Day One in Sabadell

Howdy folks!

Yes, yes, I have made it safe and sound to my apartment in central Sabadell, a city about twenty minutes north of Barcelona.

I got here yesterday morning and boy-oh was I jet lagged and exhausted. I mainly spent the day laying in bed, napping, and watching Netflix. I did go out to the nearest grocery store to grab some food but wowie was I very loopy.

Today, I got myself up and out to explore the neighborhood. First of all, there is the coolest haunted-looking house with a lovely, overgrown garden just down the street and I’m in love and wondering why I’m not living there.

Any way, I set out with a goal of buying some home goods (a blanket, some Tupperware, laundry detergent) as well as some fun new art supplies to supplement the ones that I brought along with me (I do plan on writing a post about which pens, pencils, and other supplies made the cut to come along for the study abroad ride). Let me tell you, I was (pleasantly) shocked by the number of art, stationery, and office supply stores nearby. I was perhaps a bit overwhelmed but managed to hold myself to just four pens:

I grabbed three different kinds of Stabilos: A gold and silver metallic marker with a bullet nib as well as a purple fine point. Also, this liquid ink Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint pen caught my eye and I had to get it to try it out (Pardon the shaky handwriting. Exhaustion has really impacted my ability to write smoothly. It will return to me soon, I’m sure.) A weird note by the way: Only the silver Stabilo is shiny on this paper. I don’t know what the difference between it and the gold is, but the latter just doesn’t have the same sheen as the former. I’ll have to try them in my Midori journal or something to see what’s up with that.

For today, my ambling was up and down Las Ramblas — a street lined with shops of all shapes and sizes — and the Ronda de Zamenhof as I looked for a good grocery store to get some more substantial food from.

And, man, let me tell you, I cannot wait to spend more time wandering around because I had forgotten how exciting all the alleyways are in European cities. It is so wild how so much energy can be packed into such tiny side streets — not to mention the secret gems of stores hidden away back there.

Some observations I’ve already made about living here versus living in Barcelona:

People actually speak to me in Castilian! When I lived in the city, people would see me and (I can’t blame them) instantly recognize me as a foreigner and would only speak to me in English. I appreciated that a lot when I first got to the city and was overwhelmed by everything, but as time went on, I really craved the opportunity to practice my everyday Spanish in real interactions but it was tough to find those chances.

A related note: People are so patient with my slow, slightly bumbling Castilian. It’s so nerve-racking to try to not be bothersome to people when they’re trying to work and get through their day, but y’all I have never felt like less of a bother in my life. I used to agree with the idea that Europe doesn’t have the same kind of customer service atmosphere that the United States does, but I’m starting to think that may just be the big cities (and let’s be real, American big cities don’t really have a customer service culture to speak of either).

The last time I was here, the only coffee I drank was café au lait and, with recently becoming lactose intolerant, I was worried my options would be limited to café solo which, for the uninitiated, is just a shot of espresso. Filtered coffee just isn’t common like it is in the States. Anyway, they at least still have my espresso go-to back home: café americano. This isn’t really an observation nor is it a particularly new one, but if you’re a coffee lover, you really need to get your butt out here and try the espresso here because it is something else.

I had planned on spending more of my day out and about, but I’m still so tuckered out that I had to come back to my apartment for a nap. Tomorrow, I plan on going into Barcelona to hit up Lush for my favorite bath products to make me feel more at home.

Even though I’m here in Spain, my GoFundMe is still active! A shoutout to Maddy Bellman is in order! Thank you so much for your donation. I couldn’t do it without you and your support ♡

If you guys have any questions about Sabadell, my school, or anything else, let me know! I’d love to answer any and all of your inquiries.

Notes from August

Whew, I know, it’s taken me a minute to sit down and find the time to finally write out my notes from August.

This entry is coming to you from Gate S15 at SeaTac airport as I wait to be boarded onto the aircraft that will whisk me away to first Frankfurt and then Barcelona.

Paperquirks hired a new employee at the beginning of September and I was pretty busy with the whole search situation: checking out applications, conducting interviews, and training our eventual hiree.

With the busy-ness of that as well as the final preparations for graduate school and hosting Skyler and my friend Kelsey and Sky’s sibling Forrest, I unfortunately did not get much reading in last month.

