the Foxy Muppet

      On Sunday, August 8th, I was sent a message from somebody close to me, advising me that my parents had made a public statement on Facebook, a self proclaimed rebuttal to conversations and comments I have openly had about my childhood and experiences with them. When I first read the message I had a knot in my stomach. I heard my mother's voice. She speaks of her suffering, and while I may not be on speaking terms with my mother, and as much as it may surprise her, It does hurt me to hear her suffer. Based on her personalization of what she has read that I have said before, she will likely disagree with my statement that I have never wanted my parents to have misfortune or to suffer. Here is what she wrote:  "We have prayed about this for a long time. Would the day come to ever go public? If you had asked us yesterday we would have said probably not. However today it was revealed to us that a member of our family, our son.. has been on a personal smear campaign against u

     Happy Halloween! 2020 has been pretty scary already, so I haven't found myself getting into the witching season quite like I usually do. Fortunately, I rewatched the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer this last Summer, in anticipation that I would be creating art of Willow Rosenberg.      My first formal introduction to Buffy the Vampire Slayer was from my ex-fiance, Scott. We spent a couple days together binge watching key episodes to tell the story, back when we called it a marathon. I fell in love with Willow right away. I identified with her pleasure in knowledge, her gentle nature, and her awkwardness. As her story unfolded, I watched Willow open her heart to the world and fall in love with life.       Another commonality we have is that Willow and I both lost lovers to the mortal coil. Willow lost Tara to a bullet and I lost Scott to a medical condition I still don't fully understand. My grace was that Scott and I had ended our relationship years before he died. Hi

     I didn't know about RuPaul until I was 23. Dallas introduced me to RuPaul's Drag Race during Season 6, shortly after we met. I struggled whenever RuPaul would ask at the end of every episode "Can I get an Amen?" It was a little too close to some of my religious damage and was shocking to see such a prominent drag queen use a blatantly religious reference, but RuPaul was too fun to not watch. Soon we were watching Starrbooty and playing RuPaul's music videos on repeat.      It's easy to get lost in the fun with RuPaul, and everybody loves to have fun, but I learned the most about RuPaul through their book, "Workin' It!: RuPaul's Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style". In it, RuPaul describes part of their spiritual practice.      The idea is that your existential experience is multi-faceted. There is your mortal self, your higher self, and your inner saboteur. Your mortal self is your consciousness and where you make your day t

Despite being a globally celebrated icon and super-legend, I did not grow up with any familiarity of David Bowie. Of course I had heard his name, but his music was on the very long ban list. I hadn't even watched the Labyrinth until I was an adult. Of course, it took years after becoming independent for me to learn of David Bowie, simply because I had no idea where to musically start with the unfiltered world before me.  Confessing that I didn't know about David Bowie has historically been shocking for people. Many people are more shocked by this revelation than when I tell them I'm gay. It's like coming out all over again. Being so culturally naive sometimes makes me feel... alien... which is the appeal to me of David Bowie; embracing the fragile isolation within our impermanent human experience and understanding that compassion and love are all that matters at the end of our existential journey. This portrait of David Bowie is the cover of his album "Young Amer

For as long as I can remember, I've loved unique lighting. Neon lights, plasma balls, black lights, and on and on. In case if you were wondering what my blog background is, it's the inside of my lava lamp. I think my fascination with unique lighting started when I was a kid in Southern Oregon and I got to watch lightning storms with purple bolts. My oldest brother used to have a plasma ball, but until last year I've never owned a lava lamp despite always wanting one. It was a gift from Dallas after I shared with him that I love them. What makes lava lamps unique is that their main feature is not the light source, but rather the atmosphere inside the glass that is altered by the light source. The flow of the wax as it is heated and cools inside the oil creates an otherworldly effect. The atmosphere is warm, soft, and dense. (I hadn't considered this until trying to put it into words, but I imagine it to be rather like being in a womb.) Now owning a lava lamp, I thought i