Also: Since when are "joyous strains" "brave delights"?

Christmas was mostly lovely. I hope yours was as lovely as could reasonably be expected — I know this is not an easy time for many folks.

I had one moment of feminist/churchy/musical embarrassment, about which exactly one of you will care, but I'll share it anyway, because, you know, funny stories at my expense, that's what we specialize in around here.

I went to church both late Christmas Eve and early Christmas morning with my dad.

There's so much great music that we only sing for these twelve or thirteen days of the year. My dad has a beautiful singing voice, and likes to show off, and it's just really great fun to sing next to him in church. I also happen to like Christmas morning church, for lots of reasons both religious and sentimental.

So this morning, we get to the final hymn of the service, known to many as "Good Christian Men, Rejoice!" In the "new" version of the hymnal, the lyrics have actually been changed to "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!" (An old family friend, now also a priest, used to tell me that the hymn was originally addressed to men because thy're the ones who need reminding.) Anyway, for whatever reason, some part of me, so familiar with that hymn, forgot about the change and just belted out (joyfully) "Good Christian men, rejoy-hoy-hoice" — and I was appropriately horrified to hear myself sing it as I heard everyone around me sing the gender-neutral version and looked down at my hymnal. I feel like I owe every feminist Christian, including my mother and godmother, plus the committee that put together the improved hymnal, plus my redeemer and savior, an apology.

Afterward, I asked my father if he'd noticed my error. He had not, presumably having been enjoying his own singing too much to be listening overly much to mine.

"Well, the new hymnal's only been around for 30 years; I can't be expected to remember every improvement," I said. "Seriously, in that moment, I just completely forgot that it had ever been fixed."

"As one would a dog," said my dad.

Not bad for operating on about 5 hours' sleep, I thought.

Sending hope for peace on earth

I had hoped to spend this solstice morning on a sunrise hike, as I did at the summer solstice (note: winter solstice sunrise is WAY LATER than summer solstice sunrise). However, the weather was not interested in cooperating with me.

I did get up early on this shortest day of the year, which meant I got to see the beautiful blanket of snow that had fallen overnight before it turned to rain and washed away.

Now I'll go shopping and chuck the ingredients I'll buy into the Crock-Pot to prepare for the solstice pot luck I'll attend tonight. Before I leave for work today, I'll have done about as much solstice preparation as Advent/Christmas preparation, despite being a Christian.

That preparation included helping the friends hosting tonight's pot luck string popcorn for their solstice tree, and appreciating watching their young son place a Charles Darwin puppet atop the tree. I was reminded at the time of Dar Williams's "The Christians and the Pagans," and at least one of you was, too, when I posted about it on Facebook.

And yeah, I've shared this one before, but it seemed like time to share it again.

Fitness

My 11-year-old self was a quirky kid. She firmly believed lots of things I do not hold so firmly anymore.

• She believed the world would end in a nuclear war before she'd lived out her natural life. (She was less clear on what that meant, whether that the physical planet would be destroyed or that the human population would be, but something like that.)
• She believed it was likely that there'd be flying cars by the year 2000.
• She believed she was fat. Hopelessly so.
• She believed fat was bad.
• She believed fitness was absolutely beyond her, and sports more so, and team sports worst of all, because team sports are just a way to make fat, unfit kids feel crappy.

There are some things I'd like to tell her and her 16-year-old counterpart. Neither of those two gorgeous young women would have any interest in listening to me, but still, they should have the chance to hear it:

• You are not fat. I've seen pictures. I don't know who put that idea in your head, but you're totally normal. Actually, I guess I do know, and screw that kid, and that other kid. 
• You will be fat eventually, and you will not always be comfortable with it, but it's important that you do what you can to get over that discomfort, for reasons that are physical and emotional and sociological. Another kid will call you fat when you actually are fat, and it will still sting, but it will not haunt you. The sooner you can get to the letting-go part, the better.
• Some of what has made you fat is all that dieting you're doing when you're 11 and 16. Seriously, start with the letting go.
• It's fine that you would rather do conditioning than team sports. That will be true for at least the next 30 years of your life.
• It's not just you. It is weirdly suburban that among all the fitness choices you have in P.E., you are required to take tennis (and only tennis), because that is a life skill. Some things that seem weird or outrageous when you're an adolescent seem less so when you're an adult. This is not one of them.
• Team sports are not just a way to make you feel left out. They are also a way to make some other kids who need it feel that they belong. You'll find other ways.
• You will, some day, start a team in a team sport, and stick with it for years. You will be the worst one on your team — sometimes, you will be the worst one in your league. The sense of belonging will still make you really, really happy.
• You will, some day, go to a gym you are not being required to go to, regularly. You will work out around people who are skinnier and stronger and fitter than you are, and you'll like it. You'll pay money for the privilege.
• You will love fitness assessments. You will, even while fat, be above average on everything they test you on, fitness-wise. You will score "excellent" on push-ups and you will max out the chart on sit-ups; your lung capacity and flexibility will both be just great. You'll be able to run a stupid mile without anyone yelling at you. You will be arguably more pleased than you should be to be above average. Have fun with it.
• Also, sit-ups will be out of fashion when you're an adult. They'll have been replaced with something called crunches, which are both easier and better for you. See? It does get better. 
• There will be flying-car technology, but people will mostly not be using it. Heck, there'll be electric car technology, which is cheaper and more useful, and people will mostly not be using that, either.

About Newtown

I have lots of thoughts, and most of them have been said by other people, and not all of them are cohesive — some of them outright conflict.

Here are some of the ones I haven't seen expressed as much other places, or that relate more directly to me and my perspective, right now. This will not be the cleverest post I've ever written. Like many of you, I'm just overwhelmed.

• "Mentally ill" and "violent" are not synonyms. Seriously. Also, "autistic" and "violent" are for real not synonyms.
• Nancy Lanza's mother, Adam Lanza's grandmother, was my school nurse when I was a kid. Connections are funny things, and they are everywhere. Adam was born in the town I grew up in.
• The Westboro Baptist "Church" plans to protest the memorial service today and the funerals this week. I plan to try to be part of the human barricade that shields mourners from those protests. 
• Remember when Fred Phelps was a good-guy civil rights lawyer? I don't, but I'm told that was a thing. People are sure complicated. 
• No good comes of blaming a victim for legally owning firearms, any more than would come of blaming her for wearing a short skirt or walking alone at night.
• "Access to mental health services" may be part of the discussion going forward, but it is not the only discussion. I have availed myself of an assortment of mental health services over 30 years, and I am lucky not to (yet) be someone who has been actively made worse by what that particular industry has to offer. Many people do not get off so easy. 
• If you can, check information before you share it. There is so much weird rumor and speculation out there, and some of it is the fault of major media outlets, and a lot of it is because of the ease of sharing through social media outlets. 
• In a mass murder with unconnected victims, after the initial shock, the victims' families and friends continue to mourn singly. In a mass murder at a school, there will be constant reminders going forward: In planning class sizes and hiring teachers, in graduations, in safety badges for scout troops, in the ways that whole groups of children will process through their whole school careers, and their lives in that town beyond school.
• I am not sure being generally kinder to the people around us, both those we love and those we don't, will prevent bad things from happening. But I have to believe in my heart that it will help us all cope when bad things do happen.
• I am not sure of that, either.
• There has to be some point of balance between talking about something this overwhelming and not talking about it. I have no idea what that point is, or how to find it. Let me know if you fare better.

Please, feel free to share your thoughts and feelings here and come back to engage the discussion. Disagreement with me or others is permitted and encouraged. Incivility will be deleted.

Argh,

So, sometimes, in my work as an editor, however much I may enjoy my job, I may find that it is time for me to apply for a new job, in the same office I've been working in, in hopes of gaining some new kinds of experience and growth, and maybe also some more money. It might be a seemingly perfect job, for which I am seemingly perfectly qualified. I might work very hard on crafting a perfect résumé and cover letter in hopes of having a shot. I might ask several folks to read it over for me.

And sometimes, three months after I've applied for that job, I still haven't heard anything — not so much as a whiff of the possibility of a phone interview — and might find that somewhat frustrating.

And sometimes, I may go back and look at the résumé I submitted, after more than three months have passed, and I may notice, in this résumé applying for an editorial job, a typo. I might, at that point, observe that I have ended a line with a comma that needed to be ended with a period.