The only book I started and finished in that time was The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace (which you may have seen a photo of in my last “Notes from” post). I’m not big into poetry, except for Edgar Allen Poe — and I’m sure that will surprise exactly no one. I took some English classes in college that had me dabbling in poetry, primarily from the UK from the years 1885 onward. I did enjoy that which I read, but not enough to feel a drive to seek out more.

I enjoyed this poetry book. It was very sad and reminded me a lot of the way I felt when I was a high schooler, which was disconcerting and perhaps not ideal but it definitely made me feel like my high school self was that much less alone. Which is pretty obvious now that I’m through all of that as hindsight is 20/20, but it’s still a nice thought.

I’ve also been making my way through Kevin Hearne’s A Plague of Giants. It took me a while to get into — much longer than his Iron Druid series did — but I think now that I have a better grasp of the characters and the world, I’ll start flying through it. Especially considering this 10 and a half hour airplane ride looming ahead of me (That little “flying” pun was unintentional, believe it or not).

I’m sorry this one is on the mega short side, but I am honestly a bit weary and anxious as I always am sitting in the halls of an airport. The next entries will be much more robust.

I’ll be sure to post some pictures of everything at some point this week but forgive me if it takes me a while to recover from jet lag. I’ll be in my apartment in Sabadell sometime around 10:00 A.M. tomorrow morning PST. It’ll be around 7:00 P.M. or so local time. Like I said, be kind about the jet lag!

September (and Spain!) Preview

Hello and happy Saturday everybody!

I’ve been meaning to post a definitive update on all things re: grad school in Spain, but I’ve been waiting on several final things to fall into place before I posted this.

Everything is officially all set for my departure!

I picked up my approved visa from Bellevue last Friday (which involved driving to the honorary consul’s house — which I did not realize until I neared the address locked into Apple Maps and looked around, noting the abundance of neighborhoods and lack of businesses — and get it from him. Him being Mr. Luis Fernando Esteban Bernáldez, an amazing and kind elderly Spanish man who allows you to pick up your visa any day of the week, yes, including the weekends).

I’m all set up in my future apartment in el centro de Sabadell, a city right next to the Autonomous University of Barcelona and north of the actual city of Barcelona with another political science student as my roommate!

And my flight leaves September 10th, with my arrival on September 11th (a holiday in Catalunya) perfect as my good friend Ramon will be able to pick me up from the airport and help deliver me (in my most likely sleep-deprived state) and my bags to said apartment.

All that’s immediately left in front of me is to wait and pack and double (and triple!!) check my list of things to bring and to buy once I arrive.

I honestly could not have done this without the support of my friends and family, especially my dad who has been The Guy to help me with everything: Planning, emailing, saving money, knowing the questions to ask, managing my expectations, and offering advice about every tiny little detail. Honestly, truly, I would have been completely lost without him and I am the single luckiest human being on the planet to have him.

Again, my GoFundMe is still up and running if you haven’t donated and would still like to. I appreciate every single donation, big and small, from close friends, my aunts, and even from people with whom I haven’t spoken in a long time. To know that you all believe in my ability to achieve this, a dream of mine for years, to study my favorite subject in my favorite place in the world.

Muchas gracias por todo y hasta súper pronto Barcelona!!

Port Gamble

Guest season has begun in my house!

The last week, Skyler and I (along with my amazing, generous family) hosted my good friend from high school, Kelsey!

One of the most fun things about people visiting me is trying to figure out things to do and playing tourist along with them because there are many places I have not been and many things I have not done since moving to the Pacific Northwest.

This past Saturday, my little trio took a jaunt to Port Gamble, the town at the very tip of the Kitsap Peninsula (where we live)!

I knew a little about Port Gamble before going, mainly that it was old and beautiful (two of my favorite things a place can be).

We checked out the very cool stores located within the little old houses up and down the street, including The Artful Ewe (a yarn store with surprise greyhound dogs at every turn) and The Painted Lady (an antique store in a house that was so crooked as to make me feel like I’d had a few too many as I walked through its halls and up its stairs).

We then took a little break at the General Store, where Kelsey and Skyler split a bottle of Finnriver’s Black Currant Cider and I took the opportunity to draw the view out the window by our table, which looked out at the Walker-Ames house (the largest historic home in the town and one which has been unoccupied since the mill closed in the 90s. I’ve also since learned it’s apparently haunted and I must return and find out more information at my earliest convenience).

The main purpose of our journey, though, was to check out the Port Gamble trails, as coming to Washington without spending some time outside enjoying the truly jurassic flora and fauna the state has to offer (and which I have mentioned in other blog posts) is borderline criminal.

