Category Archives: personal

A love letter to Seattle

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I remember when I arrived to Seattle, February of 2008, exhausted and happy from a two week cross-country jaunt from Bloomington. It was the first place I ever felt at home. It’s the first place I didn’t get lost in, constantly. About a month after arriving, I was still wondering at how easy it was to be here.

Tonight I walked home from the club alone, violins and poetry in my ears (aren’t they often the same thing?).
Capital Hill and I had a moment, the sort of moment you share with a good friend or a lover in the morning, feet cozy under their legs, tea or coffee in hand, when you know the day is in front of you but more important is the Now.
I feel at peace here more than I ever have.

image by Andi Dean

image by Andi Dean

This is the first place I moved to of my own accord, not because someone I cared about deeply had requested my presence. And after eking out space for myself, Libby came. And Chris. Petra was near, and Annie and Bergen were already here but unknown to me. Later, Vivian and Noah came out. Tiny Matt would visit regularly. Our chosen family grew, and deepened. There were magical summers and warm spots in winter. I worked for a year in a law office, donning a wig every day, and training parkour in Freeway Park on my lunch breaks, some sort of punk super hero, bleeding on office papers from my scuffs and tumbles. Whitechapel kept me sane. And I learned about myself, and how to love other people, and how to let them love me. This is my home, but it’s also taught me that I can have many homes. Here, I have learned to wait.

And then I found purpose, combatting that persistent feeling in the back of my head that I had power, I just didn’t know what to point it at. The Transhumanist thought scapes I had carried from Virginia to Bloomington started to grow into tangible things. From Baron, I learned about hackerspaces and this group I admire so much, count myself lucky to be a part of, that now takes so much of my focus. I learned what it is to choose to commit to something, and what it is to decide who you love and how you love them. This has been my city, not only in that it’s where my heart is, but in that it is here I learned what a heart even is. This is where my robot love is.

I’m moving my stuff to Somerville to spend most of my days in Cambridge. Apparently people in the Boston area care about these geographical differences. Or at least the streets do. My belongings boil down to books, and clothes, and art. And more books. And comics. I’ll be working with the Center for Civic Media, and the Berkman Center if they’ll have me. While I leave the 29th of this month, I first go to San Francisco for #everyonehacks. And when I do go, I don’t go straight to Boston. I go to Port-au-Prince first, and then to DC, and then I’m in Boston. For a few days. Before I go to Paso Robles for Camp Roberts, and then Philly for family. Towards the middle of February, I arrive in earnest for a whole few weeks. March I bounce around a bit (either Seattle and San Francisco or an entirely other adventure) with time in Boston. April is only half overseas. But! May and June will be in Boston for sure. And July is.. overseas. And August is partially in Black Rock City. But the rest of the year. Seriously. Boston. I’ve already passed up a bunch of potential things to go to, speak at. Those booked engagements will get pruned as much as possible. I need to be where I am.

So I’ve been framing my art to prevent it getting crushed in the move, and saying tender farewells. This is a place I have loved. And you should love some of my favorite places and things, too. Here are some places that I have always felt comfortable, always at home.

  • Crumpet Shop : Just my favorite place in Seattle. Always happy. Always delicious. Non presumptuous.
  • Parkour Visions : Solid people. They helped me feel at home. And they teach you how to use your body and your environment.
  • Ada’s Technical Books : It’s a hackerspace, but with books. Good talks every week, good people, and mate!
  • Techbound : If you’re into this sort of thing, these are the folk to learn from. (NSFW)
  • Odd Fellows : Just a great coffee shop to hang out in. Does all meals, coffee, booze, solid wifi, etc.
  • Hot House : Naked lady spa. Seriously helped keep me sane.
  • Six Arms : Sure, it’s a McMenamin’s, but I sure do heart it. Good booze, and the staff leaves you alone. Perk if you’re working, not if you’re dining people.
  • Remedy Teas : 150 loose-leaf teas, and themed with science. Usually bustling without feeling overwhelming. Also the staff is super cute.
  • Row House : Again, with the all meals, decent coffee, solid wifi. They do flights of whiskey and sometimes of strange meats. You can work from here all day.

