Category: Personal

Zeitgeist 11/2023

A Time Capsule

I’ve called these thingies writing updates in the past, but I do have other stuff going on, so I’ll include some of that here as well. I’ll try not to wander too much!

State of the World. Not good, really. I think there is a LOT of cultish and ideological thinking going on about things that are essentially distractions. The war in Ukraine was a distraction as much as it was a cash cow, but this Palestine thing is So Much Better. We are draining our coffers on genocide, and in a totally contradictory way to what we were doing in Ukraine. Which doesn’t matter, because they’re distractions. Things to keep our minds occupied while they rob us blind. But the Israel one is extra cool, because it’s one of the ones where dissent from it is a big offense. People are losing their jobs over it.

Also, There were two consecutive November days that were the hottest November days on record, and the month as a whole was 2°C above pre-industrial levels! That’s supposed to be the Line That Must Not Be Crossed.

Well, we done crossed it. Go Progress, Go.

State of Massachusetts. I live in the Western part of the state now, and my connection to what’s going on in Boston is really different from what it was when I was in Watertown. Of course.

Where I live now is so bucolic, quiet, beautiful, old school, elevated, and both the same and very different from where I lived before. There are definitely Trumpers in the area, for instance. I’m friends with some Trumpers. This does not in any way freak me out, even thought I am about as far from being a Trumper as it is possible to be… But we’ve veered into the previous heading’s territory, haven’t we, so maybe we should stick to the subjet. At least those of us who are me should.

But I still have 3 major connections to the city, and I need to honor those. Lesley, Fenway, and Wicked Queer. Once a week, I drive down Route 2 into Cambridge, up Fresh Pond Parkway, to Mass Ave, and then over to Porter Square. If’n I was rich, I’d have a pied-à-terre in Belmont.

State of Mind. Weirdly OK, considering. I have a lot of rage about how things are in this world, and I think I always will, but it is really sad and distressing watching things look so much like they’re falling apart. I look at the world and wonder how anybody thinks the state of things is sustainable. But you know what? It’s OK. I’m in the place where The Coming Doom will come to last. If I can see it coming, I can make peace with it.

People on an individual are OK. On a mass level, we’re a mess. I’m kind of a mess, but I’m a mess in an exceptionally beautiful place, far from the madding crowd, and that makes a difference.

Also, I think critical thinking can help with a lot of things that people aren’t applying it to. The facts are the same for all of us. I know Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kelly Anne Conway think there is such a thing as “alternate facts,” but you know what? There kind of are. The center-left corporate media spins as much of a fake narrative as the right does, it’s just not quite as nefarious. But there are things that lib friends of mine believe that are definitely untrue.

Writing Life. Currently caught in the middle of two tasks. I’m working on a revision of the Ghost Story, and I need to be working on The Faerie Pirate Thingie. Also need to be watching movies for Wicked Queer. Eep.

Read a couple of brief sections of The Faerie Pirate Thingie at Paul Richmond‘s Word open mike over at the LAVA Center. That went OK, but for this work, I need to read for longer than a five-minute open mike slot. I’m still looking for that opportunity.

I’m working with a book coach on The Faerie Pirate Thingie, and our back and forth has been very helpful. I’m seeing the shape and size of the work before me, and.. it’s a lot, but it’s doable. I need to devote more time to it, so I may be stopping in the middle of this current draft of the Ghost Story for a bit while I address the Faerie Pirate Thingie.

I am not working with the book coach on the Ghost Story, but I am attempting to apply what I’m learning.

Current Listening. Pocupine Tree’s Signify is on the box at the moment.

Dear Editors: I Am Not My Transition!

I’ve heard back from more than one editor, and a couple of agents as well, that a story about my childhood that I’ve been sending around is “just a chapter” because it includes a scene of me directly trying to deal with my gender issues: they all seem to want to make the whole 6,000 word story I’ve submitted about that one page-long scene. I don’t have the opportunity to explain that the story I’ve sent them doesn’t really have anything to do with “transition” per sé, because cover letters need to be brief and professional. If I did take the space to try to explain this, it would feel like I’m apologizing for my work if I were to drill down into aspects of my story in a preface that only the editor will ever see. A story needs to stand on its own.

So I’m writing this post.

I’ve been told to just leave that part of the story out, but that seems just as unreasonable. Physically, it would be possible to do that, and while that would certainly bypass the issue of my “problematic” identity, to leave that important part of myself out of my story would feel like I’m retreating into the closet that I’ve fought so hard not to be trapped in. From my point of view, the choice I’m being presented with is either to leave out this important aspect of who I am or focus my story on the expected trope of transition.

Imagine requiring a story about a black kid to include some kind of resolution to the “problem” of their blackness, or else leave that out of the story entirely. Such an expectation from an editor would immediately brand them as racist. And yet, any time I have heard an actual critique of the piece I’m discussing, this is what I hear back.