And then, at that point, I might think of how I would respond to observing said typo in an editor's résumé if I had the hiring power in that case.

And then I might close the door to my office, lest my colleagues observe the sheer amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth that might result.

Damn.

What are the odds I can convince my boss that it's a UCC thing?

The end

I'm not going to lie to you people: This month of gratitude has been long and difficult, and maybe it showed.

It's not that I am not experiencing gratitude, it's just that this is my 90th of these posts in three years, and so much of what I am grateful for is perpetual or semi-perpetual. How many ways can I say I like my friends and family?

Some actual rejected topics for recent month of gratitude posts:

• Cuban sandwiches
• Meetings that start on time
• Not actually knowing Manila from "RuPaul's Drag Race" Season 3 in real life
• Corrective lenses
• Not owning a dog
• Broccoli
• The wisdom of cowardice
• A short driveway
• Frank Oz
• Really great phrases (I actually like this one, but then I couldn't think of any. Aside from, "Her eyes flashed," which I love and which reminds me of Scarlett O'Hara.)
• The optimism of Powerball

They're not all bad topics; I just don't necessarily have a lot to say about them all. OK, and some of them are bad topics.

Day 30 of my month of gratitude: I'm glad for the end of the month of gratitude, thankful to be able to just be grateful rather than telling you how grateful I am. I don't think this'll be the last incarnation of this project, but it may be the last time I do it quite this way. Thoughts?

Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon...

[Ed. note: If you are my biological first cousin and you live in New York, you should stop reading this entry right now. You should also come back to read other entries other times, and comment so I know you're out there.]

This Thanksgiving, my young (9, I think) first cousin once removed had a new iPod Touch and was showing me his music. He had a lot of music on it, and was sure it'd all be brand-new to me.

He did not count on a 40-something-year-old cousin who primarily listens to music on her car radio and in a college gym. His very Top-40 taste was all entirely familiar to me. I am not sure whether he was more gleeful or more frustrated that I knew every song (except the theme song to the new James Bond), but he was definitely both.

Later on, I was talking to his somewhat older than I am father, my first cousin, whose name I coincidentally drew in the family present-swap. I asked what he'd like for Christmas, and he's interested in updating his music collection. I didn't get more instruction than that, just that he'd like music that has come out since, say, the '80s. We talked about how much of his son's music I liked, and he said he was trying to keep up.

Now, I love music.

But also...

I don't buy it new much, and the new stuff I like tends to fall into pretty specific categories:

• some über arty-indie something one of my much cooler friends said I had to listen to (The Weakerthans), or
• something from the radio that people my age, much less his age, should pretty much be embarrassed to like (Ke$ha). 

(The obvious bridge between these categories is anything by Owl City.)

So, friends... What should I put on the bizarro playlist that I am clearly now constructing for this cousin? I know, it'd be helpful to know what music he likes of any era, to know anything at all about his musical taste — but we're all in the same boat here. Our goal is, collectively, to expose him to some new music. It's not our job to ensure he loves all of all of it. Please, please, please, comment, check back, add to this conversation.

Day 29 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for music — old and new — and the lyrical people who put it in my life.

Ferry me across the water

When I was growing up, my home church was St. Christopher's in Plaistow, NH. That's after St. Christopher's moved from Kingston, before it moved to Hampstead.

This year is that church's 50th anniversary. And this week, my parents and I are headed out to beautiful Hampstead to see the place and go to church and enjoy some lunch with them.

We moved away in 1985. But before we moved, that place had a pretty big part in my spiritual and social development. Yeah, yeah, Sunday School and whatnot. But by the time we moved away, I was well into my angsty middle school days, was unhappy and confused in school. And St. Christopher's was a place with kids I liked. There were supportive and consistent adults. And there was a youth group filled with people who might well have been bad influences as we got older*, but through my eighth grade year, they were cool, and kind, and liked me, and respected me when I stood up to peer pressure. Not bad, right?

I assume it'll be weird to go back again, especially because it won't actually be "back" and there won't be a lot of folks there we knew — 27 years is a long time. But, gotta say, I'm pretty excited.

Day 28 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful to have had such a right community for me in my youth, and thankful to celebrate 50 years of their ministry to others like me. I'm also thankful to have had reason, as a child, to hear the story of St. Christopher. If you don't know it, you should read it; it's like the opposite of that "Footprints" thing.

*I clearly remember at least one of my youth group buddies dressing as a pack of Marlboros for a church Halloween party. In middle school.

Casual Friday

It's not like this is a frequent occurrence or anything, but it happened this morning, and, gotta say, equal parts smile-inducing and internally awkward.

I got up, showered, got dressed, made one last check in the mirror, and thought:
"Hm. Maybe a little more go-go dancery than is strictly work appropriate."

Day 27 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for aging gracefully.
Ish.

Dating game

Some of you have wondered how my single life is.

As I may have mentioned elsewhere, I am on a certain online dating site that rhymes with "No way, stupid."

Here's how that's going for me, by the very rough numbers:

• Years of membership: 4, minus maybe 6 or 7 combined total months when I was dating someone or too tired to keep trying
• Number of ridiculous questions answered: 2,511
• Number of messages from vaguely sketchy straight men: Roughly 15
• Number of messages from seriously, demonstrably sketchy straight men: 1
• Total number of first dates yielded: Roughly 10
• Total number of second dates: 1
• Number of great friends found through direct dating-site contact: 2
• Number of great friends made indirectly, as a result of those contacts: Roughly 20

I have also responded to a small handful of Craigslist personal ads.

Here's how that's going for me:

• Number of ads responded to: 5
• Number of entirely sketchy responses to my responses: 4
• Number of entirely sketchy people I inadvertently responded to twice, via different ads: 1
• Number of great friends made through direct Craigslist contact: 1
• Number of great friends made indirectly, as a result of that contact: Roughly 12

And overall:

• Number of close non-internet friends who've met great partners on the same dating site I'm actively on since I've been on it: 2
• Number of hours I've spent discussing with those friends our prospects and sharing profiles of potential partners: Roughly 600
• Number of other dating sites I'm theoretically on that have yielded literally nothing, datewise or friendwise or experiencewise: 2
• Percentage of local queer friends met directly or indirectly through the internet: Roughly 74
• Number of potentially life-changing experiences had, so far, as a result of those relationships: Already too many to count.

That's how. You?

Day 26 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful* for the internet, and for finding miraculous diamonds while you're looking for rubies.

*I initially mistyped that word "dateful." I do not know what that means, but I like it.

Free to...

When she graduated from college, my mother went to seminary to study to be a priest, though the Episcopal Church was not yet ordaining women. It was obviously imminent.

Except, it wasn't. The first women were ordained to the priesthood in our church five years after she finished — and they broke the rules to do it.

Two years after that, the church decided to change the rules, and the next year "regularized" the irregular priests.

Meanwhile, of course, other rules had changed — the process for becoming ordained was different, involved exams. And though my mother (and my godmother, and their friends) had jumped through all the hoops once, she had to jump through the new hoops, too. With two small children impeding her study (yes, yes, and probably making her life richer in miraculous and sacred ways — but also, unpotty-training themselves and scribbling on the sofa and and and).

Feminism was our family value, as deeply held, I'd say, as faith — and certainly intertwined with it.

Forty years ago, Marlo Thomas and Friends released Free to Be ... You and Me. Sometime in the few years after that, we owned it. Not every child of my generation is familiar with that record, but that's not my fault — I played it one million times, brought it in for show and tell, repeated lines of dialogue for the edification of my high school friends. That record was — is — spectacular, and you should read the Slate piece that came out last month about it. It's a looooong three-parter, and it is worth it.

Day 25 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for feminism, for all the work of my mother, of all of the folks who went before her, who worked with her, who've come since. I am thankful to have been raised in a feminist household, to have been encouraged in all my traits, both those that others might dismiss as "girly" and those that might have seemed to go against my gender a generation earlier. I am thankful for the examples of strong and nurturing people of many genders, thankful for all the gains made on my behalf, thankful for the opportunity to make gains on behalf of others.

And I am very thankful to have been raised with Free to Be ... You and Me.

Rebirthday

I came out for the first time on November 26, 1992.

