return of the wanderer

greets, all. i apologise again for my absence; i have been juggling various awful arrangements, fun with Christmas in a twisted definition of the word 'fun', a brand-new psychiatric diagnosis (looks like i have borderline personality disorder rather than autism), my decade-divorced parents getting back together and the fact that i have a hell of a lot less money than i thought i did to get to the 27c3 with. ugh. also coldsores, withdrawal, repeat scrip woes with gum-chewing receptionists, trying to buy presents for people with zero budget and repeating the year because i spent six weeks in a state of mind wherein it was an achievement not to try and kill myself every day.

regardless, i am alive. just.

Berlin is hopefully still on, pending the airports actually being open. to be honest i don't know what the fuck i'll do if they're not; if anyone knows a way to get to Berlin from England short-notice (i.e. within a night, no cross-continental bus rides) do tell. i still need to write the slides, to my embarrassment, and they're now crowing for a video of me while i'm scrabbling for the money. i'm pretty fucking stressed.

i shit you not there are 4459 unread emails in my goddamn inbox, none of which are spam, and this is just my personal mail. i don't dare look at my academic address. i will reply to your mails and comments, but it will take me a while. i apologise to anyone who has been waiting a while, although really i don't think i'm important enough to anyone that that's necessary. i have not been ignoring any of you on purpose, i promise.

i'm writing slides tonight, as well as looking at flights. the topic is incredibly general, so is there anything you people particularly want to see?

L

HOLY SHIT YOU GUIZE

i'm going to be giving a lecture at the 27th Chaos Communication Congress! the topic is "cybernetics for the Masses", of course. i originally only applied for a 5min lightning talk slot, but the coordinator who emailed back with the acceptance offered me thirty minutes to speak properly, since it sounds interesting (apparently.)

i am actually fucking shaking. i can't believe i'm gonna get to speak properly about all this, in front of an actual audience of real hackers. i've gotta get slides and stuff together, and find a logo and a photo of myself from somewhere... man, this is going to be fucking awesome.

the only problem is, of course, that after this you will all know what i look like, what my biological gender is, and who i am in meatspace every day. i'm a little afraid this will compromise my credibility as a biohacker. of course, i am also flat shit broke, and i honestly have no idea where the funding for this trip is gonna come from. i think it might be family-begging time.

holy shit, though. i never expected this would happen.