luckybiter

21

[luckybiter]

2025 WILL BE YEAR OF THE BOOKWORM!

here is what I have read so far:

STONE BUTCH BLUES by Leslie Feinberg

★★★★★

obviously an essential read for anyone, especially people like me. I have always been told that I need to read it, and the further in I got the more I realized why some people had been SO insistent. it is a devastating read but gave me a lot of hope for the future. going on testosterone and then going off of testosterone and going back to ambiguity but in a new way was an experience I'd never seen written about before and it brought me a lot of comfort to know that there is so much precedent for the way that I am. beyond subject matter, the book is written in a way that made it really hard for me to put down.

PAUL TAKES THE FORM OF A MORTAL GIRL by Andrea Lawlor

★★★

the beginning of this book had me straight up gleeful. I would often briefly stop reading to text the friend who'd recommended it about how much I was enjoying it. shapeshifter smut!!! midwestern queerness!!! zines and mixtapes!! are you kidding me!?

unfortunately, I felt that the midsection and ending fell really flat. there were some characters and situations I really wish were followed for longer. after the main romance plot of the book ended, it was a bit of a slog for me to get through. it took me a while to finish it even though I tore through the beginning super fast.

overall, I still think it's worth a read. it's really funny and fun and seeing sex written about from the same perspective experiencing being in (and being IN) different bodies was really really cool.

GENDER FAILURE by Rae Spoon and Ivan E. Coyote

★★★★

This was a pretty light and enjoyable read! I enjoyed the format of short stories switching between authors. It was nice to read about the experience of another ambiguously-gendered touring musician. things are definitely a lot different now than they were back in 2013 when this book was written. It's crazy how much public knowledge (and disinformation) has been spread about transgender/gender nonconforming people over the last twelve years.

worth a read for sure, I would definitely recommend this to younger transmasculine/butch people. I think it would've done me a lot of good to read it as a kid.

DETRANSITION, BABY by Torrey Peters

★★★★★

good god. such a fantastic book, made me cry multiple times. Stories about the complexity of womanhood and unconventional motherhood always get me. Also ideas of gender being largely influenced by failure - something that I hadn't connected to the idea of miscarriage due to my trans-normative worldview.

Torrey Peters writes in a way that feels so approachable to me, sometimes her social analysis made me feel like I was talking shit with a close friend.

Sometimes, I was a little irritated with the flashback structure, but mostly just because I wanted to keep hearing about the primary plot. Learning more about Ames/Amy and Reese's relationship was essential to understanding each character. I really enjoyed the omniscient third-person narration.

[luckybiter]

4/5

I've been explaining myself less and less and just cobbling together words that clash and irritate and ring hollow with repetition. None of it really means much in a vacuum, or in a middle-of-nowhere truck stop, and my life has become so dependent on time spent in complete liminality that it feels stupid and futile to assume any sense of identifical permanence. All I know is that it’s easy enough to pull off this ruse that throws a certain type of danger off its course, and at the same time my body glows splotchy and incandescent in the heat vision of a different kind of hunter. 

It is the second anniversary of the birth of one of the most painful lies I’ve ever been told: she said she was just like me. I say it was a lie because the external force exerting itself upon her shape re-shifting is one that I've seen out of the corner of my eye since I was a little kid. I don’t want to believe that it could’ve just as easily been me. I’ve been teetering around one razor-thin degree of separation from its embodiment for two and a half years. I’ve tended to and witnessed wounds it inflicted upon an array of victims without knowing that they were all brought about by the same hands. The skin of my own teeth is bloodied; the recession of my gums has left nerve-covered roots exposed and now it hurts to eat sweet things.

 I want to go home to a body that never memorized this pattern but I think that bodies like mine all know it too well to un-remember, and our bodies all talk to each other while we aren’t looking. I wish to intercept a quietly-passed note before my throat reads it and the feeling all comes back. 

So now I just carry this dead weight that’s still warm and the half-dollars keep slipping off its eyelids, and it sees me better than any living thing ever could, so I meet its mouth with my own and try to breathe anything back into it but it just gets heavier every time. I started taking the medicine again to build my body into something better suited for being a lone pallbearer. Someday I will find a place to bury this thing for good and I will dig a hole big enough to fit this hardened half of me alongside it in the earth. I will not delude myself into thinking anything will grow atop us. We’ll poison the soil for a square mile. Small animals will eat contaminated vegetation, and when their soft bodies are found cold, we can co-opt their funerals since these quiet parts of us will never get their own.

