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Q: What drives you?

A: Two things, really; one major, one minor.

At this point in my life, much of my drive originates from a need to communicate – as precisely as possible – the experience that is going on inside of my brain. When I was younger, I was never convinced that I was conveying my thoughts accurately. As trite as it may sound to say, I think I have a unique perspective in how I see and walk though the world. As I age, this notion gets confirmed time and time over again. This motivation is behind me as an artist, my blogging and most established forms of socializing.

The minor drive, and I think I am still actively working to deal with this, is a need to prove myself. To whom, I have little idea. I think this is simply the remnants of teenage insecurity. I still have a certain level of insecurity, but it has noticeably diminished in my adult years.

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March is Question Month; ask you question here.

Q: When was the last time you cried laughing and why?

A: Two things to note first: I don’t remember the specific topic that started it. And I don’t exactly laugh to tears. I have this weird thing I do. (Yes, yes. Just the one. Honest!) I laugh, hard, and it grows to a point when the sound stops, like everything in me locks up. Breathing becomes a chore, my throat locks up and my ribcage aches and my face turns dark red to purple. Judging from the reactions of others, it is a sight to see. And it seems quite infectious; the response is enough to crack others up to a similar degree.

That said, it was a few weeks ago. I was at the Slap-N-Tickle; a group of us gathered to prep things for the upcoming PBR show and just hang out. A movie was on the television… Lori Raye said something as I was walking across to the kitchen, by the time I got back, I couldn’t even sit back down in my chair, because I so locked up from laughing… Lori Raye is good for that, she is hilarious… and just the right amount of dirty.

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March is Question Month; ask you question here.

Q: …is there anything you wouldn’t want to do with your art, some forbidden fruit that crosses *your* boundaries, somehow?

A: For the most part, any obvious limit is more from ‘not yet’ than anything else. There are things that I do not do, but that is not the same as would not do…

I try to stick to my life and experiences. If I can manage a universal sense of it, then fine, but I try to avoid grand statements about others. I don’t like feeling preachy and I think it leaves me and my art empty at the end of it.

I leave a lot of stuff off of my radar, like racism, sexism, misogyny… mostly to stay focused on being queer, but also because so many others are handling those better than I feel I would. Plus, I do believe that finding my voice against any ‘ism’ is taking a stand against all of them.

As far as subject matter and taboo is concerned, I don’t much think I would dodge something that hits me in a strong way. I do consider it to be part of my job to make folks uncomfortable, especially in regards to arbitrarily drawn boundaries surrounding the human condition.

Perhaps, another way to put it is this: my single drive in producing art is to communicate the things burning most inside of my head; things I am driven to explain better than words allow. If anything got inside of me enough so that I needed to convey it to others in the world, I would work to do so…

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March is Question Month; ask you question here.

Hello, March! That means it’s Question Month, right? Right…?
Do we still do that? Yeah, I think we do…

Ask away. Nothing is screened, if you want to make it secret, send me a private message via LJ. I will repost your question and answer it in a separate post.

Yay! There you go.

*smooch*