I write poetry and fiction, volunteer for and contribute to progressive (or at least Democratic) candidates and causes (but am really an Anarresti at heart), and am currently shopping a couple of YA (young adult) fantasy novels around to publishers.

For several years, I raised a son under unconventional circumstances. I shared a house rental with him and his mother, and though I had no relationship with her, I came to see that he could use another parent, and discovered that I liked it and was good at it. I parented him from age 10 through 18, at which point he struck out on his own. This experience has left me open to parenting more kids, but less likely to ever want to engender my own, since there are so many in the world already lacking the care they need. (One of the many alarming deficits we as a civilization are running.)

Although I enjoy my job as a programmer, I'm working toward a life filled more with writing and political activism. I dream about the day when I'll make most of my living from book royalties and a little online business I'm hoping to launch in 2009.

It's all about the writing these days. There are three books that I feel charged by the Universe to bring into the world, as if they weren't my creations at all, but gifts that I'm just the delivery person for.

I've been working at them, slowly, steadily.

Here's an excerpt from the one currently in progress, a retelling of the story of Joan of Arc.

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That night, you and Joan soar among the butterflies as you have many times in the past, but even as you participate in her dream, a corner of your mind frets over her irrational gaiety. Does she think she’s going to escape this net the English have caught her in? Around and around she flies, rising so high at times that her fluttering friends cannot keep up and must circle below, waiting for her return.

The air is clean and cold. The skies of her mind, bright and unclouded.

(Updates - 5/20/2009: I finished the Joan of Arc novel! I'm on a break from the writing now. It feels very strange! 10/20/2009: I'm one week away from launching the business, and beginning to write again. It's a good time for the New.)

Writing, listening, thinking. Refraining from judgment and unsolicited advice-giving. Playing with kids.

My voice.

Movies:

The New World - Not at all what the previews, ads, and reviews suggested it would be. An impressionistic masterpiece that works more like a poem than any other movie I know.

Me And You And Everyone We Know - A brilliantly quirky assay by performance artist Miranda July. Happens to end with the most casually remarkable scene in modern cinema.

The Secret Life of Veronique (also known as Veronika/Veronique) - Does, better than any other movie I know, that which a movie can do better than any other art form.

Also - Things You Can Just By Looking At Her, Bliss, Lovely and Amazing, Jesus of Montreal, Sirens, American Beauty, My Dinner With Andre, My Neighbor Totoro, Dogville.

Books:

The Dazzle of Day - a shimmering, yet utterly grounded and even melancholic vision of humanity moving into a possible future.

Little, Big - The greatest fantasy novel ever written.

The Dispossessed - My favorite Utopian novel.

Also - Wild Life, The Kin of Ata Are Waiting For You, Woman on the Edge of Time; authors Gina Berriault, Thaisa Frank, Ursula LeGuin, John Crowley; literary journals like Agni or Ploughshares.

Poets and poems:

Basil Bunting's long poem, "Briggflatts"
Theodore Roethke
Cole Swensen
Sophi Cabot Black
William Stafford
Yeats
some of Wallace Stevens
Robert Pinsky
Coming to Jakarta, Peter Dale Scott's book length combination of autobiography and political exposé

Music:

classical music: mostly either Baroque or 20th century, with just a few things in between
folk singers Annie Gallup, Deb Talan, and Hugh Blumenfeld

laptop for writing
RSS reader
Birkies
the ability to walk long distances (I'm just getting over a stress fracture in my right knee)
good talk
your touch?

My writing, politics, how to find my way into the rest of my life.

Doing pretty much what I do on the other nights.

I'm pretty inexperienced, romantically and sexually. This is hard to admit because it could suggest things that are not true about me at all, such as that I'm an inexperienced human, or averse to deep connection, or unkind or unwise or unhinged. Unfortunately, it probably *does* suggest that I'll lack certain skills in both areas at first.

- you're also a fan of The Dazzle of Day. (Or Molly Gloss's other major novel, Wild Life.) No one I've ever pushed either book on has been able to finish it, and I'm dying to talk about them with someone! Or...

- you'd use a multimillion dollar inheritance to buy a modest house in a vital neighborhood near public transit, or in a co-housing development, rather than in the Oakland hills or Blackhawk. Or...

- you understand that people who answer the "most private thing" prompt with something like, "if I shared it, it wouldn't be private" have misunderstood the prompt.