Queer Fat Femme Guide to the Net

Inspiration at the intersection of identities, all bodies are good bodies, plus lots of glitter, flotsam & jetsam, by Bevin Branlandingham, the Queer Oprah, of QueerFatFemme.Com var sc_project=7025150; var sc_invisible=0; var sc_security="9b149b42"; var sc_text=2;

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Dolly Parton taught me to Dream More and I'm Doing It!

Dolly Parton taught me to Dream More and I’m Doing It!

You all know that Dolly Parton is one of my heroes. She taught me to Dream More. It’s part of her four pillars of success, as she outlined to the University of Tennessee graduating class commencement speech and then elaborated in her book Dream More. (I highly suggest the audio book read by Dolly herself.) I met Dolly last summer because I work hard, dream more and have generous friends. Anyway,…

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5 Strategies We Used To Fight Less (and Cuddle More) During Our Cross Country Move

5 Strategies We Used To Fight Less (and Cuddle More) During Our Cross Country Move

Hey there! I’m pre-selling Reiki infused tea blends through Wednesday, March 2nd! Click here to learn more and support me working towards my dreams! Moving is hands-down one of the most stressful things you can do. It’s right up there on the list of life stressors with losing a job, divorce and death. Disrupting routine is really draining, so is the discomfort of living amidst boxes on an air…

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LA Week Five: Turning Social

LA Week Five: Turning Social

Hey friend! I’m doing a pre sale of my Reiki infused tea blends to help me pay for B-School, the sale ends March 2nd. Read more about it here or order here. Thank you for your support of my endeavors to create a business and life I love! I’m loving these weekly check-ins about the transition to LA. I keep reminding myself of the power of six months, that in six months everything will be…

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I'm Doing a Reiki Tea Pre Sale Through March 2nd!

I’m Doing a Reiki Tea Pre Sale Through March 2nd!

(If you don’t want to read the backstory and want to go straight to the Reiki tea ordering page, click here for seven blends of Reiki infused tea, available through March 2.) As readers of my blog know, I am obsessed with tea. I started my web series, The Lesbian Tea Basket as a way to chronicle my burgeoning interest in tea and now I’m a full on tea nerd, with an entire pantry closet of tea and…

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LA Week Four: We're Getting There

LA Week Four: We’re Getting There

Tomorrow marks four weeks since we took possession of our dream house / super quirky rental. I kind of can’t believe that it’s been so long because it has gone by so fast. My first batch of guacamole from my first round of gathered avocados from my tree. How much guacamole is included in my rent? I can’t wait to find out! I also am going to get GREAT at making it so if you have a recipe you love…

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Beth Ditto has a new Fashion Line!

Beth Ditto has a new Fashion Line!

New plus size fashion has been given unto us… and it is good! One of my very favorite wardrobe staples is the sweater face dress I bought from Beth Ditto’s first fashion line, a collaboration with Evans in the UK. For those of you who don’t know Beth Ditto, she’s probably the most famous queer fat femme out there, rising to fame as the lead singer of Gossip, has her own awesome solo music…

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LA Week Three: Overwhelm, Gratitude and You Can't Make Old Friends

LA Week Three: Overwhelm, Gratitude and You Can’t Make Old Friends

We’re in our third week in LA! Dara went on her first business trip back to NYC on Saturday. She’s in leadership development consulting and packed up her sleeping bag coat to go back to the frigid temps for meetings. I had a visitor for the weekend–my BFF from Girl Scout Camp, Spunky came down from Sacramento to help out at the house. When we planned the trip I told her, “This whole thing is…

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LA Week Two: Progress Not Perfection

LA Week Two: Progress Not Perfection

When we were planning our move to LA from Brooklyn, we agreed that I would spend the first couple of weeks here setting things up. I genuinely believed that spending most of my time for two weeks would be enough to get us unpacked and functional. I was really really really wrong. We got our house fast, and we literally had one day to prepare before we moved in. I spent that day setting up our…

