Yes we did! And did, and yet there's more to do.

Hey passers-by!

I have released myself from the guilt I once felt about my scattershot approach to personal blogging. The answer, my friends, is blowing in the incredibly variable winds of my spare time.

I update my twitter more frequently because something about character limitation releases me from creative block. It's like a coloring book to a blank page; limited and pre-fab can sometimes be less daunting.

Now that we got that out of the way, another technical note -- blogger ate my comments. So if you left one, and I never replied, and you haven't given up on me -- leave it again! This time, I'll actually get notification emails too. I'm being welcomed to the blog 2.0 world at long last.

What's happened since October of last year? Well, you may have noticed that President Obama has taken office. Whee! So I was working a bit on that. Jess was eventually returned to me from Kansas City, and after a moment of reuniting, was promptly redeployed to Northern Virginia for our efforts on the Employee Free Choice Act. This also keeps me busy from time to time.

Then Jess and I went to El Salvador to observe their presidential elections in March. And, si se pudo! Well, not Jess and I, exactly, but it was humbling and awesome to hear all the Salvadoran social movement leaders heap gushing praise on the work of CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) for being there, year after year, since 1980. What an amazing time. More on that later, if I get around to it.

Wedding plans march on. October seems just around the corner, but we have a location, I think we have food, we have a preemptive West Coast reception set for July, and a space for that. And hey, the way states are going these days, we have a veritable plethora of legal-marriage options. Ceder Rapids, here we come!

Much more has happened, but this is all you get for now. I must maintain my aura of mystique, ya know.

Wow, since May, huh?

OK, some updates are in order:

* I disappeared into the land of data, never to be seen or heard from again. OK, that's an exaggeration. But not much of one! Election season began for me shortly after my last post and won't be done until Nov 8th, from what I can tell;

* Jess left a month ago to run a campaign office for SEIU in Kansas City, MO. I patiently await her return -- we're both working weekends so it seems unlikely that I'll get a chance to visit;

* Despite all of this, I managed to pass my first belt test in Tae Kwon Do class. I'm now a whopping yellow stripe! That's the second-to-lowest rank, for those who don't know :)

* Jess and I decided to postpone the wedding until Fall of next year, since we can't exactly be planning a wedding right now. Both of us are biting our nails about the California anti-gay marriage ballot initiative. But, hey, at least we could tie the knot in CT were we so inclined. I never thought I'd be getting state married to begin with, so eh. We shall see;

* I write this while taking a brief sanity break at work, where I've been since 9am and will probably be until 7. I kind of wish the weather weren't nice so I couldn't see it, but hey, it'll all be worth it to avoid having to hear the scariest words I can imagine right now: "McCain Administration". Or perhaps, "Palin Administration". To those of my near and dear who are thinking "gosh, Max, that's awfully electoral of you!" I see this work as a gigantic harm-reduction strategy for the coming months/years of round two of the Great Depression. More on that later -- like, mid-November later.

Time, it doth fly.

Biking 181 miles...

Is no small feat. I learned this last weekend when I participated with Jess and 18 other folks in the CISPES 2008 Solidarity Cyclers fundraising ride.

The weather was amazing, and so was the Shenandoah river valley after biking up the base of the Blue Ridge mountains. We stayed at the Wheatland Vegetable Farm just short of Purcellville, VA on the first night, thanks to the generosity of the farmers there, and went on through Harpers Ferry to a nearby hostel, and back to DC. Pictures forthcoming!

In other important news, my job is changing, but not where I work. I'm changing hats from being an online communications manager to a data manager, which is an upgrade and will teach me even more geeky things than I already know. KNow anyone who wants my old gig? We're hiring! Drop me an email if you're interested.

This summer will be busy but good -- Jess and I are heading first for a week in northern CA and later to South Haven, MI for a family vacation.

Outside, of work, I'm getting an award! Yep, for my work with the the DC Trans Coalition, I'm the recipient of the "Engendering Justice" award at Capital Trans Pride this year. Complete with celebratory cupcakes and making a speech and everything, in a couple of weekends. It's very sweet of the folks putting Trans Pride together to have honored me this way.

