#22: Tracy (tracydurnell.com)

Welcome to Wonders of Web Briefing. This week I'll be talking with Tracy, the author of TracyDarnell.com. Welcome to the show, Tracy. Thank you, James. I always like to start at the beginning of someone's journey with the web, and so I'm curious, when did you first start blogging? So my absolute very first website I made in seventh grade. So this was 1997. There was like an after-school thing, and I made a horrendous, like, Monet fan site. You know, I don't even know if it was actually ever published to the web, but I kind of credit that with setting it early in my mind that, like, websites were a thing that I could just do. And so I kind of had different websites on and off through, like, high school, but then when I went away to college, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I went to school in Washington, so a several-hour flight away, and I started a blog so that my mom could keep track of what I was doing at college. That's amazing. I've never heard anyone give that the reason why they started a website. And so, okay, talk me through it. So you started that first blog. How did you go from that first website to what is now TracyDarnell.com? Was it always one site that evolved over time, or did you kind of go through eras of websites? Definitely eras. So at the end of high school, I made a friend who was, like, very into websites, and it kind of was like a competitive thing with us that it was like, Oh yeah, well, I worked on my website today. Well, I also worked on my website. And we actually, like, ran an art blog together when I was in college, so we would, like, take turns posting drawings, which was also a little competitive thing of, Well, yeah, of course I did a drawing this weekend. I'm going to add it to the blog. Oh, you've taken a long time to post to your part of the blog. We brought my sister in, and so it was like a three-way art blog for a while. So kind of had those phases during college. After college, I tried kind of continuing my college blog, and it kind of just fizzled out. So I took a couple years off, and then I kind of was looking for a fun project, and I was like, you know, I kind of miss blogging. And so I started a, like, topical blog, which this was like 2012, so that was kind of like the thing at the time was your blog should be about something. It shouldn't be just amorphous about whatever. And so it was called Cascadia Inspired, and the Pacific Northwest is kind of part of a bioregion called Cascadia is where the name comes from. And so it was kind of me reckoning with moving my identity from California to Washington and trying to, like, connect with the landscape here and feel like I kind of belonged here. So I ran that blog for, like, 10 years-ish. And then I was feeling kind of limited by the topic constraint, and I found myself wanting to write about other things, but they didn't fit on Cascadia Inspired. And so I felt like I was, like, holding myself back. From writing these things I wanted to write because I didn't have a place for it. And kind of the turning point was I had a portfolio site, like, parked on TracyDurnell.com. And I had in my head that obviously TracyDurnell.com has to be a portfolio site. I do graphic design. It has to be this professional thing. And I finally let go of that, and I was like, you know, I have this domain, and I'm going to use it for what I want and for what's useful for me, and I'm going to just turn it into digital garden. And I encountered the idea of digital gardens through the indie web. So that was the kind of discovering the indie web and allowing myself to let go of the portfolio site and give myself a space for me was what let me start TracyDurnell.com as a blog, digital garden kind of thing. So on your about page on your website, you speak about a few different ways that you use your website, and one of them that really stood out to me is that you use it to reflect on your creative practices. And so I'm kind of curious about, like, how does your website fit into your writing practice? Like, do you write specifically for the website, or are you, like, gardening notes somewhere and growing them, or do your ideas start elsewhere? Like, where does your site fit in? Yeah, so I mostly think of the site as a tool. So it's kind of all interwoven: what I'm reading about, what I'm writing about, what I'm starting to take notes about. I, I think if I was following the kind of like traditional digital garden style, um, I would be publishing a bunch of my kind of scratch notes. In practice, what I'm doing is building up a bunch of like draft blog posts that are become kind of like placeholders for me to start thinking about things. And I, I haven't been publishing those because I, I haven't exactly decided what it is about them that like draws me yet. And so it's kind of the, the, the drafts folder of my WordPress site is kind of this like. Breeding ground for ideas to like sit and simmer, uh, for a while and I, I have like draft posts going back several years and a lot of them I'll probably never actually get around to like finishing, but sometimes I'll read something, I'll be like, oh, this is what I needed to finish this other idea that I had a long time ago. Um, so. It is. It's part of my creative practice in that it is the creative practice, I guess. That makes a lot of sense. And like, I, I guess to like when I'm reading your blog posts, you link to a lot of previous blog posts too, and it, it kind of