7/1: "Not tasty."

-I went to see Ice Age 3:Dawn of the Dinosaurs with Cordell, Lorelai and Eric. There was a great, terribly offensive transphobic joke: The British, one-eyed weasel who leads the mastadons, the sabertooth tiger, and a couple of possums into the dino world, tells them, "Let me tell you about the time I used a sharpened clam shell to turn a T. Rex into a T. Rachel." Unfortunately, the anecdote ends there. Needless to say, I spent a good chunk of the movie mulling this over--presumably, the procedure was simple castration; so does a lack of male genitalia equal female identity, in this film's frame of reference, and thereby to society at large? Then the baby mastadon got born, and I went all teary. Damn the baby bag.

6/26: "Revival"

-After my job interview, which went mostly okay, I hope, they gave me a really good chocolate oatmeal biscotti. I hope that's some indication of how things will go.

-I made yaki soba with stuff from the garden: broccoli, kale, beets, carrots, cilantro. I ate it and listened to Farhad's mix and wrote him a postcard, then retired to my couch-bed to read The Pickwick Papers and fall asleep at the embarrassing time of 11:30 pm.

5/11: "Just give it an extra squeeze for me."

--I saw the last half of "Examined Life," which Josh was screening in Tishman. Though I accidentally sat next to an ex and her new boyfriend and felt like some shifty character in a nostalgic-for-the-sixties movie made in the eighties, the film itself was okay. Nothing too revelatory got said, though the last bit of Cornel West's discussion was exactly about what my senior show work is about (pixxx soon.) More importantly, though she was talking about the many possibilities and capabilities of The Body, Judith Butler has tiny T. Rex arms, and I'll bet it makes a) doing push-ups really easy, and b) hanging paintings very difficult.

4/17: "And they each sank into the quiet calm of the open road."

Long weekend has been a lazy paradise. Highlights:

-Constant baking in the Townhouse, including but not limited to, cinnamon raisin bread, oatmeal pecan cookies, lasagna, chocolate tartlets, basically anything that can fit in our oven.

-Rebekah took me on my virgin trip to the Manschesthair outlet stores. I tried on a bunch of chinos (I got an email Friday from Admissions saying I am not in fact hired for the summer, which has sent me into a job-searching, business-casual-shopping frenzy,) but, of course, even the 30x30s were gigantically baggy--I looked like I was wearing scrubs. The overly friendly middle aged woman tending the dressing rooms asked me if I found anything, and when I said no, they were all too big, she said, "Better start drinkin' more milkshakes!" Sometimes I really like Vermont.

-To add to the list of drunkenly-proposed bands that I hope against hope will actually happen: a late-nineties alternative rock cover band, featuring Dave Bow and myself, plus possibly others, called "pen island." Possible hits include "Teenage Dirtbag" and "Heaven is a Halfpipe." Some imp of manic energy inspired me to look up the tabs for "Iris" last night, and I think I'm going to perform it, pen island or no. And generally, Maggie's introducing me to sadsteve has sent me into a shame spiral of middle school music nostalgia.


I had totally forgotten that this video had any connection to a Jason Biggs movie.

Plus, highlights from The Aeroplane Flies High:

A Night Like This, in which James Iha out-Robert Smiths Robert Smith.

You're All I've Got Tonight, in which Billy Corgan out-Ric Okaseks Ric Okasek.

Ugly, in which Billy Corgan out-Billy Corgans himself.

4/8: "The Israelites had to peace, and that's why they couldn't leaven their bread."

-After a fairly rough/busy day of giving tours, assembling sculptures with finicky epoxies, and then being too high and brain-dead on spray enamel and glitter glue to answer questions sensibly in Annabel's class, I went back home for an amazing Passover dinner: sensational brisket, homemade gefilte fish, asparagus, kugel, and all the little trimmings. We were going to do the full seder, but things fell apart a bit: Asher started reading the Haggadah from front to back, Rebekah accidentally sang the Hannukah blessing for the wine, and Elijah's Manichewitz was served in a Miller Lite pint glass. But G-d, was it fun.

-I took a long shower and went right to bed afterward, one of the most satisfying small things a single person can do.

4/6: "I just don't want you to be a train wreck!"

