The last time she was here Kristina bought
us both a copy of a small
book and recently she bought me
another
by Manquel.
I want to follow him around and just
listen. In the latter book he writes
snippets, one of which tells about a
protest in Nigeria over the Miss World
contest. The protesters were fundamentalists
who ran through the streets yelling,
" God is great! Down with beauty!"
Stuff like that sends me into hours of reverie.
I
have no strong feelings about beauty
pageants. I have no interest in them.
They seem odd. I just don't care. I
think the women are beautiful but I
think so many people are beautiful.
And I think beauty is good. It's more
likely that I will disagree with people
about what is ugly than what is beautiful.
There
is a part of me that likes the idea
of men protesting a pageant. But things
are rarely simple. I find myself wanting
to say this ... but not that. That ...
but not this. Beauty is good and worth
celebrating. The pageant format is problematic.
I can argue against them. But I don't
care enough. I just love the complexity
in the little snippet from Manquel.
I imagine him telling me the story with
a smile of irony.
Someone
wrote to me about a friend of their's. The friend is
fat but has not been ashamed of it. And then someone
said an extremely nasty thing to them and they had a
rough time. I tried to respond to the email but my reply
bounced back. Not sure why.
In
the email I was directed to a blog on which the nasty
thing was written, which I will not link because there
are some things that are just too gross. When hatred
is so unfounded and badly articulated I just back away.
I might like to have the
verbal dexterity of Cyrano when he responded to a
crass comment about the size of his nose. But I don't.
In the face of vitriol I am rendered dumb.
Well.
Usually.
There
are times ...
Beauty
matters. I guess I always hope that as people become
more , oh, I dunno, authentic, or something, their perception
of beauty expands. No pun intended.
Heh.
My
inability to write continues. I think about writing.
I read about writing. I read about reading. My life
is all meta.
Because
of the Manquel I thought I might just try to write really
small posts. Just notes from my reveries. Like the day
after the parade
I walked past a Gay Pride sign in a window. It seemed
to me that there would be no need for pride about something
so intrinsic as preference if there had never been shame.
Someone gave me a fat pride necklace but I can't wear
it. I am not proud. Nor am I ashamed. I simply am fat.
Any meaning making that gets layered onto that attribute
of physicality is just fluff.
This
... but not that. That but not this.
I
need to rest now. Shore up for the bus and the train
and the shuttle and the job and the shuttle and the
train and the bus. I have eight more pages of the second
Manquel to take to bed and a bit more of the first for
tomorrow. Fortification.