Category: Uncategorized

When I was younger, I was motivated by one thing, and one thing only — to become good at art.

But I think saying it like that comes off more positive than it was in reality. When I reminisce on those days, the feeling that comes up is more grotesque and off-putting than anything. So to be more accurate, it would be better to say that my being was animated by an all-encompassing desire to not suck.

It wasn’t pleasant!

Thankfully, I’m a lot more chill about that now. I’ve reached a better point of esteem of my life, and therefore my art as well. But you know…studying, learning, and building skill is not the hard part. And I find myself driven by another negative motivation…not getting stuck.

What is the positive version of that?

I guess it would be, being able to freely move around as I need to. Physically, socially, behaviorally, etc etc.

Maybe this can be seen as deviant and disruptive, but when I am able to move around as I need and want to, I am more happy, and this makes others around me more happy too.

Anyway, I uploaded a new work onto the site, a study of Michelangelo’s David paired with a personal essay. I wrote it because there was the prospect of winning a thousand bucks. Well, I didn’t win a thousand bucks, but it actually ended up being a very good capsule of who I am as a person, and what I’m aiming for with my writing..

As always, I hope you are well, and thank you for reading!

Have you been keeping up with the Artemis II mission? I’m so happy the crew made it safely back home! It’s been heartening to watch smart, gentle people get along well this past week.

Incredible things can happen when knowledge and understanding is given the time, patience, and resources it needs to bloom. While there are many reasons why ignorance and cruelty seem to reign, I feel this mission proves it doesn’t have to be that way. People can get along, people can learn, and people can work towards a common goal.

Life can be good!

Being an artist and being an astronaut sounds equally crazy to people, especially in this economy. But how can you put a price on what nourishes the soul?

Hey! It took a while, but I finally learned how to make coffee!

You see, I am primarily a green tea drinker. Making tea is very simple — just heat up a kettle, then adjust the water temperature! Some people wait a while, but I think it’s easiest to just pour the boiling water into one mug, then into another mug, then finally into the mug with the tea bag inside.

Coffee is…different. I don’t trust coffee machines because they seem complicated and hard to clean. I thought a moka pot would be analogous to a tea kettle, but it isn’t at all. So for the past year, I’ve been either using coffee packets or creating experimental monstrosities.

Then I saw this video on making Hong Kong Coffee Tea and realized…I could just boil water in a kettle, then pour it over ground beans in a filter over a strainer! It works perfectly and I don’t have to wait.

How wonderful it is, that we all have our different ways and rhythms! The diversity of life is the most precious thing.

Isn’t this cute??? I’d look so good in it!

This is one of those places I always see while walking, but never go inside (why would I?), so this place’s story was totally unknown to me until I read this Texas Monthly article about McAllen’s cultural scene. They made the wedding dress in this Bad Bunny video! Wow! That’s so neat.

It’s a little surreal to read this article because it’s like insight into a parallel world I’m adjacent to, but never around. Some places I go to, some places I don’t. Some reasons are pretty serious, actually, and some are just, when I’m in the area, I feel too sweaty/thirsty/broke. The distinction is important, but it ends in fundamentally the same result — that’s not somewhere I go.

I feel very grateful for places I can just go and space out and be. Not coincidentally, they are spaces that embrace ambiguity.

Anyway, I have a fantasy of staying at Casa De Palmas for a week, sitting at the balcony, enjoying the good air with a nice iced coffee. Doesn’t that sound nice?

My sincere belief is that people start out knowing who they are, and what they want to do, but throughout the course of life, this knowledge gets beaten out of them. Afraid of getting hurt again, we conform to the shapes and patterns imposed onto us. However, for as long as we are alive, we have the chance to step into ourselves again! It’s a glorious thing.

My other sincere belief is that the sign of a healthy culture and civilization is the presence of art. If art and creativity has the chance to flourish, so do we! It’s not an easy process, and it takes a long time to perfect, but it’s the closest thing we have to immortality.

While I’m not quite ready for summer to end, nobody can stop the flow of time. As the equinox approaches, the weather gets wetter, and from time to time, there’s a hint of chill.

Speaking of chill, the AC in my car is now fixed! I truly believe temperature control is one of man’s greatest inventions, if not the greatest.

Overall, I had a good summer, with rich experiences.

I think it would be fun to pursue analog painting again, but since I’m not sure where I could work– I need a lot of space for movement and a place that can accommodate the inevitable mess– I’ve decided to start small with the painting that I do everyday.

