OKAY. another big week! much has happened as usual! i’m only going to talk about one thing in this edition because i have so much to say about it, and that thing is an event i attended called Something Worth Knowing.

despite my being as concise as i have it within myself to be, you are currently faced with a very long email about something you don’t likely know much about, so if you read it all, god bless you. i’ll send you a fruit basket.

in the next edition i will share MANY images from my subsequent roadtrip with hannah as well as some tidbits from my recent visit to The Magic Castle. then one day eventually i will start talking about books and movies and recipes again. i hope. for now, let’s take this in sections:

1. Complexly

Complexly, for those unfamiliar, is an educational media company (recently gone nonprofit!) which creates high quality educational materials made available for free online. if you have had or personally been a child in school since around 2013, you or your child have almost definitely seen one of their videos. this organization was recently named the number one most-used classroom aid in the united states, outranking even free government resources and reputable institutions such as the smithsonian. here are some stats from their website so you can grasp the scale of their reach:

so, you know. a pretty big deal.

it was founded by hank and john green back in 2012 and i remember the day it happened. now why would i, a middle schooler at the time, remember the day an educational media company was created with the requisite clarity of the snowstorm of ’08 or the time i got knocked flat to the ground by an angry goat named roy?

because some of their shows existed before the umbrella company itself did, and i was watching their stuff even back then. i was eleven years old and life was hell — on account of my being eleven years old — and the things i learned from these videos made me appreciate being alive when very little else did. they kept me curious and engaged and learning despite how much i hated everything about my experience in school. it is genuinely difficult to overstate the impact that this specific organization has had on my development as a human being. it was the north star of my life. it was the light at the end of my exceedingly dark middle school tunnel. it made me love the world in a way i still carry with me to this day.

so, sure, i appreciate what they do. it matters very much to me. but i appreciate a lot of things! what makes Complexly so special that i would book a flight to LA just for the opportunity to give them money?

2. my ikigai

there’s this concept in japan of one’s ikigai, or "reason for being." it’s a nuanced idea. here’s a diagram illustrating what it means:

courtesy of wikipedia

i have had the same ikigai since i was fourteen. i realized way back then, with the encouragement of my girlfriend at the time, that i wanted to be a science communicator, and not for a single day since have i wavered in my certainty that this is what i was meant to do. it is very rare to know that about oneself from such a young age and i do not take that sense of purpose for granted. i know this ikigai is real because it has been the one consistent anchor through all of my Big Adult Decisions. it has outlasted relationships, interests, and living situations. it is Thee goal. it Does Not Change.

one would think, since i have known this about myself for so long, that i would be doing it by now. unfortunately knowing what you want to do and actually being able to do it are two quite separate matters. it was hard to see a path forward once i had to drop out of college. i’ve taken the steps i could with the opportunity and energy i’ve had available, but there has been a lot going on outside of my career ambitions — as many of you know — which has preoccupied my life in the meantime. i had a massive amount of healing to do before i was ready to put myself out there in the way this job would require.

but last summer, i decided it was time to lock in. i picked a more specific version of this same goal — working as a guide in a botanical garden — and decided to create a path that way. i settled on this version of things because it felt like something i could actually achieve that would still support my life. but as much as i love plants, i’ve found that i’m much more interested in natural environments than in manufactured horticulture.

so, you know, the dream was there, but the reality was moving forward in fits and starts. it still is. michael sheen once said, "if i wasn’t an actor, i would be a frustrated actor." that’s how i’ve felt about being a science communicator for the past fifteen years.

i’ve never aimed quite so high as to work for Complexly directly, the same way you don’t actually expect to win an oscar when you audition for the school play. but of course you keep in touch with the wildest version of your dreams because it’s nice to have something to reach for. Complexly is very much my The Academy. if i actually did work for them in any capacity i would probably need impatient therapy just to calm down enough to function.

we’re not even discussing that right now and i probably never will because, while i am ambitious, i’m not delusional. but i will be honest with you that i am becoming a little bit delusional. more on that later.

3. the event

i lay this mountain of thrilling self-indulgent exposition at your feet so you can gain some pale shadow of understanding as to what it meant to me when i got to attend Complexly’s first in-person benefit event in los angeles last week. this was HUGE for me.

you know when a massive train enthusiast encounters that one kind of train they really care about and seeing the joy in their eyes is like witnessing the creation of a galaxy? that was what happened when i showed up at this event. hot diggity shit, this is actually happening, i have achieved nirvana. everyone be cool. we’re going to be so normal about this. don’t even worry about it. i am not a security threat and you should definitely let me in.

this was, at its core, a for-fun and for-networking event attended by outstanding career professionals who work largely in the online media space. and also i was there.

see: lucia attending the Complexly benefit to bring absolutely nothing to the table except their sparkling personality and confused hairstyle

so what the hell even happened there. well, in short:

1. a lot of standing around and chatting with very interesting people throughout

2. a luncheon

3. followed by a game of bingo

4. followed by a secondary early 2000’s music bingo

5. an "ask hank anything" portion wherein hank green took audience questions and tried to answer them more or less on the fly

6. an in-between-programming break while the speakers rehearsed

7. a drinks and hors d'oeuvres social before the main event

8. a larger gathering in a theater where we heard talks from various Complexly employees and affiliates surrounding the theme of what gives them hope right now

i came into this event with four goals. the first was to put myself in what lin-manuel miranda would call "the room where it happens," though not in any sort of self-aggrandizing way. i just wanted to be present and say hello, here i am, i care a lot and i will show up to these things. do i have a career to promote? not even a little bit. but by god i will move heaven and earth to be here anyway if you give me the opportunity.

the second goal was to talk to as many people as i could one-on-one because it was a rare opportunity to gain some insight into a space i have long-since enjoyed from the outside.

the third was to acquire some creature drawings.

the fourth was to ask hank green how many eggs he thought he could eat in 24 hours if he got to die at the end.

so let’s walk through some of the highlights and see how successfully i met those targets, shall we?

4. the party table

during the luncheon, we all took our seats at circular tables which sat about 10 people each. there was no assigned seating so you just had to put yourself somewhere. i settled vaguely in the middle of the room and ended up sitting with two other attendees i’d chatted with during the initial check-in social, sam and zack. sam and zack are awesome people and they are also a couple. i also sat with many other folks i’d never spoken to who turned out to have the most incredible combined energy ever to grace my eyeballs.

the guy with the mic leading the programming deemed us "the party table" because we were so enthusiastic in response to such prompts as "how are you all doing to night" and "are you ready to get started." our "wooo" was the woo of champions. our "wooo" was an environmental stressor to the local wolf population. we were vibing and grooving to our collective maximums about literally everything that happened. the conversations we had over the course of the evening were equal parts illuminating, absurd, and hilarious.

the party table basically became its own group for the duration of the event to the exclusion of every other person there. i did a lot of migrating later because there were so many people i wanted to speak with, but i genuinely wish the event had been twice as long just so the party table group could hang out and chat without interruption.

here’s an example of the energy created by the party table: at one point, during the early 2000’s music bingo, the microphone man awarded me two prizes. they were not for winning bingo because i’ve never once gotten bingo in my life. i’m horrible at it. what i got a prize for was dancing so hard in my chair that he could see it from across the room.

never say enthusiasm doesn’t get you anything, folks. it gets you a light up jelly ring and a plastic blue disco ball necklace.

to claim these prizes, he requested that i dance my way up to him to retrieve them, so of course i did. “wow, lucia, i didn’t know you were such a good dancer!” you say to me. well that’s where you’re wrong, friend. i can’t dance for shit. but i cannot stress enough that i did badly dance my way to the front of the room in front of every single VIP attendee. i had fun while i did it and i did not care whether i looked like an idiot. i grabbed that disco ball necklace like i was grabbing the mic stand at live aid. and then i danced my way back to my seat.

i bring this up as a highlight because i once had so much social anxiety i could not even go to my local record store without having a panic attack that the employees were staring at me. everything i do now, i do for that scared little girl. and she would have thought i was the coolest person in the room that day. (except, of course, for hank green, whom she’d have correctly thought was the coolest person in any room anywhere.)

another great party table experience came during the ask hank anything portion. we had a second sam at the table, a neurologist, who had a hilarious back-and-forth with hank about his job as an MRI tech. hank was really tapping into his stand-up comedy crowd work thing and sam was AWESOME about it. he didn’t hog the room, but he gave hank enough material to play with even when it made him look ridiculous, and i loved him for that. he was the perfect audience participant. the party table rules.

a third big win for the party table was me asking the queggstion.

5. the queggstion

most readers of will recall, either from lengthy in-person conversations or a previous edition of this newsletter, my preoccupation with The Queggstion. the queggstion is this:

if you had 24 hours to eat as many standard chicken eggs as you possibly could, what is the maximum number of eggs you think you could eat?*
*you get to die at the end.

this question, though i did not originate it, has taken over my life. i am known to many people as the egg person despite not even eating eggs anymore. one woman actually approached me later in the event by saying, "hey egg lady." i turned around instantly. i know who i am.

so anyway, when hank opened the room to audience questions while standing approximately two feet away from me, i raised my hand and gave him a look that did not say "please call on me if you’d like" so much as "you ARE going to call on me right now." so he handed me the microphone. good choice. then i said these words:

"this is question i ask a lot of people. it’s a personal question, but you may be able to answer it in a more objective scientific way. the question is this: if you had 24 hours to eat as many standard chicken eggs as you possible could, how many eggs do you personally think you could eat if you got to die at the end?"

and then the room made what can only be described as "a noise." it wasn’t quite booo or eww but more of a disturbed ohh. a "why would you say this" kind of ohhh. i paid no mind. my work was done.

hank took the microphone back. the first thing he said was "why am i doing this?"

i told him, "it’s whatever motivation you need to get you there." so he decided on every egg being the saved life of a baby or something, and i said yeah, sure, whatever. but how many eggs, hank.

he hemmed and hawed on it for a while and asked a few follow-up questions. at one point he said he was not “that guy who eats a lot of hot dogs” and i filled in “joey chestnut” (i know what i’m about) to which he said, “exactly.” people in the room began to shout suggestions and comments. hank told us he used to go to a diner back when he was in school which had eggs for 25 cents each, wherein he would regularly eat a dozen in one sitting, so he knew his egg capacity was high. he also toyed with the idea of dehydrating the eggs ("for the record," i said, "justin mcelroy said he would dehydrate and snort them." "why would he snort it?!" hank asked incredulously. "i don’t know," i said. "take it up with him.")

ultimately he decided he would try to find the smallest chicken eggs possible from pre-genetically-engineered birds to maximize the count and minimize the volume. another member of the party table provided more detailed information about that, which helped boost the method’s credibility. hank then asked if he could just eat a salmon roll, and the room immediately yelled at him that it had to be chicken eggs and salmon eggs were cheating. more discussion. eventually after a bit more chaos, i requested the microphone back and said, "so for my spreadsheet: what is your final number?" and he said "400 eggs."

they did not have time for more questions after that.

great! i thought. my egg-related work here is done.

WRONG.

the instant we were dismissed from the luncheon and meant to go on break, the party table swarmed me like a group of ravenous birds to discuss the queggstion. we actually had to be ushered out of the room by an employee because of how glued to the spot we were in conversation. as we headed out, a few members of the Complexly team told me they loved my question and thought hank was a dirty cheater for trying to eat a salmon roll. i felt vindicated. this question is how i will win hearts and minds across america. to what end, i do not know.

the party table, meanwhile, had so many brilliant ideas and technical follow-up questions i could hardly process it all. i loved them so much for this. they had without a doubt the most entertaining and enthusiastic response i have ever gotten to this prompt in the many months i have been posing it. neurologist sam suggested a tracheotomy and organ removal to increase speed and capacity, among other things, and brought an incredible wealth of medical knowledge to the table which was hitherto unseen in the debate. between these and some other medical interventions which only barely landed his methods within the spirit of the question but i still decided to allow, he landed on 7680 eggs. incredible.

robby, another party table scientist, took the cake with his numbers. he suggested consuming the ovary directly while the eggs are still in their smallest cellular from. each chicken ovary contains several hundred thousand eggs, which put his answer into the one billion territory while still technically satisfying the premise. i think robby is a genius.

for the remainder of the event, i would walk around asking people what their answer to the queggstion was, and they almost universally answered with humor and joy. they all knew about the question because, i must stress, i asked it in front of literally everyone. only one person i spoke to was not super happy with the concept because, she reported to me, she was a vegan and did not like thinking about eating that many eggs. i reported to her that i was also a vegan and personal pleasure was not the point. she still declined to answer. i said that was fair enough.

in the end, i collected 25 new entries for the queggstion spreadsheet. some of the people i asked this question to ended up being a big deal to my friends later, but frankly i had no idea who they were and was not concerned with finding out. i was there for numbers. and boy did i get them.

6. the FRIENDSHIP (sparkle sparkle)

let’s not forget my original goal of simply talking to people about topics other than eggs. i did do that! and everyone was incredible! i spoke with julie, the CEO of Complexly, and hank himself for a while one-on-one, among many other wonderful folks. i won’t sit here name dropping everyone you may know because i think that’s tacky and i’m not interested in the commodification of identity. but suffice it to say, "on camera" talent or not, every person i spoke to was a sincere and utter delight. i left the event with some very unexpected new mutual contacts — dare i say acquaintances even — especially considering, again, i brought nothing whatsoever to the table except good vibes and an astonishing love for new jersey.

one thing i also really cherished was the opportunity to make a quick run through part of the academy museum with three fellow attendees. during the programming break, i had been planning to go to the library for a few hours and hang out by myself. this was way better. i got to see some delightful props from anna karenina, beauty and the beast, and the barbie movie. and i had some truly delightful conversations with people i’d never have imagined connecting with otherwise.

cogsworth is real and i want him for my living room so bad. look at him. oh my god

Weird Barbie was also there

and we really did connect! it was sincere! i am a bit of a social vampire in that i never tread beyond where i feel i’ve been invited. but by the end of the day, it was very clear to me that the feeling was mutual, and i think i would be a very welcome presence if i ever saw these folks again. i truly hope that i do. if they never do another event like this, it will still have been worth it — but if they do, i will be there every single time.

7. the creatures!

the creature question is another one i bring to these sorts of events, especially around people who might typically be asked to sign an autograph. i think autographs are boring. they mean nothing to me. i’d much rather put a person on the spot and make them come up with something really weird that they can never take back. it’s been a wonderful art project that i would love to share more formally one day.

the idea is that i hand someone an art board from blick and a sharpie, i ask them to draw me a creature, and they make magic happen.

at this event, because everyone was interesting, i just passed the board around and didn’t keep much track of who did what. i wish i had more information on some of them but hey, that’s just how the cookie crumbles. here’s what i ended up with:

a hank creature to go with my john creature. WAHOO!!!

the final smorgasbord. jellyfish by meghan modaferri, giant jack-o-lantern guy by rizwan lastname, little dotted creature beside it by sage the bad naturalist, cat by rizwan’s wife who was awesome but whose name i don’t remember, octopus by a cool fellow “i don’t have a pitch” attendee named emily, and i cannot vouch for who did what else. i know where they were standing and what they looked like but not what they were called. i am so sorry

like with the queggstion — or "investeggation" as scientist robby called it — my fellow attendees seemed to derive a lot of joy from this project. i had several folks seek me out later to see what else people had drawn and talk about each other’s work. what’s wonderful about the creature board is it is such a broad prompt that no two ever look alike. one person drew a hairy fish, for example. i have no idea who that was because of the face blindness, but i think they’re a true artist.

while i wish i’d have gotten even more of them, i was hesitant to disrupt a good conversation for it. the creature question is somewhat delicate because you are not only asking for people’s time, but potentially creating a sort of "celebrity"/audience dynamic even without the autograph part. a lot depends on how the question is raised and how the other person is poised to interpret it. so i did let a few creatureportunities slide that would have otherwise been fun to see through. i made that decision because this whole thing is meant to be fun and not about checking boxes.

in the end, as you can see, i still managed to get many wonderful doodles. i am incredibly grateful to the people who took the time to contribute to this silly little project of mine.

8. the clarity

this event also came with some pretty significant moments of personal clarity which i have hitherto hinted at, but would like to spend a little more time on as we wrap up here.

i learned a lot from my conversations with other attendees about what their path was to where they are now. it is the sort of thing one tends to fall into rather than manufacturing through the sort of relentless, pointed effort it takes to become a doctor. it’s also a very positive, welcoming space, where people are united by a wonderful goal and will lift each other up to achieve it. this has led me to the perhaps-optimistic conclusion that if i actually do put myself out there, and Complexly continues to host these gatherings, it is possible i will be able to get somewhere with it. so one of my big plans for next year is to actually do that. i have some general ideas about what i’d like to make, and i think i sincerely do have what it takes to deliver on those concepts.

my goal is not to make a career out of online video because i don’t care to stake my livelihood on popularity or public opinion. that sounds like a nightmare. i just think it ought to be a part of my life. in retrospect it seems very obvious, but again, i had to do a lot of healing to allow myself to feel comfortable with the idea of it. ultimately, if i can manage to make videos that teach people something — something that folks sincerely enjoy and wish to return to — i will be beyond satisfied. and if i am ever able to attend an event like this again, i would really like to hand someone a business card with my information on it and feel proud of what they will find there.

more to come on that particular new project as it develops.

the other big personal revelation i took away from this event is how much i have truly and deeply healed. i was sincerely astounded by my own behavior, by how happy and carefree i felt through everything. as i mentioned earlier, this event was not something i could have handled in the past. even six months ago, i would have been too self-conscious to sincerely enjoy myself. i used to stake so much on being outwardly perfect. i was so self-critical that i’m sure i would have catastrophized every interaction in retrospect and almost wished i’d never gone. i would especially not have dared make myself so open to judgement from folks whose opinions i sincerely value by being so unapologetically myself.

but none of that happened to me last week. my confidence and inner peace were taking pages from tiananmen square tank man’s book. it felt amazing to be met with such positivity, of course, but i sincerely think no matter what reactions i’d gotten, it would not have affected my relationship to myself in any way. this would have been inconceivable to me before recovery. i walked through the valley of the shadow of the Complexly team and feared no evil. i just had a truly lovely experience.

what this says to me is that i really am doing better. life never ends while you’re living, and there will always be challenges that reach me from the inside. but i think i am permanently done with the particular form of suffering that has plagued me all my life. i’m beginning to conclude that that suffering was simply what it is to be young. and while i still am quite young, i’m no longer so young that people are surprised by it. i’m just another person.

i am grounded now in a way i could never have imagined before. i’m not afraid to be in the room with people who matter to me. more importantly, i’m not afraid to be myself in that room. i not only did all of these things, but i did them while looking the way i’d spent most of this year terrified out of my mind of looking because of what i’d internalized as a child. i did it while wearing men’s clothing and no eye makeup and having kind of bad hair. and none of this bothered me because i knew that none of it was actually who i am or what makes me worth loving. it just doesn’t matter that much.

i really do love myself now. i love myself enough to do things that could go horribly wrong. i trust myself enough not to mess up a rare opportunity, to instead seize it with both hands. and i like myself enough to let other people see me as i truly am, whether or not i’m their sort of person.

i’m really, really excited for what a future with that mindset will allow me to do.

that’s all for now.

if you’d ever like to reply to the things i put in here, i would be glad to hear from you. until next time, take care.

1. i look different

that’s right folks…. the side buzz? gone. the eyeliner? gone. the womanly shape? well, there’s not much i can do about that one, but i’m certainly not highlighting it less for the time being. this is the aura now:

pictured: some guy i screenshot on instagram back in may because i liked the fit, not realizing it was a glimpse into my future. yes i know he looks like my ex boyfriend. i fear all of these things are connected

apparently every six years i make a hard pivot back to menswear like some sort of gender cicada. last time anyone saw me dressing like this was during lockdown when i didn’t have to be seen, and before that during my first year out of catholic school when i was around an entirely new group of people. (astute readers will note the common thread between these two periods of my life was a lack of consequences among my existing relationships.)

i keep circling around this quiet interest like a coin in a donation funnel, never quite landing in it because there was always some reason to do otherwise. but now that i am stepping out of recovery and into the big bright world of radical self-acceptance, i am finding that the way i have styled myself for the past six years no longer reflects the person i currently am.

let me preclude any further extrapolation on your part by saying this is not — as far as i know — any kind of big formal transing of my gender. rather, i am rejecting the whole gender enterprise. genterprise, if you will. i’ve only ever been a woman so far because it worked well enough and everybody told me i was, but i have to be honest: it was never really my thing. also? being a woman is horrible. i’m over it. you cannot win. you can never do it right. and i tried; i really did. I Attempted Perfect Womanhood And All I Got Was This Lousy Eating Disorder. whether my poor experience was exacerbated due to a burning sense of wrongness deep within is a conversation for another time.

people who actually are women — and i of course include trans women in this — have no choice in the matter. but i have been a woman in the way that a turtle is a tortoise, which is to say, not one at all really, but close enough to the untrained eye. and who am i to say that this turtle is not a tortoise, for i am no scientist — or sociologist, as it were — and thus have no pressing reason to illuminate others on the finer points of my gender identity when this knowledge would have no impact on their perception or treatment of me whatsoever. it would be like going around telling everyone my exact ethnic breakdown instead of saying "mixed hispanic" and calling it a day — or better yet, simply letting people draw their own conclusions. what would be the point? i take no issue with being slightly misunderstood.

but now that i am looking like this, i suppose there is a point. i don’t want anyone to become uncomfortable with their lack of footing on the subject. so, lucia, what is your gender? well: it isn’t. my gender is i don’t care. my pronouns are whatever anyone feels like using because they’re the one referring to me anyway, so it’s kind of their problem. you can’t possibly get any of this stuff wrong because i am, and have always been, deeply ambivalent about all of it. so do not ever bother to “correct” your phrasing or thinking where i am concerned. i’m just living, baby.

i will say, as a final thought on the subject, there is something incredibly gratifying about looking in the mirror and feeling peace. the face and body i already have are absolutely fine as they are. what i see actually feels like me, comfortable, rather than an ongoing project i need to keep on top of Or Else. i am not, as margaret atwood so brilliantly put it, “a woman with a man inside watching a woman.” i’m just a person. given the way i grew up and the world we live in, i think that’s a goddamn miracle.

2. i wrapped up at the greenhouse

my job is over! HOORAY! i enjoyed many things about it, but i can’t say i will terribly miss watering plants for over 30 hours a week and wearing nothing i would mind ripping a hole into. i’m taking the month of september to enjoy as much of oregon as i can and spend time with the friends i’ve made here. my moving pod ships out this coming friday, and after that it’ll just be me, vin, my capsule wardrobe, and whatever bare essentials kitchenware i can find at goodwill to keep myself alive. (contrary to popular belief, eating vegan is actually incredibly easy, provided you are not trying to go to a restaurant while doing so.)

on the docket for this month are a plethora of local water features, several social gatherings, a Complexly benefit event in los angeles, a quick jaunt to portland, a mini roadtrip with hannah (and potentially vin) on the way back, and some exciting new vaccines — because there is no better time to get your shots updated than when you don’t have a job to get to the next day.

but back to the matter at hand. my last day at work was actually very nice. i gave everyone sentimental cards due to who i am as a person, but i was delighted to also RECEIVE several sentimental cards. i became a Card Person because i think they’re a nice little way to show someone you care without adding clutter to their house, but one thing they don’t tell you about becoming a card giver is you also become a more frequent card receiver, and it rules. so i now have two very lovely cards i can cherish as i move into this new era of my life.

caleb also brought in donuts. they were not vegan even a little bit, but that’s okay because i wasn’t gonna have one regardless and this way everyone else got to enjoy them more.

caleb is so awesome. he also gave me a goldback which i am going to frame in my new place, and a non-standard allen key i needed very badly to deconstruct some shelving

they gave my job to former retail manager rona. the less said on this the better. good luck, everyone.

3. my car almost exploded

my 1998 honda civic and i have a codependent relationship that sometimes veers into the mildly abusive. i don’t check her fluids until she needs her oil changed, but hey, at least the oil change is happening. in this case, though the oil change did indeed happen, she needed a bit more TLC than i had realized. this was made known to me on an ill-fated drive to work wherein she began to shake violently, emit a burning smell, and flash her "check engine" light like the first person to show up at a rave.

i pulled into work, parked, spent a long time on the phone with AAA, and eventually got a tow truck to haul her off for emergency medical attention.

goodbye for now, jillian

it turns out — and i’m not checking my notes here so please forgive my “i know nothing of cars” level of understanding — there was something wrong with the housing for the spark plugs? the wires were brittle and arcing, and something was leaking which submerged the spark plugs in flammable liquid, and jillian did not enjoy that very much. so it’s a good thing i was able to get that tow truck or i honestly might have died.

the mechanics worked their magic and about a thousand dollars later — which is probably all the car is worth, but i needed her to live — she’s good as new. or at least as new as a car with 115,235 miles on it can be. whatever issues remain are for her next owner to discover, but i suspect they’ll have something to do with the break fluid reservoir because it’s the most suspicious-looking thing under the hood according to molly.

4. i met the mcelroys except griffin

people who already know of the mcelroys probably already know that this happened, and if you don’t know who they are, this probably won’t mean anything to you.

for the uninitiated: this is a group of three brothers who started a comedy advice podcast back in 2010 which has since expanded into a full-family podcasting empire the likes of which the world has never known. each brother, in addition to this first podcast, has a separate podcast with their respective wives, and a tertiary podcast with at least one other person, and numerous collective side projects such as Til Death Do Us Blart (reviewed on the november 30, 2025 installment of this newsletter) and The McElroy Brothers Will Be In Trolls World Tour (a one-off mini series which is frankly incredible and a beautiful introduction to their work, if one is interested).

here are some places you may have seen them out of context:

they are, i very much believe, deeply good people. their humor is uplifting and silly and never at anyone’s expense but their own, and they do incredible things with their platform. i’ve been listening to them talk since maybe 2018 or so and it has added to my life in a huge way — not just through their comedy, but through their incredible storytelling via The Adventure Zone (reviewed on the december 15, 2025 installment of this newsletter and likely to be reviewed again).

so when i found out brookline booksmith was hosting an event with them that i could potentially help out with, i rescheduled my flights to make sure i could be there. and when my flight was delayed and i was awake for 37 hours straight in service of attending said event, it was absolutely worth it. i mostly spoke with travis and clint while isis talked to justin. this is as it should be. justin is awesome and so is isis. i flipped a coin for who to help sign, but i was glad it landed on travis because he does the P4A every year (awesome) and he is the person who introduced me to chris prentiss’s Zen and The Art of Happiness, a book i literally will not shut up about ever. so we had a lovely chat about those things.

isis and i both asked everyone the queggstion* as well, to which their answers were as follows: indeterminate but a lot (clint), 36 (justin), 40 (travis, who laughed in my face for saying several hundred), and 40 (carey pietsch, their graphic novel artist who actually engaged with this question in a big way).

*the queggstion, for the uninitiated, is how many standard chicken eggs you believe you could eat in a 24 hour period provided you got to die at the end of the ordeal

and of course, it would not be a notable person interaction without me asking for a drawing of a creature. so here is what i got:

dragon drawn left-handed from carey, loch ness from travis, little gremlin from' justin, big gremlin from clint

hilariously, i was also photographed and featured in Shelf Awareness as a current booksmith employee, which is simply not true. i was illegally volunteering. but i didn’t want to tell the photographer that so here we are.

