Aug 28, 2026, 06:51 PM

I am finding very, very few things more exhilarating at the moment than watching Killing Eve once again.

Aug 25, 2026, 08:37 PM

I expected that my first evening back on the meditation pillow would be full of angst, ankle strain, and impatience. Instead, I was welcomed into the ceremony during which Jan became a monk. That’s homecoming.

Aug 25, 2026, 04:12 PM

The days are so sweet. Walking the dogs in the late August sun, it is hard to miss the small magical details that put together the scene. Light lingering through branches, friendly neighbours, canine, human, greeting us on the way to the pond. Just enough warmth for people to sit in the grass. The good old days.

Aug 21, 2026, 06:29 AM

There is something particularly nice about the way my body feels after I come back from a gym workout today. Not in a protein shake, alpha masculine type of way that lingers towards more control, more pushing, more goal-setting, more “if only I would…”. Rather, it is a softening of the posture I take in relation to my body. Thank you, thank God, for being here. Across every thing I have experienced, you have always been here, the only constant. Sorry for my lack of interest, my conscious and subconscious dissociation from you. What do you need? That is healing today.

Aug 19, 2026, 04:53 PM

It’s sweet to begin another journey with the Ted Lasso family this week. Anja and I saved season 4 until after the Summer break was over. Good television is a helpful way to come off of the “I didn’t have time for a bathroom break until 6PM” that is being a teacher. I had forgotten, but the character of Lasso is the main inspiration for how I coach and lead. The gentle understanding that everything will be okay has helped me prioritise, engage, and empathise in countless moments.

Aug 19, 2026, 02:24 PM

I’m as concerned about artificial intelligence as the next person working in Information Technology. That being said, it feels gratifying to finally — after years of dreaming, quitting, changing my mind, and trying again, and failing again — have my Indiekit Micropub set up.

Oct 10, 2025, 10:17 PM

[img]: A concert hall in Amsterdam’s Melkweg is coloured red in preparation for the arrival of artist Erika Vikman, who came and came again. Not too shabby.

Oct 5, 2025, 09:21 PM

[img]: A woman listens to a live feed of the Red Line protest protest she’s at, the crowd being so large that the speakers can’t reach her ear

Oct 2, 2025, 06:33 PM

[img]: Puppies’ first time at the beach. I’m not a complainer.

Oct 2, 2025, 06:27 PM

[img]: Sitting in the back of a hip-looking restaurant; light walls, colourful wall art

Family dinner at Buffet, where I am forever tempted and equally unwilling to try their oeuf mayonnaise

Sep 27, 2025, 01:44 PM

[img]: A quiet view of a lake in Het Twiske. I like to think the Netherlands is a beautiful country because it is flat, not in spite of it.

Sep 26, 2025, 07:48 AM

[img]: An Amsterdam canal basks in the bright pink morning sky. Leave me alone to the books and the radio snow.

Sep 23, 2025, 05:58 AM

It takes up little space, the number, now. Still, I like to keep it on my phone’s lock screen. 2700 days of sobriety, of making a very good decision over and over again. It’s a good thing it takes up little space. I think it can because I see it every day.

Sep 13, 2025, 08:22 AM

Something about white people cancelling The Smiths because of racism without understanding the effectiveness of teaching people to sit with the discomfort of having their offensiveness pointed out to them is really ticking me off on this fine Saturday morning.

Sep 12, 2025, 06:48 AM

Truly baffled, upon waking, to learn how wrong I am when I say to myself: “ah, American elections must be coming up again soon. How long has he been in office now?”

Jul 23, 2025, 03:52 PM

It’s a privilege, I suppose, that my ankle recovery has been going so smoothly that I no longer need three physio appointments a week, consistently missing the closing time of the place around the corner selling those cardamom buns.

Jul 23, 2025, 12:31 PM

[img]: A drawing of pen schmutzes and two billboards turning them into abstract art. Making the best of a mess.

Jul 22, 2025, 10:54 PM

Dogs, I’ve learnt, have a majestic ability to recover after trauma. Zev just fell her equivalent of five stories to the floor, and after deep howling, shaking it off multiple times, cuddles, a near-instant nap, and a wee she is prancing around the living room as though nothing happened. I want to be her when I grow up.

Jul 10, 2025, 07:12 AM

In my lifetime, I haven’t seen one marketing tactic more effective in turning the heads of most men and a considerable collection of women than a KLM flight attendant traveling to the airport in full bright blue attire.

Jul 10, 2025, 05:39 AM

I dreamed both Anja and I, despite our complete lack of experience, got accepted into Harvard on a tapdancing scholarship. Anja said during her admissions interview that she had no intention of actually learning tap. I was considering it.

Mar 14, 2025, 04:24 PM

[img]A glass of water and a cappuccino sit on a wooden table at a coffee place

A recent rediscovery has been 4850, a little cafe behind the hospital. It used to be Michelin-awarded fine dining, now’s it a coffee place and wine bar. During the week, they close at 3, but on Fridays, they’re open until 6. The team working there have such a great dynamic, and it’s fun to crack jokes with them. Perfect way to start the weekend.

Mar 5, 2025, 07:15 AM

[img]A beautiful morning sky over the Amstel River in Amsterdam, as seen from a tram on a bridge.

The 2025 Lenten season and I are off to a beautiful start. I’m trying something new this year: I don’t want to focus on a habit I want to quit, co-opting Lent to dive into productivity/diet/whatever culture. Instead, I’m looking forward to identify a few of my common thinking traps, and learn how I can move beyond them to what I consider the less circumstantial, more profound beliefs I have about life. A gorgeous morning sky is making it all quite the treat.

Jan 28, 2025, 07:25 AM

[img]Trees full of loud parakeets against a dark blue sky

It’s difficult to describe how loud the birds are against the dark dark blue sky across the street from the hospital, and even more difficult to convey the dread I feel as I hear their poop splatter on the floor, but it’s very easy to say what it means to walk on two feet again, even if it’s with crutches and the occasional pain: the attitude is gratitude.

Jan 17, 2025, 05:32 PM

Mother on the tram to the two-year-old producing nails-on-a-chalkboard sounds with the mouth: “No honey, we can’t play with the clay now because it’s very cold. See, clay is made from bees wax. We’re almost home, but before that we need to go pick up feta at the supermarket.”

Jan 17, 2025, 09:19 AM

Due to forgetful manoeuvring on my part, I find myself off work for the next three Fridays. Having spent two lovely days at the office this week, I can tell that’s a good thing. I’m happy, but tired. Thankful, but tired. Challenged, but tired. Today’s the day I’ll finally tidy up all the medical supplies that have been scattered around the house since late October.

