Remembering Dolly: Six Lessons From the Life of America’s Grandma

Here’s a fun fact you may not know about me: I freaking adore country music. When I was really little, it was my favorite genre. And why wouldn’t it be? I grew up in a family of crazy hillbillies who migrated to Michigan and brought their rich Appalachian culture with them. Country was nearly ubiquitous in every facet of my life for the first chunk of it. Shania Twain was my idol as a toddler. I have fond memories of listening to Brooks and Dunn in my dad’s old truck and going through my grandma’s dusty Alan Jackson cassettes. And of course, we had Queen Dolly.

I never dove as deep into Dolly Parton’s discography as I should have, but a part of me has always been fascinated by her. I recall going to Dixie Stampede when my family travelled to Tennessee on vacation. I remember my first amusement park experience was Dollywood. My parents kicked themselves for not getting tickets for a day later, when Miss Dolly herself would make an appearance at the park. It’s sad that I came so close to crossing paths with her as a child, and yet I missed it by a hair.

Now, I’ll never get that opportunity again. As I’m certain you’ve heard by now, Dolly Parton passed away a few days back at the age of 80. The closest thing I’ve seen to monoculture in a post-social media world has been the enormous outpouring of love for her and what she has come to represent. I have even seen multiple pushes to make her a literal saint. To say Dolly was beloved would be the understatement of the century. She was more than just beloved. She was America’s grandma.

I’ve learned so much more about the life of this incredible woman in the past few days, and it has been inspiring me to seek out little ways to honor her memory. Now that she is no longer with us, we all need to carry on the work she began. These are just a few lessons I’ve gleaned from Dolly’s illustrious legacy.

1. Reading is knowledge, and knowledge is power.

We as a nation are experiencing a literacy crisis. There are more illiterate adults today than there were in 1870. This is a significant decline since the 1970s, when less than one percent of the population was illiterate. I can see correlations between this slow drop in literacy and the increasing animosity in our society. Reading allows you to understand different perspectives. Reading encourages critical thinking. Reading is how people learn new things. Is it a coincidence that as we’ve decentered reading as an American pastime, we’ve also seen an increase in division and conflict?

Dolly saw a need, and she had the power to do something. So she started the Imagination Library, a service that sends books to kids for free. The decision was prompted by her own father’s inability to read. In a statement on the website, she said:

“When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true. I know there are children in your community with their own dreams. They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister. Who knows, maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer…The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.”

She always had a heart for kids who grew up in similar situations to her. Dolly didn’t grow up in a gilded castle. She was once a little girl in a destitute part of Appalachia — much like my own grandmother was, many years ago. She may have gone on to become a household name, but her heart was always with families like mine. Which leads me to the next lesson Dolly taught me…

2. Stand up for the working class.

When Dolly wrote “9 to 5,” it was a statement. Like I mentioned before, she was not born into a wealthy family by any means. The nepo babies taking over the charts today will never know the struggle she had to endure to get to where she is. The woman fought tooth and acrylic nail for the respect she deserved. And all the while, she never forgot where she came from. In a recent conversation I had on Reddit, another commenter lamented the fact that there were no femme Springsteens championing the working class. Enter Dolly.

Like my own daddy, Dolly was a supporter of unions, being part of the American Federation of Musicians Local 257 and making it a point to get her band the wages they deserved. She supported migrant workers the rest of the country turned their nose at, covering Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” dedicated to the memory of 28 Mexican farmhands whose deaths were largely ignored. She even stood up for ladies who wound up in the world’s oldest profession, with the understanding that many sex workers were simply sweet girls with broken dreams and no other options. In fact, this leads to my next point that…

3. You can dress scandalously and still be a good person.

Dolly was the poster girl for not judging a book by its cover. On the surface, she had the outward appearance of the traditional “bimbo”: blonde, thin waist, big boobs, lots of makeup, and little clothing. This was not an accident. Dolly herself had said that she styled her own signature look around “the town tramp” whom everyone looked down upon. But young Dolly saw the beauty in her and wanted to be her nonetheless. That was one of her most underrated gifts. She realized beauty in places — and in people — you wouldn’t think to look.

I think a lot about the ways women are judged for owning their sexualities and bodies. I’ve experienced it myself. I recognize that my own signature look is somewhere between a drag queen, a Bratz doll, and probably the town tramp as well. But as Dolly showed us, wearing skimpy costumes and lots of sparkles doesn’t make you less of a person. This is a woman who posed for Playboy of all publications. She didn’t practice modesty the way American Christianity pushes. She had the understanding that modesty is a mindset, not a certain look. I’d guarantee Dolly is closer to the heart of God than any of these tradwife influencers with their prairie dresses that could double as a tent, and all while wearing a sequined unitard.

4. You can be a Christian and not a bigot.

Speaking of American Christianity, it’s no secret that many folks who claim the title of “Christian” in this country are not the ambassadors we want for the faith. “Christian values” has become shorthand for “defending the (relatively new) concept of the nuclear family to the detriment of anyone who doesn’t fit that box.” If you’re a man, you gotta be a big strong dude and marry a woman and make her submit to you. If you’re a woman, better give up all your dreams to a man who doesn’t know how to do his own laundry and pop out his babies for the Lord. That’s the dream we’ve been sold. But Dolly taught us there is a better way.

Dolly was a proper Christian, if a bit of an outlaw Christian. She understood the true tenets of the faith. Like me, she cut her teeth playing in churches and built up a strong foundation for her spiritual beliefs. In her prayer life, she regularly asked God “How can you use me?” and “What can I do today?” I can imagine her saying as Isaiah 6:8 says: “Here am I. Send me!” She knew she had a mission here on this planet to be the hands and feet of Jesus in a very tangible way. Unlike many others who have co-opted the name of Christ, Dolly refused to engage with the widespread bigotry that permeates the religion as it stands. She spent her life proving to the world that being a strong ally to the queer community and being a steadfast Christian is not an oxymoron. In fact, standing up for the oppressed and downtrodden is exactly what we’re supposed to do. She was a true example of the faith. In a world of Donald Christians, be a Dolly Christian.

5. You don’t have to be a literal mother to be a “Mom.”

This one hit home for me as someone who desperately wants to be a mother but is afraid that ship has sailed. Dolly also longed for motherhood, but for a variety of health reasons, her dreams were never able to come to fruition either. But she realized God had another plan for her, a plan she embraced wholeheartedly. She wasn’t supposed to be the mother of a person. She was to be the mother of a movement. She started viewing herself as a “Fairy Godmother” or “Mother Goose” of sorts, with her book program introducing her to an entirely new crop of kids. In a way, Dolly became America’s mother and grandmother.

Dolly proved that you don’t have to squeeze out a biological child to have an impact on the next generation. Going back to the spiritual side of things, I often think about how our society’s current understanding of the Bible presses people to “go forth and multiply.” There are entire “quiverfull” sects that emphasize reproducing as much as humanly possible to “raise up more soldiers for the Lord.” It’s easy to forget that the Gospel has never been about passing down your own bloodline. It’s about the blood of Christ and passing down His legacy of love. Dolly demonstrated this in action. Through her work on Earth, she has done more to further the Kingdom of God than any of those quiverfull weirdos.

