Hey, remember that time when I had a blog I updated semi-regularly?

Me too.

I also observe that a bunch of the cool-kid bloggers I read have done some kind of observationy listy round-up post. I could do the same.

• Hey, you know what a bunch of bloggers I read also have in common? Some kind of alcoholic beverage in their banners.
• Several movies I've watched recently take place partly or entirely in India. Of those, 100 percent feature at least one scene filmed in front of the Taj Mahal. Easily 75 percent of what I know about the Taj Mahal comes from tour guides in these scenes.
• I had an amazing weekend at camp with a bunch of women friends and their women friends. I really, really enjoyed myself. So did most of the rest of my gang. The person who seemed most obviously to be having a good time has been most vocal about having had a miserable time. Luckily, she does not have a blog. But if you're a woman, you should totes come with us next year, because it was awesome.
• One of my favorite things about Women's Weekend is that I like trying stuff I wouldn't ordinarily do (out of fear, lack of opportunity, whatever). Sometimes, the end result of that is wounds that are only mostly healed four weeks later. And sometimes, it is a not-quite recognizable charcoal drawing of a ladle.
• I also spent another recent weekend in New York, with a fun friend I couldn't get to go to Women's Weekend with me, but who had tickets to a bunch of events at the New Yorker Festival, including an extra ticket for me to see Rachel Maddow interviewed by Ariel Levy. Awesome.
• Saturday night of that weekend, I stayed home at her apartment and watched practically everything on her TiVo, and also watched Saturday Night Live. James Franco made a cameo-y guest appearance, which is odd, because my friend was out at a 10 p.m. event, featuring James Franco. That young man must have had a very busy evening.
• The best thing about the DVD of the documentary Helvetica is the special features, which is pretty much another two hours of interviews with the same people they interviewed for the film, but the juicy stuff is in the special features. The worst thing is that is makes you hyperaware of strange uses of Helvetica, including in all the publicity materials for the New Yorker Festival.
  
• Part of why I have not yet seen The 40-Year-Old-Virgin is that I am afraid I will hate it, and so far, I have loved everything I have ever seen Steve Carrell in. That one just seems like the kind of thing I would hate.
• Speaking (kind of) of The Office, have you all seen "Subtle Sexuality" yet? I could embed the video, but I'm not going to, because the video is only part of the magic that is their online presence, so I will let you go check that site out yourself.
• I'll make a deal with you people, OK? If every time you read something that really entertains you here on CMC, you'll pass it on to one person you think would be similarly entertained by it, I will post at least once every other day in November.
  

On to more serious matters...

OMG you guys.

It seems that I have been so busy freaking out about what to wear for Halloween that I have completely forgotten to freak out about what to wear to my 20th high school reunion on Saturday.

So, please help.

I am open to suggestions for reunion, Halloween, or both (but please identify which you're giving, to avoid later embarrassment). If it matters, this is the venue for the reunion (which is more urgent, if not more important). Don't make me resort to Yahoo! Answers.

A day late

Yesterday was a big day for us American queers. National Coming Out Day, the big march.

To the best of my knowledge, I spent the whole day not communicating with any other queers in any way. I looked at the pictures of the march and wished I was there. I thought about calling one of my closest queer friends, not out of solidarity, but because we hadn't chatted in a while. I looked at someone cute at an online dating site, but shyly did not make the first move. I did not come out to anyone, which is actually unusual for me, because as someone who can pass but chooses not to, I come out in some small way almost every day, especially in the last year.

So here it is, a little belated, and I'm coming out to you people, who pretty much already know, right? I'm a big queer. If you didn't know, hi! Welcome to City Mouse Country!

Here are my invitations to you today:

• Come out in the comments. As whatever you are — if you're straight, do it to remind all of us that straight is not the default. If you're queer, show the other queers we're not alone. If you're genderqueer or trans, please tell us. If you're questioning your place in the world, let us know that. If you hate labels and have a whole thing prepared on that subject, go for it. I've got time and space. Do it anonymously, if you must, but ask yourself why you must, what you're hiding from.
• Come out to someone in your real life. See above.
• Ask some questions about queerness generally, or about my queerness, specifically, in the comments. I cannot promise that I know all the answers, but I can promise that I know a lot of great resources on the Internet that I can steer you to. Ask goofy questions, dirty ones, ones you are worried might seem bigoted. Again, ask anonymously if you feel you must, but I can almost promise me you will not ask anything more horrifying than the things I've been asked in the past. No, that is not a dare.
• Tell us what you can/will/do do to make LGBTQ folks less scared, to come out, to be out*. Tell us how you will help make Coming Out Day seem weird and quaint to the generations ahead of us.

Obviously, you don't have to do all of that. But I'd love it if you'd do what you can.

Oh, also, here's this. It's one of my favorite things about outness, and it's been taken down, and I hope that link to the cached version still works.




* Some of my well-meaning straight liberal friends will not totally know what I mean. I have been an out queer for about 17 years, have never been directly physically threatened with violence because of my orientation, and yet in each of my last two relationships, I have thought of Matthew Shepard and hesitated to kiss the person I was dating in semi-public, out of fear. I have feared for my own safety, and in my last relationship, feared deeply and often for my significant other's. I have had guests who were queer harassed by my police-officer-neighbor for kissing in their car. That is what it is (so far, still) like.

A public service announcement for those of you who are not having trouble with Facebook

I am.

I am not the only one, either.

I went away last weekend (ironically setting my Facebook status to something like "[bzzzzgrrrl] will be offline for a few days. Don't panic."), and when I got back, I started getting an error message when I tried to log into Facebook:

"Your account is temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance. It should be available again within a few hours. We apologize for the inconvenience."

That persisted for several days.

Staring yesterday, I started getting messages from my friends (no, I am not picking on you; I got nearly identical e-mails and IMs from several people who are all apparently worried about either me or the status of our friendships):

"You're not available on FB any more!!! Did you unfriend me?"

Starting this morning, attempts to log into Facebook were met with a longer error message:

"Sorry, due to site maintenance your account is unavailable at this time.

"We are currently experiencing an extended site maintenance issue that is preventing some users from accessing their accounts or Pages they may administer. Rest assured that your account has not been deleted or compromised. Your original account will be restored as soon as possible so there is no need to create a new one. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you've encountered while attempting to log in to Facebook during this time.

"You can stay updated with the progress of this bug by visiting the Help Center."

So, now you know about as much as I do it. It's apparently affecting lots and lots of irritable people, but not everyone, and as far as I can tell, no one else I know, but scads of people who use Yahoo! Answers. Your takeaways:

• No, I did not unfriend you.
• If you are one of my several new friends, I am not avoiding being your friend.
• If you have other friends who have mysteriously disappeared from Facebook, they are probably in the same boat I am.
• Just because I am hooked on Facebook and miss it so so so so much doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

Hey

Hey, would you do me a favor?
Go read this very long and possibly disturbing/triggering thing, and then come back here and tell me what you think.
If you feel compelled to comment over on her blog, go ahead, but then come back here and tell us what you wrote. Do it anonymously if you feel like it.
If you want to have exactly the experience I just had, read it while listening to the Beth Orton alternative version of "Ooh Child." But I am pretty sure that is not necessary.