Mandatory Mary

Thank you all. This is a beautiful day.

2008-11-05T15:33:00.000-08:00

I'm choked up again. It's an overwhelming feeling. I couldn't have imagined a better scenario that what we have. For years we have been counting down to January 20, 2009 as Bush's last day. We were ready for somebody new. Anybody new. And now, instead of suffering through to one bad president's last day, we are looking ahead to Obama's first day. Optimism feels good. Let's bask in this rejuivination.

I have described politics as my football. I couldn't care less about the Giants or the Pats, but I'm a die-hard fan of democracy. As I drove through the cheering, honking crowds last night, celebrated with my own family and friends and watched the beautiful people gathered on television, I did not feel like my team had won the superbowl. I realized something much bigger is happening. This time things are different. This feels like an awakening.

No matter what happens from here, no matter what kind of President Obama makes, right now, right this very second, I have never felt more proud to be American. I have never felt more confident to hold my head up as a citizen of this great nation. We did an incredible thing yesterday.

As we all know, Barack Obama has a very hard road ahead of him. His campaign was easy compared to what lies ahead. I believe his team (including all of us) can do this. I really do believe. Barack Obama melts my cynicism like no politician has in history. He has reframed my mind as much as he has reframed Republican rhetoric. He has overcome a racial barrier, the fear and the hate that stood in his way thus far. Many of us felt his presidency would be impossible dream, but we have done this with him.

This campaign is not over. There is still deep-rooted fear in all of our hearts and we cannot look away now. Together we can continue to change this place, and ourselves. We can continue to wake up. We can find love and peace. Yes we can.

The Good Life for Less

2008-10-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

So I've been busy. Grad school is in full force and I'm putting my writing energy there for right now. In the meantime, you can head over to an exciting new site: Shoestring Magazine. While you're there, check out my article on Renting vs. Owning.

Lessons from Michael

2008-09-05T17:28:00.000-07:00

Michael was the first person I met in the neighborhood. Apollo and I ran around Lake Merritt almost every day back then. We would pass Michael's station on Grand Ave where he would be standing almost every day selling Street Sheet, a homeless-advocacy newspaper. On one of his good days Michael is the type of guy that, as my mom would say, could sell snow to an Eskimo. He asked me my name one of those days, and I told it to him. He told me his proudly while standing upon his curb like a benevolent king reining over his dominion with polite authority. I hope he knows I don't care that he forgot my name since then.

I liked him instantly. The first time Apollo and I met him, Michael told me a story about a one-eyed dog his family had when he was still small. He described it as "the most vicious dog you'd ever met." Because of this, I'm assuming, Michael was hesitant about Apollo in the first few moments, but he quickly began to empathize with my little guy. Michael is a dog person of the true sort, not merely one of those people who claim to like animals all the while their body language is screaming "get this furry beast away from me!" Michael understands Apollo's nervousness. "I don't blame him," he said one day. "I'm afraid of everybody nowadays, too! In this economy you never know who's gonna pull out a knife on you!"

On Fridays and Saturdays, Michael likes to go to the movies. He tells me about them with enthusiasm, but his descriptions are constantly interrupted. People pass by and insist on saying hello to him, and those strangers that don't, Michael makes sure to tip his hat to, wishing them well. He is a skillful business man. He has bad days, too. On these afternoons he is less coherent. His eyes are jaundice and his thin, salt and pepper mustache is more scraggly than usual. Despite his status, he's there on his spot more days than he's not. He maintains of optimism. "I might have had a couple of beers this morning," he says, "but it's been 19 months since I've had any crack."

I learn bits and pieces of his story from time to time. It's like watching Law and Order, mostly we have all-inclusive chats that end about the same as they began, but now and then I get a little plot advancement in Michael's story. One afternoon he told me that when he was 15 he got his 23 year old girlfriend pregnant. He seemed to love her and his son, so he did what he could to be a dad. The story clearly did not end happily. He was only a kid, and, from what I gather, things went awry for the better part of his life. It seems he has little to no contact with his now-adult son, and he says his heart is permanently scarred when it comes to romantic love, but he still speaks with fatherly pride. He has lived in Oakland for quite a long time, if not his whole life. He does his best to stay clean and healthy, but I know it is a struggle for him. He sleeps in a men's dormitory at night. Today when I saw him, I pointed out his new jeans. This inspired him to launch into the description of how he sleeps with his alarm clock muffled under his pillow on Sunday nights. He sets the clock for 1am, about an hour before the Monday donation truck pulls in. In the past Michael said he watched all the men fight over the truck's contents like cats and dogs. He says everybody wants the nicest stuff, the most presentable they can find in order to make money on the street. But for the past 6 months he's had a deal worked out with the truck driver: he helps get the truck ready and then gets the first pick of the lot (donations from cleaners and individuals, apparently.) Then Michael goes into the hall to wake everybody else up, avoiding the scramble at the truck entirely. Despite the shelter, Michael doesn't like the rainy season. The occupants are booted out to the street at 4am. He says I have no idea how cold it is at that time of day. He's right.

I admit that I avoid passing him pretty regularly. He pointed this out one day recently by exclaiming, "Hey! How've you been? It's been a month since you've run by."
"A month?!" I asked with legitimate surprise. I really hadn't realized how long it had been since I went his way. Nor did I realize he might be counting. I suppose I feel guilty sometimes, or awkward and I chose to avoid him in an effort to avoid feeling that way. These are bad reasons to go the long way. The truth is, I might spend an entire day talking to no one at all until I see Michael's familiar face. We might shoot the shit about how much we are both rooting for Barack Obama, or about how the weather has been. This has been more valuable to me as I've established myself as part of this community than I realized in the beginning. As Michael pointed out one day, "we learn from each other." I probably learn more from him than he does me, even. I give him a buck or so and he gives me spontaneous nuggets of wisdom that seem simple on the surface, but leave me thinking for long stints. "Some days I might be down," he starts, "and you can help me see clearly. Another day it might be you, and I can help you up." He recognizes that we all need each other, because, at the root of it all, we're people. No matter how much or little we have, we can always be here for each other.

Quick Shout-out to Freedom

2008-08-26T18:11:00.000-07:00

I can't write much this week, but just to maintain that I'm alive and well, I'll share a brief update. I'm taking a week-long class that runs from 8am-4pm every day. It's a class to set me up to teach Comm1001, the most basic communication course offered to undergrads, a.k.a. Public Speaking. On Friday we're leaving for a backpacking trip somewhere Easterly.

In the meantime I feel like sharing what I stumbled across as I following some rabbit hole in cyberspace (instead of doing my homework)...

This photo is from a film shot in Tibet and smuggled out. The filmakers are currently detained in China, so the film is left on it's own to speak for itself. Check it out; it's called:

Leaving Fear Behind

Move over Friday, Sunday's lookin' good

2008-08-19T16:09:00.000-07:00

Sundays are consistently the best day of my week. We sleep in for as long as we can go, 9 am, typically, and get up for our standing appointment at Mimosa Cafe. It's about a 1/2-mile walk down there from our house, which is just enough to get our blood flowing and hunger to set in. We have been on this routine for months now, whenever we're in town on a Sunday. We resist making any other plans for that time slot because it's worth so much to us. When we get to Mimosa we sit down in a table hugging the wall. There are only 10 or 12 tables and most of them can't fit any more than three comfortably, and even three is a stretch. Kelly greets us and comes by with a pot of fresh Peet's French Roast. We know her by name now, which is nice. That exchange happened early this summer. She recognized our repeat appearance in little ways until we eventually introduced ourselves formally one day. One of the next mornings we were there she sent us each the cafe's titular cocktail, complete with freshly-squeezed OJ. With her sweet, mother-with-authority demeanor, she is entirely welcoming to anyone who steps foot in the place. Kelly prides herself on her ability to take care of someone when they are ready to enjoy a meal, and she deserves the recognition. Kelly gives the place her special flare, but it doesn't hurt that the kitchen has her back, pounding out incredible breakfast after breakfast. I get the same thing almost every week: the Curry Tofu Scramble. I did not convert to tofu lightly, believe me. Honestly, I still consider eggs to be the single greatest food item in existence (which is quite the roadblock on my path to veganism.) But in Mimosa's medley of thin strips of bell peppers, coarsely-chopped mushrooms, with a dose of cayenne and curry powder, tofu simply stands up to it all better than eggs. Week after week of spice-induced sniffles, the Curry Scramble has yet to disappoint.

