duckweed and other houseguests

It may be the case that I'm in the midst of looking for a roommate, but that's not to say I'll welcome just any old denizens into my midst. Icksquiggly critters have lowered themselves into the merry, murky waters of our fountain in the backyard and an all-out bacteria war was at the brink of a violent outbreak. It was time to TCB.

First, we had to flood out the gooky bits. That's scientific language, my laypeople friends, for yukky stuff. Also take out the grapefruits and oranges that had the tough luck to fall into the rainwater. I've salvaged most of the other fruits from this yard, but even I have limits as to what I'll eat. Floating fruit is, in general, a no.

More gooky bits work:

Then came the organic compound to lull the mean bacteria to sleep and send them to the cesspool in the sky.

Sleeping potion close-up:

Then came the magic yukky-water-filtering plants! That's duckweed. What a great name. (Better than magic yukky-water-filtering plants anyway.)

Pretty duckweed unfurling in the light:

Canna plant likes water. See all those baby duckweed bits floating around? Fun!

Happy canna:

Artsy canna:

There were other plant pictures, but I don't have them here. But I do have pictures of my dirty gardening nails. This is the solution to carpal tunnel syndrome and mild depression: get your pinders in the dirt. Or in my case, in the duckweedy waters.

Dreamy.

temporary service interruption

I've been doing massive drill-sargeant variety training with my dog lately. She's working toward her Canine Good Citizen. So in the meantime, I offer you this video/audio mashup I stole from another site.

Open two windows. LINK A is the soundtrack. LINK B is for viewing.

So play LINK A (make it loud!) in one window in the background:

LINK A

And as that plays, watch the video at LINK B on mute instead:

LINK B

Sadly the video at LINK B ends much earlier than the motown magic that is LINK A. But fear not. Just switch over to LINK A and enjoy the complex choreography and electric purple skyscape of the Altantic Starr show. Tremendous all around. I encourage you to hold on all the way through to get to the narcoleptic mumblings that once constituted a Soul Train interview. Incredibly acute sartorial analysis.

a mother's eyes

I suppose someone, somewhere will likely see my serial life revelations as provincialisms--these disclosures about my exhilarated love floods, the overblown changes of heart, the books I've read and reviewed, the detailing of my dog's days, the mad sporting, all my expectations, experiences, and intentions candied with such rich sentiment. Provincialism because it may have all been said before. But I prefer to see that as my commonality with you. It must be why you're here, to see something of yourself in another's personal pageantry, to hear your pleasures and pains set to someone else's music.

Now rest, gentle reader: this is not a dog blog in which I liken your hopes to my dog and her food bowl. In fact, I won't even talk about Stella here again (in this post, I mean--be reasonable). And guess what, I won't talk about civil rights either. Or my bicycle. Or training in the morning darkness. No. This is fresh territory, people. This is a shameless, off-key aria about the families we do not choose, the ones we're born into, and my witness to the ways we pay back the love parents give as we grow.

I recently attended the book launch of an obstreperous, exacting author of mine, Casson Trenor. We were together, a small tribe of thirty or so, to celebrate Sustainable Sushi, his noble and fine must-have book, an equal triumph in aesthetics and ethics, if I do say so myself. And here was this author outside the editorial office, in his element, a peer with whom I'd wrestled at every single stage of the book process--each of us as aggressive, articulate, and unaccustomed to surrender as the other, and both steadfast in the commitment to improve the book in ways we insisted were vital to the project. And how lovely it was to be taken by surprise by that stealthy sylph, sincerity. One would not be out of line to suggest the friends and family seated around me were visibly flush in the significance of Trenor's moment: the realization of a goal they'd seen him working toward for so many years, well before his proposal ever crossed my desk.

And with each course that came out from Tataki's extraordinary kitchen, Trenor navigated the room, hovering over one of his comrades--this one in the striped tie, that one in the dotted dress--and he thanked them one by one, each member of this gathered Algonquin clan a contributor in some way, a league that raised their sake glasses like sailors, a jostle here and there to roast and recognize in turns, shades of rosy pink warming all faces in the place. And I gotta say, it was pretty beautiful to see--tears, hugs, Golden Globes gratitude and all. It was one of those uncommon nights that shimmers with enough fair goodwill to mend personal rifts and plumb the bonds deep, deep, deep. And as I walked by the watered bamboo and tea lights, a bit high on all the rarefied levity, a hand sliced the air in my path. That outstretched hand belonged, it turned out, to Deborah, Trenor's mother. And she intended that we were to meet that instant.

Now as an editor, for better or worse, I rarely slow down my machine long enough to revel in the achievement of the book once produced. And in an era when slapdash products are flung onto the Amazon floor only to extinguish themselves some months later under the embers of their own outsize ambition, it is a grace for the heart and spirit to be genuine in my enthusiasm for a project, to be given the chance to say aloud, "Yes, this one will rise." And Sustainable Sushi is nothing if not the consummation of that endangered species in our consumerist culture: a singular expertise distilled in clean concentrate.

We spoke fleetingly. Trenor's mother. His father. His sister and his cousin. All in town just for this night. But the communion spoke volumes about the author, how pleased this family was, not unlike the in-group wonder felt when every child is miraculously born into the world. The book was here! A necessary, cogent, beautiful guide to a little mercy for our depleted seas and oceans. Something to slip into your pocket and use to buy sushi that doesn't destroy the planet on which all those little miracle children will be trying to live after you're long gone.

And I realized, really only half-listening to the family, that the years we spend devoted to causes, chained to the brutal wagons of our developing ideas always out there ahead of us, they're not actually spent at the expense of the ones we love. Because if you'll forgive the presumption in such a personal assessment of a woman I'd met only a moment before, I swear the look of pride in Trenor's mom's eyes as she declared to me with that forceful hand--"I just had to meet you. I'm Casson's mom."--well I'll tell you from experience: nothing can really begin to characterize the pride that emanates from a mother whose son has accomplished something great.

