New Sewing Machine, Beautiful Wedding, Wasteland Twinning, Queer Beach

My new sewing machine!

So much to report!  Firstly, I have purcahsed a new sewing machine.  Thank you to my generous donors for making this possible.  It is not as fancy as my trusty old Bernina, but it is also not as heavy and it will do the jobs I need it to do.  I am very happy about this purchase, and though I have not had time yet to give it more than a short test run, I look forward to starting production very, very soon! 

On Thursday Robert was acting weird, insisting that I come over to his house in the evening evening though I had slept there the night before.  "Okay, okay!"  I was annoyed, but it seemed so important to him.  I arrived around 9:30 and a ton of my friends were there!  He threw me a surprise party!  Unbelievable!  I've always hoped someone would do that for me.  No one ever had, until now.  It was a great night of conversation and music.  I was reminded yet again that I am most definitely in the right place in the world. 

I have been walking through my neighborhood lately, and though much of Wedding is highly urbanized, I have to say this place is GORGEOUS!  Right around the corner is a river and verdant greenery, birds and squirrels.  As soon as all the construction on the building is done, I think this will be a positively wonderful place to live.  Though I have liked a few of the places I have lived in Berlin, Soldinerstrasse is my favorite so far. 


 All this is around the corner form my flat. 
Gorgeous!






I auditioned for a part with Wasteland Twinning yesterday and got the role.  Sometime next weekend I will be giving an improvised, interactive endurance performance, playing a character in an urban wasteland on the space behind Köpenicker Straße studios next to Kopi squat, opposite Radialsystem V next to the Spree river.  At the exact same time someone will be giving a performance using the same character sketch in Amsterdam, Holland.  The event will last about 5 hours.  It will be difficult but worthwhile.  At the end of it all, I will sleep for a very long time. I am VERY excited about this bizarre and unique opportunity.

And lastly, it has been HOT in Berlin!  Really hot!  I have been wanting to go swimming in one of the many lakes here in Berlin since I landed, and have not been able to find the time.  Yesterday there was a small party called "Queer Beach" at Müggelsee.  Robert and his friend Tobi and I went in the evening, around 8.  I had only been there about 5 minutes when I decided it was time for a swim.  Though the twilight air was beginning to cool, the water was quite warm.  I tore off all of my clothes and ran in.  How marvelous, to swim naked in a lake while the moon is rising and the sun sets.  Robert joined me and after cavorting in the lake for a bit, we dried ourselves off, joined Tobi on the blanket and ate sausages. 
An excellent evening. 

I'm sorry to say I forgot my camera for both my surprise party (but how was I supposed to know?) and Queer Beach, still, I hope you enjoy the few photos I have included in this blog.


These two photos are total non-sequitors, but I didn't have anywhere else to put them.  Firstly, there is a Yoga room at SFO International?  Oh, San Francisco, would you like soymilk with that?  Also, when you only have 3,30€ in your pocket and are hungry, breakfast at Sharky's Cafe on the corner of Osloerstrasse and Koloniestrasse can't be beat!

 

Mein Nähemaschine ist kaput

My sewing machine busted, and I have to make 30 more of these guys. Help!

I lugged my Bernina sewing machinefrom the US all the way to Germany.  Today I bought a converter plug for it, came home and set it up.  I threaded the machine, put in the bobbin and got ready!  Sewing in my own room!  The feeling of home!  I. Was Excited.
I placed the fabric under the needle and turned on the machine.  I depressed the pedal and began sewing.  But something was wrong.  Tension problems.  Okay, I began futzing with the tension knob.  Tried again. Nothing.  I few more tries.  Still nothing.  Not better.  Not worse.  Nothing.  Then I smell burning.  Then a loud popping sound and smoke. 
Robert called around for me a little bit.  No one will repair it because it is too old.  If I kept searching, I could probably find someone, but the repair would be astronomically expensive.  I have a deadline coming up and tons of sewing to do.  I had just finished setting up a corner of my room like a studio so I could be very productive, unrushed, pay a lot of attention to detail and make good art.  And now I have to buy a new sewing machine.  I didn't really budget for this, but I don't really see any other way that won't drive me insane.  I have an exhibition of my soft sculptures that opens on November 2nd, but need to finish the majority of my work by the last week of September for a publicity photo shoot.

