Jess Banks schools you.

I’ve been working on the campaign for marriage equality here in Minnesota since March, and as I’ve written before, it’s the most fulfilling political, social, and activist project I’ve ever worked on. I’m a total addict to the amazing people and experiences I encounter every single time I put in some time, and I’m going to crash hard on November 7, even if we manage to win. I’m already getting the shakes. Last night, I asked my friend and co-trainer Scott, who works in politics for his day job, for a new campaign–I’m lining up a new dealer once Minnesotans United for All Families skips town.

MN United has built a campaign unlike any other, rejecting the messages and tactics that have failed in 30 states where anti-marriage amendments have gone up for a popular vote. While talk about the rights and benefits that attach to marriage, and how the denial of those rights amounts to separate-but-equal discrimination on par with civil rights fights of the past, are important to many supporters of marriage equality, they aren’t generally persuasive for people who are on the fence about gay marriage. So we’re having personal conversations with voters, using our own life stories, to make it clear that marriage is about love and commitment, no matter the gender of the partners. These stories are powerful, and they change hearts and minds and votes.

Only four days remain until the election, so I’m going to share the core of the conversations I’ve been having with you today. If you’re in one of the four states voting on marriage equality, I hope that this strengthens your resolve if you’re a supporter, and opens your heart to the conversation if you’re still undecided.

Our first walk as Mr. and Mrs. Banks, 5 October 1996

I find this amendment personally hurtful on so many levels. I have the great good fortune to be married to the love of my life, despite the astronomical odds that we would ever find one another on opposite sides of the world. And for the last sixteen years, we’ve had each other in good times and bad. I’ve rejoiced in the affection and the support and the million inside jokes and shorthand references that weave us closer, and I’ve buckled with relief into that tightly knit fabric of partnership in the times of crisis and grief. I think marriage is the best game in town, and I devoutly wish the same celebration and endorsement for every loving, committed couple who lean into the unknown future together.

All of this hinges, though, on one critical fact: my beloved was the opposite gender. When we fell madly in love, we had many obstacles to overcome so we could be together, but the legal right for me to marry him and secure his immigration status so we could start our new life together was not one of them. We obtained a K-1 “fiance” visa that allowed him to enter the country and get on the fast track for a green card by submitting evidence of our marriage. We went through the separate interviews to assure our marriage wasn’t a scam.

But I’m bisexual. There was no guarantee that my soulmate would be a man. And if he weren’t, the last sixteen years–all the love, all the progress, all the family we’ve built–disappear. That one thought blows through my gut like an icy wind and fills me with unbearable sorrow. I cannot imagine the pain and devastation of being told I couldn’t marry and be with my beloved.

And I look at my amazing, difficult, brilliant, gorgeous, perfect sons, and I marvel even more. We didn’t have to submit any applications or pass any interviews before we decided to conceive them, and not once have we ever had to fear that they would be taken away from us. We’re far from perfect parents, but no one has ever questioned whether we’re the best people to raise them. It’s assumed that they’re safe and happy and healthy and loved, and there’s no awkwardness when I introduce their other parent at school events or church functions.

Believe me, all this “traditional”-ness is positively mortifying to a weird, eclectic nonconformist like me. Frankly, it’s embarrassing. We didn’t set out to create a “traditional” family, and we’ve done everything in our power to the least traditional traditional family around. But we are very aware of our privilege, and there’s no reason in the world it should be reserved to our narrow demographic.

Marriage is an important but limited part of how I envision family. I’m a child of divorce, and even as an eight-year-old, I knew that my mother and father weren’t working out. I knew that marriage stood in the way of being our best selves, and I told my mom often as a kid, then a teenager, then an adult, that she made the right call. That divorce didn’t dissolve the ties of family, though–I’m still close with my father’s family, and I kept my birth last name as a second middle name when my stepdad adopted us years later. But I also watched my grandparents’ marriage, which started with my grandma saying, “I’ll marry you so I can get out of the house before I kill my sister. But if it doesn’t work out, you go your way, I’ll go mine, and no hard feelings.” It lasted 62 years.

We teach our sons that families come in all shapes and sizes. Of course, we didn’t have to work too hard to teach them this: they already knew it. They have friends who have a mom and a dad like they do, and friends who only live with their mom or their dad, or travel between their parents’ houses. They know friends who live with extended family, or foster parents, or adoptive families. And they know friends with two dads or two moms. All they care about is that their friends are as loved and secure as they are.

So I’m voting no.

I’m voting no because I treasure my marriage. No other word in our language and society so completely sums up the lifelong commitment and enduring love that I share with my partner, and it hurts to imagine being told that we didn’t qualify for that word by something we couldn’t change or improve. My marriage is strong, and no married gay couple down the street, arguing about bills and chores like we do, makes that less secure.

I’m voting no because I hold my sons in hope and love. I feel that they’re better people because we’ve taught them that every person is worthy of the same dignity, no exceptions. My dream for my boys is to dance at their weddings, and the only thing I care about is that the person they marry loves them as much as I love their father. I’m going to dance, it’s going to be Bad Mom Dancing, and it’s going to live on in infamy on YouTube, to forever embarrass them, like every good mom should.

I’m voting no because my understanding of the world’s faiths teaches me that the most universal truth among humans is to treat one another the way we would want to be treated. Whether it’s the Judeo-Christian Golden Rule, or the Confucian Silver Rule, this is held as a central tenet. We rarely follow the ancient scriptures that prohibit same-sex partners on other subjects; we acknowledge that they’re historical documents, and that society’s values have evolved since they were written. I want my church to have the religious freedom to marry gay and lesbian couples as our faith embraces as equally entitled.

I’m voting no because I’m a historian. I can see that the institution of marriage predates the Bible and that it began as an economic transaction to link families and secure heredity. It was not always a sacrament, and it was not always available to every heterosexual couple. It hasn’t “always been” any particular way. Marriage for love is a damned newfangled idea, relatively speaking. If you married someone not from your hometown, you’re already breaking “traditional” convention, let alone someone of a different church, faith, ethnic group, or race.

