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12 Things That Don’t Suck

Festivus is one of my favorite holidays. And yes I know Seinfeld is hella problematic but the reason I love it is personal: Seinfeld (and The Twilight Zone) was my dad’s favorite show growing up and a lot of the time we spent together, we spent it watching Seinfeld (and then later Curb Your Enthusiasm). Plus, who doesn’t love a time of year to for once push the toxic positivity aside and just kind of wallow in everything that sucked… And a lot of things sucked this year.

I’ve decided, though, that this year I want to do something different.

I was doomscrolling through insta, just kind of taking a deep dive into everything that hasn’t worked out this year on the verge of tears because I am just so f^cking exhausted and I scrolled past a post by Megan Falley about Andrea Gibson and how Gibson worked on a newsletter called Things That Don’t Suck as they fought a cancer diagnosis.

And it literally activated me. I don’t want to spend Festivus thinking about all the things that suck because I’ve been thinking about nothing else all year. Instead, with a year like 2025, where everything has been turned on its head and flipped inside out, I’d rather really to try to find 12 things that don’t suck.

Why 12? Because the 12 days of Christmas of course!

Before I get into this, I want to say this year has been absolutely brutal so these small wins are all I have. If one of my wins reminds you of one of your losses, I am so sorry about that. Please take the time and space you need. But also remember – in a year where I almost lost both my parents, worried about my citizenship status, struggled to balance multiple jobs, felt my career drift further away from me as I attempt to pivot…I’m just reaching for whatever I can hold onto.

Here’s a fast list of 12 things that don’t suck

  1. I’ve got really great cats. Yes, sometimes they’re little terrors. The orange one in particular. But they’re such sweethearts. They know when I’m in a funk and how to make me laugh. They cuddle with me when I’m sad and purr through my silly little games with them. I love them and I’m so happy they’re healthy and happy and maybe even a little bit spoiled.
  2. At no point this year did I have to worry about how I’d pay rent. I had to work a lot this year, at some points even working 70 hours a week, but at the end of the day there wasn’t really ever a moment I worried I wouldn’t make rent. And that hasn’t always been the case.
  3. On the same note, at no point this year did I pay any bills late. I paid all of my bills on time and didn’t stress about how I’d pay it. I, for sure, live paycheck to paycheck but, for once, thankfully, I wasn’t ever really worried I wouldn’t be able to pay a bill.
  4. I learned A LOT this year about accounting and I kind of did it on the fly. Because I wanted to apply for a GM job, I knew I needed a crash course in accounting…and I did it. I took every free seminar I could find, I went to a finance conference, and I spent an absurd amount of time on this guy’s channel trying to learn everything I could. While that job didn’t work out, I’m walking in 2026 with a lot of new skills that I never even would’ve dreamed of having just two years ago.
  5. I’ve made some amazing food this year, including a vegan alfredo pasta sauce with a coconut milk base (Let me know if you want the recipe!). I’m not supposed to have dairy but every once in a while I crave something that happens to have dairy in it so I’ve been trying to find alternatives that won’t make me sick. And it’s been really fun to find recipes and riff off of them and make my own thing. Cooking has become a great de-stressor for me.
  6. Games! We got 13 new board/card games this year.
  7. I’ve got a great marriage. I can’t believe how lucky I am. I won’t go too much into that because I think people find happy couples annoying and I don’t want to hype up a man up too much. Even if he is pretty great. The remnant lesbian in me won’t allow it lol
  8. I saw a lot of really great art this year. My favorite, hands down, was Alebrijes at Raspberry Island but I also saw a lot of queer and indigenous art this year as well.
  9. I wrote a pilot I’m really excited about! Over break, I’m going to take some time to edit it and try to see if I can get it out there in 2026.
  10. My car is a trooper. I got my car in 2015. I drove it from Fayetteville, AR to Madison, WI all by myself even though the longest I’ve ever driven solo was two hours. I did that drive back and forth twice that year. Then I turned around and drove from Madison to Alfred, NY. THEN I drove from Alfred, NY to the Twin Cities. And I (fingers crossed) haven’t had any major problems. The biggest problem I’ve had in a decade was my belt broke (please don’t ask me which one — I don’t know a lot about cars) and even that was an easy fix. I deeply, deeply love my car. And it’s been fully paid off since 2022.
  11. We had a fruit fly problem in the late fall/early winter and realized we couldn’t keep fresh flowers in the house which really bummed me out because I love having fresh flowers, especially in winter when I can’t have a garden. And since we just bought the flowers…I didn’t want to throw them away so I set them outside. It was so cold that the flowers froze. We bought the flowers the week before Halloween and they lasted until we had to bring them inside, the week before Thanksgiving. They only died because they unfroze and immediately died. I bring this up because since I’ve been really enjoying leaving little spells outside and making nice displays on our front porch table. And recently, the mailman complimented it and said he liked seeing what our display would be. We also get compliments from delivery drivers. It’s a nice, easy way to spread some joy and I’ve really, really liked that.
  12. I survived. This was in my newsletter but it’s really, really stuck with me. Toni Morrison said “Sometimes you don’t survive whole; you survive in part.” And if I survived in pieces, at least I survived.

As always, I wish you well. This is a shitty, shitty time of year to be on the internet. EVERYONE is posting about their wins and their successes and their lessons. My win this year is that the year didn’t take me out. And that’s enough for me. If that’s all you’ve got, even if it’s the second/third/fourth/fifth year in a row where that’s all you’ve got, even that is extraordinary.

You are extraordinary.

I wanna dance in the strobe lights, I wanna choke on the smoke…

It’s too soon (to me) to write a “here’s how 2025 was” post but here’s a sneak peak: It’s fucking sucked.