5. i shifted my career path

you thought we were done with big personal changes and revelations!? THINK AGAIN.

i love to make plans, and i love to follow through on those plans, but i will not hesitate to shift those plans when new information is revealed. a year of working in this greenhouse has given me some very valuable insight into what makes a job sustainable and fulfilling for me. for example: i do not mind working outdoors one bit, but i miss being able to express my personal style in my daily choice of clothing. i love being around plants, but i’d much rather be in a natural environment than a cultivated one. i love engaging with the public, but i do not love the busy-every-weekend schedule that comes with working retail.

initially, my plan was to pivot to a botanical garden after i’d built up enough experience to be hired by one, but i think i can achieve my non-retail goals in a better way that does not involve regularly exposing myself to pesticides. of course i’d like a job that supports my life practically, but i also want that work to be meaningful and conservation-oriented. so i think rather than "plants and education," my two big keywords going forward are going to be something closer to "sustainability and communication."

this could look like a lot of things — land stewardship, network engagement, even environmental education work with a greater focus on advocacy. i’m not locked in on one path. i’ll just take the best opportunities i can to send myself in the right direction, eventually working my way up to whatever roll best suits my interests and skillset.

alongside this, for separate but related reasons, i’ve decided to very much lock in on sharpening my financial education. economics are the backbone to everything we do and a huge driver of current environmental governance practices. it’s been a background interest of mine for many years that i’ve often found myself a bit too overwhelmed by to dedicate serious time to learning, but now that i have a better idea of how to apply the knowledge, i am going to get it come hell or high water.

i have been following an online course (thank you to my incredible friend kate for finding it) to shore up my understanding of the basics for now. what i love about this new hobby is it is free and ungraded and there is no homework whatsoever. i just get to learn and fall down rabbit holes and make notes for the sake of having notes. it’s also a great excuse to go to the library and re-learn some calculus. i miss calculus.

eventually, in an ideal world, i will marry all these disparate parts of my life together. if i had enough hours in the week to volunteer in 15 different capacities and get multiple degrees and also have a full time job, i would be doing it already. but i have learned my lesson about overextending myself — so for now, i am just taking what steps i can while being mindful to maintain balance (the annual theme!) and trusting the big picture to work itself out.

6. i started posting reels

why reels? a mystery even to myself. but we’ll attempt to unpack it anyway.

i’ve always been fond of the story post — in fact, i was known in high school for how high-effort my snapchat stories were for absolutely no reason. i treated them like a semi-public scrapbook and my fellow teens were eating it up. then when snapchat fell off, that energy went nowhere. until i gave into the siren call of instagram.

over the past year-ish, i’ve begun posting more on my instagram story because, for better or worse, it is one of the best ways i have of being casually present in the lives of people i don’t often get to see. i don’t care for the “highlight reel” approach to social media where you’re meant to look perfect and accomplished all the time. i am online to share my inane observations and whatever cool photos i took on my most recent jaunt outside. i have much more fun that way.

even so, it was stressful at first. i’d see who was silently watching my daily life and become very uncomfortable. not that there was anything wrong with these people i’d fallen out of touch with, but i just thought, why do i want this random person from middle school to know what i’m up to? if you’re that interested, reach out. otherwise our relationship has passed. why are you still here.

i’m not sure exactly what changed my attitude on this or when it happened. i used to regularly go through my followers and remove people even when i knew them personally. now my account is public and i hardly think about it. i guess i’ve just become more comfortable putting myself out there? i am less concerned with compartmentalizing who i am for different audiences and more concerned with authentic connection grounded on my actual self.

here is all of me! here is my pole dancing hobby and my opinion about different management styles and me singing just okayly over an acoustic guitar i bought on sale that i can only sort of play. no one part of me detracts from another. i can be seen in my entirety and still be worthy of respect and care. but if any of those things end up being a problem for someone else, it is genuinely okay! they can do their own thing! and i will do mine. i don’t need to be palatable to everyone.

as for why i’ve gone from stories to reels, it’s mostly because people tend to give me positive unprompted feedback on thethings i share and sometimes ask me why i don’t just share them normally or put them on tiktok. at a certain point i asked myself why i was hiding behind posts that disappear in 24 hours and i couldn’t come up with a good answer. why not just let them live and breathe? why be precious about sharing myself with other people? what do i have to lose?

i did worry folks who know me would take me posting reels as an attempt to become an influencer, since that’s what a lot of people who post reels are doing. that is not my goal. it is actually my nightmare. but i don’t think i should refrain from doing what sounds interesting simply because it may be taken the wrong way, so i’m just going for it until it stops being fun. as i said, i’m okay with being slightly misunderstood.

7. i got an apartment in new jersey

it’s happening! oh my god! can you even believe it! by this time next month i will be living in collingswood, a new jersey suburb just outside philadelphia. racket found me a darling little apartment there and i was able to snag it despite being all the way over here still.

assuming everything goes according to plan, the move is going to be tight. i have a pod taking my boxes of stuff from here to new hampshire, then the day after it arrives (or perhaps two days after) a moving truck and some men will show up to load all those things plus my furniture into their vehicle and take it away. thus will begin our 7 hour drive to new jersey — me in whatever car i get in the week between landing and leaving. it’s all very stressful and expensive but hopefully i won’t need to do it again for a long time after that.

the apartment is a unit in a house (EXCITING. I HAVE WANTED THIS FOREVER) with lots of space and a back deck. it’s got all the bells and whistles, it’s within my budget, and the location is amazing. it’s walkable to the library, walkable to an ALDI, right across from a beautiful park with a pond in it. i’m so, so excited to be there.

now: is it 45 minutes to an hour’s drive from anywhere i will probably end up working? yes. i have suspected for a long while that moving to collingswood would probably mean ending up with a longer commute than i would prefer. but in 10 out of 10 cases, i will take that over moving back into a city where the space is low and the rent is high and basically nothing else is ideal for me personally. i learned to drive for a reason.

nowhere is perfect, and it’s always possible that once i get to new jersey, i will learn even more and end up pivoting my life yet again. but at least now, for the first time since i left home for college, the area i am moving to does not need to be temporary. if i like it, i can actually put my feet down. i’m really looking forward to that possibility.

that’s all for now.

i’m still in oregon until september 29th, then i will be flying to new hampshire for a few days! i’ll see as many folks as i can in that time, though i will be quite busy with the move so not as many people as i’d like. if you’re around, let me know! by october 5th or 6th i will be driving to jersey.

if you’d ever like to reply to the things i put in here, i would be glad to hear from you. until next time, take care :)

This Week in Pondering

this week i’ve actually been pondering whether i believe in love or not. obviously i do — it’s not as if i wake up every day with the firm belief that every happy couple in the world is deluding themselves. i suppose i’m more interested in whether i, personally, believe in it (or even want it) enough to keep messing about with relationships.*

it’s less that i’m like “boo hoo everything ends in heartbreak” and more that i’m like “well, how happy is a happy ending really?” relationships just take work. i know this. i have worked extremely hard at them before, and i don’t know how to behave any differently. it’s worth it to try. but i think my ceiling for how hard i’m willing to try at this point is actually touching the top of my head and ruining my curls.

molly once said something to me offhandedly that i think i will be repeating to myself for the rest of my life. i’m paraphrasing, as i was not secretly recording the conversation, but it was vaguely this: “if i’ve said something like three times and nothing has happened, and i’m still not being heard, i’m done. i’ll find someone else. new friend, new partner, whatever. and they can do it too — there are so many people in the world. find someone else who’s willing to take on your issues, because it’s not me.”

i’m a very dedicated person. when i was in fourth grade, each student in my grade was assigned a unique positive attribute on a little certificate, and i got “loyal.” i was born without that inner voice that tells you when to quit on someone who’s repeatedly let you down, and i deeply value the idea of trust. but sometimes that trust isn’t best placed in believing that someone will change. it’s in believing that they will survive without you, or vice versa. it’s in believing you can both find someone else.

this all sounds very pessimistic, and i don’t mean it to be. i think i’m just in a place now — having been very committed to focusing on myself in the past year, and not banking on a prospective partner for fulfillment — where i am realizing how little i need that a romantic relationship could provide. i have so much love and support in my life from my incredible friends and family. i am thrilled about my future. i have practically infinite sources for joy. and, being some flavor of both asexual and aromantic, i don’t really notice what i am lacking in those departments. when i have a partner, i can enjoy it, but when i don’t, i do not really notice or care.

so as for whether i believe in a version of romantic love that is worth it for me: maybe. i will say, if it exists, it will have to track my footprints through the forest and hunt me down with the persistence of a contract killer. i am not going to open the door to it without an extremely compelling reason

The Adventure Report™

this week hannah and i went on a waterfall tour! we were planning to see burney falls, the drive to which passes through weed, california. we drove past weed on our roadtrip last year at like 11pm and were really excited about the road sign, but it was an ungodly hour to make a novelty pit stop. NEVER TOO LATE, we said to ourselves this week. we shall go to weed TODAY!

so to weed we went! we went to their novelty souvenir shop and picked up a few things for ourselves and for friends. they really know what they’re doing with the merch in that place. neither of us smoke weed, but at least hannah used to. i was a tourist on multiple levels and thought an ashtray i saw was an undersized coaster. so hannah became my de facto sherpa through whatever i was looking at.

as we made our purchases, we had a chat with the cashier who asked where we were coming from and heading toward, and then if we were stopping by mccloud falls on the way. we had never heard of it, but she said it was nearby burney falls and definitely worth a visit. and thus our weed and waterfall adventure became a weed and FOUR waterfalls adventure.

i adore marilyn. can’t believe she let me take a photo with her at the weed store

mccloud falls was spectacular. you could run and swim and climb absolutely anywhere. there were three falls — lower, middle, and upper — and the middle was the best. we were told as much by a very helpful volunteer whom we asked for directions, and he was correct.

the lower waterfall was a great spot for families because there was a lot of shallow area in which to wade or swim, but still enough depth for some rock jumping and fishing to take place. it felt oddly like being at the library, in that “we are all from diverse backgrounds but part of this beautiful thing together” way. people were making friends with their neighbors and talking and pointing their love in the same direction. it was wonderful.

the water was so clear and perfect it looked like gelatin

lower falls from above

the upper waterfall was a quick stop for us on the way to burney. we didn’t go all the way down — just sneaked a peak, since we were in need of sustenance and hannah sensed a migraine coming on, which thankfully never fully manifested — but it was gorgeous nonetheless. see here:

the upper falls

and finally, the middle falls, the star of the show. oh my gosh it was unbelievable. they were HUGE and glorious and i had the time of my LIFE climbing around everywhere. look at this!! planet earth! wow!

upper falls from above

upper falls from below

people were cliff jumping from frankly unbelievable heights. i did that once with my friend ryan and found the anxiety i experienced was not worth the payoff. but i do love to traverse, and you could pretty easily cross the river to reach a pile of rocks right under the falls, so i set my sights upon that instead. i was shocked how few other people had done it — just two kids, a helpful older man who offered me a hand, and a young couple had made their way to the other side. the high res photos of me doing this are still on hannah’s fancy camera, but i have these from their phone in the meantime:

great rock for sitting upon, nice and misty

my signature pose

and here are some photos i took from the other side:

a semi-secret alcove you could only really see from the other side

after this, we were still not done, because burney falls awaited. burney falls is a state park, and my god it deserved to be. i actually struggled to believe my eyes when i saw this in person. there’s no way to describe it except by saying it felt like i had stepped into middle earth. the water came from everywhere, and everywhere you looked, there was more to see. it was an honest-to-god spiritual experience for me because lord of the rings is the closest thing i have to a formal religion.

holy shit

holy shit with hannah for scale

we hiked around a bit and found this whimsical bridge (upon which we played sticks like in winnie the pooh)

they knew what they were doing building it in an arc like that

and this tree with a face

:o~

we continued our hike up to the top of the falls, where there were all sorts of interesting plants in the water. i have a weakness for aquatic plants, so this was very exciting. i loved this area almost as much as the incredibly scenic waterfall. i stuck my feet in the river and it was so frigid i got brain freeze almost instantly, which i did not know could happen via one’s feet.

wow i love this planet so much. oh my god

another thing we noticed was that all the dedicated benches had beautiful sentiments on them, which i felt was a great deal more meaningful and additive than the usual “so-and-so loved this place” you usually get on a dedicated bench, in my opinion. let’s bring in more poetry! good stuff

BREATHE IN THE BEAUTY - IT IS ALL GOOD

IT IS BY LOGIC THAT WE PROVE, BUT BY INTUITION THAT WE DISCOVER

COME AWAY, O HUMAN CHILD! TO THE WATERS AND THE WILD

HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

and of course, no adventure with hannah would be complete without a photo of me i did not know was being taken that is accidentally extremely funny

“this waterfall is shit”

Thief of Time Terry Pratchett

it’s time for another delightful little exploration into the experience of humanity from an outside lens — this time, it is the auditors of the universe (who keep everything in order), and the timekeepers (to whom time is a flat circle), and susan (death’s granddaughter, to whom everything is a bit odd despite her best efforts.) 

this was a wibbly wobbly timey wimey book, and as such, its resolution is where it shines the most. the way everything folds together is reminiscent of elaborate origami taking its final glorious shape after the pull of a certain tab of paper. the plot is circular, so one would do to pay deep attention when reading — which i mostly did. but i've been experiencing terry pratchett via illegal youtube rips of his audiobooks while watering plants, so i often lose my place and experience interruptions and distractions. i still held onto enough of the plot to feel immensely gratified by the way brief snatches of text from the beginning were woven into a neat and satisfying tapestry by the end. but i think, as is often the case in stories where time is not quite linear, this one will only improve with every reading.

what i loved most about this story was its conceptions of transience and the miracle that is every fresh moment of living. it was very zen, which is the second closest thing i have to a formal religion after, as we’ve established, lord of the rings. terry pratchett’s writing is rich with this incredible balance of silliness and sincerity that always ends up resonating more than i could realistically expect it to, and this book was especially strong on that front.

founding father thomas jefferson had this absolutely mangled and butchered copy of the christian bible that he had basically scrapbooked for parts, which i think was an awesome idea. i also have one of those — but instead of being made of the bible, it has bits of everything i've ever read that stuck with me. it takes a big impact to end up in there, but every terry pratchett book so far has included a passage that made the cut. here is that passage from thief of time:

and now, with this book concluded, i have officially finished the “death” arc of discworld! i will definitely be continuing with my pratchett journey, but i’ll probably take a break with some other books first. i know he will be there when i get back, and i am looking forward to it when i do.

Dungeon Crawler Carl Matt Dinniman

i have finally jumped on this very novel bandwagon! i don’t know what i expected, but it wasn’t this. it’s hard to describe what dungeon crawler carl is like. i would say it’s the closest you can get to a dungeons and dragons-based video game that is secretly a book. the premise is bonkers, the plot is bonkers, the prose is bonkers. the main characters are a man with no shoes or pants on and a talking cat. i can confidently say i have never read anything like it in my life. but man i had fun, and i am definitely going to continue with the series.

i will say, if you’re someone like myself for whom learning the rules of a game upfront is an achievement akin to earning a commercial pilot’s license, the beginning of this book will be a challenge. my eyes glazed over like dunkin munchkins left to melt in the sun. but i got enough of the basics to understand what was happening afterwards, and it definitely got easier after that. so stick with it! you’ll be glad you did.

i hesitate to describe much more about the plot lest i spoil the reading experience for you, so i’ll just say this: dungeon crawler carl is a series that could only be written right now. it’s the amalgamation of such relevant pop culture touchstones, multimedia experiences, and sociopolitical awareness that it does something completely different with the medium of written fiction than anything i’ve experienced before. it is not the first LitRPG book to be published, but with how popular it has suddenly become, it truly does feel like a landmark in genre-defying literature. it’s incredible to witness in real time how a medium as old as the written word can still take on surprising new forms. i’m still a fantasy person to my core, but i’m very excited to see where this series and its overwhelmingly positive reception take the publishing industry as a whole.

Critter of The Week

this jackrabbit taking a break in the shade

Internet Thing of The Week

i’m a big fan of daniel radcliffe’s taste in media. he has introduced me to things that i’d never have otherwise encountered which take over my brain forever. i have no idea how he discovers it all, but the second he starts talking about anything — a song, a book, a poem — i am listening and taking notes.

so i was very happy to stumble across this podcast interview with him discussing some of his favorite books! song of achilles, which i’ve already read, was a fantastic pick. the others were all new to me. i placed a library hold on every single one and you will be hearing my thoughts as i get through them. if you’ve never heard daniel radcliffe speak off the cuff about other people’s art, you’re in for a treat with this one. he is incredibly perceptive and articulate, and i’m very grateful the interviewer did such an incredible job guiding and engaging with their conversation.

Whatever Else of The Week

i’m sure you haven’t picked up on it yet, but i actually love lord of the rings. it’s an unending source of interest to me, not only in the text of the original books, but in the writing of them, and not only in the content of the films, but in the making of them. it’s such a treat to hear the cast talk in depth about their experiences on the set, and there is practically always a new tidbit to discover.

this interview, recorded back in 2021 between stephen colbert and the fellowship hobbit actors, was no exception. it’s fantastic.d i never wanted it to end. i immediately followed it up with the two subsequent interviews stephen conducted with other cast members and director peter jackson, which i would highly recommend as well. there is no better interviewer than one who is a massive nerd about the subject at hand, especially when that nerd is as perspicacious and good-humored as stephen colbert, so these videos were a treat from beginning to end. also, i am incredibly jealous of his collection of props and experiences regarding these films. but i’m also happy for him. if anyone on earth loves lord of the rings enough to deserve them, it is him. and i eagerly await the day he releases a book or podcast or something solely dedicated to dissecting and discussing this story.

Kinda Like Pad Thai

my friend kate once pointed me to this incredible recipe book called the sad bastard cookbook. it is truly the only realistic resource i’ve encountered for when you Just Need To Eat Something and cannot be bothered to do anything. i can’t recommend it enough for people who hate cooking or love cooking and are really tired. my favorite recipe is called “kinda like pad thai,” which is this: mix peanut butter and sweet chili sauce together, dump it on some noodles, and maybe throw some vegetables in if you’re feeling extra. it’s delicious and easy and helps get me out of a dietary rut every time.

ingredients:

• noodles! i use kelp noodles because they’re like rice noodles without the sticky

• peanut butter (i am a teddie’s loyalist)

• sweet chili sauce

• veggies! i went with red bell pepper, broccoli, green onion, and shredded carrots. you can throw in bean sprouts for even more volume

• optional crispy onion topping if you finally remember you have it sitting in the pantry

• peanuts for texture and nutrients

steps:

1. prep the noodles. for kelp noodles, massage them for a minute or two with lemon juice and baking soda, then rinse with warm water, and they’re done. no boiling. love it

2. chop a little. i got pre-cut broccoli and pre-shredded carrots, so it was just a matter of slicing the pepper and onions

3. throw the veggies and peanuts into a pan with some oil, or into the oven/air fryer, or both, whatever floats your boat

4. mix one part peanut butter with one part chili sauce, add a little water, and mix. play with the ratios until you like it. (the sauce sometimes gets a bit thick when stored over days, but a little water fixes it right up)

5. throw it all in a bowl and mix

6. enjoy!

final gratitude

this week i am grateful for MEDIA! CHARACTERS! FICTION! IT’S MY LIFEBLOOD. I LOVE CARING SO MUCH ABOUT A STORY AND ROTATING IT IN MY MIND LIKE A ROTISSERIE CHICKEN.

also, grateful for safe and easy travels!! i am sending this just before i leave for the airport for my trip back east. i’ll be in boston from the 16th to the 20th, then in maine seeing family from the 21st to 23rd. if you’re around, let me know! i’d love to see you.

*i am sorry the first version of this paragraph somehow imploded upon itself. i fear my computer has a ghost in it

until next time, take care!

This Week in Pondering

this week i’ve actually been pondering whether i believe in love or not. obviously i do — it’s not as if i wake up every day with the firm belief i suppose i’m more interested in whether i, personally, believe in it (or even want it) enough to keep messing about with relationships. that every happy couple in the world is deluding themselves.

it’s less that i’m like “boo hoo everything ends in heartbreak” and more that i’m like “well, how happy is a happy ending really?” relationships just take work. i know this. i have worked extremely hard at them before, and i don’t know how to behave any differently. it’s worth it to try. but i think my ceiling for how hard i’m willing to try at this point is actually touching the top of my head and ruining my curls.

molly once said something to me offhandedly that i think i will be repeating to myself for the rest of my life. i’m paraphrasing, as i was not secretly recording the conversation, but it was vaguely this: “if i’ve said something like three times and nothing has happened, and i’m still not being heard, i’m done. i’ll find someone else. new friend, new partner, whatever. and they can do it too — there are so many people in the world. find someone else who’s willing to take on your issues, because it’s not me.”

i’m a very dedicated person. when i was in fourth grade, each student in my grade was assigned a unique positive attribute on a little certificate, and i got “loyal.” i was born without that inner voice that tells you when to quit on someone who’s repeatedly let you down, and i deeply value the idea of trust. but sometimes that trust isn’t best placed in believing that someone will change. it’s in believing that they will survive without you, or vice versa. it’s in believing you can both find someone else.

this all sounds very pessimistic, and i don’t mean it to be. i think i’m just in a place now — having been very committed to focusing on myself in the past year, and not banking on a prospective partner for fulfillment — where i am realizing how little i need that a romantic relationship could provide. i have so much love and support in my life from my incredible friends and family. i am thrilled about my future. i have practically infinite sources for joy. and, being some flavor of both asexual and aromantic, i don’t really notice what i am lacking in those departments. when i have a partner, i can enjoy it, but when i don’t, i do not really notice or care.

so as for whether i believe in a version of romantic love that is worth it for me: maybe. i will say, if it exists, it will have to track my footprints through the forest and hunt me down with the persistence of a contract killer. i am not going to open the door to it without an extremely compelling reason

The Adventure Report™

this week hannah and i went on a waterfall tour! we were planning to see burney falls, the drive to which passes through weed, california. we drove past weed on our roadtrip last year at like 11pm and were really excited about the road sign, but it was an ungodly hour to make a novelty pit stop. NEVER TOO LATE, we said to ourselves this week. we shall go to weed TODAY!

so to weed we went! we went to their novelty souvenir shop and picked up a few things for ourselves and for friends. they really know what they’re doing with the merch in that place. neither of us smoke weed, but at least hannah used to. i was a tourist on multiple levels and thought an ashtray i saw was an undersized coaster. so hannah became my de facto sherpa through whatever i was looking at.

as we made our purchases, we had a chat with the cashier who asked where we were coming from and heading toward, and then if we were stopping by mccloud falls on the way. we had never heard of it, but she said it was nearby burney falls and definitely worth a visit. and thus our weed and waterfall adventure became a weed and FOUR waterfalls adventure.

i adore marilyn. can’t believe she let me take a photo with her at the weed store

mccloud falls was spectacular. you could run and swim and climb absolutely anywhere. there were three falls — lower, middle, and upper — and the middle was the best. we were told as much by a very helpful volunteer whom we asked for directions, and he was correct.

the lower waterfall was a great spot for families because there was a lot of shallow area in which to wade or swim, but still enough depth for some rock jumping and fishing to take place. it felt oddly like being at the library, in that “we are all from diverse backgrounds but part of this beautiful thing together” way. people were making friends with their neighbors and talking and pointing their love in the same direction. it was wonderful.

the water was so clear and perfect it looked like gelatin

lower falls from above

the upper waterfall was a quick stop for us on the way to burney. we didn’t go all the way down — just sneaked a peak, since we were in need of sustenance and hannah sensed a migraine coming on, which thankfully never fully manifested — but it was gorgeous nonetheless. see here:

the upper falls

and finally, the middle falls, the star of the show. oh my gosh it was unbelievable. they were HUGE and glorious and i had the time of my LIFE climbing around everywhere. look at this!! planet earth! wow!

upper falls from above

upper falls from below

people were cliff jumping from frankly unbelievable heights. i did that once with my friend ryan and found the anxiety i experienced was not worth the payoff. but i do love to traverse, and you could pretty easily cross the river to reach a pile of rocks right under the falls, so i set my sights upon that instead. i was shocked how few other people had done it — just two kids, a helpful older man who offered me a hand, and a young couple had made their way to the other side. the high res photos of me doing this are still on hannah’s fancy camera, but i have these from their phone in the meantime:

great rock for sitting upon, nice and misty

my signature pose

and here are some photos i took from the other side:

a semi-secret alcove you could only really see from the other side

after this, we were still not done, because burney falls awaited. burney falls is a state park, and my god it deserved to be. i actually struggled to believe my eyes when i saw this in person. there’s no way to describe it except by saying it felt like i had stepped into middle earth. the water came from everywhere, and everywhere you looked, there was more to see. it was an honest-to-god spiritual experience for me because lord of the rings is the closest thing i have to a formal religion.

holy shit

holy shit with hannah for scale

we hiked around a bit and found this whimsical bridge (upon which we played sticks like in winnie the pooh)

they knew what they were doing building it in an arc like that

and this tree with a face

:o~

we continued our hike up to the top of the falls, where there were all sorts of interesting plants in the water. i have a weakness for aquatic plants, so this was very exciting. i loved this area almost as much as the incredibly scenic waterfall. i stuck my feet in the river and it was so frigid i got brain freeze almost instantly, which i did not know could happen via one’s feet.

wow i love this planet so much. oh my god

another thing we noticed was that all the dedicated benches had beautiful sentiments on them, which i felt was a great deal more meaningful and additive than the usual “so-and-so loved this place” you usually get on a dedicated bench, in my opinion. let’s bring in more poetry! good stuff

BREATHE IN THE BEAUTY - IT IS ALL GOOD

IT IS BY LOGIC THAT WE PROVE, BUT BY INTUITION THAT WE DISCOVER

COME AWAY, O HUMAN CHILD! TO THE WATERS AND THE WILD

HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

and of course, no adventure with hannah would be complete without a photo of me i did not know was being taken that is accidentally extremely funny

“this waterfall is shit”

Thief of Time Terry Pratchett

it’s time for another delightful little exploration into the experience of humanity from an outside lens — this time, it is the auditors of the universe (who keep everything in order), and the timekeepers (to whom time is a flat circle), and susan (death’s granddaughter, to whom everything is a bit odd despite her best efforts.) 

this was a wibbly wobbly timey wimey book, and as such, its resolution is where it shines the most. the way everything folds together is reminiscent of elaborate origami taking its final glorious shape after the pull of a certain tab of paper. the plot is circular, so one would do to pay deep attention when reading — which i mostly did. but i've been experiencing terry pratchett via illegal youtube rips of his audiobooks while watering plants, so i often lose my place and experience interruptions and distractions. i still held onto enough of the plot to feel immensely gratified by the way brief snatches of text from the beginning were woven into a neat and satisfying tapestry by the end. but i think, as is often the case in stories where time is not quite linear, this one will only improve with every reading.

what i loved most about this story was its conceptions of transience and the miracle that is every fresh moment of living. it was very zen, which is the second closest thing i have to a formal religion after, as we’ve established, lord of the rings. terry pratchett’s writing is rich with this incredible balance of silliness and sincerity that always ends up resonating more than i could realistically expect it to, and this book was especially strong on that front.

founding father thomas jefferson had this absolutely mangled and butchered copy of the christian bible that he had basically scrapbooked for parts, which i think was an awesome idea. i also have one of those — but instead of being made of the bible, it has bits of everything i've ever read that stuck with me. it takes a big impact to end up in there, but every terry pratchett book so far has included a passage that made the cut. here is that passage from thief of time:

and now, with this book concluded, i have officially finished the “death” arc of discworld! i will definitely be continuing with my pratchett journey, but i’ll probably take a break with some other books first. i know he will be there when i get back, and i am looking forward to it when i do.

