12 Days of Girly Juice

12 Days of Girly Juice 2017: 7 Bangin’ Selfies

Kate Sloan

It’s hard to pick selfies that sum up your whole year, but these are some strong contenders! (Content note: there are boobs in this post!)

Femme friends were so important to me this year, and every year. One such pal is Rosaline, a pink-haired pixie who’s always around to cheer me on and pump me up over a bottle of white wine.

We had lots of goofy adventures together this year, mostly involving pre-drinking for various parties, doing our makeup together, and then marching into said parties all flirty and long-lashed like queens. I love how my femme friends remind me of immutable truths: being a femme person in this world is hard but it is also wonderful, and femmes are even more brave and powerful than the misogynist cultural forces that aim to keep us down. I hope to continue to foster my femme friendships in 2018 and beyond.

Speaking of good friends… I didn’t get to spend as much time with Brent this year as I have in previous years, because he wasn’t in Toronto as much. But when we did hang out, we made it count: we laughed a lot over beers, played a ton of Use Your Words, and on one memorable occasion, he saved me from a bunch of pill bugs I accidentally sat on. Our friendship is strange and lovely.

The night this photo was taken, I attended Use Your Words’ Toronto launch party because I was a staff writer on the game (fancy!). Between talking, schmoozing, and playing the game, Brent and I decided to order a couple of corndogs from the bar kitchen. “Can I take a selfie of us eating these?” I asked him, to which he replied, “Only if we both put ’em in our mouths like we’re fellating them.” Stuff like this is why we’re friends.

In March, my local community discovered someone we thought we could trust was actually a misogynist shitbag, and it shook the foundations of what we thought we knew. For weeks, I felt unable to trust any men (moreso even than usual). What was the point, if any so-called feminist man could turn out to be a total garbage fire?

I had coincidentally been invited to a party later that week whose theme was “femme witch power.” We were encouraged to wear whatever made us feel feminine and powerful. I slung on a navy skater dress, rimmed my eyes in dark eyeshadow, and painted on a deep maroon liquid lipstick. At the last minute before leaving the house, I added my glass eyeball necklace, pulled my tits out of my dress, and took some fierce-faced selfies on my laptop webcam.

I didn’t feel like smiling that day. I wanted to wield my femininity and sexuality like a weapon. So I resisted the urge to pull a smile or make a “pretty” face, and just stared down the camera, fierce and unforgiving. I felt beautiful, but in a way that was just for me – not for the consumption of the abusive fuckfaces who think they can just take and take and take.

I took this while out getting ice cream with Suz and Bex before a jaunt to Tell Me Something Good, our local sexy storytelling night. It was a lovely evening out with friends, and equally wonderful was that sometime either before or after this photo was taken, someone came up to us on the street to tell us they read and loved all three of our blogs. Getting recognized in public is a special kind of thrill, and the more it happens, the more my impostor syndrome melts away and I feel like a Real Writer doing Real, Important Things!

This was taken on one of the first days I actually felt slightly cute, competent, and coherent after a breakup that totally devastated me. I like how you can see in my facial expression that I’m still kind of a mess: I’ve heard fellow depressed people describe feeling “like an alien” who can’t even tell whether their face is forming appropriate and normal facial expressions, because they’re so numb and blunted, and that’s how I felt on this day. Unsure how all my different components hung together, but attempting to make a good show of myself nonetheless. Like Tony Kushner wrote on heartbreak in his magnum opus Angels in America: “Just mangled guts, pretending.”

It’s telling that I’m wearing short shorts and have tied my shirt into a crop top. Depression makes me want to hide, but as I surface from that cave, I begin to want to show off again. Maybe just a little. Maybe still from the safety of monochromes and familiar fabrics. Bit by bit, I always come crawling back to my joy, even if it takes all the strength I can summon.

(Content note for suicidal ideations in this one, folks.) One of the most exciting events of my year was going to a My Brother, My Brother and Me live podcast recording at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. I first started listening to MBMBaM almost three years ago, and in that time, these boys have literally saved my life on countless occasions. When I’m too mind-numbingly depressed to be trusted with my sad thoughts in solitude, let alone to get out of bed and rejoin society, I put on a McElroy podcast. They keep me occupied until I can get back to living without wanting to die.

