blocked

It's been a tough few months for writing.

I thought i had an artist for my comic book, but she's realized she's too busy to commit to this project and has gracefully backed out. I'm not mad at her or anything, and i completely understand (and was half-expecting) her refusal, but it's still really disappointing.

My workshop group hasn't met in ages. We kept getting delayed by various things: work commitments, school, migraines, lack of new things to review, weather disasters, holidays, and so on and so forth. I really miss that weekly gathering of creative intellectuals, as well as the motivation of a deadline.

I found a journal of women's environmental poetry that was looking specifically for prose poems, and i was all geared up to send them a submission, when i realized there was a reading fee to do so. Never send out anything you have to pay for; there's no guarantee of publication, and there are plenty of places that are more than happy to reject you for free. Hypothetically.

There's a lot of really emotional stuff happening for me right now, but it's happening right now, so it's hard to write about it clearly.

Since discovering Netflix, i'm much less inclined to sit reading or writing in the evenings, and much more inclined to knit and binge-watch Dr. Who. Which, while good for my knitting projects, is bad for my writing.

But.

Two of my roommates have moved out, and have been replaced by only one person. And it is absolutely worth the $100/month increase in rent to reclaim a little more peace, stability, and room in the house. We are hanging superhero posters in the hallway and organizing a library/bar/office in the corner room. The one with roof access.

I've been living in a nest for two years because i was too afraid to put my things in the house, because of what might happen to them. There also wasn't a lot of room, with four people crammed into a three-bedroom apartment. Now i'm de-cluttering my room and living like a human adult, instead of a magpie. My desk is in the library bar, in front of a window, with elephants and pictures of Boyfriend and Christina Hendricks for inspiration.

I have a shiny new phone that i mostly don't hate. (I've been resisting the smartphone upgrade since the debut of the Blackberry, but there's no escape now. The Samsung Galaxy Stellar, however, isn't terrible. If i have to have a smartphone, i'm glad i got this one.)

I have a nerdy friend who is going with me to the Neil Gaiman reading and signing this weekend. I am going to the Neil Gaiman reading and signing this weekend.

I have another nerdy friend who wants to have a sewing and cooking and drinking date with me soon. I'm really excited at the prospect of getting back into sewing.

I have a sexy, smart, caring, wonderfully weird boyfriend who snuggles me and is patient with me and goes on adventures with me and helped me make sangria last week. (My sangria recipe is amazing, by the way. I'll have to post it some time.) Sometimes i write terribly sappy poems about him and then send them to him through snail mail. Isn't that so cute you want to vomit?

I have, like, six different jars of fancy honey in my kitchen waiting for me to eat them. I also have an ice cream maker. I see honey-sweetened ice cream in my future.

I have Netflix! And tons of yarn! And, currently, not a lot going on in my life! This equals SWEATERS!!! It doesn't get much better than handmade sweaters in New England. (Unless, of course, it's July and they keep posting heat advisories. But i'll be glad of them in the winter, which is probably when they'll be finished, anyway.)

I have an awesome tattoo idea that will, someday, when i have money again (when i die), be an awesome tattoo.

I got fan-ish mail yesterday.

My cat is super cute.

tattooed ladies

My workshop group is writing a collaborative short story collection, a frame narrative about a circus, and purgatory, and atonement, and best intentions. So we've all been researching and writing about sideshow freaks and circus performers, and it's been fascinating.

One of my favorite things so far has been researching tattooed ladies. We had talked initially about the tattooed man, but i pointed out that the societal implications of tattoos (especially of full-body tattoos the display of which supported your livelihood) were different for men and women. I wanted us to include both.

I learned that some of the earliest examples of tattoos were actually found on women. Experts believe that the tattoos were meant to protect them during pregnancy and childbirth.

Historically, of course, women have been the property of men. During the Victorian era, as tattoos were becoming more popular, some women tattooed themselves as a way of marking their autonomy. They got to alter their own appearances, their own bodies, forever. It was a way of reclaiming their own skin. Prostitutes were some of the most commonly tattooed women, including one French prostitute who tattooed herself with the names of her lovers and favorite clients.

