NAKEDJEN

Tag: fiction

  • 💜 Purple Alert: Why I Still Search for August

    💜 Purple Alert: Why I Still Search for August

    People keep asking me why I’m still searching for August.

    Here’s the truest answer I have:
    Because I can. And because I hope you would, too.

    Because if your heart beat just a little louder —
    if you heard a tremor in the universe,
    a missing pulse,
    a soft human who hasn’t come home —
    I like to believe you’d go looking.

    Even if you didn’t know him.
    Even if he was 29, grown, and complicated.
    Even if the world insists adulthood equals safety.
    (Trust me, it doesn’t.)

    Sometimes a brain goes haywire.
    Sometimes it lights itself on fire.
    Sometimes a person walks away naked into the snow
    and doesn’t even know they’re gone.

    I know this because once — I was the one who wandered.

    New Year’s Eve, 2008

    (which was technically still 2007 because time is a suggestion)

    I had just moved to Salt Lake City.
    A blizzard.
    No friends yet.
    Just two black labradors — Buddha and Stella —
    who carried my heart on eight paws like it was their holy job.

    I don’t remember the seizures.
    I only remember becoming conscious in the snow.
    Naked. Disoriented. Freezing. Alone.

    Not metaphorically.
    Actually and literally wandering the city,
    no memory of how I got there,
    no idea where “home” even was.

    I saw the glow of a Smith’s supermarket.
    Closed. Empty.
    But a payphone in the vestibule leaked just enough light
    to feel like a lifeline.

    I remembered one number.
    Collect.
    My mother.

    “Mom… I’m naked and cold and I don’t know where I am.”
    “Jennifer, you’re in Utah.”
    “Why would I do THAT?”

    She called emergency services from Maryland.
    She told them where to find her daughter
    wandering state-newborn and soaked in snow.
    They found me.
    They wrapped me in blankets.
    They got me home.

    And when we arrived?
    Every single light in my house was on.
    Front door wide open.
    Two dogs sitting guard — waiting.
    Holding vigil over whatever was left of me.

    If I hadn’t found that payphone,
    if I hadn’t seen those lights,
    if Buddha and Stella hadn’t anchored me to this world,
    if — if — if —

    I could have disappeared.
    Forever.
    Just like that.

    No alert. No network.
    No hey Utah, one of us is missing — go look.

    That is my WHY.

    That is why I search for August.
    Because someone should.
    Because his mother deserves not to wonder.
    Because he deserves to be alive and found if he wants to be.

    Because there is a world where that night was me
    and nobody knew to sound an alarm.

    Utah doesn’t have a PURPLE ALERT.

    But it should.
    Every state should.
    A Purple Alert for adults who wander,
    who are neurodivergent or vulnerable or lost in the fog of a burning brain.
    Not a punishment.
    Not a trap.
    Not a “gotcha.”

    Just a net.
    A community rally.
    A lifeline in the snow.

    It is not a miracle.
    But it could save one life.
    And that is enough.

    I have systems now.
    Layers.
    If I go missing again — alarms will go off.
    Texts will fly.
    People will look.

    Not everyone has that.

    August doesn’t have that.

    He is missing.
    Still.
    And I’m not ready to stop searching.

    If you’re reading this, you don’t have to know August to care.
    You just have to remember something simple:

    There was a night I could have been the one you were searching for.

    And every mother deserves to sleep knowing
    that if her child wanders naked into the snow —
    a city will rise like hands to catch them.

    💜 Utah deserves a PURPLE ALERT.
    💜 August deserves to be found.
    💜 And any one of us could be next.

    If this moved you — share it.
    Talk about Purple Alerts.
    Help me make noise.

    We’re still looking for August.
    Let’s not stop.

  • This is not the end of the story…

    Today I hiked in the sunshine with Clyde.

    It was a Tuesday — just a regular Tuesday — and we walked into the foothills the way we always do. Clyde investigated every sagebrush like he was conducting a scholarly examination of the state of the world. I let the sun warm my face and tried to remember that my body is real, and here, and mine. Two feet on the ground,

    While we were climbing, my phone pinged — an email from NBC telling me all about Bravocon in Las Vegas. All the Bravolebrities. The VIP lounges. The velvet ropes. The Important Lanyards. The whole spectacle.

    And I laughed.
    Because there was a time (blogger years are geological time) when I went to events just like that — shipped home boxes of absurd SWAG because it was too much to carry — and once rode an escalator completely naked:

    Down.
    Walked around.
    Back up.

    A perfect loop.
    A Tuesday.

    I texted my friend Lydia — who works for NBC — and asked her why we were not attending Bravocon, because obviously we would be trouble with a capital T and a glitter cannon.

    She laughed.
    She agreed.
    And I also reminded her — gently — that what I truly want is to be Snoop Dogg’s sidekick for the WINTER OLYMPICS in Italy in 2026.

    And the best part?

    Lydia could actually make that happen. Ratings Bonanza! xo

    This is what I mean when I say: life is bizarre and beautiful when you don’t pretend to be smaller than you are.

    After the hike, Clyde and I ran into Joesephine (hello, Love Beets) and through the ancient art of neighborhood witchcraft, we managed to skip the entire line at Coffee Garden and both got our coffees exactly the way we like them. No fuss. No apology. Just a little everyday magic.

    Joesephine looked at me — the real kind of looking — and said:

    “If you’re applying for jobs, only apply for dream jobs. Don’t shrink. Don’t back up. Don’t forget who you are.”

    And here is the part I have been circling around:

    I’m no longer at SLC Qi.
    The ending was sudden.
    I didn’t get to say goodbye.

    There’s sadness there.
    I spent years welcoming people, holding them, tending a community like a flame cupped in two hands.
    To leave without closure feels like walking out of a story mid-sentence.

    But this is not a story about loss.

    This is a story about return.
    To myself.
    To spaciousness.
    To possibility.
    To mischief.
    To joy.
    To Tuesdays that begin in the mountains and end with delicious espresso magic and olympic-level daydreams.

    This is the part where I remember:

    I have a lot to offer the world.
    And I am now available.

    So if you’re looking for:

    A storyteller.
    A community builder.
    A joy conspirator.
    A dog-led pilgrim.
    A woman who knows how to hold grief and glitter in the same hand—

    I’m here.

    Not under a bridge.
    Not disappearing.
    Not diminished.

    Just in the doorway, barefoot, grinning, hair a little wild, absolutely ready.

    The world cracked open a little this week.
    I felt the draft.
    I stepped toward it.

    So stay with me.

    We’re packing snacks.
    I’m even making sandwiches.
    Clyde is doing important sniff-based reconnaissance.
    The universe is already rearranging furniture.

    Italy just might be calling.
    Snoop Dogg is warming up.
    The glitter is unbottled.
    The mischief is humming.

    Let’s fucking go.