this week i turned 40 and i was very excited to hit that milestone so PLEASE spare me the "there's nothing wrong about turning 40" because you're PROJECTING! and onto this beautiful, perfect creature:
read more »happy valentines day, a good day to share a recent, small labor of love i did for a dear friend of mine. lisa and i went to college and lived on the same floor. when i got a remote job, she helped me find a new place in jersey city and so i've lived within a couple of blocks from her ever since - for over a decade now. if you've been to jerseyscript you may have had the pleasure of meeting her. lisa has a lot of style and her home has a lot of nice things that i like to touch and ooh and ahh at. one of those things is a ceramic piece of toast with a little butter candle by collin garrity.
read more »laws have become a gentlemen's agreement and we are no longer ruled by gentlemen - that's how i'd explain the last week at a higher level with what's going on in america and even on the streets of my own community.
read more »i have written previously about getting back into reading again. when covid quarantine went into effect, one of the things i stopped having the attention and appetite for was reading books. but since fall, i have been chipping away at a pile that had been waiting for me since 5 years ago, and i am intentionally trying to read at least 2 books a month. in january i read fuzz by mary roach, and natural causes by barbara ehrenreich. i'll write about fuzz and my thoughts about and journey in divesting from specieism another time. today i want to talk about natural causes and, especially, barbara ehrenreich's impact on my outlook on death, wellness, and how i have navigated those topics before and going into the trump administration.
read more »a few weeks ago i finished a special sketchbook on stream (ahem, like and subscribe) and have been adding photos of it to my portfolio (which i've been coding on stream hehe). the sketchbook is a letterpress grid watercolor pad from case for making and the paints were gansai tambi which i've really been enjoying.
read more »i was thinking about how i'd like to set some intentions for the new year but have been blocked. i have more time on my hands than ever in my life, so i'm currently working on navigating that without the paralysis that comes from having so many options and ideas, and adhd - a damn hottie disorder. then i realized tonight, while scouring the live laugh blog archive, that i wrote one of these posts when 2024 started, so let's start there.
read more »i've been feeling antsy from not having played around with my candle supplies in awhile. an exception was the weekend after thanksgiving, when a couple of friends came over and each left with their own candle. those were fragranced and poured in recycled jars, though, and i had said almost a year ago how i wanted to go more sculptural. the problem is that i didn't know where to start, which is a common roadblock to my creativity. my urge to wait until i have sketched designs lead to me not making any for so long, so i decided to try an experiment: fill as many of my variety of polygonal molds over a couple of days with different colors, then then put together those wax building blocks in a way that would make a cohesive collection.
read more »a couple of weeks ago i started spending a lot more time on candle-making, which had me working on a couple of apps to help me, and perhaps other candle-makers, to do their craft.
read more »*that's going to age poorly* is a common refrain that's projected by people - who themselves are probably aging poorly - in the comments of any videos or photos of tattoos. or *you'll regret that* and (my favorite) *what does your mother think of those*. my tattoos are pretty innocent, i only have a handful of them, and they're all on my shoulders and above the elbow so they're often not even visible. i love them and i'll get more.
read more »i mentioned having drama with my air compressor in my last post. the issue was that the compressor's drain cock valve - the pee-hole, on this blog - was leaking air. notice how i said 'the issue was' and that's because i fixed it. to celebrate, as well as deliver on my promise to jenn nation, here's...
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