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ahunter3I’m walking back towards my room when Valerie accosts me. “Hey, sissyboy. Do you play cards?”
“Some. Not poker, and not for money.”
“We aren’t betting. Just for fun. You know spades?”
“Decently well. I don’t know it as good as I know as hearts.”
“We need an extra person. We got me, Ronald and Jake, April and Joe. And it’s Joe’s last day.” She motions for me to follow.
“Hey hey, Derek! Have a sit down!”, Joe says, riffling the card deck. The classic red sketch of a bicycling angel beckons from the top card.
Hands are dealt. Bids are made. Tricks get taken.
After several games have been won and lost, I ask if they’d ever played Cutthroat Hearts or Oh Heck. Nobody’s heard of either.
“So tell us about them”, Ronald demands. “How are they different? How do you play?”
“Cutthroat hearts is where you shoot for low score. Every heart you take is a point. Queen of spades is thirteen all by herself. But the Jack of diamonds is minus ten, and you can also run hearts, if you get them all you take thirteen points off your total instead of adding a point for each heart.”
Jake says, “I know that one, I’ve played it, we called it ‘Shooting the Moon’. It’s not bad but I like Spades better.”
I nod, shuffle the deck, and deal out the starting cards.
* * *
I sit in my room with pen and paper, scribbling out edits to one of the chapters of The Amazon’s Brother. Ka-snap. I open the three-ring binder and put back the pages with the new notes. Close it again with a pop.
The Amazon’s Brother is really my first attempt to describe what it was like being me, growing up, going through puberty and adolescence, and on into early adulthood and finally coming out as...something different. Heterosexual sissy. And radical feminist. The second half of the book is my attempt to write contributions to feminist theory, integrating my experiences with the perspective that feminists understand and believe. They’re the visionaries and radicals of our time, my teachers and heroes, the people who gave me tools and viewing angles for discussing gender; and I want to contribute and belong. I want to be part of a shared identity, to be plural. For once in my life I want to join something.
And now I’ve had new thoughts and new analyses, prompted by my recent recollections of being at UNM that fall, when I was semi-accepted socially. I’ve been pondering the resultant questions about having a sense of belongingness and how being accepted can be a two-edged sword if the people who accept you don’t understand you. Hence my recent thoughts about needing to pull people closer and push them away at the same time.
I have The Amazon’s Brother here with me because I’m still working on it, but also because I always want to have it with me. I left a backup copy in my bedroom at my grandparents’ house, but I certainly didn’t want to leave the only copy of the book behind and risk something happening to it while I’m gone. I want it within reach.
And...did I take it with me the other day when I slipped out the unlocked door? Of course not.
I’ve thought at times that I might share The Amazon’s Brother with people here at Elk Meadow. That could still happen. Maybe.
—————
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
———————
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on Substack and LiveJournal. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts
“Some. Not poker, and not for money.”
“We aren’t betting. Just for fun. You know spades?”
“Decently well. I don’t know it as good as I know as hearts.”
“We need an extra person. We got me, Ronald and Jake, April and Joe. And it’s Joe’s last day.” She motions for me to follow.
“Hey hey, Derek! Have a sit down!”, Joe says, riffling the card deck. The classic red sketch of a bicycling angel beckons from the top card.
Hands are dealt. Bids are made. Tricks get taken.
After several games have been won and lost, I ask if they’d ever played Cutthroat Hearts or Oh Heck. Nobody’s heard of either.
“So tell us about them”, Ronald demands. “How are they different? How do you play?”
“Cutthroat hearts is where you shoot for low score. Every heart you take is a point. Queen of spades is thirteen all by herself. But the Jack of diamonds is minus ten, and you can also run hearts, if you get them all you take thirteen points off your total instead of adding a point for each heart.”
Jake says, “I know that one, I’ve played it, we called it ‘Shooting the Moon’. It’s not bad but I like Spades better.”
I nod, shuffle the deck, and deal out the starting cards.
* * *
I sit in my room with pen and paper, scribbling out edits to one of the chapters of The Amazon’s Brother. Ka-snap. I open the three-ring binder and put back the pages with the new notes. Close it again with a pop.
The Amazon’s Brother is really my first attempt to describe what it was like being me, growing up, going through puberty and adolescence, and on into early adulthood and finally coming out as...something different. Heterosexual sissy. And radical feminist. The second half of the book is my attempt to write contributions to feminist theory, integrating my experiences with the perspective that feminists understand and believe. They’re the visionaries and radicals of our time, my teachers and heroes, the people who gave me tools and viewing angles for discussing gender; and I want to contribute and belong. I want to be part of a shared identity, to be plural. For once in my life I want to join something.
And now I’ve had new thoughts and new analyses, prompted by my recent recollections of being at UNM that fall, when I was semi-accepted socially. I’ve been pondering the resultant questions about having a sense of belongingness and how being accepted can be a two-edged sword if the people who accept you don’t understand you. Hence my recent thoughts about needing to pull people closer and push them away at the same time.
I have The Amazon’s Brother here with me because I’m still working on it, but also because I always want to have it with me. I left a backup copy in my bedroom at my grandparents’ house, but I certainly didn’t want to leave the only copy of the book behind and risk something happening to it while I’m gone. I want it within reach.
And...did I take it with me the other day when I slipped out the unlocked door? Of course not.
I’ve thought at times that I might share The Amazon’s Brother with people here at Elk Meadow. That could still happen. Maybe.
—————
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
———————
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on Substack and LiveJournal. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts
