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Throughout my life I believed my strain of social anxiety was abnormal. Though a few drinks brought out cheap charisma, a new car or tan – faux self confidence, nothing ever lasted. Creativity engaged my monkey mind but I inevitably felt lonely and isolated among my creations, possessions and especially other people. As an uneasy…

As women, people of color and/or members of the LGBTQ community navigating “isms” and phobias, if we survive, we’re suited to leadership roles. Transformative opportunities meet us daily but these days I’m not feeling up to them. Likely to avoid shopping, taking walks or answering the phone in these reclusive moods, when the weight’s too…

I’ve been a musician in one form or another my entire life. Born with talent and the need for attention, like a small jungle bird, I learned early on, rather than crying which got me spanked, making sonorous sounds drew more positive attention. It wasn’t long before elementary school music teachers winced at my singing’s…

Any day now I’ll be turning sissy four. Even spellcheck reminds me, like everything else these days how miserably I’m failing at remaining young. The wrinkled paint of the lighthouse stair treads I regularly climb, more frequent naps and not knowing things I once knew, like whether or not I have to pee, make me…

I live my life in a “cone of uncertainty,” so I should have known better than expect to find bottled water at Winn Dixie five days before Dorian’s landfall. Shopping in a haze of robotic certainty for the usual stuff, I caraiaged my watermelon around passing others’ carts stacked with cases of beer and akimbo…

Rather like having a cat or dog around, the presence of big birds is reassuring. Unlike cardinals, jays, titmice, woodpeckers, mourning doves and wary crows who frequent our leafy backyard feeders, osprey, vultures and owls hang out for hours too. Hawks strut around on the dock. Osprey drop dissected fish. Great blue herons squawk like…

We’re taught to “perform” which includes avoiding eye contact with audiences while imagining situations pertaining to our songs. (4th wall) I’ve discovered just the opposite improved my voice and confidence faster than any lesson or class ever could through singing for people with dementia. Singing from the heart while making eye contact with folks who…

Thirty years ago, away from my girlfriend, I’d occasionally wind up in Greenwich Village at gay bars like “Boots and Saddle,” lovingly referred to as the “Bras and Girdle,” where my sensitive ear for music made me want to kill myself. The only gay men I could relate to were closeted self-haters like me. Stevie…

Fate gave me the opportunity to get my first blowjob at age fourteen from a teacher in his late forties. I quite recently spoke with a special investigator hired by another school my teacher worked at. If only I’d had the courage to turn him in immediately, fifty years ago, I could’ve helped other boys.…

My dear friend Shirlee used the expression, “you’re harshing my mellow” today and I knew instantly I’d co-opt it. She’d left out the, “hey man,” part and without the 420 context, it sounded brilliant. Not even the radio news could depress my manic good mood as I sped along, air conditioning blasting past pristine ocean…