Here is what March 2026 brought me:

  • I had a lot of really good and insightful therapy sessions this month. Explored a lot of my reactions and confusion surrounding the way other people deal with what's going on in the world. I simply cannot get behind the idea that it's okay to "not pay attention to the news" and while I get that people need rest every once in a while, a break here and there, staying uninformed purposefully seems so... wrong. I'm having to deal with that with a few people in my life who refuse to educate themselves and yet still have incredibly strong opinions.
  • We had some extreme back-and-forth weather for a week or two with intense heat followed by bitter cold days in a row. I got sick during this time which isn't surprising, I usually get sick this time of year for similar reasons. It's nice to see the patterns and understand immediately how to take care of myself.
  • I got a bunch of deliveries from the local farm and made tons of foods! March was an incredibly recipe-heavy month with lots of cooking and experimenting with new fresh ingredients. I'm hoping to keep that energy going into the rest of the season, but we'll see, since it's very expensive and definitely a luxury.
  • I did much more work on my digital garden and I'm going to start a Wiki too! I spent most of the month setting up a new domain and figuring out how I want everything organized. It's not launched yet, and frankly I have a lot of imposter syndrome about it anyway... but it's a goal I've had for a few years and I'm excited to see it coming together. It's also been an opportunity to learn more CSS because I am trying to put a bit of customization everywhere.
  • It's now been one full month using the Hobonichi Techno app! I like it a lot as a quick way to jot down what I'm thinking or doing throughout the day and consolidate into a one-stop shop. I've always wanted to be a hobo person but I've wasted enough money on paper journal systems. As my hand tremor gets worse I find myself relying more on digital tools for consistency becasue it's less effort and means I can save that hand-energy for other things. Everyone I've talked to who keeps the paper journal says they can't get into the app, though.
  • Zenny has had a VERY good month, and she's been rather clingy all around. She likes to be right next to me at all times and if I'm not petting her with both hands then I am a bad person.
  • I started going to Trader Joe's more often. I save about $60/month on groceries going there instead of other places, which isn't much but it helps! It's way too overstimulating and overwhelming to spend a lot of time in there so I end up getting essentials only.
  • I did pretty well with my weekend walks, and even invited my mom one day so that we could walk together. We plugged in a lakeside trail and when we got there it was a water treatment plant with a sketchy loop around a few sports fields. It was okay. You couldn't see the lake though.
  • I went to Brickfair! I haven't been to a Lego event in ages, mostly because I had an issue with impulse purchasing so I had to restrict myself from most fan events. I did pretty well, though I still spent more than I wanted to. I was so inspired by the builds I saw that when I got home I made something new!
  • I am a little too lazy to do images tihs time. You can see some of the highlights on my photo blog.

Reflections on Social Media and the Comments

Every winter I do a social media break and 3.5 months off social media seems to be all it takes to trigger intense reflection about my usage. Since we came off winter in March, I've been thinking of it a lot lately and wanted to share some (somewhat disjointed) thoughts I've had lately.

I think one of the things I dislike about the internet, especially the fast and unthoughtful Internet, is that it's hard for people to comprehend nuance in that space. bean soup theory. whatever you want to call it. someone commenting in their situation doesn't make it the only one. it bothered me for SO LONG that people would react as if that's what they were saying.

but as I got deeper into social media breaks it became easier to review a comments section and see the patterns in how people are engaging.

actually I was wrong. people are out here commenting like their experience and POV defines the world for everyone and anyone going off of that script is wrong or sinful or alternative. I used to go to the comments to get different perspectives but since I'm not getting sucked in as quickly (or I am, but it's easier to stop it quickly), all I see are little fights over semantics or assumptions. I think it was always there but I didn't see it, or I was so engaged in it too that I didn't notice it impacting me.

I was reading comments to learn but most others were reading them to rank the "correctness" of the claim not as a personal anecdote but a decree.

in comments you share the first thought as it formulates and don't give it time to rest and percolate and it becomes your thought as you've committed it and now have to argue about it. sometimes maybe you're just having the same argument on repeat, so it's not your first time having that thought, but you're at that point so focused on that thought that any other thought is hard to comprehend. any other context, understanding, experience.

I am a reactionary person so I get that but I also see it as detrimental to commit to my first thought, shutting down exploration for defense. I benefit much more as a thinker and curious person if I give myself the space to think of things before I respond. social media doesn't really support that approach.

on the flip side, getting meta and observing my own commenting patterns is revealing. I am not super consistent in my first reactive thoughts. I react, then I read and learn, and then a few days later grown as a person I react again. I don't ever return to delete or correct a previous comment (do you?) so the thread is not consistent between them. it's an archive of thought, not the story of current thinking. but I think many people don't see it that way and fight to keep that consistency even at the detriment of learning more context.

when you step away from the comments for a while, then return, it's easier to see the positive threads because the angry ones aren't rage baiting you anymore. with less personal engagement, I'm seeing more of those view points I sought out before I discovered what it's like to feel right on the internet.

I think I don't mind a little rage baiting. I am 25% troll and it appeals to that side of me. but I prefer to read someone's drawn out and contextualized thoughts in their micro blogs and online journals and zines, rather than a clever quip that can be interpreted 5 different ways. your quip made me laugh but I don't remember it by the end of the day. I think about your zine at least 3 times a week but I read it 6 years ago.

my brain turns to mush after a few consecutive days of hours long social media usage. I don't even notice how long I've been using it until suddenly it's 10:30 and I was planning on watching a movie at 7. a book has a final page, movies have credits. social media never stops, the never-ending waterfall of everybody's thoughts.

the algorithm is consistently disappointing. it's nice to laugh out loud but it's not worth it to "train" the algorithm, since it'll never result in a feed of content that you're seeking. if you're lucky, you'll get about 3 out of 6 hours of what you want - the rest being ads, sponsored videos, rage bait, whatever the site is pushing right now, and screencaps from other social media sites. 3 hours of garbage for 6 hours of free data training labor.

I will take doses of that a few times a year and as a curated feed from friends; I don't need it more often than that. I get a beautiful "best of" feed showing me funny jokes and things that made people think of me. I'll visit social media like it's a festival I sometimes go to: maybe not this season, maybe I'll go next time, well it'll still be around next year, or maybe I spend 2 solid weeks there and have the time of my life. the internet is a museum of human experience, but social media is the gacha machine they put at the front entrance. I've spent over a decade visiting that museum but stopping there and skipping everything else the entire visit just in case I got a good thing out of the game.

it feels a little like giving up but it also feels a lot like self care. I moved from "why is everyone so mean?" to "why do I still do this when I know better?" it's not a declaration to stay out of the comments, but an acknowledgement that I've never made before that perhaps that's not the path to connection and understanding for me. there are so many other channels to find out what people think about the world.

Mutual Aid

Donate some money to help victims impacted by war and get art! Go here to find out more!

Some of my zines are included in the art prizes!

Links & Things

Here are some links I collected throughout the month to share with you.

My March activity online: