transfer to hospice.

My dad decided yesterday to stop his dialysis treatment and be moved to a hospice. While this is the best situation he could be in, it's a huge heartbreak. I can barely get the words out, and I'm in the position of notifying many people because I'm the only one of my immediate family with a cell phone. He will only be with us for a few days, maybe a few weeks if we're lucky. What an amazing loss.

I wrote much of this blog as a newsletter and correspondence with him; he used to send me email after every new post, and I was always so excited to hear his commentary. This next three weeks promises to be the most difficult I've had in my life and I haven't always had it easy, believe you me.

I may not be posting for a while. Feel free to call if you have my number.

In Modesto

Hey pals,

Things with my dad's health have gotten really bad, and my work was kind enough to let me come out here and help take care of him for a while. If you don't hear back from me right away, I've been staying at Memorial Hospital in Modesto, and will likely be here for a while. My cell phone is on, but I'm often helping out with stuff and can't answer right away.

More posts as events unfold.

thanks, but no thanks, giving.

A shout out to my friend B from whom I lifted that description of the recent holiday.

I felt the text messages of giving thanks roll in and watched the lovely array of political perspectives stream past. "Thingstaken", "Un-turkey day", inscriptions of gratitude, and the classic greeting were all observed. The wonderful family with whom I spent my time off of work and I had a brief discussion of the merits of such a celebration; at one point without realizing it was impolite to do so I said "Well, I guess it sounds better than 'Thanks for keeping us from having to dig up and consume our recently dead friends since we don't really know how to survive in this area of the world.'" Everybody laughed, albeit uncomfortably. We all agreed that it isn't a Fall or harvest-based festival that's bad, it's the particular form it takes in this country.

To catch up: I spent the first week of November helping to run a canvass out of Plymouth Meeting, PA (just outside of Philly). It had been a while since my job had required me to lose that much sleep, I managed to get soft in a mere three months since USAS work ceased. Who knew? But thanks to the miracle power of sugar-free Red Bull, an astoundingly horrific war, a skillful permanent canvass that knew our turf well, and the jaw-dropping stupidity of Republican operatives to the extent of arresting doughnut-wielding seniors, we are finally rid of Rick Santorum. What a lovely moment that was, to hear a vanload of frostbitten doorknockers proclaim "Santorum lost!" while I received their walk sheets at the UFCW hall. I know it's a little late to be basking in that particular afterglow, but considering I was assigned to a district where our endorsed candidate lost by 3,000 votes on a night where everything else was comin' up roses, I cling to the little things. For this round I was also asked to hire 500 people on two weeks' notice, and I think I managed to do it. Well, that is, to advertise enough positions. It couldn't happen in a vacuum, but it was nice to know I did my part. Through Craigslist and Facebook, moreover.

In all of my newly found-and-lost-again spare time, I've been supporting the USAS web stuff, the CISPES web redesign, and providing general tech support to any and all of my movement buddies with no budgets and big issues. The CISPES site is launched amd I really like it, so take a look!

This holiday has been facilitated greatly by my pals B, Sha and my housemate/pal Lelia. Unfortunately it has been an uneasy time, and I'm not just talking about discomfort from overeating. As the song goes, I will survive. I'm sad to say that it feels more like that than I'd have wanted.

I've booked my winter trip! I'll be arriving in the Bay for a whole week and a half at the end of this year. I'm counting down the days, as much as I love DC -- sometimes I need a vacation. Look for me, write me, otherwise communicate if you're around and wanna meet up.

where did I go?

In the wake of Elly's departure, almost unwittingly, I became a hermit. I spend most of my waking hours online, none of them to communicate with anyone I hold dear -- or when I do, it's mostly about fixing this or doing that.

This past weekend I went camping with Sha at Fire Island. That was a merciful respite from days and nights of working on various websites for pay and not; it's about 50/50 these days, with not enough sleep thrown into the mix.

