A LONG time coming. . . .

5 Years. That's how long it took to get justice for the 500 workers at the Claremont Resort and Spa. After 5 years of boycotting and picketing and delegating and leafleting and getting up in the managers' faces and just generally causing as much trouble for as many people as possible, the Claremont has finally given up and stopped fighting. They finally got the message that no matter how long they held out, the workers would last longer.

It's a crazy thing--the Claremont fight being over. It was my campaign for three years, and has still been going on this 4th year that I've been in Oakland. The Claremont--and being the organizer who was working on the Claremont--has literally defined my entire experience of living in California, has literally defined who I am and how I think about myself. It will be a little bit harder to make sense of California, and certainly to make sense of me, now that it's done. I imagine it must be how people felt when the Hundred Years War finally ended--when war has been the reality for so long, what do you even make of peace time? If you're not fighting, if you're not a soldier, then what are you?

I feel good about the Claremont, and the role I played there. I know that I am a little tiny piece of the reason that Claremont workers are getting huge raises and great health insurance. I'm a part of the reason housekeepers will have a pension for the first time in the history of the hotel. I'm a part of the reason that spa workers won't be treated like second class citizens--expendable and disposable.

But I'm also sad and a little angry. It's a wonderful victory, but there have been so many losses along the way. I think about workers who were fired. I think about workers who destroyed their bodies doing difficult work and had to quit. I think about workers who lost hope and left before they got to see this victory. I think about all the sacrifices people made along the way. I hope that they never have to do this again.

But mostly, I hope that they don't forget what they learned. I hope I don't forget what I learned. I hope we don't forget how to stand up, how to fight, how to get in people's faces and push for what we deserve. I hope we don't forget and get complacent. I hope we always remember how to last one day longer.

Check out the Oakland Tribune article for more information.

Claremont workers, organizers and clergy celebrate the formal addition of 100+ spa workers to the union. From left: Mario, Sonia, Pastor Jeff, Wei-Ling, Armando, Steve, Francisco, Alice, Keo, Marcos, Richard and Claire.

Connect Four as a Training Ground for Life

I just learned a valuable life lesson from the game Connect Four. You remember the game, right? You try to line up four red (or black) checkers in a row, while blocking your opponent from doing that same thing. As a kid, I used to be pretty good, but I definitely got schooled by my friend Dave when we played recently.

We were going best of 5. He'd already beat me twice and when it became clear that he was probably going to beat me again, he got frustrated. "What are you doing?" he said. "You can't just play defensively--you won't win. You have to be aggressive--go for what you want." I considered the advice. He was right. I'd been playing extremely defensively, strategizing on how to stop him without giving any consideration to how I was going to beat him. I started playing more aggressively. Too little too late, unfortunately, because he still beat me and we moved on to other activities.

I didn't give the game--or the advice--any more thought until this morning, when I found myself in a conversation about what's wrong with the Democratic Party and the Left in general. Here are my thoughts:

Because the Democrats do not apparently have the cojones to actually propose legislation that would advance the interests of those they supposedly represent, they are left with nothing to do but criticize the proposals of the Republicans. This way, they are buffered from the Republican spin factory and do not have to risk any backlash for unpopular proposals. But this blocking strategy also hasn't moved the Democratic Party platform forward at all. (This is assuming, of course, that there really is such a thing as the Democratic Party platform, and also assuming it actually looks any different from the Republican platform.) Likewise, all too often the Left is so busy defending against conservative attacks on the environment, on working people, and on everything else under the sun that there has been no attention paid to creating a strategy for moving our vision forward. Defensive tactics? Check. Proactive strategy? Um, what?

As I was discussing this, it occurred to me that Dave's advice on Connect Four still worked: you can't just play defensively, because you'll never win. At best, maybe you can stop them, and succeed in achieving a draw. But frankly, that's not much of an achievement. You still haven't gotten what you wanted, and the odds are good that all you've really managed to do is slow them down, not stop them after all.

