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Starshine Roshell Posts

This Is Not Your Parents’ Sex

Published on March 10, 2018

Women Share Stories About Sex After 50

Nobody wants to think about their parents having sex. Or their parents’ friends. Or, really, anyone their parents’ age. Because old-people sex is not hot.
We know this because countless magazine covers, soda commercials, music videos, and romance flicks tout taut-skinned hardbodies and shiny newness as indisputable turn-ons. Society is very clear: Gray hair ain’t no aphrodisiac … unless it’s on a guy … who’s charming a significantly younger woman … in a Viagra ad … as nature intended.
But then something freaky happens while you’re busy worshipping at the Church of Titillating Youth: You suddenly become your parents’ age. Gray hairs and all. And you realize that while you and your somewhat slack-skinned softbody are not likely to nude up in a music video anytime soon, you’re still fiendishly hot ​— ​and have oodles of sexin’ left to do.
So you write about it.

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#Me … NotSoMuch?

Published on March 10, 2018

Confessions of a Last-Wave Feminist

Ladies, I gotta come clean. From the first time I saw it on a social media post, #metoo has rubbed me the wrong way. And I don’t mean, like, in a #metoo way.
The first wave of confessions was powerful — a silent but staggering wail that exposed the shocking pervasiveness of sexual assault and oppressive harassment in a nation that regularly applauds itself for equality.
For me, though, the hashtag became a maimed meme when women began tossing unsolicited ass pats and insufferable catcalls into the mix along with the egregious, menacing affronts. Though these may all be evidence of men treating us like property, it feels both insensitive and overly fragile to lump together the rapiest of rape with the old man saying, “Hey, how about a smile, sweetheart?”
Then came the naming and shaming, the firing and blacklisting and the systematic picking apart of each public apology like flesh from a carcass. That’s when my hackles went on high alert — and for a couple of good reasons:

Continue reading#Me … NotSoMuch?

High Sobriety

Published on October 22, 2017

Memories of a Drunk Dad, Gone Dry

When I was a little girl, my dad was more fun than anyone I knew.
He’d pick me up from grade school on his chopper and let me start up the growling beast all by myself — and rev it — as my friends watched in awe. Then he’d talk like Donald Duck and take me for ice cream right before dinner.
He loved roller coasters and food fights and making me laugh. He penned a ditty called “Turdballs on Parade,” and we’d wail it in public places, or break into a scripted repartee (“May I have a tissue?” “Kiss you?! I hardly know you!”). If I asked to wear his hat, he’d hoist me onto his shoulders and flip his black Stetson onto my noggin.
Dad was not what you’d call “a responsible adult.” I was the grown-up in our relationship—the one always saying, “Come on, cut it out. You’re gonna get hurt. We’re gonna get in trouble.” But that was okay; one of us had to be the parent, and I liked him as the lunatic.

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That’s No Hurricane; It’s a Him-icane

Published on October 22, 2017

The Gender Saga Behind Naming Storms

Hazel killed hundreds in 1954. Camille flattened cities in 1969. And Agnes cost billions in 1972. These twister-sisters weren’t messing around.
For more than a quarter century, hurricanes in the Atlantic basin — the area that recently brought us Harvey, Irma, Jose, and pals — were only given women’s names: Alma. Betsy. Cleo. Delia. Ethel. Fifi. Gladys. Hilda …
While apologists say the practice took its cue from the time-honored tradition of seamen referring to the ocean as female, more experts guess it was an inside joke by those in the male-dominated meteorology field. Some even say the scientists named storms after their girlfriends.

Continue readingThat’s No Hurricane; It’s a Him-icane

Exes Co-Parenting in Peace?

Published on October 22, 2017

Starshine Surveys the Pros and Cons of Sharing Kids

I like to think of myself as fairly magnanimous. Generous of spirit. Warm hearted and welcoming when need be. But I’m going to be honest with you: If I had to walk my precious toddler to his first day of preschool alongside his father’s girlfriend — and my child was calling us both “Mommy” — it would be hard for me not to hurt the hag with my fingernails. And, depending how quickly I could get it off my foot, maybe also the heel of my right shoe.

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Thank You, President Trump

Published on August 25, 2017

#45’s Frequent Failings Take my Mind off my Tween

It’s a phrase you don’t hear often. His chiefs of staff don’t say it. The terrified people of Guam don’t say it. You’re unlikely to catch any endangered species cooing it. But I’m gonna say it, and I’m gonna say it loud: Thank you, President Donald J. Trump! You’ve done me a solid, and I’ll bet you don’t even know it.

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High Society

Published on August 9, 2017

Sunday in the Kitchen with Ganja

When you’re named Starshine, people expect you to be a pothead — and it’s not an unfair assumption. I was, indeed, raised in a cloud of skunk smoke, and cannabis is the national flower of my people. Many was the Sunday I spent rolling my eyes as my parents and their pals hissed on spliffs and cackled at things that weren’t funny as Pink Floyd warbled through our house. I would open a window, go back to playing Barbie, and think, “One of these goons had better have a plan to make me dinner.”

Even as a teen and adult, weed never lit my fire. The cotton-mouthed high that drags you down a rabbit hole of ungainly pondering with scheduled detours for jagged paranoia, slack-jawed lethargy, and wanton Triscuit-hoovering just isn’t my rapture of choice. 

Which is why I was surprised to find myself plucking jiggly dollops of drug-infused gelatin from silicon ice-cube trays on a recent Sunday afternoon, rolling them in powdered sugar and plopping them into tubes labeled Fruity Pebbles. 

Continue readingHigh Society
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