Dungeon Crawler Carl Matt Dinniman

i have finally jumped on this very novel bandwagon! i don’t know what i expected, but it wasn’t this. it’s hard to describe what dungeon crawler carl is like. i would say it’s the closest you can get to a dungeons and dragons-based video game that is secretly a book. the premise is bonkers, the plot is bonkers, the prose is bonkers. the main characters are a man with no shoes or pants on and a talking cat. i can confidently say i have never read anything like it in my life. but man i had fun, and i am definitely going to continue with the series.

i will say, if you’re someone like myself for whom learning the rules of a game upfront is an achievement akin to earning a commercial pilot’s license, the beginning of this book will be a challenge. my eyes glazed over like dunkin munchkins left to melt in the sun. but i got enough of the basics to understand what was happening afterwards, and it definitely got easier after that. so stick with it! you’ll be glad you did.

i hesitate to describe much more about the plot lest i spoil the reading experience for you, so i’ll just say this: dungeon crawler carl is a series that could only be written right now. it’s the amalgamation of such relevant pop culture touchstones, multimedia experiences, and sociopolitical awareness that it does something completely different with the medium of written fiction than anything i’ve experienced before. it is not the first LitRPG book to be published, but with how popular it has suddenly become, it truly does feel like a landmark in genre-defying literature. it’s incredible to witness in real time how a medium as old as the written word can still take on surprising new forms. i’m still a fantasy person to my core, but i’m very excited to see where this series and its overwhelmingly positive reception take the publishing industry as a whole.

Critter of The Week

this jackrabbit taking a break in the shade

Internet Thing of The Week

i’m a big fan of daniel radcliffe’s taste in media. he has introduced me to things that i’d never have otherwise encountered which take over my brain forever. i have no idea how he discovers it all, but the second he starts talking about anything — a song, a book, a poem — i am listening and taking notes.

so i was very happy to stumble across this podcast interview with him discussing some of his favorite books! song of achilles, which i’ve already read, was a fantastic pick. the others were all new to me. i placed a library hold on every single one and you will be hearing my thoughts as i get through them. if you’ve never heard daniel radcliffe speak off the cuff about other people’s art, you’re in for a treat with this one. he is incredibly perceptive and articulate, and i’m very grateful the interviewer did such an incredible job guiding and engaging with their conversation.

Whatever Else of The Week

i’m sure you haven’t picked up on it yet, but i actually love lord of the rings. it’s an unending source of interest to me, not only in the text of the original books, but in the writing of them, and not only in the content of the films, but in the making of them. it’s such a treat to hear the cast talk in depth about their experiences on the set, and there is practically always a new tidbit to discover.

this interview, recorded back in 2021 between stephen colbert and the fellowship hobbit actors, was no exception. it’s fantastic.d i never wanted it to end. i immediately followed it up with the two subsequent interviews stephen conducted with other cast members and director peter jackson, which i would highly recommend as well. there is no better interviewer than one who is a massive nerd about the subject at hand, especially when that nerd is as perspicacious and good-humored as stephen colbert, so these videos were a treat from beginning to end. also, i am incredibly jealous of his collection of props and experiences regarding these films. but i’m also happy for him. if anyone on earth loves lord of the rings enough to deserve them, it is him. and i eagerly await the day he releases a book or podcast or something solely dedicated to dissecting and discussing this story.

Kinda Like Pad Thai

my friend kate once pointed me to this incredible recipe book called the sad bastard cookbook. it is truly the only realistic resource i’ve encountered for when you Just Need To Eat Something and cannot be bothered to do anything. i can’t recommend it enough for people who hate cooking or love cooking and are really tired. my favorite recipe is called “kinda like pad thai,” which is this: mix peanut butter and sweet chili sauce together, dump it on some noodles, and maybe throw some vegetables in if you’re feeling extra. it’s delicious and easy and helps get me out of a dietary rut every time.

ingredients:

• noodles! i use kelp noodles because they’re like rice noodles without the sticky

• peanut butter (i am a teddie’s loyalist)

• sweet chili sauce

• veggies! i went with red bell pepper, broccoli, green onion, and shredded carrots. you can throw in bean sprouts for even more volume

• optional crispy onion topping if you finally remember you have it sitting in the pantry

• peanuts for texture and nutrients

steps:

1. prep the noodles. for kelp noodles, massage them for a minute or two with lemon juice and baking soda, then rinse with warm water, and they’re done. no boiling. love it

2. chop a little. i got pre-cut broccoli and pre-shredded carrots, so it was just a matter of slicing the pepper and onions

3. throw the veggies and peanuts into a pan with some oil, or into the oven/air fryer, or both, whatever floats your boat

4. mix one part peanut butter with one part chili sauce, add a little water, and mix. play with the ratios until you like it. (the sauce sometimes gets a bit thick when stored over days, but a little water fixes it right up)

5. throw it all in a bowl and mix

6. enjoy!

final gratitude

this week i am grateful for MEDIA! CHARACTERS! FICTION! IT’S MY LIFEBLOOD. I LOVE CARING SO MUCH ABOUT A STORY AND ROTATING IT IN MY MIND LIKE A ROTISSERIE CHICKEN.

also, grateful for safe and easy travels!! i am sending this just before i leave for the airport for my trip back east. i’ll be in boston from the 16th to the 20th, then in maine seeing family from the 21st to 23rd. if you’re around, let me know! i’d love to see you.

until next time, take care!

the kitten

this week i was very excited to attend former-employee-now-friend amara’s SUMMERWEEN PARTY. i went home from work to put on my halloweeny outfit, then hannah and i jumped in the car. our mission was to pick up my former-employee-now-friend molly, stop by the store for some watermelons to carve, then drive to phoenix.

me and molly. she took this photo to send to her friend with similar hair to mine as part of her continuous quest to get us each to “put our hair in bunbuns.” i have since done so, and molly was very happy about it

on the way out of the lot, while turning a corner, i instead stopped the car and said "what is that!! what is that!! hannah go get it!!"
there was a kitten in the road. hannah retrieved it and brought it into the car. we looked around for any other kittens or a potential mama cat, but there was nothing to be found. this kitten, you guys… its head was the size of a ping pong ball. its body was practically nonexistent. this entire cat’s face would be dwarfed by a humble acorn. it’s the smallest thing i’ve ever seen in my life including singular peas, grains of rice, and ladybugs. see here:

oh my god

everything the car light touches is our kingdom

A BABY

frankly i could not miss summerween because amara had been planning it for months, but i figured i’d put the cat in a better situation first. i didn’t want to take it with us because it should probably be somewhere calmer than a party, but i definitely wasn’t leaving it in the parking lot. so i put it in my bathtub with a big blanket and a piddle pad while we went to pick up molly and figure out what to do.
much as i wanted to respect the cat distribution system, i can’t take in a kitten right now. i have an adult cat already and a full time job, and i am moving across the country in a few months. so i figured i’d keep it safe and healthy while i looked into where i could rehome it or give it to a shelter. (before you get any grandiose ideas about my sense of self-restraint, please mind that this conclusion was only drawn after some very impressive mental gymnastics where i tried to justify how i would bring this kitten onto an airplane.)
to make several frantic discussions and fruitless trips to closed pet shops for kitten formula short, here’s where we ended up: molly made a facebook post to the ashland community page about the kitten as we drove to summerween. while there, she looked through the responses and decided on a family — husband, wife, two kids around middle school age — to take it in. after the party, we went straight back to the apartment for the hand off.
the kitty was still alive and well in the bathtub by then thank GOD, or the tone of this newsletter would be quite different. we brought it down to the car for molly to hold and examine since she has experience with this sort of thing. she determined the kitten was:

1. female

2. hungry

3. about three weeks old

4. still too young to drink water

5. going to be okay

eventually this woman from facebook showed up with her two kids in the backseat. they fell in love with the kitten instantly. she said she had the summer off, so she’d be able to foster it until it was ready for a proper foster home. eventually she texted molly an update that the kitten wasn’t taking food, so they brought her to the emergency vet who was able to help her get through the night. and she did! i expect this is all i’ll never know of this kitten, whom isis christened as "ash" (short for asphalt) after hearing the story. although i will say, several of my friends have a running joke where we try to get everyone to name their new pets “parking lot,” and i can’t help but feel i missed my shot big time here. but mark my words: if i ever find another kitten on the streets of new jersey, i’m keeping it. and i am naming it parking lot.

summerween

summerween is an event from the show gravity falls, which is extremely fun and good and worth watching if you haven’t. (i recommend season 1 episode 7 “double dipper” as a starting point.) anyway: in the show, the characters children live in oregon, and they have a halloween event in the summer naturally called “summerween.” former-employee-now-friend amara decided to have a summerween get together for the work gang as an homage to this wonderful cartoon and our completed season at the greenhouse together.

it was DELIGHTFUL. this was the most high-effort event i have ever been to. there were so many activities and decorations and foods and all of them were handmade. we carved watermelons and watched hocus pocus, we had a delicious buffet, we played cornhole, and most importantly we had fun. it was a memory i will treasure forever. here are some pics:

left to right: hannah’s, mine, amara’s

spooky brownies with silly tombstones

HOMEMADE CORNHOLE. amara’s grandma HAND-SEWED THE SACKS

THE GANG! hannah, amara, me, molly, jill, and amara’s grandma

crater lake

hannah and i took an adventure day to go to CRATER LAKE! it’s a national park housing the deepest freshwater lake in north america, a body of water so blue it makes my eyes dizzy and my head spin. it is absolutely stunning. nothing feeds into it; the crater in question is the center of a volcano which as filled with water through rainfall and snow melt.

i visited crater lake several years ago very briefly and loved it, so i was excited to be back. we had a great time on the drive there (2 hours each way) listening mostly to female rappers and laughing and talking about everything and nothing. when we arrived, we got a quick bite to eat walked around the gift shop. for those of you aware of mine and hannah’s margaritaville proposal several years ago in a successful bid for free dessert, the crater lake gift shop is actually where i sourced the ring, so it was a real full circle moment for our relationship. we are never beating the allegaytions.

post gift shop, we began our trek. at one point we spotted a couple taking pictures on a part of the rim that appeared to jut out quite far, and i noted that they looked as if they were going to slip and die for the gram. i also commented that if they wanted a REALLY good picture they’d go even further out to a rock hannah thought looked like a turtle head. when we got over there ourselves, it wasn’t as steep as i thought. so obviously i went out on the turtle head myself, and hannah had the brilliant idea to run back to where we’d been before for the photoshoot of a lifetime:

me for scale

hannah told me while they were taking the photos i was apparently quite the source of awe and entertainment for the nearby tourists, so my interesting NPC game continues to be rock solid. yay! i had a lot of fun with it. at one point i went so far as to throw my ass in circle to make hannah laugh, which echoed across the vista. i was not scared in any of these photos, but i did eventually step onto the protruding rock itself, and at that point my life briefly flashed before my eyes. i don’t know why those two feet made such a difference but by god they did.

anyway, after our hike, we headed back to the car and drove the perimeter, stopping at various pull-offs. i saw a bunch of clark’s nutcracker birds which was awesome.

here is where i saw the birds

we later pulled off to an area called Cloudcap Outlook because the name reminded us of a mario world, at which point i saw a plaque.

now, i will be the first to admit that my enthusiasm for plaques is perhaps a bit excessive. but what happened here was a new echelon of ridiculous. i saw the plaque. i yelled “OOOH A PLAQUE!!!” and ran toward the plaque because i run toward everything. i ran so wholeheartedly that i tripped on my overalls and ate shit on the pavement. my bracelets were smashed off of my wrist by the impact and my polaroid camera went skittering into the road. i bashed up both knees, both wrists, both palms, both forearms, and half of my stomach. hannah got a photo of it happening:

the moment of first impact

i can’t emphasize enough how funny this was. if you zoom in, you will see that the plaque did not even have anything on it. i immediately rolled onto my back, and hannah and i laughed so hard we cried. i’m glad i had the presence of mind to check whether my bracelets were missing because one of them was a gift from my aunt which i care VERY MUCH about, but we did find them all, and they’re easily fixable. “often trip, rarely fall” is one of my many mantras — so i guess when that rare fall does happen, i have to make it worthwhile.

The Work Report™

last week was blessedly cool, which is a godsend with all the things i had to do. mostly i scooped up a lot of muck and pulled up a lot of weeds. but since i wasn’t sweating the whole time, it was fine by me. however we have now also passed the date where sales are high enough to justify scheduling two people per day even on weekends, which means it was my last shift working with molly. we both felt extremely sad about this. she told me i’m the best person she’s ever worked with, and i told her she’s going to be the hardest thing about leaving oregon behind. it’s just me and the bugs now, folks.

some highlights:

• the guy who maintains our porta potty always drives in with his giant truck blasting music you can hear from miles away. it is never work appropriate music. the customers hate it and i think it’s awesome. last time he came in, he was playing candy shop by 50 cent. i’m so glad he’s having fun at his very difficult job. i’m always happy to see him

• ANOTHER customer told me i remind them of paddington bear

• the customers have been sharing a lot about their lives lately. i’ve heard many stories about people’s pasts and careers that i’ve done nothing whatsoever to prompt, but i actually quite enjoy them. that’s one thing i’ve never been too good at, sharing with strangers. molly is incredible at it. but i’m a least a good listener. my favorite recently was a man who told me so, so much about his time as an inventory counter on steel ships, and his wife’s job in sales, and his experience working for the military in bomb disposal. i hope he comes back

• at one point, on a slow day, i made the bold choice to plug my phone into the sound system and put it on shuffle. everything was going fine, and then tom lehrer came up. (if you’re unfamiliar, improve your life.) some lehrer songs could have been okay. this one was not. it was the vatican rag. as soon as i recognized it, i ran for the speaker to change the song, but i was too late. a customer had already walked in and got an earful. HOWEVER!! the second she saw me, she said, "I LOVE TOM LEHRER! I WAS ABOUT TO GENUFLECT!" god the glee i felt. we both enjoyed the song together, and afterwards we sang the chorus of poisoning pigeons in the park

• a man who clearly did not speak much english walked up with a cooler and started saying "tameles! tamales!" i tried for several minutes to understand what was going on but to no avail. he offered me chicken tamales which i politely declined owing to the fact that i don’t eat meat. he asked if anyone else was working today and i said just in the office. he drove over to the office, did not leave his car, and then drove away with the tamales

• i found out one of our regular customers is a cult leader. next time you see me in person, i am begging you to ask me about this

Hogfather Terry Pratchett

it's a CHRISTMAS BOOK!! the hogfather (discworld santa) is DEAD, and Death is taking up the proverbial and physical reins. he has a fake beard, a pillow shoved up his robe, and a can-do attitude. he also has a strong sense of justice they does not lend itself well to the socioeconomic realities of this position. susan is also back against her will, as is the only way she can ever participate in these matters. i loved every second of this book.

it is definitely the plottiest (that is pLotty, with an L) terry pratchett book i have read so far, which was a fun new direction for his writing. the villain (a new feature!) is a contract killer named teatime, who insists it's pronounced tayuh timmuh, although he's the only one who says it like that. he was a very fun character because he is genuinely messed up and not in a silly terry pratchett way. this man is just unsettling. he kills santa. i mean come on.

the whole story charmed my pants right off. the messaging resonated very much with me as someone who has a complicated relationship with christmas, and it made me laugh about as much as going postal did. so those are definitely my two favorites so far. i read online somewhere there’s a movie adapation, so i’m hoping i remember to watch it for christmas, and i’m hoping it does justice to the book.

i’ll leave you with my favorite passage:

Me Elton John

when i was in middle school i stumbled upon a video of elton john improvising a song off an oven instruction manual he was reading for the first time. this is the video. please do yourself a favor and watch it because it's frankly unbelievable.

from that day onward i had an unshakeable admiration and respect for elton john.

unlike with freddie mercury and queen, i am not a sleeper elton john fan who activates every few years and suddenly remembers how much i love his music. i don't know much of his music at all. bennie and the jets is one of my all-time favorite songs, but beyond the obvious hits i have never once delved into his discography. he comes up though, doesn't he. he made several appearances in mercury & me, and there was that whole musical biopic rocketman a few years back, which i enjoyed but retained zero information from apart from the fact that elton once tried to kill himself by jumping into a swimming pool in front of a group of people in broad daylight. he’s just sort of an omnipresent figure in the cultural consciousness.

i honestly don't remember the exact thing that prompted me to listen to his entire autobiography in one day; i think one of his songs just came up on shuffle on my drive to work and i thought "i bet there's a book about him" and there was. perfect. between my terry pratchett reading and starting dungeon crawler carl, i'm apparently on something of an 80's music legend deep dive. (david bowie is probably next, but i will say based on his cameos in the elton and mercury books, he doesn't seem like a very nice guy.)

my admiration and respect for elton john has only grown having read this book. i learned from its wikipedia page that it was ghost-written, which is fair enough because writing is its own challenging skill, and not everyone can take a break from their legendary music career to get a few first-pancake memoirs out of the way before writing a properly good one. i don’t think it detracted from the experience to know he had help writing it because i believe elton john genuinely is as funny and interesting as the book implies regardless.

take this passage for example, which made me laugh so much i had to stop watering the verbena for a second:

"If Billie asked for the van to pull over on the motorway because he needed to pee, you had to cancel what plans you had for the rest of the evening. You were there for hours. The noise from the bushes was incredible; it sounded like someone filling a swimming pool with a fire hose."

what prose.

here are some things i learned about elton john from this book:

• his parents were both quite abusive, especially his mom. he and jennette mccurdy could have a long conversation.

• he is an encyclopedia of musical knowledge and very interested in charts and statistics (a man after my own heart)

• he’s probably made out of concrete. this man performed with a failing appendix. he did cocaine for sixteen years straight. he has survived so much he is practically a modern rasputin

• speaking of that, MAN did he do cocaine. i knew this already from the freddie mercury book, but it’s unbelievable how much cocaine all these famous rockstars were doing. it makes you want to throw an arm around their shoulder and say "hey buddy, have you ever thought about not doing cocaine?" it took elton a while to think of that

• when he did think of it, he became incredibly committed to his recovery. he was an alcoholic, a cocaine addict, and a bulimic (let’s go ED recovery!) and he began attending AA meetings every single day for YEARS. since then, he has become the go-to person when a fellow celebrity is falling off the deep end. he’s a compassionate voice and a committed advocate for many important causes

• he, like freddie mercury, also spends truly unbelievable amounts of money on all manner of things. at one point he couldn’t even use his squash court because it was so full of stuff. the stuff was in the squash court because he ran out of room in the house. so he auctioned off almost everything he owned — including a huge fiberglass t-rex from ringo starr — not because he decided to reject all the materialism, but because he wanted to start from scratch and do it all again. sometimes i feel like exorbitantly wealthy people live on another planet

• he wrote ALL OF THE SONGS IN THE LION KING???? i had no idea!!! i also wasn’t sure if this was common knowledge or not, so i put a poll up on my instagram. half of the responders knew and half didn’t. so i think a lot of folks don’t know! hakuna matata, can you feel the love tonight, be prepared, ALL elton john baby

• he has a friendly feud with rod stewart that spans decades. it’s too much to summarize here so i found an article about it that i would highly encourage you to read if you’re interested. simply put, they will do anything to ruin each other’s lives and it’s genuinely hilarious. a quote from elton about it: “I’d been told I shouldn’t do any work. I should concentrate on getting well. But spoiling things for Rod has never felt like work, more a thoroughly enjoyable hobby.”

all in all, i was shocked by how much i enjoyed this book. it’s worth reading purely as entertainment even if you don’t care abut elton john at all. but if you do harbor even a scrap of interest in him, you will definitely love it

Witch Hat Atelier

let’s make one thing clear right out the gate: i do not usually like anime. i don’t say this out of some misguided belief that anime is embarrassing or to separate myself from people who regularly enjoy it. i say it to emphasize that getting me to sit down and watch an anime all the way through is like getting a cat to enjoy a dental cleaning. isis had to send me alluring little clips from this show over several weeks like a witch leading a lost child to her lair with candy. but by god, it worked. i did watch it. and you know what? it was really delightful.

let’s set aside the fact that it ends on a huge cliffhanger because i know there will be a season two eventually. i’m not even worried about the plot. i’m here for the vibes. it does regular have moments of exaggerated anime silliness, but surrounding that, the energy is quite ghibli-esque. the magic system is concrete and logical, which i am a huge fan of. and the characters — except for pink hair what’s-her-face, whose voice actor i cannot stand — are SUBLIME.

i would die for qifrey especially. we all know — maybe we don’t all know — but we all know right now because i’m telling you, i have a Thing about magicians and a Thing about teachers. i love people who do these things a lot extra by default. and this beautiful tall gay man with stupid glasses is BOTH? character of all time. DESIGNED for me to love him. he’s also a little scary sometimes, which adds to the appeal. and he has a great voice; i could listen to him talk for a thousand years.

gay idiot

furthermore, agott and coco are lesbians. i am not accepting questions about that.

there’s also a little creature called brushbuddy. brushbuddy is a rat from the woods. i would actually raze cities for this stupid thing

stop. look at that face

anyway — the animation is beautiful, the vibe is cozy, and the universe is a beautiful place to spend time. so despite my general resistance to anime still going strong, i remain logged into crunchyroll and am already seated for season 2.

Broadchurch Season One

i love broadchurch. i love this show so much. it makes me ill. i can’t recommend it to anyone with kids. but god the CINEMA??? THE DRAMA?? THE PERFORMANCES?? PHENOMENAL. my GOD it’s so well done. you can tell it’s good because despite making my stomach turn, i have returned to it every other year since i first saw it and probably will forever. season 1 is my favorite, season 2 is also good, season 3 i never finished beause i found the content too upsetting. i just rewatched season 1 this time.

if you can go in blind, do. what i’ll say of the premise is someone is found dead, and david tennant and olivia coleman need to figure out what happened. if david tennant were any more tightly wound in this show you could use his twiggy legs to uncork a wine bottle. meanwhile olivia coleman is also here, trying her best, and she is so sweet you want to wrap her in a blanket and send her far far away from this mess. but you don’t need to because she KICKS ASS. FANTASTIC characters with an impeccable dynamic.

if you like tragedy, if you like drama, if you like detective, if you like watching david tennant be constantly on the brink of heart failure, if you also like watching david tennant tie a tie without looking enough to skip back 15 seconds a few times in a row, if you want olivia coleman to be your aunt, if you would like to see the 7 actors they have in all of england do yet another project together, this is the show for you.

Deadpool & Wolverine 2024

do people know i love deadpool? i love deadpool. his are some of the only comics i have ever decided to read. i have seen every deadpool movie in IMAX within a week of release. you probably wouldn’t know unless i bring it up because i have zero deadpool themed items in my home beside the comics, but i am a huge fan.

i have had DMX’s X Gon’ Give It To Ya stuck in my head for four days. i love this song on its own merit, but it also reminds me of deadpool, so i love it extra. and because i was thinking of him, i decided to rewatch one of the movies at work today while watering plants.

i chose deadpool and wolverine because i’ve seen it the fewest times on account of it being the newest. great decision! goddamn this movie is fun. it’s basically a rom com. and it’s unbelievable how much it manages to push the envelope of the superhero genre even for a jaded audience who has seen this kind of thing a million times. on top of the scathingly witty dialogue, the plot is surprisingly cohesive given all the off-the-wall shit that happens. i don’t care about wolverine at all, but this movie made me love him. and as with every installment, it made me love deadpool even more.

ryan reynolds is a tour de force in these films. the performance is so distincly him, yet at the same time, it doesn’t feel like him at all. he melts seamlessly into the character. it’s captivating even on mute because the his movement alone is so captivating. everything he does is like a choreographed dance. especially the choreographed dance. i remember watching that opening scene in theaters and sinking back into my seat with comfort, knowing i was in good hands.

i know this style of comedy doesn’t land for everyone, the same way i cannot laugh at jim carrey no matter how hard i try, and that’s okay. if you get, you get it. and if you don’t, you enjoy something else just as much. personally, i love a story that doesn’t take itself seriously even in the opening credits. it’s irreverent. it’s camp. it pulls no punches. so i will probably continue to watch these gratuitiously crass and violent comfort movies to my dying day.

Critter of The Week

this RECLUSE SPIDER! HUGE AND BEAUTIFUL!

Internet Thing of The Week

United States five-dollar bill - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_five-dollar_bill

i found a $5 bill at work from 1997. for those of you keeping track, this means the bill was born before i was. but it got me curious about bill design, so i decided to read about the concept of the US $5 bill on wikipedia. turns out, this article rules.

i’m biased on account of my love for abraham lincoln. i do think the current bill portrait looks like a yassified version of the 1997 series, but he’s serving face either way. i just had absolutely no idea how MANY $5 bills we’ve had, nor how very deliberately engineered they are to prevent fraud, and it was really fun to read about.

Whatever Else of The Weekone

one of my many, many interests is flower mutation — specifically fasciation. it’s one of the only things i consistently love painting. our gerber dasies and rudbeckia have come up with these mutated blooms a few times over the season, and i’m always delighted to find them. they’re way cooler than a four-leaf clover.

final gratitude

this week i am grateful for my food processor. my mom got it as a wedding gift and gave it to me a few years ago. it’s built like a tank and will probably outlive me. i love that thing.

until next time, take care!

This Week in People Asking If I’m Pregnant

INCIDENT NUMBER THREE HAS ENTERED THE CHAT. this was a good one. conversation as follows:

customer who has been so friendly and normal up until this point: when are you due?
me, an auditory processing disorder haver: huh?
her, not taking the opportunity: when are you due?
me, thinking “the tier list is happening”: oh, i’m not pregnant.
her: oh my god i am so sorry. i’m so sorry.
me: it’s okay! it happens all the time
her, on the verge of disemboweling herself with an empty plant pot: IT’S NOT OKAY. I’M SO SORRY
me: it’s really fine
her, making it worse: well have you had any kids at all before?
me: no
her, with feeling: FUCK. I’M SO SORRY

she went from a C to a D by doubling down, but the immediate "FUCK" was hilarious enough to knock her back up several points. overall she’s getting a B for entertainment value.

i also got a cheeky little "and are you celebrating anything today? 👀" from a customer on father's day, which may or may not have been implying something. either way, S tier. i have no idea why she said it like that but the only good way to make a comment on someone’s pregnancy is to be unclear whether it was one at all.

i also told my friend julia (a nail tech) about this, and julia said she once had a client touch her stomach and go “awwww!” so julia said “that is my burrito,” at which point the woman removed her hand so fast she nearly broke the sound barrier. and then julia had to keep on doing her nails. what a story. i love julia.

so anyway here’s the tier list as it currently stands:

S: “are you celebrating anything today” (schrödinger’s pregnancy comment)

A: “i’m not saying anything unless i see legs hanging out” (except for how he did. great try ron')

B: “have you had any kids at all? FUCK” (HILARIOUS)

F: “are you pregnant? oh. bye” (bungled the execution AND the dismount)

The Work Report™

i continue to water for 5+ hours a day. i wake up each morning with sore finger joints from all the prolonged hose-clenching. the two balled monkey’s paw fists that i once called hands embody all the wishes i once harbored to work with plants again now reaping their ugly consequences.

the digiplexis gallons are the worst of it. bees love these plants, but the plants do not love the bees. they don’t love anyone or anything. they’ve no spirit of resilience to speak of. i soak every pot with a bargaining spirit, reminding the digiplexis what is like to be happy, telling it to think hydrated thoughts. this has no effect on them. eventually i resort to begging. "please get it together," i say through desperate tears. "you are my livelihood."

the digiplexis does not listen. they wilt in 13 seconds. i cry. i water them again.

recent highlights include:

• the baby robins that were born in the greenhouse are finally leaving the nest and learning to fly! molly and i spent a long time watching them yesterday. she told me about a bird of a different species that flew down to one of the babies and started flapping its own wings as if to say "like this!" which was adorable. at one point a baby robin was staring at the two of us, and at the exact same time we both started flapping our arms and saying "like this!"

