Apr 20Some of my favorite quotes about writing and creativityAt some point in early 2020, after a random conservation with my sister-in-law about the problem of remembering what we read, I started to keep a commonplace book, which is a notebook in which I write down interesting snippets of books, articles, interviews, etc. …Writing9 min readWriting9 min read
Jan 3Books I read and listened to in 2022, with commentaryWelcome to my second annual review of my year in reading! Like last year, I divide my books into fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, but I don’t rank them in any particular order within those categories. If numbers are your thing, I read 22 novels, 21 books of nonfiction, and 2…Reading27 min readReading27 min read
Dec 17, 2022Another DFPS meeting about investigating gender-affirming care as child abuseI did not have any pride swag. This was my thought last Friday morning as I prepared to go to the headquarters of the Department of Family Protective Services, which is the agency tasked with preventing and responding to child abuse and neglect in Texas. This was my second time…LGBTQ6 min readLGBTQ6 min read
Sep 23, 2022A Book Review that Nobody Asked For: Memoirs of a Beatnik by Diane di PrimaHave you ever read a book so wildly unique, so relentlessly its own thing, that, immediately upon finishing it, you want to call up every reader you know and tell them: “I just read this amazing thing and now you must read it too!” This is what happened to me…Book Review11 min readBook Review11 min read
Aug 26, 20225 Ways to Read like a WriterI used to feel slightly ashamed of the amount of time that I invest in reading and coming up with methods to remember what I read. But then I started taking my writing seriously, and I realized that the habits I had developed as a reader had taught me how…Writing12 min readWriting12 min read
Jun 24, 2022Essay In Which I Prove the Existence of the PatriarchyLast month, the Southern Baptist Convention released an investigation report describing how the organization’s leaders have been systematically covering up reports of sexual abuse by ministers for at least two decades. The news about the report barely had time to register in our tiny collective attention spans before it was…Religion8 min readReligion8 min read
Apr 2, 2022Weird Things Happen Around Bald WomenWhen Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, I turned to my thirteen-year-old son and ten-year-old daughter and said: “Weird things happen around bald women.” My children have never been suitably impressed with the story of how I shaved my head at age sixteen. One time, we were at…Gender Identity7 min readGender Identity7 min read
Mar 13, 2022What I Saw and Heard at a Meeting about Care for Transgender Youth in TexasYesterday I went to a public meeting of the advisory council for the Texas Department of Family Protective Services. I’d never been to a DFPS meeting before, but I’m pretty sure they are not usually well attended. This time every seat in the large room was occupied, and clusters of…Transgender Children8 min readTransgender Children8 min read
Jan 10, 2022Books I read (and listened to) in 2021, with commentaryOn December 31, 2021, I got roped into making a list of books that I read and listened to in 2021. By “roped in,” I mean that my father, brother, and sister-in-law emailed their lists, so I felt compelled to do the same. No one responded to each other’s lists…Books22 min readBooks22 min read
Oct 11, 2021Piercing with Mr. PineappleThe man who would pierce my daughter’s ears is named Pineapple. He is bald and has thick black lines tattooed in a swirling pattern around his eyes, nose, and mouth. When we first met on Zoom for a virtual consultation, I took advantage of the format to stare at his…Consent8 min readConsent8 min read
