Commitment to Anti-Racism

Each month, I commit to:

-Read one nonfiction book about the impact of racism on our society and write down my thoughts about it

-Read a fiction book by an author of color

-Contact someone in the government about a politically important issue related to racism and structural inequality

-Listen to at least (ideally more) one album by an artist of color

-Watch at least one movie by a director of color

-Listen to a podcast or youtube video about the impact of race on our society

Quarantine Finds

New to me newsletters:

Two bossy dames: https://twobossydames.substack.com/

https://haleynahman.substack.com/

https://www.theweeklyritual.com/

Books:

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Food:

Carrot muffins: https://www.aheadofthyme.com/spiced-carrot-muffins/

Simple salad: Apple, celery, feta cheese, avocado, balsamic, olive oil, spinach, purple lettuce, pecans

Podcasts:

The Hit Parade

Desert Island Discs

Home Cooking

TV/Movies:

Normal People

Sunset Boulevard

Parasite

Music:

This playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0mOzv59gbu0e8NzR3NWjoh?si=v3Fn0vsHSoCugMIRqLCATA

And this one: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0LAdzmCbSeySicxFubF7Oh?si=gDqlLVFgQGuRo0kkzWT06Q

Christine & The Queens

Dawes

This youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/cafemusicbgmchannel

Blogs:

https://www.lottieanddoof.com/

https://www.davidlebovitz.com/

Articles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/us/coronavirus-stress-daily-walk.html

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7jaex/dance-church-is-thousands-of-peoples-favorite-quarantine-workout

https://www.manrepeller.com/2020/05/love-letters-to-new-york.html

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n24/john-lanchester/the-case-of-agatha-christie

Interesting links

Interesting links of the day:

Millenials and Efficiency

Sanders and Warren Voters Have Little In Common

Voices on Addiction: The Rumpus

Facebook's New Political Features

Python for PDFs

The Blog is back?

I am not sure what I am doing here, to be honest. I am getting more into writing lately and want some kind of outlet to post stuff publicly because I come across interesting stuff on the internet everyday. It almost feels like I could write an email newsletter but honestly the market feels over-saturated with that right now. So I am restarting this blog. I am not sure what the focus will be, honestly, but my interests definitely expand beyond fashion blogging. I'm thinking lifestyle, commentary, social issues, pretty much anything I feel like writing about. Looks like my pictures below got taken off the internet too - not sure if I can find them again since they are from more than 10 years ago.

Honestly, I am feeling nostalgic for the way things used to be. Even maybe the way they were before I was born. I keep consuming content about how our attention spans are shorter, we need to be more mindful, how capitalism is corrupting us and how technology is changing our society. I am so into this that I got a phone I had ~6 years ago and am still using a CD player and am still semi-into paper books. I guess technology is both good and bad.

But, back to what I want to put on this blog. I think I will start with trying to post some interesting links once every week or two, and maybe some more writing like this. I will let it evolve. Maybe some book or music recs.

Summer approaches

I am so excited for summer to come! This summer is a pretty important one, I guess, and I'm trying to find an internship, but somehow this and the combination of homework means I spend all my time online looking at interesting things that nevertheless accomplish nothing immediately. For example, yesterday I decided I wanted to learn about the AI in video games, then today I was reviewing web design stuff and looking at tutorials, and then I keep reading articles about "user experience", and then I switched my browser to Safari from Firefox, which I wouldn't have done but Firefox got insanely slow. Safari feels very clean and spartan. I really just want to doodle websites and try and get better at coding them. Then, I signed up for a java class this summer that I found myself getting really excited about, oddly, though the plan's not definite yet. Suddenly I'm becoming really interested in careers involving technology, but of course I am not really doing anything concrete, since speculation is so much easier than action. I think my best route is to keep going with the internship applications, take the class, and if any other plans fail, spend the summer trying to make cool stuff. I am also considering getting a new computer and buying photoshop (or all the adobe stuff at a discounted price), and I continue to ignore my final. 

