Monday, July 28, 2008

World Hoop Day

Guess what? August 8th is World Hoop Day!

I can't believe I almost missed out on this! Despite my obsession with hooping over the past five months, it somehow escaped my attention that in less than two weeks is the most important hooping event of the year!

I am so excited.

First of all, I'm a sucker for anything that warrants its own Day. From Bike to Work Day to Bagel Day, I am an active participant in them all.

In fact, here I am, happily celebrating Gay Pride at this year's Pride parade. See my shirt? I made that! (Click photo to enlarge.)


That event was a double-whammy because I actually hooped in the parade. My friend Amanda and I passed the hoop back and forth all the way down Market Street. It was a blast! We waved at the crowds and sang along with the music blaring from the Glide float. Just a couple of hetero-fabulous babes, getting our hoop on.



So I am thrilled that hooping has its own bona fide Day.

The premise of World Hoop Day is to encourage an active, healthy lifestyle and advance the spread of world peace. The aim is to provide at-risk youth with a means of recreation that promotes joy as well as fitness. Hoops are donated and distributed to children living in poverty all around the world. Several hundred hoops have been raised in the Bay Area and will be dispensed to kids with need at the event on 08/08/08.

Now listen, friends: This is a call to the hoop. We should all get together and rock the hell out of World Hoop Day. The event is on Treasure Island from 2:00 to 9:00 PM next Friday. I say we leave work at 4:00 and head to the Island for an evening of hooping madness.

Email me if you're in, and we'll set up a car pool. I can bring extra hoops for those who don't have one. And afterward we should all go out for dinner!

Oh yeah, and you're encouraged to dress like a pirate -- that's the theme this year. (Treasure Island and whatnot.)

I would like to take it one step further and encourage you to also talk like a pirate. Even though International Talk Like a Pirate Day isn't until September 19th, we could all do with a bit of practice. Am I right?

I'll see you at the hoopening!

SPIN IT!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

OneMama

My friend Siobhan is changing the world. She is starting with Uganda.

Siobhan is the founder of OneMama, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing resources and awareness to the plight of women in impoverished, rural communities.

In Uganda, approximately 95% of the women have their babies with local midwives, rather than at a hospital. Pregnant women walk for miles to reach the midwife's hut, to give birth in conditions like this:


They come empty-handed, because they are poor. They often arrive hungry. The midwife uses her own supplies and many times feeds her clients from her own food supply, so that they will have the strength to give birth.

Siobhan is on a mission to bring aid to these amazing women, most immediately in the form of supplies. She boarded a plane for Africa two weeks ago with a load of birthing kits, solar equipment and computers.

"It really has been quite comical watching me try to carry all these extra bags with supplies all over the world," she wrote to her Glide family. "You should see the looks...Like they were all filled with extra shoes or something."

(In addition to being a hero, Siobhan is a total babe with fashion sense, so you can imagine the kinds of looks she's getting.)

She sent another email a few days ago:

"I have now been in Uganda for about 4 or 5 days. I have lost track of time here. It is taking some time for me to adjust back to this life with no real access to the outside world. It's like being completely unplugged from any kind of life we know in our part of the world.

I am sleeping next to Jamira, the midwife for OneMama, in her room with her, right next to the birthing area. I have to admit the first couple nights were a little rough. Jamira gets up at all hours of the night to help the local women give birth when they come calling.

The conditions are in great contrast to what we are used to in the States. Even though I have been here before it is still hard to adjust to living like this. There is no running water, but I do get a bucket to bathe with hot boiled water every day. There are also no power sources of any kind to utilize for lights or to power electronics. We use fires, candles, or solar flashlights. I have brought a solar generator and solar panels from the US, but they have not yet proved to be successful. It is supposed to take up to 48 hours to charge. So we will see...

Jamira... She is so sweet and she was so happy when I showed up with my supplies and showed her the work we have done so far. She just grabs my hand every chance she gets and says 'webale' over and over... This means 'thank you'. I really don't know what to say, so I nod and say it back and smile."


