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).
I am only going to pivot and say a few things that are now, more important than ever. And by saying, I’ll probably just end up posting links. My wordsmithing isn’t great at the moment, but I’ve been collecting links.
The Fediverse is a viable option. It may be the only option.
SpaceHey will be one of the few exceptions for me going forward, because at least there’s no algorithm screwing with things. I’ll revisit my thoughts on [that] platform occasionally.
Web3.0, as we call it colloquially, is frankly terrible. No to generative AI, Crypto, NFTs, and so on. And did I mention algorithms already
But with one huge caveat, I cannot stress this enough: Friends don’t let friends sign up for any ol’ Mastodon instance. And before you join any instance, be sure to look into them carefully. I have a handful of recommendations, if anyone is curious; these were spaces I have personally seen actually caring for their communities.
Every other app is setup to be quick, simple, and easy. But Mastodon requires, and I really mean it, requires that you investigate the server you’re looking into joining. It’s like we’re back in the 90s, and your avenue for social interaction online is internet forums, and you definitely don’t want to join a forum full of people with interests you don’t enjoy.
Regardless, keep an eye on the hashtag Fediblock and The Bad Space project to keep yourself and your communities safer. https://thebad.space/.
If you have the time, learn to build.
Or at least be aware of alternatives other than the corporate social media sites, networks, and programs. For starters:
There are cheap and even free options out there if you’re on a tight budget. The aformentioned 32bit Cafe link has a huge list of options, and even Reddit is helpful here: https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/wiki/pickingahost/ .
I’m currently on NekoWeb, myself, and I’ve heard good things about NearlyFreeSpeech.Net and Lexi’s Hosting.
If you’re starting up a service, considering hosting, or whatever else, be mindful of the Five Eyes (“FVEY”) surveillance alliance. Encrypt your data (end-to-end and on your devices), use VPNs, minimize your data collected, don’t be too open in public online spheres.
As the WordPress environment is set aflame by one guy throwing a tantrum and lawyers sending each other strongly worded leaflets, I’m just sitting here glad that I made the switch to ClassicPress months ago. And, not for the first time, I noticed a trend in my social media restructuring: when it isn’t FOSS or decentalised, the sites I’m now most active on is a fork or reconstruction of what I grew up with.
While NekoWeb is admittedly a stretch (free hosting never went out of style), I have listed it because of how nostalgic it has made me. It’s what I keep repeating: the Old Web and how people used to build and decorate their online spaces. However, two services are forked from earlier concepts of their modern-day counterparts:
2018: WordPress 5.0 introduced the Block system
Dreamwidth forked from LJ as early as 2009
And SpaceHey is basically resurrected MySpace from the early 2000s or so… I was never on that platform proper pre-botched migration (it got better). It’s been interesting to see how it was, right now… and not as a kid, but an adult that does their own taxes and everything. I would’ve loved MySpace, especially for the hack to inject CSS. And I’m liking it now as an alternative to Facebook.
I won’t talk about the during-move blues, other than note that it was one of the most stressful times I have had in a long time. I blew past my breaking point and burned out twice over. I wanted to cry, a lot, and I wanted to not deal with that shit anymore.
And then, it was done.
How am I doing now?
First off, I am relieved. I am also grateful for all the help we managed to get. I’m not even happy that the hard part is over.
I am sad. Still in mourning for the house-that-was in my apartment-that-is. My favorite ideal future of a giant house with our individual spaces, of all of our hobbies intertwining, and metas and friends visiting often will never happen. Relationships have transitioned and bonds sustained damage. There is, as I noted above, a distance I can never cross.
I did enjoy organizing and decorating with my remaining nesting partner. We made the place ours, and the vacuum left behind gradually filled. And it has been satisfactory as we settled into our slightly modified routines (the shortened commute certainly helped). Coming home feels, well, like coming home.
I am not happy, yet. There’s recovering from the physical, mental, and monetary stress. I may need another month.
Two scenarios are illustrated, two separate paths taken.
Mega Ran, initially, wanted to be a dentist! So the track takes us to his office with the Wu-Tang albums and degrees on the wall, and he comments how he grew into the profession: it just came so easily to him; it was obvious. After the chorus, he’s then a principal of a high school (and in fact, IRL, he was a teacher before he was unceremoniously shitcanned). He cared about his kids enough to give them pep talks and wake-up calls. In both paths rapping was still a passion, be it a humble a rap listener or someone who freestyles with the students as a reward for not neglecting their studies.
