Little Byte Lies

Mark Twain wrote:  “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

Well, kind of.  I mean it’s accurate, but incomplete.  As the Christie administration recently discovered, there’s another adage that only the remarkably arrogant or unbearably stupid ever forget:  Never put anything in writing!   I’m guessing the people involved in the George Washington Bridge scandal ~ a bridge named, ironically, after a man who could not tell a lie ~ are both.

But I’m not one to judge.  Listen, lying in the Posting Modern Age is hard.  Harder, in fact, than it has ever been in the history of humankind.  Harder than it’s been since man first stood erect.  Harder than it’s been since man first got erect.  And I think we can all agree that erections are the leading cause of lies.

Take a [continue reading...]

January 10, 2014
All, Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Inside Voice
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Dear Jonathan Capehart ~

I agree with you on many of the points you made in your Washington Post piece about Aaron Schock and I applaud you for reaching out to anyone with actual information that could turn his history of pro-bigotry voting into a history of hypocrisy.

But can you do me a favor?  Can you please not refer to coming out as “an intensely personal journey that involves stages of self-discovery and self-acceptance” as if it is an inherent part of being gay?  It is not.  The journey you refer to is about the shedding of shame.  And we are not born with shame, we are taught it.

If we are going to talk about that journey, however, then we need to discuss its origins.  It is rooted in anti-LGBT votes like the ones Rep. Aaron Shock has [continue reading...]

January 8, 2014
All, Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Inside Voice, Write the Power
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Cover Letter

Applying for jobs online is like dropping a penny down an infinite well ~ you wait and wait for a plop that likely never comes.

You attach your resume, write a cover letter highlighting exactly where your skills and experience intersect with the requirements for that particular position, fill out any fields that weren’t auto-populated, make sure to use appropriate keywords, check for typos, double-check for typos, step away from the computer for twenty minutes, and finally reread everything backwards to triple-check for typos. You take a deep breath. You hit send. A decision that can never be undecided. And that application disappears. Into the ether. Never to be seen or heard from again. Plop???

Where do these applications go? It’s a question for the ages. I must admit that lately, spurred on by the feeling that they aren’t going anywhere, I have begun to tell the truth. Why not? What do [continue reading...]

January 8, 2014
All, Inside Voice
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Dear Robin Roberts ~

Mazel tov on coming out!  I am a firm believer in the fact that coming out of the closet is the single most powerful thing we can do to end the prejudice, violence and inequality that the LGBT community faces.  And when we happen to be in the public eye, coming out, publicly, is all the more important.  Congratulations, and thank you.

What a wonderful and brave decision you made to come out of the closet regarding your illness.  To show it, in detail and unvarnished.  You clearly thought it was important to tell this very human, very vulnerable, frightening and painful story.  You allowed yourself to be seen in the grips of something eating away at your body, ravaging it.  You showed us the war you waged to bring it back to health.  The images [continue reading...]

December 31, 2013
All, Current Events/Pop Culture/Politics, Featured Posts
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Alan Turing, Pardoned & Acknowledged

Alan Turning was a British code-breaker and mathematical genius credited with cracking the German enigma code during WWII which, it can be argued, was a major turning point in the war.  He was also known as the “father of modern computing.”  If you use a computer, you might want to thank him.  And he was gay, a crime for which he was arrested.  To avoid jail, he opted for chemical castration.  Two years later, he committed suicide.  He has recently been pardoned for his crime and acknowledged for his contributions by the Queen.

Perhaps one of the grossest and most damaging injustices the LGBT community has faced is the exclusion of our stories from history.  The exclusion of our contributions.  The exclusion of our sacrifices.  The exclusion of our challenges, and therefore the exclusion [continue reading...]

December 24, 2013
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Duck Dynasty & Brian Boitano

Yesterday the internet blew up over ignorant comments made by an ignorant man who happens to be on a tv show and is therefore deemed worthy of having his opinions amplified.  Some argue that we should simply ignore his comments.  I disagree.  Responding to hatred with silence is not the appropriate path in a world where violence against the LGBT community, LGBT teen suicide and LGBT teen homelessness are horrifically run of the mill.  I don’t believe we are yet at the place where we can relax into a position of “so and so’s an idiot so why are we paying attention.”  We’re paying attention because a lot of people still believe such things, and a lot of people act on them.  Every time an idiot speaks, we must speak back.

Olympic champion Brian Boitano was speaking back.  Although [continue reading...]

December 20, 2013
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Dear Governor Christie ~

Today is National Coming Out Day and I have a message for you:  I am gay, and I am boring.  I have led a productive, yet unremarkable life.  I share my unremarkable life with my husband, whom I had to marry in another state.  We are not front page kinds of people.  TMZ has never called me.  Unless something truly unexpected happens between now and the end of my life, my name will not grace the pages of our history books ~ certainly not if Texas has anything to do with it.

I am a performer, writer, activist ~ someone forever “following my passion” and “searching for my place in the world.”  After many successful years as a dancer, I hung up my jazz sneakers and began to search for a profession that could sustain [continue reading...]

October 11, 2013
All, Featured Posts, Write the Power
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Walking From Surgery, Part II ~ Surgery is Easy, Recovery is Hard

If it hasn’t already been written, can someone please write Zen and the Art of Recovery?

If it has, can someone please send me a copy so I can read it, study it, highlight it, earmark it, quote its über-inspirational passages and use my status updates to proselytize on Facebook?  Please?

Because I am not good at this.  Recovery requires a patience that I don’t naturally possess and I need a guide ~ or shaman ~ some form of spiritual presence to lead me to a hidden trough of patience and acceptance; balance and harmony.  You see, my natural tendency is to scream and rage and pout.  And left to my own devices I will begin each screaming, raging, pouting sentence with “But I WAAAAAAANT…..!!!!!!”

It’s not a good look on a 41 year old.

Three weeks after my surgery [continue reading...]

September 4, 2013
All, Featured Posts, Inside Voice
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Walking From Surgery, Part I ~ Ode to My Blue Foam Wedge

I’m being tortured by a piece of blue foam.  I understand that it couldn’t possibly look any more innocuous ~ a blue foam wedge with four straps attached to it that must be kept between my legs at all times, including when I’m asleep ~ and when I was told that I would have to “wear” it constantly post-surgery, I nodded a nod of sweet, blind ignorance.  I thoughtlessly smiled and blank-stared my understanding and acquiescence.  I heard the words, but they had yet to be tethered to actual meanings; definitions.  What I acknowledged and agreed to was just sound.  Since then, those sounds have morphed into experience, and that once seemingly harmless blue foam wedge has become an instrument of torture powerful enough to reach down into the deepest layer of [continue reading...]

August 17, 2013
All, Featured Posts, Inside Voice
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It’s No Big Deal ~ Thoughts On Getting Married…for the Fifth Time

Eventually I just gave myself over to it.

It is a big deal.

Rick & I are going into NYC today.  To get married.  For the fifth time.  But today will be our first “marriage.”

It didn’t start out feeling special.  This time around was solely to ensure that we are protected by a “we” bubble when I go into the hospital next week.  The thought that someone might bar Rick from my room, ignore him or treat him as some kind of stranger should a decision need to be made on my behalf, was beyond hideous.  I needed to know that all who come in contact with us know who he is and treat him accordingly.

This time around, the fifth time around, was not for love.  It was for comfort; for protection.

No big deal.  We’ve done [continue reading...]

August 8, 2013
All, Featured Posts, Inside Voice
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