conference is over. i just spent the last week in los angeles at siggraph, learning more about myself and having a most amazing time. i have a lot to share at this point but rather than trying to date things individually, i have decided to lump it together in an attempt to show coherence. this is my story of the week.

arrive at nite, tired and confused… get the dinner and then prepare for a full day of work… next day, set up our demo in preparation for a long week. successful setup and we head to the beach to celebrate. i burn the hell outta my body, a reminder of my whiteness that has resulted in my current peeling state. my lover arrives, surprising me with his timing… my friends start arriving and we continue our ritual of playing and having fun.

figueroa is our hangout space and i spend every nite there in the hottub, happily naked. what a wonderful experience. i work hard during the day, either demoing to LOTS of people or seeing various panels and papers. at every opportunity, i take a break to talk with my friends.

conversation and sex is the theme of this week. one boy, a youngin in my lab amuses me greatly. we begin to flirt out of pure ridiculousness. on one occasion, in the hottub, he was so drunk that he decided sex was important. i pushed him off. i realize more and more that i don’t like pushy people invading my sex life, particularly boys. i retrieve to my friends, all graduates from my school over many generations. it is quite wonderful to be there with them and our talks become intriguing and motivating. flirtation gets to be wonderful. in particular, i find myself extremely attracted to one individual, flirting intensely with him at any opportunity… flirtation comes right back and we become closer and closer. his sense of humor and attitude is extremely similar to my lover and the two of them begin a rewarding relationship. one nite, we acknowledge our dual interest and express our passion in his bedroom. my lover approves.

that same evening, a crazy woman attempts to get me to come home with her. she is the lover of a boy i slept with last year. he disapproves but she is not my type anyhow.

the following nite, things get outta hand. five of us decide to appreciate the happiness mixed with the warmth of the pool. following the pool, we rent a hotel room and another woman joins us. an orgy begins and it is intense. the cute boy from the previous nite and my lover impress me by showing their caring through kissing. i enjoy every minute of it, being turned on by the two of them. it is intense and beautiful, gorgeous in every way except that i only get 15 minutes of sleep.

we pack up the entire project and i decide to stay for the weekend. my back is trashed and i cannot handle the flight… or at least that is what i told the person at the counter. it was not too far off.. only i wanted more sex as well. sure enough, i got my fair share. my lover and i crashed outta exhaustion and spent the next day at the beach. afterwards, he disappeared to san francisco and i continued on with cute boy and his friend.

we went to a small house party at another friend’s place and it reminded me so much of the attitde of bridget jones’ diary. it was quite pleasant and i enjoyed getting to know random people. it was so magnificant. the next party was hysterical. we continued on to a party celebrating the production of a play in hollywood. this was beyond my understanding. our car was parked with valet service and there were caterers who served cavier and large amounts of alcohol (anything you wanted). people were wearing fancy suits and coctail gowns. i couldn’t believe the high-classness of it all. the house overlooked most of hollywood and it was a gorgeous view. i couldn’t believe it. i couldn’t believe i was at this party. luckily, i was quite capable of keeping up with conversation. the cute guy and i kept going, keeping each other entertained.. we couldn’t stop talking.

the two of us left the party around midnite and headed back to the hotel where we spent the nite pleasing one another in many different fashions. it was highly intense and beautiful. we had a great time playing off of one another in every way possible.. wow.

and now i am on the plane….

so that is the week in a quick overview.. but i have things to say that don’t work in a timeline.

s, a friend from my first year at school, taught me how to play a game called set. what a wonderful game… mentally stimulating like nothing else. i couldn’t believe how great it was. i played for many many hours with a whole variety of people… addicting!

i now appreciate star wars on a whole new level. the graphics were clearly explained throughout the conference and it was super super impressive. i didn’t even realize it.

in addition, i had a wonderful conversation about eyes wide shut and all of the potential meanings that kubrick had. we talked about jealousy and testing boundaries and whatnot… it was wonderful.

in addition to crazy sex and orgies, the cute boy and i talked for hours and hours about a whole lot of crazy topics, in particular what a relationship is and how to make oneself happy and have a non-monogamous relationship. it was quite impressive. i loved his company and his insight. i realized more and more how similar he is to my lover and that excited me so much. each nite we got more and more in depth into conversation and at one point he mentionned that he adored me because he loves being around intelligent lovers. i enjoyed that immensely.