Join me at Row House on the 26th of January from 16:00 to 20:00 if you’d care to say hello, goodbye, or whatever. I shall be reading and taking quiet time, welcoming company.

My roots grew here. But even as I write this, I know that people are postgeographic in my brain, but Seattle is like a family chest, full of fond memories. You can take it wherever you go. I will return to the people who are my chosen family, who are always with me.

Inappropriate

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I run into the problem a lot that one of my favorite folders in TheOldReader is my NSFW one. It contains images of beautiful tattoos on beautiful bodies of all kinds, of intimate exchanges, of expressions of gender and love. But it’s labeled “NSFW” because I can’t load it in airports or coworking spaces or .. most anywhere, really. But that also transfers pretty clearly into how I filter myself for professional situations. I have ranted about this before. But this particular day prompted a tiny rant on Twitter about how much it sucks to have to constantly keep parts of my personality under wraps. There were a myriad of responses.

The general trends of feedback were as follows: female-bodied and queer folk affirm through response or favorites. Some folk suggest a division of presentation (public/private). And some say “what’s the big deal with expressing such things?” I would like to lovingly point out that the people in this last category are cis gents, whom I adore and with whom I am friends (hey, I have plenty of friends (and lovers) who are straight!).

Given that I work with all sort of populations from all sorts of backgrounds, my appearance and expressions have been carefully shaped in some ways. I no longer sport my mohawk. I tend to wear long pants rather than stompy boots and fishnets. My tattoos and piercings are easily covered. This is not so much an issue of subculture, this is much more an issue of how sexuality and respectability tend to be mutually exclusive. Which is to say: if I were to act and dress as I like, I would be sexualized, and therefore viewed as less competent. Which is a funny trade-off, as in especially technical communities, competence is seen as sexy. But the moment you enter one sphere, the other attribute goes away (for most people) (the link is about promoting sexualization to obscure the competence). Welcome to one of the tightropes which must be walked by the simple act of being female bodied. (But I don’t do that! you might say. Well, it’s not just about you. It’s about a long line of actions and incidents which by necessity make me wary of any sexuality-respect-shaped exchange. Both of those links have a trigger warning, and are more severe than what I’m personally speaking of, but they do get the point across.)

I say this because the idea of “just be awesome, and everything will work out!” is a privileged viewpoint. It’s something that can be said when you play on the easiest setting. Here is the thing – I have jeopardized jobs, missed opportunities, and lost friendships because I thought my competence was more relevant than my attractiveness (whatever the level of either of those). (I have also jeopardized jobs, missed opportunities, and lost friendships for other reasons. I am not scaping the goat here, as it were). For most of my life, and to some degree still, what is (or is not) between my legs has meant passing up those opportunities meant I might not get another such opportunity. This is not a “screw that person, something better will come along!” life. Now that I live in the enchanted world of people who “get it”, this is less of a problem. We can share dark humor, stories about compersion, and analysis of queer theory. But the path to here was long, and that’s from a privileged white girl.

From “Said the Pot to the Kettle” by Margaret Killjoy

It’s hard to talk about these things in public, because respect for me goes down, and therefore respect for what I do. We do not see individuals as many-faceted beings (something I think is deeply tied to our idealization of geniuses rather than polymaths), and so if I talk about gay rights or safe words, that is suddenly what I am to the exclusion of all else. I’m supposed to “pick my battles.” Which brings us to the second sort of response, which is to divide profiles. Now, I do have a snark twitter account, which very few people have access to. That is where I am snarky, which is something I don’t want other people to see. Unwavering optimism tempered by experience is what I think is most effective in public discourse (at least for the things I like to do), and so I keep my “really? seriously?” things to myself.

