Monday and back to the office with me this morning. Huzzah? I have an Admin Day and my supervisor is out of the office until tomorrow. It’s also 32 degrees (!!!) this morning. My desk feels cold, and there’s definitely a chill here surrounded by windows. The apartment feels nice and toasty; we turned the heat on last evening as the temperature dropped. It kind of feels like Christmas now, you know? Warm weather at this time of year always seems wrong in some way. I did very little yesterday, and won’t apologize for simply falling into a spiral of not feeling like getting anything done for most of the day. I wasn’t tired; I just was kind of in a low-energy recharge state for most of the day. I did write some notes for the book, and started getting to the place where I feel like I finally have the narrator’s voice, and that was what was holding me back from getting started. I am hoping today to get some good background work done on it after work tonight, depending on how cold it’s going to feel on the way home and once I get here. I do have some chores to do tonight, too–which I should have done yesterday but alas, did not. No guilt, though, which is kind of a lovely feeling, and undoubtedly a result of the anxiety medication.
I do find myself thinking sometimes so this is what it feels like to be normal before realizing and remembering that there really isn’t a normal; everyone thinks they are normal because we only truly know our own experience, and our minds instinctively think that everyone is the same as us. I knew I wasn’t like everyone else very young, which was very unpleasant, and was absolutely terrified people would figure out I was different and it took years for me to reach a point where I didn’t much care about being different anymore and actually embraced it. I am also very literal and completely oblivious sometimes, which really bothers me…but being oblivious, I am not really aware of just how oblivious I am. I am oblivious about being oblivious, which is kind of weird.
But I did watch a lot of documentaries yesterday on Youtube; Paul’s not been feeling terribly well so he spent most of the weekend sleeping and resting, so I was pretty much on my own yesterday during the day. I watched one on the Hapsburgs (always fascinating to me), one on the Romanovs, and several other historical ones–a lot of legends and lore of the South and the Appalachians; and other tales of hauntings and murders. I was, of course, horrified about the latest round of mass shootings, and more than a little surprised that one wasn’t actually in the US but rather in Australia. Since the targets at Bondi Beach were Jewish-Australians celebrating Hanukkah, I can’t help but feel that anti-Semitism was at the root of this horror. All mass shootings are horrors, but these ones driven by bigotry and prejudice really bother me. There’s no justification for killing other than self-defense, and even then I am not certain how one lives with that sort of thing. The end result of bigotry and prejudice is inevitably violence; which is why hatred and hate speech is such an abomination.
Targeting people celebrating a religious holiday is especially egregious and evil, no matter what my views on religion are.
Sigh. But it’s Monday, and a new week and it’s back to the office with me in a bit. Christmas is next week, and once again, I failed to do Christmas cards and probably am just going to give up on that for the year. I do need to wrap a couple of presents, and I need to ship one to Dad, but does it really matter if it gets there before Christmas? Probably not.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back in the morning tomorrow.
All I can think is that he’s getting cold standing by the window in his underwear like this...although it could be a prompt for a Christmas crime story.
Thursday and my last day in the office for this week. How exciting! I have no idea what the weekend holds for me; I know I will watch the LSU game for a while, but if it goes the way I’m expecting it to I won’t need to watch after half-time. I’m not sure what other games are this weekend, but I’ll have the television on for sure playing games all day while I do other things, like pick up and clean and read and write and all the other fun things I get to do every weekend. I was a bit tired yesterday when I got off from work yesterday (I started to say night, but is it night at five? The sun was still up…sort of), but came straight home. I did some chores (laundry, the dishes) and picked up some around the kitchen. I also caught up on the news (I am really enjoying the MAGA meltdown2, because I am far pettier than they could ever hope to be), and then did a little writing–not much, just a smidgen. But it still counts!
Paul won’t be home tonight until I’ve probably fallen asleep; he’s going to some gala event fundraiser. I probably should go and be Mrs. Festival, but I’ll be so tired I’d fall asleep in a chair somewhere. I feel like I slept well–my mind is alert and other than some ache in my hips, everything else feels fine, which is definitely odd for a Thursday. I’m alone and without a nurse in the clinic again today, but I also don’t think we’re going to be very busy, either. I feel much better overall since my injection on Monday, which is very cool. Maybe I’ll actually be able to get some writing done tonight, since I have the house to myself. Stranger things have happened. Or I’ll just watch some more videos about Appalachian legend and lore. I am really enjoying these, as well as the “Dixie After Dark” podcast, which is really interesting and fun to listen to…and inspirational.
I finally got my email inbox cleared out yesterday, and I definitely like having an empty inbox. I usually fall behind on it, slowly but surely, and a trip will always make me fall behind. Now that my anxiety is (mostly) under control these days, having a full inbox no longer makes me tense and nervous. Weird, I know, but a leftover from serving on boards and getting buried in blizzards of emails. I had to stay current on my email then in order to not get so far behind I could never catch up…but that is certainly no longer the case, so it’s never that much work to empty it, to be honest, and I love that for me.
This week’s episode of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City wasn’t as good as last week’s–a very high bar to clear–but I was highly entertained for the entire episode and never got bored–you never get bored with this cast. I also have to applaud production, because it’s very clear they know what people are watching for and they camp the show up considerably, making it even more fun than just the usual women-screaming-at-each-other-over-petty -shit. I did laugh multiple times, and it took me out of the our present doom-scape (like the election results did; I think my favorite outcome of all was the ouster of the Moms for Liberty3 skanks from school boards everywhere, including red states, cities, and counties. Fuck off, Libs of Tiktok, now and forever. Odd that your concern for children doesn’t extend to voting for and supporting pedophiles. It’s like you don’t really care about children as anything other than political pawns, which is both reprehensible and evil.
Turns out most Americans think you’re scum, too.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.
Yes, I remember when Urban Cowboy came out and country went more mainstream. I remember a bar in Emporia even put in a mechanical bull–and no, I never did it myself. ↩︎
Also was able to use the Islamophobic posts to block and delete people from my feed. I stand for no bigotry and never want to see it on my feed. The Debra Messing meltdown was something else entirely, but I was never a fan of hers. Maybe someday I’ll critique Will and Grace.↩︎
Any group that puts “liberty” in their name actually is fascist and should be side-eyed and blocked from any electoral office. ↩︎
Work at home Friday! My windows are covered in condensation, as we are expecting rain throughout the day–the thunderstorms are this afternoon. I have some things I need to get done today, including running to the postal service, and I would love to get the apartment finally under control (probably won’t happen) once I am finished with my work. It was a good week in the office, I must say. I slept in until about seven thirty this morning, before Sparky’s need to be fed became overpowering for him and he started hitting me in the face with one of his paws. Poor thing, he has no control over being fed so I always feel a bit guilty sleeping in.