I don’t even remember what horrible thing I learned that Meta was up to back in February but I left Facebook and insta and Threads. And then I was more isolated than ever. I went back ONLY TO LEARN Meta has been encouraging child abuse…I absolutely should leave again but I deeply, deeply don’t want to be isolated.

If that wasn’t enough, I went at least four productions a year to one I think? Also back in February. Oh yeah, and there was the slashing of NEA funding, the constant, overwhelming attack on trans rights, being constantly worried about my family and ICE, and learning how many people are just now starting to see “how broken” the country is.

This doesn’t even start to include the fires in the LA, my dad’s SEVEN strokes, my mom losing her passport, me not having an ID for most of the year, a brutal break-up that meant losing a person to date and one of my only friends left in the godforsaken town…

Wait wait wait. I said I wasn’t going to do my 2025 wrap up just yet.

Okay here’s what I actually want to write about: I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to have hope right now. What it means to have ambition, to still want something better. While I’m not 100% happy with how work has played out this year, I am so thankful to be employed. I live indoors, I have four fantastic cats, a husband I adore, and at least one job that does feel pretty meaningful.

But all that said, I feel a bit like there’s a whole in my chest. It’s cavernous and all the other bad shit that’s happened this year has created a blockage. At times, I feel like I can’t even remember that I’m not supposed to be doing this. What does it mean to still want to work in an industry that chewed me up and spat me out? What does it mean when I have story ideas every time I take a shower but no energy to write because the weight of this year has kept its foot on my neck?

What does it mean to dream right now?

In my dream life, I still want to be back in the room, playing make believe with other brilliant writers. I still want to be on set, despite the long hours on my feet, watching how TV is made and observing all the moving parts to make a 60-min episode happen. I want to gossip with the script coordinators and learn about framing from the DP. I want to laugh with a director and avoid the very grumpy and overworked PM. I want what I had in 2022 back.

And it’s not just TV. I want playwriting back too. I want to be back in the rehearsal room watching an actor discover something brilliant I didn’t even know what in the script. I want to be back to editing like a battle rapper, in the room, seeing exactly what the script needs to say to get the actor and director to deliver a gorgeous moment that I’ll forget I even wrote. Because we all wrote it. We all made that happen.

And yes I know how incredibly lucky I am to have had it at all. And yes I know it’s an up and down journey but I feel like I’ve been in the valley for a really, really long time. How do I pull myself out of it?

How we, as a community, bounce back after the series of blows we’ve suffered? TV and film are gutted. Theatre is barely hanging on and I’m not even writing! In a typical year, I write 10 plays a year and at least a pilot and a show outline. This year, I wrote a play (just one) and a pilot.

Every moment I had a little bit of hope was hit with an immediate blow. I feel like every time I surface for air I was dragged back down. My mental health hasn’t been this bad in years and I still have bills to pay. I am, once again, thinking about getting my MBA in Finance.

But then the government decided that wasn’t a “profession.”

Fuck’s sake.

And yet, somehow, impossibly, there’s still a part of me that believes I’ll bounce back. I’ll get back in the writer’s room, in the rehearsal room, I’ll get back to the days when I looked around saying “How is this my real life?”

These days, the hope I’m hanging on to is things have to get better. We just need to look at it a different way. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that no one’s gonna save me. I’m going to have to do it myself.

As much as I hate that. I’m going to need to make the impossible happen.

But, first, I am going to have to work on my mental and physical health. First, I’m going to have to make it through this year, scathed and all. I might be walking through the flames now but what’s a little fire to a phoenix?

(Yeah I could do better than that but I already said my mental health wasn’t great lol)

I think in the rush to “fight the world” we’ve forgotten to take care of ourselves. We’re going to bounce back. We will. But first, to the dear friends i have left, we have to survive. And I hope once we do, we’re blown away by what we’re capable of.

look what you made me

Is anyone surviving right now? Anybody doing okay? I feel a bit like I’m somehow both drowning and completely outside of my body.

I thought about writing about politics, the state of things, or even what’s left of my playwriting career but there’s not much to say there so instead I want to talk about Sex and the City.

Yes, the TV show.

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot is the way women are allowed to be portrayed on television these days and how it reflects the rise of fascism. It’s been a while since I saw a woman unexpectedly get pregnant and then decide to have an abortion. And it’s not a moral crisis. It’s not some massive debate. It doesn’t even take the whole episode. It’s barely a major plot line. Lately, it seems like, at least on all the shows I watch, women get pregnant, have a whole episode dilemna over it, and then ultimately decide they wanted to be a mother all along.

I’m 36. I’m not 100% sure but I think when Sex and the City first started, everyone except for Samantha was 32. When I was in my 20s, it was my go-to comfort show, other than The L Word which is another blog for another time. (I also really loved Frasier but streaming wasn’t big then and it was hard to find. I wasn’t really able to re-connect with Frasier until about 2021.)

Anyway, I was curious how I, in my late 30s, would feel watching Sex and the City now. And yes, there are hella, hella, hella problems in regards to race and sexuality that And Just LIke That failed to really address but that’s not what I want to focus on right now.

I cannot think of any other show out right now (correct me if I’m wrong) where women in their mid-30s have a lot of sex, go to a lot of parties, and are still considered “hot/sexy.” For the early seasons, none of them have kids. Marriage isn’t really something they’re all chasing, at least not openly….they cared about their careers and rent and shoes. The men barely matter. Except for a few, they’re interchangeable (especially in the beginning seasons). It’s a show about shitty female friendship. Because let’s face it, Carrie is a shitty friend.

