“What are you doing?”

“I’m doing BARB,” I said to him.

“No, but what are you DOING?”

This is a conversation I’ve had a few times in the wake of my father’s passing and being “in between opportunities” and the election; people wanting to know things, things that once were met with enthusiasm, now skepticism. Being part of online community—blogging, as it were—is not a credible source of activity. It’s discounted. As if to say, your thoughts-on-display have no value, not really. That there is no obvious monetary reward suggests lack-of.

And yet. Doing BARB has saved my life. My sanity. My confidence. It’s restored my ability to write regularly. It’s given me a lifeline. It’s allowed me to connect to my sense of freedom, love, anger. justice, joy. It’s opened me up to women again, to my lens, to the bits of me long dormant and necessarily replaced by the urgency of raising and living with others. And all of these things, while they may not translate to economic power, is the basis of my empowerment, my drive, my being. And that has no price tag.

RuPaul: “And one day, my friend Larry Tee called me and said, ‘Ru, what the f–k are you doing? You are a star. Get your ass back to New York and get your s–t together.’ And I did. I got a plane ticket and decided I was going to shave these legs, I’m going to shave my chest, I’m going to put some f—ing titties in – rolled-up socks, not implants – and I’m going to go back to New York and give those bitches exactly what they want from me.”

Rachel Maddow: “I want to matter.”

Liz Tigelaar: “Men are wonderful, but we’ve been working for men for a long time.”

Rachel Talaay: “When I made Tank Girl, I truly believed that I would break the glass ceiling. I just thought, I believe in this comic. It’s so out there, it’s so outrageous, it’s so punk, it’s so me.”

Shirley M. Collado: “You can’t change who’s coming in if you’re not willing to shift who you are.”

Oh look! Men want parental leave too.

On turning 60.

You gotta have friends. Particularly as you get older.

I like the question of challenging women. Calling them problematic, not so much.

Have sex outdoors!

And now have a laugh with Annie Lederman.