Rough Drafts

I’m joining ValiMail as head of communications, because I like email and want it to work right.

I have loved the San Francisco waterfront since I first saw it. For years, my commutes have taken me along the Peninsula coastline via Caltrain, and then along the Embarcadero on my bike. I’ve got a folder full of photos of the waterfront. I never tire of looking at the Bay Bridge, alongside it, und

Pelicans stood on the breakwater, gravely watching us as we swam by. I’ve come to think of the shorebirds as different kinds of people, a sort of audience for my swims: The cormorant people, the gull people. It’s clear they’re looking at us as much as we are looking at them. And indeed, I noticed […

Last weekend I entered the water much better prepared than the week before, and managed to swim for two and a half hours. The water temperature varied from 59F-60F, and the morning was fairly calm, overcast giving way to sunny sky. The biggest challenge was the current: We found a significant flood

Yesterday I swam around Aquatic Park on a sunny, windy afternoon with shreds of fog whipping themselves away from the Golden Gate and across the blue sky. The wind on the cove gave different textures to water in every part of the cove: Just off the dock and along the buoy line I was swimming […]

I swam for an hour and 25 minutes on Saturday, with my swimming buddy Zina, and it was good. The sun was shining, the water was calm, there were no currents to speak of, and we explored a new-to-us route that took us from the far end of the breakwater guarding Fisherman’s wharf to the […]

I wore my swirly purple Speedo for a two-hour swim in the Bay on Saturday. It was the morning of a joint Pride celebration with my club, the South End, and the Dolphin Club next door. Fifty or sixty of us were going to swim from a bayside beach about a mile away, back to […]

If we learned anything from former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony this week, it’s the importance of well-written memos. Comey’s memo to the Senate, spelling out his introductory statement, is clear, crisp, and to the point. It contains a wealth of precise detail that lends credibility to his r

I’m going to attempt to swim down SF Bay, from the Golden Gate Bridge to AT&T Park, on July 9. The distance is about 6.5 miles. The water temperature will probably be about 59 degrees Fahrenheit (plus or minus a couple degrees), or about 15C. Depending on how much of an assist I get from […]

Like many Americans, I’m angry and disappointed about Trump’s repudiation of the Paris Agreement. What are we going to do about it? This is a small contribution, but I’m going to swim 6.5 miles in the SF Bay to raise money for the environment. In the aftermath of Paris, the gutting of the EPA, and r

I read that Annie Dillard, when composing Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, was living in the suburbs and raising a family.