Charlotte's Blog ♥

Unexpectedly Exciting

Charlotte ♥ — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 06:00:00 EST

Having ordered a new (slightly customized) Mac mini last week, I have to admit: I am far more excited about its arrival than I thought that I would be.

I have quite a few reasons, as I recently outlined, but it all mostly seemed like a pragmatic decision. Better hardware compatibility and computer component costs have become exhorbitant with little evidence that they will return to earth any time soon.

Since customizations take a few weeks, I can expect to receive it somewhere between March 13 and 20. As the days have worn on, a sense of excitement has set in. Almost a relief even.

In the meantime, I've been restoring things to the way they were before Summer 2024. Rebuilding my folder structure in Apple Photos, refining and streamlining my film scans, transferring content to the Apple Passwords app from Bitwarden, making sure I have the right bits and bobs ready for things, etc.

It almost feels a little like a welcome home.

Go figure.

For her own part, not really seeing a way for her old base model M1 Mini to last through the time it may take for parts to come back down to earth, Kathleen decided to upgrade too!

It actually marks the first time she has purchased a computer for herself and for her own purposes. Before this week, it has either been student-issue or hand-me-downs.

But around the same time as me, she will be accepting delivery of a customized purple A4 iMac!

About Eighteen Months. That's How Long

Charlotte ♥ — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 06:00:00 EST

In the Summer of 2024 when I decided to pass my base model 2020 M1 Mac Mini over to my partner Kathleen, whose MacBook Air was nearing its end of life, it marked my departure from the Apple ecosystem. At least it did for my at-home computing. As I outline in my uses page, its replacement was an off-lease Dell tower that I installed Debian on.

My reasons were partially emotional (wanting a change of "computing scenery", nostalgia for earlier days), partially practical (wanting to be able to upgrade hardware after purchase - something Apple doesn't provide for on many systems), and partially asserting my values (wanting to have a bit more control over my computing, finding FOSS-type arguments compelling, being at odds with big tech, etc.).

After thinking it over for a few weeks - first passively, then more actively - yesterday afternoon, I opened the Apple Store app on my phone and ordered a slightly-customized M4 Mac mini.

Environmental Scan: Severe Irritation on the Horizon

One major source of irritation I've had with this Linux machine relates to my main hobby: film photography.

Although making photos and developing the film has nothing itself to do with the computer, living in an apartment too small to accommodate a dark room, my process involves scanning the negatives and slides to work with the final product digitally.

I have two scanners: an Epson Perfection V600 Photo, which I use for scanning 120 film, and a Plustek 8200i, which I use for scanning 35mm film. While the V600 is (nominally) compatible with Linux because Epson provides drivers and a sort of usable version of their software, Plustek does not.

When I made the switch in 2024, I understood this drawback and because I had already invested in SilverFast 9 for both scanners, I decided to do my scanning in Windows 11 running in VirtualBox.

It was never ideal. VirtualBox does not get along well with fractional scaling in Wayland, leaving everything blocky and fuzzy. Not exactly a good situation to be in when dealing with photos and it is compounded when the colour spaces between the two were different enough that it took quite a while to get a sense of what final scan would look like when saved into Linux. And if all that weren't enough, this clunky method is also quite slow in spite of my computer having 32GB RAM and an adequate CPU.

My dissatisfaction with my film scanning setup was recently underscored when, out of curiosity, I plugged the scanner into my mid-2104 MacBook Pro (which I recently replaced the battery for in preparation for post-surgery blogging), tried scanning a roll of film, and found that it was noticeably faster at scanning and processing than my main desktop's setup in spite of it having a slower CPU and a quarter the RAM.

(Although I wasn't really interested in paying for it, I did give VueScan a try, and found it too spartan and unable/unwilling to produce the results I've come to expect and prefer from SilverFast.)

Since there is a good chance that if I'm at the computer, I'm scanning a roll of film, the irritation only grew.

No Upgrades for the Foreseeable Future

It's possible that I might have been willing to overlook the scanning issue, but thanks to the market-distorting powers of some of the most awful companies, the market for upgrade components has gone caterwonky, sending prices skyrocketing in short order with no signs of them coming down any time soon.

