Poppy Z. Brite's Blog, page 47

Changes

Testosterone and poverty diet are making me as lean and hard as I was at seventeen. Peanut butter, beans and lentils, rice, tuna, crawfish, collard greens, eggs, jalapeños. Cheese, beef, and pork for luxuries. Grey and I eat too much junk food -- my current favorite disgusting thing is chocolate chip whoopie pies -- but other than that it's mostly protein for me these days. There are new, dark hairs growing on the backs of my hands and wrists, which makes me happy because otherwise my arms are as downy as ever, though more muscular. My weight hasn't changed lately, but everything seems to have redistributed itself to make me more wedge-shaped than hourglass-shaped (not that I was ever exactly wasp-waisted). And my mother comments on my mustache every day. It's all endlessly fascinating to me. Whatever may happen, I'm glad I finally did this.

Everything In The World

Everything in the world seems so sad and chaotic right now that I can't seem to find useful words about any of it. I could do a litany like "We Didn't Start The Fire" -- "Alex Kaminsky, Sean Payton, Wendell Allen, cat named Satan" -- but, as you see, I'm not as good a rhymer as Billy Joel. So I'll just leave this thing that kinda sums it up for me:

The $450 Hoodie

I wonder if Geraldo thinks it makes its wearer look like a criminal.

New eBay auctions are up: hardcovers of Drawing Blood, The Value of X, The Devil You Know, and Antediluvian Tales; chapbooks R.I.P. and The Seed of Lost Souls. Thanks for looking!

Queer Spaces

A performer friend of Grey's and mine is doing a show tonight. I wanted to go when I thought it was at a gay bar, but now that it turns out to be at a rock club, I'm not nearly as enthusiastic. Our friend is a wonderful performer, but I'm just not very interested in spending time in predominantly straight spaces right now. I feel like I've been shoehorned (and shoehorned myself) into them for most of my life, and have also felt (perhaps needlessly) out of place in queer spaces. Now that I feel more comfortable in the latter, that's where I want to spend most of my social time, which I have to ration for health and financial reasons. It's nothing against straight people themselves, and I certainly don't want to abandon or avoid my straight friends; it's more that when I have the energy to go out, I want to be in what now feels like my space. I tried to explain this to my mom and it came out sounding stilted and prejudice-y. Does it make any sense?

[ETA: Trans readers will know this, but others may not: It also has to do with having to go to the bathroom. In the past two years, I have come to hate bigendered public restrooms in all venues, but at a gay bar, the worst that's likely to happen to me in the men's room is a snarky comment. At a rock club in the Warehouse District, how the hell am I supposed to know what's going to happen? I don't want to have to kill anybody.]

Realization

In some ways I feel out from under Chris' shadow now, which I suppose speaks to the size of my ego since he never minded being under mine. Or maybe he did and that was part of the whole problem, who knows. I'm waffling about whether to post this, but since I had to type the second sentence in order to realize the possibility of it, I consign it to the blog.

Lighter Note

So Grey, who happens to be a big fan of epic fantasy literature, is painting the inside of my mom's new house across the street from mine. On the way to pick him up this morning, I noticed that Hollywood had invaded my neighborhood to film some picturesque squalor (cf. Ray Bradbury, "Sun and Shadow"). On our return trip, I discussed my plans to fight my way back onto my block if necessary.

ME: I don't suppose you'd hand me the great jackknife HEARTSBANE out of the glove compartment?

GREY: ... Um. No. No, I wouldn't.

ME (pulling out industrial-weight meat tenderizer I keep in my car door pocket): No matter! I WILL PREVAIL, because I wield the great warhammer BRAINBUSTER!!!

GREY (in despairing tones): I'm so glad you started reading fantasy, honey.

