An epidemic

I haven't posted to Facebook yet about how my people die a lot lately, because I don't know how to do that in that few words. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Sinclair's post is an excellent place to start (Warning: the post is great, but the site and its advertising are NSFW).
If you don't want to click through after that warning: five boys in twenty days killed themselves after being bullied about being gay (which, as anyone who's been in a middle school or high school in the last forty years knows, may or may not mean they were actually gay).

I can't say much that others haven't said, but I also know that not all of my readers spend a whole lot of time reading the brilliant words of other GLBT folks online. You come here for the funny stories about your ordinary (if exceptionally clever and good-looking) friend's stories of life in the country. So I'm writing about this in case it means people will see it who wouldn't have otherwise.
Here's what I feel:

• So, so, so much sadness. So much grief, not just for five teenagers who have died in twenty days (as if that's not enough), but for the loss to my communities: for the shining lights they were while they lived and the brilliant suns they could have become: People who could have helped others survive torment, people who could have raised families, run for office, been extraordinary friends and activists and artists and scientists and clergy and and teachers and businesspeople and citizens and lovers. And hell, maybe they would have become horrible people. They still would have deserved to live.
  
• And all of the above? I also feel or so many other people who have died for the same reason whose deaths haven't made the news. People who were so scared of what could happen that death seemed better.

There are many solutions, and we should do them all.
Here's mine: Expose children to queers.
Openly.
All the kids need this: Potential bullies, potential targets, potential bystanders.

• Queers, we need to get over the fear of how society will react to our reaching out to kids, specifically. We need to be out, and we need to get to know as many kids as we can. We need to expose them to our lives and our friends' lives. We need to show them that we live lives both ordinary and radical, sometimes at the same time, and also sometimes not.
• Non-queers, you need to do all you can to ensure that children see that bullying is not acceptable, and that queerness is. I'll be your token, but I am not enough. Exposure to me is the barest tip of the iceberg. Also: Stop worrying about "how you'll explain." No one's asking you to teach a five-year-old about anal sex (though you'll probably want to do that around the same time you explain vaginal sex, incidentally, if you're serious about this normalizing, because to do otherwise suggests that you assume she or he will encounter straight sex before or to the exclusion of gay sex).
• Everyone, make sure the books and movies you choose for children incorporate a range of experiences. Let them fall in love with the gayest characters. Buy this stuff and ask that your library do the same. Money talks. If you buy it, they'll make more.
  

Dan Savage's It Gets Better project is a great place to start. Ellen Degeneres's video is a great start. But if the famous people are going to promise children that it will get better, all the rest of us need to make sure that it does.

UPDATE 10/1 at 4:22 p.m.: Six. I am trying not to cry at my desk at work.

In which the jaded spinster discusses marriage

So, you know, I'm single. And open to dating, if you know anyone.

But when it (infrequently) occurs to me to wish I were married, it is usually for one of the following two reasons (in order of how often it occurs to me):

1. I wish I had someone to help me move this heavy thing, or
2. I wish there were two incomes to cover these utilities.

Are there other advantages to marriage, you married people? Single people, are there other reasons you wish you were married?

I ask because the internet asked me...

OK, not the whole internet. Just Kristy. And now that I reread her post, she didn't even ask. But whatever. The post is written now.

What's in your purse?

My answer comes in two parts, because I don't carry a purse.

Part One: I do have a work bag that does double-duty as my gym bag, and it contains:

• Sweat shorts I've owned for one million years
• New long sports bra
• Sneakers
• Socks (white sport)
• Socks (black dress)
• Armadillo's burrito bonus card
• Mederma for the giant scar on my leg
• Cell phone charger
• Pencil (yellow, pink eraser)
• Trish reversible necklace
• Oz pendant slide
• Duchess ring
• Moonwalk ring
• Zen bracelet
• A toothbrush
• A San Francisco bike map and walking guide that I must have stolen from my cousin Laura in January and didn't know it until now — sorry, Laura.
• The program to Katya's Holiday Spectacular!, a drag show I attended in January
  
• A $50 voucher from Southwest
• Two jalapeños in a zippered baggie
• One quarter
• Two dimes
• One nickel
• Four pennies
• Keys to my office and house, on a whistle/compass/magnifying glass/thermometer keychain
• Business cards (lia sophia) in an elegant business card holder
• A to-do list from over a month ago
  
• My kitchen timer

Part Two: My rock-star friend and I were just discussing the other day what I'd do if I won the lottery, and what would be in my purse under those circumstances.

me: first i would buy all the jewelry in the whole catalog, even the stuff i didn't like, so people could see it
rock star: heh
me: i get a 70% discount, so that would come to about $6,000, i think
rock star: that'd be like the change in the bottom of your bag... dude
me: yup
if i had a bag
which i would, if i won the lottery
because $6000 wouldn't fit well in my jeans pocket
the way my current change does
rock star: or you'd have to get a really really tight belt to hold your pants up
me: unless i had it in $1000 bills
in which case it would take up the same space as the $6 i have there now
but cumberland farms would hassle me when i went to buy a diet coke
so, yeah
when i win the lottery, i'll get a purse and all the lia sophia jewelry
rock star: good plan

So, now I'm asking. What's in your purse or equivalent?

Flattry will get you everywhere

So, this Flattr thing.

Have you heard about it?

If not, and you're interested in a very cool, passionate explanation, with video, my friend Mike has that covered over here.

If you're just interested in a short explanation, it's a way for you to support the people who are responsible for the good stuff on the internet — without it costing you too much. And if you're one of the people who creates that good stuff on the internet, it's a way for you to start getting that support.

I think it's a good idea. I hope you'll join, so I can give you money when I like what you're doing, and other people can, too.

And obviously, if you like what I'm doing, I hope you'll hit my handy new Flattr button over there on the right.

Aw, hell. Now I need to write stuff people will like or find interesting. Soooooo out of practice.

What, you DON'T come here for the nail polish stories?

I had a pedicure yesterday. It was a fine pedicure, mostly, except that I kind of hate the color I chose. So, now what?


None of the options seems like something I would do, but I have to do one of 'em. Majority rules. If you have other suggestions, I will entertain them in the comments.

UPDATE 8/4/10: Someone got in just under the wire! When I checked yesterday, minutes before the poll closed, it was a three-way tie, so I went to get a polish change and planned an update about how you people were no help at all. Now I see that a late voter broke the tie for me. In the interest of keeping both the majority-rules spirit and the new color on my toenails, I have removed the polish from my fingernails and am letting them go naked.

Um, before I tell everybody what the big surprise is, would you like to tell me what you think the big surprise is?

Remember way back, when I told you the hilarious story of my rock star friend?

Well, she's back. And she is not the rock star of this story (OK, there is no rock star of this story), but it was too hilarious not to share with you, nonetheless. I heard it yesterday, and am still laughing about it 24 hours later.

me: tuesdays tend to be big meeting days
just got out of my fourth and last of the day
RS: ugh. that is a lot of meetings. we just had a weird forced surprise birthday celebration for 25 people. it's really ridiculous to try to surprise 25 people at the same time
me: ha!
yes
is that everyone who has a birthday in the summer?
RS: june and july
me: ah
RS: but it was totally silly. because several of us were told we had to some how get our boss, plus 5 colleagues up to a conference room 4 floors up on a floor we never go to
me: heh
how did you do it?
RS: we just told them what was happening and to pretend to be surprised. because we could NOT figure out how to do it and also it was a rescheduled surprise party from last month that they all knew about the first time
me: hee
RS: when we all got upstairs, the "surprisees" were herded into one room (with no explanation) while the surprisers went into another room. and then the surprisees filed in sloooowly about 3 minutes later as we said surprise 25 times.
me: omg
wowsa
RS: yes. it was like an episode of the office.

