I want to talk more about some stuff I’ve briefly mentioned in my site’s microblog and other things

jekyll “ci/cd”

I’ve been slowly building out a system that allows me to post to the site’s microblog from my phone without having to manually run any site build or push commands. It’s really simple. Syncthing moves the files between my phone, laptop, and my directory on the NAS. The NAS runs jekyll serve in a docker container. And I use inotify to detect changes to the compiled microblog index page which then runs the relevant upload scripts.

Easy! Today I also added the ability to update the now page the same way.

And I can easily see a way to move towards doing posts like this too. I don’t think I want the entire site pushed everytime I make a minor change, that’s why I run that docker with jekyll serve, so I can test things before I make them public. But posts don’t need testing.

The only problem is that this set up only works for web, not gemini. Largely because the jekyll-gemini plugin does not have the ability to serve an instance of the capsule and continually rebuild it. This means now page changes will be delayed on gemini until I get to a computer and manually run the build command.

Could I build a different way to handle the gemini stuff? Yeah absolutely. It’d probably still rely on inotify which would then trigger a jekyll gemini command, and then push those changes.

Do I want to do that?

Nah.

gemini

I’m kinda falling off gemini lately. Most of the social places are full of shitheads¹ or crypto shitheads. It makes sense that those types would flock to “unmoderated” technology. Though it’s not really the tech that’s unmoderated, it’s that many of the maintainers of the gathering spaces are too scared to apply any moderation for fear of retaliation and diminishing an already small userbase. Or they stand behind the hatred and bigotry.

There are some queer and trans folk on gemini, but they don’t really congregate anywhere (gee I wonder why), so it’s more of a passive interaction of reading and subscribing to their gemini logs whenever I happen to stumble across someone new. Stumbling across someone new is difficult to do, especially when most of the primary aggregators surface shitheads. Antenna at least has a user-defined filter option that allows me to remove them from my personalized view, but Cosmos does not. Reading people’s log posts is really nice actually, reminds of early internet, and I have built a solid list of feeds to keep up with. It’s just pretty obvious though that a LOT of people are falling off of gemini too. There’s about one new post every month, across a few dozen feeds. It’s disappointing.

new girlfriend

Since mid-August I’ve been seeing someone again. We first met in January of 2020 when I was dating her roommate and ex, my Ex². We talked very briefly that summer, then we talked a bit again last summer (2023). Last summer she started dating my wife too and now finally this summer I got my shit together and asked her out. It’s been going really well actually. Very kind of a slow burn type thing, which is not normal for me at all. Other than also my wife, all of my other relationships have been real intense, high emotions, deep connections right away, etc. I have always attributed this to my BPD

She’s really nerdy in ways that overlap with my nerdiness, but differ just enough so that we’re not the same. She’s super sweet and very chill. And she’s incredibly local. After so many long distance relationships, I forgot how nice and easy it is to date someone local. I always thought I was decent at long distance, but honestly it was always SO draining in ways I never realized. I can’t go back to doing long distance.

The only thing is that I wanna talk about this gal a lot, to my best friend, who is my wife, who is also dating her. So that’s a bit awkward and I’m trying to find the right balance of what I can talk about with her vs. what I try to put in my diary.

mental health

Speaking of BPD… honestly, it is making itself known to me lately. I’m working to keep it controlled and I think I’m doing okay, though sometimes I have some emotional outbursts when I’m by myself. I had one recently because I’d been fucking up my estradiol patches for more than a month. I felt a lot more centered as soon as I started back on my patches. It’s been a couple weeks now and I feel centered and calm still :)

But I definitely need to find a therapist. My wife and I are looking to restart couple’s therapy too. We did it for over a year when we lived in San Francisco and it was one of the best things we’ve done. With all the changes happening in our lives here we decided we should start again. Things are fantastic between us, the goal is to keep them fantastic :)

my recent ex

Speaking of best friends.. my ex from earlier this year was also one of my best friends. I felt like we could talk about anything together. I miss having someone like that that isn’t my wife. I miss talking to my ex a lot actually. So much has happened this summer..

house

We’re buying a house! All three of us! We’re gonna live in a house that we can do anything we want to or with! It’s really exciting and really scary because we close four days before the election. So all of that joy and excitement and hope may be completely dashed in less than a week, and yet we still have to keep moving forward. It’s really scary.

election

The initial excitement about Harris running instead of Biden has worn off, and watching Trump and Vance go so hard on the racism is really scary. Watching Harris voice support for Israel is really scary.

I keep reading anecdotal reports though about former 2016 and 2020 Trump voters being ashamed of the man this time around. No longer proudly displaying their support. Talking about not voting at all, or even voting for Harris.

It’s all too much..

plants

All summer I did a wonderful job maintaining our balcony garden. I’m really proud of myself and my wife keeps complimenting me on the work I’ve put in. So with the house, I’m really excited next spring to work on gardening even more! I want some cute stuff on our front porch, our deck, and in the lawns too! My mother in law is really big into gardening and landscaping so I’m excited to talk to her about all this too!

I’m also really keen this winter to just take a fucking BREAK from maintaining the plants for so many months. I might want to have a few easy care indoor plants, but I need the rest damnit.

cats

Olive’s been doing really well with his Solencia treatments. He’s actually a month or two overdue for another shot but he’s doing really well still. The vet did say that some cats manage to get longterm arthritis relief after only a few shots. Maybe Olive is lucky like that :)

health

I was on trazadone for about a month to help with sleep issues. It did actually help me sleep through the night more soundly, but it absolutely sapped my energy during the day. In just the week or so I’ve been off of it my wife has repeatedly noted just how much more energy I have again. I’m still fatigue crashing and experience PEM of course, but good lord I’m at least having good days again. Trazadone gave me constant headaches and minimal energy days that somehow were not fatigue crashes.

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There was probably more I wanted to talk about but my brain is turning off. Bye!