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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The August edition of the IndieWeb Carnival is about rituals. Host Steve is interested in how they shape us, how they’ve changed over time, and whether we like them or not.

I love a ritual. The word alone ladens the room in my head with the sultry air I expect from a monastery. It gives me Caravaggesque sunlight, high contrast, beaming its way to a church floor, illuminating austere dust particles on the way there. You can take the Catholic child out of the heartland, but… It’s safe to say the word “ritual” is single-handedly responsible for 70 per cent of my Etsy rosary purchases.