A many-splintered thing

Could this internet connection be any slower? Quite possibly, yes. All I'm asking for is pictures of my latest, newest, maybe one of my weirdest celebrity crushes: Jim Schembri. Have you seen what he looks like? He's cute! Not that I agree with his film reviews, but I do find his column piss-funny. So, time to initiate Operation Stalk Schembri.

Unrelated to OSS, I feel a quote is in order:

'To write or speak is almost inevitably to lie a little. It is an attempt to clothe an intangible in a tangible form; to compress an immeasurable into a mold. And in the act of compression, how Truth is mangles and torn!'
—Anne Morrow Lindberg, American writer.

Not that I believe in the concept of one truth, let alone truth with a capital 'T'. I'm far too postmodern, too much a creative arts student for that. But I feel it's relevant to my last post and nix's reaction to it – a reaction which I was quite hurt by. Part of it was that s/he made me feel like I'd inflicted some great amount of pain and damage, however unintentionally; that I was a bad friend, stupid, blundering, thoughtless. Another part of it made me feel like I was not trusted, not given the benefit of the doubt, that I was being misread in the worst possible way. That I was only writing the post because finally I had *seen*; that – to quote nix – '‘belief’ becomes tangible, visible, ‘real’ [and thus] comment-upon-able'. Rather than the real reason, which was that I thought you'd all like a change from Toby stories. (cue canned laughter).

Maybe nix just gave me a theoretical going-over, which I should have very well expected (damn post-graduate students!). In my defence, I would like to say that I wrote it as I saw it and as I had heard it and as nix had told it to me. Not even that: but as I saw it – on that one day. I was not saying this is all there is to the issue or to nix. I was not positing some Truth, or even truth, small 't'. Identity is a many-splintered thing. And doesn't being trans and all the inherent problems with language (most particularly pronouns), with how you come across to other people versus how you see yourself, etc; doesn't all this just make evident what are fissures in the very nature of identity itself? That most of us put a label on ourselves – at the most basic level: 'he' or 'she' or even just our names – and this label comes to stand for something/someone as though that thing is a unified whole, one single, easily definable thing, an inner truth. Oh whoa, flashbacks to writing essay on 'Orlando'!

Anyway, nix has apologised and I have apologised, so maybe I shouldn't even be posting this. I guess I just want to say what's on my mind, even though now I'm more wary of this whole blog thing and, well, of writing about nix, which makes me sad. Next time: less angst, less theoretical ramblings and more stories about cheese and Toby. Or reader interaction: vote as to whether I should: a.) take OSS to a whole new level, b.) shut down this blog and/or c.) become a hermit and only communicate via carrier pigeon...
“Dear Mr. Schembri, Meet Speckles, my feathery messenger friend who is kind enough to convey my highest regards to your good self...”