All About Bree
Fasten your seatbelts....

1. I was born on May 22, 1972. That makes me 32, as of this writing.
2. In 1972, The Godfather won the Best Picture Oscar, Ceylon became the nation of Sri Lanka, and William Rehnquist became a Supreme Court justice in the United States. No one won the Nobel Peace prize in 1972.
3. Astrologically speaking, I was born under a gemini sun, a libra moon, and leo is my ascendant.
4. That leo rising has historically gotten me in a lot of trouble, I’m convinced.
5. I've got a great family, consisting of my mom, two sisters, a brother-in-law, and two nieces and two nephews, whom I adore. I’ve got an aunt on Mom’s side, and an aunt on Dad’s side, and four first cousins. Most of us live in the San Francisco Bay Area, but I've got loads of extended family in New York, too.
6. My sisters are both about a decade and a half older than me--I was an aunt by the time I was seven. When my first nephew was born, I brought a photograph of him into my second grade classroom for show and tell.
7. No one would believe me that he was my nephew; they all thought I meant to say he was my cousin.
8. My dad had a heart attack and died when he was 43 years old, in 1974, about two weeks shy of my second birthday.
9. I don’t remember him at all, and that’s been a big missing piece for me all my life.
10. Everyone in my family insists that I’m exactly like him--my sense of humor, my political sensibilities, my obsession with Chinese food, even the way I shake my left leg when I’m nervous or bored.
11. This mythology, that I’m like an incarnation of my dad, has served both to comfort and to haunt me.
12. Lately, I have put a lot of the haunting behind me, which has been a better strategy for living, overall.
13. I grew up Jewish, but not religious. You might say "Way Reform." My family always celebrates the major Jewish holidays, and I often enjoy them.
14. I got the rest of my Judaism through JCC summer camp and Jewish youth group in high school.
15. I never had a bat mitzvah.
16. I've never kept kosher.
17. I don't speak or read Hebrew, but I can sing a bunch of Hebrew songs. Probably hundreds of 'em.
18. The only Yiddish phrase I know is "Zolst vaksn vi a tzibele mitn kop in dr'erd!" which is an old Jewish curse meaning: "May you grow like an onion, with your head in the ground!"
19. We Jews sure are funny, aren't we?
20. These days, my spiritual practice leans heavily toward Buddhism.
21. But to be a "good Buddhist," I shouldn't really lean heavily toward anything.
22. I'm working on it.
23. I don't believe that there is a God, in some personified, omniscient form.
24. The idea of god, in the Judeo-Christian sense, leaves too much room for doubt. The world is sometimes intolerably cruel, and who could believe in a god that would allow more and more horrible atrocities to be played out every day?
25. But I'm not an atheist, really. I believe that there is an energy, or a spirit, that connects us to each other.
26. I believe somewhat in fate, but I also know we can shape it.
27. I believe in kindness.
28. I believe that subtle occurrences can have great meaning, but I am willing to say that we are the agents embuing the meaning.
29. I hail from the suburban sprawl of San Jose, California.
30. When I was very young, the town was known for its prune orchards. It is now associated with silicon chips and strip malls, particularly those kind of shopping centers constructed of stucco and painted in colors like coral and peach.
31. I can’t stand it when people refer to San Jose as “Silicone Valley.” Please learn the difference between silicon and silicone. Please.
32. I now live in San Francisco, the queerest city in the world. It’s also known, incidentally, for silicone.
33. Before I lived in San Francisco, I did an eight-year stint in Santa Cruz, a beautiful and funky beach town about seventy-five miles south of here.
34. All told, so far, I’ve never lived more than about fifty miles away from where I was born.
35. If you hadn't guessed by now, I’m a dyke.
36. I started coming out to myself when I was about 17, 18 years old.
37. I knew I was attracted to other girls when I was a senior in high school, but I tabled the information in my brain [and my (paper) journals] until the next year, when I started at the local community college.
38. Once I began figuring it all out, I came out to friends, and then my family, and it all went extraordinarily well. My mom still bristles just a little bit about it, but she’s made miles of progress.
