Roxanna's boyfriend came over to her house Monday. There was shouting. There were weapons. Roxanna's roommate called 911 and dispatch reported the sounds of a struggle. By the time SPD showed up the boyfriend was gone. Roxanna had been murdered in front of her 12-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter. SPD later responded to a call from the Arboretum, where they found the boyfriend with a gunshot wound. Fucker tried to off himself but couldn't.

Her Facebook page is full of people asking "can someone PM me? Is Roxanna okay? What happened" because she was a club regular and we all know each other going back 25 fucking years and even if you don't get out much you still know everyone from everywhere back when and she's got 1700 facebook friends and am I going to be the one to tell you Roxanna's dead? Somebody should be but who knows what her parents know? And I probably know you but maybe I don't? And what's my place in all this anyway my most direct connection is I rated a phone call rather than wondering what the fuck happened aloud on her Facebook wall and I don't know who gets to make that decision? But I know it isn't me.

I hadn't seen Roxanna in a year. She wasn't a close friend but I'll be expected to attend the funeral. Which will be on Zoom now? I guess a friend of mine is putting together a GoFundMe for her kids, which is ironic because that friend backed out of going to her wedding. Roxanna couldn't believe that I was still coming down to Oakland to shoot her wedding even when my friends were the biggest jerks she knew.

I have a picture of Roxanna pinning a boutonniere on her dad's lapel. She's in a wedding dress, she's totally concentrated, and he's got this look. He's giving his baby away, she's all grown up. He couldn't talk for about fifteen minutes after. And it was just her, him, and the photographer, sharing this moment. It was profound, and although I've shot more than my fair share of weddings, I've never seen parental love condensed like that. I don't think many people are privileged to see that sort of exchange very often. I think it's one of the reasons my wife delivers babies. We spend so little time that close to the mystic.

They didn't throw rice, they gave out these little triangles with Monarch butterflies in them. The idea was they walk out of the church and you let the butterflies go and they fly into the air and it's beautiful. Except it was a foggy evening in Oakland in early June so everyone opened their butterfly triangles and the butterflies dutifully flapped their wings like six times and landed on you, where they hung out, wondering what the fuck they were doing in Oakland. I have a shot of the groom with like eight butterflies in his hair. I guess he's mostly out of the picture for reasons having to do with the kids. It's not a question you ask. I know his best man was his ex-boyfriend so it could be something as simple and mundane as heterosexual monogamy being a bad fit. I like to think so.

I was down there for four days, sleeping on the couch and documenting all the prep. It was a catholic-bahai ceremony and they held it at sunset in the open in the fog which meant I was largely focused on trying not to show my ass. I knew they were going to Bali for a honeymoon and then 200 people got blown up by fucking al Qaeda.

One of those days I had time to take the BART in to see the SFMOMA. I stared at a Yves Klein for 20 minutes, the first time I'd ever truly understood modern art.

Tears in fucking rain.

Hi, y'all. I'm at the cardiological ward, the procedure wasn't exactly smooth, but so far the only complication is a splitting post-anaesthesia headache that I've been nursing since around 14:00. Despite just lying pretty much since admission, I feel exhausted. Anyway, success remains to be seen over time, and the doctor decided to keep me here till Friday. Apart from those, I'm feeling perfectly fine. am_Unition (gonna respond to PM tomorrow, thank you though! :D).

Don't have much else to talk about, though I'm glad for six weeks off work. Still plan on doing research, just won't bother with all the bullshit semi-admin emails people forward to me for god knows what reason. Gonna read a bunch, maybe finally write a book review of my own.

Been a rough few days. Mount Rainier was a character building experience for me this time around. Didn't actually summit - two person rope team for me with a set of friends on a three person rope team. Going up my partner got acute mountain sickness. Nausea, vomiting, confusion & dizziness at about 13,000ft. Not an amazing situation to be in when it's you and one other person on a rope. I went into guide mode, short-roped my partner, and forced us back down the mountain. By about 10,000ft my partner was feeling better but that was probably the longest feeling and most stressful few hours of mountaineering I've had so far. The aftereffect though is good, knowing that I am capable in practice of handling a situation like that in a safe and efficient manner. One bad step though and things could have been different.

