Monday Update 1-6-25
Week 1 of 2025, here we go
This first week of the new year has been a long and productive one, and started with attending a few Kwanzaa celebrations
I'm not religious, but I recognize that for a lot of people religion is their moral framework, in addition to their community, and I think the principles of Kwanzaa are a great example of that, and an incredible sense of principles. There was also no discussion of God, so while I recognize it is - Nevermind, as I was writing this I Googled and confirmed that Kwanzaa isn't actually religious, I just previously associated it as such because of the candles and my own preconceived notions. As I was saying, the principles of Kwanzaa are fantastic, if everyone lived by them the world would be harmonious and beautiful.
The first event I went to was a potluck dinner, with performers and speakers and vendors, at the WYCA. It was sorta an odd feeling, this was my second time in that gym and the first was the DOJ investigation discussion a week prior, but I got past it quickly. The food was incredible, the musicians were incredible and I got to see some of my favorite vendors.
The second was a drum circle at The Village, which I was really excited for. They do this every Tuesday, but I can't usually make it because of city council so aside from using five gallon buckets in a circle with them at an Out To Lunch events in the common this summer, this was the first time I'd touched a djembe in over a decade.
We started with Fanga, a beginner rhythm that I love, that has a song to go with it. This was the rhythm I'd ask to play everytime the teacher asked if anyone had a request, when I was like 12. I've seen my dad play it probably hundreds of times, I've heard it explained dozens, but I got to learn more about the background and history of it in, not just what it meant or when it was sung, but how it came to be.
The energy was incredible, and muscle memory kicked in - it was much harder for me to pause, alternating for the call and response of the circle leader showing everyone the rhythm for us to mimic than it was for me to just play it, but I managed. As soon as I focused on anyone or anything, I lost track of the beat, but was able to get back quickly. We were able to all learn the second part of it, and then half the room did one and half did the other, and it sounded incredible. There were moments we fell out, but it seemed we got back quickly. I have a renewed appreciation for drum circles, it felt like such a concise whirlwind of the important parts of community - finding someone who knows what they're doing and paying close attention, and listening to others around you while maintaining your own thing, working together to make something beautiful. It wasn't just meditative for me, it was restorative, and I will absolutely be making a point to go to the
A lot of my time this past week has been dedicated to setting up my own photo server.
A current scam/business plan is streamlining automatic photo backup to a limited amount of cloud storage from your device manufacturer. This works in conjunction with the smaller onboard storage, lack of upgradability/removable storage (remember when Android phones had memory card slots, and you could just get a larger one), and charge you when you inevitably exceed the free amount after spamming you with notifications about it. Once THAT amount fills up again you can't use it to share documents, and they eventually stop accepting emails with that account until you delete your precious photos (often one by one, they don't make it easy to offload in bulk) or just pay for more storage.
Particularly fuck google, because they said I'd have free photo upload (at reduced quality) as part of a Pixel promotion and went back on that but Microsoft and Apple do the exact same thing these days, it’s just standard practice.
Pros:
automatic backup
facial recognition (search by person)
Search by date or place
Access to this library from all my devices
Easy sharing of albums
Cons:
$9ish/month for the rest of my life
2TB Limit
Enter Immich , an open source software that's pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. It has all these features, and I can host it myself (install it on my own server). It even has a tool for importing my Google photo backup and best of all, will check for duplicates during the import process. I had to relearn some linux stuff, but it's relatively basic and now that it's set up it's just like using another website (except slower).
My partner asked if I was trying to recreate my photographic memory, and at first I said "No, supplement it" but after more thought I realized it's actually to relieve it - Having everything in a place I know I can locate and reference it lets me relax and stop thinking about it, while still being able to use the information later. It also helps me aggregate content, and will make me more productive in many other ways - instead of figuring out where I saved the Gopro files to, or having to go back and forth from the multiple phones I brought to a protest, it will all be in one place. This should streamline my content output this year as well as make it easier to locate older stuff I haven't shared yet.
I've also been configuring Obsidian as my sole note-taking app. When I had tried it previously, the mobile app was too slow to open which was a huge issue because I'd ADHD away from what I was writing down before I saw a cursor, but they've since significantly improved it. I uninstalled Google Keep in 2024 and am hoping to leave it that way. There are so many Community developed "plug-ins" that add functionality, and last time I made the mistake of searching through and adding all the ones I thought I might use, which resulted in me not using any of them. This time I'm adjusting it as I go, setting it up for my workflow and trying to keep it simple. A great example of what this looks like is that I've disabled the "daily note" that's built in, and am using a plug-in that creates a new note every week, and another that loads that note and scrolls all the way to the bottom when I open the app. In theory, now I just sort that note into others at the end of every week.
