someodd's gopherholegopher://gopher.someodd.zip/1/_index2026-08-24T00:00:00ZsomeoddglogReflections on authoring gopherspace.tag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-08-24:diary/2026-08-24_reflecting_on_authoring_gopherspace.txt2026-08-24T00:00:00Z2026-08-24T00:00:00ZReflections on authoring gopherspace.
I am making this diary entry to test out my new utility called "glog." I was using my tool "bartleby," and before that "burrow," and maybe something before that. The reason I iterated is because I can. And I elarned what I really value and find joyful over time when it comes to running a gopherhole.
Bartleby (https://github.com/someodd/bartleby) was my answer to steelman a Gopher alternative history to blogs. I think it has some interesting ideas.
I think as I get older, especially in the advent of AI, hand-tailoring everything with love and keeping things extremely knowable and simple and letting Gopher just be a collection of files becomes more and more what brings me joy.
However, I do enjoy writing software for Gopherspace, like my software "diggings."
I used to have all this fancy tooling for "Maybe sometimes a post is a gophermap, other times a text file," but honestly, that rarely turned out to be something I really cared about and was always more of a headache than it was worth, and worse yet--it wasn't portable. What if someone wanted to download an article/ Also, god forbid, Gopher nerds copy a URI, right?
Something I also kept learning is that... I wanted authoring gopherspace to just... be exactly like managing a locally-mounted file system. In fact, that's exactly the kind of vibe glog is built around. It stays out of the way as much as it makes sense to do so. However, it gives you a lot of options, while keeping it dead-simple. Something I didn't like about bartleby was, even though it only really bbuild a catalog directory based off another directory, the vibe of jumping back-and-forth between the catalog as a browsing mechanism and the actual directory browsing experience itself (in terms of gopherhole, gophermaps) just felt awful and confusing to me. So I decided, while it's limiting, just have *one* index, with a flat list of categories. Also on this note, I decided that the littering of `.bcard` files was quite annoying. So I made something called "backmatter" so you could define date and title in the footer of a document. However, if you want you can prefix the date to a filename like jekyll posts, or if you TRULY want you can use a sidecar `.glog` file with the backmatter in it in some weird edge case. This still allows you to do interesting things like, for example, for a portion of the things I wish to post about are the devotional letters I write (they're JPEG images), now I can have something like `letters/2026-08-20_poem_about_love.jpg" and it'll show up in the index correctly. I also made a way to yet allow for directories themselves to be "posts." I designed this tool to be extremely unix-like and simple. Another thing I thought was important was to have different ways to derive the most important things: title and date; so not only the aforementioned, but almost being inspired perhaps by Apple Notes: the first line is the title. But this is especially made easy by Markdown files which use an main heading format. There's an order-of-precedence about what to derive from where, when there are different sources of truth, that I believe is intuitive. glog is being used here. There are technically different indexes per category, but nothing crazy, and there's definitely one main index.
I also did something crazy, which is to stuff almost my entire gopherhole into `before_2026-08-22/` which I can port out over time. The problem I was having is over time and many migrations I just... have way too much slop. There's definitely some good stuff in there, though.
Apologies I wrote this out as a stream-of-conciousness. I do not wish to burden you with more reading time and comprehension than I put into writing it. Perhaps I could summarize by saying: I've learned that I love gopherspace being authored and navigated... like autoindex in common HTTP daemons and my local file manager, with some exceptions, I thus made software to reflect that!
So glog (Gopher Log; like "phlog," alternative to "blog; https://github.com/someodd/glog) was built aroundDevotional letter to the sisters. I was listening to Mahler as I wrote this in tears, I'm not sure what exactly caused my mood to be such. Perhaps it's related to my poor health lately. Perhaps related to other stressors. This comes after confessing a spiritual spring, full of color and joy, after a long series of winter metaphors. Now what I envision takes a nautical theme.tag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-08-22:letters/2026-08-22_it_is_fleeting2026-08-22T00:00:00Z2026-08-22T00:00:00ZDevotional letter to the sisters. I was listening to Mahler as I wrote this in tears, I'm not sure what exactly caused my mood to be such. Perhaps it's related to my poor health lately. Perhaps related to other stressors. This comes after confessing a spiritual spring, full of color and joy, after a long series of winter metaphors. Now what I envision takes a nautical theme.
