Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

Hooray for spring

2026-05-02T21:24:09Z

Every time I step outside I am struck by how good the air smells this time of year. It smells sweet and green and makes me appreciate topsoil. I live in a city but I still am surrounded by growing things.

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Tired brain

2026-04-30T21:07:16Z

Before he left for his date this evening, D asked me "after dinner, why don't you ask [local pal) if they want to go for a pint at [place]?

It is wonderful weather for a beer in the sunshine (still 67°F!) so I can see why he asked this.

But I already had such a busy day of meetings, most of which actually involved thinking really hard, that I was already tired of thinking and talking before my counseling session started.

Some very thinky meetings today: a small group trying to wrap our heads around a proposed new train ticketing system which we have to understand well enough to anticipate what barriers it poses to disabled people, and more internal meetings which have been pretty navel-gazey lately. Last year's restructure means we're working on revising our Purpose (which needed doing, the last one was terrible, but while I love this abstract stuff it's something a lot of people struggle to engage with. And we're doing a theory of change to a new model which I actually think is worth what we paid for the consultant who brought it to us, because it's getting us to ask questions like "how will we know if our campaign has been successful?" but also that's very hard to answer sometimes when you're dealing with things that resist easy measurement or even baselining. And also there are just so many things I don't know, nobody here knows: how do various processes internal to a local/combined authority work? Who is responsible for the Scottish cycling guidance?

So yeah. It's been nice to just spend the evening eating my pizza and listening to chill ambient music and reading my library books.

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Harry the spy

2026-04-30T20:57:06Z

I have so far enjoyed the podcast Be Gay Solve Crimes, where three trans women assert that all detectives are transgender.

I love the premise (I'm even paying for the bonus episodes!), but after a dozen or so episodes I'm increasingly unsettled that these fictional male detectives are mostly talked about as "eggs" (a word some trans women use for their pre-transition selves; the moment of coming out to themselves is described as "their egg cracking"), and these fictional women are mostly talked about as fully-formed trans women.

The occasional background character is claimed to be transmasc, so it's not exactly erasure I'm complaining about. Feels more like a version of "the only good thing a man can do is transition,"* which is a possibly-unkind* shorthand I've adopted for the feeling I get from online spaces or statements that position themselves as universally trans but then end up being about things specific to (white) trans fems/women.

I've been telling myself I'm being unfair and too sensitive. But today's episode about Nancy Drew is making me sad. (Partly because it makes me wonder if Harriet the Spy is a certainty for a future episode as I'd initially thought it'd be; is that also a literary fixture only for USians?)

There's nothing wrong with knowing your audience, but to hear early in this episode "If you're a boy -- which, I imagine, that's not many people listening! you might find out something really important real soon!" in this episode about a girl I related strongly but differently to when I was a kid reading all these books. I can understand wanting to identify with a girl who's strong and clever and who barely even has a boyfriend and who's a bit odd -- this is the premise of the podcast really: the kind of detectives you get in fiction are of course very different from the people they're surrounded by, and once you feel (at least) one kind of difference it's easy (or easier) to feel affinity with other people who don't fit in.

And while there certainly are -- and, I hope, more all the time! -- fully-realized trans women who are in the vague older-teenager age range that Nancy Drew is, fully au fait with the Online touchstones that indicate a woman is trans (whether that be a disinterest in male partners or what the hosts perceive as an old chunky laptop which would've been cutting edge when the movie they're watching, from 2007, was made but they're all such infants that they were in elementary/primary school then so only know such things as hallmarks of retrocomputing and/or poverty), this isn't what I was expecting from the podcast.

I expected some of the assigned-female-at-birth characters to be pre-transition men. I expected their reading of Poirot to be transmasc -- he's short, he's dapper, he's obsessed with his mustache... he's right up there with Gomez Addams in this feels like an exaggerated stereotype except I also know people who are literally like this levels of transmasc representation.

And it's not just characters but their reading of characteristics that baffles me sometimes.

