Tag: Stream of Consciousnesses

Categories
Travel

Day 539 and Hurry Up and Wait

As summer travel is turning into a source of horror stories and tears, I decided the best way to handle transiting across various borders is to pad every flight with extra time. To hurry up and wait as a strategy.

This has naturally lead to some significant mind numbing waiting issues. Two hours in an airport lounge isn’t as fun as I imagined or even remember. Lounges seemed nicer in the past. Sitting in the liminal with lots of other bored, stressed, and otherwise disengaged humans gives you plenty to watch but little of interest.

My lounge experience went as you’d expect. People giving each other a wide berth while they sip mediocre white wine. Teenagers trying to not to look at their parents in case someone cool passes by. All forms of athleisure and sweat pants swaddling the asses of women just hoping for a comfortable flight. The occasional child demanding a cookie from the two poorly stocked snack sections

When it’s time to board everyone simply mobs the doors. No one care about any system. It’s just a throng of desperation yearning to get on and claim overhead baggage space. I’d like to be irritated as I paid for business class but status is funny that way.

I can’t even find anyone to Karen at to say I’m supposed to be up front. So I wait at the back of the line. No one is following orders because no one is giving them. I packed compact & sensibly but everyone else is testing the limits. No wonder everyone wants to get on as fast as they can. Overpacking must be a stress response.

The entire experience is a war of all against all. If everyone is priority boarding than no one is a priority. It’s just pushing and shoving and giving no fucks. Sadly I give fucks about decorum and politeness so I didn’t have the balls to try to make a run around. I just said and wait and wait. Hurry up and wait.

Categories
Internet Culture

Day 536 and Keeping Tabs

I sometimes forget that other people read what I write. That makes me pretty comfortable just saying whatever I like in public. It’s not like anyone cares right? As someone skilled in the dark arts of marketing, I know getting anyone to pay attention to anything is a shit ton of work. Surely I am speaking into the void.

As I don’t actively promote my writing in any commercial way, my assumption is that the one Tweet I send daily with a link isn’t garnering a large audience. I know that I have a big presence on social media but I’m not a celebrity so I’ve never felt particularly scrutinized. No one is keeping tabs on me.

So I’m often surprised when someone has read what I’ve said. Not because it is a secret but because I know just how hard it is to get attention for anything in this world. And yet people do pay attention.

And since my husband loves to joke that I’m incapable of lying, I worry that I’ll get myself in trouble by saying so much of my truth online. If I’ve done something in my life the chances are good I’ll immediately discuss it. Which is a recipe for being main charactered.

Dissembling is not one of my talents. This isn’t to say that I’m not capable of crafting a narrative. I think facts exist in a context and I’ve got no problem articulating my worldview based on my own specific context. But telling an outright lie? There is a reason I don’t play poker. So I guess I might be stuck with saying my truth online as I’ve got neither the skills nor the talent to hide it. But if you are reading you are more than welcome to comment, email, @ Tweet me or find online.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 535 and Daddy’s Girl

I hate Father’s Day. I find myself debating if I can get away with a text or an email marking the occasion. I do this as I’d like to make it through the day without crying. I almost never can. Sometimes I just ignore it entirely.

I’ll reach out to my brother and ask how he is doing. He’s the only one that seems to have a better grip on the “our father” feelings. They are complex for me and untangling them is always painful.

I am a Daddy’s Girl. Everything that’s good (and some of what is bad) about me is a refraction of my father’s ambitions, interests, desires and personality.

I got my love of technology from him. I got my career in startups from him. I learned to socialize and leave a good impression from him. I got my optimism from him. I also got my need for distance from him. My preference for keeping my loved ones a little further away is from him. My struggles with intimacy and emotional availability are his too. I am my father’s daughter. I suspect I’ve also acted as a proxy for what he wanted in a son as well.

Even after years of therapy, unpacking how I feel about my father has not made the tender feelings any less acute when I touch them. I merely understand that my trauma is my father’s trauma and his trauma is his father’s and so on stretching back to who knows when. We carry our heritage.

I tell my father I’ve forgiven him for his mistakes. That I understand he did his best. I don’t think he believes me. I hope he does one day. He done what he could.