So here is my shameless plea, again, for you to fund my really amazing art.  There is a "Donate" button on this blog connected to my Paypal account.  If you are looking to fund a project in a very concrete way, where you donate the money and it goes DIRECTLY to helping the art get made, look no further.  I don't need that much, as far as art funding goes.  $350 to $400 USD will buy me what I need to crank these sculptures out.  Of course, it takes a village.  I don't expect one person to just shell out the whole thing.  So here's the deal:  You donate more than $50 and I send you a soft sculpture.  You donate more that $100 and you get a soft sculpture and some kind of original, functional fabric item as well.  So, how about it.

Mein Gepäck wurde gefunden!

That's right!  I am waiting for it to be delivered right now!  Truly, I am relieved. 
Geez, it only took 5 days, but now I will be reunited with my Lacie backup drive, my underwear, the majority of my clothing, the rest of my artwork and my camera battery charger!  (I can start taking photos again!  Oh happy day!)

Yesterday I went to Shakespeare im Park, a free performance in Görlitzer Park to see an INCREDIBLY strange production of Utopia by Thomas Moore.  I can only imagine that this is what the Open Theater must have been like.  The production moved throughout the park, pushed gender roles and sexuality to what might be a limit for free, open air theater, and was also, at times, hilarious.  Sorry, I will not write I lengthy review because the buzzer just rang which means MY BAG HAS ARRIVED! 
I now have almost all of my things in one place! 
What's left I will pick up in Prague on August 27th!  Wow, and now, I create my space and begin my life here.  For real!

Baggage Disaster

I've been back in Berlin 4 days.  I understand more German than I thought I would, my flatmates greeted me with a spectacular breakfast, I have gotten to spend a lot of quality time with Robert, and I have obtained a fabulous blue leather couch, which I'm sure I'll post a picture of at some point.  I have hung out with a few of my favorite people in a few of my favorite places and enrolled in an online TESOL course which I hope to complete in under two months, therefore increasing my potential for finding a job while I am learning German.  That's all the good news.
As far as my luggage (i.e, everything I own) goes, this proves to be a stressful disaster.  The first thing that went wrong in with my baggage seems to have happened at SFO, when the person checking me in to my flight did not give me my luggage receipts, making it more difficult to trace my luggage, which was lost.  When I arrived at Tegel and my luggage did not show up, I had to go to the lost and found, where I described my bags.  The woman behind the desk assured me that indeed, I would have my luggage by the next day.  I was given a phone number to call so I could track my luggage, which of course does not work.  Also, the woman at Globe Ground Berlin (the company that handles Air Berlin's baggage) told me I could check my bags status online.  Of course, this website has not been updated for days. 
After 2 days of freaking out, trying to call again and again, I finally went to the airport yesterday.  I talked to a woman at Globe Ground.  She made some phone calls.  "Sorry.  We don't know where it is." 
"Find it."  I am trying very hard to remain friendly, but I'm starting to lose it.  She makes some more phone calls.
"It's here.  You can pick it up now." 
I am by myself at the airport and I am expecting three very heavy bags, only one of which has wheels.  "I was told it would be delivered." 
She makes another phone call.  "You will get your bags today."
So I go back to Robert's and wait for Katha to arrive with the rental van so we can move the couch.  My bags come around 19:45.  But there are only two of them, the large rolling bag with my painted box and some clothes and my new Doc Martins, and my sewing machine case that I had packed books, shoes, and some fabric in.  Lucky I did not check my sewing machine through, as the airline broke my case.  Assholes.  And where is my black duffel bag?  No one knows.  This is the bag containing the majority of my clothes, more fabric, all of my chargers, my electrical converter plug and all my socks and underwear, not to mention a lot of my artwork.  I paid almost $200 to check all of these bags.  And now this one is- who knows?  So I call the toll free American Airlines number from my Skype account, thus making it free.  Of course, since I flew four days ago, they no longer have the tracking numbers which they neglected to give me in the first place.  The extremely unhelpful gentleman on the phone gives my three numbers that might be linked to my lost bag.  Now I get to go back to the horribly unorganized Tegel airport AGAIN and try to find my bag.  Hopefully I will come home with it.  Then Robert and I will go swim naked in a lake, so at least that is nice.
I'm trying to not be materialistic about this, but the fact is that replacing all this stuff would be expensive.  Checking the bag was expensive.  I want my stuff.