In regards to writing, I’ve transcribed one of the journals I carry around in my purses and publicly write in, and have recently finished writing another one. I’m not sure what I’ll do with those, but it feels like something practiced publicly should be shared publicly. Before I was content to fully DIY (buy my zines at Ante Books🩷) and throw works into the void, but now I would like something more. But in most contexts, DIY translates into control freak, so…that will be a long journey.

But that’s what it’s all about, right? To grow and learn is the essence of being alive.

For approximately 2/3rds of my life, I have had the privilege of living in a small thorn forest that skirted city limits. When I felt ousted from the world of people, I could go to the back of land and be surrounded by nopales and mesquite, and if turned my head a certain way, I wouldn’t have to see cars or buildings or anything like that. It was a strange, isolated place, but also a kind of paradise. While I would say that averages out to normal, it’s a context most people don’t have, understandably.

There is currently a Southwestern themed exhibit at the museum that has landscapes and imagery that look similar to the Valley’s natural features. I’m glad I saw it.

For about a week, it has now officially been summer. In reality, it’s felt like summer for quite some time.

I had the idea that once it started feeling like summer, I would start hunkering down at home and start fleshing out one of the many of story outlines I’ve written. However, the moment it got hotter, all I’ve really wanted to do is go out. How grateful I am for cafés with outdoor seating!

When it’s like this, it’s crucial to know what materials you’re wearing, so you can feel cool despite it all. As I write this, I am enjoying the silken feel of satin pajamas. It’s enjoyable at home, indoors, but this would sort of thing would create a damp nightmare the moment I stepped inside my AC-less car. Conversely, while I love pearls, to expose them to the unceasing glare of the sun and torrents of sweat would make them lose their luster…and that would be missing the point.

So, when I feel a certain way at a certain time, I call upon the power of my fake pearls. They have a good heft to them, can take wear and tear, and even feel cooling when I put them on. And they’re cute! This was the sort of thing esoteric scholars dreamed of so long ago, and now it’s just part of my ordinary everyday.

Everyday life is made up of such miracles.

While obviously I don’t think the exploitation of the Earth is good, the fact is, even if it were all shut down tomorrow, all of these plastic goods and trinkets would already exist. Since it’s difficult to exist, we should appreciate what we have for what it is.

When I engage with older work, I feel a strong pull towards the imagery of cigarettes. There wasn’t much to do those days, you know– when one was bored, one had no choice but to hit the street, smoke some cigarettes, and find trouble. The protagonist of the story I just uploaded smokes cigarettes. This Palestinian man with a gun pointed at him looks impossibly cool and nonchalant while smoking a cigarette. And naturally, the protagonist of No Longer Human smokes cigarettes.

Ever since I first read no Longer Human as a teen, it has been a work close to my heart. I hold it in high esteem, but I don’t think I was able to say “This is one of my favorite books,” out loud, to another human being, with my lips and teeth, until my early twenties, once my partner had been living with me and my parents for quite some time. It is a harrowing work, dark and relentless, about how difficult it is to live when your spirit is locked so deeply inside yourself not even you have a chance of taking it out.

Naturally, that type of depression begets an intense type of self-obsession, so I wouldn’t recommend it if that type of thing irritates you. But upon my most recent reread, I found it quite funny in some parts, and a good look at Japanese society right before World War II.

It doesn’t feel like there’s a meaningful difference between then and now.

Indeed, on this reread I was struck by how powerless the people around the protagonist are in curtailing his increasingly erratic behavior. Even his family, who have money and status, can’t do anything to meaningfully help him. They can’t understand anything outside of standardized prescribed behavior, and even if they could, they’re too enveloped in their own everyday misery and difficulties to see what’s going on. When tragedy strikes, it’s everybody’s fault, but it’s also nobody’s, because if anyone could do anything to begin with, things would have never gotten that bad.

But yes, No Longer Human is a lurid, breezy, feel-bad story, with lots of cringe and depravity. I love it! Dazai really lived that way, and I hope he has found peace in the afterlife. I would also like to think he would appreciate this pic.

That day, I left behind a barely smoked black cigarette strained with lipstick, with all the other used up butts. It felt slightly scandalous.

It feels like May is the last month the heat is reasonably tolerable until we hit September. But right before June flares up, masses of itchy little black bugs come out in full force. I’m not looking forward to that! The smell of citronella is preferable to being bit all over, but ideally, I wouldn’t have to deal with either.

While I haven’t been able to show up in public the way I’d like lately, I’m grateful I have a private life that supports and looks out for me.

One of my favorite things I’ve experienced lately is a talk about trees at the McAllen Public Library. It really shifted my perception in how I view them, and deepened my love. The circumstances in the Valley are not perfect, but they cling to life with everything they’ve got. In this way, we are like trees.