Reflections on Music, My Late Father, and a Phish Pilgrimage

I write this as my Chicago trip draws to a close. And man, am I glad I won’t have to type “I’m in Chicago” to people every five minutes, as I suck at typing the word “Chicago.” I swear I always write “chichi” or “chacha.”

Anyways, Chicago isn’t exactly a place people go to for spiritual enlightenment, but this trip was different. This trip came on the heels of my father’s death a few days prior. I’d had this trip with my bandmate planned for a little while, and I’d contemplated cancelling it, but sometime told me to go anyways. This trip was to see Phish, and, ya know, my dad had gone to Woodstock. The OG hippie music event.

You *know* I would have been this bitch had I gone myself.

I got the invitation from my bandmate and one of my best bros, Chris, who’s always buying tickets to see someone. Me, I very seldom buy tickets to see mainstream or larger artists. Most of the times I’ve gone to see someone bigger than Warped Tour-level, it’s been because a friend thought “Hey, Jessa likes music” and had no one else to go with. Which, I mean, I will never turn down a free show. It’s how I’ve seen Muse, KC & the Sunshine Band, Kiss, Motley Crue, Van Halen (WITH Eddie!), and so many more awesome as hell artists live. If you put out into the world that music is your entire life and just be nice to people, you will manifest concert tickets. At least I do, somehow.

Anyways, we get to Chris’s cool vegan sister’s studio apartment and I’m already high as balls because this is a Phish concert and if I’m going to see a jam band, I’m gonna do it right. That is to say, with a copious amount of a certain herb that is legal in the great state of Michigan. And Illinois, albeit way more expensive.

There is a speakeasy that has THC shots, to be fair.

And we get there and I’m just full of this nervous energy. I can’t explain it, but something’s in the air as we’re standing outside waiting to go in the stadium. At one point I eulogized Chris’s beloved signature hat that he’d worn during his stint with Wake Up Jamie by singing “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan, and some lady thought it sounded nice, even though I was just being silly. Then we got inside, and the munchies hit all at once. Cue me buying not one but two ice cream cones.

Then the show itself started and it was not at all the vibe I was expecting. I’d never listened to Phish but I knew their reputation as a stoner band, so I was expecting something a little more subdued and shoegazey. Instead, the first song was fun party music! I found myself actually dancing a little, although not as intensely as the old men around me, especially the one who literally spun around in a little clockwise circle the entire time.

Sometimes you just gotta spin around like a clock.

As I stood there with my little ice cream cone listening to these guys play, I studied the music in my head. At one point, there was a musical phrase that just didn’t resolve, and led into an explosive jam. It was uncomfortable and different, and I realized I haven’t been listening to music that challenges me lately. I haven’t been listening to music that makes me get tingles because of some weird cadence I’ve never heard before. Really, I think I’m just intimidated by new music in general. It’s part of why I never checked out Phish before — the archive panic. After all, my first awareness of Phish came after I discovered a compendium of their music and lore years ago at a Borders (really dating myself). All I remember aside from it being rainbow and really pretty was how it rivaled the actual Bible in length.

Someday several millennia from now, Phish will be revered as gods.

And that’s the thing about being at a Phish concert. I was aware that I wasn’t a native Phishhead (DuckDuckGo tells me the correct term is “Phan”). This was not my territory, and I wanted to be as respectful as I would want someone else to be at a Heart show. I don’t know shit about fuck when it comes to Phish, and I won’t pretend I do, but as a tourist in their world, I felt strangely welcome and at home. Some of the guitar solos brought a tear to my eye, and it was a reminder of how spiritual of an experience music can be.

The next day (as in today, the day that I’m writing this), Chris and I went to a Baha’i temple in the Chicago area.

This picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s a beautiful work of architecture. That’s not what made me tear up, though. When we went inside, we were greeted by a beautiful a cappella chant led by a single man. It was absolutely soul-invigorating. This trip ultimately made me re-appreciate the way music has been there for me spiritually throughout the years, even in non-spiritual contexts. Like karaoke, or a Phish concert. It truly is a divine gift. As one of the founders of the Baha’i faith wrote:

“Music is one of the important arts. It has great effect upon human spirit … music is a material affair, yet its tremendous effect is spiritual, and its greatest attachment is to the realm of the spirit.”

I’ll never forget one of the last conversations I had with my dad. He was the extrovert. If you’re ever wondering where I get my outgoing nature from, it’s him. The man never met a stranger. You could be standing next to him in line at Meijer’s and he’d strike up a conversation with you about sports or the news or what-have-you. Anyways, I’d heard him mention Woodstock, but he’s been known to embellish stuff here and there, so I wasn’t sure if this story had actually even happened. But when I went to visit him last, I decided it was time to ask him.

He said he saved for two months to go because he knew it would be a big deal. All his coworkers made fun of him for it, but he didn’t care. He drove up there with some folks and stayed in little hotels along the way. At the site of the festival, they slept in a 20-man tent, and music went all throughout the night. He said he came to the festival with six friends and left with 28.

And that’s the power of music. It brought him together with those folks, many of whom he said were his best friends for years after the event. It brought me closer to him as he shared that story with me. And as I watched that Phish concert, I felt a sort of kinship to my dad and to everyone who’s ever been moved by music.

The thing about music is it’s not forever. Every song has to end sometime. But I’m glad I got to experience the song that was my dad’s life, even if it did have to end.

AI Killed the Radio Star: How Technology is Crushing the Culture of Music

I wasn’t sure how to answer this prompt—

What bothers you and why?

—until my girlfriend and I had a conversation on AI. Which is not unusual, since she’s a pretty staunch advocate against it. I’m fairly neutral on it, to be fair. I think it opens up lots of exciting possibilities, and it’s a tool like anything else, but at the same time, there are multitudinous problems with it that no one seems to want to address. Hell, I experimented with it against my better judgment and realized it was making my imposter syndrome so much worse. The unfortunate truth is we’re just going to have to learn to adapt to this somehow. There’s no putting this genie back in the bottle.

