Been a minute
So, it turns out writing longer content on a regular basis can be, really, really difficult. That's fine, I never intended this to be some sort of regular publication, but honestly, at the same time, I've felt guilty over not writing enough of my thoughts to place on a webspace I try my best to maintain. I do NOT want to become that XKCD comic about owning a blog and like....only updating it to apologize for not updating it.[1] So instead I'm just going to provide an update in my favorite form - a list![2]
I want to get back to programming in ways that scare people
I miss programming, it's always been a fun little thing for me, but I never really find myself attracted to programming in a way that's going to get me any sort of employment or something like that. I have worked with Perl, and Ruby, and I miss those two a LOT even though I NEVER see them spoken of nowadays. So, honestly, I'm probably going to be looking back into Ruby, because I'll hear it's unoptimized, but that's....not a worry for me.
As you can probably already guess, but I still feel like I have to state it, I have no interest in using AI for this sort of thing, I learned PERL back in the day the old fashioned way, and I intend to continue this. EVEN MORE SO I have to say, as a weird gay bull on the internet, that I'm not really looking to work with Rails[3], still. Ruby has a diverse enough base that there's other ways to interact with it, that's why I love it after all these years. A quick glance at alternatives, though, sends me to hanami, so there's an option to look at.
Either way, though! The main point is that I miss it, and I've been honestly inspired by Blair[4] who is looking at learning a new spoken/written language, so I want to do something as well. I've actively stopped learning over the past few years, and I miss that.
The Nuns Are Still There
My Nuns Blog[5] is one of the most thought-out things I've written, either here or back on my old blog that's now dead and lost to time[6], and I'm...well proud isn't the right word, but I am something to say that I still keep up with reading the blogs I mentioned. Unsurprisingly, they're all continuing their lives as per usual, and my secret wish for the Trappist Monks to suddenly post "JK We're all gay now" hasn't happened yet, but hey, there's always next year.
I did hit an imporant realization, though, and that has a bit to do with tackling why I have such an interest in this. Honestly, I've kind of come down to the fact that I have a decent interest in all organized religious cloisters, not just the Catholic style.[7][8][9]. I'm sure there's an even further digging into this, but long have I been interested in some sort of....locked-away lifestyle.[10] Even sans any sort of religious element to it, so I find myself wondering if that's what had made me interested in all this outside of the the weird coping of any trauma that shaped me growing up. Either way though, the continuation of that interest is the main part of this section, as honestly I don't want my blog and webspace to become the sort of whatever TMZ equivalent. Many religions still suck, and I'm certainly not here to lift any of them up by any means.
I'm....still streaming?
I'm very sure anyone near me has had to listen to me talk about how much I want to stream more, or used to stream with a schedule, or anything else like that. Oddly, enough, though, something has happened, and I'm now finding my self.....doing that? I'm actually streaming regularly, mostly on the weekends, and I'm happy to say that I'm enjoying it. It is still nothing I would be able to allow myself to do full-time, if I'm being honest, but what I'm doing now is honestly pretty fufilling.
Even more so, I've been able to lift up those around me. I'm starting to use my RADIO page[11] as a place to highlight not only myself, but others I want to highlight, as they inspirations and those I think deserve more attention. It's basically the stream-media equivalent of my SHARES page[12]. I'm happy with that, but if I'm being honest, I feel like I've left out something I miss about one of the older iterations of this website: the actual strangness I've encountered. I had a similar RADIO page way back in 2019 that would instead link to various public access TV stations, with extremely low-quality works that were enchanting to watch and discover. I had links to active Number Stations that you could listen to while being alone in the woods. I'm struck with the dilemma of wanting to have a space for those I enjoy to uplift them, but also wanting to be able to Keep The Strange. I don't think the good idea is to keep them both on the RADIO page, so I'll have to come up with something else.
I'm going outside more
Now listen,[13]
GNOSIA is so good, y'all
This will be a longer, standalone blog, soon, but as someone who's played both the game and seen 10 episodes of the anime, I can totally say that Woke Amongus is truly my favorite thing I've seen in years. The latest episode made me cry, which is funny because I watched it in VRC as a totally naked bull along with an equally naked friend.[14] That alone should show you have awesome I think this is. I'm incredibly happy with how they've decided to interpret the game, and I cannot wait to see the rest of what they have.
Backrooms is so good, y'all
Since I don't write these all in one go, I had time to go watch Backrooms! Like with GNOSIA, I think I want to write a longer blog about my thoughts about it, maybe even watch it again, but I want to say that this movie taught me that I can indeed deal with horror! It's the usual gore-fests that have been thrown at me over the years that I can't deal with. This means, of course, that I had to cover my eyes for most of the previews.
Well...
