Category: Life

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Life

NaNo, I love(d) you, but it’s not you, it’s (mostly) me

October 12, 2002. Dialup internet was the norm where I lived, and I shared that precious internet time with my brother. One of us regularly stayed at our grandparents’ house down the street so we could both be on the internet at the same time. What a world that was.

This particular day was a Saturday. I had spent the rest of the day at the library and hanging out with my church youth group, playing HORSE and Duck Hunt. I was tired of the person I was, or rather, I was still in that long and arduous process of discovering myself.

I got home from church, hopped online, and started reading some Diaryland blogs. And there it was: someone mentioned writing a novel in a month. Next month, in fact. I could do that! Right?

I clicked that link and signed up immediately, sealing my fate as the name you’re reading now. If I could finish writing a book, I reasoned, I could call myself a real writer.

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Life

Life as a Pokemon Go PVP casual

The Silph Road, the original home of digging into game mechanics and grassroots Pokemon Go PVP tournaments, announced back in May that they were shutting down operations entirely in August. Some parts of the Silph network were already down when it was announced. I’ve made so many friends through Silph tournaments, both online and in person, that it’s hard to dismiss Silph and PVP as a small part of my life.

I’ve competed in every single Silph meta. When the pandemic started, Pokemon Go lifted the requirement to be ultra friends in order to battle remotely, so I started doing more remote tournaments.

Something weird happened. I started getting better.

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Life

New York City, fourteen years later

The last time I visited New York City was in 2009. I was a fresh-faced new graduate interviewing for a job that turned out to be a scam during the worst of the Great Recession. Smartphones weren’t mainstream yet. I was comparing hot dog and dollar slice stands for the one that was fifty cents cheaper. I pinched every penny during this short trip and still worried about going broke because I had no income for the foreseeable future.

Fourteen years later, everything has changed. The student loans that got me through college are gone. I finally have a stable job where the primary dislikes fall under corporate crap I won’t escape by working elsewhere. I own a freaking home. (This last one boggles my mind sometimes, but I come back to reality whenever I hear a weird and potentially expensive noise.) And I returned to the city this summer, not for a job prospect but for vacation and Go Fest.

Seeing a place through new eyes is its own experience, especially when more money can go toward it.

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Life

The 2022 digital detox

I mentioned it in posts last year, but my holiday break wasn’t any old break. I took the three and half days at my parents’ house to disconnect from all social media and news and do literally anything else.

To be honest, the digital detox was the best part of my 11-day holiday break.

I’ve mentioned this before, but over the past few years I’ve had a problem with constantly checking in for new content online, always looking for the newest dopamine fix. That fix never lasts long, which means the hunt continues for the next big fix. There’s always another thing to be found. And another. And another.

I was doing this even in my supposed relaxing time. Even when I was having fun in my interactions, there was always an inner fear of missing something new, not being the first to find out something. FOMO, but for everything digital. It became a nightmare and the exact opposite of relaxing. It’s strange how zoning out can have the opposite effect.

Any attempts to improve my relationship with the internet and being the first to know everything required a hard reset, so I used the holiday break at my parents’ house in the middle of nowhere to perform that hard reset. The rules: no Twitter, no Discord, no news, no other social media. I removed Twitter and Discord from my home screen and replaced them with more productive pursuits (Duolingo, the weather). I didn’t go hardcore and uninstall the apps altogether so I would have a nuclear option if needed.

The purists might say that this wasn’t a pure digital detox since I still let myself use my phone and other electronics, but something strange happened.

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Life

So you wanna get a bisalp: The protips the pre-op doesn’t tell you

A few people in my extended social circles have asked me about my permanent sterilization experience, and I wrote so much that it turned into two posts. You can read my lived experience in the previous post here.

Let’s get to the practical parts, the frequently asked questions that no one ever seems to answer unless you go into the depths of the internet. I’m going to get down and dirty here.

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