My frequent trips to Rumination Station usually concern the choices I’ve (not) made. My thoughts aren’t as talented as a nerdcore rapper, but you get the gist.
I wonder if I took my Most Likely to… award I got in 8th grade seriously (instead of the bullying) and hadn’t given up on art?
Or I followed of the footsteps of my oldest friend and into journalism?
Or I heeded my dad’s advice and got into the medical field?
Or I took my love for cartoons a step further, and vowed to create my own?
Or if my affinity for wind instruments and singing didn’t atrophy?
What if I understood object-oriented programming and moved away from designing?
Or, what if I loved magazines more than web pages?
What if I kept that spark from my science-fiction short story in English class, of the teacher reading it out loud and the rest of my peers leaning forward, enraptured?
If I remembered when a friend said that he really loved my poems and I should be published?
What if I settled for an administrative job from the get-go? Or, like my mom, I worked my way up from production floor to cubicle?
I wonder what options I would have had if I’ve graduated at a better time, from a different school. If I wasn’t forced to pivot into unrelated fields to keep the bills paid.
If I had picked up a trade.
If circumstances were different.
If. If. If.
What would I be like? Would I still be blogging, and writing for fun? Would I still love tinkering with computers? Would I be in any position to ease children’s fears and give teenagers guidance? Would I be playing video games a lot more, or would barely have time for them?
Would I love it? Would I hate it?
What even was my calling? Did I have one?
Would I be more content?
Honestly, I don’t know. That’s always a possibility, isn’t it?
For years I’ve been passively looking at alternative blogging platforms; I’m one of the many that were dragged kicking and screaming into WordPress’ Block Editing Gutenberg nonsense. I adapted, and even got used to it– besides, I’m not a developer, so it was easier for me to roll with it. There are options, like Classic Editor plugin and ClassicPress, which I kept on the backburner.
WordPress was on thin ice ever since.
I’ve also been keeping tabs of the current Internet climate, so I’m not in the least bit surprised when this happened:
Tumblr and WordPress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools,
according to 404media. The initial link is paywalled (nagscreen-walled, really), but other news sources have picked up the story. And on top of that, there’s rumors that AI training may have already been happening. [1] [2]
And that’s it, the final straw.
I haven’t expressed my stance on AI stuff on this blog. I can see how it can be helpful in most cases. But as a Creative (if only in writing), compounded with the current stateofhow AI isbeingimplemented?
I’ll keep this short: Ultimately, not a fan.
And I do not consent to having my data trained on AI/LLM/Skynet. Sure, I can opt out, but why is shit like this never opt *in*? And, as Web 3.0 continues to algorithm its way into as much profit as possible, I don’t trust WordPress to honor my decision. And there’s just the whole principle of the thing.
So I’ve halted any scheduled posts, made my backup, and I will move in the next few months.
There are options– it’s just a matter of budget, and how and where I want to set things up. I practically grew up on WordPress, so ClassicPress is calling my name– and I can get behind their mission!
But this can also be an opportunity to pivot into a new adventure with new tools. That sounds exciting! I do have half a mind to jump into a whole ‘nother CMS.
And hey, when all else fails, there’s always DreamWidth. They have yet to let me down, unlike LiveJournal. I may even have it as a “mirror” of sorts.
So, that’s it. I’ll update one last time to let y’all know where I’ll be next.
I have a pretty solid finish to last month’s Bloganuary, and then I… disappeared. This time, it isn’t because I ran out of steam! But it was redirected elsewhere.
There’s the health issues I’ve referenced in the last few months, and that does cause some anxiety. I’ve been trying to eat better and work out (at least walk!) more, so I’m hoping that’ll help. And drink water!
But also.
Due to Reasons, I’ll need to move later this year. That’s always stressful, yes, but there’s also the added wrinkle of some relationship transitions (or alternatively, break ups) that also entail the shake-up of living situations. I’ve had some time to come to terms with it and prepare, but it doesn’t make it easier.
So that’s been stressful.
I’ve been relieving my stress with fanfiction. Writing silly things, for fun, and indulging in one of my favorite What-Ifs. And it has helped, but I think I’m ready to work on some blog drafts and my other projects more.
I’ve noticed that I tend to only update this blog when I have something big to say. An informal essay of something about three pages. I should relax and not be afraid of smaller, more concise entries.
Like this one.
So, yeah, another transition. New beginning and all of that. Nothing terribly profound.
