Tonight the cable channel WE (Womens Entertainment Network) showed an episode of their regular show Secret Lives of Women - an episode about women who are married to crossdressers. I was interviewed for the show but we decided Betty and I were too “out” to really be classified as “secret” anymore. I was happy to hear that Peggy Rudd would be on, instead.

That said, the show did recommend My Husband Betty (along with Peggy’s books) as further reading. But, it looks like something has gone haywire, since the amazon.com links for My Husband Betty and for Peggy’s books are super-wonky.

If anyone who saw the show found this site as a result, you can still get My Husband Betty at Barnes & Noble online, or at Powells.com, another online bookstore, and I’m sure amazon.com will figure it out shortly.

If you did come here as a result of the show, do look around. There’s a selection of things I’ve written for the blog about relationships vis a vis crossdressing/trans issues, and of course there is a forum just for partners on our message boards.

The boards are back up.

However, during this last tech ‘vacation’ from the boards I’ve realized that I’m just burnt out on moderating them. Although I’m putting them back up, I won’t be as actively involved in running them anymore. Mostly I will be posting on my blog, instead. I am inviting a few new people to become moderators, as well.

I will still be in the background, of course, and would love it if people would flag me when things get difficult. That is, if you want the boards to continue to be interesting & intelligent, do remember to let me know when something has gone a little ‘funny’ so that I can intervene before too many feelings are hurt.

Otherwise, thank you all for participating, and enjoy them!

There have been two recent break-ups (three, if you count Chrissy’s recent news) on the MHB message boards, which I’m sure have left a lot of people who read/post on them a little less than optimistic. Unfortunately, two other couples we know are probably on the verge of splitting. Unfortunately, breakups are very regular news for us.

It’s one of the downfalls of the trans community, and one of the reasons I find it hard to extend myself to partners, especially. The trans person remains trans - and after a break, often returns to the community. (Lots of trans people only find the community after the breakup of a relationship, as well.) But the partner is free, of course, to go on their way - and leave all this stuff behind, which is what they usually do. I’ve invested in so many partners who became friends, who after a while of trying to keep in touch, faded out of my life after fading out of their tranny’s.

But the good thing is that very often both parties find some kind of happiness with other people, after a time. Some days it can seem that the statistics are very, very bad specifically for us, but it is still true that half of all marriages dissolve, not just trans ones.

A longitudinal study of marriage find that the happiness people experience with marriage dips after the “I do” and for four years after that, then plateaus until years 8-10 (the so-called “seven year itch”). Not good news, but still it’s better knowing than having something like that bite you in the ass, right? And the message couldn’t be better timed, for me, since Betty and I will be celebrating our 8th anniversary this April (and our 5th wedding anniversary this July).

I especially liked this bit:

”Research shows it’s not how much you love each other that predicts the success of a marriage, but how you handle the problems that come along in life,” he said. ”Happily married couples view problems as ‘us against the problem.’ They identify themselves as a team.”

Which for me is very fitting for those of us dealing with transness, and which, to beat a dead horse, is another good reason for the trans person not to refer to it as a “gift” - especially if that’s not the way the partner feels about it. A difference of opinion, in this case, might rob a couple of one type of comraderie that they might really, really need.

But in the meantime, I’d love to have a bunch of you post here with how long you & your partner have been together, to give some of the folks out there a glimmer of much-needed hope.

For us, eight years and counting. You?

All of the parts of this website are functioning normally again, so you don’t need your special bookmarks to access the boards or my blog anymore. FYI.

Welcome to the redesign of the Boards!

As we all know, a tone of crankiness had overtaken the boards and eventually caused us to close them down.

While they were shut down, we did some research, thought about the community we wanted, the community we had, and tried to figure out a way to introduce some elements that would tip the balance back toward where we wanted it.

