Honking into the Void, March 2025
Honking into what now?
Welcome to my new old newsletter! I first launched this newsletter on Buttondown in late 2020, and then switched platforms. So if you are all of a sudden hearing from me in this way and don't want to, scroll down to the bottom of this email and click the "unsubscribe" link. No hard feelings.
If you're here because you want to be, this will work the same as always: I'll collect last month's long-form posts from cygnoir.net into an email on the first (or maybe second) day of the month.
I haven't figured out the best way to include my "microposts" in this newsletter, but you can find them here.
On with it, then! I wrote the following posts last month:
2025 Week 8 Notes: Persephone and pouring rain
🗓️ // 17 — 23 February 2025
- 🌧️ Amazing how quickly the weather turned from frigid and snow-locked to 55ºF and flooding.
- 🖥️ This week I didn't do much digitally except switch to the stock Apple Podcasts app. I finally gave up on all of those fancy yet fiddly podcast player apps that never worked right. 2025 is the year of deleting apps that sap my life force.
- 🥘 FunkyPlaid treated me to several food-related birthday gifts this week, including sweet treats from Kyra's Bake Shop and three cookbooks I really wanted.
- 🎲 We played three new games this week: Hues and Cues, The Game, and For the Queen. I enjoyed each of them for completely different reasons.
- 🤔 I'm once again caught between the impulse to share more personal thoughts here and the discomfort of sharing much online anymore. I'm a bit relieved that when I moved this site I had to take down my archive of posts. They used to give me comfort and validation, but now they feel like potential weapons in the hands of strangers.
📸 Photos
This is Wearingeul Persephone, a dark violet with red shimmer. The red glitter symbolizes pomegranate seeds. Apologies for the wonky angle; I was trying to capture the depth of that shimmer. It's a stunning ink. (Another top-notch gift from FunkyPlaid.)
🗒 Writing
- Finishing up that flash fiction story!
- I didn't submit any stories this week.
📚 Reading
- I finished reading "The Mountain in the Sea" by Ray Nayler, a gorgeous and upsetting story about an octopus species that has developed its own language and culture, and how humans reckon with this (in our usual, competitive ways). It's also a fascinating exploration of how artificial intelligence and climate disasters could play out in the not-so-far future.
- I also read "Next-Level Ally: How to Support Your Queer and Transgender Friends" by Eli Sachse, which I recommend as a good starting point for people who want to show up for their friends but don't know how.
- I started reading "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver.
📺 Watching
- FunkyPlaid and I are watching the new seasons of "Severance", "Mythic Quest", and "The White Lotus".
- In between new episodes of those shows, we're starting to watch "The Great British Bake Off" which is every bit as lovely as we've been told.
🎧 Listening
- I created a new music thread, "nostalgia is a toxic impulse" (title thanks to John Hodgman).
- I've started listening to The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott, which has deepened my enjoyment of the show quite a lot.
🔗 Linking
- No, I Will Not Welcome Ex-MAGA to the Resistance by Rebecca Watson
- The Department of Veterans Affairs Gets Well and Truly Fucked by Cherie Priest
- Safety, Security, and Digital Preparedness for a Second Trump Administration by Indivisible
- My Open Letter to Elon Musk by Marc Elias
- No One Knows How This Will End (But I Do Not Think It Will End Well for Them) by Rebecca Solnit
2025 Week 7 Notes: Take small steps
🗓️ // 10 — 16 February 2025
- ❄️ Winter finally arrived in earnest, and closed much of the metro area on Thursday and Friday. FunkyPlaid and I took a snowy walk late at night on Thursday and reveled in the crunch of iced-over snow.
- 🖥️ I did it! I organized all my digital files and notes with the Johnny Decimal system. It took several hours but I'm proud of finally getting that organized.
- 🥘 Still enjoying the "salad bar" setup for our daily lunches. We do a bunch of meal prep on Sunday night, and then have tasty salads for lunch all week.
- 🔥 I saved my energy for the fight, and I resisted despair. I hope you can do the same. It's okay if you feel like you can't right now. Just know that you aren't alone.
📸 Photos
Another snap from the garden walk last week, this one of a Paperbush flower just beginning to bloom.
🗒 Writing
- Still working on a new flash fiction story. Amazing how much works goes into such a short thing.
- I didn't submit any stories this week.
📚 Reading
- I finished reading "This Is How You Lose the Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
- I re-started reading "The Mountain in the Sea" by Ray Nayler.
📺 Watching
- FunkyPlaid and I are watching the new seasons of "Severance", "Mythic Quest", and "The White Lotus".
🎧 Listening
- I recently discovered ScrobbleRadio and I'm using it to listen to (and scrobble) music when I can't decide what to listen to, which is almost always.