Train the trainer

I've been working out a little more lately. Yeah, I'm pretty awesome.

I started running about 6 weeks ago, and recently decided I needed to add some strength training to that. I am very gym-phobic, which is bad for someone who wants to add strength training. But I work at a college, which is good for the gym-phobic, because personal trainers cost $40 a semester.

My trainer is adorable. She's young and tiny. She dots her i's with circles. She wears sweatpants with things written on the butt. I try to get past these things, really, I do, because I know my dismissiveness is both harmful to the trainer-client relationship, and is also just a sign that the patriarchy is leaving its mark on me.

And yesterday, at our second session, I had gotten over them. We'd had a great workout; she's fun but also on top of things.

And she works in the evenings, which at a college gym in the summer is a boring time. Since she was bored, and since I irrationally love fitness tests, we decided to do a bunch of them yesterday. Including a skin-caliper test, which she was very excited about, because most people don't want to do them.

Afterward, we chatted about my body-fat percentage, and what a healthy percentage would be (25%), and what a really fit percentage would be, if I wanted to be more serious about my running (21-22%).

"But you don't want to go below 20%," she said. And I could hear her gearing up for the anorexia talk, which I was very pleased to hear her do, because I think that's just good responsible training. "Once you get to around 17%," she said, "you stop —"

And then she paused.

"I would normally talk about losing your period when your body fat gets too low," she said. "But at your age, I know, menopause..."

People?

I am 38 years old.

And yes, that makes me twice her age, literally. But come on.

The first MOREning,* in longhand notes, text messages, and random recollections

Yeah, I know it's Wednesday and the conference is over. I'll be on my way home before you know it. But I finally have a minute while my roommate gets dressed before we go out to the post office (and to stock up on cheese and beer) to type up my impressions of Monday morning.

Written in my notebook at the time:

Maybe a lot of conferences are like this.

If so, I don't go to them.

It is 8:25 in the morning and the environment is basically indistinguishable from a rock concert. People are excited, hollering at each other fromacross the stadium — did I say stadium? Yes, I did. We're in the US Cellular Arena.Music is blaring, wchich obviously means people are dancing.Chairs are filling in with 5,000 lia sophia advisors and managers (and a handful of guests). It is a frickin' party up in here.

Of course, it's not exactly like a rock concert.

Departures from the theme:

• Virtually the whole crowd is women, all ages, 18 to very old.
• If an outsider observed the scene, she or she might reasonably assume we are seated by outfit. We are actually sitting pretty much by management unit, and some units are very excited to dress alike, in rhinestoned jean jackets or t-shirts that say "Bling It On" or flashing pink glasses.

At some point, I put down the notebook and started texting a friend.

Me, 8:48: My new goal in life is to get you selling lia sophia so you can come to this conference. I don't know how to explain, but these are our people.
She, 8:51: I was JUST thinking about what it's like and envisioning you there.
Me, 8:54: It's 845 here and it is a f*cking rock concert. Loud music, dancing, screaming. We are waiting for the recognition part to begin.
Me, 8:55: And a lot of matching t-shirts. Working on the blog post already.
She, 8:55: Cheer camp flashback
Me, 8:56: If your cheer camp had 5000 people at it.
Me, 9:04: I will stop texting in a sec, but it has turned into a literal rock concert now. With a band.
Me, 11:06: The queen of advisor sales just got a cape, sash, and tiara. That should be you.

A couple random things I meant to include that somehow made it into none of the above:

• We also had, both mornings, "butterfly stories." These are women who come up and explain how lia sophia has entirely turned their lives around. As far as I can tell, they're supposed to make you cry. I did at the second, not at the first.
• The band in question was Maske electric string trio. They were terrific. There were pyrotechnics. Ooooooh, work conference.
• When my manager was named #2 in the country for recruiting (woo-hoo!), she did a cartwheel on stage. People thought that was awesome, but not weird. And that is a difference between this conference and most of the ones I go to.

*That's a little joke. MORE is the theme of conference, as in, "Motivation, Opportunity, Recognition, and Education." See how cute?

Just checking in

This day has been pretty much indescribable. Nonetheless, I do have a lengthy description written of at least our morning session. But I am tired and wounded (explanation also to come, if I'm not too embarrassed for it). So instead, you get this brief thought:

I would not have thought that all those lesbian dances would leave me so well-prepared for a lia sophia conference. But as it happens, I was the life of tonight's particular essentially all-women dance party, probably because I have been to a few and am unafraid to be one of the first on the floor.

Side note:

I do not believe I have mentioned here before one of my favorite hobbies. I love, love, love to be in the background of other people's photos. I have this secret hope that people will recognize me in the background of their friends' pictures.

I am never obtrusive, never ruin a picture. But if someone is taking a picture in a crowded public place, where there will already be people in the background, I will do my damnedest to be one of them.

One year, I went to Disney World and the Olympics, while living in the D.C. area. I was in heaven.

This conference should provide me some better than average opportunities.

Oh, like you don't have any little games you play through your life. I saw you, not stepping on the cracks. Tell us about it in the comments.

My new secret club

(I actually wrote this yesterday midday, but I'm trying to spread out the posting.)

I left home at 4:50 a.m.-ish, which was later than I'd hoped, but still, as it turned out, enough time for me to speed the Oldsmobile to the Manchester, NH, airport. And immediately, I started spotting women wearing the same jewelry I was wearing, the same jewelry I had in my bag, and the jewelry I had been dying to see in person but didn't own yet. Some of them were louder than others, making a big thing of it. I preferred the women like me, who smiled shyly in acknowledgment, but spoke only if we happened to be right next to each other in line. Manchester is not a large airport. It is, in fact, tiny, which is most of why it's desirable to me. And still, there were easily a dozen of us, heading from that airport to the lia sophia conference in Milwaukee.

I didn't sit with the other lia women on the plane.

And then, we got to Baltimore.

I am writing this on the plane from Baltimore to Milwaukee, and probably a quarter of my fellow passengers are fellow lia sophia advisors. That means there's more acknowledgment. At BWI, One woman rounded up as many of us as she could spot in lia sophia jewelry for a picture. I will be on some stranger's Facebook page tomorrow.

Seriously, it is like belonging to a gang with a secret sign. The closest I have ever come to vaguely bonding with so many strangers was when I was in Rotary (there's a story I should tell) and wore my lapel pin around. That would get me, usually, about one nod a day out of the thousands of strangers I'd walk past. I still have a Rotary credit card, and that sometimes gets me a "Really? You too?" from dinner companions I don't know well. But this? This quarter-planeful of new pals? This is brand new, and I'm barely out of Baltimore.

In which they finally get me

I realize I've been hinting about the awesomeness of my part-time job for a while now. The thing is this: I don't know how to write it so it's not just gushy, or self-promotional.

But I'll share the basics:

I wanted more money, so I started selling lia sophia jewelry. If you don't already know lia sophia, it's a direct sales company. So I'm doing what you may know better as Tupperware parties, but I sell jewelry.

