Ran on a treadmill tonight for the 4th time in 5 days. I miss running outside where the air is fresh. Living in a hotel for 9 days in a city I don’t know is not the best idea and I have learned my lesson. However, the conference I’m at has been amazing and I’m meeting lots of great people. In the down times I have been thinking a lot and here is one of my observations from today:

I’m a “middler”. I need to make my peace with that. I am not exceptional at any one thing, I am not going to be the one who invents some fabulous programming language or does something else super tech-fabulous that geeks will fawn over and I am okay with that. I have to remember that I am ok with that because sometimes when I get around a group of people who care about those things I start to care too – but really I don’t. So back to being a “middler”. I find myself often in the middle of things. In fact, I put myself in the middle of things on purpose. I’m in the middle of my gender spectrum (being butch -> ftm and I’m not saying that’s every butch’s or ftm’s spectrum, it’s just mine). I’m in the middle of art and technology, big corporations and grassroots non-profits, open source and queer communities, feminism and free software activism. I can find lots and lots of middles to be in. I must like being in the middle. So every once in a while when I feel worried that I am “not good enough”. I have to remember I am good at this. Being in the middle. On purpose.