Hello! This week I discovered I can now do a pullup (?!) and am ~noticing the feeling of wanting to exercise~ a lot more than before the summer’s PCT hike. It’s interesting to have more body-awareness of that. I’m still ravenous for vegetables. Adam and I have been printing, working on new publications, hanging out with friends, basking in the fall sun. It’s been a quiet week.
Taking a long time doing morning pages this week. Some days I’ve woken before dawn and bounced out of bed to write for hours, a couple times we’ve gotten to the studio mid-morning and I’ve written then. Lots of processing—I’m intensely feeling the fall October energy, birthday month energy, big-life-change energy.
I love how writing morning pages makes me feel. Some days I’m also ending up with little lists and essay snippets and other things that will become newsletters and zines and pamphlets in the future, as is usual when I get on a good morning pages roll. It’s nice to be back. I hardly wrote anything during the four months of the hike because walking 20+ miles a day and trying to stay fed, hydrated and clean-ish took the majority of my energy.
I printed the 2024, 2025 and 2026 long calendars. The year 2025 is purple on purple!
All these calendars added up to a six inch thick stack of paper that needs to be cut, as accurately as possible, lengthwise along the 17” direction. Next, we’re going over to Common Area Maintenance to cut (with the help of Robert Baxter) on their huge century old stack cutter. Partly because it will be twice as fast and more accurate than doing it on ours (we have a Guillo-Max) but mostly I’ve been wanting to learn to use that type of cutter, and want to hang with Robert.
I’m also hoping to get a little sneak peek at CAM’s NEW ART SPACE that’s in the works! There’s gonna be a bookstore for independent publishers, artists, and the public to gather and share works! I’m SO EXCITED for this to exist in Seattle!
My favorite link from the week is the r/onebag post that Adam found of someone’s UL indefinite travel setup. Less than 15 pounds and it all fits in a 30L bag, with a bunch of flat-lay photos and an impressively detailed run down of each item (including things they’ve sewn). I love a list with notes, and seeing people’s logic for their stuff.
READING: The interview with Dayanita Singh in the latest Apartamento magazine about making and selling photo books and artist-books made sparks go off in my mind. Just finished Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wilds, very good. I’m laughing a lot with Lying for Money, a nonfiction book about frauds and scams.
Harper (a book recs pen pal, who also has an awesome reading website) told me about Denial: a Novel by Jon Raymond and immediately I started that. A strongly endorsed climate book rec goes straight to the front. I typically read four or five books at once, one novel quickly — a main book — other novels slowly, and several nonfiction books. There’s always something to suit my mood, or where I am, to pick up or put down. In that way, I go through 100-175 books a year. I’m a lifelong obsessed reader, so don’t think this is a rec that you do it this way. I’m working on a notes on reading a lot essay for this newsletter someday; I resonated with but how do you read so much.
BUYING: Trying out Dr. Bronner’s unscented organic magic balm, because I ran out of the Trader Joes’ version and they haven’t had it in a while. Orange ginger mint tea from The Republic of Tea. A scrub at Olympus and soondubu jjigae at their in-spa restaurant. Cheese and crackers and a surprisingly good bagged butter lettuce salad.
LOOKING:
Instagram microscope videos, like these tiny ocean water creatures
A bier garden in Detroit went to Small Works, used Spectrolite to color separate the photo from a vintage postcard, and riso printed a new postcard
A sweet zine library as part of a gallery and shop at RFI in Hamburg
This post by Rose Marine Textiles (love the velvet plant-dyed pillows)
Reading this made me re-energized to try Obsidian, which I had downloaded a long time ago but never really given the time to learn
Here is a picture of some lichen from Adam:
If you want to send me recs, I’m looking for places to go in CDMX, and any other Mexico things you want to tell me about in general. Are there any travel blogs/newsletters that you enjoy? What was a newsletter or blog post you read this month that’s stuck with you? Just hit reply!
I’m aiming to write more next week, see you then,
— Amelia
P.S. — Pacific Northwest folks: There will be a Riso Printer Meet Up at the Paper Press Punch + Short Run studio in Georgetown! Friday before Short Run, Nov 3 from 4-6pm! Just a couple blocks away from Fantagraphics, where the pre-party will be later that evening.
