The Javelina will BITE those who do not dream

I thought that climbing a huge redwood would be a good first step in helping me get over my fear of heights. Maybe next time, earth first. While I was learning the ropes, I couldn’t help but remember that the last time I climbed, it was at our church rock climbing wall. Anthony Riggan (RIP) invited us to join him when he was training for the air force. Maybe tomorrow I can channel his courage towards something more positive.

I just completed my first leg of my first solo hitching trip, reached the pacific ocean, and immediately discovered that an old friend and lover, Niall McNellis had died. Niall was the freest person I had met up to that point, and lived with reckless abandon, often to a fault. How can I balance my own fear with my freedom. I’m confronting my fears head on, and I am scared out of my wits. Next post will be from atop a redwood tree. I dedicate this adventure to my dear ones who have just entered the spirit world. May I channel the life-force of SilverWolfe, live with Niall’s reckless abandon, and keep JP’s song in my heart.
“I am part of the great unfolding of the cosmic love that that we are knowing. I am part of the deepest flowing of the well of life that we are holding I am opening a portal to myself. I am opening a portal in myself. And I know what my shadow knows, and my shadow knows what I know.”

Hi Tumblr! I can’t believe I just went on this 5 month traveling adventure and never really posted. I don’t know…maybe I just needed to do my own internal self-reflection. I sort of just dropped off the face of the earth for a while…but now Benn and I have our bulk food in glass jars on the cabinet, which means that we are moved in. I read Christy Road’s first biography today, Invincible, which made me think about this whole road trip thing. I really left because I wanted to be punk…I wanted to learn about the gutter of the underground subculture…but I just ended getting scammed by a fake gypsy instead. Fucking dress code. I hate black. I love sparkles. And my vaginal yeast is too unstable for me to go any serious amount of time without showering. I understand security culture blah blah blah but seriously. So much fucking pressure. It’s like you have to prove yourself all the time. I’m trying to remember what I thought that community had to offer me. I have gotten involved with the Perma scene here in Portland. It’s not really even a scene, but just people that like to build stuff out of natural materials and don’t make a fucking big deal out of it. I don’t know much about permaculture but nobody really cares, everyone wants to teach you what they know. None of this having to prove yourself bullshit.

Now on to different things. Benn and I are preparing for our first rainbow gathering happening all next week. The week after is witch camp and I will get to see Larkin for the first time in a year and a half. I’m checking his youtube videos and I don’t even know if I will be able to recognize him after 3 months on T. He’s all bulked out, muscular, deep voice, getting some facial hair…I’ve always thought of him as a man, but more on the gender neutral side of masculine. I’m so glad that his body is looking more like his feelings about his gender perception, but it’s going to be so strange to see this person I thought I knew and understood and to realize that all of that was sort of wrong. It’s hard for me to trust/interact with man-bodied people. I hope that his new body doesn’t affect the way we interact with each other. I guess we all change over the course of a year and a half, some of us just change gender…er…gender perception? Whatever. I’m wondering…am I even allowed to be feeling these things? It seems so…backwards to be having these feelings. And all of that is on top of the fact that he sorta broke my heart, even though I don’t hold it against him there is going to be a lot of forgiveness and renewal happening with this new bodied person who I have this link to their old self and their old body and I don’t even know man identified & man perceived larkin. And I’ve been having some sexual feelings too and Benn and I really need to have this conversation about boundaries and what is OK and if my history with the person even makes a difference.

I can’t believe it’s been three years since witch camp. Part of me can’t believe how much I have changed, another part wishes that I had changed more. But there’s no denying that that week in the woods put me on this trajectory that this bringing me back three years later. I think I will learn a lot about myself over the next two weeks.

I have been so depressed all month because of Benn. I’ve been having fun when I do go out, but I’ve just been thinking about him obsessively, crying multiple times a day, and contemplating getting in my car and driving back to Arkansas. But today I woke up….not feeling depressed or bad about myself, despite the fact that I had sunken to a new low and had low self-esteem sex, something that I haven’t done in like 3 years. I should have been at the point where I hit rock bottom, but I was feeling just fine. Because today was the day that I started massage school. Once I found something to give my life direction and purpose, I didn’t need to fret about Benn. No matter how much I tried to snap myself out of feeling upset, nothing worked until I actually took this proactive step towards taking my future in to my own hands. Quite literally. Today was a powerful day for me. They smudged us with sage to purify us, and I got this overwhelming feeling that sage would be a very important smell in my life, that it was something I would associate with happiness. Our first assignment was to feel someone else’s heartbeat. I began thinking about how this is how I met Larkin, and for the first time felt nothing but an overwhelming sense if love for him. I listened to Leslie’s heart, and got all of these images of her kneading bread dough and holding newborn babies. I am so excited. This will be a chance for me to heal and help others along their path, just what I want to do.

