For a fuller view of my writing beyond my recent posts, dive in below and peruse as much or as little as you’d like. I write about a wide range of topics from WordPress to Surrogacy to Photography to Mental Health. Don’t follow me if you want to only hear about a certain topic as I write based on what comes up for me in that moment of time. As always, thanks for reading.
-
long and simple
Once more, tomorrow begins two weeks of no phone and no computer. I might start early and turn my phone off momentarily. For now, I’m iterating on some last few PRs with AI while waiting to pick up pizzas with my partner. This two week ritual is one I’m proud of myself for making happen again and I hope to do as long as it serves me. When it stops, I hope to come up with something else tailored just to me. I first did this last year at the start of my second sabbatical from work. It was the…
-
Exploring work in progress for WordPress 7.0
Following up on my series from WordPress 6.9 (v1, v2), I thought I’d do another round for 7.0. We’re just barely less than one month out from beta 1 and so much is coming together. Because of how much is in progress, I’m specifically going to focus on items that are close enough to the finish line to have a review and that are more user focused/visual. Note that I won’t cover every piece of 7.0’s roadmap so, if you want to go deeper, I recommend looking at the links shared under each top level item in the roadmap to learn…
-
Closing the door (for now) on Content Creators slack channel
Back in September 2025, I launched a new slack channel dedicated to #content-creators, based on a longstanding passion project. It’s been nearly two years since I started trying to push on uniting creators across the WordPress ecosystem and I still believe strongly that this is a pathway to pursue. What became clear though in the months since the channel was created is that now is not the right time. This comes down to a few facts: This is beautiful information to listen to! In the same way it’s helpful to see what is working, it’s also important and helpful to…
-
Chronic Comrades Volume 3
This is a part of a series of posts briefly summarizing conversations amongst a group of loves ones I brought together to talk about chronic conditions. None of us has the same situation but all of us work to be present and kind with what comes up. We spoke once more for around 2.5 hours and I increasingly feel that we should just set that as the normal timeframe for these needed chats. Here’s what we covered at a very high level. As always, it was a time of sharing and taking space–a sacred balancing act of witness what is…
-
Some Sedona shots
After a local barista gave us the advice that it was okay to still go out hiking, a best pal and I ventured into the fog and rain of Sedona for an early morning hike today. I shoved my camera deep into my jacket, knowing the cold would zap the battery if I wasn’t careful. Somewhere along the way, I decided to try shooting in B&W and am so glad I did. I normally only lightly edit photos–a little change in exposure or color to balance out a scene. I like the rawness of whatever it is I captured. I…
-
places with patterns
Again and again, I’m reminded when nomading of how much the situation and place we are impacts us. It’s a lesson I love to re-learn and re-remember because being in back to back new situations gives me a chance to shake loose ideas of myself and patterns I’ve accrued in staying put. It also gives me the chance to choose again who I want to be when it might be harder (or sometimes easier!) to do so depending on what’s around me. In Seattle, I have my car, an easy bus route, a beautiful bike, a walkable neighborhood, a grocery…
-
Drafts of some recent block art
I still run for fun the Museum of Block Art (MOBA) and, as part of sharing more of the behind the scenes of how the art is made, I wanted to show some of my drafts of my recent “Circling back” piece. It’s called Circling back because it’s a photo of my partner, available in the WordPress Photo Directory, from a trip we did to Montana that I really want to circle back on again. I started out messing with one photo and playing with the gradients to be as weird as possible. This is how I usually start since…
-
Returning
Without question, I can say that at the end of this year I feel more like myself. It felt like a year of returning, to places and to ways of being, after 2024 was so brutal. I wanted to renew in 2025 and I feel that I truly did. As with the last two years, my guiding values remain: Practically speaking, when reflecting on these values, I am feeling called to a few iterations I’ve already begun for the year ahead: I’m finding it hard to reflect on this year, a likely result of feeling so grounded in the present.…
-
mulling
