Mer's Whatnot...

Why I Support the Occupy Movement

2011-11-13T18:12:00.000-08:00

Recently someone very close to me, an educated, liberal sympathetic soul who lives in the Bay Area asked me why I support the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, specifically the Occupy Oakland (OO) folks. This person noted that OO is making no specific demands and are causing damage to public property – the person also cited the estimate they read in the paper that it will cost $60.000 to reseed the grass area in Frank Ogowa Plaza once OO is gone (to which my initial response is, dude, me and my friends could do that for like $55,000 dollars less than whoever gave that estimate!). This person is a good person, someone who reads the paper, a few of them actually, and is thoughtful. Nonetheless he could not decipher the importance of OO/OWS. This is my response to his inquiry.

I am an amateur political junky, have been for many years with varying degrees of intensity. I read papars, magazines, watch the pundits on cable, talk with folks, argue. I feel it is my obligation to be somewhat informed and for the last few years I have watched this country spiral into something that started to scare the hell out of me.

I watched as an arrogant and insular Bush Administration squandered the post-9/11 sympathy of the world by invading two countries like a reckless cowboy. I watched as Afghanis and Iraqis and American soldiers died day after day, month after month, and then year after year as we all grew numb to the notion of it all. I watched as deregulation fueled the growing economic inequality in this country, the inequality initiated by Reagan’s economic policies and further exacerbated by Bush Sr., Clinton, and George W. I watched as the 2010 mid-term elections produced a radical right surge that precipitated some of the most regressive laws in Wisconsin, Ohio, Maine, Arizona, etc. I watched as the Koch brothers and their astroturf organizations such Americans for Prosperity duped and then fomented the rage of low income, ignorant, racist, white people into Tea Party actions that supported politicians who voted for policies that would severely injure those very same people. I watched as Tea Partiers talked about “taking back our country” as though some crime had been committed because the majority of the US population elected a black president. I watched as the markets crashed and the disgusting greed and criminal behavior of Wall Street was exposed. I watched as the Obama administration made no arrests, made no indictments against those who had clearly violated the law. I watched as the Robert’s court in Citizen United insanely ruled that corporations have the right to free speech.

Then I watched the mom-and-pop stores in my neighborhood close their doors after 20, 30, 40, 50 years of being in business, because of the economic crash and those criminal banks refusal to give credit to small businesses despite the government bailouts. I watched the foreclosure signs go up in my neighborhood, on my street, and I watched my neighbors solemnly pack their U-Hauls and drive away in shame. I watched as my own property value plummeted, as I got a note from the County Assessor telling me my house was worth a fraction of what it was assessed at only five years ago. I watched as my colleagues working for federal and state agencies had their pay cut, their staff decimated, their hours cut and then were asked to work more for that lower pay. And then I watched as the 2012 Presidential campaign emerged as the most insane, ironic, are-you-fucking-kidding-me farce since Joseph McCarthy was hurling accusations of un-American Activity.

And what did I do about all this? Nothing. Not one god damn thing. Oh sure, I made my political contributions, money I mean. I bitched at the water cooler, I wrote a tirade or three, a letter or five, I ranted to family and friends, but to what affect? None to little, I would guess. I felt powerless, impotent. And in the past couple of years I started to feel a little hopeless, my usual stalwart optimism began to fade. I, for the first time ever, thought of living abroad. I have studied enough history to be scared by what has happened in this country the last few years, yet nothing I did or said had any material impact on the insane political discourse. Nothing I did or said made the Koch brothers go away or stop buying politicians. Nothing I said or did made Congress enact stricter regulations on Wall Street, or act at all! Nothing I said or did inspired anyone to act, to get up off their asses and march in the streets or demand social justice. Nope. Not one god damn thing did I make happen.

And then two months ago a small group of young folks, apparently inspired by the actions in Egypt and the Arab Spring, pitched their tents in Zuccoti Park. And then something unimaginable happened. People started pitching tents in cities and small towns across this country and beyond, around the world occupiers took to the streets, town centers, government buildings. In over 90 countries there have been more than 1000 occupy actions. What those kids did in NYC changed the conversation in this country and beyond. Two months ago the Republicans were prattling on about spending cuts and deficit reduction, something every single reputable economist ON BOTH SIDES of the political spectrum agree would be disastrous in our current great recession In state government the newly elected radical Republicans were leading union busting and gross privatization initiatives that would further devastate the middle class in this country. That was the conversation. Now the conversation is the 99%, Wall Street regulation and accountability, income inequality, further exposure of the Koch brothers and the barely imaginable insanity resulting from Citizens United.

And then the OWS folks inspired an unprecedented move, folks moved their money from big-banks to Credit Unions and community banks, over one billion - that’s one billion dollars – was moved within a month. OWS has sparked demonstrations and marches in cities around the world. My city, Oakland, had it’s first general strike since the 1940s, successfully shutting down the fifth largest port in the country. There were more protesters there than any demonstration in the East Bay (including BEREKELEY!) since the Vietnam Era. And I was there. I saw the people in the streets. They were not, I assure you, just a bunch of hippies. They were teachers, kids, cops, firefighters, Marines, construction workers, bank tellers, students, etc. They were the work-a-day people, middle and working -class casualties of the economic crimes committed by Wall Street, and I dare say, our own government’s inaction. And they have helped changed the conversation.

I don’t give a fuck about the reseeding of the grass area in Frank Ogowa Plaza when OO is finally over. That is a trivial matter relative to the crises facing the majority of the folks in this country. That is a trivial matter when one considers the state of things in Oakland. This City is notorious for it’s crime, it’s high murder rate, it’s sex-trafficking, it’s blight. That Mayor Jean Quan makes the reseeding of the Plaza grass an issue at all is blatantly political and manipulative. This City has intractable problems, real problems, that SHOULD pale the impacts of those folks camping in Frank Ogawa Plaza. Mayor Quan authorized hundreds of thousands of (some accounts say over a million) City dollars for the police to brutally evict OO and then fire upon non-violent protesters.

And yes, there have been some anarchists and violent elements at some of the protests, a very small minority. But what does Mayor Quan and the world expect in a City with an impoverished minority population that has been at best ignored and at worst brutalized by the OPD? There is a preexisting rage in this City, a justifiable rage and at times in the OO demonstrations that rage has expressed violently. But this has been the exception, not the rule. And the organizers of OO have stepped in, tried to defuse the tensions, have over and over emphasized non-violence. I have seen this again and again with my own eyes, I have heard it with my own ears.

I have been to OO and Occupy San Francisco several times and have attended three marches, one in San Francisco and two in Oakland. I have wandered the camps, talked to people, made donations, read the literature. I have seen the homeless there, the Haight Street type kids in their grungy clothes playing angry folk songs on beat up guitars. Those kids who have ALWAYS been at the bottom of the 99% but no one seemed to notice or care enough to change that. Now, for the first time, the clarion call is for ALL of the 99% and they feel part of something. They feel seen. They see that their voices can be part of something bigger than their little cohort of bruised and battered friends begging in the streets and then trying to keep warm in the parks on a winter night. I have also seen the other young folks, the educated folk who are working to keep this thing peaceful and enduring. And they, by and large, have been successful despite the aggressive and sometimes ridiculous actions of the local police. So yes, the hippies, the homeless, the radical and idealistic are some of the people spending the nights in tents pitched on hard concrete or wet grass. But are they not part of the 99%? Is it not the system that privileges the very few at the expense of ALL of the other 99% the point of the Occupy Movement?

The way I see it, those young people sleeping in tents in Zuccotti Park, Frank Ogowa Plaza, Justin Herman Plaza and in cities and towns around the world, those people did what you and I could not. Those people successfully and nonviolently (for the most part) changed the discourse in this country and the world. They are doing our dirty work. They are doing what the young people should do and so many times in history have done. They are changing the world and we cannot yet know how that will play out, or what good may come. That is why I support the Occupy Movement, even with the homeless patchouli wearing drum beating hippies. And that is why I will continue to march and donate and support how and when I can short of pitching a tent. I encourage you all to do the same.

The Mer Sweats

2011-11-11T21:36:00.000-08:00

It all started a few years ago when my brother-in-law one night after dinner made reference to something he called "the meat sweats." When I asked what the hell he was talking about he explained that Alex, a large Russian man whom he worked with, had come back to the office one day after a hearty lunch, dripping with sweat and declared that he had the meat sweats. Well I thought that was just hilarious. Especially since my entire life I have been prone to being sweaty.

Fast forward to Antigua, Guatemala, where on the northeast side of town there is a minuscule and charming restaurant called Hector's run by a talkative Guatemalan man named, you guessed it, Hector. My friend Catherine, a globe trotting American expat who splits her year between sleepy Kino Bay, Mexico, and Paris, France, suggested that Hector's served one of the best steak-sandwiches she has ever eaten. Catherine, like me, spends her money on food, drink, and travel. But, unlike me, she has dined for decades all over Europe and is a connoisseur of sorts. When she says something is good, she knows what she is talking about. So a couple of hours later we were full of delicious steak and a bottle of red wine. And I can now say I agree fully with Catherine's assessment.

After dinner we were walking down the cobblestone street towards our favorite bar when I complained about being sweaty and then asserted that I must have the "meat sweats." Catherine also thought this was hilarious. And so it began, the obsessive naming of my sweats. Later that night at Cafe No Se, where the doors close at midnight, and I don't mean the bar closes, I mean the doors close with the patrons still inside and it gets damn hot, Catherine noted my shiny face and observed that I, obviously, had the No Se sweats.

From then on all my sweats were named by me and my friends. There were the hangover sweats, the plane sweats, the boat sweats, the watching George Bush on the news sweats, the tropics sweats (the most appropriate I would say), the beer-tequila-and/or-wine sweats, the sitting-in-the-park sweats....the list goes on and on. And recently, while travelling in Europe, a cab driver dropped me at the wrong address in the middle of the night and after some wandering around and asking for help (dragging my suitcase behind me) I showed up at my friend Ana's apartment with the lost-in-Amsterdam sweats. She understood - she's seen me with the No Se sweats.

One might think this an odd topic to write about but if you are a sweaty person it might make sense. My sweats didn't start in mid-life when I started eating and drinking in Antigua, Guatemala. I can remember being a little kid running hard through the neighborhood, playing sports of all kinds with the older boys on my street, giving it my all. I would come inside for a glass of coolaid and my mother would note how beat red and sweaty I was and would suggest maybe I take a break. I never did. I would just guzzle my drink and head out for more rough and tumble. More football-baseball-basketball and kick-the-can sweats.

And then I grew up and in retrospect see that I had the puberty sweats, the I'm-in-the-closet sweats, the flirting with a hot chick sweats, the grad school sweats and the list goes on. And now that I am 47 years old, I am less inclined to give a shit what people think about me when it comes to things I seem to have little control over, including that the good lord made me such that I sweat a lot. And it's a good thing too because I just started having the perimenopause sweats. Oh goody!

They aren't bad and it took me a awhile to even notice it was happening. I facilitate meetings for a living, often intense meetings where I am actively engaged, concentrating intently, keeping the group on task and diffusing conflict. And when I am leading a room, making sure folks are comfortable and the temperature is good, I have come to realize that if I feel just a little bit sweaty then everyone else is probably just right. If I am chilly then everyone else is probably hypothermic.

One day at work, talking to a friend/colleague, I made reference to being hot and my friend said, "oh my wife too, she's always waking me up in the night, heaving the covers off." I said, "oh no, it's not that, I just run hot." Then I started noticing that the sweats were coming a little more often and in waves. Nothing too intense but slightly different than any sweats I had known to date. No biggy. Add it to the list. And those who love me don't mind my sweats. In fact, they help me name them.

At Least I am Not Allergic to Bees

2011-08-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

It's not the way one wants to wake up from an afternoon nap on one's boat. My subconscious must have processed the information first, someone yelling, "single-hander! single-hander! your bow-line is undone!" I was out of the v-berth and bounding into the cockpit before I was really awake, knowing that I was the only single-handed sailor in the cove. And that voice sounded way too close to be good. But then this day was weird from the start.

This summer the Bay has not been behaving the way I would like. It's been cool, extra foggy with an extra thick marine layer almost everyday, some days it doesn't burn off at all. And I've felt my mood sinking. Grey, grey, grey - it doesn't do me well. But I needed some boat time, have barely sailed this summer compared to years past. So this morning I decided I would head to Angel Island for a day and night alone on my sweet old boat, the Donna Clare. I gathered some provisions (i.e. a steak, some wine, and my new Kindle) and headed to the marina and readied the boat for the sail. The marine layer was thick and the fog was moving quickly in through the Gate towards Berkeley and Angel Island. I headed west out of the marina and the wind picked up a little, building to 20+ knots by the time we were near the island. And then things got weird.

Usually east of the island there is a wind shadow where a sailor can drop sail and motor into Ayala Cove to moor in relative calm. But the wind started shifting, gusting, going from 10 to 20+ knots in seconds, seemingly coming from both north and south of the island, and even over the island itself. Weird. I would set the auto-helm with the boat into the wind and run to the foredeck to furl the jib and then the wind would shift and gust, fill the sails again, forcing me back to the cockpit to reset the auto-helm. I even tried, briefly, to heave-to but it didn't stick. After this game of gust-stall-switch-gust I finally wrestled in the sails and motored into Ayala Cove.

It's the weekend, Saturday afternoon, the busiest time of the week on the Bay. The cove was bustling with boats and the mooring lines were a complex web. The wind continued to be fluky and the currents were running strong. I did a couple laps, motoring to the side of the mooring area, surveying the situation. I watched guys in dingies help another two boats moor, grabbing their bow and stern lines and looping them through the mooring buoys and then back to the boats to be tied off in a V-shape. It's how it's done in Ayala Cove, otherwise a boat would swing in circles because of the strong currents that run with the tides (four a day, to be exact).

After watching for a bit I swallowed hard and humbly asked a man in one of the dingies for help, explaining that I was single-handing and the mooring I was aiming for was a tight fit amongst the already tied up boats. He obliged. After the usual comedic event that is mooring in a crowded cove, with the help of no less than three men in dingies, we tied her off, bow and stern. I finally relaxed. Mostly.

I had to moor between two spread out buoys and so needed more than 100 hundred feet of line on the bow. This required marrying two hundred-foot lines before looping it through the buoy and back to my boat. A man in a dingy and his young son had tied the knot and brought me the line to cleat off on the bow of Donna Clare. After it was all done, I thought about jumping in my dingy and rowing over to check the knot they had tied. I didn't. I should have. I really really should have.

I settled in, started cleaning up, coiling lines, stowing my gear, making the boat comfy for the afternoon and night. At last I sat in the cockpit to read my Kindle under the little bit of afternoon sun while the fog sat atop the island threatening to spill over into the cove. I am reading Storm Passage: Alone Around Cape Horn, a harrowing tale of a man who completed a single-handed circumnavigation via the capes, the Southern Ocean. It's an extreme thing to do and fraught with barely imaginable challenges, discomforts, and isolation - hundreds of days alone in the most hostile Ocean on Earth. I am always humbled by such stories as single-handing the Bay often scares the hell out of me! I cannot imagine being alone in the southern Ocean.

Looking over the bow of Donna Clare at the mooring
buoy from which the bow-line came free.

The wind continued to be fickle and cool so I retired to the v-birth under an open hatch. For some reason I kept looking aft, looking to see that the island was in the same place out the companionway hatch. I thought to myself that I was being a little paranoid. In retrospect, I know it's because I didn't check that knot. I didn't trust it. Always listen to your gut. It knows more than you. Seems I must learn this lesson time and again.

Then it happened, I heard the yelling for the single-hander. I was jarred from my nap, disoriented, wobbly as I bounded on deck. There we were, no bow-line, swinging towards shore, moving towards the boat moored behind me. I ran to the bow, tried to discern what had happened. I saw both ends of the bow-line were still cleated to the deck of my boat; the knot had failed. Men in dingies came to help, the woman in the boat to my rear helped fend the Donna Clare off her own boat. Everyone was kind and I even heard a man on another boat say, "it could happen to anyone." I was thankful for his comment, but ultimately, this was my fault. I should have checked that knot.

Looking over the stern of Donna Clare to the
buoy that both Jim and I were moored to.

After a good 20 minutes and lots of muscling of line we were secure again. Jim, the man skippering the boat behind me, was in his dingy and tied the knot this time. I asked him, "did you secure it, for sure?" "I used a bowline, it will save your life one day" he said with a smile. "I think it already has" I responded, grinning. The bowline is the sailors knot. Strong as hell, easy to undue after use. I could tie it blindfolded. I shook his hand off the bow of my boat, reaching down to him in the dingy. Then I suddenly acknowledged a pain I had been aware of since running up and down my deck barefoot. I finally said "ouch" and looked down to see a bee stinging me on the bottom of my foot between my toes. I flicked it off and checked for a stinger. Jim looked up from his dingy and asked, "are you allergic to bees?" "Not so far" I said. "Well, I have an epi-pen if you start feeling weird" he added. Good to know.

I trust that Jim tied a good knot. He's motivated to. If the line fails it's his boat that I will swing into. "Time to open a bottle of wine" he said as he climbed back onto his own sailboat now properly behind my boat. I agreed. I am sitting in the cabin working on a glass of Prosecco and I think my heart rate and blood pressure are finally starting to slow. Again, not my preferred way to wake up from an afternoon nap. But at least I am not allergic to bees. Or worse yet, alone on a boat in the Southern Ocean.

Chapter 3

2011-06-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

The death of a parent - for anyone who knows their parents, whether they like, love or loathe them - is a right of passage. The primal role one plays in life is that of off-spring, child. When your parents die you're done with that role, or more aptly put, the role is no longer available to you. It's not a choice.

I did not visit my mother's grave for years. After they lowered her into the ground I turned and walked away, didn't look back. I had not seen the headstone my sisters picked out to be delivered at some point, after the funeral, after the mason made the cuts, engraved the names and dates. I knew whatever they were putting under that dirt, under that headstone, it was not my mother so it didn't matter. None of it mattered.

A few years later I decided to move hundreds of miles north of my mother's grave to San Francisco to be near my sister and try to get into graduate school, to be in a City where I could exhale and start anew. "Chapter 2" I called it. A restart, a clean page, a jump in the narrative where the details between that place and the new one could be intimated and inferred instead of detailed. Chapter 1 was the "heretofore" I was happily abandoning and Chapter 2 was the unbridled "and then." It became part of my vernacular, "Chapter 2," a rhetorical affirmation that what was behind me was in fact behind me and what lay ahead would be different. And after saying it again and again I believed it. And in many ways, more ways than not, it was different.  It was new. I left much behind, happily.

It was only after I decided to move north that something drew me to visit my mother's grave before I left. Years had passed since the funeral and when I arrived at the cemetery on a sunny July day I had no idea where in the consecrated ground my mother's body lay. I stopped at the office and was given a map with a circled plot number. The staff politely explained the directions and I nodded.  It was all very serious and dignified. I wondered what it would be like to have a job that dealt with death everyday, a job where solemnity was required.

After counting my way through the plots of dead strangers, I found my mother's grave. I read the headstone, "Donna C. Rainwater" and the words were sadly comforting. And then the dates - November 25, 1937, my mother's birthday, her beginning. The date was familiar and warm, it was birthday cakes and presents after a special meal, a celebration of her beginning, her existence.  And then November 30, 1989 - a mnemonic for grief - a personal 9/11 or a "where were you when Kennedy was shot?" The date that changed the trajectory, changed the fundamental composition of things. This date, too, had become familiar. But the two dates, carved in stone, next to each other, it punched me, hard, coldcocked me as though I'd just turned a corner and ran into an angry usurer who landed one in the solar plexus, as though I was over-due in paying the debt of reading those dates in succession, carved in stone.  There it was, fixed and permanent, beyond argument, the beginning and the end.

Ten days before my mother died I took her to a divorce attorney. She was on the brink of ending a miserable marriage but the financial picture the attorney laid out was not good. She would lose the house, a house that meant everything to my mother, stability, upward mobility, home. She was raised in a trailer park and as a young child spent a good amount of time sitting in the family car at night, waiting for her mother and her drunk father to emerge from the tavern and head home. That house grounded her, assuaged some of the chaos of her youth. Losing the house and living alone threatened something so primal in my mother I think she simply left the planet instead of facing it.  I think she looked around, saw five good kids, grown, relatively happy, on their way to something better, and she felt done. Done enough. She simply left rather than face her biggest fears.

I remember vividly the last time I saw my mother, a few short hours before she died. I was juggling school, work, and falling in love for the first time and I was generally exhausted. It was the afternoon and I was due to work a swing shift at my security job in LA. I had fallen asleep on the couch and she came home and woke me asking if I shouldn't be on my way. I jumped up, panicked, grabbed my gear and was off. But I remember her face when she woke me, she was concerned, vulnerable, extra sweet, calm. I remember noting her demeanor as I drove my truck north on the 405. Three hours later she was dead. My mother's story was over.

When I looked down at my mother's headstone that afternoon I understood in a way few other experiences could have conveyed: Mer, there's an end to this thing, so figure out what you want to do. After my visit I turned and walked away for the second time. Chapter 1 - The End. I then literally bullied my way into a grad program and San Francisco seduced me and made me fall in love with her and a long honeymoon was ours (I still don't think it's over...maybe it's true love). Some of the best years of my life, so far, were those years in grad school, living in the City, living the beginning of Chapter 2 when everything felt possible. But with any good book, any good story, the conflict emerges and the arc builds and so it did. I left the City, settled down into something, and peaked Chapter 2 with a story line so ridiculous I don't tell it anymore, not the craziest parts. It's one of those truth is stranger than fiction sorta things. And I give myself a few points for creativity. But now it's done. Chapter 2 - The End. That's what I have decided.

I am five years shy of the age my mother died. Not that I think her fate is mine.  I don't. And I pray I am right. But to remember my mother's story is a reminder to get on with things, to not be hobbled by fear and uncertainty.  And so, Chapter 3.

Conversations with Jimmy

2011-04-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

My brother Jimmy and I are home cleaning the house, doing laundry and yard work and whatnot on a very warm spring day. I pass Jimmy in the kitchen where Jimmy lifts up his t-shirt and looks at his belly and the following conversation ensued:

Jimmy: "I'm getting a little bit of a belly."

Mer: "Yeah, welcome to middle-age."

Jimmy: "I know, I gotta start using meth."

As always folks, true story. I think he's out trying to find a dealer right now and in our hood he won't have to go far.

It's a Miracle!

2011-03-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

My mother, when it came to meeting her Catholic obligation to procreate, chose to beg for forgiveness instead of ask for permission when she finally decided to stop making babies. She made an appointment to see a priest at our Catholic church, St. I-, and then found herself sitting across from Father K-, the middle-aged man to whom she confessed that she had insisted her non-Catholic husband (my father) have a vasectomy (which he promptly did). She now, after the fact, wanted to know if she had committed a sin. Father K- was a reasonable man (as reasonable as one can be while believing in a virgin birth and that the eucharist is actually the body of Christ) and he asked her, "Do you think it is a sin?" "No" she said, "I have five children, I think I have met my obligation to procreate." "Then don't worry about it," was the priest's response. My mother had no intention of having anymore children, she just wanted to understand if she had sinned, needed to confess, and what was the appropriate amount of guilt, if any, that she should carry for her transgression. Luckily the priest let her off the hook. Five kids in eight years, she had done her job. And so it was that in the early 70s there were quite a few of us little Rainwaters, all young, living in a small house in a Los Angeles suburb.

Growing up in a small three bedroom house, my two sisters and I shared a tiny room and my brother Jimmy and our youngest sister shared the small room across the hall. Juls had her own bed and Lauri and I split a bunk bed with me on top.* During these early years, I had many friends who had their own bedrooms in larger houses in families with fewer kids and more money. And I coveted my neighbors privilege and privacy. At night I would wait for the first star in the sky to emerge and then I would wish upon it, wish for my own room (and for a horse, for my young self longed to be a cowboy). Of course it never happened, the room or the horse. In fact, the first time I had my own room I was 27 years old. And I have yet to own a horse.

There's an old saying that in Catholic families you have two kids and then they raise the rest. And there's some truth to this. At a very young age I had quite a bit of responsibility for my younger siblings and at times felt a bit overwhelmed and stifled by that reality. My mother felt some sympathy for me and in small ways tried to be responsive. Aware of my perennial desire to have my own room, which was not possible, my mother got creative and bought me a little cabinet with sliding doors and placed it on the shelf above my bunk. She explained to the other kids that this was my private cabinet and no one else was to open it. She tried to create some personal space for me as I was, apparently, the kid most bothered by our cramped circumstances. I was maybe 8 or 9 years old at the time and I remember a feeling of privilege in having my private little cabinet which I promptly crammed with the junk of a young tomboy. I don't remember there being anything particularly private about the things I chose to put in my cabinet, all I remember is that it was my space that the other four kids were not allowed to enter. It was my box of privacy in a house where there was virtually none.

Now the story I am about to share was not revealed to me until years after it happened and I recently confirmed the details with my sister Juls who is at the center of this little tale.  And I think I should preface it with a brief description of my sister Juls. She was a shy, skinny, bookish kid who did what she was told, excelled in school, never talked back...she was my opposite, the good kid, the easy kid.

One day my sister Juls, uncharacteristically, decided to climb up on my bunk to see what was in my private little cabinet. She slid open the door and saw my GI Joe doll reclined on top of some other junk.   Juls picked up the doll and for some reason decided to pull off the boot he was wearing. To her horror, she looked down to see the foot of the doll had come off with the boot. Convinced she had just broken him, she panicked and quickly put the GI Joe back in the cabinet along with the boot containing his apparently amputated foot. Juls then spent days quietly fretting and worrying about her crime, her sin, her violation of my private space and mutilation of my GI Joe.

GI Joe circa 1972.