The child who is now my very excellent manager (side note: I have often had two jobs at a time, but I have NEVER had two good bosses at a time. This is like a little miracle) tried to recruit me for a while before I caved. Selling jewelry just didn't seem like a thing my cynical dyke patriarchy-fighting sometimes-Commmunist self would do, you know? But, um. Neither did working for a business newspaper. Neither did taking the plunge into marketing. I got into the business newspaper because I liked the people, and grew to really believe in the company. I got into the marketing because I believed in the organization, and grew to really like the people. I started lia sophia liking the people and the product, both, a lot.

So. Now, I go to parties, I meet new interesting people, I put my own cynical dyke patriarchy-fighting sometimes-Communist spin on things, as appropriate. I make a lot of jokes and am very honest about when the jewelry doesn't look as good as it does in the catalog. and the results are these:

1. I'm making money
2. I'm having a ball
3. I'm thinking about marketing in new ways, so it's helping my day job
4. I, who do not at all believe in the myth of the meritocracy, am finding for the first time in my life that working hard actually does get me further than not working hard
5. I am shocked to find that I want to have much more time to work harder at it. See 1, 2, and 4.

Yeah, see how that was all gushy and self-promoting? Sorry. I won't do a lot more of that. But it felt like necessary backstory to my next several posts, which will feel more like I wrote them. I am on my way to a conference of lia sophia advisors in Milwaukee. And holy cow, it is nuts already and I've barely left Baltimore.

Obviously, if you would like to buy jewelry, or host a really fun party with me to get a ton of free jewelry, or ask questions about selling jewelry, let me know in the comments. I can hook you up.

Remind me why

A good friend of mine is going through a hard time right now.

OK, a couple of them are, but this is only about the one.

And she sent me an e-mail today, with subject line: "Remind me why I should have self esteem?"

And I sent back a very honest, very sincere, but pretty long list of all of what's so great about her. Because, seriously, she's amazing. Like, just incredible, in so many ways.

I felt it would be inappropriate to make her crisis of self-doubt about me (or anyone else) in our e-mail exchange, but, well, this is my blog. It's already about me, and all of you.

I am not in crisis, I just like to say and be told nice things.

So, two assignments for the comments:

1. Remind me why I should have self-esteem. As always, comment anonymously if you must to prevent your spouses from knowing you're secretly in love with me.
2. Post the same question to your own electronic corner of the world (blog, Facebook, whatever) and give the link, so we (I) can go respond. If you're worried it looks like you're fishing for compliments, tell them bzzzzgrrrl made you do it.
   

When lady tennis-player jokes were still lady-German-swimmer jokes

I've been watching a lot of Mary Tyler Moore on DVD lately. It's a great show, and it holds up really amazingly well.

The one thing that often strikes me is the dated pop culture references. There's at least one reference per episode I have to look up. Recent examples include (how many do you know?):

• Eric Sevaride
• Chad Everett
• Dave Garroway
• Euell Gibbons
• Kathryn Kuhlman
• Veal Prince Orloff
• Baked Pears Alicia (and this one's not fair, because it appears to have been made up. I don't have time to look up imaginary food. Well, OK, yes, I do. But I can at least save you the trouble.)
  

But then, sometimes, there's a reference so dated it's hilarious — even though I don't have to look anything up. This was the best exchange of this evening:

Lou: What would happen if Billie Jean King married Bobby Riggs?
Mary: What?
Lou: Her husband would be very upset.
(Big laugh from Lou, little chuckle from Mary)
Lou: See? That was a joke that we could both enjoy. It had women's lib in it for you and sports in it for me.

What friendship looks like

Last weekend, friend and frequent* commenter Kay Bailey and I went to get manicures and pedicures. We don't see each other a lot, because I live 500 miles away, but we make up for it when we do see each other. I have been dieting and exercising (and losing weight) for a couple of months now, and therefore have gotten some nice compliments, which some would suggest I should be writing down as motivation when I want to throw in the towel. I am bad at that kind of journalling, but this is one I wanted to save for the ages.

As I was drying my nails, she poked at my upper arm and said, "Muscle tone!" And then she looked at me and said, "And hey, where's the rest of your arm?"



*OK, I just realized I had to go back to September to find a comment from her. But I can't really blame her; I did sort of fall off the blogging planet for a while there.

Country Mouse hits the city

I was back in D.C. this weekend. I had a blast. Such a blast that I should probably break the blastiness up into several posts, but will probably try to figure out how to cram it all in here.

Starting with this: I have been out of the D.C. area for two and a half years now, and people still ask me what I miss. At first, I didn't have great answers for that. I missed individual people: my friends, my colleagues, the D.C. branches of the family, friends' kids that I don't get to watch grow up. But there wasn't a lot else that I could think of (or admit).

This trip, I've been a little more reflective, and have come up with a few more things to miss about this particular big city:

• Freddie's.*
• Women's soccer.
• Not having to drive.**
• Steak salads at Rhodeside Grill.***
• Decent manicures and pedicures****
• Shoe repair places*****
  
• Mexican food

*It's a neighborhood bar. That's mixed (mostly GLB with a healthy dose of T and Q with some S). With karaoke. Plus, as my new friend (as of Friday night) pointed out, it's very clean. Someone really dusts in there. Highlights from this trip: The elderly gay man dancing his heart out to some lesbian singing "Don't Stop Believin';" a little internal fantasy of setting up a Craigslist Missed Connection romance between the two cutest women in the bar, one of whom was wearing a Red Sox cap and the other of whom was wearing a Yankees cap.
**Access to public transportation and taxis rules.
***So, so good. The keys are good meat and also having blue cheese crumbles but not blue cheese dressing. I should be able to do it at home. But I don't do it as well as Rhodeside does.
****Totally broke the old patterns this time: Black sparkly toenails! I am more attached to them than I would have expected.
*****I don't know why there are no cobblers in rural New England. Doesn't the very word, "cobbler," sound like the purview of small-town New England? The only one in town is known for taking literally months or years to do very simple repairs.

Confidence Rorschach test

So, over the last few years of singledom, I have put profiles up on a couple of dating sites. I'm not really using them lately, not really even checking them lately. But yesterday, I got this e-mail from one of them:

From: [Dating site] Summer Interns
Subject: [bzzzzgrrrl], we have data on your attractiveness


[image of me] = good-looking

[bzzzzgrrrl]:

We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of [dating site]'s most attractive users. The scales recently tipped in your favor, and we thought you'd like to know.

How can we say this with confidence? We've tracked click-thrus on your photo and analyzed other people's reactions to you.

Your new elite status comes with one important privilege:
You will now see more attractive people in your match results.

This new status won't affect your actual match percentages, which are still based purely on your answers and desired match's answers. But the people we recommend will be more attractive. Also! You'll be shown to more attractive people in their match results.

Suddenly, the world is your oyster. Login now and reap the rewards. And, no, we didn't just send this email to everyone on [dating site]. Go ask an ugly friend and see.

So, if I'm reading this right, as of yesterday, based on my picture, I am just slightly more intriguing to other users than average.

Depending on the day, that could be really good news. Or, actually, not so much.

Question of the day

If you're single, what are your dealbreakers?

If you're not, you have a choice.

• What were your dealbreakers when you were single?
• Understanding that you are perfectly happy with your spouse/partner/significant other now, is there anything he or she does that would be a dealbreaker if you started dating someone now?

Comment anonymously if you must.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'

So, if I'm going to be blogging again, it seems like I should also update the ol' blogrolls.

And so I have.

If you read City Mouse Country at City Mouse Country, you've got these at your disposal already. But enough of you (especially you who've stuck around) read through readers that I thought I should post the list, too. If you have a blog you wish I'd add to the list, let me know in the comments.