Some of you will find yourselves on moderation - on the premise that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. In order to keep the spirit of the change, we thought we’d help it along by keeping some of you from taking your first steps publicly. Moderation is not meant to be permanent as people get used to the new rules and the jist of the redesign.

I. Trans Discussion & Community

So what have we done? We created a forum specifically for theoretical discussion called 1) THE IVORY TOWER. The experience of The Thread That Shall Not Be Named made me aware that I needed a place to work this stuff out - and others did as well. The intellectual enquiry that happened in that thread was valuable despite it being personally and emotionally painful, too. So we’ve created The Ivory Tower - a place where intellectual enquiry and hard questions can happen without restraint. This does not mean it’s open to flame wars; I still expect people to be polite and respectful of each other’s opinions, and to argue a point with evidence and thoughtfulness, and to agree to disagree when there’s no concensus.

But I want to emphasize that complaints about people’s feelings being hurt will not be recognized as ‘legit’ in that forum. If you are sensitive about trans or gender questions, YOU SHOULD’T READ THAT FORUM. If you do anyway, that is only your own issue, and your own problem.

That said, we’ve also introduced the 2) COMMUNITY & SUPPORT forum, which is intended to be a place for people to share their experiences and thoughts as trans, to seek advice, help, or encouragement from others on the boards, and where emotions will be honored above all else. It is not even intended as a ‘kinder, gentler’ version of The Ivory Tower forum, but something altogether different in tone and intent.

I’ve also introduced a special forum for people to discuss 3) RELATIONSHIPS. Trans people or partners, people wanting to be in relationships or in them can talk here about real world issues concerning partnership in the context of transness. This forum is intended to be a gentle forum, but not without critique; relationships require brutal honesty and so will a forum to discuss them. Still, respect for others’ experiences, feelings, opinions and thoughts will be required.

I’ve also added a sub-forum specifically for those with 4) KIDS, as resources on being a parent & trans are few & far between; I thought we might start compiling useful information about this subject so that others won’t have to look as hard.

There is also a 5) GENERAL TRANS TOPICS forum for subjects that aren’t well suited to either theoretical or personal treatments. This is the remainder of the forumer TG Discussion forum - what wasn’t weeded into new/other forums in the re-design. It will work, I think, as a good default forum - if you don’t know where to put something.

I have sorted a bunch of the threads that were formerly in the TG DISCUSSION forum into the new threads to give people a sense of what should go in them, but feel free to ask questions.

6) SEX & SENSIBILITY required no changes. It is what it is.

II. Partners

Likewise with the 7) PARTNERS’ CORNER, which is still what it’s always been: a place for partners to discuss whatever issues they’d like to without interference or argument from trans folks.

III. Resources

The NEWS forum is still for articles of interest to the larger GLBT community.

9) HELEN & BETTY NEWS is now a sub-forum of NEWS, and is the only forum I lost while moving things around! So its history is gone, though I’m sure I’ll have other things to post there. It may turn out I’ll only be using my blog for our news, and I’ve really enjoyed having some MHB boarders actually post comments on my blog, instead. (So keep that up, she says hopefully.)

10) MEDIA, CULTURE & REVIEWS is a place for us to talk about movies (trans or not), tv shows, magazines, plays, & any other cultural stuff we come across and want to talk about.

The 11) READER’S CHAIR is a sub-forum in it, and just as it was before. All things literary - book reviews, interviews with authors, the writing life, poetry - are welcome here.

The 12) BULLETIN BOARD is still the place to post announcements, events, or other things of interest to people who read the boards.

IV. The Lighter Side

The next big change is another category: THE LIGHTER SIDE. One of the things I felt we were missing - or that was only suggested by the existence of the former “ETC” forum - was somewhere to kick back. Consider it MHB’s bar or an afternoon party.

