Working on a Paper

"What I particularly love about the term 'graphic memoir' is that it not only refers to the coupling of pictures and words in the comic book form, but it also lends itself rather nicely as a double entendre for the graphic content of some graphic memoirs..."

I can't help but use the word "love" in my academic writing. I am also sensing a pattern.

Feeling Sick

'What do you want?'

'I want my girlfriend to say home and take care of me.'

Two cups of tea and an authority process later, she did.

List of Food I'm Not Proud Of

This is what I ate on Thursday:

• 1 bowl of Chocolate Wheatibix Minis
• 1 cup of tea with 1 and 1/2 spoons of sugar and milk
• 2/3 a medium KFC popcorn chicken
• 2/3 a medium KFC chips
• 1 regular size Pepsi
• 1 caramel chocolate
• 1 can of ginger beer
• 1 Snickers bar
• 1 Grande Gingerbread Latte from Starbucks
  
• 1/2 a dodgy hot-dog from Clapham Common
• 1/2 can of Scrumpy Jack
• 1 bowl of home-made, oh-s-good spaghetti bolognese a la Alex

No wonder I woke up feeling sick on Friday.

Looking at Myself in the Mirror

Less than a year ago, I was usually surprised by my reflection, imagining someone eight years younger. It was not a desire to look younger or a critique of my age, but an internal image I had of myself that wasn't quite up to scratch what she had to do in life.

Today I saw my 24 years, 10 months and 16 day old face. It was lovely.

You, Again

You, again. There are more than one of you. More than one of you that whispers in the wriggles of my brain, softly, as I carry out each day. You whisper, 'Look there, it's me.' You whisper, 'Click here, I'm saying hello.' You say, 'Read me. Notice Me. Smile at me. I'm here.'

You are always here, with me.

You say, 'Remember when? Isn't that connection neat?'

And you are not often speaking to me directly. Sometimes it is through a news story: a country, a topic, an opinion, a telling connected to you. Sometimes it is a smell, like ginger lotion as I get onto the underground train six thousand miles away from you. Other times it is speaking a word of you--that is not you--but something you taught me, something you told me, something I thought, so lovingly, of you.

I overflow with love for you. And if I was to tell each of you of my gratitude for each moment with you--even the times when we fought or struggled or didn't make sense, even those moments--if I was to tell you what each moment meant to me, that act, well, it might be far out of context, far from where we are and have been, and it would be my life's work.

In some ways, it is my life's work: the expression of a love for each of you that is so incomprehensible to my human brain that I can only imagine it. And when I do imagine it, it is first a love that encompasses our blue-green earth, then it rises as the warmth inside of me and finally the two dissipate and reform as one, my molecules here touching yours there and here and there at once.

You may not think I am speaking of you and I can not name all of you who whisper in the wriggles of my brain, but your words are there. Your words. You.

Why Drag

I have been thinking a lot recently about drag, gender, and performance--singularly and in varied combination. Trained academically to believe that gender is constructed, I am pretty comfortable with the notion, theoretically, that all gender is performance. What I put on the morning, how I react in conversation, my likes and dislikes are related to a constructed gender in which I have become socially accustomed to and which on some level I choose to participate in--or, rather, to perform.

Up until a few months ago, I felt that just choosing "how girlie" to be was my choice in the daily performance of my gender. In other words, how much pink or sparkles, how many dresses or tights I chose to wore was part of that performance. I also felt that the level at which I was engaging with this "socially acceptable girlie-ness" (pink, dresses, make-up, etc.) was attributed to how much "I wanted to play along" that day (i.e. if I wasn't "playing along," I was just in jeans and a t-shirt that fit me) or how much "I was displaying the performativity of gender" (i.e. if I decided to do my hair, make-up, nails, wear heels and multiple accessories with my skirt or dress than I was obviously "performing gender" if someone really knew me at all.) These beliefs are shifting.

Segueway to London Fashion. I have become increasingly aware of the fashion industry--what's in, what's out, who's wearing what--upon moving to London. Part of this is because London is a major fashion capital and it's around. Another part of it, I think, has to do with a comment from someone I met on London Fashion. They said "London doesn't have a look. Here, anything goes." That can be said of any city really to some extent, but I have yet to pin down a specific look--other than "anything goes." Yes, there are fashion trends that are ubiquitous (huge belts, leather, demin, purple is so the fall color), but in London you can walk onto the tube, down the high street, or into a bar if you've got the confidence to pull off "your look," no one bats an eye.

This freedom of "anything goes" has been infectous when all I have to do with walk with confidence to pull it off. Fluttering, I have attempted to dabble, fashion wise, in every "genre" you can think of (and much to my amusement in getting dressed each morning).

At the same time, my interest drag king performance has heightened considerably. I became interested in performing in drag a few years ago, but lived in Santa Cruz and then LA and never felt comfortable trying to seek out a scene to try it out in. London, on the other hand, appears to have all sorts of thriving performance communities--from burlesque to drag to dance/choirs/bands/you name it. I will admit the drag queen venues far out number the drag king ones (and by that I mean there isn't a "drag king venue" I can find) but I don't feel discouraged. Another shift.

What I am realizing is that these shifts in my beliefs about my daily performance of gender (female) and my desire to perform a performance to gender (male) are becoming more and more about choice and purpose and desire. Every day, I choose how to present "who I am" to the world I interact with, and that is not a static act. When that performance is a (conscious) choice (and it isn't always), I have a purpose to explore the creativity of that performance--the textures, the colors, the styles, the walk, the feelings. And, I have a desire to explore the performance of a gender other than my daily (performed, dyanmic) one: a desire which is not solely linked to gender or sexuality; a desire to unpick automatic reactions, learned behaviour, clothing.

Le Drag