This morning I walked from Presidio Heights, down to Pacific Heights, through Japantown and the Western Addition, down to the Lower Haight and further down hill to the Mission. It’s my grandma’s birthday today. I took a long walk to give myself time to remember her and appreciate the things I learned from her and the non-material gifts she gave to me. She was born in 1912 and died in 2009.

At the halfway point, I stopped at La Boulange at Pine/Fillmore for treats to eat on my walk. I felt like I was mostly alone on my urban hike. When this young man (who I’ll call Kurt since he reminded me of Kurt on Glee) started talking to me, it felt invasive.

When people try to talk to me on an airplane trip, I do my best to put on my earbuds and excuse myself. But not when I’m walking or on a bus. I’ll talk with just about anyone on the street or on a bus unless I’m in the midst of, like today, a particular thinking or meditating or reminiscing project in my mind.

I walked a bit slower than “Kurt” because I didn’t really want to chat, I wanted to walk and sniff out thoughts and memories from my mind, but then there was a crosswalk with traffic and I caught up and we both waited and smiled at each other.

As we both continued to walk, he walked faster than me, then he turned around and said, “be careful, that metal on the sidewalk is slippery.”

Another crosswalk with traffic where we both stood and waited for the light to change.

“It’s so cold here in San Francisco,” he said, and we picked up a conversation.

I told him about the hot weather in San Francisco in September and October and how my wife got sunburnt in early October in 2008 when we were married out by Ocean Beach. It had rained the day before, and in the rush to get our dresses on and hair done and ready to go, we forgot to put sunscreen on her back. She doesn’t usually wear a backless dress.

He said he’d been living here a week, to go to an art school, and was disappointed in the school and thinking of moving to New York, where at least he could get married if he wanted to someday, and there might be more or better opportunities to be a bohemian. He wanted to go to London and asked if I’d ever been to London. Yes, I said. “How old are you?” He asked. “40,” I said. “No way,” he said, “I’m 20.”

We exchanged names, I told him he’d do a lot in his life in the next 20 years before he turned 40, and we said goodbye as he turned a corner and I continued on Fillmore St.

I felt invigorated by the interstitial conversation during my walk, the many possibilities and hopefulness of being 20, and the friendliness of a stranger.

My grandma’s gifts were that she believed in me, gave me confidence, support, love, compassion, without any criticism or shame or blame or guilt. She was a devout Christian. She was a scientist (chemist) and a high school math teacher. She always was glad to see me and she always showed up. She was a maker and made a lot of things – knitting, crocheting, sewing, baking, cooking, gardening. I miss being able to tell her about my daughter, who wants to be a scientist, and who loves to knit and sew and cook and garden. It’s almost as though my daughter takes after her great-grandmother (even though they share no genes).

My grandma in 1943, long before I knew her. I love this photo of her and her big bright smile.

One of my first memories of her is of a trip I took to California in the 1970′s (on an airplane! My first airplane ride!) to visit her and my grandpa. They had a swimming pool and a lemon tree and a croquet set in their backyard. I thought California was magical because we could make lemonade every night from fresh lemons picked off of a tree (lemons, as far as I knew, didn’t grow in Oregon where I grew up, and most lemon juice came in a plastic container shaped like a lemon).

The Magical Backyard Swimming Pool in California, 1970's (plus a ping pong table!)

Happy 99th birthday, Grandma! I know you’re in a beautiful place and I keep you always in my heart and memories.

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!)