6. Stay humble and remember your roots.

Dolly was a superstar. Dolly was an icon. But most importantly, Dolly was a little old Appalachian lady just like my own grandmother. She saw the world and everything it had to offer, but she never lost sight of where she came from. At the end of the day, her heart remained in those storied mountains, with the honest, hard-working folks she’d grown up around. She had a soft spot for the land that gave her life, writing these words in her 1972 song “My Tennessee Mountain Home”:

“Sittin’ on the front porch on a summer afternoon

In a straight back chair on two legs leaned against the wall

As I watch the kids a-playin’ with their June bugs on a string

And chase the glowin’ fireflies when evenin’ shadows fall

In my Tennessee mountain home

Life is as peaceful as a baby’s sigh

In my Tennessee mountain home

Crickets are singing in the fields near by…”

In the 90s, Dolly promised to give $500 to every kid who went on to graduate from high school in her home county, essentially causing the drop-out rate to plummet. She has donated a good chunk of her fortune to disaster relief and other initiatives in East Tennessee. Through it all, she never forgot where she came from. I’ll leave you with this quote from The Christian Post in 2019 that I feel embodies her life and legacy:

“Every day I pray for God to lead me and to take out all the wrong things, wrong people in my life, and bring all the right things, right people, and to let me glorify Him and uplift mankind, to do something in this world to make it a little better than it was. And let me be a light and a vessel to be used.”

That’s what it’s all about, y’all. In a world of insincerity that rewards braggarts and egotism, let us all be more like Dolly. Bring a little music and sparkle to this dark world, and leave it brighter than you found it. Together, we can continue the work she started.

Rock & Roll Devotional: “Whoever She Is” by The Maine

I’ve written a good deal of spiritual content on here. In fact, from the very genesis of this blog, I’ve attempted to rebrand with a more spiritual lean a few times. Ultimately, my interests when it comes to writing spans way too many topics to focus on one particular niche. Music is another one of my biggest special interests, and writing is one way I process how I feel about the music I love and create myself. So the weekly devotionals I had committed to writing ended up languishing as I pivoted more toward music.

But I had this crazy thought. Because when you’re actually looking, you start to find messages from God in everything, including the secular songs you enjoy. That’s where the idea of Rock & Roll Devotionals came from. What if I combined my love of theology with my love of music?

This first one came to me while I was driving home from training for my new job. Full disclosure — things have not been great. I’ve been coasting off of what little money I’d made from my part-time minimum wage gig in Indiana when I was there briefly, but I was officially down to $11 as of a few mornings ago, and I still needed gas to get to training. There’s a good reason I started a GoFundMe to stay afloat at the moment. I’m in the process of rebuilding my life from scratch after all of the dreams I’d built had been shattered. In tarot, they call it a “Tower” moment. Sometimes, everything has to crumble to pieces before you can truly realize who you are and what you need.

While I was driving, I had a strange urge to revisit a song from my favorite Arizona-based emo band that isn’t Jimmy Eat World. The band’s called The Maine, and while their earliest material is pretty standard MySpace-era fare, they continued to evolve and incorporate aspects of pop, 90s alternative, and classic rock to alchemize a sound I really appreciate. That’s not to say their oldest stuff is bad, though. Enter “Whoever She Is,” a track off their 2008 full-length debut, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop.

“Whoever She Is” is a tranquil, acoustic-driven ballad about the struggles and anxieties of life, personified as the unnamed “she.” “She” isn’t necessarily a girl who broke your heart, although she very well could be. But she could be anything — rainy days, minimum wage, finding your car stolen when you’re already late to work. Throughout the song, John O’Callaghan croons about the ways his life is falling apart, and yet he has an unshakable sense of zen. He’ll be okay, and so will you, the song insists.

When I truly took in the words of the song, it took me back to my Sunday school lessons on the verse about the sparrow. If you didn’t grow up in church, you might not have heard this one. It’s not one of the more well-known “feel good” verses old church ladies quote on Facebook, but it deserves to be. In Matthew 10:29-31, Jesus says:

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

If you are not a bird enthusiast, you might think sparrows sound lovely, but rest assured that to much of the population of the planet, they are a low-tier garbage bird. They happen to be the most widely distributed bird in the world and are even considered pests in some parts of it. Hardly anyone’s favorite bird is the sparrow when you have much cooler options like eagles and swans and parakeets. But God still cares about them, for some reason.

And He cares about us even more.

I guess that’s what “Whoever She Is” has come to represent for me. It’s that feeling of no matter what comes my way, I’m still held by the Great Author, and He’s still busy writing my story. Maybe He’s thrown some gnarly plot twists at me, but it’s never anything I can’t handle. That’s the beauty of it all. We’re never truly abandoned in this life. There’s a greater story being written that we don’t even understand yet.

I keep going back to this poem I remember reading in my grandmother’s bathroom on a little plaque that was hanging by the toilet. As a kid, there were no phones, so whenever I had to poop, I was stuck reading whatever magazines or shampoo bottles were nearby. But now and then, I’d reread that plaque. It was the tale of a man questioning God. “You said you’d always walk beside me,” the forlorn man asked, “but where were you when your footsteps in the sand disappeared?” The Good Lord’s response is that when there was only one set of footprints, that’s when He was carrying him. That stuck with me all these years.

Lately I’ve been feeling a bit like that man. Where has God been in the midst of ny suffering? Turns out, He was with me the whole time. Perhaps it just took a simple ballad by one of my favorite emo bands to remind me of that fact.

Transformation, Rebirth, and Constant Screaming: Understanding the Message of the Cicada

A few days back, I got a bit of a fright when I sat out on the back patio to chat with some friends back home on the phone. I noticed a freaking enormous bug just chilling on one of the support columns. My first assumption was a massive dreaded horsefly, which I am (rightfully) terrified of. But he wasn’t moving, so I eyeballed him a bit closer to figure out what he was.

He was a cicada! Or rather, his shell. The real little dude had long since moved on and left part of himself behind.

I left it there in the moment, not thinking much of it, but something later on prompted me to revisit it. I kept thinking about the shell sitting out there on the patio all day.

Going out to retrieve the shells that night, I felt an odd kinship to Satoshi Tajiri, a certain Japanese little boy with autism whose passion for bug collecting would, in adulthood, lead to his masterwork, the Pokémon universe. Who woulda thunk my lifelong obsession with collecting little digital critters would come in handy someday? When I finally reached the patio, I noticed a second one on the other side of the column. Bonus! I snagged both and placed them in a little bowl, careful not to damage the delicate exoskeletons.

When I brought the two shells inside, my girlfriend disclosed to me that as a child, she was petrified of the enormous insects. To quell her anxiety around them, her mother made up a silly song about them: “I’m gonna get some brand new skin/And I’m gonna fly away.”

And it hit me. I’m in my cicada era. Because this is the part of my life where I need to shed my skin and begin anew.

I consider my religious views deeply rooted in the Christian tradition I grew up in, but I also dabble in witchcraft and related spiritual arts. The two are surprisingly compatible. I had this crazy realization that the Abrahamic faiths’ blanket ban on all things witchy is more or less rooted in the fact that the big dudes who’ve always run those faiths get real squirrelly about a woman taking spirituality into her own hands. Don’t you need a pope or a priest or a pastor or a husband to tell you what to believe? I’ve discovered the answer is a huge “hell no,” and that’s the difference between orthodox Christianity and my personal belief system. God didn’t stop moving after the events of the Bible. I believe He is still speaking. And when He wants to tell you something, who’s to say He can’t speak through tarot or meditation or signs from nature?

