I’ve been seeing articles all day decrying shock and despair over the election results. As if we haven’t seen it before only eight years ago. Don’t get me wrong here. I am just as despaired as the rest of the population who didn’t want the U.S. to cave to a more overt form of the fascism it was already courting. As a trans person, as a person who...
I wrote a poem while at the Juniper Writing Institute this summer regarding the color purple. It was an exercise based on listening to a poem of another writer and coming up with a response. The latest draft I have of it is below: Viole(n)t I am the color of fruit in books for children they draw me round but my shape is much less defined at least...
When “personhood” is decided by the Big Five My partner and I recently moved states in order to benefit from lower rent and a more affordable living environment. We found a place on Craigslist for the winter that was not only scam-free, but extremely cute. We visited it in person, met the landlord, and agreed to tenancy until April after the...
And Opinions on Yurts in New England The last six months I took a break from writing in order to transition myself to off-grid living. Of course, this post and many others I have waiting in the wings would have been written much faster if I didn’t have such demand avoidance…even demand from myself, doing something I want to do. Thanks to folks on...
I want to tell you a story. It’s a story of three laptops assigned to me from work. But it also might be a story you know because you might have been the main character at one point or another, laptop or no laptop. The first laptop was a Chromebook, which was a whole kind of hell I didn’t realize even existed. It had ChromeOS on it, which...
This is a word vomit after finishing Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues. My hope is that it opens a discussion around transmasculinity in general. Yes, I know. I’m late to the game. It surprised me how many of my queer friends have read Stone Butch Blues, knew of its existence, and yet until I came across it in someone’s bookshelf, it was never...
Except… That doesn’t work. I started writing this post last year in February. I was recovering from a hysterectomy during one of the bigger surges of COVID in the U.S. The surge made sense: it started picking up steam right after the holidays when everyone went home to marvel in what it was like to have a “normal life” again. I’d had dodged COVID...
On Thursday, instead of celebrating with family and friends, many people recognized a Day of Mourning. This is not new. The generations of genocide is not new to those who’ve suffered, are currently suffering, or are tuned into the suffering others are experiencing (often by the hands of their own ancestors). I am in the lattermost category, as a...
There’s nothing more harrowing to me than being asked “why” when I’m asking someone to restructure a relationship. It’s immediately personal, deeply painful, and at some level, an inquisition. And it’s not the tongue-in-cheek inquisition in Monty Python. It’s not arguing about how dead the parrot is, either. Because, often, I find that I don’t...
I’ve had two people reach out to me in the last month about posts they’ve read on my blog. It’s been heartening to know that there are folks out there who are engaging with the material, and it also is motivating me to be more intentional when I post. Usually what goes here are unformed thoughts and ideas that I send out without much editing -...
How can we continue like this - vaulting over increasingly larger cracks, now too large to merely step around? Will we need to rappel down one side, climb up the other, before more people feel moved to do anything? Or will massive swaths of bodies need to fall through these cracks, will the chasms need to become bottomless? Someone responded to a...
My mind spills off of rest like oil jumping from a hot pan. When I think about napping or stopping so-called productive tasks in the name of more relaxing activities, I am instinctively re-routed to something I “have” to do. Even if it’s empty or busy, I somehow would rather do it than, say, reading or drawing - even going on a bike ride in my...
I’m currently reading Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. What I was prepared to read was a meditation about the connection we have with marine mammals and how that translates to Black feminism. What I was unprepared for was a revelation regarding the functionality of online spaces. Gumbs writes: “How does echolocation…change our understandings of...
I promised myself that this week would be an art week. My goal was to do weekly themes for my hobbies to prevent myself from chaotically starting and not finishing different projects. However, the Vergennes high school in Vermont has decided to host Walt Heyer in their auditorium next week, so writing week is starting a little early. Who is Walt?...
It’s been hard for me to journal lately. I find that my internal narrator is reflecting silently these days, whether due to high stress or because my body chemistry is changing. Whatever the reason, I am attempting to go against that silence and tease out some of my own thoughts without its help. I celebrated the Seder for the first time two...
A meditation brought on by mushrooms and a veteran Navy diver I recently found myself isolating at an empty apartment in the south end of Burlington. The isolation was both for practical purposes and for that deep, almost-spiritual need I get to be shrouded in silence. In a way, I guess those reasons could be one and the same: after some time, I...
It’s hard to put a question mark at the end of that sentence. It feels more like a statement, a permanent form of being. Often, I find myself actively avoiding the news - and the computer in general - in order to distance myself from the slow burn of everything falling apart. However, it has a way of crawling up into every orifice of your...
It’s a war that’s already started. People keep talking about it like it is theoretical, but watching a friend get a dog because white nationalists are stalking them for their abortion rights efforts? Citizens dead at the hands of radicalized gunmen? A global pandemic where people in power favored the economy over the health of its constituents -...
Living with a roommate who got a graduate degree in computer science means we talk a lot about interfaces. I’m a coder; he’s a researcher. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD after years of struggling with basic adulthood functioning; he is a well-adjusted, organized individual where everything in our apartment has its place and tasks get done in...
Why they are not the same There are a lot of negative opinions of anarchy that I’ve often heard phrased as follows: Anarchists “can’t get anything done.” They don’t organize because “they don’t believe in hierarchy.” They don’t have anyone in charge because everyone is in charge, or there’s no such thing as being in charge, “so there is no...
