Memo from the Hot Tub in Boulder
March 2026 · 2 min read
It’s been a while since I’ve been on an academic trip—my last one to Oxford I had to cancel because it was when I first got Lila in 2024 and she had just been diagnosed with cancer. For the last few years, I’ve been rooted in Cleveland and focused on finding myself there—playing, decorating, working, dating, and doing rote life things that make a person more well-rounded. I made friends, grew through relationships, explored new hobbies, tried new ways of dressing, and solidified some tastes and preferences. I’m a litlte more embodied.
But I have carried too a feeling of loneliness and listlessness. I put a lot of Plot Twisters work on pause, trading my creative efforts personally for the ability to perform for my full-time job. And don’t get me wrong: that has been a great journey, and continues to be. There is a certain pleasure in becoming a part of a band in a permanent way—knowing intimately the strengths and weaknesses of yourself and others in the context of a team, knowing that you and them are all putting in 100%, being aware of the collective fitness it takes to pull off the projects you build. I’ve been rewarded for my increased creative athleticism working full-time. It has come out in Small Hassles Court: a game design project and artistic feat that would have taken me many months and serious personal crises before now is a scoped-down and fathomable project, not too concerning, definitely feasible. Like running a mile when you’ve been training for a half-marathon. I feel proud of my abilities now.
Yet working full-time and trying-but-often-failing at homemaking in Cleveland has distracted from my personal passions: all the education critiques and psychology interests and social justice values that brought me to Plot Twisters in the first place. I used to be way more engaged in literature and debates about moral decisions and what the possibilities of technology could be. My day to day has been much different.
Coming to this workshop in Boulder, hosted by Nathan Schneider and the Media Economies Lab, has been an antidote to the stagnation I barely even realized was chipping away at my psyche. But now that I have been here and met all those I have met, now and again, the more I’m realizing that I’ve been detached and misaligned. Cleveland may be my physical home, but my intellectual home is in interstitial, interdisciplinary homes like this.
I really do feel in my "tribe" in settings like this. This isn't a traditional academic conference—it's definitely more casual and workshop-style. But they really prioritized bringing in people who are super diverse in their interests and practices. Tonight, after dinner and over beers, I watched one of the world-leading experts on ancient Athens argue about tech ethics with an AI technologist, and a grassroots organizer for restorative justice mediation talk about local politics with a UX researcher.
Basically, it's just a bunch of nerdy misfits who are experts of their respective fields, who also enjoy meeting other nerdy misfits who are also experts in other fields. It's interesting realizing I may be one of them. I'm some kind of expert on integrating interaction design, games, and restorative justice principles. I think if I were going to workshops and conferences like this once per season, a lot of the loneliness I feel and listlessness around my career life direction would dispel. It was nice to make new friends tonight.
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