Remember, at that time, everyone assumed that Palin would go back to Alaska, serve out her term as governor, and probably run for re-election as governor in 2010. That was going to be the end of my book--Palin's re-election campaign for governor. At some point along the way I realized she wasn't going to run for re-election. I was receiving lots of signals from people close to her and in the Alaska legislature. She clearly hated being governor after she returned from the presidential campaign. When she quit, I wrote a piece about how this freed her to establish a national platform. And that's precisely what she did.

So my book changed substantially. It grew into a massive political biography that still examines the dynamic between Alaska and American politics, but which also exposes Palin's "pathology of deceit," as I call it, and the dysfunction that follows her wherever she goes--from her first days as mayor in Wasilla through the 2008 presidential campaign to her return as governor to her haphazard "run" for the GOP nomination in 2012.

As a queer Latina, I found myself in the same quandary as the night Prop 8 won and Barack Obama was elected President. I didn't know whether to cry or dance, weep or shout, be enraged or engaged. Instead I made cookies. There at least I have complete control over what happens.

As my mailbox quickly flooded with the joyous and angry messages from the different camps I wondered about the future.

Many of my Latino colleagues have talked about the bullying they have experienced from people in the LGBT community in cyberspace for their advocacy of both immigration reform and the DREAM Act.

Conversely, our Latino advocates have been so consumed with immigration that there was hardly a word spoken about DADT nor ENDA, which disappeared in this Congress.

Where are those of us who now live at the intersection of yes and no?

To: Ms. Gloria Nieto, Mr. Bevan Dufty, Mr. Michael Petrelis, Ms. Masen Davis, Mr. Rick Jacobs, Mr. Randy Allgaier, and Mr. Matthew S. Bajko
CC: Rep. James E. Clyburn

Dear All:

You were mentioned in a recent Bay Area Reporter article on gay activists' opinion of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's performance regarding gay issues.

Please be advised of the following:

The letter continues - and gets much worse - after the jump.

What it doesn't bring is the phone call I had every year with my friend, Gary, who shared the same birthday, even the same year. He died of AIDS 10 years ago.

The two of us together were awful. Disgusting. Gross. Hilarious. But we were committed to educating people about AIDS and we spent many hours together in a wide variety of settings talking to so many people about his illness. We laughed, got a little teary sometimes and totally passionate about the work.

Most of all he wanted me to be his witness. I needed to tell people that he was loved and had made a difference in his time here.

While one could be considered life-threatening the cumulative effect was to feel completely helpless. I don't believe that is over yet. Today I go back in for surgery as the last chapter of this run of physical bad luck. Hopefully I will be out by tomorrow.

During all this drama, I came to realize how profoundly important my marriage was to me as a person and in these settings.

When the doctors came in to talk to me, my spouse, Jo was there. When I was dealing with a lot of pain and pain medicine, she was there to ask questions, write down the answers and listen to the options for care. Every time the doctor asked who she was, the answer was simple - my spouse.

It was an interesting dichotomy for me. I had just returned from Netroots Nation in Las Vegas and been part of the LGBT caucus. Part of what I was stressing in meetings was the need to not just ask others for support for our causes but the need for the LGBT communities to support others.

Allow let me take a step back even further.

As I shared there, it is important to look at the multi-generational discrimination communities of color have faced. It isn't just me in my family who has suffered discrimination. It was grandparents who were barred from entering restaurants. It was my mother and her segregated school. The swimming pool was off limits in Del Rio, Texas for Mexican kids.

Some of the discussions at NN were about the shoddy treatment given to Shirley Sherrod who was fired by the current administration based on a fake, edited videotape put online by a liar. So how many people knew Ms Sherrod's personal history dealing with racism? Surely the Obama administration knew what she has lived with her entire life?

Second, NN what were you thinking going to the Rio hotel? There were around 2000 participants there with multiple ways of accessing the net but there was a ridiculous amount of money involved in having access in our rooms and most of the time there was no access.

I won't go into the gory details but it took a modern miracle to get regular access to the net. At a net convention.

Third, the rooms may have been cheap but getting into the hotel took some money in the bank. When I tried to check into my prepaid room, the hotel tried to extract $200 from my checking account as a deposit. I don't have $200 in my account.

Since I am sure they mistook me for a rock star in my Hawaiian shirt and presumed that I was going to trash the room, they tried to take my money and were not going to allow me to check in if I didn't have the money. In rooms that had been paid for already.

So I did what any activist dyke would do - I burst into tears.