I haven't been calling. I have about 20 people to whom I must return calls; with the amount of time I spend thinking about how I should call people, I could've spoken with you already. Like, three times over. Being thirty means I recognize that this happens to me when I'm feeling down. I watch the process like a bean sprouting or my hoseumate leaving a dirty dish in the living room for days -- inevitable. I realize I'm not helpless to intervene. I will, eventually, but I'm not the fastest moving creature with regard to my feelings.

I've been biking and going to the gym, I've been off and on the wagon around drinking coffee, I eat. I write in my journal (not enough), I draw (not nearly enough). Mostly I work on websites and bike back and forth to my house, work, and Soho cafe. My housemates and I have taken to renting episodes of Six Feet Under which is a welcome diversion-- my brain needs to turn off at times. I write letters. I don't call people enough. I don't know where all the hours go or why there aren't enough of them, after all, I'm no longer working for USAS, right?

Being in DC full time makes me realize how hard a town this can be. Working downtown, dressing up every day, watching people care about protocol and rank and appearance in ways I was neither raised to understand nor rebel against -- it's weird. I only breathe when I get back towards Columbia Heights. It's hard to relax while biking.

The job is good. It's a wholly different section of my brain, the part which codes and decodes and knows where to put semicolons and how to query databases. Organizing data can be just as unweildy as organizing people, but this is a town that requires confusing the two -- data and people, that is. The extent to which it's forgotten that people are not their contact information is astounding. That's the crucial distinction between organizers who will change this mess and those who won't...

Anyhow, this is a melancholy post but I'm not in awful shape. There have been good times. If you've called, don't give up, and I will accept feelings of frustration at my absence, as they are perfectly warranted. If you haven't called, and have been meaning to, please do, it helps to remind me that the phone is not something to be avoided.

not intended to be a cliffhanger

I realize that my last post could've left people hanging about how Elly's doing. She's physically OK, the car is totaled, and surprise, the insurance doesn't cover it. For right now she's getting around with her bike. Also, her computer is being unduly kept from her by negligent CompUSA people. It's been in the shop for two weeks and they haven't even LOOKED at it. Grr. Yes folks, sexism is alive and well in the tech industry, in case you didn't already know that. She keeps bugging her insurance company to make sure they pay the other folks properly. We miss each other so we talk quite a bit.

What have I been up to? Well, still learning how to have spare time. There are far tougher lessons, I'm aware. I put up a list of the top 50 little house projects I've wanted to do for a while and have about 30 of them done. Thanks, labor day weekend! I've been somewhat reclusively focusing on these room improvement projects. I indulged my bourgeois tendencies with a trip to Ikea and Value Village, the thrift store I'd been recommended ages ago but had yet to visit. I finally got all my pictures into photo albums. Highly effective puttering, that's what it's all chalked up to.

I've been going to the gym an awful lot (this week being the exception), and for once in my life, unintentionally lost weight. I'm not sure how I feel about this. It certainly wasn't for lack of trying....I've been eating plenty and since I keep breakfast at work, I've had more calories. I've been overindulging on the baked goods even. Ah, well.

I signed up to help a few groups with web projects, so that's promising...I've started to get calls from the new USAS staff, which is comforting.

I sat down to write something that was neither an instruction manual, flyer, nor an agenda. I was hoping to crank out a nice, concise little piece about the political struggles I've had with veganism. Eight pages and four hours later (with a few phone calls to break it up)...I realize I have a lot of thoughts about veganism, "lifestyle activism", etc. I'll be editing that down a bit but it will make its way here.

That's all the musing I have in me at the moment. More will appear shortly, though.

the scariest thing EVER.

Yesterday, I come home from work. I'm tired, because my pal Sha was in town, and I decided to escort him to the Chinatown bus a few blocks from work at 6am. Then I worked for twelve hours, on little sleep. Not a good call. The mouse that's taken up residence in one corner of my room kept us up chewing on a plastic bag.

So anyhow, I show up and there's a show at our house about which nobody has informed me. I realize this when three manarchists on our front steps fail to move aside as I bring my bike into the house. Sigh. Ah, well. I'm not too terribly concerned as I'm on the third floor and there's reasonable sound insulation, but it's still punishingly hot.