I’m voting no because I’m a teacher and a parent, and the health, safety, and wellbeing of every child matters to me. I can’t imagine the horror of waiting to know how the state where they were born is going to vote on whether they and their families are welcome. LGBT youth are so fragile already, under siege in schools and churches and media, and it’s a sacred trust we are given to show them that they can aspire to fully participate in society and experience the range of human love. I have great confidence that other teachers will continue to teach age-appropriate lessons, and that as parents we still have the greatest power to teach our children about morality.

I’m voting no because I’m a patriot. I believe in the founding principles of our country, especially the purpose of our constitution as a document that secures personal freedoms and limits government intrusions. The constitution should never be used to carve out a segment of the population and deprive them of the same liberties as others enjoy. And we certainly shouldn’t be putting rights up for a popular vote. Ideological conservatives have made some of the most persuasive arguments along these lines.

I’m voting no because I’m an optimist, and I believe our society is moving toward a broader, more inclusive understanding of one another. The less we allow race, gender, faith, class, and sexual orientation to cloud our vision of a common humanity, the more we will recognize that we all want the same thing. We’ve got a long way to go on all of those issues, but we can (and should!) work on them simultaneously. I reject the arguments of fear, division, and misunderstanding, and I put my hope in the journey we’re on toward life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I absolutely adore Halloween. I’ve been known to skip down store aisles singing “It’s the most…wonderful time…of the year!” at the first sight of skulls and crows. I collect Halloween socks and wear them all year round. I buy gothic lanterns and creepy wall hangings and ghoulish tea towels on clearance for everyday use.

Part of this is related to Halloween’s location in my favorite season, Fall. Fall is a full-sensory extravaganza for me: crunchy leaves, crisp nose-hair-tingling morning air, spices and soups, the acrid sting of a matchstrike as I begin lighting candles again after the hot, bright summer.

But Halloween holds more meaning for me than just memories of costumes and candies past. It’s also a sacred holiday for me and other pagans, marking the beginning of new turn around the wheel of the year. Because I follow the Celtic traditions of my ancestors as they intersect with modern neo-pagan practices, I call this day Samhain (pronounced SOV-han or SOW-an, NOT  SAM-HANE).

Celebrated by many ancient agrarian cultures as a cross between New Year’s and Memorial Day, Samhain acknowledges the conclusion of the harvest, the closing down of the earth in preparation for winter, and the liminality of beginnings and endings that allows us to perceive how thin the veils are that separate us from unseen worlds around us. The costumes and the lanterns play games with concepts of finding and evading spirits passing from one state of being to the next. Even trick-0r-treating, often maligned as turning kids into greedy monsters with eroding teeth and manners, reminds us of our obligations of hospitality and the sweetness of welcome on a cold night.

My own monsters, as Finn and Jake from Adventure Time!, ready to storm the neighborhood and shake it for candy.

As such, it’s a powerful time for magic in every sense of the word. The topsy-turvy nature of the night always reminds me to look to the children in my life for wisdom; they have so much to teach us about taking pleasure in the moment and finding wonder in the ordinary. And you can return the favor by taking Halloween as an excuse to open the door to simple magic so they learn the spirit behind the spirits.

If your family has experienced the death of any loved ones in the past year, Samhain allows us to commemorate their life and release them with love, rather than carry the weight of grief into the new year and prevent their spirit from crossing over peacefully. Obviously, this is a complex concept, but it can be symbolized in simple ways that teach kids that grief is natural, as is letting go. If your hands are always full of the past, there’s no room to grab the future, and a ritual of remembrance and release absolves us of the guilt that often accompanies fading memory. It’s nice to look at pictures and tell stories of the departed, then perform an act that symbolizes transition: blow out a candle, throw written messages into moving water, or break a small bowl or clay pot.

Halloween is also a good day for housecleaning magic. If a child has been having difficulty with distraction, negativity, or nightmares–or if an adult wants to banish more mature worries or problems–the energy of the new year can be a powerful “disinfectant.” Go from room to room, in counter-clockwise order from the way you would face as you walk in the front door, and pass a broom over doorways and windowsills. When you end up back at the front door, sweep all the negative energy out the door, say some creative words of banishment (e.g., “Get out of my house, you horrible no-good dreams/feelings/bills!”) , and let the kids slam the door.

Finally, it can be fun to teach kids about traditional divination magic associated with Halloween. Young boys and girls have been looking into pools of water or cutting into fruit on Halloween to tell their fortunes for centuries–that’s where bobbing for apples comes from! Spending some quiet time looking into a dish of water, mirror, or flame (safely, obviously!) often conjures hopes and fears for the future as you settle into meditation with an external focus, and talking about them works wonderful, everyday bonding magic. If you have a tarot deck, runes, or I Ching set, it can also be fun to let the child examine them and ask questions; let them offer their own interpretations and observations, and keep the atmosphere light. People are more comfortable going forward into an unknown future if they feel like they have some sort of influence over it, and even silly little scrying games can make us feel more empowered.

I hope you all have a wonderful, magical Halloween!

I’m an unashamed geek about politics, especially in election years. I can’t do math, but I can crunch poll and electoral college numbers with an idiot savant flair. I answer to the John Williamsesque election music like one of Pavlov’s dogs. And I’m not an armchair quarterback–I put skin in the game, every year.

But with only three weeks (!) to go, there are a few phrases that I’m ready to never hear again. So, in the few minutes I’ve got to spare before tonight’s phone bank (no, seriously, it starts at 5:30) and the second presidential debate, I thought I’d break a couple of them like balsa wood boards at a karate convention.