Now, I am no hiker. I am no outdoorsman. To be frank, I almost one hundred percent of the time prefer to be indoors rather than outdoors.

But I really did enjoy the hike we took!

It’s no secret that I love wandering aimlessly around cities for hours on end and what I suppose I did not realize about hiking is that it is basically the same thing except you aren’t in a city.

And as someone who doesn’t love shopping either, the lack of distractions of shops and cafes to dip into was nice and my speedy walking pace wasn’t interrupted one bit by advertisements and mannequins.

And though we were harassed by the largest bee(? Fly??) I thinkI may have ever seen, the deeper in we got, the less the bugs bothered us.

I was also particularly proud of myself for finding our way back out. I even opened the compass app on my phone, believe it or not!

With all of this walking, we definitely earned the big old mess of teriyaki we ate afterwards.

Trips like this just remind me how cool of a place I’m lucky enough to live in. For people who have been here their whole lives, and me as well after living here a measly year, it’s easy to not look around and realize how freaking awesome the plants around here are! I’ve never seen fields of ferns or rhododendrons the size SUVs before and it really is marvelous.

My departure for Spain is rapidly approaching! My visa has been approved and is waiting for me to come pick her up and my flight leaves September 10th. If you’re in the financial position to help a sister out and donate to my fundraiser for grad school, I would appreciate it more than you know! If you could at least check it out and share it amongst your circles to get the word out, that would be unbelievably helpful too.

Reconnecting

You know, I am very thankful for the unique situation I grew up in.

In my twenty-three years, I have lived in seven states as well as two different countries and, while a lot of people have expressed sympathy for that, I honestly wouldn’t exchange it for the world.

It has given me the opportunity to explore and immerse myself in a variety of world views and cultures (because, let me tell you, the diversity of lifestyle and outlook just in the United States is enormous). This allowed me to contextualize a lot of ideologies and thought processes that I did not understand and has opened my mind an incredible amount.

(An aside: As five of those seven states, and all of the ones before I turned eighteen, were in the Midwest, I have a very strong fondness for the people that live there. However, it really is fascinating how isolated a lot of them are. When I was living there, I too struggled to encounter diversity of opinion, of life circumstance, of privilege. That is why it brought me a lot of joy to bring my Midwestern friends to Mississippi and my Southern friends to Minnesota. Their reactions were very enlightening.)

And while I wouldn’t exchange this upbringing for any other — as I think it has informed my ability to be flexible, thoughtful, and to take time to listen to those who think in ways I could never ever think — one downside to all this roving around the place is that I lost contact with a lot of people who I had made really strong bonds with!

Of course, as we live in the age of instant communication, you would think staying in contact with people who lived in Chicago after I moved to Minneapolis or in Oxford after I moved to Seattle would be easy but you would be wrong!

Especially at an age where everything is changing so rapidly, proper nouns are entering and exiting the vernacular of distant friends faster than you can categorize them into friend or foe, it is nigh impossible to remain an integrated part of someone’s life.

And, before you know it, you haven’t spoken to someone in four years!

Just as I’m thankful for my childhood, I am appreciative of the recent changes I’ve adopted in my life! For one: Letter writing.

I have many people come into our stationery store lamenting that my generation will never get to experience how it feels to get a letter in the mail from an old friend and it is with great excitement that I always tell them: My friends do!

There is something so much less intimidating about sitting down and writing out a letter to someone to update them about what you’ve been up to rather than sending a text.

Texts sometimes feel like conversations sprung upon someone when they may be busy and unable to talk.

With a letter, that worry of “Will they open it?” “Will they respond today, tomorrow, next week?” “Am I bothering them?” fades into the background because a letter does not demand an immediate response from the reader.

At their leisure, when they are in bed in pajamas or just home from work or sitting down for brunch on Sunday morning, someone may open your letter and learn about your life and have a little piece of you back in their world, for the moment they read and the moments after, as they tuck your letter into a book or their planner or a cigar box already stuffed with other postcards and epistles from you and other pals.

And they have the freedom to chose when is best to respond! If they’ve nothing new to say, they can wait until some new excitement enters their life to let you know.

And, while in days past, this lack of response may make one worry that the letter was lost in the mail, today we are fortunate enough to be able to at least ensure it has arrived over text.

Anyway.