And Just Like That was a bad show. This really isn’t up for debate, which is a bummer because I love so many of the writers who worked on the show. But one of the things I felt really betrayed by is the show went from this revolutionary show about sex and feminism to basically being about rich ladies who lunch. Even as Carrie is single, I was hoping we’d see dating at 50, attempting to navigate the changing landscape after being off the market for years.

And we really didn’t get that. As the world is changing, I wonder if we’ll get anything like that again. Or at least for a while. Is everything just going to be about motherhood and complaining about husbands/partners? Will we never see messy women again?

Okay, so why am I writing about this? I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about my playwriting, but this is a blog about my writing adventures. Of course, I’m going to talk about playwriting.

For years, the first sentence of my artist statement has been:  I write plays about complicated, messy queer women of color who don’t always make the right choice but always the best choice.

If we’re done talking about messy women, does that mean my writing career is also over? Do I pivot? I haven’t written a male protagonist in years, possibly ever. All of my characters are trans, enby, or cis queer women. As I see more and more stories about the complexity of masculinity and less and less stories about the joys of being a messy woman, I feel like there’s an obvious path I should be taking if I want to be produced.

But I really don’t want to write about cis men. So now what?

It seems silly to be so upset that And Just Like That is ending (definitely think it was canceled). But for me, it’s more about the erasure of messy femininity in pop culture and storytelling. I’m not even a woman (I’ll get into my gender another time) but I want to see more complicated perspectives on femininity.

And that feels very not allowed right now.

You think I’m lost (but that’s just how you found me)

I think I might be having a mid-life crisis.

Which in itself is kind of funny because my entire adulthood has been a crisis. I think that’s true for most millennials. We were in college (some of us) when the market crashed and all of a sudden all the safe jobs weren’t safe anymore. Even as technology continues to advance beyond us (sometimes in contempt of us) less and less jobs feel safe. A friend of mine majored in Arabic and Spanish and said people are always going to need translators….They recently went to law school and even that’s not really safe anymore.

The almost fortunate thing about wanting to work in the arts means I never had any expectation that my choice was “safe.” It was reckless but that’s what I liked about it. It felt like the arts were more flexible, that I could do a little bit of that and a little bit of this and kind of hodge podge a career together. It felt like the more free choice. I wouldn’t have to worry about a 8-5 and wear a suit and come home exhausted from working intensely on something that really didn’t matter in the large scope of my life.

But the arts are a bit obsessed with being corporate. And it seems more and more like the less funding the arts get, the more artists are expected to work even more for much, much less and the spin seems to keep being: Yeah you’re hungry and can’t pay rent but at least your heart isn’t hungry. It’s this weird pitch that the only choice is a soulless corporate job where you have enough to live a good life OR work a job you’re passionate about and just accept poverty until the end of time. But at least you love what you do as it’s killing you.

I don’t want that anymore. I knew that when I left theatre the first time. The problem is I didn’t leave theatre to go corporate. I went from theatre to education so it was the same problems, different font.

Most of last year I angsted about is it too late to pivot to corporate and wondered if I should get an MBA or MPA or both. I could get into a relatively “good” school and then work my way up. With my experience of already working in non profit finance and the degree, I could probably skip the line. And since the arts/nonprofits have become a little obsessed with corporatizing anyway, I really don’t think they’d be that much of a difference. I could still write, probably have time to write to be honest, and make a living that didn’t mean living paycheck to paycheck. Both my heart and my stomach could be fed.

The unfortunate truth though is I don’t want to. I don’t want to go back to school, especially not now as the government cuts every program that could help me pay for it. But even if it was free, I’m just not that interested. So I’m back to square one.

Plus, I already found my dream job that fills both my heart and my standard of living: writing for TV. I can be both a writer and a producer, work with lots of different people, get to play pretend and get paid for it, and (eventually) travel and see the world. And it pays well. I used to say I never wanted to write for TV and I hate myself for that because I had just tried it sooner I might still be working in it.

But that’s just not how it shook out. I got my first TV job in 2021 and my second in 2022 and then the strike happened. And then writers’ rooms got smaller and then AI forced its way in and then Trump got re-elected and then DEI programs all died and then the odds became 1000 to 1 to 3,000,000 to 1. For now, TV just isn’t on the table.

So I have to pivot. Which is the artists’ way. It’s nothing new.

I return to the metaphorical chalkboard. Academia won’t hire me. I haven’t taught a college class since 2021 and it’s really hierarchical in a very unnecessary way so to teach again, I’d have to drop to Post-Grad even though when I left I was about to be offered Assistant Professor.

I could go back to theatre*. Which means working long hours, late nights, and for very little pay. Also also, theatre companies won’t hire me because it’s been since 2020 that I had a production job. And even though I was offered General Manager at the time, since I left before I accepted it, folks think I’m not even qualified to be a production manager.

I could stay on the nonprofit but not arts track. But that was also draining. So what do I do?

And don’t even get my started on how playwriting is going…….

Do I really have to start over? Was everything leading up to this just worthless? Do I just need to do the thing I really don’t want to and just wipe the slate clean? Again?!

Hence the midlife crisis.

Ultimately, I’ll be fine. Historically, it’s in moments like these where I felt a bit trapped when I made a radical life-changing choice. And seeing 111 every day is definitely making me wonder: What am I about to do and will I survive it? Even better than survive it, will it finally transform me?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

* I have technically gone back to theatre, of sorts. I’m part-time and figuring out how to adjust to working two jobs and losing my Saturdays. So this is post isn’t about that specific job but just the general vibe of working in the arts.

All the hope I had when I was young, I hope I wasn’t wrong

This one’s going to be a bummer. I want to write about grief.

