I’m allergic to the sun and your forehead kisses

I’m allergic to the sun and your forehead kisses

Small red dots appear when I start to feel something

I’m worried I’ll always be in love

Rings around my lips like rings around saturn

From smacking our two faces together

What is love but cohabitating uglies bumping

Heaving planets rotating each other

Letting those small gravitational shifts pull and tug

Fuck I think I’m knocking out of my orbit

Letting your fingers slip and slide in and away

The white hot sunburn blushes of cheek to cheek

I have third degree heart burning

As I sit here listening to this bop by Chrissa Sparkles a google alert has popped up on my phone. Another person shot in Minneapolis during ice protests. The revolution is here and the Midwest isn’t having it.

**************** warning this video contains footage of a shooting****************

The past few months the american gestapo known as ice has been ramping up activity in midwestern (predominantly blue) areas. Minneapolis in particular has been hit hard with non stop raids in the street, homes, and schools. Renee Good was shot, a six year old was abducted as bait, they’ve kidnapped indigenous people from the street, and they just shot a man point blank for refusing to stop filming.

Thousands of people took to the streets in Minnesota Friday January 23 in protest. Across the country thousands more stood in solidarity in cities like New York, Boston, and San Francisco. Those protests have continued overnight and this morning bright and early another man was shot outside of Glam Doll Donuts. I’ve been there. I’ve walked down that street, i went into that donut shop. I have frequented minneapolis for a few years now for work and it is a city of nice and helpful people. I’m not one bit surprised by the outpouring of people in the streets. The way that Minnesota has showed up has been amazing and it give me hope that more people will see how we are backsliding into fascism at high speed.

I mean the ingenuity of a playing music outside of hotels to keep agents up all night. Blocking traffics to play music and disrupt. The absurdity is the joyful way to resist.

While the name of the man shot this morning has yet to be released there is a ton of footage spreading across social media. So far it has been alleged that he was also conceal carrying legally and that this was the reason the fascist cowards gunned him down. I’ve seen more and more footage of legal conceal carry folks taking to the streets with guns in hand to resist. The outcries have been as you expected very anti gun. Interesting. Interesting that now guns are an issue even though this person is legally carrying. The truth of the matter is we don’t really know at this point if this man was armed or not. And if we can’t see that in every single video angle on the internet, certainly those untrained dumbasses didn’t either.

I cannot fathom the thought process of people standing by and saying that this is ok. What if they’re picking up a criminal. The audacity. Pepper spraying children is criminal. Shooting someone in the face is criminal. Did we learn nothing from world war II? How is this any different than the gestapo removing people from their homes and work? Holding them in camps? Killing them? They’re stopping everyone who appears not to be white. They are “arresting” people who “interfere”. They are detaining US citizens? Ask yourself why?

This marathon is not over and this week has shown me that I have never been happier to be a midwesterner. If you love numerology or astrology this year is marked as a year of great change. My hope is that this change that sticks.

YES, YOU CAN RESIST TOO!

• Share content

• Document

• Donate (bond funds and legal aid

  https://www.mibfc.org/ )

• Boycott (https://wiki.icelist.is/index.php/Category:Boycott)

• Supplies (dropping off water, food and masks for protestors)

This past week I attended my favorite atrocious poet’s open mic night at the records department in Woodstock IL. I read a few new pieces and got to hear some lovely pieces from several new readers.

Here are a few I shared that evening.

I was a teenage punk

I come from a long line of punks

Comparing the government to nazis

Flapping gums with clip on ties

We scratch out your eyes with sharpies

On concert posters

One thing I’ve learned from years in doc martins that refuse to break in

Is there will always be enough fodder

To write 2 minutes songs to

Lines we scream in our cars and in the streets

The only bondage I appreciate is in the bedroom

Or on my middle school Tripp pants

I put images of impending revolutions on my crop top

Quippy taglines underneath images of death

Adorned shoulders of leathers jackets filled with studs

This is armor for street warfare

We’ve marched down avenues to Daley plaza

Screaming in pigs faces about truth

Got 2be glued hairspray tinged with tear gas

The spirit of change is in our basements shows

Taking canned food at the door for cover

In the zines we scatter across growing networks of frustrated youth

No promises just waves of hope

Tittie Party

My tits are like guns

Some people fear them

Some are way too excited to get their hands on them

My tits are cilantro

The essence could be so pleasant

Or a soapy disaster

My tits are a pager

A fun and silly nostalgic experience

An obtuse tool for the man

My tits are like water snakes

You remember those toys

Utterly useless floppy glitter bags

My tits are the sun

Rapidly expanding center of the universe

Sucking you into orbit

My tits are a casserole

A warm comforting heaping helping

Contents come from a squished can

My tits are just things

Skin bags attached to a real

Human being

I’ve never read romance novels until I was 37 years old. When I was in my mid 20’s I worked at Half Price Books and the first section they stuck you in to get accustomed to the store was the romance paperbacks. I would shelf hundred of old dust paperback a week. The covers and titles of each becoming more and more ridiculous. Swarthy men with no shirts and women who were unable to stand at the sight of them. Perhaps it was my queerness but I just couldn’t get it. Why were so many women standing in these aisles thumbing through books like Forbidden Passion and A Gentle Rogue? It just wasn’t for me. Enter my silly friend Amy.