I’m trans every day. Getting my hormone prescription was only one day, one story. There have been so many stories in my life: I was trans in all of them. My being trans is just a trait, not my whole identity. I am not my transition. That’s not the only story I have to tell. Surprisingly, the vast majority of what’s happened in the time I’ve been walking the Earth has nothing to do with a particular course of medical treatment.

I refuse to accept that any memoir I write needs to either deny who I am or be about the gatekeepers who OK’ed my medical transition. I am grateful to them, but at least one of these people has had me sign an NDA. They don’t want the publicity, and I’m OK with that.

This particular memoir piece is a story about a kid who is being bullied. The fact that the main character is trans is important, but not central, and the resolution to the story is not going to come from waiting the thirty seven years it took me to get my medical transition started: the situation is much more immediate than that, so the resolution must be, too. That resolution must be about being bullied and how the central character, who happens to be trans, deals with it.

By the logic of these literary gatekeepers, no story can be self-contained, because there is always some central issue in a person’s life that won’t resolve into a nice little package with a ribbon and a bow on it. Requiring a self-contained solution to such a global problem as gender incongruence is unreasonable. Conversely, you can live with such an unresolved issue for a very long time, while many other things happen. I can tell you that this is so from personal experience.

Unfortunately, it’s been a major obstacle to getting my work published. It’s quite frustrating.

Winter Blues

You may have noticed that last week’s winter haikus were downers, for the most part. It’s not surprising, if you know me. The sadness that comes with the lack of light and heat, the bunker-hunkered-down-ness of this time of year spills over into every aspect of my life. I avoid leaving the house while at the same time feeling trapped inside. I wake up in the dark, and by the time I’m done with work for the day, it’s already dark out again. I work in an office with no natural light, so I see daylight generally for an hour on my commute on weekdays. Such is life in the north.

I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about things I can’t do anything about. I brood during the day. I tend to do this anyway, but especially in the dark months, I subject myself to scorchingly hateful self-talk. I’ve had therapists tell me I do this as a means of protection: if I say these things to myself first, I pre-empt anyone else hurting me by saying them.

I don’t know why I do this more at this time of year. But this year is almost as bad as two years ago, which was a very hard year for me, and has the potential to be worse. But it could also be better. There is a faint glimmer of promise, but the gloom in the world, the gloom in my soul, the gloom outside my window… they are weighing me down.

–

My mom had a health scare yesterday. She’s 84 and has Alzheimer’s disease. Her physical health is actually pretty good for someone her age. She has sciatica and her skin is brittle. But she still has all of her teeth, is mobile and she’s up for adventures. My brother Michael is her caretaker. They own a house together in a small southwestern city.

Today she was vomiting and she fell twice. My brother took her to the emergency room. It was busy and it took them a while to get to her. In the meantime, she vomited some more. They did some diagnostic tests and found that she was super-dehydrated. I think that the treatment she is having to undergo is probably not the most pleasant thing she’s ever had to deal with, but I think she’s going to be OK for now.

But I need to understand that in the not-too-distant future, it won’t be. My brother is with her, witnessing her precipitous decline, but I can’t be. My life is 2500 miles away. And damn right, I feel guilty.

–

I’ve been having these short bouts of crushing depression. They feel sort of… chemical. I’m down, I mean really down, for a predictable three or four hours, and then gradually I come out of it. I had one of my anvil-around-neck phases earlier this week .When I came out of it, it was sudden, like snapping my fingers and suddenly my mood was about 50% better. It was weird. But these down times are intense. I don’t know what causes them.

I wear these estradiol patches — they’re always a pain, these frigging things. They don’t breathe, so my sweat gets trapped under them and my skin prunes up and the itching drives me crazy. I’ve been experimenting with trying different spots and today when I applied new patches, I think I may have found a better spot than the others I’ve tried. My mood was really good in some ways, and I’ve felt connected to what’s going on around me in a way that I haven’t for a while. I attribute this to fresh patches. I still hate the constant demanding itching, but at least I know I’m getting some value out of them. I am going to ask my doc if there’s some other form of estradiol I can take.

–

From a larger perspective, I am watching the world struggle with authoritarianism and delusion, nationalism and race hatred. It feels like we’ve all gone crazy. Everybody is ideologically aligned, and they don’t trust anyone who doesn’t agree with them, and people are trying to force their will on each other concerning what’s “right.” I feel like I’m watching humanity try to throw itself off a cliff.

All of this… stuff, and other things too that I haven’t gone into here hover in and around my head all of the time. Worry and self-hatred, trapped in darkness… that’s what my emotional state is right now. I can’t wait for the long days and warm weather to return. I feel so much better when it’s nice out.