Live Laugh Blog

weekly retro #61: happy easter, xbox

2026-04-05T00:00:00Z

sometimes my menstrual cycle really is on my team, because the few days ahead of it i feel invincible and i needed that with all the social activities i had going into the week.

monday night as my first time this year hosting - the blizzard kept me home from january's. it's alway energizing and inspiring to be at wonderville, and this night's crowd was amazing.

we had friends from out of town show up, people i'd not seen in years who moved away but then moved back...the community was on the best frequency. our next show is a a special tax night event at caveat that i hope to see some of you's at on 4/15.

our buddies at smooth technology had an april fools party in another inspiring space - their own office. it's basically a reunion of everyone who has ever collaborated with anyone at the company, and our pal damon tends the robot bartender. the night after, i finally got a break from having to cross state lines and socialize because jerseyscript was within walking distance. one of the attendees gave a great mini-talk to the table about tips he picked up from his recent, successful job search.

it as a lot more technological, this week, than usual but it wasn't without my ceramics practice. we learned to attach stacked pieces and i threw a few more pieces on the side. there's only a few more classes left this semester, and i'm going to miss the last one for a work trip, so i'll be more focused on trimming and glazing for the next couple of weeks until my next course which i'm very excited about. on the topic of art, i little art blogged about some very good neon, and i think i'm going to get back into neon after seeing a class coming up that is very cool and multi-media.

last night it was back to to the city (you're welcome, port authority treasurer) to see mark's newest show, mark vigeant: out there. he and his team did such a great job, i'm so stoked for them.

today the weather was gloomy, which was great because i absolutely did not want to leave the house anyway. the cramps caught up to me as my period began, and i'm lucky to not have to do anything really the next 48 hours. it gives me extra time to cuddle pumagreg, as he goes into surgery this week. i'm starting to get very anxious about it, but i know it will go fine and he'll be back to hopping for treats in no time.

things i enjoyed this week

here's a good mix that got me through cleaning sessions at home
the artemis ii launch was so awesome to watch online! nasa has a livestream with continuous coverage, which sometimes includes watching and doing q&a's with the crew. as i type this, they are just about 48,000 miles close to the moon and 227,000 miles away from earth.
seeing so many of my creative tech friends across different events. the web feels like it's dying but we're still making and sharing stuff!

i'm going to spend the rest of the night cleaning so that when pumagreg is at the vet i'll perhaps not have anything to anxiety-clean and will make some art instead.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #60: spoony time

2026-03-29T00:00:00Z

congratulate me on my first load-bearing gray eyebrow hair
— jenn schiffer 🕷️🕯️ (@jennschiffer.com) March 29, 2026 at 3:11 PM

it's taking everything i've got to write this lol. i multi-tasked too close to the sun and burnt myself out from the computer, but at the end of this file and deployment is a scoop of peanut butter covered in chocolate chips waiting for me. i call it "spoony time". welcome to the weekly retro.

my allergies were so bad this week, it messed with my sleep a lot. i think i should go see an ent, but i also think i need to see my primary care doctor to get a referral first. it's such a stupid system.

i made my first silicone mold ever and it was a nightmare lmao! at the very least, i got the most cursed part of a doll head molded, so it wasn't a total flop. when i'm not in the ceramics studio, i'm often coding or reading about code and so i've been very slowly working on my next candle collection which will be out in may along with some ceramics wowowow. speaking of code, this weekend i remotely attended atmosphereconf, which was fantastic thank you for asking.

the weather's been nice so between studio sessions and remote conference sessions i'd go to the gym and to the yoga studio i've been trying. i took my first ever silks class and i really liked it but oh boy does my core need work! i think i want to do more conditioning before i go back and try the intro class again. i've got a lot more heavy muscles to pull up into the air than most of my classmates!

i wanted to try out a different platform for small blogging (you're reading my big blog) and so i started a little art blog on pckt, which is pronounced as "pocket" and is atproto-connected. i wrote about a strokes album cover and adapting to tremors. tumblr ads are insane so pckt has been helping me post and find small blogs without being harassed about sports betting and prediction markets.

i bought my first underglazes and a glaze! this week i'll be putting them to work and experimenting with painting onto clay. while i understand that ceramics are quite unpredictable, i think my vision is possible and i know how to get it there. anyway this week in class we learned how to trim our closed vessels. i even threw that handle off the lid - which means i threw it while it was on the lid i trimmed vs. making it separately and attaching it or making it while i was throwing the lid. i don't know if this makes any sense, moving on...

things i enjoyed this week

we met up with some pals at sappe in manhattan, and everything was so good. the shrimp fried rice was maybe my favorite of the dishes we got for the table. i love drinking a thai iced coffee at dinner time, it's one of my favorite special treats.
i follow a couple of professional ballerinas on youtube because they are good models of discipline and not taking themselves too seriously in an art form some take way too seriously. anyway, i was especially moved by this don quixote performance vlog by madeline woo of the sf ballet
this breakdown of the vomit mechanics in rollercoaster tycoon went so deep into such a weird part of a game i never played, i now want to play it so bad.
normally i'd wait until i finish reading a book to recommend it, but i'll make an exception for cookbooks. i made two dishes out of ham el-waylly's 'hello, home cooking' and i was, as expected, very pleased. the fact that he opens the snacks chapter talking about final fantasy 7 helped make him a better prep cook is so funny and real.

okay, it's spoony time. and tomorrow is robot karaoke @ wonderville time. if you're in the nyc area, join us there from 7-10pm!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #59: kicked, burned, but still spinning

2026-03-22T00:00:00Z

i'm starting to write this after seeing jamie off for his trip to london. he's going to be hosting robot karaoke for an event at the london games festival, which i recommend for any of you in the area. when he gets back, we're both hosting at wonderville together for all of you in the jc/nyc area. we're also super stoked to be hosting a special tax themed robot karaoke at caveat nyc on april 15th! it was a gorgeous day out and a bird shit on us outside my local taqueria.

i think i'm finally entering the stage of my life where i can accept that my body will forever be a mystery and work in progress. my recent alopecia started getting better on its own, no steroid shots this time, which is great because i have more important things to worry about. it's not something on my mind these days, but i figured i'd give this update since i've been sharing this journey since the beginning when it did matter a lot more to me.

i finished a new painting, this time having the pixel figure in grayscale. i am pleased with how it came out, and thinking of what else to try in this series. in tandem with this painting, i started building a pixel art color editor.

i went to a new aerial yoga class in the city and got kicked in the head 3 times because the class tried to accommodate too many students in my opinion. i got super frustrated and it took me a few hours to release the tension from my body from that class. i am trying silks and lyra classes and if neither of those interest me then i will probably have to go on indefinite hiatus with aerial. not the end of the world that i felt like it would be, honestly.

i burned my hand on the oven while trying to grab the potatoes roasting inside. i don't often use the oven because we have a large air fryer on the counter and the oven is in an awkward space where it's not unlike me to burn myself on the door whenever i use it.

this week i brought home my last piece from last semester, and i wrote about everything i made in that class. this week i trimmed bottles and learned how to throw closed form pieces. i'm excited for the journey of these pieces - it'll be a challenge to trim two matching pieces, and to glaze them in a way that's consisten but also doesn't get the pieces stuck together.

pumagreg had an ekg and cardiology consult to see if he was okay for surgery. the cardiologist said he was so handsome and such a good boy, and he's low risk for surgery. this week, we get him a chest x-ray to make sure the only growth is the one on his leg.

things i enjoyed this week

i learned about rhyming slang while watching a soap box car race that took place in london. it had an obstacle called "apples and pears" and i looked it up to find out why they were calling stairs that.
pumagreg's vet. if you're in jersey city and want a recommendation, email me and i'll share.
vijith introduced me to a curry with soya chunks, which i don't think i'd ever had before and it was so good. the texture was so much better to me than seitan is at a lot of places.
jess morrissette's "the video game soda machine project" is something i only just learned about today but am already in awe of and cannot wait to read all the press about it. i shared it with andy and he felt similarly.

wow

xoxo jenn

what i made during my second ceramics class

2026-03-18T00:00:00Z

a couple of months ago i shared what i made in my first (hand-building) ceramics class just as i was getting into my 2nd class (first at wheel-throwing). i'm now in my third week of my third class (second at wheel-throwing) and just brought home my final glazed piece from class two. that means it's time to share what i made during my second ceramics class.

two small mugs, one with a matte white and peach glaze that feels disgusting and one with a glossy blue and tan glaze that's very cute. both have cracking on the bottom, but not through the entire bottom, because i hadn't learned yet how to compress the bottoms. i've not made that same mistake since. i must say, though, that my instructor said i did a beautiful job on the handles!
a brown bowl with green inside. this bowl came out great and pumagreg uses it now for his water. it's so rewarding to see your beautiful creature drinking water out of a bowl you made with your hands.
a brown three-handled bowl/cup thing that is tan on the inside. i love this glaze combo and its dumb handles. i use it to hold my everyday rings and earrings so i can grab and leave them as i come and go outside. i accidentally warped the roundness of it while putting handles on, so i learned to double check that after making any additions/adjustments.
a matte black cauldron-like bowl with shiny white glaze on the inside and around the rim and upper body. i wanted to try the matte black glaze but was overzealous with the shiny white because i hated the matte peach/white mug so much lol. fortunately, the black glaze came out very nice and i'll definitely use it again. i plan to use th is as a candle stick/votive tray of sorts.

throwing on the wheel is really fun, but it's more difficult because physics makes a stronger presence in this craft than most others i've worked in. for one, your hands need to facilitate a centripetal force that balances the centrifugal force from the spinning wheel (which varies in speed depending on what part of the process you're in) so that the clay doesn't fly off into the sun. then there's the addition of water in reducing friction between the hands and the clay as it spins. like in most artisan work, there's a lot of science happening - and i just talked about what happens on the wheel, the art and science of glazing is something i've not even scratched the surface on.

the left mug is that peach and white matte one, and the one next to it is my brown three-handled freak. what you see is never quite what you get when glazing, color or drippiness.

in my current class, learned that i was throwing left-handed but on a right-hand spinning wheel. it took a couple of days of practice to use the right hand/spin combination and found that i'm pretty comfortable using either way. i prefer pulling left-handed and everything else right-handed, and the wheel has a switch to change the spin whenever i feel like. i've caught myself going left-handed a few other times, and my hypothesis is that as i've improved my grip strength in aerial yoga and weight-lifting, my body knows i can use my left-hand more efficiently than before. anyway, this is a post about ceramics and not my beautiful freak show machine of a body.

besides how to actually center and pull clay on a wheel, i learned in this class that i do not like the texture of thick matte glazes. i also learned that putting three handles on a piece is really funny and i am absolutely continuing that. i can hardly wait to show you what i've been throwing lately, but you can see progress and more pre-fire shots in my weekly retros. i'll be back with a "what i made during my third ceramics class" post in early may probably.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #58: logged off, touching clay

2026-03-15T00:00:00Z

last week i had posted a couple of ai-related threads on bluesky and started to feel gross from letting the subject use up so much of my time, time i could have been making something with my hands and brain. it's the same feeling you get when you've eaten too many twizzlers and you're like "i think i do not need to eat another twizzler for a few weeks". you know that feeling, right? right?

so i made it a point to log off this week. i spent most of my time in the ceramics studio. i got to glaze a bowl i made during last semester, which i'm hoping to see in its final form tomorrow. i'm not sure what i'm going to do with the bowl yet, probably fill it with wax and give to a friend.

i did that with one of my first pinch pots this week. my pal mike brought me back some hinoki essential oil from his trip to japan, so i made myself a candle and some tealights from it. i sent him one of the tealights and an unscented candle in the pinch pot goblet thing i made a few months ago.

the more that i practice at the wheel, i find myself more inspired at home to sketch future candle vessels. i know, practice makes perfect and it builds muscle for inspiration. it's not uncommon to forget or begrudge this. on the topic of reminders, this week marked 10 years of getting hotter and smarter.

between each throwing session this week was a session of immense menstrual cramps, inflamed sinuses from an allergic reaction, and my quarterly visit to the endocrinologist. not only was "log off" my intention for the week, but so was "power through." this time, though, i was powering through for myself and no one else.

as i get more confident on the wheel, i discover new shapes my hands can make, like these beautiful potion bottles that andy and i've been joking are for his gatorade (he doesn't drink gatorade lol). speaking of potions, my endocrinologist said my liver, kidney and sugar bloodwork "is beautiful".

i'm just sharing this can because "vegetarian vegetable" is an insane phrase. also insane is how instead of just starting a new painting today, i built a color distribution tool for better visualizing my references and what paint i'll need. i can spend all the time in the world touching grass (or clay) but at the end of the day i was born to be on the computer.

things i enjoyed this week

this glass eye barter is so wholesome and lead to such incredible glass art.
i love edibles, especially during my period, and derek from milk barn made me some tinctures in an oil i'm not allergic to which was really kind.
we played until we got all 4 endings of berry bury berry. it is super fun, colorful and satisfying - everything i love about incremental games.
these two are so funny together.

after i publish this, i give pumagreg his first dose of gabapentin ahead of a cardiology consult and echocardiogram first thing in the morning. i think i'm going to stay offline again this week to focus on the little guy and minimize my own stress so that my blood continues looking beautiful.

xoxo jenn

10 years of getting hotter and smarter

2026-03-13T00:00:00Z

on march 13, 2016 i tweeted "i just keep getting hotter and smarter." tweeting was a thing a lot of people used to do and it was often fun and free, but that website doesn't exist anymore, so i can only prove the existence of the post with this screenshot i found on a 2019 post about motivational quotes:

i have to thank an old friend, ashley williams, for telling me to tweet that after i said it out loud, with sincerity, at a bar among other friends. we had just entered our 30s and were in an industry with lots of guys denying our intelligence and sense of humor. when i wasn't being taken seriously i decided to become the joker and i was on quite a tear during that time, stirring shit online through writing web developer satire that delighted those who had joy within them and horrified those who could not believe a woman would dare NOT take seriously a language that took its name from an entirely different and (at the time) more popular language as a form of marketing - a discipline that, of course, every web developer is immune to so long as you ignore the tech company logos on all of their belongings.

hotter and more spelling'er

just like with my writing, the majority of my peers understood my tweet and where i was coming from. to simply exist as a woman is seen as radical by many - i would even go so far to say that existing as you are, period, is radical today. to be who you are AND express that you know the potential in yourself takes it to a whole different, beautiful level. stating i was getting hotter and smarter has triggered many men enough for them to publicly respond. they'll never explicitly say "no you're not" because my projection of self confidence is very intimidating to them. i think they sense that i will test them on how hot and smart they are, just like how women are constantly, egregiously tested on that in both work and play. many men would crumble under such pressure. ashley and i, the only women at the table that night, knew exactly what we were doing by broadcasting this.

"let's dispense with the notion" rearranged spells "my ai wife is cheating on me"

10 years of getting hotter and smarter and the words still need to be said out loud, often. yesterday, i pushed back on a very talented artisan who claimed she wasn't creative in one of her endeavors but in the same breath was describing some of the most creative ideas in the space i'd ever heard. i want to grab every creative person in the world by the shoulders, shake them tenderly, and tell them that they are a universe with immense potential, who will learn new things and change physically and spiritually in ways that will make them more unique in the world, which is extremely hot. then i'll shake them just a little harder and say "stop kicking your own ass."

imagine the joy of seeing something you said turned into painstakingly made art

10 years of getting hotter and smarter and i still need to remember that i am a universe, too. i thank everyone who has quoted me, made those words an affirmation, and understood what i was saying - and why - for sharing stars with me.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #57: the usual amount of clay, blood and lasagna

2026-03-08T00:00:00Z

this week was a week of starting new routines to make up for lost ones and keep me mentally and physically well. did i do a good job? well, i was in an active, mild allergic reaction to an edible for 2 days before i realized my throat wasn't swollen because the air is dry lol. that doesn't matter though, i am here now, breathing well, and reflecting on the week.

next monday pumagreg gets his echocardiogram to see if he can be put under for surgery on the growth on his leg. he feels no pain and doesn't really have any idea of what's going on, and i'm trying to match that energy and appreciate this time right now where he's not in pain. baby's first gabapentin prescription is in the fridge waiting!

i started my new semester of ceramics, wheel throwing 2, and it was really great. this instructor gave us a challenge to take 1.5 pounds and throw a 4x4" cylinder, then make it into a bud vase. in this process, she pointed out to me that i've been throwing left-handed but on a right-hand spinning wheel. i'm glad i learned this...6 weeks into this journey lol. this is why taking multiple classes with multiple instructors is so important for artisan crafts!

after a very early morning bloodwork appointment a couple of days later, i decided to go to the studio to practice more instead of rot on the couch refreshing my labcorp profile for results. we're going to be making olive oil bottles, and i think i've figured out my new, correct, form and got a hand of collaring a cylinder. one thing i need to remember is to remove water from inside the vessel before i narrow its top. i'm pretty sure one my favorite of the bottles i threw is too wet inside, so i'm going to go practice tomorrow and see how it looks.

at home, i'd been working with air dry clay to make magnets of my candles while livestreaming. i finished them, but i want to share the final photo of them on my livestream before i write about it here. they came out very cute, but the magnets i got are quite weak so i'm going to have to find a new set before i make more magnets of big things in tiny form.

i started a new weight lifting routine late last week and fortunately my back was only fucked up for a day. my thighs were killing me for 4 solid days but walking on the treadmill and taking rest days really helped. i love pretending to care what's on the gym television between sets, maybe i'll absorb something from it but probably not. i also love this fake spring we've had this week, making my commutes to various locations of fitness and crafting a lot safer than the last few very icy weeks.

my therapist was out this week so i went to a new (to me) aerial yoga class in the city. i'd been to this studio before - it's near the nyc fastly office and i've dragged a few then-coworkers there - but i'd never been there at noon and or with this instructor. it was a great class, my upper abs are currently screaming at me. my one issue with this studio is that the hammocks are quite close to each other, and many of the students are their for their first time and tend to swing around, so i had to limit my own movement to accommodate that. i guess i just need to avoid open level classes if i want to advance my practice and not get kicked in the head during shavasana again

things i enjoyed this week

we enjoyed this gluten-free lasagna corn pasta. i used this cheese lasagna recipe for inspiration.
we played creature kitchen in one sitting. it's a cozy game, but the spookiest one i've experienced. it's like arctic eggs (which i also loved) but with animals and real food and it takes place in a house isntead of what looks like a lot in bushwick.
buddy guy's npr tiny desk was so good, what a blessing to still have legends among us.
new york was ziwe's most iconic guest. i once posted jokingly that covid happened after vh1 stopped making shows with tiffany pollard in it and someone took me very seriously and was very upset that i "thought" covid was caused by that.
the mountain, the moon cave and the sad god by gorillaz has beautiful old-school animation. i loved the snake part. i tried to watch them perform on snl but they don't do it behind a screen anymore and it's...not for me.
"your company's new 'ai agent workflow'"

both daylight saving time and my period started today, which is one of life's more rude coincidences. this coming week i hope to try another aerial yoga class, practice more ceramics and be told by my endocrinologist how beautiful my blood is.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #56: didn't have to shovel but my back hurts

2026-03-01T00:00:00Z

here we are, a new month. february was a slog and i was hoping it wouldn't be to naive to ask for peace in march, but here we are. you know, i was at recruiting age when the united states invaded iraq - i was anti-war and told i was too young to understand. fast-forward 23 years later and my views haven't changed. it's wild that those in power expect us to be willing to die for them, when they can't even spare us our own tax dollars to give us healthcare, infrastructure, and other services that they promise every 4 years.

anyway, the week with the blizzard. it hadn't snowed this much since 2016. stuck inside for most of daylight, i did some candle r&d and waiting for the snowing to actually stop. sadly, everything was closed because of the storm, so what was supposed to be my final aerial yoga class at urban sadhu was canceled. rip!

the only consolation the snow had for me after so abruptly cutting off my jersey-city-based aerial practice was just being really pretty. we took a walk through the park, laughed at the totally buried cars, and took in the energy of the neighborhood park - as kids rode sleds and adults made snow statues - before the dog owners let their beautiful creatures piss and shit everywhere.

i revisited beeswax carving this week, as i want to get some nice beeswax products out on the shop soon. it's time-consuming and high-focus work, which is good for me, i need something to slow me down a bit while still making with my hands. not related to arts and crafts, i've also been doing a lot of studying of atproto ahead of a coding project i had an idea of.

pov: i'm about to put you in my little apron pocket so you can watch me not be able to successfully throw a single thing. this week was my last wheel-throwing 1 class, and next week i start wheel-throwing 2. i have no idea what we'll be making but i have ideas of my own which i think will fit right in to this level.

we got the results from pumagreg's vet about the little lump that we recently noticed on his leg. the aspiration they took was not conclusive on malignancy, but it was a kind of group of cells where they need to remove the entire growth to know for sure. pumagreg sees a cardiologist in a couple of weeks to clear him for anesthesia and if his heart doesn't pass, then we just hope it's not cancer, i guess. i'm in the mode right now where i'm not going to speculate or worry, but just be in the moment and on top of this process so he can get the best care possible. i'm also not going to let this all hold me back from setting and meeting personal and professional goals in what is sure to be another slog of a month.

things i enjoyed this week

this performance by rosalía and björk at the brit awards was fucking art.
svetlana the stowaway did it again, this time from the airport i live by. an absolute legend. i wonder how many times she's not gotten caught.
i used in the past but have been consistently doing exercises on executeprogram for now 3 months and it's been fun and has kept me sharp when i'm not coding full-time. i've wanted to work on my python and there's a python for javascript devs course on there which is pandering directly to me.

i started a new weight lifting regimen and i hurt my back from stretching lol, starting the month out both strong and oh so weak. this coming week i go to a different aerial yoga studio, start my new ceramics class, and try to find and bring joy where i can during these dark and violent times.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #55: forgot the title lol whoops oh well

2026-02-22T00:00:00Z

i come to you from the first blizzard here in the jc/nyc area in like a decade. it's coming down really hard, and it's going to be quite a week for all of us.

local dog owners lower backs are gonna atrophy from another 4 weeks of not picking up their shit
— jenn schiffer 🕷️🕯️ (@jennschiffer.com) February 21, 2026 at 11:35 AM

the week started out quite warm - one of the days was like 50 F. this is how i knew the blizzard everyone was reporting about was going to be crazy, nature was like "i'll give you a few good days to get all the shit you need done, done." and i did, including shipping out all the candles and paintings ordered over the prior week. my routine when shipping is drop the boxes off and then go right to the gym. i took this photo after my workout, showing off the cool contrast between my elder, brown hair and my newer, gray hair.

this was supposed to be my last full week of aerial, with my final class tomorrow on monday, but now i fear that it will be cancelled and i won't get the closure i anticipated. i guess growth is adapting to not getting closure because closure is kind of a fake idea, like trouble is. anyway, in monday's class i did a pretty insane back flip and tuesday i woke up with a popped blood vessel in my eye lol.

in ceramics this week we did glazing. i was so caught up in socializing with everyone and looking at what other folks were doing, i fear i did a shit job at glazing my first few pieces - we'll see maybe this week if they're out by then. i think we have one more class left in this semester but the following week is when the next semester starts up again.

i had to bring pumagreg to the vet because he had a weird bump on his ankle. the doctor said it's probably a benign cyst, so we're waiting on the results of that. she also said he has a slight heart murmur, so we'll have to get a cardiologist to do a consult. otherwise, he's a healthy boy who did a very good job and all the staff absolutely loved him and he loved all the treats he got. i've always had an at-home vet service but it shut down and so this was his first out-of-home visit. it's funny how he came home and acted like it was nothing, meanwhile i had to box breathe through a silent panic attack from the anxiety of the entire production.

i took the train down yesterday to see my dad, who is in the same place but has transitioned from short-term care to long-term care Because Of Insurance. i think he's lived in 3 of 4 wings of the place at this point and he's adapting well to the changes considering. everyone there loves my dad including staff - i can see where i got the gift of making friends and turning small talk into meaningful connections. he's also told every single person he's encountered over the past 5 months that i have been to college and have never smoked a cigarette.

things i enjoyed this week

last week i mentioned we were playing dispatch. we finished it and i already miss some of the characters. because part of the game play is CYOA-style, our ending was different from others so now we've been watching the different endings on youtube.
boom na da noom na namena 🎶
you've probably already watched alysa liu's gold-medal winning free skate but so have i and here i am watching it again as i type this. figure skating is so cool - i am pretty good at ice skating forward and backward but never learned turns. cold sports rock.

ok i took a quick break from finishing this to update the bugs rock header to note that the blizzard is blizzarding. these next few days are going to be quite a journey, probably mostly indoors. fortunately for me, this week i need to go heads-down to work on candles and paintings to sell in march!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #54: failing to be birthday neutral