But it’s disheartening, because the advent of AI might be the final nail in the coffin of the music industry. And that is what has been bothering me lately.

And the sad truth is, the state of music has been in decline since the dawn of the internet. In fact, Suno is just finishing a job started by Napster all those years ago and continued by Spotify to this day.

Back in the 80s, everyone and their mother knew who Michael Jackson was. You only had a handful of radio stations in any given town to listen to, and if you wanted to hear a particular song any time you wanted, you had to go out and buy it. The albums would be prominently on display in your local Kmart. Even grandma was familiar with Bruce Springsteen’s ass.

Television isn’t as much of a special interest to me as music, so I don’t really care as much about its history, but you can see this kind of monoculture in TV throughout the years too. In the beginning, you had ABC, NBC, and CBS (and DuMont, the weird fourth one no one remembers). Everyone in your city was watching The Andy Griffith Show at the same time on the same channel and having this shared experience. Then cable came and divided everyone. If you were into sports, you went to ESPN. If you were into music, you went to MTV. If you’re into watching Amish people do mundane things, you went to TLC. Even the big cable networks splintered eventually — from MTV you get MTV 2, MTV Tres, VH1, VH1 Classic, CMT…

And none of them are playing music at any given moment.

With more technology, you get more options. But I’m starting to wonder if that’s a good thing.

We’re seeing a shift in music especially. We no longer have a monoculture, and I blame this on how easily accessible the entire catalogue of music is nowadays. If you want to listen to nothing but obscure pirate metal for the rest of your life, you don’t have to go on a wild goose chase hunting down every obscure pirate metal album ever made by every band that’s ever done obscure pirate metal. It’s as easy as going to a specialized Spotify playlist. And let’s say you want to listen to nothing but obscure pirate metal about your cat for the rest of your life. With AI, that’s entirely possible.

Why on earth would anyone seek out new music if they can just beep-boop an entire playlist tailored to their specific taste with lyrics reflecting their own life?

I think that’s what bothers me most about the future of music and how it has been intertwining with AI. I’m not scared of it taking my job necessarily, at least not in the traditional sense. I know human-made stuff is still largely superior. I’m really not even so afraid of the environmental stuff, since the planet’s borked anyways (I’m an optimist). It’s the death of culture and interpersonal connection that scares me. A survey said 62 percent of people actually prefer chatbots to humans. There are people straight up dating AI bots. How much more isolated are we going to allow ourselves to get?

My prediction is that eventually, this AI bubble will burst — but not without seeing huge reforms to the music industry. I can’t see the current model lasting much longer. I can see a return to smaller, more intimate shows as people get sick of how overflooded music platforms are with AI slop, low-effort music, and whatever the executives are trying to feed us. At least the true music fans will pivot that way.

Humans have a thirst for something real. It’s why American Idol always pushed artists with sob stories. We love when the art we consume comes with a captivating backstory, and entering a prompt and pushing a button was a cool backstory — the first thousand times it happened. Like, if you told someone in 2018 that a robot wrote the music for this song, that would be some neat Futurama shit. But the fact that technology can beep-boop songs from scratch is old news now, and people don’t want manufactured backstories. There was already a recent backlash against a band that was revealed to be AI. People are quick to turn on an artist when they sense disingenuousness. Remember that author who penned an autobiography that got noticed by Oprah, only to have it all come crashing down when it was revealed the story was fabricated?

The hidden controversy is the sensory nightmare that is that book cover.

I think the music industry is going to change in a lot of ways in the upcoming years. My hope is that we musicians don’t become obsolete and that the human need for connection and genuineness is stronger than the fleeting coolness that is AI. And I think we do have a need for real, human-made music. You can’t replace the camaraderie of your local punk scene or the chills a live orchestra brings or the sheer joy of going out to karaoke. Music in our souls. It’s what humanity sounds like.

If you enjoyed the writing in this post and elsewhere on the site, please consider donating to Jessa’s tuition fund! Any help is appreciated!

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Autistic Joy: Little Things That Make Neurospicy Brains Happy

It’s rather unfortunate that autism has the less-than-favorable reputation it does. Sure, it’s more accepted than ever, to the point where it’s trendy on TikTok to claim neurodivergence (a trend I have mixed feelings about if I’m honest). But many on the spectrum still feel misunderstood by the public, with only 16 percent of autistic folks and their families feeling people actually “get” them and many choosing not to interact with the world because of it. It’s a big reason I’m self-diagnosed — when my childhood psychologist suggested the “A” word back in the early 2000s, my well-meaning parents ran the opposite direction, afraid their beloved daughter would get saddled with a label that would get her further ostracized by her peers. My girlfriend had a similar experience growing up. And then you have people like RFK Jr. who say — and I quote:

“[Autistic people will] never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date.”

So yeah, it’s pretty clear the world looks down on us for being different, which, to be fair, has always been the case. It’s never been “cool” to be autistic, right? Why would anyone want to be on the autism spectrum?

Here’s where I’d say “Wrongo, partner!”

Definitely read that in her voice, by the way.

There are lots of special kinds of joy that come with being autistic, or even ADHD and similar kinds of neurospicy. There’s been quite a bit written on the neurodivergent love languages, many of which I feel are closely connected to the kinds of neurodivergent joy. That neurodivergent joy is what I want to write about, because I saw it at work amongst me, my ADHD wife, and my AuDHD girlfriend this past weekend when I took them to my hometown. That brings me to my first joy:

1. Sharing Lore

Taking my partners back home was such a cool experience. I got to share so many parts of my backstory with them, parts I couldn’t show them without taking them to the exact place in time where my story unfolded. I could point out my high school, the Dairy Queen I went to as a kid, all my favorite plushies in my childhood bedroom, and so much more. It’s all part of my lore, as I’ve started to say. Sharing parts of your past with your loved ones scratches the same itch as infodumping, except in this case, you’re infodumping about yourself!

