The Republic of T.

This reminds me of my days as co-director of the LGBT student group in college. Once a semester, we’d spend at least one meeting sitting in a circle, telling our coming our stories when new members showed up. We stopped after we realize we could go around the room and tell each others’ stories.

How gay am I? How gay are you? Well, it’s anybody’s guess. But there’s a questionnaire that, while it won’t provide an answer, seems like an interesting diversion on an afternoon when I’m running on about two hour of sleep. I found it at Put ‘Em All On an Island, who got it from HiStoriesOfSex, who got it from wonder boy, who got it from addaboy, and after that I lost the thread.

Still, I’m too brain dead to think of anything serious to blog about. So, I’m joining the daisy chain. Check the questions after the jump, and feel free to chime in.

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Monday morning is usually pretty busy for me, so it seems like as good a time as any for a round-up post. I don’t get to do as much reading (or writing for that matter) as I’d like to, but when I do I always find stuff I’d like to blog about but know that I’ll never have the time. It’s a mix of blog posts and news items that that caught my eye, and usually started me thinking of something I’d like to write.

Gay couples in California will officially start getting married today. I’ve been collecting posts and articles about marriage, meaning to write a blog post, but haven’t had the time to put them all into a context and stitch them together with some kind of narrative. If I wait until I do, I never will. So, I present them here now in round-up format, with abbreviated comments where I’ve had time to think about something to say.

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Note: Today is Blogging for LGBT Families Day, the purpose of which is “to indicate that not all families fit the traditional model of one mother and one father.” A good number of my posts today will be in keeping with that theme. So, stay tuned for more here. You can head over to Dana’s for regular updates, and a full listing of participants, blog posts, etc.

Fathers’ Day is rolling around again, and it promises to be a special one (if also an exhausting one) in our house. Parker will make a couple of cards at school, which we’ll display on the fridge. Dylan … well … provided that the teething process isn’t bothering him too much that day, will give us several big grins throughout the day.

The hubby and I will exchange cards, a few extra hugs, and probably just enjoy watching Parker and Dylan. We might sit down on the sofa after the kids are asleep and watch a movie, if I can get something via Netflix that we’ll both enjoy. (We have completely different tastes in movies. I prefer dramas and documentaries &0133; some indies and some kinda “dark” … and he prefers mostly comedies.) Or maybe there’s another option. Asha at Parent Hacks points out that Amazon is having a huge Father’s Day DVD sale

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Sometimes you look up and the whole day is gone. You’ve been “doing” all day, but not what you want to do. When you look at the days ahead, you’ve got lots more to be “doing,” but what you want to do isn’t on the list. If it’s on the list at all, it comes after the things you must do, have to do, should do, need to do, are needed to do, and are expected to. It comes dead last.

You can think about it while you’re in the midst of all that “doing,” while you’re in the middle of being a “human doing” rather than a “human being.” You may wonder what you are “being” if what you’re “doing” isn’t what you want to do. Maybe you’re being what you must be, have to be, should be, need to be, are needed to be, and are expected to be. But what you want to be? It comes dead last. Too.

So it is with anything I hoped to write today, or for the next several days. I want to write. I want to be a writer. But have other things to do and be. So, I am not. Today.

I don’t know what’s scarier. This:

According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, “There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

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Ugh. It’s late, and I’m only just now getting around to catching up on my blog reading? What happened to the times when I’d check in at least once a day? Oh yeah. Right. I’m reading stuff going back to May 6th, sitting in my reader. (At that point I just mark everything read.)

These days, I do most of my blog reading on the train, which means I do it offline. Google Reader is still my reader of choice, and thanks to Google Gears I can catch up on things in offline mode. But that’s still kind of limiting. I’d been looking, lately for a desktop reader that synched with Google Reader. Enter ReadAir.

It’s powered by Adobe Air, and it’s not a bad little app. It’s still in development, so it doesn’t have all the functions of Google Reader, but it’s worth keeping an eye on if you’re looking for the Google Reader experience in a desktop app.

[Via Lifehacker.]

I’ll admit, I’ve never been a huge fan of Rap. Yes, I have a playlist on my iPod, but it’s mostly the “old” stuff, starting with the Sugarhill Gang and proceeding chronologically through most of the stuff I grew up with. But most of what’s out today as far as rap is concerned, I can’t say I’ve listened to most of it. Maybe I come across the occasional Kanye West video on YouTube, but that’s it.

But there’s one exception. An L.L. Cool J video will stop me dead in my tracks. Every. Time. So, I was amused to read via Rod that evidently men have a hard time admitting they like L.L.