Like finding two cicada shells.

Speaking of tarot, when my best friend/frequent collaborator, Luke, and I decided to be roomies, I did a reading for us using a deck I’d gifted him forever ago. I’m not superstitious, but I am a little “-stitious.” I had a feeling if we did a reading, something important would jump out at us. Well…

When Luke first got the deck, he pulled exactly one card — the Eight of Wands. It’s funny because before doing this reading, I shuffled the everloving fuck out of the deck and had both of us split it. And wouldn’t you know, the very first card was the Eight of Wands again. It feels significant, and it is. It’s the card of rapid change and new adventures. When I do my favorite reading, the first card is usually something to embrace. The second is something to release, though. The Ten of Cups was sobering. The happy family card. I’ve always wanted to be a mother, but as I’ve begun to realize, perhaps by letting go of my dream of having literal children, I can step into my role as the mother of a great new movement of some sort, even if that’s just starting a creative collective with my friends and helping them find their voices. The third card, a message from God or the universe or whatever higher power you choose to believe in, was the Five of Pentacles. Things will be difficult for a while, especially financially, but we’ll get by with a little help from our friends. The message of that card is to remember that folks are there to pick you up when you fall.

The left two cards were incredibly interesting. I like to flip the very next card in the deck is to see “what’s next” in life. The High Priestess. The only major arcana card I pulled. Divine feminine energy. She’s considered something of a “femme pope,” to the point where some decks call her the “Popess.” She’s a guru of spiritual wisdom and intuition. I don’t know what that means for us, but it feels right. My immediate thought was of Hildegard von Bingen, the medieval nun who also happened to be the first named composer in the canon of Western music. I feel a deep kinship to her, both spiritually and creatively. She is proof to me that these things are not incompatible, especially after having grown up in the evangelical church, where your sense of creativity tends to get stifled. While modern American Christianity has devolved into Skillet and Forrest Frank, Hildy was busy laying the architecture for music as we know it. And she was, like me, a deeply spiritual person with strong convictions.

Then, I usually check the bottom card as a way to see what’s behind me, what problems I no longer need to contend with. Seven of Cups. Illusion, distraction, wishful thinking. Those things are in the past. The time has come to take action. If we can dream it, we can make it happen. Being roommates, getting this podcast off the ground, making a difference in our community and in the world — that’s what we need to be doing. This tarot reading was all the confirmation I needed. Me, Luke, and all our friends here in Kalamazoo are the creative dream team I’ve longed for since I was a kid, when I just wanted to be in some kind of band or similar collective. I was never the child who played team sports, but I longed for connection and for a group to lean on. I finally found that here.

But I digress! This post is about cicadas, right? After I collected the shells, I did my due diligence reading about what they symbolized. I couldn’t believe the things I was seeing on my screen. Cicadas represented everything I needed to embrace in order to move on from all of the things that have been weighing me down. They are a beacon of change and transformation, and perhaps most appropriately, they are the patron insect of musicians and singers, as their song is the soundtrack to late summer. They reminded me that, as I’ve said before, if I can scream, I still have a voice. The cicada is a sign that I need to use that voice and be loud, even though it’s scary at times. I have important things to say to this dark world, and I will be heard. We will be heard.

I gathered a few special objects to make an apartment-warming gift for Luke and I. I found a cheap wooden picture frame and hot-glued a few dried catalpa leaves and Luke’s amethyst to it. The catalpa leaves, aside from being my favorite tree, are a symbol of uniqueness and creativity. The amethyst is for spiritual strength and wisdom. In the frame, I put a print-out of our tarot reading from the day we decided to become roommates. And as a finishing touch, I affixed the two shells I found to the frame. It felt serendipitous, finding a second shell. I wasn’t meant to go it alone. I have an ally in Luke. He and I are just two little bugs trying to transform ourselves and the world by screaming into the void.

Maybe we’ll change the world for the better someday. Maybe we’ll crash and burn. But we have to try, while we still have a voice. That’s what cicadas do best.

If you enjoyed what you read, please consider donating to my GoFundMe! I’m trying to restart my life with my kitty, Krubby, but we still need so much to get back on our feet. Even a little helps!

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Things have been admittedly pretty rough lately.

I have a great poker face when I’m going through hardship, but I have to be honest when I say things haven’t been great. Like, worse than they’ve been since me and my ex-husband split nearly ten years ago. So bad, I had to resort to starting a GoFundMe to stay afloat. Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, I’ve been essentially homeless these past few weeks, surviving only due to the kindness of some very sweet folks. Still, this is the first time I’ve truly felt alone in this world, and it’s scary.

But I’m realizing I’m not truly alone. Like Ringo once famously sang, I get by with a little help from my friends.

The living situation with my girlfriend, Olivia, in South Bend wasn’t able to be made permanent after all (all landlords are bastards), so my dear friend Luke offered to take me in while I figure out my next moves. And while I’m disappointed I have to leave my girl and the city I was reluctantly excited to call my new home, part of me was actually a little relieved to be returning to Kalamazoo. After all, I have plenty of unfinished business here. For one, I started a rap group and a podcast, both under the Kalamazooligans brand.

Which is now the official name for a resident of Kalamazoo. You’re welcome.

I’m excited to revive these projects and hopefully finally get them out into this world. It’s been a long time coming. Both the podcast and the rap group evolved out of my need to collaborate with friends. The idea for the podcast came shortly after meeting a fellow writer named Luke, who came to be one of my most truest friends in the city. We wanted a vehicle with which we could spread joy and whimsy (sound familiar?). The podcast realm is overrun with bigoted fuckheads and terrible takes, so why not do our part to turn the tides in the other direction, you know? The rap group was started by myself with one of my closest male partners, David, as well as Luke and whoever else was in the room with us at time of recording. That project grew when I realized I work better with other people around me instead of in isolation, so when I wanted to work on music, I schlepped my equipment over to David’s or Luke’s. They’d inevitably get curious about how it all worked, and I’d end up creating little beats for them to rap over. From there, it snowballed into something even bigger.

I might be the brains behind the Kalamazooligans, and David is the obviously the voice. But Luke has always been the heart of the project. He’s been there since the genesis of the group, which is basically me, him, David, and, like I said, whoever is in the room with us. Now that I’ll be living in the area again and literally rooming with my main collaborator, the podcast and the musical endeavors are going to be back in full swing.

But there was one small problem. The apartment I’ll be sharing with Luke was a freaking biohazard as it stood. Which, I can’t blame him for. When you live alone and need to spend every waking hour working to afford rent, it’s easy to let shit slip. I can’t fault anyone for neglecting such duties in the current economy. Still though, the place was far from the veritable (wo)man cave it deserved to be. This was to become the Kzoo HQ, and we deserved better.

The problem is I’m not naturally much of a cleaner either. My ADHD makes executive dysfunction nearly insurmountable and I can’t even get started. But something happens when you put another person in the room with me. Suddenly, I feel this weird inclination to clean and tidy things up. It’s a phenomenon called body doubling, and a lot of neurodivergent folks swear by it as a tactic for overcoming that strange paralysis that keeps us from work. And it works! In fact, remember how I said the Kalamazooligans rap project started because I couldn’t work alone? There’s another example right there.