When we are done ordering and chatting with Kelly we play Set. It's our trademark at this point. I always lose the first game and maybe the second, but when the coffee perks me up I can school Andy all morning. We are not only tolerated, but encouraged to stay after we eat for as long as we'd like. In fact, we are not the only regulars who spend our mornings at this spot. There is another couple, baby-boomer aged, who bring the paper and take their times eating. They are often there when we arrive and there still when we leave. I'm glad they are there; I've been too trained by New England standards to feel blindly invited to take our time in a restaurant. I'm still not sure if Kelly is an anomaly or a fair sample of Northern California food service, but I'm happy that we have at least one Set-haven in our neighborhood.

Disclaimer: These photos are crappy due to what my camera phone can offer. It's the price I pay for spontaneous picture taking. Click on the picture and then on "all sizes" to see bigger versions.

Sick of Trader Joe's Produce , we've recently expanded our Sunday programming to include a trip to Whole Foods after breakfast. I have learned why it can get away with a nick name like Whole Paycheck and still dominate the alt-grocery market: aesthetics. The place is gorgeous. It is a true pleasure to shop there and I try to savor as much of the experience there as I can. The place is practically a city-block in size, and it has a two-tiered parking lot tacked onto the back. We always park on top and walk right into the building into a column built to house the stairs and the elevator. There are cut outs in the wall in there that let us see out onto the floor of the store. We can see the Starbucks at the far corner, the front wall facing Bay Place is lined with cash registers adorned with striking magazines about health and enlightenment. In front of the check-out is a food-to-go buffet the size of an Olympic-length pool. We can also see the bread bakery, the fish market, and the disappointingly lit floral section.

And then, ahhh, turn right and peer into the the produce section. It takes up the length of the north-eastern wall in all of it's mind-controlling glory. I just stand in awe of each beautiful mound of peaches/lemons/cantaloupe that is laid out in perfect symmetry. This effect does not come easy to Whole Foods, that much is apparent when it takes 4 employees to carefully stack the display of corn like Lincoln logs. Once each display is constructed, there is at least one employee on the floor at all times to maintain the delicate piles. One morning we stood and watched one gentleman in an official green apron pick up watermelons one by one, considering the shape and size of each carefully before placing it deliberately in a place I can only assume he had been trained to see as maximizing the sale value of that melon. Whole Foods needn't over staff the produce section, as they know, because they can depend on patrons to self-police themselves. It's all part of the Whole Foods business psychology.

Left: CarbonNYC on Flickr Right:My crappy cell camera

The produce on top of the bins (not in, that would be an ugly Safeway thing to do) are stacked Jenga-style. No self-respecting shopper wants to pull out the bottom plum, no matter how mouth-watering it may appear, if it is going to cause the entire mound of them to avalanche all over the floor of the dimly-lit showroom. There are more of these brilliant gems of visual manipulation up and down every isle of the store. But they do it so stunningly, and nothing feels so egregious that they are breaking my standard of ethics (in this superficial sense, that is. I can't speak for other corporate policies.) So as long as the continue to carry Brown Cow yogurt and let me enjoy my surroundings in peace, I'll continue to give them my business on Sundays indefinitely.

I'm still taking a break...

2008-06-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

Does anybody miss me yet?

I'm home in Oakland again. My retreat was life-changing. Eventually I hope to say more than that. For now, here are two of a couple hundred pictures I took while I was there...

Keep lurking around here (or hell, go out on a limb and connect with me!); I'll be back. In the meantime, you can find me on flickr.

Personal note to KB (yes, you brother): email me. In some ways it already feels as though you have returned from the dead. After all this time, I'm ready to talk to you. What do you say?

Awareness is the Answer

2008-06-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

The small batch of trip pics can be found here.

I've returned from our giant, Southwest loop. It was great. We went down to Venice for one wild night with the locals. On Sunday, day 2 of the trip, we headed out late in the day to Las Vegas where we stayed for the night. I had never been to Vegas, so even though we were completely exhausted when we arrived, we left our glamorous Hotel 6 to check out the food situation at MGM Grand. I felt like the walking dead as we scoured for food, which turned out to be extraordinarily hard to come by after midnight. We went "home" to bed after eating some pretty crappy fare and woke up and hit the road immediately. We then spent the next 6 nights in Boulder with these beautiful women and their fantastic partners. We filled the week with various things, very little of which I broke out my camera for, so words will have to do. Some highlights include: a four-mile run with the dogs including a coyote encounter; the best breakfast I've had in months, complete with a spanning view of the Rockies; and back-to-back speeding tickets for each of us in NV on the way home. And that's where I am now: home. For one more night, that is.

On Saturday I am heading off to Cazadero, CA for a six night meditation retreat with Lauren, my friend and neighbor. Until this week I was feeling very...hesitant about going on this trip. The majority of the experience will be in silence and will include hours of meditation starting at 6:30 a.m. everyday. I had (and still have, to a lesser degree) serious fears about spending so many days in a regimented environment away from all the comforts of home. Once again I will be away from my bed, my husband, my dog, my food, the Internet, cell-phone reception and all my other personal methods of distraction. But, that is the very point of the experience. It is time to step back and observe myself. I am as ready for it now as I ever could be. Over the past few years, with the help of some very important friends (and one incredible husband), I know that awareness is the key to everything that is important. I am so excited.

On a different note, it's time that I admit that writing has temporarily shifted to the back seat in my life. I am taking a more active role in exploring what is out there and less of a reflective mode on here. I am going with the flow. Cliché as it may be, it really is funny how life has a way of taking us places we never imagined.

Stay tuned and thank you for reading.

Fit-is-Go Time

2008-05-24T12:18:00.001-07:00

Andy's parents are back on the east coast and, since we ate all the gourmet mushrooms and cheese, this is all we have left of them...

Does this pic look familiar?

From this bunch of emptys, the Cep was my favorite. But each of them were so delicious that the bottle of Two Buck Chuck that I openend last night tasted like purple-hued, stale rainwater.

I took a bunch of pictures during their visit and our trip down the coast that you can check out here. You can also take a peek at my latest magazine collage project here.

I specifically said my life would be "normal" again by now. HA! Things have changed already. I am sitting on the couch waiting for Kim, Leo and their standard-shift Honda Fit to swoop me up and hit the road toward LA. We'll be staying in Venice for a night and then heading east to Colorado. This road trip is Kim's. Over the past week and a half she has taken one killer cumulative exam and been hooded for her PhD, so she is in serious need to decompress. She invited me to come with her and it could not have come at a better time. Starting in September I will be a committed graduate student. These four months remaining are mine. I'm going to start by spending birthday #26 in Boulder.

Excuses, excuses.

2008-05-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

Andy's parents are in town for our heat-wave week. We've been traveling all over the Bay Area having lots of fun. Just yesterday, for example, Andy's parents sent him on a solo mission to walk under a store-front awning in Half Moon Bay. Andy was completely unaware of one very territorial blackbird who chose the crappy location of that awning to establish his home. Andy's mission was a success: he was dive-bombed twice by the frantic bird and the rest of us stood back and laughed heartily. Andy returned annoyed and unscathed, adding to the hilarity. (Thanks, Andy.) I wish I had pictures to prove it. Instead, I only have more lolcats.

I am the first to admit it's lame to post another set of Lols so soon after the first. I just haven't had time to finish anything I've started in regards to this blog, my current art projects, or even laundry. Things should be returning "normal" shortly, and in the meantime this is better than posting nothing. Y'all might even get a laugh out of these, too...

more cat pictures

Nokia strikes out: a close look at a Wired ad

2008-05-11T14:07:00.000-07:00

I've been knee deep in magazines lately. Ever since the production of Andy's birthday gift, I've been hording anything with glossy images: junk mail fliers, catalogs and magazines. I am enthralled with them. They are my newest creative medium. I flip through them with a pair of scissors, but inevitably I linger over much more than imagery to clip out for a collaging project. Like this ad from Wired...

I admit, I initially saw this through a feminist lens and felt it depicted women negatively. We pretty much only see her smile, her boobs (complete with cleavage), and her outstretched arm, leaning in, begging her date's attention. He, however, thinks the baseball game is more exciting than his human companion. He also thinks he's sneaky enough to pull this one over on her. And of course, the woman will not be interested in the boys club of professional sports.

These were the thoughts going through my mind when I pointed it out to Andy. After all, this ad targets him: he subscribes to Wired, he makes enough money to buy such a gadget, hell, he even played baseball in high school. Andy agreed the ad is sexist, but he saw it in a completely different way than I had. He felt insulted by the implications Nokia was making about his demographic. Actually, he said, "I'm pissed that they are saying guys are tools." Interested in our initial points of view, I cut it out and passed it around one night when Liz and Andrew were over and we all talked about it.

Andrew agreed with Andy. He doesn't identify with the guy in this shot. The Andrews, and now I, feel this ad makes men look like sports-addicted creeps. This man is forgoing communication in favor of dishonesty. And in the bigger sense, it's suggesting that it's normal that a man's interests will differ so much from his date's that their conversation at a restaurant is less interesting to him than the game. God forbid she enjoy watching the game with him; Nokia does not want to confuse gender differentiation by leveling any playing fields.