That's the quick update for now...more to come as events progress.

Elation and outrage

Howdy everybody.

So it's true! I'm gettin' hitched. It's a sign I've been a little busy that this happened over Hanukkah and yet it took Jess writing the adorable guest submission to announce it here.

Since November 28, my last post to y'all, I done some thangs. You'd think one of them was to ask Jess to marry me, and yep, I did that. The funny truth of it is that I had asked her some time ago. I sort of blurted out a proposal last August, in all unromantic honesty, after my brain was completely overtaken by a desire to utter a question I hadn't thought would cross my lips. I was kind of freaked out because I didn't exactly know how to say this thing. Jess had gone away for a week, and by the time she returned it had become apparent to me that I wanted her to keep coming home to me in a permanent sort of way.

Right away she said "yes." Two days later she said "Whoa, this is really big. Can I think about it?" I replied in a enthusiastically-if-slightly-tortured manner that yes, of course, this is one of those life-long decisions and she could have all the time in the world. Which apparently turned out to be three and a half months. In the intervening time between "can I think about it" and "Yes!" were some steps. You see, Ms. Champagne is an organizer. So when she said "can I think about it", she then took a couple of weeks and developed a Four-Point Plan for the Development of a Decision Around Long-Term Commitment to Max, got my buy-in (and a pair of lovely promise rings), and immediately set about implementing the Plan. Cohabitation was one of the steps, and they were in all truly sensible.

Fast forward to December 18, 2007. I come home lateish from a planning session about a training I was about to give, we sit down to Hanukkah dinner, Jess brings out soup and then a plate of steamed veggies with peanut sauce on top. I say "Oh, that looks good!" She said, flatly "It spells something." Indeed it did! She had accepted my proposal in a vegetal manner. A picture of the peanut-sauce "YES" is now the backdrop of my cell phone.

So there we have it. There will be plans, invitations, arrangements, a website. Stay tuned. Something like Spring 2009, East Coast wedding, West Coast reception, that's about as far as we've gotten. I had no idea how many *questions* an announcement like this prompts!

Other major events -- I went out to California for three weeks. It was a long trip, and sadly I was sick for all of it with a heinous flu/cold something. But I got to see a fair number of my dear West Coast pals -- never enough, but always good whatever time I do get. I spent a bunch of time with my mom as it was also the first anniversary of my dad's death. A rough time. Jess and I went off to Mendocino for a couple of days, which was a great way for me to spend some time thinking about him.

Work with the DC Trans Coalition moves ever forward -- in light of our recent victory with the DC Metropolitan Police Department we held a 45-person community forum/know your rights training, and we're gearing up for a campaign aimed at the Department of Corrections. If you're interested in that I don't update that site much more than this, but it's at dctranscoalition.org

I was supposed to meet Jess's grandparents a couple of weeks ago, but the weather in Kalamazoo, MI prevented it. We're going in mid-March.

Shocking news: I finished a fiction book of my own volition. A big one! 650-some-odd pages, Kavalier & Clay. I liked it! Those of you who know me know that's surprising. It's also a testament to Nasty Flu #2 -- I didn't have the brains to do anything like meaningful work, so I read half of it over the course of a day.

On to the Outrage:

I received an action alert about a memorial for Lawrence King. Lawrence was a 15-year-old student at a middle school in Oxnard, California who was shot to death by a fellow student for being gay and presenting in a gender nonconforming manner. The vigil I attended was put on by GLSEN. I know that every day LGBT young people face harassment, abuse and worse all across the US -- but I was struck by the sense of resignation by the crowd at our vigil for Lawrence King.

