Goodbye Boo :(

I don't know

Hey there, I know I haven't written anything in a very long time. A lot has happened since my last post: I've finished a doctorate program, got the co-edited memoir a publication date, met a lot of lifelong friends, been on a lot of awkward first dates, lost my PoPo and Travis, adopted a really cute cat, and I've been trying to relearn how to be in a romantic relationship in a more healthy way.

 This last year has been a bit of a whirlwind for me. I've been more busy than during any of my previous six years after one of my slowest years (I was on a fellowship and MIA from campus). It's been an emotional rollercoaster mainly due to a couple of people who were mainstays and pretty stabilizing forces in my life moving away. I knew it would be hard without Fe and Naveen in LA, but I think I learned pretty quickly how much they centered me in the department and outside. I know also as this experience has drawn to a close, I've been thinking about all the times I really didn't feel like I knew what I was doing...whether that was TAing or being the Instructor for the first time, or writing an abstract, or trying to figure out just what was expected from a depth exam. I used to say "I don't know" a lot to students, and I realized this week I almost never say that anymore. I know this has very little to do with obtaining some form of expertise, and more that I've learned to move onto topics that can be discussed concretely rather than sit around and speculate. But speculation is also an important part of life, and I think it's a problem that I've stopped coming from a place of uncertainly and admittance to not knowing. How can you be remade, and be open to critique if you don't admit that you will always not know? I admit that, maybe it's due to tolkenization and my increasing intolerance of it, that I am less open to critique without some form of construction than I was at the beginning of this program. This is especially true when teaching undergrads. It's often a revelation to students that they can be critical of what they read, and often students find discursive deconstruction very liberating because of that. But I think it's really easy to tear something apart, and much harder to build something from what may not completely jive with you. The students who are able to do both, and have a more nuanced look at things are the ones who often are able to both say they don't know, and use that critical not-knowing to start something original and intersectional.

 Anyway, I don't know. Quite often these days I wish I was not myself. Life is happening too fast, after 5 years of it happening so slow. I spent a lot of this time with a handful of people, books, papers, and trying to figure out what being a doctoral student meant. I feel like I am much more socially awkward than I was at the beginning of this program, and a lot less direct. I had some of the worst anxiety and depressed feelings for months at a time in this program, when I felt so cut off from everything that made me feel connected to a community. I was homesick for Boston for the first several years, while making a home with Freda and Bo. While living in ktown, the bike commute to campus literally saved me. It gave me something to always look forward to, and I still miss the nighttime bike ride back to Oxford Avenue when the LA streets are empty and the moon is out. I miss the long graduated Asian Am cohorts who welcomed me into their house parties and dinners. I miss bowling with Lina and Scott. I will miss a lot more as I move on to what will probably be a more lonely postdoctorate life. But I am really ready to not be a grad student anymore. I think I was ready to not be one last year.

 I'm not going to mince words: it was really really hard to be a trans guy at this school pretty much the entire time. The student healthcare center was a crapshoot as were the counselors at Psych Services. My first therapist was literally the worst, and I felt like I couldn't change counselors for the entire first year. After the first two years, I never thought anyone would touch or love me and often felt like a bad queer for not liking boys. I felt pretty alienated from the transmasculine poc community because I liked female identified people and I was on testosterone. So I tried hard to be straight and to go stealth in the bunch of times I got so lonely I tried to go get dates. I decided that unless someone queer decided I was queer I would not identify as such. My gender dysphoria was often really out of control, and I remember walking to and from class the first three years feeling like a "fake" boy/man. On top of this, once I had a complete hysto/oopho I started getting monthly migraines with panic attacks and daily hot flashes. It was miserable, and I often imagined joining a menopausal support group, just to talk to other people having hot flashes.

 So yeah, so much has happened in the past bunch of years. High highs, and very low lows. I've left a lot out in this, but ever since I filed my dissertation and had a chance to really reflect on things, I've been having flashbacks about all that has happened and I feel amazed, overwhelmed and overcome with emotions. This was not what I thought being in this program and at this school was going to be like when I got that acceptance letter over seven years ago.

