

And some of it is just to do with getting old. Physically old, but also not WANTING to do so much anymore. Or wanting to do different, often quieter, things. Quality ovedrriding quantity. Increasing discernment, and increasing realisation that its only worth surrounding yourself with roses if you take time to smell them.

And I am comfortable with most of the shifts that are taking place in my head and even my body, I feel wiser and more happy with my place in the world and with myself generally and its all good. Mostly. Sometimes though, just sometimes, I see a young'un up on the rack with that thirst and that hunger for pain and sensation and everything and for a moment I miss it...

It's not gone entirely, of course. In fact I don't think that it has gone at all. I still want to learn things and experience as much as I can and travel and meet new people and throw myself into challenging situations and expand my boundaries and question everything but somehow the energy has shifted.

I'm not who or how I used to be, but most probably that is the point.

Academia Again

Something I have long suspected:

'Academics, who are sometimes critics, and often reviewers, are notorious fence-sitters, afraid of ridicule, afraid of risk, the risk and ridicule that the true writer faces every time she publishes. Unlike writers, academics draw a salary and this will be taken away from them if they back a wild horse. They do not back wild horses; they record the virtues of nags long past their prime.'

-- Winterson, Art Objects (191)

Chintz dipped in mud...

'I do not think of art as Consolation. I think of it as Creation. I think of it as an energetic space that begets energetic space. Works of art do not reproduce themselves, they re-create themselves and have at the same time sufficient permanent power to create room for us, the dispossessed. In other words, art makes it possible to live in energetic space.
When I talk about creating emotion around the forbidden, I do not mean disgust around the well known. Forget the lowlife, tourist, squeaky clean middle-class bad boys who call their sex-depravity in blunt prose, fine writing. Forget the copycat girls who do not know then end of a dildo from a vacuum rod. They are only chintz dipped in mud and we are after real material. What is forbidden is scarier, sexier, unnightmared by the white-collar cataloguers of crap.'

--Winterson, Art Objects (114)

Odd Jobs

Somehow started thinking of all the things I had done for money in the past 20 or so years, and came up with this (probably partial) list:

Bakery assistant. Bank teller. Bum model for a girly magazine. Manager of a second-hand record store. IT geek at the Uni computer labs. Transcribing dialogue for a voice-recognition software company. Selling ugly, dodgy 'art'works of the Harbour at Circular Quay according to a pre-written script that involved the word 'pointellism' one to many times. Customer service at a home loans company. Market research cold calling (the pork surveys were always a favourite). Face to face market research interviewing. Coding surveys. Binding books at the Uni publishing service. Selling books at the Uni copy centre. Credit card call centre. Performance art.

Actually, most of it was performance art.

Art, And Lies

The other week Necortitties and I gave a lecture on queer art at the National Art School (for a predominately non-queer audience). It was a JOY to research and write up and discuss, and made me realise that maybe, just maybe, I can enjoy teaching somehow. And made me wonder (again) if perhaps I have been barking up the wrong tree, looking in the wrong places, in respects to my own academic work-- its the ART stuff that really grabs me, that makes me wet, that hardens me nipples and gets me wanting to read theory and to create beautiful objects. Writing as an artform, practice-led research, the materiality of words, art and alchemy, art and life, the texture of text...

But I digress. What I wanted to discuss here was some of the comments we got after the paper. We had given examples of some of our own performance pieces, mostly blood work, and naturally people were curious and so question time largely focussed on our process, the meaning of the pieces, the effect that making this work had on us and such. We answered as honestly as we could, and people seemed quite blown away at our frankness. I was surprised that they were surprised.

And this got me thinking about how being openly and brazenly queer contributed to my own answers. About how commonplace it has become for me to be fielding questions about how I live my life, my relationships, my kinks and such, about how the support of my community has given my the space and the strength in which to act upon and articulate my desires. About how I wasn't ashamed of anything I get up to, or who I get up to it with, and about how damned lucky I am to be where I am in the world. Blessed.

