I’m a scavenger — of words, nostalgia, and art supplies.
Let’s see what I’ve dug up today, shall we?
Better than Ever-ish
“When I arrived here, in the landscape of endings,
the wind entered my mouth with so much rage
as if I were its only vessel
until all my words vanished.”
We’re going to be unpacking these months for years. Every day, a month of news happened. Every day, I packed our things. Every day, I threw out a child’s drawing, a mother’s note (1 of 100), part of a broken toy, a photo of someone else’s Christmas tree.
There were days when I’d run into a friend unexpectedly and wonder, after we move, will this ever happen again? Will someone I love spot me sitting outside of a vintage shop and wave at me with their whole body? Will anyone want to invite me over for dinner because they made too much food? Will a dear friend take me out for ice cream and listen to me not-quite-cry about my day? Will anyone need me to help them do laundry after coming out of a bout of depression?
That was then. This is now.
Today, I walk out into a world that I am learning to translate.
A boy drops his coat: what word to I call out to his mother as she bikes away?
My neighbor brings us eggs from his chicken, but we can’t make conversation.
A woman shouts at children in the park; are they hers?
I came to this new place for refuge, but I’m far too privileged to be a refugee. I am an outcast from my beloved home, but I wasn’t cast out. I was defenseless, but not powerless.
Did I lose my home or give it up?
Journal, January 20, 2025
Triage Language
“I write because the world seems out of order,” says Claudia Rankine. “Looking back, I see this made some kind of sense in a senseless life.”
How can I describe the way my life has split into a Before and an After? A before with so many possible afters — and an after that slices all of those befores down. Prunes them so close to the root that you wonder if there will be more afters to see the springs to come.
Fortunately, I’m a weed.
What is a weed, really, but an undesirable?
Me, by definition.
I’ve never felt so lucky to be a weed.
Persistant. Resilient.
Prune me. Scatter me to the wind. See how I grow.
Quick Test of Ooly Glitter Gel Pens
Ooly Glitter Gel Pen Quick Test
I really enjoy using these gel pens. While I’m picky about my gel pens, I don’t have an exclusive relationship with any of them. Gelly Rolls were my first love, and I still use them for journaling and illustration. Gelly Rolls are great for laying down a lot of ink (with little to no opacity), but that’s also the reason I have trouble trying to write with them. My letters start to look blobby.
Ooly gel pens are great for writing because they don’t lay down so much ink, meaning my handwriting looks neater. And! They write immediately. Gelly Rolls often need to be shaken or coerced or bribed for the ink to start flowing. They’re divas.
The short version is this: if you want colorful gel pens mainly for writing, I recommend the Ooly Glitter pens!
Pros:
Retractable
Great color palette
Glitter!
Rubber grips
Ink flows well
Cons:
The ink blobs occasionally
The ball point tip leaves “creases” in the ink
If you want to purchase them, I present my affiliate link for your consideration. :)
Maisons fragiles
One of the most joyful parts of working at a library is serendipity of coming across books that I may never have known about otherwise. Today it was Amy Novesky and Isabelle Arsenault’s Cloth Lullaby, a delicately-illustrated children’s book about Louise Bourgeois. The book is so lovingly crafted and poetically written that it feels like a piece of art in its own right. But it also, generously, introduced me to Bourgeois’ work.
Bourgeois lived for a century and her life spanned from the end of the Victorian era into the 21st century, which is captivating to me in and of itself. Her mother taught her the trade-craft of textile repair, which carried into her later works, alongside painting, printmaking, and sculpture.
One piece I’m drawn to is Spiral Woman (1984), a kind of post-script to her original Spiral Woman, created in the 1950s.
“In Spiral Woman, 1951–52, Bourgeois explores the abstract form and dynamism of the spiral by stacking blocks of wood on a steel rod. The spiral becomes rounded in Spiral Woman, 1984, implying flesh and folds, from which arms and legs protrude. Suspended by a cable from the ceiling, the sculpture resembles a corpse spinning on the axis of its demise.” [ICA Boston]
“The spiral in her work demonstrates the dangerous search for precarious equilibrium, accident-free permanent change, disarray, vertigo, whirlwind. There lies the simultaneously positive and negative, both future and past, breakup and return, hope and vanity, plan and memory.” [Wikipedia]
The title of this post is drawn from the name of a series of her sculptures, Maisons Fragiles.
“Bourgeois’ precariously balanced series of sculptures give the illusion of frailty, but on closer inspection a steel construction provides them with a hidden strength. Appearing like empty houses, the ‘Maisons Fragiles’ are a commentary on the solitude of domestic life, confronting the deeply repressed issues that conditioned her youth.” [Wallpaper]
I also love to explore the concept of home in my work. Mine tends less toward the solitude of domestic life (since I haven’t lived through that personally), but rather the breakdown of family and of the home itself.
They Can’t Kill us until they Kill Us
Hanif Abdurraqib is one of the artist/writers/creators that I’d have at my fantasy dinner party. I admire the way he sees the world and the connections he draws from seemingly disparate topics and the way he puts his thoughts out into the world. Plus, I would imagine that he could have a fascinating conversation with just about anyone — the perfect person to have at a dinner party where you can invite literally anyone. James Baldwin & Margaret Mead, David Bowie, Kate Beaton, Aaliyah.
I’ve been reading one of Hanif’s books of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, which juxtaposes his personal experiences with social issues against his thoughts on music and culture. I couldn’t possibly pick a favorite of the essays contained within the book — they all have their own flavor and they just hit differently on different days. Today, the one that resonates in my belly is “Tell ‘Em All to Come and Get Me,” an essay about Kendrick Lamar (and so much more). An excerpt:
“The truth is, once you understand that there are people who do not want you to exist, that is a difficult card to remove from the table. There is no liberation, no undoing that knowledge. It is the unyielding door, the one that simply cannot be pushed back against any longer. For many, there are reminders of this every day, every hour. It makes "Alright," the emotional bar and the song itself, the best there is. It makes existence itself a celebration.”
