This is one of my favourite buildings in York. The Stonebow Telephone Exchange.

Photo taken with an Olympus 45mm 1.8 on an Olympus E-M5 Mark III.

It’s frustrating messaing me. It’s frustrating reading messages from me. I’m frustrated when im writing messages. I’d really like to fix this.

Sit down, and let me bring you in on the feeling. A message thread might look like this:

Andy: Have you seen what valve just posted?

Dan: I cant belive i thought i was giong to be able to afford it.

Dan: * beliebe

Dan: * believe * going

Okay It’s not that bad. There was a lot of melodrama for a fairly standard occurance, but this is endemic in my chat history. If you were to scroll back through my messages you’d feel your blood pressure rising.

Now it could look a little different. A friend could be lucky and open the message late enough that I’ve carefully edited the original to remove the errors. No harm, no fowl foul. But there is a guarantee that at least one member of the chat found the process less than ideal.

I considered why i do this. Why my thumb, finger, or supplementary digit makes a sprint for the send key as soon as the last letter is type, I jotted down a few theories in a notepad.

1. I type how I talk. I’m just so frenetic, fast paced, my brain goes too fast for my own good and the mental health of those around me.

2. I want to project the image that item 1 is true.

3. I’m lazy.

4. A heady mix of the above, though noticeably lacking in the flavour of 1.

Sadly upon reflection of the contents of the “Why do I do this to myself” note, I think 4 is probably correct. At least in the majority. There is some long standing muscle memory in there too, giving everything the occasional swift kick in the side, but its no great mystery. Though, at the bottom of the note, there are some doodles and lovecraftian scribblings that may prove mildly interesting. I think we will be exploring them in a part 2.

I’ve been trying to take more “street” photography. Really what I mean is that I’ve been trying to be better at finding interesting things to photograph in places I’d usually deem uninteresting.

Taking a detailed, vibrant picture of a tiny bug and blowing it up huge gets you some interest for free. It feels like cheating.

Photo taken with an Olympus 45mm 1.8 on an Olympus E-M5 Mark III.

I adore taking photos of bugs. I don’t know if its because I’m not great at taking photos of the standard kind of scene you see in photography portfolios, or if I genuinely find bugs more interesting. My partner can point the camera at a landscape or city scene and manage to capture something far more than just a photograph. I’m incredibly proud, and just a little jealous, of that.

I saw this dragonfly land in the garden out of the living room window and rushed outside (to a safe distance of course) before slowly approaching.

As artistic as the blue, yellow, and white splashes of colour, they are actually just three plastic rubble containers that happened to be on the patio. In a large pile of crap waiting to go to the tip.

Photo taken with an Olympus 12-45 F4 PRO on an Olympus E-M5 Mark III.

Its been a few days and as with any new and exiting project if I don’t remind myself I enjoy it, it’ll disappear from my memory almost immediately. So, a Monday post.

I’ve been doing a better job of maintaining a routine recently. Simple things like tidying up before bed or checking my email in the morning. They feel (and are) really small, so if you skip one it doesn’t seem like you’re doing anything bad. But much like rememebering the projects or hobbies, a few skips and its to my brain its like it practically never happened.

Its one of the aims of this blog, as I think i said in the first post. Im hoping that organising my thoughts a little more in text might organise them a little more in neuron form.

Here’s a few little notes on some things for today:

Emacs

Like seeminly so many maintainers of small blogs, its written and posted from Emacs! I can’t remember exactly why I switched to emacs as my main editor, but knowing myself it was an attempt to be a little contrarian and not use what everyone else was using at work.

Little did i know, but emacs would perfectly mesh with my absolutely endless desire to tinker, and would of course constantly leave me with a broken editor to fix after too much fiddling.

I’ll probably post a little bit about config changes, but I am a complete neophyte compared to most.

Photography

A friend has been incredibly kind and lent me their Voightlander film camera to have a play with. I aboslutely adore photography, and used film cameras as a kid, but by the time I could afford to get into the hobby for myself I was wholly digital. I am immediately out of my depth! I think my partner is incredibly glad that for once I came home with a new toy and there isnt a dent in the budget…well until i need to buy film anyway.

I’ve got a lot of things to get back to. I realised a long time ago that I’ve spent far more time watching people take part in my hobbies on YouTube and Reddit than actually taking part in them myself. I don’t think this is a problem unique to me, but I suspect the solution might have to be quite personal.

There was an incredible but brief moment of clarity a few years ago where, while watching MightyCarMods replace the cam cover gasket on a car, I realised I needed to do exactly the same job and could be having the fun they were having. Even though on that occasion I shut the laptop and actually went and did the job, I didn’t manage to hold onto that clarity for very long. Years later I still find myself feeling frustrated with the things I enjoy, anxious, or impatient.

So here I am, trying another experiment. I’m hoping that taking the time a few times a week to write down what I’ve done (probably with a lot of general musings mixed in) might help me slow down and engage with everything a bit more. This isnt written in the hope that anyone will read it, its more that by uploading it somewhere it feels less malleable.

Its a pretty good way of practicing writing too. I feel its a good time, with the rise of so much AI text, to find a voice I’m happy with. I am going to have to work on the overly melancholic tone though, its a bit much.

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to write here yet. I think the process of doing it is more important than the end result.