This year’s cast…
Tags: bay, speakinggigs
yfla.wrap(“This multimedia content requires Flash version 9 and above.”, “Upgrade Now.”, “http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/shockwave\/download\/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash”, “”);To view this multimedia content, please enable Javascript. it isn’t christmas but i LOVE this clip and it makes me smile every time i hear it.
yfla.wrap(“This multimedia content requires Flash version 9 and above.”, “Upgrade Now.”, “http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/shockwave\/download\/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash”, “”);To view this multimedia content, please enable Javascript.
Yes we can.
This morning was a flurry…well…ok…this morning was a leisurely wake up right before my alarm went off (I HATE that) a stroll to the bathroom and then back to the coziness of my down comforter. But once I finally got out of bed and dressed and such…I drove over to my precinct and voted. I’m officially part of super Tuesday…and it feels so good. So exciting…so full of potential. And we probably won’t know anything until Friday or later but…WOW!
Tags: socialcommentary
no, not wal-mart or starbucks…i mean ikea.
i know i know, everyone loves ikea. ikea loves the environment and has simple and minimalistic packaging. and as expensive as they are they are still pretty affordable. but i loathe them. partially because when you walk in there are a million converts to the ikea god who think that nothing in the world is better…i mean they actually have tourists (despite having stores all over the world). add to that they tell you how to think. big white and blue arrows on the floor direct you around the maze of a store – any deviation can leave you lost and unable to find your way out. and then there is my disdain for being like the masses. take a gander at craigslist and you can see that owning anything ikea definitely puts you in with the masses.
even so…
thursday i found myself there. i made it as bearable as possible, i went on a rainy thursday and i’ve never seen it so empty. unlike my last visit i manged to escape with no tears of frustration and disgust.
i came out with a dresser and a $7 toolkit. i hated to do it but…four months in california and i was still living out of my suitcases. so friday night with the help of a friend, i put my dresser together and FINALLY my apartment is starting to look like a grown up lives here.
it is amazing what a few things on the wall, a rug, and a place to put your clothes, can do.
home sweet home…i’m still working on it.
Tags: bay, transition
money hasn’t been my driving force for quite a few years now. when i was much younger and just beginning to understand the uses and power of money i admit i was a fan. i remember when i started baby sitting in the neighborhood i would have $100 stashed in my top drawer. not a lot of loot nowadays but in the late ’80s that felt like a small fortune to me.
i remember too when i got my first job (my first two actually, as i had two that same summer, working for the city during the day at at blockbuster at night), realizing how little the average hourly wage an 18-year-old could get was. lunch time became an exercise that involved me counting how much i wasn’t earning while chewing on an hour’s worth of pay (a $5 sandwich from a neighboring store).
that summer allowed me to do a lot of the things i wanted to do but i vowed i would never work two jobs again if i could afford not to. i figured my time was more valuable than any hourly wage someone would be willing to pay me.
of course this weekend i went back on that.
i’m making more money than i ever have in my life – i’m still on the lower end of the tax spectrum but i’m doing ok. even so when my friend sent me this part time gig announcement i was intrigued. it seemed like quick – if not easy – money. and so this saturday i woke up at 6:20, fixed breakfast, and boarded BART for the city.
and for roughly 8 hours i sat in a tiny freezing room with a spectacular view and was trained on how to select teachers for The California Charter schools.
ultimately i don’t need the money. i have a budget that i more or less stick to. but this fall i want to go to egypt and i want to travel as i’ve become accustomed to traveling…humble but not. as in most things in life i decide where i want my money and energy to go and in travel i don’t mind sleeping in hostels if that means i can go yachting down the nile or have a personal tour of luxor.
so for about 8 hours a month for the next 5 or 6 months i’ll suspend my aversion to working harder or longer than i need to and i’ll pack the $25 an hour away into my travel fund.
my sister and her husband seep love. their house steeps love.
not just because they have the pitter patter of 6 little feet but because they are the incarnate of affection and passion and…well…love.
saturday marks their 6th anniversary. i wish them more of the same. and for my part, i wish myself my own version of what they have.
happy anniversary guys!
Tags: family
hope
it is small and vulnerable…the fragility of an exposed nerve or the fluff of dandelions. one wrong move or wayward breath and it scatters to the wind. that is the nature of hope. of belief.
holding my breath as the results come in on CNN and i am at once terrified and relieved. terrified that he could win. obama could have the chance to fail. what if he isn’t the man we see, we dream, we dare to trust with our fantasies of a better world, a brighter way.
and then relief. he is still standing strong, riding momentum and creating a movement all at once. relieved that success is not beyond his reach, not merely the destination of my sleeping brain.
i’ve never hoped like this before. not in a person i didn’t know, wasn’t vested in on some personal level. i find myself with shallow breathing as he answers questions, talks about an american future that he may very well lead.
and it scares me. its a little like falling in love. learning to trust in those early months. the initial panic waiting for tragedy to strike, unforeseen realities to emerge, warts to appear where before there was only smooth skin.
i never grasped how protective my cynicism was. tough armor against a reality of disappointment and failure. and so i venture out now…with trepidation. i venture out now and engage in discourse and barely contained excitement for a man i know only in words and pictures. and i give to him my delicate and ephemeral hopes praying that they need not be either, that they can instead be resilient and lasting.
i dare to dream, my hope is audacious.
Tags: future, socialcommentary