I am the absolute best of my father’s good traits. I am also the absolute worst of them too. Most of the good I have is because of him and most of the bad too.

Which makes me so angry. The steam rising up that my mother did all of the emotional work, gave me all of the love, and yet here I am a reflection of him and not her.

I’ll never understand how divorced parents can live with that kind of betrayal. To have done all the emotional work of parenting and yet see their child as a reflection of the other one. Anger is usually just hurt. And I do hurt. Not on my mother’s behalf. She is fine. I hurt because I wanted my father to be there too.

My father tried so hard to be a good father. My dad paid the bills. My dad was funny and well liked by everyone but his immediate family. My brother and I love him, but for a long time I don’t think we liked him. Maybe I’m wrong as my brother has been working through his feelings longer than me. Maybe he always liked him. I know we always loved him. I still love him.

I like my dad now. I can see him as a human as I get more distance from my childhood. He can be an old man now and not the father figure that let me down. Which is a relief when I can hold that thought. I see all his good and how he passed it on to me. And I can see how even the bad, perhaps especially the bad, what made me into the woman I am.

He is smart and loves technology. He has never missed a Comdex or eventually a CES. He always has the newest gadgets. His enthusiasm for new things has never waned.

Like other Boomers, his belief in the future and in youth, let him retain a kind of enthusiasm for what’s next even in hard times. And that inspired my entire life’s trajectory.

There will never be a time in my life when I don’t seek his approval. He loves the future and I want to create the future for him. The new and the next will always be for him as much as it is for me.

Which is impressive as the “new” hasn’t always been kind to him. He suffered for his optimism. I have no fear going into this recession because I saw him be broken by one and come out the other side. He is still the same enthusiast he was before the markets crashed and bankruptcy hollowed out his American dream. He got it all back and more. And that belief that we can build back always stuck with me. I’ve never been afraid of hard times because of him.

I’m moving to Montana soon. He moved there first. He’s like that. Always seeing one step ahead. I fought against the idea of Montana for a bit as I wasn’t sure I could make the same decisions he did. Even though I often do.

But I do believe he is right about the last best place on earth. And true to our preferences for distance he will be a comfortable five or six hour drive away. Neighbors in the end but with plenty of space.

Fathers and daughters have it tough these days. Sexism and expectations for how to live are in flux. My father did his absolute best to never let me see myself as anything less than equal. Which isn’t always an unqualified good but I’m still grateful for all of it.

If you’ve ever felt let down by your father even as you know he’s buoyed you up your entire life, then this post might make perfect sense. If not then it may seem offensive to codify the complexities of a familial relationship in public. How could she write something like this? To which I say sometimes the only way to love someone is to say your truth out loud.

Happy Father’s Day Dad. I love you. And I know that to be true because love is having someone betray you, utterly let you down, or even do the unforgivable, and yet you still love them all the same. I forgive you. I am still Daddy’s Girl.

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 534 and Never Go Home

They say you can never go home. I never took the saying to heart as I didn’t have a consistent childhood home for more than a few years at a time. We moved once every two years till I went off to college. And it only got worse from there as I wandered from dorm rooms to illegal sublets over a decade or so of instability. Probably why I’m so excited to be buying a house. For me there was no childhood home where I could return.

But the one place I considered home was Boulder Colorado. I lived in three separate houses in Boulder across five separate moves. The math involved my parents divorce and going off to boarding school for a bit. Yes it’s complicated.

But Boulder as a place has felt more like home to me than any other place. Even New York City where I lived the longest (over fifteen years if you don’t count the occasional breaks to San Francisco) never laid claim to being my hometown.

So I’m feeling a bit bittersweet about the prospect of leaving Boulder. I was running errands today and kept coming across Deadheads at every stop. Dead & Co, the name of the current not Phish, but not not the Grateful Dead, is doing two nights at Folsom Field this weekend. The town is filled with happy hippies. And also John Meyer.

A blonde woman walked into my coffee shop this morning without shoes and no one blinked an eye. Camper vans with Dead decals are parked all across town. I saw a man brushing his teeth in the Target parking lot wearing a tie-dyed shirt. The dispensary was completely out of my particular edibles. The concert crowds had cleaned them out.

