Hurt Me Daddy, for I Have Blogged

  Fifi Dosch and Robin Tran have inspired me with their Skin Suit podcast , and a lot of what Robin talks about re: personal growth has really been hitting hard with me lately. Seriously, if you haven’t listened, you should. I’ve been talking to my therapist about how after The Great Unfriending of 2024, I’m honestly kind of going down the list of people that I could reach out to to add back on The Failbooks, and...I don’t want to. Not because I think they’re garbage people, but because sincerely, I don’t think I am actively enhancing that many peoples’ lives, or really can, at one time. We’ve turned viewing each others’ stuff into what I consider to be really passive spectatorship on social media, and that makes me despondent in a lot of ways. I realized this with the aftermath of That One Online Magicky Group a few of us were in. First of all, I’m not sure I was tangibly improving a lot of those peoples’ lives very much; I don’t think I always prioritize talking about social is...

I just had some realizations. No this is not me getting cocky or acting like I know everything. Just journaling some realizations. I'm also not reciting any of this in a judgy way. They're just observations. They also might be more specific to my city than to other cities. Or not. -Some people are actors who are good at acting like funny comedians onstage (A lot of people I watch at mics.) -Some people are funny people who are working on being good and consistently funny comedians, or are definitely good and consistently funny comedians. I can only hope some version of this is me, and I see a lot of people like this at mics and shows, too, and the people I respect and aspire to emulate in the comedy scene are like this. -Some people are comedians who are not funny/are depressing much of the time. If a person has reached feature or headliner status and is like this, it's likely that this is some kind of a persona that they determined worked for them at some point, but ...

Sometime between 2004 and Spring of 2006, I forcefully slammed a very large shoebox full of cassette tapes into the garbage can at my mother's house. You don't understand. Not just original cassette tapes. Mix tapes. During the peak hipster era of High Fidelity and Say Anything (much older, because yes we were already rehashing nostalgia), I committed a high crime against art and Xennial self-determination. I remember neither the context of the conflict, nor why I desired so strongly to sabotage myself. Was it later than then? Had I moved out again? Was it closer to 2008? I couldn't tell you. But I knew I was on one of my decluttering kicks. Inasmuch as I am messy and allow things to pile up (hopefully not to a hoarderly level) I have also gotten on occasionally forceful kicks of throwing my possessions away. Mostly because they reminded me of a part of myself that was over. Around this same time I think I dumped all the handwritten letters between me and beloved friends be...

I always like to take stock of stuff in my life at this time of year. So let's talk about a few things.First, something really positive. One of my yoga students/co-practitioners who has been with me the longest, is now embarking on teaching as a student and just recently, teaching online as a student. I'm super proud of her. She will be done with her full program and be ready to certify, projected by the end of December of this year, but I believe we all progress in our own timeline, so maybe give or take! Second, I'm seeking a bit more summertime employment that's predictable, and something for 10-20 additional hours per week would be just perfect. Or, you could join me for group donation yoga on Thursdays at 10am, sign up for private yoga or fitness sessions, sign onto home decluttering with me for between one and as many sessions as you need, or hire me for short-term copyediting or writing projects. I've been fitness and yoga certified since 2013 through AFAA/NA...

 Hi there! So first, I'd like to issue a Content Warning for talk about money and finances . This can definitely be a sore point, so move along if you need to. Also I am NOT ohoohohohoho nooo not a financial expert or consultant, so take this anecdotally-based advice at your own risk. So here's some of the ins and outs of what I've been up to lately. First, I'd like to talk about my experience with the Care Credit card. This is the one we often hear about in relationship to having excess vet bills, etc. The long and the short of it: If you can prevent taking out one of these, or even a similar thing from a mainstream bank, DON'T DO IT. With a 30% APR and an only 1-2 month grace period til repayment in a lot of cases--I can't stress this enough, but this is predatory. A better alternative: First, consider banking with a credit union for your regular stuff if you don't already. Make sure it's reputable. I can't speak to how much longevity is required...

  I had an encounter with someone close to me a few days ago and I'd like to talk about it. I think there's a tendency amongst progressive folx to always be in a frustrated/heightened energy and to also remain in a sense of dissatisfaction. Specifically in relationship to not wanting to celebrate incremental wins, because they aren't enough to make everything around us better in a day. And I've recently realized the dangers around this. Not celebrating successes can really come from a place of internalized capitalism, and it can neglect the journey along the way, during which we may glean valuable info for the road ahead. It's easy to feel like it isn't enough when we feel deeply under-resourced in the moment, and I respect and regard that from my privileged perspective. But we also need hopeful moments to anchor onto, and we need to authentically be in a place of accepting those hopeful moments. I liken it to being in a place of being able to accept romantic or...

