Professor J's Place

“She is survived by her three sons and her partner of thirty years,” the papers said. Sometimes the braver periodicals even named her, this partner . partner? Did they own a bakery together?             A curio shop? Partner is too small a word          pedestrian          business-like. I used to like the word. And what shall we call ourselves? Lover at best is dated Girlfriend dismissive, trivial We are life partners, I would whisper in her ear, family. For this lesbian poet who risked life and art and all to name her love This warrior who did not fear the wrath of publishers or critics or scholars or college administrators To hear it now, and often without a name or gender, evokes      the closet Undrape! You are not guilty to me, nor stale, nor discarded* Nor invisible. For ...

Well, what do ya know? I wasn't sure I'd ever come  back to the old place, but I kept it around to function as an archive of my old writing. And here I am wanting to write again. And wanting to write about things that aren't necessarily photography related. So here I am. Boy howdy, it's dusty in here. I'll be sweeping out some cobwebs and changing things here and there. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make you comfortable. Would you like something to drink? Water? Coffee?

Maria Butcher (my grandmother) with Mary (my mom) I resisted writing my usual sappy mother's day post yesterday, but here I am doing it today. The above photo always blows me away. It could have been taken in the 1980's, I think, except for Mama's bathing suit. Instead, it was taken in 1928. My grandmother, Mama told me, was a flapper.  My grandmother was also depressed.  She killed herself on December 13, 1941. Actually, she took poison on December 10th and died on the 13th. After years of my mother's annual depression and anger around the 13th, I finally asked mom what year it was my grandmother died.  "1941." "It didn't have anything to do with Pearl Harbor, though, right?" "It was  because  of Pearl Harbor. It was because she knew we would soon be going to war with Germany." Everybody knew that Roosevelt was just waiting for an excuse to go to war in Europe. War on one front served as a gateway to war on another. Sound famil...

My  mother was a single mom with three girls. She worked hard, but without any support from my father or any other family members, money was hard to come by. So when the weekend rolled around we would load up the cooler with Shasta pop (at .5 a can), hard boiled eggs, boiled hot dogs, and potato salad. And we'd drive out to a park. Usually, we'd head out to Garner State Park in the Texas Hill Country. I know you readers from outside of Texas hear us talk about the Hill Country like it's God's back yard. And it is. But it might be hard for you to see. It is not lush and thick with trees like the wonderful woods in Georgia and the Carolinas. The hills are not majestic like the mountains of Colorado or magical like the hills of Kentucky.  Our trees are slightly gray in color; even the old trees seem more like shrubs than the wonder that is the woods of Northern California. But we are pulled here.  I think it is the psychology of sparseness. I think it is the shor...

I was looking at love poems today because, well, just because (she says with a wry smile). Here's one I love. What are some of the love poems that move you? Share them with me, will you? I Ask The Impossible Ana Castillo I ask the impossible: love me forever. Love me when all desire is gone. Love me with the single mindedness of a monk. When the world in its entirety, and all that you hold sacred advise you against it: love me still more. When rage fills you and has no name: love me. When each step from your door to your job tires you-- love me; and from job to home again, love me, love me. Love me when you're bored-- when every woman you see is more beautiful than the last, or more pathetic, love me as you always have: not as admirer or judge, but with the compassion you save for yourself in your solitude. Love me as you relish your loneliness, the anticipation of your death, mysteries of the flesh, as it tears and mends. Love me as your most treasured c...

Life is good these days. The other day, I had this rush of love--and I realized it was from me to me.  All these years I've heard that you must love yourself. All these years I've thought it one of those things that people just said. And here I am--loving myself. I am being creative again. I am starting to look at the world as a series of images, a series of poems. I haven't thought that way in a long time, and it's good to be back home.

And while we were at it, we decided to take some photos of Tanith, who wants some source photos for an upcoming self portrait.