Sterile gauze, pain killers, an ear thermometer, a dozen boxes of antibiotics, cotton pads, hospital documents, paper bags serving as portable trash bins, and adhesive bandages bandages bandages. One recurring thought has been that I’m so privileged to even be in the position to buy the number of island dressings that I did. That and all the cab rides to the hospital. “Let’s get one thing straight,” said the surgeon on Monday, “you and those bandages are done. Go home.”

It all feels like another paragraph into a new chapter I’m calling “On the Up and Up”. Wounds become scars, standing showers become normal, takeout deliveries become an exception, wheelchairs become dispensable, supplies become clutter, hearts become calm.

Currently listening to Julee Cruise’s “Falling”.

Jan 14, 2025, 11:21 AM

[img]Sitting in the handicapped spot on the tram, as shown from above.

My first time traveling to the office without taxi assistance since my accident. I’m excited to see everyone, and nervous about how tight these hiking shoes feel. I’ve worn the right one plenty of times, but I’m breaking in the left one only now. I keep thinking “what if my leg explodes?!” but then I remember what the surgeon said during yesterday’s check-up: “you no longer have an ankle problem, only a head problem.”

Jan 8, 2025, 11:01 PM

[img]A dim blue light hits a bedroom wall at nighttime

The charging indicator light of my antibiotics dispenser pack was quite bright, all things considered. The technical nurse pulled out two feet of IV that led right to my heart and I felt nothing. Tonight marks the first night in two weeks that I get to twist and turn as much as I want in my sleep. Another milestone in a long trajectory.

Jan 6, 2025, 08:19 AM

[img]A corgi looks up at a treat dangling just out of view

As I settle back in at home, I’m slowly shaking off the fear of germs that enveloped me at the hospital. It means getting to pet Lemonade again, who cuddles her way into my heart more deeply every day. It’s interesting to see what it does to me, our wordless relationship.

As Anja and I planned another Paris trip to use my unused train tickets, we got into a little argument about whether or not to take the dog. Anja says this is what we signed up for. I say a real vacation is when I don’t have three walks around which to plan my days. But then again, with a face like this, will I ever need a vacation?

Jan 4, 2025, 07:14 PM

Yesterday, I took one of the last opportunities I had and changed the date of my inbound train ticket from Paris to Amsterdam, scheduled to leave tomorrow. This ticket was part of the original plan in which Anja, Lemonade, and I would go to Paris for three weeks to housesit for our cousin Anto. We’re excited to visit Paris again in May, but since I had already modified the outbound trip, Eurostar would only let me make further adjustments on the phone.

Lucky for me, the queue for Dutch customer service was so long that I was offered a shortcut to the English department. And what a delight it was indeed! James from Eurostar helped me rescheduled two tickets without any trouble whatsoever, in the span of only a few minutes, and at no additional charge. The whole thing made me wonder why I ever log onto the Internet to do anything by myself.

Based on my one conversation with James, I now have a new theory that I’m eager to put to the test:

The easier it is to complete a task in private on a website, the friendlier customer service phone operators will be in completing it for me

Jan 2, 2025, 04:54 PM

[img]Dutch is the sky I see from my living room window. After seven nights in Acute Care at OLVG West, including one successful surgery and a rigorous antibiotics protocol, I made it home right in time for New Year’s. Here’s to a year of health, movement, happiness, discovery.

Dutch is the sky I see from my living room window. After seven nights in Acute Care at OLVG West, including one successful surgery and a rigorous antibiotics protocol, I made it home right in time for New Year’s. Here’s to a year of health, movement, happiness, discovery.

Dec 22, 2024, 11:42 PM

[img]Only the handsomest neighbor boy invited me to hang tonight. His parents are the sweetest friends, only a few hundred meters away, and the perfect getaway for someone who is temporarily disabled. They made a delicious stew, and watched two parts of that spectacular OJ documentary with me. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend a dreaded Sunday. Tomorrow I’ll hear if I need more surgery. 🤞🏽

Only the handsomest neighbor boy invited me to hang tonight. His parents are the sweetest friends, only a few hundred meters away, and the perfect getaway for someone who is temporarily disabled. They made a delicious stew, and watched two parts of that spectacular OJ documentary with me. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend a dreaded Sunday. Tomorrow I’ll hear if I need more surgery. 🤞🏽

Dec 2, 2024, 05:35 PM

(…) But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. — Genesis 2:17

One thing that has been on my mind for a few days now is: if Adam didn’t know the difference between good and evil, why was dying bad?

Nov 10, 2024, 10:42 AM

I’m surprised we made it through Disclaimer, though that’s not entirely true, because both Anja and I would have a hard time quitting anything that involves the acting of Cate Blanchett. Looking back, I feel our experience was exactly as intended (even though author’s intent may well be the most boring of analytical categories in the study of media.)

The show’s disclaimers, both diegetic and non-diegetic, kept me thinking they’re such pedestrian vehicles for spoiling. “Sometimes, meaning can only be conveyed through the shock of the unexpected”, I thought. Still, throughout the show, the disclaimers made me interpret and reinterpret and misinterpret “depictions of sexual, physical, and emotional violence” in ways I thought I had somehow transcended by now.

The series has left me feeling uncomfortably unsophisticated.

Disclaimer is one of those beautiful examples of a terror that can only be rightly experienced once, upon the first viewing, much like Irréversible and Antichrist. I keep thinking “well, I could’ve done with a bit more foreshadowing and character development around the twist”. In all honestly, though, I say this to myself only to alleviate the discomfort I feel as I imagine myself Sacha Baron Cohen in a hospital chair, guilty and bewildered, hearing perhaps the saddest of realities about myself.

Nov 6, 2024, 05:55 AM

Tired as I, too, am of the American elections, the American friends half-joking about moving to Amsterdam, my mind keeps gravitating around various questions. How do the stock exchange and political elections compare? What would happen if polling and reporting on the election were not allowed? What political philosophy could I read about the life of voting imitating the art of polling? With headlines such as “the county that got every president right”, do Americans feel the discomfort I feel about the idea that a vote can be right or wrong, that it’s a national guessing game? Are we going to be okay after this?

Nov 4, 2024, 03:55 PM

I’m one week into my broken ankle recovery journey, and so far, things are quite alright. I’m not in a lot of pain, and I can manage my way around the house with a new set of crutches and a wheelchair (covered by insurance). There are a few questions that are on my mind:

  • How does surgery feel?
  • When I walk normally again for the first time, will my feeling of relief be as potent as I imagine it will be if I were to suddenly regain my ability to walk right now?
  • When I have surgery on Thursday, how easily will it be for me to develop a dependence on opiates?

