Between Generations

This past weekend was the Golden Crown Literary Society's annual conference, held this year in Orlando, FL. It's the fourth that I've attended, and I always have a wonderful time hanging out with readers, publishers, and fellow authors.

Most of these people are older than I am, and they love to tease me about being one of the youngest members in attendance. It's been that way from the beginning, and I thoroughly enjoy all of their ribbing about being jailbait/barely legal/a teenage boy. It's fun to be teased--unless you're in middle school. And I'm not *that* young.

I accentuate my youthfulness by giving my natural exuberance free reign at these events. And it feels so good: GCLS is one of a very few "safe spaces" in my life where I feel accepted for exactly who I am. 32 flavors and then some.

I got to do plenty of goofy things this past weekend: cannonballing people in the pool, iPhone lightsaber fighting with a fellow geek, whipping off my shirt at a moment's notice, just 'cuz. I got to moderate a panel and read my own work; I got to learn from my peers and heroes. But in addition to all of that, I was hoping for a chance to testify and exhort: to publicly reflect on how far our community has come, how far it has to go, and the nature of my generation's role in this enduring struggle. The benefit to doing so in this virtual space instead, is that I have the potential to reach an even broader audience.

So. I was born in 1980, in the last year of Generation X, on the cusp of the millenials. I remember a childhood without the Internet, but the Web's adolescence corresponded with my own. I came out at college in New Hampshire, just across the river from Vermont where civil unions had been instituted only the year before. My friends didn't find it odd that one of us had dated a girl in high school but turned to men in college, nor that I, who had dated men in college, ultimately fell for my best female friend. They simply loved me, and I will never be able to thank them enough for the length and breadth and depth of that love.

My undergraduate institution had an active LGBT center that welcomed me. My church had a pastor that fielded calls from my angry mother. I have never felt alone in my struggles against the bigotry--both personal and institutional--that I've encountered. My family may never accept that I am a lesbian, but that fact has never blocked me from career opportunities, living situtations, or friendships with my peers. I have been very, very fortunate.

Such is the backdrop of my work as an author, both in Running With the Wind and Homecoming, and now in everafter (which will come out in October). My generation is my demographic; I write predominately with myself, my peers, and my successors in mind. It is important for me to reach them, because statistics show that they are unaware of the stories that are being told with them in mind.

On the whole (if you will pardon the willy nilly stereotyping), my generation dislikes labels. Lesbian, gay, bi, trans, straight...I have identified with several of those categories, depending on the audience in which I find myself. We don't like boxes. We have been accused of complacency and laziness, of not appreciating our roots. Of not taking the time to survey the topography of the shoulders of the giants upon whom we stand. And I will freely admit, for myself, that those accusations are well warranted: I am getting better, but I do not know enough about the history of *any* of the communities of which I am a part.

My generation is impatient. We like to skim. History ought not to be skimmed. It behooves us to curb that impulse in ourselves: to slow ourselves down and take stock. To look backward. To read deeply. To be discontent with surface appearances and investigate what lies beneath. To be initially skeptical of all opinions, including our own.

But once we have done our homework, it behooves us to play to our strengths. Because it is possible to reject labels without rejecting their history. The battlefield on which my generation will prove itself is something that I've written about at length in Homecoming: the struggle for equal rights in marriage. And my generation will win that war, precisely *because* we do not like boxes. Rarely have I met someone my age who cannot at least acknowledge the injustice in denying all couples the civil rights that are part and parcel of marriage.

A month ago, I held JC's hand and looked up at the facade of Stonewall, precisely 40 years after the (in)famous events that happened there. It was an overwhelming moment: the joyful riotousness of New York's Gay Pride juxtaposed with the violent riots of the past.

To my generation: in our struggle for equality in marriage, let us stand on the mountain that our predecessors carved for us, with a clear view of what came before and what can come afterward. Let us use our formidable knowledge of the multimodality of communication--of blogs and tweets and Facebook and Myspace and whatever comes next--to continue to rally support for equality and justice in *all* aspects of American life.

And to my predecessors: for the sacrifices you've made, the blood and sweat and tears that you have shed, and the time you have given: thank you. None of it has been in vain. What you have built, we will supplement. Trust us to join you in this fight--and one day, to even ease the burden of leadership from your shoulders onto our own.