"Be bold!" my old supervisor used to say, and it's what Dave was telling me too. You have to risk losing in order to win. You have to go after what you want, because your opponent sure as hell isn't going to give it to you. Yes, defense is important, but defense is about holding the line--standing still--when what you really need to be focused on is moving forward--toward your goal, and not just away from theirs.

It suddenly seems like very wise advice for how to live life--not just how to play some silly game (or even just how to run the Democratic party). It's advice I think I'll be taking to heart and trying to incorporate in everything I do.

Now, anyone for a game of Connect Four?

Oh right--THAT'S why I run!

This morning, my friends Becky and Helen and I got up super early (6:00 am on a Sunday? Come on!) to run the Emerald Nuts Sausalito to San Francisco 12K Race. While I could have done without the early start time, we had amazing weather and a fantastic view of San Francisco as we ran across the Golden Gate Bridge and into the city. We also all managed to survive the two major hills--and one of them was really nasty!

This is us right after the race, and right before a well deserved brunch complete with mimosas!

Home-lessness

I've been thinking about something my friend Erin said a while back. She was talking about Boston--where she's lived for almost 8 years now, since we started college. She told me that even though she's lived in Boston longer than she's ever lived anywhere else, it's never managed to feel like home.

I know what she means. Even though I really love the Bay Area, it doesn't feel like home either. I don't really feel like I belong here. But then, that's always been the problem. With the Bay Area, with Boston, even with Colorado. I suppose Colorado feels like home, but I don't belong there either. Colorado is the place I miss when I am not there--the blue skies, the dry air, the mountains, the "forests" made up of scrub oak and aspen trees. Colorado is the place where I feel most like I could be comfortable--but at the cost of sacrificing my political, hell-raising side.

I've never been really comfortable in San Francisco, in the Bay Area. I'm not political enough, not hipster enough, not enviro-vegan enough, and not hip-hop enough. And I'm not willing or able to become any of those things to better fit with everyone else.

So where does that leave me? Ungrounded. Rootless. Home-less. At least I'm in good company. Sometimes I feel like San Francisco is a city made up of nomads, of home-less wanderers--we're people who'll hang around for a while and then move on, all of us looking for that same elusive sense of home.

An Open Letter

To the passive-agressive boy who sent me the snarky e-mail this afternoon:

You, sir, have definitely chosen the wrong week to piss me off. There are no circumstances under which I wouldn't have been at least annoyed by your e-mail, but you've caught me in a moment when I am ready to be full-out enraged at just about anything about your gender, and now you will have to bear the full brunt of my anger.

It is too bad for you that I am not interested in you. It is also too bad for you that I already have plans to run a 12k race on Sunday morning. And yes, it is true that these two factors combined have made me unwilling to commit to making plans with you for later on Sunday. But my hesitancy does not give you the right to get petty. It doesn't give you the right to cop an attitude. You definitely do not know me well enough to cop attitude, and since we do not have any type of relationship (friends or otherwise) you do not have the right to presume to be pissed at me for not jumping at the opportunity to include you in my Sunday. (And trust me, you don't want to go there anyway, because in the mean, snarky attitude department I could kick your ass and probably make you cry, too.)

What all of this means, in case you hadn't figured it out, is that we will DEFINITELY NOT be hanging out on Sunday. In fact, I think it's safe to assume we will not be hanging out again ever. I guess you'll just have to take the passive-aggressive bullshit act somewhere else.

4th Street

This past weekend I had what is always an uncomfortable and slightly unsettling experience: I ventured into the rich-yuppie bastion that is Berkeley's 4th Street shopping district. The home of upscale boutiquies selling makeup, clothes, furniture and kitchenware, 4th Street is somewhere I rarely venture, partly because I can't afford anything and partly because rich yuppies make me nervous. But to be honest, there's another, bigger reason that I don't like going to 4th Street: it makes me see a little too clearly the disparity between rich and poor, and it makes me feel a little too sharply how vulnerable those who don't speak English are in our society.