Now I’ve read lots and lots of books with some romance thrown into the plot, especially YA novels. But I’ve never read an outright romance novel. In discussing this with my friend she suggested I try Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore (sounds almost familiar doesn’t it?).

Now at first glance this novel seems like almost like a small town mystery rather than an apparently spicy romance novel. And yes there are varying levels of romance in romance novels hence the spicy scale. The spicier the novel the more frequent and riskier sex scenes are involved. This novels had a few scenes so the spiciness was medium. Me being the fall themed loving bitch that I am I agreed to read this one due to its autumnal flavors. Now I am not going to say that I enjoyed it for many of the same reasons others read romance novels, no I was more in it for the absurdity. The characters seemed pretty aloof and sassy. And on top of this some of the writing was just so silly it seemed like a teenager wrote parts of it. It brought me some comedic relief. I kept repeating to myself ahh straight people man, you sure can predict it. Even though it was a bit silly I loved it surprisingly. And this lead me to search for some tasty queer romance novels.

We took a little trip to Barnes and Noble to find the newest of the new queer romance novels. Unfortunately, the store doesn’t outright label queer romance so we had to go on a search. I pulled up a Goodreads recommended list and quickly flipped through. Then something caught my eye….Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake. The book was purple and two women stood on the cover. Both looked like versions of my past selves. One pinup looking girl with curves and another dark haired tattoo clad artist holding a camera. I picked it up and read the description and never felt more seen in my life.

“Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls—nothing is there for her but memories of a lonely childhood where she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant stepfamily. Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it’s a different woman every night, but that’s just fine with her.

When Delilah’s estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid’s stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there’s some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all.

Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise…at first. Though they’ve known each other for years, they don’t really know each other—so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they’re forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations—including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé—Claire isn’t sure she has the strength to resist Delilah’s charms. Even worse, she’s starting to think she doesn’t want to...”

It hooked me and I bought it without a second thought. The work was sad and poignant with two characters who had struggles and trauma. Yes, there were spicy as fuck sapphic romance scenes but I didn’t even think about them as the point of the book, it was all about the story. This is what good romance should be, not about the amount of sex or tepid hand holding but instead a story that seemed real. I found the story so compelling I got the rest of the series and read through them quickly. Then I was relieved to see this author had several other queer stories in YA and another romance series.

I continued to peruse several other series which led me to finding some pretty interesting contemporary romance. A suggested read was the Rebel Blue Ranch series. The pulp like comic cover got me interested and I read the first book of the series Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage. Since I was borrowing I had to wait for the second and third series of the book but it got me looking at other series. I found another called Silver Pines Ranch series with eerily similar storylines however the first novel Holding the Reins was an ultimate romance combo of contemporary western and hockey (if you know you know). These novels were attractive to me because they looked at small town life through the perspective of a woman who left and came back. Both talked about relationship and family trauma in ways that again made the story stick out and the romance bits were just there. I will say that the Silver Pines Ranch #1 was probably by far the spiciest I have read to date. And I don’t know what’s in the air but both series had a sexy whisky scene that just made me think about how horrible it would be to get alcohol in the wrong places….

Modern romance is not like the dusty paperbacks on the shelves 10 years ago (for the most part). The storylines have become far more complex to attract the changing tastes of readers. Your boomer mother probably wouldn’t want a complex everyday lady falling for an emotionally intelligent partner who is slightly above average in looks. No rippling muscles and 6 packs here.

Here are some series I am diving into:

1. Clover Lake series by Ashley Herring Blake (Queer romance, artists, movie star0

2. Rose Hill Series by Elsie Silver (Small town, music, friends to lovers)

3. The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling (witches, paranormal, curses, small town)

4. Maple Hollow Series by Ali K. Mulford (Queer, paranormal, ghosts, magic)

5. Grace Notes series by Ruby Landers (Queer, musician, nashville to vermont)

documentation of….

Forced Vessel

Janelle O’Malley is an interdisciplinary artist, art educator, and independent curator working in Northern Illinois. They received their Bachelors of Fine Art concentrating in Painting from Northern Illinois University in 2012. After working in non profit art education Janelle returned to Northern Illinois University to pursue dual Masters degrees; M.S. in Art and Design Education (2022) and an M.F.A concentrating in Sculpture (2024). Their work has been recently shown at Coco Hunday Tampa, FL; Wright Museum Beloit, WI; Residency Project Pasadena, CA; Franconia Sculpture Park Minneapolis, MN; Freeport Art Museum Freeport, IL; NIU Art Museum Dekalb, IL; Abington Art Center Jenkintown, PA, Happy Gallery Chicago, IL and Public Space One Iowa City, IA.

Maeve Wallace is a fine art photographer practicing in the greater Chicago area. In May 2022 she received her BFA and a minor in Women and Gender Studies and received her Master of Art with an emphasis in photography at NIU in May 2024. She is currently gaining industry experience as a digital designer, and photographer for Central States Marketing in Peoria. She plans to eventually continue her education and become a professor. Wallace has been included in various exhibitions including the Ars Nova Exhibition at the Jack Olsen Gallery and NIU Graduate Alum exhibition. She has also been involved in the planning and installation of two NIU Burmese Art Collection exhibitions while simultaneously curating a Burmese marionette educational exhibit. While Wallace enjoys museum studies her mission, and transitively, the mission of her artistic work is to find peace and community.

