Category Archives: personal

September Joy : Hot Springs

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June through July were INTENSE for me. Getting Priceless was a lot of intensity without a lot of partying (it was still a wonderful time, and also I need a little more play in my work:play ratio). I’ve been looking for work and contracting. And then in August, the family vacation we were meant to take for 2 weeks (a luxury provided by Reed’s family, that we’re forever grateful for) ended up seeming to turn into 10 days of caring for Reed and Locke while they had covid. That was supposed to be those 10 days followed by still 1 week of vacation, but then Reed bounced on his covid test after we landed and so I was on solo child duty, while also making sure Reed had food and care while sequestered in a hotel, while ALSO dealing with another family’s dynamics (some of whom thought it was a personal failing on our part that Reed was still sick despite 2 days of testing negative). So I was pretty crispy. Reed and I had a few explicit conversations about how to be kind to each other and be in cahoots because of how easy it would be to slip into sniping at each other. We did a good job, but we were both thoroughly exhausted. 

And so I conspired with grandma and Yolanda (Locke’s main non-family caretaker) to cover a few days of time, and booked Reed and me two nights at a nearby hot springs. It was so good. No signal, no devices (even Kindles!) allowed in the soaking areas. Just books and hot water and naps and my honey. What a way to mainline relaxation. The only sharable picture I took was of our yurt ceiling. 

a 12-sided shape made out of a wooden ceiling reveals some trees.

There were clawfoot bathtubs that just had a constant flow of hot water running into them. There was a cute older Danish couple who seemed to be relishing getting to be naked again. There was a beautiful kitchen to make your own food in, and people came together to play music together one afternoon. Magical, A++, intend to do again.

The cost of cat ownership

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I had an interview for a job prospect I’m really excited about early this morning. Predictably, I didn’t sleep well last night — I both had stress dreams, and my cat horked up his dinner at about 1a. I experience hypervigilence, including while I sleep, so anyone coming up or down the stairs, dealing with doors within earshot, and yes, distressed cats will wake me up. I used to be able to sleep through anything, but now: IS THE BABY ALIVE???? (Yes, he is. He is fine. He is four years old and capable of indicating when he needs help.)

That’s ok. Bad nights happen. My body still wakes up naturally at 5:30a each morning. I did a little meditation in bed and decided to try to set everyone up to succeed for their days as a way of starting my day off right. First up: find a pair of matching socks for Locke, who has run out of socks. Sunday is laundry day and I usually get the folding as well as the washing done, but yesterday involved a birthday party and other adventures, so I had two overflowing hampers of clean laundry in my room. Might as well fold while I hunt for two matching tiny pairs of socks.

About halfway into the first hamper, I’ve located two matching socks. Wonderful, and a start on folding. I toss the rolled up pair in front of Locke’s door so when he inevitably opens his door to holler downstairs in distress of not being able to find a pair, he’ll hopefully look down and we’ll all be a bit easier off.

I go downstairs to take a shower. Delightful. But when I return upstairs, there is only one lonely sock on the landing. My cat has apparently disassembled the pair, left one, and taken the other one… somewhere. Sigh.

No matter, I will make myself a cup of coffee, make Locke’s lunch, and meander around a bit while I look for it. Luckily, it’s not the worst to find, and I return the pair to in front of Locke’s door.

I take the cats outside for their morning backyard (supervised) romp. My cat attempts to take on a squirrel. My cat is 9 pounds, and this squirrel looks to be about the same. My cat refuses to come inside when called (he’s usually quite good about this) and I have to reclaim him from his “tripper trap” corner where he’s convinced squirrels spawn from and he must be Ever Vigilant there.

Get the cats fed and finally sit down at my desk to prep for my morning interview. And this little shit comes in, sits down in front of my keyboard and begins yowling for aggressive pats. I have finally had enough and kick him out of the office.

A void cat pulls hard on a pink tassel toy. HIs claws are out, his tail is a blur, and his eyes are wide. He is truly a thing of silliness.

