06 november 2026

cheap eyeliner from the grocery store

it is easy to get in my head about presenting myself as a girl

i am a very anxious person, so i very quickly get in my head about how people are seeing me

lately I think I have been doing better about not letting that stop me as much.

i can just do things I think are nice and most people won't try to stop me

I'm sure I will encounter more weird transphobes if I shift to presenting myself in a way that is too mask off, probably people who I already knew and only thought I could trust because nothing about me bothered them.

it's probably better to know who they are, as long as I can stay safe.

so yeah, that's the plan.

gonna poke my eye and be crying a lot tonight, because I am sure lack of practice will screw me over. that's ok, you get better when you try.

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05 november 2026

"I can't remember it, so it must have been good"

today at work was exhausting. I don't know if it was because I task switched so much, or maybe I have been overworking myself. it doesn't matter for what I am trying to say, I'm glad today is over.

when I did leave for the day (later than I should have) it was sunset, because daylight savings. seeing the lights on in my building and seeing it dark and blue outside felt so strange, and it's becoming winter so it was chilly.

I was waiting for the bus, and I just sat on a rock and closed my eyes and rocked a little. people can think I'm insane, that's ok. I am. I can still do what I want to.

I also got a dr pepper from a little self service vending place. I rarely have soda these days. it was nice.

this seems like one of the things I won't remember well, but will float back into my head every once in a while.

I'm reminded of a james acaster bit. that's the heading up there ^. "I can't remember it so it must have been good" as a reaction to a movie rather than a night out, and the absurdity of assuming it was good. I still think I should give memories that don't stay in my head the benefit of the doubt.

web design is my passion

damn, making a stupid little html and css page with just nothing going on can be fun. it reminds me of when my father first introduced me to wordpress, and I got obsessed by the fact I could do my very own html as a blog post.

my classic thing was to have <i>ital</i> and <b>bold</b> and <i><b>both of them
combined</b></i> and think about the right way to interleave the <i> and <b> tags.

there is something beautiful between the unstyled academic websites HTML was made for and the sticky feeling fancy scrolling people use when they want to look professional now.

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04 november 2026

where I am, it is still the day after election day. town tells me it's 11/05, but not yet in my timezone. america is doing a funny again, but it's one that I think can end up positive.

I hope I can be proud of this country someday.

as has been drilled into me this past years, I know the work has only begun to make this place somewhere I want to be for real. Hope is somewhat renewed, though. Call me silly, I'll be silly.

that's enough big important stuff. time for small unimportant stuff, writing about this keeps me much more sane than speculating or predicting the future.

today at work I did some good things. I showed that I was good at my job by bringing a downed machine back in only 30 minutes when power got returned. sure it was a baby machine of only like 12 nodes, but I did it and I communicated with the people who needed to know when it was back

I also did a good piece of self restraint. they want us to call whether the system can be returned to users before the end of the day, which makes sense. I needed to ask my management for help making the call, but I made the decision to hold it overnight and take care of it tomorrow rather than dragging out my work day more than I needed to.

           )
         .( )
       .----. \
       |X X |( )
       |_^__| 
      /::.::/ 0
your computer is on fire

^ (that's actually the title of a really fun book.)

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16 october 2026

grieving something that is not dead.

I've been trying to get up my nerves to come back to ~town for a while, but this is the first time I'm writing a feels post in quite a while. I'm counting this.

a little while ago (no clue when, time is a flat circle), I tried to come back and got a message like this one.

ssh: connect to host tilde.town port 22: Connection refused

it made me worried. I went to tilde.town in my web browser and saw failures to connect to the server. I thought the town was gone forever. I was angry at myself for not coming back while it was still there, and wondered if there wasn't money to keep it going.

a couple days later I tried again, and it was back. that made me relieved.

now I've been writing this feels post (neofeels now, the world keeps moving) and I am connecting that experience to some other things that have been going on in my life.

cringetober 2026

you might know inktober, when people do daily spooky drawings in india ink and it's beautiful and awesome. cringetober is like that except:

