Preparation

The experts are telling us that we need to prepare for the worst.

Radio, flashlight, lightstick, shovel, crowbar, pliers, duct tape, signal flare

I’ve been preparing for the worst since I was little. I had eight dollars in a folgers coffee container. My dad praised me for saving up my money when my brother blew all his cash on candy. But my dad had it all wrong: I wasn’t good at saving money, I was preparing for disaster. So I find it somehow reassuring that now geoseismic, atmospheric, and emergency response experts are telling us to prepare for the worst.

Tent, rope, camp stove, waterproof matches, whistle, map, cash

In New Orleans, a quarter of the dead were sick or elderly, killed in the end by heat, not water, trapped in buildings with temperatures soaring to 110 degrees, without generator power for air conditioning. Two public hospitals that treated poor people were equipped with emergency generators, located in each case however, on the ground floor, vulnerable to flooding, because legislators had repeatedly refused to pay for upgrades. These generators washed out in the storm.

Prescription drugs, dentures, contact lenses, eye glasses, prescriptions, cane, hearing aid batteries

I have attended emergency response courses. I have collected lists of emergency supplies that I would need in case of earthquake, fire, severe weather or acts of terrorism. I have pamphlets and booklets from PG and E, LAPD, FEMA, 72 hours dot org, the City of Oakland, and the Red Cross.

As bodies were recovered in New Orlean’s Bywater District, a mostly black neighborhood northeast of the french quarter, soldiers from the 82nd airborne told reporters no photos, no stories. Army policy requires media to be 300 meters away, more than three football fields in length, from the scene of body recoveries.

Sturdy shoes, long pants, hat, heavy work gloves, rain gear, blankets, sleeping bags, mask and eye protection.

A recovery team collected a body from a green house. The dead man was slipped into a black bag and carried to a white van. He had been lying alone on the living room floor. “I told them weeks ago he was in there,” said a resident who refused to leave the neighborhood he grew up in. A coroner overseeing the recovery effort told reporters “they’ll kill you out here,” referring to the few residents who defied orders and remained in their homes, “you should not be here, especially you” he told a female reporter. The coroner, who was white, acknowledged he wasn’t personally familiar with the neighborhood, saying he only knew it by reputation. After the recovery team took away the body, two workers urinated on the side of a neighbor’s house.

Mess kits, non-electric can opener, garbage bags, portable toilet or five gallon plastic buckets with lids

I’ve been prepared for the worst for a long time. I was politicized during the first chauvenistically named gulf war in Iraq, I protested every day of that war, attended marches, rallies, and teach ins, took part in a sleep in on the steps of the university library that lasted 54 days.

In my research, I have discovered I can buy a 1.6 pound combo LED flashlight, AM/FM radio, emergency siren with crank, battery capacity, solar panel, ac adapter, all weather plastic casing, dynamo charger, telescopic antenna, and cigarette lighter adapter. I don’t even smoke, but who knows, I might start during a disaster, so I feel comforted knowing I’ll have that option should the worst occur.

The question then is how many of these should buy? Work, car, home, which consists of under the bed, in the garage, and in the back yard, but hidden somewhere because everything gets stolen in my neighborhood.

I always prepare for the worst in romantic relationships. And I’m never disappointed. I expect that my lover will have depression, chronic illness, have been sexually or physically abused or both as a child, will be underemployed, and will have a close relationship with one or more addictive substances.

Adhesive bandages, sterile guaze pads, ace bandage, needle, thermometer, assorted sizes of safety pins

Truth is, I’m not actually prepared for disaster. The lists, the fear, and the sheer force of suffering have me paralyzed. I live in a nation in a country poisoning its own air, land, and water, in a country where millions of kids go to bed hungry at night. In the midst of this slow motion disaster, I still go to work, I still drive my car, I still eat genetically modified foods. Fortunately, I feel bad while I do these things, preparing for the worst every day when I turn on the radio, read the paper. And I am not disappointed.

Pray

You and I have bodies that make people pray.

Your fingers, simultaneously curled and pointing, as if arguing a complicated point or eternally on the edge of an exquisitely slow orgasm.

