Caitlín R. Kiernan

I'm running a little late because I've been looking at rough cuts of the book trailer, sent to me this morning by Brian. This thing is going to be beautiful. Right now, it has this marvelously sublime and unnerving atmosphere, like Terrence Malick and David Lynch met in a bar...

Also, having watched a lot of "behind the scenes" stuff, I've concluded that a) the older I get, the more I look and sound like a muppet and b) almost all writers should be read, not seen and heard.

How is it I'd never heard (or head of) Florence + the Machine until this past weekend? Is my isolation that complete?

Yesterday, I wrote 1,840 words on "Ex Libris." This is one of those stories where I started with truly no idea where I was going. Something something something about books and bad stuff and bad books and bad people and stuff. Now, I'm nearing the end of the story, and I know exactly what it is, but trying to figure out how I got from there to here is almost impossible. Regardless, I'll likely finish the story by tomorrow afternoon. Then it's on to "Sexing the Weird." Whee.

Spooky read each and every line by line, twice over, of chapters Five, Six, and Seven of The Drowning Girl: A Memoir (thank you, mystery idiot at Penguin), correcting the random changes. I'm trying to stop being livid about this. You know, I spend about 35% of all my waking moments trying to stop being livid about whatever has me livid at any given moment. "Oh, she was a very angry beast. Did you know that?"

Last night, coffee, leftover chili, a hot bath, Rift, and Spooky read to me from House of Leaves. We watched last week's Fringe. These are my exciting evenings.

A note to the contributors to the "Tale of the Ravens" kickstarter: probably 98% of the work on this has to be done by Kathryn, and the last two or three months she's had to devote almost all of her spare time to assisting me with all sorts of crazy writerish bullshit. Since I began working with Dark Horse, and the way things have gone with The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, I've needed her help constantly. If she's not proofreading or making phone calls, she's deflecting bullshit so that I can write. Because I can't afford to hire someone to do these things. This means she's not been able to keep to the schedule she'd hoped to keep to for "Tale of the Ravens." At this point, she might have one painting left to do, and I still have to write the text, and there's all the printing to be done. If you donated to the project, we're very, very grateful, but please understand the metric shit-ton of unforeseen chaos going on at this end. Be patient. It's coming. Frankly, Kathryn's pretty much sick of me and my writing (in that order, I suspect), and just wants to be painting. Anyway, almost everyone has been amazingly cool, and we thank you. If you donated, keep checking the projects blog for updates.

Whatever else I was going to say can wait. You know, those are grand "famous last words."

From the Books of,
Aunt Beast

Yesterday was warm, and the night before ferociously windy. Night before last, I sat at my desk with the window open, and the wind blowing the world around Outside. There was sun yesterday, though it was still chilly in the shadows. Today, it's still warm, 70F at the moment, still warm, but cloudy. There must be something wrong with the commas in that last sentence. Anyway, I left the House yesterday, but the junk shop we wanted to scour is closed on Tuesday, and we didn't know. Still, it got me Outside. Last night, I was so tired I slept almost nine hours.

Back home, I all but finished the newest painting, Study #2 for Yellow. I'm much happier with it than I was with Study #1 for Yellow. I tweeted yesterday, "I am painting a convulsion." This morning, looking at the painting, I see it was an accurate description.

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Back to the subject of my doing podcasts, and my discomfort with my voice, and how it follows from being transgendered. Back to being very weary of how so much of the world perceives gender. Back to vocal dysphoria (from Greek δύσφορος [dysphoros], from δυσ-, difficult, and φέρειν, to bear). Day before yesterday, the following was tweeted:

Um...Is Caitlin R. Kiernan a tranny, or just a really deep voiced woman? :/

Yeah, the witty emoticon was part of the post. A few minutes later, there was a second tweet, by the same person:

I'm STILL not sure if Caitlin R. Kiernan was born as a woman with a deep voice, or what. Apparently she's/he's an expert on H.P. Lovecraft.

To which I replied:

What the hell's the difference? Does gender, or birth gender, make one a better scholar or author?

I received this reply (and it's clear that the person asking these question didn't know I was, well, me, the person about whom he seemed so intensely curious...and yes, it's a he...I checked, because clearly gender is germane to all such discussions):

No, not at all! It's just hard for me to react to something my brain can't categorize. It's not a problem with her.

So...he cannot react (which he apparently must do) to something I've said unless he's capable of pegging my gender. Or sex. Or both. And, of course, it's more than that. My birth sex must be pegged, so that he can categorize, then react. A few minutes later, he tweeted:

@greygirlbeast For the record I have no problem with anyone's sexuality--it's just a first reaction to something like that to say 'Huh?".

To say "Huh?" Note, he doesn't say, "it's my reaction," but implies the reaction is universal (and it may well be). Anyway, I suppose I should be relieved. After all the hateful comments people made at YouTube when Frank Woodward posted an outtake from my interview for Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (which I almost didn't do, because I hate my voice), this is kid stuff. The "tweeter," was, by the way, an actual kid. This, of course, excuses nothing.

But it should serve as an illustration to those who simply seem unable to grasp the source of my discomfort. Not because there's actually anything wrong with women having deeper voices, or with being a transsexual. But because it wears me out. It exhausts me. Seeing this shit after all these years. My gender will always be a reason for many people to dismiss me out of hand. Or to hate me. Or to spew transphobic and homophobic vitriol. Or whatever. I know that. I accepted that ages ago. But it still wears me out. I always expect it, and yet it comes when I least expect it. It almost always blindsides me.

That someone must know my gender before he can "react" to my comments. And it hardly matters that there are better, smarter, more tolerant people in the world. It matters not one whit. Sometimes, I get tired of fighting the good fight. I've been fighting it my whole life. But, here I am still fighting, because I don't know how to stop.

I'm talking in circles. I just wanted to put this out there, as a case in point. This is why I dislike my voice, and this is why I am hesitant to do podcasts, or live interviews, or cons, or public readings. I'd like to move through the world being treated no differently than other women, those women who happen to be cisgendered. The lucky women who've never had anyone doubt their identity.

And if I've revealed anything here you didn't already know, well...either you haven't been paying attention, or you're too good and intelligent a person to give a shit. Or both. However, should it make you think less of me, in any way, you can go fuck yourself with a rusty corkscrew. I'll even help, if you can't figure out how that works.