They mention Trying to Make the Hat Work as "deeply egg-coded behavior," but I only had to work so hard on that pre-transtion! There was some allusion to this in an earlier episode too, like if cis men think they can pull of a hat they not only can't, they aren't even really men. Which might have been these women's experience but I think they're overgeneralizing: a lot of men (cis and trans!) can Make the Hat Work! I find them way more fun now than I used to.
The podcast host I like the best says that any "quote unquote guy" who wears (US English)suspenders/(UK English)braces is an egg, and they're not just a wardrobe staple for me but a godsend because I'm so short but also because they help hide my wide hips (by wearing (US)pants/(UK)trousers that fit my hips but sit at my waist, suspenders keep them there without having to cinch my torso in half, which is less comfortable and also draws unwanted attention to the shape of my body. Suspenders also distract a bit from the way my chest looks in a binder (I won't wear them without one, of course), and break up the lines of my torso in a useful way.
And then (UK)waistcoats/(US)vests! (Why does this have to involve all the clothing items that I have bilingual terms for?? Or is that just all of them? Hm...) Which is so funny because immediately when I started my new job I was like "what if I became a waistcoat guy?" and the first time I needed to dress up fancy, I went to Slaters and bought one. It's still as dressed up as I get, because suits are the wrong shape for me (without paying for bespoke tailoring, which isn't an expense I can justify when I don't really need to wear a suit ever). And anyway testosterone has made me too warm all the time -- I'm not quite a shorts-all-year-round kind of guy but I'm way closer to that than I ever thought I would be. And, again, it helps hide the binder! And hips!! Whichever old English king it was who was too fat to button the last button on his waistcoat so the whole court had to start wearing them like that and now we all do...that guy was such a trans ally; I don't think I could button that button on mine! But I'm not supposed to! Marvelous.

Anyway, that's more than enough sartorial commentary from me, far more than I ever thought I'd do. But the point is, it's really odd to have stuff that's so obviously one way for me described as so obviously in a venn diagram circle that doesn't really overlap with that at all.

Writing this all out did make me feel better: I enjoyed the podcast episode more, and in talking about this on fedi I ended up wiht two new library books: Harriet the Spy and a recommended book with a transmasc Watson (The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall), which I'm looking forward to.

*: Though, potential unkindness aside, it seems I'm not even exaggerating: a Black transmasc activist that I know has told me that he's heard people say this in as many words: the only good thing a cis man can do is transition. Oof.)

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Things I have missed since my phone died last night

2026-04-27T15:36:31Z

Edit: My phone has been resuscitated. It still probably needs replacing soon, but it's nice that I can have a chance at making sure the stuff that should get backed up is actually backed up, etc. There is a plan for this to happen, but I am so relieved that it isn't urgent.

So here is my account of the annoying 24 hours I just had.

stuff to read before bed
audiobooks/podcasts to fall asleep to/keep me company when I wake up in the middle of the night
the weather app
checking how badly the Twins lost last night
going to the gym (needs an app) (not that I've had time to go to the gym yet, but knowing that I couldn't -- without trying to get the silent young people behind the desk to help me anyway -- still made me sad)
reading my DW circle! it's so busy lately with 3weeks4dreamwidth hooray, but I feel so out of touch!
podcasts to keep me company while I brush my teeth, empty the dishwasher, make tea
very easy game to play as a like a fidget toy
messaging the group chat that provides most of my social life these days
checking my e-mail
looking up a thing
taking a picture of a silly thing for social media
social media
looking up another thing
podcasts to keep me company
messaging the people in my house about tea etc.
telling the time
reading that tab I had open
adding something to the shopping list
planning when to leave the house to get the bus to transgym
checking I had booked for transgym
writing an e-mail
social media
texting the neighbor about walking Teddy
podcasts
reading my library (audio)book, via the Libby app
calling the doctor to make an appointment
trying the terrible NHS App to see if I can get an appointment (it's not urgent I just keep forgetting to make it)
two-factor authentication (luckily I could opt for an e-mail to be sent to me instead)
using the camera to zoom in on stuff that I can't see properly (like what signs say)

I'm so tired.

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3 Weeks 4 Dreamwidth friending meme

2026-04-26T12:47:31Z

(Also, mostly-unrelatedly, I learned today that at some previous point my decades-old carefully curated interests on my profile page, more than a hundred of them, had been accidentally deleted in a Bad UI Incident, leaving only a handful that I was *trying to delete*. So I've deleted them all now. Maybe I'll put some back, eventually...)

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Keeping this because I think it'll be useful for work

2026-04-26T11:43:06Z

The liberal actor is anonymous, they are not discussed in the law. They are not legislated about. That subject is typically cisgender, heterosexual, abled, socio-economically stable, and male. All other subjects are rendered visible through the law...

My disability is neither negative nor positive; however, it demands that I be aware of my own vulnerability. Being disabled brings me great comfort. I am not the liberal political actor. I am dependent upon others, and this dependency has made my body visible within the law...

