What will be will be
Happy New Year! A lot has happened since I last sent a newsletter. I recently published my Year in Review post which covers the highlights of 2022 which included moving twice, traveling, buying a house, starting a day job, and not working at that day job anymore a few months later. Phew!
Writing
In November 2022 I wrote a follow-up essay (What Happened Next) to 2021's Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Other writing since I last sent this newsletter:
Congratulations on your fake promotion - a dark satire
You should quit
Is there a good computer job? - burnout feelings, foreshadowing of looking for a computers thing to do again
Labor and Leisure - book reviews
Twitter to Mastodon and post deletions - published in April when Twitter was first bought by Elon Musk
Why attracting remote workers means being a better city - opinions on remote workers relationship to living in cities
Atomic Habits: Book Review
Improvisation and the pentatonic scale
Using ffmpeg to cut/trim songs together with crossfade
On doing nothing
Dance
Recently the studio published a lil profile of me that you can read and share if you use Facebook or Instagram.
In November, the studio held its annual showcase (like an adult dance recital, with a many-hours-long open bar and lots of food). One of my colleagues made the card below with the staff photo that I'll share with y'all:
In December a friend reached out to ask if I do choreography (of course, but broad question) and she says "I need a routine for two people for the Mummers Parade [a major, if complicated, Philadelphia tradition] to Rhianna's Umbrella" which ABSOLUTELY. I was able to watch them perform on TV :)
I also choreographed a solo routine for another member of the Golden Sunrise NYA, so I had two routines in the parade! Great work Jacquie, Jennifer, and David!
In a couple of weeks, I head to Argentina to see the sun, work on improving my Argentine tango for two weeks, and bring back my annual anti-winter tradition after the locked-inside-pandemic-years.
Last year I taught a dance class targeted to the queer community (largely queer women), and I'm doing it again in 2023. Registration is open now for the series starting in February, this time with swing dancing!
Computers
In 2022 I started working with computers again after stopping in 2021. After a search that was shorter than I anticipated, I accepted a role and started in September 2022. However, that ended in December.
Now I'm looking for something that's a better fit. If you would like to reach out, you know how to find me :)
Music
Creativity-wise, music production has been one of the last things to come back. I've been letting myself be okay with that.
I did frequent many a karaoke night in 2022 and I suspect that is helping with the healing process, or fun in any scenario.
I want to say that I hope to publish a livecode track in the next while, but don't want to jinx it. I have various field recordings from hikes that want to be made into experimental electronic music and I confirmed that my TidalCycle setup works as far as I can tell …
And so
And that's the newsletter! Thank you for reading. Until next time.