i can blame the new year for this

i always take on too many projects that don't end up sticking. 

archiving

last year i decided i wanted to get more into music so i made an aoty account to document all the music i like and listen to and all the concerts i go to. i try to use my time at work to check out albums im interested in hearing while i do data entry instead of watching youtube im only half interested in in the background. 

in december i got a planner and 2 calendars - one for home and one for work. i havent quite figured out a system for each, and not sure if ill keep up with it. i thought it may come in handy with working on my book and new responsibilities to keep up with at my day job. 

in january i got a letterboxd and logged every movie i could think of that ive seen. i want to get more into movies. im still thinking of movies and opening the app to document my arbitrary feeling about it, whether its something i watched years ago or weeks ago. i follow 3 people on there - aj, who is a longtime user of the app and movie buff, aaron who told me he may or may not start using it (so far he's only documented his watch of venom) and charli xcx.

i started using a storygraph account because i saw my friend maggie used it and it gave stats about your reading at the end of the year a la spotify wrapped. i want to get more into reading. so far ive read 4 books.

i love to archive all the media i experience. i blame it on my artistic inclinations, neurodivergence, and intense fear of memory loss. 

yearning

i long for the old internet - an internet closer to what i remember and an internet i've never experienced firsthand, only seen represented. ben and i always joke that i was an "indoor kid" - instead of playing outside, i spent my summer days in my air conditioned house writing, drawing, surfing the web, listening to music and playing sims. my memories of media and technology from then are colored by nostalgia, sure. but they're also correct - the internet used to be better. never perfect - god, no, not at all. but i feel strongly that the internet experience of the 2000s and even the 2010s is objectively better than the digital landscape of 2025.

i am disturbed by the nazi corpos that control so much of the modern internet, which has become increasingly part of the "real world" with the accessibility (and addictive nature) of smartphones. i feel angry and sick when i think of how much control tech billionaires have in our society - which was made extremely evident with the recent inauguration. i feel equal parts boomer "back in my day" and leftist conspiracy brained when i think about this stuff - but i hope to god that we can rip ourselves away collectively from platforms that contribute so heavily to the world's misery.

nostalgia for the early internet gives me hope. it gives me hope that platforms like this are being created by young people who identify there is something deeply important about creativity and pursuit of hobby, connection, art, etc. absent of capital gain. 

i'm losing my train of thought while i'm writing this at work - i'm sure i could go on and on and on. i really want to close my facebook and instagram accounts as soon as i can bring myself to. it makes me feel pathetic to write that - "as soon as i can bring myself to" - but as much as i hate the control that these websites have over myself and others, i have been on facebook since 2009 and there are real sentimental human memories there. there's an archive of a teenage soul on there. it's hard to just let that go.

i can blame the new year for this

i love the new year - the sense of renewal it brings. that being said, i always find myself taking on too much in the new year - all of these silent resolutions for self improvement. "i won't make any resolutions this year" is a trap, because i'll end up just saying "i'll be better in general - in every single aspect of my life, i will improve myself" rather than making achievable goals. 

i say all this to say - i'm not sure what will stick this year. if i'll watch more "good movies," read more books, keep going to the gym, keep up with a blog like this, learn to code so i can make a cool neocities site. 

i'm not sure how to end this. i've been listening to the new fka twigs album that dropped today on repeat - it's great. ben & i have been watching the animated superman show - it's better than expected. tonight i'll hang out with sammi & camilo and tomorrow i'll hang out with aaron & klee and meet their new "foster" cat. i will, hopefully, god willing, work on my book for a bit today. i need to keep in mind that i have actually enjoyed thumbnailing so far and the book will only keep shaping into something im more proud of the more i chip away at it. 

until next time ^^v