Damn, Girl’s Top COVID Christmas Gift Pick

There are many things to love about winter. I am, of course, kidding. Winter is a loathsome season and anyone who claims to love it is being paid off by “Big Winter.” Follow the money!

Regardless of whether or not you are on the payroll at Winter Corp., I think we can all agree that between the pandemic and the chill, we are all feeling a bit limited.

For me personally, giving up the things I look forward to the absolute most has been eating at me. I am beyond fortunate to have remained healthy during 2020 and I try my hardest not to lose sight of what is truly important, but I’m not going to lie and say that having my big pleasure activities taken away has been easy. 

I wanted to check in with my readers because it’s been a hot minute (hi, lovelies!) and pass on a little thing that has brought me joy this year, and hopefully help you out too!

We’re talking holiday gifts this week!

White but Not Privileged: How to Understand What Is Going On Right Now

I had an unusual upbringing. My parents were both mentally ill, homeless, and addicted to drugs. My siblings and I slept in a three drawer dresser (one drawer for each of us) in the back of a van my parents drove up and down the country. When my dad got too violent, maybe taking a knife to my mother, maybe tying her up and striking her, we would stay in a women’s shelter or a homeless shelter. Not for too long, though, because there was a constant need to outrun Social Services and the police.

The psychotic, dangerous road trips would always end with my father in jail, my mother in a mental institution, and my siblings and me in group homes or foster homes. These bastions had their own drawbacks, namely physical, sexual, and verbal abuse, but they were a short reprieve from hunger and homelessness.

Notably, I lived in a condemned house in Detroit in a neighborhood called 7 Mile in the 1990s. I have greeted a box of government cheese with tears of relief.

I have accepted that I would die from exposure to the elements, hunger, or violence more times than I can count, not fully understanding to this day how I am still alive. I have spent nights in homeless shelters, days on the streets, slept on snow-covered city benches and in abandoned buildings, feared for my life, and prayed to die instead of living another day in undignified hardship.

I got this completely random text message from my sister as I was writing this post.

There is not a person on this planet that could call my life easy so believe me when I say:

if I can understand white privilege, so can you.

How to PMS Better

Like many women, I’m in the middle of a lifelong quest for better feminine health. We all have our little tips and tricks to ease and support ourselves during “that time of the month.” I want to share with you the ones that have made the biggest difference for me and solicit the ones that have made the biggest difference for you.

So let’s gather outside the cave to tell each other which berries we should rub on our boobs for an easier cycle and a better corn crop.

What Are You Doing for Yourself in Quarantine?

What good things have come out of your time in quarantine?

I bet it’s something and I want to know what it is. Did you learn how to play the ukulele? Have you finally mastered the perfect ratio of bubble bath to water? Did you learn something about your partner you never knew before? Was it that he is actually a ghost from the 1970s and has been dead this whole time? Because obviously, we all want to hear that story so stop being so selfish and tell us. Or maybe you organized your pantry or whatever.

Regardless, I want to know what you have learned, started learning, excelled at, or changed during this most unusual time in all our lives. Here’s mine:

Who Is Bothering You Most during Quarantine?

Ah, coronavirus. A virus that needs no introduction. The star of all our lives right now brings out the best in us, the worst in us, but mostly it seems, the annoying in us. Whether it’s the protesters, the hoarders, or the family members who struggle way too much to figure out Zoom, there is some group of people getting under all of our skin. I invite you to have a nice vent with me, air those grievances, girl, because it’s never good to keep that in.

Decorate Like a Damn Witch

You’re a little witchy, aren’t you? You mystical huntress. Maybe not all the time but on occasion, when you are very lucky, you will step in exactly the right place and find a supernatural force that seeps up through Mother Earth till it finds the soles of your feet and lets you know: life is pretty magical and so are you.

This is our favorite feeling, isn’t it? Feeling attuned to the hedonistic unknown? That full moon, warm summer night, stolen kiss feeling? Mmmmmmm, Magical Calgon take me away.

I want to talk about cultivating that witchy spark in your home. How to feel like you live in a faery castle, or deep in the woods surrounded by healing waters, or in a white curtain-lined sex yurt complete with a naked Witcher. I also want to teach you how to do it without turning your home into a tacky head shop which, let’s face it, is your worst fear.

Decorating has never come naturally to me. I am drawn to overly feminine pieces or trendy garbage that never translates into my own life, and I tend to quickly turn on patterns and colors, first welcoming them into my home, then quickly becoming skeptical, and eventually loathing them. Before I know it I find myself once again burying a vase in my backyard in the dead of night, sobbing that it was an accident, that next time it will be different. The vase won’t betray me. I’ll love the vase. We’ll be together forever.