It could be more insulting, I suppose; he could be looking at porn.

Plugs All Around

2008-04-08T13:01:00.000-07:00

I have begun my busy April. Last week into this one, Matt and Kristin visited our California home for the first time. We spent a lot of walking, cooking, eating, drinking and spending quality time with family. Now that they've left, I am back to work. I have been spending many hours of the last few months developing an argument comparing Body Worlds to hard core pornography. Tomorrow I am leaving for Rochester to co-present my paper with my writing partner at the Kern Conference of Visual Communication: Rhetorics And Technology.

I'm going to spend my time away rejoicing in the feeling that both programs I applied to have accepted me. I am definitely going to be back to school this Fall, and that feels good.

That's the condensed update on what has been going on in my life. I'll leave out the two-week period I spent clawing off my skin because of a mysterious, itchy, full-body rash. Turns out it wasn't due to ticks or poison oak as I first suspected. Nor was it scabies, despite a hasty misdiagnosis at the ER that sent me into panic for days. (Now they want me to pay them $700 for that waste of time, energy and resources.) But you don't really want to hear about all that, so I won't get into it. I'll spare you the pictures, too.

So while my life is picking up the pace this Spring, I want to turn your attention to the more prolific bloggers/web2.0ers I know. These are my peers that support my web presence continuously and I would like to do the same for them...

Adrienne

Adrienne's home base is in New England, but she's been hooked on the travel bug for the last year. When she is home she spend a lot of time crafting (how cool is that knitted heart?) She keeps visual record of all of these things in her picasa album. She's also racking up a cross-country digest of yelp reviews.

Chuck Burt: Musings on music, technology, photography, travel, and life.
Chuck is working his way up to blogging more these days, I can feel it. I suspect he spends a great deal of time giving his time, energy and intellect to his employer. But I hope he knows the Internet and the world at large could use a little more Chuck Burt. He's a creative guy with lots of good things to say, so add him to your RSS aggregator and pay attention for his nuggets of tech knowledge or fantastic photography. I can only hope I throw a little attention his way to encourage a little more Chuck-quality content.

My Project Life
Kate is a brain at work constantly, and a pleasure to read. I miss her poetry some, but I'm excited and inspired by her new style and philosophies. She is channeling her creativity into sharing her knowledge and experience as she mindfully lives her project. Her blog is filling up with tips on everything from getting acquainted with RSS to meditation techniques Kate's taken a stab at. Head over there and bookmark her. You're going to want to start at the beginning and take your time to enjoy her prose and musings on life. She also takes wonderful photographs (like that leaf up there) that you can see on her photo page.

Molly
As a part-time writer and photographer and a full-time business woman, Molly's got an online presence all over the place. She's a lot of fun and has ton of creative energy to share. I encourage you to check out her yelp page, her flickr page, and of course her buisness.

Wanderer Out West
Rebecca's an East-Coast girl who moved out to the Bay Area about a year before we did. She always has a lot going on in her life outside of her blog, but she's been updating about once a month for the past 6. She's a thoughtful writer with a lot of skill, so we can all hope she'll keep at it.

Stuff I Did
Rob has returned to the Web after an extended hiatus from his pioneering days back with AOL. He has a new blog featuring his photoshop art and electronic music that started with a bang. It continued strong through a string of birthday dedications (like Andy's featured above), and is stepping back and recognizing some oldies but goodies. Rob proclaims himself that this blog is not exactly family-friendly, it's probably NSFW, either. But it's all in good fun. The most risqué is along the caliber of a fart joke, a clever, intricately considered fart joke. The rest is often sweet and light-hearted tributes to things/people/places Rob likes. All of it is unique and throughly worth admiring.

Tina's Tirade

Tina, half of Tina and Jerry, has a been injecting wanderlust into my brain with her reflections of their travel. Jerry is the silent, visual half of the team stationed behind the camera. (Just like in real life, right guys?) The two of them have been doing a lot of traveling over the years and now we all get to benefit from their adventures. Any interest in visiting DC, Newfoundland, Oregon, or Iceland? Tina will be a wealth of information for you. She is also a dedicated, long-time vegan with an invaluable knowledge bank for those of us trying to live animal-free. Rumor has it she has a side project in the works to share that info. I'll keep you posted when it launches!

Who's inspired to start a blog now, huh? I welcome you to join us out here.

A Guilty Pleasure

2008-04-05T08:36:00.001-07:00

Back in 2007 when they were actually a hit Internet phenom, I was a bit of a lolcat hater. (If you have never heard of them, you should also visit their home and get the full experience.) I admit, the grammarian in me cringed at the lolspeak in the beginning. But I've come lighten up and stop being so old fashioned. Now I think they're hilarious at about a rate of 1 in 10. And according to that estimation, I've been accumulating favs over the past 120 lolcats that I've read. Since this is a crazy week for me leaving me with little time to blog, and I'm in a fairly whimsical mood right now, I am going to share my current favorite lolcats with all of you:

Remember, they're supposed to be silly. Don't be afraid to laugh out loud like you're supposed to.

Podcasts (and a little Yelp)

2008-03-29T11:21:00.000-07:00

I re-discovered a great writing warm-up today. This will account for the big red map on the bottom right down there. As I continue to spread my Web 2.0 wings, I welcome you to check out my Yelp page, even though it'll do you little good unless you are in my neighborhood. If you are a Yelper too, friend me!

Now I'm ready to write what I really sat down to work on...

I've decided that I'm an aural learner. I learn best by hearing ideas, quite often my own. I heard Andy account the other day that I can't write an academic paper until I can get him to understand what I am talking about. Before that point, my ideas aren't even clear enough in my own head to articulate them succinctly and persuasively. (I'm truly fortunate to have a partner willing to be this sort of listener for me.)

I also thrive from playing the listener myself much of the time. In this spirit, over the past several years I have fallen in love with the craft of radio. I even dabbled in producing it for a project at school, and I'm on the verge of trying it again, just for fun.

I've never been a huge bookworm. I have felt shameful about that, in fact. I've wondered what kind of student--or better yet, writer--can I be if I do not read? I feel more at peace since discovering how much I love the audible world. I still struggle through books for school and for pleasure, but I now know that I am still a student and a writer when I listen. I think critically when I consume radio, it even comes more naturally to me than reading a book.

Radio is my favorite medium. I am lumping podcasting under the radio umbrella because the craft is largely the same. In fact, I listen to a lot of NPR programing on my ipod. It's the NPR style I like, but I have branched out beyond that particular brand, as well. For that school project I mentioned, I did a lot of research on the craft of radio. The project was super fun, and I still reference websites like transom.org and prx.org for ideas and great things to listen to.

I listen to the radio in the apartment. There is a radio in the bathroom for showers and the stereo in the living room for dishes. When I'm on a run or doing laundry I have my ipod full of podcasts.

Like the businesses on Yelp, I'm in the mood to give shout outs to my ear-bud companions. In ABC order, here is my current set of staple casts on rotation every week (or as often as they come out):

Fresh Air
This show is probably syndicated on every public radio station in operation. It's in interview format and hosted by Terry Gross out of WHYY in Philadelphia. Gross is a master interviewer and her guests are top notch, ranging from current events to politics, to high and pop art. One program Gross will speak with a journalist just back from Iraq and the next she'll talk to Arthur Penn about his contributions to cinema. She is prolific, too. The show is on just about every week day, and I'm not going to pretend I keep up with it. I will listen to it anytime I catch it in real-time, and I skip around my podcasts around for a program that catches my interest quickly. Gross has a way of asking cleverly insightful questions, and knows exactly when and how to follow up or move on to a new subject. She interviews famous people regularly, but it is almost better when she talks with someone unknown. In those cases I have no expectations going in and I inevitably find myself feeling entertained and informed in the end.

Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing
This is a short podcast, generally about 5 minutes long. It's just what you'd expect by the title, except more fun. Grammar Girl (Mignon Fogarty) enjoys the English language and appreciates it for its systematic nature, but is human all the same. None of us are perfect and none of us know all the rules. Listeners call Grammar Girl up and ask her questions about the grey areas of the language. In turn, she researches the answer and shares it with all of her listeners. One of her recent shows discussed the difference between bad and badly, for example.

I love that she strikes a healthy balance between a prescriptive point of view, one that infers there is a single right way to use a word, and a more descriptive one that sees language as a living creature that develops and changes with time. I'm thinking specifically of her view on gender neutrality. She recognizes the need for such an institution of equality, and she points out that it is currently correct to write "she/he" rather than just "he" or even "they." However, she also acknowledges that our language is a bit old fashioned in its lack of gender neutrality and roots for "they" to win out as an official neuter alternative.