Nov 3, 2024, 08:42 AM

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Mornin sun in the bedroom

Nov 2, 2024, 02:18 PM

[img]

I keep finding bruises I didn’t know emerged after my bike accident

Oct 29, 2024, 03:26 PM

[img]

Boy, am I glad I got my early birthday gift just in time to break my ankle in three places!

Oct 26, 2024, 11:24 AM

[img]

God laughed as I made plans

Oct 25, 2024, 11:51 AM

[img]

Off to Kindred Kuts for a touch-up for the first time in… a year? Quite excited about the way my hair has been growing. It’s so much more vibrant and healthy since I developed a proper care routine.

Oct 25, 2024, 06:48 AM

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Oct 25, 2024, 06:02 AM

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Afternoon flower art in Vondelpark

Oct 24, 2024, 07:04 AM

Looking forward to the discourse analysis theology majors will be doing about Qanon.

Oct 21, 2024, 12:38 PM

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Oct 20, 2024, 11:12 AM

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Cooking tip from our Haarlem friends

Oct 11, 2024, 10:30 PM

[img]

Add to watch list

Oct 7, 2024, 09:11 AM

[img]

Sunny morning at the office

Oct 5, 2024, 08:09 AM

[img]: guy and dog against backdrop of Flevopark sunrise

Guy and a dog

Oct 4, 2024, 07:23 AM

[img]

Tell me about the best season and I’ll tell you it’s autumn

Oct 4, 2024, 07:22 AM

[img]: office building against blue sky

Oct 4, 2024, 05:36 AM

I start the day nostalgic about being a good music detective, about lesbian chamber pop, and about the fact that my first long term girlfriend and I used to live a block away from each other in Eindhoven. I put on “Simulation Swarm” immediately upon waking.

Oct 4, 2024, 05:31 AM

[img]: sunset in Amsterdam East

A surprisingly chipper autumn day

Sep 29, 2024, 02:25 PM

[img]: me and a wiggle of corgis at the Westerpark corgi meetup

Happy place

Sep 29, 2024, 10:53 AM

[img]: a snapshot from my journal

Reflecting back on September

Sep 24, 2024, 06:46 PM

[img]: geometric photograph of walls lining a staircase

Work, is where I want to be, pick me up and turn me around.

Sep 16, 2024, 12:12 PM

img: Portuguese rock formation in the shape of Godzilla

A dream comes true today: not only do I get to admire the Godzilla rock in person (on the right), I also notice how much the other part on the left looks like Godzilla of the early Japanese era. I’m in my happy place.

Sep 14, 2024, 07:15 PM

There’s something ironic about Albufeira, where the majority of tourists are English and somewhat demanding, and the majority of waiters serving them are taciturn people of Indian descent.

Sep 14, 2024, 04:00 PM

img: clothes line against bright blue Portugal sky

I’m in Albufeira, mixing a family visit in with my desire for a silent retreat. A big apartment with ocean view and a pool, I can’t ask for much more.

I’ve been to Albufeira a few times before, but now that I have no travel companion distracting me, my attention focuses on the sharp dominance of British tourists. Pasty white skin (often visible in too great a volume) that doesn’t seem to ever tan. “You can pay in pounds” signs by the cigarette stand. Beer at 8:35 in the morning. An entire street of restaurants showing the game.

I keep looking for local life. Where do people live among all these hotels, where do they shop, where do they eat, where do they go to the doctor, how do they get around town, where do they do their laundry?

Sep 13, 2024, 04:45 AM

[img]: Transavia plain at terminal, night time

Well, someone is ready for their first vacation in 14 months.

Sep 11, 2024, 07:34 AM

[img]: rainbow over Javaplein

Good start of the day

Sep 8, 2024, 10:38 PM

First time making jollof, and I can tell you this much: what criminal ever thought of serving rice unseasoned?

Sep 7, 2024, 09:19 AM

If I had been born a boy, my full name today would have been Stevie Wonder Waleson Geene. I don’t know what’s worse: that alternate universe, or the fact that I was today years old when I fully grasped the artistic brilliance of the singer himself.

Sep 7, 2024, 12:03 AM

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Hanging out with Vanessa could not have been easier and more fun. Joining the Omek community has given me access to such beautiful, brilliant people from all over Africa. What a fitting wallpaper for the time stamp.

Sep 6, 2024, 01:40 PM

What irks me about personal sites today is that it’s increasingly easy to see who (hopes to one day be a person who) works at Vercel or whose browser home page is the website of Brian Lovin.

Sep 6, 2024, 07:04 AM

A week from now, I’ll get off a plane in the Algarve, retrieve the key to a family-size apartment with ocean view, a mere fifty footsteps from the beach. I have no idea what to do with myself.

Sep 1, 2024, 09:47 PM

All Saints celebrating its homecoming service today. Warm, long hugs, even with the heat, delicious potluck, new faces, whispering children during communion, reading a passage out loud and being struck by its depth. Who knew the first chapter of James is where I need to be? It’s a good time for church to start back up again.

Aug 31, 2024, 01:01 PM

[img]: Lemonade resting her head on dirty towels

My daughter doesn’t mind the filth. I suppose we’re both feeling a bit bored today. I might go see Blink Twice later.

Aug 31, 2024, 07:13 AM

At the dawn of a new day it’s easy to forget, but I did spent two hours past midnight entirely engrossed in the craftsmanship, execution, and artistry of Beyoncé in the music video for “Single Ladies”.

Aug 30, 2024, 07:50 PM

I like the idea of the journey being epic, and a journey map being the thing that has a big X on it. Pollution of meaning in the product landscapes is a bit of a personal gripe, and I’m curious to play with synonyms that might pop into my head in the next few weeks.

Aug 30, 2024, 05:32 PM

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My first time at Shiraz Jardin des Vins is less awkward than I would expect as a sober person. The friendly waitress knows what’s up: Coca Cola goes in a wine glass.

Aug 30, 2024, 03:22 PM

Someone in the house, who shall remain nameless, is in the kitchen on the phone absolutely GAH-RILLING the sales person trying to sell her a membership to the gym she’s been trialing (and loving), and I feel… SORRY for that boy.

Aug 30, 2024, 07:56 AM

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Said goodbye to Erik Vermeer yesterday. I’ve had a transformative experience working with him. “If you want to do something but you’re scared, do it scared.”

There’s something endearing about the simplicity of being a man of quotes, especially since he’s one of such complexity.

I gave him “Doppelgänger” (a misspelling I refuse to repeat). Into the endless mirror world, the perpetual, dialectic nuance, is where our conversations often led. Naomi’s writing seems fitting. I hope I’ll see him again.

