It’s the New Year, another January, another month of not drinking, and another month of being annoying and telling everyone that I’m not drinking. Another January means new resolutions, which are easy to focus on this month because I am not drinking. One of my resolutions is to write more, and after sitting on the idea of this blog for eight months, I’m finally pushing send.
Trade Secrets came to me after a reread of Larry Mitchell’s Faggots & Their Friends Between Resolutions, which I binged after a hookup with some local trade (closeted and straight-passing men), which I pursued the night of the election when things started to look bleak. The quote describes the relationship between women and gay men:
They constantly exchange information with each other on the present state of the madness of the men. They commit espionage for each other so that each can survive.
Trading secrets is essential to survival, especially for women and queer people. Gossip, chisme, rumors, and tea make life interesting, for better or for worse. Trade, of course, came to mind as well when reading this book, which uses the term “queer men” to describe DL trade. Regrettably, I entertained DL trade more than I should have in 2024. Lastly, I thought about my field of work in the art world. This blog will also serve as a place to discuss my line of work, secrets, and insight and hopefully I don’t get fired along the way.
Having secrets is something I personally struggle with. I’m a chronic oversharer. There is nothing my closest friends don’t know about me, and nothing I would feel uncomfortable sharing with anyone. I’ve read this is a symptom of loneliness, but secrets aren’t always concrete. Not every secret is a morsel of information or fact that you can hide. Secrets, I’ve found, can function as verbs: motivations, motives, states of being, darkness, anxieties and depression. Secrets are the things we resist, turn away from in fear, or the uncomfortable parts of ourselves that live within us. Our deepest desires and our strongest fears.
The strong women told the faggots that the more you share, the less you need.
I understand this quote in both physical and emotional terms. So, this is me sharing my life and trading my secrets with you.
Like previously mentioned, I struggle to keep my secrets. After looking inward, perhaps in a new light after not drinking for 12 days, I’ve realized I do have secrets in the form of negative self-thought and anxiety. Since I can’t afford therapy, I’ve been relying on a communal delusion that I’m well acquainted with: astrology.
In astrology, the 12th house is the house of secrets. And very unfortunately for me, I have four planets in the 12th house, which are also all in Cancer. I freaked out and tweeted about it and an OOMF of mine, Bunny, inquired about it in my DMs and I quickly sought her guidance, desperate for a cure for my cosmic misfortunes.
Bunny said that if you drink two shots of espresso, you feel energized and focused; but if you drink four you end up paranoid, anxious, immobilized and tweaked. This, she explained, is what having a stellium can cause, in its most negative aspects. My Cancer stellium: Sun, Mars, Mercury, and Venus, are all in the 12th house. Bunny said that the 12th house has to do with extremely long distances, prisons, asylums, hospitals, isolation, the unseen, the subconscious, dreams, repressions, secrets, and sacrifice. Karma. Naturally, I became very worried about my chart, which I used to view positively, but now only feel a sense of karmic doom.
She asked me if any of the typical 12th house associations resonated with me. She even asked if I had ever been to prison (we’ve never met, so I don’t blame her for asking, but what the hell…). I have no need to be institutionalized (yet!), but view myself as simply pleasantly neurotic. Less literally, she told me that my heavy Cancerian placements might have created a blockage. To clear the blockage, she said I should have a good routine and put myself into the public eye.
Since I’ve fallen into a morning writing routine, which I started after I remembered the Lana Del Rey quote “write at the same time every day so your Muse knows where to find you,” the natural progression is to reveal my writing to the world. I couldn’t think of a better time to finally publish this blog and trade my secrets. If writing into the void brings me some relief from my karmic lineage, I will consider it a personal success.