My blog post is late this month (again) because I was in LA for a little over a week, wondering if my dad was going to die. Sorry to jump right into it but that’s just how this post is going to go.

For days, I sat by his hospital bed for 8-9 hours a day talking to doctors, asking questions that made my brain hurt, feeding him, and overall trying my very best not to break down. I tried to be as hyperlogical and focused as I could be because, without getting too much into it, that’s what was needed from me.

I used to pride myself on being able to turn off my emotions. I used to call it “the switch” which is something I probably stole from some shitty vampire TV show. But it was pretty easy for me to just switch my emotions off, or more accurately, to hyper-compartmentalize. There’s been a lot of times in my life where it was just easier to not feel anything at all than to be overwhelmed with grief and sadness.

Lately, I wonder if that’s a good skill to have or not. I was able to tap into it, to push every feeling I had (and still have) deep, deep down. But…now I haven’t really been sleeping or eating. My brain is so busy pushing down the all the grief and sadness it’s not doing a great job at just, you know, thinking. My brain fog is worse now than when I had brain fog with COVID. I’m dissociating and just kind of drifting. And any moment I sit still or am alone at all, I cry. It sort of explodes out of me.

I never thought I was someone who didn’t know how to deal with grief. Before the age of 21, I had lost 3 close friends to suicide. I had many more friends attempt it. Death is something that kind of just seemed to follow me around. In 2012, my grandmother (who mostly raised me) died in June and a few weeks later, on my birthday, I was in a car accident that should’ve killed me. I feel like I’ve always been hyper-aware of not just my mortality but everyone else’s around me too.

But I’m realizing that being aware of it and knowing how to deal with it are two different things.

It feels a bit like my brain is breaking in half. My whole body hurts all the time. I wish I could explain to people (and that they’d hear me) just how physical grief and depression can be. For me, even just walking takes so much effort. I feel like I’m dragging myself through the mud just to end up in quicksand.

And that’s all compounded with my grief for what’s happening to the arts.

It’s hard to enough to wake up every morning wondering if I’m going to text that says “Rachel, your dad died” but now I’m also waking up to emails every day about the NEA pulling funding from some of my favorite theatres. Beyond that, some of the most important theatres we have. Apparently the orange wants to get rid of the NEA entirely by 2026. That plus knowing staffing jobs have decreased like crazy, down 1300 jobs…all of it has been crushing me.

There was a time when I said I didn’t know what I wanted to do and my therapist corrected me. She said I knew what I wanted to do (be a full-time writer), I just didn’t know how. I’ve been revisiting that a lot.

The how feels even more impossible than ever now. I don’t know what the future of the industry will look like. Any of these industries. So what now? Do I suck it up and get that MBA I’ve been thinking about? Do I just do the nonprofit job dance until the end of time? What’s even a safe job anymore? It feels like they’re cutting everything that isn’t finance.

I mentioned to my friend, briefly, that when it’s “your year” in the Chinese Zodiac, it’s also known as the 12-Year Curse. I cannot stop thinking about this. I’m year of the snake so I guess it’s my turn for the curse to roll back again but I’ve had a series of bad years. It’s been bleak since 2023. When is the good year coming? Is it coming or is this just life now? Is that yet another thing I need to mourn?

This is usually the part where I pivot. Where I say something like “and here’s how I’ve learned to cope” but the truth of it right now is I’m still figuring that all out. I’m getting out of bed, I’m showering, I’m making myself eat, and I’m trying like hell to focus on literally anything else.

But I have to believe healing is more than that. I have to believe that this year will not be what takes me out. There’s a book I read a few years ago called If I Survive You and I think about that constantly. The “You” being 2025.

Grief is tricky and messy and all at once, all the time. But I’m going to survive it, moment by moment. I have to.

Poems lost in plays Pt 1

I’ve been thinking a lot about how many of my plays have poems in them. A lot of those plays haven’t been produced so I want to slowly start to pull them out of the plays and share them a different way. Both of these are in a play of mine called Baby, Bye.

Us, Then

I like to imagine us

outside

in the pouring rain

shivering while we try to explain to each other

why this was doomed from the first day

from the moment I saw you flash across my screen

held my breath

and tried not to make it obvious

you had me then

in a split second

and I hated myself for it

because the last time I gave myself away so suddenly…

You know how it went

we watch history repeat itself

My bad habits rewinding the clock

reminding myself of what always happens

when I let my dreams run the infrastructure

I’m pretending not to see

the explosions I can’t quite end

Times like these make me think of how often I almost said

–Should I have said it—

That maybe you and I could…

Irrelevant.

No point in letting my brain wander of course.

At this point, it’s clear I cannot say goodbye

But I can shut the system down

Flip the switch

Cut the cord

Whatever cliché works best

As I let my imagination go dark

(No, not yet) 

Until then

We’re watching bad movies on some couch that belongs to neither of us

before the impending wave of destruction drowns us in it

Thinking of You 

When I think of you, I think of breathing

I think of inhaling in some sort of elixir 

I can’t quite name

a healing seduction

I feel  throughout me

touching my bones as you slip in and out of my pores

I breathe you in and find peace in between

the pieces

of what they’ve shattered

When I think of you, I think of dancing

of the music vibrating against my skin, daring me to move

the sway of my hips giving away what my face 

can’t

my heart

trying to beat to your cadence

your melody repeating in my head regardless of the song

as I try to two-step away from the collateral expectation of falling again so fast

When I think of you, I think of speeding

foot on the pedal, barely exhaling, waiting, dreaming,

eyes closed going backwards on PCH and flying

And crashing.

lifetimes.