If we make our differences invisible, that erases the ways in which my disability, as well as my other identities, shape my life and experience both positively and negatively. For this reason, I argue that the law is not liberatory and can never be so. What is liberatory is other people.

From an internet pal of mine, Riley Valentine. Who's currently got a call for chapters out for a book on disability and authoritarianism, which I'm glad to see.

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Sun and socializing

2026-04-25T21:23:45Z

Perfect weather! Mid-70s(F), and I still can't get over how it's not humid and there's no bugs to bother us outside here in the spring/summer.

D and I spent the day in the best way possible: going for a gentle walk around with some people he knows from the internet and two Good Dogs (Toby and Biscuit), followed by a pub lunch.

Then, after a short rest to recharge D and his phone, we went into town for more day-drinking to celebrate a friend's birthday. We got home about 9pm which felt so late but still left me with time and energy to change my bedding (I don't know about D but I was sweating last night), have a shower (so much more sweat in the walk this morning, in the direct sunlight of a cloudless beautiful sky), and dig out the fan from where it's stored over the winter to where it lives in my room when I need it. I worried it'd be a bit unnecessary yet but the fan is fancy and has a temperature indicator on it which said it's 20 (C) in here; yeah that's too hot for comfy sleeping.

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I love lilacs

2026-04-24T21:17:57Z

After I finally finished work (our theory-of-change meetings are getting existential, this one gave me such a headache), I went outside to sit outside in perfect weather, barefoot, listening to the radio, reading my library book, and enjoying the smell of the neighbors' lilacs.

Then I made an easy dinner, and then D and I cycled to a nearby pub for a pint. A big trip for him! It's lovely that he's feeling up to doing stuff now that the weather is making it so much more fun to do things.

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Transport sounds

2026-04-23T15:56:51Z

After my alarm went off this morning I was lying in bed for a few minutes, listening to the sounds come in through the open windows. I heard a truck on the nearby big road, a train zoom past on the railroad tracks, a plane overhead, sirens doppeling down the road.

Felt like I was living in Busytown for a second there!

A friend told me that Pauline Oliveros wrote some meditations for listening, apparently she called it Deep Listening. He said hearing things through a window like that is a great and grounded way to start the day.

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Gintervention

2026-04-22T20:19:54Z

Welp, the appointment didn't happen!

D and I clicked the link for the video consult and signed in and everything and then nothing happened!

D tried to call them, got an automatic message that said we'd called outside their operating hours or whatever, but then said they were open until 5pm on Wednesdays and it was just past 3pm. Very strange.

So he sent an e-mail but of course we've heard nothing back; I didn't expect we would until tomorrow.

It made for a strange afternoon, having to go back to work. I wasn't up to doing any thinky work but I had admin work to do so it was good to catch up on that.

Then I took Teddy for a walk, he was so excited to see me after a couple days where I couldn't make it or I was not needed. It's chilly out because it's so windy, but it was a sunny day and the sky was wonderfully blue.

I wanted to make dinner but V suggested putting a frozen meal from the freezer in the oven and we did that. Thai green curry, so I made rice to go with it. Even though I wasn't hungry, I ate mine pretty quickly.

I listened to a podcast interview with Dick Bremer, and had a bunch of feelings because it was the first time I'd heard his voice since he called whichever was the last regular-season game I watched in 2023.

D had gotten me a present, intending to be a "well done for getting through the thing" but it arrived this evening even after the thing had not happened. I opened it anyway: it's an amazing bottle of gin called Moonshot because each batch of Moonshot Gin likely has some molecules in it that came in contact with a rock that was once actually on the moon. The botanicals in this gin were freeze-dried by being sent towards space -- not really "space" because the Kármán line is a further 80 km up. There they were "exposed to extremely low pressures" the label copy says, adding one of the sillier phrases I've read off a bottle: "(after 18 or 19km the pressure is already so low that water and fluids in the body boil at body temperature!)"

Luckily the gin also tastes nice. It's a gimmick but it's worked extremely well on me, and it's lovely to feel so looked-after as to get a surprise present in acknowledgement of a big thing.

Even if we're no closer to the big thing than we were before.

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a happy Monday

2026-04-21T19:54:44Z

Yesterday ended up so unexpectedly nice, I wanted to record it.