And I know: visit any old blog, any parenting magazine, periodical, even the sweeter game shows out there on TV, and you'll hear a mom enumerating the unique wonders, the treasures within her child's bright being. But let me tell you this: to see it first-hand, in the eyes of a woman I never expected to meet, whose son I came to appreciate first through his work, well however many times it's been said, a mother's pride is something singular. And I see how it makes it all matter.

a message from the dean of vista street

Oh friends. I have a cat. And I have a dog. This you know because I have surrendered my life entirely to their development and therefore am no longer capable of discussing anything else, it seems. So here is, with a half-hearted apology for my topical degeneration, another pet column.

I moved into this lovely home and adopted my dogbeast on August 1st. Since that time, there has been the Stella wing (dog sorority) and the Maude wing (feline dean's office) and no coed mingling between the two. See, if there were, the sorority girl would eat the dean. And we can't have that. But I am pleased to say we are making progress.

My cat is mightily vocal. And though she is a ragamuffin, she meows like a Siamese. If you've had a Siamese, this needs no explanation. If you have not had the pleasure of cohabitating with such a strange little animal, try to imagine their noise as something akin to a cow-moo with a dash of lemon and vinegar stirred in. And as Maude has gotten more comfortable over these last ten years, she has begun expressing herself with more vigor. Nonstop. This is not so good for my sleeping patterns (nor is her habit of walking across my chest, but I digress), but it's great for dog training.

And I can now hold Stella's attention as Maude stands behind the couch and around the corner warbling her bitter banshee's rites. Listening as I work with Stella, I have suspected she may be trying to kill the dog with her song, just like the Fugees did. It is really full of spit and sorcery.

But murderous intent notwithstanding, we depend on Maude's lively chatter to bring the two animals closer together. And as Delta Delta Delta Stella proves she can handle the responsibility of a cat in her life, I bring you this commercial break, a video of some other cat entirely, relevant only because I believe with a sincere fear that it is a near-approximation of what Dean Maude is saying from just around the bend.

my new car

It would seem I am the unwitting driver of Porsche. Read the pullquote in the LA Times.

gateway to health

I commit to eat doughnuts and work out at a reasonable, sensible pace in the new year. Read all about boot camp at The Monthly.

Next up: Wildflower Triathlon

yo ho ho

While everyone is cramming comfort and joy into every room of the house, let me share with you my Grinch list instead:

1. As a Californian, you likely need to learn to appreciate the "zipper" in highway on-ramp merges. No time like the gridlock holidays to reflect on this before you get in your automobile again.

2. George Michael's "Last Christmas" should no longer be getting air play. I should not even have to say that.

3. I will slap your hand if you give money to that nice old lady ringing the Salvation Army bell. That organization is ferociously anti-gay.

4. Okay fine. That's about it. I guess the merriment is infecting my spirit.

But hey, I'm serious. Merging should not be bloodsport. Think about this and make my world a merrier place in the new year. Thank you and remember: every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot, but the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville, did not.

Now I'm going to go drink your cider and read A Christmas Carol. Bah humbug!

you make time

Everyone is busy during the holiday season, but I can't help thinking it's all the more appropriate during the holidays to make time when a community is left out in the cold. President-elect Obama has invited Rick Warren, a vocal opponent of gay and lesbian rights, to give the invocation at his inauguration.

President-elect Obama is sending the wrong message. He is validating an individual who supports the elimination of a minority's civil rights in this country. Plain and simple. So. You can remind your president-elect of this in at least two ways.

1. Ask President-elect Obama to rescind this invitation.

2. Attend a "Light Up the Night" gathering. After all, both Harvey Milk and Barack Obama ran on a platform of hope and hope is not just about dreams, but their fulfillment for everyone.

whoever louis is

I like what he has to say:

jack black is the new jesus

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

see the salumi section

Friends,

My relationship with the San Francisco Chronicle is solid. I have subscribed to it, written for it, and most recently been mistaken for an Elizabeth A. Kennedy from the AP who has written for it. But familiarity does not equate to forgiveness. My dear Chronicle copydesk clerk, please note the below screenshot and revisit the word "glossary," if you would.

That's all. Thank you.

the original Elizabeth A. Kennedy

books make great gifts, said five thousand times

I'm sorry, but I did not need to hear Frank McCourt's reason for a book being a great gift. (Fast-forward to 1:16 in the video.)

a time for cartwheels

I know next to nothing about any Zodiac sign but my own, something I'm sure astrology buffs attribute to the fact that I am a Leo, the most egotistical of the firmamenty bunch. And while I can't say I put much faith in the system, I do so love when folks like the good and worthy Rob Brezsny serve up stuff like this:

--------------

LEO (Jul 23 - Aug 22)
When he's in his prime, a male panda performs an average of eight handstands a day. There's no apparent evolutionary purpose in this stunt. He does it because it feels good. I suggest you make him your role model in the coming week, Leo. Identify three activities you can do not because they're "good for you" or because they'll advance some goal you're pursuing, but simply for the sheer fun of it. If you can't think of any play-time endeavors that fit this description, do the meditation and research necessary to find some. Whatever deeds you ultimately settle on, do them at least eight times a day. (P.S. Do you know how to do cartwheels?)

--------------

Have you too been granted permission to stand on your hands? Find out.

copy, paste, send

Friends, if you want to make the world better, you do it your damn self. That said, a little plagiarism never hurt. So for those of you who want to continue to push for Marriage Equality--or for civil rights in your own community, in general--please feel free to adapt any part of this letter I've written to my own awesome company.

