As of Monday at 7 PM, I am officially homeless and totally relieved. It feels funny to say that... but considering all the stress that I was under prior to moving out, I'm just glad to have the worst of it over with.

The moving out bit went a little bumpier than I anticipated. Part of that was just not being fully prepared. I tried my best to be all packed up before we started loading into the truck, but I feel like I lost a lot of momentum when the sublet that I had lined up fell through. It just sorta knocked the wind out of my sails a bit....

That, coupled with the fact that I was utterly distracted by another sexism controversy in the Drupal community which I felt the need to take 3 hours out of my evening on Friday night to write a blog post about just so I could let the whole thing go...

While a great deal of my stuff was all packed and ready for Saturday, there was a fair bit that wasn't. We got started a little later than I'd wanted to, and then I didn't realize that the storage facility that I'd picked closed at 4:30 on Saturdays... and needless to say, we weren't ready to move stuff in time. Oops.

At least the truck was packed with my stuff on Saturday. Which in retrospect might have been a good thing, because it spread things out a little bit. Sunday we moved all my stuff into storage, then packed up the truck again with the husband's stuff, and he drove back to New Hampshire.

I took Monday off and did all the surface cleaning and took care of all the odds and ends that got left behind, and moved all my stuff down the street to a friend's apartment that I'm staying with for one more night before moving into a weeklong sublet.

After that... not so sure where I'm going to end up.... but it's an adventure.

All things considered, I shouldn't be taking the time to blog right now. Our lease ends on the 31st, which mostly means we need to move out this weekend.

I cannot express how not ready I am right now to do this.

There are some things that I just seem to be dragging my feet to deal with... Like the clothes. I totally need to be purging those, but I can't seem to bring myself to it. I have way too many t-shirts, not enough nice clothes... and I seem to just want to horde all this stuff I don't wear. Blargh.

Nevermind the fact that I was actually in the mood to do it this evening, but couldn't because Matt was sleeping in the room... and now that he's awake, I don't want to because I'm tired and want to go to bed.

Packing after work sucks, by the way.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that I have no idea right now where I'm going to live? Yeah.

I thought I had this taken care of this weekend... a friend of a friend had plans to move into this room, but the timing wasn't working, the guy he was going to rent from needed to fill the room this month and he wasn't going to be ready until next month... and it all went down well, and then I get a text today saying the guy's decided to rent to his best friend instead.

So, back to square one again... Going to put most of my stuff in storage, and then decide what to do.

I suppose the time as come for me to write something about what's going on in my life right now... I can't exactly keep silent forever, it's got to come out sometime.

The husband and I have decided that it's time to part ways.

It's a decision that was came to amicably, and we plan to remain good friends. It was just becoming all too clear that we weren't happy living under the same roof, and the way we want to live our lives just isn't really suited to the other.

It's been a rough year for the both of us, and hopefully this will be the beginning of come closure and some brighter days.

I am hopeful for the both of us.

The people who already know this information tend to ask how I am quite frequently, and this is one of those things that feels very much like a layered question. I usually end up saying 'I'm doing fine.' because that's mostly what people want to hear anyway, but for you all... The real answer.

All things considered, I'm feeling a great deal of contentment regarding the decision to separate coupled with a great deal of anxiety around hashing out the final details of getting the move done by the end of the week (though, that's lessening as things are beginning to click into place). I'm also finding myself in a phase of asking myself the questions "Who have I been?", "Who am I?", and "What do I want to become?" which is a mental exercise which is really beginning to wear me out.

I feel like I'm shifting from a masculine energy to a feminine energy. I'm feeling very mixed about that due to the fact I'm feeling much less confidant about myself. I'm questioning what I think about relationships. I find myself at odds with myself. The fact that the two biggest tags for my blog right now are "polyamory" and "relationships" while I'm going through a separation make me want to brace for comments from the peanut gallery saying that polyamory is what lead us to the demise of our marriage, why we failed...

But I don't feel like a failure. Far from it.

I have a hard time saying that we're breaking up, because I don't feel like we're breaking up. I feel like our relationship is just changing forms to something that suits us better. I feel like that's a win, not a fail. I don't regret the relationship that we've had, but I don't hold illusions that things are going to stay the same forever.

