Episode 299: Mary Ellen Capek

Coming Out Pod

Health & Fitness, Sexuality, Comedy, Mental Health

4.9 • 584 Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2024

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

WHAT A WEEK, AMIRITE?!?!? It's been seven days since we found out the less-than-desirable results of the 2024 presidential election, and it's feeling like we could all use a candid but encouraging conversation about where things stand. But not before we hear a 1987 lesbian meet-cute! Mary Ellen Capek (who will be eighty-three next month) is a writer, an activist, and a self-described "relapsed Methodist." Her first book of poetry ("Love Lessons: Poems 1973-2023") comes out this Friday, and she's been on an impressive number of boards and committees. Mary Ellen's story includes compulsory heterosexuality, marriage and (incredibly amicable!) divorce, being the "token heterosexual" in lesbian spaces, and a ten-day women's hiking trip that forever changed her life. An expert in organizing and community building, she discusses the importance of keeping our energy up in dark times ("I'm not gonna let that sonofabitch steal my joy!"), and shares practical ways to avoid burnout. It's a funny, tender, and inspiring conversation with someone who has been doing the work her entire life.

Like Mary Ellen says, she is easily reachable! Find her on Facebook at facebook.com/mecapek and check out her website, maryellencapek.com (the piece she wrote the morning we recorded is posted at https://maryellencapek.com/some-post-election-thoughts/). Last but not least: find "Love Lessons" online and in bookstores starting November 15th!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody. Welcome to Coming Out Pod.
0:12.0	Yeah. We are recording this Friday morning. I had mentioned at the end of the last episode that I wanted to do a post-election
0:23.7	episode. That's what's happening now. I wanted to let you know that we're recording Friday so that if
0:29.1	anything wacky happens over the weekend or on Monday, it won't be, we won't be able to speak to that, but I wanted to do an episode
0:39.7	as close to the release date as possible. So we know the results. They're not great. And
0:47.7	that's one of the things we're going to talk about. I'm really, I'm very excited about my guest,
0:53.9	who I will introduce momentarily.
0:55.6	I had a guest in mind to discuss not only her coming out story, but sort of speak to the election
1:04.1	results. I had hoped that they would be favorable and that we could have sort of a upbeat
1:10.0	discussion about them. But as you guys know,
1:12.6	if you've listened all these years, I am nothing if not a realist. So I was prepared for a not
1:18.9	great outcome. And I wanted to choose a guest to who I felt I could have a good conversation
1:27.1	with about what's going on.
1:29.0	So we will get into all of that, but just, yeah, sending everybody a lot of love and compassion.
1:36.4	And this podcast, no matter what is going on around us, I will always start with a queer root shoutout, and today is no different.
1:49.6	So today's queer root shoutout comes from a listener.
1:53.6	This listener is named Nikki.
1:55.9	Nikki wrote in and asked if I would shout out one of her queer roots.
2:01.6	So shout out to you, if your queer root, is Haley Hudson in the movie Freaky Friday?
2:09.0	I am speaking of the more recent Freaky Friday with Lindsay Lohen and Jamie Lee Curtis.
2:13.9	I scandalously have never seen this movie.
2:16.7	So I had to look this up. Haley Hudson plays a
	...

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