2026-02-15T00:00:00Z

birthday weeks are tough because i feel like everyone either puts a lot of pressure on me to enjoy it or they project their fear of aging and dying onto me about it. i very much want to be neutral on birthdays, but i also want to celebrate that i lived far longer than i was told i would or should by adults in my life growing up. here's to 41 years of i lived, bitch, bitch.

before my actual birthday, it was the the first birthday of these weekly retros. i streamed for a few hours to celebrate, which was fun. did i forget to hit record? yes. thanks to everyone who joined me and sorry to everyone who missed out and will have to make it next year because i was born to blog.

someone at my gym took "compartment for pads" in a very interesting, different direction this week - the one week where i actually needed a pad at the gym. that's right, i spent my birthday week on my period.

yeah, so my actual birthday was kind of a wash because i felt like shit physically. oh, and then i had to take care of a family situation that absolutely could have been brought to my attention on NOT my birthday lmao 🫩 anyway i know i normally do a birthday post with a selfie, but i honestly couldn't be fucked so this one is all i've got.

i was blessed by the kiln though, as my 3 mugs survived bisque firing. i trimmed some bowls and made some new pieces that i hope aren't cracked when i go back to the studio.

drama, cramps and comedy of errors all aside, i was truly blessed for the opportunties to be at my happiest: making a mess at the ceramics wheel,making candles and packing orders - thanks to everyone who made my birthday sweeter by buying stuff btw - and eating eggplant parm with my guy on a day commemorating the night i joined this bitch of a planet.

things i enjoyed this week

we finally got to see nirvanna the band the show the movie and it was so good
we are about halfway through the episoding super-hero game dispatch and i've been enjoying it. the pop culture references are a bit pander-y but i love the stats during the credits of each episode.
the best eggplant parm i've ever had is at just friends here in jersey city!

now that i'm coming out of the fog of my cycle, i've got cool things to make, postponed birthday celebrations to be had and two more weeks to figure out my aerial yoga practice once my studio shuts down. every day is a winding road!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #53: below zero temperatures should not be allowed outside

2026-02-08T00:00:00Z

as i begin writing this, quite late on a very, very cold sunday, i am surrounded by the (organized) messes of my activities throughout the week. some instant film camera stuff in a pile on my desk, staging from my bugs rock product photo shoot, wax scrapings from future offerings in the shop...it reminds me of how much i've made this week and also how i need to be working on three projects at a time to finish anything.

after a month off to focus on non-wax projects, i sat down for a few days and experimented a lot. i came up with a product release format that is going to make the r&d process way more enjoyable that it's been for the store's first 6 months. i did my taxes for the first time as a sole business owner which both empowering and an itty bitty baby ego death.

the weather has been so cold and windy. this morning it "felt like" -17F and the whistling of the wind was quite distracting. i spent some extra time with my living, breathing heated blanket, pumagreg.

even with the cold, i was not going to let the harsh weather stop me from going to the final aerial yoga classes before urban sadhu permanently closes. i think i've got about 6-8 classes left. monday we had a sub who is very much into conditioning, so i was sore for quite a few day. i even went to the gym to walk off some of that soreness. did i say that it's been really, really cold this past week?

the ceramics studio is always quite warm, thank god. this week we learned how to make bowls, and i sent off three pieces to be bisque fired. i'm hoping to trim the bowls on thursday and glaze whatever of my pieces survive the kiln. believe it or not, i'm only just now starting to watch ceramics content on youtube - i didn't want anything "spoiled" for me so i held off for a very long time. i love sculpting so much.

i also love taking photos of my candles. it's very hard and i'm still very much a beginner. staging the shoot is like playing dress up, it's so fun and a way i can be expressive outside of the candles themselves. this week i'm announcing new candles but if you read to this part you can see them now.

things i enjoyed this week

we don't have trader joes in jersey city, but i've been walking by the one in chelsea twice a week for years whenever i go into the city for therapy. i finally went in for once and got a bunch of cool things and i didn't even have to wait in line for a long time. an eye-opening experience for me, as my grocery offerings closer to home suck.
back when i was on tiktok i followed franziska trautmann, founder of glass half full which was featured in this video. it's a great project, a nice video, and it was nice to see that someone i used to follow is doing really well at really good things.
angine de poitrine performed on kexp. andy showed them to me and i love them.
miguel did a tiny desk concert. i want his wardrobe.

i was distracted about 12 times while trying to finish writing this - let's get to the finish line, jennifer. this coming week has a couple birthdays by the way. monday is 1 year of weekly retros and wednesday is 41 years of me. you can celebrate by shopping for my art or buying me a coffee :)

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #52: walking in this cold for a haunted doll head

2026-02-01T00:00:00Z

happy february, a month where we hope to celebrate love as well as my 41st birthday. it will also be the month we hit one full year of reading (and i, writing) these weekly retros! this is my personal "new years" season, and it's opening up with lots of opportunities for change. one of those changes that i know is coming and i'm dreading is my aerial yoga studio permanently closing at the end of the month. i thought the email was about the monday evening class being, predictably, cancelled - not the entire studio and community i've engaged in 2-3 times per week for years going away!

to distract myself from this news which was out of my control, i literally slid on icy sidewalks down to the ceramics studio to practice throwing some clay instead of rotting. accepting what is out of control was something we'd been discussing throughout january in one of my aerial classes and while there's no way for me to financially and geographically be able to continue this practice as i had been for years, i'll surely find a new on-the-ground yoga studio to join and take aerial less often in manhattan when i find myself there. i'll be totally fine, it's not the first, and likely not the last, time losing community because of capitalism. life is a highway!

"No matter how much you love a community or an organization, it cannot love you back." - brett bonfield

it's been hard to get around because of the ice and snow. after finding out the yoga studio was closing, i had to drop out of hosting robot karaoke that night - a bummer for me, but jamie was able to hold it down for the brooklynites willing to brave the cold for some karaoke fun. in place of the things i couldn't do outside because of the weather, i threw myself into cooking casseroles - ziti is a casserole, please don't piss me off by trying to argue that.

on thursday the streets and sidewalks were cleaner and it was back to the routine. i attached handles to my mugs from monday's solo session and caught up with some of my classmates. i registered for the next level of wheel-throwing classes for next semester, where i heard we'll learn how to make lids among other cool stuff. in aerial yoga, we talked about the studio closing and did a LOT of (for me, much-needed) hip work.

this is pumagreg sitting outside of andy's workspace door, waiting to get his after-dinner treats. at the other end of the hall this week was me either photographing him or being on my laptop and working on my first atproto app. the bug that bit me was that i started streaming on stream.place instead of youtube this week to see how well it worked and it's great. i love using social apps where the people building it are there, too, chatting and facilitating a feedback look between me and the product. i think that's what's most exciting to me about building on the "ATmosphere". so i'm going to build something of my own soon and yes, it will be pixel art related. for now, though, my livestreams have been mostly making stuff with air dry clay and building and testing my new candles.

today i trekked further downtown to 14C's art pantry. they had a few rooms full of stuff from various productions (like project runway) and we were able to hold a half-hour slot for ~$7 to weed through tons of supplies that were free to take. we were encouraged to only take what we needed, a very good constraint that's unfortunately necessary to vocalize these days. i went with the intentions of finding some good fabric to make cloth napkins, cool beads, and things for staging product photos. i found just what i needed including a doll head which i've been wanting to make a silicone mold of. i'll keep you posted on how haunted it is. anyway, shouts out to 14c to so generously opening this up to the community. i met college students from fit getting supplies for their thesis, a couple of friends who are putting together the setting for a stage play, and the volunteers at 14c who, again, were so generous.

things i enjoyed this week

i devoured mary roach's newest book "replaceable you". one of my jobs through my undergrad era was doing data entry and kit building for a medical device company that arnold schwarzenegger is currently a face of and so i was around fake hips, tools for hammering and screwing bones, prosthetics, jars of human vertebrae and more fun stuff, so it was cool to be brought back to that - by one of my favorite authors ever, no less.
i love watching andy play skate story. it's an extremely cool looking game and i, too, am a demon who wants to eat the moon
jeopardy posts "the week in final jeopardy" videos every week. a funny side effect of the official channel posting them is that everyone uploading bootleg episodes have to cut out or completely glitch out the final jeopardy portion of their uploads.
this gluten-free sourdough sliced loaf is the best gluten-free sandwich bread i've tried. it doesn't taste weird and it does't crumble in your hands like the pages of a used copy of gödel, escher, bach.
i am not a big gourmand scent person, but the vanilla cashmere lotion from eos is musky and very nice. it reminds me of a doll i once got in a church basement holiday party where they'd have a santa come and hand out free toys to kids. the doll had this subtle, sweet scent and it was wearing traditional norwegian clothing by pure coincidence (my maternal side is norwegian). all that aside, i'd like to smell what eos' pistachio scent is like next. this is also a good time to warn any of you looking to get into working with clay that it will dry your hands out a lot, so get moisturizing!

if you read this far, incredible - thank you! and if you, too, write a weekly, monthly or whenever retro and would like to join the live laugh webring (currently just a simple list of links on my sidebar), i wanna know! my contact info is in sidebar, alongside a link to my ko-fi page if you were interested in further supporting my goblin adventures.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #51: wheel throwin' and storm postin'

2026-01-25T00:00:00Z

i'm writing this in the middle of that big snow storm the news has been talking about all week. i'm also watching and hearing the little rice-sized sleet bouncing off the window sill, avoiding thinking about what conditions are going to be like tomorrow when we're all expected to go about our mondays.

it was a very cold week, i spent a lot of time at home with the exception of yoga classes and ceramics. i love the winter, but it's so hard to get out of bed - pumagreg being a cuddle freak doesn't help. i'm really only a morning person if i have an actual thing to do that can only be done in the morning, i am working on truly accepting that and not feeling like a piece of garbage for not being up and at 'em at 8am.

this week i did a bunch of candle tests and made some scented candle inventory to cure for a couple weeks before i do the first official drop of the year. in case you didn't know, i made a bugsrock.online bluesky account where i share updates and process. i was giving myself mental whiplash from posting political and anti-ICE content one second and griping about candle curing woes in the next, so i've been trying this account separation and it's helped.

a few months ago i got high and made an order on talas of bookcloths, paper and glue and just never used it. so i finally brought out the tube and made myself a hardcover for my field notes notebook. i posted more photos on bluesky. i made so many mistakes but did a pretty good job from memory, so i'm going to make more covers this week to practice before i move on to binding actual sketchbooks.

i had my second wheel-throwing class - the third for everyone else in class, so i was way behind, but i stayed an extra couple of hours to practice and finally hit a breakthrough with centering the clay and made my first good cylinder. my right hip was very sore after, so that was a good lesson in being more mindful of the physicality of wheel-throwing and the necessity to warm up and stretch after.

i was painting air dry clay cigarettes yesterday for some reason when i started getting notifications of people sharing an older post of mine calling out githubbers who defended an ICE contract they had years ago. it's very weird, both relieving and frustrating, to see people who called me dramatic years ago coming around on the fact that ICE needs to be abolished and everyone involved held accountable for their crimes.

the line for everyone should have been drawn LONG before "white people executed in broad daylight". will this finally be a real turning point for our nation, or just another bucket list item crossed out for our fascist administration? time and spineless politicians on social media will tell!

things i enjoyed this week

franz ferdinand covered amyl and the sniffers for like a version
this conversation and grilling of ashley st. clair was done real well. we don't often see someone from the right who has done so much harm make such a shift - especially one where they don't center themselves. it will be interesting to see if this impacts others on the right who have grown uncomfortable with the violence and transphobia of the right.
i haven't made this baked ziti yet but the tip about soaking the pasta instead of boiling before putting it in the casserole dish was really eye-opening and i cannot wait to try it.
this piece on gas town and vibecoding by maggie appleton is one of the best tech critiques i've read. maggie works in ai, so this is an accessible description of what gas town is and what it means for the future, while also being measured about the limitations of this kind of use of ai when coding.
this morning i made chef john's old-fashioned pancakes because the gluten-free mix we had has coconut ingredients in it (my diet is currently low-gluten), and the gluten-free flouer i had didn't have xantham gum in it - a binder is necessary for pancakes. i fucking love science.

stay warm, dry and safe - and be vocal about how angry you are about what's going on in the world, your voice is important and it helps others find theirs. i used to get asked often if i was afraid that my online presence - specifically the part where i'm vocal about my politics and values - would make me "unemployable" and honestly, i don't know, but i'm doing fine: i'm warm, dry and safe indoors, which is a lot better than many others are and what i used to be.

xoxo jenn

what i made during my first ceramics class

2026-01-20T00:00:00Z

back in november/december i took an 8-week course on hand-building ceramics, taught by the very cool and talented nish. i had been playing around with air dry clay and realizing i need some in-person instruction and a place to go away from my desk where i can make things with other people in real life, present and undistracted. this class hit the spot. last week i started wheel-throwing and was able to pick up the final 2 pieces i made last semester to reunite them with my other projects, so it's time to share everything i made that first semester.

we started the class with pinch pots. what a surprise it was for me to find a creative endeavor where the grip strength i've built from aerial yoga has come to my great benefit! we pulled handles by hand from hand-rolled coils. my classmate had done wheel throwing and she said this was way harder, but i think that's because she was striving for symmetry which is absolutely harder by hand. i have only used the wheel once, last week, and i would say that process has a way steeper learning curve. we'll see how i feel in a few more weeks of class there.

after pinch pots, we used a slab roller to make a tissue box cover. i love the slab roller, it's so tactile and such a cool mechanical device. i cut a silhouette of pumagreg's head into the top of this and stamped the clay with a little exclamation point stamp my classmate brought to class.

the last piece of the class was a coil pot, which i shaped into a trapezoid and will probably make into a candle. a few weeks ago andy and i took a one-night clock workshop also taught my nish, separate from our class. we used the slab roller to make the face, and i pressed a 3d-printed grid stamp that andy made for me into the slab so i can make a grid paper effect. i did a light wash of white underglaze, painted blue underglaze on the hours, and nish clear-glazed everything for us to pick up a couple weeks later. i am so pleased with how my pixel grid clock came out!

the ceramics studio has become a much-needed third place for me, a place for me to use my hands, be away from screens, and talk to some of the most lovely, creative and generous artists in the community here. i have a lot more to learn and practice, but i've got so many ideas for things to make for the shop beyond just candle vessels. i highly recommend looking for a class near you to try out if you can. if you're in jersey city, check out betty's, they do lots of one-day events if you're not ready to invest in a full or half semester.

xoxo jenn

p.s. i am missing 3 test tiles that i glazed in this post, but they're just pieces of slabs that i tried different textures and glazes on. one is in the bathroom and one is on my desk. there's a third one and i have no idea where it is lol. anyway, you asked.

weekly retro #50: back into the groove

2026-01-18T00:00:00Z

this week was all about getting back into my routines and i did just that.

i reopened the store with what i am calling the core collection, my "classic" egg and sky candles. this week i start making scented candle inventory to come out in time for valentines day (but really my birthday). anyone who wants candles should really just wait until i add those new pieces.

up until a couple of days ago when it started snowing, it was so nice outside. not too cold, fairly dry. i went back to aerial yoga and had some of my best flows and stunts despite being on my period.

started ceramics. we had a sub and learned to trim pieces (i missed last week's wheel intro). a very cool classmate very generously offered me one of the pieces she threw last week so i can follow along. one of my favorite gestures from a stranger. i want to try to go during open hours this week to actually catch up and practice throwing my own pieces.

i started and finished this bead tapestry of my last pixel art painting. it weighs about 11.5 ounces in glass beads and thread. i'm not sure how i'm going to mount it, i may even undo it to use the beads for another piece i started on a loom i made of binding board and chopsticks. i am new to beading so it's fun to be learning something fresh.

it's been snowing all weekend. i visited my dad, who's graduated from speech therapy and has been making a lot of progress. now i end the week writing this retro, playing video games and eating chili.

things i enjoyed this week

i read war of the worlds by hg wells. i've had a copy of the re-issue of the edward gorey-illustrated hardcover forever, but had never read it. i enjoyed it and may check out the movie, even.
tonight i made this vegetarian chili from ATK and it came out really good. i wish dried porcini mushrooms were less expensive, but overall the meal is affordable, easy to make and very flavorful.
gwar covering "pink pony club", that is all.
sunkist orange soda, zero sugar. someone i agree with said it's like drinking a popsicle.

i want to do more writing next week, like sharing all the pieces i made my last semester of ceramics. something about the snow outside makes me want to get cozy and be creative on the computer.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #49: dude that sucked

2026-01-11T00:00:00Z

my body is finally free of covid, but it wasn't until friday that i actually went outside - so you can understand why i don't have any photographs to offer in this retro besides my primary view of the week:

jenn nation, this week fucking sucked - pumagreg aside, of course. my body is still healing from putting up quite a fight, and continuing to hold me back from feeling like it's a new year. also, i don't do well when locked up for long periods of time, and the last time i had to do that was during quarantine where i could commiserate with everyone on social media.

understandably, most folks have been commiserating this week over the federally-sanctioned murder of citizens in the false name of making citizens safer, normalization of csam being created and shared on a major tech platform...also football, which i've been wondering if i should start to get into. i also was thinking about re-joining instagram after deleting it like 8 years ago. see? i actually need to touch grass so fucking bad.

this week is about doing just that. i get to go back to yoga and the gym, start my new semester of ceramics - which i missed the first day of, and that's okay - and reopen bugs rock. literally nothing bad happened because i took time to heal and not spread covid - except that i feel like i'm losing my marbles, but that's nothing that making art, reading and moving can't cure.

things i enjoyed this week

i finished reading another country. i've talked about james baldwin's books before, and how i've missed out on a lot of fiction because i had mostly been satiated by non-fiction, but i'm so glad i finally read this one as it's one of my favorite novels taking place in new york city by one of my favorite authors. baldwin does a great job of writing about different characters intertwined and damaged by the same systems of racism, nationalism, misogyny, etc - the same ones we're watching play out today.
today we finished watching listers, a documentary about a couple guys (brothers?) who are new to birding and do it in a big way across the country. the birds are great, the footage they get is awesome, they are hilarious, and it's a really cool view of a community that i knew nothing about. i don't see myself going birding, but i'll for sure be looking up and listening more - which i guess is literally birding lol.
i loved this conversation between open mike eagle and questlove, did not have mike having to explain to questlove what roblox is on my bingo card and i'm sure they didn't either. but the conversation goes beyond fatherhood and the fears today that go with it, there's a lot about the microscope one is put under by one's own friends and collaborators when taking jobs. it makes me wonder if younger musicians even have the pressure anymore to not "sell out".

i wish i had more to show and say. i don't know! i guess, stay safe, hopeful, vigilant, whimsical, angry and joyful.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #48: imagine what i would have done if i didn't get covid

2026-01-04T00:00:00Z

it's a new year! i did a retro on my prior year goals and stated new ones. when i wrote it, i had hopes that i'd make it through the week covid-free, but then i had a rough night and i knew it got me.

i come to you a few days later, after a peak that included shivers so violent my entire core is sore and a 103F fever that had me talking to my late grandma.

i still feel like total garbagino, but i'm a lot better than i was 48 hours ago. i haven't left the house since tuesday night, so the swarm app keeps sending alerts asking me if i forgot to check in to places. what a blessing to be able to set the new year bar so low lol.

literally why did i take this photo?

things i enjoyed this week

i picked up a jar of this better than bouillon no chicken base before we got sick and i'm so grateful to past me about it
i couldn't get through this week without "my tins": one with nivea cream and another rosebud salve
edibles (legal)

i am hoping that tonight is the last rough one, i have a feeling it one be so bad. happy new year and sunday scaries.

xoxo jenn

2026: again, another year of blog on the desktop, again, another time

2026-01-02T00:00:00Z

it is new years eve as i start this, around 9:30pm. i'm sitting on the couch alone in quasi-silence - my upstairs neighbors are blasting music and there's the typical commotion outside during holidays. one of us in this apartment is getting over covid and it's not me. we'd like to keep it that way, hence me being alone on a couch. pumagreg is making his rounds of crawling all around me to see which part of my body is moving the least as i type so he can take his 17th nap of the day. a couple of days ago was the 11 year anniversary of me adopting him and he's still just a little guy. i just finished reading the first fifth of james baldwin's "another country" and before that i made a clay version of a lemon pig because i have no whole lemons and despite testing negative i still think it's best for everyone if i stay indoors. i have a roof over my head, a loving partner and cat, a clay lemon pig to paint in the morning...i am alive and my edible is going to hit any minute now. this blog post is more for me than anyone else, but i'm glad you're here.

it's a blessing in viral disguise, i guess and will take whether i like it or not, to have to sit in solitude the day before a new year. it sets a nice, very low bar for 2026 and forces me to become just the right amount of bored to dive into live laugh blog archive and reflect my 2025 goals, wins and flops. in 2025, i wrote:

"i'm going to be very pleased with myself in january 2026 to be able to come back to this list and give myself the deserved time to celebrate my wins"

spoiler alert: i was right. anyway, let's walk through my goals and highlights from my progress.

✅ "post more often on the blog"

while in 2024 i wrote 26 posts on here, in 2025 i wrote 60! i accomplished this by starting a weekly retro series when i turned 40 in february. i've not missed a single week yet and the habit of reflecting on the week every sunday has done wonders for my brain fog and my writing. also this spring, live laugh blog turned 5. 23 of you subscribe to my rss->email list and i love you all like my half-brother's cousins - who are all lovely by the way. if you want to keep up with retros and all my other blog posts, you can subscribe for free. it's not substack!

✅ "start selling my weird candle sculptures"

blah blah blah we all know i quit my corporate job in fall of 2024 in order to make it to age 40 with at least some of my mind, body and spirit intact. let my haters know they have nothing to cheer about because i lived, bitch. and i made a whole ass company - bugs rock llc - and actually started selling my weird candle sculptures on the whole ass internet. in its first two quarters i have sold 100 candles, which is 100 more than i've ever sold before! i'm excited to take the shop and my candle practice to the next level in the new year, and i appreciate all of you who have bought my work.

prototypes of egg candles i made in january, a couple of the designs made the cut in bugs rock collections!

✅ "make a collection of paintings showing off my figure and airbrushing practice"

i also sold 7 paintings, which i included airbrush sketches with. i found that a local printroom did weekly figure drawing so i went back for that in the spring. i just started a pixel art painting series that are figures from some of those sketching sessions, and i've been recording the process. i definitely did not get as far with this goal as i'd have liked to, but, well, i was busy starting and running a business lol.

😅 "stream weekly as a vehicle for keeping my sites and art fresh"

while i did not accomplish this, i did stream a huge 26 times, so i didn't do bad. the majority of them were about migrating off of glitch - oh, yeah, several months after i quit fastly they announced they were shutting down glitch. this was the major flop of the year, but it wasn't mine. i was sure happy to not have to be there to bury it, but i spent many hours streaming and finding alternatives which was a learning experience in streaming and the current web deployment ecosystem. we've lost a lot of really good things and glitch was one of them. i guess that's showbiz, baby.

please like and subscribe lol

✅ "read more than 12 books"

i read 14 books, and i started listing them here because i don't use goodreads because amazon owns them, but i wanted to have a link to share if anyone asked. this goal was only met because i found my very old kobo ebook reader and have since been borrowing ebooks from the library, probably my most useful screen next to my actual computer.

✅ "get more involved in more in-person communities"

if you want to find your people, you got go out and be among the people. i practiced this by setting the intention that if i found anything interesting stapled to a telephone pole, or an opportunity was offered that involved being among people, i needed to say yes. because of telephone pole flyers, i've gotten back into figure drawing and i started learning ceramics. the ceramics studio has especially become a beloved third place for me. i was offered the opportunity to do a very short-term consulting gig, which i said yes to even though i didn't need to - but it was a great experience where i learned a lot, met a lot of people, and got some extra money so i can buy a new laptop. yesterday i responded to a call for resumes from our soon-to-be new mayor and i have no idea if i would be useful but i'll never know if i don't say yes to trying.

this is me in the ceramic studio. my first wheel throwing class starts next week!

😅 "run a virtual event, like livelaughconf 2.0 for its 5th (!) birthday"

there are two reasons why i couldn't get around to this, the first one being the glitch shutdown. there were several stressful weeks of hearing gossip and different sides of what was actually happening to glitch before fastly went public. it wasn't my place to speak publicly, but you can trust i made my voice heard as much as possible (and respectfully) to the powers that had been. anyway, then we all had 6 weeks to find new homes for our apps, blah blah blah, see above about my streaming from the year. i could have punted plans to the fall, but then my father who i had hardly spoken with for well over a decade had a heart attack and two strokes and i reconnected so i can help my half-brother take care of him. you know, just life being a highway and every day being a winding road or whatever.

