I hate being sentimental, sometimes. I hate the weight of sentimentality. I hate how silly it makes me feel. How young and how childish. How I have always been so earnest and thus have never been cool enough to be cool. Cool as in chill, as in relaxed, as in unbothered. Cool as in the unsmiling Abercrombie and Fitch models. Cool as in rich kid parties. Cool as in mean girls who didn’t get their shoes at Payless. Cool as in the way my friend Matt smoked cigarettes when I was twenty and how I too started smoking cigarettes. Matt, have you quit yet?
I just was joking around with a new comedy pal Olivia about how uncool we feel. My sentimentality is just one of these factors! And my inability to shut the fuck up! I talk too much to be mysterious and being mysterious is a very, very, very cool quality. Annoying people are never cool, but also cool people need annoying people around them to so clearly delineate who is cool and is not cool.
I felt super cool recently though. I just went to AWP a few weeks back (Association of Writers and Writer’s Programs) with the publisher I’ve been working for since last summer. YesYes Books is a publisher based here in Portland, primarily publishing poetry, and far before I worked for YesYes I was a fan of their writers. They’ve put out some of what I would say are incredibly important books of poetry to the modern poetry canon! And working the table for YesYes was an experience of proximity and recognition. So many folks recognized our titles, our authors, our name. I felt so much damn pride being in Kansas City representing them and meeting current and future authors. After a lot of behind the scenes work for months and months, it felt so damn affirming to have in person interactions that make the big picture all the more clear.
But I felt that fun little elbow rub of cool by association. And so then maybe it isn’t cool as in non-committal, maybe cool is unfortunately so engrained by millennials to the word popular. The top of the PYRAMID. The goal of all goals to any teenager in 2006! Oh, to be popular. A strange conflation, because also many would argue that nothing is less cool than being popular. I think particularly of my friends who are so damn cool because they’ve been punk as fuck since the day they were born? And we thought the gender spectrum was complicated! Alas, so is the spectrum of cool. Exhausting! (Also, I love that there’s no way kids today use cool the same way if they even use the word cool at all.)
And in some ways I think the Devin that exists today is well-liked in a way that Devin as a youth was so desperate to be liked and loved and to be seen as cool. I loved throwing parties, I loved buying my “friends” shots, and I loved talking about myself. I just wanted to be interesting and exciting and worth someone’s time/attention/love.
Woof.
And there is the day we riotously declare — fuck ‘em all. Fuck everyone’s perceptions! Fuck what they think of me! Fuck what they say! Wow do I remember how elated I was when I finally felt a modicum of this mentality. And to be honest, most days I still pretty securely have a grasp on ‘fuck the rest’ when it comes to how I live and operate in the world.
I cry in commercials. I vocally gasp and respond in movie theaters. I eat burgers and no, the meat is not always organic. I probably don’t wash my sheets or bathroom towels often enough. I hate the pressure to be right, or to have the right opinion, or to know enough to even have an opinion. I talk about sex in public, and for this years this was often to the pained chagrin of the company I kept. Thankfully, I know more sluts now. I spent like fifteen hours disassociating by playing a video game two weeks ago when I definitely had way more pressing and important tasks to accomplish. I try to caretake everyone in my life, whether or not I mean to, and definitely whether or not someone needs my version of care. I tell people I love them, often, and probably before the evidence is fully formed. I am generous with affection and statements of affection. I have zero chill. I tell people when I think they’re impressive or funny and I very rarely have the ability to hold back my true feelings.
I think about Younger Devin and about how she missed the mark, so many times. But starting about a decade ago — she didn’t hold back. She ran straight ahead. (Often into those figurative walls.) She steam rolled. She saw obstacles and turned her body into a battering ram. I look at this flailing version of self with sentimentality. With softness and understanding and holy shit am I able to hold such empathy for the shit she said and did.