Monster Dedication

Sometimes you make me feel like I'm living at the edge of the world,
'Its just the way I smile,' you said...

-- The Cure, 'Plainsong'

Home Alone

Unless you count the loudly purring pussy, which of course one should.

The Monster is in Perth this week, whilst I try to write and work here in Sydney. There is LOTS to be done-- an art chapter draft due in a day or two, a proper seminar paper to be given next week... fortnightly deadlines until completion/submission of the beast... at a loss with some of it, quietly confident about other bits-- just not sure which is winning at the moment!

And a show to be reworked for Hellfire next month (the Queers will be invading-- be there!), another to be created for Wham Glam Thankyou M'aam the following week at the Rattler, an Inqui outfit to devise (boots mended and attended, and general questions of tiny dress? chaps skirt? leather hotpants? what to do with the tits? what to pack? leather jockstrap or frilly knickers?), and so much other stuff to be getting on with.

Much be gotten on with and much joy to be had, but damn I miss that Monster already. Sigh. Absence makes the parts grow fonder and all...

*Call for Submissions* Double Edge: The Intersection of Transgender and BDSM

This call is from Raven Kaldera- contact info below...

Call For Submissions:

Double Edge: The Intersection of Transgender and BDSM

I’m looking to interview transgendered perverts of all sorts for this book, over email if we can’t meet face to face. I’m looking for people who openly identify as transgendered in the BDSM communities they move in, and how that identity affects their partners and their activities. I’m looking for people who shapeshifted their bodies and transitioned their identities, and how that changed their BDSM relationships and fetishes. I’m looking for people who publicly hold third gender space in BDSM contexts, and how they interface with the demographic. I’m looking for transpeople in power exchange relationships who are willing to talk about how their perception of gender affects their perception of dominance and submission. I’m looking for FTMs and MTFs, fat and thin, old and young, all sorts. Those who end up with featured interviews will need to submit a photo of yourself, and yes, your face needs to be in it. Those who don’t submit photos will be quoted throughout the work, but not get featured interviews.

I'm looking for articulate people who are willing to write or speak thoughtfully about things, not just give me one-line answers.

I’m also open to hearing from partners of transfolk who contribute to this book.

I’m also looking for photos of transfolk doing kinky things, faces or no. The photos don’t have to be professional quality, they just have to show us as the sexy and passionate and creative people we are.

If you’re willing to contribute to this book, please email me at cauldronfarm@hotmail.com and put “Double Edge” in the caption and I'll send you the email questionnaire.

Thanks,

-Raven Kaldera

BrisVegas as Blank Slate

its a pretty city to be true, and a touch warmer than we have it in Sodom, but the glorious Metropolis of Brisvegas continuously reminded of other places:

a particular hill near West End reminded me of a particular hill in Lund

parts of New Farm felt like San Francisco

the skyneedle harked back to Berlin

the river made me think of Perth

the botanical gardens seemed like Sydney, or maybe Melbourne, and one gateway made me think of Central Park

and there were numerous sightings of Auckland and London

it was like wandering through a dream, all mixed up, snippets of here and there and everywhere...

Irony

In Brisvegas last week for a Mother and History conference. Go out foraging for food the first night, hear chanting, look around: Pro-Abortion march going by. Not totally incongruous of course, and I don't think the two were related, but still made us smile.

Happy Anniversary Baby

In just a few days, it will be a WHOLE YEAR since the Monster and I shacked up. Two cities, house renovation, thesis angst and still going strong.

