Hello all,
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by the bucket of ideas that is my brain that are spilling out as I futilely try to catch them before they hit the ground, as well as the desperate desire to enjoy the time I have to myself before another chaotic day of work. Anyways 🙂
At The Top
I’m The Top 🤭
🖊️ Prose and Poetry of the “Week”
Prose and Poetry of the Week
I wrote this back in college (posted previously in my November 2021 newsletter), but I re-posted it onto Vocal recently and it actually got onto the Top Story page! I was procrastinating physics, but I knew I was going to get Lemon Thai for dinner anyways (iykyk). I think I was also in the middle of reading Goddess of the Americas / Diosa de las Américas, Writings on the Virgin of Guadalupe edited by Ana Castillo, and was looking for more Latinx/e books, especially by other Chicana feminists. Think: Sandra Cisneros, Yolanda Lopez (and when I saw her exhibit last year), Ester Hernandez, Alma Lopez, etc. You see my pattern…
Every time I read this poem of mine, I have a romantic image of myself sitting with my back against shelves with the 305 or 810 sections, and not being able to stop reading all of the enticing titles on the spines.
La Diosa En Una Aparición De Plantas Indígenas (2025)
(English translation: The Goddess In An Apparition Of Indigenous Plants)
(Nahuatl translation: (I couldn’t figure out the tenses in time to publish this))
Speaking of the Goddess of the Americas, this is not poetry or prose, but it is a piece of digital collage art I made a while ago that I would like to highlight. The link above is the time lapse.
I tried translating the title of this piece to Nahuatl, in honor of the language that Cuauhtlatoatzin (Juan Diego) spoke with La Virgen de Guadalupe, but I did not have the knowledge nor time to do so. Then I tried looking for a piece I wrote years ago about how my tongue is not meant to know Spanish. Growing up, white people used to say “speak English, this is America!” as a “joke” when I spoke to my friends in Spanish. AP Human Geography taught me that English is not even the official language of the US, is it just the standard language. No one is REQUIRED to speak English here. And I bring up that point in defense of Spanish, but Spanish is its own colonizing language. I wrote about how my tongue is not “meant” to know Spanish – as in, if it were not for colonization, I would be speaking something different. But also, perhaps, if not for colonization, I would not even be here. I don’t even know what language my tongue is “supposed” to know; colonists in the name of Christianity have worked to alienate mestizo Latinx/e people from Indigenous roots, to the point where mestizo people oppress Indigenous and Black people in Latin America. In Fresh Banana Leaves by Dr. Jessica Hernandez (take a shot every time I mention this book in today’s newsletter alone) she brings up how Mexicans in particular are racist and prejudiced against Central Americans, but once we all cross the border to the US we are all categorized as the monolith “Latino.” Mexicans also, obviously, experience racism in the US, but that does not excuse the racism that Mexicans enact on other nationalities, or the colorism Mexicans enact on their paisanos (country”men”).
Even La Virgen De Guadalupe may be argued to be a colonizing project from the Catholic Church to assimilate Indigenous people into Christianity. Yet, I believe mestizos have tried to highlight the indigeneity of La Virgen and see the Indigenous goddess Tonantzin whose place of worship/significant was on the same tepeyac (hill) La Virgen appeared. I certainly see Her as such. ANYWAYS, mestizaje is complex.
In the beginning of writing this section/perhaps-rant, I forgot I published the last newsletter before Dia De La Virgen De Guadalupe on December 12th! So this art piece is now also in honor of that!
Perfect Foundation vs. The History of Mexico
I mentioned this piece briefly in the previous newsletter, but I wanted to add its relevancy to the above as another look into the complexity of mestizaje. Even the word “raza” in Chicano circles is from a 1925 book by a Mexican author about racist ideology, which is why I use “mi gente”.
Additionally, related to colonization:
^this screenshot it what I was thinking about and trying to find in my January 2025 newsletter when I made:
Jackalope Burrows
Things I’ve learned, laughed about, and/or obsessed over
THIS SECTION is sponsored by:
- My cousin recommended Dimension 20: A Starstuck Odyessy to me, selling it as “they’re all playing idiots in space” and I was immediately on board.
- *Spoilers*: There’s a slug and I go to a reveal about him and I texted my cousin:
- dogs vs. a wall (slide through to see my comment about El Vaquero)
- Update: he did not pass the test. So far, of eight pets between four of my friends and myself, only one (1) has passed the test. No noses were harmed in the making of these discoveries.
