Should I be doing this? Probably not.

THE ORIGIN STORY

I walked out of the email class

I walked into my first college computer course. The assignment was to set up an email address and email the professor. I walked out and dropped the class, because email was obviously never going to take.

That woman now has two AIs talking to each other.

I learned how to type on a typewriter. But by the time I graduated high school, I was on a computer. I got handed one halfway through and was expected to just absorb it. I didn’t fall behind. I was handed it late and never given the foundation — and that’s the same sentence as everything else on this site.

TOO YOUNG FOR NIRVANA · TOO OLD FOR MMMBOP

I come from the true lost generation. Generation Y. Why doesn’t everybody talk about us? Why don’t we exist? Why did y’all just skip us and call it the next generation millennials? Nobody talks about us, and I didn’t get a decision in that. I’m way more Gen X than millennial. I love Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots and I’m a few years too young for that genre to be mine. Linkin Park is the one I actually relate to.

The instructions are written for people who already know

You say download like it’s easy. I don’t know what you mean. The button’s not there on my screen. That is across the board. It’s like with everything that I’m doing. Make the béchamel sauce. Okay, cool. Cool, cool. What’s that?

Everything is the hardest possible way. And I kind of play life on hard mode. That’s okay.

I don’t do electronics, except for my headset. Like I can’t work the TV. I can’t work the Switch. I can’t work hardly much at anything. But let’s make an AI drama. Why not? Why not?

Three states, not two

Some things I can figure out. Some things I’ve gotten myself in over my head. Some things I’m still too scared to try.

The miter saw: I’ll use it. I’ll make products. I’ll make things. But I’m scared every time that thing turns on that I’m going to somehow screw up and take my finger off. The chainsaw: there are some machines I just don’t. The pressure canner: I’m scared it’s going to blow up in my face and kill me. I have a big sense of fear in me. I’m eventually going to get around to it. I just got to build up to it.

And the proof that the third one moves: I figured out how to use the rice maker. I couldn’t even make rice for the longest time, but look at me now — I can make rice like nobody’s business. Mexican rice is next on the list.

It’s kind of the same joke with technology. I’m pretty bad with this stuff. I’m scared to death of most of these things.

I like to dabble

I’m just getting into all kinds of stuff that maybe I shouldn’t be getting into, but it sounds exciting and it sounds like something I could do. And a lot of times it looks easier than it really is. And it’s fun. And I like to learn, and I want to learn a lot of things. I like to dabble.

I’m making something I think I would like to watch. And that’s how all of my stuff goes. Chickens, an above-ground pool I put up myself, a drama made with AI, dancing in a headset in heels, mozzarella from raw milk, a sewing machine I can’t thread. Nothing connects those as subjects. Everything connects them as behaviour — no foundation, started anyway, showed the mess.

I am a walking contradiction and I know this about myself. I have a sweatshirt that says I’m a complicated order. And that is a true statement.

Brussels sprouts

I’m very much like Brussels sprouts. I am an acquired taste and not everybody’s going to acquire that taste. And sometimes in order to acquire that taste, you’ve got to boil them and smash them and roast them and add some balsamic vinaigrette. And you’ve got to really dress me up. This is the one place that isn’t necessary. This is how I exist.

What you’ll find here

Permission, not instruction. You’ll leave thinking you’re allowed to just start — not that you now know how. I can’t use tutorials. I need someone to show me. So the thing I make is the thing I go looking for and can’t find: somebody doing it in front of you.

Real things, really used. Only what I actually bought, built, cooked or played — six years on the coop, not six days. I’ll always tell you exactly who did which part, and I’ll always say who taught me and point you at them. Systems that survive a bad week, because a full house has to keep running when my capacity isn’t predictable. And the fail, every time, because the fail is the content, not a gap in it.

Part of mine is going to be failure. Part of mine is going to be learning it. Part of mine is hopefully going to be successful at the end.

What this site doesn’t do

Nobody is named here but me. Nothing here is medical advice, veterinary advice, or a step-by-step tutorial. I recommend by preference, never by verdict — different games for different folks. I never claim a credential: not a cook, not a canner, not a contractor, not a farmer. I cite the miles instead. And I’m never mean about how anyone else does it.

SIX YEARS OF CHICKENS · EVERY ROOM IN THIS HOUSE, SOME TWICE · SIX YEARS IN A HEADSET · SMYRNA, GEORGIA