My new roommate

Once again, my escorts are a good-looking gay couple, who are dear friends and the perfect “date” when I’m without one, which is often. We are attending a birthday celebration for one of them at the home of his mother, who lives about 20 miles north of the city, in Marin County, where old-time rural and new cookie-cutter type development slyly mix making the place eerily charming. Along the way, the three of us stop to pick up one more homosexual, a struggling artist in his tender twenties who entertains us with news of the latest foreign film or a pre- or post-Burning Man gathering. A night out with these three usually guarantees a good time even if I can’t bed any one of them at the end of the evening.

We arrive at my friend's mother's home, a residential facility for seniors who are healthy (i.e., ambulatory) or not. Stepping onto the curb, a very friendly woman getting out of her car at the other side of the street calls to us. I didn’t know we’d be joined by anyone else but am relieved. At 84, my friend's mother is sharp but dominates every conversation with talk about her long-since dead husband and the thrilling life she led while he served in the U.S. Coast Guard. Since this conversation can quickly become tedious, I figure that the woman with the big smile will be one more voice in the room to drown out our hostess' monologue when it begins to spin out of control.

It's mid-February and chilly and those of us arriving by chariot are dressed for winter, California-style: jeans and light wool jackets for the men and a cotton candy colored puffy down jacket for me. The friendly newcomer, on the other hand, sports a different and refreshing winter look with tightish black pants belled at the ankle and a long dark coat tastefully embroidered with bright colored flowers. As she crosses the street to meet us, I also see her unusual jewelry including an inventive single stainless ring with holes for two fingers. I think: Artist from New York; in time, I’ll discover that both are true.

Her shiny smile is of the welcoming kind especially in the middle of winter. With long dark curly hair framing creamy skin and little rosy patches for cheeks, she looks straight out of a Caravaggio canvas updated to fit the times by about 400 years. No surprise the woman with the rose-colored cheeks is named Rosie. People are not always perfectly-suited for their name, but she turns out to be.

Fortunately, my friend's mother lives on the healthy wing of her residential facility because I am not much in the mood for messy bottoms or sadness of any sort. It has been a long winter and I'm ready for a good dose of levity even if just for the night. Raised in New Orleans, his mother still cooks a mean gumbo, the centerpiece of the evening’s meal, and I make my way to the buffett table for seconds, thirds, and so on. On my third or possibly fourth trip back I meet up with Rosie, who’s also wrist-deep in the gumbo cauldron, and strike up a conversation partly to avoid returning to the couch where everyone else is listening to yet another story about life on Governor’s Island as a new bride.

Curious about the person with enough imagination to wear a single ring that straddles and joins two fingers, I ask, “So what’s with the ring?” To which she replies, “Oh, it's made by a friend of mine. Isn’t it great?”

“It is.” It figures that her friend makes jewelry. I assume that she does too. “Are you also a jewelry maker? Does it feel funny not to have the freedom of those two fingers?”

“I string beads,” and then adds in response to my second question, “No, it feels good. In fact, it kind of feels better to have your fingers stuck together like this.”

Not seeing the restricted mobility as a problem, I register her response as a positive indicator: a glass is half-full kind-of-person of which I’m in serious need, so I keep things going, “What do you do besides string beads?”

“Not much right now. I’m from New York, Boston, and moving soon, so I'm not working.”

“Which one? New York or Boston?” I ask.

“Born in New York, but left Boston for New Mexico a couple years ago. I went to school in Boston and stayed. I’m going to Cambodia soon to visit an orphanage run by a friend. What do you think about traveling on your own?”

A bit perplexed about her moving around so much, I respond, “I wouldn’t do it any other way.” I actually just returned from Vietnam where I'd been on my own, and, as a fairly intrepid traveler for most of my adult life, the idea of wandering solo around the planet doesn't much faze me. I know nothing of her capacity for exotic travel, but believe that her open face and willing smile will go over big in Southeast Asia.

To this near-perfect stranger, I insist, “You have to go. You’ll be fine. Besides maybe you’ll fall in love while you’re there, just like Elizabeth Gilbert.”

With that her already sparkling face really lights up, “Have you read Eat Pray Love? I just heard her speak. She’s my hero!”