I’ve just been thinking a lot about the friends I’ve made who are so far away.

If you’d like to get a little letter in the mail from me (because gods know I have so, so many cards and pads of stationery that I need to use), please let me know! I would be delighted to send you a little handwritten something.

I am still fundraising for grad school and time is ticking down before my departure! My flight leaves September 10th and, whew, let me tell you, grad school itself isn’t cheap, nor are the preparations! If you enjoy my blog or my artstagram or are just feeling a little generous, feel free to check out my GoFundMe here. Thanks as always, friends.

Notes from July

Well, here we and August are, together once again.

July was one rollercoaster of a month, to say the least.

I got a disappointing amount of reading done, only finishing two books and getting mostly through a third.

Like I mentioned in my notes from June, I had started To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han. I thought the movie was very charming and was excited to read the book but (and I think this is a first in my life) I may have enjoyed the movie better than the book! I still thought that the book was good and definitely binge-reading material but it just wasn’t as polished as the movie was, I felt. If you liked the movie though, I would still highly recommend reading the accompanying novel because it gives more depth to the delightful little story. I also still plan on reading the sequels!

I also — in one big bite — polished off the second The Adventure Zone graphic novel: Murder on the Rockport Limited by Clint, Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy and illustrated by Carey Pietsch! I honestly didn’t think anything could make me love Tres Horny Boys more than I already did, but somehow these graphic novels manage to do so with each new installation. As far as how this one compares to the first — just as with the podcast, Murder on the Rockport Limited outshined Here There Be Gerblins as the first original and thoroughly enjoyable story created by the McElroys and allowed them to shine beyond the out-of-the-box DnD story they played in the first arc. If you’re interested in leaping into the world of The Adventure Zone but want a medium to support the otherwise entirely audio-based story, I think these are 100000% worth the read.

I’m partway through Lipstick Voodoo by Kristi Charish. I read the first book in the Kincaid Strange series about a year ago and, unfortunately, so far the sequel is suffering from middle book syndrome and is the reason I haven’t been as productive in the reading department as I had hoped to be this month. I don’t have much to add beyond that and the fact that I am finally nearing the end of it!

Skyler and I also polished off the Amazon Prime Video series Good Omens. I had read the book earlier this year after I heard that Amazon and BBC were planning on releasing a limited series based on the book by Terry Pratchett (rest in peace, king) and Neil Gaiman. If, through some misfortune, you haven’t yet had the opportunity to indulge in what I now consider one of my favorite shows of all time, I highly recommend taking some time out of your day to watch all six (yes, six) episodes of the show. It’s funny and light-hearted and rewards you for watching closely — something I admire in a television show. Michael Sheen and David Tennant are an absolute delight to watch and embody everything I loved about the characters from the book.

I of course think reading the book prior to watching the show will offer you more enjoyment than the other way around but do what you will with your time on earth.

The big news from July was my trip to San Fransisco in my bid to get a student visa for Spain.

With less than 24 hours in the city (and a budget severely limited by the fact that I’m, you know, saving for a year abroad at grad school), I didn’t really get much of an opportunity to see San Fran. I really would have loved more than anything to swing by Oakland to buy a cheap, late innings ticket to an Athletics’ game as they are a team I have a strong fondness for, but they were playing across the country. Even the San Fransisco Giants (who, as an NL team, I have much less interest in) would have fun to see in their stadium but, alas, they were also out of town. I do suspect I wouldn’t have had time for that, even if they had been in town.

Having a flight at 5:15 pm at an airport 30 minutes away from the city centre didn’t help either.

Because of that, I mainly spent time walking around the part of the city that the Spanish Embassy is located in, near Union Square and the Tenderloin. The highlight was finding a shop called MINISO that was very similar to the store Daiso, which has a branch in downtown Seattle. They’re essentially Japanese dollar stores, but with a focus on the product instead of packaging, which helps keep their costs low. They also both have wonderful office supply and stationery sections that I can’t help but indulge in!

All in all, probably not the worst trip I’ve ever taken, but I sure wish I could have actually experienced what San Fran has to offer!

I was also very lucky enough this month to have the opportunity to go to Wilderbee Farm in Port Townsend with my mom and our friends. Thank you so much to our pal Ann-Margaret for organizing the outing and owner Casey for opening the Meadery just for us!

We got the chance to taste mead (something I’d never tried before), pet and feed sheep, and pick flowers and lavender to make our own bouquets. It was kind of like a little fairy tale. A definite must-do if you’re out on the Olympic Peninsula!

