Behind the Times

Bethany and I are late to the party… again. I know, I know. Some of you are probably saying, “when isn’t this true?”

By the time we discover a show, most everyone else already has opinions, picked favorite characters, and probably moved on to something else entirely. Meanwhile, we’re on the couch like, “Wait… has everyone seen this?”

Which is exactly how we found ourselves, nearly three seasons deep into Shrinking, looking at each other somewhere around episode eight of season one and saying, almost in unison, “Oh… this is special.”

Oh, Yeah. Season Three

And now here we are, getting ready to finish up season three, already a little bereft, and ridiculously excited that a fourth season has been confirmed. Because once you settle into this world -- messy, funny, achingly human -- you don’t really want to leave.

What I love most about Shrinking isn’t really the plot (though it’s fine). It’s not even the phenomenal cast of Jason Segel, Harrison Ford, and Jessica Williams. It’s the way the show insists -- gently, continuously, sometimes even comically -- that people are worth understanding.

Even when they make it difficult.

The Premise …

… if you haven’t seen it, is deceptively simple: Jimmy (Segel) is a therapist unraveling after the death of his wife, who decides to start telling his patients exactly what he thinks, boundaries be damned. It’s reckless. It’s unorthodox. It is, in many cases, wildly inappropriate.

It is also, occasionally, exactly what someone needs.

And here’s where Shrinking does something different from most shows:

Oh, don’t get me wrong -- there are characters who make terrible decisions. People who hurt each other. People who, in the first few episodes, you might actively dislike. The kind of characters you think, “Ugh, I would cross the street to avoid this person.”

And Then … the Show Lingers

It gives them a moment. A backstory. A crack in the armor.

And suddenly, you’re not crossing the street anymore. You’re standing there thinking, “Oh… that’s why.”

It’s not that the show excuses bad behavior. It doesn’t. Actions still have consequences. Apologies are still needed. Growth is still required.

But it does something we’re not particularly good at right now as a culture: it makes space for context.

For humanity.

Try A Little Tenderness

There’s a kind of tenderness baked into the DNA of this show that caught me off guard. It’s in the way characters show up for each other -- imperfectly, sometimes clumsily, but consistently. It’s in the small gestures. The awkward conversations. The willingness to try again after messing everything up the first (or fifth) time. If you’ve watched the show you also know it’s in the rocks.

It’s also very, very funny.

Not in an inserted laugh track, sitcom way, but in a really real way where humor shows up right alongside grief. We’ve all lived through hard things and we know that laughter sometimes shows up (sometimes at the most inopportune times) through all of it… and sometimes it makes it all just a little more bearable.

From Fears to Tears

Bethany and I have gone from laughing out loud to reaching for a tissue to wipe away the tears within minutes. It’s a balance that occurs in life, but is often missing from television: conflict, humor, tenderness, sitting together side by side.

Shrinking delivers that balance beautifully over and over again.

There’s a moment—no spoilers, I promise—where a character who has been, up until that point, deeply frustrating suddenly reveals something vulnerable. Not in a grand, speechifying way. Just a small, honest moment.

And It Changes Everything

Not because it erases what came before, but because it adds dimension.

That’s what this show understands so well:

People like us.

In a time when it feels like we’re all being sorted into neat little boxes—good or bad, right or wrong, worthy or not—Shrinking pushes back against that instinct. It says, “What if we looked a little closer? What if we tried to understand before we dismissed?”

And honestly, that feels … revolutionary.

Or maybe just necessary.

I think that’s why it’s landing so deeply for us right now. The world feels loud. Quick to judge. Eager to flatten people into headlines and hot takes.

It doesn’t ask us to approve of everything these characters do.

It asks us to care anyway.

That’s a Big Ask

And a beautiful one.

We’re a couple episodes shy of finishing season 3, and I’ve realized something: I’m not just invested in the storylines. I am invested in the people. All of them. Even the ones who drove me a little nuts in the beginning.

Maybe especially those ones.

Turning Frustration into Empathy

Turning a room full of flawed, fumbling humans into something that feels like community.

So yes, Bethany and I are late to the party.

But honestly? I think we arrived exactly when we needed to.

A gentle one. People are complicated. Healing is messy. And kindness—real, inconvenient, sometimes hard-earned kindness—still matters.

Even now.

Especially now.

~ Pamalyn Rose-Beeler

Bethany Beeler writes novels of transformation, love, and self-discovery. Her wife, , ain’t too shabby either! To read their stories portraying what they say here, go to their Amazon Author Page.

In my last post, I talked about an older gent who’d said to me, “I could see, as you walked here in that dress of yours, that you weren’t wearing a thong.”

I noted at the close of that post,

“What will I say to him the next time I see him? I honestly don’t know. The words, if any, will come like the flow of my dress in the breeze and the feeling of cotton swishing my legs. I owe him nothing. I owe myself the chance to enjoy who I am. As I am.”

That Was Then

Today, I confronted him. “I don’t appreciate what you said to me the last time we talked.”

“Oh,” he said, “That was just a slip.”

“No, it wasn’t. I thought you were a better man than that. Don’t you dare ever say anything like that to any woman, let alone to me. Are we understood?”

I walked away.

Ten minutes later, he approached me with a “Yes, but I have several excellent excuses” apology.

I said, “I don’t ask for an apology but that you treat people decently. How about the next time we talk, I’ll say, ‘Hello, how the heck are you?’ and we’ll leave it at that, all things new?”

All Things New

I didn’t write this or the last post to portray myself as a saint and him as a scoundrel. None of this vindicates anyone. There are no winners in the I’ll Make You My Bitch game.

Just people. With hearts. And wounded hearts wound other hearts.

Until we cease trying to make everyone else “our bitch,” nothing and no one will be made anew.

Bitch Roots

The word, “bitch”, comes from an Indo-European root meaning “queen.”

Notice a slight degradation of the epithet in the intervening centuries? Now, it’s formally the term for a female dog in heat. Informally, it’s a description of what so-called “winners” make of those they perceive as prey.

Picture that. Too many men routinely see as their privilege making one half of the human race their “bitch.” Whether it’s by undressing women with a gaze or words, it’s game that our culture trains men in. His comment about me, to me, was no slip.

In confronting him about his words, I wasn’t trying to “make him my bitch” but saying that I won’t play a game that wrongs both of us.

From the Beginning …

The exact words we said don’t matter. We had to reframe the terms of how we encounter each other, then, now, and in the future.

No games. No bitchiness. No right.

Just room for ourselves, as we are.

… to the End

What will our next conversation be like? I honestly don’t know. He and I can’t erase our last two exchanges. Yet, it’s worth trying.

Not because he owes me anything. Not because I think I owe it him. Let’s take debt out of the picture, say hello, and talk in a way that says, “My heart sees your heart.”

That’s where endings become beginnings.

A girl can hope.

Bethany Beeler writes novels of transformation, love, and self-discovery. To read stories portraying what she says here, go to her Amazon Author Page.

Today, Pam and I spent a lovely “linner” at Northern Colorado’s only non-alcoholic bar, The Love Shack, right here in downtown Loveland. We had a delightful turkey pesto panini and mocktails (I highly recommend the “Antidote”). Mind you, we still drink our share of alcohol, but the Love Shack’s exquisitely curated selection includes some of the best drinks you’ll ever have, mocktail or not.

As it’s been for the last two weeks, the weather was unseasonably warm, so I broke out the summer wear, sporting an ankle-length white cotton dress, with which I took the pains of donning a slip because, well, who needs to see my legs up to my ass? I wore matching steampunk necklace and earrings Pam had made for me, along with red lipstick and comfy white flat sandals. My motto is “If I feel good wearing it, then I look good,” a motto to live by.

But this world would too often live and let die.

From the Love Shack, we walked two blocks to our favorite brewery, Verboten. On some afternoons, maybe once a month, we’ll see in the outside seating by the door an older man who parks his restored 1966 Chevy Corvair out front and sips a beer. We’ve previously exchanged pleasantries with him before entering to enjoy a beverage.

Today, however, his greeting to me was, “I could see, as you walked here in that dress of yours, that you weren’t wearing a thong.”

I thought I’d heard him wrong and let the remark pass, murmuring to Pam when we got inside, “Did he say what I think he said?”

Pam sadly nodded.

There’s a certain freedom to being a trans woman. There’s an even greater freedom in being a trans woman who’s also a writer.

There are also scenes I could never think up on my own, regardless of gender or literary ability.

The Freedom of Being Trans Is Anything But Free …

Never in my 50+ years of presenting as a male-assigned-at-birth (MAAB) did I ever say anything like this to a woman. Mind you, that’s not because I knew from birth that I’m a woman. As I detail in How to NOT Know You’re Trans, I didn’t realize my true gender till I was in my fifties. I just knew that speculating about a person’s undergarments isn’t something you expatiate freely on.

I know, I know. You may ask, “Who in this day and age would dare … ?” and frankly, the answer is that, for 4,000 years, there hasn’t been a day or age when men haven’t felt free to utter such inanities. It’s taught to them as their birthright to assert power in their gaze alone, and I’ve many times watched men undress me with their eyes like it was their nature (and my privilege) for them to do so.

… Because Being A Woman Is Anything But Free

So, some might say, “Hey, Bethany, this is what you asked for in transitioning!”

Um, no. I’ll add that no woman has ever asked for such comments. I defy you to name a man who has suffered such commentary.

The freedom in being trans is that I can readily understand why this cad felt free to give such commentary. It’s not that he knew he had the privilege to do so. It’s not even that he sees me and other women as a commodity he can squeeze like fruit in the produce section.

It’s fear.

The Terror of Being A Man

This man is afraid of being lonely. So much so that he talks about my undergarments (and by the way, I was wearing a thong, so, go figure) like he must if he’s to gain attention. His thoughts weren’t concerned with being intimate with me or any other woman who might’ve suffered that comment. He hasn’t the remotest idea of what intimacy is because he was taught that intimacy is not for him, and he truly believes that his only route in its general direction is to talk about underwear in broad daylight.

He’s clutching at straw. If he grabs ‘em by the pussy, it’s because he’s drowning in his sheer lack of vulnerability and so preys on those he thinks are vulnerable to his status as a man.

I wasn’t game.

The Freedom of Being A Writer Isn’t What You Think

Writers are supposed to write what they know. I won’t write about this incident in any of my novels. I won’t have to because I already know this man’s dilemma and that of the women he compromises. In our boys-will-be-boys world, power is in some men’s minds the only means of getting what he thinks he wants without ever having a clue about what he really needs.

In fact, I’ve already written about this scenario in every one of my dozen novels.

You see, my readers recognize the actors, the stage, and the script. My writing about such incidents rings true to them.

At least to the women.

For years presenting MAAB, I knew something was missing. It hovered in my rearview mirror and out of reach of my straining headlights—some holy grail I’d been told was mine by right but that I hadn’t the foggiest idea of. Peace. Hope. The chance to let down my hair. Dressing as I liked because it made me feel pretty and damn good to be me.

That’s what he clawed at … someone getting to be who they liked being. Something he could never have.

Because he’s not even come close to dreaming it.

What Happens Next

What will I say to him the next time I see him?

I honestly don’t know. The words, if any, will come like the flow of my dress in the breeze and the feeling of cotton swishing my legs. I owe him nothing. I owe myself the chance to enjoy who I am.