I went to this show by myself, because I didn’t know anyone else who was both as McElroy-obsessed as me and financially and temporally able to get to the venue. I snapped this photo quickly, self-consciously, as I stood in line amongst throngs of other fans. Moments later, when the line moved ahead and I walked into the theatre, tears burned down my cheeks. I couldn’t believe I was so physically close to these boys who had saved my life, walked me through dark days, made me laugh when nothing else could. Thankfully, no one seemed to think my weeping was weird. I bought a poster, waited in line for a radioactively green cocktail, settled into my seat surrounded by jovial strangers, and laughed the night away.

I’ll close here with a moment of genuine joy; it’s a good note to go out on.

One night earlier this month, I was on the phone with someone who makes my heart feel all fuzzy and stupid. We exchanged goofy selfies while we talked, trying to disarm each other, to feel physically close though we were not.

He had asked me about the way my hair was cut, so I shook it out to its full glory so I could capture it in a selfie. Just as I went to hit the shutter, he made some dumb joke that set off sparks in my heart, and I burst into giggles and snapped this shot. “Aw, you made me laugh mid-selfie,” I commented, looking at the result on my phone screen and trying to decide if it was too silly to send.

No, I thought. This is how I wish I looked all the time. Lost in giggly reverie.

12 Days of Girly Juice 2017: 8 Classic Tweets

Kate Sloan

Once again this year, Twitter‘s been my favorite medium for jokes, puns, and short-form rants. It has its problems, certainly – like lacking a good system for dealing with harassment, and adding unasked-for features like extra characters when what people really want is an “edit” button – but I love my community there so I’m stayin’.

Here are 8 of my fave things I tweeted this year. Aww, memories.

This joke has everything. Chocolate. Allusions to spanking. One of my very favorite emojis. 10/10, would make again.

More times than I can count, I’ve heard friends and acquaintances say that diagrams of the internal clitoris “look like a Pokémon.” Most couldn’t specify which one they meant, but I knew it was clearly Lapras, so I made this handy shareable comparison…

Love a good sexual portmanteau. They’re so useful. (See also: cunstructive cliticism, cumblebrag, Peenex.)

The ethical misandry is so real.

Several people replied to say it would be ideal if you could say all three things on the same occasion. I look forward to the day when I can.

I tend to only play video games when I have very little going on in my life, so, y’know, this makes sense. (Also: two separate Pokémon references in one blog post?! Damn, I have outdone myself.)

When my then-boyfriend said this, I laughed so hard and for so long that I thought I was going to die of asphyxiation. He had such genuine confusion in his eyes when he said it. I love good-hearted kinksters so much.

One more portmanteau for the road. You’re welcome.

12 Days of Girly Juice 2017: 9 Best New Sex Toys

Kate Sloan

It was a good year for sex toys! I acquired over 65 new toys this year. (Yeesh. Being a sex toy reviewer is weird and great.)

You would think it might be hard to pick my top 9 favorites from that massive number, but actually, I’m a total snob. It’s rare that I acquire a new toy and love it enough to keep using it after I’ve reviewed it. Here, then, are the 9 best new treats I got this year, and where you can get ’em if you think you’d also like ’em…

9. Kronic Sensations wooden bat. I picked this up impulsively one day at local Toronto sex shop Kink T.O., and it was such a good purchase. These bats are incredibly thuddy, like getting hit with an actual mini baseball bat – so if you like your impact sensations deep and penetrating, rather than surfacey and stingy, you’d be into these. (Available at Kink.)

8. Sportsheets under-the-bed restraints. These are so basic, so useful, so necessary that it’s odd to think they haven’t been attached to my bed for my entire adult life. But no: I only acquired them earlier this year. They’re the easiest way to seamlessly incorporate bondage into your sex life. When I’m having a lot of kinky sex (i.e. not lately), I use these all the damn time. A++, 10/10, would recommend. (Available at SheVibe, Ignite, Peepshow, the Smitten Kitten, and Early to Bed.)

7. Zumio. I’m rarely in the mood for this thing, but when I am, woof, I need it. It’s one of the best tools available for intense, pinpointed clitoral stimulation. Its mega-intensity also makes it useful for kinky forced-orgasm scenes: if you’re holding a Zumio to my clit, you’ve got my goddamn attention, I’ll tell ya that much. (Available at SheVibe, Ignite, Peepshow, the Smitten Kitten, and Early to Bed.)