Blogs I like, by people I know:

• Blog-O-Daria
• But I Digress...
• From Where I Sit
• Genny's Journal
• Go Baby Cafe Conversations
• Happy Living
• Hoefering
• Hopeful Pessimism
• I Peed on My Kid
• Locked out of the Teacher's Lounge
• MaternityLand
• Polka Dot Cottage
• Tran|Script

Blogs (etc.) I like, by people I don't (know, that is):

• 30 is the new 13
• Bitterly Books
• dooce
• Dorothy Surrenders
• Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog
• Five Star Friday
• Fugitivus
• Holy Prepuce!
• I Blame the Patriarchy
• Lifetime, Wow!
• Margaret and Helen
• Passive Aggressive Notes
• Promtacular!
• Regretsy
• She Just Walks Around With It
• Steam Me Up, Kid...
• The Creamery
• The Guild
• xkcd

Crises

I am not, myself, going through anything especially difficult right now.

But seemingly everyone else is.

Seriously, every conversation I have lately is about a personal catastrophe. And these are not people whining. These are big things: Surgeries, identity shifts, mystery ailments that require lots of tests, relationship trouble, hard parenting choices, loved ones' imminent deaths.

Not all of you pray, but some of you do. Would the ones who do be willing to lend a prayer, and the ones who don't be willing to lend a kind thought, for family and friends who need it right now?

If you're dealing with your own Big Bad right now, feel free to add it to the comments so we can think of you more specifically. Anonymity is OK by me; what else are the internets for?

Back to your regularly scheduled programming

So that's what me looking for joy for a week looks like. It was fun. I'll do it more often.

But, um.

This weekend, while I was out of town, my neighbors dug up some trees they assumed I would not want where they were.

They then took them away, as they were preparing to haul some brush themselves.

I had vague notions of transplanting said trees elsewhere.

I have never, ever, met these neighbors. Still.

What, if anything, would you do with this situation?

(For context, my history with these same neighbors here and here and here.)

Extracting joy, day 7 (Sunday): Thai(ish) turkey burgers

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Whimsy's explanation

There are to many great things to cover about this day, including that it's the beginning of two days in Gloucester, MA, with a couple of high school pals and their families, that I'm at the ocean for the first time in ages, that there are moon snails to watch and holes to dig and views of Boston and glorious sunsets and kids' eyes to observe things through.

But for simple joys?

The turkey burgers we had for dinner were just amazing, thanks to one of the high school friends and his wife. Ground turkey, fresh ginger, fish sauce, and scallions, all made into patties and grilled, topped with siracha mayonnaise, cilantro (for those of us who don't hate it), crushed peanuts...

Oh. My. God.

I kind of don't want to eat anything else ever again.

Extracting joy, day 6 (Saturday): Private air shows

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Whimsy's explanation

I've recently taken up running. Sometimes I say "again" when I say that, but actually, I've never really been a runner. I take it up every few years and give it up pretty quickly. That I've been doing it a week now is, if not unprecedented, at least unusual. I'm ramping up slowly, with a run-walk program that seems to be about right for my fitness level, and I'm doing it mostly with a friend (sometimes two), which keeps me accountable.

Saturday, though, I was on my own for running. I decided not to do the route I've been doing with my friend, and headed out to the airport, where there's a beautiful flat road that's closed to vehicle traffic during the weekends. It's a small airport, as you might expect, mostly for small planes. There aren't really gates, or the other stuff you expect at a commercial airport. There is, weirdly, an excellent Indian restaurant. And, next weekend, an air show.

As I ran, I was vaguely aware of a plane around, but I wasn't paying attention. Until I heard its engine cut out, and panicked. I scanned the sky and found the plane just as the engine noise restarted — it was a biplane, and it was doing tricks (practicing for next weekend, I assume). And it was AMAZING. Other people probably saw it, too, but I couldn't see them. The plane did swirly loops and twisty barrel rolls and scary freefalls, the whole time I ran and walked. When necessary, I turned around and walked backwards on the walking parts to watch better.

As I got closer to my car, I saw the only other person I saw the whole time. I stopped her on her walk to be sure she saw her own private airshow, too.

Extracting joy, day 5 (Friday): Great shoes

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Whimsy's explanation

Way back last summer, I was working on questions and answers for, I will now admit, an internet dating site.

And one of my dearest friends, who I do not get to see in person very often anymore, but did used to see in person daily, suggested "I have nice legs and am not afraid to wear shoes that show them off" as an answer to one of the questions.

And I sighed heavily, because that used to be true, but when I moved to the country, I got a teensy bit of grief for my shoes and so gave up on cute shoes. But realizing that that was something people used to think about me was enough to inspire me to declare the period from my birthday in August 2009 to the same date 2010 "The Year of Great Shoes."

Now, there are shoe people who have a lot of shoes. I am not, usually, one of them. I generally have a few pairs of shoes I wear in heavy rotation. But this year, I've been committed to making those few pairs great shoes. And people have noticed. And I like that.

So.

Today (Friday), at lunchtime I went into the local consignment store to buy a pair of pants I saw last week and liked.

They didn't have them.

But they did have, in my size and at entirely unbelievable prices:

• Slightly worn Steve Madden wedges

• Brand-new Anne Klein wedges

• Brand-new Frye boots

• And brand-new Joan and David pumps

Three out of four of these shoes were less than $20. One was, in fact, less than $10. The remaining pair was less than half its retail price.

So I bought them all.

Extracting joy, day 4 (Thursday): Stretching comfort zones

(Sorry, gang; have had some internet/computer troubles lately. But I have been working on Days 4, 5, 6, and 7.)
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Whimsy's explanation

I had this one all written before it all disappeared. That's fine; it was probably too long anyway.
In recent months, but especially this week, I've been trying to do things outside my comfort zone. There are many reasons for this, but one of the results I didn't expect (and love) is that there seem to be many fewer things that don't seem like the kind of thing I would do anymore, at least to me. Other people probably still get surprised when I do things they wouldn't expect of me, but I don't, as much. Relatively new to that list are:

• Getting up at 5:30 every morning
• Running
• Internet dating
• Selling jewelry as an advisor for a direct sales company
• Planning a trip to Milwaukee for a conference with the aforementioned direct sales company
• Agreeing with Perez Hilton (seriously. How and when would that happen?)
  
• Reconnecting with old friends, even ones with whom I ended on not-so-great terms
• Going to see Sex and the City 2
• Communicating honestly — including having the uncomfortable conversations when necessary
• Asking for help at work, when necessary
• Not jumping to the first conclusion I think of

And you know what? So far, all of those things have worked out at least OK. Even Sex and the City 2, which I can't honestly recommend — but can recommend the company of the women I spent that evening with, and I can also recommend getting all dressed up to go out with friends on a Friday night sometimes.

Extracting joy, day 3: This second

(Day 1)
(Day 2)
(Whimsy's explanation)

So I had a post half-written in my head about my second job, which I do love, and which does give me joy, and which I will likely post about later in the week.

But right now, I am too absorbed by:

• open windows and
• episode 20, season 3 of Mary Tyler Moore and
• a raging, beautifully cooling thunderstorm and
• my new white cotton nightgown and
• the fading taste of the orange popsicle I ate ten minutes ago and
• this awesome wave of sleepiness that might just overtake me.

