In addition to feeling as though all my efforts to get where I want to be are futile (and therefore, I am futile), I'm also very sensitive to space.

I have a theory as to why I have this sensitivity, but I won’t get into it right now.  A new town, city, state, area, etc. is like a new art gallery: to be thoroughly explored and encountered and absorbed.  Travel is very appealing to me because of this, and I’m very particular about where I call home.  This is why relocating from the MidWest to the SouthWest is so integral to me, whatever resonates in that space also resonates in me.  It’s not something I can articulate verbally very well, so it’s a good thing I’m an artist!

Chicago is my birthplace, my family is from Mauston, WI.  I’ve only ever lived in Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and Savanna IL.  Although it makes me sick to think on my nearly 28 years spent in the same place, the MidWest is part of my identity.  Although a part of me will always be a MidWesterner (and I’ll probably move back at some point in life), finally leaving the area involves a sacrifice.  While I was applying, interviewing, and being told that I’d get hired in the SouthWest, I was willing to give up the large portion of my MidWesterrn identity in order to take on a SouthWestern one - the one I want.

Although I’ll be living with the person I want to live with and I’ll be glad to finally leave the MidWest, moving to Nashville still sacrifices that MidWestern identity.  I won’t move as the same person, I won’t be in the same space nor in the space that I prefer.  This honestly isn’t to poop on Southerners; it’s me and it’s the area.  The South doesn’t resonate like how I resonate.

And if I’m incapable of attaining what I want, no matter how hard I work, do I deserve the identity and area that I want anyway?

Attraction Terms

The terms "homosexuality," "heterosexuality," and "bisexuality" really don't apply to reality. A vast amount of people have some kind of "same-sex" sexual experience - whether it be actual sex or a crush or a fantasy - and still function as "straight." These terms really only work for the people who use them to malign people. A "same-sex" experience works like the "one-drop rule" of race: just once is enough to change how you're treated.

Apart from the Kinsey-esque proportioning of sexual experience in humans is the difference between genitalia and functioning. When you pass people on the street, you probably have no idea what genitals they have, what chromosomes they have, etc. You probably don't even know your own chromosomes! And you don't know with whom they have sex, about whom they're thinking when they have sex, etc. Biology and actual sex have nothing to do with anything...until you're caught at it.

What really matters, more than biology and more than one's sexual experiences, is how one functions in reality. A masculine, woman-identified female functions very differently from a feminine intersexed person who passes as a woman. And how could you possibly ascribe "homo-", "hetero-" or "bisexual" to either of those people? "Man" and "woman", "male" and "female" not only leave out people who don't fit into those two categories, but they also exclude more finite ways of being that affect people in more significant ways.

Just three terms aren't enough to cover everyone...but the government, military, religious institutions, advertising agencies, and many others in positions of power use those three terms - if we're lucky - and two terms of sex/gender. In reality, these terms mean very little. Hell, the handkerchief-flagging system is more efficient than check-boxes!

Identity Continuum

0, 7, 12...the last one baffles me. I like androgynous/masculine females/intersexed/transpeople.