- Xoloitzcuintli Dogs Dancing (I thought they were hugging)
- ^”The Xoloitzcuintli, often referred to as the cholo escuincle, is a sacred, hairless dog breed believed to have been created by the sunset god Xólotl from the bone of life. […] the Xolo was thought to guide the souls of the dead through Mictlán, the realm of the dead, ensuring safe passage to their final resting place.”
- (Also at a museum)
- These remind me of the “Canine Vessel” from Veracruz which I have had in my favorites for years because it’s how I imagine Lala saw herself 💜
- Hoarding/selling shows and how satisfying it is to see a cleaned-up house
- Junk or Jackpot? with Bobby Burk (the best part of Queer Eye because that man put his BACK into it)
- Filthy Fortunes
- In one house they found a sheet of circa 1920s stamps that had a large misprints on it, and they were able to sell the sheet for $1200. I find it to be further evidence of mistakes being valuable because mistakes are human. (Also mentioned here)
- Hoarding Christmas
- No clean-ups here, just enablers
- For Junk or Jackpot, these people have hugeeeee collections, including single pieces where they spent $1000 or MUCH more. If I had a stupid amount of money that I didn’t know what to do with, what would I spend it on? I couldn’t think of anything until:
Elk Boots (2017) by Jamie Okuma
glass seed beads on Giuseppe Zanotti boots
- Beaded heels!!!!! I would never touch them or wear them, but to have them as a MASTERPIECE!!!!!!!
- ^See more about the artist Jamie Okuma
- Speaking of treasure
- The Spud Hut on Smosh
- They made a whole series of improvised videos based off of Chanse getting possessed by a spirit in a game
- Jerry Spruce, the Manager of The Spud Hut, would really enjoy my potato bar and pork sauge
- A Knives Out Mystery Movies (should be called A Benoit Blanc Mystery movies 🙄)! I watched the new one Wake Up Dead Man (2025) five (5) times in two weeks, with the first time being the night it came out, and the second time being the next night. It lead us to watching the others and appreciating the art that they are.
- The idea of life as a result of increasing entropy, or life happening with the purpose of speeding up the process of increasing entropy throughout the universe
- once again, originally introduced to this by a Veritasium video
- QuantaMagazine article about Jeremy England, one of the scientists he cites; his theory is meant to “underlie, rather than replace, Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection”.
- White collar crime scandals: Enron, FTX, and Theranos in particular
- ^each ColdFusion episode
- I am particularly enjoying the Behind The Bastards podcast episodes about FTX with guest Jamie Loftus, especially: “The only reason I would hesitate to call this horseshit is because horseshit, by virtue of being inanimate waste, possesses a fundamental honesty that [this guy] is incapable of” “WOW that’s the bitchiest thing I’ve heard you say in a WHILE, that’s awesome” (at 2 hours 24 minutes in)
- Different family/kinship naming systems
- Collecting designs/art I see around (slide through)
- ^once again debating an album on this website, but the current album I have on my phone is 807 pictures. A lot of it is flowers, in case you don’t like surprises.
- I’ve been looking for a book about Mexican textile design, let me know if you have any recommendations!
- I FINALLY WATCHED SINNERS (2025)!!!! I’M NOT OKAY!!!!!!! (yes, I immediately jumped into commentary videos I had been avoiding to help me process my emotions)
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.
Done:
- To Be Taught If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
- A cool take on space travel, especially if you can take a supplement that adapts your body to the environment including different gravity. However, it also wrestles with the consequences of leaving behind your home planet and communication taking 14 years to get to you, and then another 14 to get back.
- I enjoyed the polyamorous, asexual, and polysexual representation, especially in that it was only mentioned and assumed to be okay and NOT the main part of the story.
- I like to call people who are only attracted to one gender “monosexual,” whereas bisexual and pansexuals are “polysexual” in being attracted to multiple genders. Or, as I like to call it: Being gay isn’t a choice, it’s a game and I’m winning
- I could be called pansexual, but I like history of bisexual, and the colors of the flag hehe
- Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science by Jessica Hernandez, Ph.D.
- FINALLY FINISHED
- She talks about the violence enacted towards indigenous people, which extends to violence enacted on plants and animals (non-human relatives) in the name of colonization and “progress.” She advocated for respect of indigenous ways of knowing AS science built up over generations.
- Cousin book: When They Severed Earth From Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth by Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber which argues that myths are meant to share practical knowledge.
