But then I started thinking about my dad.

On paper, he’s accepting of everyone. He was something of a civil rights activist in his youth, kept a poster of Martin Luther King in his office, didn’t tolerate prejudice in the house. One of his retirement hobbies is teaching leadership classes to Boy Scouts (he and my youngest brother were both Eagle Scouts) and he’s made some noise about the ban on gay scouts (he’s vehemently against it). He’s religious but attends a church that welcomes gay members.

In practice, though, he used to say off-hand things that showed he wasn’t really comfortable with gay people. When my youngest brother was in high school, his best friend was a lesbian. I think it’s a credit to how my parents raised us that this never fazed my brother at all. But my dad told me later that he was surprised to find himself so uncomfortable with this girl. Still he, at least, was aware that this was his problem, not the girl’s. He told me that it took some effort, but he got over himself and was careful to never say anything to the girl that might imply he was anything but totally supportive. But I think it took him some soul-searching to work out why this girl bothered him.

So maybe it does sometimes take knowing an LGBT person to recognize our own biases and confront them.

And I could tell you about my friend who is half of a binational couple exiled from the US because of the Defense of Marriage Act. I could tell you about my cousin who died of AIDS in the early 90s. I could tell you about a teacher I had who was run out of the school shortly after the GSA he tried to create was shut down by the school board. I could tell you about my lesbian friend who has to lie to her grandparents about why she doesn’t have a boyfriend. There are examples of homophobia everywhere. But I don’t have to tell you that.

I think the best thing we can do is to keep the conversation going. So I’m talking.

Judi P

The 2009 World Champion New York Yankees would like to help you celebrate!

I will email Judi P shortly. Thanks for playing everyone!

I was interviewed by Joyfully Jay (and she gave Out in the Field 4.5 stars).

I helped Kerry Freeman celebrate baseball week on her blog with an excerpt.

Second, the rambly part!

Things have been a little crazy at the House McMurray over the last couple of weeks.

To start with, friends of mine got married last weekend. It was a gorgeous wedding, right here in Brooklyn, and I could not be happier for the couple, who a) I had a hand in getting together (in that I organized and ran the event at which they met, so I take credit) and b) are so clearly completely in love with each other, I cried like a baby during the ceremony. So that’s my little secret, I guess. I cry at weddings. I’m not ashamed! (This is probably not a very big surprise, since I write romance novels. Obviously some part of me likes this sort of thing.)

Anyway, I hosted some out-of-town friends who came to the wedding, so my apartment got a little crowded for a couple of days there—not that I minded one bit, and I like having people around, but entertaining guests is not conducive to other kinds of work.

And work, I has it. My non-writing work, especially the stuff I do freelance, has exploded lately. Which is great! I like the work and I like the extra income! But between the extra work and pimping out Matt and Iggy promoting Out in the Field, I’ve had zero time for my own writing. It’s frustrating. I want to write so badly I’m itchy.

I sometimes think it’s hokey when writers say they need to write, but it’s totally true. Writing has become one of my main emotional outlets, and not even in a “I write my feeeelings” kind of way (although I also do that sometimes) but more because it’s such an escape for me, a way to spend time in someone else’s universe or do something else with my surplus anxiety or emotion. So not having time for writing over the last week or so has been rough. It got to the point where I opened a Word doc on my lunch break yesterday and just started typing. So we’ll see how that goes.

Some of my surplus anxiety has gone into keeping an eye on how Out in the Field is being received. Really well, for the most part! Much better than I expected! I was thinking the book would land and the five people I knew who were both baseball and m/m romance fans would read it, and I’d bide my time until the contemporary romance I have coming out this fall is published. But then suddenly lots of people were talking about it! The reception to Out in the Field has been fantastic and humbling.

And, yeah, I totally saw that review on the big famous website, and it’s okay. If nothing else, there was a little bump in my Amazon rankings for a couple of days. Which is to say, I totally support the right of anyone to say things about books on the Internet, even if those things are not glowing praise of things I have written. Actually, it’s probably good to have a balance of opinions; readers seem to be skeptical when everything is all five stars and glitter. (I don’t really review on the Internet, unless you count my silly “I liked this book!” posts on Goodreads. But I do have opinions!)

(See, this is what happens when I can’t write otherwise. I vomit up everything on my blog.)

I’ve got a couple of things lined up for the summer, but otherwise, this is basically the end of the Out in the Field blog tour. Sad! You still have about 36 hours to enter to win a copy!

I was at Pants Off Reviews earlier this week talking a little about Matt and Iggy’s humble backgrounds in Out in the Field.

Today, I did a character interview with Matt over at Dawn’s Reading Nook.

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Wave gave Out in the Field 5+ stars!

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Also, you have one more week to Enter to Win a copy of Out in the Field!

I’ve been around the interwebz this week, so here are some linkies:

• I wrote a post for Chicks and Dicks called Out for You and Parallel Lines, talking about the Gay For You/Out For You trope.

• I wrote a post for the Loose Id author blog on sports romances and setting

• I wrote about why I love baseball at Coffee and Porn in the Morning. (I’m pretty proud of this essay, actually. You should go read it.)

And, for something I didn’t write, I think Lauraadrianna liked the book a tiny bit.