I think to myself, "Self, we should take us a nap." set my cell phone alarm, climb into bed, and ten minutes later, the phone rings. Oh, it's Elly! I answer and say hello. Silence. Then, voices that are decidedly NOT Elly's are *screaming* in the background. There are crying voices, panicked voices, little kid voices, and no Elly. I keep saying "Hello?!?" at the top of my lungs, and keep listening until the phone hangs up on me. I call back to a jammed signal. I freak out and call Molly and Catherine, both of them roll to voicemail. WTF? I leave messages that they should tell me if Elly's OK. I keep calling Elly's number, and eventually she picks up and says "I was just in an accident. Can I call you back?" Needless to say, I couldn't sleep after that.

So as it turns out, she's OK, and the carload of people who ran into her are (we think?) OK, but the whole incident was more than traumatic for all involved, especially being on the anniversary of Katrina. Her car and theirs are not in good shape, though, and she's a little more than freaked about the whole thing. As was I. Our friend Ingrid eventually called to give an update as she was trying to sleep some. We spoke today and she sounded in better shape. What we realized happened is that her phone somehow auto-dialed me either during or right after the accident so she didn't know the phone was on, but I was busy hearing everything about it.

Yeesh, man. Being several thousand miles from people you care deeply about is hard enough, and I seem to do plenty of that...hearing them get into accidents is too much.

I don't normally do these sorts of things, but...

Big Bird You scored 70% Organization, 43% abstract, and 77% extroverted!

This test measured 3 variables. First, this test measured how organized you are. Some muppets like Cookie Monster make big messes, while others like Bert are quite anal about things being clean. Second, this test measured if you prefer a concrete or an abstract viewpoint. For the purposes of this test, concrete people are considered to gravitate more to mathematical and logical approaches, whereas abstract people are more the dreamers and artistic type. Third, this test measured if you are more of an introvert or an extrovert. By definition, an introvert concentrates more on herself and an extrovert focuses more on others. In this test an introvert was somebody that either tends to spend more time alone or thinks more about herself. You are very organized, both concrete and abstract, and more extroverted. Here is why are you Big Bird. You are both very organized. You almost always know where your belongings are and you prefer things neat. You may even enjoy cleaning and find it therapeutic. Big Bird is never sloppy and always under control... pretty good for a 6 year old bird living without a family. You both are sometimes concrete and sometimes abstract thinkers. Big Bird can be quite dreamy at times and has no problem using his imagination. At the same time he is also practical and can be methodical in his search for answers to questions. You have a good balance in your life. You know when to be logical at times, but you also aren't afraid to explore your dreams and desires... within limits of course. You are both extroverts. Big Bird gets along with everyone. He makes friends easily and always has a positive attitude. You definitely enjoy the company of others, and you don't have problems meeting new people... in fact you probably look forward to it. You are willing to take charge when necessary or work as part of a team. The other possible characters are Oscar the Grouch Bert Snuffleupagus Ernie Elmo Kermit the Frog Grover Cookie Monster Guy Smiley The Count If you enjoyed this test, I would love the feedback! Also if you want to tell me your favorite Sesame Street character, I can total them up and post them here. Perhaps your choice will win!

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 83% on Organization You scored higher than 26% on concrete-abstra You scored higher than 91% on intro-extrovert

Link: The Your SESAME STREET Persona Test written by greencowsgomoo on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

every time a door opens

Another one shuts? Perhaps not. Well, this past Sunday I helped Elly to pack up her things and she headed off into the sunset, New Orleans-bound. It was a very teary-eyed packing adventure, and she left six hours later than she'd intended. Yargh. We've pretty much agreed that while we're technically broken up, we're both really fond of each other and must remain at minimum Very Good Friends.

Virtually overnight I find myself with more spare time than I've had since I was fourteen or so. Also, I'm single for the foreseeable future, also for the first time in 14 years. I hardly know what to do with myself! Hence, this blog entry. I'm starting slow. I have a lot of reading and calling people to catch up on, so I've started that. Yesterday I organized my closet extensively. I think this was a coping strategy, but there are worse ones, I figure.

