I'm shy. That's just the way I am, but there is something wrong in exposing a friend while keeping yourself in safety. So here I am! This blog is not about self-promotion, but I find supporting ideas and people online a great thing. That said, 12buy12 at Austin Art Space is coming up soon. The first of December to be exact is when the show starts, but 
What brought up the whole mysterious bit was that I met a fellow model for the first time, and both of us knew each other's name but had never seen a face. Shelly Long of Austin, Texas. Eve talks about her wonderful outfits. I've seen her upcycled art at GAGA, but never the artist. So we art models are a strange bit. Misty tells me otherwise and I feel bad that I can't get my butt to Kelli's parties, but it's mostly true. Models rarely meet; we don't have overlapping shifts.
What do you look for in a man, in a woman? Nothing. Everything. Yourself.
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Listen, please. I try to spare you of details of my love life and my own personal turmoil. Everyone has pain, why should I get special attention for mine? However, what happened to me could happen to any art model, and if I don't say anything I will be doing a disservice to the next art model. Perhaps, there could be change. That would make me feel better.
Oh Mother! Where are we now? San Francisco, honey.
Madonna's song 'What It Feels Like for a Girl' barely touches on what it is to be a girl. It describes a girl who is barely there. A girl who, for lack of better words, behaves and abides by the status quo. A status quo that Madonna herself would never adhere to, because she is strong. I bring this up, cuz we're in the city of men wanting to be women and vice versa. For now I am going to focus on MTF because I know what it is to be a woman, and revel in it.
I love putting on makeup and sewing beautiful clothes for myself. My apartment is a temple to Gianni Versace although my closet has a ways to go before it has his style. Really, I was trying to avoid that play on words. I realize that I'm just one girl, and that's it. This does not apply to all females around the globe. Good feminists will acknowledge that, bad ones will talk about their life and apply that structure to women who don't have safe drinking water let alone a college degree.
But what I really wonder is...why do humans look down on men who are effeminate? The intro to 'What It Feels Like' is a sample from Ian McEwan's Cement Garden. Julie, or rather Ian, is the first person to so concisely put the whole genre of homophobia into clarity. We, women, are the second sex at least in a man's point of view. Excuse me, most men secretly think this. Anyone who acts like a woman is instantly degraded. Do you disagree?
Why else would cocksucker (what I as a woman do all the time) be an insult? The third sex, I wish it weren't this way, but we are talking about popular culture and my opinion is small compared to it. The third sex, transgender or transexuals is lower than women. When I was looking for pictures of Christina Aguilera's 'Beautiful,' I found drag queen tagged to her photo. We all know that is an insult. One that her video, 'Beautiful,' challenges.
"We are beautiful no matter what they say...words won't bring us down."
Be yourself no matter what that entails. Damn that's easy to write, but so hard to put into practice. Just know that there are places you can be yourself. The world is huge and there are safe havens in different cities. Thank you San Francisco, and thank you Harvey Milk.
I introduce to you Nellie Bly. She was the journalist who ventured around the world solo in a time when women were usually chaperoned. In fact, she beat the fictional Phileas Fogg's record of 80 days by over a week in advance: 72 days 6 hours and 11 minutes. Nellie Bly will be our tourguide of the world in the days to come, but for now, we're packing.
My daddy's a scientist. When I was young he told me, "to question everything!" Everything. We'd go to museums and national parks during the summer, and how I dreaded the long pondering of why x was that way. When you are little an hour seemed like a lifetime, and so did his lectures. Perhaps lectures is the proper term, but rather they were him thinking aloud. Now his lectures are interesting for me since I can debate with my father, but then...sheesh!
I apologize. A document that parallels the Declaration of Sentiments should not be written overnight, and not by one person. What I will leave with you is a quote of the importance of being patient.
"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year." – President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009
Health care is a major issue in the guild we are creating. For me, it was the reason to start the guild, so I wouldn't have to work two jobs. I am very fortunate that my part-time job provides health insurance, but I look forward to the day, or rather days, that I have a two day weekends. In the discussion, it was mentioned that Americans pay more for health care than they do for shelter or food. Please read for yourself, for the White House staff is a bit more eloquent than I am. Aaahnd if you'd rather watch, here's some White House teevee.
Take care, and remember "Knowing's half the battle!"
"There never is a shortage of suffering." Really there isn't. This quote is from Victoria Moran's book where she discusses volunteering and developing compassion, however, and the limit to all of it. There is a limit to each of us. I can't watch the news; I have to read or listen to it. The last thing I want to be is apathetic and desensitized.