One of my favorite tattooed ladies was Anna Mae Burlingston Gibbons (Miss Artoria), who worked as a tattooed lady for over fifty years. Most of her tattoos were of religious or patriotic significance, and her husband was her artist. He was a tattooed man working in a carnival, and they decided to supplement their income by tattooing her as well. She worked to support her family, using her own body to do so.

Tattoos are still a way for women to take ownership of their bodies. Julia Gnuse, featured in the Guinness Book of World Records, wanted to reclaim her body from disease. I've said before that tattoos are the scars you choose, the story you decide to tell about yourself. My own tattoos are prime examples of that.

I had a professor who liked to say that we are homo narrans -- story-telling people. What defines us as human beings is the narrative impulse. The stories we tell matter. The stories we tell about ourselves matter.

I have a friend who was raped. On her hip, just above her mons pubis, she has a tattoo of a broken heart that has been patched up and repaired. She took the story of something terrible that happened to her -- being raped -- and turned it into a story of triumph and growth and perseverance. My brother and members of his unit got tattoos to memorialize their dead and wounded brothers. The tattoo that has been most popular on my blog is a tattoo about me owning my choices, whether good or bad, and owning my body.

Tattooed ladies kick ass. Tattooed ladies own themselves. Tattooed ladies are unafraid of public condemnation. Even sorority sisters with tattoos of dolphins and mistranslated Chinese characters are spending money and inflicting pain to say, "This skin is mine. This body is mine. I belong to me, forever."

Romans 16, 1 Corinthians 1-10

1 Corinthians 10:23
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful; all things are lawful for me, but all things do not edify.

This, i think, is what a lot of religion should come down to in the end. Rather than a mere list of do's and don't's whose purpose is to provide a yardstick of righteousness, concentrate on the things that are helpful to you. And keep in mind that this list will not be the same for everyone. Some people (like myself) can have a couple of beers with dinner, or a glass of wine after work, and suffer no ill effects. Some people (like myself) can even get really drunk once in a while (so far, i've been drunk three times in five years), and suffer no long-term ill effects. However, i do have a lot of alcoholics in my family, so i appreciate that not everyone can do this. And while i could get really really drunk more frequently than i do (say once a month) without necessarily becoming an alcoholic and ruining my life, is it a good idea for me to do this? No. I don't want to have large chunks of my life blurry around the edges or missing entirely because i was too drunk to know what was happening. I don't want to spend long weekends hung over and miserable. I don't want to make bad decisions that i have to atone for in the morning. I don't want to damage my brain, liver, esophagus (from the stomach acid of vomit), waistline, teeth, and so forth. Having a few drinks now and then can help take the edge off of a stressful day, can help me loosen up and socialize with others, can help me warm up on a cold day, can open me up to new experiences. Plus, alcohol is delicious (seriously, Black Label toasted caramel flavored whiskey in apple cider is THE SHIT). All of these are good things. But getting drunk is not helpful and provides no edification. At least, not for me.

Instead of being built around the things that divide us, maybe religions and denominations should be built around the things that unite us. Like, instead of a church splitting over angry debates about whether or not it's okay to get tattoos, maybe they can peacefully say, "Hey, we all love Jesus, right? Okay! See you in heaven!" and then gently separate into two factions: one who believes that tattoos are not helpful or edifying, and one who believes that they can be sometimes. Or better yet, maybe they can agree to disagree, keeping in mind that all things are lawful. What is helpful for me may not be helpful for you, but that's really between me and God, isn't it?

scars, 3

My mother is in the unfortunate position of being differently intelligent than her children and her ex-husband. Let me be clear: she is fiercely intelligent in ways that we are not. But in the ways that allow you to show off while watching Jeopardy, in the ways that genuinely enjoy intellectual pursuits for their own sakes, in the ways that allow you to write brilliant books and papers and achieve good grades without effort and have your intelligence be immediately apparent to anyone who meets you, she is lacking. And there's nothing wrong with that, except that it can be a little awkward at times.

For my mother, it is more than awkward. She is dismissive and contemptuous of us one moment and jealous the next. For years, she praised my intelligence, so that even in the depths of my high school depression, even when i planned my suicide, even when i felt that almost nothing about me was redeemable or worthy of notice or interesting or in any way mattered, i knew that i was intelligent. I knew that i was more intelligent than most, and that if all else failed, i could cling to that. It was the one thing i was sure of, the one part of me the value of which i never doubted. And then she began to tell me that intelligence was not enough, that i needed to change who i was to succeed in the world. She told me that my type of intelligence, like my dad's, was one that she did not understand and did not always like. She disparaged my accomplishments and dismissed my efforts.

