I have always had a very vivid and intense dream life so when I have nightmares they are actually quite horrible and when I have good dreams they are the kind of good dreams that are so good they hurt way more than the bad ones.

Last night I dreamed about someone I haven't seen in about 25 years. She and I used to be friends and I really, really liked her though I never would have ever shared that with her. That she appeared and everything felt so real and colorful only added to the weirdness of it all. I haven't consciously thought of her in a long time so that added a surprise element as well.

The most bizarre aspect is that I when I got up to use the bathroom and return to bed I would fall back asleep and the dream would continue. That almost never happens. If I didn't know better, between the vividness and continuity of it all I would swear it actually happened in real life.

What stung most, though, and worse than any nightmare could hit hard...was that she hugged me and I could feel it so intently that the sensation stayed with me hours after I woke.

 

When I first read Fifteen by Beverly Cleary back in the early, early 80s I would find myself frequently closing the book and looking at the cover (the 1980 Laurel Leaf Edition, specifically). Even at ten years old I knew this was the normal I was going to be expected to want in a just a few years:

I’m going to meet a boy, Jane Purdy told herself, as she walked up Blossom Street toward her babysitting job. Today I’m going to meet a boy. If she thought it often enough as if she really believed it, maybe she actually would meet a boy even though she was headed for Sandra Norton’s house and the worst babysitting job in Woodmont. If I don’t step on any cracks in the sidewalk all the way there, Jane thought, I’ll be sure to meet a boy. But avoiding cracks was silly, of course, and the sort of thing she had done when she was in the third grade. She was being just as silly as some of the other fifteen-year-old girls she knew, who counted red convertibles and believed they would go steady with the first boy they saw after the hundredth red convertible. Counting convertibles and not stepping on cracks were no way to meet a boy.

Maybe, when she finished her job with Sandra, she could walk down to Nibley’s Confectionery and Soda Fountain and sit at the counter and order a chocolate Coke float; and if she sipped it very, very slowly, a new boy might happen to come in and sit down beside her. He would be at least sixteen—old enough to have a driver’s license—and he would have crinkles around his eyes that showed he had a sense of humor and he would be tall, the kind of boy all the other girls would like to date. Their eyes would meet in the mirror behind the milk shake machines, and he would smile and she would smile back and he would turn to her and look down (down—that was important) and grin and say . . 

I also knew, though, despite how young I was, that I was more drawn to the girl on the cover than the boy, though I didn't know why that pull towards others of my own gender existed within me...and wouldn't know the reasons for quite some time ahead.

Because of my growing up in the 70s and 80s, certain kinds of knowledge were completely inaccessible to me. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off as a preteen later on life when "Googling" became possible. Just perhaps...not knowing things would not have created such a sense of isolation and overwhelming "what on earth is wrong with me?" thoughts.

Even now, even at the age of 55, I still want to want what is normal, what society not only approves of, but still shoves down the throats of anyone who isn't straight.

I want to want what is normal, what I'm supposed to want, truly, but I just don't have the feelings expected of me. And it's taken me decades to realize I am not a bad person because of that. If I am a bad person (which I often think I am) it is for entirely different reasons.

Back in the beginning of 2025 I decided to do dry January and then went from month to month still going dry. I slipped in my intentions in September and started my two drinks a night habit again, though "habit" seems way too innocuous a word for something that can cause so many serious problems. 

Last week I decided enough was enough and that I could kid myself all I wanted about alcohol not being that bad or alcohol probably not causing cancer if I made up for the bad in other areas of my life. I want to be healthy for my cat and I told him I would not be drinking any more and even though I know he doesn't understand my words I still find it works to be accountable to him. I love him more than anything and want to be able to take care of him. And he is the only being I know to whom I have never lied.

Another thing about drinking is that I managed to kid myself about what is heavy drinking and what isn't. I'm not going to say I thought two drinks a night was harmless, but I also never stopped to think that any more than 8 drinks a week for women is indeed heavy drinking. That woke me up and I'm hoping that this time sticks, even if I'm starting from scratch all over again.

...

It's the next day and I just want to add that I feel like I'm doing much better without wine, both health-wise and mentally. Instead of using alcohol to relax at night I am now taking an herb called Passionflower and drinking oat milk with it. The combo is not as potent as wine but I still relax (well as much as I'm capable of relaxing) and feel a bit float-y.

I’m watching an old episode of Everybody loves Raymond and Marie has confessed that she likes Amy better than Debra because Amy is a virgin… Marie even goes as far as to say that Amy is “pure” and a “good girl.” (I think the writers were trying to show antiquated Marie’s thinking, but I’m not sure that was the point but if it was, the topic was kind of clumsily handled if you ask me.)

A woman’s goodness has absolutely nothing to do with whether she has had sex or not. I’m a virgin and I don’t consider myself pure at all. I’ve done things in my life I’m truly and deeply ashamed of, even if I definitely would change them if I could. 

Meanwhile, there are women who aren’t virgins who are good people. How on earth did we develop this mindset that a woman’s purity is dependent on whether she’s had sex or not and how come this isn’t applied to men?

Virginity is not a moral achievement. It’s a neutral state. A person who has had sex has not lost goodness; a virgin has not gained it. Morality is about how we treat others, with kindness, honesty and respect, not about what we do or don’t do with our own bodies.

The “purity” myth lets people confuse a lack of sexual experience with moral character, and it’s harmful to everyone, including the people it claims to “praise.”

I recently discovered a book written in 1890 called The Young Visiters. Daisy Ashford penned the novel as 9 year old and later, in her 20s, shared it for publication, through a rather complicated, but interesting series of circumstances. 

Part of the book's success in selling millions of copies had to do with a child’s bluntness in describing adult vulnerabilities.

What strikes me most is not the book itself (although it is uncannily mature for a child of her age to write, misspellings and all) but what the writer said years later:

 “I can never feel all the nice things that have been said about ‘The Young Visiters’ are really due to me at all, but to a Daisy Ashford of so long ago that she seems another person."