**let me preface this post with the stipulation of me being stoned during this post and lazy to emphasize text, here we go:
today didn’t start as a disaster, which, lately, is basically a miracle. and instead of waiting for the floor to fall out, i actually did the unglamorous shit that keeps me upright: i took care of the room, and the room took care of me back.
here’s the thing i keep relearning the hard way — room care is self-care. when the standing desk is clear and the floor isn’t a landmine of yesterday’s chaos, my brain reads the world differently. less “everything is on fire,” more “okay, we can work here.” i can actually see the loop happening now: i clean the space, the space calms the brain, the calm brain studies, the studying makes me proud, the pride makes me want to keep the space clean. it’s a stupidly simple flywheel and it’s oh so fucking wonderful to finally watch it spin instead of reading about it in some productivity blog written by a guy who’s never had a night terror in his life.
and yeah — i’ll say the quiet part out loud — the weed is helping. not in a curated instagram “plant medicine journey” way. in a “the edges get soft enough that i can sit still and actually focus” way. it’s been taking the jagged anxiety down just enough that the structure i build can actually hold. messy, real, and working. i’ll take it.
but the part i’m actually fucking proud of? the studying.
i went absolutely feral on freeCodeCamp typography today. i cleared the entire working with css fonts theory block in a single sitting — every last lesson, all green:
- what are the fundamentals of typography
- what are font families and how do they work
- what are web safe fonts
- how do you work with external fonts (font squirrel & google fonts)
- what is the @font-face at-rule
- what is the text-shadow property
six lessons. one day. each one printed, highlighted, handwritten, and checked against the real fCC questions until it actually locked into my skull instead of evaporating the second i closed the tab. on top of that i ran two more rounds of Coddy and pushed deep into basic selectors — sitting one lesson off the end of the chapter — plus my usual Mimo taps to keep the fingers and the brain on speaking terms.
that’s not “i stared at a screen and dissociated about rent.” that’s present. that’s me being actually here for it. and after the kind of months i’ve had, being genuinely present for six straight lessons is the win i’m choosing to hold onto.
is there still a ways to go? sure. i’ve got the nutritional label workshop and the newspaper article lab left in typography, then the review and quiz, then a whole accessibility section, then positioning and attribute selectors. but here’s the thing — it’s not too too far. it’s close. close enough that i can see it. close enough that i actually believe i can be fully caught up and back on track this coming monday, Week 6 Day 1, kicking off that week’s real topic: Responsive Design & CSS Grid. for the first time in a while, “back on track” isn’t a cope. it’s a plan i can see myself pulling off.
none of this erases the big shit. the eviction notice is still ticking. july 8 is still july 8. the gap between where the fundraiser is and where it needs to be is still real, and still terrifying if i look at it too long. but today proved something to me: i can be scared and still show up. i can do eviction math at 6am and still go feral on typography by noon. both things are true, and i’m done pretending i have to wait until life is clean before i’m allowed to make progress.
so here’s the ask, stripped of bullshit. if you’ve got it in you to help keep this roof over our heads while i build the thing that gets us long-term stable — and eventually gets my mom home to the Philippines after fifty-plus years away — every little bit moves the needle:
→ fundraiser: https://gofund.me/85c5a1cd8 → the 24/7 stream: https://twitch.tv/guerz
drop in, lurk, throw a dono or some bits, request a song, or just share the story so somebody else’s empathy has somewhere to land. all of it helps. all of it is scaffolding keeping me off the floor.
today i cleaned the room, calmed the brain, learned the thing, and felt — for real — like future me is worth planning for.
overall? optimist prime.
• Guerz 🧐 feels optimistic prime
🎵 https://open.spotify.com/track/72ItkWX2kaKsARaBxkNJte?si=zeLCnffuSqae0E_cLhHnaQ