05:03pm 12/05/2004
  kissing you, it is a homecoming;
a longheld blue breath finally exhaled,
softpink and shimmery.
yours, the sweetest touch i have known in years.

lips and limbs entangled,
i can hardly tell where you end and i begin.

we are light and spark:
a glowing blur of girl-skin.

thankyou.		  
     Read 1 - Post
 
   
04:54pm 09/05/2004
  nora, you're insanely fucking beautiful.
i want to kiss you.
**

yesterday was fatgirlspeaks.
portland, you are amazing
and i have a bigsillycrush on all of you.
**

i went because i needed to,
although i was a little afraid
i would feel unwelcome,
chastised for being
too skinny.

overall, the atmosphere was incredibly powerful and empowering,
a celebration of bodies, spirits, us.
large curvy women revelling in their breathtaking beauty,
thin women and everyone in between,
supporting each other, singing and dancing and loving.
i only winced once,
when one comedian referred to thin women as
'skinny bitches,'
over and over again.

i tried to let it go, as i would easily do
at an event geared toward people of color,
in which someone expressed rage or anger toward white people.
(somehow this is much easier for me to understand. perhaps it's the amount of anti-racist/deconstructing white privilege work i've done over the past 6 years. fat oppression is something i'm still just learning about, still trying to comprehend. also, i'm extremely self-conscious and vulnerable about my body, in a way that i'm not and have never been about my skin color (because of white privilege, obviously).
**

anyway, a fun little round we all sang together, to the tune of 'frere jacques':

fat is beautiful
thin is beautiful
yes we are!
yes we are!
body revolution
body revolution
starting now
starting now!
:)
**		  
     Read 13 - Post
 
in which she complains.   
04:43pm 09/05/2004
  my head aches from squinting for hours and weeks and months;
i desperately need a new prescription,
my eyes straining, fog-covered;
streetlights dance in concentric spirals,
fill the entire scope of my lenses.
(the top of each eyeball throbs slightly,
pulsing underneath wrinkled eyelids; a strange sensation,
to say the least.)
my mind snow-fuzz on a television screen,
life and paxil and squinting and ibs.
stomachsick too much and too often,
worried that this isn't going anywhere,
this life is here to stay.

sometimes i want to melt away.
sometimes i want to scamper up a tree to its highest,
tippytop branch,
and stay there
lilting, swaying
breath to the sky,
forever.		  
     Read 1 - Post
 
   
04:39pm 09/05/2004
  there's this demon in my head
i fight her every day
each moment a fucking battle and sometimes i just want to say
i'm weary, i'm tired
i give up today.		  
     Post
 
perfect.   
04:56pm 06/05/2004
  FREEDOM

sadness finds its way onto me
yeah on any given day
and I just end up feeling guilty
and I don’t know how many times i’ve told you
I do not know how I ended up this way
it’s as if sometimes I have just halted
yeah I stop dead in my tacks
life it just seems to cover me
and it’s in these moments that I feel trapped

so I claim freedom
yeah I claim my freedom

so what is it exactly that you want from me
oh yeah you want me to stay
even though I am terrified
to let myself
end up this way
yeah i’m afraid of feeling
of feeling nothing at all
and i’m afraid of settling down
into a love
that ‘aint love at all

so I claim my freedom
yeah I claim I claim freedom

so take this brain out and hang it on the line
take this chair out back and burn it
‘cause I can’t get any work done from in here
you know this hole i dug myself in
has got me buried up to helpless

and i’d like to call you a liar
yeah but that’s what you
isn’t that what you always called me
yeah i’d like to call you a liar
liar
yeah but that’s what you
that’s what you always called me

so I claim freedom
yeah claim I claim freedom
freedom freedom

-melissa ferrick, 1999.		  
     Read 5 - Post
 
   
04:52pm 06/05/2004
 
music: melissa, of course.
holy shit.

three fucking hours, consecutive. intense, passionate, funny, indescribably beautiful, genius beyond words.

hey, she said, you deserve your fifteen dollars worth. eyes and teeth grinning huge, sweat ran like rain down her glowing face.