Bottom Surgery

So here we are. I've decided to start looking into Bottom Surgery. It's not something I'm taking lightly. I really don't like surgery, and I've heard and seen some pics of complications with metoidioplasty and phalloplasty. But I've realized that for me it's the next step that I need to feel comfortable in my body. Not having a package has been rough for me. Examples:

I really enjoy hiking. One of the things that often happens on long trails with no johns is you have to take a whiz in the woods. I love going outdoors (this is probably tmi), but it's always an anxiety-ridden activity for me. I've had some close calls in the past. And that's not to count the numerous times I've been in public bathroom stalls with doors that don't lock. (This is especially common in state and national parks, where the clientele is often taking young boys in to pee...young boys who like to look under and/or open stall doors.) As someone who does not like stand and pee devices (those tubes fucking hurt! plus I have a big enough cock that all that rubbing is bad news for my arousal state.) or packing (even with the smallest softest packy it looks like I have a boner) I'd much rather have my attached pack be my only package.

I have has real fears of getting hurt somehow (in a bike accident, having a heart attac later in life et.) that would put me in a hospital that is less-then-kind to transfolks. I've heard enough horror stories about transpeople being medically neglected a left for dead that I really don't want to run that risk.

I'm tired of being stared at like a freak every time I go the ob/gyn office. And being examined is even worse. I'm lucky that the gynecologist at UCLA is ftm friendly, but he still says things like "women on testosterone" and it's just a really out-of-body horrible experience. I really don't want to do that as I age.

Sexually, it's really hard to connect with what's going on below...it's been that way for a while, but now every time I come I usually cry. It's just about the only time I cry anymore, but it's just a psychically painful completely lonely experience. I feel like I'll never have sex with a person again. I feel pretty physically unlovable despite having a nice upper body. I'm really into feminine women (queer or straight) but whenever I get aroused I just feel inadequate (I think this is especially strong because right now all my crushes are on straight women, and it brings up the feeling all wrong in high school stuff).

It's bad, I've talked to a therapist for a while but really there is no advice except accept what you have. I will keep trying to work on that, but really I'd give a lot to have closer to normative male equipment right now. :( I also know it doesn't help that since my ex I've been a series of blaugh dates and had next to no physical touch (which i definitely take a good chunk of the responsibility for). So yeah, that's what I'm working through right now.

A wonderful blog post on being a good ally

http://mikkikendall.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/the-dos-and-donts-of-being-a-good-ally/

Also it should be added that, dating someone of a group you are an ally of does not give you license to be an asshole about that group. In fact that is actually abusing the title of ally. (Here's to looking at you my most recent crazy ex who fell under quite a few subheadings of this post including the "Oppression Olympics," creates her identity around the oppressions of her diverse group of friends to the detriment of all involved, and preys on mixed-race transmasculine folks.)

On another note, I have been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be a good ally within poc communities, especially when it comes to talking about different racial experiences and oppressions. Solidarity will look different according to one's positionality. This is obvious, but recently I went to a Mixed Student Union meeting and the organizers emphasized "the" mixed heritage experience, which seemed really reductive to me. Obviously being a mixed poc with no white heritage is different than being all poc and mixed. I think there is a caution to really parse out what experiences beyond racism different folks in communities of color experience along lines of class and sexuality also. Anyway, just some food for thought.

One Day I'd Love to Know the Name of the Recipient

November 20, 2010 originally composed July 2010:
I want to try something different. Here it goes:

To whoever you are, however insufficient: a love letter.

It is the 4th of July and I am in Cambridge sitting beside the Charles River. It is warm, bright and humid; typical for July 4th in Boston. Tonight there will be the most amazing fireworks show, fried dough and the banks of the Charles will be overflowing. The Pops will play in the hatch shell and I wish I could take you.

If you sit on the Boston side and stare out over the water, it is so peaceful (despite the crowds) right before the show starts. There is an inlet right next to the canons for the “1812 Overture” and if I took you, we would sit there. I think you’ll be able to see the fireworks from just about any spot. Last year it was foggy which sucked.

I think about you every night before I go to sleep: what your favorite color is, where you are and what is happening in your life, your hopes and dreams, if you like dogs and cats as much as I do, what your quirks are, what we will fight about, what you look like. I wish you strength and comfort and safety and patience to find and see me. I wish I could hold you against my chest and kiss you. I wish I could fall asleep on your breasts and run my hands all over your body and through your hair. I wish I knew what your smile looks like and if you will wink at me. I wish I knew what flowers to buy and arrange for you and how you like your laundry folded. I wish I knew if it was tea and/or coffee and which kinds. I wish I knew what your family is like and how you fit in with them. I wish I knew what will make you laugh. I can’t wait to gift you my sweetness and gentleness and I hope I never take your beauty for granted.