So Olivia and I drove up to my soon-to-be apartment, cleaning supplies in hand. Together, me, her, and Luke tackled the entire place, our shared ADHD be damned. We made quick work of ridding the place of trash, sweeping and mopping the floors, and scrubbing the toilet to perfection. We made it fun. Luke and Olivia showed each other chiptune songs they like, I named the dustpan Dustin, and we sang “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” to the trash as it gradually disappeared from the domicile. Suddenly, the place began to transform before our eyes.

A lot has already been said in our culture about the power of friendship. Lauren Faust developed a whole show/thirty minute toy advertisement featuring colorful ponies about how friendship is literally magic. Look at any children’s film and the climax usually comes when the protagonist’s besties come back to rescue his dumb ass. In fact, my favorite book of ~~emo poetry~~ the Bible, Ecclesiastes, talks about strength in numbers as well. (Am I actually a Christian, or do I just really like the book of Ecclesiastes?) In Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, King Solomon is said to have written these words:

Two are better than one,
    because they have a good return for their labor:
If either of them falls down,
    one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
    and has no one to help them up.
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
    But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
    two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

This isn’t the only time the Bible discusses teamwork. Even in the New Testament, in Matthew 18:20, Jesus says:

For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.

The orthodox Christian reading of this scripture usually points to church gatherings and prayer groups, but I’m nothing if not unorthodox in much of my beliefs, including religious ones. I think the Good Book is trying to tell us something even bigger than just “Go to church and pray in a group.” Remember that Jesus is considered part of God, and somehow also is God, and that God is love. If those things are true, then anywhere people are gathered in the name of love are gathered in the name of Christ, even if they’re entirely unaware of it. I see more of Jesus at Pride festivals and in the wildly supportive and friendly karaoke group I frequent than I ever did at my old evangelical megachurch, where I never quite fit in (wonder why?).

The truth of the matter is that as human beings, we need each other. I swear I’m going to make it my life’s work to make people realize that we’re all in this together. And I’m not just talking about the Christians. I’m talking everyone of every faith and creed and background. It’s not a secret that nearly every major faith system in the world has a version of the Golden Rule: just be a good person and love people. We try to add all these stipulations and conditions, but it’s really that simple. The answer is love. The answer has always been love. That love may look like scrubbing your best friend’s toilet to perfection and cheering him on as he throws out old socks.

I’ll end with one final note. As I mentioned, I started a GoFundMe to help alleviate some of the financial stress of having to relocate once again. It was a last ditch effort to keep my life from spiraling out of control. I needed yet another Uhaul to get my stuff that I’d taken to South Bend back to Kalamazoo, and I needed a bed, and I still hadn’t even paid my car and credit card payments for the month. I felt absolutely hopeless, and the fundraiser was basically me screaming into the void for help. I was no longer “too proud.” I knew I wasn’t getting by on my own.

I expected crickets.

But I was absolutely blown away by the cascade of support I got from my loved ones. And while the fundraiser stands at $420 (heh) as of writing, I’ve received an even more valuable gift in reconnecting with people I’d long lost touch with. Folks I haven’t heard from in a decade or more reached out to assist in any way they could. An old flame offered me a spare room at his parents’ home if Kalamazoo fell through, and a sweet fellow from a band I adored back in college said he was willing to lend me his truck for the move. People from every corner of my life, from my old piano teacher to my high school besties, checked in to make sure I was okay. Even my uncle, whom I hadn’t seen since early childhood, told my mom he reads my writing and is rooting for me. I hadn’t felt this cared for in a long time, and it made me realize things would maybe be alright in the end. My village is there for me.

From a stale fortune cookie I found at Luke’s.

Nobody is meant to go it alone. Together, we’re unbreakable.

Please consider helping with my fresh start by clicking this link! For every donation, I’ll draw a Krubby!

Finding Joy and Embracing Whimsy in the Face of Terror

Sometimes I seriously wonder why I subject myself to the internet.

If I’m honest, my fears regarding technology are nothing new. In fact, in college, my tech aversion got so bad, I’d have to ask my mom to check my email for me at times, and this was when I ran a freaking newspaper. I was never as bad as my dear late father, who died without ever having an email address. Don’t assume I’m a total troglodyte — I have fond memories of painstakingly editing my MySpace profile to reflect my perfect mix of prep and scene, with a touch of emo.

These days, I still loathe the World Wide Web of Lies and Secrets, but it’s a slightly more manageable loathing. I guess I’ve come to accept that most of the planet is only accessible through it, and by shutting myself off from it, I’m limiting my opportunities. That being said, it feels like a very necessary evil. There’s a lot of dark and shit that happens online, and much like the Grinch, I would not like to touch any of it with a 39-and-a-half-foot pole. People feel tempted to drop their masks on here, and it gets ugly. Take, for example, this exchange of pleasantries on the slightly better X Twitter, Threads.

I was tempted to leave the dude’s name uncensored, since he clearly wanted attention.

I’m not upset at the guy, but like, bro, why? It was just unnecessarily mean for no reason. This was not on any of my numerous political or religious posts, mind you, which left me extra confused. I give right-wingers a lot of material to work with, being a mentally ill polyamorous pansexual, so you’d assume I’d be getting a lot more hate for that. Nope, just a stupid video of me fucking up on mandolin.

I initially brushed off his dumbassery. Trolls are gonna troll, and feeding them only screws you over in the end. After a while, though, part of me wondered why I still subject myself to this. Why do I open myself up to be hated on a platform that is openly hostile to women, queer people, and — let’s be honest — anyone who wouldn’t look out of place in His Orange Highness’s golf buddy group? Was I just doing this all for “content,” whatever the hell that even means? Why do I make anything I make? Why do I even write this stupid blog? (I already answered that question, but bear with me.)

Sometimes I feel like I am screaming into a void. But then I remember that if I’m screaming, it means I still have a voice. And much like how Anne Frank immortalized and humanized herself through her work, I hope the things I’m putting into the world do the same for me and my loved ones. It’s not a secret that the world is a very twisted and dangerous place right now, and the future looks bleak at times. Sometimes I feel like posting little whimsical whatnots like making up dumb songs or silly attempts at playing the mandolin aren’t consequential at all in a world that wants to crush all whimsy and creativity. I’ve realized this world is full of joy terrorists, and terrorists are called terrorists for a reason: they want you to live in terror. But in a way, spreading joy and whimsy and art and fun is a quiet act of rebellion. They want us to live in fear. They want us to be quiet. Don’t let them win.

Back in January, I had the incredible opportunity to go on an emo cruise (which I will never financially recover from). There was adventure. There was romance. There was music. There was me meeting the frontman of Dance Gavin Dance and not realizing who the fuck he was. (In my defense, I am faceblind.) I will never forget the amazing experiences I had and the friends I made along the way.

And meanwhile, back home in the Midwest, another white queer woman just like me was murdered by the government.

The entire time, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. I felt so guilty, this horrible, grating sense of survivors guilt, of “it should have been me, not her,” of “what if it is me next?” I was experiencing this strange cognitive dissonance of everything being amazing immediately around me, but on fire everywhere else. And there was a part of me that just wanted to refuse the fun that was being served to me out of principle. How could I, Jessa, have fun, when people are dying? It felt wildly insensitive.