Extracting joy, day 2: What's in the garage

(Day 1)
(Whimsy's explanation)

A little pre-today background:

Weeks (months? I don't know.) ago, the two worst nest-builders in the world started attempting to build a nest in my garage, in the rafter right above my car door. I first noticed them one morning when I went out to the garage, and startled two blue jays, who freaked out and flew out of the garage.

When I got home from work that day, I stepped on a pile of twigs and plastic stuff on the floor next to my car.

After a few repeats of this (morning jay freakout, afternoon pile of twigs), it became clear what was going on. I did not imagine they'd successfully build a nest up there, particularly after one day when I startled the male and he crashed into the closed garage door, right next to the open garage door. But succeed they did.

And then the female just started sitting there. All the time. She was no longer freaked out, no longer even really noticed me. Which I assumed meant there were eggs in the (seriously, very poorly constructed) nest.

I finally brought my ladder into the garage from the deck, where it had been sitting all winter. I put it as far from the nest as was possible, considering that the nest is in the dead center of the garage. I climbed it a few times anyway, to look at the female jay. She seemed fine. I'd have been bored. She seemed unbothered by it.

So, today's joy:

There were babies in the nest this morning. Three of them that I could see, silently opening and closing their mouths. Their mother was still there, too, looking proud, though I could just be projecting.

I carried those baby birds in my head and my heart all day today, thinking of them about a thousand times, in meetings, as I went for a walk, as I planned for my evening.

And those weird-looking featherless aliens have completely framed my day. Made me excited. Made me want to get home, just to stare at them.

And when I did, they were still there, still opening and closing mouths, occasionally flailing a naked wing. Their mother was not still there, and who can blame her; she's been sitting there for weeks. She came back.

Seriously, I think she looks proud.

Extracting joy, day 1: A bulleted list (of course)

Have you seen this thing of Whimsy's? It's a neat idea, right? And kind of out of keeping with much of my personality, right? Which is only an advantage to you, readers (if readers still there be).
Because either:

• I will feel compelled to balance, which means a whole lot of posts in this seemingly abandoned place, or
• I won't, but you'll get joyful posts for a week.

And I know that three of you still check here from time to time (I mean you, J and B and K). Thanks. This one's for you. And for Whimsy, because this will not be the one that wins, but it will be my declaration of intent. The winning entry will be later in the week.

Here are the joys I have extracted from this day, none of which I have yet properly taken quite enough time for:

• Memories of a lovely weekend, with amazing people, new and less-new
• My sister's hand-me downs
• The discovery that Magnum condoms are actually regular-sized condoms (what? So I giggled. You did, too.)
• Plans for an exciting new world-changing project
• Praise for the new thing I do at work
• Praise from my mom for another thing I did at work
• New running shoes, daring me to make good on my promises of running (no, seriously. I will. Soon, I'm sure.)
  
• An even-better-than-expected rewatching of Stranger than Fiction, which, really, if you watched it before and liked it pretty well, watch it again with an eye for the details. If you didn't see it, watch it, quick, so you can watch it again.
• Phone conversations with old friends
  
• Beautiful, beautiful weather, just a little hot, in a way that I may get sick of in August, but totally relish in May
• A sugar-free cherry Popsicle, which is delightfully and surprisingly much better than the generic version
• Sleeping with wide-open windows, strategically chosen for maximum cross-breeze

How about you?

Back to basics

Here is what living in the country is like:

It's like when you start telling someone that they have karaoke the first Thursday of the month at the Chinese restaurant at the gas station, and everyone thinks you're talking about the other Chinese restaurant at the gas station.

Win big for big, er. Whatever.

So Condomania has apparently been measuring. Or something.

And you'll be glad to know that my old hometown of D.C. and my current home state of New Hampshire both do just fine. Seems like there would be a lot of jokes I could make, but really, I have already wasted most of the ten minutes I was gong to take for lunch on this. And you, readers, never disappoint me on the jokey joke front.

So have at it. There'll be a prize for the author of the best line in the comments. Contest starts now and ends Friday at noon.

What today is like

I'm so sorry, you people. I have sooooooooo much to tell you, if you're still there. I don't blame you if you aren't.

But for starters, here is my favorite thing that I have had to say today.

"It's, um, complicated for me to hear you suggest that the problem with feminists is that they aren't paying enough attention to men."

Yeah. So I'm about like that. How are you?

Update 6/11/10: Here is that same sentiment, expressed in awesomer fashion.

Words routinely misused by people I know

Now, now. If you see yourself here, don't worry, don't apologize, don't even admit it. Just know.

• It's. This only means "it is." It doesn't ever mean "belonging to it." Many people, including me, slip on this occasionally. One person of my acquaintance misuses it always.
• Lightening. The word you're looking for is "lightning." No "e." "Lightening" is a real word, but that's not what you mean.
• Lead. It's pronounced like "leed" when you're using it as a verb. Its past tense is "led." Go check your résumé right now.
• Jive. Our opinions don't "jive" with each other; they "jibe" with each other.

OK, I'll admit it. There were two words on this list that, when I went to double check, I was wrong-ish about, and therefore had to cut. So now it's a pretty short list. What do you see in your acquaintances? Or in, God forbid, me?

Brrrrr

I'm just sayin'.

Captcha'd

Sorry, gang; I've been getting a ton of comment spam lately, and so have had to add word verification to the comment process.
It's not a great solution; it feels ableist to me (and annoying to frequent reader Lisa), but I couldn't think of another way to allow anonymous comments and instant comments and kill all that spam. If anyone has a better way that works with Blogger, let me know. You know, assuming you can get past the word verification.

Classy

Reasons writing a paper now is so much easier than it was 20 years ago:

1. There's information on the internet.
2. My friends actually know stuff. And people. In some cases, they are actually experts.
3. There are citation generators on the internet. Holy cow.
   
4. My house is quiet and empty, with literally no drunk people in the hallway and no one watching 90210 in my suite.
5. I've been a professional writer for six or seven years.
6. I was a professional writer about the subject of the class at least some of that time.
   
7. I have actually done (most of) the reading for the class.
8. If I get bored or weary, my inclination is to blog or go for a short walk, rather than to go to the end of the New Jersey Transit line without checking to see if there's even a train back or start self-publishing the most amazing, totally definitive 'zine ever and distributing it.
9. The presentation that has to come from this paper will be at least partly copied-and-pasted, and will not involve any last-minute runs to the bookstore for markers and extra posterboard.
10. My computer weighs less than 20 pounds, and is therefore practical to carry around with me. Also, I don't need to keep four different disks with me if I want to write a paper and e-mail it to my professor.
    

Pretty crafty

I think this year is going to be a mostly handmade Christmas for me, gift-wise.
There are lots of good reasons to go handmade. Depending on how you do it, it can be:

• cheaper
• more sustainable
• sweeter
• higher quality
• more heirloomy
• less annoying to shop for
  

I have need for several of those things this year, so I'll be making some gifts, and buying some handmade gifts (and probably at some point breaking down and buying something not handmade, too, but not yet).

In case you, my friends from the internet, have similar needs, I thought I'd share a list of my favorite craftspeople. This starter list consists exclusively of people I know personally, whose wares I have also bought and can therefore vouch for.

• GH Books
• Polka Dot Cottage
• Fiber of Her Being (note: To be fair, I am not totally sure she's taking new orders. But check out her site anyway. See pictures of me!)

Please, if you have favorite craftspeople, or make great handmade stuff yourself, leave us a link in the comments. Seriously. This is no time for modesty. The Holidays are coming.