6. We-Vibe Gala. I just got this recently and am already loving it. (Full review to come in 2018!) Its two-eared shape makes it ideal for people like me who abhor direct clitoral stimulation and prefer having their clit touched through the clitoral hood or inner labia. The motor is also excellent, as is standard for We-Vibe toys. (Available at Come As You Are, SheVibe, Ignite, Peepshow, and the Smitten Kitten.)

5. ScreamingO Charged Vooom. I reviewed this along with a cadre of other cheap vibes and the Vooom was the only one I loved and continued to love. This zippy little raspberry-pink bullet vibe performs remarkably well for its price point, and makes a capable understudy for my beloved Tango when needed. (Available at Come As You Are, SheVibe, and Peepshow)

4. Weal & Breech purpleheart paddle. This beaut unseated my previous favorite impact toy from its throne this year. Fancy, handmade, and one-of-a-kind, it makes me feel like a kinky queen. The perfectly balanced weight and ergonomic handle make it clear this paddle was created by kinksters. I’ll never forget when, midway through our first spanking session with this toy, my then-boyfriend moaned low in his throat, “I reeeally like this paddle,” to which I moaned back, “SO DO I.” (Similar product available at Come As You Are.)

3. We-Vibe Nova. I technically got this last year, when Bex gifted me one, but didn’t give it a proper shot until early 2017. The Nova is, hands-down, my favorite dual-stimulation vibe I’ve ever tried. As is par for the course with We-Vibe, it’s thoughtfully designed, high-quality, and pleasantly rumbly. When I’m craving deep vibration on my G-spot and clit simultaneously, I know the Nova is the best tool for the job. (Available at SheVibe, Peepshow, Ignite, and Early to Bed.)

2. Doxy Die Cast. Definitely the prettiest wand vibe in my collection! I still reach for my Magic Wand more often, because it’s lighter and the lower speeds are rumblier, but the Die Cast has definitely snuck into my starting lineup this year. It’s wonderfully luxurious and always powerful enough to get me off. And that glitter finish! Swoon! (Available at Come As You Are, SheVibe, and Peepshow.)

1. Standard Glass S-Curve. A gift from Bex, this is indubitably the best toy I received all year. Quite possibly my favorite dildo ever, now that I think about it. Yes, the S-Curve has usurped my beloved Double Trouble as my vagina’s favorite thing, simply because it’s slimmer and more targeted and doesn’t require warm-up like the DT does for me. The S-Curve finds my A-spot with such ease and speed that it’s pretty much the closest thing I have to a “press here for orgasm” device. I’ve also heard reports from partners that it’s a simple and intuitive toy to fuck someone with. Win-win! (Available at the Smitten Kitten.)

What were your favorite toys of the year?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2017: 10 Perfect Sex Songs

Kate Sloan

Here are 10 songs that gave me sexxxy feelings in 2017… What were your faves this year? (Pro tip: you can listen to all 10 of these, plus all the songs I’ve profiled in previous years of 12 Days of Girly Juice, in my Spotify playlist!)

Shady Elders – The Night Air

I made a note way back in February to include this song in this list; I’ve loved it for that long. It’s a sultry, spacey unfolding of sound. I especially love jerking off to it when I’m stoned off my ass. Marijuana makes the slick beats and smooth vocals coalesce so it feels like someone is playing my vulva like a jazzy old Fender. I can’t listen to this without wanting to roll my hips, close my eyes, and sink into sin.

Betti – Ordinary

In the tradition of Amy Winehouse and Adele, Betti’s hearkening back to the ’60s with this mellow and melodramatic love song. And like many mid-century hits, this one describes a relationship that borders on toxic and abusive, but is painted as quixotically romantic. “We argue til midnight, and make love til daylight,” Betti sings; “Fold your clothes out the dryer; one wrong move, and I’ll light them on fire.” I’ve never been in a relationship this mercurial, and I’d like to keep it that way.

Sometimes I like to imagine this song is about a consensual D/s relationship – or a relationship between two kinksters so closeted, they don’t even realize the capricious game they’re playing is a function of their kinks. It makes me feel a little less conflicted about lyrics like, “We break up just so we can make up… We’re so perfectly fucked up, one step short of crazy.”

