Uncertain forward progress.

I checked in quietly here in late August, when I’d pulled back further from social media and pruned notifications. I started turning outward and gaining a sense of traction thanks to therapy and improv: therapy digging into my head to identify patterns and paths and obstacles, improv practicing with others pushing against ego and fear.

Lots of laughing in both, which is important.

This has snowballed in a good way, despite the existential unease I greet daily and set aside. Some people are great at compartmentalizing, but I’m the other kind of person.

The U.S. presidential election didn’t go how I hoped, and I’m afraid of what that means for all of us. I had years of practice reading the news and trying not to get sucked into a vortex of despair, and I’m once again practicing the art of taking in current events without wallowing in them.

I still don’t have a strong sense of direction for my career, and the best I can do is be calm and patient about it. I’d like to support good things in the world and I need to pay for stuff, and the most lucrative jobs seem concentrated around AI and VC investment I struggle to get excited about. Most applications I’ve submitted cold have been swiftly declined, which would bother me more if I wasn’t confident about what I do well and aware that I’m never the candidate perfectly optimized for a clear and specific role. I’m fortunate to be working for a few old clients and agencies, which has been enough to get by.

I react to so much in my head, pushing myself toward action is helpful. Either convert angst into forward motion, or find stillness and try again.

Extracurricular efforts are thriving and cheerful, which I’m happy to report.

I’ve published more unguarded thoughts on my other blog, sometimes pushing myself narrowly past a point of fear about releasing them into the world. That’s led to surprising conversations with people who have apparently been reading, which makes me want to do it more.

I’ve let good weird energy lead various choices instead of letting the critic stop me and that’s led to more good things.

I’ve made great friends through improv, and for the first time since college I have more days with in-person activity than without. I never stopped being an introvert so I have to be careful not to overload my schedule and leave room for down time, but all this time connecting and playing and walking and getting coffee or drinks has been good for the soul.

I’ve been going to see standup at open mic events and watching friends work on their first sets.

I went to a civic resilience meeting at the local library, just before the election, and realized there are people around me that also value civility and disagreement and discussion. I’d like to figure out how to do more with that. There’s overlapping territory with comedy that seems important.

I joined a screenwriting class where I’ve been working on a story and realizing what an elaborate puzzle it is to build characters and scenes and not become too precious about something that finally works because there’s always a way to make it better.

I finished physical therapy for a tiny hand injury and made a surprise slide deck on 3D printing basics after previous conversations about strength-building tools and prosthetic problem-solving. That led to an experiment modeling and printing widgets to see if there are things I could actually help with instead of just printing refrigerator penis magnets and brackets for extremely specific things. I’d be overjoyed to help someone adjusting to new physical life challenges with more convenience and confidence. (If that’s you reading somehow, please consider introducing yourself because I’d love to try making you things!)

On the technical front, I upgraded this site to Astro 5 and Tailwind 4—the latter of which I found refreshing once I got a handle on the configuration shift. I’ve deliberately exposed some formerly-shy pages and linked to the side blog, and added “hire me” links so you can efficiently get from my post about flopping penises to trusting me in a business context.

I’ve been making modest updates to Feed Canary to make it more resilient, and building another Laravel app to scrape and present central Oregon comedy shows in a way that makes them easier to find and follow.

I’ve consolidated the number of servers I have to favor fewer and more powerful ones—since I’m using Coolify (Docker) now and a lot of tiny projects are basically idling.

I’m doing a lot of different stuff now, fully interested and invested even though I have no idea where any of it goes. I should be more concerned about my career trajectory and the state of the world, but any day where I’ve chosen to learn, connect, and create with excitement more than fear—that’s a good day.

I’ll take as many good days as I can get.