Forced Vessel is a sculptural and photographic exploration of unseen things; both the visible yet masked pains and the invisible struggles that shape our human experience. This body of work is rooted in the private sanctuaries we turn to when mending. Bedrooms and bathrooms become the backdrops of a personal journey where we inspect, question, and face ourselves.

The mirror, a quintessential object of the domestic sphere, becomes a central motif in our work. An object which reflects the desire for validation, understanding and healing. In these reflections we are confronted with vacillating versions of ourselves. Disposing of our emotional weight and somatic bodily experiences requires self-awareness and intentional release. Becoming familiar with oneself demands deep reflection, and discovering the reasons for our suffering involves exploring our emotions, past experiences, and inner truths.

Forced Vessel explores how identity is formed, remembered, and questioned. Through both the body and the gaze, the reflective surfaces of mirrors and the spaces they inhabit, become entryways where we acknowledge these concepts through a slightly satirical lens. This body of work encourages all to navigate and discover your body in a world that often demands invisibility in moments of vulnerability.

With everything that is going on, how is reading resistance and why do books matter?

To put it lightly reading is resistance. The sharing of ideas and exploring worlds beyond one’s own fosters a deeper sense of understanding and empathy. I’ve worked in libraries and bookstores, with poets and writers and artists. Community and acceptance that is built in those spaces challenges the notions of toxic individualism that we see being espoused around us. There is a reason that banned book lists exist. If you stop the sharing of ideas or try to erase the stories of others you control the broader narrative.

Book bans and burnings have been used in the past as a form of control. We can look to the beginnings of nazi Germany or the apartheid period of South Africa to see how removing literature aided in erasure. It’s used not only as forms of control but also erasure. The history of queer people in Germany before WWII was almost completely erased because of book burning.

Since the beginning of June I dove back into my reading lists, sorted piles of fiction and non-fiction. I even turned my Tiktok into a space to talk about reading, writing and poetry. The thing is I have always surrounded myself with books and writing has been integral to everything I have done creatively or otherwise. But the state of the world can rob you of joy, time and desire to fight. This was my small step to reignite things. To read for pleasure and my own education not for someone or something. The act of lying on the couch with the windows open and a record playing in the background while I spread open a paperback is truly a dream. But also it is safety. It was the one thing I’d do when things were hard as a kid, lock myself up in my room with books larger than my hands could hold. I think a lot of us forget the attachments we had to reading and books as kids. It could be that my childhood was during that golden era of Book It reading club and the Scholastic Book Fair, the nostalgia runs deep.

Some of my fondest memories are going to the library with my grandparents to get books and movies. I got to experience new things I would’ve otherwise never know. The current presidency has been slashing funding to everything under the sun that is free and public accessible including libraries. On top of this libraries within schools systems are also starting to disappear. One of the culprits of this demise is politically backed “small town” mom led organizations. I will not be using the names of these organizations as to not drive more traffic to their media pages. These organizations push agendas that are disguised under religious opposition and keeping kids wholesome and innocent. The disenfranchisement of these institutions and the knowledge they hold can be disheartening. The way to resist is to use the damn things. Go to your library us the books and services. Sit in on a library board meeting (which are open to the public if you didn’t know). Attend that school board meeting. Sign up to be part of a friend of the library organization. Shop that local bookstore. Set up a little free library.

There’s so many ways to resist this movement with little to full on involvement.

This summer my friends and I started our own book club to share our faves. Some of even challenged each other to read books outside of our genre comfort zones (ya girl picked up romance novels, i know… scandal). There is so much joy and commardery in literature and reading. Sharing and talking about stories and knowledge in books is such a rewarding exchange. I encourage you to get together with your friends or colleagues and share. Even something as simple as following book content creators or joining a book tracking app. As innocuous as some of this seems these small acts of sharing and community building around literature are ways of resistance. I’ll be sharing more of my faves in this space as well.

How Reading is Tied to Resistance

Midwest Independent Booksellers find a store

Save your library- American Library Association

We see the memes and posts on social media reminding us that pride was a riot. I’ve scrolled through countless videos on my for me page reminding us how to be safe in large groups during our celebrations. I fight the urge to stay home from events because then they win. Unfortunately this year is bringing us back to that reminder of what pride is, to the origin of our celebration, our fight. The first anniversary of the Stonewall Riot was celebrated not as a glittering parade but a march. The first national recognition of this event being pride wasn’t until 1999. And even then it was gay and lesbian pride month leaving out the spectrum of our identities. It wasn’t until 2011 when Obama expanded its recognition nationally to include all.

I’ve seen the detractors at the edges of parades with their signs espousing religious text to spew hate. The commenters on posts about events typing in caps that you don’t need to be prideful and ignorantly confusing the meaning of pride with people parading their sex around. If you knew the history you would know why we take to the streets. If you saw the photos of people slammed to the ground and bricks flying you’d know why we celebrate each June. From that event sprung more and more organizations to fight for queer rights. People holding signs proudly in the middle of Times Square.

Your neighbor is queer, your teacher is queer, your hairdresser is queer, your aunt is queer. We have always been here and always will remain. We don’t need corporation feeding us quote on rainbow colored t-shirts. Your queer icon tote bag won’t save my life Target. Your rainbow capitalism takes advantage of our joy, of our desire to be out loud. This year we see it now more than ever with the rollbacks of DEI.