One update! If you like movies, I made an account on Letterboxd which is a social media account specifically for reviewing and organizing movies that you’ve seen. You can check my (currently sparse) profile here.

Hey! I’m still fundraising for my year abroad for grad school in Spain! If you’re in the financial place to donate, I would appreciate it more than you can know. If not, a share would be equally as valuable! You can check that out here.

Finally Finished

It’s been a while since I busted out the “odorless” mineral spirits and oil paint.

Life has been fairly hectic for me the past few months: visa preparations, visitors to host for, work, visa preparations. All of this has pushed a lot of my creative outlets to the back burner a bit.

With my visa appointment behind me (a post about that is upcoming), I finally had the chance to sit down, squeeze out some paint, and finish the oil painting I began all the way back in December.

For those who don’t remember — or didn’t read my blog back then — I started a piece that features Casa Batlló, a building in Barcelona designed by Antoni Gaudí, as it is decorated on La Diada de Sant Jordí.

Basically Catalan Valentine’s Day, La Diada de Sant Jordí (English: Saint George’s Day) is celebrated by the exchange of roses and books between friends, family, and partners. You’ll see Catalan flags, red roses, and books all over the region, including on Casa Batlló. It’s an image that has stuck with me very strongly since my time abroad and I had to take a shot at painting it.

I’m really happy with how it turned out.

At art museums, my favorite paintings are often those with heavy impasto and it’s something I would like to integrate into my painting more. The first two I did were much smoother than I’d have liked and I tried to apply the paint with a heavier, more expressive hand this time. Next, to push it even further!

I’m not sure what my next painting will be. At this point, I’ve done a portrait of Brighid (my kitty), a landscape of Puerto Escondido in Oaxaca, Mexico, and now Casa Batlló. Maybe a still life is what the future holds next for me?

Even then, I’m not sure about the style or the content I would like to feature. Plus, I wonder if I’d even have time to complete it before I leave in September. My only regret with this painting is how long it took me to finish.

If any of you friends have any suggestions as to what I should do next, I would love to hear them! I’d like to take my own photo of a still life to work from, rather than pull something from the internet, though there is nothing wrong with utilizing the great world wide web for inspiration!!

Have any of you tried oil painting? Do you have a preferred paint medium? Would you rather get roses or a book on Saint George’s Day?

(I would rather get a book personally. They do last quite a bit longer)

Obligatory mention of my GoFundMe! If you enjoy this blog or my artstagram, I’d love for you to check my fundraiser out. Especially after my visa appointment — which was all the way in San Fransisco — I would super appreciate if you could support my grad school journey, even if you only have $5.00 to spare! If you’re not exactly liquid right now, a share would be really amazing as well!

♡ Thank you so much Aunt Tracy for your donation!! ♡

Notes from June

Another month of 2019 gone by and — with the solstice behind us — we find ourselves in the midst of the (allergy-inducing) blooming trees and bushes of summer.

I personally find my visa appointment rapidly approaching amongst my final preparations for it.

But let’s take a break from focusing on the future and spend a moment in the past, shall we?

June was, of course, Pride Month! Skyler and I went downtown to Seattle to spend some time viewing the parade and people watching (I did end up drawing some of the wonderful people ambling to streets of Seattle and you can see that here).

Other than that, June has been a lot of working and saving and planning.

My Literary Update! isn’t much this month, unfortunately.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt had my rapt attention all month, with all 962 pages of its glory. I really enjoyed reading it, though I didn’t enjoy it as much as The Secret History. It really was a treat to read with every sentence an exhibition of Tartt’s masterful ability to find new ways of explaining the mundane that still feel so relevant and actual that it’s borderline hypnotic. However, while I feel like the actual plot of the story was tied up in a neat little bow by the end of it, I wasn’t truly satisfied with the final pages as it was written. I found it a bit meandering at that point. In one word, I would have to say that it’s been dense though and I found myself reading more slowly than I usually do; I would like to point out that that’s not necessarily a bad thing!

By the way, I would still totally recommend reading this book. It definitely won the Pulitzer Prize for a reason and I did enjoy the vast majority of the book. You shouldn’t let my mild distaste for the last thirty pages of this masterpiece taint your vision of it.

