XXX 1
"
I don't like her."
My sister says this as we walk down the street.
"Why?" I ask. "She seems nice."
"I just don't like her," she states again, firm in her belief.
I realize why she doesn't like her. She's "that kind of girl."
Intimidatingly beautiful, she seems to give off an innate confidence that can translate to "bitch" or for lack of a better word, "intimidating" just because of how she looks.
This is something that I think Girl Love really stands for.
Not getting intimidated or stereotyping girls negatively because you don't know them well, and because you think they are a specific "type" of person. Really, we should just like or dislike people on an individual basis when we've had a chance to meet them.
XXX 2
I used to think that I was the most agreeable person when it came to photography. That there was little that annoyed me. Even typical macro flower shots, or nature I didn't mind because some people just like to photograph flowers, and some people just like to paint flowers even though I think they are boring as subject matter. I mean I take shots of flowers and sometimes I'll paint flowers too, but in general, I don't like to.
Then I came across HDR photos.
I realized that I hate these kinds of photos, and the intense praise they seem to attract.
Comments include:
"Stunning shot!"
"Exquisite!"
It looks like something out of a fantasy novel. It's too gaudy, and I don't see the big deal.
I like this photo so much more. Maybe its because I've followed this girl's photos for awhile, and I know that this photo means something. Maybe I'm boring, but I can relate to this a hundred times more than HDR.
XXX 3
Ah, I'm trying to make this a comprehensive post. Aka long, and about everything so I don't have to do three hundred posts in the little time that's left of today.
Today I tried to teach a girl about feminism. I really think that feminism is something that you get, or you don't get. She was studying for her women's studies exam that got deferred. The girl went to my high school, and I had been friends with her sister. Her sister was awkward and nerdy like me, and this girl always struck me as kind of a bitch (but I am trying this girl love thing, so I thought maybe she's not as dense or as mean as I thought!).
Besides, I like teaching people things. She was impressed by the fact that I was making zines.
"Who's paying you to do that?" She asked me kind of shocked.
"No one," I replied.
She was all excited that I was making zines because she read an article on zines! And I thought, "Who the fuck writes academic articles on zines anyways?" Full of my new feminist identity, I tried to explain some major points on articles she didn't understand. I never read the articles, I kind of just skimmed them and gathered the major points. I've done this a lot helping my sister write papers, and if its not for my class, I can gather the main argument rather quickly.
"I've never felt oppressed in my life before as a woman. I've never felt like I didn't get something because I was a woman, so it's hard for me to understand these issues," she admits to me.
I didn't know what to say to help her "get it"(now I'm assuming that she needs to understand women's studies to live a better life, but I think I'm just going to stop over-over-analyzing the things I say). I think a lot of people write off women's studies as a legitimate discipline. You either get it, or you don't, and if you're not going to take the time to understand it, and step out of your way of thinking, then its not going to work for you. You're going to dismiss it, and listen to youtube videos about cats and accept the world as being as perfect as you think it is.
I probably should have tried harder, but I'm not Judith Butler, and I wanted to make sure she understood something in the one hour she had before her exam.
"Ha ha, just so long as you don't capitalize bell hook's name, you'll be fine!" I joked. She'd read one or two articles by her in the term.
"What? You don't capitalize her name?"
"No, you don't... But don't worry, you'll do fine anyways!"
Before she left, I asked her if she wouldn't mind if I cut out the article from her course reader on zines. She let me have it, and I read it after she left. I was glad it was written in 2009, not 1999.
For the history of zines, it says its mainly believed to be a white, middle class, educated thing. You know, grrls and punk rock and 3rd wave feminism. And I understand that a lot of people who make zines are white, middle class, educated women who have access to the internet. The article thought that I didn't know how white zine making is.
Thing is, I know I'm privileged. I know I'm white. I know I'm middle class. I know there are poor girls, coloured girls, native girls, girls on welfare with babies who can't make zines. Who can't say what they want to say, who don't even know they can make something like zines. And it makes me feel guilty that they can't make zines in Africa and distribute them like I can, and that I can't read zines from Israel and Pakistan about women's issues. But what am I supposed to do?
I'm just one girl, who makes zines. I mean I can say, "This issue of Gender Fuck What is going to be all about race and gender, this issue is going to be all about gender in Iran." But that wouldn't be good enough for bell hooks, that wouldn't be good enough for Judith Bulter. I'm still fucking white. I'm still educated. I'm still privileged.
For the sake of my story, let's say I found an indigenous girl who couldn't afford to make zines, didn't know what they were, but wanted to express herself in a way that would work well for a zine. Ok, so we get together, and I show her my zines and bring some supplies that I have that she doesn't. She makes it, I pay for the copying because she doesn't really have the money to make zines. I mean, I spend enough money on coffee, I could probably actually do this.
I'm still some white patron figure. Judith Butler would say something extraordinary about me using my privileged whiteness as a sort of phallic symbol that is probably colonial in nature.
Well, aly, who gives a fuck what JB thinks of you if you're helping a girl make zines, and adding her voice to a mainly North American/white/middle class dominated art form?
