A hodgepodge of links that’ve caught my eye.

Help my favorite NC chefs:

Longtime readers of this blog know how much I adored my visit to stone circles at The Stone House, a retreat space (and so much more) in Mebane, NC. When I rave about my experience there, the food is always front and center. I even had the chance to serve as a recipe tester for their forthcoming cookbook!

Now my friends there are down to the wire, with just 37 hours left in their fundraising campaign to build a new, state-of-the-art kitchen. As my friend Heidi eloquently put it:

The kitchen, as it exists, has nourished my body, spirit, mind and heart. If that matters to you, give, even $1. The kitchen as it WILL exist will be able to do that for SO many more people. I know there are a lot of places to put your money, please consider this a GREAT one. Thanks!

Here’s the link to their indiegogo campaign. Thanks for considering this!

Speaking of food…

Things I did not eat in Boston this weekend but have enjoyed in the past: 

• Anything at Myers + Chang (spicy beef! Five-spice chocolate mousse!). Everything I ever tried at Sofra. Ditto Clear Flour. And Toscanini’s.

Thing I did not eat in Boston but will seek out in the future: 

• Banana breakfast sandwich at Mike and Patty’s, on Lisa J’s recommendation.

Thing you should do sometime if you find yourself in Salem, Massachusetts: 

• Peabody Essex Museum. If marriage is your thing, you could also make like my friends Erika and Nick and have a really spectacular wedding there.

But back in Chicago…

• I recently received tickets to By the Way, Meet Vera Stark at the Goodman, and liked it so much. You know the drill: if you see it, please tell me so we can debrief.
• I worked from this space recently. This Yelp review is on point.

Other things happening soon in cities I love: 

• NYC, June 30 – Cathy‘s big reveal of The Love Letters Project
• Los Angeles, all month – my sister’s Fringe debut in a funny musical

Other lists of links, if this is your jam: 

• TheLi.st archives
• Dining and Opining’s May Link Favorites

Request for links: 

What is the best piece you’ve read, or thing you’ve seen, about what’s going down in Turkey?

Thanks for reading! I’d serve you all a slice of stone circles fig cheesecake if I could.
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All photos were taken at stone circles in August 2011. 

• Is PTSD Contagious?, Mac McClelland/Mother Jones

• 9-year-old Chicago activist saves school, dreams big, Meredith Clark/MSNBC; watch the quick segment from yesterday’s Melissa Harris-Perry show

• The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss, Liza Mundy/The Atlantic

• America’s Most Colorful Congresswoman: Kyrsten Sinema, Ann Friedman/Elle

• Cleared of charges after explosion, Florida teen gets full scholarship to space academy, Jen Hayden/Daily Kos; if you weren’t following this story, read this first

Eats:

• For a cookout, I endorse these Sesame Noodles—which I made without the Szechuan peppercorns because we didn’t have them—and amarula dom pedros (or just pour amarula on vanilla ice cream).

• Also, Indian-style corn on the cob: Go to an Indian grocery store. Buy one small box of Kashmiri Mirch red chili powder and another of Chunky Chat masala. When BBQ day rolls around, grill your corn, cut up some lemons, and put out plates of salt, masala, and chili powder. Have everyone dip a piece of lemon in each of the seasonings, then rub the spicy lemon all over the corn. Feel alive at the slight burning sensation on your lips and enjoy the best sweet-salty-sour combo ever.

Similar corn (with Yum’s family years ago)

Adventures: 

• I’m seeing Beth Urech’s one-woman show ActYourAge! at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art here in Chicago the weekend after next. Wanna come? Her tagline is “sixty minutes with a 72-year-old” so the answer is automatically yes. (Full disclosure: Beth has hired me to help promote these performances.)

• June 29, the amazing Gloria of Next Big Thing is hosting a big ol’ Chicago scavenger hunt.

• In LA? My sister is making her Los Angeles Fringe debut in the upcoming The Real Housekeepers of Studio City, “an original one-act musical guaranteed to make you tap your toes (and tap into your TV nostalgia!),” June 9-28 at Theatre Asylum.

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Have a great week! What are you reading/eating/doing that I should try, too?

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Photo: Fourth of July 2009 because I barely picked up the camera this weekend. New summer goal: take five pictures I love before Labor Day. And I can’t just love them because they include people I love.

I brought you these.

Some things that caught my eye recently, in no particular order:

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From How to Be a Good Ally (Colorlines):

“’The job of a good ally is not to save anybody but rather to help create the conditions under which people can assert and grow their own power,’ said Rinku Sen, President and Executive Director of The Applied Research Center.”

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From What are you here to teach? (Tara Sophia Mohr):

Tara: I have a dream to teach x. How do I know if I’m ready, qualified, to teach that subject?

