We're here

For all the irrational hatred and the isolationist hypocrisy and the manipulative demagoguery Trump and his vile, desperate, defiantly hypocritical sycophants are using to tear this country apart morally, socially and intellectually ... for all the ignorance they've perpetuated and the lies they've parroted to shore up their base ... for all the ugliness and hostility and racism and sexism and phobias they've unleashed from the dungeons and the shadows and the basest instincts of humankind ... they've ironically and unintentionally and no doubt regrettably inspired something quite beautiful: a mass uprising of love and support for every person they vilify and every minority they oppress and every demographic they scapegoat in their bloodthirsty quest to dehumanize and destroy us all for their own gain.

And if you're a trans person--especially if you're a trans kid--we want you to know we're here.

There are legions of us who have been and who currently are and who will continue to be your friends and allies and champions with no judgments, no condemnations and no barriers. We may not have been as visible to you as we'd have liked in the past out of consideration for your privacy or lack of a forum to communicate to you or even out of concern that we might inadvertently say or do something awkward or uncomfortable or insensitive around you. But we're here. And it is now our moral and social and just simply human imperative to make sure you know who we are.

Whether you're just coming to terms with your need to transition, beginning to comprehend the emotional and physical and social journey ahead of you, taking the first tentative steps in changing your persona and your presentation and your name, or standing bravely and confidently and proudly at any point on the transition continuum ... our primary interest in your trans identity is that you are safe and healthy and happy.

We may never fully comprehend the extent of what your personal or collective journey has entailed--and we may ask a lot of questions both out of curiosity and a sincere need to better understand where you've been and where you're going.

But we're here. And we stand with you both in person and at the dawn of a new sense of community. And we want you to know we love and respect you just as you are. Or just as you need to be.

We're here.

Margo’s selfie game isn’t terribly strong

but her power for stealing all the love in a room when the cameras aren’t handy is spot-on.

Love is a peasant named Ewing

#SundayShowTunes: Thoroughly Modern Millie

A simple choice, nothing more:
This or that, either or.

Marry well, social whirl, business man ...

Clever girl.

Or pin my future on a green glass love ...
What kind of life am I dreaming of?

This girl ...

Mom keeps a pencil on my box of bipolar meds

I take the pencil off after I've choked down my fistful of pills every morning and every night so if she's not there she'll know I've taken them. Then she puts the pencil back to remind me to take my next fistful 12 hours later. So I get a dose of love with my pills twice a day.

This could be us. But I'm gay.

16 years ago today

16 years ago this morning I ran a little late and didn't get a seat on the EL train. But as a relatively new Chicagoan I was still in awe of the fact that I actually lived in Chicago and rode a train to work and I reveled in the fact that I was one of THEM: my fellow Chicagoans packed in the train car with me, commuting to (or from) our jobs as waiters, insurance brokers, construction workers, actuaries, janitors, bankers, personal trainers, writers and every other career imaginable.

When I finally arrived at work and got off the elevator, I saw everyone in my office crowded around a TV in a conference room. My first thought was that my colleagues would see I was late. But after joining them and watching the towers burn and fall, seeing the gaping wound in the Pentagon, learning of the disappearance of an entire airplane and its passengers in a fiery pit, I was struck by the fact that my underground commute that morning with my fellow train riders -- a microcosm of the city, if not the country -- was our last collective moment of innocence before we had access to any news and we suddenly had to face the sickening enormity wrought by other human beings on a scale none of us could have imagined.

16 years ago today I never felt closer to friends, family members and even strangers as we worked to understand the hatred and comprehend the savagery of perhaps the ugliest tragedy in our lifetimes.

16 years ago today we lost a certainty in our collective safety but we gained a powerful strength in our ability to care for and protect and even love each other when we needed to ... and even when we didn't.

16 years ago today, our world changed immeasurably. Our hearts broke irreparably. Our determination grew mightily. Our humanity spread defiantly. Time may erode the intensity of our initial united magnanimity, but we will never forget.

We're here. And we salute you.

