1.  The opposite of a fair-weather friend, a foul-weather friend only seeks you out if they have a problem, need a shoulder to cry on, a ride to town or someone to watch their dog, but otherwise they act as if they don’t even know you. They’re only your chum when they’re glum.
2. A foul-weather friend is someone who likes to be around you when you are unemployed, depressed and in the dumps. He/she feels sorry for you, and gets some pleasure out of feeling superior, handing out advice, berating you for having a bad attitude. As soon as you get out of the slump, get a job, get in shape, get a decent place to live, etc., the fair weather friend is jealous, and stops speaking to you.

J-  and I thought that we had made this term, but after Topeka’ing it (lol), it appears to not be our original idea.  We invented it for a friend who I would go for years to months without hearing from until she was released from the institution, losing her apartment or getting broken up with and then she would appear.  Well, I have become a sort of opposite version of a foul weather friend in the fact that my friends and acquaintances seem to be engulfed in crisis and I am wanting and feeling compelled to show up for them.

So, I have been thinking about this fact. I have many friends that live poor (by choice or not), many friends that are queer/single or not in traditional relationships and also among folks that do participate in more risky lifestyle choices.  Also, activists and radicals are less likely to devote adequate resources to their health (myself included), whether that means things like exercising and eating well or having health insurance.  We are also just plain and simple getting older, which increases our risk for disease and complications.  Most of the time, these things do not effect anyones life too much (and especially mine), but the moment seems to be a convergence of folks in need.

A friend to all is a friend to none. – Aristotle

Okay, but the last part. Why so much going on and going wrong and why do I sometimes feel like I want to take it all on?  Is it that I have lots of friends (423 by Facebook’s count) and am grounded in a community where I have known most of those people for 5-20 years?  Is it because I spent time working on mutual aid projects and am in a caregiving profession?  I sometimes wonder if it has become a dysfunctional part of my identity. Of course it feels good to help and be available and it is also sometimes a relief to focus on someone else’s problems.  Some of it is wanting to give back for those many bits of help that I received when I was poor and when we had the kids and any little bit of help made so much of a difference.

I suppose what feels most notable about this moment is that I cannot keep up  with the demand that I perceive.  There is more need that I can provide and this makes me feel a bit sad and hopeless. It makes me wonder if this marks a downturn that will continue for the future.  It is forcing me to pace myself and recognize my own self-care requirements (and the importance of them).  It is also forcing me to make choices that I would rather not make.

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I went to a zine reading the other night by my friend artnoose.  Ker-bloom! #81 was actually sub-titled Artnoose and the Terrible, Horrible, No-good, Very Bad Year.  She writes

My Inner Nietzsche berates me and says that those with power are the ones with the will to power. It ridicules my resentment because it says I can’t be angry at wolves for eating sheep. I hate the Inner Nietzsche; I think it’s a jerk.

Okay, well it is true that you can’t be angry at wolves for eating sheep, but that doesn’t make it suck any less for the sheep, right?  I think we are in just such a predicament, with the terms of our liveliehoods being so far from our choosing.  It is hard to not lose integrity, compromise or get screwed sometimes.

Of course on the most immediate level, my year was defined by 0ur adoption disruption, which J- and I agree is the hardest thing we’ve ever done.  The first months of the year, we spent attaching to T-4 and getting further distanced and discouraged by T-7. The end of the year was spent in recovery. One of the contributing factors to our decision was my mom getting diagnosed with breast cancer.

She has spent the year fighting it through western medical treatment, chemo, radiation etc.  It is not that simple of a story, of course.  She actually had breast cancer  many years ago, which she successfully fought and this new case emerged in the scar tissue of her masectomy. She noticed it some time ago and her doctors reassured her it was nothing. Time passed and eventually, she found a doctor to biopsy. Unfortunately, it had reached stage 2. Additionally, our go0d friend N-’s mom has been near death several times from leukemia. She and my friend  Anandi , who also has breast cancer are both uninsured.

Tristan Anderson got shot in the head by a teargas canister in March and fighting, literally on the edge of life for the rest of the year.  Tristan is not  close friend of mine, but he is a close friend of friends and is a long-time acquaintance. The good news is that it sounds like the setbacks to his healing are behind him and although he has sustain serious cosmetic and cerebral damage, his is finally accomplishing some recovery.