Paul was late getting home again last night, and we watched the season premiere of South Park, and oh, how we laughed. It was one of the most brutal take-downs I’ve ever seen, and not only did 47 get burned like he was Dresden in early 1945, they also went after Paramount, CBS and 60 Minutes—and every last bit of the burns was well deserved. The fact that Paramount just paid $1.5 billion for five new seasons of the show and the streaming rights for every season is just *chef’s kiss*. (Which makes the Administration’s claim “the show has been irrelevant for over twenty years” even more butt-hurt hysterical.) I’ve not watched South Park in a very long time–not sure why or when I stopped watching, but I did–and this isn’t likely to make me want to go back and catch up on all the seasons I’ve missed, but it seems their anarchical mentality for satire has never been lost over the years?
I also kind of love that apparently the show has irritated liberals over the past decade for “punching down”, which made the Right think South Park was for them…and they just found out that it’s most definitely not. Thoughts and prayers, trash, thoughts and prayers.
No one is safe from South Park.
We’re in another heat advisory today, and things may not cool off should we actually get the rain forecast later. I am most likely going to spend as much of the weekend indoors to escape the brutality of the dog days. The new Entergy bill wasn’t as horrific as I thought it might be; it’s still ridiculously high, but not so high that paying it will be a struggle. The bill that will be due in September will be horrible, as well, but then it will start coming down for fall and winter. However did people live down here without air conditioning is a question I ask myself almost every day in the summer–but if you’ve never had it, you don’t miss it, and you adapt to the climate.
There have been a lot of celebrity deaths lately. Ozzy Osbourne, Malcolm Jamal-Warner, and Chuck Mangione all died this past week. Hulk Hogan also died, but that one didn’t hit me with a slight pang of oh that’s a shame; hearing of his death was another one of those good riddance to racist homophobic MAGA trash. I used to be a fan of Hulk Hogan, back in the days when it was the WWF and they did all those crossovers with MTV, which was a lot of fun to follow…but Hogan began wearing thin on me in the 1990s, and by the time we found out he was a bigot (and MAGA), I’d long since been done with him; that information only served to let me know I was right to think he was a garbage person. He did a lot for professional wrestling back in the day, but that didn’t mean he was good at actual wrestling. He had a large personality and knew how to work a crowd, but in the ring he didn’t really have much of a repertoire; he had very limited skills and clearly no desire to learn more…he was just a big man. (Ultimate Warrior was also a shitty wrestler with a huge body.)
Have fun in hell, Hulk.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check back in with you again tomorrow.
TRIGGER WARNING: Racism, homophobia, and archaic racist terms.
I learned long ago that the best way to deal with assholes was to develop a razor-sharp quick wit. I don’t know how I trained myself to be snarky and fast with my sense of humor, but at some point in my teens—in college, I think—I realized that not being filtered, and not being able to recognize most social cues, could actually prove to be a powerful defensive tool, if controlled. It has worked marvelously for me ever since. I also learned that a really good thing to do was say things to people I disliked that could be taken as either a compliment or shade, leaving it up to them to decide what I meant.
A few years ago, I had an experience at Left Coast Crime in Albuquerque where my usual biting sense of humor deserted me when I really needed it the most. I’ve grown used to dealing with homophobes and contemptuously cutting them off at the knees; I even relish doing it at times. But this? I’d never dealt with this kind of bigotry before, and my only excuse is that I was caught completely off-guard. I’ve also turned what happened over and over again in my mind in the time since, wondering how I should feel about it. It still hasn’t finished processing yet, and I’ll probably keep processing it for a few more years.
This was my first (and so far, only) time attending Left Coast Crime (unrelated; I want to go again but it just hasn’t worked out). I had always heard wonderful things about it, but the timing was always difficult for me to actually attend; all too frequently it is around the time of the Festivals here. I’d come home to the locks changed, methinks, were I to go away at that time.
At the time, I was still serving as Executive Vice-President of Mystery Writers of America. It was 2021, we hadn’t had any kind of crime publishing events since March 2020, and the events were just starting to slowly to come back. MWA had signed on to sponsor the Lefty banquet, and I felt someone should be there to rep the org at the event, and it wound up being me. I felt a bit uncomfortableabout registering and agreeing to do panels; we were a sponsor, and I didn’t want Programming to feel pressured to give me anything because of that (I tried very hard not to use the position to promote myself; I may have been a bit over-zealous on that score, but better safe than sorry). I arrived in Albuquerque on Thursday, had a quiet dinner with a friend, and the next day I went to panels, ran into people, and had a lovely time. I also had dinner plans for Friday that I was excited about–I was having dinner with Marco Carocari, whom I had just met at Saints and Sinners; John Copenhaver, whom I was starting to get to know better; Oline Cogdill, a dear friend of well over a decade; Mia Manansala, whom I met at New Orleans Bouchercon before she was published and I’ve always felt a bit protective of her (my neuroses, not hers) and someone new to me–Wanda Morris, whom I had neither read nor met before.1
Constant Reader, that was such a fun dinner, the kind I always dreamed of being a part of when I was that lonely kid in Kansas wondering what his future would be. We talked about books, writing, gossip, and I believe everyone, other than Oline and I, was up for a Lefty. We toasted their nominations, and when we headed back to the hotel I felt marvelous; giddy almost. I was having a good time and was excited to be around writers again, and I wanted it to keep going. I didn’t want the evening to end…
Little did I know what I was in for as we walked back into the hotel lobby, and we three gays decided to go have a drink at the bar, while the women wisely all went up to bed.
It started with a chair.
So innocuous, so nothing, just a little thing that happens in hotel bars all the time; you join a table without enough chairs so you grab a free one from the next table…but this time? Very different.
