bonfires of the spine

Dearest Karen,

I realized with some dismay that the last post in this blog endeavor was five months ago, and that seemed too long a time to neglect letterbread.
I've just set up a blog space for the wonderful women I met at the conference I attended this weekend in Atlanta. I'm not quite sure how I feel about blogs, other than liking the fact that we can chronicle the history of our correspondence, for others the history of their thought and emotion. I set it up anyway because I thought it important for us to have a space to communicate and chronicle that, which I think is the advantage over an email list I think. I hope it takes off. I would really love that. It's called "There's something under this hijab" which is a very cheeky title for it, going along with the very cheeky zine we put together, which I surreptitiously photocopied at work. I'm sure I would be fired if I had been discovered, which makes it that much funnier to me:)
Ah! I wanted to ask you, if you can, to give me a basic webpage-making lesson. I'm sure it isn't as straightforward as that, but maybe is, and on the chance of maybe I ask for a peek into your expertise.

I don't know if I told you I was going to a retreat in Atlanta for queer Muslims. That's where I was this weekend. I got there so so hungry to meet queer Muslims, starving really. There were separate retreats for men and women and trans folks. We got into that room, the women, and commenced to go right to the heart of us. We shared some of the most personal and tender, for some THE most personal and tender, parts of ourselves, our thoughts, our experiences. In the few hours we spent together over the course of two days we really became a community, which is an incredible thing to be able to say, feel and believe after that amount of time. Of course the real test is being back in the rest of world and maintaining it which is why I set up the blog, in service of that effort. But I know for sure that bonds were forged that will not be broken in this lifetime.
I only got back last night. I've lost my voice entirely, which is a blessing at the moment methinks. It allows me to hold myself in this sleep-deprived, excited, energised, renewed spiritual, heart and mind space. I want to share more of the experience with you when I have some time distance from it and some rest.

It was a little odd being in the South, and I found myself relieved to return to the North East. Actually I will admit that being in the South set me on edge a little. On Sunday night I went to a drag show at a place called Charlie Brown's World Famous Female Impersonators. My first live drag show. The emcee, Charlie Brown herself, was so crude and crass and Southern and it alarmed a little. I guess what she actually said, nasty jokes, could just as easily have been said by anyone else in a different part of the country but it wouldn't have been the same. One of the jokes was her telling the straight people in the room from Georgia to stop having children so that they wouldn't be so stupid. Apparently GA has some of the lowest SAT scores in the country. Charlie suggested that they though SAT was an abbreviation for Saturday and didn't show up to take the test. I already got issues with people calling other people stupid in droves like that, but there was something in the fact of a Southerner saying it that caused alarm bells to peal in my mind. Have you been to the South? It really is a different country.

How are you??
I finished East of Eden, and concur with the sentiment of masterpiece. I know it's a book I could read time and again and find new things to meditate on. The end was kind of heartbreaking, but hopeful. I'm not quite sure what the last line means though. "His eyes closed, and he slept."
Thoughts?
I'm going to see about reading a Walker Percy novel now methinks. I've been thinking about him lately, remembering The Movie Goer.

Next week is the move to New York, though I feel a little silly calling it a move considering that I don't feel I actually live anywhere from whence to move. I've got a lot to do before then and when I get there, but I'm very excited to take this step out on my own.

I could certainly go on, but I shall persist in desisting here.

Always love