✅ "truly, deeply enjoy turning 40"

i am going to give myself this one because i'm still alive. it's tough having a february birthday especially when our authoritarian administration started - predictably imho - destroying everything that is good and civil in our society immediately after the inauguration. it was hard to find any motivation to celebrate or try to get my friends to celebrate. i had always imagined having a huge 40th birthday bash, but that just wasn't in the cards for me to put together. last minute, i did pull together a very small, intimate gathering at my home because if i had done nothing that would just be me punishing myself for something i didn't do. but i had no regrets in february after leaving my job and i've only gotten stronger in muscles and talent since then, so i'm giving this goal a check.

✅ "don't chop my hair off"

my amazing hair stylist and her partner, upon the election results, understandably decided it was time to move abroad. fortunately, i found a new stylist who is amazing, shouts out to elena at paloma salon. i very well could have found the wrong person who would have messed my shag up or tell me to go short again. my alopecia cropped up again a few weeks ago, but it appears to be regrowing in that spot. i tell you this because it could absolute impact 2026's chances of me going overboard like i had done several years ago when my alopecia first came out.

🤣 "do 5 solid pushups"

me when i got to this one and saw it was the last: "lol go fuck yourself, jennifer." i don't even think i've tried a pushup in like 10 months, it just doesn't come up in my aerial yoga practice. planking does, so maybe i could do one pushup if i tried, but i won't. speaking of aerial yoga, i reached 150 classes in october, and right now i'm at 163 i think. before my dad got sick i was going 3x a week, but since then i have been going 2x. i definitely leveled up in that practice especially when it comes to doing flips and more circusy stunts. i definitely decreased how much weights i'd been lifting and treadmill walks i'd been doing, but overall i'm still very active.

here are my goals for 2026

blog more again, but essays this time
get better at video-editing (ie. stream and post more videos)
level up in python (especially for hardware and atproto)
get my art portfolio up to date and cool looking
paint every week
read at least 18 books
make bugs rock profitable
continue improving in my current practices (ceramics and aerial yoga)
get into sewing
do 5 solid pushups (or just lift more weights dingus lol)

bonus: what's in and what's out for 2026

in:

making videos *alongside, not instead of, written word
tinned fish but in a normal way
stretching
blocking and muting, fast and often
expanding media consumption into different genres than you're used to
buying used or handmade
vintage cameras
saying yes, but conditionally and intentionally of course

out:

allergic reactions avoidable by paying more attention to labels
being expected to have an opinion about everything
qualifying obvious opinions by saying they are opinions
hating the internet instead of making the internet
establishments with no mocktail menu
paying for (or attention to) generative ai
caffeination as a lifestyle/personality
not challenging authority or bad drivers

it's 11:47pm now so i'm going to close this and publish it tomorrow when it is actually 2026. thank you for reading my blog, enjoying my art, and just being here. i wish you a happy new year, one with a little bit more peace and justice (perhaps revenge?) for the planet and all of its creatures - including you and i. if all goes according to plan, i'll be ending this blog post with a finished, lucky, painted lemon pig.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #47: the one i almost forgot because what day is it even

2025-12-28T00:00:00Z

this is the hardest time of the year to keep track of the days. even when i wasn't making my own schedule, these last several days of december are special and chaotic and slow all at once for so many people. but as the clock struck 8:25pm i shot up from my horizontal position on the couch, watching youtube on my phone, and exclaimed "holy shit, it's sunday, i need to write my retro!" happy sunday, let's rock.

the week started with getting an aerial yoga session in after closing out my last ceramics session of the year. i had a piece to glaze, a few to pick up...including my clock which i am so impressed with myself about. i can't wait to get back to the studio in a couple of weeks, which is when i'll be able to get my final piece and do a proper blog about all the things i made this first semester.

andy got a gaming steering wheel and i've spent a significant portion of this week stoned and driving hitchhikers around. it's like crazy taxi but more chill. i still do not want to ever own a car or get a drivers license, the simulation is enough for me.

as usual, christmas was chill. we played driving games and just enjoyed the thursday cosplaying as a sunday. i cooked some casseroles that i knew would reheat well and get us through the incoming snowstorm.

my dad's second wife, who snuck onto earth from the depths hell in the early 60s, used to make these cheddar broccoli bakes that were really good - suspiciously good, coming from her. she told me it was a secret recipe and that she'd never tell me it because i wasn't her "real daughter" (a blessing for me) but i knew that red goblin got the recipe from a mayonnaise label. to this day i make my own variation twice a year!

anyway, i got to stay cozy and inside during the snow. i did a lot of writing, drew references for some upcoming paintings, updated my personal site as well as some older projects i think i want to revive, and worked on goals i have for the new year.

i also got into a couple of fights with pumagreg, who knows he's not supposed to be going into that closet but he also knows that i will give him treats anyway because i'm a big sucker for the little guy.

things i enjoyed this week

free laundry? i don't know why the machines in our building launderette were set to free all week, but that was a nice surprise. i mean, unless you're my building coming to collect, in which case i didn't do any laundry this week what the fuck are you even talking about.
the game we've been playing with the game wheel is motor town which is super fun, but what i was really surprised to discover was the ecosystem of real online radio stations made for simulator games like simulator radio.
this weekend i enjoyed reading the outsiders which i had never read before, and i've not yet seen the movie. also, the broadway show won best musical last year, which i just learned and am shocked that i missed? i need to get back in touch with broadway!

thanks for reading my last weekly retro of 2025, see you next year :)

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #46: the ramp up to the ramp down

2025-12-21T00:00:00Z

welcome to my retro, and in case you didn't know, there is a livelaugh.blog rss feed, and also a mailing list to have my blogs sent straight to your inbox. wait, don't close the tab! you haven't even finished your jocko molk!

i have to start with the end of the week, today, when we spent 50 minutes trying to pick up my pituitary medication. this particular cvs i go to is in such bad shape, they had one receipt roll left and would swap it into other registers as needed.

the week started out a bit peaceful, with yoga and the gym getting quieter as people are traveling for the holidays. i was nervous from the start, though, about one of my prescriptions still being out of stock. i was breaking them in half to ration them, which is an absolute insane scenario for anyone to ever have to be in. fortunately, today, they were able to partially fill the script so i have something to take tonight.

it was the last week of the semester of hand-building ceramics! despite dealing with cramps, i was feeling more confident in the studio working on my own - showing up to find two of my glazed items survived helped. this week i may have a couple more to pick up, and one to glaze. and next month i start a semester of wheel throwing, which i can hardly wait for.

one of the ways i'm working on getting my thyroid right after this latest flare-up is limiting gluten again. i used to make gluten free pizza crusts when an ex-partner had ulcerative colitis, which greatly limited his diet. what we made was whatever, but it was the only option then! nowadays, we can find some pretty good gluten-free ready-made pizza crusts. it's very nice to see progress there.

after dicking around for about a week i finally starting putting brush to paper on the pixel figure painting i started. i also finished it.

i will share the final painting soon, it's currently flattening under a pile of newsprint, heavy art books and crystals. i had a nice time making this and i look forward to starting my next painting this week.

andy found a broken dancing santa toy online, fixed it and updated it so that we could add our own songs for it to dance to through usb. he's a human genius.

you can imagine me losing my mind, then, a couple days later when i visited my dad and we rolled into the common area to find two dancing santas. if i had executive function i could probably write a book on this holiday show experience.

i'm hoping for the world to start slowing down for a couple of days. i will try to continue working on relaxing and making art, setting goals for the new year, and spending quality time with andy, pumagreg and santa.

things i enjoyed this week

it was bittersweet to be ending my first class at betty's ceramics. mostly sweet because i feel accomplished and i'm going back for another class in a few weeks. great facilities, great community.
if you do not have an immersion blender, get one with one of your gift cards that you got for christmas. it's a handy utensil, but i didn't have one growing up so it was never something i thought i needed. it greatly improved my mashed potatoes.
some of the paint i used this week was from this winsor & newton gouache set. i liked it, but i think it works in smaller amounts than if you needed to gloop a lot on.

i hope you have a happy holiday!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #45: stress is free and yet expensive

2025-12-14T00:00:00Z

this week i worked on being intentional with my routine and fitting in movement and rest in healthy doses, while also managing consequences of the last few months of chaos.

most days this week started with me packing bugs rock orders, walking them to the ups drop-off point, and then going to the gym to walk and read. i finished connie chung's memoir, reading most of it during the slow intervals on the treadmill. it should come as no surprise how inspiring and fun to read her words and life are.

after wrapping up the final orders of the year, i did a deep clean and re-organization of my home office and candle-making space. in the process, i found my t-square and saw it as a sign to start a new pixel art painting. it's probably my most ambitious one yet and while i have the grid and guides all drawn out, i'm still wondering what color(s) i want to go with. it would be nice to finish this before the new year.

we have one more ceramics class of the semester this week and i'm not sad, only because i am taking another class next semester. i love the community here, and i'm learning so much. in this week's class, i started feeling like my face was on fire and it started drying and flaking really bad. i was having an allergic reaction to an spf stick i applied after the gym the prior day. turns out "caprylate" is often coconut oil based. i had used this stick before, but i am currently in a hashimotos flareup, so my allergies are clearly heightened in their power.

with my face still on fire, i took andy to a workshop on making ceramic clocks! we made slabs, cut out the faces, painted them in underglaze, and started the waiting process for them to be go in the kiln - the techs there will fire and clear glaze it, and we'll get to pick them up and put on the clock mechanism in just a couple of weeks. i may even get to sneak a peek during class next week!

i've had a good couple of years with no hair loss, but unfortunately i discovered a new spot this week. i really shouldn't be surprised, this is my cost of being stressed: autoimmune flareups. how unhealthy it would be for me to say i dare envy those who can push themselves to the brink and go unscathed, because there is no such scenario - everyone pays for it somehow, some of us are just blessed to find out sooner.

how fortunate it was for me to find this bald spot 2 days before my quarterly endocrinologist appointment! i'm going back on a gluten free diet and taking the next couple of weeks of the holiday season to relax and rethink how i'm going to go into the new year with as many follicles unscathed. i really don't want to go through steroid injections, so i'll just have to monitor and see how things progress - if they do - in the next few weeks before i make my next move.

overnight we had our first significant snowfall. i don't have photos i can share because i stayed indoors and watched neighbors scrape and shovel their cars out from the comfort of my freshly organized office. we put colorful stringed lights around the apartment, i cooked a nice sunday dinner of braised tofu, and now i am writing this.

things i enjoyed this week

besides an allergy pill and drinking a lot of water, i have to give a lot of credit to the ordinary's "natural moisturizing factors + HA" for healing my face so quickly after my allergic reaction. if you're looking for a daily moisturizer for your face that actually helps, has no fragrance and is affordable, consider this one.
i enjoyed this browser rendering mystery that was impacting this blog and shouts out to dan for the tip on how to fix it. bugs rock, but so do easy fixes.
i reread animal farm this morning, just as a reminder for how absurd and historical all this capitalist and authoritarian bullshit is.
i am not a big scrambled eggs person, but i watch every techniquely with lan lam video because i always learn something. when it comes to her scrambled eggs, the fact that the butter is meant as a tool vs flavor and why was so helpful.

my face has healed, perhaps a part of my brain has too, and i'm looking forward to a week of just focusing on art and keeping my body moving.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #44: poked, prodded, but not fully deflated

2025-12-07T00:00:00Z

sometimes it's not until sunday when i can connect my exhaustion to the fact that it was a chaotic week. it happened again tonight.

the week started off with me busting my ass on candle stuff, but also beating myself up for being some fake idea of "behind schedule." i felt i was dropping the ball in every aspect of my life. dramatic!

there was a nice moment on tuesday where i was on the subway home finding out that james solomon won the jersey city mayoral run-off.

it was jamie's birthday, which we celebrated at larpa with robot karaoke. jamie did all the work, though. anyway, that's the reason why i was probably the last jersey citizen to know the election results.

that high evening then went low for a couple of days as i went through my annual thyroid ultrasound and quarterly bloodwork.

i just hate the being poked and prodded, walking over a mile to have warm goo pressed into my neck and paying over $200 for it. just a lotta bullshit delaying my candle-making!

friday i finally launched the "leftovers" holiday shop on bugs rock. getting this out there was an uphill battle but i learned a lot, which i'll share more on in a future blog post.

one thing i learned was that doing hobbies really occupies time that otherwise i'd be using rotting or being mean to myself. i spent over 3 hours at the ceramics studio and it was like my brain getting a vacation. i haven't seen it yet, but i heard my tissue box cover survived the bisque fire! the photo above is a coil pot i made into a trapezoid shape, perhaps a future candle vessel

things i enjoyed this week

i loved this episode of pablo torre finds out with maury povich and connie chung. i immediately went to my library's app to borrow an ebook of connie chung's memoir which i'm going to start after i publish this post.
i got myself a thin cotton robe that fits in well between my short satin robe and my thick cotton hotel robe. if i had the executive function, i would dye it a darker color.

thanks to everyone who has ordered candles so far and helped motivated me this holiday season! i'm excited for a week of packing orders and melting more wax.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #43: mopping and brûléeing

2025-11-30T00:00:00Z

i, a woman who was born to eat sweets and go on the computer, am getting pecan pie all over my laptop as i type this. welcome!

that photo was sent to andy by his pal. i love pals! this week was dominated by deep cleaning our home both in preparation for hosting our pals, phil and celeste, but also it's just a tradition of mine to deep clean this time of year. and coming off of that cold and my period, i was on a roll.

i have only 3 classes in this semester of hand-building ceramics, nothing i made has been fired yet but that's because i'm taking things slow! soon!

i've been enjoying the class, the space and the people here so much, i've signed up for a wheel throwing in the next semester. i started a scrapbook of photos of ceramic items torn from catalogs and magazines, for inspiration beyond the predictable candle vessels.

i deployed the new bugsrock.online site today, and candles will be coming up early this week. the holiday season is upon us and sometimes i'll be feeling woefully behind, but then i remember that i haven't even closed the 2nd full quarter of this shop's life. anyway, celeste and phil got a prototype from next week's drop.

like me, phil loves fire. this is maybe the 8th time he's brought some form of propane tank to light some part of our thanksgiving meal on fire. i do miss my past huge gatherings but the world has changed and i am grateful for our small table this year.

my dad's rehab only allowed one guest for their thanksgiving luncheon, so my brother went and he said they put raisins in the stuffing. on saturday i visited them for a few hours. it was crazy how many folks were coming home or going to the airport with luggage. i mean, i understand it's not crazy, i was just shocked at the volume of wheeled luggage.

when fussy friends puts the cunty santa doll in the shop window, that means it's officially the holiday season. i am not going to beat myself up for being behind, instead i am going to remind myself of the immense mount of work, challenges, and emotions i've gracefully carried over the past several months.

things i enjoyed this week

the zohran mamdani episode of the adam friedland show was so good, and they put it out impressively quickly - just a couple days after mamdani's first meeting with trump.
my sheep-counting bot on bluesky reached 15000. what a thrill.
here's weezer in 1994 playing at maxwell's in hoboken. my ex used to play shows there, it was very small!
i love watching the rockettes' youtube videos, especially when they show the costumes and go behind the scenes.

if you're in jersey city, make sure to vote in the mayoral run-off on tuesday (12/2) - perhaps for james solomon!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #42: sick of the cold and my phone

2025-11-23T00:00:00Z

i closed my retro last week with "i have a bit of a cold right now that i hope goes the fuck away after a good night's rest. i just need to work on the good night's rest part." well, she did not get a good night's rest and the cold did not go the fuck away. in fact, it knocked me off my ass to the point that i missed all my aerial and ceramics classes and couldn't visit my dad.

it wasn't the worst week ever, but the inconveniences definitely piled up: my period started as the cold was plateauing, a shipment of beeswax pellets arrived with the bag open inside the box, police activity at my destination station lead to me having to go all the way home to do therapy over phone like i was in quarantine...i wasn't feeling my best and the world wasn't giving me its best. life is a highway!

i took advantage of this part of my life where i've got flexibility to really double down on rest, whereas in corporate i would have been working from home and taking calls preceded by apologies for something i didn't do wrong. actually now as i'm typing this i remember that i did, in fact, take a zoom call job interview that i probably started by apologizing for my cold lmao i am a big, beautiful, intelligent dumbass. i happened to come across a really interesting job listing and reached out, so i guess that's technically working while sick but a lighter version. for the most part i was on the couch with my heated blanket, pumagreg, though!

on friday night, jamie and i had our final nyc robot karaoke gig of the year. it was our third time hosting for tech unlimited, a great organization that is a tech education-focused third place for neurodivergent students. it's always a highlight of my month when we get to host there. imagine the nyc classroom above filled with lots of dancing and singing, ok!

thanksgiving is in just a few days - very few days for all the mopping and cleaning and cooking i've got to do for our small gathering. i did hit a rare win by finally (after failing 3 years in a row) getting a tofurkey roast in time for thanksgiving. of course the day after my order, the store reached out saying that they oversold by 3 units - lucky me! fortunately they had an alternative that worked out even better in the end, so shouts out to vegan essentials for their customer support making things right and for the hilarious ups notification.

things i enjoyed this week

edibles and nyquil gel tabs, not on the same nights!
i started and finished (and learned a lot from) everything is tuberculosis, and made a reading list page on here to track books i've read.
i missed this when it happened, but this daily show interview of my friend kevin nguyen came up in my youtube algorithm this week and it's such a good interview! loved his book btw.
casey johnston wrote about the pelvic floor for wired, a part of the body that i only ever really hear about in the context of core work in aerial yoga which is crazy because everyone has it and not being mindful of it can cause so many problems.
i haven't hung it up on my wall yet, but i got this css color names poster from everyone's pal potch. a lovely gift for you or any css and/or color enthusiast.

as november is coming to a close, i was thinking about my lack of routine the past few months and how that gets me so anxious about what i may be forgetting and who i may be letting down. the answer is always nothing and no one, but that's how my anxiety works - especially when i'm on my period. add on top of that family stuff and the cold keeping me inactive and inside, i did a whole lot of nothing but Be On My Phone, and it made me feel REALLY bad - like eating too much candy makes me feel bad. so, i started making it a point this weekend to intentionally Be Off My Phone. it's been hard but i've been doing a good job these past 48 hours. today, i spent most of the day actually melting wax for the first time in awhile, reading books, and writing this retro. through working on kicking this phone habit, getting a haircut on tuesday, and breaking ~~bread~~ fake meats with friends, i hope to feel more myself in december than i have the last few months.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #41: slow vs. slop

2025-11-16T00:00:00Z

someone posted somewhere that no one blogs, then someone tagged me. the thing is, i don't blog...i write blogs. welcome to my weekly retro.

first thing on monday i had a dentist follow up. for the time being, teeth are good and no work is necessary! i love this art in the office building hallway. ai could never.

later that night we had a robot karaoke show at wonderville. kor from the first season of the rehearsal came to deliver a cameo in-person to jamie which hasn't happened before. it was a great night, shouts out to everyone who joined and sang with us. this is my last public robot karaoke show of the year. we have some exciting new features in the works for 2026.

SLOW means "slow", "loud", "over-pronunciate", and "wait", directions from my dad's speech therapist. he said that it should be SLOP (p for "pause") but that the therapist doesn't like having to say "slop". i literally don't care, so long as he's getting better - which he is!

i'm getting better at clay! this week we made a slab and finished our pinch pots. next week we are working on our tissue box cover and test tiles. i cracked open some air dry clay at home today, to practice and get a sense of what my clay toolkit should be.

i did a bunch of candle tests for the next bugs rock drop. i've also been working on a new site design for that next drop, which may drop on or around thanksgiving.

this is me after an hour of aerial yoga. we're at the point where it's dark out before class even starts, where only a few weeks ago it felt like it was daylight even after it ended. i'm just happy to have all my sweaters out.

things i enjoyed this week

friend of the blog potch has a new CSS named colors poster for sale. mine is on its way!
tasha told me that my growl voice reminded her of this kexp performance by die spitz. this was such a fun performance and i love their catalog of music videos.
tom's retrospective of val.town is a very good, thought-provoking read. i especially like the part about what they learned about the users of vibe-coding tools. i need a behind the scenes retrospective of literally every company, posthaste!

i have a bit of a cold right now that i hope goes the fuck away after a good night's rest. i just need to work on the good night's rest part.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #40: the week i saw canbubu

2025-11-09T00:00:00Z

this week was so weird. i got a lot done and experienced and felt a lot, but i also did not melt a single ounce of wax. it's almost like life is more than work, ok, i guess!

it's finally feeling like november with the chill in the air, the sky going dark way too early, and the fallen leaves getting wet and slimy on the already treacherous blue stone sidewalks. i may never own property but if i did, i'd choose a material upon which i'd not have to clench my ass cheeks every time i walk upon it. just my opinion!

tuesday was the election and the evening was electric! i'm very surprised at new jersey voting a democrat governor, let alone in a kind of landslide. it was nice to see, although it was despite what i believe was a very underwhelming, mid campaign even ignoring nyc (which, by the way, hell fucking yeah). excitingly, my councilman is advancing to a run-off election for jersey city mayor. it's just so cool to finally see progressive and socialist candidates winning on such a large scale!

before the polls closed, a friend and i checked out the canstruction sculptures in lower manhattan. at the end, i believe tomorrow, they tear down everything and donate all the cans and other non-perishables to the local food bank. it's not lost on me that this year's event carries a lot more weight given the current situation with snap benefits on hold.

here are two delivery robots having sex in front of everyone in downtown jersey city. back to canned food, though: one of my favorite stories to tell is how when i was a kid, my dad's satan-like 2nd wife enrolled us in ccd where one holiday season the class put together a basket of food to be delivered to "a poor family". later that week, a woman (not a robot) from the church delivered that basket to my family LMAO. as a kid, even, i was grateful for the donation but jfc could they not have delivered us a basket made by one of the other classes? those freaks had me sign the fucking card lol!

seriously, though, i appreciate that my dad had such a sense of humor and talked honestly about our financial situation at the time, although i feel like sometimes he was a bit too honest about the wrong things and less honest about the things that mattered. i'm just very glad he taught me how to entertain and find humor even in the times we were really struggling. all this is to say that i truly feel for all the parents who are walking that very thin line in being honest but not so honest that you parentify your child during times of food and housing scarcity. you are all doing your best under horrible circumstances.

two minutes before i had to leave for ceramics class the next morning, i read an email from a former employer, cc'ing all my coworkers from that time period a decade ago, letting us know that my former manager and pal, tyler, passed away. it was exactly four years ago that week when i hosted him for a few days before his big adventure, taking the above photo. since then he's traversed oceans, found love and a new hairline (he'd laugh at that), and so much more on his trip around the world - it's hard to be sad knowing that he left us on this bitch of a planet in a thrilling, adventurous way. the world is a lot less exciting without tyler on it, but he will always be in my mind and heart - especially when i make insane decisions.

one of my less insane decisions, although in retrospect it feels insane, was getting my first mammogram. from the moment i turned 40, every healthcare provider on the planet has been texting me, BEGGING ME to ~~let~~ pay them to put my tits in a vice grip and then tell me if my world is about to be turned upside down. fortunately, the screening came back all clear, but it's hard not to scream at how barbaric the humiliation rituals of being a woman are, let alone just a human.

things i enjoyed this week

you know how sometimes grocery stores will have new, random bars and candies at the start of the register line? mine does and last week they had one box of these marshmallow peanut protein bars and they are so good. i ordered a box online tonight. they taste good and have way less sugar than other bars i've been eating.
this explainer on wonder grocery on good noticings answered a lot of questions i have about how and why ghost kitchens and grocers like wonder exist. i never ordered from them, never will.
this keynote interview with pablo torre was really, really good. i am such a fan of torre's work and advocacy. even if you don't like watching sports, i think that pro sports are so impactful on our government and economy that it would be at your own risk to not follow that major part of our entertainment industry. that keynote is a good place to start.
lily allen's new album, west end girl had me listening while watching the lyrics on Tidal scroll by, like i was watching a suspenseful documentary. i love how this record sounds, i love the storytelling and her reason for sharing it, and i can't wait to request 'pussy palace' at a nemesis's wedding reception.
i really love the animated show haha, you clowns. andy recommended it, and i was hesitant because i often have a hard time enjoying dead mom content, but these characters are so sweet and the animation style is so good. it's a truly unique series.
i finished keith mcnally's memoir i regret almost everything. i think mcnally is a beautiful writer and i have a hard time believing half the words someone says in their memoirs. however truthful or not, it's fun to learn about old new york city back when seemingly regular people owned buildings and opened businesses in manhattan. i mean, i know some do, but definitely not like how they used to. mcnally to me not only seems like an asshole but he basically says so himself - he ends the memoir discovering instagram and finding purpose in being an asshole on there.