Basically, we had decided to join friends at a high-top table with room for eight, with all the chairs already taken and some others pulled up. There was a tall bar chair standing at the next table–a low table, so it didn’t really belong there in the first place–and several people were sitting around that table. I smiled, said, “is anyone using this?” and one of the three people shook their head no, so I took the chair…which bothered the woman who was sitting closest to me and who decided, in her inebriation, that I shouldn’t have the chair.
DRUNK WHITE WOMAN (Henceforth, DWW): You can’t take that chair because you have to sit here and talk to me.
I’d never seen her before in my life, but I’ve also been drunk in public before, so I just smiled as I sat down at the other table, and said politely, with no idea of what I was letting myself in for: “Can’t you talk to me if I sit here?”
DWW: Great!
I nodded to her, hoping that was the end of the interaction. I’d had two drinks at dinner, but wasn’t even slightly buzzed. I had a glass of Pinot Grigio in my clutches, I’d had a marvelous evening already, and I was looking forward to catching up with the others at the table. I started to turn back to the table to talk to my friends, when…she leaned towards me, narrowing her eyes, and saying, in a very low tone, “Are you a mulatto?”2
Needless to say, I was taken aback–not by the assumption, but the language.
I literally thought, are we really still using that word in this year of our Lord 2022?
I didn’t know what to say, I was so stunned and shocked that my ability to lobby back an icy, conversation ending retort, something of which I was so so proud, had deserted me. I just smiled and said, “no,” which she countered with a scoff, “Well, you’re at least a quadroon.3“
And rubbed each side of her nose with an index finger, adding with a knowing smirk, “Especially with that nose.”
I said, rather sharply, “I know who all my grandparents were, so no.”
Again, it wasn’t the racial profiling that bothered me, but it was the entitlement and the language she was using.
First and foremost, my racial heritage–anyone’s, really–is no one’s business.
She was being racist to me, but even as I floundered, I couldn’t figure out why I was so flustered and having trouble figuring out what to say next. It didn’t bother me in the least that she thought I was part Black (more on that later), but she was using racist language to inquire, which I was offendedby, and I was more than a little insulted by her condescending assumption that I’d lie about it? And again, what business was it of hers if I was or wasn’t? (I’m still not sure how to wrap my mind around this; two years later I am blogging about it in order to process it in my brain.)
DWW: (waving her hand, poo-pooing me) Oh, everyone’s mixed there.
Hoping this ordeal was over and still in shock, I turned back to my friends…only to hear her voice loudly asking me, “Are you gay?” I confirmed that yes, I was–and then she went on a long, incredibly tiresome (and repetitive) monologue about how she’s always been good with the “L and the G and the B and the T”, tried bonding with me over hot male asses (in horrific terms: think locker room talk), and just kept on until finally I was able to finally excuse myself. I got up and left my friends, never to return. Definitely made me uncomfortable, so yeah, it also counts as sexual harassment–what I do or don’t do in my bedroom, DWW, is none of your fucking business.
I still can’t believe that happened, that someone felt comfortable using that kind of language to, and about, me about my racial heritage (when I was a child in the 1960’s I knew you don’t use those words, and they usually only appeared in old racist books, like Gone with the Wind), not to mention trying to get into my bedroom and what I do there. It’s not okay for anyone to use those horrible, archaic old terms that were humiliating and degrading even when they were in common use…and I also felt like I’d failed. I should have stopped her, I should have called her out for using racist and homophobic language, not to mention the fact that she felt, in her drunken stupor, perfectly okay to treat me not as a person but as a thing.
That is the real shame I feel. Not that she used such language to me, but I allowed it. I have to do better than that. My silence was complicity.
And yes, I should have filed a complaint with the conference. I’m still ashamed that I didn’t correct her or say anything before I made my escape. But I sensed it also wouldn’t do any good. Alcohol brings your barriers down, after all.
It also wasn’t the first time this has happened–but at least the first time, it wasn’t so offensive.
This, for an illustration, was my second author photo.
Taken by Sylvester Q, a photographer in New York, he also loaned me the shirt and some other clothes for the shoot. It was my first professional author photo shoot, and this was the best image, in my opinion, to come out of the session. I used it for Jackson Square Jazz (when I got the book down to reread it for the new edit for the 20-year anniversary edition, I noticed the picture) and for several other books. I don’t remember which image I used to replace this one–I think it’s the black and white one of me sitting and hugging my knees–but I am very well aware that I need new author photos. The one I just referenced was taken in either 2008 or 2009; the one of me with my stack of books is from around 2013 or 2014 (and yes, old age has hit me very hard since those last ones were taken). I did a shoot at Sleuthfest with Morgan Sophia in the summer of 2022; the pictures look like me but I don’t like the way I look in them, so I’ve not really used them.
Anyway, this was the image I provided to the Louisiana Book Festival when I was on a New Orleans Noir panel for their program in 2007 (I think). I don’t remember everyone else that was on it, other than editor/moderator Julie Smith and the person I am about to mention.
I was a little taken aback when said contributor sat down next to me, and exclaimed after we were officially introduced, “But I thought you were Black!”
She’d only seen my photograph in the program.
I was more amused than anything else, and perplexed. But when I looked at my image in the program later, it had printed even darker than the image above, which was already pretty dark. I think it had to do with how the shot was lit more than anything else. It was kind of funny, and it became a story that I told sometimes over drinks.
That wasn’t the first time my genetic heritage has been questioned by someone.
White people have this strange curiosity thing about people’s backgrounds, always trying to figure out where you’re from. “Are you German?” “Are you Italian?” That sort of thing. I will comment on a name–“oh, is that French/Spanish/German etc.”–but I would never ask anyone what are you?
I’d never really thought about it before the LCC incident, but people have very often wondered–and asked–what I am.
And in all honesty, I’ve never liked being asked, mainly because I wasn’t entirely sure.
I guess I am what is I’ve sometimes seen referred to as “ethnically ambiguous5“; in other words, had I been a movie star in Hollywood back in the golden age I probably would have been cast in roles that today would be considered offensive for me to play. People have often–again, this weird thing white people have about trying to figure out “what” I am–taken me for everything from Greek to Italian to indigenous to Syrian to Persian to Latino. I’ve never given it much thought, and I don’t really see it. My skin tone is what is called olive, and I’ve always tanned easily, a very dark brown with some red mixed into it (I’ve only been sunburned twice in my life). My facial features are a curious mix of my family; I look like both my parents, and my nose was broken in high school, with the cartilage never reattaching to the bone. I also shave my head, which apparently adds to the confusion.