• you don't have to use ink
• you don't even have to make pictures, some of mine are ASCII art
• the prompts are generally sillier

overall it's more accessible to people who are less comfortable with art. hey, that's me! wow!

last year I tried to start halfway through the month (probably around 1 year ago exactly, tbh). It didn't go well, I lost motivation fast. this year has been going okay so far, and I've been strengthened by the fact that some of my friends from college are doing it too. I'm really happy that I am keeping in touch with them after graduation, I worried I might just let those relationships fall apart out of not knowing what to do.

g-g-girl???

big shocker, I know. autistic computer scientist is a trans woman.

this is something that I must continually remind myself doesn't have requirements. I don't have to meet the milestones people think about. even as I write this I'm trying to undermine myself. "if you don't do any of the girl things what makes you a girl?"

cmon, if you weren't a girl you wouldn't be doing and thinking all this. you could have stayed seeing yourself as a man, you could have stayed seeing yourself as nonbinary. there are reasons you didn't.

you don't owe the world any form of self-expression. you can take your time, as long as you don't kill yourself. so don't.

bye now :)

reflecting like this is good for me. I hope I'm going to do it again sometime soon, and maybe hang out in chat a bit and update my homepage and feel like a part of this little community. last time I was in chat I made a silly of myself by thinking du FILE operated in bytes rather than blocks, and I ran away. I am going to try not to run away again.

as Mario once said: "Perchance."

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25 july 2025

maybe it is not good for me to be on here right now, i worry that it makes me feel worse on social matters being able to see lots of people who know each other and not feeling like i can be a part of it even though i've tried.

but i've not tried very well.

it's a bit melodramatic to make a post like this on feels, but this isn't supposed to be a cry for help.

maybe i will be back sometime. i'll hold onto the ssh key <3

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12 july 2025

(\ (\
(='.')
((")(")

i found this on a search for bunny ascii art

its nice :3

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03 july 2025

today i finished a really good book: Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott.

it is a book about stories and remembrance, and it had a big impact on me.

after i got home on the bus, i went on a really pretty walk too. it seems cheesy to say, but i think it'd be accurate to call myself inspired. i noticed a lot of pretty things.

i took some pictures, but i also want to write about the things i saw. this way i will be able to look back here.

the first thing i took a picture of was a brilliant pink cholla flower. i stood on the wall to get a better angle at it.

maybe i will make pixelart of it sometime. it seems like a scope I can handle.

on the way out, i came across a labyrinth made out of stones from around the wash. a previous day i had decided to skip it because i was tired, but today i decided to walk through it anyway.

labyrinths have many associations, but i think of how they make you be conscious of the path you are taking. rather than step over the low rock walls, you follow them. a small one like this is also an example of a message left by someone else, an invitation to follow in their footsteps and partake in their creation.

then there was a piece of rusted rebar sticking out of the ground. i made an attempt to pull it out and move it somewhere where it couldn't stab anything, but it was stuck in too deep. there was a young rabbit brush growing from the same spot

i imagine that seed was able to take hold thanks to the piece of metal buried in the sand. it made me think of the ideas of displacement and home that my book brought up, the idea of taking root and becoming unmovable. the headstones carved by Reb Haim trip armies.

one scene that stood out to me came shortly after turning around. the trail was a thin line of red-brown dirt, and it was surrounded by all sorts of plant life. globemallow, tiny scrubby grasses, junipers. the thing that caught my eye the most was the snakeweed. it has a really lively color to it, a mix of the green stems and tiny yellow flowers that blend in and make the whole plant almost seem to glow.

the final image i stopped to appreciate was another labyrinth. at this point i was walking on a trail above the sandy wash bed, and the different perspective made me notice lined-up rocks that i hadn't seen on the way out. the difference with this one was, it used to span across the wash but was dismantled when the water flowed last time it rained. there were lines of stones, then nothing but a patterned wash bed, followed by continuations of the same lines of stones on the other raised shore.

this is another thing that i love about nature art. its impermanence. i never saw that labyrinth when it was whole, but i can still see where it used to be. some of those rocks may be a part of the new labyrinth, and some of them are out of my world. someday it will rain again, and part of the new labyrinth will wash away too. i'm glad i got to see it while it was still here.