In contrast, my sexuality is a big part of my personality, and I would like it to be ok to share that. One of the reasons I find sexuality in general so fascinating is because it is the most basic part of being an organism (ANY organism), but is the most socially constructed for humans (the link as but one recent striking example). In general, I am wary of fracturing identity online, because I feel it’s important to stick your neck out (again, privilege talking) to make it safer for others to fully express themselves. (Caveats here about pseudonymity, activism, finding a new self, etc etc etc inserted here). Only by presenting ourselves respectfully as multi-faceted creatures, and calling bullshit when such a thing is not treated as the norm, can we build this better future.

So while I would really, really like to be able to crack a joke about Jesus dying on the cross because he forgot the safe word to a group of educators, humanitarians, and military folk, it’s just not going to be the case. It’s considered inappropriate coming from me. Which sucks, because Ye Olde Boys Club still can, if they want. What I have decided on, while writing this entry, is that it is worthwhile for me to be more outspoken so that it is easier for the people who come after me. But maybe I’m only saying that because I’m sitting in San Francisco right now, and it seems so easy. And I hope that my competence and ability to execute now fully trump whatever does or doesn’t happen between my bits and other people’s bits. And as in the links I’ve included here, I’d prefer people go after me than after someone else. I like the fight.

Thankful

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My life is amazingly spoiled, and it’s due in large part to the people in it. It’s nice to have a day on which I can be explicitly thankful. In very rough chronological order, here is a start. (It was kind of fun to try to remember when I had met people, given they are such threads in the tapestry of my life – I didn’t use a calendar. Perhaps later I’ll go back and try).

For my parents, whose methods for raising me have bordered on creepy in how thoughtful they are, but always functional.

For my brother, who has taught me what unconditional love is.

For my sister, and the closeness we’ve shared even when we are far away.

For my aunt Christie, who has been more generous than any niece deserves.

For Diz and Caleb, who hug so hard they shake.

For Libby, who has provided balance to my crazy as I learned to do so on my own.

For Vivian, who really does have the most beautiful snakes.

For Cbat, for providing insights and a home.

For Sougwen, for cigarettes on the walk home and hidden stories.

For Petra, a constant point of bright light, even when so far away.

For Grace, who has always made me think of entirely new things.

For Noah, who has been a provider and subtle heart.

For Preston, and going dancing.

For Magpie, who has taught me about nuance and long term plans.

For my sister in law, who has made my brother a better person.

For Ben, and making time for lunch.

For Qais, who has never judged me.

For Baron, who has become a corner stone in my life.

For Janine, who has always been easy to be around.

For 3ric, who always pushes me to be better.

For Ella, an ally, friend, and cohort.

For Rob, who has always been kind and open without having expectations.

For Sirus, for always being there.

For Beth, who has given me a long-view.

For Kav, who has taught me it is useful to ask for what you want.

For Jordan, sharing frustrations and a way to make things better.

For James, teaching me the tools I use to express myself.

For Sean, who has given so much back with such gentleness.

For MerBear, my partner in crime (and best wifey).

For Raine, and teaching me that beautiful friendships can come out of awful situations.

For Fabienne and Skytee, who have always been more welcoming than I know what to do with.

For Riley, who has constantly urged me to examine my assumptions and be better.

For M@, who held my hand even while I hurt him.

For Strand, and the absurd amount of patience you have had with me.

For Robin, whose unabashed warmth has made me more kind.

For Levi, who taught me humanity.

For Case, my partner in brains and bots.

For Eric, and his unblinking support.

For Jenbot, for washing my hair.

For Sunny, who has given so freely of herself I can’t imagine not doing the same.

For Meredith, who challenges and fights and utterly inspires.

For Lindsay, who has made expressing thoughts safe and easier.

For Diggz, who took a risk on a very strange bet, and believed in me even when it seemed not so good.

For John, giving shape and meaning to my skills.

For Tendy, for including me and handing me a light in dark times.

For Schuyler, and your unabashed geek about the skies.