13) APPEARANCES is all about that: beauty, hair, hair removal, nails, fashion, clothes, body image, weight loss, and grooming. Oh, and shoes. Previously it felt like people were apologetic for posting anything about fashion, and I wanted to acknowledge that smart folks worry about how they look, too. That doesn’t exclude intelligent, critical conversations about gender presentation and body image, of course, but consider this forum my gift to the fashionistas of the boards.

14) MEETINGS & GREETINGS is where we all get to wait for the train together, talk about the wife, the weather, who’s going to the doctor on Tuesday & for what. It can be goofy or serious, and it will be important here to try to indicate what the poster wants out of a thread - if advice, or solace, or humor to make you feel better. In a sense, MEETINGS & GREETINGS is our chat in 24/7 format.

15) THE WATER COOLER / ETC covers all the rest: the goofy threads, the news articles that don’t belong elsewhere, light conversation about culture & politics. Or for stuff that really just doesn’t ‘fit’ anywhere else.

V. Help with These Boards

Finally, there’s 16) TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES which is mostly what it was before: a place to ask questions about how the boards work, to look at when you can’t figure out how to do some neat trick like posting a photo or getting an avatar. That said, here’s the only change: META DISCUSSIONS about how the boards work, or don’t work, are not to happen in this forum. They are not supposed to happen anywhere *publicly* unless & until Betty and I request advice from you all. Why? 1) Because this is a thankless enough job as it is without someone introducing the idea that it’s time to voice all grievances, and 2) Because too many old wounds get brought up in threads like that. However, - and this is important!! - anyone is free to email me or Betty or Caprice with 1) problems with another poster, 2) inappropriate posts (either by subject or tone), and 3) general suggestions about the running of the boards. I don’t want to have these conversations publicly because they become pile-ons in one way or another, eventually, and cause way too much bad blood all around.

***

A final note: no commentaries about religion or politics. No posting of news articles that are not GLBT relevant. That’s what blogs are for, so get one if you need one. But neither of these topics will be tolerated in future. To be more clear, it’s okay to say “What Rev. Bob Roberts said about gay men is dead wrong,” but saying “Christianity is the problem” is NOT okay.

Obviously we haven’t been sitting around twiddling our thumbs, but put a lot of thought - and effort - into this redesign. One of the things I realized during this break was that either these boards had to be moderated or they couldn’t exist (and still be any semblance of the cool things you all have emailed me that they were). But I will restrict my moderating somewhat: more intense scrutiny on the first two categories, not as much on the 2nd two. I can also think about finding other moderators now, as well, for the lighter forums.

But mostly I wanted to say that it will take all of you you respecting the intent of these boards, and that includes emailing a moderator if someone is going off the rails or a flamewar is starting. It includes walking away and counting to 100 and taking deep breaths when someone says something that makes you angry. It means respecting the intent and content of each of the forums. I intend to be a little bit more of a disciplinarian than I had been: snarkiness, nastiness, personal attacks or “three strikes” (ie, three complaints against one person by three other people + a moderator) will result in moderation and/or temporary bans. Betty and I will also be using negative feedback in order to inform people as to where and how they’ve stepped over the lines.

In a nutshell, we think we’ve redesigned these boards in such a way that everyone can find what they need here: those who are looking for a kind but smart community can have it; those who want to find big answers have a place to try to do so, and those who need support for their own questions of identity and struggles with life can find that, too.

Welcome back.
Helen & Betty

The Boards are supposed to go back up today, but as we’re also switching hosts, I’m awaiting a backup of the database and its move before I re-open them.

I don’t want to go ahead and re-open them and then have to shut them down again - may as well get it all done at once. I’m not saying that the boards won’t re-open today, just that they might not.

Betty and I have re-organized and re-designed the boards somewhat, and will be revealing the changes on Monday, Boxing Day, December 26th.

While the message boards are closed, I’m looking into new ways to organize the boards, see how others have done it. Since I’m sure some of you participate in other boards, do email me (or comment below) on what has worked for other boards you’ve been on.