As I am.

Bethany Beeler writes novels of transformation, love, and self-discovery. To read stories portraying what she says here, go to her Amazon Author Page.

Thanks for reading Magik! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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Spoiler Alerts

Pundits desperately seek an explanation for the breakout success of CraveTV’s Heated Rivalry, as if one’s needed. “Oh, it can’t be due to the sex-positive presentation of gay men! Nah, it’s just the dames ogling hunky male bodies. Yeah, that’s the ticket.”

A Love Story

Various articles declare that women are “feral” for the show.

Star-crossed lovers (in Heated Rivalry’s case, two couples) follow their hearts against the backdrop of a sport known for it’s homophobia.1

Nothing New … Just True

That narrative arc is as traditional and charted as Shakespeare. What’s new isn’t the story but men unabashedly, passionately loving each other against all odds. And, really, that itself isn’t NEW. Men have loved each other through the ages, from David and Jonathan, to Achilles and Patroclus, to Ishmael and Queequeg, to Ilya Rozanov/Shane Hollander and Scott Hunter/Kip Grady. What may seem novel to the cis-het dominant culture is that this love is unapologetically and physically authentic.

Love stories have always won our devotion because … love is love is love is love. We don’t need an explanation for why Heated Rivalry has boomed other than it’s a damn good show, acted beautifully and poignantly, as well as directed, cast, produced, shot, and edited by consummate artists.

It’s a phenomenon because it’s flat-out phenomenal. [Spoiler Alert] The Episode-5 scene in which Scott Hunter on-ice kisses Kip Grady is inspiring drama.

Acceptance, Affirmation, Love

[Spoiler Alert] At Hollander’s coming out in Episode 6, my wife, Pam, nailed why Heated Rivalry is so winsome: “The mom’s reaction is what every LGBTQIA+ person wants—acceptance, affirmation, LOVE.” Scott Hunter’s MVP acceptance speech, in turn, offers what the LGBTQIA+ community has proclaimed for centuries—to be accepted and LOVED.

There’s the love story that’s catapulted Heated Rivalry to a fandom that crosses gender, sexual, and cultural divides.

The Deflection

For too long, we’ve rejected the notion that male bodies can and do love. Sure, the bros have no problem with depictions of “girl-on-girl action.” And until recently, it was a comedy staple to cringe at men being sexually attracted to men.

As a trans woman, I have my own take. Watching Heated Rivalry, I surprisingly found myself physically uncomfortable at the sexual intimacy of the lover-heroes. At first, I told myself it was due to my lesbian sexual identity and the body dysphoria I experienced before transitioning. Frankly and ashamedly, however, I now see that, in all my life, I never ideated gay male intimacy in the way I readily accepted the hetero version.

Breaking the Ice

Many men begrudgingly tolerate a love story because “Chicks like it,” or “It’ll help me score.” Our culture poisons the male bloodstream with an aversion to intimacy, offering more transactional pursuits like victory in war and sports, destroying enemies, and providing for “weak” women and children.

Men finding intimacy, vulnerability, and love for each other in an authentically physical, male way hasn’t been mainstream till this moment. And that’s no accident. It’s time to embrace what our world has denied but has always desired … a plunge through the ice into blessedly deep waters. A plunge we desperately need.

Bethany Beeler writes novels of transformation, love, and self-discovery. To read stories portraying what she says here, go to her Amazon Author Page.

Thanks for reading Magik! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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I have a love-myeh relationship with so-called “southern rock.” From Charlie Daniels’ “Uneasy Rider” (a hilarious ‘70s take on Guthrie-esque storytelling) to “Sweet Home Alabama” (if Alabama’s so great, why did they record it in Arkansas?) to “Jim Dandy to the Rescue” (as close to a novelty song as a seriously written tune gets), these songs don’t withstand multiple replays for me. Though they’re skillful, they don’t stick like the Allman Brothers’ “La Bres in A Minor,” Head East’s “Never Been Any Reason,” and many pieces by the Drive-By Truckers (my favorite being “Where the Devil Won’t Stay”)—all “southern rock” artists who defy genre. Then there’s the Outlaws’ “Green Grass and High Tides” (GGHT).

Damn, I’d dance to it if I didn’t always just listen in sheer wonder, whether the 10-minute studio version or the 23:27 epic live encore. People who love music made this piece of art, and hell if it isn’t music to love. The song’s weave of bluegrass, rock, and blues is no era-nostalgic homage to rockstars who died young (e.g., “American Pie,” “Rock and Roll Heaven”). GGHT ponders the eternal experience of music itself:

Thomasson doesn’t name past greats because this song is about … us.

Immortality isn’t heaven. Immortality is right now, present and accessible. In the explosive dervish that follows the last lyric, Thomasson and the band dowse us in an invitation to joy, where guitars, bass, and drums braid the listener into green grass, high tides, and castles of stone, soul, and glory. Lost faces are never really lost, and every note that’s real is always found … right here, in us.

Write me off as a fan-girl for a rock song I love. Jazz, classical, baroque, and other styles also inspire adoration. That’s the point of GGHT. It calls us to see who we really are in a way the humdrum world can’t. Rock and Roll greats aren’t immortal because they’re strumming harps with the angels, nor do they persist because we remember them. Rather, they live right now and right now invite us to immortal enchantment.

Tap your foot, strum those strings, and let the burst of tambourines take you there.

If you enjoy this piece about transformation and self-recognition through art, you’ll enjoy Shadow and the Cobra or my nonfiction memoir about being trans, How to NOT Know You’re Trans.

Table of Contents

1. Career Highlights

2. Human-Centered Onboarding Curriculum

3. Video: Training Facilitation Artifact

4. Project Plan + Curriculum Map

5. SharePoint Governance Philosophy

6. Adult Learning for Non-Profit Employees

7. Intensive-Season Microlearning to Speed Ramp-Up for Contract Employees

8. Online Help/OnDemand Training

9. Technical/SaaS Learning & Release Note

Career Highlights

Human-Centered Onboarding Curriculum

Challenge: To create learning for high-volume/-emotion, limited tech background frontline staff.

Action:

• Mirrored actual workflow to reduce decision friction.

• Chose blended training due to workflow complexity.

• Prioritized high-risk workflows first.

• Designed modular updates.

Results: 27% increase in Intake accuracy rate, 89% duplicate record reduction, 17% appointment scheduling efficiency growth, fewer support-ticket trends post-training.

Video: Training Facilitation Artifact

Challenge: To create a brief video to facilitate a practical skill.

Action:

• Chose mastering the GRE/GMAT argument essay prompt.

• Offered a template broken into bite-size steps.

• Supplied real-world examples.

Results: Steady increase in practice-test essay scores.

Project Plan + Curriculum Map

Challenge: To create Create a curriculum map and an end-to-end ADDIE project plan for a 2-day training on Machine Learning Basics.

Action:

• Outlined content and assessment development for Instructional Designers and Developers to script and develop learning content.

• Chose Blended modality (VILT + self-paced + live activities).

• Designed to mitigate risk through scenario-based learning emphasizing human

  accountability and escalation.

• Scaled to clearly defined role-based responsibilities throughout the training.

Results: 42% greater escalation efficiency.

SharePoint Governance Philosophy

Challenge: Disorganized and unused SharePoint resources.

Action: Designed an organization-wide protocol for SharePoint governance.

Results: 59% increase in SharePoint adoption.

Adult Learning for Non-Profit Employees

Challenge: To create learning on how to build a custom GPT, in a conversational style for a technically curious but non-developer audience.

Action:

• Break complex steps into numbered actions and add screenshots to visually anchor learners.

• Make the process relatable by choosing a charity that depends on grants, so it demonstrates how I approach the organization’s GMS.

• Balance accuracy with approachability, avoiding jargon, while still noting advanced options (links, wording, customizations) for those who want more.

Results: 27% increase in adoption rate and 52% drop in support tickets.

Intensive-Season Microlearning to Speed Ramp-Up for Contract Employees

(Redacted to preserve client intellectual property.)

Challenge: In Articulate Rise, craft an e-learning mini-course to speed ramp-up for seasonal contract employee onboarding during busy ‘blizzard’ seasons.

Action:

• Use text and visuals to explain the process for quick absorption.

• Generate interactivity with elements like flip cards and knowledge checks.

• Gamify via a labeled graphic of the claims intake screen, with learners navigating a branching scenario to apply knowledge in real situations.

Results: 32% decrease in ramp-up time; 17% increase in customer NPS satisfaction.

Online Help/OnDemand Training

Challenge: To demystify intimidating application and standardized test tasks and concepts.

Action:

• Create a database of templated resources to address stressors, reframe challenges in an achievable light, and offer actionable steps to inspire balance.

• Employ empathy-based scenarios to speed adoption of strategies.

• Emphasize clarity, honesty, and storytelling—core principles that align with accessibility and trust.

• Use simple visuals to ground abstract concepts for visual and kinesthetic learners.

• Construct frameworks to help learners succeed via structured, repeatable steps, making complex tasks approachable, logical, user-friendly, and sustainable.

Impact: Learners not only understood the material but trusted the process to a 97% NPS rec rate sustained YOY.

Technical/SaaS Learning & Release Note

(Redacted to preserve client intellectual property.)

Challenge: Client wanted few (if any) screen illustrations in order to not disclose proprietary visuals on a publicly-visible webpage, so I had to find ways to use language to deliver clarity and trust.

Action:

• Translate product details into plain-language instructions for frontline users.

• Where requirements were open-ended, I make assumptions about common pain points (such as lost pass-downs) and frame the feature as the solution.

• Employ standard Help Center conventions—clear headings, step-by-step lists, and “what if something goes wrong” notes—to support quick scanning.

• Concise, approachable, and non-technical tone, consistent with client’s style.

Impact: Users rated help tools at 93% NPS satisfaction rate, boosting revenue 18%.

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Colorado, of course, is better, but I don't live in a big metro area, such as Denver, but in a city of 80K in very rural Northern Colorado. It helps that Col State U is just up the road in Fort Collins. Yet, the proximity to Wyoming and Nebraska, two states that are nearly as anti-trans as Texas, as well as the rural Trump supporters in and around my town, constantly remind me that I have only a thin layer of protection in state laws that could be nullified instantly in a dictatorship/theocracy, which Trump and his ardent Republican supporters are carrying out. They meant everything they said in Project 2025.

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Red Alert

So, for me, politics aren’t merely a matter of discussion or entertainment as some folks take it, almost like a sport. Nor are politics, for me, a means to "one-up" someone or win an argument. Winning arguments never made me feel better about myself. How we choose to govern ourselves (while that still remains an option; right now, that’s highly debatable) reflects who we are as a people. I have to be on the alert. Imagine, say, someone who publicly converted to Judaism in 1930s Germany, and you have a glimpse of the target on my back.

I know I’m trans and most people see that as soon as I open my mouth, due to my voice. Support and words are well and good. Yet, what happened in November revealed to me what America has always been and right now insists on being. Yes, a bare majority sided with Trump’s agenda, many for reasons that had nothing to do with trans persons. But it’s a package deal. I wouldn’t buy a car with incredible gas mileage and low maintenance costs but with the drawback that it could spout exhaust deadly to passersby, saying to myself, well I want a cheaper gas/maintenance bill, that poison and dead-people stuff be damned. Yet, an incredible number of Americans bought into a similar rationale in voting for Trump, all along seeing the hideous attack ads, vitriol, hatred, and outright lies he and his campaign spewed about trans persons, immigrants, and women. Wow. I didn’t see that coming. Not at all. I thought that the American people would come to their senses and see that this isn’t a game or a way to have lower grocery prices.