I feel like I've gone through a shift of what I'm looking for. Previously, I was more into the idea of casual partners... sex being the primary objective. That's begun to get less and less appealing, while I'm finding I crave emotional interactions. Sitting and talking about feelings and philosophy with a dear friend, cuddling and comforting.... but at the same time, I'm having a hard time getting into that space. I want something that isn't as easily asked for as a cock in a snatch... I want to be courted, cuddled and comforted into having wonderful deep emotionally healing discussions. I want to feel love emotionally first, and then physically later....

But I feel like now isn't the time to want these things this badly. I should learn to be single for awhile, shouldn't I?

If there's one thing that I know I should avoid, it's comments on anything that's associated to a more "traditional" source of news, such as a TV news station or a newspaper. Very very rarely was bothering to read the comment section worth it. More often than not, doing so gets me ragingly upset and causes me to lose complete and utter faith in the decency of humanity.

Today's thing that that's made me want to rage like a lunatic?

I was reading through my Facebook page and tumbled across a note from the television station back home saying that their had been a hunger strike at the state prison, and about a dozen men were protesting the fact that fans had been taken away during hot temperatures, and there would be more on the news at 6. The headline grabbed my attention, but there really wasn't enough information to be casting any sort of extreme judgement on the situation.

Stupidly, I clicked on the comments. Seventy sum odd comments that were mostly to the effect of "All prisoners are monsters! How dare they have the nerve protest! They should just be lucky to get fed, all privileges should be taken away! Prison is not a hotel!"

The treatment of prisoners is one of those subjects for me... I just don't buy the whole prisoners are unredeemable people that deserve to sit in a box for the rest of their lives rotting away. Suggesting so to me is one of those things that's liable to make me lose my temper and call you a monster who deserves to live in such conditions yourself.

Privileges are an extremely important part of a prison social ecosystem. Various privileges allow guards social leverage... They can reward good behavior by allowing prisoners the ability to do more things. They can punish bad behavior by taking away things. This doesn't equate to a cushy lifestyle by any stretch of the imagination, but what it does do is maintain a level of contentment. If a prisoner has something to look forward to in their day, something that can be taken away if they behave badly, they're more likely to be well behaved prisoners.

Life is... complicated. Perhaps the understatement of the century. It's come to be that time of year where change is in the air. The neighborhood crew that I spent most weekends partying with for the past year is dispersing and my lease is up soon, so looking for where to hang my hat next. It snuck up on me.

Then there's all the stuff that I'm not yet at liberty to talk about. But I'd probably tell you if you just ask.

It would seem that I've had a massive case of writer's block as of late. My general mood has been pretty dismal, and pretty much all I can think to write about on any given day is how much my life is really sucking right now.

Largely this has to do with money and work.

It's not a secret that I'm unhappy with my day job. At this point, it's not fulfilling work for me. It's not challenging in the slightest, and at this point.... I feel like I'm now two years behind the curve... and I'm discouraged and frustrated about it.

It's been so long since I've done any real site implementation that I feel lost whenever I try. Any time I sit down and try to do anything with Drupal beyond the base install I just want to throw my computer across the room because I'm just so damn frustrated with it all because it seems so foreign. I wonder what's happened to me.... there used to be a time where I'd just sit down and figure this shit out. Now I just get discouraged and think I'm a big ass dummy.

I think my block as far as that goes is just flat out fear that I'm going to fail at everyone's expectations of me. I work on one of the biggest Drupal multi-site installs. When I name drop where I work, people are impressed. I'm supposed to be some sort of badass Drupal goddess or some such. There's an assumption that I'm supposed to know how to do things "the right way". Yet, I don't... not really. Not anymore.... In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm starting over as a complete newbie and I'm honestly quite ashamed of that. I don't want to ask for help because I feel like I'm not supposed to need it because I'm supposed to be the badass.

How do you break this cycle?

I'm trying for freelance work because it just doesn't seem like any shops are hiring themers, but I don't like working on my own. I'm afraid to, afraid I'm going to get myself in over my head and then what? And I hate dealing with the money. I'm always afraid I'm asking too much. Or too little. Or something. I don't want to be the one who thinks about that.