- Death of a Ghost by M.C. Beaton
- How I found our that the funny way I say “murder” as a bit is actually in a Scottish accent
- v. confused as to why the last 30 minutes needed to be included. The murder mystery has been solved already. It was about a beef between a new and old cop that involved attempted murder on both side. (Pig-on-pig crime, if you will.)(Jk, I like pigs.)
- HOWEVER the best quote: “The noises coming out of there are enough to make a Protestant cross themselves” even as someone who was raised in a Protestant denomination
- How To Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman
- I already put some tips into place! and hopefully I keep up with the tips of how to continue! Particularly with accounting for flexibility, and using laziness to our advantage.
Working On:
- An Indigenous Present edited by Jeffrey Gibson
- It’s a museum of Indigenous artists but in a beautifully produced book, which is so big that I was afraid they weren’t going to let me check it out.
- Where I saw the beaded heels above!
- Crow Time by Secondlina_Isa on Webtoon!
- This comic reminds me of Struthless’ advice to draw one thing every day. What I took from it is that you get bored drawing the same thing, so you start to make it more intricate with ideas. This author started just drawing cute one-shots of crows, but then some were expanded on with a story behind it, and sometimes they overlap. It is a beautiful and rich world she has incidentally created.
- Perhaps as comparison: Crow Blacker than Ever by Ted Hughes
- My particular favorite storyline: Companions (starts with this one-shot, and the quote is from this episode) (swipe through)
Left unfinished:
- Reclaim The Stars: 17 Tales Across Realms & Space edited by Zoraida Córdova
- Interesting ideas, but not well executed because it felt like it was forcing issues instead of it being natural in the word where it was accepted. I guess I would have liked them to feel more like To Be Taught If Fortunate, where nothing had to be TOO obvious or spelled out; it just slips into the story at a glance. It was supposed to be magical realism but the nonchalantness of realism was lacking.
Oh? In the hour between finishing handwriting this newsletter and letting myself wander around the library before typing this up, I picked up five (5) books and taken dozens of pictures of book “to read later” because the world is too interesting and I am but a floozy for learning?
Sitting in front of me at the library waiting to be checked out:
- An Indigenous Present edited by Jeffery Gibson
- A Song of Legends Lost by M. H. Ayinde
- The Ghosts of Birds: Essays by Eliot Weinberger
- Just Making: A Guide for Compassionate Creatives by Mitali Perkins
- Mystical Mushrooms: Discover the Magic and Folklore of Fantastic Fungi by Aurora Kane
- Explaining Life Through Evolution by Prosanta Chakrabarty
…and then bought at a second-hand bookstore run by a single viejito with an excel spreadsheet:
- The Children Who Come at You with Knives, and Other Fairy Tales by Jim Knipfel
- I bought this book because of the first paragraph, which you will see blow in The Void Shouts Back section
- In Tune With The Infinite: Or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty by Ralph Waldo Trine, published 1897
- bought to compare it the the Nag Hammadi Scriptures AKA the Gnostic gospels
Quotes Quail
I’m always listening 😈 y’all are funny
You know, the funny thing about this section is that is was inspired by the favorite parts of magazines: the quotes sections. And it’s kinda fun that so many of you have said it’s your favorite part too! See if you can find yourself 👀
🪶
- #tbt to Lala y El Vaquero being (secret) besties 💜
🪶
- “She’s a very hastily put-together dog” – about a chihuahua, but not MY chichuahua 🥰
🪶
- “Yea, I’m going to a bar with friends” – co-cutie #1 about his weekend
- “Sounds like there’s a pattern in your weekends” – co-cutie #2
- “Yea, lots of drinking” – co-cutie #1, self-reflective
- “Well it’s no fun when you just say it. The fun is in the shame!” – co-cutie #2, usurped
🪶
- “Have you thought about law school?” – me
- “Yea, a thought. And a prayer.”
🪶
- “Why are we going to Paper Source?” – Father
- “Because Ariana wants to go and I’M A SUPPORTIVE MOTHER!!!” – Mother
- “You don’t even know what she wants to go for!”
- “No!”
- I got a pen topped with a fuzzy heart 🥰
🪶
- “What do you wanna be when you grow up?” – me because I need ideas
- “Mantenida.” – cutie
- Or, as SZA says in One of Them Days about her roommate/bestie getting a better job: “I’m ready to be a kept woman 😉”
- See also: outfit that kept my grandma’s bills paid (yea I know, we don’t want to go back to oppressing women in the house, but the meme!)
