Back home

For the first time in a week, I am logging on from my home computer.

When I stopped at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport again today, the WiFi service there, run by T-Mobile, wanted to charge me, something it didn't do last time. I had no choice but to pay $6 for one hour; even then, I didn't come to this blog.

Again, it feels good to be home - and I will definitely miss my days in DC! I hope to keep the positive energy going for a while, and translate it into tangible action.

One more tidbit

The place where I ate dinner tonight, Busboys and Poets, turns out to be owned by an Iraqi-American who fed the folks of Camp Casey. I did meet and briefly talk with the owner Andy, but I didn't know that he was such a great gentleman!

I belatedly found this out only because of my writing teacher Gayle Brandeis, and her post to the Code Pink blog, which I didn't pick up until tonight (she ate there too, it turns out). Thanks Gayle!

Wrapping up my DC stay

I spent another busy day. I caught up with Karen Bradley of Democracy Cell Project, at the Democratic Women's Leadership Conference at the Mayflower Hotel near Dupont Circle (Karen was taking pictures there). As we spent time there, we ended up spotting two Democratic power brokers: Howard Dean and George Stephanopoulos. In the midst of these men, plus the women in power suits, I could literally feel the power flow around me. (And regretted putting on the "Ally McLesbian" miniskirt suit instead of my own power pantsuit...)

Karen also took a few pictures of me, which may end up at the Democracy Cell Project website.

The rest of the evening was spent at a bookstore/restaurant named Busboys & Poets at 17th and V streets NW. I also met with Christine (CAYorty) and her father, and we had a lengthy dinner together.

This wrapped up all my political activities for the trip, as I will be returning home tomorrow. I will miss this trip, and I will miss DC. I felt so empowered having been able to lobby at Capitol Hill, meet with the great activists of Democracy Cell Project, and being surrounded in something other than hardcore Republican suburbs. I need to carry this feeling forward and bring it home, knowing that even though John Roberts may have cheated his way to the Supreme Court, the popular sentiment is against the W regime now. I will do everything to make people vote against the wimps of both parties who are sucking up to W.

I will upload some photos from this trip here when I return home.

Sightseeing in DC

Today, I spent most of the day doing some sightseeing around town. I used the Tourmobile service to reach the remote parts of the Mall that I cannot reach by Metro or other means.

My first stop was the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. I could see lots of exhibits, starting with the Nazi rise to power, the Nazi racial theories, and the devastating consequences. I could draw many parallels to the current situation in the United States; Germany around 1930 was a dynamic place, but given the perfect combination of economic hardships, a common enemy (Jews, in this case), and the silent support by the industries and the churches, race-based fascism quickly took over. The current American situation, where gays are seen as the common enemy and the churches are doing their part to help the Republicans currently in power, don't seem much different. The democratic institutions that keep extremism in check are still in place, but they can be shredded at any time. The Germans were obsessed with abortion and homosexuality in the interest of procreating as many perfect Aryans as possible; the Americans are obsessed now with the same in the interest of saving the Christian belief system. I made this comparison clear as I signed the visitor log.

I had a less somber experience as I walked through the FDR memorial at the Tidal Pool. The ideas and quotes of President Franklin D. Roosevelt were inscripted all over the place, including the spreading of prosperity to all Americans, opposition to war unless absolutely necessary, and so forth. Given that Reagan and W have pushed a philosophy that is a complete opposite - with devastating results for both America and the world - the ideas of Roosevelt ring more poignant than ever. The view from there, looking at the cherry blossom trees, the Tidal Pool, the other monuments, and the Potomac, was absolutely beautiful.

I continued on to Korean War, Vietnam War, and World War II memorials - to remember three wars that were more legitimate than the current Iraq quagmire, especially in the case of WWII. In particular, as I walked through the Korean War memorial, in particular next to the list of the seventeen nations that fought together (including the US and South Korea), I thought again about what I had said back at Senator Boxer's office on Monday. The Korean War was an example of how to win international support, and the Iraqi War is an example of how to lose it.

It's a shame that I won't be able to do more sightseeing, as I have a business tomorrow, and will go home the next day. I wish I could stick around for a few days longer to soak in the atmosphere, and to reflect on what the ideals that founded the United States of America really mean to me; those ideals seem more fragile than ever, and I need to keep in touch with them better than ever.

Before I go home, I hope to meet with members of the Democracy Cell Project one more time tomorrow night. Hope it works out.

On Capitol Hill

I put on my power pantsuit and made my first-ever trip to Capitol Hill for some lobbying. The following is my post to the Democracy Cell Project regarding my experience.

Just came back from the Lobby Day activities, where I met with my Senators' representatives.

Near Feinstein's Senate office, I spotted Cindy Sheehan making a drop-in visit at Richard Lugar (Indiana)'s office!

The California delegation made the following points to Boxer and Feinstein.

• Support Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA)'s HR 551, which amends No Child Left Behind to make students opt-in, instead of opt-out as is currently the case, into the military recruiters' databases.
• A Latino man who lost his son in Iraq asked for benefits for veterans' parents.- No more budget appropriations for Iraq combat operations.
• Support Senator Feingold (D-WI)'s resolution to set a timetable for withdrawal. In fact, Boxer turns out to be the co-sponsor.
• Direct money toward re-building of Iraq, but not through the likes of Halliburton. Let international organizations (UN, etc) take charge.
• Better healthcare for veterans. Support the troops, remember!
• An Army commander was quoted as saying "Geneva convention doesn't matter in Iraq." Make sure that internal Army rules at least apply to our soldiers in Iraq.
  

Boxer's office was super-receptive. Feinstein had a canned position which basically deferred determination of Iraq's readiness for self-rule to the W regime.

At Boxer's office, I spoke with legislative assistant Ann Norris, regarding how South Korea is being used by the neocons as a case where US military intervention worked out well. My point was that (1) South Korea was attacked by North Korea, whereas Iraq did not attack the US or any ally; (2) The US forces went to Korea with full support of the international community; (3) The US forces stayed in Korea not to further democracy, but to hamper it by supporting right-wing military dictatorships. Ms. Norris was very receptive, saying that she knew where I was coming from; she had visited Seoul and DMZ last year on the ROK Ministry of Foreign Affairs-sponsored trip.

All in all, a very productive day. Now I need to take a break.

It was an amazing day, to be able to spot Cindy Sheehan through pure luck. It was a wonderful experience meeting with legislative assistants for both Senators, and to share my views with them. I was shaking like crazy when speaking with Ann Norris at Boxer's office, because of all this first-time rush!

I hope to be able to do this again in the future. There is nothing like participating when it comes to democracy.

Word is coming that Cindy Sheehan has participated in the White House civil disobedience, and has just been arrested. I'm keeping myself informed. But for now, I need a break, maybe a sightseeing trip back into town...

A busy day of activities

I headed for the Mall in the morning to join the Peace and Justice Festival, and look for the Democracy Cell Project table there. I had no luck. Calling Karen Bradley of the organization, I found that she was doing some planning work at home, so I headed for her place right away. I ended up meeting a number of key members, including user oncall visiting from Chicago, founder (and Karen's husband) Dick Bell, editor Victoria Ellen, and others. We ended up, under Dick's direction, unveiling a new five-point plan which we uploaded to the Democracy Cell Project blog, where the rest of the users are commenting on it now.

