Queer spaces

I found something really weird last night on Burcham Road. You know those little figures they paint on bike lanes to indicate that you're supposed to be riding a bike there? I found a headless one. The rest of it looked like it had been recently painted, too; it was just missing a head.

I'm not sure if that counts as a queer space, exactly, but it's really unsettling. Maybe that's more a comment on bodies than anything else.

One queer space? The botanical gardens over by (I think) the chem buildings. The garden is this really pretty space sandwiched by industrial buildings and bordered by sidewalks. The garden itself is queer too, though, because it's a metal and wood construct but covered by plant life. The metal, in particular, is an interesting juxtaposition, because it's not something I associate with gardens at all. It blends together well, though; I mean, I'd definitely give it points for being aesthetically pleasing.

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Back-posting because my interwebs apparently wouldn't let me post this one (thought it went through, but I guess not). More importantly, an update!

I'm starting to think what's really queer about queer spaces is that, in being queer, they're creating an idea of "normalcy" to which they are not complying. But when you think about it, there really is no "normal" space, is there? There's always something "different."

Take roads, for example. What's a "normal" road? Is it the kind of road we see most often - two-lane, dotted line down the center? Are areas where we aren't allowed to pass from one direction or another queer because the line is solid and the rules are different? Is the highway queer for having different speed limits and rules? Are intersections queer because they force us to negotiate the meetings of more than one road? An intersection abruptly forces a renegotiation of what we know; we learn how roads work early on in our lives (look both ways and all that), and then later we have to learn how cars are intended to behave at intersections.

And even those "normal" roads would necessarily be queer in their varying constructions - different levels of elevations, for example, or different curves in the road, or the paint could be faded. Or (like many roads in southern Michigan), they could be layers of old roads paved over in an attempt to smooth them out, which is queer because that's not really an effective way to fix a road and yet we accept that as normal here. Are all roads queer in comparison to a perceived "norm"? Is queerness really what's normal rather than normality itself?

Is this taking the idea too far? Probably. I don't know. I'm suspicious of the idea of something being "normal," but I'd buy "average," I guess. Maybe typical. Queerness is all based on learned behavior anyway, and it'd be stupid and pointless to disregard that we do have an idea of what is normal.

I'm going to stop because I'm not entirely convinced I'm making sense anymore.