I’m in Winter Park, Florida for the holidays which means I’m spending an inordinate amount of time peeling back emotional and physical layers of my past self. I found Latin textbooks filled with my terrible handwriting trying to make sense of the ancient language that I worked so hard to become good at. I hold in my hands for a bit a deflated soccer ball covered in signatures from teammates from nearly twenty years ago and wonder how they each are doing. I went on a walk with a childhood friend and her husband only to step right over the…
-
new light
I’ve been repeating to myself the following one liner over the last few weeks: May you love someone long enough to see them in a new light. It’s been profoundly grounding and, in some ways, aspirational as I think about certain relationships in my life. What an absolute gift it is to really know someone for a long time–their highs and lows in a year, what keeps them up at a night, what they are looking forward to, who the main people are in their lives. Having had some long-time friendships fade and fizzle out, I’m feeling the sacredness of…
-
Chronic Comrades Volume 2
It’s been over a year since I wrote the first entry about chronic comrades, a group of loves ones I brought together to talk about chronic conditions. We’ve continued in the last year but my notes on what we’ve discussed have not. In many ways, it’s hard to know exactly what to share when so much is so personal yet I also think it’s important folks talk more about what’s hard in this life and what true care can look like. With that in mind, I wanted to share some quick notes from our 1 hour turned into 2.5 hour…
-
with me
I can’t remember exactly when I got my last pair of cleats but I know they were the ones I wore in college, when I switched from soccer to rugby. My best guess is that I went into college with them as growing up I found it exceedingly hard to find a well fitting cleat that didn’t quickly cover my feet in blisters. I’d find a pair and cling to them for as long as I could. At least 14 years later, I let go of them today but not before thanking them for all they saw me through and…
-
zoom out, zoom in
As many places and as many times as I’ve nomaded around, I can’t seem to shake the anxiety I get when figuring out the logistics of getting from point A to point B. Finding out I was arriving for a 10 day work trip with back to back meetups during the NYC marathon, again, had me already dreading trying to navigate the city. Almost exactly 10 years prior, I was in NYC and got stuck in a 2.5 hour long bus/subway/walking loop during the 2015 marathon. I imagined the same after a nearly 6 hour long flight and readied myself…
-
no match
We were about to leave for the night, somehow worn out more than the 92 year old and 93 year old before us. My partner’s grandparents remain so full of life. Introversion is no match for extroversion no matter the age though. The 93 year old was in his chair, half listening to the TV blasting and half trying to watch an ad on his phone about ways to improve your memory. We talked the last few days about his memory and how he can tell it’s changing. I’ve been feeling the same at 32 so I can only imagine…
-
On bringing the Ollie Menu Designer to Core
He said he’s meeting with core committers soon to discuss possible contributor pathways that would allow rapid builders like himself to “hand off” their prototypes to seasoned contributors who could then navigate the processes required to bring new features into core. From the Repository’s post on Ollie’s Menu Designer Lands on WordPress.org, Praised as “Game Changer” I wanted to share some thoughts after being one of the people who chatted with Mike today. To zoom out a bit, Mike is an interesting type of contributor that I think reflects an untapped source of inspiration and feedback. His work with the…
-
Experimenting with AI assisted triaging
Ever since I first started working within the Gutenberg GitHub repository, I’ve felt my organizational brain cringe at how unwieldy it is. I’ve tried countless methods to help involving various recurring to do items to regularly do my part in keeping relevant issues opened and actionable. As we’ve gone deeper into the AI age, I’ve started experimenting to see how I can approach doing this differently. I have a few goals in writing this post, see if others will join me in using AI to help more intelligently/efficiently triage, get feedback on my methods, and be transparent about what I’m…
-
Recent happy moments
I haven’t been lugging my nice camera around as much recently and I’ve enjoyed being okay with not capturing some sort of ideal photo. Instead, I’ve returned to the quick impromptu snaps one gets on a phone. Here are some from the last few weeks that all reflect a moment of happiness–a surprising split flower, a return to soccer, a lifelong friend in town, and a reminder of the beauty of where I get to live. None thought about too much and all taken with a smile on my face.