1) “Job Creators” — Can we consign this to the same scrap heap as “titans of industry”? Because, let’s face it, a kid who shits his pants is a job creator too. Cleaning it up was a job I didn’t have to do before, and now I do. If I had a tax break for every shitty diaper or milk spill or pile of discarded clothes that my kids “created” for me, I could afford to take a vacation.

2) “Middle Class” — Americans are positively delusional about their incomes. John Steinbeck said, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Statistics say $50,000 is “real” middle class, but we can’t even agree on that. Apparently, it depends on who you ask. Romney has indicated that he thinks of someone with an income of $200,000 as “middle income,” but that’s as false as a training bra full of toilet tissue. If you make $200,000 a year, you’re in the top 2% of incomes–that’s nowhere near the middle.

3) “Failed Stimulus” — There’s no such thing in America. We have Viagra, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was a success. Is the economy still ugly? Absolutely. But who knows how deep the rabbit hole would’ve gone without the stimulus? I grew up on my grandparents’ stories of young marriages in the Great Depression. I’m incredibly relieved I won’t have the same stories for my sons.

4) “Traditional Values” — This one burns my ass all year, every year, but it’s like a bad chili dog in election years–causing pain and confusion on both ends. I’m just going to come out and say it: There is no such thing as “traditional values.” Your traditions are not my traditions; America’s traditions are not the world’s traditions. This term is a thinly veiled replacement for saying “I don’t like the way you do that.” It applies to almost anything, but especially sex, family, faith, and politics. I have long histories of mental illness, substance abuse, crazy hardcore work ethic, and Christian faith in my family. Doesn’t mean everyone should do things our way. In fact, I recommend against it.

5) “Pro-Life” — If you say you are, I almost guarantee you’re not. I’m far from the first person to point out that many “pro-life” people care about that fetus until the precise instant its feet hit the cold air. After that, who cares? Motherhood is a sacred institution, unless you’re poor, in which case, leave your kid with this exploited worker while you get your ass to a minimum-wage job, 12 hours a day, 45 minutes on the bus each way. Good education? Save up or play public school roulette. Safe neighborhoods? Whatever you do, don’t give those public sector workers any incentive to keep their grueling jobs, like health insurance or a pension. Do something wrong? Get thee directly to a corporate-owned prison, or better yet, to an execution chamber. These folks are pro-life like I’m pro-centipedes: they’re okay as creatures in theory, but if one shows up in my house, I’m gonna smush it into oblivion.

6) “The American people want…” — Don’t even finish that sentence, you. We don’t know what we want. Two Americans can’t even decide what to have for lunch, let alone whose economic or foreign affairs policies.

7) “War on Terror” — We have crushed Al Qaeda, but we will never win the war against terrorists. That’s because terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology–it’s like declaring war on hammers. And when we start using robot planes to drop bombs that may or may not land on the intended targets, we are causing terror.

8) “Debt Ceiling” — I’m not tired of this phrase because it’s misleading; I’m tired of it because it’s being used incorrectly. The general public has conflated the debt ceiling and the deficit, both of which have much less to do with our future economic health than the GDP or home sale numbers. Raising the debt ceiling does NOT raise the limit on our national credit card–it tells those who’ve lent us money that we’re going to pay for what we’ve already charged. And when the world is actually paying us to hold its money while our economy is still stalled, now is exactly the right time to indulge in a little deficit spending.

9) “Food Stamp President” — I hope Obama embraces this one like he’s done with Obamacare. Because when Republicans say that more people have been on food stamps under his administration, they say it like it’s a bad thing, which it isn’t. People were making so little money for so long that they qualified for the extremely low threshold for food assistance. Our president made sure they didn’t starve. Fewer food stamps means fewer dirty plates. Think about it.

There’s no grey cloud over my head. There’s more color than black in my wardrobe. There are four playlists called “Happy Songs” on my iPod. I laugh a lot. I’m unfailingly friendly and polite with strangers. The boxes on my calendar empty out.

This is what depression looks like.

My hands clench hard, leaving an array of half-moons on the soft skin of my palm. My shoulders ratchet up. My Irish-pale skin blooms with uneven roses. My lips feel tight. I use shorter words, then no words at all.

This is what anxiety looks like.

I plunge my hands into racks of clothes. I can’t get enough of a certain song. I scan poll numbers for the troughs and crests that the patterns show me. I find a way to use specific words in every conversation, words that are stuck like burrs in my mind. I can’t stand cranberries. I close the door, turn off the lights, put on the fan for white noise, and wait for the world’s loudness brightness sharpness to subside. I click my mala beads through my fingers while I talk on the phone.  I remember everything.

This is what Asperger’s Syndrome looks like.

I snuggle and tickle my kids, and the other kids who think I’m the Cool Mom because I read them stories, and get down on the ground to play their games, and giggle at their goofy jokes. I work hard–harder than I should, sometimes–and I hold myself to exacting standards. I watch screwball comedies, costume dramas, and cerebral documentaries (or so NetFlix tells me). I make pretty things and give them all away. I send my energy to those who need warmth, healing, sympathy, celebration. I play with my phone too much. I read every day. I speak out against injustice. I do more than speak. I see characters and scenes in my head, but I can’t hear the dialogue. I love my husband and our millions of inside jokes. I check my blog hits all the time.

I take medicine three times a day, without fail. Some of them keep me heavier than I wish I were, but still I take them. I take my meds even though I feel great–maybe especially when I feel great. I pay attention to my moods. I talk to my doctors; I keep my appointments. I know what the inside of a psych ward looks like. I know it’s better to keep fighting than give up. I know how deep the hole goes. I try to be kind. I live every day in color.

This is what mental health looks like. It looks like everyone else. And it needs to be out in the clear light of day.

This Thursday is National Coming Out Day. It’s difficult these days to remember that being open about whom a person loves comes at a high price. It costs families, friends, housing, jobs, physical harm, psychological health, and even lives to be openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or even just questioning.