Jen: You are never ready. Ready comes from teaching, from being in the transformational conversation itself, from being a humble teacher/student–so skip asking if you are ready to teach. It’s not a useful question.

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Recipes I endorse:

• With all of the fixins (in my case, Sriracha, lemon, and feta), I couldn’t stop eating this stuff.
• In good times, in bad times, these salted peanut butter cookies will be by my side forevermore. I’ve made them several times and while they’re excellent as written, I can attest that all-purpose flour is fine; regular chocolate chips are fine; a mix of natural peanut butter and more processed stuff works out fine. I always freeze the batter before baking and watch my oven starting at about the 11 minute mark.
• This salad is extremely delicious. And while I completely love and endorse farmers’ markets and would love to live a full-on locavore diet…I do not live in the LA paradise this blogger does. It’s still attention-grabbing with produce fetched at a Midwestern grocery store.

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Two takes on The Mindy Project as the first season wraps: one Crunk Feminist eeshap says she won’t watch the show anymore; Rachel Sklar offers a more Pollyanna take.

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In Chicago and itching for some escapism?

• I almost couldn’t stand up after Head of Passes at Steppenwolf. Beautiful performances, beautiful design and direction, big questions about faith.
• Thanks to some generous friends, I finally saw The Book of Mormon. My experience: laugh hard; hope we were all laughing for the same reasons; worry that was not true; repeat. Would love to debrief with anyone who’s seen it.
• The 2013 Dionysus Cup Festival of New Plays is happening this weekend and next. If you like seeing new plays while they’re in development and participating in the democratic process, this is a steal. See one staged reading and enjoy a talk-back with the playwright and cast and know that your feedback might actually shape a new play. Or see two or more readings—an unlimited pass is just $10—and you can vote for your favorite to win the Cup (and cross your fingers that Polarity Ensemble Theatre might mount a full production).
• In April I performed at the Park West (what?!). You can too! Last info session for the next Fear Experiment is next week. You can be a stepping or a cappella star. No, really, you can.

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Coolest job spotted this week: Rookie is hiring a full-time editor.

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This link roundup owes love to The Ann Friedman Weekly and Saya Hillman’s Smatterings, both of which I relish on the regular. Should I do more of these?

Photo above: Bouquet from Saipua in Brooklyn, spring 2011, 35mm.

Thanks
by W.S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

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Photo: Jan. 2010

Wedding rings by Rebecca Zemans.

Like many of you, I woke up yesterday morning to find my Facebook news feed a sea of red equal signs. By 9 a.m., 26 friends had changed their profile picture to the tweaked Human Rights Campaign logo to show their support for marriage equality as the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments; I can’t justify the time it would take now to calculate how many times that number has multiplied.

I also woke up to a notification in my inbox: “You’ve been tagged in five photos.” I knew without clicking that the images would feature me in one of two outfits: a spangly red-and-gold Gujurati lengha, or a short white dress with an illusion neckline and scalloped hem. Yes, I just got married.

[Privilege check #1: I was able to do this in the first place, legally and financially.]

And now the incredibly loving people who witnessed it aren’t hesitating to share photos online.

[Privilege check #2: Having photos of us and our wedding tagged online poses no threat to our jobs or safety.]

All this love-for-love on Facebook is jumbled up in my head, along with:

• the inevitable and innumerable parodies of and twists on the red equal sign (see Anna’s roundup)
• a few friends’  “assimilation does not equal liberation!” posts, this Beyond Gay Marriage post published on UrbanHabitat in 2010, and these resources, filed under “Marriage is the Wrong Goal“
• various things I’ve read about the HRC, including this recent “Friend or Foe?” post on The L Stop and this older one from TransGriot called “Why the Transgender Community Hates the HRC”
• and, in a way, with the loss of a dear friend this past weekend, a true civil rights leader who would have had far more eloquent things to say about SCOTUS and marriage than I do.

What follows is an attempt to untangle some of my thoughts. It might belong in my journal instead of online. But if you make it through, I would love to hear what you think and to know what else you’ve been reading that might help me make sense of things and be a good advocate and activist and ally – who happens to be married now.

Two weeks after my wedding, I’m sleeping better than I have in months. I wouldn’t wish insomnia on anyone, but I do believe everyone should have the choice to be a Wedding Planning Survivor. To get a crash course in event planning whether he has experience with it or not; to realize she’s losing sleep over small things; to be reminded constantly that she can’t please everyone; to weigh his outrage at the Wedding Industrial Complex against, um, his desire to own those awesome shoes or make “just one more trip” to the craft store…And to agonize over what for me was the hardest part of the whole process: deciding, within financial and space constraints, who to invite and not invite.