Because I was so consumed by this book and it alone this month, I wanted to find a short story or something to read when my brain was a little too tired to truly enjoy The Goldfinch and for that I turned to one I actually discovered through one of the brands that we carry at Paperquirks: Blackwing.

For the uninitiated, Blackwing produces some of the highest quality pencils you can buy, with buttery graphite and incense cedar bodies that smell oh so very good (Yes, I do encourage customers to give the boxes a sniff). Blackwing has three mainline pencils — their Palomino, Pearl, and 602. But they also release seasonal, thematic pencils!

Their most recent pencil, the Volume 10, is based on the investigative journalism efforts of Nellie Bly and her book Ten Days in a Mad-House. Nellie went undercover at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in New York all the way back in 1887 to uncover the atrocities and human rights abuses being committed by the staff against the patients. It so far has been a very interesting read.

Like I mentioned, it’s on the shorter side; I believe the actual book is 92 pages or so, but as I’m reading a PDF I found online (thank you, old stories, for being readily available!), I’ve no idea how far I am currently. It seems that I’m about halfway, judging by the scrollbar.

Lastly, as a truly easy little vacation for my brain, I started To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han. Weirdly enough (for me at least), I adored the Netflix movie that this book is based on. I thought it was cute and sweet and better than the teen romcoms I remember seeing on TV when I was younger. I picked it up from our local, woman-run bookstore — Away With Words — with a gift card I got for my birthday.

GoFundMe mention! Thank you dearly to my Aunt Tracy for donating (somehow I missed her donation until just now? Sorry!)! For anyone interested in supporting my grad school adventures, you can find the link to my fundraiser here. Thank you for all the support I’ve already received.

One last mention: I’ve been significantly more active on my Artstagram recently, so if you’d like to see some of my doodles and drawings, click here.

Beyond the Griffonage

When I was in high school, my mom began a long, arduous journey.

When she was young and learning cursive in school, she was told that her penmanship was so bad that, going forward, she would only be permitted to write in print.

After, I believe in her words, nursing that grudge for most of her life, she decided that she would improve her handwriting and finally use cursive instead of print.

(A small anecdote that I think is particularly demonstrative of this slight she suffered is that her signature when I was a kid had but one cursive letter in it, to qualify it as a signature.)

It blew my mind when she started doing this, sitting at our dining table every day and practicing letters over and over, filling notebook after notebook with repeated letters, words, poems. Annabel Lee featured prominently in her practice books.

Though I at first thought her wild to pursue this, after graduating from college and moving into her home to work in her stationery store, my perspective has changed about as dramatically as it could.

Being a stationery store, we write all of our price tags by hand as well as announcements that we post above our guest book and signs near the vintage items. For the first several months of working here, I could not bring myself to write the signs, always asking her if she could do it because my handwriting — which would be featured alongside the signs that she had already written — looked like an elementary student’s by comparison.

An example of the unreal level of artistry my mother has achieved.

That combined with the handwritten letters I was writing to my many pen pals, who quite frankly deserved better than the scrawl I was used to writing in during college, drove me to follow her lead and to improve my own handwriting. Thank you for inspiring this, and much more, in me Ma.

Now.

I am nowhere near the excellency that my mother has achieved. She worked much more diligently than I did and for many more years. But I have to be honest, this is one of my favorite things I’ve improved in myself since graduating college.

It brings me a lot of joy to write down a note for a customer — whether it be our email address, sizing for a poster, or anything else — and hear their excitement at my penmanship. They tell me that I could handwrite typed letters to people or write invitations and though I feel like they’re just being kind when they say that, it makes the progress feel so much more tangible.

I also find that slowing down and taking care with how I write things helps me slow down and think more about what I’m writing too.

(This does bring to mind the documentary that Skyler and I recently watched, California Typewriter. It features a typewriter repair shop in Berkley which shares the same name as the documentary — and whose Yelp page you can find here. It also gets hot take interviews from the likes of Tom Hanks and John Mayer. They all seem to make a point about how typewriters change the way you type, compared to how you would on a computer. It makes me deeply interested in trying out a typewriter, which I’ve never had the chance to really do.)

All this to say take your time when you write things by hand! Practice writing your name in different ways and find something that you find both aesthetically appealing as well as fun to write! You don’t need to put hours and hours into practicing your handwriting to notice a difference, especially if you just take care while writing in the first place!

