Lil Miss Hot Mess: Who’s Your Daddy?
When Michelle Tea had a ‘krazy kwestion’ there was no one better to answer than Lil Miss Hot Mess. Today’s conversation is the first in a series of episodes about reproduction. Lil Miss Hot Mess shares her role in Michelle’s motherhood journey as well as all the magical ways children have become key part of her life — from Drag Queen Story Hour to being a sperm donor for queer friends. Michelle Tea also gives us insight of how she cares for herself during the tougher aspects of parenting.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: Hello, welcome to Your Magic. I’m your host, Michelle Tea, and, in addition to being a woo podcast producer and tarot person, I am also a writer of books. And I have a brand new memoir out this week that I am really psyched about. It’s called Knocking Myself Up: A Memoir of my In/Fertility, and it’s about what happened when, at age 40, I set out to get pregnant with no partner, no health insurance, but a really cool drag queen who agreed to give her her sperm.
To celebrate the book coming out, we’ve whipped up a special series of interviews with folks who have something to say about reproduction — because they’re parents, or abortion rights activists, or — as is the case today, they are the magnificent drag queen who so generously shared her sperm with me. Yes, today’s guest is Lil Miss Hot Mess, the high-profile spokesperson for Drag Queen Story Hour, author of the children’s books If You’re a Drag Queen and You Know It, and The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish, and — lucky me — my sperm donor. We’re going to talk about astrology, Judaism, and how she quite literally took the lack of queer porn in the sperm donation room into her very own hands.
And also, if you want to help support making this podcast check out patreon.com/thisisyourmagic where you can get all sorts of perks — a monthly tarot reading based on your zodiac and the phases of the moon, tarot workshops where we dive deep into a single card — that sort of thing. We make this podcast as a labor of love, and appreciate all of you for supporting us! If you really want to wear your heart on your sleeve, or your baseball cap, check out our super cool elemental t-shirts, and our fashion-forward dad-style baseball hats at our shop at thisisyourmagic.com/shop
Okay, now let’s get on with the show.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: You guys, parenting is hard. I know I can’t complain — I did this to myself. I mean, I really, really, really had to go out of my way, spend a bunch of money and flood my body with synthetic chemicals to get myself a baby. When I was struggling to get pregnant, I used to feel jealous of, like, fertile people with uteruses who had sex with virile people with sperm and whoops! Just accidentally got knocked up and kept the baby! How easy would that be!
But now, seven years into the messy glory of guiding another human being down the road to civilization, I wonder — if it is, occasionally, this exhausting for someone who was so intentional and wanted it so fucking bad and took parenting workshops and other bougie white person shit, what must it be like for those folks who fall into it, somewhat unexpectedly? It must be a lot. I really don’t feel jealous of any parents anymore, for how they got their baby or any other aspects of their lives. All I really feel for parents is a lot of empathy.
So, this past week, while I was parenting with severe PMS, I couldn’t figure out if my weary body needed a massage or if my fritzed-out energy needed to be soothed. Because I live in Los Angeles, a fairly woo place, I didn’t have to choose. I found a joint that gives massage and energy work, all in one totally reasonably priced session, and I grabbed it. And it was really cool.
So to start, the practitioner had me lie on the massage table, and she stood over me and let a crystal pendulum dangle above each of my seven main chakras. Now, I have a pendulum myself, but I’ve never used it, because back when I was pregnant someone used a pendulum on me and told me I was going to have a girl, and I didn’t, I had a boy. And I know gender is a construct and maybe I will someday learn that I do have a girl, but from what I’m seeing, I seriously doubt it. So, the pendulum was wrong so I was like, frig pendulums! But I believed in this particular woman. Maybe because, when she did that check-in with me at the start of the session, when massage therapists ask about injuries and whatnot, she said, ‘So, what’s your deal?’ I liked her vibe. So when she told me my root chakra was blocked, I had faith she was speaking the truth. “That’s why you feel off,” she said. “When the root chakra’s blocked it’s like, someone was high when they built the foundation. It’s all fucked up.” I was now officially in love with this person.