A few days later Juls decided to check and see if I had discovered her crime. She once again climbed up on my bunk, slid open the cabinet door and then she saw it, the GI Joe once again intact, his foot attached to his leg. Somehow my GI Joe had been made whole again, alone in that cabinet, by forces incomprehensible to her. In her mind, the conclusion was plain: it was a miracle. She was relieved and grateful that this miracle left her out of trouble, the way she preferred to be. Juls never messed around in my cabinet again.

Soon after witnessing this apparent miracle, Juls was in her CCD class (religious training for those of us who escaped Catholic school). Her teacher was leading a discussion on miracles and asked the class for an example of one. Juls, always the exemplary student, immediately raised her hand and then confidently explained that she had broken her big sister's GI Joe doll and that it miraculously had been made whole. The teacher did not challenge her in class or humiliate her but quickly changed course by asking for an example of a miracle from the bible. Although she was surprised that the teacher didn't seem to think hers was a good example, Juls didn't think much of it and continued believing she had witnessed a miracle in the mysterious making whole of my GI Joe.

It was not too long after that CCD class that Juls and I were playing together, she with her Barbie and me with my GI Joe. At some point I started to change the camo uniform of my doll and alas, when I pulled off his boot, off came his foot. I casually pulled the foot from the boot and reinserted the peg into the hole in the lower leg of my doll and then I continued to change his uniform and put the boots back on his feet. Of course, Juls watching me do this resulted in a profound disillusionment as she realized my GI Joe had not been miraculously made whole by god. She realized that the foot came off quite easily and was just as easily reattached to his leg by her older sister, Mer, not god. She realized that I had found the GI Joe dismembered in my cabinet and simply fixed it. She did not share all this with me at the time as she still felt guilt for violating my privacy. But years later she confessed the story which I found bitter-sweetly hilarious. And just the other day she reminded me of this little youthful disillusionment and we had a good laugh.

Today if you asked Juls if she believes in miracles, she would say yes. But not the Catholic kind, not the kind that result in the inexplicable repairing of GI Joe dolls. It would be the seemingly magical synchronicities that lead our lives in the direction we are trying to go, the way the universe can help you along sometimes. And I would agree.

* When I turned 12 we moved across town to a larger house where the girls each shared a bedroom and Jimmy had his own room. My folks, practicing the rhythm method of birth control, had not bought their first home with the intention of having five kids in eight years, including one set of twins. And these days, I not only have my own room, I have my own house, which after 10 years still seems like a damn miracle to me. Seriously.

"Life is Laundry"

2011-02-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

A million years ago when I was an undergrad at Cal State Fullerton, the Women Studies program decided to assign students in the program a mentor. I was assigned one Dr. S-, a crusty ol' poly-sci prof who rode horses, drank liberally, and smoked enough cigarettes to give her a voice so gravely it rivaled Tom Waitts. She was short, wicked smart, quick on her feet and definitely not warm and fuzzy. To my young self, Prof S- was a fairly intimidating creature, aloof, always looking beyond me, thinking deep professorial thoughts I was certain. Her office was a mess, the typical kind of professor mess, papers stacked high, books everywhere.

I met with Prof S- only once and I still remember the encounter clearly. I sat down in the windowless office, a little nervous and waited to get "mentored". Prof S- gave me a quick, gruff "hello" and smile and then said to me, "Life is laundry." "Ok" I said, thinking "that's it? life is fucking laundry?" Our meeting was brief and I was on my way. "Life is laundry"? That's what the brilliant Prof S- has for me? I left thinking that was a waste of time and I never made another appointment to see Prof S- and she never again reached out to me. Apparently, that was the extent of the mentoring I needed....or was to be afforded.

It's been more than 20 years since I sat in Prof S-s office, nervous, waiting for her words of wisdom. And in those 20 years I have come to realize the profound truth and utility in what she chose to say to me that day. Sometimes all your shit's dirty, a mess, the hamper is overflowing and you're wearing that last pair of underwear that you should have tossed 'cause it rides up your ass. And then there are times when all your shit is clean, neatly folded, put away in closets and drawers and you just stepped out of the shower and put on a fresh smelling shirt. And you finally tossed those old underwear AND it's friggin' sunny outside. But the one thing that remains always true, neither one of these states, or any in between, is constant. Ever. That was her point. The older I get, the more I live, the more I see the truth in Prof S-'s little gem. And through my realization and acceptance that life is, in fact, laundry, I have learned how to not stress as much, to not beat myself up as much when my hamper is overflowing and there are the literal and proverbial dirty clothes all over the place.

And with that, and I am not kidding, I am going to go do some laundry. The literal kind...and maybe even a little of the metaphorical kind. We'll see.

Conversations with Jimmy

2011-02-14T21:40:00.000-08:00

Jimmy and his new lady friend, Rachel, were cooking dinner at the bungalow this rainy evening. Rachel, an avid cook, was obviously in charge, but Jimmy was reading the recipe and working hard to be a helpful assistant (Jimmy can't cook, by his own admission). After Jimmy read the instructions for the amount of the salt and pepper needed, the following conversation ensued.

Jimmy: "Do we need to measure the salt and pepper now?"

Rachel: "No."

Mer: "Jimmy, don't you know a pinch and a dash?"

Jimmy: "No, is that a band?"

These conversations are all true. I could not make this stuff up. I'm not that clever.

Conversations with Jimmy

2011-01-29T16:56:00.000-08:00

Jimmy and I were sitting in our favorite breakfast diner, the place where if either of us shows up alone the waitresses ask, "is your brother/sister coming?" A place where they know our breakfast orders by heart and the chef's give us a knowing nod. We always bring our newspapers, Jimmy the NY Times, me the Oakland Tribune, and then rarely read them. We talk instead.

Today we talked movies. Jimmy was asking what I had seen, what I liked and why. He was asking about Winter's Bone and I was sharing a few things, enough to entice but not spoil. That's how we got onto the subject of his visit to the Ozarks with his then girlfriend who was from Kansas City.

Jimmy is a jittery type when it comes to crime, always nervous someone's gonna "get" him. He plays it up, makes fun of himself...but he's also serious. He pays me his rent in cash and refuses to go to a local ATM in Oakland. He waits till he's near his work, through the tunnel in the burbs. He does this every month. I heckle him. We laugh.

So today as I shared a little about Winter's Bone he starts talking about driving through the Ozarks and being nervous and then finally coming to a friend's house in the middle of nowhere. Erect in his seat, eyes wide, smiling, Jimmy then said the following:

"I was scared. I was from California and everyone could tell. I didn't have a mullet. I didn't have a koozie. I didn't have a mustache. I didn't ride a Harley and I had to ask why everything in the house and on the property was spray-painted, chained, and padlocked. It was because the meth-heads get all hopped-up and come down from the hills and steal everything and it's easier to identify your car or your washing machine if you have spray-painted your name on it."

I grabbed a pen and a napkin and wrote that one down. True story folks.

Photos

2011-01-10T21:51:00.000-08:00

There's a certain perversion in holding a piece of photo paper and having one's past stare back...seeing the eyes of a you that no longer exists, a 12 or 20 or 30 year old Mer who in my mind's eye has become sanded soft and distant, safe even. And then there she is, two dimensional but slightly animated nonetheless, present in some sort of perverted resurrection. It fucks with the mind, jolts one back to a place that maybe one need not or should not go.

Grief, Travel, Friendship and the Best Bar in the World

2010-12-20T15:46:00.000-08:00

"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen

Mike and I met in Guatemala when we were both broken hearted, grieving, grappling with the disorienting notion of what our lives might look like after the losses we had just suffered. I had just endured a series of intimate and devastating betrayals that led to the end of a ten year relationship. Mike had just lost his best friend to an abrupt and unexpected illness - John, dead at 42. We were both bewildered and raw. That was December 2007.

It was late summer 2007 when I hastily decided to take my first solo international trip somewhere, anywhere, someplace no one knew me and I could just be, floating, unattached, where things were different and I had to pay attention to something other than my empty house and the unrelenting ache in my guts....someplace where I didn't belong and nothing was expected of me and every interaction would demand my attention and be fresh and untainted. I needed to get the fuck out of town, out of country, out of my world.

My first solo trip was to Cabo where I intentionally booked two nights in a modest hotel frequented by Mexicans, not gringos. My trip was a week long and I figured I'd spend a couple days in Cabo and then decide where to go and what to do. I hated Cabo as it was packed with idiot drunk gringos who under-appreciated the Mexicans who served them. I spent one day fishing for dorado on a rough Pacific Ocean catching two fish which I brought to a sweet palapa restaurant where the kindly waiters had the cooks make three preparations for me to try. I gave the rest of the fish to the waiters who were my only friends in that town, a pattern that has often repeated itself in Mexico.

The second day I rented a car and headed north along the Pacific Coast in the August heat listening to Mexican music and concentrating on keeping the car on the narrow roads that link the towns of southern Baja. I spent a night in Todos Santos and then headed east to La Paz. I stayed in a gorgeous historical building, el Angel Azul, a B&B run by a savvy world travelled Swiss woman named Ester. We immediately liked each other. After an incredibly successful day of fishing on the Sea of Cortes in an 18' panga with my Mexican guide, she and I took my fish to the best restaurant in town where Jesus, a friendly chef from Tijuana, made that fish delicious. I gave the rest of my fish to hard working locals, people Ester knew. I so loved La Paz with it's sweet Mexican waiters, shop-keeps, chefs and guides, that I extended my trip another week. Ester and I sipped Don Julio in the courtyard and discussed her travels, politics, and local gossip. I snorkeled with sea lions, kayaked, ate ceviche on the beach, met friendly vacationing Italians, and walked the malecon in the evenings watching families eating ice cream cones and listening to the bands that played a mix of American cover songs and Mexican pop.

August days in southern Baja are oppressively hot and I was forced to move slowly, conservatively. I drank glasses of ice water with limes, ate chips and guacamole and obsessively wrote in my journal. My interactions with the locals could only deal with the immediate, the tangible, those things that could be explicitly named, mimed or pointed to...the abstract and conceptual were eclipsed by the language barrier and I was forced to live in the moment. It was perfect and when I returned to the States something had shifted. It was not an end, not a cure for the ache in my guts, the grief, the disorientation, but I had rounded some corner, was looking at some new fuzzy horizon. And I knew after years of traveling in Mexico, I needed to learn some Spanish. Within a month of returning from Baja I had booked five and half weeks in Guatemala over Christmas and New Years. I registered for Spanish classes and arranged boarding with a local family. I had no idea what to expect but I was going to really get the fuck out of town, out of country, out of my world. I was headed to Guate.

My first time in Antigua, Guatemala, I studied Spanish four hours a day, an exhausting enterprise in one's 40s. I ate my meals with my Spanish speaking and very religious host family. I walked the cobblestone streets alone, sat in cafes reading and studying my Spanish, ordering meals with my nascent skills. I sat in internet cafes and wrote emails and blogged at the request of my family. I read voraciously and slept in a closet room in the most uncomfortable twin bed. On the weekends I travelled alone, Lake Atitlan, Tikal, Rio Dulce, Chi Chi, Copan. I was often nervous, lonely...but I was present, engaged, everything was new and immediate. I watched no TV, read no newspapers, listened only to the music available in the clubs and cafes. I talked to all kinds of people stumbling through Spanglish conversations with smiling locals, swapping stories with traveling Europeans and gringos. Save for the snotty young Europeans in my Spanish school, most folks were friendly and engaging, especially the locals.

Although people were friendly to me as I travelled alone around Guatemala on the weekends, in Antigua I was starting to get a bit lonely. I was older than most of my fellow students and they were largely indifferent and often unfriendly to me. Then one day I walked into Dyslexia Books on Avenida Primera and met Carlos, a middle-aged sweetheart of a man, a lawyer from Tennessee who tends the store in the time when he's not working for local NGOs. We immediately hit it off talking books and politics and Guatemala. I asked Carlos if I could buy him drinks for the night at the adjacent bar, Cafe No Se. He accepted and we settled into what would become a liqueur soaked evening of disclosure and waxing philosophic. It was that night that I met Mike, shook his hand over the bar he was tending. Mike and I talked and ranted about US politics and who knows what and after a couple of hours I knew he was to be my friend, that I already loved him. It was a strange but comforting feeling.

Mike and I spent the next night in No Se sipping drinks and sharing our stories. He spoke candidly of John's death, his heartbreak and despair, the disorientation that comes with grieving a profound loss. I shared my stories, the betrayal and loss, the shock and disillusionment of the past year. I also talked about my first experience wrestling with profound grief, the loss of my mother when I was young. We acknowledged that despite its inevitability, death and the resulting grief are not something one can really prepare for. We drank. We talked. We didn’t try to fix each other. We didn’t pretend it was less painful than it was. We didn’t get uncomfortable and change the subject. We didn’t panic and fill the silences. We simply bore witness to each other. Thousands of miles from our lives and histories in the States, we sat together and told the heartbreaking truth in a dimly lit dive bar. And we both knew a profound friendship was being cemented.

One day walking through town Mike asked me what I was doing for Christmas. I had no plans and he insisted that I come to his house for dinner on Christmas Eve. I spent the evening with an incredibly eclectic group of folks, expats and Guatemalans, do-gooders and vagabonds, radicals and musicians. We told stories and shared poetry and drank rum and sang songs till the sun came up. It was beautiful. My heart was still broken but it was also filled with love....that ineffable paradox that is the human condition, the way the human heart can hold both profound pain and expansive love...the bittersweet feeling of love's return when you have suffered its absence.

I am in Guatemala for the fourth time since that first holiday season, my fourth Christmas and New Years with Mike and the various souls who land in this quirky little town this time of year. There are the regulars, the expats and Guatemalans who call this place a permanent home, and those who come back just for the holidays, and those just passing through, this place a stop on some journey. Each year we gather around a long table, eat and drink and sing songs till the sun comes up, giving thanks for the love and friendship. And each year Mike and I have grown stronger, let go of some more of the pain of those particular losses and cultivated a little more hope and peace. And we have noted that our friendship is rooted in our willingness to tell the truth when we were crushed and raw. We both knew that to tell those truths is an expression of great strength, the strength of letting go of pretense.

The other night Mike and I got into a little fight, something stupid and fueled by a little too much tequila. We immediately made up but the tiff threw me for a bit of a loop. Mike and I don't fight. Our relationship is not filled with expectations...it's elastic and spacious, never demanding. And then a wise friend offered, shrugging off my concern, that to fight is a rite of passage of sorts. To make an ass out of oneself, to be petty or ridiculous and then be quickly and sincerely forgiven, to experience that is to know more the truth of the friendship. I realized she was right and I let it all go. As Mike said to me the next day, "all I know is that I love you and that's all that matters and this is just a little blip and it means nothing." He's half right. It once again means letting go of pretense, the pretense that we will always be our best selves. We will not. And to admit that is also an expression of strength.

Mike recently sent me a draft of an essay he wrote exploring the fragility of life, asserting that: "…occasionally Ye Olde Cycle of Birth and Death grabs us by the lapels and demands our full and undivided. And it does so to shake the comfort out of our heads and remind us that, as fast as gravity, conception or murder, entropy can send your whole world ass over tea-kettle."

I think Mike is a passionate and talented writer. And as his friend, I know some of the back-story that fuels this particular languaging. I know that in the past year he helped victims of the eruption of the volcano Pacaya, that he was one of the volunteers who helped dig people from the mudslides that Agatha's rains caused in Ciudad Vieja. I know that he returned to the states for the funeral of a friend who was murdered by her husband. And I know an ex lover recently gave birth to another man's baby. After reviewing his draft I wrote to him in an email: "One has to acknowledge all that vulnerability and tenderness in order to live out loud, to love big and generously despite the fact that your heart will be broken, again and again. And then again. People will die, people will betray you, volcanoes will erupt and floods will sweep away villages. No one escapes heartbreak. Life is a heartbreaking enterprise, inherently. Denying that leads to severe and potentially irreparable pussy-ness."

One of the reasons I love Mike so much is he acknowledges, front and center, without pretense, without a common self delusion, that life is heartbreaking. He names the pain, calls out the insecurities, stares them down, doesn't let them paralyze him. He does all that and then chooses to love generously again and again. In this way he inspires me and I think all those who know him and read his work.

It's good to be back in Guatemala, with Mike and all the dear friends I have made here. Unlike that first Christmas, I am stronger, happier, healed. I am forever thankful for those early conversations with Mike in that beautiful dive bar on Avenida Primera, because without them and the friendship they birthed, I would not be here today, a better woman, a better friend, a better person.

Mer's Going South, Again

2010-11-21T22:08:00.000-08:00

For my dear 9.23 occasional readers I wanted to let you know I will be hitting the road again, heading south to Costa Rica and Guatemala and who knows where else along the way.

As is my custom, I will be writing my sloppy barely edited travel ramblings on my travel blog so that they are not ever confused with my sloppy barely edited random ramblings here. So if you're inclined, click over to track my exploits:

merstravelblog.blogspot.com

Say a prayer for my health and safety and I will do my best to stay healthy and safe.

Salud

Itinerary
(For my Family and the Interested)

Nov. 27, 2010
Oakland to Long Beach
Jet Blue

Nov. 28
Red-eye to Guatemala City
Hang out in the airport until the afternoon, super fun that will be.

Flight to San Jose, Costa Rica
TACA/LACSA Airline for both flights.

Dec. 9
Back to Guatemala City and on to Antigua

Jan. 2, 2011
Guatemala City to LA

Jan. 3, 2011
Long Beach to Oakland

Jan. 4, 2011
Sleep all day, I am sure.

Conversations with Jimmy

2010-11-14T13:36:00.000-08:00

Jimmy and I were sitting at the MacArthur BART station waiting for a train into the City. We were headed to a concert at the Fillmore to see Dean and Britta perform Galaxie 500 songs. As we waited the following conversation occurred.

Jimmy: "How many times does 12 go into 500?"

Mer: "I don't know. Why?"

Jimmy: "I want to figure out how many months are in 500."

Mer: " Ok, but why?"

Jimmy: "I wanna figure how many years I've waited to see Galaxie 500."

Mer: "Jimmy, WTF are you talking about? You are seriously just making that random calculation?"

Jimmy: "Yes I am. Didn't you see Rainman?"

Conversations with Jimmy

2010-10-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

Jimmy walked into my office where I had various pieces of camping and fishing gear laid out preparing for a fishing trip. Jimmy pointed at the small black canister on the table and the following conversation occurred.

Jimmy: "What's that?"

Mer: "Bear spray."

Jimmy: "What's in it?"

Mer: "Pepper stuff."

Jimmy: "Does it work on humans?"

Mer: "Well I reckon it would."

Jimmy: "Can I bring it into the house for when the bad guys come and break in to get me?"

Note: I carried bear spray when fly fishing alone on rivers in Montana.

Mourning Toby T. and Paying Homage to My Jewish Grandmothers

2010-09-15T23:09:00.000-07:00

As a recovering Catholic I am not sure if it is proper or typical that I have joyfully adopted the Jewish grandmothers of my girlfriends, but it's how things have gone for me. It's not that I didn't have grandmothers as such a thing is biologically impossible. It's just they were of a different sort, older, more distant, and frankly, less entertaining. My favorite adopted Jewish grandmother, Toby, died recently and I was very sad for it. So I decided to share a little about her, and Suki, for Suki was my first. I miss them both.

Suki (My First)
Suki was the grandmother of my first love, T-. Suki was a slight women, thin with white hair cut short and modern. She stood about chest high to me and she always wore sensible shoes. Defying an almost compulsory domesticity for women of her culture and generation, Suki went to school, learned to paint, prioritized these things with some parity to the caring for her husband and the raising of her children. In her younger years such a path was not met with enthusiasm and I spent many hours listening to Suki tell her stories of the olden days in NYC, the neighborhoods in Brooklyn, the brownstone apartment and the sweltering summers, the family gossip...uncle Sal and the gang. There was no compensatory conviction in her manner but rather a matter-of-fact-ness, slightly removed, as if any criticisms of her choices meant nothing. She just did her own damn thing and if anyone had a problem with that, well, that was their problem, not hers.

I spent several years with the R- family, eating dinners prepared by Suki's daughter Joan, sitting in the living room talking and sipping wine. I watched Joan and Suki's dance, their incessant bickering and banter with all the complexities of their mother daughter relationship....Joan's concomitant resentment and admiration regarding Suki's choices. I heard Joan's stories, her complaints about her mother's spoiling of her older brother, how he got more, like the AC in his room while Joan slept fitfully in the sweltering Brooklyn summer nights. Suki showed no signs of regret, always a wry smile on her face. She lived very much in the present. She was a 70-something year old successful artist living in SoCal. All that other stuff was of the past.

I was a newcomer, an outsider, someone with no shared baggage, no demands. It's a privileged place to be. I had not known many women like Suki, women who were older and had made their own way in the face of resistance, who were from the then exotic (to me) villages of Manhattan and Brooklyn. I liked Suki immensely and I think she felt the same, grinning at me, including me, always answering my questions.

I met T- in college, undergrad, and shortly after I lost my mother. I was grieving, broke, struggling to work my way through school when the universe thought to test me even further and I was laid-off from my job. While I doggedly looked for work, Suki, now suffering from carpel tunnel from a lifetime of painting, hired me to help her with things around her house and studio where she had lived alone for some time since her husband had died. I spent many days with Suki helping her stretch canvass, arranging things in her studio, cleaning this or that. She was, in many ways, a stereotypical artist, odd, eccentric. She was often myopic, having me organize this or that in some small corner in the middle of some bigger chaos....or move this canvass there and then, no wait, back again. I could not anticipate her needs, they were not linked, not linear. I just smiled, did what she asked, enjoyed spending time with her without judgment.

When T- and I broke up, I mourned the loss of Suki, my first adopted Jewish grandmother (Joan too, very much, but this piece is about my Jewish grandmothers). But such is the way of the hyper-mobile modern world where serial monogamy reins supreme. Many of our chosen families are more temporary than we once dreamed. When I broke up with T-, I lost Suki too. Last I heard she was still painting in SoCal.

Toby (My Last, So Far)
When the old folks die, it is not a tragedy, it's just sad. Sad to say goodbye...I think there is even some sadness for knowing that to ask for any more would be unreasonable. Toby had a good run, a good life, a loving family, tons of friends, money, and an incredible sense of humor.

Toby exaggerated for sport. If it was hot outside, it was 1000 degrees. If the meal was expensive, then she was spending her last dime, if she had a cold she was near death. She also had a very porous filter, blurting things out that many would think inappropriate. By the time I met Toby she was in her 70s and had dispensed with the reservations to which many younger folks adhere. She had raised two successful and healthy kids, had cared for the love of her life for 12 years while Alzheimer's slowly stole him from this world, and she had watched as friend after friend buried their husbands. I think she was beyond giving a shit about the trivial niceties...she had earned the right to speak her mind and so she did.

I immediately loved Toby and I like to think she felt the same way. My relationship with J-s immediate family was complicated and often uncomfortable. As J-'s partner I was subject to the evaluations and judgments that often come from parents. Her family was quick to share judgments and opinions but not very forthright with feelings and vulnerabilities, not a very comfortable place for a straight-shooting heart-on-her-sleeve chick like me. Not that I didn't hold my own, I did. It's just we spoke different languages, came from different places, and they leveled judgments on places I had been and would never judge the same way. So I learned their culture and adapted. But with Toby there was less that was unsaid, less pretense, less false politeness. I think she saw, more than J-'s parents, that J and I had a lot of fun together, shared a lot of love and that seemed to be enough for her acceptance.

J- and I were together for a decade and I spent a lot of time visiting with her family and some my favorite times were those spent with Toby. A couple of stories still make me laugh to recall.

After A-'s (Toby's husband) funeral we all (J-'s family and Toby) went to dinner, early of course, as this was in Florida and that's a place where folks eat early. Slightly after 6pm the hostess sat the lot of us at a long table and Toby sat next to me. Toby scrutinized the menu and noted that the "early bird" prices only applied until 6:00pm. When the waiter arrived she asked in her high pitched unapologetic New Jersey accent, "can I still get the early-bird prices?" The waiter very politely explained that it was after six so the full prices were in effect. After he left, with a smirk on her face, Toby blurted out, "what if I tell the waiter I just buried my husband, do you think he would give me the early-bird price?" I laughed hard and then assertively said, "Toby, that's it, I am buying you dinner and you better order whatever you want." We ordered, ate, and then I slapped down some $20s to cover mine and Toby's meal while she grinned at me. Toby had been morning the loss of A- for over a decade and now that she had buried him, there was, of course, a deep sadness, but there was a levity too.

A couple of nights later J- and I took Toby out to dinner again. When we got in the car to head back to the house Toby suddenly exclaimed, "Oh my god, X and X are going to be at the house at 7:30pm! We have to get home before them! I am supposed to be sitting Shiva and they will think I am a terrible widow! Mer, get us home fast!" I was driving Toby's car and as I cranked the engine I turned, looked her in the eye and said, "I'll get you there Tobes, hang on." I sped like a maniac through the wide streets of X Florida while Toby and J- whooped it up, laughing and cheering me on. We skidded into the driveway minutes before her friends arrived, quickly settling into the house, helping Toby look relaxed as though she had been there all evening mourning like a proper Jew. When they left Toby again exclaimed her relief for having saved face. She thanked me again for driving so fast, getting her home in time. I was thrilled to be in service to this woman and thrilled that she had enjoyed my speedily weaving through the slow driving Florida blue-hairs.

It was last December that I heard Toby was sick. I remember it vividly, sitting at the communal computer in the home of my friends in Guatemala, reading J-s email...bone cancer...months left...chemo...terminal. I hadn't seen Toby in a over two years but always asked about her. She was the one I missed, wished I could see but knew I probably never would. And now it was the beginning of her end. I sank into the chair, I was crying, writing J- back, filled with sadness and far from home. And then a few short months later, Toby was dead. Gone. And from the stories J- shared, she was feisty and bitchy the whole way, never admitting defeat. And I like to think she is with A- now, popping off, spewing her hyperbole, asking for the early bird specials.