My friends, the hikers were detained in Iran at the end of July.  And still detained. I think of them daily and hope that their spirits are strong. I have so many feelings about this, but there are just too many words to open them here.

I have had many friends experiencing nasty and tragic breakups, the most public of which is zombie mom.

I kinda hate to even mention it in the same context as these other things, but Obama sure has turned out to be a big disappointment to the far left on many counts. (I never really believed it to begin with, but I am sad for the folks that had such high hopes.)  While in 2008, people were getting pregnant with Obama babies all over the place, this year has been.

Good Riddance!

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We just passed the one year anniversary of having matched, visited and had the girls move in with us.  Last year, Halloween was the first weekend that the girls were here to stay and we took them trick-or-treating for their first time.  I had a blast, we went up to Temescal where the merchants were giving out treats, hosting music and crafts and generally entertaining adults and children alike.  It was the first time that we shared in a ritual, publicly as parents, with other parents and kids.

It was hard not to think about this year as I talked with my friends about what their kids were up to.  We had about 30 kids come to the door, but our street was too quiet.  75% of the houses had their lights off, so many children ignored our block to stay on bigger or more lit up streets.  I did have fun, but I wished that I were in Temescal.

About a week ago, we got a call from A- County letting us know that the P.R.I.D.E. classes will be offered in January. This fits nicely with J-’s winter break, so we expect to take them in order to get back in the process.  Yes, we do basically have to start from scratch…I know, I know…we were perfectly qualified a year ago to get kids from multiple counties, but now suddenly, things are different. Don’t get me started.  But honestly we don’t mind, this does feel like the right path for us, as winding and rocky as it has been.

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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 when I saw it. I knew they Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone had been killed and that Milk was the first out gay man to be elected to public office in California.  I think that I knew at some point that Supervisor Dan White had shot them.  But, I don’t think I could have said this before I saw the movie, I had forgotten this part of the story at some point.

I was almost 7 years old when the murder took place, but I don’t remember it.  We had recently relocated to Sacramento from Santa Cruz when it happened and I wonder how my parents reacted.  Did I know about it and just not remember or did I not see the news that night?

My first memory of the story was sometime around 3rd grade (around 1980) when we went on a field trip to the Crocker Art Museum.  I think it was a sculpture that had a twinkie that was referencing the “Twinkie Defense“.  I can almost picture it. Bright colors and chaotic lines and a piece of a Twinkie sticking right out of it.  My mom explained the Twinkie Defense to me, but like many things at that age, I was just beginning to make sense of things and be able to understand the difference between imagination and reality.  Dan White and the Twinkie defense was filed in my brain next to the Greek mythological gods that I had learned about. It seemed partly true, clearly important, but it also had an aura of remoteness, something that was before my time.  I learned about the defense, but I didn’t know who was killed or who did the killing.  I was 30 years from understanding how this could be relevant to my own life.

The Milk documentary was filmed in 1985.  Memorable scenes were an interview with a union man that said he was homophobic before he began working with Milk.  He agreed with everything that Milk said, and this is what made him change his feelings about gay people.  But, he straightforwardly assured the audience, most people still feel how he used to, shamefully.  Also, I believe it was Milk’s colleague Jeannine Yeomans, who describes the fear of people at that time.  They saw that things were changing and did not understand what that would mean for San Francisco and their lives in it. They were used to power being one way and power was changing.

Interestingly, when I finished watching The Times of Harvey Milk, I saw this article that the day before, Speaker Nancy Pelosi compared the extremist and violent rhetoric being used today in the debates on health care to late 1978 in San Francisco, the time when Milk and Moscone were shot.  The comparison is striking for the obvious reason that the US now has its first black elected official.  I was struck by this statement because I related to the times portrayed in the movie.  I was really moved by the scenes in the documentary that showed the candlelight vigil, with thousands out mourning the deaths of Milk and Moscone and the scenes of angry riots following the weak sentencing of Dan White.  Although I am not usually very interested in politics, it was impossible to not feel inspired and have some hope the night that Obama was elected.  I walked out to my back porch and in all directions, I heard whooping, music, horns and celebration.

