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horizontal with lila

114. can I sit with you: horizontal with a global matchmaker (3 of 4)

in episodes on 18/09/20

The guests at Lemarc & Michael’s wedding, sitting altogether in a circle of trust.


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Lemarc:  I’m this skinny little, very very very very effeminate child, with a very girly voice. So most people would not know whether I’m a boy or a girl. I mean, they would think I’m a boy, but then I would start talking and they’d be like, “Uh, are you a girl or are you a boy? I’m not sure.” And—

Lila:  Did the adults ask you that?

Lemarc:  Sometimes. But often the kids would. So I think that identity was a little bit challenging I think, as a child, to know, it’s like Wait a minute, am I a girl? I don’t know. I think I’m in the wrong body maybe. So I think for a long time, I actually felt that, that— and my sister was a tomboy, so she loved to play football, and she, you know, would be riding on motorcycles, and anything that was a bit adventurous and dangerous and boyish, she would do— I mean typically boyish, and, anything that was typically girlish, I’m like, okay, cheerleading, and dancing. I gave all of my toys away, because, why would I need toys? (both laugh) So I often felt like I was meant to be her and she was meant to be me. I should have had her body and she should have had mine.

Lila:  Did she feel the same way, do you think?

Lemarc:  I think sometimes people said that to us but I don’t think she did. I mean she was— when I had these thoughts, then she was— four years older is quite significant, so I think then she accepted her, or probably had accepted her body more, and then when I became a teenager, or maybe from 17+ actually then, I really accepted mine and, and really wanted to be a boy.



Hello my horizontal loyalists, my dearest patrons, my horizontalists.

Welcome to your first exclusive episode of Season 4, my Season of Experiments. As you know by now, I’ll be playing with form in all sorts of ways: with coaching sessions and mash-ups and crossovers, happenings and themes and advice sessions, horizontality in unexpected places, and other intimate surprises. Season 4 will also be interspersed with some of the traditional horizontal conversations that you love. This is one of those.

In the first four episodes of this season, I (virtually) lie down with Lemarc Thomas, global matchmaker, relationship expert, sweetheart, psychology-versed purveyor of kindness, native St. Helenian, marriage equality advocate, husband to Michael, and “the gentle but determined Cupid.”

In our first part, episode 112. broken a few hearts, Lemarc interviewed me as if I were his newest matchmaking client. It is one of the most vulnerable episodes I’ve ever released.

In our second part, episode 113. other people’s love, I interviewed Lemarc about his modern matchmaking process.

In this, our third part (recorded before parts one and two), we talk about:

  • growing up as an effeminate boy on a very small island
  • being a free-range child
  • belonging & feeling felt
  • the older women who confided in little Lemarc
  • how he treated everyone in London as a friend
  • losing oneself in groups
  • leaving St. Helena and becoming a full-pledged gay
  • what happens when women flirt with him
  • the Owning Your Femininity workshop that made Lemarc weep
  • & the fact that we don’t have to be perfectly healed to be worthy of a relationship

If you’d like one-on-one guidance from me on your intimate struggles, I now offer Personal Intimacy Roadmap Sessions: sex-positive support for what ails you in the realm of sex, love, & relationships of all kinds. 60-minute sessions with a takeaway plan.

I invite you, my patrons & ardent horizontalists, to take me up on one of these sessions on a sliding scale or half-rate, in gratitude for your loving support of the horizontal arts.

To schedule, email me: lila@horizontalwithlila.com, and I’ll send you my intake form, so I can best prepare for you.

If you desire ongoing support of your intimate growth, join the $100 Patreon tier and receive a 30-minute coaching session every month!

In next week’s exclusive episode, Lemarc tells us the epic tale of his romance with Michael, and how they became the very first same-sex couple to get married on the island of St. Helena.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for being my horizontal lover.

Now come lie down with us again, in Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia, and Stockholm, Sweden.


Links to Useful Things:

Lemarc Thomas – The Matchmaking Agency’s website

The Lemarc Thomas Matchmaking Instagram

Eve Ensler’s TED talk Embrace your inner girl

Lemarc invites any horizontal lovers who wish to apply for his network / open membership to: Get in touch and say you are horizontal!