-Though I will describe something good that happened today, it was by and large a bust. I babysat a kiln all night until 6:30 in the morning thanks to a certain individual's lackadaisical firing schedule, I went home and slept for two hours, went to the therapist and was told that it wouldn't be prudent to start hormones until I "get settled" somewhere, which is a) total bullshit and b) not something I'll likely do until I start transitioning, I had a series of embarrassing cries in public, I ran out of cigarettes, I spilled coffee all over my white sweater, I lost my favorite bandanna, I'm on the rag, I walked home in the rain and got completely soaked. If anyone was considering doing something nice for me, now would be an appropriate time.

-Emma and I shared stories about being wild in middle school, though her's were far superior to my daily games of spin the bottle and once stripping in a camping trip game of truth or dare.

4/1: "I hate Mondays."

-What a classically "bad day." Between waking up late, working doggedly, and turning in an EPIC FAIL of a paper to Annabel, it started raining, and that thing happened where a car drives through a puddle and splashes you with gross water while you're walking down the sidewalk. But then, dinner was amazing (salmon and mac and cheese), and we had a totally whiz-bang Silo meeting.

3/26: "I think the gay-lien could go anywhere."

-After much hemming and hawing and curling up in my bed in anxiety, I withdrew from Chaucer, yet another star in the constellation of my history of academic givings-up. I never thought chatting with Laurie Kobik could leave me so elated. After all that was taken care of, I called my mom for a good chat. (As an aside, I was amused and a little saddened that, though she was in the same room as my grandparents, she could still call me "Russ," because they're getting so deaf they wouldn't notice.)

-Michael and I had a brief conversation about Footloose, which I haven't seen since I saw half of it on TNT when I was nine. In retrospect, I think it may be one of the greatest films of our time. If the library has it, I know what I'm doing this weekend. WHO'S WITH ME?

3/25: "To start, you must begin."

-After a few class periods of being listless and quiet in Annabel's class, I not only was the only kid in the class to pick up on Peter Lewis in To The North being gay, but cited a way more obscure and awesome passage proving it than Annabel did. It went something like this.

A: Can someone tell me why Lady Waters isn't concerned that Peter and Emmaline would be involved. (Silence) Russell?

R: He's gay.

A: How do we know?

R: Um, Havelock Ellis!

A: [puzzled muttering]

R: He was an early British sexologist who pioneered the study of homosexuality; it's mentioned that Lady Waters asks him about Havelock Ellis at tea.

A: ...I'm not sure you could draw that conclusion from that evidence.

R: [kind of screechy insistence on the legitimacy of queer coding in literature, plus more textual support from the novel]

A: ...[PWNED]

Some of the kids, and Annabel, were also all "they could have just been talking about it because it was in the news/pop science"; I really wish that I'd remembered to point out that Ellis was working 50 years before the book was published. What good is a vast and absurd knowledge of queer history if you can't whip it out and bother people?

3/9: "As opposed to the REASON!"

More queer music videos by popular request:



Highlights include:

-The Canadian-looking androgyne who splits a log.

-Cindy Wonderful (the butch guest star) sings the couplet: "I can be there to relieve your tension/and I could hook up your stereo system."

Here's a new(ish) Athens Boys Choir video featuring Katz's hilarious 1993 bat mitzvah. It is creepy in the best way possible. Best part: "Now my Bubbie wanted a doctor to marry me/and you got two PhD.s/one in fine and one in sexy!"



EDIT: The best part is the end with the cheesy video cut that says "Elizabeth" and young Katz saying, "Goodbye everyone, I had a great time at my bat mitzvah, and I hope to see you at my wedding."

2/26: "I always thought an overhead projector was this!"

-It's good to be back at school. But need a cure for those back to the Bennington blues?



Obv, Athens Boys Choir is kind of my "hip-hop" hero, though to be honest I think the song gets a little too caught up in the 80's references.

2/11: "Bilsons?"

Two good people sightings:

-The librarian at the special collections desk was completely androgynous.  I was researching for two hours and I still couldn't decide if zie was a balding lady or the femmiest man this side of Capote.

-I saw a tall elderly man on a huge cruiser bicycle with extra-long handlebars.  It made me think about how much I enjoy tall elderly men.

2/10: "Lost in Chocolateland"

-It's my last day working for CALC, and as payment I received a huge box of chocolate covered almonds from the office manager who listens to Jack Johnson on Pandora all day. It was very sweet, and also reminded me of the most recent edition of feminist comedienne Sarah Haskin's "Target Women", a series which addresses the ludicrousness of sexist marketing. Maybe I'm just full of shit, but somehow I'm less excited about a box of chocolate than I used to be when I identified as a lady. But then again, I was, like, 15. Am I a bad person because I secretly wished she'd bought me a pack of cigarettes instead? Perhaps, if by "bad person," I mean, "feckless adult."

