So um. Sure, I have opinions on the two hot topics of the day: I think guns should be regulated at LEAST the way we regulate cars (mandatory training, licensing, and registration, mandatory liability insurance, license suspension/revocation for things like operating while intoxicated etc.) and I think it's a damned crime that access to decent ( Read more... )

Aw hell. Looking back at my LJ feed, I realize I never even made the birth announcement. Gaaah ( Read more... )

My baby boy turned 2 weeks old about an hour ago. So much has happened in that time, so many little triumphs and big freakouts, moments of joy and hours of dread, frantic reshuffling of furniture to make it make sense again and deep quiet breaths uninterrupted by anything more urgent than rapt contemplation of Martin's face... everything before the ( Read more... )

(yeah, this has already appeared elsewhere. I've decided I don't want to force my friends into the FaceHole just to read my drivel. *grin ( Read more... )

Well, I'm back from a soaking wet but spectacular experience at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, with the rest of Scott Wolfson and Other Heroes! We heard lots of great music (and I got a couple of new musical obsessions), met tons of wonderful people, and played and played and sang and sang until we were hoarse and sore. Gonna take me a bit to ( Read more... )

Years and years ago, I wrote the first line of a song and then abandoned it. It went "Hel-lo, how are you, yes I know, and it's true that it's been a while." I write a lot of first lines, and a lot of half-choruses, and never get back to 'em ( Read more... )

"But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to ( Read more... )

In the wake of all the Facebook posts calling on Americans to honor our military today, I've been giving some thought to the meme. Some of you know I tend to get introspective around these holidays, especially the ones that kinda seem packed with self-satisfied displays of militaristic nationalism ( Read more... )

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to this notion of a "voyeur Santa" that's crept into my head a month or so ago. The image of the Jolly Old Elf who didn't actually deliver presents -- who never was the one to deliver presents -- but traveled the world on this night of nights to bear witness of us humans' capacity for turning practical ( Read more... )

Now where was I? Oh yeah, the Hilton Orlando and its restaurants. Breakfast buffet included omelets made-to-order. Very cool ( Read more... )