SSDs, HDDs, and RAM whose prices I balked at before Christmas for being 2X what they were in the Summer are now going today for 2X-5X the price they were before the holidays.

In most cases, when combined, the retail prices for these upgrades (if you can even find stock in some cases) are making Apple's built-to-order prices look reasonable. I have no appetite for paying more than Apple's prices for the older and slower upgrades I would want for a 7-year-old second-hand computer.

Since upgradeability was one of the main practical reasons that I was willing to make a few usability and compatibility tradeoffs in the first place, left without affordable upgrades, the various incompatibilities and irritations stand out all the more.

Not Just Parts: Nostalgia also in Short Supply

It also turns out that I don't actually care very much about tinkering, customizing, and otherwise making my computer "my own" as much as I thought I did. I used to care deeply about this sort of thing, customizing my e16 or Windows 2000/XP installs extensively.

This has worked out the same as my relationship with video games: I lost interest in playing them in the early 2000s and since then, have been happy to play the occasional bit of Diablo or OpenTTD for very short bursts. Usually measurable in minutes.

On Linux, whenever I've tried out a different desktop environment or used Gnome plugins or whatever else, I set it up, use it for a few minutes, declare it "neat", and move on back to the mostly default Gnome desktop experience of Debian 13.

Values & Ethics: Same Green, Smaller Lawn

This one has been interesting, because there is something to it. At least a little bit, anyway.

The values - both spoken and lived - of so many active contributors and organizations in the FOSS community have values that align closely with mine. It is always heartening to see other trans women living their best lives and contributing interesting, useful, and vital things to the computing world.

It shouldn't be surprising, but the same sociopolitical machinations that have brought us the global fascist uprising we're currently facing have had a large impact on open source software too. The fash aren't all beavering away at X the everything app, OpenAI, or Facebook.

They're also vibe-coding FOSS apps and otherwise spending time advocating for remigration, trans elimination, and cheering on ICE and hoping to bring that energy to their own countries when not American.

I have most definitely lost count of the FOSS projects and "privacy-respecting" services that are lead by, supported, or at least championed by individuals and organizations whose values match those of today's best-known evil figures, and only lack the unlimited resources to make their rotten ideologies real.

It seems that every other day, I end up learning that another small piece of software is "fashware" and a brief look at the mailing list, Matrix, Discord, or Twitter accounts shows me that the programmer who has made it wants me dead.

The grass isn't greener, in other words, the yard is just smaller.

Eighteen Months Total

In the end, the downsides have just begun to pile up and the expected positives haven't really materialized. I really just care that my computer works in the ways I want it to, that it supports my hobbies, and that it otherwise quietly sits on my desk. I expect my new Mac to be delivered at some point between March 13th and 20th.

While my computing setup will change, I will continue to blog here as I always have: using a markdown editor, 11ty, and pushing to Neocities via GitHub.

I already do it that way on my 12-year-old MacBook Pro and see no reason to change it.

February 21, 2026

How Soon Was Then?

Charlotte ♥ — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 18:00:00 EST

Whenever a Smiths track plays on the radio, I am transported back to a bit more than 20 years ago. Thanks for KEXP just now, I was sent down memory lane.

I was struggling hard with an eating disorder at the time and The Smiths albums were very much present on my little pink iPod Mini. One dark winter evening, I decided walk over to the Zellers on Sparks Street to look for a new coffee grinder to replace the $8 blade grinder I had been using.

Between working nights stocking shelves at the city's underperforming-est Wal-Mart outlet (Lincoln Fields), trying really hard (and failing) to ignore the little transsexual in my head, and, uhh, well, constantly reminding myself of the dire consequences of giving into temptation, I plied the aisles of the old, dingy, and dimly-lit outlet in search of a burr grinder that I could afford.

As luck would have it, I did find what I was looking for: a fussy little model for $22. It was impossible to clean, loud, and under-powered, but it was also another in a long line of one-weird-tricks for me to convince myself that I could keep going with better prepared black coffee.

That sure would fix me.

There is no other point to this post: How Soon is Now? reliably, and seemingly forever, brings me right back to a grey, flat, and most entirely disassociated time of life.