• i met a lovely husband and wife from cape cod who were very excited to talk about the east coast and how wonderful it is. the man called BU "boulevard university" which is apt. apparently the woman used to do all the gardening for some institution out there, and they miss it enough that they’ve decided they’ll probably move back soon because who really needs to see the grandkids that often anyway. the man also told me "you look like your flowers — colorful and full of joy" which was very sweet and, notably, not related to me being pregnant. full marks

• i found maggots in the trash and sarah dealt with it instead of making me do it. thanks sarah

• really lovely note from caleb. yes he was asking me to do things but he drew a little flower:

  

  molly and i have at least one conversation a day about how great caleb is

Reaper Man Terry Pratchett

i’m still on the Death arc of the discworld series, so this one is a sequel to the book Mort from last week. in this one, Death is still seeming a bit too involved in human affairs after the events of the previous story, so he is deemed unworthy of his post and sent to become a real person who will one day die like everyone else. he is really really bad at all of it. also, with no one currently occupying the job while a new Death is developed, people who are meant to die just… keep going.
the way terry plays with this concept is, true to form, extremely funny. i loved every second we spent with the wizards especially. but this book also had a lot of heart. in Mort we see Death learning about things like drinking and dancing, the day-to-day of human life. in Reaper Man, we see Death begin to sincerely understand the deeper parts of the human experience — feeling, for the first time, what it is like to be mortal, to be moved by love, to receive kindness and give it in return. he gets a job working for an old woman harvesting her crops, and he comes to adore her, and she him. the story had a lot to say about the beauty and value in a human life, no matter how mundane it may be. it’s also a very sharp retrospective on what it feels like for your body to age underneath you.

one of my favorite passages was this, from Death’s inner monologue:

“Was that what it was really like to be alive? The feeling of darkness dragging you forward?

How could they live with it? And yet they did, and even seemed to find enjoyment in it, when surely the only sensible course would be to despair. Amazing. To feel you were a tiny living thing, sandwiched between two cliffs of darkness. How could they stand to be alive?

Obviously it was something you had to be born to.”

there is also an extremely beautiful scene that happens when Death finally meets his own mortality, but i won’t spoil it in case you read the book. it’s the line about the harvest’s hope. if you know, you know. that one will stick with me for a long time.

all in all, i loved this book, and i think next time i’m in a used bookstore i’m going to try to find it in paperback so i can go in and highlight things.

Soul Music Terry Pratchett

much like Going Postal centered around the invention of the post office, this book was about the invention of what the characters call "music with rocks in" — that is to say, rock music. it’s also about susan, Death’s granddaughter, temporarily taking over his job while he’s trapped in a hole. susan is awesome. she has white hair with a black streak and thinks she’s better than everyone and she is right.
the plot reminded me a bit of emmet otter’s jug-band christmas, a movie i have never seen in my life but have nonetheless experienced through an off-the-dome 30 minute summary from isis. (i did request this summary and it was incredible. it’s like the first paddington film in that i will never lay eyes on it because i know it can’t do justice to the follow-up i experienced first.) soul music’s story is not as cohesive and original as its predecessors, but it’s still fun. i will admit i think a fair bit of the book’s appeal went over my head because it is laden in references to pop culture moments in music with which i am not that familiar, the book being published in 1994 — but i bet my dad would love it.

one of my favorite jokes was about a female dwarf named gloria, which made me laugh so suddenly while brushing my teeth that i almost got toothpaste up my nose:

“Until an unfortunate ax incident, Gloria had been captain of the school basketball team. Dwarfs don’t have height, but they do have acceleration, and many a visiting team member got a nasty shock when Gloria appeared rising vertically out of the depths.”

i would do anything for gloria. trans icon. happy pride to gloria the dwarf specifically. i love you baby.

Critter of The Week

THE BABY BIRDS. they’re not singing. they just hang out with their mouths open in this very creepy manner

this one was chilling by the register for a good half hour. so brave!! so beautiful!!

Internet Thing of The Week

i really enjoyed this video from drew gooden on the current state of the music industry and streaming services, especially spotify. i knew it was bad, but i did not realize how bad. i think this video might actually be the thing that gets me off spotify forever to be so honest because oh my god.

obviously this is not a feel-good piece, but the tone of the video isn’t depressing either — at least to me. it’s drew doing what he does best, which is telling you about something awful in a way that still makes you laugh and leaves you feeling a bit hopeful despite the circumstances. it’s also very well-informed and clearly-structured. give it a watch!

Whatever Else of The Week

several things: first, this video of a guy dancing with his dog. i just really liked it. it’s 25 seconds long and it’s pure joy.

second: i was curious where it came from and i was ready to do a deep dive, but i immediately found this video with almost 57 views where some random person did it for me. he put a lot of effort into it and did find the answer. it’s a fun little journey! i love tiny internet discoveries like this. so here is that if you feel like watching it also:

AND FINALLY! a question from former coworker KC:

my answer is a human person because at least i would know when they are gone. there are also plenty of innocent reasons a person may be secretly inhabiting my attic but absolutely no reason for one thousand roaches to be chilling up there. isis said they’d rather find 1000 roaches unless they had swarmed into the shape of a person because that implies there might be a person under it. we had a long conversation about this because KC poses some excellent hypotheticals.

i bought a bubble cigarette this week and it’s been adding so much joy to my life. one of my favorite hobbies is being a weird NPC, and this has leveled up my game significantly. every time i’m at a red light now i whip out my bubble cig for the entertainment of the car behind me and it WORKS! it makes people smile and laugh and gives them a fun little story to tell whomever is waiting for them when they get home. the box it came in is also really fun to flip open and closed. it’s genuinely such a great product. i love it.

i also got this pair of CUSTOMIZED CROCS from my friend jacob! he decked my shoes out in exchange for an as-yet-to-be-made bee pendant. now my little frog and lizard can feel right at home. i love them. he goes by @thewaywardhare if any of you are looking to customize a pair of shoes or literally anything else.

Withhold Your Skepticism For I Assure You That This Is Great Soup

i had a jar of harissa to use up and this is how i dealt with it. i actually fuck heavily with this soup. it sounds insane but i promise it’s good

here is what i put in the soup, in decreasing order of how normal that ingredient is for this context:

• chicken flavored stock paste. i like the better than bouillon no chicken base

• a small box of crushed tomato

• tiny potatoes. like the size of a cherry tomato. smallest potatoes you can find

• one red pepper, chopped up

• half a red onion, minced to the best of my meager abilities

• a clove of garlic, minced very well actually. because it came pre-minced in a tube

• a can of chickpeas, drained, unless you’re a freak about aquafaba

• two zucchinis, sliced into full and half moons

• cumin, salt, and adobo

• a little bit of quinoa

• the whole jar of harissa. we had a mission here

• two mild japanese curry tablets because sure why not

• a little bit of minced ginger. this was ultimately unnecessary and i would probably skip it next time but i value our honest relationship so i’m telling you about it anyway. every time i encountered it while eating i was like “what the hell is that- oh it’s the ginger. well alright then”

• cinnamon and cocoa powder. stay with me here folks

• golden raisins. yes i said that. me and darcy: raisins in soup truthers

• half a tub of vegan yogurt. i don’t know how dairy would do with this but the vegan yogurt worked wonders to tamper the harissa spice and added a nice creaminess to the whole thing

i make no apologies and i would do it again.

final gratitude

this week i am grateful to every customer who tells me things like that it’s too hot and i shouldn’t be working in these conditions. i’m genuinely fine on account of my freakishly effective thermoregulatory capacity, but i am very grateful for their empathy. it is always heartening to be recognized as a fellow human being when you work in customer service.

until next time, take care!

This Week in People Asking If I’m Pregnant

folks, a second "are you pregnant" has hit the greenhouse, this time from a semi-regular landscaping customer named ron. i’m actually quite fond of ron. he’s the sort of charming older man who is so friendly it’s almost suspicious. you want a guy like ron at your family gatherings to liven up the energy, but you also wouldn’t be surprised to hear he has committed atrocious moral crimes. i am not sure on which side of the coin ron falls.

unlike josh shop ’n’ kart, who has pretended to forget my name at least once a week since march because he cannot think of anything else to say to me but desperately wants my attention, ron sincerely forgets my name all the time. which is fine by me, because i always think his name is bob, or maybe rob, or something like that. we have an understanding.

anyway, i saw ron today, who said, "alexis?" to which i responded, "so close! just kidding. not close at all." we had our little chat. and then he said, "i swore i would never ask this… you know what i’m about to ask, don’t you?" and i said "no," sincerely clueless, and he said, "are you having a baby?" and i said "no," sincerely uncomfortable. and he looked quite chagrined and said something about how i’m young and beautiful and in that era of life where his daughter had a baby and he recalled how exciting it was, but that he was so terribly sorry, and he should have known not to bring it up. i told him i simply had other stuff going on but he was not the first person to ask me that and it was quite alright.

ron and i continue chatting when he gets to the register, and i have to ask again for the name of his landscaping company, and he jokes that i totally knew already, and i say "yes of course, i was just pretending i forgot to make you feel better," and that gives him the perfect opportunity to continue apologizing. he said he made the same mistake about 30 years ago and had decided on that day, and i quote, "pardon my phrasing, but unless i see legs dangling out, i’m not saying ANYTHING." so i pointed at him and said, "but i GOTCHA!"

oh, ron. you were so sure this time. but you were once again mistaken. hey, it’s a great story to tell the grandkids.

the first minute or so after he said it, i felt a bit like when i was struck by a piece of firework debris in my neighbor’s yard as a child; but like on that fine july evening, the feeling soon passed, and i will probably suffer no long-term reperconcussions.

ron handled it all much better than the lady from the rotary club. but i must say, if this keeps up, i am going to make a tier list ranking the relative social grace of people who realize they are trying to congratulate me on an imaginary pregnancy. unfortunately this is only the second time it’s happened, so we don’t have a lot to work with; but if i need to get the ball rolling i may try casually resting my hands on the top and bottom of my stomach pooch and bouncing gently from side to side with a secret twinkle in my eye. i’ll report back with my findings.

honestly, i do understand where they’re coming from. if i were intentionally pregnant then i’m sure it would feel wonderful to be congratulated. but the idea of pregnancy is horrifying to me, and i have finally, sincerely come around on the whole being-single-forever thing. so unlike the first time this happened, my instinctive response was less "if only!" and more "you really think i would let some man do that to me? who do you think i am, ron?"

it’s alright, though. these two relative strangers were both correct to assume i am going through a big physical change that marks a positive new era of my life. and that my lower back probably hurts, and my breasts feel like bowling balls when i run down the stairs now. is it any of their business why that may be? of course not. but i appreciate that they’re trying to celebrate with me. i am also celebrating. they just don’t need to know the actual reason.

The Work Report™

work has been nice again! there was a good chunk in there where it was nice with my team, then it went back to not being nice on account of how much there was to do, and now it's back to being pretty alright. i do water plants for four or five hours a day every single day. but i have earbuds, so i'm not that upset about it. 
come july, i will need to start over immediately upon finishing those four or five hours, because the first plants i watered will have then been scorched dry by the brutal sun. i think at that point i'll have had my fill of pretty much everyone and everything. BUT:

1. i am going on vacation for 10 days out of the month, so i won’t have to deal with it the whole time, and

2. my boss sarah recently told me that the owner reeeaaally likes the management team we have and doesn’t want anyone to get burned out (i.e. quit because it is so fucking hot and miserable and they didn’t build any air conditioning in that greenhouse). so they’re going to start paying me and the other managers for 40 hours of work every week and only requiring us to work 32. i had what can only be described as a private ethical freakout over this, but the council (and other friends) steered me right — so i am going to take the free money even though i am leaving in october no matter what.

in the meantime, things are pleasant enough. i come to work, i survey my kingdom of plants, i do my little transactions, and the retirees are delighted my exciting makeup (winged eyeliner) and clothes (corduroy overalls). now and then i see a dog. now and always i see bugs and hummingbirds. it's a bit exhausting and endless, but there are certainly worse ways to earn a living.


some lovely customer interactions recently:

• a pair of ladies who sang along to the chorus of elton john’s goodbye yellowbrick road, and then said to me “come on, you know you want to join in!” i did join in. we all sounded like seagulls. it was sincerely beautiful

• someone told me i was CHANNELING PADDINGTON!!!! BECAUSE OF MY BRIGHT YELLOW PUDDLE BOOTS!!! (PADDINGTON ACTUALLY HAS RED PUDDLE BOOTS BUT I DIDN’T SAY THAT, I JUST TOOK THE COMPLIMENT)

• a lady coming in from the parking lot to return some cash she found on the ground on the ground by an old woman’s car to that old woman, who said to her, “i didn’t have any cash. how much was it?” “eleven dollars” “OH!! THAT’S MY CHANGE FROM WHEN I GOT MY SOUP” she then turned to me and said, again, “that’s my change from when i got my soup!”

• several people complimenting my new overalls with floral print. yes i did get another set of lucy & yak overalls, bringing my total up to eight pairs. in my defense, they were on sale.

i have also recently been accepted as a vendor by THE DRIFT! which is a local artist collective that sells locally made goods out of a cute store on the corner. i have several friends here who sell their art at the drift and recommend it. this is great news because it means i can start offloading all these bug dioramas i really do not fancy moving across the country with, and it also means i am officially achieving my goal of SELLING MY WARES THIS YEAR! i even ordered business cards! yay!!!

Mercury and Me Jim Hutton

one thing a lot of people only find out about me later is that i am a massive queen fan, but only sometimes. every few years i remember that they are one of the greatest bands in the history of music, and then i kind of move on with my life until something reminds me. on this go around the ferris wheel, it struck me that freddie mercury is the sort of public figure who, like marilyn monroe or jesus christ, has entirely transcended personhood. i knew his birth name was farrokh, that he was born in zanzibar, and that he was born with extra teeth. i was very curious how this human being became Thee freddie mercury, and what he might have been like underneath the persona. so i thought i’d read a book about it because reading biographies is what i do about everything.

also like marilyn monroe and jesus christ, it is hard to find a definitive biography of freddie mercury which isn’t driven largely by some sort of agenda and riddled with potential inaccuracies. i settled on mercury and me because it was written by freddie mercury’s husband, who was with him for years until he died. i figured that was as good a source as any.

you may recall from two paragraphs ago that i was looking for a book on freddie mercury’s origin story. this book was not that at all. but what i did learn from it is that farrokh bulsara was not the hidden person freddie mercury truly was when the cameras were gone. freddie mercury, in fact, was the person farrokh bulsara had been the whole time, and there was no persona whatsoever. that was just him.

the book was written by hutton and a cowriter named tim wapshott, because jim hutton was not the sort of person who would write a book, but he did have a story to share. it was an illuminating and delightful read. i learned a lot about jim, who was definitely an alcoholic, but also definitely the kind of person freddie mercury needed. this man was a hotel hairdresser who had no idea who freddie was the day they met; he actually told freddie to fuck off. the first concert jim hutton ever attended was live aid, which he watched from backstage. jim hutton cut david bowie’s hair once and barely said a word to him. freddie and jim treated their cats and koi fish like their children. i am now quite a fan of jim’s.

he and freddie had the kind of relationship i would not tolerate for a second, but it worked for them. my favorite facts about it were these:

1. jim eventually had to leave his job as a hairdresser, so freddie hired him as a gardener for their home. every morning freddie would go to their bedroom window, look out and find jim wherever he was in the garden, and call out “cooee!” before coming downstairs for morning tea

2. freddie mercury regularly went on shopping sprees where he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single day. so there was not a lot jim could think to buy him as a gift. what he ended up doing for freddie instead was learning how to build custom furniture for their home. freddie would ask for something, and jim would learn how to make it, and then create exactly what freddie wanted. the pieces meant much more to freddie because his husband had made them just for him.

3. this quote: "He constantly needed the reassurance that I loved him, and until the end would now and then ask whether I did. He knew I loved him, but he needed to hear me say it. Even though thousands of fans around the world loved him without ever having met him, the only person he seemed to want to know really did love him was me. His fondness for me made me feel very special. I'd never know anyone want my affection so much, and I was deeply flattered and loved him dearly in return."

in the end, this book was extremely tragic. jim hutton outlived freddie by about twenty years, and freddie’s close circle of friends fractured almost immediately upon his passing, which meant jim did not get to live in their shared home or continue to see their shared cats. he never had another partner after freddie. but they had a beautiful life together for the years they shared.

i’m sure there is controversy around jim’s interpretation of events, especially surrounding freddie’s death. but in the end i felt like this was as good a portrayal of freddie mercury the human being as i could have asked for. i would definitely recommend it to anyone interested.

Going Postal Terry Pratchett

this was the first discworld book i read several years ago and i absolutely loved it. i jumped into a few other ones afterwards, but none of them stuck at the time. no matter. i have decided this is going to be my Terry Pratchett Summer, so i read going postal again, and now i’m diving into the rest of the discworld books in.. some sort of order. we’ll see.

anyway: going postal. i didn’t know anything about the discworld universe going in and i still don’t, but that was just fine. this book stands wonderfully on its own as an introduction to terry’s worldbuilding and style. his voice as an author is phenomenal. it comes through with every single word. even the dialogue tags are funny. if this book had any more comedy packed into it the cover wouldn’t stay shut. the main character is one of my favorite archetypes — devilishly charming sort-of-ethical con artist turned do-gooder despite himself — and i loved every second i spent with him. the plot itself is absurd and delightful as well: moist von lipwig (that is his name) is almost hanged for his crimes but doesn’t quite manage to die, and then he is tasked with saving the dying post office by doing things like inventing stamps. it’s such a romp. if you have not read terry pratchett before, START.

Mort Terry Pratchett

terry pratchett summer continues!! as we have learned from previous newsletters, i like death stuff — dead bugs, meditations on mortality, my long-standing interest in funerary practices, etc. so when i saw that one of the discworld arcs followed the character of Death, i decided to start with that one.

this book follows a young boy named mortimer, or mort, as he becomes death’s apprentice ferrying souls into the afterlife. he just kind of needs a job and this is what he ends up with. death, meanwhile, starts attempting what can only be described as soft launch at retirement. he tries to understand things like “fun” and “drinking” while mort takes on more and more of his work, all the while trying to fix a separate mess he created by not allowing a princess to be assassinated when she’s absolutely supposed to. every single character in this story is a delight. i was especially fond of albert, death’s sniveling servant who is extremely amusing despite himself.

i can definitely see how terry’s writing evolved between the publishing of this book and going postal, which came out years later. it’s not so surgically sharp in this one as in my previous read. but it’s still so very terry, and his “quite good” outshines many authors’ “absolute best.” this story was excellent company during my long hours of watering, and i am really looking forward to the next one.

Critter of The Week

I FINALLY SAW A SNAKE AT WORK!!! isis has identified it as likely being a gopher snake. i was mesmerized. a customer had to call me on the phone to find out where i was because i was absent from the store for so long taking snake pictures.

Internet Thing of The Week

Create a Insects, Bugs And Arachnids Tier List

Rank 50 different Insects, Bugs And Arachnids

TierMaker

my truth

everyone please send me your bug opinions!!! please

Whatever Else of The Week

per my dear friend lydia’s request, here are some cat pictures:

vin

also vin

still vin

i can’t believe it’s not vin! just kidding. it is vin

“I Could Totally Make This” Farmers’ Market Salad Bowl

we love her

this is one of those meals that’s sooo easy to make once you think of it, but you do need to think of it. it lasted all week and was so filling and delicious.

ingredients:

• cherry tomatoes, halved

• cucumber, chopped

• feta (i used Follow Your Heart vegan feta crumbles)

• red onion, chopped

• falafel

• chickpeas straight from the can

• naan

dressing:

• just any vinegar you want

• some oil. whatever

• salt and pepper

• shakey shakey. bam, dressing

steps:

1. chop everything up while you toast the naan

2. put it in a bowl

3. add dressing

4. enjoy

final gratitude

this week i am grateful that my friends know they can come to me when they're upset. it means a lot.

until next time, take care!

This Week in Pondering

astute readers may recall my original plan A, before i even found an apartment here in oregon, was to stay here for a year and then do who knows what. that soon formed into staying here for three years, which became two, and is likely now returning back to one. we haven't officially decided yet, but the more i think about it, the better it sounds.

there are many reasons for this, the greatest among them being that i've sort of hit a wall with how much i'm able to do in this place. my job does not allow nearly so much scheduling flexibility as i expected, and with my other weekly commitments, i can't realistically add much else to the docket. things like, you know, enjoying living here. going on adventures. that sort of nonsense.

this, combined with a few other factors, makes it feel a bit like treading water to stay.

ultimately, moving here has achieved exactly what i hoped it would. i have done a great deal of growing in very little time, lived next to my best friend, added some incredibly valuable experience to my resume, and — above all else — tried something very different. the annual theme, of course, was "insight," which i knocked so far out of the park it has probably reached low earth orbit by now. so all in all i consider this move a very good use of time and energy — provided i only expend one year's worth of them.

so where might i go next? well, i have strongly considered returning to massachusetts for a spell — astute readers may recall this also — but ultimately i think the cost of living is just too high to make it worthwhile. it is tempting to return somewhere that feels like home after such a long time away, but i have already done the hard work of leaving there and am not keen to do it again.

new jersey calls, as it always has. this time i intend to listen.

as excited as i am, it's also a bit terrifying to have this big goal in sight all at once. it's a little "oh my that iceberg really did come upon us quite quickly." i suppose that makes it sound like a bad thing — what i mean is, it's a bit like going on a date with someone whom you actually hope to marry, rather than someone who is just interesting enough for now. there are actual stakes involved.

ultimately, though, i have never been much of a casual person. i enjoy investing in things. i check my credit score like a lottery ticket and tailor almost all my clothes. but since leaving my parents' house eight years ago, i have moved five times, so i’ve never been able to invest much in my home.

it's time to dig my heels in. i am putting a proverbial ring on my future, and we're having a late autumn wedding.

The Work Report™

it's official: everyone is gone. except molly sometimes. and jess for a few hours on my days off). the vibe now is like being the last kid to get picked up after school, except the teachers have also left, so it's just you standing in an empty parking lot waiting for something to happen and being disappointed.

but before all that, there were lots of kind and wonderful goodbyes that i will sincerely cherish forever. little gifts were also passed around. i gave everyone custom pins made by ohboyart (a lovely boston artist available for all your pin-making needs!), and i received many goodies! bath salts and a copy of the tao te ching from tyler, a dieffenbachia propagation from amara, and BEAUTIFUL framed artwork made with preserved plants and a hawk moth created by jill.

my beautiful wonderful jill art

my “itty bitty diffy” whom i will carry in my hand through TSA like a human baby

in the meantime, i applied to sell my bug dioramas at a local store because i really just need to be rid of them at this point, and my application was accepted! which is also terrifying! it's an artist collective called The Drift. and now i actually have to sell things there. i am not really in this for the money, so the pricing is just going to be based on vibes. i also have to get business insurance and probably some sort of business cards or... displays or something. i have nothing to show for my Brand and no idea what i'm doing. it's a disaster. but like, it’s fine.

The Magnus Archives THE WHOLE THING

i FINALLY finished the magnus archives. the final season was like an odyssey through hell. somehow they stayed true to the anthology format through everything, which i respect greatly. there was some truly awesome stuff in there that i can't really get into without ruining it, as usual, but i will say the garden episode really struck a chord. 
the ending episode though......... controversial. bold. not bad, but not my favorite either? i don't think it was a conclusion commensurate to 200 episodes of build-up, but i didn't dislike it per se. it just felt a little unsatisfying to me after so much anticipation. at the same time, not everyone can be brandon sanderson, and there was enough humor and heart in the whole experience that it was still absolutely worth listening to for me. the main narrator, jon, will have a special place in my heart forever. i love him. and his voice is beautiful and soothing enough to put me instantly at ease despite the things he's saying being incredibly unsettling most of the time. 
this podcast also got me through all the overtime and nonstop manual labor i was doing through april and may, and for that i owe it my life. i will probably end up returning to it in the future.

The Sunset Tree The Mountain Goats

i think the thing that's going to get me through the next few months at work, now that the magnus archives is done, is the mountain goats' entire discography and every terry pratchett book i can get in audio format from the library. the sunset tree is where i'm starting.
this album is about john darnielle's childhood and adolescence, specifically in relation to his abusive step-father. i think both sonically and lyrically, it's probably the strongest mountain goats album out there — something akin to john vanderslice's life and death of an american four-tracker, which another one of my all-time favorite records. (imagine my surprise when i found out he was the producer for this one!)
i have to admit i'm not usually a "singer with a guitar" kind of music enjoyer, even though that's almost the only kind i can write. most vaguely melancholy ballads are a bit samey to me. but john darnielle, with his desperate, reedy voice and stripped-back instrumentals, transcends genre. mountain goats songs are more than the sum of their parts. they reach into my chest and envelop my heart directly. i am reminded of john green's declaration that his favorite band is the mountain goats, and his second favorite band is also the mountain goats.
i think what strikes me most about this album is its simplicity for how impactful it is. the lyrics are clear and direct, beautifully metered, and they get into me like a knife so sharp i can't even tell what happened until i'm already bleeding. there's no way to express how it feels besides listening to it all the way through. even lyric snippets miss their full effect when taken outside their context. but i'll nonetheless share some of favorite snippets in the hopes that it will convey some aspect of their larger beauty — and also because i want to.

dilaudid
All the chickens coming home to roost
Plump bodies blotting out the sky
You know it breaks my heart in half, in half
When I see them trying to fly
'Cause you just can't do
Things your body wasn't meant to

dance music
Launches a glass across the room, straight at her head
And I dash upstairs to take cover
Lean in close to my little record player on the floor
So this is what the volume knob's for

up the wolves
There's bound to be a ghost at the back of your closet
No matter where you live
There'll always be a few things, maybe several things
That you're going to find really difficult to forgive
There's gonna come a day when you feel better
You'll rise up free and easy on that day
And float from branch to branch, lighter than the air
Just when that day is coming, who can say? Who can say?

hast thou considered the tetrapod
And then I'm awake and I'm guarding my face
Hoping you don't break my stereo
Because it's the one thing that I couldn't live without
And so I think about that and then I sorta black out
Held under these smothering waves
By your strong and thick-veined hand
But one of these days
I'm going to wriggle up on dry land

pale green things
My sister called at 3 AM
Just last December
She told me how you'd died at last
At last?

Critter of The Week

this little spider that got nervous about me pruning leaves and tried their best to squish down as small as possible

Internet Thing of The Week

Phil Edwards

researching and reporting various rabbit holes.

YouTube'

i stumbled across this channel the other day and can’t recommend it highly enough. the tone, research, and topics are 10/10. i especially liked this video about how playground design has changed over the past decades:

Whatever Else of The Week

i really enjoyed this episode of the podcast Hyperfixed about this guy who started a group that protests car-centric infrastructure in los angeles by painting code-compliant sidewalks onto the street in areas where pedestrians have been injured or killed. it’s extremely targeted to my interests.

juuuuuune

Playlist · luciabee · 136 items

Spotify

this month's mix is a beast. it features several full length albums and the vibes are all over the place. but to me it makes perfect sense and is everything i need

final gratitude

this week i am grateful for my earbuds. they are the only pair i’ve ever had and i drop them constantly and they never let me down. they make everything more bearable.

until next time, take care!

