The New Year

I started New Year's Day as I have for years: with an Irish Coffee.

We spent the day doing a mini jaunt to a couple of very SF spots. First, we went to the Hippie Tree, a huge tree with an oversized swing at the top of a hill in Tiburon, Marin County just north of San Francisco. The tree has a spectacular view of San Francisco and the bay. It was an ideal spot for taking a moment to treasure our life here. I'll never stop feeling lucky to be here. Wanda's only request for our New Year's Day exploring was that she wanted to go to a spot that had 1) nature, 2) water, and 3) was new to us. So, check.

From there, we went to Fisherman's Wharf, in particular Pier 39. Locals only go to Pier 39 when they have family in town, if ever. It's a touristy hellscape where SF has crammed all the worst chain stores and restaurants and crapola shops into one cruddy cartoon of a pier, but dammit, it's our hellscape, and Wanda needs to know her city, warts and all. Wanda marvelled at the peculiar shops, and I loaded her up with salt water taffy. The sea lions are always worth the trip, though.

We tried to go to the Musee Mechanique, but it was far too loud and busy, so we'll hit it on some random Tuesday morning when we can have it to ourselves (this is in the top three reasons why homeschooling is fucking awesome). It was sad to see so many of the wonderful classic old restaurants in the cooler parts of Fisherman's Wharf shuttered. Years ago, I used to spend every New Year's Day bopping from restaurant to restaurant at Fisherman's Wharf with a big group of friends, all day long. I grabbed a to-go cup of crab from Sabella & La Torre, one of the few vintage restaurant holdouts.

A few days into the new year, it's Wanda's birthday. Every year, I ask what she wants me to make for her birthday. She knows I can bake just about anything she could desire at this point: macarons! cream puffs! fancy cakes! Naturally, my daughter wants Jell-O. Every year.

At least she wanted my bread, but I tried making Pan de Cristal (or as Wanda calls it, Panda Crystal), an especially tricky bread recipe that I hadn't made in a couple years, and results were... tasty but not cute.

All of this celebrating helped to temporarily stave off the looming unease at what's coming with our country's regime change. I'm profoundly worried, for a thousand reasons, but especially for my friends with kids who are trans. I've contacted my Representative, sure, okay, but fuck, it's not enough. Those of us outside of the swing states just had to watch all of this unfold from the sidelines, desperately wishing to have a fair say in what's to come.

So I'm doing what I can: educating my kid so she won't make bonehead election decisions, and ensuring she deeply cares about and listens to all of her fellow humans. Seeking out independent journalist voices and increasing my turn away from the stodgy journalism that has so let us down the last few years. Slowly trying to untangle myself from anything putting money in the pockets of the tech oligarchs, as much as that's possible anyway. Weaning off of the misinformation miasma that is social media. Bluesky helps, for now (I'm there as @Humuhumu.com). I'm trying to build community locally. I'm refusing to give up, refusing to pretend the unacceptable is acceptable. I'm continuing to do what I can in my own little corner of the world. Finding ways to strike a balance between staying informed but not getting sucked into whirlwinds of manipulation; seeking the nuanced, informed, conversations. But I don't need nuance for this simple, armoring truth: fuck Trump and anyone enabling him.

And then came the horror of the fires in Los Angeles. I don't know yet how my friends have fared, but it does not look good for a least a couple of them. I lived in Los Angeles for a few years in the aughts, and it will always hold a grip on my heart nearly as strong as San Francisco does. Los Angeles is magic. The art, the creativity, the joy, the friendship, the love, the energy, the vibrancy, the history, the warmth. San Francisco is my home now, Seattle is where I was born and raised, but Los Angeles, Los Angeles is where I'm from. That's what my heart says, anyway. I can't yet fathom the enormity of the destruction that has hit Los Angeles, and it's not over yet. I'm hoping for the best for my friends there, and trying to figure out ways to genuinely support them.

Watching the fires unfold from San Francisco, I couldn't shake the feeling that we're all just waiting for our turn at disaster roulette. That instead of Warhol's idea that everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame, we all get our turn needing a GoFundMe. The only question is when, and what form Losing Everything will take for us: will it be fires? flooding? medical debts?

So then I talk myself down from the dread. I enjoy the hell out of the now that is sitting right in front of me, while I have it. I turn to the loved ones around me, and my local community, my real life friends having our real life lives. And I bake something to share.

And I started a blog. Happy New Year.