Tim Smith Avatar Illustration

Tim Smith he/him

Geek, socialist, and maker of stuff

I’ll have more to say soon, but I’m start­ing my own lit­tle indie shop called Friend­ly Alien. I want­ed to make soft, com­fy, and size-inclu­sive cloth­ing and oth­er acces­sories for my favorite peo­ple: geeks, ston­ers, and queers. And would you look at that? I hap­pen to be all three 😉

I have no idea why, but I nev­er bought an Apple Pen­cil think­ing I would­n’t use it much. I final­ly did and doo­dled all of last night. Suf­fice to say, I should’ve bought this thing soon­er. Here’s my doo­dle from last night.

I’d been wait­ing for this Fall Apple Event to decide on what lap­top to get next. After see­ing every­thing they came out with, I went ahead and ordered an M1 Mac­Book Air.

I heard a quote yes­ter­day that kind of blew my mind and still has me pon­der­ing it’s sig­nif­i­cance in my own life.

The prop­er func­tion of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in try­ing to pro­long them. I shall use my time.

Jack Lon­don

I haven’t been feel­ing super con­fi­dent recent­ly. But then I have moments where I see and know how beau­ti­ful and lov­able I am, just for being me. Hap­py Sunday.

I’m cur­rent­ly sip­ping my cof­fee next to the open win­dow in the liv­ing room. It’s a crisp morn­ing and it’s been rain­ing for hours. Jazz is play­ing in the back­ground as if to score this moment to perfection.

I’ve been feel­ing sad recent­ly. But right now I’m hap­py. And every­thing is going to be ok.

Well holy shit, this poster is a vibe right?! 😍 Boba Fett was such a joy to watch in sea­son two of The Man­dalo­ri­an. I’m so excit­ed to see more sto­ry fea­tur­ing him.

What if no-one’s listening?

Even if nobody is lis­ten­ing, think of it this way: they’re not lis­ten­ing yet. One day, some­thing you write will get someone’s atten­tion via a Google search, or a stray Retweet, and when they vis­it your web­site they’ll have a healthy back-cat­a­logue of inter­est­ing arti­cles to read and share.

Today is Bi Vis­i­bil­i­ty Day; the first since I came out ear­li­er this year. The announce­ment didn’t go well with close fam­i­ly, but that wasn’t a sur­prise 🙄 Unfor­tu­nate­ly, that’s not a unique expe­ri­ence. Bisex­u­al peo­ple are con­stant­ly mar­gin­al­ized and erased.

Many think bisex­u­al­i­ty is ​“just a phase,” a pre­cur­sor to being gay or les­bian, or even worse, a sign that you’re slut­ty or into group sex. While some or all of these might be true with indi­vid­ual peo­ple, these broad gen­er­al­iza­tions are harm­ful and don’t rep­re­sent all bisexuals.

Whether you’re out or not, have a lot of expe­ri­ence or none, hap­py Bi Vis­i­bil­i­ty Day! You are valid. You are bi enough. You belong. You are loved.

Personal

Four Corners Reports on Pattern of Abuse Cover Up within Jehovah’s Witnesses Religion

As some of you may know, I was raised a Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness. In 2019, I decid­ed to leave this orga­ni­za­tion after find­ing seri­ous abuse cov­er up and com­ing across fac­tu­al infor­ma­tion that dis­proves the reli­gion’s doctrine.

One of the sto­ries this report touch­es on is of a young man that com­mit­ted sui­cide after being dis­fel­low­shipped for being gay. The young man turns out to be a nephew of one of the lead­ers of this orga­ni­za­tion, Stephen Lett. This is an issue that hits par­tic­u­lar­ly close to home since my own com­ing out.

All in all, it’s a scathing report. It reveals the Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness reli­gion (con­trary to what its mem­bers believe) to be a man-made and human-led orga­ni­za­tion with poli­cies and pro­ce­dures that cre­ate a ripe breed­ing ground for all types of abuse.

I’ve nev­er been hap­pi­er to have dis­tanced myself from this tox­ic orga­ni­za­tion. The lead­er­ship’s dog­mat­ic and arro­gant atti­tude has led to the ruin of count­less lives with­out even an apol­o­gy from the orga­ni­za­tion. Although thank­ful­ly, some vic­tims have won cas­es against the orga­ni­za­tion result­ing in a settlement.

Whether you’ve ever been a Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness or not, I rec­om­mend you watch the video.

Music

Listening: MONTERO by Lil Nas X

At this point, I’ve lis­tened to Lil Nas X’s debut album Mon­tero about five or six times all the way through. It’s both con­fi­dent and vul­ner­a­ble, and serves as a fan­tas­tic show­case of his tal­ent and range. It’s a mas­ter­piece of a debut album.

Lil Nas X flows effort­less­ly between gen­res. There’s pop and hip hop as expect­ed, but there’s even some indie rock vibes in there too. And yet, Lil Nas X is per­fect­ly at home in each dif­fer­ent sound.

But this album is so much more than music. It’s a com­ing of age moment. It’s a state­ment about Lil Nas X’s accep­tance and cel­e­bra­tion of him­self. And there­fore, it also feels like an accep­tance and cel­e­bra­tion of being gay for myself too.

I can’t rec­om­mend Mon­tero enough.

My favorites:

  1. MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)
  2. DEAD RIGHT NOW
  3. INDUSTRY BABY (feat. Jack Harlow)
  4. ONE OF ME (feat. Elton John)
  5. DOLLA SIGN SLIME (feat. Megan Thee Stallion)
  6. VOID

Had such an amaz­ing time at Dis­ney­land and Cal­i­for­nia Adven­ture with Kel­ly. We got the new pass­es so, this is only one of the many times I’m sure we’ll go this year.