Note: Some names have been changed to respect folks privacy.

Tell the Good Truths Now

2010-09-11T01:27:00.000-07:00

This is a true story, I know because I read it in a book. A man was leading a group encounter kinda thingy in the 1970's. The man asked the participants to challenge themselves by sharing a secret with the group. Folks made their confessions, things that included guilt for putting one's parents in an old-folks home, kicking one's dog, being promiscuous and liking it. The exercise brought the participants the predictable realization that they judged themselves more harshly than anyone else in the room. The group leader noted that many folks shared big secrets while others played it more safe, sharing the less risky. And just when everyone thought the exercise was over the man offered them more. He noted that everyone's secrets were negative, fraught with some degree of embarrassment, shame, or guilt for doing something "wrong." Then he said that our biggest secrets are actually our unexpressed love, our shame, our embarrassment for feeling love or appreciation or affection.

I remember this story, read so long ago, because it resonated. I remember thinking, "Damn, he's right." I think it was especially poignant for me, having been a closeted homo for 25 years, feeling a certain guilt and perennial perversion for some of my affections. But his point was not limited to a guilty romantic love. His point was that we hold back, don't express so much of the love and appreciation we feel. In that moment I challenged myself to start telling the good truths early and often. I have made it one of my lifetime projects, and over the past couple of decades, I have gotten better and better at doing just that.

I am a chatty sort by nature and have been most of my life. I will engage waitresses and bus drivers and people waiting in line at the bank. Not always, but more often than many, and usually with some vigor and candor. My sister Juls has often refrained, with a smile, "Mer, stop it, people think you are crazy." I ignore her, smiling, continuing to engage whomever it is that Juls thinks I should leave be. And the thing is, some folks do think I am crazy, or odd, or inappropriate. But I think more than not, by a margin, folks do not. They often respond quite positively, smiling or laughing, or sharing something, often something personal, something unexpected.

If I meet you and I like you, well, I will probably tell you right quickly. I will literally say, "You're cool, I really like you." If you amuse me, make me laugh, I will tell you, "you're really funny, I like hanging out with you." If you provoke me, make me think, challenge me intellectually, I will tell you. If I think you look pretty in a dress, or have an infectious smile, or I like the way you giggle or make pancakes, I will tell you. I will tell you even if it is a little strange for you to hear something nice said about you, even if someone being direct seems foreign or inappropriate. I will tell you because I have come to believe that to not, is wrong, is a kind of selfishness, and it's chickenshit. I don't want to be selfish or a pussy. And if my sharing the goodness I see, feel, hear makes you uncomfortable for a moment, I am happy to be, hopefully, a small contributor to your getting over that shite.

Besides, Speaking Up Could Change Someone's Life

This isn't a perfect fit with what I am preaching above, but I am inclined to share this story here nonetheless. Long ago when I was a teenager and acutely aware of my not fitting the dominant cultural standards for female attractiveness, I had an experience, a mundane encounter that changed in a moment the way I saw myself.

I was at the Laguna Beach Sawdust Festival where artisans from all over SoCal come to sell their wares. It was night and I was with friends at a jewelry counter trying on silver rings...I held my hand out considering a particular ring, noting my chewed up fingernails, the more masculine shape and lines, and I said, "I hate my hands." A woman, the jewelry maker behind the display counter suddenly stopped what she was doing, looked at me intently, eyes narrowed in seriousness and said, "do they serve you well?" Startled, I said, "what?" "Your hands, do they serve you well?" she insisted while staring at me, waiting for my answer.

I thought about it, how with these hands I could draw well, play sports, write, hug my friends, build and fix stuff, a million things I could do well because of the skill and coordination contained in my hands. I looked at my hands again and then at her and answered, "yes." "Then don't hate your hands," she instructed and then she turned away and continued whatever it was that she was doing. In that moment, and through the years when I have reflected on this encounter, I realized the perfunctory dismissal contained in my teenage critique of my hands, the narrowness of my assertion. Never again would I so recklessly and thoughtlessly disparage my parts.

So there you have it. Some thoughts on telling the good truths early and often. We are all so good at criticizing ourselves and others but we really need to work on the complimenting and expressions of appreciation and love. Now go forth and do it. I'll start, I think you're cool for taking the time to read my silly blog. Your turn...now git!

The Indifference of Water

2010-08-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

It was a perfect storm of white water physics, the raft bumping and tilting at just the right moment as I reached out to dig my paddle in hard, right at the seam where the water was raging. The river grabbed my paddle and I was air-born, falling towards the worst possible part of the aptly named rapid, "The Ledge."

I landed in the heart of the boiling water and was immediately sucked down, my PFD offering no resistance in the aerated swift water. I had not gotten a full breath and gulped a good amount of water. My paddle was ripped from my hands and I felt myself going down, tumbling across the submerged boulders. My thoughts were surprisingly lucid, "my vest isn't working, I hope I don't get caught on anything down here, I need to relax, conserve my air until I hit green water and my PFD brings me up." I was down a long time, as white water swims go. My crew was worried, they were counting, waiting for my helmeted head to pop up. At last the river let go of me and I popped up facing the boat, gasping for air. "Mer, over here!" Dave yelled, and I could hear he was stressed. He stuck out a paddle for me to grab and I ignored it, swimming to the raft and grabbing the handle. Dave reached down and grabbed the shoulder straps of my PFD and started to haul me up....I was dead weight, I had nothing to give to help. Dave heaved again and I was on board, relieved, coughing violently, spitting water and phlegm, trying to correct the forced swim induced hypoxia, trying not to vomit from all the water I had gulped and choked on.

Dave kept asking me if I was ok but I did not want to use any air or energy to answer him. I nodded and held up my hand and I think he finally understood, putting his hand on my knee to calm me, waiting till I could talk. When I recovered my breath I reassured everyone that I was ok and stumbled back to my seat in the front of the raft. We all sorta debriefed on what had happened, me trying to appear good natured about it all for Webster's sake, a 15 year old nervous first time rafter. I think he was pretty freaked out seeing me pulled under for so long and then spit out, coughing and stressed. But such is life when you mess with water, fast water that simply obeys the laws of physics and can't tend to the vulnerabilities of thrill seeking humans. As Dave would say later that day, "it's a numbers game, you can do a run 100 or 1000 times without a hitch and then one day things go terribly wrong."

But my dramatic swim had a happy ending, a perfect recovery by Dave and crew, I was healthy with only a few bumps and scrapes and an adrenaline induced case of the shakes. But this same Sunday afternoon, 37 year old Susan K. wasn't as lucky.

Dave was strapping kayaks to his trailer when I walked up to hug him goodbye, wish him happy 50th b-day one more time. But he looked up grim faced and said he was just informed there was a kayaker pinned, down stream on the Tobin run. Dave is the west coast coordinator for American Whitewater and is an extremely experienced boater, trained in swift water rescue. I asked something about rescue efforts and Dave shook his head, "I think it's a recovery at this point." I sighed and said I was holding out hope until a fatality was confirmed. I jumped in my truck and headed down the canyon, pensive, trying to muster hope. A siren screamed by as EMS rushed ahead to the scene. Shit. A few minutes later I was passing the location, fire and rescue trucks pulled over on the side of the highway that parallels the river. As I drove past I scrutinized the faces of the boaters walking along the highway...their expressions intimated the situation.

I headed west to have dinner with a friend in Chico. I vented my concerns about the kayaker and my own scary swim off The Ledge. The company was a nice distraction but when I got back in my truck for the 2+ hour long drive to Auburn for the night, all I could think about was that kayaker. Did he/she die? Or did they get him/her out and revive him/her. I called Dave thinking he was probably out of the Canyon, back on cell service. I left a supportive message, asking him to call back only if he was up to it, knowing I would see him at a meeting on Monday. He didn't call.

Early Monday morning my cell rang and it was Dave. He quickly offered, "It wasn't good Mer." He had gotten there minutes after I passed the scene, had helped with the extraction of the body. "It made no sense, Mer, where she was, how she got trapped...there was nothing there." She was in an inflatable kayak, had come through a Class III rapid, got bumped from her boat but was out of the rapid, in calm water. She held onto her paddle and that appears to have have contributed to her entrapment. Nearby boaters acted quickly, smartly, a guy with a rescue jacket on, rescue rope secured to him, wading out to pull her out. They struggled for 30 minutes, desperately doing all they could to free her. Finally, they got her paddle out and then she floated free. They did CPR for more than 30 minutes...as Dave said, "it's easy to start CPR, it's almost impossible to stop." The medics arrived and worked on her some more, but it was all in vain...after 30 minutes in not-too-cold water, you're dead. You're gone. There's no getting you back. Dave helped them get Susan's body out of the canyon...everyone in shock and disbelief, maybe slightly relieved that on this day it was not them who the river had claimed.

At our meeting, Dave and I talked more at a break and he shared how difficult it was to talk with his 12 year old daughter who was in their truck, waiting for her dad to come out of the river with a dead body, a dead kayaker. Kayaking is something Dave and his family do all the time. Dave again said to me, "it's a numbers game, you play the odds, but sometimes you lose." He likened this tragedy to walking down a street and a tree branch falls on you and kills you. You can't prevent it, can't plan for it, shit happens. This woman was not in a rapid, she was in a place that looked safe, benign, but she was dead and those left behind need to make sense of it. Maybe they need to make the story be so random, so distant so they can dare to get back into a raft or a kayak again....even though we all know that if we do, the North Fork Feather might claim any one of us on some Sunday yet to come.

My thoughts are with the friends and family of Susan and all those who desperately tried to save her life.

Witness to Suicide

2010-08-21T02:25:00.001-07:00

It was 1:30am and Jimmy sat at his desk reading the posts from others who had also witnessed the horror, the young man hurling himself from the roof top of the Mountain Winery stage, landing in the middle of the Swell Season concert...three feet from lead singer Glen Hansard. Jimmy read out loud, the words stumbling, his shoulders shaking from the sobs. "It was fucked up Mer, it was totally surreal and fucked up....I watched a man die." "I know Jimmy, you're right, it was totally fucked up," I said, my arm around his shoulder pulling him closer. There is nothing else one can say really, other than to acknowledge the insanity, to acknowledge the horror, to sit with it and hug your brother.

That morning I had slept in, rolled out of bed after nine and shuffled into my slippers. I fed Cosmo her kibbles and picked up the papers from the porch, tossing the NY Times on Jimmy's bed, noting that he had not slept there. I knew he and our 12 year old niece Devyn had gone to the Swell Season concert the night before and I thought little of his not coming home, knowing he had probably crashed at our sister Julie's house. I walked into my office, plopped into my desk chair and clicked onto email. "Freaky Experience" read the subject line in an email from my sister Juls to me and my siblings. "Huh?" I thought as I opened it and read:

"Well, Jim took Devyn to her first concert last night (Swell Season) at an upscale venue that included a lovely dinner. What a shock that they were forced to witness a suicide by jumper. Thank god Devyn was looking away when the man fell and hit, but Jim saw the bounce."

WTF? I was suddenly fully awake and calling Jul's. "WTF Juls, are Jimmy and Dev ok?" "Yeah, but we were up till 1am talking, processing it all. Jimmy walked in the door and I could tell he was freaked. He grabbed a beer and we talked for a couple of hours. Thank god Dev was looking away when the guy hit the stage but Jimmy saw the whole thing."

Juls and I talked for some time, she shared some of the details, how two doctors in the audience ran on stage and administered CPR, how folks were sobbing, how several people near Jimmy and Dev fainted, how Dev looked up at Jimmy and said, "Am I going to faint?" "No Dev, you're ok, just breathe normally and you will be fine," Jimmy assured her.

Juls explained how they saw the medevac helicopter coming and then suddenly turn around because the man was beyond rescue, he was dead. Juls explained that Glen had been only a few feet away from where the jumper had landed on an amp after bouncing off the lighting scaffolding....how Glenn had startled, then moved towards the man while calling for help. When Jimmy had finished telling the story, Juls turned to Dev, "this is not normal Dev, I want you to know that this is not normal." It was Devyn's first concert....a special night out with her uncle Jim. So it was supposed to be.

After I hung up with Juls I called Jimmy, left him a voicemail. "Dude, WTF? Are you doing ok?" I thought about him all day. Six thirty came and I had just laid down in the hammock when Cosmo lept towards the door, tail wagging....Jimmy was home. I saw him through the kitchen and I immediately knew, he was still freaked. "Dude, Juls told me everything, are you ok?" "Not really, you wanna go get a beer?" We went to dinner and Jimmy shared some more of the details, the latest news reports...how they had to stand around for some time while the emergency workers came and went. "Alcohol helps," Jimmy offered, I don't feel so anxious now." "Yeah bud, it's called self-medicating and it's totally cool for a night or two."

After dinner we headed to the local dive bar and shot a few games of pool, drank a few beers and laughed at our own ridiculous silliness. I got dissed and slapped on the shoulder (which spilled my beer) by some agro asshole who I subsequently humbled....and Jimmy made friends with an architect who wanted to be a decent pool player but wasn't. It was a typical Mer and Jimmy night out, laughing, drinking one more beer than we should have, over tipping the friendly cabbie. And then Jimmy was at his computer, reading the posts out loud, a little drunk and crying, asking "I'm not fucked up cause I am crying, right?" "No Jimmy" I assured him, "Crying is a healthy response to having seen a man kill himself." We talked some more and then Jimmy declared, "That's it, I am done for now. I gotta sleep." He put his iPod earbuds in and I jokingly tucked him in and then turned off his light. "Good night, and no listening to the Swell Season dude. I will see you for breakfast in the morning."

“The American People”: A Rant on One Bit of Retarded Contemporary Political Rhetoric

2010-05-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

My passport is issued by the United States of America because I was lucky enough to be born here some 46 years ago and for that I am bestowed this privilege. Now I could launch an interminable rant against the precepts of nationalism and empire, quoting generously the likes of Anderson and Chomsky and Said, but I would be, to a large degree, stumbling out of my league, out of my smarts zone. Simply put, I am not smart enough to do that topic even superficial justice. Instead, I will restrict this rant to a contemporary rhetorical strategy that just stick in my craw (even though I am not sure what a craw is).

It is the persistent, unapologetic, ridiculous wielding of, by politicians of every bent, the phrase “the American People.” Incessantly we hear politicians cite what the American People want, think, do. This is done on both sides of the isle and beyond as though this abstraction represents some real population with which the rhetorician is in direct contact. Rarely do politicians employ any qualifiers when referencing “the American People.” We don’t get a “many” or “most” or “a majority” of The American People, we simply get the all inclusive monolithic category. Most often we are told, without apology or irony, that “The American People,” as in ALL of them, all folks, presumably all folks eligible to get one of those US passports, are this or that or think thusly. This retarded* assertion results in a spike in my pulse rate every time I hear it. “The American People”? Who exactly are the American People? Who is this cohesive group of folks that ANYONE is qualified to speak for wholly and completely, with unbridled authority? Seriously? What the fuck?!

I know this is stating the obvious but I can’t help myself. So I am going to break it down. According to the US Census Bureau clock, there are currently 308,914,355 people living in the US. About a third of these folks identify as racial minorities, a little over half are female, and over 80% live in cities. About 76% identify as “Christian,” with 25% of those identifying as Catholic. Just over 1% identify as Jewish, less than 1% Muslim, and 15% do not identify with any religious tradition.

The median annual household income in the USA is about $46,000 with dual earner households being just over $67,000. If you are Asian the median annual household income is $57,000 and if you are in a Black household it’s $30,000, and for Hispanic it’s $34,000. The top 2.5% of the US population makes more than $250,000. And the national unemployment rate is about 10%. And lastly, according to a 2009 Gallup Pole, 49% of US citizens identify as Democrats and 41% Republicans.

I could go on and on citing various statistics that represent the incredible racial, economic, regional, and political diversity in this US of A. But I will stop here and pose this simple question: WHO the fuck are the “American People” that all these politicians are referring to? Are you telling me that a 65 year old Jewish doctor, a democrat living in NYC making over $250,000 a year thinks EXACTLY the same way as a 30 year old high school educated farmer, a republican, living in the heartland making less than $30,000 a year and facing the decline in his traditional livelihood? Can they be singularly represented by anyone asserting “The American People?” Or how about the WASP AIG CEO, a republican making zillions and the Black union factory worker who just lost his job? Give me a fucking break! The rhetoric is simply retarded, condescending, simplistic, patronizing, and absurd and I would really like politicians to stop using it. I know this will never happen, not in my lifetime, but I needed to write it anyway. Just cause. Just cause I am one of those “American People,” and no, John Boehner, Michelle “loop-dee-loop” Bochman, John McCain, and Sarah Palin do NOT speak for me. Hell, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama do not completely speak for me. So please, shut the fuck up with the monolithic references to “The American People.” It’s like the tooth fairy or Santa Claus or bipartisanship in DC, a cohesive thing called “The American People” DOES NOT EXIST.

* I am reclaiming the word “retarded,” taking it back from being PC’d into oblivion because it is actually a fabulous word with so many appropriate applications in contemporary politics (and I mean no disrespect to those with developmental disabilities). My Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (2nd Edition) offers the following definitions:

retard- 1: to make slow, delay the development or progress of (an action, process, etc.); hinder. 2: to be delayed. 3: a slowing down, diminution, or hindrance, as in a machine.

retardation- 1: the act of retarding or being retarded. 2: something that retards; hindrance. 3: slowness or limitation in intellectual understanding and awareness, emotional development, academic progress, etc.

retarded- 1: characterized by retardation. 2: mentally retarded persons collectively.

Retarded is a word I NEED these days to describe what goes on in Washington DC. I feel retarded without it.

The Small Craft Advisory that Wasn’t and the Gale that Was: Highlights from Mer’s 3-Day Micro-Cruise

2010-05-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

Some folks have asked that I write up something about my little cruise, so here it is, some ramblings about what I made happen and what simply happened to me.

“I don’t usually pick up hitchhikers, but you look safe,” said the 40-something man in the spanking new black Volvo station wagon. “So do you,” I responded as I clicked into my seat-belt. He wore a green polo shirt and plaid shorts and he did not scare me one bit. On our short ride towards town Mr. Volvo prattled on about how there are no good restaurants in the whole of San Rafael, something I found hard to believe. But he finally recommended Sol Food, a Puerto Rican joint with “good energy.” He dropped me off at the edge of town and I made my way to the main drag where I found, to my delight, the farmers market in full swing. I meandered through the crowds of moms, dads, Marin hippies and slow-walking old folks buying fresh berries and kids eating pizza and cotton candy. I stopped and listened to a Jamaican man playing and singing an acoustic version of Amazing Grace. This alone made my night. The rest was just extra goodness.

I ate at Sol Food, and Mr. Volvo was right, it had “good energy” with a Puerto Rican band playing outside next to the hodge-podge chairs and tables. Dinner was a heaping pile of rice, onions, and spiced meat, a yummy salad, and water with lime. I couldn’t help but wiggle in my seat to the beat of the band. Then like a sliver of iron grabbed by a powerful magnet, I made my way across the street to the local dive bar and ordered a Stella and sat contentedly and listened to more local musicians play folk songs and blues, a scrappy ol’ gent skillfully commanding a slide guitar, a lead singer with an Irish brogue. I talked to no one, but was happy as a clam and finally grabbed a cab back to the marina and snuggled into my v-berth with my alarm set for 7am. I needed to be in the channel out of the marina at 8am to ride the high tide out to deeper waters. So ended my first day.

The day had begun with a NOAA marine forecast for a “small craft advisory, winds 15-25 knots.” After a big breakfast (as there could be no lunch underway), I packed the Mini with a cooler and gear, cruised to the marina, hauled my shite onto the boat, and reefed the main sail before cranking the engine. The sail north through the San Francisco Bay to San Rafael was uneventful and the winds were calm, 10 knots tops, no 15-25 as predicted. I finally relaxed a little and shook out the reef to get the Donna Clare moving another knot through the water. It was a peaceful afternoon as I made my way some 12 nautical miles north through the Bay. After 3pm I was motoring up the San Rafael channel where the water was too shallow for comfort, the depth sounder showing 4’8” at one point, the exact depth of my keel. I didn’t hit the mud (thank Poseidon!) and finally crept up to the dock where John from the Loch Lomond Yacht Club caught my lines and we moored the Donna Clare. John insisted I come into the club so he could buy me a beer and we talked boats, marine engines, and how the channel desperately needed dredging.

Coming to Loch Lomond was a sort of full circle thing for me as this is where my boat was docked when I bought her 12 years ago, the place I lived aboard for a year and a half. I asked John about Bobby’s Fo’c’sle Café where I would eat greasy eggs and bacon on the weekends and listen to all the old salts yimmer-yammer, some of them drinking their first Coors of the day with breakfast. John explained that Bobby’s was gone, suffered a fire, couldn’t get things sorted with the landlord and had moved to town, and a month ago had closed, becoming another casualty of the recession. I was sad to hear it. I had planned on greasy eggs and bacon for breakfast, for old time’s sake, listening to the locals and whatnot. It had been about ten years since I had been back to this place. Things change.

Back on the boat, I did the usual coiling of lines and cleaning up, putting my gear away. I then attempted to make dinner but the winds had kicked up and I couldn’t keep the BBQ lit. So I threw on my jeans and walked to the highway, stuck out my thumb, and hitchhiked into town.

The next morning was still, cool and crisp, and the water was glassy. I quickly readied the boat and cranked the Yanmar and we were off with plenty of water, the depth sounder reading ten feet. With no wind I decided to motor straight to Angel Island and tie up to a mooring ball in Ayala Cove and have a restful day. Whenever anyone shows up to loop into a mooring ball in this little cove, the other folks in already securely moored boats, sit in their cockpits and wait for the show. The way the wind and currents work in this cove, mooring is always a challenge, even more so when you’re alone. I made two unsuccessful passes on the mooring ball, trying to secure my bow first only to be blown off it before I could loop the line. I finally got it looped on the stern and then jumped in the dinghy to get the bow tied off. I got tangled in the long line, had to undo knots, got blown around a bit, rowed in circles, but finally got the old gal tied off and had a good laugh at myself…mine was a decent show, although not the most dramatic by any stretch. I have seen much more entertaining.

After tidying the boat and coiling my lines, I jumped into Chicken, the dinghy, and rowed to the island for a late breakfast at the Cove Café. There were groups of school kids excitedly yelling and horsing around on the docks as teachers scrambled to keep them focused as they came off the ferry. After paying my mooring fee and chatting up the Ranger about State Park budget stuff and the incompetence of the California state legislature, I headed back to the boat for some reading and hammock time. I hoisted the hammock up my forestay and shroud and settled in.

In the afternoon I rowed back to the island and hiked the perimeter trail which offers some of the best views in the whole Bay Area. I sat and shelled and ate peanuts at a vista point offering a stunning panoramic view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, San Francisco, Oakland, and the Berkeley Hills. There was no one else on the trail, I had the whole south side of the island to myself, far as I could tell.

Because I had, while packing up at Loch Lomond, inadvertently thrown the propane regulator to my BBQ overboard into the bay water (hey, it happens, more than one likes to admit) I had to improvise dinner. I sautéed potatoes and yellow peppers on the stove in olive oil and butter (I am not afraid of butter) and then added the chicken. I sat in the cockpit at sunset eating my unexpectedly awesome dinner. I somehow lost my corkscrew so I had to use a screwdriver and channel lock pliers (as a hammer) to punch the cork into my bottle of pinot. After dinner I retired to the hammock once again and watched the lights emerge on the Tiburon peninsula. Words fail me in trying to describe the lighting and peace at anchor in calm water after dusk. I am sure, if it exists, this is what heaven is like. I heard some guy in the distance on another boat, say with delight to his wife, “hey honey, look at that guy, in the hammock.” People readily assume if you are single handing a sailboat you have a penis. I smiled, knowing that I do not. Silly man.

A pair of sailors on another boat cruised in and moored next to me as I enjoyed their show, watching them scramble, hearing the skipper bark orders and the first mate yell that he was out of line, they regrouped, added extra line, another sailor came over in a dinghy to help and within 10 minutes they were secure and coiling their lines. I lit the paraffin anchor lamp and hung it on the end of the boom and settled into the cabin for the night, listening to and singing along with my favorite sad songs (that don’t make me sad) and writing in the ships log.

I read all the old entries and smiled, laughing at the one my old pal John had made years ago after he panicked at the helm when I was at the mast. He back winded the jib in 25 knots, suddenly heeling the boat and nearly flinging me into the Bay near Alcatraz. I remember hugging the mast, screaming at him to steer into the wind as he looked at me terrified and saucer-eyed. He copped to the fuck-up in the ships log and we laughed about it all over beers, anchored up at the island. John and I spent a lot of time together, fishing, floating rivers, on boats in the Caribbean and Mexico. John was a good mate and I felt a little sad as I thought about losing him in the divorce, him being Jordie’s brother-in-law. Neither of us made contact after Jordie and I split and I know with certainty in my heart it’s because it would just be too damn sad. Better to just hold the memories and love, and let go. I loved him like a brother and perhaps someday we’ll find our way onto a boat together again.

I brought my harmonica (which I play very poorly and only when I am alone) and played a few songs and then finally snuggled into the v-berth for a boaty nights sleep under an open hatch and a clear sky.

Morning was warm, calm, and clear, and I boiled water for some instant coffee and had a cranberry scone and fresh strawberries in the cockpit. As often happens, occupants on nearby boats noticed me, a woman alone on a boat, an anomaly. They watched me reef the main sail and ready my lines, tie off the dinghy, tidy-up the cockpit. I put on my foulies and listened to the NOAA marine forecast which predicted 10-20 knots of wind. I had a gut feeling they were under-predicting and I was more right than I wanted to be. I headed east around the island and hoisted my sails in the lee and got ready to shoot the slot, the unobstructed area of water where the winds barrel in through the Golden Gate. As I passed Point Blunt Angel Island, the windiest place on the Bay, the gusts came big and hard. Over 25 knots and we were off, bucking across the slot. I was committed and held on as the wind and waves built. After about an hour and a half of spirited sailing, we got behind the City and things settled down, although there was still good wind (see pic of sailing by the City on a calmer day). I kept south under sunny skies and enjoyed the city skyline, getting spanked by an occasional ferry wake. After a couple of hours of mellow sailing I turned north again with the intention of taking the easy way back under the temporary shelter of Yurba Buena Island.

