ginger in a bag

Tomorrow is Alternative Miss Ireland my mate edward and i planned on going. The two of us are also doing a presentation in our sexuality class on trans and intersexed commuities. We decided that we would go in drag to the presentation and while we were at it, why not go to the show in drag as well. Edward use to do drag while he was in Italy, under the name ginger, but he left that identity behind when he came back to Ireland. We have been talking all year about drag, about performance of gender and so on. He said he did more female inpersination - more real life, passing.

So with miss Ireland tomorrow we decided that we would head into town and see if we could pick up a few things. We started off slow - went for tea and looked at my gender workbook. Then suddenly we flew into the experience. In four hours we managed to recreate ginder, and create mick. Ginger is a sexy thing, she has long slightly wavy ginger hair. sexy black dress, skin tights, simple black hand bag and open toe shoes, tons of silver braclets, sexy bra and underwear, a full face of make-up. And of course silver happy aniversery ballon tits!! Edward was able to fit all of this into one bag. we took a pic of him and ginger in a bag on the middle of grafton street.

I just picked up a few simple things, my budget is toware need that of edwards or gingers. I got one of those mesh hats, I figured I go for the trendy tuff boy look. The best part about the hat is that it says "rainbow bend" its suiting. I got a t and this kakki work shirt. I have baggy work pants, chain wallent and bounding. I have the glue to put on facial hair and clippings of my hair. The only thing I need to get tomorrow is the fake tattoes.

We will be a very odd couple - but mick will be proud to be seen with ginger I'm sure.

A chipper delivery who knew!!!

Last night for the first time ever I had a veggie burger and fries delivered to my house. Back home we often would say if burger joints would only deliver they would make mad cash. I mean so often what you are really craving for is fries - and if you don't have an oven like me or don't have any fries in your freezer you are fresh out of luck and have to choice between pizza and chinese. These are good choices but not nessissarily going to fufill your cravings. And my fear that the fries would be cold was compleate unfounded. I would have to say chipper delivery is the way of the future ;)

Do you wanna stay in bed all day?
(Yeah!)
Do remember feeling any other way?
(No!)
Do you wanna stay in bed all day?
(Yeah!)
Do remember feeling any other way?
(No!)


fuck what a day - its strange when you realize that you are the definitive depressed person, its almost comical to know that you can check off every item on the 'are you depressed' questionare. Its also good to know that the depression is linked to a specific event and therefor will be overwith in a short time. When depression hits you out of know where for no clear reason, when it is just a chemical imbalance the feeling of being depressed is the worst part of it. You have no explanation which I find makes you even more depressed. It is one of the worst downward spirals there are, next to addiction of herion I suppose, or the dependancy on an abuser.

But the depression has been lifted. I had spent some of the day (when I wasn't lieing in bed with my head under the covers, or staring into space) working on my manifesto for women's officer. It was alright, but I knew that it wasn't great. I had asked ready if he would look at it. When he came over it was close to seven and I hadn't eaten for over 24 hours. I I bit of a mess I was. He was all huggy and in a good mood, wondering what was wrong . . . I suppose he had figured everything out in his head, as I lied here in agony.

I told him that I knew what it was like to fall out of love with someone and how it is hard to break up with them cuz you still care for them and don't want to hurt them, but then it makes it worse because its just waiting for the inevitable. Well apartly he has figured out some of his own shit and doens't want to break up or have me sitting waiting for the inevitable. So here we go again the crazy train of love has taken off from its temporary stop at heartbreak. Lets home that it dosn't break down any time soon. My accidemic career can't afford more then a day or two of a stop of the train.

So I felt almost proud of my manifesto, well more that I had done it myself not that it was that great. But allong comes ready and changes it all around and now it does look great. All the text is the same, and he used two of my images, but he was able to make it look like something you want to read. It makes me wonder if I can actually do web sites and such. I mean I know I can learn the html and I can learn how to work publisher and that. But I wonder if design sence will come to me with more practise . . . or not!

