Welcome to Things I’ve Never Asked! In this A+ series, we ask people we’re close to questions we genuinely don’t know the answers to! In this chapter, Yashwina asks their long-time friend questions and Robyn asks her questions in return!
Yashwina: I figured we could flip a coin to see who goes first. Call it!
Robyn-Phalen: Tails!
Yashwina: All righty, I’ll ask you one first! You and I have been friends since the year 2000, and that’s a really long time. So if our friendship, over the years, had a Gothic associated with it, like the way that there’s the Southern Gothic, Suburban Gothic, et cetera, what is our Gothic?
Robyn-Phalen: What is our Gothic? That’s a good question! I think my answer is… and I think this is a good one. I think we have to look at the source. What is the source truly, that is constantly drawing me to you? I like this idea of this invisible, maybe supernatural, source that is working in the shadows to bring me towards you. And I think that is (your dad) Jeff. I think that you’re talking about the Midwestern Jeff Gothic.
Yashwina: Oh my god, it’s so true. My friends do love my dad. The Jeff Canter Gothic! It’s perfect. I will never forget the time you came to visit and I found you teaching my dad how to play video games. That was adorable. Now that you’re in Chicago, he can never remember which Chicago baseball team to tell me the score for. So for the record, if you had to choose, White Sox or Cubs?
Robyn-Phalen: White Sox. I live closer to Wrigley Field, and closer to Wrigleyville, and I think I’ve just had to… I’ve interacted with enough Cubs fans to be like, “Okay, White Sox”.
Yashwina: Right, like “That’s enough of that!”
Robyn-Phalen: Maybe also because the only time I’ve ever been to a Cubs game, I forgot I had my pocket knife in my pocket. It was a good pocket knife and I had had it forever, but the person at the gate was like, “Oh, I have to take that from you.” I was like, “Will I be able to get it back?” and she was like, “No.” And I was with people, and so I kind of had to be like, “Fine.” But it’s not fine! That’s an unforgivable transgression against me and my sensibilities.
Yashwina: Yeah. Never forgive, never forget!
Robyn-Phalen: I’ll say… to keep Jeff happy with me, I’m a Cleveland Guardians fan.
Yashwina: You know. If I had to pinpoint an aesthetic example of our friendship’s Gothic, what comes to mind are those moments in high school when you’d walk down the empty halls during class playing the banjo. I would hear disembodied banjo in these empty hallways, I could hear you before I could see you, but I’d know you were coming around the corner. That’s what our Gothic feels like.
Robyn-Phalen: I feel like my mind is moving towards the Mariner’s Revenge Song. There’s something maritime about the whole thing.
Yashwina: In another life, we were pirates together.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. We really… you and I really were the queerest motherfuckers around.
Yashwina: Yeah. I remember listening to a lot of the Decemberists together, and us laughing because the song, Oh, Valencia! made me cry. And I was like, “Yeah! I know! That’s embarrassing!”
Robyn-Phalen: That’s true, you sure did. I remember you mentioning them to me in PE class, and that was the first time I ever heard of the Decemberists.
Yashwina: Sorry for setting you off on that path!
Robyn-Phalen: No, I think it’s important. I think that really established my love for historical fiction.
Yashwina: Actually, okay, that is my purpose in your life. I am here as the Ghost of Historical Fiction in the Charles Dickens novel of your life.
Robyn-Phalen: That’s very true. I don’t know, I mean there’s a degree to which, like, you know someone for so long, and it does something strange to how you talk about the past.
Yashwina: The past becomes both an inside joke, and also like, this shared thing bigger than the both of us.
Robyn-Phalen: Maybe it would be different if we met now and knew each other for the next twenty-or-so years.But I think there are a lot of formative and embarrassing things that we went through together — it’s a history of blackmail material!
Yashwina: Yes! Like, of all the years to know each other… you have absolutely seen every single awkward phase of mine that no one is ever allowed to know about.
Robyn-Phalen: There’s a certain point of friendship at which it becomes a blood pact. Certain things, we take to the grave.
Yashwina: And the thing that we are taking to the grave is all of seventh grade.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah, baby. Yes. Keep that on lockdown.
