All posts by Avens O'Brien

Avens O'Brien is a second-generation libertarian residing in Los Angeles, CA. She spends an enormous amount of her time working for a digital media startup, and the rest of her time on numerous pursuits of passion: she tends to participate in fun antics and adventures (which she then writes about) as well as pretending to be really smart about politics and philosophy. She's an agitator of ideas, a doer of things, and contributes regularly for DL Magazine and Thoughts on Liberty. You can find all her writing on AVENS.ME.
Adventures, Experiences, Travel

The Place in My Heart for San Francisco

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Half-written blog posts litter my “drafts” folder. It’s not like I don’t write, I just never write enough on one subject to feel it deserves to be posted on my blog, so it ends up being a post on Facebook or a comment. This habit needs to stop, this blog is a place for my collected thoughts, but it’s not collecting anything but dust lately. Virtual dust.

I just spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Boston and New Hampshire with my family and friends back East. After eight days, I flew from the East coast back to the West, but instead of my residence of Las Vegas or my home-of-the-heart, Los Angeles, I came to San Francisco for a little vacation from my vacation. I’m being hosted by a sweet-hearted lover and am enjoying the city by way of Vespa and BART.

It’s funny – I’ve been to this city a number of times over the past several years, and also visited as a child, and I’ve always liked it, but I’ve never loved it. Continue reading The Place in My Heart for San Francisco →

Experiences, Past

Autumnal Equinox

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I feel like an awkward conversation between two people is about to occur – why? Because I’m going to talk about the weather now.

The Autumnal Equinox happened this weekend. One of two days of the year where the day is the same length as the night: this one marks the coming of winter.

It’s funny though, to think about the seasons changing. I grew up in New England, and one of the perks of our location, my mother always told me, was “four distinctive seasons”. We had a cold, snowy, icy winter followed by a rainy and warming spring full of green, turning to a hot, humid, sunny summer and finally a crisp, cooling, leaf-turning autumn. In retrospect, it was picturesque, and I recall hoping for snow on Christmas day, loving the color of the leaves of autumn on my birthday. I remember the hot days and begging to go to the city pool in the summer, and the first hints of springtime, when the snow finally stopped and my mother’s garden would begin to green.

When I prepared to move to Los Angeles from Boston, I was looking forward to leaving the cold of winter and the humidity of summer behind. Everyone was always telling me it was 70° (fahrenheit) and sunny every day in West LA and oh, I couldn’t wait. Continue reading Autumnal Equinox →

Adventures, Burning Man, Experiences, Travel

Burning Man 2012

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I left Black Rock City exactly two weeks ago. That’s enough decompression for now, time to share some of the experience. This is by no means all-encompassing – so much occurred that I have no words for, so much exists only there, and everybody’s experience is completely different. This was mine.

I’ll start with the basics: Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada. For event details, I’d refer you to Wikipedia or the official website. I was attending for the first time, with a number of veteran Burners. My camp was primarily friends of mine from Los Angeles, and we were a registered theme camp called Steampunk Saloon. We had a pretty badass promotional flyer designed by the even more badass Art Lazaro.

steampunksaloon

Now, as one of my favorite first-burn blog entries already tells it: Civilization as we know it has ended and 50,000 survivors came out to the desert to throw the biggest party the world has ever seen. This is the Black Rock Desert. There was nothing here. Hundreds of people showed up pre-event to start making the skeleton of the city, complete with road signs, greeter booths, Center Camp and lots and lots of Porta-Potties.  By the way, dear people, some of whom I actually know, THANK YOU, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Continue reading Burning Man 2012 →

Travel

Burning Man (Pre)

I’m leaving for Burning Man in less than 12 hours. A large trailer is filled with my belongings – from camping gear to food to things with which to make art and costumes with which to be art.

It’s actually my first Burn. I’ve spent a large portion of my life, both as child and adult, going to festivals around the country – nudism, art, yoga, neo-paganism, psychedelics, electronic music, fire-spinning, hippie drum circles – none of this is new to me. 50,000 people practicing leave-no-trace radical self-reliance in the desert? That part’s new.

I’ve been partying with Burners forever. Black Rock City is a home I knew I had before I’ve even been there and before anyone told me it will be. I’m thoroughly prepared in the necessary senses.

I’m in need of a whirlwind right now in my life, I feel. I need to be swept off my feet, and this is just the event to do it.

I’m camped with a bunch of my LA friends at our very own Absinthe-swiggin’ Steampunk Saloon.

I have a camera, I hope I remember to take pictures.

See you on the other side.

Burn, baby, burn
Gone to Burning Man
Modeling, Photography, Politics

Freedom Fest Photos

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So, Freedom Fest was held in July here in Las Vegas. I didn’t attend much of it, as I was busy, but I was around for a day – it was definitely interesting to see John Mackey and Peter Schiff and other big-shots of the quasi-Libertarian variety.

My friend Judd Weiss of Hustle Bear wrote a great article about his experiences at Freedom Fest. He also posted a number of pictures of the event, including a number of me.

I believe there’s an album on Facebook of all the photos I was tagged in, but here are a few of my favorites:

Avens by Judd Weiss
Taken by Judd Weiss. July 15th, 2012.

