My (mostly) solo ten-week backpacking trip through Europe in the fall of 1973 (at age 18) was an adventure, not always happy, not always fun, but a compelling developmental journey. One memorable day began before sunrise in Trier Germany and ended finally at 4am the next morning in Brussels Belgium, with four cities and six trains in between. (more…)

An update for everyone… As a late emerging issue from my bicycle crash in November, I apparently developed a blood vessel bleed in my brain after CAT scan and MRI which had been clear. It developed into a hematoma which was finally detected by another CAT scan on Feb 1.

Immediately after the scan I had successful surgery on Monday, February 1, to remove an inch and a half hematoma (blood clot) from the right side of my skull which was putting increasing pressure on my brain and could have soon led to brain damage and death. I spent the next five days in the ICU at Kaiser Woodland Hills while they drained excess fluid out of my brain and monitored my initial recovery. I was very relieved to be sent home on Saturday to begin a two to three month convalescence while my brain slowly returns to its proper position where it had been displaced by the blood clot. The recovery process is particularly challenging for me because my (hopefully temporary) disability is focused on my fine motor coordination in my left hand (I’m left-handed), making it difficult for me to write or type. (I am writing this with somedifficulty!) (more…)

At my suggestion, our daughter Emma read Marian Zimmer Bradley’s epic feminist reframingAt my suggestion, our daughter Emma at age 14 read Marian Zimmer Bradley’s epic feminist reframing of the oft-told Arthurian legend and was profoundly affected and inspired by its story, scope, and deeply drawn heroic but flawed characters. It was a much more sophisticated tale than most, because it was not about good and evil (with characters falling obviously into one of those two categories), but rather a story where a number of compelling characters wrestled with doing their duty and following their heart in a highly challenging transitional and high-stakes context. (more…)

My partner Sally and I made the decision to get married in May of 1983 after living together for half a year and talking through how we wanted to define what we both knew (pretty early on in our cohabitation) was going to be a life-long partnership between us. Initially, the primary discussion was whether to subject our relationship to the conventions of marriage, and all the patriarchal assumptions that might go with those conventions. Having resolved that, whether to have children was also part of those initial discussions, but at the point of our decision to marry we had only agreed that we were not precluding raising a family and would continue to discuss that option in our path forward. Finding “a mother for my future children” was not one of my motivations!

At the time of our decision to marry I was 27 and she was 34. We were both feminist activists who had committed most of our waking hours the previous couple years to the goals and efforts of the National Organization for Women, which at the time was focused on ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and protecting women’s reproductive rights. It was that shared commitment to feminist values that was one of the key bonds between us, along with a profound sense of ease around each other. (more…)

It is interesting that some of us, including yours truly, are bitten by the travel bug while others of us don’t seem to be into this sort of adventure at all, even when blessed with golden opportunities to do so. As I learned from my dad, life at its best should be an adventure, maybe not always fun or easy, but a compelling narrative to experience and share with others. It was that principle that motivated me to plan a three-month European backpacking odyssey with one of my close high school friends. It was also that principle that inspired me to keep going when my friend and travel companion decided to bail on our European adventure and head back to the United States. (more…)

Those words crossed my mind this morning and I struggled for a moment to dig into my mind to remember where they were from. I did find it, though the blessed Internet (my “Mind 2.0”) would have found it for me if I had typed those words into a browser. It came to me. That Crosby, Stills and Nash song called… now what was it… ah yes… “Almost Cut My Hair”. Hmmm… I actually did cut my hair, what’s that all about? (more…)

Like “Ever After” did for his sister Emma, the movie “Short Circuit II” resonated with and inspired our son Eric, and is another one of those diamonds in the rough stories that speak to the values both generations in our household hold so dear. Also like “Ever After” it is a compelling tale full of classic scenes that we all can watch over and over again, smile, even laugh, and be reenergized to keep on keeping on.

The movie is humble enough commercial fare, aimed at a younger audience. It is actually the sequel to the movie “Short Circuit” which tells the story of the creation by a U.S. military contractor of a series of artificially intelligent soldier-robots, designed by two young “uber-geek” engineers, Newton and Benjamin. Through the field testing process the series of prototypes prove out their capability as highly adaptable and effective killing machines, except for one (number 5) which has a glitch and somehow becomes sentient and refuses to continue following orders to seek and destroy. Rather than terminate the malfunctioning machine, the two young engineers quit the program and smuggle this wannabe consciousness into hiding. In the process of its own emerging self-awareness, the robot decides it needs a name, not just a number, and adopts the moniker “Johnny 5”. (more…)

I think many of us have that particular movie that we can watch over and over and seem to never tire of its familiar scenes. A piece of work that calls out themes and values that we hold dear perhaps, and inspires us once again, every time to go out and live those things we hold dear. For our daughter Emma, her mom and I, that movie is “Ever After”, writer/director Andy Tennant’s feminist re-visioning of the Cinderella story starring Drew Barrymore.

The film invents a historical context for Cinderella as the character Danielle De Barbarac, the daughter of a woman from the landed gentry and a commoner father, which by patrilineal protocol made Danielle a commoner as well. Danielle never knew her mom, who died when she was an infant, and was raised by her father, who she adored, but came to die an untimely death as well, soon after remarrying Danielle’s step mother. The story is set in the environs of the French royal court during the early 1500s as it is just beginning to be influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance. (more…)

As I have said elsewhere, my dad instilled in me that at its best, “life is an adventure”. No where is this paradigm more in play than when you are traveling, when you are likely to be…

1. Having to make decisions about what is most important to bring and not to bring
2. Seeing things you have not seen before
3. Sleeping in strange new places
4. Meeting new people
5. Making more decisions than you normally would

With the wrong mindset, travel can be cast as an arduous logistical chore, long dull hours strapped into a seat, or the discomfort of unfamiliar food, people or circumstances. But when travelling is cast in the light of adventure, I think it is a particularly great experience for kids. If life is a journey, then a trip to somewhere else is a microcosm of life’s journey, a metaphorical education on how to lead one’s life. (more…)

In 1980, I spent a whirlwind year living with a wild girlfriend who was out of my league, and after it had run its highly developmental course, I was again facing that dilemma – out of work, out of money and with no real place to live, trying to find the path forward in my Los Angeles adventure (and amazingly enough finally eventually finding one). I could have freaked and baled for the Midwest, it could have even destroyed me, but I hung in there and kept breathing, and made it through in one piece, wiser and stronger and ready for the next chapter in my “Left Coast” odyssey.

Though I had thankfully lost my virginity before I came to Los Angeles (so any issues with breaking through that ice would not add to all my other challenges), this girlfriend, that I met as a co-worker at Lone Star Pictures, gave me a heady run in the world of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Though she eventually dumped me, I do owe her a debt of giving me a wild ride (to get that fantasy out of my system), maybe seeing more in me at the time than I saw in myself, buffing up my self-esteem, and thickening my skin for travails to follow. (more…)