Please god, your mother said, I’ll do anything to make this go away.

My child body, twisting with unexplained rage, sprouting pubic hair before kindergarten, threatening precocious puberty for years, a storm cloud constantly about to burst.

Oh god, my mother said, please make my daughter normal.

Praying for salvation. Making deals with the devil.

We met at a disability conference. We met at a spoken word event in D.C. We met at Fairybutch. You liked my work. I liked your shoes. We liked each other immediately.

You send a mass email to the attendees of a queer conference in a foreign country asking for help from strangers. To go to the bathroom. I find out later you happen to be on your period. As I’m driving to the conference with a friend of mine, she tells me she knows I will be one of the people to answer that call. And she’s right.

We must be able to lift 40 pounds and set aside 45 minutes. I find out later I can barely lift 40 pounds. In an act that’s intensely intimate for me and absolutely routine for you, a trans woman and I work together with you in the bathroom. While she lifts your torso, I slide your underwear down over your hips and legs. But that’s not true; there’s not a lot of sliding when it comes to removing your underwear; there is tugging and inching and shifting and pulling. My friend says she knew I would help you at the conference, because that’s the kind of thing I do.

I have always been close with people who use wheelchairs, crutches, and canes. I used to wonder if I just wanted to look good, to god or whoever else was watching. After all, I had a normal body.

Oh god, says my coworker, when she pulls me aside after she interviews a potential employee who uses a wheelchair. I knew I could tell you this, she says, I knew you’d understand, see my first thought, she says, was god, don’t make me deal with this.

The bargain.

I build muscle too easily, you with too much effort, arms hard and strong from the constant workout of walking.

We’re friends because we recognize each other. Just as my trans lovers reflect my outwardly simple though visually misleading, internally complicated gender, you outwardly reflect my externally simple though visually misleading, internally complicated chemistry. Your twisted calf, the shape of my hormone imbalance. Your spastic muscles, my renegade enzymes charting undecipherable pathways.

Your mother prayed you wouldn’t fall.

My mother prayed I wouldn’t be gay (although I bet your mother prayed for that one too).

We have fallen so many times.

Fallen short, fallen behind, fallen, and then more or less grown up.

You and you and you and I are our mother’s worst nightmares.

And yet they thank god each day for our perfection.

For Lack of a Better Word - Book Cover

I guess this means I gotta finish the book. So, did you know the picture was me? My mom didn't...and she also thought this kid was a boy. Which I love. The picture is from from my first year at summer camp. I'm wearing my wonder woman bathing suit, shorts, and cowboy boots. Oh, and my red and blue-swirl eye glasses. Enough said.

Write Now: A Growing Collection of Prompts

* It's the perfect time to enjoy a 7-Day FREE* Trial on TRUE.com, because we've got your back. We screen for felons and married people.

* I put words into the mouths of straight, white men.

Pickles, the Jitterbug Queen

This is a story that my friend Erin sent our friend Marcus Van, who is in Taipei. It exemplifies the "living a meaningful life" ideas that I'd like to include in Easy As Pie. Maybe you have a story like this to send me?

Marcus,

Every day, I add to my bizzare repertoire of true stories. For example, for today's story there is Pickles, the Jitterbug Queen. For the last five days, I have been caring for a really old lady named Pickles. I guess she only liked to eat pickles when she was little, and the nickname stuck.

The first time I walked into Pickles' room, I saw her, said out loud "oh HELL no" and walked out. I dragged my hot little nurse friend Courtney into the room, and Courtney laughed in my face. Pickles was lying sideways in bed, one blind eye staring at the ceiling, legs spread wide open, her hands gently spreading poop all over her body. I knew right then that I was in for a bad day.

What you should know is that we very rarely take care of people this old. Our usual patients are about 30 to 50 and are recovering from surgery. People like you and I. Pickles was normal until this May, when she suffered a series of seizures and strokes that left her blind in one eye, unable to walk and pretty confused in general. I can see the photos of her former life all over the walls of her room. She has seven children (doctors, vets, pilots) and countless grandchildren.

