96 Tears

I became aware of an interesting phenomenon through my conversations with other trans people taking testosterone. Many of the people I talked to had all but lost their ability to cry after starting hormone replacement therapy. I was pretty baffled, even more so when it eventually happened to me.

In our conversations, some described "cheating" by slicing onions in order to achieve tears. The photographer who took the following pictures may have ruined that method for everyone by showing how the chemistry of the tears might not be the same when tricked out of the eyes by pungent vegetables.

basal tears

tears of grief

onion tears

tears of laughing til i'm crying

Since learning that tears can vary so vastly, I decided to put some of my own tears under a microscope to really understand the subtle chemical differences among the following circumstances:

tears of feeling moody in november

tears of a robot

tears of an ice queen

tears of waving from such great heights

tears of this song is fucking everything right now

tears of gagging while giving head

tears of glitter

If you made it this far, here is your reward for all your scrolling.

Tightrope

When I told a couple of friends I was starting a song-a-day-style blog, they both independently came to the conclusion that I would be posting original tunes. Which is a fabulous idea and maybe a bit ambitious for me right now. However.

"Tightrope" happened over the summer, on a rainy day when I was feeling pretty destroyed and sat in my bed in the dark for most of the afternoon, playing guitar. This song basically just bled out of me, and I recorded it on my crappy Android phone. It's pretty rough--cracking voice and wrong notes and all--but it evokes the shit out of my mood that day.


Today I was feeling so many things at once, I thought my body might explode, so I sat down and played through this one a few times (as well as Sia's "Chandelier," which might have to be its own post at some point). And then I went on a glorious bike ride with no coat on in mid-December because climate change.

I’m walking on a rope
It disappears in black
I can’t see the other side
And there’s no going back

A spotlight shines on my face
1,000 people stare
I thought I saw your arm outstretched
But it must’ve been the glare

There’s no way down but to fall
No net, nobody at all

There’s no way down but to fall
No net, nobody at all

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

On Sunday I went with a friend to the old abandoned train bridge. Visiting this bridge has been a longtime dream of mine, and I decided to go on a whim. It was a foggy late afternoon that made everything look surreal and mystical.

I'm terrified of heights, but I fucking love train bridges. Walking out onto the old wooden ties above the Connecticut River was so scary I didn't know if I could do it. I thought I might get halfway out and freeze, unable to get back. But I wanted it really bad.

Of course,  this is all a metaphor for my life right now. I'm walking through a gorgeous, disorienting fog toward something huge and high that I hope can hold me. And sometimes I panic.

Then today I heard this on the radio:

I gotta be cool, relax, get hip
And get on my tracks

Me too, Freddie, me too! But how? How can I be cool like you?


Evidently it involves riding a motorcycle in full leather gear plus some great big knee pads.

Car Song

Cars are terrible.

Having to rely on this expensive, giant, heavy machine that burns fossil fuels just to get around? Why is this still a thing?

I mean, unless you're going to fill it up with your friends and drive around Tokyo doing some red vinyl ghostbuster shit while listening to crunchy 90s Britpop. A car is great for that.




I'm just grumpy because my car's been in and out of the shop for the last six weeks, and it's currently broken down, and I can't get to the laundromat to wash my towels, and I've had to dry off with tiny hand towels after showering.

So if anyone is going to the laundromat--or Tokyo--swing by and pick me up. I'll be wearing vinyl and packing my ray gun.

Let's Go Crazy

For my job, I do peer support and advocacy on inpatient psych units. Some days it is heartbreaking and exhausting. And some days I feel like I have been allowed into a sacred, mystical space full of magical beings. Not to romanticize extreme states or crises. But some people do experience these times as spiritual or intellectual awakenings, a break from consensus reality that is an opportunity to see into alternative spaces.

My visit yesterday was one of the times when I feel honored to share or just witness the beauty and resiliency of people coping with being in a difficult place. In particular, this one old dude was just soliloquizing nonstop at whoever would listen. For a moment the room got quiet, and he gestured toward one of the strange, heavy lumps of furniture that make up the seating options. He said:

The chair is full of sand
The sand is full of stars
The stars are full of the sea
The safest place is here next to me

Internally (which is where I do most of my crying), I was weeping with joy in this moment. Later he also said, "How long does it take to build the world?"

Historically, crazy is a pejorative label that has been used to discredit and oppress people. It's also been reclaimed by mad communities who are redefining these experiences in our own terms and pushing back against being medicalized and institutionalized.