Sometimes it just makes me want to scream. What the fuck am I supposed to do? I know I'm white. Everything I make is white, everyone I try to help will be influenced by my white culture, and white ideals even if I try to be more diverse, even if I try to be objective. I wish I wasn't white and queer. I wish I wasn't white and queer and middle class and caucasian.
I know I feel entitled. I know I'm lucky I'm writing a blog right now in a house that protects me from the elements and keeps my freshly copied and stitched zines dry. I'm lucky I can read academic articles for fun, read books when I want to, buy and make zines, go for coffee. I can walk with my sister at sunset without fear that I'm going to get shot in the back of my head, raped, or murdered because of my body, race, or sexuality. My body will not be fucked, then dismembered and thrown into an alley.
I'm so fucking lucky. I'm even lucky I'm so depressed. Life is so fucking great! I can even be depressed! I mean I don't have to worry about feeding children, having AIDS, and I never have to worry that someone is going to find out I like girls and hang me as my father nods in approval. I can cut myself if I want to, I can find some street drugs, smoke, drink until I vomit. Some people just get cut by other people and get drugged. I'm lucky, because I can do it all to myself if and when I want to.
I'm ranting, but I just really don't get what I'm supposed to do.
XXX 4
Today when I was walking to the bus, I cut across a parking lot. A group of guys in a car drove slowly past me and started waving at me and smirking, one of them was laughing. And I thought "Is it because I look more masculine today?" "Is it because I'm fat?" "Is it because I don't look like someone they'd fuck, so they think I'm funny?" They could have just been nice, but I've gotten enough things shouted at me and thrown at me from behind car windows to know that it probably wasn't.
XXX 5
Plans for late late August/early September:
1. Go to Montreal for a few days/a weekend and take no prisoners. Whether this is alone or with my sister or with anyone else, I am going to Montreal. I will have to remind myself of this often. I am going to Montreal.
2. Start a queer/feminist/grrl band. I've wanted to start a band for so long, so why not? I'm going to ask everyone I know, and possible venture to craigslist and the sketchy underbelly of the internet. I feel like a band would bring some sort of regular socialization to my life.
XXX 6
I ran into Leah today, and I realized that I was kind of unwilling to learn alternative methods of things that I do i.e. stitching zines. I dunno why I care so much that zines have to be stitched in a particular way even though sometimes I'm annoyed I can't get the knots right. It's not the first time its happened where someone's made a suggestion to do something slightly different. It's not like she said, "Fuck, aly. Weak zines." It was the same when my dad tried to teach me how to change things that I'm doing which are slightly wrong on the guitar, and in Quebec when people would correct every second word I said. Well, both are different from stitching zines, but maybe I feel like when I learn how to do something, especially on my own, that there is something that will make it less personal if someone else shows me how to do it. I should be more willing to try old things in new ways, I just get defensive sometimes.
XXX 7
I am sick of being asked questions. I think I love this art project for it the way it deals with this. Basically the idea is that trans or genderqueer people are photographed with signs of things friends, family members, peers or colleagues have asked them. Link is
here. It's probably old, but I wish I could paint some signs and ask people shit they ask me and see how they feel. I know people just want to know, and they are naturally curious. I know I've asked some bad questions in my day, but unless you're on the receiving end, you don't know how badly questions can hurt.
I don't have super short hair, I don't identify as trans. It's not even "are you gay?" questions that bother me. It's the subtle ones, the ones where you think the questioner should know better, but they don't.
XXX 8
I told him my plan, and he's not going to stop me. This is liberating. This is frightening. This is life. I say this squeezed at the end of what feels like a thousand thoughts. It's not a bad plan, or that kind of plan. It's just a plan.
When I sit on the floor half-dressed some mornings, I know I am having a bad start to a day. I can't even finish putting on clothes. I sit on the floor and think, "what if life stopped now?" Who does that other than me? Maybe everyone does, and we are too afraid to tell each other we sit and think about our own mortality in our underwear.
Around the age of 14 I used to play a game where I would go in my room after dinner, and instead of watching tv I would lie on my bed completely still and pretend I was dead. I would close my eyes and listen to my breathing and count the time that passed. I was dead, and I was waiting for my mother, my sister, or my brother or anyone to come and find me. Most of the time no one did after a long time, and I got bored and went to watch tv.
I don't like the idea of being forgotten. I like to think that I mean something, that my life and my thoughts mean something. Yet, I always feel forgotten, forgettable. Disposed, disposable. Like I am continuously fading to white. Just before my grandmother went into the hospital for the second time, for the last time, we were sitting on her couch in the living room. She was really weak, and she turned to me and said, "Alyson, I just want you to know that even though it feels like it sometimes, no one will ever forget you."
Remembered by dead people. Do dead people remember? Does my grandmother remember me? Will my aunt remember me? My words never evoke the exact emotions I feel.
(I am a lazy writer because I use too many words to say such few things. I need to make my writing flow better, cut out the filler. This takes time and energy. I just write and don't look back at the messes I make. I'm not trying to be, "Oh look at me, I'm so sad." I'm just trying to collect my thoughts into something that I can look at later. Something to make sense of later.)
xxx 9
"You'll find someone if you stop looking."
I know this is true because that's what happened last time.
But I can't stop looking, I can't stop that looking feeling.
