Monday, May 31, 2010

Wiscon 34: Probably a transformative experience

I'm at Wiscon 34, a ~1000 person feminist science fiction convention in Madison, Wisconsin. This is my second time here. I came in 2007, mostly because good friends of mine in Chicago come yearly and encouraged me. This year, several friends from Boston are also here.

I don't remember why exactly I decided to come this year. I've been planning to come back eventually, and now that I've graduated, I have time. I didn't come here with many expectations. The day before my flight, I honestly didn't want to come very much at all, but I'd paid for too much in advance, and had connecting flights for a short trip to Indiana after this, and it would have been terribly complicated to drop out. Also, I was pretty sure that I would have a good time once I got here.

At first, it was a pretty chill con for me. I showed up a day early so I wouldn't be rushed and travel-grumpy on the first day. I made sure to get enough sleep every night, which involved sleeping through a lot of morning panels. I was not super attached to any one panel or event, and was pretty flexible with my schedule, switching panels freely if they were not interesting enough. I made time to hang out with the people that I came here to see. I was interviewed for a master's dissertation, and I adore being interviewed. Panels and conversations were interesting enough, but I had no big goal, I was just enjoying myself.

Today was different. I went to a reading that was just emotionally gutting, recovered some, then went to a panel that was good but emotionally fraught. I went to dinner, had a good time, then had conversations about complicated topics that mean a lot to me. Then dessert, then even more conversations about complicated topics. Last night I blogged that I felt I should become a bit more radical in my politics. After those conversations I was starting to feel like I need to take action with certain groups in my life to do things like increase diversity and try to make better spaces and help educate people on certain topics. Then Mary Anne Mohanraj gave an absolutely amazing Guest of Honor speech that left me in tears, and may have caused a significant change in the rest of my life. I have a lot to process. People have been noticing that I look off. I'm exhausted and I wish the con wasn't about to end because I want so much more, but on the other hand if I did this for too many days in a row I would probably just die. I am going through *such* a period of transition, oh, it makes my head spin. Thank goodness I have such good grounding back home in Boston. I'm spending the next few days with one of my best friends in Indiana, then back home to Boston. I feel more and more like I am at a turning point in my life, and I am fascinated to see where it might take me. You're welcome to come along for the ride. :)

Monday, May 17, 2010

Yoga: Coming Soon To My Living Room!

One of the most important changes in my life in the past year is yoga. I had tried tiny bits of yoga previously as part of other events, and found it intriguing. I had planned to find a yoga class during my summer in San Francisco, but it never happened. Last November, my friend Q started teaching yoga in a belly dance studio in Jamaica Plain. By the end of the first class I was hooked, but getting to Jamaica Plain is really a pain from Davis Square, where I live. The trouble getting to class was probably the main reason I've missed it so much, but now I will have no such excuse because class will be... in my living room!

We have a great big common area in my apartment, and I'm very excited to host things here. I have plans to also have a dance party and host a LARP or two, and possibly a tabletop game if the current location becomes infeasible.

I've realized that my greatest satisfaction in life comes from making people happy or making their lives better. I'm not sure what this means for my future career, but I know that I want to open up my home to things like this. I want to become the best hostess I can. I want to make events runs as smoothly as possible, while minimizing stress for myself and everyone else involved. I want my net impact on the people around me to be positive.

Yoga has been so good for my body, my relationship with my body, and myself overall. I can't really quantify everything it has done. I really want to start practicing daily, and I just need to get it into my routine (what little routine I have) and I think it could become something I do basically every day for the rest of my life. I haven't tried any other style of yoga, but I know that the combination of yoga styles that Q teaches is good for me. I encourage everyone to try yoga out, whether with Q or someone else.

The first class at my house is Monday at 7:30 pm. Contact me at laura47 at gmail for directions and details. We're about half a mile from the Davis T, on two bus lines, and have reasonable parking.

