Rex > Recent Status Updates

I’ve not kept strictly to what I said I would do, so I’ve deleted a lot of books because some are not the vibe right now and others I will never finish.

From the moment the testosterone kicked in, nearly everyone around me was invested in educating me in how to ape the strong-and-silent stereotype of the man whose reign was "over"—a socialization that involved relentless policing by strangers and friends alike, and across gender, geographic, and socioeconomic

“I felt all the absences my male body created too: the cool distance of friends in tough moments, stemming to some degree from the self-conscious way I held myself apart from women especially, so concerned with being perceived as a threat that I’d become a ghost instead.”

"Men don't hug," my uncle told me, extending his hand on a warm day a few years before. It was offered kindly, my new life a stream of unsolicited advice, a guide to the construction of a passable masculinity. He wasn't wrong. Jess was often the only person who touched me… I knew what it was like to be near-mad with that sort of need.

“This book is an attempt to pull apart those strands. It also became, as I wrote it, a kind of personal insurance, a way to track and shape my own becoming in a culture where so many men are poisonous. I too come from a long line of poisonous men.”

Those last lines about being poisonous are incredibly powerful

“I am a beginner, a man born at thirty, with a body that reveals a reality about being human that is rarely examined. Most of us experience gender conditioning so young-research shows it begins in infancy—that we misunderstand the relationship between nature and nurture, culture and biology, fitting in and being oneself.”

When I have read all of my current reading list I need to read testo junkie

Should start reading more biographies of Henry VIII as soon as possible

Just realised I’ve nearly read as many Tudor history books as I did last year!!! If there is anything I want to be reading an enormous amount of then it’s Tudor history because I have like 70 books in my own personal library because I’m insane as fuck when it comes to spotting them in charity shops. Only good thing about being queer in Britain I swear!!!

I think the closer I get to the end the more the author annoys me with her presumptive statements and lack of understanding of Henry VIII’s character. Suzannah Lipscomb’s book 1536 will always be the book I recommend to anyone if you want to understand Henry VIII. This is still a well researched book, but again another historian hasn’t bothered to put themselves in Henry’s shoes; only Anne’s.

I’m aiming to be more disciplined with my reading and that means not having a stack of 30 books under my”currently reading” list, so I’ve deleted ones I haven’t started and kept the ones I actually have. Now there are 24 books to read and that’s still a nightmare. So yeah the rule is I can’t start any new ones until I finish what I have already started. Then after that I am allowed 2 or 3 books!

This book has really opened up a huge conversation for me within my own mind.

Should one delete social media or keep it and practice insane self control?

I’m edging more for the latter atm

Increasingly I’m inspired to turn my phone off for a week just to see what happens. It’s actually possible for me since caring means I need to be reachable 24/7 unsafe my dad needs in inform me or instruct of something.

Turned greyscale on, so my phone is now black and white.

As a result of this than book and things that have happened in my personal life I will delete social media soon meaning my Instagram and I’m never joining it again. As I deserve a rich life full of experiences and I won’t get that through a screen.

Also as I made this decision “I want to break free” by Queen started playing

Massaging my brain

Holiday read: I’m literally about to go fucking insane with this book.

I just fucking know that by the time I am bored with this book I would have read it ten times and it will be falling apart and barely readable by the end.

Author suggests Henry VIII had 4 out of 5 of the men accused with Anne Boleyn beheaded because he was jealous of their ability to joust 😭

*tail wags stiff and rigidly*