Wrote this a few years ago. Forgot about it. Posting it now.

So I want to explain why Una Hawthorne is important to me.  I came across her after I read The Scarlet Letter.  She was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s daughter, and she was isolated in her youth for behaving more masculine than feminine. She was also pressured from a young age to find a husband, but apparently had no desire to marry.  Eventually she was diagnosed with hysteria, spent years in deep depression, and died at age 33.

Stories about hysteria interest me because of their tension.  It reminds me of the uncomfortable line between crying and laughing.  A book project I made a few years ago called, “I never liked you anyway” was made in the spirit of that line. I collected stories from friends about that precise moment.  And when I try to imagine a hysterical woman, the only thing I can come up with is a woman who doesn’t know whether she should cry or laugh. Which is what led me to feeling so certain that Una Hawthorne was not hysterical.  She was restrained from expressing herself entirely, and she went a little bonkers, is all.  After reading all the vague details of her childhood, I could imagine her so clearly.

I can only speak for myself here, but some of the smartest women I have had the privilege of knowing are totally nuts.  Not because they’re being restrained by men, but because every day there is a choice made to prioritize parts of themselves, and choosing which of those parts the world should see.  A woman can be made up of a million different traits, but if she’s not prioritizing her appearance, then she’s risking something.

What I’m trying to say is that these things bring women to confusion because it’s like a loss of identity.  After I read about Una, I saw that she must have been present in my work for a long time.

I don't like celebrating my birthday but this year I got myself a tattoo as a birthday present. It is a drawing of a mermaid with saggy tits and hairy pits and she means a lot to me. A good friend of mine drew her for me. Her arms are long and squiggly so her hands peek out of my tank tops. Like she's asking for little high fives. I'm excited to have her with me now. She's going to give me mermaid powers when I need to swim away from things. I used to be good at leaving things behind, but it gets harder all the time now.

Big Mac

Without ranting, I want to say that I'm angry at the world for telling women they should be a thing, and then making fun of them for wanting to be that thing. I am even angrier when it's women who are making fun of other women for wanting to be that thing. Also when men are blamed for their gazes when it's often women doing the gazing. Does any of this make sense? Probably not. But here's a video of me eating a big mac anyway.

W.S. Merwin

I read a poem a long time ago called Unchopping A Tree by W.S. Merwin and I'm going to write about it here because I still really like that poem. Or actually I don't know if it's technically a poem. I don't know poetry as much as I'd like to. I've never breathed it in as easily as some others do. But Merwin is great because he says what he means so plainly. I could understand why someone might find him uninteresting but I think I like him because his words aren't hiding him.

This poem, if I can call it that, is a big, lengthy explanation of how to put a tree back together after it's been chopped into pieces. It's beautiful and I want it to be about me now so that's what I'm thinking about tonight.

I feel like I've been chopped into pieces over the past year and I'm putting everything back together as best as I can, but I can't even recognize myself anymore and sometimes I don't like that.

But W.S. Merwin makes me want to sing the blues and I like that. So I continue to read his poems.

I keep updating this blog with my feelings. I'd rather update with art. That might not happen for a while.

I'm bad with words. I'm better at talking than writing, but I really don't talk that much unless someone asks me the right questions. I used to care for a 5-year-old boy with pretty mild autism and I wanted to write down everything he said because he spoke such perfect sentences. I don't see him anymore and I miss him a lot. I had a dream that he visited me and we talked about Angry Birds Star Wars.

Bookbinding

I made this recently at a bookbinding workshop. It was fun making books with a bunch of old ladies. The nicest part was having most of the materials provided for me. All the paper was really nice to work with.

It's a lovely design, and fairly simple to put together!

Kathleen Hanna

"... we learned the idea of amateurism, not as something lower than professionalism, but as something to almost be aspired to, so that there was space for the viewer to kind of insert themselves and to see that they could do what we were doing. And so when we had flubs onstage and stuff like that, girls could see, 'oh, I can get up and make a mistake.' [...] We have to get up on stage and be able to play like Stevie Ray Vaughn because we're so afraid that someone's gonna say, 'you're good for a girl' [...] I think that public failure is incredibly important for young women to see."

Listen to this awesome interview with Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill. I don't think anyone actually reads my blog, but I'm posting this anyway just in case.