On crip concentration

I am trying to concentrate. Trying my best to write a paper of the notions of dressed and dressed up. It is going very slow, I have all week but I wanted to have it done by now.
The reason it’s slow is not my own, I have read up on all the literature I have made an outline, and I have written half of it already. No, it’s not me; it’s what’s around me these days.

You see a concentrating as a crip demands a different kind of attitude then concentrating overall. Right now I need to concentrate despite being confined in this apartment until I get my new taxi card, which I so slow I haven’t even gotten to sending in the applications yet. You see, before I actually do that I need a medical permit, and to get that medical permit I need to go see a doctor, and to see a doctor I need to leave the house, and yes when leaving the house I might need a taxi-card.

I have arranged things with my PA’s so that I at least can get my self to and from University for my lectures. Otherwise I have no idea. And all the people I call and ask about this, the people I assume should know how things work and be able to give me straight answers about when and how and why and where, they seem to know just as much as me or even less.
It always puzzles me how they can say things that are so bizarre you wonder if your life is a sitcom or it the person on the other side is an alien with no manners whatsoever.
Now follow, an authentic conversation just had today…

I: But how do I make this work? I am stranded in my apartment otherwise!
Bureaucracy of Babylon: Well I don’t know, people don’t move here often…..

What in heavens name is that! Well know I don’t know what to do when a hurricane hits, you know we don’t get that often. Oh you say you’re dying, oh well that has never happened before.
You are saying you are unable to leave your apartment other than together with your PA’s and only at the times that you have scheduled them to come and pick you up…oh well, you are saying there is from now on no spontaneity in your life. You worry about being isolated. Well you see, I couldn’t help you even with the simplest questions about that, people don’t move here often so I wouldn’t know.

Well, let me tell you why people don’t move here often. It’s because this bureaucracy of Babylon is a set of bondage ropes around my shivering arms, it’s because you cripple me and make me invalid. You make sure my studies are not worthwhile, you make sure my concentration is lacking since I need to take breaks to cry and scream with worry.
You make me question if my time is well spent in this city when there is nothing but trouble here. You make me stare at this screen at the black words hammered down on the electronic whiteness through a haze of tears and anguish.

I am not built for this, I worry too much anyway. My heart is that of a rabbits, jumping quickly under collar bone. My constitution is one in need of safety and warmth. Uncertainty makes me ill.

Somewhere I do realise that this is a dam breaking. I haven’t cried about any of the hardships I have encountered since I moved here, I have only pondered through stoically, so I should have seen it coming now. When am partially safe in my own home and most of the things work out for me, then there is a space for me to crash like this.

I came to this town with visions, and I do still keep them. I am sorry Babylon but there is now way in which you will break me. I know you aspire to do that, even if you haven’t verbalized it for yourselves yet.
You think that crip girls like me are satisfied with little. Well, dearest Babylon – listen up when I say I am never satisfied. That is also part of my constitution. That of the escapist dreamer who saw herself dressed in Victorian velvet walking through the vast room of a mansion when she grew up. You say that is way too much. You say I should settle in with a day job and a few swims in the heated disabled people’s pool for leisure activities.
I say give me that mansion. Give me that an apartment in the city. Give me spaces to write and perform within. Give me my lovers’ heated kisses on my neck, give me the traces of my presceans across their bodies. Give me whisky; give me the force of darn good song. Give me the softness of tea and milk and the warmth of my army.
Give me all the heavy scented perfumes there ever was in the world.
GIVE ME MY LEATHER!

Bless my family, my army, my muses and my flexible PA’s when all is madness as it so now.
And I know there are loving people above me, who brush away the clouds gently as they look down, there is a face that looks like mine, there is curly hair and swelling hearts and there is a great uncle.
Who looks at me as he smiles, because he knows what fighting is, and perhaps he wished he could have gotten all that I have know. I wish I could have met him, we could have sang songs; he could have told me it was going to be hard, this crippled life.
But now, as she his fringe falls in his eyes, and I recognize the shape of my own lips on his face I know that he’s saying.

På dôm lisch jänta!
(Go get them little girl!)

On lovely PAs

I took a walk in the campus park today; I had to go to University to pick up sickly expensive literature on folklore and dress, which I am sure I will sell as soon as I have finished the exam on this part of the course.
Anyhow, I was accompanied to University by my new butchy PA, I call her the butchy PA as to distinguish her from all my other PAs, and she is indeed a butch.