I was Lawrence King's age, 15 years old, when I became the second person to come out at my rural northern California high school. I faced plenty of harassment and have been in a handful of situations where I wasn't sure whether the person harassing me would go as far as to beat me up, but I also knew that just telling people not to yell things or hit me wasn't going to make them respect my humanity. As a youth activist I was actively involved in the campaign to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the nondiscrimination clause of the California education code. Sixteen years later, and where are things at in California? When will we say "enough"? How do we solve the problems of

I know many organizers and activists fight to make schools a better place for LGBT youth. I know that too many young people are cut down every day just because of who they are and the way power is doled in this nation, and too many deaths are ignored. It's sad that a few weeks ago we lost Lawrence, and his attacker may wind up in a horrible prison system for the rest of their life. The way things are now, few kids will be taught to respect and love one another because of Lawrence's death, but I hope we can make sure it was not in vain. I can't wait until the day that all kids are loved and respected, and that no lives are considered forfeit by virtue of who you are or where you happen to be born.

A guest submission with news!

OK, I know it's been too long since I've posted when my partner writes a guest post about major news in our lives. That said, this was seriously adorable and although I don't think she really meant me to post it for real for real, here it is. :) -Max

Guest post by Jess, 7 February 2008

Since last writing, our hero has taken a shocking--but positive, we promise--step: he's decided to get married. We know, "marriage" is not a word you ever thought you'd hear associated with his name. But it's subversive and transgressive in so many ways, honest--and plus it won't involve the state (except whatever office you go to register domestic partnerships in the District of Columbia, plus the notary who will have to witness all the contracts our hero and his partner will have to sign in order to get a tiny semblance of all the rights that straight couples get just by showing up with two witnesses. But you know all about that.)

Plus, more important, we really think it's going to make him happy. His partner is sometimes short-tempered and just a little overly concerned with details, and she often struggles to keep up with our hero's analysis of the world and his braveness in taking it on to make it better. She's not used to cohabitation (not that he is either) and lots of things about their relationship are new to her. Her last "serious boyfriend" was religious, conservative, and not particularly interested in radical equality or breaking down gender binaries - she has no doubts that this is way better.

However, she loves our hero in a way she has never felt before--he lights up her heart, frees her up from all kinds of mental and emotional traps she had felt stuck in, and makes her weak in the knees. She is excited to learn from him and support him however she can - and sometimes she even reads the books he recommends and follows his suggestions about the best way to go about things practical and political. She is learning that cooking and cleaning can be part of a creative, equal partnership, not of domestic servitude. She likes his friends (even if she's sometimes intimidated by their brilliance, intensity, and depth of experience... in many things...) and is thrilled when he likes hers.

We know that even all this love doesn't guarantee that she will make our hero happy, and we'd hesitate to speak for him on his own blog. But our hero himself has said that some of that gushy lovey weak-in-the-knees stuff goes for him too, that the learning goes in both directions, that their approach to domestic affairs and life can be complementary in many ways, and that he appreciates her follow-through and doggedness when she's trying to learn something (from him or others) or to make something happen.

So we hope that they are off to a life that incorporates both fighting racism and long bike rides through the woods, both working for the rights of workers and trans people and dancing to problematic [while rhythmically fabulous -ed.] music, both reading key books on radical theory and laughing so hard they can barely breathe. Plus, of course, living both on the East coast and the West...not to mention a few places beyond either coast. We hope you feel the same way.

News: some good, some bad

Hello, readers!

If you've given up on me, I wouldn't be surprised. Here are the last few month's highlights. I'll start with the good.

• Jess and I moved in together, to a wonderful place that's the top two floors of a house. After many false starts, it looks like we also have a roommate to occupy the third bedroom!
  
  
• I spent thankstaking with Jess's family in Harrisburg, PA and stayed up until 11:30 making tofu onion quiche, from-scratch pumpkin pie and stuffing for a veritable vegan army. It was a wonderful break, I curled up with a book in front of their fireplace. I can't remember when I had that many contiguous hours to be reading. Perhaps the last time I posted to this blog, eh?
  
  
• DC Trans Coalition won our campaign about handling procedures for trans people with the DC Police. Yay! It's a great document. Now we're working on enforcing it. First stop: a big ol' fashioned Know Your Rights training with the community;
  
  
• Jess and I took a Spanish class together;
  
  
• Our new place has seen a whole slew of fabulous visitors already, a pumpkin-carving party, a housewarming, a bevy of guests. Yay!
  