The money. Money is killing me. I'm not being paid what I'm told I'm supposed to. If I said how much, everyone in the industry would probably say I'm being screwed. I can barely pay my bills. Currently, there's $20 in my bank account. I don't get paid till Friday. Half of that will be spent on subway fare for the next two days.

The husband's not working. He's picking up freelance small business tech support consulting jobs here and there, but he's worse than I am when it comes to freelance follow-up. If someone's not directing his every move, he doesn't follow up and drops the ball on things.

So, what do I do, Internet? What the fuck do I do?

I updated my site tonight. This blog was running some rather old, insecure version of Drupal 6 that was insecure as of oh... I don't know... at least 6 months ago if not more. Partly that was because I let the domain expire and wasn't maintaining something that wasn't actually online anymore.

I feel a little accomplished actually. it's been a very long time since I've done any web work for myself.

I hate to admit this, but I did everything the old fashioned way... through a GUI SFTP client. Why? It's the only way I knew how to do it on my own. For the past few years, I've had people to provision sites for me in my professional life. I didn't need to know that stuff.

It's been hard getting back into doing stuff for myself.

It's been hard to realize that in the past several years, I've gotten really niche with my abilities.... It's been hard to admit to myself that if I want things like version control, I might be better off asking for some help.

I was sitting a little paralyzed for quite awhile, fretting about all the things I don't know how to do.... and then it hit me this evening.... Okay, yes... it would be ideal if I had some version control on the code to this sucker... but since it's only me, I can probably handle not having it.... and it can be a long term goal to get it into some sort of version control.

I can't be paralyzed by the shit I don't know.

I need to stop dreaming, I need to start doing.

So, now that I'm upgraded... The next step is to retheme. I'll probably be bitching about how I suck a graphic design soon.

I have recently fallen in love with a blog called Sexy Sadie's Stories of Seduction: Confessions from my Open Marriage. Sadie writes lovely, sexy posts.... The sort of ones I'd write if it weren't for the fact that I'm so darn attached to accrediting everything I write to the same online persona. She's wrote an entry a day or two ago that got me to thinking...

Ships. Confession #473. I'd recommend going and reading that and coming back. It's okay. I'll wait.

Okay, so you're back now or you totally decided to ignore my instructions. Whatever.

I find myself identifying with Sadie a lot. We don't have everything in life in common but I can say we practice some of our open relationships the same way. I have a tendency to date single monogamous men who aren't yet ready for a serious relationship, but want a friend to play with. There's generally some sort of understanding that whatever this thing is you feel right now, it won't last forever. This will end. Might stay friends, might not. Inevitability, you'll move on.

I can't speak for her, but for myself... This scenario kinda grows old for me. The difficult thing about it is you can't get too attached. Their heart is never really yours, to some degree the passion is nothing more than acting. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with this, but it should be known as it is.. I find myself becoming more and more tired with having to prevent myself from getting too attached.

This gets me starting to think about what my motivations are and what my ideal situation actually is.

If I had to really narrow down what it is I'm looking for, it'd be something along these lines... I want a committed relationship, someone that I can count on to be a close part of my life for the unforseeable future... someone I'm emotionally close to. However, ever increasingly I find that being in physical proximity isn't necessarily a priority for me. A commitment to visits, or an arrangement where I alternated between living in two spaces almost seems more ideal to me. I want to be with a person who's independent, and values their independence but isn't ignorant to the fact that some bonding beyond the superficial level is positive and healthy. This is a person that I could see raising a family with, even if we never actually do "settle down" in the traditional sense. I want someone who's flexible and creative with solutions.

I suppose a lot of the ideal for me is the fact that I'm increasingly being more open to some sort of more nomadic existence. I wish I could travel more.... but I suppose that's a thought for a different day.

Amongst one of the more recent singer/songwriter types that I've started listening to is John Flanagan, a folk singer hailing from Melbourne, Australia. I tripped across him on TheSixtyOne, and I noticed today that there was a new song that had been added for him.

Blissfully Ignorant.

I really had liked his other songs, but this one just blew me away and moved too much to not point it out.

