v u l v a l i c i o u s The phone conversation 2003-06-26 // 1:33 a.m. I heard her voice for the first time in months today, far away and over the phone, and it was like someone turned a switch in my brain. I was back where I was when I left her a month ago, pining and happy and breathless over her. We talked for half an hour before I had to make my exit, but there was more that I wanted to say to her. She had told me to dance, not in the terrible way that the country hit of a few years ago did, but in the way of actually expressing something inside of myself. Making thoughtful dances. Dancing those dances. Letting the movies and still images that play in my head come out for other people. I wanted to talk with her about making this happen, about how I've been struggling with two or three ideas that are performance, that are dance, that I can't figure out exactly how to create. I need to know how to ask for help, who to ask, when to ask. I need to know if I should start showing people what I'm doing and then talk with them about it in order to develop it more, or if I should talk first and move later. I have process questions that I wasn't able to ask her. Instead we talked about living situations and had another conversation about the what and why of being a dyke or lesbian or queer. About the Dyke March, and how the website kept talking about lesbians. I could feel, in that part of the conversation, that she had missed having me around to talk with about those sorts of things, and it made me sad that her sister will be moving in with her in the fall, as they will certainly be able to have those conversations with one another. But maybe she'll miss me, the way I talk and think, almost the way that I miss her. I've found that I can talk about words and language and meanings with the people here, but that it lacks a spark. It lacks her spark, really. She talked to me through an old rotary phone she had in high school. When I told her it was me, I could hear the happiness-recognition in her voice. I could live on that for days. I think that I will. back-forth