Because we're a 501(c)3, we may not be able to openly support political causes (though I can think of a church that managed to get around that), but at the very least, our founders have said they're open to the request for half-time pay for anyone who does volunteer work on December 10th, Day Without a Gay. While I have yet to get what I'd consider a firm commitment, I thought I'd post this letter for you in the event any of you want to take the prime moment to deliver a note to your own executive decision-maker. There could not be a better time to give them a worthy cause to deliberate over than when they're gathered in the warm circle of their recognized families--wives, husbands, kids, and all the loved ones.

Don't know about this important day for Marriage Equality or community action of any stripe? Well read below and the letter will fill you in. Like I said, borrow what you will to send this to your higher-ups. You never know until you ask.

------------

As you know, Proposition 8 passed and as a result, a ban against same-sex marriage was written into our state constitution. I've been very involved in the campaign for Marriage Equality and want to inform you of an important event coming up. It's called Day Without a Gay, December 10th.

This "call-in-sick" day is a call to do local, community-based volunteering of any kind on December 10th, not just for Marriage Equality, but for anything--soup kitchens, hospice, animal shelters, whatever cause one wants to support. This call for community action therefore is not just for those who care about gay rights, but also those interested in making our local community a better, more peaceful place to live. This of course, along with the protection of civil rights for all Bay Area residents, is a matter of great importance to so many of our authors, as well as our staff and comrades out in the world.

I'm proposing that (our company), as a way to visibly take a stand and modestly support our non-profit goals, offer half-time pay for any employee who takes the day or part of it and shows proof of having done volunteer work that day in the community.

Thanks so much and I hope you are well on your way to a relaxing holiday with your family,

Elizabeth

my little winter garden

We're fast approaching the Thanksgiving holidays and I thought I'd get a jump because I've got lots to list. We could be here a while. Stuff I'm thankful for, take one:

I get to watch my dog run in her dreams
and destuff unsuspecting fluffy toys. Bliss.

I'm amazed that fifteen months ago my cat was diagnosed with a cancer that vets said left her three months to live. I can't say how thankful I am that she remains strong and stubborn, bolder by the day. She walks across my head every morning to scold me into consciousness.

I am glad for my mind-boggling fear of my own mortality because of all it motivates me to do.

I cherish my parents in ways that are humbling.
And I admire how their lives exhibit their virtue and values.

I'm grateful for having known my bodhisattvas--all the folks I've wronged--and how much they stay in my mind and heart. I appreciate those hard lessons and I hold onto them.

It's lovely to see my brother in love all these years.

I am thankful for the people in my life. The ones I see often.

Less often.

Even less often.

And not nearly enough.

I'm thankful for the people who know me to the root.

I'm glad for my health, such as it is, breathtakingly free of guarantees.

I'm thankful for all the writing I've gotten to do these last years. I'm amazed by the way it's taught me discipline, bit by bit, so much so that a story collection now has a project plan. I'm thankful how much things just continue to look up and even in the spells when they don't, I've still got it pretty damn good if I just pay attention.

I appreciate all the dogs I've met through the volunteer work I do, how forgiving they've been after being beaten, fought, neglected, abused, and disregarded. I learn the most important lessons of my life from them.

I'm thankful to have a yard to share with my dog--15/16th of it hers, the rest of it mine for the garden. I'm so glad to be able to bring baby onions and chard to the table for our Thanksgiving dinner. Everything is looking hearty, despite the subterranean tunnels the jays seem intent on digging to get to the happy, fat worms. Carrots and potatoes are snoozing away underground, not a peep yet. Likewise shallots, garlic, radishes. Here's the cast of characters making a radiant appearance this season.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mustard greens struggled at first,
but they're finding their way.

Volunteer onions everywhere!

Kale, looking very primordial.

Bok choy--evidence of critters, but no critters in sight.

God light on my garden bed.

The chard was so limp and so pathetic at the outset
that I nearly pulled it all, but I'm glad I let it go.
It's the happiest plant in the garden.

Recommended gardening playlist:

The Littlest Birds, The Be Good Tanyas
Look At Miss Ohio, Gillian Welch
As Is, Ani DiFranco
Cold Water, Damien Rice
Driving North, Chris Pureka
Day is Done, nick drake
Everything Has Changed, William Fitzsimmons
My First Lover, Gillian Welch
Life within a life, Jesca Hoop
Because We Do, The Ditty Bops
Timbindy, Ali Farka Toure
Cello Song, Nick Drake
At My Window Sad And Lonely, Billy Bragg & Wilco
Amie, Damien Rice
Wrecking Ball, Gillian Welch
Welcome to My Life, Melissa Ferrick
Time Has Told Me, Nick Drake
Little Plastic Castle, Ani DiFranco
Beautiful Man, Lori McKenna
Elvis Presly Blues, Gillian Welch
California Stars, Billy Bragg & Wilco
Which Will, Nick Drake
Silo Song, Chris Pureka

And of course, I thank you for reading.

shared passions

I just keep finding new things to love about our president-elect. If I had a binder, I'd doodle doughnuts and Obamas all over it.



Speaking of doughnuts, I just finished a story about athletic boot camps yesterday and I managed to work doughnuts into a central thematic role. The story's coming out around New Year's and I may give you a sneak peek if you (a) are nice to me and (b) smile like Barack and (c) give me doughnuts.

"we must be doing something to be happy."--mahatma gandhi

So let me start with the diffusion of some cynicism regarding the scale of the Marriage Equality backlash. For those proponents who ask where the activists were before Proposition 8 passed, it doesn't matter. We're all here now. Good for us. For those folks who are grumbling about the irony of the black community or the Latino community or the newest immigrants in SF's Chinatown all voting predominantly against Marriage Equality, I'd suggest you shift your focus. The past has passed. There's work to be done and your energy would best be applied to something that will get results. Like showing up. Like speaking up. Like making friends with your neighbors in these communities.

