I’m starting to remember that i’m not invincible and can’t do everything even if it looks doable on paper. Somehow, i’m working around the clock on top of handling registration for the conference this week (Altered States and the Spiritual Awakening if you don’t know about it).

And i haven’t even really coped with the reality that i’m moving in under 2 weeks except to have pretty vicious anxiety nightmares. I’m so psyched to move in with my friends and i truly hope that this is my last move for years to come.

Next comes SIGGRAPH, which i haven’t even begun to cope with. Somehow, i need to get to San Diego (i think i’m roadtripping). Somehow, i need to write a presentation. Somehow, i need to come up with a video.

Egads. What do i get myself into?

Spam sucks. Zephyr must shortly retire. In comes apophenia, thanks to worthless word of the day.

apophenia: the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness in unrelated things; seeing patterns where none, in fact, exist

This word was coined by K. Conrad in 1958 in a Jungian context, but has regained currency due to William Gibson’s recent novel, _Pattern Recognition_.(you may remember Gibson as the author of the seminal cyberpunk tale, _Neuromancer_)

“There must always be room for conicidence, Win had maintained. When there’s not, you’re probably well into apophenia, each thing then perceived as part of an overarching pattern of consipracy. And while comforting yourself with the symmetry of it all, he’d believed, you stood all too real a chance of missing the genuine threat, which was invariably less symmetrical, less perfect. But which he always, [Cayce] knew, took for granted was there.” William Gibson, _Pattern Recognition_

Living in San Francisco, i don’t meet people these days who are easily shocked. Much to my surprising enjoyment, i had a long meeting with a SF Republican (yes, they do exist). At the end of discussing business, he turned to me with a curious eye, pointed to my necklace and said “What’s the V stand for?” “Vagina.” “Oh.” (as blood rapidly rushed to his face and i remained stoic as though i said nothing surprising).

Such interactions continue to give me great joy.

I remember asking one of my students why he didn’t ask questions. He told me that every time he thought to ask a question, he looked around the room and remembered that he was the only black kid and he didn’t want to sound stupid if he was going to represent that large of a population. He was a brilliant student, came from a top tier high school and yet was failing his classes because he was crippled, focused entirely on dealing with being in the minority.

Privilege is truly hard to understand (although i also recommend McIntosh’ “White Privilege”) and the workings of it operate on so many different levels. Race privilege is different than gender privilege is different than sexuality privilege, but they’re impact on the marginalized can be equally intense. Let me unpack that.

First, why are privileges different? If you’re black, you’re family is most likely black. If you’re black, you can build up a social network of all black people, live in an all black community, etc. This does not alleviate the general marginalization that your community gets compared to other communities, but in many ways, you can take a breather from being constantly aware of being different. Women are primarily born into mixed male/female environments. While all female environments exist, few women want to only see women for an extended period of time. Thus, breather space is much rarer and has other odd consequences. When it comes to sexuality, queer folks are rarely born into queer families and usually have to make it well into adulthood before they can find a community of all queer folks and take a break from being “different.”

What does this mean? First, think about how hard it is to leave a safety bubble for the unknown and to struggle to be seen and validated in that space. Overcoming major obstacles. Not fun. This alone defines white privilege. Most of white America never has to leave their bubble to strive for something greater.

From youth on, girls have to continuously prove themselves in ways that are not expected from boys. This is exhausting. But the “breather” space is to do exactly what you’re supposed to do, follow the flow of currents. This means entering fields that are primarily women. Then you don’t have to validate yourself in a classroom. Because if you take the harder path, you are always fighting to be seen as something other than an affirmative action case.

Yet, the feelings of confidence are not truly there. When i was TAing an introductory CS course, i asked those dropping out what they thought their perceived grade was (we were dreadful at returning grades in a timely fashion and thus they were unknown). Boys thought their grade was 1 letter grade higher than it was; girls thought it was 1 letter grade lower. Girls were dropping out with A- and Bs, thinking they were failing. Perception.

I certainly know this feeling personally and am finally coming to my own with it. I tried to drop out of computer science every semester; my amazing advisor kept me together. I felt incompetent even though my grades said otherwise. I felt degraded, although i’m willing to admit that there were things that i did to egg that on. I continued to do what i was doing to prove that i could, long after i fell out of love with programming.

More than anything, what i realize about myself and what i realize about my successes is that they most often come when people tell me that i’m incapable of doing something; i will prove them wrong. Yet, while this rebellious attitude has gotten me through thick and thin, it’s not how i expect the world to overcome being marginalized. It doesn’t work like that. I understand that the way i work requires constant energy. Unfortunately, i don’t know what will generate large scale change that will level the playing field.

I used to think that projecting my exacerbated frustration would make people change, but it never worked for me (although i genuinely commend those who’ve made it work!). Silence is certainly not the way that i work best. Subtlety is entertaining and effective, but only at a local level. I’m still trying to learn how to create a constructive dialogue that will address these issues in a meaningful manner far beyond my reach.

This is the issue i’ve been sitting with for years and i suspect that i will sit with it for years to come.

[brought on by reflecting on Liz Lawley’s very accurate rant]

I love my friends. Even more so, i value their idea of a good night. Tonite, amongst friends, a friend of a friend (an economist type) came to speak with us about “3 bubbles [equity, housing, $], 2 strategies [US globalization, neoclassical economics], 1 crises [global economy in 7-10 years]: How the Global Economy Is Unraveling Before Your Very Eyes.” Basically, it was a discussion on economics and its impact on the global economy, discussing our government’s perspective on economics from a historical vantage point.

This was followed by a discussion of Democratic candidates (and a reminder to vote in the primary at moveon.org). The short version is that everyone in our circle loves Dean, thinks that Edwards has the best chance of winning, and doesn’t want to listen to the rational one who thinks that Bush has four more years.