I never imagined that responding, “Mine too,” meant we’d suddenly entered a kind of pact to begin a friendship that would forever change my life. Upon discovering our shared affection for the writer Liz Gilbert, we talk for the remainder of the evening about the virtues of travel, the thrill of the unknown, the elusiveness of true love, and the difficulty of finding your way as single heterosexual middle-aged women in the gayest and youngest city in the world. They say it gets harder to develop new friends as we age, so I am grateful for those encounters which prove this absolutely false; meeting Rosie that winter night was one of those occasions.

As the party came to a close and our conversation was far from done, I said, “We have to get together soon,” thinking about the following week as a possibility.

“I’d love to, but I’m moving back to Boston soon.”

“Boston? I thought you were headed to Cambodia.”

And, she revealed, “I am, but that’s after I resettle on the East Coast.”

That was February 2007. A week later, we met for dinner at an understated ethnic restaurant in the Lower Haight and the conversation we'd started a week earlier continued without barely missing a beat. We talked about our hero, Liz Gilbert, our respective ex-boyfriends on the East Coast, and the possibility of traveling through Asia. She shared a tale about visiting Lourdes, France earlier that year and a profound experience of betrayal while in confession with a priest from India. That story was followed by another of her recent time in Galisteo, New Mexico and a terrifying fall while there into a 12-foot-deep sinkhole whose location was unknown up until that time.

My new friend was an entertaining storyteller but also possessed skills sometimes hard to find in those who can simply spin a good yarn. She knew how to watch for your response, pause for your input, and somehow make the whole story relevant to your life too even if you’ve never bathed in the holy water at Lourdes or fallen in the direction of the earth’s core. Listening to her I was convinced that our meeting was the sole redeeming event in what was otherwise a crappy year and her moving back to Boston would give me just one more reason to doubt that magic exists. The restaurant closed around us and we promised to get together the following week to, once again, continue talking.

Over the next few weeks, Rosie decided to delay her departure for the East Coast, giving us a chance to meet for another meal at a solidy trendy restaurant on Market Street that is one of my favorites and one she had been to with her ex-boyfriend.

“It’s good to reclaim these kind of places for ourselves. I’ve wanted to come back but the thought of doing that without him turned my stomach. Thank you for doing this with me,” she said as we took a seat in the upstairs dining area.

“Let’s make a pact that we’ll do that for each other when possible. I like the idea of conquering those kinds of demons with a friend. Somehow it seems easier that way,” I replied. We lifted our glasses of tap water to that and the conversation—like the earlier ones—lasted for hours. That toast sealed our fate. We would help one another get over and through various bumps in the road in ways we couldn't have done alone.

Following that dinner, Rosie fell into a romance with a man who made leaving San Francisco prematurely a bad idea. At the end of the Fall, she and her dog, Trusty, needed a new place to live, and the two of them moved into my home, providing me with the feeling of family for which I'd been desperately longing. What followed next was the stuff that stories--like this--are made of. In Spring 2008, she saved my life, and, right about the time I started to get well (Summer 2008), she moved back to Boston. She passed in and through like an angel saving me from a generally unremarkable year (2007) and chaperoning me through an astounding year (2008) that almost took my life and through which I wouldn't have survived on my own.

Last week, my new roommate moved in. She measures about four inches long and is rather shy unless coaxed out from under my dishwasher by cheese or peanut butter snacks. She likely won't last long around here since I've recently set a trap in the middle of my kitchen floor. It's not that I want to remain living alone; in fact, quite the opposite, I'd prefer to share my home with someone else and live like a real "family" does, just not with a small rodent. Good news is I got a call last week from Rosie who's thinking of moving back to California--things in Boston aren't exactly what she expected. Hopefully, that trap will snap just in time.

The bridge to everywhere

Here you see it, the 1.2-mile-long east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge while under construction. The east span will be the largest self-anchored suspension bridge. The single tower will be located just a little off of Yerba Buena/Treasure Island. Construction has taken place while the existing east span is open and, thus, requires all kinds of engineering and scheduling twists and turns to keep current traffic flowing and interruptions at a minimum. It is THE link to the East Bay from San Francisco and one of a limited number of links to the South Bay. All to seismically retrofit the span after one section of it collapsed in the 1991 Loma Prieta earthquake. On our recent tour of the project, the Project Engineer said something about the new span being able to withstand a 8.0 on the Richter scale; not sure if I heard him right or if that's what I wanted to hear. I must confess that the thought of the bridge collapsing again in an earthquake gives me the willies.