Shock & Flaw

In the wake of that utter shock (I wept the morning after the election and spent November in a hideous tailspin), I had to rely on Pam’s bravery, good sense, and steadfast love. You see, I get stared at in public. I lock eyes with the starers. You’d think they’d drop their gaze out of decency or at least a sense that their mommas taught them better than that. But they don’t. They undress me with their eyes, like I’m a spectacle, a thing for their perusal. More than half of those who voted did so for a candidate who repeatedly portrayed trans people and other vulnerable populations as things to be stared at, shunned, locked away, and limited in their healthcare options. Trump and JD Vance’s crass use of me and my posse as political footballs to whip up his fanatic base was something I incorrectly thought only a fringe of maniacs could stomach. Then a majority of the electorate on November 7^th showed me that, no, using trans people, women, and immigrants as things was negotiable, provided they could have lower egg prices (which, curiously, are going in the opposite direction. Hmm.).

Oh, He Won’t Do That …

What happened on November 7^th necessarily changed my awareness of and regard for Americans. A majority, whether they intended their vote to do so, chose a leader and administration who, at minimum, promised they would do hateful and deadly things to vulnerable populations. Then, many of those same people said to me, “Oh, he won’t do that.”

In just two weeks, he has, and it’s the tip of the iceberg, for while his executive orders thankfully don’t carry the weight of law, the same electorate who voted for him as president also voted in representatives, senators, and state and local governments who share and spout that agenda. Congress will soon start making into law the tenor and force of those executive orders. The evidence for that summary of the situation has already happened over the past eight years in states, local governments, courts, and school boards in which the Republicans hold a trifecta. Do you know that in Florida, if I use a women’s bathroom, I can be arrested on felony charges and sentenced to prison? Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, and many other states have also put in force similar laws and policies to punish trans people for simply being who we are.

You Know I Love You, Don’t You?

I’ve had to reevaluate my relationship with dozens of persons whom I assumed loved and supported me. You can’t know how disorienting and frightening that is. For a while, I actively looked at options to live abroad. I’ve decided, however, that I get to be me on my own terms, and that they’ll have to kill me if they come for me and my posse. I don’t say that lightly. And I say it praying that things won’t come to that. Then again, ten years ago, who saw it would come to what’s already transpired?

All the above is a way of saying that, yes, I am now uncertain about people I call friends. After all, I assumed that, except for a few fanatics and crazy-ass billionaires, America was a land and people that still loved and supported me, furthering my existence as I do theirs. Now I know that America—or a majority of the electorate—isn’t that.

So, I find myself endangered in a land in which I previously thought I and others like me could be free to be who we are. Sadly, the first Trump administration revealed dozens of people I had thought were supportive friends to be anything but. Most all of them reviled, then blocked me. Only a few did I block, but only after stating to them where I draw the friendship line, for the safety, support, and well-being of me, my family, and my posse.

What Are Friends For?

I’ve found that friendship is like any relationship, whether in-person or on social media. I’ve learned that it requires work, testing boundaries, digging beyond the veneer. I’ve discovered that I can’t just “chat” with people I have some reason to believe, however small, would look aside from a campaign of hate and ruination to vote for what we have today. So, I felt the need to clear the air with America because I don’t know.

And while people try to settle where they stand with each other, the theocratic tyrants will push forward their agenda. So, how to cope, how to cope? I rely on

• the love I have in my life,

• friends like the ones I have who’ve reached out in droves with their concern, support, and deeds, and

• Pam’s steadfastness and undying heart that brims with joy and compassion.

Claiming My Joy

All the above and more are so much more substantial to me than the little game-players in the so-called houses of power. As long as I’m living, I’m here to protect my posse, especially in the way I live. I will be a joyful, irrepressible trans person whose very life shows the lie that Trump and his zealots are trying to impose. And I’ve dedicated myself to joy. Cuz, well, fuck ’em. Them and the horse they rode in on (which, admittedly, isn’t fair to an innocent horse). So, let ’em fuck themselves. They’ve no claim on my joy.

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Lo and behold, Pittsburgh FM station WDVE was having an in-depth special on Genesis, so I listened and was blown away. Funny, I didn’t rush right out to buy a Genesis album. Actually, I snatched up their lead-guitarist Steve Hackett’s first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte, and played that till the grooves wore thin. There was this drummer on that record who also sang! I was more impressed with his drumming—he not only could kick out the jams but also had a playfulness that was matched by how he made the drums sound—not just to keep time, but their own expression.

That following spring 1977, I bought Genesis’ 8^th studio offering, Wind and Wuthering. The first track, “Eleventh Earl of Mar,” stunned me. Mike Rutherford’s grinding, grunting bass line was outdone only by the sound of the drums. First of all, you could hear them. Second, what you heard was more captivating than anything I’d previously listened to. I later found out that, during the recording of it, Phil Collins told his mates that he wanted the band’s drum sound to be as expressive and song-changing as John Bonham’s on Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.”

Phil adored John Bonham. I grew up loving Zeppelin … only to find I loved Phil’s skinning even better. In swift succession, I scarfed up Seconds Out (Genesis’ legendary live album where Phil drum duels with the likes of Chester Thompson and Bill Bruford), Selling England by the Pound, Nursery Cryme, and Foxtrot. I soon found out that Genesis’ soul sprung from the inventive lyrics and vocal interpretations of Peter Gabriel, when Phil was “only” the drummer (and backing vocalist). Hell, it wasn’t till I bought Selling England that I knew that Phil and Pete were two different people! Oh, to be 13 again. (Not.)

As my album collection grew, I got to hear legends like Neil Peart, Simon Phillips, Keith Moon, and Carl Palmer. In the decades since, I’ve enjoyed Terry Bozzio, Meg White, and others. Still, I’ve always come back to Phil.

Yeah, I thought he was a good singer, who ably stepped into Peter Gabriel’s shoes and admirably fronted the band. I was intrigued when he recorded Face Value and bought it the day of its release. I’d already taken in the gated-reverb drum sound that Phil, Peter, and Hugh Padgham had revolutionized on Peter’s 1980 third-album lead-off song, “Intruder.” The drums were the heartbeat of that song. But the intro song to Face Value took it to a whole new level—the drums were more than making a statement. They burst the soul of the listener, influencing every aural experience for the next 40+ years, from music to movies to sound bites to samples to any and every mood we could construct in our imaginings.

After that, Phil’s career took off, till he was ubiquitous as, well, the gated reverb. I followed his solo career with a self-satisfied smirk. I bought none of his other solo albums, nor did I take in any of his live solo shows, though I continued to flock to Genesis performances, the highlight for me being the Abacab tour when it stopped for two sold-out nights in Rome and was the last time the band did its iconic album-side-length magnum opus, “Supper’s Ready.” Times were swiftly changing. Phil was no longer a prog-rock session man with the most influential prog band of all time. Hell, he was as big as Sinatra, Michael Jackson, and any other era-defining pop performer one can think of. He acted in movies, TV shows (remember Hook and the “Phil the Shill” episode of Miami Vice?) He produced numerous chart-topping works of other artists. Wrote musicals, for Crissakes. Became derisively known as “the Cabbage-Patch Rocker.” Me? I didn’t go emo, but I did say the hackneyed, “Pfft! I liked him when he was obscure and cool!”

This is a long-winded way of describing what I felt watching Drumeo’s Phil Collins: Drummer First. It’s a joyful and bittersweet homage to this multi-talented performer, who, all along, simply considered himself an incredibly fortunate drummer.

Sorry, that shit doesn’t happen by accident or fortune. You can watch Drummer First and cringe at what’s become of Phil—decrepit enough to have trouble even sitting down at a drum kit. In fact, his son, Nic, who played drums for Genesis’ 2021-22 Last Domino farewell tour, steals the show with his winsome charm and loving regard for his much older dad. The producers obviously couldn’t pay for the rights to play actual Genesis and Phil Collins music (Sony now owns all Phil’s solo work and Genesis’ Phil-era playlist). So, faithful to the legion of stick-wielders who don the tools of ignorance and slam away at the skins, the documentary’s score is mostly Nic playing all the riffs, which he does more than capably.

Through it all, Phil seems bemused, if befuddled, at the attention. Sadly, though the youngest member of the Genesis core, he’s aged much, much faster than Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Steve Hackett, Anthony Phillips, and Peter Gabriel (whom I believe is still touring his latest album as of this writing). It’s hard to match up all the younger images of Phil with the crouching, cane-styling old man who looks incredibly like my late Italian grandfather.

How did he do all this? the less-informed, young viewer might ask. I saw him live with Genesis a half-dozen times. He didn’t just fill Gabriel’s frontman duties, he also drummed, developed his own performance persona, and did a tambourine dance that many Olympic gymnasts would be hard-pressed to replicate. All that ceaseless live work covered his body in tambourine bruises. The very un-ergonomic drum kits of the 70s and 80s kept him crouching and reaching and pounding the fuck out of his wrists, ankles, knees, and back.

Off stage, the man was a tireless workhorse long before he became a pop superstar, doing session work with the likes of Brand X, Mike Oldfield, Brian Eno, Argent, and Thin Lizzy. Long before he was a vocal sensation, Phil Collins was the drummer that musicians’ musicians had to have on their records. They were looking for a sound. Needed a guy who could just lay it down in one or two takes, with no bullshit. A bloke who could crack up the nastiest of producers in midnight recording sessions, then tipple a pint with the lot of you afterwards.

The endless work, touring, and bodily demands demolished three marriages. See, if you married Phil, you didn’t just gain a husband; you were snagging a ride with an artistic phenomenon. I think they all loved him. I suppose, also, that he was no picnic to be married to.

A little of that comes across in this two-hour tour. Musician interviews are topped in underwhelment factor only by hockey interviews. You can read Phil’s bio, Not Dead Yet, and get more of that in print. He’s no Lizard King. Really, he’s just a bloke who loved to drum and was obsessed with making drum sounds that would be, well, cool.

Fuck if he didn’t do that, in spades! So they ask him how he did this and that, what was the inspiration, where does your genius come from? And the little old bloke who doesn’t look like he could hoist a feather, let alone drumsticks, says something like, “Well, I wasn’t there when the boys laid down the Apocalypse 9/8 section of ‘Supper’s Ready.’ So, next day, I went into the studio, listened to it a few times, got an idea of what I wanted to do, and added the drums.”

Phil hasn’t thought about this shit for 50 years. The reality is, if we could’ve asked him 50 years ago (and believe me, I’ve read the contemporaneous accounts of his exploits), he’d say the same thing: “It’s drumming, mates. It’s what I did in that take. Lucky they recorded it.”

This documentary adds a coda to that. Phil doesn’t put it in so many words, but it’s what makes watching Phil Collins: Drummer First more than worth the time. “Yeah, guys, I used to drum, but I can’t no more. I can sit down to sing. That’s alright. I like most of what I did with Genesis. Some of it, not. It’s a gig.”