  
• Halloween, my favorite holiday, was particularly delightful this year: friends of mine through various USAS connections had put together a zombie-laden haunted scavenger hunt/bicycle race all across DC. It was truly amazing. I was a devil and Jess was a witch, complete with pointy hat affixed to her bicycle helmet. Can't beat that.
  
  

And the bad...

• This November 24th was marked not only by the birthdays of Elly and Juliana, but the untimely death of my cat Miles. Miles had been in the care of my parents since 1996, so my claim to him was shaky, but my love for him was not. There are really unfortunate parallels to my dad's death as well, and Miles also had a chronic kidney condition, but his only lasted a year or so. I will miss him terribly. He was 13, which was old, but in my family we've had cats live to be 21.
  

So much has happened over the last few months there's no way I can get it all down here. Needless to say, living with Jess is a joy. The moving process was...eventful, and for about a month I spent every spare moment assembling some piece of Ikea or Ikea-via-craigslist furniture or unpacking boxes.

Also, I'm coming out to California for a big chunk of the winter, and I'm really excited about it. It's going to be a rough time no matter what, and I'm already pretty down about the events of last winter. It blows my mind that it's already been almost a year.

With that, though, it was much more joy than sorrow when an dear friend of my parents, Jim Heid, discovered and sent me a clip from the last episode of Jeopardy that my dad was on. I was two when he was on the show, and I've never seen the show as an adult because this was long before we had a VCR. I don't even know if you could get them in 1979. Nonetheless, here's the link. My dad's the swaggering ham who had won the previous four days...he lost the fifth, but it was enough money to build the house I grew up in.

Been a while, huh?

Some things have happened in the last coupla months. Seven days after my last post, I turned 31 years old and had a party in DC to celebrate. Since then:

• I took a trip out to California for a memorial dinner with my dad's siblings over his birthday weekend and helped my mom fix up the new place she's living, plus saw a few friends and took one trip to the beach;
  
  
• I found a great therapist whom I saw for three months, who recently had a baby, but now she's back practicing again;
  
  
• I went to the US Social Forum where I saw hundreds of my nearest & dearest, which was amazing;
  
  
• I stepped up work around the DC Trans Coalition, where we're working to change the way police in DC (mis)handle transgender and gender-variant folks;
  
  
• My mom sold the house, which finally closed escrow a couple of weeks ago;
  
  
• Jess and I continue to deepen our relationship (some of you met her at the USSF, others during a brief overlap in California)--it makes me quite amazingly happy;
  
  
• I slumped a bit around what would've been my parents' 29th wedding anniversary and was also the anniversary of Elly's departure from DC;
  
  
• I took over the rent-paying role at the crazy many-person anarchist-leaning collective house I've been occupying for almost two years now;
  
  
• I got promoted at my day job while managing a whole bunch of web-program stuff over the summer. Plus I was representin' on a panel at YearlyKos, the blogger convention. I don't self-identify as a blogger, and I think my lack of posts can testify to that, but really, I clearly am. I mean, here I am, writing a blog and all.
  

Summer has involved a lot of hiding out at Jess's air-conditioned apartment and a few weekend trips to pretty places, notably the Shenandoah Valley for camping and hiking Old Rag mountain and my pal Ginny's amazing farm just outside of Culpeper, VA. I also took the first-ever personal strategy retreat at Rehoboth Beach, DE where I sat on the beach and read lots of self-help and personal time management and political theory books and got just a little bit closer to having a five-to-ten-year plan.

More to follow...I swear.

month four...

Mom has moved, and got a new car, and has a social life as she's closer to the Healdsburg community now. What a huge sigh of relief. It's been hard, but she's managed to undertake an amazing strain and has landed on her feet. She's already hooked up with a Windsor grief group. It's quite amazing.

I was very, very, very busy for a while. My friend B absconded with me and Jess, my (relatively) new sweetie, his sweetie Mari, several other amazing pals to Shenendoah National Park for some good ol' fashioned car camping. It was really lovely. There was a hike, there were waterfalls. If I had a doctor to order it, it would've been what they'd ordered.

