September 2026

2026 September 30

You can find the original newsletter here.

Life Updates

This month has simultaneously felt extremely fast and like I've lived a thousand lifetimes. Wow! September is always a difficult time of year for me, while it's been a few years since the worst September the body still remembers and all that. As a result, it's just been a month I admittedly don't fully remember and have just been trying my best to keep my head above the water.

Superficially, this has kind of been the daily schedule:

But on a fun note, many of my work hours this month have actually been allocated to... art and web design! Long story short, people I work with learned that I can code websites (LOL) and I've been tasked with building some interactive webpages for an outreach project. I'm also getting to draw some complicated life cycle diagrams, which is leading me to strange new places, such as drawing weird crustacean anatomy and animals I've never heard of. Always do random bullshit in your free time everyone.

I also saw my 400th bird species this month for my life list (more like "heard"... a shy Sedge Wren in the reeds just behind these beautiful asters and goldenrods). I haven't been out birding too much lately, but this wren showed up near where I was working at a coffee shop nearby, and I joined a few people in the exciting activity of "standing next to some reeds for 45 minutes listening for a noise". We did see it briefly though!

Not a long personal section this month, because I do not remember a lot, and sometimes that is just how it is. I'm ending the month feeling a bit more optimistic though, so here's to a great October 👻

Creative Updates

For such a strange month, a lot of cool creative things have happened! Perhaps most importantly, I finished a large project: coding my own art gallery on my personal site. I talk through the process here, but basically all there is to know is 1) there are multiple ways to filter a gallery 2) JSON metadata files and for loops are my new best friend. It's really easy to update this gallery, not any slower than creating a post anywhere else, so I'm thrilled with it.

And there's even functionality I added to add captions and explanations for certain pieces! I like to have my art "speak for itself" I suppose, but I do love the ability to add a little commentary where appropriate. I will be slowly, over time, uploading a backlog of art from previous years. Only 2026 is up for now. I am so proud of myself for finally getting this set up, and trying things (like using a metadata file) that I thought were far beyond my knowledge. I will be going mad with power now that I know the power of JSON files though, thanks.

In other website updates, I added a page that mimics a "friend area" from the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon rescue team games, but with Pokemon representing real friends of mine! For this, I learned how to make animations off of spritesheets—yes, I did the keyframes and timing myself for each of these to make the walking and idle movements more "natural"! It was fun to personalize this to each friend, and there are special animations on hover too I got to add. This will probably grow over time and I will try to code a feature where different friend zone "biomes" will have different Pokemon in it, instead of all being in the same one. I may type up the creation process for this sometime in case anyone wants to make their own "terrarium" of sorts (and also, so I don't forget the workflow...!)

Art-wise, since it was such a difficult month I had been experimenting with expressing my feelings through art again. Mostly scribbling in a journal and making comics that are just for my eyes only, but it feels like this has lifted a weird psychic block that's been on my brain that I didn't realize I had. Once upon a time, I had 1k+ followers on Twitter, and that wasn't good for a teenager. I've become more of a "nobody" online again though (with a few coincidences here and there where someone tells me they remember my animations from 10+ years ago, ha) and I've really been enjoying carving out my own corner and not worrying too much about what I draw. Art is for me, it makes me happy, and I feel the right people will be drawn to whatever I end up creating.

Anyways, out of that gunk came a piece I'm really happy with and means a lot to me. The words are my own as well, recycled from some old poetry I had written.

More positively, I've been making lots of random doodles (for example, drawing random Pokemon to wind down in the evening) and I no longer feel as much "pressure" about uploading things that feel unfinished or unpolished to me. Which is great! Expect more bullshit.

This month's creature feature is this Morning-glory Plume Moth, Emmelina monodactyla. Aka, a moth that looks just like an IUD, and I saw it outside and sprinted to grab my camera.

To wrap up, I feel a bit like I'm going through a time period of a lot of change. Some of that is good, some of that is difficult, but I feel like I'm ending the month better than when it started. I'm feeling more intentional about where to put my energy, at least, and somewhat more comfortable with myself.

I'm still searching for an online alias and username that I feel fits me in this new time though... so you might see a new coat of paint around here at some point. Petrel, which I've been using, is fun but it feels a bit more like a username or something more formal, I dunno.

And also, remember the monarch caterpillars from last month's newsletter? We had even more appear since I wrote that, to the point we were naming them all Speck (for a total of 5 Specks). Speck 4 and 5 were still in their chrysalis when we got a major wind storm last weekend, and my mom tried her best to secure the plants with ties so the chrysalises wouldn't get blown away. Both survived the storm, and Speck 4 has even emerged and flew off yesterday.

I'm sure this is symbolic of something good. I hope everyone is doing well going into fall! Thank you for taking the time to read this, I've had a few people tell me they lurk but don't comment, and I wanted to say if you're in that boat I still appreciate you very much. (Thinking of adding a script for a "reaction" button for the shy readers to leave a little emoji react quietly or something... maybe next month!)

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