A while back I came across AJ Hawkins on TikTok. I really enjoyed how she talked about accessibility and community care in the context of the Kalma shop they opened in Port Townsend, WA. The staff wears masks, they purify the air, they invite/encourage guests to mask, and they provide free masks at the entrance. They were also intentionally making it a third space with community gatherings. I really like their Values page and recommend reading it in full. A good summary, in part: > “WE ARE BUILDING A MORE CARING WORLD. We pursue equality by pursuing equal access to joy. Equal access to joy requires equal access to safety, community, opportunity, play, creativity, expression, self-determination, and the natural world.” I was reminded of this today when another of her videos came across my feed. She talked about using affirmative language for our values since it communicates better who we are and can provide a roadmap for what living out those values looks like. A quote from it that is an evergreen reminder for me: > “My husband recently reminded me of the quote, ‘Hating my neighbor's oppressor is not the same thing as loving my neighbor.’ I wonder what our protest looks like when it’s no longer rooted in a hatred for the way that things are, but in a love for the way that things could be.”

Heretic is a non-profit coffee shop & roastery located in the heart of SE Portland.

I’ve been enjoying @doodlesbycharlie_ drawings on Instagram for a while, described as “turning disabled grief into comics.” Such cute drawings and a lot of relatable feelings portrayed in them. I loved that they created a set of prompts for a creative challenge this month, #MaskUpTober: > Turn your pandemic feelings into art! Any format is welcome. Use #MaskUpTober hashtag & tag @doodlesbycharlie_ > > Week 1: Oct 4–10: Zoinks! vampire, scare, nightmare, trick > > Week 2: Oct 11–17: In the Woods. fog, wander, moon, tree, lost > > Week 3: Oct 18–24: Mystery World. illusion, hidden, portal, dreams > > Week 4: Oct 25–31: Casting Spells. magic, wish, glow, mirror, float > > — original Instagram post Also from the caption: “...this is low pressure. any medium is welcome. doodles, song, voice, poetry, writing, makeup, memes, photos, collage, scribbles on a napkin! only rule is to not use AI.” I didn’t think I would participate myself, but the mood just struck me. The first prompt reminded me of Scooby Doo and the modified phrase popped to mind “...and I would have got away with it if it wasn’t for you pesky _maskers_ ” and the idea came together. I pulled up an image of the scene, did a little sketching, and _voila_ : “...and I would have got away with it if it wasn’t for you pesky _maskers_ ” (yeah, I know, it’s not the scene that goes with the quote. ✨c r e a t i v i t y✨) Hi, recovering perfectionist here and I often feel self-conscious about drawing, but I pressed that down and made a mark, as Joe would say.

I was pleasantly surprised when The Echoing Green announced a listening party for a new single. They’re one of my all-time favorites. They’re independent these days and it is a side gig, so new tracks are less frequent and always a treat. “I Know Right” is some really catchy synthpop and you can listen above or at the Bandcamp link. It has some of the vibe from The Winter of Our Discontent, which I love. That lyric is _still_ in my email signature: > “our hearts are burning bright, as we’re lifted out of nowhere. our songs all stay behind to sing the story of our lives” I joined the listening party tonight expecting it to just be a livestream of the song, but Bandcamp also has a chat feature, so it was fun to chat with others. I saw some names I recognized and also unlocked a memory of the echocentral forum (archived) we used to have discussions on in the good ole phpBB forum days. Chrissy joined and said they were starting up a YouTube livestream, so we hopped over there and had a fun hangout for the next hour talking about other songs they’re working on (it sounds like they have a lot!) and talked about what songs they should try to cover. I immediately said “Pink Pony Club” half as a joke, but I do think it could work. We’ve seen metal covers, why not a synthpop cover? They don’t really tour much, but there was talk about maybe doing a livestream concert and they definitely want to do more hangout livestreams like tonight’s, so I’m looking forward to that. The title of this post is the second half of the lyric I used for the last post about the band: “Hope still has a name and it sets us on fire.”

