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Meet me in Tampa. And New York. And St. Louis. And…

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I almost promise to make this face in your city.

If you’re in or near Tampa, New York, or St. Louis, prepare to mark your calendar. (If you aren’t, click here.) I’ve booked events where you are, and I want to see you there. Read on for details:

  • SPRING HILL, FL: A Chastity Is For Lovers book launch party is from 7-9 p.m. Dec. 5, 2014 in Xavier Hall at St. Frances Cabrini Roman Catholic Church, 5030 Mariner Blvd., Spring Hill. Books will be for sale and refreshments will be served. Please RSVP on Facebook, or via email.
  • TAMPA, FL: A Chastity is For Lovers book launch party — to be MC’d by Abby from Spirit FM’s Big Big House Morning Show — is from 1-3 p.m. Dec. 6, 2014 in rooms 201-203 in the Mary Martha Center (aka the Spirit FM building) at Christ the King Roman Catholic Church, 821 S. Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa. Books will be for sale and refreshments will be served. Please RSVP on Facebook, or via email.
  • NEW YORK, NY: I’ll give a talk about practicing chastity in a culture that says we shouldn’t at an event hosted by the Catholic Fellowship of NYC at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 13, 2014 in the lower church/church hall at the Church of the Holy Innocents, 128 W 37th St. (between Broadway and 7th Ave.) in Manhattan. Please RSVP on Facebook.
  • ST. LOUIS, MO: I’ll give a talk about practicing chastity in a culture that says we shouldn’t at a Theology on Tap hosted by the Archdiocese of St. Louis at 7 p.m. Feb. 10, 2015 at Kirkwood Station Brewing, 105 E Jefferson Ave., St. Louis.
  • NEW PORT RICHEY, FL: I’ll read an excerpt from Chastity Is For Lovers, plus speak and take questions, at an Evening With the Author at 6:30 p.m. March 20, 2015 at the Downtown New Port Richey Art Gallery, 6231 Grand Blvd., New Port Richey.

For the rest of my schedule as well as to see where I’ve already spoken, click here.

 

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My grandma vs. pop music (and how to undo damage done).

If you aren’t sure whether your children’s favorite songs are good for their impressionable minds or precious souls, there is one foolproof way to find out: dance to them with my grandmother.

She is 77, and moved to the US from Italy when she was 10. She can and will cut a rug, and she doesn’t care who knows it, or where she is while she’s proving it. (You’re welcome, all the people at Red Lobster that one time.) What my grandmother will not do, however, is let a single song lyric slide if it’s off-color.

You haven’t known scandal until you’ve seen what her face looks like upon her discovery that the title of the song she’s dancing to is “Sexy and I Know It.” Nary a body, a booty, or a b-word (yes, that b-word) goes unnoticed in lyrics, which fascinates me – a 28-year-old woman (29 on Friday!), who has grown up as part of a generation widely unfazed by what shocks my grandma.

But what might shock you is what else once shocked her: my virginity.

Read the rest of this post (plus a Chastity Is For Lovers book launch party announcement!) on Spirit FM’s Mom Squad blog.

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Virtue is good, but…

St. Thomas calls the cardinal sin sloth “a sadness arising from the fact that the good is difficult.” Sloth paradoxically affirms a person’s belief that a choice is good simultaneously as it underlies his or her resistance to making the choice.

It’s “chastity is good, but…”

“Prudence is good, but…”

It’s believing in the existence of the merit of a choice, but not making it because making it would require you to transcend an urge, for instance, or to defeat a fear. Continue reading “Virtue is good, but…”

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An Excerpt From Chapter 5 of ‘Chastity Is For Lovers’

[callout]This post is an excerpt from chapter 5 — “Love: The Hardest Thing You’ll Ever Have to Do” — of my forthcoming book, Chastity Is For Lovers: Single, Happy, and (Still) a Virgin, (Ave Maria Press, 2014).[/callout]

Chastity_is_for_Lovers_3DIn the dark on the seventh deck of a Miami-bound cruise ship, I curled into a comfy chair to the left of the stage in the Latin club.

A Dominican quartet played live music. I sat alone, up late for the last night of my trip.

I tipped back my glass of ice water to take a swig, and the giant white napkin I at first didn’t know was stuck to the glass’s bottom shone like a beacon in the night.

Smooth.

I laughed at myself when I noticed the napkin, tore it off the tumbler’s sweaty bottom, and made another, more startling discovery: the Dominican quartet’s drummer probably saw it happen. He had a smile on his face, at least, and a güiro in his hand, while he watched me from behind his drum kit. I smiled back and nodded to the beat of the merengue he played.

While we held eye contact, my heart stopped before it pumped faster, and I blushed and got butterflies. For no sensible reason, I wanted to meet him. I had to meet him. I also had to get some sleep, in order to be ready to debark at the port at 7:00 a.m. Continue reading “An Excerpt From Chapter 5 of ‘Chastity Is For Lovers’”

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An Excerpt from Chapter 1 of ‘Chastity is For Lovers’

[callout]This post is an excerpt from chapter 1 — “Chastity: A Better Sexual Ethic” — of my forthcoming book, Chastity Is For Lovers: Single, Happy, and (Still) a Virgin, (Ave Maria Press, 2014).[/callout]

Chastity_is_for_Lovers_3DI parked my Plymouth Neon in a dirt lot and skirted the rocks strewn atop it by taking a shortcut across a patch of grass.

My flip-flops finally smacked pavement when I reached the street between the parking lot and the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, a complex that covers the quiet, northwest corner of the University of South Florida’s Tampa campus.

I traipsed across a covered courtyard, where a handful of fellow grad students in the Department of Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling congregated at picnic tables. I walked into the building. Inside, the cold air eradicated all evidence of the late-afternoon heat from the mid-May sun outside. I took off my sunglasses and turned a couple of corners toward classroom 1636 for the first session of my human sexuality class.

I sat at the back of the room, plugged in my laptop,and pretended not to be nervous. The professor, Dr. Dae Sheridan—a young, spirited sex therapist—interrupted my anxiety by inviting the class to shout the names we know for sexual activity and for the body parts we associate with sex. Continue reading “An Excerpt from Chapter 1 of ‘Chastity is For Lovers’”