Notes from December (and Early January!)

So, it’s been a minute. Whoops! I ended up being much busier through the end of December and beginning of January than I had intended. No matter; I’m back in the wonderful (and notably warmer) state of Washington after my jaunt back to the land of ice and freezing winds that is Minnesota.

I got a chance to see the updates on Skyler’s–my boyfriend’s–family’s cabin (Whew! You think that’s enough possessives in one sentence?). Very culturally Minnesotan. As if the cities weren’t cold enough, everyone has a cabin farther north to truly indulge in and enjoy the cold and snow! Those wild Scandinavians/Germans, I tell ya.

I also got the chance to indulge in something I haven’t had the money to since moving to Washington: watching tons and tons of movies that are in theaters!

I’ve seen plenty of films in theaters since moving out west, but not as many as I’d like because it’s a pretty penny to do that, and I’m lucky enough to be able to see them for a discount at the theater I used to work at. So, I got to see a ton of movies, including Mary Queen of Scots, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (again!), The Favourite, The Mule, Holmes and Watson, Aquaman, Bohemian Rhapsody, Green Book, Vice, Mary Poppins Returns, On the Basis of Sex, and The Upside.

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Wow. I haven’t actually listed them out, so I hadn’t realized just how many I saw in the last month. I’m not even sure that that’s all of them (though, I’m pretty confident).

Anyway, movies are one thing that have always meant a lot to me, so I don’t mind investing as much time in them as I did while in Minnesota.

One pretty consistent theme I noticed in the movies I saw that I absolutely adored was the prioritization of women’s voices and stories. It was super enjoyable–and refreshing–to watch movies that focused almost entirely on the women within them and sidelined the men. Mary Queen of Scots, The Favourite, and On the Basis of Sex would all fall under this category. I also think it’s interesting to note that all of these are based of historical women–Mary Stuart (obviously), Queen Anne of Great Britain, and the powerful and great Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Favourite is my favorite (haha, get it?) to sweep at the Oscars. I hope its ten nominations indicate promise of some wins for my ladies.

Also worth noting: I managed to get my Inktober zines printed before Christmas (but just barely!)! I order thirty so I would have enough to distribute to my friends and pen pals while having enough to give to my parents because they had people in their own minds they wanted to gift them to.

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I had wanted to be more involved in the page layout and actual printing of them, but I waited a little too late and had to leave a lot of the initial construction to the wonderful Marit of The Bremerton Letterpress Co. as far as layout, printing, and binding went. She did an incredible job, keeping it simple and clean like I had asked. I wanted the focus of the zine to stay on the images and not on some other part of it. I also went back and forth on wanting to include the prompt words or to keep it truly sparse and only have the images, but I decided that it would be easier to appreciate if I included the prompts so people (including me!) didn’t have to look any of them up. She also kept me involved for a lot of the process, which included sending me multiple drafts so I could include my comments. I appreciated that immensely. It made it feel much more like I had initially hoped as I had a big say in how everything looked.

Gosh, I know this one is already kind of a long one (and I haven’t even gotten to the books I’ve been reading!), but it’s been so long since we talked and I have just so much to say and share! I guess I’ll end it here so I have other things to talk about in the next post.