-This is from yesterday, but Mark Wunderlich requested my Facebook friendship. Even though this means that I actually have to answer to him about my oft-neglected senior paper, I was pleased to be able to finally to see pictures of his cats.

1/28: "He's a bridge between the worlds!"

-Plans to cover Biggie's "Party and Bullshit."

1/26: "Uncomfortable in a good way."

-I found two amazing items at Nobody's Baby, neither of which I could quite bring myself to spend money on:  a black velveteen smoking jacket with a silk frog clasp, which would mean I would have to keep smoking, and a strawberry blonde 80's mall hair drag queen wig, which would go up in flames if I wore it while smoking.  You just can't win, even with the best threads ever.

-I watched the first half of The Ice Storm which wasn't nearly as cool as I remember hearing it was; but then, I was very young.  But now I'm drinking a cup of basil tea with lemon and honey, feeling fucking cozy as all hell.

1/19: "It feels so good to walk!"

-After a weird day of seeing the Springfield MLK Day event at the middle school (photographs to come) and getting in a weird fight with my mom about how she is still calling me "she" and "Rose" with total impunity and having a sore throat on top of all that, Katie and Lucas came over and had cheesecake and tea.  I felt like a real proper host in a way I haven't in a long time.  But yes, this was a really strange day.  I think I'm feeling like I need to leave town (or at least leave Kincaid St.) in a way I hoped I wouldn't until mid-Feb.  But enough moping!  The cheesecake was great, as was the conversation, and the finding a cat outside.  I decided I'll have to make another cheesecake soon.  Anyone interested in joining me, for the making or the eating?

1/16: "J-----'s screenname is 'Locofourloko.'" (i.e. enough time for hyperlinks.)

-Last night I went to see Dragging an Ox Through Water, a local one man band I've liked since mid-high school and haven't seen since then.  As a matter of fact, the first house show I ever went to was Brian's other band, Cheveron, at a somewhat legendary Eugene house venue called My House, run by Marc Moscato, who later got me a job at Microcosm; but that is neither here nor there.  In addition to playing a quietly awesome set and being totally down with my "I was a big fan of yours in high school and you know my friend Barton" spiel while I was buying a 7", Brian Mumford is also exactly how I want to (and expect to) look like once I go on testosterone.  The headlining band, though, was called Firetruck:  the lead singer/keyboardist was a guy I thought was cute in 9th grade, and they sounded like Le Tigre with boys.  I danced really hard with a lot of ex-The United People's Art Club kids from that era, did the David Archer patented Wuthering Heights dance, and dropped it like it was hot probably a little too often.

-I then did some deep hanging out with some good old friends; we all rolled deep to an alleged party at someone's parent's house out Spring Blvd., but it ended up just being a bunch of high school kids who took our beers.  So then we went back downtown to a party in a cement basement with all the walls and floors and ceiling covered in carpet.  Everyone was smoking and drinking and laughing and throwing bottle caps at each other, and it seemed like Pinocchio had dragged a bunch of hipsters into the whale's belly with him.  Nick also suggested that we should form a band to play my songs, which I hope wasn't just a drunken threat.

1/13: "This is Yolanda."

-I got to work late because I spent an extra thirty minutes listening to the birdsongs and feeling wholesome.

-Cute boys keep facebooking me, and I'm a tween girl, and it makes my day.

1/11: "I was able to perform an appendectomy at age 14."

-Sometimes, when I have time alone with the dear internet, I make a habit of ferreting out weird things that cheesy gay celebrities have done. Like this clip of Neil Patrick Harris on Sesame Street wearing fairy wings and singing about all the different types of shoes. Truly the remains of a gay.

1/5: "JE-sus CHRIST!"

-I hung a photo exhibit about family diversity with my boss in a Methodist church in Junction City. My boss is a very feisty lady, a self-described "brazen hussy", and rather skeptical and flippant about Christians in general. As we were loudly pounding nails into the wooden foyer of this church, an old man came in from the office and, seeing that we were putting up photos, said "I thought I heard some hanging around here!" Sall said, "Yeah, and not the bad kind!" She also loudly said "JE-sus CHRIST!" and later asked me about the political difference between myspace and facebook.