As we approached the island the winds increased dramatically and I grabbed the binoculars and could see the slot was a mess, big white caps and all the boats were heeled hard under reefed or short sails. I knew things would be messy after I cleared the other side of the island back into the slot, so I decided to drop my sails in the wind shadow and motor home. Taking down sails on my boat alone in high winds is an adrenaline pumping experience. When I crossed under the Bay Bridge and cleared the island I got pushed east to the edge of the shallows by a yacht race. This meant I was more exposed to the dramatically increasing winds which I had to take on my beam, the most uncomfortable way to get pummeled by the 4-5 foot waves which were hitting hard and crashing into the cockpit. Helming was tough and after I cleared the racers I turned a bit into the wind to quarter the waves and get some relief.

The winds were howling. Ten to 20 knots my ass, I knew I was seeing winds near 30 knots (later I learned the winds were gusting to 35 at Point Blunt). Without the sails up the boat was not counter balanced and we were tossed around like a cork. Finally clear of the shallows I headed east toward the marina channel which was still a half an hour away. I thought about the fact that I had less than a half of a tank of diesel, a condition that increases condensation and the chance of the fuel lines getting clogged, especially with the boat (and tank) getting violently tossed about in the waves. I had drained a good deal of water off the separator that morning and prayed she wouldn’t fill and stall the engine before I got to the marina.

The winds continued to build and the waves kept coming bigger and faster. At one point, I noticed Chicken, the trusted dinghy that I was towing behind the boat, was riding up on my quarter to the port side of the boat. The violence of the waves had snapped off one of the towing-sling lines so she was off balance. I grabbed the safety line and pulled with a lot of muscle to cleat her off. She settled in line and I hoped she would not capsize with only one line towing her.

Now here’s the truth, in these situations, I get scared when I am sailing alone. Not a curl-up-in-a-ball-and-cry scared, but a scared that acknowledges that if I fuck up it could go real bad, real quick. A few small fuck ups have gotten sailors dead in the Bay. I know enough about what might happen if things go wrong, if the engine stalls at the wrong moment, if the waves get too violent and crash the keel into a shallow unseen shoal. Fear is a relative thing. I know many other sailors would think me a pussy, yet I know many folks who think I am crazy to sail my boat alone, my old boat with no roller furling or lines leading aft. But my truth is that in these situations I am pumped and scared, not just by the conditions, and I have seen worse, but the having to deal with it all alone, no one to bark an order to, no one to notice if I go overboard or hit my head. So I held onto the helm, dampened the waves with the rudder best I could, and prayed that my fuel lines stayed clear and my Yanmar kept kickin’.

After the wild ride into the channel, we made the last turn towards the marina, the short stretch where we were again abeam to the waves and winds before the relative calm of the harbor. Engine dies here, and there’s about 10 yards to the lee shore and going aground, not much time to react. The last 100 yards of vulnerability but we made it. I backed off the throttle and let out a couple of “fuck yeah”s and putted towards my slip. My muscles relaxed and I became aware of just how jacked-up I had been. I was exhausted as I pulled out the boat hook and grabbed my mooring lines off the dock. Home sweet fucking home. Me and the Donna Clare had made it safely back to port one more time. I jumped out of my foulies, put on my shorts and plopped down in the cabin for a “holy fuck” moment with myself. I laughed, laughed with relief. And then I cranked the stereo and cleaned up the boat and rinsed her off. I collected my stuff and headed home, feeling part triumphant sailor and part lucky fool.

All sailors know humility and any sailor who tells you otherwise, is a liar.

NOTE: The next day I watched a couple of episodes of The Deadliest Catch and felt even wimpier! It’s all relative.

NYC Waiter

2010-04-16T08:55:00.000-07:00

During a recent trip to NYC Jimmy and I ate dinner at a midtown restaurant where my brother Jimmy ordered mushroom soup and I ordered a salad. When the waiter cleared our plates he asked Jimmy, "How did you like the soup?" Jimmy responded with, "it was too mushroom-y." The waiter turned to me and said, "How was your salad? Too lettuce-y?" Then our steaks arrived. We ate them. The waiter came back and said, "How were the steaks? Too steak-y?" He got a good tip.

I love New Yorkers.

Some Stories of the Rich, the Famous, and the Ridiculous

2010-02-19T20:13:00.000-08:00

Officer Rainwater
It was seminal to my early informal education and surely informs any minuscule claim I might have to a smidgen of worldliness, having seen in some intimate way the lives of the Los Angeles rich and famous. I was 19 years old when I got the job at Westec Security, a company based in Santa Monica, California, serving the rich, famous, and bourgeoisie of western Los Angeles. I wore a slate gray uniform, carried a .38 revolver, wore a ballistic vest and drove a patrol car responding to various types of calls including burglary and robbery alarms, reports of suspicious vehicles/persons, domestic disputes, prowlers, and the occasional shots fired. Although this job was quite thrilling at times, terrifying actually, it was more often boring, waiting for something to happen, responding to routine alarm calls and such. And in between the exciting, the terrifying, and the boring, some strange and funny things happened. It is a few of those stories that I am going to share here.

The beats I worked included Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Bell Air, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Venice Beach and Playa Del Ray. If you don’t know LA, that’s TMZ territory, E-News, True Hollywood Story and the like. It’s where the “stars” call home, as well as those with enough money and the desire to rub elbows with such folks. So here you go, a few tales from my days working to protect the rich, the famous, the odd, and the crazy.

What Scared Me Most
What scared me most doing this job was not being shot or beaten by burglars, robbers, or crazies (and that did scare me quite a bit), but rather the very distinct possibility of being shot by the residents I was serving. Why this was so will quickly become apparent.

The First Uzi Story
It was the mid 1980’s and the hills were peppered with rich Iranians who had fled their country after the 1979 revolution. Their houses were often opulent, ornate, decorated in light colors, gold accents, large statues in the cavernous rooms of huge buildings sitting on sprawling lots that were fenced and gated. One late night my partner Keith and I responded to a report of a “prowler there now” made by an Iranian woman who was home alone in such a place.

Keith and arrived at the property at the same time and quickly noted the high perimeter wall and locked iron gate across the driveway. We pulled one of the patrol cars up to the gate to step on in order to climb into the yard. We walked up a steep and winding driveway through the dimly lit grounds which were heavily vegetated with bushes and trees. The property was huge.

When we reached the top of the driveway we saw an enormous house out of which came running a hysterical 40-ish woman holding something we could not at first see. She was yelling “Thank god! Thank god you are here!” Before Keith and I knew what was happening the woman ran up to me and suddenly dangled an Uzi in my face, holding it between her thumb and forefinger like it was a smelly diaper, “Here, take this! I don’t want it anymore.” Then with her other hand she dangled a fully loaded amo clip in my face and said, “This too.” I grabbed the weapon and clip, stunned, and said, “Ma'am, I can’t keep your gun.” She responded, “You must! Please take it back.” “Take it back?” I said incredulously. “To the gun store. On Pico Avenue,” she explained with utter sincerity. Despite the fact that Pico Avenue runs the width of LA and the description “the gun store” was hardly sufficient, this request was ridiculous.

We instructed the hysterical woman to lock herself in the house and I held onto the Uzi while Keith and I checked the property. We found no prowler. The woman’s husband arrived shortly after and I gave him the Uzi and amo clip and explained that I would not be returning it to “the gun store” on Pico Avenue.

The Second Uzi Story
It was Christmas day and I was working swing shift, sitting alone in my cold patrol unit, feeling a little blue and lonely. It was dusk when I received the call of a prowler seen in the rear yard of a house. I knocked loudly and when the resident opened the door I could see through the house to a glass door leading to the backyard. In the yard stood a large Doberman pincher and I immediately relaxed. If there was a prowler in the yard that dog would not be standing there looking into the house wagging it’s tail.

But the man, an Iranian with a thick accent, insisted there was someone in his yard. I asked him to bring his dog into the house and said I would check the perimeter. I walked along the side of the house, hand on my gun, looking intently (in case the Doberman pincher was deaf or a little touched in his doggie head). I reached the corner of the house and turned to look into the backyard when suddenly the man, looking out from a rear window right next to me, screamed “There he is! There he is! In the bushes! Honey get my Uzi!” I jumped back behind the corner of the house for cover with my hand still on my gun ready to draw as I looked intently at the bushes. I saw nothing. I immediately said in a loud and commanding voice, “Sir, keep your Uzi put away.” The man said, “Ok, ok, but can you see him? He’s right there, right there in the bushes along the fence!”

The fence was made of wooden planks and behind it was the heavily traveled Benedict Canyon Road, not a safe backdrop for Uzi fire. The “bushes” were hedges that were neatly trimmed with skinny trunks sticking out the bottom where I would have seen someone’s legs had they been standing there. I walked over to the hedges with my baton in hand and jabbed around the branches demonstrating to the Uzi owner that there was no one there. After a thorough beating of the bushes, so to speak, the man was finally convinced. I then impressed upon him the importance of NOT having his honey get his Uzi when an armed officer was checking his property. He thanked me and wished me a Merry Christmas.

I think some of the rich Iranians who left

Iran

after the revolution were a bit traumatized. And some were well armed.

Charo
Tom Petty had lived in the house for years and then Charo and her handsome young husband had bought the place. The call came in “prowler there now seen in the backyard.” My partner Keith and I responded, arriving minutes after we received the call. Charo’s husband, before opening the door, explained that he had a gun. I thanked him for telling us and asked him to put the gun away. He opened the door and showed us the gun and the amo clip he had removed, and then he respectfully put the gun in a drawer.

He explained that his wife had seen a prowler and that she was currently locked in the bedroom very frightened and upset. Keith and I checked the property and found no one, any prowler she had seen was long gone. Keith and I stood in the living room with Charo’s husband assuring him there was no one on the property when he picked up the phone and called his wife in the bedroom. We could hear the muffled sounds of Charo through the door, her thick Spanish accent, talking a million words a minute. Her husband repeatedly assured her that the property had been checked thoroughly and that the prowler was gone.

Finally convinced she was safe, and wearing only a thick white terrycloth bathrobe, Charo burst into the living room exclaiming her thanks to Keith and me. She quickly walked up to me, grabbed my hand and vigorously shook it for what seemed minutes, while she exclaimed things like, “thank you so much you are so brave I am so very thankful that you are here to protect me (the lack of punctuation here is intentional and more representative of her manner of speech).” She went on and on, and yes, she talks as fast in person as she does on the TV, and she is not much taller than a lawn gnome. I smiled, looking down at her, saying “you’re welcome” several times while she shook my hand. At last she let go of me and Keith and I made our way out of the house with that sweet tiny woman thanking us the whole time.

Dinner Interruptus
When responding to a burglary alarm, it was standard procedure to first check the perimeter of the house or building to see if there was any sign of forced entry. If an unsecured door or window was found, an interior check was conducted. I responded to such a call one summer evening in the neat and tidy neighborhood of Brentwood. I found an open door and so began walking through the house, hand on my gun, checking each room, closets, pantries, anyplace a human being might be hiding.

Half way through the house I poked my head around a corner and looked into the dining room where I found a table set for four with a meal apparently half eaten. There was no one in the room. My heart raced and the adrenaline surged. What the fuck? What’s going on here? Where are the diners? Something’s not right. What horror have a stumbled into? I narrowed my eyes and scrutinized the scene looking for any sign of struggle, foul play, anything that might indicate what had happened, or was happening. Then I noticed the food looked weird, unnatural. Wait a minute, it looks fake. I slowly walked up to the table and realized it was fake. I picked up a half eaten baked potato and turned it over, “$250” read the price tag. Art. This was someone’s idea of art. Fake food made of wax. Expensive half eaten fake food placed on a dining room table. I finished checking the house, no burglars, just the fake food. And who the hell would want to steal that?

Sasquatch
It was a dark and stormy night. Seriously, it was. High winds, some rain, and as a result, there were a lot of false burglary alarms as unsecured doors and windows were blown open. It was late, one or two in the morning when I responded to a burglary alarm at a house on a tiny little street off Mulholland Drive. Mulholland Drive is a mini continental divide of sorts running miles along the ridge of the hills that separate the San Fernando Valley to the north from the rest of LA and Beverly Hills to the south. It’s got an improbable feeling of remoteness, or so it was in the 1980s (see pic, a view from the ridge).

I arrived at the scene and began to check the perimeter of the dark mansion that was built on the steep slope of a hill. I trudged through the bushes, slid down the gravelly slopes, walked through spider webs, and kept an out eye for snakes. The wind was howling up the canyons and the ambiance was very Alfred Hitchcock-y. Then I rounded a corner of the house and saw it! Sasquatch standing tall, it’s hand held above it’s head as though ready to strike. Gasping I stumbled backwards, tripped and fell on my ass. Reaching for my gun and pointing my flashlight up at the figure I quickly realized it was behind glass, inside the house. And it wasn’t moving. Art. More fucking crazy rich people’s art. After catching my breath, I let out an ironic chuckle, dusted myself off and finished checking the property. I don’t think I shared that story with my fellow officers, about how I almost shot a Sasquatch looking character standing in the window looking out over the lights of LA on a dark and stormy night.

Fuck Art, I Want that Ten Bucks
The house had been ransacked and the usual stuff was missing, electronics, jewelry, cash. Also missing was a very special ten dollar bill. The bill had been incorporated into a panting, a large multimedia thingy that was framed and hung in the living room. When I arrived I saw it smashed, laying on the carpet, mangled in the center of the canvas where the ten dollar bill had been removed. The purchase price of the painting? Ten thousand dollars.

The Giant Poodle Statue Attack
It was a routine burglary call on a sunny afternoon at a moderate sized home (by LA standards). I started my perimeter check and as I rounded a corner I saw, through the bushes and over a large porch area, about 30 yards away, the black head of a standard poodle. Being attacked by dogs was a real occupational threat. Like mail carriers and cops, most doggies don’t like uniformed folks poking around in their territory. I stared at the figure for some time and it did not move. I waved my hands, trying to provoke a response, to help me determine if this was another piece of crazy rich people art or a real dog. The figure still didn’t move.

My view of the figure was blocked for a minute as I made my way through the yard around the landscaping. Then I could see it again and it had still not moved. I waved some more, nothing. I started walking again and then it happened. Suddenly the poodle statue was running at me! I turned and ran towards the iron gate I had come in, slamming it behind me just in time to thwart the giant barking poodle. After catching my breathe, I reached down to retrieve the keys to my patrol car which I always stuck in the crease of my gun belt. They weren’t there. I looked back and saw them laying about 10 yards away in the yard behind the gate, behind the giant barking poodle. Fuck.

I contemplated my options. I could call for backup but I would be the laughing stock of my colleagues, very rough, mostly sexist men with a penchant for brutal heckling. So I pulled out my baton in one hand and my little tazer in the other and went in. I yelled at the poodle to get back, swinging my baton, activating the tazer, as I inched my way towards my keys. The dog backed up, barking and growling only a couple feet in front of me. At last I grabbed my keys and retreated.

As I was sitting in my patrol car doing the paperwork for the call, the residents came home and approached me, asking what had happened. They asked me to come into the house with them to make sure everything was ok. Then they let in Hobbes and introduced me, explaining that he was an eleven month old puppy. He wagged his whole body and licked my hand. I didn’t share the details of mine and Hobbes earlier introduction, how I thought he was a statue, how I dropped my keys running from him, how I waved my baton and tazer at him. I just pet the ginormous dog and then took my leave.

A Little Pink Poodle and my Naiveté
She had accidentally set off her burglary alarm but was surprised to see me walking across her yard. She invited me in and I verified that she was the authorized resident. She was white and plump with platinum hair coiffed and teased big and high, and her house was garish, decorated Vegas-like by my estimation. Then I saw her little dog, a pink poodle. I mean that its fur was actually pink. I knelt down and petted the little thing, noting its cuteness and then looked up at the woman and asked, “Did it come this way? Do they breed them pink?” She smiled and explained that she had her little dog dyed pink. Apparently, they don’t get born that way. How would I know? I was 20 years old and it was the first pink poodle I had ever seen. Come to think of it, it’s still the only real life pink poodle I have ever seen.

The Giant Hissing Rat
It was dark but not late when the call came in, “415 giant rat will not let the resident take out his garbage” (415 is the California Penal Code section for disturbing the peace). The dispatcher was straining not to laugh and I gave a 10-4 doing the same. When I arrived at the house a middle-aged man, with the most serious and concerned demeanor, carefully explained to me that a giant rat was guarding his trashcan. He then took me to the side of the house to show me. I pointed my flashlight at the trashcan and saw two giant eyes peering back. Suppressing an almost overwhelming urge to laugh, I delicately explained to the man that this was not a giant rat but a wild possum and that he would need to call animal control or simply wait for the little beast to move on. Killing possum was not part of my job description.

Observing the Sabbath Hancock Park Style
The Hancock Park neighborhood is a mostly Jewish enclave in mid-Wilshire LA. The more orthodox Jews in the neighborhood observed the tradition that one should not work on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. This also included not using any mechanical devices such as cars and home appliances and the like. It was common on Saturdays, throughout the neighborhood, to see groups of Jewish folk walking to synagogue. One Saturday I was working in Hancock Park when the dispatcher, again straining not laugh, said a resident had requested that an officer come by and start his dishwasher. Apparently it made complete sense to this man that the goyim be directed to use the appliances in the stead of observant Jews. A sergeant came on the radio and pointedly explained to the dispatcher that no officer would be sent to do such a thing. The dirty dishes would have to sit until Sunday.

In Conclusion, for Now
Throughout the six years I worked those west LA streets and those Hills of Beverly, I had many interesting experiences. I met the famous, saw the rich, and had access to a world most never see but in magazines and on TV. I saw opulence I could never have imagined, giant estates with closets as big as small houses and maids quarters as small as closets. I met the stars, and although I was never once star-struck or impressed, I helped to protect them and their property. I was positioned on the perimeter around Penny Marshall’s house when she was held hostage by a mad gunman. I repeatedly checked the property of Priscilla Presley when her then young daughter, Lisa, was home alone and frightened. I responded to false alarms set off by the drunk and the lonely who wanted only to see someone in the night. I worked to mediate domestic disputes between the coked-up and dramatic, the crazy and the spoiled. I have held an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Golden Globe in my hands (they are very heavy). I accidentally drew my gun on Sydney Sheldon’s maid while checking his sprawling estate after a late-night alarm. I watched Harrison Ford eat an apple wearing only a pair of jeans and I spent 45 minutes talking about Russian art with John Candy as he sipped vodka neat. Several times I met Jermaine Jackson and really liked him. I learned that Phyllis Diller can be quite the cranky bitch and that Harry Hamlin is so slight I could easily have kicked his ass. I also got shot at once, heard the round go by my head, and once I almost had to shoot a man, but thank god, he did everything I told him to do and didn’t reach for his gun. All this before I was 25 years old. Like I said, it was part of my real life education. And it was this early experience that largely compelled me to go back to college, to get educated, to not become a cop. And for this, I am forever grateful.

Plus, I have a bunch of good stories.

NOTE: I have shared the funny and ridiculous here…but there was a dark side to the job. The abuses, shootings, racism, sexism, crimes, dead bodies and the three officers who committed suicide during my six year tenure. But I would much rather talk about pink poodles and giant hissing rats.

Jimmy's Emergency Plan

2010-02-06T13:22:00.000-08:00

Jimmy and I sat at a local tapas restaurant eating our Spanish eggs and toasted baguette, reading the NY Times and babbling about this and that. Somehow the topic turned to having emergency stores in the event of a disaster . I told Jimmy I have a stash of canned goods and bottled water in the basement should a disaster hit. I noted that Jimmy and I should have an emergency plan to which he responded, "Oh I already have an emergency plan." "Really Jimmy, what is your plan?" His response, "Roll up in a ball and wait."

Travel Goals for 2010

2010-01-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

I am middle-aged, single, able bodied, and I make a decent living and have a somewhat flexible schedule....so it is all about traveling these days. Has been for the past two years. 2009 was a good year in this regard and I have set even loftier goals for the coming 300+ days. They are:

Eat oysters and drink champagne in Paris with my "literate drunk" friend Catherine...and then hit a couple of dyke bars! (Rescheduled tentatively for April 2011)

Pet whales in San Ignacio Lagoon, Baja, Mexico...and arrive by vintage plane flying out of Tijuana (see pic of plane...this one is already booked! Celebrating Catherine's big 50.) (DONE!! AND IT WAS AWESOME!!)

Paint the Big Apple red! A long spring weekend in NYC with Jimmy. Watch out! (DONE! HILARIOUS FUN!)

Kayak fish on Mission bay, San Diego...got my new rod holders ready to go. Then head to Deb's place in Baja...K-74 here I come again!

Shark cage in Hawaii with my kid sis? Could this be the year we make it happen?

Guate Guate Guate again but of course! Got too many damn friends down there now (too bad Jimmy is afraid of developing countries and will never ever come with me....not after the stories he's heard, from me. Guns, robberies, rapes, and drunk hit-men and the like...oh well).

Dave has a new raft and I have told him I plan on running class 3 & 4 all over California and casting for rainbows...his response? "I insist!" (DONE!)

And the usual trips south to surf and be lazy on the beach and eat salmon at Walt's Warf and laugh with Marcy and Jonald. (DONE!)

That's my story and I am going to try really damn hard to stick to it!!

Environmental Clean-Up with Chain Saws and Birthday Cakes

2009-12-04T21:52:00.000-08:00

I wrote the following after reading the article "The General Electric Superfraud: Why the Hudson River Will Never Run Clean" in Harper's Magazine, December 2009 (link provided below). It´s a depressing account of the environmental cluster-fuck that is the Hudson River, a place with a long history of abuse and exploitation, ignorant and intentional. The article highlights, in part, the struggles with elemental questions in contemporary environmental clean-up. These questions include: how clean is clean? what is an acceptable risk? how much confidence is there in the current characterization of the contamination?

I have, since 1995, moved in the world of environmental science, clean-up, regulation, Superfund, the National Priorities List (NPL) and the like, serving as a mediator/facilitator and public involvement specialist. I have been privy to, and often facilitated, discussions on "how clean is clean?" - technological and financial feasibility, and deciding on what is an acceptable human health risk based on human health risk assessments. Ultimately, the experience I have has left me with hoards more questions than answers, and frankly, an ever waning confidence in much of modern environmental science. And this is not primarily because of the competency or good intentions of regulators and scientists, but rather the complexity of the problems and the limitations of our current technology and understanding of things.

How Clean is Clean? What risk is acceptable?
These questions are fundamental in deciding how and what to what degree a contaminated site will be cleaned. At first glance, these questions may seem like a no-brainers. How clean is clean? Totally fucking clean is clean, right? What is an acceptable risk to human health and the environment? Zero risk is the knee-jerk-answer. But things aren´t quite that simple. There are many confounding factors in considering the question of "how clean is clean?" First, there are technological limits for detecting many constituents deemed harmful to human health and the environment. Contemporary technologies all have a threshold of detection ability, but depending on the particular chemical constituent, this may be above or below levels believed to pose a significant risk to humans and/or the environment. There are some constituents, such as radioactive isotopes, that are considered by many scientists to present a no-threshold risk. In other words, there is no exposure that is considered safe to humans, all exposure´is thought to increase, to some degree, an individuals cancer risk. Yet our technology is limited in it´s ability to thoroughly detect the presence of many such constituents. So how much dirt should be dug up and hauled to a landfill? The answers to these questions can have huge financial impacts...and in the case of NPL sites, can mean 100s of millions of taxpayer dollars....a resource that is finite. These questions are far from easy to answer.

The Cosmos Are Naturally Dirty and We Helped Fuck it Up Some More

Another confounding factor is that there are many naturally occurring substances, such as radioactivity, arsenic, etc., that pose a risk to human health and the environment. In the case of radioactivity, there is also ubiquitous man-made radioactive material resulting, mainly, from decades of above ground nuclear testing. Other naturally occurring substances have been mined, concentrated, and accumulated by humans and now pose a risks. Scientists and regulators are challenged to determined what is naturally occurring and what has been cause by human actions. Suddenly, the question of "how clean is clean?" becomes much more complicated. And concomitantly, the question of what is an acceptable risk becomes, although uncomfortable to most, very relevant. I feel for the regulators and scientists that must answer these never thoroughly answerable questions.

Human Health Risk Assessments (for Cancer)

I have casually in the above paragraphs tossed out references to "human health risk assessment" with no explanation which is misleading as there is nothing casual about them. HHRAs are a primary tool in deciding "how clean is clean'", and yet, they are quite limited in many ways. HHRA are probabilistic models, statistical models based on existing information about known carcinogens and they include very conservative assumptions about exposure pathways built into the models. These models are not predictive, a very important point. They simply provide relative information on the risk based on model parameters. They do not predict whether people will develop cancer. The distinction is often difficult for people to understand and thus HHRA results can scare the shit outta people. Perfectly clear, right? I´ll try to break it down a little more.

Clear as Mud
Some contaminants have a lot of data about their carcinogenic affects on humans while others do not, many have only data from exposure to rats or other similar lab animals. The data going into the HHRA can vary greatly in it´s robustness depending on the contaminant. The second key factor that is plugged into the model is the assumed land use of the contaminated site. If it is residential use, the models make conservative assumptions such as a person will live on the site for thirty years, spend the majority of their time at home, eat vegetables grown in their yard, their children will incidentally ingest X pounds of soil a year, and so on. The logic is to assume the worst case exposure to off-set some of the uncertainty in the modeling. For industrial and recreational land use scenarios, the assumptions are less conservative, such as assuming people will not be on the site day and night and children will not be playing in the dirt, etc. Then a calculation is made and a cancer risk number is popped out. Remember, some contaminants are naturally occurring and pose a risk at any exposure. And there is a baseline cancer risk for all human beings just by being alive in this world.