So if you clicked on indymedia yesterday you could see the pic about the squat but now that has been replaced with a story on queer patties day. You can still read the story and see the pics, just go to indymedia and on the right side just look for the story on the eviction (which hasn't happened yet). Actually there was no news today, I wonder what the story is . . .

rosaries off our ovaries, heartbreak and near eviction

The highlights of yesterdays International women’s day alliance for choice event would have to be the seemingly sweet nun and the space cadet garde. There were only 15 of us at the highest point of the event. But it was fun none the less; we had a posh banner and placards. I mentioned it a few times how posh the banner it was and I realized I have never stood behind or held a fancy banner before. They are always cloth and most often painted. But this was vinyl with full color and proper lettering. Anyways the process of giving out information on abortion breaks the 1995 abortion information act. So there was a chance of getting arrested – and a more worrying concern was the chance of youth defense showing up and trying to ruin all our fun. But neither of those two things happened. Actually at one point Neiv went up to the garde and he took a flyer she handed to him. When she informed him that they just broke the information act, he just looked confused.

There was this point when this very noticeably pregnant women was walking towards us, the girl next to me was flyering her, but then suddenly pulled away when she noticed she was pregnant. Clare immediately asked her, why she did that. Pro-choice should not be offensive to pregnant women. That is buying into the pro-lifers idea that pro-choicer’s are pushing and encouraging women to have an abortion. I think that it is important to have women who have chosen to have children to be part of the movement to show that it is really about control over ones body and the ability to make ones own decisions regardless of the decision taken.

It is the nuns that seem to be the most dangerous of the pro-lifers. The guarde didn’t seem to care, any pro-lifers that walked by either said nothing at all or just said I don’t believe in abortion. (usually guys) But the nuns trick you by looking all small and sweet and old. They talk calmly and softly but say the worst things. The worst part of it is they touch you. This nun put her hand on clare’s knee in the most maternal caring way to tell her that she was murdering babies.

This same nun came back hours later after the protest and put her hand on this women’s shoulder to say ‘stop the mass murdering children’ which this women responded with ‘stop the mass abuse of children in your care’. – That nun deserved that low blow!

I wonder how and when abortion will be legalized here. Although there is a strong enough culture that women should have the right to have an abortion – the feeling is that they could just go to London to have the abortion. Which doesn’t take into consideration class or support networks. The thing is if you somehow raise the money for the abortion and the flight and accomidation, you are then in another country when you are going for your councilling on the abortion and because of that situation the chances of you deciding that you will keep the child for example are much lower because you have already gone to such trouble to get there. If you do not have networks in the place you are going for an abortion then you are alone during this difficult time or have to raise more money to have someone come with you.

Well international women’s day came and went without much going on, it doesn’t seem to be a big deal here at all. In steph’s blog she was saying that it didn’t seem to be a big deal in Toronto compared to other countries but Ireland makes Canada’s International women’s look like Pride.

Well in other news, this morning james and I were sitting eating pita bread and maple syrup ane watching the news when he got a phone call that altered both of our plans for the day. We got news that the squat was getting evicted and they needed people to come down. The squat is recently named the magpie house and was a group of nine people at the moment that were living in this abandoned house on a mainstreet here in Dublin. It was more then just a squat, it was a community centre. They had the womens group there last week, they had a library, Spanish classes, bike maintance classes, knitting circle. It offered a place for discussion a place to crash and so on.

We went down there right away with 30 or so other friends. Media was there but an eviction never happened. Bascially what looks like happened is the housing services were doing a routine check on the house, they started to busted open the bassment door to discover people living there. They didn’t really know what to do, the garda were called but again they didn’t know what to do.

The people at magpie were able to get the library and other important things out and put into the neighbors house. When they opened the door for that they let us in . . . most people wondered into the house. After an hour or so they opened the door and most people left but about 15 of us stayed on until 5 when the house services were off duty so no fear of them coming back. The support was not needed as much.

