Thinking about the conversation my mother and I had a few years ago, which started when she asked me what I wanted for my birthday. "You always used to ask for video games, and then one year you just stopped. You didn't seem to play them any less so I always wondered what happened."

The birthday I turned 14, the game I wanted was "Street Fighter II Turbo" for the Super Nintendo, which had come out a few weeks before. I don't remember now who suggested the deal, but my mom and I agreed: she'd get it for me if I never asked for another game again.

By the next year - possibly by Christmas - she'd forgotten the deal. But I never did. She was stunned when I told her that was why I'd stopped asking. "I wouldn't have held you to that." Yeah, but I held me to that. Still do, almost 35 years later.

Weird to think it's been almost 20% of my life since I started my first fediverse account.

Weird to think it's been more than five years since I started this site and left Elekk. (Wow, did that year suck.)