"Q has studied kundalini and vinyasa yoga for the past decade. His
classes tend to incorporate breathing exercises, a rigorous vinyasa
flow, and a range of different meditation techniques. Students of all
levels and all body types are always welcome." - From the facebook group description

Monday, May 10, 2010

Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jig

I'm home again, a full 90 minutes before the blog deadline. I was going to write about how troublesome it is to have personal connections to celebrities, but right now all I can think about is HOME. I had some complicated feelings about Boston this weekend, but I felt such happiness as I got closer to home. The first time I saw a sign for Boston, I was mostly just happy that I wouldn't be driving forever. Driving on to the Mass Pike and finding a familiar rest stop (of known and much better quality than those in Connecticut, thankyouverymuch) made me start feeling at home again. Watching the distance to Boston creep downwards on signs, driving past towns I know, letting out a little cheer when I hit 495, having been on Long Island's 495 mere hours ago, getting on to *my* stretch of 95... My favorite things about taking route 2 home is coming over that hill and seeing Boston shining down below me in the distance. Boston. My home.

I spent this weekend in Manhattan and on Long Island, where I grew up and where most of my family still lives. My life has been split about 65/35 between Long Island and Boston, so far. The only time I've spent more than two weeks outside New York or Massachusetts was my summer in San Francisco last year. I really enjoyed my time in San Francisco. I also really enjoy Seattle, Chicago, New Orleans, Miami, Madison... and those are just in this country. I've only left North America once, and all I saw was London and Dublin. I've never even been to Mexico or any part of Canada beyond Toronto. There is *so much* world out there that I haven't seen, and yet I find myself wanting to buy a house in Boston and plan to live here for the rest of my life. I am torn between my desire to travel and explore and expand my horizons, and my desire to form a really solid, permanent rock hard connection to a place, to plant my flag and call it my own. I want the luxury to spend perhaps three months of every year in different places, for 1-3 months at a time, and to take some of my nearest and dearest friends with me, because with the right people, I'll go anywhere. If everyone I knew in Boston decided to move to Iowa, I'd go. History and architecture and culture are nice, but places are really about people to me. There's a Billy Joel song, "You're My Home", that has this to say:
Well I'll never be a stranger
and I'll never be alone
wherever we're together
that's my home.

Home could be the Pennsylvania turnpike
Indiana's early morning dew
high up in the hills of California
home is just another word for you.


My boyfriend came to San Francisco with me last summer, and I realized that home is, in fact, wherever we're together. I know that is horribly sappy, but it's a very convenient thing to realize.

San Francisco is painfully far away. I am very disappointed that transcontinental travel is not getting any faster. I realize it is utterly amazing that we can fling ourselves three thousand miles in six hours, but it's still a pain. If Boston and San Francisco were "quick weekend trip" distance apart, my life would be significantly easier.

New York, however, is right there. People go from Boston to New York and back again in a single day, and it's grueling but not insane. I can't count how many weekend trips I have taken down there. The buses have gotten really cheap and convenient, it's a totally reasonable drive if you have a car, there's a ferry to Long Island, flights are cheap and fast, and there's even Amtrak, which is sometimes the right option even though it is not the fastest or cheapest. :-) I grew up 40 miles from Manhattan, a mile from a train station that would send you right into the heart of Manhattan. I was always in "the city", as we always called it, several times a year for my entire youth, but I never spent the night there until I was in my 20s. My trips were frequent, but very contained. I went to museums, Central Park, parades, and so many Broadway shows, and then I always went home. I feel like I know New York, but I know that I only know it as a visitor. I've still never spent more than three nights in a row in the city. Yesterday I wound up in the upper west side at 7 am on a saturday, and found yet another New York experience that was entirely new to me. I want to stop these one night stands and have a serious fling with New York, the way I did with San Francisco, but it's hard to convince myself to make that kind of commitment when I can in fact just go there every weekend if I want to. Oh, New York, I don't know what to do with you!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Northwest Trek Wildlife Park

Last month I went to San Francisco and Seattle for two weeks. On my last day in Seattle, I borrowed a friend's car and drove to the Northwest Trek Animal Preserve. I was afraid it would be corny based on the promotional material I saw, but it was actually quite nice. I spent about an hour looking through the enclosed exhibits, which had carnivores, birds, and some small mammals, and an hour on the tram tour of the nearly square mile herbivore free range area. Here are a few of the pictures I took that day.







She lost a horn by getting it stuck in a fence years ago. She seems to be getting by.