Sometimes things which *should* be obvious are not. We’re so occupied elsewhere that we miss what’s in front of our face. That happened to me the other day. I was catching a bus downtown for SXSW, and it dawned on me. I live in Austin. I live in AUSTIN. I LIVE in Austin. For as […]
**trigger warning** We have to be able to talk about suicide
A queer and homeless acquaintance posted a suicide note on FB tonight. He was an activist and friends were able to mobilize and locate him. He is now checked into the hospital. But I just saw him last night at Free & Queer film night. He sat beside me and laughed and blew bubbles as […]
OP-ED: Stop being jerks, Texas drivers
I’m going to start by saying I’m not from Texas. I grew up in West Virginia and moved to College Station in 2010 to attend graduate school at Texas A&M University. One of the most difficult adjustments I’ve had to make over the past three and a half years (aside from getting used the weather) […]
The First Day of the Rest of my Life
Anyone who’s been following this blog knows how miserable I’ve been working in a call center. Friday was my last day, and today I started my new job in a feminist bookstore I can walk to from my house. I feel like a weight’s been lifted off my shoulders. I can feel the tension melting […]
Life and Death
I know I haven’t written for a while. But a lot of things have converged lately that I want to try to make sense of. Jose Esteban Munoz died earlier this week. I drew heavily from his book Cruising Utopia for my thesis. While academic research is often framed as a conversation, I always entertained […]
Possibilities
Just had a lovely evening of conversation with a friend. She’s in Internet Marketing and has recently started operating her business based on gifts and gratitude; giving things away to those who need them rather than setting a fixed price for services, and letting folks contribute as they will. Even though we’re coming at all […]
thinky thoughts…
…. to be elaborated on later… Traffic was “whew!” today… and yesterday, too, for that matter. Is everyone taking a page from my book and avoiding the highway? I had a thought today as someone cut in front of me and I decided not to honk at them because I could see how they thought […]
The Power of Words
I’m usually not a huge fan of labels. I prefer to self-identify in ambiguous terms. Life is complicated and if I learned anything in graduate school it’s that dichotomies are always false, if easier for the human brain to comprehend sometimes. That said, sometimes naming something can be really useful. I’ve always known I can […]
Poly Roadblocks
Slowly but surely I’m getting better at this poly thing. I can literally feel it. Feel it in the way the jealousy bites at me, but then some part of me rejects it, and it turns into a self-analyzing moment with the potential for personal growth. I don’t want to be jealous. That doesn’t change […]
a new chapter
I think all humans both require and on some level fear change, or are at least resistant to it. No matter how much I yearn for change, the closer it comes, the more anxious I become. I also tend to get nostalgic for the good parts of my life – probably a coping mechanism in […]