- See also about keeping your standards high: “If she doesn’t expect it from you she’s gonna expect it from someone else” (I get this is a skit, but it’s still true)
🪶
- “I’m no doctor but you should probably stop at 5 tablespoons of mayo” – Phil Rosenthal about a sandwich in the Santiago, Chile episode of Somebody Feed Phil
🪶
- “My body is a temple”
- “Is it?” – me, a skeptic
- “It’s under repair”
🪶
- “You could hire a butler on the moon for that kind of money” – about the dream of being given $4 million dollars
🪶
- “I’m constantly being gaslit” – me, getting bullied in the office
- “You’re imagining it” – the bully
🪶
- “Ariana came back for her drugs. I know, addiction is horrible.” – my father to my brother on the phone (I had come back home to get Sudafed to, you know, breathe a lil bit)
🪶
- “Aw, you’re like a big sister”
- “I am one” – me!
- “It seems like you’re a good one”
- “You can talk to my brother, he’ll tell you ‘let’s take a walk…’”
🪶
- “I think our livers are too American” – me about prepping alcohol for the holiday party
- “Yea, show us how it’s done!” – co-worker to our local Russian
- “No, I have yoga in the morning” – local Russian
- “What that does that have to do with the night before?”
- “I’ve changed!!”
- “She said ‘light and love’!” – me
🪶
- “I was looking for ‘baby’ and it included a picture of me, and I was 22 in the photo!” – co-cutie on her phone photos, and her phone emphasized “cutie”
🪶
- “Don’t challenge him” – said to me about my bully when I challenge him
- “You forget I have no sense of self-preservation” – the bully
🪶
- “I now understand Ariana want to fight him” – co-worker about literally any man I interact with
- I love being validated!!!!
🪶
- “I want someone to be bothered about me” – sweetie who is raising their standards
🪶
- “Anger is a sign of our boundaries being crossed” – a lady I pay to listen to me and fill out my very important and very cherished prescription
🪶
- “No one is similar to my height ☹️” – me about family friends
- “The kids are for a little bit ☺️” – The Taller-Than-Me-Little Shit
🪶
- “She’s an olfactory learner, if you will” – about smelling aaaaall the candles
🪶
- “Huele de humo, pero ni estamos fumando, ni marijuana!” – my NANA on leaving the house
- “It smells like smoke, but we’re not smoking, not even marijuana!”
- “Te encargo la marijuana” – again, my Nana
- “I leave you in charge of the marijuana!”
🪶
- “His outside voice is his inside voice”
- “One size fits all” – the loud one
🪶
- “Oh my god my eyes are starting to hurt. Let’s blink, let’s blink!!” – about playing Mario Kart on the Switch and your part of the screen being 1 inch by 1 inch
- I had already given up the round before.
🪶
- “We need a rice cooker” – me
- “I’M your rice cooker, duuuhh” – the sibling who lives across the country
- “Do you come with a cookbook and settings?” – me asking, comparing him to the Costco rice cooker
- “Uuuuuuuh yeaaaaaaaa. Do I listen to the settings? Noooooooo.”
- “Are you gonna let it burn the first time?” – our mother
- “Yeeeeeesssss”
🪶
- “We should get you a chef hat, like a tall Ratatouille one” – A Chef, But Not The One Currently Cooking
- “I’ll put Vaquero in there” – Le Chef Currently Cooking
🪶
- “It’s about the yearning! Do gay men not yearn?” – me trying to invite a gay man to go to the Florence + The Machine concert with me
- “I don’t know, we just go to the gym”
🪶
- “He’s not that funny at work, he kinda has a stick up his ass” – about her co-worker who is (allegedly) a stand-up comedian
- “At 5pm he removes the stick”
🪶
- “I have the immune system of a walnut” – A Nut
🪶
- “I would recommend it as a reading experience, I would not recommend it as a book” – Normal Gossip podcast episode about Fourth Wing @46:40
- Related: a summary video
🪶
- “Well finish the story, what did you do, what happened?” – this bonch after crashing tf out about her friend’s dating choices
- 30 seconds before: “I COULD RIP YOU LIMB FROM LIMB! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!”
- It’s giving: “WAIT UNTIL HALLOWEEN NIGHT TO FUCK THE DEVIL BITCH!” “We can’t pray for that one, that’s unholy.” AKA Your friends hate your ex
🪶
- “We ask him: Dad why don’t you say ‘I love you’?” – friend
- “Why do I need to say it? I’ll let you know if it changes” – The Dad In Question
- “But he neither confirmed nor denied!!!” – me
🪶
- “I thought you were getting drunk tomorrow?”