39. So, I’ve been out for about fourteen years now.
40. I wore freedom rings every single day for the first five years I was out. Hey, it was the early Nineties, okay?
41. I have been known to fool around with boys on occasion. Until recently, it was approximately once every three years. Now, I find that it's been six years since my last boy action...and I'm kind of jonesin' for it, actually.
42. I also have a fairly healthy obsession with gay male porn.
43. I’ve had four "real" girlfriends, and several other significant involvements with women, but have never dated a boy--boys have been booty calls for me, but that's about it.
44. Okay, you want numbers? I've gotten down with about 20 women and about 6 men.
45. I'm not going to get into specifics here.
46. Despite the au currant issue of gay/lesbian marriage, and despite that I live in the epicenter of activity around the issue, I actually don't want to get married, and I don't think that will change.
47. I think gay/lesbian/bi/trans people should have the right to get married, and I support organizations working on the issue. But it's not at all my main concern.
48. My main political/spiritual concern is that we live in a world scarred by political violence, and that my country of birth is a major perpetrator of this violence.
49. I can think of no justification for state-sanctioned violence. I believe a person has a right to self defense; but systematic violence, motivated by political and economic agendas, and justified by dubious moral platitudes, is a state that humanity has every ability to move beyond.
50. As an American, I feel a very strong obligation to work for justice and peace, because it is my complicity as a citizen and tax payer in the United States that fuels war, capital punishment, torture, and the exploitation of people around the world.
51. I started working on peace, justice, and nonviolence issues when I was in high school.
52. I was interminably influenced and inspired to work for peace by my high school French teacher, Mr. Keplinger.
53. Mr. K. was an atomic vet. While he was in the US armed services in the 1950s, he was forced to witness atmospheric (above-ground) nuclear tests at the Nevada test site.
54. When it became clear that the atomic vets, and anyone who lived downwind of the test site, had exponentially higher risks for all kinds of cancers and immunodeficiency diseases, Mr. K. started receiving a token, yearly letter from the government, asking him, essentially, if he wasn't dead already.
55. He was a lifelong activist for peace and human rights. R.I.P., Mr. K.
56. Learn more about current nuclear weapons policy and its impact on indigenous people at the Shundahai Network website. Learn about opposition to the operations at the Lawrence Livermore labs at Tri-Valley CAREs. Get active for peace and justice at California Peace Action and National Peace Action.
57. If you're beginning to think I'm too pedantic and political, you should know that I'm also an unrepentant (well, sometimes repentant) consumer of shallow pop culture.
58. That I'm obsessed with "Friends" should convince you of this.
59. I also watched "The Bachelorette," with Trista and Ryan.
60. So sue me.
61. These days, I push papers for a living. More precisely, I'm a bookkeeper/office administrator, known in some circles as an Office Wonk.
62. Formerly, I have made money in myriad ways.
63. I made sandwiches at a natural foods deli.
64. Knocked on doors for the peace movement.
65. Collected census data.
66. Played my guitar and lead songs for Jewish kids at summer camp.
67. Made crêpes.
68. Stuffed pita bread with bulgur wheat all day long at a vegetarian café.
69. Worked the register at a convenience store called the Piggie Market.
70. And scrubbed down hot tubs, in the nude, at a day spa.
71. I'm not lying about Number 70.
72. Now that I’ve listed all my previous jobs, paper pushing is seeming way more boring. I should really think about that.
73. Learn more about my current job sitch here.
74. I hang onto friends pretty well. Most of my closest friends have been in my life for ten, fifteen, even twenty years. It’s really bizarre to think of the mid-Eighties as twenty years ago, but it was. Dude. I’m glad none of them has gotten too sick of me...yet.
75. When a friendship fades, it’s really tough for me.
76. I can handle the shifting priority a friendship takes over time--that a close friend can become a more peripheral friend, and then may become close again (or not)--that’s just how life works out sometimes.
77. And I’m fine with it when it’s clear that you and a friend are starting to have different values or interests, and it’s just not gelling anymore.
