Wouldn’t normally do this

I suppose I should have mentioned this is, like, my theme song… And I’ve been listening to it a lot lately… But the idea of leaving is not about my wife – that part’s stable – it’s about other parts of my life…

Getting the roof fixed

So, our roof had a leak. Nothing major, just some water coming in because of some mis-installed flashing around the chimney. But it made me somehow feel more at home in our house. If you remember an earlier post about disorientation, and how I feel disoriented in my own home because it is a solidly, squarely built house, you’ll remember that I mentioned that there’s something almost too perfect about this house. But, we’ve made it through our first repair – something not quite put together right, and now I’m feeling a little better. Something about the disorder of things makes me feel comfortable. Knowing that my house is not completely perfect somehow makes me feel better – makes me feel more at home – even though we had to find a roofer. He was a nice guy, though. He told us that if it leaks again, we should just have the chimney taken down – because it’s really just for show. And somehow that has always pissed me off about this house – it has a chimney, yet we have an UNvented gas fireplace. That means the chimney isn’t functional – it just exists to look pretty. and probably to let people outside your home know that you have that all-too-important status symbol – a fireplace.

Another deadline finished

So, this week was deadline week for the paper. How I love these weekends – getting smelly, not taking a shower for three days, forcing all of my creative energy into one large push each month to birth something graphically beautiful and stimulating – along with writing an article or two – and sitting in a room with my wife for 3 days straight while we crank out a paper. We have a staff, you know, but the brunt of the putting-it-together work has to happen somewhere. And in this case it’s in our home’s 3rd bedroom – the office.

A portrait of nerdy domesticity

The wife and I were chatting over IM this evening – from one room away, no less – only because I felt the need to interrupt her work, as usual. I thought I would share with everyone a portrait of what nerdy queer domesticity looks like. Our need to deconstruct language goes further than English words used to describe queer people and queer lives. (A sidenote: we probably only *think* we’re funny). The transcript is after the jump.

On the subject of Holly Boswell

Some of you may remember an earlier post entitled “Experience first, then theory…” in which I made it known that I am inspired by the writings of Holly Boswell, who lives in my quaint little mountain town. Since that post, I have met Holly, and interviewed her about the 16th annual Kindred Spirits Retreat in Hot Springs, NC. If you click here, you can read the article I wrote about the retreat.

One more lesson this week…

Reporting fair and balanced news is the work of villains. My newspaper seems to be bearing the brunt of the criticism for the failure of Asheville Pridefest. Read the story here: http://gaynews.outinasheville.com/2008/09/10/asheville-pridefest-in-crisis/. The comments are the worst part – people don’t care what’s true – they want the LGBTQ newspaper to make everything LGBTQ look good – and sometimes Pride events fail. That’s no one’s fault – except possibly the [dis]organizers.
TPQ

10 things I learned this week

1. I like the color Orange Maple made by Behr Paints.

2. My baby brother is a fucknut.

3. My mom needs me as much as I need her.

Crazy/Queer Week

Ok, so this week was freaking nuts. I’ve been meaning to do some writing here, and haven’t gotten around to it. Here are a few of the reasons:

1. Monday, my mom went to the hospital. She’s fine – just hot flashes and tanning beds can be quite nuclear. Still, scary. The follow-up with her doc went well, but she still took an ambulance ride, and since she’s prone to panic attacks, it’s taken her a few days to come down. I love my mommy, and it scared me. ’nuff said.

This time, just rambles

I feel like fire is burning up my insides
like something is breathing and breeding
in my spleen.

Each word he says aloud smells like
sulfur dyed in mercury
and lit aflame.

My fists curl like my top lip when he
takes that tone of condescending
- I fucked up?

But see, I don’t fuck up, but yes
I do fuck up, and yes, I may
be at fault.

But fatherly advices are like dial tones
flat and vacuous – without meaning
without fullness.

And I still just want punches and screams.

New Writer on Trailer Park Queer

Ok, so I neglected doing this, for over a week now since GQ joined the ranks here at TPQ. genderquare is a friend of mine, but also someone who looks at the world from a different perspective and still sees some of the same problems with it that I find blatantly obvious every day. Many people do not see the world the way GQ and I do, especially in our small community, but we point it out anyway. GQ did not grow up in a trailer park, but in a totally different way – on a family compound of sorts – something gloriously southern and rural, which only GQ can explain. And though this blog was originally meant to be a place where I driveled on about my own existence, I think GQ is a wonderful addition to the objective of Trailer Park Queer. And thus the objective shifts a small bit, not to accommodate GQ, but to move forward with changing the world one small step at a time. The new objective is not to express my own fears and ambitions, but to explore what it means to be a trailer park queer when “trailer park” is used as an adjective to describe “queer” and “trailer park queer” becomes a particular brand of queer identity. If you or someone you know is interested in joining the project with its new focus, send me an e-mail or put it in the comments… I think this is an interesting place to keep track of what it’s like to be left out of the LGBT community because you don’t have the money or the “class” to do what they want to do with us.

TPQ