You see, genius doesn’t come from a master plan. It flies with passion, like sparks off a wheel. And when the sparkler guts out, we’re left with a warm memory. Not to regret that we can’t have it anymore. After all, we’ve got his discography available at a click to entertain us.

Rather, we know that more is coming. There’s another little bloke or two out there, some spitfire girl who’s shunned at school, or a go-at-you little boy who just wants to thrash away, come what may. And in 50 years, we’re gonna wonder how these tykes spun off fireworks of genius.

And what we find in the watching—and more importantly, in the joy of listening to the soundtrack of our lives—is that genius comes out of nowhere. And that’s damn, fucking incredible. Like a little man who lit up our lives and who doesn’t give it a second thought.

Keep thrashing, Phil, in spirit, if not in body. Love ya!

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So, no creative blocks.

Miasma

Since last December, it became clear that the Asshat Jackwagon would be elected. Oh, the tease of summer/fall hope that Kamala and Tim gave me! Then the decrepitude that is the American electoral process snatched it away, plunging me into a deep depressive spiral.

I’ve been struggling for a year now with horrendous anxiety and depression. Mind you, none of it was triggered by gender dysphoria. Nope. I know what the triggers were—the looming terror of being hung out to dry as a trans person in the country I call home.

The world looked so strange to me. At any moment I’d look at things around me, boggled by how this thing we call civilization and life is so … strange. The most deranged jockey living in a fiberglass tree, tripping balls on acid, couldn’t’ve come up with the unreal world I lived in.

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Stumble Forward

I slogged through the months till a ghoulish November-5th nightmare on the heels of Halloween made the most terrifying Stephen King novel look like Nancy Drew. Through November, I had to do what (Heather Havrilesky) counsels:

Stumble forward, into this wicked autumn hour, almost defeated, every awkward footfall a resolution, every inch of progress a clumsy victory. You are an ugly catastrophe, an old house collapsing, a fury of limbs and longing, rage and regrets, windowpanes and doorknobs, nails and splinters, whipped up into a tornado and carried into the future, ass over ankles, fridge over floorboards, daydreams over despair.

Nails it. I have to ride out depression. Which doesn’t make it feel better. I know the fit will end, but in the throes of it, the agony feels like it fits too well. It clings and envelopes till I can’t see me, only wretchedness unrelieved by any soothing voice and sane words from loved ones. In fact, the pain arms me with hellacious arguments for why I’m doomed, no matter what anyone says. Messenger meet killer. Ask Pam. She’s been slain countless times, even though I know she’s right. She, of anyone (including and especially myself), delivers the best love, support, and comfort in those dark hours … only to get doomsday Babs for her efforts. No good deed goes unpunished, eh?

Pointless Resolutions

And I can’t stop myself from acting on the spiraling plunge in my heart. Making resolutions that I’ll flee the country, or fight even when they put me into a reeducation camp, or actually try to enjoy the music of the Osmonds (brrrrr). Anything but hating myself or forcibly detransitioning, both of which amount to the same thing.

In such tailspins, the only thing on wings at the edge of feeling and thought is that I’m still here to think and feel. Even if it’s misery.

I Can’t Predict the Future

I’ve no idea what’s actually going to happen. I’ve plotted all the out-of-control scenarios. Unlike others who live in states like Texas, Florida, and other Republican hotspots, I’m in Colorado. I’ve a circle of friends and loved ones who stand by me, even when I drip with loathing at my potential fate. But still, the agents in The Matrix keep coming at me.

Yes, the month after Halloween became a nightmare longer than the coldest, most interminable January. Transition saved me from self-hatred—and put a target on my back. Something ghoulish seeped out of Samhain and polluted my sense of joy. But it wasn’t of Halloween.

The Antidote

In fact, Halloween and the other Sabbats of the Witch Year are the only antidotes. They won’t take away despair-inducing events. Won’t preempt any disasters to come. Yet, they’ll ride me through being me, even when I’m poisoned in heart and soul till I don’t recognize the world I live in.

I won’t surrender who I am. You see, even in the worst ravages of depression, I still get to be me.

My two-year-old grandson, Nicco, reminded me of that. We visited him last week. His happy dance was to run about the house, singing his cover of Miss Moni’s Halloween song. Mind you, we were on the verge of Thanksgiving. We urged him to yell, “Happy Thanksgiving!”, “Merry Christmas!, or, hell, “Happy Birthday!” even.

His joy was this song. And we sang it at his behest. Again and again and again. (You’re welcome for the insidious ear worm I just gifted you.)

Just like Nicco, I, too, this Thanksgiving, in the bosom of my family, had inconsolable crying jags that no amount of solicitation or distraction could stop me from feeling. You know how a toddler can cry—like the world as they know it has ended.

And it does end. Every moment. And we each have our own Halloween songs to holler, especially when the time or season makes it completely unfitting. Because fitting snugly into despair is no way to live. I can’t—and won’t—sustain it or allow a bunch of asshat jackwagons to make me live that way.

I’ll ride it out. On my broom, I’ll wicked fly. Because, rather than saying “Fuck them!” I can sing something better. “Happy Halloween! I’m still me, no matter what you say otherwise.”

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I started them a year-and-a-half ago, two very different books. One fiction, one nonfiction. Each came from dreams and from life as I live it.

But they address directly, each in their own way, the encroaching darkness we face.

Darkness is a friend, not an enemy. In darkness, we find our light. And these books are about light, magik, hope, and the chance to face down our own demons.

I won’t tell you what they’re like. They’re unlike anything you’ve ever read. I didn’t know I wrote them for this time. I just knew I had to write them. Read ‘em, and see for yourself.

Shadow and the Cobra

The morning everything happened, a kitten loses his mother to a cobra. An ancient mage finds that little one and changes the course of a magikal world forever.

In the world of Mirrororrim, people have traded their hope and magik for ashes and the reign of the Rat King. Riding on the Western Sea, comes a wave to wipe out all that the People of the Plains, the City dwellers, and the Boatwrights have known.

Orphaned cat, Shadow, joins with Deir-Tan, the ur-mage who devastated Mirrororrim and now wants to atone. With them, a fox, a possum, two young lovers, and a rake who would be King follow an army of cats to forever transform their world before the Nameless One plunges all into darkness. In her most adventurous tale yet, Bethany Beeler weaves a spell in the dance of a cat, the coiling of a snake, and the small, whispering things that make us who we are.

Magik: How Witches Save the World

You can invite into your heart the abstractions you choose. But not all abstractions are the same. Some are killing us and our planet. There is, though, a way to save our world.

If we’re the Cosmos thinking of Herself, what’s she thinking of? All of us are witches wearing Magik’s skin. We’re the spell that saves the world.

Join Bethany as she weaves story, memoir of her magikal transition, humor, and a tour of human history. “I’ve learned through transition in my fifties that I like this approach better than fussy old philosophies—just as I prefer being the woman I am versus presenting as a man. At its best, it itched like a label on a new shirt. At its worst (which was most of the time), it left me stunned, harrowed, and despondent. Transition is my eternal return to “Ahhhhh, now that feels better.”

Magik is about how we can make the world feel better.

Big’uns is our 14-year-old rescue kitty. We gave her a home when she was 8 because the original person she owned un-alived themselves. Sad, I know. Imagine what Big’uns saw. Add to it that the family of that person was understandably in a tailspin, and they brought Big’uns to a vet, asking for euthanization. Double grief.

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A kind vet tech at the facility said she’d foster Big’uns, and that she did. So happens that she was friend of a friend of ours who had moved to Boston. By the magik of the intrawebs, he posted that his vet-tech friend had a cat who needed a home. Mind you, both we and the vet tech lived in Bryan-College Station, TX at the time, so the message of Big’uns need rang out from the Lone Start State, bounced off a friend in Boston, and ricocheted back to us in College Station.

You might expect that Big’uns suffered from feline PTSD. Nope. If anything, PTSD suffers from her. She is the most laid-back, chill, I’m-alright-don’t-nobody-worry-’bout-me creature in the cosmos. She’s also bigger than a houseboat. Thankfully, she doesn’t snuggle in laps (‘cuz I might go paralyzed), but she absolutely consumes the jowl-rubs, scritches, and back massages. She’ll literally let you do it for hours and not tire.

I’ve painted Big’uns in oils, as you see right here.

I’ve also done a digital-art painting of what I think her soul feels like.

Why did the artistic revelation paint her soul in this fashion? Well, art isn’t about whys and hows. It’s about being open—listening, feeling, letting it happen through my faulty limbs, nerves, whimsy, and vision. Now, I don’t know if the above work is any o’ those, but like any of us, Big’uns is a unique way that Sister Cosmos lives and sees herself through our eyes—human, feline, and even the eyes of things that don’t have what we’d call eyes.

Like a Bakewell Tart.

We’ve spent too much of our ourselves over the last decade not just blinding our own vision, but daring to deny it to people, creatures, and things because, um, we say so. Big’uns is like a Bakewell Tart. She doesn’t “say so” about anything, except to be admired and enjoyed as she is.

Pause for a wee bit today, and let yourself enjoy yourself. You can do this anywhere … because anywhere you are, a la Yogi Berra, there you are.

Big’uns and a tasty Bakewell Tart are two gifts of Sister Cosmos who remind me I’m here. And I’m loving it. And you. G’night!

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Bakewell Tart

Prep Time: 1.5hr Cook Time: 45min Total Time: 2.25hr Difficulty: Medium Servings: 8-10 slices

EQUIPMENT

Sifter
Lg mixing bowl
Scotch blade or knife, for cutting butter
Pouring cup
Clingfilm or silicon storage bag
Cooking spray, for greasing
9in (23cm) dia loose-bottom tart tin
Rolling pin
Parchment paper (optional)
Baking beans (optional)
Med saucepan
Potato masher
Whisk
Sm bowl
Wooden spoon
Silicone spatula

SHORTCRUST PASTRY INGREDIENTS

1 7⁄8C (225g) plain flour, plus extra for dusting (stored in freezer the night before)
1⁄8C + 1T (35g) granulated (caster) sugar (again, store this in freezer overnight)
1⁄2t (2g) salt
1⁄2C/1 stick (100g) cold unsalted butter, grated or diced into small cubes
1⁄2t lemon juice
2T/ 1⁄8C (30ml) vodka
1t vanilla extract
2T/ 1⁄8C (30ml) ice water

FRANGIPANE INGREDIENTS

100g butter, softened
75g caster sugar
40g plain flour
2 large eggs, beaten
60g ground almonds
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 drop almond extract (optional)

REST OF FILLING INGREDIENTS

3-4oz (about100g) raspberry jam
3.5oz (100g) raspberries, fresh or frozen
20g almonds, shaved/flaked
Powdered (confectioner's) sugar, for dusting

DIRECTIONS

1. To make pastry, I use my own Shortcrust Pastry recipe, or you can use your own recipe or a store-bought.

2. Preheat oven to 360°F/180°C (375°F/190°C, High Altitude). Grease tart tin, and set aside.

3a. Roll shortcrust on lightly floured workspace to 1⁄8in (3mm) thickness and use to line tart tin.

3b. Trim away excess so crust is flush with tart-tin edge (Note: If you plan to blind bake tart shell, leave some excess overhanging tart-tin edge.) If not blind-baking, skip to Step 5.

4. [Optional] Blind-bake tart shell.