I love this little empty-headed goblin so much, but jeeze.

July Joy : Kids at Priceless

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So as I’ve mentioned before, I help out with this medium-sized anticapitalist campout in the woods with lots of music and art. I love it. It also drives me batty.

As one might imagine, a festival that’s been running for 20 years has some Complex Feelings on a few topics. One of those topics is kids. Way back when the crew of friends who threw the event started having one or two grubs emerging, they sat down and had a (really long) discussion. What they arrived at was: Priceless is a festival for adults that Priceless-friendly kids are welcome at. It is up to the adults in their lives to mediate their experience, and no one is to censure themselves or change their behavior just because there are kids present.

Locke in a gnomish pointed straw hat, tiedye shirt, and shorts kneels in front of a circle made of upright sticks in the sand. There are some leaves and a bottle cap in the center of the circle. Floaties and sandals are in the background.

Over the years, the number of kids increased. And the message was a bit lost. A couple years ago, I was on People Team, and multiple people mentioned choosing art or changing their musical acts because of kiddos being present. Others weren’t in the headspace they wanted to be in while there were kids present. So we sat down again for another long conversation about kids at Priceless. And we realized that we were all on board for the original message. Priceless isn’t kid-friendly, but Priceless-friendly kids are welcome. We wrote some new things — refined the child waiver that sets out expectations, and also put together an expectations doc that all attendees can read to level-set.

Estelle and Yulia put together the area called Kidsville this year; and Reed, JoJo (grandma), and I brought Locke to his first Priceless.

We went camping twice this year in anticipation of Priceless — once for one night, and then a follow-up with birthday buddy Liora for two nights. Camping was a smash hit, but we were still nervous to have him at a festival. So much stimulation, so many people, such a bigger area than our usual campground. But we got set up near 3 other families we know well and ended up with a little living room area in addition to the big Kidsville lounge area a short walk away. And Locke LOVED it. I was mostly preoccupied with helping the whole event run, but the rest of the fam swam in the river, and ate pancakes, and dug in the sand.

Willow, Reed, and Locke cuddle on some grass. Willow sits upright in a bikini top with lots of tattoos and signature blue hair. Reed has a pink mohawk and head in Willow's lap. Locke leans against Willow with one leg held up and a smile.

By the end of the event, our reserved kiddo was going up to strangers to ask them to play with him. The noise levels weren’t too much for him! And he did a great job of playing with the other kids. Being in such a high-trust environment was good for all of us. Looking forward to similar experiences in the future.

The secrets we keep

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I now know that saying you work at Apple is like saying you work at the government. Which part matters a lot.

I worked in Security, Engineering, and ARchitecture (SEAR) for the last 5 years as an Engineering Project Manager (EPM). I had a key role in helping Contact Key Verification, Blastdoor, Advanced Data Protection, Forgotten Passcode, Legacy Contact, Child Safety, and some hardware improvements ship. I was doing infrastructural work to continually improve security across the keychain, certificates, cryptography, authentication, insight and detection, endpoint security, and sandboxing. I made sure we got our certifications. I helped Red Teams and fuzzing to be effective. Not all at the same time. But 2-4 releases in flight at a time, and 3-6 teams on board at a time.

A lot of what I worked on I can’t talk about. And I will continue to not talk about until they ship. That was the problem.

I thrive on talking to a wide variety of people about whatever they’re passionate about. I invest in my network, and my network loves me back. It is deep and powerful. I love getting groups of folks to discover something collectively that is new to each of them. I love making weird connections between groups to help them be better. Apple works on the pushing-a-pimple-out-of-a-circle innovation route, a choose-the-best-from-set-options route, and I work the novel-graph-connection-to-make-something-new route. And it was slowly crushing my spirit.

