muffy bolding

A DMV clerk just asked me to go sit down when I approached the counter with my almost-17 year old son. He then immediately shifted his attention to Hunter, took the paperwork that was handed him, and addressed my son as the adult he very nearly is. Wow. That was ballsy — and correct. His business was not with me. GOOD FOR HIM. Mama needs to step back and let her boy be a man. It’s just so hard to forget that he isn’t my little tiny dude anymore.

Cue: TEARS.

ps) Afterwards, I wiped my tears, went back to the same counter, extended my hand, smiled, and said, “Thank you, sir…more than you will ever know.” He cocked his head to one side, smiled back at me sweetly and said, “You are so welcome, mama. As parents, it’s both the hardest and most important thing we have to do: Let them grow and let them go.”

Profound lessons are everywhere — even at the DMV.

Our boy, Hunter…3 years and about 10 inches ago.

What I love the very most about America…and what I loathe the very most about America — all in one photograph.

God bless America.

World Trade Center site, 1 May, 2011, after the announcement that American forces had killed Osama Bin Laden.

You see? Sometimes wishes and dreams REALLY DO COME TRUE!

From my hilarious friend and colleague — writer/actor/mother, Miss Becky Thyre:

“We were listening to NPR in the car today and Meshell Norris said, “Will we ever know the name of the SEAL who shot Osama Bin Laden?” My 9-year-old yelled, “Wait, what? A seal shot Osama Bin Laden?”

HA! That reminds me of my own perpetually befuddled youth, where I was the kid who TRULY in her heart believed that Foster Farms was a HOME FOR ORPHANED AND UNWANTED CHICKENS. I also very clearly remember saying to my mother as we drove around Fresno listening to the news on KYNO am radio in our green Pontiac station wagon in the sweltering summer of 1972: “Wait, what? Arabian GORILLAS kidnapped some athletes in the Olympic Village?!”

Yeah. I was that kid.

Bush? Seriously? The Right-Wing spinpricks are attempting to spin this glorious headshot into the column under W? Honey, so much does George Bush NOT give a fuck, the very second his last term was up he couldn’t get his feckless white pecker outta Washington FAST ENOUGH — and who could blame him? The poor bastard spent 8 long years as the Charlie McCarthy of the Right, with the bejeweled talons of Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush, Sr. all crammed up his ass and workin’ his mouth and when his shift was done that motherfucker was GONE.

Barack Obama has spent the past 72 hours planning and ordering the systematic assassination of one of the greatest terrorist brutes of the modern age. George W. Bush spent it watching old “Dukes of Hazzard” reruns, smokin’ dope, and chokin’ the Pope in Dallas, Texas.

Trust me, you cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck ol’ George does not give this day.

To brighten our otherwise wretched, miserable days of writing, lunching, thrift shopping, and BELLY LAUGHING ‘TIL WE PISS OUR GRANNY PANTIES (okay, so it’s just me who pisses her granny panties, but I was on a fucking roll), Miss Jackie Beat and I text “DEAD” iphone photos of ourselves to each other almost every day, along with our latest cause of death and updated last will and testament.

It’s how a gay man and a straight woman MAKE SWEET LOVE.

Aside from being blissfully MARRIED to my darling, sexy, brilliant husband, Gregory:

there are many extra, added benefits to being additionally MARY’D to a gay man, as well — especially one like my GUSBAND, Jackie Beat, a person who has made his name and his fortune performing all over the world IN FABULOUS DRAG. Not only will a gusband shop WITH you, they will shop FOR YOU.

A marvelous, vintage thrift store dress lovingly purchased for you by your thoughtful, wicked-stylish, drag queen gusband?

1 dollar.

That he will put it on, strut around, model it for you, and send pictures of it shot in a flouncy yellow and white bedroom that looks exactly like the one in which you were molested in 1972?

PRICELESS.

“It puts the lotion in the basket.”

People — especially women — write me all the time, asking how they, too, might become a card-carrying member of the “I GENUINELY DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU THINK OF ME CLUB” — and I always try my very best to tell them what steps I took to get there myself. Before we can become our truest, most powerful selves, we must first be unafraid to draw those selves out from the shadows of our pasts and REALLY LOOK AT THEM IN THE LIGHT. Just like so many other things in life, the reality is so much less terrifying than the fear and anticipation preceding it. My most profound wish for all those I love is that they may become FEARLESS.

For me, the following Chuck Palahniuk quote is VERY MUCH a part of that journey. Just know this — NOBODY writes MY STORY; I WRITE MY OWN FUCKING STORY. I lived it, I survived it, I have faced it, and I have owned it. It is MINE TO TELL.

You don’t like that?

FUCK OFF.

“Your past is just a story and once you realize this…it has no power over you.” — Chuck Palahniuk

Easter is, and always has been, my least favorite holiday.

#1, I hate the fucking palette. It makes me want to KICK ASS.

#2, I hate scufflin’ shoes a-white. They make me want to BEAT ASS.

And #3, for many, Easter means Jesus and Spring and the coming of new life, both literally and figuratively. But for those of us who are proud, avowed pantheists who also suffer horribly with reverse seasonal mood disorder, it means the coming of THE INFERNO…also both literally and figuratively. The soul-destroying swelter of Summer and institutions that both harbor and protect monsters who rape little children — as well as stifle and condemn the extraordinary power, beauty, and perfection that is inherent to our being — CAN BOTH FUCKING SUCK IT.

Happy Easter! I’ll see you in hell, boys — it is there we will share out our sentence.

When I was 13, I was desperately in love with The Bay City Rollers — and FULLY believed that I would grow up to marry Woody, go on a Rock n’ Roll Honeymoon, and then live happily ever after in Scotland for the rest of my days. As silly as it seems now, going to see them in concert was the high point of my life up ’til then, and even many years beyond — and the only way I was able to do it was because I had friends with parents who were kind enough to drive us all the way from Fresno to San Jose to do so. With a million kids, a business to run, and endless matrimonial warfare to wage against each other, my own parents weren’t really available to haul their plaid-bedecked adolescent daughter and her giggling girlfriends 4 hours away to see their Tiger Beat teen dreamboats sing about Summer Love and Saturday Night.

Fast forward several decades. Today, Gregory and I are driving our son and his buddies to see Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax in Indio, California — a three hour drive from LA. We will then be exploring the area and driving them home late this evening. Yes, this sounds like a hassle. Yes, it is a little indulgent. However, I always appreciated with all my heart what my friend’s parents did for me that early summer day when I was 13 — and I never forgot it. I have no doubt that our amazing son, Hunter — who verily lives and breathes music — never will either.

So, this day is dedicated, across time and space, to April Bartlett’s parents…who gave up a day of their lives to show a young girl from Fresno how it’s fucking done.