this week starts with what i was promised would be a 2-minute follow up at the dentist, followed by my first time back at wonderville for robot karaoke in months. wax will absolutely be melted after.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #39: hoping for a renewing november

2025-11-02T00:00:00Z

happy november! this week brought a new month along with other new things and, after a couple of days of bad post-menstrual anxiety exacerbated by the senseless consequences of our government shutdown, i am feeling renewed and ready for november.

work-wise, it was a chill week as the bugs rock halloween drop came to a close and i was able to start going heads down on what's next for the shop. one of the things that's next is beeswax.

i've been experimenting with both yellow and white beeswax. yellow is the standard wax with a natural sweet scent. white beeswax is often pressure-filtered to remove the nectar and pollen that gives natural wax its rich yellow color. you may see it described as bleaching, but it's through filter and sunlight and not, say, clorox. i keep the yellow wax in its given state, but the white wax i add color and fragrance to. both are soft and sticky enough to carve flowers into.

with halloween candles no longer my responsibility, i was able to go out more and enjoy others participation in the holiday. there was spookiness everywhere.

terrifying!

it was an exciting mail week as my thriftbooks ordered started coming through. i got andy a shogi book and i got myself a bunch of vintage candle-making books as well as a japanese airbrush book which i added to my airbrush library.

a new thing i started this past week was an 8-week semester of hand-building ceramics. after struggling on my own with air dry clay, i decided it was time for some proper, structured professional development. the studio, staff and members dogs were all great on day one, and i can't wait to build more and share what i come up with. it's nice to be joining a new community, too, and be reminded of the joy of making things with others.

another new thing is the computer i'm typing this retro on. i'd been using a 15" macbook pro from my last job that had that terrible keyboard everyone hated in 2018. after my recent work gig, i'd had enough of lugging that monster across state lines! the timing of its arrival was too good, as i got to catch some pedestrian plaza power-washing downtown and get home in time for an insane rain squall that hit the city.

we got so much powerful wind and rain, on friday during my walk to the gym i passed many neighbors outside putting their halloween decorations back up. after my workout, i had a call with a pal and then i rushed some face makeup and paper ears to represent pumagreg as i helped my friend lisa hand out candy to our local trick or treaters.

saturday i managed somehow, despite port authority's weird construction schedule, to get down to visit my dad with my brother. while he's able to feed himself - a huge improvement! - he's still only able to drink thick liquids, so i got him a jug of powder. this jug was not easy to find, it turns out duane reade keeps the dysphagia items on a shelf below the dick pills - or as they label it, "male romance".

things i enjoyed this week

my new computer, my first macbook air. it's nice to have a laptop that doesn't weigh 500 pounds and wasn't priorly used by no fewer than 3 people in a work setting. i'll write about how i set it up so i could do things like write this blog post and deploy it.
i gotta give a huge shout out to thriftbooks because it's such a treasure trove of vintage craft books, the kind of books that don't get made as much anymore unfortunately because of the internet. i'll share my candle library soon!
i really enjoyed the aesthetic and information in this book tour video from cute games club. iirc she also mentions thriftbooks a shop to buy out of print stuff. anyway, even if you're not a game designer, a lot of these books are great and she mentioned some that are now on my to-be-read list. i also just really love the editing of her videos.

if you're reading this, that means i managed to build and deploy this site successfully, a sign of more building and creating things this month in spite of those in power making it difficult to do so!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #38: the heat is on

2025-10-27T00:00:00Z

yesterday i finally caved and turned the heat on, started this retro, and then abandoned it as i suddenly had the urge and momentum (the edible hit) to design some candles for the holiday season. it's just crossed over from monday morning into monday afternoon, time for some retro closure.

this was my view as i was getting a brutal deep dental cleaning one week ago, today. i inherited challenging teeth from my father and hashimotos disease likes to do a number on my gums, which is why i'm never without Content about dental work. i absolutely have to pride myself on my ability to withstand pain (and ai slop) or else i'd avoid it entirely like older generations in my family and lose my teeth.

you have to admit it's a little funny that this is what i saw when i realized that i was sitting on the wrong side of the tracks as what was supposed to be my train home pulled up. fortunately the next train was in 38 minutes and not a full hour. i paused reading tim curry's 'vagabond' because my library hold on keith mcnally's 'i regret almost everything' came through. i went into it knowing nothing at all about the guy, just that i once spent $7 on a spray gun seltzer at the odeon. how peculiar is it that i keep picking up memoirs this month of older men who have had strokes, half of them by pure coincidence?!

this broadway show closed in june of 2023 after a 3-month run and yet its ads plastered my train home from visiting my dad. he's in an acute rehab and for the first time said he's seeing improvement. he really does look and sound great compared to the first time i saw him after his first stroke, he just needs to regain use of his left side - he calls his left leg his "flat tire".

these robots are so stupid, i sometimes catch myself rooting for someone blocking the crosswalk. this is hell lol. i took this photo on my way home from aerial yoga. i hit 150 classes attended at my main studio and wrote about my equipment. the thought of one of these robots driving into me and injuring me, forcing me to retire from amateur aerial yoga, has crossed my mind. those fuckers are getting faster and dumber.

they started tearing down the building that former jerseyscript venue barcade was in. rip. that was one of the few places that were around when i moved to jersey city in 2014. that was the year i quit the nba to work at bocoup, just as the donald sterling scandal was unfolding. when i can't remember what year i moved here, i just search his name. that racist bozo is 91 years old now.

pumagreg has been very comfy this past week, since not only is his heating pad about, but i've started turning the apartment heaters on. one great thing about taking an animal in is the sense of accomplishment i get when i see him zooted out on the couch, tail tip ticking back and forth like a metronome as he takes in the warmth from the living room heater. it almost makes the heating bill feel worth it lol.

this is not pumagreg, as you can tell by the fully-intact ears, but i love this pumpkin and can not wait to see the squirrels go asses-out feasting on these decorative snacks that my neighbors have laid out for them.

things i enjoyed this week

anil dash's "the majority ai view" is a very good essay that cuts through the lack of nuance in the broad ai discourse.
a content warning is necessary as it talks about murder and domestic violence: "kill list: hacking an assassination site on the dark web" was an great defcon talk given by carl miller. it was a very impressive use of storytelling to shine a serious light on a very scary part of the internet.
shared on bluesky by @andreagrimes.com, i wish i always knew about the nikon comedy wildlife awards. my favorite finalist is this eagle pissing on a hawk?
this stream vod of t-pain finishing his new song 'club husband' was really fun to watch. it's cool how he includes his community on the process, largely in part because they demanded he finished the song haha. your community is a great motivator!
i will never forget having just a few blocks left to walk to get home after therapy, with my phone in hand playing a news site livestreaming zohran mamdani's speech addressing the raging racism he's facing from even so-called allies. i'm going to remember that speech and the moment it was addressing forever.

have a spooky yet safe halloween.

xoxo jenn

what someone (i) who has done aerial yoga (over) 150 times brings to class

2025-10-22T00:00:00Z

huge news, jenn nation:

this is just one studio, my "main studio". i actually started my aerial yoga journey in manhattan in 2017 where there is a great studio, it's just inconveniently located for me. also a bit pricy. anyway, the majority of these 150 classes were from between june 2023 and now. in june my job was driving me 🍌 bananas 🍌 and i knew i needed to anchor myself to something physical and away from a screen or else i was going to ~~start a podcast~~.

aerial yoga helps me develop significant upper body and hip flexor strength, improve my literal balance, hang upside down like a bat a lot (which does wonders for my lower back), and offers me a couple hours a week where literally nothing is in my mind except "don't let go with that one hand or else you'll fall". in my years of classes, i have not seen a single person get injured except for one student who landed on their aluminum water bottle that was on their mat when they were doing a flip out of the silks - but she was able to walk it off and finish the class.

my studio has a $120/month unlimited pass which i use the shit out of. the teachers are great and the facilities are well-sized - it is not uncommon to find students removing or putting back on shoes in the hallway outside the manhattan studio space because of its tiny size. one thing that space has that my main studio does not have, though, are free mats. so let's talk about what i bring to class in a studio where one must rent a mat if they don't bring one.

my mat

i'm not paying $5 to rent a mat! if i rented a mat for 150 classes it would add up to 750 united states dollars!! for almost a year i was using a cheap, fugly mat i got from hell aka the wall street tj maxx. then i realized that because the mat is the single most important prop next to the silks (this is aerial yoga, not aerial circus - an important distinction imho), i should have a really good one. in may of 2024 i dropped $94 (or a month and a half of rentals) on a manduka grp adapt yoga mat. this isn't sponsored by the way - in fact, the one i got isn't even in stock (jet black, 71"). it's surprisingly hard to find a plain black yoga mat!

i got the grp because it was spoken highly of by people who go to hot yoga. i did hot yoga several years ago and hated it, by the way, so you shan't be getting a review of this mat in a hot yoga setting from me, but a pro tip of mine is to follow what the hot yoga folks are doing because they are putting their gear through the fucking ringer. anyway, the grp has performed SO well for me in the last 18 months of me using it and still looks and feels as good as new. one thing to watch out for is that it's a heavy mat - 5.5 lbs, which i felt immediately when i carried it the first time. speaking of carrying...

mat carrier

this mat was significantly bigger and heavier than my old mat, so i needed a new bag for it. i got the go play mat carrier which was 3.0 at the time, now it's 4.0 - whatever that means, i can't find a changelog. oh, and i paid $40. in the same order i got a small bottle of manduka's mat wash because i didn't want to risk ruining the mat with some secondary market cleanser before my adhd was ready to become an expert on yoga mat wash formulas (i'm still waiting for that to happen).

the bag holds the mat via two buckle straps that are easy to put on and very strong. they're also adjustable so if you like to bring your own yoga blanket or towel (my studio provides blankies) it could absolute hold both. in the storage pouch i keep miscellaneous smaller yoga necessities.

miscellaneous smaller yoga necessities

these items are pretty self explanatory

hair ties, for my hair
pepper spray, for my commute
small hand towel, for my sweat

water bottle

i have to admit, i often forget to bring water, but it's okay because i often show up to class hydrated and then chug a bunch of water after i get home. if it's an intermediate class, though, i'm bringing water, because i know i'm going to be doing a lot of back flips which give me heartburn lol.

that's pretty much it. like with most physical activities, you don't need a lot of things but the things you do need you should try to invest in once you realize you're taking it seriously. go on reddit and look for gear recommendations, and keep a list of things you want but aren't quite ready to buy yet - you may come across a sale at some point. stay hydrated, and don't let go of the silk if the instructor says not to let go of the silk.

here's to (over) 150 more tension-free inversions! 🥂 (non-alcoholic)

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #37: boston soy iced latte party

2025-10-19T00:00:00Z

this past week felt like 3, because it started with me headed by train to boston, where the nor'easter rudely followed me.

i came up here for a consulting that i did a good job at. the weather was awful though, raining in all different directions and cold. i even felt bad for boston for getting such a bad rep on this trip.

i wasn't up there long, but i did get a chance to meet up with my pal mike and eat some ravioli and talk about how i think we've made enough qr codes, let's give it a rest i think!

one of the mornings i ordered a "cafe latte" for room service and in the notes i said "iced if available, with almond milk or oatmilk, coconut allergy" and the guy delivering it said "we only had soy, so here's two soy iced lattes" and i drank one and almost threw up an hour before gig. on my last night it finally stopped raining which was great because i ran out of toothpaste and walked way too far for a cvs.

being stuck inside meant i mostly got room service and watched bravo. i don't watch it often, so i was texting my brother (an enthusiast of the genre) a lot of questions. i just can't believe they want us to think they are friends???

it was nice to get home after the 5 hour commute, everything pretty much dry after the huge storm. my hotel's heater kept making knocking sounds and so i didn't really get more than 30 minutes of sleep at a time, which is why when i got home i passed out for a couple hours.

finally, someone brought a dog to the hospital so my dad would have at least one trading card before he graduated from the hospital to rehab. i haven't seen the new place yet, but he was playing bingo the other day so i'm feeling pretty good about it.

all the traveling and the shitty weather knocked me out the entire weekend. at least it was the first time we didn't need to turn on the ac at night – of course, it was the first week we needed to turn the heat on at night. i wish there was more of an in-between seasons, but at least pumagreg is loving it that we've got his heating pad out again.

things i enjoyed this week

i just started (about 10% of the way in) reading tim curry's memoir, vagabond that just came out. my dad exposed me to rocky horror picture show and it at a young age lol so he's long been one of my all-time favorite performers.
the employees who run the dining car for amtrak between new york and boston are always SO NICE and fun to talk to. it's literally the only thing i like about that godforsaken.
mike made me cookies to bring back home. they're vegan and have pumpkin, nutmeg, and white chocolate chips. i'll ask him for the recipe and link it here lol sorry.

this week is back to my standard normal week finally, except for a dental cleaning first thing in the morning. it's also the last week i'll be selling halloween candles. it's time for me work on the holiday season offerings.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #36: following pumagreg's lead during the nor'easter

2025-10-12T00:00:00Z

it's sunday evening and i shot up after nearly spending all day horizontal on the couch and realized - i need to write a retro! it's kind of incredible that i've made it to week 36, let alone remember that it was sunday. let's rock.

spooky season is upon us and what's spookier than a nor'easter, besides all the news and weather sites making sure we expect to get our asses rocked by it - using words like batter? lashing?? nj dot com, are we okay???

meanwhile i'm feeling like pumagreg.

it's because i've had a lot of context-switching to do this past week. i had to finish putting together, and then launching, the new scary candle collection - out now btw 🌝 and i've got some light traveling coming up this week for some consulting work which i've been working hard to prep for over the past few days. i've also been continuing to visit and help my dad, who is still in the hospital. it's hard to believe that an entire month has gone by since our entire family dynamic and his mobility turned upside down.

i streamed for the first time in over a month because i just needed to reconnect with civilization. it's truly something i lose the comfort of doing if i don't do it consistently, talking at a camera. but it was nice to reconnect with pals in the chat. i have been on the move a lot but not for social reasons, and i have to remind myself to intentionally connect with friends. i imagine that's something a lot of us are still figuring out since the pandemic started.

after i publish this, i'm going to pack for a small work trip, shower, and then do what pumagreg does best: lay in bed in andy's spot for the next few hours. here's hoping that nj dot com is just sensationalizing and that everyone remains safe and do not lose any halloween decorations in this storm.

things i enjoyed this week

andy and i finished blippo+ last night which we both really enjoyed. it was published by panic, who made my code editor of choice - which happens to be on sale for the next couple of days it looks like!
speaking of nova, i updated the bugs rock "about" page to list all my suppliers and tools that i use for my business and art.
my time timer has really come through for me this week with all the context switching and tasks i needed to get through this week.

tomorrow morning i head out of town by way of train and i need everyone of you to send DRY COMMUTE energy my way, ok, love you, thank you!!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #35: i'll tell YOU when it's time for spooky things

2025-10-05T00:00:00Z

i was wondering how to intro this retro of the past week and was thinking about how it's a new month and i never went over my september goals or wrote goals for october. that's about where i'm at in relation to the ellipse of time, about a third of a radian behind.

my candle-making area has never looked better though. i finished designing labels and packaging last night, and today i made the final batch of inventory needed for launch. after i wrap up this retro and make dinner, i am finishing up copy and photo direction so i can get these spooky candles on the shop tomorrow.

i love halloween, although i wish it was maybe 2 weeks further out than it actually is. well, actually, do i? sometimes i have to check in with myself as i lament the passing of time and unpack whether said lamenting is actually a form of procrastination and, if so, why am i procrastinating? more often than not, it means i'm just overwhelmed.

i love halloween season. the temps change, there's a bit more whimsy and flavor everywhere, and pumagreg acts like an actual demon as the days get darker. we recently had to put a sliding-door lock on our hallway closet because he kept going in there to get to a spot behind the water boiler where he cannot be reached if stuck. like me, he can be a real bitch sometimes lol.

we've got a couple of hot days ahead before it seems to drop 20 degrees F to what is a more acceptable, true fall temperature. this week i'd like to put away the summer season of clothing and break out all the sleeves!

but before i do all that, i have to get this halloween candle collection out. it's been awhile since i've worked with deadlines tied to dates i have absolutely no ability to move - it reminds me of crunch time ahead of the nba season when i worked there. we'd joke about asking the commissioner to move all-star weekend the week before it was happening so we'd have more time to work on some niche webpage for the event. i'm confident i'll get these spooky candles out with plenty of time lol.

things i enjoyed this week

the newest 'answer in progress' is about millennial gray and has been in my watch later all week. i finally got to catch up on it. i just love how much work go into these while still being approachable and not overwhelming with extreme production and/or stock b-roll.
this video about the witness protection program and how it impacted one family was a devastating watch about something i knew existed but did not know how it worked.
i got some supplies in this week for not only making and shipping the next candle collection, but to work on my 2026 planners. i got some book cloth and cool papers from talas, which came quickly and packed really nicely. i can't wait to start binding!

i'm going to go do some airbrushing and THEN i SWEAR i will do some goals/planning for october. i got back on the rails this week, time to pick up the speed.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #34: clawing myself back into a routine-hole

2025-09-28T00:00:00Z

happy monday. i come to you all $23.46 richer, one click away from spending it all entirely on shipping for a 10-lb bag of wax - better than spending it on some dumb shit, right? here's the weekly retro.

last week i put a bunch of original watercolor paintings in the shop for sale. i've not sold paintings before, but i really didn't like the shop having nothing to buy in it. once i get the halloween candles out and wrap up some consulting work i'm doing, i have some ideas for larger pixel art paintings i'd like to make.

i am also taking this drop as a fire under my ass to airbrush more, so i'm including a free surprise airbrush sketch for each painting sold. i'm starting to realize what style of airbrushing feels fun and natural to me, and also being intentional about warming up (see the newsprint above) so i can get better at precision and managing the air flow for the paints i like to use - most of the time, i'm using liquid watercolor.

beside going over october plans and goals, i plan to launch my limited edition halloween candles later this week. it's a niche collection, so it's not a large amount of inventory, but the creation process is kind of labor intensive. i leveled up in a lot of my techniques, despite the constant interruptions of Life Happening.

my dad is still in-patient but making progress in literal small steps. i feel like my brother and i are getting into a groove of better communication, scheduling and making visits. it's becoming part of my routine now after a couple of weeks of flailing - i actually went to yoga and the gym, and i managed to see friends. it warrants repeating that last month i pretty much didn't talk to anyone in my family except for monthly calls or texts with my brother, and now i'm visiting our dad and talking on the phone for hours with our dad's sister...every day is truly a winding freaking road.

ever since my dad's heart attack, i feel like the days have been getting slower. i'm used to looking at the clock and being like "oh it's 4pm already" but now when i look up it's only 1pm. it's around 80 F degrees out, so perhaps time is moving slower until it makes sense for the clock to strike october o'clock. this week is a time for establishing new goals, trying new things, and removing a ton of cotton from a new bottle of pills - a monthly event i call "build a bear workshop".

things i enjoyed this week

i've talked about one of my favorite cooking content creators before, big vegan flavor author nisha vora. this week i made baingan bharta which came out great. we have an electric stove (derogatory) so i couldn't grill the eggplant but she includes notes on how to get around that.
shouts out to my pal mike pennisi who not only talked on the phone with me for like an hour while i waxed on and off about the radical concept of indefinite hiatus vs. no-contact with people, but he then sent me cookies he baked in the mail along with an umbrella i had left during my last visit.
i really enjoyed this video from field notes about their new "the chicago look" edition along with the actual cover design.

it's time for me to go find where my attention span is hiding because there's a lot of shit to do!!

xoxo jenn

my "shopping" note keeps me from buying dumb shit all the time

2025-09-24T00:00:00Z

one thing i did not get to do until i was in my mid-thirties was buy dumb shit all the time. dumb shit used to be more expensive and better quality than the dumb shit you can buy today, but it's so much more easy and everyone and everything is or has an ad, so i feel like i have to work super hard to combat the urge to buy cheap, low quality dumb shit. i don't shop from amazon or target, but a lot of small businesses are just reselling dumb shit they bought on amazon or target - which makes me the sucker! i just wanted a usb-chargeable portable fan!

for the past year and a half i have been keeping a plain note (it started as an apple note but now i use obsidian) titled "shopping" that i've built a habit of opening any time i want something i see online. for each month i have a "didn't buy" and "did buy" list. i don't include groceries or things that should be free like my prescriptions and copays. here's what my note in july 2024, the month i started this, looked like:

shopping

july

didn't buy:

kneaded eraser

harder & steenbeck infinity airbrush

did buy:

"karaoke professional" hats for jamie and i

it's important to note that i started that note the month i gave my notice to quit my job, so i knew that i was about to go into an era of not having disposable income for awhile until i got bugs rock off the ground. regardless of your financial situation, i think this is a good practice as it has served me in a number of ways. it slows me down and lets me come up for air for a bit while i'm surfing the web. also, it gives me permission to let a feeling of wanting something pass because i have a log of those moments and can always come back to it. for instance, i had "new yoga pants" under "didn't buy" for 6 months in a row until i realized that this means i should just buy myself new yoga pants - i clearly, deeply wanted them because my pants at that time were too big and negatively impacting my practice.

keeping a log like this has certainly helped me curb my overconsumption. for some reason in september of 2024 i wanted a pair of jeffrey campbell heels? clearly i was high lmao because i have no desire in full consciousness - or business, even - to be wearing jeffrey campbell heels. this isn't ageism, it's simply physics.

anyway, no one asked, but in case you were hoping to try to curb your spending, especially on dumb shit, maybe give this fairly low effort exercise a shot. i think the hardest part is building the habit of actually opening the note. you can do this by setting an alarm/reminder on your phone for when you think your edible is going to hit. don't ask me why i know that has worked for a non-zero number of people.

xoxo jenn

p.s. of course what makes something "dumb shit" is relative. harder & steenbeck airbrushes are by no means dumb or shitty, but for me to get a second airbrush at this point in my practice would be a dumb shit move.

p.p.s. you do not have to keep a shopping note! you don't have to do or read anything i say! this should go without saying but i understand everything actually does need to be said these days.

weekly retro #33: being bad at new things is good

2025-09-21T00:00:00Z

today my body and brain seemed to go on strike, it's been such a hectic week with my dad's health taking a bad turn. he's in the best possible position for what he's going through, and my brother and i have been in a good rhythm of being helpful in the situation. honestly, my brother is doing most of the work!

my dad and i have a similar sense of humor and also my hair is aging just like his did. that didn't stop him from calling me paulie walnuts when he noticed my grays. i now know how tech ceo's feel getting punched up on.

lisa came over earlier in the week to keep me company and help me break open some air dry clay kits i've had for awhile. i've not done air dry clay before and it shows. we were so bad at it and made such a mess, we decided that not only are we going to try again soon, we are absolutely going to become really fucking good at it.

failing at things as low stakes as crafts is a really good exercise for handling failure or a sense of helplessness in moments that are higher stakes. i'm doing pretty well considering everything going on, i just need to remember to rest more.

my dad had been moved to a hospital better suited for his condition which is closer and near a mall, which i needed to find a case for his new phone. the phone is least of his actual issues, but it's a big score to settle as it was his biggest issue before his health declined. my brother saved his life, i saved his phone is what i keep saying. i picked my brother up his first labubu at the mall for his troubles.

andy got a labubu too. he's been really supportive of my chaotic sudden train rides and exasperated rants about how fucking horrible it is to get around most parts of new jersey when you don't have a car. he's been taking good care to make sure i'm eating, but i feel most put together when i'm trying new meals for us. we really enjoyed this beans and tomatoes over yogurt by nisha vora that i made. she posted that just when i needed something quick to make and feel normal.

of course, this all has kept me away from candle-making. i managed to fit in a session where i've been experimenting with marbled hexagonal candles in glass. my first tries were better than i anticipated, but i learned a lot and know my next session will go much better. this and the clay have been welcome distractions and challenges. i finally published my post about candles i got myself last month. this means i can buy more, right?

i haven't had any candles to sell for almost 2 weeks now since the bugs rock restock sold out, so i think it may be a good time to list some watercolors to get them off my desk and make a few more bucks. i must say, it's very nice to not have to explain in detail what's going on to every manager and coworker that needs to know or just asks out of curiosity. i have been able to take however much time i need and work at my own pace, which is nice. i'm very eager and itching to do more, though.