Yashwina: Yes. No one can ever know!
Robyn-Phalen: Speaking of embarrassing secrets… what is the book that you feel like you personally should have read by now? That you know you should have read by now?
Yashwina: Oh my God, I love this question. This one is really easy, but also really funny, because it’s a book you told me to read.
Robyn-Phalen: What!?
Yashwina: I’m sorry!!I still haven’t read The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton! And I bought a copy, and I swear to God, I meant to read it!
Robyn-Phalen: Luckily, of the books that I have recommended to you, that one’s not as important to have not read. You know? It’s not like me telling someone, “Oh, you should read Housekeeping” and then several years later you say, like, “I never read Housekeeping.” I would be like, “Okay BYE!”
Yashwina: Could you imagine if I told you right now, that I had never read Housekeeping. How fast would you be on a plane to Portland to beat my ass?
Robyn-Phalen: It would be more of an anime teleport.
Yashwina: Oh, no. I’m getting the Sailor Moon treatment!
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. Thankfully you’ve read Housekeeping,/em> and that’s important for our friendship. I just finished rereading it for my 10th time!
Yashwina: The 10th time? That’s so many times!
Robyn-Phalen: I have been doing that for 10 years. My copy is all marked up and everything.
Yashwina: Fuck off. So the first time you read that book, you were 16?
Robyn-Phalen: 17. It was the summer before senior year.
Yashwina: God, we were babies.
Robyn-Phalen: I mean, it’s always a great book to re-read. There’s always something you find in it that you had missed before.
Yashwina: Housekeeping kind of segues into my next question: Choose one thing to watch, one thing to listen to, and one thing to read — what are the necessities on your Hot Goth Dyke Syllabus?
Robyn-Phalen: This is a good question. It’s a very important question. First thing, I think to watch is Hellraiser. God I love Hellraiser. Hellraiser is incredible. I have a hard time summing up my feelings about Hellraiser,/em>, very specifically. [clearly verklempt at the thought of Hellraiser]
Yashwina: It’s that good?
Robyn-Phalen: I mean, it’s just like a very grotesque, slimy, gross, Gothic romance.
Yashwina: Wait. That’s not how I thought that sentence was going to end.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. Well, I mean, people really know it for the cenobites, which would be your… they’re not even necessarily villains, they’re just this… the kind of supernatural antagonistic force. And their costumes are incredible. Because they’re very monstrous leather dykes, who were once human, who are like [READER: SHE DRIFTED INTO A DAYDREAM ABOUT PINHEAD] But there’s a lot more to it that is… I think it’s one of those very… I don’t know, it’s kind of perfect.
Yashwina: I mean, it sounds very, very cool.
Robyn-Phalen [full of florid sentimentality]: It’s such a good movie. I mean, it’s a movie that’s very much… I don’t know, it’s tactile… and the book as well. The book is Hellbound Heart. They’re both by Clive Barker, who wrote and directed the adaptation. He’s a gay writer and it’s… God, I don’t even… I’m hesitant to talk about it, because I don’t want to ruin anything about it for you. But I find it a very… I mean, it’s kind of a comfort movie. It’s one of my top five favorite horror movies. And the one that I feel like is most appropriate as the answer to this question.
Yashwina: Okay. So the thing to watch on the Hot Goth Dyke Syllabus is Hellraiser, so then what do I read, what do I listen to?
Robyn-Phalen: To read, probably We Have Always Lived in the Castle or The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
Yashwina: That’s such a perfect answer. Got to be Shirley!!
Robyn-Phalen: There are definitely some other really good ones too. Things We Lost in the Fire,/em>, by Mariana Enriquez. That’s an incredible collection. (My partner) Francis is the one who showed that to me, and it might have the best haunted house story I’ve ever read.
Yashwina: The best haunted house story you’ve ever read? Coming from you, especially, that means something. Oh, fuck yes.
Robyn-Phalen: Album, definitely… I think the one that comes to mind immediately is Celestial Blues, by King Woman. Really one of the best goth babe albums. She’s an artist that my friend shared with me, and I quickly fell head over heels When I heard she was writing a new album, I was like, “Whoa, how is she going to make an album that is scarier and sexier than her most recent album?”and then the new album came out and, my God!
