Paul is sleeping and won’t be up before I go to work, so I won’t get to see him before he leaves. I’ll be coming home to a quiet apartment tonight with a needy cat, who will only get needier as the night goes along and his other daddy doesn’t come home. I imagine tonight will be one of those nights where I don’t really do much of anything other than cater to the cat and miss Paul. Heavy heaving sigh. I didn’t sleep well either; I got a stomach ache yesterday afternoon that finally went away around three this morning, thank the Lord, but I was waking up every hour it seemed, and not really going back into a deep sleep. I am definitely going to hit a wall this afternoon. That’s okay, I can come home to a needy cat tonight and read Lavender House in bed while watching news clips upstairs. I think I am going to move my laptop upstairs too; doesn’t it make more sense to write in bed than in my recliner, if I don’t feel like sitting at my desk? Tonight I am going to also watch some of season three of Heartstopper, whose first season I was all-in on, but whose second season, while enjoyable still, began to lose me a bit. I always say that Heartstopper wasn’t written or filmed for me; I am not their target audience, and with young people in mind, it’s quite marvelous. I don’t know, though. I have some critical thoughts about the whole thing–books and show–that probably aren’t going to be popular with other queers, but…when I have ever been popular with other queers that didn’t want to fuck me?1 Yeah, yeah, an overstatement; but I am kind of concerned about the kind of representation we get in popular forms of media (books, movies, TV shows, documentaries), and there’s nothing wrong with having an opinion on anything, right? I will certainly not claim to be speaking for everyone in my community.
And of course, the accompanying corollary to having a relatively fit body was that serious queer writers didn’t take me seriously, since I was a genre writer (the horror!) and in decent shape–ergo, not literary or educated or smart enough to be allowed to fit into those snooty cocktail parties. Of course, before I published my first book, New Orleans literary society pretty much assumed I was just Paul’s boy toy–flattering on one level but insulting on all the others, which was always funny to me because without question I am almost always the person in the room who has read the most books across genres and styles.
Oh, yes, I have many chips on my shoulder. Care to pick one?
Ugh, this stomach thing is really icky. I am going to have to take something OTC for it, methinks, because while it’s much more bearable now than it was, it’s still incredibly uncomfortable. Just wait till I’m tired later on today! I did make an executive decision to take tomorrow off–in case this doesn’t get better later on–for a five day weekend. Tomorrow might be the day that I rest and read and not worry about anything other than resting. At least Paul won’t be home if it’s something catching, but I think it’s a combination of something I must have ate Sunday or Monday–it feels like an aching muscle, but it can’t be that, can it? Sigh. I’ll try some Tums and see if that does anything, but I doubt they will.
Ugh. Hope I can make it through this day.
Catch you tomorrow, Constant Reader, and I hope that you’ll forgive me this briefness. I hope to feel better tomorrow.
- Yes, I know how arrogant that sounds, but the truth is when I was in my thirties and forties I could get laid any time I wanted to, and since I am not being dishonest or self-deprecating about anything any more, I’m embracing it. I may not have thought I was anything special myself back then, but when I see pictures I’m like wow, you had some serious body dysmorphia. How could you have lost any more weight? ↩︎
Queer and Loathing in America 