It's been a minute, eh?

I've finally had the motivation to spend the last few days migrating back to Eleventy. I'm now well hooked into the Vercel ecosystem as well as a result. Not happy about that, but trade-offs! You always make them.

For someone who gets overwhelmed easily with the scale of tasks like these, Claude has been an immense help in making this move happen.

I'm most excited for the fact that I've been able to migrate the "likes" feature, including current counts.

Builds take less than 30 seconds, images are still served in AVIF/WEBP formats, and I have a couple of convenience bash scripts to create a new article post + rename files to reflect the final post title before publishing.

I'm relatively happy with the design, this is something that had been sitting in my drafts for over 2 years. Might tinker with it over the next few months to be a little more expressive, but for now, this works. 🙂

Equally excited to keep up with web standards and such in a low-stakes environment. 🐢

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

Here, on this blog, starting May 2021 and ending August 2022, I wrote as often as I could a recap of my months. I love this format, this publishing interface (WordPress), but eventually found out that the audience is both invisible and an unknown. Over time, it made me uncomfortable.

I shifted to Instagram "stories" — and then monthly photo dumps inside of a "post" — after I realised I need a deeper sense of intimacy when writing these than the public internet could provide. I wanted these monthly recaps to be a way to grow closer to the friends/acquaintances around me.

Stories were great. They are ephemeral.

Monthly posts were great too. It allows me to share up to 20 photos and/or videos at once in a single post. What's more — I get to add detailed captions on each photo (unfortunately, not videos — unless I run them through the Edits app, or the Create Reels feature on Instagram itself). I love explaining what's going on or why I love this moment so much. Without this context, I usually find posts to be for vanity/close friends only — who anyway are already aware of what's going on.

However, Instagram does have its quirks. The two grandest of those have begun to hit me:

• I expect likes/comments to come my way, and feel disappointed when I don't receive "enough."
• I sometimes curate photos that I otherwise wouldn't put in the search of, perhaps, ✨ aesthetics. ✨

While I always maintain that these are records/documents of how my life is progressing – a reminder that helps me battle those two psychological quirks – I do see fatigue setting in. Perhaps a part of it is also owing to my perfectionist nature. I now am trying to use Unfold to create collages of similar photos/moments, for starters.

I've been journaling in private, too. But that is a very specific need/use-case, of course.

I hope I'll find the drive, balance, and the right medium for these monthly recaps. In time…

Ah, anyway, I'm not quite sure what the point of this post is. Guess I just wanted to ping the wider web for a brief second, and let them know I'm still kicking.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

You can't live life alone.

A community is essential.

One of the most important steps to beating depression enough to function, which I would argue can be a life-long exercise, is to hang out with people who remind you the glass is half full.

When you witness people who are hopeful in so many ways, you can borrow a little bit of hopefulness too.

Peak capitalism, and Instagram reels, have convinced us that we're better off protecting our peace, and must do what's best for us — in isolation.

This is not true.

We must be uncomfortable in small and self-consensual ways; and allow it to lead us into a richer community.

Surround yourself. 🌻

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

This… story is at least two months old now, but I think it deserves to be on the internet for someone looking for reviews of this thing in India. I've just taken it out of my drafts to publish, and yeah, that's it.

---

For the first time a couple of weeks ago (at least at the time when I'm drafting this), I left for Vietnam – my first solo trip and the first international trip as well.

A problem for me was I had only a regular sized suitcase – perfect for domestic trips, perfect for perhaps 10-14 days away from home as long as I do not carry any specialised gear.

This time, however, I did carry some specialised stuff – a pair of hiking shoes and a raincoat.

A rough visual guess would say I was out about 30% volume from the get-go. I needed something that would replace this and give me more space to stash 2 to 3 days worth of clothes that I no longer could in my suitcase.

First option was to consider carrying two suitcases: a small cabin luggage, and a regular sized check-in luggage. I quickly dismissed this. It is not practical for one person to safely, securely, and stress free carry two luggages. On top of, of course, a regular backpack.

I had been bombarded with Mokobara's ads for months on Instagram. They sure know I like collecting bags of all kinds. I looked to see if they have anything that could help me.

Narrowing in.

The Em Travel Backpack is a hit.

It's supposedly a 45L backpack. How they measure it is still a mystery to me. Entering the raw dimensions into a volume calculator places the bag at 32.44 litres. Upon contacting their team, I was told they arrived at the 45 litres capacity claim in the following manner:

The team has gotten back to us with an update, the measurements are calculated using a different method, we calculated by filling the backpack with balls, and then fill those ball in a Jar to calculate the volume.

Mokobara's customer support team.

Huh. Well, OK. I guess as long as the bag solves my issue. Let's not be pedantic. We're flying out in a few days, remember?

They are a brand who always have a discount on, which is equivalent to not having any discount on. Sometimes they have "extra" sales, which is where I grabbed this bag off their metaphorical shelf.

It arrived, I was happy, and I began to place things into definitive places. There is a joy in having marked spaces:

• Hang your keys here!
• Stash your passport here!
• Clothes go here!
• Liquids go here! It's leak-proof!

Perhaps that was the allure for a part of my brain: a backpack that was neatly organised.

This is where I fucked up, though.

First few days.

The bag has two striking problems for me:

1. The shape is very rigid. This makes it great as long as you're using it to capacity. At half capacity, it retains its big shape and becomes annoying to carry around.
2. Perhaps my back is less forgiving, but I also did not enjoy carrying it around, starting at roughly 60-70% capacity. It just doesn't feel right, no matter how far or short I pull/push the straps. It was always hanging "away" from my back (that's the most visceral way I have of explaining this), putting more pressure on my shoulders alone than necessary.

These two reasons alone make it a less than ideal purchase for me.

What now?

Well, I was able to return it for a full refund. I wasn't sure if they'll respect their "no questions asked" 30 day return policy. But they did. I made sure not to use the bag at all and keep it clean. They did ask me why, and I told them, but on the face of it, I think they'd have approved the return regardless.

I bought another bag from a local shop while in Vietnam, and this bag had just become dead weight to carry around until I reached home.

What did I learn?

Sigh.

Marketing is marketing. Find out ways to figure out if something is a good fit for you after you look past the marketing.

Which brings me to: test things more thoroughly. While I visited their in-person store, I didn't actually test the bag. With the amount of money that was quoted to me – as much as a big brand suitcase, I needed to be more diligent with my money and purchase.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.

Once every few weeks, I randomly type in 'tw' into my address bar and hit return. Takes me to Twitter.com. I don't know why I do this, because as far as intentional usage goes, it's been months I've been on there.

I really do like it better on the fediverse. Feels more like a social place. It protects my mental health too because a ton of people use content warnings to give me the option to engage with things on my own terms that otherwise put together wreck my mental health quite quickly on any other platform.

When I do end up on Twitter.com, I see posts from friends and realise how much I miss seeing more of them around. I hit a like or two and leave. I know by now how quickly this can spiral into scrolling and doomful news and horrible interactions.

If you're reading this, I'm waiting for you on the fediverse.

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.