Wow.

writer's block

post-super-meeting ramble:

what is my thesis? what it is about? what is my argument? what am i doing? what should i present when i talk about milk and art at a 'mother' conference next month? ARRRRGH!

she is asking question, making very helpful suggestions, new ways of attack and organisation and inquiry, new methods and means and then she is asking me what i think and all i can think is...

i don't want to directly dissect the discourses being played out, i don't want to write a chronological encycolopedia of the topic/subject/object at hand, i don't want contemplate what an image might mean in a certain context and set of socio-political-econonomic circumstances, i don't want to categorise and logic my passions out of existence, i don't want to argue as much as i want to discuss and play with and dance with and seduce and be seduced by... its not the cold hard 'logic' and 'facts' of the Matter that make me wet, (it never has, and what are the facts anyway)... its the affect, the visceral response, its the twitch and nausea and phantam letdown pains and the tears and the involuntary clenching and the smell and so much stuff that can't be put on a page in tables and figures and ordering of desire and substance and all organisation is pretty much arbitrary anyway and there are so many other connections that never get played out because time and notions of reality and history always take precedence and i just want to write the whole thing in fictocrit because it is the only way that even seems to come even close to capturing any of the essence andthe taste and the spirit and the memory of my subject and maybe i could just do the whole thing in interpretive dance?

inspired to write again at least...

West End Monster

Today is a Perth day somehow-- was just absentmindedly thinking we should take a trip to Freo markets this weekend, remembering the order of the UWA library and contemplating sitting by the river with a pile of books and screeching cockatoos in the trees above. Except I live back East now. Still surprises me some days, nice as it is to be here and all. I miss Bassendean Shopping Village and visiting The Baby and Pearl of Highgate pastries and EVERYTHING about Planet and meeting folk at the Scotto and late night trips to Fresh Provisions and dancing/performing at Zoo and even Pride Women's Sundowners. And my mates of course. Still, will be back for Pride party and parade. Only a few more months to go!

Lucky Stars (Free Will/V Voice)

CAPRICORN [December 22–January 19] In astrology, the word "quincunx" refers to a relationship characterized by creative tension. Two planets that are in quincunx are like two people who have an odd affinity for each other, but don't speak the same language. Imagine an Italian woman and an American man meeting at a party and experiencing an immediate chemistry, even though each can barely understand what the other is saying. I bring this up, Capricorn, because these days you're in a quincunx dynamic with pretty much the whole world. To keep frustration to a minimum and enhance the excitement quotient, you should try to crack some of the foreign codes you're surrounded by.

AQUARIUS [January 20–February 18] Philosopher Buckminster Fuller said that although we are all born geniuses, the process of living tends to de-genius us. That's the bad news. The good news is that 2009 is one of the best years ever for you to re-genius yourself, and the month of June is among the best times in 2009. So how should you go about the glorious task of tapping in to the totality of your original brilliance? Here's one tip. Do what Einstein said: "All I want to do is learn the way God thinks. All the rest is details."

TransLondon Boycott Pride 2009

With good cause it seems. Check out the full report at their website:

'Last year, a successful Pride march was marred at the rally in Trafalgar Square when a number of trans women were denied access to the women's toilets by Pride security stewards. One woman was subsequently sexually assaulted after being told to use the male toilets. Roz Kaveney, one of the women targeted in the 2008 "ToiletGate" incident, explained how she felt Pride London had only ever provided a grudging apology under threat of legal action, and that she felt they had never taken the discrimination against trans women in the 2008 rally seriously.

During the meeting on May 19th 2009, members heard how the democratic and transparent structure used in 2008 to co-ordinate participation of trans groups and the funds made available for transgender attendees, through the elected Trans@Pride committee, has been abolished by Pride London for 2009. Instead, Pride London have imposed their own unelected "representative" for the trans strand. Furthermore, requests for information about funding, how decisions were made and who participated in the decision-making process, have been rebuffed.

Last year, the elected Trans@Pride Committee consulted repeatedly with over a dozen groups and hundreds of individuals over before arranging travel bursaries for trans people to attend from around the country, hosting a breakfast for marchers on the day, commissioning artwork from a local queer artist as a rallying point for trans marchers, producing banners and bunting, arranging trans performers for all of the Pride stages including the main stage in Trafalgar Square and publicising the arrangements widely. In stark contrast, the meeting heard of how Pride London's appointed trans "representative" for 2009 has simply imposed Pride’s vision for trans participation in the march and rally.

