Me? Oh, not much, just my normal, healthy coping mechanism of avoiding some minor task because I’m scared I won’t be able to do it well or complete it in time and I’ll fail everyone because I’m an awful person and then I avoid thinking about it because I feel guilty for avoiding it and that makes me even more terrified of doing it and then I avoid talking about it and put off the people who need me to get it done because I’m avoiding thinking about it and that makes me afraid of them and then I end up in a depression spiral because I’ve failed everyone and I’m an awful person and then the depression makes everything worse.
Overall, this is a pretty awful time to be alive. But! There is at least one bright light in the universe right now, and it is this: two of my favorite webcomics are running non-canon side stories where the authors are literally just writing slashfic of their own characters and IT. IS. GLORIOUS.
I’ve mentioned El Goonish Shive before; right now, the author’s “newspaper-style” side comics are running a retelling of the classic fairytale Cinderella, with all the major characters played by the cast of the main comic. The mood is–well, here’s how it was introduced:
For context: in the main comic, Tedd and Elliot are longtime best friends and a popular non-canon ship that the author LOVES to troll her readers with.
It is utterly enchanting (pun intended). Just look at these two!
AAAAAAHHHHHH JUST LOOK AT THEM THEY ARE SO FRIGGIN’ CUTE AAAAAHHH
Meanwhile, the genius, illustrious, sorcerous, sinuous, absolute SMOKESHOW author of Dresden Codak has been alternating her main story comics with silly little minis, the latest of which are an anime-style AU high school romance!
This ship is canon, but that’s okay because it’s also objectively the best ship in all continuities of anything, don’t @ me.
It’s just…so PURE, you know? I just adore the whole “AU High School Romance” genre (probably more than I should), so getting to see it in one of the internet’s all-time greatest webcomics literally feels like a dream come true.
“Pilcrow” was the default WordPress theme waaaay back in 2011 when I started this blog, and it shows. The “featured images” I set on each entry so that they cross-post to Instagram properly are distracting, the layout is cluttered, the URLs poorly organized, and the styling is so badly designed it may as well be broken. So what’s a poor web programmer to do?
Why, put off fixing it indefinitely rebuild everything from scratch, of course!
I’ve been wanting to beef up my frontend skills for a while now (especially the fundamentals, HTML and CSS), and since I’ve finally realized that I can keep a devlog of my progress to avoid falling behind on my blog (duh), I have no more excuses to put it off!
I’ve decided to use the Kelp framework for the UI, for many reasons. I’ll go a bit more in-depth on what Kelp is, how it works, and why I like it in a future post, but I’ll say that one reason I chose it is because it has an HTML- and CSS-first design, which as I mentioned are skills I’d like to focus on.
(Another reason is that it’s being developed by one of my favorite bloggers, Chris Ferdinandi–I’ve mentioned him before!)
So far all I’ve built is a flirtier version of “Hello, World!“, but expect more updates soon!
So there I am, reading someone else’s post on WordPress. I get to the bottom and start looking for the “like” button because I did, in fact, like it. I can see it’s been “liked” by about a hundred other people. I can even see which ones! And I can see that I’m logged in, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
And yet, there is no “like” button to be seen–no star, no heart, no thumbs-up, nothing. I look up. I look down. I look from side to side. It’s not anywhere!
I’m not sure if it’s me or the UI, but at least one of us is absolutely moronic.
I’ve gotten used to seemingly innocuous things making me feel old, but for some reason learning that the mayor-elect of New York City is younger than me hit especially hard.
On the plus side, the scenery is gorgeous. It’s a small town right below one of the tallest mountains in the country. The weather is practically always sunny, even in winter, and there are multiple lovely parks in walking distance.
A lot of the town’s business comes from tourists, so it also has a charming and vibrant main street with an unusually high concentration of coffee shops for a town its size. Really good coffee shops–there’s one in particular that sells some of the best pastries I’ve ever had, including sumptuous homemade pop-tarts.
Every resident we’ve talked to so far has been friendly and helpful, especially the staff at our kids’ school (for whom we are extremely grateful). There’s even a surprisingly large liberal and queer presence, although the town as a whole is pretty conservative–we even had our own local Pride event!
On the minus side, well…like I said, the town is pretty conservative. The district school board, for example, has officially “decreed” that there are only two genders and that they are fixed from conception, and the town’s elections skew heavily Republican. Pickups with Trump bumper stickers are everywhere.
It’s also a very long way from my office, and while the scenery helps make the drive itself bearable, it still means too much money spent on gas and not enough time spent with my family.
The weather is also something of a double-edged sword–the thin atmosphere means the summer sun can make an 80-degree day feel like 100, while the winters alternate between frigid (often snow-packed) and weirdly warm. Deer, ice, fog, and flash floods are all potential road hazards–sometimes in the same day!
On the whole it’s a lovely place to live–at least for now–and we mostly knew what we were getting into when we moved. There have only been a handful of surprises, most of them pleasant.
By far the most unexpectedly pleasant surprise has been the local newspaper, which we find stuffed in our PO box about twice a month. It’s been strangely empowering just knowing more about what’s happening in the town, political and otherwise. It’s how we found out about the local Pride event, and how we decided who to vote for in Tuesday’s election (there were three open seats on the school board).
Even more surprising than the articles, however, have been the letters to the editor.
As I said, it’s a conservative town, so the letters to the editor contain their fair share of MAGAs, transphobes, and apologists. That being said, the discourse is mostly civil, and there have been a much broader range of views than I expected. It’s been heartening, for example, to see more than one staunch conservative condemning Trump and his actions along with the liberal and moderate voices, and there are many letters that share useful information on purely local issues (like the aforementioned school board’s activities).
Most surprising of all, however, have been the letters that aren’t really about politics at all, the ones that are just about lived experiences. Emotions, thoughts, and memories shared honestly; not as rhetoric or argument, but as simple communication. Sometimes it’s a plain “thank you” or “congratulations,” other times it’s more complex, but in each case the feeling is of neighbors reaching out to each other through a sense of community, not competition, fear, or anger. Not the Voice of the People, just…people.
People, and their voices.
Voices
I came to her when she was nineteen. Born on payday. She was to be my mother. Not a mother anyone would choose at the mom store. She fed us well, clothed us, washed our sheets. Beyond this, we were on our own. No hugs, no praise, no words of love. Narcissistic and rude, she was our mother. At Eighty-nine, we try to care for her, silently cursing her demands. Her software is worn, her coding, eroding… She worries, dragging her walker room to room never landing, confused, anxious, fidgety. Pausing only to read the paper. Our nation’s leaders are killing her. She is not the same. Six months ago she had hope for her grandchildren’s future… Now, she paces What will happen to my IRA? Where will I get my meals? Am I going to get next month’s Social Security? Will I need to change doctors? I have nothing to leave my kids. I’ve worked so hard. Do you know how hard I worked? Yes, Mom, I know. Her mind clogged with the failing schemes of a madman. There is nothing we can say to ease this panic. Despite all, she is ours, and we try to offer peace. I wonder how many of our elderly men, women, veterans… The greatest generation will die with heavy hearts. No longer knowing if this democracy will survive.
In Search of Secrets 