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How We Found Our House in LA

How We Found Our House in LA

As soon as we decided to move to LA I insisted I would only move into a house. They have all of these houses out here that are 2 bedroom, 1 bath bungalows, with little yards and washer/dryers and no walls sharing with anyone else. I’ve never lived in a stand alone house as an adult. A huge part of why I was so ready for a departure from NYC was to live in an area that had less population density.…

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Remembering Bryn

I woke up this morning to two text messages from friends asking me to call them. I’m a Capricorn, I know a pattern. I know that means another queer friend of mine has passed. We love each other. We’re always in a race to beat Facebook to tell one another the important stuff. I never want someone to have the experience of finding out something devastating like this on Facebook, and I’m glad my…

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My Website is Having Issues

My Website is Having Issues

Hey y’all. Been having some difficulties on the back end of my website. I run WordPress, and have since the beginning of this blog in 2008. In the past almost eight years I’ve had four big issues, three with hacks and now some backend weird issue with memory allocation. I’m still trying to get it figured out through the WordPress tune-up service from my host. They migrated my site to a new…

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Remembering Ellie

Cancer has claimed another amazing queer pal of mine at a young age. Ellie Conant was a kind, magical creator of community space. Her parties (Choice Cunts, among others) were legendary in the NYC queer scene when I moved to town and I was honored to join her as a party creator. She was exciting to party with and really fun to be around. She was the kind of person who showed up and instantly made…

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See You Laters instead of Goodbyes: My Last Moments as a New Yorker and First Stop on the Road

See You Laters instead of Goodbyes: My Last Moments as a New Yorker and First Stop on the Road

On December 18th the moving truck came and took all of the belongings we decided were important enough to ship to California. For me, this involved my beloved high heeled shoe chairs and four wardrobe boxes of hanging clothes. For Dara, her karaoke machine, keyboard and guitar. Thank the Goddess for the incredible help of Victoria in that process. Pro-tip: if you know someone going through an…

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New Episode of the Lesbian Tea Basket: Adagio Christmas Tea Sampler

New Episode of the Lesbian Tea Basket: Adagio Christmas Tea Sampler

Happy holigays to you! On Black Friday I happened to need to restock my stash of loose leaf decaf black tea, AND Adagio has my favorite loose leaf flavored black teas AND I got an email for a sale, SO I went for it. And because I spent $25 I got a free Christmas teas sampler, a $9 value. Plus free shipping! I love to show my outfit from the video–this is the sweater I’m wearing. A vintage…

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I Tackled the Bin: Loving Myself Through Paper Adulting

I Tackled the Bin: Loving Myself Through Paper Adulting

The moving trucks come to take us to California two weeks from tomorrow. We ended up going with Flat Rate Moving on the recommendation of a friend, and I will be sure to blog about our experience because getting moving quotes took me 10 hours (literally). Personal experience, warnings and recommendations were crucial to my selection. I feel like the process of decluttering and packing up my life…

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Queer and Indie Holiday Gift Guide!

Queer and Indie Holiday Gift Guide!

It’s Cyber Monday again (I kind of still hate that it’s a thing now but it’s a thing now). I believe in putting a dam in Capitalism wherever possible. If I have some wealth, I am going to redirect it to prioritize helping the lives of small businesses, especially those run by queers and POC. I don’t want my gift money going to increase some bottom line on the New York Stock Exchange. I figure if…

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How I Use A Positive Outlook as an Activist to Cope When the World Seems Terrible

How I Use A Positive Outlook as an Activist to Cope When the World Seems Terrible

Yesterday my therapist said something pretty surprising to me. “I saw this Barbara Walters special with Donald Trump. I can’t believe she would give him that level of publicity, and I am so sad that he is going to win the presidency.” My therapist is a pretty positive person and generally very supportive of my positive outlook on life, so her certainty of the fate of a Trump presidency was…

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