We're Back From Our Trip to the U.S.

Hi, I’m Gabrielle Blair and this is my newsletter. It’s completely free to access and read, but if you feel so moved to support my work, please consider a paid newsletter subscription: just $5/month or save money with the $50/annual sub. You can also go way above and beyond by becoming a Founding Member at $75. Or, some of you have let me know you’d rather send money directly via Paypal and Venmo (@gabrielle-blair). Thank you! Seriously, thank you. Support from readers keeps this newsletter ad and sponsor-free.

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We’re back from our trip to America!

It was a great trip! Our three youngest kids hadn’t been back to the U.S. in three years — so I feel like we ended up packing in three year’s worth of trips all at once.

The trip was two full weeks — we spent four days in Utah, four days in Colorado, and four days in California (with a travel day on each end). In Utah, the kids went to Cousins’ Week at my brother Salem’s house, while Ben Blair did a big work project for Newlane University. In Colorado we attended a Blair Family Reunion, held at a beautiful converted barn. In California, we hit up all the Oakland favorites and immersed ourselves in nostalgia.

I shared updates about the trip on Instagram whenever I got a chance if you’d like to see a report — check out the story collections called US Trip 1, US Trip 2, and Yosemite.

The top highlight for me was having all my kids in one place for 48 hours in Colorado. I’m not sure if we’ll all be together again this year, so I was deeply grateful we at least got a little bit of time together.

Another highlight was a visit to Yosemite. Some parts of America felt discouraging to me — signs of increased drought, of wildfires, of increased homelessness. But spending time in Yosemite was 100% encouraging and restorative. It definitely filled my soul.

For us, two weeks is an unusually long trip, and I know we were all excited to get home. We made it home late on Friday, and my oh my we are still exhausted. Partly because it was nonstop, go-go-go, for two weeks, without much rest. And partly because jet-lag is pretty brutal when traveling East. I think it’s going to take us a few more days to get back to our usual sleep schedule. : )

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Custom Pencil Ideas for the Book Launch

This might be an odd request, but I need your custom pencil ideas! As part of the promotion of my upcoming book, Ejaculate Responsibly, my publisher is creating some book-themed merchandise. And one of the “merch” items I requested was a set of pencils with custom words (similar to this style).

There will be set of five custom pencils. I’ve decided what phrases I want engraved on two of five pencils, but I’m very undecided on the remaining three pencils, and would love your ideas.

Pencil 1: Ejaculate Responsibly

Pencil 2: I ❤️️ Vasectomies

Pencil 3: ??

Pencil 4: ??

Pencil 5: ??

More pencil ideas:
-Men Cause All Unwanted Pregnancies
-Ovulation is involuntary. Ejaculation is voluntary.
-Pregnancy begins with a Penis
-Hold Men Accountable

Feel free to comment with your ideas too!

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Update about My Nephew and His Babies

If you’ve been following along with the awful story of how my nephew and his wife had their babies taken in the middle of the night, with no paperwork or warrant, by Boston’s Department of Children and Families (DCF), you’ll be glad to hear that I reported last week that the children and parents have been reunited!

The nightmare isn’t over yet — DCF is still doing random checks of their home and family through November at least — but it’s still good news to finally have the kids at home with their parents.

If you’re catching up, you can read about it in a few places:

-Here’s the original writeup I shared in a newsletter.
-Here’s an Instagram highlight with the story as told by the mother (my niece).
-And here’s a new essay written by the father (my nephew). He writes about how all the “good intentions” of the people involved caused so much trauma to the family.

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That’s all for now. Feel free to comment on anything I mentioned above, or whatever’s on your mind. I hope today is the start of a really wonderful week for you.

kisses,
Gabrielle