Almost all of the ancestors (that I’m aware of, but I only know my father’s side, and there’s not anyone left on Mom’s side who’d know more) were British (Scots, Irish, English and possibly some Welsh) but white people have this weird need to classify people. I don’t know if it’s an American thing, or what, but it happens. Not so much anymore as it used to–maybe people are finally starting to realize that it’s offensive or that it doesn’t matter or some combination of the two.
But still. Basically, the woman in Albuquerque othered me. She looked at me and was confused, so she just had to find out what I was.
What I am. “What ARE you?”
And for the record, what happened to me at Left Coast is the kind of horrifically racist and offensive behavior that racialized people have to deal with multiple times every damned day. In some ways I’m glad it happened; that I got to experience racism targeted directly at me, but at the same time…it shouldn’t happen. To anyone, regardless of who they are or how they identify. It also made me very aware of my own privilege, which is something I do need a reminder about periodically; I get so wrapped up in being marginalized as a gay man that I forget how horrible it is to be a person of color in this racialized country and society and culture.
And ultimately, white people? It’s really none of your fucking business in the first place!
And would people have considered me white in the antebellum South? is a question we might have to revisit at another time.
Part of the struggle in writing this all down and sharing it with you, Constant Reader, comes from not wanting to make myself seem like either a martyr or center the conversation about racist bigotry on me. Unsettling as this all was–the privilege on display, the language used, the shame in not putting her in her place–it was momentary, something that didn’t impact or effect my life in any way; another anecdote for cocktail parties or dinner conversation. The sexual harassment aspect of it, had that been all there was (oh yes, during the ass conversation she also talked about mine), would have merely been something I would have laughed about with friends later, but the racial component was horrible. All I could think about was, really, how lucky she was that I wasn’t biracial.
Which makes me squirm more for not reporting it to the conference–what if she does this to authors or readers of color at one of these events? Was I coward for not only not stopping her but not reporting her? It’s been two years now, and I still am not entirely sure what I think or feel about this, which is very unusual for me; it’s very rare that I am unsettled this way.
But putting it all down has helped somewhat. I probably should have written this years ago.
I did buy her book that weekend, and once I read it became a fan. ↩︎
If you aren’t aware of this word, it’s an old, ugly, and pejorative term used for biracial people during the human trafficking era and the Jim Crow time that came after it. I’ve not heard anyone say the word aloud in at least fifty or so years. AT LEAST. If you want to understand just how offensive it is, it’s root word is mule–the product of interspecies breeding. Go fuck yourself, you horrible racist. ↩︎
Again an archaic deeply problematic word that actually comes from antebellum New Orleans, indicating how much Black blood someone had. These were the days of the “one drop” rule, which meant any Black ancestry, no matter how remote, made you Black in the eyes of the state and the law. Quadroon means one quarter, so the person had a single Black grandparent, the “roon” comes from “maroon”, which is another old and archaic racist term for Black people. Despicable, really. ↩︎
Credit where it’s due, she was using racist language that originated in New Orleans. ↩︎
Wednesday pay-the-bills day, and I don’t feel terrible this morning. I slept decently, although I am not sleeping all the way through the night anymore, which doesn’t please me, although I am not tired nor is it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. And usually about halfway through my first cup of coffee any and all fog is lifted. Yesterday was a decent day, really. I didn’t get a lot of writing done, but I did write some. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to write anything these days, but here’s hoping that changes really soon. I swung by the post office last night and PT to pay my bill, then was going to buy gas at the Shell on Magazine and Jackson, but the pump’s card reader wasn’t working, so I got back in the car and left, more than slightly irritated. I mean, why would you not repair the convenient way for people to purchase from you?
I did some chores when I got home around writing and being excited because my new shoes arrived! I got a pair of solid black Oxfords, and another pair of black-and-white Oxfords, only in the saddle shoe style, which I love. I am going to wear them to work today–the black-and-white ones, I mean. Oxfords are incredibly comfortable, and are my favorite shoes besides slippers and sneakers (we always called them ‘gym shoes’ when I was a kid, because that was what they were; you wore them for gym). I am going to wear the black-and-white ones to work today to break them in for Saints and Sinners.
I guess it isn’t entirely true that I didn’t write much yesterday. For a few weeks or so now I’ve been trying to write a blog entry about the Incident from Left Coast Crime in 2021. I finally got an entire first draft done, had a friend read it for potentially offensive language or attitudes–it’s about racism and homophobia I personally experienced, and if you’re going huh how did he experience racism when he’s white–well, it makes for an interesting and rather eye-opening story about white privilege and straight privilege and why it’s so important for conferences–of any kind, really–needs to do some work about making their event a safe space for everyone attending. I didn’t report the incident to the conference because it really wasn’t their fault, and Stan and Lucinda are lovely people, which is yet another reason I’ve been hesitant about writing about it. I’m pretty much finished with it now, I am just going to reread it one more time before taking it to the public. It was such a weird thing, and I’ve still not fully processed it yet.
But then again, weird things always seem to happen to me, don’t they?
So much so that I am never sure if something is weird or normal. It’s not fun.
As April slowly closes in and March continues to slip through my fingers, I am still not terribly panicked about deadlines and so forth, which is odd for me. I do need to get back to the writing grindstone sooner rather than later, and I wish I could get it out of my head that I need to finish this short story before looking seriously into finishing the book (I came up with probably the funniest drag queen name ever for one of the pageant contestants–Trudy Tradwife).
But it’s about time for me to head into the spice mines, so have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later.
My blog has gotten a little more feisty than it’s been in quite some time. I’ve talked before about how I toned myself down a bit on here–I have no desire to argue with anyone about my opinions, thank you very much–but I’ve also started speaking out again against insanity and cruelty and stupidity. Despite the loss of the anxiety, I still get angry about cruelty and injustice. I also tend to not talk about things where my opinion isn’t perhaps as educated as others’; I defer. I also don’t want to ever speak for another marginalized communit1y other than my own–and I always make it clear I only speak for myself. I am not a tastemaker or an influencer or anything like that, not am I some great authority on anything other than my own experience, education, and feelings–and sometimes I even question that. I’ve also recently realized how I am not nearly as self-aware as I have always smugly told myself I am; in fact I am capable of self-delusion to an almost pathological extent. But as long as I continue to learn and grow, and don’t dismiss anything out of hand because something isn’t my experience. I do think I am different from most in that I listen to new perspectives and don’t reflexively react negatively to changes in culture and society. It gets frustrating for me when people are obtuse about queer issues and often refuse to listen (there’s nothing quite like being straight-splained about queer experience); so I always want to be open to anything that isn’t bigotry or prejudice (I will never be open to either of those). My trans friends have been an incredible exercise in educating myself and understanding and above all else, compassion…and so have my racialized friends (I saw a Black woman use that term on social media instead of non-white or people of color; I kind of like it because it’s true. White people invented the construct of race identity and racism to begin with, so using racialized seems appropriate to me).