I gave this to the sisters and they seemed so happy. I delivered it along with some photo copies I had made for them. Sister Savio and Sister Vimala (my godmother) were there. Sister Savio seemed particularly excited by the specs against the cross, when I answered her what the specs against the cross were--the spritz of clashing waves. I remember with great joy how she lit up and was the most animated I've ever seen her in my entire life, the most excited I've ever seen her. What a joy it was. Something like, "Oh I like this! I like this sound, this big, heavy wave hitting," and then her gesturing and making the sound of a large wave colliding with rocks and dispersing--she iterated this. Then both Sister Savio and Sister Vimala insisted upon me that I visit the ocean and, perhaps, listen and observe such myself.
The two sisters ran away for a moment, and with great joy returned to gift me boiled peanuts with great joy and excitment. I merrily ate them on my way home, saving one for my little special section of my bookcase I keep just for God and my journey with the sisters. I feel so loved.
Herein is the letter and some related things of this moment from a couple days ago.
* A series of images "comic panel..." which illustrates an interaction around this poem with the sisters. A slice of life with the sisters.
* peanuts_illustration.jpg -- a summary of one part of that interaction.
* transcription
* the letter itselfSpringtag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-08-16:letters/2026-08-16_spring2026-08-16T00:00:00Z2026-08-16T00:00:00ZSpringThe sky marries the groundtag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-08-14:letters/2026-08-14_the_sky_marries_the_ground2026-08-14T00:00:00Z2026-08-14T00:00:00ZThe sky marries the groundi supplied ben, for his birthday, with this letter and the sticker of mother teresa.tag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-08-12:letters/2026-08-12_happy_birthday_ben2026-08-12T00:00:00Z2026-08-12T00:00:00Zi supplied ben, for his birthday, with this letter and the sticker of mother teresa.Improbable colortag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-08-10:letters/2026-08-10_improbable_color2026-08-10T00:00:00Z2026-08-10T00:00:00ZImprobable colorBirch 3 finaletag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-08-03:letters/2026-08-03_birch_3_finale2026-08-03T00:00:00Z2026-08-03T00:00:00ZBirch 3 finaleBirch 2 winters in minnesotatag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-07-16:letters/2026-07-16_birch_2_winters_in_minnesota2026-07-16T00:00:00Z2026-07-16T00:00:00ZBirch 2 winters in minnesotaBirch 1 behind the veiltag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-07-12:letters/2026-07-12_birch_1_behind_the_veil2026-07-12T00:00:00Z2026-07-12T00:00:00ZBirch 1 behind the veilGoodbye, dearest sisters.tag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-06-01:letters/2026-06-01_new_rain2026-06-01T00:00:00Z2026-06-01T00:00:00ZGoodbye, dearest sisters.Sister Lumena saved me in a significant way and showed me the tenderness I so desperately needed.tag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-05-27:letters/2026-05-27_last_letter_lumena2026-05-27T00:00:00Z2026-05-27T00:00:00ZSister Lumena saved me in a significant way and showed me the tenderness I so desperately needed.
I handed this to her during mass, almost secretively, and in kind, in the way that only Sisters I've seen do, the next day handed me back a goodbye letter in kind, with her own air of secrecy and giddy childish naughtiness.
Catholicism has granted me the grace of finally being able to concretely live out the abstraction of beauty I find in poetry; I think this exchange is one of the clearest examples.
Good bye, Lumena.Mothers day sisterstag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-05-10:letters/2026-05-10_mothers_day_sisters2026-05-10T00:00:00Z2026-05-10T00:00:00ZMothers day sistersPer sister lumenas requesttag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-04-02:letters/2026-04-02_per_sister_lumenas_request2026-04-02T00:00:00Z2026-04-02T00:00:00ZPer sister lumenas requestBlue booktag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-04-01:letters/2026-04-01_blue_book2026-04-01T00:00:00Z2026-04-01T00:00:00ZBlue bookSagatagantag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-02-25:letters/2026-02-25_sagatagan2026-02-25T00:00:00Z2026-02-25T00:00:00ZSagataganFaithfully losttag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-02-20:letters/2026-02-20_faithfully_lost2026-02-20T00:00:00Z2026-02-20T00:00:00ZFaithfully lostLord it is wintertag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-02-11:letters/2026-02-11_lord_it_is_winter2026-02-11T00:00:00Z2026-02-11T00:00:00ZLord it is winterOn sufferingtag:gopher.someodd.zip,2026-02-07:letters/2026-02-07_on_suffering2026-02-07T00:00:00Z2026-02-07T00:00:00ZOn suffering