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29 june 2025

the other day i saw this in a graffiti board (the one you can access thru feels)

--------------
|            |
| /\-/\/\-/\ | *despite everything, it's still you
|/( - (     \|
------/      -

i think this is really nice. it speaks to me.

in the middle of writing this feels post, i went back on that grafitti
board and just did a bunch of stuff for me. it was nice.

i made a car and a bird in a tunnel and a racetrack. i hope somebody
sees them and gets a moment of enjoyment.

my original point when i was writing this was that i want to be more involved around this town, and making things is definitely part of that.

but so is interacting with people, a thing that i do not feel confident in.

something that i know, is that i need to build connections with people.

i certainly feel it on here because this is a social place and i don't really have anyone i interact with regularly

but that's also just a reflection of the ways i feel it outside of here. now that i'm out of school, that easy route of social things doesn't exist anymore. so i have to make friends at work and friends outside, and neither of those is a thing i feel ready to do.

i know what the answer is, it's to put yourself out there more and say yes to things and get involved with activities that interest you. meet people.

it feels like there are a lot of things that i know what the answer is supposed to be, but i don't do it. like being more honest with myself and trying to transition and take care of myself rather than just being despondent towards my body.

and i can write that and know it to be true, i can hear my friend from college describe not transitioning as a fate worse than death, i can watch the people around me make plans for the weekend, but i can't seem to listen to any of it.

it starts to feel like an impossible list of requirements to do before i can be happy with my life.

this is another thing where i know what the answer should be. i should take things at my own pace, one step at a time, and not compare myself to others. but i fear that mindset will only lead to stagnation.

i am going to pull back to the message from a stranger.

* despite everything, it's still you.

there is truth here. it is still me, and maybe my own pace can still lead to somewhere that is fulfilling.

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25 june 2025

i hope my town botany plant turns into sage! although all the options it's telling me are nice.

come back to this later and see :)

i think today at work is gonna be an okay one. that's a great thing to be able to say!

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23 june 2025

today i shaved my arms for the first time in a long time. i want to say the it feels more like me (because that is poetic and makes it sound like i am becoming more comfortable with myself), but i'm not sure if it's true.

for a long time i gave up on it, and i also want to pretend that's part of some better smarter narrative. but i was just not wanting to do the work, and probably a little more depressed too.

the thing that sorta frustrates me to admit is, for a while it really wasn't that bad. whenever i don't shave it is annoying and prickly, but i was long past that and it wasn't much of a tactile concern anymore.

the thing i'm trying to figure out now (and i'm still not really there) is why i did it if that sensory aspect wasn't true.

for a long time i was telling myself that i didn't really care about the gender expression of it and it was just because having hair is gross to my brain, but clearly that's an incomplete things, it does feel nice to rub smooth skin on my face and i hate seeing the hair get lit up in the light, but there's probably more of a gender aspect than i want to admit here.

idk if i'm ready to deal with that. i've been telling myself that for years now, actual years. this is stressful stuff to try and figure out, and a fundamental part of that is how brave i will have to be in order to do something different with myself.

a friend of mine said that she read a book and was convinced that not transitioning was a fate worse than death. i think about that a lot right now.

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21 june 2025

proud of the things i did today, but also exhausted by the idea of doing more.

i'm the ta for a computing program at my work, and today was weird because i was the only admin in the office while all the students were starting to work on their projects. there were (understandably) a lot of bugs, and i am not the best person to be doing any of that because i don't have as much experience as the folks who weren't here today.

despite that, i dealt well with it overall. i did some of the techniques i learned while TAing in undergrad

• having a queue of people to help
• rotating between groups often
• giving people a chance to figure things out themselves
• "what have you already tried?"

it got really overwhelming around lunch and towards the end of the day, and it was a little discouraging because for the last couple hours of the day one group and i were struggling with a problem that we still haven't solved.