That way, when and if they reopen, they will have gotten a face lift, some new parameters, and better governing principles/organization. (I also intend to be far less forgiving.)

So: let me know. I’ve already been looking at the boards at www.calpernia.com and www.crossdressers.com for ideas. Any others you could suggest would be welcome.

Betty and I have shut down the boards for the time being because they’ve had a tone of nastiness that doesn’t seem to be going away - no matter how many times we suggest that people be a little more gentle with each other.

We don’t know how long they will stay closed, but we will certainly be taking this time to move them to our new host.

Thank you to everyone who has written in support of our decision, and/or with concerns about our own feelings on the matter. In some ways, this has been long overdue, and since I’m also in the middle of contract stuff for the next book, it’s quite good timing for me as I’ve got some big decisions to make.

Obviously, when they come back, I’ll post the news here first.

Thanks,
Helen & Betty

In a discussion on the message boards, one of our veteran posters was told that she has “a foot in both worlds” and sometimes I wonder if that’s not, in some small way, the basis for transphobia. You know, like loyalty oaths, or pennant races or elections - you’re supposed to pick a team and stick with it.

I wonder if the whole “traitor” suspicion in some ways underpins transphobia.

The very same idea - the foot in both worlds - is viewed as a source of “magic” and “theatre” in Marjorie Garber’s Vested Interests, too. On the positive tip, it can be seen as “divine” or “prophetic” in discussions of ‘third sex’ people like the berdache, where being of more than one gender perforce means knowing more than a singly-gendered person. The IDEA, then, is well-documented: trans people have one foot in both worlds.

But I really do wonder if the dark side of that same coin is the suspect nature of someone who doesn’t/won’t pick a team.

Caprice Bellefleur, 57, got her BA in Economics at the U. Wisconsin @ Madison, and earned her JD. She’s been married 17 years, has no children, and is a member of the bar of the State of NY. She retired after 25 years as a computer programmer, and though she felt the urge to CD since she was a child, she didn’t - to any great extent - until she was in her mid 40s. She considers herself a person of mixed gender, and has presented as a woman in public for 7 years. Caprice is not only the treasurer of CDI-NY, but carries the special burden of being King’s Envoy on the (en)gender message boards - meaning, she’s a moderator. She handles both roles with class, culture, and enviable cleavage.

1. You do a lot with organizations for the larger GLBT, and I was wondering what kinds of things you do, and how/why you realized that service to GLBT orgs should be part of your life as a crossdresser.

I like to attend the meetings and functions of GLBT groups when I can–political, legal, social, all kinds of groups. I think it is important for trans people to be visible in the LGBT community, so that we’re not just a meaningless initial tacked on at the end. There is a lot ignorance about trans people among gays and lesbians–not all that much less than in the straight community, actually. I’ve given the “Trans 101″ class to more gays than straights–especially if you count the “outreach” I’ve done in various gay and lesbian bars. And an important part of my “Trans 101″ lesson is to explain how there is significant overlap between the GLB and the T segments of GLBT–many GLBs are gender-variant (”umbrella” definition T), and many self-identified trans people have G, L or B sexual orientation. When people understand that, they understand why the T belongs with GLB.

I am a member of several GLBT organizations, but I have really only been active in one: the LGBT Issues Committee of the New York County Lawyers Association (NYCLA) . Even that was something of an accident–though I now believe it to have been a very fortunate one.

I think I started with the Committee in 2002. I wanted to do something to advance the legal protections of trans people, and the Committee seemed like a good fit. (I would have gotten more involved in the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), but its Saturday afternoon meetings were very inconvenient for me.) I had been a member of NYCLA for many years, and I saw a notice in its newsletter for the Committee. The notice outlined the Committee’s mission, which included legal matters relating to all LGBT people (even though its name at the time was still the Committee on Lesbians and Gays in the Law). I e-mailed the chair, and found out that a) a trans person would be welcome, and b) the meetings were quite convenient to my schedule. So I went, and I joined. I was the first trans person on the Committee–and the only one until this year.