I am not looking forward to uprooting and packing some memories away.
I am absolutely running that joke into the ground.
Prompt: Write about your first computer.
Bloganuary is over, but I couldn’t resist this prompt!
My dad bought an AST Advantage! computer[1] from a coworker and we settled it on the desk in my bedroom. We were pretty excited, both of us being electronic gadget nerds in our own ways: I was into everything computers, while my dad’s forte was audio and video setups. We were both content in a RadioShack, back in the day.
It was a beige thing with a horizontal tower (vertical wasn’t all the rage yet) and came with CRT monitor, keyboard, mouse, a desk microphone, a manual, and a whole sleeve of CD software (s/o to Encarta, always coming in clutch when I needed additional research for school essays). The speakers were passable, nothing to write home about.
It was running Windows 95. A solid operating system– a opinion I hold to this day– but it felt a little dated compared to the Win98 (or 2000?) installed on computers elsewhere. But, that was no biggie. It also lacked adequate Internet access for its modem wasn’t quite up to snuff, if I recall correctly. But, still, it was pretty cool. When it wasn’t a word processor, it played music and we played a few MS-DOS games on it.
The Advantage! stayed in my room. From what I remember, the computer became my domain and thus, unofficially tasked with taking care of the thing. That included, in my assumption, that I was to do upkeep and remove any unnecessary files or programs. I took it pretty seriously.
From the Windows 95 desktop I dragged photos and irrelevant documents from Explorer to the recycling bin. You can guess where this is going. No, I did not delete the System32 folder, but I did something just as hilarious:
I deleted desktop.exe.
In my defense, I made sure to at least open programs before I made my decision to chuck ’em. And this particular executable was the AST-branded desktop environment with a distinct Windows 3.1 flavor. I thought it was safe to get rid of, because we already had a desktop environment– and a modern one, to boot! I thought I was safe.
The instant I banished it to the Bin, I got an error message. You were instructed to reboot the computer in hopes of the OS finding desktop.exe again. But it was in the Bin, untouchable, so you were effectively boot looped.
I panicked. Not because I’d get in trouble (and I probably did), but because we didn’t have the install discs for the operating system! So there was no way for me to fix it until we got them. A few weeks later I was able to repair the damage, and got a surprise. The install discs were for Windows 3.1! The Windows 95 install turned out to be a delicate patch job that I wrecked in my error.
But hey, the computer was usable again! So I got on with it with no complaint. I screwed up, after all. Armed with the Flatten-and-Rebuild option, I got to learning and making more mistakes. I hadn’t done any blunders of that magnitude since, but I kept those discs close!
I became real familiar with using the ALT key to access menu items– especially ALT + SPACE, for when a window got nudged off-screen and I could not see it. That happened a lot in 3.1, at least in my use case. I learned how Batch files did their thing and customized a whole startup routine pointing to different programs and Windows proper– including an NES emulator to play Mega Man II. I played with its audio programs, listening to my Final Fantasy MIDIs when I wasn’t creating silly audio skits. Imagine my delight when I saw it could’ve been used as an answering machine and phone! Stones.Exe was my favorite time-waster, when we weren’t playing MS-DOS games. And lastly: it was just pretty fascinating to interact with That Older OS, to see how far along its come.
Common objects I’ve ferreted to and from home via floppy discs were
Eventually, we did get our Technically-Second computer: A Gateway with Windows Millennial Edition. It was the family computer, chilling in my parent’s bedroom before it was moved to the corner of the dining room. We loved ourselves some Bejeweled, 3D Pinball Space Cadet, and That Game Where You Shoot Dial-Up Modems (was free with our DSL provider).
I thoroughly enjoyed browsing the Internet, sending emails, browsing GameFAQs, and putting together my fansites for Chrono Cross and Kingdom Hearts. I downloaded mp3s from OverClocked Remix— it took twenty minutes for one file, so I typically busied myself with something else– and the entire time I’d hope no one would call.
There was also this program that snitched on everything you did on the computer. Of course, it was installed! I was called out for the habit of deleting my browsing history (because they could see it anyway), but I just shrugged. I wasn’t doing anything out of line and to be frank, the real saucy stuff was regulated to the library computers, out of their reach. This Nanny program promptly disappeared when I exploited WinME’s login bug, snooped, and found a certain folder with certain images not under my account. That deeply amused me.
