fyrfli's musings

so ... i did an apt upgrade on my 'wannabe' server yesterday ... or maybe the day before. the days are all running together now.

when it rebooted, i got an error that the boot image was missing. it's a software raid, so i suspect something is borked. with all the power outages lately, i wouldn't be surprised that there is some corruption going on.

i know what i have to do but i have almost zero spoons to deal with it. as a result, fyrfli.social is down for the foreseeable future.

/sigh

luckily, backups were happening as late as that morning so recovering this instance was easy to do. everything else ... not so much.

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ok – so the choice is use a live CD and troubleshoot... or just move the disks into the proper server and run shit from there.

but the bff says to use the live CD first because moving the disks is going to introduce new vectors for failure which is ... not going to be good. and he is right. and i am brain foggy and probably shouldn't be in charge of anything right now.

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i'll post about that hellscape in a bit.

yay – it's a writefreely release!

it's been a while ... but now we're running the latest writefreely release here on blog.fyrfli.social.

what's been happening with me?

lots of python coding cos why not.

dealing with aging parents. memory is an issue with both of them these days, so i am paying their bills and coordinating to make sure they are not alone in the house. it's exhausting and what with me being off anti-anxiety meds, it's been extra hard.

other than that ... not a lot. the fedi has been quiet for me so that's nice. either there has been zero drama, or i am comfortably isolated from it. either way ... it's nice to not have a lot of fedi drama to deal with.

this week ... was a lot. and i don't even know at this point whether i can put all of it in one space because brain fog effectively means that a lot of it is lost.

a week or so ago, i joined the oliphant team publicly cos i was sincerely trying to contribute to the cause. (the cause of making into a safe space for anyone who wants to join.) there is often a sad lack of black folk in these spaces because from what i have seen, most of the black folk who don't have the time or energy have just gone into their own spaces. i mean, if you've tried to do something about visibility of a situation and get dismissed and harassed, over and over again, at some point you kinda have to take care of yourself and remove yourself from spaces that continually and blindly continue to harm you. so i tried ...

and it blew up spectacularly. let's just say that people take exception to being told that their language is problematic and why.

i mean ... i get it. we don't like to hear when we've fucked up. but seriously ... if you are out here posing as some kind of ally and activist, you should be open to critique ... especially about an issue you cannot possibly be expected to be familiar with.

yeah ... no. some people just know more than anyone and refuse to listen. and that shit really gets me down sometimes. like ... i really wanna be a part of a community that collects and educates its own. but somehow i always end up getting the short end of the stick when i try. i am at the stage now where ... i just assume people don't care and move on. my faith in humanity is thoroughly shot now.

i am hiding out. i am done with the fedi for a while. i am sick and tired of people who direct harm at others for no reason. i am sick and tired of people who have nothing better to do than to harass others. tired of people who shout “receipts or it didn't happen”. tired of people who just can't believe first, research, and then speak. tired of one segment of the entire world getting the benefit of the doubt at the expense of people this group has historically harmed and continue to harm even today. tired of being a second-class citizen of the world. tired of not being believed. tired of having to live by “seen but not heard” of white supremacy and the “default normal”.

i am beaten.

i feel ok. i don't feel despondent or sad. high spirits, but low energy. i am tired and sleeping a lot. that isn't too surprising, i think, considering i haven't been sleeping well for years. i have a lot of sleep deficit. so that doesn't worry so much. (also, titrating off lexapro is likely to cause a lot of sleeping too .. the body is working hard to adjust to new levels of the drug). so sleeping a lot if not worrisome ... yet.

what worries me is my lack of interest in my usual activities... even work i have to do. i have been putting this task off for a week now – almost two. which is bad. REALLY bad. but i just don't want to do anything.

i have games i can play and that have been keeping me happy for months... i have sudoku, learning mandala, tech stuff ... my servers could do with some attention ... i need to upgrade some of my docker containers ... i mean there is a ton of tech stuff i can do... i just don't feel like doing any of it. i open up a terminal and just sit there looking at it.*

i want to type. i feel like i want to write. so instead of a post, i am writing this in the hopes that i get some of that urge satisfied.

...

and after over an hour, i think i found what to do... play on the disc ... problem solved. cos that's a lot of typing. and it's giving me my fix.

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• this reminds me that i needed to log into the disc to check on my toons. it's been a few weeks and i don't want to lose them again.

and the big one that blew up:

let's talk about racism and how it shows up in everyday instances ...

when i first got to the states as a resident back in 2008, the then-fiancee (now husband) asked me to drive his car into the dealership for an appointment he made to get the brakes worked on.

when i got there, they told me they had no record of a service call for me or the car and that they were not going to work on it that day...

hubster calls: “do you have an appointment on the books for me?” them: “oh yes – we're ready and waiting for you when you show up” him: “er ... my wife is there and she says you turned her away” them: “oh .. heh .. didn't realise that was your wife. ok – but it might take a while to get you done”

no slurs, no outright “we don't want black people here”, just this toxic undercurrent of “you are not welcome” here.

this is what racism looks like today. it's not obvious, it's not something you can even call out because the way they do it is to give them maximum deniability “no that's not what we SAID” ... “oh no that's not what we meant” ... and when asked to explain, the goal posts move ...

in this instance, it wasn't that they couldn't or wouldn't work on his car, even after telling him they were waiting on him to start work, now it was that they're suddenly too busy to do what they were contracted (via appointment) to do.

when you want to know what racism looks like, ask the victim what their experience is ... don't, for the love of all that is good in this world, depend on what your reading of a situation is because your (white) experience is ALWAYS tempered for deniability.

originally posted on 30-Jul-2023

so .... on tokenism ...

specifically this part:

What does tokenism look like?

Here are a few signs that something might be tokenism, rather than a genuine effort to promote diversity and inclusion.

...

Lack of Meaningful Change

Tokenism can be used to deflect criticism or avoid real change, rather than being a genuine effort to promote diversity and inclusion. If you see that the inclusion of a few individuals from a marginalized group is being used to deflect criticism or avoid addressing underlying issues, it could be a sign of tokenism.

originally posted on 8-Aug-2023

and while i am over here posting up anti-racism stuff, lemme just say this:\n\ni wasn't in the US long before i realised that AAVE has a lot in common with my native Jamaica patois and it hit me that all the slavery descendants probably share that ...

because it's literally an artifact of deliberate suppression of black education combined with the pronunciation of english words in different european style accents, all boiled together to make a language we (black people) could understand amongst one another.

fun fact: jamaican patois is seen in much the same light as AAVE ... cos ... black people ignorant ... or some other bullshit.

originally posted on 9-Aug-2023

so ... recently i have been called to face my internalised misogyny.

internalised biases are tricky because you don't know you have that bias and, if you are a generally decently aware person, when someone tells you about it, your response is always going to be defensive.

i mean, you know yourself ... you can't be biased. right?

wrong.

the way how you can tell that your internal bias is at work is simple:

if someone says that something you've said or seen is bigoted, and you don't see the bigotry, chances are you have some internal bias at work.

my problem with this recent issue is that i don't think i clearly grasp what the bias is. i didn't see a problem and i still don't see a problem. and i am excusing it in my head by saying it's “about photography”. now ... see ... i am one of those people who is always hyper aware of my effect on others – what i say, what i do, how i do it. so when someone tells me something is bigoted, i am doing to lose sleep until i figure out why ... why is is bigoted and why don't i see it. i have to get to the bottom of it. and quickly because i already have sleep issues, so the less sleep i lose over it, the better.

/sigh

i should probably go find something to read because this is really bugging me.