Hearing other people’s lore helps us connect to them as well. This past weekend, my dad regaled us with the story of how he saved for two months to go to Woodstock, despite his coworkers making fun of him, because he knew it was going to be a big deal. He ended up going with six friends and left with 28. I knew music was a big part of my family’s lore, but I never truly knew the extent to which my own father was present for a huge moment in music history. Just taking that time to talk to him gave me a lot of joy.

2. Sharing Media

During the trip, I allowed my girlfriend, Livvy, to take control of the hotel television, since she has some sensory stuff regarding talking and background noise. Most of the time, she left the TV off and the three of us, ya know, engaged with the outside world. But when we got back to the room every night, Livvy would search for one of her childhood favorite shows, Zoom. She loved that show so much that her grandparents taped it and sent it to her so she could still watch it after it went off the air. And now, she wanted to share it with us!

I can’t express how happy she was that we not only took the time to watch what she wanted to show us, but actively participated in it as well. We started daydreaming funny skits and science experiments we could do in our spare time, like the kids on the show. We even had our favorite cast members and tried doing the “ubby wubby” language ourselves (with little success). Livvy was so pleased we were as into the show as she was!

3. Being Around Other Neurospicy Folks

When you’re wired differently, it can be exhausting masking in order to fit in with polite society. Masking is typically associated with “higher functioning” autistic individuals, as shitty and outdated as that terminology is (we prefer people refer to our support needs instead of the “high and low functioning” labels). As someone who’s gotten so good at masking that many outsiders aren’t aware I have the ‘tism in the first place, I can tell you it’s absolutely exhausting. It’s a form of hyper-vigilance and suppressing natural urges. You basically have to water down your entire personality.

But when you’re in a group of other neurodivergent people, you can let all of that fall away and reveal your true self. I don’t have to pretend to be interested in mundane things. I don’t have to make eye contact (which is scary as hell to me if I’m honest). I don’t even have to say words. I can communicate in noises if I want to, and oftentimes, that’s exactly what my partners and I do! It’s freeing to not be restricted by social norms and expectations.

4. Researching What You Love

I (probably rightfully) get a lot of crap from my loved ones for being too glued to my phone, but I’m going to let you all in on a little secret. If you see me on my phone, there’s a very small chance I’m texting a friend. More likely than not, I’m reading!

I’ve always been like this, and I’d be the first to admit that had smartphones not been invented, I’d have to carry a huge bag of books around with me everywhere I go. I’m always reading something or other, usually nonfiction, and usually about one of my special interests. I love reading about creativity, spirituality, or whatever library book has captured my attention most recently. When I was a kid, I’d hide in the nook between the kitchen and the bathroom in my grandma’s house, right where she kept a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannicas on a bookcase, and just study them for hours. I kind of miss physical books, if I’m honest, but I love having the ability to read about anything and everything at a whim nowadays. It’s a kind of special joy.

5. Being Respected

Obviously we love researching things, but we also love getting recognized for our research too! We love the thought of being an expert in our field of interest, even if it’s not a formal area of study. For me, music theory is a big area of interest. I do have a degree in music, which does make me feel good about myself, but even more than that, I love when people tell me that I’m knowledgeable. Even more than that, I love when I get a chance to demonstrate my knowledge. When someone asks me why a song works, I’m always happy to explain things like chord progressions and the circle of fifths and why those concepts are important in popular music.

I think that’s why it almost feels like a personal slight when we don’t get the respect we require as it involves a particular special interest. I still remember the one of the only times a non-music professor made me feel like shit about my abilities and know-how. It took me years to recover and get back to a place where I felt confident about myself in music again. We autistic and ADHD folks are so sensitive to the slightest criticism — we’re prone to rejection sensitive dysphoria for a reason — but the flip side is that we get an even stronger sense of pride from positive feedback.

Which of these “joys” do you relate to the most? Leave a comment below! And as always, if you enjoyed the writing in this post and elsewhere on the site, please consider donating to Jessa’s tuition fund! Any help is appreciated!

CashApp: $TheJessaJoyce

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Nonbinary Enough: The Awkward Realities of Being an AFAB Femmby

So, I’m technically nonbinary.

This isn’t a coming out post. In fact, I’ve been pretty open about it since I realized it a few years back. Yes, I know I’m a woman, and yes, I do use she/her pronouns for the most part, but it hit me that there’s more to the story. I’m not just a woman or just feminine. I’ve realized I have some definite masculine energy, and I’ve been going out of my way to honor that little man inside me.

Like, I did drag!

His name is Richie Styx and he’s a British rock star. Think a less-sucky Russell Brand.

I’ll be honest, though. Sometimes I feel like a massive imposter when I enter nonbinary spaces. Like I said, I am an AFAB femmby. In fact, I blend in perfectly with cis women until I mention the fact that I’m nonbinary. And until I open my mouth, to be fair. A lot of folks recognized me as queer even before I came to terms with it. I guess I just have that vibe.

Conservatives will tell you it’s because I had blue hair.

But I don’t really embrace or shout about being nonbinary to the same extent that I shout about being pansexual or even polyamorous. And I think to some extent, that’s due to the fact that I’ve gone all in on being pan/poly. I’m literally dating a woman, married to another nonbinary person, and casually seeing a couple of guys. I’m out here living as visibly pansexually and polyamorously as possible. But — like I mentioned earlier — most people would have no idea I’m nonbinary until I say something.

So when I enter spaces for nonbinary folks, I almost feel like I’m a fraud. And it sucks because I still feel some of the negative stuff that comes with the territory of being nonbinary and don’t really know how to address that. I definitely have some degree of dysphoria, but there’s really no feeling gender euphoria for me unless I could literally shapeshift between being Jessica Rabbit and a hot twink at a whim. There are things I wish I could change about my body to make me feel more androgynous, but I’m talking like, adding an extra head of height to myself. Testosterone wouldn’t do shit for me — I’d just get hairier, smellier, and hornier than I already am, and that sounds like a nightmare for everyone involved.