feels like, like there's a continuity of ideas or like you can kind of trace back the origin a little bit on your thinking that got you to today's posts and the same holds true as you read future posts. I'm curious, like, when you're writing a new post, are you like actively looking at your back catalog to think about ideas you've written about that fit in, or is it more you've written something and then you're like, oh, I wrote about this before, I can add this link. Mostly the latter. So mostly I'll kind of write my whole thing, and then I go through and I kind of populate backlinks. The backlink part is kind of why I think of it as the digital garden that I'm trying to, like, keep these ideas connected, like you say, to link back to what I've thought before and also not feel like I have to, like, rehash ideas every time. Sometimes while I'm writing something, I'll have kind of this feeling of, Have I already written this? So at that point, if I have that feeling, I'll go back and I'll start reading things I wrote in the past to confirm that I am not basically regurgitating what I have already said. I know that feeling. I remember once I wrote a blog post and I was, I feel excited to write it, and I went to do background research and I went to Google and searched for something, and then I saw my blog there, and I'm like, No, it can't be. I can't have already done this before. Like, but it was just enough time had passed that I was like, Yeah, I've lost that context. I love that. And the way that you describe the way that you add links and also, like, you're using the term digital garden as the framing for your site, it makes me think about, like, these metaphors that we have to describe the web can have real application, I guess. Like, sometimes we speak about, like, websites as homes in the abstract or websites as gardens in the abstract, but, like, it is a practical part of a practice. Yeah, I think the mental framings that we give ourselves are actually a really powerful part of our work. Yeah, it's, I guess I'm curious, have you done any thinking on like the vocabulary that we use for the indie web? Like, it feels like, it feels like every so often we see a new metaphor and everyone describes their site differently. Like, do you, do you think we're like, do you think we're coalescing toward a definition of what a website is and can do or, yeah. I don't know. I, I don't know that there is a definition of what a website can do. I think, I, I don't think that I've identified any like new metaphors for the indie web, but I, I've played around with some different metaphors that are kind of float around in the community about like your website as your home and kind of part of a community. I think that's been a fruitful framing for thinking about connections and to to other websites and kind of where my website sits in the web. And I, I think the web can feel a little bit like this, um, kind of placeless place, and I, I'm really interested in how to make. Spaces feel like a place on the web. And I, I feel like the indie web. It's kind of has that feeling for me that it. There are, there are names that I see kind of pop up and it feels like we're all kind of in the same place, roughly talking to each other. Um, so I think the, the kind of home community neighborhood sort of idea, um, and then the digital garden is kind of the other metaphor that. I've done more thinking about kind of on my own site and, you know, as I learned more about it, I was like, my website's kind of actually more like a commonplace book, but I like digital garden better, so I'm just going to stick with that term. It really, it really makes me think about, like, the concept of a third place or a third space. And, like, in the indie web, there are regulars that are writing and adding to their websites, and there's a community. And I think there's also just this sense in the air of, like, of creativity, I guess, right? Like everyone's motive going into it is, I want to make something. And it seems like no matter how big or small your website is, you can, like, join that and become a node in this larger network. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting for me to think about because my previous website, Cascadia Inspired, I didn't feel like I was connected to anything else. I did mostly writing that was all very, like, not necessarily introspective, but very just focused on my own experience, and I didn't link out to a lot of things. I wasn't looking to make those connections the same way that I am now, that kind of everything I'm reading, I'm thinking about, oh, do I want to try and pull this into something I'm writing and try and link out to it or whatever. So I am intentionally linking a lot more to more people. I think in part just this is how we grow the indie web, is building this kind of web of connections, but also— Intentionally trying to be part of a conversation, even if it's not, like, direct, just feeling like I'm in a group of other people is more enjoyable than my previous website that felt very lonely. Yeah, like, I certainly felt that way. Excuse me, early on in my blog where, like, I was writing about the indie web and I was writing about coffee and there was a community there, but it was also, it felt a bit disconnected. But as I started, like, talking with other people that had personal websites and then kind of writing more about that, and also, I guess growing as a writer myself and figuring out what I like to publish