10 favorite things I wrote in 2013

Or rather, my 10 favorite pieces I wrote that got published in 2013. I'm starting off the new year with a new print publication credit, and I hope many more! In no particular order:

"Why Every Day Is No-Pants Day For Me" at Refinery29

"Welcome to 'Fun Home,' The Queerest Musical Ever Made About Growing Up In A Funeral Home" at BuzzFeed LGBT

"Kinky, Sober and Free: BDSM in Recovery" at The Fix

Interview with Carry On, Warrior author and Momastery blogger Glennon Doyle Melton at The Fix

"Hoarding Isn't Fashionable or Glamorous" at The Toast

"James Gandolfini Was My Celebrity Crush" at Medium

"Dear Mrs. Hall: Boys and Men Can See Sexy Selfies and Still Respect Women" at Boinkology 101 at Medium (should have added "And Girls" to the title though)

"Organic, Fair Trade Porn: On The Hunt for Ethical Smut" at The Daily Beast

"Erotic Lit Your Grandmother Will Like" at The Daily Beast

"What I Learned From My Stalker" at TueNight

BDSM and sobriety article at The Fix

I wrote about BDSM and recovery for The Fix in "Kinky, Sober and Free: BDSM and Recovery." Thank you to everyone who spoke to me for the piece, and Google for coming through with some fascinating resources (linked in the piece). If you like the piece, I'd love it if you'd pass it on. I have a few more pieces in the works for The Fix, including one on the DSM and sex/addiction, and love writing for them.

One of the interviews I'm most proud of doing, ever: Carry On, Warrior author Glennon Doyle Melton for The Fix

I've done dozens, if not hundreds of interviews, because that is one of the things I most love: seeing or reading or experiencing someone's art and getting the honor of picking their brain. And when a book changes my life and makes me rethink it and realize that being flawed isn't a bad thing, but perhaps makes you a stronger, more committed person, if you will it, then I'm even more humbled. For me, reading Glennon Doyle Melton's Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed changed my worldview and made me want to be a better person, based on her example. I'm extremely proud of my interview with her for The Fix. When someone is that raw, real, open and giving, it makes it easy to ask hard questions. Do also read her blog Momastery. She is right: we can do hard things. I'm learning that, baby step by baby step, one second at at time, as I rework myself into someone I can be proud of. In the book and on her blog, she quotes Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." That quote cut me right open because it's so true, and as someone who has lived in fear for what feels like forever, breaking out of that feels beyond liberating. It feels like something I have no words for. So thank you, Glennon, Anaïs, the Universe, for giving me the chance to remake myself into the best possible version of myself, with every moment, every decision, every failure, and reminding me why I need to.

My essay "Recovery Envy" up at The Fix

I wrote my first essay for The Fix, called "Recovery Envy," which may sound facetious in a soundbite but if you read the essay, I hope it’s clear that I don’t mean it facetiously at all. I have the utmost respect for those in recovery, and anyone striving to improve their lives, by whatever means. If you like it, I’d really, really appreciate it if you passed it on in some way. And if you’ve never been to The Fix, it’s a website “about alcoholism, addiction, recovery and the drug war.” Thank you.

The beginning:

I'm not an addict, and I'm not an alcoholic. But as offensive as this may sound, I sometimes I wish I were, if only so I could have a language and a community to help me deal with what often seem like out of control urges—a structure surrounding me to help me cope with, well, life. But there are no 12-step meetings for people who simply have trouble getting up every day, who feel hollow and weak and unworthy, but who don't gloss over those feelings with a single, predictable vice. Over the course of my life, I've certainly used alcohol, sex, shopping and food to help quell those feelings, and they've each worked, in limited doses, but eventually their effects wore off.

The thing is, though, my rock bottom moments don't revolve around alcohol, though I've consumed my share, or drugs (I've attempted to smoke pot twice, and basically failed each time); sometimes it's food, sometimes it's sex, sometimes it's shopping, but I fundamentally believe that the core part of me that hates myself in those moments when I'm eating an entire box of cereal, screwing someone I'm not that into, or buying a pair of shoes I don't need and can't afford, is the same impulse that drove, say, my father or grandfather to drink (both are recovering alcoholics).

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