From Hawaii News Now: HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Going back to school can be scary after spending decades in the workforce, but some senior citizens are skipping retirement and returning to classes to compete in Hawaii’s tough job market. Leona Pereza worked as a pediatric nurse in a private practice for 34 years. In 2003, at the age of 57, she found herself out of a job when the doctor retired. “I know the daunting feeling of being in that situation at that age and saying, ‘Now, what do I do?’ It’s frightening,” said the Enchanted Lake resident. After a lot of soul-searching, she decided to go back to school to become a social worker. Her husband, Arnold, wasn’t working anymore because of a heart condition. Paying for tuition stretched the family’s finances. Pereza said at first, she was intimidated by the younger students, but the long hours of studying paid off. After five years, she earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree. Now she loves her job as an admissions coordinator and social worker at Shriner’s Hospital for Children. “I have done everything I could possibly do to gain new work skills to be marketable, to be able to be here and compete and stay employed, but there’s so many uncertainties,” said Pereza. There are other seniors like Pereza in classrooms across the state. Enrollment at the seven community colleges in the University of Hawaii system is up. The number of students age 50 and older rose from 906 in 2006 to 1,228 last year. Continue reading]]>

I’ve had my issues from time to time with Meredith and Matt, mostly around the stupidity of some of the segments they’ve had to do (do we really need to see another laughing baby YouTube video?). But she’s a familiar face at 7:00 am every morning, and I’ll miss her. I think it’s great that she’s leaving in part to spend more time with her husband. When it comes down to it, my life with Frank is what matters most to me. The rest is, as they say, gravy. From the HuffingtonPost: NBC announced Monday that “Today” show anchor Meredith Vieira will be leaving her position at the anchor desk in June. Longtime newsreader Ann Curry will take Vieira’s place alongside Matt Lauer. In addition, Natalie Morales will take Curry’s place as newsreader, and Savannah Guthrie will become a co-host of the third hour of the show. An emotional Vieira also announced the news on Monday’s show. Calling it a “difficult day,” but said that, after “months of personal reflection” and conversations with her family and friends, she had decided to step down. “Even as I say this, and I know it’s the right thing, I’m really sad,” she said. This has been my second home.” She said she “really hope[d] to stay in the NBC family.”]]>

I’m a New Yorker (17 years and counting), and while I’m hoping to move to our house in the New Jersey countryside one of these days, it’s great to see that LGBT seniors are being included in initiatives for NYC seniors. From SAGE News: WNYC News Blog- http://www.wnyc.org
Friday, May 06, 2011 – 05:22 PM
By Kathleen Horan Mayor Michael Bloomberg set aside between $3 million and $5 million in his budget to fund 10 ‘innovative senior centers’–including one for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered New Yorkers. Advocates estimate there are more than 100,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered New Yorkers over 65 living in the five boroughs – and they are twice as likely to be living alone and much more likely to be childless and disconnected from their families. “Many LGBT seniors feel like they have to go back into the closet as they age,” said commissioner of the city’s Department for the Aging, Lilliam Barrios-Paoli. “Every senior center is a place where people feel welcomed. It’s difficult to feel that way when you can’t be who you are. This center will be like every other center except LGBT people will be welcomed and accepted for who they are.”]]>

It’s that time of year again, the best time of year in rural New Jersey. I’m slowly becoming more of a gardener and getting into it. One of these days this will be what I wake to in the mornings.

Cross-posted from MadeMark.net]]>

Rev. Troy Perry gives the Easter sermon at MCC New York I recently interviewed Rev. Pat Bumgardner from MCC New York, and just three weeks ago Frank and I attended their Easter banquet, where the denomination’s founder, Rev. Troy Perry, gave his annual Easter sermons. Rev. Perry will be in Washington helping MCC-DC celebrate their 40th anniversary. If you’re in the area, be sure to join the celebration. From Metro Weekly: In 1968 Rev. Troy Perry founded an LGBT-affirming Protestant Christian church in Los Angeles, eventually growing into 250 worldwide congregations as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC). In D.C., Rev. J. E. Paul Breton founded the Community Church of Washington D.C. at his home in Capitol Hill in 1970. The next year, it became chartered as an official MCC congregation. Perry is expected to join the Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C., (MCC-DC) during its ”Fabulous and Faithful 40th Anniversary Event,” at the Human Rights Campaign, 1640 Rhode Island Ave. NW, on Friday, May 13, from 7 to 11 p.m. ”We wanted the celebration to be outside the church because we wanted people to be able to have some social time and we don’t allow alcohol at MCC, so they can drink there,” says Bob Whitman, who is gay and the vice moderator of the church’s board of directors.]]>