Dick and Karen's frugal lifestyle was something to note. Dick's living standards were pretty ordinary despite having been a stellar web-based activist (and the John Kerry blogmaster last year); his vehicles consisted of a bicycle and a Honda Civic hybrid, as environmentally friendly as anything can get. The home was a very old, narrow 3-story brownstone, with bookshelves lining all walls of the living room - I liked it.

I also trained for tomorrow's Lobby Day at American University, meeting with other activists from throughout the nation - including about three dozen from California alone - and planning on what to do with our elected representatives. I decided not to bother with meeting Congressman Gary Miller, even though the organizers wanted me to make a "drop in" appearance at his office. I'll just be doing Barbara Boxer, and if there is room, Dianne Feinstein; I am going to let other activists do the bulk of the communicating, and try to learn from the experience.

One downside though: because of all the time I spent preparing for Lobby Day, I was unable to join Code Pink's activities. No time to meet with Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin - or my writing teacher Gayle Brandeis for that matter. She'll need to wait for another day to be able to see me as Rachel, it seems.

I'm exhausted. Another night of laundry, and I'll need my rest to prepare for tomorrow.

From Arlington, VA

I landed at National Airport about three hours ago, and checked in at my hotel two hours ago. I'm in the midst of laundry right now; I decided not to attend Operation Ceasefire concert, saving my energy for tomorrow's events instead.

The hotel's WiFi is not working in my room, forcing me to blog near the lobby. At least I can blog and still send photos to the Democracy Cell Project crew.

I'll see how things turn out tomorrow and the following several days.

From Dallas

My inbound flight was about 45 minutes late, due to a mechanical problem. Otherwise, my first-ever American Airlines flight went okay, with very friendly flight attendants - setting an example for my own fictional flight attendant, Sarah, the protagonist of my novel.

I love the WiFi here at DFW!

Weather here is cloudy, but not too shabby, since the hurricane is further east than previously forecast. Looks like my connecting flight to Washington National (I refuse to call it Reagan) will be on time. Can't wait to join the Operation Ceasefire tonight!

Even more DC update

I am finally making the trip later in the morning. So far, American Airlines still shows no delays for my flights going through Dallas. I hope they will bring me into DC safely and on time.

So here it is - my first, and probably only, opportunity to be part of a major DC-based protest. I'll miss the march, which will be 7-8 hours from now. But I'll be able to catch, assuming my flights run on time, the tail end of the Operation Ceasefire concerts, with Le Tigre performing at midnight - even though I don't know a thing about Le Tigre, the thought of me being there already gets me excited. The Peace and Justice Festival tomorrow, where I'll meet with Democracy Cell Project, Code Pink, and other groups, will energize me for continued activism at home. And I hope to be part of the legislative lobby delegation on Monday to top it all off.

This will be a wonderful trip, and my best opportunity yet to show to the world my displeasure with the W regime.

Now, I just need to make sure that I - not my father - will make the drive to the airport. That way, of course, I will be able to stop to swap the guy clothes currently in my baggage (ugh!) for the clothes I really need to wear, including the pink miniskirt suit (the same one I'm wearing in the blog photo) that both Democracy Cell Project and Code Pink are expecting me to wear tomorrow. I'll be devastated if I don't get to make the swap.

Hopefully I'll be able to blog from Dallas - Ft. Worth Airport, where the whole airport is WiFi-enabled. Otherwise, I'll be checking in from DC.

Latest on Rita

American Airlines just posted on its website that Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport may experience delays due to rain and winds. I'll hope for the best - in any case, as long as I arrive at my hotel by 7AM on Sunday the 25th, I will be okay (though dead tired).

Another disaster is brewing, it seems, given the difficulties of evacuating the entire city of Houston. Given that the US transportation system is heavily dependent on private automobiles - which choke up the interstate highways fast - and airplanes - which get grounded fast in a disaster like this - its deficiencies are painfully clear. If another terrorist attack (nuclear, biological, or else) happens, the entire city is doomed to die with no way out.

There was a reason why the interstates were built. There was a reason why the feds created Amtrak to take over ailing passenger railroads. Trains are especially efficient at moving massive numbers of people, and if Texas had a semi-decent passenger train system (it doesn't even have to be of European quality), much of the difficulties in evacuating Houston could have been alleviated. It's a shame that the only way out of Houston is in a single-occupant Suburban, with no way to even refuel. And I don't see a much better way out of Los Angeles myself.

Time to re-shuffle transportation priorities for homeland security, instead of limiting Americans' freedoms. Why not, for example, re-allocate a tiny fraction of the war budget to Amtrak, so that it can be of actual use, in times like these and in more peaceful times?

Democrats chicken out

A Knight-Ridder article, posted on the ReBelle Nation blog, says that key Democrats, including such war critics as Howard Dean and John Kerry, won't be joining the anti-war protest that I'll be attending this weekend.

Just what the @#^$@ is keeping them from attending? Fear of offending the pro-war factions and losing their votes? (Well, Kerry never had their votes anyway last year.)

They need to remember that the Republicans didn't succeed by pandering to the middle or the "other side" - they pandered strictly to their base. Democrats offend their base at their own peril.

I'm starting to wonder if moving to another country is a better solution than chasing this cause, one that the Democrats are too timid to tackle and the Republicans are allowed to easily destroy.

I should also expect to find some pro-war chicken hawks on Sunday, the article adds. It could be a very ugly scene in DC.

Knight-Ridder article on ReBelle Nation

More DC update

Now that it's the day before my departure Central Time, the latest check at the American Airlines website now shows my flights' status, with gates assigned - but with no word on Hurricane Rita-related delays, so far.

I got a slew of emails, though I couldn't get to them for a while because Hotmail decided that they were junk! I was given instructions for participating in the civil disobedience, and found that there were ways to participate as support personnel, without risking arrest. Even though everything except delivery of messages to the White House is allowed, I am not taking my chances with the W regime, and will leave it to more intrepid activists.

Another reason for counting myself out is the Lobby Day, also on Monday. Although I haven't been scheduled to see my Congressman (and I may never be), I have been scheduled to see Senators Boxer and Feinstein - or at least their aides. After these appointments, it will be too late to join the mass action at the White House. Again, I'll have to spend three hours at American University on Sunday for a full briefing; I will ask them about the possible issues I may have when entering Congressional buildings with a "not-so-proper" ID.

Between this, helping out with the Democracy Cell Project desk at the Peace and Justice Festival, and squeezing in a few Code Pink events (I do want to see Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan - plus make sure that Gayle Brandeis finally gets to see me as Rachel!), I'll have a very busy day on Sunday. I hope I won't get tired and fall asleep at the interfaith service Sunday evening!

I've fleshed out the rest of the schedule with museum visits and window-shopping; I may also meet someone from an online Calista Flockhart fan club as well. (I even planned each day's outfits.) This, combined with my business and a side trip to New Jersey, will make for a very busy week - and I look forward to every moment of it!

Bible education in public schools

I've just come across an article on MSNBC, which reports that a new public school textbook for teaching the Bible has been drafted. The drafters are the nonprofit Bible Literacy Project, based in Fairfax, Virginia, comprised of a number of interfaith groups.

In the meantime, a death cult group known as National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, of Greensboro, North Carolina, is pushing its own curriculum, which is less about teaching about the Bible and more about converting students into their deadly brand of Christianity, at public expense. This curriculum only includes a teacher's guide, as the Bible itself is used as the textbook.