Show Notes:

(if you quote from this resource, link to the post or the horizontal Patreon!)

[4:32]  Lemarc on his home island of St. Helena

[9:58]  The landscape of Lemarc’s household growing up

[11:57]  Lemarc on his parents

Lemarc:  They’re still together, and they’ve been together for like a million years, and (Lila giggles) yeah. I think it’s a different time though, you know. I think when they got together, marriage really is forever, and you stick it out. There is not the idea that you will divorce, you, you go through everything. It’s, it’s a commitment. And I can really see that in them, that they will be together forever.

Lila:  That out is not an option for them.

Lemarc:  No! And I think when I was younger, I kind of looked at them and thought like, Maybe they would… What if they were not together? What if they would choose different lives? And then I think, I remember looking at them in like difficult times, and thinking Wow, they are — they love each other so much and they are so tight and, you know, what would they do without each other? So I think that’s kind of, quite sweet as well to see that commitment, when, in today’s world we can… sometimes leave a relationship way too easily, before we’ve put in the work and before we’ve tried to… to make it work.

Lila:  And I think part of that is— at least part of it, is that most of us don’t have models like you have of your parents. Most of us don’t see, haven’t seen, couples that stuck it out, haven’t had the opportunity to speak to … dyads, who have chosen to stay in, and not take an out… Not that that’s always a good idea, but just I think there’s, there’s so few models like that, that exist now, that most of us haven’t witnessed one or haven’t come in close contact with one.

Lemarc:  Yeah, definitely. But that’s why it’s such a good idea to have lots of different role models around you so that you really see different ways of living, different examples of relationships, different examples of parenthood. I really do believe that— in the cliche that it takes a village to raise a child because, when you’re limited to just these, you know, two people, who are going to be flawed in their own special way, then, that’s the only way your body knows. And how limiting is that for us?

[14:32]  Lemarc and his sisters (esque)

[15:03]  Growing up as a free-range child, and strangers

Lemarc:  I think it was a beautiful childhood in lots of ways because it’s so free. You know, you don’t— no one locks their doors, you can, there’s so many kids around to play with. You have such a connection with nature, and community. It’s not so isolated as I see in city life, and I think even with— when you have animals or, when you have pets — the pets even roam free. You don’t have them stuck in your, in your apartment. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but when I look back I think it’s such a beautiful way to bring up a, a child, in such a safe environment where… you’re not scared of people! You’re not scared of these strangers— who might hurt you when you go out the door? Who might grab you or whathaveyou. You know everyone. I think it’s quite sad when we look at strangers as people who are scary, when I’ve grown up where everyone around me is someone who I know, or I know their family, someone who is a part of the community. And I remember when I went to the UK, for the— what wasn’t the first time but to live, when I was 17 years old. And, I still had that idea that everybody around me was non-threatening, and, like, a friend! So I would have no problem when I went to a bar and there’s an empty seat at a table full of people, I would say, “Can I sit there? Can I sit with you?”

Lila:  (delighted) Ohhhhh! Ohhhh I love it!

Lemarc:  And I would! And I mean, this is London; you don’t really do that.

Lila:  But you diiid! 

Lemarc:  Yeah, absolutely. And I didn’t realize that it was, that it was strange. I… whoever was around me, I would talk to them. And then I ended up with a lot of— I probably ended up with too many friends. Because I spoke to everyone, and my friends would, when we were going to a class at university would get so annoyed because I would end up stopping and talking to everyone (laughing) and they’re like, “Right! This is enough! I’m not walking with you anymore!”

Lila:  (giggling) You became like the Mayor! Oh that’s, oh it’s so, it’s so charming, it’s so lovely that you were able to have that upbringing. There’s so few free-range children these days!