She kept moving the pendulum up the center of my prone body, and I could see a bit as she went. Sacral chakra was open. Solar chakra was open, I could see it spin, clockwise, that’s what she was looking for. Heart chakra - closed. Oh, no! Not my heart chakra! That’s the chakra I feel open most often, whirling in the center of my chest. The pendulum swung above my throat chakra in a giant, swooping circle. Yep. that tracks. I can’t shut up. Above my third eye, the pendulum disappointingly, began to move back-and-forth, like a little head shaking no, then reconsidered and rotated in a tight, non-committal circle. My crown chakra seemed healthy.
I’ve always wanted someone to tell me what was up with my chakras! But I was curious — were my bum ones shut down today, because I was a ball of hormonal mom confusion, or, like have they been shut down for years, as a result of a really overwhelming divorce that was not only damaged my belief in love (heart chakra) but really gave my sense of stability in the world a damaging wallop (root chakra).
She proceeded to give me a really great massage, just a relaxing one. At the end of the massage, as I lay on my back, she dumped a load of clacking stones onto the sheet down by my root chakra. Something weighty was placed on my sternum. On my third eye, another magic rock was balanced. Gently, she opened each of my sleepy, curled hands, and pressed slivers of quartz into my palm, then wrapped my fingers back around them.
I lay there, all crystaled-up, and time felt weird and beside the point. Back in the lobby, she greeted me with, “How’re you feeling! You were out!”
Was I snoring, I asked sheepishly.
“You were, it was great,” she enthused. “You were really processing, your body was making all these little twitches and movements. Resetting. And, it worked, You’re fixed. I used the pendulum again, and all your chakras are great.”
“Wow.” I said, too deeply out of it, in a very nice way, to say anything smart.
“Why shouldn’t these crystals help us?” she declared, though I hadn’t asked. “They grow down at the core of the earth, slowly, melting, gowing, forming, melting, just so slowly. They’re powerful. I lay with them on my body a lot when I’m home, just on the couch.” I really do love a magical person with a hard skater vibe. I took my gift bag filled with epsom salt and went home, where I proceeded to lie around with crystals all over my body and even put a globular carnelian in my underwear, not to be a freak but yes, to be a freak, because she’d mentioned that red is really good for the root chakra, and that I should wear red underwear or sit on a red towel, and I actually have neither but I do have this nice red crystal, so I did that. I put it in my underwear and then woke up with crystals scattered around me on my mattress, ready for another day of being a mom.
Here’s Lil Hot Mess.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: Little Miss Hot Mess, thank you so much for being on Your Magic.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Michelle Tea: I mean, I feel like we just need to just, like, jump into it with you because it has been a crazy time for you. It has been a wild, wild time for you and for I mean, for all of us. Right. Who, you know, are queer or care about life or have uteruses or whatever. It's been a wild time. But do you want to talk at all about like what's been going on?
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Yeah. I mean Drag Queen Story Hour has, you know, been under attack. It's unfortunately not anything that's new for us. It's been happening almost since it very began. But, you know, with this kind of intensification of right wing rhetoric targeting trans kids, targeting all queer people, targeting, you know, basically anyone who isn’t a straight white says, man, they've they've come for us and we've seen an increase in, you know, hate mail. We've seen an increase in protests, including some pretty scary ones outside of some of our events. We've seen proposed legislation from crazy right wing legislators who want to make it illegal for children to attend drag shows or criminalize parents for bringing them. And, you know, I think it's it's sad. It's a little bit scary, but ultimately, it's a distraction. It's their way of trying to find a scapegoat and trying to say, you know, this is this is where we're going to focus our attention rather than on, you know, ending gun violence, ending white nationalist violence, providing people have health care, fixing our education system, like all the things that these people should be doing on a daily basis. Instead, they're going to come for drag queens.