It is in these times I often think of writers and poets before me who spoke of the queer experience around this time. How the words still ring true to some degree. I leave you with one of my favorites from Audre Lorde.

This pride celebrate unabashedly. Hold the hands of your friends and lovers. Sing in the streets.

A Litany for Survival

BY Audre Lorde

For those of us who live at the shoreline

standing upon the constant edges of decision

crucial and alone

for those of us who cannot indulge

the passing dreams of choice

who love in doorways coming and going

in the hours between dawns

looking inward and outward

at once before and after

seeking a now that can breed

futures

like bread in our children’s mouths

so their dreams will not reflect

the death of ours;

For those of us

who were imprinted with fear

like a faint line in the center of our foreheads

learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk

for by this weapon

this illusion of some safety to be found

the heavy-footed hoped to silence us

For all of us

this instant and this triumph

We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid

it might not remain

when the sun sets we are afraid

it might not rise in the morning

when our stomachs are full we are afraid

of indigestion

when our stomachs are empty we are afraid

we may never eat again

when we are loved we are afraid

love will vanish

when we are alone we are afraid

love will never return

and when we speak we are afraid

our words will not be heard

nor welcomed

but when we are silent

we are still afraid

So it is better to speak

remembering

we were never meant to survive.

I’ve been listening to Adult Mom for a couple years now and their new album Natural Causes is a testament to their persistence. The project started as a sleepy solo project from Stevie Knipe in 2012. The project quickly expanded to a full blown band and released their first full length album Momentary Lapse of Happily in 2015. Their music has been described as bedroom pop, lo-fi, shoegaze but this new album traverses genres.

The album starts slowly and with each song gets faster and louder. Knipe wrote the songs between 2020-2023 while they were going through treatment for cancer. As the album progresses we see Knipe dabble in various genres from pop punk to folk to grunge. While mostly acoustic and indie rock vibes, some songs include horns and mandolins which aid in the genre hopping.

“Door is Your Hand” opens with upbeat pop riffs with lyrics that singe with sad and quippy lines about a suffocating relationship.

The gut punching track “Benadryl” takes us through the pain of their cancer treatment. Dripping with bits of humor and hope, the songs acoustic melodies are soft and quiet.

We see the addition of some more instruments and a genre shift with “Crystal” halfway through the album. The song brings together ideas of a toxic relationship and their brush with death through their cancer diagnosis. Its the kind of song you can put on repeat and just melt into.

The album ends with the most fun song of them all “Headline”. This queer fueled revenge fantasy tune is fast and loud. It looks at predatory men by using the frat boy cliche as fuel for a fire of rage.

Overall the album digs deep into the darkness of not knowing and adds light moments of laughter and warmth. It’s a beautiful progression from their earlier albums Sometimes Bad Happens and Momentary Lapse of Happily (which are my two favorite albums from Adult Mom). The lyrics maybe filled with questions but the melodies are filled with quiet certainty.

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To give a little further context, during the shows taping Jojo was in a committed relationship with Kath Ebbs. As the show aired Jojo became the target of some violent and homophobic threats from another player on Big Brother. During the filming they became close to Chris Hughes and confided in them. To the outside world it appeared that there was more than just a friendship happening. BUT was there?

Siwa and Hughes described their closeness as platonic and to some people hugging, snuggling and kissing is not part of their idea of friendship. However, queerplatonic relationships are very much like this. If you’re not familiar, queerplatonic is described as a relationship that goes beyond the traditional notions of heteronormative friendships and includes deep emotional commitment but not sex. This can include cuddling, hugging, kissing and cohabitating. To some that might appear to have the hallmarks of a romantic relationship. Who gets to define what is and isn’t a romantic relationship? Why are we as a society so quick to ship a perceived woman/man relationship as romantic? And why are we putting romantic relationships above all else?

Rhaina Cohen's book The Other Significant Others delves into this very discussion and explores queerplatonic relationships by talking to several friendship duos. In the book Cohen highlights that these queerplatonic relationships can mirror many of the aspects we reserve only for romantic partnerships. The book highlights that love and commitment exists outside of the traditional notions of friendships vs romantic relationships. Society by and large puts emphasis on finding love and marriage as a major life milestone. Your worth is tied to this relationship and the potential for reproduction. Elizabeth Brake coined this term amatonormativity in her book Minimizing Marriage. She describes it as a societal pressure to put marriage/romantic partnership first and that in doing so will lead to prosperity. Not participating in this is stigmatizing and deems one “not normal”. Queerplatonic relationships decenter the romantic relationship and remove the hierarchy by making all relationships equal and valid.

Queer and marginalized communities have done this for millennia but why do heteronormative non marginalized groups get so confused about queerplatonic relationships?

Culturally romantic relationships were not always centered. Marriage was a contract and often was void of the romance people seek today. Friendships were places where people could practice duty and honor before marriage. But those dastardly victorians ruined it for us. It was in that period where the shift to romantic love AND marriage became centered. Of course this looking largely through a western lens. We started to see this shift in literature, law, music and even nursery rhymes. You remember that ol nursery rhyme first come love, then come marriage…. The rigidity and morality of the binary that was created made it impossible to see anything that outside of these categories or friendship/ romance.