Aug 25, 2024, 08:25 PM

Neither of my in-laws know how to accurately pronounce the word “vegan”.

Aug 25, 2024, 04:00 PM

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Finally got my hands on a copy of this beautiful book by my name sibling Zindzi. Beautiful day in de Bijlmer to buy it. Can’t wait to dive in!

Aug 24, 2024, 09:43 AM

It’s nice to be a part of a church family that I get to miss.

Aug 24, 2024, 09:17 AM

I never knew until this morning’s LinkedIn doomscrolling how fiercely I reject the act of labeling one’s own words as “food for thought”.

Aug 16, 2024, 11:02 AM

[img]: Me with Lemonade and Ted

Yesterday, Lemonade and I got to meet puppy Ted. While I normally consider Lem to be the petite one in the canine dynamic, it was adorable to watch her engage with a puppy. A puppy who, because of his hip downtown Amsterdam lifestyle, rarely engages with other dogs. He was very shy, and took hours to even begin considering that he could get near Lemonade without her pulling out a knife.

Unrelated: great paella to boot!

Aug 12, 2024, 10:24 AM

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A visual compendium to my commitment to bad weather. Greetings from Amsterdam, where it’s 10:24 and projected to hit 31 degrees Celsius later today.

Aug 9, 2024, 11:45 PM

As the partner of a high school English teacher, and as a mid-range Millennial with exceedingly traditional views, I have opinions about how the generations that came after me handle discomfort, discontent, and disagreement.

I too, experience a world that subjects top achievers to higher pressures than before, and that diminishes our collectivist outlook at every turn. Still, though, when I see a young athlete throwing a tantrum, I think of the participation trophy, and how it has created a cohort of people who all won the egg drop each year.

Aug 9, 2024, 09:45 PM

What made American Fiction (2023) such a delight to watch isn’t so much the stellar acting or the clever writing, but Cord Jefferson’s stunning ability to weave together irony and sincerity. It’s not often that I see the nuance in smart, unstereotypical Black characters who are hilarious, and who at the same time fill my heart with tenderness.

Aug 9, 2024, 08:11 PM

Overhauled my website UI today. I sometimes wonder if I’m making a mistake not keeping a changelog, but at the rate I’m going, it wouldn’t make much sense. Either way, settling on a paginated diary-style means I’m officially saying goodbye to my commitment to keeping this page under 250kb. I wouldn’t be surprised if, one of these days, I get another sweet email from Norman Köhring reminding me of this fact.

Aug 9, 2024, 07:14 AM

Our neighbors Kate and Ross donated their lovely petrol sofa to us. It’s a two-piece, which we’ve enthusiastically turned into two separate sitting areas in our home. We’re not sure about its original legs, so for now, both sofas are on the floor. It makes me feel like I finally know what it’s like to be Japanese /s.

Last night, as I was tidying up before bed, I said to Anja I’m quite excited about keeping the sofa low, while also allowing for storage space. Anja has two modes: 0 and 100. As we say in Dutch: what’s in her head is not in her butt. It’s great when we need to get things done, but it’s also daunting when she gets her eyes on a new project.

“YOU HAVE YOUR NEURODIVERGENT THING, AND I HAVE MINE” I heard her shouting from the bedroom, as I’m sure she drew up an entire wood construction project in her head in the span of a minute.

Jul 28, 2024, 08:07 PM

Today I wondered:

  • Why do people start wars in a world that has pickles?
  • How can I manage a single Google Calendar that has RSS feeds from multiple venues in Amsterdam?

Jul 26, 2024, 08:03 PM

Today I wondered:

  • How much would a harp be? How loud?
  • What are the cool kids doing?
  • Is it too late to reach out to Paul?
  • How’s March doing?
  • Am I boring?

Jul 21, 2024, 09:07 AM

“His observations struck some critics as the smugness of a man who escaped a shipwreck and now has some thoughts about the swimming techniques of the people behind him who drowned.” - Tom Nichols for The Atlantic

Jul 20, 2024, 02:34 PM

I had the pleasure of being the +1 at The Black Archives Bijlmer Book Club, where we read Travis Alabanza’s None of the Above. Meredith and Wally were excellent hosts, and I loved meeting new people with similar interests.

I had strong feelings about Alabanza’s insistence that this work “feels like theory”, in response to it being marketed as a memoir. Calling Get Out a comedy diminishes the value of Black storytelling in horror narratives. But calling it a documentary is just as ineffective. “Feels like theory” very much sits in that spectrum, for me.

I enjoyed the lively conversation my strong feelings sparked about respectability and Black works, and was surprised the lyrical essay appears to be such an unknown genre when I offered it.

[img]: me in a chair between two bookcases at Bijlmer Book Club holding “None of the Above

[img]: Meredith, Wally, and I

[img]: group photo

The first and last photos were taken by Wouter Pocornie.

Jul 20, 2024, 09:39 AM

How might we let users seamlessly manage calendars from multiple providers in one cross-device app that doesn’t feel heavy, slow, and unreliable?

Jun 19, 2024, 06:45 AM

So ready for day 2 of UX Healthcare Amsterdam

Jun 15, 2024, 08:37 PM

Marveling at the poor interface design of a pill box

Jun 1, 2024, 08:53 AM

As a design mentor, one of the things I encounter constantly is the stark difference between how some men and women speak of their own competencies. “May you be granted the confidence of a mediocre white man” is a phrase I utter at least twice a week. This morning, waiting for my local coffee spot to open, I saw a common occurrence of that level of confidence: somebody walked in before it opened, saying that, if undesired, the baristas would kick him out anyway. He returned three seconds later. I mused out loud, in front of him and two other friendly regulars who are themselves mediocre white men, that I was thinking about the thing I say to all my female and non-binary design mentees. I feel that my ability to do so in this social context proves that I, too, finally have the confidence of a mediocre white man. All this being said, though, I’m beginning to develop an appreciation for this alternative: “May you be granted the confidence of a disabled queer Muslim woman who, despite everything, dances in the rain.”

May 25, 2024, 08:56 AM

Nice idea! I like this one, which is often wrongly attributed to Francis of Assisi: “Proclaim the good news at all times. Use words if you must.”

May 24, 2024, 12:05 PM

“Because every time I go on Facebook, and I don’t do that often…” I overhear a man say to his coworker while they’re out on their lunch break. I love the complexities that arise when self-reporting is a method of data collection.

May 20, 2024, 10:42 AM

Watching the documentary “Spijtmoeders” (“Regret Mothers”) and wondering how many queer people regret parenthood.