Thanksgiving Day parade

"Hey, bzzzzgrrrl!" you say. "Happy Thanksgiving! How's it going?"

Well, medium. Eventful.
So far today, I have:

• Done a bunch of laundry.
• Peeled ten pounds of potatoes and wondered if that's too much or too little for 17 people.
• Started to make mashed potatoes.
• Realized I don't own a potato masher, and that when I try to use an electric mixer, it usually results in gluey potatoes.
• Gone to Walmart and had a delightful conversation with Walmart employee Gary, who knows way more about potato mashers than you would think, and helped me choose the right one for my family's lump preferences.
• Observed that Walmart is emptier than I've ever seen it, but the employees are friendlier, and wondered if there's a causal relationship.
• Decided to pop in a movie as I continued Thanksgiving preparation and discovered the latest Netflix selection is a documentary about Hitler's secretary.
• Watched two Charlie Brown Thanksgiving specials.
• Laughed at the pilgrim explorers in Provincetown in one of said specials as they observe: "Six Indians and a dog! Put down your muskets; let's see if they'll talk. Let's walk slowly toward them. Smile; show them we don't want to harm them. Oh, no! They're running away! They must be afraid. Quick, we must chase after them!" Yeah, nothing assuages my fears like guys with muskets chasing after me.
• Finished making mashed potatoes.
• Tasted mashed potatoes. Delicious.
• Observed that I seem to have another effing plumbing problem, if you can believe it.
• Given up on packing, because obviously I am not sleeping anywhere but here, because I have another effing plumbing problem.
• Had a little beef stroganoff for lunch.
• Thought a lot about Thanksgivings past, spent in meetings and at concerts, with family of origin and family of choice, in D.C. and Groton, Massachusetts and Jaffrey, New Hampshire and Lake Placid, New York.
• Missed a bunch of people but felt very blessed*.
  

But thanks for asking. You?


*Aside from the effing plumbing

Food rules: Holiday edition

After my first Food Rules post, it was brought to my attention that I also have some fairly significant traditions around what I eat on holidays.
Mind you, I am not inflexible; if I'm not with my family for a holiday, for example, I can go with the flow and have a burger on the Fourth of July. But we have our traditions, and we adhere to them when we can, some more rigidly than others.
So, then, in case you are by now desperate to know what I eat on the Fourth of July if not a burger:

Thanksgiving:

• Mixed nuts
• Celery sticks with peanut butter and mayonnaise and raisins
• Little glasses of cranberry juice and lemon sherbet
• Turkey
• Mashed potatoes
• Stuffing (in the bird for regular people, and out of the bird for my cousin, who finds the in-bird stuff gross)
• Gravy
• Acorn squash
• Creamed onions
• Salad
• Pecan pie
• Apple pie
• Mince pie
• Pumpkin pie
• Whipped cream for pie
• Cheddar cheese
• Coffee (also with whipped cream, for those who desire it)
• After Eights mints
  

The day after Thanksgiving:

• Pie for breakfast (and, therefore discussion of who will eat which pie, as my sister dislikes apple, and some people think mince isn't for breakfast)
• Soup and/or sandwich for lunch, at the Monadnock Music craft fair

St. Lucy's Day:

• Some kind of baked good, and some kind of hot beverage*

Christmas:

• Goose
• Stuffing
• Brussels sprouts
• Mashed potatoes
• Roast beef (if my uncle is there)
• Yorkshire pudding (if my uncle is there to make it)
• Salad
• Plum pudding, lit (for those who don't mind dessert made of beef fat and dried fruit and liquor)
• Chocolate cake (for those who do)
  

The day after Christmas:

• Leftover goose, in hunks, with fingers**
• Cheddar cheese, ditto**
• Oranges**
  

New Year's Eve:

• Champagne
• Water crackers with cream cheese and caviar

New Year's Day:

• Black-eyed peas***
• Greens***

Palm Sunday:

• Hot cross buns for breakfast (not homemade)

Easter:

• Lamb****

Fourth of July:

• Ice cream (midday, at the ice cream social in town)
• Salmon
• Peas
• Strawberries (generally in shortcake)

October 31:

• Sara Lee black forest cake for dessert*****

So, what about you? Any inviolable holiday traditions? Any of mine you Just. Can't. Believe?!?!?


*Served by me to whoever else is in the house, in bed, wearing some variation of white dress, red sash, wreath of lighted candles on my head.
** These and other snacks historically consumed in the car, on the way to Washington, D.C.
*** I am actually the only member of my family who does this, and I have only been doing it since 1994, when I lived with a bunch of Southerners.
**** Due to the fact that my parents are clergy, and therefore exhausted by Easter, and due to the fact that I didn't eat red meat for 17 years, there have been many Easters when we went out to dinner. Nonetheless, those who could often ate lamb, and when we do cook at home, it's always lamb.
***** This has nothing to do with Halloween. It has to do with October 31 being my baptismal anniversary, and me therefore getting to choose dessert. And Sara Lee hasn't made black forest cake in about 25 years, but when they did, that is what I chose, invariably.

True story

I just went out for Chinese food with a friend. And at the end of the meal, obviously, we got fortune cookies.

Weird thing #1: We got the same fortune.

Weird thing #2: It said this:

Lookin' good

OK, so I am an utter failure at blogging every other day.
What that means, of course, is that I will blog about any damn thing that comes into my head, and also leave a bunch of half-finished posts in the "drafts" folder.

What should I wear tomorrow? It's supposed to be 60 and sunny. Please elaborate in your response for the sake of other readers whether you have ever seen me before, and whether you have ever seen me wearing anything like the outfit you describe.

Lock and load

If you locked yourself out of your house, how would you proceed? Would you consult me? Yes? Well done.
As it happens, I have a little experience with this. In my experience you would:

Near Washington, D.C.:

• Realize you locked keys and phone in your apartment.
• Try to remember where a pay phone is in this day and age.
• Go to the one that you vaguely remember at the not-particularly-nearby convenience store.
• Discover that urine-smelling phone doesn't really work.
• Try phone next to it.
• Call your ex who still has a key to your apartment and leave a message you don't expect her to return saying you're locked out and need her key.
• Borrow phone book from the convenience store.
• Call locksmith, talk to answering service, explain that you don't have a callback number but will be waiting at your apartment.
• Wait at your apartment for more than an hour and a half, until your across-the-hall neighbor comes home.
• Introduce yourself to across-the-hall neighbor, who you've been living across from for three years.
• Ask to borrow her phone.
• Call locksmith back and learn that they won't come without a callback number.
• Express some frustration that this was not mentioned earlier.
• Give answering service your neighbor's number.
• Continue to wait outside until neighbor comes out to hand you her phone.
• Talk to locksmith.
• Get locksmith to let you in.
• Prove identity.
• Pay approximately $80.

In southwestern NH:

• Gasp, and feel glad your friend is there.
• Call AAA, just in case they'll send a locksmith, and to ask their advice on locksmiths if they won't.
• Call three locksmiths recommended by the very nice and sympathetic customer service rep at AAA.
• Leave messages for all three.
• Try every door forty times.
• Ask across-the-street neighbor, who you know well, to borrow a hammer.
• Laugh at his horrified expression and explain you just want it to remove a window from its hinge, not to smash stuff.
• Try to remove window from its hinge.
• Fail.
• Go to work, assuming locksmiths will call back soon.
• Look up other area locksmiths on the Internet.
• Call three more locksmiths.
  
