Liminal states

After taking a couple of months fairly completely off (sleeping, doing some writing, and plenty of hanging out with Deborah), as January gets going I’m starting to re-engage, so I figured it’s about time for another “what’s up” post….

The biggest news is that I’m going to be starting a consulting gig in early February. Before we get to that, though, I want to put it in context: my top priorities for 2008 are working on Tales from the Net — we want to get a solid draft done and a contract in place by the end of the year — and training to to climb Mount Kilamanjaro in early 2009. Yes, really.

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As TantraSF says:

Remember the days before the underground split into many different scenes and moved into nightclubs? Remember when you could hear trance, breaks, techno and downtempo in a big warehouse with an old school vibe? Remember back in the good old days? We do too, so this year Tantra is teaming up with Get Freaky, Know:Audio, the Ambient Mafia and Word of Mouth to present:

“NYE 2008, an underground resolution”

Liam and Dutch in the psytrance room!?!?! A happy new year indeed!

Thinking of you

Thoughts emerging from dreams,
In my mind as I wake:
Full of warmth and desire,
Bliss beginning the day.

Thoughts weaving together,
Through the whole afternoon:
Sun, chocolate, your smile,
Love … and feeling alive.

Thoughts of art and beauty,
In my mind late at night:
Memories,
Fantasies,
Dreams and visions of you.

The two months since I left Microsoft have been low-key recharge-and-relax time: catching up on sleep, visiting my mom, reconnecting with friends, doing some writing (blogging, poetry, the fictional The anomaly and the goddesses), and hanging out with Deborah. It’s been great. My friends consistently tell me how relaxed I look and sound (my Facebook status messages apparently give the same impression), and that’s exactly how I feel.

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Heading out soon to Geomagnetic.tv’s Geo Solstice 2007 at the Gingerbread House in SF tonight. Geomagnetic’s Dr. Spook, who did the pscychedelic Ad Astra visuals and rotating globe, is on at midnight; string art by Andres!

The psytrance, dark psytrance, and darkwave scenes are feast-or-famine in SF: sometimes there’s a ton of good stuff going on, sometimes nothin’. Between this, Death Guild’s XMas, a legal absinthe party, and the usual great stuff on New Year’s Eve/Day, Holiday season 2007/8 is shaping up as an abundance of riches!

w00t w00t!

I went out last night to see Anthony Pappa at Scott Carelli’s Satellite, “bringing you the best underground DJs in the middle of the week for 5 years.”  I always feel so lucky when I get to see somebody of his caliber in such a small venue, and the crowd was great, very diverse, there to dance and hang out with their friends.  His set was a lot like his Global Underground mixes (which were the first ones of his I heard).   As usual I woke up the next day feeling clean, relaxed and energized.  Heck yeah.

We’re heading back to visit my Mom in Folly Beach, South Carolina, for a couple of days, so I won’t be online much.

Please try to keep the web running in my absence.

jon

… but I woke up this morning thinking today really is the first day of the rest of my life!” After which point I went back to sleep, and didn’t get out of bed until close to noon — I mean, might as well get the rest of my life off to a nice relaxing start. When I got up my first reaction was “geez, how 70s”, and then I realized that wasn’t clear when to start the 24-hour “first day” clock from; and in any case, I’m reading Dzogchen Ponlop’s mind beyond death, and had just encountered the timely reminder that “the duration of any moment is not the actual experience itself. Our sense of time comes afterward, outside of it.” Indeed. Still …

Yesterday was my last day at Microsoft, after being there 8 1/3 years. It’s been an amazing time (as the last six weeks of summing up, appreciation, and compliments from friends and colleagues, old and new, has helped remind me). I learned a lot there, grew a lot, and am really proud of what I accomplished.

I’m really excited about what’s next — can’t wait, in fact! The first step is to take some time off, and work on some projects with Deborah and hopefully some other friends as well … after that, we shall see; I’ll also be blogging, here, and will keep everybody posted. And it kind of feels like stepping off of a cliff and leaping into the void: exhilarating and a sense of total freedom.

It may well take me a while to find my voice with this blog; in the short term, it’ll probably be a mix of personal stuff and talking about my writing, with some politics mixed in, and then more about some of the projects as we get going on them. I’m sure there will be a wiki involved as well at some point and a bunch of experimenting with different look-and-feels and perhaps writing style as well. It’s all pretty ad hoc and informal right now…. still not sure how often I’ll be posting, or the mix between long and short posts. Please stay tuned and bear with me as I work things out!

jon

Our plans for the day got slightly scrambled because the “do not track” list proposal from a coalition of nine privacy and civil liberties groups (including PrivacyActivism) got a chunk of media attention today (New York Times, Ryan Singel on Threat Level with a very good article, a lame discussion on Slashdot but still it’s on Slashdot) and Deborah wound up doing a late-afternoon interview on KGO.  Oh well; good problem to have!  During this time the morning fog and clouds lifted and it turned into a lovely sunny afternoon in San Francisco … and it looks like it’ll be a beautiful night as well.We’re going out for dinner tonight at Ma Tante Sumi, a place we’ve been to on Hallowe’en several times over the last 15 years (as well as for birthdays and New Year’s Eve and other special occasions), and one of the few places in the Castro that’s staying open past 8 p.m. tonight.

Hallowe’en’s always been one of our favorite holidays, and of course our hood is one of the best places to celebrate it.  We’re both in a fairly low-key mood tonight, so rather than trick-or-treating, we’ll have a nice relaxing dinner, perhaps a glass of champagne and a bottle of wine (Chateauneuf de Pape probably suits our mood better than Adastra) … and no doubt a scrumptious dessert.
And then tomorrow morning I fly back up to Seattle, for my goodbye party, cleaning out my office, and then an exit interview.   So a big part of me is feeling very reflective, appreciating all the friends we’ve made at Microsoft and the Seattle area and cyberspace, during my time there and in particular the last three and a half years, and thinking about what I’ve learned and how I’ve changed.  At the same time, my post-Microsoft plans involve working on some very exciting things with Deborah (and spending lots of time together too!), so I’m very much looking forward to the future — and I’m sure those friends will continue to be a part of it.

I was playing with one of those silly facebook applications that lets you choose a mood (and optionally spam all your friends, but I always skip that step) and wasn’t sure which one to choose.  “Romantic” wasn’t there, alas, but there were still plenty of other good options.  Happy?  Festive?  Excited?  Content?  Unfortunately there isn’t any alternative for “more than one”, so I decided to go with “content” … which is, now that I think of it, kind of how I’m feeling.

Happy Halloween, all!