A living hall of story and craft
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Why Owning Your Own Place Still Matters—On AWS, the decentralized internet, the crashing of everyone’s platforms, and keeping the lights on through it all. The Irony of the “Decentralized” Web The day half the internet took a nap, I realized I’d somehow wandered into the decentralized-web conversation—not because I was chasing a new ideology, but … Read more
Here’s a story that shouldn’t be remarkable, but is. When I was a barista, people used to look me in the eye and tell me they didn’t believe in tipping. Not that they couldn’t afford it — that they didn’t believe in it. They’d say, “Tipping’s for people who actually do something.” Or, “You’re just … Read more
The first thing anyone notices about a handmade rosary is never the price. It’s the weight.Glass, stone, metal—each bead has a small gravity, each knot holds a decision, each decade learns to sit in the palm like an animal that trusts you. I made one on the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart, and as … Read more
Sometimes I wake up and want to time-travel — not to fix history, not to warn anyone about the future, but just to log onto the internet when it still made fun noises. You know the ones. The slow static roar of a modem connecting to something bigger than you. The little thrill when the … Read more
There’s a certain kind of moral cleanliness people want to feel these days.They want to be good consumers, conscious supporters, enlightened participants in a system they claim to despise but cannot live without. They buy from small businesses, repost infographics about mutual aid, share “support artists!” memes, and talk wistfully about community economies—the imagined utopias … Read more
Rethinking the transactional expectations we’ve built around creativity The Smile Policy I spent fourteen years behind counters, headsets, and glowing screens where the smile policy was as binding as the dress code. You learn the choreography early: the greeting that catches before it lands, the apology you deliver whether or not anything is your fault, … Read more
Every brochure swears there’s help if you need it. Every workplace poster smiles beside a hotline. Every government site has a dropdown labeled Emergency Supports. The language is clean, confidence-colored. Words like accessible, inclusive, no wrong door. If you believed the posters, you’d think the country was a long, soft net strung beneath the high wire of ordinary life. … Read more
You can feel it in your bones some days — the quiet, humiliating grind of being treated like free entertainment, the sensation of standing in a room you built with your hands while strangers file through and take souvenirs you never agreed to give. You post the painting, the poem, the animation that ate half … Read more
People tell me I have expensive taste. They don’t mean it as a compliment, not exactly. It’s an observation masquerading as concern, a diagnosis wrapped in curiosity: How can you be struggling if you work with fur and leather and velvet? They’re reacting to surfaces—the sheen of a hair-on cowhide, the drama of a dyed … Read more
He said it with the offhand confidence of someone who has never had to ask permission to take up space. “You’re where you belong — making my coffee.” The sentence slid across the counter like a coin: tossed without thought, bright enough to catch the light, already sticky with fingerprints. I smiled. I handed over the cup. … Read more