(i smile, i soar, and i think: thank you. thank you for giving us this, you, for knowing in your heart that you're up there doing what you love more than anything else in this world, because of your fans. i recall every too-short overpriced ani difranco concert, and i am filled to brimming with gratitude.)

in conclusion, i have very few words, and one new obsession:

http://www.melissaferrick.com

blownaway.		  
     Read 7 - Post
 
   
06:34pm 04/05/2004
  these days tumble onward, awkward and tripping over green-sprouted sidewalk cracks. i long for warm skin, soft breath, a heartbeat steady against mine.

i miss you, but i don't let myself think about it, you, often. this us crumbled to ash at my feet, windblown in futile repetition, around and around again.

nothing is ever certain, least of all tomorrow, or next week.
i find myself contemplating memory and death and especially time, how it stretches into forever and then snaps back, quick-stung, like a rubber band.

and i sit, sip tea to calm my raging intestines; watch the cottony-soft clouds crawl slow overhead, wonder if they have a particular destination in mind.

and still, i think of one preciouspink girl.
still, i wonder how and when and why she burrowed so deep in my recoiled, fist-tucked heart.

this: a quiet, undefined ache; beautiful, because it is home.
**		  
     Read 2 - Post
 
   
04:32pm 03/05/2004
  everybody look at the most adorable little girl to ever live!

http://www.livejournal.com/users/panama777/46595.html?#cutid1

that's quinn, my dear friends' ([info]littlecurvieme and [info]panama777) two-and-a-half year old babygirl.

(angela and umar, i hope you don't mind that i'm whoring your amazing child around livejournal:)).

<3.		  
     Read 8 - Post
 
   
12:30pm 01/05/2004
  funny coincidence:

just when i've been considering the possibility of dating boys again (or being open to such a thing occurring), i board the number six bus this morning and hear 'heather??'. i turn around and there sits justin, one of the handful of menfolk i have ever kissed (three years ago, in the vermont woods, stars twinkling above), his shining eyes opening in smile.
(that was my 'heterosexual summer', he and keith both tirelessly vying for my affection. java decided i should wear a sign on my head, declaring in bold 'i'm a dyke, just in case you were wondering.')

i had no idea he was even on the west coast now, never mind the northwest.

portland is a strange town, indeed.
**

unrelated:
happy may day, everyone!!
:)		  
     Read 3 - Post
 
   
07:08pm 30/04/2004
  excitement:

two dear friends from eugene lang/nyc are roommates in portland now, and one of them just contacted me!

aura and katie, we need to play!

i've missed you guys.

xox.		  
     Post
 
   
06:19pm 30/04/2004
  people in my life are currently enduring some really difficult shit.

the stars, the moon, the tilt of the earth? the change of seasons, the needle-sharp sting of thaw, perhaps?

maybe spring, these few blooming, hope-pungent months, is also a time of growth, which by very definition is rooted deep in the profound pain of soul transformation.

i remember as a child, when my back protested in bone-wrenching pain, each microscopic millimeter of physical growth. growing pains, they said, exacerbated by an ever-curving spine.

there were days when i could barely lift myself from my soft blue bed.

perhaps this, now, is just like that.
the soul/heart-counterpart to the physical growth i sometimes feared i'd never survive.

but i'm here, still; my back still curved into a sharp, snaking S; the pain dissipated, mostly, except when i lift heavy objects or strain for too many hours at a time. every day, settling a little further into muscles pulled uneven, this crooked frame that holds me up.		  
     Read 3 - Post
 
   
03:44am 29/04/2004
  everybody look at my new icons!
(it's me, courtesy of [info]witchbabyblue!)
:)		  
     Read 13 - Post
 
a letter to myself.   
02:17pm 28/04/2004
  dear heather,

you are beautiful,
kind, generous, amazing.
never, ever let anyone take you for granted ever again.
please, never let anyone speak to you that way again,
no matter how deeply you adore them.

never again. never again.

love yourself now, cradle your heart,
eat divinely organic chocolate and mangoes,
surround yourself with people who are gentle,
wholly loving,
careful with your heartbruises.
remember how many people love you,
how when you try to count them all,
you always forgot some
because the list seems endless:
all of them beautiful, beautifully kind,
incredible beyond words.
(you are unimaginably lucky. know this, also.)

i love you.

finally, finally,
after nearly 24 years,
i love you.

~heather		  
     Read 7 - Post
 
   
01:41pm 27/04/2004
 
mood: sad
to the bravest girl on livejournal.
may you soar up there, wings to the stars.

in memory of erin gannon.

march 14, 1986 - april 26, 2004.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/e_cutie

love.		  
     Read 1 - Post
 
   
03:42pm 26/04/2004
  ps.
i have been embarrassingly terrible at keeping in touch lately (oh, for the last month point five or so), because of relationship and life and now moving drama.

this is to say:
i'm sorry.

i love you all.

i have so many phone calls to return, i've been such a flaky phone friend as of late, that now the thought of actually picking up the phone and rectifying these situations is making me almost nauseous.

i will get over myself, though, and call all of you back.
i may need to deal with my housing situation first, but expect frenzied apologetic return calls to begin flooding in within the next couple weeks.