Michelle Tea: Yeah! You have been working your, your op eds have been really hot and really high profile places and it's been, you know, like such a combo of me, like, feeling like, God, I hope little miss is okay because this is a lot on her padded and sequined shoulders and also being like, yes, this is so great that that you have this platform right now to talk about this stuff. And I love that. I love the piece that you wrote where you talked about imagination and how like there the Republicans are really waging war on imagination, which then, of course, posits drag queens as, you know, the bringers of imagination, which is so beautiful and true.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Yeah. I mean, I've been trying to think about the kind of work that drag does in the world. And for me, that's all about creativity. It's about play, it's about imagination. I was partly inspired. I had to cut out the line in that op ed, but acknowledging Diane de Prima, the poet who has this whole great poem that's all about, you know, kind of the war on imagination and how all of their wars are subsumed within that. And I think that that's really true, that, like, again, all these plagues that are plaguing our world right now really are, you know, a lack of creativity, a lack of imagining, other possibilities. And I think that, as you know, I think we have to name it like we are seeing this rise in authoritarianism and fascism and white nationalism, like whatever kind of word or cluster we want to use to name that. And and part of that is about conformity. It's about maintaining the status quo. It's about making people feel scared like they can't do anything else. And so, yeah, I think, you know, drag isn't alone going to change the world. But I think it's one of the tools that we have to think about how we not only transform ourselves, but also how we transform the world around us by putting on our glitter and, you know, our fabulosity and our finest. And I think a lot of people can learn that, especially kids.
Michelle Tea: Yes. Oh, my gosh. And I mean, like kids love drag queen story hours so much because they see it for the magic that it is, you know?
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Totally. I mean. Yeah. I was just going to say, you know, kids like they get it. They they come with their imaginations, you know, well tuned, ready to go. And, you know, they ask lots of great questions. They ask, are you really a queen? Have you met any dragons? Like, how do you get the glitter to stick to your face? Sometimes they ask tough questions like, Are you a boy or a girl? And I have to sort of decide how I want to answer that in that moment. But I think that you're totally right. Like they're there for that magic. They want to believe in that magic. And and that's part of what makes it such an exciting program, as, you know, because you started it.
Michelle Tea: Well I wanted to know what’s your we're a we're a woo mystical spiritual podcast. And what was your like? Did you have a spiritual upbringing or like a beliefs in your in your youth? And how did that shake out for you?
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Yeah, I was raised Jewish, although with kind of an interfaith family. So, you know, never totally fell into like all of the customs and always kind of had the sense of being in between a couple of different worlds. And I think I always, you know, was interested in the more kind of like spiritual and mystical aspects of Judaism as well as a lot of the cultural things. Like I'm not there as much for the dogma of it, but for the ritual and for the community. And I was also a kid who kind of did believe in magic myself. Like I read a lot of fantasy books and, you know, kind of always did believe that, like if I tried hard enough, I could move something with my mind or like maybe one day I would fly. And I, I do think that that still fits into kind of like the work and the drag that I do is, is that belief that we can make some of that magic.
Michelle Tea: What is your do you have like a spiritual practice now. Like what does that look like for you today.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Yeah. I mean I still continue to engage with Judaism in kind of a cultural and and some spiritual way. You know, I go to temple a few times a year on the high holidays and I like the like especially like the dinner parties, like a Passover Seder kind of stuff. And, you know, I engage the woo when I can, you know, being a queer in California for this long, like there's no way to escape it. And so I've got, you know, my crystals, I've got my tarot cards, I consult, you know, astrology every now and then.
Michelle Tea: Yes. And I have like that bottle of, like, lavender spray that you made for me for, like, my birthday or something one year.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Oh, yes. Yes. I do like to play with scents.
Michelle Tea: Lil Mess is making potions now. Is drag a part of your spiritual practice? Like, do you have does it have like a woo connection to you. How do those two like parts of you come together if they do?
