It's my birthday and I've never felt more uncertain

My birthday is coming up this weekend. For a few years now I’ve written reflections on my birthday and making a wish of sorts for the future.

This year it feels different.

This is the first year I haven’t undergone some sort of personal or professional change—no new job, no moving. Some exciting things in the near future, but not quite yet. This should be celebratory! And yet… Well, things in the U.S. are a mess. People gaining more and more power are very much against queer people like me having our own family and teaching in schools and writing books. I’m just getting my feet under me and they want to take it away, and not enough has been done to combat them and defend some of our most marginalized communities (and not just mine!). Anyway, I am finally going back to therapy.

I recently finished listening to Alexander Chee’s essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, which is superb and, and the last essay is a call to keep writing even when it’s hard, reflecting on the 2016 election and then back to 9/11. It was cathartic. Writers still write in all circumstances as they have throughout history. The question is whether you make the effort to.

There are certain sore things I find it difficult to write about, projects I’ve abandoned because they are commenting on a world that is shifting too fast. Again, therapy. But there are also times when it is a salve for me. And I have to hold on for that.

Anyway, things were going pretty well until I went for an oil change and ended up needing a lot of other maintenance on my car and spent over $700 I wasn’t expecting. So for my birthday if you want to throw a little cash at me, here is where you can do that:

What’s Keeping Me Sane

Shortly before we left on our road trip I subscribed to Dropout, the former CollegeHumor subscription service turned comedy powerhouse. I mostly wanted to watch Game Changer to fill the drought of Taskmaster, but now I want to watch as much as I can. I got Tay into watching Game Changer, too, and it’s our new favorite thing to watch together. Some favorites include the “sponsored” episodes, the Survivor parody, and the Sam Says episodes (especially the third one). It’s also great to see absolutely stupid but inclusive comedy. Like, there are multiple trans and nonbinary people!

What’s new from me

• I casually reviewed three books on Patreon (FREE tier)

• I donated to Gracie’s House, author A.S. King’s new venture for programming for rural LGBTQ youth. Join me?

• I’m taking another grad class. This is my first time taking one over the summer so I’m trying to find the ratio between doing that and everything else.

• I had woefully fallen behind on reading newsletters and other things that appeared in my inbox for years. I’m proud to say I’m down to under 300 unread in my inbox. My plan is to get that down and then stay on top of it. It’s way better than social media.

• I also have a bunch of writing prompts and mini “courses” that I’ve saved from newsletters, and I am planning on spending some time using those to jumpstart my writing!

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