Originally I was going to write a blog post about this:

In my newsletter, I mentioned that I no longer feel safe in the US because while I’m not trans, I am trans-adjacent and shit is looking real bad. I thought that was a pretty basic thought but I had two different cis people tell me I just needed to move to a blue state.

It became alarmingly clear to me in that moment that cis folk are experiencing this administration wildly differently than trans folk. I feel like I’m still comforting cis women on what might happen to them instead of any of us having a conversation about what is already happening to the trans community. It’s wild to me that anyone could say “just move to a blue state” when Dems have pretty strongly turned against the trans community for the sake of a “wider tent.” And even more bizarre that people who are supposed to be allies don’t see it…

But I decided I don’t want to write about that. I’m tired of centering what people outside of my community think. Instead I want to hyper-focus on who I can trust and who I can’t. I’m no longer interested in arguing with people about where I can be safe. Instead, I want to find community with people who already create safe spaces for me.

So, instead of a traditional blog post, I’m going to share a short story I wrote years ago that I randomly decided to return to because I think it could be a fantastic novel one day.

lifetimes

I met her in an underground speakeasy. A certain spark in her eye glistened and called me over. I walked over, confidently until I tripped… Before I could even stand back up, he got to her first. 

He walked over like an athlete, a slight hammering in every step, as though he had to threaten gravity to gain hold of him. The air choked in around him as every scant glance across the room landed on his chest, on his puffy Northface vest that hugged his abdomen too tightly as he laughed.

I listened to their introductions. His name was Jeffrey, hers Maggie. He told her a few jokes he’d seen across the web, playing them off like they were his own. Still, she laughed as if they were written by Kerouac. I could see it immediately. She was charmed, instantly.

With no move left to make after an hour of eavesdropping and half a bottle left of my regrets, I decided it was time I went home. I lit a cigarette on the walk home and thought nothing more of it.

They were married not long after that. Two kids. A house not far from Berkeley. She had become suburban, grayscale.

I saw her again, three years after she’d married. She stumbled, broken, into my favorite bar. Turns out his charm has an expiration date but her dreams hadn’t. She felt trapped in a painting she didn’t choose with a painter she didn’t trust. We assessed the tiny little fractured moments that ultimately dictated the life before us. How our tiniest choices led the strangest outcome, dominating our rear view of what could we have done instead…

At sunrise, I asked her to run away with me. I gave little to no heads up, no ramp up in fear she’d shoot me down. I shot it out like a cue ball expecting to fall off the table entirely. But I had loved her for years, how could I not? 

She said she would, that she just needed to say goodbye to her kids first. But we both knew she was lying. Days later, I left town on my own. Lost myself in Thompson’s neon and Ginsburg’s spite. She found me in the street one night, fully unaware how I got there. And so our half-life began. Years faded by as I saw her only in secret, less and less as the years went by. 

 She died in a car accident. I died in the hills. At the time I thought it was poetic. Now I know it was just a punctuation to my relentless loneliness. 

…

I met at her a rally. She was there for a protest. I was there to try to get into the brunch place the protestors were blocking. She asked me if I needed a sign and I figured blending into the protest would at least get me into the entrance easier so I said yes. I didn’t even realizing what we were protesting until I learned the brunch place was pre-emptively closed.

I figured while we were on the street, I might as well learn her name. And I asked but she never said. She told me a fake name that’s not worth writing out and I told her, like the Death card, I had no name. 

Over the hours, we talked about the universe, about the endless luxury of never really knowing what’s out there, how small we are in the grand scheme things juxtaposed with how large we can be when we just simply try. We traded astrology readings while admitting we both thought it was a bit bullshit and traded fake numbers neither of us knowing the numbers would leave us searching for the rest of our lives for the other. 

To be honest, I think the permanence of history makes it hard for us to understand what’s at stake. That we could lose each other even if our stories are written down. That we could spend eternities searching for each other through the pages. How our souls can be anchored to another without us ever really knowing.

But that’s the catch-22 of being young and infinite, you forget none of that is true. 

Unsurprisingly, we were both arrested at the protest. I found out years later she married an English teacher and together they had two cats and a very nice apartment in Brooklyn. I married a lawyer who I never saw. We were happier that way.

And by some trickster god’s twist of fate, we died the same day the exact same way.

…

I met her at a party. Well, kind of. 

 

I stumbled out of a frat party, happy to be drunk not drugged. If years of reincarnation have taught me nothing else, it’s taught me that poison by choice is always a better option. I threw up as I walked out the door and kept moving; I didn’t have the patience to stop. I was on mission to be home.

I suppose that’s why I didn’t see her. Too focused on my own disaster I didn’t immediately notice hers.

I tripped over her and landed on the sidewalk. She had been “resting” there, taking a break from walking. To be fair, I still think she was napping.

It didn’t help though that as I fell, I accidentally kicked her in the stomach.

“Ow!” she shouted, about three minutes after I’d kicked her. A delay that to this day still causes me to laugh so hard I cry. 

In the moment though I groaned, trying my best not to thow up again. It wasn’t until I barely lifted my torso that I truly saw it: I’d known her before, across lifetimes. She smiled back at me and we stayed there in silence. Letting the years of our history, the lives before and the ones still to come surround us.

        

“Do you think this time we’ll work out?” she whispered, glistening under the stars.

        

“No,” I answered honestly. “But we’re bound by lifetimes. So not this one but maybe the next one.”

Don’t want beef with you, I do not have the energy

Woof. Did February steamroll over anyone else?

This month felt a bit like an avalanche. Between everything happening on the federal level which continues to look more and more like technocracy (I learned the meaning of that word this month. I hate that I learned the meaning of that word this month), my job has a major event coming up early March that’s been all hands on deck, playwriting has spiraled in both beautiful and horrible ways, and I’m going through bottles of bourbon like Maker’s is paying me, specifically. It has been a wild time.