I am actually quite swoon by her; she is gorgeous and has just that right bulky aura around her. Although she has only worked with me for a bit last weekend and then today we have really bonded. I guess I found it so nice to have a PA that would understand all the queer quirks of my constitution that I just rambled.

We spoke a lot about the notion of passing, I showed her pictures of my butchy period in life and called it my butch-fail, she laughed in shock. She said she was a bit bummed by the fact that everybody assumed that she was trans, that being this butch could only mean that she wanted to transition. She spoke about girls freaking out whenever she went in to the ladies room in a restaurant or at the movies, about being referred to as “the boys” when she was out and about with her brother. The awkwardness that manly-men felt around her, not knowing what to say or not…the many heavy taps on her back, the misogynist jokes and laughs.

I felt that I was such a femme with her. Even though I am swoon I do not ‘want’ her, still I could feel my movements growing to be slower and more assertive, I was conscious about my legs and how they looked in my short skirt, my fingers around the locks of my hair, my cleavage, my perfume.

She hung a heavy door back on its hinges for me and changed my light bulbs, I dreamt of a butch valet to open my doors and carry my purses and shopping bags. I dreamt of strong shoulders and glistening blue eyes.

Today I might have had that; although she was still my PA (and I doubt she will be anything but that…) she did all the things that above mentioned butch valet would have done. And as we went walking back to the tube through the autumn colours and crisp winds of the park I couldn’t help but smile. I pondered what other people saw as they saw us. If they saw two girls, if they knew the saw a femme and butch, did they think they saw a man and a woman?

She’s funny, she laughs when I make jokes and apologies ever so sweetly for even the slightest mistakes. Can I clone her?


Just to illustrate, a photo by Catherine Opie from her exhibition “Girlfriends” found in an article on AfterEllen.com

On laziness...

Instead of getting to that read-athon I had planned for now, I figured I would have some more of this delicious brown sugar-cinnamon coffee and write a blog post.

I realised I hadn’t blogged in quite a while. There has been a couple of rushing weeks, I needed to study for a written exam and settle a few PA related issues, as well as hang around with great people and have some great talks and so.

But nowadays I enjoy solitude in my own apartment on Cherry Road, in the middle of the upper-class area Östermalm. It’s rather silly, these apartment are not jolly at all, and if I had a choice I would live further out of the city and enjoy a bit more of good grocery stores and green areas. But I love how close my apartment is to University, and how I walk by these beautiful 19th century houses just when I go out to by milk. Buying said milk is not as cheap as I would have wished though. My plan for now is to look around and see where the closest and cheapest store is for further life in this up-town hood not to ruin me.



My PA’s are so far a very good bunch of brainy and sweet girls. There is one them who still haven’t worked with me, the gorgeous butchy one, I am not sure about just how I will react around her. My God she is hot!

From my “kitchen window” I look out over the lovely yellow and terracotta 19th century houses with massive poise and French balconies they sigh under blushing evening skies as I write. This morning I so smoking coming out of it’s chimneys, I assumed there was a stove being lit. My mind wanders to my writing and the semi-Victorian realm. I have neglected that a lot lately, but I am thinking I will get to it tonight.

After I have finally read through all that I need to read through. It is a good thing I am a good reader when apparently I am an incurably lazy schoolgirl. Next week is going to be a bit of rush too; I am having lots of lovely visitors. So I will really need to read through all these texts now in order to be able to spend time with them.

The rural matriarchy has paid a quick visit too, my mother and my aunt came here for Thursday day and evening, it was lovely to see them but I really wished there could have been more time.

Even if so, I still don’t feel isolated. Being just by myself is lovely for now. It gives my imagination the space it needs to twist and turn and wobble in my mind. To stretch itself and widen as think about what to do with myself.



Time moves really quickly here though, it feels like I have only just got here and it feels like I have been here for a hundred days. But I guess I live here now, for real.
My aunt asked me on Thursday, how long I would live in Stockholm? I said I didn’t know, but I couldn’t see myself having kids in this city.

So ‘til I get knocked up I’ll be here. Inshaallah!

Now, even though I really don’t want to. I must read.