Coming Home

It's been about a month since I've posted anything on my blog.  I'm still here on the internet, and for 5 more days I am still in San Francisco.  It has been a busy summer.  I worked for 8 weeks at the Randall Museum summer camp with groups of up to 17 children at a time taking classes like Inventions, where the campers made musical instruments and automatons out of woodscraps and junk, clay monster making, which is exactly what it sounds like, and a class where they wrote and performed their own opera.  Being in kid space all summer was truly wonderful.  Summer camp, otherwise known as getting to play all day, always does something good for my spirit.  One session there was an 8 year old in my group who was (like me) a brain injury survivor.  Quite an outgoing and friendly lad, it brought me a special sense of fulfillment adapting certain activities for him.  It's a really nice thing to wake up at 5:45 in the morning everyday and think "Yes! I'm going to work!"  It's weird that this is probably the last time I work with large groups of kids, at least at the Randall.  I'll miss it.  But I did not move halfway across the world to work with kids.  I did it to explore other avenues.  I did it to get more serious about being an artist.

The Randall Museum is next to Corona Heights Park, whose rockface is made out of Radiolarian Chert

Rescued Barn Owl, Randall Museum

Don't know what it is, but I worked in a beautiful place all summer

Moon Over Randall

Randall Museum

View of Market Street from Randal Museum

Hitomi (Camp Counselor) With Stella the Chicken, Randall Museum

Rosemary Bush, Randall Museum

Rescued Great Horned Owl, Randall Museum

I got paid to make these!  Part of my job at the Randall Museum

I've lived two blocks away from an Asian Supermarket for the past month and a half.  The place is so cheap that the prices are almost Berlin-style.  This had led to several culinary adventures, including the creation of many amazing smoothies, my favorite being either the kale-mint-basil-grape-pear-banana or the strawberry-peach-yogurt.  Also, I discovered Banana sauce, also known as Banana ketchup, which has a TON of sodium in it but goes really well with pork.  And having Ben and Jerry's available for less the 8€ a pint has been- well, I may have gained a little weight, but nothing the constant stair climbing in Berlin won't burn off.

From the Sunset Super, where you can buy frozen alligator feet and live fish

Delivery at the Sunset Super

This past week, I took Violet and Helena, who I started babysitting at the ages of 2 and 5 (they are 6 and 9 now!) to the San Fransisco Zoo.  I think it was the best day I had all summer!  Seriously, those girls are magic.  Unbeknownst to them, over the 4 years I have known them, they have pulled me out of deep depression quite a few times!

Helena, Me, Violet (from right to left)

It's been really spectacular to live by the ocean again as well.  There is something so magical about the Pacific, even if the temperature is similar to the Baltic Sea in winter.  I've enjoyed having sand in between my toes.  I interesting that the home I have found for myself halfway across the world is next to a  moving body of water as well, albeit the much smaller Panke River.
I have sold or given away so many things that have meant something to me.  Books, a jacket I bought when I was 15, my burlesque trunk.  Now, with 5 days left here, I am vacuum packing bags of clothes and fabric, trying to make it all fit in my three bags, carry-on and personal item.  Luggage fees will cost around $225, which is a bummer, but hey, moving is expensive.
Every couple of hours I get overwhelmed and have a small breakdown.  Leaving one home for another, letting go of comfort, a language I know, my legal right to apply for any job I want to, and a sort of stagnation that goes with the immobility I experience in a car-based culture; I'm trading it for discovery, a leap into the unknown, amazing public transit, hustling all the time, and a language I must learn.  Language is maybe the most terrifying part.  The inability to talk to people is hard.  But I will struggle through.  I will work hard and I will learn.  I will be fluent in a few years, I hope.  And the other thing I get when I move back is Robert.  And that alone makes it all worth it.  Still, it's frightening, not having any concrete plans to return to the US.  What if something catastrophic happens to someone in my family, or one of my friends, and I can't afford to come home?  What if, what if, what if.  Fear is never a good adviser.  My mother is still youngish.  Maybe I can get financially comfortable enough in the next few years to come spend quality time with her and her partner when she hits 75 or 80.
So these are all the excited, nervous, happy, sad, scared and courageous thoughts and hopes and dreams that go through my head while I pack and repack my bags over and over again, trying to make it all fit.
Berlin, I'm coming home...