Here in San Jose, there are number of LGBT Sharks fans. A small number are also fans of other teams. At the end of the three periods, we are all hockey fans. But as one would expect, there seems to be a fairly high rate of homophobia in the sport. (On a personal note, I have never heard it in the stands, not even the drunks. The Sharks themselves are fairly kind to all of us fans, so I can't imagine them being homophobic to us face-to-face.)

Late last year there was a great shift in the force in the National Hockey League. I'd like to see more of that. Here's what happened.

All of us are well over 50. We are the only ones to lose our home at this point; the other friends are barely holding on. Of the four of us out the other night at the Egyptian museum, only one of us has a job. The other three hobos, I mean homos, have all been gainfully employed all our adult lives. One has owned and operated several businesses over time. Her unemployment just ran out on Friday. She is one of the 1.3 million who were dropped that day.

My unemployment ran out back in April. No income since then so my spouse is trying to keep both of us afloat.

The other friend is on disability and her partner is her paid caregiver. The Governator is about to drop that program so that poor disabled will continue to bear the burden of this Depression. They live a half hour drive out of town and cannot afford to move in closer to town so they are facing down foreclosure also.

Since early childhood, I have been a sports fan. Like many good dykes, my summers were spent playing softball. I have had a long love affair with the SF Giants and now I live for hockey, both playing it and watching it. I believe I have a trained eye for watching competitions and this court case was a competition.

I am offering my experienced sports eye for observations of the court as I witnessed it.

First, we had the first string in the game throughout. I don't know where anyone would get the idea that Charles Cooper is big league material. He reminded me of the kid in school who got called on and hadn't studied. In fact, the lawyers were given a take home test and Cooper failed miserably. In front of God and everyone, he failed. He should be demoted to the minors.

My last unemployment check came the first week of April.

Yesterday I went out to talk to someone about some work and I could not find her. I almost ran out of gas trying to find her.

After putting a little bit of gas in my car so I could continue looking for work this week, I now have $7 left.

I have been unemployed for over a year. Despite what lots of nasty people say, I do not sit around waiting on that check to come. I have interviewed on numerous occasions only to finish second every time.

Maybe I am too old to work again, after all I have hit the magic number of 55 where apparently employers draw the invisible line. All my peers without work are experiencing the same phenomenon, we are all too old. Of course no one is going to come right out and create a law suit for themselves by admitting this.

• Wedding licenses were issued to same sex couples in Washington D.C.
• Mexico City allowed same sex marriages to begin there.
• John Perez was sworn in as Speaker of the California State Assembly, the first openly gay person to occupy this top of the food chain position not only in California but in the country. Add the Latino part and you have a Latino gay man leading the Cal Assembly.

The world has changed.

Thursday's star witness, Dr. (of what?) William Tam signed on to Prop 8 early on. He testified in court that, among other things, he gets his education on LGBT people from the internet, he believes what NARTH preaches but doesn't know what the American Psychological Association says about us, he thought San Francisco was run by homosexuals (apparently the Prop 8 proponents crowned Tom Ammiano queen of the the city) and admitted that Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, is not gay. I am sure the lovely Mrs Newsom is glad to hear that.

There were several attempts by Yes On 8 and the Rev Tam to keep him off the witness stand. He tried to withdraw last week. Thursday they gave it another run, trying to keep him and his family safe from the raging homosexuals. Every day there is a lot of whine to go with the cheese how about how all of these people are terrified of us. What?? We might criticize their clothes or makeup? How about that bad hair do?

So let me show all of you the emails I received right after the Prop 8 election.

I got up to San Francisco around 11. As an avowed non-morning person I managed to skip the morning commute, get a parking place near the Federal building and get into the overflow courtroom all before the lunch break. It was a miracle.

I will leave the inside the room info to Davina Kotulski to report but I wanted to share a few thoughts about today's proceedings and talk about the post press conference.

Some were the men I was supposed to be growing old with right now. We should be having barbecues in the summer and exchanging cards and presents over a lunch filled with laughs and teasing and lots and lots of love.

We had one like that about 15 years ago. I can't believe they have been gone that long. Gary, Chet and Jay, Jo and I having lunch at the harbor. It would be our last together. Chet and Jay were dead within six months of that lunch. Gary hung around for a while longer.

Their beautiful faces are still alive in my mind, the pain in my heart is still there, too. Their wonderful laughs ring in my ear still but sometimes I hear their screams from the cancer and the death rattle from their chests. It is all rolled up into the many memories of living and loving in the age of AIDS.