Real picture of what I’d look like on T.

There are times I straight up don’t feel nonbinary “enough” to call myself nonbinary, because I’m comparing myself to other folks who are transitioning medically to mold their bodies into what they want. I realize this is a very transmedicalist viewpoint to hold, and one I’m trying to unlearn. I know there’s no right or wrong way to be a woman, and no right or wrong way to be a man (okay, there are a few wrong ways.) Why is there a “wrong” way to be nonbinary, then? If anything, being nonbinary should be the most liberating of the three mainstream options, since there’s no predetermined social roles for us in Western civilization. It’s a relatively new concept in our culture (although it’s existed in other cultures for millennia).

I’m starting to realize, though, that there is a place for everyone at the gay table (gay-ble?), so long as all folks are treated with respect. There is no “Queer Olympics” and it’s not a competition to see who can be the most unambiguously, outwardly queer. Some folks can’t be openly queer for safety reasons, and we need to save them a seat at the table as well. The nonbinary people who don’t mind presenting as their birth gender, and the ones who present as their birth gender to keep from getting hate-crimed, and even the ones who present as their birth gender because they’re just tired of correcting people — they’re all valid. We’re all valid. I say “we” because yours truly has very much been in all of those situations I listed.

I’m glad I’m nonbinary. I feel a lot of freedom in the way I go about the world and represent myself. Although I present mostly as femme, I get a lot of joy out of letting my dudely side out too, to the point where both of my primary partners have questioned if I’m actually transmasc! For the record, I don’t think I am. I’ve just got a little man inside me, and I like to honor him every once in a while.

To be clear, here is the little man I am picturing.

Stepping Into My Own “Barracuda” Moment

Let’s talk about Friday night.

I’ve been sitting on this blog post for a few days now as I process what happened at karaoke on Friday. Here’s the SparkNotes version of the events.

Basically, I was already riding high from a very successful music bingo night that I’d just hosted at a different bar. That part is important because had I not been in such a powerful mood already, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do what I did. I got to Old Dog Tavern (shout out to one of my two favorite bars in Kalamazoo!) around 10 I think and met up with one of my bandmates and best friends, Ellie. We were just outside on the deck probably sharing a joint with a few friends or something when we both headed inside for some reason. Not ten seconds after we stepped inside, some crusty short old white dude with a Colonel Sanders goatee in a green hat came up to us. He reached his shriveled hands within an inch of our titties and made a honking motion, remarking “Eh, isn’t this how you greet women?” and shyly begging “Can I?”

I saw red. It was enough that this fucko disrespected me, but also poor little Ellie, who is for all intents and purposes a little sister figure to me. I pushed back through the doors to where my wife, Crass, was sitting outside, and all I had to say was “creep,” “tried,” and “grope” and she was equally livid. We both bursted back inside, her to find the pervert and me to make a fucking statement.

I ran up to the stage and grabbed the microphone. Fuck whatever else was going on. This man had to be stopped. I screamed to stop the music, took the mic, and with all of the pent-up rage of 32 years worth of creeps thinking they can test me, I declared:

“Nobody is allowed to sexualize me and my friend without our consent.”

The bar bursted into a frenzy of confused looks and claps, save for one asshat heckler in the front who yelled “Too late!” like a goddamn Reddit troll in real life. This made me even more angry, and I lunged toward him, grabbed him by the collar to make him look me in the eye, and said “What the fuck did you say?” At that point, Crass had turned her attention to the heckler, and she literally chased the whole man out of the bar. The original pervert got tracked down and kicked out as well, and the whole time, I was shaking and crying and in shock at what I had just done.

I — the bullied little girl who had to eat lunch in the library to avoid being pelted with ranch dressing packets — finally stood up for myself.

Then, the most amazing moment happened. The whole bar rallied around me, encircling me physically with their bodies and figuratively with their love. I sunk into my friends’ arms and let out all of the emotions that had built up.

Because I was no longer scared. I felt like I had become something new. I stepped into who I was supposed to be this whole time. Like, there was something deeply spiritual about what happened that night. My good friend’s girlfriend said it’s a Leo moon thing. I keep drawing powerful feminine cards like The Empress and the Queen of Wands, the latter of which is a card that’s always resonated with me, though I couldn’t place why at first. I always thought I was more of a Cups girl — soft and emotional — not a fiery, passionate Queen of Wands.

I’ve mentioned my ridiculous admiration for Ann Wilson, frontwoman of the classic rock band Heart, on here many times, and it’s fitting that this particular night was the day after her 75th birthday. I wanted to be her so bad growing up, to the point where I’d study her singing and her performances and her fashion sense and even her personal life, as stan-ly as that sounds now (give me a break, I was an autistic child). One thing I learned when reading about her childhood was the fact that she was bullied extensively too, like me. She was overweight; I was underweight. She had a stutter; I had undiagnosed ADHD and autism. But I saw myself in her. Hell, I created a cringey wish-fulfillment OC based on her! She gave me hope that I could someday be the badass rocker chick I desperately wished to become.

That night at karaoke, that’s exactly what I did. I became that woman. The take-no-shit rock and roll queen who isn’t afraid to call a fucker out.

After the creeps were exiled from the bar and karaoke resumed as normal, the DJ (who may just be the best cishet white man this side of Steve Irwin) asked me if I was okay and if there was anything he could do. I had one request, because I knew exactly what my last song of the night would be.

Back in the 1970s, Ann and her own (actual) little sister, Nancy, were frequent victims of slimy men in music venues, especially since rock was very much considered a man’s world back then. The iconic “Barracuda” was written as a response to some guy backstage who made a creepy joke toward Ann at her sister’s expense, insinuating their relationship was incestuous. Absolutely filled with unbridled rage, she wrote the scathing lyrics that would eventually become the now-legendary song.

And that night was my “Barracuda moment.”

