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.