[18:07]  Lila on growing up & loneliness in the suburbs of New York

[19:11]  How quickly London shifted Lemarc’s sense of strangers

Lemarc:  For me, you know, growing up in such a, as a free-range kid as you (giggles) call it, I had this mentality, but when I went to the UK, I don’t think it took very long before I realized that I was strange, and, before I started to adapt to this way of life where, you don’t talk to people, and you don’t look at people in the eye and you kind of, close off from them and now I, I think I’m almost the opposite, where I would not… approach someone, and you know, probably actively avoid contact with (laughs) random, random strangers. And I wish I could, you know get back to that knowledge, that everybody is a friend.

[20:26]  Lila on good company, poor company, and owning her part

[22:30]  Loneliness in paradise

Lila:  You know? We’re relational creatures, and, paradise is less than paradise without great company to share it with.

[25:34]  Lemarc on belonging & feeling felt

Lemarc:  In attachment studies, there is the term called “feeling felt.” Not just to be seen, but to feel felt. And I think that when we feel felt by other people around us, it’s like, just sinking into a nest of belonging… and, the soul needs that.

[26:41]  Lemarc on moving to Sweden and having (almost) no connections

[28:06]  Lila’s working definition of poor company

Lila:  Poor company is when you feel you don’t belong.

[29:57]  Lila on having an abundance of alone time

[30:22]  How difficult it can be to make friends in Sweden

Lemarc:  I had this conversation with someone recently, other people who have moved to Sweden and we were talking about how difficult it is to integrate into Swedish culture and to get a friendship group here, because there’s a lot of ice to break before you get, to the hearts of the Swedes. (laughs)

Lila: (laughing) Oh my goodness yes! 

Lemarc:  And you know, I kind of came to that, it is a small city, and the people that are here, they may have their friends that they’ve had for all of their lives, like they don’t actually need us; they don’t need new people coming into their lives. And I was left with: if, we really want to have a good social circle, to connect with them, then it is really up to us to make that effort and to knock on that door again and again and again until, they, see me! (laughing) And then they, you know, feel me and that connection is made, if I want that, because it’s so easy to, feel that sense of I don’t belong, to feel rejected, to feel like, Okay, I’ve called you two times now, but, when are you going to invite me out? And I think maybe I had the safety of my partner at home so I didn’t— I think I probably would’ve made more effort if, I was here, alone. But I started to feel as if there was a part of me that was just expecting people to invite me in, rather than me having to make the effort to make those connections, if that makes sense.

[32:04]  Lila on effort and vulnerability (how much is too much?)

[33:30]  Lemarc on belonging in too many groups, merging, and the technique he used in order not to lose his roots

[37:12]  The older women who confided in little Lemarc at his family’s convenience store

Egads, little Lemarc is the adorablest

[39:00]  On being an effeminate boy with a tomboy sister

Lemarc:  I’m this skinny little, very very very very effeminate child, with a very girly voice. So most people would not know whether I’m a boy or a girl. I mean, they would think I’m a boy, but then I would start talking and they’d be like, “Uh, are you a girl or are you a boy? I’m not sure.” And—

Lila:  Did the adults ask you that?

Lemarc:  Sometimes. But often the kids would. So I think that identity was a little bit challenging I think, as a child, to know, it’s like Wait a minute, am I a girl? I don’t know. I think I’m in the wrong body maybe. So I think for a long time, I actually felt that, that— and my sister was a tomboy, so she loved to play football, and she, you know, would be riding on motorcycles, and anything that was a bit adventurous and dangerous and boyish, she would do— I mean typically boyish, and, anything that was typically girlish, I’m like, okay, cheerleading, and dancing. I gave all of my toys away, because, why would I need toys? (both laugh) So I often felt like I was meant to be her and she was meant to be me. I should have had her body and she should have had mine.

Lila:  Did she feel the same way, do you think?

Lemarc:  I think sometimes people said that to us but I don’t think she did. I mean she was— when I had these thoughts, then she was— four years older is quite significant, so I think then she accepted her, or probably had accepted her body more, and then when I became a teenager, or maybe from 17+ actually then, I really accepted mine and, and really wanted to be a boy.

