dirty laundry

Barack the vote!

Friends, it's an important & historical day. Play your part and vote today!! xoxo.

love prevails.

"We're going to be newlyweds after 21 years together," said Stuart Gaffney while hugging his partner (SF GATE).

Today the California Supreme Court of California cleared the way for gay & lesbian marriages.  Yay for equal rights.

faith

I walk by this garage door almost daily.  A guy named Rex usually sleeps here.  He's a pretty friendly guy, just trying to get by in life.

Today I walked by and noticed this scene.  I'm not sure why, but it seemed rather poetic.

Our mayor is in the process of kicking the homeless out of Golden Gate Park.  With no where else to go, I imagine many will make their way to my neighborhood.  I'm interested to see how this all pans out.

what's in a name?

I received an odd phone call today.  I didn't recognize the number but thought it best to answer anyway.  A woman on the other end said, "Hello, is this Irja?"  She pronounced my name perfectly, so I figured she wasn't a telemarketer.  I confirmed and she continued on talking about how she was pregnant (insert relief that I'm not a man who recently had a reckless one night stand) and is considering naming her child Irja, after her grandmother who recently passed away.

She Googled the name, found my photography site and thought she'd call to ask what I thought about my name, if I was teased growing up, etc.  I didn't realize just how much I had to say on the topic until that moment.

In short, I assured her that the worst teasing I got over my name was Irja Siberia -- I suppose not much rhymes with Irja.  I also mentioned that the most common mispronunciation and what is now a nick-name all it's own is Err-juh.  Evidently her grandmother had the same problem and nick-name. I told her that I recently found out that Irja is the Finnish feminine of the English name George (still not sure how I feel about that), meaning earth worker or farmer.  And, lastly, that I think it's a great name, that it's becoming a much more common thing to have a unique name and that I receive compliments all the time.

In thinking about it now, I should have also said that naming her daughter after her grandmother is a wonderful way to pay tribute to someone who was clearly important in her life, and that her daughter would one day really appreciate it regardless of being teased as a kid.  Yep.  Those are my thoughts.  She appreciated me taking the time to chat with her.  I appreciated her asking.  Naming someone is an important job.

In other news, ex-chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was found guilty today of obstruction of justice & perjury -- clearly he has ruined his name.  Some people call him the "fall guy" for the whole situation and Bush is likely to pardon him, but I like what Senate majority leader Harry Reid had to say in a BBC news article: "I welcome the jury's verdict. It's about time someone in the Bush administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics." So very true.

Tying it all together... it seems now that the name given to a child is not nearly as important as what that child makes of it throughout his or her life.