Musings on Dance, Food, Geek Stuff
Last December, it hit me out of the blue what I wanted to do for my 50th birthday. I was having dinner with my mother in a Filipino restaurant. In an adjoining dining room, we could hear some kind of party taking place. There was music, cake, food, dancing — the works. I thought to…
I was hanging out by a public pool the other day and was watching the little kids playing and interacting with each other. There was one young boy, maybe 5 or 6 years old, who seemed to be by himself. The other kids had siblings or friends that they were with. The boy REALLY wanted…
“Wherever you go, there you are.” I’m crying laughing because it’s true.
About ten years ago, I was actively blogging about virtual worlds, focusing on developments in this technology, what people were creating in online worlds, and how this interacted with the real world. I was fairly well known, particularly in the Second Life subcommunities. I was also active in the Quaker faith, blogging frequently about my…
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of watching the show “Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce” at the Curran Theater with my friend Liz. Taylor Mac is a performance artist, drag queen, singer, and MacArthur Fellow. “Holiday Sauce” takes a fresh, critical, queer / liberal / feminist view of Christmas traditions and music, as told by a…
Bettina was a passionate, young human rights lawyer who I loved very much. In 1994, she and I worked at the World Federalist Association, a peace organization in Washington DC. I was a research fellow focused on transnational financial institutions. Bettina was hired to work on global human rights issues, including the proposed International Criminal…
I had a revelation the other day about ice cream sundaes. Bear with me here. I was eating an ice cream sundae at one of my favorite ice cream shops in the city, Hometown Creamery in the Sunset. Hometown always has a fascinating, often weird, array of flavors that they make in the shop. I…
DISCLAIMER: I am not a mental health professional. These are just my personal views and experiences as a “veteran” dancer. If you are experiencing intense feelings of depression or anxiety, please see a mental health provider in your area. I’m a “social dancer.” Which means that I dance a style (lindy hop) that requires two…
At the end of the remarkable rock climbing film The Dawn Wall, pro-climber Tommy Caldwell, described what it was like planning his legendary free climb of the Dawn Wall of El Capitan (my rough paraphrase): “For ten years I mapped out what I hoped was a climbable route up the Dawn Wall, never really sure…
As a newbie climber, I can fall into the trap of continually comparing myself to other, more experienced climbers. From this perspective, other climbers are the competition, and their successes make me look like a worse climber in comparison. I’d see someone scend a hard route and think, “I will never be that good.” Not…