Xismosa Xit

AI Will Prosecute Me For This

Hello all,

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by the personal celebration of reaching the same number of newsletters I put out last year, with strong hopes of putting out 2-3 more this year. Would love to be doing this monthly, but alas, I get distracted. Remember when I was doing these weekly at the beginning? Because I had nothing else to do and they were not as jam-packed?

Prose and Poetry of the Week

How To Break Yourself Down

I love this one, so much so that I thought it could win a challenge. I always hope the pieces I submit will get some recognition, but this one I was sure about. I was wrong.

This piece was inspired by Queer Nature poetry anthology edited by Michael Walsh, where many of the poems focus on nature (duh) and our bodies as part of it. Much of my poetry science 2022 has been inspired by the anthology, especially since that’s how long I’ve been trying to get through it!

I was also influenced by The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir since the series is obsessed with bones. 🩻

Next Thought

Surprisingly, this is the one that got runner-up in this challenge. I am not sure how it fit the prompt better than the one above, I really do want their reasoning. Written about a recent break-up, when all you can think about is the other person because you’re avoiding thinking about them.

I focused on the structure of two words per line to illustrate the stilted/stunted nature of thoughts when in mourning and therefore just trying to get the the next thought without thinking of the other person. The lines more than two words are where my mind dipped back into thinking about the person and trying again to avoid. A taste of ironic process theory (AKA the pink elephant paradox), such as where you think of a red balloon instead the pink elephant you’re trying not to think about. Yet, the ending is about me. As in as I would have liked to stop thinking of the other person, what I truly wanted was for them to be thinking about and missing me.

This poem is also trying to illustrate how I distract myself with various apps on my phone. I am concerned about my own attention span and capacity to sit in person and sitting in my feelings (video by David Achu).

Bottom Of The Glass

I’m including this one because of a couple of other points I make in the following sections. In the process of writing this one, I realized that the point of relationships is for them to be satisfying work. This piece is focused on a romantic relationship, but is also true of platonic relationships. Previously, I have tried to maintain some friendships because the person was nice to talk to, but the relationship was not satisfying; it was not reciprocal, and/or we just didn’t match/vibe. (Note: capitalism has made us weary of work but that’s because we’re overworked. But we do like to work – we don’t like being bored for too long, if at all.) “Love is for the ones who love the work” – Joseph Fasano, his poem is in the Special Edition section.

Jackalope Burrows

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

  • I’ve been asking people how they knew that their romantic partner was “their person”, and the answers I have received so far:
    • “It feels like we’ve known each other since we were kids”
    • “I feel safe with them, like I don’t have hide being my weirdo self”
    • “I don’t have to explain myself; they understand”
    • But also: platonic intimacy is EXTREMELY important for us as part of community-building because one person cannot be your entire community in the long-term. I just don’t know anyone that has a platonic life partners; as in a platonic person they are planning and building a life with.
    • High-key thinking of making this a personal study, doing non-regulated interviews with friends. Wanna talk?
  • The need for intimacy and how to create it in any platonic and romantic relationships (even if they overlap, usually queerly)
  • Knots. Just knots.
I just think they're neat meme with marge simpson
  • ^this meme is also about potatoes in general
  • apriki.tumblr.com/tagged/stories is why I like bullet points in story telling, especially on the internet. I think I found these in college?
    • This story is how I know and remember that you to need to have running water over a burn for a while
  • obsessed with this welcome mat
“your text here” welcome mat
  • Y’all, we can get birds on discount!
  • Includes hand-fed babies
  • I SAW HER FUCKIN FACE AGAIN
Elizabeth Holmes billboard
  • ^For YOU, I checked out the website. I even clicked a secondary link about their “blue magic” formula. I decided not to directly link to them from this particular newsletter because I don’t want them to know that I’m onto them. The home page has a 25 minute “movie.”
    • Sometimes, if they weren’t trying to harmfully trick people, it’s a little fun to see how snake-oil sellers evolve
  • Watched Ballerina (2025), part of the John Wick Cinematic Universe
    • Very feminine rage, which y’all know I’m a big fan of 🥰
    • For the vast majority of movies that I watch with women protagonists, I make sure to rate them 10/10 on IMDb even if I don’t fully believe that so as to counteract the men who rate the movie lower than it deserves with their (allegedly) unconscious bias sexism
    • However, the timeline within the John Wick Cinematic universe does not make sense
    • Slight spoiler: I thought the John Wick movies were over the span of a month, tops? When does he have two days to go track her down??
    • The trivia on IMDB sent me down a rabbit hole about the Biblical story of Judith Beheading Holofernes and the art that came out of it. Will be adding to the Toxic Femininity album!
  • I don’t think I’ve said this anywhere online, but I do say out loud a lot and because it doesn’t hurt anyone, I believe in the conspiracy theory that Keanu Reeves is immortal. Please see more at this slightly sketchy website here: https://www.keanuisimmortal.com/
  • EX-TRY-GUY DRAMA UPDATE
Good for her 🙂‍↕️
  • ^(the funny thing about that update though is that there are a lot of reaction videos saying “why was this necessary” and a lot of comments say the same thing AND YET you’re watching it? You’re invested in watching the reaction video? Soooooooo why are complaining about watching something that you are choosing to learn more about?)

