The Dots

 Redux. I know I did a post a while back about "The Dots" but I just thought I'd throw a new one out there.

It's been awhile since I dragged this theory out but I think everyone can use a reminder now and again.

There is a school of painting known as pointilism. The idea is that you can create a huge picture using tiny, individual dots of paint. The most famous of these paintings is "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte". Everyone knows it but few people realize that there is not a single brush stroke in the painting. The whole 6ft x 10ft canvass is nothing but a field of tiny dots. It's an amazing thing to see.

What if the whole of existence was a blank canvass full of empty dots, each of these blank dots representing an interaction, action, feeling, or thought? As we live our lives we slowly fill the canvass and create our own picture. Subtle changes in the colors and tones of the dots can change the picture from a Van Gogh to a Bosch.
What if each of us lived our lives trying to make each dot as beautiful as possible?
What if we all tried to create a beautiful picture of our lives and in turn made the pictures of other people's lives more beautiful?

It doesn't take a lot of effort to be compassionate or empathetic so what if we all went ahead and put in that extra bit of effort?

My life is largely dedicated to the pursuit of making each dot as beautiful as it can be and to making the dots in other people's pictures as beautiful as they can be. You can think it's hokey or stupid but I think it's making the world better one dot at a time.

ManPants: the project that ate my life

So I finished my project about spending a day dressed as a man. Holy Cheese it took me over 10 hours to finish editing the video and I did a pretty shoddy job of it and then wrote one of the worst papers I've ever written. It was one of those wow-this-doesn't-make-a-lot-of-sense-but-I-don't-have-time papers. Awesome.

Here's hoping that 20% of my grade didn't just vanish into nothing.

To be honest the project became half for my soc class and half for this class looking at gender and how it's constructed and how it relates to me. It was incredibly important to me to take it seriously and give it everything I could.

Interestingly my parents and my sister literally laughed at me and my efforts and refused to recognize that this was personally emotionally significant for me. As a result I'm still mad at them and they're confused and annoyed. This should be fun.

In case you're wondering I'm very aware that I didn't manage to pass and I look really bizarre in the photo.

I decided to prepare it in the form of a video diary because I can get my thoughts out much faster that way. I was annoyed that youtube made me split it into two parts because of the length. It essentially comes out to 17 minutes of gender based navel gazing but whatever.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you "ManPants: A Day as a Dude"!!

Anonymous Bosch: blogging, gender, and my mom.

*a side note: my post on the readings won't be up until at least mid-morning due to my life exploding like a marshmallow in a microwave*

It was an ordinary weekend until I found this video on feministing. It's a documentary about three biological females who identify as genderqueer and their struggles in life. It may seem like no big deal but I remembered seeing part of this documentary with my mom when it first came on LOGO a few years ago.

My mom is great. She's loving and supportive and loves the gay community. When we were watching this documentary together she kept asking me if I was going to end up getting a sex change and that she didn't know if she could handle that. I said I wasn't and I wouldn't. Then I left the room and didn't finish watching the documentary.

This weekend I finished it and now I'm freaking out.

My mom said she read my blog post about my hair and was worried I was going to get a sex change. I told her not to read my blog because it's very personal. If I talk about something personal on my blog chances are I don't want to talk about it in person. Example: my gender identity. Because this is so personal if she's reading it and asking me about it in person I feel angry and betrayed. This is like my journal.

Odds are you haven't met me. You don't have any established ideas about who I am and what I should be. You have no real choice but to accept me as I am or move on. If you make me uncomfortable I can delete your comment or go to a different page or turn off my computer. You aren't going to grill me during a family dinner about the odds of me having male chest reconstruction surgery.


I'm not ready to say anything verbally. I'm just not. It's a coping mechanism: if I don't say it out loud it isn't real. I'm not ready for it to be real. I want to be left alone to sort this one out. This is personal. This is not a family matter.

Seeing that documentary just reminded me about all the stuff with my gender and my mom and the ideas of privacy in a world as public as the internet.

One of the biggest reasons the internet is great for spreading ideas and activism is that it's safe. There is no risk of someone throwing rocks at you or recognizing you from work and threatening to tell someone that you have beliefs others may not agree with. The anonymity of the net allows people to safely be who they really want to be.

Right now I need that.

So Mom, if you're reading this, please stop. Everything I write here is mine. My life, not yours. If it's important enough I will tell you when I'm ready. Right now I'm not ready.




Why is my gender suddenly an epic issue?
I'm gearing up for a major project in my Contemporary Sexualities class. I'm spending a day dressed as a guy.

Holy.Frak.

I'm both psyched and utterly terrified mostly because tomorrow I will not only be observing how the world treats me I will also be observing how I feel about myself presenting a masculine gender. The scary part? I might like it. I might hate it and never want to do it again but I don't know yet. The whole ordeal makes me feel as though I don't know myself. My little box I've lived in for my whole life could potentially be blown to bits. In the words of Stewie Griffin of Family Guy, "I don't like change!!" (I know Family Guy is horrible on a million levels but it makes me laugh and I don't feel like analyzing it right now.)






I'll let you know how it goes.

Wish me luck. I could use some moral support right about now.