Thank you all. This is a beautiful day.

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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.