For all the irrational hatred and the isolationist hypocrisy and the manipulative demagoguery our pathological failure of a president and his ethically grotesque party are using to tear this country apart morally, socially and intellectually ... for all the ignorance they've perpetuated and the lies they've parroted to shore up their base ... for all the ugliness and hostility and racism and sexism and phobias they've unleashed from the dungeons and the shadows and the basest instincts of humankind in the last weeks alone ... they've ironically and unintentionally and no doubt regrettably inspired something quite beautiful: a mass uprising of love and support for every person they vilify and every minority they oppress and every demographic they scapegoat in their bloodthirsty quest to dehumanize and destroy us all for their own gain.

And if you're a trans person -- especially if you're trans military personnel -- we want you to know we're here.

There are legions of us who have been and who currently are and who will continue to be your friends and allies and champions with no judgments, no condemnations and no barriers. We may not have been as visible to you as we'd have liked in the past out of consideration for your privacy or lack of a forum to communicate with you or out of concern that we might inadvertently say or do something awkward or uncomfortable or insensitive or even uncloseting around you. But we're here. And it is now our moral and social and just simply human imperative to make sure you know who we are.

Whether you're just coming to terms with your need to transition, beginning to comprehend the emotional and physical and social journey ahead of you, taking the first tentative steps in changing your persona and your presentation and your name, or standing bravely and confidently and proudly at any point on the transition continuum ... our primary interest in your trans identity is that you are safe and healthy and happy and treated as the human -- the FULL human -- you are.

We may never fully comprehend the extent of what your personal or collective journey has entailed -- and we may ask a lot of questions both out of curiosity and a sincere need to better understand where you've been and where you're going.

But we're here. And we stand with you as proud and grateful citizens and in our public restroom and at the dawn of a new sense of community. And we want you to know we are profoundly grateful for your service and we love and respect you just as you are. Or just as you need to be.

We're here.

#TransBan
#TransRights
#TransMilitaryBan
#TransRightsAreHumanRights

I just want someone to hold me and love me and never spill me the way Chris Christie does his nachos

Midnight with my mom

I'm sitting in the half-dark watching and listening to my mom as she struggles to find a peaceful, restful balance between gasp-inducing pain and the loopy uncertainties of prescription pain medication 36 hours after undergoing shoulder surgery. She was told she'll probably need to sleep in a recliner for 6-8 weeks as she recovers, so she's now wrapped in an almost structural configuration of blankets and pillows arranged to keep her comfortable and stabilized and not too hot and not too cold on a borrowed electric recliner in our living room as I sleep on the nearby couch with a three-hour alarm set in perpetuity on my phone to ensure I give her her pain medications consistently on time.

This woman spearheaded a full-family battle for my health and my very sanity for years as my escalating bipolar depression clashed with a literally bewildering array of ramp-up and withdrawal side effects from increasingly desperate attempts to find the right cocktail of psych medications for me. My parents have helplessly watched me twitch and yell in my sleep, crawl like a blinded animal up the stairs from a drug-onset migraine, lie gray and unmoving in a hell of despondency in my bed, land in the ER after a blackout and a crash to the floor that was so catastrophic that the nurses assumed I was the victim of a violent assault, and stare emptily but gratefully back at them as they admitted me to a locked psych ward for what ended up being an eight-day stay. They've fought for me, they've stood by me, they've repatriated me ... and now it's my turn to start paying them back.

Mom seemed to be doing remarkably well in the first 24 hours after her surgery, but then the last of the nerve block wore off and waves of breathtaking pain started surging through her reawakened nerve channels, and we've watched helplessly as she's whimpered and cried and tried to keep a brave face through her pain and confusion and unsure self-awareness. But she knows she's loved and being cared for and watched over with the attentiveness she's given my whole family over the years. And she seems to be sleeping comfortably and productively at the moment.

I should be asleep right now too. The couch is all made up next to me and it's quite comfortable; this I know from endless days into nights into days that I spent on it as I fought my way back to sanity while sleeping as close to my parents as I could if I needed anything. But I'm rather enjoying sitting here with her in the dark, post-midnight quiet. The war-zone explosions of fireworks that kept alarming her and waking her up a few hours ago have died down, I just woke her to give her her midnight pain meds and a popsicle, she seems to finally be sleeping comfortably and restfully ... and her partial helplessness and need for me have me thinking that there will soon be more medical problems and more nights like this for both my parents ... until they simply won't have any more medical problems ever again. And I want to remember and savor these moments where I can care for and love them the way they have done for me.