It is in that spirit that I offer you today's pop song. Prince is notoriously protective of his work, so I can't embed an online clip of his 1984 release "Let's Go Crazy" from the Purple Rain soundtrack. You will have to figure out how to hear this song if it's not already so familiar you can just call it up in the jukebox of your brain.

Because seriously, "we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life ... and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy, punch a higher floor."

Army of Me

This was me today.



The Flaggin' Wagon is in the shop, and my mechanic loaned me a Suburban that is bigger than my bedroom. I have to grab the steering wheel and haul myself up into the seat. As soon as I saw it, this video came to mind.

As the lyrics started on auto-play in my head, they seemed really timely. Earlier this week I observed someone I respect challenging another person to do something they were afraid of, and the next day I found myself doing the same for someone else. In both instances it was done with gentleness and love ("Would you consider doing this thing even though it scares you?") and not in the tough-love tone of the song ("Self-sufficiency, please, and get to work"). And in the case where I was doing the challenging, the other person got something they needed because they took that risk, and told me, "Thank you for pushing me."

I'm pretty sure I'd never actually say to someone, "You're on your own now/We won't save you/Your rescue squad/Is too exhausted," but the sentiment isn't too far off from where I've been this past week, and I appreciate the lessons I'm learning about letting go of the illusion of control, which is about fear, and learning to afford others the "dignity of risk" and the right to fail.

Pure

When I was a high school sophomore in rural Minnesota, I was often miserable. It's hard to be 16, you know? The best thing in the world back then, besides play practice (oh yeah, I was a nerd), was a radio show on the Duluth station late Sunday nights. It might have been called "The Edge," and it played only the edgiest alternative rock.

Lying in my bed, I'd record the show on my clock radio/tape deck so I could play it all week. In my basement bedroom, I first heard much of the music that I still love: songs by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sugarcubes, Big Audio Dynamite, and the Lightning Seeds.

I've always thought of "Pure" as one of the world's perfect pop songs. That glorious synth hook (by OMD’s Andy McCluskey), sweet, mellow melody, and bubbly chorus epitomize my teenage hopes that someday life would be simpler, cleaner, "fresh and deep as oceans new."

This week a friend of mine gave me a tape, an original composition, that begins with "Pure" as part of an ambient background to some Casiotone notes. If you're wondering whether you can drone out to your nostalgic age-16 faves, the answer is yes. If you're wondering whether my life feels any more fresh and deep than it did in that 1992 basement, it certainly does. If you're wondering how old I am, I guess I gave that away already.

I'm Not the Man I Used to Be

I just read this review of a new memoir the other day, and I think it stands alone as a critique of the "cis gaze" and how the state regulates gender and sex. Several Facebook posters have called attention to this passage from the article:

So 'transition', 'sex change' or, to some extent, 'coming out' are cis fantasies. They are cis fantasies that obscure the processes by which cis people create their own genders. Whether cis or trans or gender non-conforming, gender is never static. Gender identity has no fixed end point: it is a lifetime of changing feelings, experiences and attitudes. If gender is a set of relationships – to ourselves, to others, to the boxes others put us in – then no adults are the same gender, really, as when they were born, and in ten years they will be different genders still.

To show us that even cis guys get the blues, today's song features a gorgeously pensive Roland Gift and a whole cast of hip hop dancers. For a song whose lyrics are arguably kind of depressing, the video to this 1989 single makes me really happy. Also, that catchy James Brown sample! Uuugghhh so good.




Oh, right. Also, happy "coming out" day. I want to live in a world where there is no need to "come out" because I am not assumed to be cis and straight until I state otherwise. But until the white cis-hetero patriarchy crumbles, I'll be singing this song (and occasionally this song).

Let's Go to Bed

Welcome to the new location and format of my "daily" check-ins with the internet. If you are familiar with 17aDay, you know that a day with me is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. So I post whenever the hell I want to, basically.

Today's entry is about how exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed, and cranky I have felt for the last week or so. I have decided I'm merely adjusting to the seasonal shift and shortening days of New England autumn, because that is easier than worrying that I am going to be permanently crotchety and tired. Probably only until May.

This 1982 single is 3-1/2 minutes, which, according to radio lore, is the average length of a pop/rock radio single. (3 min. 30 sec. is equal  to 0.00243056 days, whence comes the title of this project.) Also, according to the song's Wikipedia page, Boston alternative rock station WFNX played this as their first broadcast in 1983 and their last in 2012.

But I don't care if you don't
And I don't feel if you don't
And I don't want it if you don't
And I won't say it
If you won't say it first