Lynch Land
This is the only video podcast I listen to consistently. I know this post is about how awesome audio is, but I can't let this list be published without giving more props to Liam Lynch. His podcasts have only become more accessible and consistently awesome since I last wrote about Lynch. I call him a media renaissance man because he does it all. He writes, directs, animates, sings, performs in, and edits all his podcasts himself. He does a lot of that for a living, too. I am not going to start the laundry list of what I love about LynchLand because it could go on forever. Plus, he's wacky enough that what I dig about his show could be entirely personal, and there is probably a good portion of people who would get nothing out of this podcast. But for whatever its worth, I think this guy is a creative genius and a huge inspiration.

On the Media
This is a meta show about media coverage that comes out of WNYC. It is hosted by Brook Gladstone and Bob Garfield. It aims to make media (mostly news) more transparent by analyzing coverage and discussing the implications it has on society. I aim to be a media nerd, so this show couldn't be farther up my alley, but it's accessible for non-nerds, too. They make media analysis smart, engaging and fun, the way it should be.

Radiolab
Another great show from WNYC, Radiolab is a documentary-style program with a healthy dose of creative sound manipulation. This show is just plain cool. It comes out in seasons of five shows a piece.The first podcast of Radiolab that I listened to was Making of Radiolab, and I recommend it as a starting point. It provides a self-conscious examination of the program itself by the creators and thoroughly illustrates their love for the art of radio. I have been hooked ever since.

Savage Lovecast
Like Liam Lynch, I count Dan Savage as one of my idols. Since I was 15 I have been getting the majority of my sex education from Savage Love, Dan Savage's weekly sex-advice column syndicated from The Stranger. Savage, a self-identified gay man, is as sexually progressive as they come. He knows what it's like to grow up Catholic, surrounded by narrow-minded and harmful ideas of sexuality, and he serves as an advocate for almost every sort of sexuality under the sun. He tells his message straight, often with a foul mouth, making all of his work entertaining and valuable.

About a year and a half ago, Savage extended his advice into a podcast format. People call in with their comments and questions about sex. Savage answers them with a healthy balance of personal attention and tangential ranting. After reading his voice in his column for so long, hearing him for real adds a great new spin on Savage Love. Plus, he's a political junky and he's friends with Ira Glass. Before I die I want to meet Dan Savage and give him a hug. I fully endorse his column, his books and, of course, his podcast.

Studio 360
Yet another show out of WNYC. This one is more a more straight-forward documentary than Radiolab, but it is just as engaging and well crafted. It's hosted by Kurt Anderson, a man who has perfected his own radio voice. The show sticks in the realm of pop culture with a mission to "get inside the creative mind." One show will focus on Michel Gondry or The Wire and others will be on Nicola Tesla or The Lincoln Memorial. No matter what the topic, Studio 360 is a consistently fascinating and inspiring way to spend an hour.

This American Life
Ah, my first radio love. I will always hold TAL and its host, Ira Glass, in a special place in my heart. This show is broken up into acts. Each act is independent of the rest but they all fit into a common theme, such as "matchmakers" or "quiz show" or "conventions". Most of the content is filled with personal stories spoken by all kinds of people in America. It consists mainly of anecdotes edited from interviews tied into a bigger picture narrated by Glass or another TAL radio producer. The acts and stories are strung together with great music and timing that make it widely pleasurable to listen to. This show is less about education and more about philosophy and entertainment. It's mostly about craft that is undeniably compelling. TAL carries a lot of influence over other documentary-style radio programs out there (and wannabe radio artists like me.) TAL complements a long stint of traveling like nothing else.

All of its success is increasingly evident in their spread to television, the stage and the big screen.

What do you think? Can I convert any of you into audio lovers? Do you think I'm missing a great show from this list? Please, share your thoughts with me.

A Delicious Silver Lining

2008-03-17T20:09:00.000-07:00

We made it. We trekked 20 miles total: five miles up hill in drizzling rain, strapped with an extra 25-30 lbs; five miles racing to make an "under-20-minute mile" only to unnecessarily wade across the river twice (r.i.p. Robbie's sneaker), walking the last 1/4 mile barefoot to the hot springs; five miles back to camp in the dark, and five final miles with our packs back to the home-sweet-home mobile on a beautiful Sunday.

At the last minute before we hit the trail, I jettisoned the second pound of trail mix that I'd prepared for the group. I regretted that decision because our energy-burning army of 10 devoured the duplicate bag by sunset on day one. I had tossed the bag in the back seat of the Buick, took off into the woods and looked forward to returning to it all day on Sunday. I'm pretty confident about my trailmix. I love it so much I couldn't care less if anyone else can stomach it. When we did return to the car I was faced with a disappointing fact: the organic, dark chocolate chips had melted into a warm, gooey mess. The little things weren't equipped with a melt-in-your-mouth coating, a problem that in ordinary circumstances a little finger licking could clear up. I admit I considered going for it in my condition, but ultimately I couldn't eat out of fingers so dirty ink would be unnecessary to stamp prints. It worked out for the best. The bag spent the night in the car and completed a beautiful metamorphosis:

Trail-Mix Brittle

Recipe:

Plump, golden raisins
Organic, semi-sweet chocolate chips
Salted, roasted, mixed nuts (the snooty sort with a low-peanut percentage)
Dried banana chips
Nature's Valley Hemp Plus granola

Proportion each ingredient to taste. Set granola aside. Mix remaining ingredients in a large bowl. When you're satisfied with the distribution, mindfully mix in the granola, staying careful not to stir it into crumbs. Eat as is, OR...

Place on backseat of 1999 Buick Regal on a sunny day in Big Sur, California. "Challenge" yourself to 20 miles up and down mountains. When you return exhausted, leave the bag in the back seat in forfeit. Return the next morning, delighted to find it edible and ready for you.

Enjoy.

In California you can go camping in March

2008-03-14T09:19:00.000-07:00

I'm backing out of a full-length post this week because I can't fit it in. I've been letting academia sap all of my writing energy lately (and even that's not enough.) I've also been letting it make me a little crazy. So, that is why this weekend is coming at a perfect time. I am forcing myself to take a break. The three of us are going backpacking with a group of awesome people. We're going to Sykes Hot Springs in Big Sur. In my lifetime of camping, I have never gone all the way and carried it all on my body. We'll be hiking 5 miles in tomorrow morning, setting up camp, then hiking another 5 without packs to the hot springs. Once we've relaxed enough in the springs, we'll hike the 5 miles back to camp where we'll stay for the night. I'm nervous and excited. Apollo has no idea what his weekend holds.

Welcome to your late 20s

2008-03-09T20:33:00.001-07:00

My #1 turns 28 on this glorious SAD turn around day. I spent the entire week working on a draft for this and preparing for Andy's big surprise weekend. It was a test of will to keep him in the dark about my plotting and crafting. But now that the cat's out of the bag, I can share what I've been up to with all of you.

(Tiny-Type Disclaimer: If you fail to notice the subtle differences, this post might make me look like a hypocrite going back to the round-up formula. Appreciate subtly while it lasts.)

Andy's physical birthday gift was a planter decoupaged with the candidates of this year's presidential election. I started with a huge stack of magazines and catalogs and a pair of scissors. I went nuts chopping out anything that looked appealing, trying not to consciously discriminate.
.

Eventually I started to see trends in what I was pulling out and grouped my clippings into categories. The number of clippings seriously outnumbered the amount of space available on the pot I picked out for this project, so I was forced to narrow things down to a single theme. I went with politics and shoved the remaining pieces in zip locks for a future project.

Andy witnessed my initial stages but once things began to materialize into his actual gift, I moved my set up next door in Tim and Lauren's dining room. Those two provided a lot of help by giving me free access to ~~my hiding place~~ their home. Lauren also contributed creative input, manual labor and company for me through the entire birthday process. Tim helped by avoiding Andy "like the plague" so he could resist spilling any beans in some sort of tourettic outburst.

I finally got to the application stage on Tuesday morning. I used mod podge as the adhesive and stuck on tons of small pieces for the background.

I let that dry for the afternoon while I shifted back into academic mode for a while. There is only so long I can think in lofty abstractions, so in the evening I went back to gluing. Lauren shared her crabapple juice and tasty strawberry-scented oolong tea and read a Michael Pollan; Apollo curled up on the carpet and enjoyed a raw-hide bone; and I cursed over almost losing Dennis kucinich's leg. Conveniently, Andy stayed at work late that night and didn't notice our absence.

I organized my paper-doll top layer on the table before I painted them on, one by one.

