Written December 27, 2020

That term came to me during a worship set as I mentally had to check out for fifteen minutes as the worship leader started to cry and eek out words she could barely get out as she then led the congregation into a song, repeating the lyrics I just want to love you over and over again ad nauseam. The crowd remained pretty unaffected for the majority of it until the drums crescendoed and every was swept up into what they thought was the moving of the Spirit when in actuality it was musical manipulation. There is a tension in music just like foreplay and eventually there will be release. And this was the phrase that came to mind as I stomached 20 min of someone onstage having a gay ole time but incognizant of the experiences of those she was supposed to be leading.

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever had a romantic partner write you a poem or a song or a card? Did it say I love you 18k times? Would you be moved by that repetition or would you chalk it up to laziness? I’m gonna bet the latter. And what if after 10 repeats you said, okay cool I get it, thank you, and they replied no I really want to keep telling you this one thing and you’re then like, cool?


So now I’m talking about lazy ass songwriting and musical masterbation all in one piece here. They’re two different things that plague modern Christian “worship” and I use quotes here because half of what I experience in church music isn’t worship. It’s shitty lyrics put to shitty chord progressions and I am BORED! And I have a sneaky suspicion, so is God.


Now let me ask another question, shouldn’t the people tapped into the Holy Spirit be the most creative powerful artists walking this earth? Shouldn’t non Christians hear a little bit of our worship music and be like, damn! What is that, that’s so interesting? But no. It’s Sesame Street music in its skill and intelligence, and I know no adult who gets super jazzed about singing twinkle twinkle little star on repeat. But that’s what we’re asking congregants in The Church to do, and I am not having it.


If the Church is the bride and we the church are waiting in earnest for our Bridegroom, our lyrics and music, which is an outpouring of our longing for God, should be seeped in intense, mature music.


The best worship music feels like a sexual romp. The best kind of romps - playful, engaging, building, intimate, deep, cutting into our souls until it culminates into an explosion of sound and release. And if the word of God is as sharp as a sword, cutting between bone and marrow, why are we not using the Word of God as our lyrics? I kinda feel like He’s already penned enough lyrics for the rest of time, let’s try some of them out! Not saying He doesn’t have some new things to say, but I’m pretty sure it’s not I love you I love you I love you 18k times in a row.


Be better Christian leaders. Dig deeper. God is worth more than pithy lyrics and simple music.

So I just want to go on the record, because if my predictions are right, then I want them to be commemorated. Statistically speaking, I'm wrong by a million percent, but in the off chance I'm the long star teller on this, I want to show that I've been thinking this a while. No one reads this site; no one will see this, so it doesn't really matter what I say here because no one's gonna see it. BUT if months from now we're staring back at what my predictions are, I want to go on the record and say that I TOLD YOU SO.

This coronavirus. And no, I'm not gonna call it that scary COVID 19 name because that sounds serious and ominous and plays into this whole frantic fear based hysteria the entire WORLD has fallen into. It started out as being called coronavirus and I'm gonna keep calling it that because it sounds much more benign than COVID ROBOT 2358198 which I guess is supposed to make me sit up straight and pay attention because THIS IS SERIOUS PEOPLE!!! THOUSANDS ARE GONNA DIE FROM THIS!!! HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ARE GOING TO GET SICK AND MOST OF THEM WILL BE TOTALLY FINE BUT WE'RE GONNA SOUND THE ALARM AND MAKE EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD GIVE A SHIT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR GD LIVES!!!!!!!!