Continue reading Freedom Fest Photos →

Current Events, Politics

What happened to “Yes, We Can”?

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I’ve got to warn my readers (wait, do I have readers?): I’m neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I’ve voted for both parties, as well as Libertarian and Independent candidates in various levels of government and election cycles. I used to study politics, and yes, I do have a number of political ideals I hold dear, but I’m actually far more interested in the play of politics than the idealism. I read speeches and try to figure out how they will be received by various consumers – those who are inclined to agree with the message-bearer, those who are inclined to disagree, and the undecideds. It’s a careful game, you see – an ideal speech energizes your base, appeals to some undecideds, and doesn’t give your opponents any ammo.

This can be hard to accomplish. Continue reading What happened to “Yes, We Can”? →

Poetry, Writing

The Tree & The Kokopelli

So, I’ve been doing a bit of a personal creative writing project for myself. I’ve been slowly rewriting stories of mythology into poems, and writing personal stories and histories into the sort of childhood fables/mythologies I recall from years ago.

This study of “personal mythology” is a process for me – one of trying to let go of the complications of our society, to take pieces of my family stories or self-stories and turn them into something far simpler. It is through this process that I attempt to exercise compassion towards people who have hurt me or been hurt by me in the past. It is a therapy, to some degree, and an exploration.

My first story ties into the tattoo upon my back. It’s the secondary meaning of my wings, the first meaning is for a different blog post.

The Tree & The Kokopelli
Once, long ago, a Kokopelli was dancing and singing his way through a great green forest, when he spotted a young tree. She was beautiful, small, with bright leaves and rough bark. He greeted her with his charming voice and asked if he could sit in her shade, to which she graciously affirmed. He leaned against her cool bark, and she asked him about what he’d seen in the world, and the Kokopelli told her. Continue reading The Tree & The Kokopelli →

Pets

Resolve

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I don’t write as often as I should.

My Facebook is updated constantly, both with commentary about life and links to news and things of interest. I wonder if I should start doing that here.

Here’s a few things I posted on Facebook lately. I’m hoping by doing this I’ll start writing more here.

Firstly,
Remember: You haven’t met everyone you’re going to meet in your life. The world is full of people who might mean something to you someday. Just ’cause you haven’t found them yet doesn’t mean they won’t show up.

Secondly,
Some days I look down at my left wrist or my right forearm and I see these beautiful black letters spelling out these words I love so. I catch a glimpse of my shoulders in the mirror. Lines of ink… permanently etched into my skin. I feel this little explosion of emotion in my heart – I see beauty. Not just in the expression, but the realization that there are some things I have complete faith in – faith that these stories matter enough to me in my past, present and future, matter enough to become part of my body. I am a strange canvas, but I hold such joy that I display such art. That I will display more.

Third,
Every morning I take the birds out of their room, set them up in the living room with their travel cage on the floor, feed them what I’m eating and hang out while we watch movies or I play online. Every day Petrie climbs down off the cage and, waddling around on his cute little feet, explores the furthest reaches of my living room. He walks until he can’t see me anymore, then he walks in a different direction. He climbs stuff, he chews on stuff… takes him only about a minute to run across the room if he wants to. Today he took an almond out of the bag next to my futon and carried it to me to eat. I seriously love this bird.

Modeling, Photography

Modeling for Peter Paradise

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I had my first conversation with Peter Paradise in late 2008. I knew him as a photographer for various friends of mine in community, I greatly admired his work and never thought I’d be the subject of it, though I’d fantasized about it.  I still remember that day at our mutual friend’s house, where we spoke and he told me he’d love to do a photo shoot with me, and I remember feeling so grateful at his attention, so inspired to work with someone so talented – someone whose vision really seemed to be both similar to mine and yet very professional.

I’ve known the man for over three years now, and together we’ve taken thousands of photos, though I think we’ve only got several dozen finished, edited and published.  I love everything we’ve done together – he’s an amazing visionary, and I love his work.

Right before I moved to Los Angeles, we did a photo shoot in the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts.

Here are a few shots from that day.

Just felt like sharing. More of his work can be viewed on his website, which is http://www.peterparadise.net.

Past

The Five Year Plan

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“Where do you see yourself in five years?” he asked me.

I had thought this was a date, perhaps, and then it started to feel like a job interview. I sipped my glass of wine and gave a number of cheeky answers followed by a few of the five-year ideas that spin around in my head. I added more to the answer a few hours later.

I get asked variations of this question often recently, and my answers are usually in the same direction every time, but they’re not concrete. Still, since he asked me I’ve started to ponder it seriously.

As he said later, “one cannot think about one’s five year plan too often”.

See, I used to know exactly what I wanted. Granted, teenagers think they know everything – but I really did have some five year plans in mind.

I was fourteen the day I started college and when people asked me what I wanted to do, I told them I wanted to study law and politics and run for state representative four years down the road. I wanted to move up through New Hampshire politics all the way to Governor, where I’d facilitate the great libertarian experiment – the Free State Project.

I wanted to make a difference, you see, and I was an idealist. Continue reading The Five Year Plan →