D messaged me mid-afternoon to say that circuits was happening again that evening. I used to love transgym circuits, I did that as well as lift club almost every week and I've never been happier. But then our usual awesome trainer stopped doing circuits, which is fair enough but I was/am so used to their style and so comfy with it, and then the replacement started doing more of a boxing style fitness class, which was not to my taste (or accessibility needs: my lack of depth perception was posing too much of a problem) and then I kept being busy on those nights or whatever and I just stopped going some time last fall I think.

But I've really missed circuits; I love circuits. It feels like such a good workout for me: I can do even exercises I hate for a minute or two at a time, I never get bored, and I feel at the end like I've really Done Something. I used to have to bring bandanas to tie around my head to keep from getting too much sweat in my eyes, and I forgot to do that last night and really missed it! Because it's hard work.

And most of the people there weren't our usual old circuits people but people I knew from lift club who hadn't been to circuits before (or, did it like once a very long time ago or whatever). Including one of my favorites, who I said I'd meet outside and go in with together. I was really excited for him because I thought he'd love circuits and he did.

And, when I suddenly found myself with plans to be out for the evening I thought I'd start dinner prep right after work -- i did this last Friday when I went to yoga. But as I was still peeling sweet potatoes, D came downstairs, having finished work earlier than usual, and offering to help. So we just made all of my very easy plan for dinner (bangers and mash) and I had plenty of time to eat before going to the gym. It was lovely to spend the time together, it made an easy thing easier but also just so much more fun: being silly together in the nice sunny kitchen (I'm still not used to it being that bright at dinner time! it wasn't totally dark when I was getting showered after the gym, at about 9pm! bliss).

And I'm very glad I was able to eat beforehand: even with V warning me as I left the house "take it easy! you're out of practice!", even though I did take it easy, I was so sore by the time I got home. I knew not to sit down before I got upstairs and in the shower because I'd never stand up again. But I was so happy, too -- and it wasn't just the endorphins making me think that.

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All I want to say about this

2026-04-21T19:38:46Z

Tomorrow, I'm having an initial video consultation with a clinic that doesn't rule people out because of BMI.

I really didn't want to have to travel for surgery (it makes what's already an indescribably big deal so much bigger), but it's looking like this is my only option.

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Great Bridgewater Night

2026-04-19T20:59:52Z

Since the day that I had no brain juice, I feel like I've been improving slowly, but from a low bar.

I had to miss a social thing that D's girlfriend organized on Thursday night, and I didn't go to D&D (also at her house) this afternoon because I've had a stabby bad-nystagmus-day headache on and off all afternoon and didn't think anything so visuals-intensive would be good for me. Between this and no lift club yesterday, I've been feeling in need of more socializing. And I feel like I didn't make much of my weekend, last night aside.

Last night was amazing though. After a little bit of annoyance at the insufficiency of the transport information given between the Britain First rally (ugh) that afternoon and preparations for the marathon today, both of which were between my house and the Bridgewater Hall, I determined the train would be best and -- with a little bit of running at the last minute -- it went smoothly. Like I said, it was angelofthenorth's first visit to the Bridgewater Hall, and I was glad that she liked it as much as I hoped she would -- she already wants to go back in the next few days.

We had surprisingly great seats, considering that when I called up to get tickets and was asked where I want to sit, I said I didn;'t care and I just didn't want to pay a lot. I don't think I'd heard Duke Ellington's Harlem before, but just like all the Duke Ellington I had heard it was a delight -- highlights were watching the conductor Joshua Weilerstein bouncing and flailing around, almost as if he was dancing to the music himself. Miriam exclaimed to me afterwards about the harp matching the double-basses.

The second piece, Nikolai Kapustin's Piano Concerto No. 4 was introduced to us as "wacky jazz but with rock, soul and maybe even funk hiding behind the very bland name. From where we were sitting, I could admire the pano soloist Frank Dupree in his forest-green suit who always had his hans flying around the piano keyboard, but next to his grand piano was a drummer at a trap set who was arguably a second soloist for the piece. It was really extraordinary, a ton of fun. When they finished, the pianist said "Would you like to hear some more?" (much to the surprise of the conductor, M later told me! she did the best audio description) and the well-mannered audience cheered enthusiastically enough that he seemed genuinely surprised in his reply, "Wow!"

For this obviously the orchestra wasn't involved, just him and his drummer pal whose name I didn't catch. The other musicians on stage watched along with the rest of the audience as these two played Kapustin's Concert etude No. 1. It had a drum solo! During which Dupree "snuck" away from his piano to come up behind the drum kit, theatrically grab a couple of drum sticks, and play right along with the drummer in a call-and-response way that deserved the chuckles it got (including what sounded like some use of the music stands etc.), with him getting back to his piano stool and send his fingers flying across the keys.

