june tunes

So this month, I got to cross some things off my bucket list.

I attended the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and watched a Buster Keaton film with live music accompaniment:

Addie was adorable, as per usual:

Fridays at work are interesting:

My coworkers are so jealous of my onesie collection.

Haight and Ashburry Street Fair:

If you look at this picture closely, you can hear me screaming.

I got to go to a recording of The Moth:

I'm getting better with the animals at work:
My first lesson with my lovely assistant, Em.

I'm so happy to live in a world where something called "Pigeon Pants" exists.

The Chins :)

We had a party for the grand reopening of our adoption center. Ain't no party like an SPCA party 'cause an SPCA party has puppies and kittens!:

Terrifying animal dentist thing I found:

Katie visited. And almost immediately flipped me off:

BEES?

We went to the Beekeeper Society out here and helped them collect honey from the combs.

For our effort, we were given a red solo cup of honey.

Ice Cream! They use liquid nitrogen to freeze the ice cream.

We took Katie to Smuggler's Cove and Bourbon and Branch. So basically she got here, and we immediately took her to the Tenderloin.

More adventures in the city:

During lunch this week, Christina and I suddenly realized we could hang out with cats literally whenever we felt like. So we did:

Addie pie:

Watching USA against Portugal game:

Another collection of art at works that confuses and scares me:

This pillow ruined kids' lives. Seriously, two girls cried for 20 minutes straight over it:

PRIDE:
Addie found shade during the parade.

Addie finally met Mia:

Then my family arrived and we went to Civic Center for the rest of PRIDE:

much love,
hedgie

imessages

This blog post isn't going to be about writing or anything particularly funny. It's just something I want to share with everyone.

At work, we have something called an "iMessage", which is a card we use to help kids express themselves whenever there is a fight or someone gets their feelings hurt.

I've use it to create a dialogue between groups of kids at least once a week and the effect it has on them is amazing. You can see the change in their faces when they suddenly understand and in under five minutes, the kids will walk away while still giving genuine apologies to each other.

I just wanted to spread that around since it feels like something everyone could use. 




much love,
hedgie

father's day

On Monday, Nick and I attended a live recording of The Moth. It was a StorySlam with the theme of fathers. I had a chance to listen to ten great stories about strange parenting techniques, overcoming obstacles, and a whole lot of terrifying advice.
It made me think of what story I would tell about my Dad if I had walked onto that stage.

I was in high school when I heard the phrase that was the prefect ending for any story. “And then (s)he burned me with his/her cigarette”. It didn’t matter if it was placed behind a story about someone realizing they’re in love, a child reconnecting with a dying mother, or a person trying a vegan burger for the first time, that line would magically improve it and make it at least 15% funnier and more awesome in every possible way. 
I was really proud of discovering this because my father is a writer and a creative writing professor, so storytelling was taken very seriously in our household.
Because of this, I was constantly surrounded with struggling authors, what I read was restricted mainly to books my father considered to be worthy, which were always followed by in-depth discussions, and I was always given writing advice whether I asked for it or not. 
When I was in high school, I had to read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  for my AP English class. The most difficult aspect of this assignment was actually buying the book. It is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, not The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And my Dad made me drive to three different bookstores until I found a copy that did not have the offending "The" in the title. 
He hates the phrase "utilizing resources" because it is so vague that you can't picture what it is trying to describe. It is just saying that we should use stuff to do things. At least four times a year, he wanders around the house, ranting about how hard people work to sound professional and dignified at the cost of being clear and concise. 
We even both have matching tattoos reading "in media res", the writing technique of starting a story in the middle of everything that is happening. 
Writing became a huge part of my life. It became the way that I worked through whatever problems I had. It was like an excruciating zen. It could exorcize my demons through copious amounts of hard work. I eventually went to college and majored in Creative Writing. 
During my Junior year there, I had a friend who went through a very bad break up. Then it came out that she had cheated on him, was emotional manipulative, and about twenty other things you would not want one of your best friends to be in a relationship with. 
I was so frustrated that a person could treat another human being like this that it was all I could think about when I was writing a short story for one of my workshop classes. I ended up cranking out a story where the narrator was this horrible woman who never felt empathy for those around her. In the end, she loses everyone who was close to her and ends up realizing she will always feel alone, and I was glad.
My Dad is always the first person to read my stories and when he read this one, he asked if I was mad at someone. I admitted that I was. He asked if I liked my main character. I told him that I didn't. Then he told me something that always stuck with me because it applied to everything that was happening in my life on so many different levels. 
“You have to love every character,” he told me. He placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Otherwise, it would be too easy.” 


And then he burned me with his cigarette.






much love,
hedgie

childhood short story

I flew home for a day to attend a friend's wedding. While sitting at home, I took the opportunity to poke around in my room and look through my old notebooks and I happened to come across one of the first stories I ever wrote when I was in first grade:

 Translation with grown up grammar and spelling:

"We landed, Captain Dylan."
"We did? Where?"
"On Mars," I say.
"Let's go out and see what it is like," said Captain Dylan.
"Look out, Captain!"
"Look out nothing. Oh no! Quick sand! Help me Adriana, Heather, Mitch, Kristin, Ryan, and Katharine!"
"No way, you boss us around too much. Come on, gang. Let's go. Hey, Peewee, I didn't know you were here."
They flew away, crashed into Tina trying to steal Peewee's bike in the basement in the Alamo. He said goodbye to us and then rode off.
We walked and walked and then a monster came. And it was the Buchanan's cousin. His name was Max. He told bad things like "I cut him in the peepee" and "I cut his butt in a million pieces".
So he went to Alcatraz and his big brother had to take him there.
Max said "hi" very quiet and Alcatraz went BOOM! And everybody had to go to another jail.


Obviously, I peaked at a very young age.





much love,
hedgie