Have you ever been privileged enough to know someone who's really doing good in this world? I'm not exaggerating when I say that this girl is one of my heroes. The weirdest part is that she's also my friend. She sings in the choir with me. She's just a regular person, but she's living on another level.

One day she seemed a little down, so I asked her if anything was wrong. And she replied - in total seriousness - "I'm just exhausted from my fabulous life!"

Don't you love it?

Siobhan, you're beautiful. You make the world a better place.

Rock on, Mama.

To learn more about OneMama and how you can help, check out www.onemama.org.

Enough is enough (is enough)

A friend just invited me to join Facebook, but man, I don't want to.

I am besieged with offers to join these virtual friendship networks, and frankly, I have no interest. MySpace, Friendster, Linkedin, WAYN, Classmates - it's just too much! Once in awhile I gamely attempt to set up an account with one of these sites and it sets off a chain of spam.

Errin, someone wants to know where you are!
Errin, 3 people are searching for you!

Errin, you're missing out on everything! EVERYTHING!


I didn't realize how routinely I'd been ignoring these invitations until I clicked on the Facebook link and read:

These people have invited you to join Facebook.

And there were pictures of five other friends, several of whom I (thought I) hadn't heard from in quite awhile.

Oops.

And that was just Facebook! When I think of all the other sites that people have invited me to join, or the online photo albums that they've invited me to sign up to view, I realize that I've been ignoring friends all over the place. I feel pretty badly about that, and friends, I'd like to apologize to you.

It's not that I'm not interested in keeping in contact. I am! It's just that I don't want to have to create an account to keep up with people. I'm already swimming in accounts and I can never remember the password for any of them. I've been trying to cancel my Netflix subscription for months but I can't remember my damn username.

So let's find another way to connect. Please, send me an email. Give me a call! I miss you, I love you, I want to hear all about you, but for God's sake, don't make me log in.

I realize this may seem a shade hypocritical, given that I now expect everyone to follow the adventures on my blog. But I promise, I will never ask you a security question. Your mother's maiden name is your own business.

Or rather, her own business.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Some of what the world needs

I went to see Douglass Fitch preach yesterday and my insides woke up.

I'd already been to two services at Glide and witnessed a great sermon by Karen Oliveto (twice). Karen is our newest pastor and she's brought her own light into the church. She's already stirring things up, much to the approval of the ministry team.

But a sermon from Pastor Fitch is a rare treat these days, since his retirement from Glide. I first heard Douglass speak when I came to the church almost 3 years ago. His words triggered a great leaping feeling in my chest that I later came to associate with joy.

I'd never had a pastor before. My family attended Catholic church when I was a child, but more out of duty than desire. Eventually we stopped going altogether. I certainly don't recall ever hearing a sermon that moved me.

I will write about how I came to Glide on another day, but right now I want to organize my thoughts surrounding Doug's sermon yesterday.

He spoke about potential, or more specifically, how so many people are living below their potential. So many of us have become accustomed to thinking that some dreams are simply beyond our reach.

It was a pretty appropriate message for me yesterday, as I'm given to periods of self-doubt when I'm unable to sing. I'd mouthed the words to all the songs at the morning services, still waiting for my voice to return to full strength.

Sometimes I feel kind of stupid for having announced to so many people that I'm going to be a professional singer. It builds this expectation that can be difficult to live up to. And Glide is not an objective place to gauge your successes. There's such an abundance of love and support, I'm not always sure how my talent will stand up outside those walls. Suppose the rest of the world is just not that interested in me?

So I sat up a little straighter when Doug Fitch said, "I know that I have some of what the world needs. I don't have all of it! But I've got some of it."

I was listening harder when he continued, "Somebody needs my particular touch. Somebody needs my perspective."

And I was taking notes a minute later, as he insisted that God has given us some assignments. We're supposed to fashion our unique gifts into something that brings light into the world. We've got to understand that our potential is unlimited; it was given to us at birth before we were even given a name. And that potential is only diminished if we put a ceiling on it.

"'Your best days are not behind you,'" he quoted. "'Your best days are in front of you.' I'm saying, don't die with your gifts still in you!"