You see, besides being a swanky, upscale shopping district, 4th Street is also where the Latino day laborers hang out, hoping to score a job for the day. They line the street leading into the shopping center, some slumped against telephone poles--hands jammed deep into pockets, some seated on curbs--faces cast into deep shadow by the brims of hats that have been scorched by the noon sun and battered by rain and wind and maybe even snow. They peer up anxiously--hopefully--as you drive by, hoping to make eye contact, hoping you'll stop, hoping you'll pick them. They break my heart.

I've been in the labor/worker justice world long enough to know a thing or two about day laborers. To have actually met and talked to a bunch of them. It's a raw deal: the work is often grueling manual labor. It's usually not regulated, so the pay is low. There's no guarantee that you'll even get to work at all. Often, day laborers are viewed as loiterers, as trash, as people who should stop lurking on the street and find real jobs. But really, they're just people hoping to pay the bills and make ends meet for their families. They're just people who took their skills and experiences from their own countries and brought them here, to give to us. To make lives for themselves, and maybe, hopefully, a better future. I wonder how many of them find that better future after all.

The best "dysfunctional break-up" song ever

So I've moved on to the Anti-Love CD that my friend Erin made. I think the genius of the mix is kind of lost on me today: I'm not really in the mood for hating on love. That said, however, I did just finish listening to what might be the most hillarious and brilliant song about a break-up ever, so I thought I'd share the lyrics. The song is called "No Children," by the Mountain Goats (which, despite the deceptively plural title, is actually only one guy.) Here are the lyrics:

I hope that our few remaining friends give up on trying to save us. I hope we come up with a fail-safe plot to piss off the dumb few who forgave us. I hope the fences we mended, fall down beneath their own weight, and I hope we hang on past the last exit, I hope it's already too late.

And I hope the junk yard a few blocks from here someday burns down. And I hope the rising black smoke carries me far away and I never come back to this town again.

In my life, I hope I lie, and tell everyone you were a good wife, and I hope you die, I hope we both die.

I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow, I hope it bleeds all day long. Our friends say it's darkest before the sun rises, but we're pretty sure they're all wrong. I hope it stays dark forever, I hope the worst isn't over. And I hope you blink before I do, and I hope I never get sober.

And I hope when you think of me years down the line, you can't find one good thing to say, and I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out, you'd stay the hell out of my way!

I am drowning. There is no sign of land. You are coming down with me--hand in unloveable hand. And I hope you die. I hope we both die.

But to really appreciate how funny it is, you have to imagine these lyrics being set to a kind of twangy, upbeat guitar with maybe a little harmonica. Or, even better, you could just listen to the song.

Vocabulary Expansion

I have a subscription to "Word of the Day," and below are two of the latest words that I've been sent. These are real words, I swear. I can't help but think that Word of the Day is either scraping the bottom of the barrel for words, or it's been taken over by a pseudo-intellectual snotty-pants whose only method for impressing women is by using words they don't understand.

Ululate: to howl, as a wolf or a dog; to wail; as "ululating jackals"

I can appreciate wanting to mix up your word choice, but seriously, who is ever going to use the phrase "ululating jackals?"

Crapulous: suffering the effects of, or derived from gross intemperance (e.g. binge drinking); as "a crapulous stomach"

I may never use the word ululate, but crapulous is becoming the new favorite word of my vocabulary. CRAPULOUS! How can you not want to say that?

Musical choices

Listening to: the "Broken Love" mix CD that my friend Erin created as part of a set of Love CDs a couple years ago. It seems fitting today. Later I'll move on to the Anti-Love CD, but I think I need to work up to that. For right now, I'm pretty content just to listen to the Dresden Doll's "The Jeep Song," Cake's "I Will Survive" and Bob Hillman's "Greenland" on repeat. If you haven't heard these songs (and the odds are pretty good that you wouldn't have heard the first or the last) you should look them up and take a listen. A nice combination of funny, angry, sad, smart and ironic. Perfect.

