Back in August I started working on the Ruby track on Exercism.io. I’ve had mixed success with structured code learning – I did the JS track on Codecademy two years ago, which worked fairly well, but I lose interest in “build a toy application” projects almost instantly. When I was working in Support at New Relic, […]
Category Archives: Personal
It’s Thanksgiving, so it’s a great time to write about depression!
On the face of it, Thanksgiving is a time for optimism and happiness, so maybe it’s a strange time to choose to write about depression again, but it fits pretty well for me. This is a weird time in our nation; I’m not feeling happy and grateful, per se, most of the time. What I […]
Cooking vs cheffing
I’ve been watching a lot of Food Network shows lately because they just showed up on Netflix, and one of the ones I got into was Worst Cooks in America. I had to try it twice because the first episode just seemed too mean, but after a while I figured out that the chefs (Bobby Flay […]
Experts and biases
I wrote a while back about my view of doctors as experts on the health of the body who I trust to investigate it and advise me on it. I’ve been thinking about this lately because I’ve been seeing some doctors about my ankle. I’ve seen a podiatrist after each of my acute injuries, followed […]
Short hair, clear self?
Yesterday I decided to buzz my hair. Everyone was getting a haircut, and I’ve always wanted to buzz my hair just to see what it would be like, but I never had because, like Cognitive Behave Yourself, I have a high forehead (and large ears), and in general I have a small head and larger body […]
Aphasic perception
I have these moments sometimes of incomprehension. They feel like what I imagine a hunter-gatherer, or someone from a very different culture, might experience if dropped into the middle of this one; or perhaps more like aphasia in an adult, a sudden inability to decode symbols that once were meaningful. They happen perhaps when I’m […]
It’s been nailed: the problems with biking in Portland
I haven’t written anything about advocacy in nearly a year, because I stopped having anything very useful to say, and also I nearly stopped riding my bike. And then I saw that Liz had nailed it, and I felt the need to let everyone know: it has been nailed. She speaketh the truth, and she […]
I am not broken; I choose love
This piece was written originally last year in my private journal, and it’s much more personal about my love life than I usually share publicly, although details that originally referred to specific relationships have been depersonalized to maintain privacy. I share it in hopes that it helps me continue to center on what I believe […]
Experts and empathy
I recently had a chance to interact with the healthcare system in a way other than routine preventive care or straightforward injury, and it was an interesting reminder about how people outside a system may relate to experts. I think of doctors as experts on the health system of my body, people I consult about what […]
Some year, huh?
The only statement I can make about 2014 that I suspect most people would agree with is: that was some year, huh? The best things that happened in 2014 for me were financial and professional: I got a new job that came with a shit-ton of new fascinating problems to solve, a pretty nice pay […]