We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan

by Lou Sullivan

“Great! One of our founding members, Lou Sullivan, died recently, and you can learn to be an archivist by processing his personal papers and preparing them for public use.”

LOTE connection! Archival recovery!

At age 13, Lou wrote “I wanna look like what I am but don’t know what someone like me looks like. I mean, when people look at me I want them to think—there’s one of those people…that has their own interpretation of happiness. That’s what I am.”

From birth to death, everything we've done matters.

I see in them the suggestion that we are primarily our own “interpretation of happiness” and only secondarily the “men” or “women” we were assigned to be, or the people we became.

Apartment on Uranus energy from Susan here

Lacan considered transsexuality to represent what he called a sinthome: a uniquely personal, idiosyncratic manner of braiding together the psychical registers of the Imaginary (the inner realm of images and the identifications we attach to them), the Symbolic (the social realm of language and representation), and the Real (that which is, whether one wishes it to be or not).

For Lacan, every “I” is the symptom—or in Old French, the sinthome, which Lacan turns into a pun to suggest that our symptomatic subjectivities are a “synthesis” that becomes our “home”—of a successful attempt to weave those three rings of reality together into a stable pattern and thereby to become a non-psychotic subject. This, for Lacan, is what it means to be a person. The transgender subject is a kind of person who, for Lacan (and, I would argue, for Lou Sullivan) similarly succeeds at the task of becoming a viable, non-psychotic subject by entwining the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real—but with a twist.

we trans folks bring our identities into alignment with the Real by (re)writing them into our flesh;

He volunteered for clinical trials for AIDS drugs, and took a perverse pride in saying that he was proud to die as a gay man, even though authorities had said he couldn’t live as one.

It is the surprise you feel when, reaching out for a lover’s chest in the dark, you find a thin gold chain around their neck.

“See what’s in you and don’t try to put anything else in it.”

This year I’m counting on my period. Well good night! I hope we become good friends.

Mom thinks it’s the beginning of my period or I just hope so. Men are digging up the mountains, Mom says they’re gonna build a house. How horrid!!

I got a silver ring with a “B” on it for Beatles. I really flip for those excellent guys.

I love being a girl. So delicate.

I love to think at night, with beautiful music playing, of young lovers and love.

I’m not shy anymore! I don’t care if people think I’m crazy, I’m gonna be myself. And guess who helped me to this. The Beatles.

Thank you for living these feelings with me, for listening without yelling and for lovingly helping me shed my worries into your lap without objecting or getting mad. I’ll save you forever, diary, and I’ll read you.

Finished an absolutely fabulous story. I got so worked up writing it that I had to take an aspirin to stop trembling after I finished.

Sounds dumb, but when I read about severe whippings and have it thoroughly described to me, I get a sensation of tingling. Bad.

I feel there is something deep and wonderful underneath it that no one has found.

This is me becoming a human being. I CONTINUE MY LIFE

Today I’m in a horrid depressed mood and I’ve felt very sexually stimulated.

I wonder if dysphoria from the stimulation was causing the sadness?

I rather think ugly boys are more interesting inside than cute ones.

look at yourself face yourself. See what’s in you and don’t try to put anything else in it. Because then you destroy what you are and you tamper with God’s work.

I wish I was a boy! God, do I want so bad to roam.

I don’t like to swear cuz it sounds horrible but it makes me feel big and masculine and tough.

Life was worth livin ’n life was so mean. Truth seemed to be everywhere. Truth seemed to be everywhere. I luv the night ’n the street lights shinin dimly on the tree trunks and the street. The night, the night.

I mean, when people look at me I want them to think—there’s one of those people that reasons, that is a philosopher, that has their own interpretation of happiness.

I guess I’ve got a thing where when I make a change, I can’t imagine how it was before I had the change.

I am overcome with wonder, joy, emotions I do not know.

I need something badly but I’ll never find out what it is I need. I’m tired of old thoughts, old actions, old thoughts all the time. Rotting in my mind, in my body, rotting poetry, rotting, smelling, and now to the point where it is becoming one with all the other rot in the world. It has no distinctness, no goodness anymore. Rot has taken over every part of me.

I always wanted to be him be free of myself

He has abandoned poetry. And poetry is all I care for.

I just read back can remember nothing of this fit of depression. They come go, for no reason it seems. So how can I justify or even explain myself. Today I feel love, gentleness, happiness none of the feelings of [the previous entry]. Can I blame it on the supposed “two personalities” of the Gemini ? Ha, ha!

“It’s so hard to separate happiness sorrow—sometimes they’re almost the same thing.”

Talking to ma on the phone, she called me at work. I had nothing to say to her. When I hung up I realized that it’s cuz everything I do that means anything to me is either immoral or illegal. HA!

I felt like a young man in disguise there,

(I like to make love like a man…I want to be a beautiful man making love to another beautiful man.)

I was so graced as to have him next to me for a night.

guess it’s my asshole femaleness.

REAL

he knows so many fine things about loving.

He came wandering into the kitchen with only his pants on, rubbing his eyes said “Mornin babes.” The only thing I could think to say was “You look like shit!” when he was the most beautiful creature in the world right then.

I want to make him the lovely boy I wish I could be.

It turned me on to think the two beauties in my life held each other’s hands looked into each others’ faces. Now I really think things will turn out OK…

He moves so gracefully, his long hair flows, his deep brown eyes flirt but in a sacred way.

I don’t even know if there was anyone that’s ever felt as I do…how they coped, what they did…how do I find out what someone like me does? (I remember writing this same question many diaries back…in probably one of my first ones.)

“Look at that fag.” I was instantly turned on, ran after him threw my arms around him…he’ll never know why.

I don’t know how it feels to not be at war. So many changes.

I think of myself as 2 people finally coming together in peace with each other. Of my other half I sing “Nobody loves me but me adores you!”

That’s why I have to go to NY Alone. I can’t have anyone or anything in my way when I find what I’m looking for there. I’m not sure myself exactly what it is…But I’ll know.

That I need him if I can’t have him, I’ll become him so I can always be with him…