Xismosa Xit

Hello all,

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by self-compassion. And also for you all, specifically almost all of you that I have not yet texted back:

Prose of the Week

The funny thing about making new friends is that you get a whole new opportunity to tell old stories, and sometimes it’s weird to feel happy that new people are part of your life and seeing them in your life for at least the next good chunk, and yet they do not know the basics of you. If you would like to know the basics of me, these would be great ones to start with.

Luisa And Luisa Meet And Ariana Happens: A Wellesley Story

(Can also be viewed here with additional pictures on a digital copy of Counterpoint, page 12)

I was at a workshop, I’m not even sure for what, but it gave me the time and inspiration to start to write this story, which I tended to tell many of my friends regardless. They knew most of it, but not ALL of it. Wellesley is dear to my family, for better or for worse. Wellesley motivated a lot of my life, for better or for worse, and is where many of my main friends are from, and where my partner and I met. I am grateful to Wellesley for the opportunities it afforded my family, I just wish it wasn’t so traumatizing for far too many of its students.

Also, shoutout to Sora, because when I was done writing all of this down, I knew it would take ME forever to type it up, so I thought it better to ask a friend to type it up while I read it to them. I barged into Sora’s room, as usual, and asked her for the favor. I loved watching her reactions as I went through the story, and I honored her original title for the piece. 🙂

Three Kinds of Pink

I have lived in three states thrice. I don’t know what it’s like to live consistently in a place for more than four years. I tend to change where I say I am from according to what I am realizing in life. For instance, before college, I liked to say I was from Boston. But it wasn’t until I was in college that I realized I was much more of a desert rat than I would have liked to be. So, now I tell the truth, as much as I know, when people ask me where I’m from – “mostly Arizona.” 

Rabbitholes

Things I’ve learned, laughed about, and/or obsessed over

• the evolution of Son Chorizos

• Translation: “what lovely braids!” “They’re sausages.”
• Useless WLW (women-loving-women) things

• Been thinking about this one in particular a lot / do great good in one thing, even if it means revitalizing one almost extinct species of butterflies

Book Búho

What I’ve been reading/listening to bc audiobooks let me do both. Yes, comics count.

• IT’S HAPPENING 

• IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING 

• G I A N T  W O M A N
• Lore Olympus, what else?
• If I had a nickel for every time a giant woman was formed as a last ditch attempt to confront a tyrant but was also a huge character development point with badass bass playing in the background, I would have two nickels, which is not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. See also: Obsidian from Steven Universe.  
• The Myth of Sisyphus And Other Essays by Albert Camus – I will deny reading this. You will pull up this page on Colochos de Flores and show me and I will turn away. I call it public-school-forced-white-men’s-thoughts-into-me-and-I-try-to-oppose-them-whenever-possible-even-if-they-have-decent-ideas trauma. This is the result of my rabbithole while trying to understand Everything Everywhere All At Once. It can be difficult to follow his line of thinking bc some people, usually academics, don’t like to be straight-forward (looking at you, Bourdieu)*, but I’m getting some nice nuggets to chew on out of it. The absurdity of being alive and all that.
• *I recognize that this is also me…

Personal Chisme

chisme = gossip

• I am slowly but surely morphing into the embodiment of the color of lavender

• Background: my lavender backpack, phone, and taro slushee.
• Embarrassed and yet feeling seen, someone saw my jackalope tattoo and thought of the SPECIFIC SCENE in Scooby-Doo and The Alien Invaders movie that I, too, think about sometimes when I look at my tattoo. Perhaps even a scene I thought about often when thinking of getting my tattoo.
• My Bisexual Tote Bags Full Of Junk

The Void Shouts Back

If you would like to respond but don’t know what to say, answer the question below. If you don’t want to, just respond with keysmashing or send me a hug with your thoughts. If you don’t want to do that either, that’s okay too.

• What’s the aesthetic you aspire to? Unfortunately, most of us cannot afford our own ideal aesthetics right now, so it’s okay if you don’t have it right now.
• “5 years ago i was a fucking mess & now i’m a fucking mess but at peace with it and with cooler fashion sense”

I made new stickersssssssssss! They are of my embroidery projects, most of them from the pandemic and previously seen on my art instagram @arte.con.Ariana.

Once again, let me know if you would no longer like to mortifyingly know me (read: unsubscribe), I get it 🙂 However, if you would like to delve deeper into someone else’s thoughts that they feel comfortable enough to share in public, please visit Colochos de Flores, with a dedicated tab to Xismosa Xit.

Abrazos and/or high fives,

Ariana