This Week in Pondering

you mustn't take this as an alarming sign, especially after my extended absence, but lately I've been pondering how comfortable i've become with my own death.

in some of my younger years, life seemed relentlessly, agonizingly long. i didn't know that i could bear it all. at the same time, i remember being terrified of mortality because i had not yet known true peace or happiness. there was this underlying sense that i had to be well, or else it would not be okay for me to die one day.

i've had many moments since then where i thought, "yes. right now. right now it would be okay for me to go." these were experiences of joy so absolute that the idea of there being nothing more, nothing next, came to me with no resistance whatsoever. oftentimes the context was simple. listening to the beatles in my bedroom. finally seeing the strokes in concert after a decade of waiting. looking at a beautiful pond.

these moments, once rare, now happen often. i do not have to be in the midst of one to access the peace they offer me. my life has seen such complete and overwhelming joy, and so easily, that i could not possibly find fault with it -- even if it were to end earlier than i might prefer.

i don't think that it will. of course i don't know for certain. but anything can happen to anyone, including old age, and i am not afraid of that either. i know my life can only get better as it goes because that's all its ever done. what else is there to do but deepen my relationships, grow better at everything i practice, and know more than i did yesterday? be moved by yet more new stories? experience all the time i will ever have with my cat?

doesn't that sound wonderful?

i am aware this may come across as the delusional optimism one can only harbor when they're too young to know better. i am, despite my best efforts, only 26. but i have found that the older i get, the merrier i am. and i have seen enough to know that nothing will ever be harder than middle school.

who's to say! maybe i am wrong. maybe you do know better. but if that is the case, you'll just have to find it in your heart to let me go on being naive.

The Work Report™

work has taken subsumed everything for me in the past month. i have barely had time to think. the overtime i pulled was frankly absurd — one of my biweekly timesheets had over 100 hours on it — and i am not looking forward to doing that again next year. but thankfully the peak of the season has passed, so things will soon return to me and my podcasts and my regular drudgery.

in the meantime, the team i've hired has become an honest to god little family. it feels like the end of summer camp. we keep talking about how much we love each other and hugging and crying and sharing our painful pasts. and we are so tired. most of the crew would like the job to last all year, but most of them could also use a break after all of this. it's a bittersweet end.

if they want to come back next season, there will be a place for each of them. but we all hope that no one will. we want each other to find full time work and benefits and a higher wage, and to not be available seasonally ever again.

whether this comes to pass will be anyone's guess. but either way, i will be happy for them. and it was a blessing to have worked with such sincerely incredible people for this brief time that we had together.

Taskmaster Series 21, 2026

if you've never seen taskmaster, you are so, so lucky, because now you get to watch all of taskmaster for the first time. the premise of the show is an extremely tall man named greg davies (said master of tasks) and alex horne (his lowly assistant who is secretly the mastermind behind the entire show) provide challenges to a group of comedians (victims) and award them points for their relative success. the tasks are filmed separately over the course of a year, and for each season, they all come together to watch how each other did and be scored as a group. they also do live tasks in teh studio. the winner by the end of the season gets a golden bust of greg davies' magnificent head.

this show is just… indescribably funny. i grin from ear to ear the entire time i’m watching. there's literally nothing else like it — dropout's gamechanger is probably the closest comparison, but still, that's like comparing a perfectly ripe melon to an ice cream cone. you simply won't understand what makes this show so special until you watch it for yourself.

if you're not sold on the premise alone, try a compilation or two to get your feet wet. i'd recommend this one. then whenever you're ready, you can watch the entirety of every single season on youtube for free. the episodes come out as they air, so you can mark on your calendar ahead of time that you're going to be really happy that day.

my all-time favorite seasons are probably five and seven. but there is genuinely not a single flop of a season out there, and this current one has been such a joy to keep up with over the past few weeks. i was especially excited to see kumail on because i loved him as prismo and in the big sick. his rules lawyering has been a DELIGHT to watch. but as always, every cast member has their own special energy they bring to the table, and the group of them together is far more than the sum of its parts.

i also just really enjoy watching greg davies be bitchy in an all-black suit.

The Big Sick dir. Michael Showalter

since i've been seeing a lot of kumail, i decided to revisit this movie of his and his wife's from several years ago. it's a heartwarming romance based on their actual relationship, and the humor and sincerity that tie it together are grounded in a way you don't often get with purely fictional romantic dramedy. if you haven't seen it, i did just spoil for you that they get married; but i will also tell you that their eventual marriage doesn't even end up onscreen. instead, we follow their relationship from its inception and through what must have been the most intense experience either of them had ever been through, either separately or together. i will also tell you they spend a good portion of the film without interacting at all. you will have to watch it to see what actually happens. but without spoiling more, i can confidently say i have never heard of a story like theirs, and it was absolutely worth committing to film.

The Fox and The Hound (1981)

my dad never let me watch sad movies as a child if he could help it. bridge to terabithia snuck up on him, much to his chagrin. his intentions were good — the man did not want to cause me pain on purpose — but what he failed to account for was that i would turn out to be a person who absolutely loves crying. so in retrospect i do feel a bit robbed by this.
the result of his "no sad movies" rule was that i missed out on bambi, brave little toaster, and every other sad animated thing that traumatized my peers. 

BUT. my dear friend isis recently posted a clip on their instagram story from the fox an the hound — specifically the scene where the fox gets abandoned in the woods forever and ever. i instantly started sobbing so hard i could not even believe it. and i thought that was hilarious. so i was laughing at how hard i was sobbing, which was like pop rocks for the soul. anyway i decided to watch the movie as soon as possible.
it was lovely!! heartbreaking!! beautifully animated. the story was very sweet. it was comforting even as it was devastating. i love a story about the power of friendship, and this one did a lovely job exploring that theme. also, i'm gonna kill that old man with my bear hands. yes, bear.

The Iron Giant (1999)

the sad children's movie trend continues! this one i watched in sync with isis while taking a bath. it was a great bath made even better by my pool of tears. the animation in this one was gorgeous — it felt nostalgic despite my never having seen it before because it so accurately captured the feeling of a new england childhood. i'm told by isis it's also very maine-specific, which explains why this child named hobart had his own personal rifle. rich in sentimentality and anti-war propaganda, there was something in this movie for everyone, as long as you don’t worship the military. the titular iron giant was pure of heart and dumb of ass in the most endearing way possible. i would die for him.

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

also recently revisited call me by your name for what must have been the actual thousandth time. this was the first romance i ever read in my life, so it holds a special place in my heart. i remember being at my college orientation and feeling physically incapable of putting it down. teens were wandering around socializing and playing pool, but i was both mentally and physically on the edge of my seat wondering what would become of this little italian twink and the visiting academic.

the story itself is written in a whirlwind, with fantasy taking up as much space as reality and memories blurring and flipping past like pages of an old notebook. the prose ranges from intensely poetic to mildly disturbing, as it never shies away from the ugly aspects of singular, obsessive desire.

of course the story orbits around sex and queerness — but it is no more a story about those things than the nativity is a story about a woman having a baby. the meaning, the soul behind it, cuts far deeper, and this is why the book stuck with me so relentlessly in the following years. call me by your name, more than anything else i’ve read, embodies the delicate helix of desperation, passion, and grief that arises from loving someone wholeheartedly whom you know is only temporary in your life. it also explores raw vulnerability beyond what is romantic and into what would widely be considered depraved. i won’t even get into how devastatingly it captures the relentless passage of time.

this story stares its themes directly in the eyes and does not blink. every time i read it, it breaks my heart into a million pieces. and ever time i read it, i know i am going to do it again.

Critter of The Week

the HAWK MOTH. it’s one of the birdiest bugs out there.

Internet Thing of The Week

The Cat Scan

this entire account is just kitties sitting on scanners. it’s beautiful.

www.thecatscan.tumblr.com

Whatever Else of The Week

caleb found a SNAKE

Brother Salad

my brother texted me a picture of a salad he made and i immediately decided i needed to recreate it. it was awesome.

ingredients:

• celery

• broccoli

• avocado

• cherry tomatoes

• cucumbers

• cilantro

• leaf (i used spinach)

• rice (i used rice/lentil blend)

dressing:

• 1 part EVOO

• 1 part apple cider vinegar

• salt

• pepper

get muching!

final gratitude

this week i am sooooooo so grateful for the stories that follow me through the eras of my life. they are magic. i owe them everything.

by the way, i did have to change my dates for the july trip to the east coast. so now i am arriving on the 15th, leaving for maine on the 20th, and flying back west on the 23rd. if all goes according to plan, this will allow me to procure creature drawings from the mcelroys. nobody tell peter win.

until next time, take care!

This Week in Pondering

hey guys! this week i’ve been pondering a good many things. mostly, though, i have been processing emotional whiplash. i cannot discuss all of it, but i can talk about the parts that only involve me.

a few days ago i was approached at work by a woman who attended my talk at the rotary club in march.

“i know you, you gave a talk at the rotary club!” she said.

“oh yes, i remember you!” i lied. (i have moderate face blindness. i don’t remember anyone i met only once a month ago.)

we exchanged some small talk for a minute, then as she was leaving, it occurred to her that she had forgotten to be impolite. so she turned back around and abruptly said, “are you pregnant?”

“no :)” i replied.

“oh! i know it’s usually not the kind of thing you’d even ask,” she said, displaying a self-awareness that would almost be encouraging if not for her complete disregard for it three seconds earlier. “well anyway, take care!”

it’s quite impossible that i would be pregnant right now for many reasons, and i’m still not even sure i want kids at all. i think if that ever happens for me, i will likely adopt a 10- to 13-year-old. but apart from the obvious “thank you ever so much for sharing your theory on the extremely personal nature my changing body” aspect, it made me sad to think there is a life i might have had where i enjoyed the kind of stability that would allow me to make such a choice as pregnancy, despite it also being the stuff of my nightmares.

brains are complex organs.

so anyway, this woman left, and i was suddenly hit with the weight of all those feelings regarding my body and my life and other people’s opinions about them being relentless and inescapable. i stepped away to go sob in my car for a few minutes, which helped. but i simply did not have the time to process everything in the moment because it was a busy day and molly was on lunch, so i pulled myself together as best i could and went back in there.

jill, being wonderful, asked if i was alright. i said i was, but with those words i lost my composure again. so i corrected myself that i wasn’t, and i may, in fact, need to go home. i apologized.

“you go take care of you,” she said. “it’s a job, not a life.”

i waited for molly to return from lunch, then made my way to the office to return my walkie before leaving. i found that my boss was at my desk using the safe. not wanting to explain why i was leaving, i hovered around for a moment, and she took the opportunity to share some news.

“while i have you here,” she said, “i wanted to commend you on your management. you’re doing an amazing job! your leadership is incredible and your team is excellent. it’s the best communication we’ve ever seen in the store. we keep waiting for the other shoe to drop but nothing has happened! it’s just going really well. so i wanted to take a moment to share with you how impressed we are and tell you we really appreciate your hard work.”

to hear this when i was already in such a fragile state, and immediately after such an unintentionally hurtful comment, was overwhelming. i thanked her profusely.

then she said, “because of that, we’d like to give you a raise! you’re worth more, and we know now that we can give you more, so we wanted to give it to you now.”

“CONGRATULATIONS LUCIAAA!” the owner shouted from her desk in the corner.

it was over for me. i started crying again.

i was not aware that an unasked-for raise was something a workplace could provide. i was planning to ask for one in eight months during my annual review (because if you don’t ask the answer is always no), but i was honestly not expecting to get it. to be handed free money on account of simply doing my job was not in my mental list of possibilities.

but of course this was incredibly welcome — if shocking — news, and it ruined my plans to go home early on account of feeling terrible. so i went on my break, called hannah to recount what had happened (they informed me that i AM pregnant. pregnant with a HEALTHIER FOOD MINDSET), and then headed back into the store.

the rest of the day was quite lovely. and my days off after that were very enjoyable as well. i went to the farmers’ market, where everyone was extremely kind and several folks gave me some extras for free, and then had my own little picnic in the adjacent park. it was a perfectly beautiful spring day with a light breeze and heavy sunshine. i told my parents on the phone about being in recovery, something i’d been afraid to do until now, and the conversation actually went very well. so all in all, it was an eventful but positive week.

The Work Report™

it's getting. SO. BUSY. we had a rainy couple weeks in april that staved off the inevitable, but all that did was truncate the customer chaos into a smaller time frame. weekdays are extremely pleasant, but on weekends i feel my sanity slipping away with each passing moment. we're all running on fumes. it's beautiful as hell but i don't even notice because i'm so busy being accosted at every turn. it's like the spongebob perfume department sequence for nine hours straight, but instead of being assaulted by fragrances, it's questions like "why don't you have" and "where is your" and plant stuff you could find out on google in thirteen seconds. we spend so much time each morning folding up cardboard trays, and by the end of a shift an entire pallet of them has evaporated into nothing. i'm sure the profits are amazing, but part of me does yearn to return to myself and my podcasts and five customers a day. there are pros and cons to all things.

onto the highlights!

• there are BABY FINCHES in the greenhouse!! i saw their mother feeding them grubs! here's a little video of it

• a few weeks ago i accidentally injured a poor innocent frog who had been hiding beneath one of the trays of begonias. when i moved the tray, the frog leapt out from under it and, in the process, lost an eye. i was beside myself. it eventually hid somewhere safe, and i just hoped he would be okay but continued to worry about it. well GUESS WHAT!! THIS WEEK I SAW THE FROG AGAIN, AND HE WAS TOTALLY FINE! his eye had completely healed over and he was just minding his business enjoying the begonias again. yay!!

  

  lost in the sauce

• i almost bumped into a customer by accident while watering and said, "oh, excuse me!" and he raised his arms and said "you're the one with the hose!" so i held it up like a weapon and said "PUT THE PLANT DOWN" and he thought that was hilarious

• a woman asked me if we had a restroom or a tree she could pee behind. i directed her to the outhouse, and when she came back she said it was the cleanest outhouse she'd ever seen and "it didn't even stink!" i thought it was very funny that she reported back on her experience

• one employee in production had radioed the owner to tell her he was waiting by her house for help with something. she said "i'll be there in a sec! you can head in for coffee if you want" and he said "but what would everyone SAY"

• molly is a really wonderful person and has brought a lot of care and empathy to the job this week in particular. one customer bought three flats of plants and molly was going to help her carry them out, but got caught up in something else. the woman ended up forgetting to come back for her third flat. so molly tracked her down on facebook and messaged her to tell her the plants were still set aside and she could come pick them up any time

• another thing molly did: we had an older woman come in and purchase some very large, heavy hanging baskets of flowers. she was a very sweet lady. molly got to chatting with her and found out the baskets were for her husband's memorial. she gave the woman her cell phone number and told her to call if she needed help with moving them, planting, or anything at all

• pineapple sage. it smells incredible. i love shoving my face in it every single day

  

  this is the good stuff

on a separate note, i’ve been doing a lot of work with circuits and electricity at the museum, and at one point a parent showed up alone to fiddle with the activity while his kid ate lunch. it turns out he’d been an electrician for ten years and this was exactly his jam. i just kept silently putting pieces in front of him to see how he’d react like i was studying some intelligent problem-solving bird. he ended up making this beautiful monstrosity, which powered the motor, three solid color lights, and one color-changing light:

i love this guy

The Magnus Archives Podcast by Jonathan Sims et al.

i know i'm very late to this train, but apparently a bunch of my friends are currently listening to this podcast for either the first or millionth time, so i decided to hop on myself. every time i've been hanging on by a thread over the past two weeks, the magnus archives was that thread. i have been mainlining episodes like that one image of elmo doing coke.

i'm such a sucker for episodic creepy stories that may or may not end up being connected through one larger narrative. (i got really into the x files as an 11-year-old and never fully recovered.) i would describe the vibe of TMA as equally eerie and cozy, made so by the excellent writing, fuzzy tape recorder audio, and primary speaker's dark, soothing voice. the characters have rapidly become endearing and familiar to me, but i know there's still much more to learn. it's been a blast having those "aha" moments as i piece some hints together from a few different stories, and the more action-oriented episodes where we hear events transpire in real time are an exciting treat to punctuate the typical format. i don't have much else to say at the moment because i'm not even halfway finished, but i can assure you i will not rest until i get there. i'm on media lockdown until i find out all the answers. it's just me, this podcast, and whatever youtube video is lucky enough to catch me off guard and sneak a few minutes in edgewise.

Critter of The Week

it’s yet another jumping spider. i love them so much

Internet Thing of The Week

Your Name in Landsat 🛰️

Type your name and see it spelled out in stunning Landsat satellite imagery. Explore Earth from space, letter by letter, with NASA and USGS Landsat images.

science.nasa.gov/specials/your-name-in-landsat

look what nasa did!! this is so cool! here's mine:

Whatever Else of The Week

i really liked this post i found on the /r/fuckeatingdisorders subreddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckeatingdisorders/comments/1hz5rdb/read_this_think_about_it/

final gratitude

this week i am especially grateful for my ability to pick myself back up, and to laugh through anything. these two skills have gotten me very far. i learned them through practice and through watching my friends.

until next time, take care!

This Week in Pondering

this week i've been considering what leadership entails.

i think many people consider management a promotion because it typically comes with both a pay raise and an absolution of the more unpleasant duties in a workplace. things like taking out the trash or working long hours become the domain of the lowly, and you, as a manager, just get to bask in the glory of telling people what to do. you add value by Being In Charge and Making Important Decisions, and no one who isn't a manager can possibly understand the amount of stress you are under.

i think that's horseshit.

frankly, if all you do is delegate, management should come with a pay cut. you're doing less. you're just organizing other people's labor, which is not nearly so valuable as the labor itself. it is a skill, but it's not a special one.

however you should not merely delegate. you should take your job seriously. you should do everything you possibly can. far from being above certain work, you ought to be the first person in line for every unpleasant task, because you are getting paid more. you should check in with your team, frequently, to provide them an opportunity to tell you what they need or show you what they're doing well. you must have every difficult conversation a situation demands of you. you must also verbalize your appreciation in detail wherever possible. you must be your best self at all times because you set the tone, and your team is relying on you to be a safe, dependable person. and you need to do this without ever complaining. you need to do it gladly, because you are sparing your team from having to bear any of these things themselves. you get paid more in order to work harder and be better. that is what you sign up for when you agree to be in charge. it should not be less work. it should be much, much more.

it is also more responsibility — not just horizontally, but vertically. when you're in charge of others, every single thing is your domain. everything that goes wrong under your leadership, every mistake made, is ultimately on you. it doesn't matter who did it or why. it is your job to make sure your team has the information, support, and training needed to achieve the goals you've set together. when they fail, it is a reflection on your decisions. and if they are determined to do a horrible job no matter what, it is still on you for hiring the wrong person for that role.

conversely, every time your team succeeds, it is their own doing. they are choosing to bring their best selves to the table. you can give them everything they could possibly need, but you cannot make them excellent employees. they do that on their own. they are only motivated because they care. and you should never, ever take that for granted.

the common theme in all this is that, to me, leadership is a service position. you are entirely beholden to your crew. you are nothing without them, and they do not owe you anything beyond the bare minimum. you have no authority except as they choose to give it to you. at every turn, your work should be for them. not for your boss, not for your customers — for your team. they are the most valuable asset you have because they are the fundamental building blocks that allow a business operate. it is in your best interest to do everything within your power to lift them up.

beyond mere capitalism, i sincerely believe that all positions of authority are, when viewed accurately, positions of service in exactly the same way. from teaching to politics to caregiving, when you have structural power over another human being, it is your duty to serve them with all the empathy and compassion you have it within you to give. and you do owe it to them. because you did not have to step up to be in charge. if you can’t handle what it takes to do this well, then you owe it to everyone to let someone else take the wheel. but if you know you're the best person available, then you also owe it to everyone else to take it. we should not seek out power to fuel our own ego. we should humbly accept it, only when it is asked of us, and only because it is the right thing to do.

The Work Report™

• i keep a secret box of treats and snacks stocked for my team. upper management doesn't know about it, but i don't think anyone here is paid enough, so the least i can do is keep them nourished. i never eat the snacks myself because that's not the point. but JILL, returning the sentiment, BROUGHT ME CARA CARA ORANGES 😭🍊 

  

  WE LOVE JILL

  
  these are some of my favorite fruits in the whole world!! and they were organic even. i love jill. she is so kind

• long story short there was a dead bird in our ventilation tube that i wanted to harvest for parts (and then respectfully lay to rest) and three of my coworkers spent a good 20 minutes helping me retrieve it. molly held my ladder, amara held a cardboard tray with which to catch the bird, and jess provided instruction for aiming my long pokey stick. we all shared in the victory when i eventually got it out. it turns out i accidentally hired a bunch of very chill people, which makes me so happy. i love my team

  

  my view from atop the ladder after our successful retrieval. amara left, jess right, bird lump center

• molly was having a tough day and texted her friend about how sad she was that she had run out of coffee. her friend immediately offered to drive over to bring her more, and molly was so moved by the love she felt for her that she started crying tears of joy and gratitude and saying, “i love her”

• one of my team members just suffered the loss of a pet, so she's been grieving something fierce. but everyone has been so kind and supportive about it, and at one point this week we all had a conversation where we laughed so hard we cried. it was wonderful to see this person laughing with her whole body even as she processes such a devastating experience

• one of the owner's dogs hopped on the cart with jess while she was stocking and would not get down, so they just went for a little drive together

  

  i still don’t know the dogs’ names

• amara (at my request) went through and listed where all the different colors of geraniums were, and afterwards she came to me with some strong opinions about their labels: "they named a pink flower 'shocking blue.' and the shocking thing is that it's NOT BLUE."

• caleb chipped a tooth and had to come in late one day due to the emergency dental work. i left this on the whiteboard:

  

  
the next time he saw me, he said "lucia... i have a tooth to pick with you"

• molly was really sleepy on a slow, rainy day and at point point i turned around to see her sprawled across the register like this, which was equal parts silly and relatable

  

  honk shoo honk shoo

• i always get really excited about the frogs in here, and one of my team members picked out this sticker for me in celebration of this fact

  

• amara texted me this picture of a ROBIN'S NEST in one of our FUCHSIA BASKETS on my day off

  

• amara also put together this list of spanish language phrases we can use with spanish-speaking customers. she put a lot of thought and care into this list, and that meant a lot to me to see. there’s not much diversity here, and hearing the rare customer speaking spanish makes me miss my mom. i cried a little when amara showed me her list. it meant a great deal.

Titanic (dir. James Cameron)

titanic is one of my top ten favorite movies ever. i rewatch it every few years and am consistently awestruck by how captivating, beautiful, and effective the experience continues to be. my favorite thing about it is how the first half and second half are completely different genres. i assume we’ve all seen titanic already, and we probably already have our opinions about it, so i’ll spare you the pitch. this time around i decided to make a note of the thoughts i had as i watched, and the details i often forget between viewings, which were as follows:

• i always forget how modern the framing timeline feels. there's a watchmen graphic tee in this movie. it feels so anachronistic to say so, and yet those details ground the film into the 2026 present despite it being filmed 30 years previous. the only giveaway is their VHS footage of the wreck — but in concert with the dialogue, costuming, sets, and and even film-making language itself, this is an easy detail to look past. titanic feels incredibly recent even in our current, rapidly-changing world

• rose tries to KILL HERSELF. i know this scene is iconic for being hers and jack’s first meeting, but i think we often gloss over the fact that this woman is so miserable she is genuinely considering ending her own life. she is not whiny. she is at her limit. she would have been relieved to drown with the ship, if not for jack.

• rose is a compelling character to me in general because she has genuine flaws. she feels trapped by her life, she is terrified of her fiance, and her mother’s love is conditional, which explains a lot of her behavior. but she also thinks her mother is being selfish for putting pressure on her to marry that fiance and save their family from falling destitute after her father’s death. and, frankly, she's wrong for that. this man is awful and rose shouldn’t have to marry him — but it’s not her mother’s fault that their reputation is the only social security they have, and it’s completely reasonable to expect rose to take that seriously. nonetheless, she’s often rather childish — flipping people off, spitting, being openly defiant as a rule even when it makes things harder for her. all because she’s phenomenally stubborn, and spiteful, and cannot stand being told what to do. it makes her a far more realistic person.

  this also makes it all the more devastating when she capitulates to caledon’s threats. it’s horrific watching him wear her down by invading her space and degrading her verbally. after overturning their dining table in a rage and leaving rose humiliated and surrounded by broken glass, caledon leaves her weeping in fear. she begins trying to tidy the mess herself despite her shaking hands, apologizes to their steward, and pretends the whole thing was an accident. she is in hell.

• jack is fine as hell. we all know this but. wow.

• at one point during the sinking, rose tells elevator operator "I'm through being polite, goddamn it! take me down!" GIRL WHEN WERE YOU EVER POLITE??? I UNDERSTAND YOU WERE RAISED IN CIVIL SOCIETY BUT YOU’VE NOT BEEN POLITE A SINGLE TIME THROUGH THIS ENTIRE MOVIE

• the most compelling element to me of both the film and the actual disaster is the slow onset of tension. it’s surreal how everything remains normal on its surface when it is already too late. i get so anxious waiting for everyone to realize what has happened. as the panic sets in, and people begin fighting for their lives, the effect is bone-chilling

• over and over throughout the sinking, rose and jack encounter gates that are locked for no reason. WHY IS EVERYONE LOCKING THESE FUCKING GATES. WHY ARE THEY EVEN HERE. PERHAPS IT'S A METAPHOR FOR THE MANY ARBITRARY AND INFURIATING SOCIETAL BARRIERS THAT THEY KEEP RUNNING UP AGAINST AS INDIVIDUALS

• in the end, jack tells rose he's a survivor, and he is. even though he ultimately passes, he saves their lives a million times over through his quick thinking and impeccable navigation of the crisis. he always knows what to do. he fights for rose at every turn. and we know he loves her because his dying wish is for her to find someone new, and grow old, and be happy. he does not regret his death because it was worth it just to be with rose for the brief time they had together. i cry hot, snotty tears every time.

On A Sea of Glass: The Life & Loss of the RMS Titanic by Bill Wormstedt, J. Kent Layton, and Tad Fitch

so after having watched the movie, i decided i wanted to learn a little more about the actual ship and sinking. i turned to my friend darcy (an expert in many things, including but not limited to art heists, cross stitch, and titanic lore) for some recommendations. she gave me a lot to choose from. i ended up reading on a sea of glass because 1) it was the most comprehensive book on the subject, and 2) i got it from the library first.

this book contains an obscene amount of information. i knew it would be detailed going in, but i was not familiar with these authors’ game. have you ever wondered where each person sat and with whom for every meal that was served on the duration of the voyage? what about what each guest was wearing and how the other passengers felt about it? have you ever feared you don’t know nearly enough about the material guidelines for which metals to use in ship-building as of the 1910s? if so, boy do i have the book for you.

really though, it was very interesting. i expected to be bored; i wasn’t. in fact, about halfway through the book when we got to the actual collision with the iceberg, i was on the edge of my seat until i grew overcome with the weight of it all and began to cry.

here are some of the most interesting tidbits i learned:

• most people initially recognized that something had happened not when the iceberg struck, but when the engines stopped running shortly afterwards. the sudden silence was much more perceptible to most passengers than the actual collision

• there were bags of bread everywhere during the sinking ??? as people loaded into lifeboats, the ship's baker began distributing sustenance to as many people as possible, but it ended up becoming a tripping hazard in some cases. the more you know

• huge takeaway: the main reason so many people perished in this incident was not corruption or human folly or even the lack of lifeboats (though of course the latter was a factor). titanic sincerely was a state-of-the-art ship built to impeccable standards. the primary cause of death was the sheer disbelief people experienced at the idea of this ship sinking. they did not know they were on legendary ship-that-sank, titanic. they thought they were on the best ship ever constructed by man, and they were right!!! with FOUR of its five compartments breached, this ship could still have stayed afloat. it was simply that the berg had breached all five. and people, over and over, could not comprehend that this was possible. so they did not behave as if it were.

