nicole @nicole@myna.social

🥺 Okay, _fine_.
🥹 Cue the waterworks.

“This was how life went. A single moment seemed to extend forever, then suddenly you were snapped out of it. The forward motion of time stretched whatever rubbery glue-like substance had fixed you there until it failed catastrophically. You weren’t the person you were before you got trapped; you weren’t the person you were while you were trapped: the merciless thing about it, Liv discovered, was that you weren’t someone entirely different either.”

😭 #NovaSwingMadeMeCry

I'm loving all of the transfemme joy going on in my timeline, but I want to stop and let the transmascs know that they're amazing and worthy of celebrating as well.
You men and masc enbies are incredible and valid, and here's hoping that we all have a healthy and empowered 2023.
#trans #transJoy #transmasc #happyNewYear

I’m 17 months into my #transition, which (for me) means just as many months of hormone replacement therapy (#HRT). Every so often, I head into SF and lie down on a giant scanner bed, and have my body composition analyzed.

The most-profound change has been the loss of lean muscle mass. For the first sox months, muscle held steady; over the next six, ten pounds evaporated.

Right now, I’m losing more than a pound of muscle a month. 🎢

I have such mixed feelings!

On one hand: goodbye and good riddance. I’ve always been tall, broad-chested, and muscular, and I’ve always hated it. I well remember my friends encouraging me towards sports in high school—“you’re a beast!!”—and how much it fucking hurt when they did.

On the other hand: this rhymes with aging—an accelerated enfeeblement. For the first time in my adult life, I can be physically overpowered by nearly half of the species. This is humbling. It sponsors nightmares and late night pepper spray purchases on Amazon.

Passing is something that only happens with strangers. We don’t pass or fail to pass with those who knew us in the before times. We are respected or disrespected, and we bear no responsibility for the latter. That’s on them. #trans

A last look back to 2022.

I wish more apps that let you share links as images would embed a tiny QR code to the source in the image. That way you could find the source even if the author doesn’t share it.

My only #NewYearResolution will be 'use your stickers', as it has been every year for a long time.

It's not just sticker-specific, but a reminder that leaving the sticker on the sheet does nothing. Choosing something to stick it on means it will bring you joy. Might that joy be impermanent? Yes, but everything has the potential to be impermanent, and what joy is there in leaving the sticker on the sheet?

Burn that nice candle you bought for the smell. Use that bath bomb. Enjoy that snack treat. #UseYourStickers.

IBM slide, 1979 ... 😅 https://twitter.com/_w0bb1t_/status/1484198603337908226/photo/1

A recent FT article has prompted discussion on birdsite as to why the idea that you become "more conservative as you age" seems to be breaking down.

As I've talked about before, this has ALWAYS misunderstood what happens. Which is that people become more conservative when they feel part of (or the opportunity to be part of) the status quo and want to preserve it.

And Xennials/below don't have that.

Here's a thread to explain. 🧵

A good interview for a tech lead role would look like this:

"Here's a technical problem your team is facing. Design a meeting for the team to decide what to do about it."

Most interviews focus too much on "can you yourself come up with a good design?" and not enough on real leadership.

Today’s read is @mjohnharrison ‘s Nova Swing.

Its predecessor, Light, gently gutted me a few years ago. I had come to identify with aspects of the furious intelligence, Seria Mau, once human, now a space ship, who is cut free from her physical form in the final pages.

“In the micro-cameras she saw herself for the first time in fifteen years. She was this small, broken, yellowish thing, its limbs all at odd angles, curling and uncurling itself feebly against the pain of the open air.”

At that exact moment in my life, this was a #trans allegory, and the resolution had me sobbing quietly in the dark.