It is now, officially, my faaaaavourite time of year: 🍂 A U T U M N. 🍂

I love autumn most because the weather cools off enough for me to open the windows during the day, which is particularly great when it’s raining (but not yet terribly cold) and I can curl up with a blanket and tea and enjoy my day in peaceful solitude. The hours of daylight become far more reasonable—I simply do not approve of sunrise at 6am nor sunset at 9pm, that’s too much daytime. There’s the sweaters and jackets and boots and long socks and just getting to exist comfortably in the world. And the abundance of autumn activities… pumpkin patches and spooky vendor markets and cider and Halloween parties. It’s a well-known fact that the spookiest moons happen this time of year, too.

October is not far off now and I am knee-deep in plans to travel abroad for the first time in decades. I’ll be heading to Madrid, Spain(!) for a week in mid-October—piggybacking on my boyfriend’s work trip—and I’m both excited and apprehensive… the latter because I’ll be spending a lot of time navigating my way around the city solo and I uh, I don’t really speak Spanish. 😅 I mean, who remembers anything from those two years of required foreign language from high school? Not me! Fortunately, other countries are smarter than the U.S. and are responsibly bilingual. Most of my travel anxiety is abated by the fact that I’ll be in Spain, wherein I will be spending the bulk of my solo time in museums and not talking to people anyway. Departure is… good lord, it’s two weeks away. I’m not panicking, you’re panicking.

For now, though, I am indeed tucked under a blanket, windows open, steaming mug of coffee at my side. Dog in my lap, also beblanketed. All is as it should be.

☑️ Done and Done - Oktoberfested! 🍻 Got 2 out of 4 vaccine updates. Ran some boring errands. Hit up a “water park” (aka “fountain”) with Irma. Movied, concerted, vegged, plotted. Did a lot of at-home PT because my body is stressed and my joints/muscles are ANGY.

📋 Coming up - Vaccine 2 of 2 (seasonal boosters edition). Webinar on Q4 marketing for sex workers. Moar concert! Maybe a dance night? Maybe.

Entering into the last quarter of the year definitely puts me in a retrospective mode. Not just about the past year, but the years before it too; the looming inevitability of yet another birthday early in the year and the life that’s led up to it. Not that I’m down on myself about anything, but one does tend to ruminate as the days grow darker.

I am actually, in certain regards, pretty happy with the life I get to have now. It could always be worse! Has been worse. But progress is made, in the time I have to make it. Some things simply can’t be rushed. With the way my year has gone, the concept of “capacity” has been heavy on my mind. It’s very frustrating to feel so limited in a world where people expect their own sense of normal to be your normal, too. I have certainly never felt myself aligned with any concept of normalcy anyway, though I may play the part from time to time (we do live in a society).

And, you know, nobody likes admitting that they’re wrong, which is silly I think because, realistically, nobody can be right all the time. I’ve been wrong about a lot of things, made some wrong choices along the way. Who hasn’t! And I’m actually fine with that. If I did everything right, what would I have learned? Would I have learned my own boundaries, or how to respect the boundaries of others? Would I have learned humility, or respect for others? My standards would be weighted in favour of myself and my own experience, and my compassion would be minimal. Which seems less than ideal, imo. Hardship is a valuable lesson few are willing to speak on.

So yeah, I was wrong about this person or that choice or wrong about how I answered that question, et cetera et cetera. I get called “rigid” a lot and I know a lot of that comes from being autistic but also, I think a lot of it comes from having made a lot of mistakes, and still being here, thus knowing what is wrong for me. Okay yes I do agree, I have some pretty rigid ideas about what I want to experience in my life, how I want things to go, but it’s because I know with such certainty what I do not want, what is not right for me. I’ve compromised enough of myself for the comfort of others and that, too, was wrong; but I have the time now, the capacity, the drive to make that right.

