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.
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where the same moment will travel to
We live in a strange time where our impact on others can reach mind numbing levels, even if by accident. Out of college, I started sharing reviews on Google Maps mainly to get access to some of their early “reward” events in San Francisco with my girlfriend at the time. We went to Alcatraz for […]
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10 days in the Dolomites
As I settle back into life in Seattle, I wanted to quickly brain dump my journey to the Dolomites in particular, mainly as I aim to return (again and again). I feel so lucky to have been helped by a coworker who kindly sent me a list ahead of time to narrow down my search. […]
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she knew and she loved
I twirled my grandma’s loose rings around my thumbs as I climbed and spoke words of gratitude, knowing she’s a big reason I have the life I have now. Knowing that she knew I was queer nearly my entire life and didn’t skip a beat in loving me. For some reason during this Pride month, […]
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relish
I’m off work for the next two weeks, starting today, after a whirlwind trip for WCEU 2023, my first time attending. It was a wild first time and I intentionally paced myself, thankfully for the lack of rigidity especially as I hardly slept while there. The first day, I spoke on a panel about women […]
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Happy Twenty, WordPress
I remember celebrating 15 years of WordPress. I wasn’t yet contributing directly to the larger open source project yet still felt the impact reverberate through my being. A lot has changed in five years. I’ve switched jobs twice and am now spending my days both deep in the future of what’s to come for WordPress […]
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forget again
I took a mental health day and went on a hike. I saw a tree that looked like the perfect size to hug and walked right up to for an embrace it without thinking much about it. Memories of looking at trees to hug came flooding back from the pandemic. Why don’t we talk about […]
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Quick career tips for underrepresented folks in tech
While I’m not particularly ambitious or career oriented, I have both been given advice assuming I am by folks more advanced in their careers and am a generally observant person who likes to understand how systems work. With layoffs abounding in tech, I wanted to share a gathering of thoughts that I think underrepresented folks […]
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took place
April 19th would have been my grandma’s birthday. 95, I think. Some of the folks I chat with at the nursing home talk about living to 110. She didn’t want that. I don’t talk to myself but I did that day. I talked for a few awkward minutes as if I was catching up with […]
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No choice
I just finished “Abandon Me” by Melissa Febos and wanted to pull out a few favorite quotes to return to, as otherwise it makes it hard to give away the books that already live in my brain. It’s a minimalistic compulsion. Sometimes I wonder if I read my physical books faster and more frequently purely […]
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Creating art for 20 years of WordPress
Building off of my prior post on creating art and in light of launching a call for art submissions inspired by WordPress’ 20th anniversary, I’m sharing the various submissions I’m working on in case it inspires someone else to join in on the fun. Submissions are due by May 1st, 2023 so fire up your […]
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So you want to talk about the Site Editor? Part IV
As a follow up to a few prior posts I’ve written, I wanted to share a much more contained, semi-6.2 related update as this marks a big step forward in the experience, resulting in the removal of the beta label. For completeness, here are the prior posts: So you want to talk about Full Site […]
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complete
The second I started to write a note to my friend congratulating her on expecting a baby boy, I removed the item from my list on my phone, lost forever. The familiar feeling of “well, now I really need to see this through” passed through my brain. I never really stopped to observe this habit […]
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30
I don’t remember my twentieth birthday. I don’t know what I did, who I was with, or how I felt the day my twenties began. I can remember the surrounding circumstances — nearly needing to switch schools before finding a way to graduate early, the one year mark of my ACL recovery, a breakup with […]
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WordPress 6.2 Source of Truth
Since becoming a sponsored contributor in the wider WordPress community in 2020, I noticed the same problem repeating with each release: how can one get the most accurate information about the entirety of a release as quickly and painlessly as possible? I noticed it across both Automattic (where I work) and the community as teams […]
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one pedal at a time
At least once a year, I reach a point of wanting to do something I don’t think I can. During the pandemic, it was 15 pull-ups in a row. At other points, it’s been long hikes or repeating college rugby fitness tests. It comes from both the urge for my insides to match my outsides […]
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instead
I scrambled up to my apartment’s rooftop to catch the sunrise and was stunned by this view instead.