I'm all for Bible education in schools, as long as it's presented in a manner which highlights its role in history, good and bad. The teachings should be in a literary context, as well as a historical context, concentrating on the Europeans' desire to spread the faith - and its consequences both during the Crusades and the New World conquests. It should be up to the students to decide whether it is the Book of Truth, as the Dominionists would like them to believe, or the Book of Death, which the Dominionists turned it into, or something in between.

In my case, I read the Bible in my high school English class, covering the first few books of Genesis; in the same class, I read numerous other cultures' Creation stories, so this amounted to nothing more than a comparative study of Creation stories of various cultures. Moving on to college, my literature class required me to read many sections of the Bible, but it was in both Jewish and Christian contexts, and I was also required to read the Koran to add a Muslim context. I feel that as much as I disagree with many - if not most - teachings of the Bible, knowing it makes me better prepared to understand the patriarchal culture I live in, and to fight the Dominionists whose beliefs are based on a deadly interpretation of the book.

MSNBC article

Blogging guide

At the Democracy Cell Project, user dwahzon has just shared an article from the BBC website, where a new blogging guide, by Reporters Without Borders, targeting bloggers in countries with strict censorship laws, is being discussed. The French government supported the group's work.

I'll check this out too. While the First Amendment supposedly protects me in the US for now, Patriot Act II, if passed, will enable W to declare me an "enemy combatant" for no reason, and hold me without charge for life. The Constitution of the United States, after all, is only a document - one only as effective as those in power want it to be.

BBC Article

Reporters Without Borders guidebook

DC Update

After scrubbing plans to participate in the White House civil disobedience, I had decided to limit myself to the Peace and Justice Festival and the Interfaith Service, both on Sunday the 25th, where I would be hanging out with the crew of Democracy Cell Project, meeting with the key members of Code Pink, and possibly making contacts with a few other organizations.

Now I've put another item on my agenda: Monday the 26th Lobby Day. Before the civil disobedience, United for Peace and Justice is putting together delegations of citizens who would be meeting with members of Congress. After encouragement from the Democracy Cell Project, I signed up last night, despite the possible issue of being denied entry to Congressional buildings due to my "not-so-proper" IDs (I did advise United for Peace and Justice of that). I hope my contribution to this effort will help the cause a bit more.

My meeting with Congressman Gary Miller may not happen, if he decides to just snub me; even if he does meet with me, I expect him to follow the standard W regime line and be uncooperative. However, I do look forward to meeting with Senators Boxer and Feinstein; they are great women, and true patriots (not to mention the only Democratic elected officials representing me at either federal or state level).

I'll need to spend three hours on Sunday being briefed for these meetings. But that will be time well spent. And since I do have a black pantsuit ready to pack, I guess I'll just wear that for the meetings, and be presentable.

Davis-Bacon Prevailing Wages, continued

Nite Swimming blog, run by Cali Dem, reports based on Congressional records that the Democrats are now sponsoring a resolution, HR 3763, to restore the Davis-Bacon prevailing wages in the Katrina affected areas, after W's executive order suspended them for the time being.

The sponsor of this legislation is, again, none other than Congressman George Miller of Martinez, California (San Francisco Bay Area). This Congressman Miller, who has covered my former hometown of Concord for a long time, is surely far better than the Congressman Miller - Republican Gary Miller - whose district I currently live in.

Although it's likely that wayward Democrats and the Republican majority will sink this resolution, I hope that a strong point is made here.

Hurricane Rita

This is my 100th post to the blog, but it doesn't look good.

As if Katrina weren't enough, Rita is now a Category 4 hurricane, and set to do serious damage to the Texas coastline this weekend. I only hope that it doesn't compound the already serious problems in Louisiana, and that the responders are ready this time. If the government bungles Rita, especially in W's home state, it will be in serious hot water.

May the Goddess have mercy on us all, especially this time.

Rita could even throw my DC plans off, as it is expected to bring rain and winds to Dallas on Saturday, and I am changing planes there. I'll see what I'll be able to work out with American Airlines. Time to program the American reservation line into my cell phone, just in case...

Davis-Bacon Prevailing Wages suspended

This may be old news by now, but it is now spreading through the blogosphere, and as a progressive working in the ultra-conservative construction industry, I think it's time for me to add to the discussion.

W, in order to "streamline" the reconstruction efforts, has suspended Davis-Bacon prevailing wages in the Katrina disaster area. In effect, contractors will be able to get away with paying less than what the prevailing wages were before the disaster. There is no provision on how the savings will be passed on to anybody except the pro-Republican, anti-union contractors. Never mind that the prevailing wages were below $10/hr for a truck driver filling levees in the New Orleans area, anyway, and even with fringe benefits thrown in, still a pittance.

The way I've seen it, government regulations - from Davis-Bacon wages (passed by Republican President Hoover and Republican Congress in 1931, by the way, I've been told) to numerous required quality control and warranty steps - are there for a reason. (I work with those regulations, and they are a headache for me too.) They are there to protect the eventual users of the construction project - the public - by providing the best possible building at the most efficient price. When my company does the private sector, where they don't require such warranties, we often end up paying near minimum wage, and do no quality control, never mind the result; while it saves us enough money for another Lexus, perhaps, it will be at the expense of the well-being of my employees AND the users of our projects. And for now, because the government still requires payment of Davis-Bacon wages for federal/state/local government projects in California, I budget them into my cost estimations when submitting my bids, so my bottom line is covered anyway.

Shoddy construction at maximum savings is a major problem in India, where buildings collapse and kill people for no apparent reason. It used to be a major problem a decade ago in that Republican puppet republic of South Korea as well, and my father repeated told me that he moved to America in order to NOT live and work in those shoddy buildings dotting Seoul. The problem is, thanks to his Republican politics, New Orleans, and maybe the rest of America, will look too damn like Seoul or New Delhi before too long.

Other bloggers are already screaming foul, saying that the Katrina victims are now being fleeced again with subpar wages. So are key Democrats, including Congressman George Miller of California, whose district I lived in several years ago (I am so proud of him - by contrast, now I live in Republican Gary Miller's district). I am here to point out that cutting wages does nothing good for the contractors either. The immediate savings we contractors realize will be lost when these buildings start developing major problems in a few years, and when they start collapsing, we will be morally at fault.

A change of plans for DC

Call me chicken, but I decided that risking arrest during the White House civil disobedience a week from today will be just too much for me.

My primary concern is my inability to produce a "proper" ID. As previously mentioned, my ID still identifies me as a dorky, plain man when I am none of those. I would probably push the limits in a "safer" town like San Francisco, but I won't try in DC. If worst comes to worst and I am indeed arrested, I'll be put in men's jail.

In addition, I need to make a trip to New Jersey the next day, and attend a government seminar on Thursday. Being arrested for anti-W activities won't look good at the seminar, and I can't afford to miss the trip either.

So I'll count myself out, and content myself with the Peace and Justice Festival, where I will be meeting with the Democracy Cell Project, Code Pink, and many other great organizations. I hope fellow activists will understand my decision not to join their civil disobedience. My frustrations with W, his junta, and his puppets whose decisions have kept my ID "wrong," do remain strong as ever though.

It is a shame that I won't be part of the main march on Saturday, as there was no excuse for me to get to DC early. I'll count myself lucky if I can manage to catch the tail end of Operation Ceasefire concert around midnight, with Le Tigre on stage, at the Washington Monument.