It makes me feel a bit nostalgic for how I remember the town as a kid. Boulder was a town filled with folk music and weirdos. We were a hippie town and proud of the heritage. As I came over the hill into town coming back from my raw milk pickup I felt like I could never leave. Look at me doing hippie shit like being in a dairy cooperative. Boulder is still weird I said to myself. But I’m sure I’ll come to feel the same way about Bozeman in time.

Categories
Emotional Work Travel

Day 533 and On My Own

It’s funny how marriage shapes your routines. Before the pandemic, and before my health struggles, my husband and I were apart regularly. We traveled and socialized on our own often.

Now it’s quite rare for us to be apart. With work from home and our new adventures awaiting us in Montana, our lives will remain close. We even tend to speak at the same conferences. Our work travel since the pandemic has coincided almost entirely. It’s a good thing we really like each other’s company as we’ve very much opted into a life together. It’s good advice to marry your best friend.

We have to deliberately take time apart. I even took a trip to Europe in March so we could remember what it was like to have a bit more space. We can’t let ourselves give in to little habits that encourage codependency. A little independence goes a long way. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Whatever aphorism you prefer really.

The only downside the our attempts to regain a little space is that it’s easy to forget how much the other person does in your life. I will neglect entirely to to eat lunch without Alex. I have been known to mix a bunch of protein powder and supplements into a glass of water. By the time dinner rolls in I’ll be starving and not entirely lucid. It turns out it takes a bit of remembering to bring back ones old skills and capacity. Marriage allows you find new independence and competence together. But it’s nice to remember you were whole and capable on your own before as well.

Categories
Emotional Work Preparedness

Day 532 and Mortgage

I signed the mortgage paperwork for my first house today. We are moving to Montana. I don’t know how I made it well into my thirties without every owning real estate but I’m going to guess it involves the Great Recession.

Hell if you go further back it probably involves the bankruptcy my parents endured when Web 1.0 crashed. Point is that millennials haven’t had the best hand when it comes to home ownership. We were either totally broke or housing was so expensive it was comical to consider purchasing anything.

I was quite opposed to it for a long time. Why would you tie up your precious capital? Why would you lock yourself into one place? Why would you cut off optionality? And then the crumbles began. The pandemic hit and we were no longer constrained by geography. We could actually assess long term priorities and ambitions for how we’d live our life.

Which ironically made it even harder to decide. Do we want to live in a city? Do we want a suburb? What states will we consider? How does climate change factor into a purchase. How about resilience issues related to power and water? What about sociopolitical risks? We invested nearly two years into working through these questions.

Montana ended up topping the list even though we considered Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York and Connecticut. Our goal was a colder climate with a bit of remove from the world with minimal invasive politics. We also wanted some yuppie amenities like decent grocery stores and a good airport. My husband doesn’t like New England and I don’t like heat. But we do love mountains. Montana just kept coming up to the top of the list.

I feel relieved that after all of this effort we were finally able to buy a house. Would I prefer buying without the almost certain knowledge the house will be under water during a recession? Maybe. It’s not optimal. I don’t love the idea of having a mortgage at all.

But the idea of having a home I can rely on for years to come fills me with relief. I’ve quite literally never experienced it. But I think it’s going to be good. My body sure seems happy about it. I felt like I could actually plan. The second we were done with the notary I felt a weight lift. My mind cleared. I felt optimistic. I wanted to plan. I wanted to build.

Categories
Chronic Disease Emotional Work

Day 527 and Accomodation

Last night I was lucky enough to attend CoinCenter’s annual dinner. I’m a big fan of the work they do to advocate for better crypto policy. And their entire team is funny as fuck on Twitter.

But I had a moment of utter embarrassment when I arrived early in the cocktail party hour that was taking place outside. It was over 100 degrees and Austin City Limits has hard concrete floors. There was no way I was surviving 45 minutes on a hard surface standing without a chair in the heat. But they had not opened the doors to the dinner space.

