Dance Resource Center (who I am very honored to be working with) holds monthly gatherings for the Los Angeles dance community on the first Thursday of each month, 9-11 am. The group welcomes everybody, and it was one of the first places that made me feel like somebody in this bar godforsaken megalopolis beautiful city knows my name and is happy to see me.
I believe in generosity.
I believe in being nice to other human beings and giving them the benefit of the doubt.
I believe in the benefit of the doubt, generally.
I believe in the power of writing.
I believe in strategy.
I believe in incremental change.
I believe in maintainability.
I believe in not shitting the bed.
I believe in ongoing learning.
I believe in educating others.
I believe in speaking clearly and compellingly on technical topics.
I believe in circling, wandering, jumping and rambling on personal topics.
I just spent the last five hours with Paul dredging up old algebra skills in an attempt to finally, once and for all, figure out HOW MONEY WORKS.
Okay, that's not the question we were trying to answer.
The question is: How can I know my business is financially healthy?
It shouldn't be hard. There are all kinds of axioms, including "Concern yourself with making your money, spend it later." A business without profits is not a business for long. Etc. etc.
I rode the bus to Venice Beach and back today. It cost me $3.49 ($1.75 each way, minus the penny I found in the parking lot). It arrives every 10 minutes-ish, and gets you pretty much right to the beach in under an hour from where I live. Boom.
I love Venice Beach. Before I moved to a place with an ocean next to it, I imagined my beach time as a serene, isolated experience, which is not so much the Venice experience. I have to admit to myself: I really like the crazy humanity of Venice.
I'm stuck, right now. I'm not sure what to write about and in some ways, that's the beauty of this particular experiment. I have always been of the "keep the pen/fingers moving" school of free writing, but I confess: When I've done that for too long without sharing, the writing gets really weird and boring. I get bored with myself. I spend a lot of time talking about my problems and then self-soothing--finding a way out of the terror and the sadness and the fear.
If you're not aware, I'm a pretty avid board gamer. Between Paul & I, we have a collection of about 130 board games, which seems like a lot until you hear about all the ones we've gotten rid of. I spent eleven hours today playing a ten-player board game, which was just....the best. I am a total board game hipster. I regret nothing, except for the fact that I'm not really going to explain any of the games I mention below.
Anyway.
I've been digging through my email backlog. I've gone from 1100+ emails in my personal inbox to 561 at present. Most of these emails are just things I didn't archive when I should have (thank you for letting me know my bank statement is available). Some of them are emails that should stop arriving (I know where to find my bank statements when I need them, thank you) and some of them are legit emails that I have been ignoring.
Here is a first draft on How Google Chooses Things, aka Become more popular and beloved by robots.
This is a complicated question. Buckle in for a mini-essay.
It's been a long and winding road, but here we are. This box used to talk about fortune cookies, but I've grown. I've had two jobs since then. I remember writing that at my old day job, during a quiet moment in the day. So, it was at least 4 years old. I grew attached to that fortune cookie summary. People complimented it.
Updating my LinkedIn summary once every four years has not been terribly successful. As new information pours in about who I am, there's bound to be some changes as we go along. I'm assuming an update every single day will do.
Today I picked up four pieces of trash and felt like a basic goddam hero. Four whole pieces! Never mind the 45 or so I walked right past. Los Angeles has something of a litter problem. Twelve-year-old me is jumping up and down with my hand raised, absolutely convinced I can solve this with some community building and impassioned speech giving, but thirty-two-year-old me is in control of the meatsack and has bills to pay. Still, it didn't hurt to pick up a little trash.