versus what I had seen, what forms I'd seen from other people, it was like, hey, this doesn't have to be lonely. There's actually, like, thousands of other people out there doing this. And so it does make me think. So on your website, you, like, you have this notion of big questions that you're exploring and thinking about, and you mentioned that your site, you make connections between what you're reading and bring in your interests potentially into a piece. And so I'm curious, firstly, just about the origin of this idea of, like, big questions to guide your writing, and then, like, also how that informs your blog posts, whether you go and tackle a question in a blog post or whether you see multiple blog posts just, like, building up to address a big question. Yeah, I think this is a framing that has been really helpful for me. In kind of growing my writing, I first encountered it at an Oliver Burkeman workshop that he did online like three years ago. And it was, I don't even remember what the workshop was about, but this was kind of a like little throwaway comment that he was like, Oh yeah, let me show you how I, you know, organize my notes, and I have these big questions. And I was like, Big questions! So I kind of yoinked that idea, and just having that framing of, Oh yeah, these are questions that I am pursuing, and this is why I am reading all these books about entrepreneurship or writing process or whatever, it kind of gave me this higher-level, like, mental categorization to understand what I was drawn to, that it was like I both constructed the categories and now have those categories to help me figure out kind of what I'm drawn to. Yeah, I guess it's that process of organization, like figuring out how the different interests fit together such that, like, such that you can build towards something bigger, I guess. Yeah, and I would say it's—this is not like a formal thing that I use, the big questions. I don't, like, sit down and I'm like, Okay, well, here's my sub-question I'm going to answer with a blog post. It's kind of, I'll go in every couple months and, like, update them with what I've written about and— Updating the big question pages on my website is kind of a cue to be like, oh, I don't have anything to add to this question. I haven't written about it in a while. Do I, do I want to think about this? Or, you know, maybe it's fine if this one isn't kind of top of mind right now. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And I think it leads nicely into, so one of the things that I really enjoy about your writing is that your serial posts, and I think you've done a few series now on aura and connection and the indie web and purchasing and consumption more recently. Like, I'm curious, like, what inspired you to start writing, like, these series of posts? Did the big questions come in too? Yeah. So it was kind of a few different threads, and you are one of the threads. So you asked me a couple years ago some question like, how do you challenge yourself while you're blogging? Something like that. And so we had a nice discussion about that, and I wrote a post called Challenging Myself Playfully. And that question has continued to kind of come back and help me think kind of a little bit more at this meta level about what I want out of my blog. It's not like I have, like, an editorial calendar. I'm not planning things out. I'm just following my curiosity. But I am thinking kind of at the big picture that I, now that I have these big questions. They aren't things that can be answered by a single post, which was kind of my mentality before the big questions was like, okay, I will write a post about a topic and then I can check it off in my head sort of thing. But I think the big questions framing helps me think about it as something that kind of like stacks, that I maybe will answer one kind of sub-question and then that will raise more questions. And so it kind of naturally leads to this kind of series flow pursuing the kind of questions. So that's the kind of like creative side of it. It also took the technical side of it because there isn't like a built-in functionality in WordPress for having series, and you can just like manually add a link at the bottom of the post or whatever, but I didn't really want to do that. So I kind of wanted to do series before I started actually doing them. And another blogger in the indie web community, Chris from Uncountable Thoughts, kind of came up with this series functionality, and he posted it online for other people to use. And then I brought it to a Homebrew Website Club and had people who know how to do PHP help me adapt it to WordPress. And so then I had the technical functionality to have this series connection. So having that like technical tool has allowed me to Pursue this kind of next level of writing. Looping back to the how I challenge myself is I feel like these building ideas more is kind of how I am challenging myself right now, is not letting it just be one and done. Yeah, like, I don't— so, like, when I think about series on the indie web, like, I think about some people do week notes and— Like, I think about some people do week notes and something on like a regular cadence, but I think there's a difference between that where like each post is kind of an isolation as part of a larger whole. Whereas like in the case of your RS series, for example, like the ideas were, as you said, like building on top of one another. And it feels like certainly as a