Hello, darlings. Looking fabulous as always.
The show on Fire Island was a wonderful time of community and celebration. Armed with hearts bursting with chutzpah and command strips we made that house on the beach a temple to art and pleasure and a beacon of queer resistance and love.
If you were there and something you saw is still calling to you, why resist? Smash that reply button or visit the website to indulge your desires.
Though basking in all the love and joy, trouble, alas was awaiting me. A few days into the trip I started experiencing vision problems in my right eye. Visiting an eye doctor on returning I was told I had a detached retina and needed immediate surgery.
The lovely folks at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary managed to squeeze me in the next day. Let me tell you, darlings. Eye surgery is WILD. There will be art and comics to commemorate this singular visual experience—and, naturally, opine on matters like disability justice and healthcare in the US (aka GoFundMe here we come!).
So far things look good, and I’m slowly putting life back together after a week of immobilization and recovery. The eye, being little more than a sack of goo, is rather difficult to operate on and slow to reform itself back into its proper shape. So, for the last week I had to live with severe restrictions on my movement and head position while the tears in the retina healed and it smoothed itself out against the back of the eyeball.
While the surgery is an immediate success, recovery will be slow—possibly as long as a year before vision is fully restored in my right eye. What this means for art making is still to be determined. I am functional enough to take care of all of my needs and write you love letters 💕. Drawing and painting? Don’t know yet, I’m giving that a few more days before trying. I am cautiously optimistic.
Meanwhile, it’s lots of lounging with audio books. Two highlights for your consideration:
All About Love by bell hooks. Simple language that packs a punch. If nothing else, read chapter 8!
The Fugitive Doctor Adventures. For the Doctor Who fans out there, delight in Jo Martin’s exceptional voice acting as she takes her proper, and well-deserved, turn being the Doctor, giving us what we lost out on when the show changed hands a few years back.
An experience like this is an invitation to reflect: on love, gratitude, and the wonderful people that surround us all the time. My enormous thanks to my lovely friends, especially Court, stepping up to help me at a moment’s notice in the precarious days immediately following the surgery. The path ahead is unclear and likely to be bumpy. Yet my heart is full knowing that in community, we can overcome anything.
Love is action, and hope is a discipline.
Until next time, flame on! 🔥