Mostly, I just long for you and your well being with every fiber of my body.

Until we meet.
Love,
Jacob

How I've been (honestly)

Ok, I haven't updated this thing in a while but it's time to be real.

I hate my life in this fucking city. It's a desert for a post-op on T Transguy who loves Femme Women. All the femmes that I've met in LA or online at okcupid, or craigslist (yes, I've posted plenty of ads) either want to date each other or don't want to be with a tranny and they say so. There's very little trans-awareness in general in queer female spaces and being born female and queer means liking either hipstery genderqueers or femmes (there are very few butches around this city :( )

All the passion I had for Women's and Gender studies has pretty much died out, which is bad because I'm starting to TA come Monday morning. I don't feel like there's a space for me here and that they admitted me only because I was born female. There's been little to no institutional support for sexuality studies or transgender studies. I feel like a robot here going to work out of habit because it pays the bills which is horrible because of the privilege I have to be in this institution being paid to study. The work isn't exciting because most of it is stuff that doesn't address queerness in a complicated way and mixed race theory is pretty much nonexistant.

I've felt erased in queer spaces, and spaces of color and am really tired of people telling me I should date guys if I ever want to get laid. I'm tired of feeling like half a person admitted into a circle of people of color just because I'm half asian which becomes a space where it's ok to verbally beat up on white people not on whiteness. I am a person of color, but I am also half white. This is not a contradiction. I'm tired of people who wave the radical politics flag but don't see the people they're supposedly fighting for or their privilege in being able to get arrested without fear of being sexually harassed or abused.

Case in point: after SB 1070 was passed last year a bunch of people got arrested for peaceful protest and I was asked to be a part of that group. I would have volunteered but unfortunately I was just trying to survive getting my period back and the worst cramps of my life. If I had gotten arrested and placed with the guys in jail with a period who knows what would have happened. There is a large degree of national and cissexual priviledge in being able to go to the slammer knowing you won't have to worry about a cellmate potentially raping and impregnating you, or being deported because you have a green card. All the people who were released put celebratory pictures on facebook. Instead of focusing on the point of the protest (standing against SB 1070), everyone's status updates were about freeing the protesters. What happens to the power of peaceful protest when it just becomes a self congratulatory excersize? I've become so disillusioned here.

I'm also sick of everyone in queer of color spaces telling me to decolonize my mind and that my past relationships failed because they were with white women. Maybe I'm breaking a confidence here but I wouldn't exist if it wasn't for interracial relationships. Is this the fucking 1950's? And hello dating a 100% woman of color would still be being in an interracial relationship for me...the same degree that being with a white woman would. My past relationships broke up for reasons other then that we both weren't people of color.

I miss the east coast and the East Bay because a) there were femmes who would date transguys and butches b) there wasn't this crazy policing around interracial dating c) there was just a lot more trans-awarness in the academy and in general...I wasn't the only transguy on T with top surgery. Ok rant over. But I seriously am thinking of quitting my program and getting the hell out of here.

FTM Prosthetics

Due to some dysphoria about my nether regions resulting from a bit of spotting and an almost full blown period coupled with my frustration that some types of bottom surgery that allow one to pee standing up require a hysto, I've been doing a lot more research online to alternatives to phalloplasty and metoidioplasty. (For those who don't know these are the two types of bottom surgery available to FTMs right now.

I don't want a hysto if I can avoid it, yet I'm scared to not have one especially if tomorrow's visit to the radiologist involves finding endometriosis or fibroid tumors (my mom had these in her early forties resulting in a hysto). There's something really invasive to me about having a hysto and scars in that area that I'm not willing to have at this point. Giving up my eggs, even if they've laid dormant all this time is something that I just won't do. I don't plan on having kids myself, but the right to have my eggs removed at some point is something I'm just not ready to part with. Plus I'd feel kinda empty down there without ovaries...I don't know, they've been with me since I was little and body wise, I just want a cock and to produce sperm (something I know will never happen), not anything removed (except at times my uterus).

