I’m blasting Station by Feeble Little Horse, easily my favorite band right now, and am kicking a half-written piece on “Building a Rich Inner Experience” in the corner, like a clump of lint or a dirty sock without its companion. Deeper analysis pieces are out of season for this season of my life, and the proof lies in how much fun I’m having writing this casual newsletter instead. Turns out it really doesn’t have to be that deep.

Important Side Note: For these more casual newsletters, I’ve been thinking about stamping them with an installment name. I’ve been toying with a more casual weekly newsletter series called ‘Bookmarked’ feat. neat things I’ve stumbled upon, interviews with creative friends, and general life musings. Is that something you’d be into? Do you even care? I genuinely want to know!!!

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September Media Log

I logged into Instagram <4 times this month—to quickly check for any important DMs. Today I emerged from my “offline” cocoon and posted a September Media Log carousel featuring the books, movies, games, and music I enjoyed the last four weeks. Is our media diet similar? Totally different? Just curious.

I loved Information Age by Cora Lewis. It’s a shorter, witty read featuring a journalist narrator at an online news site reporting on technology, the economy, and politics in the late 2010s. It’s witty and relatable. Loved it, no notes.

Also loved Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Jane Schoenbrun has this incredible ability to formulate seemingly specific, niche, or abstract feelings and experiences into stories that make you go, “Holy fuck, I thought I was the only one who felt this way!” The score (shout out Alex G) was chef’s kiss, and talk about a killer casting.

Nesting: Neat Home Brands

As mentioned in my last newsletter, I’m moving to Seattle in November. Naturally, moving prep has me evaluating what I want to carry into my new home. ~Four years in the same apartment led to some mild clutter, and my strict saving regimen has afforded me the opportunity to purge and invest in nicer tools and homeware. Out with the cheap plastic cooking utensils, in with the wooden spatulas! The algo demons have caught on to my increased interest in home goods, and I’ve been bombarded with Quince ads (basically the Shein of homeware). My reprieve has been from the Buy It For Life subreddit and intense internet sleuthing. Who would I be if I didn’t share this list with y’all?

Note: Some of these brands are completely outside of my budget range. I still enjoy looking for inspo — specifically to find mimics on Marketplace or at consignment stores.

▸ Ferm Living - Danish-designed furniture, accessories & lighting

▸ Little King - Extremely well-curated, design-forward homegoods site

▸ GreenRow - Sustainable home furnishings

▸ Quiet Town - Bathroom accessories

▸ Upton - Home accessories, storage and art

▸ GVAwood - 100% solid wood furniture

▸ Woodland Mod - Brick-and-mortar shop in Ballard’s historic district in Seattle

▸ Finish Design Shop - The cheesecake factory menu of Scandinavian home goods

▸ Yamazaki Home - Small-space storage (any Never Too Small fans out there?)

▸ TR Lab - Artist-designed accessories & unique home goods

▸ Dreamsofa - Completely customizable sofas. Discovered via the Buy It For Life subreddit.

▸ Sage and Clare - Australian lifestyle and homewares brand

Heavy Rotation

I’ll let the music do the talking. Both of these sets are incredible.

Building a Rich Inner World

Spoiler alert: this is the theme of the next essay I’m writing. I’ve been thinking about this Joan Didion quote, discovered while reading The Correspondent, non-stop.

Most of us live less theatrically, but remain the survivors of a peculiar and inward time.

And it’s true. The majority of us won’t live Anthony Bourdain-esq lives (rest in peace, King), traveling the globe and meeting with luminaries. It’s a strange feeling to sit with this and marinate in its truth, however evident. We’re in an age of constant performance — digital, corporate, etc. — molding our external lives to fit the impression we hope to give off while our inner homes enter a state of neglected limbo.

Anyway, I’ll save this tangent for the essay, whenever that ends up being published.

Worth Bookmarking

I’ve been on my “Bookmark This Tab” shit lately. I recently (finally) learned more about digital gardening and I’ve been going crazy on Sublime App. Here’s a few links that are blooming in my garden:

✿ The Public Domain Image Archive. Easily the greatest website for creatives out there and I’m so thankful to the humans that spend time uploading.

✿ This Substack article by . So many incredible, inspiration resources!

✿ I love ’s YouTube video essays and her recent upload really resonated with me.

✿ The work of Kay Nielsen. I wonder if Yoshitaka Amano was/is inspired by her work — you’ll see why when you see her art.

✿ This lentil soup recipe. My friend Madeline shared it with me and it was so cheap, healthy and easy to make!

That’s all for now. Thanks for humoring me in reading this far. :o)

So, it’s been a second.

It still feels too premature to deem 2026 a cursed year — the optimist in me is having a staredown with these remaining ~three months —, but I’d be remiss if I said the year hasn’t been a challenge. My to-do list has surpassed Substack as my primary writing source, as it seems to be never-ending and the salve for getting my anxiety under control (because if I cross one thing off, that means I’m one step closer to getting my lousy year back on track…right?). I’ve been finding tremendous solace in books — I’m on book #32 of the year now — and I’ve been telling my guilt-ridden, non-writing self that I’m simply in the “learning and research” phase of my writing pursuit, studying the styles of others to improve my own voice when I inevitably find my spark to publish consistently on here again.

Books I’ve read, June ‘26 - now:

** = Highly recommend

• **Famesick x Lena Dunham

• La Belle Sauvage x Philip Pullman

• **The Sane One x Anna Konkle

• You Weren’t Meant to Be Human x Andrew Joseph White

• **Piranesi x Susanna Clarke

• **A Short Stay in Hell x Steven L. Peck

• **I Who Have Never Known Men x Jacqueline Harpman

• Station Eleven x Emily St. John Mandel

• Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil x V.E. Schwab

• Half His Age x Jennett McCurdy

• **Information Age x Cora Lewis

• **The Correspondent x Virginia Evans

I’m very active on Fable and semi-active on Goodreads if you’d like to see what else I’ve read or plan to read.

Writing and books aside, I’m moving across the country.

You know how I mentioned to-do lists are my primary “writing outlet” lately? Yeah, so 3/4 of those bulleted lists involve moving prep. My partner and I are ditching Dallas, Texas, for the Pacific Northwest in November — Seattle specifically. This isn’t our first rodeo, as we lived in Portland, OR, in 2021. We moved back to Texas in 2022 to establish our risograph printing press, save money, and build creative connections (you may be surprised to learn that the creative scene in Dallas is flourishing).

Outside of the weather, walkability, and the oh-so-casual 180° political differences, we’re eager to be closer to family and close friends who now live in Seattle. In August, we vended at Smol Art Mart, an annual market hosted by our friends, and left feeling like we received our official calling to book it and move. The creative community was so kind, welcoming, and genuinely excited to learn we were considering moving to their corner of the US. Complete strangers came up to us and exchanged cell numbers, offering to help us look for apartments or grab a coffee once we settled in. Seattle freeze¹, who?

We’ve been in survival mode the last year: work, sleep, vet visits, repeat. To get ourselves hyped for our new chapter and into a better headspace, we made a “Seattle Bucket List” to look forward to. It’s fun, so I thought I’d share.

☐ New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge²
☐ Go swimming in a lake in the summer
☐ Go on a whale watching tour
☐ Go to Forks, WA
☐ Watch Twin Peaks & then visit filming locations
☐ Mushroom foraging
☐ Make a meal entirely out of farmers market ingredients
☐ Bookstore tour (visit a ton of bookstores around Seattle one weekend)
☐ Thrift store day (visit a ton of thrift stores around Seattle one weekend)
☐ Get library cards + library tour
☐ Bike around Green Lake
☐ Take ferry to an island
☐ Ceramic class

Category is: music

From 2010-2020, I was swallowing music like a parched pothos. Every other day I’d discover a new artist or album that perfectly soundtracked my days. I’m trying to get back into that headspace, rekindling the same spirit I held when I worked as an Assistant Music Director and album reviewer at my college radio station.

YouTube has been my music bastion these days. I listen to music all day at my desk job and, as a result, have discovered several incredible albums that have deepened my excitement for music study and exploration. Here are a few worth checking out as you cook, read, write in your journal, or go on your evening walk:

⋆ ݁♫ Takumi Yoneyama - Relaxation Music For Your Computer Life (1997)
⋆ ݁♫ Luiz Bonfá - Introspection (1972)
⋆ ݁♫ A Cloud Mireya - "Singular" (2006)
⋆ ݁♫ Danny Scott Lane - Shower (2023)
⋆ ݁♫ Otto Benson - Songs Before Bed (2022)

Get the haircut

We’re roughly two months away from our big move, but I needed change NOW. And what do you do when you need change? You cut your hair.

I cut my self-declared “iconic” mullet/shag and am now working with a bixie (bob/pixie). When my stylist put the finishing touches on my hair, I almost started crying.

Six years of emotional (and physical) weight… gone.

The hair that sat on my head last fall when I cut ties with my dad.
The hair that carried me through several stressful vet appointments and pet health scares.
The hair that saw me through friend breakups.
The hair that has seen me through multiple moves and travel plans.

I feel lighter. Sometimes all you need is a drastic haircut to welcome better times.

And here’s the good news

Writing this little update newsletter was genuine fun. Perhaps my battery is just a bit fuller today, or maybe I’m getting closer to walking out of this dark tunnel I’ve been in the last few months. Whatever the case, thank you for reading this far. You could’ve spread your attention elsewhere…but you stayed. And that’s a really encouraging thing to think about.

Back again soon,

Allison of Scribble Scrabble

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Endnotes:

¹The Seattle Freeze is a cultural term that describes the common belief that it is hard to make new friends and form deep social connections in Seattle, Washington.

²Seattle's official cold plunge ringing in the New Year, taking place on Lake Washington at 12:00 PM

For Your Listening Pleasure: This song is by my talented friend Assar Wade (Tottomori) // Ancient Screw x Shoreline Mistward

“Wake up at 5 am to make enough time for your creative hobbies!”

“Try the Artist’s Way (for the fifth time because you can’t commit because you’re already burnt out!!!).”

“Search “x” and “x” on Pinterest for creative inspo!”

These are just a handful of the arguably ⋆˙⟡ bad and generic ✧˖° pieces of advice my algorithm has recently served me. I would know. I’ve tried it all.

I am a creative with a 9-to-5 desk career. After 10 years at four different orgs, I’m happy to report that I’m (finally) in a place where I genuinely feel fulfilled at my job; however, I haven’t quite reached a place where I feel I can effortlessly balance both my 9-to-5 and my creative ambitions. In my free time (aka my 5-10 and weekends), my partner and I run a risograph studio and publishing press, constantly preparing for tabling events, and I write and create on Substack and YouTube. I do this because it’s important to me, but with it comes its own life…of which requires a healthy amount of creative energy — energy that’s hard to find when your attention is fractured amongst working, eating, hygiene, socializing, and operating your human suit.

This article is for the 9-to-5 creatives who struggle to keep their creative spark lit; I see you, I am you, and I have a few — fingers crossed — non-generic solutions for you that I’ve personally found helpful in keeping my creative drive fueled and healthy.

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⋆˚꩜｡ Swap Creating With Learning

There will be days when you’ll feel too exhausted to work on your creative endeavors after your 9-5. If you, like me, are an individual contributor who executes on heavy tasks and projects all day, you’re likely well acquainted with the brain fatigue that comes at the end of the day. It makes creating leisurely feel like climbing Everest.

Now, let’s go video game character mode for a second: think of the energy we release all day into our work projects as a little green stamina bar. After a long day of work, that bar will eventually run out, and we’ll need to replenish it with nutritional resources to restore it.

There are resources you’ll be tempted to consume because they’re disguised as stamina fillers. In the farming RPG Stardew Valley, these are red mushrooms — a toxic shroom that reduces your character’s stamina bar even further. In real life, this is social media, TV binging, and doomscrolling. Red video game mushrooms, social media, TV binging, and doom scrolling all have one thing in common: when you consume them, your green stamina bar depletes instead of regenerating.

The true elixir here is learning, specifically, learning more about your creative craft or a topic that interests you.

The other day, I decided I wanted to start ~“knowledge-maxxing”~ after work. I bought a dedicated notebook, wrote down 8 topics I wanted to dive into that’d benefit my creative projects, and made dedicated YouTube playlists featuring video essays and mini-docs centered around those topics. Instead of forcing myself to create on an empty battery, I stepped out of my brain’s 8-hour-long “execution” mode and went into student mode instead. I received my “sit and watch videos” fix while simultaneously learning more about my craft and ways to expand the creative possibilities within it (in this case, I was learning more about my camera and editing to improve future vlogs). As a result, I found myself more energized and excited to get back into “creation mode” to put my learnings into action.

ੈ✩‧₊˚ Weekday Creative Dates With Friends

Nothing quite like body doubling to hold you accountable! In addition to the mental health benefits you receive from socializing (yes, even when you’re too tired after work), creative dates are great for unblocking artistic ruts. Our isolated experiences and monotonous day-to-day can create obstructions to our creative inspiration, which is where bouncing ideas off a creative pal can come in handy.

Text a fellow creative friend and invite them to:

▸ Doodle weird knick-knacks at your local antique shop
▸ A free museum day (i.e., mine has free admission on Thursdays)
▸ Create vision boards from old magazines
▸ Recreate album covers from Play-Doh
▸ Blind contour random people at the park (whoever gets the more accurate contour gets to pick the dinner spot)
▸ Draw temp tattoos on each other with a tattoo pen
▸ Recreate logos and signage you stumble upon (into something better or more interesting)
▸ Sidewalk chalk!!!