May 8, 2024, 09:49 PM

Spent the morning at Coffee Company, where a neighborhood acquaintance and I talked about Israel, the war, the protests, the police violence. This afternoon, YouTube gave me an ad of the Israeli contestant of the Eurovision Song Contest saying, in Dutch, that I should vote for her.

Apr 26, 2024, 06:50 AM

Sometimes I think about that art criticism professor who told a full lecture hall repeatedly that Asian people would never be able to play Mozart like white people can.

Apr 19, 2024, 07:19 AM

Ever the snob I am, I made it one verse into Taylor Swift’s freshly-dropped “THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT” for saying out loud on the tram “no, I can’t do this” before deserting my goal of listening to it in its entirety.

Mar 30, 2024, 11:09 AM

Mar 27, 2024, 12:11 PM

Today was the first time in my life when someone asked me if I was experiencing menopause. “It’s the only explanation I can give for why you might be tired.”

Mar 26, 2024, 11:00 PM

Black person today: “Doesn’t your name mean ’lion’ in Zimbabwe? Tarah, what’s that Disney movie about the Lion called again?!”

Mar 24, 2024, 12:19 PM

Mar 22, 2024, 06:32 AM

Mar 22, 2024, 06:29 AM

I like when products become so popular they can actually say something about society, even if what they say is something horrible.

Mar 15, 2024, 07:00 AM

Me: “Good morning love, how did you sleep?” Her: “Still happening.”

Mar 11, 2024, 01:20 PM

Okay wow they filled half the cup with chocolate syrup. The only proper way to convey what the experience of a single sip was like, was to say it felt like being fucked in the mouth by a chocolate Easter egg.

Mar 11, 2024, 11:53 AM

The baristas at Starbucks are jokingly delegating my order to one another, puzzled by what it means to pour a cappuccino that’s half cow’s milk, half chocolate milk.

Mar 9, 2024, 10:38 PM

As always, spending time with Annelie Wambeek is effortless. She taught Anja and I how to cook a few Sri Lankan dishes. I love it when non-spicy spices come together to give me a zinger.

Mar 9, 2024, 01:52 PM

Hate that I’m the type of person who stands in a monitored line on the streets of Amsterdam to get lunch.

Mar 9, 2024, 01:16 PM

I’m intrigued by what’s happening here. When I saw Sydney’s red carpet look I thought of Billie Eilish’s “coming out” as a bombshell. I wonder if a part of me is offended. I don’t think so. I don’t, by the way, think it’s crazy that those far right articles celebrating Sydney’s outfit as the end of woke were written by women.

Mar 9, 2024, 01:11 PM

Mar 9, 2024, 11:37 AM

There’s something undyingly hip about the baristas at Coffee Company Oosterdok.

Mar 9, 2024, 11:28 AM

I’m attending my very first Saturday Writers’ Cafe at Omek. Couldn’t be disappointed if they tried.

Mar 9, 2024, 11:25 AM

After having set up my content management system around an Obsidian vault through which I publish content at a fixed daily time, I’m reverting back to iOS shortcuts. It’s more fun to publish immediately; it helps me capture the small things more easily.

Feb 6, 2024, 10:26 PM

After adding myself to App Defaults I took the liberty of importing the available list of RSS feeds into my reader. It was a mistake. I spent the weekend pruning my subscriptions, hoping I won’t be presented with 200+ updates a day in the form of micro blog content. A few of the new feeds immediately struck my fancy, though, among which was Mandaris Moore, one of the few Black people I’ve come across on the IndieWeb. It’s always good to see the African diaspora represented somewhere.

Feb 4, 2024, 03:01 PM

“Just about any app can read it, a year and a decade from now, I’m sure, and then some. That’s more than you can say about diary apps and services, they could suddenly disappear, like the Ello social network did.”

Look at that, I had completely forgotten about Ello, but I felt its obscure echo when I read about Daft Social last week.

Feb 4, 2024, 02:07 PM

Enjoying a cozy Sunday indoors with Lemonade. We took a long walk in the park, where we met Sammie, Maat, and Hovis and Norman. I can tell she’s becoming a little less responsive to my cues, which tells me she’ll be going into heat soon. I’m meeting Erin before Church. I gave myself a nice two-strand twist for the first time. Life is good.

Jan 31, 2024, 01:48 PM

Jan 27, 2024, 07:57 AM

  • Structured menu as a grid with space-x between
  • Added active links to the menu (using Harry’s solution)
  • Added Updates section, with pagination (using StaticMania’s solution) and an RSS feed, using timestamp with slugorfilename notation for the permalink
  • Updated Start page
  • Added a bookmarks page, which should probably become a bit sexier at some point

Jan 26, 2024, 11:36 PM

We started watching the fourth season of True Detective (2014-), which seems, so far, like an enticing storyline, great acting, and the firm reminder that Jodie Foster’s ultimate role is as a homicide detective.

Jan 16, 2024, 07:12 AM

Thanks for providing a quick summary of Cal’s video. Saved me a watch. At first glance, his idea resonates immediately, particularly the concept of the infinite buffer. I suppose it’s not difficult to get lost trying to distinguish this buffer from the cybernetic tools we use to populate it.

Jan 8, 2024, 09:35 PM

Lemonade and I have reached the stage of dog-human relationship where we trust each other, and I confidently let her off leash at the park. I can’t think of a better way to start the year.

Jan 3, 2024, 04:51 PM

Me in 2019: “If Anja ever wants to get a dog I will reevaluate our relationship.”

Me in 2024: “Do dogs understand movies especially those featuring dogs?”

Jan 3, 2024, 10:46 AM

The Omnifocus 4 branding feels like it was created for a demisexual trans non-binary space wolf otherkin named Delivery.

Jan 2, 2024, 11:06 PM

I edit my biography in a community app for Black professionals. Other people use the flags of their heritage, and I decide to do the same. Which one goes first, 🇳🇱 or 🇸🇹? I was born in the Netherlands, and consider myself not Dutch per se but definitely an Amsterdammer. Truth be told, I’ve never been to São Tomé and Principe, and the parent who hails from there left when he was ten. I wonder, brushing my teeth before bedtime, whether it’s appropriation for me to use the flag. And then I think of all the brown and Black faces I know, doing just the same, and entirely dignified and correct in doing what they do. It’s one of the prices of growing up Black in a white environment: I wonder when I’ll stop feeling like I’m the racist.

Jan 2, 2024, 10:04 AM

Hey dear Desi, a bit late, but as promised, here are some resources that may be helpful when diving deeper into UX:

Jan 1, 2024, 01:44 PM

I’m surprised by the amount of tourists who came to celebrate New Year’s in Amsterdam, as well as by their shared urge to leave the country on January 1.