Then, later on, this story broke...turns out a person I know was on a different route with much, much greater objective hazard and didn't make it off the mountain alive. Couple of deaths around my life in the past few weeks. Lot of processing and wondering what to do.

I had a phone-appointment with my cardiologist this morning.

She was almost in tears because of a spat of recent firings at her office. Nurses with decades of experience showing up to work with boxes on their desks and guards waiting to escort them to their cars.

We will all pay for the damage being done to our institutions. Some of us sooner than others.

This year has been a year of many changes and lots of learning, I'm quite happy about that. I'm on the board of 2 non-profits now (one is a technicality to throw Burner events, the other the legal entity for our local Precious Plastic project). Attending 3.5 general assemblies in the past few months has taught me a lot. I semi-regret we didn't have an active student government at my university, somehow I found the mechanics of holding a public forum quite interesting. But maybe it's just the novelty. Now it's time to get to work as a board member - and try not to get into any legal trouble. One of the founders has a side-project where he started a sort of incubator for collaborative projects, where your volunteer hours count as "influence" to attribute funds to various sustainability projects every semester. The idea is cool, if only a little convoluted. But the conflict of interest issues are jarring, and this might affect our accounting in weird ways. I've been raising flags of concern, hopefully we can figure something out.

I've been gardening bit - it's not a total fail but I already missed the mark on the radishes so I'll let them go to bloom and eat the pods. I've made 2 salads from the leaves so far, and it was great to eat something so fresh. If i go for it again next year, I'll need to figure out a better anti-squirrel chicken wire. The one I have is too low and not removable. But I'm also a little over it in terms of investing more time and money in the garden this season. Ce qui sera, sera.

I think my big challenge is still talking and communicating about my feelings in general. It's my mission to get over this, practice being more vulnerable and all that. I have good friends, I don't see why I need to be slightly drunk to get to a place where I can talk to them earnestly. It's in my nature to avoid "drama" and not bring up hard topics, but somehow I feel my quality of life can improve vastly if i learn to do so. I have a friend that showed me by example not too long ago, it was uncomfortable at first but now I feel we share more trust. I'm nowhere close of where I'd like to be, but I've recently confided in a couple people about the fact I find conversations challenging. It's a good first step.

So, Russia's constitution is changing today. Putin's aiming to the God-President for Life, at this rate.

I'm saying "is changing", even though the votes are not in yet, because... Well, you know why.

I see there is some discussion on employment.

I have an interesting time that I somehow survived. Under the latest setup with my work, people in any administrative role can technically be uplifted and embedded in any other department in the University. Will this be effective? No. Will they try it anyway? Turns out, yes.

I got a phone call from my bosses, bosses, boss. I'm on good terms with him, I've helped new staff enter this cesspit of "structural change" since I started, all out of my usual office hours. He called me to ask if he could visit, I said of course, and he's headed over.

Now this is odd, I wonder why he's coming to talk to me in person? Turns out, he wants to yank me out of my department (also the only effective department under his control, because of yours godamn truly) and place me into the worst performing one, because the administrator there is extremely unhappy and wants to be relocated.

"Why is she unhappy?" I asked - thankfully he was very honest, which I think may have been his undoing. He said the Head of Department and the Finance Manager both make life very difficult for her - she feels bullied and unwanted there. Well that's a simple answer for me, thanks but no thanks. He fires back with "You're the only one I can ask to try and steady this ship" (He's referencing cricketer Kane Williamson but I ain't about that). I then asked, is there any chance of me getting a payrise or some kind of compensation out of this? He is again honest, not a chance in hell. I decided to say I would think about it and let him know ASAP.

I call my boss and let her know, and she admits he told her about his plan just yesterday and his words then were "This is a courtesy call really, he doesn't have a choice". Which is when I decided to say no in the way that makes it very hard for me to be shifted.

The next day I sit down with him and my boss (who is supporting me staying, if nothing else because whoever they replace me with, simply won't be as good) and I explain that I am worried about being placed in a known toxic environment, and that if I were to find it unpleasant enough to want to leave this could be considered constructive dismissal, given there is clear evidence of said environment. I explained that asking the lowest paid person in the department to fix the issue of an arrogant Head of Department who is one of only a handful gastroenterologists in the country (who are also interested in medical education) is a big fucking ask. One that would require some serious HR support and financial compensation, but given that HR exists to protect him from me, and not me from others, I don't have high hopes for my success.