Because that’s the thing. Whether you choose to have a gigantic, state-recognized affair with a sea of people who crouch down and whisper “a little bit softer now” when “Shout” comes on, or you opt for a tiny ceremony in a courthouse where six treasured people witness your vows, or you throw a “partnership party” celebrating your commitment but skipping out on the marriage piece altogether…the thing about these monogamous-relationship-celebrating events is that—at least in my country and culture—they are a rare time, if not the only time, when people from all the different corners of your world can collide so dramatically in a way that you design.

That part boggled my mind all through the planning process: “That friend is finally going to get to meet my grandparents?” There were countless introductions I wanted to make between our families, mentors, and friends that night. I was a little unrealistic about the time I’d have to devote to facilitating these. But so many happened that I couldn’t have even anticipated. I’m still hearing from people about the connections they made: my cousin is singing the praises of my 826DC co-founder; my parents’ neighbor loved hearing my uncle’s jokes.

We just don’t get to create enough spaces like this. We can host dinner parties and convene retreats. We can plan family reunions and we can outline how we hope our funerals will go. We can think outside the box ike my friend Emily, who’s planning a 30th birthday conference, or like my friends at Everybody’s Invited!, who create events and moments full of play, surprise, and adventure.

But considering geography, money, and culture, I have no expectation that there will ever be another day in my life when that many people I know and love—who represent larger communities I know and love—will be under one roof. And I really think gatherings like that can be magical and (yes, I’m going to go there) can change the world a little bit.

Via Facebook I learn that my young cousin tried Indian food for the first time and was surprised how much he liked it. I see pictures of my dad’s sister from Montana laughing hysterically at my mom’s Pittsburgh nephews’ jokes. Here are my best friends from study abroad dancing next to a group of A’s comrades from grad school. There I am talking with my father-in-law’s old friend, the one who picked him up from the airport the day he arrived in this country.

And here are some of my extended family members who might otherwise crack gay jokes without thinking about it, sitting one table away from some of my friends who happen to be gay. They’re watching those friends play a role in my ceremony. They’re wobbling with them on the dance floor.

[Privilege check #3: Those photos exist. All of those people trusted us and our families enough to come together. Privilege check #4: though not all were U.S. citizens as of the wedding day, everyone from “my side” felt safe and financially able enough to make the trip. I’m losing track of my privilege checks here. Which is...a privilege! META.]

But it’s so much more than the photos. I signed up for marriage and was rewarded with 1,138 federal rights. Guess who else should have those rights? My wedding guests who aren’t into marriage. My wedding guests who do want to get married but can’t in their home state. My friends and family who are defining “family” in all sorts of ways.

While I believe that everyone who wants to get married should be able to do so, I also recognize that committing to life with one partner is just one way we humans express love (or, shall we say, organize ourselves – since love is not a requirement for marriage). It’s not the end goal when it comes to achieving full social and legal equality for people who are “LGBTQ” or to respecting all families.

I want to live in a world where the GetEQUAL and COLAGE logos are as widely recognized as the Human Rights Campaign’s, or maybe one where those organizations don’t need to exist.

So I liked seeing the tweaked versions of the logo that have popped up since yesterday morning. And I liked this post from Spectra Speaks:

Will middle class gay white people finally face queer youth (of color) homelessness? Will male-identified LGBT activists ever prioritize addressing homophobic violence against women? What about the unjust incarceration of sex workers (many of who are part of the trans and undocumented community)? Will the marriage equality movement fight this hard, and this long for immigration reform, which affects binational couples and multi-status families like mine? I want equality for everyone. A favorable outcome today will get us closer to that, but I encourage everyone to make commitments (now) to continue fighting for those who have been marginalized by the LGBT movement long after we’re done celebrating.

And this blog post, The Future Bride Onesie is Coming for Your Children, that Andrea Grimes published on The Frisky today:

Being married — more than being partnered — is about being seen. By your family, by your friends, by your government, by your culture. Marriage is a validation. Marriage is arrival. Marriage is acknowledgment. Marriage is citizenship.

…I am all for same-sex marriage. But I understand it as welcoming more people into a conservative institution that exists largely to confer citizenship and social validation on certain groups of people. As a result, I am both for same-sex marriage (and all marriage), because I appreciate the cultural and social benefits of establishing family support networks, and against same-sex marriage (and all marriage) because I don’t see any logic in only allowing two people with pants-feelings for each other to legally define their families.

…And this tweet from Feminist Hulk:

twitter.com/feministhulk

Because I do care about marriage equality. But I also know it’s not the only fight. It’s ONE star—one very rights-laden star—in a constellation of civil rights and human rights victories I want to see in my lifetime.