My heart is thumping away, last iem I checked, but certainly a little knocked about.

coming up for air

After two insanely whirlwind years at USAS, I landed a job with a labor-affiliated community organization as a web manager. Whew! My schedule is little travel, nine-to-sixish, and I'm all of a few blocks from my old job. The concept of spare time hasn't exactly settled in yet, but I'm only in week two.

What does this mean? Hey, remember that time you called me? Yeah, that time three months ago? I think I'll be returning your call soon. In fact, I'll be returning your call and your email from a year ago and perhaps pro-actively calling the people who secretly gave up on hearing from me ever again.

It also means my return to the Bay is slightly delayed. It's a big deal, big money job, which is good because after two years of USAS I basically couldn't afford to move back. It also means I'll be taking over my parents' mortgage, or at least a big chunk of it. After my three month probationary period I'll even have vacation time and enough dough to come and visit!

This past weekend was the USAS national conference and I had negotiated the day off to go up and facilitate stuff. It was one of the better ones, but man I was wiped by the end of it. Traffic meant a five-hour trek from Philly to my doorstep, since I returned the car. Now everything is more voluntary -- although it'll be tough to quit USAS, and I will be supporting it from afar.

More soon, and I mean it this time.

looking up

Another, more brief update;

My dad didn't have surgery, the bleeding stopped on its own, and now he's back home getting re-dialysed. The meds are corrected and there's been less trouble, although he can only stand, not walk. My mom is finding some services and spends most of her time filling out forms to try to get things they should've been directed to years ago, like SSI and a dail-a-ride service where nice people come and help get my dad to take him to dialysis. Things are looking up, but I know it's still very rough for them. He was moved out of ICu on Father's Day and returned home a few days later.

After two weeks of transitioning the new staff in, I've been frantically applying to jobs. Know of one I'd be good for? Send it my way. Had a few interviews but no offers yet, although it's only been a week.

The top surgery is great, and I'm gradually spending time out of the compression vest. The drains came out the Monday I returned to work (which is a stretch of a description since I spent most of the day driving to the Baltimore surgery center). I still ache along the scar lines, and I really can't lift my arms too high above my head, but it's lookin' good! In three weeks I can expose my chest to direct sunlight, although I won't be tempting fate.

Elly moved out of her apartment in a whirlwind and I helped as much as I could (not much). Most of her stuff is at her family's and she's staying in my room, mostly. Time is counting down before she leaves for New Orleans.

The house I live in has been tense with many comings and goings, and not many cleanings in between, but it looks like that will be resolved soon as well.

A random story: Elly's little sister was also in the hospital, where we went to visit her, during the weekend of the big floods in Washington/Maryland/Virginia. On the way from the hospital to Elly's family's house, she drove the minivan through a 2.5 ft' stream that had overtaken a street near her house. Their basement flooded three feet while we were there, and it looked for a while like the entire thing would flood to nearly the first floor. They live next to a stream which had backed up to cause a lake extending from their backyard to the neighbors', not terribly nearby. We spent this past weekend helping her dad to tear out drywall and moldy paneling. It's amazing what even a little water will do, I can't imagine the devestation of the people of New Orleans are continuing to experience. Elly's sister is OK and has been back home from the hospital for a while.

Keepin' on keepin' on.

too much time in hospitals...

Hey folks. This will be a departure from my usual updates, which are more lighthearted. For those of you who read my blog, it's been a while, I had just turned thirty when last we spoke. A somewhat crazy series of events unfolded shortly thereafter:

• I spent the week after my birthday running around to get all my pre-surgery medical checkups done while getting all my work caught up before my time off, I had also lined up a job interview which included a test on the same day I had one of my appointments, a 3-hour exam where I saw no fewer than four different medical providers, got an EKG, had my phlebotomy draw botched briefly (ow!) and had...ahem, an annual. Yikes.
  
  
• That following weekend, early Saturday, my computer goes down completely. The logic board again, the fourth time for me in the history of being an iBook owner. So, I can't get caught up and my machine is in the shop until...Wednesday afternoon, following. I get it back and work like a madman, having spent part of the earlier week trying to recover enough databases to access the phone numbers of all the students I'm working with.
  
