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A busy week.

Early in the week I reconnected with an old friend from my hippie days in Atlanta, one of my guiding lights for moving out to California in the early 1970's. He's like many of us, been through ch-ch-changes, but still here and making his way through the world.

The photo from the link above is to a shot of the Community Center that was formed in late 1969 or early 1970 in the epi-center of the hippie community in Atlanta. I have a memory of Larry coming back to the house on Fourteenth Street where a bunch of us lived. He had been volunteering at the Community Center that night and was all rev'd up from the Led Zepplin music that someone there had been playing - constantly. Only so much "Whole lotta love" one person can take!

Another memory triggered by another photo, this one of Norris. Norris lived in a big house on Fifteenth Street. He also worked downtown at a newstand/book store called the BookMart. In the early seventies, at the Port Authority Terminal in New York City, I ran into Norris. I was headed to Nashville and points south. He was going back to the commune in Maine where he lived.

The links above are from a series of photos from that place and time that Carter Tomassi, a photographer and all around great guy has on his website. I had a nodding acquaintance with Carter back in my Atlanta days. Knew his work from the old Great Speckled Bird and got occasional rides from him in his VW bus several times while I was hitching around town. A couple years ago, I met up again with Carter after learning that he was based (then) over in San Francisco. I visited him at his studio and we later had a nice lunch over in Berkeley where he gave me a wonderful gift of a photo from 1969 or so of a young woman on the Strip - the area of Peachtree Street where congregated the local hippie tribe and hippie gawkers. The young woman, Sandy, was from the house where I lived, 44 Fourteenth Street (now long gone, lost to Atlanta's relentless urban development). Sandy, so young in the photo - almost a child - had seemed to my 18 year old self (as I was at the time) so old and experienced. She was then, all of 22 or 23? I was able to pass the photo on to another friend from those days, who was very close to her.

I also had a bunch of work stuff this week, a steady stream. Next week will be the same, only more so...with several reports, letters, etc. I have to get out on Monday. Then a scheduled three hour budget meeting with a major funder and an all-day training at the end of the week in preparation for the County's Homeless Count.

In other news of the passing-previous week, my grandiose plans for making the morning meditations at the Berkeley Zen Center were just that: grandiose. Oh well...try, try again. I did manage to sit on my own two mornings in a row. Rewarding to navigate through my own obstacles to sitting on my own. I need the social pressure of sitting with others...but I have to show up in order for that strategy to work. However, I did manage to sit at Hartford Street Zen Center several evenings, including Thursday night's Founder's Day Ceremony. After sitting I ran into an friendly acquaintance from the Gay Men's Buddhist Sangha and we talked a bit about Issan Dorsey and Hartford Street Zen Center's history. Later, thinking over our brief conversation, I was reminded of a delightful presentation by Susan Stryker of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society of Northern California about the history of gay neighborhoods in San Francisco.

The capper on this week was Friday night, a bunch of us making our way over to see Hedwig at the Victoria. What a great show! I had only seen the film version, so it was complete delight to see/hear it live. Hedwig rocks me! It evokes my emotional life, without the biographical details, and with a lot more glamour!

[8-9 February 2003]

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Sometime in my eighth or ninth year I decided I wanted to become an engineer. Not just any engineer. But one who would ultimately get to ride out into space. Over most of one whole wall in my room I had taped clippings from newspapers about the Mercury Seven. I knew the names of all the astronauts and watched the liftoffs from Cape Canaveral every chance I had.

I stopped by work yesterday morning, on my way to the Berkeley Zen Center. I checked my email and then checked for updates to my favorite websites, the first stop being Scripting News where I learned about the Columbia tragedy. The sense of sadness and loss was immediate. On the walk over to the Zen Center a fine drizzle fell, fitting my mood.

This morning, I read the quietly excellent piece that Dave Winer of Scripting News has written regarding yesterday's event. It's a model of writing of this kind: honoring the dead, giving perspective, honoring the living. He's written other fine pieces too.

In my eighth or ninth year I decided I wanted to become an engineer. I wanted to go to Georgia Tech. I did make it to Tech in my late teens, but in a far different capacity than my nine year old incarnation had planned. But that's another story.

[2 February 2003]

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