Musings on a First-time Group Chat with Mostly Strangers

Bizarre...no reason for being here other than humyn connection?

The one person i know, i've never met in real life...

Mildly surprising that this isn't more painful

(given my mild depression's anti-social tendencies)

(and my propensity to think that anytime i'm not eating, fucking, or writing

i'm wasting my precious moment on this besotted space rock)

How do i talk without making myself the center of attention?

Hey now...the talk turns to sex

What could be more unsurprising...yet welcome?

Ooops, did i just say something flirtatious??

All my inner censors (that's censors with a "C") are going haywire!

Growing up MALE in this culture has taught me it's NEVER okay to flirt

For assuredly someone somehow, regardless of intent

will find my flirtation invasive or assaultive

Hey, bring back that naked artwork of semi-stranger #3!

I'm going to need some proof that boobie is YOU, blue

(down, you undersexed fool, down)

Just sing another song, make 'em laugh...

laughingest

She lost my number, she says
Are there accidents, say i?
Perhaps we're all just puppets
steered by subconscious eye

How to transcend our dysfunctional games?
We're too broken, neurotic, and needy
Can we possibly be the we i see?
Fearless, unconditional, non-greedy

Perhaps in this existential haze
we're forever buggered and blind
Perhaps i'm just flinging fantasies
against the prison of my mind...

Still i dream of stroking her back
until this life comes to an end
Her lastingest lover, her laughingest listener
and goddamn goofiest friend

fingers

There are five kinds of people in this world
What color is YOUR banner unfurled?
There are thumbs, who only want to squash
Making messes they do not clean or wash
There are pointers, the dreamers who live life unbought
Follow them or not, either path is fraught
Mocking middlers, anti-disestablishmentarian contrarians
Some look like clowns, some like librarians
And the fours, who disappear before your face
More and more each day in this inhumyn race
There are pinkies, fooles who want the world to laugh
They see the cup quarter-full, not half

But i'm just whipping this out of my behind
Don't hang it in the hall, don't build a steeple
For if humyns were the six-fingered kind
i would tell you there are SIX kinds of people!

ally

Fighting white patriarchy since a youth

Systemic biases unholy and uncouth

"Him/her" straightjackets i've striven to undo

(been railing about that since 1992)

It's nice to have company, that's a boon i've prized

But please don't call me "ally", it's a bummer being marginalized

masoschism

Dualism of mind and body
A tenuous, fatuous philosophy...
Yet the simplest technology
doth incite a natural schizophreny

Like the jarring experience of hearing your voice on tape
Sounding like NOBODY you know
Ugly and mawkish like a barbary ape
A sound you'd rather not show

The voice you've always heard
sounds pleasing to your ear
But that's an acoustic reality
no one else can hear

Or how our self-image is mirror-molded
(backwards in other words) like time slightly folded
Our photos to us look not quite right
but our friends see us with unadulterated sight

These harmless quirks magnified beyond cessation
Living in this culture of fear and alienation
Our looks hold the key to how we are treated
Whether we are loved, what respect we are ceded

Yet the corporeal is a cage
even for the gorgeous
The feeling of faking
The specter of loss
The fear that the world
will judge us by sight
and never see the REAL "you"
(or worse, that they might!)

Is this my body
Are these my knees?
Is that my fat??
Reintegrate me please!
How do i ask YOU to love me
when i lack that same skill?
How can i offer all of myself
when i'm an observer as well?

All this dualistic drivel
makes our self-image shrivel
Humynity's lost the art
of connecting by heart
Pure faith in oneself
leads to universal trust
To avoid self-destruction
reclaim that we must
For any stranger or sweetie truly comfy in their skin
can never help but let the whole world come in

tears actually

LOVE ACTUALLY
2003, directed by richard curtis

Update: I was mildly surprised to learn that some feminists hate this movie, and...you can't deny they're mostly right. The trope that posits wimyn are better seen and not heard, and that they exist to be "won" by a dynamic male? That critique has merit.

But i originally took this movie into my heart, not in spite of its occasional idiocy, but BECAUSE of that. It's a romantic comedy - doesn't one watch any rom-com with the presumption of idiocy? The fact that it's occasionally smart, wasn't the point either. I thought that in embracing a rom-com, any rom-com (something i'd almost never done), i would gain common ground with many wimyn. And perhaps thus increase my chances of getting laid.

An admittedly mercenary motivation...but underneath that was joy over the fact that this movie sometimes actually tells the truth about romance. Some people in this happy movie get CREAMED, with no reprieve, and i will always be grateful to the creators for that.

Plus...the most-vilified plotline, with the smitten best man showing love posters to his best friend's wife? That's one of my favorites - perhaps the only moment in cinematic history that speaks to my experience of the often stunningly-noble aspect of unrequited love.

Maybe you've never been there.

Is the film idiotic?

Of course.

Except when it's not. Can you say that about any other rom-com?

(original review)
I cried thrice in the past twenty-four hours, all while watching the movie LOVE ACTUALLY (or its special features). It's such a gentle miracle, crying, and i wonder whether i'll ever do so as much as i'd like. I've come a long way from my boys-don't-cry childhood, but still only cry once a month or less.
LOVE ACTUALLY, from the creators of NOTTING HILL and ABOUT A BOY, is wonderful. I've never seen a movie so happy and life-affirming you nearly forget that some characters don't find the love they need. We all muddle about, disappointing and hurting one another...and even when we get things right, there's a doomed longing to have love wrap us up and never leave.

Today's tears were while watching the deleted scenes, and a feature on the music (it's all wonderful, none more so than joni's new recording of "Both Sides Now"...the wisdom and sadness she precociously penned in her twenties are given heart-rending texture decades later). Not only should everyone add this movie to their holiday tradition, everyone should pester Universal to release a "deleted scenes/no-colin" version (um, that's colin the CHARACTER, not colin the actor). The cut scenes are often better than ones kept in. The commentary is delightful too.
Are there moments (and one entire colin plotline) that are forced and saccharine? Sure. But this movie also starkly reflects the pain we inflict on ourselves in the name of monogamy - jealousy, betrayal, denial...we put ourselves through agonizing spiritual contortions, trying to fit ourselves into a paradigm contrary to our nature. In the corners of this film, there might be tiny baby steps into a more enlightened future. Three plotlines (a spoiled rock star and his manager, a step-father and his child, and two adolescents) celebrate love itself, free of sexuality.
My tears remind me that this past year there have been two songs which have made me cry - paul simon's "Father and Daughter", and don henley's "Annabel". An insight into my lonely, grieving spirit...

I actually love...all of you. 

anthophilia

She sits her flower down

She sits on a bench

She noodles with her phone

My heart gives a wrench

There's a flower in running shorts!

I want to stand and cheer

You can find a flower in bloom

most any time of year

Burgundy flowers, pink flowers

beige, purple, red

Sigh, cry, happy til' i die

in a wildflower bed

Flowers fill my world

Such flower songs i've sung

Four billion flowers

and me with but one tongue!