That was the first time I said it out loud.

It was also, really, the first time I'd admitted it to myself.

I'd been active on some level in advocating for queer rights for nearly ten years by then. I'd been around other queers in a firm and active way for just over three years.

But November 26, 1992, I admitted out loud that I was not there as an ally. Then, to my shame, I was so scared my community would reject me that I quickly rejected them first; I cut off many of my favorite queers for fear they'd mock me once they knew.

P.S. They didn't, mostly.

Day 24 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for the last twenty years. I am thankful for progress, in public and in my own soul, even incrementally. I am thankful for the very queer life I am able to build in my 40s, even if I was too scared to build it in my teens and early 20s. I am thankful for books and movies that have possibly literally saved my life, thankfuller still for the amazing LGBTQ (and allied) friends and family I have collected over a lifetime and over the last few months.

When people — even queers and allies — are discussing whether we are "born this way," this argument is often made: "Who would choose that kind of life, with all the pain and heartache and discrimination?"

I proudly say: "Me." I would.

Because living this kind of life, with all the pain and heartache and discrimination, is so much more than worth it you cannot imagine. It is so, so beautiful — and so clearly home.

Sick

Thursday was Thanksgiving, as you know. It was great.

Friday was filled with more family, which, also great.

Saturday, I was sickish. Tried to nip it in the bud by resting and relaxing.

Today, I'm sicker. As you may know, I'm crabby when I'm sick.

Day 23 of my month of gratitude: I am grateful to have parents who, having spent the last several days catering to everyone else, continued to spend today catering to me, going to the grocery store and bringing me:

• milk,
• Pepsi Throwback,
• ginger ale,
• tissues, both with and without lotion,
• chips, both plain and cool ranch,
• celery (I can't make chicken soup without celery)

Plus

• my suitcase and leftover turkey and mince pie from their house.

I do not think there are better parents than these. Even if my mother did have to stay in the car while my dad threw groceries and a suitcase in the house, in a (certainly) futile attempt at germ avoidance.

Oh, and I'd be even more grateful if I had readers who wanted to entertain me while I'm sick and pathetic.

Thanks, given

So, it's Thanksgiving here in the U.S.

I'll gather with family late this afternoon, will spend most of the weekend surrounded by people I love who will also once or twice drive me crazy. It's OK; I give as good as I get, crazy-driving-wise.

But I have the early part of this day to myself. I will spend some time eating the trial pie I made that didn't work out quite as well as I'd hoped, making a new pie and hoping it turns out better, reflecting on the difficult nature of this holiday and its origins in this country, and praying.

But first, I'm going to talk to you a bunch about prayer. Those of you who are uncomfortable with that are warned.

Here is how I pray:

• Sometimes, very formally*
• Sometimes, very frantically**
• Sometimes, for someone else who might need it***
• Sometimes, for me when I need it****
• Sometimes, thankfully*****

Here is why I pray:
I think it builds relationship. Specifically (but not exclusively) my relationship to God. I think God likes it when I engage that way. I do that with people, too; I write here, I talk a bunch, I check in. I am most comfortable in relationship to anyone when I'm in communication. And though people sometimes misunderstand my imperfect words, God takes them how I mean them, every time.

Also, with God, no pressure to be funny. I like that.

When I was a kid, my grandfather kept chocolate around, which he would frequently and generously offer to his grandchildren (and probably everyone else, but this is about me). One day, I swiped a piece out of the kitchen. I didn't think of it as swiping; I thought of it as mine, frankly. But I got caught, and my mother impressed upon me — firmly — that if I wanted my grandfather's chocolate, I needed to ask him for it. And right then, I needed to go talk to him about taking it.

Prayer is not about getting what I want. It's about the act of asking for what I want. And then, it's about expressing gratitude for what I have, even the things I didn't know enough to ask for. Whether I talked to my grandfather or just took it, I was still getting chocolate out of the deal. But the chocolate was offered by someone who was generous and loved me, so I'd know it. And my communication with him, whether about chocolate or the Red Sox or World War II was what I, as a child, had to offer to the relationship.

Prayer, for me, isn't a magic ATM; it's a conversation. Furthermore, it's a conversation with someone who already knows everything and can do everything. The power differential is bigger than mine and my grandfather's — even bigger, if you can imagine. All I have to offer back to this relationship is my commitment to the relationship itself.

And there are folks for whom my method of prayer doesn't work, and those for whom any method of prayer doesn't make sense. I both understand and respect that. We all build relationships differently, and with different people and things.

Day 22 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful beyond words for my relationship to the Divine, and for being loved despite my imperfect expressions of love — unconditionally, in fact. I am thankful for material and relational abundances. I am thankful for grace and peace and joy, and for my opportunities — too infrequently taken — to strengthen them all.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.




* For example: Almighty and gracious Father, I give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make me, I pray, a faithful steward of your great bounty, for the provision of necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name, through Jesus Christ the Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. There's lots more where that came from in The Book of Common Prayer.
** For example: Please oh please God let me get to the next gas station. Please God please please please let me have enough gas just to get to the next gas station. Please.
*** For example: Please, God, be with him and keep him safe through this hard time.
**** For example: Please, help me to make the right choice here. Please help me to see what I should do.
***** For example: Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou Lord.

Safe spaces

So I had this post all written in my head about the other big anniversary yesterday was, and then rechecked the calendar and realized that the anniversary I meant to commemorate isn't until Monday. Whoops. That'll wait.

I have another post written in my head that requires photos I can't take until probably tomorrow, so, that'll wait.

I have another post I'm working on in my head that is serious and religious and really better suited to tomorrow, so, that'll wait.

I had pie for breakfast, and that was good, but I've done the pie for breakfast post before.

That is a thing that happens when you write dozens of gratitude posts, always at the same time of year. You get grateful for the same things. Maybe next year's month of gratitude will be October or December, and we'll just rotate it a notch on the chore chart every year. It's not that I am not full-to-brimming with gratitude; it's just that sometimes, I am not full-to-brimming with creativity. Also, sometimes, I am distracted from that gratitude, a little, by fear or life or whatever.

Day 21 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for my own health and safety and that of so many people I love. Take care this long weekend, folks. Travel safely and don't trample anyone to get to the Cabbage Patch Kids.

Happy Blogiversary Part 2: Favorites

So, I asked for your favorite posts when I asked for questions, and got two great responses.

First, April's:

I did not find the one I was looking for and would like to request (I think it was written for Pride day/week maybe last year and is advice for straight parents).
However, I did find a shocking number of posts that I somehow missed, including a new favorite, "From," which you should also re-post.

And Joe's:

Your odyssey to upstate NY and the car troubles you encountered almost brought a tear to my eye. It's like they say, you can't make this stuff up. [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4]
But, you know me, CMC. I can also be 12 years old sometimes. Which is why my other favorite posts were the ones that contained the word "pally." 

But April also asked what my favorite post is. And yadda yadda they're all my babies yadda couldn't pick just one, but whatever. Of course there are some I like better than others. So you're getting one per year of City Mouse Country.

• From Year One: Sometimes you feel like a nut
• From Year Two: Rick rolling
• From Year Three: Train the Trainer 
• From Year Four: Playing (and Replaying)
• From Year Five: Obviously, the Plattsburgh saga. But since that's already shared, Biden Time will do.

Also, I feel like I should give some love to the post that has garnered by far the most page views (as in, five times as many page views as the post in the #2 slot), Bang, bang. I am the warrior., which is seriously unworth reading but just goes to show you, a lot of people want images of straight-across baby bangs.

So, what am I missing? What were your faves, from any year?

Day 20 of my month of gratitude: As I said earlier, I am thankful for positive feedback. I am double-thankful that some of you keep reading at all. Thanks, friends.

Happy Blogiversary Part 1: Questions and answers

Woohoo! It's Blogiversary #5!

Aren't you so excited?

I know I am.

So, let's start with your questions and my answers.

Genny asks: This may have been covered before, but I'd love to know why you started blogging!

I assume you're asking why I started City Mouse Country. CMC didn't start as a blog. It started as a series of e-mails to my old friends and coworkers in D.C., some of whom had expressed, er, concerns about me, who they'd only known in the city(ish), adapting to country livin'.