  
• After three days of frantic catch-up, Elly and I go camping along the Appalachian Trail, as we had planned to do for a month. It was lovely and relaxing and a really good thing, although I was plagued a bit by anxiety about not having enough work done. Elly and I compromise and we spend that Monday, Memorial Day, at her family's house (which has wireless) so I can do a little work, but I have no cell phone access out there. We get back to Elly's house late and I don't check my voicemail since I thought it was a message a friend had left earlier.
  
  
• Tuesday morning, the 30th, I check my messages - there's one from my mom. My dad's in the hospital. She's asleep but I call, he's in Intensive Care with severe internal bleeding. I get the number of the hospital and call. He's not doing well, he's not stable, he's had 6 units of blood and there are no signs of stopping, he's going to be air-lifted to a hospital in Modesto. I get the Doctor on the phone and he says it doesn't look good. I'm at work, try to get some things done, realize I need to book a flight that night. I consult my co-workers who all encourage me to go. I try to work because the flight's not until 9pm that night, but it's really difficult, and I'm calling the hospital and getting calls from my dad's siblings, my very tired and stressed-out mom, and in between i'm pretty well freaking out and trying to line up a car to borrow for the drive from Oakland to Modesto. Eventually I leave work and pack. Elly takes work off to drive me to Dulles and I cry and freak out all the way there. As a totally freak coincidence, I meet a long-lost friend who happens to be on the same flight, coming home from his uncle's funeral, and our seats are right next to each other so we're able to switch seats and catch up all the way out. Cathy Rion, bless her heart, picks me up with chocolate baked goods and offers to come with me up to the hospital and hang out with me in Modesto as long as possible. When I arrive that night I have a voicemail from mom: the bleeding has stopped, the operation in Sonora worked (they'd cauterized what was apparently a bleeding ulcer) and although we don't say as much, it becomes clear that he's going to live. It's midnight in Oakland and we begin the two hour drive to a Days Inn Modesto.
  
  
• Day one, we stay at the Days Inn with my mom. The next day Mazzy takes off work and comes up to spend the next day and a half with us, and it's like the most surreal forced vacation I've ever been on. Two of my dad's sisters, my aunts Ellen and Rosemary, have made the trip and we meet them at the hospital. He's in OK shape and on pain meds, but most of the pain is for a wound on his foot, not the internal stuff. The bleeding doesn't start again, we visit again in the evening.
  
  
• That weekend I drive Cathy to a church retreat in Livermore and she offers for me to keep the car (I take her up on it). It's unclear whether he'll be released, it seems possible at any moment, but conflicting informaiton keeps coming from the hospital. On Sunday they decide to operate on his foot, which has been causing him the most pain. This means he won't get out of the hospital before Monday, when I get on a flight back to DC. I drive mom back to Sonora, and it's odd, I had though we were just going to pick some things up but she wants to stay. We get in a weird fight late that night, and I leave the next day to visit dad again in the hospital beofre I take off. When I get there, he's in the surgery for his foot (bad information about the timing) but I get lunch and come back, and he's there. We're able to use my cell phone to have him talk to mom, but then I have to head back to Oakland.
  
  
• Monday I spend the day on a plane back to DC which arrives at 9pm and Elly picks me up. Also, I find out that I didn't get the job I had interviewed for during the previous week. Tuesday I come into work for one day of our three-day International Intern retreat, I've done nothing to help with it and feel pretty crappy about that. My dad still hasn't been released from the hospital. I get a little bit caught up, spend time with our interns before they go (I know almost all of them and want to see them off). That night Molly comes into town, and the next day, it's off to surgery.
  
