zka

Big news! I've wisely decided to not order a Pebble Round 2, because I'm an adult who makes sound financial decisions, and I refuse to waste my diminishing wealth on toys with low-contrast, desaturated screens. I'm publically sharing this to affirm my commitment, and make it real.

Instead, I choose to waste money on experiences! We finally scheduled a vacation, a real vacation, not the kind where you return more exhausted. We'll be in Brighton, UK for a week in February.

This morning we booked the trains, all the way from Amsterdam to Brighton Central. I was ready to scream because of course every website is terrible, and inconsistent, and nothing works. You must mAgicAlly kNOw how to interpret the bad UI and vagueries.

Quick example: our Thameslink tickets (London ⇔ Brighton) have different station codes in each direction on the London end ("THK" vs "STP"), hmm. Did their web tool divert us to the wrong station in London ??!!? Thankfully Reddit knew the answer: "THK" is an abbreviation for "Thameslink", you can freely board at a half-dozen stations in the central London area, including our connecting station (STP). FfFffffff

This morning stressed me out, to a level disporportionate to the actual threat or frustration we were experiencing. This is a clear sign that I'm still recovering from intense burnout. I hate technology, and all the bad UI and dynamic pricing scams, but mostly I hate that I'm still dealing with this, and probably will be shouldering this curse for a while. So far I've had 3 Psychosomatische Fysiotherapie sessions to treat burnout, it helps but progress is slow.

There's a old contractor joke, where your normal work cycle is starving for 3–6 months, then suddenly every client contacts you simultaneously. It finally happened to me! I'll be spending Monday responding to email requests and writing proposals, w00t.

I'm gathering my sewing projects in one digital place: https://gram.social/zka . The petrol blue coat is finished, it kinda sucks so there's no photos yet, more on this later...

We're running out of reasons to stay in the suburbs of Amsterdam, so we're preparing for a big move when our lease ends in June. There are 3 possibilities, and since I'm Big Daddy Laptop-Breadwinner, it depends on how my work unfolds:

1. Remain in the Netherlands, but move somewhere more inviting to tattooed gay weirdos: Amsterdam / Rotterdam / Delft. Survive on contract work.


2. Secure a full-time job in an English-speaking location, and move there. I'm applying for positions in the UK, and will soon expand my search to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and some cities with large English-speaking populations (e.g. Berlin).


3. Sell almost-everything, or put it in storage. Hop around the world using Digital Nomad visas, for a year or two. I can hustle to find remote contract work; or treat the experience as an extended sabbatical; search for a new home; or some mix of these.

Today == recovery day. No bike rides, no nothing! Just shoving pastries and vla in my face.

Did you know? In 1672, the leading ruler of the Dutch people was lynched by a mob, then the mob cut up his corpse and ate it. His name was Johan de Witt, don't read this article if you're squeamish, sorry.

I forgot to mention, we saw a motorcyclist get hit by a car, about three months ago. We were bicycling on Amsterdamsweg, where Amsterdam ends and Amstelveen begins, and a large suburban vehicle clipped a motorcyclist. He flew over the handlebars, and landed in the street.

I called the emergency number (112), while husband and other folks blocked cars, and tended to the bleeding accident victim. The emergency operator spoke pretty good English (thank goodness) but I still spoke the house number in my shaky Dutch. I think it was 527:

"Vijf honderd zevenentwintig."

In English, we recite numerals from most- to least-significant: "Five hundred twenty-seven". But not here! The correct order has a more literal translation like: "Five hundred seven and twenty".

When the operator asked about the man's condition, I passed the phone to a fluent Dutch speaker, who had been talking to the victim.

When you call emergency services, you have to tell them what type of vehicle you need. Since the victim was conscious, the ambulence I requested arrived slowly, without flashing its lights. :(

Afterwards, everyone dispersed. The guy I passed the phone to said something encouraging, with a smile, but I couldn't understand it. Then he mounted his own bike, and he was off. The whole thing ended about as quickly as it began.

Before that day, I was puzzled how everyone safely shares the road: cars, motorcycles, scooters, bikes, e-Bikes, "fat bikes" (low-rider e-Bikes with huge tires, usually with a jackass teenager in the seat). The answer is, they don't! Accidents happen all the time.

[[ Insert picture of a paper certificate, which proves I speak Dutch at the A1 level! ]] Oh, cool! Wow. Very wow.

My mastery of the language is intermittent at best. Yesterday I wished Happy Holidays to the mailman, then a few hours later I couldn't regurgitate the same phrase for a salesman at a store; I just fully seized up and blanked. Today I tried saying it to the drycleaner, and he corrected my pronunciation, and I smiled and imagined how nice it would be to disintegrate and pass through the floor, never to be seen again :)

"Fijne feestdagen". The last n is silent.