Although you can't see it in these photos, along the east side of the new span is a public path for bikes and pedestrians. This $600 million addition to the project seems hefty in cost but will be a fantastic addition to a bridge that's never been publicly accessible: all thanks to BCDC. The project needed to provide: "Maximum feasible public access consistent with the project." That's what the laws says. I realize that I'm biased, but thank goodness for good government.

So looks like our government may be taken over soon by the Dems. Hallelujah. Not that it'll be a smooth or easy road head. In fact, I think it would be an awful time to regain control, but someone's got to do it and it's better us than them. There's something so ironic bout a government that's hell-bent on spreading democracy all over the world, while having no regard for the democratic process here at home. What's that called: hypocrisy, theatre of the absurd, horror story?

The mystery of Neti

What could they all be thinking about? Of course, nasal irrigation. I'm all over it and, apparently everyone else is too.

After my surgery in March, the nurses insisted that it was essential to a speedy recovery. So every morning and end of the day, they'd enter my room with an oversized plastic basin, a canister of salted water, and a syringe-like device--the whole apparatus for cleansing my sinuses of residue left from surgery and also any residual bacterial infection that may be lodged anywhere else in that area of my head. Not the most pleasant exercise but, hey, if you want to get out of the hospital, you do what they tell you to do.

Only because they insisted that I continue the regimen once leaving the hospital did I enter into the secret universe of the Neti. Different from the mechanical-looking device used in the hospital, the real world offers a nasal irrigation device in beautiful ceramic and soothing colors, e.g., Midnight Purple and Seafoam, known as a Neti Pot. The yogis have used the Neti for centuries but us, Westerners, are just discovering that it can actually do wonders for your mucous membranes...no kidding.

Most of the members of my very small family appear to love me. Despite that, they do find it difficult to embrace my ideas or suggestions especially without the endorsement of a third party. My brother, sister-in-law, and myself are sitting at the Salt Lake City airport waiting for our respective planes when I begin to reveal the mystery of Neti. I'm explaining to my brother, who's getting over the tail-end of a bronchial infection, how you shove the spout of the pot into your nostril, tilt your head, and let the saline solution come out the other nostril--really, it's kind of fascinating to discover that this kind of passage exists in your head! Of course, he's listening skeptically and just about to discredit the whole thing until the complete stranger across from us chimes in.

"Have you ever really gotten used to it?" To which I respond affirmatively.

"I'm still using mine, but it's always been a little awkward." This from a guy who looks like he's been living off the land for most of his life and to whom the secret of Neti was not too difficult to discover (i.e., at his local health food store, his back-to-land group of friends, the most recent yoga journal).

We continue our exchange about the Neti, when Mr. Corporate America sitting a few seats down pipes in, "I can't live without mine. I swear by it." At which point, the three of us engage in an in-depth discussion about the not-so-secret Neti. My brother looks on incredulously wondering if we are plants for some crazy advertising agency. Short of the long, the three-way endorsement was enough to convince him.

I stand by my Neti. It offers hope in an otherwise isolated and cruel world. Forget the obvious health benefits, if nothing else, it brings unlikely strangers together in the airport or brings family members together on otherwise contentious subjects.

My Mormon roots

This morning on the Meet the Press, Colin Powell endorsed Obama. He carefully addressed all the reasons that he wasn’t endorsing McCain and sounded absolutely credible and important, like his endorsement mattered. It was like hearing that the Emperor has no clothes. I especially liked it when he said that McCain’s running mate is simply not ready to be president, which is the purpose of that job. It will likely matter most for those who remain undecided especially those that voted for Bush last time, feel left behind, and are hoping for something to change. It was an exciting if not entirely surprising moment.

I am on my way out of Salt Lake City, sitting in the airport amidst thousands and thousands of Mormon children who belong to a parent or two in the crowd. It doesn’t really matter if they end up with their actual birth parents once the plane arrives because everyone looks and acts exactly the same making that kind of exchange not really that odd. I was here for the weekend—Park City to be exact—with my brother and sister-in-law visiting my Dad and his wife of 40-plus years (not my Mom). It was my Dad’s 78th birthday on Saturday; my brother Gregg, born on that same day, would have been 53. That makes nineteen years that he has/I have missed (him).