• the main thing that caused people to realize they were in life-threatening danger was not the water below deck, or the obvious tipping forward of the whole vessel as the nose began to sink, or even the lifeboats being lowered and filled. most people thought even those were a temporary precaution and they'd be getting back on the ship by morning. what finally clued people in to the fact that things were dire was the firing of the distress fireworks at five minute intervals. everyone knew what this meant. and that is when the true panic began to set in.

• like in the movie, someone did threaten many people at gunpoint to stay out of the lifeboats even though they were space to get in, because they were men. however no one was shot in that incident because the gun was not loaded. there was a murder by punching later though by wireless operator harold bride and jack phillips (justified in context but wow, intense)

• actual passenger father biles is represented in the movie as the person praying and granting people absolution. in real life, he not only provided this comfort, but also spent a great deal of time helping people on to lifeboats and saving their lives before ultimately sacrificing his own to go down with the ship

• jack’s line in the movie about the freezing water being "like a thousand knives" entering your body was real quote! second officer of the titanic, charles lightoller, was the original source of these words

• here’s a harrowing story: one man, richard norris williams II, was aboard the ship with his father, whom he was incredibly close with. they were separated during the sinking. eventually they both found each other in the water and could not believe their luck. richard’s father began to swim toward him, and as he got within ten feet of his son, the ship’s funnel collapsed and landed on him, killing him instantly. the son, still swimming, described his dissociated shock: “I saw one of the four great funnels come crashing down on top of him. Just for one instant I stood there transfixed […] wondering at the enormous size of this funnel, still belching smoke.” he was 21 years old.

• and here’s another horrible story for you! one survivor, eugene daly, gave this account: “I fell upon one of the oars and fell into a mass of people. Everything I touched seemed to be women’s hair. Children crying, women screaming, and their hair in their face. My God, if I could only forget those hands and faces that I touched.” this will haunt me forever :)

• there were many stories of heroism and selflessness as well. harold bride and jack phillips, two wireless operators on the ship, stayed at their posts transmitting distress signals until the power was gone and no more signals could relayed. bride survived, and it is thanks to him that we know his supervisor phillips’ selfless heroism. he absolutely locked in on his duty. he was barely even aware of his surroundings, and only really came to when the power went out and he could no longer work. he did everything he possibly could to provide salvation, with no thought for himself, and ultimately perished in the sinking.

• we all know of the band that played until the end. that was real. it was very, very real.

• one woman managed to save HER DOG. everyone thought she was holding a baby but it was a TINY DOG.

overall, the biggest takeaway i gained from reading this book was that the titanic’s sinking was not, and never has been, a story of human corruption or hubris. no corners were cut. all the standard practices were obeyed. it is merely another example of the safety standards we have today being written in blood. it is far from the first example of this, and it won’t be the last. but it is nonetheless a deeply affecting story of survival, tragedy, and duty, which continues to capture the world’s imagination even well over a century later.

Critter of The Week

this slug i found on one of our soil bags. it was really slimy. i put it in a shady spot under a manzanita bush

Internet Thing of The Week

Spanish dialects and varieties - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dialects_and_varieties?wprov=sfla1

List of dialects of English - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_English?wprov=sfla1

here are some really cool wikipedia pages about various dialects of spanish and english that i was chatting about with heather this week. it was really cool to read about these distinctive and sometimes rather sudden shifts in practical linguistics which can be traced to both global and local influences. language is fascinating. there’s also a dialect called llanito with its own page that i found especially cool.

Whatever Else of The Week

SUGAR! (AKA Some Like It Hot)

this week i went to see a local production of the musical some like it hot at the camelot theater. it stage managed by one of my employee, jess, who kindly offered me a comp ticket. i went in completely blind — i did not even realize it was an adaptation of some like it hot before i entered the theater — and it was awesome. this is an older story based in gender roles, so it would be very easy to do poorly, but the cast brought an incredible energy to the whole production that was all charm and fun from beginning to end. it helps that a lot of them were wildly queer. from the performances to the set design to the lighting, the whole thing was an absolute joy, and i am so delighted i got to experience it.

Chocolate Hummus

sorry i don’t have a better picture but i promise it’s delicious. this stuff is like brownie batter you can’t get salmonella from

i LOVE chocolate hummus and i can never find it for sale around here, so i just made my own. this marks the first time i have used the large, heavy food processor i brought with me in the seven months since i moved here. but it was worth having just the chocolate hummus.

ingredients:

• canned chickpeas

• vanilla extract

• cocoa powder

• sweetener (i used date sugar and date glaze)

• a LITTLE bit of salt

• optional protein powder if you want to be one of those people

steps:

1. dump everything in the food processor

2. figure out how to use the food processor

3. use the food processor

4. keep adding ingredients in differing amounts until you get the ratio right, which will result in way more chocolate hummus than one person can conceivably finish before it goes bad

5. freeze the chocolate hummus in batches because hannah told you hummus actually freezes very well and you trust them

final gratitude

this week i am grateful to everyone who reads these newsletters for not only dealing with but actively celebrating my typos. i write these missives in one sitting over several hours at the very end of my day and then promptly go to bed — so i have learned to be a lot less precious about the details. it’s a sign of growth for me to prioritize completion over perfection. so i really appreciate that my friends can recognize these typos for what they are: a form of trust in their generosity as readers, rather than of carelessness. thank you!!

until next time, take care!

This Week in Pondering

this week we are pondering bedtime.

over the past 15 years, i’ve slept enough for two consecutive weeks exactly zero times. one full week of solid sleep is a rare miracle. most of the time, at my very best, i’m getting three eight-hour nights at the absolute maximum and usually around seven hours otherwise. in my high school and college years, i got 5-6 hours a night at most. but i really, really need a consistent 8-9 to function properly.

the situation is, as you may imagine, bad.

i’ve gotten rather sick of the whole thing (understatement). the only prescription i still take is for sleep, but even with that help, i resist rest at every turn. i procrastinate my nightly shower. i start projects i know i can’t finish in time. i ignore the insistent alarms my past self has set each sluggish morning pleading for mercy. even lying in bed on the brink of sleep, i instinctively fight for consciousness like a character with a mortal wound in the aftermath of battle. it’s ridiculous. i know how important this is. i know it all too well actually. but willpower fails me every time, except in its determination to sabotage my sleep wherever possible.

this week, at the very end of my fraying thread of a rope, i turned to The Council. that’s my group of friends who share a big discord server. they have a wide array of life experience and, taken together, can usually solve pretty much any solvable problem. i threw this chunk of meat into the den with a list of all my failed attempts to solve it and prayed for absolution.

of course The Council delivered. it’s The Council! they always do. i love them so much.

we concluded, after some investigation, that my problem is i absolutely cannot fucking stand bedtime. i don’t do it because i don’t want to do it. profound, right? who knew. (i knew.) but really, the problem was less in trying to force myself to engage in this dreaded process, and more in making the process something positive and enjoyable. i needed positive incentives for both getting to bed and waking up each morning.

secondly, i had to take the pressure off. sleep is a fickle and slippery beast. the more you want it, the more it eludes you. like a man with commitment issues. how many of us have lain in bed desperately thinking, if i fall asleep right now, i will get exactly four hours, three minutes, and forty-five seconds of sleep before the alarm goes off and seen a modicum of success? we are deluding ourselves. so my goal had to stop being “sleep for eight hours” and start being “achieve concrete steps of my nightly routine in a reasonable amount of time, sleep be damned.”

third, i needed some outside accountability. my friend mint has been messaging me at roughly the same time every evening to make sure i am thinking about bedtime and not stuck in my chair doing something else. thank you mint.

so we put the plan in action, and i am happy to report that all three of these strategies have worked extraordinarily well. especially step one! following my friends’ advice, i made my bed really nice. like, stupid nice. it’s comically huge, which i have always found incredibly annoying, but i’ve decided to lean into it now. i went to goodwill in search of a big canopy to drape over it and found exactly what i was looking for. (THANK YOU GOODWILL. I LOVE YOU GOODWILL.) i moved my pillow to the center instead of the very edge. i threw my heated blanket into the mix. i set my lights on timers to turn soothing, pretty colors before i fall sleep and wake up to get me into a better headspace. and i pointedly hang out in there awake for as long as i want without worrying about my to-do list or good sleep hygiene or what time it is. i only worry about being cozy.

am i sleeping enough every single night? still no. but i am looking forward to bed for the first time in my life. i love being there. i feel like a princess in her huge, luxurious sleeping chambers, pampered to shit, not a care in the world. it’s awesome. and instead of refreshing my fitbit app each morning to see whether i am a failure yet again, i start my day by stretching and being gentle with myself.

the situation is much better.

The Work Report™

here are some highlights from work this week:

• the critter quantity is off the charts. i saw the biggest hummingbird moth i have ever seen! what a strange and wonderful creature! they're everywhere around here

• i also saw a dark-edged bee fly 

  

  it’s like the end of a q-tip but with wings and proboscis

• i heard a woman get a man’s attention then say "oh! you're not my husband" only for him to respond, "weeeell if you play your cards right,” and they both laughed

• there was a BIG thunderstorm, which sounded majestic and breathtaking under the greenhouse roof. the pitter patter was flawless

• the storm also resulted in a runaway dog finding its way to our property. we kept him in the office while waiting for his owner to return. this was a very snoot-forward creature. see the snoot here:

  

• birds are nesting in the greenhouse!! they love it in there! each morning they wait outside in the trees for us to open the doors, and will even yell at you to do it faster. here’s a video i manaed to get of my favorite robin doing a little nest-building during our morning watering

• production manager caleb, whom i actually really adore, stopped by with his lovely little family on a saturday. his wife is so kind and beautiful and his son is so loved and so small. he is scarcely a year old. i offered him stickers because i love to have things to give the kids that come in, and he was very shy about accepting them. caleb took one and stuck it on his forehead. he showed me a picture later that his wife sent of her own forehead covered in the remaining stickers, courtesy of their son. because that is what he thinks we do with stickers now.
  i’m so happy for caleb. he’s a wonderful person and he deserves the life he has.

• this traffic cone with clovers growing out the top

  

• a little pomeranian came in fresh from the groomers and she looked like the roundest lightly-toasted marshmallow you’ve ever SEEN. she looked like a cortado with legs. it was incredible. and she was the happiest, most affectionate dog i have ever met. i am usually a big dog kind of person, but she really made me want a pomeranian one day. her owner said “she’s a ray of light. she makes everything better.” and that was correct.

• my coworker jill responding to "are you a Master Gardener?" with "i'm a pisces"

• finding this note from my coworker jess

  

  there was a dead bug in the pot. they know me so well

and some volunteering highlights too:

• i spent quite some time working with a little girl who had many ideas. she would pause her work to tell me gravely of her plans, then studiously write them down so as not to lose track of everything. she’d mutter the words quietly as she wrote. y’know, like a grown-up. eventually it occurred to me to take a look at her notes. i was met with this:

  

  magnificent

• a conversation we had:
  "i have a skirt with pockets,” she tells me.
  “i love when skirts have pockets!” i say, because i do.
  “i was at the park earlier and guess what i found? sand in my pocket." she pulls out a tiny fistful of sand.
  "well how did that get there?" i ask.
  "because i was rolling around in the sand"

• another conversation, this time with her brother:
  "do we want to leave that here or take it home?" i ask.
  "bomb."
  "you want a bomb?"
  the child nods.
  "we don't have those," i inform him

Project Hail Mary (dir. Phil Lord, Chris Miller)

well i can’t say much because i don’t want to ruin it, so allow me to be frustratingly vague instead.

the negatives: this film glosses over a lot of the hard science and initial mystery that i adored so wholeheartedly in the book. it also neglects to represtent aspects of the main character’s personal background that i was quite fond of, which was disappointing. i think, at times, it is a bit too silly where some emotional weight would have better served the story overall. i though the karaoke scene was absurd.

the positives: all that said, everything else about the film was wonderful. it was breathtaking to look at. when the soundtrack hit, it HIT. the elements they really needed to nail to make this story work, they absolutely blew out of the water. i loved the elements they added (again, sans karaoke) — the thumbs down, the line about mark, and the beach especially. i also love that it ended exactly the same way as the book, which is my one gripe with the movie version of the martian.

adaptations always compromise something, and i fully understand why they made the choices they did here. almost no movie is better than the book it’s based on unless the book itself has major flaws. but all in all, it was a stellar experience (ha ha) and i am thrilled this film is getting all the love and attention it deserves. amaze amaze amaze!!

Critter of The Week

this polite ladybug

Internet Thing of The Week

MOON JOY

Whatever Else of The Week

my friend heather informed me of this video recently. simply put, it fucking slaps. i mean WOW. i have fallen down the ca7riel and paco amoroso rabbit hole this week in a big way. the songs are relentlessly catchy. la que puede, puede is my favorite — in every quiet moment i am muttering “mapbisakdauausdjs-RICO! batanemanomapese-NECESITO! (i don't know the lyrics yet)

their visual style is also delightfully unique. the best comparison i could make is “irl gorillaz” but that’s still not quiet it. either way, they look sick as hell.

if you haven’t seen this performance yet, CHECK IT OUT POSTHASTE

i made this painstakingly detailed map of our plants from scratch because no one knows where anything is and this place is huge. it took many hours. i don’t think upper management really cares but I CARE and MY TEAM CARES, so it was absolutely worth it. this will be a very helpful tool!!

my cozy beautiful bed

BUG PICNIC!!! i have been waiting to make this scene FOREVER and finally found a glass box big enough. it’s actually a bit too big so i’ll have to add a tree or something to fill the space; it’s not totally done. but i’m so glad the main element is down!!

april & may 2026

Playlist · luciabee · 51 items

Spotify

new tunes! some from last month, many fresh. there’s a lot of fun, high energy stuff in here i’ve been enjoying a lot.

also in here? swan lake. i’ve gotten really into swan lake lately. act 2 no. 14a in particular goes HARD so i’ve been looping it often. i keep blasting it in my car, which is the closest i can get to injecting it directly into my veins. the last minute of this song is indescribable. i don’t even know what to do; i feel like i have to run vertically up a tree about this. why can’t i sing along to classical music!!!

lastly, you’ll notice the strokes’ recent single is not in the mix. that’s because it’s bad.

Easy Comfort Stir Fry

100/10

genuinely one of my favorite meals on earth and it’s so easy. i may have included this recipe before but i’m not sure. whatever — we’re doing it again. i eat this at least once a week.

ingredients

• extra firm high protein tofu from traitor joe's

• ready veggies mix from traitor joe's

• diced sweet potato

• adobo powder

• garlic paste or granulated garlic

• sunflower seeds

steps

• eat up some EVOO in a pan then toss in the veggies

• break the tofu block directly into the pan. use half the block if you’re normal; use the whole block if you’re not a coward

• mix in seasonings and a tablespoon of sunflower seeds

• enjoy your brief trip to heaven

final gratitude

RAIN! it’s been a very dry winter here but this week has been wet as hell. the plants are really enjoying it and so am i. plus we get a lot of rainbows around here, and i saw my first triple rainbow ever!!

i’m also excited that i (I’M PRETTY SURE) have figured out how to get beehiv to stop bolding my bulleted lists. time will tell.

until next time, take care!

This Week in Pondering

this week i have been pondering my three year plan. i think it may end up being a two year plan. i've been calling this "plan A alternate" instead of plan b because it still incorporates many elements of plan A and i'm convinced it's not all that different. the main point is this: rather than spending all three years of my initial plan in ashland, i could spend two of them here, and spend the third one just outside boston. if i can manage to live somewhere more residential, and have a vehicle, and lower my cost of living by having a roommate or two, i think it would make a lot of sense to spend some time there before my move to jersey. obviously it would put me closer to my support network a year sooner, which is the biggest reason. but the other potential benefits are as follows:

• getting paid significantly more for the same type of work i'm currently doing, now that i have the experience to qualify for higher level horticultural jobs back east. this is honestly the biggest one after the whole "i miss my home" thing. i am working very very very hard and i do not see a raise coming any time soon, and that feels bad

• diversifying my resume a bit further before i try for my Big Boy Job

• volunteering in boston museums finally! since the long public transit commute would no longer be an obstacle if i have a car

• being close enough to jersey that when i do move there, i can apartment hunt in person, then drive myself AND my furniture over in one trip

on the other hand, this would mean i have to leave boston AGAIN, and it was really hard the first time. but i think it will be easier on take two given i’d be moving to somewhere that is only a couple hours away by plane. plus, i have a lot waiting for me in new jersey, and i am very eager to get there. so i think it will be a happy occasion more so than my last departure.

there are many details to sort out here and many other reasons to do it or not do it. but that’s what i’ve been thinking about. if anyone has opinions, feel free to let me know.

The Work Report™

highlights from recently:

• my interview is out! here’s the link if anyone wants to read it: Ready, Set, PLANT! - Ashland Greenhouses

• the march newsletter for the rotary club just came out, which included this little segment on my talk. it’s just the silly intro i gave them and some pics, but hey! it’s something

  

   

• we had our spring showcase this month, which was just a normal day at the store but with some extra signage, baked goods, and balloons. it went well!

• spider sightings! i have seen TWO jumping spiders (one a bold and one a red-back) which are my absolute favorites. i feel the same way about them that i feel about pufferfish. (if you have accompanied me to the new england aquarium, you likely know how i feel about pufferfish.) i also found a funnel weaver spider! it was making quite a web between some rain boots we have sitting in the greenhouse. i usually catch them in a little jar to observe up close, then i let them go back where i found them, or somewhere else the spider would enjoy more. the range of spiders here has brought me a great deal of joy

bold jumping spider

red back jumping spider

funnel weaver spider

• two jackrabbits playing chase around the outside of the greenhouse during a lazy, sunny sunday afternoon

• a woman who was taking her time browsing and then, after taking a very brief phone call, told me, "i'm sorry, i've got to go, i have to go catch a swarm of bees!"

• my coworker bow, who must be in his 70s but doesn't look it, complaining about the younger staff members in the production department not being very talkative. his exact quote was, "i mean, come on! ask me where i was when kennedy was assassinated!"

• a kid in the store getting one of our sticker sheets with a snail on it and going "YEEAAAAHHHH!!!! SNAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" the INSTANT he left my line of sight

• the droning buzz of a hummingbird flying quickly past my head

• using the forklift unsupervised and only running into the door by accident a LITTLE bit

• being a good boss. i only think i’m a good boss because my team tells me so. i don’t really care about being in charge, but i’m also glad it’s me because i know i’m not gonna be a dick about it. apparently one of the former retail managers came in on a day i wasn’t there and was a HUGE BITCH to everyone except the other managers. what the heck man!! get that energy out of here. i hope she comes back so i can be really nice to her in a way that makes her feel ashamed of her actions

• a lady on the phone calling to tell me how much she loved the herb talk and how excited she was for our upcoming basket planting workshop

• my coworker jess spilling all the local theater gossip

• my coworker jess finding a dead bird in one of our ventilation tubes, which i saw as a really stellar opportunity to harvest more bird bones for my arts and crafts, but was robbed of the chance to pursue by the business owner being the one to retrieve it and me being too cowardly to tell her i wanted to take the rotting bird head home with me for Reasons

another development i’ve been meaning to share is there is a set of three brothers who work here each year and are now back again. they know everything there is to know because they have done basically every job on the property. one is named benjamin, one is named gabriel, and one is named jedidiah. i suspected from this that their parents are very religious, a hunch which was all but confirmed when i learned that their entire family shares one cell phone. all three of these young men bear identical haircuts and sunglasses. two have goatees and one doesn't, but i'm not sure which one that is. they also wear the same expression on their faces pretty much constantly — a steely look of determination that is distinctly unbothered, probably thanks to their rock-solid certainty that they will enter the kingdom of heaven. it goes without saying that i have no idea which brother is which. i avoid calling them by name at all costs. they're pretty nice though, from the few words i have exchanged with them.

Project Hail Mary Andy Weir

i am a huge, huge fan of the martian. the movie is fine, but the book took me by storm the first time i read it. i would not shut up about the martian. i’d heard that project hail mary was like the martian but worse, so i wasn’t too keen on reading it. but after enough encouragement from trusted sources, i gave it a shot.

it’s better than the martian.

or at least, i liked it more. if you, like me, are lucky enough to have avoided movie spoilers (including the trailer), then i would recommend you read this as blindly as possible. that’s what i did and i’m very grateful for my lack of foreknowledge. all i’ll say of the story is it’s very grounded, science-forward science fiction. it has darkness, humor, and heart.

i enjoyed project hail mary so much that it made me reassess my relationship to science fiction. i never thought i liked scifi. it turns out i actually love scifi, like, a lot. “this is probably my new favorite genre” a lot. how did i not know that, you ask? because in my head science fiction = space fantasy, and i don’t particularly care about space fantasy. sorry, star wars. but fiction based in science?? watching a character use experiments to solve problems and answer questions?? SIGN ME UP.

this book is absolutely wonderful. the story unravels with flawless pacing and constant intrigue, and the writing itself is a masterclass in drip-feeding the reader all the information they need to help its eventual conclusions land with a kaboom. it also touches on compelling scientific debates, such as panspermia, symbiogenesis, and the evolution of cognition. all in all, it was the perfect chew toy for my brain.

this audiobook also boasts one of the best narrative performances i’ve ever heard. this guy is macleod andrews level good. if you know, you know. i hate that it’s an audible exclusive and hope that will one day change. but for now, i’m glad to have it in my library. if i three libby holds had not come through simultaneously while i was listening to this one, i would have immediately played it again from the beginning.

i’m excited to see the movie on tuesday with hannah.

Half His Age Jennette McCurdy

now this was an interesting one! i will start by saying half his age is definitely the most sexually graphic book i have ever read. and i’ve read my fare share of romances, but this is something else entirely. the sex in this book is not trying to titillate you; it is trying to shine a brutal spotlight on all the icky parts of being a person, and i think it does a phenomenal job at that. the premise, underlined by its glaring title and cover, is that a seventeen-year-old student develops a sexual interest in her 40-something-year-old english teacher, and then things carry on from there. you can probably imagine how this goes. what caught me by surprise is what the book is actually about. we’ll get to that a little later.

the second thing i’ll say about it is i would never in a thousand years have picked this up if i didn’t respect jennette mccurdy so deeply. i trusted her to give me a story i would not regret reading, despite my strong conviction that i was not the target audience, and she did. it turns out i am almost exactly the target audience. i understood not only what she was doing but how masterfully she achieved it.

that being said, i also understand why a lot of people hate this book. you know how if you run a wet finger over the rim of a crystal wine glass, it resonates with a haunting frequency? this book can do that to you if you’ve lived a certain kind of life. but no amount of trying will make it resonate if you aren’t built the way jennette is built.

back to the story. it’s reminiscent of a memoir i read a few years ago called consent by jill ciment, a much younger woman who married her much older man and stayed with him until his death. the memoir was her attempt to to reassess her relationship in light of the "me too" movement with a much more critica lens. both stories step beyond the taboo fantasy they establish on the outset and into the great beyond: the after. what happens when the older man becomes a mere human being? what happens when the younger woman does the same? when you strip away the power dynamic that these relationships thrill in provoking, what is left? who are these people when they become more than a caricature of their respective demographics?

that is what this story is actually about. it’s a scathing portrayal of a certain kind of man, always skirting accountability, mimicking compassion, blinding himself to his hypocrisy, wallowing in his own simultaneous victimhood and heroism. it is also a magnified glimpse into the agony of insecure womanhood. a line to this effect that particularly struck me was, in one of the protagonists’s bouts of obsessively beautifying her body, the thought, "Is there a level of beauty one can reach when they become undeniably wanted, and am I one lipstick shade away from that level?" jennette does not mince words.

she also trusts the reader to draw their own conclusions. we follow the story from the perspective of the seventeen-year-old girl, so we can only ever perceive it through her eyes. but much like the folks who think john green’s books subverting the manic pixie dream girl trope are in fact promoting it by its very inclusion, many readers of half his age failed to grasp the greater implications of the text. the story, if not the protagonist, clearly understands what it is. and what it is is revolting. it was like a car crash i could not look away from. and frankly, it only gets worse as it progresses.

but the ending is a good one. even many folks who liked the story did not appreciate its conclusion. i loved it. the whole vile enterprise was worth it for those final few scenes. and because i know that many of you will probably never read this book, i will share its concluding thesis, that you might understand why it resonated so strongly with me:

"I try to override it, to shove my body's instincts down. Tell them to be more quiet. Be more right-sized. Be more appropriate and more reasonable and less of a nuisance. Only I can't. And beyond that, I don't want to. Because my body knows more than I do. My body's instincts are loud. And they're right. And they're appropriate and reasonable and they are not a nuisance. They are wise. They are giving me all the information I need."

Hamilton Ron Chernow

as we know from my several reviews of abraham lincoln books, i love a historical biography. i guess this, like scifi, is another genre i must accept as a new favorite. this week’s pick is the biography that inspired the musical hamilton, which is why i read it. honestly… i get it. before i fell down my lincoln rabbit hole i thought it was really weird of lin manuel miranda to see such an energetic musical in such a dry, dusty tome of a book. but now that i’m a certified lincolnhead i can hardly begin casting stones at such an endeavor.

and anyway, this story is far from dry. is it as interesting as a lincoln biography? no. i think it could have been, given that its backdrop was the revolutionary war, which is only war that i would earnestly describe as "cool." but that’s neither here nor there. it was nonetheless a captivating portrayal of a uniquely interesting man who played a pivotal role in my country’s early history. here are some of my favorite facts:

• george washington saw hamilton as a surrogate son. he never had children of his own — historians suspect he was infertile after a childhood bout with tuberculosis — but he was a fatherly man. he towered over hamilton by seven inches and often called him "my boy." i thought that was sweet

• the anas of thomas jefferson, a collection of the official opinions he published during his time as secretary of state, essentially amounts to a burn book. he would throw shit in there that he heard someone mention someone else said one time and be like "see? hamilton ain’t shit. works cited: 0"

• hamilton genuinely, actually, was probably queer?? even for the time, the way he wrote to his dear friend john laurens (among others) can only described as "fruity." they would of course have taken great care not to expose themselves as anything other than heterosexual, laws being what they were. but EVEN THEN hamilton was saying shit like "you should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.” i mean first of all, i get it. i’ve been there with the helpless yearning. way to encapsulate it in the most painful way possible, alex. but secondly: that line is breathtaking and could have come straight out of pride and prejudice. and we’re supposed to think he wrote that about a platonic guy friend? be serious. even hamilton’s own grandson thought he was being really, really gay about this. i’m shocked i have not heard more people discuss the topic before now. but either way, as andrew garfield once said, "bisexuals should always be winning.” and we won here. another one in the bag.

* i also watched titanic this week, but i‘m saving that review for the next newsletter because i have an accompanying book i just got from the library that i want to review alongside the film

Juice

i really wanted some juice

ingredients:

• bolthouse farms orange passionfruit "hydration plus" electrolyte drink

• pomegranate juice

• lemon juice

• cold, cold water

• cucumbers

• strawberries

• raspberries

• ice

final gratitude

this week i am grateful to the LIBRARY. they let me read so many books for free and it’s constantly enriching my life. two days ago i put a “notify me” tag on a very long book about the titanic that none of my libraries had available, and today i got a notification that they had added it to the collection. that’s amazing. if you don’t have the libby app on your phone, you’re missing out big time.

until next time, take care!

This Week in All The Stuff

man y'all, so many things have occurred this week. i have also been very tired — partially from all the things occurring — which has made this edition of the newsletter a bit intimidating to write. for my own sake i am going to skip over a lot of details and try to keep it VERY CASUAL by barely editing at all. we’ll see if it works or if i simply cannot help but choose every word like it’s being projected in times square. time’s square? times' square? i’m not checking. ONWARD.

THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED 

HERB LECTURE: my herb talk!! it went really well! phenomenally well! i cannot believe how well it went! over 40 people showed up and i got tremendously good feedback. i am growing so much as an educator from doing these lectures. even though i knew less about the topic for this class than my first one, i delivered it with a lot more confidence and a better structure, and i think it was a much better showing of what i can do. at one point a woman raised her hand just to say she wanted to acknowledge how excellent a job i was doing, not only with the content but with the delivery, and that she especially appreciated how i had incorporated the group and kept everyone engaged, among other things. i honestly didn’t even catch the last bit of what she said because by that point everyone started applauding in agreement despite the fact that the lecture wasn’t even over yet.
i feel a little uneasy sharing this with you because what is this story except me bragging? but at the same time, you are reading this newsletter because you care about me and want to hear about big happenings in my life, and this was a big happening for me. i sincerely felt that i did the best i could, which would have been enough. but to see that people get so much out of these classes, and to hear it directly from them that all the care and effort i put into this is being appreciated, it’s just… it is so validating. i imagine this is how actors feel when they win big awards. "i knew i could do it, and i did it, but also i didn’t really know i could do it, and i can’t believe i did it." i think to grow as any kind of performer or artist, you have to buy into your own bullshit a little, and you must do so before anyone else can. it’s really awesome to not just talk about what i think i can one day do, but to actually do it now, and to do it well.

VOLUNTEERING: i am making my way up the volunteering totem pole at the science museum. this week i got to SHADOW A FIELD TRIP, which was very exciting for me. eventually i would like to LEAD AN ACTIVITY IN A FIELD TRIP. perhaps assist with a summer camp. this was a great step one.

DENTIST: i went to the dentist. i thought they were going to clean by teeth but it was actually just a consultation. weirdly i feel proud of how much i acted like myself in this first appointment with a new dentist because acting like myself around strangers is not something i’ve historically been able to do. they were actually booking their cleanings out to NOVEMBER, so it’s gonna be a while, but they pushed back against my claim that i have genetically bad teeth based on my x ray and said i’d actually be fine waiting until then.
about the x ray: to scan my teeth they had me put my chin on a little podium and hold onto two handles in front of me as if i were about to be launched into outer space. then the machine spoke to me and spun around my head a few times while playing approximately seven seconds of chopin's nocturne no. 2 in e flat minor. i assume the goal of this was to blanket me in a sense of safety and relaxation but its actual effect was causing me to clench my jaw as a reflex to prevent myself from bursting into laughter and ruining the scan. seven seconds of chopin. what was the purpose. did they think i would get bored and walk away? were they concerned with the liability of allowing me to stand around for that long with unfettered access to my own thoughts? i will grant them this: while far from the best, it was still one of chopin’s better pieces.

NOSTRIL SURGERY: i get chronic nosebleeds in the fall and winter. they are disruptive and relentless. almost every time i wash my face in the morning, and almost every time i shower at the end of the day, my nose bleeds profusely for no less than three minutes but often up to ten. more than once i have gotten a nosebleed onto another human being. the nosebleeds know no boundaries. they do not respect me.
so this year i finally decided to pull the trigger on getting a nasal cauterization, which is a procedure where they sear your fragile nose skin like a smashburger until it can bleed no more. unlike with the dentist, which i thought was an actual appointment but turned out to be a consultation, this consultation turned out to be an actual appointment. here is the highlight reel:

1. "your blood pressure is kinda low," the doctor tells me.
   "oh?" i say.
   "yeah. you’re at 90/60. typical is about 120/80."
   "is that bad?" i ask.
   "better than it being too high!"
   we move on.

2. he puts some numbing cotton balls in my nose holes and then sticks a little q-tip thing covered in chemicals up there. then he does something that definitely hurts but not nearly as much as i was expecting, and says, "okay! that’s it."
   "oh! that wasn’t so bad. i’m very lightheaded suddenly"
   "that’s normal," he says.
   i promptly lose consciousness.

3. i awaken in a gelatinous mental state. my hearing is muffled and it takes me a minute to realize where i am. i feel embarrassed at having fallen asleep before the doctor informs me that i have not fallen asleep but rather fainted. he says my body went into shock in response to the injury. he says this is not uncommon.
   "oh. the top of my head is cold," i tell him.
   he begins folding up a towel. i think he is going to place it on the top of my head to warm it up, but he doesn’t. he’s just folding a towel. i am disappointed.

4. i am allowed to sit in the chair until i feel normal-ish. they give me a little box of apple juice and four individually-wrapped saltines, which i save for later. i am dizzy. i walk out, sit in my car for a while, then decide to go to goodwill to kill some time before getting on the highway. i cry on my way to goodwill. it is exactly like waking up from anesthesia, which always makes me feel extremely vulnerable and emotional. i find a big floppy hat at goodwill among other things. i fear everyone in there thinks i’m high. i call my parents on the drive home. i feel better. my nose does not bleed.

HANGING WITH JENNY: remember jenny who left a note on my car because she liked my stormlight archive bumper sticker? i love jenny. we hung out again this week and it was awesome. i am recovering from an eating disorder and jenny is recovering from a divorce, so we walked around lithia park discussing these and other topics, then she got a little cup of ice cream and i got a matcha latte. i also got a parking ticket because i thought we would hang out for two hours but we hung out for closer to five. it was totally worth it. she tried to pay for the parking ticket because she’s a very kind and giving person, but did not insist on doing so because she also has excellent boundaries. i am always impressed with jenny.
i would really like to arrange a group hang with her and hannah and some of my coworkers because i think they’d all get along swimmingly and it would be fun. but i’m not sure how to navigate the "i am technically your employer" of it all. like... is it weird to add the person you hired on instagram? how do i bring that up without putting them on the spot? am i even allowed to be outside-of-work friends with them? i don’t know yet. i a thinking of giving everyone little thank you cards when they leave and just including my handle without any pressure.

THE EUCHARIST CANNOT BE GLUTEN FREE OR IT DOESN’T COUNT: this is not an event but something i stumbled across while researching other things. sorry to all the celiacs out there, but when jesus said "this is my body which will be given up for you and for all" he meant "for you who can digest wheat. everyone else can cope."

Chris Fleming: Live at The Palace 2025

have you ever encountered the classic piece of advice "be yourself; everyone else is already taken" frequently misattributed to oscar wilde?

chris fleming takes this platitude and blows it out of the water with the force of an atomic bomb. when people say "no one is doing it like them" about literally any human being on this earth who is not chris fleming, they are misunderstanding the definitions of both "no one" and "doing it." chris fleming is so completely original that i am convinced every sentence that exits his mouth has never been uttered by another person in the history of our species. anyone who says there is no such thing as an original thought has yet to see chris fleming decide how to place one foot on the ground.

it is truly everything about him. his embodiment, his clothing, his language, his inflection, the very concepts he plants in your brain and then waters to fruition with air-dancer physicality. he delivers his sentences using inflectional choices that feel outside the scope of possibility until i hear them made. his improvisational talent is unlike any i've ever seen. watching chris fleming perform is like being swept up into the sky by a predatory bird and left to dangle above a breathtaking landscape for however long it sees fit. you have no choice but to abandon all control. relinquish your grasp on reality. let chris take you away. you must, as he puts it in this special, be absorbed by the computer teacher.

but these are all just Things About Chris. what about the SPECIAL? simply put: it's incredible. i've seen it four times already. it is intentionally shot like a nature documentary because chris is a focus-puller's nightmare and cannot be contained. he uses his own laptop to trigger the audio-visual components in real time. he drops every name he possibly can and takes zero prisoners. and he is, of course, uproariously funny.

i know i'm not chris fleming's target demographic because not everything lands for me; it never does. but i love and cherish several people who love and cherish chris fleming to a degree i had never fully understood. rest assured: i get it now. at certain points this special had me weeping of laughter alone in my living room. the bits about walking down the cheddar aisle, the luxury hat store, and the song at the end were my favorite parts overall. other iconic lines that will stay with me forever include:

• "i’m an empath. if you had an ounce of the empathy that i have you would be BEDRIDDEN"

• "guy who calls tomatoes beautiful"

• "the second i think i have good will with you—"

• "theresa disgusting"

• "to maintain the DIGNITY, and the INTEGRITY! of what has become america's PREMIER COOKIE,"

please give this special a seat at the table of your life.

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

well, i finished the broken earth trilogy. i did send isis several weepy, disjointed voice messages about it. once again there is not much i can say without ruining the entire thing. so i will just say this: the CHARACTERS????? THE WAY ESSUN [REDACTED]S WHILE [REDACTED] AND [REDACTED]??? HOA???? THE [REDACTED] OF [REDACTED]S WHO SPEND ALL THEIR TIME [REDACTED]??? IT’S ABOUT CYCLES OF ABUSE AND THE TWISTED MORASS OF AGONY THAT COMES FROM LOVING SOMEONE WHO BOTH LOVES AND HURTS YOU. IT’S ABOUT SO MANY THINGS. i’m in fucking agony. send help.

American Food™

i used a disposable container from something else to store it because i love mother earth (and had run out of sizable tupperware)

i had a hankering for some asparagus the other day so i made the classic asparagus/mashed potato/steak dinner except i didn’t want to make mashed potatoes and i don’t eat steak

asparagus:

1. coat with EVOO, granulated garlic, adobo, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice

2. basically just pretend to bake it. i bake my asparagus for like 35 seconds. i like it crunchy

potaotoes:

1. slice up some small potatoes and toss with the same spice mix as the asparagus minus the lemon. unless you like lemony potatoes. i’m not stopping you

2. pan fry potatoes for a long time before eventually losing patience and putting them in the air fryer to finish cooking without all the babysitting

mushrooms:

1. slice up more cremini mushrooms than you think you need and cook them in a pan with just some salt until they’re semi-translucent but not fully done

2. spice them up using mushroom powder, salt n pepper, and any other spices you’d use on a steak. i had a steak blend lying around so i used that

3. finish cooking in savory sauce or mushroom-based gravy of your choosing. i opted for some leftover stuff i needed to use up anyway but i don’t remember what was in it. i should write a cookbook one day

final gratitude

this week i am particularly grateful for the guy whose parked car i gently bumped with my moving car while trying to do a three point turn in a very cramped roadway. i am still learning how to orient my car in space and i did not nail it this time. he was sitting in his car with his wife when i did this. he got out, brushed off the corner of his bumper, got back in, smiled and waved, and drove away. i want to track him down and give him fifty dollars cash. but instead i must settle for cherishing him until the day i die.

i hope you are well!! let me know how you’re doing if you please. and until next time, take care.

hey team. i’ve been thinking a lot about systemic disenfranchisement and the criminalization of homelessness this week, but that is a topic for a later newsletter. for now i’m just gonna talk about some stuff i did. enjoy! i hope!

the wayward hare art show

there’s a gathering here called “maker’s meet” on the third wednesday of every month at the same restaurant. i knew the person who started it, jessi p, through my work as the vendor coordinator for the poinsettia festival. i thought it would be a good way to 1) learn about selling my own wares, and 2) maybe make some friends. i was right on both accounts! it’s a really lovely and supportive group of folks who are generous with their laughter and their advice. i felt welcome right away and have really enjoyed every one i’ve attended.

one person i met there, jacob, does a lot of customizing and painting in bright colors and bold lines. he’s very funny and his kids are awesome. he creates under the name “wayward hare,” and his first ever art show was this week! so obviously i went to see his art in person and show my support.

i loved being there. it was such a beautiful celebration of one person’s creative vision. and seeing so many folks show up to be in this little room, from family to friends to friends of friends, was sincerely moving. the love was palpable. it was a sincere joy to be a part of that warmth, and to feel a sense of belonging among such lovely people.

another fun outcome of the event was this: jacob had a pair of customized sneakers for sale and i commented that they were way cooler than the crocs i was wearing. (people who know me well will realize the sight of me in crocs outside of a volunteer-gardening or taking-out-the-trash scenario is almost unheard of, but this was an unusual circumstance.) upon hearing me say so, he offered to customize my crocs in exchange for one of my bee pendants! i don’t think it’s equivalent value at all, so i am going to make him TWO bee pendants. one for each shoe. and pretty soon my crocs are going to be visible from a mile away.

hiking with hannah and vin

i have been missing the woods SO BAD. and i have been SO BUSY. but i don’t care, i have decided i am going to get my booty out in the forest at every opportunity going forward. it’s necessary.

hannah has been hiking up a storm lately and offered to show me one of their favorite trails. i decided to bring vin along in her little kitty-travel backpack, which was such a delight. she had the time of her life walking around sniffing things on her little leash and sticking her head out the top of my bag as i hauled her up, down, and sideways.

i could feel her little wet nose on my neck sometimes

bouncing around

rolling in dust is one of her favorite activities

we also saw a lot of these trees called manzanitas. they had beautiful trunks, indescribably smooth and mahogany-brown. their leaves are round as buttons and they have delicate pale pink droopy flower bunches. i’ll show you one of my terrible phone pictures, and then a good one so you can actually see it:

my shitty phone picture

a real picture from this website

i read about them on wikipedia. the coolest thing i learned was their seeds are naturally dormant, sometimes for decades, until after a wildfire! the particles in the smoke are what trigger the seeds to germinate and new trees to grow. evolution is awesome.

and here’s a beautiful landscape. the shadows were arresting.

speaking at the rotary club

the only pic i took there was of this donation basket so i could remember to come back and leave things later

the rotary club was very charming. they meet at a local presbyterian church which doubles as a community center and warming shelter during the winter months. the folks in the club were all older and very friendly. a few people said they came to that meeting just to hear me speak, which was kinda nuts considering they had no reason to think i would do a good job. but i hope i did!

anyway, before my little lecture, they had all these rituals. first they shared some announcements and gratitudes. then came the entertainment portion: a man read from a children’s book about st patrick, another guy shared some wholesome irish proverbs about friendship, and then everyone sang a few short songs together. the lyrics were printed out and available on each table. it reminded me of my grandfather, who was big on a cappella music. he was always singing little songs like that, of which everyone seems to know the melody but no one the origins. i, of course, knew neither, but that’s fine. i just kind of hummed aimlessly and hoped no one could hear me.

one of the songs was oh danny boy, though just the first part. unfortunately my primary association with that song is this pair of scenes from schitt’s creek, which i found so funny in the context of the episode that i made the audio from them my ringtone for several months. it is not serious. but this is a serious song. so it was very hard for me not to laugh while hearing it performed very earnestly at the rotary club.

after all that, they did “table talk” with the topic of the week, which was “what’s the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten?” most people’s answers were exotic meats. i said a freshwater mussel. (they are so disgusting their wikipedia page makes no mention of the fact that they are technically, and only technically, edible.) each table shared their winner with the group. i thought the man next to me’s answer of “unknown animal brain” was much weirder, but i was the guest, so i suppose they were trying to be nice.

finally, we did the pledge of allegiance. this was extremely bizarre. i didn’t realize people were still doing all that. i have not encountered the pledge of allegiance since i was in elementary school, and it is for this reason that three separate times in the speaking of this short recitation did i attempt to segue into the lord’s prayer. they were kind of a joint thing in my head which, when left unexamined for a period of many years, resulted in a bizarre fusion i was helpless but to deliver uninhibited. so for me it went something like this:

i kept laughing about that too, which was not good. i hope no one saw me.

so then they read my introduction, which i provided upon request and did not write very seriously, but was nonetheless delivered like a sermon. and finally i gave my talk about herbs! i think it was slightly too short, but i was worried about the 15 minute time limit so i didn’t get into much detail. we filled the rest of the time with a pretty robust Q&A section which everyone seemed to enjoy. i think my class on the same topic later this week will be even better since i can really dive in. but in any case, the feedback i got after the rotary lecture was very positive, so i think it went well overall. i even got the classic “did you major in this?” question, which is how i gauge whether people have bought into the illusion that i know what i’m talking about. whew!

The Obelisk Gate by N.K Jemisin

this book went craaazy. so much devastation. so many emotions. somehow everything was even worse than the last one, which i mean in the best way possible. again it’s very hard to describe any plot details without giving major spoilers away, but suffice it to say this book is about many things — cycles of abuse, free will, identity, the dual-sided coin of dangerous devotion and reckless love. SO MUCH HAPPENS. i immediately started the third book and i’m dreading what more can possibly go wrong.

molly smoothie

impeccable. it tastes like how stepping on wet grass with bare feet feels

as i mentioned in a previous newsletter, my coworker molly made this delicious juice the other day that she brought in for everyone to enjoy. i decided to turn those ingredients (more or less) into a smoothie because i think smoothies are superior to juice. y’all… this is my favorite smoothie i have ever made. i could chug it for an hour straight. i don’t even care whether it’s cold or not, which is saying something, because usually if smoothies don’t hold their shape like a DQ blizzard i’m not drinking them. but this is delicious in any form.

ingredients:

• pineapple

• celery

• spinach

• arugula

• cucumber

• parsley

• ginger

• apple

• peach

• mint

that’s it! lightly sweet and super refreshing.

weekly gratitude

this week i am especially grateful for sharing struggles with friends. i’ve enjoyed some especially nice moments of connection with several pals this week over either my struggles or theirs, or both, and i’m just so fortunate to experience that mutual trust and love.

if you’d ever like to reply to the things i put in here, i would be glad to hear from you. until next time, take care.

This Week in Pondering

i have pondered a great many things this week, but in the interest of keeping this segment novel, i’ll pick the subject i have spoken about with the least of you: my old fiction writing.

as a child i desperately wanted to be an author. i also desperately wanted to be a painter and a ballerina and a veterinarian and a mother, so take that dream with a grain of salt. it never went anywhere — short of the lengthy microsoft word document i produced as a third-grader which detailed the life and adventures of a talking fish and its friends. (shout out to my aunt anne for reading that whole thing and pretending to absolutely love it over the phone. she’s a real one for that.) but like with all my childhood dreams, a small piece of that spark did carry over into my present. i do paint, and i pole dance because holding shapes as i spin reminds me of the ballerina in my old music box, and i have a cat of my own. i also, for a time, dabbled in writing fanfiction.

fanfiction of what, you may ask? i’ll never tell. if you know you know. if you don’t know, you may be able to guess, but i’d be impressed if you did. outside of this one fandom, i’ve never been much of a fanfic reader, and when i got into it, i certainly never intended to write anything. but i was fortunate enough to befriend some absolutely brilliant writers who encouraged me to give it a try. they are still some of my closest friends to this day. and they were absolutely correct that it was a worthwhile hobby.

i ended up having a lot of fun with it. i posted a handful of short stories — about 500 words each — and people seemed to sincerely enjoy them. eventually i decided to try my hand at writing something longer, but life got in the way, and that story has sat languishing and incomplete under my AO3 account for the last six years. this piece of unfinished business has haunted me ever since.

one thing i found quite difficult about writing was assessing my own work fairly. i remember thinking the ideas were solid, but that every paragraph was absolutely riddled with issues. reading my own stories was an exercise in jaw-clenching and hand-twitching as i struggled not to tear each one apart and rebuild it from scratch.

it is for this reason that, once published, i never read anything i wrote again. frankly it was none of my business. i let those balloons go and what happened afterwards was between them and god.

but a few days ago, i got several comments from someone who had gone through and read everything i’d ever posted. it couldn’t have taken more than a half hour or so — again, they were mostly short. but this person quoted my own work back to me and, in reading those isolated lines, i realized i did not recognize them. they were completely external. i could receive them now with the fresh eyes of someone who had never seen them before.

so i did. i read every story. and you know what? they were actually pretty good! i still don’t think i’m the target demographic for my own writing because i can never love it as much as some of my readers did. but i am close enough to it that i still enjoyed it. i did not want to self-immolate in embarrassment as i had expected. i wanted, against all odds, to write again.

a lot has happened since i abandoned that big story back in 2021. five birthdays, four moves, three break ups, two undergrad programs, one time zone change, and a partridge in a pear tree. but one thing that has remained constant through all of that is my relentless uphill trudge toward unconditional self-love. i’m not there yet — and writing will still be difficult because of it — but every day i get closer. and as miley cyrus once said:

always gonna be an uphill battle
sometimes i'm gonna have to lose
ain't about how fast i get there
ain't about what's waiting on the other side
it's the climb

The Work Report™

it’s getting real fun as things ramp up over here! i am no longer stressed out because i don’t have time to be stressed out. if i don’t compartmentalize i will short-circuit, so i’m suddenly locked in and doing really well.

this week we hung up about a million planted baskets using long metal poles, which was awesome because it requires the same arm and shoulder muscles as dancing on long metal poles. so compared to my coworkers, i had this freakish unexplained stamina for the job that made me feel like a superhero. my boss continues to joke i’m secretly the hulk.

at my last job, i prided myself on being able to carry nine mugs per hand. i no longer have that opportunity. however i did challenge myself to see how many baskets i could carry at once, and the answer was ten. observe:

that left thumb could probably fit one more basket if i got the angle right

also, i found this frog, which i thought was alive, and then realized was dead, and then turned out to be alive after all:

i named her coco because she was under the coco liners

molly brought in this AWESOME HOMEMADE JUICE for everyone which was so kind because it takes a lot of work to make juice:

i think i want to get all the ingredients for myself and recreate it as a smoothie

last in notable happenings, i was interviewed by a local magazine about my work here — not something i expected to come out of this job or any i’d ever have, but it was fun. that comes out sometime in april. in the meantime, i have my rotary club talk on monday, and my herb class the following week. also two new hires to train. but as i said: one thing at a time.

Hamilton you know hamilton

hamilton is my favorite chronic illness. for a while i’ll think i’m done with it for good, but then something triggers a flare-up and i’m back in the sauce for anywhere from days to weeks. there’s nothing to be done but manage symptoms and wait for it to pass.

this time the trigger was this young man performing all of hamilton very badly in his college dining hall. it’s as excruciating as it is hilarious. the best part is the people in the background. the way he broke into the schuyler sisters song absolutely killed me. “^Oo ooO^O O.. i do, i do, i do, i doooo.. ^{WoAAhuohah!”}

anyway: i am aware that it is distinctly uncool to love hamilton because it is the holy cringe trinity of too sincere, too weird, and too popular. it’s also kind of a celebration of the united states, which comes with its own implications. but i maintain that, despite its flaws, this musical is a work of shakespearean genius. it is on par with MLK Jr’s letter from birmingham jail in my mental catalogue of “greatest works ever produced in the english language.” it does not matter how much time has passed. i will be stuck loving it forever. and this was just one of those weeks.

Psych Season 1

isis has been trying to get me to watch this show for ages and i finally gave it a go. i don’t have a ton to say yet because i haven’t gotten to season two, which is apparently where it really picks up. but so far i’ve really enjoyed it! it’s sincere and funny and knowingly camp. my favorite thing about it is that it looks like something i could have filmed on my old handheld camcorder, as many shows from this era do. natural lighting! real locations! basic ass clothes! it’s a breath of fresh air in our high-budget CGI era.

Black Trumpet Mushroom Stir Fry

FARMERS’ MARKET MUSHROOM SEASON IS HERE!! AND I FOUND A VENDOR WITH REALLY GOOD ONES!! black trumpets are some of my favorites. i try to cook simply with these guys to keep the natural flavors and textures at the forefront.

ingredients:

• black trumpet mushrooms

• broccoli

• sesame seeds

• EVOO

• granulated onion

• granulated garlic

• tiny bit of broth

steps:

• lightly sautee broccoli with EVOO, salt, granulated garlic, and granulated onion. add a liiiittle bit of water to the pan to steam, then pop it in the air fryer to crisp up the edges

• in the same now-empty pan, saute trumpet mushrooms with butter, salt, and a tiny bit of broth. i just use a little scoop of better than bouillon no-chicken base and a splash of water

• combined and top with sesame seeds! it’s so good!

final gratitude

this week i am grateful for SUNSET AT ACTUAL NIGHTTIME. god it feels good.

by the way, i am visiting the east coast in july! i will be in boston from the 18th to 20th, then in maine from the 21st to 23rd, then back in boston from the 24th to 26th. i’m very excited.

until next time, take care!

This Week in Pondering

it's time for another SPECIAL GUEST FEATURE!!

here we have a write-up from kleanthis who is Very Into Taxonomy and had a lot to share about last week's algae/protist/slime mold rabbit hole. we had an awesome conversation about it, after which i asked him to summarize his key findings for all of you. as my friend heather so aptly said of the matter: "It's dangerous to go alone- I hope you have spelunking gear!" here, dear reader, is our spelunking gear.

so there we have it! algae aren't plants because all the categories are bonkers. but if we must use these bonkers categories, then in fact, PLANTS ARE ALGAE! mystery (somewhat) solved!

The Work Report™

i have my two herb talks coming up this month, which i continue to be a bit nervous about, but i still have some time to prepare. hopefully it'll be fine! i'm telling myself that as long as i sleep enough i'll probably be able to handle any challenge that arises. this is false. but i need something to cling to.

in the meantime, customers continue to pour in with increasing speed and severity. several of them have been excited to meet me because they are fans of my work newsletters, which is hilarious. i don’t know why sarah decided to let me write them like that but i guess it’s working. i’m always pleasantly surprised to find that people actually read anything i shout into the void, including these here emails.

i also have TWO MORE EMPLOYEES! they go by jill and amara respectively.

JILL: she knows so much about gardening. i mostly hired her for her brain and she is not letting me down. i will never know as much as her no matter how old i am. customers ask me about which tomato is best for sauce and i go "JILL?" and she goes "oh, marzano for sure. but also—" and then lists five more options i have never heard of in my life. i can't lie, it’s gonna be tough without her.

AMARA: amara is an absolute delight. she is so warm and fun and she fits in like a glove. after knowing her for four hours i felt like i’d known her for four months. i’m definitely going to miss her too once this season is over.

another notable thing about amara is that when i took her passport to photocopy, it did not say "amara may" inside. it said WEDNESDAY ADAMS. THAT’S HER LEGAL GOVERNMENT NAME. what a reveal! i understand that she doesn't want to be named after a tv character and may be concerned about how it affects her employment prospects — but i would have hired her just for being named wednesday adams. case in point: i was required by my insurance to choose a PCP the other day and immediately went with the one named edward cullen. is he a good doctor? fuck if i know. but we’re locked in now. just me and wednesday adams and edward cullen against the world.

