A Generation X transgender woman, Sherilyn Connelly came out of the closet in 1999. Her own identity still emerging, she had stumbled into a difficult, stifling relationship. Also, her employment at a tech company ceased when the dot-com bubble burst. It was a goth boy from Bolinas that first took her shopping for make-up, and the San Francisco goth scene became her respite. This wickedly eye-opening memoir reveals how Connelly dealt with a toxic partner and found her voice as a woman. A longtime cinephile, it tells how she became a writer, rekindled a love for cult films and horror conventions, and learned "the secret to becoming a star." Her remembrances are also a tale of a bygone era of sex, music and San Francisco and its darkened underworld of goth strays--her literate vampires and beautiful ghosts.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Hymnal Introduction: Out of the Bag and into the Abattoir Prologue: Infernal Cartography 1. Six Feet Down at Age ­Twenty-Five How the End Always Is 17 delete• deleteBaby Doll, Check Your Cheek 22 delete• deleteLeave Your Expectations at the Door 27 delete• deleteLove in the Dying Moments of the 20th Century 38 2. Honor Thy Error as a Hidden Intention El Ritual de la Caja Para Gatos 44 delete• deleteThe One to Walk in the Sun 47 delete• deleteChoking on the Dirt and Sand 49 delete• deleteGood Morning, It’s Possum Day 51 3. eXistenZ Is unPauseD Josie and the Vampire 56 delete• deleteKeep Circulating the Tapes 62 delete• deleteSpang of the Loathsome Dead 68 delete• deleteShe Gets to Sing Just Like a Bird 75 4. Dead Cats and Cab Drivers For Rent: Black Sheets, Never Reported 79 delete• deleteYou Probably Think This Book Is About You 84 delete• deleteThe Midnight Sisters Convene in Kopenhagen 91 delete• deleteWere You Jerking Off to Her or Were You Jerking Off to Me? 97 delete• deleteA Large Room, Full of People 103 5. The Epoch of Recombination Mechanism of Occupant Ejection 106 delete• deleteKeep Your Tracking Knobs Properly Adjusted 109 delete• deleteJohn Calvin, He’s Long Dead (We Gotta Get That in Our Head) 113 delete• delete“Someday, This War’s Gonna End” 116 delete• deleteBleeding Like a Polaroid 119 delete• deleteI’m Not an Angel, But at Least I’m a Girl 124 6. The Lightning of Early May A Walking Study in Demonology 133 delete• deleteIncept Date: 22 Sept. 2006 138 delete• deleteVisions of Dazzling Rooms 142 delete• deletePerilous Night, Their Voices Calling 148 delete• deleteA Flicker of Light Before the Dawning 151 7. Welcome to Annexia Partners in a Benevolent Psychopathology 155 delete• deleteTwo ­Semi-Metallic Human Beings 158 delete• deleteSome Semen Is Saltier Than Others 163 delete• deleteProphecy Is Ragged and Dirty 169 delete• deleteA Universe Gone Quickly 171 Epilogue: Under the Zodiacal Light The Beautiful Ghosts Mixtape Index