Naturally, I adapted gracefully and graciously, but not without a few mishaps that needed documenting. That appears to continue to be true.

CMC is not my first blog, however. Why I started blogging in the very first place was that my boss and close friend went on maternity leave in 2005, and a handful of her friends, ring-led by me, decided we needed a place to share pop-culturey things from the internet, plus stories of our office antics, to entertain her. It had a little resurgence during another friend and colleague's maternity leave in 2007. It's still available online for those who know where to look.

So, pregnancy? I guess. Yes. I started blogging because of pregnancy. But not my own.

Mike asks: Do you ever think (to our detriment) you perhaps shouldn't be giving this material away on a blog, but writing and publishing the old-fashioned way? (Not that they're mutually exclusive... but that some of your stuff is "too good" for this medium?)

I never think that. I don't even think it now that you've put it out there. I do sometimes think the good stuff I write here deserves both more fleshing out and a bigger audience, and I periodically work on doing that, particularly with the queer stuff when it hits a chord with my mostly straight readership. But despite being a professional writer and/or editor for roughly 13 years now (What?! How the hell did that happen?!), I have sort of a block around thinking of my writing as something that can or should or even could make me money.

That is probably something I should discuss with my therapist. Or a career counselor.

Regardless, I love this format, mostly because I love exclusively positive feedback, which is a luxury I have here because so few of you are reading.

Mike asks (elsewhere, but I'm a little bit grasping for content here): "Stromboli" sounds like it should be the plural of something. So is this convenience store hot pocket a strombolus (or, if you prefer, not a strombolus)? 

Apparently, "strombolis" are named for Stromboli, which is named for Stromboli, which, according to Wikipedia, "is a corruption of the Ancient Greek name Strongulē which was given to it because of its round swelling form." Who knew?

Anonymous asks: If you could automatically have any talent at all, like world-class level, what would you like it to be? 

It'd have to be something where talent alone was sufficient for something. Like, I'd hate to be a world-class-level rock singer, because then it'd still be so much work to get recognized, and I might not ever, and I'd know how much better I was than rock stars who were more popular that I was. That would be sad. And even if I was a world-class-level talent at brain surgery, no one would let me practice without a medical degree, and I am too old for that stuff.

Oh! Sales.

I think if I was a world-class-level salesperson, I could do whatever I wanted, kind of, including selling things, which would let me make huge commissions and then do what I want with my free time and money; or fundraising, which would allow me to support things that are important to me; or selling my own secondary talents, which would enable me to make a living writing whatever I wanted... yeah. I pick sales.

That is probably the most boring possible answer to that question. Well, they can't all be stromboli, know what I mean?

Anonymous also asks: What is the difference between gay and queer, and which one is appropriate for those of us who are neither to use?

I know what you want is for me to give an actual answer to this question, and I'm sorry, there isn't one, exactly. I can (and will) give you my answer to this question, but it applies only to me. Sorry.

Gay means, usually, someone who is attracted to or chooses to date only people of the same sex. It's used more for men than for women, but most women who are attracted to or choose to date only women will not object to it.

Queer is an umbrella term. It includes a range of both sexual and gender identities, including certainly gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, pansexuals, trans folks and genderqueer people, but also other people who identify as queer and don't fit entirely into any of those categories. It also sometimes but not necessarily has political connotations. Queer is complicated, because it has been used hurtfully, and continues to be used hurtfully, a lot.

I identify as queer. I like it because if there is another label for what I am, I don't know it. I also like the political connotations. You have permission to describe me as queer. I do not recommend describing other people as queer unless they've told you that they prefer that term and are OK with non-queers using it to describe them.

Really, your best bet if you wonder how people identify is to ask them.


Rebel McLeod asks: Name three passions (or something approximating them). If you followed them with enough zeal, what sort of Muppet would you be?

• Drumming
• Violence
• Shouting

I'd be Animal.

Oh, wait. Three passions of mine?

Funny, Rebel, I believe you and I have discussed that my passions are fleeting. That said, three of my less-fleeting passions seem to be:

• My niece and nephew
• Supporting queer youth through my example
• The letter W

...and I don't think Bert knows my niece and nephew, but everyone who does loves them, so that sounds like Bert. Right?

April asks: What is your favorite post — or one of them — and why?

What a great segue into our next blogiversary spectacular post! I'll get to that there.




Day 19 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for questions and answers and those who pose them and those who indulge mine. Those of you who know me in real life know I love both asking questions and demanding their answers. Thank you so much for celebrating this milestone with me. Oh, and if this inspires any of you to chime in with questions of your own, ask 'em in the comments. I'll answer any I get by midnight tonight.

Life savers

This timely-if-somber reminder came down from a friend on Facebook yesterday (ripped off entirely without his permission):

Friends: It's the holidays, and for a lot of people these are really fucking hard times, particularly for friends who suffer from mental illness, who are going through hard times, people who are misfits or queers. A friend recently wrote, 'tis the season for suicide. I want to ask you all to check in with the people you love, smile at a stranger in the store, put change in a meter that's running out, reach out to the people around you (and let that love right back in). You could be saving a life.

Day 18 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for my own (relative) mental health these days — and for access to the professional and personal support I need to sustain it.

Also, all, y'all, if there's anything I can do, this time of year of any other, please let me know. A big hug to each of you.

Friendster

Aside from making me all gushy about love, the wedding had the side benefit of introducing me to some fantastic new people, which, naturally, has me thinking about how many people-meeting situations I've been in in the last few (five) years.

In D.C., most of my social circle was directly or indirectly:

• from college, or
• from one of my two jobs.

Of my close D.C. friends, I can literally think of only one exception.

In New Hampshire, I like my colleagues, for sure, and have gotten close to a couple of them, but it is less of a family, which has both pros and cons. And there's only one college friend close by (plus two more a little further afield) with whom I interact regularly.

So, where do my friends here come from?

So far, I've found them:

• in bars
• in class
• in my bowling league
• when they started dating my existing friends
• working on that play I still need to tell you about
• at summer camp
• through online dating*
• and, yes, at work.

Day 17 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for people who wander into my life and make it richer — and for each new opportunity to find them.

*I should add that online dating has so far yielded few amazing friends but close to no romantic prospects over years of doing it. I am told that "through friends" is also a good way to meet romantic prospects; so far, the yield by that method has been similar to online dating.

All you need

In my experience, love is, you know, messy.

It's complicated and confusing, even at its best.

Don't get me wrong — I'm pro-love, wildly. The funness and sharing and mutuality and joy make the messy worth it, make the messy important and beautiful.

I spent the weekend at and around the wedding of my dear friends. These are two of the loveliest folks I know, and they are perfectly suited to each other. Their wedding showed it.

The folks who attended and participated were fun and interesting — and frankly glowing with their (our) own love for the happy couple.

Day 16 of my month of gratitude: I am grateful for love so big it tints the rest of my interactions. I'm grateful for its many expressions: for hugs and eye sparkles and forgiveness and music, for breakfast with old friends and giggly tickling with children, for gratitude itself. And I am grateful for the reminders that love's joy outweighs love's messes.

Pro Tip: Eating Convenience

The $2.99 spinach and cheese stromboli available at Cumberland Farms isn't bad, heated.

It isn't a stromboli, either, but it isn't bad.

Day 15 of my month of gratitude: Snark aside, I am thankful for daily bread. I am thankful to have enough to eat, even when I choose unwisely.

Crying over spilt whiskey lemonade

Regular readers may recall that my computer died a while back. The short(ish) version of what happened next is that the repair shop called to tell me to tell me the logic board was dead, and replacing it would cost almost as much as a new computer, and they'd happily sell me one, giving me $100 for the old one in trade. I know that sounds shady; I believe it was not, actually, any more than any attempt to make profit is.

 I couldn't afford either the repair or the new computer, so I went back to using my old computer that was too slow a year ago (iBook G4, if you're wondering) and gave the dead one to My Favorite Adirockian to see if he could do anything with it. The hope was that he'd be able to retrieve my data and then we could sell the computer on eBay, where comparable computers to mine with dead logic boards sell for enough to buy me a Chromebook.

My friend has had a really busy few weeks, so I've tried to put the computer out of my mind. Which is hard, because this iBook G4 is terrible, not just because it is slow and heavy and won't properly display modern web pages, but also because it won't hold a charge.