And on and on and on and on.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ Dedicated Social Media Time

Heard you haven’t had enough Substack lecturing about phone use and screen time! 🤪 I know I said I wouldn’t offer generic advice here, but hear me out — I’m not about to pitch you on a Brick or scold you into deleting your Instagram for good. The former feels like a waste of money (I’m willing to be proven wrong), and the latter is a more complex decision. What I WILL suggest is setting dedicated days (a.k.a. boundaries) for your most-used social apps. Instead of entering an endless loop of opening and closing your apps for a quick dopamine hit, try deleting the social app on specific days of the week (i.e., Monday - Thursdays or Monday/Wednesday/Friday/Sunday). You won’t have to worry about missing important DMs or “updates”, and you’ll find you have more energy for your creative endeavors when you aren’t being bogged down by the minutiae of everyone else’s daily life. And let’s be so real…you may realize you don’t even want to reinstall the apps on your “on” days.

✎𓂃One Hour, Same Time Every Day

The thing I mourn the most during the week is time. When you work 40+ hour workweeks, it feels like you have so little of it. Once you’re off, the rest of your evening is spent getting out of the work headspace, making dinner, going to the gym, caring for relationships, and generally decompressing before you need to head to bed for the next day.

Whether before or after work, find your non-negotiable, “airplane mode” hour that you can devote to your creative practice or learning. There’s no “I’ll do it tomorrow” with this one. Your creative self needs it today, and you deserve this small gift. My dedicated hour typically happens from 8-9 pm, as I’m most creatively energized at night. If you’re a morning person, switch that pm to am.

Nourish Your Body With Creative-Heightening Foods

Chant with me now: “We are what we eat!!!”

We already talked about fueling our minds with learning, but what about the actual FUEL FUEL we need? To no one’s surprise, the list of creative-heightening foods are all healthy and whole — Farmers Market trip soon?

Avocados

You now have a real justification for spending $10 on avocado toast (gonna do it anyway, but validation is nice) — the oleic acid in avocados reacts with the white matter of our brains (the “communication highway” of this organ), building a layer of insulation around it that helps information bullet speed its way around the brain.

Almonds, Walnuts & Pumpkin Seeds

Any seed or nut, really. This easy snack has a large amount of nutrients — vitamins A & E and Omega 3 & 6 fatty acids — that help enhance concentration, creativity, and our cognitive improvement.

Strawberries, Blueberries, Raspberries…all the Berries

Berries help improve our memory and cognitive functions by delivering anthocyanin antioxidants across the blood-brain barrier, helping to reduce inflammation and promote neuroplasticity. Lots of big words here, but this all translates to, “GOOD 4 ME”.

See Also…

▸ Lots and lots of water
▸ Dark greens (kale, spinach, broccoli)
▸ Oily fish like tuna and salmon
▸ Supplements like ginkgo biloba & ginseng
▸ Beets
▸ Whole grains
▸ Seaweed (Nori)
▸ Coffee & green tea (in moderation!)

Sources: NhaHealth, Lynne Cohen Foundation, Oxford Academic

More Of My Writing ✐ᝰ.ᐟ

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about mundanity. This isn’t by coincidence — I’ve been desperately craving it. The last three years have been a non-stop hustle of working a strenuous day job in marketing, coupled with running a small risograph printing press by night. My to-do list is like a river, constantly flowing with boulders, fallen trees, and various obstacles sprinkled across the current. There is no time for a moment’s rest within my boat, because I have to constantly look 10 feet ahead to map out my route or swerve an upcoming obstacle. I look around, and I see others in their boats, somehow mastering the ability to fish, entertain fellow passengers, and take in the surrounding scenery while navigating the rushing waters. I feel a sense of envy; how can they possibly do it all? Why does it feel like my boat is riddled with scotch-taped holes, encumbered with river water?

I’m ready to put my oars down. The current is fast and demanding, but I realized that I’m missing the beauty of the surrounding scenery — the small, mundane details of life that’re the reason why getting in the boat was even worth it in the first place. When all we think about is the bigger picture and how we can get from one goal to the next, there’s no room for reflection or inspiration, the feeling that’s fueled by all the boring, mundane moments.

The mundane and the sacred are one and the same.
- Alan Watts

As we come up on the second quarter of 2026 (barf), I’d like to work with my brain to be more okay with accepting mundanity. Making room for and getting excited about the mundane parts of life offers us a stable and comforting foundation that ends up being the parts of our lives we value most. In fact, a 2014 Harvard Business School study found that people consistently underestimate how interesting and meaningful their ordinary daily experiences will feel when they revisit them later. In experiments where students created “time capsules” of everyday moments (like conversations or songs they were listening to), participants later found these memories far more enjoyable and curiosity-inducing than they had predicted. The research suggests that documenting mundane moments can create unexpected future joy because ordinary experiences often become more meaningful with time.

Tools For Embracing The Mundane

Activities and habits I’ve embraced that help me slow down and appreciate the mundane parts of life more.

✦︎ Point-and-Shoot Film Photography

I bring my Kodak Ektar H35 half-frame camera with me everywhere. It’s a $50-60 camera that has 72 exposures, making it a more affordable option for consistent film photography and development. Most of the photos I take with it are, on paper, “boring”. They are photos of my 5 pm shadow. They’re a quick snap of a building I thought looked cool. And they are photos I cherish more than a posed iPhone shot at some big event or life moment.

✦︎ Bullet Journal Daily Recaps

I’ve mentioned bullet journaling in a past newsletter, but I love it so much that it needs a mention here, too. I track all of my mundane, boring little day-to-day tasks in LEUCHTTURM1917’s Green23 Bullet Journal. I dedicate a page a month to writing down 3-4 words describing each day. Some days are just “Gym” or “Dinner with So-and-So”, but it’s these days that I tend to remember and cherish the most.

✦︎ Daily Life Vlogging

Vlogging has helped me appreciate the little things more. My favorite vlogs to edit are the ones where I do seemingly “boring” things — cooking, book shopping, reading, working in my studio, etc. When I sit down to edit, it’s like flipping through an old diary; it grants me the time to sit, reflect, and remind myself that even when I feel like I’m not doing a ton, the mundane days end up being the most full. Shameless YouTube plug here.

✦︎ Read Memoirs

I’ve been on a big memoir kick lately. I recently read Hua Hsu’s 'Stay True, Katherine May’s Wintering, and am gearing up to read Patti Smith’s Just Kids. I like seeing how the small moments in these people’s lives make up the larger picture, and I find solace in learning that my (at times, annoying) patterns of thinking are shared with others.

✦︎ Romanticize Routine

Mundanity is a blank canvas for painting rituals and routines into your life. When I’m stupid busy and feel like I barely have time to eat or sleep, I look to establishing small, tiny routines or rituals that help ground me. Setting the coffee machine to auto-brew in the morning, reading before bed, and taking walks or going to the gym right after work are moments throughout the day that make me feel like I have some control over my time.

Back in October, I wrote a newsletter about the importance of rituals. If you’re interested in this topic, you can read it here:

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There’s nothing quite like the surge of hope that comes every New Year’s, huh?

But there was something about this year specifically…the turnover from 2025 to 2026 that felt more determined than years past; like we all simultaneously woke up from a hazy, foggy spell we’d been collectively cast under. And it’s no surprise; when a larger system fails us so greatly, we stretch our limbs and act on an individual level, mending the tiny holes that permeate the larger fabric of our culture and society — i.e., embracing a more analog lifestyle, reducing alcohol consumption, reading more, prioritizing community, etc, etc.

As we begin our trek into the second month of the year, some of you may be feeling great about your path to resolution fulfillment. For others, the opposite. I know myself and human psychology well enough to know that resolutions often result in the return to old habits. It’s easy to task your future self with a million things to change and be better about, but it’s harder when you’re actually doing the work.

And that’s why I’m doing something different this year: treating each month like its own new year, complete with its own dedicated resolution.

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The case for treating each month like its own New Years

Some people have detailed plans mapping out the next five years of their lives, and others are realistic (I kid, I kid). But seriously, shit changes. Goals shift, unexpected life things happen, and suddenly the list of resolutions we made at the tail end of the previous year no longer feels relevant. So instead of beating ourselves up over a long list of resolutions written down the last week of the year (a week where most of us are off work and school, free to sit in calm), I’d like to approach this year’s resolutions a bit differently: one month at a time.

How I’m breaking up my resolutions by month

I’m not mapping out my entire year; just the first five months. Who knows where my brain and life will be by the time June rolls around? That’s half a year, lest you forget!

January: Dry Month

January was Dry January — my first ever intentionally sober month. On my larger list of 2026 goals, I put, "Try one sober month”. I knew January would be the easiest month to tackle this resolution, as the camaraderie of others doing a dry month would help hold me accountable. The outcome? Tackling this resolution was easier than I anticipated, and I learned that alcohol was the primary culprit of a lot of life issues: anxiety, spending, bloating, etc. I have a new, deeper gratitude for sobriety, and I’m carrying this feeling into February.

February: Digital Reset

Unfollowing. Unsubscribing. Deleting. Archiving. Those are the keywords of the month. Similar to spring cleaning your home, your digital world deserves a cleanse, too. This month, I’m unsubscribing from marketing newsletters I no longer care for, unfollowing that one girl I met in the club 7 years ago, and archiving old posts. If you want to do a DEEEEEEP digital clean-up (valid, in these trying times), I recommend ’s piece on how to delete 99% of your digital footprint from the internet.

March: Experiences

Sewing classes. Piano lessons. Hiking. Roadtrips. Dinner parties. Art markets. This is the month of trying new things and DOING. I am a homebody to my core, and I want to shake things up and be intentional about how I spend my time in March (i.e. I can be at home, but should indulge in more kickbacks and hosting). We learn through experiences, and what better time to emerge from our groundhog holes than in the first month of spring?

April: Learning

I hope to learn something new every month, but I want to go HARD in April. Online classes, non-fiction reads, documentaries, and self-curricula will be prioritized this month. There’s so much that I don’t know, and I’d like to treat April like a mini school semester. I’ll keep you guys posted on what I decide for my curriculum.

May: Low Spend Month

As of now, I don’t have anything planned for May. This will make a low-to-no spending month much more doable for me. I’m talking no eating out, no random purchases, and no spending $$ on things I can get for free (I’m glaring at my book-buying habit and the library card calling my name). I’ll indulge in the occasional latte (I don’t hate myself), but for the most part, I’ll be enjoying the free things in life like parks and making art and couch rotting with friends.

Thoughts? Opinions?

What do you think about this approach? Let me know:

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And also, if you’ve read this far, thank you. Sincerely.

To be quite honest, I’ve been thinking a lot about this newsletter and what people actually want to read from me. I go back and forth on what I’d like Scribble Scrabble to focus on: these slower thought pieces or a more moodboard-style media and design newsletter. I’m being pulled between both, and I’d love to hear your thoughts, if any.

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We like to think we have a firm grasp on our identity.

Our favorite foods. Colors. Animals. If we’re morning or night people. What topics fascinate us. The noises we can’t stand. What styles and fashion we’re drawn to. The books we prefer. The type of people we gravitate towards. The ones we avoid. Coffee or tea. Morning or night person. Introvert or extrovert. The art we like. What makes us get up in the morning. Our moral compass.

But how well do we know ourselves, really?

When you strip away Pinterest, shared algorithms, and trends that dictate what our next blind box or fashion obsession is, who are you? What do you actually like? Are you being fed your interests by influencers and lifestyle creators, or are you genuinely interested in them? Do you actually give a shit about the media you’re consuming, or are you just trying to log another Letterboxd or Goodreads review? If materialistic consumption didn’t exist, who would you be? If YouTube video essays and SubStack think pieces were to disappear tomorrow, where would your takes lie?

I’m aware this newsletter is giving ~*existential crisis*~, and I really don’t want the words above to come across as scolding; I’ve just been thinking a lot about identity lately. If I played a game of “We’re Not Really Strangers” with myself, I’m not sure how quickly I could confidently answer the more complex questions. I think I know myself, but if I were to pick and pull back the years of opinions, marketing campaigns, affirmations, advice, outside critiques, algorithms, trends, and influences…who would emerge? As the years tick by and I feel more settled into the latex suit that is my body and mind, I jerk awake to the realization that there’s still so much of myself that I don’t know. I often wonder if others feel the same — a stranger in certain ways to their own selves.

There’s been a surge of SubStack and YouTube essays about the importance of “building your personal brand”, and damn, that is a LARGE ask. Our existence isn’t meant to fit neatly into a branded box of ourselves for the easy digestion of others. Our lives consist of never-ending shifts, interactions that shape us, and experiences that can fundamentally change us. I’m constantly learning about myself, and by the time I think I know myself, there’s something else that materializes — another layer to unpeel and dissect.

Don’t get me wrong, there are beliefs and parts of myself that I hold onto with confidence, concrete and true:

• I need at least 3-4 days a week of alone time to reset and rest with myself

• Watching movies, reading, and exercising are my top activities for gaining creative inspiration.

• I need routine to feel like I have some semblance of control in this very busy life that I live.

• Coffee makes me anxious 8 out of 10 times, and I should avoid it altogether.1

…But then my actions challenge what I know to be true about myself, and I do the opposite of what I need:

• I overbook myself, powering through time I’d rather spend exploring hobbies or catching up on personal life tasks.

• Instead of watching movies, reading, or exercising, I mindlessly scroll Pinterest or turn my brain off to watch reality tv.

• I deviate from my routine because life is short and I deserve to skip the gym this day or stay up until 2am that day.

• I drink 2-3 cups of coffee a day because how the hell else can I power through it all?

