Posted on
by

I love my eReader! I have the Kobo Libre2, and I take it practically everywhere. I grew up with this sage advice, and thanks to technology it is even easier to follow it:

Always carry a book with you.

I do a lot of waiting. In the DMV line? Partner got caught behind a gnarly snarl on the interstate for our date and they’re going to be an hour late? Computers down at work? Doing laundry? Arrive to every event super early because your anxiety demands that you do so? Bust out a book and bam, got something to pass the time.

The only downside– if I can call it that– is they act like giant over-ear headphones in use: people come up to you and start a conversation anyway. Fortunately, most of my interactions that interrupt a fascinating paragraph are also book readers, and understand not to take too much of my time. Unless we get caught up with talking about books, of course. Ultimately, I find it a net positive to connect with someone over a mutual passion, despite my initial introverted annoyance.

I’ve recently had once such ultra-friendly waitstaff during a solo date. She asked me what book I was reading, and I may gone on a lengthy spiel about the science fiction I enjoy (the harder, the better– I grew up on Asimov and he basically had two dudes talk about science stuff most of the time). Egghead shit, I guess. But since we both liked scifi, I came away with a recommendation.

"There are women. And there are aliens on this ice planet."

"Can I make it any more obvious?" I laughed, happy to shoehorn a reference to the early 2000s and picking up exactly what she was putting down.

"You might think I’m a freak."

I laughed at that too because… listen y’all. I’m also a freak. To her Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon, I left a rec of my own.

I scrawled on the receipt, Neon Gods (Dark Olympus series) by Katee Robert. Less of an endorsement and more of a "I hope they’ll like it better than I did." It was written well and it frankly, was pretty hot, but I couldn’t shake off those Eight Deadly Words for me, not to mention the few nitpicks I had. (I did make a note to check out how later books in the series; she’s written non-monogamous relationships– if it’s as good as her writing about BDSM consent, I think I’d still have a good time.)

I rarely wander into the romance genre, but I have been trying to read out of my comfort zone. I was more than happy to have this as my "Up Next" on my StoryGraph.

Posted on
by

If I remember correctly, it was Watership Down where i first came across the idea that straight lines were unnatural, because Man (as a species) makes them. The rabbits were discussing a line(another word) of trees. looking down from the window seat of the airplane and seeing long, uncannily even swatches of flattened paths, I can see that. its unnerving and rigid compared to the rivers and curvier clay roads.

For someone that hasnt been on a plane in yesrs, I was pretty calm. … well, my normal amount of calm. being thrown into unrehearsed situations tend to throw me, so i was flailing through the checkin and security lines, apologizing profusely.

Awkward really rough drafts aside,
I really needed that vacation.

It was good to have a change of scenery and not have to worry about The Usual Stuff. Or, if I still did, at least it was on the beach with a coconut drink and surrounded by beautiful flora.

I also felt some things dislodge and I was finally able to get some more drafts and ideas done.

I feel like I had a RESET of sorts. Refreshed.

I went with a partner and a meta, with a perfect blend of group adventures and smaller sidequests. I learned quite a bit from my much-more traveled companions, too. Like, how to pack. I had no idea what I was doing.

We ate some pretty awesome meals, and lounged, and was bounced around as we traveled to our lodgings and destinations.

I feel like I did not get enough swimming in this year, so I more than made up for it! (I’m still getting beach sand out of my ears– worth it.)

Some things I also really enjoyed:

  • sleeping – no rowdy neighbors banging above my head from 8pm til midnight
  • the sun
  • the rocks, and shells
  • the trees
  • the hiking
  • learning about the country and culture
  • being immersed in another language
  • the open air layout of most structures
  • sloths, rodents, and various critters
  • getting a lot of reading in
  • not clenching my teeth as much
  • I climbed a tree
  • I PICKED UP A CAT

I felt pretty refreshed upon my return– this in spite of the dubious food at the airport "Carolina Pizza Chicken." I should’ve stuck with a local joint for our return trip. Don’t trust anywhere that has chicken-on-pizza as their selling point!

And hey, enough reading! I know why you’re really here. THE PICTURES. Scenery so great not even my budget phone camera could ruin it. I didn’t take nearly as many as I should have– I let the other two with better equipment take the bulk of ’em– but hey, say I was in the moment enjoying it. 🙂

Click Here for the Costa Rica Gallery

¡Pura Vida!

The volano in the distance at dusk, with a cloud covering the top of it. Aww, man.

Posted on
by

I had a "enjoy it while it lasts" mentality when it came to BlueSky. The tipping point finally came for Twitter, and a mass exodus occurred in their favor. The rest of my streamer friends were finally on a platform I kinda-sorta paid attention to. But I didn’t hold my breath.

