How the west was won

Wisconsin was the first place that I encountered homophobic slurs in bathroom scrawl. I had encountered bathroom scrawl before, mostly in mens washrooms, but it was mostly of a more banal variety. I mean, some of it was sexist, most of it was idiotic, but it was rarely, if ever scary. At the med school in Davis, CA, I remember finding a note that said "I should have gone to Stanford instead," and after thinking about the long hours of thankless studying and demoralizing institutional culture, I sympathized with his feelings of learning later that an important choice was poorly met.

It's not what you're saying, it's what I'm hearing

One of the first times I was at the UW Milwaukee campus, a group of us were in the bathrooms in the Union, only to discover such uplifting commentary as "Die AIDS faggots". I was shocked. Somehow I just couldn't understand where the author was coming from. Was he a jilted lover, infected and left to suffer the consequences? Was he a right wing soapboxer? A closet case? Are we still trapped in the 1980's preconceptions of AIDS as a 'gay' disease? Does he somehow think a virus is going to morally differentiate between the virgin mary homo and the straight cum dumpster of tinsel town? What is he so afraid of, that he needs to share his opinions in this way?

Last week I had seen something in one of the stalls at work about somebody or other being a faggot. I didn't recognize the name, and it wasn't until today that I realized that all of the stalls in that bathroom were scrawled with "Nate Higgins is a faggot". And the more I sat and stared at the nondescript hand writing, the more I realized the less I knew. Who was this Nate? And did the author mean this literally, or was it some kind of slur against his masculinity? Is it fair to ask clarifying questions in this semipublic forum?

Ten minutes at the computer offered up the insight that this 'Nate' probably was not a co-worker or student in the building, but rather a hockey coach in the upper midwest college hockey circuit.

Which leads me to question of how to respond. Leaving it there seems to endorse the homophobia that it engenders. And yet removing it is censorship. After thinking about it for a while, I decided the best response was something that both calls this issue out into the open and obfuscates it by invoking other stereotypes of masculinity, colonialism and sexuality:

"Hey honey, there ain't nothing wrong with a little buttlove, it's how the west was won."

Happenstance Poetry of Found Words

Dear Neighbor,

Just so you know, we can hear when you talk very loud (like when there are people over), when you play your music loud we can hear that too, and, yes, we can hear when you are having sex (like at 4 this morning) because you are loud. If it's after 11:30 on a weeknight we would all (and I think I can speak for the apartments next to, above, and below yours) appreciate it if you would do these things a little more quietly.
Thanks,
Your neighbor who did not get any sleep last night due to the noise from your apt.


When I read this letter, I feel like I should think about the situation it represents, but I can't help but wonder about the person behind it. The handwriting is loopy and strikes me as feminine. So I give her names in my mind such as "the comma horder" who can't make it through a sentence without at least five commas, "the paranthesis gardener" who needs to plant paranthesis in every sentence, the "blunt conciliator" who is very firm about the time that she would like things to be a 'little more quiet', the "dependent clause dependent" who needs at least two dependent clauses to to describe any situation.

Then I think about writing a response to this letter, and how hard it would be to drop the letter at the post office. Not because of any lingering shame, but rather because of the name. Would the postal workers appreciate a letter addressed to 'the neighbor who did not get any sleep last night due to the loud sex in apt 5'?

But then again, what would the letter contain? An apology? Earplugs? A condom?

I have a theory that for every question there's at least one good answer. So I thought about it for a while and decided that a good answer would be:

Dear Neighbor,

Sorry about the noise last night. Next time we'll use the ball gag.

Yours Truly,