This is the first time I've built a personal web site in quite some time. I've been on social media a lot, perhaps too much... I've burned out on the Twitter-style feeds of Mastodon and Bluesky, and am looking to chill a bit with the slower web.
I was born and raised in Iowa, but moved out when I turned 18. I spent a couple of decades in Rochester, New York. My Rochester tenure ended in 2020 when I moved to the Boston area. I currently live with my partner and a housemate, as well as a cat named Nigel.
I don't own a car, as of 2021. I don't have access to a car, unless I ask a friend for a ride. I no longer drive. I don't really even like riding in cars any more. Boston traffic will do that to you. I get around by foot, by bus, and by subway train, or sometimes by taxi or rideshare.
Disability is now a part of my life. I've been struggling to recover from a combination of illness and burnout that wiped me out sometime in 2018-2019. I can't think as well as I used to, my memory doesn't always work, and I now walk with a cane. I don't really know exactly what happened. This whole thing left me anxious and depressed and traumatized, which is a hole I'm working on getting out of.
I experience agoraphobia, which is an anxiety disorder where I feel extremely unsafe and anxious in unfamiliar or uncontrolled environments. From a practical standpoint, it makes leaving the house quite difficult, and I often have to rely on medication if I have to be somewhere at a particular time.