I marched in San Francisco on Friday, October 7th. And then I drove a whole contingent up to Sacramento that Sunday. Both rallies were peaceful, moving events that did much to foment the effort to end discrimination against the gay community. Both had significance. But this weekend, the number of people who came out just blew those events into the dust. Hundreds of American cities saw demonstrations on the steps of their city halls, the likes of which our country has not seen since the '60s. It fills me with hope for our future.

Folks showed up in Honolulu at 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday to be a part of it. People gathered in Laramie, Mobile, and Montgomery, along with those who organized solidarity gatherings in the Netherlands, Canada, and a number of other countries. What's phenomenal is that this was a relatively spontaneous national event (international, actually) and it was not sponsored by organizations--this was grassroots organization on the part of committed and resourceful individuals. People are showing up in numbers that can't be ignored, and it's generally being lauded as the tipping point we've waited and worked for. The local showing was strong in San Francisco, especially considering we also had a noteworthy presence in Oakland, Berkeley, and plenty of other Bay Area cities. Word is that San Diego had upward of 20,000 folks. Nice. The estimates stream in here.

And as I stood at San Francisco City Hall in the blazing sun to hear the Marriage Equality gals speak again, along with Tom Ammiano, the Reverend Dr. Dorsey Blake, the compassionate representatives of Mormons for Marriage, the Reverend Penny Nixon, and several more, I took heart that the tone has already begun to change. Every march increases visibility, each speaker has a little more history on her side when she steps to the podium, and all this just brings us closer to the realization of gay rights.

My conclusions after the rally: I'm less useful attacking those who fear and discriminate against their fellow citizens. I'm not going to petition to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Mormon church. I'm not going to assault communities of color for the aggregate poll results. I forgive their mistakes and move forward to make it better.

It's time just to keep up the sometimes exhausting work of fighting for fundamental civil rights for the gay constituency, day in day out. And it's my role to keep this issue out in front of my comrades for whom the demands and distractions of daily life may make this matter easy to ignore. This is not just about gay rights. The minority is not being protected from the majority and that is a failure of representation on the part of our government.

When we bandy about the word "tradition," let's remember what it is we are talking about. The American tradition is one of citizens taking our inalienable rights into our own hands, of disparate communities like Glide Memorial or The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples ministers, politicians, teachers, technicians, CS reps, dog trainers, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, everyone and anyone who is concerned with justice gathering peacefully and powerfully to protect what it is we believe in.

The turnout at these events, the way it is widening and deepening, the increase in sensitive and accurate coverage that it is receiving, and not the shaming but the exposure of hate for the remediable social malady that it is--these are all encouraging reasons that now more than ever we are responsible to keep up the campaign. I believe this burgeoning tone of optimism bodes well for our country's future; but we cannot rest and sit back, believing that after November 4th we have elected public officials to federal office who will make the right decisions on our behalf. Citizens do best when we act as watchdogs and representatives ourselves, working to uphold liberty and justice--meaning freedom, equal protection, and basic human rights--for all.

So please take note and remember that your role in this matters. You are either one more or one less. Next up is Day without a Gay (December 10th). Of course you don't have to be gay to participate; you just have to care abt civil rights.

You can read about it here: http://daywithoutagay.org/

even handsome clooneys agree

Apparently it is pretty celebrity week here at the Kennedy Depot. So in that spirit: if you do not listen to me, listen to George. He has a nicer voice anyway.

"At some point in our lifetime, gay marriage won’t be an issue, and everyone who stood against this civil right will look as outdated as George Wallace standing on the school steps keeping James Hood from entering the University of Alabama because he was black."

I'm sure we'll see even more compassionate, sensible celebs like the Divine Cloon joining the rank and file at one of the nationwide rallies in support of Marriage Equality this weekend. Want to know where you can go with your clever signs and changemaking ferocity? Check the general event blog or go directly to the location listing to find a peaceful gathering near you. It's time to show up or shut up, my friends. You want rights? Speak for yourself. Better yet, speak up for your neighbor. Who knows what may come of it ... maybe you'll even meet George out on the rally vanguard. Bonus.

peripheral campaign news brought to you by the kennedy news bureau

Everyone and their iguana is posting about the general election today, so I thought I would offer you a picture.



The first thing you may notice is the Castro/Lagerfield/Robert Palmer bassist juxtaposition of Posh Beckham's outfit. But me? I noticed the Krispy Kreme crowns on the left-hand side over there.

Speaking of, you get one of their glazed doughnuts-from-heaven free if you scamper over to a KK near you and show off your nifty I Voted sticker. You're welcome.

discovery channel for a day

Happy Torture Your Dependents with Ridiculous Costumes Day!


Rarely captured close-up of the Galapagos Living Room Komodo.


Otherwise known as Kermit's circuit-boy cousin, Stella.

right and wrong

Oh and by the way, while I am staking political claims, I am against the use of impact as an adjective (impactful) and foreground as a verb. ("We are foregrounding this important issue.")

Thank you for doing your part to protect parts of speech as God intended them to be.

that part about personal responsibility

I made the mistake of reading another earthquake-scare article in the latest East Bay Express. The Loma Prieta faultline is raring to go, ready to take down 2.5k of us at minimum with the next rattle and roll. I know this. I have known this. So why do I still live here? I often answer this question with a reference to the Berkeley Bowl and the farmers' markets. I'm something of a hedonist with at least a faint conscience and while I like good food, I need to know for the most part it's local, sustainably raised, and, if it was once a critter, humanely treated. All of this is easiest to pull off--I don't see this as debatable, but I am up for being informed--here in Northern California, much more than anywhere else in the world.

