The other night I was was having dinner with a new friend in a dingy but comfortable Mexican restaurant in Oakland. Over veggie tacos, she was telling me about a project she was working on, one that she moved to the Bay Area specifically for. She recounted how much work had already gone into it,…
Category: The Spirit
On the Importance of Multiple Passions
An older figure I know has devoted his entire life to his profession. He’s excellent at it. It’s also the only thing he has practiced with any kind of dedication or passion for the last 40 or so years of his life. So now that he is in retirement age, he doesn’t have much else…
Designing Your Life: Applying a Designer’s Mindset to Your Career
I just finished Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. A present from a good friend (Thanks, Barry!), it comes at a perfect time in my life, as I contemplate a career shift. Designing Your Life is essentially a guide to applying a design-thinking process to career planning. As someone who has done…
I Broke Up a Fight Today
Today on my lunch break, I was walking to a restaurant in the Inner Sunset when I came upon two older men kind of sprawled on the ground on top of each other. There was grunting and grappling, one with his arm around the neck of the other. A nearby bike was knocked over on…
My 2017 Year in Review: Pies, Dancing, Safaris, Pastries, and More Dancing!
Okay I am WAY late to this, but I felt compelled to throw something together tonight. Here’s my 2017 year in review. Quick 2017 Stats Freestyle Dance Videos Shot: 7 Number of Marches and Protests: 3 Number of Pies Baked: 5 New Hobbies Acquired: 1 (rock climbing) Dance Competitions Entered: 5 Countries Visited: 1 (South…
Why I Need Lindy Hop
Voon and Veronica at Central Park Swings, 2008 Every once in awhile I feel guilty about all the time and energy I spend on dancing, when I could be out fighting injustice, building homes for the poor or lobbying Congress more. And then I finish a kick-ass dance weekend and head off to my job…
How to be Happily Single Forever
Looking back on my life, I would say that most of it has been spent as a single person. Across the span of nearly three decades as an adult, I’ve only had a few instances where I was in a committed relationship. And for the most part, I’m just fine with that. Recently this article…
Anne Lamott on “12 Truths from Life and Writing”
I'm an old fan of Anne Lamott, a writer's writer and a constantly inspiring figure in my life. So I was so pleased to stumble across this TED Talk she did earlier this year on "12 Truths from Life and Writing." I need to watch this every morning of my life.
Dwarf Quaker Slavery-fighting Activist Benjamin Lay is My New Hero
The New York Times has an inspired write up about Quaker activist Benjamin Lay, “You’ll Never Be as Radical as This 18th-Century Quaker Dwarf.” It really speaks to my condition, as Friends say: “Lay, a hunchback as well as a dwarf, was the world’s first revolutionary abolitionist. Against the common sense of the day, when slavery…
Thoughts on Dancing, Getting Older, and Continuing Revelation
I won't always be dancing the way I dance now. I've been thinking about that in mostly a negative ways: My body won't let me b-boy anymore… I'm losing flexibility and power, so I have to make up for it in some other way….I won't be able to do the things I do now in ten…