Social isolation outside of work was a major feature of my adult life. Getting divorced and moving into my own apartment in 2024 let me embrace being an extrovert and prioritize having more people in my life, more often.

Every day of 2025 I've kept track of the adults I have meaningful interactions with and the kind of interaction. Colors reflect the part of my life that people come from; stitches show the type of interaction.

ColorsPermalink

  • Girlfriend: dark green
  • Other Girlfriend: light green
  • Parenthood friends: gray
  • Work friends: dark blue
  • New friends: yellow
  • Digital humanities folks: purple
  • College/grad school: light pink
  • Pre-college: ecru
  • Girlfriend's friends/family: brown
  • Relatives: light blue

These categories seemed easy enough, but ended up introducing some conundrums. Was "Other Girlfriend" a title or was it about the person -- so after we broke up but were still friends, how should I indicate them in the data? (I decided it was a title, so they continued as part of the "New friends" category.)

StitchesPermalink

These categories have made me think hard about what counts as a "party", or more broadly, a "festive gathering". Things marked that way have included work team meetings with good news, birthday parties, and events at the kids' school.

Progress on the embroidery as of May 2025