Then I bit the bullet and went for it. Here's how it looked when it was wet, and how it looks now:

Andy's other gift was a party.

On Friday Rebecca and Andrew came over and I put them to work. Andrew made the beautiful fruit salad and talked me out of whipping egg whites by hand. As if on cue, Lauren came to the rescue again with her Kitchen Aid mixer. She stuck around and chopped kabob-sized veggies with Rebecca. I baked the cake at T&L's, saving our apartment from an inexplicable aroma of Andy's favorite dessert wafting about suspiciously.

The show went down on Saturday afternoon at Cragmont park in Berkeley. Our friends got there early and went to work preparing the party. Lauren used my camera and took some pictures of the prep activities:

And everybody hiding as they waited for Andy's arrival...

It was a big success that Andy had no suspicions of whatsoever. We cooked up lots of great food, chatted, played games and stood in awe of the view of the bay. Everybody stuck around until sunset enjoying a beautiful California-Spring day.

The best part of this party was an opportunity to accept help from our friends. A year ago we were still living in NH and now we're out here with an established group of people show they care about us through offering their time, space and energy. It killed me not to be able to talk to Andy about this all week, but it became crystal clear for him at his party. We have awesome friends.

I want to take one quick moment to brag. Back before we started counting from that Saturday in August, Andy's birth date was the anniversary of our first official date, 7 years ago. I'm still feel very special that he spent #21 with me and every birthday since. My life keeps getting better with my best friend in it with me.

I love you, Andy.

A Letter from the Editor

2008-02-26T16:31:00.000-08:00

I'm double posting today. Don't let this anomaly hide my rendition of Tina and Jerry's visit down below!

Dear Readers,

Let's chat. I'm sick of writing weekend-round-up posts at the time being. Things are feeling too formulaic lately and since they have become kinda boring to crank out, I bet they're getting pretty stale to read, too. I hope this goes without saying, but I will say it to be crystal clear: this has nothing to do with the people that visit (I love you guys) or the ways in which we spend our weekends. It's that I need to shake things up for the sake of my creativity and the momentum I have to keep writing here every week.

You can expect to see less of what we're up to and more about what gets me excited these days. I am feeling inspired to write about my current podcast rotation, our recent cooking habits, an update on my academic endeavors, etc. There is a lot on my mind these days besides how we vacation.

I am going to go out on a limb here to ask, what do you think? Do those changes sound appealing? Is there anything you'd be interested in reading about that I have to offer? Your feedback is welcome in comment form or in my inbox at M dot Fitzgerald at Gmail dot Com.

Thanks everybody.

Love,

Mary

P.S. This does not mean I'm going to cease taking photos. Those will always be viewable at my flickr page!

A Tina and Jerry Extravaganza

2008-02-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

This will be the last post of its kind for a while. What great people to end our Winter vacation posts on!

Tina and Jerry flew out to visit us on Super Bowl weekend. Tina beat me to writing about their trip by weeks. You can read her rendition here. In fact, go read that one first. I am going to supplement Tina's post here with some extra photos and comments, rather than reiterate the blow-by-blow.

We met Tina and Jerry in July at Adam and Mariah's wedding. We were set up on a couple's blind date. Adam and Mariah thought we would make nice friends, and they were right.

T&J went to Virginia Tech with A&M and now live in the DC area. Tina is an economist and Jerry a geologist. Each of them dedicated public servants (thank you!) We've been keeping in touch via the Internet since July. Tina is a core member of my mini blogosphere, keeping me on my game by sending me comments and writing her own good material on their traveling adventures. We encouraged them to come out and visit us. They took the brave move and booked a flight out here and I am very excited they did.

Jerry is the designated photographer between them, and he took lots of pictures in Monterey and Oakland. He digitally sewed together the 180 degree view from our balcony. I think this is totally cool. It is the most thorough image we've got of our view yet...

Click on it to see the bigger version: it's worth it.

They flew into Oakland and scooped Apollo and I up for a trip down to Monterey on Thursday night. We stayed in a great little motel by the sea...

On Friday we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Tina mentions the poop-sniffing portion of the otter exhibit in her post. I'm going to elaborate because this is up my media-loving alley.

It was a creepy coincidence to stumble upon it because Tina and I had just been talking about incorporating smell into museum media. Smell is a powerful medium, like sound, that has a wonderful ability to influence us. If television and film producers were able to thread smells into their work, believe me, plenty would. Musical scores that give us goosebumps have nothing on the emotional-trigger power of smell. I was wondering out loud to Tina why museums don't use smells like this since they are interactive literally just as I was approaching my first ever encounter of this very phenomenon. Unfortunately, it did turn out to be marine mammal shit. Alas.

My camera batter was on the fritz that day, but here are some cell phone shots I took in the musuem...

(I couldn't take pictures of moving things because my cell phone is restricted like that. I encourage you to check out Jerry's jellyfish. )

We did zero cooking while they were here, which I regret to some extent. But, it was so exciting to go out to eat because we got to share part of our repertoire of tasty vegetarian places. Plus, Tina is vegan and thus so rarely gets to enjoy meals prepared with her diet in mind. While they were here we went to Millennium in SF, Cafe Gratitude, Mimosa (my fav breakfast place in our neighborhood), and on Sunday we went to my fav out-of-town breakfast spot, Rudy's CFC. I took some pictures there:

We had a truly wonderful time hosting these two. It was really awesome that two people we hardly knew (but had a really good hunch about) could just hop on a plane and come and spend four super-fun days with us. Now we have two more people to add to our national network of high-quality friends. In this age, when I am a click away from chatting with anyone at all, there is no reason to limit our good friends to one city. I'm already planning our trip to Virginia in my head. I wouldn't want to turn down an invitation to Vegan Thanksgiving, would I?

Thanks for coming, you two. You rock.

The rest of the pictures I took from Tina and Jerry's visit can be found here.

A couple East-Bay recruits visit (and if I keep calling them that I might be pushing my luck...)

2008-02-21T13:27:00.000-08:00

Awesome news, everybody: Jess and Bridget are getting married!! Woo Hoo!!

And so are...

Chuck and Elizabeth!! Super-ultra Double Woo Hoo!!

These two came to visit over MLK's birthday weekend. They tied it with Elizabeth's business trip and stayed in SF their first two nights. The next two the stayed with us, but we still had to share them with the rest of their SF family.

Pretty much the instant Chuck entered our apartment he pulled out his camera and headed straight for the balcony. He was about 15 minutes past sunset and the night didn't even seem visually impressive to me, but he still managed to take the best-looking pictures from our balcony. He's good like that.

We had plans to go out on their first night in Oakland, but we all felt content to stay home and catch up in person in the comfort of our living room. We threw together some last-minute veggie burgers from the freezer and stayed up drinking wine, contemplating the human consciousness for hours. I love these two for good conversations.

On Saturday Elizabeth left us for her SF pals and we finally made it out of the house to show Chuck a little more of Oakland. We took him to the Farmers' Market where he did a lot of this:

Resulting in these:

That garlic looking bulbous item up there we took home with us. They turned into Chinese Paper-whites. This is what they look like now:

According to the vendor who sold them to us, the flowers should last for six weeks. Once they die we're supposed to trim them back and put them in the refrigerator to simulate Winter for four weeks. Then we get to start over.

Chuck and Elizabeth made us feel like great hosts. (Shhh, don't tell them that we already think they're cool enough to stay here without the sucking up. Praise feels good.) Chuck especially seemed to be taken with the East Bay. As it turns out he'd really only spent time in SF in the past and had been missing out on all the glory of our side of the water. We had big ambitions to go to Yoshi's for dinner because it's sushi/jazz combination seemed perfect to Chuck. Once we realized that we'd need to get all dressed up, stand in line for a long time, pay tons of money to eat and potentially leave Elizabeth out, we decided to plan to do that the next time they come to visit. As a "consolation" we met everybody at Jupiter (go to their website, the picture on the homepage is totally inviting.) The plan B jazz bar was exactly what we were in the mood for. With their outdoor heaters it was warm enough to sit out on the balcony and share a pizza while catting amidst the live music. None of us took any pictures there, but to satisfy every one's overarching curiosity, here's a picture Elizabeth took earlier in the day of the other two that joined us:

These are Stacy (in pink) and her boyfriend/Chuck's bro, Steve. I wasn't even in the same city when this photo was taken, but something about the cupcakes and those awesome red chairs makes me dig this shot enough to share it.

A downside to hosting active photographers is my laziness with my own camera. As a consequence, this blurry shot with Apollo and me is the only one I've got of Elizabeth...

We dropped Elizabeth and Chuck off at SFO after breakfast on Sunday, sad to see them go. Now we just have to convince Elizabeth that making a transcontinental move is the right choice. You can do it, Liz! It's impossible to compete with your "real" family, but we love you out here on this coast!

