Archive for the tag 'Musings'

The Curse of Context-Free Judgment

Recently, a small war just blew up on my Facebook page. A Representative in New York submitted a bill, H. R. 5741, for compulsory service for everyone 18-42. I read the bill, flipped out a little, and posted it on my page, for comment. And boy, did I get comment. But really not what I [...]

Missing Charlie

Today is the one year anniversary of the last day I ever saw my friend Charlie. She had the biggest heart of anyone we’ve ever met. As one of our marina compatriots said, “every time you ran into Charlie on the dock, you came away feeling uplifted. She had something good to say about everyone, [...]

Velveeta of Grief

As the folks who read my other blog know, I’m writing a book about the process of turning your back on the American definition of success, and doing something else entirely. I wrote a bunch of stuff for the book that I’m now editing back out, for one reason or another (like, I was freaking [...]

Becoming Italian — The Crow Commandments

My friend Pilar sent me a link to this blog, and I found myself nodding, grinning, and really just identifying with, oh I dunno, pretty much everything in the whole blog. On the one hand, it’s paperwork everywhere I look. On the other hand… bring on the crows.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa

Grandpa Gagan’s birthday is today. He died when I was 17. And never a year goes by that I do not make my way to the sea on this day. On years where I’m pressed for time, I throw in flowers. In years where I can, I bake his favorite cake, the truly ghastly applesauce [...]

Unemployment #4

I received a lovely pep-talk from Christine. We have history — she hired me to do DTP contracting at Borland, years ago. She also hired Jenny, who left Borland, hired me at Sun, then hired Christine as a contractor, and now Jenny and I are gone from Sun, and Christine is doing ubergiggery there. Over [...]

Riding with Chip

Everyone knows you never pick up hitchhikers. We were driving home from Christmas in Nevada, at my parents’ place. We’d had a white christmas, the boys’ first ever, and ours too. It was cold cold cold, snowy, and perfectly wintry. We’d had a lovely time (which I’ll talk about in another post). And as we [...]

All in the Attitude

A few days ago, I received this email from a coworker of mine. Ed is an amazing guy; a seriously positive human being, despite being from the Bronx and threatening to break kneecaps sometimes. Ed has a tendency to drop these little gems of wisdom around and not even realize he’s done it. I’m not [...]

I Want To Be Like You

As I’ve mentioned a time or two before, Aurora is growing fast. Way faster than her brothers did, mostly because she has them to look up to, and an intense motivation to catch up to them. I didn’t post the other day when she started crawling, but she is. It’s still not super-organized; more like, [...]

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday was my eighth wedding anniversary. This is not the man I thought I was marrying. The guy I thought I was marrying was a rough, tough, hammer-swinging, tattooed-and-earringed bad boy. I thought the sun rose in his eyes, and wasn’t terribly concerned about the rest. Things change, with time. If you’re lucky and you’ve [...]

Are We There Yet?

I‘m due to have this baby any time now. It’s obvious if you know me and know my dates. I’ve been telling people “I’m having a Gemini”, so that’s a clear clue. And of course, I’m huge, so that’s a dead giveaway. If even one more person asks me “haven’t you had that baby yet?” [...]

Each Other’s Family

I blogged a teeny bit about my July 31 miscarriage here. And until I was discussing the due date for the baby I’m carrying now with Mom2, I had forgotten that the baby I miscarried was due right around now. I miscarried between Rowan and Kestrel too. That one, an eight-weeker and so-called “silent” miscarriage, [...]

Thoughts at 26 Weeks

So here I am, over halfway. In our culture, for the first baby, you spend all your time panicking about the unknown of it all. In my case, I spent my second pregnancy wholly focused on the event of the birth, which was a planned HBAC, and came with all the challenges inherent to that. [...]