Lambda Award Weekend
I didn't win the Lambda Award, but I did have this trip:
Day 1 - Philadelphia
- All travel was efficient and timely.
- Cheesesteaks with mroctober, talked about books and boys.
- Got to hang out with an old college friend and do my favorite thing: bitch and complain. So freeing, so invigorating. We covered romantic exploits, job searches, loneliness and moving, TV shows.
- We also walked around the Philadelphia gayborhood where she lives. Gayborhood is so gay the street signs have rainbows:
Day 2 - Lambda Awards
- I was the youngest person in every group I talked to, but I adapted. I've got parents and grandparents, you wanna talk about baby names? The '70s? I got you, I can do that. I am now under the impression that gay people never look older than 55.
- Lots of speeches about the gay community and queer spaces highlighted that I still feel a little like an interloper--I'm bisexual, but I haven't been involved with another woman since undergrad (where anyone can be bisexual, so are you really?). And of course all my gay characters are men. Suspicious.
- I don't like the designation M/M. It seems to apply only to women who write romance about gay dudes, and it rankles my feminism to know that a lot of people would include me in that category. I recognize it as a distinct category that plenty of authors are happy to participate in, I just don't think that's what I'm doing, and I don't want it applied to me. Most of my books are actually about unhappy families, addiction, and anxiety/depression. I take the perspective of gay men because it's a world I'm almost entirely excluded from, so it interests me. In my personal life I've got women all day, every day. It's a total clam festival over here.
- This is the book that beat me for the Gay Romance award: Into This River I Drown. That's okay though, because I've since decided my book is more of a Mad Men-esque contemplation of success and substance abuse and existential fatigue anyway.
- My bones only felt melting-cold for a second when I didn't win, then I went back to the hotel to assure my audio copy of My Dear Watson that, you know, such is the pursuit of fame, and that now we at least have the privilege of feeling misunderstood.
Day 3 - Manhattan
- Everything in Manhattan was about two feet too close to me the entire time I was there. I may like other parts of New York City (I wouldn't know), but Manhattan did very little to please me.
- I spent the day in Central Park, MoMA, and in a Starbucks.
- Modern art tires me out, I waste too much mental energy wondering if each piece is just an Emperor's New Clothes trick being played on me by some ironic asshole.
- I sat down in Central Park because my feet were on fire, some guy sidled up next to me to say hey, I got right the fuck back up and kept moving (you're a shark honey, sharks must move to live).
- Spent a pleasant beginning of the day with Sacchi Green (who won a Lammy for the Wild Girls, Wild Nights anthology), but afterwards hit some bad luck: rush hour and rain meant it took more than an hour to find a cab to the airport, flight was delayed by the storm, not enough free outlets in the airport to properly do homework for the next day, etc.
- Chicago let me fly to NYC with this keychain, but New York would not let me fly back with it. I mean it is a tiny knife, and I don't want knives on planes, but *whine* and stuff. I usually remember to take it off, and I'm surprised it wasn't confiscated at O'Hare (dropping the ball, O'Hare).
Meanwhile
- I have a month to figure out if I'm going to renew my lease. Right now it looks like probably yes, and if I get a job that demands I move, I will find a replacement for myself.
- Big giant multi-step applications for which I am making endless telescoping lists.
- All this and homework and reading at Printer's Row and blisters on my feet the whole time.
- I just got off the phone with a recruiter for teaching in Korea--feel like I totally nailed that, so it's a real option.
- I want to write chapter three of my novel but when, oh but when? I get to show Chapter Two to my Fiction Seminar class and my thesis adviser this summer, even though it's not my thesis material.
Day 1 - Philadelphia
- All travel was efficient and timely.
- Cheesesteaks with mroctober, talked about books and boys.
- Got to hang out with an old college friend and do my favorite thing: bitch and complain. So freeing, so invigorating. We covered romantic exploits, job searches, loneliness and moving, TV shows.
- We also walked around the Philadelphia gayborhood where she lives. Gayborhood is so gay the street signs have rainbows:
Day 2 - Lambda Awards
- I was the youngest person in every group I talked to, but I adapted. I've got parents and grandparents, you wanna talk about baby names? The '70s? I got you, I can do that. I am now under the impression that gay people never look older than 55.
- Lots of speeches about the gay community and queer spaces highlighted that I still feel a little like an interloper--I'm bisexual, but I haven't been involved with another woman since undergrad (where anyone can be bisexual, so are you really?). And of course all my gay characters are men. Suspicious.
- I don't like the designation M/M. It seems to apply only to women who write romance about gay dudes, and it rankles my feminism to know that a lot of people would include me in that category. I recognize it as a distinct category that plenty of authors are happy to participate in, I just don't think that's what I'm doing, and I don't want it applied to me. Most of my books are actually about unhappy families, addiction, and anxiety/depression. I take the perspective of gay men because it's a world I'm almost entirely excluded from, so it interests me. In my personal life I've got women all day, every day. It's a total clam festival over here.
- This is the book that beat me for the Gay Romance award: Into This River I Drown. That's okay though, because I've since decided my book is more of a Mad Men-esque contemplation of success and substance abuse and existential fatigue anyway.
- My bones only felt melting-cold for a second when I didn't win, then I went back to the hotel to assure my audio copy of My Dear Watson that, you know, such is the pursuit of fame, and that now we at least have the privilege of feeling misunderstood.
Day 3 - Manhattan
- Everything in Manhattan was about two feet too close to me the entire time I was there. I may like other parts of New York City (I wouldn't know), but Manhattan did very little to please me.
- I spent the day in Central Park, MoMA, and in a Starbucks.
- Modern art tires me out, I waste too much mental energy wondering if each piece is just an Emperor's New Clothes trick being played on me by some ironic asshole.
- I sat down in Central Park because my feet were on fire, some guy sidled up next to me to say hey, I got right the fuck back up and kept moving (you're a shark honey, sharks must move to live).
- Spent a pleasant beginning of the day with Sacchi Green (who won a Lammy for the Wild Girls, Wild Nights anthology), but afterwards hit some bad luck: rush hour and rain meant it took more than an hour to find a cab to the airport, flight was delayed by the storm, not enough free outlets in the airport to properly do homework for the next day, etc.
- Chicago let me fly to NYC with this keychain, but New York would not let me fly back with it. I mean it is a tiny knife, and I don't want knives on planes, but *whine* and stuff. I usually remember to take it off, and I'm surprised it wasn't confiscated at O'Hare (dropping the ball, O'Hare).
Meanwhile
- I have a month to figure out if I'm going to renew my lease. Right now it looks like probably yes, and if I get a job that demands I move, I will find a replacement for myself.
- Big giant multi-step applications for which I am making endless telescoping lists.
- All this and homework and reading at Printer's Row and blisters on my feet the whole time.
- I just got off the phone with a recruiter for teaching in Korea--feel like I totally nailed that, so it's a real option.
- I want to write chapter three of my novel but when, oh but when? I get to show Chapter Two to my Fiction Seminar class and my thesis adviser this summer, even though it's not my thesis material.