Blog

8/15/24, 7:37pm PDT

My partner started back at work this week after summer break (they work at a school), so sadly I haven't been able to use the computer as much. My laptop is busted, and they've been so kind as to let me use theirs to update my website and do other online tasks.

Not much to update in terms of website stuff. I added baby potatoes to the veggie cheat sheet. Thinking about what else I want to add on here. Considering doing some sort of reading log? Probably not updating page by page because I don't like the pressure of that, but I think it would be nice to have a document on here of the books I've read/listened to because I feel like this space is a good spot for me to engage with practices that encourage me to spend time with my interests outside of social media. I think that's why I put my t-shirt images on here. I'm trying to remember what it's like for the internet to be a place for exploring + expanding interests, versus showing my interests to people and evaluating the worthiness of that interest based on how they engage with it.

Anyway, I'm about 7 weeks post-op from surgery and finally able to start getting back to normal, like being allowed to lift more than five pounds and ride the bus and do pretty much all tasks without assistance. Yay! I actually really missed being on the bus and the train. Maybe I'll make a blog post in a little bit doing a week-by-week recovery document. I didn't keep great track of recovery while I was going through it, but I think I can remember the general recovery timeline. I took some photos, so hopefully referring to those can help jog my memory.

8/11/24, 1:26pm PDT

Started today by organizing my photos and graphics into folders in my root directory for ease of access/readability. I didn't realize how crowded that space could get if you don't make folders. I had all of my images, graphics, etc in that main directory. Yeesh! Anyway, I created folders and then renamed everything accordingly so it would pull elements from the proper places in the directory. So much of this is "ok I'm editing this code a lot to simplify it... I hope it doesn't change what's on there" !!! I wish there was a way to drag elements that already exist into a new folder, but instead I had to reupload all the graphics I had. Kind of a pain in the ass. I wonder if there's a simpler way to do it that I don't know about...

Followed that up by creating a new page - the T-Shirt Archive! Glad I started by making folders because there were a lot of images to upload to that page. Also figuring out my file naming conventions and how to make sure the stuff on my computer matches the stuff in my directory for ease of navigation. I've been collecting these shirt images for a few years and I'm glad to finally have a place to put them besides my phone. I also hope this encourages me to save more shirt images again. I've been off my game for a bit since I haven't been posting on Instagram, which is where I usually share these shirts and other content. And you're also limited in terms of how many to upload. Every time I post them, I wonder "should I post shirts by theme, or random shirts I like?" I don't like having to pick and choose, so I'm glad I can just upload them all in once place. Maybe one day I'll organize them. It would also be cool if I had the patience to edit all of the shirts to have blank backgrounds and make them look like theyre on hangers. I found this code here that was being used on Alien Head Shit Kid's site to display their mug collection, which I thought was really cool. I think I could eventually figure out how to modify that code so that they're hangers for shirts instead of shelves.

Edit: 2:06pm PDT
Added more graphics to the Graphics Collection page and 88x31 buttons to my homepage! Button sources linked on my References + Resources page. :-) Also used to have the Roasted Veggie Cheat Sheet linked directly from the homepage, but moved it under my Frequently Used Recipes page.

8/9/24, 7:29pm PDT

Worked on more HTML elements. Simplifying some language by figuring out where to edit individual objects, where to change an entire page's style for a particular type of object, and where to modify in the main CSS. I don't know the technical terms for any of these things because I'm figuring it out as I'm going. Also, using what I remember from editing my MySpace and Tumblr pages when I was younger. I hope to one day figure out how to simplify this blog page, but for now I'm alright going in and editing the HTML whenever I want to make a new entry. :-)

I'm learning a lot of stuff by looking it up and not being totally sure what a lot of it is saying, but trying to figure it out from context and other examples of stuff that's close to what I want. It can be difficult to look up because I'm not totally sure what some things are called. For example, I kept trying to look up how to adjust the margin between objects, but I kept looking up "padding" because that was a term I had seen somewhere but couldn't quite figure out what it was. Anyway, I figured that out so I could move the page divider closer to the title. Today, I added some page dividers and little icons on my homepage that I got from The Icon Depot, which is a page I found on this NeoCities Neighborhood Directory. With that, I simplified some stuff by uploading media directly to my site's directory and internally referencing that director, instead of linking to the web URL where that image is currently hosted. I also adjusted some stuff to make the Snoopy graphic next to the title clickable so that it leads back to my main page. When I have a more pages to navigate through, I think I'll change it so that it functions as a "back" button.