Anyway, I called in some assistants, cleaned up Pickles and asked her some questions. I learned that Pickles is a total smart-ass. For example, when I said: "Were you nice to Charlotte? did you let her feed you today?" Pickles replied: "Whatta stupid question." (with a huge smile on her face). And later on, Me: "Here, eat some more pudding!" Pickles: "What the hell! Get that crap away from me! I oughtta sock you one!" (she's laughing). Every day her daughter comes in to stretch and exercise Pickles. One day, the daughter says, "Mom is the queen of the jitterbug! Here mom, dance!" She picked up her mother's bony, bruised old hands and began to swing them about. "Here, sing rock around the clock..." So, I elbowed my student nurse and we all began to sing. "...we're gonna rock, rock, rock till broad daylight...." Pickles started laughing and smiling, and I could see very clearly the great lady she'd once been.

That was a week ago. Today, I cared for Pickles for the sixth day in a row, but now I had some free time. I gave her all my attention and care, eventually washing her hair and massaging her scalp as if this hospital was the city's finest salon. She rewarded me by falling asleep and snoring. Everyone learns to love that Pickles, former and future Jitterbug Queen.

xoxo
erin

Homosexual Urban Legend - read all about me

Here's the special report by the Traditional Values Coalition entitled, Homosexual Urban Legend: Exposed: The Claim that Hermaphrodism is a Separate Sex. I'll tell you one thing, these people use the colon very liberally.

Okay, I'll tell you another thing. I agree with them more than I don't, when it comes to intersex being a third sex.

Enjoy.

This is what you get...

...if you're this hot and you comment on my blog. This is Tamar, people, who was kind enough to be the first person to publish a comment.

Secrets & Lies

You want to know my secrets and lies.

You send me reminders of what I haven’t told you yet.

You just left.

Here’s one. The water in my bathtub runs uphill. Well, that is a lie, because it doesn’t really, just seems to because the floor tilts. It’s not really a secret, just something very few people know, and thus becomes privileged information. Information that I tell you shyly because I want you to know and I’m not sure you care. It’s a kind of transaction.

You begin your stories with, have I told you about? and now that you’ve told me so many stories, you joke that a more accurate question might be, do you care about?

I have a pain in my hand that travels up my arm to my shoulder. I’ve tried to figure out what it’s from, driving typing writing. Truth is, I think I’m getting an RSI from my vibrator. It’s the only thing I do every day besides brush my teeth and walk the dog. I looked it up on one of those sheets I got at my job, about how to prevent repetitive stress injuries, and one of the things that causes them is strong vibrations. And of course, repetition. I want you to know that despite that myth about vibrators making you lose sensation over time, my clit is working just fine.

I want you to know that I have no bruises this time. I used to say the bruises always last longer. This time you’re traveling back across the country, maybe to her, with my marks across your chest. Your fingers pressed too hard into my upper arms, but I didn’t tell you. A kind of secret. I wanted you to feel confident. As if I could do that. As if I have that power.

I have family secrets I’m not telling. About incest, staying in the closet, using drugs, committing felonies, and working undercover for the FBI. All told, if told, might result in varying degrees of healing and closeness and release. But I’m learning that I don’t get to decide how other people experience honesty. Kinda sucks because there are some great stories.

We’re having no contact. You and I. I decided that. It would just be too hard to long for you this much and not know if you’re coming back. I said no emails. No calls. And you believed me. You took me at my word. How could you do that? Don’t you know a heart can lie to save itself pain down the line?

Here’s one. A secret. I hate writing. Unfortunately, it’s not only what I do for a living, but also what I do for activism and performance. I don’t write in a journal or even have any kind of regular writing practice. I write for release, for intimacy, for a change, for deadlines. Mostly deadlines I set for myself. To save myself some pain down the line.

Welcome.

There's a reason I have an unlisted phone number and don't do Friendster or Tribe. This blog flies in the face of that. For a good reason, I hope.

This is going to be a very honest blog. Tagline: don't read me if you don't want to read about yourself.

Are you intrigued?