Dec. 8th, 2004

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Well, I have the day job. Now I all I need is the body of saleable work.

I think a small but rousing cheer is in order.

Hurrah!

I've been worrying that I'll be no good at the job, or that it'll be no good at me, but I realized last night that this is exactly what I wanted, structurally speaking -- a part-time day job that pays the rent. Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah. That's worth a lot of something or other, he said not very cogently.

The job is strange, and I have no idea if I'll be good at it, so two months from now I may be whinging again about my financial despair. But they're willing to hire me, and specifically they're willing to hire me for a four-day week, which is perfect. Four days of Day Job, one day of Writing, two days of Fun.

I am also having possibly the best breakfast ever, if that be lakes of coffee in a very tall very narrow very Danish Modern white mug, with milk from the can of evaporated milk Grumpy Bastard left here (of which More in a Mo) and a big icy smoothie in on of my faerie cups (frosted glass, vast cranberry bowl, ice-green stem). (As I pointed out to Bee, I have everything necessary for a really brilliant dinner party except the dinner.) Because, you see, I can go hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold, and while this may be bad for my digestion, it feels Neat.

Presently and for some time thereafter I will be eating a mountain of lasagne with spinach and bechamel (bechamel!), which Grumpy Bastard made for me last night in celebration of Day Job Acquisition, er, Day. Which is the more I spoke of, and very much more it was; a whole springform cake pan full, in fact, since the large baking dish chose to live with its original parent.

We ate of this marvel and watched Deep Inside Clint Star last night. This is not, as you might be expecting, a pornographic movie.

...although that's where the title comes from. It's a documentary by said Clint revolving around a group of his friends, acquaintances, and family members. He does use sex as a focus or stimulus for the discussions; it ends up playing a subtle and interesting role. It's a meter of self-acceptance; it's also, in itself, the site of intense suffering for many of the interviewees, in terms of sexual identity, of violence, or of feeling desirable/attractive as a First Nations person in a racist culture.

It's an accomplishment that the movie didn't on the whole feel voyeuristic (though some of it was clearly carefully visually and narratively constructed) -- the director plays with the idea of voyeurism, but repeatedly moves away from intruding farther into his participants' pain (or happiness, or mixed emotions) than they themselves go. As interviewer, he prompts with 'outrageous' questions about sex, but what he evokes is different -- a combination of guardedness and revelation that feels very personal, as much when the interviewee is refusing to tell the camera something as when they're speaking.

Here endeth the sound-bitey LJ summary. I wonder if I could get a job writing the back covers of movie packaging. Anyway, recommended, and available at your local library. Or mine, anyway.

{rf}
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One Clever Thing I came up with, in terms of LJ, is to dial in, open all the pages I like to read, then disconnect to save money (mum's) and read all the journals like the morning newspapers. I am constantly foiled in this by the elaborate use of cut-tags. And yet I do see their utility. Which is why I am thinking about:

slash hurts

There's apparently a general slash discussion floating around among the LJ writers I'm reading and their peripherals. I sort of want to read it and I sort of don't, because slash (particularly m/m) and discussions of it still have the power not just to turn me on, but to hurt me in a very particular way; not deliberately, not by bad prose or strange character development, but in a kind of unnamable place that's about being loved and being seen. I read slash for that feeling, but having it talked about, even by people who understand it similarly, can be unbearably sensitive. It has something to do with being trans, and often feeling on the outside of the Great Palace of Love for that reason. (However often it is gently but firmly pointed out to me that I have probably had as good a tour of the Palace as anyone, if not slightly more extensive.)

There's a great line at the end of Henry & June, where Anais Nin, bumping through the street in a vintage car with her husband, everything around them looking terribly terribly French, narrates: "I cried because I had lost my pain, and I was not yet accustomed to its absence." Transition was like that for me; it resolved a lot of things, but sometimes you miss the state of unresolvedness. It's much better to be happy (well, you know, relatively happy, happy for me) and productive (see above), but sometimes you miss that exquisite longing. And slash for me is all about that longing, a kind of treasured agony.

{rf}
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...It suddenly occurs to me that the bit in an earlier post about not having dinner to serve people could sound like the worst kind of whiny gittishness -- the whining of someone who's in fact been treated in an absolutely lovely way the last week by thoughtful friends -- that particular whiny gittishness exactly -- vile stuff, rotten -- and that's not what I meant at all. I meant to amused-ly contrast my rather silly little Austerity Measures with all the pretty things I've inherited from various households.

I'truth, I could feed the legions of Faerie on leftover lasagne and salmon pate, and I do not think they would hold themselves hard done by or insulted, and there would be no cursing of anyone, I feel almost sure.

Sigh. I do get myself into some semantic labyrinths. Help me out again. Please.

{rf}

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