Here’s all you have to do: Leave me a comment telling me about some sports or competitive team memory when something really awesome happened. It could be going to see your favorite team win big, it could be your high school’s soccer team triumphing over defeat like in a teen movie, it could be, for those of us who are less athletically inclined, your chess club finding checkmate when all seemed hopeless.

Example: Back when tickets to the bleachers at old Yankee Stadium were still $5, I went to a Yankees-Red Sox game in which Andy Pettite pitched badly and the Red Sox beat the pants off the Yankees. Friends of mine from Boston came with me to the game and were obnoxious in that Boston fan way. I was kind of mortified. But then the Yankees handily won the rest of the games in that series and all was right with the world again. The end.

The contest will be open for two weeks starting today, so leave a comment by midnight EST on May 12th to be entered to win. I’ll draw a winner at random on the 13th and announce it here as well as email the winner.

Good luck!

[Note: Comments are moderated, so if I'm not near a computer, it might take a little while for your comment to show up, but I will approve all comments made by real people that are not spam!]

Out in the Field is now available from Loose Id!

BLURB:

Matt Blanco has had a hall-of-fame worthy career as the first baseman for the legendary Brooklyn Eagles, but age and a knee injury are threatening to end it. That’s when rookie Ignacio Rodriguez walks into his life. Matt has a policy of not getting involved with anyone for fear that they might share his secret with the world: that he’s a gay professional athlete. But this new rookie has him wanting to throw that policy out the window.

Iggy Rodriguez just got everything he ever wanted: a position in the starting lineup of the Brooklyn Eagles, his favorite team since he was a kid. Even better, he’s playing alongside his idol Matt Blanco. A locker room encounter one day reveals that he and Matt have even more in common than he would have guessed.

When Matt and Iggy fall for each other, they have a hard road ahead, their path to happiness blocked by injuries, trades, and the New York media hungry for a scandal. It looks like they will have to face the choice between love and baseball. Which will they choose?

Chase Utley, 2nd base, Phillies
(Chase, I would like you more if you got off the DL and earned my fantasy team some points. You do me no good by sitting on the bench. Please get better soon. Thank you.)

Grady Sizemore, center field, Indians

David Wright, 3rd base, Mets

Joe Mauer, Catcher, Twins
Can’t leave off my baseball boyfriend. Here’s some more.

And now for the Yankee-centric portion of this blog post:

Alex Rodriguez, 3rd base
A-Rod. Not so much the greatest human being. Totally useless last post-season. Not hard on the eyes.

Robinson Cano, 2nd base
This guy’s already a legend.

Nick Swisher, right field
Swish always looks thrilled. Happiest guy in baseball right there.

Curtis Granderson, center field
I love this guy. Great ballplayer, seems like a great guy, and he’s adorable.

Mark Texieira, 1st base
I mean, do the Yankees have an attractive infield or what?

Don’t worry, Derek!

Derek Jeter, shortstop
I could never leave you off this list!

So there’s your little bit of baseball hotness for the day. For more, Out in the Field is now available!

Here’s a whole slide show of hot baseball players! Enjoy!

Do you have a favorite player that I egregiously left off the list? Add him in the comments. Pictures encouraged!

The County of Kings (otherwise known as Brooklyn) saw fit to put me on a trial jury this week. That was kind of an interesting experience. The case ultimately settled without input from the jury, but I went to court for two days and sat in the jury box and listened to testimony. It was kind of a fun break in my routine, although man, justice does not move fast. I think I probably spent more time sitting in the deliberation room than I actually did in the court room. I read a lot while I was stuck sitting around, and I’m working on a post about some of my observations. (I was on a historical romance kick and I had some thoughts about why the genre was so popular.) I also liked walking around Downtown Brooklyn. That area maybe holds a special place in my heart because a) it was one of the first places in Brooklyn I got a chance to explore after I moved here, and b) I’m a history nerd (if that wasn’t obvious) and Brooklyn Heights/Downtown Brooklyn has a LOT of interesting history. The courthouses are at the foot of the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge. I had plans with a friend of mine at a place on the Lower East Side Wednesday night, so I decided to just walk there when court let out that afternoon. The weather was a little dreary, but it’s still a nice walk (that’s when/where this photo was taken—click to embiggen; you can see the still-under-construction tower they’re building where the WTC used to be on the left there). I then took a circuitous route up through lower Manhattan and Chinatown and the LES, which I enjoyed.

Some family stuff came up, too, which has been a little bit taxing emotionally. Some of my extended family came to New York to visit/help out, which was really great. My parents are both midwesterners who moved to the Northeast when I was a toddler, so pretty much all of my extended family lives a fair distance away and I don’t see them as often as I’d like. We had dinner Friday night at a seafood restaurant at South Street Seaport, which is a silly touristy thing to do, but the restaurant had a spectacular view up the East River of the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg Bridges.

Most of yesterday was spent working on the family stuff, and then I went out dancing last night, so I’m pretty tired today. I’m catching up on things, basically.

Final business: Thanks to everyone who has taken the RRW romance reader survey! Your input is really valuable to us. If you haven’t taken it yet, you can find it here.

And, to fulfill my hot baseball player quotient, here’s a video of Yankee outfielder Nick Swisher on How I Met Your Mother a few years ago:

Take the survey!