Archive | March, 2009

Pardon the mess

By on March 8, 2009 in Metacommentary

We’re upgrading to WordPress 2.7.1., which means it’ll look a little different here in the sidebar area ’til it’s all tidied.

Also, there’s that contarned character problem again. Never mind all the question marks. Life is quizzical enough in the first place.

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A hastily compiled photo essay of the Prop 8 arguments, outdoor rabble version

By on March 6, 2009 in Mostly a picture, On marriage and commitment

In which we see a bunch of pictures and slap-dash commentary, in the small sandwich of time I have before my childcare ends.

First off, look at that JumboTron, will ya? And do you like the fascinating simulacrum effect of the imagery of justice (or the pursuit of it), superimposed on the front of City Hall? This is the future and there it is, 20′ x 30′ or whatever.

This gal had a fabulous two part sign. What’s not to like about a youngster walking around with a big poster of Harvey Milk, who was assassinated long before she was even born (“We don’t walk in your shadow, we grow in your shade.”) Now look at the flip side. (“Please give my mom the right to watch her 4 out of 5 gay kids get married.”) Sweet, eh? And look at that wonderful smile. You can’t see it, but that’s a piercing on her lip. And yes, we all have no idea which of the five she is. Part of the wonderfulness that is the future of our great nation.

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Hello? Past? It’s the future calling.

By on March 5, 2009 in Mostly a picture, On marriage and commitment

Um, on a cell phone. Cellular. Cordless.

This is a place-holder for an upcoming slap-dash photo essay about my morning at the Prop 8 arguments JumboTron, complete with hastily contrived notation. Aforementioned photo essay currently in process.

This is the closest I’ll get to live blogging anything, unless you consider retroactive editing for word choice & clarity after I’ve posted something “live blogging,” which I fear most people wouldn’t. They’d think it was cheating. But I sez, I’ve warned everyone about my Walt Whitmanesque tendencies in my About page, thereby tagging the “truth in advertising” base.

But of all the images of the morning (yet forthcoming), this may be as descriptive as any. Out in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza, watching the oral arguments in the case challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8, we all witnessed many things. And no, I refer not to Justice Kennard’s misunderstanding that the proceedings were designed to be a platform for her, the whole her, and nothing but the her, so help her her God. (oops! did I let that slip out?)

No, three of the strongest impressions, to my mind, were of: (1) an abidingly acerbic contention between the two sides of the matter, with a middle ground extremely hard to make out; (2) a breathtakingly thrilling commitment, on the part of we assembled, to the grandeur of the various founding principles of justice upon which our CONSTITUTIONAL democracy has been founded; and (3) the truth that sooner or later, these young people — who were out in droves — will be not just voters, but movers and shakers (even more than they are now), and they will not for a minute tolerate shennanigans the likes of which have been distracting us over this marriage inequality shite. As I’ve said before, ’cause it’s a few degrees more true every day, they’ll have bigger fish to fry, because the fish, they’ll be a frying.

[Later this same day: a slap-dash, hastily notated photo essay of the morning.]

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Two in 18,000

By on March 5, 2009 in Mostly a picture, On marriage and commitment

And, justice willing, once in a lifetime.

 

Above: City Hall steps, July last year. At left, City Hall steps, last night, from mattymatt’s Flickr photostream.

If their server hasn’t crashed yet, the California Channel has a live webcast of this morning’s arguments before the state Supreme Court (9am to noon, PST) challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8. Live social media feed here (Twitter, et al.), live blog & chat here via 365 Gay.

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What’s at Stake (tomorrow)

By on March 4, 2009 in On marriage and commitment

“Produced by volunteer activists, this video tells our stories so Californians will know what’s at stake in the March 5 hearing before the Supreme Court.”

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Feeds self yogurt, effortlessly

By on March 4, 2009 in Mostly a picture, Re: the lil' peanut

feedsselfyogurt

Including: a random brain dump after the “jump” about photography and kids.

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LD is three

By on March 3, 2009 in Baba familias, Metacommentary, On marriage and commitment

ldis3Post #671 (accompanied by the usual post-post ironing job, ’cause why? ’cause I posted it at 3am, that’s why). 

Now that we are living with a youngin who made it through the so-called “terrible twos” with her sweet personality fairly intact, and then went rogue on us not long after she turned three, I don’t know what to tell you to expect from this blog in the upcoming year.  I can, however, recap a little of what seemed to have happened to it and to me, its humble shepherd, this past year.

First, a nod to anniversaries one and two.

Okay, now back to three.  This time last year, parentally-wise, the beloved and I had just eased past the monumental first year of our second child, which had turned out to be just a tad more challenging than we’d anticipated.  After our lil’peanut turned one, we were just beginning to get our bearings.  The waves were no longer violently crashing over the bow, the sea-sickness had begun to abate, the sun seemed to be peeking out of yon cloud, and the wind was at our backs.  Oh, there was the matter of our elder child’s maniacal swings from sweet to sour. She was, at this point, mid-way through her “terrible threes,” after all.  And it’s not like we weren’t still sleep-deprived to the point of delirium. But we were finding ways to manage the delirium. More important, we were beginning to be able to envision a time when delirium would not be the order of the day. We actually began to feel like we were finding our sea legs as parents of two kids under four years old.

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Twilight, continued

By on March 3, 2009 in On marriage and commitment

sfcityhall@dusk

[Begun last Friday, interrupted by parenthood since then.]

En route to the Prop 8 debrief in San Francisco Thursday night. A fingernail clipping moon hung directly over City Hall, and high above that, a little to the south, Venus.

A be-suited man paused with me, as I held the camera up to my eye.  I was just thinking the same thing,  he said.

He asked me whether I was heading to the forum, and I smiled and said yes. So nice that we were each so easy to make out, he from underneath his suit, and I, from underneath my watchcap. We walked together and talked.

He put out his hand and introduced himself: Michael. I did likewise. I should have been surprised, but was not, that for the brief duration of our walk to the auditorium, we could jump right in and start talking about the whole Prop 8 rigamarole as if we’d been old chums —  the campaign, the vitriol it inspired in our fellow Californians, the painful aftermath, mingled as it was with our joy over Obama’s election. The ambivalence and fatigue so many of us have as we dust off our clothing, mop our brows, check for bruises, and prepare to lurch back into the fray.

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