From the start I was surprised at how much of the Committee’s work was trans-related–close to 50% that first year. The main thing was the founding of the West Village TransLegal Clinic Name Change Project. This is an operation where volunteer lawyers help people obtain legal name changes, something very important to anyone who is transitioning, or has already done so. I attended a number of meetings where we worked out the logistics among the various organizations involved–besides our Committee, the Gender Identity Project (GIP) of the LGBT Center and the LGBT Lawyers Association (LeGaL) were instrumental. It was there I first met Carrie Davis of GIP, Dean Spade of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and Melissa Sklarz of the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats (GLID). Melissa, in her role as co-chair of the LGBT Committee of Community Board 2, was very helpful in getting funding for the Clinic. What developed was a monthly non-representational drop-in clinic at the LGBT Center. We (the volunteer lawyers) interview the clients and complete the Petition for Adult Name Change, which the clients then submit to the court. I usually serve once or twice a quarter.

I also served on the Law Firm Survey Subcommittee. We developed a questionnaire about the policies and practices concerning LGBT employees and the LGBT community, which we submitted to the 25 largest law firms in New York City. Our primary goal was to create a resource for LGBT law students to help them decide where to look for a job. There was a section of questions about trans issues, which I largely wrote. We envisioned giving report cards to the various firms, grading them on how we thought it would be for an LGBT person to work there. We were pleasantly surprised to find that all of the 24 firms that replied were at least somewhat LGBT-friendly. For instance, every one of them offers benefits to the same-sex partners of employees. We decided to forget about the grading. The section on trans issues was not quite as encouraging as the rest, though. Only one firm explicitly included gender identity and expression in its non-discrimination policy. None had any procedures or specific policies covering employees who wished to transition–and none of them reported having had an employee who had done so. A substantial percentage of the firms had dress codes that were not gender-neutral. Next year I want to do a follow-up survey, to see if there have been any improvements by the firms. (The report can be found at www.nycla.org/siteFiles/Publications/Publications38_0.pdf. It won the award for the best committee report at NYCLA this year.)

Right now, I am working on getting NYCLA to endorse the New York State Gender Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA). I drafted a report outlining the reasons why, which has been adopted by the Committee, and sent to the NYCLA board for its consideration.

I think my work on the Committee shows there are many gays and lesbians who want to help trans people achieve the legal protections that they have, or are still working to achieve. Most, if not all, of the other volunteer lawyers at the TransLegal Clinic are gay or lesbian. I am the only trans one. I have never seen any reluctance, let alone opposition, from any of the other Committee members to the Committee’s work in trans areas. The trans community is decades behind the gay and lesbian community in organizing to achieve its civil rights. We would be fools not to work with them.

Personally, I will continue with my work with the NYCLA Committee, perhaps in a leadership role next year. I also am being proposed for a position on one of the LeGaL boards for next year. One of my problems is not biting off more than I can chew, because I am also active in trans-specific organizations, such as the NYS GENDA Coalition (currently under construction), and Crossdressers International.

More…

For whatever reason, the message boards are loading slow, people are getting database errors, and their performance is generally not so hot.

Just so you know: it’s not you, and switching browsers will not help!

We’ve got calls in to our hosts, and hopefully we’ll get some answers shortly. Better yet that the problem will just go away.

Recently, a suggestion was made that I quit doing what I do as a moderator on the message boards, or maybe that I do a little less of it, or a little less frequently, or zealously. Or something like that.

Since then, I’ve gotten numerous emails and comments from people that I really should cut back, that it’d be good for my sanity.

Maybe it would.

But the thing is, I moderate the boards the way I do because I like the way they are, the way they’ve attracted intelligent, occasionally captious types who are also funny, creative, and supportive of each other. I mean where else on the trans internet are you going to find a Trans Periodic Table and abstracts to Blanchard articles? There’s a 15 page thread on football (football!), too, and that’s in addition to the empathetic comments from a TG who saw a young child made fun of for wearing nailpolish.

