Via Kevin Mark: really?) If only I could get piano lessons counted as aural rehabilitation therapy.

What do governance, feminism, and open source communities have in common? A great essay on Jo Freeman's classic 1907 article, The Tyranny of Structurelessness.

I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to manage having a family. I already get discombobulated when my cousins (whom I love dearly) visit town - if I'm in a flow state, wrenching myself out of that is like trying to stop... trying not to exaggerate here, so perhaps a fast bike going down a steep hill. (I'm talking me on my normal ol' bike here, not Lance Armstrong. Not that fast.)

It's physically possible. You almost certainly won't die. You probably won't get too seriously injured. But it is hard, and it will hurt (you, the cyclist, and the bike), and you won't be able to really control where you end up. It feels better to let the cyclist continue hurtling down the hill, speeding through the wind, gloriously swift.

I can't let myself start on work I might get really into if I might be interrupted by family. Which means that they're almost mutually incompatible - when I'm in maker mode, I need at least half a day to be in maker mode, and I can't break out for family stuff in the middle of it or I'll lose everything; when I hang out with family (less so with friends, because they tend to share my work interests and I can get into productive flow state with them) I have to accept that I won't be productive for many hours. And I have a hard time accepting that, and I have a hard time quelling my impatience when I feel the call to Do Things! in the middle of being with people whom I really, truly, do adore and love and enjoy spending time with.

It isn't something I'm particularly proud of. I'm not convinced my two worlds need to be immiscible, but that's what it feels like right now. And I don't want to ever, ever, ever resent having to interrupt a paper to pick up a sick child, or skip half a seminar for someone's basketball game, or... basically, feel trapped. If I do those things, it should be out of love. Doesn't mean it won't be hard. Does mean I won't resent it. Not sure how that transformation happens.

Sometimes I'm not particularly proud of how I choose to handle things; this is one of them. I'm writing this out in an attempt to understand the way I'm thinking - not to change it yet, just to turn it around in my head and see it better. That's the first step to changing something; understanding it.