For Rubin, and our shared sense of quiet desperation (and your hidden joy).

For Mark, who taught me it’s necessary to be a monkey.

For Isis, and making birthday pan-cakes.

For Lisha, who has been a solid baseline of engagement.

For Estee, who teaches me about how brains and hearts and the world are deeply connected.

For Heather, and unwavering support.

For Christina, who has more emotional intelligence than anyone I’ve ever met.

For Galit, the best of kittens.

For SJ, who has made safe space.

For Desi, who stuck her neck out.

 

For the Jigsaw crew, who has taught me to keep caring.

For all the people who have let me stay on their couches, making my travels that of home-to-home rather than vagabond.

For the Saturday Morning Cartoons crew, for teaching me what Home is.

For the Ardent crew, for your brains and your rants and your art and most of all.. your elevator shaft.

For the Awesummit crew, who taught me maybe we can win.

For the Boston crew, for reminding me that amazing people are behind all my favorite projects.

For the Aspiration crew, who made it ok to be as opinionated as I am.

 

I apologize if I have missed you – and would like the opportunity to express my thankfulness for you if you’ll just let me know.

An Open Letter to theoldreader.com

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Reader was my favorite social network, hands down. I was incredibly sad to see it go. When I found out theoldreader.com existed, I was giddy all day.

I wrote the team to thank them (hello at theoldreader dot com) and to also trouble shoot a bug. They were incredibly kind and prompt in response. After they fixed the glitch my massive address book was causing, I asked the following:

Next dreams:
What are privacy settings? Can only people I follow see my posts, only the friends of people I post comments to see those comments?
Multi-shares in same social network list people who shared rather than showing the post repeatedly.
But these are again, dreams, not issues.
Are we going to be able to pay the team a nominal amount to keep the project going? I would like to be able to support a group to do continued support rather than having this thing we all love die again.

Their response:

As per our privacy policy, all shared posts are currently public. We do have ‘private accounts’ feature in our roadmap that will allow users to expose their shared items only to a limited number of accounts they choose. However, this has very low priority for us; most users only read public RSS feeds that are available to everyone in the first place, so hiding them makes little sense.
We have discussed the mechanics of multi-sharing before and decided to stick to the current implementation to avoid mixing comments to two different shares into a single thread. Sometimes people discuss not the shared article itself, but rather the sharer’s comment to it – so, each shared post becomes unique in a way and deserves a separate comment thread.
At the moment The Old Reader is not backed up by any company, and we are still looking for the best way to allow our users to support the project. We will definitely update our blog when we decide on something, so make sure you are subscribed to it 🙂

Here is what I have sent them. I hope you’ll join me in politely, lovingly, requesting the same. I would also like you to be willing to throw in to support the team if that is the route they go.

I’d like to lobby that privacy get moved up the list. A few reasons, personal, individual, and communal. First, I work in humanitarian and disaster response, with volunteer technical communities and military alike. I also have an incredibly dark sense of humor. The people I work with tend to check out who I am and what I like – having another public space on which to express myself doesn’t really allow me to express myself. Those same working conditions also make it incredibly important that I be able to have a safe space to talk and connect.
On an individual level, I saw friends discover themselves because Reader was a safe space. Things like gender, sexuality, and approach in life are not things which can be held without care. People with very public lives have been able to go through self-discovery with a small group of trusted friends.
And finally, communal – while with privacy my own shares are only to those who I have approved, my comments on a friend’s share are visible to their friends. *This is essential* – there is at least one pairing from our previous ShareBro network which happened because of this serendipity in safe space. They are now married.

As it is now, it’s more like a Tumblr than it is like Reader. I hope you’ll institute the privacy and sharing layers sooner rather than later. Again, I’m happy to contribute what I can towards this being a sustainable effort.