Outer Sunset, San Francisco

The Fully Functional Cabaret: Trans Women's Secrets... Revealed

Last night my friend A. and I went to see The Fully Functional Cabaret: Trans Women's Secrets...Revealed!  For those of you who have been going to small Bay Area theater for awhile, you know it's always a toss up.  You are just as likely to see some self-indulgent, self-therapeutic, feel better garbage that is ill-crafted or possibly some really abstract, conceptual contemporary dance that you will have to pretend to "get" in order to save face with your friends, colleagues, community, what have you as you are to see a really quality production.
Well ladies, gentlemen and everyone on the gender spectrum, The Fully Functional Cabaret is the show you have been waiting for.  This is the gold, the jackpot, that raw and real balanced equation of laughter and isolation, comedy and pain that makes for a theatrical experience that stays with you.  Annie Danger, the Emcee is a seasoned performer and rabble rouser.  She really brings it!  Seriously, it's like watching Joel Grey on acid.  She and the rest of the ensemble (Bryn Kelly, Red Durkln, Ryka Aoki, Shawna Virago, and Star Amerasu escort you through the humour and tragedy, the power and terror of their human experience.  The show is so well-crafted in this way.  First they make you laugh, you get broken open, then there is a bit of heaviness, then laughter again.  And it cycles through like this 2 or 3 times until you don't get to laugh anymore because shit gets REAL!  I swear, I almost had to leave at one point when Star Amerasu was portraying an attack by "doctors."  She kept screaming for help and no one helped her.  I swear, I know it was "not real," but at one point I really thought I was going to run up on stage and help her, take her away from the "men."  (Just so you know, folks in the show, that part is so super-intense that it is just as likely that you have someone try to save Star.  Be ready.)
I also really liked the part about saying, "I'm sorry."  Interesting, when you think about it.  How many times a day do you apologize for the space you take up?  Are you trans, queer, female, a person of color, otherly-abled?  How much of your energy goes to trying to assimilate, to just fit in?  How often do you apologize for who you are?  I loved screaming, "I'm not sorry!" At the top of my voice with a hundred other people.  And I'm not.  My queer, "disabled," female-identifying deserves to take up the space it does!  We all get to take our space!  Stop saying "I'm sorry," unless you really are apologizing for something.  It's just as easy to say, "I can make room for that," or "There is space for you here."
What I really loved about this show was that I did not feel like the performers needed any sort of confirmation of themselves from me.  They brought me confirmatin of myself.  I'm not a trans woman, but I saw myself and my struggle represented on the stage. 
This isn't just queer theater/trans theater/other theater, folks.  This is theater!  I would put it up there with Hedwig and the Angry Inch in terms of universal appeal.  It's not just for a queer crowd.  Gay, straight, trans, cis-, whoever you are, you understand Hedwig and the Angry Inch as a human story, and The Fully Functional Cabaret commands the same appeal.
In short, I had an awesome night at the theater!
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After the show, A. and I go to Lucky 13 for a beer.  Not my favorite bar in the Castro, but the least crowded on a Friday night.  We discuss the show a bit.  She says, "I don't want to be bi or gay or straight.  I don't like any of these labels.  I just want to be me."
"Sounds pretty queer."  I offer.
"No, just me.  I have a boyfriend.  People won't like it if I say I'm queer."
"Queer just means that you reject hetero-normative culture as a default setting."
We finish our beers and are getting ready to go.  Some drunk guy at the table next to us says to me, "I can tell you're a really good person."
I say, "Thanks!  Hey, what are you doing tomorrow night?  You should go see this."  I show him my program from the show.  His friend comes around to his side of the table, curious.
"What's the show?"
"The Fully Functional Cabaret: Trans Women's Secrets...Revealed!"  I give a little flourish with my hand. 
And all the safety I felt a moment ago vanishes as his features steel over in disbelief and he takes a step back.  "You guys aren't trans, though.  Are you?"
I feel my body tense, my chest puff out a little, "Maybe."
"No, you guys are real girls!" He laughs.
I make a fist.  First off, trans women ARE "real" girls.  Secondly, don't call me a girl, meathead!
"You know, that's really rude to question what's in my pants.  I mean, what's in yours?  Huh?  Don't I seem rude for asking?  Or assuming?" 
A. steps between us, mumbles to the guy, "You really don't want to start this with her."  And ushers me out of the bar. 
"Wow," she shakes her head in disbelief.  "We just saw that onstage."
"Yeah, well.  It's real.  Welcome to the life of a Gender Warrior."

