• On Life and Love

    APW 2013: Intellectualism, Anarchy, Privilege and Power

    (This is the fifth in a way-too-long-running series on APW 2013.) I am not educated on anarchy or intentional communities. I consider this a lack in my education. (Seems like reddit may have a good starting place for me.) Dennis Fox is a psychologist from Boston who focuses on a few interesting topics: intentional communities and critical psychology. What is critical psychology, you ask? When speaking of truths, Fox said, “current psychology’s truth is in finding ways for unhappy people to adapt to the current world, rather than in changing the current world.” That really resonated with me. So many of the unhappinesses we struggle with derive from trying to…

  • On Life and Love

    APW 2013: Codependency and Identity

    (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…

  • On Life and Love

    Choosing the Unconventional Path

    Last year, Greg and I expanded the boundaries of our relationship pretty drastically. It went really badly, but has resulted in an immense amount of growth for me: I’ve never been so independent within this relationship, so free to say “no” and feel my feelings without justifying or suppressing them. And here you all probably thought I was kick-ass assertive 24/7.

  • On Life and Love

    Winkage!

    Winks, links, they’re all the same. xkcd: Epsilon and Zeta – I don't link to XKCD much, in part because I don't read it much, and in part because everyone else in the world does. That said, this one uses real-deal National Hurricane Center advisories in it, and is really good. Ann Aguirre’s Blog – Authors Against Bullying: Blog Hop – "Things were bad. People made fun of me daily. They picked on my appearance, my weight, my geeky interests. Sometimes I hid in the bathroom rather than face a cafeteria full of people who didn’t like me." Utah Game Developer Jailed for Not Paying Wages – ABC News –…

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly linkage

    This week’s internet cruising: How to keep someone with you forever – "You create a sick system." I wanted to cry when I read this. Looking Back — Discord&Rhyme – "To be successful at bootstrapping, you have to cut every feature except those you think are absolutely necessary. Then you cut some that you thought that you absolutely had to have. You compromise your design because you need to get the product to market. You ignore automated testing and documentation because your code is too unstable to be held back by rigorous processes." Launching beta, or “How to decide when and where to cut corners” – 200+ Seamless Patterns Perfect…