The boards are, in some way, the kind of community I was looking for years ago, before I wrote My Husband Betty, and it’s kind of nice that the book has given me the kind of reach to create that - to fill a void, as it were. I’m proud of them, and pleased to be doing the work that makes them a good place for both support and debate.

Sometimes I can be sensitive to criticisim - precisely because I do spend a lot of time moderating the boards - and it hurts to have someone tell me I should be doing it differently, or could be doing it better - tempting me to say (mostly to myself) “you get what you pay for” on a regular basis. But snarkiness aside, I enjoy the boards, and I’m proud of having built them - so they would come.

Most of the time that’s enough - other times, it’s just nice to hear that others appreciate them and are getting something out of them they can’t find anyplace else. For the nearly 500 of you who are registered users, and the 60 of you who post regularly, and to the lurkers, I’m thankful, not burdened.

The (en) gender message boards have been upgraded, and all went well. As far as we know right now, at least.

Optimistically,
Helen & Betty

Betty is planning to update the message boards in the next 48 hours, so please read her announcement about it.

I haven’t mentioned, and should have, that a group of couples who’ve met via these boards has started meeting once monthly at the GLBT Center. The meetings take place the first Tuesday of the month, from 8-10pm, and we split the cost of renting the room by however many people show up.

If anyone reading this is in the NYC area is interested, do check out this thread about how we came to choose the place/time, and then please get in touch with me first if you’d like to come.

It’s a private group, and not listed in the Center’s calendar, for now.

I thought this might amuse some of you, for whatever reason it would.

Wake up, slightly bemused at having dreamt I grew up with Sting living two houses away from me.

Put on tea water, weigh self (don’t ask!), turn on computer, light cigarette, say hello to Aeneas (who always greets me when I wake up), apologize to Endymion (who continues to sleep at my feet no matter how many times I kick him when I’m sleeping).

Go online, curse dial-up, delete pounds of spam. Do I really need to see ads for “young girls jerking you off” when I first wake up? No, I don’t. Do I even have a penis for these young sluts TO jerk off? No, I don’t.

Open the Animal Rescue site, tab to MHB, check stats, amazon sales rank, message boards. Tell someone to get bent and someone else to quit picking the same fights, already. Split threads, move threads, delete bitchy posts. Proceed to the Breast Cancer site, the Child Health site, the Hunger site, the Literacy site, the Rainforest site, which I let load in a background tab while I check out the boards.

IM Betty, who tells me about my email before most of it downloads. (We get cc:’d a lot of the same info.)

When the tea water whistles, if I hear it, pour tea; while tea is steeping, prepare a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Yes, I’m addicted. In a still-sleepy daze, wonder if I should let the Cheerios go soggy while I finish smoking the cigarette I lit, or put out the cigarette to eat the Cheerios. (It’s about 50/50, as far as I can tell.)

Bug Betty via IM about the eight things we’re supposed be doing, who she’s supposed to be calling, what events we’ve been invited to that she hasn’t gotten back to me about, which reminds me to open my calendar, and see that I’m supposed to work, so I speed up my tea drinking and emailing.

Answer ten emails in succession: one to a friend from my pre-tranny life, five to trannies currently emailing me regularly, two queries from people about info/resources, and one to someone I promised some bit of writing to. The tenth I forward to Betty about tech stuff on the site/boards.

Ignore the phone until I stop saying fuck under my breath when it rings.

Stop doing everything to give Aeneas his morning love-down.

Wonder if I have time to work out before I dress and bathe.

Answer five more emails: two responses that have already come back from the previous set, a third from a partner who’s freaking out, forward two other invites to Betty so she can not get back to me about whether or not she wants to go.