AI Will Prosecute Me For This

Special Edition

  • Artificial Intelligence Will Be (Has Been) Weaponized

🙃

  • Me: *actively typing this up*
  • My father: “you’re transcribing?”
  • Me: “Yes?”
  • Obviously.
  • “You could have AI do that for you” – my father, the man who’s favorite movie is The Matrix (1999), which (spoiler alert) warns AGAINST AI!!!!
    • I know the fourth one tried being kinder about AI buuuuut……. felt a bit like pandering. Again, AI will prosecute me for this.
  • Me: *shocked, on the verge of violence*
  • Him: “You have an easy button! That was easy!”
  • Also him: *immediately rushes away when I go to pinch him*
  • Me: “Come face the consequences of your actions!!!”

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.

  • 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
    • The book was written concurrently to the making of the movie (vaguely similar to how Universal Studios purchased the movie rights to Jurassic Park before it was published), but not as a novelization (like Interstellar)
    • I, naively, wanted the movie to give me an answer about the ending of the book, but the movie ending SUCKED. And I can’t find a consistent interpretation of the ending of the book, and I can’t decide if that’s because it’s a good or bad ending?
    • I didn’t mind the pace of the movie because it helped emphasize the horror of space. Much like this simulation of falling into a black hole, but for three hours
    • Spoilers for a 57-year-old book: I wish they had expanded more on HAL having an existential crisis and killing everyone because of it. (I can say “kill” instead of “unalive” bc I’m not monetized lol. I expose my thoughts to y’all FOR FREE.) In the movie they said that it was because he was so extremely devoted to the main mission, but in the book it seems to be because he DIDN’T want the mission to happen… help. plz.
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
    • hated it in 9th grade bc I generally hated what we read in school (do NOT talk to me about Death of a Salesman). However, the hand scene in the movie convinced me to give it another try. Came for the romance, stayed for the sass and emotional growth I didn’t understand at 14-years-old.
  • Obitchuary: The Big Hot Book of Death by Spencer Henry and Madison Reyes
  • How To Get Divorced By 30: My Misguided Attempt at a Starter Marriage by Sascha Rothchild
    • oof
    • well, the chapter titles really got to me

Quotes Quail

I’m always listening 😈 y’all are funny

  • “You’re calling me poor” – me
  • “You’re not poor, you’re budgeted”
  • ;-;
  • (Have you heard of being cash poor, even in the middle class? A cash flow analysis might be a bit more accurate, although usually used when referring to businesses instead of individual finances.)

🪶

  • “305! Mr. Worldwide!” – about gas prices in Philly
  • MEANWHILE I’m lucky to find something under $4.39 ;-; (in the writing of this newsletter, I even had to change that from $4.29 ;-; )

🪶

  • “You have genie energy, I really like it” – someone getting to know me better. I have never been described this way and this will now be the only way I would like to be described, thank you.

🪶

  • “Philly is a block. Queer Philly is a stoop.”
Hey Arnold!

🪶

  • “It’s quiet without The Riot” – someone who reads this newsletter, about me while I was out of town

🪶

  • “Ariana! Grande!” – coworker #1
  • “Nope.” – me
  • “You must get that a lot” – coworker #1
  • “I will fight you”
  • *coworker #1 tells coworker #2*
  • “Don’t spread it!!!” – me, desperate
  • “I found her weakness!” – 😈
  • 👿 – me
  • The ONLY way I accept sharing a name:
Ariana: What about it?

🪶

  • “It’s Thursday!”
  • “Little Friday!”

🪶

  • “Be vegan for once in your life and let it happen organically” – they tell me about my love life ;-;

🪶

  • “So you’re a cradle snatcher?” – me
  • “I like to think she’s grave robbing” – about having a girlfriend three years younger than him 

🪶

  • “You conquered the 405!”
  • “Did I?” – me, a moment away from laying down on the floor to recover from the 405

🪶

  • I chose the executor of my will

🪶

  • “Turns out you can choose your sexuality and I’m straight now” – me when I don’t feel like being bisexual anymore
  • (Legally, this is a joke)
  • (Disclaimer: no, you can’t choose your sexuality)

🪶

  • “Why are we losing? We’re LITERALLY the Dodgers” – little boy behind us at the Dodger vs Diamondbacks game

🪶

  • speaking of the Diamondbacks:
dbacks fans

🪶

  • “Crack cocaine. Not sure when it was invented, but glad it was available to him” – a little shit about Joseph Smith reading off a rock in a hat
  • “I wanna see what the rock tells me” – same little shit 

🪶

  • “You are such a disturbance over here” – me
  • “I could be worse 😁” – A Disturbance™️

🪶

  • “You don’t talk about me in therapy?” – co-worker #1
  • “No. I’ve never mentioned you. How does that make you feel?” – co-worker #2
  • “Sad. I should be more of a problem in your life.” – once again, A Disturbance™️

🪶

  • “But even the most unique partnerships grow from deep roots. [This couple] come from lineages of family, of struggle, of survival, of joy. We honor their ancestors – those known and unknown, named and unnamed, here and there – who shaped the path that brought them to this place. Love never starts from scratch. It’s inherited, learned, stretched, and made new.” – the officiant at my friends’ wedding!!!!! I love this so much!!!!!!!!