I picked plums with Gracie.

A crazy mountain man stole our favorite dog, Mazel Tof, because he was convinced that Nicole stole tools from him. But we found her at the pound.

I got drunk with Phil and read Hebrew law, which is my new favorite thing to do while drunk. 

The catalyst had their grand opening. We rocked out to three hardcore bands, one of which was a native ska crustcore group called let the world die. This is the second time I have seen them, and they are one of my faves. My favorite quote from the night: FRONTMAN: “this song is called pink and black. It’s about slitting the throat, and slowly watching the life drain out of anyone who has ever called you a faggot” ME (in the front row): oh…dear.

Gracie and I sang “if you treat me good” by adhamh roland and “soda shop” by jay brannan at the catalyst open mic. It didn’t sound awesome, but our totally adorable coreography made up for it. Pamela asked if we were smooching, and I was flattered.

Yesterday I found bluebird of happiness on my front porch. My housemates were having a yard sale. My mind went back to the enchanted forest and the labyrinth with the statue with the kind eyes and I almost wept with joy. Then the rains came. The thunderstorm. It felt more like home then anything I have experienced in this dry desert wasteland. Went to the red rocks to visit greg’s parents. Greg’s dad and I climbed a butte until we reached an eerie red desert atop a plateau, with all the ghost manzanita and the billowing wind, a storm looming in the distance. Called Greg from atop the butte. Good dinner of organic pizza after. Today I spent much if the day sampling songs from the early 1900s for our dance, reconnecting with an old classmate. Got the best haul ever in the Safeway dumpster, at least 40 bottles of odwalla. Took it to the catalyst for the insurrectionist theatre troupe. They did this insane play where an anarchist captured a member if the G20 and ended up sexually assaulting him, said that he represented every opressor and every victim. He sat there tied in a chair until Angeline came and untied him. Too much for me to handle. Had to leave. Had a party afterwards, Vlad and Tom were the only ones there for a while. Tom says he wants to be on corporate law. Interesting hanging out with straight boys. Had to take them back to their halfway house, and everyone else came over. Lovely time, made some new friends. Jack told me that he respected me, which I really appreciated bc I had been feeling creeped out by him lately. Said that his intentions were pure and I had a beautiful Midwest energy, which I appreciated but he still kept saying it even after I told him that Arkansas is firmly in the south. So happy to see nicole again . She has been gone for a very long time. Gracie and I practiced our Adhamh Roland song for the variety show. through the living room window. Sophie gave me a very interesting hug, especially for our first meeting. Also found out that Megan has a crush in me. why don’t people tell me these things?

Today was amazing! I felt like home. Finally , the desert rains cane, hopefully the start of the monsoons. It smelled like…it smelled like everything lain dormant come to life. It was sweet and earthy. There was finally humidity in the air. And lightning! The lightning here looks different. The whole sky lights up. In the midst of this mild storm, we collected lavender. Went over to the catalyst to process it, had gathered enough to make a 6 oz oil infusion. Gracie gave me yarrow, and between the lavender, Mullen I collected earlier this week, and the yarrow I will be able to make a scrape salve in 2 weeks. After I made the oil, we went and dumpstered lots of strawberries and decided to try out my new juicer. Nothing like fresh strawberry juice in the summertime. I want to dumpster fruit every day. After a nice curry dinner from Angeline, we snuck in to the casino and we swam in the warm salt water pool and taught each other pool games from our childhood. Ryan said he felt like he was on vacation. I felt like it was summer. Then we went to denny’s (they don’t have Waffle House in the west, so sad) and we laughed at everything like we were stoned. Gracie really wanted to have an awkward party where half the people are informed that the party is supposed to be really awkward and the other half is not. We came up with lots of great ideas. Gracie read aloud from her book “public exhibition ” and made weird faces the whole time. It was so great. I’m sure everyone though we were so obnoxious but we were having such a fun time. Now I am at gracie’s house about to fall asleep on her couch watching a midsummer nights dream. I wish today were the rest of my life.

