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Lammas.  A time for bread baking and contemplation ---

Huddle up, #QueensInExile.  This one is for those of us who are still subject to court life.  If you were an actual medieval queen, think: coming back to court after exile, plotting your escape from court or getting in position to play your hand and go to war.  If you are a modern queen in suburbia, think any time there is a circle of people around a tyrant who are there due to force, obligation, familial ties.  Potentially: your in-laws, your own extended family, your extended circle of friends (not to be confused with your inner circle, the people who are actually ride or die for you), your work place, the PTA.

Were you taught as a child/teenager/young adult to be your most authentic self?  This usually includes ideas such as: doing what you love in the work place, always being completely honest, freely sharing your innermost opinions/thoughts/feelings, marrying for love everything else be damned, it doesn't matter how much money you make as long as you are happy and other first world country memes.

If you recognize the title, you know it’s a quote from our era’s beloved princess/General of the Resistance, Carrie Fisher.  Up until this point, we have been cautious, sister #QueensInExile.  We left our respective courts in the middle of the night like ghosts, we’ve been Final Girl ready, we’ve taken what goods we can carry.  We’ve been hiding.  We’ve been casting our witchcraft in the dark of the night with our blood bound sisters. We’ve been planning.  We’ve been plotting.  We’ve been encrypting and decrypting.  We’ve put on our best dress, done our hair up pretty, put on our nicest lipstick.  We sit in our new tiny living rooms, our borrowed rooms with our hands neatly folded in our laps, perfectly made up.  Waiting.  Waiting.

Waiting.

So, I'm going to a sexy fun event tonight with a few of my girls.  As usual, I am barking at them about if they got their tickets, if their outfits are in order and what kind of pizza they want.  One of my girls is a Young, so she's like still just shy of rolling into work wearing the party clothes from the night before, so she was fine on what she wanted to wear.  The other two girls are my age and have busy careers and don't often get to go to sexy, fun events and didn't know what they wanted to wear to said SFE.  There was much twibbling and nail biting.   They were both a bit afraid that I would dress them as fairy princesses because I am a fairy princess femme myself.  I gave orders to one girl and gave her Lea Delaria as her new style icon and the second girl I told her to bring a bunch of stuff and we'd figure it out.

The thing is, what to wear sounds like a shallow issue but it's not.  I know a lot of people who stop themselves from going to events because they feel they won't look like everyone else or they have to dress in drag in order to attend.  It causes anxiety, it causes insecurity, it causes self doubt and sometimes even tears.  It's kind of a big deal when it gives this kind of reaction.  

As many of you know, Jow and I take our shop, The Mermaid & The Crow on the road, primarily to Pride events and Punk Rock events.  While there are winsome Ladies of Certain Age with their silver hair dyed in glam unicorn pastels and young families with children with spiky hair and capes, the primary group of people who attend these events are Youngs.  More specifically, Young Women most often.  We've been doing these events for years now, so I've become accustomed to seeing these two legged gazelles with perfect skin romping in rompers like some kind of crazy rite that Pan would be thrilled to have.  They are lovely and, I think, lovelier than I was at their age because now everyone has Invisalign, a dermatologist and a far better diet.

Here's the thing.

I am a fairly published . . . author. I still have trouble calling myself that, there's so much expectation with that word but I have a book coming out with one of the oldest publishers in the U.S. and a stack of anthologies that I write for regularly.