Exploring Dawn

I saw this post about the default apps the writer uses for various services & tools. I love seeing these lists. I learn about new apps and sometimes I feel vindicated for having choosing something similar.

Here’s my list. But I warn you that what normally happens when I do something like this is that it gets my mind churning and the next thing I know, I’ve changed my defaults. 🤣 But, this is a current snapshot. As you will see, I’m pretty much an Apple fangirl.

• 👩🏻‍💻 Blogging: Micro.blog
• 📚 Book tracking: Book Track
• 📅 Calendar: Apple Calendar everywhere and Calendar 366 on iPhone
• 💬 Chat: Apple Messages
• ☁️ Cloud Storage: iCloud
• 📇 Contacts: Apple Contacts
• 📀 Database: Collections DB
• 📔 Journaling: Apple Journal
• ⌨️ Launcher: Raycast
• 📬 Mail client: Apple Mail
• ✉️ Mail service: Apple iCloud
• 🧭 Maps: Apple Maps
• 🎸 Music: Apple Music
• 🗞️ News: Apple News
• 📝 Notes: Apple Notes (hands down so amazing)
• 🔐 Passwords: Apple Passwords
• 🌅 Photos: Apple Photos & iCloud
• 🎙️ Podcasts: Overcast
• 🛠️ Productivity suite: Pages, Numbers and Keynote
• 📖 Reading: Kindle (physical & app), Libby
• 🧐 Read Later: GoodLinks
• 📰 RSS client: News Explorer (sync via iCloud)
• 🛒 Shopping Lists: Our Groceries
• 🙋🏻‍♀️ Social Media: BlueSky, Tumblr
• ✅ Tasks: Apple Reminders
• 🌤️ Weather: Apple Weather
• 🌐 Web browsing: Safari everywhere, and also DuckDuckGo browser on Mac

I read some amazing books and poetry in 2025. The depth of these writers was amazing and some will nestle in my heart for a long time to come.

Ending the year with Jeanne Thornton’s A/S/L was a true treat. She is an amazing writer, both in storytelling and craft

This has been an incredible and insane year. I’ve come into my own identity just as so many have been working to erase me and my brothers & sisters from the greater culture. We’ve got a long road ahead of us but we have always been here and we will always be here.

I have found that I have surrounded myself with so many wonderful people in my life. They have been accepting and supportive of me as I explore the world through awakened eyes. I have been lucky and I hope that I have been as supportive to them through their lives as well.

And I’ve found such a great home here, on Micro.blog. It’s such a great system and the community is wonderful. I’ve “met” some wonderful people and I can always find something to make me smile whenever I scroll through my timelines.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year! 🩷

While I like to text, I love emails more. I like having the time to form thoughts, massage the text, and think about how my words will be received.

Reading about the Danish government’s plan to end postal letter delivery at the end of 2025, I thought of how before email, I loved to send and receive (!) physical letters.

The thought that this joy will stop for some is heartbreaking to me. I can’t say how important it was to receive letters from a loved one or a pen pal as I was growing up. I would ride my bike to a favorite secluded place and read the letter, rapt.

I will strive to write physical letters to my friends in the future to keep this practice alive. I beg you to do the same.

If you’re into perfumes, I think that an important choice is picking a scent for yourself. An even more monumental choice is picking your first one. I finally crossed that threshold and I’m super happy. It seems silly or trite, but little moments are sometimes the easiest to come by and the simplest to enjoy.

I did a bunch of online research for this. I’m a vanilla and musk kind of girl, but I hate stuff that’s overpowering (to myself and to others). I wanted something delicate, feminine, but something I could wear everyday or on a special night out.

Hello Lake & Skye’s 11 11 Vanilla! It is my new signature scent. It’s light and smells of fresh linen, some powder, a little musk, & hints of vanilla. I did one spray onto a wrist, touch the other and my neck pulse points. It was heavenly. I could smell it but it wasn’t overpowering at all. It was at peak scent for about 3 hours. After that it started to decline unless you were up close to where it was sprayed. By 6 hours, it was mostly gone.

This is an intimate scent, one for you and those closest to you. I think that’s really cool. Something for myself to enjoy or to share with a loved one. It’s not “in your face” for the whole world to share, even if they don’t want to share.

This was a nice indulgence for me during the winter season.

I was recently chatting with a friend about art. She said she’d heard about someone asking random people “if you could own any piece of art, what would it be and why?” I thought that was a great question and immediately one picture came to mind. It’s Picasso’s Head of a Woman, a small painting from 1924 that’s in the Tate Modern collection in London. I saw it in person while I was in town for a work visit. For several days, I was writing at the museum, and I’d go visit this painting each day. It drew me in and I wasn’t sure why.

My friend, who I recently came out to, asked if it resonated with me personally? I said I hadn’t thought about it at the time (this trip was over 10 years ago). But, I told her, thinking about it now, maybe I was drawn to it because I saw myself in it. Feminine, contemplative, somewhat abstract, a tad withdrawn? Saying this out loud to her was really powerful. It further illustrates how much of my true self was bubbling up under the surface. Even though I’d known for longer, I never connected this attraction to a painting with my inner self.

This is yet another reason why I love art, be it music, painting, writing, etc. It gets inside you. There are immediate reactions, but sometimes the delayed ones are even more profound.

Today, I’ve been reaching out to close friends to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving. I’ve done this in the past but I think this year I truly mean it more.

I am thankful for their friendship and support as I’ve realized my true self and shared it with them. Their love and support has meant so much to me and helped me move forward.

I hope others have friends and/or family who also have been supportive of them and are able to thank them for this act of kindness and love.

This is my first Trans Day of Remembrance since I’ve come out. It is horrible that we need a day like this at all and it seems like it will only get worse in the near term.

I want to remember all of those who came before me. I couldn’t be who I am if they hadn’t led their lives proudly and outwardly so that I could see them and read about them. They died or were murdered for simply living their truth. They weren’t hurting anyone or taking anything away from anyone else. Their deaths diminish us all.

But what doesn’t diminish is us. They can kill us, or lead us into death, but they cannot squelch or deny our existence. We were here since the beginning of humanity, we’ve been in the recorded history since history started being recorded, and we will be here long after the hateful rhetoric and those who push it are reduced to ash and blown to the four corners of the earth.

🩷 🏳️‍⚧️ 🌹

Trying NetNewsWire again for my RSS feed reader. It’s nice on the iPhone but not quite as nice on my Mac or iPad. I normally use News Explorer, an amazing app that parses most websites. NewNewsWire still has issues with some. News Explorer doesn’t get updated often, but they did a massive update in the last year that was a game change.

News Explorer has almost too many preferences and configurations while NetNewsWire is the bare minimum. NewNewsWire is very fast but navigation between feeds/folders is handled better in News Explorer

I wonder if it’s more me being bored and wanting to try something new? I also go back and forth between Apple stock Calendar app and Calendar 366.

Let the experiment begin (again). 😊