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. But God, Hellraiser. I mean, anything that Clive Barker wrote. His short stories are amazing, like Books of Blood. If you weren’t super into horror, or were new to it, or intrigued by the sound of it, I think any fruit can get into him… like, Hellraiser is definitely grody at times, and pretty gnarly, but I think there is something very freeing in it, too. There’s a lot of heterosexual arrogance, and it all gets annihilated.
Yashwina: I love the sound of annihilating heterosexual arrogance.
Robyn-Phalen [absolutely blushing on the other end of the phone]: Oh my God. I don’t know how to talk. I don’t even know where to start. Yeah, it’s just like a… just go watch Hellraiser. Talk to you later. It’s just about… I don’t know. Sorry, I’m overwhelmed by-
Yashwina: You’re overwhelmed by your Clive Barker love?
Robyn-Phalen [transatlantically]: The movies, baby!I love the movies!
Yashwina: You and the talkies!
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah, me and the talkies! I mean, it’s like… it’d be hard for you to explain concretely, and in a way that will sound good in an interview, your love of screwball comedies!
Yashwina: I’d lay down and die. I get it.
Robyn-Phalen: I mean, I think there’s always been something comforting about the monstrous for me. I feel like that’s not necessarily uncommon for the transsexuals at large. And I find that comforting, that it’s not unusual. But to resonate with the non-human, that is… I mean, there’s ~Theory~ about it. Maybe because it’s easier when you’re young and trans and don’t know it yet, or maybe even have an inkling of understanding, it’s easier to see yourself in the monstrous, than to place yourself in the sights of homophobia, transphobia, and transmisogyny. It provided invaluable wiggle room for me to see myself as something entirely separate from what I was, which was, for reasons I didn’t understand then, unpleasant, and while I couldn’t yet see myself as what I deep-down-want-to-be (a girl), the monstrous was somehow parallel, and somehow intersecting.
Yashwina: That’s a really beautiful answer.
Robyn-Phalen: Thank you. Nightbreed is a wonderful movie about that, about gay monsters, and a very fun one, too. It’s another Clive Barker piece. More of a dark fantasy movie than a horror movie. Reader, when you’re done reading this interview, go watch a Clive Barker movie. Thank me later.
Yashwina: Mom said, “You can’t have dessert until you go watch Hellraiser.”
Robyn-Phalen: Okay. My turn. So my question for you is, I want you to describe for me, your… the term I came up with is Frankengenre. If you were just to mashup two genres together, your ideal combination, what would it be?
Yashwina: This is such a good question. I think moody, atmospheric, speculative/alternative queer historical fiction. Give me the Sarah Waters, give me Carmen Maria Machado, give me the vibe of The Handmaiden, give me urchins and mischief and mayhem. Give me autumnal and wintry scenes and settings. Plus, there’s been so much good, spooky historical fiction lately!
Robyn-Phalen: I’m also someone who definitely seeks that out, so that’s a great answer. What do you think is the appeal of that?
Yashwina: I mean, I think for me, it’s that I’m really interested in all things queer history. But when you introduce the haunting element, I think it’s a way of externalizing the menace of the time that we know in reality was just garden variety homophobia bullshit. And so when you introduce something else and you embody the menace like that, there’s some really fun potential for storytelling, where it’s… there’s still some mystery about what is happening and how they’re going to escape it, and people get to be so creative with that. Because that’s so much more interesting than “their neighbors were bigots who sucked” or whatever! We talk about the banality of evil, and I think that a parallel to that is the mundanity of bigotry.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah.
Yashwina: And so when you get these wacky, goofy, fun, chaotic, speculative history… and it’s gay. Like Confessions of the Fox, by Jordy Rosenberg, is a really fun example. But I’m just like, that book is relentlessly imaginative and so much fun. Or like, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl. You’ve got this supernatural element, but what’s so exciting about it is the fact that it’s gay as hell. And that is so exciting to me, because I think it’s a really fun way of re-imagining, and re-inhabiting lost queer history.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. And I really love… I mean, you mentioned Confessions of the Fox,/em>, I really love what that novel does with… I suppose how much it shows its hand. Like how much it reveals the artistry of it all, and really kind of indulges in the artifice of historical fiction.