And then after the interval the main event, Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 in E minor, ‘From the New World’ which the intro said some of those players might have played 100 times, or 50 times. He described it as helping them pay their mortgages. The audience was asked how many had seen it performed before, how many had listened to it... M was expecting us to be asked how many of us had played it, to which of course I'd have been so excited to raise my hand. I hadn't listened to it in about 20 years, but I knew almost all of the symphony, and when we got to my beloved last movement, I couldn't sit still in my seat. I played bassoon for that in a band that didn't have strings, so I heard familiar parts not just in the bassoon but cello and double bass. Neurons that haven't gotten to light up for 25 years got to glow.

We joined the crowds decanting ourselves into the shiny darkness and on to Oxford Road station, with about ten minutes before our train home. I was still so excited I couldn't sit down while we waited.

So I wish I'd made more of my weekend to fend off burnout and some challenging things ahead of me this week, but last night was better than I had any expectation it would be.

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Waiting for the mom

2026-04-18T16:09:48Z

My parents want to talk to me today instead of tomorrow, because tomorrow they're going to be out at something that they don't want to do (I think this is hilarious; they're going to watch my cousin in some kind of ice-skating event; Mom has been complaining about this for weeks, they even have to pay for it, they really don't want to go, and yet at no point have they just told my dad's brother/sister-in-law "No thanks"!).

But tonight, angelofthenorth and will be out seeing one of my favorite symphonies (we played the Finale in high school, I bought a cheapo CD of this and something else from Dvorak afterwards because listening to stuff I used to know that intimately is always fun...and M hasn't been to the Bridgewater Hall yet so I'm looking forward to seeing what she thinks of it).

So I told my parents about half an hour ago that I'm around if they want to talk, and the one downside of modern video meeting platforms (that works on both Linux and an iPad operated by people who don't know, for example, the difference between text messages and e-mails; we use Jitsi) is that I can't just wait to hear if they call so I'm tethered to my laptop for the next little while still, to see if my mom appears with her usual greeting "Do we have you?"

Edit: I never did hear from my parents, even though I hung around long enough to put off changing clothes and getting ready to go until after angelofthenorth got here. I got the exact same "We are home to talk" e-mail at 8.30 like usual. And of course I've done that "sending an e-mail before I check my e-mail" thing, but even after this there was no acknowledgement of my message or, y'know, my reality at all. Like V said when I caught them up on this news, it just shows how much this is not about me.

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The spice of life

2026-04-18T11:06:15Z

We have a spice mix grinder, with lemon and garlic and chili and sea salt in it. It's so good.

But when I tried to add some to our dinner tonight, I noticed it wasn't really working. Despite it being single-use plastic, I managed to take apart the grinding bits, and when I couldn't scrape away the gunk I just left them in some water to soak.

I was just thinking I haven't done anything today, but I've done that. Tiny little thing that should make the future nicer. And more flavorful.

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Long time

2026-04-16T20:05:29Z

I e-mailed the HR inbox with a question at work this morning, and the response I got was a name I recognized asking when she could call me to chat through the answer. It was the name I recognized from being cool about me being trans when I started this job.

I didn't think she'd recognize me, but as soon as we got on the call she said "Long time no see!" My smile, which felt both surprised and a little shy in response, hopefully gave her a good look at all the facial hair I didn't have last time we talked -- I hadn't even started testosterone yet.

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Out of brain juice

2026-04-15T18:28:54Z

It's kinda funny, this morning I saw someone say

The most important "productivity hack" I have learned is to recognize when my brain is out of juice for the day. It has a very distinct feeling to it. Once that happens, no work of quality or substance will get done, no matter how long I bang my head against it. So, I might as well go home and rest.

And then I proceeded to have a day at work of just that kind, but sadly I didn't feel able to go and rest until about four o'clock.

It's such a miserable way to spend the day, absolutely knowing that I'm wasting my time for the sake of presenteeism. I'm not sick, I'm not even particularly tired, I'm not struggling in any obvious way, I just...need to rest, and think, and maybe read for myself. Nothing work-related feels possible.

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Remember Some Days

2026-04-14T21:11:55Z

I did so many things again!