reader, like I'm reading part of a larger story that's evolving over time, sort of like a book where like you read one chapter and then you go to the next. And I don't, I just haven't seen this as much in the indie web. And so maybe more people will start to explore series in the future. I think it's a fun, different way to think about blogging. It's, I think, definitely a little bit different than kind of a standard blog post, and I put a lot more effort into the series posts. I find it super rewarding as a writer to be thinking in this kind of series level. It requires a lot of upfront work, especially for the Aura one that I kind of wanted to introduce my framing and then I like developed it and kind of expanded on it, but I needed to come up with that framework first. So I think the Aura series I was working on kind of for several months to build up the ideas before I felt comfortable being like, okay, this is going to be my framing and how I'm going to approach this series. A lot of the other series are a lot more loose of, oh yeah, I'm kind of writing about... Taste or aesthetics or whatever, or I'm writing about, I call it the mindset of more. And so those are a lot looser. I have kind of a set of ideas that I think I want to write about, but they're not as directly connected as the Aura series was. There is something, I guess, in the framing and the mindset of this kind of practice too, where, like, certainly when I'm sitting down to write, I'm always like, well, what am I going to write today? But that limits me because I'm thinking about the day. But if I think about, like, what do I want to build on, then suddenly I'm like, oh, there's this theme that I explored in the past that I actually, I have more to tease out there. Yeah, maybe there's something there, but just, like, it being a bit easier to write when you're not trying to force yourself to come up with an explicitly new topic every time, but to build on what you've already done. Yeah. And so I guess we touched on that a little bit there, but I'm curious, what does your process look like for writing a blog post? It depends on how meaty the topic is. I have kind of a mental set of different types of blog posts that I do. So I'll have kind of note, I think Tom Critchlow called it like digital bricolage, kind of cobbling pieces together. So I really like kind of paying attention to just quotes I see in different pieces of writing and trying to, like, bring them together. So those are kind of a more, like, playful style of post for me, and those are— Usually a lot simpler. And sometimes they'll, I'll kind of like let them build up because I'll be like, I think this, you know, I have two quotes here, but I think I really need a third to like really bring it together. It's kind of a vibes thing. Then I'll have posts that are basically I read something and I have a reaction to it, and I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna sit down and write out my opinions here. And those are kind of just blasted off in the moment. So I think I actually posted something like that yesterday, where I was, I had read something that was even really kind of tangentially related to the thought I had, but it was called I Don't Like Prompts. And it was just like, you know, I don't know if this will be like useful to anyone, but, you know, I'll just do a little write about it. And then within like two hours, somebody had commented and said, Oh, hey, actually, this reminded me that I do like prompts. Yes, I love it. And then there's the, the like big blog posts that are the kind of like series blog posts. And on my website, I mark them featured. They're kind of what I think of as like anchor articles. And those are the ones where I'm trying to like push my writing abilities more. And so I put a lot more attention into kind of building those out over a span of time of I start kind of collecting material first. And then I'll kind of go in and arrange everything that I have once I have kind of a big chunk of stuff. And sometimes that'll be enough for me to start writing. And sometimes it'll be like, I feel like to kind of really complete this set of ideas, I've got a hole here. I need to go do a little more reading. So that kind of depends on the idea. And it becomes this kind of iterative thing of I'll, you know, start drafting content and splicing in quotes and links and stuff, and then I'll go do more reading and I'll come back and I'll edit what I've got. And again, it's kind of a vibes thing of when it feels like it's ready to post. I think I have a bit of a perfectionist streak, and I try not to indulge it too much, but there is this balance of publishing things online under my real name that I'm like, I don't want to feel like I'm an idiot posting something I haven't thought through. So I probably put in more work than I should on some things. I could probably publish them earlier, but it's this balance between what I feel comfortable with and when I can feel just comfortable enough to hit publish, even when I'm like, well, maybe it's not perfect, you know. Yeah, I would bet that most people who write on the web have that same question when they're writing. It's like, is this ready? Is it good—excuse me—is it good enough? And certainly sometimes, like when I'm writing, I write something and I'm like, this is good, but it feels incomplete. And I think, like, there's a hole somewhere, and like, honestly, I just don't know enough to know where it is. It's just something feels