recently i wrote a stylesheet for the browser extension stylus to hide the stats underneath the header on neocities profiles, as well as the follower/following list in the sidebar. after the implosion of federiefederi i've been reflecting a little on why i've been moving away from #socialmedia and what i want to get out of neocities. i've been trying to break out of the mindset i tend to have on other sites of obsessively checking my activity, how many likes my posts get, who does or doesn't follow me, who's popular and who isn't, etc that's been instilled in me from spending more than half my life online. in general i like the neocities activity feed and seeing people's new pages and updates, and i don't find that that affects my brain negatively, but i feel like the visible follower and view count does. so i removed it. i know it doesn't affect other people's ability to see how many people follow me or who i follow but that doesn't bother me.

i #cross-stitched a little this weekend too. according to pattern keeper i'm now over 10% done with this project 🥳 i bought this pattern last july so at this rate i think i'll be done in 7 years? i randomly saw it on etsy one day and thought it was SO cute i just bought it – even though i'm not a pokemon fan lmao. luckily one of my besties is a big pokemon fan so i can give it to him... if i ever finish it. maybe i should work a liiiiittle harder and try to finish it before he graduates dental school... maybe.

i've now been on neocities for one month now! i think i've managed to get a lot done in one month. although i've spent most of that time thinking of what i want my site to look like and then coding it. i was inspired to join neocities because i just feel like i haven't been having fun on #socialmedia recently, and i thought i'd see if making my own website would be a more fulfilling use of my internet time. i've actually been trying to decrease the amount of time i spend online, which probably sounds stupid since i have to code this site from scratch, but it's actually been a really fun creative outlet. i like to think that if i spend more of my internet time on more fulfilling projects i'll spend less time on less fulfilling (but more instantly gratifying) activities like scrolling through social media.

this week i #read moshi moshi by banana yoshimoto. the only other book of hers i've read is the premonition which i didn't really like, although i liked the writing style. i don't know how to describe why i didn't like it other than it was just weird. usually i like that in a book but when i was reading that book i was like "wtf is wrong with these people" in a 🤨 way. like the plot... idk. vibes were off. luckily moshi moshi gives "wtf is wrong with these people" in a much more enjoyable way. i loved the relationship between the mother and the daughter in this book. i feel like i'm sort of going through the same thing in my life, with the whole learning about your parents as adults and humans now that they don't really need to parent you anymore and how your relationships with them change because of that. i also loved the vivid description of the main characters' life and sense of community living in shimokitazawa. maybe it's just because i live in suburban america but living in a diverse urban area and being able to walk or take a taxi to all the cool places they go in the book sounds like a dream. here's a quote i really like that i think captures central themes of the healing power of food and community when you're grieving well in a few sentences:

We'd been carrying around a sense of someone missing—someone we might be able to find if only we knew where to go, then things might become clear.

We didn't cry then and there in the bistro, but the feeling of the cells in our bodies welcoming the sudden influx of nutrients was as refreshing as crying in a speeding car with the windows rolled down, letting tears fly. Like finally sitting yourself down at your destination at the end of an exhausting journey.

Michiyo-san didn't know what we were going through, nor did she console us directly. All she did was put herself into her food and offer it to us. That was obvious in everything about the restaurant—everything there was as real and as certain as anything could be.

Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto

welcome to my microblog! i wanted a place on my website where i could write about whatever i felt like, whenever i wanted, without feeling like i need to build a dedicated page around said topic. when i was thinking about how i want to present my thoughts, i went looking at how other people keep blogs on their neocities. i like status.cafe as a sort of twitter-like alternative for short thoughts, but i wanted to be able to write longer pieces plus sort posts by tags. i also felt like a more traditional blog-like framework such as zonelots would put too much pressure on me to write long posts if i only want to write a couple sentences. i guess i was looking for a more tumblr-like alternative that can balance the two but without all the noise that a #socialmedia platform brings. when i stumbled upon microblog.py it seemed like the perfect fit for my use case. for awhile now i've wanted to blog more about my hobbies and interests because i like looking back at my previous thoughts on what i've played, read, etc but trying to write for an audience felt paralyzing to me, and when i do end up sharing stuff online it's like i could feel my brain obsessing over views and likes and replies even when i knew i wasn't sharing stuff for engagement. yet it felt weird to write fandom related stuff in obsidian next to my personal notes about thai grammar and bayesian analysis and whatnot. like i love using obsidian to write notes about things i'm trying to learn, but i didn't really want to mix in the notes i write more like a diary entry to just rant or rave about stuff. i do sometimes write about it in physical journals, but i also like being able to search for things easily and embed digital content like screenshots. i think the appeal of having your own site to write about these kinds of things is that strangers can still read it, think about it, and interact with you if they really want to, but unlike social media platforms it's not like it'll appear on their feed or dashboard, inviting them to tell you your opinions are wrong if they feel like it intrudes upon their space. i'm also just not a social person in general despite enjoying reading other people's blogs and opinions, so not feeling like i must respond to every single rando who finds my posts makes me feel more comfortable writing more openly. it'll probably be a couple days between writing this and publishing it on my website since i still have to write the css and make sure everything works, but i look forward to trying out this format of journaling.