[42:09]  Lemarc on gay role models

Lemarc:  (facetious) There are no gay people on St. Helena; I mean, you know, of course gay doesn’t exist there. (laughing)

Lila:  Oh goodness, really?

Lemarc:  Yeah I mean when you talk about what you learn about relationships from the people around you, they were all heterosexual, traditional, old school relationships that were around me. Gay was definitely something that was weird and unknown and strange.

Lila:  How did you even know that anybody could be gay if you didn’t see it? (underlapping) How did you hear about it?

Lemarc:  (overlapping) I always knew I was gay. I mean I didn’t have a label for it of course but I was always wanting to be a girl, I mean that, I think that was my— as a young child, I didn’t know that it was gay, it was that I’m in the wrong body.

Lila:  But it also isn’t necessarily, because it very well could have been a gender issue and not a sexuality issue.

[43:09]  What it would have done for little Lemarc if he’d been allowed to dress as a girl

Lemarc:  Oh, I think it would have done wonderful things. I often feel that one of the things that was missing in my childhood was exploration. The freedom of self-expression. There was a part of me that was not accepted in society. There’s a part of me that’s wrong and defective. And therefore, it will stay inside of me and it’s a secret, and I will not show anyone, even though I know everybody around me can see it, I’m still gonna pretend that it’s not there. […]

[44:33]  How Lemarc’s family & St. Helenian community reacted to his sexuality & effeminate nature

[47:20]  (Cont’d) What it would have done for little Lemarc if he’d been allowed to dress as a girl

Lemarc:  I do think that there are two sides to this, and that one side is that I would have had that freedom to express this part of me that I had kept hidden, and I think within that, then I would have understood my own needs and boundaries a bit more. And instead I think, rather than knowing my own needs and boundaries, I am focused on other people’s, so I can easily sense, if you’re in front of me, I know what you need before I know what I need. The other part that I struggle with is that I don’t want to be a girl. I just thought that I wanted to be a girl because I didn’t know that there was anything between girl and boy. And maybe, being able to explore being a girl, I would have got there, but I think, what I actually needed was to know what was in between boy and girl. And that that was okay. And that was still beautiful. And, that was accepted.

Lila:  Or that the things that you were taught that related to girls and boys were not true! Were just imposed! Made-up, really.

Lemarc:  Absolutely. Tell me that! Like 20 years ago!

[49:15]  When Lemarc does his inner child work, what does his inner child need to hear?

[50:26]  Lila paraphrases from Eve Ensler’s TED talk Embrace your inner girl. The direct quote is: “I think the whole world has essentially been brought up not to be a girl. How do we bring up boys? What does it mean to be a boy? To be a boy really means not to be a girl. To be a man means not to be a girl. To be a woman means not to be a girl. To be strong means not to be a girl. To be a leader means not to be a girl. I actually think that being a girl is so powerful that we’ve had to train everyone not to be that.”

[51:40]  The Owning Your Femininity Workshop that made Lemarc weep, and how the gay community treats femme gay men

[55:22]  Lemarc’s teenage attraction to his heterosexual best friend

[56:24]  When Lemarc became a full-pledged gay

[56:52]  On no longer being attracted to women

[57:29]  Lemarc has a revelation about why he isn’t as comfortable with women, physically, as he used to be

[59:02]  Lila on the possibility of sliding along the Kinsey scale throughout our lives

[1:02:09]  Lemarc on his attachment style

[1:03:37]  Lemarc on the two attachment style tactics

[1:04:53]  The exercise (of mirroring, validating, & giving empathy) that Lemarc & Michael did in pre-marital therapy, which showed him how healing relationshipping can be

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« 113. other people’s love: horizontal with a global matchmaker (2 of 4)
115. this is what weddings are for: horizontal with a global matchmaker (4 of 4) »

Lila Donnolo

Lila Donnolo is an Intimacy Specialist. Tell Me More…

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horizontalwithlila

Actress. Writer. Podcaster. Lover. Intimacy Specialist … 70+ exclusive podcast episodes for you on Patreon!

Lila
Dear One, I hope this makes you laugh as much as Dear One,

I hope this makes you laugh as much as it made me laugh. 