off. And then I'll keep it in drafts. And then other times it's like, again, similar to what you said, I think I can post this. Like, I think this is good, even if it feels a little bit uncomfortable. And yeah, it's like it's not— It's not a binary decision of publish or not publish. It's like thinking and then being like, okay, this feels good. And I wish it could be more descriptive, but writing really comes down to how you feel about something when it comes to sharing. Yeah, and I actually just published something that I had originally written in November and didn't feel—it was at a point where I felt like it could be published, but there was something about it that I was like, it's not, it's not quite right yet. And so I kind of sat on it for like six months. Then I had this, like, epiphany, and I was like, oh, I need this framing device. And so this was a post I had written about in the mindset of more series about wanting material possessions. And it's about home decor at a big level and about, like, possessions and buying things. But specifically, I realized that I had been lusting after this particular lamp for six months, and I was like, this is the perfect frame for this piece of—I have a specific thing that I want that exemplifies everything I'm trying to write about here. Yeah, there is something about, like, ideas take time to grow and manifest. And maybe it's because, like, blogging has a quicker cycle. Like, you can, in theory, write a blog post and publish it that day and it can be out there. Whereas, like, the typical experience isn't necessarily that. It's like you're thinking about something, two months later you're like, oh, I know what to say now. Like, we're all, like, if we're learning every day, then, like, every day we're going to discover something new that might fit into a piece that might take time. Yeah, and I think it sometimes it pays off for me to let a post sit a little longer, and then sometimes I'll look back and it'll be like, well, this is a good historical artifact of what I was thinking two years ago. And, you know, I'm just gonna publish this on private to get it out of my drafts folder and nobody else needs to look at it. Yeah, it's, I, I've certainly got plenty of drafts where I'm like, I, I, I'm glad I wrote this, but it was, it was an intermediary step toward the thing. And, and so you mentioned a bit earlier about, um, so the, the, the kind of conversation that happened around the writing prompts. Like, I think, um, I think I've seen another, uh, uh, blogger also talk about this writing prompts thing. And, and so it like exemplifies, I guess, that a conversation can happen around, around a blog post and like, to your earlier point, like the blog doesn't need to be alone in some regards. Like, I'm curious if you've done any thinking about like the role of, uh, I guess the potential role and also your website's role and like being part of a conversation. Yeah, I think my thinking on it has kind of evolved over the years. Um, I was more. Kind of intentionally having back and forth conversations with people a couple of years ago and participating in like the early days of the indie web carnival before I realized that I don't really like prompts. Um, but I saw that as kind of a, I want to participate in these things that I want to see online. And once the indie web carnival kind of built up enough steam of its own, and I had the realization that I don't actually like prompts that much, I kind of bowed out of it. But that was part of my motivation for participating. I tried to participate in almost all of them at the start of it. Now I am more loosely feeling part of the conversation of I am not kind of directly responding to people, but I do want to link to people a lot, which I feel like is kind of an indirect part of conversation. Yeah, it's like, yeah, every link takes you to another part of an idea or another interpretation of an idea, another person's perspective. And I think sometimes we underestimate the little things in the web, like mentioning someone's blog could be a big deal, because like, even if only three people click it, you've just introduced like three people to someone else's either perspective on that idea or indeed their whole website. Like there's something about like, um, I think I read about this first on Maya Lands website about like the link culture of the indie web, like linking is a discrete thing that leads to community and, and I guess strengthening the foundations of the social layer that we're building. Yeah. And I think seeing when other people link to my website, um, even if they don't tell me about it, if I happen to stumble upon it or whatever, or I do get web mentions and so I'll, you know, even if they don't send it to me, I get the web mentions, I'll go, um, look at it. It always feels nice to be like, oh good, somebody read my thing, they related to it, you know, even if they didn't totally agree, they thought it was interesting enough to link to. So I try and kind of return the favor whenever I encounter something that's interesting. I'm like, oh yeah, this is something that I want to try and. Like, too, even if it's not a direct response. Yeah, like it speaks to there are many different ways to participate in the community. Like you can be a prolific blogger, or you can maintain a link blog, or you can share bookmarks, or you can just read. Like there is no, like, there's no ideal indie web citizen per se. It's more like you get what you