May 2, 2025 - Day 21 of the Pink Moon

Shooting Updates From the Hip

It's the Friday before my birthday weekend, and I got up at 5:30 AM because I had a nightmare about being rounded up by the state. So I figure this is as good a time as any for a little update post.

First, the abstracting company that I emailed about my childhood home didn't respond, so I suppose I have to find another. In other counties this is publicly available information online, but not there! I'm trying not to give up at the first sign of difficulty because I have a feeling something interesting will come of it.

Second, I updated my homepage to include some new links, as well as to be a bit more uniform in ink color and nib width. The new ink used is called Olivine, but I don't know the manufacturer because it was a poorly-labeled sample someone gave me. I added a recipes link, and hope to add some of my favorite recipes there both for my own reference and for collective enjoyment.

Third, here is an obligatory section on aging. I will be 31 on Sunday, and I am going to shout that number from every mountaintop. I love being in my thirties! I love having stability, I love having worked through a lot of my trauma and maladaptive coping mechanisms, I love having grey hairs, I accept that my knees hurt (even though they hurt more when I was 19). At work yesterday the subject of age came up and the fear of aging disguised as quaint small talk was everywhere. One coworker playfully talked about her grandma who said to her death that she was 29. Another coworker talked about being old because he liked an NSYNC meme. As I'm trying to be more casually outspoken about my values, I said proudly that I'm glad to be turning 31, that I'm overjoyed to be in my thirties and I have no shame about it at all. What I didn't say is that I still remember not thinking I would make it to 21, and then the ambiguous feeling of not being able to picture myself in the future. Having come out and transitioned, my future and my joy at every passing year is palpable. I have been thinking of my age as my high score, and every birthday is a new high score!

Finally, I carried out a ritual on Sunday initiating myself as a witch. I don't want to go into specifics, but it has felt very generative to me to step into a witch identity to formalize the practice of listening to my own intuition and staying in tune with my environment and natural cycles of growth and death. Since I began to accept this in me, I have felt a growing sense of resilience, and a growing connection to my transsexual ancestors. It was this whisper of intuition that led me to go against everything I had been told about who I am, and I believe this witch resilience and ancestral connection will carry me through this dark political moment.

With that, I need to get some breakfast. Much love! <3