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back Just got back (late last night) from a two-week New Hampshire / Vermont / Massachussetts trip, which included the seventh annual Spring Conference, which is either a summer camp for adults or a utopian cult, depending on who you ask. It pulled its normal sort of polarity-reversing mojo on me, this year most especially in the form of a letter- and journal-writing workshop that my longtime collaborator Lulu S. and I co-ran. We organized our writing prompts into a particular sequence which was designed to lead people into some challenging emotional space; this worked a little bit better than expected, leaving us pretty raw and vulnerable-feeling by midweek: fortunately we'd also designed a second arc designed to get us back to safer territory in the second half of the con. DIY therapy can be a chancy thing (cough), but when it works, it's great. Some other highlights: naked lake swimming (last year was too cold and I skipped the swimming entirely); powerfully reconnecting with two old old friends from whom I'd recently been estranged; bonfire action; dusting off the Spring Dance Party iTunes playlist and successfully sneaking in some new tracks among the old favorites (Spank Rock's NSFW "Lindsay Lohan" perhaps being the best new addition); playing new games (most notably the simple/diabolical Blokus); etc etc etc—too many to list. And sad bits: the critical illness of Kiwitayro's dog Fianna (RIP); the one-two punch (hard drive death / dislocated shoulder) that kept sweet Catling from having an exemplary week; continued tensions simmering between people who I love. Output: the 47 best photos I took are here in a Flickr set (completists may also want to check out the sets from other years: 2006, 2005, and 2004). Also, as part of my journaling thing I did a new hundred-favorite-things list, which I will type in and post here sometime soon. Labels: audio, mp3s, personal

Wednesday, June 13, 2007 12:19 PM   Comments: Post a Comment