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

isis has been recommending this book for ages and i FINALLY got my copy from the library. the audiobook is sublime, and the story equally so. it is, first and foremost, devastating. it deals in some fairly heavy themes, but not without the care and solemnity they deserve. it’s hard to say exactly what makes the story itself so special without spoiling it — you will just have to trust me that the further you read, the more compelling it gets, and the ending is phenomenal. i would recommend it especially to anyone who enjoyed madeline miller’s circe, as both books marry fantasy elements with a grim, grounded tone, and both brilliantly encapsulate the experience of womanhood in a brutal world. i’m excited to see where things go in the next book!

https://gradient.horse/

please just go draw a horse and watch it run. my friend racket and i both got a bit emotional about these drawings’ resemblance to prehistoric cave paintings of animals. is it ridiculous? yes. it is also profound and beautiful. aside from that, it also reminded me of the "draw a horse from memory" zine the booksmith staff made. 10/10: this is where the internet excels.

the march mix is IN!

march 2026

Playlist · luciabee · 34 items

open.spotify.com/playlist/5jKkBhzBAjywD2vgkmXoLy?si=45c6c326453f4b26

big spotlight on bbno$ this month, but also some other things. as always, the vibes are all over the place. also vienna vienna’s entertain me EP is included again but as a live version so it’s technically different

“You Can Eat Whatever At Any Time” Breakfast

so wholesome so tasty

here’s my new go-to breakfast meal prep. it doesn’t quality as breakfast in any way but i’ve been eating it in the morning because, as nbc’s the office once said,

so anyway here’s the recipe.

ingredients:

• hodo moroccan tofu cubes. the savory, buttery flavor of the oil they’re packaged in is what marinates the entire dish

• 2 bags of traitor joe’s ready veggies — the most diverse and versatile raw veggie mix i’ve been able to find at any store
  (i call them traitor joe’s on account of how they are evil)

• 1 pouch of seeds of change quinoa and brown rice blend with garlic. or whatever similar thing

• optional rainbow quinoa for even more quinoa. quinoa

steps:

• heat the rice in a pan with some water to remind it what it’s supposed to look like, then set aside

• toss the veggie mix into an empty pan with the tofu and cook until just starting to tenderize. i usually do this in two batches because it’s just too much veggie for my one pan

• mix in rice and, if you feel like it, bonus quinoa

• add salt and optional extra spices because i am who i am

• divide into four containers and store in fridge

• to serve, heat contents of one container in the toaster oven for 10 min or until veggies just begin to crisp up at the edges

final gratitude

this week i am extra grateful to KAYLEE, my friend and former booksmith coworker, for noticing that i had “order new journal soon” on the to-do list in my bereal and offering to send me the exact thing i wanted from booksmith using their employee discount and free shipping. once i provided the details, it was packaged and sent out in like three seconds. what an incredibly thoughtful, generous, unnecessary thing for them to go out of their way to do. kaylee is a star and i love them forever.

they’re also a phenomenal catalyst for community projects. kaylee is always directing people toward unique, effective, and fulfilling volunteering opportunities, which has nothing to do with the journal at all; i just think it’s awesome and i want more people to appreciate that quality. we are all lucky to live in the same world as kaylee whether you know them personally or not.

also i’m really excited about the journal.

until next time, take care!

This Week in Pondering

this week we are pondering - ̗̀ TAXONOMIC EDGE CASES  ̖́-

as i was preparing to teach my succulent class this week, i was trying to simply explain what defines a plant, and i ended up getting sucked into a rabbit hole about the taxonomy of algae. i understand from my research that there are many minor reasons why algae are not classified as plants — but algae seem more like plants than platypuses seem like mammals, and platypuses still get to be part of the larger group. i get why pluto is not a planet. i do not get why seaweed is not a plant.

the main reason i kept encountering was that algae don't have things like roots or a vascular system. but moss — the ORIGINAL PLANT, THE PLANT THAT PRECEDED (OR DARE I SAY, INVENTED) ALL OTHER PLANTS — does not have those things either. so what gives!

i had a couple theories. the first was that algae have chloroplasts but not rigid cell walls. turns out they do actually have rigid cell walls for the most part, so that one was out.

the second was that photosynthesis evolved separately in algae and that's why they are on a different branch of our grand phylogenetic tree. it turns out that, yes, photosynthesis has evolved several times — but there's no distinct separation in its heritage with algae. HOWEVER, i did learn from that line of questioning that symbiogenesis theory includes not just mitochondria but also chloroplasts! so that was really cool.

(if you're not aware of symbiogenesis theory, that's the concept that back in the microscopic days of life our planet, some parts of what eventually became our cells used to be separate organisms which then joined together into one new thing. kind of like how lichen is not only an algae or a fungus but a combination of the two. our cells were made from several creatures, and so are chloroplasts, and the idea of a true "individual" continues to be a human invention with as much scientific backing as gender)

so anyway, that wasn't it either. eventually i thought to ask, if they are not plants or animals, what the hell they actually are. the answer is protists.

protists! great. classic. the "secret third thing" of the taxonomy world. i think platypuses should also be protists. finally, some kind of logical organization was entering the picture. but when i opened the wikipedia page for protists to learn more, i noticed that one of their example images included slime mold. now we had a new issue.

slime mold?? a protist??? "mold" is right in the name. i read about slime mold in my favorite book about fungi. what do you MEAN it's a separate category of organism. does this imply there molds that aren't fungi? or is it not a true mold? what the hell is going on?

as you can see, i'm still stuck in the taxonomy quagmire and frankly i do not see a way out anytime soon. perhaps one day i will find answers i entirely understand. but in the meantime i would so rather be overthinking the nuances of how we categorize our freakiest little creatures than every single data point about every single food item that enters my mouth, so i'm actually fine with this.

The Work Report™

my succulent class was a success! it was about 45 minutes of me lecturing and 45 minutes of me answering questions afterwards. i think we had 32 attendees in total, which was our absolute maximum chair capacity. one customer brought cheesecake to share with the group. the whole vibe was excellent. i got nothing but positive, enthusiastic feedback afterwards, including from my boss, who left me a sticky note that said "amazing job!" and a beautiful little bouquet of flowers. one person outright told me, "you are a wonderful teacher," which sincerely meant a great deal to hear.

i put the flowers on my balcony so i can enjoy them during my morning “eat breakfast and breathe deeply and observe the beautiful mountains” time

personally, i was happy with my performance, but i think i could do a much better job with more practice. i'm desperate for opportunities to hone this skill before i attempt in earnest to make it my career; they're just generally few and far between.

at the moment, i'm comfortable speaking in front of groups and i can work a room fairly well. i think i do a great job creating lesson plans and structuring information in a way that facilitates understanding. i just want to feel totally in my element combining the two, and i'm not quiet there yet. it's not unlike acting in that the repetition of the same lesson again and again helps an educator become one with their material. but usually, when i've taught, it's been a one-and-done affair. nail it or don't! either way it's over now.

this is part of why i'm so convinced i'd be perfect for docent work at a botanical garden. it's the same information but new groups each day. you build on your knowledge until you know the material like the back of your hand, and then it's just about catering your delivery to each audience to give them the best possible experience. that's the ideal balance between feeling very competent and regularly challenged to keep me satisfied with the same job for many years. it's not the only work i think i could do well, but it's the idea i'm eyeing most hungrily.

Hostile Street by Cheekface

Hostile Street

Cheekface · Hostile Street · Song · 2026

open.spotify.com/track/7307Qwl0RM2MB1auTy5lNg?si=27927c86e8b3408d

dude i just love this band... everything they put out is my favorite. (except military gum. sorry military gum. it's the strokes' Metabolism of their discography.) i'm not very familiar with them as people (except touring member alex. if you know you know). that is fine — nay, ideal. but as artists, i am a huge fan. their ironic lyricism, blasé yet animated vocals, and novel sonic fingerprint are relentlessly compelling to me. it has been from the minute i encountered their music back in 2021.

i will now wax poetic about cheekface for a long time.

the defining experience of every cheekface drop is that the music feels distinctly theirs in the sense that no one but this band could have achieved it, yet i am also never expecting what i hear. these people do not know the meaning of stagnation. like brandon sanderson, they spoil their audience with both the quantity AND quality of their work — and although i should take it for granted by now, i continue to find myself astonished by the pace of their evolution. each new album iterates on the refinements and themes of the last, and each single is among my favorite songs of that year almost without exception.

the other thing that amazes me about their output is that somehow, even as they continue to outdo themselves with each release, none of their earlier work loses its shine in comparison. once a banger, always a banger. i can never say that their newest music is anything less than their best, but neither does it eclipse what i've heard from them previously. rather, each album uplifts and enhances their discography as a whole, standing in proud accompaniment of their greatest hits and contributing brilliant new ones besides.

they are also by far and away my favorite band to see live. i do not say that lightly. i have seen many, many musicians perform, and most of them have been incredible. unfortunately no one will ever top gerard way in 2014 at the paradise rock club. but cheekface is second, and third, and also fourth to that experience. those of you who know how fervently i adore hesitant alien (an album i own on vinyl four times over) will understand what high praise that is.

there is just something special that happens in a room with them and their audience. i think you have to be a certain kind of odd to love them, and their fans tend to go pretty hard for that reason. their music is also just plain fun. it invites participation with the same irresistible command as your classic cha cha slides and cotton eyed joes of the world, only instead of rolling your eyes a little, you are euphoric with the experience of being a human animal among other human animals, all orienting your love in the same direction, simultaneously connecting to your most authentic self and losing yourself entirely to the school of fish you now belong to.

all this is to say that at a cheekface show, i am knocked flat by the certainty of my joy. i show up knowing i am going to have a phenomenal night. i leave knowing it will happen again next year. every small grievance of my life falls away. i see god. not like the man in the sky, but like the beauty of a landscape.

but of course, i am not really seeing god. i'm seeing many hours of artistic labor being met with a generous and loving reception. one could argue those are facets of the same thing.

there are certain experiences you can expect at pretty much every cheekface show. if there is a child in the audience, they will play that child's favorite song, even if it is an obscure b-side unknown to most others in the room. you are definitely going to yell "A BIG! CUP OF NOODLES! A GIANT CUP OF NOODLES!" at least 36 consecutive times with increasing intensity. if you're lucky, they'll do a surprise cover/mash-up that works way better than you'd expect it to, sometimes with simple choreography instructions to match. and each person on stage is going to behave in the same general manner, each of which is enthralling to watch, each of which is distinct from the rest.

their touring keyboardist and percussionist, alex, is the easily the most entertaining part of every show. i will continue to say that regardless of our personal history because it's what drew me to him in the first place and i'm right. he dances like a lunatic and dresses like a seven year old, both in the best way possible. he also shreds. he actually made me like military gum when i heard it in person. that says everything that needs to be said about his stage presence.

their lead vocalist, greg, performs like the most talented animatronic at disney's hall of presidents. he dresses like a polly pocket golf caddie. every utterance and movement of his feel simultaneously over-rehearsed and also like his first attempts at human embodiment. i know he's playing a character, but i don't know to what degree. in actual conversation he's as normal as anyone else you'd see ordering a vegan impossible breakfast sandwich at starbucks; onstage he's normal like spongebob was that one time. there's a vast gulf between these two concepts. on full display alongside these mannerisms is a mild-mannered warmth and sincerity that make him the perfect frontman for this strange little ensemble. he also really knows his way around a guitar! he's smiling complacently into the middle distance but his fingers are doing things with strings i can only dream about. it's awesome.

mandy is the artist behind the band's aesthetic. she plays bass and co-writes their music with greg. she is magnetic on stage — she's never trying to grab your attention, but you can't look away from her either. it's hard to put words to the vibe she emits except that it is just deeply, profoundly cool. you can tell from her choice of shoes. she is elegant yet understated, perhaps the most slept-on member of any band ever, and from what i've been able to gather, a very resilient human being. i respect the fuck out of mandy.

echo... he's a dark horse. every single time i see him my primary thought is "wow, he really looks like john green. i mean, i knew that, but wow." he chugs away from the back of the stage with flawless consistency and his drum solos go fucking nuts. he seems like the kind of guy who has a good relationship with his friends' moms. i have a theory that he's the one running their social media most of the time but almost no evidence to back it up. when i asked him to draw a creature, he made a fucked up bigfoot with three fingers per hand stump. it was beautiful.

i could go on, but i think you get the point by now. please go listen to america's local band cheekface. and if they happen to reach you on tour, do not miss the opportunity to experience it. they’re releasing their 2026 dates soon and i’m planning to move heaven and earth to be there.

I Want You Back dir. Jason Orley

i first watched this movie back when it was initially released and i remember really liking it. it's kind of become my go-to thought for a movie i enjoyed that almost no one else has seen. but it's been a while! so i decided to rewatch to see whether it was actually good or whether i just love jenny slate and charlie day.

well, i do love them. the whole cast is wonderful, actually. but also the movie itself is very fun! the premise is these two characters get dumped at roughly the same time. they end up meeting and bonding over it, and then sucking each other into a maladaptive vortex where they try to break up their respective exes' new relationships so that they can get their old partners back. but as they get closer to each other's exes, and to each other, things take some very silly and heartwarming turns. i love how the disparate plot elements end up joining together, and i love that none of the characters end up falling by the wayside of the main narrative (except jenny. sorry jenny.)

my only critique is i would have loved to see a little more closure in the ending, like an epilogue of some kind. it's a beautiful conclusion, but i am left wanting more — like a waiter took my plate away before i could finish the last bite.

overall, though, it's absolutely worth watching. i smiled the whole way through, and i'll definitely continue returning to it again and again.

Pesto Ravioli

ingredients:

• ravioli of your choosing (finally found a gluten free one)

• pesto of your choosing (finally found a vegan one)

• the highest quality rainbow cherry tomatoes you can get your hands on

• chopped walnuts

steps:

• boil the ravioli

• toast the walnuts

• scoop in some pesto

• put it all together

• shake it all about

• that's what it's all about

final gratitude

this week i am really grateful to rae, a fellow student at the pole studio i go to. she brought a bunch of her own polewear to class for me to try on so i could get an idea of what sizes and styles feel good on me right now before ordering anything for myself. it was incredibly kind and generous of her. the initial conversation came about because i was talking about my recovery and how quickly i’m changing size, and instead of offering condolences, she offered me congratulations. that felt amazing. i am very fortunate to know rae.

until next time, take care!

hello all! welcome back to the newsletter. i skipped last week. it was going to just be late, but then it got so late it was sunday again, so here we are. if you read the installment before that you will understand that i am kinda going through some things right now and have thus been PROFOUNDLY exhausted. however i also got stuck without wifi for a few days due to the snow here causing an area outage, among other delays, blah blah blah. my point is: i didn't forget about you. and i really ought to be getting ready for bed right now instead of writing this one, but i'm not, because i don't want to let you down twice. it has become important to me that i keep up with this project for its own sake.

This Week in Pondering

man, what HAVEN'T i been pondering this week? when you become more in touch with your body and start unearthing pretty much every instinct you have to inspect it for damage, it brings up a lot of other things. i'm still sorting through most of it. and i don't really want this newsletter to become an ED recovery journal, even though it is my preoccupation at the moment. i want my life to be bigger than that! it's also, i assume, kind of boring to people who are not in the same boat. if anyone is really desperate to hear the ins and outs of this process, let me know and i'll talk about it more. but in the meantime i’ll just keep you posted on my big strides and leave the rest to my journal.

if i had more time and energy at the moment, i would tell you about the big snowstorm here and how i was sliding around town in my honda civic trying to get home after work got called off, or about how the project for awesome this year became the biggest one yet in the final hour of the stream and the maternal center of excellence in sierra leone finally opened its doors to deliver a baby via emergency c-section and we all cried, or about how i finally got a new piano after probably a decade now and it sounds beautiful. but as i said, i'm late for bed, so i hope those quick summaries will suffice.

The Work Report™

i keep getting more busy!! but i am also really beginning to feel comfortable there. the other managers and i laugh with each other. my team is great so far. i continue to absolutely hate making the schedule, but i'm taking solace in the fact that it's only going to be complicated for a few more months, and sarah said i'm miles ahead of previous managers even with all my many questions about whether i’m doing it right. i think it's just a lot of guesswork no matter what and i do not like that. but at least next year i will be able to work off my own notes and template instead of the confusing disaster that rona left me to sift through. full offense to rona.

in other news, i’m teaching a class on succulents this week! i am really excited about this because it's the kind of work i most want to do, but i'm also nervous because it means so much to me that i do a good job. i feel like i'm auditioning for my entire future. that said, i have no real reason to be worried about this because i know a hell of a lot about succulents.

NEXT month, however, i am giving a talk about herbs at the local rotary club (who CALLED to REQUEST i be a GUEST SPEAKER because they liked my work newsletter SO MUCH). i’m also adapting that brief talk into a lengthier class for the week after. but i honestly don't know that much about herbs! so i am gonna be a little more intense about preparing for those. speaking off the cuff is a lot harder than writing for me. i may just memorize the whole thing and perform it like a monologue. we'll see.

The Away End with John Green and Daniel Alarcón

john green and a couple of his longtime friends (who are respectable figures in their own right) have begun a podcast about soccer in anticipation of the FIFA world cup. i don't know shit about soccer, but i will listen to john green talk about pretty much anything, and i am trying to become more of a team sports person. so i've really been enjoying this one! we see a slightly different john than the one we get when he's talking directly to his larger audience, or to a tiny subsection of that audience, or to hank. this is old friend/tiny audience john, which, as it turns out, is a delightful combination. he makes jokes i would expect him to filter in most other environments and tells stories i usually haven't heard before. his friend daniel alarcón is also full of great anecdotes and insights informed by his peruvian background and career as a journalist. i often don't know what they’re saying — much like their producer friend whom they occasionally loop into conversations for entertainment value — but i'm having fun.

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

famous child star and eating disorder recoveree jennette mccurdy has become increasingly important to me as of late. her last meals interview was a piece of what spurred me toward the journey i am on now. i want to be as healed as she is. she verbalizes profound yet simple emotional truths about recovery with an ease i can only dream of at this stage. although her life and experiences with eating disorders were far more brutal than anything i’ve suffered myself, much of her writing about them is achingly resonant. she is living proof that complete recovery really is possible. if she can do it after all of that, i really have nothing to worry about.
this is not my first time reading her memoir. i decided to revisit in light of my renewed interest in her journey, and, unsurprisingly, it holds up. her voice is unique and compelling, and her story equally so. if you haven’t read this book — even if you have no idea who jennette mccurdy is — i would highly recommend it. she touches on dysfunctional family dynamics, the brutal machinations of child stardom, codependent relationships, grief, and about a million other heavy topics with both perspicacity and her characteristic dry humor. it absolutely deserves the critical praise it has garnered over the years.

Forgive-Me-For-Forsaking-You Stir Fry

i’m dipping my toe back into cooking again (ew. bad analogy) and it’s going okay. here’s the simplest stir fry in the world. i really enjoyed it.

ingredients:

• half a block of fava bean tofu, seasoned with adobo and salt

• sugar snap peas (my favorite)

• bit of leftover hearty salad mix (kale and such)

• chopped up broccoli stalks

• corn off the cob

• mirin, rice vinegar, and sesame oil (I CAN EAT OIL NOW!! WOOOOOO!!)

prep:

• break up the tofu in the pan, season with adobo and salt, and cook until it… seems done idk. i’m honestly pretty incompetent with tofu

• toss in the veggies

• add liquid flavors and stir to combine

• enjoy!

final gratitude

this week i am grateful to my body for being the vehicle through which i experience all things. i am very fortunate that my body is exceptionally functional and allows me to do anything i ask of it, even when that thing is holding up its own weight horizontally on a spinning pole using only my knee pits. all it asks of me is that i provide it with the rest and nourishment it needs. i think i can stand to provide it that kindness.

until next time, take care!

this week's newsletter deals heavily with eating disorders, body image, and discussions of weight. please read at your discretion.

This Week in Pondering

i’m not all that religious. i think i’ve mentioned before that i dabble. i have a little book i made myself; it is my own personal scripture compiled of texts that guide my life. some of it is from the actual bible, but the vast majority is not. one very important entry in the pantheon is this poem by mary oliver.

i’ve been clinging to it quite desperately this week.

i’ll tell you why, but i want to establish beforehand that this is profoundly difficult for me to speak about. so please proceed with gentleness. and please do not assume that any of our mutual friends or relations are aware of the issue already, because they probably aren’t, on account of this being very difficult for me to speak about.

several days ago, i was thoroughly humbled by a bout of food poisoning. we don’t need to get into the details. the relevant bit is that afterwards, i was trying to eat only what would settle my stomach and was already in the house. so i had my low-gluten bread and the frozen rice i’d been pointedly avoiding for months.

apart from sweet potatoes, i do not eat starchy foods or grains of any kind. they are among the many, many foods i consider off limits outside exceptional circumstances.

these were exceptional circumstances. i ate the bread and rice. and then some oatmeal. and then, once i ceased feeling sick, i kept doing it. i could not stop. i recognized the signs of a binge. it was more severe than usual. it lasted for days instead of hours. i did not know what to do.

according to multiple professionals, i do not have an eating disorder. what i do have is disordered eating. i have struggled with it on and off for the better part of fifteen years. it got especially bad in 2023, at which point i sought professional help that profoundly improved my situation. the issue didn’t leave me completely, but i was happier and healthier than i’d ever been.

then i went through that awful breakup in late july. the grief knocked me flat. it destroyed my appetite. eventually i was able to recover, but it’s been a bit of an uphill battle since then to reach the point of easy stability i had enjoyed earlier that year.

the strange contradiction in all of this is that, by all accounts, my diet is exceptionally healthy and nourishing. the labs conducted during my treatment showed absolutely no areas of concern. i don’t eat or even want any of the hyper-palatable processed foods many folks struggle to stay away from. i have never purged after a meal. i was not deemed over- or under-weight by any doctors. for being the most statistically deadly mental illness by a landslide, and one of the most notoriously visible, my own experience with it was almost as invisible as it could get.

i remember finally confessing to isis that i had "the most eating disorder a person can have without having one" and watching them blurt out a laugh. i was so warmed and relieved by the fact that they saw humor in it. this continues to be one of my favorite things about isis — the way they joke about things that make other people look to me with pity. but the point was salient: i have figured out how to walk this particular tightrope without toppling for frankly remarkable spans of time. even from myself, i have often hidden the problem.

and thus i found myself in oregon falling prey to more and more food rules and dietary decision fatigue. but so long as no one pushed me outside of my increasingly narrow comfort zone, i was managing just fine. i showed no panic or shame or extreme behaviors. i was dropping weight at healthy pace and hitting all my macros. finally, i thought, it was working. all it took was huge swathes of time and energy. but it was working.

right before returning home in december, i achieved the goal weight i had been fighting tooth and nail to reach for years. the elation was like a broken party blower. i did not feel perfect. i felt good, don’t get me wrong — but not in proportion to how much i had to give up to get there. i knew it wasn’t worth it, but i didn’t know how to have a different priority. and for that matter, what was i going to work on now? how was i going to maintain this? far from being put at ease, my bodily anxiety merely shifted from a focus on how to become exactly what i wanted to how easily my success could slip through my fingers. there was no peace at the end of the tunnel.

i decided to let go of all my rules when i went home, save the vegetarianism and gluten thing. i wanted to enjoy my mother’s cooking and meals with friends. and i figured, when i inevitably gained weight, i could return to the familiar comfort of dieting to fix it. that would solve my "what do i do now" problem.

but when i did get back to oregon, i realized i did not want to limit everything i ate all the time anymore. i decided it was okay eat maintenance calories. it was time to shift strategies. i started easing my restrictions and reintroducing certain foods in moderation.

this did not work.

once i stopped caring about eating to a strict deficit, i began overeating more frequently. i was self-soothing with food instead of enjoying it. i felt increasingly out of control. but it was okay, i thought, nothing to panic over. a pound or two or even five wouldn’t kill me. i could figure this out.

then came the food poisoning, and the subsequent starch and grains binge.

i knew that restricting food intake is what leads to binge eating. it is the body’s natural response to deprivation and is observed in nature across species. so after my time in treatment, i stopped trying to starve myself and focused instead on eating high volume/low calorie foods to stay both full and relatively thin. but what i did not learn until this week is that restricting particular kinds of foods is just as triggering toward the binge/restrict cycle as avoiding food altogether. that is why, when i let go of my calorie deficit and began eating a broader diet again, my body responded by telling me to over-eat more often. and that is why, when the food poisoning forced me to provide myself with unfettered access to grains for the first time in years, it triggered the worst binge i’d seen in quite some time. i had convinced myself i was walking a tightrope with practiced skill. but this incident revealed to me that i was merely sitting atop the same pendulum of extremes as always — it had just slowed down very drastically.

i decided for the second time that i don’t want to live like this anymore. it was time to seek help again.

a bit of desperate googling later, i came across a book called unapologetic eating by alissa rumsey. i downloaded it and began to read. it has been extremely transformative. i can’t recommend it highly enough to anyone who has ever struggled with food or with body image — which is, unfortunately, most people. i have also reached out to a weight-inclusive dietician to supervise me as i begin to navigate out of this quagmire for good.

the third concrete step i am taking is talking about it.

the reason i haven’t before now is i am ashamed of the fact that i struggle with this. i do not want my loved ones to look at me and see somebody sickly or unwell. i do not want people to pay special attention to what i eat or don’t eat in front of them. but most of all, i do not want people i love with larger bodies to feel any implicit judgment from me about how they look. none — none — of my struggles with food reflect my feelings toward other people’s bodies in any way. but i am terrified of hurting people i love by catching them in the crossfire of the harshness with which i treat myself.

what i do want is to de-fang some of the shame and secrecy i have carried around this issue for so long. it is already heavy. i do not need to make it any heavier by covering it up.

with the help of the book, i have realized that one of the reasons i return to this fixation on having a conventionally attractive body is my profound fear of being unpartnered for the rest of my life. i know i don’t need a relationship to be complete. but i have never felt nearly so joyous, safe, or secure as i did when i was happily in love. that feeling of stability is the north star of my existence. it is why i want a house so badly. and i have this deep conviction that if i am not as perfect as possible all the time, then if i do ever meet someone i want to be with again, i will not be good enough to attract their attention. i will miss my chance at the life i want. if that happens, i will never be rid of this itchy feeling that i am not as happy as i could be. and if i always have this itchy feeling, then all of the work i am doing to build my future, and everything i have been through to get here, will have been pointless. because no matter how great the rest of my life is, i will never be that happy again. because i am alone.
 
it’s never really about calories.

but that is just no way to live. i cannot afford to bank so much of my happiness on another person. and i cannot love the person i am if i’m constantly pruning her feathers to make her worthy of some future partner’s conditional affection. it poisons the well of my self-compassion and contentment. as kazuo ishiguro once said, "there was another life that i might have had, but i am having this one." another of my sacred scriptures.

so now we return to mary oliver.

here is where i am now: i briefly had the love i’d so desperately craved. i briefly had the ideal body i’d spent years working for. they were fragile embers of hope made miraculously manifest. they were real. those dreams were mine. i held them against my bones like my life depended on it. i still feel that way. but the time has come to let them go.

i am letting them go.

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch

i finished the series as it currently stands! this was a really fun read. the plot is a bit more self-contained and low-stakes than those of the first two books, and we spend a much greater proportion of it in flashbacks. this meant it had a different tone than i expected, but not necessarily a worse one. it's less "how are they gonna get out of this pickle" and more "oh so THAT'S why locke is the way he is." but i adore locke, so i'm not complaining.  
this book also contains one of the most affecting declarations of love i have ever read, made even more devastating by the audiobook narrator's performance. it was truly some mr darcy shit. i ate it up with a spoon. it was one of those instances where i had to bookmark it to transcribe the dialogue later. 
as usual, this book leaves us with as many questions as it answers, so i'm excited to read the next installation whenever it comes out.

Bob’s Burgers

this is the show of shows. it's such a comfort watch for me. the humor always goes down smooth and the performances are phenomenal. i love how the characters laugh and talk over each other. the whole thing is just so warm and underpinned by a sense of love and positivity that i think is rare in most television, but especially in animated shows for adults. i've been chipping away at it for a long time and recently dove back in with season five. if you've never seen it, i would highly recommend starting from the beginning whenever you get the chance.

i’m truly sorry for the poor quality of these images. i promise i will soon have good ones, probably starting this week. but in the meantime these ones are ESPECIALLY bad.

Pride

Aww Yeah I’m About To Eat This Shit Up

Gloried Gardener

still no title for this one

and finally, the new monthly mix:

february 26

Playlist · luciabee · 24 items

open.spotify.com/playlist/3bAu26SNcD8Lq5I5YvAgly?si=80897b6b7f0a45e6

i'm pretty excited about this one! it features the excellent new dogpark album, some old favorites, and a bunch of tiny artists that are putting out awesome stuff. i hope you find something you like if you listen.

final gratitude

this week i am very grateful for my support network. i wrote this treatise in one big burst at 2am with the knowledge that it would be received with love and compassion, and for that i am the luckiest person in the entire world.

until next time, take care. and hey: thanks.