My brothers and I are a quarter Mormon. My Mom’s father was a Mormon and most of his family lived right here in Salt Lake City. About 10 years ago, my Mom had a sudden hankering for finding out more about her father who died when she was around four years old. She and I took at trip to Salt Lake to do some geneological research. After a few days, we located him on the Mormon database and found out that her long-lost half sister (supposedly from his first marriage), whose name is Alice, may have in fact been his first wife. We also learned that my Grandmother and my Mom were never entered into the database—nor my brothers or myself—for reasons that obviously had something to do with us being Jewish and not qualified to go to Mormon heaven. Despite that oversight, my Mom and I were happy to see that my Grandfather made it into the system and, hopefully, into Heaven considering that the Mormon’s don’t condone the way in which he left this planet.

I don’t have anything against the Mormons. Frankly, I think most religions are for the birds. I think that Utah, however, is a very strange place considering its history. Could it be the only state whose collective identity is wrapped around one single faith? Probably. For me, that just doesn’t sit right. Despite that I do love the land here. In my opinion, it holds the most stunning landscape that I’ve ever seen, anywhere. For that alone, I can say that I love this place, but I'm heading home.

Central Mountain Time

The industrious Mormons are especially good at transforming the desert into green (see photo). They are also good at creating an extremely homogenous neighborhood grid (see photo): the green patches are parks, next to the green patches are churches and schools, everything in between are great big houses that hold families with thousands of young children.

Why is he fondling his Sharpie?

This past Wednesday evening, the last of three presidential debates was held at Hofstra University. The first debate was the stand-at-your-respective podium kind. The second was a snoozer Town Hall format with an audience of mostly corpse-like individuals. The third with the venerable Bob Schieffer as moderator had the two candidates sitting at a semi-circular desk within swiping distance of one another. The focus was on domestic issues—how could it not be with the economy in a regular nose-dive—and the at-home audience saw the candidates on a split-screen. This format was particularly interesting because not only could you watch the guy who was responding but you could see the other guy too listening and developing a whiz-bang rebuttal.

I want to start by saying that I am clearly biased. That said, in most of his answers, Obama sounded cogent and thoughtful—some might say downright “sincere;" in listening mode, he looked like an absolute statesman with the exception of the few times when McCain’s response brought out a giggle or a shit-eating grin. In responding to Schieffer, McCain sounded ancient, insincere, and too folksy for this particular election. The constant referral to "Joe-the-Plumber" and to Sarah Palin’s disabled child turned my stomach: yes, I feel for the plumber, but, why shouldn’t he should pay his taxes, and, yes, I feel for Palin, but it does not appear that caring for her child over time will cause undue hardship for her or her family.

In listening mode, McCain looked positively insane. Cranky as hell. It appeared that the only way to control himself from reaching across the table and ripping Obama’s head off was to grip his Sharpie and fondle it somewhat lovingly. He looked scary. He did not look like a diplomatic man or one who could be trusted to keep us out of another meaningless war. He looked desperate, like he’s fighting a losing battle. How dare he say that his running mate is a good role model for women! With all due respect, I believe he’s losing a grip on reality.

Accompanied by three friends, I watched the debate at The Purple Onion on Columbus Street. It’s a comedy club so the audience felt free lobbing funny comments at the big screen. I particularly liked how at the beginning of the debate when McCain referred to Nancy Reagan being sick—hasn’t she always been unwell?—several members of the audience raised their glasses and shouted “Here’s to the Reagan’s!” Total irreverence is always a good thing when talking about the two of them.

The debate did not appear to lift McCain from the hole he’s dug for himself and most polls this week show Obama way ahead, in some cases, by double digits! I never thought it would be possible but we may finally get rid of the Evil Empire (us, not them!) and the country can attempt to recover from eight years to horrific governing.

For better or worse

This past Wednesday, friends were married after a six-year courtship at City Hall. Short, sweet, simple in a grand and elegant place. How all weddings would ideally be. The couple that followed them from New York traveled all the way to San Francisco to FINALLY marry. After how many years together? Probably forever. Sweet, loving, tender. I could cry thinking of the turns their lives together and apart have taken.

This business of same-sex marriage is booming at City Hall as everyone’s trying to tie the knot before it becomes illegal to get married if Proposition 8 passes. It’s beyond me why anyone in their right mind would prevent any two people from marrying. Just think of the two from New York. As deserving as any couple, right?

