Metacommentary

commentary about the blog, blogularity, the blogosphere, things of this nature

If you build it, they will come

Folks, I’ve arrived! That piece that came out in the Advocate earlier this week did indeed flush some detritus out from under the bushes.  My first ad hominem homophobic attack (in seven years of online publishing) arrived in ye olde inbox this morning!  Name redacted to protect the woefully ignorant:

After reading about you in the ADVOCATE, I’d like to say some things.

When you were very young, you became emotionally alienated from your
mother/mother figure(s).  Maybe she was absent.  Maybe she was mean, or weak, or
too girly.  She didn’t connect with you well, and didn’t give you the mothering
you needed.  You came to identify with males, and continued to crave that mother
connection, but transferred it to other females.

See [URL of some wacky antigay website].

That is the truth.  You weren’t born that way.

Your kids do need a dad, but you are not a dad.

[URL of another wacky antigay website]
[URL of yet another wacky antigay website]

“Gays” have been useful to the Left.  They have been exploited by both
parties.

The ex-gay truth will prevail.  It will not cease to be true.

Mrs. Dad, ever of the theater world, quipped: “It’s like you’re an off-Broadway show and you just got picketed! This is great!”

Read moreIf you build it, they will come


Welcome, Advocate readers!

AdvocateScreenShotSome of you may find yourself here after following a Google trail from the Advocate piece, “The New Lesbian Dad,” by Abby Dorsey, published earlier today. Welcome!  (And old LD readers: hey, look! and also, comment, if you feel compelled!)

I’ve been publishing this blog since not long after the birth of our first daughter, ’round about 2006.  I don’t do any SEO, nor do I tag or categorize posts in much of a sensible way (whimsy carries the day!). But to help you follow up some of the questions Dorsey’s piece may have raised: you could check out posts under “Nomenclature & taxonomy” (sensibly titled, exploring naming and such), or “Anima animus” (obscurely titled, but about gender).

Of course the Best of page collects material I think represents a good range, well-done.

Ask whatever questions you like in the comments here! Or connect directly via my contact page. And thanks for stopping by.


Twenty blogiversary observations (plus video selfie)

IMG_4325This blog is by now comfortable with itself, in fact knows where it’s going, and it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s  running by now on a combination of whimsy and fellowship, so it is with whimsy and fellowship that I post this ditty so late on a Friday night it’s early Saturday morning, officially The Time When Nobody Ever Really Looks At Your Blog. I’ve always loved  thinking about this whole blogging enterprise as a series of (pause, while I tuck away and count) 1,190 messages in as many bottles. With this post, 1,191. Posting as erratically as I do, at the lowest possible traffickey moments, ensures that the bottles can pick up a nice distressed patina before any of y’all are drawn to the glint of light down there near your feet, as the bottle for a moment catches a bit of the sun.

Over the past seven itchy years, 5,904 times did someone or another pause–not just pause, but vault over and shimmy under the various WordPress hurdles I’ve placed in your way–to say, “Hey. I thought that, too.” Or maybe, “Who knew I wasn’t the only one who thought that? But did you think of this…” Or sometimes, “Really? Really?”

Seven-plus years into this whole bare as much of my soul as I feel comfortable baring out of a stubborn belief that it will help more than just myself thing, this whole chit-chat with strangers and friends about intimate things in a public forum thing, I find that many of the observations I made within the first year or so remain true:

Read moreTwenty blogiversary observations (plus video selfie)


Unconditional

sudsyheartSome soapy Valentine’s Day love to all of y’all gentle readers.

I waxed anecdotal and sentimental about the day and my parental love over at Lesbian Family, here: “Unconditional Love.”  Mosey over and check it out, if you like! And may your day be open, warm, and confirming, in every which way it can.


Year in Review: LD 2012

saintnicktreeThe year 2012 in a single run-on sentence: Work, work, work, meet some great people, accomplish some things I’m really proud of, learn a lot along the way; have a little bit of family life but not nearly enough, though for the first time, pay for enrichment classes and summer camp and vacation without going into debt; have hardly any writing life a’tall; get sacked; be flabberghasted in a way fresh to me in umptity-ump years of employed life; lick wounds, and in the yawning space that opens up before me, contemplate fresh possibilities and look again, longer and harder, at old neglected ones; turn 50 (Jubilee!) and, with much struggle, commence the process of giving myself the priceless gift of unshakeable self-esteem, because while others can abet or thwart this, it is at its core something one can only really give oneself. A truth yet to be sufficiently well-lodged, at 50. Never too late.

Gift of loving family: there all along and, in the final quarter of 2012, mercifully back in all three dimensions. Not giving that up again, or even setting it aside,  for the world.

Or, the year 2012 in ten LD posts:

Read moreYear in Review: LD 2012