She accelerated this with my sister, telling her that she had no reason to be proud of straight As, because she didn't have to study. Accomplishments only mattered, only had any worth, if you had to work for them. Things that came naturally didn't count.

Any time that any of us find something in ourselves to be proud of, she finds a way to devalue it. And we are not a naturally confident bunch with lots of things we like about ourselves. We mostly don't like ourselves very much, so when we finally find something we're okay with, that is something to celebrate and cherish.

But my mother has a very hard time looking favorably on anything that is different from her, especially if it's not something she can readily understand. She has no patience with or understanding of mental illness (despite having been surrounded by it, experiencing it herself, and taking many psych classes while attaining her three post-graduate degrees). She thinks that people who are good and smart and beautiful, people who are healthy and loved, people who have a lot going for them, have no reason to be mentally ill. She thinks that depression only happens to people who don't have anything else to distinguish them, people whose lives are empty and difficult. She thinks that anyone who has a good, full, happy life has no reason to be depressed, and that the chemical imbalance in their brains can be corrected through a determination to be happy and the simple decision to "get over it".

She is her own standard of correctness and perfection, her own yardstick of health and normalcy. If someone disagrees with her, they are wrong. If someone thinks differently from her, they are weird. If someone's skill set is different from hers, they need to adapt and change in order to succeed. If someone has accomplished more than her, they were lucky. If someone is happier than her, they are lying to themselves.

I was fed a steady stream of these messages for twenty years. When i got my first tattoo, in addition to all of the beautiful and uplifting messages about family and heritage and goals and love and connections and roots and wings, it was my way of saying that i was done with all that bullshit. When i turned twenty, i turned a corner in my life. I decided that no one else got to decide my worth, that only i got to place any kind of value on my self. I decided that it was time to pick up the parts of my mother that were uplifting and encouraging, the parts that i loved and felt connected to, and leave the rest behind.

A tattoo is like a scar, but it is not accidental and it does not come from someone else. A tattoo is a sign that you will accept no one else's marks on yourself, that only you will decide what will stay with you and what will be brushed off. A tattoo is a reminder that you have the final say in who you are.

There are still things that are beyond my control. The scars from my mother are still healing, still bleeding, still hurting. I still have weeks and months where i fall from the high wire. But now, my mother is not my partner or my safety net. I have built my own arena, my own circus ring. I have choreographed my own act, chosen my own partners. I am dancing above the abyss, and while i know that i may fall, i also know i will not be falling forever. There is rest to be found. There are places of safety. There are times of stability. And in the meantime, i am learning to dance, free and fearless, on the tightrope of my sanity. Because if you're going to be up there anyway, you might as well make something beautiful of it.

purple heart redeux

After Adam was attacked, i knew i wanted to get a tattoo to memorialize his service and sacrifice. I wanted a purple heart, as that was the award he would receive, but i wasn't really sure where to put it. I thought about my shoulder blades, the nape of my neck, my rib cage, my forearm. But nothing seemed to fit. And then Adam's leg was removed, sixteen centimeters below his knee.

Pammer and i went on a weekend outing together. She wanted to get a new piercing, and i wanted to get my tattoo. We went to a place in Cambridge called Chameleon, and afterwards we went to a vegetarian/vegan diner.

The day before our date, Pammer was at work talking to a friend of hers about our weekend plans. Her friend (an older woman), was skeptical of our plans. "I understand the thought behind the tattoo design, but a tattoo is forever," she said severely. Pammer nodded and said, "So is an amputation."

Sixteen centimeters below the knee.

Clearly I Need To Get More Tattoos

Today marks the one-year anniversary of my first ever blog post. It was a poem i wrote for class; i edited it and posted it as the introduction for who i am and why i do what i do.

The year has gone by quickly. April was when i started dating John and moved into my first real apartment, May was my college graduation, August was when i started my first grown-up job, September was when i started grad school, October was when my brother was wounded, February was my first "real" Valentine's day and my first venture into vegetarianism AND the time i met Mark Oshiro AND the day that my brother's leg was amputated, and my first year of blogging closed out with a continuation of reasons that i should live with my boyfriend, reflections on my brother, and a very strange piece of short creative non-fiction i wrote in my sophomore year of college.

