In Other(s) Words: Stop!! Hibari-Kun! Vol 1

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There’s a wonderful company my store has been ordering books from called Peow2 – a small press filled to the brim with mighty ideas, and an incredible attention to quality and detail.

At the end of the year, the company offered an intriguing reprint that sat slightly outside of their wheelhouse.

When I ordered this book, I wasn’t quite familiar with the material. At this point, I generally take the fact that Peow2 has taken the effort to put something in print as a sign of quality, so I ended up slowly discovering bits and pieces of this intriguing book as I read and dug from resources.

Stop!! Hibari-Kun! by Hisashi Eguchi was published in the early 80s, and is heralded as one of the earliest (and kindest) depictions of trans identity in manga. Much like a lot of content from decades past, it isn’t perfect in being sensitive to a wide range of topics, but the heart is unmistakable.

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TGIF: A Fond Tradition

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“You’ve never lived by yourself?”

This question, posed to me after I had moved in with my then-girlfriend, many years ago.

“No, I just… went from home to living with roommates to this,” I had told her.

“Everyone should live by themselves at some point,” she had replied.

In early 2023, she would give me that opportunity.

Later, she would say, “There was no love in that house,” and she was right.

So on my own for the first time – I decided to fix that. I decided to fill my home with love – not for anyone else, but for myself. I started thinking of things I’d like, not just to fill up physical space, but to provide me with mental comfort.

This led to me revisiting an old Friday tradition.

When I was a kid, if I was at a house that had cable on a Friday night, chances are I would be watching the TGIF line-up. “My era” was firmly set around Family Matters, Step by Step, Boy Meets World, Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, Sister Sister, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Many episodes of those shows are burned into my brain from old VHS tapes I had recorded onto – nice shows to help pass the time.

On my own, I found myself looking to recreate that experience every now and then. I started grabbing a few series from the line on DVD and set about searching for others on Streaming. Every now and then, I’d build my own franken-line up and watch four different episodes of four different shows.

These days, I don’t always do the full block, but on most Fridays, I’ll pop one of the shows on for an episode or two, just as a weird way of bringing my head back to simpler times.

When I decided that I’d try and write 100 words of something every day, I thought “won’t it be nice to share that experience with folks every Friday until I inevitably stop whatever this is…”

And so here we are.

Starting next week, join me for a slice of TGIF in one form or another. For now, enjoy that opening song, complete with the lipstick kiss I can still see in my head whenever I remember this nights as a kid. 

Keeping it 100 (or) Resolute

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“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

-T.S. Elliot

I’m tired of not writing anymore, so I’ve given myself a little challenge for the year: write at least 100 words once a day, every day. They don’t have to be good, they just have to be there. 

Writing makes me feel good, and this past year, I did very little of it. Every word I managed to pull out somehow tasted like ash, so I just stopped. Then, every time I tried to start back up, everything felt rusty. Even this feels just… wrong. But. If I don’t start, I don’t think I’ll ever get going again, so here we are.

Hi. Let’s see if I can make this work.

Are we really married to this idea?

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A longer article was originally posted at The Indirect Market on September 20th, 2024.

My first marriage lasted a little under ten minutes.

I was seven years old at the time, trying my best to navigate second grade and getting far too stressed thinking about how to “Free the Horses”. I also had three girlfriends.

This was not something I had set out to do. One of them, I had since before I had coherent memories. The other two just happened because I was nice to the girls at school, and when you do that, at some point you have girlfriends. Or something.

There are a few things I remember about my time as a second grade Lothario. I know that one of my girlfriends was attending school in another city entirely. I remember another one that dramatically broke up with me while walking somewhat dangerously on the outer edge of the wooden playground equipment, no barrier between herself and a drop to the ground that was easily twice her height.

“You have to let go of me,” she stated, looking down at the ground, “We have to say good-bye forever.”

She was transferring to another school due to changes in her family, something neither of us really understood. We just knew we wouldn’t be able to hang out at recess anymore, and so this was going to be it. She figured she might as well jump to the sandy ground below.

She didn’t. She told me later I was supposed to try and save her, so broke up with me “even more” because I didn’t care about her enough.

And then, there was the marriage.

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