Blue

Saying good bye to the clinic, to my co-workers, to my supervisor, to the organization that's been such a big part of my life the last two years. It's tough. I'm feeling melancholy. At the same time, I'm beginning my new private practice psychotherapy internship, which is so much more anxiogenic right now than exciting. I have no idea when I will actually start making an income.

I'm also feeling unsure about where I'm at with the person formerly known as Myna and heretofore known as Minoba.* We're wrapping up at the clinic next week, and then we'll have a couple days together before she leaves on a summer adventure to the craggy shores of an unnamed island in the north Atlantic. We've been enjoying each other, and it's been close between us, hot as always, but I'm feeling confused about what might be next. I don't want my presence in her life to inhibit her from putting energy into finding a person to connect with as a more full partner. It seems questionable at this point if Minoba can really embrace being in my life in a more "secondary" way, always for lack of a better term for this. I fear it will be too triggering emotionally for her to carry on this way, and on my end, it saddens me that she seems to feel reticent to become part of my life more fully, connect with Astrid more deeply, and accept my situation as not indicting in any way of her or of my care for her. There aren't any easy answers; I think it's just a wait-and-see thing, something that will unfold with more time and experience between us. I'm just curious and anxious about how much time there will be to allow it to unfold.

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* I'm in a quandary, 'cause I'm not liking the pseudonym "Myna" at all. I hadn't thought about the bird connotation, and that just doesn't seem fitting. I've decided to go with a version of her original suggestion which was Gertrude Minoba, but I'll just use Minoba for short. Sorry if I'm confusing anyone. So, you heard it here first, folks: the amorous friend of Bree's formerly known as Myna is now Minoba. New and improved.

Where's Che?

For a good couple years now, Astrid, DJ, and I have been playing a game called "Punch Che," in which we get to hit each other in the arm whenever we come across someone wearing the iconic image of Che Guevara. It's basically like "Slug Bug" 'cept the entire point is mocking people for buying into the unintentionally ironic marketing frenzy around one of history's most notorious leftist revolutionaries. I'm not a Che-hater, though being a pacifist, it's hard to get me behind the tactics of guerilla warfare (okay, a punching game doesn't count as violent; we're all consenting to being slugged.) It's not a criticism of Che, it's a game making fun of the absurdity of all the lily-white hippy kids who have no fucking idea what Che did or what he stood for wearing his image. Extra points for Che-wearing white kids with dreadlocks.

OK, so, on Sunday, during the insanity of Pride on Market Street right outside the posh Zuni Café, where Astrid, Giddy Girl, and I stopped for a very bougie bloody mary, and after running into my high school English teacher, who is a dyke, no less, at the bar, I spotted someone in a run of the mill Che t-shirt, and got to punch Astrid.

Then not five minutes later, another dude walks by with a Che t-shirt, this time the Argentine agitator emblazoned, tattoo-style, on the bicep of the equally recognizable popculture icon Homer Simpson. My brain broke, and I burst out in uncontrolled, tearful laughter at the sight of it. I'm sure many of you have seen Che's image mashed up with Homer before, but I guess I'd been under a rock. The brilliance of that many layers of irony packed together into a gimmicky t-shirt was just overwhelming to me.