I hate that I’ve basically had to spend most of my adult reeducating myself, but at least I never get tired of learning. Society and the culture have gotten a lot better about a lot of things, but we still have a long way to go.
I finally appealed an egregious medical decision by the most evil of insurers, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, and faxed the form along with my letter of complaint (about multiple issues since they have taken over insuring me the first of this year) and all the necessary documentation–the entire thing wound up being fifteen pages and OOPS, I may have sent it to them twice. They were a shit company when I was saddled with them because of preexisting conditions before the Affordable Care Act; I couldn’t switch insurers fast enough once that became law, and now I am stuck with them again–and they are just as shitty as they were before (which I pointed out again in my letter, along with all the violations of the Affordable Care Act they’ve committed with just ME alone; God only knows what an audit would show). Y’all fucked with the wrong faggot, and if this isn’t resolved, I will not rest until they’ve all been fired.
Obviously, they’ve clearly never met me.
I slept better last night than I have all week so far, which is definitely weird. We’re in a dense fog advisory with potential rain today, but it’s bright and sunny and the sky is clear and beautifully blue this morning. I ain’t gonna lie, much as I love rain, I don’t like being out in it. I love rainy days on the weekend, when you can just snuggle up under a blanket and get some reading done. I’m starting to get better organized with everything, and my life is slowly starting to come back to what it was before the surgery. I’ve also realized that I’ve been in a kind of transitional malaise, the way I feel only after I’ve finished a book and need to get started writing another one. I also am coming out of the malaise, I believe. Both days this week so far had been a bit off, and today I feel…more normal than I did the last two days. I don’t know what that will translate into in regards to writing, but I am hoping to climb back up on that horse this week, maybe even tonight when I get home. The apartment is looking better still, doesn’t need a lot of straightening, but there are some incomplete chores that I do need to finish before the weekend, preferably tonight–but that will depend on how I feel when I get home–how I survive another day at the office.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, all, and I will probably check in again later.
Ballet boys (ballerinos) have unbelievable bodies. I’ve always wanted to write a gay noir set in a ballet company…I mean, look at that effortless perfect split!
I will never forget–or forgive–the straight white bitch who responded to a tweet I made about Marianne Williamson’s horrific lies about HIV/AIDS in the 1990s who told me to “be quiet and listen to Marianne’s beautiful message”. I doubt that bitch will ever tell a gay man to shut up about HIV/AIDS again. ↩︎
When I was a kid, I lived for the Scholastic Book Fairs. There were always more books I wanted than I can afford (still a problem for me with books to this very day), and it was through them that I discovered my love for mysteries as well as deepened my love of history. I bought anything that was history or mystery; very rarely did a book combine both.
This is part of the reason I was so appalled and disgusted by Scholastic’s cowardly abandonment of its commitment to education and diversity by giving book fairs the options to opt out of carrying books–you know, the ones that teach kids empathy for people who are different from them or show kids that they aren’t alone or books they can see themselves in–because they might upset some bigoted parents in Brotherfuck, Arkansas or Sisterfuck, Tennessee.
When I think about what a difference a book like Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden or Trying Hard to Hear You by Sandra Scoppetone or Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez would have made for young Gregalicious, this Scholastic decision makes me shake with rage. (I have pointed out any number of times that Scholastic also publishes the Bitch-Queen of TERFs, so their cowardice is really no surprise. Can’t piss off their massive cash cow, now can they?)
I was thinking about this as I read Angel Luis Colón’s book, Infested, because it would probably be one of the books shoved into that Diverse Books To Not Be Included box Scholastic uses to warn schools about “subversive” and “dangerous” books. The book, by the way, is not only is superb but something any kid who enjoys horror would love.
However, it centers a main character who is a teenager of Puerto Rican descent, and while it never disparages white people…it doesn’t center them, so I can easily some Daughter of the Confederacy getting her panties into a nasty twist over her precious child reading something that doesn’t uphold White Supremacy. How dare young Hispanic readers have an option to read about a Hispanic teenager’s hero’s journey?
The NERVE of MTV Fear to publish such a book!
I can’t remember a time I hated my mother and my stepfather more than the summer before my senior year.
And it wasn’t the normal kind of Oh man, these people don’t understand me bad Disney movie kind of throwback hate. This was mortal-enemy-level hate. It was deep and pitch-black and enough to make me nearly consider getting into death metal.
While I knew I’d change my mind as the emotions scarred over, the laundry list of offenses was too much to bear.
Let me start by saying how much I really enjoyed this book. The main character, Manny, is very realistic and both relatable and likable. The pacing is excellent, and it builds beautifully to its thrilling climax and resolution. The stakes are high but grounded in reality, and the authorial voice is so strong and memorable that I was sorry to finish and bid Manny and his friends and family farewell.
I was also a little amused because the original opening line of Bury Me in Shadows–back when it was called Ruins still–was My mother ruined my life the summer before my senior year.
Obviously, that changed–a lot changed as Ruins morphed into Bury Me in Shadows–but great minds, right? I’ve admired Angel’s work for a very long time–I really need to go back and finish his backlist–and so was excited to see what he could do with a young adult horror thriller.
Great things, it turns out.