Rachel Maddow discusses Pelosi’s speech on her show.  She shows the clip of Pelosi then follows with Dianne Feinstein’s 1978 announcement of the murders.  The emotional turbulence of both are remarkable.  A bit later, she plays a clip of Republican John Boehner reacting to Pelosi’s comment, in which he describes the exact fear that Yeomans had described in 1985, cinching the similarities of three decades earlier.

I wonder how much of the Bay Area’s queer culture that I love has to do with politics and specifically, the politics of Harvey Milk.  My bias is to think very little.  It is hard to believe that if politics does make a difference, that 30 years later, Proposition 8 still failed in California. Demographics, geography and economics are what have provided the conditions for queer community to flourish here.  On the other hand, iconography, political figures and historical markers are all building blocks for shifts from a subculture to a culture.

So the fact that our tapestry of our dominant culture continues to be rewoven with queer, black and “other” as thread with a new political context does change things. It ultimately forces the change of  the relationship of the “isms” – sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. – to the dominant culture.  The question that I suppose I am consciously leaving unanswered surrounds the compromise that these historically discriminated against groups inevitably concede to in order to play the game at all.  And of course, whether this is really “the game” that any of us should want to be playing.  And sadly, the celebratory hoots of victory from Obama supporters have become few and far between since long before the health care debate began.

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Fireplace Before

The beautiful paneled walls, bricked fireplace and mantel and box beam ceiling of our dining room had been painted over a stark white at some point. While this choice was slightly redeemed by a lovely clay color chosen for the space above the paneling, The primer-like white was never going to feel cozy or warm.

After several years of home-ownership and with many other more dire improvement projects under my belt, I decided it was time to tackle this. I scoured the internet for suggestions specific to the paneling and fireplace, but found very little. Much of what is posted are photos of display homes of famous architects of the era.  Luckily, I was able to visit a few homes to get some ideas.

Fireplace after

I went down to Eco Home Improvement and looked at the Yolo color palettes.  The palette that I was considering was most like their Canyon palette, but it was a bit on the red side and the dark brown was a bit too dark.  I did choose Canyon 5 for the bricks, which matched our curtains perfectly and is reminiscent of, well…unfinished brick…  For the light trim pieces, I decided to go with Stone 1, which was clearly a contrast with the rich dark colors in the rest of the room, but much warmer, richer and darker than the white that we were moving away from.

The brown was not a Yolo color, but a custom color called “Raisin”.  It was the color that I was and am the least sure of.  It brings a business to the room that I am not thrilled with, but I really liked the idea of  paying tribute to the beautiful dark wood underneath the paint.

And no, I don’t expect that white trim around the door frame to last. Actually, I hope that eliminating that will be the final touch that gives the room the cohesiveness that it needs. And then on to the box beam ceiling, which I am excited about asthetically, but dreading because of the difficulty on the neck and shuolders that I imagine with painting detail on a ceiling.  How did Michael Angelo do it?

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J- and I were huge proponents of homeschooling. Especially after we visited a panel on education at Counterpulse put on by uber-cool organizer Chris Carlsson.  At the panel were advocates of public schools, alternative schools and homeschoolers.  I am probably exaggerating here, but it seemed as if the best thing that the public school advocates could say was “They aren’t so bad.”  The homeschooling mom, on the other hand talked about the vibrant lives that her kid led, playing soccer, visiting museums, having playgroups and sometimes going to privately held classes to study the three R’s and sciences.  We were hooked.

After deciding to do fost-adopt, we knew that any school-age child that we had would have to go to school.  Additionally, we realized that our kids may need and want the structure of school.  That they have undergone a lot of transition and difficulties and school may provide some comfort or represent a safe place for them when home may have some anxiety attached to it.

