The Male Hysteric

I understand nonbinary as an umbrella term but I kinda hate it as a descriptor. It'd be nice to be something rather than be labeled by what one isn't by default. There's something distinctly unmooring about being forced to identify with what one is not, and I'm not sure who decided on that, but I wish they would have thought this through a little better, idk.

I've been spending some time on the digital audio player subreddit (and now have a Snowsky Echo Mini and matching Linsoul 7HZx Zero:2s* and probably shouldn't be looking there anymore, but the old Sony stick-style mp3 players are strangely appealing), and there are a decent amount of young new users out there who have... never owned a music library, like at all, they just have had Spotify or whatever their entire lives and have never bought music. I guess I shouldn't be surprised but it just seems insane to me. I'm not exactly a full scale digital hoarder but like, if you like something, get a copy, and save it locally. You never know when it's going to disappear.

*I've had the Echo Mini for a while but I just got the IEMs a couple days ago and I am hearing sounds I have never heard before in old songs and they're way more comfortable than my porta pros. I do recommend, if you're into that sort of thing.

I just saw this and thought you all needed to see it immediately:

Ernest Hemingway Visits Chappell Roan's Pink Pony Club by Amy Estes, at McSweeny's

I guess I'm feeling kind of gross because I feel like I'm between projects, but not really.

I am Looking At The Novel, being the science fiction novel I've been working on for two years, and think the first few chapters need a heavy revision. So I have been trying to do that, but being on the computer, it's hard, and I'm just... not feeling it? And I'm not sure if I need to pause or need to muscle through it. My insane thought was to make a draft where I just took the passages I really liked, in some kind of opposite kill-your-darlings, and try to weave a narrative through that way, because this piece is really supposed to be running on vibes, so selecting the bestest vibes first from the old draft may be the way to go. Or maybe I should just do normal editing. I don't know. I feel kind of nuts looking at this thing, which is making me wonder if I should just chicken scratch at dirt for a new project that I want to do but isn't formed enough to really start writing.

I also had this insane idea of making a zine of excerpts of notes I've sent to my therapist, which in my case are extremely prolific. I mean it's my writing so I can do what I want with it, right? But as I was starting to compile some stuff it just felt really hard, even if the excerpts I was working with weren't super significant. I was at a local group to write and in the middle of it I was just like, "wow, what the fuck am I doing, this is insane," and had to get up and leave. But maybe it would be worth it to do? I don't know.

There is a zinefest at the end of June so I did want to bring something more substantial than my minizine for trades, but this might... not be it.

My partner helped me put together a small quilt sandwich today and it got me thinking.

For those who don't know, a quilt sandwich is the construction of the quilt before the actual quilting part. You have your quilt top (usually patchwork for most projects), the batting (fluffy stuff) and the quilt back (often a large, plain piece of fabric, but it could also be a patchwork if you want a double-sided one). So, it's fabric, fluffy stuff, and fabric, like a sandwich.

So, as far as we know, sandwiches have a definite invention in the Earl of Sandwich's household around 1762. However quilting is much older, and was widespread in Europe in the form of gambesons and otherwise much earlier.

So... what were quilt sandwiches called before there were sandwiches?

A few days ago I went thrift shopping with my boyfriend and ended up looking at the women's blazers because I may need something for interviews and going out and sometimes women's are more interesting and I can fit into the larger ones. We found this navy blue and black brocaded tuxedo jacket and it was $15 and fit me and so I had to get it. As we checked it over we found the tag on the inside that said had its designer that read "FOR MEN" on it... it was actually a men's jacket, but because it was interesting and a bit flashy, had automatically been flagged as a women's garment and put all the way on the other side of the store in the women's section, while the men's garments maintained a very strict conformity of things that men were 'supposed' to wear.

I get that the Savers staff are very busy and sorting through lots and lots of clothing, and it's something of a cliche to say that "this says a lot about society" but also, this says a lot about society, I think.

As I don't have a job right now, today I spent time clearing out my email inbox of endless garbage I receive from job posting websites and otherwise so that I will actually see a request for an interview when I get one. I cleared out the garbage from the months of January and December, and my inbox still says I have 8,434 emails, and this is my newest email address out of 4 different ones I maintain.

This reminds me of a tweet I saw a few days ago:



text: I’m fascinated by the idea of the Dead Internet, in which AI bots create website copies littered with ads that are then recursively crawled by “audience bots” over and over again. There are sectors of the internet devoid of all humanity, except for the person collecting ad rev. --twitter user telefontelaviv

Computer and internet tools have made the dissemination of data so easy that it happens automatically without regard of who it is for and if that data is even useful to spread. It just happens automatically at this point, making the forms it takes -- emails, articles -- less and less useful, because as the amount blows up, the amount of actual meaningful information contained within is endlessly diluted. But who pays for this dilution? It's not the person actually making money off of the transaction or creating these 'helpful' tools. It's an entirely externalized cost on those of us who have to put up with this garbage. And it is a lot of garbage.

