life updates

What a crazy week!! In Lieu of my new job I had a full week of celebrating… probably too much celebrating honestly because I kinda feel like shit now hahaha. Anywho…a pretty nice summary of my week is as follows: Baseball, Birthday Parties, Bikes, Champagne, Goats, Karaoke, Parks, Photo Shoots, Sandwiches.

Basically I just did a bunch of fun things!! I finally went to tuesday karaoke with my roommates which was a freaking ball, we popped champagne at the park to celebrate the new job (and I basically drank the whole bottle myself), I cooked myself a fancy celebratory dinner (and burnt the shit out of my hand). There are cutie goats at the park by my house which have provided entertainment for me while poppy runs around at the park. Nick came and visited for a day and we got sandos, scootered to the baseball game and then had a nice walk the following day.

This was all before the weekend even hit, so by friday I was already emotionally and physically a mess. I got to celebrate Hanna a little Friday night, went to a little bluegrass festival with jenni saturday, and had a photoshoot sunday. This list is non-exhaustive.

Poppy has been LIVING it up. Day in the life of pop: We go to the park next to my house every morning and she gets to sniff and play fetch and try to eat snails and sticks and all of the fun things! Post park we come home and she plays with Dilly and then naps for a while, maybe she gets up and plays at some point but eventually I either take her on a walk or to the park again. After this I make dinner while she runs around with Dilly and greets all the roommates as they come home. We play and chill then its usually time for bed!!! Not a bad life.

This week is very exciting bc lindsey encouraged me to go out and have a SHOOT (pics of me coming too). I have a weird internal block when it comes to actual planned shoots and I haven’t had one in a while. I think it all goes back to my Grad picture days where I booked too many shoots and edited too many pictures - inevitably causing some burnout and general anxiety.

Anywho, I had this spot in my head I had been wanting to shoot at and we made it a reality!! see some of my favorites below.

Photoshoot pics of yours truly below - warning!!! lots of dramatic side looking

reading, learning and listening

Okay this section is probably going to be a little all over the place all of the time because thats kinda how I operate. So I’m just gonna list all the media I am oscillating between and then moving forward I will provide spotlights on things!!

Reading: Currently reading -

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith - a psychological thriller written in the 1950’s. It is straight insight into the mind of a psychopath - how could that not be fun?

Witches Sluts Feminists by Kristen J. Sollee - Witches Sluts Feminists is all about the intersectionality of these 3 identities and how they have both suffered and prospered in the misogynistic world we live in.

Looking For Alaska by John Green - you already know my thoughts on looking for alaska.

Learning: A fun fact about me is I keep a document of things I want to research. Currently I am focused on trying to learn more about Art History - there is so much to learn!! At the moment I am in the Italian and Norther Renaissance period (1445-1510) learning about artists like Botticelli and Da Vinci.

Listening: Okay I am really awful at audio-booking tbh so there are many I have started and not finished. I frequently re-listen to audiobooks because I am a visual learner and listening to things doesn’t always cut it for me.

So I have 3 I am actually going between right now. I listen to The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck (repeat listen ) as I am going to bed or if I need filler , I listen to Change Your Thoughts, Change You Life by Dr. Wayne Dyer when I go to the park with poppy in the morning and I listen to 12 Notes on Life and Creativity by Quincy Jone when I need some inspo.

I don’t feel like giving you little summaries of each, so just know they are all self-help books..

Final thoughts

Feelings are weird man - despite all the good news I felt/kinda feel like shit (alcohol made this worse). I think its because new chapters force you to reflect on the old and actually getting a job allowed me to realize how shitty it is to lose a job (X2).

I was far more of a mess in general after my first layoff, so when I got a job I was dead set on things changing for the better. When I got laid off again I was so focused on positive change that I think I left the part of myself who was scared, frustrated, confused, hurt, you name it - a little bit in the dust. I was trying to be strong. If I believed things were going to get better, they would and well, they did, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t suck for a while.

So here I am, with a job, trying to make space and give myself permission to feel all of the things. We are trained to repress repress repress, but that is simply not sustainable. Emotions (even the scary ones) need attention in order to be released.

This newsletter has been paramount to my grieving and growing process. Having space to talk to myself, be creative, share updates with friends - has helped me in more ways than I can count.

SO with that (and a film friday coming to you soon), Karlis Funemployment chronicles is now officially dead. I am so thankful for all the kind words so many of you have shared and thankful for even having people willing to read my psychobabble. I LOVE YOU ALL and will be back soon with a rebranded newsletter. (:

TALK SOON.