We ended up matching with our ideal ages, 4 and 6.  We knew that having 2 kids out of school would probably be too much for us.  Enter the Oakland Unified School District.  We have a school 1/2 block from us that has undergonea lot of change over a few years, including becoming a public charter school.  It is now known for being able to help the “toughest of kids”. That is great, and I don’t really see that as being a good environment for my 6-year-old daughter, either.  What does she know about tough? She is African-American, but her current school is primarily caucasian and she has lived most of her life with caucasian folks.  So, in addition to not wanting to expose her to “toughness” before she is ready, I think she would feel most comfortable in a multi-cultural environment, not on that is more than 90% African-American.

When talking to some neighbors, whose judgment about such things that I trust, I discovered that we are in the district for one of the best schools in Oakland, P-.  I was hugely relieved.  Little did I know that we are not guaranteed to get our kids in there.  Recently, I have found out that our neighbors were not able to get there kid in there.  In Oakland, certain neighorhoods have more kids in the district than will fit in the school, so we would basically have to start petitioning each semester to move her to our neighborhood school. This was less than perfect. She has already been to several schools and will be moving once into the Oakland area. Expecting her to move again seems wrong.  Although P- is full, I was picturing having a sitting strike or hiring a lawyer to get her in.  I had heard that their were laws to get foster kids a smooth transition into school, after all.

After realizing that the P- situation was hopeless, I  put the word out to my broader community to tell me some good things about other schools. I got some leads on other potential schools that we visited. One we didn’t like at all and one was okay and was a charter school with a waiting list (which we did get on).

My agency told me to start calling principals. Well this worked for getting tours of the school, but all of the placements are centrally located through the district, so asking about openings got people in the office really chilly.  We got word from friends that their kid’s school, C-, which happens to be our second choice of schools, recently had a kid transferred in who NEVER SHOWED UP!!  This seemed like a miracle that our friends were talking to this principal at the same time we were wanting to get in the school.  It is not walking distance of our house, but reasonably close.  A great school… it really was our second choice.  Of course, the district did not show the opening in their computer because technically it had been filled.  Would it be a huge mistake to call their attention to it?  Would we get lucky in the fact that most parents don’t want to transfer their kids mid-semester?  We are now waiting to see if the timing will sync.

In the meantime, we have found that two other well-rated schools in the Montclair area have openings for 1st grade.  So these are possibilities if C- doesn’t work out.  It is a huge relief to at least know that we have a couple of acceptable options for our kid.  But it IS complicated and stressful.

I think the real lesson for me is that even though there are these laws, our daughter still wouldn’t be in a school that was a good match if I didn’t have the resources to transport her and the resourcefulness to advocate for her.

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The movie is about the Tom Family.  Susan Tom was married and had 2 biological children. She wanted a girl, so she decided to adopt.  The agency that placed her first girl, Emily called her about a second child, Margaret whom she also adopted. At some point in this process, she split ways with their father and became a single mom.  She became involved with  an adoption agency and became hooked. At some point, she realized, it is not a great leap to go from six to twelve to thirteen kids. Margaret was considered special needs due to a brain surgery and from thereon out, she began adopting children with medical conditions and disabilities.  When the movie was filmed, one child had already died, another one dies during the filming.

One of the great benefits of the disabilities in her family is the shift in normalcy that the kids experience. Instead of getting stared at for their individual difference, they are stared at as a crazy big family, everyone is getting stared at.  The best thing about the movie is that Susan is a straight shooter if there ever was one. She really demystifies adoption, medically fragile kids and attachment issues.  Although one of her children becomes abusive, she never fails to love him and fight to get him what he needs while protecting the rest of the family. She never glosses over these issues for the viewer or for her children.

The result is that her kids are totally grounded in reality and their own strengths.  They have an amazing amount of self-confidence. One girl that has no legs even says, “I am glad that I don’t have legs, ” because it allows her to do things differently than other kids and makes her a more interesting person.

Susan is very clear that she adopted these kids because she knew that they were her children. She has said no to kids before.  These are her flesh and blood, whether they be her bio children or whether they have other people in their life that they call “mom”.  She treats them no differently than her bio children.  It may not always be the easiest family to live in, but most of the kids believe that Susan is the best mom and seem to feel that they get their needs and desires met as much as any other kid, if not more.

