Xismosa Xit

Flowing Creative River

Hello all,

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by (what else?) love 💜 and also spite 💜 (No reason for the spite. Simply: spite 💜)

Prose and Poetry of the Week

A Web’s Design

I am quite proud of this one, because I knew this piece was a great contender to be recognized in this challenge, and then it was! I’m listed as first runner up!

I felt confident because I’m figuring out my style of writing and how I like to write. I wrote this like other pieces I’m extremely proud of and have also been recognized as “Top Stories.” I had to restart this one a couple of times – I felt like a river that stops and starts until they find a good grove to flow.

Jackalope Burrows

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

  • I was scouring EventBrite. You know, for events and shit, and I came across: A Cult In The Making!!!!!!!!!!!!! (swipe through, because I took 30 fuckin screenshots)
  • Someone took the time to draw faces on cheese
  • I am not immune to Kendrick. Yes, I watched his concert live. I even watched that game that bookended his concert. Yes, I’ve been watching the videos and the shorts. And:
  • I found three more beautiful cloud-hair ladies but I was only able to take pictures of two!
  • Hey uuuuuhhhhh look at this big ass leaf
  • Trans Joy Is Resistance

Book Búho

What I’ve been reading/listening to bc audiobooks let me do both. Yes, comics count. And sacrilegiously, I even learn from ones I didn’t finish.

  • Uncultured by Daniella Mestyanek Young
    • This was a difficult read. The author grew up in the Children Of God cult, and then also argues that the military is its own cult. I don’t know how I was able to get through most of the first half with BIG TRIGGER WARNINGS about SA, but I did end up skipping the second big trigger warning part in the second half. I kind of wish she had written more about her high school and college experience and focusing on her re-education outside of the first cult. If you want more of that, then I recommend Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover. That book is amazing, I would almost say it changed my life.
  • Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets From The Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry by Kelly Richmond Pope
    • It was interesting to learn how cons work, and I agreed with the author most of the time about how despicable scammers can be. However, I found myself agreeing more with “Scam Goddess” Laci Mosley: “Punch up, don’t punch down,” as opposed to Pope’s notion that all punches are unwarranted.
  • The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life With Friendship At The Center by Rhaina Cohen
    • I haven’t even finished it and I keep recommending it because I want everyone to realize how importance platonic relationships can be, especially on the same level if not more than romantic relationships

Books I Keep Putting Off Because I Don’t Have The Emotional Capacity For Them But It’d Be Really Cool If You Read Them And Then Tell Me About It

  • How to give up on plastic by Will McCallum
  • Blood in the machine: The origins of the rebellion against big tech by Brain Merchant
  • Obitchuary: The Big hot book of death by Spencer Henry and Madison Reyes
  • Fifth Sun: A new history of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend
  • Being Mortal: Medicine and what matters in the end by Atul Gawande
  • When Languages die by K. David Harrison
  • The Great revolutions of modern history by Lynne Ann Hartnett and The Great Courses
  • Never Whistle At Night: An Indigenous dark fiction anthology edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
  • Botany of Empire: Plant worlds and the scientific legacies of colonialism by Banu Subramaniam
  • The hour of our death: the classic history of western attitudes toward death over the last one thousand years by Philippe Aries
  • The Nag Hammadi Scriptures
  • The Atheist Handbook to the old testament by Joshua Aaron Brown
  • Fresh Banana leaves: healing Indigenous landscapes through Indigenous science by Jessica Hernandez, PhD.
  • Left of Karl Marx: The political life of Black communist Claudia Jones by Carole Boyce Davies
  • Momento Mori: the art of contemplating death to live a better life by Joanna Ebenstein
  • Conquer the clutter: strategies to identify, manage, and overcome hoarding by Elaine Birchall and Suzanne Cronkwright
  • The smartest guys in the room: the amazing rise and scandalous fall of Enron by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
  • Eve: how the female body drove 200 million years of human evolution by Cat Bohannon
  • All about love by bell hooks
  • The Red Deal: Indigenous action to save our earth by The Red Nation

Quotes Quail

I’m always listening 😈 y’all are funny

  • “Se portan bien. Si se portan mal me invitan” (Behave. If you don’t behave, invite me) – mi Nana traviesa 🥰

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  • “Do you see how the clown brain works?” – my friend talking about her dating life (at least I think that’s what this is about because my own personal clown brain does not remember)

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  • “America needs therapy”

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  • “You’re gonna be SO cracking up” – my sweet cutie patootie niece!

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  • “Sports is just drag for straight people” – my cousin during Super Bowl commercials

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  • “We’re on the same boat and it’s sinking” – my babe with our shared braincell

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  • “Fureon a matar la puta vaca” (They went to kill the fuckin cow) – my friend about waiting for dinner

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  • “Shut the fuck up” – me and a friend aligning and simultaneously said to our third friend

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  • “Too much shit and not enough giggles” – my mom when she hears about upcoming bad decisions

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  • “Do you take any drugs?”
  • “DRUGS?!”
  • “Yes.”
  • “No.”
  • – Overheard at the ER

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  • “‘Lead with your heart‘ I resent this.” – my friend about her disappointing fortune cookie

(O)possum Playlists of the Quarter 

Here, we scream.

And, “apparently,” I listen to my short playlists for a “wildly long time”

  • I just want you to know that I am actively humming “Denial is a River” right now. And Doechii continues to be iconic by dropping this THE DAY AFTER THE GRAMMYS

Cuervos Chismoses

chisme = gossip. ”e” ending instead of “o/a” in Spanish for more gender inclusion

  • Oh to be shown love with a giant pile of whipped cream
  • (If you like the sticker, I made it 🥰)
  • My mother’s feelings when she asks “what are you gonna wear” and I say “I’m making it”:
  • Hence: frög
  • Lala and El Vaquero are trying to restart their insta so they would appreciate your support

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.

  • I overwhelm myself with all the things I want to do like write and crochet and read physical books especially the ones that have moved with me and ebooks and audiobooks before they go to the next person in line at the library (I think it’s weird to have a limit on ebooks and audiobooks) and use the paint I bought a year ago and also clean my room so it looks like a mildly-sane artist lives there. Anyways! All that to say: How do you keep yourself from getting overwhelmed? I need help. Obvi.
  • As for the wider world, maybe focusing on one of these will help:
Resist, Reform, Build, Heal

Thank you for reading! If you want some cheap retail therapy to go along with it, please check out my stickers.

I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s day full of feeling loved and loving others!

Abrazos and/or high fives,

Ariana

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