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Waiting for dinner last week.

So, uh, what’s new? Anything interesting going on?

It was a wild couple of months even before the rona hit, with lots of good stuff and very little bad, thankfully.

I officially started in my new role with Duo on January 6th, and worked my last shift in Support at the end of that month. It was bittersweet to be leaving the team – on the one hand, I was ready for a new challenge and excited to start my new role, but on the other hand, I really liked that team. I’m a few months removed from things now, of course, but I still try to pop in and post something stupid, or stay in touch with people on the team. My experience with the team definitely set me up for doing well in CS, though, and the transition to the new team has gone well.

It’s definitely a change to be on the proactive side of the customer relationship, but it feels like I’m more able to build connections with them when compared to Support, which is definitely what I was looking for. I get along really well with my CSM partner, and it’s been fun getting to know everyone else, too.

We travelled to Ann Arbor for an internal summit at the beginning of February, which kicked off 20 days of being away from SF for me. I mostly stayed in a hotel while I was there, and it definitely made me feel like a tourist in my own hometown. It was a good bonding experience for me with the new team, though, and Becca and I were able to play a show at the Ann Arbor Distilling Company on Valentine’s Day after also playing there during my visit for a week in January.

Made the team go to all my favorite places while we were in town.

The real reason I come back to A2 is to see Danielle.

Tiny Corner Concert

It’s true.

If you’re interested in seeing us play, there’s a playlist with the whole show here – 

I’ve also decided to start doing weekly live-streams of me playing covers or whatnot via my YouTube channel, just to stay in practice and keep my mood on the up and up. You can see the set I did this week here – 

It’s nearly all covers, but I have enough material to play four more shows; I’ll end up having nearly five hours of music recorded. Becca and I are also in the process of writing some honest to goodness ORIGINAL songs, finally. Trying to make the most of our time stuck at home.

My visit to Ann Arbor was followed by a few days in Austin; I got to see my friends Tiffany and Kat, who I definitely don’t get to spend enough time with. Lots of good food and good times were had. It’s nice to have friends in all these different places. Working for a company who’s home office is in my hometown really helps to keep me connected to people I care about; I strongly recommend it, if you can arrange it.

Oh hey, Austin.

Me and Kat!

This is not Tiffany; I didn’t get a picture with her.

After getting back from Austin, I actually got to relax in the City for a couple of weeks. Managed to hit my first party bus, and got to go to the RSA conference for the first time.

Of course, I don’t like to settle down for too long, so I went on a cruise from Miami to Key West to Cozumel and back in early March. Clearly the best time to be traveling. I almost decided not to go, since the rona was on the rise, but I’m glad I ended up getting that time out and about with people, since we went right into work from home and shelter-in-place when I got back.

I’d been on a cruise way back in 11th grade, which means I wasn’t old enough to enjoy it. This team featured significantly more alcohol, which seems to be the main attraction on these things. I don’t think I would go on a cruise again, but I was glad I did this one. I shared some of my favorite pictures from the trip on my Instagram – 

View this post on Instagram

My favorite shots from a great long weekend with some of my favorite people.

A post shared by Jessica Drew Quiroga (@jqnotjq) on Mar 9, 2020 at 11:02am PDT

We had rough seas a couple of nights, and I get very sick on one of them, but luckily Ben was there to make sure I was okay and didn’t die. He and I had a bit of a fling on during the trip; it was nice to have a “cruise boyfriend”. Definitely a change from my trip in high school. The only real downside of the trip was that my blue glasses, which I love, blew off the side of the ship on one of the windy evenings.

I’d been keeping an eye on the news while we were on the ship, because I’m incapable of surviving without internet access even while I’m far away from civilization, so I knew that there were Bad Things coming when we landed. While on my return flight, we got a notice from our CEO that we were going to be working from home starting the next day. My living situation didn’t really allow for me to do that, given the fact that I spend most of my day on calls and deal with secure information, so I was considering taking a flight back out to Michigan, and staying somewhere that I’d have some privacy. It wasn’t ideal, but I had to work. Luckily, my CSM, Caroline, and another CSM on the team, Jenn had me covered.

I was able to stay with Caroline for a couple of weeks while Jenn was traveling, but once she was back in town, I moved into her place. 

Caroline’s had a nice big kitchen table for us, and a great view over the top of the city to the bridge. She ended up going back to stay with her family in the Midwest, so I was on my own for a week, but once Jenn was back in town, I migrated to her place. I miss my Coliving friends, but it’s really nice to sleep in my own bed again. Jenn is super awesome and kind, and adopted two kittens right after I moved here, so it’s been really nice. 

