For once, I have a legitimate excuse for my long absence.

During the first week of August, I broke my leg in what has to be the freakiest of freak accidents. Numerous people have asked me in the last few weeks what happened, and to this day I find it impossible to adequately describe.

... your adoring public misses you.

OK. To be more accurate, I miss you.

Raff, you created a fictional universe of dazzling complexity, peopled with characters so real that we hung on every word. When last we saw Tracy, in your Halloween story, she seemed weighed down by all that happened to her, with no respite in sight. I'd hate to think she was doomed to languish in an abandoned storyline.

My, my, the changes that have taken place since I've been away....

Some sad, like Katie Leone's sudden passing (and more on that after I've had a little sleep--RIP Katie) and some pleasantly surprising, like these "mini-contests."

Where are the rules for each month's contest posted? I've looked in the usual section for contests, but have found nothing. I doubt I'll be able to contribute anything for this month, but May is a possibility.

Yes, I know. It's been a long time, and about that I will only say, depression is an evil affliction, lifting for a few days to a few weeks of blessed lucidity, only to return with renewed vigor. Much like the party guest who lingers well into the wee hours--the more you want him to leave, the more determined he is to stay.

Fortunately, in my lucid periods I did have a large backlog of ideas, so expect them to start appearing in future Mixed Tapes, if Hutcho will be so kind as to accept them.

I haven't been doing any writing, I admit. However, I think I might have the best possible excuse.

Last week, I decided to do the one thing I'd been putting off forever--no, not removing the colony of unidentifiable life forms from my refrigerator, though I need to do that too. In short, I've taken advantage of a special program for low-income people and joined the "Y".

Why the "Y"? (Hee hee). Allow me to elucidate.

Sweet flying spaghetti monster, I thought I'd never have to deal with this again. Especially not from one of our own.

As I was making my way home from my monthly transgender support group meeting, I ended up behind someone obviously transgender herself--someone vaguely familiar.

It turns out she lives in the same apartment complex I do. After years of being the only transgender tenant, apparently I have company.

Since I started contributing complete (though short) stories to this site, I've noticed a curious thing.

I've pretty much stopped reading other people's.

Once in a while I might find something that piques my interest, but that's rare these days.

Now, this is no reflection on the quality of the writing. If my fellow Mixed Tape authors are any indication, the quality of writing on Big Closet certainly hasn't declined.

Yes, amazingly enough, I've posted two entries in one day. Don't worry, Erin, this will be it for now.

I've read a lot of arguments on one side or the other of the "Plotter vs. Pantser" debate, and so far, they've only served to increase my frustration.

Each side has valid arguments. The trouble is, I've tried both approaches, and get equally bogged down with each one--just in different ways.

This month's TG Mixed Tape will not have a contribution from me, sadly.

I had every intention of contributing something. Really I did.

I wish I could blame it on the illness (bronchitis, to be exact) that refuses to go away, even after nearly two months.But I can't, since really, I feel pretty good now, and conceivably could have contributed something in the limited window left to me.

Since my fiction stories are in various stages of completion at the moment, I told Hutcho that I'd contribute an essay on growing up as a disabled transperson. It seemed like a good idea, since there's not much written about folks like me, and no documentary to my knowledge has ever tackled the subject. Easy, right?

Looking over the past few months of blog entries, I've noticed that some of mine get far more reads than some others, and they're not always the ones I think are going to attract attention.

With that in mind, I put a question to all of you. What do you like to see in a blog entry, and what do you not?

The following was written at about four this morning, but I, in an example of supreme boneheadedness, kept it in edit-mode limbo until just a few minutes ago. Read on:

Yes, folks, it only took two years and change, but I did manage to submit a complete story to this month's TG Mixed Tape.

I imagine the feeling of "What the hell have I done?" will follow in due course, but for now, I prefer to ride the high.

This is going to be a bit more brief than is typical for me, but I do have to get some sleep soon. So in brief, I have a question regarding POV.

I feel as though I'd just emerged from a six-month coma--otherwise, how could I have missed something like this?

While perusing online newspapers, as I'm inclined to do, I happen to run across a familiar name and a phrase I never thought I'd see linked together: "Bruce Jenner" and "sex change".

The "click bait" worked. True or not, there's no way in hell I was going to pass this by.

(Note: Your ragtime gal made a few corrections, to correct some of the more egregiously horrible wording, the result of sleep deprivation and writing on a wonky computer in the wee hours--Rachel. )

With the extended downtime, I amassed quite a stockpile of questions for the BC readership at large, and question number one concerns a source of considerable dread for me, the writer's critique group. (I would have to promise that I'd post a story to the site.

I've always likened such groups to group therapy, and not in a positive way. Either way, I'm baring my inner self to relative strangers, leaving myself open to judgement and ridicule.

This entry won't take much of your time, dear friends. I simply have a question to ask.