I don’t want to talk about about rape today. Or any day. March 21 is World Poetry Day. I love reading poetry. I love writing poetry. And six of my last seven columns have been on intense topics: Consent, “Don’t Say Gay” laws, criminalizing gender affirmation, Nazis, and Ukraine. I could use a break. We…
Tag: mental health
Oyster Sauce Gravy Wingettes: Childhood Memories
It should go without much dispute: for many people, our eating preferences came from the kitchen which our moms didn’t let us enter. The kitchen, soaked in lemon yellow sunlight late in the afternoon, or glowing fluorescent white in the evening, speaks magic. Dish after dish of vegetables and meat filled our grumbling stomachs; brought…
Consent: Changing the Conversation
Rape and sexual assault can happen to anyone regardless of gender identity or gender presentation. Likewise, issues of consent can apply to anyone. One of the things that I struggled with as I was writing this is the very binary way in which everything I read and watched during my research fell into an either/or…
Bangalore Letters #1
It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? But “Bangalore Briefs” sounds a bit like a legal service or a clothing store that specializes in undies. And “Bangalore Bulletin” just sounds official in a way this will not be. Best not to overthink it. The Story So Far For those of you who have…
Affirming Gender is not a Crime
When I got pregnant with my first child, it seemed like the moment the stick had turned pink, the first thing people asked was: “Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?” When I was far enough along to know what I was having, that question became: “Are you having a boy or a…
COVID: An Essay
One of my favorite authors, Michel de Montaigne, put the name “essais,” to a genre of literature that is at least as old as the Roman Republic. The word means “attempts.” The idea is that the literary work does not need to follow a set form, but rather could follow the workings of the human…
“Don’t Say Gay” is Bad, Not Just for LGBTQ Kids
(Editors Note: On February 25, 2022, the Florida House of Representatives passed H.B. 1557, “Parental Rights in Education,” colloquially known as the “Don’t Say Gay,” bill. The addendum discussed here, which would have required schools to out LGBTQ kids, was struck from the bill before it was voted on. Meanwhile, The Florida Senate is expected…
Make Literary Analysis Personal: The Rose
I have always had a fondness for the personal literary analysis. The kind you see in novels. Someone is talking about a work of literature, but they’re really talking about themselves. In my opinion, all literary analysis is personal. Nobody picks a subject of study unless they’re not just interested but invested in it. Yes,…
Rebirth: The Day I Became a Writer
We often mark time in our lives with rituals and rites of passage. Moments of birth and rebirth. Baby showers, weddings, funerals. There were a couple of years in junior high school where many weekends were taken up with b’nai mitzvot for friends or family members, followed a few years later by sweet sixteens. We…
It’s Caturday and We have Questions: Distractions
So Erika (a.k.a. Human-Mom) was doing some typing the other day with her three cats sitting on her like tiny royalty. Every time she tried to reach the keyboard it seemed like there was a cat’s butt in her way. Distractions, am I right? Such are the tribulations of a writer. And yet. Erika loves…