For queer people found family, friends and love are all intrinsically linked. Queer lives are outside of the binary and so we create bonds and relationships that others cannot comprehend at times. We don’t adhere to traditional kinship models and some of us don’t desire a forever attachment. And on top of this it erases those who fall into the asexual and aromantic categories. Those who identify as such are deeply stigmatized and places them as cultural outsiders. Ace/Aero people do not get to receive the benefits that those who adhere to romantic/marriage structures receive. They don’t receive legal and institutional benefits like tax breaks and insurance benefits. They are stigmatized socially and within media, often being portrayed as needing to be fixed. Ace/Aero people are often connected to QPR and found family kinship structures instead of romantic relationships which makes them perfect examples of how we can decenter romance.

So who's to say that Jojo Siwa and Chris Hughes aren’t experiencing a queerplatonic relationship? Perhaps what we’re witnessing isn’t an attempt to fit into romantic or platonic boxes, but a deliberate refusal of it. It ver well could be a connection that thrives beyond our binary thinking and does embrace the ideas of queerplatonic love.

I was twelve years old when I first heard the Sex Pistols album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. Already in the midst of a traumatic childhood and experiencing this time period more like an adult than a child. The song “God Save the Queen” was p…

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People often dismiss college as a machine that pumps out degrees. While this can be true in some cases I think what people miss is that college is an experience that has a profound effect on a person. It is where we gain experiences outside of the confines of our youth. We meet new people, experience new ways of being and of course learn new things. When I graduated high school the Great Recession hit. College numbers declined steeply, costs increased, and protections for students needing loans increased. My journey into higher education was a roller coaster that I did on my own. I started out in a culinary arts program and worked in that industry for a short while. The hours and physicality of the work exhausted me and on top of this being a woman in the culinary field is not a picnic. I decided to go back to school for my other passion, art. Taking courses at community college I built up a portfolio strong enough to transfer to a larger institution. Every facet I researched on my own from financial aid to the degree path for a Bachelor’s of Fine Art. I applied to many private colleges and state universities and was accepted into every single one I applied to. I wound up being enticed by a photo centered private art school in Chicago. This romance did not last long as the school was more than inept at what it was supposed to do, teach. I quickly transferred out to a state university and finished my work there. At this time every art program across the board was in a steep decline. I was working full time, attending classes full time, dealing with multiple health issue on top of commuting to school. It was exhausting and somehow I did it. I worked hard to get several different kinds of internships and was an artist assistant for a short while. I commuted back and forth to Chicago weekly to be involved. What I wound up taking away from that undergraduate experience was my work ethic and how to dedicate myself.

Being in classes surrounded by people also interested in what you are has a certain kind of energy to it. We created enclaves of little artist groups and that to me was a big part of the experience. This was the reason I went into a graduate program, for the camaraderie and involvement. Now my time in college was mostly funded by student financial aid. I earned a few grants and was able to my second master’s degree covered but for the most part I knew full well I was going to have debt. Which I had planned on working off through PLSF as my art career has always been tied to non profit and educational work.

The current slow dismantling of the higher education system and financial aid is preventing students from being able to experience a world outside. This of course is purposeful. Although nothing is set in stone there is very real possibilities that those with debt will be significantly hurt by the removal of certain repayment options. Those who are part of PSLF are also in danger of not having loans forgiven after serving their designated time paying back their share. I worry weekly about this and how it will affect my livelihood. But I can’t help but wonder how students are feeling now. The predatory practices of lending for higher education had been almost stopped before I got into college. Now these practices are actively trying to be brought back by removing programs and safety nets so that debt can be moved to private businesses for profits. Higher education has always been ebbing and flowing but the steep decline that is coming will probably be the lowest dip we have seen in our life time.

I sit back in my office at my current position and watch the news come in nationally and from our presidents office. The flurry of emails and updates adds to the very purposeful confusion coming from the current administration. I know that the state that I live in will guarantee a little protection but the threat to higher education is very real. The threat to those gen x and millennials saddled with debt is very real. As I am writing this repayment plans are actively being axed. How can we save shrinking institutions and the life experience that college can provide to students? How can we protect those students from being pawns in a political system who can’t creep out of their debt because the targets are ever moving?

Although I believe that education is a right and should be free, sadly there are many who do not share this viewpoint. The system of education is being pushed into a privatized space where profit is the goal. State institutions are the target currently with the goal of effectively leaving only private options. Controlling and limiting access to education is a way that those in power limit empowerment of people and perpetuate civic ignorance. Controlling curriculum and what is accessible to read is a form of control. Not only do these policies disenfranchise people and make them easier to control it also takes away those experiences that college provides. I encourage you to read the policies being promoted not just nationally but within your state and school districts. Get involved in saving institutions and promoting free or reduced cost programs.

H.O.M.E: Healing Oppression with Mutual Empathy

I had no home in this queer body. No home in the walls of my childhood home. No home in the spaces I traversed in my daily life. Experiencing the discomfort and anxiety of navigating my existence through spaces that could not hold me, that did not allow me to grow. The oppression squeezing me between those walls. Too straight looking, too femme, not non binary enough, not gay enough, too masculine in my movement, a walking contradiction. Not being able to put words to those feelings, to know I AM queer and there is more beyond this doorway. How do you come out of the closet when the house is a labyrinth of closets?