Hippo Campus – Boyish (Acoustic)

There’s no way I could omit Hippo Campus from this list. Their music isn’t “sexy,” per se, but it’s most of what I’ve listened to all year. This jazzy acoustic rendition of “Boyish” is the closest thing they have to an anthem of lust – and in classic Hippo Campus fashion, it’s difficult to entirely parse what the song is trying to express. But it sounds sexy, anyway.

There are lyrical elements that remind me of various kink scenarios: “Daddy’s coming home but mama’s looking guilty,” for example, or “Wolf-child’s heavy with the weight of the world, storing all his love in an adolescent girl.” Then there are lines that allude to the tropes of toxic masculinity, like, “I never really knew if I did something wrong; all I ever heard was it wasn’t my fault.” I can never quite decide if I think this song is about a complicated, conflicted man, or a literal werewolf, or the latter as a metaphor for the former. In any case, this version is beautiful. (And I have a hell of a crush on Hippo Campus’ graceful, goofy guitarist, Nathan Stocker. Hnnng.)

Sleeping At Last – Venus

This is a song about finally finding a planet you’ve been sleuthing out in your telescope for ages, but it seems intentionally written like a love song. It’s a metaphor for that moment when you spot someone from across a room and instantly realize they’re going to matter to you. “After a while, I thought I’d never find you; I convinced myself that I would never find you… and suddenly I saw you,” Sleeping At Last mastermind Ryan O’Neal murmurs romantically as the first verse resolves. I’ve listened to this song dozens of times and it gives me chills every. fucking. time because I know that feeling so damn well.

“Venus” reminds me, too, of the electric exploration of a new partner’s body the first time you get them naked: the constellations of freckles and hairs, the sparks of sensation when you discover an erogenous zone, the effervescent present moment that extinguishes all external distractions. You are entirely focused on this beautiful person’s beautiful body – like you’ve got a telescope trained on them and nothing else fucking matters.

Oliver Nelson – Stolen Moments

This track was the theme song for a late-night show I used to listen to on a local jazz radio station when I was in high school. When insomnia loomed over me, and I felt too scared or sad to lie in the dark by my lonesome, I would turn the radio on – and there would always be someone at the station, growling in a rough baritone between meticulously-chosen jazz tracks. This was one of my faves, and still is.

Fucking to jazz feels inherently classy, like you’re doing it under a streetlight’s smoky beams in a gritty 1970s movie. Jazz is also a safer choice than some others on this list (see: Nick Jonas) if you’re wary of sexual partners judging you for your taste. I can’t imagine anyone complaining if you wanted to fuck to this sultry, stunning tune – and if they did, surely you wouldn’t want to fuck them anyway.

DVSN – Sept. 5th

I had a boyfriend this year who told me he wished every band sounded like DVSN. He used to blast their music while we had sex (along with Alina Baraz; see below) so I deeply associate their pulsating R&B jams with deliciously slow-paced kink trysts in a basement apartment that smelled of sandalwood and marijuana.

“I could make it better, if I could have sex with you,” the singer of this track warbles in the chorus. This notion resonates with me. Sometimes sex is like medicine. But medicine that goes down smooth.

Paul Cook & the Chronicles – Ships Pass

Has there ever been a sadder song about one-night stands? I’m no expert, but I don’t think so. This one hits the nail on the head, perfectly capturing that empty feeling that follows an ill-advised hookup with a stranger when what you really want is something more substantial. “It’s cold outside your window, but warm between your thighs,” Paul Cook croons. “We both know what’s happening, but we leave it aside.”

I spent a lot of time this year contemplating what kinds of sex I want to have, and why. I’ve come to the conclusion, again and again, that one-off hookups are not my heart’s desire or my genitals’ jam. For me, they’re like throwing back a few McDonald’s fries when you’re aching for a steak and a heap of roasted veggies. But sometimes you’re starving and there is nothing else available, and that is both dissatisfying and sad. “I will find someone who stays with me all night… Yeah, I will find somebody just right,” Cook promises himself, but it rings hollow. You never know how long it’ll be until the next special person crests over the horizon of your life.

Nick Jonas – Teacher

This year I went to a Body Pride workshop, at the end of which we were encouraged to choose a song that made us feel sexy and dance around doing a naked photoshoot. This is the song I picked. It’s impossibly slick and sexy, overflowing with funk, like a modern-day “Short Skirt, Long Jacket.” If you listen to this while you walk down the street, you will end up strutting like a supermodel. There’s no way around it.

