soul sister

Of the dozens of books I read last year, "Educated," by Tara Westover has had the most profound impact on me. She writes of growing up homeschooled and uber-religious in rural America, with a paranoid, reckless father and mystical, enabling mother, amid violence and mindfuckery and enduring feelings of guilt and shame.
It could have been my life, minus the abusive sibling.
I had to read slowly, overcome at times with sadness or panic.
I bought it secondhand a few weeks ago and finally dug up my teen-aged journals.
Seeded in among the chirpy prayer requests and musings about My Future are kernels of truth I'd forgotten about.
Westover's work makes me see a way to write my own story.
More to come. 

25 days in

25 days into 2020 and already it's such a twist of conflicting emotions.
--Capricorn birthdays! pizza and private karaoke, family din din and rum slushies
--and yet 3 friends have unexpectedly lost parents/siblings
--worldwide fires and lies
I'm being productive and yet I wonder if it matters.
Reading a journal from my teens, I wrote that I was convinced the world was ending imminently.
I've lost the religion but somehow the delusion persists.

a useful reminder

we lost Marguerite this year, and one of the things she bequeathed to us was this ring.
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I'd rather have Marguerite, but instead we have five diamonds in an admittedly complicated setting.
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it all seems metaphorical for life at the moment.
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We intend to make something new of the ring. Keepsakes for dear ones and a re-casting of the gold.
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a useful reminder

today could be the day

via GIPHY

blue moon

If there is a photo that represents this last and final month of 2019, this is it. The Blue Moon tavern on a rainy night, a beer and a shot at a distressed wooden table after a trying work day. I need to make real changes before I crash land into a deep ravine. Better the pain I have prepared for than an inadvertent and catastrophic collision. Friends, job, living situation, creativity. All of it. I am restless and hungry and need to remain so.

we do not want

via GIPHY

jingly

Jingle All The Gay! from Kitten N' Lou on Vimeo.
The past few Decembers I have been lucky enough to usher for a drag holiday show called "Jingle all the Gay" (formerly "Homo for the Hoidays"). Last week was opening night and after an hour of frantic set-up--hauling risers and chairs across the Oddfellows' wooden floors, dragging trash down the freight elevator and dodging performers doing sound check--the doors opened and I stamped hands and gave out the bathroom code to a few hundred be-sparkled revelers. The first two smiling men in the door wore festive suit jackets and had glitter in their beards.
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It's a colorful, happy event and one that always brings me to tears. For all the gaiety and sexiness and madcap song-and-dance numbers, there's an undercurrent of activism, a growing sense of alarm at the ugliness of the wider world. It's a time for togetherness and laughs and defiance. For what is comedy but the truth told with a smile?