But joy has a way of finding you even in the midst of darkness. Funnily enough, the ship’s freakin’ name was Joy. And it hit me that I don’t need to take on all of the pain of the earth at once. I can lighten up and enjoy the good things I have while I still have them, because tomorrow isn’t promised. Renee didn’t know it was her last day when she dropped her child off at school that morning. Everything I have can be taken from me at any moment, so I’m going to live it up while I can. Even my favorite book of emo poetry, Ecclesiastes, has this to say:

“So I say a man should enjoy himself. For there is nothing good for a man under the sun except to eat and drink and be happy.”

Life is hard, but life is good. Two things can be true, and I’m learning every day to wrestle with that. I don’t know how much longer I will have on this little planet, but while still have a voice, I will use it to spread joy, and I will revel in that joy myself. That’s what it means to be alive. That’s what it means to be human.

Music Reviews Nobody Asked For: Six Pop Artists I Can’t Stop Listening To

I consider myself something of an armchair “popologist.” Pop music has fascinated me since junior high, when I discovered the Swedish pop duo Roxette and realized there was a real art to crafting catchy tunes. It was an art form I became obsessed with. I studied Max Martin religiously. I went to school for music and learned the power of chord progressions. I even became a songwriter myself, and my personal litmus test of whether a song was a success was if my friends confessed to me that they got it stuck in their head at some point. I love good old hard rock as well, and honestly, rock and pop are such close cousins that rock could technically fall under the “pop” umbrella (that’s a whole other conversation). But despite being more of a rock instrumentalist, much of my songwriting is rooted in pop tradition.

I have a lot of inspirations when it comes to the craft of songwriting, including the aforementioned Max Martin, a Swedish guy (what’s in the water over there?) who codified popular music for the 21st century by penning hits for Britney, the Backstreet Boys, and pretty much every A-list artist of the past 30 years. Taylor Swift, love her or hate her, is another one of my strongest influences, dating back to when I was a fellow towhead femme armed with an acoustic guitar and big dreams. Paul McCartney is another, and so is Per Gessle of Roxette, who I mentioned earlier as well.

Today, the music world has never been so oversaturated, and the market is flooded with new upcoming pop stars. The vast majority of them will never reach astronomical levels of fame in our post-monoculture world, but many of them have small but loyal fanbases and are carving out a path in this new era. Here are some of the pop artists I’ve been watching intently for a while.

1. Alessi Rose

I discovered Alessi in a 7-11 while buying snacks for a road trip. I heard a song with an infectious bassline and knew I had to Shazam that shit. The song, it turned out, was “Get Around,” an absolute banger of a track about eyeballing a promiscuous guy. I seldom do deep dives on artists because I will get hyperfocused and ignore all other music out there for some time, but Alessi seemed worth taking a chance on. And it paid off, because I instantly fell in love with Voyeur, her full-length debut. (It is hilariously classified as an EP on Spotify — I’m sorry Alessi but you can’t call an album with eleven three-minute tracks an EP!).

Alessi herself is British and had taught herself music production while bored during lockdown. She has an ear for catchy melodies, and her writing captures the Y2K girl-rock sound of artists like Hilary Duff and Ashlee Simpson, especially with songs like “That Could Be Me” and “Falling Forever.” She saved her funkiest songs for the second half of the album, like the Sabrina Carpenter-esque “First Original Thought” and the previously mentioned “Get Around,” but the entire release is a solid one. Her older material is worth looking into as well — I love the unusual chord progressions in “imsochillandcool.” Also worth mentioning is the fact that, like me, Alessi has OCD! Her recent song “Skin” is her take on mental illness, and it is a heartwrenching one. There is a lot of heart hidden behind her coquette aesthetic and catchy hooks.

Recommended tracks: “That Could Be Me,” “Skin”

2. MARIS

MARIS popped up randomly on a drive and I didn’t immediately change the song when I heard the opening notes of “MOSH⭐️PIT.” Yes, the star is part of the song title and also part of MARIS’s brand. She wants to be a “super fucking mega star,” in the words of her own song, and she believes everyone is a star in their own right as well. I went all in on supporting this girl when I found out her opening act for her tour was karaoke! If you know me, you know I’m a huge proponent of karaoke as a way to build community and express yourself. Everything I’ve seen from MARIS indicates that her and I would probably get along really well as human beings. She, like me, is violently bisexual and appreciates Freddie Mercury and Heart as much as I do.

Her collaboration with fellow queer artist Caroline Kingsbury on the very gay “Give Me a Sign” is full of yearning and layers of harmonies. Meanwhile, her ode to cannabis, “Mary + I,” has some of the strongest vocals I’ve heard in recent years, completely eschewing the “whisper singing” that many pop girls lean into these days. Another favorite, “Body Is On Fire,” is a bouncy, sexy tune you can dance to, and the euphoric “Salt Water Taffy” has been my song of the summer, with its multiple nods to the little things that make the season special.

Recommended tracks: “Give Me a Sign,” “Salt Water Taffy”

3. little luna

little luna (the lowercase is intentional) is a modern pop singer with a hippie soul. Starting out as a Disney actress and moonlighting as a yoga instructor, little luna even inserts guided meditations into her albums, which I thought was incredibly cool. I’ve been trying to get more into mindfulness myself and I played her meditation “garden” while sitting out in my girlfriend’s backyard one morning. I will tell you, that shit made me tear up. little luna has a way of making you feel cared for with only her voice, and that’s something precious, something I haven’t really found with other artists. She has a warmth to her entire persona that I very much appreciate.

little luna’s trademark style and bright orange branding is intriguing to me, drawing influence from the art of the sixties and seventies. She feels very much like a spiritual successor to the likes of Stevie Nicks and Linda Ronstadt. The song that made me fall in love with her music was “upward spiral,” a jaunty pop-rock number with a seriously catchy chorus. There’s also “wildflower woman,” somewhat of a signature song of hers, where she breezily croons “I’ll be growing where I’m going.” It’s more than just a song — it’s a statement. Also worth mentioning are her meditations, which are very relaxing and encouraging if you’re into that kind of thing. If you’ve never tried a guided mediation, hers are a wonderful introduction.

Recommended tracks: “upward spiral,” “forest (guided meditation)”

4. Awkward Marina

If Ann Wilson wasn’t my all-time favorite flute-wielding belter in the world, that title would go to Awkward Marina (with Lizzo now at a distant third after the…banana incident). Awkward Marina is probably the least known name on this list, and it is a damn shame. She should absolutely be in the same league as Taylor, and I’d go as far as to say her songwriting is incredibly Swiftian. This is not an accident — Marina is a Swiftie herself, covering some of her songs and creating whatever this is. But there’s another fandom she’s very involved with as well. You see, she truly found her voice in the My Little Pony fandom, and as something of a Pegasister myself, I can get behind that. She’s also a Jewish lesbian, which is pretty neat.