Frangipane

5. Follow my Frangipane recipe or your own to make frangipane (or use store-bought). Set aside.

Raspberry Jam

6. Follow my Homemade Raspberry Jam recipe or your own to make jam filling (or use store-bought jam). Set aside.

Assembly

7a. Spread raspberry jam over tart shell.

7b. Sprinkle raspberries over spreader jam.

7c. Evenly spread frangipane over raspberries.

Bake

8. Bake 10 min.

8b. Remove from oven and sprinkle flaked almonds on surface.

8c. Return tart to oven and bake additional 15-20 min, till filling turns golden.

9. Leave to cool in the tin before dusting with powdered sugar and serving.

I find magik in the least likely of places … like Boondock Soda Bread.

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Whether you know the movie, Boondock Saints, or not, I’ll try to make this magik for you.

On St. Paddy’s Day, our two heroes are in their bar with their friends, when Russian mobsters barge in. Connor and Murphy say, “C’mon, have a drink—everybody’s Irish today.” The self-important mobsters reject that perfectly cromulent offer and punch the boys’ best friend in the face. The brothers shoot their Hennessy’s and totally demolish the mobsters, leading to next day, when the Russians return to kill them. To keep it brief, I’ll say there are burn-diapers, a falling toilet, Willem Dafoe as the best FBI agent portrayal in cinematic history, and about 50 million gangsters blown away for the next 90 minutes.

Good, clean family fun.

The point isn’t to declare Boondock Saints magik (uh, it is). The contemporary scene wants to burst into our consciousness like the Russian mob into an Irish bar. We were having a good time, weaving through the obstacle course of modern life. Nobody asked Russkie criminals to break up the party.

But that’s exactly what Papa Culture says must happen, whenever he wants.

And I just shoot my Hennessy’s and make Soda Bread, because it’s contemplative for me. When the shit breaks in and tells you to stop enjoying your drink and your friends, punch that shit in the quads with your own personal Soda Bread. Do it for you. Do it for all of us. It ain’t St. Patrick’s Day, but, hell, we all have the chance to be Irish.

It’s up to us.

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Boondock Soda Bread

Prep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 45 minutes Total Time: 1hr Difficulty: Easy Servings: Servings: 8-10

EQUIPMENT

Cooking spray, for greasing Parchment paper
1lb standard bread loaf tin
Lg mixing bowl
Whisk
Spatula (silicone or wooden)
Baking thermometer w/ probe

INGREDIENTS

Dry:
2 2⁄3C (400g) stoneground whole wheat flour
3⁄4C+ (100g) rolled oats, plus extra for topping
2 1⁄4t (9g) sea salt
2t (10g) baking soda 2T (10g) cocoa powder 1⁄2C (55g) walnuts

Wet:
1 - 12oz (330ml ) bottle o' stout
2⁄3C (165ml) buttermilk
1t vanilla extract
2T unsalted butter, melted
4T (80g) molasses, or treacle

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 ̊F/180 ̊C (375°F/190°C, High Altitude).

2. Grease and parchment loaf tin. Set aside.

3. Sift dry ingredients into bowl.

4. Hand whisk till thoroughly combined.

5. Form well in dry-ingredient mixture and add wet ingredients. Now's the time to be quick, whisking till just combined. You want the baking soda to do its leavening in the oven.

6. Using spatula, tip batter into tin.

7. Top poured batter w/ rolled oats.

8. Bake 45-55 min, till cracked dome forms, and skewer inserted into center of bread comes out clean.

9. Cool in pan 5-10 min, then lift by parchment paper onto rack, to cool completely before slicing and serving.

Slàinte Math

I’m going to Wales this spring. I’ve been waiting for this my whole life. For my 60th birthday present, my oldest son, Paul, is taking me to Cymru! What a son!

We’re not going there to sightsee but to be there. In a perfect world, I would go there anytime I want and stay as long as I want. And I do that all the time in my hiraeth heart with Wales and lots of things. That’s one form of my magik.

But in this pilgrimage, I’m going to be there with a person whom I love dearly, and we’re gonna plant our flesh in Wales and a little of England. In no certain order, we want to plant our butts in the seats of every Real Cask Ale pub we can find. And just be.

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We’ll plant our feet on Offa’s Dyke and Hergest Ridge because we adore Mike Oldfield’s music. And we’re gonna listen. And just be.

We’ll stand in the shadow of Yr Wyddfa (Mount Snowdon) and soak in the sun and breeze (or p’raps rain, ‘cuz it does that a lot there). And just be.

We’ll sleep in Betws-y-coed, and just be. In our sleep.

We’ll drink at the 500-year-old Black Boy Inn in Caernarfon. And just drink in our being there. In the walls of an ancient place. And explore the mansions of our hearts.

We’ll weave through the forest that’s the Caerdroia Labyrinth. And get lost. In being there.

Oh, we’ll have our share of irritations, dashed expectations, headaches, and irritation at each other. But we’re going to the biggest gin bar in the world at Oxford’s Randolph Inn, people! And we’ll gin there.

Ah, Glastonbury Tor. We’ll tor there.

I’d love to hear your ideas, input, advice, and how you are just there—in Wales or anywhere. Share your magik with me here or in chat.

I’m gonna be as happy as Cheesy Welsh Bread Pudding. And just be.

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Cheesy Welsh Bread Pudding

Prep Time: 15min Cook Time: 35-45min Total Time: 1hr Difficulty: Easy Servings: Serves 4-6

EQUIPMENT

Pyrex pie dish, deep, 9in (23-25cm) dia (1.5-2L vol)
Cooking spray, for greasing
Med saucepan
Lg mixing bowl
Whisk
2 sm bowls, one ea for egg whites and yolks
Grater
Hand mixer w/ whisk attachment Silicone spatula

INGREDIENTS

scant 6T (60g) butter, unsalted
16fl oz (775ml) milk, whole
6oz (170g) breadcrumbs, plain
4 lg eggs, separated into yolks & whites
6oz (170g) mature Cheddar cheese (best w/ Welsh Penbryn Cheese, if you can get it!), grated
1⁄4t mustard seed, powdered
salt, to taste
black pepper, fresh ground, to taste
smoked paprika, to taste (optional)
ancho chile powder, to garnish top

DIRECTIONS

1a. Preheat oven to 350°F/180oC (375°F/190°C, High Altitude).

1b. Grease pie dish and set aside.

2. On med-lo heat, warm butter and milk in saucepan, whisking till butter melts (try not to get mixture above 170°F/75°C).

3a. Pour mixture into lg bowl.

3b. Hand-whisk in breadcrumbs till thoroughly combined.

4a. Lightly hand-whisk yolks, then stir into mixture with mustard.

4b. Hand-whisk in half of cheese, plus salt, black pepper, and smoked paprika to taste.

5a. Whisk egg whites with hand mixer till stiff peaks form.

5b. Fold into the lg-bowl mixture with spatula till completely incorporated. (Do NOT over mix, as this will remove the air and fluffiness, leading your bake into sinful stodginess. You don't wanna be that chef that your family/guests politely smile at and grudgingly chew through the meal, fearing that if they voice a criticism, you'll get out the cutlery and later go to prison. Word to the wise.)

6a. Pour mixture into pie dish.

6b. Cover with 2nd half of cheese.

7. Bake 35-45 min till puffy, golden, and juuuuuust set in the middle (like your uncle's belly as he slips from six-pack abs towards senility).

8. Serve right out of oven, sprinkling some ancho chile powder over the top. Pairs well with a simple side salad of greens and a nutty brown ale.

1. I’ve a new novel I’m working on and a non-fiction work of magikal philosophy that I’m editing for the 73rd time to prepare for submission to publishers. [Uh, none of that is a brag. I don’t HAVE a publisher. I don’t even have a whiff of a glimpse of a publisher anywhere on the horizon. But it’s the thought that counts.]

2. In the above situation, self-promotion becomes a tiresome chore. Published authors might say in response, “Uh, Bethany, it only gets worse when you do get a publisher!”

3. I really love to write, and much of that love is dissolved in knowing that, in part, I post here to self-promote. But what kind of self am I promoting if what I’m writing here isn’t written from the sheer fun and love of doing it?

4. I’m really, really, [no, REALLY] discouraged by the deluge of hate being poured out against my trans posse these days, to the point trans folks are being murdered with no consequence, stochastically encouraged by educational, governmental, social-media, and religious institutions.

5. Which, in turn, has led to my killing off in my feed any political news. This is an election year. A lot hangs in the balance for me and my trans cohort, and, um, yeah, I’m so discouraged that I refuse to let that incessant drivel plague my thoughts on a daily basis.

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Positive Reasons for Not Blogging Lately

In the spirit of leading with the bad news, following with the good news, I have some very happy reasons why I won’t gift the better part of myself over to self-promotional blogging and sosh-meeds scrollage:

1. I’m reading so many good, good things lately—
   
   - Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling and Notes from a Small Island make me guffaw and force Pam to listen to me read passages aloud (it’s a full-time job being the spouse o’ Babs);
   
   - The Witches: Salem 1692 by Stacy Schiff, while grim reading, actually lends comforting insight into the contemporary assholish transphobic tsunami;
   
   - The Matter of Wales by Jan Morris makes me feel like I’m about to come to my homeland for the first time.
   

2. I’ve been watching so many good, good things lately—
   
   - Fleabag. Phoebe Waller-Bridge wrote and produced this, the most brilliant and absolutely original television I’ve seen in years. It’s about time we have a creator of this calibre strutting their talent, and Bridge delivers in droves!
   
   - Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. It’s sad that he’s dead, but his frank encounter with life in various exotic and quixotic places grants me hope for taking on new adventures;
   
   - Only Murders in the Building. Just too fun;
   
   - A guilty pleasure and nod to not-the-highest-quality-but-still-addictive-TV is the Brit Doc Martin series. The acting is threadbare at times, the stories contrived, every character displays faults that make me not wanna love any of ‘em (though I do)—all reasons to just shut it off and not buy another season … and yet, I look at Pam and sheepishly whine, “Um, would you hate me if we watched another episode?” [See above^^ for the labors of living with Babsie B.]
   
   - I’m intrigued by the March-1st debut of AppleTV’s The Adventures of Dick Turpin. I adore Noel Fielding, and if the trailer is any indication, he’ll be positively daffy in this offering.
   

3. If you’ve noticed a Welsh and British bent to most of the above entertainment/reading choices, well, I’m thrilled to say that, in late spring, I’ll be traveling to Wales, the Westlands, and Oxford, so I’m in Babsie-obsession-mode with all things to do with parts of that North Sea island, to the point of learning Welsh on DuoLingo!
   

4. Is there a fourth-level ratcheting of joy? If so, it’s that I’ve been baking my ass off. [But you knew that already.]

Many Reasons to NOT Succumb to Blogging as a Chore

I just won’t do it. When I started this thing, I told Pam [as mentioned earlier, Pam enjoys no such thing as an unpublished thought o’ mine] that I was gonna write whatever I wanted in whatever way I wanted whenever I wanted.

So, I do. And I suppose that’s why I don’t have publishers lining up at my door.

The Barometer of Fun

Having tried on about every philosophy/way of life one can imagine, I’ve learned about another barometer—the only one I’ve found essential.

I don’t mean some ephemeral, ditzy, of-no-consequence indicator. [I mean, really, would anyone fun in, say, the Mr. Bean way ever use the word, “ephemeral” to describe their sense of fun?]