I've been closing up the nonprofit I never finished opening, and am both sad and extremely relieved. It was a fantastic concept on a lot of levels, but I was trying to make too many things happen with it, and hadn't sought enough support in so many different ways. It's been taking a toll on my mental health and I can no longer afford that. The landlord has been remarkably understanding and significantly more than patient, but asked is now asking for the keys instead of backrent and I'm jumping at the opportunity. It takes three or four months to accumulate the furniture, but you can give it away in a week.
I started a social media detox, cold turkey, on the first. I just ripped the band-aid off, posting that I was taking a break and then uninstalling the app. I did allow myself to make one political post, because it was time sensitive and I had documents most people don't from public record requests, but otherwise have held to it pretty well. I told myself I could check my notifications after I posted this. I do need to reinstall the apps to stream events later this week, but am going to make a point to not mindlessly scroll, which I honestly think I will be way better at after this past week of having to be mindful of when and why I want to open the app. It's more escapism and dissociation than social networking at this point.
I miss a few of my groups, I have no clue what's going on in most of my friends lives, and probably missed a few local happenings, that probably didn't need my commentary anyways. It's certainly harder for me to get rid of furniture or find a friend with a truck without being able to post. I’m sure my friends miss the cat pics.
Feedback is a huge one, I'm recognizing. The number of times I wanted to open it just to read what people were saying on my "I'm stopping cold turkey but will be back" post is somewhat concerning, but the way I got to be who I am today is largely social media interaction. I guess it took a lot of energy to focus on that, but also I feel like I need it to keep me in check. I want to streamline a way to give me feedback, like an anonymous submission page, but am concerned it would be used more to send me threats and hatemail. I may need an advisor, or few, instead of placing that responsibility on my social circles. There's also the factor that my manic rants impact local politics, and maybe I shouldn't short form them or allow myself to be reactionary.
I spent New Years Eve with a few friends I've made through activism, it was small and lovely.
Identified the source of a plumbing leak in my building that I've been trying to figure out for months, going into one of the storefronts. It was inconsistent and turned out to be from an entirely different unit than I thought. Great reminder that "property manager" is probably a hat I should delegate. I also paid my water bill less than a month after the city put a lien on my property, which is great, considering that last time I let it build up so high I ended up needing to use the settlement from my old shop landlord to pay it off.
During the last Parks commission meeting, I realized they had posted the new rules before approving them, which is a blatant continuation of their pattern of making up the rules as they go and asking forgiveness rather than permission.
During that meeting, I filed a petition to City council for them to make the parks department comply with the open meeting law. It was a weirdly worded petition, because I wanted to acknowledge that the city manager hadn't been contracted for the next meeting yet at the time of writing, and the Clerk got back to me, saying that it wasn't appropriate for the agenda, stating
The Open Meeting Law and City Manager’s executive rules and regulations apply and any rule changes would be discussed in a public meeting setting, further notice is not required and would be more than other boards do.”_
As a result of this, our office will be unable to move forward with placing the item on the agenda in its current form. That being said, the Law Department did add the following: “_Notwithstanding, if the petitioner desires to amend the petition to request the Council request the CM to provide a report on the process for rule changes of boards and commissions that would be acceptable.”
He suggested I ask for a report, which is purely informational and definitely not what I was asking for. The clerk is just the messenger, these responses are coming from the law department, which makes it worse.
I rephrased my petition to match the verbiage of Tom Marino's request last year to have the city manager tell the public records department to follow the public records law, and it was denied under the rule that prevents them from voting on an item twice within three months, as “too similiar” to that petiton. This is gonna be it's whole own post, because it turns out that he was referencing city documents that might not exist.
I also realized as a result of this whole thing that the Parks department may be scanning and uploading their agenda documents to prevent people from searching their agendas, which particularly concerning since they once denied an item being placed on the agenda because an attachment was provided to them in PDF format instead of WORD,.
On a different note, I sent a respectful "hey, we're past the ten days are you going to send the responsive records" and the public records department said they would send them after a final review and then sent me bodyworn camera footage where someone's ID was entirely visible, and their financial information was audibly shared, but successfully edited it from another one of videos they provided. I'm not sure how large of a Oopsie that is on their end.