If you are like me, and it’s important to you to have an environment that fosters creativity, sensuality and a little bit of magic, I have some trend-free tips for you that should keep you out of the acquire, love, loathe, kill cycle.

What Becomes of Your Emotions?

I always loved the movies where the sexy detective has a bad day because the man who murdered his wife six years ago is killing again, so he goes home to his overly large industrial loft, takes his shirt off, pours a scotch and starts punching a punching bag. Then he takes a cold shower and has a serious think in a leather armchair.

This is not what I do when I have a bad day. When I have a bad day I watch Bridezillas, eat something called “Oreo whip” (a birthday party staple for the ten-and-under crowd concocted at my local grocer), and lay on the couch in my underwear and a t shirt inexplicably covered in peanut butter.

At least that’s what happens with some of my bad days. Other times, my negative emotions turn into exactly what I want them to: diligent sexy productivity.

I’ve always loved this idea of my day going completely to shit and being like, “I just need to exercise, drink responsibly, then brood like a badass adult.”

Luckily, I have implemented a system of retraining not my emotions but my reactions to them so I can be more the sexy detective than the slovenly child. I want to share this system to those of you who also struggle with controlling the actions of your naughty personas.

The Importance of Romancing Yourself

I’ve never been wild about the idea of romance. When I was young, I always had a crush on the Disney villain, felt nothing for Prince William, and thought that Romeo and Juliet were so unstable that had they not killed themselves over a relationship that lasted a whopping four  days, they had little chance of overcoming inevitable “baby mama drama,” “just can’t even’s, and “who is she, huh huh”s.

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I have been with my husband since I was 19. I am in love with him. He comes home from work, we have a drink, cook a meal, make love, go for a stroll. It’s smooth sailing. On Valentines Day there are gifts, trips to New Orleans, bubble baths. “I love you’s are exchanged dozens of times a day along with a slew of adorable pet names that would turn the strongest of stomachs. My favorite is “dragon baby” or maybe “little cat wolf.” Sickening.

While I do appreciate and expect a certain level of romancing and spontaneity out of my husband, I think that it is not only necessary but preferable that the main provider of romance and intrigue in my life be me.

As a society, we have started to come around to this idea. We call it “self-care.” And while I am a wild about it, there is this maternal, almost wound-licking tone to it that makes me questions its lasting effectiveness.

Self-romancing is a lifestyle. It’s not something you pull out when you’ve gone overboard with your commitments, become too entrenched with family drama, or realized your children may just eat you alive if you let them.

One Year Blogiversary: DG Blogging Tips

Do you ever get the feeling that when it comes to blogging, there is something that people aren’t telling you? You see these blogs with thousands of followers, and you read their blogging tips and it’s, “Use good photos!” “It takes time!” and “Get a Twitter account!” and you’re like… okayyyy…

I don’t know if I should be telling you this but you are right. There is something they aren’t telling you. So Damn, Girl, you know I am going to spill the secret blogging beans!

DGGYST gets hundreds of requests for blogging tips and then refers to herself in the third person like an asshole because people are amazed that she has hit 5,000 followers just in time for her one-year blogiversary.

There isn’t going to be any “inspiration crap” in this post; this is a straight-up manual you can use to grow your readership and reprogram your DVR.

A Touchy Subject: How to Work on Being Touched

I am a very physically affectionate person. If it were socially acceptable I would introduce myself to new people by biting at their stomachs and nuzzling their neck.

Almost every week I swap full-body massages with my girlfriends. I kiss people goodbye and hello and my poor husband has bald patches all over his otherwise hairy body from being love-nuzzled.

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I think one of the saddest lessons life teaches us is to not let ourselves be touched. Men learn not to “be gay” and women learn, often through experiences with sexual assault, to be afraid.

With introversion finally getting its time in the limelight (calm down introverts, you can have the limelight on you and still hide under the stairs in the dark) and every talk show host/therapist/blogger talking about setting your boundaries, it is easier than ever to not let yourself be touched.

To touch is to trust

Yes, I think you should challenge yourself to let someone touch you. To touch is to trust. I think it is something worth working on. And I know no one else will tell you this because you are scary with your thick outer shell of scales and that look on your face like you’ve seen some shit. But I’m gonna because mama loves you and knows what’s best.

In all seriousness, I get it. Once you’ve been violated, not touching and letting yourself be touched is not only the instinctual thing to do, but it is easy to tell yourself that those feelings should not be questioned, ever.

So let’s prod at that sensitive area. Today I want to talk about how to touch and be touched when that’s the last thing you want to do.