All clear now? Ok, here´s another confounding issue in determining the risk at a given location. How the contamination is characterized and quantified impacts the outcome of the HHRS. Does the modeler use a high concentration sample at a local sample site or a composite sample that more evenly distributes the risk? Is it fair to assume the modeled child will eat dirt from only the dirtiest location at the site? What if the contamination is extremely heterogeneous and contains locations with high concentrations and locations that are non-detect when sampled? And if scientists are dealing with a large site with multiple contaminants, do you parcel the areas and calculate the risk or combine the entire area into one risk assessment? These are not simple questions and they do not lend themselves to simple answers. The real bummer about these questions is that there seems to be no single right answer. Judgments have to be made, compromises are inevitable, and no one is sure what the ultimate affect of these decisions will be.

Chain Saws and Birthday Cakes

When I first started working in the environmental field I was eager to learn about everything as I was lost beyond belief in this complex world of science, regulations, and a new vocabulary that appeared to have no words, only acronyms. So one day I cornered a toxicologist, a woman with extensive experience in conducting HHRAs, and I asked her to explain it to me. She patiently went through the processes in layman's terms and answered my questions. After about an hour, I cocked my head and said, "well, I gotta tell ya, this all does not sound very certain or clear cut." My colleague candidly responded with, "It isn´t. Ít´s very crude. I liken doing a HHRA to cutting a birthday cake with a chain saw....but it´s the best tool we have." I have quoted this clever woman many times through the years...her candor and use of metaphor made a huge impression on me.

So how do people answer these fundamental questions regarding environmental cleanup? Well, some of the answer lies in regulatory standards that have been developed through protracted and complicated processes and then established either through regulation or precedent. There are some benchmarks for decision makers to use, but they are far from comprehensive. Even with these benchmarks and regulations, the kinds of questions I have described above are often still extremely difficult to answer. They are fraught with all the social factors one could conceive of....understandable fear from those living on or near a site, degrees of financial impact/feasibility, political posturing and advocating, and the sometimes talented and informed (and sometimes not) scrutiny of environmental advocates and watchdog groups. The decision making often involves all of these stakeholders participating in, and/or contributing to, the decision making process (and I haven´t even touched on the fact that there is often a great diversity of opinion on these issues within the scientific community). And this is where I join the fray.

Born to Help....So I Like to Think

In my work I try my hardest to help these various stakeholders have productive yet difficult conversations and make the difficult decisions. My job is not to make any technical or policy decisions and I never opine on content, only process. I have often explained my job as such, "I help other people make difficult decisions." For most of my projects, past and present, these conversations are almost always messy, often unwieldy, and inherently complicated. But the folks at the table show up, start sorting through the complexity and slowly move through the various options and required decisions. Some sites are forever starting and stopping and re-evaluating, some blow-up politically, and others are more straightforward. Almost all major environmental clean-ups take decades.

Am I a Big Wimp? Maybe.

I have often considered that maybe I am a big wimp in that I have chosen a profession that doesn´t put me in the decision-making seat. I don´t advocate for anything but a productive process and moving towards a stated goal of consensus among some or all parties. But I love my work. I absolutely get off on helping these folks make progress on issues and questions that can´t and should not be ignored. And I hope to do it in such a way that at the end of the day they can all shake hands and go home and not kick their dogs and yell at their kids because their work is so frustrating. I think I succeed in many instances and I am certain I fail in some.

A few years ago an article in the respected journal Conflict Resolution Quarterly (CRQ) did an analysis and literature review of research on multi-stakeholder decision making processes and the efficacy of ADR professionals like myself who provide facilitation and mediation support. The upshot was that there is no way to conclusively assess whether the contributions of folks like me actually help to produce better outcomes. The question, they concluded, is currently unanswerable as there are too many variables and the processes are too complex....they likened it to the weather. The only data on the efficacy of facilitators/mediators in complex multi-stakeholder processes are from stakeholder´s self-reporting. This is an inherently problematic method as it lacks any controlled reference.

In the early days of my career I privately set a goal to at least do more good than harm in my contributions to a proceeding or meeting. I have always felt that I achieved that by whatever margin...and I think, overall, my ratio has improved through the years. But I got nothing to back that up...except, generally, more satisfied stakeholders than pissed off ones. But trust me, there are ALWAYS pissed off stakeholders.

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/12/page/0001

In Guatemala....Again!

2009-12-02T18:58:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I like to keep my sloppy ramblings while traveling seperate from my sloppy ramblings while at home. Those curious about my travels and exploits in Central America can read about them at-

merstravelblog.blogspot.com

Giving Thanks in 2009 and Remembering Donna Clare Rainwater

2009-11-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

“I am thankful for my family,” a “no dah” assertion made often in this US holiday season. An assertion that sometimes rings cliché, hackneyed, trite. So I offer the following as an antidote to that vulnerability.

November 30, 1989, Donna Clare Rainwater shuffled off this mortal coil, checked out one week after thanksgiving, five days after her 52nd birthday, 18 years after giving birth to my youngest sister Marcy, and approximately 3 hours after I last saw her alive. It was a dramatic day, a tumultuous time, a reckoning of sorts. My mother’s death was a defining event forcing five young Rainwater’s (me and my four siblings) to confront some heavy shit about mortality, family, our emotionally stunted and clueless father, and each other. It was the end of my mother’s life on earth, the end of a certain innocence and familial definition. My mother was the glue that, in many ways, had kept us together. But when she died, something happened as a result, a rebirth of sorts, something sublimely good. Her death helped solidify the bonds between the five of us. I offer the most superficial explanation.

If I had a nickel for every time someone has said to me, with disbelief in their voice, “it’s amazing how close you all are” I would be a rich woman. Seriously. People are almost always amazed when I share that my best friends are my siblings. Many cite the turbulent relationships in their own families, explaining that they love their brothers or sisters but they are not close. I nod, smile, and shrug. Closeness with my sibs is all I know. They are my family. In every good definition of the word.

Juls is my Irish twin, which means she was born 11 months after I arrived. I was a crying, colicky first born to an exhausted young Donna, a practicing Irish Catholic who was boinking my dad without birth control 2 months after giving birth (she was also, by all apparent evidence, very fertile). I have zero recollection of my life before Juls…so we are in effect, twins, Irish or otherwise.

Juls and I are, at first glance, night and day. She has always been a skinny, bookish, relatively shy soul with a sober intellect and an aptitude for math and the analytical. I am not skinny, not shy, not bookish, and I failed college algebra, twice. In our youth Juls preferred reading her books and holing-up in her room alone singing along to Karen Carpenter albums while using her hairbrush as a microphone proxy. She followed the rules, got As, was in MGM, kept a low profile and saved her rebellions for later and was then much more sophisticated and surreptitious in their implementation. This all stood in stark contrast to my kinetic, brash, rebellious ways and grossly unsatisfactory grades. We were opposites. And though this might seem an equation for discord, that was not the case. We have ALWAYS been friends. In fact I call Juls my soul mate. She has been my confidant, counselor, supporter, my constant companion on this emotional, intellectual and spiritual journey through life. She and I have such a cultivated common language that previous considerations, contemplations, and histories need only the slightest allusion to be conjured. No one knows me better than Julie Ann Rainwater. And still, she always sees the good in me. That, to me, is family.

Then came the twins, James Clark and Lauri Jean, two little 3+ pounders born six weeks early. Suddenly there were four. In some ways these two were an analog to Juls and I. Jimmy was loud and nutty, Laurs was sweet and hardworking, and Juls and I took them under our wings accordingly. I was rough and tumble with little Jimbo and Laurs and Juls focused on the proper coordination of their respective Barbie’s outfits. We all, for the most part, got along fabulously (saving for some dramatic fights between Jimmy and I).

Then came the sweet surprise, Marcy Jane, the youngest, the little jock of all jocks, the quiet grounded one with a tough exterior and a mushy heart. Marcy entertained us with her youthful antics and later was left to deal with things on her own while the four of us ventured out into the world. She has always had a wisdom beyond her years. And then there were five. Five little Rainwaters and it seems like only minutes passed and then we were all peers. And as we all got older, we ended up going to the same parties and drinking the same cheap kegger beer and eating SuperMex and going to the beach the morning after.

That fateful November in 1989 when our mom up and died, something began to happened, something new was cemented. Of course we all dealt with things in our own way…diving into our preferred flavors of distraction. But we also talked. We shared. We grilled our sister Marcy about the details of the day as she was with my mother when she had the heart attack. We went over and over in detail everyone’s experience of finding out, of going to the hospital, of getting the call. We pondered the unbelievable, the inconceivable, the impossibility of it all. We contemplated life without Donna and we did it openly and often. We cried together, drank together, sat through that Catholic mass funeral together, and together we ate the ten frozen lasagnas delivered by friends and neighbors. And a few weeks later, together we bore the pain of that first Christmas and New Years without the woman who had always made those days special for us all. We were, at that young age, forced to deal with something that most of our friends could not even conceive of…suddenly the value of our relationships to each other came into clearer focus, the fragility of life was no longer conceptual but the nasty fact of one less plate at the Christmas dinner table.

Through the years it has only gotten better, even with all the distractions and girlfriends and boyfriends and dramas. We have continued to become better friends, better siblings, better family to each other. When one of us has stumbled, the phone calls and conversations among the others have been filled with ideas for how to help, how to console, how to cheer up. If money was needed, money was collected. If a pep-talk was needed, four were given. If a ride, a plane ticket, or a birth coach were needed, all were arranged. Never has the response to a challenge been derision or harsh judgment. Not to my knowledge. Not ever. Every conversation, every strategy, every potential intervention has been fueled by caring, love and respect. We truly truly wish the best for each other. We truly are there for one another.

It’s been 20 years this November since our mother died. We are now all growed up and have added John, Ron and Jon and five youngin’s to the clan. And even though I am for the third year in a row skipping off to Central America for Christmas and New Years, I think I have only missed one family Thanksgiving dinner in the 20 years since my mother’s death. Most years we gather at Laur’s house where we laugh and laugh and drink and play stupid games and laugh some more. Our histories are so intermingled, our humor so relentless, our common language so present and enduring, our loyalty so proven again and again, there is no denying that we are, by every good definition, family. And so I say again, not only in this US holiday season, but every single day, I am thankful for my siblings, my best friends, my family.

And lastly, mom, wherever you are, thanks for having us, raising us, and instilling something good in us that has endured and is being passed to the next generation. This Thanksgiving there will be a plate set at the table in your honor. And we will speak of you to those youngin’s and partners who never got the chance to meet you. You will never be forgotten.

Love,
Mer

NOTE: My family has grown to include more than my siblings, John, Ron, and Jon, and the five new youngin's, but I have chosen to focus on my mom and bio-sibs here. I am also TRULY grateful, everyday, for my larger chosen family.

Tales from the Bungalow: Jimmy's TV Goes on the Attack!

2009-11-16T15:18:00.000-08:00

Jimmy and I have matching flat screen TVs, although mine is admittedly, a bit larger. Jimmy purchased his about 8 months ago and has been watching it with regularity ever since. The other night we were driving when Jimmy suddenly asked, "You know that little blue light on our TVs, does that bug you?" My response was what it so often is when Jimmy asks such questions, "What are you talking about?" Jimmy described the little blue light that is centered on the lower part of the TV below the screen. The light, when blue, indicates that the TV is on. Ok Jimmy. I know the light you're talking about.

Jimmy went on to explain that the light, when he finally noticed it after EIGHT MONTHS had passed, was driving him crazy. I looked at him astonished and noted that it was a very small light and that the one on my TV did not bother me one iota. I started ribbing him and laughing at him when he suddenly blurted out, "But it was lasering me! It was lasering me!" Apparently, this light, after 8 months of being ignored, took it upon itself to start torturing my brother (as he watched Ultimate Fighting) by "lasering" him in the eyes.

So distraught by this sudden "lasering" attack, my brother immediately began looking for ways to cover up the "laser" light and protect his assaulted eyes. He started with a post-it-note but explained that the "laser" light still shone through. So he went into the bathroom and got a band-aid to cover it up. Apparently a thin layer of gauze and rubber was enough to stop the "lasering" my poor brother had been suffering. Seriously. Every part of this story is absolutely true.

There ARE Seasons in California

2009-10-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

I recently asked a very bright and observant woman, who has lived in many places in the USA, if she thinks there are distinct seasons in California. She paused thoughtfully, then responded with a 'yes" and a "why do you ask?" I explained that so many folks from places east and north of here do not think there is such a thing as seasons in the Golden State. She cleverly observed, "you don't need to be beaten over the head with it for it to be distinct." Touche! I am tired of my more eastern-and-northern-state living friends popping off about how California doesn't have any seasons. With all due respect, they, are wrong.

There are even places in California where a season will "beat you over the head" should you not be prepared. And sometimes, even then. If one January you chose to hang out on Donner Pass (see pic) in the Sierra Nevada, which boasts some of the heaviest snowfall in the US, you had better be prepared for some damn cold winter weather or you will end up loosing some digits to frostbite, or worse, dying of hypothermia (or starvation like the Donner party, the infamous tragedy of the mid-19th century that lent the pass it's current name). And if you were at that same locale on a sunny August day, you had better be lathered with sunscreen and have a water bottle in hand. There are great seasonal variations in temperature and precipitation in many parts of California. And as a young explorer, I learned this lesson, in part, the hard way.

An Early Lesson in Cold
Death Valley is an almost inconceivably expansive desert region boasting the lowest point in North America, 282 feet below sea-level, with the perennially snow capped 11,000 foot Telescope peak standing sentry to the west. It is a land of extremes with some of the hottest recorded summer temperatures in North America, a place where nighttime temperatures can plummet 35-40 degrees.

In my younger days I spent a fair amount of time exploring this region in 4X4 trucks and on motorcycles with stiff suspensions and torquey 2-stroke engines. One of my earliest trips to Death Valley started with a long day riding a motorcycle over mule trails and hoary mining roads followed by a few beers around a roaring campfire. Tuckered, at last I took my leave and snuggled into my cheap sleeping bag which I had spread out on a folding lawn chair inside my little A-frame tent. A Colman lantern hissed as I read a book on desert fauna and waited to get warm. It didn't happen.

The temperature continued to plummet as the night came on and I started to shiver, my teeth chattered...my body trying to warm itself. I grabbed some more clothes and stuffed them into the bottom of my bag to warm them before wiggling into the sweatshirt, sweats and hoody while trying to keep the cold air out. It was a bandaid on a big cold wound. I spent a miserable night in hallucinogenic half sleep curled up in a fetal position. The temperature was below freezing and I was dreadfully unprepared. A month later I put my entire teenage fortune towards a North Face mummy bag with a 15 degree comfort rating. Skimping on a sleeping bag was not an option when winter camping in Death Valley. I was learning that all of California did not sport the relatively moderate temperatures of coastal SoCal. Check.

The Distortions of Living on the SoCal Coast
I grew up about ten miles inland from the coast in Southern California, a place that IS known for its Mediterranean climate with dry hot summers and mild, slightly rainy winters. The winters could bring some cooler temps, some morning frost on lawns and north facing windshields. But these bits of cold were short lived and the days were often sunny and mild. When I lived in SoCal I welcomed the rain and the snow it brought to the local mountains. "Winter," I remember thinking, "is cool...I like the rain." Well, when I lived in SoCal where the average annual rainfall is 13 inches and the average number of rainy days is 35, I DID enjoy the rain. In those small doses.

El Nino and the SAD Years
Fast forward to San Francisco, 1997-98, a winter when el Nino paid a visit. San Francisco typically has about 62 days of rain totaling about 22 inches annually. In 1997-98 we saw rain for 119 days totaling 47 inches. We got hammered. Our weather typically comes from the northern jet-stream which often hangs out over Alaska before spinning fronts towards our coast. But in 1997, there was a huge front from the south, the Pineapple express, which dumped a ton of warm water on the deep snow-packed Sierras. The result was that much of the "spring" run-off, which usually takes most of spring to occur, happened in a couple of days. The western Sierran rivers became raging torrents knocking down bridges, ripping out trees, demolishing houses, breaking levees and inundating subdivisions across the valley floor. This flood is often referenced as a benchmark....there's the drought of 1976-77 and the 50-100 year flood of 1997-98. This is the year that I realized, I need sun. And I need it regular like.

I was living in Ingleside, a neighborhood in western San Francisco, a place known for cold and fog. That winter people had calendars out, hanging in shops, office cubicles, the corner store, where they X'd each day that it rained, logging consecutive weeks of cold wet darkness without a peep from the sun. We would have a cloudy rainless day or two, and then more weeks of uninterrupted rain. After a month or so of no sun, I started to slump through the world, shoulders low and head down while riding Muni downtown, staring off into space during meetings, sleeping more than I needed. What the hell is wrong with me I pondered. Slowly I realized I need to see the fucking sun without three months passing!

I started reading up on SADs, seasonal affective disorder, the contemporary diagnosis for "the winter blues." Research shows that many inhabitants in northern countries/states experience varying degrees of depression associated with less seasonal light, when the sun's visits are shortened and the angle of the rays more oblique. And SAD rates tend to be higher in women and people of Irish decent...umm, guilty, on both counts. I'm a women with a fair amount of Irish blood. Bummer.

So, I got me a light. A full spectrum light box that I sat in front of for a couple of hours a day. It helped. I also made a concerted effort to sit in the sun for as long as possible when it made appearances in the winter. This too helped. But the Bay Area, even when not a particularly rainy year, can have a lot of gray days. And I didn't always get a lot of time soaking in the rays in the winter. And every year, come February, the cumulative affects were acute, I was a little nuts, stir crazy, blue, not particularly motivated, and generally a bit cranky. So I announced to my friends and family that it was hence forth necessary for me to have mid-winter "sun-trips." To the south I must go for a few days, before February, before I started picking up cutlery and saying "here's Johnny!"

Heading South for Sanity

Two years ago I took it all a little farther. I spent five weeks in Central America traveling all around Guatemala and into Honduras. By the time I got home I had been drenched in sun, tropical sun, higher altitude sun, walking around the streets of Antigua sun, and I did not get depressed one iota. In fact, when spring came and the rains abated (granted these past few years have been low water years) I actually craved some rain. I have found the cure, I thought. Spend December abroad, south, and avoid the winter blues. So I went back to Central America the next year and it worked again. It was like my SoCal days, where I appreciated the bit of winter instead of slumping through my life looking for a place to nap.

So Listen Here Folks!

Here by the coast we may not be hip-deep in the white stuff, huffing and puffing as we dig ourselves to the sidewalk or the car. And we may have a lot more spring, summer and fall, and it may blend a little more, be a little less defined than the winters you nor'easterners or mid-westerners face...and granted, in the Oakland hills most of the turning leaves of fall seem to be poison oak. But we have our seasons and to the trained eye they present their own subtle beauty. And every once in awhile the unbelievable happens.

One winter day in San Francisco I was walking down Ocean Avenue having just gotten off the K train. It was cold and raining and I walked with my head down, collar up, scarf pulled snug around my neck...and then it happened. I saw little white flakes falling gently onto the greasy sidewalk in front of me. They disappeared on impact so I blinked hard and focused, thinking I might be hallucinating. Then I looked up in astonishment. It was snowing on me! In San Francisco California! I walked dazed, head up, grinning as snow fell on my face and all around me. Ocean Avenue is 60 feet above sea level. The snow level got that low in coastal CA. Unbelievable! Of course none of the snow stuck, the flakes disappeared immediately upon impact with anything, including my jacket...but it was still fucking snowing in San Francisco! And this, I readily admit, DOES NOT happen very often. And no wellies or shovels needed.

I have lived in California most of my life and through the years I have driven in white-out blizzards in the San Bernardino Mountains and the Sierras. I have been trapped in a tent in teen-degree weather half way up Mount Whitney while hurricane force winds blew on the summit. I have baked in desert heat over 115 degrees Fahrenheit when my lungs felt like they might ignite. I have seen the destruction of small tornadoes touching down in Anaheim and I have hiked through snow in July on mountains over 10,000 feet high! I've watched this state burn in the summer and fall, and then slide into the sea in the winter rains. So back off folks. California does have distinct seasons. And in some places those seasons WILL beat you over the head. We are not all Pamela Anderson running around on the beach, boobs a flailing all winter long. I promise.

Hilarious-ness Unbridled!

2009-10-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

Jimmy would not let me post this on my facebook page but gave permission for me to post it here. It's a small sampling of the never ending amusement (and shamelessness) that is my brother.

Why I Think Nancy Pelosi is Right to be Afraid

2009-10-09T23:51:00.001-07:00

Balbir Singh Sodhi, by all accounts, was a gentle, hard working man, a man who strove to embody the peace promoting values of his Sikh religion. Sodhi emigrated from India to Los Angeles in 1989 and spent years in LA and San Francisco working as a taxi driver, saving his money to invest in a future for his family. Eventually he was able to buy a gas station in Phoenix, Arizona. He was known as a generous man, letting the poorer kids buy candy for a discount and sharing what he could with the local homeless.

On September 15, 2001, a white, middle-aged man drove to Sodhi’s gas station and fired five shots into the innocent man’s body, the tumbling, flesh-ripping-hot-lead-slugs killed Sodhi dead at age 52. Why? Because he had brown skin. Because he wore a beard. Because he wore the turban of his Sikh religion. Because he was the all threatening brown-skinned other that so many ignorant and xenophobic Americans have been taught to fear. Sodhi’s death was the first confirmed racially motivated murder in the rash of hate crimes that swept the nation after the 9/11 attacks on the US.

Sodhi’s murderer is Frank Roque, a man with a history of schizophrenia and “hearing voices.” When he was handcuffed by police he repeatedly shouted, to some unknown audience, “I stand for America all the way.” I would agree with his assertion to the degree that I think he represents the worst in American culture, he is a symptom of the ignorant and reactionary segments of our society that perpetrate such irrational hate crimes. It could also be argued he is a victim of a society with inadequate mental health care and education and an irresponsible media.

So when Speaker Nancy Pelosi emotionally calls for a calming of the rhetoric, when she urges "I wish that we all again would curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made, with the understanding that some of the ears this is falling on are not as balanced as the person making the statement might assume," she has good reason. She is not being alarmist. She watched the homophobic and reactionary politics in California in the late 1970s that lead to the assignations of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone. Dan White, the right-wing assassin, was mentally ill (and his attorney’s presented one of the most outlandish defenses in recent legal history, the “Twinkie” defense, claiming junk food and sugar had diminished his mental capacities). Speaker Pelosi has damn good reason to express concern.

My brother and I sat in our living room discussing the emergence of the right wing media machine in the recent decade and it’s current fomenting of insanity in the often southern, white, male, and uneducated populations of the US. I was forcefully complaining about the insane Glenn Beck and his bizarre 9/12 gathering in DC. Now, for the record, my brother’s politics pretty much line up with mine. He is a confident, educated, employed, straight, white male, a damn liberal guy and many times he has been by my side at gay rights marches and other progressive causes. But my brother expressed his disappointment in the left-media’s response in the form of MSNBCs Keith Olberman and the like, asserting that such a response, is in some form, stooping to the level of the idiots. He said that we shouldn’t be like them, we should not respond in kind to their ignorant vitriol.

I quickly noted that Keith Olberman has a BS from Cornell and MSNBCs Rachel Maddow is a Rhode Scholar with a PhD*. Glenn Beck, well, he is not a Rhode Scholar and dropped out of Yale before earning anything. My brother pointed to the popular critique of “liberals” as smug and Rachel’s rolling eyes and Kieth Olberman’s unbridled sarcasm as compelling evidence for such an indictment. I agreed, but countered that Kieth Olberman and Rachel Maddow are orders of magnitude more complex, informed, and rational in their analysis of current events and politics than is their Fox-News “counter-parts.” I understand their smugness, and at times, although not always, I enjoy their smugness, I find some relief in their sarcasm. Glenn Beck is pointing at the sky and screaming that it’s filled with flying cats! He is stupid. He is an idiot. He is the antithesis of the rational or intellectual and he has a national platform from which to spew his hateful nonsense. Rolling ones eyes at such nonsense seems within the realm of the appropriate.

All this talk with my brother got me to thinking about the differences in our experience of the current racist, reactionary insanity that has been making itself conspicuous during the national debate regarding health care reform. As my brother and I talked I realized I harbor a subterranean anxiety that does not burden him. When my brother saw those men with guns strapped to their hips, holding AR15s, he simply wrote it off as those wing-nuts in places other than the Bay Area. He would vote his conscience, give money to our side, and spare himself the pain of watching the idiots convene and shout their ignorance. Why was I so preoccupied with the nut-jobs and the Glenn Becks of the world spewing their hate-fomenting rhetoric on national TV?

I realized it is, in some part, because I fall into a category of conspicuous “other,” I am one that moves through the world knowing I have a certain kind of target on my chest should the haters be prompted to start shooting. I am an out, butch-dyke and you could figure this out very quickly with a short glance in my direction. I am conspicuously queer. Different. Other. In the eyes of many of those Glenn Beckers, I am an abomination against the laws of nature, a pedophile, a pervert, a predator, and a femmi-nazi (whatever that means!). There are people who think I should be imprisoned or, in some cases, killed because of my sexual/gender orientation. At the very least they think I should not enjoy the same constitutional rights as white, non-queer folks. And I do not mean to in any way fully equate my experience of homophobia with racism. I am white and enjoy the profound and unjustified privilege that comes with that biology. And at times, astonishingly, I pass as straight. But I still belong to a category of other that my brother does not.