 You must build your home, your house of comfort, your walls filled with joy. With open doors and windows to let the air flow in and out. BREATHE. Make the space and take it up. Fill your home with what defines you not only physically with the things we collect but emotionally and spiritually. A queer future starts with building your home and guiding others to build theirs. That is how a community full of empathy grows and when we continue to nourish it and upkeep that home it becomes the definition of what healing is. 

Blueprints to build a house:

1. The Kitchen: mutual aid beyond community networks

  Mutual aid is defined as a practice of voluntarily cooperating and supporting community members. It is a network that negates capitalism and patriarchy by acknowledging everyone as equals and that everyone is a giver/receiver of aid no matter their circumstances. It can look like a food pantry, a community garden, or fundraising efforts. It defines community by proximity; however , living globally, how can we stretch beyond the immediate area of our community? We must reach beyond the traditional notions of mutual aid; not just the monetary and tangible items but also a system of love and emotional support. How do we connect the rural queer with the city gay? The trans friend with limited access to the tech savvy nonbinary college student? The catchall kitchen “junk” drawer is filled with useful items if we know how and when to use them. 

How have you taken action? Who is your network? By answering these two simple questions you can begin to open up your network of mutual aid. Sign up for the newsletter on substack. Volunteer with a non profit organization. Join a discord channel. Follow your favorite queers on social media. Creating your own map will allow you to connect your network to others. Be a queer cartographer. Once you begin to amass your network you will need to tend to it like your home. It will need maintenance, tender care, and understanding. Support will look different every time. A dollar here for top surgery. Dropping off food to a sick friend. Listening to one another's stories. Sharing an uber home. 

Invite people into your network. As silly as it may sound some people need to know the door is open to them. One gesture can open a wave of possibility. Mutual aid is not only about physical resources and money, it is about sharing yourself with another through the good and bad. 

2. The Dining Room: building and holding onto spaces

We demand our delicious lives, our rococo dreams, our gilded spaces to shine, the decadence of existence. The lesbian bar on the corner has come and gone. The club we used to dance in has shuddered. The parade we used to attend has moved to the city. The climate in our country and abroad will continue to shift and change. We will be fashionable and then left to the wayside. It is important to keep and create spaces for ourselves. These can be physical spaces we build or visit. Like the store on the corner, the coffee shop, the concert hall. It is important to not only put our money into queer run spaces but our bodies and hearts. Share and recommend these spaces. We acknowledge that under capitalism true freedom to be will never be completely attainable as it upholds systems of oppression. As we try to dismantle these systems and change to a more shared resource space we can use the dollars we have and put them where they can make a difference. 

We must also acknowledge that space is not only a physical manifestation. Holding space is not just for the cast of Wicked. Pausing and listening is the greatest asset a queer person can have. Space is not just about occupying your seat at the table; it’s about creating an environment where others feel seen, understood, and valued. To hold space is to affirm. It is an act of love. It is resilience and solidarity. 

3. The Living Room: addressing oppression daily

We will yell in this house because the world asks us to be silent. We will cry in this house because the weight of existing in a world not built for us is heavy. We will love in this house because love, in all its queer forms, is revolutionary. WE LIVE HERE. To be queer is to oscillate between moments of softness and rage. Queerness exists in flux, in transition, in resistance to a world that demands we fit neatly into its binaries.  

As much as we’d love to, we all can’t live in Boystown to the pockets of the world where queerness is normalized rather than othered. Many of us remain in spaces where our existence is questioned, where safety is conditional, where daily survival requires negotiation.  We all cannot uproot and move to a safer community filled with our peers, but we can create sanctuary in the spaces we do inhabit. We LIVE in this room. It is where we hold each other through heartbreak, where we organize against oppression, where we build chosen family, where we scream in frustration and dance in defiance. It is the space where we exist unapologetically, where we do not have to justify our existence or educate others to earn respect. It is where we are allowed to simply be.

4. The Bedroom: comfort and joy live here

REST is our resistance. JOY is our weapon of choice. Building is tiring. Building hurts my back. Building is necessary exertion. Rest is necessary to keep building. And when our muscles ache from the building and our bodies take rest, we give ourselves a moment to just be. To just be is resistance. To envelope yourself in a cozy blanket and a warm tea is a radical act. To care for yourself, body, mind and soul is change. To sit with your lover unabashedly in pj’s listening to records is a revolution. In a capitalist, heteronormative society that demands constant productivity, choosing rest is a form of resistance. It disrupts the neoliberal expectation that our worth is tied to our output and challenges the systems that devalue queer and marginalized bodies unless they are performing labor both physical and emotional.

With rest comes joy, the joy of living in a world that you are taking time with. Acknowledging and sitting with the discomfort of our work to fully engage with the necessary rest. Joy is a part of activism just as much as direct action. For queer people, especially those who exist at the intersections of multiple marginalized identities, joy  is a radical act of resistance. Queer feminist theorists like Sara Ahmed (2017) remind us that heteronormative structures often frame happiness as something that can only be accessed through compliance. However,  we believe that joy can exist when we do this work, not in opposition to it. To feel joy in a world that seeks to erase, discipline, or confine queerness is to declare that our existence is not just about enduring, but about thriving. Queer joy is not just individual, it is collective, it is communal. 