Laughter in the midst of grief is so good. As good as tears. Different sides of the same emotional release.

My dear friend & brilliant psychiatrist-writer, writer-psychiatrist Dr. Owen Muir, called to check in on me. We joked about my plan to write a scathing critique of this looks-so-nice-from-the-outside, for-profit Assisted Living facility my mom had been living in for a year. (This is not a joke.) 

Owen suggested I write a scathing critique of everything, and then used the phrase “the terrible consumer experience that is death.” 

He said I should write it. I said he should write it. 

So he called me and we recorded it. Together.
Because this is what we do. 

Big Love,
Lila

To listen to the 7 minute recording, tap the Substack link in my bio, or type this link into your browser: horizontalwithlila.substack.com
My new friend @latonya.sunshine78 , a visual artis My new friend @latonya.sunshine78 , a visual artist and educator whose work I *deeply* admire, gave an Artist’s Talk on Friday at the conclusion of her @floridarama.art exhibition, and I got the chance to see it, and hear her speak passionately, eloquently, humorously, lovingly, about her art and the process of making these large-scale mixed media collage works that, for lack of a better art-world term, I personally think of as Very Mixed Media.

If you swipe through to the last slide, you will see the very first time I caught glimpse of her work, long before I know who the artist was, weeks before the exhibition opening, when it had likely just been hung up, and I brought @mrghyseye to experience the immersive exhibit at FloridaRAMA and we both fell in love with the respective pieces behind us. We thought we matched the pieces so well, in both vibe & style, that we had best selfie with them!

And since I follow FloridaRAMA so closely here on IG, when I saw that the official exhibition opening was happening, I made it my business to get there, on my @radpowerbikes @stpeteradpowerbikes ebike, in my ball gown skirt. I brought two Toastmasters friends, Lena & Steve, along.

You can see from the second photo that I was so moved by Latonya’s work and beautiful energy, that I spontaneously Kissed Her Hands (!!!) Later I was a tid bit embarrassed, like ‘really Lila? She does not know you!’

But she does now. And I can tell you that Latonya is a source of unending inspiration, just by being who she is, and working the way she works.

I was deeply moved by the way she weaves objects, and memory, into a visual tapestry, and the way she listens to the objects until they Tell her how they want to be incorporated, so moved, in fact, that I brought her something back from my father’s funeral, and from his dilapidated house. I will be honored if those memories make their way into a tapestry of hers.

Recently I heard this quote. (Do you know who said it?) 

“Use your suffering. Don’t waste it.

I promise I will use it. I promise not to waste it. It will make its way into all of my art, of every medium. And maybe, it will make its way into the art of others, as well.

❤️‍🩹
I’m recovering from a speech heartbreak. I gave I’m recovering from a speech heartbreak. I gave the most beautiful speech of my life last week. It was about my parents, my father’s sudden death, my love, the love of my life. And it is gone because I forgot to turn on my microphone! 

It’s not completely gone. I did find an app transcription service that can read lips. So I have the transcript, but I am devastated to not have the video as I thought it was going to be something I would send to the @ted curators to follow up on my finalist win in 2021. I was going to send it to X, Y, Z… ( And @imranamed )

And the ephemerality of this is really with me. Sometimes creativity, even visionary creativity is a mandala. 

If you’ve ever seen the monks with the sand, pouring a mandala, they put such meticulous precision, such effort, such focus into it. And when they are finished, they gaze upon it… and they sweep it away. Somebody said that my speech last week was a mandala, and I was like, “Yes! I know!” 

Many people have said, “If you can do it once, you can do it again. And I know that this is true. 

As a person who has been creative my entire life, I know that this is true.

{To WATCH the whole speech or READ the full transcript, go to: 

horizontalwithlila dot substack dot com

Or click the link in my bio, bb}

And then go out and make some art.
“Fashion” I think I’m gonna need to add a B “Fashion”

I think I’m gonna need to add a Bowie album or two to my burgeoning collection… 

Which ones are your favorite? Let a girl know in the comments.