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lightning of loss
2022 saw an immense amount of grief for me and taught me, once more, the horrible lesson that the culture I exist in doesn’t make space for it. When folks can’t fix something, there’s a seeming unwillingness to ask about the unfixable and to walk alongside someone with a heavy heart. Some grief has been […]
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chose to be open
What an unexpected yet intentional year of openness, grief, exploring what it feels like to be settled, and finding a place that feels like home (for now). I can’t help but think of my grandma as 2023 creeps closer. It’s a year she’ll never touch. A year without memories of her. A year without notes […]
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stacked places
I’ve been having a lot of overlapping conversations with wildly different people. The kinds of conversations that bleed and build into each other. The kinds of conversations that makes me want to report back to each person I’ve spoken with to catch them up on the latest ideas/thoughts/feelings formed from their own. It reminds me […]
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Behind the scenes of creating art with WordPress
It’s been nearly a year since the launch of the Block Museum, a virtual art exhibit of art pieces made with different versions of WordPress. In that time span, three WordPress releases have come out with ever greater tools for creativity. Meanwhile, the Block Museum opened to submissions, introduced an interactive exhibit, and a few […]
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tiny feelings
At varying points in our lives, we’re each told what is and isn’t okay to feel. It’s a normal part of a society that teaches right/wrong, bad/good, etc. Sometimes we get this wrong though or we internalize a small moment that was a mere passing comment made without much thought in another person’s life. This […]
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ways to go
I sometimes forget that I work in tech, ignoring different headlines as boring and instead opting to read about more compelling matters. At Automattic, where I work, slack has been ablaze with the glorious ChatGPT. I’ll let you google the details but at its simplest it’s a AI-powered chat bot. After having it write some […]
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extreme alignment
I looked around me at pick-up soccer today in a random pause in the game. I felt such extreme alignment in living the life I want — in showing up for people, in keeping in touch from afar, in keeping my heart open, in speaking truth, in working hard, in resting and not getting caught […]
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even when
My grandma was paralyzed on half of her body for most of my life. It impacted her dominate side so, since I was 12 or so, I watched her navigate both asking for help and being wildly independent (to the point that that independence is what also led to her death in many ways). I’d […]
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So you want to talk about FSE? Part III
Inspired by two prior posts I wrote, So you want to talk about Full Site Editing? and So you want to talk about FSE? 5.9 Edition, I wanted to offer a non-release specific update as I have found myself sharing the same resources repeatedly. As before, I recommend checking out the prior posts as I try as […]
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Help me meet another surrogate kid
I’ve never met another person born via surrogacy. That’s not entirely true–I did meet a baby at a surrogacy conference in San Francisco about 8 years ago who was born via gestational surrogacy (I was born via traditional). She wasn’t even at the babbling age so it felt like a cruel twist that my kind […]
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Automattic: 8 Year Anniversary
For the first time in eight years, I celebrated my work-aversary in person with a few coworkers. For a distributed company like Automattic, it’s a true reflection of how much I appreciate my coworkers that I’d want to meet up with them to celebrate, despite no need to do so. Each have been at the […]
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their voice
One of my favorite signs of intimacy with another is when you can read a text from them in their voice, knowing exactly how they might say whatever you’re reading.
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never know
I was off caffeine, away from wifi, and on top of mountains for most of the last few days. I caught myself whispering aloud to my very dead grandma on some of these glorious hikes. It was all so beautiful that I found myself wondering what I might try to say in a postcard or […]
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surrounded
Wrote this as a note on my phone on August 29th, 2022. Back dating this post to then! I’ve had such a weird but wonderful day all around and in so many ways. I woke up at 5:40 am, mostly ready to go barring a few items I had listed down to snag. Not on […]
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