things i enjoyed this week

i've been obsessed with pablo torre's investigation into alleged salary-cap circumvention by steve ballmer as well as mark cuban's insane, droning and hole-digging response.
i got the clay kits lisa and i used from barkley and it had more than everything we needed.
i've started trying oils, dyes and jars from lone star candle company and they're good. supplies ship fast and customer service is very good.

this week i want to get back into my routines that have been fully on pause for 2 weeks, knowing full well that i won't be able to do everything i want, but that whatever i can do is more than enough.

xoxo jenn

here is the latest on "candles" #2

2025-09-18T00:00:00Z

it's been over five years since i blogged about what candles i've been burning. shortly after that post i started making my own candles, so many and so often that i was able to start giving them away to friends and coworkers. and then five years after that post, i launched bugs rock to sell them.

blah blah blah, this is all to say that candle-making replaced candle-collecting. when you have a bunch of candles already it's hard to justify getting more. when my first launch went better than i had expected, i decided to celebrate by splurging on a few candles by other people that i've had on my wishlist for a very long time.

here are the candles i got. i went into this spree with a $150 budget and spent a total of $140.44 (prices include shipping to nj and sales tax). i brought them all to an outdoor patio to unbox with my pal lisa, and then took over a month to photograph them and finish writing this post.

vacation candles - ball boy scented candle

i've known about pool.fm for years, before they branched out into the vacation brand and made sunscreen i unfortunately cannot use because of a coconut allergy. a few years ago they did a collaboration with prince (the sporting goods company) and among the products was a scented candle with notes of tennis balls, sunscreen, and...cucumber sandwiches. i had to have it, now i do, and let me tell you: they NAILED the fragrance. i really love the fragrance and glass jar, and i had a blast photographing it. this is one of my all-time favorites.

listing: ball boy candle
cost: $45.63, with a 10% discount code for signing up to their mailing list
what i'd try next: lobby candle

harlem candle company - deux amours and dream scented candles

i came across this brand watching luxury candle reviews. i heard nothing but positive things and they sell 4oz tins - so i was able to fit more than one of their scented candles in my budget this round. i have to admit, i forget what deux amors smelled like because lisa loved it so i gave it to her immediately. i came for dream, an elevated lavender fragrance. i wanted this to be my desk candle, but its hot throw - the best i've ever experienced - is so rich that it fills quite a large room and i can't keep so close to me.

listing: deux amours and dream
cost: $43.91 for both candles together, with a 10% discount code for signing up to their mailing list
what i'd try next: duke ceramic luxury candle

scandles - scented egg candle 6-pack carton

one of the most popular non-jar candles on the market are photorealistic fruits and vegetables, and that's kind of scandles' main deal. while a normal person would pick one of their beautiful scented fruits, i chose eggs because they came in a carton - that's fun! everyone who has come to my place in the past month has gone home with an egg. the cold throw smells just like five spice, which i love in my food but not so much in my air - fortunately, the hot throw gives off a nice, light vanilla and cinnamon fragrance instead. i love that they included a free tomato candle, and i will probably give it away since i've been up to my tits in tomato candles lately.

listing: egg candles - 6-pack box
cost: $50.90 total, the mini tomato ($18 value) was added for free
what i'd get next: chili pepper candle

if you want to keep up with candles i've seen by other candle-makers and went "whoa, ok" you can keep up with them on my "candles by others" pinterest board. if there's a candle i should add here, or you'd like me to talk about, let me know - see "contact me" on jennschiffer.com!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #32: hospitals, trucks, and a little coke

2025-09-15T00:00:00Z

i've been in a perpetual state of being 48 hours behind the rest of the world, and so is nearly the case with this retro. my week started out with me being really stressed about how i was going to do a good job at the 5 events i was responsible for being some sort of host at. but then that all kind of went out the window when my brother called to tell me our dad had a heart attack.

those who know me know me understand that my family situation is very complicated and why it had been over a decade since i'd taken the fairly short, cloudy-windowed train down to where they are. to be honest, i figured our dad would be fine - he pretended to have a second heart attack when he saw i had tattoos - but i wanted to make sure my brother who saved his life wasn't going through all of this alone.

even though i spent a lot of my life in that part of new jersey, it still felt like mars. breakfast was good and cheap, there were hardly any sidewalks and the cars were unnecessarily large. i find it to be kind of scary, to be honest!

coming home after spending a few hours trying to neutralize the collective family anxiety by telling stories that didn't give away too much about what they've missed in my life, trying to get my dad's phone fixed - a journey i'm still on - and choosing to spare myself of getting caught up on the news... i felt like a bucket of ice water was dumped on my head, a reminder that your body can just stop working at any moment for really any reason.

i saw my endocrinologist the other day, i forgot to tell her about my dad. whenever i get asked about my family medical history, i always just say "i don't know". now i have some information, i guess?

through this chaos, i had to let go of some of those hosting duties, save for one very unique robot karaoke installation we did out of a uhaul truck. it was a nice break from reality, being a facilitator of an evening of magic and art for a magical artsy community.

by the way, if you were the guy who gave me "a little coke", i do apologize for angrily tossing it back at you, thinking it was cocaine. my dad told me at a young age about len bias to, effectively, scare me out of ever trying the stuff. anyway if we ever do this again, i need to a hang a "prank-free zone" poster up.

here's jamie, yufeng and i after unpacking the show, holding a lot of water instead of drinking it, dazed from a long night of doing something really hard! i wanted to sleep for 24 hours.

but sunday it was time for me to have some fun that i wasn't responsible for creating for others for once. i filled out a lottery form for banana ball last november and not only did i win, our seats were perfect. it was my first time at yankee stadium, and i discovered that hell is actually the 4 train downtown after an 80 degree outdoor game running on 3 hours of sleep. heaven was sleeping in until noon today.

things i enjoyed this week

the webpage "understanding nj transit rail car window issues" lol
i've been thinking all week about zach fox saying elon looks like he swallowed a big jbl speaker
i needed a laptop charging bank asap for the robot karaoke on wheels gig and did an order for pickup at best buy. it was a nice experience that i am glad to have and will surely miss in 5 years when none of these stores are able to exist because of private equity scams
i'm still really enjoying obsidian for my notes and hope to dive in soon to this thread where i asked folks their tips and tricks

i'm already up way too late writing this thing as i'm headed back to visit my dad and brother again tomorrow. i hope i get one of the trains where they allege to have replaced the windows.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #31: big pharma deez nuts

2025-09-07T00:00:00Z

it's pretty late into the night as i type this. after 3 trips to the laundry room there was finally a machine available. i only cried once. i'm post menstrual and my thyroid hormones are abnormal again. thank god for edibles (legal) and ring dings out of the freezer.

long story short: my thyroid numbers were too far on one end so we changed my dosage. but that made my numbers too far on the other end - because my old pills were actually less potent than we thought (they were since recalled, lol). this is manageable - i'll go back to my former dose with the non-generic and in a few weeks i should be back to "normal" but holy shit whose tires do i slash about this? anyway, my week started with getting blood drawn.

as i watched the butterfly needle go in my arm for like the 3rd time this year, i thought "i could be a phlebotomist." i often think about things i'd like to try to do myself. this week i also thought i could design my own planner since my original plan(ner) didn't seem to be coming through. i know how to bind books now, i have a printer and paper. i have a book of paper where i can sketch out my future book of paper. maybe i'll use it to stay organized as i work on my phlebotomy journey.

i am not going to become a phlebotomist, at least not anytime soon. i'm also not going to become a wildlife photographer. as i stopped to take this photo of a neighbor's hydrangea, a squirrel dropped an acorn from up high and it hit me in the head. i didn't cry. i went home and launched a candle restock.

when i'm feeling really bad, i turn on the double boiler and try to play with wax for a couple of hours. it's calming, but i still have to pay attention so not to burn myself. tomorrow (9/8) marks 2 months since bugs rock went live as a store where you can actually buy things (if you're in the united states). these tariffs, on top of everything else going on because of our administration and politicians in general, are so stupid and cruel. today i found out kremer pigments was closing their ny location. i spent hours in that basement learning how to make watercolor paints and studying mediums and pigments.

this is a transparent png of my most important watercolor palette, i posted it with a few others on my tumblr the other day. i made about a third of those paints at kremer, an experience i wrote about in june 2022. it sucks they are closing and it's not to anyones benefit.

here's a selfie i took at michael's. it wouldn't be surprising for all of these big box stores to not exist in a couple of years. where will we get halloween decorations of skeletons making out with each other alongside stamp pads? i wonder what the candle-makers who use shein and temu and amazon will have to deal with. i've avoided those stores, but i'm sure the stores i do use are just reselling from them anyway and i'm the sucker.

meanwhile, pumagreg. another source of peace and joy amongst the raging hormones and raging world. when i tell him "you know i pack a chainsaw" whenever i catch him trying to go into the closet he's not allowed in, he knows i'm just goofing around.

things i enjoyed this week

two different people sent me different limp bizkit memes and now i have rollin' stuck in my head. i know i'm most of my friends' "nu-metal friend" but i was a latecomer to limp bizkit. they should make a coffee brand so i can have their mug alongside korn's and coheed's in my cabinet.
i've been using obsidian for about a month now, i think? and i've completely weaned myself off of apple notes and non-scheduled reminders. i am syncing through icloud and it works great. i use a kanban extension, and i have a lot more extensions to explore. on the topic of tech, i mentioned trying kagi search and when my trial was up i decided not to continue - just isn't for me.
i really liked this video about the impact of the sears catalog on the jim crow era (you should subscribe, it's a great account). sears is one of those stores that either don't exist or are on their last dying breath and in several years there will be grownups who don't remember them. similar store names for me include caldor's, the wiz, coconuts, and fye.
this interview with mona chalabi was so good. informative, emotional. chalabi is such a great storyteller and i find her struggle with being in a field with no accountability for its foundational principles (journalism) to be very devastating and there are parallels there with how i feel about tech. she also does a great job in centering the lies of media coverage of iraq in a discussion about how they are lying about gaza today. she once spoke at a tech conference my former employer held and i got to talk to her and...that's it, i just wanted to brag that i got to meet her.

this is going to be a very busy and logistically challenging week. i'm going to pace myself, relax when i can, and remember that a lot of what i'm doing is not so serious to warrant beating myself up. and soon my thyroid will agree.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #30: live laugh cup

2025-08-31T00:00:00Z

i just got home, full of veggie burger, from one of our favorite spots to go with a couple of local pals. the weather is fantastic, my edible is about to hit, here's a gif of a cup that took me an hour to convert from .mov last night:

this cup is a souvenir from when i spoke at brooklyn web workers on monday. it's very live laugh love but about competing hot beverages, it's insane. my talk went well, it was a great crowd to speak at, and i think justin put together something really cool and important. my talk wasn't recorded, but since some folks have reached out asking for video i think i'll either do a public version of the talk on a livestream soon.

then on tuesday, jamie and i presented robot karaoke at chinatown.js. this crowd was great too - a bit of overlap with the night before it turned out! one of the hosts sent a clip of the post-talk group sing which i added to this youtube short.

after a couple days of writing, talks and community to and from the city, it was hard not to rot the next 48 hours. i kept things physically and mentally chill by organizing my space - and i found my freaking e-book reader that went missing in like 2018. the last book i read on it was bad blood lol. i charged it up and while smelling fragrance oils on stream the chat affirmed that i may be able to get library books on it. and i did! i'm like a third of the way in ina garten's memoir. i love libraries and technology!

i joined my first every candle science livestream and had a fun time demanding a true cavendish banana scent, evangelizing petrichor, and asking important questions to the very awesome experts at candle science. i don't know, though, if i sold fragrance oils i would absolutely mix them all together - at least for content!

as far as my own candles go, i sold out of the first round of my first collection! this was exciting and affirming, and i celebrated by buying a ton of fragrance oils (that's why i was organizing them on my livestream). i did finish curing a fresh batch of nice tomato and next week i'll have more eggs in stock.scroll to the bottom of bugsrock.online to see how to sign up for the store newsletter and find out first about launches.

i'm currently working on prototypes for the next collection, which is going to be a ~spooky~ version of the first one. i got to play around with beeswax for the first time since i was a teenager, and even back then it was just rolling sheets. this time, i was doing another first: hand-dipping candles to make birthday candles for an important friend having an important birthday. my first favorite part of candle-making is the experimentation and learning something new, and my second favorite is gifting what i make to cool people.

things i enjoyed this week

we saw prince's sign o' the times concert film in imax which basically reactivated my crush on sheila e. as well as andy's crush on the plasma ball (you can listen/read about it in this podcast).
here's a new glitter text generator
for a soothing, education time, watch this book binding process
i really enjoyed this pbs doc that went behind the scenes of the years-long rezoning fight for industry city, a divisive complex a block away from where i was born and where my mom was laid to rest. it really shows how incredible and diverse the community there is and how much fight they've got.
i'm obsessed with andy baio's investigative work on the will smith ai controversy

i need to remember that i'm getting bloodwork on tuesday morning and i feel like i am more likely to remember it by typing it out here and maybe some of you will remind me hehehe.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #29: (close to) an ego death by wax and words

2025-08-24T00:00:00Z

the latter half of august is so weird because it's so hot but the fall season is being rolled out in the form of schools going back into session, autumnal merchandise being set on shelves, and the holiday season for candle-makers has gone into effect. meanwhile, i'm like...

weeeeeeeee

this week i hit 6 weeks of running bugs rock. the first wave of friends and follower sales has died down a bit which is great timing, because packaging and shipping takes a lot of energy and time and i really need to go heads down on what the fall/holiday products are going to be.

the above graphic came across my tumblr feed this week at a very opportune time. experimenting on a new candle idea using new and challenging techniques while also writing a talk for monday's inaugural brooklyn web workers meetup - where i am ultimately explaining to a bunch of tech workers why i am no longer a tech worker - had me get about as close to an ego death as i can imagine someone can get to while making a candle and presentation slides.

but when pumagreg gives you lemons...the fact that i'm writing this talk while i'm going through this creative challenge is weirdly great as it's forcing me to face lessons i've experienced in my candle-making and small business-making that i had already come across before during my time in tech/corporate - which is ultimately the thesis of the talk i'm giving. nice job on the lemonade, jennifer.

the weather this week has been amazing, with even a couple days where i didn't have to run the air conditioner. the energy bills in new jersey have skyrocketed, meanwhile my tolerance for the heat has not. how curious!

saturday was the last installment of the book-binding workshop i'd been attending at the library. i think half of us showed up, i assume the others were on vacation. i feel like they missed the best part!

here is my first ever hardcover book that i've bound! when i was gluing down the pink paper to the cover and closed it just to see what it looked like, i was like "wait, why does this look like a real book" lol. i'm so happy with how it came out and i will definitely be making more.

it's funny, refreshing even, how the rollercoaster of emotions this week was mostly driven by me creating things, not by a c-level executive's decisions. my mistakes empowering me to level up and try again to make something people love, versus making me feel like i'm in trouble over something i don't really even find joy in...this week had its challenges but it was necessary to remind me i'm on a very good path.

things i enjoyed this week

this drone footage of the backstreet boys performing at the sphere landed on my recommended video stream and i went to the main account to find more and really enjoyed seeing this behind the scenes of them capturing the ny liberty banner ceremony. very cool footage.
zach leatherman shared this sweet piece of eleventy and family history. i love that his grandma typed out her letters but signed her name, and that zach has this wonderful souvenir of a time.
i've been following bad comic art on tumblr for awhile, but wanted to share for those of you who want to get better at identifying the difference between a woman drawn by a man vs any other gender.

jamie's on his way over now so we can work on our talk for chinatown.js on tuesday, with the day before being my brooklyn web workers talk. look at me, leaving tech but fully booked up on the tech meetup circuit!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #28: pivoting to video

2025-08-17T00:00:00Z

welcome to my weekly retro, the 28th one. get a load of this hibiscus flower:

this is a light mode version of the hibiscus i shared a couple weeks ago. i'm being for real right now when i say that i had no idea what a hibiscus looked like until a month ago. every day my world gets a little bigger. you're probably wondering "what's that gray watch you're wearing?" and that's a great question.

in the last retro i said i gave up "wearables" and it's been going great, no one has been harmed directly by me not generating personal health data for the corporate cloud THAT I KNOW OF. anyway, my new rinky-dink watch arrived with a manual so small that andy thought i was just casually reading a chick tract. then my pal phil (gpg) came over and we went to jerseyscript, which is now at pet shop - try the tacos!

on the topic of technology, i published a list of non-ai image websites for when you want to add an image to your blog or newsletter and don't want to cheapen the shit out of it with ai slop. someone on some social platform responded to this with something along the lines of "here's a website: go outside and take a photo" and i was going to reply "love that energy! also outside is not a website" but i opted to not waste both our time. i am always outside taking a photo.

i'm also always inside taking a photo. everyone say "hi, pumagreg."

i finished the html and javascript for my art page gallery on stream after writing 3 books worth of alt text behind the scenes. you can go through all the pages of my book projects now on jennschiffer.com/art. i did a rare night stream to go through the tiny award nominees. i just paused writing this to cast my vote!

i did a lot of work to actually finish what my vision was for the initial bugs rock shop homepage. i've really been enjoying making videos and taking product photos to fill out the site, which is funny because when working in tech i hated having to do anything with regards to visuals lol. i also added a listing for free baby tomato samples in case you're curious as to what a tomato candle smells, but not ready to go all in on a whole "nice tomato"

i've even gotten into setting up nice staging for other people's candles and taking videos of them melting, just for fun. i'm basically selling candles so i can afford to buy everyone elses candles.

and probably the biggest win of the week: the four warm zeppoles i wolfed down this afternoon in the 90 degree shadeless heat, wearing all black powdered sugar.

things i enjoyed this week

my favorite rock band king gizzard and the lizard wizard (i should use "mfrbkglw" going forward, but i won't) played a 3-day festival in colorado and streamed it on their youtube. i really enjoyed their sets, as well as spellling (another one of my faves) and king stingray.
can you tell that 90% of the content i consume are videos of live concerts? anyway, doja cat's outside lands performance outfit was so good, so was her set.
i started using kagi as my default search engine. i'm not paying yet or using whatever their ai summary tool is, but in just the couple of days i've been using it i've had a much better experience than i have been having with duckduckgo. i'll let you know how this new search engine journey goes!
also in tech, i was able to help a friend who was doing json-like coding out by recommending notepad++ which was my go-to text/code editor when i used windows primarily about 20 years ago. it's open source, still around, and i miss it as an apple user!

all my aerial instructors this past week got together and decided i was going to do a lot of planking, so i am sure you can tell from reading this retro that my shoulders have gotten very strong. let's hope this coming week is productive and we all stay hydrated and well-stretched!

xoxo jenn

you do not have to use generative ai "art" in your blogs because there are websites where you can get real, nice images for free

2025-08-12T00:00:00Z

too many people are doing a great disservice to their writing by garnishing it with generative-ai (artificial intelligence) - ethics and values aside (lol), it looks tacky and it cheapens the words around it. there are so many human-created, realistic, and beautiful images available for you to use on your blogs, websites and projects for free. the following is a list that i believe just scratches the surface of what's available out there.

openverse is the successor to cc search by wordpress. relatedly:
wordpress photo directory, h/t seth
unsplash has stock images you can filter for license

photo of the jersey city skyline from liberty state park, free to download from unsplash

pixabay has photos, illustrations and even 3d models
pexels is like pexels, a community-contributed platform, with fun challenges!
rawpixel is also a community providing free creative content, but they also have an editor for remixing and premium pricing for fewer limits
openclipart is full of svgs that you can remix too

clipart of a black cat, free to download from openclipart

museums and libraries are great resources for open content, here are a few that i know of that have search engines for primarily public domain or CC0 content:

getty open content program
national gallery of art free images and open access
library of congress free to use and reuse sets

auguste renoir's painting 'woman with a cat', free to download from the national gallery of art

when it comes to editing images, often what your computer comes with gets the job done. for me, personally, my imac comes with Preview which i use for resizing. for more advanced editing, i use photopea.com (a free in-browser alternative to various products like photoshop) and sometimes i'm even brave and patient enough to open up inkscape.

see, there are lots of options, and i'm sure there are even more which i'll add as you tell me. in fact, i have already published this and people immediately started giving good suggestions. here they are:

molly white suggested wikimedia commons, a very good one! as well as
flickr, the classic. it has a filter by license feature, and you'll find that it's referenced in a lot of free image search engines.
picryl is a public domain collection search engine, h/t mr. hands
clipart etc, suggested by tom macwright, has a "friendly license" allowing educators and students to use free clipart, subsidized by their pro license.
public domain image archive is a hand-picked collection of out-of-copyright works, h/t brian jones from the public domain review
europeana was shared with me by a digital creator at the europeana foundation, adrian murphey. it lists collections from thousands of museums, galleries and libraries in europe. they say most are openly-licensed, and i have to say it's a very nice experience looking at all of the vast, varied collections!

festoon of fruit and flowers - rijksmuseum, netherlands - public domain from europeana

if you photograph, create illustrations or remix any of the free images available, i recommend that you contribute to the above resources as well to keep the content flowing. happy (responsible and intentional) blogging!

xoxo jenn

ps. if you have suggestions to add here, let me know on bluesky, on mastodon, or you can email hi@jennschiffer.com. please do not spam or try to sell me things!

weekly retro #27: new coming soon business

2025-08-10T00:00:00Z

this was one of the first weeks where i felt normal in awhile. i wrote a lot, finally put out my monthly newsletter, was active, and was getting stuff done. something clicked in my mind today when i realized my thyroid probably, finally adjusted to my new dose.

this week started at the same picnic table it ended. if you know, you know. if you don't, that's okay, perhaps one day we will be pals and i'll get to show you. you'll get to meet my sparrow friends who get more and more daring every season!

pumagreg would be so mad if he knew how close the animals outside get to me. i've caught this little guy twice this week sitting on the toilet. my theory is that sometimes the lights outside catches the aquatic toilet seat in a way that he thinks the fish are real.

the weather was really nice this week, so i had my usual 3x aerial yoga and 1x gym visits. my gym membership expires in a few weeks (signing up was the first thing i did on the day after my last day at fastly) so i've been thinking about if i wanted to renew.

one night this week i turned off my health app from step tracking, deleted all the data from my apple watch (which is on its last legs anyway), and essentially retired from using technology in my heath journey. i'm not a professional athlete, and i'm tired of being a data farm for free, so i'm going to go back to just doing my thing without a screen on me. i got myself a normal ass watch on the way because having a timer on my wrist is so handy.

friday was the 1-month anniversary of the soft lauch of my store, bugs rock. this week my work will mostly be reflecting on lessons from last month, acknowledging my fears and if they've been neutralized, seeing what new fears i may have developed and how i can tap into those next. i decided this week to try out using obsidian again, but this time watching youtube videos on how people use it because i was quite confused by it but today i am not.

i streamed while writing html to add my book projects to my website. it's fun to connect with my dev friends while i'm streaming, it scratches the itch that no longer having an office to go to left. i would love to become friends with more candle-makers, even those who do it just for fun. i'm working on creating more content about candles and candle-making so i can reach that community. if you make candles, i'd love to hear from you and share what you make!

friday was also the 8-year anniversary of my and andy's first date. we went out for dinner downtown, pointing out all the places have have come and gone over the last several years. i moved to jersey city about three years before i even met andy. so much changes all the time, which is scary but exciting! eight years ago i made a wonderful, lifelong connection with one of the kindest, smartest, beautiful humans on earth.

last year i had a full-time corporate job! but now i Do Candles, and i got myself some nice ones as a gift to myself for what a great job i did the last month on bugs rock, and to incentivize me to do an even better job over the next month. i unboxed them with my pal lisa and i'll share with you all what we thought of them soon.

things i enjoyed this week

secret base has a new podcast called 'big deal', starting with one of the funniest nights on nba twitter. whether you know what i'm talking about or not, watch the video, it's very good. i love secret base.
andy and i have been loving these youtube recycling bin videos by kvn aust. these are the oldest, least viewed videos that typically have device-given file names like "MOV00018". have you noticed that i keep the device-given file names of the photos i share on here?

i'm feeling energized and motivated to get organized and experiment and try new things this week. life is a highway!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #26: let's hope this is the last one about teeth

2025-08-04T00:00:00Z

i wrote last week's retro after dental work that monday morning. i'm happy to report that this monday did not cost me thousands of dollars or involve any needles or blood. just coffee and typing. also, i enumerated all of the weekly retro post titles. welcome to #26!

it's very good that i don't have a fear of the dentist and also that i'm neutral when it comes to my teeth. they're not white or straight but they do their job in spite of genetics and thyroid issues. i would love for them to not cost me so much fucking money lol.

i made a candle to commemorate the entire teeth journey. i think i've truly found my calling in the form of candle-journaling.