What I mean by fun is what I call Dipping Myself Into It, or DMII, which, now that I look at the acronym, tellingly resembles the DSM-V. Uh-huh. Spot-on for Babsie. And DMII is more than okay.

Today’s DMII Lasagna Life Lesson went like this. We had a friend over last night for dinner and to watch a movie (old favorite, The Boondock Saints), so I made lasagna, from scratch, to the point that Pam had to talk me out of making my own ricotta, which I really wanted to do because, well, it’s fun! [Mind you, Pam wasn’t trying to kill my fun'. She just didn’t want the whole lasagna project to fail because of the possibility of the homemade ricotta not setting. Wise soul, that Pam.]

You may not find that fun. You might right now be closing this tab and shaking your head at my seeming absurdity. That’s cool. It’s still fun.

This morning, I took a slice to a friend who didn’t close the tab, but who hugged me and indulged me even when I told her that, next time, I will make the ricotta from scratch.

And my heart sang.

She didn’t look at me strangely. She got it. I didn’t need her to not look at me strangely in order to find the encounter with her also fun. We just funned for a moment and went on with our lives.

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I Wonder Then …

… if the things in the struggle list above can’t be funned. Imma gonna give it a try. Future posts, made in the spirit of fun, will let ya know how that ricotta life turns out. Till then, try some lasagna.

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Lamb & Sausage Strega Lasagna

Prep Time: 1hr Cook Time: 40-55min Total Time: 1.75-2hrs Difficulty: Hard Servings: Servings 8

EQUIPMENT

Lg Frying Pan
Spatula, wooden or silicone
Lg slotted spoon
Disposable container, for fat
Stand Mixer, w/ beater
Lg Saucepan, w/ lotsa salt
Tongs, to remove noodles from blanching
Olive Oil Cooking Spray
9x13in (23x33cm) baking dish
Ladle
Meat/Baking Thermometer
Grater

INGREDIENTS

Meat Filling:
2-3T olive oil
1 lg onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1lb (454g) lamb, ground
1lb (454g) Italian sausage, ground
0.5C (120ml) red wine
0.5C (120ml) stock
1t rosemary, ground

Cheese Filling:
2 lg eggs, beaten
1lb (454g) ricotta cheese
4 oz (113g) shredded mozzarella, plus more for topping
4 oz (113g) shredded provolone, plus more for topping
3⁄8C (40g) Parmesan cheese, grated, plus more for topping
3⁄8C (40g) Romano cheese, grated, plus more for topping
1t Italian seasoning
1t basil, dried
1t oregano, dried
1t Parsley, dried
1t salt
1t pepper
1⁄4t nutmeg, ground 1⁄8t pepper

Pasta:
12 Homemade Lasagna Noodles [recipe to come in future post]

Red Sauce:
4C (950ml) Sunday Strega-Cauldron Spaghetti Sauce (Marinara or Meat)

Topping:
Grated mixture of mozzarella, provolone, Parmesan, & Romano cheeses

DIRECTIONS

Red Sauce

1. The night before, make sauce per Sunday Strega-Cauldron Spaghetti Sauce (Marinara or Meat) recipe.

Pasta

2. Make pasta per Homemade Lasagna Noodles recipe [recipe to come in future post].

Meat

3. Heat olive oil in frying pan and brown lamb, sausage, onion, and garlic, adding red wine and stock in small amounts as mixture sautés. Season w/ rosemary as you go.

4. Once browned, transfer mixture to bowl w/ slotted spoon and drain fat into separate container, to be discarded after cooling. Set aside meat to cool.

Cheese Filling

5. In mixer bowl, combine Cheese Filling ingredients, and beat on low speed (KitchenAid 1-2), till combined. Set aside, or cover & refrigerate till needed.

Blanch Pasta

6. Bring heavily salted saucepan of water to boil.

7. Blanch 3 lasagna noodles at a time in boiling water 1 min then transfer to clean kitchen towel to dry.

Assembly

8. Pre-heat oven to 400°F/200°C (425°F/210°C, High Altitude).

9. Oil baking dish. Set aside.

10a. Ladle and spread thin layer red sauce on baking dish bottom, and line with single layer of lasagna noodles.

10b. Repeat thin layer of red sauce on previous layer of lasagna noodles, then spread layer of cheese filling over that. Line cheese with next layer of lasagna noodles.

10c. Repeat thin layer of red sauce on previous layer of lasagna noodles, then spread layer of meat filling over that. Line meat with next layer of lasagna noodles.

10d. Repeat Steps 10b-c, till you have 6 total layers.

11. Top with final layer of red sauce and grated cheese mixture.

12. Bake uncovered 10-15min, then tent top of baking dish with foil, baking another 30-40 min, till golden and bubbling. Thermometer should read at least 165°F (74°C) when probe inserted into center/middle of lasagna.

13. Rest 10 min, then cut and serve, topped with red sauce.

I’ve finished (finally) with my latest book, a work of witchy philosophy called Magik: A Witch on How to Enchant the World. It’s the most deeply ranging non-fiction work I’ve written—a history of the arc of Western thought and how it both exudes and suppresses the magik that would save us as a species. So, yeah, I lack ambition.

As I’ve noted elsewhere, I delve into stuff the average person doesn’t. I’ve never fit in, and I exacerbate that by digging deeper, then digging in my heals when my weirdness is pointed out to me. (Fr’instance, I use the word “exacerbate” when I could as easily say “make it worse.”) I don’t do it because I’m trying to show I’m smart (I don’t think I am), but that’s one of the more mild results of using dime-store words and concepts.

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Smarty-Pants

I want readers to dig deeper with me … ‘cuz, well, it’s fun, and I hope I’m not the only one who thinks so.

I’m the person who, when reading an article or a book with a term or concept I don’t recognize, goes and looks it up. I pack my prose with those unearthed gems, ‘cuz I want you to dig up this cool stuff for yourself. Also, I’m naively optimistic that readers wanna know that arcanery.

I don’t just try to make my point. Oh, no! Once I’ve made the point, I heap on another illustration, with another concept/metaphor/analogy. Partly because I think it’s cool how seemingly different things are really deep-down connected. And I operate with the notion that perhaps someone out there who hasn’t gotten my point will now get it, if I just heap on another concept/metaphor/analogy. Hemingway would never stop vomiting if he came back today and read me.

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My Loving Editor

Pam is my ultimate editor. The poor thing graciously reads everything I write before I publish it, if only to stop me from bugging her. (“Whadja think? Huh? Huh?”) She’s pointed out to me the above tendency, saying things like, “Babe, you landed the plane three chapters back. Why are you still flying on the tarmac?”

These are things to ponder before you enter into a 40-year relationship with your local Babsie of choice. Caveat emptor.

Ozzy

Yesterday, in her editing of my 87th draft of Magik, Pam pointed out a reference I make to “Ozymandias”. Now, at her request, I’m taking a poll.

Regardless of your answer, I’m still not gonna stop being the magik I am. In fact, even if the poll returns a solid 89.567% of “¿Que?”, I won’t stop packing oddball references into my writing, on the off chance that the 10.433% might see what I mean from that extra, esoteric angle I add in. Such is my life. Like Cottage Loaf.

I could make bread the conventional way, as it’s easier to slice into butterable pieces of toast and regular-form sandwiches. But it’s a COTTAGE LOAF, people! I had to look this up from another age entirely. Isn’t it cool? Might 10.433% of you groove on its very existence? Hell, yes, I’m betting the farm on it!

And it’s worth it. (Even though Pam is right, and I could save my readers the extra effort, even as they grumble that I’m virtue-signaling my smarts [that I really don’t have].) To all a good night.

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Ozzy’s Cottage Loaf

Prep Time: 30min, + 3hrs proving Cook Time: 30min Total Time: 4hrs Difficulty: Medium Servings: 12-15 slices

EQUIPMENT

Baking Scale
Sifter
Large Bowl
Stand Mixer w/ Bowl & Dough-Hook attachment (optional)
Proving Container
Baking sheet
Parchment Paper
Knife
Plastic Proving Bag
Baking stone (optional)
Bread/Pizza paddle
Toothpick/Skewer (optional)

INGREDIENTS

3⅔C (500g) strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
2¼t (7g) instant dried yeast
½-1C (40-80g) sourdough starter, also known as a "levain" (optional)
1⅛t (7g) fine salt
scant ¼C (40g) caster sugar
scant 3T (40g) unsalted butter, grated or softened & cut into small pieces,
1T Olive Oil, plus extra for oiling proving container
⅔C (160 ml) milk, whole
⅔C (160 ml) cold water
Cooking Spray (optional)

DIRECTIONS

DOUGH & 1ST PROVE

1a. Sift flour into large bowl (or bowl of stand mixer). Add yeast (plus optional sourdough starter/levain) to one side and salt & sugar to the other.

1b. In separate vessel, combine milk and water.

1c. Add butter, olive oil, and 3⁄4 of water to bread dough bowl.

1d. Mix with fingers, gradually adding more water, till you pick up all flour from bowl sides. (Depending on your climate and conditions of the day, you may use less, full amount, or more water to get a soft—but NOT soggy dough.)

[Alternatively, mix at med-low speed (4 on KitchenAid), adding more of the milk/water combo as needed. Knead dough in mixer for 5-7 minutes, till dough starts slapping sides of mixer bowl, or dough is at windowpane stage (see below).]

2a. [Not needed if using stand mixer.] Tip dough onto lightly floured workspace and knead 5–10 minutes. As you knead, dough will move from sticky to smooth and silky.

(Baking B*tch Tip #1: Do the windowpane test with the dough: if you can stretch it between your fingers till you see light through it, without it tearing, then you’ve properly kneaded.)

2b. Put dough in oiled proving container or lightly oiled bowl, place bowl in plastic proving bag, or cover bowl with tea towel. Prove 2-3 hrs, till double in size.

(Baking B*tch Tip #2: If you don’t have a proving drawer, but you do have an over-the-stove microwave with a stove light nestled under it, turn on the light over the stove. Close covered dough bowl in microwave. The warmth of the bulb and the sealed microwave interior creates an ideal proving environment. I do this for all my yeast-based doughs.)

2c. While dough proves, layer baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

SHAPING & 2ND PROVE

3. Tip dough onto lightly floured workspace (don't over-flour). Fold inwards repeatedly to knock out air.

4a. Tear off 1⁄3 of dough, and set aside. (To be exact, you can first weigh entire dough, then tear off 1⁄3 of weight.)

4b. With hands, flatten larger portion into rectangle (long side facing you), then roll rectangle into a thick tube/cylinder shape.

4c. Turn tube so one short edge faces you, and flatten slightly with hands.

4d. Fold each short end of cylinder up and into center, both folded ends meeting each other. Press down to create a chunky, square-like, sandwich shape.

4e. Turn over "sandwich" so seams of your fold are now underneath. (All these shaping movements are changing the structure of the glutens, to allow you a puffy, taut, cottage-loaf shape.)

4f. Put your palms up on either side of sandwich, and backs of hands on floured workspace. Tuck the edges of palms just under each side of sandwich.

4g. Now, push in palms to curl under the dough on each side, turn 1⁄4 and repeat this tucking motion. Continue turning and tucking, to fashion a silky smooth, tight top, even as you mold the dough into a domed, circle shape.