I got on stage to a roar of applause. It’s funny because a while ago I wrote a song half-joking about wanting to be “Kalamazoo famous” instead of actual famous. In that moment, I really did feel like a small town celebrity. With what little was left of my voice after cussing out the pervs, I sang my musical heroine’s battle cry, dedicating it to her for helping me find my voice — and to every man who ever intentionally made a woman feel unsafe in a bar.

I left the best part out. After everything was said and done, a young woman came up to me and quietly thanked me for what I did. She’d been victimized by the creep too. It made me realize how much power we have as women to lift each other up and protect one another.

I want to carry this night with me whenever I feel like I’m not strong enough to stand up for myself. Because now I know I have what it takes. I’ve seen it. My friends have seen it. The entire city of Kalamazoo has seen it.

I have more power than I thought.

Following Your Heart: Lessons From My Lifelong Muse

Last week, my best friends from the Kalamazoo karaoke crew stole me away to Detroit for the night to see my childhood heroes, Heart. And let me tell you, it was magnificent.

And bittersweet.

And oddly galvanizing, in a strange way.

To think my lifelong obsession began with this American Idol performance I watched in my parents’ living room one evening as a wee 10-year-old. I remember thinking out loud that it was a really pretty song, and so my mother beckoned me to her cassette collection as if to show me a clandestine secret.

And there it was. The Rosetta Stone that would decode my entire direction in life.

I’m also fairly sure Heart invented Pokémon with this album cover.

I’d never heard anything like it before. That voice, it was almost unreal. I was already captivated by the audio, but then I managed to catch the music video for “Alone” on VH1 (and recorded it onto a VHS tape, natch) and by God I was mesmerized.

I mean, Nancy Wilson, the guitarist and the younger of the two sisters, was beautiful. As a young blonde girl who’d just picked up guitar herself, it was expected for me to gravitate towards Nancy. Everyone in my life asserted I was a little Nancy. But the sister who really stole my heart was the raven-haired, soulful-voiced siren, clad in all black, with a longing gaze that burned into the CRT screen of my childhood TV.

That would be Ann fucking Wilson, and suddenly, I didn’t want to be a veterinarian or a racecar driver when I grew up. I wanted to be her.

I’m not actually goth — I just watched this music video too many times as a kid.

In fact, I think this particular album cover made me realize I was into girls:

Better than the album cover that made me realize I was *also* into guys.

Ann had become my biggest musical inspiration, my baby lesbian crush, and perhaps most importantly, somebody I could see myself in. I remember my favorite cringy OC from my middle school stories and how it was essentially just Ann Wilson but like, with a cool outfit and a hot boyfriend too. At the time, I was a far cry from the effortlessly cool rocker chick I desperately wanted to be, but I still had hope.

Because Ann wasn’t always the effortlessly cool rocker chick either.

In fact, when she was a kid, she was just like me. She was bullied relentlessly, same as I was. For her, it was a stutter; for me, autism. For her, it was being overweight; me, I was scarily underweight. I remembered finding out about her struggles and felt an odd kinship with her. In a way, she felt like my big sister, the one who went through hell first so she could show me the way through.

That’s why the show felt so bittersweet. In a way, I felt like I was saying goodbye to an old friend. Because — and it hurts my heart to admit it — I don’t know how much longer I’ll have her. She did recently beat cancer, which makes her even more badass, but I’m not naive. Even if she is in otherwise perfect health, she’s not getting any younger, and who knows how many more years she’ll be able to tour. Same with most of my musical heroes. The remaining members of Queen will eventually die. There will someday be a world with no Bon Jovi. And after my pantheon of boomer musicians have passed on, I still have to watch all the gen X musicians I looked up to perish. And after them, it’ll be my generation.

But despite sobbing on three separate occasions at the show, I left that night feeling strangely empowered. Because one day, Ann may be gone, but she’ll live on in my heart (pun only slightly intended). And I’ll carry on her legacy as best as I can by creating beautiful music and giving it my all at every performance I do. I owe so much to her, because she’s the one who made me realize I could be whoever I wanted to be. I didn’t have to be a scared bullied kid anymore. I could be a rock and roll baddie. It’s kind of funny — a few days ago, a woman at my music bingo show said, and I quote:

“You know who you remind me of? The singer of that one band. You know, Heart?”

Music, Failure, and the Weight of the World: A Small Rant

So I was let go at Guitar Center.

It was the professional equivalent of a relatively amicable breakup — my boss saw me struggling to even make it in on time due to my insane work schedule, and so she mercifully allowed me to quit with no hard feelings. I’ve never been fired, and this doesn’t even really count as a firing since I left on my own terms, but it still stings.

I’m not a stranger to failure, despite it rivaling death and abandonment as one of my biggest fears. Leaving the internship in Fort Wayne felt like a huge failure after everything I’d put myself and my wife through in order to finish my music therapy degree. I wasted so many years in school and have absolutely nothing to show for it. That was a rough moment in my history, but I managed to claw my way out of the dark depression it sent me into.

I don’t know how much clawing I have left in me, though. My fingertips are bloodied and raw. I’ve struggled enough.

This is all on top of the weight of the world, which has been crushing me with every disheartening story that passes through the news cycle. We live in a truly evil world where people get their kicks by literally kicking others down. Some bitch got hundreds of thousands of dollars for calling a child the n-word. How is it that terrible people get rewarded, but actual good people get fucked over? There’s still a whole bunch of bullshit happening in Israel and Palestine to folks whose only sin was being born in the wrong place at the wrong time, and don’t even get me started on the mess that is my own country at the moment. I wish I could just leave, but it’s not that simple. I can’t leave my family and friends and partners behind, so my only choice is to stay and fight the good fight, wherever that leads me.