We’re all on one huge quest to unpack ourselves and live our most authentic lives. When you dissolve the influences of others, the social media bubbles and echo chambers, and the ever-shifting trends that tap on your shoulder, who are you really? While the journey to truly knowing ourselves is one that will last a lifetime, reevaluating the way we digest media, experiences, and our interactions can push us closer to living our most authentic truth.

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The Journey to Learning More About You

⌯⌲ Embrace Experiences

Go on the trip. Sign up for the piano lessons. Drive with no destination in mind. Buy the concert ticket. Go on the date. Send the text. Put yourself out there. These are investments in yourself—money not wasted, but experiences that make your soul richer.

✦︎ Check-Ins and Reflection

If we constantly gogogo we’ll eventually run out of gas. Check-ins and reflections are fuel. When you watch a movie or read a book, ask yourself how it made you feel or what it taught you about yourself. When you see something you’re drawn to, be it clothes, an art piece, or a picture on Pinterest, ask yourself why it’s pulling you in.

˗ˏˋ♡ Solo Date Days

Spend time with yourself! Go to events, dinners, and movies alone! The conversations you have in your head when solo experiencing bring you closer to yourself. Even if it’s one day a month or once every quarter, this time should be a non-negotiable.

✎ Identify Your Energy Depleters & Givers

I don’t know about you guys, but I suck at honoring my own boundaries. Why do we continue to do things that zap our energy and neglect the things that make us feel full? Keep a running note or journal entry of your energy zappers and energy givers. Revisit it often so it’s easier for you to stay true to your boundaries and to prioritize what gives you life.

ᯓ★ Observation

How does that person make you feel? What points of conversation make you feel uncomfortable? Excited? What is your inner critic saying? Sit, observe, and make mental notes.

⋆˚࿔ Slow or Zen Yoga

This has been a game-changer for me. I have a hot yoga studio near my class, and every Wednesday evening I attend a zen yoga class. This is more of a mental exercise than physical, gifting me one uninterrupted hour of truly connecting with my body and mind. The slow, deep stretches reveal the parts of my body that hold the most stress, and the singular focus on breathing allows me to practice meditation without the sitting idleness that tends to make the practice harder for me.

Other Self-Discovery Practices (Rapid-Fire Edition)

• Morning Pages (lol sorry yall, had to do it)

• Grounding or Earthing

• Identify Your Values

• We’re Not Really Strangers Self-Reflection Quizlet

• Authentic Happiness Questionaires

• Books to help you get to know yourself better

• Myers-Briggs

• Love Languages

• Intelligent Change Journals

Are there any rituals or practices that help you connect deeper with yourself? I’d love to know:

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In case you haven’t been on the internet in the last three weeks, analog living is having its moment, and anything with a screen is the anti-Christ.

But I remember a time when the screen was a paradise — a shared experience with a friend or sibling that was confined to a single room…yes, I’m talking about the family computer.

2005-2010 internet was peak. If you also grew up with Albino Black Sheep, StumbleUpon, eBaum’s World, Xanga, Quizilla, and Postopia, then you know what I’m talking about. Before social media dominated and ruled online culture, we had some cool ass websites.

I’m pro-analog lifestyle, but I’m also here to remind you that it’s not the internet or digital realm you’re sick of — it’s probably mostly social media and any platform with an infinite scroll and loud opinions. We simply need to reintroduce ourselves to the feelings we felt browsing the family computer.

That’s where this (very fun, more casual) newsletter comes to the rescue. Next time you’re itching to get on your device to scroll for 4+ hours, I implore you to pull out your laptop instead and check out these neat websites I spent time finding for your entertainment! Enjoy.

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ᝰ.ᐟ Any site with a 𖥔 next to it was a site I thought was really neat & want to revisit!

𖥔 https://drivenlisten.com/
Drive, walk, or cycle around various places in the world while listening to local radio stations.

𖥔 https://www.disney--games.com/
Play all your favorite old Disney Channel flash games! (Lilo and Stitch Sandwich Stacker supremacy)

⌕ https://pointerpointer.com/
A website where every time you move your mouse, it loads another picture to point at the mouse on the screen. Weirdly addictive.

𖥔 https://radio.garden/
Tune into radio stations around the world.

⌕ https://neal.fun/
Fun games and activities made by a guy named Neal! The “Where Does The Day Go?” one is really neat.

𖥔 https://web.archive.org/
Wayback Machine - basically the Library of Alexandria re: the internet.

𖥔 https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/
Web Design Museum exhibits thousands of screenshots and videos of websites, apps, software, and Flash games from the 1990s to the 2000s.

⌕ https://www.albinoblacksheep.com/
Flash games and funny videos.

⌕ https://guesstheaudio.com/
All of the guessing games on here are fun (see movies, logos, video games, and more).

⌕ https://paint.toys/calligram/
Paint a picture with words!

⌕ https://optical.toys/
Optical illusions and brain-bending toys!

⌕ https://memory.toys/classic/easy/
Improve your memory with this classic memory game.

𖥔 https://join.thegigabrain.com/
An extension that scans billions of discussion threads and returns the most useful and relevant comments when you search Google.

𖥔 https://littlerbooks.com/
Bullet point summaries written by humans of the top fiction and self-help books.

𖥔 https://talksmi.com/
A collection of interesting questions that will help you learn more about the people around you.

⌕ https://trypap.com/
Passive aggressive password machine. You enter a password and the PaP Machine will be honest about your passwords strength.

𖥔 https://www.windows93.net/
An OS inside a browser within your internet where you can play retro games, use retro programs, and feel like you’re back on Windows in the 90s.

⌕ https://checkboxrace.com/
Addictive game where you just check boxes as fast as you can.

c https://www.koalastothemax.com/
Basically a digital fidget toy.

⌕ https://drawing.garden/
Another digital fidget toy!

𖥔 https://www.window-swap.com/
Look out of other people’s window around the world!

⌕ https://www.dearnextvisitor.com/
Write and receive a message to/from a stranger.

𖥔 https://everynoise.com/
Discover new genres of music!

⌕ https://floor796.com/#t0r0,220,95
Cool art project by someone designing a floor on an interdimensional space station.

𖥔 https://poolsuite.net/
Ultra-summer internet radio station, playing an infinity pool of summer sounds 24/7.

Do you have any neat sites to share? Keep it going!

And as always, thanks for reading~

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♪ ♫ ♪ Recommended listening while reading: Bee and PuppyCat Soundtrack

Happy New Year, friends! It’s been a while since I’ve entered a new year with so much lust for life, and I think a contributing part of that feeling is the physical media Renaissance I’m seeing catch fire. My time on the internet is spread across Substack, YouTube, and Instagram, where I primarily share pieces within my partner and I’s physical media collection (think art books, movies, video games, vinyl, and zines) and how we lay our collection out within our space (aka a small apartment). Every now and then, I receive messages asking about our bookshelf’s arrangement and how we organize our growing physical media collection. As I was dusting off and rearranging our shelf on New Year’s Day, I had a lightbulb moment — “How neat would it be to create a little ‘How to Bookshelf’ guide!”

Before I get into the tips and advice, it’s important to share that I truly view physical media as a work of art. Years of work, writing, design, and painstaking production go into the covers, content, and the media itself; because of this, it’s important we are intentional about the way we display our media collection when we aren’t watching, reading, or listening to the art. When your shelf’s arrangement is laid out with care, it can act as a still life artpiece within your space. We don’t live around or on top of our collection — we live with it.

Here’s how.

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✦ How We Built a Shelf From Scratch to Fit our Needs

I can’t even begin to list all of the different kinds of bookshelves I’ve had in my 31 years of life. Flimsy fiberboard shelves from Ikea, wire shelves bolted into a wall, floating shelves from Amazon, glass cases — you name it. My two biggest gripes with purchasing bookshelves online are that they’re insanely expensive or incredibly unstable and low quality (sometimes both!). In 2021, we decided to make our own shelf, giving us the freedom of choosing the size (BIG), material (real, quality wood), and wood stain (the closest match to our other furnishings) for under $200.

This is what you’ll need to create a similar shelf for your own space:

For the hardware:

• Double Track Brackets — pro tip: if you buy them in white, you can spray paint them a different color!

• Shelf Brackets — the size you need depends on the width of your boards.

• Level — do NOT skip this part; a misaligned or off-center bookshelf will drive you nuts.

• Strong wood or structural screws

For the wood:
*Note, you can buy pre-finished wood, but in the event you don’t, I added some additional info re: sanding and wood stains.

• Sandpaper — before you stain your wood, you can give it a nice sanding to ensure it’s even, smooth, and free of little splinters.

• Shelving boards/lumber — I recommend looking for a good quality pine, as this is the most budget-friendly while still doing the job. If you have the extra funds, look for maple as this wood takes stain nicely. Most hardware stores will have machinery and an operator who can help you cut the wood down to your desired size. For our shelf, we asked a worker at Lowes to cut our pieces for us.

• Wood stain of your choice — I personally love the way medium to medium-dark stains make the color of your books pop.

• Clear protective finish — use polyurethane, varnish, shellac, or wax to seal the color, add durability, and protect the wood from dirt, moisture, and damage.

✦ Arranging Your Shelf to Look Like an Art Piece

Tip #1: Triangles & Three Point Thinking

I recently picked up Frida Ramstedt’s book The Interior Design Handbook (PDF linked here). I’ve always loved interior design — I even almost picked it as my major in college — and this new year I’ve decided to learn more about the essential principles and design concepts, such as the golden ratio, color theory, and rule of thirds.

Like a 2010 hipster, the triangle is now my favorite shape. The handbook has a small section on three-point thinking, or the triangle principle, where you position objects in a way that their outline forms an equilateral or right triangle. This trick can help guide the eye seamlessly across your visual displays and creates balance within your cluster of books and media. An easy way to embrace three point thinking for your bookshelf is to have your books and media displayed from tallest to shortest (see the right triangle in the image above) or to have a few tall books as a center point, sandwiched between books cascading down in size on each side.

Tip #2: Disperse Visual Weight

When you have a lot of books, your shelf can begin to feel overwhelming and cluttered, causing the eye to dart around without any guidance or flow. In web design, developers use a Z-pattern layout to help route the human eye as it travels down the page — left to right, top to bottom. Our bookshelf has a similar pattern, utilizing larger art books to catch and relax the eye as it scans the busy shelf. Think of these bookshelf sections as little rest stops, offering respite before the eye continues its journey along your shelf.

Note: If you don’t own larger art books, try stacking a pile of books or framing a print to rest within your shelf.

Tip #3: Show Off Your Favorite Covers

The thing about me? I’m gonna judge a book by its cover (as far as inanimate objects go). My favorites get extra shine on my shelf, acting like a framed print or 3D art piece. Like a beautiful canvas, I rest these books on miniature easels that you can purchase from Michaels, Daiso, or a local craft store. In my experience, the easels that can bear the most weight are these acrylic folding easels. For a more sophisticated look, you can also use a mini wooden easel, but be warned that heavier books may topple over.

Tip #4: Toys & Knick-Knacks as Shelf Easter Eggs

In addition to collecting physical media, we also collect designer toys — specifically sofubi or soft, Japanese vinyl toys. They have a home amidst the crevices and caves of our books, acting as fun easter eggs within our shelf. Not only are they fun little additions, but they also help add color and life to the display.

Tip #5: Play with Stacking

Phew, I love a good book stack! Stacking your books is a resourceful way to divide or draw attention to particular sections of your bookshelf. When we’re finished reading a series and don’t need to worry about easily accessing a book, we stack the books and use these natural “tabletops” as a way to display our toys and trinkets.

Tip #6: Keep Your Series Together

This one is probably a no-brainer, but I’ll say it anyway: if you have books that are a part of a series, keep them together! The blocks of similar book spines will help the eye flow more harmoniously across your shelf, preventing visual fatigue. If you don’t have any series of books, group different sections of your shelf with books of similar size or spine type, or stack other media forms like DVDs, Blu-Rays, and video games together.

✦ I Leave You With: Neat Additions For Your Shelf

*None of these are sponsors - just stuff I found that I’d honestly use to decorate my own shelves.

⟡ A cute portable lamp to place on your shelf from Lamp Boy
⟡ A Snoopy flip clock from Retrospekt
⟡ Crinkle bag porcelian vase from the Moma Design Store
⟡ Bookends from Safran Everyday
⟡ Steel book and display stand from Hightide
⟡ Portable radio from Tivoli Audio
⟡ Metal book stand from Little King
⟡ A Charmy Chan doll

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ .ᐟ.ᐟ Find me on: Instagram, YouTube

Try something new here! Suggested listening as you read: I Am Robot And Proud, an indie electronic musician and video game designer whom I’ve come to adore this year.

On February 17, 2026, the Year of the Snake will turn over and hand its blazing torch to the Fire Horse, the Chinese zodiac that makes a rare appearance every 60 years.

The Fire Horse zodiac is an especially powerful one, channeling the Horse’s natural traits of freedom, passion, and ambition, marking a time of spirited change and bold energy. As we emerge from the Year of the Snake, a time representing inner growth, the shedding of old habits, and renewal, we’re emerging from our dormant cocoons and unfolding our wings for a time of deep transformation and freedom.

Like everyone who’s in New Year’s planning mode, I’ve been thinking a lot about my past year and the one that’s around the corner. I especially love the liminal space between Christmas and New Year’s because it’s a natural period of reflection and dissection — when we come to terms with what is working within our lives and what needs to go. 2025 was an odd one for me. It was simultaneously busy and action-packed, desolate and exultant, and it seemed to take the reins of control right out of my hands.

There are seasons of life when we’re passengers, and there are seasons of life where we’re the drivers. 2025 was a passenger year, but not in a “passenger princess” way — more like a “I’m in the backseat of a car with 5 screaming children going somewhere I’d rather not” kind of way.

