Blog

18FEB2025

I'm adding a blog to my site! I have opinions, and you're gonna hear 'em!

Or, like. You won't. I'm not your mom.

I've been trying to be more consistent about actually writing, lately - not blog posts, or even actual essays, or publishable fiction, or... anything I can share with my IRL friends and family...

It's fantiction. It's obviously fanfiction.

It's been a lot of fun, though. I've felt like I've had more fun writing and practicing my craft than I have in literal years.

"Practicing my craft," jesus. You ever write something and immediately get secondhand embarassment? Is it secondhand, if it's something you just wrote? I guess that's just normal-ass embarassment, isn't it?

Here, look at my photos while I recover from the shame.

I think I want to get into photography some more. It'd be fun and cute to try and take a picture every day.

I do also really feel like my art has been improving, lately... thanks, Stanford Pines.

God, I fucking love Gravity Falls. I love all my cool friends I've made talking about Gravity Falls! If you're one of those cool friends reading this - hi!!

19FEB2025

Today's post is about... *drumroll*.... Fibbing!

He's the hottest thing in town. He's a diva. He's a prima donna. He kind of smells like mushroom soup. He's a model. He has no hair. His birthday is April 20th!

Because he has no hair, Fib craves warmth. His favorite spot in the house is next to the hot air vent in the bathroom.

I know this picture kind of looks like a scene from SAW, but it's just an old man in his sauna, I promise.

You know... I could have just taken a cute picture of him in a sweater, couldn't I? Huh. You get the creepy bathroom picture instead. Congrats!

It's very cold where I live right now. We're having a lot of slingshot weather... a couple weeks ago it was a 70°F, and now it's going to be in the 20's all week. Our poor tulips are going to get confused.

I think it's time for more coffee.

20FEB2025

I'm at work today, so today's blog post features a picture of my cubicle! Yay!

I'm being sarcastic, but I'm also not, in a way. I actually decorated my cubicle for this job. I've never done that before. When I got this role, it was the first time I actually sat down and said, "I'm going to make this space pleasant to be in." It felt almost like giving in, like I was admitting, "I'm not getting a promotion any time soon, I'm not getting that big break any time soon, I plan to be in this role for a long while, might as well make myself comfortable."

It's kind of funny that I'm almost 30. Like, that's not supposed to happen.

The other funny thing is that I'm pretty sure I'm going to be getting a promotion anyway. I'm just going to have to take all these decorations right back down again. But having them up in this past year did bring me comfort. It did make me smile! So even if it ended up being transitory, it was worth the cost and effort of putting them up in the first place.

Whelp, time to talk about religious trauma!!

I am joking, but only about the "trauma" part. Feel free to check out here if you don't want to read about religion.

Fucking cold outside this morning.

I have a very distinct memory, as a child, of my sister walking me through my nightly prayers. We weren't in a particularly strict Christian sect, or anything like that - my parents were Methodist - but I always had trouble wrapping my head around that specific practice.

I have a better understanding as an adult - I understand a lot of things better, as an adult, particularly things concerning my sister - but I really remember the prayers confusing me.

You have a god. An all-powerful and all-knowing god, who knows every thought that passes in your head. He wants you, every night, to list off things you love, and ask him to protect them, and hold them, and cherish them. My response was, well, obviously we just say the whole world, right?

And my sister would shake her head and say, well, no, how about mom, and grandma, and grandpa? etc.

Nowadays, I understand that the point of the exercise isn't really to appeal to a greater power. The point of the exercise is to remind yourself of the people near to you. it's to reassure yourself that you've covered your bases, that even if you treated them poorly, well, at least you prayed for them, right? And that's what matters at the end of the day, right? You've consigned them to the Lord's hands, and if something bad happens to them, well, you already did your part - right?

But I think the thing that stuck with me as a child was the impatience. I didn't really know or care how religion and community worked. I didn't really need to have my guilt assuaged like that, I was eight, I didn't care - from my perspective, you have this guy with all the powers in the world - and you could ask him to end world hunger - and you don't, because you're too busy listing off people you personally know? Come on. Get a grip. If we're not going to cut to the chase and ask for the salvation of mankind as a whole, you could at least ask him for a GameCube.

21FEB2025

I just got out of a really annoying meeting! I'm annoyed! Raaagh!

I'm not going to rant about that. Instead, I'm going to show you a cool picture of a mint mocha I got at a new cafe that's opened up in the rich-people part of town.

It's been a long time since a new coffee shop opened up anywhere near our area, so we were very excited to try it out. Imagine our shock when it not only had cool vibes, but also really delicious coffee? That just doesn't happen these days, anymore!

I'm currently writing a story about a guy opening a coffee shop (Fanfic. I'm writing a fanfic.) and so I've been thinking about coffee and coffee culture more that I usually do... I have a scene planned where they tackle the concept of "tasting notes" for the first time. I think it'll be funny. I'm excited to get to that point!

I've been looking more at photography in general, as well... I've shot all these pictures on an Instax Square (SQ1?), and I'm hearing the siren song of 35mm film calling to me... I have to resist... Part of it is kind of scary, because you don't get to immediately know how your photos turned out! What if you're at a cool party, and all your pictures come out ruined, and you don't realize until you get them back from the developer? All your friends will hate you forever!

My wife made a very pretty and cool breakfast this morning, so I took a picture of it. Look at what a difference it makes when you disable flash!

The other big thing that's attracting me about #legit film is the relative cost per photo, and the control over the aperture and exposures... The Instax is really fun to use, but it only has two modes, and it can be finicky on how much light it likes to take in. Though, I suppose that's true about all cameras, isn't it?

01MAR2025

What, you thought this was going to be some kind of daily blog? You thought this was going to have a consistent update schedule? Come on. Get real.

There are many frustrating and upsetting things in the world, but I have a beautiful wife and very cool friends and a very naked cat, so it's not nearly as bad as it could be.

I posted about this a little bit on my tumblr, but I've been trying to brute-force teach myself trumpet! It hasn't been going as badly as it could! I cleaned it for the first time the other day, and it was... an experience. This trumpet is second-hand, and it clearly used to belong to a high schooler - the bell is super dented, and the case is covered in sharpie. It's actually really charming, in my opinion... I've been having more success with the trumpet than I had with violin, back in the day. It feels a lot more straightforward? You're either getting the sound out of this horn, or you're not - and when you're not, you're really not.

Here's a photo dump!