Dec 31, 2023, 06:51 PM

I can’t be the first one to see Jonathan Banks’ character Mike in the Breaking Bad universe is strongly reminiscent of Kevin Spacey’s Lester in American Beauty.

Dec 31, 2023, 05:51 PM

New Year’s Eve is sweet. I spent the morning at Coffee Company Oosterdok working on my website. The girl barista and the guy who came to take over her shift are apparently dating. He’s got a full mullet and a geeky mustache. It’s that season of fashion again. He was the type of soft masculine only Gen Z-ers can be. At 36, I seem to be developing a habit of noticing how much I’m no longer an 18-year-old. Everyone who seems my age addresses me with the formal “u”. I also saw S in the street. It’s the first anniversary of her father’s passing and she was wondering out loud what could properly trigger an ugly cry. She offered me a red velvet “oliebol”, which looked like a fried dog treat. No thank you, ma’am. A friendly face in the neighborhood knocks on our window and tells me she has enjoyed getting to know us a little more, and that she hopes to be in touch more in 2024. 6pm and pizzas enter the oven. It took only 15 minutes for us to finally get into Better Call Saul. I expect I won’t even make it until midnight. Happy New Year!

Dec 31, 2023, 09:53 AM

  • Updated the general UI of this website by adding a softer background color
  • Added a splice method I used earlier to photo posts, which allows me to alter the size of the images served through Cloudinary
  • Merged _notes contents into my _posts folder so that my dated content is organized in a single place (this is convenient for pagination purposes)
  • Styled the tags page
  • Updated layout of an individual tag page so that short notes and posts are grouped accordingly

Dec 17, 2023, 08:25 PM

Knowing I’m at home in Amsterdam is getting on the tram, seeing the same conductor as a few hours ago, spotting various people whose faces I know. A city as a village, but in a non-insular way.

Nov 30, 2023, 06:26 AM

The split personality trend was… a moment!

Nov 12, 2023, 11:11 AM

On my way to my first climate justice march, and wondering, with embarrassment: are religious and financial reasons why I’m walking today? 🤔😂

Nov 10, 2023, 06:17 AM

Oct 17, 2023, 08:22 PM

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the fact that, while humans aren’t supposed to be able to smell a dog being in heat, I am, very clearly…

Oct 16, 2023, 10:07 AM

Here is a person, watch her work, watch her nae nae: Kawaii-ifying my iPad, learning Korean, in deep work mode listening to the lofi Pokémon playlist on Spotify. Slap me.

Oct 15, 2023, 08:54 AM

Does anybody else recognize the habit of suddenly listening to Mitski’s “Francis Forever” on single repeat for three hours straight?

Oct 6, 2023, 12:25 PM

Lemonade got a free treat from the pet store: a nylon bite ring with edible bits. She’s so obsessed with it that she keeps walking around with it while whining, hiding it behind curtains and doors whenever she gets the chance.

Oct 4, 2023, 10:23 PM

I’m slowly sinking into a YouTube rabbit hole about one of the participants in the television series “Love after Lockup” and I don’t know what’s happening.

Sep 30, 2023, 02:13 PM

I was today years old when I learned it’s “long covid”, not “lung covid”.

Sep 30, 2023, 01:41 PM

Short older women with short gray hair give me childhood anxiety.

Sep 30, 2023, 12:03 AM

Just came home from the first edition of a new, invite-only film club, FC de Filmfanaten. I had suggested the film, “Talk To Me”, and I loved getting fresh perspectives and tidbits on it.

Sep 29, 2023, 07:22 AM

What a thoughtful way of writing about racism in the open, Adrianna. You inspire me to be more honest and concrete on the subject on my own website.

Sep 23, 2023, 08:48 AM

As a designer, incorporating AI into my research practice has been a joy. I’m curious to see what it has in store for design matters.

Sep 17, 2023, 09:10 AM

Good Sunday morning! What are you up to? Me? Oh, I’m on Web Archive browsing the blogs I loved in the early 00s.

Sep 10, 2023, 11:16 AM

I love it when I’m in the store and a kid is trying to sell their parent on the idea of buying them some tchotchke. “Ah, wow, it’s moisturizing! Interesting, wouldn’t you say?”

Sep 10, 2023, 08:42 AM

If the world really were my oyster, coffee would be all foam. Thick, fluffy, not-too-dry foam.

Sep 8, 2023, 12:20 AM

The way inmates smile in pictures taken for the purpose of finding a penpal always makes me sad.

Sep 6, 2023, 11:13 PM

I usually take a while to overcome the cringe I feel about my past selves, but why wait when I can laugh joyfully right now at Anja and myself less than a month ago, passing the Swedish city of Göteborg and thinking the printing press was invented there?

Aug 27, 2023, 10:43 AM

I’ve updated some things around here over the weekend that I think are worth documenting. There are three major changes:

  • Status update at the top of the page
  • Content is now served through a submodule
  • Blogroll

I love Mu-An’s status update so much I had to have it for myself. I like the idea of fleeting messages, blurbs shouted into space, with no proper archive. I almost fool myself into thinking nobody will be able to hold me accountable for what I publish there, but we all know that’s not true.

I enjoy writing Densely-linked content, and for this reason it’s better for me to have all of my writing in a single space. My space of choice at the moment is Obsidian, and thanks to Github Publisher, an Obsidian plugin, and Tania Rascia’s sweet writeup on submodules, I now technically don’t have to be in my code base to publish content anymore.

I’ve taking the liberty of hacking together the most obscene of deployment strategies: every time I update my status, Netlify builds my site and checks the latest updates of the submodule, publishing any new notes, posts, or pages in the process. I am not ashamed.

Aug 25, 2023, 02:29 PM

“She got there at 10 a.m. but already the lights and the music conjured a perpetual afternoon.” From Emma Cline’s story “Los Angeles”.

Aug 25, 2023, 02:22 PM

It’s interesting how “Barbie” is ages nine and older the way I used to watch “South Park” as a 11-year-old.

Aug 25, 2023, 07:21 AM

I had been enjoying both iOS apps Dwell and Abide for the way they integrated with my spiritual practice, but it’s disheartening to find out they both skipped the trial and billed me €40+.

Aug 24, 2023, 10:59 PM

All the teachers around me are slowly getting nervous anticipating the start of the new school year. Anja’s taking her anger out on the pottery wheel. I can smell the freshly-sharpened pencils from here. Or perhaps it’s just the August rain, wrinkling the foreheads of sun lovers, creating warm puddles on the pavement, telling us it went by in a blink.