The chorus...

Blissfully ignorant, happily blinded
Presently Joyful, absent minded
Let all my days be, beautifully crazy
Take my unending ambition from me

It was maybe the fourth or fifth time I listened to the song, at the point where I was beginning to sing along with the chorus, that I realized how much the chorus sings like a hymn.

This is a listen to the words one.

Complicated thoughts coming from a multitude of different places. Honesty. Romanticism. Sex. Kindred spirits. Realistic expectations. Work.

Let me try to explain...

I'm neither happy nor unhappy with living in Brooklyn. I'm not so fond of the job anymore, so I don't feel tethered to being in NYC long term, but at the same time... I don't have the strongest of desires to leave either. Well, finances play into that too. The only place I could probably afford to move is back in with my parents, and I sure don't want that and I'm sure neither do they. So, "What next?" seems to be the question of the hour.

Work dictates everything here. I've learned things about my work habits in the past few years... namely, while I do tend to be a mostly independent learner, I sometimes falter in confidence when I'm trying to get started, so I need a brief hand hold and a reminder that I'm a smart capable person, and a suggestion on the best place to start. I'm a person who hates to do things twice and would rather spend time talking about the best way to fix a solution before I dive in head first and then solve the problem with a poor solution. I do so much better in a structured environment. I get so much more work done working in an office than working alone. The constant accountability keeps me on task. I want to be back closer to the cutting edge, I want to work somewhere efficient.

I hope I get that figured out sooner than later...

Then, of course, there are the matters of the heart.

I crave a certain sort of connection... soulmate-like, I guess. The sort of person who you can have a brilliantly deep conversation with about... well... anything. The sort of person who just knows what to do when you're down without you having to explain it to them, and who loves you so much that they're okay with being patient while you sort it all out in your head. The sort of person you have brilliant sex which you wish would never end. The sort of person who you can play a song for and have them get the meaning of what you're trying to communicate through it. The sort of person who can just be present in whatever the moment brings.

Simultaneously, I have a difficult time believing such a person exists. Nobody's perfect. Nobody fills every single need. Realistically, it's better to just embrace the relationships you already have, honor them and cherish them for what they are, and let things evolve to whatever point the two people involved are comfortable. This leads me to have some people I'm emotionally close to, and some people that I play with, but often times the two don't overlap on the level I'd really want them to. Not that any of these situations are bad or unhealthy, but I find myself still longing for something more.

Sometimes I wonder if the desire to "settle down", as it were, is just the reproductive system and the conventional cultural wisdom talking. I find myself with short-lived spurts of baby-craziness, I'm certain short-lived because I haven't found anyone who's I'd consider to be a suitable biological mate (the husband isn't interested in having his own biological children) and there's probably a slim amount of people out there who want to settle down and have kids with someone who a partner already.

I find myself thinking about what "the ideal" would be. I'm really not so sure.

This is what happens when you leave me home alone on a Friday night in New York City. I start proposing crazy shit. So, Drupal is a pretty unique open source project in the sense that it has this community of individuals around it who are very passionate people. They're passionate about Drupal itself, they're passionate about other things too... family, community, art, politics to name a few things that I've seen Drupal folk be passionate and excited about.

One of the things that I absolutely love about Drupalcon is what happens socially. Sure, we've all gathered to talk about hooks and theme functions during the day, but invariably we end up talking about things that are important to us... about our families, about politics, about music and the arts, about video games, about love, about philosophy... and one of the things that's so beautiful is I get to talk about other stuff with people who I don't have to explain what this Drupal thing is and why it's such a big part of my life. This is something I found I missed a lot in between Drupalcons.

How do we keep the spirit of Drupalcon alive year round?

For the most part, we do this with various sorts of meetup structures.... whether that be something informal like Worldwide Drupal Happy Hour, monthly Drupal meetups or DrupalCamps. These are all excellent things to have as a community, but they're a little limited by geography. Not everybody lives near a city that has a regular meetup. I was thinking about ways to bring that spirit of getting to know each other and lighthearted fun and intelligent discussion into an online space. It's at least been my experience that sometimes the only thing I talk to Drupal people about online is Drupal.