🔗 Linking
- The Hallucinatory Thoughts of the Dying Mind by Michael Erard
- A Short and Incomplete Guide for New Activists by Margaret Killjoy
- 5 Years Later: America Looks Back at the Impact of COVID-19 by Alec Tyson, Michael Lipka, and Claudia Deane
- Make life possible by Mandy Brown: "Take small steps. Rather than trying to predict outcomes, aim to test, explore, and improvise. Consider each step or action you take to be a small, brief experiment. Try something, then step back and observe what happens. Then, try again. Remember that many small steps can add up to a great big change given a little time and persistence."
2025 Week 6 Notes: Rodents of Unusual Size
🗓️ // 3 — 9 February 2025
- 🩺 This week has been very health-focused for me. I'm okay, and so very grateful for constant and generous support from FunkyPlaid and my friends and family. And health insurance.
- 🖥️ Unlike last week, I spent very little time online. That's not a bad thing.
- 🥘 This meal prep plan kept us in delicious salads for lunches all week.
📸 Photos
Today I went on a walk with a friend in the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden and we saw the hints of spring approaching: snowdrops, a crocus, winter daphne, Canada geese, bufflehead ducks, and several Rodents of Unusual Size (a/k/a nutria)!
🗒 Writing
- I received one (very kind) rejection for a short story I submitted for a local reading.
- I'm working on a new flash fiction story.
📚 Reading
- I finished reading "How High We Go in the Dark" by Sequoia Nagamatsu. Absolutely gorgeous, and more than a little upsetting to those of us living through the plague. I'd still recommend it.
- I started reading "This Is How You Lose the Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
📺 Watching
- FunkyPlaid and I are watching the new season of "Severance", which so far feels quite different than the first season. I'm adjusting.
🎧 Listening
- I added a Bright Eyes song I'm enjoying to my "now listening" thread.
- I'm still working my way through the Wellness 2.0 series of the Hidden Brain podcast.
🔗 Linking
- Political action guidance for the overwhelmed by Dr. Kimberly Hirsh
- Nurturing Online Communities by Pratik
- you feel like shit, a self-care game
2025 Week 5 Notes: Back in the habit
🗓️ // 27 January — 2 February 2025
I read Jedda's latest week notes and it made me want to restart my own! I love making time on Sundays to revisit and compile what I've done over the past week. But (as is typical with me) I over-engineered a template that then killed my habit. So I asked Jedda if I could borrow her week notes structure to see if I can make it work for me. Here we go!
- 🖥️ I spent most of my free time this week moving cygnoir.net to its new home on omg.lol. I am waiting to reinstate 27 years of archives, so it will be very empty around here for a while. I don't think that's entirely a bad thing.
- 📓 I hit another "aaah I have too many journals and planners!" moment. After talking it through with a friend, I think I have a solution to simplify.
- 🚫 I'm practicing holding the boundary between work and not-work.
- 🥘 Any tips for improving my meal-planning skills? I can do it for a week and then immediately fail to do it the next week. I use Paprika to manage recipes and grocery lists, but what I would love is an app that helps me plan meals from my pantry.
📸 Photos
Only one photo I care to share this week, and of course it's a snap of Criminy.
🗒 Writing
The aforementioned migration of this site put a damper on my already-flaccid posting schedule. I hope to start posting more soon, if only these weekly notes. But I've been keeping up with the daily brain-dump of morning pages (which sometimes become evening pages, depending on the prior night's bout of revenge bedtime procrastination), which helps me clear the decks for creative writing sessions.
📚 Reading
- I finished reading "The Mercy of Gods" by James S.A. Corey. It started out slow for me, but I stuck with it because FunkyPlaid liked it so much, and I'm glad I did.
- I'm over halfway through "How High We Go in the Dark" by Sequoia Nagamatsu.
📺 Watching
- FunkyPlaid and I are rewatching the first season of "Severance" before watching the latest season. I was a little surprised by how much more I'm enjoying it the second time around!
🎧 Listening
- On the way to work one day I had an overwhelming desire to listen to Depeche Mode. So I did. The end.
- I started a "now listening" thread for songs I'm listening to this year.
- The Hidden Brain podcast's Wellness 2.0 series is excellent, especially the episode on leadership in crucial moments, "Rising to the Occasion".
🔗 Linking
- 100 ways to share your work + life that aren't social media by Dr. Amelia Hruby
- I want you to do these four things right now by Ben Werdmuller
- The Network State Coup is Happening Right Now by Gil Duran
- Toward a more diverse social web by Adam Newbold
Read these posts and more on cygnoir.net.