As you might infer from the title of the song, “Teacher” also pings a lot of my subby kinks. With lyrics like “It’s like your mama never taught you how to love – so let me teach you” and “This game we’re playing makes me wanna break the rules,” my boy Nick fuels the fire of my staunch belief that he’s a big ol’ kinkster. You can pry my Daddy Dom Nick Jonas headcanons from my cold, dead, submissive-babygirl hands.

Dirty Projects – Little Bubble

This song does things to my vagina. I don’t know what else to tell ya.

Alina Baraz – Buzzin’

I’ve put a song of Alina’s on this list every year this list has existed. What can I say: girl knows how to make a sexy track. I don’t have much to say about this one except that I can’t listen to it without wanting to make out with someone, grind against a cute person’s thigh while they press against me, and/or party down on a great vibe. Alina nailed it again.

What sexy music did you love this year?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2017: 11 Favorite Blog Posts

Kate Sloan

I’ve written over 130 posts on this here blog in 2017, which is… a lot. As I say to myself every time I look at my bulging folder of post drafts: “I need to chill the fuck out, man.”

That said, drilling down to choose my 11 favorite posts of the year wasn’t especially hard. These are the posts I loved working on the most, the ones that got the biggest and best reactions from my lovely readers (dat’s you!), the ones that left me feeling proudest of my craft. I hope you liked ’em too.

Just a few days into the year, I wrote “You’re Vanilla, I’m Not, But I Love You.” It poured out of me in a frantic rush. I remember one minute I was lying in bed, staring into space and pondering my current romantic predicament, and the next, I was leaping across the room to grab my notebook and scribble some notes. “Loving a vanilla person when you’re kinky,” I scrawled, and made a two-page long list of vignettes, situations, longings, fantasies, and regrets which later coalesced into a polished blog post.

Getting over a passionate love – whether that love is requited or, as in this case, decidedly not – requires action. Sometimes you have to give yourself closure, if your beloved won’t give it to you. Part of my self-closure process in recovering from this particular unrequited love was writing about it – a lot. Making sense of what happened, arranging it into a logical narrative, helped me understand why and how I had fallen so hard, and what it ultimately meant for me. Parsing out the kink piece of this puzzle in “You’re Vanilla, I’m Not” helped me with that recovery. When it was done, I breathed a sigh of sad-but-hopeful relief.

In February, I wrote about “5 Bruises I Loved and Lost.” My kinky identity is still new enough to me that I’m habitually learning new things about what makes me tick. One such piece of information I solidified for myself this year is that I love receiving bruises, bite marks, scratches, hickeys, and other visible signs of consensual affection. They remind me that I am wanted, and make me feel owned – which, for a pervy little submissive like me, is a very good feeling indeed.

In this piece, I also explored how my masochism can bleed into self-harm when depression turns my self-destructive impulse up to eleven. It’s not pretty, but it’s worth discussing. I’m still picking apart all the ways in which my kinks interact with my mental health, and writing helps me figure that stuff out.

A lot of my favorite posts I wrote this year were sponsored (yayyy, bloggers gettin’ paid for quality work!) but I think my fave sponsored post of 2017 was “Pain, Punishment, & Pretty Girls at the Ritual Chamber.” I got invited to write about a local dungeon space and brought along my pals Suz and Taylor to do a fun-as-fuck photoshoot amongst all the kinky equipment.

Beyond just making for a flashy blog post, this assignment also presented an opportunity for collaboration, something I’d like to do a lot more of in 2018. It’s so gratifying to have reached a point with this blog that I can sometimes afford to pay photographers and other collaborators, because I get to spread my good fortune around while also making rad content with talented people. Yay!

For 4/20, I penned “Submissive ‘n’ Stoned: Reflections on Weed & Kink.” I didn’t realize until I started drafting this post just how much overlap there is between those two things in my life, and I want to explore this intersection more! This post is an erotic journey through smoky basement apartments, orgasmic precipices, and unrequited love in no-smoking hotel rooms. It’s indubitably one of the sexiest things I wrote all year, but it’s also weird, which is exactly the kind of thing I love to write.

I spent a lot of time pondering and processing the notion of “daddy doms” this year, as it was the first time in over two years of DD/lg fantasizin’ that I actually had a relationship built on this dynamic. A blog post called “Are You My Daddy?” (its title a nod to the children’s book of a similar name) explored my past attempts at DD/lg dynamics and the reasons my then-partner was better-suited to that relationship style with me than my previous partners had been.

