Weeknotes 2025-36

8 Sept 2025

Happenings

• Got the COVID & flu vaccines. I typically don't notice the side effects but they hit hard this time: a massive headache, fever, nasal congestion, and achiness.

• A lot of doctors' visits — me for that eye situation¹ and E for a sudden avocado intolerance. We're both recovering. I'm dripping antibiotics into my eye 4x a day. It's sensitive, so I'm spending less time looking at screens.

Listening

• The Midnight – Los Angeles (Live)

• Cold War Kids – Run Away With Me

• Max Richter – Sleep Circle³ (I learned that this too is protest music — "a counter-argument to our oversaturated, overstimulated world")

Reading

• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong — I've been reading this one chapter at a time, with gaps in between. I need the space; it's an axe.

• On Writing Well by William Zinsser — Getting through the chapter on places was a chore (I'm not interested in reading about places). And the chapter on memoirs has left me thinking about my own life, inspiring me to start writing some of my own stories (which, in turn, has left me pensive).

Puttering

• departure.blog is the new domain for this blog. I waffled about for a while considering other options: paren.thetical.net (with other subdomains like hypo.thetical.net), aparture.net (not to be confused with aperture, but a parenthetical departure), and other plays on the blog name. But I wanted something simple and focused, so this domain was the best fit. At first I hesitated about the .blog TLD⁴, but I think it sets the intention: I wish to continue blogging.

• I tweaked the theme to better suit the new duotone colors... and then I continued tweaking and now the theme looks nothing like it did before. I didn't start out with a direction in mind and now ended up somewhere entirely unexpected.²

• Are CSS-based 88x31 buttons a thing? Just asking because I made one.

• Started updating my absolute links to relative links. Ehh.