Hi everyone.

Hello to all the new faces who don't know my name - (or how out of character it is that there are capital letters in this post!) This isn't really for you - or for anyone in particular I guess; I just wanted to write something to those who have followed my work on here.

So, you.

Howdy.

It's been a minute.

I just wanted to give you all a quick update; let you know that I'm safe. I've had a few of you reach out to me since my last post. I hope I didn't scare anybody.

For those interested - things... aren't all that better now, hahaha. Sorry.

But the good news is, they're trending up in a really good way.

I've decided to stop drinking for awhile; I figured that isn't really helping my cause at this point. I'll pick that back up when there's something worth celebrating, when I'm in better company, and when I'm back in control of myself.

I've started getting a lot more interviews for work; shouldn't be long now until I have a position landed and I'm back to being a functioning adult.

And uh - I started therapy. Been about a month now. I like my therapist, they're very sweet, very weird in a fun/eclectic kind of way. (My kinda person.) And that's been going well.

In fact, that's part of this.

It's not just Tildes I abandoned.

I've let a lot of very important people to be fall to the wayside lately - total isolation. Tonight, I started calling them back, apologizing, letting them know what was going on. And that's gone well so far.

Now I'm here doing the same for you.

I don't know if I'll be back on Tildes all too frequently. There's a lot on here I might just need to let rest.

So I just wanted to say that I'm here. I love you. I'm sorry. And, bye.

For now.

eyes crackle open

half past three

stomach on fire and

my body feels meek

i stumble out my chair

and here the creak in my knees

you're only in your twenties

and you're living ninety

.

my head feels funny

and i'm tired of the numbing

and there's too much week

at the end of my money

a little bumblebee lost

wishing for his honey

beat my head against the hive

until the world starts buzzing

and it falls.

.

and i

set

foot

down

on that unpaved road

step

forward like an orphan

on a search for a home

walk

forward hand to God

if he answers my call

honey (i'll) be

leaving for now

hope it won't be long

.

soul

full of gravel and

a heart made of gold

imma

face my music and

play my song

send

me down to hell

if it rights my wrongs

honeybee

i'm leaving for now

hope it won't be long.

Vancouver @ Chicago
Columbus @ Montreal
San Jose @ Houston
Toronto @ Seattle
NYCFC @ MNUFC
Atlanta @ New England
Portland @ FC Dallas
Orlando @ Real Salt Lake
DC United @ Colorado
Philadelphia @ LA Galaxy
FC Cincinnati @ LAFC
NYRB @ Sportland Kansas City

This is going to be a bit of a ramble.

I'm not even sure where to even start.

Browsing r/egg_irl has me confused. Am I trans? What does it mean for someone currently living as their birth-assigned-gender to be trans? Would I be happier as a woman? Or non-binary? I don't feel major bodily disphoria. I don't dislike my body. I am curious what it would be like to have a female body.

When I was a teenager I read Commitment Hour, by James Alan Gardner. It's about a village where young people switch back and forth every year (go to sleep as one, wake up as another), until they turn twenty and have to choose one or the other. I loved it. I fantasied about what it would be like to quickly switch back and forth. I liked the idea of finding out what it's like to have a female body without having to permanently commit to it. That fantasy has tempered a bit since then, but I wouldn't say it's completely gone.

I've been growing my hair out, but I've also grown my beard out. Both started as laziness. I didn't feel like bothering to get my hair cut or mess with shaving my face. I hate shaving. Now it's something of a security blanket. I feel exposed without them. Another reason I grew my beard out was because there were a couple of times when I was a teenager that a stranger thought I was a girl and it made me uncomfortable. I grow hardly any chest hair and I like it that way; but I have a lot of leg hair, and I like that too.

I've never been the macho type or had much use for machoness.

I don't know If I would like being female, or if I just like the idea of it. There have been other things that I liked the idea of but not the thing itself. How can I respond to others seeing it as a phase if I'm not even sure myself if it's a phase.

I don't like the social stigma around it. I come from a conservative family. I don't know how they would react. I live in a small predominately Mormon community where everybody knows everybody and gossip runs rampant. I don't know if being female is what I really want, but I at least want the space to experiment and find out.

I don't know what I want and I hate not knowing. Even deciding whether or not I should even type this out, let alone post it, has been a major mental battle.

I've been on Tildes a while, but I created a new account because my main account could be connected to my real identity and I'm so not ready for that. Even putting this out there anonymously has me terrified.

I'd like your input for an article I'm writing.

Let’s say you’re starting a new IT project. It could be custom software; perhaps it’s a migration to cloud services; maybe it’s a shiny new IoT project.

The point is that you're here to build something great. You’re in charge of the design (or an important part of it), and making sure that the resulting system makes everybody happy.

How do you make sure that you are interviewing the right people to find out what “make them happy” looks like? What do you do to get input from the people who matter for the project’s success… without inviting so many suggestions that it’s impossible to deliver everything?

Case in point: Ten years ago I was in charge of an online tech community. The company I worked for hired custom developers to build the software platform, but the developers never talked to me. They interviewed the boss, two levels above me (who just so happened to be the person who signed the checks) even though she had never used this online community or any other. Needless to say, the community software they delivered was horrible, missing basic-to-me features.

Formally this process would be called “identifying the project stakeholders” or “master the requirements-gathering process” but that seems too corporate-speak. I’m looking for real-world examples of what works and what doesn’t, so I can write a genuinely useful article with practical guidelines.

Note that this is NOT about the questions to ask those stakeholders; that’s another discussion. Here I am writing merely (merely!) about making sure you are speaking to the people whose input you need.