However, a large part of living near the bohemian love-peace-acceptance dreamzone of Berkeley, California, has also been the appeal of what many of us conversationally refer to as "the bubble." It's edifying to live in a place evolved enough that gay folks, much like persecuted interracial couples in our country's history, can show affection without fear of hostility and hate crimes, and for the most part, can live in a society that esteems equitability and respect in policy and practice.

But as the real estate market and global economic crisis have shown, bubbles obviously pop. And as I drove past a throng of cheering teenagers waving "Yes on 8" banners with the same innocent, young enthusiasm for which they probably advertise their bake sales, I felt disconsolate, just devastated. So I suppose it's time to see about mending some patches in my local bubble wall, if you will.

I am putting my money where my mouth is for once and venturing out onto the streets, the phones, wherever I'm told to go and whatever I'm told to do by the good folks behind the "No on Proposition 8" campaign working hard to defeat a proposition that would eliminate same-sex couples' established right to marry in California.

I hope, particularly for all of you--and I know many of my friends say this--who have historically said they "don't like to get political," that you'll do something, whether it is donate, volunteer, or vote, to defeat Proposition 8. It would mean a lot to me. It's not so much getting political (though I don't see that as a bad thing) as it is being just plain civil to your neighbor.

female fury: a fairer song than peace?

I do moderate work here and there--not enough--to determine for myself when pacifism amounts to provincialism, to rethink my alignment with the irresponsible, ignorant, commercial feel-good isolationism of some factions of peace activists, and to suss out by extension what it means to live a life committed to peaceful nonviolence with eyes wide open. I feel anyone earnestly interested in peace is responsible to determine just when a globally informed citizen's stance becomes less about nonviolent disengagement and more about blind-eye complicity to violence.

Living in the community I do forces me to decide hypothetically every day when I walk my dog to what extent I'd commit acts of aggression to protect those I love. And I then begin to ask the obvious, more abstract (to me, anyway) questions: what lines might I draw when it comes to police or military intervention in response to local battery, abuse, or endangerment, and on larger scales, civil strife and genocide. These are the most difficult questions for me to answer.

What should, by contrast, be easy to answer, is blood sport. It seems like just so much wanton violence and sadism for the glory of the ego, right? And it's silly to pay money to watch people beat on each other. But as my three-times-a-week jog got more frequent and longer and the sports more varied and taxing, I ceased to see the bright line between pleasure and pain; I'd done a number of endurance events and part of the pleasure was definitely in the power of my mind over my body, the fact that I could continue through mile 24, 25, 26 simply because I had decided that I would.

And let's face it, ring sports bring with them the floodlit spectacle of competition. When I back a competitor, I participate viscerally. And this is where we leave the hypothetical violence behind. I just bought a ticket to watch my first boxing match. Muay thai, to be specific. And it's women doing the fighting, not men. Considering one of my favorite movies--it's true; I can't help it--is Rocky, I suppose I should be less surprised just how excited I am to attend this event.

In fact, it marks a real departure from the frame of my consciousness just a few years ago--forgive what seems the non sequitur here for just a sec--when reality TV made its debut with Survivor, I dismissed it disparagingly as a new incarnation of the Roman Coliseum.

And now I find myself poised to sit in the coliseum bleachers, up for the cheering and jeering. Clearly something has changed. I could say I am attending Female Fury simply because someone I hold very dear fights with Pacific Ring Sports, one of the participating gyms. And I am supporting her passion, just like she has when I've signed on for various races. But if honesty is a virtue and we're on this hike to find our way back to that hollowed ground of virtue and grace, then I confess there is extraordinary appeal to orchestrated violence, the prospect of a thrown punch, the visceral thrill of a good kick to the head, the anticipation of the physical maneuvers that I will commit to memory and replay.

My grandfather was a boxer. He believed in a good fight. But he also believed in a good war. And a good country. All unapologetically. The hitch is, of course, by extension, he also believed in real-life heroes, villains, nations of good people, and well, those nations that the good people fought. Me, I've never enjoyed the clarity he did. I dwell in ambiguity and I think I'm pretty glad about that.

All I know is I am looking forward to this and though the sweetest, gentlest voices in my head are shrieking in dismay, I'm afraid I can't hear them over the drumbeats right now.

won't you be my neighbor?

Please feel free to steal this image and paste up on every imaginable surface you can cover between now and November 4th. Extra points for visibility on the telephone poles and front lawns on Sarah Palin's route to church.

new word alert

It's one of life's expected pleasures, the new word nestled into a fine book. The best contemporary authors place them so subtly we don't even look twice when that Rolls Royce glides through the ghetto sentence. I can read right past the mot juste when it's worked in well enough.

In popular culture, by contrast, I'm not without appreciation for the good linguistic skillet across the face. I back shock by ostentation 100 percent. And the best example of late is Little Prince Harry, who got bored with military service and set out with his brother on an African adventure (and 80 other apparently irrelevant riders), and in his obligatory pullquote for whatever his promotional charity might be, he actually said this will not just be any old bimble.

Well heavens, no, old chap. Pukka, pukka, old lad, no bimble by far. Your motorcross will be a right lovely jubbly to be sure--so let's don't pass this off as an advert for any ordinary bimble, boys. Mercy, no, and God save the Queen.

flower-free pizza

All right, everyone. The good folks minding the till over at 800 Flowers have decided to boost sales with the clever invention of yet another holiday, this one hilariously billed "Ex Day."

No, your Lasik is not doing you a disservice of pixel distortion. That's "Ex Day," as in an opportunity to ill-advisedly revisit the emotional killing fields of your failed intimacies. The way I look at it, the developer of this marketing concept deserves a raise for big-picture strategy. Think about this. Seen in the long view, the folks at 800 Flowers are losing out when 50 percent of the population is NOT getting divorced. I'm sure someone discovered that gays are getting divorced at the same rate as everyone else and just panicked. "God damn it! Something must be done. Because 50 percent marital success, well that's just too much by half!" So they had to find some way to wreck the unions. It's a massive loss of market share if half your customer base is too inured to a comfortable life with the significant other to do the little things, like buying flowers.

