march/april recap: articles, books, movies, & life updates

Eek okay!! It’s finally here. The last two months have been crazy busy with traveling, moving, and adjusting to a new job. I decided to roll my March and April recap into one big fat post to give myself a little break and bring you double the amount of life updates and media recommendations! So now—*deep exhale—*let me tell what I’ve been doing, watching, reading, eating, stressing about, and enjoying in the last several weeks.

Let’s start with the most exciting update: I successfully overcame my fear of flying! Not only that, I actually really loved being up in the air. Take-off really freaked me out, but watching the landscape change from the flat plains of Oklahoma to the lush mountains of Mexico was breathtaking. I watched in real time as the entire world opened up to me. Now that I know I can fly, I can go anywhere I want (wallet permitting)!

Puerto Vallarta was so incredible. We kicked off our first night there by visiting Taqueria Los Mapaches. In case you don’t know, mapaches is Spanish for racoons, and there were lots of racoons.

It was incredible. They were like dozens of black and gray cats staring at you from the rafters, waiting for you to share your taco. I don’t think anything in my life while top the feeling of feeding a racoon out of my hand.

Most of the trip was spent lounging on the beach, soaking up the salt air, and reading a good book. Okay well, I brought a book to read (The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller), but mostly I just ended up idly relaxing or playing in the sand.

We also visited the Malecón, a long oceanside boardwalk, where I ate the most delicious churro, made fresh on-site, and bought cute little beadwork birds.

But the highlight of our trip was dinner at Le Kliff. This open-air restaurant, as the name may suggest, is built into the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean. My girlfriend deliberately timed our reservation so we’d be there during sunset. It was the most vibrant view I’ve ever had—red and orange sunbeams reflecting off crystalline water, verdant mountains with tropical birds flying overhead.

I was struck at the connectedness with nature in Mexico. Virtually every restaurant, storefront, and even club didn’t have so much of a door, more of just an opening in the wall, blending the inside with the out. I’m a big believer that food tastes better outside. Every meal we ate was either on a patio or in an open-air restaurant. We visited this very chic cocktail bar—El Colibri—and once the bouncer let us through the door, we were poured into a ceiling-less seating area with the night sky bared above us. I wish that we could embrace that kind of open architecture back home, but I fear the Oklahoma weather would not allow it.

And just to keep life chaotic, we moved the day after we got back from Mexico! Our new home is a unit cute in a 100-year-old house. It’s got the perfect amount of historic charm—hardwood floors, stained glass roses on the front door, the original tile fire place—while also being updated enough to have decent water pressure and a working HVAC system. We’re still getting settled in, but it’s already feeling like our home (mostly thanks to Leslie, who mapped out where all of our furniture would go way ahead of time <3).

a preview of our new home <3

I’ve been toying with the idea of chopping off my nipple-length hair a rocking a cute lil bob for several months. I was spending so much time, effort, and money caring for my long hair, and I was ready for something chic and breezy for the summer.

Joanna Spicer and Vic Lauren, my bobspo <3

So I booked the appointment, and this bitch fucked me over so bad. I ended up with the most botched bob. The worst haircut of my life.

No I will NOT being showing you a picture. Just know I looked like the little O’Hare Air bitch.

For one, I asked for a blunt bob a half-inch below my chin. What I got was a choppy, uneven bob that was shorter in the front and longer in the back, and sat a half-inch ABOVE my chin. I was fucked so bad. I wish I could say I marched back into that salon and demanded a refund, but what I actually did was book another haircut with my girlfriend’s cool, queer stylist who rescued my hair and gave me the chicest little bob. My bad for trusting a straight person with my hair in the first place, tbh.

Much better!

In other good news, I’ve reached some semblance of financial stability by working two part-time jobs! I’m still kickin’ it at the library of course, and now I’ve added a second job working at a public schools foundation. Health insurance and PTO would be nice, but for now I’m enjoying having the variety in my life and trying to soak up as much work experience as possible.

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Yeesh, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to what you really came here for: Media recs!!!

articles:

*American Girl Magazine Summer* by Larisa - I looooved the American Girl Magazine as a kid, so I adored this lil nostalgia trip. I recently discovered that the Internet Archive has a ton of the old editions of AG mag, and I’m absolutely obsessed.

*The Cost of Convenience: The lost art of relationship cultivation* by Nubia Assata - I’ve been loving Nubia Assata’s Cost of Convenience series, as I’m sure many of you have also, but I especially loved this short essay on how capitalism has made us more isolated, and how we can cultivate community by making the inconvenient choice.

preparing for the spring equinox by caitlyn richardson - Doing my best to romanticize spring.

how to read philosophy (without losing your mind) by caitlyn richardson - A genuinely helpful guide.

i’m tired of being nice all the time by angelina - I’ve been on a feminine rage kick lately (forever).

Specialized Staff Serving Influx of Homeless Library Patrons by Toni Cardaella - What few social services we had in the U.S. are crumbling around us, and as such, libraries have become a catchall for many public needs. I work in a library in a metropolitan area, and the majority of our patronage are people experiencing homelessness. But library staff are not trained in school nor onsite in serving the unhoused population and the unique issues facing them, which often include trauma, mental illness, substance abuse, and just the everyday stress of living on the streets. This article talks about a library system that introduced a Community Resources Department staffed with social workers. When I tell you, every library system needs to have a program like this.