I looked around the room. We were in a small chapel; it only seats about 80. Every seat was full. Half the people there had already sat through at least one church service that morning. But they came to hear Douglass speak. They came to be inspired.

Sometimes I wonder if music is important enough to build a life around. I think that surely it's not as important as being a doctor or an architect or a professor, someone who heals or builds or teaches.

But then I think: people come in droves to see their favorite musicians play. They pack giant arenas, they pay hundreds of dollars. They come because the music moves them. They come to be inspired.

And whether I sing for one or for thousands, I'm sharing my light with the world. I'm not going to die with my gifts still in me.

I expect that God wouldn't be too pleased about that.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Vindicated

Ha ha!

My doctor called this morning - called herself, mind you, didn't have a nurse call - and said, "Errin, to my great surprise you do have strep throat. You need to be on antibiotics."

I stood in the shower with shampoo in my hair, the phone pressed against my wet head. Soap crackled in my ear. "Really?" I asked.

"Yes. I would guess that you've had it for quite some time and it's been the cause of your repeated respiratory illnesses." She told me to come back to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for Penicillin. But I should continue to take my allergy medication and monitor my breathing, she said.

Ha! I am vindicated! I am not such a wuss after all. Take that, allergies! It takes more than a little seasonal distress to bring me down!

I have strep throat!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Stupid Murphy

Yesterday just pissed me right off.

It was one of those days at work where everybody needed something. I was trying to concentrate on a big project but every few minutes there was a phone call or an email, something that demanded my immediate attention. I'd been working through my lunch hour all week in order to take the afternoon off for my doctor's appointment, and when I left the office at 2:00 I hadn't gotten much accomplished.

I went through the dance routine of dragging my bike on the BART. It goes a little something like this: Unstrap tote bag, unhook pannier, pick up bike, walk up 2 flights of stairs, put down bike, scrape right calf. Re-situate pannier, re-strap top bag, wedge bike into small space on train, move to accommodate wheelchair. Fight through the throng to exit train, unstrap tote bag, unhook pannier, pick up bike, walk down 2 flights of stairs, bang right ankle. Re-situate pannier, re-strap top bag, exit station.

At the doctor's office I explained about my reoccurring ailments, the sore throats and the chest colds. The doctor took a cursory peek in my mouth and said I looked fine, except for some rather large tonsils. I asked if I ought to have them removed but she was noncommittal. She diagnosed me with allergies and suggested I take an over-the-counter medication.

I wasn't satisfied with this diagnosis so I pressed my case. To appease me she did a strep culture and measured my peak flow, and of course I exhaled like a champ, lending little credence to my breathing complaints. My peak flow registered normal, just as my computer always reverts to its best behavior when the IT guy comes around.

"Allergies," she said again in an authoritative way. I left her office in a funk. What a weenie diagnosis. I mean, who gets ill five times in one year from allergies? I was ready for some kind of disease, man. Give me something I can stand and fight! But don't send me home with Flo-Nase and a wimp reputation. Come on.

I went across the hall to the pharmacy to collect my prescription. In addition to the nasal spray I was supposed to receive a peak flow meter so I could continue to monitor my breathing at home. But the prescription didn't call for a peak flow, so I had to go back across the hall to the doctor's office and wait 15 minutes for the scrip to be re-written.

Back to the pharmacy and this time they tried to give me an inhaler spacer. "But I don't have an inhaler," I said. "Are you sure?" they asked me. "Pretty sure," I said. "I'm supposed to get a peak flow meter."

"That's not what this is," said the pharmacist.

"Uh huh." I said.

She considered for a moment, rubbing her pregnant belly. "Well, we could call the doctor's office," she mused. "But we'd have to leave a message and then wait for them to call us back. It would probably be faster for you just to go back over there."

I'd like to reiterate that the doctor was across the hall.

So I went back to the doctor for the third time. And waited another 15 minutes. Finally the doctor herself appeared and escorted me personally to the pharmacy.

"I do not know what the trouble is," she said in her French accent, which was simultaneously melodic and intimidating. "This girl needs a peak flow and I ask for a peak flow. What do I have to write to communicate this?"

