(personal blog made by a middle-aged trans lady ♥)
About Charlotte ♥
Charlotte is just another middle-aged Ottawa transsexual woman enjoying life with her partner, Kathleen, and two cats: one very large grey-and-white bicolour cat named Charlie and a small mackerel tabby named Martha.
A full stereotype too! A purple-haired femme, who's always in dresses and manicured, into film photography, is vegan, and works for the public service.
About lottiejoy.ca
In search of a smaller, human, and more personal internet experience, I finally listened to that little voice in my head that said I should make a personal website.
I wanted it to be a little bit like the websites I made on GeoCities in the 1990s, but without the Nine Inch Nails autoplay midi, frames, or image maps.
Why lottiejoy.ca?
It's my name! While nobody really calls me Lottie exactly, it's still my favourite diminutive for Charlotte, even if I'm usually called Char.
As to Joy? My middle name was chosen in honour of great-great aunt of mine who was a very special woman, and who lived a beautiful and open life with her partner from the time they met in the late-1950s until their final days in the early 2010s. It's an honour to carry with me a bit of a family 🏳️🌈 in this way.
The how of lottiejoy.ca
While I started this website filled with feelings of manual HTML coding, I was soon reminded why I had so often run out of steam in the '90s with my websites. Not wanting to use a heavy CMS for such a small website, I use 11ty for lottiejoy.ca.
If you block web fonts, this website will just use whatever your default monospace font is. If you do not, you will see it presented in JuliaMono, a font that I am rather fond of.
This website is hosted by Neocities. I very much ♥ Neocities.
Are you anywhere else online?
Yes!
Aside from this very website:
Charlotte Makes Photos: Like so many other trans women, I am very much into making my photos on film. In fact, outside of the occasional phone photo for sharing, I do not use digital cameras at all! I put up one post nearly every day, sharing a sample of the photos from a recent roll. Unlike this website, Charlotte Makes Photos is a standard WordPress site, which is hosted by FullHost, based in Vancouver.
Bluesky: After being burnt out on the testy-chatty social media sites and deleting all of my accounts last year, I recently returned to Bluesky with a new account. I missed all of the lovely #BelieveInFilm people there - both trans and cis - so I opened a new account. To maintain my internal peace, I don't use the account for politics, but I also don't maintain a second account for trans matters either.
Mastodon: Of all the texty-chatty social media platforms, in a post-Twitter world, Mastodon is the one I have the hardest time gelling with. Still, I came to miss the lovely #BelieveInFilm folks there too, as well as the active trans and Linux/FOSS-related accounts, so I recently returned.
Glass: Glass is a positively beautiful photo-sharing site that has all the right things in place: no algorithm, no ads, photo series, full-quality uploads, and a beautiful app and website that is perfect for sharing your best work. It also happens to cost money and is photo-forward, rather than discussion-led, so it also tends to be on the quieter side. Still, I quite like the experience even if I wouldn't make it my only place.
Flickr: Flickr has been around for such a long time! While it's not one I spend too much of my time on, I love that I can have a nice place to store full-resolution versions of my photos (like Glass) that is well-understood and familiar to almost anybody who has been around the internet long enough.
Loooooong drawn sigh
Instagram: Look, Meta is evil in all of the worst ways and their platforms are inconvenient, kludgy, and the dark patterns and tactics to keep you engaged with their platforms are both obvious and you can practically smell the sweaty stink of desperation emanating from the app when it's open. It's also more-or-less the only way you'll find out what local queers are up to, what like 75% of local businesses are up to, and where to find good vegan food. So after several years away from the website, I held my nose and opened a new account in early April.
Want to Creep on my Media Consumption?
It's a little weird when I put it that way, isn't it? I use a few websites to track books I read, movies I watch, and a good portion of the music I purchase.
Bandcamp: A couple of years ago, I decided that I would abandon all paid music streaming and instead purchase music. Most of the music I buy comes from Bandcamp, with some from the iTunes Music Store and the occasional CD. I don't write reviews because I'm too sensitive and whether or not I like an album or song is based on vibes and nothing at all thoughtful or considered.
Storygraph: It took me a long time to be able to read for pleasure after so many years in school, and when I returned to doing so back in 2022 (when I came out), it didn't take long for me to realize that I needed something to help keep track of books that I had read and books that I intended to buy. I don't write reviews because I'm too sensitive and whether or not I like a book is based on vibes and nothing at all thoughtful or considered.
Letterboxd: While Kathleen and I don't watch all that many movies, most of what we watch is on Criterion Channel. While lovely and delightful and containing the exact sorts of movie that we love to watch (read: we like them old, arty, and kinda queer), they also rotate their offerings with some regularity. This means that it doesn't really keep track - at least not for long - of the movies that we have watched. This is what I use Letterboxd for. I don't write reviews because I'm too sensitive and whether or not I like a movie is based on vibes and nothing at all thoughtful or considered.