It's annoying that so many people within Worcester are that bad at their jobs. It makes sense, because we don't have standards of success or metrics of what our city manager doing his job well is supposed to look like, why would he bother having those for anyone under him.
I think I've actually identified two different violations from December 10th, and so I've started using the Open Meeting Law complaint form.
I managed to use our city manager's deceptive remarks after my attack in conjunction with a response from the head clerk to create a well laid out argument that our city manager is responsible for open meeting law violations, which they're gonna have to discuss among themselves, fix, and then tell me and the state how they fixed it. This will get it's own post too.
This past Saturday, I attended a Stop the bleed class, and got the basics on how to use a torniquet and wound packing techniques from a few EMTs. Prior to this class, my only real knowledge on this matter was from my dad torniqueting my leg with his shirt after a bicycle accident when I was 9 and healing from various body modifications. We got to practice a bit, and did timed trials where they said a limb/situation and we had to put a tourniquet on ourself. I've already started carrying narcan arround, and have been meaning to add a few things to a small bag to keep in my daily backpack, and this class helped a ton to give me the framework to help.
After that, I went with someone I ran into at the class and helped move a few car engines to create space for bookshelves.
Sunday chores are making a difference. The house looks cleaner than it has since we've moved in, and we've finally put the rest of the art up on the walls.
Squid game season two was pretty intense. It's partially that I'm not opening social media, but I've been reading a bunch of fan theory articles and they really have managed to pack a significant amount of story and dynamics in a short season, I may actually rewatch it again soon.
The Worcester district attorneys office didn't seem able to locate my case, by my name, my attackers, or docket number, which was extremely concerning. I talked to a few different helpful people front desk people and left voicemails for multiple ADAs on-call, but it turned out to be good news - This is being prosecuted by a different county, which possibly means they're acknowledging the conflicts of interest locally.
I'm still navigating what content to create, and where to put it. I might eventually paywall block my personal stuff, and leave the political shit free. Unfortunately, they kinda are perpetually intertwined.
I also may want a more permanent blog than a substack for some of these posts, while the Monday update could remain here. Part of the reason I'm trying to leave Facebook is the timeline - everything needing to be viewed within the next few days, or else it gets lost until it pops up in your memories. I want my writing to be found on Google by people looking to learn about the intersection of things I am discussing.
I'm attempting to register as a journalist with the state. They (the next day) denied my application citing youtube, Instagram, as social media isn't covered by the relevant law, but I'm not sure where they stand on Substack and more importantly, I gave them DavidFuckingWebb.com and once approved it goes onto a list on a state site so I can see why they aren't responding to my resubmitted application. I may need to make a dedicated "news" site, and will put my city recordings there. Woocountability anyone?
This morning I went for my first run of the new year, but also since my run club paused for winter. Last week someone in a local group posted for their partner, I commented, and we gave it a try today and it was 25 degrees, but somehow felt ok. By 10:05am I had taken my medicine, ran 3 miles, and scheduled a dentist appointment. I'm very excited to get back to regularly running, something I didn't think I'd ever find myself saying.
This afternoon I attended a press conference from The Massachusetts Alliance Against Predatory Lending, they released a draft of the Housing Court due Process Failings report, discussing systemic inequities in our local judicial system. You can watch that here
A local paper used my attack to highlight different classes in Worcester, since my assailant is a friend of the chair of the committee on public safety which was called impotent last week, since it is. He’s entirely right and it's a solid article that breaks down how little she’s done for the good of our city.
I also think she’s one of the main driving forces behind Shotspotter, which you can see clearly in the first few minutes of her city meeting on the matter.
It’s been a long week. Please let me know if you read this, and any feedback you have. Too political? Not enough cat pics? Too long, or too all over the place? You loved it? I’m figuring this out as I go, and if I hear the same thing from multiple people, I might adjust accordingly.
Upcoming This Week
Ceasefire petition is back on the agenda, after the ACLU expressed concern that the city applied council rules in a "viewpoint discriminatory manner."
Third floor of city hall, Vigil at 5:30, council at 6:30, wear black.
My attacker will plead Not Guilty to the charge of assaulting me this Friday morning. Its likely a two minute thing, and we will probably learn who his attorney is.
I'm gonna try a KungFu class, and likely start doing that one or two evenings a week.
Class on what we can do as a municipality for community defense in consideration of the upcoming Trump administration that I found about about from Worcester Sucks and I love it (if you aren’t following them, you should be)
