git ssb

title: About

layout: page.jade

I got to Mexico via Colorado via Japan in November 2006.

In 2006 I landed in Puerto Vallarta to co-lead a yoga retreat in Los Naranjos, Yelapa from November 11th through the 18th. The taxi driver, an eldery gentleman, suggested that the two of us might sleep together. I pointed out that I'm about two feet taller than him. While stopped at a stoplight he retrieved an index card from his pocket. He drew a short person and a long person and said that in bed, height is not an issue. Aghast, I said a tiny prayer that I'd make it to the city center, laughing and crying at the same time.

Somewhere in that week I emailed everyone I knew email addresses for in the States and Japan to let them know I intended to stay in Mexico.

As in forever.

I'd found a place I belong.

I spent half of December 2006 in Ajijic, Mexico. Lake Chapala in Ajijic is a retirement village of sorts for gringos who are old(er) and more hang-out-with-other-gringos-ish. It wasn't a good fit for me so I made short work of it and got out of there. But I could have just backpacked around a bit. And in retrospect, I wish I'd stayed on in Mexico.

Why!? Well, because I belong here. My grandfather, from what my father has told me via email (in between the other drunken screeds he sends about things I don't completely understand) was from Zacatecas, Mexico. I've only been through it, but can imagine spending more time there. My mom's grandmother was of Spanish descent, too, but people in the fam don't talk about that much. Anyway, ancient ties.

After 2006 lots of things happened. Many of them alright, some of them just plain awful. In 2009 I was in Mexico and got an email to go to the O'Reilly sponsored Social Web Foo Camp. I taught some yoga there, met some tech folk, played some werewolf. In 2011 I went to Sayulita and stayed at a hotel that since closed and re-opened under another name. It appears tackier than it was in 2011, so I'm not linking to the new version of it. (It was called La Casona in 2011 -- I lived in the hotel for a month and accidentally made some internettermies by doing so -- that was weird times. That's part of the reason I track issues now, so people can bring things up early and often.)

I moved to Mexico for real in 2013. I rented an apartment here for the first time and began studying the language in earnest. I've studied Spanish since high school but school Spanish and ground level Spanish are two different things. As of 2016 my Spanish has finally hit solid and I still have a ways to fluency.

What's next? More yoga. More Spanish. More tech. On repeat. Forever.

Maybe I'll teach a yoga-writing-tech retreat if I can ever get up the urge to do that. Last time I mentioned it people meh'd on the idea, but you never know what the future brings. I know mine will bring more quesadillas and funny nights in cantinas with people who make me laugh and cry at the same time.

People with whom I can be long.