Art by @mollymcclureart 
Leggings by @l.o.m_design 
Vampira lipstick by @thekatvond 
Sneaks by @adidas 
Photo by @samia.mounts
Here’s how it starts: Dear Young Man I Dated in Here’s how it starts:

Dear Young Man I Dated in 2016,

I have something very important to say to you, and it isn’t ‘I told you so.’

It is this:

Politics are about people and the planet.

Every single political issue is about people, or the planet. 

Politics do not equal some ideological, intangible thing. “Politics” are real things with real consequences to real people. Probably people that you know. Probably people that you love.

When you say, “I’m not political,” what I hear is, “I do not actually care about people other than (a handful of) the ones I know personally.”

To read the whole letter, tap my Substack link in bio.
Brought my mom to @floridarama.art for the first t Brought my mom to @floridarama.art for the first time so she could experience something different than the view from her couch, and she “didn’t like it”? It was “esquisito”?

#okboomer 

BeforeI went up to NY for the funeral, I did wind up telling her that my father died. I was worried she would be devastated and she would develop what they call “increased mental state,” but that wasn’t the case. Mostly she was just sad for me. 

I’m not sure if she now remembers that it happened.

To be honest, sometimes I don’t exactly remember that it happened. I have his wedding ring and his glasses and the prayer card on my nightstand but still it’s sometimes unreal.

I don’t want to bring it up all the time, but I do like having physical reminders. 

And though I don’t want to wear all black all the time for months on end to show that I’m in mourning, it feels good to put on my morning armband… even, and maybe especially, because it’s just a little bit too tight. So I really know it’s there.

Because the grief is always there even when I’ve forgotten about it.

So is joy.

Hold your people close and tell them, 
if you love them, 
tell them.

#mourning #arttherapy #floridarama
A poem of grief and wonder-ing that I wrote years A poem of grief and wonder-ing that I wrote years ago, and could have written yesterday.

You can read the whole piece on my Substack (with proper syntax). 

Substack is where I put my tenderest thoughts and deepest writing. If you want to, you can become my patron there. This would move me very much.

Link in my bio.

#grief #griefislove
Went to my father’s funeral, but couldn’t wear Went to my father’s funeral, but couldn’t wear black *all* weekend.

Dreamy roses are red @selkie tournure skirt giving me life. Fascinator by @babeyond_official
Are you a member of the Dead Dads Club? Only two Are you a member of the Dead Dads Club?

Only two criteria for membership!

Any Dad will do. Stepdads, Granddads, Poor Dads, Rich Dads, Fun Dads, Un-Dads.

But for real.

I thought for sure my Mom would go first. I mean, I moved to Florida because she has dementia and she is dying.

“Plot twist,” somebody said.

That’s funny.

I actually mean that. I’m just too tired to laugh today. It takes too many muscles.

My mom is in an assisted living facility, on Hospice Care, can no longer stand up from a seated position on her own, and is worried about the stuffed cats we gave her possibly being dead because they ‘have a soul and they used to meow and now they stopped.’

The staff has been putting down food and water for them and every time I drop by the stuffed cats — and the food — are in a different place in the apartment. So that’s good. They’re still alive, you know. And the facility is still keeping her. Alive, you know. And putting down real food for her stuffed cats.

“What’s the harm?” they said. 

No harm, I say. She wasn’t going to eat that, anyway.

To read the entire essay, to subscribe, or to become s paid subscriber and be part of my art, follow the Substack link in my bio 

horizontalwithlila dot substack dot com

#deaddadsclub #deaddad #grieving #sickmom
Try not to forget, okay? Belt @l.o.m_design Bow Try not to forget, okay?

Belt @l.o.m_design 
Bow @riskgalleryboutique 
Earrings @artpoolgallery 
Top @forloveandlemons 
Photo @samia.mounts 
Art @verticalventures
I never wanted a child. So the universe gave me I never wanted a child. 

So the universe gave me an 84 year-old one. 

We are the playthings of the gods.

I have cleaned up her urine. I have cleaned up her shit. I have changed her soiled diaper. I have used a q-tip to put medicine in tender places that I never wished to see, because there was no one else to do it.