Last weekend I was in Philadelphia...Jess was attending a workshop Molly lead; a stop between time in New Orleans and a return to the Bay Area.

I'll be back in the Bay in June for the memorial gathering of my dad's siblings in San Francisco.

Not much else to report. Well, lots. But not enough time. More will follow, eventually.

(relatively) good news!

The results are in, as of this afternoon: whatever I'm doing dietarily is working. If anything, a little too well..my levels of homocysteine (the biproduct of my genetic defect, and an indicator of potential harmful effects) are *low*. Low! Below normal range. I'm at 3.5, the range is 5-12. Whoa. I was worried about it being too high. So apparently, all these years of being a pretty staunch vegan are paying off. Well, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, and apparently it'll all be OK. And here I thought I was simply stubborn.

My mom is undertaking the moving process, and although it's hard, she's managing to make it happen with the support of dear friends.

I found a therapist to work with around my grief issues, and it's a funny thing - she both happens to know all about the genetic condition that I have, and has an extensive background in the labor movement. Who knew? Quelle conincidence. If there are things that look out for people, I have a few of them looking out for me.

In other news, I'm keepin' on keepin' on. I have a new sweetie/person-that-I'm-dating. I'm still managing to make some art. I've become involved with a local trans coalition that is beginning to work on holding local police/fire/EMS services accountable. These are all profoundly good things.

bizarre syncronicity

I've been struggling a bit. Some good things have happened, some ill health. Spring has finally hit DC. I havent' been writing but I have been making visual art. I makle plans which I don't execute...everyone who sent me a mixed CD or a present will receive a woodcut from me eventually. I sent one to my mom and it made her cry; I gave one to Molly and s/he did as well. It's harder for me to give a gift that causes people to burst into tears.

Being less functional in my world often still involves a level of overcommitment most find baffling. I made it out to the DC social forum, to the National Conference on Organized Resistance, I'm driving to Durham this weekend for the SURGE conference (but really as an excuse to see my pals there and meet Jilly's baby). I've done my chores, done my work, had a few therapy appointments, made it to Spanish class every Thursday. I cook brunch Saturdays, my laundry gets done.

One week I'd made two rounds of doctor appointments. The first was a Monday morning appointment with a geneticist; I wanted to see if I have the same mutations that killed my father and my father's father. The second, my routine every-six-month bloodwork. I hadn't expected it, but that was when I felt grief most intensely...sitting in a chair, rubber band strapped around my arm, waiting for the predictable prick I could only think of the thousands of IVs and blood draws I saw during the three weeks dad was in the hospital. I had remained vigilant: don't draw blood on the shunt arm, don't take blood pressure anywhere but this section of forearm. The nurses said they appreciated my presence as a verbal chart. I understood that the information in the chart was somehow never quite enough to convey what they needed to know, but that this wasn't their personal fault.

Two of my dear friends each mailed me, without the other knowing it, a copy of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. It's about the moment of and year after the sudden death of her husband and multiple hospitalizations of her daughter. It has been incredibly helpful if difficult to read. I will be sending the other copy to my mother shortly.

I've been vaguely sick for weeks...first with a queasiness that also afflicted my housemates and co-workers, which resolved after I took a day off to sleep. Then a fever and a cough. I am now at home, awake but soon to be asleep again. I'd rather this thing get out of my chest.

I finished the book today. No sooner had I set it down, reeling a bit from its end, thinking about my dad, then I get a call from an unknown 202 number.

It's the geneticist. Is now a good time? Yes, it's great. The lab messed up the amino acid assay, as I warned you they probably would. OK, no problem. I'm happy to get the labs done again.

She helpfully delivers the lab information and offers to fax the prescription. It's not far from my work. I think the conversation is ending. I'm wrong.

"I have some more results to report. It does appear that you have the two of the common MTFR mutations. They can be treated with the B vitamin and folic acid vitamin therapy you've already been taking... [there was more, I won't put it all here]"

Sigh. I had hoped to dodge this particular bullet. Thirteen years of being vegan and taking vitamins has probably helped me get a leg up, but nonetheless. The amino acid assay will tell us what we need to know: how elevated are my levels of homocystine? Am I deficient in any particular amino acid? Am I doing everything I want to do in life, or preparing for it, given that if I follow in my forebears' footsteps I am soundly at mid-life?

Sometimes I appreciate the sense of humor this universe has, but today it's a little rough.

waking up

The weekend following the snow day, it snowed in earnest. I meant to take pictures, it was one of the most beautiful moments I've been in DC. I walked, trudged, slushed gleefully through the sidewalks. It was the soft kind of snow, the kind that's good for snowpeople and forts; kids were in the parks fulfilling this snow-laden mandate. It was three inches or so and very fast, thin branches everywhere weighted down in an unbelievable display of fortitude...after all they've been through this season. It was also a liveable temperature, 32 or so. I hadn't smiled like that in a while.

I'm working on a woodcut series about my dad's death. I'll post some of them here.

Now it's beginning to warm up, and we had a couple of days that could've passed for Spring. It's always amazing ot me how immediately joyful my body becomes with the presence of sun. It's a rough time to feel such a high, but I'm glad for it. I needed something.

My mom has bought a new place in Windsor and will be moving soon, which will be good. There's a memorial planned for the summer with my dad's siblings but I'm not sure when or what date. I still can't manage to pick up the phone as often as I'd like, I'm still being a little reclusive. Nonetheless, people are persistent with sending their love in many forms, about which I am always amazed and humbled.

The website that I've been working on launching (the redesign) finally went live this week. If you want to see it, you can go here. Work has been pretty busy, adn there's another feature launching within a week or so, no rest for the wicked.

snow day

It's coming up a month since I posted last -- I promised erratic, and gosh darnit, I deliver.

Things are still surreal. I've had a number of amazing dreams that my dad has been present in, but the most amazing one was as follows: My dad has come back to life, but really only briefly, and only to attend his own memorial gathering in [insert mythical dream-place here: for locals, it's like Villa Chanticleer except it's on the Ft. Bragg-Mendocino Road]. I'm shocked that he's back, but we all understand that it's temporary. He's about 45 years old and wearing a classic jeans-shirt-tweed jacket combo. My job is to drive him to the memorial, and we're talking a bit, I think I asked him how long he'd be around, adn then after feeling some anxiety, I ask, "Well, OK. What do we do with your ashes? Because we were thinking, maybe the Pacific, but also we thought you might want them in Chicago, but you didn't leave any instructions..." he smiles widely and laughs, looks at me with an affectionate seriousness and says, "Hmm, I'll have to think about that. I'll tell you later on." We drive up, and everybody is shocked by seeing him at his own memorial, which was the point, I had gathered. I woke up, and realized he hadn't told me what to do with his ashes! Perhaps that was part of the joke. A smart friend of mine said that if he didn't leave instructions, that probably anything we do with them will be the right thing to do. I think it worries me too much.

Today was a snow day, but there was hardly any snow on the ground. I stayed at work although many people left by 2pm and by 5pm, someone turned the hall lights out on me. I suspect tomorrow might be the same situation. I suspect that legislators, who are considering the non-binding resolution around troop withdrawal from Iraq, decided that snow fort manufacture was an easier activity.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. That is a little rough -- I know it was well observed during his lifetime.

I've seen lots of movies, many meaningful, a few fluffy. I haven't been doing much outside of work that isn't social. Eventually that will drive me to distraction and I'll have to get overcommitted again, but I'm staving it off. It's amazing how productive I can be regardless -- we insulated the house, got a new cat, I've ironed my shirts on several occassions, I repotted my spider plants. Oh, OCD. You are a mixed blessing.

me and my dad

dad1,
originally uploaded by mtoth.

I took a few digital photos of pictures in the family albums to have when I returned. I thought it would be nice to put a few of them up.

surreal

is pretty much the only word I can use to describe my last few days, and I don't think it's going to get any less so.