The 2009 pride participation is, so we are told, to consist of a float at the very back of the parade which would pander to the most tired and inaccurate media stereotypes of trans people. Trans women would, in Pride's vision, be dressed in sequins, high heels and fairy wings and, apparently as an afterthought, a few trans men would be invited to pose in football strips. The Pride representative explained that the trans float would complement a float at the front of the march with members of the cast of the West End musical, "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert". In her vision, onlookers would be delighted to see "Priscilla at the front and Priscilla at the back". As a coup de grace, a visible cordon of security stewards would surround the trans float, ostensibly "for our own protection". '

Autumn Daze

'Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed'

-- John Keats
'Endymion'



It feels like Autumn more than ever. The hot water bottle is back in use, bedsocks are worn, and porridge is on the breakfast menu. Washing days are planned according to the weather forecast and laundry often finishes drying indoors.

We are preparing the house for the cold times ahead. Sowing silverbeet seeds and stocking up on soup supplies, feeling compelled to accumulate large stores of root vegetables and tinned tomatoes. Yesterday we hung a patchwork quilt from the bedroom window to keep the heat in, last week we bought door snakes to stop the draught. We still need thick curtains and rugs for the bare floorboards, and to locate scarves and gloves and warm hats. I'm planning flanellette pj purchases, and checking out slippers in the winter catalogues. My mother gave us pots of bulbs, and I am happen imagining what lies beneath the damp bare earth. Spring will come, but first it is time to hide away and grow.

I'm preparing for the Winter Writing Frenzy too: have added instant coffee to the collection for wee small hours consumption, am storing up chocolate and office supplies, photocopying masses of articles and chapters, ordering in large numbers of books from the library, sorting out folders and files. Its a matter of getting things in order, clearing my desk and my rubbish bin and making sure I have enough staples and highlighters to see me through the dark times.

And so my fur grows thicker, my fat deposits and my cheeks are stuffed with nuts...

NEW WORLD WITHOUT SEXUAL ASSAULT-- NEWSPAPER (Just came across a flyer for this)

Launch Night
7-10pm Wednesday 20th May 2009
Free

@ Little Fish Gallery
22 Enmore Rd Newtown

Performance/ Free Resources/ Snax

www.worldwithout.org

Kitty, Litters

Our beast of a kitty has decided that a certain side of the kitchen floor is the correct place for her to pee when in the house. As opposed to her litter tray, conveniently located a couple of metres away. Its getting beyond a joke...any ideas on how to stop her? Someone suggested cayenne pepper?

Note The Pronouns *SIGH*

Have been trying to formulate some sort of response to this, but have a monster headache so for now here it is as reported by The Age (on SMH website):

'Court lets girl, 17, remove breasts

* Karen Kissane
* May 4, 2009

THE Family Court has allowed a 17-year-old girl to have her breasts removed so she can be more like a boy.

The teenager, code-named "Alex", was on court-ordered hormone medication from the age of 13 to prevent menstruation and breast development. She returned to the court in December 2007 asking for a double mastectomy to make it easier for her to pass as a boy.

The Chief Justice of the Family Court, Diana Bryant, decided it was in the teenager's best interests to have the surgery immediately rather than wait until turning 18. The teenager had been diagnosed with "gender identity dysphoria", a psychological condition in which a person has the normal physical characteristics of one sex but longs to be the opposite sex. Justice Bryant said: "In the end, it wasn't a particularly difficult issue because the only real issue was, 'Would he (Alex) have it at 17 or once he's 18?' Then, he doesn't need permission.

"So the issue was, 'Was there any likelihood he would change his mind in the meantime, and was it in his best interests to have it at that time?'

"Overwhelmingly, the evidence was that it was in his interests. And I made that order. I wanted to make it quickly so that he could have the operation straightaway."

But ethicist Nick Tonti-Filippini said mainstream medicine did not recognise hormone treatments and surgery as treatment for gender dysphoria. He said it was a psychiatric disorder qualifying under American guidelines as a psychosis because "it's a belief out of accordance with reality". "What you are trying to do is make a biological reality correspond to that false belief."