The story focuses on the first person perspective of Manny, a seventeen-year-old with a baby half-sister whose stepfather has taken a job in the Bronx managing an apartment building that’s about to open. Manny doesn’t want to leave San Antonio, but it’s more resentment that he wasn’t consulted (no one wants to change schools before their senior year; I can relate because I changed high schools after my sophomore year) rather than anything else. He doesn’t really have a lot of friends back there, but it was home and familiar to him. He also struggles with identity issues; he’s Puerto Rican, but a blanquito–someone who is Hispanic but white (which could lead into all kinds of sidebar conversation which would be inappropriate for now)–and he doesn’t really speak much Spanish anymore; he did when younger but is losing it as he gets older, which is also concerning to him. He’s angry about the move–they didn’t discuss anything with him, just told him it was happening, and he really didn’t want to leave San Antonio–but once he’s in the Bronx, he begins to see that it’s really not a bad thing to have moved there. There’s a variety of Hispanic/Latinx cultures there he can learn about, and he likes that. There’s also other issues touched on here–gentrification being a major one, and as there are no easy answers to that question in real life, one isn’t provided here but both sides of the issue are addressed and Manny sees the good and bad in both.
But the building has a roach problem–and it’s not just your usual roach problem, either. Something very strange is going on in that building, and Manny isn’t entirely sure if these things are really happening, or if he is losing his mind. If you’re like me and hate insects of all shapes, sizes and varieties, your skin will crawl repeatedly throughout this book. It’s up to Manny and his new friend Sasha to figure out the truth about what is really going on in the building, and as I said, it’s terrific and fast-paced and very hard to stop reading once the story starts going great guns.
Highly recommended–unless you’re truly squeamish and triggered by insects. Colón made my skin crawl–no small feat!
Work-at-home Friday! Woo-hoo! It’s almost the weekend! I felt funky yesterday; more than just my usual end-of-the-getting-up-at-six-every-day tireds. My stomach started bothering me on Wednesday night, and I chose to eat breakfast and lunch yesterday with soft foods–yogurt, cereal, mozzarella salad–as I had the day before and that didn’t seem to be much help, as my stomach ached all afternoon. This continued throughout the evening, and I also was terribly tired when I left the office. I felt so bad–the combination of the exhaustion and the stomach issue–that I did something I never do; I laid down on the couch. I floated for about three hours in the in-between sleep and awake state of consciousness, which was where I was when Paul came home. I ate a little bit and felt better, but it’s still odd. I think it’s not eating enough, maybe? This was how I felt on Sunday after getting home from the trip–so I must eat solids and more regularly. My bad eating habits catching up to me at long last, and I really need to focus on eating regularly and more healthy. (I lost twelve pounds in Kentucky.) It’s also achy and sore this morning, too, but not nearly as bad as it was yesterday. I’ll try to eat more today than I have the last few days.
I have some errands to run after work-at-home duties are completed today, which will probably suck the life right out of me. Running errands in New Orleans in the summertime is always a draining chore, but if I can get all of that done today I won’t have to leave the house at all until Monday morning when I go back to work. It doesn’t look too bad out there this morning, but a quick check of my phone tells me it’s 82, which is practically a cold spell for July down here.
We finished watching Red Rose last night, and what a ride that was. Intense suspense, wild out of nowhere plot twists, and all the young British actors were very appealing and good in their roles. I do recommend it; it’s a new trope for horror (maybe it’s already tired, I don’t know, but it’s my first experience of it) by using apps and your phone to terrorize you. It was also a terrifying commentary on how careless we all can be about our online security. Now, of course we have to start watching something new–often a challenge to decide–
I kept waking up a lot last night–pretty much every hour on the hour–and of course, was wide awake at six. I fed and watered Scooter, since he expects it at that time every day now, and went back to bed for a little while longer. I don’t know whether iI actually slept any more, but I don’t feel spacy-tired or loopy-tired this morning, so that’s something, I suppose. Hopefully it will turn out to be a most productive day for me. I do have laundry and lots of dishes and cleaning and straightening up around here to get done, too.
I joined Threads, the new Instagram version of Twitter, last night and I have to say, I like it so far. It was nice that your followers and who you follow from Instagram transferred over, and if any of those folks aren’t there, it will automatically follow them when they join and if they follow me, it will follow them automatically, too. That was kind of cool, and it was also kind of cool to go onto social media and not have bigotry and hatred shoved into my face every time I turn around. It also made me think about something else–Pride is more than just June, and why should I only write about my experiences as a gay male and as a gay male writer during that month? Firing off snarky tweets in response to bigotry is a nice little dopamine rush, but I also feel like I’m not doing enough to counter the rise of the Fascists; what better way for a writer to do that than write about it? There is an element of “preaching to the choir” to blogging about homophobia and bigotry, but if it changes one mind…then it was all worth it, was it not? I know there are people who think of me as one of the “good ones”–if you don’t know what that means, congratulations on your privilege–because I am, in person, usually very conciliatory and understanding (conflict-averse, and a trained counselor, remember) and because I generally don’t go on my old Julia Sugarbaker rants much anymore, if at all. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have them in my head anymore; barely a day passes without me seeing something, either on social media or in the news or both, that raises my blood pressure and makes me want to strangle someone. So, I am going to try to channel that anger and rage into something productive; blog posts. I don’t worry about offending potential readers of my books because all anyone ever has to do is look at my social media or even this blog to get a sense of my politics. I probably should have developed a public persona who is just charming and funny and apolitical, but that really just opens you up to more homophobia when you’re a gay man.
I can never decide if its worse for someone to be homophobic to me because it is so ingrained in them that they don’t ever realize it, or if it’s deliberate. I guess it depends on how you call out the homophobia and how they react to it. I do, however, generally always default to “doesn’t know any better” and correct them; I also don’t ever say someone is a homophobe unless I am 100% certain it was deliberate. I just say, “that’s a homophobic thing to say” or “that’s a homophobic comment” rather than saying “you’re a homophobe”–but if you continue to not do better, well, then you’re a homophobe. The thing that I never understand is how people react to things they don’t understand automatically with dislike bordering on hatred; it’s actually okay to not understand. I don’t completely understand every experience in the world, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be sympathetic, empathetic, and respectful. One of the wonderful side effects of my day job is that training and experience as a counselor, and recognizing that experiences should be met with respect and sympathy and empathy instead of judgment. Who am I to judge anyone? The only people I don’t respect and I will judge are racists, sexists, homophobes or transphobes; anyone who uses lies, deceptions, and stereotypes to categorize any one group as lesser and less worthy. I will judge you for judging others–and I will judge very harshly.
This weekend will be about tying up loose odds and ends, working on my page proofs, and trying to straighten up around here. I want to prune the books some more, and maybe even take another box down from the attic to go through. I also want to look through that box of clippings and other Greg memorabilia from my past career to see what can be kept, what can be scanned, and what can be tossed. I really want to get that attic cleaned out this year.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you later.