Turns out she needed to write PEAK FLOW.

So we went back to her office so she could write another prescription. And then I returned to the pharmacy - for the fourth time - to complete my transaction.

Back down to the street where I unlocked my bike and looked around for someplace to eat. I'd been planning to enjoy an early dinner before my hooping class and choir rehearsal, but now I was short on time. I decided to grab a quick sandwich at a nearby bagel shop before jumping back on the BART. I spotted a rack and locked up my bike, then lumbered into the store with my heavy bags in tow.

Inside the bagel shop I immediately regretted my order, but it was too late to change my mind; they were already assembling the food. I paid for my sandwich and was just sitting down at a table when the overhead lights went out. Confused, I looked back toward the counter. "Sorry miss," said the shop owner. "We're closed now. You have to leave."

Great.

I shouldered my bags and stepped outside again, looking around for someplace to eat. I settled on bus stop bench and took a bite of my sandwich. It was tasteless and they'd used the wrong kind of bagel. With a sigh, I pulled out my library book and balanced it on my knees. The dinosaurs had just escaped in Jurassic Park and I wanted to see who got gutted next.

"You been here long?" There was a slick looking businessman with thinning hair and unnecessary sunglasses resting one foot on the edge of my bench. "You see the Number 12 bus come by?"

"Sorry," I said after swallowing. "I just got here a minute ago." I turned my attention back to the dinosaurs.

"Does the 59 go to Oakland?" he asked.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I'm only sitting here because the bagel shop is closed. I'm not actually waiting for a bus." I flipped a page and resumed reading.

The man spied my bike helmet and thought he'd made a friend. "I just started biking to work myself," he confided. "Man, I'm loving it."

On another day I might have been more encouraging but I was hungry, cranky and into my dinosaurs. I was seeking five minutes of peace with my tasteless sandwich before I resumed the pace of my day. So I mumbled, "Well that's great," and made a rather large show of returning to my book.

"Really keeps you in shape," he continued, as I closed my eyes and counted to ten. And then thankfully his bus arrived and whisked him away.

I finished my sandwich, stuck my book in my bag and unlocked my bike, which goes like this: rummage for keys, undo U-lock, unwind cable, grab for falling bike, scrape right shin. Hook on pannier, strap on top bag, coil cable, store locks, hike up pants, commence ride. It was five minutes to the BART station where I did the dance with my bike yet again. I ascended to the platform only to discover I'd missed my train by seconds.

Twenty minutes later I was crammed in with the commuter populace, thinking hard about my schedule. I would be on time for my hoop class, but barely. Then I'd really have to book it in order to arrive at choir practice no more than fifteen minutes late.

The doors opened and a man in an electronic wheelchair backed into my bike as he exited the train ("Just a minute sir, wait one second please till I get out of your - Whoa! Okay, ow."). He didn't even look back. I shuffled off the train, did the bike dance and pedaled like fury until I arrived in front of the hooping studio, then hopped off, breathless.

Locked the bike up.

Once inside I discovered my teacher telling the class that she'd forgotten the hoops. She came to hoop class without the hoops, people! "I'm so sorry," she said. "I can go back and get them, but class will start half an hour late. Is that okay with everyone? Nobody has to leave early, do they?"

I do, I said silently.

So much for choir practice.

We hung around the studio for forty minutes, waiting for the teacher to return. Several people had brought their own hoops and they spent a happy time spinning, practicing their moves. I sat against a wall.

It was a great class, once we got going, and I was glad I hadn't left. But we didn't get out until 8:00, a full hour after choir rehearsal had started. I debated whether I should even bother going, but after missing Sunday's service I didn't want to miss rehearsal too. I figured I'd go catch the last 45 minutes.

Unlocked the bike.

I arrived at Glide sweaty and out of breath and heaved my bike up the stairs and into the sanctuary. The choir was onstage, holding hands. They were singing the prayer song, the final song. Our director had decided to end practice half an hour early. I arrived just in time to say goodbye to everyone.

"Goodbye! Goodbye!" they chorused. I waved weakly.