The accelerated Dutch language class was too fast. We crammed past-tense into the last day, so theoretically I can talk about what I ate for dinner: Ik heb voor avondeten naar thuis bloemkoel gegeten. That's the clunky syntax, there's a shorter version but I haven't learned it yet.

Anyway ... I've been equating my self-worth to my ability to speak the language, and that's psychotic, I should really stop doing that. My husband posed a good question: if I'm generally misable here, why do I care so much about learning the language?? My answer is that I'm not completely misable; being an adult means you can hold contradicting emotions in the same moment. So our existence here can be charmed and beautiful, and yet simultaneously irritating and soul-crushing. All the time. Constantly.

First appointment with the Physiotherapist was on Friday. I like her, and I look forward to doing more work with her. She asked me to research chronic stress on my own, and reminded me that scheduling chats with potential clients might not be the best tactic yet, because: people can sense when your enthusiasm isn't genuine.

Also on Friday, we had a date night! We rode our bicycles to Bar Dixie, ate decent food, then rode around in the dark for a while. This was beautiful, and it felt safe because all the roads and bike routes are well-illuminated, we had no issues seeing the road. Honestly it felt much safer than driving at night, squinting my ancient eyeballs at oncoming headlights. Bicycling at night: A+++, will do again.

Saturday was a long ride to Amsterdam. I picked up medication at my pharmacy, then we randomly had lunch at a place called Oma Ietje. This was a great experience. I forgive them for serving the burger on crusty bread; I'm craving more burgers like this now. The fries were incredible, hot and crispy. Their vegan mayo is better than any dairy version.

We didn't realize, Oma Ietje is located in a part of town with mostly government-subsidized housing (in America, this would be called "the projects") but it felt completely safe. The presence of Oma Ietje might indicate that the neighborhood is gentrifying, hmmm.

Sunday was light rest and recovery.

Monday was the final language class, and a 5-mile ride in the afternoon, just for funzies.

Yesterday was a long ride to Alsmeer, to revisit Gideon Italiaander. It took some digging, but I found a tube of buttons for the coat I'm making. Also I found a boring shirt made of excellent fabric, which will be upcycled into a hat soon-ish. We bought other random stuff, paid a mere €7.50 for everything, and I couldn't remember the words "Fijne feestdagen".

Today is heavy rest and recovery. I overdid it, I are bad mood now.

Our first big Dutch language test was yesterday! I suspect I did reasonably well, and that my husband bombed the test. :( Tomorrow we find out.

I've been meditating every day, consistently. I've had to accept that I basically have to do this, else my brain gnashes on malevolent and bizarre thoughts, effectively self-sabotaging my mood and life. It's mildly embarrassing to admit that I have a crutch like this, it feels like confessing something shameful or taboo. Oh well, this is how I'm wired, I have to act like an adult and accept that this strange ritual is a requirement, if I want to feel baseline "okay".

Still feeling trapped at home, in the Dutch suburbs. We don't have doggy boarding set up for Brandy dog, so we spend the bulk of our time inside this house. We want to see more of Amsterdam, and visit other countries, aaaghhh we're so close and yet it feels so far away.

I'm still sewing. My boiled wool coat is coming along nicely. (More on this in a minute.)

Here is something that drives me crazy about the Netherlands, and I hope I can express this in a way that won't anger future readers:

People here seem to be very judgmental, and overly-aware of each other. I think there's enormous pressure to blend in, and not do (or say, or wear) anything colorful or fantastical:

• No one wears color, patterns, or prints. There are no bright hues, no plaids, no stripes, not even graphic T-shirts; none of it. If I wear my yellow Gore-Tex shoes, someone will always stare like I'm indulging in unspeakable sin.


• My husband is heavily tattooed, on the back of his head and neck. Without fail, he receives a lot of mystified, critical stares when he's out in public. This is a very different experience compared to living in (say) left-leaning anything-goes Portland.

The Netherlands was a deeply Calvinistic society in the 17th century, and I suspect that people's behaviors still echo these ideals. Like the burden of generational trauma.

On the one hand, this sounds like a fair deal: go to work, blend in, help others, and you will be rewarded with a pretty good life. It's egalitarian. On the other hand, this is the worst curse if you want to be different, or express yourself in ways people haven't seen before, or focus on yourself without worrying about what everyone else is thinking.

I believe it's not merely an issue within the conservative suburbs. We watched Amsterdam's Sinterklaas celebration on TV, and the overwhelming majority of citizens were dressed similarly, just solid black all-weather jackets, with a few shades of dark grey or steel blue in the mix.

Husband just reminded me that this is "normcore", which is "everywhere" right now, because it's the current fashion. I think it's an extreme form of social cooling; everyone is afraid the cameras will suddenly point at them.