Anyway, the reason why I bring all this up besides tomorrows Radiologist Appt., UCLA just started covering trans surgeries this year (up to $23,000) which means a hysto and bottom surgery could actually happen. But honestly, I'm not keen on either procedure for what I'd like (to penetrate my partner without have to stop everything and put on a strap-on and also be able to feel inside her, god I'd give almost anything for that. Also, it'd be fantastic to actually pee standing at a urinal or in the woods instead of freaking out in a stall without a door when I'm 60.). Phalloplasty is super dangerous, leaves you with a giant scar on your forearm or thigh and leaves you with a huge penis you need to stick rods in to have sex that is not sensate and you can't urinate out of. Metoidioplasty leaves all the feeling in your cock (*they just use what T gave you) but depending on your urethra you might not be able to pee and honestly with my length I'll maybe be 2 1/2 erect. Metoidioplasty also gives you huge balls (I really don't care for/want balls) via saline implants that sound painful at first and I've read an account in which they deteriorated and infected a guys skin. Yeesh.

So, tonight I came back across a site I'd seen before I was interested in lower surgery and thought about how nice it would be if UCLA would cover a safer, cheaper (and probably better in my opinion) method of giving trans/genderqueer folks cocks. It's a website that makes an ultra realistic prosthetic which you can glue on and wear 24/7:

http://www.ftmprosthetics.com/

2nd Anniversary of having my Boy-chest

Actually it was Jan 9, 2010. But better late then never :) In an attempt to document changes here's a pic first from tonight. Next here's a pic from Sept 09.

ANTM co-ops Hapa identity to be racist

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/2009/10/30/2009-10-30_tyra_banks_puts_contestants_on_americas_next_top_model_in_blackface.html

Copy and paste the link to your browser.
Urgh!

The Best 25 Buffy Episodes with Their Seasons

Because I've always wanted to do this:
25. Choices - Season 3
24. Fear Itself - Season 4
23. Intervention - Season 5
22. Storyteller - Season 7
21. Potential - Season 7
20. This Year's Girl - Season 4
19. Who Are You? - Season 4
18. Grave - Season 6
17. Innocence - Season 2
16. Becoming Part 2 - Season 2
15. Welcome to the Hellmouth - Season 1
14. Older and Far Away - Season 6
13. New Moon Rising - Season 4
12. Halloween - Season 2
11. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered - Season 2
10. Amends - Season 3
9. Restless - Season 4
8. The Wish - Season 3
7. Doppelgangland - Season 3
6. Family - Season 5
5. The Body - Season 5
4. Hush - Season 4
3. Once More With Feeling - Season 6
2. The Gift - Season 5
1. Tabula Rasa - Season 6

Honestly those are my favorites. But if I was to go on cinematic quality and groundbreaking film, I'd rearrange the top 10 to be:
10. Intervention - Season 5
9. Doppelgangland - Season 3
8. Becoming Part 2 - Season 2
7. Storyteller - Season 7
6. The Wish - Season 3
5. The Gift - Season 5
4. Restless - Season 4
3. The Body - Season 5
2. Once More with Feeling - Season 6
1. Hush - Season 4

And in my opinion the best seasons in regards to overall theme, character development and plot arch were (from best to worst):
-Season Three
-Season Five
-Season Six
-Season Two
-Season One
-Season Seven (actually kind of in a tie with season four for worst season)
-Season Four (despite having some of the best standalone episodes: this was the straightest season of Buffy despite Tara's appearance)

Seasons three, six and five were also the queerest seasons in terms of characters (esp. Buffy's love interest), freedom to discuss queerness and themes.

More Books!

I have been on a reading tear since graduating...and I feel like this blog is turning into an online book review. So here's what I've read since last reporting in:

American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang: A very well done graphic novel weaving three different storylines circulating around a second generation Chinese boy named Jin and his frustration and shame in claiming his racial and ethnic identity.

Black Skins, White Masks, Franz Fanon: I've been meaning to read this classic work of Literary Criticism, Postcolonial/Cultural/Psychological Theory since my last year at Cal. It was incredible and will be on my general exam booklist. Some of it is pretty outdated, but a lot of it isn't.

Parrotfish, Ellen Wittlinger: The one and only YA book with a Transman as the main character. You can tell the author has read Kate Bornstein put has no personal experience with being trans. You can also tell she's been out of high school for a long time...the characters don't really act like teenagers and the slow developing plot gets resolved extremely quickly and rather unrealistically. Could someone else please write a YA transman novel of the same quality as Julie Ann Peter's Luna?