It's fun to think about what I want to do and then trying to figure out how to do it. Next, I want to figure out how to make a "template" for the secondary pages where all of them have a header with the Snoopy gif that functions as a button plus text (that can be edited on the individual .html page), and the chain border under it in the main style CSS. Right now, I'm manually adding it to every page. Something like, every time this object is in this div, it is accompanied by these images in this order? Don't know if that even makes sense lol.

I also created a page that hosts a collection of .gifs, graphics, etc. that I've been finding as I continue to explore different pages that archive/are dedicated to early internet graphics, etc. Clicking each image takes you to the source, but I've been adding each source to the "style" section of my resources page. Name of that header under construction. I wanted to make it "aesthetic" as it's a section that deals with colors and images, but I feel like that word has an all new connotation because of its current colloquial usage.

8/8/24, 2:26pm PDT

Working on making small edits and doing simple HTML. A lot of people on neocities have really awesome sites that I'm having a lot of fun checking out. The main reason I made this page was because I'm becoming increasingly freaked out by social media and algorithm/engagement-driven content. I feel like such an old person saying this, but I really do long for the older days of the internet. It felt like you could go on the computer and play on websites and get lost for hours, which I don't find myself really doing these days. When I'm on the internet, I'm usually using a social media app on my phone. Engaging with that is really different from how I used to use the computer.

Anyway, I'm having a lot of fun trying out this website and engaging with it in a way where I'm trying not to worry about how it's perceived or the kind of engagement it will receive, and generally with the intention of not posting it to social media. It's fun to work on this just for the sake of creation and documentation.

8/7/24, 10:03pm PDT

I have been noticing a lot of jewel green scarab beetles lately. They're here every summer, but over the last few days it feels like they've really drawn my attention. I decided to look them up. The ones here are called figeater beetles.



I've been trying to listen to my gut more. Sometimes I'm afraid that I'm too corny and sentimental, or too ready to take anything as a sign. When I was younger, I think that was a dangerous thing for me, which made it harder to trust. The feelings were so strong and intense, I'd have to live in my head and rationalize with them in order to cope. Now that I'm older, I think I have more of an ability to listen to these things. REALLY listen. I have a better understanding of things that aren't rational and am much better at being patient with things that feel intolerable. I think this is something I practice every day. My gut feelings used to be so scary.

Anyway, I listened to my gut feeling this time and looked up their meaning. While I take a Medium post with a grain of salt, I do find the themes here to resonate with whatever personal journey I've been on lately. Transformation, resilience, humility in our spiritual journey. A reminder that some of our journeys take place inward without external validation. I do find it interesting that this impulse coincided with the last transit noted in my calendar from an astrological reading I got back in February from Robin. Ultimately, I feel that I needed a reminder to reflect on how much has changed over the last six months, including a major physical change in late June - gender affirming surgery!

Six months ago, I felt so impossibly stuck and confused and like the rug had been pulled out from under me. After a few weeks of that, it felt like I suddenly had immense momentum, like shooting out of a container I had long outgrown. In a session with Mifa recently, a recurring theme came up: choosing to be in alignment with yourself inherently means you will lose something. Or a lot of things. And it will be painful. I experience a lot of grief thinking about when I was a kid, and what I thought my life would be like at this age. Especially as I see the people around me starting to have lives that resemble the one I thought I'd have.

I think that's where I am in this moment. Still integrating some of these lingering feelings of loss as I better understand the place I am building for myself in this world. I have long invalidated my own identity, which I think has made it harder to see what a future in alignment really could look like for me. I feel more equipped to take it on than I ever have, I think.