I don’t usually like New Year’s resolutions, but I’ve maybe been convinced to do a few things that are unlikely to actually get done.

1. Draw blorbos. Fill up a sketchbook of blorbos (this is a specific sketchbook, which has 60 pages). Aside from feeling like I can’t draw whenever I try to draw, there’s also the weird shame that prevents me from being able to draw things I just like… I’ve always been envious of those twitter artists who could just churn out picture after picture of blorbo so maybe by the end of the year I will no longer have said mental block and be able to draw my own old man yaoi.

2. Read 10 novels. More than last year for sure but not a ridiculous amount, pretty doable.

3. Actually use the planner, stickers, post cards, etc.

4. I deleted twitter from my phone. Not really a New Year’s resolution, as in I’m not going to consider myself to be a failure if I put it back. But right now it’s gone.

Not a part of the resolutions but I am also thinking of building the website, Rebranding™️ and etc… I am thinking of maybe making a gallery of liminal space images on Neocities. That’s something I don’t need to feel like I’m totally competent at to begin with, at least.

Anyway. Yesterday I went to get a massage and it was different than usual. Most of the time there are only a couple spots that are a bit painful, and I grin and bear it, but this time much more was painful, to the point that I even flinched away. I had been seeing the same guy a few times and I asked him what seemed different this time, and he said that I seemed more present this time. So I guess this is what you get for being mentally present, huh, you regain the ability to feel pain. I still felt better afterward, but even a few hours after and even now over a day later I am trying to keep my body from re-tensing up and I feel like I’m mostly failing. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s wrong, or how to fix it, alas.

On Sunday I was writing and a new character suddenly showed up who now added a whole new wing to this story that I did not realize was there. So, that's exciting, and has actually made me want to write in the past few days, and guess what, I did manage to do two pages today.

I am unsure if I should talk about my project on here, and even if I did it is hard for me to think of how to do it. I guess maybe because I conceive of all my work as highly personal, but at the same time, I guess it's not. Writing about yourself but not yourself, or something. Putting it all somewhere else where it is safer, I guess.

I am also full of stupid thoughts when I write. "Oh, is it too obvious that I favor this character?" as if people will judge me. And then I do not let others read because they will judge me. So I should just gush all I want about who I want. Pfeh.

Maybe someday I will post it somewhere. But I think that if I am going to do anything with it... I will have to learn to talk about it at some point. That's a bit scary.

I’ve begun watching Sailor Moon Crystal and have just gotten past Minako’s introduction. Unlike the 90s anime, this seems to be following the manga very closely, though I had never actually watched too much of the 90s anime despite reading all of the manga.

I’m not in love with the animation of Crystal compared to the 90s anime but I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would — there’s some bits of it that feel kinda Utena-ish that I can appreciate.

Watching this again it still strikes me that even though this series is like 30 years old, still nobody really does gender quite like Sailor Moon does gender and I find that very interesting. Like unlike a lot of other girl series Sailor Moon feels more like a true gender reversal where feminine power is the only real power to be taken seriously and masculine power is always secondary even though it exists. And that seems to be because the series really takes soft power seriously — the villains are constantly doing their work through media, word of mouth, urban legends, etc, so the idea of associating power exclusively with militia-cosplay just isn’t a thing here.

Like a really fascinating thing that was in the original comic and is in Crystal is Zoisite disguising himself as a woman to be a gemologist on the news to brainwash people. Just putting this into text shows how bizarre it is to think of even now, a man disguising himself as a woman to be taken seriously as a professional and none of it being a joke at all, just being a part of the dastardly villain plan, and it’s not even remarked upon at all. And all the previous grunt monsters were also women at this point, so there seems to be logic here in that being women allows the four kings to get close enough to people to do their villainy, and at this point Zoisite decided he had to take things into his own hands and therefore the only logical thing was to disguise himself as a woman to do it himself.

And part of what’s so weird about this is that this is how it was in the original manga — just not remarked upon at all. His characterization was changed dramatically in the 90s TV series, making him more effeminate and Kunzite’s gay lover, and then altered even more so in international dubs changing his character to be a woman to erase the gay relationship. But none of this is in the manga, and therefore none of this is in Crystal, where he similarly gets little characterization. And honestly leaving the female disguise unremarked upon says more interesting things about gender in Sailor Moon than recreating Zoisite as an effeminate gay crossdresser does.

I remember reading somewhere that part of Takeuchi’s explanation for the inspiration of Sailor Moon is that even if she wanted a man to protect her she just didn’t see much out there and how they mostly seemed pretty useless, while the women around her were the real doers in her world, so she wrote her comic to reflect that. And I guess it’s weird because that’s also how I viewed things as a kid, and lingers on today, too. Probably explains a lot of of my issues now.

I’m still disappointed Crystal didn’t include groom disguise Usagi, though. That was a favorite of mine.