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NaBloPo– uh oh

By Lesbian Dad on December 1, 2011 in Mostly a picture, NaBloPoMo

Fun little story about this button.

So I have a bunch of these buttons, and order them periodically to keep in my pocket, and bring them to places like events or conferences or wherever I feel I might want to spread the good gospel. Give ‘em to friends.

Even strolled up to Jane Lynch her own bad self, the fateful night of the annual NCLR party a few years back when she and her lady love (now lawfully wedded wife, Lara Embry) had met and the sparks first flew. I waited for Jane (I know! we’re on a first-name basis. okay, I am) to finish playing tonsil hockey with her (geez; I think it was her!) on the dance floor (yes I said that, and yes I did wait discreetly), and then I tapped her on the shoulder and gave her one of these. She looked at it, looked at me, said, “Uh, thanks,” and went back to paying attention to her future spousal unit-to-be.

I saw Jane again back last August in San Diego at an event and gave her another one. Reminded her of the first time, she totally blanked on the moment (shocked! I’m shocked!), and said, “Great, now I have two!” Oh, by the way, when I told her my blog name, she said, “Hey, that’s what I am now!” And how’m I gonna disagree with that.

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Thankful

By Lesbian Dad on November 29, 2011 in Mostly a picture, NaBloPoMo, Pops

Thanksgiving table post-repast, Berkeley, CA.

We all went around my brother-in-law’s Thanksgiving table–my own brood, my dad, my mother in law, her old friend, her partner, my partner’s dad, my partner’s brother’s family and his wife’s mother–and said what we were thankful for. Many of us said we were thankful for the Occupy Movement (as ironic as that might have been, from around a well-stocked table in a comfortable, warm home). All of us who were not retired and of working age were hugely thankful for our full, rewarding, gainful employment. Most of the kids under 12 demurred, though I know their gratitude is big, if fairly tightly woven into need and dependence and hope and expectation.

My dad was grateful simply to be alive and here for another Thanksgiving, and I immediately seconded that thankfulness. I went on to say specifically: each morning when I walk from the bus stop to work, I call Pops, and we talk for the 12 or 13 minutes it takes me to get to my building’s elevator, where the signal begins to fail us. It’s always too short, but he’s a lot more alert during this morning call than he used to be when we talked after I got the kids to bed. The calls during when I’m interruptable by the kids are usually just too hard to sustain.

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Activity list (emergency for cabin fever.)

By Lesbian Dad on November 24, 2011 in Mostly a picture, NaBloPoMo, Re: the lil' monkey

Activity list (emergencey for cabin fever.), Berkeley, CA.

My daughter drew this up, in preparation for a recent trip to either the moon, or some distant planet. We haven’t read Le Petit Prince recently; not sure how this space travel notion came to her. But a great, great many notions come to her via mechanisms I can only guess at.

I think this might come in handy for folks considering cabin fever over the Thanksgiving holiday. After they’ve thoroughly perused this fantastic resource from LGBT Map, my new organizational BFF: Talking About Overall Approaches for LGBT Equality. This clear, thoughtful “Talking About” series is of particular use for folks visiting relatives and trying (trying! trying!) to gently, persistently, open hearts and minds.

After that work, and in the event cabin fever sets in, you may want to consult to the above list. For those not familiar with my daughter’s handwriting, please allow me to transcribe. Spelling left intact. My favorites are #s 14 and 19, as you, my imaginary friends, might imagine. Item #23 is a sign that, after all, she is her mother’s daughter.

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Goggle-eyed

By Lesbian Dad on November 22, 2011 in Mostly a picture, NaBloPoMo

Making restaurant patrons ever so slightly uncomfortable in Santa Nella, CA.

He could just as soon be searching in vain for my daily posts for National Blog Posting Month. Which, around these parts, sputtered and degraded into National Blog Sporadically Posting Month, or NaBloSpoPoMo.

All the same, lard love me, I’m still up on the horse. Even if it has paused to pee. And the rest of the herd has long since galloped by.

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ReOccupy Cal

By Lesbian Dad on November 16, 2011 in Moving pictures, NaBloPoMo

Today, a Day of Action, called by popular vote at the General Assembly the night of November 9, was held. An “Open University”

Please forgive the advert that precedes this 17 minute clip from Robert Reich’s historic–yes, it’s not even a day old yet, and it’s clear it will be looked back upon as historic–speech to 10,000 gathered at Occupy Cal tonight (Tuesday night, Nov 15). It was the 15th Annual Mario Savio Memorial Lecture, long scheduled for this night, though previously located indoors at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union, which faces the administration building at the other side of Upper Sproul Plaza.

Lest this movement be misunderstood as rudderless or aimless, note that 10,000 were more or less rapt with attention, laughing at side jokes about the Koch brothers.

Here’s the link to the KGO of most of the whole speech on their own page.

Highlights of Reich’s speech:

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Weekend bonus shot (Monday edition), 11.14.11

By Lesbian Dad on November 14, 2011 in Mostly a picture, NaBloPoMo, Re: the lil' monkey

Soon to be gap-toothed grin, Berkeley, CA.

Front right tooth: not long for this world. Grin it’s in: only just getting started.

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She is older than I know

By Lesbian Dad on November 12, 2011 in Baba familias, Kid lit, NaBloPoMo, Re: the lil' monkey

We were moving from books ‘n milk to the brushing of the teeth, stations two and three of a five-station, post-dinner nightly journey that ends with lullabies in bed and, for the elder and more insomniac of the pair, rambling conversations about the larger questions of life.

All this rhythm and ritual has been road-tested by years of parenting and a statistically significant number of controlled experiments (no ritual? bedlam!). It’s no simple matter, to ease their young bodies and minds from the hurly-burly of the day into the waiting arms of Morpheus. Before, I would never have put such stock in this kind of stuff–in fact, I would have considered it far more “routine” than “ritual,” and derided it. No longer. I’ve learned.

I had just finished reading Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen to the boychild whilst the girlchild bore a hole in page after page of her latest American Girl historical yarn. We were gathering our things, and the boychild was already heading into the bathroom on Mama’s back. I had been thinking something as I was reading Night Kitchen. I’m not sure what led me to it, but I made the judgement call that his older sister was old enough to hear a little something about the slings and arrows that fly around the books they read.

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Could I be prouder of my alma mater? I think not.

By Lesbian Dad on November 10, 2011 in Mostly a picture, NaBloPoMo

#OccupyCal General Assembly at, like, 11:30pm Wednesday night. UC Berkeley’s Sproul Steps. (Image from @occupyoakland here).

Obviously unprovoked police violence against peacable assembly took place earlier in the day. And it had the classic impact that unprovoked police violence can have, when witnessed by enough people who are just entitled enough, and just unaccustomed enough to that unprovoked police violence. And just aware enough of what it represents, and just fed up enough about it all.

Aggregation of The Daily Cal (student paper) coverage of Nov 9 Day of Action here; a single article (filed at a yeoman 1:07am Nov 10) here: “Drawing on Occupy movement, protesters turn out en masse” (Curan Mehra & Mihir Zaveri ).

Really cool sketch of what was happeneing where, when, by Danny O’Brien, re-Tweeted by my über-rad colleague Liz Henry, who hied herself across the bay to live videocast the occupation.

Stuff tends to happen here. Free speech is a fairly passionately held belief here.

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