Free Republic

...Eight years earlier, he and I had met at a restaurant in Boston where we both worked late nights. We were each in the midst of deteriorating relationships and through our commiseration became close friends, confidants and eventually a couple. Our relationship was brief, intense and tumultuous, more addiction than love — a scalding hot bath that feels like comfort but in reality is scorching you. I think we both knew we were wrong for each other but didn’t care. We were young, lost and unmoored, each secretly terrified of the phrase, “your whole life ahead of you.” Depressed and...

Black X Mass has been a San Francisco tradition since 1997. Over the years the audience has ranged from people who don't celebrate Christmas, to those who want to detox from a day of heavy dysfunction with their celebrating relatives and contemplate the possibility that they were adopted, to people who have recently moved to San Francisco and have no local family with whom to celebrate. Black X Mass is presented by the First Satanic Church and its founder and high priestess, Karla LaVey. "It's basically a variety show. There are outlandish acts that are really good musically. There's a...