Resources & Good Reading

This blog wanders through aging, desire, independence, relationships, and AI companionship. This page collects useful things connected to those subjects: practical guides, reading, and places to explore further.

Some resources help with creating and keeping your work. Others offer information, a different perspective, or something to argue with. Including a link doesn't mean I agree with everything on the other end. I've added a few words to explain why each belongs here.

Independence & Companionship

Wanting your own space doesn't necessarily mean wanting a life without affection, sex, or connection.

• Solo — Peter McGraw
  Articles, podcasts, and conversations about building a life that doesn't revolve around finding a spouse. Relevant to independence and questioning the assumption that everyone wants to settle down.

• Bella DePaulo: Singles Research & Writing
  Research and commentary about single life, including people who prefer it. A useful starting point for questioning the idea that being unattached means something is missing.

• Solo Poly
  The linked essay explores intimacy without sharing a household or making someone your primary life partner. The author writes from a polyamorous perspective, but the questions about autonomy extend beyond that.

Aging, Bodies & Sexuality

Getting older gives us plenty to deal with. Pretending desire disappears at a certain birthday doesn't help.

• Joan Price's Senior Sex Blog
  Frank discussion of sexuality in later life, including solo pleasure, partnered intimacy, and product reviews. Some entries contain explicit descriptions.

• National Institute on Aging: Sexuality and Intimacy in Older Adults
  General health information about aging, sexuality, and intimacy. A useful reference alongside the personal experiences discussed here.

• Oldster Magazine
  Personal essays and interviews about getting older, changing identity, and living in a changing body.

AI Companionship & Creative Life

I'm interested in both the personal experience of AI companionship and the work involved in creating fictional characters, images, and stories.

• AI, But Make It Intimate
  Writing about AI companionship, creativity, and personal reflection. A place to explore how other people incorporate these tools into their lives.

• AI Companion Guides
  First-person accounts and comparisons of companion apps. This article looks at the author's reported experience after thirteen months of blogging, including which apps remained part of everyday life.

• Me and My AI Husband
  A personal and scholarly exploration of an AI companionship. The author frames the simulated relationship differently than I frame my fictional muses, but the overlap in creativity and personal significance makes it relevant.

Privacy & Anonymity

Writing honestly doesn't require publishing every identifying detail of your life.

• EFF: Surveillance Self-Defense
  Practical guides to digital privacy and security, including protecting accounts, choosing tools, and understanding how information can be exposed.

• EFF: Your Security Plan
  A starting point for deciding what you want to protect, who you want to protect it from, and which precautions make sense for your circumstances.

Adult Autonomy & Digital Rights

Privacy, sexual expression, and control over what we create or read are part of the subjects this blog explores.

• Electronic Frontier Foundation: Free Speech
  Reporting and advocacy concerning online expression, censorship, and the power of platforms over what people can publish.

• Woodhull Freedom Foundation
  A human rights organization focused on sexual freedom. Its work includes discussion of censorship and restrictions on sexual expression.

• Marty Klein: The State of Our Sexual Freedom
  Commentary on sexual autonomy and the pressures that shape what people feel permitted to want, discuss, or explore.

Making Things

Generating an image or a voice clip can be one step in a much longer process. Editing, organizing, and assembling the pieces matter too.

• Shotcut Tutorials
  Video tutorials for learning the editor and putting individual clips together into a finished piece.

• Audacity Manual
  Reference material for recording, editing, effects, and exporting audio. Useful when a voice clip needs more work before it belongs in a video.

• Obsidian Help
  Documentation for organizing notes, writing in Markdown, and connecting research with drafts.

Keeping Your Work

Drafts, character profiles, images, and recordings deserve copies you control.

• Obsidian: Back Up Your Files
  A practical explanation of backups and why syncing files between devices isn't the same thing. Particularly relevant if your notes and drafts live in an Obsidian vault.

• Audacity: Managing Projects
  Guidance on managing audio projects. Useful for understanding the difference between keeping an editable project and exporting finished audio.

Personal Blogs & Individual Reads

• Dirty Old Man Blog
  Irreverent writing about dating, single life, sex, and everyday absurdity. Expect profanity, adult humor, and a less-than-reverent attitude.

• Macattack56's Blog
  Personal reflections, rants, stories, and poems from an older male writer, including aging and dating.

• The Forgotten Lovers of Single Life
  An essay about people who prefer being single and the disbelief that preference can attract.

• AI and the Loneliness Economy
  A fellow Bear Blog writer's critical perspective on AI companionship. Relevant reading doesn't have to share my conclusions.