i am beyond delirious but insomnia has set in. it is two o’clock. no, not two o’clock in the nite… two o’clock in the afternoon. i slept for 6 hours saturday nite; it is now monday. i have been helping my friends get their siggraph installation together. it is great to help them but now my body is super super confused. poor thing.

recently, two friends have also told me about their startup idea and i have been doing quite a bit of thinking about that and how to make the interface that they need accessible to the people that they want. it has been a fun problem… unfortunately, due to nda, that is about all i can share.

life has had a peculiar simplicity to it… life=me+work+thinking… that is about all i do these days and i kinda get my jollies off of it… i like the idea that i get paid to think and talk and work with people. yum.. but it does all blend together which is strange… but it makes a day enjoyable and it makes me want to do graduate school, both of which are super super good

came down to visit friends back at college. anxiously awaiting returning and yet dreading it at the same time. visited the house i lived in last year. they didn’t have toilet paper. some things never change. visited my house for next year. (they have toilet paper.) it was super exciting to see my environment and be so psyched to be a part of a community again. coops are amazing that way – they have a community, an environment that is both frustrating and exhilerating. i anxiously await that environment.

on the other hand, i am no-doubt a bit dreadful of the work and the stress and all the icky elements that are a part of being in school. i mean, technically i was in school in the spring but i’ll be damned if you can actually count that!

my brain is awefully tired these days.. i am surprised that techy lands can burn you out so much more than reality. what a bizarre culture!

saw “american pie” today FOR THE SECOND TIME. i know.. i am a dork. but it was funny and my brain just wasn’t working. the two other women that i work with and i decided that we needed to do something other than be at work. it worked and we laughed and laughed and then went for mexican to talk all nite. what fun!

i found out today that i can work on the project that i am doing here through the fall! this is super super exciting. i am soooo glad to hear it! yippeee!

saw “american pie” today. how fucking funny. plain and simple: see it.

i feel as though my history gets rewritten every time i go home. i listen to my history told in stories and it sounds unlike anything i remember and is certainly in conflict to the stories i heard before. it is frustrating. i start questioning my own memory, my own thoughts. i adore my mother and my family but i am afraid that one of us has history wrong and i pray that it is not me who doesn’t remember the details that i experienced. i don’t understand why this happens.

in addition to rewritten history, i find that my family doesn’t seem to know who i am, nor do i think they actually want to know the “real” me. my mom actually told my grandparents that i am not liberal. me??? not liberal??? since when??? so i asked for a definition of liberal and she told me that their (the grandparents’) definition of liberal was different than mine. i asked for an explanation of what they defined as liberal. she said that their definition was “bra-burning, nudist, foul-mouthed, no class, gay” types. hmm… this seems to be a pretty good definition of how i view myself. but apparently they prefer to think differently. i don’t think i can win so i don’t bother fighting it.

to make matters worse, these conversations all occurred at a super-ritzy restaurant (prided on being 5 star) on long island. ok. the waiters were all “colored” and all of the diners were obviously wealthy. they followed every stereotypical rule of dress-up and class (except me, who was wearing a dress – forced by my mother – and sneakers – the only shoes i have – and makeup – also requested by my mother). combined with my short haircut, i was obviously not a part of the restaurant’s expectation (and people stared to make it obvious). supporting this environment made me so uncomfortable. but, again, i had no choice. 🙁

i wonder how long i can handle this type of bullshit? hmm…

i had one of those frustrating public transportation nites last nite… first, i arrived far too late via airport after way too much time traveling. upon arrival, i caught the last public subway back towards my apartment. i was struggling with 6 bags but only one person offered to help but didn’t speak enough english to understand that yes, i did want his help. regardless, all winded, i hopped on the last leg of my 5 exchage subway tracking. i sat besides a group of four – 2 very girlie 20something girls and their male companions (equally gender typical). across from me was a wide variety of other 20somethings who were probably students at mit, based purely on stereotypes. this was a mixture of men and women.

