7/27/2026 Your Cooperation is Mandatory

It's no secret that I really dislike working overtime. Even to the point of looking for side hustles instead of just working more hours at my regular job. Side hustles that wouldn't even come close to making my time and a half rate. So why?

I don't think it's a fear of running out of work to do, as I was the same way in all of my service jobs where the work is effectively never done. It seems that no matter what job I'm doing or how much I enjoy it I am always eager to drop it and exit stage left at the first acceptable opportunity. Though now that I think about it this kind of applies to work in general, it's just more frowned upon to just leave early everyday.

Maybe it's not an overtime thing, more only wanting to work as many hours as are needed to survive. It's one thing that has always differentiated me from my partner is I've never really worked a job that I enjoyed more than being almost anywhere else. Work is a slog that allows me to feed myself and have nice things, but it is only that. A means to an end. I don't feel immense pride at the little metal bits I manufacture most of the time, and when I do it's more showing off my skill than thinking what I make has actual value.

Working conditions are objectively better than fifty years ago, like I don't think that is really controversial. What one actually receives in exchange for one's labor has stagnated though. Furthermore, the internet has allowed everyone to have a glimpse at every bad thing happening everywhere. This is a massive double-edged sword as it brings to light abuses that would've never been widely known or talked about but it also causes us to have really negative opinions about the world in general and our place in it. Justified opinions to be sure, and one would think we would use this information to make changes that would make the world a better place... I don't think I need to elaborate how that's going.

I don't blame young folks for just not wanting to work at all, and I don't really begrudge the regular overtimers either. They are just doing what they think is best within the system. What I don't care for is when the overtimers act like it's some act of moral superiority, which happens surprisingly often in blue collar work. Yeah bro, good for you, you get to see your kids and wife less. Congrats.

Anyway this has been a long ramble I hate mandatory overtime the end.

7/22/2026: Sticktoitiveness, or lack thereof

I have always had trouble keeping habits. The only ones I have ever been able to maintain have been strictly required to keep living to the standard for which I've become accustomed. So...work, basically. And I'm not even great at that. I mean, I'm not the worst employee but I do call off a decent amount more than my colleagues. Then again, when one works in such a... let's say conservative career one tends to encounter a lot of folks whose pride is tied into never calling off work for any reason. Yay capitalism.

Anyway, I've never really had a problem holding down a job but consistently being able to do anything outside that has always been an uphill battle. And when I say anything, I do mean *anything*. Brushing teeth, cooking dinner, cleaning, laundry. The best I can hold on for is a couple of weeks before I revert to the mean and continue my chaotic lifestyle. Could it be that I can really only have one habit in my life? And that living under capital necessitates that habit be going to work and making money? It really bums me out.

There are so many things that I even get excited about starting! Things that could help with my transition and just lead a better life, but here I am falling off the wagon at the first opportunity to do so. It's really demoralizing. Even updating this website was intended to be a regular thing but now is more a when-I-remember thing.

7/12/2026: Getting Fursonal

Jess and I went to Anthrocon, the largest furry convention in the world. It's held every fourth of july weekend in Pittsburgh---an unexpected choice to be sure. I guess the midwest is just a hotspot for the furrier folks. Not that there weren't people from everywhere visiting. Jess and I saw license plates from everywhere when we were looking for parking.

Being not really furries ourselves, we decided to just spend one day there and Friday seemed as good a day as any. It was ridiculously hot(They would have to cancel the parade on Sunday) but at least we didn't have to park a ridiculous distance from the convention center. Signage inside was a little confusing, but after finally making our way into the vendor area we managed to snag some cool items. Some wall art, naturally, and a pair of cute ears for each of us to help blend in.

I realized I had never actually seen a fursuit in person and it was actually more impactful than I expected. The designs were varied and quality actually seemed very high. I especially liked the Protogens, which are a race of cyborgs with cute LED visors. Jess on the other hand was enamored with the more realistic costumes, and we went to a meetup of such to people watch.

Overall, despite not having any plan(we missed several panels due to misjudging the amount of time we would need to show up in advance) we really had a good time. So good that we are already planning on going next year and trying to put a bigger group together.

For myself, I'm planning on putting together a protogen costume. Guess whatever all those folks have is contagious.

Greetings from the con floor!

6/23/2026: The IT Thing

Putting together this website was a bit more complicated than imagined. I've not had a personal site since geocities or maybe freewebs back in the early 2000s. My first was really just a bunch of Pokemon gifs and tinny final fantasy 8 midi playing in the background. It really was a different era online, and I'd say unequivocally a better one. 'Course getting old puts a rose-tinted filter on things but Google search used to WORK. There were also viruses everywhere, and I don't know if there are less now or I've just learned how to avoid them. I did download some sketchy stuff.

At least one of my best friends is wise in the ways of coding and was able to give me enough of a crash course that I could be off and running. True tech wizard status. He tried to get me to try a game called The Farmer Was Replaced but beyond the first couple of code exercises even Python made my brain scrunch the wrong way. Maybe using GitHub as a host isn't ideal but for this single page it should be more than sufficient.

The thing to wonder really is will I be able to maintain regular updates. I have this problem with being creative--- it's not that I can't per se, but my mind simply rebels any time I try to

Maybe it's fear of others laughing at my creations. I do better when things are anonymized, like when I was engaging in an unhealthy amount of FFXIV roleplay. I mean that was practically nothing but creativity, but at least I had a layer of abstraction obscuring my true self.

Growing Older

My birthday always feel like a strange holiday. I've always had a fear of growing older that has only gotten more acute at the years go on. I suppose this is a normal feeling for some people---though it's not so much a fear of death from growing old as a fear of becoming less how I see myself in my head. It's a dysphoria thing, I guess. At least there's cake.