A new blog for my novel

I decided that mixing politics with my novel, as much as they may be interrelated, was causing too much clutter on this blog.

From now on, any discussion of my novel, Perfect Girl, including my regular journalling, will take place on a separate blog. The blog is simply named Perfect Girl, a Novel in Progress. My plan is to focus the current blog on a more political/activist level, like so many other political blogs that I frequent and bookmark.

I'll also remove Damian McNicholl's blog from the links section, and re-link him from the new blog, as his blog is more literary than political.

I hope this will benefit both blogs, especially the new blog, where I'll be able to discuss and journal away like crazy, and hopefully get some valuable feedback.

Road trip, Korean-American style

They say that your average Korean-American takes his [insert your favorite Japanese family car here] to only three places ever: a home in a Republican suburb, his workplace, and his [death cult] church. There is pretty much no time to take the Camry/Accord/whatever (for some reason, it's not a Sonata/Optima/another Korean car, but always Japanese) anywhere else, and when he does try to go elsewhere, it becomes an exercise in how many miles one can drive in a given day - and how many landmarks one can cover. (i.e. A drive across the Golden Gate Bridge counts as a "visit" to San Francisco.) I found it the hard way through my father yesterday, as I joined his trip. Although I resisted, my mother talked me into doing much of the driving.

We ended up driving 1,400 miles in just 28 hours. Leaving yesterday morning at midnight, our original plan called out for checking out Shelter Cove, a vacation community 25 miles west of Garberville and 250 miles northwest of San Francisco, starting late morning; after spending the night there, the plan would've been to make a leisurely drive back today, arriving home just about now.

Shelter Cove was beautiful, but it was not a place we liked as much as we thought, so we changed plans, spent the afternoon doing the Avenue of the Giants just south of Eureka, before arriving in San Francisco in time for dinner. The only place I could take my parents was Brothers Charcoal BBQ Restaurant, San Francisco's most famous Korean restaurant, in the Richmond District; I had no choice, as it was unthinkable to even consider something like a Thai place in the Castro District (which would've been much more to my liking). As we made the drive down to San Francisco, I proposed that since my mother had never been on a cable car, we could spend the morning doing just that, and spend this afternoon making the leisurely drive back to Southern California.

At Brothers, my father called off the cable car ride, saying that he was busy. The plan now changed again, not to spend the night in the Bay Area, but to immediately return home. I came back at 3:40 this morning. As it turned out though, he was not that busy, and we could've squeezed in a cable car ride easily and still allowed him to work and rest. But the excuse was that even after budgeting for the expensive Shelter Cove motel, he didn't want to spend money on a motel room in the Bay Area. Even though he had enough money to force me to keep driving until the gas ran out at an expensive gas station, instead of buying cheaper gas ahead of time.

It did not help that I put in these 1,400 miles using a Honda Odyssey, which only gets 25 mpg. (Even with both my own cars, which get 30 mpg on the highway, I feel guilty, because they are not 45-mpg hybrids!) And my father, who as you know is a W supporter and couldn't care less about the environment, wants a new Ford Econoline Chateau passenger van, complete with a honking 5.4L V8, because it'll allow him to keep traveling like this, while sleeping in the back whenever he gets tired. Never mind the dismal fuel economy (15 mpg!). While his business does require an Econoline, I'll make sure that he'll never use it for this kind of driving.

When I travel, I always make reservations ahead of time - maybe a few weeks, maybe months. I don't drive over 500 miles a day unless I have a good excuse. And I always give myself ample time to enjoy Shelter Cove, San Francisco, or whatever. (One reason I am keeping my sanity is because I had made another trip to the Bay Area just two weeks ago, where I really took it easy.) Apparently this concept is foreign to the Korean-Americans, as my father has demonstrated so well yesterday. They need to get their minds off of their death cult churches, cut back on overwork, and instead of thinking of how to evade taxes, think of how the quality of life can be improved.

And until my father changes his mind, I will no longer join his trips, much less be his chauffeur, which was the case this time.

Benedict the B*stard

Just found out on the Democracy Cell Project blog:

Pope Benedict starts purge of homosexuals and others who disagree with his doctrines from American seminaries

Although I do see much of the pedophilia problem in the Catholic Church as the result of the fact that closeted gay men find it attractive to become priests and never have to ever deal with women again (bastards, I say), I also see the problem that even straight priests only get to deal with men/boys on their jobs, and need a way to vent the sexual frustrations that result from their celibate lifestyles.

The real problem is the celibacy requirement, not a homosexual infiltration of the Catholic Church. Comments on the blog say that gay and female pedophiles are "statistically insignificant."

And to limit this order to American seminaries is to exercise absolute control of the American Catholic Church, so that the church would be more to his liking, and more able to assist with W's goal of reducing gays to permanent second-class citizens once and for all. America feared for such an unholy alliance between the Catholic Church and the government when JFK became President in 1961; now, under a non-Catholic "president," it is becoming a reality.

My contempt for Catholics in particular, and Christians in general, only goes up with stories like this.

Time to Get Real...

I'll be leaving in about an hour. In the meantime, I saw an article over at MSN Lifestyles, discussing about the status quo of American families. Now, with rising divorce rates, births out of wedlock, and gay families, the traditional family - Mom, Dad, 2.5 kids, and a pet or two - make up less than a quarter of all households. Other things I've found:

• Solo singles (those completely living alone) make up 26% of all households - outnumbering the "traditional family."
• Most unmarried couples with kids end up getting hitched - or splitting - within 18 months.
• Marriage has 1,100 federal benefits, a few penalties, and a huge wage advantage. You gotta love the discrimination against singles, unmarried couples, and gays.
• W sees marriage as the way out of poverty. Experts disagree, seeing a marriage and a divorce as being worse financially than not marrying at all, especially for women.
• It is legal to discriminate based on marital status.
  

It's about time that lawmakers got real about the situation. The marriage advantage (and so-called penalty) should be taken away from tax codes; I don't use more government resources as a single, so I have no need to pay a higher tax rate. Marriage at the government level should be reduced to a simple civil code, and nothing more; what counts sentimentally, and what causes all these straights to vote against gay marriage, is the religious portion - where the houses of worship should take over, and the government should not legislate. In addition, discrimination based on marital status should be outlawed.

Instead of focusing narrowly on legalizing marriages for same-sex couples, I think making life easier for all unmarrieds - including solo singles - should be the priority.

MSN Lifestyle article

P.S. In addition to minivan commercials, I've found another place where "traditional" families rule supreme - Mary Kay meetings. Everyone was a married mom of 2.5 children, doing Mary Kay cosmetics sales in order to pay for the kids' Christian school tuitions. (Moreover, everyone wanted the ultimate prize - a pink Cadillac, or at least a Chevy Blazer SUV - to ferry those kids to the Christian schools. By contrast, I was already fixated on BMWs back then!) I could never feel more out of place, as a single lesbian with no kids and not much of an interest in Christianity - transgender did not even come in here.

No updates this weekend

I've been blogging at a frantic pace, sometimes posting up to 4 times a day.

I'll be away from the computer, however, for the weekend. I will be on the road, and don't expect to have as good a time as I did in Vegas or the Bay Area. (My parents are tagging along this time. It's their trip, and I've been asked to do some of their driving.) I don't expect to have Internet access either.