I really value diversity in musicianship, and Awkward Marina is a fantastic example of this in action. She’s written 80s-inspired synthpop, baroque pop, a capella, ska, recession pop — and that is one fucking EP. Speaking of, the Doodle EPs are a god-tier set of EPs. The power ballad “Lonely” features a flute solo that’s been loaded with effects to make it sound nearly electric guitar-like in timbre, and an entire choir of Marinas accompany Marina in the triumphant “Doodle,” where she revels in the joy of being a creative. Another gem, “Princess,” is a charming baroque pop track about the expectations of femininity which features both flute and harpsichord prominently. She even has a cover of “867-5309/Jenny,” the 1981 Tommy Tutone hit, featuring a smattering of retro phone sounds. Her creativity is astounding when it comes to arranging songs.

Recommended tracks: “Matter of Time,” “Lonely”

5. Candi Carpenter

I was originally going to call this list “Pop GIRLIES I Can’t Stop Listening To,” but to do so would be to disregard a vital part of their identity. They, like me, are nonbinary! That’s not where our similarities end. We’re both autistic, we grew up in the same state, we have some country roots, and we’re both very much exvangelical. We differ in that I held onto my faith, while they let go of theirs, but I have mad respect for anyone who goes on the deconstruction journey. Just getting out of that cult is praiseworthy enough, and often, irreligious people are just as nice, if not nicer, than religious ones. Needless to say, religious trauma is an enormous part of their music and aesthetic.

The song that introduced me to Candi’s world doesn’t really contain any spiritual references at all. “Nervous System” is just a silly but heartfelt song about their struggles with anxiety and mental health issues. It’s very tongue-in-cheek, as are many of Candi’s songs. “Cult” also deals with the heavy topic of the dark side of American Christianity in a lighthearted manner. It references Left Behind-style end times theology and that creepy post-Columbine martyrdom obsession that inspired “Cassie” by Flyleaf (great band, though not-great theologically). There’s also the punky, sapphic “Strawberry Starburst.” The song that really got me, though, was “Everybody Goes to Hell,” in which Candi explains that “everybody goes to hell in somebody else’s religion.” We all want to be right, but in the end, toxic theology does much more harm than good, so maybe it’s worth abandoning those closed-minded beliefs. They end the song with a heartfelt apology to their parents and anyone they tried to convert while in the thick of it.

Recommended tracks: “Nervous System,” “Everybody Goes to Hell”

6. Tessa Violet

I saved Tessa Violet for last because of all of the artists I’ve been bingeing recently, her music has been the most influential for me emotionally and mentally. Originally starting off as a vlogger when YouTube was less shitty, she’s a “bad bitch” with a heart of gold. My girlfriend initially introduced me to her music years ago, but I just now started deep-diving into her discography. I’ve loved the song “Games” for years now, but I had no idea the kinds of music this woman was truly capable of making. I loaded up her most recent release, a six-song EP titled Something to Lose, and was not expecting to be emotionally devastated. Her strength as a songwriter is similar to Awkward Marina’s in that she can nail practically any style and emotion in her songs. The chasm between tracks like “BAD BITCH” and “I Love Being Wrong” is enormous, but somehow, they’re both intrinsically Tessa.

Her confident baddie persona shines through on “YES MOM,” “Play With Fire,” and the already mentioned “BAD BITCH,” but when she drops the armor, you get songs like the sweet “Kitchen Song,” describing domestic bliss with a loved one, or “My Body’s My Buddy,” a simple love song to the vessel that’s carried her through life. “I Love Being Wrong” hits a similar nerve for me as Candi’s “Everybody Goes to Hell,” although Tessa’s song is a bit more somber in nature and lacking the religious references. But it celebrates the fact that we don’t have all the answers as human beings, and it takes comfort in that. The final song I’ll mention is the one that makes me sob uncontrollably, and it’s not at all a sad-sounding song musically. It’s called “Knowing,” and the last few stanzas make me ugly cry every time.

Give yourself the grace to start again
If it hurts you, put it down
If it don’t serve you, look around
You’re doing great, my babe
I swear you’re gonna make it
You never can know what could come
It’s not done until it’s done
You’re doing great, my babe
I swear you’re gonna make it

I can do hard things
Parallel parking
Like it all, it just takes practicing
(Knowing this is not enough is enough)
I can walk a new path
I can get myself back
I can learn to be a better friend
And give myself the grace to try again

And that’s the true mark of a real artist — someone who can make you feel something with whatever they create. Those lines gave me a sense of hope when I needed it most, and for that, I’m thankful.

Song recommendations: “Knowing,” “I Love Being Wrong”

Which of these artists have you heard of before? Do you have any song recommendations? Feel free to share them in the comments!

On Writing: A Manifesto of Sorts

I wrote this piece in one sitting a few weeks ago, but I only shared it with a few close friends. It’s a bit darker than anything I’ve written before, at least in tone, but I wanted to write about something I’m incredibly passionate about: writing itself! This piece could almost be considered a sister piece to the one I published yesterday on the divine power of creativity, in that it touches on several of the same topics.

I write this intro paragraph from Tucson’s botanical gardens, where a prominently displayed butterfly-dotted monolith memorializes the many, many children who were brutally murdered in the Holocaust. A quote from Anne Frank’s diary decorates the towering monument. She was only a young girl, but she knew the power of the written word. And her words have transcended space and time to humanize folks like her to the world at large. Storytelling is more than a way to pass the time. It’s how we connect to each other and share our struggles. Anne herself may not have survived, but her words are forever immortalized as a symbol of hope.

That’s why I write. And that’s why I felt the need to share these words with you.

It is said that history is written by the victors. But the funny reality of it all is that, when you think about it, history is simply written by the writers. After all, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to record it, did it truly fall? Did the tree ever matter in the first place? Was the tree even real? Without the word “tree,” you probably wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Without words, there are no stories. And without stories, we lose our humanity.

You see, humanity is stories. Billions of them, all happening simultaneously. Every person is a story in their own right. We all have a beginning and an end, and our lives consist of the moments in between the covers of the book. Like all good plots, there will be unexpected twists and surprises. Sometimes, you don’t get the things you want. Sometimes, no amount of meticulous planning will prepare you for whatever the Great Author has penned in your pages. As an aside, that’s kind of why I’ve taken to thinking of God, whoever He (or She, or They) may be, as the “Author.” Because at the end of the day, we are all characters with a role to fill in the greater story of humanity.

So, then, if all of these things are true, what is my role in this story?

That is the question I’ve been agonizing over for years.

But I know this much — I am a writer. I was born a writer. And because of this, I have the power to define my own reality. I can put into words the things other people cannot. Some people rely on technology for these purposes, but the real story of humanity can’t be told via machine. The story is flesh and blood. The Gospel of John talks about how in the beginning of everything, there was the Word, and the Word was not only with God, but the Word was God. And the Word became flesh, and that, there, is the key. In order to disseminate His message to the world, even the Great Author had to experience humanness.

Stories are at the very heart of what it means to be human.

I’ve spent many years on this planet learning what it means to be human, and I suppose I’ll never know all of the answers. What good is it to a human to know all of the answers, anyways? Does it change the path of the earth around the sun? Will it avert the inevitability of tomorrow and the day after? More knowledge does little to quell the constant screaming feeling that we are powerless little ants in a terrarium on fire.

But we press on. And in every moment, we find those reasons to continue. Those reasons aren’t the same for every person, but they all point back to the very act of creation. We create houses to live in. We create meals for our loved ones. We create inventions to make life easier. We create children. We create relationships. We create meaning. We all want to play a little part in the sacred act of creation. We all want to write our own stories.