i chuckled with the students and they smiled back.. we sorta had a “hello” eye level of public transit. the four next to me didn’t even look at me or the others as they were caught in their own conversation. as the subway got rolling, all but the four sat quietly but slowly we couldn’t ignore the conversation that was happening. one girl was VERY loudly telling the story of a person she encountered where she could not tell if “it” was a man or a woman. drunkenly, she was loudly exclaiming how much this bothered her and how she was trying to determine if this “it” had a bra on. she was talking about going up to the “it” and reaching out to “it’s” shoulder to pat “it” to find if there was a bra there (she kept saying “it” with a harsh disgusted tone). the people across from me and i were obviously dumbfounded by this conversation but none of the four noticed us. they kept going!! finally, i tapped the girl on the shoulder and asked “why does it matter if the person is a boy or a girl?” all flustered she said that it didn’t but that she just wanted to tell a funny story. her female companion said that this was not the important part but they hadn’t gotten to it yet. the talker said “geez, sorry to start a controversy” and then continued the story!!!!! i was dumbfounded but my stop had arrived and i had to get off.

we entered san francisco late last nite.. yummy.. long road trip and we were tired so we crashed big time. when we woke up in the morning, we headed out to berkeley so that i could check out the environment (still doing the grad school panic). i was shockingly impressed by it. first, i found that canney, the prof out there is much younger than i thought and has some great ideas. he totally knew judith and visual who and we talked for over 1.5 hours about everything from educational philosophies to user interfaces. i found that i could do berkeley and it is back on the list of schools that i am definitely considering. thus, i just need to determine if i have a chance of getting in….

wow.. how i do love my girlie friend in san fran.. she made arrangements for us to go to a performance arts show when we arrived in san fran. to say it was fabulous is a bit of an understatement. nothing could be better. she brought a freshly rolled joint from berkeley and we smoked in in waiting of the performance. it was kinda like rent, kinda like blue man group, kinda, kinda, kinda. basically, it was a performance of music, rhythem, dance and flow. they played with fire, with strobe lights, with acrobats. their bodies manipulated in most astounding fashions. absolute beauty within one’s body… intense relationships between sound and dance.

utah scares me. plain and simple. i thought that maybe i was just anti-utah because of what i had read in the media or what i had imagined.. but no, i am just outright terrified of it. being ?bright? people, we decided to aim for brigum young (a mormon university in utah) because if any place would have something other than denny’s, it would be a college town. although this was wise, we forgot what type of people are in college towns like this one…

we could feel the stares creeping down our back as we walked through the main street. people stopped eating to stare out their windows. we settled on a rather cool looking mexican place, on to find that everyone in there was approximately our age. but it was just not that simple. everyone was WHITE. the boys looked like boys and the girls looked like girls, with ZERO cross-over. everyone was perfectly clean-cut, preppy. the waitress seemed nice enough so i decided to ask her various questions about the town and the university. boys and girls live in separate buildings, even off campus. there are curfews and people of the “opposite sex” are not permitted in your bedroom. there are dress codes (skirts must be below the knees) and hair requirements. beards/mustaches are forbidden. if you are found out to be gay, you are immediately kicked out. it is a dry state, meaning no alcohol.

holy shit this scared the hell outta me!!! i cannot imagine being in a place like this!!! we were in utter shock

Desired Items for Onroad Travel

Access to maps (preferably with GPS)
Access to motel information given particular city
Access to traffic info and construction info
Updated information about fastest route (given traffic info, weather, etc.)
Weather information
Knowledge of restaurants (including local jazzies) given a city
Listings of radio stations
programmable scanner- where you could input types of stations that you are willing to listen to
currently, when driving, you are in a bubble (say a car) with other people. there are plenty of people on either side of you, or plenty of bubbles.

current ways: talk stuff (cb radios)

are visual bad? distraction from driving? what about passengers?

currently, most people who drive, drive by themselves, sole bubbles.

also, trust is a problem. in virtual space, trust is far less important. you do n’t have to worry about who you talk to and who you don’t… in real space, saf ety is a concern. can a community exist in this type of space or is it too dangerous? to a certain degree, you see a community amongst truckers… why not oth er travelers? how do you connect the community of drivers to on another? how do you connect the flowing community with the static one of the area?

how can you talk to locals? maybe find locals who would put you up??

augemented reality… – select a car and ‘page’ them to communicate with a car on the system. other cars can accept/decline your discussion request..

as you pass through a space, get information about the neighbors and the locations and whatnot.. find locals who will talk with you at any given point… be able to virtually ask for directions.