While the movie is certainly fascinating and moving on its own, a great deal of richness is added by watching the “Extras”.  The first time that I watched the film, I didn’t leave it feeling completely good about the situation.  I was left with a sense of unease about whether Susan is crazy or a good mother or whether she protects her children enough in the filming of this movie.  What are her motives for having all these kids or participating in the film?  In the context of the family and the nature of the medium, a lot of hard moments are captured and it isn’t always clear why Susan is dealing with them in the way that she is.

Extras include interviews with Susan Tom, Jonathan Karsh and Susan’s biological children, who had moved out before the filming began.  In the interviews, she talks about protecting her kids pasts and how she agreed to let the filming happen and under what terms.  Susan does a great job of explaining some of the more disturbing things that were filmed and reveals the message that was important for her in participating in the project. Namely, kids with disabilities are just like any other kids and they deserve a home that encourages them to meet their full potential.   In her words, “All children are special needs children.” Each one has their own challenges to being happy and successful.

The message that I took from the movie is that we would all be better people and better parents if we were more like Susan.  She sees beyond the constraints of biology, personal history and prejudice to see these young people in their real light.  Not even the best light, but who they really are.  She is not afraid to speak the truth and does not try to protect her children from it, instead she helps her children understand the truth and they have more confidence because of it.  If more parents gave their children these tools, I think we would live in a more compassionate place.

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It is still in progress, but due to the quality of my camera that took the video, I think that it won’t get all that much better than it is.  It was a pretty fun, silly thing to help with.

Here are the lyrics (by Kangs):

Boots and braces drooling faces; Hugo doesn’t win most races
Braces and boots hollers and hoots; clumsy, klutz are names he suits
1 2 3 4
woah, oh, oh. Boots and braces! woah oh oh. Boots and braces!

Boots and braces drooling faces; Hugo doesn’t win most races
Braces and boots hollers and hoots; clumsy, klutz are names he suits

Gimpy lame-o that’s what they call you; you stand proud  then you fall down
4 legged tripod you’re a clumsy dog; sit up, stand down,  hit the ground

Knuckling under oi oi oi what you gonna need? Boots and braces
Step, trot, fall flat oi oi oi what you gonna choose? Boots and braces
woah, oh, oh. Boots and braces!  woah oh oh. Boots and braces!

Scrape your feet on the floor you need booties more and more
Torn crutia twisted legs wear a brace Simon says

Knuckling under oi oi oi what you gonna need? Boots and braces
Step, trot, fall flat oi oi oi what you gonna choose? Boots and braces
woah, oh, oh. Boots and braces!  woah oh oh. Boots and braces!
woah, oh, oh. Boots and braces!  woah oh oh. Boots and braces!

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What came flooding back to me was seeing a one-woman play a number of years before by a woman named Jackie Thornton. The play was autobiographical and much of it centered around having her hair done when she was young.  I remember hearing about the heat burning her scalp and her hair getting pulled until she was in tears.  It was tied up in so much emotion, including dread and shame.  It was an oft-repeated ritual that affected how she lived in the world and what her relationship with her mother was like.

R- had me terrified.  He described the judgment that I would get from people of color who would be critical of white people raising black children.  N-, who is white, told me about driving R-’s son to camp and getting attitude from other (white) parents.  R- also said that mom is completely responsible for a girl’s hair, there is no way that dad or anyone else will have ultimate responsibility.

I think that my initial reaction to this was one of frustration and hopelessness.  I mean, great…we are trying to do this good thing for ourselves and these kids and feel like we can offer a lot of support for African American kids, but that makes us public enemy #1 to other black folks?!  In addition, mom’s already take more of a brunt of things when kids that have been in the system lash out.  Sometimes a dad was never in the picture; even if they were, it is still mom that ultimately let them down. So what am I signing up for and why?

OK, so past the initial reaction and R-’s reality check, I started getting all kinds of positive feedback and offers of support from the black folks in my life and, of course, it is their opinion that really matters to me.  And, I started seeing all of the people in my daily life that I can reach out to for help.  X has two girls that are just a bit older than the kids we are expecting, they will be a great resource for toys and clothes.  Y has a co-worker in her salon that has taught parents how to care for hair before.  Z are two white women that adopted a girl when she was an infant, maybe I can even sit in on a hair session with them before I get kids so it won’t be completely foreign.

