The Pigeonhole: An {All You Can Eat} Buffet of Genderthoughts

Blog Post # 1 – Introduction

Hey blog,

I’ve decided to start planting my measly thoughts in this little patch of internet cuz, like a lot of people, I am spending way more time at home than I planned (yay, covid <3) & with so many jobs going remote, I am also spending way more time staring at a computer screen than is possibly healthy.

The other reason is because I am an unemployed aspiring writer (so my screenstaring is mostly at Indeed, email, and miscellaneous entertainment) and fortunate enough to have a mother who is willing to let me shelter-in-place back at home (every parent’s dream for their recently graduated child 😅).

While I am, of course, eternally grateful to have the option of being stuck at home with family (seriously, I don’t trust strangers to be as meticulously preventative as I find necessary, and living alone would be its own special hell), adjusting from being out-and-ambivalently-affirming up at college to being sort-of-out-but-let’s-not-talk-about-it has been… honestly, totally expected, but still a little trying? I actually don’t think I anticipated how “a little trying” it would be, because you think “I’ve lived in the figurative closet for the majority of my life, so coming home to, let’s say, a whole figurative house should be comparatively easy,” but the thing is, in between, you’ve been the closest you’ve ever been to having the whole world. (And by “whole world,” I do mean “liberal campus bubble”).

So, long story short, I started keeping a notebook of things I thought about that I didn’t feel I could discuss with my immediate household (i.e., my mom. Sibs are cool—mom is cool too… just in other ways) & they were largely gender-related thoughts.

So I thought, why not start a blog about this gender stuff? 

Other trans, nonbinary, and GNC individuals’ blogging about their experiences have definitely been a source of comfort for me as my understanding of my gender (and gender in general) evolves, so hopefully these ramblings can help someone out there feel less alone, or serve as passing entertainment—whatever the case may be. Additionally, they say it’s good for writers to build an online presence of sorts, and as a minor luddite (purely in the derogatory, fear-based sense), I am hoping this counts.

I have decided to call this blog The Pigeonhole, because it is my personal fear—“as a queer non-binary writer of color”—that my current desire to use this blog as an outlet for identity-related word vomit will backfire on me later in my career, causing people to pigeonhole me as a “queer non-binary writer of color,” by which I mean they will only be interested in my writing so long as it addresses one of these things.

That said, even though I will probably spend a lot of words and energy cataloguing my not-very-fleshed-out genderthoughts, life for the being who has not yet been ripped from the veins of imagination can truly be an all you can eat buffet of content.

Even so, writing is often an unforgiving wilderness.

At times, one’s creative springs run dry, suffocated by the debris of a nearby avalanche, and other times, our oases of imagination turn out to be heat-stroke hallucinations in the middle of a desert. But sometimes–after a long search–we do, in fact, stumble on a pool of water, a drop of fresh morning dew, someone’s forgotten canteen of flat grapefruit seltzer, and the eyes of our parched souls bloom with sight anew, as if equipped with the wonder with which we perceived the world as children.

My city is very visibly a repurposed desert, so it is actually in the triple digits right now. 

Does this dampen my inspiration? Yes. Reason No. 3 for creating a blog—it forces me to routinely write, exercising my creative muscles. If you’re trying to find time to write, I do recommend keeping a notebook, phone/laptop memo, or journal where you write x amount of words per day. If you’re trying to be a writer but aren’t writing, then you aren’t trying very hard. Think of it as an athlete not going to the gym. Even overused analogies like the one I just made can be points of inspiration (but not this one, this stops here).

At this juncture, I feel it is appropriate to remind you that this advice comes from an unemployed writer.

As you can probably tell, I don’t know how to compose an introduction post for a blog. 

The future will probably reveal that I don’t know how to compose any sort of blog post. If chaotic ‘stream of consciousness’ is your thing, please tune in the next week or so—perhaps I will have a story to tell, perhaps I will post the skeleton of a poem I will regret sharing 2 days later, perhaps I will talk in so many circles you feel like you just went on a 6 mile run. Who knows, the possibilities are endless in the pigeonhole.

Thanks for stopping by,

Connie (she/they)

If you have any suggestions for future topics, want some bad advice from a person who hasn’t really lived, or have job leads (writing, proofreading, diversity reading) feel free to email me at chaoticonnie@thepigeonhole.com.

2 Comments:

Tristamshadey Lol why am I finding out your non-binary from your sloppy-jo blog lol proud of you Con but also you need to be more confident or no one will take you seriously

Mx. Samantha-Atticus Erstwhile they/them pronouns. once i went to a buffet and I had the best chocolate cheesecake it was so good even though i normally don’t like cheesecake bc it sounds like a big hunk of cheese mixed in with cake batter and that dosnt sound too good dos it? it really was the best cheesecake ever it turned me on to cheesecake actually so much that i got this craving during quarantine to have it and when I get cravings to have it i gotta have it so i went to the seveneelvn across the street and bought four hershy’s milk chocolate bars with almonds bc they were out of the good hershys bars and ic ame back to my apartment and took some cream cheese that i had bought to go with my blueberry bagels but i said i gotta have this cheesecake you know and I elted the choclat and took out all the almonds with a strainer and put in the meltd chocolat with the creamcheese and turned it around til it was all mixed up mm it smelled so okay i wish i could let you try some so you could tell me if it was really okay or amazing or taste like shit bc my pops says sometimes i cant tell whats good and what taste like shit. so i put the mix of hershys and phildelphia on a honeymade honey graham cracker and cooled it in the freezer for a minute but not a real minute you know like how people say a minute to mean a short long time you know that minute and i ate it with my mouth. it was so good i wrote a poem and I thought you might like it cuz you say your a writer but its still in the early stages so i dont wanna put it up where the public could see it and embarrass myself you know how it is in those early stages. Im sure your busy so I didn’t want to bother your inbox and figure you can dm me @atticussnuout over on twitter or email me through my blog Hurts While Erstwhile where i write about my struggles with constipation