What’s new? This whole freakin’ website! Apple stopped supporting iWeb, the platform on which my site was running, so I had to recreate the whole site. Because iWeb did not create importable pages, I had to recreate all of the pages. But it gave me a chance to redesign the site and to think about how to make various parts of it easier for visitors to find. I also discovered recipes I’d forgotten, and it gave me an excuse to get some new photos done so that people who meet me after visiting this page aren’t surprised that I now have shorter hair and glasses. All in all, I probably needed the kick in the pants.
I’m pleased with how the site redesign has turned out, but I’m sure that there are broken links caused by the revision, so if you find any, please do let me know by using my “contact” form.
My Guggenheim book is due out March 10. Why yes, it is both really exciting and nerve-wracking! The reception so far has been absolutely wonderful. I mean, if someone had told me, when I started working on this project, that I’d end up with endorsements from Steve Pinker, Jared Diamond, E.O. Wilson, Dan Savage, and Elizabeth Loftus . . . well, I would have thought, “NO WAY!” But, way. You can now preorder the book through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite independent bookstore. Oh, and the audiobook is going to be read by Tavia Gilbert! People who read the book tell me they can’t put it down and they’re moved by it. So, you know, buy it, and let me know what you think!
Really, it’s been a great year, this last year. I feel like the book Penguin Press and I have produced is something I’m always going to feel good about–even when the slings and arrows start. John Green (yes, that John Green) named my last book, One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal, a “great book you probably haven’t read. (It’s not too late, by the way!) I got to be a contributor an editor for an important new medical school curriculum guide for the Association of American Medical Colleges on the care of people who may be LGBT, gender nonconforming, and/or born with a Difference of Sex Development. One of my essays at Pacific Standard—about talking to kids honestly about sex—went viral and was named by Buzzfeed a “top read of the week.” I had the pleasure of editing what some say is the best issue of Atrium yet (even it freaked my poor brand-obsessed dean out). And, thanks to my lawyer and our lawsuit against the government under the Freedom of Information Act, I finally got the FDA and OHRP to show me what they really knew about prenatal dexamethasone, so that I could finish the story in Galileo’s Middle Finger. (For what we knew as of three years ago, click here. The FOIAs showed me so much more about what really happened to those pregnant women.)
I’ve got some new essays coming up, so stay tuned for those, and I’m about to start a new blog following up on the new book, because there are so many interesting connected stories out there. Meanwhile I’ve been booking a bunch of public lectures I’m really looking forward to. Françoise Baylis and I are putting together a collection of first-person troublemaker stories in Bioethics for Cambridge University Press (title: Bioethics in Action). I’ve successfully launched a mini-Pro Publica online newspaper for my adopted hometown, which has been incredibly rewarding in terms of promoting local democracy. And I think I finally have a shot at an Olympic-length triathlon this year.
Life is good. The mate and I just got married for the 20th time. The rosemary we brought in for the winter is thriving in our new third-floor solarium. Our kid is now fourteen, and he says shit like this: “Sometimes democracy works best without the government.” He also goes to our local power company‘s meetings, even when I’m too busy to take him, to tell them not to mistreat the old-growth trees with their frenzied trimming, and then he reports back to the neighborhood what he learned at the meeting.
Leaning out is the best thing I ever did.