Many hellos and a few absurds

2 Apr 2025

Many hellos and a few absurds:

And an incomplete thought:

the very clear problem
to me is that there isn't
anything here that truly matters
all that much. and
that's fine
at the end of th d

There's a notebook by my keyboard that holds my tea mug. I scribble into it every here and there, oftentimes absentmindedly. I just like the tactility of pen on paper, the translucent purple ink. Sometimes I flip through these pages and wonder, What happened here? What was absurd? What didn't matter? I don't remember.

And then there's this:

so here's the thing
I would prefer not to.

This I do remember. It started with scrubbing our content: removing pages, then minimizing certain words, then reframing our work, then deleting more words. Self-preservation, I understood. The contracts were paused, then terminated. The layoffs and furloughs began and continue still. Emails from people I've worked with for years saying their goodbyes and, "Hey, my team was laid off," and automatic replies, "Due to the [stop work order], I am currently out of the office and unable to respond to emails." Then there's a list. Half my teammates are on it, and I'm asked, "What happens when we lose these roles?"¹

Then a friend texts, "It's okay. The courts will put a stop to this." (Oh?) And I simmer.

And so I go back to my sphere of influence. What can I control? (Where can I direct my anger?) I learn to self-host, set up an OpenBSD server. I pull out my decade-old Mac Mini, learn to convert it to an Ubuntu server. I buy an old ThinkPad, learn to use Linux.

A little something for my mind to cling to. (My tiny² acts of resistance.)