The Chief Justice said Alex had not had any urgent plans to proceed with further surgery when he turned 18. She did not make Alex wait for the mastectomies until of age because the teenager had been living as a boy since the age of 13. "Everyone was absolutely adamant that he wasn't going to change his mind. He was very comfortable . . . that he was going to continue on this path."

The written judgement is due to be published soon. Justice Bryant said it was better for the teenager to have the surgery at 17 because this was an age where she would qualify for support from state social services. This was also a crucial time in her development: "It's a year when he's really cementing his friendships with peers that will stand him in good stead for moving into university and the wider world, and it was very important to him that he be able to do that confidently as a boy."

Justice Bryant said having breasts constrained Alex socially. She had to avoid being hugged by friends, could not go to the beach and had to wear binding. "So it was quite an impediment to his social development, which everyone thought was very important." The decision was not irrevocable: "You can have prostheses and things. So if he changed his mind later on, it's reversible."

Justice Bryant said she heard evidence from medical experts and from Alex, her counsellor and an independent children's lawyer, and she called in the Office of the Public Advocate "because I wanted a contradictor". The vidence was overwhelmingly in favour of the surgery, she said.

Mr Tonti-Filippini said he was also concerned that in previous Family Court cases involving gender dysphoria, the medical experts had been confined to a small group of Melbourne doctors who work with sex changes. Mr Tonti-Filippini said a Melbourne man who had had sex-change surgery at 22 was now suing his doctors because he regretted the decision and felt they had not explored his doubts at the time.


The Family Court's 2004 ruling allowing Alex to take hormones provoked a debate about when children are old enough to make serious medical decisions. There was another furore about a Family Court ruling in 2007 allowing a 12-year-old girl code-named "Brodie", who also wanted to be a boy, to begin a course of puberty-suppressing hormones. The court was told that Brodie had threatened self-harm at the prospect of her periods starting. It was later claimed by a relative that Brodie's mother had had postnatal depression and had "brainwashed" the child by buying her boy's clothing from the time she was a baby and fostering boyish behaviour. Brodie's father had opposed the hormone move.'

Some Days My Brain Hurts

From NineMSN today:

'Educating children as young as two about how gay parents have children should be a low priority for the NSW government, the opposition says. Responding to a book titled Where Did I Really Come From, which also includes in-depth descriptions of sex, opposition community services spokeswoman Pru Goward said the subject matter was not of interest to young children.The book is advertised as being part of the NSW Attorney General's Office Learn to Include program.

"There is nothing wrong with encouraging tolerance and diversity but why you would do that by talking about same-sex relationships? I find it a mystery," Ms Goward told AAP.

She said the book was more about social relationships than sex education - and that was the responsibility of parents to explain to their children. "Most toddlers won't take much interest, they are more interested in toilet training," Ms Goward said.
"I think there should be other government priorities well ahead of this."

The book's author, Narelle Wickham, says the book is suitable to be read to two-year-olds and has defended it as a mainstream publication. "It is just trying to normalise to children that there are many ways to conceive a child," she told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.'


Umm... did I miss something here? "There is nothing wrong with encouraging tolerance and diversity but why you would do that by talking about same-sex relationships? I find it a mystery" .Mysterious indeed. Perhaps someone should call Poirot?

Silver Linings

* Monster and I are both sick with some sort of (hopefully not porcine) flu-type configuration. Actually more like a headcold, but has knocked us both considerably. On the upside, this has made for many days of cuddling and caring for each other in soft, gentle ways. Of fluffing pillows and making tea and filling up hot water bottles. Aside from feeling like crap its been kinda nice!

* I have given up eating seafood, and have begun to miss it a bit. On the upside, there are many fun mock-meats to help me get through, and I will be scoffing many of them tonight at the Green Gourmet. Yummy!

* I have been researching booze in relation to vegie/veganness. Some of my fave brews do use fish scales and whatnot. On the upsdie, Coopers doesn't. Neither does Grolsch, or many other yummy pints! Huzzah!

