I’m a baby when it comes to dating. Just coming off of a long-term relationship with a live-in boyfriend, I hadn’t been on a first date in a half-decade. I’m in my mid-20s and, as of last month (when the ex departed), was ready to dip my feet back into the gay dating pool.

Early last week, I attended a magazine party and met a gent pretty much my opposite (color me boyish and relatively clean cut). I played it bold, and said the only thing I could think of as an opening line: “Can I bum a cigarette?” He went out of his way to ask the bartender for [...]

When you’ve needed hearing aids all your life, and finally get them at the age of 32, mostly the world sounds like water. At first, you crane your neck looking for fountains, but really it’s only traffic. You keep an eye out for waterfalls, but apparently that’s just what air sounds like.

To celebrate, the first day you get your hearing aids, you go to the 540 club for a mimosa and you’re in awe because when you pay, you can hear the dollars rubbing against each other. You can hear your fingers brushing against your jeans. You tell the bartender this and he probably thinks you’re crazy, but he [...]

The summer of 2009 I threw together a really lame Steampunk outfit complete with feathers and gears, and traipsed down to Atlanta for my first Dragon*Con.  Dragon*Con is an amazing sci-fi and fantasy convention that happens every Labor Day weekend. Tens of thousands of people like me — people who think David Bowie in Labyrinth is the epitome of rock god, who read enormous and multi-volume epic fantasy series like A Song of Ice and Fire (before it was on HBO and everyone started reading it, ungh), and who were devastated (devastated!) when Caprica got cancelled — descend upon several square blocks of downtown Atlanta for a weekend of [...]

There are Wiki holes, and then there are Wiki holes that result in Googling state and federal regulations on owning predatory birds in the wee small hours of the morning.

Reasons in Favor of Acquiring a Falcon

- Taking "put a bird on it" to a whole new level of cool - The opportunity to hunt small rodents when your cat decides she's retired from productive labor - Jane probably has great tips on how to coordinate leather gauntlets with sexy outfits and dramatic eyeliner - Take that, weak-ass LARPers with swords - Mercedes Lackey is a falconer - Falcons live in Edith-friendly tiny houses called mews - [...]

The year: 2003. My grandma was turning 80! So my big brother and I went down to her house in Fort Lauderdale to hang out with her and celebrate. We went to the Mai Kai and drank tiki drinks … we went to the Rustic Inn and ate garlic crabs … and, of course, we went to the beach.

Usually we opted for Dania Beach because it's generally pretty quiet and deserted. (I think 'cause there's nowhere to buy beer.) But for some reason, that day we ended up at hot, crowded Hollywood Beach. My super-tan grandma oiled up in the sun, my pale brother read a paperback in a cabana, [...]

If you grew up in the mid to late ‘90s, you probably listened to Loveline, a brilliantly conceived radio show for young people to call in with their sex and relationship problems. I’m jealous of you. Somehow, I missed it. I was mysteriously, tragically deprived of the sage, poignant advice of Dr. Drew Pinsky and his comedian co-host Adam Carolla to help guide me through the conflicting desires and general emotional turmoil of my adolescence.

Those of you who know Carolla only from his work on the critically unacclaimed Man Show, or, God forbid, Dancing With the Stars, may have difficulty believing that, on Loveline, the man was clutching-your-stomach-from-laughter-induced-pain [...]

The summer before ninth grade I flew from Pittsburgh to Wilmington to be an extra on my favorite show, Dawson’s Creek. I had an inkling that this wasn’t a normal thing, but I was a clueless teenager with Hollywood dreams. I read InStyle and W and Vogue, I knew things about celebrities, I devoured movies and awards shows, and I had been in a junior high production of Oliver! I was convinced that eventually I was going to be famous, and that magazines would ask me things like what sort of lip product I used. I would have said Benetint. Not because it was true, but because in 1998 [...]

This is still a little too raw for me to really want to talk about it, but I got a bit of a guilt-nudge from yesterday's post on criminalizing bad mothers.

All parents do something stupid at some point, and most of us get away with it. That's the truth. Usually, it's not doing meth while you're pregnant, or putting your baby on top of a bear in Yellowstone so you can film it. But it's something, and you usually get away with it. And if you get away with it, it's a funny story, and you'll eventually laugh about it with other parents. If you don't get away [...]

I crouched at the top of the hill on my middle school’s campus where everyone ate lunch. I had a wedgie and was too embarrassed to pick at it, because every move I made while wearing my back brace generated a clunking sound that I feared attracted attention. So, I decided to surreptitiously make a pull for my undies as I loudly sat down, rationalizing that the normal noise I made every lunch hour would mask any suspicious hand movements. In doing this, I lost my balance and fell backward in slow motion, and then rolled in very fast motion to the bottom of this hill. I stopped only [...]

About five years ago, I was in a dry spell. And by "dry spell," I mean I hadn't gotten any in the better part of a year. My thoughts turned to the nearest pizza delivery man.

His name was Kent. He was well over 6'. He had tattoos on his arms and a ring in his lip. And I stand by the fact that his face was conventionally very attractive. He used to deliver pizzas to my office on a semi-weekly basis, and over the course of a few weeks, he and I got on a first name basis. It was a "Hi, Kent. Hi, Taylor. That will be [...]