And me? I’m just a writer. But in a world that is moved by words, a writer is a powerful thing to be.

Meet “The Author”: The Connection Between the Creativity and the Divine

If nothing else, I am a writer.

I have been since I was a little kid. Honestly, since I could hold a pencil and string together a coherent sentence. The stories were always there. The words were always there. One magical day in second grade, I just decided that writing stories was more interesting to me than actual work. So I started finishing all my schoolwork really fast and spent the rest of class time penning short stories. Usually they were thinly veiled rip-offs of Homeward Bound that only a lonely seven-year-old could get away with writing. But it was a start, and it got me falling in love with the art of language. From there, I wrote and read obsessively. I read so many books in fourth grade, my school even rewarded me with a hot air balloon ride!

A few years later, I’d go on to attend church regularly, mostly because I wanted to impress all my good little church kid friends and the hot guy at youth group. There, I’d learn about a whole different book. You know, the one you’d find in a shady motel drawer to rip the pages out of for joints?

That is, the capital-B Bible.

Christianity places a lot of importance on words. Jesus Himself is described as “the Living Word of God” in some contexts. The apostle John’s gospel even begins with the phrase “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” God is a storyteller, first and foremost. And the more I write, the more I begin to understand how the divine moves, even if my worldly brain can’t begin to comprehend it in its entirety.

Every day, there are eight billion stories being penned. Eight billion plot lines. Eight billion main characters. And no two of their stories are going to be exactly the same. Sure, you’ll find commonalities to the human experience, but for the most part, no one has gone through the same exact struggles in the same exact ways. Every life is as unique as a fingerprint.

And sometimes I wonder if God thinks of our lives and stories the way I think of my characters and their stories. I love my characters, every single one. Even the villains! I’ve put so much heart into each of them. I always say I’ve never written a character flaw I don’t already have as a person. That’s how much of myself I pour into these silly little guys who move the stories I write. I think God does something similar. We were supposedly created in His (or Her, or Their) image, so it makes sense that we were given divine gifts as human beings. Acts of compassion and senses of humor are something only humans — and God — have. (And if you don’t believe God has a sense of humor, look at the freakin’ platypus. Who designed that thing??) Another divine gift? Creativity.

We create because we were created. Human beings just want to share in the beauty of creation with our Creator. Our Author, if you will. That’s why kids practically come out of the womb singing and scribbling and smashing stuff together to make new things — until we beat the creativity out of them. By denying our kids and ourselves of art and creation, we’re denying the part of us that was divinely gifted to us. And that’s really sad.

I think the Church as a whole has a creativity problem. We don’t exactly have a C.S. Lewis of our generation. Worship songs are usually considered some of the worst slop in the music world, and Christian artists are typically marketed as the “moral alternative” to some other sexier, more scandalous musician. Like how Skillet is just Christian Nickelback, you know? The films are equally garbage. Can anyone claim to have actually enjoyed the God’s Not Dead series?

It’s sad that there has become such a disconnect between “God the figurehead of the Abrahamic religions” and “God the creative.” I’ve seen people come to the Lord and feel like they have to lay down their life’s passion in order to be saved. And I’m here to tell you that is a lie from the enemy. I hate to even bring up that impish little guy, since he’s been weaponized to scare the living daylights out of churchgoing children for time immemorial, but I do feel like there is some force of evil in this world, be it a literal Satan figure or simply the absence of God and goodness. And I feel like the Devil himself smiles whenever a sadly misled born-again Christian puts down his guitar for the last time.

We were created to create, and we were designed to use our gifts to serve others, honor God, and leave the world a better place than we found it. If I could serve you a little bit of Christmas in July, remember that song “Little Drummer Boy” (which Aly & AJ has a spectacular cover of)? That song is so interesting to me theologically. It likely didn’t ever happen and was entirely fabricated by the songwriter, and let’s be so real, why on earth would Mother Mary subject her sweet newborn king to a freakin’ drum solo? Still, it manages to paint a sweet picture of what humbly using our gifts to serve can look like. This kid has nothing to give, but he makes music nonetheless. He gives himself through his art. That’s enough.

The world is a deeply creative place, as it was given to us by a deeply creative Creator. My theological beliefs are evolving at breakneck speeds lately, and a lot of what the Lord is revealing to me as of late has to do with art and spiritual gifts. It’s a damn shame that so many Christians and religious folks in general have neglected this part of their faiths, and it’s even sadder that more of those folks would be offended by me saying “damn” than by religious institutions stifling the human spirit of creativity. Sure, making great art won’t get you into Heaven, but I don’t think that’s what it’s supposed to be for in the first place. We were never supposed to be saved by our acts on this earth, anyways, and I feel so many people miss the mark by zeroing in on the afterlife. God put us here, on this planet, and while we’re here, we gotta do something with our time. So He just gave us a lesser form of creation to indulge in. Art is how we regulate and express our own feelings and communicate with each other. Art is an analgesic for the unending pain of life. Art is God’s way of letting us know He loves us and wants us to cherish our time in this world.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that in order to live full, healthy lives, people need art. They need to make it, or at least be surrounded by it. People need to play. People need to get messy. People need to throw themselves into something they’re passionate about. This was not a mistake. This was a desire placed inside us by our Creator, the Great Author. That being said, do whatever it is you were meant to do. Maybe you’re a painter, or a knitter, or a writer like me. Even just spending some time in the character creation engine in The Sims can be beneficial. Whatever it is you do, give it your all. It is our divine gift, right, and duty to create.

So, go forth and create!

Putting Away Childish Things: What I’ve Learned About Letting Go

I’ve chronicled my music therapy journey on this blog quite a bit in recent years. It was a huge part of my life’s story, having been the focus of my studies for more than a decade on and off. Even when I wasn’t actively pursuing music therapy at my university, I still had every intention of obtaining that sweet degree at some point and slapping a fun little “MT-BC” after my name. Heck, if I was feeling really feisty, I could even go back to school again and throw a Dr. in front of my name as well.

Obviously, as I’ve detailed in painstaking detail on this blog, that dream died a hilariously brutal death in the godforsaken city of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

But that wasn’t my first — or only — dream.

When I was a little girl, I wanted nothing more than to be a rock star.

After my tragic and abrupt exit from the music therapy world, I decided to refocus my energy on making it as a professional recording artist. LORE was intended to be my “Hello!” to the music world. I crafted the eight-song album to be a proper debut, with a smattering of songs from an array of genres demonstrating my abilities as a performer, songwriter, and producer. I redid my socials, pestered my besties with the demos, and even dragged my poor wife into a frozen-over forest for the promo shots. I had every intention of this album becoming a breakthrough of sorts.

Then, release day came. Friday the 13th. It felt poetic, but the moment came and went, and I found myself absolutely paralyzed at the thought of doing any self-promotion. I remembered the tragedy that was me trying to promote my ill-fated Chappell Roan cover, which was inundated with (at least charmingly creative) insults. Putting my original material out there, which I emptied my entire heart and soul into, felt even more vulnerable. Ultimately, I chickened out.

The album languished.

But here’s the weird part.

I actually wasn’t as disappointed as I should have been.

Because the older I get, the more I realize I don’t want to be the next Taylor Swift. In fact, the idea is becoming increasingly terrifying.