Almost everyone these days knows someone who fits into one of those categories, and by knowing that person’s identity, you represent–at one point or another–a potential risk, an unknown quantity. That person made a calculation, based in an algebra of emotional connection and human-hearted estimation, scrounged from past experiences, conversations, jokes, off-hand remarks, forwarded emails, Facebook posts, retweets, and a million spoken and unspoken signals. This equation spits out answers ranging from standing in the full light of exposure, to straddling an awkward threshold, to pressing flat against the shadows, barely breathing, praying no one sees through the grey mantle of disguise pulled tight around them.

And, from that equation, they took a risk on you. Every time that risk pays dividends of love, trust, and authenticity, it gets better.

Last year, on this here very blog, I came out as bisexual. It was the Least Eventful Coming Out Ever. In fact, the utterly underwhelming response–all kind and supportive, ye punters!–even contributed for a little while to my neurosis about not “having earned” the identity or label.

But in a discussion with one of the organizers at Minnesotans United for All Families earlier this year, I was surprised to learn that that (completely un)fateful blog post was hardly the first time I’d come out in my life. By the time I made my sexual orientation public, I was practically an old hand at revealing parts of myself I’d previously hidden for fear of rejection, punishment, disappointment, or harm. I’ve had more coming-outs than a 23-year-old debutante.

So here, in no particular order, are pieces of me that have spent time in one closet or another:

–I’m a witch. I know I said a while ago I was going to be more coy about this, as I have done when teaching religious studies, but frankly, you’re not my students (for all my professorial posturing). I studied for two years before I committed myself to this faith, and when I told my parents about my choice, my mom cried a lot. She said she’d known something like this was happening, but she’d hoped I’d fallen in with a “nice Eastern religion.” I knew things were going to be okay when she sent me goofy witch socks next year at Halloween.

What my mom was thinking

What I was thinking

–I’m autistic. As an adult woman, it would be incredibly hard to get an official, clinical diagnosis, and there’s nothing particular in terms of care or resources that a diagnosis would make more available to me. It was my son Connor’s Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis that unlocked this mystery. The more I read and observed in him, the more I recognized and understood about myself. I’m so much more functional and kind to myself (and him) than I used to be, now that I understand the patterns that govern my thoughts and senses. And it’s precisely because I am NOT what most people picture when they hear the word “autism” that it’s important that I’m out about this.

I can be this kind of autistic.

But I’m also this kind of autistic.

–I’m a pack rat. I blame being a historian. Papers and Christmas cards and books and kids’ drawings aren’t junk–they’re artifacts.

–I’m a rape survivor. I knew my rapist; I was dating him. He raped me twice, once vaginally, once orally. I didn’t even know the second one was rape until the support group therapist named it as such. I told no one for two and a half years. Apparently, coming out is easier in batches, because for my own crazy reasons, I told my parents about that within 24 hours of the Witch Talk.

–I hate Napoleon Dynamite and the game Risk. Don’t judge me.

–I’m the child of an alcoholic. If autism didn’t give me control issues, this sure as hell did. I didn’t have a single drink of alcohol until my wedding night, which came 10 months after my 21st birthday, and 4 months after I came home from a year of study in France. I wanted to be sure my personality was fully formed, and not addictive, before I even went near the stuff. I’ve never been drunk, if only because by the time I started drinking, I was big, Irish, German, and discerning enough to make getting drunk a very expensive proposition.

–I have an invisible disease. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in July 1999. It’s hard to know how I got this–debates rage about what causes chronic pain disorders. Most likely, the car accident I had 10 days before my wedding, which caused fairly extensive soft tissue damage to my neck, shoulders, and mid-back, triggered it. When I got to grad school, a doc at the health center put me on a tricyclic antidepressant for severe tension headaches. It effectively masked the developing fibro symptoms, until its lifespan expired and everything came tumbling out. For the practical implications of this on my life, I refer you to the Story of the Spoons.

–I can’t do math. I’m pretty good at arithmetic, even mental figuring, but from algebra forward, I’m hopeless. I’m not sure I’d call it dyscalculia, but I’ve never had it explained so I could understand it. I’m pretty sure I don’t care to try again.

–I spent five days in the psych ward of a hospital in August 2009. When we moved, my efforts to establish continuous care for my fibro and related depression failed utterly, and I had to go off all my meds, all at once. When I did manage to get back on something after an ER visit, it was too little, too late, and I couldn’t pull out of the tailspin on my own. At 5:00 pm on a Thursday, I emerged from our bedroom and told my Darling Husband that I had thought of nothing but killing myself all day long. I asked him to take me to the hospital. They doubled my meds, and I felt like myself in fewer than 72 hours.

–I can’t play video games. They stress me out to the point of panic attacks. And this isn’t just with the new immersive FPSs or rich-environment RPGs. I first noticed this about myself on Super Mario Brothers and Tetris. I’ve managed to pry this open just enough to enjoy the occasional song on Rock Band or round of Hexic, but even then, all my upper body muscles are sore afterward from the tension. Most of the time, it’s no fun at all.

***

So there: I’m out. About a bunch of stuff. I recommend it highly, if only so that the next time someone comes out to you about anything at all, you’ll know the feeling of standing on that precipice, waiting to step off. You’ll know how important it is to put your arms out and catch.

I think we can all agree on the winner of last night’s first presidential debate:

Big Bird.

Seriously, more than the President’s apparent NyQuil mishap, or the former governor’s faulty truth software, or the tragic demise of both Jim Lehrer’s moderator cred and the formal debate format, it’s Romney’s comment about getting rid of Big Bird when he would defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that’s blown up my social media feeds today. If Joe Biden doesn’t say “Bin Laden is dead and Big Bird is alive!” at next Thursday’s veep debate, he’s missing a great opportunity.

But that got me thinking. We’re big PBS and NPR fans in the Banks household, and the way I see it, the takeover of the federal government by the combined talents of those two organizations could only improve life for us all.

So here’s my plan for the new, improved CPB American government: Calm, Patient, Brilliant.

THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH

I think a Garrison Keillor/Carl Kasell ticket is just the thing to bring dignity, truth, and mildly humorous storytelling to the White House. Martha the Talking Dog could bring a new articulateness to the role of First Dog, and fill in as White House Press Secretary whenever Peter Sagal needed a break.

The Cabinet is where my plan truly shines. The Dowager Countess is an obvious pick for Secretary of State, as is Wordgirl for Education. Bob Vila‘s got Housing and Urban Development covered, and Bill Moyers would make a strong, moral, incorruptible Attorney General. Clifford the Big Red Dog will advance a “speak softly and carry a big stick” policy in his Department of Defense. Ken Burns gets the Department of the Interior, with its oversight of national parks, monuments, and natural resources. Helen Mirren/Jane Tennyson would be a ferocious head of Homeland Security. Click and Clack should do nicely for Transportation, as would the Antiques Roadshow folks for Commerce and the Victory Garden people for Agriculture. Marketplace could manage both Treasury and Labor, and the Frontline reporters have been with the soldiers all the way through the last 10+ years of warfare, so they’d a natural pick for Veterans Affairs. Martin Clunes/Doc Martin is good for Health and Human Services, especially coming from National Health Service as he does. And let’s give the NOVA guys the Department of Energy–at least they don’t think the cast of Dinosaur Train are the only source out there.

THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH

My plan is beautiful in its simplicity for Congress. Over the years, I’d wager Masterpiece Mystery has killed off at least 541 people. If we include the perpetrators, that’s enough to field candidates for actual contested races in all those states and districts. For that matter, probably enough to completely staff the home and Washington offices.

Between the corpses and the criminals, we’ll achieve roughly the same levels of trust and productivity as the 112th Congress. And probably a better gender and minority balance.

THE JUDICIAL BRANCH

Sesame Workshop’s got this covered.

And, obviously, Nina Tottenberg continues to provide dramatic readings from the transcripts from this esteemed body.

A FEW LOOSE ENDS

The Yip-Yip Aliens can only improve the FCC. Sid the Science Kid might be a bit young for the CDC, but at least he won’t treat it like a faith-based department. Bob Ross, bless his soul, would’ve ruled as director of the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Cyberchase kids should be outstanding at all the electronic surveillance over in the CIA. Terry Gross is a relentless interrogator who could whip the FBI into shape in a heartbeat. And Congressional Budget Office’s reports might take a little longer with Count von Count at the helm, but the constant thunder will comfort everyone that he’s always hard at work. Neil deGrasse Tyson already should be the head of NASA, so that’s a no-brainer.

And Curious George would definitely be a pro-legalization Drug Czar.

The CPB government will eliminate all personal income taxes, but you’ll have to deal with Fall and Spring pledge drives. The guilt trips will be epic, but between Austin City Lights, The Mark Twain Prize, and This American Life, there’ll be some outstanding programming twice a year to get citizens to chip in their fair share.

I’m sure there are many positions I’ve forgotten, or other excellent candidate for the posts I’ve named, so feel free to suggest your own in comments.

Wouldn’t it be nice to finally have a government for 100 percent of America? And commercial-free, too.

I’ve been open about parts of my identity on this blog that I haven’t felt comfortable “coming out” about almost anywhere else in my life, certainly not all at the same time. And everyone’s been so wonderfully welcoming and encouraging–you’re only making my general lack of brain filter worse! But what I’m about to admit may bring down the flaming hordes of trolls upon me in force.

I’m not sure how to say this, so I’ll just come right out with it (like taking off a band-aid, right?)…

I don’t get fandom. I utterly fail to understand it, on both individual and sociological levels. I am a Bad Fan.

What do I mean by “fandom”? I’m talking about that state of being in which a person enjoys spending time thinking, talking, reading, gathering, and making things about a particular piece of intellectual property, beyond just the time spent engaging with that medium. Those properties might include books, movies, music, sports, collectors’ items, games (video and otherwise), crafts, hobbies, or pastimes.

I truly believe in the broadest, most inclusive definition of ideas such as “fan” and “geek,” and I think the cultural behaviors that characterize traditional “geek culture” appear in a lot more “non-geeky” domains than any of those enthusiasts would expect to find. I also don’t judge among the various sources or expressions of fandom–I’m an equalist in this, as in just about everything else. Don’t try to tell me someone’s doing it wrong, or that something doesn’t “really count.” That just doesn’t hold water with me.

Of course, this is not to say I don’t enjoy and get enthusiastic about things that give me intellectual, creative, or aesthetic pleasure. I clearly do–I’ve enthused about books and music and movies and games and a dozen other things, sometimes with the fervor of a revival-tent preacher. But there’s an uncloseable distance between where I am and the distant shore of fandom.

I love what these ladies created. I even know some of them. And I’d proudly wear one of these costumes. But I can’t imagine ever making one myself.

I am fundamentally boggled by fan behaviors. I don’t understand re-watching or re-reading for the purpose of picking apart, or putting together, or harvesting quotes, or answering questions. I’ve never felt the urge to search or contribute to a wiki, beyond the most basic of research needs. I probably wouldn’t have the patience to wait for hours on end for the chance to see someone I admire. I can’t imagine following a band, performer, author, or artist from tour date to tour date. If I have the occasion to meet one of the people or groups I truly enjoy, I get a little fluttery but I’m conversationally functional, and I’m interested in them as people, not as characters or icons. I love dressing up for the sake of dressing up, but I could never conscience spending the dozens of hours and hundreds (if not thousands!) of dollars it takes to make a quality cosplay costume. Even if I could, there’s no one person I identify with so strongly for whom I’d be willing to pass myself off as a decent representation (this also has a lot to do with the absence of plus-size role archetypes, and my unwillingness to be a “fat” so-and-so).