What’s that they call it in the Bible? Smiting? God smote him? Smited him? Smit him? In my bitterer moments, it does feel as though I’ve been smote. In my better moments, it’s simply the part of my story where Timon & Pumbaa sing the “CIRRRRCLE of LIIIIIIFE.”

{You can read the rest of the essay on my Substack. Link in my bio. Thank you for being a witness.}
I’ve just learned that today is International Me I’ve just learned that today is International Mermaid Day!

Thanks @jujubumble 

📸 @wildartistryphotography 
💄 @mrghyseye 
✨ Me
📖 Gift from @kristianndances 

#internationalmermaidday
My Mom is dying. Fasc!sm is on the rise. A small g My Mom is dying. Fasc!sm is on the rise. A small group of evil corporate overlords is trying to Handmaid’s Tale us. My brilliant, funny friend @synchlayer died of bladder cancer at age 49.

I’m out here buying pretty things on the internet. 

I have no regerts.

This will be an essay mostly in photos. I am very, very tired. 

February was: 

setting up temporary-house in FL

gathering 95% of my possessions from 4 places in NY (thanks Kenneth, Deniz, Marghe, Owen!) and two places in Los Angeles (Thanks Adam M. & Samia!) 

driving a 12-foot box truck from NY to Baltimore to Savannah to FL (mostly with Jon! thanks Jon!)

shortly thereafter, flying to L.A. and, while packing up, the remaining 17% of my possessions, managing to see as many people I love as humanly possible (for someone who is slightly manic and rather time-optimistic) — which is, honestly, rather a lot of people, if I do pat myself on the back… myself— and then rushing back to St. Pete (thank you friend for flying me home; you know who you are) because mom went into the hospital again…

FOR THE REST OF THE ESSAY, TAP THE SUBSTACK LINK IN MY BIO, bb. 💋 💋
Proud to Protest today.
Falling more in 🩷🧡💛🩵💙 with St. Pete!

Happy International Women’s Day. 

May each of us born to a woman, 
raised by a woman, 
nurtured by a woman, &
 f*cked by a woman 

CHOOSE to SHOW WOMEN the RESPECT and CARE that we deserve.

#internationalwomensday2025 #stpete #resist
“What a year January has been. 

My dear friend’s sister died by su!c!de. My dear friend lost his home in Altadena and had to evacuate the fire with his family, including his 92 year-old grandmother. My dear friend is dying of cancer in New York. (In his 40s.) The br*ligarchy rears, fasc!sm festers, and every tr@ns person, woman, and human with even mildly uncertain imm!gration status in the United States is, rightly, terrified. 

Here in Florida, my mom fell on her face right in front of me at church last week, on the threshold of the ladies room (busting her upper lip) and had to go to the E.R. where her CAT scan and her hand xrays came back negative but it turns out she has…..”

You can read the whole piece on my Substack- link in my bio!
In March, 2019, my friend @stevenmdean (remember h In March, 2019, my friend @stevenmdean (remember him from horizontal with lila episodes 82. 200 dating profiles, & 83. you do not have voting rights in this startup relationship?) teamed up with an experience designer to create an event they dubbed The Love Immersive, a “10-hour exploratorium-style foray into the 5 love languages.”

In Steve’s words: 

“I teamed up to architect a choose-your-own-adventure interactive journey through the languages of love. 
Spanning every floor of a sprawling 6-story arthouse in the heart of New York City, and co-produced by the creative arts group Moontribe, Love Immersive attracted over 450 attendees who came to explore love through the nuanced dimensions of touch, words, service, quality time, gifts, and more. 

We invited over 50 volunteers and practitioners of different love languages to showcase their creative capabilities in an evening of self-discovery, secret missions, hidden rooms, wandering wizards, art installations, and live music.“

I was one of the 50. 
They gave me a closet. 
A closet.
This is not lost on me.

