The combination of the beginning of the semester, two hurricanes, and an anxiety-provoking election season left me feeling I was done with My Gothic Body. However, I’m now feeling much refreshed and have started back up on the writing. Looking forward to the long weekend.
The zero draft of My Gothic Body is about 10,000 words. I’m going to add another braid about representations of masculinity in mid-1970s television. In an utterly non-trivial way television shaped the way I understand what it means to be a man. Some representations I adopted, some I rejected, but all the TV men I watched helped shape the way I recognize the boundaries, parameters, and meaning of manhood.
It’s these ideas of masculinity (among others), ghosts, intangible forces that haunt my experience, that shape my reality, and contributed to the way I approach(ed) my health, which led to the kidney stone operations.
So, as I pursue this new draft I might drop some sections into the blog. Or not.
I’ve also decided to join Bluesky. Partly to see if judicious addition of a well-curated social media feed can help me navigate whatever is to come. (lol, or to see if I can find a way to distract me from writing!) I’m @patadave.bsky.social.