Like this, but much, much simpler

All of this makes me feel like I’m carrying a shameful secret when someone hails me as a geek. A big circle of the geeky Venn diagram overlaps with the fan circle, and geeks are often graded on their proofs of fan-level devotion. Like any outsider, I have ways of “passing.” I have an excellent memory, which helps, but nothing like my Darling Husband’s capacity for encyclopedic knowledge available for immediate recall. And, more importantly, I empathize and enthuse well. If you’re excited about something you’re sharing, I can be excited for you and with you, and for most people, that’s all the engagement they’re really looking for when they share their fandom. But I also use my abilities to divert conversation from minutiae I know/care nothing for, and when that fails, my considerable skill at turning into a mirror.

Occasionally, this also makes me a Bad Friend. People hear that Jim Butcher introduced me to the Darling Husband, and they immediately launch into deep machinations within the Dresden universe, leaving me far behind. I’ve played some of the games my friends have written or designed, but there are many more I’ve never had the pleasure of enjoying–hell, I haven’t even played Marvel Heroic Roleplaying yet. Many more of these paradoxes litter the landscape of my relationships, and they don’t mean a thing for my dedication to those loved ones. When they need me or something I can do to brighten their day or lighten their load, I am all in. But they’ll have to settle for a good friend, because I can’t be a good fan.

And this must also mean I’m a Bad Autistic. Aren’t all autistics supposed to perseverate, or focus to an uncommon extent on a very specific thing, to the exclusion of everything else? I certainly did so to a greater extent as a kid–I had books and books about the First Ladies and American History, and my very own Presidents of the United States trashcan. But there was never a world I fell into that I couldn’t fall right back out of when something else grabbed my interest. And I always preferred to make up my own stories and characters in my favorite settings, rather than retread the same classics over and over.

I’m not waiting for that evangelical moment, when I find something that “finally” turns me into a full-fledged fan. I don’t think it’s going to happen. If it hasn’t already, with the abundance of amazing media to which I’ve been exposed in my life, it seems unlikely that something so radically new will come along to change that. And most of the time, I’m not even looking for that experience. But I do steam up the window glass sometimes, peering in at all the people who seem to be getting so much more fulfillment from the things I merely enjoy. As I used to (and sometimes still) feel about the LGBT community, I’m a strong, vociferous ally and advocate to fandom, but I often feel I’m missing some extra dimension in life because of these limits to my senses, boundaries, or imagination.

So here I sit, on this awkward fence. I speak the language of fans, and I understand and appreciate their culture, but I can never fully participate. I’m far from a “fan widow”–I don’t reject or feel left behind by the enthusiasms of my friends and family. But I can’t understand prioritizing those things above more basic obligations and engagements. I can’t even really explain what I mean, and I’m worried this sounds condescending or judgmental. (If I have come off this way, please accept my apology and my vow that I intend neither of these things.)

I’m not sure what this coming-out story accomplishes, not the way I have with the others I’ve told. I still love the things I love, but I love them differently than so many of the other people in my life. Mostly, I hope this just explains why I never seem to get particularly flustered or anxious when everyone around me is freaking out about The Wait, or The Trailer, or The Leaked Detail, or The Brush With Fame. And I hope it doesn’t make anyone more hesitant to share their enthusiasm with me. Please know that it finds a safe, welcoming harbor with me, as do all the other pieces of you. Because what I’m really a fan of is people, in all their exuberant difference and intricate detail. That’s what I’m willing to invest in, and I don’t have to go to a con to wallow in the wonderful world that creates.

This post is going to be fast and messy, but it’s been a big week, and I feel like I need to get this out there for the people in my life who get news from this blog or care about the topic at hand.

The school year started for the boys on September 4, and it’s been a rocky start. Connor, our 10-year-old, liked his teacher, and was overjoyed to be back with his friends, but every day it’s been excruciatingly difficult to get him out the door, and now Griffin is putting up the same fight because he’s taking the cue from his brother that School Is To Be Avoided.

Connor’s still fenced in by extreme anxiety when it comes to math (despite his extraordinary abilities in the subject–at least in my case, the anxiety came from not being able to do it). We’ve established psychiatric care and a great therapist, but he hasn’t got into the real swing of things with them yet, with regular appointments and close monitoring. And while the partial hospitalization program in which he participated last spring has removed the immediate threat of suicide, he’s still emotionally volatile, though to a less extreme degree and in fewer instances than he was before we found a combination of medications that work well for him.

Through all this, we’ve always been able to answer quickly and honestly that Connor is not a danger to anyone but himself, except in the instance that a concerned adult might try to put him/herself in his way when he’s in full, physical meltdown mode. This week, that changed. For reasons we still don’t fully understand, he attacked one of his good friends in class, at the end of a short, incredibly fast series of misunderstandings, misinterpretations, frustrations, and other perfect-storm-like colliding factors. He put her in a chokehold, refused to let go, then flung her down to the floor, and bolted from the room.

He was immediately swamped with remorse, and he doesn’t fully remember the instance, a good indication that his emotions had completely derailed any kind of reason (from a previous post, the elephant was in full charge, and probably lost the rider entirely for a time). And as parents, the news that your child hurt and frightened another child is so close to the horror and anger and grief of your child being the object of such an incident. We all took word of his 3-day suspension without a word of protest.

But the school social worker indicated quite plainly that, while Connor has a safety plan in place to prevent meltdowns or self-harm, he had crossed beyond what they can reasonably be expected to accommodate. She told us that she could schedule a tour of the dedicated special education school in the district for later this week. We acquiesced, but I found myself immediately digging mental trenches for a long, difficult fight.

I had very clear expectations of what a move to this school would mean for my son. I expected the crowded, chaotic special ed classrooms I’ve seen in the schools I’ve attended and worked for. I expected lots of much more severely disabled or troubled kids, grouped together by age rather than ability level, each working with a teacher on everything from just holding a pencil to lessons well below their age level in difficulty. I expected to smell urine, to hear screams and overloud sounds. I expected to find a place that would be safety first, education a distant second, and the potential to crush my son’s soul. I expected to be told he would have to stay there for the rest of his education.