He blinked a few times and agreed that wouldn't be healthy.

Long story short, I'm not going anywhere. Fuck structural reviews. "Can we pay these people less and make them work more? We can?! Do it".

"Whisky in the morning" shall be my new COVID song.

Dog. The immediate pain of losing my dog is subsiding into a dull ache, with sudden unexpected spikes of pain when I do something that reminds me of her. For example, I used to feed her canned food. And after feeding, I'd wash out the cans in the utility sink in the laundry room. I needed to use the utility sink the other day to clean a tool I'd been using and ... bam ... thinking of cleaning out her food cans, and I'm weeping again.

Work. Tomorrow is my first day of "Friday unemployment", because Friday is a holiday, so I actually have three days of work, one day of unemployment, and one day of paid time off for the holiday this week. BUT. I'm one of the tens of thousands of people who hackers filed false unemployment claims for back in April. So my account with the unemployment department is locked and closed while they do an investigation. So I can't file for unemployment until their investigator talks to me directly. And from what I can tell, they are working on an 8-13 week backlog right now. So when I can regain control of my account with the unemployment department, and actually file for unemployment, it will be too late for me to file, and each of the 4 Fridays I will be unemployed for need to be filed as separate claims that will be individually researched and adjudicated, and each will follow their own individual path/case to resolution.

They also require me to present them with a photo of my Social Security card. Which I haven't even seen in 30 years.

4th of July. I normally shoot a professional fireworks show on July 4th. But it has been canceled. So a bunch of the crew are getting together to have a BBQ instead. Many of them live at the fringe of the Fox News sphere, and believe a lot of crazy right-wing shit. As we only shoot fireworks together once a year, that's all fine. We just get along and shoot a fun show. But I'm not convinced they all take COVID seriously, and I'm concerned for everyone's health at this BBQ. I've expressed my concern, but I feel a lot of trepidation. This is also in the town where one person with COVID just went to a surprise birthday party last week and infected 40 of the people who were there.

My wife and I live in a part of town on the edges of the "unincorporated" area, which simply means it is not under local police jurisdiction, and the rules are much softer for people 1/2 a block from our house. On the 4th of July it's like the bombing of Dresden here, from about 3:PM to 4:AM constantly.

So we need to leave here, but not go to the BBQ.

Plus, I've got a 4-day weekend, so we contacted old friends who live out in the boonies on a river, and asked to come hang out with them. We are going to camp next to the river on their property, away from everyone, and try to forget that our house may be burning down, our friends and family might be getting COVID, and that my pay and job are in a precarious position right now.

Should be fun! :-/

Good morning (or not so good, the world is kind of grey these days, isn't it?). If you feel even remotely inclined, you should click on that picture. It's of a Red Shouldered Hawk and it's gorgeous, I promise you.

Trees

I don't know if any of you remember my experiment growing trees, but it's been an up and down ride. All of my baby apple trees that I successfully over wintered are tragically dead. I had seperated them into two seperate batches, one exposed to 24/7 wind, sun, and rain, the other batch underneath a patio. The ones continually exposed to the elements ended up dying first, relatively quickly too, with the leaves wilting and dying and all. Upon digging them up, the roots looked badly damaged, but I couldn't tell if they fell victims to rot, fungus, or bugs. I'm not a botanist, but yeah, the roots were basically a mess. The second batch, the ones underneath the patio, a month later fell victim to aphids and rust. The leaves were all chewed up but I kept them around in hopes that they'd pull through, but after rust started to set in, I decided to call it on those ones and toss them out as well. As a result of all this, I've developed a newfound understanding as to why some people are such fans of pesticides and herbacides. Who wants to throw away half a year's worth of work and hopes if it can be avoided?

All isn't lost though. In late spring my neighbor's maple tree started dropping seeds in my yard. I planted three in each pot and pretty much every seed germinated giving me the chance to pick the best looking seedling in each pot to keep. They're all growing strong. Upon discovering that I'm giving maple trees a shot, my neighbor dug up a year old sapling from their garden when they were weeding and gave it to me. The little guy is growing strong, with six pairs of leaves and a nice, young, woody stem.

