A Thanksgiving Adventure

So it seems that I am starting my own tradition of going camping for holidays. Last year for Christmas, Meg and I went to Point Reyes and had ourselves a glorious time. This year, Max and I went camping at Sunol Regional Wilderness for Thanksgiving. And while there was no turkey, there was a landscape to satiate much deeper hungers (there might also have been some very fine dark chocolate to help address that whole holiday food decadence thing). But the best part of the trip was that we were able to bike there, with all our camping gear in tow, in only two hours!! Rad!
Here are some pictures, taken by Max, of the Ohlone Trail, which we hiked the first day:

Halloween in California

Up until this point, I have done a very good job of not posting about Lobot. To become and stay a part of the Lobot community has been a decision that has impacted my life more than any other that I have made in the past year and a half. There is a lot that could be said about these people with whom I now share most things with, but I guess the most telling thing I could say is that we all love Halloween.

We love Halloween because it is a holiday that gives us an excuse to prance about in elaborate costumes that we have made out of trash and fabric; we love Halloween because it gives us the freedom to create new identities for an evening. We love it because it is not about family or religion or responsibilities. We love it because it is about antics, make-believe, and cavorting.

I cannot even begin to describe how much people at Lobot love Halloween. So I won't. Instead I will simply share some pictures. They are, supposedly, worth a thousand words anyway. Thus, I will let them speak for themselves.

Except to point out one thing: my costume is very scary. I am a haunted house, which is a very frightening thing to be. Much more frightening than say, a cuckoo clock, which is not frightening at all, and therefore not something I would ever be for Halloween.

all photos donated to Brazy Clog by Mark Deutch

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

Is the title of the commencement speech* that J.K. Rowling gave to the Harvard Alumni Association. Watch it here. It made me very very happy (which means I cried).

*brought to my attention by Max

Due to Technical Difficulties

I haven't blogged in one hundred billion years. Fortunately, I am back. You may now resume your adoration of my blog. By which I mean: please let me bribe you into being excited about Brazy Clog again by posting sweet pics! By which I mean: I have the most amazing friends in the world, and this summer I've had the extreme pleasure of participating in the weddings of two of these phenomenal friends of mine. And here are a few pictures I have of these momentous events:

found somewhere on the interwebs

My First Art Show

was actually a success. here are some pics of Wendy's and Zach's work.

I'm all over it

Check it out. I am a curator in an art walk. What does this mean? It means I get to: pretend I can make fliers, boss around artists much more talented than myself, be super stressed-out, and get really excited.

Master Lib

So because of a lack of planning on my part, my students' activity for today's class was writing mad libs. They came out pretty well, although they all used various forms of the word poo a bit more than I would have liked (this is what happens when you forget to be extremely specific in your direction-giving to third graders). Anyway, I just combined my lib with Dave's (Dave is my intern--yes I have an intern), and my student Estephany's in order to create the Master Lib. Here is the result:

The Day My Hair Grew 10 Inches

One kind-of sunny day, I was walking to Sanchez School. I felt really happy. Suddenly, an alien appeared in front of me. It had fat ears. I jumped back, and then I gave him a hug. Then my pet manatee, Blubber, appeared and started talking to me. “Why did you hug that alien,” he asked. “Because he is ugly and smelly,” I said. I felt weird about the whole situation. After talking, the alien, Blubber and I decided to go get ice cream. However, when we got to the parlour, the only flavors they had were Toasted Dandruff, Broccoli, and Worm-slug. We chose Broccoli. It tasted like gross toenails! As we were walking out of the ice cream parlour, we met Hannah Montana, and then I found one million dollars. We bought a crew of tiny pirates with the money. After that, the alien said it was getting late, and he needed to go home for dinner, so we all said goodbye.

New Blog Hotness

So, as some of you know, I've started teaching an after-school writing program in a public school in the Mission. I've taught 4 classes at this point. After the first week, I didn't think I'd last the month. I was told I was the devil on several occasions, that I was fat, I had a big nose (I told you Sara), and that my class sucked. I had girls hitting each other and trying to drown each other in the puddles on the playground. But this week ended with one of the girls saying, "This was so much fun!! Can we do it again?? At first I thought it would suck, because it was writing, but it was awesome!" Oh hells yes. I molded their little 4th grade minds and they loved it!! Anyway, I'm starting a blog for them, in hopes that the prospect of seeing their writing "published" will motivate them to write more. They come up with some pretty amazing stuff when they actually try. I think anyone who enjoys reading my blog will probably love theirs, especially when you think of me standing in front of them, encouraging them to stop beating each other and to instead tell me more about where the zombies live....