One (of a thousand) things I’ve let slide in the last year of struggles is one of my most favoritest: dance.

I haven’t been to belly dance class since at least last summer, haven’t learned any new moves or choreographies, and have barely practiced on my own.

I told myself that “when everything was more under control”, that I’d go back.

Well, that “everything” got under some sort of “control”, but then recovering from that was exhausting, and then healing stuff that’s been askew in my life forever is too all over the place.

The thing is I know not to wait for life to get to back to “normal” before living it. I’m already living it, however it comes. Live it like I want it to be.

So when a buddy said, “Hey, let’s try this West African dance class,” I said, “Sure!”

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My passport has arrived. My Amazon cruise fell through due to concerns of sketchiness. Where was I going to go for my first trip out of the country?

My colleague has picked a marathon… in Iceland. I need no such excuse–I’m just going to Iceland because it’s Iceland.

End of August, five nights, right before DragonCon. Lagoon and coastal tours are already planned, and restaurants are being picked.

I can’t even read the street names on the maps of Reykjavik. This is going to be awesome!

(This is fourth in a series of posts about Atlanta Poly Weekend 2013.)

Now for a downside of my APW 2013 experience: ableism.

I didn’t perceive very much physical ableism except for an awkward-as-hell “lame” reference in the closing ceremonies. I don’t think anyone even laughed. Then again, I know I’m also less sensitive to physical ableism than mental, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more.

For the mental ableism… it was everywhere. Therapists there used the word “crazy” and people talked about their “crazy, bipolar” exes. One person even said their ex was so crazy “they shouldn’t have been allowed to date.”

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(This is third in a series of posts about Atlanta Poly Weekend 2013.)

I was utterly delighted at how many panels and discussions touched on questions of identity and codependence. I mean “identity” here as a self-discovery and self-listening process, rather than the external application of labels.

I’m early yet in my own exploration of codependence and the unhealthy behaviors I’ve harbored for many years. One of the things I’m focusing on is (re)discovering my own life patterns and identity. It’s a large component in why I moved into my own apartment.

When I saw a 5-7 adult family (with kids!) at APW, my first thought was, “Holy fuck, how do they stay themselves?”

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(This is second in a series of posts about Atlanta Poly Weekend 2013.)

Puck: Hi, I’m Puck.
Me: I’m Melissa.
Puck: What’s your preferred pronoun?
Me: Um? “She.”
Puck: Mine’s “they.”

I’ve never been asked my preferred pronoun before.

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Jackie wished she could have gone. She’s poly, too: she loves everybody.

APW–or “Ay Pee Dub”, as the kids say¹–is Atlanta Poly Weekend (SFW), and I went to it for $50 and half a hotel room.

Holy. Shit.

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I’m going to a conference this weekend, so I’ve been preplanning all my time slots (double- and triple-booked, of course, as I do). My last conference was DragonCon, and it used a DragonCon-branded mobile app that was built using Core-Apps’ EventLink and FollowMe platforms. It really struggled to keep up with the heft of DragonCon–every load of or task-switch to the app checked the servers for event info and friends’ statuses, I don’t think Twitter postings worked, and the app crashed pretty frequently on my iPhone 4, particularly when network conditions were bad.

I really, really hope DragonCon switches to Guidebook this year.

The conference this weekend is much smaller than DragonCon, but Guidebook is already a much smoother experience just for preplanning. The UI is clean and unbranded by the con itself, I can have multiple cons (or museums, or schools, or associations) in my guidebook without having to have separate apps for each. It’s quick and easy to see my personal schedule, and the app is fast and feels lightweight.

I want to see more apps this cleanly designed.