All of this pontificating about coolness to say, I love the vulnerability of Valentine’s Day. And I love that it siphons us straight into Pisces season. I made a sappy post about my partner on Instagram, realizing that many many many of my broader social circles might not have known about my six-month-long relationship! Because I’d been pretty private about it. Some mentions here in H & H, a photo or two on close friends. But far less of the um…proclamations I once was known to make online about love and about the person I was in love with. I felt shy sharing it, in some ways. But TBH, I’d do it again and again. I love being in love, I love witnessing love. I love how uncool love makes me feel. (Though, I do not love how un-chill it makes me. lol) I am intense with my love and forthright and so willing. I love how love turns my heart feeble, only to fortify it with such certainty. I love how this life constantly gifts me incredible people to fall in love with, how it will continue to do so.
And how cool every single one of the people I have loved has been, and how cool every single person I have yet to have will be.
HUNGRY
To be honest, I cannot believe I haven’t done eggs yet. Eggs are so fucking good. Eggs are SO FUCKING GOOD. And, I say this to you dear readers, and I didn’t even like eggs as a kid. My first egg experience I remember enjoying I think I was 19 or 20? I had eggs Benedict with my great-grandma and my brain melted. Then about two years later, I was a recent graduate from college, living at home with my mom for the summer in her new home (the second home my mom ever owned! It was a big deal!) and the house came with…chickens! That summer, I fried so many eggs. I became so good at frying eggs. And the eggs were different. RICH. Vibrant. Fresh eggs are better than store eggs. Every. Single. Time.
The fried egg is my favorite egg, but an over medium/over easy. Get the fuck out of here if you eat your eggs over hard. Or WORSE, hard scrambled. Get that dry nonsense out of this egg safe space! Gooey yolky are SEXY. My friend Sofia and I’s friendship is probably 50% egg. Will I explain further? No.
I love eggs because I love the care. (Mind you, I have made a genuine effort to switch to free range eggs when I buy in the store because if you look up most egg farms/chicken farms… it is bleak my dudes.) But if you know the chickens, you tend to them, and then you get to eat the eggs. It’s a special little circle of life. Also, if you’ve ever seen Survivor and when they have a chicken — it is the sweetest and funniest thing.
“It’s great for the morale. It’s great for the stomach.” Tony, Season 28 of Survivor
And like, chickens are not the smartest animals but wow are they hilarious. And I love how humans figured them out! (If you ever want to go down a great TikTok deep dive just find the cottagecore mothers of four who are raising chickens for the first time. They’ve got the TIPS and GOSS and BEAUTIFUL EGGS.)
And of course, eggs feel very queer to me. (Okay, what do you mean by that Devin?) WELL, they’re versatile. The spectrum of egg is vast. Omelets! Scrambles! Boiled! Fried! Eggs with hollandaise! Eggs in your ramen! Eggs on your burger! Comment below with your favorite form of egg/style of eating eggs.
Once, I had an incredibly heated debate with my friend Ryan about whether or not eggs were a breakfast food. The sentence/clause being: Eggs are a breakfast food. YES! Yes, they are! A quintessentially American breakfast food. But, the rebuttal was of course that eggs are ate every time of day. No, duh! Eggs are great! Eat them all day. But…we know they taste better at breakfast, right?
HORNY
I am the kind of horny lately that is sort of exhausting. Getting off but then still being horny. Getting horny while crying. (Thank you, Pisces season.) Horny and wanting a pat on the head, or to have my face cradled, or to have my ear lobes gently rubbed. Horny like I want my life ruined but I want to wrapped in silk while it happens.
I did some impact bottoming for my pal Ron (yes, the famous PDX Ron Swanson) for the first time in what felt like ages. It was great. Sort of a last minute plan, but I had a real shit week last week. (I will explain that when there’s more information but basic summary is I have multiple sick family members.) And I had that moment of huh, my health has taken a pretty big leap towards normalcy the last few weeks — minus a bout of food poisoning/stomach flu on my flight back from Kansas City, yikes, do not recommend — and I thought, yeah, I want the pulp squeezed out of me.