Read the new posts on the boards again, making sure whatever fights started have been dropped, then pick one myself about something feminist.

Remember to take my Zyrtec when I realize I’m itchy all over from the Aeneas love-down.

IM Betty about how she slept, say hello, only to notice a “brb” about five lines up.

Wait for Betty to get back so I don’t forget whatever it is. Drink tea, play with Endymion. Take out yoga mat. Check answering machine for previous night’s messages because I didn’t want to answer the phone. Get back to find 10 lines of IM from Betty that end with another ‘brb.’ Completely forget what I was supposed to IM Betty about.

Check my to-do list, cross one thing off and add another.

Make a few phonecalls.

Finally, Betty gets back from lunch and tells me she has no idea if she wants to go to anything I’ve mentioned to her. I resolve just to tell her what we’re going to and quit asking her, then forward her a few more emails about events in the next half-hour after I’ve made the resolution.

IM Betty to tell her I’m working out. Work out. (Okay, so this doesn’t happen everyday.)

Take a quick bath, dress, check the boards one last time, IM Betty that I’m going to work. Smoke another cigarette. Wonder how long it will take someone to write their own version of this blog post on the boards.

Due to the email harassment of someone who posts on our boards, Betty & I have had to change the access to the forums. From here on in, *anyone* who wants to read the forums has to register in order to do so. Only the ‘Technical Difficulties’ forum will be open to all, mostly because we needed a place to post this announcement so that people (esp our non-registered readers) would not be totally baffled.

It’s really unfortunate that we’ve had to do this, but the threat was serious enough that we feel we have no choice.

In terms of the harassment: someone has threatened to send various posts on these boards to the person’s employer: quite serious, indeed.

Again, apologies for this inconvenience. Believe me, once we confirm the harasser, their full name & address & photo will be posted here. We have no tolerance for this behavior.

Personally, I’m furious. Spending the time building a community like the MHB message boards takes a lot of time, effort, and work. And for one little bitter fuck to come along and ruin it for everyone really pisses me off. What it does, effectively, is make it possible for those who are already dealing with transness, at some level, to do so, but it prevents those who are more intrepid from getting any help, or being able to read the experiences of others. And that group includes the closeted CDs, stealth TSs, and especially partners, who are probably our most significant unregistered readership. Whoever sent that email (via anonymous remailer) is on my shitlist for taking much-needed resources from the people who need it most.

To those intrepid readers: I hope some of you will find the courage to register, to read or post or both.

If you are reading this, you anonymous, bitter shit, be forewarned that Betty & I have dealt with the likes of you before. We will find your local paper, we will find your name & address, & don’t be surprised when we use all three in combination.

Helen & Betty

Some of you might notice that my former list of “Required Reading” (which listed 10 books with their amazon.com links) has been changed to a “Recommended Reading” link, instead.

It looks simpler on the main page (good thing #1) and provides me with more flexibility to update the list (good thing #2). By creating a page - instead of just links - I was able to add more information (good thing #3), like links to discussions in the Reader’s Chair Forum and to interviews with authors originally posted on this blog.

I hope, in time, this will grow into a valuable resource and bibliography. I’m not listing books I didn’t like, since my mom taught me not to say anything when I didn’t have anything nice to say.

Since the new boards have caused some confusion, I need to explain that Betty and I decided to start fresh with the new boards,

which means:
• everyone has to register again
• everyone will have 0 (zero) posts, and “beginner” avatars
• none of the old boards will be imported into this one

however, the old boards - what of them we have - will eventually be posted as an archive. searchable and readable, but no longer active. that way people can still refer to old posts if/when they need to, and they will still have their ‘rank’ preserved for posterity.

we *think* we have a decent backup from early april of this year, which means about 45 days worth of posts are gone.

again, our apologies. we weren’t the only PHPBB that was hit, unfortunately, but we have switched to new software that will make it difficult - if not impossible - for this to happen again.