Yashwina: I’m just a gay nerd, and so the best combination of my interests is speculative historical fiction.
Robyn-Phalen: Exactly.
Yashwina: Okay. My turn. I have loved your writing my whole life — I remember when we started our school’s writer’s club together in middle school, and from the beginning, you’ve always taken such joy in genre fiction. You’ve always written such imaginative and cool shit! And so, I want to know what it is about horror, and queer horror specifically, as a genre, that you find so resonate and so meaningful? I know you’ve spoken about homophobia, transphobia, transmisogyny and what it is to have that as the driving factor in your interest in monsters. But as a genre and as something that you make and participate in, what’s your favorite part of it?
Robyn-Phalen: That’s a good question. I think in some ways, there is a degree to which, plain and simply, we do not always get to choose where our grand interests lie.
Yashwina: Horror chose you.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. We don’t always get to choose. For the past few days, whenever I’ve been doing tasks in my house, I’ll be watching clips of the show Bar Rescue, of all things, on YouTube. I don’t know why.
Yashwina: Oh my God.
Robyn-Phalen: But I’ve become oddly fixated by it. Jon Taffer, please call me. I love your red blazer.
Yashwina: That’s bonkers. I love you.
Robyn-Phalen: There’s probably… I think there are some answers that I’ve explored more throughout the years. I think one of them is… has to do with a sense of understanding the parameters of myself, and the extremities of myself, by looking at what frightens me. It’s comforting and soothing at times, which I don’t think is an uncommon answer for people who really like horror. There’s a… it’s like looking at the worst case scenarios of a situation, and really dwelling on that. Like, what are the worst case scenarios of the human body. And what are the worst case scenarios of… God, anything.
I think part of it also is what I had to say earlier about monsters. I mean, there was always something just like… I mean, who’s to say? I don’t know if every reason I have for why I like it is speculation. Maybe there is an element of exploring grief, in an unusual way.
Yashwina: Mm-hmm.
Robyn-Phalen: Well, yeah. I mean like, you know when I was five years old, my brother died. So to some extent that informed some of my interest in horror was ghost stories and all of that. Exploring notions of death and dying. I think it was kind of like poking at a sore tooth with your tongue. Like, at what point does your body communicate something to you.
But I think also, there is an element of fantastical gender exploration. Especially with things like Halloween! For several years in a row, when I was very young, my birthday party had to be Halloween in July.
Yashwina: Talk about an iconic baby Goth move.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. I’ve always been a Leo.
Yashwina: You truly have always been a Leo.
Robyn-Phalen: Like, “Everyone must come to my masquerade ball!” But I’ve always loved… gosh, I mean, it’s so hard. It’s so hard to say. It feels so big and such a part of me, and something I’ve always been coming back to. I think it was something I moved away from, for a while. Just in terms of letting myself create it, or try to create it in a way that… I guess, “in a more elevated way”. I mean, I remember fantasy also became a fraught space. For me, the notion of a space where anything can be possible was on some level, terrifying to me. Because if I could be in a place where I could be anything I wanted, I would want to be a girl. On some level, even if I seldom recognized it, that was frightening and overwhelming. So I kind of shut away my interests in this, and fantasy especially, in many other ways.
Yashwina: That must make returning to fantasy as an adult so exciting.
Robyn-Phalen: It is! I think being a transsexual undergoing cognitive behavioral therapy and interacting with this inner child was charged. Because the inner child doesn’t really exist in me. I think there is a degree to which the inner child was, by definition, suppressed, hidden, locked away, ignored. Not allowed to exist. And so, how do you talk to… how do I speak to her? And how do I coax her, and… I mean, I guess it was something in horror that brought unity. I feel most like myself when I am exploring horror. Whatever that means. When I’m thinking about everything that goes into horror. The Gothic and the macabre, the grotesque, the disgusting. Things like all of that. It’s a way of… it’s something that helps me make sense of myself. And it’s hard.