don't work on it now that it's the weekend though! they aren't paying you for that, and they won't treat you any better if you do. just work on it on Monday

people on feels are talking about growing plants. maybe i should try that, or maybe it'll cause me stress. if i decide to look into it, i should make sure to approach it without a pressure

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20 june 2025

my sister WONT LET ME do computer science on her mac because shes worried im gonna break it

which is fair

because i have done that

I JUST WANT HER TO HAVE IMAGEMAGICK

cest la vie

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23 may 2025

it is weird times now!

earlier this week i graduated from undergrad, which is weird and new.

and also bad, because the US is gonna be goofy funny for the forseeable future.

still, i have to keep in mind that things for me are going a whole lot better than they could be. i have a job to go to and i have family who care about me, and both of those are a big deal.

the job is to balance the parts of the world that i'm in direct contact with, but also not be ignorant to the parts of the world that i'm not. not an easy job, but not one i'm unique in facing or one i'm facing alone.

both of those facts are comforting in a way. they don't make it easier, but they do provide a different perspective and that's something i know is valuable

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12 april 2025

heading towards some sort of -topia for sure

thank you, tom7

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07 april 2025

computers can be so absurd

for a class i have access to a cloud system where i can run sudo systemctl but not sudo journalctl (and the user doesn't have perms to see logs)

but it turns out

if you run sudo systemctl status -l <SERVICE>

it shows you all the logs not just the short version. the most jank solution ever

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05 april 2025

town mail is interesting. it feels like an intersection of two realms of communication that have become more and more distant during my life, and i think that's quite fascinating.

i always grew up in internet spaces where it's really uncommon to contact a friend (or anyone besides a professional connection, really) by email. instant messaging has become the medium i'm used to when it comes to personal communication.

on here, that's not as true. we have IRC and probably other stuff that is instant i don't know about, but on here i've actually used town mail to talk to people personally. maybe i found their homepage and found it interesting, maybe i read their feels and wanted to talk, maybe something else.

it's harder for me to write an email like this one than to respond to an instant message. there's no feedback on if you're saying the "right things", so i experience a lot more friction when writing an email. it's so much more important to get my words and ideas straight.

geniunely, i feel like that's a good thing. the really clear thing is that i'm learning (or more accurately, relearning) a more deliberate method of communication than i've come to expect.

but also, i think there's a chance this can serve as an exercise for better dealing with hard face-to-face conversations. if i get better at finding my words quickly in an email, maybe i can find them quickly when a friend is starting to cry and maybe i can better comfort them.

being social is difficult, and it's a difficult thing that is worth doing.

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02 april 2025

it will be okay sometime(s)

today i logged back onto the town after a little while, and i realized that i had mail from a few people who were concerned because i was writing miserable shit on here.

guilty as charged lol

something that has made me think about is actually two things. and when i was writing this i realized it has a sort of fun little wordplay to it.

• it will be okay sometime: emotions change a lot, very quickly for me sometimes when i'm under pressure like this. i need to survive until sometime, and i can do that. it's not impossible.

• it will be okay sometimes: the okay feeling times also end, this version of the phrase is more to make me remember that there are highs and lows and whatever.

none of this is new ideas, but sometimes the only way you're gonna learn something is if it bites you in the ass a few times first

stay safe out there, townies <3 shoe

just realized i missed trans day of visibility oops

^ fake trans (just kidding, but also not just kidding, impostor syndrome goes hard and it takes lots of effort to say no to it, but by writing this long-ass paranthetical i am doing so in a way. gotta try)

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31 march 2025

i am not convinced that y being here is doing anything good

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30 march 2025

the storm out there doesn't care about you

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28 march 2025

sometimes i hear people say that billionaires who want to inhabit mars should focus on saving earth instead

there's an assumption there -- that they want to help everybody. if that's true, then saving earth is way easier than terraforming a new planet.

but that doesn't hold, does it? it's probably easier for you and your rich friends to fuck off to mars than to do anything to help earth.

it is not going to be okay.