Making the right choices isn’t inherently about being correct in the grand scheme of the universe. It’s simply about honoring oneself, one’s own experiences and needs and limitations, and moving forward from there. And maybe, in time, with a different perspective or different understanding of the world at large, those choices too will be wrong. But they were right in the moment, and there’s a certain strength in later acknowledging that that’s no longer true. It’s a blessing, to grow into a new perspective.

It may be autumn now, but growth can happen in any season, you just have to know what’s needed to facilitate it.

🎬 Watching - Got around to seeing the new Resident Evil (2026) movie this week, and it was loads of fun. Was not what I was expecting, based on past RE movies and adaptations of horror survival video games in general! I never played any of the RE series (I was/am a Silent Hill girlie) but still, solid popcorn flick.

📺 Watching - I finished the Reacher-spinoff series Neagley this past week, and… eh. It was fine. It was good. I think they tried a little too hard to grow the character and the team roster too quickly, and the show kind of suffered from an abundance of lore. And also some questionable CGI fx. But I like the character a lot and if they make another season I’ll watch it.

🎵 Listening - This past week’s concert was Author & Punisher touring his recent album Nocturnal Birding, which was interesting on multiple fronts. Namely because it was the first time I’ve seen him perform with another musician on the stage, a guitarist; usually it’s just Tristan and his machines. But it was good! The guitarist didn’t really detract, just augmented. Also an interesting show because one guy was insistent about starting a mosh pit and crowd killing is kind of not the vibe at most venues in Portland. Still, it is always a treat to see Author & Punisher live (I think this was my 4th or 5th time!). Further listening: This 2025 interview about his process, the new album, and his work with immigrant populations.

💾 This past week, Internet person and AI-hater Ed Zitron posted up a really good piece about how AI companies are buying gear for their machines before the data centers are even built, let alone under construction. Which means all those graphics cards and chips and whatnot are sitting in storage, or sold years in advance before they’re even manufactured, which is a LARGE part of why consumer market prices are Super Crazy rn. Ugh! Why! (Spoilers: it’s greed.) Not only is this piece good, but it’s incredibly thorough and quite lengthy so, buckle up. (source: Ed Zitron on bsky)

🧑‍🎨 I also really enjoyed this article on the death of Artist Alley(?). As someone who was pretty deep in the admin side of comiccon-/comic fest-type events back around 2010 (and am still pretty buddy buddy with a lot of creators and artists) it’s been truly disheartening to watch corporate organizers really put the “con” in “comiccon,” squeezing out the little guy in favor of more celebrity photo ops and capstone brands. (source: comic creator and author Masha Zhdanova on bsky)

📐 As the piece above discusses, part of what made the original artist alleys special was the very DIY vibe of what was on offer. But now as that gets pushed out, we are coming up with terms like “Skill Nostalgia” i.e. The radical reasons why you dream of making things by hand. Though, I think we are also seeing a Skill Renaissance, in response to things like mass production, brands as personal identity, and AI slop (to tie this back into Ed’s piece), and sort of as a lingering side effect of the Covid lockdown era of people having free time.

🗯️ But then also, there’s this interview with curmudgeonly wizard Alan Moore about how nostalgia is an illness, and its presence in media is a tool of fascism and overall an avoidance of reality (he’s… not wrong?). Idk why this article is recirculating but it ties in well here.

🤔 And now, a small vent: Listen, yes I did ask for your opinion and it’s fine that you think that/had that experience and/or interpretation of this thing we are discussing, but wtf.

Technically autumn but these few weeks are always such a reasonable mix of summer weather blending into rainy days. There’s still some beautiful sunny afternoons out there, and I’m trying to make the most of them. But then, one of the windows in my apartment broke as of this morning (can’t open it!), and who knows how long that’ll take to get fixed, so. I’m making the most of it with 2/3 the capacity for fresh air.

Hey, 2/3 the capacity is still better than half? May we all experience more than half our operational capacity, and not less than, if such must be limited. Have a good week. And if you’ve ever been to Madrid, tell me your secrets (correct opinions only, thx).

xox,