I drove back this morning from Kentucky. The drive isn’t hideous (other than the hell that Chattanooga always is, either direction, no matter the time of day or day of the week or time of the year); it’s actually quite a lovely drive. The mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee are stunningly beautiful. There’s a brief jog into Georgia’s northwest mountains before I connect to I-59 south and cross the Alabama state line, returning to the central time zone at the same instant (being on Eastern time seriously fucks with my body clock, and it’s getting worse). Alabama is–well, Alabama is beautiful. I will always feel that tug and tie to the state of my birth, where my people are from, where my mother and ancestors are buried. It isn’t easy sometimes to love the land of my birth; it’s complicated, as so many things that don’t need to be actually are. I think I am probably going to write about Alabama again, because I find myself wrestling with that complicated, sometimes agonizing tie, trying to understand and unravel and perhaps finally find some kind of peace rather than just mournful acceptance.
It also always interests me how little traffic there is through Mississippi. Maybe a bit in Meridian, but nothing more than a slight irritation, ever. Once I pass Meridian, I am in the home stretch and start to get antsy, anxious and tired and ready to just be home. I start watching the mileage markers alongside the highway; and I always feel a bit of a little thrill the first time the milage to New Orleans is on a sign; that means soon and the countdown is in its final stages. It always surprises me a little how quickly I can get home once I reach Slidell, though I start getting antsy to get through Bayou Sauvage and start relaxing again because I am almost to the East and then the high rise; and when I reach the top of that I see the CBD and the Superdome and I release a lot of tension I didn’t even realize I was holding in my shoulders. It’s always lovely to come home–even if getting out of the car in front of the house was oppressive. My God, it was lovely in Kentucky; I’d forgotten what a heat advisory in New Orleans feels like–which always makes me laugh: how can I always forget? For fuck’s sake, I write about it all the fucking time.
It was an interesting week. I don’t think I’ve had an entire week off from work since we went to Italy (willing to freely admit that might be incorrect; my memory banks are currently fried and I am beginning to suspect they aren’t going to repair themselves). It was incredibly hot in Alabama, Lord, was it hot in Alabama. But…I also don’t spend a lot of time outside in the summer in New Orleans, to be fair, and I spent a lot of time outdoors whilst in Alabama. Monday was Mom and Dad’s anniversary, so that’s why I took the trip. I met Dad in Jasper, where we stayed, on Sunday; we went to the grave on Monday and drove around the county, visiting other graves of ancestors. We also went to the county courthouse at 2:00, which was when they were married…and then we departed for Kentucky. There was a horrific thunderstorm Sunday night in Jasper; there was an even worse one in Kentucky–a derecho–and so a lot of trees and tree limbs came down, and of course my parents’ house had lost power on Sunday night, and it hadn’t been restored by the time we got there on Monday night. It came back on Tuesday night, but my sense of days and dates and so forth was already screwed up by then, and I’d lost track of everything. I spent a lot of time with Dad, which was great and I am very happy I was able to do this with him so he didn’t have to do it alone; and it was great spending time with him up north.
I got my love of history from my dad, which is something I am forever grateful for, and so of course we talked a lot about history, not just the family stuff but the county and Alabama in general. I read a couple of history books while I was up there–more on those later–and Dad gave me some terrific ones about Alabama, which of course started triggering my fallow creativity. I did a lot of creative thinking while I was up there, and of course, as I said, I was also wrestling with my complicated heritage and complicated feelings about it. I may not agree with many of my father’s takes on history–particularly US History and the Civil War–but I enjoy listening respectfully to his (wrong) opinions, and of course, it got me to thinking about my complicated heritage and how I feel about it, which naturally made me want to write some more about it. I have an idea germinating, but I am going to do some more research and reading before I even start spitballing ideas (and titles) for the next Alabama book.
Talking to my dad about my mother and the rest of the family also made me realize some things about myself. Mom hated conflict and avoided it at all costs and she also suffered from anxiety. I hate conflict and avoid it at (almost) all costs, and I also suffer from crippling anxiety sometimes; I am always anxious, but sometimes…it’s horrible, really. The Xanax helps somewhat, but not always. I even have anxiety about having anxiety. So of course, the perfect job for someone with anxiety is being a writer, which is almost non-stop anxiety triggers.
I listened to Carol Goodman’s The Widow’s House on the way up, and her The Seduction of Water on the way back. I haven’t finished the second–about an hour or so left–which I will probably finish listening to while I do chores. There will, of course, be more on them later. I also missed the second game of the College World Series final on my way up to Jasper, and you can imagine my horror, Constant Reader, to see that after winning the first game against Florida, my Tigers got spanked in the second 24-4. This would ordinarily have made me a bit tense about the final, winner takes all game; but was also delighted to arrive in Kentucky to see that LSU pounded Florida 18-4 to bring home LSU’s seventh national championship on baseball (GEAUX TIGERS!!!).
I started writing this last night, hoping to post it before I went to bed, but I just got overwhelmingly exhausted, so I went to bed…and was unable to fall asleep. Yay. SO I finally got tired of just laying there and got up and finished this, am doing some laundry, and have a load of dishes soaking in soapy water in the sink. I have a lot of errands to do today (well, it may only be 4:53 am, but it is Sunday), chores around the house, and so I figured I should get up and get going on the day rather than just staying in bed, hoping to get a nap or something before sunrise. Yet here I am. Sigh. But I only have to get through Monday at the office (and run errands on the way home) and then have the 4th off. It’s going to be a very somber 4th for me this year, as the Supreme Court decided, in their bigoted bought and paid for opinion, that I am a second class citizen that “Christians” can essentially spit on.
How fucking Christ-like. There will be more on that later, as well.
And on that note, I am going to go fold some clothes and get some things done. I’ll be back later, no doubt.
And now Saturday comes sliding into my life like a long-lost friend. Hello, Saturday! So glad to see you back and in such good spirits! Yay for Saturday!
