In 2020, I read the newspaper almost every day, I wrote nearly nothing, and I read less than five books. And you know what? It was FINE. Because you can really just do whatever you want. There is no book police. And oh how I fell in love with the newspaper. In 2021, I wanted to write more. I had lost my regular writing practice years before and was feeling desperate for it. And everyone knows the best way to avoid doing what you want to do is to read about it instead. So I started reading books about writing. Of course they’re like, “to be a good writer, you need to WrItE EvErY DaY and ReAd m ..read more

Apologies are the worst. No one likes to make them, no one even really likes receiving them. Apologies can be awkward, defensive, and uncomfortable. The best apology is the one you don’t have to make. Especially when it comes to trans people. It’s totally possible to have a trans kid or coworker or neighbor or friend or student without messing the whole thing up. Before someone you love or work with comes out to you, you can prepare yourself to get it right. This is the time when stakes are low. Now is when you have room to learn, space to mess up, and time to have fun without worrying about ..read more

I wrote more than 30,000 words this month, which is by far the most I’ve ever written in a month. And an hour ago, I hit delete. Intentionally. Because what I wrote doesn’t matter and I don’t want it to. Because I wrote to be writing. I write every day. I call it my Trash Notebook. Sometimes, Lauren, my wife, calls it my Hate Journal. She jokes that I fill it with everything that bothers me. She’s right, but it’s not a list of complaints, it’s more like problems I’m trying to solve and I write to work my way through to some kind of solution. It’s a lot of what should I do about this? My writi ..read more

This post is made possible with support from the Meg Foundation. All opinions are my own. As I walked into the health clinic, I wondered if we’d ever figure it out. It was my third appointment with my doctor in a year. Nothing was wrong, really, I just didn’t feel right. We made our way through the lists and crossed off anxiety and depression and anything physical. Once everything was ruled out, she suggested that it might be hormones. She explained that some nonbinary people with bodies like mine try out low-dose testosterone and report feeling all of my What’s Wrong With Me symptoms go away ..read more

I first realized my gender identity when my kid saw me a little different than I was able to see myself. She was only 6 at the time, but she knew that identity is expansive. She knew that gender isn’t determined at birth by everyone else, but it’s something that finds its way into a person’s deep understanding of who they are and how they fit in the world. I’m pretty sure she personally identified as a Disney Princess at the time, so this made a lot of sense to her and she called me out. Of course that was exactly what I needed, a Disney Princess push into living authentically. And now that i ..read more

When we first met Luna, we knew she was a perfect fit for us. Though she was only two and we had just let go of our beloved elderly lab, Dolores, earlier that year, we were ready. It only took a few minutes before we were filling out the contract, but I remember the Save A Lab volunteer telling us, “She will get in bed with you, but will always jump off if you ask her to. She’s very polite.” Dolores was already too old when we got her to get into our bed so the ability to keep another giant dog off our bed sounded great. It didn’t take long for Luna to settle in. And by settle I mean, wait fo ..read more

I manage anxiety with information. “Oh, that? That’s scary!” *runs to Twitter* like when I spent three days digging through conspiracy theories about the Nashville explosion because now my best friend lives there and it was close enough to wake her up. It probably would’ve been enough for me to just notice that it’s terrifying to have your best friend able to hear an explosion. And to be fair, when it’s your best friend, they see all the wild tweets you send them as “Hi I love you, I’m glad you’re okay,” anyway so it doesn’t even work to block the vulnerability. Good talk. When Boston shut do ..read more

When I was a kid, boys played sports, girls took dance. I danced with Miss Cindy’s Dance School for ten years. My brothers played hockey and baseball and soccer and golf and football. I quit dancing when I got too old for classes and would need to start competing. Competitive dance required getting changed backstage with the other dancers, and I absolutely wasn’t going to do that. So I quit. When Riley was little, I signed her up for all the sports to see what she liked. It ended up showing me more about what she didn’t like. She quit ballet after one class. She cried at her first toddler soc ..read more

Valentine’s Day fell on a weekend this year which gives us a little more time to have fun with it. And you’re never too old for Strawberry People. The store was sold out of eyeballs and gluten free arms and legs, also known as pretzel sticks, so we had to adjust the plan a little bit (and it meant that Lauren couldn’t have any though she wasn’t complaining about it). Eyeballs are made from frosting squeezed out of a plastic bag and mini chocolate chips. 6th graders don’t always jump at the chance to participate in Valentine’s crafts, but once I set everything up and started making some, who c ..read more

The Creatable World Doll by Mattel This week Mattel announced a new line of gender-neutral dolls and I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I do a lot of sponsored content here these days, but this isn’t that. And even though I had friends working on the campaign, I still had no idea. Because NDAs are fun! Kids Learn Through Play When I came out to my own kid as nonbinary (identifying as neither a boy or a girl), we didn’t have a super fun doll to help us start the conversation, so we had to get creative. We started with a poster sized piece of paper, some markers, and a smaller stack of pape ..read more