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25 march 2025

overwhelming frustration

today was fucking ROUGH

it was the first day back from academic break, and the first day back in software development class. a class that has turned out increasingly to be hell.

i literally had class 10-12, and then i went back to my dorm and was sad about the class from 12 onwards.

i can't let this shitty class ruin my life, but i also need to find ways to effectively communicate with my team that i'm overwhelmed and need help.

it doesn't help that today was a really messy sensory day too. just. shit.

one nice thing

i did a depression haircut because my hair's getting long enough to really bother me again. just the sides and back, i'm not trusting myself with the top and front right now.

and it came out better than the last time i did this! maybe i'm actually learning. hopefully this will help stave off the discomfort until the end of the semester.

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23 march 2025

people are starting to get back from being all different places on break, and the way that it feels on campus is shifting.

today a friend of mine got back. it was good to see her, and i felt like i was able to help her by being around at a park and just being together away from campus for a little while.

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22 march 2025

proud of the random walkers on my page!

i got my js working and there's all these random walkers just goin around! they seem so friendly and alive. i love them

i do still need to get to the actual page content, but i feel like that's doable and that's different from how i felt before.

these last few days of break are crazy, the urge to get something done for myself before i'm thrown back into classes

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21 march 2025

being stuck in bed today, i don't wanna leave

yesterday was so nice too. why is it like this now? stupid & bad

addendum: i was complaining to my friend about this, and she told me to leave my room and open a window, even just going to the lounge of my dorm room

and that helped a lot

i need to remember that even going a very small distance is enough to help sometimes when im stuck. maybe not always, but sometimes

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19 march 2025

ignoring what's going on.

i found a new app to listen to podcasts with. it feels nice to find something else i don't need to use spotify for

it makes me think of how i've been trying to get away from algorithms.

a jellyfin server full of music and movies that i actually control. a youtube client that doesn't make me log in and doesn't try to keep me on the platform for endless hours.

and yet, it all matters SO LITTLE and i still care about it so much.

it's escapism in a way. it's impossible to truly ignore all the things shifting in this country, but i'm finding comfort in controlling the stupid fucking things that i can.

admitting that doesn't change it, doesn't make it okay, but it makes me feel more at peace with the whole idea. and isn't that what this whole thing is about? making me feel better about the things i'm not doing

i really need to do something. and even as i write that sentence, i know i'm not going to do anything. something is very wrong with me.

...and then they came for me, and there was no-one left to speak for me.

i met somebody, and maybe getting old in this body will be okay.

today i was studying at my school's dcc (disability cultural center), and i think it's worth keeping track of the interaction i had today.

i've been here basically all afternoon, between doing work for my job, fiddling around on the town pages, and continuing to read an amazing book i checked out from the library recently (colored television by danzy senza)

at some point, somebody came in to fill up their water and waved and i was just so happy to see a face. and they seemed super nice. the next time they came by we chatted for a moment, and they ended up bringing in a coworker and asking me about what i thought was important when giving an ugly cs problem by verbal description. it was a very small, very human interaction.

when i was talking a short break at one point to go to the bathroom, i had to confront what i look like in the big mirror along one wall. today, i was thinking about the person i met. they're older than me, but i see a lot of what my body looks like in them too. i'm fat, i'm going to go bald soon, i'm what feels like inescapably masc. it turns out they're nonbinary too.

this person made me feel like it might be okay to get older in this body. they were all these things that i hate in myself, but i don't hate seeing them in this person. they're such a vibrant personality, so kind in the interactions i've had with them. i want to be like that when i'm old.

it'd be easy for me to spiral here about my career and life choices, but i'm not going to right now. i am going to end on a high note, that maybe i can be like that for somebody else as i get older.

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18 march 2025

today is weird, but I guess not more weird than the last few

right now it's spring break and I decided to stay on campus, because I'm scared of flying. it's weird, because almost everyone (especially people who should know better) are gone, and campus feels so empty and strange.

I've had a lot of time on my hands, and it's mainly gone into schoolwork (ugh) and workwork (also ugh). now I'm on here, because why not? might as well explore some and do something for myself

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