A few more photos like these can be found here.

Boulder comes to the Bay Area for a Weekend

2008-02-11T23:21:00.000-08:00

The weekend following New Years was an odd one. It started off exciting enough when I picked up Cinnamon and Shay at OAK after their flight in from Colorado. From the airport we headed to Kim's in Berkeley. We beat Kim herself there, but we entertained our selves along with Seth (K's roommate) and Kevin (K's boyfriend.) Technically it was around noon when we got there, but it was 5 o'clock somewhere, as they say.

Whatever laid-back vibe the guys had when we got there, it was over when we hit the yard. Apollo fought to set the mood with an intermittent display of his alpha-dog facade, but everybody else remained jovial. The ladies settled in with their stuff while I reigned in Apollo and sat down to try my hand at the puzzle Kevin had going on the floor.

This pictures isn't actually from that day. I am cheating: I took this a couple weekends later, so imagine it with a lot less face, hands and black areas inside the edges, which was basically the only part in place that afternoon. By the time we left, we'd rallied enough effort to complete Audrey's face, arm and cigarette holder. The rest of the puzzle, as these images confess, is next to impossible. All pieces remaining are mono-colored. The puzzler must eye pieces by silhouette alone from here on out. I gave it a shot but resorted to lining the pieces up in rows, facing them all in same direction, and I doubt my effort has any help at all.

After some time the whole gang finally arrived. Kim snuck out of work and came home soon after our grand entrance. And following her, Vyga, another Boulderite, made it down from Portland. Vyga was on a tour of west-coast interviewing, and her stop in the Bay Area was the inspiration for this ladies', etc. weekend. While we still had sunlight, we left the men behind and took off with the pups for a stroll around campus.

Just next to Kim's house this T-Rex came out of nowhere to greet us on the sidewalk. Have no fear, we made it past unscathed.

When we made it to Cal I let Apollo off leash and the dogs took off frolicking together with the frisbee.

We stopped for a photo op near the tower once on the way in...

And again on the way out...

Kim told us that when she was an undergrad she and her friends used to sit under the tower and look up at it, seeing it as a road that is paved to the sky.

We gave it a try. Shay composed this shot. She's got an eye for album covers.

Leo and Apollo spent some time splashing around in a small stream on campus. Like Mr. Hyde, once he was wet, Apollo turned into crazy dog. He did a ton of barking while we sat chatting on the bridge. When we walked out again past this fountain, he jumped in and swam across. Of course I was a moment too slow with the camera, but you get the idea.

At dusk, we took off back to Kim and Seth's for a while. Andy took BART to Berkeley after work and Kevin picked him up and brought him over. While we waited for them, we made made the classic mistake of drinking some more wine before dinner. It turned into an even livelier party until we headed back out to the streets.

It only took me 9 months out here, but I finally made it to Jupiter in Berkeley for the first time that Friday night. We were lucky enough to get a table upstairs to fit all of us. By that time we had accumulated a few more people than when we started the night, and I didn't even have a chance to interact with all of them.

At one point I went off to the lady's room and came back to 4 new people at our table along with a mysterious stash of dry ice. I asked questions but acquired no answers as to what exactly needed chilling at our table that evening. The wait staff probably pondered the same thing once we left.

We all made our way back to Kim and Seth's one more time at which point Andy, Apollo and I continued on home for the night.

The next morning we woke up to rain. I didn't let the weather diminish my weekend hopes for going out to breakfast. We went to Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, my new favorite breakfast joint of all time. Honestly, it single handedly eases my heavy repugnance for Emeryville to mere aversion. Emeryville is home of Bay Street, one of those Florida-style phony-downtown malls crammed full of high-end retail chains and capped on each end by practically all the large box stores in existence. In this land of unoriginal, unabashed consumption, Rudy's is a beacon of individuality and consciousness.

There is a line waiting for seats every time we go. But they leave out a coffee station for you to pour your own mug full as a pacifier. It works; I never mind waiting for our seats. Not even on a rainy Saturday.

When our turn was up, the free seats were at the counter and we happily took them. Sometimes we're in the mood to chat over our eggs, but this morning the counter was a great place to go with the paper to sit in the midst of the action...

After breakfast we met Apollo back at the car and set off for Cesar Chavez Park. On the way there we stopped on an impulse to check out Discount Fabrics. I was looking for a big button, but I left with some needles, a couple spools of thread and these pictures...

To Apollo's glee, we finally made it to the park. We spent a rainy hour tossing the friz for him...

On the way out of the park we stopped at this roadside market, just to check it out:

The place is pretty small and feels very California with it's store front wide open on a rainy day in the midst of Winter. They sell some fruit inside along with sandwiches and mini-mart fare. They also sell "something" in these bottles...

Do you think they're making a statement about vintage quality here? More likely this display is fit for this clever "blog" instead.

This Saturday was one in a slew of rainy days we've been getting this Winter. Apparently there was a drought last Winter, and this season has made up for that and then some. We've been getting dumped on with rain since November. It will make Spring and Summer feel all the sweeter, I'm sure. But in the midst of it, things can seem pretty gloomy. Here is some more evidence of what I'm talking about from just our Saturday outing:

Eventually we went home to dry off and rest up for the evening. Our plan was to wait until we heard from the Berkeley crew and meet up with them for dinner. We played a few rounds of Set while we waited.

But we never ended up going in Berkeley that night. Liz called and told us her apartment had been broken into twice in 24 hours and she and her roommate wanted out. We took off for west Oakland and helped her and her friends haul their stuff out and into a UHaul. It was the least we could do for that crew, they were exhausted and violated. A bright update to that story is that Liz and Meghann are now living in a cute apartment in SF close to Golden Gate Park.

On Sunday the Berkeley women came over for brunch around 1pm. We were also joined by Ian, a new work buddy of Andy's who lives in Chicago. Ian was in town for company training and came out to Oakland from his hotel in SF to join us for food and football. Here's a picture of Andy and Ian from earlier in the night. I took this one especially for Andy's dad. He, and anyone who's visited Washington Ave in Endicott, will know why...

I regret forgetting to take pictures of the food at brunch that afternoon because it was damn good. We had mimosas and peach lambic to drink. Andy grilled up some fresh home fries and I made fruit salad out of kiwi, bananas, blueberries and pineapple. Then we cooked some corn fritters on the griddle. That would have been delicious as it was, but Andy came up with the brilliant idea of putting the fruit on top of the fritters with a little maple syrup. It was, quite frankly, to die for. It wasn't just Andy's stove-master magic, the weather made the food taste better, too. That Sunday was about the best day all winter at that point. It was warm enough to open the windows and eat on the balcony. And after all the rain we'd had, it was a beautiful relief.

While they were both wonderful, the food and the weather were not what made Sunday a great party. Our guests were responsible for that. Everyone had a sunny, laid back attitude that capped off a great weekend perfectly. Andy and I feel very special to have Cinnamon in our lives. We share her great taste in friends. Hopefully the Bay Area will attract more of this crowd out here permanently in the future.

When the women left for the airport I was in no mood to clean up right away, so I sat down with some incense and ear buds and took to work writing.

The men stayed in the living room and watched football. When the sun went down they went out back and took some pictures. The sun was being tricky that day, but I promise you the top floors of this high rise were only engulfed in a fiery optical illusion...

As always, more photos of the weekend can be found here and here.

I'm not lazy

2008-02-09T10:34:00.000-08:00

I'm sick.

I'll be back soon.

Obama for President

2008-01-28T20:31:00.000-08:00

On the heels of Senator Kennedy, I am officially announcing my support of Barack Obama for President.

If I was to vote on this past Friday afternoon I would have cast my ballot for Hillary Clinton. And yes, because she is a woman. Gender is a huge issue to me and I believe it should be a huge issue to every one of us. Women and men alike suffer from gender inequality in our country every damn day. Having a woman in the presidency would not be a "novelty", as my commenter suggested. What if any candidate could get up in front of a thousand people and cry when s/he feels like it? When Clinton did it, critics claimed she was "using the gender card" but if any man did it, he would likely be considered weak. I may be idealistic, but I dream of the day when anyone--man or woman--can get up on stage and cry when s/he is so moved and their audience will accept those tears as a simple expression of emotion in the moment. We will all be healthier when we reach the day that everyone can cry as freely as they laugh. I plan to hold onto this dream and continue to encourage all of you to raise your gender awareness, but I have decided that voting on this dream would be selfish, misdirected, and frankly, not enough.