I'll be back on Monday, hopefully with a fresh set of ideas to blog about.

And... if my father starts blabbering about "lazy-ass niggers," and the "greatness" of Bush Administration and its nominees, I promise to make an immediate U-turn and come back - if I don't end up dumping him on the roadside, that is.

Ten Years as an American

Ten years ago today, I interrupted my studies in New York, flew back to Los Angeles, and attended a ceremony at Los Angeles Convention Center, which officially turned me into a United States citizen. After swearing loyalty to the new country, I gladly turned in my Resident Alien card and picked up my naturalization certificate.

If my relationships with different nations can be compared to human relationships, Korea would be a mean father I am about to estrange, China would be a mother I never got to know well, and the United States would be a spouse with whom I had a wonderful honeymoon. The "honeymoon" lasted for years, as I traversed the country on Amtrak trains, and later, in my own car; by 2000, I covered 32 states, in all regions of the country, adding Alaska as the 33rd in 2002. Ten years into the "marriage" though, with a different regime in power, this relationship isn't working out too well, showing many signs of strain. This "spouse," as is, couldn't care less if I died from lack of adequate health coverage, for example.

Following the pre-programmed route under which my family was allowed into the United States in the first place, as soon as I naturalized, I ended up at the Republican voter registration desk, and registered there. The program called for me becoming a Young Republican; I had already been working with the elements of the Religious Right already, back in New York. But by the time I was voting for the first time, the Republicans had already failed me, thanks to Newt Gingrich's Contract with America, and my own coming out. As I cast my first-ever vote by absentee ballot from New York (I remained registered in Los Angeles), I voted to re-elect Bill Clinton. Shortly thereafter, I left the program, and re-registered as a Democrat. Today I remain a Democrat, even though the party is in disarray, and I disagree with the party on a few issues. And I've become estranged from the Korean-American community, which should be siblings (at least half-siblings) under my analogy, but in reality have become adversaries, in my search for the American Dream, which for me is more about the freedom to live as my true self than about tax evasions, the resulting riches, and a Lexus to show it off in.

Extending my analogy, Canada and UK would be potential suitors I have very briefly dated, and Australia and New Zealand would be potentials I haven't even met. Of course, thanks to Tony Blair and his policies, I decided that the UK will not do. For now, I am more concerned about working on the marriage, at least until it works out - or until I conclude that it is beyond hope. Going to the massive protests in DC next week will be my way of laying out my positions on how to work this marriage out. After all, fixing a broken marriage is usually easier than divorce and its accompanying mess.

Two more airlines are bankrupt

This doesn't look good...

Writing a novel about a flight attendant means that I have to follow the airline industry. I've just learned that Delta and Northwest are now bankrupt. Expect the two to start slashing costs by squeezing employees. This is a horrible time to work for, or with, an airline.

I remember flying Delta ten years ago, when it was trying to cut costs to boost profits. The results were horrible - broken seats, subpar meals, rude service, and so forth. I never flew Delta again. I can only expect the same to happen all over again, though with pretty much every large airline doing the same, the competitive pressure to keep up good service will be less. (For example, when I fly American next week and am forced to pay for crappy meals, I will have to just swallow it, knowing that just about everybody else does the same. At least there is a meal that I can pay for.)

What's obscene is that the CEOs will still laugh all the way to the bank, even as their airlines either go bankrupt, or worse, fold. I know that the ones at United, Sarah's airline, did, scamming employees in a failed stock option plan and all.

It's about time that the airline industry started reorganizing, with each airline concentrating only on its strengths. For example, JetBlue and Southwest could do most of the domestic service, and team up with the ailing large airlines, who still have strength in international markets, with each airline specializing in one region. The survival of these airlines is important for national security and economy purposes, but they should not be allowed to pursue failed business models anymore.

Buy a Friend a Book Week

Just picked this up from Damian McNicholl's blog.

Buy a Friend a Book Week is a literary event where a guest author and the event creator each recommend three books to buy for friends. I've checked out the website, and the books indeed look intriguing to say the least - I bookmarked a few in my Barnes & Noble wish list as well.

Back in July, Damian himself was the guest author. The next Buy a Friend a Book Week will feature my writing instructor Gayle Brandeis as the guest author. Among Gayle's picks is a book written by Diane Wilson, a shrimper in Texas, about her struggles against a multinational polluter; I will look forward to reading this, as Wilson is one of the Code Pink women I expect to come across during my Washington, DC stay.

Buy a Friend a Book Week

A new look

Pink is out. Blue is in.

As I was adding a new blog to my list of other blogs, the blog template got corrupted (FireFox, for some reason, couldn't save properly, while MSIE could). So I had to rebuild the blog list and all other customizations from scratch. While at it, I decided to change the blog color as well. Since blue has been used lately as the color signifying Democrats and other progressive/liberal groups and entities, it was natural that I turn my blog, with its heavy political content, blue as well. Besides, I think it's easier on the eyes than pink or lime green.

I hope you enjoy the new color scheme.

A fallout from this though: I'll have to use MSIE to work on my blog from now on... which is a shame, because I love FireFox otherwise.

The September 11th scene

I've uploaded this scene to the public. This is the first time I am sharing any section of Perfect Girl with the general public.

Read the scene on Epinions.com

NeoCon talking points on Katrina

I'm extremely enraged right now, after two days of bombardment from my neocon Korean (that's redundant, by the way - the two are one and the same) father on the neocon talking points regarding the Katrina disaster. His points are as follows:

• The poor and the middle class in New Orleans are lazy-ass niggers.
  
• As lazy-ass niggers, they don't deserve government help. They squandered it on welfare already, having kids after kids out of wedlock and using AFDC payments to buy a Cadillac. (Gotta love that Reagan propaganda.)
  
• Bush may be God's man but could not block Katrina on his own.
  
• New Orleans was a decadent place where you could walk into a neighborhood bar to watch sex acts. It deserved to be struck.
  
• The conclusion: New Orleans has no right to blame the federal government.
  
• The 1994 Northridge quake in Los Angeles was caused by the porn industry of San Fernando Valley.
  
• San Francisco will suffer greatly soon because of its gays.

If I could go choke the hell out of the mean, judgmental, Christian God who makes this kind of thinking possible, I would - and more. Fortunately, I believe in a more nurturing Goddess, and I won't need to resort to such tactics.

For someone who claims to never have heard of the names Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, my father is so damn good at repeating their talking points. It must be that the Korean-language radio stations he listens to are neocon parrots themselves, just like the community they serve. They go into death cult mode 8 hours a day anyway. (And shame on you, Sirius Satellite Radio, for replacing Air America with Radio Korea.)

I've been telling everyone, including the Democracy Cell Project, that I've just about had it with the Korean tax evasion. It's a well-known fact that the Koreans are the poorest Asian ethnicity on paper, yet live in big suburban houses and drive Lexuses, because they underreport their incomes. My previous CPA, a Korean-American, encouraged me to do the same - until I was audited by the IRS and ended up paying a huge fine. (My current Chinese-American CPA makes me pay my fair share, and gives me advice on legal tax savings.) And much of the "savings" goes back into the Republican war chest in hopes of further tax cuts - my mother's veterinarian being the key case.

In fact, I remember reading a news article back in 2000, before the Democratic National Convention took place in Los Angeles, where Los Angeles citizens of various nationalities were interviewed. Other ethnicities wished for better healthcare, a more robust economy, better schools, and other common wishes. The Korean had only one thing to say: tax cut.

