Hey, steemit.

I'm a white married lesbian in my late 20s with a 1yr old kid. I live in Oakland, California. (Yes, I do have Sequoia sempervirens in my backyard, and yes they are fucking magical). My mom died from brain cancer 4 months ago. It was awful but to be honest I wasn't as involved as I probably should have been. After she passed, my partner and our son and I moved into my dad's big old house, where I grew up. It definitely keeps things interesting and it keeps our expenses low---which is important because we dream of attaining financial independence some day. . . maybe even within the next 5-10 years if I can hustle it and things go in our favor.

I work as a real estate agent representing folks who are buying and selling residential property. My mom was in this business for 30+ years, and worked really hard to build a loyal client basis, so I have her example of success to draw on. This area is one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country, with extremely low inventory and unbelievable buyer competition (my colleague just had a listing that got 41 offers and sold for 165% of list price). My city also has a devastating and profound housing shortage, a large homeless population, and rapid gentrification. The ethics and politics of the whole thing are complicated, to say the least. I'm sure I'll be writing more about that later.

I also have most of a PhD in a cultural studies field. I am still enrolled in my program, and I hope to finish writing my dissertation by May 2019. It hasn't been a straightforward process; after I started grad school in 2011 a bunch of life things happened: got married, had a baby, mom died, launched a business. My research is about exercise ideology and industry, and the big-picture argument of my dissertation is about the relationship between the rise of neoliberalism in the US and the preventative medicine paradigm (spoiler alert: they're coterminous!). When, why, and how did the maintenance of an individual's health, and attaining an uber-fit physique, become the liability, and the prerequisite of, performing proper, moral citizenship? My writing spans Title IX case law, pop culture, performance art, and physical fitness publications. My theoretical apparatus is influenced by feminism, queer theory, critical race studies, disability studies, and Marxism.

Like most structures and systems of modern society, higher education is at a huge crossroads right now which for me means that the vision I had 5 years ago of being a professor is very unlikely to come to fruition. I'm actively working out what my relationship is to the academe and scholarship and especially trying to answer: where how do my goals for my day to day life fit into that kind of economy, if at all?

Speaking of day to day life, when I'm not "working" (in all its meanings), my partner and I enjoy all the things you might expect: craft beer, riding bikes, being geeks, etc. Trying to figure out how to minimize the harm we inflict in our daily lives. For me, budgeting and the goal of financial independence are directly related to environmentalism and anti-oppression work. I’m also forever working towards figuring out how to hack my budget because asceticism does not come easily to me!

So, why am I here?

• My friend @spectrums told me about steemit and the @sndbox incubator.
• I like to try new things
• I love learning about personal finance, asset diversification, and setting up passive income streams. I’m very late to cryptocurrency, but it’s about dang time!

What I’ll be writing about here:

• How to continue living a pleasant life after you understand what an evil, broken place the world is and that all of its major systems are a lie.

Um...is that a joke?

I like to keep the mood light, but I am completely serious. Here’s how I see it. Full stop opting out of the social, the political, the world finance system---even as problematic as these systems are --- is not a viable option. So here I am, trying to negotiate my relationships to these systems, build a livable life, and remain productively critical. We have to build alternatives through experimentation and minor gestures.

I fucking love, and live for, the banalities of life. So I expect a lot of my posts will be dedicated to the banal: the nuts and bolts of parenting, budgeting, keeping a house clean, building and maintaining strong partner and family relationships, learning and teaching skills, raising an ethical young person, etc.

I hope you'll follow along.