Friday Open Thread: Callout Post: I Love My Friends (Let me Know if You Do Too)

Howdy Rodeo Queens and Cowbois! I bet y’all look really, really good in cowboy hats, don’t you? Or like, you can cook up a really good vegan chili. Or maybe you just know a lot of great cowboy songs. It’s probably all three, right? Yeah, I bet it is. Anyway, welcome to the Friday Open Thread! This is a place where we all gather together around the campfire and play harmonicas and sing about the Rio Grande. We also come together and share pictures and gifs and talk about what we did this week and how we’re feeling. Sounds pretty darn tootin’ cool, am I right?

This week has still been really hard for me, y’all. It seems like waves keep on coming and crashing into me and knocking me back down every time I get a little bit of footing. But one of the things that’s bringing happiness and joy and hope into my life is my friends and how much I love them and how terrific they are. So I wanted to keep this week’s Open Thread positive and full of love. Is that okay? I mean, if you’d rather talk about your week or how angry you are at OITNB, or how scared you are because of this whole Brexit nightmare, or how your first (or twentieth) Pride was, or whatever else you want to, I’m not gonna stop you and I will talk to you about that, but also compliments are nice.

There’s this thing I do sometimes on twitter where I do “Callout Posts” that are really just excuses for me to compliment my friends. In this case, Callout stands for Complimenting And Loving Lots Of Ur Tenders (thanks to Lisa de Antoni for this perfect term for friends and people that you love). The internet can be a place where it’s so easy to wallow in anger and sadness and negativity, so I like to counterbalance that. Like, it’s just really, really fun and nice to come up with creative ways to compliment your friends and it helps you to remember the good that’s in the world (the good is your friends).

Here are a few examples of my Callout Posts from recent days:

• Callout Post: Cecelia Kiyoko is my femme idol, brings out the magic in me and in the world and always makes me feel so incredibly loved. Plus she’s got a KILLER singing voice.
• Callout Post: Not only is Stef Schwartz one of my best friends and a killer bass player, but she looks really, really great in a cape.
• Callout Post: Maddi Gonzalez and Maddy Flores are two of my favorite people in the world and I love their art and their twitters and their selves.
• Callout Post: Cecelia, Alaina Monts and Lizz Rubin helped me feel confident enough this year to finally identify as the bottom that I was always meant to be.
• Callout Post: Elicia Sanchez affirms me as a person more than maybe anyone I’ve ever met and I love her with my whole entire heart.
• Callout Post: Mal Blum is so freaking dreamy and just so tender that they always remind me to not let my heart get too hard.
• Callout Post: Honestly, every time a list of “Most Influential/Important/Whatever” LGBTQ People comes out and Riese Bernard isn’t on it, I pretty much consider it invalid.
• Callout Post: I wish that I had saved every compliment I’ve ever given in my life for Heather Hogan.

You can see my full list of Callout Posts on my twitter. It’s pretty fun and it should give you an idea of what I’m going for here.

So now, I’d like to see your Callout Posts, bonus points if you include a picture of you and the person you’re calling out. Who do you want to send a special message to? Who do you want to celebrate? Who do you want to tell that you love them? Now let’s call each other out!

How To Post A Photo In The Comments:

Find a photo on the web, right click (on a Mac, control+click), hit “Copy Image URL” and then…
code it in to your comment like so:

If you need to upload the photo you love from your computer, try using imgur. To learn more about posting photos, check out Ali’s step-by-step guide.

How To Post A Video In The Comments, Too:

Find a video on YouTube or Vimeo or WHATEVER and click “embed.” Copy that code, paste it, you’re good to go!