She and I cook a bunch, and I do a lot of Zoom/FaceTime/Webex calls with friends back east, so I’ve been able to stay in a good mood while we’re sheltering in place. We’re still allowed to go out to exercise, so I’ve been doing walks in Golden Gate Park every couple of days, and we’ve got a lovely view from the top of our building, so I’m able to get outside often enough that I don’t feel trapped. It’s a very lucky situation I’ve found myself in, where I’m able to work from a stable home situation, and just have to make sure that I’m following appropriate social distancing and hygiene protocols. 

The view from our roof

Cooking

The view from my desk

Jazzy and Disco

Very few people out and about, thankfully

“Kill me”

Mask time while heading out for groceries

I couldn’t get up for an hour and a half

Shhhh, they’re sleeping

Catching up on Deep Space 9

She’s a monster

Delicious pasta

Headed out for groceries

Jazzy likes to climb up my body to get onto my shoulder and then nip at my hair and face

Poloroids from my going away karaoke party along with some framed art from my friend Jess

Still hot potting at home

Jenn and I out on a walk to retrieve my car from Sunnyvale

The happiest I’ve ever been in my life

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Took a nice long walk with @jenniferjanekwokalypse today; my second long one this week! Glad to be able to still get out and exercise while all this is going on.

A post shared by Jessica Drew Quiroga (@jqnotjq) on Apr 12, 2020 at 5:55pm PDT

Sheltering-in-place with a friend has really helped keep my mood up; I’m really glad Jenn was willing to let me take up space at her place for the next while.

Any surgery stuff I’ve wanted to do has been pushed off to an undetermined time, obviously, as our medical system deals with everything happening, but I’m not feeling too down about it. I worry a lot about my friends from the hospital, on the front lines, or anyone I know that doesn’t have the option to just work from home, or who has already lost their jobs. I’ve been trying to check in on people and chat here and there, or schedule game nights online, just to give some sort of distraction from things. In these “unprecedented times”, as every email I’m getting from any place that has my email has called them.

But I hope everyone reading this is healthy and as safe as possible, and hopefully we all see each other out and about soon.

-Jessica

I Can Only Think About You So, uh, what’s new? Anything interesting going on? It was a wild couple of months even before the rona hit, with lots of good stuff and very little bad, thankfully.

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My feelings of being only a visitor here in SF have lingered, mostly because I’m doing so much travelling back and forth to Ann Arbor right now. It’s made it difficult to settle in here, though it has been really great to still get to see my friends. After being back in A2 for my birthday and the company holiday party, I’m going back again this weekend for a week, so that Becca and I can play a show, and she and David have been out here the last few days to visit and do New Years. My efforts to convince them to move here have not yet succeeded, but I remain hopeful.

David asked me why I wanted to be here so badly the other day; it’s a question I’ve gotten from a lot of people, and I never have a great answer for it. The best I can get to is that I just feel like this is the place that I want to be at this point in my life. There was a time when Ann Arbor felt that place, when I was stuck in Ypsilanti or Allen Park and was ready to move on. My mother asked me if I thought I’d get to a point where I was ready to move on from SF, and I told her that it could happen, eventually. We’ll see how the next ten years go.

I was lucky enough to get invited along with some new friends to go down to Monterey two weekends ago, and then up to Napa with Becca and David this last weekend. There are so many beautiful things to see around the city; I’m really glad I have my car here so that I’m not just stuck in one place.

I told David that there was nothing in Ann Arbor that made me feel as small as looking out into the Pacific did here. Michigan has some lovely lakes and forests and such, but it feels different than California. Maybe part of it is that I just breathe better here.

I could spend every weekend exploring around here, if I had the time.

I wrote a 2019 To Do list just after moving back to Ann Arbor, and I managed to get 9 out of the 15 items done last year, though one of them should probably come off, since I had to cancel the surgery I had scheduled due to relocation. I made another list for this next year that I hope to have better success on.

I used to make five year plans, but things seem to change so quickly that I feel better off making shorter 12 month plans, instead.

It’s hard to do any sort of Year In Review beyond what I’ve already talked about – parts of this year were the worst fucking things ever, and other parts of it were amazing. Like most years, I suppose.

Taking a longer look back at the last decade, I’m certainly in a better place now than I was when it started. I had just come back to Borders after quitting for a bit, and was living at home with my parents after a bad breakup. Hadn’t quite hit rock bottom yet, but was getting close, certainly. There’s almost no one that I still talk to today that I was friends with back then; I didn’t even start transitioning until the middle of 2013. There’ve been ups and downs since then, but I definitely recognize that I’m doing better now in life and as a person than I was back then, and I’m thankful for that.

