hypertext.lee

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#FFFFFF)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] (b4r: 'dotted')+(corner-radius:12) [ **welcome** * this is a [[link]] * as you click on links, they will appear at the top of each page * you may need to disable popups at some point ] =><= -----> [[enter->links]] <----- ==> (text-size: 0.4)[built with [[twine->twitter]] `[twinery.org]`]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#C4F1BE)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] (b4r: 'double')+(corner-radius:12) [ **nearly-always :: years** * [[form]] * [[gender]] * [[food-growing]] * [[clouds]] ] (b4r: 'dashed')+(corner-radius:12) [ **as of late :: months** * [[play]] * [[effort]] * [[labor]] * [[finitude]] ] (b4r: 'dotted')+(corner-radius:12) [ **fleeting :: today** * [[spoon/ing]] * [[fingernails]] * [[bonsai]] * [[vest]] ]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] [[C->vest]] told me something the second time we ever saw each other's physical forms: i don't actually care how strangers perceive me. i care how the people i care about perceive me. gender as a "close friends" story or a private party. i can choose who to invite. (text-style: "outline")[to what extent???????] (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] lately i am re-remembering how to play & how to move my body in ways that are soothing, intuitive T helps me remember; i am grateful for them. they sent me this [[david graeber article]], "what's the point if we can't have fun?" last year and i think about it often it comforts me to think that maybe electrons are just playing with each other :: "Unlike a DNA molecule, which we can at least pretend is pursuing some gangster-like project of ruthless self-aggrandizement, an electron simply does not have a material interest to pursue, not even survival. It is in no sense competing with other electrons. If an electron is acting freely—if it, as Richard Feynman is supposed to have said, “does anything it likes”—it can only be acting freely as an end in itself. Which would mean that at the very foundations of physical reality, we encounter freedom for its own sake—which also means we encounter the most rudimentary form of play." but then i wonder about [[effort]] and how it is related to play (text-style: "outline")[is play effortful?] (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] someone i used to work on a [[farm->food-growing]] with in northern michigan sent me a photo of a bumper sticker she saw that she thought i would like. it read: (font:'sans-serif')["I brake for interesting cloud formations"] sometimes when i look at the sky i scream, or jump, or [[flap my hands->play]]. cirrus clouds are my favorite. the ones that look like feathers, or pen strokes, or baby hairs. when i was in [[high school->labor]] i made an instagram account where i would only post photos of the sky last winter i listened to one song on repeat and made a [[twitter bot]] that posts skies from google street view. i think a lot about this article about a cloud in a [[data center]]. i don't know why i'm drawn to clouds. i think because they're never quite the same. and i love that classifying them is kind of futile because they change so quickly. (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] the first [[job->labor]] i ever had was on a vegetable farm. this was the first place i wore [[long shorts->gender]] every day. my knees, [[fingernails]] perpetually dirty. i became aware of the relationships between my body and the earth. i think growing food saved my life. i even grew to love the smell of the [[compost->finitude]], its heat and its power. its slowness. there was something about the [[effort]] of physically turning the compost in the july afternoon heat. the sweat. as i re-read the first few chapters of parable of the sower, i am reminded of the necessity of [[knowing plants->bonsai]]. (text-style: 'outline')[maybe growing food will save my life again?] (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] C thinks that love must hurt. if it doesn't hurt, it's not love. on the phone last week, we decided that maybe love actually just requires effort. and sometimes effort can hurt, especially if it's not reciprocated. we started talking about effort because i was trying to think about my relationship to it now that i'm a [[teacher->labor]]. (text-style: "outline")[is effort morally good? does being a good student just mean putting in effort? how does effort relate to (false) meritocracies and narratives of social mobility? what does it mean to praise effort at an extraordinarily well-resourced institution?] (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] these days, i teach at a boarding school. as i write this i am sitting in the common room of a dorm. it's past lights out. the residents are quiet because it's a thursday. i know i am lucky to labor in a way that feels meaningful to me. but even though there is "meaning" there are still expectations of my brain & body that feel unreasonable. i want to hold on to this frustration. thinking about a tweet i saw that said the most common european stereotype of americans is that they work themselves to death for no reason every other day i want to be outside, [[growing food->food-growing]] in an ideal