* My thesis has been causing me considerable angst. On the upside, the moments when I do make sense of it all somehow and see that glimmer of hope, those magical minutes when I stumble upon a new article or poem that makes it all seem that little more possible... oh! Sheer delight!

Of Dykes And Men

Here is a email I sent to a women's kink list, as a response to the persistent harrassment one of my friends gets whenever she goes out in certain 'pervy dyke' crowds. It's not just her either, its happened to almost anyone with tits and a skirt in the scene, and its bloody tedious. Some days I forget that queer does not exist for everyone, and that for some the pinnacle of lesbian/gay/bdsm enlightenment is apparently the right to behave just as badly as the worst examples of heterosexual mandom (aka the Lord Daddy Master Of The Universe Sirs). Stomp! Now, the email:

'This may seem like a bit of a Miss Manners 101, but needs to be said. Apologies for stating the obvious, but it seems its not obvious to all, still:

As women, whatever incarnation that may take for each of us on this list, we have no doubt all experienced the unwanted attention of sleazy men at some point. The persistent, lecherous, hands in all the wrong places, non-consensual insinuation and groping. None of us would agree that this is the price we should have to pay for going out dressed as we want, where we want, with whom we want. Nobody would accept that short skirt= wants to be molested by creepy dudes. Nobody would accept that being out in public with a partner= invitation for obnoxious men to be aggressive and insulting towards our partner. None of us would suggest that when a slimy guy in a pub cops an unsolicited feel we should just giggle and shrug 'oh those boys! they are soooo cheeky!'.

Now, let's extend this a little. Try to substitute 'butch' or 'top' for 'sleazy man' in these equations. Swap 'corset' for 'short skirt'. And think about it next time you are at Manacle, or a SLPA event, or crawling about the Sly Fox. Maybe the 'femme' in the cincher is not actually 'asking for it' and doesn't want your hands all over her. Maybe the woman out with her girlfriend doesn't actually think you are funny or tough for cutting in and being a smartarse. Maybe when the girl you are hitting on says 'no' she actually means it. Maybe the fact that you are a 'woman who plays with women' doesn't give you an excuse to behave like a horrible ill-mannered straight man.

This is a community that I would expect to be well-versed in the concepts of respect and consent. Sure, you can be flirty, you can be witty, you can make bawdy innuendo and double entendre. You can hunt, you can chase, you can play the game. But the game does have some rules, no matter how long you have been around or how much of a super-top-butch-Daddy you consider yourself to be. Hands off when the 'lady' says 'hands off'. Simple.

If any of you are still struggling with this concept, maybe we could run a workshop? I'll be wearing the fishnets and tutu, and carrying the cattle prod.

Thankyou for your attention.'

Life Drawing

Sydney Leather Pride Association Life Drawing – Tue 5 May

Location: Aurora Gallery

Address: 43 Bedford St Newtown

Cost: Booking essential.

RSVP: curator_leather_pride@yahoo.com.au

Swirling

Swirling takes up all my time
Makes me know that I'm
Above you

Swirling, curling up in smoke
It started as a joke, but
Love you

Moss
Suspended on a grave
And growing in a cave
Where I can carve your name

Love you

Swirling occupies my life
And if I had a wife, she'd
Be you

Swirling takes up all my time
And if that's such a crime, why
Love you?

Moss suspended on a stone
And down the telephone
To where I call your name

Love you

-- Robyn Hitchcock

Ghetto Grotto Update

As I type our Perth belongings are being delivered by the somewhat gruff moving men. Exactly two weeks after they was supposed to get here. Hmmm, am alternately still very miffed about the shoddy service and jumping about with glee at having it all here at long last. So far it all seems to be present and accounted for, double bonus... Our fridge! Our cookware! Shelves! The second conjugal bed! Chairs! Dining table! Coffee table! Artworks! Oh, its like living in a real house again!

So much unpacking and reassembling to do, on so many levels...