-
gloves
I have such a mental image of this quote. “We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time. When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that thin covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chances of joy. It’s…
-
Exploring work in progress for WordPress 6.9 v2
With just barely less than one month out from beta 1 for 6.9 and after folks appreciated my last exploration post, I thought I’d continue the fun with another update. Again, this is new so feedback is welcomed. I do try to time box this as otherwise I could end up in an endless rabbit hole of PRs and debates on issues. As you’ll see too, where possible and relevant, I provided updates based on what I could see in my review to help bring this information to the entire community who is following along. Note that I won’t cover…
-
think best when writing
For a few months now, I’ve been wanting to try out Willow, an AI voice to speech tool. I finally downloaded the free version a few weeks ago and have yet to actually use it. Time and time again, I run into the fact that I think best when writing and spend much of my day in silence. One of my favorite extroverted pals speaks to herself throughout the day and can’t fathom how I don’t carry on full conversations when I’m alone. Yesterday, I took the day off, hiked up a mountain to a lake, set up my hammock,…
-
those who sustain
Last Sunday, I grabbed my cleats and drove to a saved location in Google Maps called “Sunday Soccer” around 2pm. I didn’t check with anyone ahead of time to see if folks would be there, even though it had been nearly two years since I last played with this crew. Somehow, I knew they would be there and they were. I last played with them on December 9th, 2023, when I came off early from the field after I felt some calf tightness. In the time since, I recovered from some herniated discs and two back to back rounds of…
-
new content creators slack channel
As part of my passion project of uniting WordPress YouTubers and growing stronger connections between the WordPress project and content creators, I’ve petitioned and kicked off a new slack channel dedicated to #content-creators. Since posts on Make Core have a much different audience than my site here, I wanted to share some bonus thoughts about why this is so important to me. Having worked on various release squads, I know first hand how much hard work by so many people goes into our official release content, posts and videos included. These might get tens of thousands of views but I…
-
Automattic: 11 year anniversary
While I have another year at Automattic to be grateful for and dig into, I want to call out my former colleagues who are still looking for a job after a workforce reduction in April of this year. If you can do anything to support them (make connections, hire them, send jobs their way, etc), know I’ll be personally grateful. I woke up this morning at 5:30am, snoozed my alarm until 5:50am before rolling out of bed, putting my glasses on rather than my contacts, and grabbing my computer. After WCUS last week, my introverted soul feels especially tired and…
-
List of folks to hire for your open role
As a follow up to my post on former automatticians who were impacted by a layoff, I wanted to highlight some former colleagues who are open to work and ready to be hired. As a reminder, if you’re hiring, know that ex-Automatticians are adaptable self-starters, lifelong learners, and wildly creative problem solvers. They take deep ownership of their work and want to help those around them thrive too. I wrote more about what it’s like to work at Automattic here You might not love working at Automattic if… While it’s aimed at those considering applying, it’s just as relevant for…
-
Exploring work in progress for WordPress 6.9
With the roadmap and release squad set, I’m already excitedly digging into what’s in progress for 6.9 ahead of attending WordCamp US. To make some of this behind the scenes fun more visible, I thought I’d try something new and share a quick update now that we’re coming up on a month since the roadmap was shared and we’re roughly two months away from beta 1 (62 days to be exact). If you’re wanting to get a sense of the current work in progress too, this post is for you. Note that I won’t cover every piece of 6.9’s roadmap…
-
87 collective years
I talked on the phone for roughly 8.5 hours this weekend, partially due to an unexpected 6.5 hour drive where I decided to pretend I wasn’t an introvert and dialed people at random. I ended up chatting with four childhood friends in particular, each of whom I’ve known for at least 20 years. If I add up all the years of knowing each person, it results in 87 collective years. It’s incredible to be able to pick up the phone and call a single person I’ve known for 20 years but to be able to do so repeatedly, with deep…
-
all or nothing
Every summer, I head to Hendersonville, NC to spend time with members of my family ranging from tiny toddlers to an aging Aunt. It’s also where I first fell in love with wood carving. I dedicated myself to various spoons and spatulas mainly. Over the last five years, I began carving on my own outside of the confines of this once a year ritual and experienced different kinds of wood, far less ideal blanks, trying to make something out of scrap wood, live wood from a coworker, on and on. This year, before the scheduled crafting time could begin, I…
-
Answering questions about being an Architecture Wrangler
Last week in a WordPress slack community, I was asked a question publicly about my job. I love questions and, inspired by being asked about my job, I am writing this post to share a bit about what I do and why. For transparency, I made up this title 🤠 and it may change as my role evolves. Relevant Background Context Within Automattic, we’ve unified engineering teams, along with design and product. Matt talks about it on a recent podcast around 28:50 for more context than I can give. Previously, I worked in the division that was mixed up with designers,…
-
right as rain
How do you grieve someone you didn’t know? It’s coming up on a year since my brother died and an increasing unsteadiness has crept in over the last week or so. Death is hard to talk about and it’s even harder to talk about when people don’t ask. I wish people would ask about him more–somehow in not asking it only reinforces to me how little I had the chance to have him integrated into my life. No one views him as my brother, considering he is my half brother and was raised by my birthmom. I’m too weary to…
-
Another Pride photo drive
We’re doing another photo drive for the WordPress Photo Directory for Pride this year. I’m excited to fill the directory with more rainbows and representation! One unique challenge with the directory is that photos can’t include recognizable faces. It made me think about stories I’ve heard about early Pride events in parts of the U.S., where marchers often wore masks to protect their identities. I remember seeing photos myself when I lived in San Diego and visited a local LGBTQ+ archive organization. Seeing the covered faces of people holding signs broke my heart and, at the same time, felt familiar.…
agm 