To make things better, while weeding in my own garden last month I found an oak sapling (remember how I planted all those acorns and the squirrels got them all?) and I told myself that if I was able to pull it out with roots intact, I'd keep it. I succeeded, so I'm keeping it. If that isn't enough, life gave me one more tree this year, when Dala and I were looking at bugs in the backyard I stumbled upon a conifer seedling just beginning to sprout, short enough to avoid the lawnmower but getting big enough that it would fall victim to it in another few weeks. So I pulled that one out and potted it too. I have no idea what it'll grow into, maybe a spruce or a cedar, but I'm hoping I'll find out. That said, something did dig up two of the maple saplings and helped themselves to eating the roots. I wonder if that was the squirrels too.

I read recently though, that growing trees in pots is great for starting trees out, but isn't the best way to grow long lasting trees. The best thing you can do to ensure that is plant the seeds in the ground where you want the trees to grow. It gives the tree the best ability to not only get used to the soil type of its home, but by not growing in a nursery and being exposed to the elements of where it's expected to grow, it's exposed to the weather patterns, whether we're talking dry spells, wet spells, cold snaps, what have you, and its growing process is shaped by that. Apparently you grow a tree in a controlled environment and then put it in a location where weather conditions vary too much, it's gonna have a hard time. Not only that, but a lot of trees, when they're transplanted, suffer shock and damage to their roots affecting their growth potential. So when a tree grown from seed might develop a tap root that goes fifty feet deep, a transplanted tree's taproot might not even reach half that, severely diminishing its access to water and resources. Suffice to say, I not fantasize about owning my own plot of land and growing trees on it straight from seed, just to see what happens.

Work

I won't go into details, but it's not going too great (not that it ever has, really) and I'm still job hunting. If job hunting was hard before though, now it's a new kind of crazy, as I find myself competing with tens of millions of recently unemployed or underemployed Americans. I'm not gonna lie, I feel kind of conflicted about this. On the one hand, I really need a new job with better pay, more hours, a healthier work environment, etc. On the other hand, I have a job right now and I feel like my trying to get any other job is taking an opportunity away from someone else, someone who might be more desperate and more needy for that job than I am. I haven't gotten any interviews yet, in this weird Covid World, but I think any interview I go into I want to find a way to tell my interviewer "Look, if it comes down to me and someone else and everything is equal, if they're out of work I want you to offer them the position." I just have no idea how I'm supposed to bring that subject up without being all awkward about it, but I think it's an important thing to do. Funnily enough, as much as I need this job, some days I find myself praying, hoping I wake up to a phone call saying "You're out of work," if only cause I don't have the guts to quit.

I dunno. Life is surreal right now. It's good being with you guys again. I hope you're all hanging in there. I know I say it a lot, but only because it can never be said enough, I hope you all now how amazing and wonderful you are and if things are hard right now, keep on trucking and know that I'm pulling for you.

Thank you for the kind shares and comments on my first post under this account. Those circle dots and comments are meaningful.

All hope is not lost.

I was in Wyoming and Idaho yesterday... and not “liberal” Jackson Hole or Boise... I’m talking deep Trump country... and my limited exposure to people showed almost everyone in masks, social distancing, and even the other precautions like plexiglass in front of cashiers. These are deep country locals. Masks everywhere. Sure, a few didn’t. But the majority clearly do.

I’m not suggesting we’re out of the woods. But if these folks are being responsible in the face of their leader’s negligence... maybe there is hope after all?

should be moving out at most 3 weeks from now, and likely to be even sooner

i can't wait

I got our entire county government called socialist because when your animal bites someone you need to confine it for ten days and take it to a vet to show it doesn't have rabies, and we don't pay for that.

I got a crown last week and I'm starting to worry that it's not taking well.

Ever have one of those dentists/doctors that just jumps to the worst thing? Like, I get an xray of a chipped tooth and as soon as she walks in and sees it she says root canal. Any pain? No pain? Well then, crown I guess.

But now that I have a temp crown on there, there's pain/pressure/sensitivity that hasn't totally gone away in almost a week. It's a molar that goes almost to the sinus. Allergy pills make the pain go away mostly, so I don't know if I should blame my tooth or sinuses or what.