Politically speaking, I favor John Edwards the most of the candidates left in the race (so long, ~~Sen.~~Rep. Kuchinich.) Senator Edwards has been on the road with the same message since he lost the race to become vice pres three and a half years ago. He's an anti-corporate crusader out to raise awareness about poverty, something that is ignored too often. I commend him and I am glad he is sticking with it until the bitter end. I hope he comes back again, too. Because, as the media coverage he isn't getting reflects, right now is not his time.

Right now is the time for re-branding in America. We have spent the last seven years with a man in charge that has brought down both our domestic sense of pride and our international image. On the relatively harmless side of the spectrum, I think about how every bookstore cash register in America seems to be laden with novelty items mocking our leader's intelligence. When our citizens travel over seas we take on a Canadian identity to hide from the ridicule that seems currently inherent in being American. On the more frightening side, more children are born into an over-seas culture of hating this nation every day. Our troops and theirs continue to be killed, injured and mentally scarred on the battle grounds of the war on terror. While our government continues to force feed "American values" across the planet, a great deal of us living in this land of the free ironically feel ashamed to be American at all. This is no small problem. The urge to change this status has created the ideal climate for big change.

This brings me to Friday night and a good talk I had with my new friend, Seth. Without knowing, Seth went on a campaign to convince me to support Obama with the best argument anyone could have presented to me, an argument about image. He pointed me to Andrew Sullivan's article in the Atlantic, "Goodbye to All that: Why Obama Matters." I encourage you to read it, but allow me to share my favorite passage that encapsulates the point I am going for beautifully:

Consider this hypothetical. It's November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America's soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama's face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.

Seth convinced me to face my own naive selfishness involved in voting for Clinton next month. If I were to vote for her, I would be voting on behalf of gender equality. I would also be voting for a name that the whole world recognizes and associates with these United States. To us there might be huge changes involved in shifting from Bush to Clinton to Bush and back to Clinton. But on a global scale would there be any reason for people to trust that we want change at all?

I am optimistic that one day we will be able to judge a person by the "content of their character." While we strive for a more collective critical awareness, we remain in a media age where image matters whether we like it or not. For right now, I am going to settle with the thought that we can be the first generation to elect a leader that does not belong to a racial majority. I need to believe that this will be a huge step toward changing our hearts and minds about assumptions we collectively hold based on the way we look, our personal histories and even our gender.

Barack Obama can be the boost we need. Who's with me?

The Rest of Unemployment December (2 of 2)

2008-01-26T15:39:00.000-08:00

This Christmas season was the first in all my 25 years spent outside of New York. It wasn't sad or lonely, honestly; it was relaxing. There were no last-minute trips in bumper-to-bumper traffic en route to the mall. There was none of the stress inherent in stretching ourselves in all directions to appear at a dozen separate holiday parties. It was just Andy, the dog and me free to enjoy the festive spirit minus all the chaos.

When we returned from our trip east, California was covered in strings of red, green and white lights. At night a high-rise tree appeared across town. Next door to us, our neighbors set up a light display that I like to believe was just for us...

These windows are about 10 feet from ours. Their view is almost exclusively straight into our kitchen and bedroom. Whoever lives over there generally keeps their blinds closed as a semblance of privacy between our worlds. But this rule broke down for decoration's sake. The people below us might have been able to get right up next to their windows and crane their gaze upward to see these lights, or someone from the street could squint and catch a glimpse of them, but the three of us were the only outsiders allowed unencumbered enjoyment of this little tree and blinking snowflake lights.

We put in some effort to adorn our abode in a seasonal fashion with our four-foot synthetic tree, my mom's beautiful tree skirt and, of course, our electric hearth that makes every holiday more enjoyable...

When we were not hiking, we did a lot of cooking during this time. Among the fresh meals we threw together, we gave Zachary's-style pizza another shot.

We haven't quite mastered it, but it was just as fun tying a second time. And compared to $14.50 for a small version of the real thing, this was worth it.

On the 23rd we spent the morning at Redwood Regional Park with Molly.

Rain or shine, Molly goes hiking with a pack of dogs everyday. Now and then we can catch her before she leaves for her outing and meet up with her. (If she wants Apollo to herself every time he hikes with her, she needs to stop being such nice company for people.)

Dexter, Molly's chihuahua mix stayed tethered to her throughout the hike. We were also joined by...

Dakota, Molly's 19-year-old lady. She's the Doggy Lama, the namesake of the business.

Willow, the hundred-pound puppy with the best expressions. Despite her size, this Bernese mountain dog is definitely a baby. Her enthusiasm actually freaks Apollo out and he is know to get a bit snarky with her when he's pushed to the limit.

And Dunkler, the English Pointer. Quite unlike Apollo, this guy lets his nose lead the way; he is a hunter for sure.

We see Aussies like Apollo on the trail now and then, but they are generally black tri or merle in color. On this day we had the rare treat of meeting Seth, another red tri Aussie.

They looked so much alike it was spooky. But then again, there was no risk of going home with the wrong dog: ours is the cyclops.

We swung by Trader Joe's on the way home and came back out to find Apollo like this...

He had such little interest in budging that I literally had to scoop him up and out from under the steering wheel so we could drive home. Once we got there, we spent the entire afternoon making a double batch of Ultimate Veggie Burgers. They take forever to make, and it might take three trips to three different stores to gather all the ingredients, but this recipe absolutely deserves its modifier: these burgers are freaking amazing.

Once we were finished working in the kitchen, we went out on the balcony to soak in the good life...

You certainly can't do this in upstate New York on Christmas Eve Eve; our globe ain't that warm yet.

We spent Christmas itself at Rebecca's apartment with Matt and R's mom, Iva. We brought over a salad and some cookies. I could have carried on my family's tradition of baking extravagant Christmas cookies like kolache or peanut butter blossoms, but in the interest of a low-stress holiday, I stuck to what I know best: oatmeal walnut chocolate chip cookies. They were pretty damn good.

Rebecca put in many more hours than we did in preparation and, with her mom, put together a wonderful feast. I'll quote straight from Rebecca's blog:

Dinner menu:
hors d’oeuvres—white radishes, brie and tablewater crackers, smoked almonds
dinner—yummy salad a la Mary, apple and onion stuffed Cornish game hens, sweet potato risotto (with mascarpone cheese), cranberry sauce, and rainbow chard
dessert—chocolate chip cookies a la Mary and Andy
beverages—wine, wine, and champagne

I forgot to bring my camera, but Rebecca put up some more words and images of it.

In between the 25th and New Years we spent a bunch of down time. All the vacationing fun was really cutting into my work time, so I actually had to buckle down a little. Andy took advantage of some home time to install, briefly enjoy and then grieve for his now-broken Xbox. Santa had some bad luck shopping this year and Andy's stuck with the hassle now.

We promised Lauren that we would go take at least one afternoon out of town to check out Santa Cruz, so on the 30th we did just that. We took the long way down route 1 through Half Moon Bay, along the coast. It was a gorgeous day: the sunniest we’d had in over a week. Within half an hour of leaving our house, we were looking out across the ~~Atlantic~~ Pacific, witnessing gigantic waves crashing into the coast, one after another.

When we arrived in Santa Cruz itself, it was high tide so we too the opportunity to walk around downtown before hitting the beach with the dog. For our wallets' sake, it was probably good we made this trip after Tim's birthday party, but I will know for next time that SC is an ideal place for costume hunting. There are tons of great, overpriced thrift shops in that town. One of them is run as a co-op of aging hippies selling off their collection of authentic retro wardrobes. Others are more contemporary consignment boutiques with designer jeans and allover-print hoodies that are such the rage lately.

Around 4 O'clock we tired of browsing the innumerable racks of clothes smelling like my parent's basement and we took Apollo down to the water. There is a dog-friendly beach right below the SC Surfing Museum (the lighthouse building featured in the pictures below). And for all of our viewing pleasure, it happened to be magic hour when we hit the sand, providing what I can confidently say was the best light conditions for any photography I have ever taken in my life...

These are just a sample of the shots we took that afternoon. If you have not had enough, check out the whole flickr set.

After all kinds of back and forth about what we would do, at the last minute we ended up spending a quiet New Year's Eve at our apartment with Matt and Rebecca. We made more pizza with them and did a lot of champagne drinking and chatting.

When the Clock struck midnight, we walked out onto the balcony to listen to the city. People in the cars were honking, voices on the street were yelling, "Happy New Year", and somewhere across the bay in SF there was a fireworks display.

Happy 2008, everybody!

Unemployment December in the Bay Area, Part 1 of 2

2008-01-17T20:39:00.000-08:00

When we flew back into Oakland from the east coast, we shifted into in-town vacation mode. We had considered traveling some more with our free time, but the traveling we did left us exhausted. Plus, living here still feels like vacation sometimes. We live in a place that tourists flock to from all over the world, and we have barely put a dent into what the area has to offer to fill our free time.