With thanks to the Saint Paul Public Schools and all the universal forces that watch over us, what we saw today at the RiverEast School couldn’t have been more different than what I expected to see. They’ve just expanded into more space, and the hallway with the fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms is open and peaceful. The classrooms had only three to five students in them; the class maximum is eight. They were uncluttered, functional, low-stimulation spaces, but brightly lit and well-equipped. Each room has a teacher, a paraprofessional, and a mental health specialist in them at all times. The kids were attentive to the lesson being taught at the front of the room, and nobody was telling them to stop moving in their own idiosyncratic rhythms of calming and self-stimulation.

I asked how they handled meds and meltdowns, and was satisfied with the answers. I asked if they offered gifted services. The program coordinator said no, but went on to explain that if Connor showed himself to be capable of working on sixth-grade math, they’d just move him up to the sixth-grade classroom for that subject, an accommodation that his regular school has never offered. She informed us that they use the same curricula as the rest of the district, which means that as they help him learn to work through his fears and anxieties about math, they’ll be helping him use the same curriculum his peers are using back at his regular school, so the transition back would be minimally disruptive. The reading curriculum is already determined by skill level, so he can work as far ahead as he is able.

Additionally, group and recreational therapy are a part of the everyday schedule, and their curriculum is responsive to the needs of the kids, so if there’s a particular issue that keeps coming up, they can spend some time working on that specific skill or emotion. And finally, the goal is to mainstream the kids back to their regular school as quickly as possible after reaching a stable, healthy, consistent level of self-management. This isn’t a warehouse for defective kids.

So we’re going to go along with this. I’m still feeling enormous guilt for not just taking on the task of homeschooling or any of the other, more parent-centered options. Heavens know I’m equipped to teach him, but our financial needs just don’t allow, and neither, frankly, do my own mental health needs. But of all the possible solutions to Connor’s emotional, intellectual, and physical needs, this one surprised me by being a real, humane, supportive option.

This isn’t the end of this story, by a long shot, but that’s where we are right now. Parents are never sure they’re doing the right thing by their kid; with special needs kids, that’s doubly so. But we can’t just stand still and wait for things to get better. We have to keep moving, and for now, this is the best direction we can find.

I haven’t done a Friday Night List in a while, mostly because when it’s summer break, Friday night’s no different than any other night. But now that we’re wrapping up the first week back to school, it’s a blessed relief for all of us to flick off the alarm for tomorrow morning, so I thought I’d celebrate.

NEWS ALERT: We are a family of gamers. Shocking, I know. But even more than it being both work and passion for the Darling Husband and me, gaming has become instrumental in our parenting and education styles. They’re fantastic ways to sneak math and reading into their intellectual diet, and kids’ll often tackle concepts far more complex than grade level eagerly to master new levels of success in the game.

And, possibly more importantly, they’re perfect rehearsal spaces for a variety of social skills that all kids need work on, not just kids on the autism spectrum. Games teach turn-taking, graceful winning/losing, flexibility at unpredictable change, calculated risk-taking, cooperation, and enjoyment of others’ enjoyment. Honestly, how many adults do you know who have all those mastered?!

So, here’s a list of what we most frequently play at home these days. It’s very, very far from complete, and there are a number of embarrassing omissions, most notably Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (the DH’s current sandbox) and Once Upon A Time (one of my company’s best kid-friendly games, gorgeous 3rd Edition due in October ). But good games rotate through our regular play schedule, and we’ve got a few great new ones on deck to try out too. Here’s what’s in demand at the moment:

1) GLOOM (Atlas Games): This one is evergreen for my kids. In Gloom by Keith Baker (art by Todd Remick), you’re in charge of a truly despicable family, and it’s your job to make them as miserable as possible before bumping them off in a horrible way. Meanwhile, you want to shower blessings and joy on your fellow players to prevent them from meeting the same fate. Up is down, and down is up, and kids positively cackle with delight when I moan and thrash and castigate them for something so repellent as a picnic in a park. Educational Skills: Positive and negative integers, and awesome new vocab like “consumption,” “dysentery,” and “chastised.” Social Skills: Turn-taking, cooperation/collaboration, winning/losing, strategy.

2) GET BIT (Mayday Games): A new favorite by developer Dave Chalker, the mechanics are very simple and attractive: You are one of a line of swimmers being chased by a shark. You have cards 1-7 which you play to determine each round’s race. The one left at the end of the line gets bit. The swimmer pieces have detachable body parts that give a satisfying LEGO-like snap when they come off, though the little pieces require kids to pay special attention during clean-up. Educational Skills: Probability, anatomy (?) Social Skills: Turn-taking, winning/losing, strategy.

3) WILDCRAFT! (LearningHerbs.com): I was attracted to this game by Kimberly and John Gallagher because it teaches kids to recognize common medicinal plants in nature and their uses, and I’m all about nature awareness for my kids. But the game mechanic is purely cooperative, and fosters truly collaborative game play toward the goal of getting everybody to and from the mulberry patch in the middle of forest in the time between sunup and sundown. Players draw Danger Cards for ailments like bee stings, fatigue, blisters, and sunburn, as well as plant cards; a system of symbols and detailed botanical drawings make the game playable even for pre-literate kids. And they collect Cooperation Cards that they can use to bring the last player up with them to get through the forest faster. Educational Skills: Plant recognition, herbal medicine. Social Skills: Turn-taking, cooperation/collaboration, strategy.

4) CASTLE PANIC (Fireside Games): In this game by Justin De Witt, players defend a castle in the center of a board shaped like a bullseye, which is accurate, because you’re under heavy siege by monsters of all kinds lurking in the forest around your keep. As the monsters advance on all sides, players cooperate to defend their walls. It’s largely hopeless, but it’s excellent fun to toss resource chips and skilled warriors back and forth and see how long you can hold out this time. Educational Skills: Um, trolls? Castle building? Social Skills: Cooperation/collaboration, strategy, graceful losing (not much winning).

