Messed it all up (again (again)), but this time, I truly do feel like the quiet is freedom rather than loneliness. No need to check my phone. No need to wince at certain roads when I pass them. No need to wonder if anyone's okay.
I never feel lonely when I'm alone. It's when I'm around other people that makes the proverbial skin crawl. That's enough of that.
I hiked 5 miles worth of Matthei gardens. Got new tires for the Rover and had the letters hand painted. Redid my living room and it's a lot cozier and more detailed. It's a better representation of my lamp collection at least. A long way to go, but a lot of progress made.
I've redone the theme since the last time I posted. It's blue. I figured out how to filter images to match the theme, which was fun. The sidebar has been reworked a bit. Buttons for my faves, a currently section to keep track of, and a bunch of pics added to my nature page. I really need to get back to working on my zine though.
Also submitted a recipe to Skep's Small Web Potluck! What a wonderful idea. The entries all look so good, be sure to check it out.
Silver linings everywhere these days. Car broke down, but I was near a beach I didn't know about. Carless for the day, but coworkers are all on vacation and didn't care. They towed me for free. My mechanic only charged me for the parts. Couldn't let him do that though. My health insurance rate went up, but my coverage is much better. Blessed, still.
The wait for the tow truck sent me on an unexpected walk that brought a new beach into my life. I neeeeeeded this. It was practically empty at 10 or 11 in the morning. I wasn't ready, but I can't wait to play here. Got to go to my favorite book sale. Didn't get a whole lot this time, but what I did get was really good. My friend got 5th place in a Masters event for Tekken. I did a lot of good, meaningful cleaning. My fridge is full of picnic goodies for tomorrow just to do something different with my chill work week.
Lots of changes on the site. Added a kin section on my About page. A new zine preview is featured in my WIP section on the homepage. The blog page is one column because I admittedly yap too much and it hurts my head to look at my own posts. Reviews were added for Project Hail Mary and Obsession. The new Resident Evil movie trailer is out.
Cool.
Cleveland: Took a rare vacation for myself and hit the road for Cleveland. It's hilarious how much I love this place. It sounds like a meme. But it's 2/2 on my trips as being the most fun I've had traveling. The city's just so funny. There's always a funny song playing somewhere in the distance, which is my favorite part.
Spent a lot of this trip outdoors. Found out about the beach at Edgewater Park and had a heck of a stroll around the lake both days.
Made sure I went back to my favorite venue, Mahall's. My favorite band used to live upstairs. Just being in Cleveland and listening to their music makes so much sense. They really do sound like this place. I made sure on both trips that I listened to all my favorite songs near the lake and on the drive home. It's a great reason to travel. I definitely want to go to Evanston to listen to Slint some day.
New Gym: It doesn't sound like a big deal, but I might have found a new gym. My gym is so depressing and people aren't very mindful of each other's space. I thought my city didn't have a true rec center and found out I've just been going to the wrong one for over fifteen years. I went to the other one and thought it was absolutely wonderful. It's weird how much community matters to me. It's so strange. I'd much rather work out at a community center or rec center than a fitness club. I like seeing people becoming healthy in different ways. Hope it works out.
Web:: Some folks downloaded my RSS reader and have been using it, they pointed out that it's been pooping itself and I realized that the URL proxy I've been using to grab the feeds is throttling or blocking people after enough requests. I tested a new setup that involves making my own proxy on Cloudflare that worked like a charm. Updated the documentation on my Substack.I'm also working on a media list search bar to create lists for a digest. I've been seeing a lot of NC users make monthly digests of their favorite media and love the idea. I have a long way to go on it, I'm trying not to think about it too much with all the other stuff I have going on. It's nice to have stuff going on though. That's different for me.
Hi to all my new followers btw! I have been adding buttons to the You section of the site, feel free to reach out on NC and request an add <3
New theme :). I always wanted to recreate the vintage mac OS design and it finally came together. I did absolutely hack up this code to do so. not even sure if it was worth doing, but I had fun and it was cool to see it actually work out. posts in the tag section of the nav open in their own lil window. a quirk of that feature is that you can click on any permalinked header to open a funky version of the same post in that little window.
it makes no sense but i'm keeping it. making sense is overrated and the ugly lil windows that open up are funny sometimes. the fact that some of the styling on this blog is just doing whatever it wants is refreshing.
the fascinations tag has been updated with mac OS screencaps that inspired this design. it's gonna open up in the lil window of i did it right. enjoy
Big item checked off the to-do list today: ran the cyberdeck:
Not sure why the keyboard only wants to work on bluetooth and I definitely need to clean this thing whoops oops but it still works great. Turned it on for the first time in a few years to see how well I could run webamp on it and took it apart for the first time to find out:
Works great. Rotating the display worked wonderfully. No idea what I should use for a case, the photo is definitely using a phone holder. Something fun to think about, lord knows I need that. One step closer to making some sort of player for myself.
Rough week outside of that. Not worth talking about. Just so tired. Let's hope this is an easier week ahead and that I get the time off I asked for.