It was really good to see the amount of support for the squatters and to see how fast we all heard about it.

When I was inside the house looking around I got an immense feeling of sadness that this space was going to be shut down. It is such a positive space. It could be used for so much good. In seven months they had done so much with it not just for them to live in but for the community. I hadn’t used the space myself. I had missed the few meetings that I want to go to. I had put together three books to add to their library (that’s how you become a member) and was going to bring them down this week. One of the women from the squat said she would bring me there this week . . . well I made it but not under the best circumstances. You can check out the story and pics at indymedia , just click on the photo in the right corner . . .

And now for my heart . . . don’t know if I’m ready to fully right about that now. I have been thinking about writing this past week about relationships but I didn’t want to bitch about ready before I had a chance to talk to him. And now that I have talked to him my heart hurts even more. We didn’t break up, but I think it is inevitable. He has fallen out of love and unless we both put allot of effort to remind each other why we are together in the first place, why we fell in love with each other then it will fall by the way side.

The past little while I have felt really hurt, ignored, and not respected by ready. It was turning into a nasty circle because I would feel hurt and upset and I would try to just talk to him, spend time with him or whatever but because he was being so unresponsive I would have to really put myself out there to just get his attention. This means that I feel even worse when he rejects me and because I was more in his face he was feeling more resentful.

He said that lately he has been wondering if he should break up with me. He said that it wasn’t anything I did that it was just him, that his head is in a messed up place. ( I realize what a typical excuse this is when someone wants to break up with someone but doesn’t want to hurt them- but I can only take his word.) That he has been feeling more and more that he wants to be alone. That he has forgotten the initial attraction. He realized how crap it has been for me and he realized the dynamics of him being a bit of an ass and ignoring me. I know that I have been annoying him, but it is either that or be left out tin the cold completely. I have become more needy because I havn’t be getting anything from him.

Last night when we talked about this and now when I am writing I feel that my heart is being ripped out of my stomach. It hurts that he doesn’t want to give me a chance. That other people can see positive things in me, but he can’t. That he is not even really willing to try. We decided not to break up, but I wonder if it’s the right choice. I don’t think he is in the right place to love someone right now. I’m in a very vulnerable position right now – do I give it my all (like a want to ) to just face embarrassment, look like a desperate person. To do this I have to act as if I didn’t just have my heart ripped from my stomach. But the thing is I can only do this if he is willing to try, to reciprocate. Last night I had a feeling that he would, but today I wonder.

We were talking about the lies we tell our self in order to enter a relationship at all. He suggested that you treat relationships like it was the last day of it. Meaning that always give it your all with out fear of rejection and so on. The thing is I usually do this (hense the lies that we tell ourself) but it is going to be hard to continue to do that if he is not going to give me anything back.

God my heart hurts.

the emralded island and anarchist activists

I finally arrive home after a week and a bit of not being in the same bed twice. I have seen more of Ireland then many Irish who have spent there whole lives here. I have done so many touristy things that I embarice myself. ie. kissing the balarney stone- which supposedly gives you the gift of the gab. As we walked towards the balarney castle we only talked using one and two sylaball words and refused to speak in complete sentences - we sounded kind of like cave people. And after lieing on our backs and kissing this shiney part of the castle wall that hundreds of thousands have kissed before us, we suddenly started speaking in th emost flowery language we could think of. Teh second most touristy thing we did was going to Bunranny castle and the fair. It was like an irish Black Creek Pinanier villege. Great chessy fun ;)

If I ever figure out how to get my pics on line again I will put up some of my trip, I took plenty of photos, 120 to be exact. They are mainly of waterfall, cliffs and mountain ranges. I was showing them to a few mates and it was like "thats the cliffs of moher, and another cliff shot, and thats from another angle and another cliff shot . . . ." and so on. I always knew I was mad for water falls, but my photos prove it so much. I have waterfalls from caves, cliffs, mountainsides, parks and so on . . .