5) LIGRETTO DICE (Playroom Entertainment): Otherwise known as “The Noisy Game” in our house, each player gets a cup full of six-sided dice of four different colors in this game by Inka and Markus Brand. You shake and dump them out, then race to put your dice on the board in ascending order in each color column. It’s a little bit Yahtzee, a little bit speed game. Adults might have to throw a few games ’til the kids get up to full speed, but once they climb the learning curve, it’s game on. Educational Skills: Numbers, colors, pattern recognition. Social Skills: Fast decision making, calculated risk-taking, winning/losing, strategy.

6) BLINK (Out of the Box Games): Another speed game (designed by Reinhard Staupe and artists John Kovalic, Ariel Laden, & Jurgen Martens)  in which players work through a deck of cards by add to two central piles by matching the number, color, or shape of symbols on the cards. Like the previous, adults may have to handicap themselves a bit at first with younger kids, but it’s great for preschoolers and remains challenging long after they’re literate. It’s also a good, portable game to keep handy for unexpected, open-ended waits (along with LCR). Educational Skills: Colors, numbers, pattern recognition. Social Skills: Fast decision making, winning/losing.

7) MUNCHKIN (Steve Jackson Games): There are so many variants that took off from the original dungeon-raider theme, designed by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Kovalic; our copies are Super Munchkin and Munchkin Axe Cop. You build a hero, outfit him with gadgets and armor befitting the theme, and go up against villains to win loot. Early in the game, you need more points than you probably have in your hero alone, so players need to negotiate with players to fight off high-value villains, but as players start getting their heroes close to their game-winning 10th Level, those team-ups start turning toward piling more villains on the frontrunner, forcing him to run away or lose valuable assets in battle. Educational Skills: Addition, greater than/less than comparison, reading. Social Skills: Turn-taking, strategy, cooperation/collaboration, calculated risk-taking, negotiation, winning/losing.

I’ve had a thousand things to say since Missouri Representative, and Senate candidate, Todd Akin opened his pie hole and let the crazy-ignorant cat out of the anti-choice bag. And I haven’t been quiet, but I try not to turn this exclusively into a current affairs blog. I am able to let an event pass without commenting on it. (Theoretically.)

I’m a rape survivor. It’s fairly common knowledge among those who know me, and I’m way past shame. It’s been more than 20 years now. It was a “legitimate rape,” even though I knew my rapist very well and I didn’t scream. I didn’t ask to be raped, even though I was dating my rapist, and I’d turned down a ride home earlier in the night. I didn’t get pregnant, not because I was a virgin or because my body “shut that whole thing down.” I didn’t report my rape, not because I knew it was my fault, but because I needed to survive a whole year with him in my small school, in a small town.

You never forget that part of yourself, and you can’t run away from it. My freshman year of college, I started doing strange things (stranger than usual, I should specify). I became physically self-destructive–I stopped eating for the most part, and I exercised to the point of foundering. I had nightmares every time I fell asleep. On winter break, I finally told my parents what had happened. My dad arranged a meeting with one of his former students, whom he knew had also survived an acquaintance rape. She said it would never go away, but like a piece of paper, time would fold and fold again what seemed massive right then, and while I’d always have that little square to carry around, it wouldn’t fill my world forever.

I went to counseling at Rape Victim Support Services when I returned to school, and found out I had textbook Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The only uncharacteristic thing about it was that I’d successfully suppressed it for so long, until I was somewhere it was “safe” for it to emerge. After I completed the program, I went back to the crisis center that facilitates RVSS’ services, and trained to be a counselor as well. I found community, and understanding, and purpose, as well as a set of skills that I use every single day. Most of the time, all this feels a very long time ago. Almost no scars remain that haven’t turned into the roots I feel unequivocally positive about.

But what started as anger has become strength and a fierce insistence on the truth. So when a long-time acquaintance said there were “worse ways for [rape] to happen,” I responded with a vehemence that surprised me. And when the Independence Party candidate for the 4th Congressional District said, in a live MPR debate I attended Tuesday at the MN State Fair, that there are “many, many different kinds of rape,” many which women claim just to get the abortions “they’re giving out all over the place,” I barely managed to keep my seat, channeling the rush of ferocity into shouts of disagreement and chants of “Rape is rape!” that you can hear on the broadcast recording. And when I arrived at a friend’s house mere minutes after she got the news that her gay son had been raped yesterday, I let Emergency Lass take over and stand by her, helping her think clearly when she was in shock. My own tears and shaking came later; only hugging my sons eased them at all.

Don’t write Todd Akin and his kind off. He’s not a fringe wingnut–he’s the six-term Congressional Representative for his district, and until he accidentally said exactly what he believes on tape, he was leading his opponent, Senator Claire McCaskill, in every poll. I know people who claim pregnancy is a sign the rape wasn’t that violent or unpleasant. I know people who reject the CDC estimate of 32,000 rape-induced pregnancies in the U.S. last year. I know more people than I’d like to think of who think that, in some cases, at least one victim had to have, on some level, wanted it, to take the chances they took.

Please, spread the word: There is nothing you can do that means you were asking to be raped. There is no involuntary physical response that means you deserved or wanted it. There is no kind of rape that’s more or less horrific than another. Virgins get raped. Married people get raped, sometimes by their own partners. People who only go out in groups get raped. Men get raped. Gay people get raped. Mothers, sisters, and daughters get raped. Friends get raped.

Not one of them wanted it. Not one of them deserved it. Not one of them should be doubted or taken less than seriously. Not one of them should think they’re alone. Not one of them will ever forget what happened to them. Rape is rape. It’s not a sexual act–it’s an act of power. Rape is terrorism of the most personal kind imaginable. Don’t settle for anything less than that full truth.