Like many, I fell victim to extreme work burnout, and my exhaustion shoved my creative outlets and relationships to the back burner. Fears morphed into ruminations, making my brain adopt a bit of a scarcity mindset. I gave in to expectations and “obligations” that could have been avoided with a respectful decline. On top of it all, the flood of AI slop, ads, and the pressure of monetizing hobbies to keep up with increasing living costs had me especially feeling the crushing weight of late-stage capitalism.

Based on the emergence of “slow” and “analog” living trends and the general growing rejection of social media, I have a feeling you may feel similarly or find some relatability within your own 2025 experience. If that’s the case, the Fire Horse (yup, we’re taking this full circle) is what we need to channel to help us take our lives back. We’ll shed our submissive skins and charge headstrong into 2026 — our lives — and wake up the dormant parts of ourselves that are fiercely independent, unconventional, and confident.

You may be thinking, “Well, that’s easier said than done…how the hell am I supposed to ~*take my life back*~ while my soul is signed to endless expectations and to-dos?” To which I say, you need a MAP! You can’t get on the fire horse without having a sense of direction, which is what the rest of this newsletter is: a map of sorts to help guide you towards taking back your own life.

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You’re exhausted because you aren’t upholding your boundaries

We’re talking boundaries with work. Boundaries in your social life. Boundaries with your spending. Boundaries with your self-deprecating. Boundaries with your peers. Boundaries with family. When you don’t have boundary signals in place, you are more susceptible to being taken advantage of, making you feel like a passenger in your own life.

Need Sundays to recover and reset? Stop promising your friends you’ll hang out with them this day.

Working 10+ hour days? Sounds like a staffing problem — not a YOU problem. Log off and spend time with your pets, partner, or the world around you.

Time slipping away from social media’s endless scroll? Stop ignoring your daily screen time limits or delete your apps from your phone if you don’t have the self-restraint (this is a direct @ to myself, so if you feel called out, same here).

Set your boundaries and refrain from stepping foot over the line.

Pick a hobby and don’t you dare think about monetizing it

We turn everything into work, don’t we? It may seem like a good idea at the time (because let’s be real - you need a full-time job and multiple side hustles to live these days), but when you monetize your hobbies, it’s suddenly not for you anymore. It shifts from making stuff that you think is cool to making stuff that you think others will find cool. It’s less making and more marketing on social media. It’s the pressure to grow and sprint towards a finish line that doesn’t exist. It’s less making and more administration.

So embrace at least one hobby that can’t be monetized. It could be rockclimbing, knitting, reading, ceramics, ping pong — anything. And as soon as that one relative or friend hits you with a “You should try selling your services!” you take that idea, light it on fire, and bury it in a barrel of acid.

Make time for the thing you’ve always wanted to do or learn

We all have that one idea, skill, or craft that’s sat with us for years, but that we’ve never committed to learning. For me, it’s taking a sewing class and learning how to play Yann Tiersen’s “Comptine d'un autre été, l'après-midi” on the piano. I think about these two things often, yet I have paralysis when it comes to actually fulfilling these dreams. Take the things you’d deeply regret not having done by the age of 80, and get to it. Do it for the future you.

Shed the people who don’t make you feel full

Snakes grow new skin through a process called ecdysis, where a new layer forms underneath the old one, allowing them to shed the old, tight skin in one piece to accommodate growth, remove parasites, and heal injuries. Naturally, the Year of the Snake was all about shedding, and damn, did I SHED.

I shed people who weren’t reciprocating.
I shed people who thought they could control and dominate me.
I shed people who made me feel hollow.
I shed people who made me second-guess myself.
I shed people who weren’t curious about me in the way that I was curious about them.

I shed and I shed and I shed. And the new skin that emerged gave me more room to breathe. To be myself. To move through life with increased ease and strength.

The shedding process is messy and uncomfortable, but you come out of it healthier and transformed.

An hour a day

I understand I may be preaching to mothers of three, caregivers, folks who work several jobs, or readers who are trying to figure out how to get out of bed every morning. Taking your life back is a process that can start small.

Pick a one-hour block of time each day. It should be a time of day that doesn’t feel like an uphill battle (so if you aren’t a morning person, we’re picking evenings and vice-versa). This is YOUR hour. No one else’s. This is when you give your full, undivided attention to spending time with YOU. No social media check-ins, texting, or obligations like chores. Use this time to check in with yourself, journal, read, go for a walk, or do a face mask — do ANYTHING that is categorized under the Quality Time love-language, only this time you’re doing it for you.

One hour.
That’s only two SpongeBob episodes.
You can give yourself that.

Reject trends and circulating aesthetics

Taking your life back is turning your back on a life that’s being marketed and sold to you. You are not tomato girl summer, cottage-core, clean girl, or any other “core-ification” phenomenon. You’re a complex, multi-faceted human, and these micro-trends are trying to squish you into a one-dimensional box. These extremely short-lived fads exist to keep you buying and constantly striving for more. When you stop trying to mold yourself into a mass-produced cookie-cutter shape, your mindshare will be free for so many other, more interesting things in life.

What about you?

Is there anything you’re doing to make your life your own again in this new year? Please feel free to share to inspire others:

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…fun horse things in honor of the Year of the Horse

𓃗 Budapest-based Artist Enikő Eged’s folk horses

𓃗 Reddit thread of cool horse facts

𓃗 How to make a horse a friend (essential life knowledge)

𓃗 Famous people born in the Year of the Horse

𓃗 Watch the trailer for Horse Girl (2020)

𓃗 A list of horses in mythology and folklore

𓃗 Juice Ceramics’ ceramic horse necklace

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August may not seem very long ago, but to me, it feels like a lifetime ago. It’s time spent watching myself fall further and further behind as my peers rush past me in an imaginary marathon I've created in my head.

My brain is always thinking about creating and making and doing — what to create next, what’d be cool to collaborate with others on, or musings I want to turn into writing. Yet, when I sit down to begin, the cravings subside, and I feel like an imposter. The flow state I long for never arrives, and the things I could once dive into with no hesitation — writing, creating videos, making zines, crafting — feel like an annoying chore…something I force myself to do because I know the end result will bring me joy.

I know I’m in a creative rut when the journey of creating feels like pulling teeth. It’s like running and never entering “the zone” of a runner’s high; just slow-ticking time spent ruminating on when it’ll be over. I hate feeling this way because the creative process shouldn’t feel this way. Creating is a reprieve from the 40+ hour workweek. It’s resistance to a culture that’s constantly consuming. It’s what makes living the human experience worthwhile.

If you’re experiencing a creative block, I have good news: 1) it’s not forever, and 2) you aren’t alone. The key to getting through this period is to make peace with it.

Your creativity cycles like the seasons

Life doesn’t present itself as an upward-trending line chart. It flows similarly to how our seasons move — in cycles of sprouting and abundance, shedding and hibernation. Nature (which includes human beings, lest you forget) needs winter. It’s a crucial season for ecological balance, providing rest, replenishing water, and seed germination. When your creative rut triggers those often-accompanying feelings of self-loathing and frustration, think of yourself as a little seed. Seeds not only survive winter’s cold, but they thrive from it. Many seeds rely on the freeze-thaw cycle to crack their hard shell so they can sprout come spring, and some seeds fail to germinate at all if they don’t experience the cold they need. You aren’t in a creative blockage - you're simply germinating. Let nature take its course and remember…beautiful blooms always follow a harsh winter.

(Side Note: I’m currently reading Katherine May’s book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, and I can hardly put it down. It’s a beautiful memoir on how to navigate life’s inevitable difficult periods, drawing parallels from nature’s wintering cycles to find renewal through rest, reflection, and acceptance. I recommend it for anyone facing a rough patch.)

Stop seeking inspiration online

Seeking inspiration on Pinterest, YouTube essays, Substack, and your Instagram Explore page will not dig you out of your creative hole. You may see something you visually like or read something that makes your heart swell, but don’t be fooled - these are just band-aid fixes that often lead to thoughts of ugly comparison. The inspiration that lasts can be found in the book you’ve been neglecting on your bedside table. It’s in the movie you’ve had on your watchlist since February 2023. It’s the stickers plastered on the toilet paper dispenser in your local dive bar or in a couch conversation with a friend one random Tuesday night. The (good) art you see online is the result of other people’s offline inspiration. Original, worthwhile art stems from your own lived experiences.

Enter a state of childish play

Childish play has zero expectations. It’s where your brain doesn’t think of the consequences, and you release all control. Playtime as a kid was the first true “flow state” experience of our lives, marked by curiosity, joy, and a lack of self-consciousness.

Dress up and act out different scenarios or characters. Pretend you're Trent Reznor and make a “Grammy-worthy” song in GarageBand. Perform it for your friends. Imitate the various sounds in nature that you hear on a walk. Collect rocks and leaves for a mud soup. Do anything and everything that you’d do if you were hanging out with your seven-year-old self for the day.

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Recovering from creative dopamine crashes

The first half of 2025 was one of the most creative periods of my life. I fell prey to my creative rut shortly after.

In March, I released a zine titled Family Computer that went semi-viral, selling out within two weeks.

In June, I flew out to LA to film a creative series, of which I had full creative control over, for work.

In July, I created a risograph-printed Media Log, which also took off and sold out within a few weeks. That same month, my partner and I released a new apparel project.

I was on a creative high for months, and I felt amazing. The success of one project fueled my motivation for the next. As the saying goes, what goes up must come down, and those feelings of intense motivation are almost always followed by a dopamine crash. When I experience these debilitating crashes, I do my best to lie low. Long showers, avoiding binge-watching and doomscrolling, and exercising (nothing too crazy - just 20 minutes of cardio is enough to get your brain out of a funk). It’s trial and error for everyone, but the point is that this is a time of rest and self-nurturing. Consider this your dormant “germination” period.

Break up with perfectionism

This is probably one of the most generic pieces of advice when it comes to escaping a creative block, but you need to hear it, damnit! Your perfectionism is holding you back. Because here’s the thing: perfectionism isn’t even a tangible thing — it’s rules and expectations you made up in your head. When you lock yourself in a 2x4 box of linear “this is how it MUST be done” thinking, you rob yourself of experiencing new paths and ways of doing things.

So do it messy and raw and shittily. Write, draw, film, compose, or create with the acceptance that the clean-up phase will come later (or never, because messy is cool in its own right).

Everyone gets them. Everyone gets through them.

How do you get out of your creative ruts and blocks?

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Dear inconvenience,

I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately…and I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.

I had a recent epiphany that we’ve all been villainizing you.

Avoiding you like the bubonic plague.

Booing and throwing tomatoes in your metaphorical face.

WAIT WAIT— before you cut me off or shut down, let me try to explain.

Your opposite, convenience, has been subliminally marketed to me for my entire mature life. We’re sold convenience at every turn; hell, our lives seem to be dependent on it — always seeking it. Productivity trackers, streaming and delivery services, A.I. tools, social apps, single-use gadgets, and pre-packaged foods promise to make our lives easier. To buy us more time and make us more organized. Connect us to the world. Make us cooler, smarter, and more attractive.

But what was meant to be a good thing for us has started to feel like the opposite.

I’ve noticed the tech “innovations” that promise us convenience seemingly make us more overwhelmed, broke, and disconnected from one another — stunting our growth and producing lives that feel surface-level and detached.

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Two-day Amazon deliveries. Music streaming services. A.I. like ChatGPT and Gemini. Social media. Afterpay. DoorDash. Therapy chatbots. TikTok shop and search. Personalized social algorithms.

…We’re sold all these “convenient” ~*innovations*~ that are supposed to optimize our lives, but we eventually form a hyper-dependence, making us more addicted, broke, and vulnerable to these tools. Our overreliance has infiltrated how we communicate, research, and feel. It’s taken the annoying but necessary & character-building parts of being human out of the equation, and it’s made you, inconvenience, feel worse than you’ve ever intended to make us feel.

Convenience has encouraged me to put a $25 Door Dash order in so I can work through lunches, when I very much could have used a short mental break. It’s caused me to buy unnecessary products with promises of two-day delivery when a smaller business down the street could have really used the money to make rent that month. It has me splitting my payments into four, robbing me of hitting long-term financial goals. Shit, if I didn’t have my Google Maps on me at all times while driving, I’d probably be writing to you from Canada right now.

Inconvenience…we’ve been taught that you’re a bad thing. A menace to waste our valuable time. But I’m learning that you’re the starting point to an end point that can feel more fulfilling. Slower. More human.

You’re the new coffee shop I wouldn’t have seen if I had followed my usual GPS route home.

You’re the mental break I wouldn’t have taken if I had ordered a $30 lunch delivery.

You’re the friend I cry-laugh with in person when I forego digital communication for real-life interaction.

You’re the different perspective I see when I’m not bubbled in by my personalized algorithm.

You’re a part of the process when I’m learning a new skill that takes time. You can be annoying during it, but I’d rather learn the skill than let convenience do it for me.

You’re the little details of life that make living worth it. So, inconvenience, please accept this apology. I promise to inch my door open a little bit more for you, because you open doors for me.

Thanks for listening & well wishes,

An inconvenience apologist

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…And this wouldn’t be a Scribble Scrabble newsletter without a list to conclude with! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡

✎𓂃How to embrace inconvenience

✑ Taking the long way home. Blast your favorite song, roll down your windows, and make note of different parks or cafes to visit in the future.

✑ On a similar note, start building up your internal GPS. In the words of Michael Bond, “humans are blessed with an inner navigator that is immeasurably more sophisticated and capable than any artificial system.”

✑ Go through & delete various mobile apps. You don’t need the Amazon app, and you don’t need five habit tracking apps. You really don’t.

