A Queer Life

I'm back so soon. Blogging has been on the back burner of my mind, and the smell is finally getting to me.  Most of my life I have avoided having a voice. Some people call that being shy. I am shy, but I don't know if avoiding my own humanness and the space I take up, is part of that. But blogging is definitely a way to express myself in a way that is comfortable to me. Dare I even announce that I am considering doing a 30 day challenge to blog every day? I worry that once I announce it, I will run away and stop blogging for two years, or just abandon this blog and start another one where no one can find me. (I'm always doing that. I don't even remember all the random blogs I've started. But, like I said, I run when I know I'm being read. I run when I hear my own voice being echoed back to me through my audience. Making a difference terrifies me. Affecting people terrifies me. Hurting anyone terrifies me. I live in terror. I live in terror. But that's not wh...

A millenia ago, there was a TV show called American Idol. I used to watch this show.  All those lifetimes ago, I was also Mormon and subscribed to all those Mormon beliefs; one of which was telling teenaged girls: "When you dress immodestly, you become pornography for men." I was also married to a man who many would describe as "downright abusive"; but he never hit me, so it took me a minute to figure out. Don't worry, I'll connect all these dots in a minute. It was the day after some high profile awards show and the Internet talk was about Jennifer Lopez's nip-slip the night before. I dug deeper trying to figure out what happened. Had her boob just popped out of her dress while presenting? Did she act embarrassed? How did the audience respond? I had trouble finding much except a few benign pictures of her presenting. There was speculation about whether her exposure was on purpose or not. Eventually I found a video of her whole time on stage. It was only...