Went to bed last night and woke up an hour later feeling feverish, dry-mouthed, and terribly thirsty. Chris brought me a big glass of juice, then another. I couldn't get enough to drink. Couldn't sleep, either, until nearly dawn. We missed Ethan's funeral this morning. I feel awful about it, but we just could not wake up. I still feel lightheaded and discombobulated. My eyes are like two pissholes in the snow. As best I can recall, I used to feel a little like this the day after doing mushrooms or Ecstasy. Have had no such thing for several years, unless somebody slipped something in my ham hock.

My big irk for today was learning of a Canadian science fiction/fantasy/horror bookstore that refused to order THE VALUE OF X for a regular customer because it wasn't a horror novel. I wouldn't be so annoyed if they'd just declined to stock it -- there's no real reason an avowed genre bookstore should make space for non-genre titles -- but refusing to even order it suggests that the store's proprietors are more interested in preserving their tight little worldview than in giving their customers what they want. (I'm not being coy with all this "a store" and "this store" business -- the reader did not tell me the name of the store. If she does, I'll let you know.) This is the major reason why, with a few exceptions (The Garden District Book Shop here in New Orleans and Borderlands Books in San Francisco come immediately to mind), I prefer the big book retailers to tiny, narrowly focused independents. I'm glad gay/lesbian/transgendered bookstores exist, but I seldom see my books in them even though I am a transgendered, gay-identified writer, because they tend to think of me as a horror writer. I'm glad genre bookstores exist, but a lot of them probably didn't carry THE VALUE OF X and won't carry LIQUOR even though I have a lot of readers who are genre fans, because they're not horror titles. Barnes & Noble, Borders, and even the dreaded Amazon don't care about silly shit like this. They don't say "We won't let you buy that here because it's not X"; they sell my books to people who want to buy them. For me, that's really the bottom line, not whether a store is homey or colorful or has a comfy sofa. (For the record, though, Garden District and Borderlands both have very comfy sofas.)

Messing around on LJ, I discovered a very odd little community: pbz_bangers, apparently dedicated to gay sex, childfree-ness, and, well, me (sort of). Yes, they know they've got the order of my initials wrong, but they're funny about it. I confess I don't get the whole "childfree" thing -- I am childless and planning to stay that way, but my lack of desire to have kids is not a defining factor of my life or something I feel the need to have validated by an Internet community. They seem like nice young people, though, except for one nascent wit who posted a snarky comment about "insipid boy-love novels in which all the characters are annoyingly normal." Yes, and I suppose you're So Very Different and Misunderstood, dear. Reminded me how glad I am to be shaking off the kiddies who think one's degree of normalcy is determined by hair color, number of piercings, and whether or not one thinks vampires are, like, so kewl. At any rate, I don't think I will be a regular participant, but if you are interested in any of these things, check it out. Not too much activity there at present. Maybe a mention here will bring it back to life. See, I'm nice.

So I made the following post in the aforementioned pbz_bangers community:

Hello! Just found this odd little place. Here's something I've long wanted to ask about on the childfree community, but I didn't want to join the community and certainly didn't want to be thought of as a troll. I'm hoping maybe I can get away with it here, since I've (sort of) lent my initials to this community.

Why childfree? I mean, why do you identify as childfree? I am childless and planning to stay that way, but I don't hate kids and I confess I don't understand the urge to define oneself as "childfree," have Internet communities about it, etc. I did experience a certain bitterness toward "breeders" in my early thirties, when it seemed to me that the entire world was geared toward celebration of heterosexual people and their babies, but even then it wasn't a bonding factor for me. Is it one for you, and if so, why? I don't intend this as a criticism per se; I'm truly interested.

I'm not here to blab about myself overmuch, but I would like to respond to a rather snarky comment below by saying that if you think the characters in THE VALUE OF X are normal, I can't help thinking you have a great deal to learn about normalcy. True, they don't have funny-colored hair or body piercings, they don't wear makeup, they don't Worship The Night. I think part of growing up, though, is realizing that a great many people who exhibit these characteristics are in fact excruciatingly normal -- or at least as "normal" as anyone is -- while a lot of people who don't feel the need to parade their differences are in fact unusual and interesting folks. Not that there's anything wrong with parading one's differences, but I don't care for communities where it is a requirement.

and got the following smackdown from one kwobtchan, who in her own LJ also brags of having driven people she hates off the childfree community:

Well, actually, I identify myself as being many things, one of which happens to be the mod of this community. In accordance with my mod-related duties, it is my job to inform you that while off-topic posts are alright once in awhile, it would probably be best for you not to make any more. There are other communities out there for insulting one’s fans.

Thank you <3.

Wow. I guess that's what I get for trying to hang out with the Cool Kids, let alone expecting them to be capable of explaining their opinions (although another member, who actually sounded as if s/he might be over 14, did make a cogent and courteous comment). Ah, Livejournal. I love you; I hate you; you are indisputably one of the stranger phenomena of the Internet.

I've spent far too much time on this today, and I'll leave it alone tomorrow, but this is too good not to note:

I'm not allowed to post in the pbz_bangers community any more. I tried to reply to someone's comment and got a message telling me "You are not allowed to post in this user's journal." Yes, I have been banned from a community that's named after me. Meanwhile, our intrepid moderator, kwobtchan, has retitled her own journal "Now Officially Too Cool For Poppy Z. Brite."

As my friend Cliff likes to say: Pure. Comedy. Gold.

Thanks to the rest of y'all for reminding me that most of my readers are not dim-witted babybats, and for the articulate and interesting opinions on childlessness vs. childfreedom.