So why not get Margerita thinking about Burt, how lovingly he used to wax her Karmann Ghia on the weekends. Maybe just a little bouquet of stargazer lilies. What's the harm? And before you know it, Margerita will be hot on Madonna's heels toward divorce, making way for the ARods of the world to once again rejoin the ranks of puppy-loved-up flower buyers. Because it can safely be said that more divorce means more relationships and more new relationships mean more flowers. Hence the raise advocacy. Not that I condone it, but you gotta hand it to them, this corporate creation is a wiley yenta maneuver of tremendous magnitude.

You, married and partnered friends, can sabotage this. First off, we all know the return to the ex is just a mad notion. So forget that. Now. Your significant other would probably like flowers, sure. But better yet, why not forgo the flowers (take that, MBA) and instead make her dinner, like a homemade pizza? (Mmm, I love pizza.) Keep the TV off, light a room full of candles, and read something to her, for god's sake. Don't be the statistic 800 Flowers wants you to be. Be radical. Stay married. We'll admire you for it.

there are worse things i could do

I am reading this charming, thin thing recommended by Sister Rye called The Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches. And in a blissful pocket of free time last night, it was just the book, my dog, my cat, some candles, a salad, a tall drink of water, and me.

We were a perfectly perfect set, when as I lie on the couch, I spied with my little eye one junior chocotankgirl named Stelladog staring at me. Not pawing, not whining, not fidgeting, not fussing, not shoving, just silently, patiently, and stolidly stare stare staring. Well I couldn't ignore that.

But I was not about to stop reading. We reached something of an impasse in our relationship right there, didn't we, dear reader? And I immediately thought of you because you are always so instrumental in helping me sort out my fascinating personal dilemmas. (You're such a good listener!)

After all, I am not one to neglect. Stella had had her walk, her training, her playtime with the two neighbor dogs Patch and Preston, who are both enamored with her, of course--who isn't? She'd been lavished with love, in other words. Heck, she'd even had a bath. I'd given her a toy. Fresh water. Peanut butter goodies. I was Mom of the Year, and Mom of the Year was going to read her book, dag blast it.

But the mutt-minded among you know that patient pup behavior needs to be rewarded if it is to continue (lest dogs get it in their heads to move onto obnoxious pawing or insipid whining tactics), so I just decided to read aloud to her. And she stood there. And eventually, she snuggled down at my feet. She was listening. I was reading. Two-for-one, my friends. I was as happy as an Angelina with her global baker's dozen. In fact, happier. With this kind of arrangement, I wondered, who even needs children?

But that "who needs children?" smuggery got me thinking. Maybe this marks the official crossing of the line, that moment that my childless friends and I recognize so well among the now-parental friends. It divides along one line: kid-free on the sane side, the now-parentals on the unthinkably generous side of selflessness. You know this trend. I venture you've seen it yourself.

It starts when the bliss-glossed parents begin to get that sleepless, cracked-out look to them, like they're half here and half-jacked on a lucid dream they've roped you into. They show up at the office or worse your house and carry around the wee alien, subtly prompting you for useless comments--my best is usually something like "Oh, look at his feet! They're so small!" This befuddled commentary is the gamey effort among the kidless to congratulate disinterestedly, to grin and bear the crying bundle until we can revert to previous discourse, perhaps discussing the effing awesomeness of our PS3 victories or the effing awfulness of the trillion dollar liability we now call our federal government, all the while intersplicing the talks with our archival knowledge of this "amazing" Oregon Shiraz being shared in unquantifiable excesses of enablement.

Parents, bless them one and all, then move into the era of narrative exposition, only fomented by technologies like Twitter or Myspace or Facebook, through which they can exclaim things like, "Marcie can't believe she drives a minivan!" or "Blake is psyched that little Merv has learned to wield baby's first nine-iron!" And so it goes that our Plimptons become Spocks, that the once-convivial raconteurs become babygated themselves, able only to expound on Junior's "hilarious" exposure of his privates on the school playground, the "adorable" kitten sounds he makes when the neighborhood stray walks by, or that "promising" profundity he dropped on you when you were talking about lightbulbs and energy conservation.

Alas, I trace back through the blogs of friends who've had kids and note with regret the changed tide--that deep, dark, and moon-dragged current of love that somehow sucks every single parent from the boat of cultural currency into the deep, narcotic abandon of parental rapture. I don't condemn it. It's charming. And understandable. And selfless. And admirable. And sure, parts of me (small, crushable, impetuous, fleeting psychological parts) envy the sense of purpose it must instill.

But I'm not here to riff on the outward appeal of family, however dangerously I skate that rink. No, no. Or am I? For you see, as megalomaniacal as I am, and I'm nothing if not that, I do have glinting moments of self-awareness, sudden recognitions of the screechy err of my own egotastic idiocy. And so here we have it. I think I owe an apology for my own analog to this cocktail-party offspring-adulation habit.



Because let's be honest. It's okay. You can tell me. You don't really care about my dog, do you? You don't really think she's all that cute. Nice coat, sure. Funny eyes. Impressive proof of motherhood on her part. And ooh, look at her little dog feet! They're so small! Yes, yes. A good dog. With much promise and a sweet-as-pineapple soul. Fine downstay. Wow, she can high-five. Awww, she listened to you read a book. Again, with feeling: wow!

But really, your praise is as obligatory as mine. You are, for example, not nearly as beguiled as I am by this "Bark Obama" photo taken by a friend on a message board I visit daily. It is tribal. I am on one side of a line, you the other. I understand.