Following the conversation on economics, oil and politicians, we moved to the bar where we discussed how the political movements based on sex, race and sexuality are entirely different because of how those populations exist in American society. Men and women pervade almost all environments, while most communities are segregated based on race and every community has a handful of sexual minorities (except my neighborhood). Thus, the politics for creating cohesion amongst those groups varies tremendously. Part of the concern comes down to how one bridges the gaps between various groups. For example, when someone in South Dakota knows someone who is gay, they are far more accepting of gay folks in general. Yet, things like race and political viewpoints don’t work like that… because your family member isn’t likely to be of a different race than you and politics don’t operate as divisely (by and large).

Anyhow, goofy conversations that made me smile the whole way home.

There’s nothing more joyous than finding counter examples that show weaknesses in my people-related stereotypes and mental models. As a child, i thought that all wealthy people (and all politicians, professors and “esteemed” people in society) had to be brilliant – how else would they have earned so much money? Of course, when i realized that this wasn’t true (and rushed off to liberal utopia land), i started having a cynical view that all wealthy people had to be corrupt, evil and politically incorrect.

Of course, i’ve met people who accidentally made money doing what they love (and used it wisely such as the one who decided to affect SF Late Night Culture); i adjusted my model to discount them. I’ve also met people who are wealthy because they are famous, but they exist in another model for me that includes people who gain money and wealth to deal with their own insecurities. Sadly, though, most people that i have met who have acquired wealth have done so through some questionable means and don’t really use it in a way that i respect.

Last night, i realized that i don’t know any consciously capitalist, socially righteous, psychologically grounded, intellectually fascinated people. Of course, i realized that by finding someone who fit that bill, which completely startled me and required me to adjust my model of people to fit such a character. People like this give me hopes for humanity and better yet, the fact that people like this exist in my sphere makes me love the culture i’m playing in right now even more.

Frankly, i need to stop running into and having drinks with really interesting people. San Francisco is just continuing to blow my mind and make it really hard for me to not run out and constantly play with ideas and other people. There is no doubt that SF is just one big adult playground for liberal motivated intelligent people and it’s just way too much fun to play kid again.

Yesterday someone told me that in order to be successful in a startup, you have to have a combination of unalterable driven direction mixed with paranoia. Added to this, you need to be motivated by commercial successes (and thus profit).

I like thinking about how people use technology to make themselves happier. While i’m completely OCD about money issues, i’m rarely driven to mark my successes as such.

Four years ago, i was asked when i would start my startup; the same question was posed to me today. In both situations, my gut still believes that i could never actually be successful at starting a startup. Of course, when asked what i imagine my role to be in the corporate world, i can only really come up with “muse.” I really like toiling with ideas, making others see the fascination in them; this is why i like teaching, although i’m starting to also wonder if this is the kind of capability that has strength in other domains.

I really hate that bi-annual contemplation about what i’m going to do when i grow up, but i seem to do it anyhow. Must think Peter Pan. Will never grow up.

My advisor suggested that i take a class on participant observers in the fall and i was thinking about how much i’ve been a participant observer in my life lately and how wonderful wonderfully adventurous and absurd my life has been recently. My advisor is constantly reminding me that life is one big research project out there to be analyzed. There have been so many amazing lessons, so many crazy and wonderful experiences and so much support from those around me. I’m feeling utterly blissful lately and talking to my best friend all afternoon only reminded me of how much life is just a grand adventure that is meant to be watched and explored, gamed and questioned. Of course, she also made me realize that my shrink must think i’m a pathological liar for all of the absurd stories i’ve told him lately.

OK. My ass is *kicked*. I’ve spent the last three days running around the Moscone Center telling folks about the Urban Adventure for JavaOne (a.k.a. The Go Game). Three days of smiling pretty, talking small talk, being energetic and witty and silly and pretending to smile when i’m treated like a bimbette (all the while teaching my fellow babes Object Oriented Java). Of course, the event went off with a bang and people had a great time (except for those who were cranky that they didn’t win.)

Oh, and damn those who blamed me for not giving them a good score, because i was being good and honest! I wrote my own adventure, which was utterly reminscent of my days as a CS15 TA:

Task: Find the Java Princess (me dressed up in a prom dress and tiara in front of the Virgin Megastore) and impress her with your Java talent. Compose a short applet and enact it. Be creative!

Some of those teams had me dying of laughter – i got hugs and kisses and silly poems about Java written for me. Only one team perfected the skill of compileable code complete with humor, originality and sweetness. Too many teams assumed that i knew nothing about Java or didn’t know much about it themselves. But they were cute and i gave a *lot* of points for trying. Seriously, the TA in me came out full swing!

Oh, and i met a really nice stranger on the street and had a lovely (broken) conversation as teams came and went. Plus, it was funny to watch how the questions directed towards me changed as night fell. At first, strangers kept asking if i was getting married. After night fall, i was asked if i was a prostitute. What bride or prostitute would be wearing a blue prom dress, a fuzzy tiara, cowboy boots, and a spiky collar standing on a street corner? Don’t answer that…

Twice i’ve flown into Chicago this week and twice i’ve flown out, having paid less attention to Chicago itself than its rich suburbs. To my surprise, i even recognized the gas station upon the second entrance and knew where we were in the flight landing pattern. I am in a complete state of awe concerning America. To see suburbia through a aerial perspective is just mindblowing – the thought and consideration that went into rows and rows of identical homes in the idyllically planned suburban community. It’s just a desire that i cannot truly comprehend – i am in awe.

This morning, i encountered Koyaanisqatsi. This movie realizes all of the awe that i felt on that plane, showing the emotional struggle between the beauty and absurdity of American life. Life out of balance.