Aug 24, 2023, 10:50 PM

Aug 21, 2023, 08:16 AM

Aug 12, 2023, 04:14 AM

Whenever I listen to PJ Harvey, I get the sense her songs best reflect the personal life of Juliette Lewis.

Aug 9, 2023, 08:51 AM

Not entirely too long ago, Mark Zuckerberg said that he wrote a talk on his phone, and I’m struck by how mind-blowing that seemed at the time.

Aug 8, 2023, 10:12 PM

Someone once told me “it’s ‘dessert’ with double s because you always want more of it”, and I think about that person often.

Jul 28, 2023, 11:30 PM

Nobody: Me: “Sir, may I give you the weirdest compliment of your life? If Tom Cruise played Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs’ scene where he waltzes into Africa, he would’ve looked like you.”

Jul 28, 2023, 05:54 AM

Trying to put together a road trip playlist, but getting sufficiently distracted by the fact that The Smith were active for no longer than a mid-decade.

Jul 26, 2023, 10:47 PM

Jul 23, 2023, 09:31 AM

On the playground, a dad rocks back and forth in a swing just slightly and stares into the distance while his child sits in the stroller. The parental leave coffee break.

Jul 23, 2023, 08:33 AM

In some life-imitating-art kind of way, England’s Prince George looks like Olivia Colman to me.

Jul 19, 2023, 05:30 PM

Just spotted a family of tourists, the dad one of those Pabst Blue Ribbon hipsters who’s now adulting. He wore a shirt that read “THE SMITHS”, accompanied by a black-and-white group photo of Will Smith with his wife and kids. Thought it was deeply hilarious.

Jul 19, 2023, 01:46 PM

Hey Desi love, hope you’re well! As promised, here’s that overview of handy UX things:

Let’s use tomorrow to go into some more detail about how to put together a portfolio!

Jul 15, 2023, 08:58 AM

I’m envious of teenagers who get to record their singing voices every day if they wanted to. I have a suspicion that I’m a better singer now than I was at 15, but I have no way of confirming it.

Jul 12, 2023, 10:43 PM

Finally we have them over to the house again, for the first time in what feels like a human life. One walks in smiling, the other bursts out in tears. “She’s pregnant” I think to myself. I’m right. For whatever godforsaken reason I see her as a submarine now. We talk without pausing, picking up from what could have been yesterday.

Jul 12, 2023, 06:46 AM

Jul 9, 2023, 07:27 AM

Looking at a picture of Elon Musk on The Guardian, and I need to do a triple take to see the caption does not, in fact, read “Elton John”. Sometimes, I feel like I’m in a live action dyslexia test.

Jul 8, 2023, 05:51 AM

Jul 7, 2023, 11:06 AM

Jul 7, 2023, 10:00 AM

Thanks for the inspiration, Barry! I had a separate page for snapshots, but why not move them under Notes with the other IndieWeb post types?

Jul 7, 2023, 07:48 AM

Oops, used u-like-of instead of in-reply-to. Hopefully got it right this time.

Jul 7, 2023, 07:47 AM

Using proper in-reply-to mark-up this time around. Note for Elliott and myself: I think I was mistaken about the Netlify build plugin not working.

Jul 7, 2023, 07:46 AM

Testing a simple webmention by talking to webmention.rocks’ Discovery Test #1.

Jul 5, 2023, 07:46 AM

Y’all remember MTV Unplugged?

Jul 2, 2023, 07:10 PM

I am humbled to the fullest extent of the word by Bar Bario, where A. took me in a sheer stroke of luck, and where I felt Black in so the right way and where I made friends, and where I saw myself in everyone.

Jul 2, 2023, 11:24 AM

Hey Ornella, as promised a small introduction into the world of personal knowledge management (PKM):

  • PKM helps us collect, classify, save, search, find, and share information
  • By taking atomic notes and densely linking them we can come to new ideas
  • There are many PKM tools available, each very advanced and functionality-rich in their own way
  • The easiest, and cheapest, way to get started with PKM is by downloading Obsidian
  • You may want to download their Windows app
  • If you use a cloud service like Dropbox, you can easily back up your notes
  • I think you may enjoy this article on PKM for researchers

Jul 2, 2023, 08:54 AM

I’m humbled by learning that my words are the introduction of someone else’s biography.

Jul 1, 2023, 11:09 PM

It feels cliché to phrase it like this, but I feel I witnessed a historic Keti Koti ceremony today, with a surprisingly genuine request for forgiveness by our king. It was a good year for me to finally understand my place in a holiday that’s part mine and part not. The ceremony made up for the hour-long wait in the half rain to get a sandwich for someone who had already gone home. Wan swit’ manspasi!

Jul 1, 2023, 11:35 AM

How to care for the injured body,

the kind of body that can’t hold the content it is living?

And where is the safest place when that place must be someplace other than in the body?”

Jul 1, 2023, 11:19 AM

“We have all the answers. It is the questions we do not know.”

Jul 1, 2023, 06:52 AM

Yesterday, someone asked if I’m Jewish, and I said “my partner’s Jewish, and because Judaism sometimes explains much better where I am theologically, I’m Jew-ish” and he said I sounded like most natural, well-rehearsed thing he has heard me say.

Jun 29, 2023, 04:36 PM

Hey Elliott, so lovely to have you over for coworking this afternoon! I love the way you think about UX; your artistic perspective is so valuable for the Internet and for web design, and you always make me see things from a new angle. Aside from the links I already shared with John and Maarten on June 23rd, here’s some stuff I love:

  • Jason Cosper inspired me to get rid of my About page.
  • Agile and Scrum are quite complex, and multi-interpretable, but Nielsen Norman Group has a few nice resources.
  • When it comes to extraversion and “people-person”-ness, I think the UX industry is quite a good fit for those who aren’t those things. Like I said, your ability to create an icebreaker on the fly isn’t half as interesting as your ability to figure out what UX method can answer a specific question. This reminds me of a talk I attended at UXInsights Festival 2022, which wasn’t about this topic per se, but about making UX research accessible for neurodivergent UX professionals. You might like it!

Jun 23, 2023, 12:00 PM

Hey John and Maarten, thanks for meeting me for coffee! I loved nerding out with you two about IndieWeb stuff, personal sites, the red ThinkPad belly button, and what personal web projects we’re working on. As promised, here’s a list of things I wanted to share with you:

I’ll spend some time in the next few weeks cleaning up my site. I’ll probably also try to establish some form of digital garden again.

Jun 14, 2023, 06:55 PM

While walking to grab coffee, my colleague tells me about the peculiarities of his seventeenth-century hat making ancestors, proud of the genealogical research his dad has done. After work, I google “Trans-Atlantic slave trade”, looking to see if I can spot my father’s generic colonist surname among those who made it back to his island. I can’t, of course.