world i think i would have like 20 part time jobs :: (text-style: "outline")[how to co-create an ideal world? how to reconcile when ideals are contradictory? is anything actually contradictory, or do we just need more hands?] (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] i had an assignment for grad school that required a high school student to teach me something. my student taught me how to do "french tips" i felt [[most like a boy ->gender]] when i had to ask her which direction to apply the topcoat: top to bottom or bottom to top :: i'd never painted my nails before. today i cut off the tops of my stained nails, my hands feel light & rough. (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] i received a tiny gold spoon in the mail from T. it had leaves on the handle. it came to me from california. 2,621 miles. this morning A texted me that she woke up feeling like someone was holding her. she said, "what if he was holding me" because yesterday was 1 year since he died. when [[grief->bonsai]] comes to me, i don't know if i'll be able to hold it. (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] my parents, one of whom is newly retired, have gotten into bonsai trees and have left two in my care while they're out of the country. i think i may have killed one of them. 80% of the leaves are shriveled. i know how to [[grow food->food-growing]] but not how to take care of a plant that's not supposed to grow. (text-style: "outline")[how to know when something is dying? how to know when to let it die?] `<- spurred by Charis' question last Friday` (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] (here's where you might need to enable popups) (open-url: 'https://medium.com/s/story/it-was-raining-in-the-data-center-9e1525c37cc3') (text-size: 0.4)[[clouds]] || (text-size: 0.4)[[twitter]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] (here's where you might need to enable popups) (open-url: 'https://twitter.com/skyviewbot') (text-size: 0.4)[[clouds]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] (here's where you might need to enable popups) (open-url: 'https://thebaffler.com/salvos/whats-the-point-if-we-cant-have-fun') (text-size: 0.4)[[play]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] [[C->gender]] texted me: "i'm wearing a vest" and sent me a photo. their hair was spiky. last year i wrote a poem about their knee. (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] i found a link to twine through a thread about game-making tools on twitter ! i thought it was serendipitous that i stumbled upon a platform built around hypertext and [[wanted to try it out->effort]] and ended up spending (too much?) time learning every time i am on twitter i wonder if i am on it too much. there is so much information. (text-style: "outline")[am i overloading my brain?] but then i find things like twine and fascinating articles and i get to talk to people who are asking some of the same questions i am asking maybe it is a matter of access, the ubiquity, [[the illusion of existing in the "cloud"->data center]] (text-size: 0.4)[[links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#C4F1BE)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] the interplay between form and content :: how does this tool, [[twine->twitter]], influence the way i am writing, thinking, conveying? [[T->spoon/ing]] is on the other side of the country and a few months ago we were on Zoom and put on the auto-captions, marveled at how this tool mediates our interactions, makes us a little [[goofier->play]], invites us to poke at its edges the tracking of viewing history at the top of each page : a reminder that each viewer is creating new patterns, new connections what if the reader of the poem could track where their eyes lingered? thinking of [[midst]] which makes revision palpable, stretches out time, creates intimacy between reader/poet the meme :: "this meeting could've been an email" i think i skew on the side of email, perhaps to the detriment of those around me (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] (here's where you might need to enable popups) (open-url: 'https://midst.press') (text-size: 0.4)[[form]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] when i was driving across the country i couldn't help but think of [[death->bonsai]] and think of this poem by marilyn nelson, [[psalm]] [[C->vest]] texted me on my birthday that they'd been thinking about death too and said they'd hoped it would feel like the love we've given each other :: gentle, easeful, patient sometimes on the phone with T i can see them growing older. that's never happened to me before. i am acutely aware that i could pass for being 14 years old. i think it has to do with my [[body->gender]]. but also it has to do with other people. i originally named this page "death" but changed it to finitude, because what i mean to say is :: i have a finite time in this [[form]] (text-size: 0.4)[[back to links ->links]]

(enchant:?page,(text-color:#201E50)+(bg:#A2C3A4)+(font:'monospace')) (enchant:?link,(color:#525B76)+(text-style:'buoy')+(hover-style: (text-style:'italic'))) (hide:?sidebar) (text-size: 0.4)[(history:)] (here's where you might need to enable popups) (open-url: 'https://leebeckw.github.io/poems/nelson-psalm') (text-size: 0.4)[[finitude]]