A.K.A.: We’re all gonna die, so let’s work together One of the things I’ve noticed in the radical left space is that there are many ways to talk about the same end goal. So far, I haven’t yet come across a radical leftist who is against dismantling capitalism, decolonizing, and giving reparations. We all seem to agree on the fundamentals....
Skills Front-end/static sites: React, Vue, 11ty, Netlify CMS, HTML/CSS, SCSS Full-stack: Ruby-on-Rails (4+), create-react-app Back-end/data: Node/Express, Pandas/NumPy, Heroku, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Vite Languages: Ruby, JavaScript, TypeScript, Elm, Python, Scala Related Experience Member/Web Developer Autonomic Co-op, Remote ~ Dec 2021 – present ...
Or, Why Anarchy Currently Isn’t Working Ursula K. Le Guin said the following: What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice. It is deeply related to the Spiderman quote from Uncle Ben: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Having choice is itself a power, and becomes near limitless when you decide to...
I recently finished The Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement, which is a short but power-packed work by Anuradha Ghandy. To call Ghandy just a feminist is an understatement. Her work was centered both on gender and on the Dalit. This small written work explains why she identified as a Maoist as opposed to a “liberal activist” or a...
There was a right-to-repair initiative that made the rounds during one of the last voting cycles. While the one I had voted on had been for cars specifically, there are other right-to-repair initiatives for phones, laptops, video game consoles, and pretty much any proprietary item you can think of that has a complex enough set of parts to require...
what are ur thoughts on cyber defense against big data collecting all of our personal info // defense against profound biases of AI that will eventually be used to enforce a police state The text came in late at night from my friend who had left my apartment only an hour previously. Sensing a larger conversation at hand, I responded with details...
And all I got was this lousy prize I remember my first “big kid job”. It wasn’t as a ski instructor. I did that for nine years, but it was like working on a big playground. Too fun to be real. No, it wasn’t working on farms, which I also did for a number of years when there wasn’t snow on the ground. The summer breezes, sudden storms sweeping you...
Or is it just simpler than that? Let’s cut straight to the chase: I think this article’s attempt at understanding burnout is tone deaf. In fact, it’s almost laughably tone deaf: The truth is that if a company were to spend some resources teaching employees how to bolster their resilience, optimism, self-efficacy and internal locus of control,...
It’s a Friday night, and I’m slightly tipsy after making a drink with a homemade shrub, cradling a frozen Tupperware of cookie dough on my lap. I’m alone. Almost 29. In an apartment that’s due for a rent increase next year. I’m thinking that I’ll have to regress and get a roommate. I thought I was supposed to grow out of that phase. Though I...
What follows is something more of a personal essay than a blog post. “You know, I think we really learned that we can’t trust the government for anything. And that’s why we started relying on each other, on our community.” We were nursing drinks on a Monday night in a bar that used to be a funeral home, recently opened by a couple from Austin,...
You should be talking to yourself about yourself. Actually.
This year didn’t turn out like anyone planned. However what hasn’t changed is my enjoyment of making lists out of inane subjects. Gratitudes My cat, Bast thoughtbot Amazing roommates / friends / fam Bike rides and walks in the woods Local foods - including locally roasted coffee beans 🤤 Hot showers My bed Time to work on art or to curl up with...
In addition to being a developer, I am also an artist and a writer who dabbles in nature photography. My goal is to have a minimalist office environment with as low a carbon footprint as possible, finding things on the side of the road instead of buying new (for example). I also value open-source software where I can manage it. I was diagnosed...
And Why I Picked Up White Rage Instead Full disclosure, I have not read White Fragility yet. I had seen a couple of impassioned resources that did not recommend reading this book as one of the first introductions to antiracism. (Some resources downright suggest staying away from it entirely.) While there are many reasons behind this, here is one...
If people want to see the parasitic nature of White Supremacy, they need not look further than the way the pandemic has been handled in the US. The economy is being opened up despite rising cases, putting the nation’s vulnerable at risk in the name of serving the few. Some are fighting wearing masks, because they believe it’s their constitutional...
This post will be updated often. It will mark things I’ve been recommended, things I’m currently reading/listening to/etc. There might be some notes interspersed, and there will always be more to add. Podcasts Scene on the Radio - Seeing White (completed) NPR - Throughline Notes: Seeing White is mind-blowing. Ibram X. Kendi appears on some of...
Some things I’ve written in the past include the following: Poetry Short stories - ranging from literary to science fiction and horror Personal essays Blog posts (which you can see on the home page) I also have some technical blog posts that I’ve written for thoughtbot. Awards Special Mention in the EDITS-ARTS 2022 Competition [for poetry] ...
As of 2023, I’ve been commissioned for a wide variety of things, including designs for musicians and avatars for social media profiles. If your interest is piqued and you have an idea, you can commission me. Skillset Micronpens Watercolor (brush and colored pencil) Acrylic Collage Digital (with Procreate) Charcoal/Pencil
Hello! 👋 Welcome to my site. I consider it a parking spot for unedited thoughts as I navigate with community through a rapidly changing world. I am an artist, writer, uncle to a dog and a human child, as well as an avid naturalist. Reach out to me if you want to collaborate on anything! Current projects are listed below. Now Learning to live...