All my best, and thanks again,

Willow

Coping Processes

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I’ve been struggling with social anxiety a lot lately. I’m aware of my stressors, the main one being the way I’ve been framing my work. It’s gotten to low-level panic attacks for days on end. Yes, I know I work too much. Yes, I know I tend to care far too much about the wrong things. Let me re-state that. I mis-prioritize my actions based on the outcomes I would like (I don’t execute in ways that will further my end goals).

And then the crux of the problem – I am actually an introvert who just happens to be good at people. I feel like the stage tech who gets dragged out on stage to act, and I just want to be in the dark reading cues and flipping switches so other people can bare their souls. The people who like doing that sort of thing. That said, I find people fascinating. I love how individuals build a society out of their communities. But. Every single person I cross paths with, or see on the street, or see the lighted window in a building.. each of them has a life that is just as complex (if not more so) as mine. And most of it will never overlap with me – which is great. But it’s so.. massive. And complicated by all the other lives abutting theirs, the social factors they’re not even aware of, that we’re all monkeys in clothes with language. And then one person comes up to you and asks you where the bathroom is, and it’s like “do you even realize what that means? That we have bathrooms! History and context and memetics! And that so many people used that public restroom before you!” I don’t even care about the washed hands (I mean I do, but not in this context), there’s just so much past-ness (thanks, Dymaxion, for the term) behind that stall door. And should we even be using toilets? And that’s just a tiny portion of everyone’s day that no one really thinks about. And then the person just blinks at you, and you point them in the (supposedly) right direction, and they walk that way. And then someone else comes up to you. Rinse and repeat.

So. That. I’ve started medication that is situation-based, only in my system for so long, to deal with the anxiety. And there’s the possibility of mood-stabilizing drugs, but first I have to set up a double-blind and match a placebo. Which brings us to the point of this entry (you knew we’d get here eventually): processes for coping. But first another tangent!

One of the reasons I’m medicating is because it’s incredibly difficult to keep a routine when on the road, what with switching timezones constantly and staying in other people’s space. Pacing around half-naked and sweaty practicing German after a morning run can only be done in the closest of friends’ living rooms. But the nomadic lifestyle is so incredibly worth it. And even a routine is just a coping mechanism, a way to stave off the anxiety. Something my psych said that made me feel better about the situation was “I don’t think it’s psychosomatic – you would have dealt with it by sheer force of will. There is something going on in your brain you don’t have control over.” Which also freaks me out, but oh well.

Processes help. Routine when you can find it. Meditation is a process. Quantified Self can be a process. I talked to Ed of i3 Detroit (and recent transplant to Boston) about his process. He’s listed out people who are important to him in a column, and dates across the top row. He draws a smiley or frowny face for what sort of topic he called them about, when. He can see how to balance good calls and bad calls, and make sure that he’s been keeping up with folk. I’m going to try this out. The best I can hope to do is once a month – I hate the phone in general, and even this would be a vast improvement over the current complete lack.

What do you do to cope? What processes do you have?

How do you know who is important? My three criteria are that they make me think, they make me laugh, and they aren’t drama. I am blessed that my list of people is so long. That doesn’t mean I’m any good at keeping up with people who I should be indicating my fondness of. I *suck* at keeping up with people. I am very present where I am, which means I’m just not pinging people that aren’t there right then. Which has been a difficult place for me to get to. Apparently humans take some time every day to contact folk who aren’t physically present. I thought about auto-sending emails of affection and check-ins, but that seems fake. What I can do is set alarms for myself, to be sure I do things when I should. That’s more authentic, right?

Also, you should totally check out Ed. He’s awesome. He does things like Penflake, and now works with the Center For Civic Media, my biggest organizational crush right now. Be still my activist techie heart.

He also made a way for people to create easily in the same way.

I wanted to do something interactive for Maker Faire last year. I had been drawing my PenFlakes, and thought it would be cool if people could design their own and print them out. So I created FlakePad, a javascript/HTML5 web app that enforces the basic symmetry of a snowflake, and provides a hexagonal grid to work off of.

