anti:freeze

Last night, I started reading The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene (the superstring theorist responsible for another fascinating book, The Elegant Universe). And I am completely taken. Lost in this book. Lost in thought. I love it when a book takes over my days, my moods, my desires, so all I want to do is disappear in a quiet corner downtown, where nobody knows my face or name - to read, without interruption. Maybe I will take this book down to the waterfront and read in the sunshine, before pulling out the notebooks to write.

(and if you want to read some of my latest essays on criminal trials, forensics & writing process, visit my other site, evidentiary: alchemy)

my submission for photo friday: atmosphere

Atmosphere definition one: the gaseous mass or envelope surrounding a celestial body.

Atmosphere definition two: a dominant intellectual or emotional attitude.

This lonely drive-through reminds me of the aura before seizure. Enveloped. Surrounded. Exposed. Vulnerable. An atmosphere of risk and danger.

Chipped my front tooth in seizure over the weekend. Walked along the river. Wrote. This morning, I am taking a break from the bright lights of the computer screen, in favor of cloudy skies and cafe lights. Will post later today.

Thymidine dinucleotide.

I like the sound of these words - like to break them down to thyme and nuclear. Sometimes, my tongue slips, mixes them into a new chemical solution: thalidomide. I do not correct myself.

Thymidine dinucleotide is a fragment of DNA - made from just two nucleotides. When rubbed into the skin, these snippets mimic chromosome damage from ultraviolet radiation, inducing cells to repair themselves. In other words, you get a tan. Skin lesions take much longer to develop.

What interests me is the source for the snippets - how the most basic - and most invisible - components of our bodies, when forced onto the surface, will fool us. Imaginary damage protects us from real damage. Damage at the surface prevents damage deep inside.

What if I wear this lotion in the commission of a crime, my face and lips and fingertips coated in two extra nucleotides? What if my finger traces your lips and leaves just one nucleotide behind?

Imagine slathering yourself in the nucleotides of a lost lover, watching the tan develop, allowing someone to damage you so subtly, so close to the surface. Just so you can be safe from something worse.

Here are some places to buy DIY or non-sweatshop clothing, accessories, and toys:

Happy Lucky Us

Proletarian Threads

Built By Wendy

American Apparel

Fashion Compassion

Cut + Paste

Snake Mountain Threads

Naughty Secretary Club

Ninky Bink Boutique

GlamourPuss Online Boutique

Shame Bracelets

amet and sasha

Evil Kitty

biggerKrissy's biggerEmporium Stuffed animals!

The Walrus and the Carpenter

shot with the lomo, near downtown Portland

After four years in Portland, I have finally adjusted to the light. The gray skies and long months of rain feel natural - nourishing, even. This year was the first winter I did not linger a little too long beside a bridge rail or dream about disappearing into the desert.

But even as my mood begins to change, my body fights harder against this landscape - my skin and sinuses reacting to mold and pollen more intensely than ever before. I am literally sick from this city.

Which brings me to these rails - one covered in mold and moss, the other gleaming clean in the sunshine. Do these parallels intersect somewhere deep?

I was riding the bus yesterday, getting sick from the constant jerks and lurches, when I noticed a woman sitting several rows ahead, directly behind the driver. Her knees were spread wide, so her thighs draped across two seats, and her McDonald's bag took up another. She kept standing to smooth the legs of her shorts, then collapsing back down when the bus stopped. As soon as her buttocks slapped the plastic bucket seats, she squirmed, pushing her spine into the chair back. She must have repeated this ten times.

Her dishwater hair was cut into a severe bob, with bangs so straight they looked like a wig and ends so blunt they could not have been cut with proper barber shears. I imagined her standing in front of the bathroom mirror, chopping thick wefts of hair with the dull blades of her kitchen scissors.

After a while, she stopped worrying about her shorts, focusing instead on the rough skin of her knees, attempting to exfoliate with her thumbnail. She leaned over, licked her palm, rubbed the spit into her flaking skin, and scraped. Then she sat up and stared out the window. She repeated this sequence several times. Was she nervous, obsessive compulsive, or both? Later, she carried on an intense conversation with herself, complete with different voices.

I thought back to earlier the same morning, when I tried on half the summer clothes in my closet, searching for precisely the right fabric and fit, how I scrubbed perfumed salt into my legs and shoulders under a warm shower, and massaged amazing grace lotion into the tender new skin layer. Later, I dabbed plum gloss in the center of my lips for the bee-stung look I prefer. Was this any different for being private?

Sometimes I miss chewy, crusty bread, the kind made from plain wheat flour. I miss the buttery melt on my tongue, the stinging of cut gums, the crunch of burnt toast. You need gluten to get texture like that. I cannot eat gluten in any form, unless I want rashes, migraines, and severe intestinal distress. Despite a recent outbreak, my eczema is much less severe if I avoid all gluten. So I eat special breads, made from rice flour, nut meal, and xantham gum.

Have you ever unwrapped a loaf of this bread? Tried to pull a slice from the toaster? Picked up a piece by the crust? Without gluten, bread crumbles at the lightest touch. Your sandwich falls apart between your fingertips. Piece by piece, your toast catches fire on the burners.