I want to try to start blogging every day. I think it would help a lot. After that last post, dani dumped me and I decided to move back to little Rock. I was pretty bummed at first, but got really excited about it as time went on. I had massage school, midwifery, friends, feminist club, good weather, and a very special boy named Benn to look forward to. About two weeks ago, Benn told me that he met someone else and I started having seizures again. I figured if I was having seizures all the way out here just thinking about it, I should not move back. Changed all of my plans, got accepted to massage school out here two days ago, and have been feeling really awful about it. I know that i have a lot of great things going for me right now, but it was all just really foreboding. This brings me to last night, when I totally humiliated myself, called Benn and basically told him that if he would consider dating me I would move back to Arkansas, if he stayed with Acadia then I would not. I know that wasn’t fair to him to put that on his shoulders, but I had one day to get my deposit back and I had to do it. Of course he did not go for it, but I feel a lot better today. I feel like there’s closure. Three people invited me out last night, and I went out with Amanda, Gracie, Silver Wolfe, and Amandas boss Rich. We had such a great time together. Rich was a hoot, Silver Wolfe is always so positive, it is always great to be around Gracie, and I think there’s some serious potential for friendship with Amanda. She is always so bubbly and really knows how to engage people in conversation. After we left the raven, Gracie, Amanda and I drunkenly went to a park and had a blast. Gracie always knows how to have fun. We stumbled home and I ended up with a food processor and a juicer somehow (this is after only two beers, mind you.) I’m gonna go dumpster some fruit and make some juice! Anyway, Amanda spent the night and we ended up talking about what happened with her and dani. Dani really wanted to hook up with Amanda while we were dating, and was apparently very bad at communicating the fact that 1) that’s what she wanted and 2) that I was ok with it. Amanda was really unsure and wanted to preserve our friendship first and foremost, so just sorta awkwardly stopped talking to Dani. Plus Amanda said that she sorta had a crush on me. I asked if I could kiss her. It felt right. We both agreed that we didn’t want to have sex, and that we really didn’t want to date or anything, but we both really wanted to kiss each other. It was so much fun! And hot! I feel really good about everything. I feel like it is the start of a really deep friendship.

Everything went to shit. Sydnie kept snapping at me at the consent meeting. She was upset. I was going over to Sydnie and sadies to make shirts that said I heart bois when I got a text from phil asking me to come over so I arrived they were sitting on their front porch the cops had just left. Hir housemate Bruce tried to kill himself the cops came and just kept asking and asking they had no idea what was going on so they refused to answer until phil went to bruce’s room and found him mostly dead with a suicide note, phil wouldn’t stop shaking and ze kept saying “I won’t watch another veteran die.” Phil and hir roomie kept exchanging these military stories and I know phil hasn’t told Cory half of what he told me. I got nervous and started twitching and had a seizure and said I had to leave, went to sadies and collapsed in to to dani’s arms ruined the atmosphere of the whole night said I couldn’t be alone so dani took me home although ze was in a weird mood. On the way home ze told me that yesterday ze was walking with another trans friend and they had a bad feeling about these two men and they ran and the men chased after them and the next day they found out that two female bodied individuals were raped and stabbed in that same spot, and then today hir mom called the cops because hir dad wouldn’t give back hir sister, and hir mom told hir that ze should give up the whole “drag thing” then clay left hir in the middle of practice and ze was so angry, ze scared me. And I told hir that ze could hit me if ze wanted to and it terrified me that I said it, I don’t know why I said it but that’s really how I felt. Ze told me that ze has to try every day not to be a monster like hir father because ze is exactly like him, and the violence must end with hir. Ze is surrounded by abused people and can’t live with it anymore. And I’m terrified that I will grow up to be a battered wife if I don’t fill this need consentually, and right now I’m just terrified in general. Dani told me to break up with hir now if I’m going to, but I don’t want to, but what if I want to later? I’m scared.

I am crazy about this girl. Where to start? Yesterday she decided to ditch work and we went on a grand adventure to her hometown of Camp Verde. I met her mom! Her mom was a lively lovely lady who cares about people and feminism, who thought I did an excellent job moaning in the vagina monologues, who has great faith in the healing power of touch. As she talked about the difficult divorce and how dani helped her through all if that, it helped me understand dani’s strength and courage after she told him to get out of the house when dani found out he was abusing her sister. I knew in that moment I wanted to be with her. We took a trip down to montezuma well, by the babbling creek and the canopy of trees I asked her to be my girlfriend. I wondered about the lives of the people who lived in these immaculate ruins.