  I think today in therapy I did a lot of what the kiddos call "inner child healing." I honestly think I turned out a person who doesn't suck. It's a time in history when it feels harder and harder to stand by one's principles. Not only that but the ability to give a nuanced "no thanks, that's not for me" rather than railing against a situation. But also deliberately picking what I will and won't support. That 12-year-old me was ok and right. Everything does suck and the world kept being unfair and not ok. But then I started reading about all the civil conflicts going on and I really think it's more important than ever to have repair, conflict mediation and reconciliation skills inside of, for and by marginalized people communities. I saw what tore us apart just before and during early panny. And I don't want to do it anymore. I want better solutions but with strong boundaries that honor harm done and don't pretend that something neve...

Possibly just LGBTQ things, but I guess the hardest part of healing in adulthood is realizing that the circumstances around which you were raised weren't "normal." Relative privilege in my case? Yeah. Emotionally stable? Not really. I also think the only child thing, combined with some level of parentification, was really hard for me. Whereas most peers my age had ye olde "ethnic babysitting" model (which yeah, that's also parentification but it's also a lot of peer interaction)...my few family members my age weren't in the US. So it was a scant number of parents' friends' kids who were like siblings and that also brought with it, well, I guess some of the joys of siblinghood. But then the situation went back to isolated on a whim. 💁 Anyway now I'm a standup comedian.

Wanted to come here to talk about the fact that diasporic Jewish experiences are disparate things. Not all of us resonate with coming from relative generational wealth, for example if you had turn-of-the century immigrant relatives to the US who were able to build up some wealth. Not all of us resonate with Yiddish language or culture. If that was at all spoken in my family it would've been extensively spoken by great-grandparent and older generations.  Not all of us resonate with diaspora-ism as a positive experience. So many of ours knew persecution and deportation. I don't feel comfortable with people idealizing shtetls and harsh conditions. Not all of us resonate with thriving Yiddish culture in general, because a lot of our relatives' mandate was to assimilate into their home country, and assimilation and religious erasure under political causes was always the goal. Love that we have workers' rights now, but remember what Jewish people sacrificed for universality a...

Has anyone else absolutely lost the joy to do any of what they used to do creatively pre-pandemic? I'm now finding myself mostly leaving another dance realm because my body just doesn't feel like it's working the same way anymore, and I don't want to be a weird delulu middle aged person who is trying to battle kids in their 20s. Battling is specific to the genre I perform and while I know it's part of our, and more largely, street/BIPoC urban dance history, it really isn't my thing. I guess I could even bring up some pseudo-academic point about how marginalized people getting pitted against each other as our ticket to excellence is fucked. And part of our internalized oppression. But maybe that should be obvious? I dunno. In fact, now that the dances I do have little cultural or contextual valence in the sense of being anchored in some international cultures, I feel like it's all less significant. The work I do is now rooted mostly in USA LGBTQ and sex work...

Twin seeds, planted in one long planter. Soon, a large landmass would stand between us. I wish I hadn't absorbed, from somewhere, that only the coasts mattered. And here we are. So much between us, including life & water under the bridge. I miss New York but I'm not built to root there. Just to visit. I think there was a time in my life when going there could've propelled me. They would've "gotten" what I was doing. But that was a small window of time. Now it's over. So much similar between us but so many parts of us different. And yet so much in common too. It feels like long ago but hey, obvious why we were pretty much "The Crayons" together. The queers in the 'burbs claw in the dark to find each other. Our absurd reads, endless summers and maybe the mystery trousers left in my trunk. Beach days, then you moved out right after we graduated. Things got tangible quickly. We did grownup things at 18 in a state where you didn't have to...

Man, I wish I had both more pride in and just more application of myself to making music. Since elementary school I've sung, plucked, played hit slapped some kind of instrument in my hands feeling like a weird drooling chaos muppet but I feel like it's just because I had immigrant parents and that's what they force you to do. I like music-making as a creative, wild child,"be-in" kind of activity but I wish I had more actual pride and art and seriousness in it. Even when I did cultural shit I just felt like I was slapping stuff neurospicily for fun and hobbies, not to bring nuance or culture or infotainment awareness or betterment anywhere (which is guess at least in relationship to folk cultures I suppose is relevant, it's a part of life, not some hoity toity people onstage who go to universities for music like my stepfamilies, not that they are hoity-toity). Like for me music is just a way of chaotically moving through the world, but I don't feel like I b...