Gluten is everywhere. Most rice milks are processed using gluten. Sauces, canned soups and dressings contain gluten. Almost all chewing gums, some cheeses, brans, caramel coloring, and barley malt sweeteners are forbidden.

My pasta is made from legumes or quinoa. My dressing is unrefined flax oil. My sweetener is stevia. My cereals are mail order. Grocery shopping can take hours, as I walk from one store to the next, gathering ingredients, searching for hard-to-find items. And it all costs five times as much as regular (normal, non pathological) groceries.

Dairy, soy, and eggs are also trouble. So you can see, I do not eat a lot of processed junk. And I rarely dine out on anything but Thai or Indian, since these restaurants offer safe, soothing alternatives.

So imagine how it feels when someone tells me to rub lotion onto my rash (as if I had not thought of emollients, which I massage into my skin every morning and night). Or to visit the dermatologist and get a prescription for Elidel. That way, people say, You can eat what you want. I am doubly pathologized - once for the disease, and once, because I do not respond to cheery advertisements for overpriced (and chemically suspect) pharmaceuticals. Because I want to treat root causes instead of mere symptoms, I must be at fault for my own suffering.

And of course, snacking on wheat crackers and cheese would do nothing for the migraines and other problems. Oh, but Imitrex can solve this problem. And for suicidal depression resulting from temporal lobe epilepsy, why not Depakote? And for sleep disorders related to medicinal side effects, why not Ambien or Soma? And when you feel sleepy because of the sleeping pills, do not forget Ritalin. So many of my loved ones are trapped in these vicious cycles, and I do not want to join them. This is not to say they are wrong for seeking allopathic care. I prefer not to pathologize their choices. (Especially since I have been forced - more than once - to take drugs or antibiotics for acute illness or infection.)

Today, the rash on my arms and legs is beginning to fade. I am considering the consequences of walking downtown in the sunshine, breathing all that pollen, rubbing skin against fabric. But most of all, I am dreading the kindness of strangers, those people who prescribe medications without a medical license, telling you all about the miracle of Elidel, or who ask what in the hell happened to your skin, listing off their favorite ointments and creams. As if as if as if, I want to scream. As if these had never occurred to me before.

my entry for this week's photo friday: self-portrait

When I think about self-portraits, I think about surveillance, how we consent to the creation of an intimate portrait every day, just by crossing a bridge or pushing open the glass doors at the bank. It is a little like using the timer on a fancy camera, knowing exactly where the lens is pointed, where the line is drawn, and crossing it, walking willingly into the picture. We are collaborators - consciously or unconsciously - in our own surveillance, and therefore, we are also creating self-portraits.

Is this true if you don't know the video camera is rolling? If you are unaware of the level of everyday surveillance? Or is ignorance another form of collaboration?

Once you start paying attention, you notice cameras everywhere.

I like the idea of independent surveillance, how I have trumped the parking lot cameras by snapping my own picture. The surveillance of the lot is now under surveillance.

This weekend, I was walking downtown to meet a friend visiting from New York, when a group of girls passed by on the sidewalk. One of them dribbled a Spalding basketball on the street shoulder, looking me up and down out of the corner of her eye, as if she and I were engaged in a silent game of one-on-one. I got the sense she had some strategy to play out, an endgame to achieve. Predictably, she screamed an insult as she passed. Nice outfit. Her friends giggled. I ignored them. They could not have been a day over thirteen, which means they do not yet know the wonderful secret of adulthood: teasing no longer matters.

One year short of thirty, I have finally regained some confidence. All the highschool teasing about my used and no-name clothes, my drunk father blasting Hank Williams out of his rusty pickup, epilepsy, and lack of money for field trips and proper track shoes no longer matters. Turning eighteen did not set me free. Neither did college - where the feelings of not fitting in were only magnified, since I could not relate to the wealthy (or well-heeled, cultured, and well-clothed and funded) students all around me, but also lost most of my old friends (and even family) with every change in vocabulary and tastes, evey new bit of knowledge, every paradigm shift. What set me free was time. That, and finding the right mentor in graduate school, someone who understood the organic relationships between my experiences and my experimental writing.

So when these kids passed by, I did not really notice. Not until I realized they were still screaming, even half a block away. Bitch, your clothes don't match. Your momma never taught you how to dress.

I am not exactly a fashionista, but I do have a degree in art history. I know something about aesthetics. At the very least, I know how to match. That day, I happened to be wearing a handmade dress, designed and sewn by a woman in Raleigh, North Carolina. I love this dress, with its muslin-lined bodice and lace-through back. I love knowing that my clothes were not serged in a sweatshop, but rather, sewn-to-order by a mother who makes enough money to stay home with her toddlers. She cuts fabric while the kids play nearby. This means no logos, no brands, and no bland sameness. Every item is one of a kind.