I now belong to a “special” group of approximately 18,000 who are married in the state of California even though the constitution does not allow us to be married.  As Ana Marie Cox tweeted:

“CA Supreme Court follows People vs. KFC precedent: no more gay marriage except for 18,000 who already used coupon.” (via @pourmecoffee)

I know there are probably many good logical spins to explain how/why a court who declared us a suspect class has now upheld discrimination against us, but I do not get it. Page 7 of the opinion is no comfort that they even meant anything  they wrote a year ago:

Nor does Proposition 8 fundamentally alter the meaning and substance of state constitutional equal protection principles as articulated in that opinion. Instead, the measure carves out a narrow and limited exception to these state constitutional rights, reserving the official designation of the term “marriage” for the union of opposite-sex couples as a matter of state constitutional law, but leaving undisturbed all of the other extremely significant substantive aspects of a same-sex couple’s state constitutional right to establish an officially recognized and protected family relationship and the guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

This sounds like an awfully thin curtain of one word dividing first class citizens from second class citizens. So my family has the right to a recognized and protected relationship, but the word, when clearly words matter, is solely reserved for opposite-sex couples, even though that word has clear advantages and rights that are being denied to same-sex couples.

At least Justice Moreno included a piece of Varnum v. Brien (Iowa 2009) 763 N. W.2d 862,877 as the introduction to his opinion:

[T]he ‘absolute equity of all’ persons before the law [is] ‘the very foundation principle of our government.’

My entry into a special class

Moving is quite cleansing.  There were things in the Folsom St office that had not been touched since we moved there.  The new office doesn’t have a full kitchen and full bathroom.  The Folsom St office had a fully stocked kitchen (baking! cooking! galore!) and a full bathroom stocked with plush towels.  The towels were carted off to the SPCA for cats and dogs to snuggle in.  The kitchen supplies went to my house or friends’ houses or Community Thrift.  While purging the office and sorting through supplies, we (Thanks, Lori, for the help!) sorted through the earthquake/emergency boxes full of food and supplies and discovered one of the best earthquake/emergency supplies – Asyla Whisky!  Only to be opened in case of emergency.

On December 23 the movers moved everything from Folsom St to my company’s new office on 2nd St.  I moved Ganesha in my pocket that day on an underground MUNI train – I think he’s worth keeping around.  I usually keep him perched on top of my computer monitor.

My new MUNI stop is Montgomery station (used to be Civic Center).  My company is sharing space with a small very friendly architecture firm and I’m excited to be sharing space again.  We shared some office space 4 years ago when we were in Hayes Valley.  When I first started my company I shared office space in South Park (South Park, San Francisco not South Park, Comedy Central) and I enjoy the camaraderie of people working in the same space but not necessarily working together or on the same projects or in the same industry.  I’ve noticed, in the few days I’ve been hanging out in my new space, that the architects seem to have very civilized consistent hours and they all leave for lunch in the middle of the day.  I haven’t worked around people who take regular lunch in over a decade!

My conference room has a view of a new oyster bar and fish restaurant (Anchor & Hope).

And there are some windows that look out to this airshaft.  I love airshafts — old space that got trapped in time.

In the afternoon, Lucy and I took a tricycle ride (her on trike, me walking) to Cliff’s Variety store in the Castro so she could spend her $22 on whatever she wanted.  She picked a pirate and some treasure.  We ran into some friends – Fred, Minne, Jonathan, Sarah, Esther – and then headed over to Eureka Rec Center where Lucy and Sarah balanced on the teeter totter:

We noticed police shutting down streets near the playground and decided to head home and see what all the fuss was about — it was a sit-in in the middle of 18th/Castro protesting Prop 8:

When we got home, my flyclear card had arrived in the mail – I’m officially not a terrorist!

Then we scampered off to Paul’s birthday party in his backyard with a fire pit and chili (not sure if it was really vegetarian or not but I was polite and just ate it) and yummy s’mores and, according to Lucy, “fun creepy paths” to wander around the dark garden.  There was chitchat at the party about prop 8, about someone who’s getting married soon, and I did my best to try to avoid it.  I still can’t stop the tears sometimes when people talk about prop 8 and I don’t want to be pitied by straight people.  I was slightly relieved when Lucy pulled me away to go play somewhere.  Sometimes a child’s whining is a good excuse to get out of an awkward adult conversation.

Lesbian Couple Hopes Third ‘I Do’ Proves Charm is an NPR All Things Considered story about me and Moya. We’re so thrilled and overjoyed that we can, after 11 years as a couple, marry each other in the state and city where we live here in California. It overwhelms me with giddy happy joy!