We missed Apollo while we were gone, and based on the flipping out he did when we picked him up, he missed us even more. We promised him that we would spend some quality time together the rest of the month. We went on a hike everyday through Christmas to New Year's. The first full day we were back to Oakland, we drove up and took a stroll at Point Pinole.

The park sits at a point on the coast and acts as an elbow connecting the San Fransisco Bay to the San Pablo Bay. The hike there provides panoramic views stretching over both bodies of water. It was chilly that day, but California sunny, and we felt as though we had the whole park to ourselves. The setting put us in a peaceful mood, which was a fortunate state to be in as we tackled San Fransisco rush-hour traffic back to Oakland.

On two other days of our first week, we drove up to Tilden Park in Berkeley. Tilden is loaded with off-leash trails. This park gives a taste of what I love about winter here.

Growing up on the East coast made me associate Winter with death. Fall elicits glorious colored leaves on the trees, but when Winter creeps in, everything withers and falls to the ground. Snow is a consolation prize that stops by a couple times during the cold months, covering up nature's compost. Even that beauty runs its course, ending with icy, sandy-brown plow debris left on the side of the road. In Northern California, Winter brings life. Around October, rain appears for the first time since April. The sun-scorched hills that bake day after day in the summer, turn to rich shades of green throughout the rain season. Grass begins to peek up through the gaps in the concrete that criss cross the sidewalks. I took the picture below back in November because it illustrates what I am talking about:

In Tilden, this effect is magnified enormously. The air up there is heavy with moisture during this time of year; if rain does not actually fall from the sky, the fog will undoubtedly pass through every day. The effect leaves everything laden in chlorophyll and photosynthesis abounds.

Part of what makes the forest in places like Tilden seem so thick are trees like the one below. Large branches lay heavily on the ground and spawn smaller branches, like little trees. I had never seen anything like this before hiking in CA:

Our first hike in Tilden skirted the edge of a cliff that drops down into a valley. We took some pictures looking down from the edge:

The hike we took later in the week brought us to the trail at the base of that valley. When we looked up we could recognize the point (behind the metal railings) where we had taken the pictures looking down.

The second day of our hike took us through some very muddy trails to the pay off, Lake Anza.

On the 21st, we decided to venture out a little farther away, up into the North Bay. We found a hike in our Best Hikes With Dogs book called Blithedale Ridge near Mill Valley. To get there, we took an incredibly narrow, winding road out of Mill Valley into the forest. Houses sit up on the banks of this road, camouflaged by the foliage. The way the real estate goes out here, these houses must be at least million-dollar homes, yet they attract only a certain type of homeowner. There is an aspect of "roughing it" involved in this setting. From the looks of things, most, if not all, of the parking is on the side of the road, and the doors to access the house are up a couple flights of wet, wooden stairs.

And if the houses in the neighborhood were not enough to convince us that this is the turf of the upper crust, that point was driven home as we took note of the cars parked around us. Lexuses, BMWs, Jags...the people here seem to want to 'get back to nature' on some level, but keeping their image in tact all the while. Something about it seems ironic to me.

I will let some images from our hike up the fire road and into the trails speak for themselves:

When we got home from our excursion in the North Bay, we made some dinner and put on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Ordinarily I wouldn't chose a western, but we considered this homework, of sorts. We needed to get into character for the following day...

Little boys in California learn about the Wild West when they are growing up and dream of cowboy birthdays into adulthood. Tim is case in point On the upside of waiting for your dream party is at a certain age you have unmitigated access to power tools and shot guns. Tim and his friend Spencer spent what I imagine to be many evenings plotting, posing, and cutting out a targets for a genuine (gen-u-wine) shooting gallery.

Everybody interested in shooting brought a bunch of these:

And when people could actually shot a target (not me) they often aimed at these:

This is Lauren (who is married to Tim) shooting with her dad.

Having missed Halloween celebrations this year, Andy and I got into building costumes for this event. Frankly, I'm proud of how they came out...

Apollo got a little dressed up, too.

I took a bunch of pictures at the party of various people and things. This is a sample of them in small sizes. For more, go to their Flickr Set. But here's one more good one, in a big size...

This is me, Andy, Lauren and Tim with Tim's famous cake. He invented it, but his mom made this particular one. It's not nearly as bad as his parents forewarned it to be. In fact, I might have liked it if I weren't so stuffed with spaghetti already. If you're intrigued, I'm sure Tim will bake one for you. But don't ask him to share his secrets.

For now, I'll leave you with one more picture...

It's not even that this picture is good. It's a mediocre shot of the sun setting over the Port of Oakland. Quality is not the point; what it reminds me of, is. I took from the passenger-side window on our drive home from on Christmas Eve. The holiday time of year did put us in touch with how far away we are from our families. We live out here now, together, in California. Some weeks are tough, and some days are even sad because it isn't always that easy. But, when I stop to think about it, I remember that we are living our dream (in many more ways than just California), and it's great. I love my life.

NH Primary Reflection: Obamarama and then some

2008-01-09T10:45:00.000-08:00

Who hasn't heard enough political analysis yet by this morning and wants to hear a little more from an amateur pundit? None of you? Great! I'll get started right away...

I'm behind on sharing the rest of my December/January events, and at this point posting pictures of Christmas lighting will be about as timely now as they will be in May, so I'm in the mood to write about something a little off my typical track. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday watching CNN on and off mute while I did some brainstorming for a work essay. After a while I found myself literally taking notes on things that struck me about the primary coverage. I totally ignored some of the speeches (Romney!) and talking heads, so this isn't exactly all-inclusive, but here are some thoughts:

Obama actually brought up something in his speech that gave me an appreciation for primaries: he said that in this time people do not come out to vote their party line, it's much more specific than that. During the primary people come out to vote for someone. It's not a matter of red, blue or otherwise, during a primary you need to pick the shade of the color of your choice.

John McCain is OLD, and he said it himself. This guy broke what I thought was a golden rule of political spinning: don't point out your own weaknesses, especially when they're valid. He started his acceptance speech by saying, "I'm past the age when I can claim the noun 'kid', no matter what adjective precedes it." And guess what sound bite I heard on NPR this morning? Yep, nobody has to point out that an old fogey is still trying to be president, he'll tell you himself. Nothing like the thought of death while in office to discourage voters from sticking by you.

Ron Paul is endearing if not cultish. I am impressed by this guy's base. They are an energetic, vocal crew of people who are willing to stand out there and fight for a guy who is bound to lose. I love it. In CA I see more signs for Paul than all the other candidates combined. He seemed so cute up there smiling and joking about how he didn't expect college kids to cheer when he talked about bringing down the Federal Reserve System. The crowd then began chanting "End the Fed!" Paul just grinned for a moment, basking in the enthusiasm. From his place in this race, he seems much more gracious to his supporters than impatient McCain did. When McCain said, "Thank you" over his cheering fans, his face read, "Shut up and let me talk!" I guess I've turned into a McCain hater, huh? Well Ron Paul makes McCain look like a grumpy old man, what can I say?

I only watched CNN last night because I was pretending to do "real work" throughout, so I can't make broad claims about the media coverage at this point, but I did notice some things that seem problematic. CNN's coverage was cautiously anticipatory and largely analytic to a fault. Wolf Blitzer said something like, "After very disappointing results today, Bill Richardson has returned to New Mexico to reevaluate the campaign." The emphasized 'very' and that little 're' before evaluate is a message that says if Richardson pulls out, CNN won't be shocked. It's not CNN's job to tell me that, it's Richardson's. The subtlety of language like this, along the not-so subtlety of the projections of candidate's performances on the trail really do influence the campaign too much. The "comeback" of Clinton between Iowa and NH feels like a media construction. Did she dip in popularity at all over the past month, or did media figures wanting to keep their jobs just start saying so for ratings sake?

I think I'm going to vote for Clinton next month. I've been voting for her as long as I could legally vote and as of today, I plan to stick with her. But, the attraction to Obama is undeniable. The man is S M O O O O T H. Obama is so polished and likable that he makes JFK look like Nixon, let alone anyone running right now. And is this a valid quality to elect someone on? I am getting the impression of the media continuously try to discourage voting on appearance and charm. They push to "Vote on the issues!" But look at the guy we've got in the office right now. He is mocked all across the globe, and more importantly, all across his own nation for being a clumsy, bumbling moron. His appearance hurts both our national image and our national pride. Sure, his stance on the issues matter first and foremost. Tony Blair taught me that you can't stay on top with looks alone. Ultimately, you have to lead in a way that your constituents want you to lead. Despite all the jabbering about 'electability', the media doesn't seem to admit it (even though they profit from image), a candidate's image matters. And with the nation suffering from Obamarama right now (including me), I am wishing that Hillary had a little of Bill's political suavity.