short stories & random fiction bits

as long as you're here, why not read more?

filthy lucre

donald trump has shown utter indifference to the possible torture and killing of an american-based journalist jamal khashoggi by saudi arabian security forces acting on the direction of saudi crown prince mohammed bin salman but that's hardly a surprise. he said on the campaign trail that he loved the saudis because they gave him money. he refused to consider placing saudis on his infamous "muslim travel ban" list, despite the fact that saudi arabia is the one country that has been credibly linked to the september 11 terrorist attacks. or that the saudis' particular brand of fundamentalist islam has been described as the root of the extremism espoused by groups like al-qaeda and isis.

trump likes wealthy people and the saudi royals are the blueprint of the type of wealthy people he likes. they spend and live in lavish excess. family members are like catnip for the international celebrity press, even if the news media [like khashoggi] are perceived as enemies of the …

making faces :: written in the stars, in lipstick [part two]

it's the middle of september already? i'm not prepared for that? i mean, i am prepared for it because the heat this summer has been murder on me and i've been begging for a reprieve for months but i'm still bowled over by the speed at which time passes. this year, i've been measuring time through the launches of bite beauty's astrology collection, which arrives like the full moon once a month. [the full moon arrives every four weeks, which is less than any month except february -ed.] earlier this year, i took a look at the first four launches of the collection and already it's time to catch up with four more.

the most important thing for you to know is that after several months of problems, bite and sephora appear to have sorted out their inventory planning. for the last several releases, information has been clear and reliable as to when and where each lipstick will be available [pre-orders taken for a couple of days on bite's own website and a general…

it was my privilege

i haven't posted about the whole u.s. supreme court thing. it's not that i haven't been following it. it's not because i don't have feelings about it. if anything, i have the opposite problem: i have too many feelings about it. i'm normally a pretty icy viewer of news. between dom and me, he's the one who's more sensitive to what happens to other people. i just tend to be focused on what needs to change. or i get angry. and i am angry about what's been going on in the last weeks. but it's not the usual spitting vitriol in the face of the conservative old guard kind of anger. this anger eats away at me like a cancer because it makes me feel hopeless.

many years ago, i thought the idea of "privilege" being accorded to certain groups was a crock. that was because i misinterpreted it as meaning that white people, or men, or straight people, or cisgendered people could never have it as bad as their marginalized counterparts. what it really …

more like space

Search This Blog