with almost a month of bugs rock under my belt, i took some time to just mess around and play with wax. i've tried new techniques, got some new supplies to try different things. it's been a lot of fun and i can't wait to show you the less toothy things i've got in store.

i finished one of my book-binding projects and celebrated html day by streaming as i wrote html to update my website with book-binding projects. one of my august goals is to get my art portfolio/site up to date, so this was a good start.

i didn't go to aerial yoga at all! ugh!! we had a major heatwave earlier in the week and then it lead to a ton of rain. i went to the gym in place of yoga to not get caught in the storm, but the storm started hours earlier than anticipated so i got soaked on the way home. wet sneakers with socks on is one of the worst feelings man has invented, another is a full week without my tension-free inversions.

the weekend was gorgeous though, and not too hot. i got my chores done without aggravation, did that html stream, and cooked one of our favorite meals. most importantly, my new crown has not moved or fallen out.

pov: you're watching chickpea cutlets cook. for a side with these i made roasted lemon pepper potatoes and broccoli.

things i enjoyed this week

this 20 minute doc about an artist enclave in brooklyn was really good. the ending will stab you right in the heart, so hold off until you're resilient enough for that.
king gizzard and the lizard wizard, my favorite rock band, is back on their us tour and live streaming a lot of the shows. they played in nyc over the weekend and we watched both shows from home and they were great! they're playing in maryland tonight and i hope the venue let's they stream it.
one of my favorite kinds of blogs on tumblr are transparent png bloggers, like pngblog and pnglove. i love the themes they pick (and are requested). i'm often reblogging paint and candle related ones on my own tumblr.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #25: burns, exposed ankles and other horrors

2025-07-28T00:00:00Z

this morning i concluded the two-week dental crown journey (saga? off-screen dramedy?) so i sit at this half-done retro, gums swollen, lip numb and new tooth smooth. let's rock.

last week i was super active. i started doing core work on dip bars at home and i can tell in aerial yoga that it's improving my grip strength. my gums and the weather forecast for this week tell me that i've got a few extremely challenging days ahead, though.

i learned that these gorgeous, ginormous red flowers that i've seen in only two yards in my neighborhood are hibiscus flowers. i wonder if they're going to make tea with them!

i burned myself taking this baked feta pasta out of the oven. it was delicious and my wrist was fine because the recipe was good and i burn myself in that spot all the time lol. by the way, does "chef john from foodwishes.com" know that his domain appears to be parked?

i soft launched bugs rock and have been enjoying getting these candles out of my face to make room for new ones. i found a stash of weird eggs so i've been randomly giving those out too. i went live a couple times to build this cool bugs rock order map and learned a lot about svg in the process. i am a multi-disciplinary princess.

i made a bunch of "plum tomato" candles out of leftover wax to give out to my book-binding workshop classmates. they were a hit, and i have some leftover that i've been putting in orders.

we learned textblocking this weekend, but we had to leave them behind to dry so i only have this in-progress shot. next month is the last session and we're going to be adding a cover and end papers to them. i ordered book-binding supplies for home because i want to make sketchbooks. that would be fun right?

anyway, gotta go, my mom's here to pick me up.

things i enjoyed this week

isopods eat dill.
the song "who let the dogs out" turned 25 last week and artist ben sisto (who is an expert on the song and i've talked about before) is exhibiting his collection of memorabilia in providence. that page has links to where you can watch his documentary, which i saw a screening of when it came out and it was very good.
i finally found affordable sweatpants that actually come with the long inseam that is advertised. so among my too-short sweats and leggings, i now have normal looking pants from american tall. this isn't sponsored, i'm just sharing a personal win after years of people thinking i dress like THIS on purpose:

i'm not even 6 feet tall! okay, my teeth hurt byeeeee 💋

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #24: fake teeth, real busy

2025-07-20T00:00:00Z

my week started with getting up early to go to the dentist and get a crown removed and the cavity under it taken care of. it was long, painful and very expensive! next week i get the permanent crown put in.

this is the photo i sent andy to show him that i survived. notice my pupils are tiny, so not to let what little was left of my soul after the procedure escape. i wanted to go back to bed and rot for 24 hours but i actually had to go to the city that night.

later that night we hosted robot karaoke at wonderville. we had a pretty good turnout, especially for a night where there was a lot of flash flood activity in the city and jersey. by the time i got home my mouth was killing me lol.

we also hosted a show on thursday, at aux karaoke box - a true, secular karaoke bar. we saw family, friends, and even some folks who discovered us at our wonderville show. i made stickers for this one.

these lillies are insane. i can't believe these exist on earth.

i tie-dyed our king gizzard couch tour shirts because neither of us really wear solid cream or white shirts ever. my shirt is purple, andy's is gray.

these are the supplies i used. rit's website has all sorts of tutorials, i followed their spiral tie-dye one.

andy recently bought a block of halloumi - one of those "just in case we want it one night" buys. well, saturday night i wanted it.

i made this lemon orzo with asparagus and halloumi recipe. it was a bit bland, probably because i'm usually very shy about using salt when halloumi is involved.

while buying a watch battery, i figured i'd get a battery for another watch i own that was given to me after my grandma died. this is the first time the watch has glowed since 2003. unfortunately, the time part doesn't work, but i don't recall if it ever did.

on the way home from the gym and coffee with andy today, i noticed a neighbor had put out these vibrant coneflowers. i had to share!

things i enjoyed this week

i don't use amazon or walmart, so often end up buying things from all different kinds of smaller retailers like battery mart, which i got my watch batteries from at a better price than if i released the ones at duane reade from battery jail.
i made a rubber band ball from the bands i didn't use while tie-dyeing those shirts. i never made one before and now i have one, yee-haw.
i've been using pl@ntnet for identifying the local flowers. it's been pretty reliable so far!

i'm looking forward to a much quieter show-free week this week. i'm also manifesting my dental insurance covering the crown 🕯️🤲

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #23: my last week with this one specific tooth

2025-07-13T00:00:00Z

i'm writing this earlier than usual because monday morning i'm doing the first session of getting my crown replaced - when they they mold, remove and then put in a temporary tooth. the second session in a week or two is when they will be replacing the temporary with the new permanent crown. can you believe that a fake tooth costs about five hundred trillion dollars?

anyway, last week started with glitch shutting down. and then i started incorporating a little bit of running into my treadmill work now that i've got good shoes. i was also able to catch all three aerial yoga classes. i think i'm finally off my plateau with progress there. but as for the glitch shutdown, while i hate the outcome i'm glad it's finally done with on my end. i have more projects to move but it can be at my leisure.

this is one of the craziest flowers i've ever seen in the united states. the longer i look at its center, i'm more convinced they are aliens. i think this is the flower i relate to the most.

i hit a major milestone with bugs rock this week. we celebrated with a delicious sweet treat.

is it legal for fake cats to look this real?

here's a selfie i took by accident when i thought i was actually photographing a weird tree in front of me that i wanted to text andy because it was blue prince-coded.

here's a selfie i took on purpose for live laugh webring member brianlovesworlds in front of the paper source location near where we used to host brooklyn js. our co-host jed had bought a "Program" stamp there to tag attendees but brian and i took it and got it tattooed on us.the most important part of this selfie, and the sole reason i'm sharing it with you even, is the majestic pigeon flying in the sky.

i took that bird selfie while i was on my way to host a private robot karaoke session for a local non-profit that immerses neurodiverse students in technology. frank sinatra's "my way" with spider facts is now in my top favorite combos.

on saturday i had the 3rd installation of a 5-week book-binding workshop that the creative center of my local library is hosting. this weekend we did japanese stab binding. i made a collage book focused on tomatoes. i'll have an webpage soon for looking at my books, but you can see a video of me going through each page here.

things i enjoyed this week

two great tiny desk concerts dropped this week: wet leg and then, just two days later, clipse. as far as brothers on stage this week after a hiatus, i think pusha t and malice are far more interesting than liam and noel, respectfully! when they sampled their late mom talking, of course i cried.
i had a great time at our private robot karaoke event. and you can have a great time with us too at wonderville on monday night and then aux karaoke box on thursday night - both in brooklyn, both from 7-9pm.

if they don't match my new crown to its sibling crown, you'll hear me scream!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #22: another week of not eating the flowers

2025-07-07T00:00:00Z

one of my aerial yoga instructors likes to start the class by setting an intention for us, often it's abstract but helpful reminders like "forgiveness" or "strength". i went into last week with the intention "do not be a big baby about the heat".

giving myself up to sweat - as well as, worse, the possibility of being perceived whilst sweating - is a lot easier when i realize that everyone else around me is in a similar state of discomfort. at the very least, i don't have to be in an office setting while sweating.

one of my dearest friends, lisa, had the week off and we had a nice walk and chat at the cafe. we were rained on no fewer than 3 times, but the little dog chilling under our table didn't mind so i couldn't either.

i will not eat the flowers that look like they taste like buttered popcorn. i will NOT eat the flowers that look like they taste like buttered popcorn!!

i streamed a lot of the week, as tomorrow glitch.com shuts down project hosting. i compiled my official list of alternative hosts and let folks know i plan to start a new community code jam.

look at this asshole.

i have some transactional emails to edit still, but i'm probably going to make bugs rock live tonight. i'm going for a soft launch because i literally have no idea how things are going to go once folks start buying things! i'm excited and terrified!

pretending to be on vacation at the gym has me thinking i should actually go on vacation. lisa's fiance loves the rare time we travel because he gets to hang out with and take care of this goblin:

things i enjoyed this week

i cannot for the life of me find a link to it, but in the latest issue of bon apetit there's a cheesy poblano and jalapeno pepper fajita that i made last night and it was a hit EXCEPT it would have been garbagino if i didn't add shredded and cumin-seasoned plant-based fillet to them.
i enjoy both joel haver's animations as well as his personal system of values that continues to sustain his artistic expression. i just find it super admirable.

after i publish this, i'll be doing the last stream before glitch shuts down project hosting, hopefully hanging upside down like a bat in tonight's aerial class, and deploying the last change to my store before it's officially open for business. i packed a lot into this monday - i hope you are feeling as full as i am right now, but not in an overwhelming way!

xoxo jenn

my official list of post-glitch.com hosting options

2025-07-02T00:00:00Z

we are less than a week away from fastly shutting down glitch.com. while i haven't worked there in 10 months, i'm still as much a glitch power user as i've been since i helped launch it in 2017, so i have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes, and with some of you live, to find new homes for my most precious projects.

the following are important dates, some glitch-specific links and alternative services i'm using. i hope this will help you out if you're in a scramble to migrate your projects - or if you've never even used glitch but are interested in what's out there in the app hosting/community ecosystem.

important dates 📆

these are from the official blog announcement

july 8, 2025 (next week as i write this) - project hosting and user profiles shut down. this means your projects will not be running and user profiles and playlists will not be accessible. you'll still be able to access your dashboard and download projects.
december 31, 2025 (end of this year) - until this date your Glitch dashboard will be available with code downloads for all of your projects and you can set redirects
december 31, 2026 (end of next year) - the team says they'll keep redirects active "at least" through this date

there are dates i don't know about yet, like when the forum or blog will shut down - or even if they will. the blog is basically free for fastly to run, but i know the forum is not. my guess is it will be shut down at the end of the year along with download access. i'll update this page when i hear otherwise!

glitch-specific links 🎏

mass-export all your projects - including assets - using pomax's glitch-bulk-downloader script. if you manually download via the dashboard, it will not include assets, but his script does.
if terminal stuff is not in your lane, potch made a downloadable app version which uses pomax's script, but gives you an app to do it from vs. having to install python or run commands.
once you move your projects, they will have a new url off of glitch, but you can/should set redirects to the new urls in your glitch dashboard. this is good in case the community has linked to your apps in blogs or something and you don't want those links to break.
go to the glitch community forum for discussions about the shutdown and to get answers straight from the glitch engineering team - that's where all the links above are from. also, be fucking nice to them - this shutdown isn't their fault and it impacts them at least as much as it does you.

alternatives i'm using 📀

here are the services i'm using for my projects that i absolutely need to keep running past july 8th, as well as my cool site discovery needs. i'm intentionally avoiding services from companies run by people who attended trump's election and/or are funding genocides and causing societal harm.

digital ocean - full stack & static

this blog, jennschiffer.com, make8bitart.com, and bugsrock.online are static sites (2 straight html, 2 eleventy) that i have running on digital ocean's app platform. the first 3 static sites are free, the 4th one costs me $3 a month. you can create an account and see what the dashboard looks like and what the deployment workflow is, but you will need a payment option set up before you can actually deploy anything. also an editor on your computer and a bit of git experience.

with regards to community, digital ocean's strategy appears to not so much about sharing what you've made (there are no user profiles for following), but sharing how to make things on their community platform, although they do run hacktoberfest and have other community programs. while not great for an absolute beginner, i think this platform is a great resource and community for upskilling to more advanced project deployment tasks.

here's my affiliate link if you want to sign up. i did a walk-through and explainer of the app platform on my stream here if you'd like to watch

codepen - static, community-focused, built-in web editor

i've been using codepen since the beginning. i just found this "in progress" live horse birth in css that was last saved 11 years ago. i would say this is my biggest recommendation for educators and students who are working with static projects. i'm pretty sure you don't need a credit card to sign up, but they have a pro subscription tailored for power users and teachers.

anyone who doesn't think codepen is the blueprint for developer communities is out of their mind and/or element. they curate, create content, run challenges, etc. the people who run it are great.

check out codepen here and perhaps follow me for updates on that horse birth.

val.town - serverless, community, built-in web editor

i use val.town to host my bluesky countingsheep bot. i've used a val in the past for getting a google spreadsheet's contents and sending it back when my static glitch site makes a fetch call to it - so i can see anyone using it as the api backend for a codepen, neocities, or any jamstack site. they also have cron triggering (great for bots), email triggers, and blob storage. it's free to try, no credit card needed, and they have a pro option if you need more flexibility.

valtown has a great community newsletter and showcase page. you can't follow other users, but you can remix and make PRs to vals.

check into val.town, where you can find me counting sheep. and you can watch my stream where i migrated that project, and val.town ceo steve krouse's stream where he improved it!

render - full stack & static

i recently tried out render for the first time, as i needed a free option to run some websocket servers. during a stream, i moved my presents-or-bugs glitch project to it and it was a good experience. no credit card needed to try, and the app falls asleep after inactivity just like glitch. i would say that it's the most comparable to glitch as far as project hosting goes.

community on render is simply their discourse forum and while it's active, there's a lot of threads with no replies so that tells me it's likely a support forum of folks trying to get their specific stack or service working on render.

go to render.com to try it out like i did on stream from account creation to websocket server migration.

neocities - static, community, built-in web editor

neocities is another blueprint for web communities that enables static site creation in the browser. while i've been on it for quite some time, i've not been active because i've been doing my thing on glitch. it's free to use, but upgrading to supporter gives you more capabilities. this is a great solution if you simply need a place to put your personal site for free, have never written code before, and/or you want to see cool sites others are making - their firehose of activity is really cool to watch.

check out neocities where i've been but plan to participate more.

statichost.eu - static

this one was recommended to me by jens after i published this post initially. it's basically like render (mentioned above) but just for static sites. it's also based in europe and they lean heavily on privacy - so if that's a concern for you (as it should be) this is a good option. you can import your project via git repo or zip file, which is nice. you don't need a credit card to sign up or deploy anything on the hobby tier, and it includes free custom domains which is pretty huge!

like render, there's not really a community strategy there. statichost doesn't have a forum and their link to get support is an email address to them directly.

look at statichost.eu, and watch me fumble through it (successfully) migrate jort.technology on my july 3rd stream.

what about community code jams? 🍓

when i left glitch, the community code jam program (along with the glitch jams livestream) basically died. while i was bummed about it, i was not at all surprised; fastly basically laid off the headcount for a new community manager before my last day even came. after the shutdown announcement, i was reading ribo.zone's great memoriam to glitch, along with other blog posts from the community, when i realized two things:

this program was as impactful to the rest of the community as it was to me
i don't need an enterprise content delivery platform to keep it going

while i have a bit on my plate, migrating the rest of my glitch projects and launching my first business, nothing will make me feel more connected to code and the developer community together than starting a new community code jam program, free from corporate stewardship.

if you want to take part in this, or simply keep up with what's happening with the project, sign up for this newsletter that i made specifically for jam updates. and subscribe to my youtube page, because you can bet your ass i'm going to be live-coding a submission form so i don't have to use google forms lol.

hope this helps!

one of the best parts of being part of the glitch community was the friendly and helpful nature of all its users and people building it. i look forward to seeing all of us move into other communities and carry that friendliness and helpfulness and get more creative people building the web. if you have any questions or ideas, i'm all ears/inboxes - hi@jennschiffer.com is the best way to reach me.

see you on jennschiffer.com

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #21: just a little something to take the edge off

2025-06-30T00:00:00Z

a brutal heat wave hit the city last week and i spent most of my time indoors, sluggish from the heat but restless from the confinement of my apartment walls. my new walking shoes sat on my table in its box, waiting with me for the relief of below 90 F temperatures.

fortunately i had the company of pumagreg to take a bit of the edge off.

pumagreg is probably 13 or 14 years old, he's been living with me for 12 - i adopted him several months after i moved to jersey city. he knows the way to beat the heat, such as laying on the cool floor, dipping his paws in water, or going "goblin mode".

this is "goblin mode" btw.

i've passed the time stuck in home live streaming which has been nice. being a woman online hasn't exactly changed, but the spelling of insults certainly has. but in my youtube chat, it's all been really nice - friends joining in to help me figure out new hosting platforms (glitch shuts down in a week), discover cool sites, young devs asking for advice, and all of us simply keeping each other company. i might make this a permanent fixture of my "4-day work week".

the heat finally broke on thursday, so i could catch at least one aerial yoga class, and catch up on what the park has grown either despite or because of the heat. the "peony watch" sign is down with not a peony in site, but the lilies are absolutely popping.

i pass these hydrangeas on the way to jerseyscript every month, but the bar we hosted it at suddenly closed. we were supposed to meet next week on the 8th, which is also the glitch shutdown day. this week also begins q3 and the countdown to launching my shop - i successfully filed my q2 sales taxes last night to the tune of a whopping $0, may this quarter be the last of such a total. 7/7 feels like a good day to start a "new chapter", to distract me from the ones ending the next day.

i was able to take a break from editing and coding the store's transactional emails - it's like i never quit my job sometimes lol - to go to the library for my 2nd book-binding workshop. the binding part was like 5 minutes, but then i was in the zone for 2 hours cutting up an out-of-circulation book about vermeer. i even turned on the compressor last night to airbrush inside of it, a grumbling sound i've not heard in a couple of months now. not all chapters are chapters, i guess. some are actually storylines that can get picked up back again.

things i enjoyed this week

on one of my livestreams, alan shared wttr.in, a nice weather forecast in terminal-esque ascii art
pov: you're a bag that was just checked at the airport
i've been tits-deep lately in the png community on tumblr, where folks like @pngblog do a great service of removing backgrounds of images in collection format.
the way this guy hugs his alligator sends me to the moon

after i publish this, i can finally put on my new walking shoes and head to the gym. let's hope it solves all of my problems as well as yours.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #20: what if a haircut smelled like fresh cut grass

2025-06-23T00:00:00Z

this is my 20th weekly retro, and i've not missed a week. it's but one more streak along with my not having missed my meds. every morning i wake up at 8, take my thyroid hormone, feed pumagreg his "wet breakfast" and then go back to sleep. today, i'm starting a new streak of not going back to sleep - to see if it gets me in bed earlier and rotting less in the morning.

last week was very gray, with isolated thunderstorms happening throughout the week. i've been reading braiding sweetgrass, which has reminded me to lean more towards celebrating nature cleaning itself over feeling woefully inconvenienced by all this summer rain.

i'm waiting on my new pair of walking shoes - they should arrive today!! - so i haven't been on the treadmill in a couple of weeks. i walk by so many interesting things on the way to the gym, but there's just something about a mailbox that's tagged "dbag" that gets me pumped for the workout ahead.

this particular window, in it's manicured beauty, inspired me to finally tackle the task of finding a new hair stylist. imagine if freshly cut hair smelled like freshly cut flowers and grass?

in an incredible twist of fate, i chose a stylist who i not only got along with greatly, but she is friends of my prior stylist who had moved out of the country - miss you xylo 😫. if you're looking for someone in the jc area who can cut a good shag, let me know and i'll pass on her info. i am manifesting her and i doing karaoke together with our friends, and then everyone is friends together.

i'm loving what's going on here. you probably cannot see the bumblebees hard at work, but i could and you can trust me.

i made nisha vora's lentil shepherd's pie which i highly recommend unless you're in the middle of a heat wave - i shan't be making it this week. i used almond milk instead of coconut milk and no one perished.

i finally have all my business tax stuff sorted after months of wrangling a new portal and my business somehow getting trapped in some database migration purgatory. gosh i fucking love software. i finished the store website (not yet deployed) over the weekend and experimented with some teeth molds. the state says i'm finally ready to launch, q3 begins next week, it's all coming together finally...

things i enjoyed this week

this "learn css grid" tutorial came in very handy as i started studying the foundations of css grid, vs struggling with it live on stream lol. browsers fully supported it in, like, 2017, which was around the time i stopped paying as much attention to css updates because i had been busy with glitch. there's so much that's changed, which is great even though "fr" as a unit is diabolical.
i've been following pbs newshour for news and i feel it will be the most useful in keeping us informed on what's going on as we are now at war. i'm already seeing tons of misinformation being spread on tiktok and bluesky, so this is just a friendly reminder that you can - and perhaps should - assume everything you see is untrue until you've done your research. if you get something wrong and share it, don't take it personally when you're corrected, and remove it promptly and share the correct info.
okay here's a different one: last year i had to spend my fsa money before i quit or else i'd lose it and got a bunch of stuff from the fsa store - one of those things was this foot roller. i've finally started really using it regularly and i've found that releasing those foot muscles have made me more flexible in my forward bend stretches. this isn't sponsored, i'm just saying you should try rolling your feet!

having gotten up early, i've already accomplished a bunch of tasks. will the leader of jenn nation keep up this streak, or will a scorching heat wave cause this beautiful, delicate flower to wilt? stay tuned next week for another episode of weekly retro.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #19: garbag'ino, garbag'outo

2025-06-16T00:00:00Z

weeks can go in like a lion and out like a lamb, and not just in the month of may. if i could (and i will) describe the first half of last week in a photo, it would be this:

the throes of a hashimotos flareup and my period starting was enough of a test of my patience, will, and ambition. then news of a friend's passing hit, and THEN i remembered last minute i was on the hook to host jerseyscript when really i just wanted to crawl under the covers and sleep until my endocrinologist appointment that friday.

but responsibility is responsibility, and i made it outdoors to do the things i'm responsible for. i can't say that i showered for any of them though lol.

i went and voted in the local assembly and governor primary election. i often enjoy "getting out there" and voting in person, but when i'm at my most "perceive me at your peril" state, it's tough because of everyone circling polling locations like vultures telling me "don't forget to vote" as i'm clearly walking into a school looking like a gray woman in a tampon commercial. to vote. i'd been voting in this polling location for 12 years and this was the first time someone handed me an "i voted" sticker. for a moment, i felt like a human.

my gift for making it out to jerseyscript, besides the nice company of 2 of our regulars and the lavender mocktail, was getting to see my "other cat" who i'm sure is seen as "my other cat" by all the other locals who pass by it. this is "nature" to a lot of us city folks.

on the topic of nature, has anyone seen where the local puma has gone? i keep trying to get him to join me on my somewhat-daily weekday streams but he's camera shy and adjusting to the air conditioners being on.

as my period crawled over its peak and i started to feel less like a large pile of hot, wet towels, things started to turn around a bit. i got to introduce potch and pumagreg in real life vs. over zoom or youtube. while i regret where we ordered food from, it was a heavy enough meal to knock me out so i'd be able to get up early for my 30 minute walk up-hill to my doctor.

when i publish this retro, i'm off to the pharmacy to pick up my larger dose of thyroid hormone, and i hope in a few weeks i'll be out of this fog - the thyroid takes awhile to adjust. all the incline intervals on the treadmill were felt as i walked up a steep hill, not losing my breath once and even being able to stop and pick up litter i'd find without losing energy.

on the way home from the doctor, feeling great about how my "kidneys look beautiful" and my doctor giving me tips on how to better advocate for myself at the pharmacy (who is also my insurance company), my demeanor only dipped - as it often does walks home - when a car sped by me as it tried to miss a red light. this is why humans were born with middle fingers. a few hours later, a young boy riding his bike at the corner was killed when struck by a truck. may his memory be a blessing, and may this tragedy not be in vain from the people in power who seemingly refuse to make our roads safe from motor vehicles.

