Did anyone have a good year last year?  It seems to be consensus among everyone that I know that it was the worst year ever. Just about everyone in my community is thinking “Thank God It’s Over”!
I went to a zine reading the other night by my friend artnoose.  Ker-bloom! #81 was actually sub-titled Artnoose [...]

I have found myself skirting the edge of a mild depression. Life has been growing and filling up over the last 6 months (almost to the point of overfilling!), but also holding a void.  We have been in a place of limbo, grief recovery and anticipation.
We just passed the one year anniversary of having matched, [...]

J- just looked over, hearing me listen to a video and said, “Are you writing a political post?”  He was a little shocked because I am not really a conventionally political person.
I recently watched Milk and The Times of Harvey Milk.  I was a bit humbled that I didn’t really know the whole Milk story [...]

We live in a 1908 Craftsman in Oakland.  It has clearly been remodeled a few times. Luckily we like most of the changes.  Our home has a more open floor plan than many.  The one feature that we miss is that many Craftsman homes of this era have built in cabinetry, which was likely removed [...]

My first experience in hearing about schools was meeting teachers at preschools and private schools that had insanely long waits.  I heard stories about people getting their kids on the waiting list in their third trimester of pregnancy. Soon after, I started hearing horror stories from people working in Oakland Public Schools about how horribly [...]

I have seen this movie twice. I first found out about it because it was directed Jonathan Karsh, who I share many friend with from Carmichael, CA.  I went to a reunion and people were talking about his upcoming film premier. I didn’t see it at the time, but when I began to get interested [...]

This is a tribute to Hugo the dog that I worked on with Kangs, Hugo’s partner.  J- and I used to regularly care for Hugo until his walking got a bit hard on our steps.  He is a good old doggy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moOhXhA26f4

It is still in progress, but due to the quality of my camera that took [...]

A few months ago, we had our respite parents, R- and N- over for dinner.  We had just come back from our first parenting class with the agency and were talking about all of the possible family combinations that may work for us.  Then R-, who is black, dropped the bomb. “Have you thought about [...]

I wonder if people in other states ask people where they are from all the time.  If you live in Illinois or Alabama, is it just assumed that you are from there?  Of course, here in California, most people are NOT from here, so that is a common conversation topic to get to know a [...]

I recently watched Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.  I didn’t learn anything new since I had already studied this stuff in college.  15 years later, it is totally mainstream.  Although I believed it all along, the fact that it has become more widely accepted has still made it feel bigger to me, more impending, [...]