Most appealing non-homework projects:

-Plan a new collage, come up with theme

-Come up with concept for website, make it

-Try and learn how to make an interactive program (cooler than that one from my other computer science class)

-Write non-personal articles for an informative blog

-Draw new person, clothes, make interactive

Not appealing or a project, exactly, but better than the final:

-Internship cover letters 

Ordinary time-wasting, not productive:

-Scribbly doodles

-Facebook, everything

-Twittering, finding new twitterers to follow

-Reading blogs, saving inspiration pictures

The Ultimate Mix - possibly too tailored to myself?

I just made an mix cd containing a progression of music that expresses exactly what I want to listen to and is enthralling and addicting for my ears. When I listen to it, it makes me feel like I'm at the most peaceful and epic concert where everyone is singing about my feelings without it being awkward or scary; more like they're celebrating or working through them my writing songs about the exact same thing. It's the kind of mix that I'm going to end up listening to so much I can't put any of these songs on any other mix and will start tying them to this summer; which may be uneventful and peaceful but has the potential to be more if I let it.

Tracklisting:
Teenage Fanclub - Planets
Zounds - Demystification
Slender Means - Painless Life
Galaxie 500 - Another Day
Au Pairs - It's Obvious
The Chills - I love my leather jacket
High Voltage Humans - Laser Symphony (Catastrophe)
R.E.M. - Fall on Me
Velocity Girl - For the Record
The Hollies - Bus Stop
The High Violets - Invitation
Cut Chemist - Metrorail Through Space
The Jesus & Mary Chain - April Skies
Pulp - I Spy
Shocking Blue - Never Marry a Railroad Man
Dntel - I'd Like to Know (feat. Lali Puna)
Social Distortion - Footprints on the Ceiling
Hell On Wheels - The Soda
The Indelicates - New Art for the People
Lyndia Lunch - Gloomy Sunday

I brought it to a radio station mix tape swap - I promptly burnt myself a copy after giving it away because I'm so attached to it!

Restoration

Being back home for the summer from college is an odd thing. In some ways I miss the buzz of constant activity and the excitement of having people my age to talk to (anytime! even if you don't want to talk to them!) but there is a certain amount of comfort involved in being semi-reliant on your parents for food, transportation, housing, oh, and love too. The part that makes me nervous and lonely is the amount of change involved in revisiting old places, that inexplicably have memories tied to them despite the fact that you've moved beyond them. Which is what I'm trying to do here - express my thoughts honestly and clearly in a semi-anonymous format that allows me some liberty in what I say and this is my own writing so it doesn't specifically matter how honest I am. I think that full honesty is the best method of articulating your feelings even if it is somewhat painful so I'm going to proceed with the full truth, ahead.

It's been a couple of days since I wrote that last climactic sentence, and I'm not sure of the reason behind that but honestly this over-analytical self-conscious writing is getting grating so I'm going to shift into a more blunt mode. I wish I was anonymous sometimes and am satisfied with the tense curious act of wandering around unknown urban neighborhoods and occasionally dread the familiar. Once something has a memory or a person tied to it, revisiting becomes difficult without tumbling into the persona from before. My eyes are always roving around the landscape, sometimes in order to avoid the eyes of the people around, and so my memories and thoughts become tied to the scenery. Changes in buildings are sometimes more unexpected than changes in people. I guess I take it as a fact that people will change and something about my own stubborn perception of the person fits the changes into the semi-flexible wire frame that is my idea of them. I have myself and the other person to confirm and engage in the reciprocal act of reshaping their identity, while the building has no means of reconciling the changes or assuring me that the changes reflect some hidden dormant nature. Buildings don't like change and appear as helpless disinterested observers of their own disfigurement. But aging and decay are natural processes that the building does embrace halfheartedly or even fully in a sad but resolute way. Restoration should be a peaceful glorious worthwhile process but it doesn't feel that way because it brings the past in an unpleasant and slightly vulgar way that stomps over the building's previous life and graceful end.