Honestly, I think that's a pretty good update for now. I'm going to be chaning the way I title these blogs in pages, because just the numbers are a liiiiiiiiitle hard to track. Either way, hope for you reading this, you're doing okay.
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[1] I don't link xkcd comics, y'all are smart enough to use your non-google search engine of choice.↩
[2] Yeah I watch Jenny Nicholson and you should too↩
[3] If you don't know, don't worry about it kitten↩
[6] I think, I let the goddamn pikapod run out↩
[7] Catholic Style, my new Sampledelia-Style band which plays exclusively in new churches built in taken-over senior centers during the opposite time of Mass, I wear a neon-orange nun habit with a teal veil, and under it is another neon-orange nun habit with a teal veil↩
[8] Catholic Style, my Folktronica music project that in which each song contains a different voice actor's interpretation of the last words whispered by that nun that Katy Perry killed ("Katy Perry, please stop" she said, before collapsing during the concert) I am wearing the same neaon-orange habit with a teal veil because I'm not spending that extra money for different outfits, but the rosary is different.↩
[9] Catholic Style, my Bubblegrunge band made up of my surprising number of longtime friends who are survivors of private Catholic school, seriously, it's like, nine of them. I'm dressed normally for this, respectfully. Business casual. I am wearing the most luxiourous jock underneath it, though. ↩
[10] Get the obvious jokes out of the way now↩
[11] This is where you stop reading, click the sidebar where it says RADIO, go, look at the layout and what I've done with the page, go "huh" and make a note to check it out more thouroughly later, come back to the article, lose your place, skim until you see RADIO again, and keep reading. Did that? Good, I'm proud of you, you have done a nice thing.↩
[12] See footnote 11, copy/paste it into the text editor of your choice. Use Find/Replace to replace all instances of RADIO with SHARES, follow instructions of modified footnote 11. Return to blog. ↩
[13] When I say I'm going outside, that warrantes some explanation. Firstly, I go outside every goddamn day, because I work a job that requires me to be out of my apartment, and alongside that, I like to be outside, to drive, to move around, to run errands. I force both my spouse and boyfriend to go out to eat or go shopping with me once a week because I belive in KEEPING THE DATING ALIVE alongside the fact that even the most introverted among us needs fresh air on a regular basis. What I'm talking about when I say "going outside" goes along with a larger principle I've had forever, which is "I want to have an interesting life, so I have to make my life interesting." In college, I would talk to random people, I would pick a direction every Saturday and start walking, and go into any storefront or place that looked like it had something to say. I made sure to go to every art gallery I could find. My best friend and I would smoke swisher sweet mini cigars on the loading dock of a grain mill that had been repourposed into art studios. I moved to GODDANM PORTLAND and made regular trips to Vancouver and Seattle. I dragged my friends at a Seattle Anime Convention to come to a queer club at 11 at night that I found on backpages where you entered through an alleyway with NO visible signage. I LIKE TO DIG. I LIKE TO FIND. I LIKE TO DISCOVER. And honestly? I stopped that, at some point. Maybe it was outside circumstances, maybe it was the fact that I took on a decently stressful worklife. Either way, it fizzled out. But guess what? It's back. Something has changed in my new living situation to where I'm doing that again. It's only small bursts at the moment, but I am LOVING every second of it. My therapist says I should keep doing that, it's clearly being a major light in my life. Blair and I went to a comic/game shop we heard of only by a small review that was half and hour away, and it was SO SO WORTH it. They had cool stuff, and PINBALL machines, alongside a whole cookie cafe IN THE SHOP. Very worth it, and it was a nice day so we had some fancy-ass cookies on a bench in the sun, and I felt more connected to the world than I had in a long time. I hate when people with a lot of money are like "I like to collect ~~experiences~~, but honestly? Same, dude. I just have to go about it in my own way. On the way to that shop, we saw an aboretum! We're gonna go there some time as well. It reminds of when I took the Blue Line all the way to the deepest tunnel in Portland, and went to the foresty museum. It was SO unassuming, but a really cool place to be once you were in there. And nearly empty too! Libraries. Ever just gone into a random library? You'll find NEAT STUFF ALL THE TIME. I miss being so close to Seattle because the Seattle Public Library central branch is an honest to god WORK. OF. ART. WITH HIDDEN TUNNELS AND PATHWAYS AND INSTALLATIONS. The Special Archives is a GLASS CHAMBER AT THE TOP OF THE OPEN-AIR BUILDING. I READ A BOOK ON BIRDS I HAD TO USE PAGE WEIGHTS AND GLOVES FOR. My point being, I miss all that, and I'm honestly happy to be back in a place where I can experience that again, and I am determined to not let myself slip away from it again.↩
[14] A surprisingly common occurance, I'm going to be real with you↩