(I was thinking, after the four-day work weeks the last two weeks, how rough it's gonna be getting through five days this week. And both of these first two have felt like a few days each.)

I woke up at about six, and wasn't getting back to sleep, so I did what I often do between April and September (well, July at least): started watching the previous night's Twins game on my phone.

This time, that really woke me up: they (against another exceptionally good pitcher!) scored eleven runs in the first two innings! Garrett Crochet only got five outs before they sent him to the showers. It was wild. So fun to watch. I was giddy afterwards.

By seven, I'd gotten bored of telling myself I'd get up and go to the gym before work, a special skill only available to me in the lighter half of the year so I haven't done it yet this year.

It's so much quicker if I can ride my bike than if I have to walk, but my bike tires needed inflating first and I've never managed it on my own, but D did talk me through the process the other day so I figured it was worth a shot... And I did it! Went very smoothly. (My front tire was so low that hardly registered as having air pressure at all when I attached the pump, aww....)

I opened the door into a cool sunny morning, that smelled like burnt sugar. If the wind is just right, we can just about catch the delicious scents from the McVities factory. It felt like a magical way to start the day.

I went to the gym, didn't stay long, got home and showered and dressed for work by a time at which I've been just waking up on some weekdays lately. I had an okay work day, a lot of meetings to slog through, but with a nice one at the end of the day where someone I rarely speak to wanted my advice specifically about something to do with internal communications. She's so fun to talk to, and she was really flattering my ego with this "you were the first person I thought of to ask about this..." And I got a really adorable rendition of her plans to go to the gym herself after work, her upcoming holiday to Cornwall for a family gathering...so that was a fun way to end the work day.

Then, for the second day in a row, I walked both Teddy and Lizzy. It was kinda miserable today though: Lizzy was so intent on going a certain way that was too much work for me, that she refused the walk she's specifically demanded the last few days, and all I could do was drag her and Teddy up and down next to the A-road which she kept trying to dive into every few steps because she really wanted to be on the other side of it and only let me walk her along it because she was convinced at every point we'd be crossing the road.

Then just as we got back, the Tesco delivery showed up half an hour early (I'd actually seen the van stop on a nearby road when I was out with the dogs, and figured there was no way we weren't next on the list, so I wasn't as surprised as I might have been!), such that poor D had to choose between dealing with the groceries and returning the dogs to their home down the street. He took the dogs, and luckily they were good (they can pull a bit when they're near home, like a lot of dogs do I think, because they're excited to get there). I'm glad he chose that because I got the minimally-helpful driver, and spent much more time bending and reaching and lifting than I do if they're a little more careful where they put the crates and less staring-at-their-phone.

It was fine, everything got in the house, but with that right after the dog walk I was surprisingly tired! So I was glad when D did most of making dinner, he managed to find a good use for something we keep being sent as substitutes that isn't really suitable for us.

Last night, D and I started watching a documentary about why the Expos left Montreal, and it's so fucking depressing and so similar to Oakland and the A's! Also, knowing what I know now about, like, how most ownership groups are cashing in on their teams, and how bullshit it is to make taxes pay for rich people's stadiums...Stuff that happened when I was a naive kid (12 during the strike in 1994, for example), I now see in such a different light!

I thought I spent the whole thing making grumpy gloomy comments about the greed of billionaires and the doom of consigning civic institutions like sports teams to them. But when I tapped out halfway through -- I had a headache and thought I should sleep -- I told D to watch the rest without me and he said it wouldn't be as fun without me going "oooh, Ian Baseball!" I've passed along Andrew's old habit of referring to abstract or hypothetical entities having the first name Ian, so in this case, the Ians Baseball were, like Andre Dawson and Marquis Grissom. I've taught him about the joy of Remembering Some Guys, and apparently it works even secondhand! I did worry that the Guy Remembering was over by the halfway point of the doc, and indeed tonight's half was just depressing stuff, including David Samson who could hardly be more cartoonishly The Rich Bad Guy from a movie (assuming that the original prototype for that, Donald Trump, wasn't chosen): even his voice sounds evil. It was very touching to see so many old Québécois men weep openly though. I like baseball because it's so low-stakes, until it's not.

And then I was D's unglamorous assistant as he climbed up a ladder with multiple flashlights to take pictures of our loft (for solar panel purposes) and now I'm looking forward to going to bed!

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The Hostage Negotiation of the Front-Facing Camera

2026-04-12T19:50:17Z

I can see a little, so I do care a lot about light and contrast and things, so I'm not in the exact situation that a Blind online acquaintance describes here, but so much of this resonates with me. Especially as we're under increasing pressure to have cameras-on internal meetings at work.