On top of EVERYTHING ELSE, I feel like I’m having major social media withdrawal. I miss talking shit on Facebook and feeling like I was actually in conversation with people. I miss posting stupid pictures on the gram of my cats. I miss going on TikTok to destress and it was just nonstop videos of absolute nonsense. I miss knowing the silly jokes, the memes, the CATS. There were cats I followed I think about all the time. And very selfishly, I have some classes I want to teach soon and I have no idea how to market them without social media. Blue Sky is fun but it isn’t the same. I’m not getting the same engagement and it feels a bit like screaming into the void.

Most of all though I miss joy. Relentless silly joy.

I have been sitting with an anger in my chest and I don’t know what to do with it. It’s just in there, festering away, with nowhere to really throw it. Before I get too deep into it, I hate when people say anger is a useless emotion. No the fuck it isn’t. First off, no emotion is useless. And when I said that to someone recently, they were like “well it’s not productive.” Excuse me? Anger demands change. It wakes us up. Every single change we’ve had, momentous and minor, was able to happen because someone got angry. Someone got pissed. Today, a ton of people across the country are choosing to not spend money because they got angry. Anger is action. It’s incredibly powerful and this weird, white-washing of anger as unnecessary has no place in this house.

I’m not frustrated that I’m angry. I’m frustrated that I’m angry with no real way to act. I’ve done the boycotts, I’ve reached out to my reps, I’ve made sure to stay informed…but compared to incessant attacks, my anger requires a much darker action. A larger one. And that’s where I get stuck. I want to do something BIG but I also don’t want to put my family at risk. And while I’m not the most thrilled about being alive, I don’t exactly want suicide by cop either.

So where does that leave me?

Intellectually, I know this is the problem of individualism. Thinking I have to be the one to do something is how we ended up with President Elon in the first place. He’s convinced himself only he can save the world and build it in his image. That’s not how progress happens. It needs to be collective. We need to be reaching out to the people who have been doing the work this whole time. Intellectually, yes, I know it’s not up to me to save the world.

But, unfortunately, I’m a Cancer. And while I don’t want to save the world, I do want to protect my family and I don’t know how to do that right now. I’m worried all the time. And then I’m angry that I’m worried because that’s what they want, to overwhelm us. But like, what if it’s working?

I’m a bit paralyzed by my fear and fighting as best as I can despite that.

Instead of writing this blog post yesterday for the new moon in Pisces, I decided to rest and reflect. What do I want? I’ve been reading a lot about how the best way to fight the overwhelm is to dream. To commit so hard to what utopia looks like. To be honest, utopia feels really far away from me right now.

Eventually, I will find a place for all this anger. But simultaneously I also want to start carving out room for joy, even if it’s small. Even if it feels like impossible on top of illogical. I need to start moving towards what if instead of drowning in whyyy.

Do I know how I’m going to do that? NOPE. But I have to try. And if you’re feeling this way too, I hope you fight for your joy too.

I was looking at the stars, you were looking at me

I think about this quote every day:

“This is what happens when you have an artist temperament but you are not an artist.”

It’s from Mad Men. And it’s a moment that’s been burned in my brain since I saw it years ago. What’s it mean to be an artist who isn’t successful? You’re still an artist right? Is it just for yourself? Is it perseverance above all else? What’s it mean to fail and what does walking away look like in a practical sense? Do you just rebuild on your own?

So, uh, HAPPY NEW YEAR! It’s the lunar new year, a new moon in Aquarius, the United States in both literally and metaphorically on fire, and I’m losing track of what rights I still have left.

Considering everything on the table, it feels a little silly to be like Okay but what about my writing career? Thanks to incessant attack on not just me but everyone close to me, it’s easy to shut down, to focus only what I can do to survive.

But a big part of survival for me is the ability to make and share art.

Not to get too dark about things but I struggle with suicide ideation. I literally think about suicide every day and the only things stopping me at current are

(1) I really love my husband and he’s been a pretty great support system

(2) I love my cats

(3) I get to write plays and share my work with other like-minded individuals and that feels a lot like community to me.

I’ve never been a fan of “the world is a better place with me in it” because I truly don’t give a f*ck if that’s true. The world doesn’t get to suck me dry and then demand more from me just because it needs me. In any other relationship, we’d call that toxic. And I’ve also never been fan of “Well I have to outlive Tr^mp/McConnel/whoever” because they have such better healthcare than me. And outlive them to what end? They get to die while I’m forced to live in the mess they created? Hard pass.

So through all the horrors what’s gonna keep me alive? Love and art. That’s what I’ve got. That’s what floats me. But I haven’t been staffed since 2022, I have scattered playwriting projects but not enough to sustain me, and my day job is rocky at best for a couple of reasons. I need to find a way to survive as an artist but also can see Tr^mp slashing funding every which way he can so who knows what nonprofits will be left standing.

All of this chaos has reminded me of what I really want to be doing. I want to be teaching theatre and writing. I want to be writing plays and TV shows. I want to be doing direct advocacy work for trans + queer folk + Black people. I want to be specific at a time that demands me to focus as hard as I can.

And while all that sounds great…I still have bills to pay. I still have rent, cat food, people food, utilities…

How do I balance my understanding that I need to more focused than ever on my creative work when frankly my creative work can’t cover my basic needs?

The unfortunate answer is I don’t know. And even harder for me, I’m not supposed to know yet. I just have to trust that that’s where I’m being guided. It’s year of the snake, baby! My year (1989!). I need to learn how to move in the grass, how to trust I’m being guided somewhere, and that if and when things fall apart…things have fallen apart before. Will I recover? I have before.

