this fire

There is a fire somewhere,

and as I stand on this balcony

I am bathed in hot light

the color of bruises.

Everything moves slowly in the smoke,

choked with this heat, this light.

I want to recede

and seek shadows to tuck myself into;

I want some cool corner to hide in

until it's over.

But there is nowhere to go

except for this balcony.

So I stand,

the soles of my feet burning

on the scorching cement, 

eyes watering, throat working,

skin sweating, almost shivering--

pulled out by this glowing damnation.

I'm baking out here,

but all I can do

is stand in

this air

this heat

this smoke

this light

this fire

and wait.

the fucks

What does it mean when someone says, "I don't give a fuck"?

It feels strange to my fucking ears sometimes.

There are a lot of fucks out there, more than anyone could ever count. If you lined up all the fucks that ever were and ever would be, they would create a mathematical impossibility--a limitless and unending line, stretching past the point of visibility in either direction. And some of those fucks are mine.

I have given so many fucks away, often for nearly nothing.

I have given so many fucks for illusions. For the painfully deep dreams of validation, respect, intimacy, admiration, understanding, reverence, admission, safety, protection, acceptance...

I have given almost no fucks--or rather, I have taken almost no fucks, I have claimed very few fucks, I have received a small number of fucks--for authentic, true desire; for intrinsic sexual attraction; for self-aware physical pleasure.

Growing up, my own desire for pleasure and attraction had very little to do with sex with my fucking. Sometimes, they still have very little to do with it. The relationships between my desire, physical pleasure, attraction, intimacy and physical connection/participation between myself and another person are not simple. The relationships between those things are not intuitive, they are not primal, they are not instinctual--not to me. The relationships between those things are complex, and they take work and maintenance and thoughtful exploration. Sex--if understood to be pleasure and desire--does not live in my body, as it seems to for some people. Sex for me is more like a wandering bird that will roost in me sometimes, but not always, and not even in the same way or the same place every time. Sometimes it will nest in one part of my body or another, other times it will perch in my mind; sometimes it will fly away and settle somewhere outside of me altogether. But the sex I have is very different than the fucks I give or take. 

I had very few sexual experiences of any kind before the age of 18, and they were, as I can recall them, limited to: incredibly self-conscious and physically-uncomfortable kissing in movie theaters; being a sweaty and panicked object of concentrated grinding (from both males and females); being quickly engaged in fumbling embraces, constantly afraid of getting "caught", "found-out" and "exposed", while also being sexually active in only the most bizarre and publicly-vulnerable settings (in the front yard of someone's house at night; in a tree in a field near my house; in a school playground; in a parking lot). I can't tell you about the moment that I lost my virginity--I don't know when it was or whom it was with. How was I supposed to know, as a queer person, the first time I'd had sex? If I was a person with a vagina, and I was attracted to and had sexual experience with people who had both penises and vaginas, the old hetero-normative presupposition of "penis + vagina = sex" kind of flew out the window. When did things go from "fooling around" to "having sex"? Was it the first time someone touched my genitals? Was it the first time I touched someone else's genitals? Was it the first time a girl dry-humped my leg and rubbed me over my underwear? Was it the first time a guy fingered me while we made out? Was it the first time something penetrated my vagina, or did it specifically have to be a penis? Was it the first time I enjoyed it, the first time I had an orgasm with someone else involved? I didn't know then, and I don't know now, how to parse the subtle differences of various sexual experiences into bite-sized pieces, easily digestible by the mainstream narrative of "LOSING YOUR VIRGINITY". One thing I do know is that once I was sexually active, I rarely had sex. I fucked. And nearly all of these fucks had almost nothing to do with physical desire or personal pleasure, and almost everything to do with control, validation, emotional bondage and the pale, sickly-beautiful ghost of feigned intimacy.