  
• The Big Day: I show up at the strip-mall o' plastic surgery in my jammies Tullamore, MD in Molly's car with Elly in tow. They've sped it up a bit, so I'm a little rushed but happy to have it over with more quickly. I meet with the anesthesiologist who assures me she'll give me anti-nausea meds during the session (I barfed once during my first surgery, morphine is no friend of mine), Elly and I get educated about drains, and things are a little tense with Elly (she's nervous) but otherwise OK. I pop an anti-nausea pill (this will be ironic later) and get ready to go under. They're all very nice. I'm out shortly, the only thing I remember is the transfer from the operating table to the guerney, they asked me to move my legs, and I remember trying but not being able to. I come to in the recovery room with Elly and Molly saying nice things that I can't recall at all. I feel nausea and...I barf. I'm woozy but OK, they walk me out to the car and on the way home...I barf. I get back to Elly's apartment, fall asleep, and wake up to...barf. A lot. I'm also not supposed to eat or drink anything again after midnight on the off chance they'd have to re-admit me upon my exam the next day. So I'm dehydrated like whoa and totally out of it. The only thing I can taste is the morphine weirdness working its way out of my system.
  
  
• The Day After: Elly, Molly and I get up at 6:30am to beat rush-hour back for an early-morning exam. I come in, the nurse takes a look under the binder for five minutes, the surgeon tells me how excited she is to see the result (so am I!) and off I go, tired but far less nauseous. We start out cautiously but I'm really hungry and still pretty dehydrated. Eventually we settle on a breakfast option and head back to DC. I'm still in my jammies and self-conscious. As I sit here, I can't for the life of me tell you where we went, but I do remember the process of shuffling around the retirees in Tullemore at the adjoining strip mall and thinking, hey, I'd rather be in DC in my jammies than here. I think I slept for most of the day thereafter, but then I walked around some as well. You'll have to Ask Elly and Molly if it's all that important. My dad finally gets out of the hospital, I hear from my mom. Things are still tense, and most of my information from my uncle Frank who text-messages me.
  
  
• After a lovely three days in her company, Molly takes off Friday night. Sometime in there we go to see the DaVinci Code because I think that two and a half hours in an air-conditioned theater with something brainless to watch will do me good. It does indeed. I think that means I slept all the next day. My mom gets a statement for the air-lift to Modesto: $12,000. We still don't know how much Medi-Care will cover, we can only hope. I can't really sleep until I take one of the sleeping pills the doctor prescribed to me. My co-workers drop by and give me a baggie of vegan baked goods, which is very sweet.
  
  
• Saturday is my dad's birthday, I call and hear from him. He's OK, set up in the living room in a rented hospital bed, because with his foot surgery he's unable to put any weight on his feet. Mom is freaked out because she can't lift him by herself and the equipment isn't set up how it would need to be for her to support him properly. It's also clear he's not on the right combo of medications, and apparently the dialysis center he goes to decided on that weekend to re-pave the parking lot so it's a struggle to get him in and out of the center. I feel powerless to do anything from here but listen. It's also Pride Weekend in DC, so Elly and I make an attempt to watch the parade. I'm up and walking, but I wear out really quickly.
  
  
• Sunday I get the call: my dad's back in Intensive Care in Sonora, and they're bringing him back down to Modesto. The internal bleeding began again. In a way I'm relieved because I was worried my mom would get injured trying to lift him, and then who would take care of either of them? But my mom is concerned about him being in Modesto. Apparently this is a much slower bleed than the previous ones, but still a concern. Things move much slower this time, it takes several days to locate teh bleed, and they still (to this post) haven't fixed it...they just keep giving him units of blood. They're going to deal with it surgically, not through cauterization this time.
  
  
• The next week is lots of sleeping. I mean, lots. The highlights included calling the hospital frequently, going to a book reading by my friends Dan and Andy, going for a dental cleaning, and twenty-four hours of the most aggregious food poisoning I've ever had, thanks to some late-night Whole Foods hot-bar food. Lots more barfing. I had also thought I would get my drains out (it's kind of awkward to have tubes coming out of my body attached to little baggies of blood), but no dice. The doctor says keep 'em in. I'm hoping for early this week. I get some reading done, mostly for a gig next week. I try to check email but don't have the attention span to work in earnest. I get tired really easily.
  