My Dillon manuscript has reached 115 pages...and we're missing about three paragraphs so it looks like I'll be spending a good chunk of next Summer in England if I can get grants.

Also, today I was informed two hours ahead of time that my apt. was going to be shown. Since the landlord told me he wouldn't be showing the unit until early July I hurriedly cleaned up "my" place. Luckily, it was already pretty clean from my older bro crashing here for graduation...but still it reminded me of how impermanent my state is here. And I left before the agent showed up with the prospective tenant. Thinking about leaving is too depressing. Tonight T and El had a family dinner and I realized it's probably one of the last.

Ah Chuck

Which Chuck Character Are You?

More on Chuck. Created by BuddyTV

So glad it was renewed, too bad we have to wait for March...the best show on tv. Viva la nerd!

Reading Updates and Summer Plans

Since last posting I've read the following:

Genderqueer (great great book)

The Color Purple, Alice Walker (just as awesome as everyone says it is!)

Peninsula of Lies: A True Story of Mysterious Birth and Taboo Love, Edward Ball (This was horrible, it was written by a cissexual white straight male who while up to speed on trans and intersex terminology doesn't give his subject the benefit of letting her be her identity hunting for the "truth" of her sex. Kinda like what All S/he Wanted did to Brandon Teena.)

Labor of Love, Thomas Beatie (this was good also. I prefer hearing transmen talk about their own histories rather then read whatever fucked up stuff the media throws out about them.)

In regards to Summer plans, besides working on the L M Dillon Memoir, I just applied to intern for 8 weeks in the lower ninth ward of New Orleans working on rebuilding homes and recovery counseling. We'll see if it pans out...but I'm really excited about the prospect!

Looking forward to graduation, with the appropriate nostalgia of course (hey, it is me!).

Holy Week 09

When I was eight I had a dream that I would die at 16.

At 16 someone did die...my straight cover, a claim to gender/sexual "normativity." I came out as gay. But something much truer and beautiful grew out of that death.

Going undercover to survive my first and most unwanted adolescence I came out again at 19 inside UC Davis's campus ministry. I also made a vow to never surgically alter my body and accept my femaleness.

Then Berkeley called and I read God In the Balance by Carter Heyward. I packed up my Aggie clothes and moved to the East Bay, leaving behind my ambitions to be a Music Historian or Composer.

Didn't know who this "Judith Butler" person was when she sub'd for Gayle Salamon at the end of my Junior year Queer Visual Cultures Class...why no one would speak to the laid back Professor in jeans and a t-shift in class that day. Looking at MDiv programs became my obsession...along with trying to avoid my gender questions.

CJ Pascoe's masculinities class reopened everything in a completely non-threatening, intellectual way. I think if it wasn't for her class and the Vagina Monologues, I'd still be struggling with pronouns and breasts. In a similar way Trinh Minh-ha's Identity Across Difference. Suddenly hiding my Cantonese background behind my Scottish/Irish/Welsh heritage seemed ludicruous. I am everything and nothing at once. It always seems that way. Hybrid that I am.

Tonight feet are washed, vigils begin for those who follow Christian traditions. I no longer count myself as a Christian, but there is still something very powerful to me about aspects of Holy Week. I think about Christ in the garden, very human pleading for his life, terrified about the known unknown and I can't help but find myself in the Passion Story. Asleep from exhaustion perhaps. Or sweating drops of blood from crying so many tears. It was one very long night of pain for him.

Gethsemane is very similar to the Jacob story from the Hebrew Bible. A man alone in the middle of the night, feeling very much at the end of his rope fighting for his life with a superior (masculine) divine figure. Neither leave the encounter completely intact. Perhaps with more resolve to do what they must. To face the responsibilities that they have been dreading. Jacob limps away with a wounded left hip. Jesus is exhausted from what is characterized as a futile prayer. Jacob must face his angry brother Esau. Jesus...well a lot of angry people out for blood.

Three years ago I was struggling with choosing between HDS and PSR. (ah seminary acronyms) This year I'm in a pickle around three doctoral programs: my desire to return to California and a school with strong ethnic studies but also to work with one of the greatest Trans Theorist/Historians ever. My clone and I always fast on Good Friday (I broke this tradition the day I started T two years ago). Something interesting always comes from this practice. I'm hoping that will be the case again.