I'm trying to stay positive (meditation helps a lot), and not ruminate on this subject too deeply, because it's a doom spiral which leads nowhere. I'm glad folks here created a prosperous, polite society. But I suspect that, like any suburb or restrictive system, anyone who doesn't want to conform will find a way to move elsewhere.

I've been unconsciously removing colorful clothes from my wardrobe, and this realization pushed me to rant about this. My boiled wool coat is a vivid shade of petrol blue, which is a fantastic color well-known in Europe, but never worn in the Netherlands, as far as I can tell. Will I appear as crazy as someone wearing yellow shoes? Dunno.

Still alive. :P Ugh

Yesterday I had my first dose of shingles vaccine. Today my body is a miserable aching puddle

Also we took our dog to a "dog beach" yesterday, and she was terrible, lunging at everyone. I think we lasted 4 minutes, before we dragged her back to the car. I've been clinging to a fantasy where she evolves into a well-adjusted, happy creature, and she can coexist with strangers. Now I'm grieving the fact that this will never happen. She's a liability in public places, and she can never, ever be off-leash unless it's a familiar, controlled environment.

I'm still not working (boooooo), and I don't understand how every minute of the day is packed with obligations. How is this even possible, right now?? Dog + groceries + basic bike rides + language class + bureaucracy + finances + personal hygiene + house cleaning + I don't even know.

Low energy, low motivation. At night I've been sewing, and playing the Mario Galaxy rereleases. Things will get better, and I'll post more later. Going through a "rough patch" now :(

First day of Dutch language class! ... Aauguhlugulhguh. I have returned to SKOOL, at my age. I swore I would never go back.

The teacher is great! The classmates are nice, we're all overwhelmed and confused, so at least we'll be trauma-bonded after this experience. I was happy when the teacher put me on the spot, and I figured out this missing word: "Sonja, kun jij je achternaam spellen?" It seemed incorrect, jij adjacent to je, but it's not so strange; that's you and your in the English translation: "Sonja, can you spell your last name?"

Class is fast! Class is "accelerated"! 20 sessions × 2.5 hours. At the end, we'll take tests, and graduate from language competency level A0 to A1. I believe the minimum level for citizenship is B2? That's at least 2 years away.

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In other news, it looks like the Netherlands and Canada are accepting US citizens as refugees. That's: Refugees. If you have minority status (ethnicity, sexuality, etc) then paths for seeking asylum are officially open to you. This is a "soft launch" in preparation for opening their gates to all US citizens, not just persecuted minorities. Other nations are expected to follow suit.

Correction: The issues listed above are not law, yet.

Tonight I'm fuming over how expensive the Netherlands is. Amsterdam is the second most expensive city in the world? Oops. My savings are vanishing faster than anticipated. I didn't correctly budget for food, and of course we like to eat, we're voracious money pits of insatiable hunger. Should we have devoted more time to the "researching countries" phase? I hear Portugal is a top destination for expat's, and it must be less expensive than here, right?...

...But OH MAN the food. We're cracking the code on Netherlands cuisine. Some recent favorites:

• Food trucks full of roasted chickens, like Kip Van Het Vuur and Hancon Grillerij. This is a Dutch tradition?! Ja.


• Saigon Caphe, possibly the best Vietnamese food I've ever enjoyed. Incredibly tasty.


• Breakfast pastries filled with almond paste, dates, apricot, or diced 'n spiced apples. See also: speculaas


• Passionfruit yogurt.


• Chocolate-hazelnut vla. PREPARE TO EXPAND THY WAISTLINE

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Also, we have a car! We searched Marktplaats (it's kinda Dutch Craigslist-meets-eBay) and found car dealers, test drove cars, and I now own a Peugeot 3008. ~3 months remain to get our drivers' licenses. Urk

Most grueling bike ride (so far): through the driving wind, into southeast Amsterdam, for my intake appointment at a health clinic. We were sore that evening, but WE DID IT woooooooo look at us. We pedalled so hard, that we exceeded the e-Bikes' speed limit (30 km/h), and they stopped providing battery assistance.

I'm exhausted often, probably due to the imbalance between my caloric intake, physical exertion, and overall stress and confusion. "If I eat more food-truck chicken," he thought, "then maybe this problem will solve itself?" Dreamily, he nodded, and smiled to himself. "Definitely. Mmmm, chicken."

Hi! My whole family is stressed right now. Not gonna lie.

I learned that 2 of my 3 sewing machines (serger and cover stitch) won't function here, because they don't support EU voltage (220V 50Hz). I could try using a step-down transformer, but 110V at 50Hz seems dodgy, because the motors rely on the AC frequency for timing.

