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Last night I went out to my neighborhood queer bar, the White Horse Inn, to see the East Bay Kings put on the most kick-ass drag show ever.

Please come out for this and spread the word! More details are here.

Please come out and spread the word! More details are here.

I promise I won't always hijack my blog to write about my dad, but on the heels of the first Father's Day since my dad died, today would have been his 68th birthday. I sit here reflecting further, trying to connect to him emotionally/psychically, swimming in memories, thankful that the experience of walking him to his death shifted the focus of my mind and heart to sweet moments rather than sites of pain and struggle in our relationship. Thankful, too, that it's further pushing and inspiring my own political analysis, helping me put words to what's been (growing) inside. I continue to work through this complicated web of feelings, continue the process of opening my heart, continue looking for words and ways to speak, heal, connect, create an integrated/politicized identity/experience that feels both respectful and loving to myself and my experience and accountable/honest to others. And I think about how to best open doors for others to come through and speak (I don't mean to imply here that others need my assistance to speak, but that I strive to be always-conscious of the privilege being affiliated with Bitch brings, and the many ways I can actively work toward building an inclusive and collective movement for liberation). About experiences and identities that are often overlooked or ignored. About family politics... The politics of love and death... The politics of the ways we live our lives... The politics of unlearning and (re)building... The politics of justice, compassion, home, intimacy, "safety"... 

I don't know whether to thank my friend Elise for bringing this to my attention, or gently curse her:

High heels. For babies. That is all.

Also, when Fox News's Megyn Kelly starts sounding hard-hitting and feminist, the apocalypse is clearly nigh.

We've run articles on many a controversial subject here at Bitch, and readers have responded with appropriate ardor to such topics as fat suits, pro-porn theory, eating disorders, the "hasbian" phenomenon, and more. Yet some of the most impassioned letters we've gotten in the past year or so hinged on a short piece in issue #35 about the disturbing equine makeover of My Little Pony. (It's not archived on the site yet, unfortunately.) Responses to Jesse Rutherford's Love/Shove — which took a close look at the evolution of the 1980s toy-box staple and concluded that Hasbro's aesthetic tinkering has yielded an undeniably sexualized parade of ponies — ranged from assertions that it was "terrifically over the top" and "creepily overstated" to veiled accusations that Rutherford's interest in the redesign was "the kind of logic only someone who is unreasonably sexually obsessed with ponies would arrive at."

I was reminded of this the other day when I read a recent New York Times piece on the new makeover of Strawberry Shortcake, another classic of '80s playtime who continues to be a touchstone for girly nostalgia. It seems, according to the American Greetings company —Shortcake's sugar daddy — that today's girls weren't feeling the icon's Raggedy Anne styling, Calico-cat companion, and unhealthy preference for gumdrops over fresh fruit. (I was never a fan of the doll, so I can't verify personally whether I ever got the latter directive from Shortcake and her pals, but I will say that my childhood friend Pilar had the whole fruity family — Apple Dumplin', Huckleberry Pie, Orange Blossom — and the sickly, chemical scent of them emanated from her bedroom as a kind of pastel fog.)

Since today is Father's Day, I want to take some time to reflect on my dad, and try to start giving voice to some ideas and pain and anger that have been simmering in my mind.

My dad died this past winter after a shitty and long battle with cancer (he was a life-long smoker). He was 67. Now I know this might seem like a particularly loaded way of bringing politics down to the level of personal (and thus emotional), but here's the thing. I've been doing a lot reading lately. Of books, of blogs, of zines, magazines, chapbooks, of vision statements and organizing principles of self-described radical organizations and people... I've also been doing a lot of listening. And struggling to find the language to pull these ideas and feelings out of my head/heart, thoughts about identities and experiences. Critiques of which ones are validated/politicized and which ones aren't, and which others aren't even considered as possibilities for political analysis. And I've been struggling to even speak because, who knows? Maybe I haven't considered enough. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I haven't been as thoughtful as I think I have. Maybe I haven't searched hard enough.

I finally unpacked from last weekend's NCMR, and unloaded the special NCMR tote bag. I've learned from the past couple conferences I've attended that tote bags are apparently a necessary part of every conference. Am I being an ungracious a**hole when I say I find this ridiculous? Sure, tote bags are helpful in organizing all the conference materials and other items handed out at workshops, but don't people bring their own bags?