Left Me Speechless

I don’t know what to make of this image. Clearly, it’s an over-Photoshopped portrait of Cindy McCain that looks like something straight out of the X-Files. Then again, the notion that Mrs. Maverick is openly championing gay rights is a bit alien after all.

Jokes aside, I can’t help but admire her courage. How many Republicans do you know who are actively campaigning to repeal California’s Proposition 8? How many conservative parents do you know who would publicly and unashamedly share the silence experienced by their children?

The photo is not merely a form of political dissent: it is the portrait of a mother’s grief. Despite its formal shortcomings, the design manages to make the debate on gay marriage personal. Cindy is claiming that Proposition 8 isn’t just about political disenfranchisement. It hurts families. It silences mothers.

Cindy McCain posing for NO H8

Continue reading…

I Left My Heart

Part of me wants to write a long, sprawling post about my time in Paris. I want to obsessively detail all the museums, the food, the sites, the art, the wine, the conversations, the emotions. I want to write it all down so that I never forget.

But how do you describe an experience so haunting that words profane it? Memories so profound that remembering wounds you?

Some things are too sacred.

Suffice it to say that I spent every day in a beautiful city with the person I love most. A gallery of pictures here, and my favorites below.

City lights burning in the distance

Continue reading…

Why She Walks

I am really angry right now. I’m hoping that writing about it will help let some of the steam out of my head. I was supposed to leave on the 5AM train from London to Paris to meet Waqas for a relaxed, wonderful holiday. However, after a massive electrical failure that left 2000 customers stranded in the Channel Tunnel for over 12 hours, Eurostar has cancelled service indefinitely.

I’ve spent the last several hours frantically rebooking my journey, which will now involve a coach to Dover, a ferry from Dover to Calais, and a train from Calais to Paris. Total travel time is estimated to be around 11 hours, and it’s going to cost just as much for the one-way trip as my original roundtrip ticket cost on the Eurostar. WTF. I hate undeserved chaos.

I’m trying to tell myself to remain calm and to be grateful that I wasn’t trapped in the Chunnel for half a day without food and water, but I feel really frustrated. The coach to Dover leaves London’s Victoria terminal at 7AM, so I’m not going to get any sleep. I feel like I should just try to write about some of what’s happened over the last weeks and (hopefully) work my way out of this mood.

The cold, wet London winter

Continue reading…