From the ‘about’ section: Mombian is a lifestyle site for lesbian moms and other LGBT parents, offering a mix of parenting, politics, diversions, and resources for all our varied roles. Mombian provides parenting tips, children’s activities, book reviews for parents and children, and political news and commentary, all from the perspective of a lesbian mom. It also includes a helping of lesbian culture and entertainment, in the belief that mothers don’t lose their other interests the moment they become parents.]]>

Cross-posted from MadeMark.net I was making a video clip this morning of the plot and planters where we’ll be growing vegetables and flowers this year. It runs 3:43. I’m more and more aware these days of my desire to slow down. Life goes by so quickly even without us shoving it forward. Cutting it into byte-sized, 140 character micro-chapters only makes it more likely that we’ll miss most of it, as if we’re gazing at a tapestry and the only thing we see is the occasional thread. Everything I read about pleasing and attracting an online audience says shorter, shorter, shorter. Many people now have the attention spans of squirrels, picking up a nut, sniffing it, dropping it and looking for another. To paraphrase an old saying, life is what happens while we’re busy tweeting other plans. You can see this demonstrated acutely in any office elevator. People no longer have the patience or ability to speak to one another, to say good morning, to just take a very short ride in an elevator without grabbing the BlackBerry and seeing who needs them right this very instant. It’s a conditioning, and we’ve done it to ourselves. We’ve chopped our existences up into ever smaller bits until now life is not only short, it speeds by in data packets and laughing baby YouTube sensations and the quick, quick, quick grab for the ever-shrinking attention span. I’m going in the other direction. If I see or conduct an interview with someone who has something to teach me, or even interest me, I’m happy to give them 10 minutes. More if that’s what’s required. And I’m not going to try to keep any video I make short enough to provide a beginning, middle and end in just enough time to keep someone watching. Planting a garden is not done in under three minutes. Reading or writing a poem is not accomplished in 140 characters. To savor, whether it’s food or drink or another human being or the day we find ourselves in, requires allowing every flavor to seep in, in its own time. Come along to the gardens of each other’s imaginations and let it take as long as it needs. The rest of the world can spiral faster and faster to a day when nothing means anything and everything gets ten seconds because that’s all it’s worth.]]>

This one’s not a cartoon. I really do have two mothers, one dead since 1999, one alive and ailing in Mississippi. Mother’s Day is always challenging for me. I was given up for adoption at the age of two, having been born into a large (9 children) family to a woman who couldn’t raise that many children and a man who left her after I was born. I had no idea this birth family existed until I was 17 and I didn’t meet them until I was 35. The challenge for me has been the complete lack of emotional connection or reaction to my birth mother, Helen. The woman who raised me, Margaret, had a profound effect on my life, for better and worse (she reacted violently to me being gay, but before then had been a sort of mother-idol for me, and the relationship healed before her death). When Margaret died from lung cancer in her own bedroom, with my father and my two sisters there, it was an ending for me. But then . . . there was Helen. And not only Helen, but five surviving sisters and two brothers to remind me I could not close this door. I could not throw a flower onto my mother’s grave and walk away, having buried one of my two parents. She was one of four! A father I never met, a birth mother still alive and well at the time, and a dad I would continue to visit in Indiana until his death in 2009. I sent Helen flowers this year. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Try finding a Mother’s Day card for a woman you have no feeling for. It’s very difficult, because almost all the cards are mushy, you’re-the-best-mom-that-ever-happened-to-me schmaltz. I just want a damn card that says Happy Mother’s Day! I’m told by my sister (I did get some good sibling relationships out of it) that Helen is not doing well mentally, that she’s about ready for assisted living. And I think, god, will it ever be over? And when she passes away, will I go? It’s an emotional reality I could do without, but it’s mine.]]>

This is my partner, Frank. You’ll be hearing more about him (and us) in the coming months. The picture was taken with my Droid, with an app called FxCamera that has several fun settings.]]>