We had a year free of for Norton, when they were still reliable. All of us clicked on our fair share of dodgy sites (and yes, we used Limewire), and were super concerned with the worms and viruses. When Sasser was making the rounds I couldn’t help but feel smug– it didn’t target WinME systems (but it did get the last laugh when I finally upgraded to XP without reformatting– another lesson learned).
The era of Family Computers was a pretty special time. There was nothing like it. It was communal, whether we crowded around the screen or we took turns doing Important Things. We burned CDs, used the scanner, printed out photos, and bookmarked cool things for us to peruse. I have a family photo of all of us at the table, taken by our first digital camera, processed on our first computer, and printed out on our first printer.
I kept the AST for a few years, and eventually inherited the Gateway when it was usurped from the Family Computer crown. After that, I upgraded to a HP Media Center Edition for school (I needed all the horsepower for Photoshop and video editing– the TV watching was a bonus). And beyond that, I’ve had my run-ins with more HPs, Acers, and Dells.
But the AST Advantage! was first, and I’ll fondly look back on it always.
I had a rad 7th grade Social Studies teacher. I can’t remember her name, but she was a small lady who had a sense of humor and wore jeans. I daresay she was even kinda cool, and I’m not just saying that because Social Studies was one of my favorite classes (I love to read that much). Unfortunately, I don’t recall much except four things:
The time we watched The Little Mermaid and the class clown– responding to Ariel’s “Why, Eric? Run away with me?”– yelled incredulously at the screen: “You don’t have legs! You can’t run!”
I managed to have The Latest Crush sign my yearbook. We never spoke to each other before that. He was surprised that I wanted one; I surprised myself by feeling brave enough to even ask.
That pretty sweet drawing I did poking fun at The Boston Tea Party for extra credit. (Alas, lost to time. Maybe. I’ll check my closet).
It was this Fourth Thing that cemented her as A Cool Teacher (but as is tradition, The Cool Teacher was the Art teacher).
The school year starts out as usual. Each class rarely began with lessons and homework on the first day. Instead, the period was spent going over rules, lesson timeline, grading scale, the boring but important stuff. So when we wandered into this corner classroom we expected more of the same.
And it was– except for a twist. When we got to the Rules section of our material, she instructed us to open our brand new spiral notebooks. I’m sure a lot of us thought “Dang, we’re taking notes already?!” But no.
On the top of the very first page, she had us write this, instead:
DO NOTHING TO INTERRUPT INSTRUCTION.
and tasked us with how we could (and would) follow that rule.
Simple, right?
Deceptively so.
While some of our suggestions took the piss out of it, they still had a glimmer of truth in them. The majority of what we scribbled down were serious: no loud noises, no gum in seats, don’t be rude, don’t be late, respect the teacher– someone even mentioned no sleeping! Some were obvious, some were creative, but all of us were using our developing brains for ten minutes trying to come up with a least ten subrules.
This is something I carry with me to this day. Hell, a version of this typically encompasses the spaces I moderate. When you really boil it down, a list of rules can arguably be summed up with a “do nothing to disrupt this space.”
Bloganuary writing prompt: Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?
I can tell you what type of items I tended to get attached to: something small, probably cute, and later on was a prop for my comedy. Except for a few, these were almost always bears. Some exceptions include a dragon, Squirrel Dude, a cat, and my oldest favorite: Actually a Bobcat. Because he had spots, so he was a bobcat, damn it!
His name was Kitten, originally. He was small like one! He couldn’t have been more than 5 inches tall, and is now a very light gray. In 7th grade I had a dear friend take him home to have her mom patch up his failing spotted butt, so his butt implant is a light blue. This was also the same friend that insisted on calling him Bob (short for bobcat) but I refused, so we compromised: KittenBob.
He was certainly for companionship in the lonely elementary school years, like a security blanket. It was pretty rough for a shy bookworm taking speech therapy classes. He didn’t start really becoming the vehicle of jokes until middle school– I’d act out scenes or have him deliver punchlines, usually in math class. In a routine, he was the boke to my tsukkomi. I didn’t make it as the class clown, but my friends thought I was funny.
When I became a freshman in high school, I began leaving him at home; KittenBob was getting old and I worried about damaging him. He passed the mantle onto a character I created to entertain my younger sibling, the inspiration being a knockoff beanie baby. From doodle to prop, his successor was Not A Cat and carried on to be a distraction in Spanish class, a guest during silly family outings, and starring in his own college project!
I still have them hanging about my bedroom, chillin’ in the shadowbox or lurking on a bookshelf.
