compersion & limerence

I went to the fancy bookstore yesterday to buy myself a copy of if not, winter, reasoning that I should read it myself instead of just consuming sapphobot. The person behind the counter:

• owns 3 copies of if not, winter
• lusted briefly with me after this ludicrously expensive letter press edition, illustrations by jenny holzer
• keeps a secret copy of Autobiography of Red tucked behind the David Foster Wallace for "when people like you and me come and we're out of stock"
• asked "do you come here often?" and gave me ~four extra stamps on one of those frequent buyer cards, so, yes, I do now!

I just finished red doc< Monday, and was emoting to my housemates about it because I have zero (0) filters; one of them came home the next day and was like "I spent two hours today reading about Anne Carson at work, thanks." I do think I preferred Autobiography of Red, on balance; the specificity and reworking of the translations was so fucking perfect, and so much the meta-textual story re-making I LIVE for. Then again, approaching red doc with the expectation of a straight-forward sequel was foolish on my part. Autobiography continues to rub like a stone in a shoe at inarticulate feelings of queerness. It's the overlap between [embodiment, it sucks] and [gender, it sucks] that I also feel in that my favorite authors continue to be Sapphic women writing about being Sapphic women and embodiment thereof, while not feeling myself to be a Sapphic woman. I both do not know what to do with that feeling and am very glad that I'm having it, and thinking it, and reading literature that rubs at it without naming it. Books: they're pretty good, guys.

did you read reticent sonnet yet?