Do I give up, and sell these on eBay-dot-U.S., then ship them back to the States?? I dunno. This expensive dilemma didn't cross my mind when I shipped the machines here; I "assumed" the voltage discrepancy would be a "solved problem".

Today we rented a car, and drove our dog to her first Dutch veterinarian appointment! This was our first time driving in the Netherlands. It was sheer terror. We prepared by watching instructional YouTube videos, and I still almost ran into a bicyclist who ignored his "shark teeth" marking (indicating he should have yielded to me). Cyclists are crazy here.

But this entry isn't about the ongoing, relentless negativity and hardship, which defines my waking life, as I stumble through a nightmare where everything is subtly different, and the language is incomprehensible to me! ... No. This is an entry about little wins.

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I made a website. Tomorrow is my appointment to officially register my new business: Visible Technology

The site was thrown together quickly, as a fun excuse to relearn shader language, and lean into my core strength (which is making trippy visuals, lol). If you squint at the pixels, you will see discontinuities! The "visible" text is generated by a shader, it's a rad unoptimized mess.

I love the 80s color scheme, by way of early-2000s pseudo-raytracing, however: Next version will be interactive, with a different look and feel. Maybe.

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Also, I plan to gain 50 pounds! Here's how:



Vla is basically drinkable pudding. It comes in a variety of flavors! Guys, my waistline is in real danger.

I know the Netherlands has a reputation for subpar food, but we're happy with the national offerings so far. Netherlands cuisine revolves around snacks. Typical meal: I stuff my face with a sausage pastry roll (with curry ketchup inside), or a mini steak pie, then wash it down with fresh tomato soup, arugula salad with spicy mango dressing, then dessert is a cup of malted hops-flavored vla (which tastes like coffee ice cream). Maybe not the most "elevated" culinary """experience""" but I enjoy it. The food is all secretly snacks. I have found my slice of heaven :P

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Also we're gaining confidence with the e-bikes. Our longest ride was to another town (Aalsmeer), to check out an incredible vintage resale warehouse, where dying brands liquidate their stock. Normally I wouldn't link to Instagram, but their account conveys the vibe pretty well: https://www.instagram.com/gideonitaliaander/

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Small language wins! In a discussion about socializing our dog, I suggested we take her to the "hondenspeel".

But I said it without thinking, like it was a normal word. I knew honden (dogs), and I was shocked that my brain had figured out speel (play), because we live near a speeltuin (playground).

So it turns out, I missed a syllable! The complete word is hondenspeelveld (rough translation: "dogs play field", or dog park). But still. I PAT MYSELF ON THE BACK NOW. Good progress, me.

Also I've memorized enough words to shop at Dutch fabric sites. But I still doubt I could pronounce the words correctly!

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More to come! Tomorrow I'll have "a company" again, and I think our Portland house will be listed for sale. Goede nacht (good night)!

I've written about obvious hurdles to immigration: legal, jurisdictional, logistical. The more I chat with folks who dream about moving to a different country, I realize that no one is acknowledging the psychological barriers to leaving.

Most people have created lives for themselves which are comfortable, or at least familiar. We invest time, money, and energy to create spaces that we (hopefully) enjoy occupying. It's hard to walk away from a good life, even if you wake up one day and realize you're surrounded by bad actors; a nest of evil. In this case, wouldn't you cling harder to the good things in your life, and be more reluctant to move on?

The Spectrum of Not-Leaving

Starting in 2025, in almost every conversation, I asked people how they felt about leaving the country. Were they open to the idea? Did they have a plan, maybe relatives overseas? Did they have an exit strategy?

This isn't a scientific ranking, but in my head it's convenient to sort people's answers into 4 buckets:

1. Doesn't plan to leave.
   "I'm not leaving."
   Includes folks inventing social proof: "No one I know is thinking about leaving."


2. Wishes to leave; believes there's not enough resources.
   "It's too expensive." "I'm barely making ends meet now." "I don't know how to do it."


3. Wishes to leave; defers responsibility with commitments.
   "I own a successful business here." "I have a 15-year-old." "I have such a strong friend group here."


4. Actively trying to leave.
   "I just learned that {{Country}} will pay you to relocate there, if you have certain skills. So I visited their immigration website, and it looks like I could really do this ..."

Frequently people daydream about leaving, while simultaneously feeling stuck: "I can't leave, because ____" or "it won't happen, because ____". People's brains frame the big move in disqualifying terms.

I think the harsh truth is, there will always be a reason to not do it. If you feel blocked by one obstacle, and that obstacle magically disappeared overnight: your brain would fill that void with another obstacle, and you would still feel blocked.

This is a perfectly human response to difficult decisions, and overwhelming amounts of stress. This does not suggest that you're "weak" or "ineffective", or whatever maladaptive buzzwords that capitalism and hustle culture have programmed into us. This shit is hard to contemplate. There is no painless way to teleport your whole life to a different locale. You already know that some things will be lost along the way.