No one gives a shit about the thousands of people that die every day to totally preventable things like guns or car accidents or heart disease or the seasonal flu. We just accept that as well, that's how life has been for decades because when the numbers started creeping up, no one was that connected to spew the stats out and the media had better things to report on I guess. But now there's this "flu" that is HIGHLY contagious and kills one percent more people than the common flu and yet we're all gonna lose our minds and the entire world literally has to stop and go inside because...because...I'm not exactly sure why, the science doesn't really hold up, but we're all gonna go inside and pretend that's gonna do something. I mean sure maybe it'll slow the spread down a bit, but  NEWS FLASH this thing is gonna infect us all, and the only real way to protect yourself is to board yourself up in your house and NOTHING I MEAN NOTHING comes in. This half-ass don't congregate in groups of 10 is bullshit - it's probably down to 5 now - but either way, it's bullshit. The science doesn't add up. The reason we're seeing a spike in cases is because we actually have tests for it now available in this country. And the reason we don't realize how more rampant it is is because we're not testing every individual with a pulse, but my money says WAY more people have it and therefore it's WAY LESS harmful than everyone thinks. Oh it's contagious to be sure - that part sounds right, but what doesn't add up is the hysteria over the number of people that will die from this. What is it now, 10k? 10k in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD?! Yawn. Wake me up when there's something of notability. 10k out of 8 BILLION is nothing. 4k die EVERY DAY due to traffic accidents, so pardon me if I am not sharing in your panic of the number of people that have died from this that have died in the last 2 1/2 days. Forgive me for not giving a rip over the 250 dead here in the US to date when about half that die EVERY DAY due to gun violence in this country. I don't see anyone declaring. a national WALK TO WORK day or a national KEEP YOUR GUN IN THE SAFE day. That would save THOUSANDS, literally THOUSANDS in a matter of ONE DAY, but the thing about cars and guns? They're not invisible. And when something is invisible, like ghosts, we get scared. The whole world freaking out is about control and this false sense of security people walk around with. On a GOOD DAY the flu vaccine is 30% effective. 30%. Meaning 70% of people who get the vaccine are 100% as vulnerable as the rest. We lose about 25k to the flu every year in this country, but I don't remember anyone yelling at me to wash my hands or to stay home out of solidarity to the old people who might be contaminated from my very existence. Nonsense. You didn't give a shit about the immune compromised or the old until you were scared into thinking you were just as vulnerable as they. Again, NEWS FLASH!, you're just as vulnerable as you were one month ago before this hysteria ensued. Your chances of getting sick and dying of something else are greater than this dreaded coronavirus, but everyone's been brainwashed into thinking we gotta act like it's the end of the world. It's not. You're just realizing how little control you have. I guess I'm one of the few who's realized we never had any to begin with.
I just got home a few minutes ago. I was at another person's apartment and got a ride-share home.  It's 2am on a Saturday night in Manhattan. I asked the driver how it's been this evening. He was wearing a blue mask and surgical gloves. He tells me he's been at work since 5pm and I am his FIRST passenger. FIRST. In 9 HOURS!!!! You mean to tell me I'm the ONLY person taking a VIA somewhere on the midtown east side that's using a ride app in 9 hours?!?! I knew I was wildly overly cool about this whole thing, but you mean to tell me I'm the ONLY one using this car service on an island of 8 million people in 9 hours time? So, I'm going on the record to give my piddly opinion. I hope everyone else is wrong. Not because I want to be right, but because me being right means this thing is way less deadly and we all need to take a serious chill pill and breathe. I'm not discounting the thousands of lives that have been ravaged by this disease. But I AM gonna put it in perspective and be somewhat skeptical to the demands that I give a shit and change my entire life over something that we're still figuring out and that to date has still taken way less lives than most things that kill us humans.