78. But when friends simply leave--if the reason for it is unclear, or if a subtle conflict that hasn’t been addressed propels a body to stop trying altogether--that feeling of loss is one of the most difficult things for me to deal with.
79. There are a couple people I’m thinking of who used to be fixtures in my life, who I have absolutely no contact with anymore, and that reality is like dealing with death for me.
80. I understand that this is my own issue to work out, though. So if you're a friend of mine, and you're reading this and thinking, "Oh, shit! I can never fade out of Bree's life, or she'll have all kinds of abandonment issues--jeezus!" I say this now to you: don't worry your pretty head about it. I'll tackle my own demons, eventually.
81. I have, in the past, walked out on friends, too, I must admit it.
82. And in some cases, I did it seemingly unprovoked, not having articulated why I had stopped calling or writing or hanging out. I guess sometimes you have to make a getaway, and fear keeps you from the confrontation that you really should have had.
83. In a couple of those cases, I’ve since become reconnected with those people, and I’m thankful to them for having me back.
84. In one case, I had a friend who I had to cut out of my life, and I did that only after several attempts to communicate to him the needs I had that he was repeatedly ignoring.
85. I wrote him a letter, and we had several conversations in which I articulated my boundaries clearly. After numerous more violations of my personal space and continued draining of my emotional resources, I had to say good bye to him.
86. And, though I felt proud of myself at the time, in that I thought I'd handled that situation extraordinarily well and fairly, I still wonder. I wonder whether it then ever becomes okay to let a person like that back into your life--or whether he would ever want to be in my life again. He wasn’t violent and he wasn't intending to hurt me in any way. He was just extremely needy and had a very underdeveloped sense of boundaries.
87. I believe that people can change--but I don’t really miss him all that much, either. I still have a bit left to resolve about this, obviously.
88. As of this writing, I've been to three countries other than my own.
89. I'd never left the United States until I was 29 years old. So the travel I have done has all been in the last two and a half years.
90. I've been to the U.K., specifically, London. Natasha and I were there for five days in February of 2002.
91. In February and March of 2002 (after the brief stop in London, above) Nat and I traveled to South Africa. If I had had an online journal at that time, no doubt, I'd have blogged it. We stayed in Cape Town for about two and a half weeks, and then were in Johannesburg for a little less than a week. Cape Town is amazingly beautiful.
92. In March of 2004, I took a five day trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, with Natasha's family. You can read about that trip here.
93. I'm a bit better traveled within the US. Click here for a map of the states I've been to as of this writing.
94. You'll notice that I've covered almost the whole Southern route, the whole West Coast, and a lot of the East Coast, but I've never really seen the Midwest, which means I've yet to lay eyes on the Corn Palace, and I ain't set foot in Graceland.
95. But I have road tripped through Santa Fe, danced til four a.m. in Austin, gotten drunk in New Orleans, been to the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum, whitewater rafted in North Carolina, and eaten Nathan's hot dogs at Coney Island (they're not as good as they used to be.)
96. I tend to blog about my adventures when I leave the geographical confines of my apartment in San Francisco. In my journal, you can read about a trip I took last summer to the east coast, a short jaunt down to Santa Cruz, a spiritually significant pitstop in my hometown of San Jose, and a recent weekend trip with the fandamily to Asheville, North Carolina.
97. I also like to record more or less mundane excursions that end up being rather poetic and/or comical.
98. I really appreciate the people who read my journal. Whether I know you or not, I'm glad you're out there. You allow my weird little details to take on a life of their own.
99. No matter how many details I write, though, I'm finding it's fairly impossible to express the essence of me in these web pages. I hope I'm coming across okay.
100. I encourage correspondence. I like the anonymity of cyberspace sometimes, but I also love to know who's out there, reading this shit.
101. If you'd like to reach me, you can make a comment on a specific entry, leave me a note, or mail me at bree_zip@yahoo.com.
102. I look forward to knowing you, too.

Peace, y'all,
Bree

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