It's been a whole year since I started managing my own static site. I chose IONOS as my first host -- that turned out to be a mistake for a novice. I paid for the lightest package since it would just be a series of HTML files, but that wound up being more complicated than I initially understood. At my brother's suggestion, I've switched to GitLab. It's nice because not only is it free but makes for a greater playground to learn coding in HTML & certainly other languages. IONOS seemed to require plesk to maintain -- this wasn't a problem as it had no cost initially, but it started to crash their smallest package VPS that I had purchased. Then, plesk started to impose an additional cost for my usage. I think the complexity of accessing everything made the experience overall worse and inhibited my upkeep and writing.
So, now on GitLab, I'm quite excited for where this possibility takes me. I've been feeling more alive and capable than ever despite some ups-and-downs and I'm excited for the year ahead. There is much suffering and I find helping who I can gives me catharsis from what the state of the greater world and in the US imposes and from my own suffering, self-imposed or otherwise. I lost a lot of joy sinking into depression, dissociating myself from things directly in my reach or my self, through suppression or ignorance, fearing a lot of things and people. I'm hasty to express that the feeling and joy of connection has returned to me after a number of years treating my depression but it was not without effort in those years that I built fortitude and resilience. I dislike feeling that I had to do it alone but I think that's an eternal component of my schizophrenia. I can't always do everything or sometimes even anything, but the time between those moments grows much faster now.
I have many ambitions for the year ahead and until recently I found myself advancing my convictions no further than being impregnated with grandiose ideas with no concern for taking even one single step to develop any. I feel that for a long time I had self-asphyxiated my creativity, starved my creative appetite of inspiration. I would feel an impulse to pursue something, no matter how small, and deny it of myself. It was so easy to chip away at my own face out of shame and self-punishment. I set aside nearly everything I liked to do and merely sat, greedily consumed by a sloth gluttony. It's not easy to overcome years of abuse, especially when concurrent but always when without the tools to inspect, dissect, and disperse its miasma.
Well, anyway, I've already done stuff this year and since December that I had been aching to do for a long, long time. It feels like finally stretching out long idle muscles, both nervous and mechanical. Last year I made important investments in my health that I had not been considering seriously enough. I've also recently come to believe that my hormone levels were too low and indicating another sort of chemical depression. I think feeling fine is overrated. I think feeling happy is imperative. Sometimes that's a mere plate of homemade pasta or brewed coffee. Other times it's kicking up my feet and reading. I started to interrogate my interactions with media and technology. I'm a majour proponent of physical media but my re-engaged interest was much like a numb leg. I have wanted to engage with it more seriously, contemplate things like my privacy online, my data security, the physical space and meaning of my physical collections. My vinyl collection is quite dear. I don't think I genuinely considered my other engagement with arts with as much credence.
I saw Marty Supreme at AMC on New Year's Day. Yesterday, I canceled my AMC Stubs membership. There are far too many good theatres in the city to be going to a chain like AMC. I went to the Siskel Film Center with Pia yesterday, a catalyst for my decision to cancel, and we watched Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, a French romance from 1991. It was a beautiful and enrapturing film. Her and I discussed it at length. Movies are just better when part of an engaged culture. I know this to be true for dubstep. It is true of all culture. AMC, when I think back on my visits there, is hardly part of anything more than consumerism. Pia and I both agreed that we should try to be going there for interesting movies because the experience is much richer than comfortable chairs and food delivered to my seat. Pia generously prepared us dinner before we mosied to the film and what a much better meal that was. Even our dinner together was more engaging. I may have been stuffing my face without saying much, but, that itself is a unique joy I myself have produced when cooking for another.
In the past few days I've become really interested in MeshCore and Meshtastic, off-grid, Long Range radio communication messaging services. Both use apps that can be used on Smart Phones by connecting over bluetooth to small companion LoRa devices. A while ago, my brother introduced me to Meshtastic with some devices he had. I learned a bit more about it from Benn Jordan's recent YouTube video. It looks fun and like it would be quite useful. I'm hoping to upgrade to the new Punkt MC03 Secure Smart Phone. A subscription OS for a smart phone is a novel idea to me but a privacy-forward device and software are of high interest to me. I don't really want to succumb to the majour manufactures when it comes to phones. I did once. I'm interested in alternatives.
I've also become very interested in applying essential oils to my laundry... lol. While walking to my apartment, an intense aroma of spruce washed over me. It happened so consistently that I thought it must be essential oils. I started to look online and found people have what seem to be lovely laundry shampoos with fragrances. It's quite an exciting prospect. I'm imagining my bedroom smelling like cedar or spruce and being whisked off to sleep on the aromas. I love the smell of cedar. I'd love to aromatise my furniture with it to make it even more relaxing.
I have goals that I'd like to share, but, really I'd just like to share the result of those goals. I've been feeling inspired and maintaining my website is now easier than ever, so I hope to share those things with you by showing you rather than explaining my desires. I do want to say that I miss going to Poem Pilled, where a group of writers met to read their recent material. An Open Mic for poets and the prosaic. I'm hoping to find some such similar home this year, whether a virtual collective or not. I hope you have a great start to 2026. It may not be easy, but, I think the two most important skills humans have are asking for help and giving that help. I hope we can all get better at those things together. Thanks for taking the time to read.