​In my book, How to be a Happy Bachelor, I cited Lindsey Graham as a famous single person.  Tim Scott was decried by his fellow Republicans for being single, probably because it’s more socially acceptable for them to put his marital status down than it is for his race.  So I’ve always thought of Happy Singlehood as a nonpartisan issue.
 
I’ve been speculating that eventually, the laws that discriminate against singles will change as more and more people go the nonmarital route.  I didn’t think it would happen during my lifetime, but I’ll do my part to help change those laws. 
 
Thanks to the comments of a JD Vance, that might change quicker than we thought.  I didn’t know much about him when Trump picked him to be his running mate, and as is typical in the high-profile world of politics, all the old dirt came up on him.  For example, he had decried Trump a few years earlier.  The fact that he’s running with him and embracing his policies just speaks to his own hypocrisy.
 
But, the one that has all my social media feeds abuzz is what he said about “childless cat ladies” running the country.  The memes about proud childless cat ladies, childless dog ladies, supporters of childless cat ladies, started to flicker.  I started posting “I Stand with Childless Cat Ladies” on Facebook.
 
And then Biden stepped down, which I felt was a good thing. He immediately endorsed Kamala Harris, his VP, whom Vance had foolishly referred to as one of the “childless cat ladies,” even though she is a stepmother.  Pete Buttigieg and his husband have a son.  George Washington, one of our the United States’s founders, was also a stepparent. 
 
That said, in the few days since Harris has been the favorite for VP nominee, those memes spread quite rapidly.  I was particularly pleased to see this article in Ms. Magazine.  There was also this nice Opinion piece in The New York Times.  In fact, the backlash was so big Vance needed to respond to it.  And he just sounded even dumber this time. 
 
I’ve always tried to keep my politics out of this blog, but Singles Studies is a very political field, much like most other fields of study.  And Vance’s comments attack our ilk, no matter where you’re at on the spectrum.  The good thing is that his comments have garnered so much hatred, even from parents, that the childfree life is gaining widespread notice and support.  Some of that support is coming from parents.  This is because, well, mothers are women, and his comment is not only disparaging of childfree life, but the underlying message “a woman’s place is in the home and with her kids,” an outdated idea.
 
For the record, I’m not anti-family.  But I do believe family can take on many different meanings.  A family can consist of a man, a woman, and a child (or more than one child).  It can consist of an uncle and two nieces.  An aunt and a nephew.  Two friends.  A person and a cat (or dog).  But Vance’s definition of family is sadly limiting, and my hope is that his comment will raise awareness that the childfree life is just fine.  I’ve known some left-leaning folks that don’t quite get that either, so if they want to be aligned with the equity that comes with Harris’s campaign, they’ll have to accept that others may not necessarily follow their path.
 
A final note: I’ve always advocated for the term “childFREE” as opposed to “childless” to refer to people who don’t want kids.  But I recently ordered a shirt that says “Purroud Childless Cat Guy.”  I feel it’s good to take that term from people like Vance.  I’ll still use the former, but I’ll wear a shirt with the latter.  To quote Vance, it’s sarcasm.
 
I stand with Childfree Cat Ladies.  And Dog Ladies.  And Cat Men.  And Dog Men.  Anybody who’s for equity really.

​On Friday, June 28, 2024, I spent my first night at my new home, and as I type this, in my guest bedroom/office, on the desk I built myself, I’m mostly moved in.
 
For me, the “setting up the new area” is the fun part.  I had a tough time getting motivated to put in my bedsheets after spending most of the day working with the movers, but hey, I had to sleep somewhere, right?  The Internet installers weren’t scheduled to come in until the next morning, so I spent the night horizontal on the couch, watching a DVD of Jimi Hendrix’s Woodstock performance on my laptop.
 
Once the Internet was installed, I upgraded to watching The Wonder Years reboot on Netflix.  And when I found a power strip, a DVD of Brooklyn’s Finest.  The next few days were spent unpacking boxes and some rudimentary exploring of the area.  This included my first major grocery shop, getting gas, a Dunkin’ run, a few trips to Ace Hardware for a power drill and Velcro strips, returning of an old modem to Xfinity, and giving an old set of baseball cards to a kid.
 
I thought it would be jarring to suddenly travel to Boston in the midst of all this work, but it proved to be a nice break.  I got to see Bella, Joan, Elyakim, Karen, Elizabeth, Donna, Kate, Geoff, Ketaki, and a bunch of my fellow Singles Studies scholars/writers/activists.  The trip could have been marred by that power outage in New Haven, which kept me from boarding the Amtrak, but since Chester was staying with his Mom in New York, I ended up cancelling the train trip and hopping a bus to the Big Apple.  That Sunday was well-spent with Chester, especially the many naps I took throughout the day.  I hadn’t realized how exhausting that solo move really is.  Then add the trip to it.
 
Now, to showcase my lack of handiness:
 
1 – I did put together a nice writer’s desk for my office.  It said “We recommend two people for assembly.” Yeah, my left buttock! 
2 – I shouldn’t have gotten so cocky.  I bought some towel hooks for my door, which came with screws and drill bits.  Unfortunately, I just couldn’t make any kind of hole in the door, which messed with the paint some.  So I tried to mount it on with Velcro, which didn’t hold it on and just messed the paint up.  Next, I bought hooks with Velcro.  They didn’t work, and messed the paint up even more.  So I called a TaskRabbit.  Lesson learned.
 
At any rate, my game of Box Jenga (as Christina put it) ended in my storage space, as I got rid of most of the boxes, unpacked most of my items, and just left some things I don’t necessarily need but just can’t read it of (some jackets containing CDs) in my storage space.
 