as a significant portion of the nation was protesting on the streets, my resistance came in the form of patronizing my library and making art. more empowering than having my new thyroid prescription in hand was spending an afternoon in a room with a diverse group of women from the area, chatting about our complex lives and making books. my weekend ended with me finishing the very good a physical education and starting braiding sweetgrass.

things that did not make my shit mood worse

gifcities has been relaunched with improved search and gifgrams.
i'm starting to collect blog posts in memoriam to glitch - please send any you write or find to me! marty wrote this one and it lead me to see loren's archive of the glitch community code jam. i'm obsessed with their entire site, actually.
"it's time for something new" for anil
kglw's phantom island is out. this is summer barbecue rock and roll and it rips.
my buddy mark vigeant is bringing his Best Man Speech show back to Edinburgh Fringe. i've seen the show multiple times, it's really funny and clever and has won the awards to speak to that better than i can. btw, he's performing his new show at hollywood fringe basically now.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #18: june in bloom and gloom

2025-06-09T00:00:00Z

i always blamed my preference for cold weather on my norwegian maternal side, everything just feels harder when it's hot. by the time i got to the lab to get my bloodwork done, i was drenched in sweat.

who would have thought the results of the blood test would arrive to me minutes later on the walk home, in the form of graffiti on a bike store banner. i'd been feeling exhausted and brain foggy, so it was kind of a relief to verify that my thyroid medication had lost its efficacy at my current dose, versus it just me being a baby in the heat. this is a fairly easy and inexpensive thing to manage. regardless...poop fuck.

a friend sent this squirrel to me, captioned "jenn goes to aerial". that's pretty much what goes on. i've already felt myself getting stronger as i increased my practice to 3x a week, and i hope for quicker recovery once my thyroid meds are figured out again.

i've been working a lot on the bugs rock website, although it doesn't necessarily look like it from the public view. i converted it from plain html to an eleventy app (much like this blog) which near-future me will be thanking me for. i've finished the product photography, gathered my inspiration art to share, and finalized all the copy. i'm waiting on the nj division of treasury to help me out with some paperwork i need to file soon, but i'm feeling good about launching in days and not weeks.

if you've been joining me on my glitch migration livestreams and either of us have wondered what pumagreg's is up to, the above photo is 99% the answer. we started using the air conditioner this week, as the temperatures have been in the high 80F's. pumagreg doesn't mind the heat, but he - like me - loves the breezes that come from fans, air conditioners, and air purifiers. unlike me, he doesn't have to pay the electric bill.

here are some flowers within our walls - a rare sight because pumagreg is a plant goblin. it was andy's birthday last week and i got him this mutant sunflower bouquet (notice one of them sprouting petals from its center). don't worry, it's sitting safely from pumagreg in a room he's not allowed in.

here's a flower box that i pass on the way to coffee every day, full of pansies. i'll never not be in awe of the purples and blues that come from nature, standing out among the greens, grays and browns of downtown jersey city.

speaking of the city, pokémon go fest was here this weekend! our park welcomed the thousands who came in from all over the world with this adorable poke ball arrangement. it was nice to see so many out-of-towners walking around and getting to enjoy our city - it filled me with immense pride. jersey city is a sanctuary city - one of the most diverse cities in the country at that - and all of our eyes have been on the protests in los angeles and the cruel, violent response from the government and police.

here are 8 things you can do to stop ice. a 9th thing is to support the protesters, regardless of what level of violence they bring to the streets. authoritarians are going to respond with violence regardless of how peaceful protesters are. friction and chaos slows their violence down and gets media attention. be safe, take care of yourself and your neighbors, and look inward if you are bristled by the acts of those on the right side of history.

things i enjoyed this week with one less vial of blood within me

i don't know if i could stand being mere feet away from amerie performing 1 thing live on tiny desk, i started to respectfully sweat when it started playing just in the video.
the internet phonebook has a dial-a-site in case you can't find a copy. dial 122 for a good time!
i've been using nova as my editor during my livestreams and i may be biased because i've been a Panic girlie since the early coda days (almost 20 years ago wowowow) but i'm really enjoying it (i'm using it right now to write this retro) and have the peace of mind to not be supporting microsoft.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #17: blog birthdays, blood and buds

2025-06-02T00:00:00Z

i'm coming to you and this retro with one vial less of blood and having been up since the crack of dawn to have said vial taken. this kicks off the bi-annual celebration of seeing if my thyroid has finally joined me on the quest to be hotter and smarter or not.

over the weekend was the 5-year anniversary of this blog. i spent quite a bit of time updating the look of the site and migrating it over to d'ocean. that's a referral link, by the way, as i've been a customer since october of 2013. i also moved over jennschiffer.com and bugs rock. i spent a lot of hours on the computer last week is what i'm trying to say.

time on the computer means less time in the chandlery. fortunately, i have the first collection complete for launch and all that's left is finishing up building the store site. if my bloodwork comes back with favorable results and no more surprised are dropped on my lap, i'll be able to start selling my small wax children next week.

i made it to the gym for a treadmill walk twice this week, and also started going to the mixed level aerial yoga class that had often conflicted with my schedule. the instructor is jacked and her class is very plank and push-up heavy, which i love to hate. my body was sore and i can't wait to go back.

the sun came out finally so i got to walk around a lot off the treadmill. i call these chickens "my sisters in christ" and i was told they have an instagram but searching just leads me to restaurants nearby that have chicken on the menu. i did find this very charming video of them from a couple years ago, though. anyway, i definitely need to buy new walking shoes as the ones i've been wearing are past their expiration date.

i know a lot more about computers than i do athletic sneakers - in soccer and field hockey we wore cleats. i probably know more about flowers than i do athletic sneakers. i believe the ones above are french roses and they live behind our favorite coffee shop.

and i think these are lobelia and...petunias? am i becoming a plant watcher, which is like a bird watcher but instead of birds i'm watching plants?

things i enjoyed this week

plant watching, which is like bird watching but instead of birds i'm watching plants
omg so i knew potch was doing this developer game show but i didn't know it was vs. tru. they are both so funny, and the production is really good!
my bud jim has 54 watch dioramas on display in case you happen to be in the brentwood, maryland area through mid-august. if you won't be, peruse his wonderful, artsy blog.

by the way, i'm streaming on youtube again, mostly going over my glitch dashboard right now, but i've been enjoying going through old projects and shootin' the shit with everyone in the chat. today i go on at 3pm eastern, yee-haw.

xoxo jenn

five years of living, laughing and blogging

2025-05-31T00:00:00Z

in the early spring months of 2020, i began half-jokingly tweeting about my goal of becoming a "lifestyle blogger". it was impulsive, public, and - i think those who were around to witness my process would agree - pretty funny performance art.

i learned a lot through that performance: i hired professional designers for the initial brand, and i even hosted a virtual conference to celebrate the launch - this was my first ever non-work livestream, by the way, and we raised over $10,000 for the women's prison association. live laugh blog was an important vehicle for me to face my workaholism during its peak and learn to step away from the "bad screen" and, sometimes quite literally, touch some grass.

and it was five years ago, today, when i published the first post. not everything has changed; i'm still sober, surrounded by art supplies, computers and paper, and (as far as i can tell from ground level) my mom is still where i found her. but a lot has. the world, unsurprisingly, got more cruel and disturbing. i worked myself into a series of autoimmune disorders as my job went through an acquisition. i leveled up in my hobbies, quit twitter, became a karaoke professional, fell in love with melting wax, and lost a lot of hair but then grew it back grayer. after a couple of years, during which i learned and grew a lot more than i can tell a lot of people on this bitch of a planet have, i left corporate to take a break and recalibrate my physical and mental states before figuring out what was next. through this blog, i took you - jenn nation on my journey.

and here we are today, reflecting on 5 years during which i made a series of wild, crazy and risky decisions that have given me some clarity on my path for the next five. i think i've done a really good fucking job - and i'm not even close to being done! i don't know if it's the root canal retreatment i got last week finally healing, or a bud telling me last night that the candle i gave him was "by far the nicest smelling thing in [his] house", but i'm feeling energized about what's next and how i get to continue sharing it with you here on live laugh blog.

one thing that's next is launching bugs rock, another venture that started as a half-joke (quitting tech to become a candlemaker) and is becoming a reality through my hard work and the support of so many cool and creative people on the internet and in my offline life. i started an llc, poured a lot of wax, did a lot of science, shipped and gave out candles to friends to prepare me for the "real thing".

while i was planning to open the shop today, dental work and glitch winding down got a bit in the way. and to be completely honest, it's been hard to not feel frustrated and defeated over not making this deadline. but then as i was headed to aerial yoga on thursday night, i reminded myself that i didn't quit my job to learn how to run a candle business, i quit my job to learn to fucking relax and be kind to myself. so instead of rushing into this new thing that's higher stakes than a blog, as it involves fire and money, i'm going to use today as a launch to me more openly sharing the process, launch and celebration in real time - just like i did with this blog when i started working on it in 2020.

i appreciate you for joining me, reading my words, looking at my photos, and - in probably just a week or two - buying my candles. 🕯️

xoxo jenn

p.s. i looked for photos i took on may 31, 2020, to share in here but it was only screenshots of me arguing with dudes on twitter and photos of typical carnage from pumagreg aka "lil shredder". i'm blessed to only have to deal with the latter these days.

p.p.s. i hope you like the new template/design of the blog for this year. if not, don't tell me unless something is actually broken!

weekly retro #16: one of those winding road kinda weeks

2025-05-26T00:00:00Z

it's a new week, although the "holiday weekend" still if you're in the states. during my workaholic corporate era, these holidays were more like a working vacation where i still logged on to get stuff done, but didn't have to talk to or answer to anyone (ie. no zoom calls). well, here i am technically working by writing this and planning to do candle work after. it's a good thing i only left corporate, not therapy as well.

question for you, jenn nation: is seeing a #livelaughlove banner in the hallway of a new dental provider that looks like it survived a flood and taking it as a sign you're in the right place a sign of growing up? or did this tooth infection i've been walking around with for a year finally reach my brain?

if i had the executive function and/or an obscene cash advance, i could write a whole book about my teeth. people say i've lived many lives from hearing my stories, looking at my cv, and talking to those i've known longer than them - but my real life story can only be best told from my teeth, scars, and my ability to act well under pressure.

i was under a lot of pressure this week, mentally and physically. pressure in my jaw pushed me to find a new dentist who validated my concerns, diagnosed what i already knew was the issue, and took care of it with the urgency it warranted. i hate how hard and expensive it is to get things taken care of, but i'm proud of myself for not giving up and pushing through discomfort.

the weather was shit this week, my whole jaw hurt for days from a procedure that cost me thousands of dollars, and something i helped create and grow for almost a decade is (drama intended) unnecessarily being euthanized. if the roses need occasional shit weather to truly pop, perhaps i need root canal retreatments and heartbreak to truly pop.

when my copy of the internet phone book arrived, i immediately opened it to the glitch ad we took out and i laughed because how it came about is kind of a perfect, funny story that perfectly illustrates the importance and whimsy of glitch that made it so difficult to survive within fastly. some stories and dental x-rays belong off the blog, sorry.

i didn't cry at all last week. not when those painful as fuck needles went into my gums to numb them - the irony! not when i found out how much all this dental work was going to cost me and how my insurance may not cover any of it. not when i opened the box with my internet phonebook copies the day after the glitch announcement. not when people were messaging me very nice things about how glitch changed their life. i cried while writing this paragraph, though. hope my blog doesn't charge as much as my therapist does.

i'm less than a week away from launching my candle store, a deadline that the world has been trying really hard to get me to miss - may 31st, the 5-year anniversary of live laugh blog. my friend very sweetly and tenderly tried to make me feel less angry by saying that the glitch chapter closing could mean a new one opening. the thing is, all these things can exist at once, and maybe looking for signs for hope is holding us back more than moving us forward? i can be hopeful but also angry as hell. in fact, i think those two feelings are extremely productive when put together - and only people who agree with that can come close to understanding me without me having to write a book about my teeth. which i'm never going to do, i've got candles to make.

things i enjoyed this week

not going to the gym
not drinking enough water
ibuprofen
doing drugs (legal)

i promise to chug a bunch of water after i hit publish on this.

xoxo jenn

on 'important changes coming to glitch'

2025-05-22T00:00:00Z

today the news is out that glitch is shutting down project hosting and user profiles. i knew this was coming in some form because gossip has always been fastly’s greatest export - with speedy and non-vague communication usually coming in at, generously, 10th place. i want to say this isn't a full shutdown of glitch, because it doesn't have to be[1]. the inclusion of user profiles in the announcement makes it hard to believe otherwise, though - i hope the powers that be reconsider that, as well as the timeline[2].

while it would be extremely valid for me to respond purely from a place of anger and frustration, my energy right now is better used in helping my fellow glitch community members - including my former glitch teammates - as we grieve this unfortunate, abrupt end to a very good, important chapter in many of our projects, careers and lives. i'm choosing to spend the next few weeks in celebration of our work as i find new homes for the past 9 years of my code!

to say it was an honor and privilege to help launch and grow the inspiring, creative glitch community is an understatement, just as much as saying “this news is disappointing yet unsurprising” is. but i know that the glitch team will make this transition as community-focused, fair and smooth as possible for all of us. if it doesn’t come across or happen that way, i simply ask that you challenge fastly management instead of them. there's no reason we need to be quiet about how we feel to the faces of those who make these decisions!

all that being said, i do sincerely want to thank fastly for giving glitch the opportunity to live to its 3-year acqui-versary this week. they generously took in a beautiful flower and placed it upon their sunny window sill with hopes to grow it more. the problem is they chose to never water it, and anyone with an elementary school education know what happens then. i wish us all a merry august earnings call season.

xoxo jenn

[1] would it not be nice for glitch to live as a community discovery platform, one that has been in the works - openly - for over a year

[2] only 6.5 weeks notice is comically unfair, especially coming from an enterprise company.

weekly retro #15: spider feet have hydraulics

2025-05-19T00:00:00Z

i just got back from a dentist appointment where i found out, unfortunately but not surprisingly, that i'm going to have to spend about 5 billion dollars to take care of a tooth infection. enough about this week, though, let's talk about last week.

we were back at wonderville on monday. there weren't many folks leading up to show time, but i correctly predicted that within 20 minutes the place would be both hopping and bopping.

i am not trying to fuel more fighting within our continent but i gotta say that at pretty much every show, the first and/or most enthusiastic singers in the queue have consistently been canadian. there were at least three people named some version of "alex" - and that was just in the queue. jamie and i love all of you like you are our own neglected children in a bar.

i met krang on the way home. nyc is truly a big city in a small world.

the weather most of the week was shitty, rainy, both cold and hot. by thursday, even my aerial yoga instructor was venting about not seeing the sun in so long.

have you had tempeh before? buy some and cut them into strips. dip in some kind of alt milk (i use almond) then coat in corn starch that you've thrown a bunch of spices into - garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt, pepper, cayenne, chili powder, etc. fry in oil until they are brown, drain on a paper towel, and then coat in frank's hot sauce. serve with rice and some green vegetable.

i learned this week that you can buy custom coke zero cans with your partner's video game character on it as a funny bit.

the roses in the neighborhood have been blooming and looking really nice. i spent over 20 hours on the computer this week updating this blog's software and migrating it to a different host - but i have no photos to prove that, just lots of roses. if you see anything broken around this site over the next couple of weeks, pretend you didn't!

i think these lavender roses are my favorite. i walked by these on the way to the city for therapy. the nj transit strike had started that day and even the mid-day PATH trains were packed. it sounds like things should be running back to normal tomorrow, and i truly hope the union got what they needed and wanted. there's no doubt, especially after last week, that they are foundational to this entire area running.

here's a selfie of the back of my head. it had gotten so hot and muggy out at the end of the week, i needed to pull my hair back with my kerchief. i'm due for a haircut soon - i should ask my dentist if they also do bang trims.

things i enjoyed this week

the first issue of the internet phonebook is out. it's sold out online but there are some stores around earth where you may be able to get a copy. i'm a huge fan of this project and was stoked to be included inside.
prisonculture's latest newsletter on public libraries is a must-read whether you already believe in the importance of public libraries or not. the call to action for leftists to truly use and involve the library in organizing is a good one.
my main takeaway from this clip of the last njtransit strike in 1983 was that our buses were once ahead of their time as far as looks go - but then they just...never changed lol?

tomorrow i begin my 3-phase treatment to take care of this tooth infection, so next week's retro may just be "aaahh AHhhh aahgglglglg". wish me luck and a successful insurance claim!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #14: the 'late because i went to boston' retro

2025-05-13T00:00:00Z

this week's retro is late because i was out of town for the weekend and am, today, finally able to Go On The Computer™ and Blog™ - you know, the two things i was born to do.

the week started off chill and typical. i did my usual treadmilling, aerial yogaing. it was a full week without knee pain, which i was especially pleased about because i knew the rest of the week would be quite active.

also typical of-the-week behavior: i braised tofu. i don't need to look at a recipe at this point, and i already have added my own tweaks to it. i love cooking!

i thought it was going to be hard to wittle down the flower photos from the neighborhood, but turns out i only took one non-blurry photo lol so that was easy!

jamie and i hosted a robot karaoke show at boshi's place which was really fun. they're a very chill, smart and fun group of folks and it was cool that they had us back.

they did have a working soap bottle on the sink, i'm still obsessed with this sign though.

then i was off to boston by train to spend the weekend with my buddy mike. turns out potch was in boston, too, for pax east, so i got to introduce he and mike and we sat in a cafe for hours while it downpoured. the weather was cold and rainy as shit most of the weekend, wtf!

mike and i went to see ziwe perform. she puts on such a good show, she's very good at crowd work, improv, and pop culture. i mean, she basically is pop culture herself - did you know she was interviewed to be on rhony? that would have been something to watch, unlike this last cast of rhony let's be honest...

mike is from quincy and took me around a lot of historical sites, the library, and what some would call a diner.

we hiked across most of the great esker which was very cool and probably one of the steepest hikes i've been on while talking. if you're reading this, mike, i know you didn't take me on that walk to get me to shut up, but if you were that was a great try.

did you know that the first ever dunkin is in quincy? i didn't and then i did and then we went there. this is real american history. mike kindly jumped into the photo to hide the very obnoxious instagram logo on the wall.

while it was great to hang out with my friend and get out of town for awhile, it's great to be back home now.

things i enjoyed this week

this week i started reading casey johnston's a physical education. her original column was in my 2020 gratitude thread and i continue to subscribe to her. i'm 1/3 of the way into the book and i highly recommend it to anyone interested in how strength training works, how to decenter diet culture from your life, or just learn about how casey did just that and made an awesome career out of sharing her journey and knowledge so generously with so many people.
these vegan lemon poppy cookies mike and i made over the weekend. i love lemony baked things!!
whatever this freak of a flower we saw at a grocery store in quincy is, it's like seeing AI in real life and really bugs me out but i'm glad i saw it:

now that i'm back home, with no traveling on the calendar in the foreseen future, i can go heads down and get ready to launch bugsrock.online on 5/31, which happens to be the 5th anniversary of live laugh blog wowowow. i have three wick tests burning near me as i type this!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #13: crunchy flowers and interesting feline shapes

2025-05-05T00:00:00Z

happy may, may the slog be with us all. after a week and a half of weird joint paint, i was starting to accept that this was perhaps the moment every person who has sat for 4 hours in an endocrinologist's waiting room is told may happen (rheumatoid arthritis), but as of today i've been 5 days without any pain.

"all eyes on me in the center of the ring just like a circus" - britney spears

i did both my aerial classes and went to the gym on an off-day, but this time i did a way more chill incline interval walking workout. i'm not saying that jogging is what fucked up my knees, but i'm too busy this month to test that hypothesis.

i love these crunchy looking fringed tulips, they remind me of curly haired cats. i've started to see irises in the park and in some yards, which i'm excited about. i used to live a short bike ride away from presby memorial iris gardens which is the only reason why i know what irises are.

brett was on a panel after a showing of free for all: the public library at the main library here, so we met for dinner beforehand (the photo above is from the restaurant, not the library lol). brett warned that the documentary may make me cry and he was right! shortly after, i read some better news than usual.

andy was out of town for a few days which meant i stayed up until 3am and slept in until noon. pumagreg loves when i do this of course, it probably makes him feel like he's not the only cat in the place.

the weather all week was amazing so i did a lot of walking around and enjoying the flowers, (andy don't read this:) yelling at cars almost hitting me on the crosswalk, and stocking up on pantry items and supplies ahead of everyone losing it when the impacts of the tariffs hit.

i wicked so many candles, stephen a. yankee-candle is going to send me a cease and desist because i'm so good at it. i have been developing this fucking candle all month and am so close to getting something ready for sale - 99% of my time is testing wicks and waiting for different ones at this point. i'm so close!

most of this week is going to be gray and rainy, and i suppose i need that to keep me inside and working on store copy and photos instead of galavanting outside sniffling and photographing tulips - or galavanting inside sniffling and photographing pumagreg in his many weird shapes.

here's a bonus pumagreg shape. what an odd creature!

things i enjoyed this week that are not pumagreg shapes or flowers with serrated edges

these are all videos, i love watching videos!

as i've been writing this retro, i've got lady gaga's record breaking show in brazil playing. i already watched her coachella performance - it's probably a show i'll watch many times more and you can't beat the energy of millions of brazillians in the audience. i couldn't imagine how thrilling this was for gaga. i also love her wardrobe in this one.
you'll learn a lot about nuclear energy and tiktok brigading in this video by 'a brush with bekah'. how many art historians and nuclear physicists do we think it'll take to get young people to become more media literate?
i liked this color palette video, great for learning about the color wheel and/or getting a refresher on how to use the wheel to make color palettes that look good.
support libraries and support public broadcasting! you can watch 'free for all' - the documentary i mentioned earlier - online and for free. while you're at it you should donate to your local library and pbs. there's a lot to learn about the history of libraries and the revolutionaries who built and advocated for them.

this week i've got more candle fails, tension-free inversions, and a brief adventure out of town to get a change of scenery. do they have crunchy tulips in boston? i'll keep you posted...

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #12: the one where i became a walking weather stick

2025-04-28T00:00:00Z

this week was one of those week where i made a point to not do much outside of my scheduled obligations, so to give my body a rest. my knees were SCREAMING in a voice i never heard before, but joint pain is a pretty common symptom of hashimotos. this is the first week in 7 months where i did not go to the gym!

i know that past me would feel bad about that, breaking some kind of fitness streak, but i did go to aerial twice this week - i've found that yoga mixed with pulling up my body weight in silks is far more nutritious for my joints than the treadmill is.

i did a ton of walking around brooklyn on wednesday to enjoy the nice weather and stop by nyu, where jamie and i were asked to host a robot karaoke show for techkids unlimited. it was by far one of my favorite shows we've done, both because of the audience and the fact that i was home by 8pm. my joints were the opposite of happy, but every other part of me was buzzing.

i stopped eating edibles a few weeks ago - something i do quarterly to cleanse myself for the new season and keep small the amount of thc i need to start questioning the physics of the moon. my dreams have been vivid and i can tell i've been tossing and turning less, as pumagreg has become so much more cuddlier.

one of my favorite ways to end my work week on thursday nights is to clean and organize my entire space, and i think i've finally got a setup that keeps me efficient yet creative. i'm pretty much done with inventory for the store, now it's just timing the launch around scheduled obligations during this busy spring season. andy has some trips coming up, as do i.

nothing will compare to the three months we had to spend apart during the 2020 quarantine, but the idea of being away from each other for several days at a time has me like...damn it's going to be boring! we've really been enjoying walking to the park and playing radio. while he's gone i'll probably declutter my closet, do some product photography for the store, and maybe question the physics of the moon.

the flowers in the park and in my neighbors yards are really putting in work. i spent saturday afternoon at my pal lisa's place, and her garden is also looking very lush and green with flowers soon to come - although squirrels seemed to have eaten all her bulbs. it's her first year at this place and she's doing such a great job with the space, despite the horny, hungry squirrels.

after the huge rainstorm yesterday - which happened abruptly and merely 5 minutes after we went for a walk - my knees stopped hurting. perhaps i'm just a walking weather stick. i will go back to the gym this week, but still take it easy.

things i enjoyed this week

the beths dropped a new song + video today. summer is upon us.
as i said, we really enjoyed doing robot karaoke for techkids unlimited, so huge shouts out to the staff and kids!
one of my favorite stationery stores is yoseka stationery in brooklyn - i remember back when they were in sunnyside queens! they've been posting great day in the life vlogs recently and i have probably bought a total of 50 cigarette pencils from them.

this week i want to use my free time to get into activities i've been holding off on or forgot i loved. i may ask lisa to borrow her garden for a candle photoshoot. and maybe instead of pondering what would happen if the moon decided it didn't want to stay up in the sky, i'll turn my air compressor on and do some airbrushing - it's been awhile!

xoxo jenn

figure drawing session - april 16, 2025

2025-04-22T00:00:00Z

last week i went back to jc print room for a live model figure drawing session. this time the model was male. we don't know what kind of models we are going to get until we show up which keeps the experience fresh. i get super bored drawing the same body type, especially when they're similar to my own.

i was running late and didn't get to pack my supplies with the time and care i was hoping to, so this week's session was mostly in pencil. i started the short 2-minute sketches with a 6B graphite stick that i believe i got at a shop in oslo a million years ago. you can find them at pretty much every art supply store, they're nicer to draw with than standard pencils imho.

i used three colors from a 6-piece caran d'ache discovery set i got in a subscription box maybe half a million years ago. i once bought a hot pink caran d'ache mechanical pencil not realizing how fancy the brand was until the cashier said it was like $25!! but years later, it's still my go-to mechanical pencil. i highly recommend their wax pastels - which are essentially crayons, but they draw so luxuriously.

when i first got into figure drawing, i shared some sketches of the male body and a colleague emailed me to commission that i draw him and he attached a photo of his dick. how many unsolicited dick photos do we think have been used to train the ai models of google, microsoft, and other companies that have email products?

this model had really dynamic poses, although that made it hard for him to stay completely still for extended periods of time. i took it as an opportunity to change my system for capturing a shape before getting into shadow and detail. i had to leave early for dinner, so i missed out on the final 20 and 15 minute poses.

i plan to start to draw and paint pixel art versions of these sessions soon. i've not been drawing much outside of these sessions because i'm about a week away from launching my store, but that's been keeping me busy and creative still.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #11: playing radio, chandlery and blue prince

2025-04-21T00:00:00Z

my upstairs neighbors are doing construction and it sounds like they tore out all the floors and/or they filled their pockets and boots with heavy weights, so i've had to take about seven (7) breaks as i try to write this.

i spent a lot of time outside last week. with spring finally springing and easter later in the week, my neighbors really popped off with the tulips and daffodils.

it's become so important that we never leave for an engagement late or in a rush, because we need the time to stop so i can photograph every beautiful flower and exclaim how i'd love to drink ice water out of them.

