Happy Year Everyone!
Happy Earth’s orbit time unit demarcation point! Here is a sort of mass holiday letter, via blog, to ceremoniously open the year. Starting with a picture of me looking like a happy Time Lord, wrapped in a silk scarf with the Puppis Nebula on it and with a giant bow on my head, grinning like a fool.
It’s been a good year. I met many new fabulous people mostly through Double Union and conferences, read a lot, worked on a new zine, published some articles including some in Model View Culture and a year-end review of books and culture at the Aqueduct Press blog worked super hard at Mozilla, had my ups and downs physically and with mobility, visited Portland a couple of times for Open Source Bridge, AdaCamp, and for work, went to Montreal for PyCon, went to WisCon, played a ton of Ingress, worked with Ada Initiative and a little on geekfeminism.org (as usual). Got to hang out really a lot with my friends. So many lovely, warm, interesting people!! I adore them. Had a fabulous, sweet, talented roommate for a month. Made a tiny zine, Heterodoxy to Marie. I got to see Sandra while I was in Montreal and found out at the end of the year that her and Sophie’s film, The Amina Profile, will be at the Sundance Film Festival (I am in this movie, somewhere, interviewed.)
Feminst hacker lounge (year 2) from PyCon:
Zine Workshop at Double Union:
Movie poster for The Amina Profile:
I have admired this is the movement and #ThisTweetCalledMyBack this year. Solid.
In the fall, I missed a trip I had planned with Danny, to Mexico City and Bogotá hackerspaces, but I felt good about the decision not to go especially once I saw the many flights of stairs I would have had to negotiate somehow. (!) Sad about it though. Spent a month and a half in CAM walking boots (the ankle moon boots) which was a nasty wake-up call. And which freaked me out and upset me greatly. Re-focused my life around physical therapy, kind of (in that it is my top priority to go to the Very Warm Pool (92°F) to exercise and strengthen my legs, any time I can make time).
I lost a friend to sudden unexpected death this year. I miss her every day. Another part of my feelings of refocusing on health and drawing inwards a little. What a privilege I have had to reach this age without very much of this kind of loss. Had a bracing-myself feeling like, “And so it begins”. Our lives just fly by. I dearly wish she were here to appreciate #ThisTweetCalledMyBack. Surely she knows or knew how deeply she would be missed by so many of us. Please hold your friends and compañeras close, everyone.
Here’s what I keep saying to myself. How will I try to model sustainable feminist activism for others and for myself? (Is it possible? Maybe not.) What if I get off that mustang? Can I? What would life be like if I “gave” 60%, not 110%? Will I ever feel that I do “enough” or experience “enough”? (No. Must CHILL.) (Thanks for these pointers, awesome new behavioral pain/disability/insomnia therapist.)
Life generally fabulous with Danny. Yesterday afternoon we were there just doing our thing, alternating between domestic things, editing and writing (sometimes together), half working and half not, and zoning out playing our current video games (Elite Dangerous and Clash of Clans). A few friends were about to come over. He went, “wait, this is what people THINK we do all the time” (writing together on the couch) Well, we do….. just not every moment obviously since the garbage needs to go out and we are often both ill and exhausted and just slumped around the house. But then we have this great synergy and can communicate and understand each other better than anything. *hearts*
Over all, I settled more and more into living in this little rented earthquake shack in San Francisco with Danny and our kids, who are beyond awesome.
Many horrible, sad, annoying things happened this year as well and to all of that I call BULLSHIT. Enough said!
Here is the most frivolous milestone for the year I can think of (demonstrated last night) After many years of patiently lap-training Danny’s cat, I can now turn her upside down. She purrs and stays upside down on my lap. TRIUMPH.
"Hey, hey sister it don't matter Whether I do labor fast or slow, There's always more labor after."