✑ Build your own "Pinterest Board”. Make a photo album in your phone and title it “Things That Inspire Me” or something along those lines. Capture photos of things that make you stop in your tracks and add them to that album to reference later.

✑ Treat chores like acts of service to your future self. Embrace friction. The mundanity of fulfilling chores is a gift to yourself in the future.

✑ Reset your perspective. Daily annoyances and inconveniences aren’t time wasters - they are learning and growth opportunities.

✑ Opt for less. You (and our planet) don’t need single-use kitchen gadgets like pizza scissors or a cherry pitter. They may seem like convenient purchases at the time, but they quickly become inconvenient when you need to move or run out of kitchen space for them.

✑ Embrace the European grocery shopping method. Prevent food waste and save money by buying fewer items daily at the grocery store. Focus on specific meals and ingredients instead of stocking up every Sunday at the store.

✑ Build up your internal navigation skills. If you were picked up and dropped off on the other side of town, would you be able to successfully get home with Google Maps? I’ll admit, I’d be screwed. Start paying attention to street signs and monuments, and actually pay attention to how you get home.

✑ Hand-wash your dishes. If you don’t have a dishwasher, then disregard. If you do, opt for handwashing your dishes one night instead of reaching for the dishwasher. The warm water and rushing sound of the water faucet is weirdly meditative.

✑ Replace your notes app with a little pocket journal. When you have a new idea or discover something neat, write it down in your little notebook.

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So…are we ready to do this?

Are we ready to move on from this corporate-first, musicians-last, pro-rata model of music consumption we’ve been slam dunked into? You know — the one where musicians get paid a fraction of a cent per stream and AI slop infiltrates Discover Weekly playlists to put even more money back into big tech’s pockets, further harming HUMAN music creators?

And don’t even get me started on the algorithmic limitations, keeping us in a bubble with the same 5 artists circulating across our playlists. Or the fact that we’re shoveling out money every month to never actually own the music we enjoy playing on repeat. Or the overlooked fact that streaming music has a significant environmental cost.

There’s been a mass exodus of artists leaving Spotify this year, from Xiu Xiu to King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard, and as music fans and supporters, I feel it’s part of our responsibility to deviate and become less reliant on these streaming platforms, too. Music is an indelible part of our culture and the human experience, so why do we act so passively to the harm streaming platforms cause to our listening habits, and larger than that, working-class musicians’ livelihoods?

I have a database (Apple Music) of over 100 MILLION songs at my fingertips, yet I’ve never felt so disconnected from music discovery as I do now. I passively listen to playlists generated for me. I’m served only hit singles from albums that deserve deeper dives and full attention. And let’s be honest, I’m not exactly doing myself a favor by blasting music from my shitty iPhone speakers!

Point being, I want to change the way I engage with music — WHERE I engage with music. If my 16-year-old self could discover amazing music without streaming platforms, I’m confident I can mend my current relationship to music discovery. Maybe you feel the same way. Maybe I’m not alone in this tirade, fatigue and general anger towards music streaming services. Maybe…just maybe we can discover new music outside of streaming together.

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How To Discover New Music Outside Of Streaming Platforms

ᯓ★ A Dedicated Photo Album of Albums

This is one of my personal favorites for new music discovery. Visit your local record store or music shop, pick a genre, and sift through the bins of music housed within said genre. They say never to judge a book by its cover, but screw it, that’s what you’re going to do here. Judge an album by its cover and take photos of the ones that look most interesting to you. Write down the artist, band or composer and/or snap a photo of the album to save in a dedicated photo album on your phone. When you get home, search the band (ideally on YouTube or SoundCloud) and get to listening.

Note: If you have the financial means to BUY the album, you know what to do!

^^ Another Note: Some records will have OBI strips that feature a “For Fans Of” (FFO) section. This is great, because it’s basically a physical “Fans Also Like” section on an artist’s profile. It makes the search much easier, too. I love finding and buying vinyl records from Top Shelf Records because almost all of their physical vinyl albums have this.

ᯓ★ Start a Mix CD Pen Pal Relationship

You know pen paling?
Well, we should take that idea, but instead of lengthy letters (or in addition TO the letters), we should send each other curated, written-on-an-index-card playlists or mix CDs.

Mix CDs were my entire high school experience. I loved making mix CDs for my friends, and I loved receiving them. Fast forward to today, my favorite artists are those whom I discovered through a friend’s mix CD add. There’s something so intimate and sweet about sitting down and intentionally picking out a song you think your friend would like. It connects you more deeply to the music you love, helps you discover new music, and strengthens your relationships. Win-win.

You can purchase a CD drive for as little as $20 brand new, or find a used one at your local thrift store or second-hand tech shop. From there, use a free application like CDBurner-XP to burn your CD. Here’s a great lil YouTube video that dives deeper into the “how” of it all.

P.S. - how cute would it be if we started a little pen pal sign-up sheet or Discord…? Should I start that and connect us all together? We could rotate “music pals” every month and restart our teenagehood homemade mix CD collections in our adulthood. I dunno, I’d be down.

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ᯓ★ MixCloud Radio

Mixcloud is an online music community platform for discovering (or hosting) audio content like DJ mixes, radio shows, and podcasts. I love MixCloud because you’re able to directly support a community of music lovers who are passionate about music and sharing their favorite listens with other enthusiasts!

• Thom Yorke’s (yes, the Thom Yorke from Radiohead) Station

• Aquarium Drunkard Station

  One of my personal favorite stations. A true assortment of genres and music.

• Nick Francis’s Station, Quietmusic

  3 hour-long weekly show, featuring an eclectic and mellow mix of jazz, ambient textures, electronic and acoustic instrumentals, and vocal ballads.

• FreeFallRadio’s Station

  David Bassin hosts an eclectic two-hour mix of jazz, R&B, global grooves & abstract beats, broadcasting from San Francisco.

• Worldwide FM Station

  An international platform for underground music, culture, and stories from around the globe.

• Raven-Lunachick Station

  Heavily influenced by horror, sci-fi, punk, rock, garage rock, trash, & rock ‘n’ roll.

• The Wire Magazine’s Station

  The 1982-established independent music magazine’s official MixCloud.

• John Digweed’s Transitions Station

  One of the world’s most successful dance music shows.

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ᯓ★ YouTube Channels For Music Discovery

I’m an iPad baby in the sense that I love YouTube. I refuse to pay $8/month for Netflix but dish out $18/month for YouTube Premium without question. No ads + download capabilities = my shit. When I’m deep in focus at work and don’t want to worry about playing DJ, I usually have one of these channels playing music in the background:

• I’m Cyborg But That’s Ok
  Great channel for discovering music AND movies to add to your watchlist.

• My Analog Journal

• Triple J

• NPR Music / Tiny Desk

• NTS

• A24’s New Sound Check Series

Not a huge list, as this is an area that I’m still exploring! If you have any favorite music-centric channels (not necessarily music reviews/journalism, but performances and/or DJ sets), I’d love to hear what channels you enjoy:

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ᯓ★ Non-Profit Radio Stations

I’m not going to do a heavy deep-dive into this one, because I feel like radio is the obvious answer to music discovery outside streaming. Instead, I’m going to provide you with a list of my favorite (and free) radio stations to listen to on your physical listening devices or through various online sites like radio.net.

• KEXP Radio

  Seattle’s independent, non-profit radio station.

• KUTX Radio

  Austin, TX’s independent, non-profit radio station.

• KCRW Radio

  Los Angeles’ independent, non-profit radio station.

• KXSF Radio

  San Francisco’s independent, non-profit radio station.

• Radio Free Brooklyn

  Internet community radio station representing Brooklyn’s cultures & communities.

• Radio Milwaukee

  Described by NPR as “One of public radio’s most adventurous stations.”

• Vocalo Radio (Chicago)

  The nation’s first public radio station to focus on R&B, hip-hop, and dance music.

• Jazz24

  From the classics to today’s best, spiced with blues, funk, and Latin.

• WQRX

  New York’s world-renowned classical music station.

ᯓ★ Like Attracts Like

I’ve got one last rec for you before I sign off here. Find an artist you love, look up the label they’re signed to, and deep dive into that label’s catalog. If they signed your favorite artist, chances are they’ve got great taste and have signed other amazing artists. Labels like Sub Pop, Polyvinyl, Topshelf, and Secretly Group (aka labels I’m biased to) all have their robust rosters on their site for diving into.

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I log onto Instagram, and the noise within its endless scroll UI is like a detonated bomb.

Here’s an ad. Here’s a curated photo dump of some influencer’s time during New York Fashion Week. Here’s a deeply disturbing photo that I’m alarmingly desensitized to. Here’s a photo of your ex-friend from college. Here’s another ad, conveniently served to me after talking about the product in the ad with my partner. Here’s some AI slop from an account I don’t even follow. Here’s another. fucking. ad.

I close the app. I have DMs to respond to, but at this point, I’m too overwhelmed by the chaos of all the posts and short-form videos I scrolled through. Yet, here I am, now opening up TikTok.

Oh look, a TikTok Shop ad trying to sell me (yet another) pair of red gingham pants. Oh, and here’s a video of that weird influencer couple I followed a few years ago. Oh, haha, and here’s a video of that hilarious guy who only appears in my feed every blue moon. Perhaps I’ll stick around for a bit, as the algorithm seems to be improving. Wait, just kidding, it’s another TikTok Shop ad! Oh shit, four hours have somehow passed by, and that wasn’t even that fun.

…why do we do this to ourselves?

The internet used to be fun. It was more social than it was media. Then things drastically shifted. Disappearing stories rolled out on Instagram. TikTok’s popularity exploded and pacified people during the global pandemic. Short-form videos became heavily prioritized and favored by social platforms, dominating Instagram and YouTube. The world started moving faster. Content got shorter. Attention spans got shorter. The fuse on our dopamine reward systems got shorter. Our patience for “consuming” got shorter.

Despite how this piece sounds (like your classic anti-social media Substack — which, don’t get me wrong, I love), this isn’t one of those. I’ve been thinking a lot about the way I engage on the internet, and I’ve concluded that I’ll never be one of those people to ditch my phone for a Motorola flip phone. I’ll never (at least, not any time soon) delete all my social media accounts and go off-grid. I’ve also concluded that our relationship with social media doesn’t have to be so black and white. If you, like me, are exhausted by social media but still enjoy being online, prioritizing long-form may be the antidote.

I deeply admire YouTube video essayists and newsletter writers.

There’s a level of care, research, and time that goes into creating long-form “content” like this (it’s really an art form, but for the sake of this article and the throughline I’m trying to make, I’m calling it “content”). Algorithms prefer short-form content, and there is a degree of eventual “virality” promised to those who post consistently, perfect their hooks, use a trending song, or use a trending filter. My Instagram content started going viral back in the Spring of 2024, and I won’t lie — it was really exciting. I was connecting with people who shared similar interests, my favorite indie publishers and labels were reaching out to me for collabs, and I felt like I had a legitimate reason for logging into Instagram every day. If I’m going to be on social media, I might as well make fun videos and connect with new people and brands I admire, right? But then it started feeling like work. And the content I was producing felt empty, deprived of substance or depth due to the pressures of following best practices — making consistent videos, all 10 seconds or less. I felt (and still at times feel) pressured to post ~*content*~, even if I had nothing to share.

Fun fact: this is actually what led me to start writing here on Substack this time last year. I didn’t want to be a disappearing 10-second Reel in someone’s algorithm. I wanted to connect on a deeper level with others on the internet, with myself, and with my love of writing. If you’re reading this on Substack, I’m sure it’s safe for me to assume that’s why you’re here, too.

During an age of the internet where we’re bombarded with short-form everything — from short-form videos to short-form AI search engine overviews — I’ve started to think more and more about the quality and weight of long-form and its potential in resetting what short-form content has done to our brains and attention spans.

₊⊹ Watch 40-minute-long YouTube videos
₊⊹ Write Substack articles
₊⊹ Listen to or create a podcast
₊⊹ Do deep dive searches on specific topics and go down a Google rabbit hole
₊⊹ Revive your Tumblr micro-blog
₊⊹ Create a digital zine ( is the queen of this, shout-out)
₊⊹ Watch full-length interviews
₊⊹ Create a website
₊⊹ Listen to live radio stations
₊⊹ Take film photos
₊⊹ Record lengthy videos for your friends instead of spamming them with Reels

The longer it takes you, the better it is for you.

American culture is all about rushing. About productivity. About pushing out as much content, work, and accomplishments as humanly possible to prove your worth.

There’s nothing more intimate than long stretches of quality time with a single project. A single newsletter. A single video.

Long-form can help give us that.

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It’s fair to say that life is chaotic and loud and scary and intense and exhausting and unpredictable right now. Everything is expensive, the news reads like an Onion article, and the Matrix franchise is borderline non-fiction at this point. It’s been more and more difficult to gain a grip on our attention, mental health, and our general whimsy for life. I have a feeling I’m preaching to the choir, and that, my friends, is precisely why there is no better time than right. now. to take our seemingly mundane little rituals seriously.

I’m not talking about rituals of the religious or witchy kind (although I respect a nice tarot spread every other moon phase). I’m talking about the little things you do every single day that you don’t think twice about; the little notions that you subconsciously do that make your day even just a fraction of a fraction better.

There’s power in daily and weekly rituals. This BBC article said it best — “rituals convince our brains of constancy and predictability as ‘ritual buffers against uncertainty and anxiety’, according to scientists”. For athletes and coaches, rituals aren’t just habits; they’re performance tools. By turning small, personal actions into purposeful routines, rituals create mental anchors that can boost our confidence, sharpen our focus, and ground us.

