blog

Photo of a snowy riverside on a bright-blue day, with wintery grasses in the foreground

Long way

I’ve been on this gift-to-myself sabbatical for over four months. Stepping into some consulting now, but honestly it’s a little scary to realize how challenging it is to fit even 10 hours of work per week into what already feels like a very full life. If you just rolled your ...
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Photo of the performer Lizzo looking beautiful in an evening gown with her arms spread wide as she speaks into a microphone

Following Lizzo’s lead

Rich Polk/E! Entertainment/NBC/Getty Images via http://deadline.com/2022/12/lizzo-lives-up-to-peoples-champion-trophy-peoples-choice-awards-2022-spotlighting-social-activists-1235191785/ Been meaning to do this ever since Lizzo gave her amazing People's Choice speech a couple weeks ago. Went thru the list of links in this LA Times article and donated to every single one of the activists/organizations, except the big schools and the ...
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My photo and bio from my high school yearbook, with partial photos and bios of my classmates surrounding mine

Life’s so unfair… in my favor.

Natick High School Class of '89!!! Dear friends, I struggle with gratitude. Not the part about seeing how my life is overflowing with love and beauty and abundance, though. Hopefully, if you know me at all, you know that I know these things, deep in my heart. I struggle because ...
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A photo album entitled "leaving" on a pile of photographs of Andie at SCG over the years

Leaving on a jet plane

I wrote out what I wanted to say, but it was hard to read it through the mist that kept rising in my eyes. Anyway, this is what I tried to say at the wonderful goodbye lunch that my SCG colleagues put together for me this week, where they also ...
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/ Nonprofit and philanthropy
Pink and orange logo saying "CCF" with the words "community-centric fundraising" in light blue

A fork in the road to equity

Y’all, it has been a long long time since I felt ready to post again here. But last week, I was on a board committee call for an awesome nonprofit where I volunteer. We’re choosing a consultant to help structure our first-ever real fundraising campaign, and suddenly we had one ...
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A blurry black-and-white image of a typed memo with most of the words blocked out by bars of solid black redacting the text so it's incomprehensible.

[REDACTED]

Hello my friends. I am still writing, just keeping a lower profile for awhile. Feel free to contact me directly for updates if you know how to reach me, and I'll see you back here soon. ❤ ...
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/ Personal philosophy
Old black and white photo of the wreck of the SS James Longstreet with the sun setting behind it and tidal flats in the foreground

What I miss, and what I missed

Back on the beach of my heart, where so much is the same as when my family first brought me here nearly 50 summers ago. One thing is missing, though: the wreck of the SS James Longstreet, perched decoratively on the horizon during the day, a fiery blaze every sunset, ...
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Image of a quote from Isabel Wilkerson's book, "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents." It says, "Before there was a United States of America, there was enslavement. Theirs was a living death passed down for twelve generations."

Juneteenth celebrates freedom. Remember to ask “from whom and from what?”

Honoring Juneteenth with another step on my lifelong learning journey: I didn't know that the belated news of freedom wasn't really being proclaimed to enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865. It was actually a warning from the Union Army "directed toward recalcitrant slaveholders," as Isabel Wilkerson and others ...
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Stock image of a 1980s-era police car making a sharp turn in the middle of a city street

No big deal, we only got arrested as teens. White teens.

How. How!? How could I have mostly forgotten the time that I was with a carload of teen boys in upstate NY and we got pulled over and the driver got arrested for reckless driving and put in cuffs in the back of the cop car and we were all ...
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Wedding photo of a couple in World War II with the groom in US military uniform

Remembering the truth on Memorial Day

Our country 'tis of thee... that we tell a complicated tale this Memorial Day. Here are my Papa and Nana on their wedding day, Feb. 27th 1943. Technically, the "right" day to honor Papa's service would be Veterans Day, since he trained as a pilot but never saw combat and ...
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News photo of people in yellow vests clearing an encampment of people living in tents in Echo Park in Los Angeles

The system is. not. broken.

Reflecting on LAPD clearing the Echo Park encampment of people living in tents: This strikes me as a perfect example of the idea that the function of a system is *what it does.* It's not that our systems are broken. That would imply we can just fix up what we've ...
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Photo of a man's hands holding a white placard with black all-caps words on it saying "STOP ASIAN HATE"

Reflecting on #StopAsianHate Day

Yesterday, March 26, was #StopAsianHate Day. To my White friends in particular, I offer two things I'm reflecting on: 1/ This article in which, among other Asian-American voices, my trusted college friend Sumalee Montano shared her experience: "In her Los Angeles neighborhood a few weeks ago, an unmasked woman breathed ...
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