Dopp Juice Archive

Woolf Camp is amazing. I was just gushing last night, in the group of women sitting on bean bags on hardwood floors, overlooking the foggy Santa Cruz ravine, that this place is a new experience for me. I often lament that my particular brand of tech geek, writer, and entreprenuer rarely exists in another person. Being here, being surrounded by these women (and a few men) who collectively embody all these qualities I love in myself but can rarely find in others… is validating, exciting, and most of all inspiring. You can check out the party here: WoolfCamp 2006 Blog.The people here are incredible. I want to tell you about all of them. I probably will when I get home and have the space to decompress. I performed two memorized slam pieces last night, in a candlelit impromptu poetry reading. The classic manifesto piece about what we put into our bodies, and the intense drumming piece about the woman dancing. The reception was wonderful — and it launched me into another hour of lamenting my unconscious decision to stop writing. It’s been years since I took poetry seriously. And yet, I still have these pieces memorized. It’s a constant internal battle, so it must mean something to me. I justify my absence from line breaks by saying my new creative release is forming work and organizations — and most significantly, The Writ. But really, I hate that I don’t write value poetry like I used to. Between fulltime work and fulltime school, I can honestly argue that I don’t have time, but that never stopped me before…

Look out world! My wild-minded social-commentating graphic designer buddy extraordinaire just launched a long-overdue blog. Expect useful tech tips, valuable design savvy, and raw observations about the absurd ways in which we live. If it’s anything like his other undertakings, this will likely snowball into… aHUGEproduction.

• When dealing with new people, make a point to like them (or focus on what’s likeable about them), and treat them as though you’re already friends.
• In stores or on the street, never walk between a child and his or her parent.
• British, Irish, Scottish, and Australian accents will get you far in America.
• You can’t decide what will happen in your daily life or how it will affect you. But you can decide where you want it to happen, who you want to include in it, and how you want to approach it. And that makes all the difference in the world.
• This digital age means that nearly anything can be done for nearly free. That means you have far more opportunities to display your creativity and talent. It also means that other people are creating far more junk haphazardly, just because they can. So you have more competition, but don’t be discouraged–most of it falls flat on its face.
• Getting a degree is not about proving you’re intelligent, skilled, or educated. It’s about proving that you can wade through the workload equivalent of Hell and still be standing when you reach the other side. This is a very useful skill in the working world.

You know they never really owned you,you just carried them around.And then one day you put them down and found your hands were free.-Ani Difranco