I would not consider myself to be a part of the BDSM (Bondage/Discipline, Sadism/Masochism) community. I don't talk about it much; I don't seek out people to "play" with; I don't have a decadent, sensual trove of tools and paraphernalia; I rarely engage in BDSM practices with my committed, long-term partner. That being said, there are aspects of the BDSM community and BDSM practices that I admire and enjoy, and I was inclined toward BDSM long before I'd even heard the term (certainly before I'd ever considered the complicated relationships and intertwined dualities of domination and submission, pain and pleasure, aggression and acquiescence). BDSM was definitely an unconscious part of my fucking. The thing is, BDSM functioning in a healthy, mutually-pleasurable way relies on two key components: Communication and consent. Consensual participation is crucial to BDSM play, and that makes clear and explicit communication paramount. Neither of those things had a seat at my fucking table--not because I knowlingly excluded them, but because it never occurred to me to give them a seat at the table in first place. I just didn't think to invite them, not until much later in my life.

Looking back at these fucks, it can be difficult to remain objective. Ironically, objectification was my most frequently experience of fucking--either being objectified, objectifying someone else, internally objectifying myself... Looking back at these fucks, I think I can say: 

They were not all bad, but they were rarely good, and they were always (and this was the most important part) interesting.They were sometimes fun. They were sometimes blank spaces of detachment. They were rarely self-aware or well-considered. They were almost always risky. They left me feeling both full and empty. They were most often an imperative, not a decision. They created tendencies toward future fuckery for fuckery's sake. They were something to do when there was little else to do. They were a tool to get something--usually attention, interest or validation. They gave me someone to (pretend to) be when I had no fucking idea who or what I was.

Fucking gave me a role to play, an identity to slip on like a jacket--it didn't necessarily fit me well, but did fit really matter? Having that jacket--older than time and handed down for generations to many a fucker before me--made me feel special and important, like I was someone real, someone that mattered. It gave me something to fiddle with, pockets to stick my hands in when I was cold.

Someone may read this and think, "What a bunch of nothing this was, what a fucking joke." 

Fuck you? Fuck me? What's the difference? Who cares? 

did you know that it's hot?

Hello! This post is a test--of my ability to work out the configuration of this newly-minted blog, and of my ability to think of something substantive to say.

I don't really like introductions--they feel forced, stiff, artificial, almost like I'm trying to pitch you something. So let's pretend that I've already said a lot of introductory things: who I am, why I wanted to make this blog, why I chose the title and subject matter that I did, etc. I've been working for the last couple of hours to actually create/format this site, and while I could spend a lot more time thinking up a pithy and captivating introduction, using some gently transitional and gradually more familiar language to first snag and then hold your attention, and I could clarify my mission statement, begin to build a foundation, establish a rapport, explain myself... I'd rather not. I'd rather drive right into the story, so to speak.

It's hot in San Jose. Certainly not as hot as a lot of other places in the world, and not even as hot as a lot of other place in California, but compared to San Francisco, it's hot. I moved here a little over a week ago, but weirdly enough the heat didn't get to me until yesterday. Maybe that's because it didn't feel like I was really living here until yesterday. My partner and I have both reported feeling like we're on a very strange and uneventful vacation; like we've been brought to this slightly nicer, slightly newer place to unpack a bunch of boxes, buy some furniture, and figure out the best kind of water filtration system for tap water heavy in Chlorine and Bromoform. It's felt like any day now someone is going to knock on our door and ask for the keys back and tell us, "Thank you so much for choosing Airbnb, we hope you've enjoyed your stay, please make sure to leave us a good review, there will be a $75 cleaning fee."

