JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

While searching on Rolling Stone, I found Children of Rock: Growing up in the shadow of legends, an excerpt from an article (and photo shoot) with quotes from adult children of legendary musicians. The kids, now in their twenties and thirties, reveal experiences growing up with famous parents and reasons why they connect with each other as a generation.

The connection is often intense. “It’s not like some automatic pass into this club,” stresses Chris Stills. “It’s just that we might be hip to — how would I put it? It’s kind of like we grew up behind the stage, so we’re privy to the smoke and mirrors and the strings holding up the puppets. Most people just have their eye on the puppets. So that knowledge bonds us.”

I don’t think I know any rock stars or children of rock stars. I do know the parent of a rock star: my reason for searching on Rolling Stone in the first place was to try to find news about the child’s new album. But I think any parent can learn from the insights and stories shared in the article.

Kudos to Robert Scoble for giving up his link blog. Family comes first. The link blog has been a great way for me to find others and for others to find me. But I’m glad Robert is taking the time for his wife and son instead. First things first. A link blog doesn’t last as long as love. 🙂

Last week Tim Burlowski alerted me to Ayelet Waldman’s Salon column from March 14 (view a commercial or subscribe to Salon in order to read it). I had been reading her posts from time to time but I didn’t realize that she had stopped blogging. Her Salon piece explained why. I’m grateful for her courage and transparency. Her story revealed another aspect of the debate between public and private: how much should a parent post?

If producing a regular column is living out loud, then keeping a daily blog is living at the top of your lungs. For a couple months there, I was shrieking like a banshee. I realized in the wake of my online suicide note that for the sake of my family and my fiction, I needed to turn the volume down a few notches. I needed to give up the blog.

I’m grateful Ayelet Waldman found the help she needed. I’m glad she’s still writing with new limits and experience to guide her. Many hugs, peace and healing to her and her family.

Brett at DadTalk linked to a New York Times story Vibrant Cities Find One Thing Missing: Children. An accompanying graphic reveals Seattle’s position as second to San Francisco in the lowest percentage of children under the age of 18: 15.6%

The problem is not just that American women are having fewer children, reflected in the lowest birth rate ever recorded in the country.

Officials say that the very things that attract people who revitalize a city – dense vertical housing, fashionable restaurants and shops and mass transit that makes a car unnecessary – are driving out children by making the neighborhoods too expensive for young families.

Since we’ve lived near three of the top four cities (#3 is Honolulu, #4 is Boston), I can believe these statistics. High housing prices prohibit families, especially those who would like to have one partner at home (and unemployed) caring for the kids. From the beginning, we found Bainbridge Island refreshing because families were accepted and expected. Children are welcomed by restaurants and realtors. As we signed papers at the mortgage broker’s office, toys were brought out for the girls. The atmosphere felt different from Silicon Valley, where bringing kids to the mortgage brokers was not as easy. It is sad to see cities missing out on children. The article focusses on Portland, OR’s attempts to attract young families.

Brett also posted a funny picture of where kids may be going…His wife Anne’s Purim post on glue guns and Best Leftover Use of Fabric is equally cute.

Eric Rice, at-home dad, has hit some headlines this week. He’s now the new kid for Engadget podcasts. Marc Canter announced that Warner Brothers is sponsoring Eric’s podcasts. He even found time for some Flickr Toy Silliness. What a week this has been!, Eric said himself. Read his list. I’m impressed. So, Eric, how do you do it? Where do you find the time? And why don’t I hear your kids clamoring in the background? You must know something I don’t. Share your secrets please!

Another big announcement this week was the launch of Ourmedia.org. Cool! San Jose Mercury News piece excerpted from Marc’s blog.

Tapping into a growing interest in so-called grass-roots media, two Web sites launched this week that aim to become repositories and clearinghouses for a wide variety of digital content created by the public.

Ourmedia.org, started by Pleasanton writer J.D. Lasica and Walnut Creek technologist Marc Canter, is offering a central place for people to upload and store any digital media they want to share with the world, including video, audio, images and text files. The service is free.

The founders say the service (www.ourmedia.org) could help content producers find new audiences for their work. And it could become a cultural archive for researchers and future generations of Internet users that want to view history through an alternative media lens, say ourmedia’s founders.

The idea for the site, Lasica said, came to him while attending a digital storytelling conference in Sedona, Ariz.

“Here was this new storytelling form, and it needed an audience,” Lasica said.

Grassroots media has enjoyed an explosion of interest in the past year, fueled by the increased credibility of bloggers and the growing popularity of video and audio tools such as camcorders and editing software.

Look at the group blog and highlights of a grassroots media organization. Also the AP news article linked from J. D. Lasica’s blog. I plan to try to spend more time at Ourmedia to see the storytelling unfold. What fun! Congratulations to dads Marc Canter and J.D. Lasica for their accomplishments!

On Monday, the girls and I toured Washington state’s Capitol in Olympia. The girls had been asking to go and the capitol recently re-opened after completing renovations from the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. Tours are offered on the hour throughout the day.

I gasped when I first glimpsed the building from the freeway. It loomed in white, as a deity demanding obeisance. The inside is majestic and impressive, with walls of century-old black and white marble taken from Europe and Alaska.

George Washington, our state’s namesake, appeared even on bathroom doorknobs.

The carpet in the House of Representatives featured the trillium. The Senate carpet was decorated with dogwood.

At 287 feet from grade to top of lantern, the dome was the fourth highest masonry dome (a dome without metal support structures) in the world, surpassed only by St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg. The U.S. Capitol is slightly taller than the one in Olympia (302 feet) and has support structures.

George’s nose was rubbed for good luck, explaining his uneven complexion.

Another highlight from our trip was our visit with our representative who welcomed the kids with chocolate coins and showed them pictures of her cat and the Capitol. We also saw our state Senator.

Since we’ve returned, the girls have been playing Senator and Representative, writing bills and voting on them. Even Elisabeth remembers our trip. Yesterday she told a neighbor, “Capitol! Big Capitol!” gesturing with her hands after I mentioned our visit.

I felt ashamed when I realized that I have been to the national Capitol in Washington D.C. a few times but never to the one in Washington state where I’ve spent most of my life. I’d recommend taking a trip to see the state capital and visiting representatives too. The drive to Olympia took four hours of the day but it was worth the time to give my daughters a glimpse of democracy in its glory.

Apologies for the tone of the pictures. My camera is broken and I have tried to remedy the colors of the photos in this post with some Photoshop editing.