4h. Put dough dome on parchmented baking sheet. Set aside

5a. Repeat Steps 4b-g^^ for smaller 1⁄3 dough.

5b. Put smaller 1⁄3 on top of larger dome, and flatten top gently with palm of one hand.

6a. CRITICAL STEP: Flour middle and fore fingers, then insert together through centre of both domes, all the way till fingertips touch baking sheet.

6b. With knife, make 8 slashes around diameter of both bottom and top domes.

7. Put baking sheet inside proving bag and prove 1hr, till risen and springy if pressed with fingertip.

BAKE

8. 30 min before end of prove, put rimmed baking tray on oven bottom rack, and preheat oven to 425°F/220°C (450°F/230°C high altitude).

Baking B*tch Tip #3: I keep a baking stone in my oven, using bread/pizza paddle to taking loaf (with parchment paper) off baking sheet and place on pre-heated stone. I remove loaf with a bread/pizza paddle inserted between parchment and stone.

9a. Just before bake, pour vessel of hot tap water into baking tray on bottom rack. 9b. Remove tin from plastic bag, lightly dust loaf with flour, then place in oven.

10. Bake 25-30min, till risen and mystically golden brown. (You can poke bread with a toothpick/skewer to test doneness, if you're not sure. If pokey thingy comes out with gunk on it, ze bread ees not done.)

11. After removing from oven, cool 5 min. Transfer bread from tin to wire rack to finish cooling.

We’ve opened what we perceive to be a chasm between ourselves and nature. (Or, perhaps we’ve always operated under the assumption that we’re irrevocably divided from Sister Cosmos.)

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Being Human’s A Full Time Job

Taming and subduing nature presupposes that we’re inherently different from the natural realm. Methinks we put too much stock in this self-proposed singularity. So long as we view ourselves as the only aspect of nature that self-consciously perceives and creates, we too easily fall into the trap of seeing nature as randomly monstrous … merely because the cosmos speaks a language and thought that we haven’t detected, let alone translated.

And why is that?

From the get-go of philosophic inquiry, we haven’t shaken the hunch that if only we grasped our human essence, we’d have the Rosetta Stone for breaking the cosmic code. The witches among us realize that Sister Cosmos doesn’t speak in code. We do … because we’re hiding ourselves from a terrible secret.

What If, Deep Down, We’re Monsters?

To call natural processes blind and random reflects our intransigent blindness to its ways … and to ourselves. Positing that humankind arose from random natural processes, our era is obsessed with the awkward realization that so-called human order and intelligent design spring ultimately from arbitrary biochemical arrangements. In short, we won the lottery when the wilderness led to us.

But why us? Did it have to be that way? If it didn’t hafta be, then what if wildness isn’t the opposite of personhood, but personhood itself? Perhaps that’s why popular culture is titillated with zombie narratives. Could it be that everything we plan, accomplish, and strive for is nothing more than mindless stumbling about?

After all, without caring a fig for our mores, civilized conduct, and legal codes, nature managed to come up with, well, us. In that light, our pursuit of order is a stopgap till we decode what’s really going on at the heart of reality.

Yeah, I Know

I too easily get depressed as shit and have discovered that, to get on with my life, I must depend on a grand simplification:

1. That I didn’t get here by accident.

2. Because, if it ain’t accident, then I’m here for something.

3. And that something demands sustenance for the journey.

So, I Bake

And write and paint. And go to work. And love Pam. And pet the kitties. Thus far, our practical tests as human beings have confirmed the three points above. Yet, every age terrifies itself that this time, the tests of science, art, literature, and plain old gumption to live another day will finally meet their match. Our monstrousness will undo the whole damn thing, like a Rube Goldberg machine sprocketing out of control.

The big picture of all my pixelated joys, desperate times, and slogging about comes into focus every now and then. Regardless of whether I encounter my times with sadness or joy, I am, as I do the encountering, on my way, like Jim Morrison says:

I looked at you
You looked me
I smiled at you
You smiled at me

And we're on our way
No, we can't turn back
Yeah, we're on our way
And we can't turn back

'Cuz it's too late
Too late, too late
Too late, too late

I think what Jimbo means by “too late” isn’t an apocalyptic point of no return. We’re on our way such that the past moment isn’t something we can return to. We don’t know what’s coming. Through it all, we’re here, which is as practical a test as any.

That’s something I’ll be baking for the rest of my existence. Here’s some ice cream for the road.

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Decadent B*tch Chocolate Existential Ice Cream

Prep Time: 20 min, 6-12 hr cure Total Time: 6.3-12.3 hrs
Difficulty: Easy Servings: 1-1.5L

EQUIPMENT

Sm mixing bowl
Whisk
Med saucepan
Sifter
Hand mixer, or immersion blender
2 airtight containers, one for curing ice cream base
& the other for storing finished ice cream

INGREDIENTS

0.5C (100g) granulated (caster) sugar
2T (16g) dry milk powder
0.25t xanthum gum
2T (43g) agave syrup (or light corn syrup)
1.3C (315ml) whole milk
seeds of 1 vanilla pod (or 1t vanilla paste or 1½t vanilla extract)
2 packets of your favorite hot-cocoa mix
Dark chocolate chips
Milk chocolate chips
sea salt, coarse
1.3C (315ml) heavy cream
2 eggs

DIRECTIONS

1. In sm mixing bowl, whisk sugar, milk powder, and xanthum gum till fully combined.

2. To med saucepan, add syrup, then whisk in whole milk and vanilla.

3a. Add sugar mixture from Step 1 to saucepan and vigorously whisk to smoothness.

3b. Sift in cocoa powder and whisk till fully combined.

3c. Chuck in the contents of the hot-cocoa packets and again whisk till your wrist falls off.

3d. Over med heat, whisk often, adjusting heat to prevent simmer, till all that dusty shit fully dissolves, combines, and reaches 175°F/80°C (3-5 min).

4. In first airtight container, add cream and eggs, beating the insanity out of that glop with a hand mixer or immersion blender. (You may need a blast shield for this.)

5. Remove pan from heat and pour into Step-4 glop, beating with mixer/immersion blender till fully creamy, effervescent, and combined [I’m kidding about the effervescence; just seeing if you’re really following the recipe or not]. (Also, you’ll need that blast shield again, unless you like your kitchen and entire body flecked with chocolate glop.)

6. Transfer base to airtight container and refrigerate at least 6 hrs up to 24 hrs. (Curing longer in fridge allows proteins to relax for the creamiest texture and tastiest flavor. Don't kid yourself by hurrying this crucial step. You want the most decadent chocolate ice cream you've ever eaten? Cure this bad girl the maximum time.)

7a. Next morning, remove base from its cure in fridge and whisk. (Base will separate during cure, so it needs recombining.)

7b. Pour base into ice cream maker and churn till mixture reaches soft-serve consistency (15-25 min).

8. Transfer to frozen airtight container and layer parchment paper directly onto ice cream to prevent ice crystals from forming.

14. Seal container (it's okay if parchment paper flows over edges of container) and place in freezer at least 6 hrs (better if 12+ hrs).

NOTES

Store leftovers in same airtight container, always applying the parchment paper to ice cream surface, to prevent ice-crystal formation.

One day, I went into work and noticed that the little Pride flag I keep at my front-desk location in our medical clinic seemed all wrinkly, like someone had crumpled it up. I was readying myself for a busy day, so I thought nothing more of it.

Then a week later, in the midst of another busy day, I looked over to see that not only was the flag crumpled, but it also bore a slur, that the following photo shows.

Apparently, the defacer didn’t think I’d gotten the message via the crumpling. Now, it had to be vandalism to make their point.

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Facing the Defacer

Now, if you’ve read a post o’ mine or two, or one of my books, you’ll know I’m a loud and proud trans woman. In no way have I ever been what the defacer describes in their crudely written slur. Heck yeah, I’m a lesbian. Been one for 40+ years. Never been attracted to the dudes (nothing against you, dudes; you just don’t stir my cuppa tea).

This makes me suspect that the defacer has never met me, and, if they did, prolly would not have a clue I’m trans. If they had, I theorize, they’d’ve scrawled out an entirely different slur. I dunno.

I showed the defaced Pride flag to my coworkers, supervisor, and the physicians in our clinic. To a person, they recoiled at it. I’d never thought it had been one of them.

In the end, though, it doesn’t matter who it was. It happened.

All of us live by totems. Ultra-modern, progressive, technologically savvy people that we be, we’re no different from our ancestors of 60,000 years ago who applied their handprints and portraits of beasts on the cave walls of Lascaux. Hand silhouettes left in the caves weren’t a novelty. Their sheer numbers show it was expected. The beautiful rendering of a buffalo or deer was the one-of-a-kind masterpiece. Handprints, on the other hand (ahem), confirmed life as we experience it.

Buffalo didn’t dip hooves in brightly colored mud to mark their presence in a cave. We did. We continued that effort right on through the Medieval illumination of ancient manuscripts. A monkish scribe, like the rest of us, longs to say, “Hey! I’m here!”[1]

These cave paintings aren’t unique to Lascaux but can be found throughout the world. In them, we see something recognizable that bridges the millennia between us and our ancestors. Namely, that sense of still being here even though we feel like our world’s coming undone.

Undone

And I felt that way when I discovered the slur on my little flag. I felt defaced. I also felt humiliated that whoever scratched it on my property hit the mark, done the dirty deed, sent the message. It worked. I hurt. And the world hurt that little bit more because of it.

As has so regularly and indispensably done in recording the Niagara Falls of legislative hatred poured onto trans persons in Republican-dominated (better described as “gerrymandered”) states, people in halls of power want to shape our totems. Someone saw my flag as a challenge, a totem against what they think/believe/feel, and they defaced it in an attempt to rob it of its power. Ever wonder why the Egyptian Sphinx has no nose? Our predecessors believed that cutting off the noses of statues would spite the import of what the statue meant. Hate so-called “godless” pagan cultures of yore? Slice off their noses!

I Nose Better

Deep down, I knew better than to engage in a pissing match with a hater. I will never be able to address or heal that person’s need to spite what they’ve been propagandized into seeing as the be-all/end-all evil.

That’s not my job. And it’s not yours.

What we can do is answer with our lives. As we’re alive. In our living.

So, I promptly brought into work a little trans flag. I figure if anyone’s gonna deface that with a slur, they oughta approach some semblance of accuracy. And my displaying the trans flag wasn’t a one-upping, in-your-face reply. I’m me. I love me. I love my peeps. And I ain’t gonna stop being me as loud and proud as I always do.

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An Answer

A few days later, I found the following item on my desk.

Someone of the better angels gifted it to me and hasn’t come forward to say they were the good soul who did it.

And that’s more than good-enough for me, and for all of us.

You see, it’s an answer.

There’s never been a question as to any of us being who we are, ‘cuz, well, we are. You can deface us, legislate against us, even kill us. But you’ll never wipe out our existence. “We’re here!” proclaim our handprints. Cutting off our noses to spite our faces only gives a testament to the ages that you can’t handle life in all its wondrous, varied, beautiful forms.

That’s on you, bro.

On me is a smile.

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[1] In the margin of one 11^th century illuminated manuscript is written, “This is sad! O little book! A day will come in truth when someone over your page will say, ‘The hand that wrote it is no more.’” The Atlantic. 21 March 2012.