🪶

  • A Single Shared Brain Cell Dedicated to Gina Torres

🪶

  • “That’s why you grow your beard: to hid your wrinkles. It’s too bad you can’t grow hair under your eyes” – I was promptly flipped off for this comment 😊

🪶

  • “Where should I go in Connecticut?” – me
  • “Probably the next state over” – simultaneously said by the couple who just drove through it during a road trip

🪶

  • “If I wanted to get disrespected I would go back to my ex” – DAMN, but haven’t we all thought this as some point?

🪶

  • ^My friend is a teacher, AKA: A Benevolent God to plebeians

🪶

  • “I’m no better than a man” – me about The Queer Ultimatum because, uh, because, uhhhh, ummmm
  • HORRIBLE concept by the way. Like I GET that reality dating shows all have terrible concepts, but this one feels DUMB, like why are you gonna act out a marriage with someone who you just met? What’s the point???? Why not “act” like you’re married to the person you’ve been in a loving relationship with for years? Why s(t)imulate sexual and romantic feelings because you’re pretending to be married to someone else???? Why act like you’re broken up from the partner you came in with when you’re really not so the betrayal of sleeping with the “new” partner still stings LIKE WHY!!!!!! And then why act like you’re not trying to ALSO sleep with your “new” partner but you’re gonna get hurt if your “ex” that you came in with also sleeps with their “new” partner?????????
  • Anyways.
  • Unrelated: I have never been chill about anything ever in my life.

🪶

  • “You’re in purple! That’s how I know it’s Wednesday” – she tells mm. If nothing else, I commit to the bit 💟

🪶

  • “You turkey! That was very nice of you.” – I bought them a bagel because they kept threatening to take mine

🪶

  • “He’s a chihuahua” – co-worker #1 about co-worker #2
  • “No he’s not because I’M a chihuahua” – me. (Co-worker #2 and I are different kinds of scrappy.)
  • “I’m a hunting dog.” – co-worker #3
  • “No, you’re a dog who THINKS he’s a hunting dog” – me

🪶

  • “Is it Kermit day or something?” – a coworker about eight (8) of us wearing green randomly one day 💚

🪶

🪶

  • “We’re all just ping-ponging around” – the lady helping me at the Spectrum store when her receipt machine went on the fritz

(O)possum Playlists of the Quarter 

Here, we scream.

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

Cuervos Chismoses

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

  • Went to yet ANOTHER wedding, because it’s that time of life (I need to save for like three weddings in 2027), and loved it almost as much at the people who got married 💜 They’re obsessed with each other and it’s disgusting and I can only hope to find what they have 💕
  • I realized: I’m my own podcast, with all the voicememos I make for myself and sometimes send to my friends. It’s called ~reflection~ and being my own chisme, look it up 🙄
  • Went and saw Jeffery Gibson’s exhibit The Space In Which To Place Me. I went for the bright colors, stayed for the Indigenous resistance. I think this site gives a better sense about the exhibit.
  • My Wife™️! Maybe the best picture I’ve taken of her on my phone.
  • If I had a nickel for every time I’ve introduced and explained the Hegelian Dialectic to a friend in the last two weeks, I would have tow nickels, which is not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. (no, i don’t use this meme enough)
  • Love when I get my eyebrows threaded and my bad bitch personality resets (just kidding, I always have my bad bitch personality)
  • Tried embroidering a shirt for the first time! It did not go as planned ☹️ But that’s the point of testing things out in art!
  • I predicted that my friend would meet Danai Gurira and I WAS RIGHT!!!!! and also envious ;-;
  • I’m always getting myself a silly little drink
  • I’m crocheting, as usual
  • Tag yourself: I’m the WIP Hoarder
  • hopefully by the time you’re reading this I’ve updated the links across this sight 🙃 unlikely, I’ll have to work on it immediately after sending this out.
  • Perhaps, at some point, I will/should invest the time in making sure the links are part of the Internet Archive project

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.

  • Yes or no: when you see something horrendous online, do you also 🥰lovingly🥰 send it to your friends so they can suffer with you? If so – and I’m fuckin myself over here – what did you send?
  • I already exposed y’all to many things. Lovingly 💜
  • Also: HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH BOREDOM??!!!??!???!!!!

I’ve started to realize that this newsletter/blog is quite the time capsule of my life. I get to highlight what I really like out of my life, and I can pull it up with a search bar and show it off. And I’m glad y’all enjoy it too 🙂

I feel like entertaining would be an understatement and demeaning to what it is! I loved it, will read more, thank you for sharing
I did, indeed, cry.

Thank you for reading! If you want some cheap retail therapy to go along with it, please check out my stickers, and see if you can find which one is also a bag 😎

Abrazos and/or high fives,

Ariana

and yet I use a gif from the fourth matrix movie. What can I say? I hold multitudes.

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