I have to be honest: i'm still not totally sure what this blog is. It's probably most honest to call it a diary (or LiveJournal, if you're Benji and want to make fun of me).

My confusion is shared by my readers, as evidenced by some of my search terms. The most popular search term of all time is "never settle tattoo", which makes sense, since my most popular blog post of all time is the one where i talk about getting a tattoo that says 'never settle'. My second most popular search term is "Diana Lark", which means that i'm famous because people are actually searching for me by name. Right? Third is "awasiwi odinak", which was the title of this post about how i like nature and travel and walking and such. For those of you who may have Googled this term looking for a definition, i got the phrase from the TV show The West Wing. According to them, it means either 'beyond the village' or 'far from the things of man'. My fourth most popular term is represented by several variations of "world's happiest turtle". My favorite variation is "picture turtle eating a strawberry you'll never experience this joy". That seems awfully threatening to me. (Is threatening the word i want?) Anyway, if you want to know the kind of joy you're missing out on, the picture is at the top of this post.

As of this moment, i have gotten just over 2,000 pageviews. Total. In one year. My boyfriend keeps getting excited about my blog stats and telling me that i will be a famous blogger, and doesn't really listen when i tell him that many bloggers who are not really "famous" generally get several hundred pageviews a day. My record is 284 in one month. Furthermore, most bloggers are only famous to other bloggers. We're a weird bunch.

Anyway, i'm glad to see you all here. For those of you who are looking for more tattoos, rest assured that i am working on it. In fact, i've gotten another tattoo and just haven't written about it yet. For those looking for Diana Lark, you've come to the right place. For those looking to get away from it all, maybe start by turning off your computer and going outside? And for those looking for cute turtles eating strawberries, ME TOO. They are absurdly precious, aren't they?

sketchy things i have done

Camping

Once, when i was really little (like 4 or 5), my family went camping. Our particular campsite was a little removed from the bathrooms, which were on the other side of a little creek. One day, i needed to go to the bathroom. No one else needed to, so i decided to go alone.

Have i mentioned that i have a really terrible sense of direction?

Several hours later, i was wandering on the OTHER SIDE OF THE CAMPGROUND, crying and alone, and with (i was little, okay?) dampened drawers. A lady in a car stopped and asked if she could help me. I got in her car, and she took me to the bathroom. When i got out, my mom was there.

Tattoo

When i decided to get my second tattoo, one of my downstairs neighbors recommended a friend of his. My roommates and i drove to a slightly ghetto neighborhood and met the guy at his house. He explained that, while he was fully licensed to tattoo, his parlor was temporarily closed for a board of health violation. Apparently, the piercing guy was under investigation for performing a procedure he was not licensed for. According to my roommate's friend, the piercing guy was fully licensed, but the bitch at the board of health had it in for them. So he took us into the back room of his house, where i laid on the couch to be tattooed.

Turned out fine, by the way.

Bacchanal

When i was in Spain in 2007, i was invited to a "bacchanal". I was excited to see reenactments of Greek mythology, and was slightly disappointed to learn that, instead, it was just an insane party on the outskirts of town in an abandoned warehouse. (Man, i'm a nerd.) However, the warehouse was sort of decorated inside with fake grapevines, and i'm pretty sure Bacchus would have been thrilled to attend this shindig. I was going with two girls i had met the day before, the cousins of the woman i was staying with. They spoke very little English, and i spoke very little Spanish. Also, i couldn't remember their names. I think one of them was Laura? No, that was their friend.

We stopped on our way to buy two huge bottles of rum and two 2-liter bottles of Coke.

Throughout the evening, we drank all of what we had, bought some beers, and also shared whiskey and coke with strangers. My companions smoked some weed and offered it to me. (I declined.) Laura also did a few lines of coke in a van. She spent much of the rest of the evening (actually, by then it was early morning) asking me in broken English if i was mad at her for doing hard drugs.

At around 7:30 am, we got a cab back to their apartment and slept for a few hours.