Sure enough, the nail on the coffin was swift: within days of new users enjoying the new-to-them platform, Jesse Singal, known P.O.S., is not only welcomed on Bluesky– but has ties to Kiwifarms.

(If you have no idea how that’s bad news [I’m envious at your ignorance, but also, where have you been?]: KF is notorious for being a forum full of people that love to doxx, stalk, SWAT, and generally spend way too much of their time obsessing over people they don’t like. They’re most known for harassing transgender individuals.)

And…

People are still being declared overreacting about this?

But what’s been really getting me, is that people are staying anyway. I’m annoyed similarly that it took people this long to GTFO Twitter.

Now, I should hold nuance for those that feel like they don’t have anywhere else to go[1] (Anti-Blackness is global, and permeates the Internet) and for some people, it’s literally their business. And not everyone can just up and delete their account, I guess, or have time/energy/knowhow to just say "fuck it" and roll their own. Or, like, whoever. Whatever.

But…

We gotta do better, y’all.

I’ve come across so many others that articulated way better than I could about how I was feeling about this.

It’s the main idea of why the whole aspect of the "Indie Web," Web 2.0, The-Web-I-Grew-Up-On, has been my Roman Empire for the past year.

There’s alternatives, but unless it’s VC-backed no one really cares. It’s toxic to so many marginalized groups, but that’s where the community is. It harms the most vulnerable and the man behind the wheel is a fucking weasel, but that’s where all your followers are.

Who brings the community?

Who gets sacrificed the instant it’s no longer profitable to exploit their work?

Who suffers because people think Tolerance is still a good idea? (It’s not!)

It’s very likely that I’m salty because, well, I feel this boils down to yet again that trans people just aren’t important as comfort media and convenience. Cis folks wouldn’t stop clutching their Harry Potter books and that fucking game to show the bare minimum of solidarity, so I can’t say I’m surprised.

And yet, this still stings.

It’s not about connections and empathy anymore. It’s all about the numbers, and I’m an unimportant one.

So, like, whatthefuckever. Stay there if you want.

It’s business as usual.

Carla, a transgender woman, shrugging and rolling her eyes. She says, "You do whatever you want. I'm used to being everybody's acceptable losses." This is toward her cisgender Resident Assistant who did not stick up for her during a bigoted interaction with another dorm member.
Source: Dumbing of Age

[1] What? You thought I was going to recommend Mastodon? …Well, maybe, but with huge honking caveats and a narrow list of the instances and apps that I recommend. And let’s face it, we absolutely dropped the ball when Twitter first started fucking up (more). So, probably not.

We’ll need to carve out what next to do.

Posted on
by

A magazine ad for Lunar Silver Star Story, announcing that it will cease being sold on January 01 2000 after listing postive attributes. I have edited it to what I think my titles were on FB (annoying, unhinged, easily irritable), before declaring that my final title I'll earn on Jan 01 2025: not on fucking facebook. The smaller text is just a rant about the ToS, how AI sucks, my other sites.

I don’t bring attention to it, but I do have a Facebook account. But by the end of this year, that will be in the past tense.

I’m finally deleting the damn thing.

It had been on thin ice for me for years. I’ve been on much more fun sites, and I’ve been really getting into the whole "Old Web" pre Capitalist Hell we’re in now. And also. Let me count the ways…

  • accessibility nightmare
  • bad vibes

…well, that’s about it. "Bad vibes" has its own sublist of things that make up for it, like

  • ""community standards"" that leave actual hate speech up
  • algo nightmare
  • ads
  • is totally evil

But I stayed. Why? Because that’s where most of my friends are. And that’s where the local communities put their events and groups. It’s the only place where I can reach certain family members via Messenger.

And that is finally, finally not enough anymore.

Like WordPress, but worse, FB decided to do more in feeding the LLM slop machine and really come down on how they treat creators and their work. By swiping it to use it however they see fit.

I’ve made my flouncy posts and reached out to people to trade contact info. I’m holding out until Dec 31st, New Year’s Eve, before I cut my losses and delete the account.

I have over 200 friends. I’m blessed to have several handfuls of people that I love and adore and admire– and we have rapport in other places besides Facebook, including offline. I’m lucky to have support networks that meet up for trail, game nights, and social things.

I’m going to miss the groups I’m in.

And the reels my partners and I send back and forth to annoy each other.

And the memes, and silly groups where we all just shitpost (respectfully).

And the groups I have been in for yeeeaaaars that had been there for me when I needed them. There is a ghost of a ghost of a remake of one that I’ve been in for over a decade and we’ve kiki history, babes.

But it’s time to move on, because I have to do better than fucking Facebook.

If I miss things, oh well. I’m on mailing lists, bookmarked websites, and frequent my haunts.

If the one group I’ve been trying to revive ends up tanking because I’m no longer on FB to pester people about it (I’ll be on other platforms, including an old-school forum)… well, can’t say I didn’t try.

