Today, I have a track record of 2,500 days of alcohol-free hydration. In May I will celebrate 7 years of sobriety, but since I’m greeted by a day counter whenever I look at my phone, I couldn’t resist a moment of reflection. 2024 was a year of experimentation. I decided to go for the mocktail option during a handful of date nights, and even drank alcohol-free wine at church. In a moment of company-wide celebration I tasted non-alcoholic champagne. (Continue)

The August edition of the IndieWeb Carnival is about rituals. Host Steve is interested in how they shape us, how they’ve changed over time, and whether we like them or not.

I love a ritual. The word alone ladens the room in my head with the sultry air I expect from a monastery. It gives me Caravaggesque sunlight, high contrast, beaming its way to a church floor, illuminating austere dust particles on the way there. You can take the Catholic child out of the heartland, but… It’s safe to say the word “ritual” is single-handedly responsible for 70 per cent of my Etsy rosary purchases.

(Continue)

Nothing ungovernable, it’s more like a hum. The hum of I’m not feeling at my best, of can’t get that argument out of my head, of what if, what if, what if; a hum that I eventually forget is there at all, even though it never ceases to soundtrack my every move. I’m maintained and restricted by the ability to tune out whatever is suboptimal. By now I know it’s a common early-childhood survival skill that, while seeking to conserve me, grants me the capacity to self-destruct. (Continue)

Liked https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/22/well/mind/adhd-depression-anxiety-symptoms.html

Cooler temperatures! After the hottest week I’ve experienced in months, things were back to comfortable Summer weather. By the time I’m writing this the sky is gray and it’s raining, but this week’s weather was cheerful and moderate. On Tuesday and Wednesday I gave two big UX workshops at week to help coworkers understand how they can use UX in their daily work. I’ve been giving workshops for well over a decade, always trusting my instinct to figure out what a particular group or context required. (Continue)

IT IS HOT STOP CLIMATE CHANGE NOW. I don’t think I’ve seen hotter days this year than week 36. Getting out of a hot shower and feeling equally wet fifteen minutes later. Lemonade barely wanting to walk outside. The sun beaming so feriously we can’t keep the windows open. Thank you, Jesus, but please make it cooler. There’s something sweet about seeing Amsterdam through the eyes of friends from abroad. (Continue)

I saw a guy on Monday that I went on a date with once. It was one of those whimsical dates. We had fish by the sea. It felt like coming home a little bit. I think the world was trying to introduce me to something for which I wasn’t ready yet. Looking back, that date, more than the others, prepared me for Anja. Looking back through butterfly effect glasses, it might as well have been him. (Continue)