Senior Week

When i was twelve, my cousin Lynne (thirteen at the time) was about to move to Utah. So our grandmother took us, along with Agelseb (12) and our friend Renee (13), to the beach. It was senior week, so the whole town was crowded with drunk and/or high teenagers hooking up on every available flat surface. Most of them were at least eighteen (or sixteen, with fake IDs), but several were older. And then there was us.

Our grandmother let us go out at night alone, as long as we didn't wander out of sight of the hotel. Lots of drunk/high boys tried to pick us up, but Agelseb's shrill declarations that we were twelve kept us (relatively) safe from harassment. We were just lucky that we didn't encounter anyone drunk and/or sketchy enough to risk jailbait.

Agelseb nearly gave our addresses and names to some guys with a video camera, though.

Theo

One time, i hooked up with a friend of mine while another friend slept on the floor next to the bed we were using. Yeah, that was gross.

Barnes and Noble

One time, my sister was visiting me at college. My boyfriend-at-the-time and i took her to B&N, because she and i both had Christmas gift cards to spend. Since none of us had a car, and the bus didn't go where we needed it to, we walked. About three and a half miles. In the dark. Next to and across three-lane highways. Without a map.

Redneck Roller Coaster

When i was seventeen, my friends Agelseb and "Fay" and i decided to have an adventure. The back roads are long and winding, and when you go around them fast it is VERY DANGEROUS. And really really fun.

But we were the good kids, so we always drove safely on those roads.

But Fay was about to start college, and i was about to go to Europe, and when i got back Agelseb and i would be starting college, and we figured that this was our last chance to do something young and reckless. In retrospect, we were wrong (but almost right, since we almost died). As i have since discovered, life is full of chances for dumb adventures.

We were driving far too fast around a bend when Fay lost control of the car. We were skidding toward someone's living room window when she yanked the wheel and sent us skidding toward the ditch and trees. Suddenly, we were safely on the road and the car was still. We still don't know how we survived. I still haven't told my parents.

never settle

My new tattoo is about a week old on my skin, and about four years old in my head.

Some time during my freshman year of college, i think around spring break, my mom and i had a conversation about boys. I don't remember anything about this conversation except that it concluded with her saying, "Don't ever settle."

At that time, i was thinking about getting a tattoo, but couldn't decide what i wanted. I would draw doodles (usually birds) or write slogans on my skin with Sharpies (usually on my arms, because they were easiest), trying out colors and sizes and designs, but nothing seemed quite right. I tried a few variations of "never settle", but somehow it didn't quite fit. I eventually settled on the swallow tattoo that was the subject of my last post, and moved on.

I wasn't planning to get another tattoo. I still had some ideas that i liked, but nothing that seemed quite as right as the swallow.

I kept on thinking about the idea of settling, though. I thought about what it meant to settle, and what kinds of situations i had settled in before. I thought about settling romantically, academically, professionally, and spiritually.

I thought about boys i had dated and why, and determined that i would not settle for anything other than what i wanted or deserved ever again. And then i settled. Twice in a row.

I thought about classes and assignments where i should have done better but instead chose to slack off, and determined that i would never again settle for less than what i was capable of. And then i slacked off. In too many classes to mention.

I thought about the job i really wanted and what i would have to do to get it, and determined that i would let nothing get in my way. And then -- well, you can probably guess where this is going.

I spent the first three years of college settling in pretty much every area of my life. I looked for "good enough", instead of holding out for "best". Understand, i'm not trying to disparage the people in my life or the experiences i had or the places i worked. I'm just saying that anything that isn't what you really want is settling, even if it is objectively "better" than your heart's desire. A job that pays a million dollars an hour is settling, if what you really want to do is teach public school. Marrying the world's most perfect man is settling, if you're not really in love with him. Maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA through college is settling, if you're not passionate about your studies and don't feel that you're getting a full and well-rounded experience.

All of this reflection and determination and settling culminated in the relationship with Casey, where i hung on for over a year because i thought that this was the best thing i could expect. My friend "Ben" argued with me, saying, "Right now, you think you're eating steak. But actually, it's cat food. And you think it's delicious, because you've never had steak before. But one day, you'll have real steak, and you'll be like, 'Why was I eating this shit for so long?'" Eventually, finally, i ended things with Casey, and promptly made the catastrophically bad decision to give my virginity to Theo. More settling. Like i mentioned in the earlier post, i had not had the sex that God wanted for me. I had settled for something less.