I suppose it's a fitting gift from a most miserable and odious prick of a musician.

February 16, 2026

It Was Fun! Our Little Winter Day Trip

Charlotte ♥ — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 14:00:00 EST

Kingston was fun!

That's how we'd both put it, anyway.

We left Ottawa with our rental car at about 10:30 in the morning and made pretty good time, parking in Kingston near the arena around 12:40. The drive was uneventful: the highways were fairly quick and clear of traffic and there was no snow to be seen. The Corolla we rented didn't really have to work all that hard.

Reasons to Get Out of Town

Admittedly, the need for a day trip was probably more for me than it was for Kathleen. While we both get a little bit of geographic cabin fever at this time of year, I think it tends to be worse for me.

Kathleen's bigger motivation was to become more comfortable navigating!

Whenever we rent or borrow a car to visit a place that's not easily accessible by train or plane, it's my job to navigate. I enjoy it, and one of the ways my neurodivergent ways has always expressed itself was through road maps.

Whenever we'd get a new Ontario road map growing up, it would be up on my wall within minutes and I would study it intensely, memorizing highways and towns and their populations (or at least relative sizes, per the Province's analysts) and imagine visiting some day. While I don't really do this today, on any given quiet day, you can probably find me street viewing around some city or town.

It's part of why we like to joke that even when I don't know where I'm going, I know where I'm going!

There will be times where I cannot be with Kathleen in these situations and she will have to navigate on her own, however, so one reason for the rental and travel was that on matters of navigation, I would keep quiet and Kathleen would use the turn-by-turn navigation.

Assisted by Apple Maps (whose direction-giving Kathleen found much more helpful than Google's), Kathleen navigated us to and from Kingston without any issue whatsoever! Not one "recalculating route", not one "oops, we have to turn back".

Flawless navigation!

Stone City Fun

For my part, thanks in no small part to that time spent studying maps, and thanks to our family road trips to Southern Ontario, I unfailingly get a good feel when we are somewhere that feels to me link southern Ontario, and although we were firmly in Eastern Ontario (which normally feels like Northern Ontario, where I'm from), there is something about the province's design language along the 401 corridor and the geography along the St. Lawrence that will always perk me up.

We arrived in Kingtson quite ready for lunch and having searched for restaurants with vegan options, it didn't take us too long to find Atomica, whose lunch menu promised us two very tasty-sounding vegan pizzas, which we ordered once we were settled into a nice booth.

Now, they were absolutely delicious, with the mushroom one being slightly preferred by the both of us. We just would have preferred that it had not taken more than an hour to get them to us without any particular explanation. From where I was sitting, there appears to have been some kind of mix-up with our orders, but it wasn't really communicated to us.

After lunch, as we had planned to do, we proceeded to make our way up and down Princess Street, stopping in a various shops.

The highlights were found in the book shop, where I found another one of Emily Austen's novels, and the various vintage shops, which reminded me of the great shops we visited while in Halifax in September.

Unfortunately, winter dressing has consistently proven a barrier to shopping for clothes, since it's an entire production to get bundled back up, with an order of operations and everything!

(Coat, boots, purse, camera [if], backpack [if], scarf, hat, mittens.)

Finishing our little wander up Princess to Division and back again, we stopped into a a coffee shop for a little warm beverage and headed back to the car.

Once more, Kathleen's navigation was flawless, and made it back to Ottawa in good time, promising that we'd do this sort of thing more often.

Perhaps when the weather is better!

February 15, 2026

Winter Wanderlust · Heeding the Call

Charlotte ♥ — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 06:00:00 EST

The thing with having itchy feet is that at some point, it becomes intolerable and you simply must scratch them.

That is just what Kathleen and I will be doing today!

We've rented a car and will be doing the two-hour drive to Kingston for a little visit. We last visited for the day for our anniversary in 2024, had a lovely time, and committed to return some day.

Of course, we're going to do all of our favourite things: explore, enjoy a nice meal (or two, depending on how long our day goes), shop for books, CDs/DVDs, antiques, fabric, etc.