My questions:
• How do you decide which people to ask for input? In what way do you find those people? How do you know when you have everyone you should?
• How do you decide whom NOT to invite? Where do you draw the line?
• Tell me about the manner in which you learned that lesson. (The hard way. Anecdotes are good.)
• If you want to be quoted (it's good for business!) tell me (via PM) how to refer to you in the article: Name, title, company name, short company description, URL.

Inspired by @Whom's music and anime threads

What have you been playing to this week? You don't need to be playing the latest games, nor do you have to write gigantic essays. This is just a space to talk games!

Feel free to give recommendations, thoughts, opinions. Chat about playstyles and habits! Reminisce about games and mechanics long gone, or coming back!

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7 · Week #8 · Week #9 · Week #10 · Week #11 · Week #12 · Week #13 · Week #14 · Week #15 · Week #16

Here's a list of a lot of things that came out in this past week, including many which are set to release on Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and I avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

(oh and don't bully me for the genre tags, a lot of these things have very limited resources available and I couldn't individually listen to everything and determine what fits best, so I'm pulling from third parties and an artist's past work a lot of the time)

Thanks for the help this week, @Cleb!

88GLAM - 88GLAM2.5 (Trap Rap)

Aaron Lewis - State I’m In (Contemporary Country)

ALL TVVINS - Just To Exist (Alternative Dance, Indie Rock)

All Your Sisters - Trust Ruins (Industrial Rock, Post-Punk)

Anderson .Paak - Ventura (Neo-Soul, Contemporary R&B)

Andy Black - The Ghost of Ohio (Pop Rock)

Astrid - Fall, Stand, Dance (Indie Pop, Pop Rock)

Band of Skulls - Love Is All You Love (Garage Rock Revival, Alternative Rock)

Bars Of Gold - Shelters (New Wave, Indie Rock, Post-Hardcore)

Beat Music - Beat Music! Beat Music! Beat Music! (Jazz-Rock, Electronic)

Bibio - Ribbons (Folktronica, Hypnagogic Pop)

Big Business - The Beast You Are (Hard Rock, Heavy Metal)

Big Search - Slow Fascination (Indie Pop)

Black Flower - Future Flora (Afro-Jazz, Jazz-Funk)

Broken Social Scene - Let's Try the After - Vol. 2 (Indie Pop, Indie Rock)

Bruce Hornsby - Absolute Zero (Art Pop, Singer/Songwriter)

BTS - Map of the Soul: Persona (K-Pop)

The Budos Band - V (Jazz-Funk, Heavy Psych, Afrobeat)

Caskey - Black Sheep 4 (Trap Rap)

The Chemical Brothers - No Geography (Big Beat, Acid House)

The Cradle - The Glare of Success (Indie Folk)

Cris Jacobs - Color Where You Are (Singer/Songwriter, Acoustic Blues)

Damien Jurado - In the Shape of a Storm (Indie Folk, Singer/Songwriter)

Eli "Paperboy" Reed - 99 Cent Dreams (Soul, Rhythm & Blues)

Emily Reo - Only You Can See It (Indie Pop)

Emma Bunton - My Happy Place (Pop Soul)

Eric Reed - Everybody Gets The Blues (Jazz)

Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel (Post Punk Revival)

Glen Hansard - The Wild Willing (Singer/Songwriter, Electronic)

Gone Cosmic - Sideways In Time (Psychedelic Rock)

​iann dior - nothings ever good enough (Emo Rap)

Intellexual (Nico Segal & Nate Fox of The Social Experiment) - Intellexual (Indie Pop)

Inter Arma - Sulphur English (Post Metal)

Jesse Rutherford - GARAGEB& (Alternative R&B, Electropop)

Jess Ribeiro - Love Hate (Singer/Songwriter)

John Paul White - The Hurting Kind (Singer/Songwriter, Folk Rock)

Junodream - Terrible Things That Could Happen EP (Indie Rock)

Khalid - Free Spirit (Contemporary R&B, Neo-Soul)

KSI & Randolph - New Age (UK Hip Hop)

The Leisure Society - Arrivals & Departures (Chamber pop, Indie pop)

Lloyd - Black Haze (Pop Rock)

Lowly - Hifalutin (Indie Pop)

LSD - Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present… LSD (Psychedelic Pop, Electronic)

Marshmello & SOB X RBE - Roll the Dice - EP (Pop Rap)

Melby - VCR (Psychedelic Pop, Indie Pop)

Melissa Etheridge - The Medicine Show (Pop Rock, Singer/Songwriter)

M Huncho - Utopia (Trap Rap)

MISSIO - The Darker the Weather // The Better the Man (Electropop)

MONKEY3 - Sphere (Stoner Rock, Space Rock)

Mystery Skulls - Back to Life (Electropop)

Native Harrow - Happier Now (Indie Folk, Folk Pop)

Norah Jones - Begin Again (Jazz Pop)

NUMENOREAN - Adore (Atmospheric black metal)

Odonis Odonis - Reaction EP (Electro-Industrial, Industrial Rock)

Pixel Grip - Heavy Handed (Synthpop)

Reese McHenry - No Dados (Garage Rock)

RiFF RAFF - PiNK PYTHōN (Trap Rap)

Rory Fresco - True Story (Pop Rap)

Sara Evans - The Barker Family Band (Country Pop)

Sebastián Yatra - FANTASÍA (Reggaeton)

Shovels & Rope - By Blood (Alt. Country)

Sophie Auster - Next Time (Singer/Songwriter)

Tellavision - Add Land (Electronic, Pop)

Theories - Vessel (Grindcore)

Thomas Henley - Epoque EP (Electronic)

Through The Noise - Dualism (Nu Metal, Post Hardcore)

Tom Speight - Collide (Singer Songwriter)

Walking On Cars - Colours (Pop Rock)

Yours Truly - Afterglow EP (Progressive Pop)

Zvi - Deer Pink (Drone Metal, Experimental Rock)