Who'm I trying to be online, anyways?

I have a couple of ideas for 'portfolio' posts I want to write, Because I'd like to put together a portfolio website at some point. I like the idea of being able to show who I am professionally, and the weird career path I've had; One idea is an overview of the data format of aircraft black boxes, since I worked on those for a few years. Another is a generic 'weirdest bug I ever fixed' kind of post about inconsistent behavior between Chromium and IE. And one about cool type systems, because I just think they're neat.

If I ever end up making a professional website, though, I'd probably keep it pretty separate from my "hush" identity because of how diaristic this blog gets, particularly writing about my struggles with doing work. And thinking about it has me wondering who I really want to be. There's a part of me that craves community more than a wall to post to, and that part of me is considering taking down my blog and retreating into tilde.town, using the internal blogging and microblogging systems there and just cultivating a presence that only those members can see. I think that part of me also values simplicity, and it would certainly simplify things to not have a blog generator and feed readers and an external-facing email.

But, there are cool people out there. People whose writings inspire me to try to change myself, to publish my own writing. I can't pull all of them into ~town with me. I have a lobste.rs account, but do I want to read content and dicuss in forum comments? I think I'm developing an aversion to 'content' in general. I like when people write about their lives, and so I write about mine to return the favor, I guess. I like to read the thoughts of thoughtful people, so I write posts musing on the thoughts I'm having in hopes that it does the same for others. I think I'm a bit put out by a parasocial feeling to it; I think I'd feel better if we were writing letters to one another, instead of being RSS mutuals.

I used to, in my days of being a gamer soon-to-be-girl, stay up late in the voice chat with out-of-state friends I'd never actually met in person (though I planned to once, plans that were set for April 2020, alas) swapping music and thoughts and shooting the shit. I get that sometimes now, sitting with my roommate drinking tea. Getting a ride home after a practice. I think what I really want is for the cool people in my computer to come sit in my living room. To play games in a place we can shout at each other, like my college dorm used to do; doors open, shouting comms. Stupid shenanigans when we tried DnD for the first time. What I think I really want is to have my community close at hand. These niche internet groups aren't where I'm going to meet my neighbor.

So, I don't know. I want to read cool things, and I don't need the internet for that. I've got my copy of Crafting Interpreters to work through, and a borrowed copy of Who's Afraid of Gender? Do I need a new article from lobste.rs, a new post from gemini, presence in the IRC? I'm not sure if I want to keep a diary online like this, just to occasionally get an email about it. I'm not sure I want to have discussions through forum posts, in monospace. It lacks the warmth of my book club, the intimacy of my bandmate's car at midnight on the way back from a show, the peace of my best friend sitting at my table bustling away at something on her own. I need more people in my life, not my inbox.