Exactly no one will think twice about seeing you playing a GameBoy ROM on your phone, you’re good

One of the maintenance shop supervisors abruptly went on administrative leave. I was chatting with him one day, and the next, his boss was emailing all the other directors and people who work with him that he was on leave effective immediately. No clue why, but I’m super curious, because it can’t have been good. Last time something like this happened the plumbers had changed the locks to their break room, put gaming chairs and an Xbox in there, and kept faking their time sheets.

Play some Traveller with friends tomorrow, tidy around the apartment so it looks nice when my wife gets back from her trip, probably take my dog for a walk or two if the weather allows. If I’m feeling inspired, I want to print some zines on local foraging and go around putting them in Little Free Libraries. Should be pretty chill, and I’m not mad about that!

Accounting. The advice given to me when I went to college was “major in something ‘practical’ and minor in what you love”. I think that was good advice. That way you end up with in-demand skills and a solid fallback, but by doing minors and extra certificates, you get to spend time learning things you’re passionate about, and you can demonstrate to future employers that you are well-rounded and adaptable.

Deleted my account. The app had gone to shit already anyway, it’s a shame there isn’t a comparable service that isn’t wholly enshittified

Handed down or sold, most likely

It’s easier for some people to submit to authority and believe that the immigrants, trans people, antifascists, etc are the cause of all their problems than it is for them to accept that the world is a flawed and complicated place with few clear answers. It’s a mental shortcut, with often disastrous consequences.

I work in commercial and institutional building energy efficiency. I notice myself paying way more attention to the infrastructure that normally fades into the background. Stuff like “I wonder how big the transformer for this building is?” or “Ooh, that’s a hefty cooling tower, I wonder how much chilled water they use?”

Living in a Christian nationalist surveillance state sure is fun! 🙃

As I’ve begun moving my stuff away from Proton, I’ve adopted Tuta for email and Addy.io for aliases. It feels better to keep things in separate buckets.

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VSCode at work, VSCodium at home

I liked it! I thought she did a really good job of making everything easily accessible. And finding a lot of her pre-transition feelings and experiences relatable was eye-opening and helped me accept a few things

I have not! Do you recommend them?

Only if you’re okay with bland soups.

I just finished Yes You Are Trans Enough by Mia Violet, and now I’ve started both The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy and Filterworld by Kyle Chayka

Nice, I love Jason Pargin! If you haven’t read it yet, I really enjoyed I’m Starting To Worry About This Black Box of Doom

If I have the time and space, oil paint. It can be finicky, but you also have so much control over the medium

I’m trans too. I’m still closeted, though, and now I’m getting scared that I’ll never be able to transition. They’re restricting gender-affirming care for minors right now, but it feels like a small step for them to ban it for adults too. And I have ADHD and take antidepressants- I’m starting to be genuinely worried that they might put me in a camp. What do we do? Where can we go that is safe?

I am trying to ignore it. It’s like all the worst fears I could have coming true. The richest man in the world, a naked fascist and virulent transphobe, is gobbling up all the sensitive data the government has and is feeding it to AI so he can tear down the government and usher in techno-feudalism.

Meanwhile, I still have to go to work and pretend that everything is fine and normal, while the government is trying to define trans people out of existence, help Israel ethnically cleanse Palestine, and threaten every ally we’ve had.

I want to leave, but it’s extraordinarily difficult to uproot your life, and there’s no guarantee that finding a viable way to move elsewhere is going to happen.

So I’m just trying to imagine myself as a tiny individual, trying to hide from the brutality and eke out a good life with my little resources and community, and pray that whatever happens doesn’t happen to me directly.

Maybe I should be out protesting - I feel like I should - but there isn’t a mass movement right now, and there’s no leverage in government to stop them. So things are feeling pretty bleak right now.