5. The Attic: transforming and building 

We have always been here and we will always be here. The history of queerness has been destroyed, hidden, downplayed, erased, set on fire. We search for the queer elder and their wisdom. We look for the books written for us, by us. The music that sings to our hearts about our experience. History is written by the oppressor. Now more than ever it is important to document our joy, to save the sounds of our rebellion on compact discs. We must utilize all forms of technology to copy, document, save, and share.  See our lives now, see our future histories. As bell hooks (1991) reminds us that theory must be shared and that community is integral to any movement toward liberation. To experience the joys and struggles is to remind each other that there is something beyond, something worth building and sustaining together.

We have done this work as artists and writers by documenting queer lives through media. We have started a queer joy archive of photography, backed up digital media to discs and hard drives, shared copies of zines with one another physically and digitally, started servers and archives with limited access. We see the past attempts at erasure and eradication and we use these warnings to better prepare ourselves for our future. Transform the attic that holds our past and present into a space where we can build, create and preserve our future. 

At first glance it might appears that Roan could be criticizing motherhood or women wanting to be mothers. This would be a surface level uneducated guess at best. This is not the actual statement she is making. The larger conversation that Chappell Roan is bringing about is the conversation about what motherhood looks like now in this hellscape we call modern America. And on top of that, what it means to be under the societal pressure to put a romantic relationship and family before all else.

Firstly, the interview is a personal experience of Roan and her friends. That was the statement, a personal point of view from people she knows and loves. The deeper discussion really centers on why do mothers feel this way? And why are others vehemently defending and attacking over this statement that motherhood is in fact hell?

Modern motherhood is a struggle. Why? Well to understand this we must look at some historical context and how feminist movements have affected this. If we think back before the 21st century, before industrialization, motherhood was tied to the home strictly. Families were larger, they worked land and produced for themselves. Activities were centered to the home. It was a duty but also a forced one. Looking into the Victorian area and the beginning of what we would consider domesticity. The idea that a woman’s worth was tied to her home and how it was kept. Fulfillment was to be found in child rearing and household work. If a woman did not conform to this ideology she was not a true “woman”.

With industrialization came the spread of western ideologies, capitalism and what a family should look like. This was also the beginning of women spending time outside of the home working more. However when they became pregnant (which was expected from all) the role of mother would be their primary role. Women were expected to create and maintain a "moral" home environment, providing emotional and physical support for their husbands, while also focusing on the same development for their children while at the same time appearing as beacons of purity (honestly has much changed?). At the same time, working class women and women of color were subject to a dual burden, to uphold domestic expectations, motherhood and assist with providing. Motherhood was not only relegated to the private sphere, but it also began to be seen as essential for maintaining the capitalist system itself. When the first wave of feminism occurred in the late 19th-early 20th century, the focus was on more legal issues, such as women’s suffrage, property rights, and access to education. However, it also laid the groundwork for challenging traditional gender roles, including those related to motherhood.

Now fast forward a bit to mid 20th century and the second wave of feminism. In the 60s and 70s, the second wave of feminism critiqued the tradition and idealized image of motherhood, particularly in the context of a post-World War II society where women were encouraged to return to the home after having worked in factories during the war. They demanded a shift in reproductive rights, with advocates fighting for women’s access to birth control and abortion. The feminist movement sought to give women more control over their reproductive choices, arguing that the ability to choose whether or not to have children was fundamental to women’s liberation. It was during this time we see a shift in acceptance of more women in the workforce, independence financially and some control over family planning. This was the beginning of how we are experiencing motherhood now.

I was a child of the 90s and during this time we see so many portrayals of women as mothers and workers in media. The do it all attitude, the original boss babe, the fierce career woman AND mother. However the expectations of domesticity remained. As more women entered the workforce, the expectations surrounding motherhood shift to accommodate the growing presence of working mothers. At the same time, capitalism has increasingly commodified motherhood while continuing to undervalue the unpaid labor that women perform in the home. This created a new layer of control, where women are expected to navigate both the demands of a career and the pressure to be a “perfect" mother. Neoliberal policies have all but forced more women to enter the workforce, leading to the rise of dual income households and an increase in public debates about work-life balance. If we think about our current economy the dual income household is almost required by all in order to exist in this world of increasing costs.

We see a shift in the 90s with how feminist and queer theory contextualized motherhood. Judith Butler’s work on performativity and gender challenged the idea of "natural" or "essential" motherhood tied to biological women. They argued that gender, including motherhood, is socially constructed and performed, rather than biologically determined. This rejection opened up possibilities for alternative family structures that don't rely on traditional gender roles or biological reproduction. The path to motherhood and the expectations placed on mothers are deeply embedded in societal norms about sexuality and gender. Queer peoples very existence reject and/or subvert those notions. So our queer bestie Chappell’s very personal experience with her friends comes from a viewpoint of someone who has just recently began expressing and coming into their queerness. Someone who can see the flaws and issues within this societally expected role and how the system is failing then becomes the “villain’.

The commentary we see is not a personal attack on mothers or motherhood or the desire to be a mother. It is a larger critique on the pressures and expectations placed upon those who are mothers. Societally we don’t have a support system.

We do not have free healthcare.

We do not have free childcare.

We do not have equal pay.

We do not have a community network.

Should we instead be redirecting our anger at our situation? Instead of being mad about a comment from someone critiquing the system in which we operate why not be mad at the reasons we are here. Why not instead build those community networks? Instead fight for free healthcare, demand free childcare, and require equal pay for equal work.