But like I said, I’m don’t know how much fight I’ve got left. I’m fucking exhausted. The one thing that’s kept my spirits up at all is music and the prospect of someday becoming a successful musician in some form, but I’m afraid of becoming obsolete. I’ve already mentioned on my blog how dabbling with AI software started to bork my creativity, but like, what’s the point of writing songs when I can push a button and make the robots write one for me? And that’s the future we have to contend with. I’m not a vehemently anti-AI Neanderthal — I think there are legitimate uses, even in the art and music fields, and I’d be a hypocrite if I said I’ve never used it. Like, sometimes I’ll use AI to test out acoustic demos with a full band so I know whether or not the song is even strong enough to work with. But I’d never, ever release something to the public that I didn’t create myself. And I’m realizing most people don’t operate with those kinds of creative ethics. So as AI music becomes more prominent, I’m going to have to compete with a torrential onslaught of “creators” cranking out slop. Like, how long until we have an AI popstar?

But even if I didn’t have robots to compete with, I’m still racing against time. I’m 32. No one wants to listen to grandma sing her little songs, and I’m practically a grandma already to the suits who run the music industry. I remember when I was a freshman in college, it was a big fucking deal that Carly Rae Jepsen, who was at the height of her “Call Me Maybe” era, was 26. I’m six years older than that, and I have yet to make any significant waves in the industry. The music video for “Sweet Honey” sits just below 100 views, which is next to nothing. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened had I moved to Nashville or LA in my youth, but it’s too late now.

And even if I was still a hot twentysomething ready to take on the music industry, you have to remember, the music industry has changed. A lot. It’s damn near impossible to make money with streaming. And there’s no such thing as rock stardom anymore. Unless you’re Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, or Beyoncé, no one knows who you are, and no one cares. Monoculture is dead. Back when you had to listen to music on the radio, people could bond over hearing their favorite songs together. Now, everything is so fragmented. If you want to listen to nothing but progressive zydeco pirate metal, you can just search for bands that fit that perfectly in that very niche and never bother putting on anything else again. Vinyl sales are up, but that’s not gonna help your up-and-coming local band that’s still getting off the ground and doesn’t have thousands of dollars to drop on printing physical records. Which leads me to the biggest problem.

It costs too damn much to “make it” in the creative fields.

I could have moved to Nashville had it not been prohibitively expensive. I could sink all of my time and energy into recording quality music if I didn’t have to work three jobs for the privilege of breathing air. The famous folks you know and love are largely only there because they were born into money and had multiple safety nets to catch them in case of failure. Taylor Swift’s wealthy upbringing has been the subject of much scrutiny, but even one of my personal favorites, the aforementioned Chappell Roan, had a charmed life, growing up in a sprawling gated home that looked like this. I’m livid that the music industry and this entire country as a whole demands you be born with a silver spoon in your mouth, or else what you have to say or contribute isn’t important and you should just fuck off and die. It makes me viscerally angry, the amount of talent we’ve lost to poverty. The next Jimi Hendrix could be just around the bend, but if that kid’s parents can’t afford to get him a guitar and lessons, too fucking bad.

It’s a cultural crisis. And I’m scared I’m becoming one of its casualties.

I want to make it in music more than anything, but I’m so disillusioned at this point. I’ll never be a rock star. I’ll never be John Frusciante. I’ll never be Ann Wilson. The best I can hope for is some steady gig where I can make the music I want to make and earn a decent living, but there’s not a lot of jobs like that out there, especially not here in Kalamazoo.

I don’t want to end this post on a negative note, as many things in my life are going well. My dad was recently hospitalized, but he’s made a speedy recovery. My two primary partners have been incredibly loving and immensely supportive of me, and I might have a third partner who is also very sweet if I play my cards right. My dream pedalboard is finally finished, and since moving to Kalamazoo, I’ve got more friends than I can keep track of. I do have a lot going for me, but there’s always that part of me wondering when the other shoe is gonna drop. And a big black cloud hanging over me as of late is my frustration with, well, everything.

But I’m going to keep pressing on. With Guitar Center out of the way, perhaps I’ll have more time to work on the songs I want to get recorded and produced. Maybe I can sink more energy in the podcast I started with my best friend. Maybe I can even sleep a full eight hours like a normal person.

I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic, but optimistic nonetheless. That’s all I can really do.

Putting on the Straight Jacket: Choosing Between Safety and Your Own Identity

Alright everyone, today we’re talkin’ trauma. But first, the daily prompt WordPress gave me tonight:

What sacrifices have you made in life?

It’s serendipitous that this was today’s prompt, because while this wasn’t necessarily the direction I was planning to go in with this topic, I feel there is another important angle to consider.

Living and being in the world authentically requires sacrifice. And it absolutely can cause trauma.

Up until a certain age, the trauma I experienced never really left the school hallways, so once I was done for the day, I could compartmentalize all that BS and, I don’t know, play Sims all day. My bullies didn’t really live rent-free in my mind since I was too busy thinking about all the stories I wanted to write, and to be entirely honest, I didn’t have much else to worry about as a child. You know, aside from my terrifying OCD-driven intrusive thoughts.

No brain, I *don’t* actually want to stab my mother, I literally just want to play dolls.

Here’s something I came to realize: things were so easy because I actually had a pretty privileged life growing up. I was white, relatively well-off (well, blue collar, but my family never hurt for food), and straight…right?

Oh.

In the immortal words of NSYNC, bi bi bi.

I think I always knew in my heart of hearts that I was bisexual. You see, speaking of Heart, I came to realize I was staring just as longingly at old photos of Ann Wilson as I was at Peter Frampton. Yes, I am a millennial. My mom gave me some of her vinyl collection when I was around 12, and the cover of Dreamboat Annie just like, awakened something in me.

Then, I went to the church I grew up in and that got beat out of me pretty quick. I learned what it was called when a girl thinks another girl is hot. It was called being a homosexual and it was bad because…they never really said aside from a couple of Bible verses that I’ve since discovered meant something else entirely. But the message was clear. If being gay was bad, then I was not gay, simply because I did not want to be bad.

And then I met my best friend in college. She was a lesbian. The closer we got, the more I realized I preferred being around her to any of the guys I dated. I even realized I preferred her company to that of the man I eventually married. No one made me laugh like her. No one understood me like her. And like, she was way cuter than most of the dudes too.

