I went to see a 1hour (condensed) movie of Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” today, recorded from San Francisco Opera performances, with Lucy and some of her friends and their parents. I’ve seen it before and I adore opera and I could never see too much opera. I had forgotten the perfect line in “The Magic Flute” until I heard Tamino and Pamina sing it (for insomniacs everywhere):
set forth and trust in music’s might
to lead us safely through this night
Lucy and her friend Maia do NOT want their photo taken
Categories: art · civic center · happiness · kindergarten
Will Phillips, a 10-year-old boy in Arkansas, has been refusing to stand for or say the pledge of allegiance because, he says. “I really don’t feel that there’s currently liberty and justice for all.” (he’s referencing no liberty/justice for gays/lesbians who cannot be legally married according to the federal government)
I first read this story, thanks to this a post on Twitter from a friend who protects her tweets. I thought it was a great story and was impressed with the kid and glanced at the headline, and I wondered why The Examiner used the term “homosexual” when plenty of current newspapers specifically don’t.
Really, now, the term “homosexual” only belongs on a card like this:
The Examiner’s headline reads, “10-year-old refuses to pledge allegiance to country that discriminates against homosexuals” with story by Jennifer Chou.
The source article that is referenced resides at The Huffington Post where the headline reads, “Will Phillips, 10-Year-Old, Won’t Pledge Allegiance To A Country That Discriminates Against Gays.”
GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) writes about how the Associated Press, New York Times, and Washington Post have all restricted usage of the term homosexual in recent years because:
the term “homosexual” — a word whose clinical history and pejorative connotations are routinely exploited by anti-gay extremists to suggest that lesbians and gay men are somehow diseased or psychologically/emotionally disordered, and which, as The Washington Post notes, “can be seen as a slur.” AP and New York Times editors also have instituted rules against the use of inaccurate terminology such as “sexual preference” and “gay lifestyle.”
’nuff said.
Categories: civil rights · marriage
Tagged: associated press, examiner, gay, gay rights, homosexual
On a night in October 1997 I went to a bar with a friend to meet up with some other friends who said they had invited their friend Moya. Moya walked into the bar and announced to us that she had a cold and would be needing orange juice in vodka to cure her cold. She read tarot from the contents of my wallet. She was so dynamic and original and enigmatic and blatantly silly. I got such a crush.
A while later … On November 25, 1997, after dinner with friends, in the middle of an El Niño rainstorm, Moya and I went for a walk in the rain and ended up at a park near my house where there was fog rolling down the rock wall and a flood in the playground and we danced on soggy grass and kissed in the rain. Thanksgiving was two days later.
My gadgets in 1997 were a cellphone, a 2way skytel pager, and a newton. I had a computer and dialup internet connection at my house. Moya had a text pager for work and in her home there was a rotary dial phone and a cassette tape message machine and a turntable stereo and big windows. It was the best studio apartment I ever knew.
We emailed stories to each other. I paged text messages to her. She paged text messages to me. It was IM/SMS for 1997. She picked me up at the office of my brand new company and took me out for dinner. She told me stories about the moon and planets and galaxies. I asked her how far away Saturn is when she showed me her telescope. That wasn’t the point.
(with apologies to Billy Collin’s “Litany”) She is the tray and the letters, the balcony and the plants, the shot glass and the flask, the sleeping bag and the pillow. She is not the minimalist bare wall or the question mark, she is the double dash. She is of course the genius inventor and the naked romp in the Pacific Ocean. She’s the native grass. I’m the palm tree. I am the seams in the sidewalk, full of grit. She is the eye candy arm candy smoky scotch peat candy. She is a sheet of puffy clouds with a jet cutting through. She will always be the sleeping bag and the pillow, not to mention the shucker and the decanter.
I’m so thankful for the past decade+ of me and her. We are officially a tween!
The stairs of The Alexis (where Moya lived when we first met)
Lloyd Street
Happy! (not because of the parking ticket on Moya's car!)
Categories: fog · happiness · san francisco · south park
Tagged: anniversary
A few recent adventures of 5-year-old Lucy. WARNING: dead bird.
I’m pretty sure this is her first original pun/joke: I slipped and fell on the stairs and Lucy said, “it’s a good thing you’re wearing your slippers.”
On October 25, 2009 while sitting in the backyard eating pizza with the neighbors, Lucy looked up and proudly grinned, “my tooth fell out!” Moya and I scrambled to figure out what the tooth fairy would do (the result: a pretty marble and a $5 bill under Lucy’s pillow).
While trick or treating on Halloween evening, Lucy saw an empty bowl by a door (with a sign that said “have a cold, can’t come to the door, help yourself”) and poured half her bag of collected candy into the empty bowl.
Trick or treat!
There have been 2 dead birds on the street at the corner of Collingwood/18th recently, a corner that we often pass by on our walk to/from school. The first was on the corner for several days and inspected daily by Lucy who was very concerned about how the bird died and whether or not someone would bury it and whether or not it hurt when it died. It was eventually gone with a few feathers left behind and then another dead bird was added to the corner. 
Lucy stomped her feet one morning while looking at the remains of the birds and declared, “I’m done with birds dying! I don’t want any more birds to die!” Then she picked up some of the feathers from the dead bird and put it on the ground near a tree because “the ground is soft and comfy for the bird, the street is hard.”
Lucy’s generally an advocate of kindness to all animals and also an inspector of all animal and insect death that she discovers. Holding Lucy’s hand while she leans close to a dead bird in the crosswalk reminds me of the times in my childhood when our cows were butchered. My younger sister wanted some parts of the cow so she could inspect and dissect them. I had to hold her hand while she walked out to the field to ask the butcher for the eyes, or whatever gross dead animal part. She was shy. I was brave but queasy. Lucy’s shy. I’m still brave and queasy.
Categories: happiness · kindergarten
Tagged: 5 years old, kindergarten, lucy