pretend, and, like, everyone looks for something different. Yeah, and I am a big proponent of readers being part of the indie web, that it isn't just people who are publishing online, but everybody who's kind of part of our ecosystem who, you know, maybe they don't leave comments that often. Maybe they never leave a comment, but they're, I feel like, still part of that ecosystem. It makes me—I've never thought about this before—this is incredibly underdeveloped. Maybe this should be, like, a draft that never gets published, but I'll share it anyway. Like, it makes me think of The Guardian newspaper where, like, they ask for reader comment and they have a lot of, like, writing opportunities, and they'll, like, share reader views. And it's like, even though, like, they're addressing a huge audience and the chances of maybe your individual comment making it into, like, one of their readers' viewpoint articles is limited, like, there's still—it still feels like you're part of a broader community and that there are places to participate, even if 99% of the time you're just reading what's on their website. Totally. And I think that it is good to remember that most people online are lurkers in most situations, and it is just usually in, like, one certain area that we become More active. And I think it's, even if you are only active in one area, you can still kind of be part of other spaces as you're reading in them. I think this whole ecosystem is important that there... I don't want to publish into the void because I've done that before and it's not very fun. It's a lot more interesting when I feel like there's people on the other end. Absolutely, yeah. I think my vigor for the indie web built as I see more people join the community. And then also, like, I woke up literally this morning to an email from somebody saying, like, I like your website, and I was like, Oh my goodness. Like, yes. It was, yeah, it was like, this is great, and this is what the community is about. Like, it's not just people sharing their websites, it's also people reading websites and, like, gleaning ideas from them, right? Like, when, like, an author publishes a book, for example, they will never know exactly what it inspires, but they will know that people will read it and it will encourage ideas. Yeah. I think I've encountered this idea as, like, cultural arbitrage, basically, like pulling ideas from kind of one subculture into another and kind of cross-pollinating. I think it's an important thing to be. Everybody's got kind of a different sphere of things that they're listening to, and so everybody plays a role in kind of connecting different parts of different cultures and different ideas. And maybe that's, maybe the web is uniquely good at that. Like, people can talk about their favorite video games on the same blog as they're talking about writing on the same blog that they're talking about manga. Like, you can cross-pollinate and you can find connections through maybe even just the serendipity of, like, you're writing about these things and you're like, Oh, like, there's a connection here. Or even if you don't see it, a reader might come for one interest and stay for another. Yeah. And so we've been talking a lot about the culture of the indie web, and the question I really love to ask is, like, it feels like the indie web is very much alive. Like, there are more people coming, there's a conversation going on, there's different ways to participate in, say, conversation. And so I'm really curious, like, where do you hope the indie web will be in the next five years? Yeah. Something that has struck me recently, Bubbles is a relatively new website that kind of aggregates a bunch of blogs, and it is cool to go look at the list of blog posts that's on there because I feel like it shows just how much people are really kind of talking to each other, and it helps encourage that because you find more people who are talking about the same thing who maybe aren't people you directly follow. So yeah, I agree with you. I feel like the indie web is, like, growing and vibrant, and I am very excited with kind of where it's growing right now. I think a big piece that I hope to see in the next few years is figuring out the kind of more private side of posting or kind of smaller community spaces that let people feel a little bit safer, because I think Culturally, the gigantic social media websites have taught people that it can be dangerous to post your ideas in total public where literally anyone can find them. When you are on the indie web, not on one of these social media sites, I think there's, to some extent, some protection of not that many people are reading on the indie web yet, so you're kind of already pulling yourself away from kind of more hostile crowds into a friendlier, more conversational kind of community. But I do think that having a little bit more, like, control over who sees your work is going to be an important kind of next step for having more people feel comfortable posting online on, I'll say the open web. I don't know exactly how private web or controlled posts or whatever fit into the open web, but I think it's something that I would like to see us, like, talk about as a community and think about how these different pieces of the open web fit together to make it ultimately a more open space, even if everybody can't read everything, because there is somewhere that anyone can feel comfortable posting. Yeah, it feels like there's, like, in tandem