Losing my possessions, and comfy routines, felt like a personal attack to me. It's irrational, but that was the overwhelming feeling I dealt with. The demand to forfeit my favorite things, places, foods, and easy access to people; it made me defensive and angry, on top of the maelstrom of emotions surrounding the moving process itself.

Things will be lost, in a literal sense. Some things, and connections, will probably be left behind forever.

The Purge

When I moved to Portland (circa 2002), all my worldly possessions fit inside a 4-door Ford Granada. 8 rentals and 2 home purchases later, I felt embarrassed when my husband and I rented an industrial dumpster to dispose of stuff (furniture, clothes, "art", etc), and we filled the dumpster to capacity. We ran out of room, in a big-ass dumpster. That's how much crap we were dragging around.

Then we moved to house #3 (Portland, again). It took one-and-a-half moving trucks to move our empire of junk. It was bizarre, realizing that our collection of things had somehow expanded further. (This is after filling that dumpster, mind you.) I felt like something was deeply wrong with this scenario, like a disease of "stuff" had infected our life.

Fast-forward to 2025, we're talking about a big move, and there's an urgent need to dispose of everything. What happens to all this crap?? We brought an estate sale executor to the house, and showed her our piles of possessions, room by room. Afterwards, she sat us down and delivered the verdict:

"Boys, you don't have enough valuable stuff to make an estate sale worthwhile."

BOYS

I HAVE SEEN YOUR STUFF, AND IT'S NOT EVEN THAT GOOD

It turns out that the best estate sales occur after a house is occupied for decades. (How many moving trucks is that?? I get dizzy comtemplating this.)

She proposed another plan: her crew could do a total cleanout, and keep everything (meaning: our stuff would be sold in an actual estate sale elsewhere, to recover the cleanout expense). Instead of charging us, she would pay us $400. Obviously the money is a pittance; if we had infinite time, we could eBay everything for a few thousand bucks, but we don't have time, do we? So this seemed like the best option.

One twist is that she photographed anything sale-worthy. Anything that wasn't photographed was still considered "ours", which is how some of my electronic "art" was gifted to Portland nerds. I'm happy it found good homes, but it's personally sad too: I spent/wasted so much time on these pieces; they broke; their LEDs burnt out; the whole hardware-hacking adventure didn't change the world like I imagined it would. It was a curious sidestep in my career, and now we've all moved on.

Say Goodbye

We weren't in the USA, when the cleanout happened. We were enjoying dinner in our Netherlands flat, when the crew arrived at the old house. I felt something like stability, like I had finally "let go", until my neighbor sent a picture of the carnage:



Yeah, it's gone. Thousands of dollars "invested" in clothes, technology, bicycles, luxury mattresses, mortgage payments for quirky estates. They were all temporary joys and conveniences. I didn't realize how quickly this truth would descend on me.

How many of these investments were "worth it"? If something had a lasting impact on my life, and made me a better person, or happier in the long term, then it's a win, yes? ... So, the honest answer is: not much. Definitely less than half.

This post is hard to write, because the whole affair still bothers me. I believed I could "let go" of my stuff and "reset" my life, and this was a necessary lie I told myself, to cope with the process of moving. It can't possibly be that easy, for anyone.

I took photographs and videos of a few things, to keep digital memories forever: a special quartz crystal, photo frames gifted from friends, a silly assemble-it-yourself plywood pinball machine, etc. I rediscovered forgotten objects that I once cared about (thanks, ADHD). Maybe it's easier to walk away from stuff if you have ADHD; your new obsessions will distract from the old psychic wounds? I hope so.

My original plan for the year 2025 was to exit my job around summer, then bum around Portland undoing the stacked stresses of the job: reconnecting with friends, and revisiting favorite hangouts. Then we'd move somewhere cheaper, in the USA; maybe Portland, maybe not, but I expected to take my time finding the right house, maybe a "forever home". This plan was concocted in 2024, when Vice President Harris absolutely destroyed the other guy in a live TV debate. So it seemed like the future was bright.

Things don't always go as planned, and everything surrounding you is temporary. I wish I had better advice to offer. Walking away from your life hurts. It was a messy exit; maybe it always is. I didn't reconnect with friends in the way I wanted. I miss my favorite restaurants, and fabric stores. You have to give yourself grace, and let your emotions run their course.

The good news is, you can look forward to new experiences on the other side. We just purchased e-bikes, and I pushed through my nervousness and pedalled around the city's proprietary bike lanes, for 30 whole minutes. It was awesome! We've been struggling this week, rebooting our lives in this barren townhouse, and we barely speak a word of Dutch. With the e-bikes, everything seems closer and more accessible. Also it's beautiful here, and the trees are full of wild parrots, so what can I say? Things will get better. Things will feel better, soon.