Speaking of which, Monster is planning little trips away all over the place whilst I am stuck here in Thesis Town (Melbourne, Perth). Which made me a little jealous until I realised that a) I am very much desiring to stay in one spot at the moment, to the point of hardly wanting to leave the house (nerd attack of a major fashion), b) I get more Uni work done when she is not here to distract me so a few days here and there on my own will be quite handy and c) I will be in Brisbane in July, Newcastle in October, possibly Perth in October and Melbourne late November. This is probably enough travel for one little Monster for this year, no?

WANTED: Perverted Poetry! Leather Literature! Purple Prose!

Yes, its time for Sydney Leather Pride's annual

Bob Buckley Spoken Word at
Aurora Gallery Level 1/43 Bedford St Newtown
Wednesday May 6 from 7:00 pm

If you would like read, recite or ramble your own (or other's) dirty, smutty, filthy, kinky words on the night please register your interest with Micah at micah.horton.hallett@gmail.com . Or just turn up a tad early and he'll fit you in somewhere, somehow (he has a knack for it, promise).

Of course, it needs an audience too, so come be entertained!

Pure And Simple Over You

click here for today's little bubble of sparkle and shine from youtube...

night time slows, raindrops splash rainbows
perhaps someone you know, could sparkle and shine
as daydreams slide to colour from shadow
picture the moonglow, that dazzles my eyes
and i love you

just lying smiling in the dark
shooting stars around your heart
dreams come bouncing in your head
pure and simple everytime
now you're crying in your sleep
i wish you'd never learnt to weep
don't sell the dreams you should be keeping
pure and simple everytime

dreams of sights, of sleigh rides in seasons
where feelings not reasons, can make you decide
as leaves pour down, splash autumn on gardens
as colder nights harden, their moonlit delights
and i love you

just lying smiling in the dark
shooting stars around your heart
dreams come bouncing in your head
pure and simple everytime
now you're crying in your sleep
i wish you'd never learnt to weep
don't sell the dreams you should be keeping
pure and simple everytime

look at me with starry eyes
push me up to starry skies
there's stardust in my head
pure and simple everytime
fresh and deep as oceans new
shiver at the sight of you
i'll sing a softer tune
pure and simple over you

if love's the truth then look no lies
and let me swin around your eyes
i've found a place i'll never leave
shut my mouth and just believe
love is the truth i relize
not a stream of pretty lies
to use us up and waste our time

lying smiling in the dark
shooting stars around your heart
dreams come bouncing in your head
pure and simple everytime
now you're crying in your sleep
i wish you'd never learnt to weep
don't sell the dreams you should be keeping
pure and simple everytime

look at me with starry eyes
push me up to starry skies
there's stardust in my head
pure and simple everytime
fresh and deep as oceans new
shiver at the sight of you
i'll sing a softer tune
pure and simple over you
pure and simple just for you

-- The Lightning Seeds
'Pure'

Succour

At Perv Box Brownie last night (24th), with Necrotitties-- more pix on my facecrack!

Pink Elephant

More from ABC.net.au:

'A Polish politician has criticised his local zoo for acquiring a "gay" elephant.

Local media reports the elephant, named Ninio, prefers male companions and will probably not procreate.

"We didn't pay 37 million zlotys ($15.5 million) for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there," Michal Grzes, a conservative councillor in the city of Poznan in western Poland, was quoted as saying.

"We were supposed to have a herd, but as Ninio prefers male friends over females how will he produce offspring?"

The head of the Poznan zoo said 10-year-old Ninio may be too young to decide whether he prefers males or females as elephants only reach sexual maturity at 14.'

Breathe In, Breathe Out

From ABC.net.au:

'A bar in Britain is offering the unique experience of entering a room filled with a breathable cocktail.

For five pounds ($10.50) visitors are allowed into a room filled with a cloud of vapourised gin and tonic.

Stays in the room are limited to one hour at a time, which a team of doctors has estimated is the equivalent of between one and two standard drinks.

A spokesman says patrons are being advised to "breathe responsibly".'