Lampshade hat, Berkeley, CA.

I have been poring over the responses a number of you provided over this past week, when I extended an extended question about “Mommyblogging.”  I’ve been intrigued, fascinated, educated. Also, I’ve felt more and more like I wanted to convey back to you some kind of summary, highlighting your thoughts, rather than go on myself.  

Sadly, I’ve not had the time to do either your thoughts or mine near enough justice. At the very least, though, I want to provide a little overview of the most easily conveyed stuff.  Until I can make that time,  I encourage you to peruse the more open-ended answers to the questions here (password is “LDsurveyresults” sans quotation marks).  Whenever you see that little icon that says “view,” basically click on it and discover the wealth of really rich insight folks shared.  By the way, there were 60 responses. Not too shabby, maybe even statistically significant. Whatever that means.

Continue reading ‘Some mommyblogging notes’

Lil’ monkey, making hay while the justice shines.  Photo by chum annz.

[Above: the old, with which we are now out.  Replaced by the new, with which we are now in.]

Ever since we had a second kiddle, I’ve always felt a bit sad that he wasn’t given any face time in the old header photo (sorry, Att). You know, because I know this would be among the kinds of things he would be lamenting with a therapist in a coupla decades. Wasn’t in his Baba’s blog header, back then when people were doing that “blogging” thing.

And then there was the Great Spam Attack of ‘08, which sent heiroglyphics and more all over the place. It was time to update the WordPress installation.

Then there was my longstanding desire to foreground the conversation that goes on around here, with some kind of cue on the home page. And so on and so on.

Like with every remodeling job, push led to shove and then I realized I needed a whole new shebang, a shebang which definitely exceeded my modest web literacy. I know as much HTML as I do Spanish, which spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E in any language. After harassing chums for help, a dear one fronted the means by which I could consult professionals. And so LD v.2.0 began gestation.

Continue reading ‘Does this redesign make my blog look phat?’

[Kids' eye view photos thanks to D.Legg.]

Beaux-Arts majesty is always in style.

Continue reading ‘I highly recommend the venue’

Thought for the day yesterday (on which love did conquer all). City Hall, San Francisco, CA.

Do the young people know?  Yes, they know.

The emotional aftermath of the California Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, at least for me, has been unexpected.  I have vacillated from feeling utter shock, to muted disbelief, to pride, and later still discomfort at the resussitation of an old, long-since buried vulnerability.  Not at all what I would have expected.

All of this is mixed with unexpected sorrow that this milestone — my legal marriage today, on my eleventh commitment ceremony anniversary — will not be witnessed by my mother, not even known about by her.  We got only so far down the path together, my mother and I, of her understanding this part of me.  Her feeling okay about it.  I can’t think that seeing this wouldn’t have shifted something in her, helped her to feel that maybe it might just be okay.  I mean, really.  Okay. 

Scar tissue that has spent decades covering over a wound has been opened up.  The wound it covered over — the sting of a seminal, fundamental, society-wide exclusion, no parental hand there to soothe it while it stung the worst — all that, oddly, is now laid bare, and all these years later, I am able to take its measure.  Rather than elation that the source of that wound has been so fundamentally altered now, much of what I am feeling is: Wow.  It has been that painful, for that long.  Who knew.

Continue reading ‘Groom’