Yashwina: It’s hard, but it’s also exciting and very rewarding. It’s a really beautiful answer. I love the way you talk about genre.
Robyn-Phalen: I’m kind of mumbling. I’m trying to think of my answer, and my cat’s biting my legs.
Yashwina: Oh, no. Artemis!!
THE CAT IN QUESTION.
Robyn-Phalen: Anyway. Well, I will say that, I think there is an element of genre that is in part, a form of yearning. Like a yearning to inhabit elements of these stories that you read before, and-
Yashwina: Oh, so it’s like, the genre persists because someone loves it, and they’re like, “Oh, I want to do that”?
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. I mean, you find elements that you want to bring into yourself, and inhabit. I mean, there’s a… I think that it’s something that can be cheapened into tropes, which I don’t think is a very useful way of looking at genre, not necessarily. “Tropes” feels like a hollow term to describe narrative elements.I think it’s more of an inheritance.
Yashwina: Yeah. Like, it isn’t just as simple as combining the same ingredients over and over in whatever configuration, genre’s more than the combination of parts.
Robyn-Phalen: Right! I often think of genre as wax, which hardens into these shapes, into forms that seem solid. But once you pick them up and start moving these forms around in your hands, they become soft and malleable, and you can do all sorts of things with that material. You’re leaving your thumb prints on it. There’s something more… there’s a greater capacity there for shifting and change than what the simplification into tropes allows. But there’s an inheritance that belongs to all of us, that anyone can snatch. Recently someone commented on an Instagram post that I made, my miniature-painting Instagram, which is really the social media that I use the most.
It’s where I post pictures of the Warhammer minis I paint, and some guy with a fucking Confederate flag profile picture followed me, and I was like, “I am not your friend. I’m a dyke, I don’t want you here, don’t follow my shit.”
Yashwina: Oh, I loved this post. Where you were like, “Misogynist Warhammer dickheads fuck off! Not you, bucko!”
Robyn-Phalen: Not you, bucko! And there was an older Warhammer guy who commented, like, “Nothing gives me more hope in the hobby’s future than seeing young women and NB/queer people take their pound of flesh.” It was a phrase I really loved. A common response people have to shitty dudes gatekeeping is to reassure them, like, “Well you guys don’t lose anything when [young women and queer people] join.” But now I’m kind of like, no, maybe they should lose something. Maybe we should say, “Actually, we are going to take this from you.” We’re going to take a fucking pound of flesh and do what we will with it.
Yashwina: Hell yeah!
Robyn-Phalen: I don’t care if they feel a sense of loss! And I feel like if I am making some gatekeeping dude think like, “Oh well, maybe there is room for both of us, maybe she can do this the way she likes and I can still do it the way I like, and it doesn’t challenge me at all.” Then that’s not right. I do want them to feel threatened.
Yashwina: You want these people to be like, “Oh my God, maybe there’s really not room for me and my attitudes in this any more.”
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah, I do. Frankly.
Yashwina: I love that, honestly. That’s a manifesto right there.
Robyn-Phalen: Okay. Well, I have one question left, and it’s probably the most important question that I have for you.
Yashwina: Oh, boy. Here we go.
Robyn-Phalen: Okay. You ready?
Yashwina: Hit me.
Robyn-Phalen: Yashwina, what’s your karaoke song?
Yashwina: Oh my God. I love you. So I have prepared my whole life for this question.
Robyn-Phalen: Oh my God, of course you have.
Yashwina: It depends on the vibe. If we just want something familiar and fun, I’ll do “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” by The Temptations or “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes,” by Edison Lighthouse.
Robyn-Phalen: Mm-hmm.
Yashwina: But really, when I am among my people and really in my element, I’m going to sing “Some Boys,” by Death Cab for Cutie.
Robyn-Phalen: Oh my God. Incredible.
Yashwina: “Some boys don’t know how to love”!!!!!!
Robyn-Phalen: God.
Yashwina: I can’t help being what I am. I love singing “Some Boys” because I usually have not… there’s usually at least one guy in the room who has gotten on my nerves, and I look right at him. Because if I’m singing around people I like, I get bashful and I get self-conscious about it, but if I’m singing at someone I fucking despise then I can have a great time!