Leah offered me a ride home but I had to decline, as she had no room for my bike. So I lugged it down the stairs, over to the station and up to the platform. Hopped a train, then zoned out for 20 minutes until it was time to wrestle the bike down the stairs. I rode home in the dark.

I arrived back at the building to discover that my usual parking spot was taken; all the hooks on the walls were filled with bikes. I couldn't believe it; in nearly a year no one had ever taken my spot. "Well that's just great," I said out loud. "Complete my freaking day."

All right, that's not exactly what I said.

I wedged my bike in between two other bikes, knowing that it would be cast aside by morning. Then I trudged up the stairs to my apartment.

Monte poked his head out from behind a small mountain of cardboard. "Hi baby!" he said cheerfully. "I'm going through my boxes!"

"I can see that," I said wearily. Our closet was in lovely shape after the weekend clean-out, but the living room was still a bit of a disaster zone. The most dangerous area had been dubbed 'Monte's corner' because of the six large boxes containing remnants of his past. Most of those remnants were now scattered on the floor.

I sank onto the couch while Monte excavated mementos, exclaiming over each as though he were pulling rabbits out of a hat. "Hey, it's my yearbook! Check out that handsome young guy, eh? Wow, I've been looking for that sweater. Wags! I found Wags the Dog!

"Hey, check it out; here are my tapes," he said. "Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, El Debarge...wait, I don't remember owning El Debarge."

"Those are mine," I said, crawling onto the floor to inspect the collection. "Dirty Dancing, Janet Jackson...Ooh! DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince!"

"Oh, we've got to put that on," Monte said.

"Tori Amos," I continued. "Couple of mix tapes. That's funny; look at this exercise mix from 2001. It's got half the same songs as my iPod does right now. I guess I haven't evolved much."

Monte had discovered another box. "What's this?" he asked. He opened the lid and ran his hand over the contents. "Here's your old digital camera," he said. "And a film camera too. And is that your Palm Pilot?"

For a moment I froze. "Baby," I said. "That's the technology box."

He looked at me in astonishment.

The technology box is what I'd dubbed the packing box where I'd stored all my electronic equipment when we moved to California five years ago. It was nowhere to be found upon arrival. After unpacking nearly all the boxes ("These few boxes are mine," Monte insisted. "I'll go through my old stuff later.") and searching the house thoroughly, we'd come to the conclusion that we must have left the box behind at the airport. I'd mourned the loss of all my gadgetry at once. It had been quite a blow.

"This is the technology box?" Monte said in wonder.

"Yes!" I cried. "This is it! Look, there's my mini tape recorder! And all my old zip disks! My headphones! This has been sitting in the closet for five years?" I said accusingly. "In your boxes?"

He shrugged and attempted to divert. "Look baby, your Palm Pilot." He held it out to me.

It worked. "My Palm Pilot," I repeated. "Man, I never thought I'd see this thing again. How cool." I gazed at it for a moment. "You know what's so funny?" I said. "Just the other day, when we were cleaning out the closet, I came across the manual and all the software for this in the - " I stopped suddenly.

"Hmm?" he prompted.

I smacked myself in the forehead. "Just the other day I came across the software for this and I THREW IT AWAY. After five years of holding onto that stuff I threw it away and THREE DAYS LATER I find the goddamn Palm Pilot! Sonofabitch!"

Monte blinked.

"I'm going to bed," I said, and stomped into the other room. I brushed my teeth, took out my contacts and flung myself into bed. I threw Jurassic Park onto my nightstand with a thump.

And my bookmark fell out.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

I'm stuck in the closet

I've been feeling kind of stuck lately, like my life's having some trouble getting going. My brain feels cluttered and my days feel cluttered and I can't seem to generate any sort of forward motion. After pondering the situation for awhile I came to the conclusion that my feng shui is all messed up. My house is wreck, yo.

We've lived in our apartment for five years and not once have we actually cleaned it OUT. Whenever we come upon an item of questionable necessity we simply throw it in the closet. It saves us from having to make big decisions like: Do we really need a hot pink inflatable armchair?