Those girls were not offended by color schemes. They were offended by uniqueness. Had they ever seen a handmade dress? Do they understand how most clothes are produced, with women and children bent over machines for ten hours or more, no lunch or restroom breaks, abuse and rape rampant, insufficient ventilation, no benefits, no vacation, little pay? They were all dressed in head-to-toe Nike: unflattering track pants, swoosh tee shirts, obnoxious astronaut shoes. Even their bags sported logos from famous sportswear companies - Puma, Reebok, Nike.

I stopped walking, cupped my hands over my mouth and screamed, At least my clothes did not come from a sweatshop. The girls doubled over laughing, gave me the finger, and turned around. The one with the basketball told me to watch my step.

Watch my step.

For those of you who think we cannot make a difference, that our everyday actions are not political, that our choices hold no power, I ask the following questions: What is it about a handmade dress that inspires a violent threat? How does a one-of-a-kind design provoke teenage girls? How does it draw out their viciousness and anger? What really happened on that sidewalk?

small square of grass on a sidewalk in Los Angeles, June 2003

Until yesterday, I forgot this photograph even existed. I was digging through boxes in the back of the bedroom closet, looking for an old draft of an essay, when I discovered a stack of lomos from my last trip to Los Angeles. It was June 2003, my final residency for graduate school, and I walked past this little patch of grass every day.

Why was this one tiny patch preserved? A wildlife refuge for bugs and birds, a park for the ants? It was just big enough for half of one foot, so I could balance on tip-toe, feel the soft earth beneath.

One morning, while walking to school, I looked down at the patch of grass and started crying. I set my bag on the sidewalk and pretended to rifle through the front pocket while I broke down. Here on the sidewalk was the view from my airplane window - the only part of Los Angeles I ever really had. Arriving and leaving. Hello. Goodbye. And I have not been back since.

crumbling dog at the entrance of Jerry's Deli, Marina Del Rey, California

What is it about this statue that elicits my empathy? The exposed, rusting skeleton? Snapped paws, still intact? (And those paws - not at all as if they were once attached, but rather, something left, little offerings to missing legs.)

It almost feels wrong to submit this image for Photo Friday, when the theme for the week is junk. If the dog's body were still intact, surely this statue would be junk - a tacky lawn ornament, nothing more. But there is beauty in decay - a sense of loss and recognition, time and history, that transcends form. I wonder if the dog still exists, whether his back and hind legs have finally crumbled. And if anyone else is wondering the same thing.

my submission for an election-year project, in which women wear this shirt, snap a self-portrait, and send their images for inclusion on a poster

Sorry for the silence these past few days. I am deep into research for a new essay and lost in thought. But I promise to post later this afternoon. I had an interesting encounter downtown yesterday, and I can't seem to shake the strange mood that has crept over me as a result. More on that later.

ps: here is the picture I decided not to use:

A couple of days ago, I was walking beside the Max tracks downtown, when I noticed a man leaning on the ticket validator. He must have been seven feet tall, with steel-toed boots and a thread-bare tank top tucked into tight jeans. His forearms pressed heavy across the metal, fists clenched, veins visible and throbbing. I imagined the hot surface of the metal. Was he going to be sick?

Thanks, man, he screamed to someone on the train.

A teenage boy smiled and nodded back, before turning around to find a seat. The train pulled away. I kept walking, wondering what favor the teenage boy had done - explaining the train route, perhaps, or giving the man spare change, sharing a cigarette.

I was on my way to a bookstore cafe, looking forward to my seat at the window bar and a warm mug of chamomile tea, when the ticket machine man crept up behind. His chest almost pressed into my shoulderblades, so close I could feel his body heat, smell his aftershave mixed with sweat. And, of course, the crosswalk signal flashed Don't Walk.

Hey girl, he said.

At first, I was relieved. I thought he was talking to someone else - the woman across the street, maybe, or a friend on his cell phone. Hey was just too familiar and girl, too presumptuous. He must have been distracted and bumped into me by accident. So I ignored him and waited for the light to change.

Then I felt him push against me again - this time touching my bare skin. I was wearing a handmade dress with a bodice that laces up in the back, so my spine and shoulder blades were exposed. I moved closer to the curb, as far as I could go without stepping into the busy street.

Girl. When a certain kind of man hurls that word, my memory flashes to Hollywood murder scenes, bad workshop fiction, and sale-table novels. Hey little girl, the killer always says, knife blade pressed to tender neck. Girl clearly meant to diminish the victim's status and strength. To dehumanize. As if a girl were the same thing as a doll or toy.

The signal changed.

Portland sucks, the man said. You people are afraid of your own shadows. It was obvious he was talking about me, how I had not answered his hey girl or swooned to his uninvited touches.

Did this guy not realize how many disgusting catcalls, come-ons, and passes women endure every day? How men threaten and insult in the most humiliating ways? If he did, he might not expect a response.

Before I could think, I yelled out, I thought you were talking on a cell phone.

Later, I thought about Nico Larco, and his concept of The Stranger, how we need uncomfortable encounters to keep the city vital and alive. But was this what Nico Larco meant? Misogyny as the lifeblood of urban experience? No.

So why did I yell back about the cell phone? Was I complicit, simply by choosing the simpler response? Why was I afraid to be the stranger?