Personal

I moved my blog, from WordPress to Drupal, at the same time as I consolidated my varied online presences into one. For those of you that think that previous sentence made no sense, not to worry - it just means that from now on, my blog and all of my personal stuff will be in one place, here.

Many of you know that I write science fiction. I've been writing science fiction since the summer of 2006, when I wrote my first novel - it was designed to be the first in a series of three. I subsequently wrote the second (which is mostly complete) and started the third about a year and a half ago. Over the entire time I've been writing, it has been a struggle to figure out what to do with it. On one hand, it would be nice to have the recognition that published authors get.

I have a friend who has a blog (called Recipes for Trouble), that intertwines life and food in a really cool way. Sometimes, since I love to discover new foods to cook, I think I'll share them here, but I never have. Until today. Ruth and I had a friend over for lunch, so we took the occasion as an opportunity to go to the farmer's market that happens in downtown Oakland (at Jack London Square) on Sundays.

I came upon a stray tweet from someone I follow, which lead me on a search that led to an interesting blog entry asking "Why don't Christians count the Omer?" Counting the Omer, if you don't know, is a Jewish tradition of counting the 50 days between Passover (the liberation from slavery) and the holiday, Shavu'ot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah to the people of Israel.

As is obvious, I haven't blogged since Inaguration day, more than 3 months ago. Mostly, it's because I've been crazy busy. I moved, again, within Oakland, from Fruitvale to Millsmont. I found a new business partner, and we are busily building a business. I found a new church home, and I am beginning to become involved in varied activities in my East Bay and Bay Area community.

I always think that I'll get my act together and write a letter that I send out to all of my friends, that summarizes my year, etc. And I never actually get to it. So this year, I figured I'd blog it, and hopefully many of the folks I'd want to send it to will end up reading it. It's been a hectic year of change and upheaval. One year ago today, Ruth and I were having dinner at my parent's house in NY. That October, we'd just moved into our house in Shelburne Falls, thinking we'd be there for a while.

I wasn't going to blog about the election. Mostly because I don't really have anything especially articulate to say about what happened on Tuesday that hasn't already been said, not only about Obama's win, but about the passage of Proposition 8 in California. I talked with my parents election night, and they said they could have never imagined a Black man as President in their lifetimes. Even I found it hard to imagine, even with Hollywood's suggestions.

I have been thinking a lot about where I live, and the kind of place it is, and how it is so completely different than anywhere else I've ever lived before. I live in Fruitvale. It is a neighborhood in Oakland that is incredibly diverse, although by far the largest population here is Latino.

I hate unpacking. Of course, I hate packing too, and I think packing is worse. But unpacking is a pain, too. I'm finally settled in my new place, have all of the stuff out of the garage where it's been stored for a few weeks, and am now faced with a mound of boxes. It's at this stage that I want to become someone who has almost no stuff. I think fondly back in the days (college) when I could fit everything I owned into the trunk of my parent's car. What's funny is that I own a lot less stuff than I did in early 2005, before I ditched most of it, and went to seminary.

I've been in the Bay Area now for 2 weeks, exactly. It's been enlightening, broadening, frustrating, triggering, happy, sad, giddy, and scary experience. Finding a place to live has been one of the most difficult experiences I've been through lately. A lot of that is the varied parts of me that feel drawn to different things. I've been mostly looking at studios and one bedroom apartments in Oakland, Berkeley, and surroundings. I toyed with living in SF, although it feels much more costly.