The Seam of Her Jeans

Hey, good people.

It has been three months since my last post here.  We are all doing pretty damn fine.  Will is over two and gabbing up a storm.  She sings and dances like mad.

Her favorite songs: you are my sunshine, do re mi (I love her obsession with this song cause I get my own personal Julie Andrews fix about three times a week when we watch a you tube of the song from Sound of Music), and twinkle twinkle little star.

Since I have no time for this blog, I started a new blog.  No, for serious. I did. I know, totally silly because I already am such a slacker over on this blog.  This new blog is of a very different nature, in some respects, than Injection Reflections.

In the past, I have blogged here about my love of queer fiction and non-fiction and the little bits of queer dust--ever-present but hard to find little floaties--in pop-culture (though getting less hard to find).

Well, I read queer and lesbian fiction like it is going out of style.  During my sleepless nights (yes, I have blogged here over the years about my serious insomnia, too), I suck down pulpy, sometimes a bit trashy, other times a little formulaic, still other times absolutely enthralling and interesting, romantic, fascinating, heart stuttering, sometimes boring, lesbian and/or queer centric novels.

This new blog is called The Seam of Her Jeans

I intend for it to be a sort of quick review blog.  I do not want to get too in-depth.  I want the reviews to mostly turn people on to the fact that a book is out there and maybe folks might want to give the book a whirl on their own.  And, of course, every now and again, I will be sure to ramble on about some kind of critical theory/other BS that makes me feel self-important and smart.

See, in talking with friends, I often refer to a lesbian romance or queer young adult novel or lesbian themed book that I am reading.  And, then we start talking and I go on and on about this book and that book.  My friends show genuine interest and then they say, "write this shit up."  (Or maybe they really just want me to shut up :) ).

All in all, that's what I intend for this blog to be.  A mostly quick, fun, light hearted, but sometimes critical look into les and queer fiction.  And, at times, I hope to have guest bloggers write up their findings.

For those of you who know me, you might know that I like to talk about sexuality, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, lovemaking, and so on.  The cool thing about much of the lesbian and queer themed fiction out there is that it unabashedly exclaims and claims the reality that we (queers and lesbians) have sex.  I know, I know sometimes that is what the problem is in the minds of our heterosexual "foes" or ignorant neighbors and family members. People's imaginations that go right into our bedrooms (or kitchens, or dining rooms, or stairways).  But, really, what makes me different from my sisters, besides my politics and interests and hair and clothes and other parts of my life choices, is the fact that I do not have sex with male anatomy.  I do not want it in my bedroom or on the stairs or in the kitchen.  I see these novels as a reclamation of the thing that we are sometimes forced to not talk about because that is the very thing that may make us into the other.  The fact that I look and dress like what many perceive to be a dude and have sex with women are the very two things that make me--to some--perverted, deplorable, disgusting, and otherized to the point of marginalizing me and my family in both the larger governmental sphere and in more common social and religious settings.

There is something profoundly liberating that queer people are out there creating stories about the pleasure they seek and gain with (and within) one another.  Queer people get turned on and do something about it, and much of this fiction unfolds with plots wrapped around some beautiful sex and other very dramatic stuff.

My new blog has a whole page on Why? The Seam of Her Jeans.  But, really briefly about the title itself, I gave the blog this title because in reading through many of these books, women get hot over and over again and over and over again this line--the seam of her jeans or the seam of her pants-- (or one very similar to it) keeps coming up in various novels by various authors.  So, a woman will be all hot and bothered and practically explode from the touch of the hard fabric of her pants. This storytelling tool just tickles the shit out of me.  Hence, the name of the blog.

I do plan to stop on by Injection Reflections every now and again and post on the perils and triumphs of participating in the growing up of my kid and other things that make me think all deep and thoughtful.  I have yet to totally abandon this nearly 6 year old blog...So, read my new rambles if you feel so inclined.

deeper sleep

I have been relegated to the bed in the downstairs back room. A cough has found my chest and will not let up. It has a stronghold on the area below my neck at the top of my rib cage and it shakes fierce and wild in the night hours.

So, I’ve been banished from the family bed.

Obviously, this banishment has occurred for good reason.

I can’t keep the other members of my household up with my deep, hollow, non-productive coughing.

But I miss my dear ones.

And their absence during my dark hours makes me think a lot about how we came to this place of sharing our bed with our wee one. Before Willa came to us, I really did not read much about what to do after she was really here with us. Then she was born. This little, little being cast down to us from some star that finally decided to give up a small piece of the glitter, light, and energy that makes it a star. And, when she fell from her mama’s womb onto our dingy sheets, I knew she could be only there with us, on us, between us in our bed when we slept.

Of course, at that point, I had to consult some books and our midwife and our doula to make sure we were sleeping with her safely. But having her with us in bed and then having her with us in a sling or in our arms as we work and go about our living, well, it all seems so right and perfect.

I did not consult tons of books. The ones I did kind of made me pissy. i.e. dr. sear.s heterosexist extraordinaire. While I think he has a lot to share about a lot of things, I am not some big barreled daddy with a low voice who will accidentally roll on my daughter due to lack of hormonal connection (dr. s says for co-sleeping heterosexuals to put off having the male part of the relationship sleep closely to the infant cause he might smoosh the baby since birth-mothers have all of this hormonal and regular intuition they should be the ones to have the wee ones close by). I could accidentally roll on her, but so could k and we have set up perimeters to keep that from happening.

Willa’s been sleeping in the crook of my arm since she was 8 hours old.
Not every night. But many.

The point of this post is to say, thus far, I am very fond of our family bed. I love it. I love my daughter being close to us. I love the fact that k can side lie nurse and get better (if not still vague) sleep through the night. I love reaching out to feel my sweet willa near by. I love learning her idiosyncrasies. My child is a fidget. She squirms and twists and flails like a worm over flame.

