Description
Book Synopsis A Generation X transgender woman, Sherilyn Connelly came out of the closet in 1999. Her own identity still emerging, she had stumbled into a difficult, stifling relationship. Also, her employment at a tech company ceased when the dot-com bubble burst. It was a goth boy from Bolinas that first took her shopping for make-up, and the San Francisco goth scene became her respite.
This wickedly eye-opening memoir reveals how Connelly dealt with a toxic partner and found her voice as a woman. A longtime cinephile, it tells how she became a writer, rekindled a love for cult films and horror conventions, and learned the secret to becoming a star. Her remembrances are also a tale of a bygone era of sex, music and San Francisco and its darkened underworld of goth strays--her literate vampires and beautiful ghosts.
Table of ContentsHymnal vi
Introduction: Out of the Bag and into the Abattoir 1
Prologue: Infernal Cartography 13
1. Six Feet Down at Age Twenty-Five 17
How the End Always Is 17 • Baby Doll, Check Your Cheek 22 • Leave Your Expectations at the Door 27 • Love in the Dying Moments of the 20th Century 38
2. Honor Thy Error as a Hidden Intention 44
El Ritual de la Caja Para Gatos 44 • The One to Walk in the Sun 47 • Choking on the Dirt and Sand 49 • Good Morning, It's Possum Day 51
3. eXistenZ Is unPauseD 56
Josie and the Vampire 56 • Keep Circulating the Tapes 62 • Spang of the Loathsome Dead 68 • She Gets to Sing Just Like a Bird 75
4. Dead Cats and Cab Drivers 79
For Rent: Black Sheets, Never Reported 79 • You Probably Think This Book Is About You 84 • The Midnight Sisters Convene in Kopenhagen 91 • Were You Jerking Off to Her or Were You Jerking Off to Me? 97 • A Large Room, Full of People 103
5. The Epoch of Recombination 106
Mechanism of Occupant Ejection 106 • Keep Your Tracking Knobs Properly Adjusted 109 • John Calvin, He's Long Dead (We Gotta Get That in Our Head) 113 • "Someday, This War's Gonna End" 116 • Bleeding Like a Polaroid 119 • I'm Not an Angel, But at Least I'm a Girl 124
6. The Lightning of Early May 133
A Walking Study in Demonology 133 • Incept Date: 22 Sept. 2006 138 • Visions of Dazzling Rooms 142 • Perilous Night, Their Voices Calling 148 • A Flicker of Light Before the Dawning 151
7. Welcome to Annexia 155
Partners in a Benevolent Psychopathology 155 • Two Semi-Metallic Human Beings 158 • Some Semen Is Saltier Than Others 163 • Prophecy Is Ragged and Dirty 169 • A Universe Gone Quickly 171
Epilogue: Under the Zodiacal Light 176
The Beautiful Ghosts Mixtape 189
Index 191