After a week of might craic and random b&b's I got dropped off in cork for the grassroot gathering. It was odd - six months of not seeing my mom passes by, 10 days of 24-7 and then a quick goodbye on the side of the road in cork. As we approached cork, my stomach started to feel really upset. I was thinking that it had to do the massive amounts of beans that I eat that morning at the b&b . . . but I came to realize those feelings could be understood as sadness. I get physical reactions to emotional events. And if I'm not in touch with the situation I can miss diagnosis my bodily reactions.

I suppose much of what that stomach upset was not just that I was going to miss my mom, but also a feeling of sadness that we didn't get to spend more one on one time. The only time it was only the two of us was the first night as janet slept inthe bed next to us and we chatted liek school girls at a sleep over for hours. and the second last night the two of us went for an hour walk as janet watched tv and rested her sinuses.

I thought after 10 days of 24-7 I would be sick to death of spending time with them, but when it came down to it, I was sad that we didnt' have more time.

not sad enough to skip the grassroot gathering and go with them to waterford for a tour of the crystal factory!

I went to my first grassroots gathering. It sounds strange to say that. I felt like had been doing them for a while now. I suppose that was because it was liek so many other events I've been to such as social forums and such. It was clearly different since it is filled with anarchist and is coming from a clearly egalitarian non-hierichal perspective. But the thing is even though I havn't been to one before, I have missed them because I had other events on and I got informed with the ins and outs of what went on. Meaning that I wasn't really a newbie at all.

I was going to write that I will continue with this tomorrow but in reality tomorrow is international womens day and I will be writing about breaking the information act by handing out pro-choice information outside the minister of justice office. And as Mud reminded me usually when I'm posting here and say I will get back to that - I don't. I suppose that is because no one is counting on me to get back to it. If I have a lull in posting I'm sure I will go back to these missed topics or maybe not at all.

Highlights of grassroots . . . . a talk from this activist wno resently got out of prison. It was eye opening to get a first persons perspetive of the prison system and it was very motivational in terms of prison solidarity and the effect of the the solidarity. He said that he felt he got better treatment from the gaurds beucase they started to see him as a prisoner of consciousness. The hundreds of letters he got while in there were addressed to him and under his name people wrote prisoner of consciousness. Plus the many vidguals that happened outside of the prison created a sense of solidarity that was positive for him and effected how he was seen and interacted with in prison. There was a point that his fellow prisoners were chanting for him to be freed!!

the pro-choice workshop - so many ideas and energy for action came out of this workshop. It was good to see that the work was not just being done in Dublin and that cork for example seemed to be even more active then dublin.

the food - ok there was vass amounts of free delious vegan food all weekend need I say more . . .

the media workshop- although this workshop was direct to how to deal with the media during may day (which I found interesting) I was albe to apply the tips and stratigies to my own limited experiences and I felt more confidnet after this workshop on how I would approach interactions iwth the media for other events.

the womens space - this felt like pams pulbic speaking group, it brought together over luch the women actiivsts to talk about why there are not more women involved, why women are not speaking up more in the large groups sessions and why more women arn't facilitating workshops. we talked about our fears, our expereinces and how we can support each other for speak up more. A few really producitve ideas come out of this such as having a womens space before the grassroots starts to introduce ourselfs and talk about what we want out of the grassroots and how we will help supporting each other. Plus an idea of having a workshop on chairing and facilitaitng workshops so we can feel more confident doing so. I think also what came out of this is that these fears are not specific to women - it is just thorugh sociallization and a lack of pracitse and roll models that there are a disportional amounts of women who are marginalized in this way. And that we can challange that by supporting each other.

what else what else, I'm sure there was much more, but right now I'm more aware that the electricty box is beeping at me meaning that we have run out of electricty and since the store is closed now, most likely the power will go out shortly. So before this post gets lost I will publish it. I can't promise that I will get back to this, although I would like to talk more about anarchism soon . . . .