Between massive tax evasions, the death cult churches (Reverend Moon and otherwise), primitive culture and morality, and social Darwinism, I'm just about as fed up as I can be. The fact that Korean immigration into America has primarily consisted of right-wing Christians is not to be missed, serving the needs of both the military dictatorships back home and the Republicans here. I do hope something - either an earthquake, a massive IRS audit, or West Hollywood gay activists finishing off what the African-Americans started in 1992 - will put an end to Koreatown as we know it.

As a result, I am going to drop my last name from this blog. The address will stay the same in the interest of not forcing you to change your bookmarks, but my profile will no longer have my father's last name. And unlike my novel character Kirsten, I won't take my (Chinese) mother's name either, because she is still a product of the Korean death cult churches, and cannot accept my gender identity.

I'm also stopping going to my regular hair salon, where the Death Book is strewn about and the stylist keeps asking me about my marriage plans (geez, if you didn't vote for Ahnuld, I could get married right now) and the possibility of going to a death cult church to find a mate (no thanks). Also, no more kimchi for me. It smells anyway.

Keeping in touch

My writing class has ended, but some of the classmates have vowed to keep in touch, and critique each other's work.

To get things started, and as my tribute to the 4th anniversary of the horrible day, I emailed my fleshed-out September 11th scene (see the outline here) to three classmates, as well as to Gayle Brandeis, who has been an outstanding instructor.

I must say that it was a very emotional experience writing about the tragic, untimely death of a major character. It almost felt like writing about the death of a real, close friend.

I hope for lots of constructive feedback, and the start of a lasting writing relationship.

New Orleans = death of libertarianism?

At least the latest LA Weekly thinks so. It talks about how the first governments were formed in ancient civilizations, and how the government played an active role in fostering middle class prosperity in mid-20th Century America. It goes on to talk about how the mad drive to cut government has resulted in a government that cannot even deliver on the essentials, except in the form of tax cuts for the rich.

Small, lean government is a good thing. But it must be capable of doing the essentials - like planning for disasters, which the US government could not do in the face of Katrina. Another essential function would be the great Republican idea espoused by Eisenhower - the Interstate Highway System. And taxes must be low enough to stimulate growth for ALL sectors of economy, not just the top - and high enough to support these essential functions.

LA Weekly article

Bushville, DC

Katrina survivors, fed up with the government response, will engage in an act of civil disobedience by building a "Bushville" on the Mall in Washington, DC, much like the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression era.

Please check out the website and spread the word.

Bushville.org

Another blog to keep a tab on

Recently I left a comment on Fruitful, and another reader of that blog, Damian McNicholl, an author in his own right, left a brief email with me. He wished me luck, and left a link to his own blog.

Now I am going to check on Damian's blog from time to time. Blogs do have a great way of bringing different people - even complete strangers - together. And as a Northern Ireland native now settled in America (after stints in Cardiff and London, of course), he'll have lots of interesting observations to make.

September 11th, for Perfect Girl

I'm on a roll right now. As the fourth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks approaches, I am thinking of how the events of that day tie into my novel, as one character dies. Upon reading the accounts of what seems to have happened on United 93, based on reports of doomed passengers on board, I put together the following timeline.

Martha, another transgender woman who trained with Sarah, became flight attendants together, and eventually became Sarah's girlfriend, is the tragic victim here.

September 7:
- Martha tries to seduce Sarah into having sex with her. Sarah, a virgin with body image issues, refuses.

September 8:
- Martha leaves for Newark, scheduled to return the morning of the 11th.

September 9:
- Sarah works a flight to Paris.

September 11:
- Martha is assigned to the first class cabin on Flight 93.
- Sarah spends the day in Paris strolling about, buying lingerie to make up for the disappointing night.
- Sarah is paged at 3PM Paris time. Upon returning to the hotel, she sees the horror unfold in New York. What appears to be a United plane (in fact, Flight 175) charges straight into the South Tower and explodes.
- The hijackers of Flight 93 get up and slash two people's throats - a first class passenger, and Martha.
- South Tower collapses.
- Flight 93 crashes at 10:06AM Eastern time.
- As North Tower collapses, rumors of a second United flight crash starts to be heard.
- Sarah is told that her return flight the next day will be grounded, along with all other United flights, for the next few days.
- At 5:17 PM Paris time, United Airlines confirms the crash of Flight 93. Sarah checks the crew manifest - and finds Martha's name on it. She breaks down.
- Sarah lunges at the Middle-Eastern looking hotel guests nearby. Other crewmembers barely restrain her.

A few days later:
- Reports of what happened aboard Flight 93 start to show up on newspapers. They indicate that the hijackers slashed Martha first. Sarah is incensed, and has to get counseling. A mere sight of a Middle Easterner or anyone with a turban sends Sarah lunging. She won't fly again for a month.

What I've suspected all along...

The UN has made it official. The United States of America is NOT a developed country. It is a Third World country that happens to be very rich. Of course, the Republicans are going to be VERY incensed at this idea, but their wealth redistribution toward the super-rich is what has caused the whole mess, including the Katrina disaster.

I know it personally too. In the only "developed country" lacking universal healthcare, no insurer wants to sell me health insurance, just for having been outspoken against the current regime in recent years. And the Republicans keep yelling "healthcare is not a right." Well, I hope they get denied coverage, and DIE from it.

It is ridiculous when I have enough money to buy a luxury car, yet still can't get health insurance. It must be only worse for those who cannot even pay out-of-pocket costs.

For more details, read the excerpts from the report which Rossiann posted on the ReBelle Nation blog.

More Katrina aid...

Most of us can only criticize the nation's inept leaders for the current disaster unfolding on the Gulf Coast, or send token donations to the charities helping out.

But even the major charities are overlooking local charities, who have been helping, and who need supplies the most.

I don't like rubbing in someone else's blog too much, even if she's my writing teacher, but Gayle Brandeis is taking some proactive steps on her Fruitful blog. She has found a call for help on another blog and is passing it on - and is planning a reading session of her own to bring awareness to the public. In sharing the spirit of giving, I am providing the link to the call for help; that's the least I can do.

Four local Louisiana charities that need desperate help (link to Fruitful)

Girlie Man at work

I've just received word that the California State Legislature became the first legislative body in the US to vote in favor of legalizing gay marriage - and that Arnold Schwarzenegger will veto it, citing "the will of the voters" expressed in 2000 through Proposition 22.

Ahnuld is definitely pandering to the right-wing immigrant elements of the state - like himself - who made the passage of Proposition 22 happen in the first place. Thanks to them, the hateful family values of Third World countries became California family values, and this may happen again next year, when they force the state to vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages once and for all. In fact, Proposition 22 is so out of step with the legal system and tradition of California that the courts have suspended it as being unconstitutional.

Ahnuld has chosen to pander, instead of to unite. W must have set a good example for him to follow. Ahnuld must remember that he was elected on a promise of bipartisanship in the chaos of the recall of Gray Davis - not on some hateful machismo agenda of young immigrant men who liked his action movies.

I'll be watching. California can choose to set an example, or it can choose to succumb to imported hatred.

