I had originally started writing this draft entitled "Not Dead" in... August 2025. As it happens, I am dead! Hopefully less so now.
Some context: I moved (again) to start a new job (again) last summer. Starting a new job in education is famously annoying and difficult. I was doing a lot of work for free, and I was tired of looking at screens so much.
I also bought a computer last year, a tower, because I wanted to be able to replace parts as needed instead of dealing with the cycle of constant machine replacement. This worked out for a while until the computer started suffering from frequent forced logouts or OS crashes, which was the product of some kind of poor interaction between the on-board graphics and the OS because Linux is fun. I didn't have the time or money to spend on the computer for most of the year so I put that on the back burner, but I finally got an extremely basic GPU and presumably everything is fine now.
All the life and tech issues (not to mention All That Shit in the world at large) have meant that I've been spending all my free time doing non-internet stuff. It's been really freeing, and I haven't had to think about doing write-ups for anything in a long time! I do want to find a more sustainable way to keep the website afloat without going ghost for a full year, though. I don't know what that looks like yet, but there will be a fairly significant reduction in scope just so there's less stuff to deal with.
If you're still hooked up to this RSS or still browse this website occasionally, I'm glad it's still serving a purpose for you. Thanks for bearing with me :-)
I went to a curio-themed art/craft fair a few weeks ago, and I'm so happy I did because everything was completely up my alley. It's hard to find local artists without social media, and you don't usually find this type of stuff at granola mom craft fairs. It was also just fun to talk to so many people with common interests. I was happy to have gone for that reason alone... but of course I ended up buying a bunch of things.
The vegetation is finally turning green here, which means it's jorts season! And update crayon tin season! I limit the number of crayons I take with me because premixed colors get muddy very quickly if you use too many of them. There's a lot of abstraction involved (3 or 4 different shades of green in a scene will get condensed into 1 or 2, for example).
Color selection is a new "problem" for me because I'm used to mixing colors from primaries. I used to exclusively mix accurate colors for paintings, but my work with limited palettes has helped push me out of my comfort zone. The crayons have sent me further in that direction because I really have to think about what I want to communicate with color (vibes, if you will).
I never had a specific interest in vintage pens until I went to the Colorado Pen Show last year. (Here, I'm loosely defining vintage pens as any model that is no longer in production, mainly from the 20th century.) I had acquired a few here and there before then, but I didn't truly understand the sheer range and appeal of these pens until I saw tables and tables full of them in person. There was the usual garage sale thrill of finding cool old things, as any secondhand enthusiast would know, and I really enjoyed listening to people ramble about the pens they were selling.
I have a particular interest in pens from the 70s-90s because they usually feature cartridge/converter filling systems, which are less fragile and picky about ink than pens with built-in filling systems, but I've become increasingly interested in lever fillers because you can find a lot of interesting flex nibs in those pens. In any case, I've found that older pen nibs have a certain character to them that modern mass-produced nibs usually don't.
This is an excessively deep look at the vintage pens I have at the moment.
I am a certified serial killer. During the last two months, I killed a handful of plants and drove others to the precipice of death. I regret my actions immensely and will be issuing a Notes app apology in short order.
I used to be really invested in caring for tropical plants, but I've moved back to a drier area and generally don't have as much time anymore. I selectively bought some replacements that I wouldn't need to babysit as much. And the surviving plants appear to be salvageable, since 1. they haven't died yet and 2. they have new growth, which I would like to think is good...
Drawings of houseplants in pen and watercolor crayon. The crayon was used dry before being brushed with water, so there are dry, textured areas left on the page. Only the plants have been lined with ink so they stand out from their pots.
The first page has drawings of a Philodendron Brasil in a terracotta pot and two Haworthias in ceramic turtle pots. The philodendron is a bright green trailing plant with heart-shaped leaves. The leaves have lime green markings on them. The haworthias are small succulents with fleshy leaves that form rosettes. One is darker green, while the other lime green.
The second page has two drawings of the same Peperomia Metallica plant, one drawn in crayon and one drawn in brown ink. Written underneath the ink drawing: "Nice shape for drawing, but not for maintenance!" This plant has long magenta stems with dark olive-colored leaves.