When I got out of the hospital two and a half years ago and spent the next two years fighting to regain my own sense of normal, it became clear that I was going to spend this newest chapter of my life under their care. In return, I've promised them that I'll do everything in my power to keep them in their -- our -- home as long as I can as they get older. Because I can't imagine taking care of them any other way.

So here I sit. Watching the mother who showed me without fear or reservation how to love me and all my psychoses unconditionally as she suffers through what by all accounts will be a painful but successful healing process. But it is undeniably a harbinger of the future in our home. Which is scary in the abstract. But right now it's a present and a future managed with love and commitment and a deep, profound honor that I am able -- in no small part from the lessons and examples my parents have provided for me all throughout their selfless lives -- to care for them in the way they cared for me.

And it's all very peaceful.

How to uncle

1. If you have a niece and she's wearing stripes, tell her you like her polka-dots. Instant giggles.
2. If you have a nephew, say underpants. Instant giggles.
3. Throw your niece and nephew in the air every day until they're too heavy to lift. It makes them laugh, it physicalizes the immense responsibility that you have for their safety and well-being, and it's a great deltoid workout.
4. It's your job to teach your niece and nephew bad jokes and buy them funny hats and steal their noses and sneak quarters into their piggy banks and give them silly nicknames and keep their secrets. Accept these sacred responsibilities with utmost solemnity and dedication.
5. Always have gum.
6. Never turn down an invitation to a tea party or a game of tag or a visit to the doll hospital or a tiger-catching safari in the back yard.
7. Know their clothing sizes.
8. Know their friends' names, both real and imaginary.
9. Talk to a financial planner and open a 529 College Savings Account for each child you uncle. It's like an IRA for any education expense. I opened one for my niece and one for my nephew soon after they were born and auto-deposited $25 a month in each account. And now I'm able to give my nephew almost $10,000 when he leaves for college in the fall.
10. Make sure your nieces and nephews know in their heads and their hearts and their memories and in the very foundation of who they are that every day of their lives from their first gasp of breath to their first orchestra concert to the day they leave for college to their first broken heart to their every day walking this earth that no matter what and no matter where and no matter when your presence in their lives will never waver and they can always always always count on the knowledge that they are loved that they are loved that they are loved.

We're here

For all the irrational hatred and the isolationist hypocrisy and the manipulative demagoguery Trump and his party are using to tear this country apart morally, socially and intellectually ... for all the ignorance they've perpetuated and the lies they've parroted to shore up their base ... for all the ugliness and hostility and racism and sexism and phobias they've unleashed from the dungeons and the shadows and the basest instincts of humankind this week alone ... they've ironically and unintentionally and no doubt regrettably inspired something quite beautiful: a mass uprising of love and support for every person they vilify and every minority they oppress and every demographic they scapegoat in their bloodthirsty quest to dehumanize and destroy us all for their own gain.

And if you're a trans person -- especially if you're a trans kid -- we want you to know we're here.

There are legions of us who have been and who currently are and who will continue to be your friends and allies and champions with no judgments, no condemnations and no barriers. We may not have been as visible to you as we'd have liked in the past out of consideration for your privacy or lack of a forum to communicate to you or even out of concern that we might inadvertently say or do something awkward or uncomfortable or insensitive around you. But we're here. And it is now our moral and social and just simply human imperative to make sure you know who we are.

Whether you're just coming to terms with your need to transition, beginning to comprehend the emotional and physical and social journey ahead of you, taking the first tentative steps in changing your persona and your presentation and your name, or standing bravely and confidently and proudly at any point on the transition continuum ... our primary interest in your trans identity is that you are safe and healthy and happy.

We may never fully comprehend the extent of what your personal or collective journey has entailed -- and we may ask a lot of questions both out of curiosity and a sincere need to better understand where you've been and where you're going.

But we're here. And we stand with you both at the urinal and at the dawn of a new sense of community. And we want you to know we love and respect you just as you are. Or just as you need to be.

We're here.

#TransRights