And while we’re stargazing, I want to live in a world where anyone, flying solo or paired or grouped up, can bring together all the people they love, in honor of whatever milestone they want—a birthday or a family event or a regular old Tuesday—and dance and eat cake and feel such pure love and support beamed upon them as A and I did last weekend.

And I want to hear your thoughts. Please share them below. If you’ve made it this far, thank you.

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Photos in this post: 35MM, March 2013.

That was…measured. If I met my college friends today I would have ENORMOUS friend crushes on them. I might even be so intimidated—by their smarts, by their style, certainly by the geographic distance between most of us—that I’d never act on it. Thank goodness we met more than a decade ago!

A couple of weeks ago I started corresponding with a pen pal at a local elementary school. She wrote the questions below in italics. Underneath them are my answers tonight when I think about my college people:

Yes, I do. Like Beyonce, “I need my sisters.”

Oscar Night leave a bad (Oniony) taste in your mouth? Read, tweet, favorite, and share the Crunk Feminists’ Love Letter to Quvenzhané Wallis.

Want to write a love letter yourself? Check out The Love Letters Project, spearheaded by the luminous Cathy Wasserman.

And speaking of love letters, this article Trish wrote is a loving ode to (many more than) four inspiring people: A Field Guide for Recognizing Millennial Leadership.

Mulled these over and still feeling down? Consider Hannah’s tips for upping your “happiness set point.”

Or, on a very different note, read How to Bring Back the Dead, a beautiful piece my friend Timothy Colman wrote for his dad, and feel grateful for the people you love.

Thanks for supporting my friends (2, 3, 4, and 5 above) and some media-makers I admire (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5).

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Photo: Baltimore, MD, Nov. 2012

“Shared is better than perfect.” – Lisa Silverberg

Right on. In that spirit, here’s a quick, imperfect roundup of some of the things that’ve been keeping me busy in these early days of 2013:

I signed a yearlong contract with NTEN. Over the coming year, I will explore the ergonomic pros and cons of my “home office” furniture (aka the couch vs. the dining room table), enjoy my walk-down-the-hallway “commute,” and learn a LOT while I support the Nonprofit Technology Network’s Communities of Practice and Communities of Impact programs. My official title is Community Project Manager. It’s not-quite-full-time, which is perfect because it’s meant…

I’ve continued freelancing as a writer, editor, and workshop facilitator. I helped some organizations write year-end fundraising appeals; researched and drafted an original article for another; and most recently, I designed two workshops—one on leadership, one on purposeful career paths—and traveled to a conference in Berkeley, CA to facilitate them for 50+ energetic college students and recent alums.

I owe huge thanks to my friend Annie Lumerman of Generate Change for connecting me to that last opportunity. Putting the workshops together was a really fun excuse to both revisit some of my “old standby” resources (like the Idealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers and the Bonner Network training templates and the New Organizing Institute toolbox) and also test out some new ideas – in one session, I had a mini FailFaire and several students got up to share their “fails” with bravery and humor! And speaking of bravery and humor…

I’m learning how to do barrel rolls, y’all! Two nights a week I am stretching and laughing and attempting to dance with a bunch of other self-described “non-dancers” as part of Fear Experiment. If you’re in Chicago, you can come witness our public performance one night only; click here and scroll all the way down to buy tickets.

Of course, a lot of other things have been happening, from the light (including attending a live taping of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me) to the very heavy and sad (some people I love have been grieving sudden, terrible deaths of people they loved). And of course there are a lot of hanging threads from 2012 that I want to tie up – including imperfect, unfinished blog posts with more Copenhagen wedding photos, more Sandy relief opportunities, and just…more.

But two of my friends and I got together right after New Year’s to make vision boards, and I’m finding that that single afternoon of reflection and collage-making with them helped me to feel grounded and as prepared as I can be in the middle of all of these events and intentions. Sharing is better than perfect indeed.

I hope you all are feeling optimistic about 2013, or at least fired up and ready to go. Let me know if you want to collaborate on anything.

Tonight I went to hear three of my little cousins sing with their church choir. I liked the benediction, the message offered by the pastor at the end of the service. “It seems that every year, our wish as we go forth from this service is for peace,” he said. “Peace in Syria. Peace in Jerusalem. Peace in Kabul.” He named many more countries and cities, stopping after “Peace in Newtown, Connecticut. Peace in Washington, DC.”

“The deep peace of the silent stars to you,” he said. “The deep peace of the rolling waves to you.”

And to all of you.

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Photo: Deep Creek Lake, MD, July 2010, with thanks to my super sparkler-wielding cousins.

From the “rounding up 2012″ files.

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Photos: 35 mm film, August 2012, NYC.