St. Joseph's Night

Yesterday was rough. Chris and I never had much of an official anniversary per se. St. Joseph's Day (March 19) was always our thing. We'd visit altars in churches and private homes, sometimes as many as nine to make a novena, and gorge ourselves on wonderful food and Italian cookies and get our lucky fava beans and hear music and talk to people. Yesterday we didn't even talk to each other. We hardly ever do. I don't know if I would have gone out at all, but Joseph is the patron saint of houses and my mother is about to move into a new one, so I took her to the altar at St. Stephen's. It was very lovely, but there were a lot of people there from my old church, Our Lady of Good Counsel, some of whom I used to be very close to, and hardly any of them recognized me because I guess I look very different now, and I couldn't find the guts to identify myself to them. The party and the music swirled around me without touching me, something I used to be very much a part of, but now I'm on the outside of it. The fact that this is mostly by choice doesn't make it feel any less sad.

We did go up to the corner to see the Indians last night. St. Joseph's Night is so much more relaxed than Super Sunday. Big chiefs and second chiefs and spyboys and flagboys and tiny kids in huge feather suits, and everybody drumming. The Indians are probably my favorite part of living in Central City.

eBay auctions end this evening. Thanks for looking and bidding if you can.

Paging The Doc

Pretty sure Myspace isn't much of a thing these days, but since I made a book doctoring page there back in 2007 and was miraculously able to find it again, log in, and update it, I thought I'd post the link to give interested parties more information.

Also, I'd just like to point out that Grey and I look freaking awesome in this photo.

Book Doctoring

I'm thinking of resuming my editing/book doctoring work on a very limited scale, only one or two manuscripts at first. I don't especially like the work, but I think I'm pretty good at it -- at least two of the novels I worked on back in 2007-2008 have since been professionally published -- and the wolf is at the door. Posting this mostly to gauge interest, so please comment. Questions are welcome. If I worked with you on a manuscript and you feel like commenting, that would also be fabulous. If you don't want to post here, you can e-mail me at funkyegret (at) yahoo (dot) com with "Dr. Brite" in the subject line.

Moods

Where is the goddamn LJ mood button for "I kind of wish I were dead but have no legitimate reason for feeling that way, which makes me hate myself even more"? Alas, there is no such button, though the feeling is summed up perfectly in this comic by the great Allie Brosh.

I feel like we've failed our cats, me and Chris. They don't understand why he's gone. He shows up every once in a while, less and less often lately, which probably just confuses them. I am here most nights, but they don't like me being gone ever, and they let me know about it. I wouldn't have thought I could feel so rejected and yet pulled in so many different directions. Not just by the cats. Pulled in every direction except the one I once thought was home.

I keep thinking about the indelible link between pain and comedy. Not that I have any particular thing to say about it. I've just been thinking about it. Pain and comedy. Comedy and transformation. I don't know. Stephen King writes in Danse Macabre that fantasy writers (of every genre) tend to have the eyes of children. It occurred to me that comedians tend to have the eyes of children who are about to get punched in the face.

It also occurs to me that Stephen King is my King Charles' head, which makes me want to reread David Copperfield, which I really do not need to do when about to embark on the second book of a deeply absorbing six-volume-so-far fantasy series. And now my mind, which is a perverse monkey, wants to prattle on about A Sale of Two Titties by Darles Chickens. Which used to be one of Chris' and my favorite comedic references. Sigh.

eBay Rarities & The Bog

New eBay auctions are up. I managed to unearth some fairly rare items this week, most notably a copy of Borderlands Press' 1993 slipcased, 350-copy numbered edition of my first short story collection, Swamp Foetus. This is the last one I have left besides my personal shelf copy. There's also a lettered hardcover (FF) of Used Stories, a Plastic Jesus ARC, the chapbooks R.I.P. (my obituary for William S. Burroughs) and The Feast of St. Rosalie, and hardcover first editions of The Value of X and Antediluvian Tales. As ever, all items are signed and can be personalized if buyer desires.

Got a month's worth of testosterone today. The topical gel is ridiculously expensive, but it has worked so well for me that I'm reluctant to mess with it. Financially, I feel like I'm fighting my way through a long and murky bog, but there just might be a glimmer of sunlight coming through the trees. (Or maybe it's just the bug zapper.) Thank you so much to everyone who has bid on my auctions, bought one of my books retail, or otherwise contributed during this tough time. I get by with a little help from my friends.