We will not disappoint. I promise.

Brownie Peanut Butter Cupcakes

It is a truth universally acknowledged that chocolate and peanut butter make excellent bedfellows. The recipe that follows is probably the most incredible dessert I've concocted to this point. It was inspired by my girlfriend, JC, who called me last week to report that someone at her office had brought in "cupcakes, but they weren't actually cake at all--they were brownies! With a peanut butter cup baked into each one!" To which I replied, with confidence and anticipation, "I can do that." And then proceeded to test it out on a group of friends at a Fourth of July cookout this past Saturday. To say that my audience was complimentary is perhaps understating the case: I've never received such praise for a baked good before!

To those who are allergic to peanuts: I am so sorry. Someday soon, I will be working on a mint version of this recipe, and I'll be sure to post it once it's perfected.

So. Brownie Peanut Butter Cupcakes. Here's the scoop:

1) Make the brownies (recipe below).
2) Fill each cupcake wrapper half way with brownie batter.
3) Nestle a Reese's Peanut Butter cup into the batter.
4) Add a spoonful of batter on top, so that the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is totally covered.
5) Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
6) After cooling, frost with peanut butter frosting (recipe below).
7) Place three Reese's Pieces (one brown, one orange, one yellow) on top, for effect and additional tastiness.
8) Eat, eat, eat.

Nell's Brownie Recipe (thanks, Mom!)
1 cup butter
12 Tbsp hersheys cocoa (bitter)
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla

NOTE: For even richer brownies, use 9Tbsp regular Hershey's baking cocoa, and 3 Tbsp of Hershey's Special Dark baking cocoa.

INSTRUCTIONS: Melt butter, stir in chocolate, then cool. Beat eggs until light. Stir in sugar, then blend in chocolate mixture. Stir in flour, baking powder, salt, and vanilla. Makes 18 "cupcakes," per instructions above.

For the peanut butter frosting, I used this recipe, which indicates that the whipping cream is optional; my experience leads me to suggest that it's mandatory. I'm not passionate about this frosting recipe, so if anyone out there has a suggestion for to-die-for PB frosting, please do post your algorithm.

Enjoy!

On Cusps

It's tempting to begin this first blog entry with the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of "cusp," but if I did so, I'd be flying in the face of my own advice to so many students throughout my years as a Teaching Assistant. We literary types protest, after all, that what a dictionary believes a word to mean isn't nearly as important or relevant as what the text in question believes the word to mean.

I suppose the "text in question," in any personal blog, is its author. So here, then, is my explanation:

"On the cusp" is probably the best phrase to describe my current state of being. At age 29, I am on the cusp of 30. I am on the cusp of becoming a Ph.D--I intend to finish my dissertation by summer 2010. I am on the cusp of relocating from the Midwest to the East Coast; next year, I will be moving to New York to be with the woman I love. While I was not, strictly speaking, born on the cusp between Aries and Taurus, I was, one could say, born on the cusp of the cusp.

The necessary sharpness of a cusp defines how I want my life to be. On the cusp, on the verge. Not discontent, precisely, but always hungry. Never complacent.

"I am large," Walt Whitman wrote. "I contain multitudes." When I was born, my parents gave me a name--a good one, that suits me. A few years ago, when I began to write lesbian fiction, I gave myself a pseudonym. At the time, I wanted to keep the life of the scholar separate from the life of the author. But lately, I've realized that I simply don't work that way. When I learn something new, the author is as excited as the scholar. When I write something good, the scholar is as proud as the author. And I find my most profound moments of peace when the two halves are merged and mingled, as they are when I hold my lover's hand, or when I set sail on the lake, or when I jog into the outfield for my softball team.

This is not to say that I want to abandon my pseudonym. I like it, it's useful, and I intend to write under it for many, many years to come. But here, I'll be writing about every aspect of my life: my books and my dissertation, my latest sailing story and my most recent attempt to perfect the red velvet cupcake, my travels and my epiphanies.

So. I hope that life finds you well on this cusp of July, and that perhaps you'll want to follow along as I haphazardly chronicle this rollercoaster of a year and beyond.