- “No, I said I was going to be drinking champagne all day” – me
- “Yea, that’s what I said”
- About the first anniversary of my divorce 😙
🪶
- “Wait ‘til you see me, I’m little but I can dance!” – my nephew! And he was right!!
🪶
- “Ariana’s one year celebration. It’s a movable holiday” – about how we had to reschedule dinner
- “The joy is forever” – I didn’t say this, but true
🪶
- “I wonder if they had to syringe the semen out of him” – my father about Robert De Niro (b. 1943) and his youngest child born in 2023
- Live reaction: gagging (I couldn’t find a reaction post accurate and intense enough)
- To be fair, this might be my fault for bringing it up
- YOU’RE GONNA BE E I G H T Y YEARS OLD AND HAVING A BABY?????
🪶
- “I’m assuming that as you’re telling this story you’re the same height as you are now” – the bully about the story I was telling from the time I was 10yo
- “Hey! Shut the fuck up!” – me (in all stupid fairness, I stopped growing at 11yo 🙃🙃🙃)
- “They prosecuted Jesus because he told the truth” – LIKEEEEEE OOOOOKAAAAYYYY
🪶
- “Are you guys even a couple?” – me
- “A couple of idiots, yea” – pues…
🪶
- “Some dogs rescue, some dogs clean up” – I can neither confirm nor deny who this was about
- This was NOT the time to go into my “garbage-collectors are vital to society” tirade
🪶
- “I almost stopped speaking to my parents over this couch.”
- “Are you going to donate the couch?”
- “No it’s a couch of pettiness”
🪶
- Me: *looking at a Nerds box*
- “I’m surprised you don’t take the whole lot” – someone who has been called a bully previously
- “What do you mean? I don’t like them that much.” – me
- “You are what you eat.”
- Me again: *laughing and walking away*
- “Are you mad because it’s funny!” – and no, I wasn’t mad, I know who I am
🪶
(O)possum Playlists of the Quarter
Here, we scream.
And, “apparently,” I listen to my short playlists for a “wildly long time”
- New/ish Hozier
- Particularly: Jackboot Jump 🙂 (swipe through)
- Bad Mama Jama
- I already annoyed my family with this one 🥰 It’s 20 minutes 💜
- No Pare, Sigue Sigue!
- Nosebleeds by Doechii (previously mentioned in Feb 2025)
- If I had a nickel for every time I’ve asked “have you read my newsletter” as a real response or contribution to the conversation, I would have a shitton of nickels. It’s not to test anyone, just to measure how much context they have for what I’m about to say next. So no, don’t worry if you’ve haven’t read EVERY WORD bc it’s A LOT. So far as I’m typing this, WordPress says this whole piece is an 8-minute read time. (Checked again: 21 minute read time…)(3rd check: 24 minutes)(Final check: 23 minutes, I did try to cut)
- Polyrhythms
Cuervos Chismoses
chisme = gossip. ”e” ending instead of “o/a” in Spanish for more gender inclusion
- me the past couple of weeks after chaotic days at work
- Hope you had a nice holiday!
- ^this, and a friend sent an astrology thing that said Cancer signs were 80% cheese and I laughed on my way to the $5-or-Less bin at the cheese section of the grocery store.
- Also in honor of the holidays:
- I’m taking a break from crocheting! Wild! I’ve been kinda non-stop since 2022-ish. I started a cross stitch instead, making sure it has lots of varying shapes and colors to keep me entertained 💜 like a baby 💜
- I got moved up in my folklorico group from the beginner section to beginner-intermediate! 💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽
- Reached a new level on the Seek app! I’m now an “Adventurer” which means I’ve stopped and asked the app to identify 150 species
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.
- Are you a big learner and/or creative? How do you balance everything that you want to do creatively and learning? Looking, ardently, for suggestions.
- Do you like taking the scenic route? What do you like to see? surrounded by forest, or by the ocean? All of the above?
I don’t know how else to describe to y’all that I spend hours on the side of love, and how much love I put into this: love of you, love of learning, love of writing, love of sharing the weirdness of the world. Hence: I’m so glad you’re reading!!
(Sometimes it’s hard for me to find things I think about so imagine my mind as a storage bin that I rummage through, almost falling in, to find things but usually move on from to and just describe it myself, so thank you for your patience!)
Is this newsletter already far-out enough to be incomprehensible and/or overwhelming? Please keep me updated.
THANK YOU for reading! If you want some cheap retail therapy to go along with it, please check out my stickers.
Abrazos and/or high fives,
Ariana
Xismosa Xit 
Leave a comment