Day 14 of my month of gratitude: I am so, so grateful to have woken up to this text: "[bzzzzgrrrl]! Your computer is fixed!"

Whoa.

Open season

I have friends, a couple, who have a bunch of us over every Tuesday night. The group and the activity vary some week to week, but the invitation is always open.

Tonight I had a fantastic night with a fantastic group of queers, in which we discussed topics including but not limited to:

• Radical mental health
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• The new jobs people need, and how to get them
• Fake blood from fake car accidents
• Games 
• Bela Lugosi
• "Bela Lugosi's Dead"
• The length of five minutes
• Our mothers' dreams, and whether they should get funding
• Whether passion is necessary
• The marshmallow test
• Theme songs and mood lighting
• The wisdom of getting on the floor with someone who's fallen
• Cloud sex

Day 13 of my month of gratitude: I am so grateful for homes and the people who open them to me, for the people who fill them with laughter and play and deep thoughts.

Your big chance to boss me around

I am writing this post waaaaay in advance, so I won't chicken out of it come November 13.

November 20 will be the fifth anniversary of City Mouse Country. Here's how we'll celebrate.

1. As I did for my first blogiversary, I'll be answering your questions. Post them in the comments here or on the Facebook page, and I will try to answer every single one on the Big Day. Use your real name, use a fake name, post anonymously. The sky's the limit.
2. If you tell me, here or on the Facebook page, what your favorite "classic" posts from CMC are, I'll refresh everyone's memory by sharing them on the Facebook page between now and then. OK, and for Joe and, um, my parents, I guess, I'll do a compilation post of links to them here in a week, as well.
3. Third, if I can think of one between now (mid-September) and when this post goes live (mid-November), we'll have some form of fabulous prize available. Would that not be tremendous? [Ed. note: I did not yet think of a fabulous prize. But maybe I will in the next week.]

Day 12 of my month of gratitude: Thanks to the handful of you who've been reading here for five years of my country life, and thanks as well to those of you who've joined us along the way. And also thanks to those of you who are just mid-November bandwagon-jumpers because one of your friends liked something I posted to Facebook this week. Stick around. That November 20 post is going to be epic.

Movement

November and December are months of anniversaries and commemorations for me, and this year, there's a bunch of round numbers. This weekend is the fifth anniversary of my move to New Hampshire, today is the fifth anniversary of my first day at my current job, and there's more coming that I'm sure you'll hear lots about.

I like looking back; I like marking time; I like checking in on how things have changed. I have a handful of friendship milestones I've remembered for decades.

Day 11 of my month of gratitude: I'm thankful for pauses, breaths, reevaluations. I'm thankful for anniversaries and the things they mark. I'm thankful for the chance to look at how very different my life is from what it was, and I'm grateful for those differences, too: For a niece and a nephew, for my house, for proximity to family, for access to natural spaces, for stars I can see at night, for the communities I have and the people I've met — even as I still miss the folks I left in D.C.

Beautiful mess

As a single gal in the city, when you leave the house, you never know who you might meet. So, you know, I used to dress accordingly.

In this small town, when you leave the house, you know exactly who you'll run into: everyone you know. Virtually guaranteed. So, you know, I dress accordingly.

Day 10 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful that, on the one day I needed to run some errands and then go right to the gym, and was in fact wearing the rattiest gym clothes I own, I ran into no one. I would not have thought that possible. I went to three stores including Target on a holiday, went to the gym at work, and saw no one I know except my trainer.

A wrench in the works

About a month ago, I fell and hurt my left knee. Or the muscles around my knee, I guess.

It was getting better until Thursday night, at which time I slipped on some wet floor and wrenched that knee, hard. Luckily, I was in a drug store at the time, so there were supplies to take care of it, and luckily, I had good friends also taking care. It still hurt like hell. Still does.

And I know from experience that what it needs is ice the first 48 hours, a mix of rest and light exercise, some gentle stretching... but it still hurts like hell.

And also, probably, I shouldn't wear heels for a few weeks, which might be a problem, because my non-heeled shoes consist of assorted athletic shoes and sneakers and one pair of Doc Marten wingtips. The wingtips would be OK for work, except that most of my pants are all the wrong length for that. Which is probably why I went back to wearing heels too soon the last time.

Guess I'm going limpy shoe-shopping.

Day 9 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful to already have:

• Sort of amazing ice packs from the bison burgers my friend sent me a year ago
• Fish oil
• Island Mist Healing Clay Mask
• Dr. Teal's Therapeutic Solutions Epsom Salt Lavender Soaking Solution
• The 'til-now-unread end of Tina Fey's Bossypants
• The ability to get back up out of the bathtub, which I ill-advisedly did not test before I needed it and so am perhaps most grateful for of all. It could have been a looooong weekend.
  

One soaky bath is not going to fix all the world's problems, but it did not hurt one bit.

Whirlwind

This morning, unaided by an alarm clock or caffeine, I woke up at 5:36, went for a run with my neighbor, planned the day, checked Facebook, went to the supermarket, put dinner in the Crock Pot, loaded and started the dishwasher, took a shower, got dressed, said hi to the contractor, and wrote this blog post.

Before work.

Day 8 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for meth.

Kidding.

But I am thankful for the little gifts of bursts of productive energy when I get them, and the reminders that I do, in fact, get them.

Misty morning

I was going to take a break from politics, and I still will, but here's one more. Because today, I don't have to stretch to find gratitude, so I'm not going to just back-burner this one until we're ready for politics again.

My aunt (according to her daughter, my cousin) campaigned at her huge retirement complex and helped raise funds for marriage equality in Maryland (Question Six). It won with 52% of the vote.

I have always loved my aunt; she's terrific. And smart, and a complete inspiration to me. But my eyes welled up a little on reading that this morning.

Some context: She was born in 1929. That is just nine years after women in the United States even won the right to vote.

Day 7 of my month of gratitude: I am grateful to have in both my family of origin and my family of choice loving, strong people who do the right thing when it comes down to it. I am proud to be part of a clan that fights for the civil rights of others. And, you know, lucky to witness when sometimes, our side wins. Thank you, dearest auntie — and all the rest of you who work so hard for the side of the angels.

We carry

I voted in 7 minutes total elapsed time from pulling into the parking lot to pulling out of the parking lot. That includes time to say hi to a friend, but does not include time to stop at the fantastic bake sale, because I neglected to bring cash to the polls.

So then I went to my local transmission guy, who is the nicest guy in the universe, because his shop is across the street from my polling place and my car's shifting funny. He found that the fluid was low and topped it off. While we were standing around in the parking lot, this exchange actually happened.

Complete stranger who does not appear to work there: (to me) Hey, kiddo. (To transmission guy) Hey, [guy's name]. Fluid's a little low?
Transmission guy: Yes, just adding some now.
Complete stranger: (to me) I'm glad to see you voted. I won't ask which way you voted.
Me: Yup, of course. Did you get out to vote yet?
Complete stranger: Yes.
Transmission guy: (to stranger) I had an appointment at the VA earlier, that they cancelled; that's the only reason I don't have my pistol on me. (to me) We carry guns.
Me: Right, sure.
Complete stranger: I carry for my state, and I carry for myself.
Me: (nods)
Transmission guy: You should be all set for now, but you'll have to bring it back in and leave it with us so we can find the leak and fix it.

Day 6 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for so, so many of the experiences of living and voting and patronizing businesses in a small town. I am thankful for people who can probably assume I vote against them and who encourage me to do it anyway. I am thankful to know my local transmission guy, whatever his politics are.


Oh, also, if you're looking for it, a sad epilogue to the Plattsburgh saga: Poor local transmission guy never got paid for his work. The shop in Plattsburgh went bankrupt and closed; our buddy Lee really did just rip them off and they just never recovered, financially. That guy sucks. Sorry to be the messenger.

Let it.

We had our first snowfall yesterday morning, and our first snowstorm is expected for later this week. Am I ready? Not at all.

Day 5 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for changing seasons and big surprises. And for having a garage.

Bowties and ballot boxes

I got a call yesterday morning from my mother, who'd found that I still have some stuff in her attic; I'd thought I'd finished with all that. My parents were having some repairs to their roof, so she wanted me to come over, sort through what I had up there, and make a run to the dump with my dad to get rid of the trash.