San Francisco doesn't really have "seasons", at least not in the conventional sense. It's in a perpetual state of almost-warm/almost-cold, foggier in some areas and sunnier in others, but it's nearly the same weather no matter the time of year. So for the last week the omnipresent heat and the clarity of summer in San Jose was pleasant, a novelty--the way anything different that you encounter when you're on vacation is "charming" or "interesting". You're in New Orleans, and no matter where you seem to walk, the air is uniformly thick with the seductive/repulsive aromas of stale beer, fried food and vomit--a permanent-carnival smell. You're running through a sudden downpour, almost slipping on the slick and uneven streets of Saigon, trying to find a place to take cover but loving the thrill of the unexpected extremity of the weather. You shuffle down the subway steps, feeling a deliciously painful tingle in every exposed inch of your skin, the warmth of the subterranean tunnel and the bodies around you thawing your freezing face and offering a sweaty, dank respite from the blizzard up above. All of these things are "an experience" when you're a visitor--that changes when you're there to stay. When there's no expiration date on the smells, sounds, sights or weather, when there's no promise of return to a different place (with its own set of peculiarities, but ones you're well-accustomed to), the "charming" and "interesting" can quickly become "frustrating" and "tedious" (or "familiar", "beloved", "ironic", etc. But "interesting" and "charming" tend to be transient qualities that have a short shelf-life).

It's funny that yesterday was the day that it finally started to sink in, that I really live here now, because I spent nearly the entire day not in San Jose. My partner and I drove down to Gilroy, a place that's even hotter and drier than it is here, to see my family for the first time in over five months. We talked and talked, my mother fixed us tall, strong madrases, we played a choose-your-own adventure game, I ran with my 5-year-old niece through the sprinklers, we sat on patio furniture and ate grilled foods off paper plates. After we left, we stopped by my in-laws' house in Morgan Hill, and sat in their backyard talking and tossing a frisbee for their Australian Shepherd until just after 10:00 PM. By the time we got back to our apartment, it was close to 11:00 PM. The air in the apartment was like breath--warm and a little moist. The cat was laying on the floor like a small pool of fur, seemingly lifeless, melted into the carpet. The sink was full of breakfast dishes that neither I nor my partner had any intention of dealing with that night. Small piles of my clothes and shoes and books were scattered atop every flat surface. The recycling needed to be taken out. My phone *pinged*, notifying me that Susan Stryker's Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution had been delivered and was waiting for me in our mailbox downstairs. I put my mask back on, took the elevator back downstairs, grabbed my new book, and headed back up again. I was starving, so I made myself a box of Annie's Shells & White Cheddar, and I ate it in bed, naked, half-watching an episode of Law & Order on my phone and feeling the little fan in the corner push warm air around the room.

"I need to do the dishes tomorrow. And I need to put all my laundry away. We have to take out the recycling before it overflows. Do we have anything to make for breakfast? Goddamn, it's hot."

These are all such normal thoughts. Completely boring thoughts. Hardly thoughts at all, more like semi-conscious reactions to routine stimuli, like turning off a light as you leave a room or glancing in both directions as you cross the street. They are the mundane thoughts that occur to you when you are so comfortable that you aren't even aware you're comfortable.

I went to sleep hot, and I woke up hot. I haven't gotten dressed today, other than a pair of underwear and the thin cotton shirt I picked up off the floor. My partner took out the recycling and bought some Cheerios and milk at the market down the street while I was still half-asleep; I did the dishes, but not the laundry. The cat is still melting, but this time on the bed beside me instead of on the floor. I feel sweaty, sticky, hot... and comfortable. I feel at home.

The things that I'll write in this blog might be like this--recounting moments interwoven with feeling, sometimes brushing up against some sort of meaning. They also might be completely different--less linear, less expositional, more explosive, more analytical... I also might post the occasional recipe or short story or poem. I would ideally like to use this blog as a platform to create an advice column. That will probably take some time, and can only happen if anyone out there feels like they need some advice, and would like to seek it from a stranger on the internet. If you or someone you know might be interested, please send me an email! You can find it over on the right-hand sidebar, under the heading make some contact. All emails will be read, and all queries and the responses published on this blog will remain anonymous to protect inquirers' privacy. If you'd like to learn more about me, click on the heading who am i? who are you? If you'd like to follow this blog, subscribe via email. If there's anything specific you want to see, read, know, or discuss, let me know.

Okay, time to go take a cold shower. Bye!