continuing to remember nannaboo

on friday during a steady downpour, more than 200 people representing all facets of the different groups of dc residents gathered where nannaboo died to publicly announce that "enough is enough!"

we will gather again on friday to celebrate her life.

wmata - because your time is important only to you

in an effort to shorten my travel distance and minimize the number of steps i needed to take today, i decided to get off the train at ny ave and catch the 90 bus cross town to the 30 bus. that was at 6:55. it's now 7:22 and there's no bus in sight. clearly the transportation gods have conspired with the exercise gods and are sending me a message.
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what i said at church today

instead of a sermon at church today, a few of us were asked to share our thoughts on faith and education. this is what i had to say ...

true confessions - adam sent me an email asking if i would participate in today's service and ... i ignored it. now before you begin to "boo" me - i ignored it because i didn't attend a christian college. just the opposite - i went to the most expensive university in the united states ... a place where it seemed the only religion was the doctrine of self-absorption and message of basking in the glory of excess. i wish i could say that it was THAT experience that pushed me into a career of public service, but i'm not sure that it did. yet ANOTHER reason to ignore adam's email. it wasn't until adam cornered me after last week's service and explained to me that it wasn't really as much about attending a christian college as it was about how my faith has influenced my ongoing education and career decisions. THAT i can do!

my faith, my strong commitment to equality of opportunity for all people and the directive in luke 12:48 - from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked - have directed my path. living by those principles, i've transitioned from an inner city special education teacher to a state-level special education policy maker and finally to a federal-level special education policy maker. however, even as i move forward in my career and become more and more removed from kids with disabilities in classrooms, i never forget how it all started and for whom i work with and on behalf of. with that i leave you with the last paragraph of my purpose statement from my grad school application -

i do this for willie who entered my class unable to read in the 6th grade, but left reading at the 2nd grade level only three years later. i do this for kaylor who was so shy that she never uttered a word, but three years later we had to set an IEP goal to get her to be quiet. i do this for marcus who would bang his head so violently against the wall that he would end up bloodied and disoriented requiring medical attention, but is now attending college and living independently. and i do this for noah who, even as he spiraled into a more and more delusional and isolated space resisting any human interaction, would still smile when i asked him to dance.

you'll not be forgotten nannaboo

devastating news came just a few minutes ago when we were told that our good friend and neighbor (and frequent fodder for flipflop fed posts), nanna boo was stabbed and killed yesterday afternoon in broad daylight. the worst part is that it seems the only reason for the attack was that nannaboo chose to live and open an honest life. you see, nannaboo was born joshua mack, but knew from an early age that she wasn't meant to be a "he." apparently someone in the vicinity of 3rd and q st, nw didn't like the way that nannaboo lived her life and decided to violently end that live with a stab of the knife to the jugular in the middle of the afternoon.

nannaboo was a hysterically funny person. she had a love for life and those around her - and she knew that god loved her too. while the mainstream media focuses on the "joshua" aspect, i will focus on nannaboo. i'll miss nannaboo - the way she would lean out the window and say hello, the smile that she always had on her face and the smile that she always put on mine.

i leave you all with my favorite picture of her ...

the whole world's catching on

even the ny times had keyed in to crystal chappell.

cankle free

i've struggled with my weight my entire life - even as a high school uber athlete. but, regardless of the size of my waist and thighs, i've always had skinny ankles. that's right - no cankles for me! turns out that ankles like mine are all the rage! take that skinny girls!!

lesbians are just gay**!

last night we headed to the birchmere with some friends to see the queer queens of comedy - an all lesbian comedy review. these women were crazy funny. if you like comedy - really funny observations on life - you should check out poppy champlin, julie goldman and vickie shaw.

**i refer you to definitions 1a and 1b