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One topic, all years Everything filed under Personal Lore

103 posts filed here so far.
A young person in a pink unicorn hoodie and rainbow backpack, seen from behind, stands in front of a heavy oak desk where an older man in a gray suit leans back with a cigar, vertical blinds and ring binders behind him

An Off-Meta Millennial New post Raised by dinosaurs

Old work meta vs. new: a millennial raised by post-war bosses on Gen Z, Sài Gòn's version of the clash, and what matters at the very end.
EN· ·Personal Lore
Illustration of an open-plan developer office with an exposed concrete ceiling, silver ducts and rows of wooden desks, where six young Vietnamese interns gather around a cake while a taller European man stands a step apart, watching them in the late afternoon light

Buddy Duty, Week Two Back then, I was still liquid

Intern buddy duty in Sài Gòn: 18 young Vietnamese grads, one German engineer from another generation - and why their hunger is contagious.
EN· ·Personal Lore
Two children seen from behind sit on a cracked concrete sea wall above a flooded river delta with half-submerged stilt-house roofs and palm tops, one holding a snow globe up to the sun, while bare glacier-less mountains with dead spruce forests and mine terraces shimmer in the heat

Seven of Nine, Unfortunately Is our home ready?

Seven of nine planetary boundaries breached, 65 conflicts, record arms budgets - and a would-be dad asking whether our home is ready for his kids.
EN· ·Personal Lore
A man lies on his back on the tiled floor of a dim apartment at dawn, arms and legs outstretched, a phone face-down beside his hand, an air conditioner on the wall and a hazy city skyline in the window behind him

Four Days of Almost My son-but-not-son

A paternity test, four days of waiting, a night on the floor - a Sài Gòn story about the child that wasn't mine, and the ones I still want.
EN· ·Personal Lore
A sunlit, empty teenage bedroom in a rural Bavarian house, drawn in flat ligne claire style: an unmade single bed with late afternoon sun falling across it, an open window with a lifting curtain, a desk with an old CRT monitor, and a black t-shirt crumpled on the floorboards

Class of 2005 F*CK YOU – two words, no argument

The bug in the system - Heartstopper landed 20 years too late for a queer kid at a Bavarian village school. Six years, two carved words, what came after.
EN· ·Personal Lore
A lone figure sleeps on a rise of sand while a vivid full-colour dreamed landscape of dunes, ruined towers and drifting lights unfurls from their head and fades to bare line drawing at the frame edges.

The Render Runs At Night My mind runs on MIDI

A mind with no mental images, a render engine that only wakes at night - and a creativity that never actually left.
EN· ·Personal Lore
A childhood at the end of the water

Where the Roads Don't Reach A childhood at the end of the water

Cà Mau childhood by lamplight - a wooden house at the roadless edge of the Mekong Delta, where boats wear eyes and the dead wait in the water.
EN· ·Personal Lore
He said yes, and the sky agreed

A Powerful Coincidence He said yes, and the sky agreed

Proposal on a wild Vũng Tàu dune, a yes, two gold rings - and a rainbow cloud with impossible timing. The same-sex marriage quest begins.
EN· ·Personal Lore
On losing Phương: A love letter in retrospect

Letter To Phương On losing Phương: A love letter in retrospect

Phương checked out on November 24, 2024. A love letter in retrospect - about a friend, a comet, and a life lived at full throttle.
EN· ·Personal Lore
Illustration in the Sable / Mœbius style: a lone figure walks a quiet tree-lined canal path at twilight through a modern green suburban district, sleek glowing apartment towers reflected in the still water, a distant city glow on the horizon.

Best Year This Decade 2023: a year of serenity, growth, and anticipation for what’s next

2023 was spectacular - arguably the best year since 2017. New beginnings in suburbia, serenity, growth, and anticipation for what's next.
EN· ·Personal Lore