Ally’s Reviews > Any Other City > Status Update

In grade 5 we were asked to write about what we would be doing in the year 2000. I couldn't imagine myself living that long. I'd never make it to 27. But then, somehow, I did.

I wasn't sure if she was flirting, or sharing an elliptical "trans women are women" message. The traffic light changed and we parted ways. I felt briefly elated. While waiting for my electrologist, it dawned on me that any time a cis person said I was pretty, my brain would automatically attach an asterisk to the compliment to qualify, "for a trans woman."

[ooof]

...a novel thinking "Oh yes, millions of other novels have already been published. But wait until you read the humdinger I'm going to write." I feel sorry for any person who thinks that way.

[THANK YOU HAZEL JANE PLANTE, LIBRARIAN, FOR WRITING THIS PARAGRAPH. This book is so funny/charming & also like being turned inside out at the same time & there was clearly so much being turned inside out in the writing of it.]

You once told me that I should work in an artsy bookstore, but I don't know if I would feel like creating art if I was constantly reminded of how much of it already exists. It would be like being a librarian who's trying to write a novel. How could you feel like you had something to say if you were always aware of how many books had been published? I mean what kind of narcissist would be able to sit down and write...

I remember being nervous that you were setting me up, because I wasn't like the cooler-than-thou rockers I'd seen you flirting with in the halls. I was one of the weird queer kids who got teased for wearing eyeliner and mostly hung out in an alcove with my weird queer friends.

[I thought we were in the early 90s suburbs here, which makes a self-understood-to-be-queer clique unlikely? Maybe it's like an NYC suburb?]

...that first time? I kept thinking of waves. Of a dolphin undulating in the ocean. Maybe that helped me to feel okay about being inside of you.

[This was almost the same image - whale not dolphin - that my first partner of this type brought to me to help me through my version of this dysphoria, before we learned to find approaches that felt mutually receptive.]

It was the prettiest drone. No melody. Pure atmosphere. Their instruments reminded me of a documentary on an avant-garde composer who created dozens of unique instruments to play his experimental songs on.

[Maybe 1974's "The Dreamer That Remains" on Harry Partch?]

It's the city where I have to share space with obsolete versions of myself. [...] Why couldn't I tell you this before I left? I have no idea. If I understood myself, I'd be a different person.

{I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING THAT'S HAPPENING YET BUT I CANNOT DEAL WITH HOW BEAUTIFUL THIS BOOK IS]

...their stellar third album, Esperanto A-go-go

[HOW CAN THIS ALBUM NOT EXIST]