I also live in Oakland, California, standing in the shadow of San Francisco, one of the great queer cities of the world, rubbing shoulders with the City of Berkeley, home to UC Berkeley and innumerable retired hippies. These three cities, the “holy-trinity” it is often called, the “bubble,” teeming with liberals, radicals, and incredible racial, ethnic, sexual, and social diversity. What do I have to fear in such a place?

Well, ask a fag who lived in the gay Mecca of Berlin as the Nazi’s spread across Europe. Or the Rwandan Tutsis who were one moment sipping lemonade in the afternoon shade and the next moment running from their machete-wielding neighbors and “friends” intent on slaughtering them, a genocide largely fomented by right-wing-racist radio broadcasts filled with outlandish lies presented as fact. Too extreme you think? Well let’s ask any brown-skinned person living in the Bay Area after the attacks of 9/11. Many people were dragged from their cars and beaten, their store fronts were shot-up and their cars and homes vandalized. Right here in the bubble. Right here, a few short years ago, in the holy-trinity, in the great melding pot of contemporary Northern California.

For months after the 9/11 attacks I would see cars on the freeways with flags flying from the antenna or taped into the rear window for all to see. When I pulled up to these red-white-and-blue decorated cars it was invariably a brown skinned person at the wheel. Fearing for their safety, brown skinned people of all ethnic and racial backgrounds defensively and conspicuously displayed the US flag, symbolically shouting, “I am not a terrorist! Please do not attack me or my car!”

In California, last November the historic ballet of 2008 also contained Proposition 8, that bigoted attack on same-sex marriage, a constitutional right that had recently been supported by a California Supreme Court decision. But in November, Prop 8 passed, again making same-sex marriage illegal. And when Prop 8 was legally challenged, the California Supreme Court, for reasons that escape my understanding, upheld Prop 8. Same sex marriage is again, illegal, unless you were one of the 18,000 gay couples that got hitched during the few months it was legal. Bizarre.

In the last two months leading up to the 2008 election, Prop 8 supporters and opponents clashed all around the state. Sign wielding demonstrators on both sides shouted at each other across crowded intersections. Synagogues, churches, and temples were desecrated on both sides of the issue. While holding signs on street corners I was screamed at, condemned to hell, and flipped off. I heard several stories, first hand, of pro gay marriage demonstrators and workers being spit on and beaten, and one incredible story where a woman on foot was first beaten and then almost run down by a car driven by a Prop 8 supporter. There was violence. In the bubble and the cities that fringe the Bay Area’s holy-trinity.

I do not walk the streets in fear as my privilege allows me a certain confidence. I am very open about my sexuality and I wear my butchness like a uniform. I committed to keeping my “No On Prop 8” signs in my yard until justice prevails. I have been blessed with an education and I know there are innumerable examples of mass bigotry and violence in the world and throughout all of history - the in-groups preying on and scape-goating the out-groups in often overt and horrific ways. And, obviously, racism, homophobia, and other forms of virulent bigotry are alive and well in the US. I know the roots of these problems are deep, complex, tangled in class, economics, race, politics, and a post fairness-doctrine era of 24-hour news cycles and the inconceivable immediacy and agility of internet technology. But I watch the news, see the men with their guns, the people holding blatantly homophobic, xenophobic, racist signs and I ponder the histories I have alluded to here. Where is the tipping point? Are we getting closer to one?

I am an optimist, an idealist, I believe in possibilities, in a prevailing goodness in the universe. My chosen profession is conflict resolution, mediation. I help people have difficult conversations in highly charged situations. But this shit, well, it’s eroded a little of my optimism. It’s got me a little worried….about the safety of my neighbors, my fellow Americans, and my president. And I am not sure what to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y

* I do not believe that a formal education is the only way one can become educated. Nor do I believe that an Ivy League education is inherently superior to other paths. But I have lazily referenced Rachel's and Kieth's education to assert that I think Glenn Beck is NOT an educated man...at least by any definition I would employ. So pardon my laziness, but hey, this is just a blog with 9.3 (occasional) readers!

A Confession and An Update on the Ice-Maker Drama

2009-08-25T14:33:00.000-07:00

The Confession
(References entry from July 6, 2009)
I am being compelled to write this, compelled by my youngest sister Marcy. Marcy is an ethical woman, a teacher of young children, a lover of cats and dogs, a loyal sibling, a talented softball player who never cheats.

One evening we were sitting at her kitchen table making small talk. She had just read my blog piece about our brother Jimmy being tortured by the sound of the ice-maker in our new fridge. We laughed and made affectionate fun of our sensitive brother.

Then I paused, looked seriously at my kid-sis, and said, "You know Marcy, the funny thing is, since I wrote that piece I now hear the sounds of the ice-maker all the time and they are loud. I think it might be some sort of divine retribution for heckling Jimmy."

She wasted no time in admonishing me, insisting that I confess this fact on my blog. "You have to write that," she said. Well, when my child-teaching, cat-loving, ethical sister tells me I gotta, well, I gotta. So there you have it. My confession.

The Update
Now for a little trivial update on this issue. The other day I used all the ice in the tray to fill a small cooler for a day on the boat. The next day I opened the freezer drawer to get some ice for a drink. There was no ice. Not a single cube. I was perplexed. I then opened the upper doors to look at the control panel inside the fridge. Sure enough, there it was, a button for turning OFF the ice-maker. Jimmy had found the answer to his prayers.

I turned it back on.

Mer's One (Run-on) Sentence Movie Reviews

2009-08-07T18:59:00.000-07:00

The Hurt Locker
Untidy, graphic, austere...instead of preaching a simplistic morality this film demonstrates the disturbing complexities and immediacy of modern US soldiering. Grade: A

Away We Go
Self-conscious and affected at times, but damn that guy is cute, sweet, and bloody hilarious...all-in-all the film is a delight with an awesome Alexi Murdoch soundtrack. B+

The Shrink
Absolutely ridiculous, a really bad farce in denial, but you get to watch Kevin Spacey which is nice. Grade: D-

Cheri
Romantic, stifling, tragic, what one might expect from a Collete story...pretty and entertaining but ultimately forgettable. Grade: B-

Bruno
Wrong in almost every way (the interviews with Hollywood dingbats were depressingly hilarious) and I don't understand how Sacha Baron Cohen was not killed or beaten to a bloody pulp while making this movie...specifically while wearing his campy-hot-pants-Hasidic costume being chased through the streets of Jerusalem by pissed off Jews, or at the Jerry Springer-like talk show with a largely black audience where he introduces his adopted black baby who he named OJ; I understand the irony at times, but geez!. Grade: D+

500 Days of Summer
Landed on really liking this one even though I am embarrassed to admit it...quirky and fresh with an over-the-top dance number - calls to mind the lyrics "every beginning comes from some other beginning's end." Grade: B

Sharks, Sharks, Sharks and Other Scary Things in the Sea

2009-08-05T23:10:00.001-07:00

Shark Week!
Every summer I make the dubious decision to watch Discovery Channel’s notorious documentary marathon chronicling the lives, eating habits, and often enigmatic behavior of the class of fish called selachimorpha…more commonly known as "sharks." I watch as swimmers and surfers and snorkelers recount their terrifying limb-losing encounters with these toothy beasts. I watch as researchers intentionally encounter the biggest and baddest sharks using cages and sometimes, amazingly, not using cages. I watch as skilled and brave (or retarded?) men and women free-dive with tigers and great whites and makos…holding cameras and sticks. Sticks. I am not kidding. Some guys just hold a stick and prod the enormous beasts as they swim by. I am totally seduced and often unnerved as I sit on land, on my couch, in the relative safety of my home, watching intently and waiting for the next gush of on-screen blood.

There are about 340 known species of sharks and most of them are not dangerous to human beings, and yet, the very word “shark” can increase the pulse rate of anyone who ventures into the sea or even dreams of doing so. And for good reason. Although most sharks are benign to us humans (and the odds of being attacked are minuscule), the one’s that are dangerous earn their reputation with dramatic flare.

I grew up in Southern California, North Orange County, a place with wide sandy beaches, relatively warm sea water, sunny days, and an entrenched and growing surf culture. I grew up in the water, surfing, swimming, body-surfing, and laying on the beach studying the waves. When I was a little kid I rode the county bus to the beach (25¢ each way) with a boogie board under my arm and wearing a towel-stuffed backpack. It’s what we did in the summer. As I got older, we added beer and teenage self-consciousness…but in the summer, to the shore we went, without fail. And there I still go every summer, without fail, to ride my beat up old longboard on the small crumbly summer waves of Seal Beach or to sport my fins and bodysurf in the beach break at Scotchman’s Cove. In all my years, and I am “middle-aged” now (so that’s a lot of years), I have never heard of great white sharks near these beaches. I have heard stories of encounters near Catalina Island, 26 miles west of the mainland. But not near Orange County Beaches…not until recently.

They’re Here!
It started a couple years ago when a colleague (a surfer) mentioned something about two great whites that were “hanging out” at San Onofre Beach. Excuse me?! I was stunned and begged her to tell me it wasn’t so. It was so. Witnessed by many surfers she had talked to personally. And, I soon discovered, it was being reported in the papers and on the TV news. Not in SoCal! Not near “my” beaches! Yikes.

I currently live in Northern California, in what is commonly referred to as the “red triangle,” an area roughly marked by Point Reyes to the north of San Francisco, Monterey Bay to the south, and out to the austere group of rocks known as the Farralon Islands. The Farralon Islands serve as a base for shark researchers who suffer the harsh conditions offshore so they can observe and study the habits of great whites. This area has long been referred to as the red triangle because of the number of great white shark attacks on humans. According to wikipedia, this area marks 37% of recorded great white shark attacks on humans in the USA, and 11% worldwide. I don’t surf in the red triangle. The waters are cold, often rough, and home to the carcharodon carcharias, the great white shark. No thanks.

I do, however, sail these waters and I have to admit that when I venture out under the Golden Gate, into the red triangle, I think about the potential consequences of my little boat sinking. Although hypothermia would surely be the death of me, the thought of being eaten by a shark is much more dramatic and horrifying.

So you see, sharks and the thought of sharks, have always been in my life in a relatively immediate way, a "just under the surface" sorta way. And all this shark week shite got me to thinking about my own handful of actual and would-be shark encounters. Yes, I have had a few, although never was I in danger, as far as I can tell. But each encounter had it’s own thrill.

The Early Years
My first encounter with a living shark occurred when I was a kid walking along Bolsa Chica Beach one evening after a day of swimming in the waves. The sun was just below the horizon and I walked up to a fisherman who was casting into the surf and standing next to a 5 gallon bucket. Always intrigued by the sport, I looked into the bucket to see what the angler might have dragged from the sea. And there it was. A shark! It was about 16-18 inches long, grayish blue, and very much alive. I stood there, my young self, contemplating the fact that I had spent the day swimming in the water from which this man had just reeled in a shark. I wondered “who” else was out there and had been swimming next to my adolescent legs and torso all day! And even more alarming, where was this little guy’s mother?! Rational or not, these were the post-Jaws (the movie) thoughts of a SoCal girl who was obsessed with swimming in the ocean. In the years that followed I had other encounters with dead sand-sharks washed up on shore and other fisherman casting into the Jetty at Seal Beach or off the local piers and reeling in a variety of small sharks and rays that I inspected as I passed by.

Missing the Big One
The biggest shark I almost saw was the one that got away in the Caribbean last year. I was diving off the coast of Utila, Honduras, a place known for whale sharks, those plankton eating gentle giants. Whale sharks are the largest fish in the sea growing up to 40 feet long and weighing as much as 14 tons (see pic with snorkeler)! We had just finished an afternoon dive when our captain received a call on the VHF that a whale shark had been spotted offshore in the deeper waters they prefer. We tossed our mooring line and the captain throttled down as we all held onto the boat hoping we would get a glimpse of one of these generally shy animals. When we reached the area where the whale shark had been spotted we were instructed to don our snorkel gear (SCUBA bubbles can scare the fish away) and sit at the rear of the boat ready to slip quietly into the water. We crouched and waited, breathing in diesel exhaust, hearts pounding in anticipation of swimming with the giant fish. But after an hour of looking the crew concluded the giant fish had apparently taken a dive, literally. Bummer. A big tease. So lets head to the shark capital of the world!

The Big Bite
It was a hot sunny day on the windward islands of the Bahamas, a place known as the shark capital of the world because of the diversity and numbers of sharks found in these tropical reef-strewn waters. My friend John and I were fishing in about 60 feet of water a mile and a half offshore of Elbow Cay, a small cay east of Abaco Island. There was a moderate swell that gently rolled under the 19 foot center-console fishing boat that I had rented to explore and fish the islands. Sweating under the tropical mid-day sun, we cut and threaded bits of squid onto our hooks, weighted the lines, tossed the tackle overboard and fed it to the bottom, and then waited. Within minutes John yelled “fish-on” and started reeling. “It’s pretty big” he added as we both went to the edge of the boat to see what he had hooked. We could see the fish coming up and just as it broke the water a large set of shark jaws rolled over and chomped the fish off the line. Stunned, John and I littered the air with expletives as he pulled what was left of the fish onto the boat. He had caught a large trigger fish and all that remained was a bit of the head and a few straggly remnants of the entrails…all in the very distinct shape of a shark jaw. Fuck an A! We were thrilled and pumped!

Looking through my polarized sunglasses, I immediately started studying the water around the boat. Grey shadows everywhere. Very large gray shadows swimming under the boat….5, 6, maybe 8 foot long shadows criss-crossing under the boat. I turned to my fishing buddy, “John the most important rule today, stay on the boat!” I wasn’t kidding. As we bobbed in the Atlantic swell I suddenly felt quite small and vulnerable. We were surrounded by sharks. Then my rod bent. Fish on. I started reeling but the fish was gone in seconds. The shark took the hook and all this time. We tried a few more times, getting hits quickly and just as quickly losing our catch to the gray beasts below. We were no longer fishing, we were feeding the sharks. We cranked the boat and headed closer to shore into a shallow cut between two cays. We fished the rest of the afternoon, catching enough porgy and grunts to feed the whole family. Although our offshore fishing left us with only a part of a fish head, we had logged an experience that few folks can claim and one neither of us would ever forget. A close encounter with a hungry shark!

The Sandbar
The next day we anchored the boat on a shallow but sprawling sandbar know as Tahiti Beach. We waded through waist deep crystal clear water, walking on white coral sand 200 feet from shore. We gabbed about this and that when suddenly a three foot long baby lemon shark cruised slowly by us…maybe two feet away from where we were standing. It all happened so quickly that John and I just stood there and watched it gracefully swim by. Hello. There was nothing else around and in the still tropical water, the view of this gorgeous fish was clearer than a National Geographic photograph. Cool. Very cool. But I did wonder where it’s momma was. Or it’s brothers and sisters. Time to head back to the boat!

The Reef
The next day we motored out to an underwater preserve in a large cut between the islands. A heavy swell was rolling in unabated from the Atlantic and the afternoon sea breeze added some chop to the seas. We tied our boat to one of the park mooring buoys, donned our snorkel gear and rolled off the boat into the surging water. In about 25 feet of water we swam over the sprawling reef teeming with fishes…and among them several species of small sharks, only inches or a foot long. In a small patch of sand among the coral, a five foot nurse shark sat almost motionless on the bottom. We stalled, moving our fins just enough to fight the surge and keep us over the shark while we studied her. Who knows for how long? Damn. Shark capital indeed.

The Hunt
John and I also spent hours snorkeling on the sprawling reef off the beach in front of our rented house on Elbow Cay. We attempted fishing with a Hawaiian sling, a spear with a bungy tied to the end and loaded by stretching the bungy and grabbing the spear (see pic). To shoot you simply aim and let go of the spear while holding the bungy, like a giant rubber band the bungy shoots the spear towards the target. We spent hours stalking giant groupers that knew exactly the range of our spear and stayed just beyond it. They seemed to laugh at us as they moved with the grace of a bullfighter avoiding a goring…I am sure if they could speak English we would have heard an incorrigible ”are you fucking kidding me? Amateurs!.” We tried hitting snappers, grunts, porgy…miss miss and miss again. We took turns, snorkeling in compliment, sling holder always in front, the other moving to stay behind the hunter (we did not want to catch each other on the end of the spear). For hours we snorkeled and fished. Nothing. Hawaiians we were not. John tagged one fish but it swam away surely becoming someone’s meal shortly after.

And then it happened. I aimed, let her rip and bam! Nailed it. Through the body of a ten inch snapper! I grabbed the sling and immediately pulled the speared fish out of the water and above my head. All I could think about was sharks! I suddenly pondered the wisdom of swimming with a bloody fish in the shark capital of the world! I swam a side stroke towards shore holding the fish out of the water and watching the blood of the stuck creature slowly running down my arm. “Must reach shore before blood reaches water. Must!” I swam like a champ and crawled on shore with my meager, but hard won catch. No sharks. And in retrospect, my frantic swimming and pounding heart were probably much more of a shark attractant than a little bit of snapper blood. I'm such a pussy. Nonetheless I stumbled onto shore the proud hunter.

The False Alarm
On another trip to the Bahamas John and I fished and snorkeled the bay between Harbor Island and Eleuthera.* One day we anchored the boat and donned our snorkel gear and started exploring some scattered reefs. After a rather frustrating and completely unsuccessful attempt to catch a spiny lobster for lunch, we stumbled upon a rather large colony of brain coral sitting lonely in the middle of a large patch of sand. It was a large dome about five feet tall and easily as wide. It was pretty cool looking. Then we left.

The next day we went to the same location and I lead a rather reluctant and inexperienced snorkeler towards the coral, excited to share the cool spectacle. About ten yards away I suddenly saw a large fish about a foot above the coral staring directly at me, head on. Thump thump thump went my chest as my first assessment tagged it as a shark. But the fish quickly shifted slightly sideways exposing it’s mass and I saw the unmistakable under-bite of a great barracuda (see pic). That fucker was easily 5 feet long and meaty. I have swam with barracuda before, young ones in small schools that seemed very comfortable with my presence, but this giant fucker stared us down, staying right above the brain coral as though to say “this is my brain and you ain’t invited.” I motioned for my companion to stop which he did and then he quickly started swimming for the boat. I stalled for a minute, staring at the incredible fish and then I slowly started swimming backwards, fins in front of me, never taking my eyes off that sucker as he held his ground over the coral. Several yards away I lost visibility but continued to swim backwards and look in the same direction.

The Future
In 2007 I was laid up for a week because of a surgery I had and my sweet younger sister flew up to Oakland to help me out. This particular week just happened to be Shark Week. So our days were pretty much an alternating pattern of eating, napping, taking drugs (me only), and watching Shark Week. By the end of the week Marcy and I had made a pact to head west to Hawaii and take a turn in a shark cage. We shook on it. We’ve reconfirmed our commitment many times and when our schedules and bank accounts finally line up, we will do it. Bring it on!

The End. For Now.

* I struggled to learn how to properly pronounce the name of this island and would often blurt out the word “urethra” instead of "Eleuthera", a mistake I am sure would not be appreciated by a Bahamian. But I cracked myself up with my lameness!

Huh? What?

2009-07-26T23:45:00.000-07:00

Since prattling on about my brother’s sensitivity to noises it got me to thinking about my own ears. For the past several years I have been known to say “what?” more than the average person. If there is competing background noise when someone is speaking to me they need to enunciate and speak at a determined volume. Otherwise they get my “I’m sorry…what did you say?” Or the more familiar, “huh?”

Over the years my ex got increasingly annoyed with my frequent “whats?” Fearing her nasty retorts to my “what?” I started to wait a few seconds after being the recipient of her mumbled utterings….thinking to myself, “ok Mer, you think she said ‘please take all my cash’…but that really doesn’t make any sense cause we are in the middle of cleaning the kitchen – hmmm, what sounds like cash? Oh! She said ‘please take out the trash!’” I didn’t always get it right and would often be forced to sheepishly ask her to repeat herself, which she did, often with derision in her voice.

The day finally came when I said to her, “Hey, my ears are bad from going to too many clubs and concerts when I was young! I am not ignoring you! I just can’t fucking hear!”

Eager to prove myself an attentive listener with damaged equipment I made an appointment with an audiologist to have my concert-club-iPod-beaten ears tested. The day of my appointment I arrived at the modest office and was greeted by a young and very attractive doctor of the ear. Dr. Ear explained the series of tests she was going to administer and politely escorted me to a sound-proof booth and instructed me to put on the headphones sitting on the chair inside. She closed me in the booth then subjected me to a series of tests where I had to identify various sounds under different circumstances, including identifying a sound in one ear while noise was piped separately into the other ear.

After all the tests were completed Dr. Ear lead me to her office and sat behind her desk with my test results in front of her. She looked at me and smiled and then said, “Marie, you have excellent hearing.” She showed me a sheet of paper summarizing my results which were all above normal or excellent. I was stunned and asked, “Well then how come I am always struggling to hear what people say?” She again smiled and said, “You can hear perfectly you just have a hard time processing what you are hearing.” My jaw dropped and I blurted, “oh great, my problem isn’t my ears, its cognitive degradation?!”

Dr. Ears smiled and patiently explained that it was not cognitive degradation but rather a reduction in the effectiveness of the mechanism that processes the hearing inputs from my ears. She assured me that my cognition, by all appearances, was just fine. She continued that such processing problems are common in people in their 40s and that in effect this is experienced as difficulty hearing. I made several more self-deprecating jokes about my apparently waning mental abilities and watched the hot Dr. Ears laugh, then I shook her hand, thanked her, and headed home with my stereo blaring Sublime.

I came home, my excellent hearing results in hand, and explained to my ex that I have a processing problem. She listened patiently and acknowledged that my “whats?” were not a personal affront to her. A few minutes later she yelled at me from the other room, “will you please go to the store?” I was puzzled, “what do you need at the store?” She poked her head around the corner, smiled and said, “I said would you please close the door, I am cold.” I closed the door and she stopped mumbling quite so much.

Death, Dying, Surfing, and the Absurd (Oct. 2008)

2009-07-26T23:26:00.000-07:00

Life, at times, can be relentlessly serious. A family member of a friend (who has already suffered a disproportionate amount of loss in her life) is weeks away from dying too young….she has actually already gone and soon her body will follow as her loved-ones sit and wait, and hopefully, make some kind of peace with it all. Another dear friend has just come through a final surgery and is thankfully recovering from cancer and embracing life with a fierce, new gusto. And my adopted Jewish Grandmother, in her 80s, has just won her second battle with breast cancer and is worried about her pending trip to Europe, hoping she will be well and strong enough to share the adventure and joy with her granddaughter. This is the stuff of life and death and love…the looming of the inevitable while we work to appreciate the now. These are some of the dramas that are personal to me right now.

And then there is the “out there” I read about and watch on the news. I watch as the Atlantic Ocean launches cyclonic bombs at the islands and the southern coast. I watch as the banks fail and the value of our houses and retirement funds plummet. I watch as the price of gas skyrockets while oil companies reap record profits and the politicians babble on about what to do. I watch as McCain gains in the poles and the war rages on and on. I note again and again the conspicuous absence of reporting on the death tolls for non-Americans in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And last night I made the mistake of watching the chilling documentary, “Witness 911” (I should not have done that). And I listen to the pundits pontificate…and I watch as the debates narrow into ridiculous sound-bite slinging….and I marvel at the absurdity. And yet, I don’t want to write about these things. In fact, I can’t write about these things.

On Saturday my friend Deb and I headed to the beach even though it was overcast. We go where Deb has been going for decades, Scotchman’s Cove on the Newport coast, a picturesque stretch of clear water and rugged bluffs hugging a sandy beach peppered with rock reefs and jagged outcroppings. As we pulled into the parking lot we noted a large party of surfers putting on wetsuits and unloading their longboards…unusual for this particular beach. We grabbed our stuff and headed down the steep stairs to the beach and pitched our spot in the sand. We gabbed about this and that and the sky slowly cleared as the sun burned away the marine layer.

Then Deb suddenly says, “Look, it’s a funeral.” I turn around and sure enough there are about twenty-five surfers paddling out past the break towards a small power boat sitting in the calm sea. The surfers paddle into a circle next to the boat and Deb and I sit and watch in silence. A group of people stand at the stern of the boat apparently addressing the circle of surfers. After a few minutes the surfers begin cheering and splashing in unison. They are out there in the circle for some time remembering and celebrating…and then they paddle back to shore. They collect on the beach and eat and drink….the living remembering.

When we leave Deb and I walk along the water and we see the flowers, roses and plumarias everywhere…a beautiful littering of sentiment washed up along the edge of the great Pacific Ocean. I turn to Deb, my friend of 32 years, and say, “If I die before you, ask folks to paddle out for me, ok? Use my boards and spread me over the sea.” She smiles and nods, “Of course.”

Tales From the Bungalow: Jimmy is Tortured by What Only He Can Hear

2009-07-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

My brother Jimmy has very sensitive ears, which, if you knew him as a young boy, seems a bit ironic. He was a loud young lad. Very loud. His favorite TV show was Emergency, that 1970’s series that chronicled the do-goodings of two competent young paramedics working the streets of Los Angeles. In those days common was the sight of Jimmy sticking his head out the window of the family station wagon wailing like an “Emergency” siren. We used to joke that so compelling was his siren imitation that cars actually pulled over for the would-be emergency vehicle. The boy could belt it out.

Since those early years it is now well known in the family that if one shrieks or yells in close proximity of Jimmy, he will immediately sport a pained expression and seek to get away from the offending sound-source. He regularly, after getting into my car, turns down the stereo while making faces like an annoyed little-old-lady, declaring, “that is just too loud.” Granted, I tend to play my music quite loud, especially in the car….but Jimmy, we’re in our 40s, not our 90s dear brother!