Likewise, you do not delight in the prospect of my teaching my dog to do handstands just like BAD RAP's about-to-be-adopted Neuman Marcus.

I offer you a deep, heaving, moon-dragged sigh. What use should I make of this startling revelation? How dare you not admire the way the sun shines in my dog's eyes!

Will I post less about my dog? Maybe. Will I write more about what I said I would--books and film, food, exploits? Yes, cross my heart. But it also says dingoes up there. And if I'm going to read stories to dogs, I don't see why I can't write stories about dogs. There will always be more--and less--interesting stories to be told. And I'm realizing at a certain point, the audience will either love it or leave it and dag blast it, before I'm dead, I'ma tell the stories I want to tell.

not kosher: bacon bullet burger

So I get hassled all the time for not having comments on my site, but I've seen too many sites blown up by spammy streams and I'm so not administratively organized enough to approve comments at this stage in my life. I can't even find time to reorganize the pictures I have on the site (sorry--the Harmaudicon pix remain on my to-do list).

*However,* I do try to share the good ripostes as they roll in. And this one was in response to my "Donuts and Bacon '08" post a few days back. Man, it stopped me cold, apt seeing as it would also stop blood flowing cold too with artery-blocking cholesteroid nodules. I think I have finally met a doughnut I could not love. Oy, tough even to look at them.

oak and ash to dust

My new dream home has a wood-burning stove and any time the temp has dropped below, oh, say, 70 degrees, I've suggested it may finally be time to light a fire, only to be roundly corrected for my zealotry by whoever is at hand at the moment. "Elizabeth, we're wearing shorts." "Elizabeth, you are sunburned from the day." "Elizabeth, your dog is panting in this heat." So fine. No fire. Yet.

However, last night, we sat watching a movie. The window was open. And I smelled a fire from someone else's house. Someone had lit a fire! I stood on the couch. (Okay, I didn't, but I like the story better that way.) And I shouted (said--actually, thought), "Well if someone else is doing it, this is justification by proximity. They're cold. I am too. Let's make like Al Green and light a fire!"

Met with roll of eyes and adjustment of movie volume (up, up, up).

Just as well that I did not get my fiery wish, as it turns out the air here has had to absorb more than its share of woodsmoke these last twelve hours. This was no rosy, cozy chimney smoke, but an entire body of land ablaze a few miles away. Poring over the photos of Angel Island's massive fire this morning, I cannot help but feel that, however destructive it is to this local uninhabited state park, the conflagration is beautiful.

You are wise to the world, though, and so this is no news to you, is it? Destruction is gorgeous. Behold, my doomed brethren, the glory of Megiddo.

adjective envy

I've been an early reader of all Emma Donoghue's work and The Sealed Letter is no exception. But I could never quite pin down what it was that appealed to me about her writing; sentence by sentence, it can be downright ordinary and the subject matter, while pleasant and provocative, was never so revelatory. Well god bless Susann Cokal, whoever she is, for throwing the mot dart in the most recent NYT Book Review.

Donoghue, says Cokal, at her most fun is "cozily lurid." Ah yes, well who doesn't love these qualities combined? No wonder I open the sealed letter with verve!

what a gift

Whoever created this for me, I am in your debt. You have so handily merged the core pleasures of my life into one besprinkled silkscreen. I feel faint. What a rush. I may expire from the ecstatic shock of it all.

I believe in you, Donuts and Bacon maker. And clearly--clearly!--you believe in me too. It is so reassuring to see that my dearest interests are in fact represented. Thanks so much for stepping up the game and giving us a little unhealthy competition outside the two-party system. Taste we can believe in!

birds, bees, benevolence

If you're thinking of picking up a costume for you, your pup, your cat, or the one your grandfather still calls your "special friend," you might consider supporting the folks at Costume Studio. Apparently 100 percent of their proceeds above cost go to giving second chances to kids in the effed up regions of Uganda.

They are at costumestudio.com.

It's a partnership among a number of groups, including InvisibleChildren, which does work akin to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, and GoodSociety, a crew of trendy, sulky model types who actually do important work, including big intervention in the sex traffic market.

All that just from buying Bruno a bumble bee costume. Nice.

Spoiler alert for the masses who care: I am considering the cute pet costume below for Stella. Maybe we will go as the birds and the bees. Hilarious, I know. It was Stella's idea. (A breathable mesh bee! C'mon ... who could resist?)

did eleanor gambol around in a tankini? no.

If I've not made it apparent by reviewing titles like Encyclopedia of Third-Wave Feminism, Bitchfest, or Female Chauvinist Pigs, I am all for women in the spotlight. I support gals doing just about anything they want to do: politicians, forklift drivers, top chefs, ship captains, anarchists in retail, architects, web nerds, CEOs, CPAs, MDs, beauty queens, whatever. Like I said, I'm all for it. Any of it.

However. There is always a however. I want you to appreciate that I have waited all my little life to see a woman vie--with a realistic chance--for White House digs. And while I did not vote for Clinton and sure as hell am not voting for McCain/Palin, I still believe given the gender ratios that this should have been an American era lit by at least a few heraldic moments of women inspiring women. Alas, my sisters of perpetual dismay, we do not appear to be in for such oratorial treats.

Instead, we relive the--I'm sorry to say it--total asshattery that has become the American political parade since Bush got out his fiddle and tinderbox. The bar of our discourse has dropped so low even the most spineless opportunists could not limbo below it as they recite jumbled soundbites. I'm sorry. But really. Can we no longer even name our newspapers, let alone determine whether we agree with what's in them? This is shameful. I feel I am having capsaicin rubbed into my eyes every time Palin gets on what she justifies my calling the boob tube, as if I've got stabbing ghost pains in what was once my hopeful heart. I am not entertained. I am not laughing.

