In our intensely divided country there is one thing that brings together the rich and the poor, the married and the love-seekers, the beautiful and the homely, those asking for help and those offering advice.

Reality television.

When MTV’s The Real World began its edited broadcast of 7 strangers residing together in a house in 1992, it was clear that their actions would leave the world of televised entertainment changed forever. The intimacy, the honesty and the grit were impossible to recreate in small screen fiction, and the viewer addiction was dangerous.

To which I playfully remarked… ” lucky for you , I never had an issue putting organs in my mouth “.

Silence for a bit, and then “yeah, that’s very nice”.

It isn’t fine that he decided to tell me that my being nervous at the reality of having sex with a well endowed man after 12 years of non penetrative lesbian sex translated into being a horrible lay who he felt ashamed to touch… wtf?!!!

Music is a very personal thing to me. My deepest secrets are locked away in the songs I love the most. Everything I have ever cried about is held prisoner within the lyrics of a deep album cut by one of my all-time favorite artists. As the pages turn on my mental flipbook, each significant event is coupled with a song.

Because of the deep connection I feel with the music I love it takes me a very long time to want to share these songs with a boyfriend. I am only able to put a song that broke my heart on display if it’s someone I plan to be with for a long time. Someone who has already glimpsed into my canyons and valleys. Someone that has stuck around long enough in my sunlight that they’ve grown familiar with my shadows, too.

When I’m not writing about LGBT issues, I’m writing about prehistoric worlds and the people and creatures that filled them. Although two seemingly different topics of interest, I find myself comparing bits and pieces of both subjects more often than one would imagine. I think part of the reason that I’m interested in issues of equality is because I’m interested in past and how environments, creatures and ideas change over time. How some things grow and change, and how others are left in the dust.

How has the treatment of women evolved?

I arrived at Easton Mountain a stranger and went home a member of a strong and vital family. I’m homesick already.

So, in the meantime, it is either go to Babes in Toyland and buy yet another vibrator OR start dating again.

It’s so out of fashion to say it aloud. To stand on a mountaintop and scream at the top of your lungs “Goddamnit I want so desperately for someone to fucking love me.” These are the kind of things you are never supposed to feel. And if you feel them you aren’t supposed to. Never say it out loud. Neediness equals weakness.

I stood in the club. Jennifer Lopez blared out of the speakers. An endless parade of shirtless douchebags nudged and elbowed me. My friends were in the bathroom and I stood alone. I reached for my cell phone to pretend I was texting someone. Saved by the cell.

For most of us, if we ever had to endure this devastating realization, it has been more than a decade since. For me? It happened 2 weeks ago; actually three times this summer.