Ours is not a very large apartment, but we've got so much junk that there's no way we can clean it out in one weekend. So we're trying to tackle one room per week. Last week we cleaned the bedroom and it's so lovely now: an oasis in an ocean of crap.

This week we set our sights on the closet. It's a big walk-in with a built-in bureau in the back that I haven't seen for about five years. We were supposed to tackle it yesterday but I didn't feel well, so we let it slide. Monte had plans to golf this morning and I was going to spend another day taking it easy. But as I stared at the closet door I felt a pressing need to get something accomplished this weekend. I decided to pull a few things out and spend an hour or so seeing what I could organize.

Two hours later the closet was empty and our livingroom was a disaster area. Monte arrived home and fought valiantly to get through the front door. Ultimately he failed and I had to excavate him from a sea of cardboard boxes.

Who knew we had so much extra stuff? Two telephones. A blender. That hot pink inflatable armchair*. Multiple windchimes. Exercise equipment. Godawful posters of nature scenes that I once thought might serve as 'art' on the walls. A revolving, battery-operated hairbrush. An incomplete set of golf clubs. Monte was truly puzzled to learn that he had two sets of skis. How do you not realize that you have two sets of skis?

Six hours after pulling everything out of the closet, we managed to fit most of it back in - in considerably neater fashion. I'm so enamored with our beautiful new space that I want to sleep there tonight.

Look! Look what we did!


I'm just so darn proud.

I'm also dusty and sneezy and off to bed.

*The wierd thing is, I could have sworn we gave that damn thing away, but it was there in closet. I think we may have actually had two of them.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

It starts with a tickle in the throat...

It's a Saturday and I'm sick again.

I've been sick a lot this year, and it's beginning to trouble me. It's awfully inconvenient to have a sore throat every 2 months when you're trying to be a professional singer. Every time I have to spare my voice I have little internal panic attacks: What if I'm not physically able to sing for a living? Suppose I'm not strong enough? What will I do if my voice never comes back?

It's an exercise in patience to remain quiet long enough to heal. And the longer I have to remain silent, the further my dream seems to recede. A whole year has passed since I made the decision to be a singer, and I haven't got much to show for it. Granted, life's been a bit of a bitch lately. Monte and I are both dealing with illness in our families and I haven't been able to concentrate on much else. But I'm staggered by how quickly the year has passed, and how little I've accomplished in terms of my chosen career. Sitting here in enforced silence, this lack of progress feels especially frustrating.

I want to say something inspiring to wrap up this post, but nothing's coming to mind. I guess this is just God's way of telling me to be still for awhile, although it seems like I should be doing exactly the opposite...

I'm off to bed now. I hope that sleep will revive my pipes enough so that I can sing at church tomorrow morning. There's nothing so disappointing as missing out on a Sunday Celebration at Glide.

Dedication

I used to journal regularly. I have piles of mismatched notebooks, chronicling the events of my life from the seventh grade onward. I still carry a moleskin around with me, in hopes that I'll resume the practice. But the sad fact is, I can't write by hand anymore. My fingers cramp up after a couple of paragraphs and my penmanship gets worse all the time. It kind of sucks the joy out of the entire practice.

Besides, by the time I sit down to write, I've usually already relayed the story to one friend or another over email. In fact, I realized that email has become my new method of journalism. It's my favorite and most common way of expressing myself.

The only problem with email is that I wind up copy-and-pasting the same story into different conversations, over and over again, until I'm sick to death of it. If only there were some place where I could post my stories and people could log on and read them!

Enter the blog.

I didn't really consider blogging until somewhat recently. My friends all told me that I should have one, that my emails were worth sharing, but I didn't think I was a subject of enough interest. But then I discovered that THEY all have THEIR own blogs! Turns out, chronicling your life online is the thing to do. I was just about the only person in my knitting group who didn't have one. Suddenly I felt very left out.

So I decided to do it. 'I will blog!' I said to myself. 'I will blog!' I said to my friends. And (about a year and a half later) I created this online journal.

This blog is dedicated to my friends who have laughed at my emails and urged me to share. I hope I'm still a good read now that I'm a published author. I'll try not to let it go to my head.