Jun 4, 2023, 10:03 PM

I wonder how much of a boomer it makes me that I use red hearts regardless of the social context in which I use them.

May 27, 2023, 07:42 AM

It’s a cruel God who would end Succession and Ted Lasso in the same calendar year.

May 27, 2023, 05:41 AM

Racism is the relief I feel when I’m woken up at 5 by a drunken fight because I see I won’t have to hear any racial slurs from the participants, who are Black.

May 20, 2023, 09:02 AM

“Before and after historical calamities are human beings creating themselves and contributing to the larger follow of civilizations.” Enjoying Michael W. Twitty’s Koshersoul.

May 16, 2023, 08:22 AM

If you use FigJam extensively enough, eventually you’ll find yourself presenting a board that contains an accidental swastika.

Apr 30, 2023, 10:30 PM

As I grow older, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the various conflicting regimens I have in place to take care of my skin, scalp, hair, et cetera. Will it only get worse from here?

Apr 27, 2023, 08:07 PM

Reading a book on Bijlmer Bajes (a famous Amsterdam prison), and I’m chuckling at the architect’s decision not to add bars to the windows, but instead rely on “wire alarm” in the glass. Obviously it resulted in a lot of prison breaks, but what fascinates me is that the user story changed completely from a prison guard aiming to keep a prisoner from breaking out to them aiming to be alerted to a breakout attempt.

Apr 26, 2023, 04:29 PM

Just noticed this UI change, Barry, I like it!

Apr 26, 2023, 12:53 PM

Earlier this week I found myself in line at a coffee place giving my friend a very passionate speech in response to her question “why would anyone have a website?”. I always marvel at people who don’t share this sentiment with us, James. Nice to meet you!

Apr 25, 2023, 11:29 AM

Apparently I have a thing for non-Dutch podcasts about the Netherlands.

Apr 23, 2023, 08:10 PM

Enjoying Sunday night dinner with Anja and my father-in-law. As of recent, we’ve been experimenting with taking it down a notch, food-wise. Rather than wowing guests with eight hours of cooking time, we now feel much more comfortable cooking a few dishing and ordering stuff we love. Today, our Middle Eastern menu was complemented by dishes from D&A.

Apr 22, 2023, 06:31 PM

One skill I’m pleased to have been cultivating these past few years is giving myself a permission slip to rest. I just woke up from a two-hour nap and boy, the world is a new place. Anja clearly remembers the dragon I would turn into whenever I was in need of a nap or just waking up from one. As though I would need to punish myself for having taking a break. Now, it’s a mere drop in an ocean of post-nap ecstasy for me.

Apr 22, 2023, 10:57 AM

I’m now writing these notes using an Apple Shortcut (as inspired by Mu-An. It’s a great way to publish IndieWeb content without having to do any special magic. Setting up this posting strategy has helped me evaluate how I handle notes on this website. My writing often contains short, daily reflections, but it may be worthwhile to move that to this section. Then I can reserve the writing area for longer-form content. Derek Kedziora is great at that, maybe I’ll see if I can be, too.

Mar 26, 2023, 02:55 PM

Archiving my previous Now entry from December 13, 2022.

  • In Amsterdam simultaneously enjoying and dreading the cold
  • At Leeruniek thoroughly enjoying solving design and mentoring challenges
  • Preparing for our corgi puppy
  • Invested in my yoga and meditation practice
  • Teaching myself, once and for all, to play the piano

Mar 17, 2023, 07:54 PM

Isn’t it so that, if a cog in the wheel doesn’t work, the entire thing falls apart? What a beautiful reflection, Adrianna. I’m glad I read it today.

Mar 17, 2023, 10:24 AM

This is precisely what I love about webmentions, the return to the cozy web!

Mar 12, 2023, 12:57 PM

Mar 12, 2023, 07:35 AM

We’ve begun rewatching Succession again to prepare for its fourth and final season. If you haven’t watched it yet, it is a pure Shakespearean spectacle worth every second. Never before had I seen a work of fiction in which every single character is an antagonist.

Mar 10, 2023, 09:44 AM

  1. Continue a seemingly unending cycle of laundry
  2. Write in my diary
  3. Bake challah

Mar 10, 2023, 09:03 AM

I’m not sure what it says about me that I find it annoying when people don’t recognize that my puppy is a corgi.

Mar 10, 2023, 08:54 AM

Today might be the day I finally bake a challah for shabbos again.

Mar 9, 2023, 11:42 PM

Mar 8, 2023, 10:49 PM

Playing the piano is helping me put some puzzle pieces in the right place. I’ve always had the ability to reproduce the pitch of a song, but it wasn’t until I began playing the piano that I now seem able to identify the key by name. It may seem silly or small, but that’s a game-changer for me. It makes me feel that I can put everything together now; as though I’ve come full circle.

Mar 5, 2023, 08:36 AM

I was pleased to find out just now that the longest distance between two things on Earth ever photographed is a whopping 443 km. Photographer Mark Bret was in the Pyrenees when he was able to photograph the Alps. (Via Marnanel)

Mar 5, 2023, 07:41 AM

I love this essay, Simone. Fully embracing the very IndieWeb concept of a personal website has helped me shake this feeling of FOMO, I imagine the same way it did for you. Don’t be hard on yourself, though, we all fell for this concept, and many of us still do. If society presents something as a way to solve a problem, most people will eventually try it. And while it does solve some problems, it also creates others. I have a few Gen Z friends who never fail to make me feel old whenever they talk about “their personal brand” in an unironic way. Gives me the shivers.

Mar 4, 2023, 12:31 PM

Darn Barry, I feel like 2023 is throwing you for quite a loop. Ever since you wrote about you getting laid off I think about you every now and then. I’m sorry this happened last week, although I must say I suppose it’s a lucky thing those divvies wanted to get a break-in early bird special.

Feb 22, 2023, 07:23 PM

I was today years old when I learned that American Express and AMEX are the same thing.

Feb 3, 2023, 09:53 AM

If you still needed convincing that I’m Grandma Tech at home, struggling to use even the most straightforward of functionalities, please be aware that I was today years old when I learned that, five years ago, TextExpander released a custom iOS keyboard that would’ve solved so many of my mundane problems, and all I was doing was asking myself “why am I even paying for that app anymore?”

Feb 2, 2023, 10:52 AM

Listening to act two of This American Life’s episode The Runaround, in which we meet a boy who can only really calm his mind by running loops around the block, I can’t help but wonder: it’s beautiful to see a young problem-solver with ADHD make life easier for himself, but were there other people who thought of the compensatory behaviors often displayed by people with an eating disorder?