The Big Burn

Journal Burn at Ocean Beach

I'm staying in the outer sunset in a small apartment.  It is so thrilling to be in a safe neighborhood with Sunset Super (huge Asian grocery) only two blocks away.  I have made productive time of my week off by setting up my sewing machine and beginning to work on my PJ's Pussies again.  I have an exhibition coming up on November 2nd at Other Nature in Berlin.  I've walked to the beach and stared out at the Pacific Ocean a few times.  You know, it's exactly the same as when I left it?  Something about the sea has always been comforting to me.  In the grand scheme of things, I am so unimportant.  Whether I keep breathing or cease, am happy or sad, am here or not, the ocean keeps rolling in and out to the gravitational pull of the moon.
It seemed only right that I should have my book-burning bonfire next to the ocean. 

Yesterday was spent salvaging a handful of pages from two big storage crates of notebooks, for that night I would take them all to the fire pits at Ocean Beach and burn them.  I spent the majority of the day either on Skype with Robert, reading him things from my past, or with my friend Ra.

Ra!

At 17:45, my old friend Lilli picked me up and we loaded up her car with my journals.  I was nervous about the evening.  Was I erasing my past or freeing myself of old demons.  I had wanted to create some sort of ritual aspect, but the practicality of the venture, the ridding myself of the material possessions, seemed at the forefront for me.  I wish I had organized the event better, picked out certain passages for myself and others to read.  The evening pulled together nicely anyway, with there being the focus of beginning on starting a fire in high wind to center my chaotic flurry of thoughts and direct my energy in a forward moving fashion. 
I had spent all day with the material, all my writing: shame, secrets, fantasies, dreams and regrets.  All of the loneliness, isolation, alienation, strength, compassion, and absurdity that I have ever felt was between the pages of 1993 to 2011.  I learned things about myself.  In the past, I have allowed people to treat me so badly.  I have accepted the treatment of chauvinists and manipulators without question, always trying to look inside them, find excuses for their behavior in some tortured past, some internal struggle.  I struggled with substances and addiction?  Who knew?  I've been writing about sexuality, gender, otherness, drawing pictures of vaginas since I was 18 years old.  As we age, our form may change, our technique improve, but we work with the same themes over and over again.  14 years of these themes, questions, emotions.  Among the things I kept are several drawings and poems, some specific moments, and maybe an entry to share and burn with Robert when I return to Berlin in August. 
I also realized that, damn, I used to write!  All the time!  With a pen!  On lined paper!  I was really good at it.  Really good!  Why, oh why am I not doing that anymore? I will get a new journal and attempt to start a new practice.  I will not be afraid to write about the things I used to write about.  I will write about how I feel about everything.  I have a lot to say. 
Goodbye self-hatred and not fitting in.  Goodbye shame and insecurity.  Goodbye isolation and believing I am too different or weird or freaky or unique for people to love and understand.  Goodbye addiction and suicide.  Goodbye letting men treat me like garbage. 
Goodbye abuse! 
Goodbye bad boyfriends!
Hello self-worth, self love and self-empowerment!

My life: an intense and radical experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone but I don't regret at all.

And now, photos:

Box 2

                                                                        The Journals

Box 1

We arrived early enough to get a pit!

Lilli stoked the fire

Burn, Baby, Burn!

Me!  The beach in San Francisco is not warm!

It took a little while, but we finally got a nice steady burn going on.

Part of a perk to writing in notebooks vs. a computer is that a journals are so sensual, not only stimulating for the eye but for the tactile senses as well.

The sun begins to say goodnight.

A LOT of ash!

I think this journal is from '99 or 2000? Maybe 2002?  Somethings never change.

Everything burned.  Let's sit, watch and go home.