People with uteruses did not have bodily autonomy when I was born nor do they have it now. This is ridiculous.
When I was born, everyone was afraid of Goldwater becoming president, then starting an apocalyptic war with the Soviet Union.
Now we fear that a man deep in the pockets of the Russian dictator might return to the presidency, and destroy whatever democratic institutions survive.
I have lived in four major metropolitan areas of the US.
I had three majors as an undergrad.
Iāve gone to two major universities.
Iāve been in two marriages, one that ended amicably, and the other is in its 11th year.
Iāve gone through three genders, and three sets of pronouns.
Iāve been attendant and companion to several cats, and have said goodbye to six of them.
I returned to school to learn what may be my third career.
This weekend I will launch some model rockets, go to a concert by Korean and Japanese feminist punk bands, and hopefully raise a glass with people I love.
I do not know how much time I have left. My mother passed when she was 72. My father lived to 89 years.
Iām an elder and have the gray hair and the wrinkles to go with the role.
When I was about to graduate high school, my father begged me not to study aerospace engineering despite my passion for rocketry and space. He warned me that Iād be laid off every two years and have to move all over the country chasing employment.
Over the three decades that Iāve been a programmer and project manager Iāve been through five layoffs.
I never had children. I am proud of most of my niblings. Though the one who works for a major mobile carrier, Iām not so sure about.
Cynthia has shared a third of my life with me, a decade of that married to me. She did not abandon me when I gave up on my sham attempts at masculinity. I am grateful to be her wife.
I hope what time remaining to me is good and the world becomes a kinder place while Iām still around.
Thank you for being with me through whatever parts of the journey as a friend, family, a coworker, or even just a reader of this blog.
In the early 2000's there was a lot of money invested in launching orbital rockets from airplanes. Those companies are now gone or in different businesses, why?
After Scaled Compositesā SpaceShipOne won the X Prize for a private sector organization getting a human to above 100km twice, in a reusable vehicle launched from over 10km above the high desert of southern California from a carrier plane, it appeared, for awhile, that weād see orbital rockets launched from airplanes.
Sir Richard Branson and the late Paul Allen invested large amounts of money into launching rockets carrying payloads to orbit from high flying airplanes.
The promise of the idea was being able to ālaunchā a payload to orbit from anywhere your carrier aircraft could fly from.
But Bransonās Virgin Orbit was sold for parts after a few flights, and Allenās Stratolaunch venture never even launched a rocket and is now a service for launching hypersonic, suborbital payloads.
In Tim Doddās words, itās like bringing the pizza oven to your house, instead of bringing the finished pizza over. Expensive, and unscalable.
See, also, Eager Spaceās video on why the take off like an airplane and fly to orbit spaceplane never worked out. Spaceplanes do work, but you have to launch them like a satellite. See the Dream Chaser and the X-37.
I was at Zeitgeist, a punky beer garden in the Mission, last Saturday. As itās a punky and zine-y place, every surface is covered in decals: for bands, anarchism, pro-labor, pro-bodily autonomy, and one that stuck out.
It was an attack on people who ride eBikes.
You donāt get a cookie for being a crusty punk on a fixie.
Punching down on people who need or use an eBike doesnāt make you an anarchist, it makes you an eugenicist.
Next time Iām at Zeitgeist, Iām bringing some queer disability justice stickers with me.
The platforms, operating on behalf of the rich, have risen up and now extract our time and labor in the 20 years since Teresa Nielsen Hayden wrote that post.
We knew the wealthy would attempt an enclosure of our new internet commons in 2004, we have done little about it in the fifth of a century since.
1. You should link your blog posts from your toots when itās relevant, share your work!
