greatly exaggerated

Good morning, my darlings. I am not dead.

Let me explain some of where I have been, because it has been a while and I have had some very sweetly worried e-mails. To begin with, well, life exploded. As any of you who've been reading me for a while can imagine, I have been dealing with a lot of trauma--from rape, abuse, police brutality, and more--that I am finally, finally biting the bullet and working through. That takes a lot out of me. Add that to twelve-hour workdays and six-day workweeks, local community work, school applications, and actually showing up for a committed relationship, and it's all I can do to squeeze in time to write or the emotional energy to handle the Internet. I mean, last time I posted, I actually had someone berate me for espousing hope, because nothing is worse than hope. Some time around then, I just decided it was time to take a little break from this world where I get hate mail for statements like "you are lovable" and "hope is okay" and "sometimes things hurt and nothing is wrong with you." So there's that.

So let me tell you some of what I've been up to, given that:

I'm currently applying to attend a social-justice seminary program. It is time, even in these scary economic conditions, to be brave and stop wasting my energy and hope and time on a day job that doesn't let me use what I have in the service of my community. It's time to actually put my money where my mouth is and follow a calling toward greater opportunities for service. (I don't know where the money's coming from, of course. As Zhu Xi said in the Song Dynasty, "If in your learning you don't progress, it's because you're not bold.")
I'm getting married in July, which, as you may imagine, takes up a lot of space in my head. The secret magic bridesmaid roster includes Internet People who you may know. Together, we are resisting the wedding-industrial complex as fiercely as possible, and I have derived a certain amount of comfort from Offbeat Bride.
I have been hustling. I participated in the keynote at this year's AMC and am now busy working to make next year's even better. I did amazing shows in San Francisco, Seattle, and the East Bay alongside truly incredible writers and activists I admire, like Gina de Vries, Elaina Ellis, Julia Serano, Ela Barton, Ryka Aoki de la Cruz, Nalo Hopkinson, Miss Cherry Galette, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Nomy Lamm, and many more. I got to learn from some of the best out there and really grow as a writer and performer, and spent a lot of time on planes and trains with my pen out, squeezing in words wherever I could and finding new loved ones everywhere I went.
I made my first chapbook, a compilation of some of my work on monstrousness, resistance, and dangerous love, and it has been selling enough that I may need to do another print. It's called "All Of Them With Teeth: Monster Hymns and Sermons" and if you'd like your own copy, get in touch with me!
I'm also making my magazine debut in February. I will keep you posted, everyone.

So with that laid down, I want to emphasize: it is time, for me. I am available for speaking and teaching engagements, for commission, for publishing, and for showing up and preaching wherever you feel someone needs to hear it. I have heard over and over that my work is being read in classrooms around the country, in conference keynotes and resistance actions, written on skin and taped to mirrors. If you want me and my voice there to do that reading, let me know and I will do my best to show up. It's time for hands in hands and voices raised.

That is: "lately" has been frigging exhausting. But moving forward, and moving up, and moving through. For those of you still out there, I've missed you, and I hope this time has been one of growth for you, too.

I'll be back when I can. I am, as always, available at takingsteps *at* gmail *dot* com.