I have a hard time locking doors, or even closing them, I don’t trust them to protect me I don’t believe in them. To me, a deadbolt is a talisman; a signal to the universe, a prayer for protection: I’m locking this door with the hopes that what I want to stay out will not [...]
Monthly Archives: July 2010
Sex and Social Justice
- 20
- Jul
Death and taxes don’t hold as much weight with me as they may with some. By some, I am thinking of mostly the over privileged and those who aspire to be like them. Growing up poor and female… death didn’t feel like something to resent. I wasn’t always sure that I was entitled to “life”. [...]
Living by 580
- 18
- Jul
The building I live in faces 580. We are up a steep embankment just where the freeway curves gracefully. The sound of the freeway is comforting to me. The rush of cars flying past is soothing; I am a city person. I grew up on busy avenues or again, like now, so close to large [...]
July 8th Downtown Oakland
- 10
- Jul
So I’ve given myself a few days to process what Thursday night was like for me. Nothing traumatic happened to me or the people I was with in a non-boarded up well lit office on 14th Street in downtown Oakland the night a jury found Officer Mehserle guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter for the murder of [...]
Loyalty
- 08
- Jul
I grew up with the feeling that loyalty was for chumps. No seriously. Being loyal was the surest way to get the shit kicked out of you. Loyalty was for sidekicks who always end up dead. Loyalty was for ex-wives left with four children. Loyalty was for second in command types that somehow got the [...]
The Passingday of Margene Clark
- 05
- Jul
I made up a new word: “Passingday” as in the day someone passes away, in honor of my grandmother. She passed away 2 years ago as of July 3rd. I felt awkward to keep saying “the day she died” or “the anniversary of her death”, so I started staying it was her “passingday.” Just like [...]
Mural of Oscar Grant
- 02
- Jul
I went out Friday night, even though a part of me said not to. I wasn’t sure if I needed to be out there. But Jeremy was determined. So out we went. We hit up Art Murmur. Wound around the galleries. It didn’t feel right. I didn’t like the mash up between heightened awareness and willfully [...]
Oscar Grant
- 01
- Jul
I don’t usually post twice in the same day, but these thoughts have been percolating since Sunday, and now I can’t seem to think about much else. The boys and I walked the perimeter of Lake Merritt on Sunday. We saw the Mehserle must die messages in red spray paint on the concrete pathways. Every [...]
Solstice Photos
- 01
- Jul
I dislike convention. I did not really, truly believe that we unconventional folks could create our own traditions. I am happy to have been wrong about that. I have cultivated a Solstice tradition that I am extremely grateful for. It’s very simple, very loose, very non-choreagraphed: at the Solstice, both Winter and Summer, be at [...]
