Happy New Moon in Pisces. Did you miss me? Trying something new this time because I simply do not know if this would go out otherwise.

I made an outline of everything I wanted to tell you and then spontaneously hit record. This voiceover is the first and only take, and is a slightly more polished version of what it’s like to talk to me on the phone. Or get a really long voice message from me. Winding trains of thought, microphone feedback, and looking things up mid-conversation included.

NOTICING

I'm noticing that if I don't pause to take the creative inhale, everything stops for me. Joe O'Connell, founder of Creative Machines, said that it's really easy as a creative person to continue to put things out into the world and not pause and inhale. Take in the things that you need as an artist. This year, so far, I have not been inhaling, and so I feel pretty breathless.

With this in mind, I’m declaring March the month of no one else's opinion but my own. NOEOBMO. The noise is loud right now. There's a lot of hot takes. Everyone has something to say. I can't connect to my own voice. It's hard to hear me, and what I think. And so March is for no one else's opinion but my own.

READING

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
This book was devastatingly beautiful. Read it for Sonoran Sapphics book club and I’m so glad I had a group to talk to about all the nuances.

Evenings & Weekends by Oisín McKenna
Loved this and it made me want to move to London in the summer. Absolutely mispronounced this author’s name and for that, I apologize.

The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
A tether to reality. A collection of handwritten essays about delight over the course of a year. His writing style is lovely and unique and singular. See also, Inciting Joy.

In one of the essays, Gay references Zadie Smith’s essay called Joy. Worth the read.

CELEBRATING

Sonoran Sapphics is one! If you're not familiar, that’s the organization I founded to foster more queer joy in Tucson. We had a big, dreamy birthday party. See the cutie photos below. I feel so lucky to steward this group and to try to hold space for the brilliant, creative, hot, intelligent, amazing humans that come to these events.

PLAYING (aka GETTING OUT OF THE HOUSE)

I read this article in The Atlantic that basically said “people aren't partying,” among other things. So, of course my loves-an-experiment self tracked if I was seeing people outside my house by putting a butterfly emoji on my calendar. Surprise to literally only me: I’m arguably out of my house too much. And my favorite way to be out was when I Pitched a (single) Pal using a slide deck I made on Canva. It was fun and funny and spiked my adrenaline through the roof.

LIVING

Rapid fire things that are keeping me going:

• The gateway game Rummikub

• Chopped my hair off…yes it feels so good!

• The sun.

• Superfluously beautiful design

  

• Radical acceptance coping statements

  • This situation is only temporary.

  • I can’t change what has already happened.

  • I have dealt with difficulties before and I can deal with this.

  • How I react in this situation is what I can control in this moment.

  • I can’t predict the future and I am okay with that. No, not okay.

LISTENING

A bonus that I didn’t mention in my voice memo, for those of you that read this far. This playlist keeps my computer work groovy. There are some skips depending on my mood but I keep coming back to it.

Let me know what you thought of this format, perhaps I'll get back to writing words on a page in March. I'm hoping that NOEOBMO will help with that.

I think you’re wonderful. I think you're brilliant. And I think no matter what we're going through, it is all learning.