It’s important not to mistake rituals with habits or routines. Rituals have intention behind them, whereas habits and routines are void of thoughtfulness. Rituals make you feel lighter. They make life feel more romantic. They remind us of our humanity and the beauty of living through each day. They regulate our emotions and turn ordinary actions into symbolic expressions with meaning.

Below are a few of my own rituals, along with a few I’d like to get into the habit of, in the hope that it’ll make you pause to romanticize (or create) your own little rituals.

1. Quordle with my partner before bed instead of scrolling TikTok

2. Setting the coffee pot to auto-brew every night for the next morning (it’s like a gift to my future self)

3. Listening to jazz, bossa nova, or ambient vinyl records every Sunday while tidying up the house. My heavy-rotation record is Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green

4. Walks every morning in the late fall and early spring

5. Library visits on Friday mornings; check out a movie or a book for the weekend.

6. Make the bed every. single. day. No exceptions

7. Always leave the kitchen sink clean of dishes before you go to bed

8. At the end of each month, deep-clean your house. Deep clean yourself. Write down your anxieties and give your mind a deep clean. Start your next month fresh and anew.

   

9. Speaking of deep cleaning yourself, everything showers on Sunday nights are god-tier.

10. Climbing into fresh, clean sheets after an everything shower? Also god-tier.

11. Hot tea or warm water with lemon before bed every night

12. Thursdays are for calling up your long-distance friends (this is a big one for me to start doing)

    

13. Before you sit down for your workday, fill up a big bottle of water.

14. Every time you stand up from work, take a minute to stretch and move your body to break up any tension or tight energy.

15. On your walks, find a tree, plant, neighborhood cat, or really anything that catches your eye. Say hello every time you pass it.

16. Declutter your workstation at the end of your workday. Give your future self a clean slate for the morning

17. Crack your blinds in the morning after you wake up. Greet the sun.

18. Say good morning to all your pets within the first half hour of waking up. Embrace your partner.

19. Sundays are for cleaning, starting new books, and practicing self-care.

20. Wednesday evenings? That’s your time to take back your week. Go to a coffee shop or park and draw, read, junk journal — anything. The goal is to break up the monotony of the 9-5 weekday cycle.

    

21. At the start of each month, pick a topic or person to do a deep dive on. Here’s some help: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Yakuzas, black holes, Jack the Ripper, or Atlantis.

22. At the start of each day, write down a one-sentence affirmation to serve as a reminder throughout your day. 90% of the time, mine is usually: “The workload will always be there. My mental health, however, is finite.”

23. After your workday, take a walk or do some deep stretches. Incorporate a ritual at this time of day so your brain knows it’s time to disconnect from your work persona.

24. Pick a day of the week to go social media free.

25. Marie Kondo your closet every season. If you haven’t worn an article of clothing in over a year, it may be time to let it go.

26. Do a body check-in every morning and night. How does your body physically feel? Emotionally?

27. Set out your workout clothes every morning (or night, if you work out in the morning) to remove as much friction as possible.

28. Try not to read your email and Slack/Teams chat until an hour and a half into your workday. Focus deeply while you’re mentally fresh!

29. Before bed, recap your day with your friend or partner.

30. Pick three artists a month and listen to their entire discography. The deep cuts are often better than the singles.

What are your rituals? What gets you through your days, weeks, months? Please feel free to share; I’d love to know! ♡

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Oops! I crashed full speed into a 6-foot deep concrete wall.

Not actually, but it kind of feels like it.

Here’s the situation: I’m Type-A, but sometimes it feels more extreme than that.

I multitask while I brush my teeth. My default breathing is shallow and short. When I grant myself “rest”, I can’t just exist in a moment -- I have to be playing a video game or reading or watching a movie or be doing something that I think will make me a more well-rounded, interesting human. I overintellectualize my emotions, refusing to sit in a feeling without first pinpointing the exact reason why it exists. I’m a “yes man” to a detriment. Sitting still scares me. Hell, even the way I move my body looks like it’s in 2-3x speed (making and editing vlog-style YouTube videos has given me a front row seat at the self-observation theater). When I was 14, I would clean and organize my working mom’s closet for fun. Yeah, I know. Now we’re getting into the weird stuff.

I’ve been working and grinding from the moment I turned 16 — the legal working age in Texas. One semester in college, I balanced not one or two, but three jobs (this doesn’t include the job of being a full-time college student). Even now, when I don’t necessarily need to, I work for 8-9 hours a day and then continue working into the night on Play Nice Press projects (me & my partner’s risograph press) or my other various passion projects. I don’t know how to sit still and just be because grinding and surviving is all I’ve known the last 15 years.

The thing that is simultaneously comforting and sad is knowing there are thousands of people out there just like me. Their nervous systems are also shot, they feel guilty when they aren’t “productive” (i.e., toxic productivity), and all they know is go-go-go because that’s just how American society operates. Maybe, dear friend, the “they” I’m speaking of is you.

If that’s the case, I have something important I want to share with you.

The other night, the YouTube algorithm blessed me and I was recommended a YouTube video titled, “13 subconscious habits secretly wrecking your gut & nervous system” by Art of Anna. It came to me at the right time, as I was on the precipice of experiencing a complete mental breakdown after a particularly draining work week. My jaw dropped as Anna went through each habit, each one making me shout, “I DO THAT! THAT’S ME!” I’ve never had my destructive habits presented to me like that before, and wow, what a wake-up call.

I can’t magically become a laid-back, slow-living person overnight (although I will admit - I tried for the first week after watching that subconscious habits video). Changing the lifestyle I’ve been living over the last 16 years is going to be a long, frustrating journey with many failures, but you’ve got to start somewhere. My *~somewhere~* begins with incorporating smaller day-to-day and week-to-week habits into my life that will eventually become my norm. If you, like me, are a tired, anxious, & burnt-out type-A overachiever, I invite you to start “somewhere” with me.

⊹ Repeating This Mantra

I have a five minute journal that I (try to) write in every morning. It asks you to write down a daily affirmation. My daily affirmation has been the same for the last two weeks: “The work will always be there. My mental health and stamina, however, are finite. My mental being is always first on my ‘to-do’ list.” I write this down within the first hour of waking up, and it miraculously remains embedded in my brain for the rest of the day. I remember to get up from my desk, take deeper breaths, and check in with myself more.

⊹ Ditching Short-Form Videos For YouTube Essays

Endless scrolling through a feed of short-form videos really fucks with my brain and nervous system. I know I’m not alone in this. I’ve been finding a lot of joy in watching 30-50 minute-long YouTube essays. I watch these at the gym, put them on as I’m cooking, and opt for these essays as I’m winding down at night. The creators of these essays had to slow down and conduct a tremendous amount of research, devote hours toward editing, and spend months crafting their delivery style. I like thanking them for their time and effort by giving them my undivided attention. It’s a reminder to myself that great things take time, and I don’t need to be a short-form content machine to connect with an “audience”. My favorite video-essayers are Mina Le (), Nicole Rafiee, Memoria, Matt D’Avella, and Jordy’s Computer.

⊹ More Matcha & Tea, Less Coffee

I’m not about to suggest you ditch your $10 iced latte. I think everyone deserves their life pleasantries because let’s be honest — they’re kind of hard to find these days! 〠 Personally, I should NOT be drinking coffee, but I’ve developed a bit of an addiction over the last few years. Coffee makes me anxious, and I tend to drink it on an empty stomach, which exacerbates my anxiety. I’ve been opting for matcha and hot tea more, and I’ve noticed a decrease in my 3 pm crash-outs, so that’s cool.

⊹ Radio, CDs & Analog Listening

Shout-out to my wonderful partner for this one; I’ve been listening to more NPR live radio recently. There is something insanely comforting and ~*slow-living~* coded about not reaching for my phone every 3 minutes to find a new song to listen to. I think we all need to reintroduce more analog listening into our lives — vinyl, CDs, FM radio, and cassette tapes. The tactile and ritualistic aspects of handling these forms of physical media really force you to slow down and listen with intent.

⊹ Stop Giving Yourself Unrealistic Imaginary Deadlines

You don’t need to finish your Substack essay in one sitting. You don’t need to deprive yourself of a break to knock out that one larger work task that really should be completed with at least three breaks. You don’t need to rush through your edits. You don’t need to check off a bucket list before the new year. You have time, and you have plenty of it. Anyone who tries to rush you (including yourself) is the victim of an unsustainable society that lies and says your self-worth is tied to your productivity and what you can accomplish within “x” amount of time.

⊹ Ditching Instagram On My Phone

This is a new one for me. I recently deleted the IG app off my phone, and I can feel the ridges of my brain getting deeper. We are all bombarded with world news, acquaintance updates we don’t need to see, and comparison fodder through the social platforms we frequent. I was beginning to feel so slowed down by the weight of what everyone else around me was achieving or doing, that I felt overwhelmed by the thought of all the things I could’ve been doing and was missing out on due to work stressors or mundane life obligations. Sad, I know. Digital worlds can do that to ya. I haven’t been on Instagram in three days and I’ve already rediscovered my motivation for writing (hence, this Substack piece), have started a new video game, and am instead Googling “Yakuza History” first thing in the morning instead of reaching for my phone to begin my mindless scrolling (that actually happened this morning, I shit you not). Eliminating the endless scroll and overwhelming pressure of keeping up with that app is doing wonders for my mental health.

⊹ Your Body Is Screaming For Movement

I know, it sucks. It’s the words nobody wants to hear, but it’s true — carving time out for physical activity is something your body desperately needs, especially as a type-A person. I hate sweating and I hate being uncomfortable, so working out is my own personal hell. After a month of consistently going to the gym (3-4 times a week), I realize that working out is a gift to my body. It’s easier to get yourself to go if you constantly remind yourself that working out is a self-care activity. My entire day is devoted to doing things for people at work, taking care of my cats, or keeping up with friends. The least I can do is carve out an hour and a half of gym time for myself.

Signing Off With A Bullet List of Recs For My Burnt Out Type-A Baddies

The big, most important part of all of this is remembering that overcoming burnout and making better, slower life decisions is a process, not a sprint. Fortunately, some tools can help in that pivot:

𖥔 Free PDF of Trudy Scott’s The Anti-Anxiety Food Solution

𖥔 Video: How To Reset Your Nervous System For $0

𖥔 Best Herbal Teas For Stress

𖥔 Relax on the couch and discover new music & movies through I’m Cyborg But That’s Ok’s channel

𖥔 Coritsol Lowering Sound Bath

𖥔 This entire YouTube Channel (cats in Korea)

𖥔 The Benefits of Junk Journaling

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I haven’t really been writing on here. There’s a few reasons why:

1. My creative attention span has been spread thin the past two months, comprised of teaching myself how to edit YouTube videos in Final Cut Pro, riso printing & hand assembling a Media Log, and creating niche-ish fan art shirts. There are so many creative things I want to do all the time! So many things I want to learn all the time! I wish I had more time! ☻ ☻ ☻

2. There are so many amazing writers on here who devote hours of their time to writing incredible thought pieces. My day job involves a fair amount of copywriting that relies on market research, strategic messaging, and a lot of brain juice. Substack is a creative outlet for me first and foremost (i.e. I’m not getting paid on here to write), but sometimes I feel dull or subpar if my writing isn’t dripping with profound philosophies or deep thoughts about culture and the world. Those feelings are ugly! At the end of the day, this is an outlet where I can shoot the shit and write my feelings down on paper (screen) — so why do I hold it to such a high standard?!

Does that make sense? Maybe you can relate, I dunno.

The last Substack piece I published was June 28. It’s been almost two months, and a lot has happened since then. Due to all the reasons above, I’ve decided to make this newsletter a low-pressure, bullet-style update sharing what I’ve been enjoying, reading, watching, learning, and getting up to during these dog days of summer. Thanks for being here — maybe one of these things will pique your interest too.

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𓅭 𓅰 𓅭 𓅰𓅭 𓅰 𓅭 𓅰𓅭 𓅰 𓅭𓅭 𓅰

ᯓ★ Algorithm-less Music Discovery

Dude, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuk streaming platform “discovery” playlists. I saw a note (or thread post…can’t remember) the other day that was like, “All of these streaming platforms are claiming to run on ~*pOWerFuL-WoRlD bEndiNg-h0t d0g suCking A.I.*~ yet 90% of the songs my Discovery algorithm serves me are songs/artists I already listen to,” and I related so much to that.

I’ve been thinking a lot about music discovery pre-streaming services. One day in July, I decided to go back to my roots and revisited Aquarium Drunkard’s (AD’s) Mondo Boys mixtape archive. My older sister introduced me to Mondo Boys — a NY/LA mixtape/sound collage collaborative. The Boys (I’m gonna call them that hehe) create mixtapes, which can be purchased as physical cassettes or digital downloads, to fit various moods and seasons. One meeting-less day at work, I went through almost all of their mixtapes. It was glorious, and I discovered an abundance of amazing artists and songs. A lot of Aquarium Drunkard’s site posts are behind a paywall (which you should support & pay if you have the means), so I was enjoying their playlists on Last FM.

ᯓ★ Thinking About Radios

In the same vein as the bullet above, I really want a radio. Specifically, a *Tivoli Audio radio. I’d love for NPR or BBC to play at all hours of the day like white noise. I also want to support radio on the daily again (college radio Allison…do you hear me? I haven’t forgotten you). In conclusion, I want to live my best analog music life!!!
*This is not sponsored; I just genuinely really want a Tivoli radio.