Late-night work on my novel

I just turned in a rough opening to Perfect Girl as my last assignment for the writing class. It puts Sarah in the Earl's Court district of London, talking about how ordinary she is, how her American accent gives away her family history (starting with great-grandfather Sanford, who moved to America in the first place), and how she was born carrying his name and lived as a boy for eighteen years. It's far from perfect, but I will look forward to some final comments rolling in. One thing I added: I made Sarah's grandfather a US Air Force pilot during the Korean War, which will translate into Sarah's own interest in aviation - and her links to Kirsten, born in Seoul to an American GI and his Korean wife.

Now that I decided to put Sarah and Kirsten in London at the end of the timeline, I need some legal basis for getting them there. I just did some research on the Britain in the USA website. It looks like Kirsten will be able to work with a work permit and the appropriate visa. Getting Sarah work-eligible will require the same-sex partner process, it seems - which may require the two to open joint bank accounts and such well before getting married. The eventual goal is to presumably get the two naturalized in Britain, well after the storyline ends; they certainly do not wish to come back to the US, due to the hostility against gays.

I also made a brief stop at the United Airlines website and its history section. Not only does it show the company's history in excruciating detail, but I can also access advertising paraphernalia - including those "United WILL Stand!" pins that Sarah will wear - as well as a history of flight attendants, both at United and in the airline industry at large. This will be an extremely valuable resource as I put together Sarah's five-year stint. The bad part: United is not actively hiring flight attendants right now, so I must go to third-party sources to get an idea of what it is to train, and be hired, as one.

Katrina timeline

I've just received an email from MoveOn containing the link to the timeline of events before, during, and after Katrina's wrath on the Gulf Coast. On a separate note, Gayle Brandeis also posted the same link on her Fruitful blog before I received the email.

Absolutely disgusting stuff. The "administration" should be impeached, and Karl Rove should be locked up for life.

In addition to the Katrina donations, I rushed $50 to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and am rushing another $50 to Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, so that hopefully qualified Democrats will take over Congress next year to start the impeachment proceedings.

Timeline from Think Progress

Heard on Stephanie Miller

I listen to Stephanie Miller on the radio every morning. Although she's not part of the regular Air America lineup, my local Air America station - KTLK 1150 AM - carries her.

I heard some really disgusting things on her show this morning. First, Barbara Bush - the former First Lady, and W's mother - was heard a few days ago as saying that since the evacuees at the Superdome were underprivileged anyway, they are having it good by being moved to a better place. How heartless of her to say this! This is NOT the time to talk about privilege, when lives are at stake. And this is NOT the first time she's said something like this. Compared with Poppy Bush's inability to go shopping at a supermarket, I am convinced that the Bush family is too far removed from reality and the average Americans' lives to be effective and presidential.

Second, I heard about W's visits to the disaster areas (even though he is avoiding New Orleans at all costs, it seems). It seems that the food banks in the background, and the crowd listening to him, were all set up - as always. How about visiting a REAL food bank, and mixing with the REAL people who are going through their difficulties? A real president must. W is too much of a coward to be a president, preferring to surround himself only with pre-screened supporters.

Last, Stephanie discussed the editorial from Washington Times, the paper run by Reverend Moon. The editorial described liberals as bloodthirsty hounds who see a big opportunity out of this disaster. Excuse me? The paper is pretty much covering the right-wing pundits who are saying that the media should stop criticizing W, and start doing something constructive. The media's responsibility is to report first, THEN to start action drives later, and when W screws up like this, the media is morally bound to report it first. It is amazing that this rag, not worth the paper it's printed on, still holds so much influence over right-wing politics - and so does a lowly lunatic Korean immigrant. If Reverend Moon is not the best argument for halting all further Korean immigration (and there are LOTS of other good arguments too, like former Congressman Jay Kim of California), I don't know what is. I've already let Barbara Boxer know of my thoughts on this matter, and Dianne Feinstein will hear from me soon too.

The only good thing coming out of this is my ethnic-Chinese-but-raised-Korean mother, who has finally broken free of her death cult churches, at least on this matter. She never liked the Iraq war in the first place (she's always said that if W were so pro-war, he would enlist his twin daughters first), and now that the war drained the nation's resources to the point of being unable to respond to Katrina, she's utterly fed up. Now she says she'll even support the impeachment of W. She may still be in the grips of the death cult when it comes to my own life, but this is an improvement.

While we grieve over Katrina...

Bush managed to elevate John Roberts to not just a mere Supreme Court nominee, but the Chief Justice nominee, now that Chief Justice William Rehnquist is dead.

Roberts has only two years of experience as a judge. That's not enough to entrust the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and shape the legal landscape of the nation for decades to come. This is unacceptable. Where is the rage?

Roberts does have a stellar experience as a corporate lawyer against the well-being of the average American. His most important case was where he successfully defended Toyota Motor Manufacturing USA's firing of workers who had suffered disabilities from work-related injuries.

My first Toyota was a California-built '89 Corolla, which, while reliable, couldn't hold a candle next to the flashier Hondas my friends and acquaintances drove in high school. I haven't driven a Toyota since my sister wrecked the Corolla while I was away in college, and thanks to Roberts, it looks like that will stay the case. No amount of Priuses and Lexus hybrids will convince me to ever buy a Toyota product again.

Photos from the Bay Area

Here are some photos I took, which relate to my novel Perfect Girl.

An overview of Oceana High School in Pacifica, where Sarah spent her teenage years as an "ugly, wimpy" boy named Sanford.

This is where Sanford got severely beaten and scarred for life - the boys' locker room.

The school's courtyard has a world map. I walked around the map to trace Sarah's journeys, both as a child and as a flight attendant.

The school does not even have a decent stadium - or even bleachers for that matter. The campus is very run down. Add the cloudy, foggy Northern California beach weather, and Sarah won't feel at home here.

Sarah's first job was as a flight attendant for United Airlines. Thanks to her language skills, she worked international routes - most likely on these planes. These planes may be very familiar sights for me, but now that they are settings for my novel, they feel special.

San Francisco City Hall, where gay marriage licenses were issued for a few months in 2004. My writing instructor suggested that I could possibly get Sarah and Kirsten married here, though I decided that the timeline won't work. (By the way, the blue BMW in front is my car - and Kirsten gets one of her own after she moves down to Los Angeles and makes it big.)

This is also where Melissa Etheridge did a free concert in August 1999. I was there. I am putting Sarah there too.

Sarah's current employer is San Francisco's new Gay Center, at 1800 Market Street. This place did not exist when I lived in the Bay Area...

Wrapping up my Bay Area trip

I'm back home now.

I spent the latter part of yesterday, and all day today, working my car to the limit. Yesterday, after tracing Sarah's footsteps, I drove up to Napa to visit COPIA, then down to San Jose to visit Winchester Mystery House, before returning to my hotel in South San Francisco, making a complete circle around San Francisco Bay. Today, I did portions of San Francisco's 49-mile scenic drive, doing the complete downtown route plus the Marina, Golden Gate Park, and Castro - where I found Sarah's current workplace, San Francisco's new Gay Center. After meeting with my classmate in Oakland, I then made a hurried drive back to Southern California, with speed anywhere between 40 and 100 mph on the dead-straight portion between Altamont Pass and Grapevine Pass, before heavy traffic slowed me down. So I am back home, tired, but rejuvenated. Now I look forward to my next trip - to DC.