Seriously, here are sample lyrics: "Everywhere I look I see your '96 Jeep Cherokee. . . .With every jeep I see, my broken heart still skips a beat. I guess it's just my stupid luck that all of Boston drives the same black fucking truck." And: "No more waiting till your icecream melts in the high desert heat of Texas. I've got an imitation seal skin coat and a one way ticket to Greenland. I'm going to live on the world's largest island where the icecap is 7 kilometers thick. You're twice as cold (twice as cold, twice as cold) as Greenland." God, to be a songwriter like that.

Words that I'm loving lately

As a writer, I just generally love words--how they sound, what they mean, the images they evoke. But there are some words that just resonate. Words you love using--you like what they convey, you like the way the feel in your mouth, you like that they make you seem smart. Whatever. Here are my top 5 words for the week:

1) Snarky
2) Alacrity
3) Volatile
4) Ephemeral
5) Wonky

What's the pattern here? Apparently I like words that end in -y and-al sounds? A challenge: try to use all five of these in the course of everyday conversation today.

Other words worth adding to the list?

Party Highlights

Top 5 highlights of my very belated housewarming party on Saturday:

5) Crazy, over-the-top, obvious matchmaking of my co-workers.

4) The fact that the crazy, over-the-top, obvious matchmaking seems to have been successful. (See the couple on the left in above picture)

3) My former co-workers talking shit to my new co-workers over who was better at throwing down. (By the way, there's no contest here--my old co-workers could drink a bunch of alcohoic sailors under a table.)



2) Stopping flip cup before we started using hard alcohol.



1) George. That's right--the kid I met at the "brewery" last Friday. (See blog entry.) On a whim, I invited him, and he came and stayed the WHOLE 8 HOURS. I always say it's good to have a little bit of shady randomness at a party, and George definitely supplied it. Was there anyone at the party who didn't meet George?

And a special shout out to Marcos for the most effective (even if unintentional) cockblock I've witnessed in a LONG time.

Pushing

It occurs to me that it’s been almost a whole year since I left my job as a union organizer. It’s hard to believe that a whole year has gone by, especially when on an almost daily basis, I find myself still struggling to un-do all the brainwashing that went into turning me into the crazily intense, single-minded organizing fiend that I was for so long. Hell, just recognizing it as brainwashing has taken nearly this whole year.

But while I’m sure that the brainwashing (or—as I prefer to think of it—training) made me a kick-ass organizer, I’m worried that it’s not really helping me so much in my real life. Here’s the best example I can come up with:

Pushing. In the world of union organizing, there is no such thing as being too pushy. If a worker doesn’t call you back, you call again. And again. And then you show up at their house. And you keep showing up until they’re home and they’re willing to talk. And if they’re never willing to talk, you talk to their co-workers and their friends and their family to organize them into pushing said worker to talk to you.

Try for a moment, if you will, to imagine using this strategy in other areas of your life. The guy you went on a great first date with hasn’t called you back? Just call again, and again, and then show up and talk to his roommate about how to get him to call you. Yeah. Doesn’t seem like such a good plan suddenly. I think that would officially get you categorized as a stalker, and you’d better be prepared for the restraining order to show up in the mail.

Once, early on in my time at the union, I expressed concern that I would be so pushy with someone that I would push them away. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that no one was ever lost by pushing too hard. If you lost someone by pushing, then you never really had them to begin with. Now, this logic seems pulled straight out of Orwell’s 1984: it’s impossible to push someone away by being too persistent. And 2+2=5.

The crazy thing, though, is that this “be pushy” logic worked in the world of the union. Being persistent and pushy and in people’s faces definitely gained me (and my co-workers) far more than it ever lost us. But in my real life? I’m not so sure. I’m constantly having to battle my (now) natural impulse to push, and honestly, I’m not sure that I’ve always done a good job of regulating it. I can’t help but wonder (and worry) about what good things in my life I’ve lost—or am at risk of losing—because I don’t know when to stop pushing and just let things be.