• Go to dinner with your friend, assuming locksmiths will call back soon.
• Come home.
• Decide you can't bear to smash even a small window, because that's breaking the house you own, deliberately, but hand the hammer to your friend.
• Be impressed both at the strength of the window and at the strength of your friend.
• Return hammer to neighbor who does not at all say I-told-you-so.
• Tack cardboard up over the window.
• Never, ever get a return call from any of the six locksmiths.

Food (and drink!) rules

Whimsy demanded it, and though I am not prompt, I am obedient.

1. There is no place in my life for hot lettuce.
2. It is apparently either impossible or undesirable to make cheap candy that tastes like the fruit it claims to taste like. However, some fruity flavors are nonetheless delicious if you just don't worry about accuracy (lemon, orange, lime, cherry, grape). Some artificial fruit flavors are just gross (watermelon, banana, apple), and will not be tolerated.
3. "Pumpkin-flavored" usually means "clove and nutmeg flavored." I am fine with that in many parts of my life. I am psychologically incapable of handling it in my beer. Please don't try to make me.
4. Chicken salad can be made many ways. All of the good ways involve the addition of something vegetative and crunchy and sweet, generally sweet pickles (traditional) or grapes (fancy!).
5. Given the choice between ice cream (or sherbet or sorbet) and almost any other food, I will choose ice cream. Given the choice between frozen yogurt and starving to death, I will think about it a long, long time.
   
6. If you say "sherbert," I will not correct you, because in general, I don't believe in correcting adults on pronunciation, even if they're wrong. But it is still spelled "sherbet."
7. Hey, while I'm not correcting you on your pronunciation of "sherbet," how 'bout you shut up on my pronunciation of "tomato." And while you're shutting up about that, do not ask if I also say "potahto." Because nobody says that, except that song.
8. Putting a drink in a martini glass does not make it a martini. A martini has vodka or gin in it, and vermouth (or the aura of vermouth). It does not have chocolate syrup. It decidedly does not have Sour Apple Pucker schnapps, whatever the hell that is. See rule 2.
9. Matzo ball soup properly has matzo balls, chicken, celery, carrots, onions, salt, pepper, and anything else you have in the refrigerator or cupboard that seems like it might go at all, to taste. I don't know what you think that bowl of weak broth with a matzo ball in it is, but it does not deserve the same name as anything made by Rhoda Sakowitz or me.
10. Baked potatoes shall be scrubbed very thoroughly before baking, and then shall be consumed thus: Cut potato in half. Put one pat of butter (or the equivalent) on the plate. Using fork, empty potato insides onto plate. Put half of butter onto pile of potato insides, and one quarter in each half of skin. Add salt and pepper to pile and each skin-half. Eat pile, mushing (slightly) to ensure a little butter, salt, and pepper in each bite. Eat each skin-half as if it were a pita sandwich, delicately.
11. Peanut butter sandwiches must be eaten with milk, regardless of what other fillings the sandwich contains.
    

Whimsy's rules are here. What are yours?

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.

Deadly

If you're like my friend bzh, you might think this is the greatest infographic ever. And, fair enough. It's funny and informative, and I am in favor of both.

But I think it reaches its full awesome potential if you look at each map once, just focusing on New Hampshire. And then go through again, looking just at the D.C. area.

I'm just sayin'.

Closed

For the first time ever, I need to close comments on a post. No, it's not something you did. Well, maybe, if you're an Asian spammer. If you have something more to say on the subject originally discussed in that post, or something to say about Asian spammers, you may comment here.
Asian spammers, go away. In fact, all spammers, go away.

Reflections on having to ask a coworker to drive me home in the middle of a weekday afternoon so I can change into jeans and pop a couple of Advil

Remember this bit, from the pilot episode of Seinfeld?

[VIDEO REMOVED; see update below.]

You know who makes jokes like the one that starts at about the 1:04 mark?

Male comedians.

[UPDATE 8/3/10: Apparently, that video has been removed by the user. This one's shorter, and only contains the joke in question.]

Felix to my Oscar, and also vice versa

A million years ago, I asked for your requests. I'd planned for my next one to be a food rant, per whimsy's request. I even planned to beat her to the punch. But then she did her own food rules, so I won't beat her. I may as well do another one that comes more naturally right this minute, also from whimsy:

... please do give details about the roommate. Roommates are intensely blog-worthy.

Sure.
The roommate, or TR as he's been called elsewhere here (I swear, I'll wrap that story up) is one of my very dearest friends. When I used to go to Lake Placid? That was to see TR. We've known each other at least somewhat since 1993, been close friends since a few years after that. We have seen each other through lots of crap, TR and I, and I love him very much.

But I suck at living with people now. I have lived alone for so long that I seem to have kind of a few control issues about my space. TR's old roommate from Lake Placid (who we will call DS) (the D is for Dreamy) came to visit a few weeks back, and before TR got home from work, DS and I had a beer on the deck.
"Will you miss having TR as a roommate?" he asked.
"Nope," I said, too fast. I quickly amended that: "I mean, I'll miss having him around, like I always do. But I won't miss having someone else living here."
DS made the next leap even quicker than I would have: "What if you someday get involved with someone?"
I went on at some length about how that wasn't going to be the same, if it ever happened, because there'd be some incentive to make living together work. With TR, there's just incentive to keep the friendship alive through five weeks. (It did not occur to me until much later, and by "much later," I mean, "yesterday," that maybe the actual answer is that I can't live with someone I'm involved with and I just don't know it because I haven't tried yet.)

And alive the friendship has remained, even through last week, when we had a million houseguests (and by "houseguests," I mean "members of my extended family") for a whole week.

Here's the kind of guy TR is:

• When my city-dwelling houseguests (see above) locked him out, and he came home at 3 in the morning, rather than disrupt my (or their) sleep by calling to be let in, he slept in his car.
• When I bought ingredients to make Lisa's meatballs so we could eat them together and then forgot about it until the last night he was going to be here, he agreed to spend his last night in town as a meatball guinea pig. (I'll let you know how they are after we eat 'em.)
  
• When he was looking for activity to procrastinate packing, knowing that he was leaving town, he did not spend that procrastinatey time on the Internet or watching Star Trek. He spent it making home repairs to my house.

Love that guy.

Some thoughts while watching "True Romance"

• Interesting that the Blu-ray people would advertise the Blu-ray format on a Blu-ray disc. I mean, the only people who will see it are the people who are already on board, right?
• I forgot that I used to eat Chef Boyardee ravioli. Like, I used to think of ravioli as something filled with beef, that came out of a can.
• My theory that any movie with Brad Pitt in it is good, no matter how small his part, holds true. This movie demonstrates, in fact, that that theory trumps my theory that anything with Bronson Pinchot in it is terrible, no matter how small his part, if both Brad Pitt and Bronson Pinchot should happen to be in the same film.
• Why did I put True Romance on my Netflix list in the first place? Who or what suggested to me that I would like this movie? I mean, I do, but why would I think that? Maybe because I liked Donnie Darko?
• I have personally seen several much better Elvis impersonators (at the Lithuanian Hall in Baltimore, for starters) than Val Kilmer is in this movie.
  
• Wait, Val Kilmer?
• Yup. Val Kilmer.
• Why is the part of Elvis credited (and subtitled) as "Mentor"?
• This is the second movie in a week that I've seen Jack Black in from before I knew Jack Black existed.
• This is also the second movie in a week that I've seen Samuel L. Jackson in from before I knew Samuel L. Jackson existed.
• Seems like I watch a lot of movies.
  