So, I went over, and I found many things, including lots of trash, lots of mouse poop, lots of sand in an old camp trunk, lots of amazing old clothes and costumes. But the first memory-flooded thing I found was this:

By the time I started my senior year in high school, the convention was done, Paul Simon was long out of the race. But I had loved him. I agreed with him on so many things, and thought the bow-tie thing was kind of great, and then he went on Saturday Night Live with the other Paul Simon, and I was a goner. I had never yet been involved in a political campaign, and I didn't get involved with his, either, aside from wearing that button on my jean jacket. He was the first candidate I remember loving on my own, without regard for who my parents were supporting.

When my senior year started, it was just after Labor Day 1988, and I was 17. I took a quarter-long Social Studies class called "Election '88," in which we learned about — and got involved in — the process. I lived in Massachusetts and Michael Dukakis was my candidate. I worked on his campaign in Boston, making phone calls, mostly. On election night, they dispatched me and a couple of others to another site with more phones; we called West-Coasters until the game was undeniably over. I was sad but still thrilled by the whole thing of it. I'd tried to make a difference; I'd done literally all I could, since voting was still not an option. Trudging back through the Combat Zone in Boston in defeat with two boys from Brandeis was like a scene from a movie.

And that year, my friends and I got involved in other ways, too. We even went to interminable open town meetings (at which I still could not vote) to protest budget cuts for a school I spent most days complaining about. I listened to every passionate person in town, crackpot or not, say whatever they had to say, for hours on end.

Four years later, I was a senior in college and worked for Bill Clinton's campaign. He was the first winner I ever backed. I found my patriotism that year.

I voted for Nader in 2000 because I believed in him and because I believe in third parties, even though I lived in arguably a swing state. I'm not sure I'd do it again under those circumstances, but I am not sorry I did it then.

I voted for Hillary Clinton. I voted for Barack Obama.

Last winter, I voted for Fred Karger in the Republican primary. There are folks who've said it's cynical of me to vote for a candidate who has no chance, from a party you don't want in office. I say I voted for a queer for president on a major-party ticket, and I wish every act of cynicism I've committed had made me feel that good.

Tuesday, I'll vote for President Obama again, and Maggie Hassan, and a bunch of other people. I'll vote on some ballot questions.

You're voting, too, right, or already did? Even if it's not the same way I will?

Day 4 of my moth of gratitude: I am thankful to live in this country, not because it's "the greatest nation in the world" (what does that even mean?), as the folks running for office will tell you, but because I like the voice it offers me. And I am thankful for the hope, for the forgiveness, for the opportunity implicit in that.

Zzzzzgrrrl

It is late, late, late.

Day 3 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for falling back and the extra hour of sleep that sort of means. I know it's a trick, I know Daylight Savings is silly, and I don't care.

Magic, fairies, etc.

More on the magic of social media:

When I was in high school and college, theater was sort of my thing. I did it extracurricularly at school, I went to summer theater programs, I worked in summer theater programs, I minored in theater at college until I got mad at the department and decidedI could get the classes I wanted without also being beholden to a certain faculty member who treated me poorly. But still, there was a LOT of theater. And many of the folks I met in that world moved on to be professionals in the field. They write, they act, they do technical stuff, they teach; they're in film and TV and theater and performance art.

And though performance and its support is really hardly a part of my life at all these days, those old friends (mostly on Facebook) keep me connected to it. I know so many gorgeous and talented people, y'all.

One of those people is my friend Paul Salamoff, whose name I will use because I am about to hawk his book. He's a genius, and I am proud to say I played Titania to his Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream in exotic Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1987. There was a lot of chiffon involved. It was quite something. Anyway. And now, still a genius, he writes books and stuff. And when he was looking for transcriptionists for the third edition of On the Set, I hopped right on board. I have not read this book. But I can tell you, if the rest of it is half as interesting as the interview with Terry Morse I transcribed, it will be well worth your time.

And then yesterday I had opportunity to contribute to the Kickstarter campaign of another friend from that same time and place, Winter Miller, whose show Amandine looks amazing.

Day 2 of my month of gratitude: I am grateful to know gorgeous and talented people, and I am grateful that technology allows them to reenter my life seamlessly, as though it were not 25 years ago that I was awkwardly wearing a purple leotard and bossing a bunch of thirteen-year-old fairies around. I am especially thankful for opportunities to continue relationships that keep me on the fringes of creative worlds I still admire greatly.

All Saints' Day Special

Two things to know going in to this post:

• Today is All Saints' Day, and
• I have a lot of friends, both on Facebook and in real life, who are clergy (mostly but not exclusively mainstream Protestant denominations and Episcopalians, which is arguably but not necessarily a mainstream Protestant denomination... oh, never mind).

So, today, a friend posted this to Facebook:

I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
And one was a shepherdess on the green;
They were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too. 

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
And his love made them strong;
And they followed the right for Jesus' sake
The whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,*
And one was slain by a fierce wild beast;
And there's not any reason, no, not the least,
Why I shouldn't be one too. 

They lived not only in ages past,
There are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous saints
Who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
And I mean to be one too. 

 ~Lesbia Scott, who wrote it for her children in the 1920s 

Two more things to know, as I told her:

• "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God" was one of my very favorites as a kid. Not favorite hymns, favorite songs to sing, period, any time of year.
• How did I not know that the author's name was Lesbia? Or that that's a name at all? It's enough to make a person reconsider having children.

*I do recall asking my priestly if not saintly parents why only one was a priest. That seemed a little bit damning to me, at the time.

November

Some of you may remember my months of gratitude last year and the year before. This year, I got so excited about them I started prewriting posts, a little, that I'll sprinkle into the mix through the month. I've been looking forward to November for weeks.

But I don't mind telling you, friends, I'm in a little bit of a thrown-for-a-loop place in my life, which I'm sorry to be all cryptic and vaguebooky about, but I'm not really able to be more specific, partly because I don't know all the details myself.

The planets are out of alignment, my perspective's shifting, I'm learning some and growing some in ways that are likely to be ultimately good but are currently mostly weird and a little painful.

I don't totally know what's coming next, but I know that the first of November feels like a fresh-start place in its grey skeletalness, because I have this gloriously self-indulgent space to explore the things about my life and the world that work and are beautiful.

Oh, hey, also: I am aware of a few regular readers who are also going through different hard times today, or around now. Please know that you are on my mind and in my heart. Maybe we can all send each other some of what Beth would call "white light."

Day 1 of my month of gratitude: I am thankful for opportunities to pause, catch a breath, and change course.

Here is the story of the hurricane...

I was going to maybe post some foliage pictures today. I also considered telling you about my great weekend. Instead, Frankenstorm is coming, and I thought it might be fun to liveblog until the power goes out. Right?

2:44 Here's where things stand:

• Frankenstorm (Hurricane Sandy plus a cold front) is headed this way.
• In anticipation, the college I work at has been closed for the day.
• The worst of the storm is supposed to be 2-9 p.m.
• So far, we're getting what would in other circumstances be described as a light shower.
• A year ago, Hurricane Irene was also predicted to be devastating. It was, about 20 miles west. Horrible. Here in my town, we only ever got showers.
• I am attempting neither to over- nor under-react. So: 
• My phone is charged.
• My bathtub is filled with water.
• I know where at least one lantern and at least one candle are located.
• The windows are closed, and so is the garage door.
• I have perhaps naively put some of Beth's Salsa Chicken in the crock pot, which will either mean I have delicious food later or a bunch of half-cooked spicy bacteria I have to throw away because the power went out.

Now I should be cleaning house before I lose the lights, because it's a mess and I'm home and who knows who'll have to come stay in my hillside haven.

Instead, I am starting to watch a movie I initially attempted to explain to you but am now so appalled that I'm about to watch that I'll only tell you about it if I think you should watch it. Sorry, everyone.

3:02 p.m. Oh, also, Joe Biden was supposed to come to the college today. So really, we've just traded one liveblogging opportunity for another. Stay safe, Brett. No pics, Alexis — there's nothing interesting enough to take pics of yet.

3:27 p.m. Still no real wind to speak of. It is raining harder. This movie is terrible. How often do you want updates, and concerning storm, or household activities, or both?It is possible I have bowling tonight, but for now, we're playing it by ear.

