gender & astrology NOTES

For a long time I’ve only half-jokingly described my gender as “fembivalent.” It’s more or less accurate for me. The more I think about it, the more I realize I fall under the umbrella of genderqueer/nonbinary. It’s not that I don’t think I’m a woman; it’s more that I think of that as a meaningless descriptor referencing little for me other than my reproductive equipment, a few aspects of my relationship style, and some oppression I’ve experienced.

Gender has always struck me as a bunch of made up stories that I either never learned or never really got. Like astrology: hey, you were born in May, so you like, uh, eating, and purple flowers, and having fingers. Not like those July babies, who like, uh, breathing, having feelings, and rye toast. Also, you’re a vagina baby, so you’ll like, um, heterosexuality, yogurt, and being interrupted by penis babies.

If someone had told me I was a man, and that’s why I liked, uh, sandwiches, masturbation, and better wages, I’d have probably been similarly accepting and bewildered as I have been about the woman thing. It all sounds a little plausible and a little baffling. I never felt good at any of it. Sometimes I’ve cared, and mostly I haven’t.

In my perfect world, gender would be as personalized and unremarkable as the constellation of freckles on one’s thigh.

I’d forgotten it’s Pride week. Cuz I’m a halfassed queer too. Anyhow, this is a general rumination, not some Pride week epiphany. No new pronouns, nothing different about me other than affiliation with some terminology I’d not previously paid much attention to.

Synesthesia and Lord Byron

Annoying reminder yesterday of just what stoooopid bullies people can be. Cautionary takeaway: Never underestimate how expendable you are to other human beings.

Else?

I made money. (Not enough.)

I wrote. (Not enough.)

I exercised. (Not enough.)

In the afternoon, I went off to garden.

There was somebody else in the garden. An attractive woman with blonde hair, maybe ten years younger than me.

She looked normal, so I encouraged conversation.

But, as it turned out, she wasn’t in the least bit normal, and so, for 45 minutes, she prattled on and on and on – about her lupus; about her boyfriend – or was he her X-boyfriend? – who had lymphoma that, one day, miraculously disappeared; about the sister who had alienated the affection of her son and her grandchildren; about the horrible traffic accident that had happened just down the road – had it happened in 2004 or 2014? – and had forced her to go on disability. About her girlhood on a farm in Vermont.

I wasn’t half as irritated by her as I might have been because:

1. She weeded half my garden.

2. She had a really sweet and piquant aura. Yes, yes, I see auras. Not all the time. In fact, not most of the time. In fact, I can’t figure out why some people seem to have auras, and most people do not, but anyway, she had one. Auras are not colors exactly, but they have some sort of odd, synesthesiac correspondence to colors. Hers was purple and green.

By the way, some anthropologists believe that synesthesia is the reason why human beings began to think figuratively, invent metaphors, write poetry.

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When I got home, Leslie Marquand’s three-volume Lord Byron biography had arrived! In perfect condition! I don’t think anyone had ever so much as opened the books!

So I spent a very pleasant evening reading up on Byron’s bizarre ancestors and his even more bizarre childhood.

The biography is every bit as well-written and engrossing as I remembered it being.

I am still feeling fragile this morning, collateral damage from yesterday’s encounter with Stoooopid Bully.

Am I really expendable?

I don’t like feeling expendable.

Anthony Bourdain

Oh. My. God.

Anthony Bourdain.

Inconceivable.

He had such vitality. Such insouciance. He told all the right people to go fuck themselves, and in that way, he was helping me say, “Fuck you” too.

He told the truth.

In this country and at this time, that’s a revolutionary act.

He had utter disdain for your fancy restaurants and contrived plates.

He loved street food. And the dishes of grandmothers and aunts.

He knew a cocksucker when he saw one.

And he was a brilliant, brilliant writer.

He told the truth.

I am deeply deeply saddened.