That was all the space they had left, apparently. And I was determined to make good use of it. I turned it into a cozy nesting pod with blankets and pillows and two sets of listening devices, and I recorded this 11-minute meditation for anyone who stopped in, so that they could take a break from the glorious menagerie for a few minutes. And reset.

In the closet.

#immersiveexperience 

LISTEN ON SUBSTACK! Link in my bio!
Busy? Low on bandwidth? No time to read the whole Busy? Low on bandwidth? No time to read the whole piece?

TL,DR: Don’t ask. OFFER.

Don’t ask. Offer.

Honestly though, the whole piece is worth reading, and, of you’re grieving, sharing with those who ask you if there’s ‘anything’ they can do.

Link to my Substack in my bio.

I love you.
I grieve with you.
I love you.
Think of this as a candy conversation heart that s Think of this as a candy conversation heart that says “READ ME”.

“Annie Lalla, the love coach I would trust with my love life, who explains the unexplainable in ways that break open my head and my heart, once told me of smuggling love. Some people do not demonstrate love in ways that we at first recognize as love. She spoke of becoming a Detective on the Case of Love, noticing where a partner might be smuggling morsels of it. Refilling your water glass while you’re busy writing, perhaps. Going out to the car early to defrost it before you get in. Things like that, and things far less legible.

When I first courted her for a couple of episodes of horizontal with lila, I asked, “How do I smuggle love?” She replied immediately that I don’t seem to smuggle at all; I just come right out with it. Make like confetti. Festoon a person. She said loads of people are more reserved than I am because they believe compliments, effusiveness, and praise, once offered, lower their social status. She said I don’t care much about that, because it’s more important to me to let the person know.

Let the people know.

We are all going to die. And it seems like most of the time, it will be a surprise when. What does status matter, really? Really really.

The fact that I will express my love with a freeness is a thing I love about myself even when I don’t love myself.

So sure, I don’t need a holiday to express my love — which is one of the main annoyances I hear bandied about near February 14th — “I don’t need a holiday to tell me to tell my wife I love her!”

Okay. But setting aside a day for a thing can certainly help, right?

Atonement.

Independence.

Rights.

Holocaust remembrance.

If anything, Valentine’s offers us that cultural pause in the middle of an unfavorite month, a will-we-make-it-through-the-winter, hope-our-stores-last, do-we-have-enough firewood, dear-God-don’t-let-me-freeze-to-death month that says, in candy-colored suspended animation:

Think about love, will you?

What kind do you have?

What kind do you want?

And:

Now what do you want to do about that, sweetheart?”

Read the whole piece on my Substack, darling. Link in my bio.

P.S. I love you.
Read this if you love me: “february, the month Read this if you love me: 

“february, the month you’re supposed to be in love”

https://open.substack.com/pub/horizontalwithlila/p/february-the-month-youre-supposed?r=m6nsi&utm_medium=ios
“This has been a terrible no good very bad super “This has been a terrible no good very bad super sucky year. For moi. (You too?) 

Would not recommend. 
Would not wish on anyone.

Back in Florida. Mother descending into dementia and decrepitude. 

Don’t want to do the things. I am the only person to do the things.

Almost the entirety of 2024 has been an adulting montage. Or rather, for accuracy’s sake, the first three-quarters of the year was a months-long ordeal which Joseph Campbell of The Hero’s Journey might dub the REFUSAL OF THE CALL.

I am firmly in the montage now, though, for sure. How long will it last? Who knows. Montages are interminable for the person living them. That’s why we speed them up in the movies.

So I juuuust entered the montage 2 months ago. Basically when I got out of bed. There was a lot of bed. See: Refusal of the Call.

This is sort of a MVE, a Minimum Viable Essay. I haven’t written in 10 months. A list is the first thing I’ve mustered, and I’m very glad I’ve mustered it because it means I’m back. English is so confusing, isn’t it? Mustered. Mustard. Tomato. Tomato.

Anyhoodle! Without further ado, I present you with an exhaustive yet incomplete list of Things I Learned (in 2024) that I Really Never Wanted to Learn and Didn’t Really Want to Know:

[Go to the Substack link in bio to read about the 24 things!]
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