Ron is my long time impact buddy, we started playing together late summer of 2021 and they were dubbed Father Daddy pretty shortly thereafter. We were partners for the Portland-based Bondage Soup taught by Natalie Rose in 2022, and they’ve been my delightful chaotic brother-cousin-in-kink since. Bottoming for impact is something I only started doing in 2019, and to be honest — hadn’t know I even was a masochist prior! (Maybe emotionally, but…) And yeah, that can be pretty fluid. Some days I’m real baby, do not hit me it hurts ouchie stop. Other days, I feel like a brick house. (These are not common days. Also when you go long stretches without play, it’s not quite like riding a bike. Your body definitely ‘toughens’ the more frequently you play.) But we had a very fun scene, where Ron only used the toys I’d stashed in my bag for the evening at Sanctuary. (My least favorite was the aluminum knuckles. They suck so bad.)
CW, for the second photo that will be below of some bruises! First photo, me post-scene getting a hug from Ron. I look so blissed. (I was.)
And now bruises.
The most noticeable marks are from a wicked beastly cane I have that’s made from the ‘end goal/final’ stick in a croquet set. It hurts like hell. But, as I have learned participating in kink, pain is temporary! These bruises, a week later, have almost completely faded into a slight yellow across my thighs. But know what isn’t temporary?
Andrew Gibson.
Normally, I write my newsletters from top to bottom, but when my friend Baby sent this to me (and then I watched it four times) and I once again remained so deeply thankful for any insight Andrea Gibson shares with the world, I knew I had to make sure all of you saw this too. Mental health tips in the horny section, Devin? C’mon! Noooooo no no. You can’t convince me that being mentally well isn’t extremely horny of you. Also, number four (if you’re feeling out of control, stop trying to control things) is a piece of advice I’ve heard since I first got sober and MAN!!!!! Every time I hear it I hate it! Every time I hear it I resist it! But boy oh boy is it the advice to take my guys. Loosen that grip. Open those palms up. Give in. (Significantly different than giving up, loves.) I won’t get too into the spiritual self but get curious about what it looks like for you to trust the universe. And this isn’t, everything happens for a reason, no it’s that everything happens whether or not we are ready for it to happen to us.
I met Andrea once, because they had a show in Spokane, and their partner and my pal Megan was in town too for the show I booked her on the following day. I had recently did a photo shoot topless with Andrea’s book Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns and showed Andrea that photo bashfully while backstage and now I get to say, “Once I showed Andrea Gibson my tits.” (I never sound as cool saying this as I think I do.)
Not a claim to fame, by any means. But a precious and very silly memory. Nostalgia! Cruel mistress!
This month I also did a comedy show here in Portland where we all presented on our zaddy of choice, and I obviously presented on Pedro Pascal, because how could I not, and though we had an excellent turn out…if you want to see those slides just let me know, I was far too proud of them.
But also, horny shit?! I bought a book at AWP that I *gasped* when I saw the cover and I have not read it yet, so I can’t guarantee the horniness but…
LOOK AT IT! THE ART! (A Portland based collage artist!) THE TITLE? Holy HELL. I stopped in my tracks. And then scuttled back ASAP to buy it. Then accidentally got to meet the author Evelyn because we were sitting close to each other at a panel and I saw her name tag and was like, “I JUST BOUGHT YOUR BOOK.” It was a very wholesome moment and I feel feral with anticipation to get my eyes/hands/heart into these poems.
Anytime there’s throaty femme who then reaches really delightful high notes, I am going to get horny for it. It’s a science at this point.
Sometimes the sad songs are the horny songs. We’ve already determined this as H&H canon.
This came on the other day when I was the gym (I know, the gym is NOT very horny of me — JK it’s EXTREMELY horny of me, I’m getting fucking ripped ok not ripped but yet but give me time) and this song came on and I listened to it while running then put it on again when I was doing some bicep curl free weight nonsense and I felt SEXY and POWERFUL. It is a FIVE YEAR OLD song, so one of my friends is going to make fun of me for just finding it, but whatever. Shake your ass to this in your kitchen doing dishes or walking your dog this week.
I know it’s been a minute since I’ve posted some smut, but I’ve got some time finally finally finally, so y’all will have some in the next week! I’ll make sure to do an audio recording too. Love every single one of you that’s hanging along for this ride.
XOXO,