Of course I will be making photos! I have one of the Nikkormats loaded with some Fuji 400 (Fuji-branded Kodak Ultramax? Not really, but close enough for horse shoes!). I'm always tempted to bring more than one lens, but know that it's unlikely that I would switch or enjoy actually carrying more than one, so I've gone with the 85mm Nikkor-H.

Making Photos in Public

It is not too often that when out making photos out in public that I am accosted in some way. In fact, I can count the number of times on one hand and don't even need all fingers.

So when it happened this past Thursday, it stood out. In part, it only stood out because it is so rare. While I don't exactly occupy an anonymous presence in the world as a purple-haired visibly-trans woman, my day-to-day life, on the whole, is not one filled with conflict and tumult. I just go about my day and the biggest difference is that I receive far more compliments. I'll take it!

Still, as I've outlined in the blog piece above (and here, and here), when I was making a photo of the Circle-K beneath the Place Bell parking garage at Gloucester and Metcalfe, a woman, who was passing through the scene, was positively convinced that I was making a photo of her specifically and did not appreciate it.

As I proceeded down the sidewalk after making the photo, she dropped most of her possessions and ran across the street into traffic to chase me down. Once I cottoned to the fact she was chasing me down, I stopped to see what her problem was.

Wide-eyed, she continued to yell at me for making her photo and then tried to give me a shove. Bracing myself, she found that it might not have been effective, so instead decided to heap transphobic invective against me. Nothing novel: just all the greatest hits that I don't need to replicate on my personal blog.

Once that part of the tirade was over, seeking the cherry to top her putrid cupcake, reached for "I'll see you in hell!", a statement that I couldn't help by chuckle about, so, with a stupid grin, I just responded "Yeah, I guess I'll see you there!"

It's part of a familiar pattern, unfortunately. When I experience such encounters in public, 100% of them have been from people who are clearly experiencing challenges much greater than mine.

I can't know for certain what her life was like, but it seemed apparent to me (while partially disassociating from the scene) that she was probably unhoused, but only very recently so. She had a large number of bags with her and when she shoved me, she used a black trash bag that seemed to be filled with clothing or bedding. Two other very large green reusable bags from a popular chain of dollar stores are what she dropped on the opposite sidewalk.

So, on one hand I understand.

There are people out there who make photos and video of others in public, usually for the purposes of feeding the online spectacle and I most definitely have been featured in such content.

It doesn't feel good! I remember one time where I was walking through the Rideau Centre to run some errands after work and some high school-aged girls stopped, laughed, and made unkind remarks while recording me on their phones as I passed by.

On the other hand, it's positively exhausting to walk around with those levels of over-driven awareness that someone somewhere in the vicinity might have a camera. 99.9% of people with a camera in public are not using it to make photos of any particular people or to otherwise make spectacle of anyone.

I know that when I first came out, I was stuck in a sort of hypervigilance mode, always aware of every stare, blink, phone, and smirk. It didn't help that the far-right would-be "influencers" were still skulking around the downtown area.

Some still are!

I generally won't pass Parliament because of them.

February 14, 2026

Winter Wanderlust

Charlotte ♥ — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 12:00:00 EST

For a girlie who's a bit of a homebody, it's rather often that I find myself with some pretty intense wanderlust. While it can happen at any time of year, the bout of it I face in winter is (a) guaranteed; and (b) worse than any other time of year.

I guess it makes sense, the inhospitable weather keeps me closer to home and I end up feeling a little trapped. When that is combined with my re-scanning film, watching movies, or trying to make plans for the year, my feet are hardly ever as itchy as they get in January and February.

Complicating matters, I am waiting to get a date for some surgery, which means that it's hard to make any concrete plans!

That's not going to stop me, however, so this year's list is:

Toronto: I really want to pay my sister a visit! And, I mean, whether it's because of itself or it's in spite of itself, Toronto will always have my heart and I will always want to go. We'd move there if it were feasible.
Montréal: I always enjoy Montréal and while we plan to be there for around two weeks, it will be for surgery. So while it will be wonderful and a source of a long-awaited relief, it will not exactly be a vacation.
Halifax: It's not a guarantee, but various life events happening may require our presence.

