I, in all my poetry, could never find a metaphor for Malkia Cyril. I could never adequately explain what she brings to a conversation. She has an uncanny capacity for off-top eloquence - it’s bizarre.

I couldn’t figure it out at first … then I realized … Cyril is seriously “media trained.” Sometimes media training comes off as artificial, as simplistic repetition of sound bite. Cyril’s media training amounted to 3,000 precise and passionate words over a couple of beers.

Tucked away on the east side of Lake Merritt is a little shop that you wish you had stumbled upon on accident. It’s one of those gems you find and then can’t believe everyone you like isn’t hanging out there all the time.

Around the age of 14, I decided I wanted to be a foster parent some day.

In Oregon, where I grew up, my grandma’s sister, who I spent a lot of time with, became a foster parent around that time, and across the country in New Jersey, my FTM uncle and his (male) partner were in the process of adopting four young children themselves.

(Read "Teen Queen Part 1: A fostering story" here.)

To be honest, when my teen queen came to live with me it was both amazing and amazingly hard.