And I got “welcomed” by an act of G-d.  On Tuesday, July 16, at about 9 a.m., I was writing in my office when I heard a vibrating thud from the master bedroom.  What’d I mess up this time? I said.  When I walked in, I saw a huge tree branch sticking through my ceiling.  It had come through the roof and knocked out a blade on my ceiling fan.  Fortunately, the on-site handypeople patched the roof up, and the condo agreed to replace my fan and drywall/paint the ceiling.  As I type, we’re waiting on the fan.  So I have a nice hole in the ceiling where that fan blade used to be.  Funny enough, I didn’t go completely ballistic.  My reaction was a muted, Oh, shit.
 
I’m just glad I’m only responsible for the inside; if I had a traditional family and lived in a single-family home, I’d have had to call a roofer, and in transit, possibly move the bed and my nice area rug.  Then, I’d have to put a bucket on the floor to catch any rain, as we had some remarkable thunderstorms last night.
 
I love my condo life. 

​Moving into a new home as a SALA (Single and Living Alone) is freeing, but man oh man, is it exhausting!  You do everything yourself. 
 
And so the International Singles Studies Association Conference couldn’t have come at a better time.  The train ride to Boston was uneventful, just how I like it.  And those solo train trips – I can’t get enough of those.  Reading (I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage) and viewing (the pro-single Muriel’s Wedding) also made the trip fun.
 
After a wonky sleep at the Airbnb, the alarm on the phone told me it was 6 a.m. and time to rise.  I was about to see my fellow crusaders, though, so I figured sleep could wait.  I wasn’t too pumped about the rain, but I braved it to get to the T.  My New York Mets hat did earn me a few stares on the ride to Arlington.  My thought on that, “We have a common enemy.  I hate Yankees fans too!  We should be friends!”
 
After my requisite Boston Crème donut and coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, I met up with Joan, Karen, Donna, and Elizabeth at the hotel, where I couldn’t help but stare at Karen’s Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon (sadly, home renovation expenses forced me to be satisfied with aforementioned donut and coffee). 
 
My temptation to order that dish as a second breakfast (Lord of the Rings reference!) was interrupted by the need to be at the Boylston Room for the first talk of the day.  There, I got to see Elyakim, and in addition to meeting Donna for the first time, I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Geoff MacDonald and Kate Fama, whom I’d only seen on those Brady Brunchesque squares of Zoom.
 
I was enthralled to learn there were three concurrent sessions, up from the one that took place when Ketaki and I organized the inaugural conference back in 2020 (it seems like so long ago).  Conversely, I was bummed I had to miss others, but I did get to hear Donna and Joan’s stories of singlehood, Elizabeth’s literary analyses of Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Jhumpa Lahiri's Whereabouts, two pieces that will now have to be on my reading list.  And I got that usual adrenaline rush that came from presenting my piece.  It was the same on Mrs. Maisel, but it’s good to try it out on different audiences.  And I’m working on new some material as we speak.
 
I had a second presentation on one of the entirely virtual rooms.  Unfortunately, the Wifi information the hotel gave me wasn’t accurate (limited resources for us singles, indeed!), but I did find a table at the adjacent Starbucks, where I attended a talk from Giora Ashkenazi about single gay men’s partner-seeking habits.  Not surprisingly, the “fear of loneliness” and “fear of being single” scales came up quite a bit.
 
I gave my presentation on “How to be Single and Happy” and had the privilege of sharing the stage with Ketaki, as well as Naomi Cahn, Bobbie Spellman, and Kaiponanea Mastumura, who are developing a course on Singlehood and the Law, a course I would sign up for in a heartbeat, even without the required law school prerequisites.  The ensuing discussion about family law and how Singles Studies fits into that were enthralled, and I was honored that Naomi asked me to share my How to be Single and happy course materials.
 
I did head back to my Airbnb in East Boston (also known as “Eastie,” a term I learned from Karen), where I was able to catch a power nap before the last session of the day, in which Donna, Bella, and Christine Erickson spoke about initiatives happening: Donna advocating for single women without children and Christine’s work on a counter to the pronatalism movement.  And, of course, Bella’s close: reflections on her work in Singles Studies.
 
I headed back to the hotel for the happy hour, where I saw Kate, Joan, Bella, Erin, Kelly, and Elyakim, where all kinds of topics came up.  Singles Studies, of course, but also politics (PLEASE VOTE THIS FALL!) and traveling.  The conversation continued over dinner at nearby French Quarter (nothing like New Orleans-style food in Boston).  Topics: politics, tax and financial problems among couples (shout-out again to Karen, the accountant in the house), and inequities in health care. 
 
As an introvert, my social battery drains quickly, particularly at night, but I was willing to brave it to hang with my fellow crusaders.  Nonetheless, I was happy once back in my room with my music.
 
The next morning, I got out of bed to see my phone read “8:51,” the latest I’d woken up in weeks.  After a solo jog around Eastie, I headed to South Station, had a breakfast sandwich, and sat down to read the day’s Boston Globe.  Then, I heard about the power outage in New Haven, which kept all trains between Boston and New York in lockdown.  The announcement said the “estimated time” they’d be back up was 3 p.m., but as a solo who loves train travel, I know better.  I immediately got a refund and hopped a Greyhound bus to New York.
 
That would have been much harder with a partner or family in tow.  We would have had to discuss, wait, discuss more, and we probably would have had to stay the night.  In my case, I was able to drop off in New York to see Chester, who’s been staying with his Grandma while I’m in the moving process. 
 
Writing has gone on the back burner since I’ve been in the moving process, but conferences are always reinvigorating.  So I’m resolving to start each day with some writing, just to set the mood.