Lil Miss Hot Mess: I don't know if I would name Drag as a spiritual practice per se, but it is definitely a practice of a flow of kind of like getting in a zone of like almost kind of being in a meditative state. You know, actually when we were talking before about sort of what I've been doing for self-care. Actually doing drag often feels like a form of self-care as well, right? Like the ritual of getting things on, of like, you know, taking an hour and a half to, like, literally just beautify yourself, I think is yeah. Is kind of magical in that way. And you know, I'm thinking about a couple of weeks ago when I was doing an event and I was super stressed from my work and from all this other stuff going on and truly having that moment to just like stop and dedicate myself to that, really like, yeah, calm me down in a way that like, nothing else could.
Michelle Tea: So you're a Capricorn, but I always think of you as a Capricorn Aquarius cusp.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: It's true. I am a Capricorn Aquarius cusp. I mean, I grew up for a long time thinking I was an Aquarius because of whatever newspaper horoscope I read. And like, since I was right on that day, it depends on who you're consulting, but yeah. So, so, you know, according to the charts, say I'm a Capricorn, but I do I do identify with both and I especially identify with being on the cusp. You know, I think I pick and choose sometimes how I identify, but I am I am a Capricorn in that I do, I work hard, I, I plan things to an extent, although there is a way in which I think the Aquarian go with the flow does kind of play in like I don't know sometimes what I read those like means of like, you know, how all the signs react to like a breakup or how all the signs react to whatever. Sometimes Capricorn is like a little too harsh for me, so I think I'm definitely on that cusp.
Michelle Tea: So I feel very grateful that you're letting me talk about this and that you're willing to talk about it. But I guess it's a good time, as any, to say that you're my sperm donor. Like, how do I you're my donee. Oh, you're my child's donee. You're yeah, yeah, yeah. You gave me your man juice so that I could have a baby. I mean, we're talking a lot about babies right now because I have this book knocking myself up, coming out. And you're such a huge part of that book, obviously. So, you know, I first found out because our mutual friend Bratton had said, oh, Lil Miss Hot Mess is dying to donate sperm. And I'm like, Really? And was that true or are they being like, were you dying too? Or like, where did that action of of immense generosity sit with you before before I sent you an email.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: I think I was just always curious about it. And I do remember multiple times in my early twenties, I mean, at that moment I was hanging out with mostly dykes, queer women or people who identified as queer women at the time. And it's funny because I don't think anyone was really talking about having babies like we were all young and queer and that felt so foreign to us and it was before marriage equality and all this stuff. So like, I don't know, but I think I just had the sense that like if there was a way that I could be of service to these friends one day, that I would love to do it. And I think I've always sort of known that I don't plan to have kids myself, but there does feel something special and also kind of like weird about knowing that I have contributed to humanity in this very specific way. So yeah, I think I always have just felt open to it and like it's truly just this thing that I have that's really, really easy to give away if people want it. And so, you know, kind of the more the merrier or if if it makes it easier for other people to pursue something that they've been interested in, you know, why not?
Michelle Tea [00:15:35]See, now, this feels very Aquarius. This attitude because Capricorns are a little controlling, right? Capricorns want to know. They want to sign the paperwork. They're concerned. They're ruled by Saturn, the planet of worst case scenarios. And so they know every bad thing that could happen. Probably would never, but they know it. Right? But they're also so responsible. And I remember thinking many times, so, you know, the way this all first started is that, you know, I was just doing at home inseminations and Little Miss would come over and my friend Tara would be there. And we were just doing it like at my house. And, you know, I remember when I asked you, I guess I didn't really realize what I was asking you. It's quite a commitment to be someone's sperm donor. Like you had to come over my house all the time, like, you know.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: But it was so fun.