After all, there always is something life transforming at the end of the story.

Current Book List

Read since last in school:
a mercy
Decreation
Eros the Bittersweet
Talking Back
Invisible Cities
I'm Looking Through You

Currently Reading:
Economy of the Unlost
Genderqueer: voices from beyond the binary
(Dis)identifications
Orientations

To Read:
A Walk in the Woods
Dracula
The Descent of Alette
Read My Lips
This Bridge Called My Back
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Time to Roam...

On the heals of the break-up was news that I got into UCLA and Indiana University's Women and Gender Studies Doctoral Programs. Because of this I am spending a good part of the first and second weeks of March visiting Bloomington and LA. I have a six hour plane trip back from Indianapolis (due to layovers) that gets me into Boston at 11pm and then have a 7:50 am flight out of Logan the next morning to LA (luckily that one's a nonstop).

UCLA doesn't have anyone working on Trans Theory/Studies, but they have a fantastic Asian American Studies dept. Also the music history dept does a lot with gender and sexuality. I got a phone call from one of the Profs from the department and she suggested that I get the Trans Theory from USC (for those who don't know SUC is the cross-town rivals to UCLA and the bane of Cal's existence). Ah, the Trojans. I gotta say it's really tempting to spend the next 5-7 years in LA. It'd be nice to not be the only transman of color in the city. Since I know my big educational gap is in critical race theory, I know I could get that from UCLA. There are also the budget cuts to consider; the whole UC system (like everyone else) is going to be in spin cycle from the recession and the Govenator cutting off all state funds to the UCs. Haven't found out about funding yet. I axed UW because of their lack of financial support, thanks to Cali residency if I do have to pay out of pocket for a bit it's not going to be as bad as being out of state.

Indiana is the cutting edge program right now, they frame the dept on third wave feminist theory and put Trans experience at the heart of the program. Indiana also has a fabulous Religious Studies Department. But they are kinda weak in regards to Asian American Studies/Ethnic Studies. Also, I need a pretty hefty financial aid package to be a Hoosier next year. But the cost of living is fan-freaking-tastic in the Midwest. A lot will depend on what they plan on doing hiring-wise, financial aid and my impression on living in Bloomington 5+ years. It sounds like they are trying to get their grad students in and out fast, which is a plus in my book.

T asked me about my Summer plans, and a lot depends on getting a job. I found out that I can keep my barista job until the end of the year, which is great because right now finding a job with a commitment of 6 months is hard. I've made some inquiries and done some searches but most want a commitment of a year. All the temp jobs have pretty much vanished.

I'm also still kicking around the idea of working in New Orleans this Summer. It'll be tough to leave my queer family. That's going to be hard regardless. But I'm getting the itch to leave again. I have a lot less tying me to Boston and it's been no secret that I hate the weather here during the summer and when the temp drops below 30 degrees in the Winter. Sidewalk skating rinks suck. That said, Cambridge/Somerville has been more of my home then any other place for the last eight years if home is measured by years spent in a place. Also in regards to friendships, I have found a family and level of intimacy with my friends that I only had with Nina and Jen at Berkeley.

If I do get a job here, my plan is to work through August (hopefully extend my lease through then) and do some Dillon research on the side. Sept 1 pack up a u-haul and drive to Bloomington or LA. I'd like one last roadtrip to wherever is my spot for the next five years of my life.

butch-femme

When pinocchio said,
“I want to be a real boy!”
What did he mean?
desiring soft flesh
instead of wood;
Stone.
Who was his femme?
Geopetto? The Blue Fairy?

What other way can you read this Tale of
becoming Real
legible, desired, human?

spectacle of Other embodiment:
the entertaining little wooden boy barely loose of themastersstrings
Seen only by a Lady in Blue
or a gentle older Cisman.

All those books...

I never read but wanted to. Since finishing two weeks ago I have read:
a mercy, Toni Morrison
Decreation, Anne Carson

Currently reading:
Talking back, bell hooks
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

Next:
Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingslover
Economy of the Unlost, Anne Carson
Eros: The Bittersweet, Anne Carson
Orientations, Compilation
(Dis)identifications, Jose Munoz

Break Up Music

The Cripple and the Starfish, Antony and the Johnsons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbG2MfElkVc

Samson, Regina Spektor

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1283668

Goodbye Love; Thanks Phoebe