I got completely flustered. But my husband Alex was able to immediately take control of the situation. He asked a security guard if we could go inside. It was a no go. Talk to the front of house. The head publicist was immediately sensitive to the situation. Alex explained that I have ankylosing spondylitis which makes me invisibly but variably disabled. Heat swells my spine and makes it a struggle to stand.

I was absolutely mortified that I couldn’t manage being outside for the cocktail hour. The embarrassment and shame of needing to asl for a special accommodation felt overwhelming. But it was too hot for me to be comfortable and there was no place I could rest comfortably. It was either ask for help or go home. And blessedly my husband has the wherewithal to ask.

The publicist brought us back. The only other person in the dining was Senator Gillibrand getting settled by her team. And then suddenly it wasn’t awkward. The staff completely understood. It wasn’t putting anyone out to be let in early. It was completely fine. I had been willing to leave rather than put anyone out. It no one was put out. Everyone just wants to help.

Categories
Aesthetics Startups Travel

Day 526 and Out of Practice Yuppie

A well dressed, tall, friendly looking white gentleman tried to join me on an otherwise empty blue velvet couch that I had deliberately planted myself in the middle of to avoid socializing. All that was missing was a “closed for business” sign around my neck.

I had attempted to tell him “no actually this seat is taken.” I was confused he didn’t immediately pick up on my body language. I had spread my entire body across the couch and had intensely “don’t come here” body language. I had my purse down to take up more space. I laid my hand with my wedding ring on my knee so it’s instantly visible. He didn’t pick up a single visual cue. I tried verbal. I literally shouted at him that no he wasn’t welcome to join me. “This seat is taken!” Didn’t make a difference.

I don’t think he could hear me as he sat down and tried to strike up a conversation despite his obvious discomfort clinging to the edge of the couch with half a butt cheek in mid air. He tried a few lines of conversation as I doggedly ignored him. I started a tweet and angled my phone screen towards him so he could see me typing complaints. Didn’t help at all.

I really had done everything I could to claim this space as my own. The couch was directly beneath an air vent trying to push cooler air into the crowded house bar. It was as hot inside the bar as it was outside but this one area had modestly more airflow making the summer heat at least breathable.

Which is to say it was over 100 degrees inside the old house. The Rainey Street bars in Austin are all converted old historical houses with wide open full floor windows and open doors to allow people to enjoy backyards with twinkling lights and hipster backyard games. These bars are a cultural treasure in March for SXSW when everyone enjoys the mild 70 degree early spring. In June during a heatwave they are a hellscape for yuppies who have simply forgotten how to socialize like normal human beings.

I was engaging in some incredibly rude behavior yes, but the bar has no other visible seating near an air vent and even the 5 degrees of lowered temperature and the moving air helped a little. I was wearing loose comfortable clothing but it was still intolerable. I regretted not sourcing a wheelchair for the week but then again none of these houses are accessible anyway. It was the only spot in the entire bar where I could even attempt to mitigate the effects of my invisible disability.

I could feel my spine starting to swell within minutes. Ankylosis is a winter disease. Heat and humidity swell the spine and that pain will radiate out to a kind of ambient full body throbbing intensity that cannot easily be ignored.

Actually, pain is just like the heat in that way. It overtakes your willpower slowly but inexorably. Quietly it makes itself known like the stillness of Joseph Conrad’s Jungle.

“And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect.”

Joseph Conrad “Heart of Darkness”

The amount of determination you have to play mind-over-matter games is simply a fight against time. Eventually you get tired from the effort. You pray you don’t let it take you to the dark places it took Kurtz. But you know one day it could take you too.

Eventually my husband came back. He’d been searching for a bathroom and our hosts for the evening. The yuppie next to me pretended to ignore him. He sat for another two minutes or so just to give the impression he’s weirdly close proximity to me was on purpose as a resting place and not at all an attempt to strike up a conversation with a woman who did not want to talk. A tactic we’ve all used once or twice to conceal a social faux we didn’t mean to commit.

Alex and I used to attend parties like this all the time. We were aggressively on the circuit for both tech and media events for well over a decade. He used to produce TechCrunch Disrupt in a long distant past before he transitioned into being an operator at early stage startups. Then those startups matured to established companies. And now it’s become clear we are established professionals.

