You've probably seen this checklist (maybe in PDF format) before. It's called Everything is Awful and I'm Not Okay.

I used to have lots of everything-is-awful-and-im-not-okay days. Lots and lots and lots of them. Some times I'd have, like, a whole month of them strung together. Sometimes it was everything I could do to get home at 6 pm and crawl into bed. (Wheeeeee.)

You guys! I ran a BoF at DrupalCon! I've made it! Next....the world!

Okay, maybe that's not next. But it was exciting to be driving the conversation at this big convention, not just soaking it up. I was worried no one would come. I had to review my session description to remind myself of what we might cover. But we had a group of about ten people and a great discussion.

I'm still in a bit of a New Orleans induced haze; wishing I could still be eating chargrilled oysters and drinking sazeracs. Feeling like something in life was a little fuller, a little darker, a little more romantic (not in the Paris way, in the vampires way).

I'm trying now to figure out what it is I miss and what of that I can bring into my life here. Because, as sometimes happen, I go on vacation and decide I really ought to move. It hasn't happened in a while, but it happened in New Orleans.

Mentoring

Lessons for next DrupalCon:

I have a big jumbled bubbling stew of ideas related to visibility, outreach, community and belonging all bouncing around my head right now.

The day started out with a keynote that blew my mind for a couple reasons: 1) it was great and 2) she talked about periods, as in menstrual cycles, for a good 15 minutes.

DrupalCon Day 1

“People struggle to choose the open web.” -Josh Koenig, Pantheon

Man, there is a LOT to digest from one session of DrupalCon, much less a full day or a full con.

I struggle to choose the open web, and I believe in the open web. It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed with the open web, because you have to build your own capacity (at least for now). The open web is a magical place, but it’s also a place where you have to take care of yourself a little bit more.

I have so much that is barely digested about New Orleans, Louisiana, cemeteries, history, etc. In the mean time, here is a barely digested list of species I have identified so far:

Pickerelweed. Growing in the Barataria preserve in such great numbers that I couldn’t resist breaking out my new field guide to identify it. It’s about 2-3 feet tall, with bluish flowers in a cone at the top of a long stalk. The leaves are shaped like hearts. It grows densely in any swampy area that gets decent sunlight.

We’re one-fifth of the way to the end! Part of me thinks: Wow, how has it gone by so fast?! And part of me thinks: GOOD GOD I HAVE TO DO FOUR TIMES THIS MUCH.

I’ve been drinking tonight, again, because DrupalCon. We started at a fantastic bar called Bacchanal Wine Bar, where I spent much of the night slurping down mussels, drinking beer and wine, and remembering my former life as a tap dancer/trombonist. There are a handful of ghost-mes around the country, one of which went to Tulane and probably got eyeballs deep in jazz trombone and rhythm tap.

In case the two (or more?) posts I’ve already done on DrupalCon didn’t clue you in, we’re coming up on the High Nerd Holidays of my particular corner of the internet.