Summer Vacation

School is out for Summer! Yippee!

Oade to Internet

I bought an old-fashioned sewing machine last year and figuring out how to thread the thing has been on my list of things to do for about 6 months (right after buy needles). I finally made it to the fabric store before it closed at 6pm. Today, a rainy MLK holiday, I found a Utube video of how to thread the White Rotary Machine.
Hurrah! Happy New Year! Now all I have to do is make it sew...

Oh the places I'd go ..

View Places I'd like to go in a larger map

Emile Antoine the Simian Bandit

Surrealists in Dolores Park

Happy Good President Day

It's the day after Obama's inauguration, and I stole that title from Jon Crawford's gmail chat heading. Like many liberals, I'm almost ready to exhale, but don't believe it's safe yet. I feel depressed a lot, and I'm always wondering whether is has a chemical cause, or rather what part part of depression is externally imposed, a natural reaction to unpleasant circumstances. Scientists are constantly finding new biological determinants of depression (and love or other emotions for that matter). Yet clearly it's not all biology, just a predisposition. There have got to be social factors that play a role, not to mention the constraints and small oppressions of daily life. I'm likely to blame modernity and capitalism, the break-down of traditional social support and community activities, the tendency to place people in small confined spaces without a lot of exercise for days on end. Or is it just a matter of having a bad attitude and not willfully imposing a sunny outlook onto every situation?

I guess my point is that for the last 8 years I think it was natural for liberals to be in a state of depression, given the resounding trampling of civil liberties, lack of global cooperation and support and the inept and self-profiting government we had somehow elected into power. How could we hold up our heads when our people elected this old-boy crony with so little regard for the rule of law and the moral imperative? It spoke poorly of the American populous and by extension ourselves. In the past few years I felt alienated, angry, and helpless. Hearing the president speak cogently about things that I care about has eased these negative feelings a bit, reinforced the things about America that are admirable and I think it's evident in a brighter mood among the people of San Francisco.

Web stalking

Web stalking, I spend my days web stalking. My friend in New Zealand's wife is pregnant and all these random people I've been avoiding for 'bout 10 years are friending me, offering up new last names and photos of their babies. Sorta cute and sort of ug. In Paris, a girl gets a new vest and someone flies in from Delhi. I. moves to Cambridge. H. posts photos of vacations in Thailand with M., then headed to Pittsburgh from Vietnam. A. publishes papers on mushrooms. CMC expects a visitor from Uruguay and in Chile, Gorda lives alone.