Of course, none of this helps in the immediate term, so if you end up seeing more photos from not-Ottawa where I usually put them, and I drop more references to the Littlest Hobo, Seeing Things, and other past vacations, that will be the more obvious ways I will be scratching that itch. Probably while I street view around some city somewhere.

February 1, 2026

Hack The Planet!!!

Charlotte ♥ — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 12:00:00 EST

Last night, rather than pick something on Criterion Channel for our Saturday movie, I found myself craving a nostalgia watch.

A specific nostalgia watch at that: Hackers (1995)

I remember renting it on VHS when it was released. I was the right age, very much into computers, was loving the electronic music on MuchMusic all the time, and (my internal world) was very trans and looking for evidence that there was a place for me.

While the New York of the movie was hardly explicit about the latter factor, it wasn't all that hard to make a connection between the imperfect world I had found online (trans women still seem to be well-represented among computer-touchers) and it was pretty easy for me to imagine myself in a much cooler and accepting milieu than the one I existed in.

Sure, it was all purely imaginary, but I really wanted to run off and join whatever that all was!

Reality eventually stepped in and I ...just didn't.

It's likely not an accident that whatever dream-world I had spun up for myself and my friends (for whom I'd paint some very creative versions of what I was doing with my computer and what I was going to do with it) began to fade a year or two later as it became necessary to repress again fairly aggressively.

That I never did really have much in the way of the necessary skills (or natural aptitude) to do the sorts of thing that such people do was, of course, a pretty major factor. Computers speak something that looks and acts like math, and I spent a few of those years with math grades on the knife-edge.

I really was just seeking a legible place that I could see myself - my whole self - existing as the realities of "real" adulthood were coming into view. And the swirl of websites, chat rooms, and, yes a little bit of very cheesy Hollywood magic gave me something to hope for.

Was it silly? Absolutely!

Was it adolescent? You bet! That's what I was!

Was it realistic? Not even little for someone like me!

It took me more than 25 more years to find it, but in the end, I did find a place where I - the whole I - am welcomed and accepted and it's still in front of a screen.

Sure, that screen has a chonky Excel sheet with a costing analysis, Outlook, and Teams open, and there is no mid-90s electronic music to accompany (unless I want there to be), but it turns out that developing and reforming public policy is not a bad way to bide one's time.

January 25, 2026

A Whole lot of Words and Nothing I want to Say

Charlotte ♥ — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 05:00:00 EST

While I don't mind talking about the specifics of transition matters with others in person, I won't online.

Aside from the obvious factors, I also find that too many other trans people have very strongly-held and hyper-specific beliefs related to how one ought to transition, should they choose to do so physically.

I mean, I get where this comes from: on the whole, we don't get very good treatment from a system whose foundational knowledge was designed in such a way as to greatly limit the on-ramps while increasing the number of off-ramps while at the same time limiting serious research so that a general sense of know-nothing pervades.

Some of this is a byproduct of being a rather small community overall. Some of it is the result of a poisoned epistemic well. Nearly all of it comes from being socially-reviled.

Especially in this context, community knowledge, experience, and practice are critical to seeking out, advocating for, and securing the treatments we require.

On the other hand, there is very much an element of "you're doing it wrong" that seems to be somewhat pervasive among many in the community, regardless of whether or not one's levels are sufficient or they are satisfied with their own progress.

The statements can be passive, aggressive, patronizing, and more. It's usually a bit of an irritant where HRT is concerned, but the real pit of despair seems to be online conversations about surgeries.

Where discussions about surgery are concerned, it seems that every 18 months we get a new surgeon or clinic that does the best-ever work that will give you the cisgender edge for all your stealth dreams, and every other one is a butcher that will leave you mangled and broken, including yesterday's best-ever.

I get where this all comes from, but my gosh can it ever be exhausting in trans spaces.

January 24, 2025

Highs and Lows; Ebbs and Flows

Charlotte ♥ — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 19:00:00 EST

I'd really like to have the motivation to be out making photos. January's doldrums are always a challenge, but this year feels a little different.

While I know it's not, to me, it feels much colder this winter. I can bundle up all I want, but I just don't tolerate the cold as I once did, so that's not helping matters.