So, here's what I'm thinking... either a podcast or a video cast, but I'm thinking a podcast because it's easier to patch together audio from multiple locations that way... a host with two guests, everyone brings with them an idea or two of things to talk about... a current event, a thought about something, a funny joke, whatever... and we sit and have an intelligent discussion about these things. Different people every episode. The whole purpose is to get to know people in the community.

Thoughts? Feedback? I don't really want to invest any time into it if there isn't an interest in the idea obviously.

This was the thing that really made me smile today:

Thursday morning I was walking down Market St. in San Francisco and I stumbled upon a toy store. I love toy stores, and since I had a few minutes to spare I popped my head in. I was mostly looking for something San Francisco-y to buy for my niece, but there was nothing in the store that really leapt out at me to buy for her. However, I tripped over a journal with the words "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars." Somehow, the quote seemed appropriate and after a long week of conversations and thoughts rolling around in my head from Drupalcon, I needed a medium to express them.

So, I'm paper journaling again. We'll see how long this lasts.

So, Drupalcon. How on earth am I supposed to write about this? Hrm. If you looked at the website you'd probably come to the conclusion that it's a fairly standard educational conference... and well, you probably wouldn't be wrong about that...

It's just that Drupalcon ends up being a bit more... well, a bit personal than that.

Backing up for a moment. Drupal. It's a content management system... you know, those things that power websites that have little forms that you type text into and then it shows up on the page so people who don't know anything about how to make websites can post whatever it is they want to say? Yeah, short version, that's what Drupal is. It's also this little thing we call open source, which means that anybody can download it and look at it and run the code and modify it or create add-ons for it (modules) and contribute back what they did for other people to use. So, basically the contributors to it are a lot of people all over the world that make websites.

Drupalcon is this little convention (well, not so little... I think 3000 people doesn't count as little anymore) where all these people who have some sort of interest in Drupal.... people who contribute code to it, people who develop their sites using it, people who have sites that were developed on it, people who want their site developed using it... there are companies that specialize in it.... there's basically this community, a legitimate business community, that surrounds the project. It's making people money. it's helping people achieve their dreams. There's a lot of excited people about it.

I get asked a lot from my non-Drupal web geek friends, "Why Drupal?" and really it comes down to the community above all else. I'm fully willing to admit that Drupal isn't perfection. There are things that it doesn't do well. I know that PHP isn't the most brilliant programming language on the planet.... but at the end of the day, I know that if I can't figure something out, there's a community of really smart people that have my back... whether it be in writing modules to solve problems I might have, tutorials, or just answering questions. People just like me, who are passionate about what they do for work.

Back to what I said about Drupalcon being more personal than your average tech conference... well, the Drupal community has a culture which, in my experience at least, tends to put friendship at the forefront of things. Drupalcon is just as much, if not more, about being with friends and making new ones as it is discussing code, skill sharing and professional networking.

Originally, I wasn't going to go to Drupalcon this year. Moving to NYC had eaten up just about all of my spending money, and there just wasn't enough to cover the expenses of buying the ticket to the conference, and the plane tickets, and cover lodging. I'd pretty much given up on the idea. About a month before the conference, people started asking if I was going and I had to sadly say no... Apparently, "no" wasn't a good answer. I was offered a ticket by a friend who's company had leftover tickets from their sponsorship. That was enough to get me scheming.... I knew I could probably swing airfare, but lodging was a different story. I ended up venting to an friend with no real intention, and lo and behold what do you know.... she just moved to San Francisco, and she lives two blocks from the conference center.

Sometimes, things just work out when you don't expect them to.

Coming into Drupalcon, I was pretty down. The work grind was getting to me, and in general I'd just been restless with life. I came with the hope of gaining some perspective. I ended up having a lot of conversations this year about life and how hard it can be sometimes.... and it was so refreshing to be among people who care so much, who aren't afraid to be honest when things hurt and are hard, and who aren't afraid to give someone a hug who needs it.

I came away from Drupalcon this year feeling very encouraged, very blessed and very loved. Thank you, everyone.

So... how do you concisely represent the past year? Hmm.