ᯓ★ The Idea of Ditching Coffee & Yerba

Notice how I was honest and some “the idea of”. Did you see that?
I am a caffeine addict. Specifically, a Guyaki™ Yerba Mate and 3-shot latte kind of addict. As someone with clinical anxiety disorder, this isn’t exactly good for me?? Instead of getting a 4pm coffee, I’ve been opting for iced matcha. I purchased my first ceramic matcha bowl from Little Okie Studio this past weekend, which means my journey to making matcha at home (and ultimately saving a ton of $$$ in the process) is beginning! If you have any fun matcha recipes like this Banana Cream Matcha Latte recipe, my earholes are open.

ᯓ★ Weapons (The Movie)

I reallyreallyreallyreally liked this movie. A lot. It was funny and scary and made me jump and made me gasp and made me cover my eyes and I would watch it again. Dare I say…my movie of the summer? I know this wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the shared tension and laughs in the theater were its own form of wholesome entertainment.

ᯓ★ Making a Physical Letterboxd

I made a 𝓜𝓮𝓭𝓲𝓪 𝓛𝓸𝓰! “What’s a 𝓜𝓮𝓭𝓲𝓪 𝓛𝓸𝓰” you ask? It’s basically a physical Letterboxd, except instead of just reviewing movies, you can also review the video games, tv shows, books, and albums you’ve been enjoying. Humans are multi-faceted creatures who enjoy multiple forms of media — let them log all the things they’ve watched/read/listened to/played! I ended up selling out of these at our last two art markets & in our online shop, but we plan to print more - likely sometime in September or October.

ᯓ★ Binge-Watching TurtleWithHat

TurtleWithHat is one of the best YouTube channels that has ever happened to me. It’s the channel of Izzy and Emma, two Brooklyn lesbians who have my kinda humor (dry, weird, and a lil cringey). I LOVE their Becoming a Boy Band video.

ᯓ★ MoldMoldMold from Peow2

I purchased Nick Borelli’s new book titled MoldMoldMold from my favorite indie publisher Peow 2! It hasn't come in the mail yet — in fact, it got returned to sender because the postman got scared or confused or something, I’m not sure what exactly happened there. Anyway, it’s a book that features over 300 miniature conversions, kitbashes and sculptures by Borelli. It looks neat and I’m excited for future Allison to look through it.

ᯓ★ Obsolete Sony

One of my favorite accounts is . Tech in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s was PEAK design, and this newsletter does a great job shining light on odd and obsolete Sony devices. This account has inspired a few zine ideas in me this summer and has deepened my appreciation for older tech and analog devices. If you’re a lover of physical media, then I can’t recommend this newsletter enough.

𓅭 𓅰 𓅭 𓅰𓅭 𓅰 𓅭 𓅰𓅭 𓅰 𓅭𓅭 𓅰

Are you there? Did you read this far? If you did, thanks for that. Undivided attention is a scarce resource these days. I don’t really feel like writing anymore, so I’m going to stop here.

What are you guys enjoying these days? What’s making you happy? I wanna hear from ya.

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The days get longer, the heat index increases and my seasonal affective disorder goes rampant.

I am not a summer person. I’ve lived in Arizona and Texas a majority of my life, and these states don’t necessarily scream idyllic, cinematic summer— you know, the ones you see in movies set in New England, filled with picnics, lake days, water balloon fights, and camping. When mid-June rolls around, that’s it. It’s hibernation mode for the next three months. I draw our blinds, prepare for $250+ electric bills, and only leave the house when 8:30pm rolls around. The heat in Texas hurts. It hurts physically (sunburn city), mentally, and financially (because what do you do in a flat, concrete jungle? shop, eat, and blast the A.C.).

The first two months of summer are bad, but still semi-bearable. It’s cool. Whatever.

But when August hits?

Oh dude, I feel ☻ BAD ☻.

Like, *~it’s hard to get out of bed and I’m panic spiraling about climate change every waking moment*~ depressed. It’s basically clockwork. When the clock (calendar?) strikes August 1st, my seasonal affective disorder takes its final evolution form like it’s Pokemon and I’m left wondering what the point of anything is.

Last August my SAD was rough, and as we hurdle towards yet another August in our lifetime of Augusts, I’ve been thinking more and more about how I can avoid what often feels like an inevitable annual slump. So, being the type-A, mental health warrior that I am, I put together some ideas that future me can refer back to when I crash out this August. I have a feeling a lot of people on here probably feel the same way I do about summers, so I figured I’d share. Perhaps we can even beat the SAD together.

How We’re Defeating Summer Depression

Virtual Volunteering

This may come as a shock, but doomscrolling about the state of the world as you’re locked inside your protective heat-proof pod (your dark bedroom) doesn’t actually fix the world. In fact, it’s making it worse — we need you to stay strong, soldier. I recently learned that there is such thing as VIRTUAL volunteer opportunities. And there’s a lot of them that need our support and time. I’ll drop a few below that we could check out together:

Be My Eyes

As a Be My Eyes volunteer, you can help out blind and low-vision people with their daily tasks through your phone! Blind and low-vision users can ask for help with tasks ranging from explaining the color of a shirt, to navigating unfamiliar surroundings, but no matter the case, your assistance allows them to lead more independent lives.

Love For Our Elders

Love For Our Elders is on a mission to alleviate social isolation among older adults through handwritten letters and intergenerational connections. This is the most wholesome excuse to buy cute washi tape, stationary, and lil stickers to fill your letters with.

Volunteer Match

You can find a virtual volunteering opportunity that fits best with your personal interests through Volunteer Match’s site. Explore hundreds of virtual volunteer opportunities in cause areas like health and medicine, education, and community building that you can do from a computer, from home, or any other preferred location.

Junk Journaling

Junk journaling is a meditative and wholesome creative activity that’s been gaining a lot of popularity recently! This past Sunday, I hopped on the bandwagon and met up with two friends to do my first ever unk journaling coffee shop date — I LOVED it. Cutting and collaging from my favorite magazine (thanks Frankie subscription!) and yapping up a storm was exactly what I needed. This is also a great excuse to explore new coffee shops in your city.

Growing an Herb Garden

When I think of summer, I think of fresh fruits, crisp salads, and vegetables bursting with color. The best summer appetizers and snacks aren’t complete without fresh herbs — basil, mint, dill, lavender, lemon balm, etc. etc. Full-fledged gardening isn’t always accessible to everyone (myself included - tiny apartment dweller here), but putting together a little herb garden is the next best thing. It may even inspire you to cook more! I had a picnic date with a friend a little over a year ago, and they introduced me to this delicious fruit salad recipe with a honey lime dressing, complete with lots of chopped mint. Taking care of another living organism AND eating well tend to be great depression busters. Just sayin’.

Playing Outside at Night

As a 16-year-old growing up in the suburbs of Dallas (cue “The Suburbs” x Arcade Fire), there wasn’t much for me to do during the summer. Both of my parents worked, 100-degree days kept me indoors, and the summers dragged on. I was essentially nocturnal during the summer, sleeping the boring, long days of summer away and frolicking at night — going to parks with friends, laying out in open fields, and night driving around in the city like a lost tourist. Summer nights have beautiful clear skies, illuminating fireflies, and a sweet calmness to them. It’s cinematic and I want to be the main character.

Lemonade Flights

Like a beer flight, but replace it with lemonade.

I’m talking blueberry lemonade, ginger lemonade, strawberry lemonade, passion fruit lemonade, lavender lemonade — perhaps even a mix of ALL those flavors lemonade?? Big Summer loves pushing lemonade onto us consumers, so maybe I’ll take it and run with it. Hell, I could even listen to Beyoncé’s Lemonade album in its entirety and really lean into it, I dunno.

Living Room Forts

It’s absurd that the last time I made a living room fort was when I was a wee child. I have free will, an abundance of bed sheets, and an apartment I’m lucky to call my own, so why haven’t I made a Pinterest-worthy fort in my adult years?? The next time the temp reaches over 100, I’m snapping all my blinds shut and turning my living room into a palace that the hit children’s television show Out-of-the-Box would be envious of. Once the fort is constructed, I’ll crawl in and knock out my ever-growing watchlist on Letterboxd.

Taking a Class

Growing up, the Parks & Rec summer activities catalog was my summer itinerary. My parents enrolled me in swimming lessons, a fashion illustration class, a sound design and cinematography course at the city museum, and other programs that contributed to my development and worldview. Learning new things, getting out of the house, and flexing the creative piece of my brain is just as — if not more — important as a chronically burnt-out 30-year-old as it was when I was a developing 14-year-old. I hope to sign up for a class that catches my eye this summer to always have something to look forward to.

Lots of Reading

Reading in coffee shops, libraries, breweries, hammocks, near water, on city benches, in bed, out loud to my cats, at 2am, during weekday lunch breaks, everywhere and anytime. I have so many books that are screaming at me to escape into them.

Museum Dates

Museums are cold, quiet, and the perfect place to escape when you’re sad rotting on a 105-degree day. A lot of museums are free, so why don’t I go more often? I’d like to change that this summer.

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What about you guys? Anyone else planning their anti-SAD bucket list this season?
I wanna hear what’s on it~

Leave a comment

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May? Already? I’m scared.

Not really, but damn. This entire year has been an absolute sprint. I blink and suddenly I’m onto the next thing, going to the next place, or looking toward the next task — feverishly trying to balance all three corners of the holy triangle (relationships, career, & health).

Since April, every other week has involved a red-eye flight to some different corner of the US to support my friends in their life accomplishments and milestones. My savings are depleted, but the feelings of security and gratitude I hold in my friendships make me feel rich. Getting to celebrate my friend’s milestones and explore new cities together is something I will never take for granted.

Because of the frequent traveling, work craziness (nothing new there), and general trying to stay on top of life, I’ve put a lot of my creative work on the back burner. I have three vlogs awaiting edits, I’m sitting on four zine ideas, and I have a tufting commission that’s screaming at me to be finished. That’s not to say that I don’t have creative energy - I very much do. I don’t have the time, which sounds like a poor excuse but it’s true. While my creative aspirations sit unticked on my to-do list, I remembered that I have my writing, SubStack, and an amazing community on this platform who are also incredible writers. And so, this very rambly newsletter is born. Writing feels most accessible to me right now as a creative outlet, and for whatever reason it (just) clicked in my brain that I don’t have to always write curated, researched newsletters. My writing can be more fluid, freeform, and dare I say, visual.

So with all that said, I want to use this space - this new newsletter series - to act as my digital junk diary. Below is where you’ll find some photos I recently developed (taken by my Kodak EKTAR Half Frame camera), which books I’m reading, songs on repeat, movies I watched (and rated on my Letterboxd), and what oddly specific thing(s) I find myself gravitating towards lately. Hope you enjoy and hope you see something worth sparking a conversation with me about (please, I’d love to know what you’re reading/watching/listening to as well!).

⟡ Current —

↬ Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Page-turning sci-fi about a sole survivor in space on a desperate mission to save Earth.

↬ Where Are Your Boys Tonight? by Chris Payne
The oral history of emo’s mainstream explosion from 1999 - 2008.

↬ A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Adult fantasy novel about a world with four parallel worlds - four parallel Londons to be specific.

⟡ Recently Finished —

↬ Wool ( Book 1 of the Silo Series) by Hugh Howey
A dystopian future novel about the remnants of humanity living in a massive, self-sustaining, underground silo with no contact with the outside. After watching S2 of Severance, I was craving more sci-fi. This has been my book of the year so far!

↬ A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Non-fiction book surveying the history of humankind, starting from the Stone Age and going up to the 21st century. I love Harari’s writing so much and I wish I had him as a teacher for every single subject I’ve ever taken - he has the amazing ability of sharing information in a way that feels like you’re conversing with a friend.

⟡ Recently finished —

↬ Presence (2024)
Yo uh, this movie really sucked. I was really hoping for more because the trailer looked cool but the writing was horrendous.

↬ 28 Days Later (2002)
So glad this movie is FINALLY watchable without torrenting a shitty, blurry version online!

↬ Frida (2002)
It took me way too long to watch this movie. It’s sat on my watchlist for years. I finally did it, and I’m so glad I (finally) did. I was especially impressed how they recreated Frida’s paintings and superimposed them over the film.

↬ John Wick (2014)
Consistent travel means consistently watching free movies on the airplane. I noticed American Airlines has all four John Wick movies for free, and I’ve never seen any. I decided it’d be fun to try to watch all four John Wick movies on the plane since I have four more upcoming trips this summer. (Four movies / four trips? Fate.)

⟡ Added to watchlist —

↬ Sinners
It’s a sin (ha ha ha xD) that I haven’t seen this yet but damn it I promise to myself that I WILL. IN THEATERS TOO.

↬ Friendship
I feel like I need to buckle a seatbelt for this movie.

↬ Bring Her Back
New horror movie from the ‘Talk to Me’ directors. This somehow looks 10x more scary.

⟡ In my headphones

↬ Hector Bachan
Like Helado Negro, Hector Bachan also creates nothing but no-skip songs. Untitled ‘91, noise cancelling headphones, and a lay on the couch is a free vacation.

↬ Helado Negro
I think I can confidently say that Helado Negro will be in my top 5 most played artists for 2025. His album ‘Far In’ is something you’ll crave more of as the final song on the album ‘Mirror Talks’ fades — a craving I quench by eagerly going back to track one for another listen.

⟡ On my turntable

↬ Françoise Hardy en vogue best of 1662-1967
I found this gem in a small record store called Smash Records in Washington, D.C. last weekend. It’s a 2LP featuring 24 of Hardy’s greatest songs. I love buying bossa nova, piano, psychedelia and jazz records because it gives my home a “sunday morning”-type atmosphere every day of the week.