It makes me sad to re-read this piece now that that relationship has long imploded, but it’s also encouraging, because it means I’m that much closer to knowing what I want. And the more clearly you know what you want, the likelier you are to get it.

I encountered a lot of bisexual erasure this year – including people accusing me of erasing bisexuals by not using the word “bisexual” every goddamn time I mentioned a romantic or sexual dalliance. (Suffice it to say, I disagree with this perspective.) In response, I wrote “FYI: Still Bi,” a poem about biphobia and bi pride. It was fun to couch such rage in a jovial, Dr. Seuss-esque cadence. More poetry in 2018, please!

It’s always satisfying when I finally write about an idea I’ve been contemplating for a long time. “Sadsturbation: Hobby of the Heartbroken & Horny” was one such piece. I have long been someone who cries during sex, seeks orgasms for depression relief, and struggles to repopulate my fantasy life after a heartbreak. Sexuality is a great source of joy in my life, but my sadness and my sexuality are deeply linked, too.

I vividly remember a time in July when a heavy workload led to a heavy heart, and my then-boyfriend asked me, “What do you need?” The answer, honestly, was orgasms. So he gave me two of them, sweetly and domineeringly, in my cozy bed. Afterward, as the clouds cleared from my mind, he asked me, “Do you feel better?” and holy wow, did I ever.

I love writing how-to content that’s helpful not only to my readers but also to me. One such post was “How Meta-Communication Can Make You a Great Flirt (Even If You’re Shy).” It’s full of tips for earnest flirting using the subtle arts of self-awareness, self-reference, and self-disclosure. I still refer back to this post on occasion when I’m at a loss for how to flirt with someone new!

Sex toy reviews rarely make it onto this list, because frankly, I don’t consider them my best writing. I’d rather delve deeply into an emotional snafu or a philosophical argument than try to wax poetic over the specs of a toy. But this year I reviewed the Stockroom Cocksucker’s Mirror and it instantly became one of my favorite reviews I’ve ever written. What intrigued me about this toy was how it forced me to confront some deeply-rooted sexual anxieties, and that’s mostly what the review is about. It’s amazing how kink can be not only a fun sexual adventure but also a startling mirror into your psyche – in this case, literally.

I’d like to write more reviews like this in 2018: reviews that detail my personal experience with a product, from an emotional and psychological perspective just as much as a physical one. There are only so many vibrator reviews you can write (or read) before they become deathly boring. I wanna punch ’em up a bit.

My favorite blog posts of other people’s are typically the ones that blend white-hot sexiness with authentic emotion (Girl on the Net does this particularly well). I tried to do that with “5 Times Kink Helped Me Love My Body,” a meditation on insecurities, confidence, and BDSM. As it turns out, this post is a pretty spot-on microcosm of the kind of year I had sexually: one of kink and burgeoning confidence. (That’s a very good thing.)

Possibly my favorite blog post of the year was “Devastated & Divine: A Week in Post-Breakup Fashion.” I got the idea while out with my friend Suz the night after a breakup that totally wrecked me. As the two of us stood in an alley behind a liquor store, smoking weed (one of the few things that eased my bone-deep emotional pain at that time), Suz snapped some photos of me. She sent me the finished products and I mused, “These look like street fashion shots.” And then – lightbulb! aha! – an idea was born. I wrote a satirical fashion editorial about the “outfits” I wore in the week following my breakup, which ranged from “real clothes like an actual functional human would wear” to “the comfiest possible loungewear for a multi-hour cry-a-thon.”

I worked on this piece a little each day in the week following that breakup, writing only a few paragraphs every day but never skipping it, because it became an important ritual to me then. One thing that’s always been true for me is that creativity eases my pain. Writing something evocative, whether it’s a blog post or a song, reminds me of my talents and my accomplishments at times when those things are easy to forget. It would take me months after that breakup to really rediscover the sensation of happiness, but working on that blog post lifted my spirits just enough that I could get through the week. And then the week after that. And the week after that.

One dorkily earnest note before I close out this post: Thank you so much for reading my work this year. It is a daily blessing to have people out there giving a shit about the things I write. You make my life a thousand times brighter and more meaningful just by being here. Thank you, thank you, thank you. If you liked what you read here this year, I hope to write more things that give you comfort and solace in 2018 and beyond. 💜