Michelle Tea: It was. I'm so glad you think. I thought it was so fun, too. But I just remember being like, you have the perfect this is the perfect cusp for something like this because you've got all the like responsibility of the Capricorn where you're like, I have committed to this. I will show up for it. Like you, you always showed up for it, but then you had the Aquarian sort of like, it's fine. Like it can be loose and like it's about something that's sort of bigger than me and that's cool. And, you know, I don't have to be controlling, but I will definitely, you know, be there on time and never miss a day.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Feel like it's funny now that I'm thinking back, I feel like there were maybe moments to where I would, like, text you to be like, are we on for today? Like or like is this happening? Or like, I think this is the week. Is this like I think there maybe where times where that Capricorn controlling this kind of played in a little bit. Yeah I mean I do have a very yeah kind of loose I think once I have a structure then I feel like free to play around with it a little bit. Yeah, I don't think I fully understood what the time commitment would be, although I do not regret it by any means because it was, it was a lot of fun to just like come over and hang out and then, yeah, masturbate in your kitchen and then pass it off and feel like we were had this project that was really happening.
Michelle Tea: It was, yeah, we did. And it was so queer and it was so special. It felt very magical, you know? And and even though I ended up having to you. Go to a clinic and use, you know, get, get, do IVF and do that whole thing because my eggs were so old. They were so old. What's really amazing is that the the day that like, you know the conception date for my child. Did you helped with the day that they took your stuff and put it together with my co-parent stuff? With pride. It's like pride in San Francisco. So it's like he was conceived on pride, which is so I mean, like, on the one hand, you're like, who cares about pride? But you're like, Oh, I'll care about it for this because that's really cool and really cute. And when we were like up in the, you know, like looking out the window, it was like, you know, of the clinic. We could see the giant pink triangle that folks put on the the hillside in San Francisco every pride. Read the book people: Knocking Myself Up. You’ll get the whole story.
So I know that you've also helped other queers start families. And so how does it all feel for you like to know that there's these, like little creatures with your adorable features, like walking around, hopefully with your amazing gay genes, you know?
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Oh, I hope so. It feels great. It's. It's so sweet to see the kids that look like me. I don't know. It's sort of funny and narcissistic to say that, but it's true. Like there's something. Yeah, just. Just kind of beautiful. And and I think especially getting to see kids grow up in this queerness and express like their genders however they want, and, you know, just have this sort of freedom that, you know, I grew up with, like liberal ish parents, but like definitely a lot of sort of ideas about masculinity and femininity and, you know, keeping up with the Joneses and all those sorts of things. And, and with the two kids that I have. Yeah. Helped contribute to like their both growing up in these wonderful queer worlds where they get to do so many things, they get to go to drag queen story hours, they get to, you know, dress up and play and have all these different queer aunties and uncles or whatever. And that's been really just wonderful to see and and kind of helps me feel like I'm not getting a do over my own childhood or anything like that. But that kind of helps me see, you know, how things really are changing in a concrete way, which is very reassuring and and sweet.
Michelle Tea: Yeah, it really is. It really is. I mean, there is a reason why drag queen story hour took, like, exploded globally, like in this era, right? Like there's there's massive change. There's a reason even for all these horrible protests, it's like there's power. Like there's. There's a lot of power. And what and what's happening with drag queens story hour is like beautiful, glittery, you know, power.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Exactly. Yes. Yes. It's like all of our, like, eighties cartoon fantasy is coming to life in a way.
Michelle Tea: It's really wild that, like you. Like you have you're so child adjacent, like you, you know, like you're such an important facet of drag queen story hour, you know, like you do so much work for Drag Queen Story Hour as well as being like one of the spokespeople for it. And then you have sired some children like it's very interesting, right? It's like I bet you would would have never thought like in your twenties that that would be your situation today.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Oh, my God. Yeah. Never did I ever. But also, it is so nice to get to be like I feel like, yeah, I'm like a drag queen who reads to kids, but it does make me feel kind of like the outfit aunty in this way, which is kind of exactly what I want to be like. I, I don't want to have my own kids, but I do want to be in kids lives and I want to get to see their joy and get to see them grow up and get to, you know, be part of all these things. But I sort of like get to dip in at the fun moments, at the right moments. I get to dip out when the crying starts stop or where the diapers need to get changed or anything like that. So yeah, it's it really does feel like a treat to to kind of have this have a role. I think that's another kind of like Capricorn thing about me is that I like to have a role, I like to have a job, and this definitely gives me that.