↬ Video Game LoFi: Final Fantasy
My friends at Curaga Records sent me their latest Video Game LoFi release, and this time it’s a 2LP of iconic themes from across the Final Fantasy series, reinterpreted as lofi chill beats. This is another “on repeat” record for me; it’s hard to grow tired of it, and it’s great mood-setting background music — think lighting your favorite candle or opening your windows on a cool day.

⟡ Recently picked up a signed copy of María Medem’s graphic novel Land of Mirrors.

⟡ New game from Chucklefish (publisher of Stardew Valley) called Witchbrook is coming to PC, Switch, and Xbox this Fall/Winter.

⟡ A positive update dropped on Taika Waititi’s Akira live-action remake

⟡ Lost in Cult has an amazing art book bundle for indie game Animal Well up for pre-orders

⟡ Just realized that my favorite/the coolest stationary store ever in LA has an online shop! Check out HIGHTIDE - you won’t regret it.

⟡ Getting back into routinely checking Frankie Magazine’s blog. If you’re a creative or like interesting, creative things, you need to bookmark this site.

On December 27, 2024, I turned 30. Four days later, the year turned a page, and 2025 began. January beat me to a pulp. Two days into the new year, I lost a long-term friend, work had me running on fumes, and I was spiraling at the state of the world. My birthday and New Year’s have historically never made me feel any different, but this year, something shifted for me. Changes, both within and outside of my control, were hitting me all at once, and it felt like I was being slingshotted into a new era of my life.

Instead of with my usual paralysis and anxiety, my brain recalculated to approach these changes more constructively - with courage and care. I hope a few of the things that I’m prioritizing this year can help you in the same way that they’re helping me.

Mindful grocery shopping & eating

Like a lot of kids of the ‘90s and early 2000s, I grew up eating absolute garbage. One summer, I ate an entire Costco box of fruit roll-ups in three days. I’m sure the red-40 permanently altered my brain chemistry. From Kid Cuisines and Hamburger Helper in my grade school years, to ramen and quesadillas in my broke college and early 20s, I feel like I’ve eaten nothing but processed garbage for the majority of my life. I am fortunate enough to finally be in a place in my life where I can explore a wider breadth of options outside of boxed mac ‘n cheese and Spaghettios when I go to the grocery store. I recently discovered an app called Bobby Approved that I use religiously when I want to try out new organic snacks or meals (just because it’s “organic” doesn’t mean it’s good for you! Everything feels so green-washed these days ). The app is free to download, and all you have to do is scan the barcode of the item you’re interested in. It scans for “Bobby Approved” ingredients, ensuring your snack or meal is free of harmful preservatives, ultra-processed ingredients, artificial food colorings, and more. After it scans, it’ll give you either a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and tell you why it rated the item accordingly based on the ingredients it found. It feels good to eat better foods, and I mean that literally. I have more energy, am less irritable, and with how EXPENSIVE grocery trips are now, feel better knowing that my money is going towards foods that will actually nourish me.

Pretending like Instagram Stories doesn’t exist

I’ve read a million different articles on this platform about people quitting social media, encouraging others to do the same. I admire these people more than I can express in writing - you are god’s strongest soldiers. I, however, am more of a cadet. While I have no intention of quitting the app anytime soon for several reasons (of which I started writing out, but then thought - Why do I feel the need to explain myself? Who cares.), I have cut out the parts of the app that trigger shitty feelings. Instagram Stories is one of those triggers.

I do watch a few of my close friends’ stories, but for the most part, I avoid IG Stories like the plague. If we barely talk “IRL”, I do not need to know what you’re doing or who you’re with at all hours of the day. I do not need fuel for comparison or to see what my ex-friend from 10 years ago is eating for lunch. Less surveillance, more social.

The 2025 unsubscribe

There is no greater dopamine hit than smashing that ‘Cancellation” button. Since January, I have cancelled my Amazon Prime, Spotify, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, and Audible. I’m no longer interested in being a means to appease shareholders, and it feels so good knowing my money isn’t going towards inauguration brunches and Katy Perry’s little space vacation. Take 20 minutes to look through your card statements and list out all of your subscription services. Tally up how much these cost you every month, and think about what you could put this money towards instead - maybe it’s an omnichord or a trip to Portugal. Whatever it is, it’s benefiting you and not another billionaire.

No headphone walks

My work days are packed with Zoom meetings and Pomodoro YouTube videos guiding me to lock the hell in and focus. It’s rare when I’m not wearing my over-the-ear headphones, but my walks have become the exception. Nature’s soundtrack is so incredibly beautiful. I love focusing on the sounds of the birds, the pitter-patter of my Reeboks hitting pavement, and the ocean-esque whoosh of tree leaves waving in the wind. My days are so full of stimuli, and my walks wipe it all away, like swiping a magnetic drawing board clean.

Bye TikTok

When TikTok got banned the first time in January, I decided to ban it for myself for good. Every other night, I’d find myself spending hours upon hours scrolling my weird algorithm, looking for a mental escape from my busy job and, honestly, what was probably a bit of depression. The January TikTok ban felt incredibly dramatic and weird. Creators were making videos about the platform going away, like a death hit their family. People seemed more upset about a potential TikTok ban than the dissolving of reproductive rights, war crimes, and attacks on LGBTQ+ folks. I no longer wanted a part in the weird, addictive cult of this platform, but I was still in a chokehold of the dopamine-hitting algorithm. It wasn’t until I read this SubStack article - recently revealed text in legal briefs tells a damning story about the company, in its employees’ own words - that I hit my tipping point. Our time and data are our most valuable assets, and I decided to take back both.

The local neighborhood recreation center

The thing about me? I can start and cancel a gym membership like it’s my job. I’ve been a member at Planet Fitness, the YMCA, LA Fitness, 24 Hour, Orange Theory, and various yoga studios. For some reason, I can never commit.

Recently, my partner encouraged me to get a membership with him at our local recreation center. The gym portion of the rec center is tiny, a bit outdated, and has an AC unit that’s barely functioning. I love it. The people I share the gym with, if there’s anyone at all, are mostly older people in their 60s-70s who, like me, just want to be healthy without fixating on “gains”. My partner and I hold each other accountable and go every other day from 7 pm to closing time (8 pm), and use that time to catch up on YouTube videos or podcasts while we run, walk, and do strength training. Since I regularly started doing this, I’ve noticed a significant shift in my mental health, stress levels, and how I cope with stress. I feel stronger and healthier. When I have a high-stress, exhausting work day, the rec center is now my after-work dive bar. I’m drinking less, listening more to my body, and challenging my heart to break up my compounded stress at 190 BPM. What they all say is true - routine exercise is one of the best anti-depressants (and this is coming from someone who’s been friends with Lexapro for 12+ years - it’s making THAT much of a difference).

What about you?

Is there anything you’ve incorporated into your day-to-day or week-to-week that’s been a big life changer this year? I’d love to hear about it, and I’m sure others would to.

Leave a comment

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I recently created a risograph zine called ‘Family Computer’, and an absolutely incredible, dream-scenario thing happened—I didn’t print enough copies to meet the demand.

I think an amalgamation of things happened here: the algorithm picked me as its lottery winner, and I hit a soft spot for thousands of nostalgia-ridden strangers on the internet, resurfacing a time in our lives when our relationship with the internet and our devices was at its healthiest.

For better or worse, I am a deeply nostalgic person. I always find myself on YouTube or the Internet Archive looking up old websites, flash games, and edu-tainment games I grew up with. As a child of the early internet, time spent at the family computer had a small part in shaping who I am today, and I felt a calling to memorialize the amazing sites and games I sunk hours into in a way that felt intentional. ‘Family Computer’ was a zine idea I’d been sitting on for over a year, but the chaos of life, jobs, and obligations put this project on the back burner. I’m not sure if entering a new decade of my life or the flashing realization that digital spaces aren’t forever fueled this zine to life, but I made this zine (with the help of my amazing partner and our risograph press, Play Nice Press) within three weeks. It’s thanks to sites like Wayback Machine and YouTube that it even exists, and I’m eternally grateful to the meticulous work of archivers for preserving cultural artifacts like Xanga.com and Disney Channel Games circa 2005 alive and visually accessible.

This newsletter is a little taste of ‘Family Computer’ and the contents of my zine. For the sake of not spoiling ‘Family Computer’ for those waiting for their zines to arrive in the mail, I’ve added a few newer computer memories to keep things fresh. While the demands of my job, life changes, and daily duties won’t allow me to do a reprinting of this zine until later this year, I wanted to spark some memories and carve a path down memory lane for more people, zine in hand or otherwise.

Without further ado, let’s take a seat at the Family Computer.

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Forward —

There was a brief moment in time when the internet was confined to one designated spot. People called this spot the “Computer Room” or the “Family Computer”. I have many cherished memories of my time at the Family Computer - from watching silly flash videos on Albino Black Sheep to playing Edu-tainment computer games like Math Blaster. There was often an out-of-place dining table chair next to the “computer” chair, as getting on the family computer was often a shared experience with a friend or my older sister. Fast forward to today - nearly 20 years later - we now carry the “computer” with us, our attentions being pulled in a million different directions as the ping of push notifications vibrate our pockets. We no longer experience the Internet together but apart, scrolling endlessly at today’s version of “flash” videos. The internet and our tiny modern-day computers feel more like grievances now than fun reprieves and tools for creativity and connection.

Despite this negative shift in our computer-consuming habits, this zine newsletter is meant to be a positive look-back - a way for me to share some of the websites and PC games that helped shape who I am today. While our relationship with computers and the internet continues to shift, I hope this zine newsletter serves as a reminder that the internet can once again be used as a tool for togetherness, creativity, and discovery; we just need to look back at what it did right and change our habits accordingly.

I invite you to pull up a spare dining chair at the metaphorical computer desk which is this zine newsletter. Thanks for reminiscing with me.

Games and Sites of the Family Computer

Xanga.com

Before Tumblr and Substack, there was Xanga, my first introduction to “social media”. My best friend at the time invited me to join her ‘Lost’ role play (yes, like the JJ Abrams TV show) when I was in 5th grade. I played as Sun-Hwa Kwon, which was challenging because her character primarily speaks Korean, and she didn’t get a lot of airtime. Nevertheless, I fell in love with the platform and went on to create a personal blog and participate in several Harry Potter role plays. I think I had no less than 50 Xanga accounts.

Madeline Rainy Day Activities (1998)

I was a HUGE Madeline PC gamer. To this day, it has my “most beautiful games of all time” award. The art style, sound design, and songs in the Madeline games were top tier, and I wish I could go back to play all of these games, from Madeline Rainy Day Activities to Madeline European Adventures. I’ve thought about learning how to refurbish an old computer just so I can play these games again.

Postopia Games

I ate a metric fxck ton of cereal as a child, so naturally I played all of the games on Postopia.com. My favorite was Night Spy Mission and Kiki’s Dream Room Designer. Huge kudos to the designers of this site - from the colors to the interactive map, they knew what they were doing.

Myst

I was too young to play or comprehend Myst, but this game will forever hold a special place in my brain. Being in fourth or fifth grade, I mostly played Putt-Putt, Math Blasters, and other edutainment games. My Uncle would stay at our house sometimes when he was in town for work, and while there, he would use our Family Computer to play Myst. Although it scared me a bit, I was enchanted by the beautiful landscape and how real the game felt. I went back and tried playing it a decade later on Steam and was equally confused as I was in my early youth.

RuneScape

I’m going to be honest with you...I signed up for RuneScape in 6th grade so I could instant message with my crush because he wasn’t allowed on AIM. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I wasn’t really interested in the game - I was more of a Harvest Moon on GameCube kid. Regardless, this was an integral part of my time on the web (and my budding relationships).

Putt-Putt Balloon-O-Rama

Putt-Putt Balloon-O-Rama is the dark souls of children’s PC games. This game was ADDICTIVE (and is probably what fueled my deep love for Peggle). I remember asking my older sister for help on the outer space level. This was one of those games that you took turns playing with your sibling as you went from level to level. Big love to Putt-Putt, an androgynous baddie.

Albino Blacksheep

Albino Blacksheep was a cultural movement. The site had hilarious, quotable videos like “End of Ze World” and ‘Mashed Taters’ and addictive flash games like “Spank the Monkey” and “Musical Lantern”, supplying hours of entertainment and fun. This was a site I’d often visit with friends, constantly trading spots for our turn in the “main” computer chair to try our hand at the flash games when the other died. The site is still around today, though it no longer has its iconic “dark mode” UI and isn’t regularly updated.

Peter Answers

There is NO feeling like successfully pranking your friends or siblings with Peter Answers, an online “tarot” game that miraculously knows the answers to everything, from who your crush is to how old you’ll be when you die. Peter Answers and Santa Claus were the closest I’ve ever felt to experiencing true magic.

Picnik.com

Thanks, Picnik.com, for making my Myspace selfies and black-and-white ~*photography~* look incredible. Canva wouldn't be half the woman she is today without you setting a precedent for online photo editing apps.

Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1996)

The 1996 release of ‘Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?’ kinda scared me as a child. It was dark, mysterious, and ANYONE could be the crook! Despite this, I was still FASCINATED by the game. Discovering new locations, the satisfying sound design, and the blend of “real” video footage of The Chief with the game’s traditional cartoon animation made it feel unique and ahead of its time.

Underwater Windows Screensavers

I leave you, dear reader, with pure Windows 98 gold - the Underwater screensaver. When dinner time hit and your time at the Family Computer was nearing its curfew, this bad boy would come on and more often than not and scare the living shit out of you with its eery underwater noises. The glow of this screensaver at 10 pm is a visual ASMR of the early 2000s. Press play on this 10-hour loop, gather your lunchables, and take some time to explore Wayback Machine to keep the sweet nostalgia going.

I wish I didn’t take the Family Computer for granted.

Let’s restart?

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