Okay, fine.
Despite my best inclinations, I decided to start this. I could run through the normal things - I’m Millie, she/her, kanaka maoli, butch - okay, we’re done, now what? What am I actually doing here, what do I actually want to be doing here.
I have always been someone with a lot of thoughts. Not just someone who has a lot of thoughts, but someone who liked to sit with them and pick them apart, tear at the edges, and see if I could make something new out of them. The problem is, it really is a lonely way to live, a lonely way to construct queerness, and a poor way to construct humanity. We are not solitary creatures, we are not really meant to sit alone with our thoughts 24/7.
The problem is, I have far too many thoughts. too many for a thing like twitter, too incoherent for something like a book, and too overbearing for me to try and just say all of that to my friends. Queer theory, queer time, butchness, things that just sort of spilled out.
“Why don’t you just put them all on a substack? you could put essays, queer news, anything like that could go there.”
No, see, these are my thoughts. These aren’t things that other people should see.
No, really, you should.
Okay, fine, but what do I talk about?
Anything! You have a lot of thoughts about your butchness, and your transness, and anything like that that matters, right?
Okay, so, sure. That’s what it’ll be, I think. Essays, on butchness, on transness, on the transgressiveness of sticking a needle into my leg twice a week to form my body into the shape it would never be able to take on its own, essays on how it feels to embody the masculinity I was never comfortable with back when I was the gender everyone expected me to embody masculinity in. Essays on how it feels to do all of this, and figure all of this out, as someone who barely has the strength to lift herself up, someone whose joints are crumbling.
And, hopefully, some news. Queer joy, where I can find it. Queer pain, which is everywhere these days. Queer politics, which seems to be all anyone wants to talk about. Whichever one you want to stick around for, whatever you decide to do, the hope here is that there’s something to get out of it at least.