Now I’m not the biggest reality tv show buff. I grew up in a time when reality tv was being born ala survivor, big brother, etc. But I always tended toward the reality shows on MTV. Real world, road rules, jersey shore these were all shows I watched regularly because the focus wasn’t on traditional people and relationships. It included the weirdos, the gays, the questioners. But this was also a time when horrible versions of reality tv started to reveal itself to the world ala America’s Next Top Model and The Swan. The onslaught of shows steeped in keeping women as objects of desire devoid of their humanity. This obviously made way for most of the dating style shows we know today. The main focus of these shows were man/woman hetero couplings and focused on romantic relationships as the main focus. Love is Blind is just one show in a long line of shows pushing cishet idealized marriage and family “values”. But what made Love is Blind different? How did it gaslight us so? Well in one word, the pandemic. Not unlike the world this shows main feature (the pods) mirrored the isolation happening in lockdown. And to be honest when you’re locked up at home brain rotting tv to keep the scaries away can be comforting. The show seemed on the surface to focus on a deep emotional connection however from that first episode there were holes in the plot.

Season after season tons of problematic conversations, toxic men, forced drinking situations and socially structured female competition have led to me questioning, “Why the hell am I still watching this?” But that’s just it, this show is a slow burning approachable way to see how we construct gender and its values in real time. It's all in the pursuit of the perfect family dynamic with 2.5 kids. And in all of the past 8 seasons there are a myriad of examples of biphobia, misogyny, forced gendered roles, microaggressions, toxic masculinity, and the list goes on. Those contestants who conform and adhere to these dynamics are often those that are “rewarded” with a proposal and eventual wedding. As I mentioned it is a session in compulsory heteronormativity. The term was popularized by Adrienne Rich in her 1980 essay titled "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence". Rich argues that women's sexuality towards men is not always natural but is societally ingrained and scripted into them from birth.

The first few seasons seemed to be a little bit more focused on the idea of the “experiment”, however as the show developed we can see that it was full of very problematic contestants. Moreover, most of those problematic contestants seemed to be on the male side of the pods. In the conversations that had developed over the course of the weeks, each date is supposed to enlighten each person as to how they would operate with one another in a relationship. They would eventually fall in love based on conversation alone. Each season I watched I would find myself saying ew more and more. The shows gimmick was strong and pervasive. I even bought the limited edition creamer flavors they came out with this past year (for real the chocolate covered strawberry was so good).

One of the most common conversation topics still came back to looks and gender performance. The subtle questions that would hopefully allude to the person's looks (like what are you wearing or what celebrity do you look like) totally defeated the purpose of the show but also showed that the idealized female beauty standard was the desired end goal. The desired emotional vulnerability from women was apparent but from male contestants was all but void (just vaguely describing a tragedy and then moving on). The centering of “roles” in the relationship and how money was earned was the biggest tell of all. The toxicity spewed about a women’s role and how she should operate with a career focused on how to make the man the head of household regardless of the circumstances (please see Leo on season 7). And then there were the discussions about people on the show who either were outright bisexual or questioning. Carlton and Diamond were the very first couple to encounter this in season one. The shaming of a black bisexual man was appalling. This last season however gave me some hope if only for a moment.

In the most recent season we see deep discussions about supporting LGBTQ people, marginalised communities and women’s rights in the pod discussions. Many of the women selected for this round (which took place in Minneapolis, a very midwestern space) asked deep and hard questions of their potential husbands. The answers were unsurprisingly vague and some of the men were even oblivious to some of the answers (how do you go to a church and not know their stance on lgbtq rights?) During this season there were also two individuals who disucssed their bisexuality. Only one of these conversations actually made it to air. Brittany discussed her previous relationships with women as “experiences” she discussed her sexuality but stated that she really envisioned herself marrying a man. Now on the surface this might seem like someone experimenting with their sexuality but in reality this is precisely the compulsory heterosexuality demon poking its head out. What was disheartening about this interaction the most was her potential mate Devin’s reaction.

A self proclaimed religious man he did not react well to this news which ultimately made him question his feelings for this woman. However Brittany seeing where this was headed, broke it off and chose herself. The show focused on this as immaturity but in reality this was a man whose beliefs are steeped in traditional gender roles and religious control not being able to accept that someone he might have a connection with would not fit into the perfectly constructed boxes of control he needs. In the end, this season showed almost all of the women choosing themselves and their beliefs instead of conforming or changing for a partner. One of the big deal breakers across the board was rights for women and LGBTQ people. Considering that this last season took place in Minneapolis one might assume that these issues wouldn’t be so prevalent. However we see that with all that has happened since 2016 and the dismantling of peoples rights the push for a partner who values autonomy and equality has now made its way to the tv screen before you. This season is the first to really see the shift away from the stereotypical gender roles that were the focus of past seasons. Although a small inclusion, the inclusion of bisexual folx has shown the shift away from the traditionally rigid framework of romantic relationships. My hope is that there is a very queer season in the works where gender is taken out of the mix and is instead focused on real connection devoid of roles and stereotypes. But for real I’d still buy the flavored creamers.

Reality tv flavored creamers

cringe worthy dating

90s boy bands trying to stay relevant

And so much more…..