Nanonice

AH. It's good to be on the other side of the wall again. The amount of bloating going on during PMS always startles me. It doesn't seem possible. And the cravings are gone too. There's a huge pile of Easter eggs on the table behind me right now, and I'm not even slightly tempted to eat one. It's amazing what a tablespoon of blood letting will do. I can't believe how much better I feel. Those crazy manic irritated days sprinted away like a fart in a breeze. The cycle continues.

This weekend a group of us will be going camping on Ken and Jeanne's new land. It will be very basic living, because we have to haul everything we bring up a steep hill. No extravagant cookery for me. Also, there is no toilet, running water, or anything. It is new and exciting. We will need a poo shovel. They have asked us to think up ideas of what to do with the land, and to help them name it. I haven't felt this excited about land since I was a kid, when every outdoor space was an opportunity for partitioning, creating, building. I hope I can afford to start from nothing somewhere someday.

My sister Kate mentioned on her blog a little while back how she didn't understand Zoe and I for wanting to return to nature and raise a bunch of kids in the middle of nowhere. She said she was too invested in/excited about technology to do that. I'm excited about technology too, and I like to think about great ways it will be integrated subtly into a more "natural" environment. I think the future is technology and nature coming together in a more sustainable way. So I don't think I'm turning my back on technology by craving nature/low intensity lifestyle. I just think they belong a little closer together, and I hope to one day work to make this happen. I've always loved science fiction, and how things work, and thinking about the future, I don't think anyone can really describe me as being in denial of technology. One thing I'm fantasizing about right this moment is nanodetectors that can be released into a natural environment, to assess the whole ecosystem. And then rather than changing the system to maximise human comfort, they will choose the appropriate building materials/flora/fauna to create a human dwelling/workplace that will most smoothly integrate into the environment (the heating & plumbing systems and locations of different rooms arranged to benefit maximally from the available climate, microorganisms, geothermal activity etc). The future is an exciting place, because we won't need to be surrounded by millions of people to have tons of human contact. As the internet user interface improves, millions of people can be with us everywhere, even as we hop over a stream running through the woods near our ecocommunity.