Now I'm not saying a leader has to have nursed political ambition at her mother's breast, nor spied political destiny through the crib bars. Her political trajectory ought not trace back to age six when she first won a Merrick medal precociously debating the South African trade deficit in the Wee Model UN and tasted glory, later winning landslide support for the coveted Junior Statesmen Debate Director gavel.

No! What the hay, friends? Let's do things a little differently this time around. Let's go to the other extreme and elect a liberal-arts dabbler who has no idea what she's doing. That sounds fun--someone with a colorful background, with street creds, sure, and lots of different experiences--a little more attorney, governor, grassroots organizer, senator, or something-something-committee chair woulda been nice mixed in there somewhere, but hey, I'm easy--just assure me she's woven it into a singular vision, much of which we can feel represents our values and hopes and needs.

But even then, some things cannot be woven. Like bathing suits. And what I cannot brook--permit me redundancy for emphasis--what I will not abide, is a vice president who has strutted across the stage in heels and a red bathing suit. This is my limit.

I do not want to be watching a debate, all the while recalling another view of the candidate and considering how very different she looks from that fembot strut she did in the beauty pageant, the spitting (and sipping and smoking) image of Aunt Sandy on the Carnival Freedom cruise to Cabo, you know, with the flirtatious prance around the cabana boy on the lido deck and the downed martinis on karaoke night. Oh yes, you know the one.

Now bring me a sack to put over my head tomorrow, god damn it. I simply cannot stand much more of this.

jazz standards and signs

In the last three days, I estimate that I attended approximately fifteen hours of jazz. My father, a jazz fellow from Jersey, flew out for the Monterey Jazz Festival (MJF) and I was lucky enough to be his guest. We're one year past the fiftieth anniversary of the MJF and the tickets are not so easy to come by. Priority goes to the prior year's attendees and on any given year, well over eighty percent of the base returns.

While the almost biospherically diverse roster rocked it by and large--Maceo Parker's Brownian funk, the charismatic Jamie Cullum jumping around on (and I do mean literally jumping around on) his poor piano like a (cute) drug-fueled monkey, the somehow mezozoic charge of Herbie Hancock's odd electronics, hot-stuff local Ledisi--I admit I had my share of tunes I'd just as soon have skipped. Per esempio, I know I exhibit a lack of sophistication for even saying it, but the Wayne Shorter posse came out and performed what I can only call a hyperextended rendition of what a band might sound like if it were stepped on by Godzilla for an uninterrupted twenty minutes, this sadistic honk-and-screech riffing set during the coldest snap of the foggiest night of my sleepiest spell. Wayne and I lack a future together.

Several of the other performers, however--Ledisi, the Maria Schneider Orchestra in particular--are already imported into my iTunes. And I'm thankful for that. But all that said, as much of an ingrate as it may make me in your eyes, I think my favorite part of all that jazz (you cannot begrudge me that phrase; the sentence longed for it!) was the walk to and from the festival with my father. We hardly talked at all. He's quiet and I'm something of a space cadet when presented with so much auditory stimulus. So we'd walk the long avenue under the street lights, veteran concert-goers hustling past us with their absurd brand-emblazoned stadium cushions tucked under their arms and backpacks full of god-knows-what jammed full for the day's every possibility, and hands-free and cells-off, we just breathed in the night air and moved.

Some treasures from that stroll:

Sap is the new soap. Well done, bathroom vandals!

If only everyone had this sense of humor about being so evidently sideswiped.


Taken out of context, this sign fills me with glee. The apparently beautiful directors who sponsored this segment of the fence have many, many friends looking out for them in heaven.

an untimely death

David Foster Wallace has died, suicide apparently. I wince a bit to join the rememberance cavalcade, to lament intimately, throwing my contribution into the inevitable "literary innovator" chatter. Though intermittently uncharitable considering she's writing a eulogy of sorts, Michiko Kakutani got DFW's writing right enough in the NYT: "fat, prolix narratives filled with Mobius strip-like digressions, copious footnotes and looping philosophical asides." So I'll just say it was actually his nonfiction work that was always more the model for me. I liked the unapologetic and raw courage in his observations. And god, his words made me laugh.

I remember reading a statement he made once that very few of his close friends were actually in the writing circuit. And having touched that wire of literary industry--through haughty New York scenesters and grad school luminaries--I adored him for this from a distance. His life was like mine. He was not surrounded by dull, cutthroat name-droppers, but salt-of-the-earth comrades who'd earned his allegiance over time. Or so I assumed. I just unearthed this from a speech he gave:

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

The disappointment that this care is not enough to keep someone as infinitely talented as Wallace alive is a cracking blow. Humans are, at the core of things, solitary beings. And each private universe harbors deep and lethal darkness. And that is a stunning, if unsurprising and familiar, revelation.

woot! woot! woof!

We did it. The Folsom Int'l Triathlon has been vanquished. And we raised more than ten times the funds we set out to bring in. Let's hear it for underpromise, overdeliver.

Well woohoo and yeehaw, compadres! Thanks to everyone. You guys made this SO SO fun. I really had a blast (I can say that now that it's done). Onward to post-race kick-back. Fall never looked so good, my friends. Where's my cider?!

the veepee: a total gimmee

I know I'm not the first to say it, but I could not even pay attention to what Sarah Palin was saying because I just kept thinking how lucky Tina Fey would be if by some miracle this farcical McCain-Palin ticket took the Oval Office. She would have guaranteed SNL work (and material galore, no doubt) for at least four more years. I mean, really! The resemblance is a comedian's dream come true.

obama 2.0

Here's my latest story, a reflection on the Obama team's use of technology and what it means for East Bay supporters who've long done things the old-fashioned way. Enjoy.