(and to make things worse, i can't get ahold of java or parama. if either of you are reading this, fucking call me, dammit!)

ok.

much love to everyone.		  
     Read 3 - Post
 
   
03:32pm 26/04/2004
  i wish so much that i could've experienced yesterday's march on washington.

the largest recorded march in history, i read? ohmygoddess. is this an exaggeration?
(fuckingincredible, either way).

to the hundreds of thousands (millions?) who went and made your voices heard:
thank you, from my heart.

i was with you in spirit, and screaming.		  
     Read 2 - Post
 
   
04:07pm 23/04/2004
  in list form, because time does not allow for much else at the moment:

*three words: completely.blown.away. last night nicole and i sat in awe as alice walker spoke at a church in southwest portland. we arrived an hour early and already, an eager line snaked around an entire city block. there are no adequate words to describe this woman. she is an enlightened beautiful goddess-being, you can literally see light and glow and ancient wisdom radiating like smoke from her skin. she read poetry and excerpts from her most recent book, a novel in which she explores native latin american plant medicine (like ayahuasca), spirituality, buddhism, shamanism, enlightenment in the face of racism and oppression.. i can't for the life of me remember the book's title, but i recommend it to all of you (especially sitka and nora!). just experiencing her presence filled me with ecstatic awe, bliss, and afterwards a quiet, deep-hopeful reverie..

*i am half moved into the new house, and will be almost fully moved by tonight. i'll be living in northeast, with a happy household of radical queers. yay!

*i miss robin. this hurts more than i wish to discuss.

*the job search needs to resume, hopefully this coming week.

*we are trying this again, anew, and it scares the shit out of me - but it's also beautiful, and i'm holding to hope, tending heartbruises.

*i am healing with love.
**		  
     Read 5 - Post
 
   
06:24pm 21/04/2004
  it seems i have already lost her, my newest dearclose friend here.
these fragile-blue heartveins intertwined, how gnarled they become under twinkling city stars; eyes grasp for the dawn but it is impossible, almost, to see through.
i have never been one for 'choosing' between people i love.
how do you compare the weight of two beauties?
(or three? or four? or five? infinite?)
to choose a lover over a friend?
a friend over a lover?
a soulsister over another soulsister?
these equations make no sense; my heart rejects their rigid computations.
and yet, somehow, i seem to be guilty of this very faulty arithmetic.
or, perhaps more accurately, you believe me guilty; your softsoft heart (still so precious to me) has recoiled now, scathing hot to bare touch.
this is not who i meant to be.
this is not how i meant to feel.
i am holding strong, now, to the fierce, surging tide of my love. an uncontainable flood: for myself, for nicole, for robin (yes, still), for parama&java;&alan; and all the other breathtakingly beautiful souls who inhabit the horizon-infinite terrain of my heart (youknowwhoyouare).
all of you, you are light.

and to you, dear girl:
you are misunderstanding my every word, my every action.
my love for you has never wavered.
(but i guess it's all or nothing.)		  
     Read 8 - Post
 
question:   
04:32pm 20/04/2004
  does anyone know anything about the day of silence? is it today? tomorrow? what does it commemorate?

(so.out.of.the.loop.)

thanks.
:)		  
     Read 4 - Post
 
beautiful.   
04:05pm 20/04/2004
  From Basic Rights Oregon

Ruling by Multnomah County Judge Bearden finds Oregon marriage law unconstitutional. Basic Rights Oregon celebrates this victory!

The ruling released today by the Multnomah County Court is historic.
Judge Bearden ruled that there is no justifiable basis for discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender. The ruling also requires the State of Oregon to recognize the marriages between same-sex couples who have already gotten married in Multnomah County. Couples already married are the first couples in the country to be legally recognized by any state.

This decision, however, requests that the Oregon state legislature create a remedy to the unconstitutional marriage statute within 90 days. During that time, Multnomah County is ordered to stop issuing licenses to same-sex couples. After 90 days, if a remedy has not been agreed upon, Multnomah County will be required to resume the issuing of marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Like many court decisions, this one is complex and contains both positive and negative components. We are overjoyed that Oregon's discriminatory marriage law will not be allowed to stand. We are pleased that the State will recognize the marriages of thousands of Oregonians who were legally wed since. We are disappointed, however, that the decision requires that the county discriminate while the legislature takes up the issue.

For further information, please visit http://www.basicrights.org

**Correction to our update sent this morning**

The Oregon state legislature will have 90 days from the day they
reconvene to agree upon a remedy to the unconstitutional marriage law.

The 90 day period does not begin today.		  
     Read 2 - Post
 
 
heiwalove
 
 
skip