Michelle Tea: I could see that being very Capricorn as well. What do you know what your other stuff is like? You're rising and like your.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Yes. So my rising is I'm a satirizing and I'm a Leo Moon. That's really all I remember.
Michelle Tea: Oh, that makes so much sense. Know because you're a performer. Yes. And I got to satirizing like you're a risk taker and you're Leo Moon. It's, like, glamorous, deeply important, quite like shiny. Yeah. Being the center of attention is, like, deeply satisfying. Yes, I have the opposite. So I, you know, we have, like, very strangely, like, flipped out, you being, you know, on the Aquarius Capricorn podcast, me being on the Aquarius Pisces, you have satirizing in a Leo Moon. I have a Leo Rising and a sad moon.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Interesting.
Michelle Tea: Very right. Very interesting. Yeah. But I really do feel like these are all like the same, the same sort of astrological elements that I feel like made it feel good for you to step up and say yes to this, like, strange opportunity. I feel like it was also at play for me in that moment of being like, I don't know. I mean, I have a partner health insurance, but I try to have a baby. Like, why should only those guys get to have a baby, you know?
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Right, right. Yeah. I still never forget the subject of your email, which was like. Crazy question, both spelled with KS. And that's still my favorite. One of my favorite parts of the whole experience. And I think you emailed me with something that just said a question and I was like, interesting, like what is this going to be about? But that it was just a regular, you know.
Michelle Tea: Just a regular question. I didn't put any. KS Right.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Exactly.
Michelle Tea: There wasn't any whimsical misspelling or. Totally. Well, you know, I like I asked some other folks and I, you know, had I was really struck by how heavy their responses were when I asked, you know, if you if they would give me some sperm, I was like a little maybe ignorant, but I was really like, you guys got tons of this shit. Just can you give me a little bit of it? Like, that's just like, you know, no. You want to hang out with the kid? Cool. You don't want to cool. Like, I don't care. You know, that was my attitude. But I was getting such heavy responses from people of like, oh my God. Like, it was just like, I don't know, their life was flashing before their eyes, you know? And I had one really, really dear friend to me be like, Well, what if they become a heroin addict? And I would feel responsible? And I was like, Whoa, dude, where did you just go? I mean, okay, like, I I'm an almost sober addict. They have addicts in their family. I get it. Okay? Like, you know, these in a sense, you know, maybe it was maybe they are the normal ones for taking it so seriously. And my flippancy is strange, but I just felt like I needed that flippancy to project me into saying yes to this decision because otherwise I would have gotten weighed down by everything that seemed that could suggest that was a bad idea. You know, I just wanted to not do that. So I don't know. I was like, I'm just going to keep it light. And if you respond to that lightness, that's a good sign. And you know, because I do want it to be a fun and joyful thing that we're saying yes to bringing a new life into this dying planet.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: No, I think it was such a good way to approach it because, you know, it makes me think about kind of like my attitude towards getting tattoos, which, like took me a long time to become comfortable with because I think I like wanted to over plan and like I was like, what is this thing that I'm committing to and going to have on my body forever and ever? Like, it has to be perfect. It has to be right. And then like I, you know, I had to realize that like, no, I need to kind of like live in the moment with this kind of thing and like maybe don't be like, stupid about it, but, like, still be open to, you know, maybe not loving something forever or, you know, maybe changing my mind and feeling like it's a funny story later. And so, yeah, I feel like you framing it as a crazy question made it seem, you know, not like it wasn't a big decision, but like it was a big decision that was approachable and could have that humor and levity as well. Can I also tell you another funny story that I don't know if I've ever maybe told it to you at some point? Yes, but, um, speaking speaking of other people that you talk to, there was one time where I, not to brag, was hooking up with someone. And we realized that you had also asked him to be your donor, which was a really funny thing. Surreal.
Michelle Tea: Oh, my God.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: With this person that I was hanging out with and there was a lot of kind of like we were like we didn't know each other at the time. I guess you could ask either of us. And there was a lot of kind of like figuring out that we were like in the same orbit but haven't fully crossed paths before. But that was a very funny specific one, I think, because maybe he had been reading your blog and so sort of like put two and two together as we had been talking, but oh my God, I don't know where that.
