being seen and heard

#21: aries season (2025)

Apr 19, 2025

Hi, good morning. It’s bad out here, y’all. You don’t need me to tell you that of course. For this post reflecting on Aries season this past month (Mar 20th - Apr 19th), I’m just going to share a little bit of goss. I hope it’s a nice way to start your weekend.

Taurus season starts later today, and you can find an overview of some of the upcoming astrology at the end of this newsletter.

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The problem with having an anonymish newsletter is that once you bug enough people you know to read it, people you know read it. This means you lose a lot of the anonymity where it matters most. If you happen to be a shameless gossip, this complicates things.

If you share details from your social life or sex life, there might be consequences if the people you write about read what you wrote — even if you didn’t speak critically of them, and even if you portrayed them in a positive light. Some people just don’t want to be written about, which is fair and valid!

None of this is news to folks who pull from their personal lives to make stories, songs, art, or blog posts. Everyone navigates this in their own way. I’m navigating it in my own way! I haven’t shared a lot of the goss I’ve wanted to here — I’ve been sooo good, and you can see for yourself. But it’s still Aries season and Mars is in Leo now, so I’m in the mood to be a little less good rn :)

I’m currently caught up in some drama in this group I’m a part of (keeping things vague for deniability). It feels like the group is falling apart, and it doesn’t seem like anyone else cares enough to do something about it. I am our treasurer and I’m doing a very good job at it, if I do say so myself. I’m proficient in Excel and I haven’t embezzled at all, even though I think I could be proficient at that too.

There is now only one other group member in an official service position, as the set-up person. We had someone who was filling both the business meeting chair and secretary roles, the two other most important ones, but they let go of both right before our last business meeting and then couldn’t make it to that meeting to lead the vote to fill the positions they were vacating. Things come up, needs and priorities change, I get it. It just meant that the six of us who did go were sitting there staring at each other, until someone volunteered to get us started and take notes.

At the business meeting, I shared my concern that it seems like the group isn’t in a great place. Folks agreed that we needed to fill our open positions, but the consensus seemed to be that everything will be fine and the meetings we put on will carry on regardless. Which, yes, sure, the meetings might go on if people keep showing up, but the group who puts them on might fall apart if no one does anything!

We have a number of folks who come to these meetings regularly, but they don’t consider themselves members of the group and don’t stay for our business meetings — which happen just four times a year and are now so quick. Like, probably too short honestly, but that’s what we voted to make happen.

I don’t know why more people don’t come to our group in general since we’re a rare, explicitly queer one and we meet at a convenient weekend time. Our small size puts us in a tough spot because we’re just taking turns in each of the service positions, and several of the people who have been keeping the group going for longer have gotten burned out. I’m grateful for the work they did obviously. But folks are “at capacity,” so they’re “stepping back,” and “releasing responsibility,” and “setting a boundary,” and like, gay people cannot be trusted with therapy-speak! Frankly, I don’t know if anyone can — I just want to name that!

The thing is, no individual person is really at fault, but in a way we’re all to blame. Or rather, it’s all our responsibility. Everyone is valid in their reasons for not wanting to step up, but I’m valid, too, in my concern and frustration about this. I don’t know if we can all have boundaries here if we want to keep the group going!

I’m struggling with this as a Virgo — I’m fighting the urge to just do all of the rest of it myself, in addition to treasurer. I would be a good secretary and I could facilitate a business meeting pretty well. I shouldn’t do it all though, not only so there are ways for others to get involved, but also because then I’d be the one getting burned out and resentful.

This has all been coming to a head over the past couple of days because the owners of the space we meet out of changed the door code. There have apparently been some issues recently in the house. A few other groups use the space as well, and I can confidently say the issues are not our fault. We’re very well behaved!

We found out the code was changed in an email forwarded from someone who was the secretary before last. I guess that’s the email address the woman managing the building has been sending updates to. The email was sent out to all of the groups, and it said that the leader of each group needed to call to get the new door code from her. Annoying, but straightforward enough.

Well. I followed up about this in a group chat with our members, and our set-up guy gave her a call to get the code. She wouldn’t give it to him though — she said she didn’t have his name. I texted the group saying I’d try calling because she probably has my name, since I’m the person who’s been sending them our donations.

This lady does not have my name, it turns out — only our money. She would not give me the code either, and she seemed mad I asked. It didn’t matter to her that the group’s bank account is in my name or that I’m the one about to make our quarterly contribution to their organization — no, she will only give out the code to the group leader, and the previous secretary whose name she does have needs to call her directly to tell her who that person is now. Technically, groups in our organization don’t have a “leader” in the first place. But of course this couldn’t have happened two weeks ago when we still sort of had one.

I told the group chat about the contentious phone call, and I asked if anyone else could step up to be the “group leader,” even if just temporarily, to make this lady happy. I said I’m willing to but it shouldn’t be me because I’m already doing all of the treasurer duties. Direct but kind enough. The chat was silent for hours until someone else volunteered to call the building manager. I was too tired to say that’s not at all what she said we’re supposed to do to get this code out of her.

And that’s where things stand currently. An aggravated building manager on a power trip might break our little gay group if we can’t open the door to the house this weekend. I can’t hold appropriate space for all of this!

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Here are a few other takeaways from this past month:

A highlight is that I had a sexual experience that fixed me. Like, I’m healed now. I’m even quitting therapy because of it. (My therapist is leaving her practice so she’s actually the one quitting therapy, but I’m all better now anyway so the breakup is mutual.) This is all I’m going to say about the experience for now. Sorry to be a tease, but I love being a tease.

On a related note, the hookup to newsletter subscriber pipeline is still going strong. Dating apps are good for finding people to watch your Instagram stories for years, but they’re even better for finding people to subscribe to your blog — or pre-order your book, like a friend of mine is trying. Gotta love a nontraditional marketing strategy.

The apps are also good for making you confront things about yourself you might not if you weren’t using them. Spend a little time on them and you’ll ask yourself things like, Should I be wearing cardigans this regularly while I’m still young? And, If I have to be physically stopped from texting her “next sunday feels so far away,” do I really only want casual? Hypothetical questions like that.

An app I haven’t been spending much time on lately is Instagram. Not for my mental health or because I’m cutting down screen time, just because I don’t have an active crush on anyone who follows me right now. I’m not posting stories for anyone’s attention, and that’s kind of the whole point of it.

Recently, I ranked songs on Lucy Dacus’ new album by how single they make me feel. I didn’t love the album overall, especially compared to her previous ones. Did it grow on me as I listened for the piece? Yes, a bit. Have I listened to it since I shared that one? Let’s just say I haven’t been thinking about how I’m girlfriend-less lately.

This past month, I went to another cuddle party. I was little spoon to the same elder queer as last time, and the sweet friend of mine whom I went there with held me as well. I also held hands with a woman who has unknowingly caused some AA drama that spilled into multiple meetings, over the “outside issues” issue. That can come up when you don’t confine your discussion to your problems with alcohol, depending on how unrelated what you share is. And, well. I would share what was brought up if I could, but that has to stay between the people who were in that meeting — and a number of others at different local meetings, too, I guess.

One last thing: one of my exes is starting to explore a connection with the ex of an ex of another one of my exes. In a time that’s especially bleak, it’s so important for queer people to ~~cum~~ come together. Getting with our exes and our exes’ exes is a tried-and-true way to do it.