This is also a good opportunity for me to plug something I think is one of the best tools known to mankind and that is a journal. Daily journaling, aside from a myriad of benefits such as helping you explore your language and how you express yourself in it; tracking goals in your life; delving deeply into your emotional well-being and finding comfort in emotions you may have once struggled to experience; improving both long and short term memory; and boosting your linguistic and general creativity, offers you a daily chance to escape from the daily stress of 2019 and practice the art of writing.

A mention of my GoFundMe goes here, folks! If you enjoy my writing here or perhaps the art of my Artstagram, I would greatly appreciate if you could check out my fundraiser for my graduate education at the Autonomous University of Barcelona this upcoming autumn. If you can’t donate (though there are rewards if you do!), sharing it with your network of friends would be super radical and help this little Gemini fund her schooling.

twenty-three

Happy June!

I’m sure you’re all very aware that that means it’s my birthday month!!

June 4th, a month before our very country celebrates its birthday, we observe mine own. Oh, what a day!

This year makes twenty-three trips around the sun for me. Skyler and I went to Seattle in the morning via ferry, far and away the most pleasant way to experience public transit. That should mean something coming from me, someone who categorically does not like large bodies of water.

Our first (I suppose second because we, of course, had to get some coffee while we were downtown) stop was the Frye Museum in the First Hill neighborhood. I hadn’t gotten a chance to check out hardly any of the art museums Seattle has to offer which is a shame really as that is one of my two favorite things to do in new cities. That and take ghost tours.

The museum — which has and will always have free admission every single day — originally opened in 1952 under the patronage of Charles and Emma Frye, some very wealthy, German-born businesspeople in Seattle.

The tour we took while there showed us both the exhibition by Cauleen Smith, Give It or Leave It as well as their permanent collection. The Smith exhibit was pretty cool and featured some art I don’t know if I had ever seen in museum, like a big wall covered in this beautiful wallpaper, a mix of shiny and matte that was just really stunning to see fill a whole wall. The whole focus of her exhibit was of a future that is afro-centric, feminist, giving, and spiritual. If you’re in the greater Seattle area, I would highly recommend going to The Frye before September 1st, when the show ends. She’s an interdisciplinary artist with lots of videos alongside her wonderful wallpaper and sculptures so I bet you’ll find something there that would titilate you.

Their founding collection is a lot of what you’d typically expect in an art museum: lots of oil paintings done by a lot of Europeans. As The Frye’s were German, German artists are especially prevalent. There were lots of fun, lovely paintings to see there, including Skyler’s new favorite piece, View of Königssee by Dániel Somogyi. The only piece that I knew before I saw it there — not that that’s saying much as I’m not exactly a connoisseur — was one called Die Sünde (Sin) by Franz von Stuck. Still, it’s always fun to see new artwork and European artists love to paint similar themes so it was still really fun to check out.

There were a few other exhibits, but our tour ended before we could get to them. Skyler and I briefly perused one called After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly by Jane Wong. Wong is a poet and essayist and created visual elements for some of these written works. I don’t know a ton about the work, but there was one piece (which you can see multiple angles of in the slideshow if you click on the link above) that involved Chinese take out bags and bowls with bits of her written works decorating their inner lips. I was entranced by this sculpture and — Skyler can attest to this — wandered around and around the table.

That was the major event of the day, but we went to a place called VeggieGrill for lunch, a place with only vegan and vegetarian food. I had a faux-crab cake sandwich. Very delicious.

We also dropped by Lush (a vegetarian bath and beauty company that is about as ethical as consumption can get under late capitalism) and Daiso (a Japanese dollar store that is so much more than that description. Its selection of stationery, snacks, and household goodies is so unbelievably incredible that it is a joy just to be in there) because how can you not?

We ended the night by getting an AMC Stubs account (Please, do not tell any of my old coworkers that!!) to get my free birthday popcorn and half-priced tickets to go see (second time for me, third for Sky) Avengers: Endgame.

Skyler and I also got to go to the Mariners-Astros game the next night, where the Mariners won 9-1!! Not something you get to see every day.

Overall, a pretty radical birthday, I’d have to say! Thanks Ma and Pa for the love and gifts, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes; I appreciate you all.

If you’d like to (belatedly! ☺) celebrate my birthday, feel free to donate to my GoFundMe! This directly supports my grad school tuition, rent, plane ticket, and all the other expenses associated with higher education! Thank you to the anonymous donors who slid through on my birthday. I am so very lucky to have you all. Oh! There are rewards for those of you able to donate. Sharing is sweet too.