Michelle Tea: I love that.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: The kind of like cosmology of the like, I don't know, sexuality of it all, the whole process. But it does feel related in this funny way.
Michelle Tea: What, what about that amazing story about once we did move all of our efforts over into the clinic and you had to go to the clinic to make your deposit. And they just didn't really have any queer sex materials, didn't have any queer porn. And you took matters into your own hands.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Yeah. I made an art piece about it. I was doing my MFA at the time.
Michelle Tea: It’s literally one of my favorite things in the entire world.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: Thank you so much. So the piece basically worked that yeah I was you know, going to make this deposit it was so not even just not queer but it was just like so clinical. Like it was going in this like basically like a doctor's office then just like happen to have a few like playboys or whatever at like a, like a sad kind of like binder of DVDs that you could look through. And I was like, God, like, all of this is straight. It's also just kind of like weird and sad and clinical. And so what I decided to do was I recorded myself in the act and while I was still in the room, burned it onto a DVD, which feels funny to say in our technological landscape now and left the DVD in the little binder with all the other DVDs. And I titled it Who's Your Daddy? And then I deleted all the files and everything from my own computer. So the idea was that like, kind of like the act of donating sperm. It was like kind of this one off thing, right? That like would only exist in that one iteration moving forward. And so I still have no idea, like if someone found it, if someone like got off on it, if someone, you know, took it home with them, if the clinic threw it away, like, I have no idea. But I, I like to think that someone, you know, at some point was flipping through and chose the Who's Your Daddy DVD and got a little bit of a surprise from it.
Michelle Tea: I love that. I know. I really I it's like you just, like, put a little message in a bottle and just, like, threw it out to see. We'll never know. Like, the possibilities will be endlessly delightful. Well, you know, thank you. Thank you for my child that, that like has your face and which is just like the cutest thing ever. It's like, so cute when I see your face in his face. And then when I see his face in your face. It's such a adorable scramble of love. And I just. I love it so much. Yeah, that's real special.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: It is special. And I mean thank you .
Michelle Tea: Oh my god don’t thank me. I’ll thank you by giving you endless tarot card readings for the rest of your life.
Lil Miss Hot Mess: No but like thank you because it it is it is special to be part of something. It is not to sort of like reify the the biological or like the, the sperm of it all. But there is something that is about like expanding and exploring queer family in this way. And like, I think that we've been part of an extended queer family, like, kind of since I've known you, but like, not only did this help us become better friends, but also like, yeah, it does create this different bond and it's so nice to to get to be part of this thing that yeah. Otherwise I would not have been part of.
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Michelle Tea: That’s our episode. Thanks for listening. We hope we inspired you to take pleasure in the true possibilities of family-making on this planet, and to maybe fall asleep with a crystal in your panties tonight. If you’re in southern California and curious, the business I got my massage and energy work at is called Templework LA. I’m not paid promote them or anything, I just like sharing stuff like that! See you next time.
Thanks for tuning into Your Magic. You can support us — plus get access to a whole bunch of bonus content — at patreon.com/thisisyourmagic. Thank you to those who support us — every dollar makes our work possible. You can also support us by buying one of our air, earth, water, or fire sign t-shirts or logo hats! Go to thisisyourmagic.com/shop to see all our merch. Make sure you follow us on Twitter and Instagram @thisisyourmagic and subscribe to our newsletter at thisisyourmagic.com. Join us on Discord at the link in the show notes. You can rate us and subscribe right here on Spotify — do what you need to do to never miss an episode. You can email us at hello@thisisyourmagic.com, we would love to hear from you.
Your Magic is Ben Cooley, me Michelle Tea, Molly Elizalde, Tony Gannon, Vera Blossom, and our production intern Kirsten Osei-Bonsu. And our original theme music is by John Kimbrough. Thanks for listening!
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