I’m sorry I slept with your husband, but
 

1. Maybe you shouldn’t have stopped having sex with him. Sex is the only action reserved for couples. You can raise kids with someone else, you can share a bank account with someone else. You can run a company with someone else. You can live with someone else. But sex is the only thing that really separates two individuals from an actual couple. So when you remove that, you kinda remove the core of the thing, so then don’t be surprised when the whole marriage collapses.
2. You’re not the only one who’s been betrayed. Don’t act like you are special. You’re not. Most people cheat or get cheated on. It’s a big club, and it’s a shitty club, but your incredulousness at the fact you’ve been betrayed is a little sickening. Especially because:
3. You were once a mistress too. Please don’t act all high and mighty as if such action is beneath you. It’s not. The only thing beneath you was the married man you slept with who was married to someone else. He had a wife and kids just like you do now. I hate to say what goes around comes around but
4. What goes around comes around.
5. Marriage isn’t a one and done thing. It’s a living organism, and if you stop tending to it, it will die. Seems to me that you thought once you said I do, you’d done everything you needed to do to wrap that milestone up. Marriage? Check. House? Check. Kids? Check. Wait, but what if you stopped feeding your kids? Just decided that was one part of you being a parent you didn’t really want to deal with anymore? People would think you were a monster. But, you could say, I do so much else for them! I gave birth to them – I gave them life! Isn’t that good enough?! You know how ridiculous this sounds, so why apply this same argument to marriage? Because you are. You gotta feed and nurture marriage, and if you don’t, don’t be surprised when it dies.
6. Your husband isn’t the only one to blame. He has issues, but so do you. In fact, there are probably large looming issues that contributed more to his infidelity that you’re even willing to admit. Would it be fair to say that you are partially to blame? It would. I know that’s a hard pill to swallow, but take the damn medicine. It’s good for you. Because if you do:
7. You’ll get over it. Those of us who have worked through our shit do. What’s the saying? Unforgiveness is poison you swallow every day hoping someone else will die? I think I mangled that phrase, but you get my point. If you’re still bent out of shape over your ex years later – if you’re still bitter about me, the woman who slept with him – then you still have a lot of work to do. I’m not saying you’re ever gonna like me or not hate me a little, but a healthy person can look back at pain and see their growth from it and be able to look at it a little objectively. At least some parts of it. And if you have no love or compassion for your husband or me, then I’ll say it again, you have work to do.

​Happy Mother’s AND Father’s Day to me
 
 
It was a disagreement that did not sit well with me. Talking with my boyfriend who never knew his father and was reared by his mother, I commented how I like it when children growing up with single moms celebrate their mothers on Father’s Day. “Yeah, my mom always wanted me to do that growing up. I never liked it,” my bf said. “She didn’t do what a father does; no mom can,” and that was that. I deliberately chose not to press him on the matter because I felt heat rise in my face, a tell-tale sign when I’m getting angry. We were on the phone, so I quickly got off and blamed it on work.
 
And our conversation got me to thinking what defines a father from a mother. Clearly in a two parent, two gender household the differences are clear. Mothers are different from Fathers in so much as Mom is different from Dad, but I don’t think any family decides that Mom isn’t so much Motherly if she’s into sports and Dad isn’t so much Fatherly if he stays home with the kids. In whole family homes, you just celebrate mom and dad on their respective days and why put any more thought into it than that? Mom gets celebrated on her day and Dad gets celebrated on his, and everyone is happy.
 
But for the single parent, Mother’s or Father’s Day takes on a whole new meaning. And I don’t mean the single parents who are actually co-parenting. Those parents, though they don’t live together, ARE still in their roles of mom and dad. Maybe one tends to step up more than the other (and let’s be honest, it’s probably the mom if so), but on the whole, single parents who are co-parenting with their ex I’m gonna venture to say don’t wrestle with the same questions and vexations I, a sole single parent, do…does…grammar here??
 
Years ago when my son was young we (my husband and I) had a nanny. She was a single mom with two grown daughters and I remember on Father’s Day her talking on the phone with one of her daughters and cooing and saying thank you and when she got off the phone she recounted how her two girls were wishing her a happy Father’s Day and always have because they told her she did everything a Father would do for them. That really made an impression on me and I’ve carried that sentiment in my heart all these years, and when I finally became a single mom after my divorce and when my ex moved to the opposite side of the country never to see or speak to his son but for a handful of times I year, I found myself feeling very much like my old nanny. But I had a son, not two grown daughters, and he was sorely unaware of how much I want to be honored on Father’s Day. So when my boyfriend quipped he didn’t believe in that sort of thing, my skin burned.
 
So what makes a Father a father? What makes a mother a mother? I’ll start with mothers because they seem to be easier to define:
 
Mothers take care of you when you are sick
Mothers pack your school lunches
Mothers make you breakfast and get you ready for school
Mothers cook dinner
Mothers get involved in your school
Mothers clean the house and do the laundry
Mothers sign you up for extracurricular activities
Mothers remember important dates and make sure you attend them
Mothers teach you etiquette and good manners
Mothers take you to doctors’ appointments
Mothers buy you clothes and school supplies
Mothers decorate the house
Mothers set up play dates
Mothers go grocery shopping
Mothers teach you how to treat a girl
Mothers are softer than Fathers
Mothers are gentle
Mothers kiss you where it hurts
Mothers sing to you at night
Mothers rock you when you’re a baby
Mothers literally carry you in their bodies as a baby
 
All of these traits I carry for my son – except maybe the being softer than Dad part. When I was married, my husband was the softer one in our parenting.
 
