A Queer Girl's Lifestyle Blog

Does anyone actually, enthusiastically, genuinely enjoy a party? Are there any true, honest-to-goodness extroverts out there who thrive in places buzzing with small talk? I have my suspicions that these people don’t exist – or, that they are the extreme minority – and we’re all just milling about get-togethers trying to drink our dread away. It’s a dread that stems from the anticipation of having to answer the only question that gets asked over and over again in Hell:

“What’s new?”

Hi, ok, here is the thing: “What’s new” is a terrible question. It immediately puts you on the spot to identify something that is not only new in your life, but new for the person speaking with you. Suddenly there is math involved – when was the last time you saw this person subtracted from the timeline of your life – and no one wants to do math at a party (unless it’s a math-themed party - then I guess all bets are off). And what do you say if there is nothing new in your life that you want to share? Nobody w...

I've been part of a wine club with friends from grad school for over 5 years now. The wine club has survived jobs starting and stalling and ending, relationships coming and going and marrying, people moving across the city and beyond, and even members quitting drinking. It has turned out to be one of the more stable things in our lives, and I am pretty impressed that we've managed to keep the club going when every meeting ends with us drunkenly choosing a next date and then forgetting what date we chose immediately afterward. 

This is what you need to know about our wine club - we make Power Point presentations. We do research. We have blind taste tests. We take notes. We send letterpressed invitations to guests. We watch the music video for Lisa Loeb's Stay at the end of every meeting. It's serious business (before we get too drunk to remember who is hosting the next meeting) (Ok, maybe Lisa Loeb happens after the drunkness). 

Lately, when I have had the honor of hosting the Wine Club,...

I love mussels. I love most shellfish, in fact. Scallops, oysters, lobsters, clams... if you have a hard shell and a soft body, I probably want to eat you. This is maybe true about the humans I like, too. The harder it is to get to know you, the more I will probably like you. It must be because my brother is a Cancer and I adore him. Or maybe because my mother grew up on a lake that had a fundraising clambake at the fire hall every year. I don't know what the root is, but shellfish is in my soul. As an aside, my mom's whole family eats clams with ketchup in the butter, and I gotta say you should try that method. But this article is not about clams or Cancers. No, it is about mussels. 

Eating mussels is a rustic, sensual art. Queer Martha's first tip to eating mussels is to never use utensils. Utensils are only for mussel neophytes. They are completely unnecessary because mussels are utensils in of themselves. They are beautiful little elastic tweezers designed by the goddesses...

One of the pleasures of public space is its gift of anonymity - the privilege to move through it without being singled out; the privilege to fade into a larger whole. It's sitting on a bench and watching the world move around you and knowing that if someone else wants to sit, they'll look in your direction and say, "Shoot, that bench is taken," instead of, "Shoot, that individual is sitting there." That might seem like an insignificant nuance, but it's the privilege of becoming part of the public furniture. It's a non-feeling. It's the instinct of belonging.

Are you familiar with that non-feeling? Then you are probably a dude. You're also probably white. Or you live in a separatist lesbian commune somewhere in New England, in which case, call me. 

For the rest of us women, queers, people of color, genderfuckers, differently-abled folks, the privilege of anonymity in public space ranges from a completely foreign concept to something we forget we don't have until we are suddenly reminded t...

I’m not sure about this, but my friend Ally says that I do well when faced with the crushing and unending ennui of life. Frankly, I don’t know why they think that. I have a deeply melancholy soul and have spent most of my life dreading waking up in the mornings. The crushing and unending ennui of life is one of my favorite topics to go on and on about because it is all-encompassing, and I just don’t have anything else to talk about, really.

Nevertheless, it appears that my melancholic soul refracts as it beams out of me, and people see a rainbow instead of the pale pinpoint light I feel like I emit. So that’s neat, I suppose.

Maybe you feel like me and it’s hard to pull your eyes away from the relentless waves of life’s disappointments lapping on your shores. In that case, here are some of Queer Martha’s tips on keeping the unbearable ennui of life at bay.

1. Go to Happy Hour

 One way to shield yourself against the tedium of being alive is cultivating frequent change. Weariness is momentar...