Letting go of your material life sucks. You're not alone in feeling this way. It's impossible to avoid this completely. That's really it.

When you're thinking about the pain, be sure to also consider the opportunities on the other side: New experiences. New favorite places. Maybe some old routines aren't benefiting you anymore; maybe you want to do better, or try something different.

My therapist once said that our brains tend to weigh negative emotions 2.5x stronger than positive ones. So for every reason to not move, see if you can counteract this by thinking of 2-and-a-half reasons to take the leap, and do it.

This post took days to write, because we're stressed and confused, and I rediscovered chardonnay. There's more to say on this topic (especially: what to bring! And, I mailed boxes from the USA to the Netherlands, which are currently stuck in customs, so I hope to have a happy follow-up post when they're cleared.) Stay tuned! ...

My husband, myself, and our 4-year-old poodle have safely relocated from the USA to the Netherlands.

I promised to detail aspects of our journey, for those curious about moving themselves: How does the process work? What is required? I hope to have enough time and energy to write more posts on this topic, because I feel it's important, and in fact urgent for many of us tagged as minorities (e.g.: you're not heterosexual, or you're not white, or you believe in the scientific method, etc).

This post is about something called the Apostille Stamp (pronounced: "app-uh-STEEL").

If you're American by birth, you possess a birth certificate. If you're married, you also possess a marriage certificate. These are important documents, yes? They prove your date of birth, and who you're legally married to. You need these documents to register for citizenship in foreign countries, and do other citizen magic: acquire insurance, get a driver's license, prepare a legally-binding will, etc.

However! By default, these American certificates are not recognized in other countries. Your default birth cerficate effectively does not prove your identity; your marriage is not valid outside of the USA. This applies even to the original documents; they are as useless as a copy of the original would be.

The only way to validate these certificates for other countries, is to get something called an Apostille Stamp. Scroll down to the list of Contracting States: If any of these 127 countries sound like desirable long-term destinations, then you'll want to get the Apostille Stamp on your certificates. The stamp instantly makes your certificates valid in every other country on this crazy-long list. You can just show the stamped document to government officials there, and they'll say "okay", and you're golden.

Let me say this up front: Given how the United States federal government is being dismantled from inside-out, and how multitudes of people are scrambling to exit the USA, I recommend getting your documents stamped with the Apostille as soon as possible. In this post, I'll repeat this idea several times, because if you're entertaining the idea of moving to another country, and you're thinking you can "wait" and "see what happens" regarding the paperwork, you will run out of time.

Stop lying to yourself with phrases like, "I'm sure things will work themselves out."

Certified Birth Certificate

You will need a certified birth certificate to get the stamp. Is your birth certificate certified? If you don't know, then the answer is most likely: no, it is not.

In my case, I mailed my birth certificate to get the apostille stamp, only to learn that the certificate itself was uncertified, "too old", and the original recorder's signature wasn't "in the system". This was expensive (I paid for overnight delivery and return), but also a big waste of time. You can fix all these problems by obtaining a certified birth certificate:

Contact the Recorder's Office, in the county where you were born. In my case, this was Santa Cruz County, California. (The phone number on the Recorder's website always dumped me into voicemail, with no callbacks. After calling other numbers at the same building, someone picked up and transferred me to a friendly human at the Recorder's Office. Be persistent!)

The Recorder's Office should have a copy of your birth certificate on file. In my case, they were able to confirm this over the phone. Each state has different fees when ordering certified copies, but it wasn't too expensive (mine was around $45 for 2 copies). As it turns out, the Santa Cruz Recorder's Office doesn't deal with orders directly, they use third-party vendors to manage the orders and shipping.

Allow me to kindly-but-firmly recommend that you order two certified copies of your birth certificate, maybe more. There may be times when you'll send one copy off for processing somewhere, and you'll want to possess a spare.

More importantly, each state has different processing times. The third-party vendor in Santa Cruz was fast (a few days), other states may be slower.

Yes, if they offer expedited shipping, you should absolutely pay for it. Jump to the head of the queue, whenever possible.

Seriously, if you don't have certified copies of your birth certificate, order these now. Only a certified copy can receive the apostille stamp.

Apostille Stamp

Documents can only be stamped with an apostille in the state where they were issued. This typically happens at the state capitol, in the Secretary of State Notary's office.

Normally you would mail your certificate(s) to the Notary's office, and include payment, and pre-paid postage so the completed documents can be mailed back to you.

You can also achieve same-day processing if you show up in person. We drove our marriage and birth certificates to Oregon's capitol (Salem). They successfully stamped the marriage certificate (we were married in Portland), but informed us that our birth certificates needed to be stamped by our birth states: California (me) and South Carolina (husband).

