What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Sitting down to read to my daughter, only she takes the book and tells me she wants to read because now that she's learned to read, it's her favorite thing ever.

What is your greatest fear?
Asteroids. Global financial ruin. Car accidents. Basically, any large-scale event outside my sphere of control that would hurt Leilani's chances at a bright future.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
I like to think I'm a modern-day parallel to any of my favorite authors, trudging along through various shit jobs until I get the spark, talent or wherewithal to really make it as a writer.

Which living person do you most admire?
Mostly Leilani, and her ability to accept any given situation as normal. The divorce and the separation and the constant shifting of focus hasn't been nearly as hard on her as it has been the rest of us. Which is not to say it's been easy, but the kid's got a huge resilience that's inspiring to watch.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I am terrible at judging time, specifically when it comes to how long it will take me to get ready and get there. But you all know that already.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Not saying what you mean, whatever the reason. The truth is the truth, and can't be helped, no matter how much you don't want to admit it. Likewise, if you want me to do something, just ask.

What is your greatest extravagance?
I am of the firm belief that you cannot spend too much money on shoes or your bed, provided you pick the right ones. Those are the two areas of my life where I buy the best I can afford without thinking twice.
If you're talking genuine extravagance, though, it's probably sweets and cigarettes.

What is your favorite journey?
I love any journey if it's on my bike. Otherwise I just want to get out of the damn car.

What do you consider the most overrated virtues?
I have to agree with Raechel and say premarital sex. Also living together before marriage; people would save a lot of heartache if we all lived together for a year before getting married.

On what occasion do you lie?
I don't. I'll withhold information, or fudge a few details to save a sale when there's an upset customer, but I won't out-and-out lie.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
Nothing I couldn't change if I really had the motivation. I'm distressed by my hair these days, but it is what it is.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Whilst, OMG WTF, thus, I hate you (said mockingly).

What is your greatest regret?
Not learning to drive. Although I hate cars, so, you know, whatever.

Which talent would you most like to have?
The ability to give everyone an honest body-image, because I don't know anyone who had one before the age of twenty-five, and many who still don't.

What is your current state of mind?
Excited. Contemplative. Tired. Leilani is sleeping peacefully upstairs, I've read a bunch of fascinating articles that are helping me put together the pieces of the next few years, and despite being unemployed without any strong prospects, I'm very hopeful about the possibilities for what's next.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?
We wouldn't live so far away from each other. Some of my favorite people live in California, and I just don't have the money to visit.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Being as good a father as I can be.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
Hopefully someone who got interested in life a little earlier. I feel like there was some wasted potential in my early years while I waited for the world to pick me up and push me in the right direction.

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
Probably a girl, but for typically chauvinistic reasons.

What is your most treasured possession?
Two: my baby blanket (which Leilani occasionally uses when she forgets hers) and the outfit Leilani wore all the time when she was one.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
The last two years.

What is your favorite occupation?
I loved being a warehouse manager; doing inventory, receiving, shipping, and managing a crew of delivery guys. It was pretty effing great.

What is your most marked characteristic?
I'll answer this question later.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
When they don't rape people.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
That light in their eyes when they're talking about something they're passionate about.

What do you most value in your friends?
Loyalty. Honesty. Being awesome. That feeling that I'm somehow invited to the cool club because I still don't believe they like me.

Who are you favorite writers?
Douglas Adams, Jonathan Carroll, Elmore Leonard, Arthur C. Clarke, and Alan Warner. There are lots more, but those are the folks who've changed my ideas about what writing can be.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Arthur Dent

What is it that you most dislike?
Violence. It's cool in the Matrix, but in real-life it just hurts people.

How would you like to die?
Peacefully. With dignity. Knowing Leilani is healthy and happy.

What is your motto?
"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of. But do it in private, and wash your hands afterwards."
- Robert Heinlein

The "French Rule" is never date someone younger than half your age plus seven years. Thus:

27 / 2 + 7 = 20.5
27 - 7 x 2 = 40

So my "dating range" is anywhere from 21 to 40. However, I refuse to date anyone who isn't at least 22 (to give them a year to get used to drinking like adults), and anyone older than about 34 and I start to feel like we're not synching up in terms of priorities. Also, as I've expressed to a few people before, I was a very very young 18, but I feel like an old 27. As I grow older, I'm generally more attracted to women my age or slightly older.

So in practice, my range is closer to 24-34.

And now you'll know that forever.

SO EXCITED

In Oaxaca recently, a woman was raped and murdered. From what I understand, it was pretty brutal, and it is only the latest rape/murder in the area. And, our society being what it is, I only heard about it because the woman was a friend of a friend of mine.

I'll repeat that.

There's a region where women are being regularly raped and murdered, and I only know about it because it happened to a friend of a friend. You probably didn't know about it. Your friends probably didn't know about it. The Oaxacan government doesn't appear to be doing anything. The men responsible aren't coming forward.

But then, that's pretty much what we do, isn't it? A woman is raped, and if the man responsible is caught at all, there's inevitably a host of questions about whether it was even his fault. All of which assumes the rape is reported in the first place, which it often isn't.

And when we do bring the subject up, we tell the women we know to be careful. Don't go to Oaxaca. Don't go to the bar in your hometown. Don't go the grocery store alone after dark. Don't get drunk. Don't take a ride from a stranger. Etc. All the things SHE can do to keep from being raped.

We never, we NEVER tell the men we know to not rape anybody.

It's so god-damned simple. It seems so obvious to me that I have trouble understanding why it needs to be said at all. But it does need to be said. It needs to be said to every man in the world, over and over, until we all understand, and nobody's getting raped anymore.