I ended up not being able to visit Berkeley and trace Kirsten's footsteps. But I could use that as an excuse to return to the Bay Area again next year. I still need to see the Haight-Ashbury district as well anyway. At least I made sure to do the Financial District during the San Francisco scenic drive, and as I spotted the Embarcadero Center where Kirsten used to work as a secretary for a right-wing ideologue - and a nearby building where I used to work as a secretary for a right-wing ideologue - I could feel Kirsten's breath and blood right inside me. I was Kirsten. To come back, in a BMW at that, was a sweet revenge of sorts, for me and for Kirsten.

The Oakland meeting, with my classmate Elisa Sawyer, went well. We had lunch at a neighborhood restaurant near Lake Merritt, and hung around at the lake for more talk. As writers - and now, as women - we shared many intimate details of our lives, especially since Elisa had been through a lot lately too. It was a milestone moment for me, since in the writing circles, Elisa was the first person to see me as Rachel. And being able to walk around a quiet section of Oakland, and see the cityscape unfold from the shores of Lake Merritt, was quite a treat; this was the Oakland I never got to know back when I lived in the Bay Area, when my idea of Oakland was the slums of East Oakland. Elisa was a very nice person to chat with, and I enjoyed the experience so much that I didn't start my drive back to Los Angeles until about 2, later than planned.

Now I'll start uploading some pictures in a separate post.

Visiting the world of my novel

I was very glad to be able to visit the world of my novel protagonist Sarah this morning. To mark the occasion, I dressed like Ally McBeal - Sarah's biggest idol in her teen years. (In fact, I just can't bring myself to take off the suit even this late in the evening.)

My first stop was San Francisco International Airport, where a small aviation museum operates. Since Sarah was a flight attendant for five years, I took a natural interest in the museum's flight attendant display, which showed a dozen or so historical uniforms from some of San Francisco's most important airlines as well as how the job description evolved over the years, since Boeing Air Transport (one of the four companies that merged into United Airlines) hired the very first flight attendant in 1930. Compared to the days when being a "air stewardess" meant having to be a young, single, attractive, well-mannered, and presumably genetic, woman, Sarah had it so well, working for United from 1999 to 2004, as a super-tall transgender woman. On the way to and from the terminal, I was able to observe some United jumbo jets at the international gates - the very ones Sarah would have worked. Sure, they were familiar sights - in fact, I piled up tons of frequent flier miles aboard those planes - but seeing them now, as the settings for Perfect Girl, made them feel much more special.

Later in the morning, I traveled farther into Sarah's past, by going to Oceana High School, in a remote corner of the city of Pacifica. It was a run-down campus, with no bleachers for the tracks and the baseball field. Landscaping was virtually nonexistent. Only one set of steep stairs led to the classrooms, though there were wheelchair ramps to the rest of the campus. It almost looked like an abandoned campus, though the tennis courts looked good. Sarah - who would've been a boy named Sanford then - would NOT have felt at home here. I walked around most of the campus, took some snapshots, and when I came across the only sign of life on campus - a world map painted on concrete - I walked around the map, tracing Sarah's trips both in childhood and as a flight attendant. I particularly stood on the British Isles for a while, as Perfect Girl is going to start AND end in London. As I drove away, heading north toward the Golden Gate Bridge, I was able to see some very generic suburban homes on the hillsides, and I presume that Sarah and her parents would've lived in one of them.

I look forward to visiting Berkeley tomorrow, to discover Sarah's world even more - and Kirsten's as well. In fact, since Kirsten is really me, my presence in Berkeley will bring her into existence, I'd say. In addition, before heading back to Los Angeles, my last stop will be in Oakland at a neighborhood cafe, where I am going to meet with a classmate from my novel class. This will be the first time anybody in the writing world gets to see me as Rachel in person, so it will be a very special occasion for me.

Pictures will be uploaded once I return home and transfer the photos to my home computer. I do not have a USB cable with me, so I can't do it from my laptop...

Thoughts on New Orleans from another blog

I just ran across this post on a blog I frequent - Fruitful, run by my writing teacher Gayle Brandeis. As usual, she puts a very human and eloquent touch to the current disaster unfolding in New Orleans.

Read the post on Fruitful

Just arrived in San Francisco

South San Francisco, to be exact. Just north of the airport - as I passed the airport, I could see some large buildings belonging to United Airlines, my protagonist Sarah's former employer.

I had a long drive along the coast on Highway 1, with a stop at Hearst Castle, where I could take a peek into the extravagant lifestyle of America's well-to-do. The opulence and the high-tech equipment in the kitchen impressed me; Hearst's near-bankruptcy, which prevented the castle from being finished, allowed me to see that even Hearst Castle was just a concrete building from the early 20th Century that happened to be covered with fine European art.

Gasoline prices are obscene. Common signs were $3.10 regular and $3.30 premium. I stopped by Costco to refuel, and even they were charging $3.10 premium. The most I ever paid for a gallon of gasoline was about $4, but then, that was England in '98. American prices are creeping up there... and more of that money goes to the oilmen. (At least I just heard on CNN, while dining in Monterey, that the Katrina situation is starting to get under control, which is good, if a bit - I mean WAY - late.)

Tomorrow, I will be stopping by Sarah's high school (Oceana in Pacifica) as well as San Francisco International Airport, Sarah's first workplace. It already feels so good to be breathing the same air as my protagonist!

FEMA endorses Christians over others.

sploid.com reports that on the FEMA website, the second repository of Katrina donations, right below the Red Cross, is none other than Operation Blessing, run by Rev. Pat Robertson. The same Pat Robertson who ran for president in 1988 on a theocratic platform, and who just called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

I've checked other repositories of donations, and just about all are Christian charities. There are plenty of secular and other non-Christian charities out there doing hard work, but FEMA is directing everybody to the Christians only.

The death cultists, particularly Robertson, are going to make a killing out of this disaster. They'll be rejoicing twofold - from this financial bonanza, and from God's supposed retribution against the gays and the abortionists of New Orleans.

I've had enough. As I mentioned on the Democracy Cell Project blog, my first act when arriving at my hotel during my upcoming Bay Area trip (and the DC trip later this month) will be to throw out the Gideons Bible from my room. The Death Book, which has replaced the Constitution as the basic law of the US government, is not welcome where I am. They've asked for WAR, and a WAR is what they'll get, even though I may be a pacifist.

Another milestone in my writing career

UCLA Extension's Writer's Program now officially knows me as Rachel K. So. All my records, including my online class login, have been updated accordingly, thanks to prompt and professional attention by the administrators, course manager, and the instructor.

I am feeling very good about this. I want to thank everyone again for their warm support.

Contributing to the relief effort

With the Katrina destruction and the resulting spike in gas prices, I briefly thought about cancelling my Bay Area mini-vacation. But in the end, I decided that I was just too self-indulgent to cancel something I had so meticulously planned. The trip will be a go, no matter what.

Nevertheless, I couldn't justify spending money only on myself, when people are suffering and dying in New Orleans and elsewhere in that part of the country.

In the end, I decided to make a contribution to Brother's Brother Foundation. It is a worthy charity, based in Pittsburgh, which I got to know through Karen Nichols at Democracy Cell Project (where she is known as tutterfly). I had established contact with them by making a small contribution last year in the aftermath of the Southeast Asian tsunami, and this time I made a larger, though still modest, contribution, and specifically earmarked it for Katrina relief efforts. I will make further contributions based on how dire things continue to be in the New Orleans area.