I owe about 25 people phone calls, I went back to work yesterday, and there is a small neatly-stacked pile of my dad's clothes on my floor waiting to go to the cleaners. It's really bizarre. I have a hard time assimiliating the information that he's no longer on this planet. Or, at least, in any discernable form that I knew him to occupy.

My co-workers have been very kind, and today was an easy day. Tomorrow I get back into the swing of things. I have a three-hour presentation to prep for that's happening next Monday. I haven't really been breathing, but I remember ever so often.

I saw the first picture of my dad's dad while I was sorting through his things; I came across a small stack of his childhood pictures, his dad's obituary, and a burial record for Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Worth, Illinois with a map to his dad's plot. In his handwriting, he wrote the dates of what I presume to be other relatives: 1880-1946, 1882-1965, 1913-1963. The last set is his dad's -- fifty years old. He survived his own father by 8 years, 7 of them on dialysis. At some point I'll visit the plot, too, now that I know where it is.

Before I left I packed up and went on a big road trip with Mazzy - out to every place of significance to my relationship with my dad. Setting out from San Francisco, we drove up 101 to Willits, out Redwood Road to the house that Jeopardy money built, down through the windiest road imaginable to Fort Bragg, site of many a weekend jaunt with my dad and I as we waited for my mom to complete her radio show on KOZT. We stopped many places, but wound up in mendocino, overlooking the driftwood beach where we shared many hours pouring over potential pilferable pieces. That beach is a shadow of its former self and I feel partly to blame. Mazzy and I headed back via 128 through Booneville to San Francisco, where we met Cathy for dinner and I was handed off to Cathy for the trip to Oakland Airport. Exhausting, but a wonderful and heart-rending trip. I took many pictures and will post some when my camera has enough battery to upload them.

Charles Harrington Anthony Seiter, Ph.D. 1948-2007

My dad was my first best friend. I loved him dearly, and can barely comprehend the huge gaping hole that is now created in the world by his absence. He died peacefully last Sunday evening at about 9pm, listening to his favorite music, shortly after my mom told him it was OK with her if he went.

He was so many things and so loved by all who knew him. He was incredibly complicated. I'll never really know everything about him, but what I do know I have treasured, even as we struggled over the years.

Born in 1948 in Chicago to an Irish Catholic family of five, he lost his father at the age of 15 to kidney failure that was likely the same condition that would ultimately end his own life. I don't know enough about this time in his life, but he was an altar boy, read every book in the Willamette library, took up calligraphy, learned Latin and Hebrew, became a loyal Cubs fan, chewed Wrigley's gum and ate Oscar Meyer head cheese the family received as holiday presents from those families, learned how to bribe people, steal holy wine, run a lawn-mowing business, and other traditional entreprenurial activities. After his father's death in 1963, his mother moved the family to San Diego where he met my mother (they attended the same Chinese class at Clairemont High School) and he was a member of the second freshman class of UCSD, 1969. He then earned a double PhD in Chemistry and Applied Mathematics from CalTech. He taught chemistry for five years at USC -- one of his favorite classes to teach was Chemistry for Nurses. He maintained that anybody could learn chemistry and math if they were taught better. He was a record-breaking winner of Jeopardy, one of the first telecommuters, and an amazing cook. He approached everything with brightness, humor, and the ability to innovate. For years he was a contributing editor at Macworld Magazine; I recall taking trips from Willits to Ukiah to rent a toaster-box Mac where he would write some of the first Mac software reviews. He designed biochemical equipment and worked on electrophoresis problems during my early years...he would describe incredibly complex surface-printing problems or engineering feats like the manufacture of tape in a way my ten-year old brain could understand. There's so much more to say here, but I have time and it will come.

For the last ten gruelling years he struggled with the effects of first one stroke, then another, and total kidney failure which ultimately damaged his body beyond recovery. He said during his last two days that he was going on a trip, I only hope his trip took him to a much better place than his body would allow him on this earth.

This is about all I can stand to write about him publicly at this point. Expect further installments at totally arbitrary times.

Many many people's love has helped to hold me together through this time. I can't thank my people enough. You know who you are, and I owe you one.

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.