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watching the cockettes documentary last night left me filled with yearning to be free and wild. i became so immersed and enthralled with the world of late 60s san francisco that when i left the house mid-film to meet holly for a cuppa, i forgot that it was 2010. i just felt that wildness and promise and comradery of communal life so strongly. i forgot what part of my life i was in. i wanted to smile at everyone i saw. people sitting in restaurants and cafes seemed so boring, i wanted to rattle them.

though the film ends with half the cockettes dying of AIDs and drug overdoses in the late 70s and early 80s, i was still so moved and filled with yearning. even if every party has to end, often in tragedy and disillusionment, i still long for that feeling of revolution and togetherness.

lately, i am sort of serious. rather calm, subdued, and like a feral cat, suspicious. maybe this is what i mean when i lament a lack of community... because left to my own devices i won't make myself free. but other people have helped me feel free before.

i'm not unhappy at all, my life is totally amazing these days. but, i can't help but be reminded of the sense of wonder i had in san francisco in the the early dotcom times, or the sense of wonder and openness that defined my life at omega. i guess watching the cockettes documentary reminded me of those things: the feeling of being on the forefront of something, and the belief that dedicating yourself to your own pure madness and exploration was somehow going to change everything for everyone else. it's probably not true - maybe it's just how everyone feels in their early twenties - but who am i to say? i DO think that frenzied exploration and self expression informs whatever more tangible accomplishments people make once the chaos of youth has passed, which could in turn change everything for everyone else. or maybe the intangible chaos is enough, if it inspires someone.

this might all be a long way of saying that it is springtime and i want so badly to carouse and frolic and sing. and be friendly, and be open, and dive into things. i was so depressed for 2008 and most of 2009. it's a terrible trick of life that even if your circumstances are holding you back and need to change, if they do, you still have to spend so. much. time. mourning the loss and adjusting to the change before you can properly enjoy the fruits of your rebirth.

i don't know how many times since my saturn return i wrote in here "okay, NOW, i am whole again" and then a few months later "i felt like i was before, but i wasn't, but now i'm sure, i am whole again." it is probably a bad idea to ever declare yourself healed or fully formed - surely i am not. but i am not depressed, distrustful of this world, despairing, or numb, and i haven't been for some time. and that is joyous. AND CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION.

LONG OVERDUE POST ABOUT SXSW has been percolating as a draft for a while. I don't know why, but I've been sitting on a lot of posts. HERE:

I had a really amazing time in Austin and at SXSWi. I felt more connected and communal than I have in a long time. I skipped most of the parties and only went to a few sessions - the keynotes, a few smaller talks - but the whole event frothed up into a really affirming reminder to me about where I've been and what's good about all of it.

being in tech can be kind of confusing if you don't have the same kinds of ambitions as most of the people around you. the last couple of years, for me, was a lot of grappling with the realization that I didn't actually want to run my own consulting business, and watching myself struggle to balance my involvement in tech (as both my community and my livelihood) with my desire to identify as an artist or.. you know, a tree nymph. or a ball of light. so I really spent a while trying to figure out if I should (or could) somehow leave tech behind. to make way for art. I felt a lot of polarity, like, the art part couldn't exist while the other loomed.

but the thing I continue to realize is that I am forever entwined with tech. I come from the internet. and, that entanglement actually informs my other goals, and it SHOULD. It's my home in a lot of ways. It's where I grew up. Annnd my interest in it isn't just professional, its personal and social. So it makes sense that even if I feel torn about how or if to be involved professionally, I'll always be involved in some way. It's my community, yo. The work I am lucky enough to get paid for, and the work I do personally (my writing projects, my "art"), are all kind of mashed up together. It seems kind of obvious now, when I type it out, but I swear, for a while I thought creative me and had to kill nerd me to go forward.

so, the simple honor of annalee asking me to be on a panel at SXSWi, because of my weird combination of both being a developer and a writerly sort, posting shit online for SO LONG, affirmed the idea of integration. And then being at SXSWi with various humans who've known me since they first orchestrated my induction into their nerd cult, or who've employed me or made things with me since, (humans such as james home, molly steenson, sarah wulfeck, annalee newitz, ETC) was even more of a reminder of just like... how long this has been my world. and how most of my closest people have come from it.

also, the time I spent just kicking around Austin was soooo good, and balanced out the nerd-fest of SXSW so wonderfully. it really drove home this holistic feeling of like... well, I came here because of "tech" but now I'm standing outside an abandoned power station in the middle of the night looking at the sky for very non-technical reasons. plus, it was warm and magical things just kept happening. there was a flow, a harmonic connectedness to who I ran into, where I went, what was there, how it felt.

! i have been tumblin a lot!

I HAVE LIKE 8 UNPUBLISHED DRAFTS.
i keep writing them and not posting them!
i don't know what's gotten into me!
the gist of them is that SXSW was totally re-connecting!
i do not have community-related woes any longer!
due to SXSW!
and other things! that i feel shy about posting about! because i don't want to jinx them!

jarett: I think you just shouldn't get caught up in momentary circumstances
jarett: you need to think about writing like a wife
jarett: and the rest like a mistress

KEEP YOUR HAND ON THAT PLOW, HOLD ON