At first, the company was big enough that I was still able to make graph connections. But that wore out quickly as we ran into disclosures and folks not being able to talk about what they actually knew and were passionate about. I still did senior-level technical project manager work while not in my lane. I tracked projects, I mentored folks. Things shipped. But I struggled. I wasn’t happy. I didn’t have anything to talk about with my husband or son when I got home from work. Reed, at one point, pretended that I worked a miniature golf course experience production company. When I vented about a coworker (the only part of work I felt comfortable talking about with non-disclosed folks), he’d sagely nod while thinking “ah, hole 3 is really coming together.”

I tried this experiment for 3 years of trying to have non-productive hobbies. You know, cross stitch and stuff. And it just didn’t work for me. I applaud the folks who can turn off, I will fight for our rights to have time to do things that are not governed by capitalism. I read sci-fi in bed for sure, but I didn’t like trying to take up spare hours on weekends not organizing people. I’m like a Border Collie or something. And I want to talk to people about it. I want to be able to make sense of the world by connecting what I know to what other people know. It’s hilarious to me that Apple TV is what Severance is on. I get the “surprise and delight” thing, but ends up I do not like surprises or getting them.

Securing a billion people without them having to care or notice is a pretty compelling argument, so I stuck with it for 5 years. I worked with many incredible, driven people. But for me, the same reason I struggle with role playing tabletop games is the same reason I struggled at Apple — I am my whole self, with all of its facets, all of the time. I can keep a secret (snitches get stitches!), but I can’t keep a whole part of my life secret.

So, I’m looking for work. Here’s my portfolio of things I’ve done. Here’s my resume. And I’m dipping my toe back in with the disaster zine, digital estate planning, security consulting implementation with Myeong at Tiny Gigantic, and facilitation gigs in the meantime. Let me know if you have a me-shaped hole, because trying to do not-me-shaped things sure didn’t work. I’m a work horse, and I’m good, and I also really like sharing.

Content warning: suicide

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I met a woman once, who was constantly in and out of prison and jail. She was smart, and kind, but also knew that she didn’t know how to exist in the world the way society wanted her to. She didn’t like being in prison or jail, but she knew that was where she would keep ending up. She had brought suit in Indiana to ask to be allowed to die. She was a drain on the system, she wasn’t happy, and there was no way out that she could see. The judge didn’t allow her to die with dignity.

I’m a big fan of Death With Dignity. I think there are all sorts of times that it makes sense for a person to opt out of living intentionally. I don’t think deep depression is one of those times, but there are other circumstances. We all die eventually, and I sure would like to be of sound mind and body when I decide when my time will be.

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May Joy : Pedal Bike!

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I sold my last car in 2008. While I’ve had motorcycles since then, it’s been important to me to be car free. Reed and I are deeply aligned on that, and have structured the entirety of our lives around this.

I got into bicycles in 2016 when Reed, Tilde, and Rubin built me up a city bike. This was before Reed and I had met, mind you. I loved that bike. I didn’t understand why I’d ever want anything more than 7 speeds. Now bikes are by far my preferred mode of transit, including biking the 50 miles into the office some mornings when I’m going in.

A spreadsheet of bicycles with columns for years starting in 2016 and rows for each bicycle I've owned. Each bike also gets a rating and a status.

I love bicycles. And my life is built around that love at this point. So we were reasonably anxious about how Locke would feel about bicycles. He was in an infant car seat in the front of our Load 75 before his due date. We also had both the Yepp Mini for the front of the bike (way more fun) and the Yepp Maxi for the back of the bike (when he got too big for the Mini and for when we have a full cargo load in the Load 75). We have to ride to preschool even when it’s raining or the traffic is bad. There are lots of opportunities for him to decide that bikes aren’t for him. And we have friends who love bikes whose kiddos just never really got into it.

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Riding my own coat tails

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Pregnancy was hard on me for gender and pregnancy reasons. Then Locke came 2 months early, and then Reed suffered from something like Postpartum Depression for 18 months. Life was really hard for a long time. But I did the hard therapy work and thought I was past all of it. Locke was consistently sleeping through the night and so was I. But I wasn’t coming out of the brain fog. I worried it was because of substance love affairs I’ve had in the past. Every doctor I talked to told me that wouldn’t have lasting, increasing effects. Was it because I had long covid? The timeline of symptoms starting didn’t match up. But work and home were both being impacted to significant degrees (once the subject was finally broached), and things seemed to be getting worse.