technology that we need to build and also culture we need to build around it too, of, like, we need to have the means by which we can do, like, a restricted audience post, but also for that to be a thing that we expect. Like, I think on social platforms, like, there are options to, like, friends only or whatever, but we don't really have any of those primitives right now in the indie web. And yet, I think if we are building for everyone, then, like, to your point, we need to acknowledge the dangers of posting completely in public and also people's personal preferences of, like, you might write something and be proud of it and want to share it with, like, five people, not five billion. Totally, totally. Because right now I think that email newsletter is kind of filling that niche for people. But there is a difference between writing for email newsletters and writing on the web, I think. And I think I also am concerned about email reliance as a— I worry about people kind of over-relying on email as their kind of connection to people rather than websites, because the large tech companies like Google still have a lot of control over how email is delivered and stuff. So I think it is not quite as— direct a connection as people think it is, perhaps. Yeah, that's one thing I certainly hope for too, is that the websites can foster many different types of communication. Like, I think guestbooks are one example of that, where it's like on the site, and then there's even, like I saw a guestbook this last week where, like, you draw a picture and submit it to, like, an art wall. And it's like, I love that we're thinking beyond, like, the email form of, like, long form, and it feels kind of daunting to reply to sometimes, even if it's terrifically written, because that pressure of, I want to give a thoughtful response, versus, like, a pictorial guestbook or a comment thread among friends or, like, what are these alternate things that we can build? Like, yeah, if social media tells us anything, it's like there are many different ways we can communicate online and different formats we can invent, from stories to reposts to whatever. Like, maybe the indie web needs something else of, like, what's the fun way to respond to a website? Yeah, yeah. I think I want to make sure that we have variety and different ways for people to express themselves so that it doesn't feel like email is the only way to put something out that is private-ish, that there is some alternative to posting things that isn't only on your friend's-only LiveJournal or whatever. Indeed. So with that said, we're coming toward the end of the discussion, but I always like to end with a fun question. And so I know that you've spent a lot of time in the Pacific Northwest in the United States, and so I'm curious, is there one fact about that area of the world that you wish people knew that maybe they don't and would be surprising or interesting? I was watching a video about the geography of the Pacific Northwest, and it kind of just reminded me how many kind of crazy geography things we have going on in one spot. So we've got this kind of central spine of volcanoes that divides the state in two. So the west side is where I live and where Seattle is, and it's super wet because all the rain is kind of pushed out as it goes over the mountains. And so the eastern side of Washington State is extremely dry. It's like high desert, basically. And so it's actually where, like, a ton of agriculture is because there's the Columbia River provides a ton of water, but then there's also this, like, super fertile soil. The other reason the soil is, like, super fertile is that there, you know, there used to be gigantic, like, ice sheets over this part of the continent, and they, when they melted, they left, they released these, like, torrential floods that completely shaped eastern Washington and kind of re- it changed the way that people, that geologists think about geology, basically, that they realized that there are both these long-scale slow changes in geology, but also very fast events that can make a very big difference. So there is just so much cool stuff embedded in the landscape of Washington. I love that. I was in Edinburgh recently, and I was walking in Princes Street Gardens, which is in the centre of the city, and there was a plaque, and I stopped to read that, and it was describing the geology of the ground around, and it said, like, 300 million years ago, like, the place where the castle now is used to be an active volcano. And my mind was blown. I was like, yes, it was 300 million years ago, but that was a volcano? And it was talking about how, like, the landscape was tropical, and I'm like, okay, like, everything I see around here is, like, it changed. So dramatic. Indeed. Thankfully, the indie web is a bit slower and easier, or I don't know, faster on the geological timescale, but slower in our perception. But with that said, I have one more question, which is where can people find you on the web? TracyDurnell.com is my main place to write on the web. I don't use social media, so basically everything is there. I use micro.blog as my kind of connection to Mastodon, Fediverse, but I don't post a whole ton there. It's mostly just, like, baking pictures and books that I got from the library. So most of my writing is on my blog at TracyDurnell.com. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time, Tracy. This has been a delight. Thank you for inviting me. This was very fun.