And for me, right now, hope means I have to believe that whatever step I take next, I will recover from that too.

The universe is demanding me to change and I can’t keep fighting anymore. So back to my original question: What’s it mean to be an artist who isn’t successful?

It means you rewrite the rule book. And that’s exactly what I plan to do this year.

*Yes I know the lyric is “I was busy with the stars, you were looking at me” but let me live…

oranges

(Quick note: Blogs that are posted on or right before the new moon will be about happenings, life, random thoughts. Other blog posts will include fiction and essays. Working on categorizing that so it’s easy to shift through)

Rafferty and I wrote a book together of short fiction. You can purchase the book here. For now, enjoy an excerpt of one of the stories included in the collection: oranges

It happened over time, in an instant. 

The world was dying, of course we knew that. Whether or not we’d planned to do anything to change it was a different story. Higher temperatures, shorter days, clogged oceans…eventually a quick swim in the Pacific meant a tour of our nation’s finest plastics. If we hadn’t cared about the turtles trapped in soda trash, I’m not sure why anyone thought we’d care about the surfers locked in the plastic mesh under the sea. 

Eventually, the answer was to run, to start over. We, the innovative human race, could learn from our mistakes and try again. We could adapt to a new atmosphere, learn how to be gentle to a planet that didnt’ particularly seem to want to host us. But what other choice did we have? Earth was dying and Mars was already making so much progress towards habitability. 

They told us we should be thankful that the billionaires and scientist alike had already started planning for our planet’s inevitable ruin. That all of our jokes about space travel and whoever was the punching bag of the day were in poor taste now that we had no other option. The only thing to save us now was their genius. Statues went up of men whose names I no longer know on a planet that will cease to exist. Funny how even in our demise we just can’t help an erection of power, polished in metal. 

My dad sent me the tickets. As there wasn’t enough room for everyone in the space crafts to fly comfortably, the bidding war of surivival was all encompassing. He claimed he got them at a discount at $500,000. He had to take out a loan to afford it. A loan he’d like have to immediately start paying back on Mars. 

So much for changing things. 

When I showed Jacks the tickets, they thought I was kidding. To them, it was die on the way there or die here. They’d rather die at home than be cut in half by loose shrapnel. I couldn’t understand why it mattered how you died; you were dead either way. 

This was easily the sort of dilemna I would’ve loved as a teenager with a suicidal lean. A way to die that wouldn’t be my fault? A way to escape the endless weight of always knowing my perpetual imperfections? Sign me the hell up.

And now at 35, the very sight of the tickets just made sick which is probably why I’d been staring at them now for three hours. 

The door slightly opened asnd Jacks slid across our wooden floors that probably were once very beautiful trees before…shit I can’t keep thinking like this.

“So, not to disturb your, well, whatever it is that’s happening here but have you made up for mind yet?”

I think they thought they were asking without pressure but all I could feel was the words piercing into my chest, death by a million questions. Even it only started with one. 

“Becca, the flight leaves tonight,” Jacks continued slowly making their way to the floor

next to me.

“I know.”

“So…what are we doing?”

“There’s only one ticket.”

“Okay. What’re you doing?”

“I need more time.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

And just like that, my panic morphed into curiosity, a special skill of Jacks that was probably a testament to how they’d gotten me, a tragic commitment phobe, to marry them five years ago.

“What’re you talking about?” I asked, not quite sure the answer would satisfy my much larger desire to drown myself in the boiling seas. 

“Well, it’s going to sound a bit nuts.”

“I wouldn’t expect any different with you.”

From their pocket, Jacks pulled out a broken watch. It wasn’t quite like anything I’d seen before. The straps were made of ribbon but the face of the watch looked ancient, expensive. Small diamonds circle the surface, all with perfect clarity. The cracked glass had somehow formed an infinity symbol and the watch smelled of peppermint. 

“What if I could give us more time?” 

“I get the joke but I’m not really in the mood.”

Jacks turned the watch in their hand, focused on it. Sure, a broken watch at any other time might’ve helped to resolve a fight but we weren’t fighting. We were dying.

“This is all going to sound insane but remember that witch I used to go to, when I wanted like cold medicine.”

“You mean the very eccentric woman you went to instead of going to a hospital?”

“She left this to me.”

Normally, I’d ask what they meant by “left” but anyone alive in 2053 knew exactly what that meant. The climate crisis had changed our way of speaking. You didn’t just leave to go to a party or leave the house. When you left, you expired. 

“I don’t see how this helps us.”

“Well, and I realize you’re going to think I’m absolutely desperate and maybe I am, but this watch, it can stop time. Here, look.”

From their pocket, Jacks pulled out a piece of paper. The handwriting was barely legible but there it was: a spell to stop time. The ingredients were simple enough: poisoned water, a favorite candy, and the watch. To perform the spell, you simply dipped the watch and your favorite piece of candy into the water. And so long as the watch stayed submerged, time would stop. 

Supposedly.

“You can’t actually believe this.”

Jacks hesitated. It wasn’t like them to pause. They were always the first at gate, said whatever popped into their mind. Their impulsive recklessness was what drew to them but it was their determination and bravery that kept me. 

Wait. Peppermint.

“You’ve tried it already,” I said, barely even hearing my own voice.

“I have.”

“And it worked? Where did you even find poisoned water?”

“I mean, what water isn’t poisoned?” 

I considered the watch again. A bit cliche to have a watch that stops time but hardly useless. This was the kind of thing people would probably literally kill for and it was in our living room, a three metaphorical atomic bomb, waiting to be dropped in water. 

