Late Friday, I got an email from work that any iPhone with a beta OS on it would no longer be able to receive work email. I had a decision to make. Should I just say fuck it and forgo email on my phone (which is the dream of all of us worker bees), or roll my phone back?

In a couple of weeks, Burning Man will be here. I’ve never been out to Black Rock and most of the Burners I run across don’t exactly inspire me to go.

I bought a bed awhile back. Well, I had a mattress so a structure. I bought a structure that one places a mattress on and has posts, and even is slightly raised from the ground. Last year, when my dog Billie was sick, she no longer could jump up onto the bed. So I got rid of it and put the mattress on the floor.

I love writing. I love it. Every morning I head over to Medium thinking about writing something. And some days I do. But for what feels like forever, I haven’t. I haven’t because the world has worn me out. Between shootings and politics and friends fighting all kinds of cancers and more shootings and more politics and yes, another friend trying not to die, I just can’t.

I write a lot; but have been quiet over the past month or so. I could blame work and the time I have spent traveling. I could blame Game of Thrones. Or the NBA playoffs. The nice weather is often a culprit, but not this time.

Academia is brutal. I wrote this in 2012. I had just had a conversation with a founder, who as a friend, I refused to take equity for being helpful. He was outlining a plan that was laid out by an “advisor” whom he gave equity to, that was, at best rather egregious, and at worst, fucking moronic. I wish it was the only conversation like that I ever had. But it is not.

Aaron Batalion has started writing over at the Lightspeed Venture Partners publication, after about three years of talking about why he should write more.

When I turned 18, I was surprised. I never told anyone why I was surprised, but surprised I was. Surprised of what? That I was alive. I wasn’t in the Army; I didn’t live in a war-torn country. No life-threatening disease.

My favorite thing about a new, new old thing launching is the amount of ink spilled writing I TOLD YOU SEE MY POST FROM 2007 ABOUT HOW BOTS ARE EATING THE WORLD, WAIT I STOLE THAT FROM MARC ANDREESSEN. THEY AREN’T EATING THE WORLD, THEY ARE JUST SNACKING! AND SORRY FOR THE CAPS BUT INK IS CHEAP AND I AM FUUUUUCCCCCKKKKING EXCITED ABOUT HOW I CALLED IT ON THE BOTS. BOTS MAN!

Ten years ago, give or take a couple of hours, I woke up and decided to live. I was at the tail end of yet another binge. My cycle as I reached the end was four days awake, and three days asleep, yet this time, I was well into day six.

I’ve loved this image for a long time. I wished I owned the original, but I was about five years late. But its, ok, I have a copy, so I can pretend I own it. It bothers me that I don’t own the original, but because I believe in truth. Absolute, brutal truth.

Last night, I logged onto Amazon with the intent to buy something, anything. I flipped through screen after screen, adding things to my cart and then later pulling them out. I closed my browser nearly a hundred times. And opened it a hundred and one.

I wrote the following back in 2010. A friend brought it up recently, and with the news about Foursquare’s raise breaking today and the changes Groupon has faced over the years, it just seemed appropriate to revisit.

There is nothing more frustrating than living in the past. You vividly break apart every action and realize there is nothing you can do to change it. Each mistake magnifies, every positive softens.

Google linked me here to a poem. How doing nothing became my everything.

When I was ten, I bought my mom a model red BMW. “When I am rich and famous,” I told her, “this is what I am going to buy you.”

Growing up in the Silicon Valley, Los Angeles was always thought of as a cute place to visit. “They have movie stars!” That’s cute. For years, Los Angeles played at being a startup hub.

That is a can of cat food. Over the past couple of months, I would hide that can in various bags in my kitchen, and every couple of days, Taylor would find it, and bring it into my bedroom, where she would continue to work on opening it. Cancer is like this can. No matter how often you think its put away where no one can find it, it shows up on your bed.

I grew up here. Went to school at Monta Loma Elementary in Mountain View while living at 532 Thompson Avenue, which was next to the empty lot where I damn near blew my hand off with a firecracker when I was idiot years old.

Yeah, its my birthday. And I am going to ask for one thing: Give it Forward. Go spend an hour with someone else, support them. Tell someone you appreciate them, and why. Pet a dog. Because dogs also need unconditional love.