Merry Christmas,  y’all!

AN OPEN LETTER TO STEVEN MOFFAT

Dear Mr. Moffat,

Thank you for not sucking. Series Five of DOCTOR WHO was brilliant. I’m eagerly awaiting  the Christmas special.  I’m even going to keep an open mind about the shark.  A very open mind.  Because….really? A shark?  I’m sure there’s a plausible explanation. I’m sure of it. Open mind.

Series Six can’t come soon enough. Thanks for helping me love DOCTOR WHO again.

Brian

If you get this and laugh out loud like you’re supposed to, you’re my new best friend.

Hint:  The shaggy haired one is Neil Gaiman.

My friend Grimm will appreciate the irony of me posting this. But even I can admire how truly awesome this is.

Wow. All the busy stuff was supposed to stop after October. When did all the busy stuff come back?

Some odds and ends:

–Ridiculously excited about the upcoming DOCTOR WHO Christmas special. REE-DEEK-YOO-LUSS!

–Also on tenterhooks for series 6 of DW.  The leaks about what’s ahead are intriguing. Can’t wait for the Neil Gaiman episode.

–Got an ARC of CHASERS.  Very surreal. Very, very surreal.

–As I’ll soon have to be shilling my book, I’ve started…. Oh, God, I can barely say it.  I’ve started…. tweeting. You can follow me if you want. (Ugh, I feel so dirty.)

–Still no Facebook page.  I’ll go down kicking and screaming first.

–Saw TANGLED. Loved it. Saw HP7. Loved it. (Had minor issues–will they explain the mirror shard in the second part or simply try the Jedi mind trick: “You don’t need to know where he got the shard from or what it represents…”)

–Hope to have some fun news to share by the end of the year.

–Currently reading THE RING OF SOLOMON, the new Bartimaeus novel.  It’s official. Jonathan Stroud can do no wrong.

–Sad to hear of the passing of Leslie Nielsen. This blog was named for AIRPLANE!  Surely you can see he’s been in my thoughts….

–It’s that time of year again! Time to Hanukkvetch!

Finally!  A few pix from the wedding. It was a wonderful day, all things considered. Great weather, lots of love and support from friends and family….

Promise that wedding pics are coming. This  October’s been the craziest month of my life.  (Yes, honey, I know it’s my own fault for scheduling the KidlitCon the same month as our wedding.)

For now, I love this. A lot.

Pictures forthcoming.

This has got to stop.

This. Has got. To stop.

In the past month, five gay teens have killed themselves. That we know of. Five cases where the torment inflicted on them just because of their sexuality proved far too much to take.  That’s just last month, nationwide. In Minnesota over the past year, possibly as many as another five gay teens killed themselves in  harassment related incidents.  Many of which occurred in the Anoka-Hennepin County school district where school officials have asked teachers to turn a blind eye to homophobia.

Don’t believe me? This is what the district spokeswoman, Mary Olson, had to say.

“It’s very difficult. We have a community that has widely varying opinions, and so to respect all families, as the policy says, we ask teachers to remain neutral.”

Ignoring harassment isn’t “respecting all families.”  It’s not even acknowledging those widely varying opinions. It’s turning sycophant for the ultra-conservative members of the community who have ONE opinion.  An opinion that promotes hatred and violence.

Every day the homosexual community is denied the right to marry, the right to serve openly in the armed forces, the right to live and work in an environment safe from harassment, is a day that the message is sent that it’s all right to torment and oppress. I can’t imagine how hard things are for my future brother-in-law. He and his partner are raising two girls. The message those girls get every day from within the home is to love others, to respect differences, and to honor everyone as humans. But the message these girls get via any exposure to the media or any conservative soapbox is that their fathers are in some way inferior to everyone else. That their fathers are to be hated and spurned. I can only hope that the message from home is the one that rings truest. Because the messages from the outside are louder and more prevalent.

Kids are dying. Kids who’ve been told they’re not as good as everyone else are not able to deal with that fact and they’re killing themselves.  And the majority of the population allows this to happen. Sanctions it.

Please consider supporting the Trevor project, a 24 hour hotline for LGBT youth who need someone to talk to. 866-488-7386.  If you’re gay, consider making a video for Dan Savage’s It Gets Better project. Because, basically, we have to look out for our own. That’s what our government has told us.  Change isn’t coming from Washington. It’s gotta come from us.

UPDATE: More organizations dedicated to helping LGBT and/or bullied youth, courtesy of Ellen DeGeneres–http://ellen.warnerbros.com/2010/09/resources_to_help_stop_bullying_0930.php