What do father do?
 
Fathers teach you how to be a man
Fathers talk to you about sex (if you’re a boy)
Fathers take you to sports games
Fathers teach you how to mow the lawn and do handy work
Fathers teach you how to be tough and throw a punch
Fathers wrestle with you
Fathers throw the ball with you
Fathers teach you how to treat a girl
Fathers buy big purchases like cars
Fathers take you on camping trips and one on one trips
Fathers teach you about finances
Fathers are the breadwinners
Fathers speak for the family
Fathers protect the house and their family
Fathers are tough
Fathers show you how to love a woman
Fathers show you how to respect a man and how to respect a woman and the differences there
 
And half of those I do for my son. The second half actually. I didn’t even intend to write it that way – the first part being things I don’t do and the second part being the things that I do, but what miffs me is that because my son’s father has shirked his responsibilities as a father, I have to pick up the slack, and for that I should be celebrated on Father’s Day as well. All single parents who really truly are doing this on their own, should be celebrated. Maybe I don’t have a penis, but I certainly am the only one teaching my son about how to respect a woman, and though I am terribly underqualified to teach a boy how to be a man, his father isn’t, so that work is left up to me. I don’t even know how to talk to my son about sex – that doesn’t seem to be the department he nor I want to be near together, but it has to be done. Everything my ex shirks, I either pick up the slack or my son misses out on. And this is what keeps me up at night: the guilt of knowing there are things my son is missing out on because I can’t or won’t do them. I’m not taking my son out to throw the football; I don’t want to and I don’t know how to. Every male family member in my son’s life I ask to teach my son sports and they all nod and then don’t follow through. They don’t get it, and after asking so many of them, it becomes unnerving. Don’t they see! Don’t these men see that their grandson/nephew/cousin needs a man in his life and that I’m asking them to cover some of that lost territory?! Is this something I should add to the list of what mothers do: take the emotional and social temperature of their child and act accordingly? But I have to think single Dads would be sensitive to this too. I think it’s the people that AREN’T single parents who don’t get it despite being told, despite being asked. And I guess I can’t blame them – I didn’t think a whole lot about single parents until I was one. I just knew I never wanted to be a single parent! Yet here I am.
 
Making the above list has been helpful because I see that in many ways I’m not a Dad. But in many ways I am, so maybe what would feel right is to be celebrated for half of what makes a Father – or maybe even ¾ of what makes a Dad. I know I don’t embody it all, but I do embody way more than my son’s actual father, so the fact he gets patted on the back every year on a certain day for being a Father seems wrong and is actually quite upsetting. He’s getting half of my glory. Half of my hard work. He craps out a quality here or there and is celebrated simply because he ejaculated inside my vagina and his sperm tackled my egg. Other than that, he’s not contributed much else to the Father category.
 
I deserve to get half celebrations on this day and the fact that I hear almost nil publicly on the subject is surprising to me. In the face of women’s equality and same sex couples with kids, shouldn’t we be exploring what it means to be a father and mother? As we redefine what it means to be a family and gender roles, wouldn’t that include what it means to be a father or mother?
 
And I know my reward is my actual child. First, that I have one as so many want kids and can’t have them. And second, that he is mine. I get the joy of seeing his sweet cherub face every morning when I wake him up and every night when I kiss him to sleep. I get to see that. I get to experience that. I get to talk to him in person every day. I get to hear about his days and who he likes and meet his friends. I get to see his report cards and clutch my proud heart. I get to hear from people on a regular basis what a stellar son I have. And his father experiences none of that. So I guess if he gets a special day once a year, so be it. I know who the real winner is.
 
But it would be nice to get an acknowledgement on this day. Just a word or two to say, hey we see your hard work and we honor that hard work and we also recognize how shitty his father is and even shittier it is for your son how much he misses out. I still would really like to hear something like that. That would be nice. That would go a long way to satisfy the rumbling in my heart. And would cool the heat in my cheeks.
 
BJ
 
 

Happiness is…
 
Two kinds of ice cream, getting along.
 