(BTW, tangent, communities etc– please have your web presence be somewhere else besides Facebook. At the very least have different options. Instagram does not fucking count. And neither does Twitter.)

And for those that never reached out… I don’t think I’ll be missed. And if I am, hopefully we’ve people and hobbies in common that we’ll eventually cross paths again. Otherwise… yo. You had time to make me a priority, and by New Year’s Day you’ll be out of it.

So, that is all.

What better New Years Resolution, right?

Posted on
by

When this posts, it’ll be a couple of days before the New Year, and we’ll be halfway through Kuchuqwanzaa, just about.

Or I can just post it right now! It’s been on my mind.

Next year, I’ll be the big ol’ Four Oh. 40. And when I’m 44, this blog would have existed for a decade. That’s ancient in computer times, right?

I began blogging when I was 34 years old, in 2019. That’s…

  • 3 years into tRump’s first presidential election
  • I’m about to move in with my partners-at-the-time
  • My favorite queer-owned sober third space shut down
  • still on OKC (and got my hopes dashed pretty bad, twice)

And this would be my second (or third?) iteration of having a WordPress blog specifically. The previous ones sputtered out and were deleted, but this time… it stuck. I still can’t put my finger on as to why, other than finally finding a groove and voice that I like. But, it’s always been about trying to get into– and stay in– the habit of writing. Letting go, grieving, and figuring things out. I’d have long lulls, but I’d be back. I’m happy to see that I have returned, and it looks much more permanent this time.

It’s been a fun year for this blog. I ragequit my dot-wordpress-dot-com and moved to my own space, dusting off all the cobwebs from my server administration days (and being eternally grateful for the customer service I received when I broke things). I had headaches, but I had fun too! ClassicPress has been great to use so far. This space feels more like "mine," and having more control certainly helped in that. I’ve migrated twice with minimal explosions, and proud of the smaller things like IndieWebRing and ActivityPub integration.

The only thing that appears to be holding me back is the lack of "spontaneous" and "not polished" works– I need to do more of those! What a convenient New Years Resolution!

Bloganuary is next month (next year), and on top of that sometimes I need to just Write The Thing. I write for you, and my friends, and folx that come across it, and so on– but primarily, I’m writing for me. So next year, I’ll work on that. Not everything has to be 500 word SAT essay, or have a point (or be educational).

WritingMonth doesn’t have to be November.

And there’s so many themes like this one I just searched for.

And, uh, I should probably start giving a shit about SEO…? The plugin says I should.

…

POST!

Posted on
by

The idea shamelessly swiped from a mutual friend of mine on Dreamwidth, rionaleonhart. You should also check out their Neocities site, https://balambgdn.neocities.org/, because sites like these need more love.

It’s little reviews for video games they have played! All I did was narrow down the scope to games I still have lying around, for whatever generations the Playstation, Playstation 2 and XBox 360 are. I forget. oh and the DS!

Continue reading →

Posted on
by

I was so excited for my holiday plans. We were going to do a long drive, bring mashed potatoes and cookies, catch up with people I don’t see often, play some tabletop, and snuggle my partner post feast-and-DnD. Mindful of the fact that we’re in flu season and still in a pandemic and I’m trying to travel responsibly and health concerns of other family members, I asked about their COVID precautions.

And let’s just say, they fell short.

There is still enough in me to be extremely disappointed. Because I thought they’d be better, for their ailing parents. For their children. For their loved ones. For complete strangers who can’t protect themselves as well, for health or other reasons– but as we’ve seen that part is just too hard for most people.

For the fact that COVID is still around, still serious, and still something to consider.

So today, I don’t know what we’ll be doing instead. I’ll just grab stuff to cook and wine to drink while I cook and just wing it with my own loved ones. The ones that still give a shit about this whole pandemic thing, anyway. And I’m going to go ahead and assume Christmas will be the same way.

So, uh, Happy Thanksgiving. Or as I like to call it, Happy “Surround Yourself with Loved Ones and Celebrate Another Year Surviving This Colonialist Hell” Day. Stay safe. Mask often. Get your boosters. Test a lot. Still take COVID seriously.

https://www.okdoomer.io/everything-that-friend-wants-you-to-know-about-covid/

Posted on
by

I like making my salads fancy. Here’s a recent one; it had

artisan (fancy green and purple) lettuce

baby spinach and arugula

mint leaves

green onion

carrot (matchstick/shredded)

radish, thinly sliced

strawberry

Spices included black pepper, basil, parsley, and garlic (dried and minced).

I chopped and sliced and tossed everything together with a little avocado oil. I should’ve added more mint. What do I call it?

Kitten in Tongs Salad.

Because we referenced the meme before I went to the grocery store.

A meme with someone incredulously asking why there was a kitten being held with tongs. The answer? Salad.