On several occasions while on a road trip with my brother he has suddenly demanded, “Do you hear that? That rattling noise?” while frantically moving things around the car, shifting CD cases, opening and closing the ashtray, pushing on various panels trying to identify the source of the offending noise. There is no peace until the situation is corrected which sometimes involves pulling off the highway and shuffling things around in the car. I am not kidding. I am not exaggerating. This has happened. More than once. Anyway, you get the picture. The guy is sensitive.

A few months ago a PG&E energy audit of my little bungalow identified my ancient refrigerator as an abominable energy waster and suggested that a new cold box would quickly pay for itself in electricity cost savings. So I decided to buy a new Energy Star fridge, my contribution to saving the planet. Besides, with Jimmy now living with me, we needed more room for his beer and a better setup cause we are both not the greatest bachelors and will forget about food we have bought if we don’t see it front and center. And forgotten food goes bad. And it stinks. Wasting food? Not good for the planet. Stinking food? Not good for impressing would-be girlfriends.

I took Jimmy with me to Sears to pick out the refrigerator. Like some strange Bay-Area couple we checked out the various fridges, contemplating styles, cost versus function, etc. I knew I wanted a bottom drawer freezer with an ice-maker. At last we decided on a nice Kenmore which was delivered and installed a few days later. Ah, a nice new fridge with plenty of room and the food stuff all up top so we could see it and remember to eat it.

The next morning, a Saturday, Jimmy walks into my bedroom and with me bleary-eyed and still in bed he asks “Do you hear that?” “What?” I respond. “That.” I listen hard. “Nope. I don’t hear anything.” I ask him what the hell he is talking about. Jimmy has that pained look on his face and says, “The ice-maker….I heard it all night.” I can’t hear a fucking thing but we head into the kitchen and he opens the freezer drawer, points at the ice tray and explains that after the fridge makes the ice cube it drops noisily into the plastic tray. And the sound is driving him nuts. Now mind you, the fridge sits on the other side of my bedroom wall. I hear nothing. Jimmy’s room is down a short hall away from the kitchen. He is tortured.

In the days following, when hanging out at home, Jimmy would suddenly erupt with, “There it goes! Did you hear that?” Usually I did not. But one night I did catch the little clink of the cube of ice landing on the other little cubes of ice in the plastic tray. Ok, Jimmy is not crazy. At least not for that.

Then one day I come home, open the freezer drawer to grab some ice for my drink and discover a dish towel draped across the ice tray with a few ice cubes resting on top of it. I look at Jimmy inquisitively and he explains that the towel absorbs some of the sound of the ice cubes falling into the tray. He is sleeping better at night with the little makeshift padding strategically placed in our freezer drawer. Weeks pass. Then the other day I went for some ice and saw that the towel had disappeared. Now that the tray is relatively full, it seems Jimmy’s life has gotten a little easier here in the Bungalow. Meanwhile, I still don’t hear a fucking thing.

I Want to Flush the Toilet

2009-05-31T22:53:00.000-07:00

After I take a gut relieving piss and pull my pants up over my substantial arse I want to turn around and be in control of the flushing away of my urine. Is that so wrong? Is it so wrong that I don't want to be jolted by a sudden roar behind my half covered self followed by an unwanted spray on my backside because the ghost in the machine has decided it is now time to flush my piss? Please, just give me a foot pedal, let me work back into the security of my Levis, and then I will flush the fucking toilet myself. I promise. I will do it.

Review of Cafe No Se

2009-05-01T18:31:00.000-07:00

My friend Steve asked me to write a review for the bar he manages, Cafe No Se, in Antigua, Guatemala. It is my favorite bar. In the world. For the record, here is the fruit of my effort.

If you like dark smoky places with surly bartenders, drunks who speak Latin, soulful musicians, oddballs and freaks, "artists and actors and writers and such" poets and cynics, international do-gooders and people who read books, sloshy raconteurs, excellent tequila and custom infused mezcal (watch out for the pepper hooch)...if you want to be in a place where laughter and love are as free-flowing as the booze...a place where people will see the good in you and forgive you for your sins, No Se is for you! And if you find yourself in this scrappy brilliant place, hug the bartenders for me, tip them well, and please, do not behave yourself! It is against the unstated rules!

WARNING: If you are uptight, sober in spirit (not necessarily in deed), anal retentive, a scaredy-cat, ungenerous with your love, secretive, hate talking about the carnal, don't like wildly inappropriate banter, and can't see the good in the scrappiest of characters, No Se is NOT for you. Go to Applebee’s and order an iceberg lettuce salad and a diet coke. You'll be happier there.

Back In Guatemala

2009-04-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

I am in Antigua once again, ambling through the cobblestone streets choked with chicken bus exhaust, smiling and wishing folks good day in Spanish. Things are rough and completely lawless in many parts of Guatemala and arriving in Guatemala City at night was not my preference...I was a little nervous for the hour long cab ride into Antigua. But it proved uneventful and I arrived at Lucky and Jose´s before midnight. They greeted me with shouts from the balcony and then hugs in the street. Everything is much the way it was when I left here last in January. But the recent increase in violence (more violence in an already notoriously violent place), the political corruption and instability, the lack of any cohesive or effective law enforcement, loom as the perpetual back drop to life here...a reality that can pop-out and become bloodily manifest in an instant.

And I am not being dramatic here. I have heard many stories....first hand accounts. During my last trip a few months ago, my Spanish teacher attended two funerals within a month, two young friends lost. The first was a car accident...killed by a drunk driver. The second, a young woman driving home from Guatemala City, was shot in the head and left dead in her car in the middle of the road. The motive is still unknown as it did not appear to be a robbery and she had not been raped.

Then there was a sweet Guatemalan bartender from No Se, who's girlfriend was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after several men brandishing guns boarded their chicken bus and robbed everyone on board. Thankfully, no one was shot. And then there is another young man, a friend, whom I recently spoke with (he will remain un-named out of deference). He and I had many conversations during my last visit and we have kept in touch, chatting on facebook. But only recently did he share that both his parents were murdered when he was a toddler, part of the purging that was initiated in the early 1980s. You see, his parents were educated, his father a professor at a University in Guatemala City.

This reminded me of another friend's stories (again, I am being vague about the sources out of deference to my friends) about how, during the war, the military would board the chicken buses and search peoples things....if a book was found that person was yanked from the bus (and often disappeared or killed). Being educated, reading or being in possession of books...seditious according to the genocidal Guatemalan military.

And yet, although there are murderous gangs terrorizing the streets of Guatemala City, as my friend Mike noted in a recent email, "Here in Antigua we generally hear crickets." There is a peacefulness here, a predictability, a calm that one cannot imagine feeling in Guatemala City. And so I will amble the streets, sit in the cafes, read my books, and stay in a place of gratitude.

Want to Know if a Woman is a Homosexual?

2009-04-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

The following is an actual instant message conversation I had with an old High School friend that recently tracked me down in that strange virtual Web 2.0 world known as facebook. Kerri and I were good friends in the olden days but have been out of touch for most of the past 20 plus years. To the best of my recollection here is what we wrote as we started to catch up:

Mer: Those days feel like a 1000 years ago.
Kerri: Why?
Mer: My life is so very different now.
Kerri: In what way?
Mer: Well, for one thing I am a big ol’ out homosexual.
Kerri: Ya think?
Mer: You knew?
Kerri: I had my suspicions. You always carried my skis for me.

So if there is a woman in your life whom you suspect is a homosexual and you want to confirm that without directly asking her, I suggest you invite her to go snow skiing and see if she offers to carry your skis for you. If she does, she is as homo as homo can be.

Note: I like semi-sarcastically using the word “homosexual” because I find it hilariously absurd.

Remembering the Atomic 4 (And I Am a Big Dork)

2009-02-26T00:43:00.000-08:00

It’s true. It’s not that I just realized or discovered this fact about myself as I have been a big dork for as long as I can remember. But there are moments in my life when this reality suddenly comes into hyper-clear focus. Moments when I startle and say to myself, “my god Mer, you are such a dork.”

Recently, I experienced one of these moments. As is often my habit, I was eating scrambled eggs at a local diner with a magazine in front of me. I was reading an article in Good Old Boat entitled, “A History of the Universal Atomic 4.”

I once had an Atomic 4 engine in my old sailboat. This giant hunk of metal and I had a long and tumultuous relationship. My Atomic 4 was temperamental, obstinate, and unfaithful. She drove me nuts, emptied my wallet more than once, and regularly bloodied my knuckles. When she was cooperating, I felt a tentative and guarded affection for her, but I was always anticipating her next betrayal. And came it always did. And then I would cuss and throw things and pull out the shop manual huffing and puffing as I began, once again, trying to discern what my cranky Atomic 4 needed now. Eventually, the old gal died, cracked her head, which is a terminal condition for an engine. I replaced her with the ever loyal and dependable Yanmar 2GM20F.

So at the diner I am sitting with my magazine when I suddenly realize that I am getting excited reading things like, “Late-model engines with an integral thermostat housing in the cylinder head…” and “…optional 180°F thermostat that raises operating temperature…” I got a little thrill thinking, “Yes, the thermostat housing! I remember it well…and the hotter thermostat modification for the freshwater cooled engines. Oh boy.”

It was then that I stiffened in my seat and thought to myself, “I am such a big dork.” I actually laughed out loud. And then I thought about how ironic it was that I was reminiscing about that old cantankerous engine that left me anxious all the time I was sailing with her in the belly of my boat. But I also reflected that there were 50,000 of these engines made and put into production boats like mine. Most folks who have been around sailboats for a while know of the Atomic 4, and oddly enough, there was something comforting about reading this history shared by so many sailors and their mechanics.

When my Atomic 4 finally died, Mike, a salty, rambling, brilliant mechanic, was the guy who installed the new Yanmar and scrapped my old Atomic 4. The day I picked up my boat and handled the paper work, Mike caught me at the door and said he had one last thing to give me. He handed me a piece of paper which read:

Certificate of Death

We have some rather sad news. This is to certify that your very old, very sick, very tired, 4 cylinder gasoline engine, that was never designed to be saltwater cooled, has finally expired. It is DEAD. Its’ soul has joined its’ many brothers and sisters in the final resting place of the internal combustion engine.

Engine Model: Atomic 4
Date of Last Exhaust Stroke: 10-17-02
Location: Richmond Boat Works
Cause of Death: Natural, Inevitable
Attending Mechanic: Mike Haley
Witness: Ginger Hobart.

The family has requested that donations be sent directly to your
local Yanmar dealer.

A mechanic with a sense of humor. Nice. Believe me, one needs a reason to laugh after spending the serious money needed to install a new engine in an old sailboat). Mike had witnessed the death of many an Atomic 4 and so much a part of the sailing world was/is this old engine, he thought it kind and respectful to acknowledge its demise after 25 years of service (with a few insults imbedded).

As I drove home from the diner I got to thinking. I learned to be a better sailor because of that old engine. I was more alert and honed my skills because I knew that old engine was not a reliable backup and the San Francisco Bay can be a challenging place to sail. I realized that beyond my anger and frustration with the old Atomic 4, there was some appreciation. I had participated in a popular part of small sailboat history. I had been christened into the world of sailing and marine engines by my years of relating to that old hunk of engine. May she rest in peace.

So there you have it….a personified remembrance of my Atomic 4. And I think this clearly shows that I am, in fact, a big dork.

NOTE: I absolutely love my new Yanmar…she has made sailing the Bay a whole new experience. Push the button, she turns over. Sweet. We never fight and she almost always runs. She only gets cranky when her fuel gets dirty or her lines get clogged. And that’s pretty darn easy to fix (with a sigh and a smile).

Jimmy Goes Shopping for Nuts and Gets More than He Bargained For

2009-01-29T11:45:00.000-08:00

My brother can’t cook. Sure, he can scramble some eggs or assemble a nice turkey, Swiss and avocado sandwich with pre-sliced ingredients, and he can heat up a Trader Joe's frozen dinner, but the guy can’t cook. So when he moved in with me this past spring he watched with fascination as I prepared the simplest meals (my culinary talents are simple but an order of magnitude beyond Jimmy’s). What he found most fascinating is my routine of making giant salads of chopped lettuce, veggies, currents, chicken breast, and toasted pine nuts. Jimmy watched me carefully as I poured a few pine nuts into a frying pan, shaking it periodically over the stove flame until the nuts turned a light brown and I tossed them onto my bowl of veggies. He tried a bite and then declared “those nuts are really good.” He made this declaration as though he had just made an amazing discovery….which he had, because Jimmy doesn’t like nuts, or so he thought. The next day Jimmy was chopping his own lettuce and veggies and toasting pine nuts on the stove. He was converted.

Well, the summer passed without incident and Jimmy and I chopped and tossed our salads side-by-side several times a week…sometimes for lunch sometimes for dinner. We would sit on my office couch munching and watching the Rachel Maddow Show or sit at the island in the kitchen gossiping and making inappropriate jokes. In the mild summer evenings I would BBQ a bunch of chicken breasts for the week and Jimmy would watch me asking questions like, “how can you tell when the chicken is cooked?” Yes, Jimmy, pay attention, this is where food comes from….this is how we make raw chicken edible.

Fast-forward to November. I leave for a month on a trip to Central America and Jimmy is now on his own. No big sis supplying him with cooked chicken and pine nuts. Feeling empowered my young bro ventures forth to the Whole Foods with the intention of buying something more than pre-sliced deli meats and cheeses, and frozen dinners. Jimmy is gonna buy some pine nuts. He picks up some chicken breasts from the butcher and then heads to the bulk section for the pine nuts. He grabs a plastic bag and starts scooping the nuts. He imagines the bakers jar that I keep the nuts in at home in the pantry…he tries to imagine its volume. He keeps scooping and holding the bag up and estimating. With a bulging bag in hand he is finally confident he has an appropriate amount of nuts to fill the jar. Feeling empowered (and slightly proud) he heads towards the check out counter. He’s got the lettuce, the raw chicken breasts, and pine nuts!

The tattooed and pierced checker scans the items and the bagger scoops them into the handled-brown paper bag. The checker and the cash register both declare “that will be $85 sir.” Jimmy pauses for a second and then swipes his credit card. Jimmy grabs the bag and heads toward his car wondering how a few chicken breasts and a bag of nuts could cost $85 (even at Whole Foods)? At home he unpacks his groceries and checks the receipt to see what things cost. The chicken was more than he expected but he soon realized that a breast is actually both sides of a chicken’s chest. He had bought twice as much chicken as he thought. Ok. Moving along. He then checks the receipt and discovered he has bought $45 worth of pine nuts! He picks up the bulging plastic bag and pulls out the baker’s jar…there are about 3 times as many nuts as would fit into the jar. Shit.

The next day I return from Central America and the following morning Jimmy and I host a brunch for family and friends. Jimmy tells me the pine nut story and shows me the huge bag of nuts. I laugh heartily at him. Jimmy then looks at me, tilts his head and muses, “maybe I could make small baggies and sell them?” Great idea Jimmy, selling nickel bags of pine nuts at a family brunch you’re hosting.

The next morning family and friends fill our house and we all start eating and talking and laughing. For Christmas Jimmy received a coffee maker which he had not used yet. He pulls the filters and coffee out of the cupboard and asks no one in particular, “should I ask Ron how much coffee to scoop or should I just eyeball it?” Our quiet well mannered 11 year old niece Devyn was sitting next to us. She looks up and with conviction says, “I don’t think you should eyeball it.” “Why not?” Jimmy asks with a smile. With an “are you kidding me” expression, Devyn responds, “Remember the pine nuts?”

The Best Welcome Home

2009-01-18T23:27:00.000-08:00

I threw myself a welcome home brunch the day after the night I got back to Oakland, Ca...the end of a four and a half week trip to Honduras and Guatemala. Some of my most important peeps were on hand, including (the ex-New Yorkers gone Chicagoans) Andy and Jo and their gorgeous kids. There was the ever so pregnant Karen who was actually due that day but Calder decided to wait until Friday to pop out. And other biological and chosen family members including my niece Devyn, who I could swear matured five years since I last saw her which was actually on Thanksgiving (she turns 11 years old tomorrow).

Well, Devyn being the sweet soul she is wrote me a little welcome home poem I cannot not share. Here it is:

Gone for so long
Under the hot sun
A certified diver, oh what fun
Time and time again
Ever so caring
My friend, my aunt
Always incredibly loving
Love you
Aunt Mer

Please note what the first letter of each line spells.

What a treat. It was a nice transition back into to the more placid life I live here in the United States.

An Interesting Thank You

2008-11-24T16:56:00.001-08:00

Most days I wear a basic uniform of jeans and more often than not a white t-shirt. I wear them with my jeans, with cargo shorts, under my sailing bibs, to bed with PJ bottoms, under my button down shirts when I go to work, etc. Truth is, if I am not showering or swimming (or doing any other naked-type things) there is a high likelihood I am wearing a white t-shirt. I like 'em. Like the way they feel. Like the way they look. Like the simplicity. But not all t-shirts are created equal and I like the Nautica men's white crew size L (and not just because they come with a little blue sail embroidered on the bottom).

I order a few packages of these t-shirts as the old one's get dingy or stained by my uncoordinated meanderings through this red wine, red-sauce, dirt and grease filled world. I order these t-shirts online from a company named "Freshpair." My most recent order of shirts arrived this week with a little note from the president of Freshpair. This is what it said:

Thank you! We're honored you've chosen us to help enhance your underwear collection. We hope you'll be back soon to browse our virtual aisles again.

Michael Kleinmann

President

"Enhance" my "underwear collection"? Yes, my standard Nautica mens white crew t-shirts size large have really enhanced my extensive and varied underwear collection. I simply sparkle and am the envy of many. So enhanced is my underwear collection that people have been coming up to me asking, "wow, you look so good....what have you been doing lately?" I shrug and say, "it's nothin'....I just enhanced my underwear collection with sparkly new white t-shirts from Freshpair."

Note: My middle-aged female body looks nothing like the male model in the picture...but isn't that t-shirt just fabulous?!

Back To Central America!

2008-10-31T20:18:00.000-07:00

The thing about traveling far, making new friends, finding new places and people to love...the thing about it is I gotta go back. I gotta hug my new friends again, share another drink, see the place with fresh eyes, experience the old-new as the now-a-bit-familiar, experience the returning...and surprise everyone by keeping my damn word. Show them all I meant it when I said I would be back. And so I am going. Another December in the lower latitudes...another holiday season in Antigua with my new brothers and sisters. This time I go with a clear head, a mostly healed heart, and just a little bit, and I mean a little bit more Spanish.

I will again write a rough-on-the-go journal sitting in uncomfortable chairs in cramped internet cafes in unlikely places. I decided to revive my travel blog for these sloppy ramblings. So if you wanna know what I am doing in December go to:

merstravelblog.blogspot.com

And for those who might be interested here's the general plan.

November 30
LA to Guatemala City and Antigua, Guatemala

December 12
To La Ceiba, Honduras

December 13-20
To Utila (The Bay Islands), Honduras

December 20
Back to Antigua, GT

January 2, 2009
Guatemala City to LA

January 3, 2009
LA to Oakland

I also intend to see the Pacific Coast of Guatemala (the sea turtle hatchery in Monterrico) and head into El Salvador at some point....alone. It's gonna be good even when it's not. Even when it's hot and crowded and bumpy and buggy and scary and lonely. Even then.

I really like hearing from folks when I am traveling for weeks....so I encourage you to make a comment on the blog or shoot me an email. Trust me, it will mean a lot.

What Is Your Favorite Word?

2008-10-07T13:14:00.001-07:00

This is the question that I recently posed to friends and family and I received some very interesting, educational, and often hilarious responses....which of course I can't help but share. I asked people to not think too much and to respond quickly.

But I will start this by sharing my favorite word: "yes." This is assuming I get to ask the question to which "yes" is the response...like "I won the lottery?" or "Is it sunny out?" or "Wanna have sex?" or "Am I free to go now?" or "Do you love me?" or "Will I die happily in old age with my friends and family around me?" or....well, you get the point. Many of those who responded offered their second (and sometimes third and fourth) choice(s)...so I offer the same.

"Pleasure" is my second fave and this choice is the culmination of a lifetime of thinking too hard about too many things too often. In the movie Venus, Maurice (Peter O'toole), an aged aesthete unapologetically groping (pun intended) for some final connection with carnal beauty, is asked by his aged friend, "Do you believe in anything, Maurice?" Maurice responds, "Pleasure, I like. I've tried to give pleasure. That's all I'd recommend to anyone." It is a very hedonistic "power of now" sorta thing uttered by a man teetering at the brink of death. And I see his point. When all the constructs and romantic narratives crumble at last and the promise of any replacement is gone...there is yet the capacity and desire for him to give (and receive) pleasure. For Maurice, it is the value of pleasure, at last, that endures.

But looking back there have been many words for which I felt a significant affinity. Heady words like "ontology" or "epistemology" or "existential"... the last word being the one I looked up whenever I checked out a dictionary (I used to love looking at period dictionaries...weird, I know). And then of course there is the ineffable word "love"...a word I have more and more committed to just feel and express versus robustly understand and explain.

And lastly there are the more base words that seduce me (again, puns intended). "Lust" and "fuck" are two favorites....and when realized in the order presented, well, we are back to "pleasure." And as my birthdays and contemplations have accumulated I keep coming back to these two simple words, "yes" and "pleasure." And when these two words are married, well, saying yes to pleasure? That works for me.

Next I offer you the responses from my friends and family presented here with only the most insignificant editing and in no particular order.

Deb
"believe"

Zane (age 10)
"love"

Rod
"genuine"

Elizabeth
"fledgling"

Shelly
"vacation"

Jessi
"motherfucker"
I so appreciate a foul-mouthed femme!

Karen
"fabulous"

Penny
"bloody"
I think she means it in the British-slang sense....especially since she is a paramedic!

Kevin
"utopia"

Sylvie
"sidereal"

Tracy
"My favorite word off the top of my head is 'panacea' not to be confused with 'pancetta."
The cure-all or the ham? Wonder what she meant?

Catherine
"Topolobampo', it is the name of a port city in Mexico (I've never been there) but I love the word! It sounds kinda like falling down stairs, but in a good way, as though perhaps tequila was involved..."

Stephen
"Delicious'...even when it is used out of context it is perfect."

Leila
"First thing that came to mind is 'perseverate."

Brother-Inlaw John
"ac·cou·ter·ment or ac·cou·tre·ment (-ktr-mnt, -tr-) n.
1. An accessory item of equipment or dress. Often used in the plural.2. Military equipment other than uniforms and weapons. Often used in the plural.3. accouterments or accoutrements Outward forms of recognition; trappings: cathedral ceilings, heated swimming pools, and other accoutrements signaling great wealth.4. Archaic The act of accoutering."
John is nothing if not meticulous!

Revi
"Tintinnabulation - since you asked me not to think too much - I like - succubi - quite well as well."

Sister Marcy
"appreciation" was her first submission but she changed it to "empathy"

Sister Laurs
"Aujourdhui'....it's French and means today......have always loved it."

Brother Jimmy
"pork-bellies"

Brother Outlaw Jonald (whose name we have bastardized to distinguish him from the other John)
"YES !!!! (a wise woman named Mer told me that one)"
Aww...thanks Jonald!

Nephew Ian (age 10)
"arugula"

Brother-Outlaw Ron
"Phoopie' a Chico State spawned PG f-word replacement."

Sister Julie
"Mine is fun because I seriously like having fun. I want to go to amusement parks and play computer games and read and go to museums and play board games. I search out fun things to do and then look forward to them. I like to laugh and I think a lot of things are funny. One of my favorite sayings is “Some people think life is a battle. It’s not; it’s a game.” The best games are challenging, interesting,…and fun!"

Neice Devyn (age 10)
"Whizpopper - it comes from her favorite book, The Big Friendly Giant by Roald Dahl. The giant drinks soda but in his world, the bubbles go down instead of up and they make farts, which he calls whizpoppers."

Nephew Trent (age 8)
"Trent’s is cheese, which comes from one of his own sayings that he has repeated often: 'I like cheese', said with a dramatic flair. It’s usually said to fill the silence (because god forbid there be any of that) or as a transition to a new topic or as an avoidance (eg, Trent, what are you going to write for your sentence on your homework?....'Um…..I like cheese!”)

Devyn and Trent submitted their words via Julie (their mom).

Niece Riley (age 8)
"artistic"

Niece Avery (age 5)
"John"
Her father's name!

And last but hardly least is a most hilarious rambling from my friend Andie. I present it here unedited for your reading pleasure.

Andie
"It's a tie between topography (plain old word I get to use often) and Ollantaytumbo (place name I rarely get to use but gets stuck in my head randomly and often; so does it count in your weird little world?). But then there is also archipelago and Titicaca (another place name, but in English I just can't believe how lucky we are to know there is a place with such a name out there! Named far before Bevis and Butthead were created!). I don't like single favorites. Top 5, top 10, maybe even 2 favorites - but in a world with so many amazing choices how can you ever pick just one? Especially if you are a Libra? OK, that was off the top of my head, but I love words so there are plenty more. OOOooo, like rungeechungge, the Nepalese word for colorful. Or Appalachian, but it has to be said correctly. I am working! Damn you! You miss me, don't you? And you get to see me soon. Are you going to put a list together of peoples favorites? I want to see! I bet Ollantaytumbo wins. Well actually, it would probably depend on what kind of words you like, whether foreign words count (anaranjado and pantalones and zappatos are all great), and whether anyone gets to "win"....Didn't you say quick? I will stop now."

Take a breath Andie! And by the way, YOU win for the most longest and hilarious submission! Congratulations!

Thanks for humoring me folks.

A Day at the Office and a Rancher Called Pete

2008-09-23T23:54:00.001-07:00

There is a small hydro project in California that X utility decided to decommission because relicensing said facility would simply not be cost effective. The decision was also informed by the fact that decommissioning the project would help create much needed habitat for anadromous fish (i.e. salmon). The decision to decommission the project will result in the loss of a small reservoir that is currently used as a fishing hole by a small population of folks living in the surrounding rural community. And these anglers are pissed.