...and not tolerating the cold well also means that I'm not getting around as much, so the day-to-day scenery is a little too familiar.

I was able to push through today a little (Kodak Gold in the Canon), but ended up exposing a half-dozen frames on all-too-familiar and uninspired scenes. I will finish the roll tomorrow after work and hope to find a few embers.

In the meantime, it's all re-scans and personal archives in the places I'm sharing.

On The Other Hand...

where shutters are still and film chemistry unshaken, I am p o s i t i v e l y v i b r a t i n g this week because I have been filling out the intake paper work for surgery! I was referred late in the Fall and after about eight weeks, they contacted me on Wednesday to begin signing forms and releases and populating their systems.

I am very very very excited and have been wanting this for decades and it's getting so close.

January 22, 2026

Rejoining The CD Club! (Yes)

Charlotte ♥ — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 06:00:00 EST

It's no longer a question: as of January 17, 2026, I think I am once again a physical media girlie.

Kathleen and I visited The Turning Point yesterday as part of our Saturday adventure to see what was in store. This second-hand shop has been around for a bit more than 40 years, but neither of us had been inside.

It turns out that I am more interested in getting music on CD than I thought I was! After browsing the racks (most priced $5-$10), I purchased 6 CDs, including:

The Trinity Session (1988) - Cowboy Junkies
Glee (1997) - Bran Van 3000
Silent Alarm (2005) - Bloc Party
Future Politics (2017) - Austra
Swansong For You (2000) - The Gentle Waves
Becoming X (1996) - Sneaker Pimps

Just as I had with Butch earlier in the week, I promptly ripped them as FLACs and added them to my collection.

Most interested in finding DVDs, Kathleen was able to find:

This is Wonderland Season 1 (2004)
The Tudors Season 2 (2008)

So just as quickly as we began asking the question as to whether we were going to become an "owns physical media" household, it seems that we did!

New Pentax ES II

While we were out and about yesterday in the (unexpected) morning snow, I also gave my new Pentax ES ["Electro-Spotmatic"] II (1973) its first test roll. The results are here: "The New One's Not Entirely Reliable!".

I had wanted the ES II because I have quite a few Takumar lenses that I really like the results from, but very much prefer to use cameras with onboard metering. Especially with aperture priority. Although it's much more acute in winter, even when the weather is pleasant, I find that pulling a meter(ing app on my phone) from my purse for each photo incompatible with how I prefer to make photos.

Overall, the ES II performed admirably. The metering is accurate and it's a pleasure to use.

Unfortunately, aperture priority mode is a little unreliable. For three of the frames on the roll of 24, the meter read the lighting accurately (as shown by the needle), but somewhere between the reading and the shutter, communication broke down and the shutter remained open much longer than it should have.

After removing the roll for development, I played around with the camera further at home and, sure enough, it continued to happen at irregular intervals.

Such is life! Since the meter works well, I can still use it manually. Since I paid $60 for the camera and working copies aren't exactly common at that price, I am quite happy with the purchase overall.

This isn't the first time I've had an aperture priority camera from the first half of the 1970s with this problem. One of my Nikkormat ELs decided that it would be a good idea to begin showing that problem while Kathleen and I were in Halifax in 2023. How inconvenient!

ELs?

Yes! The Nik(k)o(r)mat EL is my single favourite film camera. It comes down to having aperture priority usable with Nikon's pre-Ai lenses, which are my favourite series of lenses!

Unfortunately, the EL has a (well-earned) reputation for being, shall we say, a little repair resistant, so there are very few technicians who will touch them. Over the years, when I come across them on eBay with a working meter at a good price (i.e. $50, or at least below $100), I'll make a purchase.

Make-Aheads & New Recipes

The past week was my first full work week where my office day breakfasts were the vegan egg-and-cheese sandwiches I made ahead of time.

It worked out super well and I am very happy with the way it all went. I will be making more of them today for the week ahead.

For Kathleen and I, our Sunday meal has often been the one where we try something new. It doesn't have to be complex or even all that fancy, but it's just something we try so that we might find a new staple.

Today's dinner will be these Quick Peanut Soba Noodles, but we'll be adding a little crisped-up tofu for the protein.

January 18, 2026