Well, where we last left our heroine... she had just returned from a week long trip to NYC which was inspired by the fact that the outlandish one was turning 30 and well, one couldn't exactly go to the city and not stay for a week and work in the office.

Upon returning back to The Shire, it was quite obvious.... Things Have to Change.

One, The Husband needed to leave his soulsucking job. Two, we had two options... Boston or NYC. The decision was pending on whether Husband got the job he applied and interviewed for. He didn't. NYC it was.

That was the point where I stopped blogging.

I moved to Brooklyn in June. I went full time at my job in August. Husband joined me in September. Lots of cool things happened, I made some wonderful friends, partied a lot, worked a lot. There's lots of details there, and not that they aren't important but most of them are stories of their own.

Workwise, things were going fairly well until a couple of months ago. The manager that had hired me was laid off, and since she's a good friend she was largely my reason for being tied to that project. Her leaving changed the dynamics of things, and my desire to stay has dwindled as things have become more and more stressful.

Once again, the thought crosses my mind.... Things Have to Change.

Some things in life are not cut, dried and simple... Sometimes the issues the effect one facet of life tend to bleed over into the others, and I guess that's why I've avoided really talking too much about a current event in my life that seems to encompass employment, where we live, relationships, mental health, and probably other facets that aren't just coming to mind right now...

First off, my husband hates his job. It's a real soulsucker... and without getting bogged down into too many details, the skinny of it is he works a technician job, ends up doing a lot of engineering type work, and is being paid about $14 an hour for it, which ultimately means we're being robbed for the type of work he's doing... and for whatever reason, working for this place has gotten him into a rather depressed rut of believing he can't do anything and resulted in him being some level of mopey and insufferable when he's at home.

This put us in somewhat of a chicken/egg situation... He's depressed and feeling worthless from taking his work a little too personally, thus the job application process seems too difficult. The few places he did manage to apply to either ignored his application or scheduled phone interviews which he botched because they needed to be conducted during the work week, during the work day, which meant he was horribly depressed and demoralized when he was doing it, thus not very impressive. Yet, I couldn't tell him to just quit and then get a job, because we need things.... like health insurance, which with me freelancing, we couldn't easily attain otherwise.... at least not while living in New Hampshire, and it just overall seemed like a bad idea considering that I don't seem to have a very good work ethic at home.

We weren't happy, but we were getting by... and I frequently fussed to my boyfriend about the whole situation, and because he's the wonderful man that he is... when an opportunity came up at his company, he passed husband's resume along and husband's been going through the whole application process this month. At first, I was really excited about the whole thing... If he got the job it would mean a move to MA, I'd be closer to the boyfriend, he'd make more money....

And then... I went to NYC for the week to work, and had one of those weeks where you felt like your perspective on everything just totally changed... and a bit for the confusing.

Things that weren't bothering me on a conscious level before I had my week in the city, suddenly were things that drove me crazy when I got back...

The big one was my work habits. It became abundantly clear on this trip, perhaps more than some previously, that I'm not really cut out to work at home. I get so much more done when I'm in the office... My hours are more productive, I'm less distracted, and in general I feel so much less isolated from the team than I do when I'm at home. It was much much harder to leave on Friday to go home this trip, I was bawling before I was through giving my goodbyes. I get choked up thinking about it, even now.

There are really only two ways to fix this dilemma... Move to NYC and join the team in the office (like they would very strongly like me to do) or find a new job. I'd rather move where I already know I have a job.

The second problem was how much my husband's attitude was affecting me. It didn't really help that the weekend I came back, he was more angsty than usual... Jealous because I got to spend the week doing something fun while he had to stay at home and work a job he hated.

So, where does that leave us now... Husband has a job interview for the job in MA on Tuesday. He's not a shoe-in for it, but there aren't a lot of candidates for it either, so he has a fairly good chance of getting it... Though, he's not entirely certain he wants it, and he's toying with the idea of going back to school to get his bachelor's... I'm finding myself leaning more heavily toward NYC, though I find the idea of moving further away from the boyfriend rather than closer to be heartwrenching... It'll change things for sure.

Ultimately, I don't know what the decision is going to be at this moment... I'm just impatiently waiting some answers.