If you haven’t caught on yet, she’s my wife now.

But something changed when I just said “fuck it” and started living openly queer. Suddenly, religious and political discussions were a minefield and I’d be taken aback by how freely people would say the most dehumanizing bullshit about folks like me — especially if the person I was talking to didn’t immediately register that I wasn’t straight like them. I had to watch how I word things around strangers, as dropping a phrase containing the words “my wife” could potentially put me in danger. Driving through smaller towns felt especially unsettling now. I wasn’t sure if I was surrounded by people who’d want me dead if they knew the truth. I’m originally from a small town; I know how it is. These folks don’t often meet people who aren’t like them, and when you’re that insulated from the full range of human diversity, exposure to that diversity can feel threatening. And when people are threatened, all sense of reason falls to the wayside and it’s fight mode.

I don’t want to fight with these people. But they want to attack me. All for something I never chose for myself. All because I thought girls were pretty.

In the last few months since the current administration took over, I’ve been considering what I’d even do in the case that homosexuality is outlawed. I am bisexual, and I could put on the straight jacket if I really needed to. I had for all those years I exclusively dated men. But I realized I wasn’t truly happy in that arrangement. I wasn’t fully, openly myself.

That’s why the topic of sacrifice kind of hit me. I’m sacrificing a lot of comfort and privilege just by being who I really am for the first time. There’s a term for that constant sense of looking over your shoulder that comes with being a marginalized person. It’s called minority stress, and refers to the chronic stress that we experience from constant discrimination and not knowing if the next person we run into will be a crazed bigot who wants to murder us. The thing is, I never had to experience that as a kid. My wife may have, since she’s black and race is a lot harder to conceal than sexuality. But remember, I was a white kid in a white family in a 99 percent white town. The only source of trauma for me, like I mentioned at the start, was being bullied.

All of that being said, would I go back in the closet if it meant freeing myself from the stress and potential threats? Would I willingly live out the rest of my years playing the role of the traditional wife in a heterosexual marriage? Would I sacrifice my own identity for my safety? Honestly, I don’t think I would. It is hard adjusting to being a marginalized person when it’s not something I grew up experiencing, but after spending years running from myself, I’m not about to backtrack on work I’ve done to be who I really am. Because who I really am is finally here, and she’s ready to take on the world.

More Than Words: Five Quotes I Live By

Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often?

If there’s one thing I can take away from being a writer my whole life, it’s the fact that words are powerful tools. We can use them to build people up, tear each other down, spread information, spread misinformation, and evoke strong emotions. Something I’ve always been fascinated by is the use of mantras or affirmations for self-improvement. Just repeating a certain phrase to yourself can make an impact on your mental health. And here’s the thing — your affirmations don’t have to be anything in particular, so long as they resonate with you.

Like a favorite quote!

As I began writing this post, I realized I have a handful of quotes I constantly repeat in my head like mantras. They’re the words that shape my personal philosophy and the way I approach life. I never really stopped to actively consider and appreciate how these words have shaped my experience as a human being. But I wanted to share a few of these quotes I carry with me.

She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring.

–Zelda Fitzgerald

This first quote comes from the iconic flapper wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who absolutely should have been absolutely as famous as him in her own right. She was a Renaissance woman — a writer, painter, and dancer, who went on to die tragically in a mental hospital fire. I see a lot of myself in her story. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but had she lived today, she would have received a bipolar diagnosis like me.

Zelda was a wild child with many diverse interests, so I can’t imagine a woman like her would ever be bored. That’s kind of how I want to be. I don’t enjoy being idle, and I don’t ever want to be boring. I always want to be involved in exciting new projects and opportunities. Life’s too short to sit around and be bored. You gotta actively make a life worth living. That’s kind of what the quote means to me.

Show love with no remorse.

-Red Hot Chili Peppers (“Dosed”)

I remember the first time I heard this song and being entirely floored by how beautiful it was. It was in the car with my former drummer Jerry and another short-lived bandmate on the way to our bandiversary date. I’d heard plenty of Red Hot Chili Peppers before that day, but this was the song that really made me appreciate them on a deeper level. I loved the guitar work, the harmonies, and perhaps most importantly, the words.

I’ve always said I wanted this exact lyric tattooed on me someday. I just think it’s a simple concept. You’ve got nothing to lose by giving love freely and joyfully. We need much more love in this world, and now is not the time to be stingy with it. You’ll never regret treating people with kindness.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

-Robert J. Hanlon

I hesitate to call this a quote. It’s technically a philosophical razor, which eliminates — or rather, shaves off — weak explanations for a particular phenomenon. The phenomenon at hand when it comes to Hanlon’s razor is “Why are people awful to each other?” And the explanation it offers is simple: people just don’t know any better.

Hanlon’s razor is why I still have faith in humanity, even after I’ve witnessed some of the worst of it. People very seldom intend to hurt each other. We’re all just big dum-dums that say and do the wrong things sometimes, and we really need to treat each other with more grace. That’s why I don’t believe in cancel culture — we need a grace culture. If you make an honest mistake and own up to it, that shouldn’t be held against you. No one is perfect, and we can’t hold people to impossible standards.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

-Romans 12:21

I struggled to think of just one Bible verse to include, since so many have been influential to me growing up in the church. But this one felt really relevant with some of my recent posts about loving your enemy and fighting the rampant dehumanization of marginalized folks in our society. It’s easy to lash out against the people who are hurting me and my loved ones. But you have to remember that they’re human and they’re hurting too. Hurt people hurt people. It’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation. And it’s why I choose love — because you don’t know what someone else is going through.

The verse immediately before this one talks about how offering your enemy water when they’re thirsty is akin to heaping hot coals on their head. The Good Book is telling us to kill them with kindness. I saw a post recently that said the true test of a Christian is not whether they love Jesus, it’s whether they love Judas. I’ll admit it’s hard for me to show love to the people who hurt me. The human part of me wants revenge. But the divine answer remains to be love.