  
• Yesterday, I get a call from my co-worker who asks how things are going and winds up the call with, "So, when were you planning on leaving the job?" Mind you, my term's not officially up until the end of October and I didn't get the one job I'd had a chance to apply for. I haven't exactly been shopping the market lately. I will be, as soon as I'm back up to speed. We worked it out, but it wasn't exactly what I'd been looking for in a re-introductory conversation. Today I hear that apparently, despite the slow bleed, my dad's in good shape and watching parts of the World Cup.
  

Anyhow, I start work again Monday, drains and all; my dad was supposed to have surgery yesterday but for some reason the surgeon has decided to re-evaluate him and is generally dragging his feet, and I spent all day working on catch-up. Later that night I got a call from a friend that another mutual friend attempted suicide (luckily, not successfully).

That is all for now. It's an ear/eyeful.

bday_pic5sm

bday_pic5sm,
originally uploaded by mtoth.

Another b-day action shot, with the Amazing Mollyjean Jellybean! Manpanties McTrouble herself! Molly basically lead three simultaneous crafting workshops about book-making, glass-etching and potato-stamping.

bday_pic4sm

bday_pic4sm,
originally uploaded by mtoth.

An action shot, I'm opening a present. What is it? : : :drumroll: : : a NEW digital camera! From Elly! Jeez! So this means more pictures will hence ensue on my blog.

tha big three oh

Yesterday I turned thirty, amidst the mothers celebrating. A wonderful crew of many of my pals and I turned this into a three-day celebration, kicking off with dinner and ensuing silliness, moving on to going out dancing the next night, and last but not least, an all-day crafting and feasting celebration. Dish after amazing vegan dish poured from the kitchen as we made books, elaborate potato stamps, and etched glasses with silly designs. The menu included tofu chimichangas and fresh guacamole, sticky rice with mango, coconut curry roasted root vegetables, apple cinnamon french toast, banana-nut muffins and chocolate cake with faux cream cheese frosting. As if that weren't enough, there were carob-chip rice crispy treats and chocolate peanut butter cups. Whew! Afterwards, I headed to Bethesda with Elly and her fams to celebrate Mother's Day with her mom, while on the phone with mine.

I have great friends. It never ceases to amaze me what caring and thoughtful people I have in my life, and this is only a small-yet-representative sample given my globetrotting ways.

something to write home about

I got my appointment for my second round of top surgery: June 7th! Which is bad timing. But in this job, it's all bad timing. Wheee! I perhaps will be able to swim publicly by the end of the punishing, swampy DC summer.

Also, I turn 30 in less than a month. I am a forgiving Taurus, but have you planned? You should be planning. There will be a party. It will be at my house. Also, my birthday falls on Mother's Day, a Sunday.

file under "wouldn't happen in SF"

OK, so I have tons of work to do. There's a big strategy session this weekend, there are folks coming in from out of town, union and labor movement allies meeting about a campaign I've spent most of my USAS career pulling together. But I took this time to tell you, dear reader, that R. Kelly keeps coming to my gym. That's right, he and his whole entourage came walking through the locker room as I haplessly laced my running shoes tonight, much to the delight of many of my fellow gym-goers. First, I was like "ooo!" and then, I couldn't get that darn Chappelle Show episode out of my head.

Meanwhile, at my day job, students at UVA who were sitting in for a living wage just got out of the clink this afternoon, workers at U Miami are on day 13 of a water-only hunger strike and students are on day 4, CU-Boulder students are on day 5 of a hunger strike for a sweat-free campus, and we're all freaking out about where everyone decided hunger strike was the tactic of the day. Ack! USAS national staff are notorious for trying to talk students out of hunger striking. We worry. Oh, do we worry.

Back to the action...

absinthe...

makes the heart grow fonder. Well, it's crunch time in student-labor organizing land. I'm in Philly for a few days, then Raleigh, then Charlottesville. It's a busy time but I thought I'd stop to post, since it's one of the few creative activities I don't have time for these days. Elly, for those of you who don't know, will be moving to New Orleans mid-August to support our comrade Catherine Jones around work she's been doing since the hurricane hit. If you don't know Ms. Jones, you should -- check my earlier posts for her blog address.