Aside from being a great way to get my hands dirty with HTML5, the most interesting part of the app was creating the hexagonal grid. I wound up learning about and utilizing Isometric Cubic Coordinates. These coordinates provide an amazingly simple way to label hexagons on a grid, as well as a relatively simple transformation to and from standard Cartesian Coordinates. The basic trick is to recognize that a hexagonal grid, can be seen as a projection of a 3D arrangement of cubes centered on the plane x+y+z=0 (imagine Q*bert, the old NES game).

Livin’ Green

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TL;DR : My sister is in a voting thing, and it would mean a lot to her (and me) if you were to place your vote here.

I don’t know how many of you know this, but my family is *totally* awesome. Activist attorney father, artist jewelry-smith draftsman mother living in the town my dad grew up in. They’ve been married for quite awhile, and met when my half-sister was two. They spaced us kids so if we had gone to school like we were supposed to, they would have had padding to save back up and send another one out.

We are a physical family, hugging and leaning and playing. When I was young, we used to wrestle. I still toss my younger cousins around. The goal used to be stealing the hankie from my dad’s back pocket, him carefully laying aside his wire-frame glasses. It meant I was never scared to get into a fight – I’m comfortable in my own skin and know what it is to get into a tuss.

My brother is an oneophile with a love of words and deep study. He has the complete OED, and cherishes his rare copy of a reverse-etomological dictionary (broken out by roots, rather than listing roots after the words). He makes puns which much be explained via culture, historical events, and nuances of language. He wears bowties. And still, under it all, the understanding of what it is to be comfortable in your own body, not just as a thing to carry your head around, but as something that is a part of you.

And my sister! Despite having grown up only seeing each other once or twice a year, we are incredibly close. She is a story teller, a physical comedian, and feels the world with such passion I don’t know how her heart handles it. I attribute much of my adaptability and acceptance to visiting her home in NYC while young (and still today), seeing Off-Off-Broadway plays and the night life of the city. She does jazz and modern dance, clowning, and acting. I suppose they can all be the same thing.

She’s supported herself for years between her artistic endeavors and teaching people to be comfortable in their own skins through personal training. She’s moved from the stage to film, bouncing between LA and NYC. And now there’s this thing, Fit or Flop, for TV about the next personal trainer. Jessie has a good grasp of what is involved with the process of growing her business, and where the value in this competition lies. I think she should win. And while I usually don’t go for TV nor for popularity contests, this involves both. And I’m ok with that because it means so much to me that the world sees how awesome she is.

The brand management prize is hefty and would allow me to reach many people across the world with my comprehensive approach to overall health and fitness.

Please join me. At least vote once. If you’re zelous or feel like automation, it can take one vote a day per profile for two months.

  • Direct: http://www.fitorflop.com/contestants/jessie_green/
  • Twitter: @JessLivinGreen
  • Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/LivinGreen

True to form, it seems the registration emails for this site tend to dump straight to spam filters. Please check there if you aren’t receiving it.

JESSICA GREEN MOVEMENT REEL from Jessica Green on Vimeo.

And my favorite thing she’s done.

Technomad Favorites

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Stuff I use to help me be awesome on the road.

Phone

Home screen

Fancy Widget – sets up different launch options for each area of the screen. Drastically reduces how much real estate is taken up by often-used applications.

  • Any.do – it’s super easy to drop balls when you’re constantly shifting gears. This display cycles through tasks – I use it for things that are too small to put in Basecamp or email. Things like “call mom and dad” and “send that letter.”
  • Blik calendar is just pretty. It shows me all the things coming up for the day in an easy-to-use format.

