At the City Council meeting when I stood up in front of all who had gathered and pleaded my case to not allow some jackass corporate developer tear down Miracles Cafe and put up a two-story business complex in its place, said jackass corporate developer assured everyone that the development would still be a community [...]

It had already been a month. On land. No flights. Which, for the past half year or so, is something of a record.
Steve: Are you sure it leaves from the downtown airport and not Rio Negro?
Me: Yeah, of course. Positive.
Steve: You double-checked on the website?
Me (looking around the website, unable to find anything): Yeah, definitely.
Sunday [...]

This may sound like a strange parallel to make, but going to the gym and listening to This American Life have always shared a particular trait for me and one that I have a hard time understanding.
Basically, both activities take up about an hour. One 24th of a day. One 168th of a week.
And, both [...]

I don’t complain. I’m allergic to it. Incapable. I don’t know how. I try. And I fail.
I realize that complaining, to a certain degree, is the currency of compassion. We sit, a coffee, a glass of wine, an apertif. You complain, I soothe. Then: I complain, you soothe. We relate, we bond, and we tell [...]

Each city had its own smell. That’s one way I know that the person I am today has changed from the person I was then. There was a time - let’s call it the end of last millenium - when the first thing I would notice after opening the car door was the city’s unique [...]

It’s sandal weather again, hallelujah.
Dropping off Mari at City Hall, coasting down San Pablo while Keith Jarrett’s 1970’s piano chops flow out of public jazz radio like a flirtatious girl on a first date.
The stretch of San Pablo from 20th to 40th is one of Oakland’s most blighted thoroughfares. Every block is bookended with a [...]

The habit was as common as it was annoying. Every day someone would walk behind the counter of the neighborhood coffeeshop where I worked. Behind the counter and into the kitchen. I would look up, exasperated, with a serrated knife in my hand that I wanted to plunge into my trespasser’s gut.

But not this time. [...]

The salt stuck to my skin like Gulf War I camouflage. My shoulders were red. Later, my legs would be even more red as would my feet save a white calligraphic ‘V’, kept pasty white by my Haviana sandals. The problem was that we had no destination and an adventure is not an adventure without [...]

I spent the last block of my walk to Peet’s in deep contemplation. Did I want a small (10 oz.) or a medium (12 oz.)? The difference was neither two ounces nor 15 cents; it was purely psychological. It’s like potato chips. You know that the small bag of chips is plenty, that you’ll feel [...]

It’s that time of year when what seems like half of the US blogosphere is partying it up in Austin, TX for South by Southwest. This is the first SXSW with Twitter, which, methinks, doesn’t play well with alcohol. Around 2 a.m. Central Time, I’ve been entertained over the past couple days with a steady [...]