“What are the downsides?”

Jacks smiled at me. Even getting me to consider this gambit was a win and they knew it.

“None.”

“It can’t be none,” I shot back, with more bite than I intended.

Jacks handed me the watch and shrugged. My verbal stab hardly even breaking hte surface. 

“Becca, I don’t think there are any. Unless I’ve turned green or something and don’t know it yet.”

“There’s always a downside, a consequence.”

“Yeah but do you think that because you were raised Catholic and were taught magic came from the Devil? We’re not selling our souls here, we’re just literally stopping time.”

“Tell me exactly what happened when you used it.”

And so they did. They’d woken up, gone to the reading of Madam Mayhem’s will (a name to which I appropriately rolled my eyes every time I heard it), and then received a watch and a lighter. A watch to stop time and a lighter that was just a lighter. Apparently, Jacks complimented a lot so Madam Mayhem left it to them. As soon as they left the will reading, they read the instructions that came with the watch and then tried it outside a grocery store. 

Why a grocery store? If you’re always going to expect reason from Jacks, then I can’t help you. 

Outside of the grocery store, they filled up a plastic cup from the closest trash can with the water in disgusting puddle right by the entrance. Gross, I know. They then tossed a peppermint from their pocket and then watch into the water. 

And everything and everyone paused. Jacks had to force the door open into the grocery store, which means they probably broke it, and then had to unstop time to get out. Nothing but Jacks was in motion. The whole world finally still. 

It would sound beautiful if it wasn’t terrifying. 

“And then that was it?” I asked when the story was over.

“Yeah. Then I came home.” 

Stopping time didn’t really solve our problem. We would have to return to this exact moment in time with the same problem of I had exactly one ticket to Mars on a space ship that was leaving tonight. 

“Could we stop it forever?”

On some level, Jacks knew I’d ask that and even still seeing the color leave their face I knew on some level they hoped I hadn’t. 

“Becca, this is just something to delay. We can’t–”

But they cut themselves off, knowing the only response to “we can’t” is “why not” and they didn’t have a good answer. Because there wasn’t one. We’d finally been given an actual solution that was death, abandonment, or a fucked mix of both. 

Without saying another word, Jacks stood up, almost drunk with fear and excitement. I could hear the tap running from the living room. Looking back now, I see the cruelty of our decision but it felt as though there was no choice. I couldn’t leave and I couldn’t stay but I could wait, forever.

Jacks returned with my favorite coffee mug filled with brown water from the tap. They held the watch and a piece of peppermint in one hand and a Skittle in the other.

“You really sure about this?”

“I am.”

“But, forever, Becca?”

“Forever.”

And without letting Jacks fill me with any more doubt, I dropped the Skittle into the water and waited for them to drop the watch and peppermint. 

I assumed Jacks had left out major details when they said the world ceased. I assumed the sky would be filled with bright pastels, that birds would be floating mid air, that we’d be overwhelmed by the smell of peppermint and whatever toxins are in Skittles. That maybe my skin would be tighter or even as Jacks had joked, we change colors. 

But it was as if nothing happened. I almost didn’t believe it had worked until I walked over to the window and noticed the stillness. It wasn’t the sort of stillness that was loud, the kind you see in movies whenever a character stops time. The blur of life that was. Instead, this stillness was quiet. If I hadn’t known better and I’m not really sure that I did, I would’ve assumed we’d teleported to a different earth. A planet that was just ours but the remnants of humanity’s destruction still laid out around us. 

The very first thing I did was check to see if the fridge still worked. Again, looking back now, I see how absurd that is but if life was still and time was stopped, was I expected to hunt? It’s not like I could go to the grocery store.

It wasn’t until after I opened the fridge, had a breath of relief that the light was on, and then closed it, that panic settled in. Yes, the fridge still worked but plants wouldn’t still grow. And hunt what exactly? Frozen animals? How would we cook even? Did fire count as a  living thing? 

I leaned back against the fridge and slid to the floor. It would be nice to say worry overcame but this felt much heavier. I thought of immediately going and knocking over the mug, restarting time, and returning to my general angsting as I stared at the tickets. 

Jacks walked into the kitchen and sat at a dining chair across from me. They know better than to disrupt my angst even if they weren’t the best at it waiting it out. 

“Question.”

“Becca, you don’t have to announce that you have a question. I’m sure you have many.”

‘Do you remember when you asked Madam Mayhem to do a money spell when we short on rent that one time and she gave you some pennies and some cinnamon?”

Jacks laughed at the memory. We were about $500 short on rent and, a feeling that has become way too common in our time, desperate. Jacks assured me that they could figure it out. We’d tried selling everything but unfortunately poverty kind of warrants that nothing you have is valuable. We’d tried offering up our services. Jacks could do carpentry work at a discounted price. I could teach dance lessons to whoever wanted to feel alive in their bodies again. And after hours and hours of additional work, we were still $500 short.

Almost as a joke but not really, Jacks said they’d go to “their witch friend” who would do a money spell for them. And then Jacks came back with five pennies, one for each hundred we needed and cinnamon. 

I ended up borrowing the money from my father.

“Isn’t there some part of you that’s kind of pissed that she had a watch that could stop time and when we needed her help, she gave you some pennies?” 

“Maybe I was supposed to dump the pennies in water too.” 

Our laughter continued through the night. I eventually got up off the floor and made us dinner using the food we had. After dinner, we re-read our favorite books and played board games. The sun didn’t rise or set. It sat in the middle of the sky like a halo, a crown really, anointing us as final authority of our royally bad decisions. 

In the morning, Jacks asked me if I wanted to go on a walk. When I asked where, they smiled and said “anywhere.”