Last week, I had a Facebook contest in which I asked readers to send their favorite pictures of themselves with their pets.  The best photo wins a collar charm from Pooch Park Wear. 

I received photos from nearly 100 readers!  I'll put at least one photo from each person in the slide show below.  (Warning: make sure you're sitting down, because the sheer cuteness is likely to turn your knees to pudding.)

I had a lot of trouble deciding on the winner, so I thought I'd share my top five and let you guys vote on the best pic!  Here are the contestants:

Check out the rest of the awesome entries in the slideshow below.  And HUGE thanks to all the wonderful readers who shared a pic of themselves and their pets--from cats to dogs to bearded dragons!

Thanks to everyone who responded to the queer college survey I posted a few days ago.  Over 60 schools were represented!  Most people who responded are in college now or graduated within the last 5-10 years.

Today, I'll share the colleges people said were "awesome" for queers:

• Bard College: "Safe, supportive and open--Bard is known for the Drag Race where everyone dresses in drag."
• Bryn Mawr: "Open, safe as far as I know, and supportive.  There were occasions of misandry, which is a problem as well."
• Columbia University: "Safe, supportive, and open."
• Evergreen State College: "There was a queer group on campus planning activities and doing advocacy.  They also had a support phone line, discussion groups.  Students and faculty at the college tend to be very politically aware and active." (BW note: this was in the 1980s!)
• Grinnell College: "It was safe and very supportive.  It wasn't until I graduated and entered the 'real world' that I really realized most places aren't like that."
• Hollins University: "The atmosphere was completely open and supportive. I attended an all women's university and about 50% of the population was lesbian/bi/curious. Due to this large population, the entire campus was very aware and supportive of lesbians and trans*. "
  
• Humboldt State University: "There was a women's and multicultural center and most LGBTQ folks congregated there.  It was a very progressive area."

• Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, MN: "Safe, supportive, very open."
• Northwestern University: "More gay men were out than lesbian women. My environment was very supportive - friends, fellow students, even professors."
• NSU Davie: "Really no one cared.  My college was very group specific, meaning whatever group of friends you had that's where you stuck."
• Ohio State University: "It was awesome!  Columbus has a great LGBT nightlife and people were so friendly and accepting.  My experience could not have been better.  Being a college athlete may have helped."
• Puget Sound: "It was pretty great. We have a queer club on campus and I've never come into contact with any negativity regarding sexual orientation or gender identity."
• Reed College: "Safe.  Supportive.  Open."
• San Francisco State: "Safe, supportive - All San Francisco, all the time!"  (BW note: OMG, and this was in the 1970s!)
  
• Skidmore College: "Very open! The professors are awesome and the other queer students are really cool people. I'm a senior but I'm sad to leave such a supportive community!"
• Smith College: "At Smith sometimes it seems like everyone is gay -- there are so many out and proud people that LGBTQ culture becomes somewhat normalized. It's amazing and incredibly empowering. Trans students still struggle with institutional and community transphobia, but there is a strong network of student support that I believe makes Smith an important school for gender-queer and trans folks to consider."  Another Smith grad writes: "It was super safe and supportive.  It was never an issue and it helped me figure myself out."
• SUNY Purchase: "Awesome and open."
  
• University of CA at Santa Barbara (see pic and caption below)

The convergence of two things I was reading today led me to this post:

1. An older post over at The Feral Librarian, in which that blogger responded to a question I asked her: if you had one month + unlimited money, what would you do to improve your institution's library?
2. The book The Willpower Instinct, by Kelly McGonigal, which is about the science of willpower, and what we can do to increase our willpower.  (I'm only a few dozen pages into the book--it's great so far.)

So I started wondering: if I had unlimited willpower, what would I do with my life this month?  How would it look different from the way it looks now?  What things would I do, not do, start, or finish?

According to McGonigal, most people struggle with willpower.  I know I do.  She invites readers to pick a particular "willpower challenge" of one of the following types:

• An "I won't"-power challenge: Something you want to challenge yourself not to do--e.g., avoiding one-night stands, not spending any more money to build your bowtie collection, or not doing lines of coke off dirty toilet seats on weekdays.
  
• An "I will"-power challenge: A habit or practice you want to do--e.g., pay your bills on time, work on your home knitting projects for at least an hour each day, or learn to tie a new tie knot each week.
  
• An "I want"-power challenge: A long term big goal you want to achieve, or big project you want to complete--e.g., go to Zanzibar, lose 200 pounds, or pitch a guest post for Butch Wonders.

Then she suggests various ways to help meet these challenges.  In Chapter One, for example, she advises being uber-vigilant about when you are making a choice--even to the point of carrying a notebook and writing it down.  Why?  Because we often aren't aware that we're making decisions at all.  It turns out that if you ask people in the abstract, "How many decisions do you make about food/eating daily?" they guess about 14.  But then if they actually count these decisions, it ends up being over 200!  The idea is to get acquainted with how the decision-making moment feels, whether it's the urge to check your email or the urge to order those hot Converse from Zappos.

That brings me to my question for you: if you had one month and unlimited willpower, what would you do in that month?  What "I will"/"I won't"/"I want" challenges would you take on?  These aren't rhetorical questions--I really want to know!  You show me yours and I'll show you mine...

Hi friends!  Sorry for the kinda-long absence.  My ADD-addled brain has been preoccupied with a number of things the past few weeks, including but not limited to:
1. Finishing a profile for one of my jobs;
2. Propagating succulents;
3. Doing a big around-the-house project with my DGF;
4. Taking a bunch of photographs for a website for one of my other jobs;
5. Undergoing massive amounts of career-related identity crisis.

Anyway, I'm back now (yay!  I missed you!) and was wondering what you all thought about the following topic: When, if at all, is separation based on sex ideal/necessary? 

First, a few caveats.  Let's acknowledge that this question is inherently problematic: cissexist, falsely essentialist, and denies the experience of intersex people.  It assumes that sex is a dichotomy, which it is not.  (Also, note that I'm talking about sex, not gender.) 

So, I'm curious: What do you think about separation based on sex in the following scenarios?  And why?

When do you think that sex (or gender) separation is necessary and/or ideal?  Would you be happier in a world with no sex separation? 

First, let's get three things out of the way.  (1) I voted for President Obama, and expect to do so again; (2) It is awesome that, for the first time in US history, a sitting president has announced his support for gay marriage; (3) This may be an important step toward building a national consensus.

Still, I felt more annoyed than excited about the President's announcement today.  Some sources have portrayed this as an "edgy" or potentially divisive move (as has Obama himself).  The President also stated: "I had hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient, that that was something that would give people hospital visitation rights and other elements that we take for granted..."  As if, after wrestling with the facts, he has finally evolved into a supporter.

I say: bullshit.  Like any self-respecting Constitutional law professor and civil rights advocate, Obama supported gay marriage before he became a presidential candidate.  Then, once he decided to run, he eschewed these privately-held beliefs.  Not coincidentally, the polls at that time showed that a majority of Americans opposed same-sex marriage, too.  More recently, the political balance tipped, and a majority of Americans now support same-sex marriage.  Then--voila--after testing the waters with VP Biden's announcement yesterday, President Obama suddenly comes out supporting same-sex marriage, too? 

The President's open support of same-sex marriage is wonderful, but let's be honest: if most Americans had supported gay marriage in 2008, he would have supported it back then.  And if public support hadn't grown, he wouldn't have come out in favor of it now. President Obama is, foremost, a politician.  If we pretend that we're that much more to him than another issue, another constituency, another factor in the political calculus, we're kidding ourselves.