Lane Smith 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🤘🏻🖤🔥

Watch the full episode 13-minute where Morgan and I talk about a tool you can use when you are fixated to get some perspective.

Available on Youtube as a video, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

This summer much has been changing for me around romance. I’m reminded of something I’ve tried so hard to deny: how scary and vulnerable it is to desire things of other people.

tbh i've never met one of those "good on everything except palestine" people. if you talk to them long enough they're almost always racist, transphobic and shitty to sex workers too

But I've secretly always liked Soundgarden better than Pearl Jam (I like them both, no shade).

Definitely Cornell

Ah! How did I miss this?! Hope you were the happiest birthday boy!! 🎉

I agree, I have been for 4 yrs & just started trying a bit, but I'm way more comfortable on my own, which I guess is why I speak up when something doesn't sit right with me. I'd rather be alone than with someone who can't have a conversation like that, and I'd rather know early than waste time.

If dudes are lonely, here are some suggestions:

—Go to the comic shop
—Start a feminist book club
—Start a club where you all attend free lectures at local universities and then go to the diner and talk about them
—Throw more parties
—Join a maker space
—Build a rocket
—Shove fascists in the rocke

It was >10 years later than yesterday's anecdote about being approached by a cis straight guy who was afraid to talk to both men & women about anal sex, but I used to get paid to talk to men about sex, it was my job. Some men will get vulnerable & some men aren't trying to hear it even if spoon-fed.

I'm not built to be so online, but it takes too long sending people my thoughts no one asked for via pigeon, and I've been banished from being town crier for annoying the masses

Just saying I don't feel seen or that things feel unequal in terms of giving and receiving or that my feelings are hurt is enough to get me ghosted or cut off, every time.

Yeah, maybe. I am a bit fear-driven, with a sense of urgency that time is running out for me to ever find a matched vibe, and the pool seems to shrink ever smaller the more I value myself and advocate for what I need, and that really sucks. I'm scared the match is so rare I'll never find it.

I know, thanks. 🫂 I feel very solid in my self worth when I'm alone, and in community, but I get tired of being devalued in romantic/erotic situations which always end before they really even start, and obviously the common denominator is me & I'm the one fucking it up, but I wish I didn't.

I'm secure & self-confident enough to handle professional rejections with ease. Romantic ones, not so much. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but it hurts more every time, not less. I wish I knew how to build up a sense of worth around being a lover like I have for being a fighter & a writer. 💔😓

😂 I just know I have less reason to dislike him than you do, and I don't want to annoy you with my rosy nostalgia goggles, lol.

Yes, but sticking up for Ray feels complicated at best, so imma hush about it, lol. 😅

When I think of my life and all its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears.

—Albert Camus

😂😂😂 I was thinking he could maybe pull off a gravelly Tom Waits kind of deal at least. 😝

Omg 🤣 I just got such a strong impression of, like, you as you are NOW doing that Real World style scene bitching about them back then. 😂 Oh god if this was real I might have taken up smoking just to keep the camera off me 🫣

That would have been so fucking cool! My friend group in high school was a self-styled Nirvana cover band and I dated the drummer. Maaaaybe John could have learned to play drums? Couldn't be me, I have NO rhythm, lol. I'd put Ray on the mic, I bet he could sing.

Lolol, nope, I'm a little younger so I think you were on "better behavior" as 25 year olds haha

Ohhhh yeah you're right!

😂😂😂 I was gonna say, a DnD in Ray's basement episode, but that would be every episode in addition to whatever else we were doing, lol. Oh and was Eric actually in a band or did he just embody punk so thoroughly I just assumed he played?

😂 Yessss! E1: Standing outside Dunkin Donuts at 8 pm trying to decide where to drink. Going to Red Lion or ... what was the Crow one? E:2: Some kinda hipster art or indie flick thing in Montclair. E:3 The drive-in and smoking cigars. E:4 Fountains of Wayne, the actual store.

Nerdy *artsy* punks. My god what an amazing group. Writers, an artist, a filmmaker. We should have had a TV show, lol.

Love you, man! 🫂 I know I always say it, but there was precious little that was good about being a suicidal 22-23 year old, and hanging with the greatest group of nerdy punk Jersey boys ever were some of the best times of my whole life. 💙

Thanks! I realize now that I'm not even really into gaming like that! Those were just the kind of guys I most wanted to fit in with, and who were most accepting of me. I've pretty much let go of games, comics, superhero movies, tech, etc. as part of my identity. Still a sci-fi nerd tho!

Being someone who became especially good at fulfilling male fantasies made it very easy for me to get sex when I wanted, but I was miserable. Now I can't find anyone to even make out with as a trans guy, but I have a lot more self respect and even though I'm very lonely and horny, I'm not depressed.

I'm not saying this to say "see, sometimes girls were included." I was never a girl and I was never treated like a girl, that's the point. The video and trope were a fantasy made to exclude real girls & women. And I contributed to the misogyny of it by using that trope as a model to live by.

This video & the "cool girl" trope are etched deeply in my mind bc they're a big reason I didn't realize I was trans for so long. I was included in nerdy guy groups as "the only girl" from kindergarten on. Trans wasn't accessible but Cool Girl was & I did it depressed AF.

youtu.be/JUAYBllb7tY?...