• How do you know when it's too many movies?
  

The story of my new hot water heater, told in narrative and Facebook status updates (Part 1)

Last Saturday (7/25), I got up early, and decided to do a little laundry. I gathered my dirty clothes together and found a leak in my water heater and about an inch of water in the basement.

Awesome, right?

I called the emergency plumbing and heating number and asked for a plumber. The answering service said she'd have him call me "right back." I woke up the temporary roommate to let him know what was going on. After an hour, I called the plumbing company again; they were still trying to reach the plumber. So much for emergency service. That gave the roommate a chance to convince me that actually, if we cut off the supply to the water heater, we wouldn't have an emergency, and I wouldn't have to pay an emergency rate for the plumber. When the plumber finally called back, he agreed.

So, temporary roommate (hereafter known as TR) shut off the water, and spent several hours getting water out of the basement. Then, like the bad person I am, I abandoned TR to keep working on water removal and return the roofers pump to Home Depot while I ran off to get my hair cut before my stylist went on maternity leave. Sorry, TR.

[bzzzzgrrrl] has had a hell of the day: hot water heater's still broken, basement is mostly not flooded anymore, hair looks fabulous, valuable information actually gleaned from an issue of Cosmo. Any questions?
July 25 at 6:18pm

A good homeowner might have cleaned up the remaining pooling water Saturday night, or Sunday. I am not that homeowner.

Instead, I did nothing about the smallish amount of water in the basement and went to stay with my sister and help her with the baby on Monday. That also left TR and my parents to deal with plumbers on Monday (outside emergency hours), which they did, wonderfully. Poor TR did without hot water for almost a week, in fact. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I had a high old time (including showering) with my sister, brother-in-law and niece, with periodic breaks to call plumbers, utility companies, TR and my parents.

[bzzzzgrrrl] is home. And still dealing with the hot water heater.
July 30 at 11:43am

My new plumber of choice came out to the house on Thursday and gave me an estimate for replacing the water heater. We booked him to come the next day.

[bzzzzgrrrl] is listening to the sweet sweet sounds of a new tankless water heater being installed.
Fri at 12:08pm

The plumber (with some, but not a lot) of help from another plumber installed my new water heater. There was some trouble draining the old one, but he got it done.

As he was cleaning up, we chatted. It seems the good folks at this particular heating and plumbing organization have had some hard times lately. One guy was injured by a 700-pound propane tank falling on him. The guy who had helped my plumber's grandmother had just died. And my plumber had a close friend die just a few years ago of an unfortunate stomach-stapling-related complication.

Anyway, the friendly plumber got my check, fixed my license plate to my car, and was on his merry way.

[bzzzzgrrrl] started the dishwasher, then jumped in the shower, then started a load of laundry and told the roommate he could get in the shower.
Fri at 5:42pm

Stay tuned for Part 2. It's way shorter. I promise.

Home, sweet and sour home

I had lots of great requests for blog posts, and I will try to get to them all.
Today, we'll start with the easiest, because that's what I can handle right now.

From Amanda:

List all the cities/towns/burgs you've ever lived in and tell us what one thing do you miss most and one thing you'll never miss about that place.

Lebanon, NH, 1971-74 (This one's hard, because I was two when we moved, and really have only two memories of being there. We'll call one of them positive and one negative.)

• Do miss: Using the dough box on the porch as a pretend rowboat with my friend Emily.
  
• Don't miss: Looking down the steep back stairs into the kitchen.
  

Kingston, NH, 1974-85

• Do miss: Playing with neighborhood kids in our connected yards. I had no idea at the time how awesome our yards were, and how awesome for my sister and me that we were in the middle, age-wise, of our neighbors.
  
• Don't miss: Living soooooooooo far away from school and town. Missing the bus was a real ordeal.
  

Wayland, MA, 1985-89 (or 93, depending on how you count)

• Do miss: Hanging out in basements. I don't know why we spent so much time in so many people's basements, but we did, and I loved it.
  
• Don't miss: The culture of tolerated dishonesty. Living in Wayland was totally formative for me; I went from being a kid with a maybe slightly overdeveloped sense of "fair" to someone who was really unable to abide cheating, due largely to being exposed to so much of it in that environment, so blatantly. People have commented in my adult life that I am very ethical, sometimes to the point of self-righteousness. That is entirely a reaction to Wayland. It was like a vaccine.
  

Madison, NJ, 1989-93

• Do miss: All the people. I had a professor (Psychology of Stress and Stress Management) who freaked out the class (which consisted of mostly second-semester seniors, though I was a first-year student) by reminding us that this was the last time in our lives we'd ever be surrounded by so many people of our own age, with similar interests. It was true. Making and maintaining friendships was easier then. And there was always stuff to do, even if some of it wasn't all that smart.
  
• Don't miss: Being a student. I'm not all that good at it, or all that interested in it.
  

Washington, DC, 1993-94

• Do miss: The people I lived with, my view of the Cathedral, and Sunday evenings watching Murder She Wrote with my grandmother.
  
• Don't miss: The $100-a-month stipend we lived on, and even that is not as bad as it sounds: We also had housing, health insurance, and an extra $90 a month for food. But still.
  

Hanover, NH, 1994-95

• Do miss: Dinner club. One of my best friends from high school (who was still an undergraduate, in that town), had a club of folks who would take turns cooking for each other. I have replicated it in small ways, but never to the degree we had then. I have rarely eaten so well, and the company was terrific.
• Don't miss: The stupid dog who came with my house. The woman who owned the house was renting it to me at what she assured me was a great deal, while she was out of the country. But she had a dog, which, no big deal, I like dogs. But this particular dog needed to have a door open for her at all times. In Hanover, NH. In the winter. She was also very needy. The dog, not the owner, although a case could be made there, too.
  

Jaffrey, NH, 1995-96

• Do miss: The house and property, kind of. It was a great house, but it was a group house full of strangers, so I mostly kept to my room, instead of using the rest of the house. Still, it was really pretty.
  
• Don't miss: The unease of living with a drug dealer. It was just weed, and he and his girlfriend were both always very nice, and I didn't even know they were dealing until he got arrested, but still, it was weird.
  

Walpole, NH, 1996-97

• Do miss: Living in an apple orchard with those great roommates. We had a helluva time, a lot of the time.
  
• Don't miss: Living in the middle of nowhere. It was a twenty-minute drive to the nearest anything. Also, one of my roommates often drove that twenty minutes drunk, which made me very nervous.
  

Keene, NH, 1997-99

• Do miss: My upstairs neighbors and their foosball table (which they eventually gave me). We had a good time.
  
• Don't miss: One of a series of creepy relationships with a creepy creepy dude. In fact, now that I think about it, I had two of those in those days in Keene. They were so creepy it's hard to picture myself in those situations, but I have wound up in several of them over my life. The second most memorable and one of the two creepiest were in Keene in this period.
  

Arlington, VA, 1999-2007

• Do miss: Individual people. I made some fantastic friends there, some of the best of my life, and I miss them very, very much. I also miss having a group of coworkers who were always up for getting a beer, although I realize now that we were not always in the healthiest patterns when we did that, at either of the two Arlington places of employment where I had that. Sometimes we were, though. Sometimes, it was just fun, moderate bonding.
  
• Don't miss: The constant feeling that people thought they were better than anyone else around them. It manifests itself in the craziest rudeness. That was what was eventually too too hard.