Pillowfight!!

I LOVE San Francisco. Tonight I attended my first flash mob, and oh it was a good one! Someone somewhere had the brilliant idea to send around an email yesterday telling folks to gather at Justin Herman Plaza at 5:45 pm and to come armed. My boy Kei forwarded it to me, much to my delight.

When the clock on the Ferry Building struck 6:00 pm, people unleashed a primal battle cry and pulled pillows out of knap sacks and from under jackets and charged into the center of the plaza for a 4000 person pillow fight! And it rocked!! I swam in and out of the melee over and over swinging the $1.99 pillow I picked up from the Walgreen's, squealing in delight and knocking people over the head. I pulled out of the crowd to catch my breath and snap a few pictures with me cell phone. Then I waded back into the sweaty cloud of hippies, businessmen, Japanese art students and feathers to do it all over again. It was like a stinky dream sequence. I loved every second of it!

This just in:

Video footage from Kei throwing blows in the heart of it all. More accurately, Kei was just spinning about, camera held high, while the blows of fluffy love showered down upon him. PILLOWFIGHT!!!

A Quote Supreme

The Marriage Equity Project

Last night Maya and I had the pleasure of participating in the commemoration of 3rd anniversary of same-sex marriages conducted at City Hall in San Francisco. We were invited by Maya Scott Chung of the Marriage Equity Project to create a panel for a quilt, celebrating gay marriages and advocating for the right to marry with the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual couples. It was a wonderful event and a great reminder of the context in which the simple, personal love that Maya and I share is complex, public, and political. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the issue, it's pretty simple. Hetero marriages are recognized in every state in the union and confer 1,138 rights and responsibilites while California domestic partnerships only confer about 300 rights and protections. Under the law, gays and lesbians are second-class citizens. Furthermore, the whole issue of gay marriage has been used by the Republican right as a devisive wedge issue to distract Americans from, oh little things, like the war in Iraq and the spiraling costs of health care.

In my last post I announced that I'm truly excited about Barack Obama's candidacy for the presidency. I'm still very motivated to work to get him into office, but I must say that I was disappointed to read that he believes "that marriage is between a man and a woman." He does a great job of pointing out that the isssue of gay marriage is devisive distractory deployed by the right to keep Americans from considering more important national issues. But as usual, the political is personal and for many gays and lesbians, the right to marry is as fundamentally important as the right to, oh, little things, like deciding who you fall in love with and who you want to build a family with. Is there any more important issue than the right to legally safeguard your family?

Good Morning America

I woke up this morning excited about Barack Obama.



For the first time in a long time, since 1992, in fact, I am motivated to participate in politics beyond the ballot box. As an idealistic college student I worked hard on the Clinton Gore campaign and was thrilled when they won the White House. Since then however, the petty politics of fear and fundamentalism of the Bush era have left me disengaged and disinterested in politics as usual. I vote in every election and I always have an opinion about what's good for the country but I'm inspired this morning to move beyond coffee table conversations and my own single vote. I want to be a part of this movement to move a man of vision into the White House. I want to engage in this national conversation to bring sane and well-reasoned hope to Washington. Good morning America. I am glad to be here.