Into the wild

In one of these photos, you can see Lake Tahoe to the right, about 8,000 feet above sea level. In the other photo, it's seen from about 20,000 feet. It's America's second deepest lake. Being above it, next to it, or near it makes you feel better about the world.

Shall I continue to be punished for my misdeeds?

It is the Jewish Day of Atonement. Year 5769 on the Hebrew Calendar. On Rosh Hashanah (the new year), God supposedly inscribes each person's fate for the coming year into a "book"--I'm not sure which one. On Yom Kippur, our fate is sealed and so the Day of Atonement is used to ask for forgiveness for everything that you've done wrong since last year. To prepare yourself for such self-flagellation and confession, it is expected that you refrain from those worldly activities that ordinarily keep you from really seeing or knowing yourself. Here they are in no particular order of importance: eating and drinking, wearing leather shoes, bathing, anointing oneself with perfumes or lotions, and sexual relations. Well, I can say with great comfort that I have refrained from one of those activities today.

The other thing that's true about Yom Kippur is that if you are not healthy then you don't have to fully refrain from, for instance, eating or drinking. That said, I use this Yom Kippur loophole whenever necessary especially because I do not like to fast especially abstain from my morning dose of caffeine. And this year, I'm using it. I have been sick this year and I was sick last week and I am still on blood thinner medication, so I believe that I qualify.

Now, even though, it's been far from a day of abstinence for me, this doesn't mean that I couldn't have gone to synagogue or prayed or atoned for the sins of the past year. I could have done all of those, but, frankly, I didn't feel like it. I know that's not a very pious attitude but I've had a crazy year during which I've been sufficiently punished for the sins of an entire lifetime. In fact, because I was sick for so much of this year, I didn't really have time to commit any more sins. So, I spent most of the day at home eating, when needed, bathing and, yes, applying lotion afterwards, and visiting with my friend Don, who was home from work. (Tonight, I'll wear leather shoes when I go out for break-the-fast dinner--I know I didn't fast, but that's what they call the meal at the close of Yom Kippur.)

I feel fine about my day and the way I've spent it. I've spent enough of my life feeling badly about my misdeeds and it's really never done me much good anyway. I'd like to instead start feeling just fine about all of the good things that I've done and continue to do on a daily basis. I've grown up over the past few years and I'm getting increasingly confident that I will not and do not deserve to be punished for behaving like a heathen on Yom Kippur. And, if I don't get included along with the Good People in that book this year and God does decide to punish me (again!), I have a secret hope about how I'd like to go. Since the Blue Angels are out today practicing for this weekend's display, I thought it would be quite dramatic if, on their way from the east towards the Pacific, they might dip their wings just a little too early and crash into my living room and, thus, me. Now, that would be some form of punishment, and, oy, the stories my family would tell!

Again, I'm expecting this year to be punishment-free. Happy New Year one and all!

Eco-Terrorist or -Activist?

My eyesight is not what it used to be. I'm not sure if it's age or the CST, but it's getting more difficult to, for instance, read over people's shoulders while riding MUNI to work. The article that I craned my neck to see was published in LUCKY magazine--that's easy to see because it's written in bold bright letters across the masthead. I thought it referred to the woman profiled as an "Eco-Terrorist," which struck me as odd in the mainstream media. Suddenly, it was fashionable to be a terrorist if pusued in the name of a greener life for one and for all. The photos made it look like this "Terrorist" was having a really nice time. She had long dark and wavy hair, brown eyes, on the exotic side, and very stylish. She shopped for eco-friendly products (e.g., lipstick and reusable grocery totes), and it was difficult to figure out who she was terrorizing: Shop clerks? Admirers of her hemp pants? Those of us still buying products wrapped in plastic?

When MUNI came to a halt just outside of the Duboce tunnel and the woman with the LUCKY magazine swayed in my direction, I could actually see the article and learned that the pretty model was not an Eco-Terrorist but an Eco-Activist! Terrorizing no one, she was actively trying to protect the environment at least--as shown in the photos--through exercising sensible shopping habits. It was not clear whether she actually had a job. I'll tell you one thing, it's a whole easier being an Ecoactivist when you don't have to get to work on time, have your skirts dry-cleaned, eat your lunch out of plastic wrappers.

On occasion, I hear people around my office referring to our projects as "God's work." Does that make me an Eco-Terrorist? I like it, it seems to work.