We no longer need the social circuit. Networking has lost its payouts. More people want to meet us and ask for things than the other way around. We’ve made it. And it’s a good thing too as the social contract is breaking down all around us. Yuppies have forgotten their manners as we are all out of practice with the basic niceties of the social season. Everything from how we approach someone to begin a conversation to whom we may invite to a private event is now fraught. Hell I can’t even remember how to apply professional makeup anymore so I can’t look down on a man looking to chat. We’ve all lost some of our humanity over the pandemic.

And I find myself mumbling “the horror, the horror” as I walk myself back to the hotel because the streets won’t allow taxis in the downtown core. The transition from soft times to whatever comes next is full of unexpected surprises.

Categories
Chronicle

Day 525 and Unfocused

I cannot seem to hold a coherent thought today. When I absolutely have to be on point I find myself getting anxious. I have no good reason for my mind to be absolutely offline today. But I’m comically unfocused.

I’d love to blame the heat as I’m in Texas but I’ve actually not gone outside yet today. I’ve had a number of extremely productive topics cross my transom and yet I’ve not been able to hold on to a single one. Every thought has drifting on the wind.

I’m a bit sad about this lack of mental acuity today as I’ve had a couple cogent thoughts about manners, femininity, and social graces that I would like to turn into an essay but I think it’s best left to another day. I’ll be forgiving of current state as I hope my acceptance will allow the ideas to grow and blossom at their own pace.

Categories
Travel

Day 524 and Low Recovery

I’m on my way to Austin Texas today. Most of yesterday got eaten up by various preparations to be on the road. I’m scared for this trip as Texas hasn’t made cannabis legal so a core part of my physical stability regimen from my physician can’t be brought with me if I want to stay on the right side of the law. I’m terrified of Paxton the incredibly corrupt attorney general.

I did a bit too much yesterday in preparation for travel and unsurprisingly my Whoop and Welltory are flashing red warning signs. I struggle to sleep before travel because of the anxiety and no amount of magnesium, melatonin, quiet reading and essential oils was going to get me down. Even Ambien was like yeah girl your heart rate is crazy.

A poor set of recovery metrics from Whoop

I’m hoping the flight is easy and I get a good night sleep once I’m in Texas. I’d like to be in the green for tomorrow as I’ve got a few little things to finish in preparation. But my basics biometrics are still so bad a 45 HRV is considered good as I think I’m still in a long post viral thing from May.

The Texas heat is going to quite extreme unfortunately. I’m skeptical all go outside for any longer than it takes to get a cab. I brought a bathing suit but I am not sure frying by the pool will do me any good.

A weather forecast for Austin Texas showing a string of over 100 degree highs for a week.

I’m much more concerned about Texas’ notoriously unstable power grids. What if it goes down while I’m there? Will my Texas prepper friends take me in? Will the hotel be on a generator? Is downtown Austin likely to be restored quickly? What if it’s a cascade event and nothing can be brought up for days like their last major grid event?

I’ve done my best to set the lowest possible expectations for being able to meet up with me socially. Which is a shame as conferences are for networking. My DMs are packed with excited DAO folks trying to get my attention. Meanwhile I’m not even confident I’ll leave the hotel room for anything but my own talk and one meet up with a long time friend whom I’ve not had the chance to be with IRL.

I’d like to do more but so many factors are combining to make me extra cautious about obligations. There are too many potentials for a cascade failure and I want to give a great talk so I’ve got to save my energy for that. I’m not worried about being good for the talk.

I’ve got an incredible gift where I can muster all my focus and energy even when extremely sick. I’ll use every last drop of it to meet my obligations. No one will be able to tell I’m sick. And then it’s entirely possible I’ll crater for days. My autonomic nervous system is very sensitive. It’s a blessing and a curse.

I’d you absolutely must find a way to meet with me (and sorry pitching me IRL might not be in the cards but DM and we will chat) I may try to host some folks at my hotel suite. If you are an actual friend of mine and can respect the disability situation maybe we can make it work. But no promises. Which of course my actual friends will understand so open invitation and such.