Wednesday morning and the middle of the week! We’ve made it this far, Constant Reader, even though this week hasn’t quite gone the way I would have liked.
The decision to limit social media consumption isn’t going as well this week as I would have liked; I hadn’t anticipated the pull of my phone while I am at work. And getting home from work every night this week, after I finish whatever I need to do (errands and so forth) I’ve repaired to my easy chair and watched some “MAGA voter regrets” videos on Youtube before my eyes started to glaze over and I kind of zoned out for the rest of the night. I don’t like the part of me that enjoys their pain; it is not my instinct to default for sympathy for people who want to harm everyone else. You can never go wrong not having any faith in the decency of the majority of Americans, because they have no decency or shame.1
But, I am not going to be hard on myself. I am trying, at long last, to break all the programming/grooming that I don’t deserve anything or even a writing career. I am going to keep writing–make no mistake about that–and i have to figure out ways to market them and get the word out there. Going to mystery conferences was clearly a mistake; why bother pitching readers on books that are not in the booksellers’ room2? I finally got resigned to them never having my books–or only one copy–and hoped people would possibly enjoy listening to me on panels and maybe take a chance; and now I am wondering if my presence also gaslit queer writers into feeling safe at conferences? I guess that will be on my conscience till the day I die. (Ironically, the substack posts about homophobia get way more than ten times the views that my other essays get, which means one of two things, or both. I was either wrong about scaring people off by being honest about how much it sucks to be queer in this modern time, or people enjoy reading about queer pain. I don’t think I want to know which one is right, to be honest, or even consider that the two are linked.)
But what I need to do is get back to writing my books and stories; I need to put all this shit aside and focus on my work. I was able to get through the first forty-two years of my life with my sexuality and my love life against the law in every one of the fifty states (and the territories! Can’t forget those bigots either!). I lived through the Reagan administration and the George W. Bush years, both of which callously didn’t care whether we lived or died (in fairness, Reagan and his people thought AIDS was an excellent way to get rid of us). My country was willing to let us all die. Remind me again why I should be a patriot, or a conservative? All our equality movement did was make people realize if they were openly homophobic, some people they cared about would think they were bad people.
And I’ll keep writing about the bad shit, of course. It won’t change any hearts or minds, of course, but I need to get that poison (and anger) out of my system before it festers and makes me as bad a person as everyone else is. I don’t want to be a bad person. I don’t want to give into the darkness; I don’t want to feel bitter about the crime fiction community. I know I have friends, actual friends, in this community, and I do cherish them because they love and support me. But I need to stop thinking well of people who I’ve met and have been nice to me because I always forget the vast majority of people default to polite when confronted with someone/something they are revolted by. I don’t think most straight people realize what it’s like to be viewed with revulsion, like you’re some disgusting thing, some abomination. But it’s also much easier to go through life assuming people aren’t bigots until proven otherwise. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be someone we’ve racialized as a society. I kind of get it, but am still white privileged so will never understand completely; even my imagination is too limited.
The good news is a federal judge struck down Louisiana’s Ten Commandments in Every Classroom law as unconstitutional, but an immune from prosecution or consequence executive order from the White House will overrule that. And this Supreme Court already is on its back with their legs up in the air and their ass lubed, ready for some serious Constitution fucking. The Federalist Society is about to get their wishlist for the country for Christmas, isn’t that great? I, for one, look forward to not paying income taxes to educate other people’s children anymore. Wonder how my MAGA nieces and nephews are going to educate their kids, but hey–they voted for it.
I’m so tired of being ignored like Cassandra on the walls of Troy.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a great day. Constant Reader, and we will soon be returning to our regular content. I’ll go back to ignoring the slings and arrows of “allies” and enemies, like a good little gay, back in his corner–and no worries, folks. I wouldn’t go to a conference even if they asked me to be a special guest–and that is never going to happen anyway. Not as long as a straight white man has written a first novel, anyway.
- And even as this administration destroys their lives, the government-controlled media will help convince them it’s someone else’s fault, because it always is. Is anyone ever surprised about how horrible people after all the genocides? The gleeful bigotry and the embrace of hatred? ↩︎
- This is something I left out of my Substack essay yesterday about homophobic booksellers: they are also never to be criticized, no matter how bigoted and horrible they are. “They work so hard on conferences,” is always the response, “you can’t even question their bigotry.” If you want to read it, this link should take you there. ↩︎
Queer and Loathing in America 