As I’ve shared previously, my visit to Ann Arbor next week is so that The Keyloggers can play a show at the Ann Arbor Distilling Company  on January 11 – you should all be there, obviously.

I’ve always hated the part of being in a band where you have to promote shows, and have usually put that off onto one of the other people in the group, but since it’s just Becca and me, I don’t really have the option to do so for this. As such, I will need you to please use the link below to LIKE our page on Facebook, so that venues know that we have people who like us and our music and will come to see us if they book us.

https://www.facebook.com/thekeyloggers

We’re not going to spam you, or try to get you to send us $10,000 so that we can send you back $1,000,000.

haha, just kidding

…unless?

-Jessica

Cause It’s Already Taken Everything My feelings of being only a visitor here in SF have lingered, mostly because I'm doing so much travelling back and forth to Ann Arbor right now.

[jqnotjq]

But That's Not Enough

But That’s Not Enough

Almost a year after I left, I’m back in San Francisco.

I wasn’t able to find someone to buy my car, so Anna and I made the drive from Ann Arbor to SF in about three in a half days, taking a more southernly route to avoid all the storms that swept across the country Thanksgiving week. It was a fairly uneventful ride; we hit some traffic in New Mexico just before Arizona due to ice, but otherwise…

[jqnotjq]

Traveling At The Speed Of Light

Traveling At The Speed Of Light

In case you didn’t see the posts on social media (how do you not follow me on Twitter??), I’ve accepted a position as a Customer Solutions Engineer with the Duo team in San Francisco, and I’ll be moving out there at the end of November.

It’s a big, quick change, and I couldn’t be more excited.

After things ended with Hayden, I started making plans to move back to San Francisco, since I really…

[jqnotjq]

In A Year Will You Still Feel The Same Way?

In A Year Will You Still Feel The Same Way?

What a time to be alive, I guess.

Two days after my last post, I went in to have a growth checked out to see if it was cancer. So that you’re not waiting in suspense, I’ll let you know that it wasn’t. It had been there for a while, and I was ignoring it, but my doctor finally made me go in, and a nice lady did an ultrasound on my testicles (I bet she was quite confused when she read an order to…

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You'll See Things Will Start To Go Your Way

You’ll See Things Will Start To Go Your Way

The Facebook and Instagram posts are true – Caitlyn and I are engaged.

(more…)

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Sink Into The Bay

Sink Into The Bay

Hayden and I broke up Saturday night.

The reasons why are tied up into the same reasons I haven’t posted in a year, so let’s roll it back.

When we got to San Francisco, it quickly became apparent that Hayden wasn’t going to be happy there. She was able to land a job pretty quickly, but the hours were difficult, and she struggled with the commute. It culminated in a panic attack that led to…

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When We Are Happy We Both Get Fat

When We Are Happy We Both Get Fat

We are currently at about 38,000 feet above sea level, according to the touchscreen in the seat in front of me. Three hours until we land. Somewhere on the border of Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas. Do they even touch touch? I’m a musician, Not a cartographer.

We spent a lot of time over the last few weeks seeing all of the people we love, and I still feel like we missed so many people. Because…

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The Eve Of My Election

Three days after my last post, Duo Security reached out to me (with an assist to Kyle), and asked me if I was interested in a Technical Support Engineer. In San Mateo. California. A month later, I’ve gone through four round of interviews, including a marathon four hour Final Round, signed the job offer, put in my notice with Apple, and started figuring out how to get Hayden and myself out to San…

[jqnotjq]

Get Down, Turn Around, Go To Town

Get Down, Turn Around, Go To Town

When I first started this blog, the idea was that I’d use it to talk about transitioning, mostly. Writing about other aspects of my life were interspersed because they were relevant, but my goal was to keep this mostly about the journey. It’s been five and a half years since I started writing here, and nearly six since I first started seeing a therapist on my way to getting hormones. Life is…

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In a move some are calling “shamelessly stolen from @hayden_ashley”, I have #painted my #face

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I, for one, welcome our new #porg overlords.

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New #drawing

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The most #photogenic (at Ann Arbor, Michigan)

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Practicing. (at Ann Arbor, Michigan)

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#amiibo in portrait mode. V serious #photography (at Ann Arbor, Michigan)

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#inktober, this time featuring a spooky @hayden_ashley and our cat.