First, this picture of Zenny! My small Grandma kitten child turns 12 this year!
Here is what May 2026 brought me:
- Began the month camping - a perfect beginning.
- I started conversations with my doctor about getting sterilized, found out it'll be covered by insurance, so now I just need to figure out when I can carve out time for it ("it" being "carving out my insides")
- Many super good drumming sessions this month! A lot of things are clicking & falling into place and it's getting easier for me to pick up on new things quickly.
- I had tons of zine ideas, but none fully executed. Here's what I started:
- Golden Girls zine
- "Stomping Through the Archives" (reflections & thoughts going through old writings + some shares)
- Supernatural Historical Figures (real-life people with mystery tied to their legacy)
- Restarted my farm CSA after a little break due to financial things. In May I cooked with mushrooms for the first time and remembered to include veggies in meals in new ways!
- It rained all weekend over Memorial Day and I spent it reading, writing, thinking, playing video games, and doodling. Very satisfying.
- Started reading Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian (2025), I love it so far. Because of this book I've been paying more attention to the details when I'm on walks, like this little pal which was growing in the mangled roots of a large tree.
- Used Reddit too much for the first half of the month and then suddenly stopped - suddenly cured? (Not really.) I just felt like I didn't care and easily disregarded the FOMO for some reason! Since then I've had really good phone-free days where I'm focusing on hobbies and home care more often than doomscrolling. It's a GREAT feeling and I didn't even have to force it.
- I had many hilarious wordfeud rounds with a friend with words like PENIS and BUTT and TAINT.
- My self-care app Finch does these week-long prompts sometimes where you challenge yourself to something fresh but only in the upcoming week. One week in May I picked "light a candle" and it seriously changed the entire mood the whole time it was lit. This is becoming part of my life.
- There were nice poofy lovely skies all month.
- Many people were born during Memorial Day week so the following weekend there were many birthday events to attend.
- Big wins at work but also scary and visible ones. I did a presentation on the impacts of AI on the LGBTQIA+ community (a lot of the concepts apply to any marginalized community) and they want to use it to make educational materials for the classroom. Plz, I have only been working here 12 years, I JUST STARTED. I am a NOVICE. Hide me in the recesses of a support team, and do not refer to me. (To be clear, they wouldn't use my work, they'd just be inspired by it, and I still feel WAY too seen.) (Also it's not unusual for staff to find their names in the classroom credits for various reasons, but it would be my first time.)
- Self-sacrifice
- Over-functioning
- Retaliation as a defense mechanism
- Quiet removal/avoidance
- How many were in toxic/manipulative contexts
- How few came from inside that I need to confront
- By far, the human I did the worst things to was myself
- Your AI slop bores me (this site has 100 popups, beware)
- Remember to backup your blog! and site!
- make zoom text
- Generate tables in Markdown (this has been helpful for me on bearblog)
- To the Part That Stops You From Moving
- The sea that is vanishing in real time
- ‘Point of no return’: New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level, study finds
- Woman covertly filmed for 'humiliating' social media content - then told to pay
- Data Centers Now Consume 6% of US Electricity—and the Backlash Has Begun
- 03: Camping Season Begins
- 07: Tree doodle
- 12: 101 Things in 1,001 Days
- 24: The Point is in the Details
- 24: are.na reflections on keeping a digital garden or pkm
- 24: Foxglove
- 25: Imposter Syndrome
- Duck Island Newsletter May 2026 (Tomodachi Life updates)
The Worst Things I've Ever Done
I don't remember where I saw the prompt or if it was inspired by someone's post but I made a list of the worst things I've ever done. I'm sure it's not a comprehensive list and there are likely things I'm forgetting, but making/finishing the list was a very enlightening experience.
First of all I walked away from it with more context. Putting all those things next to each other - suddenly it didn't feel as much like they were all that bad. Also, it was much easier to see patterns between them.
I've been in therapy again for about 6 months now so none of this is that surprising, I've confronted a few of these in various ways already:
But seeing them all come together in 1 list like that is weird. Looking at the threads that run through these 25 or so separate incidents is a little bizarre. I don't know how else to describe it. It's me - those are things I did/said - but in retrospect it's not ME, it's that past version of me who had limited information.
It was a weird exercise, but it was interesting. It removed a layer of guilt that I didn't even know I was holding about stuff that wasn't actually "a horrible thing I did," but "an immature way that someone else reacted to it," which I took accountability for. Even though I've already processed and let go of most of the incidents on the list, they still fell away in that moment of realization too.
Anyway, it's a fun if not dark little exercise to spend a while sitting with the worst parts of yourself, then looking at it high level enough to be honest about everything involved in each experience.
Links & Things
Here are some links I collected throughout the month to share with you.
Zine things:
cool cool fun fun
My May activity online:
They covered them so that the horses can be dipped in gold. DC is not ugly. This is so tacky and unnecessary.