Yesterday was an odd one. I did my work-at-home stuff, whilst doing picking up and random acts of cleaning and organizing whenever I needed to get up from the computer. We also went to Costco–it was crowded, but I am always amazed at how swift, polite, and efficient their employees are–got the mail and picked up a prescription. Today is the Crescent City Classic 10k, and I don’t know what streets are open or closed, so today is going to be my “don’t leave the house” day and I will make groceries tomorrow. There’s more of that to do around here today as well; but at least the laundry is caught up and it should be somewhat easier to organize, clean and file after the work I did yesterday. We finished watching Unstable on Netflix, the show starring Rob Lowe and his son John Owen Lowe, who I think created the show and may be the showrunner? It’s gotten some terrible reviews (I just looked because I couldn’t remember if it was Owen John or John Owen) but we liked it. It’s not anything serious–it’s just a workplace comedy with the added dynamic of father/son–but it has its funny moments and the cast is likable (I kept thinking, how does Rob Lowe still look so fucking amazing? And how is he still so likable?); it was a pleasant entertainment that didn’t aspire to be anything more than that.
Today I imagine Paul will be out all afternoon–trainer and then he likes to ride the bike for an hour or so after–so I will be home alone today, which is good. I want to start reading Scorched Grace–I don’t know why I have had so much trouble lately picking up a book and reading–and I also have to start the revision of Mississippi River Mischief this weekend, primarily by reading it again and seeing just how bad it is. (I suspect it’s pretty bad, actually) But it’s okay, as long as I remained focused I’ll be okay. I managed to get all of my day job work caught up yesterday (yay!), so my primary get caught up thing is this Scotty manuscript, which I think I can get finished by the end of the month if I’m lucky. I also have to work on my taxes at some point this weekend (ugh; that may be a job for tomorrow morning before I make groceries…yes, that actually makes the most sense) and ugh ugh ugh. (I also got caught up on Real Housewives Ultimate Girls’ Trip, which…the less said the better.)
Wow, my coffee is really tasting good this morning.
I slept really well last night (woke up at six yet again though) and feel marvelously rested and relaxed this morning. Scooter cuddled with me last night when I went to bed again, which was lovely (he wants attention even as I type this) and I am going to go sit in my easy chair when I finish this and read so. he can sleep in my lap (until I need to get up for more coffee). I also want to use the back roller on my back (not the same as a massage, but close enough) and stretch this morning. I think a regular daily stretching routine will do me some good–and of course, I need to use the back roller more regularly as well. Maybe even add some push-ups and crunches after a week, even. Who knows? The world is my oyster, as it were.
I made the decision to not go to Nashville Bouchercon yesterday. Tennessee is, sadly, a hate state, which they have shown abundantly this past week. They are, simply stated, Christofascists, homophobes, and racists, and I have no desire to go spend my money any place where the government thinks I am not worthy of my rights as an American citizen. Unless that dramatically changes–it won’t; there’s no one more stubborn than a Southern white supremacist who feels aggrieved–I won’t be going. I love Bouchercon, and I also know it’s not the local committee’s fault, or even the national board’s, that they picked such a backward place to have the event (and to be fair to them, when this location was picked Tennessee hadn’t gone down the path of state fascism they are having such a lovely time on now), and I also know that they can’t cancel or move it as contracts and so forth have already been signed and it would essentially be like starting over; I know it’s too late for that as well. I do feel slightly hypocritical about not going to Nashville when the event is coming to New Orleans the next year; as I have said before, our next gubernatorial election could easily set us on the same path as Florida, Texas, and Tennessee; my city always is defiant in those instances. I am sure Nashville is more progressive than their state legislature, just as New Orleans is more progressive than Louisiana’s legislature (a very low bar indeed). These kinds of things are tough, you know? From a moral and ethical standpoint, it’s not always easy to know what the right thing to do is, and as someone who is married to a conference organizer, I know how hard that job is and how so many things–like a state legislature–is beyond your control.
I have to say the recent “backlash” against Anheuser-Busch, over their relationship was a trans influencer, is fucking hilarious because the boycotters (has-beens like Kid Rock and Travis Tritt) have apparently never noticed that Anheuser-Busch has been queer-friendly and sponsoring queer events like Pride sicne at least the early 1990s, if not sooner. Even funnier are the tweets and social media posts about how “the company is about to find out how wrong they are to piss off the majority of their customers”–um, they are an international multi-billion dollar corporation who employ a lot of really smart people, and if you think they hadn’t researched and come to the conclusion that they will gain more customers by being inclusive than they will lose–and they don’t care about the ones they lose, than you’re an even bigger fool than previously thought. Anheuser-Busch, in fact, stepped up when Colorado went full-bore homophobic and the Coors family was outed for supporting homophobic legislation. This triggered a nation-wide queer-led boycott of Coors that lasted for ten years, and did the company irreparable harm. Budweiser, in fact, because the beer of choice for queers at that time, and I would be willing to be that outside of Colorado it would be incredibly difficult to find a queer bar with Coors on tap. I myself haven’t had a Coors since then, and even though the company backtracked and is fully supportive of the queer community now…I still will ask for a Bud Lite rather than a Coors Light when I’m in a bar and wanting something on tap. Major corporations who’ve been supportive and triggered a conservative backlash always chooses the queers, because most people oppose oppression and prefer fairness. How many times has the religious right come for Disney only to be soundly and humiliatingly defeated in their attempts to bring down the Mouse? (Ask Ron DeSantis how easy it is to defeat Disney.) The fact that Travis Tritt says he is going to put it in his rider that venues he plays cannot serve AB products is hilarious and going to backfire; the venues have contracts in place. The Superdome (not that Tritt would ever play there as he is incapable of filling it) has a contract with their beer supplier and they can’t just book an act and sign a one-event contract for another beer supplier so they just won’t book the act.
What’s even funnier is watching the right-wing snowflakes so butt-hurt about inclusion proudly switching to other beers…which all run Pride promotions and have gone out of their way to pursue queer dollars. Miller Lite, Coors, Michelob, Corona–good luck finding a beer that doesn’t.
Also, the Tennessee ordinance that prohibits men from performing for an audience in make-up? You do realize you just banned all theater. Even musicians–like Travis Tritt–wear stage make-up when they perform. But of course they’re never going to arrest the good ole boys, or stop a high production of Oklahoma! in its tracks (oh no! Teenagers being groomed to wear make-up!). Because the purpose of these laws is to target an already marginalized population because it makes bigots uncomfortable.
Your comfort level isn’t our fucking problem.
And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines.
Queer and Loathing in America 