• This week, I attended my first Gerimedica party. It’s great to know I can expect a big celebration every year, and not just for the company’s sweet sixteen. It confirmed what I already know: great vibe, great taste, great people.
• I went to Bar Bario on Saturday for a meet-up called Hair Haven, which fosters connection between people with curly hair. Again, I was struck by how welcoming the space is. It’s a ridiculous feeling, being the norm there.
• I’m tired these days. Too much fun, too little rest. I’m better at napping, though. On Sunday, I barely wanted to get out of bed after a little snooze. Three years ago, a nap was unthinkable.
• I’m giving Reni Eddo-Lodge‘s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race another spin. The title alone makes it a hard read, but I’m hoping I’ll find myself along the way.
• I saw Dalva at Ketelhuis. Reading the reviews, I’m surprised so many people seem to interpret the girl’s dress style as “an adult woman in the 50s”. I thought it was reminiscent of the way girls dressed when the camera first came out. Not a girl, not yet a woman. Regardless, I imagine being Dalva’s mother, getting to know her daughter again, and understanding what has gone so wrong in the fibers of het child. It sends chills down my spine.
• In another childhood trauma narrative, I thought it was so moving that Jan Broberg played the therapist in the Showtime series on her turbulent childhood. I fantasized the scenes functioned as a systemic family constellation, her talking to her childhood self. The reality was probably much more technical than that.
• Anja had a very intense and short stint with Call of Duty, remarking on its evocative storytelling in the Cold War portion. She finished it, though, and the zombies turned om her off with such immediacy that she’s back to NBA.
• After hearing it only once, Billie Eilish’s “The 30th” is stuck in my head. She and her brother have a good thing going.

Two months of onboarding have rushed by in a blink. The new job is absolutely wonderful: the people are great, the work is complex and important, and the office itself is perhaps the finest I’ve ever worked at. I joined this company because the challenges they have seemed interesting to me. I’m very pleased that, two months in, it’s difficult to think that, at one point in time, these challenges weren’t also mine. I’ve made the right decision.

January flew, flew by, I tell you. We started with “wow, 2023 already, let’s have a chill time this year, hey what’s on Netflix?” and at the time of writing everything is different:

• Things are not chill, because we’re preparing ourselves, our lives, and our house for our first-ever puppy
• Both our work lives are unexpectedly bustling and busy
• We cancelled Netflix

I’ve been saying for years that I’d be willing to pay 100 euros a month for a single, all-encompassing international streaming platform. I suppose it’s never going to happen, but, hey, at least we’ll have that puppy, right?

More than any other time in my online life am I aware of the value of alt text. I make a point to write image descriptions whenever I can. Kind strangers with a variety of accessibility needs have been helping me understand how to best capture my interpretation of an image. I’ve come to regard alt text as the secret side bar I get to have with blind people and others who need it.

After five years of learning, falling on my face, making friends, and getting to know the travel industry, the time has come for me to say goodbye to Airtrade. This year, the travel industry took a huge blow, with many of the small and big clients we’ve acquired over the years in serious heavy water. What’s more, five years is a good run, wouldn’t you say?

My next adventure is taking me even deeper into making tools for people at work, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’m joining Leeruniek, a startup creating data-driven educational technology. They’re a smaller team than what I worked with the past five years, and I’m curious to see what impact that has on the way I work.

I’m not one to dwell on the negative, but let me just come right out and say it: I fucking hate summertime.

Like, “I hate Brussels sprouts” hate. “I’d rather be eaten alive by a shark” hate. Whatever you hate most, times 70. That kind of hate.

If I had a gun, summer wouldn’t live to tell the tale.

April showers bring May flowers, but in my world those flowers take the unpleasant shape of anxiety. I need a summer job, because I’d like to start off university with a buffer, but I also want to do fun things because it’s so warm. A morning job would be perfect, but mostly if it’s indoors. Not on some farm. Also not in a shop. Also not in some sad warehouse. After such a long, sanctimonious list of Things I Don’t Want, I’m left with two options. This is how I become a postal worker. The other option would’ve been morning prostitution.