**A short story** You feel the air on your face as you’re rushing to work. It’s your first day and of course you’re running late. You land at the entrance of the large, nondescript building. It does not have many windows. That might be unsettling for some, but you find it kind of a relief. Still, you hope you don’t get stuck in there for long hours every day. You shiver as you remember your previous job. As you approach the door, the RFID scanner beeps. A green light turns on and the door automatically slides open for you. “Whoa, fancy.” The ceilings inside are _so high_. The lighting is better than you expected — at least they’re not using those obnoxious fluorescent lights. You line up behind a few other tall employees at the metal detector, but a moment later you’re ushered around it by one of the agents. “Robin? You don’t need to go through the metal detector. You’re late, by the way. Not a great look on the first day.” You’re led down the hallway until you finally see a door more your size. You slip in quietly and settle in as the presenter continues, “…your spy work will be keeping the country safe. Welcome to the National Security Agency, Avian Division.” _This is my entry for the September IndieWeb blog carnival,Second Person Birds_.

I was reminded of this WordPress issue that has bitten me twice now, so it’s definitely time to document it. **Short version:** If you write a custom WordPress theme or plugin only for your site, you probably want to include `Update URI: false` in the header comment. This stops WordPress from checking for updates against the official directories and potentially overwriting your code. Read more in the official blog post. **Longer version:** When WordPress checks for updates to plugins and themes, it is basically checking the name and the version number against the official directories. If there is a newer version, then it prompts you to install the update. This generally works fine until you consider more generically-named things. For example, years ago for a work client, we set up a member directory plugin that we very aptly named... “member directory.” Later, the client saw there was a new version available so clicked “update” and suddenly the directory stopped working. Yep, the WordPress update system didn’t really have a way to differentiate generically-named plugins. The update process replaced our custom plugin with the one in the official plugin list. We have backups so it was an easy fix, but it was baffling to find out that could even happen. I tracked down a WordPress issue discussing it and chimed in with my +1. Thankfully there was an update in version 5.8, but it still requires developers to opt-out by adding a line to the header comment. We were bitten by this again today with a third-party plugin called “custom post types.” No, not that one. Lessons for custom plugins and themes: * Use `Update URI: false` in the header comment to disable update checks * Optional, but a good practice: use more specific names. Prefixing the name with the client/organization goes a long way to making unique names.

🇪🇨 benji. not the dog.

This week, a conversation with Carl Zimmer about his new book _Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe_. _Air-Borne_ is an epidemiological history of how we think about the air and its relationship to disease. For centuries, fear of airborne miasmas impacted the design of buildings and cities. While the underlying science of miasma theory was completely wrong, the focus on ventilation and clean air was actually ahead of its time. In this conversation Roman and Carl talk through one of the book’s central arguments: that we should treat indoor air like we treat tap water—as a shared resource that requires standards, monitoring, and protection. This shift would represent a fundamental reimagining of how we design and inhabit spaces, and how we think about the air we breathe together. Carl Zimmer, photo credit Minstina Hanscom > Emmett FitzGerald will be interviewing author and 99PI contributor Sam Bloch in San Francisco next week at the Commonwealth Club on Tuesday, July 29th. They’ll be talking all about Sam’s fantastic new book, Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource.

cartoon with two panels. The first one shows a sheriff with a curly mustache, curly cowboy hat, curly eyebrows, and additional shadows that make it 'fancy'; it is titled Sheriff. The second one is the same sheriff, but the mustache is straight also the eyebrows and the cowboy hat; it is titled Sans-Sheriff.