LL: You know, you have certain guys that are uncomfortable admitting they like LL ’cause they feel like it’s some type of ego issue with LL. “I can’t say that, you know? That’s for you: I can’t.” You know, all that frontin’ and all that.

S2S: Men can’t say that another man looks good or something like that?

LL: Only the real playas.

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I’m still trying to figure out the best way to handle digest posts, so that the content gets pulled from my shared items in Google reader. I still haven’t found an ideal solution, but I think I’ve found a work around for the time being, that generates the HTML for me and at least some of the links go back to the original pieces and not to the Feedburner feeds. (It’s not perfect yet.) I have one or two more ideas in ming to try out.

What’s working right now goes something like this:

1. Burn Google shared items to Feedburner.
2. Activate BrowserFriendly and SmartCast on the Optimize tab. (May be optional.)
3. Activate BuzzBoost on the Publicize tab. Choose the following settings. (Anything not mentioned is optional, meaning you can do whatever you want.)
• Check “Display item author name (if available)”
• Check “Display full item content”
• Choose “Full HTML” from the Item Content Fomrat menu.
• Check Display item publication date
4. Copy javascript and paste into a (previously prepared) blank HTML page between the <body> and </body> tags.
5. Open page in browser.
6. Using the mouse, the menu, or keyboard commands, choose “select all.”
7. Right click, and chose “View Selection Source.”
8. Copy and paste into the editor of your choice.

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Reports of my demise have been exaggerated, but only slightly.

Seriously, though. I don’t know how many people emailed me about that New York Times story on blogger burn-out, but it was enough that I began to wonder whether people were worried about me. Yes, I’ve been stressed lately. And yes, some of that stress has been blog-related. But I haven’t reached the end of my tether.

Not yet, anyway. But I can see it from here.

I didn’t get a chance to comment on the NYT story when it came out, but the disappearance of two important voices from the blogosphere in the last couple of weeks — seemingly swallowed up by the same conflict — brought it back to mind.

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I’ve been called a lot of things, believe me. But “too black” has never been one of them, by any stretch of the imagination. So, I was initially amused when I read that The Bilerico Project — where I’m a regular contributor — has been accused of being “too black” and “too transgender.”

Monica Roberts has an interesting post on Transgriot about white flight that directly mentions TBP and some of the things people have been saying about us.

I’m also seeing and hearing the same whispers on other GLBT oriented lists that I peruse that Bilerico is ‘too Black’ or ‘too transgender’. Is that your code word or whatever the frack excuse you’re using for not only not wanting to read the posts of people that don’t look like you, but don’t want to engage in the frank discussions we have on various issues on the Project?

If that’s your opinion, you’re entitled to it. But basing those comments on a small portion of the generated comment of the Project being authored by African-American GLBT people is bigoted and asinine.

That just begs today’s open thread question… What kind of blog do you think Bilerico Project is? When you think of us, what’s the first word that pops in your head? Poll after the jump so you can vote on whether we are too [insert group here].

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What kind of blogger am I? Am I a “gay blogger”? Am I a “political blogger”? Am I a “Black blogger”? Which variety of blogger am I first?

Endless questions, without concrete answers. But it looks like I can add one more category: Daddy Blogger

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Jill poses an interesting question in her pose, “Who is a political writer?”

That’s the question Glamour is asking — and specifically, why it seems that so many political writers are men. And thanks to Ezra Klein for the shout-out. He makes the point that:

“There’s this rich and broad feminist blogosphere, which is heavily female and very political, but considered a different sort of animal. Is Jill Filipovic a political blogger? Ann Friedman?” he says. Male bloggers are seen as talking about politics with a universal point of view, but when we women bring our perspective to the field, it’s seen as as a minority opinion.

And “women’s issues” are seen as marginal, even though they often impact far more people than “mainstream,” more “serious” political issues. So women’s voices and issues are ghettoized, and women simply don’t seem to be talking about universal

So, I have to ask myself, am I a political blogger? Am I a political writer?

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Great minds, it’s said, think alike. Maybe twisted minds do too, and I just haven’t heard about it. This morning, while perusing my daily reads, I did a double-take when I read a post by Chris Bowers.

I’ve been a fan of Chris’ blogging for a while now. Maybe it’s because we both have an analytical bent, but after reading Bowers I almost always come away with something to think about. Occasionally I come away with something to write about).

Every once in a while, it seems like we’re thinking along the same lines. It’s happened before. And this morning I thought it happened again when I read Chris’ take on the wearing out of the “liberal elites” meme.

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