Your good news is not always someone else’s good news. Don’t let that stop you from sharing your news with people you want to share with, but do let that knowledge influence your method of delivery. Sure, we’d all like to rejoice in other’s successes and delights, but sometimes we just don’t have the goddamn energy to be there 100%. Lately, when someone announces their pregnancy to me, you can be sure that my joyful congratulations are a product of my many years of theatre school. Send your children to theatre camp! It will give them tools to avoid being a dick later in life.

Since I started talking openly about trying to get pregnant, some of my friends have asked me about the best ways to talk about the process or, more specifically, talk about their own successes with the process. I want to say first that I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of that question, so thanks for asking, guys. It's definitely a tricky topic - especially considering many people don't talk about t...

A few months ago, during the height of sticky summer sadness, I went on a coffee date with a friend. We were chatting about this and that – summer vacations, coworkers’ gossip – when my friend leaned in toward me and said, “I hope this isn’t weird, but your skin looks fucking amazing. Why is your face glowing?”

Between the ages of 11 and 17, I had terrible acne. The kind that makes people say, “Oh, don’t worry, no one notices it as much as you,” because lying is better than acknowledging how bad it is. Somehow, I had the good fortune that my acne was the subject of ridicule just once in my life – on the bus in 6th grade when a boy in a lower grade called me “pizza face.” Don’t worry, though, Alyssa Wert immediately came to my defense and said, “Hey! No one makes fun of Lizzie,” and that was that. It never happened again. I’ll never forget you, Alyssa Wert!!

I got microdermabrasion treatments all through high school. That’s when a nice lady rips your face apart with what feels like a ball...

Pennsylvania rocks. It rocks in the figurative sense of being super great, and it rocks in the sense that there are literal stones, boulders, and glacial erratics strewn about the landscape as if a giant rock-eating dragon flew over the state chewing with its mouth open. The rocky reality of the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania has inspired hikers to dub the section “the Hardest Part of the Trail,” “Rocksylvania,” “Where Boots Go to Die,” and “Where I Had My Psychological Breakdown before the Halfway Point.”

I have always loved hiking the trail in Pennsylvania. I am proud that my birthplace is known to be more treacherous than beautiful. I feel like it is a reflection on who we are as people, us Pennsylvanians. I’ve also never been that bothered by the rocks when I’ve done overnight backpacking trips. Jumping from boulder to boulder makes me feel like a ninja princess, and all I have ever wanted is to feel like a ninja princess. Last weekend, however, my feelings changed ever so slight...

Our lives are all segmented into multiple, invariable cycles. Monday’s minor depression high tides into Friday’s fleeting joy. The stress of paying bills by the 15th of the month leads straight to payday’s debauchery on the 31st. The colors of the farmer’s market in June fade to dull November stands that force you to get a little more creative with your menu.

The universe gifts you a new cycle when you are trying to get pregnant. Yes, most women’s bodies already adhere to cycle, but a new psychological cycle is added to the already infuriating physical one. It doesn’t help that you might be filling yourself with pretty potent hormones.

Everyone handles their getting-pregnant adventure differently, and your emotional responses can change month to month. That said, here is my guide to understanding the Trying-to-Conceive Emotional Cycle:

1.) The cycle begins on the first day of your period. Indeed, the whole emotional cycle follows the physiological cycle. On the first day of your period, t...

In theory, I hate the beach. 

I don't like getting dirty from the sand. I don't like salt water. I don't like getting sunburns, and for some reason I am utterly incapable of leaving a beach day without burn blisters all over my body. I don't like lying around all day (unless I'm in my bed cuddling, naturally), and I don't like being in a bathing suit. Bathing suits = the worst. Frankly, the ocean scares me. The immensity and the power of the thing. I saw a girl drown in the ocean once. That sort of ruins the ocean for you, you know? 

Despite all my various distastes that converge in a generally anti-ocean lifestyle, I am fascinated by islands. Islands and, to a certain extent, seaside towns. I think I am drawn to their isolation. There is something mysterious and lonesome in the way they tend to face outward into the nothingness of the sea. They speak to my omnipresent melancholy. 

I learned in my cultural geography classes in college that pre-colonial Polynesian cultures developed extens...