On the other hand, I will be looking for a new job come November. That's the big topic of my internal debate right now...should I stay or should I go elsewhere? DC has grown on me, I must admit, and I've given myself one more year to be outside the Bay Area, since I'm really not quite done with the non-California world yet. I really love the house I moved into, and my housemates are awesome. We're just not sure how long we can fight off the march of gentrification through our living room. Eventually, we suspect our landlords will get greedier than they already are, given that the house is crumbling in places beneath our feet. But back to the original job question, it'll be something in some facet of the labor movement. A local? An international? A community-labor coalition type job? Organizing or communications? Well, I guess we'll see what's out there by the time I apply.

I scheduled a consultation with a top surgeon last week. That's pretty exciting stuff! I'm hoping to be under the knife and back out from under it by Summer. At least while I have health insurance. It'll be a tough scheduling process, but at least my job doesn't require regular heavy lifting...only during my annual 'this-office-is-a-fire-hazard' cleaning fits. We're an organization with three cubicles and almost ten years of history, it's understandable I suppose.

OK, that's enough of an update. I need to sleep.

oh lordy

it's been a month since my last post.

I got to see a bunch of my far-yet-dear Bay pals, but as awlays not nearly enough. I returned from vacation to the longest consecutive number of days I've spent in DC since last summer. Nice! Besides a road trop to UVA for an organizing training weekend, I'd stayed put and have been working out from under the pile of emails that the World Social Forum/UVA campus tour/NCOR/Our National Conference month o' insanity left me.

Of course, now I'm in Philly. Apparently it's snowing buckets in California, as it did while I was there. Now it's 73+ degrees in DC and Philly, where I write this post. A friend once said to me about this wacky weather and its connection to global warming, "Well, we all thought this was coming, but I thought it would be in my 40s!"

I don't have anything particularly brilliant to post, when I do, I'll post it. In the meantime, "Mr. Pibb + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious!"

first day off for a while

hey folks,

so after I got back fro teh World Social Forum, that weeked was the National Conference on Organized Resistance where I was on a panel, and a bunch of my pals were in town to do trainings. The following Tuesday I got on a plane for SF and began working around the clock on our humungous national conference. That, thanks the dieties, is now over. It was fun while it lasted, but not I'm in the middle of my first 24 hours of blessed not-work-time for a month. Whew, indeed.

If you're a pal of mine in the bay, call me! I'm here until Sunday.

How time flies.

Hola Comp@s,

A whirlwind tour if ever there was one, I've spent the last few days muddling through various communication attempts, attending many inspiring and some not-so-inspiring panels, attempting to find workshops, and generally hanging about in the Parque Central area of Caracas.

Highlights included:
* Varios amazing conversations with my co-delegates the reductions of which are forthcoming

* Proposing the Stop Killer Coke campaign to the Assembly of Social Movements of the World Social Forum (hereinafter 'foro') in a huge, packed auditorium

* Hearing Hugo Chavez (in person) bust out in 'Sombrero Azul', a classic resistance song of El Salvador, as a tribute to the recently passed leader within the FMLN, Shafik Handal

* A brief morning hike through the mountains surrounding Caracas

* There were several labor forums, and a workshop on the recovered factories movement. One of my fellow co-delegates had an enormous memory and history of various socialist-communist tendencies within the US and their geneology, so I spent an evening wiht rapt attention plying him for information about the whole universe of Trots (which I really didn´t understand all that well, I have to admit)

* Every morning that I walked by the rooms workers were cleaning in the hotel where we stayed, the TV was tuned to Canal Ocho (the government station)

* Today I saw one of the cleanest, best-ventilated garment and shoe factories I'd ever seen (and the first I'd seen in person, I've seen many videos and photos) as a government cooperative project

* A guy from Bogota and an elderly Brazilian hippie helped me to find the place where free buses took people to the airport.

hola de venezuela

allo compañeros,

I"m here! There"s not much to report, but the delegation I"m with will be checking in today. There was a looong bus ride with a beautiful view, crazy fellow Foro-goers, and many people wanting to smoke who"d been on planes for 15-hour stretches. Check bck for updates!

Yours,
Sr. Max