Robyn-Phalen: And I love you, and I hope you never change.
Yashwina: Don’t worry, I’m stuck like this. What is your karaoke song?
Robyn-Phalen: God, irrespective of situation, circumstance, anything, it’s got to be “Thunder Road,” by Bruce Springsteen.
Yashwina: A song bigger than vibe, and bigger than circumstance. What a transcendent song.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. It’s a perfect song. That’s my answer. Very uncomplicated, I think.
Yashwina: It’s a beautiful answer. No notes. Okay, last question from me: what is the gayest thing you remember each of us doing before we came out, and what’s your favorite thing about being gay now?
Robyn-Phalen: God, okay. The gayest thing that I remember you doing before you came out? How do I pick just one?
Yashwina: I mean, obviously we can’t pick the fact that we got married in kindergarten. Our gay marriage doesn’t count.
Robyn-Phalen: Okay, our gay marriage doesn’t count. God. Yeah. This is a hard one. I just feel like anyone who makes liking books as much as a part of your personality as you did, it’s like, that’s a dyke… Whatever you try to say, that’s gay shit. What are some other good ones? You played softball!
Yashwina: Yes, I did!
Robyn-Phalen: Need I say more? You were a baked potato for Halloween when you were three!
Yashwina: That was the last pre-Robyn-Phalen Halloween in my life. That’s weird, right?
Robyn and I met a little less than a year after this.
Robyn-Phalen: I think that’s it. I think I’m going to stick with just, you liked books too much. There’s just something there.
Yashwina: That’s a very Victorian answer of you! You’re like, “You let women read novels and next thing you know, they’re engaging in deviant behavior!!”
Robyn-Phalen: That’s exactly it. I think that’s exactly what happened. And I think that’s appropriate for you.
Yashwina: I’m a Victorian’s worst nightmare.
Robyn-Phalen: And I mean that as the highest, highest form of praise.
Yashwina: Oh, believe me, I know what that means coming from a girl with a MEDIEVAL BEEKEEPER tattoo! Okay, what’s the gayest thing you remember yourself doing before you came out?
Robyn-Phalen: The gayest thing that I remember myself doing before I came out, was obviously throwing Halloween birthdays several years in a row… That’s got to be it.
Yashwina: I will add to that. In my memory, I think the gayest thing I remember you doing, was playing the banjo in those purple leopard-print cutoff jorts that you got at Clothing X-Change, in Hillsboro Village.
Robyn-Phalen: That is true. Those were some good Jorts!
Yashwina: Those Jorts! There is a spot in my heart for those Jorts.
Robyn-Phalen: We have to measure our lives in our best Jorts.
Yashwina: I mean, you’re right though. The Halloween birthday party is the most Leo thing I’ve ever heard.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. I got my dry ice fog machine situation, some fun, themed snacks. I remember everyone arriving in costume, it was great. I’m sure it was a headache for the parents!
Yashwina: Tough shit. I mean, you’re a triple Leo. The parents can deal.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah, they can deal.
Yashwina: What’s your favorite thing about being gay now?
Robyn-Phalen: My favorite thing about being gay now-
Yashwina: Besides Halloween!
Robyn-Phalen: My favorite thing about being gay now… I mean, gay people. My favorite part about being gay is the feeling of comfort I get around other queer people. Obviously the community isn’t some singular cohesive unit, but I just like other gay people. I think that’s what I got to say.
Yashwina: This just in: local dyke likes dykes!
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. I mean, I just do!
Yashwina: I do know exactly what you mean. For all of its flaws and in-fighting, there is something really fucking rad, specifically about queer friendship and queer communities.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. And queer love! I love queer romance!
Yashwina: Gay crushes are a great time. Everyone should try it.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. That’s it. That’s maybe a simple answer, but I think it’s the one that feels the most right.
Yashwina: I love you. This conversation is going to be disgustingly cute, you realize? I love it. I hate us already.
Robyn-Phalen: Yeah. Really, really vile things happening.
Yashwina: Ain’t that just the way.
