Wednesday What Are You Reading

Currently Reading

Still on Fame is the Spur, still think it's going to end up being very depressing, still going very slowly.

The Chalet Girl (Kate Lace) - unashamed chicklit with surprise Barchester. I am not convinced that the author knows a huge amount about the inner workings of the Church of England, and I am (again) having thoughts about how many cathedral cities can one fit into the south of England anyway, but will write more about this next week.

Scarlet Feather (Maeve Binchy) - possibly a 'too famous to need editing' problem? Lots of repetition. Also I hate the hero, who is jealous and possessive. And yet somehow I haven't stopped reading it...

The Lantern (Lawrenson) - continues purple and boring and I wish to slap a lot of the characters.


Recently Finished

Malinche (Laura Esquivel) - was very interesting but suffered from not knowing whether or not it was fiction or history, and also not having been very transparently translated. To my shame I'd never heard of Malinalli before.


Up Next

Not sure. Might really be The Spirit Level this time. It depends on whether my brain has grown back.


Other Media

More of La Vuelta. Also Lego Lord of the Rings - Anne played and I watched.

All in my head

I came out the other day. Again.

I have come out to a number of different people in a number of different ways. These days, after several years of angst and trial and error, I pretend that everybody knows already, that I don’t need to tell them. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it works. If someone already knows I’m bisexual, then I don’t need to worry about what they’ll think when they find out. If I’m not worrying about what they’re thinking, I’m free to say what I actually wanted to say.

This time, for example, there was a vacancy in my trade union constituency for an LGBT workplace contact. There were a few other vacancies, too. The chair of the meeting asked me if I wanted to stand for any of them. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’ll do LGBT.’

What the ‘pretend everyone knows already’ doesn’t help with is the physical reaction. No matter how accepting, how supportive everybody is, no matter how calm and matter-of-fact I appear on the outside, the moment I’ve said it I am shivering and feeling sick.

( Cut for biphobia and talking to myself )