Weekly Update: 3/27-4/2

General

I took my first work trip this week, flying to Atlanta to visit our company’s office there. It was a productive and exhausting time, but it had one serious drawback:

Atlanta traffic descended into chaos when a portion of I-85 collapsed due to a fire.

The bridge collapsed on Thursday night. Friday was my departure day. Unfortunately, the office is on one end of the city, and the airport is on the other. With some preparation, and an obscene amount of time stuck in traffic, I made it to my gate in time.

I get now why people complain about traveling for work. I love to travel in general, but travel during the week can be disruptive. You’re also stuck in someone else’s office, which can interfere with your productivity. I also ate out every night with my coworkers, and was totally bloated by the time I got back. I found it hard to sleep on the plane during my red-eye flights, and it was too loud for me to read.

This weekend I visited the Bay Area Renaissance Festival on closing day with a few friends. I forgot just how much dust and dirt blows around, especially after a week or two without rain. I guess getting totally soiled in dirt creates a more authentic experience, har har.

So some ugly things came to light in my denomination this week, chief among them the revelation that our hiring practices don’t reflect our values as a multicultural, inclusive church. The president of the UUA resigned, three months before his term was complete, after a memo was leaked indicating he didn’t think much of these revelations.

This is also not the first time the UUA has been taken to task in regards to its fair-weather friend attitude with civil rights.

Incidentally, I’ve been involved with a social justice workshop at my church, specifically for learning how we can be better white allies, and this topic was discussed at our last meeting. We’ve been having some hard conversations with long-time members about generalizations, institutional racism, and personal bias. My experience in this workshop, combined with these revelations, leads me to believe that while our intentions are good, we still have a long way to go.

I will be attending a writing workshop in about four weeks. Having gotten through the gauntlet that was last month, I’m just coming to realize how much work I have to do before then. Writing and submitting a story was one thing, but now semi-pro and pro writers expect me to critique their work. Me, with two anthology sales and monthly articles written for an IT humor blog.

What am I even doing.