Since I wasted time with a non-certified birth certificate which was "too old", I didn't have sufficient days left to await processing by mail to-and-from the capitol of Calfornia, Sacramento. Originally the website for the Sacramento Notary's Office claimed the processing time by mail was 3 days. By the time I had a certified birth certificate in hand, that estimate had increased to 5 days. (Hmm, are many other Americans suddenly lining up to use this service?)

I ended up booking a same-day flight from Portland to Sacramento, just to get my two birth certificates stamped with the apostille. This ended up being a nice day trip, but at the expense of a good night's sleep from the early flight, missing a full day of potential packing, and nearly $1,000 for the airfare. :(

Don't be like me, and don't delay until the last minute, especially if processing times are creeping ever-longer: get the apostille stamp now.

The apostille itself isn't too exciting: it's a metallic seal, and an extra piece of paper stapled to the original document, and a stamp spanning both papers. Tearing the pages apart renders the apostille invalid.

But Why Should I Lift a Finger

I know, this stuff is really inconvenient, and it costs money. Even worse, you may have to do some web-research, and find ways to contact government offices, and crap like that. Wouldn't you rather spiral in a vortex of ADHD doom-scrolling? Or numb yourself with Assassin's Creed, or whatever the kids are playing now?

I strongly encourage anyone who's remotely interested in exiting the USA to take this seriously. Please, stop what you're doing, and get certified birth certificates, with apostille stamps. Government services like Recorder's Offices and Notaries should be considered at-risk at this moment in time, and are likely already understaffed. As the power structure of the federal government lurches towards dictatorship, these services could be stripped away entirely, without warning.

I'm not a refugee, but I imagine it's much easier to find another home with an apostille stamp, than to be suddenly relocated as a refugee due to a fascist takeover.

Seriously, get certified birth certificates. Get apostille stamps. These documents are required for citizenship, in 126 other excellent countries as of 2025. Ignore this advice at your own peril.

If we had known this information, and acted sooner, then we could have saved much grief and stress, especially in the harrowing days leading up to our final flight out of the USA.

Do you want more posts about exiting the USA? Let me know what topics I should rant about.

Nearly a year has passed! And it's me, again. Oh lord

Look at this blockquote, from a post I wrote in 2019!:

I'm seeing a new therapist; she is the third. The other two were great, I wholeheartedly recommend them, but I moved from Washington to Oregon, and Therapist Number Two wasn't licensed to practice in Oregon, so ... It took a while to find a new mental health provider, because the world is hurting. The vast majority of therapists I contacted didn't bother to respond, they're already overbooked; just radio silence on their end.

The New Therapist thought my caffeine regimen was interesting, and asked me to take a short questionnaire. Long story short: Most people use caffeine as a stimulant, meaning they get "amped", energetic, and have a deluge of thoughts. But in people with ADHD, if you use specific doses of stimulants, the opposite effect occurs: thoughts are focused, emotions go quiescent, and noise recedes into the background.

Surprise, you beautiful tall bitch!: It is likely you've had ADHD your entire life.

I had no idea this was possible, until last week. I'd seen other people endure it (my partner has it, and was on medication when we met; Adderall is basically low-dose meth). I figured it was just something other people dealt with, and since I'm high-functioning ^enough^, it couldn't possibly be in my headspace.

But, what does this mean?! ADHD is a spectrum, and between the two major types, I'm probably more "hyperactive" than "inattentive". (I'm simplifying a bit, I haven't researched this properly. Roast me in the comments plz.) Below is a list of my quirks, which are suspiciously aligned with the classical symptoms of the ADHD spectrum:

* Either in a "hyper-focused" state of mind (flow state, especially when doing something interesting), or: huge struggle to maintain focus, easily distracted, lots of daydreaming, difficult to pay attention to the subject matter / meeting / conversation / whatever.
* Frequently changing interests, like how I dive deep into a new hobby every 1–2 years, and ditch whatever came before.
* Fidgety and squirmy.
* Constantly feeling a drive to fix things, and be productive. The flipside: Don't know how to relax; "doing nothing" is excruciating. Mentally punishing myself when I'm not productive.
* Constant struggle to manage emotions in situations that other people seem fine with, like this nice example from Wikipedia's ADHD article: "Often struggles to wait their turn, including waiting in lines." Why yes, I do want to scream if I'm forced to wait my turn, with nothing productive to do aaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

The list goes on. It's a deep subject, it's frequently "comorbid" with other conditions, including the tendency to avoid people (pretending to be human around strangers is difficult).

