my birthday and other good news

1. my birthday is tomorrow. but i've been getting lots of nice emails, text messages, phone messages, from friends wishing me a happy birthday today. this shows the power of friendster and myspace. i put my birthday as august 22 on both of those, because i wanted my astrological sign to show up correctly, and the stupid automatic-sign-calculators on those websites kept insisting that i was a virgo, when i am in fact a leo (by a few hours). but don't worry, dear friends, i wouldn't know anyone's birthday, either, unless friendster told me. so, thanks! all those expressions of love make me feel very...loved.

2. i just have to share some exciting news: yesterday i got a phone call from the law review at my law school telling me that they want to publish a piece i submitted to them in may. it'll go in the "notes and comments" section (for student-written pieces) 'cause i'm a recent grad. this is the best thing to happen to me academically in a long time, so it feels really really great. i'm going to be a published author!!!

in case you're curious, the article argues that employment discrimination against transgender people because of their gender non-conformity ought to be legally considered sex discrimination per se, and thus automatically prohibited by laws like Title VII. that argument has actually been making surprising headway in the courts in the past few years.