I have facilitated several public meetings where the decommissioning decision and process has been explained…including the fact that the decision is legally irreversible. Utility X has given up their license and can no longer operate the project. They are mandated to develop a decommissioning plan and implement it. This has been repeatedly explained and public input for the plan has been solicited on several occasions.

Recently, utility X hosted yet another public meeting to present a draft of the plan to the public and provide an opportunity for additional comment. The community folks came to the meeting still pressing utility X to “save” the reservoir for recreational use. Antagonistically they challenged the utility on the logic of their decision, at times pleading for them to reconsider.

Part of my job is to manage the conversation and expectations…to act as a hinge and help clarify key points including the stated legal parameters of a given proceeding. In this case, NOT decommissioning was NOT a legal option. Representatives from utility X reiterated this fact again and again in straight forward language and then I repeatedly paraphrased things in an attempt to foster understanding. And, well, it just didn’t take. Many of the local folks, mostly ranchers and farmers, were not accepting reality.

At one point a woman aggressively interrupted me and stated, “Come on. This is the United States of America and we can do anything if we really want to.” Hmmm, I thought, this is interesting logic. This woman feels that “we” should violate the Code of Federal Regulations and the Federal Power Act to save an insignificant reservoir so a few folks can have a nice little fishing hole in rural California which is a ginormous state with an astonishing amount of recreational opportunities including prime fishing in the areas surrounding this community. “We” should do this even though it would cost millions and would thwart the habitat restoration for anadromous fish which over the past 100 years have loss 90+% of their habitat on the west coast. This same women went on to say the following (I am paraphrasing but I am pretty close here including the awkward syntax):

“When you take away the reservoir then the animals like the mountain lions and the bears will lose a source for getting water and then they will come down to the ranches and I used to have 11 cats and now I only have two and I have a young son. What are you going to do when you are liable when a mountain lion can’t get water from the reservoir and comes to my ranch and kills my son? What are you going to do about that?”

I am not kidding, this was her statement/question late in the meeting….a “when did you stop beating your wife?” question with such grossly faulty presuppositions I was amazed. This is one of the more creative bits of reasoning I have observed….and believe me, I have heard some crazy shit at public meetings. Mr. XX from the utility did an excellent job of handling the question, carefully explaining that the loss of the reservoir would not be a significant impact on animal habitat and there are innumerable water sources in the area for the thirsty mountain lions that she fears will eat her son as a snack while seeking to quench their thirst.

Again, when I facilitate public (key word here) meetings I often think of it more as playing referee…hopefully I help foster a little more understanding between parties but mostly I just set the tone and manage the meeting so no one starts throwing shit. Public meetings are not the most enjoyable part of my job…except when I get to meet men like Pete.

Pete is a quiet man, a rancher of maybe 60 years. His family has ranched on his land for generations and he and his wife and two daughters continue that tradition. I don’t get the sense that Pete or his family is formally educated beyond high school. Pete and his family have real concerns regarding the potential impacts that decommissioning the project may have on their water rights. There are some structural changes that will occur that may result in rerouting their water diversion. His concerns are neither fishing nor mountain lion attacks.

I remember the first public meeting over a year ago when I met Pete and his family. He wore his NRA hat and a pair of Wrangler jeans held up with suspenders. We shook hands and I felt the calluses of a working man. He smiled and looked me in the eye and told me I did a good job running the meeting. He introduced me to his family…earthy folks of few words. At each subsequent meeting Pete and I always greeted each other. We sought each other out through the crowd and said hi and he usually complimented me on my performance no matter how mellow the meeting may have been.

I have reflected that we come from such different worlds and I am sure our politics are mostly diametrically opposed. I am a butch queer city slicker (ok, not that slick) consultant contracted by the seemingly monolithic utility X. He is an NRA supporting rancher living in the California bible belt. Yet there is some sort of connection between this man and me…something that transcends the obvious differences in our worlds. We meet each other in some way.

The most recent meeting I facilitated was really tough. I worked hard for two and half hours straight dealing with irrational questions and borderline belligerence on the part of many of the community members (see above). My job is to manage the volatility enough so it does not erupt into more dramatic dysfunction. It is an art, not a science and it involves being hyper-present and attentive and relating in a way that can be exhausting. When we adjourned I plopped into a chair and just sat there for about five minutes barely talking to anyone. Finally, I got up and scanned the room for Pete. He was engaged in conversation with folks so, exhausted, I decided to leave without saying hello. I headed out the back door into the parking lot when suddenly I heard Pete’s voice, “Marie.” I turned to see he had chased me out the door and he had a big smile on his face. “You earned your money tonight. You did a good job. I just love watching you work.” I walked towards him, “Thank you Pete. I really appreciate your feedback.” Our conversation was brief and we shook hands…we both smiled big at each other and sincerely wished each other a good night.

I have often said that the less tangible benefit of my work is the personal and spiritual growth that results from interacting with folks I would probably never otherwise encounter in my life. This is a man that many would reduce to a cliché, some stereotypical Republican-NRA-supporting-idiot not deserving of consideration. He is someone that folks in San Francisco (myself included at times) might summarily dismiss because of the profound cultural differences. But I got to meet him, shake his hand, see his sweet smile and sparkly eyes, meet his wife and daughters, hear some of the history of his family’s ranching and his legitimate concerns regarding his water. I got see his gentle and respectful way of participating in the crazy public meetings. And he got to see me do my stuff at the front of the room and he appreciated me for it….this butch dyke from the city. There is something about this man that has touched me and I can say that I am truly grateful to know Pete the rancher…

There you have it. A little slice of my days at the “office” trying to keep the peace.

Current Favorites, Preoccupations, and Distractions

2008-08-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Smell:
Mr. Zog's Sex Wax
The best smelling surfboard wax known to man...it's my potpourri. Seriously. Have a bar sitting here right next to me. I'm a huffer. I huff surfboard wax.

Food:
Pine nuts and currants on salad. Can't imagine life without the pignoli. Toasted of course.

Book Title:
I Don't Believe in Atheists by Chris Hedges
Haven't read the book yet but I think the title is hilarious.

Journal Article:
Why Ivy Leagures Can't Think: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education by William Deresiewicz in The American Scholar, Summer 2008
Articulates wonderfully much of what I have thought and preached for years...but he makes the critique as an insider after realizing he doesn't know how to have a conversation with his plumber.

Magazine Article:
Why is There a Universe at All? by Adolf Grunbaum in Free Inquiry, June/July 2008
Get out the truth tables and philosophy dictionary for this rambling exploration of "primordial existential questions" and "the null possibility" and "the ontological spontaneity of nothingness." I studied the article and there is a much more accessible way to say this stuff...but then, maybe I got it all wrong. After all, my education was not an elite one. So I decided to answer the primordial existential question for myself by expressing awe at the ontological spontaneity of nothingness and quoting Neutral Milk Hotel: "Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all." I guess I will always land with the NMHs or the William Blake's of the world over the positivists and haughty logicians. Nonetheless, I do enjoy the intellectual meandering.

Drugs:
Vicodin
I recently injured my back while working out. Got to hurtin' so bad I resorted to two days of serious drugs which is unusual for me. The vicadin made me sweat and have nightmares, but the good thing about being on a narcotic is that one doesn't care so much about such things. And my back didn't hurt. Feeling much better now thanks.

Doctor:
Dr. Bruce
My hyper-competent, caring, and hilarious chiropractor who completely appreciates my perverted and irreverent humor. He hurts me so and then soon after, I feel better. We have such a physically intimate relationship for two people who barely know each other. God bless the chiros.

Bed Buddies:
Books
I used to sleep with women but now I sleep with books. All kinds of books...even comic books. Sometimes I sleep with magazines or journals. When I change my sheets I find books or magazines I had forgotten about...books that slid into the cracks or got lost under a pillow, old magazines with crinkled pages and yesterdays news. Although it is my intention to sleep with women again, books never snore or hog the bed or fart in the night...and I will leave it at that for now.

Teaching:
Conflict Resolution
Love teaching but got a little depressed when I found out that several of the students couldn't write at a graduate level. Some couldn't write at an undergraduate level. Told them I would fail their asses if they didn't get help and stop turning in crap. I was slightly more diplomatic. Only slightly. Most everyone got their shit together and odds are there will be no failing grades.

Why does Coke bottled in Mexico taste better than Coke bottled in the US?

2008-08-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

Because they make it with sugar in Mexico and high fructose corn syrup in the US. Next time you are in a taqueria check the label yourself. Isn't that fascinating?

Surfwise

2008-08-14T22:40:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen this movie and you love surfing...or appreciate those who do, or like stories about nutty folks who jump off the grid and choose a very different path, check it out. An eccentric Jewish Stanford doctor drops out, gets back to surfing, meets the love of his life, screws every day, and raises 9 kids in a 24 foot camper. They roam the states, the Americas, and surf the west coast like it was their job. In fact, he made it their job. Fascinating story. And here are a couple interesting quotes from the old dude (he's 86 years old now).

Fucking to me is the word of god. Right here in America, we're a bunch of weirdos. Our culture is going to pieces and no one is saying, well, it's all because we're awful fuckers and the more awful fuckers we become, the more pornographic, the more promiscuous, and the more prurient and x-rated we become. Cultures that are all fucked up about sex, about fucking, are the cultures that will decline and in the process of their decline they will cause war.

~Dorian Paskowits

Interesting perspective. I suspect there is more than a little truth to it.

Surfing recreates you. I have gone into the water literally ready to blow my brains out and come back out of the water a warrior.

~Dorian Paskowits

I relate deeply to this statement. Although I have never been ready to blow my brains out, I have certainly, many times, experienced the profound healing affect of riding a wave on my board. An hour in the water is worth a thousand hours of therapy. It is one of the most restorative things I have experienced in my 44 years of living.

Picture: Me over a decade ago at Angels Camp, K74, Baja, Mexico. I still ride this board every summer (9'), although she has a few more dings and I now only go out on small waves (and now my hair is grey!) But I aspire to be like Dorian (and Woody, from Surfing for Life...if you know that movie) and still be surfing in my 80s. Seriously.

http://www.surfwisefilm.com/

What Do You Sip and Read at Midnight?

2008-08-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

When I don't have to be up early, I am often quite the night-owl...it's often when I think, write, read, contemplate my naval and other fascinating subjects. Recently, a new friend noticed on my gmail-chat that I was up at midnight and she started a conversation. She is quite the witty one and asked me what I was doing up so late...and then wrote: "I picture you sipping whiskey and reading Voltaire." Voltaire? I haven't read Voltaire in over 20 years and have no plans to do so now. And I hate whiskey, with a passion. So I tongue-in-cheek confessed that I was sipping a Bud Light and reading People magazine. A more representative answer would have been sipping mescal and reading La Cuadra. But the truth is, I was drinking a Blackberry Honest Tea and reading the dictionary.

I am always amazed how we human beings formulate impressions of each other. I have contemplated this topic for years, formally and informally, trying to cultivate some rudimentary understanding of what informs our sense of who we are in the world, our subjectivity, our sense of connectedness and belonging....or not. My friend Jill and I have had many conversations exploring the idea that in so many ways we are our relationships...what others reflect back to us, the good and the bad, is the fodder we use to create our internal subjects, our internal constructs of "self." We use this feedback and it informs how we dress, talk, parent, fuck, work, etc...the list is endless.

There are those relationships that have long informed our sense of self, provided the fodder for our cumulative internal construct of "me" that provides the foundation for our ego-ic existence. Our family, old friends, people who see the best (and the worst) in us and consistently reflect it back in their words and deeds. And then there are the newer relationships, those with little history...for me, folks who never knew the angsty teenage Mer or the jock Mer, or dare I confess, the makeup wearing Mer (it was wrong, so very wrong and so long ago!). They only know the contemporary Mer, the Mer developed over 44 years of living and processing input from countless interactions and relationships.

So back to my late night gmail-chat. How does this women, this new friend come up with Voltaire and whiskey? And what do I do with this information? What notion does it fuel in me? It's fresh....a compliment, succinct, isolated. She thinks I am smart because Voltaire is not simple. She knows I drink...whiskey? Sort of masculine. She knows I am butch and queer and appreciates that about me. None of my family or old friends would have guessed such a thing as they have too much history and knowledge. Typically, the shorter the time one knows someone, the more weight each comment or observation carries, if it is valued. There is a liberty in being perceived fresh and anew...and there is a comfort in being known for decades by those who love me. The former brings opportunity and exploration, new fodder for growth and reinvention, a weightless and fresh immediacy. The latter brings comfort, a sense of safety and familiarity. Each has it's unique brilliance.

The next day I told my brother about "sipping whiskey and reading Voltaire." I asked him what he would sip and read at midnight? "Wheat grass and Deepak Chopra," he lied. That's as believable as me sipping chardonnay and reading Bridal Magazine! My brother? A Fat Tire and Spin Magazine. There is no doubt. So what about you? What do you sip and read at midnight?

A Social Equation

2008-08-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

mer + brother + indie rock show + The 500 Club = trouble

I formulated and solved this one all by myself!

True Dat!

2008-07-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission.

Neil Kendall

Creative Avoidance, My Male Brain, and Getting Sir’d in DC

2008-07-19T00:08:00.000-07:00

Creative avoidance…that’s what I call it. The joys of internet wanderlust… distracting and illuminating, the contemporary office-bound-procrastinator’s drug of choice. I have a stack of papers to grade, assignments to read, a lecture and an exam to prepare, two RFPs to sort out, two draft essays in progress, a poor excuse for the start of a novel, and a half written book proposal…all things vying for my attention. Yet today I found myself sitting at my desk in my office looking at a website that informed me I have a male brain. That’s right. According to the diagnostic test I took on a BBC website, I think like a man. And so I will continue to creatively avoid my work and prattle on a bit about what I learned.

The BBC worked with a bunch of shrinks who have developed various tests exploring the differences in the way men and women think. These tests are being used to conduct further research on the subject of brain sex differences. This hybrid test is available online for anyone to take and supposedly discover where they fall on the “male-female brain continuum.” If you want to take the test before reading more about it, go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/index_cookie.shtml

The researchers present a continuum that starts at zero and goes to 100 on a female side and 100 on a male side. I scored 50 on the male side…this is the average score for men (the average score for women is 50 on the female side). I think and perceive certain things like the average man. Oh joy.

The first part of the test is the perception and comparison of angles. I have seen other experiments where women were asked to identify a plum line or a horizon line relative to another angled line. I watched as they failed miserably and the men got it with ease. I remember feeling uneasy about this…thinking I could do better but fearing I actually couldn’t. And for some reason I remember really caring about my potential performance and ability to spatially comprehend my world (I also remember reading about women having better digital dexterity which lead researchers to suggest they would be better at brain surgery….for some reason this didn’t bother me…hee hee). But back to the angles. I did the exercises and got every one right…20 out of 20. Yeah! As a sailor and navigator, activities that benefit greatly if one can distinguish horizons and differences in angles, I was elated. The average score for women: 13.3/20, and for men: 15.1/20.

Other fascinating things purported to make my brain male: my right thumb being dominant when I cross my hands, a long ring finger relative to my index finger (which indicates left brain dominance), a lack of sensitivity in noticing moved objects, the ability to identify 3D shapes in different positions, being attracted to feminine female faces, and the inclination to ask for money (take the test and this will all make sense).

But the part of the test I found most interesting was the section where I was asked to identify a persons emotions by looking at their eyes. I didn’t do so hot. I scored 5 out of 10. The average man scored 6.6. This result surprised me because I have actually actively studied facial expressions and their associated emotions.

Dr. Paul Ekman has spent many years studying facial muscles, expressions, and their associated emotions. He asserts that there is a universal correlation between human microexpressions and our emotional responses. Microexpressions are facial expressions that may last as little as a quarter of a second and reveal our initial emotional responses. According to Ekman’s research, these microexpressions are universal in their presentation, cannot be faked, and are the same for every human being. He has studied people from all over the world (including people from Papua New Guinea who have never been exposed to western culture). Ekman asserts that learning to read these fleeting microexpressions can help people better understand the emotional responses of people with whom they interact.

As part of his work Ekman has developed an interactive tool (available on CD) to develop one’s ability to read these microexpressions. He claims one can learn this stuff in an hour and I have found this to be true. A couple years ago I bought Ekman’s CD, took the diagnostic test and scored about 70%. I then did the tutorial and took another test. Within one hour my score rose to 97%. I was amazed. Recently I used this tool in a class I am teaching. Preparing for the class I took the test again (about two years since the first time). With no review I scored 96%. And when I used the tool during class, I watched as the students just as quickly developed their skills. Interestingly enough, contempt and disgust are the easiest to identify. My students came back the next week amazed at how much contempt and disgust they had not been seeing in their lives.

Despite the skills I supposedly cultivated using Ekman’s interactive CD, I scored poorly on this section of the sex-brain test which further solidified the notion that I think and perceive like a man.

But this isn’t the only time research has categorized me as male-ish. I remember in college taking a speech class where the teacher would often talk about male-female differences in communication. Once she told the class to freeze in their desks and then look around and see the differences in the way men and women occupied their seats. For the most part, the men took up more space, legs and arms spread open. The women kept their limbs closer in…took up less space. And then there was me, leaning back, legs stretched way out and open, arms up clasped behind my head. I had one of the most “masculine” postures in the class during that little experiment. The teacher pointed out that these are generalizations and not always applicable. But this was not the only time in the class I was the exception…and by the end of the semester the teacher would jokingly say, “Except for Marie, how many of you women have…yada yada yada.” I was almost always the exception to the generalized differences between men and women that were presented in class. What a shocker.

So all this got me to thinking about how much I have been “sir’d” lately. That’s what I call it when people call me “sir” despite the fact that I am female. A few months ago I was in Washington DC for work. Now I know the East Coast is more conservative than the west coast in many ways, including playing with gender, but DC was astonishingly clueless. I arrived in DC by train and jumped in a cab and headed towards the downtown Hilton. When the cab pulled up the doorman opened my door and said, “Welcome sir.” I nodded with a grin. I paid the cabbie, grabbed my bag, and headed to the counter to check in…”Hello sir. Welcome to the Hilton.” I handed the man my reservation paper which had my name on it. He looked at it and welcomed me again ending with “Mr. RainH20.” He hadn’t noticed that the paper had my full name, Marie RainH20. He hadn’t considered that most men are not named Marie. “One or two keys sir?” “One” I answered. He stood there prim and proper, providing extra respectful service, and utterly clueless that he was missing something. Grinning, I watched him work. He then came around the counter to hand me my key, explaining this and that, ending with, “Sir, the elevator to your floor is right this way. Have a wonderful evening sir.” I stood there with my hips and tits and ass, grinning….he never did figure it out. He thought I was a man. Perhaps he noticed the way I folded my hands…right thumb on top. Maybe he noticed my relatively long ring finger. Or the way I so adroitly perceived all those hotel lobby angles.

Half an hour later I am back in the lobby asking the concierge where to eat. Again, very prim and proper, he greets me with, “Good evening sir. How can I help you sir?” I ask him my questions about local restaurants and he starts to answer…and then I see the recognition emerge. He softens a bit, embarrassment fueling a new eagerness to be helpful to me…and then he bids me a sir-less goodnight.

Now for the latest mystery I am grappling with regarding my manish-male-brained self. I have a personals profile on the solan.com website and a valued feature lets me see who has viewed my profile. Lately, straight women have been checking out my page with baffling frequency. This mystifies me…women who clearly state they are looking for relationships with men. I don’t understand since I clearly state that I am looking for connections with women….oh, and I also disclose that I am, in fact, a woman. It puzzles me because any search they would initiate looking for men would filter me out. Are they somehow picking up on and following my very male-brained ways and jumping across the dyke/straight divide?

Anyway, my work beckons and I am now guilting myself into responding. Thanks for reading.

Signed,
Mr. RainH20

Further Confirmation That I Am Not An Intellectual

2008-07-07T19:16:00.000-07:00

An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.

Aldous Huxley

From "No Profanity" to Mayhem…and One Not So Graceful Exit

2008-07-06T01:04:00.000-07:00

It took only seconds to realize we had made a terrible mistake. My brother Jimmy and I looked at each other as the lights went down in the basement theatre off Union Square …. “this ain’t right” we said to each other without speaking.

The night started out promising, Jimmy and I both happy to head to the city for some dinner and theatre. We quickly scanned the last minute half-price tickets. Sam Sheppard? No, not in the mood for depressing. No musicals, on this Jimmy and I agreed. So we ended up with some obscure little six-acts, two actors, two chairs, one-door and no intermission-thingy. Could be interesting. But it was off Union Square…not the Mission. We should have known.

We showered, dressed, jumped in the Mini and zipped to the city. Before the show we stumbled into some fancy steak house bar and had oysters and salads and talked movies and conjectured as to why a beautiful woman dining next to us (with two well dressed fags) kept staring at us. Who knows.

Soon enough we were sitting in our theatre seats reading the program which bragged that the six acts were written targeting “general audiences everywhere” and had “no profanity.” They had this in the program…as a selling point! Shit-fuck-damn! They aren’t gonna cuss? They’re targeting middle-America? Eighty-five minutes long? No intermission? Jimmy and I look at each other…a mild panic rising. I chastise Jimmy for picking seats far from the door complicating our escape. Fuck.

Then the lights went down and it was just awful. Really really awful! Jimmy and I looking at each other in the dark whispering “When should we leave? Can we slip out after the first act? I don’t know, maybe we should stay for two acts?” More awfulness unfolds on stage. Mercifully, the first act ends then the lights go out for the “set” change. Shit, we can’t see a thing. How are we gonna get outta here? Lights go back on and we are into act two. Jimmy can’t stand it anymore…he leans into me and unambiguously asserts, “We ARE leaving after act two.” Ok Jimmy, I am with ya buddy. We are in the front row and we study the landscape so we know where to go when the theatre goes dark again.

Act two ends and the lights go out. We jump up and shuffle blindly across the theatre to what we think is the exit….shit, the door is locked! My god! They’ve locked us in this basement! Wait, that’s not the door we came in…we can’t see a damn thing. There are four doors, I grope for another one. Nope, locked. Jimmy tries a third door…it opens. We start to go through…wait! It’s an elevator! Shit. Now the stage lights are on…act three is starting….we’ve become a spectacle banging around trying to free ourselves from this maze of a theatre. I push through the last door…the lobby! Thank god! We quickly climb the stairs…we get to the top and open the door. Behind it there is a closed gate! My god, they have truly locked us in here! I push on the gate. It gives. Jimmy and I walk briskly down the hall and onto Sutter Street and start laughing.

Now this has been a mildly entertaining evening so far, but it is early and Jimmy and I ponder what to do. How about a movie? We grab a Guardian and look at our options. Gonzo, a Hunter S. Thompson documentary, or Savage Grace? Both are dark and debauched. Fitting we thought since the awful play had no cussing….lets swing the pendulum real wide. We agree on Savage Grace. We get to the theatre early, pick the best seats and wait. An older couple comes in right after the movie starts and sits directly behind us. The old man keeps talking and loudly hacking up phlegm. Again, Jimmy and I look at each other in the dark…are you fucking kidding me people? We move, stretch out in the handicap seats in the last row…much roomier.

We then proceed to watch the true story (spoiler alert if you wanna see this one) of a really rich family where the father leaves the mother for the gay sons young girlfriend and then the mother fucks the son’s male lover and the son at the same time…then the mother fucks just the son and then she tries to kill herself but the son saves her…mother and son continue to fuck until the son stabs and kills the mother. But wait. He’s not done yet. The son spends years in a mental institution for the criminally insane but then gets out and goes to live with his murdered mother’s mother whom he also stabs within one week of his arrival. But wait, it’s still not over. He goes to prison and then kills himself. Now it’s over. We swung the pendulum wide indeed. There was definitely cussing…and much, much more. Too much more.

After the movie we head towards the parking garage. Confused, we stand in front of a non-responsive elevator for some time before figuring out it doesn’t go down to our floor. Seems we are still struggling with exists. We both resist the urge to go to the 500 Club and have a drink. We go home and Jimmy has one beer and goes to bed. I sit down and start writing.

Tales From the Bungalow

2008-06-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

Jimmy is an awesome roommate and often puts the clean dishes away...but where he puts them I know not. Hmmm...where would I put the vegetable steamer if I were Jimmy? Or the salad tongs? Smiling, I patiently search the kitchen...

Freaked Out By Google Earth!

2008-06-29T21:00:00.001-07:00

For the past couple years I have heard people refer to Google Earth and what an amazing website it is...but I paid little attention. Years ago I had poked around on the USGS satellite site and figured it was a similar thing...decades old high-altitude satellite shots of the rooftops and city streets. I thought "been there done that"....so it has taken until today for me to venture onto Google Earth. Well, what a bloody shock it was to find out that there is the high-up plan view of my rooftop...but there is also a closeup of my house! Taken June 2007! And not only can I see my house but I panned around to see my neighbors houses and down my street. I was astonished!

As I spewed expletives and stared at the screen my brother was in the room and sarcastically asked me where I had been for the last few years. He explained that a fleet of big vans rigged with wide-angle-lensed-cameras drive around photographing our world and posting it onto the web for all to see.

I ventured to the marina where my boat is berthed. I found my slip...it was empty. A June day...I was out sailing. Then I panned to the parking lot and saw where my little mini was parked.

Ok, that is fucking freaky. For many reasons. The world is shrinking from such technology while it simultaneously isolates many of us, relegating many relationships to being virtual...we no longer smell, touch, see, hear each other if we don't want to. Professionally I am being called upon to do more and more online facilitation....tethered to my phone by a headset, staring at a computer screen while someone miles away edits. All this technology is liberating in some ways but I ponder the costs.

For some reason this whole discovery leaves me feeling a bit unsettled and I am not completely sure why. Perhaps I fear that the next time the van comes I might be innocently sunbathing nude in my front yard or some such thing. But I think it is much deeper than that.