If this is indeed legitimate, then ^wow^ I've achieved quite a bit, in spite of it (or perhaps by leveraging it? Hyper-focused software development, and all.) No, I do not want medication. Actually, let me clarify that point: I already have medication, he says, slamming the coffee cup on the table and staring daggers at everyone. Now get out, as he hugs the espresso machine, caressing it softly, it'll be okay, they won't take you this time, my sweet baby

With my current routine, my mental state is nestled in a local maxima, I don't want to tamper with that equilibrium. ADHD may help explain some things, but I truly am high-functioning enough, and that's okay, I don't consider myself to be ^suffering^ from this. It's more of a shock that this went unnoticed, and unremarked, for nearly half a century.

Semi-related: Lately I've made an effort to not be productive, and I'm jokingly referring to this as my "flop era". Back to rotting my brain with Metroid Prime Remastered, also I suck at this game lol

In June, the $BAND visited my mountain hideout. I booted up the Mac Pro '09, and recovered some old recordings that we made 12 years ago.

Later, I sorted through my own creations from 2009 onward. My style evolved several times, and there are distinct periods (of atonal flailing and drowning). Here's a short description of each:

2007-08: Painful, abrasive, tuneless, slightly insane. Way too much distortion.

2009-10: This period is interesting! I was intrigued by physical modeling, which is software that simulates physical objects, rendering how they might sound if the objects existed in the real world.

There's a early-internet software package for this, called Tao. The instruments are semi-programmable and scriptable, although the learning curve is steep, and the sounds don't emerge in realtime. You program your simulation, and let it run (usually overnight). In the morning, you have 60 seconds of expensive-sounding audio, which may-or-may-not be useful.

The details are lost to time, but I had a workflow for using Tao, and rapidly iterating ideas. I wrote a micro-framework which let me compose rhythmic 16- and 32-beats; virtual hammers struck the shapes at precise intervals and tempos. I took these riffs, looped them, and they became an essential part of the Too Many Moths sound.

There were other tricks that 2MM used, in fact the whole reason I'm bothering to write this is because the sound design from that period is surprisingly >>>good<<<. None of the tracks were finished or released (they morphed for each live performance, ever-shifting). Listening from 12 years in the future, these have aged well. The overall effect is slow and contemplative, the sound design is lush and spacey, but also you can feel the allusions to solitude and darkened rooms, an inner pain.

2011-12: Trying to make "fast" music again, because I was "influenced" by drum & bass at the time. Also I entered an internet "song pact," and I tried using melody and harmony like a real composer. I was cheating, hunting for shortcuts to make quality tunes, and I had an idea for a generative audio app which could massage any sound into any other sound. But, just because you can twist a gunshot into the vague shape and timbre of a snare drum, that doesn't mean you *should*. (...... Because it grates on one's ears.)

I think I sold my music gear between 2018-20? It took a while to let go of it, emotionally. I've let go of that fantasy now, I wouldn't want a music studio in my life again.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this is because I wish the Too Many Moths tracks were finished, and released in some fashion. Not for judgment, or to impress anyone, but because I really like how the tracks sound, and I want to bathe in that aesthetic. There are 6 (maybe 7) strong tracks, which I estimate to be a 50-percent pain-in-my-ass to finish, and a bunch of weaker tracks that I can safely disregard.

Unfortunately, being a high-functioning American adult means my entire day is subdivided into tasks and errands, which fulfill me indirectly, without providing lasting satisfaction or life-affirming

Okay, WE GET IT, drama queen. I'm not saying this will happen, or even CAN happen given current circumstances. But IF it did happen, here's what the process would look like:

• Move the Ableton sessions to a modern computer. Some tracks use so much CPU that the old machine stutters. Also I don't have a DVI monitor big enough to handle the Ableton user interface.

• Find substitutes for plug-ins which don't run on the modern computer. ~or~ Bounce any channels that use essential plug-ins, ... hmm, this is getting complicated already.

• Edit the tracks to be concise, and tell a good story. Remove the voice samples, because I usually don't listen to music with voices anymore, and for serious music I feel that voice samples are a form of cheating. (The views expressed in this post are solely the views of the author, and do not apply to the world at large, no llamas were harmed in the making of this bytestream, update your privacy preferences with this one weird trick, etc.)

• Proper mix & mastering. This is the hard part.

• Choose track names!!! Oooh, the fun part.

• Album name? Album artwork? Hmm.

Do you ever feel like you can't accurately gauge what's truly important in your life, and what gives your existence meaning? I struggle with this a lot. This paragraph is not intended to be humorous, by the way, this is real. I just spent about 12 months noodling with a color e-Paper picture frame for my wall (...more on this train wreck later ...) and I'm surprised that I stuck with it for a whole year, for such a disappointing payoff. This "I'm going to fix Too Many Moths" enthusiasm might fizzle out in a few days, who can say?

I don't know. Goodnight.