Where words fail, music speaks.

-Hans Christian Andersen

I’ll admit I never knew the person behind this quote was none other than the Danish purveyor of fairytales such as The Little Mermaid, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and Thumbelina. But I’ve always related to this quote. As a child, the signs of my autism were very apparent. I would often stim by pacing or making bird sounds, and I had sensory issues surrounding things such as loud noises and upsetting smells (looking at you, ranch dressing). And like many autistic kids, I struggled to communicate with my peers. My classmates thought I was from France for the longest time because I never spoke in elementary or middle school, so they assumed I had an accent or didn’t know English or something.

But then I picked up a guitar, and everything changed. When I learned to play music and started performing, that was when I truly found my voice. Music was my way of reaching out into the world. I call music my first language for good reason. It was the bridge that connected me to other people for the first time in my life, and for that, I’m forever grateful.

What quotes do you live by? Leave your favorites in the comments!

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The Unsettling Trend of Dehumanization (And Why We Must Fight It At All Costs)

Oh. My. God.

So the government is planning on rounding up the info of folks with autism and doing God knows what with it. As someone who is (now thankfully) self-diagnosed, I’m probably safe for now. But this doesn’t exactly bode well for those diagnosed with other forms of neurodivergence, and considering RFK Jr. has already laid out his plans for people with ADHD, a condition I am properly diagnosed with, I have some cause for concern.

Because we’re in the beginning stages of genocide.

Just listen to the way he talks about us:

Autism destroys families, and more importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children. These are children who should not be suffering like this. These are kids who will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.

Dehumanization. That’s where we are.

We live in a world that values labor above everything else. If you’re not able to hold down a job, sucks to suck, you just don’t get to live. If you can’t contribute to society in any meaningful way, you’re a waste of carbon atoms and a drain on our resources and should probably be Old Yellered on sight like the useless sack you are.

*Rabies* are what happen when you don’t believe in vaccines, *RFK.*

The value of a person is determined by what they bring to the metaphorical table, and if you lose that value by losing the ability to work, you wear the scarlet letter of being a freeloader at best and a symbol of the downfall of civilization at worst. Sometimes you don’t even need to lose the ability to work. Sometimes your perceived lack of contribution to society is not paying your share of taxes (like undocumented immigrants) or not making your share of babies (like queer folks). But whatever it is, these people are not contributing like good citizens.

And I think that’s where the disconnect is, because a human life shouldn’t be weighed against how hard it has worked, how much money it has given, or how many babies it has popped out. Human life should be considered inherently sacred, with no conditions. Hell, all life should be considered sacred and handled with care. My dad (who dubiously claims he is of indigenous descent, although I’m not sure I buy it) says when certain Native American tribes kill an animal for food, they say a prayer of thanksgiving for it. And apparently there’s some truth to that. And if a buffalo’s life is worth enough to warrant a gratitude prayer, a human life should be worth so much more. The Good Book even says so:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

-Matthew 10:29-31

But we don’t value each other.

Wanna see something horrifying?

Those are people. Human fucking beings. “But these are violent criminals!” Well, for one, 179 out of 238 of these guys don’t have a criminal record and were sent to this fucking gulag without due process, which, may I remind you, is so important to our American way of life that it’s an amendment in our Constitution. You know, that thing that’s supposed to govern how we run this country?

But imagine, for a second, these dudes were violent criminals. Should they be rounded up like cattle and tortured for their sins? It’s tempting to say yes — if someone violently murdered my family, my kneejerk reaction would be “throw them in the woodchipper.” But in addition to a multitude of arguments against capital punishment, just by saying “x, y, & z are worthy of punishment by death,” we set a dangerous precedent that crime must be paid for with human life, and who decides what’s a crime? Rape and murder are obviously bad to most decent people at least, but remember that historically, being queer was a crime, and it still is in parts of the world.

You can see where this is going, right?

You can’t tell me you did Nazi that coming.

When the government decides an entire group of people are worthy of death, it’ll make their very existence a crime. That is dehumanization.

I’m honestly afraid of how and even if we can come back from this. How do you teach people that they should care for one another? How do we teach people that altruism and compassion are cooler than “owning the libs”? How do we teach people that kidnapping and torturing folks is bad? That all feels like common sense to me. And yet so many Americans are clinging to the very ideas their grandfathers fought against in World War II.

There’s a quote in the first Pokémon film from Meowth of all characters that goes like this:

I think about my big brother, who ended up an all-out Trumper despite being raised by the same blue-collar Democrats as me. We have very different values and views, but at the end of the day, we were both born from the same womb. The same blood runs in our veins. Despite the fact that he’s a business owner with a traditional marriage and four kids and a perfect picket fence life, there are so many things we share as well.

He is every bit as human as me.

I recently started a job at an assisted living home, and last night while I was changing one of the residents, I noticed his bright red MAGA hat staring at me from his bedside table. You know what I did?

I gave that man the exact same care I would have given my own grandfather. Because that’s what being human is about.

In that moment, I didn’t see a man who voted to take away mine and my loved ones’ rights. I saw a man with a family who loves him enough to bring him a giant stuffed puppy, who lay helplessly in his own excrement, desperately crying for help. Jesus said to love and pray for your enemies, and I’m gonna fucking do that if it kills me. I want to love so fiercely and fearlessly that it baffles everyone around me.

And that’s why I have this blog. Our best defense against genocide is humanizing our experiences. I want to soften hearts. I want to humanize myself as a queer, polyamorous, neurodivergent woman. I recognize that many people might not have ever met someone who ticks all those boxes and only get their information about those demographics from sources like Fox News and other conservative media companies. To those people, it’s my job to be a positive representative. I’m demonstrating to them that I’m not some irredeemably evil sicko that needs to be put down. I’m a daughter, a partner, a friend, a future mother, a musician, an artist, a caregiver, a teacher, and a writer. But most importantly, I’m a human.

We all are.