She is also incredibly particular. There have been nights when she wants to just be flat on her back on my chest. I’ll put her next to me on the bed and she will fuss. Cause, see, she knows what she wants. Other nights we hold her tight and close and she calms her fidgeting and falls fast to sleep.

The family bed brings this kind of intense insight into our own selves and to our little one. We know more about each other as animals, as creatures, as our vulnerable selves. I know it will not last forever. It may not even last for many more months. But, this time so far has been precious and enlightening and I would not trade it for anything, not even deeper sleep.

of vampires and sleeplessness

The other day I started reading this book, Vampires, Burial and Death by Paul Barber. It is a fascinating scholarly text (but readable) on the folklore of the undead—mostly the European/Eastern European undead. One of the most fascinating things about the stories presented in the text is the unquenchable fear that rose up in people in the face of the unknown and uncertain and unfamiliar.

Now I am only 6 chapters into the book, so my brief synthesis—and maybe it is not brief enough for some of you, but alas I am long-winded and full of air and watery stuff—is not going to capture the entirety of the author’s thesis, but here’s my understanding of it so far.

In the middle ages (and beyond) the undead (vampires, revenants, vrylolakas (sp?)) were at times blamed for unexplained deaths—many peasant people assigned undeadness to people who had passed on and left other people dying in their wake or left strange things happening in a village that were indicative of hauntings. If a person was murdered, committed suicide, or experienced violent, accidental early deaths he or she was much more likely to become undead after burial. Furthermore, a person could be born with certain traits or characteristics that created a propensity for becoming undead after dying.

The author goes into great detail about how the vampires and undead above are not at all like the fictional vampires of books and movies. These vampires reeked havoc on the various villages described in the written folkloric cannon and were disinterred and dealt with in multiple ritualistic and not so ritualistic ways in order to stop whatever the havoc may have been within the village. The vampires of folklore were actually described as bloated, ruddy, slack-eyed, fresh skinned, long nailed, fresh haired creatures (they were almost always seen in repose in their burial spots upon disinterment). Essentially the description is the not-so-usual (but really quite usual) patterns of decomposition.

When someone happened to be the first to die in an epidemic (or when the first few people died in an epidemic) these victims of disease would essentially spread more death. Villagers would reason that the quick and numerous deaths were caused by vampires rising from their graves and squeezing the life out of victims—we know now because of science that these people were of course going to bring more death along because diseases are contagious.

Sometimes the revenants did not bring death to more people, instead the undead played tricks and haunted the village by drinking jugs of wine and moving things around.

What I’ve been finding most interesting about the folklore I’ve been reading is the collective fear that unified the people into both relying on one another for comfort and the spectacle that was created out of the dead bodies of the supposed undead.

There is an account of many people coming together in a big sleep over at one house in order to stay ghost/revenant/haunting free for the night. Another story describes many, many people sleeping over in the town square in order to avoid the hauntings.

This coming together in the night to get through fearful moments really resonates with me. Since my teens I have loved the fact that the 7-11 or Meijers grocer or the 24-hour coney island joint would be open with bright lights shining and night owls hanging out if ever I was having an insomniac night loaded with graphic depictions of either scary or not-so-scary imaginings.

See, I’ve been an insomniac since I was in the fifth grade. When I was young I would stay up for hour upon hour praying for Jesus to stick to my heart so I wouldn’t go to hell and simultaneously wondering about the promise of heaven and the sureness of eternal boredom that I thought might come with it. I would fall asleep, only to be awakened by elaborate, horrific dreams—strange creatures trying to scratch through the glass of my bedroom window; men with cross bows entering my room and shooting deathly arrows at me and faceless friends.

As I got older, I dealt with all the fears that erupted in my mind at night by simply staying up and reading or drawing or watching cooking shows or playing board games with friends till late into the night. For a few years in my late teens I would stay up almost the entire night until I was so exhausted I crashed out. Sometimes I had floating fears in my head; other times the things of distraction mentioned above kept me calm. Whatever the case—fears or fearless—the idea of other people being up in one place gathered together helped alleviate the misery of my sleeplessness.

In this folklore, I find the collective alignment of the village in the middle of night to resonate with me in the same ways the smoky, florescent lit 24-hour diner filled with distraught, angst-laden teenagers and overly drunk wastoids at 2:30 in the a.m. soothed my pacing mind when I could not get to sleep. During those sleepless years, I would sometimes wander the streets at night—usually via bicycle—under the blue street lights or bright moon searching for other souls awake during the wee hours between darkness lifting and light rising.

I did not need to know the person I might come across; I just needed to know (and still need to know) that there was a warm body with a warm mind roaming the surface of the earth at that exact moment. There’s something about being alone at night (and when you are the only one awake in your house; you are virtually alone) that creeps under my skin and causes fierce fears and imaginings.

Today, my insomnia is much better. It comes in small waves and taking benedryl or zyrtec helps. But still when I wake in the night, I am more apt to see things move and hear things that may be sinister or spooky sliding over the floorboards or up the plaster walls. I create whole stories of murder and mayhem and supernatural phenomenon for every floorboard creak and animal scurry.

So, I relate all so well to the peasants’ fears in the stories of the undead. I can imagine the hysteria that built up over the days and nights as strange (and maybe not-so-strange) things happened in villages throughout Europe. When young healthy people start dying one after another or people were murdered or jugs of wine were stolen in the early morning hours when the dark of night hung relentlessly on the sky, well, who better to blame it on than someone already dead? And what better way to deal with all the fear connected to unusual events than to deal with it collectively in a common space--warm bodies gathered together to stay off the difficulty of sleeplessness?