"I am an unwilling cameraman, shooting an obscure documentary about my own face" resonated so hard with me!

My own parents are the even worse about this, though. As per entries passim, I talk to them every week. The only comment I've heard them make about my visual appearance is excessively unkind to say the least if not overtly transphobic, so it's not as if I'm motivated to share my face with them. Yet recently when my webcam was broken for a couple of weeks, my mom could barely carry on a conversation because of how distracted she was by this.

And her language is so telling. It's not "We can't see you" it's "We don't have you." It makes me feel so trapped -- pinned, like a bug in a collection.

It's the same as Robert describes his friend: ""Oh, You're gone! Where did you go?" I don't go anywhere! My mom says "Are you there???" even while I'm already talking. Like he says, " I didn’t go anywhere. I am right here. I did not teleport. I am still in the same spot I was just a few seconds ago."

My new webcam is a nightmare. It doesn't even show my whole head on the screen if I have the monitor as close to me as I otherwise went it. It has way too high a resolution: I've never seen all my facial features this sharply, and I'm very distressed to start now!

Being able to see a little means I am aware of how I look, and you know how people hate the sound of their own voice on recordings because that's not how it sounds to them? I feel like that about seeing myself on video calls. (I actually mostly love the way my voice sounds on recordings, heh.)

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Love you to the moon and back

2026-04-11T20:51:10Z

"As we prepare to go out of radio communication, we're still able to feel your love from Earth," pilot Victor Glover said. "And to all of you down there on Earth, and around Earth, we love you from the Moon."

Artemis is just so wildly different from previous moon missions. I love it.

I got that quote from this lovely piece on why we go to space.

NASA's budget is not the reason gas costs $6 a gallon, or why we don't have universal healthcare or pre-K. We don't have those because those in charge, and the people who voted for them, have chosen for us not to have those. It is a false binary that we even have to choose at all. The U.S. is the richest polity that has ever existed; there is more than enough money to go around to satisfy basic human services while still funding spaceflight. The people denying us those basic services would very much like for you to identify NASA as the culprit for its $24.4 billion budget, which represents 0.35 percent of all government spending, at the same time a pointless and purposeless war costs us a billion dollars a day, and the government seeks a $1.5 trillion defense budget.

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Where the inconvenience lands

2026-04-10T16:38:04Z

I am always surprised, though I guess I shouldn't be, that even blind people who have never driven can be so car-brained.

But it disappoints me nevertheless.

Today at work I watched a video where the head of a U.S. blind org, in his first Waymo, exclaimed something like "this is the first time in history that blind people can travel long distances independently without inconveniencing anybody else!"

I mean...I regularly travel hundreds of miles independently, on trains. I have traveled thousands of miles independently, on planes!

I have a whole rant about what people even mean by "independent."

I might have to add "what do crips mean by inconveniencing someone."

Not only do I not think that I'm inconveniencing assistance staff by "making" them help me get on a train or plane.

I also think that private cars do inconvenience a lot of other people! (Waymos (or other self-driving cars) arguably more than the human-driven cars.) Cars just outsource most of the inconvenience to people you don't know!

Earlier this week, I read the headlines of the Ipsos Mobility survey, and one has been haunting me ever since:

For many, having a car is an essential part of their life.
Forty-three per cent of drivers across 31 countries feel it would be impossible for them to live without their car. This feeling is highest in the US (65%), France (64%) and Canada (59%). Forty-three per cent of drivers say they could live without their car, but would prefer not to.

They would prefer not to because car-centric design ensures that everything is easiest, makes most sense, or sometimes is only possible for people in private cars. Cars end up being an essential part of people's lives when they're essential to everything you might want to do: work, school, shopping, errands, fun stuff... I know it's asking a lot for people to see that a bunch of systemic changes will address this better and more thoroughly than their individualistic solution of just getting another car, or a bigger car, or a car with brighter headlights, or an electric car, or a self-driving car...

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Grateful I guess!

2026-04-10T16:04:13Z

Last night I dreamed that I lost my glasses, so all day I've been weirdly grateful that they are where they should be.

(In the dream I lost my shoes too. And both in such an obvious metaphor for migration -- on leaving an airport, I had to go through something that was half playground tunnel/slide and half like the brushes in a car wash -- that even in the dream I was like "oh, this is a bit heavy-handed and obvious!")

