The Queer and Pleasant Danger

Kate Bornstein is so awesome! She told me I'll make a great doc, and to go write a good lab report, so that's what I have to go do, but first I have to share that somehow she forgot to pack a copy of Gender Outlaw on this trip, so when it came time to read "The Seven Year Itch" she said, "Does anyone in the audience have a copy of Gender Outlaw?" and I was all, "I do, I do, OMG, I do!" So guess what? Now it has a lipstick kiss in it!

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Sandra Steingraber

Lila Downs

Kate Bornstein

These are inspiring people.   Amazingly, Lenya has had the opportunity to see them here in the past week - Kate Bornstein is in Bloomsburg tonight - and they are just reminders of what can happen when discipline combines with courage and a deep sense of human integrity.  Humans just shining forth like in Cocoon when the aliens took their fake skin off.  

Where does Lenya fit into all of this?  She beholds herself in the mirror and her eyes look tired.  There are little stray hairs everywhere.  Her marks are average, she trudges along.  She is pulled aside by her professor, who is surprised that she is not performing better on her exams.  She is focusing all of her mental energy on following along in the lecture, then in the two hours of extra office hours.  She is working hard at something that does not come naturally to her, and she admires herself for this.  There is a strange satisfaction that arises from it, like  from developing a relationship with a new and challenging asana.  Also like asana, it is exhausting and it causes the eruption of several unexpected emotions.  

"New Every Two" means "Old Every Two"

I've been a loyal customer of the XXX Cellular Services Corporation for two years now, and it is rewarding me with the right to upgrade my cellie so I can stay abreast of the latest trends. How often did you ever throw away a landline phone? I can't remember ever throwing one away, or one ever breaking.

I was being handed a rectangular package, wrapped in striped paper. Unwrapping one short end and looking inside, I saw the soothing, folded pages of a book, outlined in an old-fashioned black cover. "What a nice binding," I said. As I continued unwrapping the package, I withdrew the book and looked on its thick black side, where "The Tyranny of Words" was printed in gold. It became very clear at that moment that I was holding something special, but I still didn't know what it was. The inside cover showed a bookplate from Harvard, rebelliously stamped "WITHDRAWN from the Psychological Studies Collection." There was some delicate handwriting from 1938 and then a cryptic little inscription from Rosa Nilpferd. So I flipped through the few blank pages in the beginning to find out what this book was all about. Then there were a few more blank pages....ummm, wait, there certainly are a lot of them - ALL of the pages are blank! These words really were tyrannical - they retired to their Spring Palace and left the peasants empty handed! But what nice paper they left behind, complete with an elegant watermark...wait, what is going on? Was this book really a part of the Psychological Studies Collection at Harvard?

Come to find out that I was holding something very rare, indeed - the FIRST hand-bound book created cleverly by the artist Rosa Nilpferd, given to me as a journal, "The Tyranny of Words!"

Here's a little something for Rosa:

As this is a forum for Lenya to be honest about her feelings and not a forum for being shy, I feel I must express how lucky I am to have been hit with Mac truck full of Birthday Love. Damn! I just have to give a small profile of each gift to document it and to show my stumbling gratitude. But also to give others a glimpse into the brilliance of those who walk among us - I don't doubt that you will be both succored and inspired. I will do this sometime soon, as now I have to go back to an Ancient Etruscan Composition review session. In the mean time, if you would like to know why I feel I may be the luckiest person alive right now, please visit the blog of Zoe Prizer. Not only will you see just in general that anyone would be honored to have her as a friend, let alone to have known her and seen her grow and become the fiery force for good in the world that she is, to have benefited from her wisdom, her observant and vigilant solidarity, but you will also see why today, after turning 29, I have a deep sense of fulfillment and peace in my heart, having put all of my fears and anxieties aside for a time.