It took a long time for any of this to even come up. I’ve been performing at a high enough level in nearly all parts of my life that most people don’t monitor what I’m doing, and if I do mess up they usually think I have deep thinking behind it at most, and that it’s a small glitch if it is a mistake. But my new manager at work was paying enough attention to notice, and when I brought it up with Reed he was eventually (after being super supportive) like “just so you have all the data.. it’s not just at work.” He had been concerned about early onset dementia, I was being so forgetful and unobservant!

During all that time, I was mostly masking by having good practices in place that were documented and that I could follow even in my reduced state. I have excellent people in my life who were willing and able to support me even through a hard time because I had invested in our relationships when I did have capacity. And so while it took awhile for all this to come to light, and months to diagnose what was happening, I was able to maintain good practices in the meantime. I’ve been riding Past Willow’s coat tails to recover enough for Future Willow to be well again. Thanks, Past Willow!

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Time is the only thing we don’t get more of

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I’m obsessed with time. I think it’s the only thing we don’t get more of, our most precious resource. It’s the currency of caring. I live my life by my calendar to the point friends have had interventions with me. I had gcal pins made both to celebrate this love and also to subtly flag for polyamory. One of my favorite books is Latitude, about the race between astronomers and horologists to help people sail the sea. So at some point, I realized I wanted to get a tattoo about time.

This is part of a series on my Santa Perpetua tattoos. You can read the rest in the tattoo category on this blog.

Conceptual drawing of Willow's chest piece. Includes a skull in a heart, a person growing up, a heart beat, ASCII hex code that says "the second best time is now", a clock before a sunburst, and paint splatters.
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April Joy : Waffles and dress up

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April has been a really nice month. I went and got two tattoos finished (more on that soon) and visited with friends while there. Locke has been thriving. We’ve gotten some clarity on what’s happening with my brain (also more on that later).

But my April Joy was quite a lot closer to home. A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to do something ad hoc and silly for my birthday party. I wrote a few sentences, made a calendar invite, and fired off an email to a bunch of folks.

My birthday is in April, and I’d like to invite y’all over for kids, chaos, and waffles in the morning. Please 1/ wear something ridiculous that you’ve been looking for an excuse to wear but haven’t found an opportunity to do so, 2/ bring your kiddo(s), 3/ bring a waffle iron and/or toppings and/or something sparkly to share. Maybe we’ll play some board games.

Estee even flew in from Portland! Something like 30 mostly-neighbors but some further away folks showed up and it was exactly what it said on the tin. With so many adults around, the kids were able to run around lightly supervised and got into all sorts of fun times. I loved two sets of friends whose kiddos are within weeks of each other catching up while the younguns played with magnets on the fridge. Reed even set up his retro video game systems so kids could play old games.

Forced perspective of a neighborhood kiddo playing Super Mario Brothers on an old CRT TV while three little kids and one medium kid watch on. North the white cat enters the room with an upright happy tail.

I made something like 4 bowls of waffle batter, plus Reed’s mom made gluten free batches, and one neighbor showed up with this amazing mix already in a bowl with impeccable timing! Something like 7 neighbors brought waffle irons to help out; one brought a big French Press to speed up our coffee making, and we made a mess of toppings on the dining room table. And I got to just hang out in the kitchen making waffles while other people socialized and got to know each other! I learned we can have two high-energy things on the kitchen circuit at a time, so we had a precarious workflow of mixer, microwave, and irons going at all times.

And so many fabulous outfits! Even some of the kids dressed up. Sad I forgot to offer people name tags, but so stoked that people will know each other while walking around outside just a little bit more, and that the kids know to look out for each other. And one neighbor saw that we were not quite complete on our LEGO D&D minifigs and brought us the ones we were missing. How fabulous is it to be in community?! So fabulous.