It’s not a secret that the music industry sucks. I literally just posted an entire piece about that yesterday. And truthfully, the more I learn about its seedy underbelly, I’m not entirely sure that’s the future I want for myself.

Maybe this is the dream I need to let die.

Last night, I had the most incredible opportunity. I got to meet my lifelong hero, Ann Wilson, the legendary frontwoman of the classic rock band Heart. And I had the chance to ask her exactly one question. Now when the time finally came, I definitely panicked. My initial thought was to ask her about her childhood and being bullied, and what kinds of things she told herself to stay strong throughout those struggles, but I didn’t want to get too dark, especially since I was one of the first in line. I ended up trying to ask her if any neat happy accidents had ever ended up in a Heart song, but I forgot how to articulate the phrase “happy accidents” and flubbed the question so bad that she had to ask me to reword it (not my proudest moment).

What I’m really glad I didn’t ask, however, was the question that was my other first instinct — what is your advice to up-and-coming musicians?

Her answer boiled down to “quit your day job and go all in.”

Which, sure, might have been decent, if a little reckless, advice back in the seventies when she was getting her start. But following that advice as a working class artist in the year of our Lord 2026 is a near definite death sentence. The chances are very slim that you will actually make it. The chances are much higher that you will wind up with this as your sick rock and roll castle:

Perhaps her disappointingly out-of-touch response was the final wake-up call that I needed to stop pursuing music on such a grandiose scale.

After all, being a rock star was the dream of a child, and at some point, you have to put away childish things.

There’s a verse (1 Corinthians 13:11, to be precise) about this very concept in the Good Book, and I always hated it whenever I heard it in church. I’m a kid at heart and never wanted to grow up (and when I did inevitably grow up, I wanted to skip to the part where I got to be a lazy grandma). I thought the whole idea of having to act serious and proper and “adult” was a silly and unnecessary social convention. Who cares if someone still loves cartoons and toys and goofy jokes after some arbitrary cut-off?

What I’m learning recently, however, is that the verse in question isn’t referring to watching SpongeBob as a grown-up at all.

My wife has been without a job for a good amount of time for a number of good reasons. Because of the circumstances, our roommate and I are not pestering them to be employed at the moment. Still, bills need to be paid, and so my wife has begun to sell off their prized possession — their beloved Pokemon cards.

For years, that was all my wife asked for. Forget chocolates and Hallmark cards, if I didn’t come home with Pokemon cards on Valentines, I was in the metaphorical doghouse. I seriously gave this woman (well, nonbinary woman-shaped cryptid) a bouquet with multiple booster packs taped to shish kabob skewers tucked within it. Pokemon cards were their one obsession.

A few days ago, I was talking with my wife about the sudden change of heart. As it turns out, like many things we cherish, capitalism has soiled the card collecting hobby as well, with scalping running rampant. And more than that, they admitted making sure my roommate and I, their two favorite people on the planet, were fed and cared for was more important than some dumb flimsy cardboard.

Now that is maturity. Now that is growing up.

Maybe the childish things in our lives aren’t crayons and kids’ books. Maybe they’re the things that keep us from what’s actually important in life. No, I don’t want to be a rock star anymore. I want to be a loyal partner to my favorite people. I want to be a good mother someday. I want to build a home and a career I can take pride in. And I want to change the world through music on my own terms.

Between Sorrow and Schadenfreude: A Progressive Christian’s Response to the Assassination of Charlie Kirk

I am so fucking sick of living through major world events.

If you’ve been on some remote retreat in the Himalayan wilderness and haven’t had access to literally any media anywhere, alt-right influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated at a college event in Utah. I saw the infamous video. It was pretty wild to witness. I’ll confess, a lot of emotions washed over me in that moment, some I’m not proud of. Did I feel a twinge of schadenfreude at the death of man who advocated for me to be put to death for being queer? I’ll admit, maybe a little. Did I feel a bit of relief that he can’t spew any more hateful rhetoric. Absolutely. Let’s get one thing straight — Charlie Kirk was not a good person. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to click that little link up there. He is not someone to idolize or even eulogize, the same way you wouldn’t write a sweet memorial piece for Scar.

“He was a loving uncle and fierce leader for his people.”

All of that being said, I want to make another thing clear: I consider myself a follower of Christ. I feel uneasy using the word “Christian” as of late because of how horrifically perverted American Christianity has become, but my theological beliefs line up most readily with Jesus’s teachings. The real Jesus, not the evangelical one. You know, the wildly subversive pacifistic brown-skinned Palestinian Jewish man who repeatedly preached against tyranny and the wealthy? I’ve always been fascinated by His life and ways, and while some of my personal theology contradicts the established dogma of most denominations, I consider Him to be my spiritual guide and savior.

And that’s what’s making this hard for me. The part of me that’s human wants to dance on the dude’s grave. Yet the part of me that has been redeemed by Christ, that divine inner voice, wants to honor the fact that he was still a person, and he was a child of God too.

Two things can be true at once. Charlie Kirk can be a truly despicable person and the world can be better off without him, and we can also mourn the fact that humanity has devolved to this point. We can mourn the humanity in him, the part he willingly killed in himself years ago for the sake of extremist politics. We can mourn for his kids, who didn’t ask to have him as a father and now have a disturbing core memory to contend with. We can mourn for our trans brothers and sisters, who will inevitably be scapegoated for this. And we can mourn the fact that we’re heading to a very dark place if something doesn’t change quick.

I recently read a post that said that the true test of a Christian isn’t whether or not they love Jesus. It’s whether or not they love Judas. Jesus is easy to love. Judas is much more challenging. And in a lot of ways, Charlie is my Judas. He is proving very, very difficult to show compassion toward. The man got what he had coming to him. To paraphrase the Good Book itself, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. But there’s another relevant verse:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”

Matthew 5:43-44

We can’t fall into senseless hate. That’s what Charlie would have wanted. The best way to “honor” his memory is to fight back against everything he stood for, including violence and hatred. This isn’t to say there’s never a time when violence is the answer — we had to kill a lot of Nazis in the 1940s to ultimately save a lot of innocent folks, and even Martin Luther King, Jr. understood why folks lash out violently at times — but we also can’t become desensitized to this shit. This can’t be our new normal.

I’ve been worried about the state of the world all day, and I’m praying this won’t be a Franz Ferdinand situation and WWIII doesn’t spring from it. But I’m scared it’s too late. People have become so brainwashed already. I called out my first boyfriend on Facebook for waxing poetic about the man as if he were a saint, and he responded with some of the most vile, vitriolic, hurtful bullshit I’ve ever had directed at me. It was bizarre. He was such a sweet kid, but it goes to show you how effective these conservative influencers are in manipulating young men. We’re dealing with a lot of propaganda and disturbing messaging in the media.

My heart hurts for the state of the world and for the future. I always dreamed I’d become a rock star and have children and live to be a little old lady like the ones I work with. I don’t want to go to war. I’m a lover, not a fighter. This isn’t the future I want for me, and I hope it’s not the future you want either. I sincerely hope with every fiber of my being that we can turn this around. In the words of the late great Ozzy, maybe it’s not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.

Maybe the Prince of Darkness and the Prince of Peace had more in common than you’d think.

All I know is I can’t handle much more of this. I was simply not made for times like these.