3:34 p.m. Raining even a little harder. I'm turning this movie off. If you would also like to avoid it, it's Albert Fish, about a real-life Depression-era child murderer and cannibal. It's at least as bad as that sounds.

3:42 p.m. Movie's off. Extreme Couponing is on. I'm not saying I have great taste in movies and TV; I'm just saying if I'm going to watch crap, I'd prefer it not to make me sick to my stomach. Possibly related: That salsa chicken smells amazing.

3:55 p.m. My mechanic friend just called to ask if he could park his limo and possibly some other cars in my higher-elevation-than-his-shop driveway. hells yes, I say. Also: It is possible that the reason it seems unwindy to me is that the window I am looking out its the one on the side of my house least likely to get wind. When my craving for a Pepsi Throwback gets so bad I need to indulge it, I'll get up and look out a different window and let you know.

4:06 p.m. Pepsi Throwback obtained, but not without incident: I might have spilled a bunch of ice on the floor. Not a lot of wind on any side of the house. I'm considering a fire in the fireplace. Also, a person whose day can be in part described with "she calls the store manager for a routine check on coupon policies" have different routines than mine.

4:25 p.m. Here's the thing about bowling: Even if it's OK when I leave the house at 6:15, if it's not OK when I'm done bowling at 8:30 or 9, I'm stuck at the bowling alley for who knows how long. We should just not go, right? But I love my queer bowling. Sigh.

4:36 p.m. I got bored with Extreme Couponing and also discovered that there was a whole season of Important Things with Demetri Martin I hadn't seen. Everyone should always be watching that show. Unrelated but potentially useful: If you need to find an emergency shelter from the storm, you can text FEMA.

4:57 p.m. Commenter Emily (fun side note: many many of my friends are named Emily. I a little bit wonder which one that is) has requested the recipe for salsa chicken. I assume and hope it's OK to share, but I'd rather check with Beth first. Another fun side note: If you are my IRL persona's Facebook friend (that doesn't sound healthy), you can look at my "notes" and find a whole long one full of awesome Crock Pot recipes.

5:06 p.m. Permission granted! Also, the wind's picking up.

4 boneless chicken breasts
large jar of salsa
can black beans
corn (frozen or canned), however much you want
Put the boneless chicken breasts in your crockpot. Even frozen.
Dump in one large jar of salsa.
Drain and rinse one can of black beans and dump in crockpot.
Turn your crockpot on and leave it there all day. Come back 10 hours later and open the crockpot. Shred up the chicken. Add the corn. Stir it up good.
Serve in bowls with sides of shredded Mexican cheeses and sour cream. Eat with tortillas or tortilla chips. (You could eat it in taco shells, too.)

5:37 p.m. We should really make a decision about bowling.

5:57 p.m. The bowling teammates and I have decided not to bowl. It feels like a smart choice. Especially since, as I was on the phone with one of said teammates:

• we realized there were two other opportunities to hang out in the next two days, and
• the wind picked up. It's starting to feel like a hurricane.

Also, are you impressed by how many times I have managed to type "bowling" and not typed "blowing," especially in the middle of a wind-based storm? I sort of am. Off to call Yankee Lanes.

6:26 p.m. Sorry for these long gaps between posts; I am running out of things to say, a little, except to individuals, which is why I seem to have moved somewhat to gchat and Facebook chat. If I say anything hilarious in either of those media, I will try to repost here. Meanwhile, I am finally going to eat some of that salsa chicken. And maybe start a fire in the fireplace. Or make some lemonade. Or make some lemonade and then turn it into whiskey lemonade. And keep it away from the computer.

7:16 p.m. Wind does not seem to have gotten worse and may have died down. Rain seems neither better nor worse. I am drinking lemonade from a cup with a lid. The salsa chicken is fantastic. If you wonder how much corn is "however much you want" from that recipe above, in my case, it's a lot. A whole lot.

7:35 p.m. I have very few regrets in this life; even most of my bad decisions have gotten me other places I want to be, have helped me learn and grow. But I do kind of wish I'd gone bowling.

7:37 p.m. I'm going to challenge myself. I think I can clean the whole sunroom, have it presentable for guests, in 15 minutes. What do you think? Also, I initially wrote "...have it resentable for guests..." Well, you know what? If you're a guest, and you actually resent my cleaning efforts, you can go to hell, buddy. Right to hell. Sometimes blogging is a procrastination tool. OK. Really going to clean for 15 minutes now.

8:07 p.m. Fifteen minutes was not enough, but 25 minutes was enough to clean the sunroom AND talk about the imminent cancellation of someone else's Halloween party to which I was not invited AND go to the bathroom AND put on pajamas. So, not bad.

8:32 p.m. Local schools are closed tomorrow; still no word on whether I have work. But the rain seems to be getting stronger; I'll be surprised if the worst of the storm is really past us by 9. Are any of you still reading? Comment to keep me (and each other) company.

8:41 p.m. I have a special guest star coming!

8:45 p.m. The guest star has arrived. We are now watching Important Things with Demetri Martin together. This promises to be way more entertaining for me than for you, I think. He is the same guest star as we had for the first debate.

8:49 p.m. ... Except now we are out of episodes. We are going back to watching the last episode of the first season. It's on time. Hahahahahaha.

9:03 p.m. The college is closed until noon tomorrow. So, that's cool.

10:24 p.m. OMG you guys. I am so sorry, I didn't forget about you. But Special Guest Star and i started talking about feminism and stuff and then we started watching Hot In Cleveland which you really should be watching. Still have power, still have a few Fritos (though SGS is making a dent in that), and the storm may actually be winding down.

10:57 p.m. SGS and I think but are not sure the rain has stopped.

Nowhere to hide in a small town

This morning, I got up early and went for a long walk with my neighbor, as I sometimes do.

Then, as I sometimes do, still wearing my exercise clothes, I climbed into the daybed in my sunroom to watch last night's Daily Show.

And then around 8 someone rang the bell. I ignored it, as I sometimes do, because I was not expecting anyone and I was not dressed for company and if it was some political thing, I didn't really have time for a long conversation.

Then that someone knocked, in case I hadn't heard the bell. And then I just froze in place, not making a sound, not wanting to so much as rustle so whoever it was would just go away.

And then whoever it was did go away. Very briefly. Until he started taking apart the room I was in —from the outside. Apparently "someone" was my contractor, who is supposed to be doing some work on my house, but who I did not know was starting this morning. But at this point, I was still a mess, and  also a mess who has pretended not to have heard the doorbell or the knock, which might be reasonable if I was in the shower or something, but which is in no way reasonable when I am sitting in the sunroom.

So I stayed frozen. The Daily Show ended and I didn't put anything else on. I unfroze long enough to pull the covers over my head at one point when he got too close to the window.

And then, finally, after some period longer than several minutes but arguably shorter than the one million years it felt like, there was quiet.

I assumed he'd gone back to his truck to get a tool or something. I scurried from the sunroom back to my bedroom, where I quickly got ready for work. I figured I'd just admit the whole thing, except for the hiding. And so I emerged, smiling, dressed, shod, coiffed, ready to engage with the contractor — and he was nowhere. His tools were in a heap on my deck, but the contractor was gone, and so was his truck.

So I was left with no opportunity to explain, but he was obviously going to notice my car, which had been in the garage, was not anymore.

Obviously, I left the awkwardest note in the universe under his pile of tools and took off for work.

This is a fantastic start to this relationship, I feel.

How's your day going?

New debate, old computer

9:06 Here we go!

9:10 OMG everyone I am so late and they are already talking about Libya. But there are new rules for tonight: No drinks near the computer. It's an oldoldold computer, but it's the one I've got, and it'll have to do for a bit. Of course, the fact that I am so late means I have had no opportunity to make lemonade for whiskey lemonade and therefore have no drink at all. What goes in (soft) cider? More whiskey?

9:14 Hm. Technical difficulties abound.The old computer has a harder time with the faster blogging, and Huff Post Live on the Roku has frozen while it rebuffers. If I'm missing anything important, please let me know. Meanwhile, I'm making a drink.

9:18 Still no debate for me. I'm going to miss those famous zingers! Seriously, is anyone saying anything important? I should probably figure out if my radio works. Maybe if it does, Nixon will win.