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Many achievements

2026-04-09T17:23:17Z

I got through the latest meeting with my manager this afternoon! I was good and brave and he's happy with how it went.

It's the usual thing he's doing lately where he's like "what DO you do anyway Erik" but this time with an added dose of "and what should you do for the next few months, when both our internal ways of working and the external legislative environment will be different".

Right after this, I got an email that says that as a result of this year's pay ballot my pay has gone up 2.69% (nice). I really can't complain. I'm so glad I'm able to send money to Gaza and Minneapolis and Black trans pals all over the place and whatnot.

And despite being very tired, after I finished work I prepped some dinner, because I wanted to go to the gym and I knew if I didn't do food first it wouldn't happen and I'm very clearly still The One With The Spoon in our household for the second day in a row. (I haven't been doing as ridiculously well since Tuesday, but I'm still feeling that good longer-days energy!)

And then, despite being even more tired, I did actually get changed and go to the gym. It would've been so easy to just flop down on my bed. I'm so proud of myself that I didn't.

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Six or seven impossible things

2026-04-09T08:50:54Z

Not before breakfast, but also I felt like I was doing the impossible things, not just thinking them...

Work was a lot; I had meetings all afternoon, overrunning into each other, beset by people missing the point. I think another way the power dynamic of people with no (disclosed) disabilities who have to consult disabled people for their work... sometimes someone missed a crucial bit -- we're not just ranking these on their effectiveness but also their difficulty of implementation -- and sometimes one person thinks we need every detail of the specific symbols on the Berlin U-bahn and/or S-bahn maps (this is a breach of the maxim of quantity: as much information as is needed, and no more).

That latter person talked so much at the end that I missed the first train home that I wanted.

And as these meetings were going on, I also had to get something to my manager (artificial sense of urgency!) which I was really unsure of, something I've never done before and am not sure I'm doing right, so that was stressful. I almost think it was easier trying to do it at the same time as the meetings, since it kept me from being able to get too anxious about it; I just had to go "good enough!" and send him the documents at some point.

By the time of the second one, V had put dinner in the oven which meant I didn't have to cook, which was nice (we keep frozen meals around for precisely this kind of day; D was sleeping and V had already used a lot of spoons they didn't really have today and I wasn't home yet).

I just had time to eat that and watch the first inning or so of the Tigers-Twins game (which I didn't have high hopes for because it was a Skubal start, but it apparently went well! (has something happened to the Tigers?? silveradept, you doin' okay?)) before it was time to go help angelofthenorth get two heavy pieces of furniture down two flights of stairs.

I figured it was the kind of thing that would either be pretty quick or pretty grueling, and it was pretty quick. We didn't break anything, including ourselves. I rehydrated a little and walked home because buses are disappointing that time of night; the walk was actually nice: it was still warm even after dark (I'm not used to that yet!), it was clear and quiet, and the exercise was probably good for my muscles. I still struggled to even get myself into the shower when I got home though, heh.

And now painkillers and bed!

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summer enjoyer

2026-04-07T16:11:05Z

I woke up about fifteen minutes before my alarm this morning.

And it wasn't a struggle to get out of bed. Or to have my meds, or get dressed. I checked the weather first, and the predicted high was 69(F, of course), which is nice indeed! So I got to wear a sleeveless top and shorts and sandals.

I started work on time, if not a bit early. It was easy to get my morning chores done, even with a hurty tummy -- I didn't want breakfast yet but I had mint-and-vanilla tea which is my go-to for hurty tummy. I made the regular pot of tea for everyone else, though.

I hung the towels and bedsheets outside -- for the first time this year! -- and was so happy to get to do this, under a bright blue sky, my skin warming in the sun.

I did so many extra little chores during the day! I cleaned my glasses. I cleaned my phone. I refilled the bottles of spray cleaner and toilet cleaner that needed refilling from the 5-liter jugs. I put laundry away. I was able to prepare most of dinner before counseling -- instead of not at all, which is my usual for Tuesdays.

All of this is because the days have gotten longer and the sun has come back out.

Every fall/winter, I worry that I'm just bad at stuff and things will be horrible forever. And every spring, there's a Monday (or in this case a Tuesday) where something in my brain clicks into place when I get a certain amount of sunlight -- not vitamin D from the pills, not lumens from the SAD lamp; I have those things and I'm sure they help but nothing like the fact that the colors are right and the outside is hospitable again.

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