[luckybiter]

UK tour diary #1

2/8 (or should I say... 8/2?)

hello from a pub in Bristol. I left home 5 days ago and am already missing everybody bad!!!!!!!!!!!! tour has been fun so far, we played the first show last night and other than totally botching Airplane Angel I think everything went well. can't believe i won't be home for another 16 days :o

I know the time will start flying and that im going to have a lot of fun but getting into the swing of things is tricky, especially being surrounded by almost entirely new people and a totally unfamiliar region.

spending time all by myself in a brand new city for my first day in London was crazy. I made the massive mistake of leaving the airport without checking in w border officers about my work certification, so I had to take the train back to the airport and get in touch with somebody to activate my permit. whew!!! it was about a 3-hour detour on zero hours of sleep and very little food.

eating has been somewhat challenging. certain places like London and especially Bristol had lots of options, but shops closed before we could get to any good food on our first day in Bristol so I just ate Taco Bell twice that day. and no cantina menu in Wales </3 I was able to go to a little co-op for some groceries- UPDATE: as I was typing this Emma told me that our hotel has GLUTEN FREE BREAKFAST OPTIONS im going to cry tears of joy. I ate potato waffles last night which were good, they looked terrifying served alongside a bowl of beans and veg sausage. I can't believe they actually eat like this. wow.

I've adjusted to walking on the left side of the sidewalk so I'll probably slam into people a few times once im back in the states.

I miss my friends very much. shoot me a text of whatever you're up to if you feel inclined!!! I won't always have the energy to respond but I will appreciate seeing little slices of home

<3

[sentandreceived]

Hogs and Kisses.

[trailerdogpark-deactivated20250]

recent chains in the snow today

[luckybiter]

flying to London tomorrow and I am still in disbelief that this is actually happening. what the hell . im really nervous but also super excited!! I am going to miss my friends and family so so so much. I shall send postcards and gather plenty of information for the newsletter I will release upon my return ! !

[xanaxfarts]

Weiner dog wearing armor at the Michigan Renaissance Festival (2002)

[luckybiter]

FASHION BRAND COMPANY REALTREE WORKOUT/SWIM SET HAS ARRIVED. everyone will have to keep a CLOSE EYE ON ME while we swim in the lake this summer because it will be very easy for me to go missing. my arm warmers are also here which will be perfect to wear under my fur coat since the sleeves are an awkward length. everything is coming together.....

[luckybiter]

[luckybiter]

So there’s this wild mass of fog at Clinton, and we park next to a red pickup truck and hop the guardrail to get a closer look at the frozen lake, and Griffin scrambles down the rocks faster than me. We’re in awe of this thick fog. It feels insoluble, like it’d be easy to take a slice out of, and just as I’m about to reach the solid water’s edge, a voice like a dull knife swings the word “FAGGOT” towards me from the red pickup truck. It hits my body before it can pierce anything more important. It clatters onto the rocks by my feet. 

The fog is unharmed. I take pity on the word, because now it’s just laying there, a dead animal, somebody’s precious breath and time and attention alive briefly while airborne. and now I pick it up and carry it gently in my hands towards the lake, and I’m cradling it and cooing at it, simultaneously mocking and mourning this dead thing.

Griffin and I examine it together as the red pickup truck speeds away and abandons what it’d conceived and birthed and killed all over the span of a few irrecoverable seconds. 

The part of me that wants to be a fighter sees a brief flash of violent fantasy. Proving my toughness to the red pickup truck: stuffing the dead thing back into its mouth and snarling until it swallows, keying the door with the dead thing’s name, kicking in a brake light for good measure. 

The part of me that wants to be a mother deliberates necromantic possibilities, maybe with a fish bone and down feather and tiny slice of fog, we could reanimate this dead thing, and I could bring it home and let it rest on the coyote pelt on my bookshelf and feed it a thimble of the hearty sweet potato chili I helped sophie make. 

Both choices feel unnatural . We step out onto the ice, and I place the dead thing by my feet and kick it in front of me like a rock along the shoreline, over and over and over again. As we prepare to return to the car, I secretly slip it into the pocket of my jeans. I get home and find a place for it on my bookshelf between the taxidermied mouse and duckling. It is neither trophy nor memorial.

[luckybiter]

I read this awesome book called Paul Takes The Form of a Mortal Girl and I wish it ended differently so I wrote a fan fiction in the form of a playlist. even if you haven't read the book, if you're at all familiar with my love life im sure you're vaguely aware of the dynamics of a shapeshifter situationship. this playlist has everything: Yoko Ono, Tegan and Sara, Katy Perry, Vashti Bunyan, AND MORE!

[luckybiter]

@griffin-blog-king

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[luckybiter]

went OUT ON THE TOWN by myself last night here's what I did

spotted my ex girlfriend wearing exactly the same outfit as me

had a sangria at the gay bar

talked to Clifton the anti-abortion sidewalk preacher about music + he gave me advice on giving testimonies at committee meetings when I told him im speaking against an anti-trans bill

entered karaoke alone, didn't know anyone there, sang Say It To Me Now by glen hansard, crowd went crazy

home at 11pm

[enymzay]

my medieval chainmail princess dog

[luckybiter]

how my @trailerdogpark chains make me feel

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