My best friend "Sue" and i actually made similar bad decisions on the same night, and talked about it quite a lot over the next few weeks. Although the decisions themselves were similar, the histories leading up to those decisions were very different. However, we were both settling. Sue, knowing nothing of the phrase from my mom that was still bouncing around in the back of my head, said to me, "Let's make a pact. You and i have spent the last three years settling for less than what we want and deserve. Let's make this year different. I think our slogan for 2010-2011 should be 'never settle'."

Of course, i agreed.

A few weeks later, i was reading some cheap celebrity magazine. I don't remember which one, but probably US Weekly. Don't judge. They had a section on tattoo placement, and explained that a rib cage tattoo is extremely painful and extremely significant. Part of the significance comes from the pain; if it is really worth getting, it's worth suffering for. Additionally, because the ribs protect your heart and lungs, a tattoo there is basically sheilding the center of your life force. Every heartbeat and every breath will reinforce the message inked forever on your skin. Plus, it's kind of an intimate area, so if someone is going to be seeing or touching it, it's going to be someone who is very important and special to you. I remember curling my arm instinctively around myself, just below my breasts, and inadvertently flashing back to the last person who had touched me intimately (Theo). I resolved again that the next person to touch me there would not be someone i was settling for.

And another week after that, i was sitting in chapel. I don't remember what the message was, only that it was really speaking to me in a lot of ways. I think it was something about being all that you can be. At one point, what the speaker said was so poignant and appropriate to the moment that Sue texted me (yes, we text in chapel) and said, "Never settle!"

At that moment, i felt God sit next to me and whisper, "That's going to be your next tattoo."

I whispered back, "God, i'm not getting another tattoo. Remember? I only ever wanted this one."

And He looked at me and whispered, "Really? You're going to argue with ME? This is going to be your next tattoo."

And i whispered, "Yeah, but . . . Oh. Yeah. Okay."

It took a few months until i had the ready cash for it, but now i have this tattoo forever. The text was not a font that the guy had. It is my own handwriting. I liked the idea of inscribing those words on my flesh with my own hand (even though technically someone else did the actual inscribing).

This image, these words, this idea, i've been carrying with me for a long time. And now i will carry them with me forever.

little bird

About a year and a half ago, i got my first tattoo: a swallow on my right forearm. I did a lot of research prior to getting the tattoo, partly because i wanted something that would be very meaningful for a long time, and partly because i like to research.

Birds in general are usually symbols of freedom, independence, and adventure, all very important things to me. I began looking into specific birds, such as owls and ravens, to find out exactly what each of them meant. I stumbled across the swallow tattoo and became intrigued by what i learned.

Sailors used to get swallows tattooed on their chests to mark the number of miles they had traveled. Since i was approaching my twentieth birthday, i thought it would be appropriate to commemorate that occasion. Sea travel is dangerous, and being able to say that you have traveled thousands of miles by sea is a mark of honor. I've been through a lot in twenty years, and i am proud of having made it this far.

Swallows are homing birds. They are therefore a promise to the loved ones at home that the sailor will always return, come what may. And because the swallows were usually on the chest, it was an expression of the hope that, should the sailor drown, his soul would be carried to Heaven.

For me, this meant that i recognized my heritage and the power of family and home. I don't know for sure if i will ever live at "home" again. I like living in Quincy, and don't have a powerful desire to return to farm country and my family again. But who knows what the future holds? And even if i never return to Maryland, i have a strong sense of having grown up there. It's the place i was born, the place where my siblings were born, the place of my first words, first steps, first kiss, first heartbreak. It's the place where i grew up, the place where i moved out, the place where my parents were married and divorced. It's the first and last place that my whole family lived together. It's still the place where most of my family lives.

Everything i am comes from who i was. Everything i do comes from where i've been.

The tattoo is on my right arm because i am right handed. When i meet someone for the first time, i shake their hand. I am presenting my history, my background, my identity. Realistically, of course, the tattoo is small and easy to miss if you're not looking for it, but that doesn't matter to me. What matters is the symbolism.

As a writer, every word i pen comes from that same deep understanding of who i've been and where i'm from. Every word comes from that heritage.

And of course, i am doing my best to follow God's leading in my life. Wherever my wings take me, i know that my ultimate destination is to obey God's direction.