Five different crayons and I forget the rest of the lyrics.
 
Happiness is sleeping in late,
Chocolate chip cookies,
Fitting into a smaller size
Bumping into friends,
Cute puppies
Avocados
Jason Bourne movies
Great sex
Performing
Warm sunny days
Puffy Clouds in the sky
Texas summer nights
Christmas in New York
The smell of fall
Your boyfriend writing you a song
Laughing with your children
Alex cuddles
God’s smiling
 

​BJ

I came upon this blog I wrote when I lived in LA. It's apropos still today, even in a different town.

Acquaintances. This city is full of acquaintances. I’m so tired of fighting for friendships. Relationships that mean something and actually stand for something. This whole city is full of wannabes – people who are trying to make it in this industry, and yet no one wants to help a brother out. No one, save a few exceptions, wants to support someone beside themselves.
Right now I’m in a show. It’s a big show – My Fair Lady – and I’m playing Eliza – a big role. It’s a damn good production. Our leads are stellar, and everyone I know who’s seen the show is beside themselves. The main mantra I hear is, “I’ve seen this show a thousand times, and this is the best production I have every seen of it – including the movie.” So, with that kind of feedback, I feel confident that if my friend shells out the money and time to come see me in it, they will not be disappointed. It’s also an 8 show a week, 3 month run, so basically, one has about 100 opportunities to see this sucker. It’s also a little out of town, so I’m not around at church or parties these days. In other words, everyone knows where I am and what I’m doing. Before I left I also told everyone, and everyone said they were so excited – that they wanted to come. Again, most of these people are or have been in the industry, so we’re all on the same page of what it is I’m doing and what it is they’re proclaiming to come out and support.
It’s during moments like this, you learn who is a real friend and who isn’t. I’m over, OVER, the lip service. I’m over this fake “I am coming – can’t wait”, then procrastinating til the last weekend and feigning astonishment that the show is sold out. Or even worse, making up some lame reason why you can’t come the last three weekends of the show. What about the other 8? Again, these are not the computer nerds my husband works with that are flaking that I have a problem with. It’s my friends, my close friends, who are in the entertainment industry, who invite me to their shows and their open-mike nights in their kitchen, and I come to see them. I kill myself getting to their shows sometimes. If it’s a one-nighter, I still somehow make it. And yet. And yet, with the close ties, the many opportunities, the industry understanding, and the promises spoken, a whopping 3 people show up to the show. 3. 3 out of I don’t know how many I invited and how many said they’d come without any prompting from me.
So, here’s the end of my rant, and the beginning of my plea. Can you tell I’m pissed? People, get over yourselves and go out and support your friends. The “busy” excuse has got to be eradicated from our lips. No one’s that busy. Okay, maybe a few, but most of us, when we use that lame-o excuse are really just saying, “At the end of the day, I found better things to do.” I would much rather hear that, than “Oh gosh, we wanted  to come, but blah blah blah.” Stand by your word, people. Make plans. Write things on your calendar and go. Whenever I get an invitation, I immediately write the address and phone number of the theatre on my day planner, so I have no excuse. All the information’s there, and when I check my calendar, I already see I have plans and won’t find something to squeeze the event out. This is what friends do. Do I want to go see all my friends shows? No! Do some of my friends have serious lacks of talent, and I know that I’ll be squirming in my seat most the night? Yes! But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m there telling them by my presence that THEY matter. That I love and care for them. And you know what? A lot of times I see GREAT theatre! I see some shows and some actors I never knew about, but they blow me away and it’s really exciting. I get ideas, I get tips, I get monologues, I get casting sneak-peeks, I get inspired, I get moved. And I never regret going.
I once heard someone say, “A friend isn’t someone who necessarily remembers your birthday, but they’re the person that shows up on your doorstep to help you move.”
I think that’s true. It’s the people that sacrifice their time and money that are your real friends. Don’t believe me – look at your credit card or bank statement. Whatever is on there is what’s important to you. If someone called you at the last minute and said they had tickets to go see your favorite band, but you have to go in two hours, would you go? I think so. You’d find the time. Even last minute. Even at a monetary price. If we can do this for strangers, why can’t we do this for our friends?