Dad was a sweet, laid-back guy, except when intent on fulfilling the abstractions the world foisted on him. Mom would tell me stories about him growing up, and of course those tales made me laugh. But sometimes it was a nervous laugh, like the ones she told of when he was a late teen and young adult. They were so different from the times when he did his best to be the manly husband and father. He couldn’t help from cracking a smile and ushering a long “Ummmmmm” in the back of his throat till one of us cracked up at him.

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It Was in Papa’s Genes, I Tells Ya!

I never knew my paternal grandfather, who died of a massive heart attack some six years before I was born. Long after Mom and Dad divorced, Mom still still talked affectionately about Pap Otis, my Dad’s dad.

“Oh, your grandpa was such a sweet man. Nothing ever seemed to get him down!” Mom would say.

“He was always happy-go-lucky, even though he worked hard for the railroad through the Depression to make a home for Grandma Gert, your dad, and Uncle John. And your dad and John would mercilessly make fun of him! Why, not too long after your dad and I were married, we were staying one night at your grandparents’ place. Pap Otis loved his cake doused in milk! He’d even sleepwalk to get it in the middle of the night. Well, your dad and John were up late, bullshitting and laughing in the living room, when they saw Pap Otis stumble to the kitchen in his pajamas. They snuck me to the edge of the kitchen with them, to watch Pap Otis, fully asleep, eyes closed, pull from the fridge Grandma Gert’s chocolate cake, cut a piece, plop it in a bowl, and pour milk over it. Then he stood by the open fridge, spooning down the whole thing, all the time, your dad and Uncle John slapping my arm and snickering at their father!”

Mom went on. “I couldn’t see what all the fun was and smacked them back! ‘Why don’t you two idiots let your dad be and enjoy himself!?’ I whispered.

“‘Enjoy himself?’” they asked. “‘Norma, he’s not even awake!’

“Sure enough, Pap Otis would finish his cake, put the bowl in the sink, and stumble back to bed, none the wiser to your dad and John snickering behind him all the way to the bedroom.”

Not Sleepwalking Through Bullshit

Our family laughed like that a lot. We had small tolerance for bullshit. It wouldn’t take long for one of us to burst into guffaws at the ridiculousness of the others.

I’m told that, as a toddler, I had some quirks in my accent, hovering between an Italian patois and Pittsburgh-cabbie dialect. Every night when my parents put me to bed, I commanded them to “Tro-up da covers!” meaning to pull up the blanket over me.

One night in bed, Mom complained to Dad about being cold, and he looked at her and said, “So? Tro-up da covers!”

Distracted Enough to Spit

My dad was a spitter, but we owned no spittoons. He didn’t do snuff or chewing tobacco. He just didn’t like swallowing his loogies, I guess. Routinely, he’d waltz to the bathroom toilet, lift the lid, and hock-tooey into it. But he’d get easily distracted, one time scuttling into the bathroom while Mom brushed her teeth. To Mom, it didn’t sound like the usual ploip of a loogy into the toilet.

“Otis?” she asked Dad as he trundled to the hallway, “Did you just spit into the clothes hamper?”

Dad came back into the bathroom, looking at her like she had three heads. Then, he opened the hamper to see for himself.

He looked up at her. “Yeah, I did.”

Monkey Floated

As I grew up, my choice of friends confirmed this self-idiocy. One of the favorite junior-high pastimes for me and Bob Lombardo, was to do improv over a cassette-tape recorder. One of us would flick it on, with no plan in mind, and take on a character, do an impression, sing a song, and expect the other one to follow along, crafting an improv skit.

The funniest recordings[1] were the ones where we sounded like total buffoons—two morons trying to be something we weren’t, but acting like we were dead serious. For instance, I turned on the recorder and said in a radio-crackly voice, hand cupped around the mic, “Space Station, this is Houston *BZZSTTTZAT* Do you read?”

Bob hopped right in.

“Roger that, Houston *KSZTTTZAT* We have reached optimal orbit. Ready for your instructions. Over.”

“*CRZATSKRKL* Roger that,” I returned. “Space Station, report findings of monkey experiment. Over.”

(We loved putting the other one on the spot, having to think up something, anything, to stay in-time and character.)

Wearing the look of a deer in the headlights, Bob soldiered on.

“Uh, Houston. *PAUSE TWO BEATS* Uh, Houston … erm … monkey floated.”

That is all.

With an upbringing and friends like that, I’ve never been able to sustain over-seriousness … unless it was for abstractions I held sacrosanct.

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And I Do NOT Hold Baking Sacrosanct

No. Baking is a playpen, a sandbox, a ball pit. It’s the opposite of an endeavor; it’s a place to romp in for a while, goofing and trying earnestly at the same, without the demands of our goal-driven American work ethic. The only bottom-line I have in baking is scraping the bottom of the pan while something cooks, to save myself later scrubbing.

Looked at this way, baking is a bottom—not reached by incongruity, as is humor. I start at the bottom, say, with a recipe I haven’t tried before. And feeling like a deer in the headlights, I, with no plan in mind, take on a character and improvise. I record the results in tastebud memory, eating mistakes and successes. It’s the place, the zen comfy chair, where I best learn. Baking heals me to be me.

Unexpected-Party Hobbit Seed Cake

Prep Time: 15min Cook Time: 35-45min Total Time: 1-1.5hr Difficulty: Medium Servings: 8-10 slices

Bilbo Baggins makes seed cakes on the regular. It’s part of what’s baked into him as a hobbit. Bake this goodie into your soul.

EQUIPMENT

9.5in-dia x 2.5in-depth (23x6cm) springform pan
Parchment paper
Stand mixer w/ bowl and whisk & beater attachments
Silicone spatula
Med mixing bowl
Sifter
Whisk
Baking thermometer, w/ probe Wire rack
Airtight container (for storage)

WET INGREDIENTS

1C (200g) unsalted butter softened (2 sticks)
1C (180g) granulated (caster) sugar
3 lg eggs, beaten
1t vanilla extract
1⁄4C brandy

DRY INGREDIENTS

2C (250g) plain flour
1T milk powder
1t baking powder
pinch sea salt
1T caraway seeds
1⁄4t nutmeg, ground
1⁄4t ginger, ground
1⁄4t cinnamon, ground

PRE-BAKE SPRINKLE

1-4t turbinado sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

WET MIX

1a. Preheat oven to 325°F/160°F (350°F/180°C, High Altitude).

1b. Oil springform pan and line with parchment paper.

2. In stand mixer bowl at high speed (KitchenAid 8- 10), whisk butter and sugar till fluffy.

3a. Lower mixer speed to med (KitchenAid 4-5). Scraping sides between additions, add one egg at a time, fully combining each egg before adding another.

3b. Add vanilla and brandy, mixing till combined.

DRY MIX

4. In med bowl, sift in flour, then add other dry ingredients, hand-whisking till thoroughly combined.

BATTER

5a. Change mixer attachment to beater.

5b. With mixer at low speed (KitchenAid 1-2), gradually add half of dry mixture to wet mixture, till combined.

5c. Slowly pour in remaining dry mixture. Don't over-mix, as baking powder is starting to do its thing; you don't want to beat the air out of the batter. Batter should be thick, but not doughy.

6. Tip batter into pan, scraping into pan any excess from sides of mixer bowl.

BAKE

7. Sprinkle turbinado sugar over top of poured batter.

8. Bake 50-60 min, till internal temp is 206°F (97°C) or toothpick poked into middle of cake comes out clean. (The seed cake should be mystically golden brown.)

9. Set out 5 min to cool, then release springform and grip parchment paper on opposite sides to remove seed cake and finish cooling on wire rack (15-30 min).

10. Divide into pie slices and serve. Store leftovers in airtight container. Freezes well in cling film or airtight silicone bag.

[1] Funniest, at least to me. Pam was mystified as to where the comedy was when I later played them for her, though our kids got the joke … erm, till they hit a normal age of emotional development, like, um, seven.

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I call them “Frustration Dreams” because they invariably end up with me endlessly trying to do/fix/remedy/solve/undo/accomplish and otherwise end an impasse. But I keep trying to no avail.

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When I was younger, the dreams involved an opponent. Not a bully or oppressor but someone so stupid, so oppressive in their sheer idiotic audacity that I found myself repeatedly punching or clubbing them to no effect. They didn’t even bounce back like the clown in Uncle Buck. No, no matter how hard the blow, how many times I landed a right hook, they took it, smiling even. I smashed them square in the face, and they smiled and stayed there, in my way, with no way to get past them.

As I’ve grown older, my frustration dreams increasingly involve insolvable problems, like knots that never release, even as I turn my fingers into knots trying to untangle ‘em. Or I need to do a single task, and we’re not talking about the labors of Hercules here. I just want put together a document or machine, but it always falls apart, crumbles under the load, stays in disarray, or snaps at the fulcrum, even when I use adamantium.

The most frustrating are the dreams where I’m trying to say something. Again, not a Gilbert and Sullivan opera libretto, mind you. Just simply trying to communicate a needed message that Sideshow Bob in the worst throes of existential angst could pull off, but me? Nooooooooo way, José! I simply can’t get across what has to be said, like, “Wait! Don’t touch that!” or “Aauuugh! I can’t take it anymore!” or something simple like, “No!”

Well, after 59 years, I’ve gotten frustrated with frustration dreams. Telling myself, “Self, you ain’t gonna have a frustration dream!” before I go to bed does absolutely nothing to alter whether they happen. Tracking when they happen in my sleep cycle, what I eat before bed, and reading tea leaves and goat entrails offer no clues as to what triggers them.

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A few months ago, though, a voice said to me (yes, I listen to the voices in my head; they’ve been sent there by my heart, so don’t call 911 just yet):

“Babsie, why don’t you just let them go?”

“What?” my voluble self retorted. “You mean, just let ‘em happen? What if I don’t wake up and get trapped in an eternal frustration, like the Hippie (John Astin) in the Night Gallery episode, “Hell’s Bells”?

“You’ll never know until you try,” whispered the voice.

“Just let it happen?” I asked.

“Uh-huh,” the voice nodded her head, “without getting antsy.”

“‘Antsy’?”

“In your pantsies.”

So, I tried her advice, saying to myself each night that, if I were trapped in another Morpheus-inspired frustration loop, I’d not try to solve it, punch it into oblivion, get past it, or unknot it.

‘Cuz here’s the thing: What do I need to do so badly that I have to solve the situation no matter the cost?

Since then, I’ve had my frustration dreams, with the same encroaching dread. I initially tried to blast away the roadblock, but instead of growing more frustrated as it failed to budge, I just kept going at it like it was the thing to do. Like it wasn’t something to “get beyond” but to live with. To let it be.

With each frustration dream I have these days, I don’t get a solution to the puzzle, a doorway through the wall I’ve run into, an untying of the Gordian knot. And it’s beginning not to bother me. In fact, it’s kinda fun just letting it play out. It’s weird, staying in the moment of insolubility, finally realizing that I don’t need to solve it.

When I think about it, it doesn’t need me to solve it for it and me to be who we are. Perhaps it’s something to become acquainted with. Instead of getting past it, I’m here to live it.

I’m learning from this effort to be present. Not sure what that lesson that is. I’m letting go of lessons … to let me be me, especially when I’m prone to fear of frustration.

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