Well, I am looking for something to do, aren't I? So what else but to journey into San Francisco, turn up at a Union Square restaurant and have a chat with a local NGO. They are not shooting victims, the two women I met with. But they are progressives, and at home in the not-for-profit organizational world. It's good that we weren't all victims, those of us enjoying our Italian lunch and talking gun policy. We can't all get teary over this stuff. Well, we can, but it's probably ineffective. One Read more [...]

I know that life is working for me...when things aren't. That's the test, how I absorb and recover from setbacks. Especially the ones that might be deemed self-created. Take the Menlo Park chorus. I never practice enough, do I? Each concert arrives like a surprise. The rehearsal period stretches over three months, but I procrastinate, have a little go at this song, dabble at that song...all of this accomplished by computer, where the chorus website presents a sort of follow-the-bouncing-ball version Read more [...]

Homeward. And on this freezing Phoenix morning...a cold front, not exactly the PR image of the Lower Sonoran Desert...has weather in the bottom 50s. And due to my own standoffishness, I haven't quite lined up help. Either my sister or brother in law would have been perfectly happy to stop by my hotel and assist with shoes and socks. But I couldn't quite ask. And so, after struggling with my trousers...some neuromuscular complication making it hard to support one leg with the other, probably because Read more [...]

With the sky dark, the air cold, honestly...isn't this late autumn day full of meteorological change? Surely. Or maybe I am full of change. And stretching the world to meet my spiritual projections. In any case, it is full of fear, particularly this morning, for another day has dawned and another date with the automotive unknown. Vis-à-vis the Dumbarton Bridge. Yes, I am journeying to Fremont, gateway to the east. That's where the van guys now hang out, the ones who turned an innocent Dodge into Read more [...]

A slow burn, they call it, referring to an evenly maintained anger. And although this goes against my conditioned grain, there's much to be said for it. A little bit of anger, constantly simmering, maybe what's needed to keep the wheels turning, the life humming. Take my brother's stairway. I was taking it, that is the thing, and taking it badly. I saw no reason not to go up the down staircase. After all, I have done this plenty of times. But during Thanksgiving at my brother's house in Seattle, Read more [...]

I never thought it would happen, that much of anything would tip the travel balance so much in favor of driving. But it has happened this week, one San Francisco trip too many. Lunch with Leo. A frequent occurrence, and always a pleasant one. And this time with Jane, yet. Having just driven into San Francisco the previous evening, well, driving again seemed excessive. Why not let Caltrain do the driving? Thus, one's life in slogans. And things went promisingly at first. In fact, more than Read more [...]