Time has been flying by, as it tends to. I intended to write this life update post back in June, but surprise, you’re getting it in August. (This seems to be a trend.) It’s been a summer of needing to lean on some friends for support. That’s always a good, if sometimes tough, exercise. In May, I was driving to a doctor’s appointment when all of the dashboard lights came on, including the battery light. That’s never a good sign. Turning off my headlights seemed to resolve it for a couple minutes, but then it happened again. The steering also got stiff like I’d lost power steering. Definitely concerning while I was driving on the highway, though thankfully I was close to my exit. I exited and had the quick thought that I should pull over and try to restart before I got to the parking garage. If the battery was dead or something, I didn’t want to be stuck in a parking garage. I pulled over, turned it off, and sure enough, it wouldn’t start again. No engine turnover and just the clicking sound. I was pretty sure the battery was dead or maybe the alternator. I got to use my relatively new AAA membership for the first time. They got there pretty quickly and confirmed it was the alternator. I got it towed to a nearby shop in La Mesa and took a Lyft home. Joe graciously drove me back the next day to pick it up. A couple weeks later I woke up with some pretty bad pain in my ankle when I walked on it. I was pretty sure it was tendinitis. I rested and elevated it, but it didn’t seem to be getting better, so on day three I asked Joe if he’d help me by taking me to urgent care. Urgent care prescribed me some prednisone, stretching exercises, and icing, which all helped a lot. I’ve had a couple reoccurrences since then, but not for long or as intense. The doctor told me doing these stretches daily for just 5 minutes can have a big impact. ## Heartbox 3.0 The appointment I missed was a preliminary to schedule surgery to replace my pacemaker. (Oh yeah, if you’re new around here you might not know I have a pacemaker.) It was replaced in 2014 and was nearing the end of its battery life. Unfortunately, missing the appointment ended up pushing everything back, but I still had plenty of time. It’s a pretty routine, outpatient surgery and I’ve been through it a couple times now, so I wasn’t really concerned about that. I was more concerned about catching COVID or some other airborne virus in the hospital, since unfortunately so few healthcare workers wear respirators these days. I asked Joe if he would drive me and also help advocate for me. Specifically, I wanted to make sure that once I was out of surgery, they put a respirator back on me. I intended to bring it up with the nurses the day of, but I wasn’t sure what type of reception that would receive. I was grateful to have him in my corner. **Aside/rant** It’s baffling to me that every time I go in to my cardiologist, he and most of the nurses are unmasked. (previously) At the preliminary meeting, I brought up that I’d like them to put a respirator mask on me once I was out of surgery. Thankfully he was accommodating and said they could, but then he said some minimizing things that were frustrating. “I actually haven’t seen much of it COVID] lately.” I had to kind of shrug and say that there’s new variants going around (people are calling this one “[razor blade throat”) and I really didn’t want to risk catching it. He followed up asking if I’d had the vaccines. I told him I’ve had every one I was eligible for and am up to date. He affirmed that was good, then added right before he left the room, “I stopped after four... but maybe it’s time to get boosted.” I didn’t even know what to say. Yes, people should get boosted if they can, while we even still have these vaccines. Damn RFK, Jr. (but that’s yet another rant). _Focus, gRegor. Back to the story._ On the day of the surgery, I wore an N95 and brought another couple individually-wrapped masks. I explained to the nurse what I wanted and there was brief confusion where she asked “are you sick now?” I had to explain that I wasn’t and I was being cautious. Thankfully, they were accommodating as well. When they wheeled me into the operating room, the first thing they mentioned was my request. The doctors also seemed confused and asked if I was sick, so I gave the same explanation. 😩 However, it worked out pretty well. As they were getting ready, they suggested they didn’t even have to take the mask off and could put the oxygen on underneath it. So that was awesome and I woke up still wearing the mask, as intended. When they released me, they recommended that I not be alone that afternoon while the sedatives wore off. I wasn’t too concerned about it, but decided to be cautious and took Joe up on his offer to chill on his couch the rest of the day. I appreciated his flexibility since that hadn’t been the initial plan. I rested at his place the rest of the day and everything went smoothly. We got some Thai takeout that night and watched some Wallace and Gromit, which is always fun. Fast forward a bit and recovery has gone smoothly with no issues. And no infections from the hospital! Respirators work. 😷💛 My latest adventure was getting a flat tire. I was still healing up, so I got to lean on some friends from a mutual aid group to help me switch out the spare tire. When I went to get the tire replaced (it was **flat** -flat), I learned that _all_ my tires were quite overdue. I knew it had been quite a while, but didn’t realize it had been over ten years. I’m glad that flat happened while I was parked in my neighborhood and not on the highway. *[AAA]: American Automobile Association