Travel drawer:

  • Latitude has the effect of making me feel close to people, no matter where they are.
  • Geoloqi is the perfect way to let people know you’re on your way without the constant texting, and without the privacy issues of Latitude. Especially handy when on a motorcycle (can’t contact to say you’re stuck in traffic).
  • Local reminds me of awesome places through bookmarks. Wonderful when you’re jet lagged and just want a sandwich, but forget what food-rating app they use in that country.
  • Offi does great mapping and maps in the cities it’s available in. I like it way more than google maps, but sadly it’s not available in many US cities.
  • OneBusAway is the Seattle transit live update – tells you which buses go where, and what timing they’re ACTUALLY on, not what they’re schedule to be.
    Translate for obvious reasons.
  • Uber is my favorite fancy thing. Town car service at just a bit more than a taxi. But here’s the thing – all done through your phone – payment, requesting a pickup (usually within 10 minutes), map, receipt. Perfect for when you’re drunk or tired or just feel like splurging. Also, the same app will get you service in NYC, BOS, SEA, SFO, and likely other places.
  • EmbarkNYC will help you figure out if you’re on the right metro train while you’re underground. Invaluable, if a bit crashy.

Travel screen:

  • 
TripIt: Next flight, and all your confirmation codes etc at a tap. I used to store everything in my gcal, but this can now automatically update that with a forwarded confirmation email.
  • 
TouchCal: I load my WorldWideWillow calendar into this as its only displayed calendar – I can tell where I am, when. “How long are you in Chicago for?” “When do you get back to Seattle?” At a glance, I know.

On my computer

  • Boomerang is the best thing since whatever was the best thing after sliced bread. Does two things. One, sends an email later, which is wonderful if you’re in a weird time zone, have insomnia, or don’t want to be lost in the deluge of email someone is getting right after a conference. Second, it will return a message to the top of your inbox after a set amount of time (based on if someone has responded or not, or regardless of that). Makes you seem REALLY on top of your shit. (“I haven’t heard back on this yet, and we were talking about doing it next week. Do you still have time?”)
  • Pomodoro: 25 minutes of work, 5 minutes of play. This working method has been fantastic for me, especially because it logs the time (easy invoicing) and it gives me this cool little reminder of what I’m up to – invaluable for constant context shifts.

A weekend of adventures

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Embarked on a 5 hour road trip with someone I’m really enjoying getting to know.

Slept in a deflation-prone giant boob. Woke in the middle of the night to it 2 feet from my face, scrambling to turn on the fans and prop it up.

Saw Unwoman play her electric cello with only mountains and desert behind her.

Sat in the pseudo-shade while Jerk Church occurred around me, them with “this machine kills dubstep” and tiny dog on lap.

Walked barefoot on the softest sometimes-lake. Ran into the night.

Remembered that not every problem that other people have is mine to fix.

Napped in the shade while my camp shot a huge cross section of guns. Got to know people with orange hair, and purple, and red.

Wrote this while sitting in the Reno airport, stinky from the Playa, being oggled by gamblers, browsing Reddit.

Show me your scars

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I had a great time the other day – a friend loaned me his SV so I could go for a ride. I excitedly grabbed my jacket – the same one I had cut off of me on November 1st, and stitched the sleeve back up. And I noticed that my scar showed through the zipper area. That got me to thinking. How many people retain the clothes they were violently injured in? Can you see your scars through them? I want to see. The amazing Libby Bulloff has offered to help me out with this (ie, I have no artistic talent but she has loads). I’d interview the models about how they got the scar, why they kept the clothing it occurred in, and how it has affected their everyday life. Hit me up at willowbl00 at gmail and include “show me your scars” in the subject line. And please do pass it on. Obviously preferred if folk are in Seattle. If there are enough interested parties, we’ll put on an art show.

update on DARPA stance

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There is clearly a vacuum that MAKE is filling via DARPA funding – our schools are crap. Military and religion have no place in education for youth outside of history classes.

I fully support people who wish to take a public (or private) stance against these associations.

My conscious, after much introspection and conversations with amazing people, dictates that I remain involved as a connector, to hopefully create an introduction to the ideals of mutual aid, transparency, adaptability, and emergence to these less-political communities. I want to increase the number of people who care about things like this, and to me that means being involved in the process.

I request that we continue this dialog until it is not necessary – I never want any morally questionable thing to go unnoticed.