I actually think I am a little jealous of black hair; I know it sounds ridiculous because I always get compliments on my hair, including from black friends, who claim to be envious of it.  But, first of all, I have always wanted braids since I was a little girl.  I’ve always loved the really tiny ones, both straight and when they make patterns on the scalp.  I have even been on vacation a few times when they were offering braids on the beach. I’ve been tempted, but always felt that there was something holding me back. I am not sure how they would look on me, I do need to wash my hair regularly and I do think that part of it is cultural appropriation. I felt like it just wasn’t right to take black hair for myself.  The same feelings applied to dreadlocks when I got older.

Secondly, there is something really nice about all that time and attention that goes into that hair.  Although it can be gory and depressing and there may be ways that the process is supporting beauty standards that are ridiculous, I feel that the culture that I came-of-age doesn’t value putting time into our appearance.   Doing hair can actually be a sacred ritual time where a mom touches her daughter. She is building her child’s esteem and designating personal care time.

My friends that do their daughter’s hair every week watch a movie and get pizza. They assured me, “Hair night is actually really fun.”  Ultimately, I am really looking forward to it as a way to build intimacy with my girls and push myself into new territory. It is not very often that I need to ask for help and having to ask for help will also pave the road to building community around my new family.

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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 new person.  That being said, I am often asked if I am from “here”, I think I must have enough of a California aura that people have a feeling.  I never quite know how to answer, in part because I am not sure exactly what it means to be from anywhere…and what does “here” mean to people?

So generally, I say “basically” then launch in to an explanation of what I mean.   “I was born in Santa Cruz, but mostly grew up in Sacramento.  I came to Berkeley for college in 1991 and have lived in the East Bay ever since.  I’ve lived in my current neighborhood since 1994.  My father and his mother were born in Pacific Grove, CA near Monterey. My father’s father was born in the Fresno area.  My mother was born in San Francisco and grew up on Sunnyvale, CA.”  My explanation is actually just many layers of demonstration that pretty much by anybody’s definition (except for the fact that I wasn’t born in Oakland), yes…I am from here.

I have never really known that much about my family.  We have a lot of fallen out parent-child relationships , bastard children, half-siblings and divorces.  My mother didn’t even know who her father was until a few years ago, shortly after he had died.  My paternal grandparents’ mobile home was destroyed in a flood in Soquel, CA in 1979, just after grandma had finished a family tree.  Family lore said that she had lost everything.

Apparently not all was lost. A few weeks ago, my brothers and I went down to Watsonville to go through the possessions that my father left behind.  There were a number of old photos and newspaper articles that we had no idea were in the family. Those remnants, along with all of the current technology has made reconstructing the tree my new obsession.  Some of the family lines are easy to follow, especially the paternal lines where there aren’t a lot of name changes.  In several places, I have been able to trace ancestors back to their arrival on the East Cost in the 1700’s.  This is helped by the fact that other people have done family trees on ancestry.com that I can glean information from.  Other lines, I am stuck at just a few generations back due to recent immigration or the presence of spotty records and multiple names.

Google has also supported my quest to get more information about my family, which is where I found the most exciting surprises. My great-grandfather (by birth, which is not my namesake), Andrew “Burt” Cudney had lived about 6 miles (as the crow flies) from where I live today.  I knew that he had been a ferry operator based on his clothing in a photo that I have of him. With a few google searches with variations of his name, I got several hits that panned out.

One was a San Francisco Call article where he is begging for a divorce from my great-grandmother, who was apparently crazy, like most women in my family.  He argued that she threw things at him and had cost him several jobs.  I found a patent for an automatic flash lamp attachment (he was a photographer) based in San Francisco in 1918.   Finally, I found a number of photos that he had taken that are now owned by the Oakland Museum.

I think I am drawn towards knowing more about him because he lived so close, although he is certainly the most controversial figure in that side of our family, which is intriguing, as well.  I have found nothing to sustain this, but rumor has it that Cudney died as a result of injuries sustained when taking a photo of one of the first cross-country flights landing.  Yes, he was hit by the plane.

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