Our species' history being what it is, I'm not convinced we can ever actually get to that point. But I hope we can. And to that end, I'm still going to occasionally stand up and say something. Because aside from not raping anybody, I'm not sure there's a lot else I can do.



So, guys? If you're reading this? Stop raping.



A few links to folks who wrote about this much better than I:

Erbie's livejournal post about how men can stop rape.
Scarleteen's excellent article: How You Guys--that's right, you GUYS--Can Prevent Rape

And for folks, like me, for whom rape can make me a single-issue voter, here's a couple articles to consider: While Sarah Palin was Mayor of Wasilla, AK, the police department charged rape victims $300-1200 for their own rape kits.

While Barack Obama was a State Senator in Illinois, he co-sponsored a bill providing reimbursement to rape victims "for out-of-pocket medical expenses, loss of earnings, psychological counseling, and loss of support income due to the crime. Reimbursement can be up to $27,000".

... should you?

I voted for Barack Obama in the primary. I'll be voting for him again in the general election. To me, it's not even a decision at this point; I was already a Obama supporter, but if the other choice is McCain, I honestly don't understand why people wouldn't vote for Obama.

I was discussing this with my brother, what I like about Obama, what I don't like about McCain. Basically, it falls to old guard politics vs. the new school. The greasers vs. the establishment. Other time-tested metaphors.

McCain represents 100 years of war. He represents the willingness to abandon our principles in the name of fighting for them. He represents higher taxes, and the rich staying richer, and the poor *still* not having decent healthcare. He represents a complete disregard for the environment or any measure to protect it. He represents a total lack of interest in sources of energy other than oil, right up until we pour the very last drop. He represents an America that says "hate is wrong unless I'm the one pointing the finger".

Barack Obama represents hope and change. He represents a willingness to take a bad situation, look at it with a clear and level head, decide on the best course of action, and act. He represents the willingness to change course if it becomes clear Plan A was not the correct choice after all. He represents a government that will listen to its citizens, and spend its money wisely--or at least wiser. He represents the acceptance that--whether or not we caused it--climate change is a real issue, and we can clean up our ecosystem without society grinding to a halt if we'll just consider all our options. He represents an America that simply says "hate is wrong".

To put it simply, John McCain represents the face of America that everybody  the world over hates; the self-important, bloated, narcissistic nation that has forgotten its own values.

Barack Obama represents the America that can be what it always wanted to be--what we used to think we already were.

That's a lot to ask for. That's a lot for one man to promise. I know that I'm voting for the possiblity of Barack Obama as much as I'm voting for the actual man. I know that I could well be disappointed.

But when I look at the differences between these two men, the choice is clear.
When I listen to my gut, the choice is clear.
When I think about what this country (and by extension, the world) needs, the choice is clear.
When I look towards the future I want for my daughter, the choice is clear.

I will be voting for Barack Obama, and I will be voting for an America that I can learn to love again.

I wish my camera could do all of these, but so far as I know, no camera currently does. If you know of a camera that can do any of these and has decent image quality and doesn't cost a million bucks, let me know, because I'll buy it tomorrow.

the list

• Custom image dimensions:
  My digital camera has multiple sizes, and one ratio with the maximum width, but cut down so it's a 1:1.5 ration (like 35mm film), which is great. But sometimes I wanna shoot a square image, and since I do all of my composition in camera, I wish my camera had the ability to save any custom dimension I wanted, up to it's maximum width/height.
  
• Also, rounded corners as a setting.
  
• Saved "profiles" that mean something:
  Sometimes I shoot in "night" mode with red-eye reduction and the b/w setting. Sometimes I shoot in sepia with the white balance cranked up. Sometimes I shoot regular color, with a low resolution, with the macro focus, with the timer on. If my camera has any set of options, I want to be able to save any combination of them as a "profile", and I want three buttons down the left side of the screen to instantly switch between my three favorite profiles. Plus one to revert to automatic settings.
  
• A digital "rangefinder" style manual focus, just for kicks.
  
• Wi-fi with e-mail capacity (so I can walk into Tiny's and send a few shots to flickr without going home and dealing with the hassle of downloading them first).
  
• Brightness/contrast/color balance controls *for the camera's screen* so I don't get surprised when my properly calibrated monitor reveals my camera's deficiencies when it comes to shadows and the color green
  
• And, finally ... all of the above options, plus decent image quality, on my camera phone.
  

Leilani is about to get glasses, and is excited about it.

Leilani has learned to read; she read all the mile posts on the highway on our recent beach trip, can read food labels/street signs/tee-shirts/anything else, and has adopted my old habit of sitting with a book before going to sleep at night.

Leilani has her first wobbly tooth.

Leilani will be six soon.

Leilani thinks Pirates are cooler than Ninjas (she is allowed to be wrong sometimes, she's just a kid).

Leilani informed me this past weekend that she loves rock'n'roll music, then proceeded to dance around singing "rock and roll" over and over again in her best imitation of Keith Richard's gravelly voice.

Leilani learned the words to "What a Wonderful World" for Mother's day at school, and will sing you the entire song, pausing after "I think to myself ..." to count out three beats on her fingers before continuing.

Leilani told me that "Or-rock Obama" is running for President.

Leilani is the coolest person I have ever met in my life.

..

Okay, so I’m totally not one of those guys who’s like "OMG, I updated my profile, look at my new pictures and leave comments so I feel even more awesome" but OMG you need to hear this song.

Apparently Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward have an album they’ve made, called She & Him, and what I’ve heard is awesome.

Click this, and listen to "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here".

It will change your life. Or at least the next three minutes of it.