New Frontier Bitches

oh god I'm up at 3:30 am watching The Cho Show (online naturally). Margaret Cho's unreality show is so wacky bat-shit crazy wonderful that my lack of cymbalta-fueled insomnia seems to have conjured it up.  A fever dream of fluff tv and queer rocker love.

 My previous post on Amanda Palmer sent me down the internet rabbit hole of my own queer sensibilities. Queer, not necessarily gay, but weather I was sexually attracted to men or not, I'd still be kinda queer. I grew up listening to New Wave, Riot Grrl, and experimental art-rock, was obsessed with modern art, film and subversive post modern literature.  A large majority of my heros were/are women.  I've been a feminist activist and critic (woohoo free swag rocks) my entire adult life. 
I remember the first time I saw Warhol's Factory-era work. I was awestruckOkay call me a pretentious 6th grader but I totally fucking GOT IT! 
I spent the nineties obsessing over indie bands, Sassy Magazine, and moving far away from the miniscule town in Georgia I called home. It's not a bad place to be from for sure, but no exactly where I wanted to be. I idolized Kim Gordon, Kim Deal and  Kathleen Hanna.


   I bought a bass and started writing minor key 16 minute songs drenched in feedback, and you bet your chuck taylor all-stars (or pre-requisite Doc Martins)I had purple hair and hopeful idealistic attitude. I had my first boyfriends around this time. We talked art, politics (it was the Clinton era) ,music, Lollapolloza line-ups. We sat up all night secretly reading Sassy Magazine, drinking stolen booze from my catering job, ineptly fucking, smoking pot, making bad art and big plans. 
Where are we now. I 'm happily  almost-kinda-sorta-married to a wonderful artist who is truly a renaissance man (He acts! He models! HE's a celebrity stylist! He's a respected illustrator and storyboard artist! He's becoming a ASL interpreter?!?!?!) I live in the gorgeous and inspiring (not to mention isolated and über-liberal) Pacific Northwest. I went from being isolated and insular to having a great bounty of intimate connections to the people around me. 
I recently found my self at a crossroads I never thought possible and saw myself and my best friend of 16 years parting ways. Some see a glass ceiling  and feel comforted below it, safe under it's shelter. I see it I want to smash it to pieces, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator style -all the way to new worlds. His life reached plateau, and he resigned himself to stay their. There is a longing and ache inside me so deep I thought my soul was breaking. I could call him a coward, tell sordid details of is ultimate betrayal, look at the action an choices from a million  angles, but what good does that do. He set up homestead on the plateau, I've leapt of the other side, looking for new mountains to climb.

     

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