9:22 Radio does not, in fact, work, but Huff Post Live is back. The president thinks we want to be careful of who we give weapons to. That's novel.

9:24 Oh, and yes. Whiskey goes just fine in (soft) cider. Mmmmmm. You should all go get some. Oh, hey, Mitt's saying something. 

9:25 The president just totally interrupted Mitt. Now, that's fine by me, but it seems like it'd be against the rules of debating. Someone said on the radio today that what defines a good debate moderator is physical proximity to the candidates. They jokingly suggested handcuffs.

9:31 I have both audio and video, but they are in no way synced and the audio's cutting in and out. This should do wonders for facilitating my already completely shaky understanding of foreign policy. Oh, wait, Mitt says we want a peaceful world. That sounds good. Too bad the sound then immediately cut out completely, rendering me unable to hear what he's going to do about that. Those of you who can hear him, does it involve ensuring everyone has access to, say, food, housing, and medical care?

9:37 Ooooh, President O. Hit him in the small business! Go gogogogogogo!

9:40 Mitt Romney, I went to school in Massachusetts. The kids do well because Massachusetts is FULL of academic parents. Also, in the particular school I went to, which was very highly regarded, cheating was RAMPANT and funding was HUGE. How is that related to you exactly? Whihc part are you responsible for?

9:44 I was at the Salt Lake City Olympics, and they were amazing. I loved Mitt Romney then. I wish he'd sort of faded away after that.

9:55 Is Mitt anti-diplomacy?

9:58 I don't know how you'd even begin to isolate Romney's "biggest whopper," but OK.

10:03 During the first debate, I thought Obama sounded smart and Romney sounded like a liar. Other people thought Obama sounded boring and Romney sounded dynamic. I think the same thing again. Do other people think Obama's boring tonight? Do they think it matters? I mean, I'd take a boring smart president over a dynamic liar, if those were my choices.

10:07 Mitt appears to be sweating a lot. I did not know he could do that. Possibly but not definitely unrelated: I have finished my drink.

10:26 I'm sorry, I'm still here, I just haven't had anything to say in 20 minutes. Don't some of you have something to say?

10:29 "People will look it up," say the candidates. Um...

10:32 Oh, good, Bob Schieffer showed up and he loves teachers. Whatever. P.S. Mitt Romney has the creepiest laugh ever.

10:34 I like the president and I love my country and if I never hear the good ol' U.S. of A. referred to as the "greatest nation in the world," it'll be too soon.

10:35 How the heck does any Republican in 2012 get to be the peace candidate?

10:37 The Huff Post Live crew thought it was a terrible debate. OK. I'll buy that.

What works

I'm off soon for opening night of The Big Play, but I had a thought earlier today that I'd like to expand on.

Every workplace has its pros and cons. Here are some things I dig about my current workplace:

• I have never gotten an e-mail scolding me about the refrigerator.
• We have unisex bathrooms.
• Even though we have unisex bathrooms, I have never had to lower a toilet seat.

So, it's possible. Why isn't it universal?

What's up

There's been a lot going on around here, primarily work and a play I'm doing, but also some other volunteer stuff.

As a result, you get one of those bulleted lists I have become famous for.

• I now think of myself as writing two types of posts: Ones that I hope are hilarious or brilliant and will become viral masterworks, and ones that I write to let my most faithful readers (who include some of my closest friends) know what's up. This is the second kind. You can tell because no one who doesn't know me would care about it.
• I had an MRI yesterday. You do not need to worry about that. You may need to worry about this: when they asked what I wanted on the satellite radio to distract me, I chose classic rock because I was too embarrassed to say what I really wanted, which was conservative talk radio. Rush and Glenn Beck are pretty perfect distractions, but I am not about to discuss that with strangers.
• I got involved in the aforementioned play in such a convoluted way I have to believe it was meant to be. I am not sure if the reason for that was to introduce me to these amazing people, or to get me back in a theater, or to make me think about gender and mental health differently, or something else, or some combination, but I don't care. I'm having the time of my life.
• For this year only, my annual Women's Weekend with many friends has been toned down to a smaller getaway with one female friend, starting right after the show closes. I am looking forward to it enough that it is preventing me from sinking into a deep depression at the thought that the show is closing. So, that's good. Check in on me Tuesday.
• Sometimes, on Facebook, I click the "x" for all the "People You May Know" that I don't actually know, until I get a roster of folks I do know but don't choose to friend on Facebook.
• Having spent a lifetime with allergies, I'm finally seeing an allergist in December. She is apparently a woman and very personable, both of which are apparently unusual for allergists.
• Who has a guess for what the oddest thing I'm allergic to is? I bet it's a doozy.
• The foliage up here is still really pretty. I have taken some pictures. I'll share them soon.
• When I hear the phrase, "women in binders," I (and many queers, I'll warrant) picture this, not this. Or also whatever Mitt meant.
• Although the next debate falls on my bowling night, I should be home in time for it. Let's try the liveblogging thing again, shall we? It was so fun last time.

Come out, come out, wherever you are

Happy National Coming Out Day.

I've done some stuff on outness in the past. (Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, specifically.)

This year, I'm saving it for the LGBTQIA folks here on CMC.

I'll pose the same challenge on my own Facebook page, but understanding that some of you readers are not my Facebook friends, and that some of you who are may prefer the anonymity of the blog, we're doing it here, too.  If you have one, use the comments to share a coming-out story. Pick whatever one you'd most like to share (The most recent? The first? The funniest? The weirdest? The most educational?). Heck, tell us a couple. Tell as many as you feel inclined to. Use your real name or a fake one; I don't care.

This should go without saying, but: Your own stories only, please.

If you have something to share that's not a coming-out story, just for today, I'm asking you not to do it here. Feel free to comment on the CMC Facebook page, or to come back and comment on the blog another day, or to e-mail questions or comments or whatever, but for today, this space isn't yours. Please, please, please pass this on to others who might have something to share. I'd love for this comment thread to get loooooong.

I'll start with one, but will likely share one or two others through the day in the comments:

I was a senior in college, and completely freaking out about all the things seniors in college freak out about (what will I do with my life? Who am I, anyway?) and scheduled an appointment with my Women's Studies professor (an excellent professor and influence in a very early-90s gender deconstructionist way) the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to talk about the fact that my passions seemed to be in Women's Studies, but I didn't want to stay in school long enough to teach it, and I didn't want to work in non-profits the rest of my life. So we talked about that, and in very dramatic fashion, I think I told her more or less every thought I had in my head (My boyfriend collects handguns and I don't believe in handguns! I'm in this weird situation with my roommates! I think I'm bisexual* and I don't know what to do with that!). I'd literally never before that moment admitted even to myself that that was even a real possibility. 

And she was my first of many examples that someone can be fine with what you say and still respond in ways you'd prefer they not. Her response (to all of the above, actually), was, "So what?" Which was, in its horrible, dismissive, evil way, fantastic. It did not calm me down any, but it got me to verbalize about what, specifically, was the big deal of my story ("Gender may all be socialized**, but socialization is real, and people have real and sometimes dangerous reactions to people who stray outside the lines, and just because you're an academic doesn't mean I will always have the protection you can claim for yourself!").

And then, I calmed down. 

*I do not, anymore, identify as bisexual, though I did for more than a decade.
**I do not, anymore, think gender is all socialized, but I did at the time and so did she. I should e-mail her and find out if she still thinks that. 

Foliage for Joe (possibly the first in a series)

More than a week ago, frequent reader and commenter Joe asked about the foliage. I have so badly wanted to do a foliage post since, but it has been raining for a week.

Yesterday, it was sunny and in the 70s, and rather than risk the gorgeous weather waiting to have time to take pictures in more scenic locations, you're getting what I shot with my 2-year-old cell phone while walking to get lunch on Main Street. I know some of you wonder, even with all my delightful stories, how I could ever have left the DC area to live in New Hampshire. Wonder no more.

Joe, this one's for you.

Click on any image for a bigger one. I think.

(OK, the sky is not really as blue as it is in this last picture.
As may be obvious, I shot this one from my car while I was at a stoplight, on my way back from dropping off my computer, so that blue is the shade on the top of my windshield.
But the leaf color is all real, and all the colors in the other pics are all real.)