🙃

this week i started a monthly plan at my aerial yoga studio. i used to buy 10-pack passes but it was still too pricy for me to go 2x a week. now on the monthly, i'm motivated to go more, and it's affordable to go up to 3x a week. between the gym and yoga unlimited memberships, i'm paying $210 a month on fitness - which is really good (eyes roll to the back of my head) for nyc area prices.

are we still worried about bird flu? is it not a big deal in general or is it not a big deal relative to everything else going on right now?

andy is into ham radio, and now that it's getting nicer out we've been going to parks to "play radio". it's a great way for us to get some sun, steps and fresher air, and sometimes we hear a guy talking about how he got his license in the 70s. the experiences almost have me ham-pilled but i don't know if i have the executive function right now to launch my candle store and take an exam.

i think i'm going to launch bugs rock next week. i'd mentioned the last thing i've been working on is adding a scented candle to the first collection, and that involved a lot more testing and redesigning cycles than i had anticipated - that's showbiz, baby!

there was a figure drawing session this week that i went to. i didn't stay the whole time because we hadn't had dinner yet and it was getting late. it's still hard to keep my attention on a drawing for a full 20 minutes, but it's also hard for models to keep their pose still for that entire time, so i don't feel so bad. 5 minutes used to be my favorite, but now i think my sweet spot is 10 minutes - perhaps that means 20 minutes will be a future favorite if i stick to it.

things i enjoyed this week

i replaced my plain desk mat with a self-healing cutting mat (they're often on sale on blick and it has been such a convenience to have rulers just there. it's such a simple and affordable change, but also a great "lifehack" for me.
going outside. that's it, i've really enjoyed it. if you haven't done it much, give it a try, i know some of us need the reminder.
but also staying inside. i've really been enjoying playing blue prince every night with andy. i can't say anything more because everything is a spoiler no matter how far or not into the game you are, but i can say that playing puzzlers with a partner is great and it's been something we've both been looking forward to everyday.

i'm going to be publishing a blog of my sketches from last week's figure drawing session, and i also think i'll have a proper review of some fake meat i bought and made. if you don't see those this week, you can blame my upstairs neighbors and/or [redacted details from blue prince gameplay].

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #10: the one where i accept that i can't have a humanoid body like krang

2025-04-14T00:00:00Z

this was a week of processing the blues of my prior week and trying to push myself through the discomfort by saying "yes" to opportunities that get me outside and away from screens and even wax. i started feeling a creative block coming, but i believe it was largely in part to my frustration with the weather going from warm to cold and shitty like a haunted see-saw.

drawing or painting every day has been a tough challenge, but i think that's because i've been doing too many "challenges" and so i'm working on giving myself more credit. i'm staying active, i ate the very spicy roll that my friend challenged me too - and won $5 for it - and i've been writing this weeky retro series for 10 weeks now. i have routines and i'm challenging myself!

i know that krang's needing a humanoid to get around is not ideal, but how nice it feels sometimes to think about what it would be like if i could get around with a large humanoid. don't tell the tech oligarchs.

speaking of challenges, last week i mentioned wanting to start running, inspired by chino moreno of all people lol. i did go on a treadmill jog, but realized really quickly that i need a better supporting bra when running than i do when walking uphill or doing aerial yoga. every day is a winding road with lessons at every mile marker.

we had a couple of really gorgeous days that are teasing spring. i keep having to remind myself that "april showers bring may flowers" so not to lose hope at getting a proper spring season before the temperatures hit 90s nonstop like last summer. that was a brutal one and i'm not sure if i'm prepared for a repeat of it.

the squirrels this week were out in full force. i saw them eating, stealing from delivery bikes, and fucking on stoops - real jersey shit. i used to want a pet squirrel so bad when i was in my 20s but knew that wasn't a normal, civilized or humane thing to act on. no squirrel, no humanoid...women truly can't have it all.

i took my first bike ride of the season, only because i was in a rush to make it to an event at the library that brett told me about. a bike, i figure, is about as far as i'll get with getting a humanoid body to move around. anyway i made it in time - early even - to see librarian of the year, lisa varga, on stage for a q&a. she's a great storyteller and advocate against the banning of books.

that was an inspiring day, not only because of the bike ride, the library and jerseyscript after, but because i had a breakthrough on my issue with trying to get my scented candles to "work". i realized, why am i making boring ass tin candles when i should be sticking to what i've been good at: sculptural wax. i went back to the literal drawing board, prototyped and tested...i feel like i am back on the rails, baby!

naturally, the weather went back to cold and shitty just in time for me to have a whole day out on friday. it was therapy, spicy sandwich and robot karaoke time. jamie and i hosted the show at LARPA for their "tax haven" event and it was a really fun time, as were the gallery and the screenings before the singing began.

friday was such an active day, i rotted through the cold and rainy saturday. sunday was still gray but nicer and drier. we didn't wake up early enough to catch the peak of the jersey marathoners passing through a couple blocks away, but we did spend some time in the park trying out andy's new ham radio transmitter. i was hoping to give some craisins to the squirrels, but it appears they were also rotting after such an active week of eating and fucking.

i can tell that pumagreg is also excited about the nicer weather coming, when we can open the windows and he can listen to the birds that occasionally dare to fly to our–i mean his window sill. after his 15th nap of the day, he crawled and passed out again on my chest as i finished the weekend with a reread of giovanni's room instead of writing this weekly retro on time.

things i enjoyed this week

if your favorite luxury store or tradwife (derogatory) tiktoker sells adorable beeswax fruit and veggie candles, they're probably from happy organics. i found them through my market research and have not yet bought from them, but will very soon after i recover from post-doing-and-paying-taxes anxiety. the berry birthday candles are genius.
i heard a rumor that lorde will be releasing an album this summer. i love lorde and discovered her on tumblr when royals first came out. unfortunately for her and i, i am unable to stop thinking about this "cover" (yes, i still actively use tumblr).
it's not that i enjoyed the (semi-failed) process of migrating my mastodon account, but i do enjoy that i had the opportunity to migrate to a good instance - run by my friend stefan, so i wanted to give him a shout-out. the failure is on the part of mastodon the software, not the instance, and i'll be writing about the entire experience soon.

another routine i'm starting is going back to doing aerial yoga 2x a week instead of once. light a candle and hope that the studio's app processes my registration in time for me to get a spot in class tonight. make sure not the leave the candle unattended, trim the wick to 1/4" before burning and never burn it more than 4 hours at a time unless otherwise stated by the candle's warning label.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #9: seeing deftones, drawing nudes, and practicing patience with myself

2025-04-07T00:00:00Z

if i had one piece of advice for everyone, but that i need to take myself, it's "you can acknowledge your weaknesses while also being kind to yourself". when i started writing this retro, i was not being kind to myself at all; there was a lot of "i need to be more patient" and "i wasted a ton of time"...so dramatic, jennifer jean! i had to step away from the screen and revisit it the morning after.

i felt myself going through the motions last week and there were points that i felt could have gone better if i just slowed myself down and practiced patience. primarily i'm talking about two scientific journeys that consume my days lately: candle-making and my health. both involve a lot of testing and experimentation, and they're both time consuming.

sometimes i just get overwhelmed and frustrated at how much time and effort it takes to make progress. if i had inherited generational wealth instead of a challenging endocrine system, surely i could be the martha stewart of candles that look like eggs, right?

this week was full of reconnecting with old friends and seeing artists i love doing what they are very good at. it's very inspiring! but sometimes at low points like i felt this week, inspiration can feel like pressure or the feeling of being "behind" - whatever that even means. i know from experience, and therapy, that this is the feeling of me yearning for my first big win since starting this leg of my adventure.

i'm getting very close to that win, the ability to launch. what held me back this month was realizing that it would be nice to add a scented candle to the collection, as i feel like that's kind of expected. this adds weeks of design and testing to the process, but i need to remember that's opportunity and learning and growth, not a setback. despite the lows, i've had high moments of taking ideas to fruition, which shows how good at my craft i'm becoming.

like stepping away from this retro last night, i've learned that stepping away from a difficult roadblock for a bit to rethink and find clarity is important. after a few failed candle tests, i had the opportunity to do some figure drawing live. i've been pushing myself to sketch every day as well to not let the wax overwhelm me.

i've been pretty consistent with my exercise, but i've been getting sleepier. i fear that my thyroid medication may be losing effectiveness, which i can have fixed in a couple months. it can also be explaining the blues i've been feeling, which is only exacerbated by my fear of losing my hair again. this week i've set the intention to go to bed earlier.

several months ago i got tickets to see one of my favorite bands, deftones. it was such a great show, and the mars volta and fleshwater were great too. mars volta's set had the best lighting design i've ever seen in a show. chino ran and danced so much, i left thinking "i should start running". i think i will this week.

friday i got to do a lot of walking, people watching, and picked out a couple of books i'm excited to dive into. i met with anil for breakfast to catch up, which is always healing. back in the summer when i told him i was leaving fastly (if you don't know our lore, anil was my boss for one million years) he was super supportive and said something encouraging like "sell candles". to that i said "i'm not selling candles lol" and here i am. something something, winding roads...

this week had its setbacks, but the friendships and art i took part in far outweighed them. the work i need to do is recognizing that in the moment vs days later when i try to write a retrospective about it.

things i enjoyed this week

this sign at the protests this weekend. if you see me in person, ask me my dumb little cobol story.
i may be biased because i'll be co-hosting robot karaoke at this event, but regardless i'd share the flyer because claire did such a good job with it
speaking of robot karaoke and that LARPA event, if you've been to a show of ours you've probably seen richard & yufeng's banner depot 2000 in action. i just feel like more people should know about it, ok!
my friend marina is selling her beautiful collages, "exploring the graceful and sophisticated portrayal of animals in traditional Japanese attire."
anil now has an rss-to-email subscription for his v good blog. thanks for the grilled cheese, pal.

this next week is another very social one. the one question on my mind going into it is, will these test candles i just poured work? i'll let you know when i know. until then, have a fierce week, jenn nation.

xoxo jenn

figure drawing session - april 2, 2025

2025-04-03T00:00:00Z

i went to my first live model figure drawing session in over 5 years last night! the host, jc print room, was great and so was everyone else there. it felt like my first day at school, except i wore grubby sweats because i make a huge mess no matter what media i'm working with. overall, a+ vibes and will come back. the following are my pages from the 3-hour session.

when i talked about trying to learn to enjoy markers, i was serious. while it would be uncouth to bring the magic scent markers, i did bring some regular alcohol markers with the intention to make them my primary medium of the night.

the way figure drawing sessions usually go is that the model goes from several short poses and increasing as the night goes on. tonight we did 5 2-minute poses, 6 5-minute poses, 2 10-minute poses, 2 20-minute poses, and wrapped up with a 15-minute pose.

i find quick poses to be more fun but i think that's more because there's less pressure to be detailed and "perfect". i do need to get outside my 1-5 minute pose comfort zone, and that's why i - unlike a lot of the folks at the beginning - stayed until the every end of the session.

that's really just to say that if you like really long poses, you're likely to get you choice of angle - chairs are often in a circle or semi-circle around the model on stage.

when a model comes back from a break with a prop, i want to give them a standing ovation. once in berlin, i looked up figure drawing sessions and joined one that was "technology" themed which just mean the model used different props that plugged into a way - if i recall correctly, one of the props was an iron.

i stopped typing this to look at my first figure drawing sketchbook. my first session was january 2015 - 10 years ago! i've only done figure drawing sessions in jersey city, nyc, and berlin. i think i'd like to add more cities to that list. i was going to say "i wouldn't say my drawing has improved" but it absolutely has and i need to give myself credit: i've learned to be more versatile with my tools, i've studied anatomy, and i think i'm finally coming into what my "style" is.

there's a lot of room for improvement on the hard parts: hands, feet, face. there's a reason why ai is so bad at generating hands: they look so different at event slightly different angles. anyway, that's why you see me making hands around the longer pos drawings; when i get bored i shift to studies of those more difficult body parts.

for the month of april, i'm trying to draw every single day to build the practice into my muscle memory. i look forward to attending more of these live figure sessions regularly and sharing them with you.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #8: touching grass

2025-03-31T00:00:00Z

ah, it's the last weekly retro of march. it went in like a lion and out like the trailing cough i've had for the past two weeks. april should have fewer coughs and more spreadsheets as i prepare to launch bugs rock.

i went into the week with the intention of setting and working a 4-day work week. it's really important for me to set boundaries and intentions to promote work/life balance and not lose my love for art and candles, but it's very hard to set a hard stop when the work is really fun right now. i will thank myself in the long run, for sure. this week had a lot of coding, site deployment, dns nonsense...basically the paperwork of web development. i'm so happy with how the site is coming out, though.

there was plenty of wax melted last week, too. there's something therapeutic about making things with your hands directly. the tools i use are a bit crude but i learn how to make due so that when i have the opportunity to upgrade, i'll immediately sense the growth and feel accomplished.

if i'm not melting wax, filing paperwork with the state, coding the website, photographing products, or creating and managing spreadsheets, i'm doing design work and putting labels on matchboxes. it takes me back to my freelance web design era in the 2000s where i was designing, coding, photographing...everything. it's a lot of responsibility and can get overwhelming, but it's very fulfilling.

pretty last minute in the week, i decided it would be best to include a standard scented vessel candle in the first collection at launch. it's been awhile since i did vessels and fragrances, so as i'm typing this there's some burn testing going on. this absolutely is causing a delay on the store launch, but i think it will be worth it and i love that i'm able to make that call.

i have been thinking a lot about changing my workout routine in april, as getting sick last month got me off routine which is an opportunity for a reset. i've been reading about heart rate zones and the numbers as i'm working out show me that i'm definitely not on whatever line of regression is used in these chartes. i guess i should ask my doctor if they'll administer a cardiac stress test. sounds expensive (american).

saturday was a high of 78F and we went to the park like everyone else in the city seemed to do. at around 5pm a cold breeze hit and the temperature instantly dropped 15 degrees. it was hilarious to see, and be among, hundreds of people fleeing back to the streets and the reality of late-march weather. it was nice to feel what is soon to come and to literally touch some grass.

things i enjoyed this week

the 4th edition of html review is out!
the vodka rigatoni at the new just friends in jersey city is so good. so was the burrata. i wish they were located somewhere that got more foot traffic for their own sake, but i'm happy they're here nonetheless.
spellling's new album is out! i listened to it on the treadmill today and really loved it - you will too if you enjoy kate bush, deftones, and/or lighting candles in the dark and thinking about how even though you have the power to manifest ill upon your enemies, you choose not to because you're even more powerful than anyone could imagine.

this is a big week. i'm going to a figure drawing session (i just got an email confirming there's a spot left for me 🥹), a party, and i'm seeing deftones + the mars volta + fleshwater! i sense that i will be approaching the next retro, and the month of april overall, carrying lots of inspiration. i hope the same for you as well, jenn nation.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #7: despite the haters (germs) i'm back

2025-03-24T00:00:00Z

coming off of being pretty sick last week and then continuing to heal from that whilst starting my period - yes, that keeps happening for some reason - i was starting to doubt that i had anything to even write about this week. that's when it's time to just start typing what i'm thinking.

as i'm getting close to launching my candle store, i'm thinking a lot about executive function. i have the kind of adhd where i do a lot of knowledge gathering and have lots of ideas and pretty good organization skills, but it takes seemingly forever to take action if i'm the one creating my own deadlines. i've been working hard to combat that during this self-sanctioned sabbatical by saying yes to things and experimenting more.

experimentation in action plays out a lot in my kitchen. this week andy's friend shared that he was making the superiority burger tofu-fried sandwich so i made that too. you marinade the tofu in pickle juice which is kind of genius. i also made this spring ricotta pasta but used a vegan "spam" instead of pancetta. everything came out great and there were 5 million dishes to clean.

it wasn't until thursday when i could leave the house to do a chore without feeling like i wanted to die. at that point, it had been a full week since going to the gym or yoga. fresh air and exercise do wonders for my mental health, so i had never been more excited to do a...pharmacy run. tell me why they texted that my pills were ready but said i wasn't in the system when i arrived? i felt myself getting sick all over again until they finally found and handed over the goods.

next week will be 6 years since i stopped consuming alcohol! there's no doubt that this lifestyle change had positively impacted my mental and physical health. after the pharmacy, i stopped by a liquor store (the circumstances of me quitting lend to me being able to be safely around real alcohol and other drinkers) to pick up some non-alcoholic bourbon to make myself some throat-soothing hot toddies, or at least my take on them: brew hot black tea, add a squeeze of lemon, spoon full of honey, and a shot of fake bourbon.

by friday i was feeling well enough to go into the city for therapy. this is a major schedule change for me that we made recently, and i'm happy it worked out the way it did. one thing i'm trying to do going into this new business venture is set boundaries on when i work so that i don't burn myself out, and so i'm going to try for a four-day work week where the weekend starts on friday.

that starts next week though lol. i had not melted any wax while i was sick so, i spent a whole lot of friday and saturday getting back into it. also, i couldn't not take advantage of the sunny day to take more product photos.

today (sunday) i finally made my way back to the gym for a lighter cardio workout. i had been coughing like crazy for a week, so it was crucial that i started slow and hydrated a lot. i have managed to go to the gym 30 weeks in a row which may be my longest streak. it was a reminder that i was only sick for a week even though i felt like i lost an entire month of work and working out. i've been told i get my propensity for dramatics from my father. i also inherited his attention span.

things i enjoyed paying attention to this week

look what @yomimono made in celebration of the (iirc) ten year anniversary of me once tweeting that i just keep getting hotter and smarter. no one can say that me saying that was any short of iconic - there's MULTIPLE pieces of fan art about it. i like that.
i recently got a nice email from an old glitch colleague - it's co-creator, pirijan, who has a great blog. if you've not checked out his latest project kinopio, it's worth a look and try. i never talked about this with him, but pirijan once had his own office and then one day i was hired and he was told to share it with me and he never gave me any shit about it. i have given my office up to people twice in my career and they each still gave me shit. sharing truly is caring is what i'm saying.
tom macwright has been sharing a sketch a day and i really enjoy them. i fear that i may need the accountability of getting kicked out of a club if i miss a sketch.

i haven't scheduled any streams in awhile, but i'm gooing to do doing a bunch of website code and deployment stuff this week and may go live once my cramps subside. i'm going to go finish my hot toddy - which has gone lukewarm at this point - now!

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #6: the one where i got sick

2025-03-17T00:00:00Z

in my last retro, which i posted on time unlike this one I KNOW, i said that the coming week would be a busy one. boy, was it. for the latter half of it i was like this:

let's rewind to monday.

jamie and i were back at wonderville for robot karaoke that night. i highly recommend doing a tough cardio workout on a show day, that way you can be exhausted and have a huge headache halfway through whilst your 5-day tattoo itches like crazy.

the night was really great though, despite the energy crash. it's pretty cool to be able to fill an arcade bar on a monday night. so many people signed up to sing, and they were all so good. but, oof, that headache. fortunately advil, and gorgeous early-spring weather, carried me through jerseyscript the next night.

my therapist was finally back after a couple of weeks away, and i was feeling as good as a dog waiting patiently for its espresso on 19th st (pretty good). afterwards i met with a friend and we walked over 20,000 steps.

all that walking may have been what lead to my later-in-the-week demise: too much "fresh" nyc air. my throat right now feels like how dusty this citibike lot is.

because of my period and tattoo session, i hadn't been to yoga in two weeks and i desperately needed to hang upside down like a bat - and stretch my screaming quads from the prior day's walk. you know, i'd love to have the nerve to stay after class to take a photo of me in a pose for you all, but last week the nerve did not exist so you get my mat in a pose for you all.

friday i woke up feeling like i was hit by a truck. fortunately it's just a mild upper respiratory deal, not covid, but having been so active this week left me little energy to heal. i spent all weekend in bed and watched SO much tiktok, like at least 10,000 hours of it. only this afternoon did i finally go on the computer so i can pay my gas and electric bill (the site doesn't work on mobile apparently).

oh! earlier this week i also wrote about markers. yesterday, coming out of my sick cave, i did some sketching with the markers and andy really loves them so i'll have to make more.

things i liked this week

i'm a make-doom-run-on-a-weird-thing hater, but i did enjoy this art gallery parody of doom. hard to believe i'd be posting a newgrounds link in 2025 lol
i mentioned i watched a lot of tiktok this weekend while out sick. two accounts i fell in love with were mew builds, who makes the most unhinged and incredible sims houses, and shop cats show, which is a show where their outstanding host interviews bodega cats around the city.
codedex posted a podcast version of my q&a with them the week prior. it was a fun conversation, so check it out!
not a thing, but i have to give andy a huge shout out for taking care of me while i was sick. i used to be the kind of person who not only never asked for help, but would reject help when offered. it's nice to have a partner i can just let take over when i have no energy to spend.

i'm still not feeling great today, though i'm in that tail end of being sick where i'm able to blog and answer emails but still stay inside. i opened the windows to enjoy the spring breeze and a moth almost flew into my mouth. nature and i are both healing, together.

xoxo jenn

trying to learn to enjoy markers

2025-03-11T00:00:00Z

happy 311 day. let's (breathtakingly unrelatedly) talk about markers.

the first set of markers i ever remember owning and loving were the "bold" crayola marker 8 count. i was reminded of them this week as i was trying out some markers that came in the latest upcrate box - a subscription i discovered over quarantine and just picked back up after a couple-year hiatus. in my last figure sketch post, i talked about how i don't really like alcohol markers.

i'm realizing that probably what i didn't like were the colors. they are mostly pastel, grays, etc. i have a very humble collection compared to a lot of artists i know and follow, and most of them came from subscription boxes. i picked up the skintone copic markers from a local art store the week they closed - that building has since been razed and now a towering building of luxury housing sits there, awkwardly imho.

alcohol markers are expensive. the copic brand, which used to be the standard in art supply shops (fortunately no longer the case) are notorious for having caps that crack and then dry out the entire marker! and this is a packaging bug that the company and its community just deals with? this is all to say that i have historically found alcohol markers in subscription boxes and art sets to be, personally, unwanted filler.

upcrate #66 came with 6 colorspaze markers in - bless them - bold colors, a permanent ink blackliner, 6 color pencils - the real unwanted filler of this box, respectfully - and a white charcoal pencil. here's a page from my sketchbook swatching and using everything:

i could have lived without the charcoal and colored pencils. i used to work solely in colored pencils when i first started doing pixel art on paper, so i have plenty. some artists do incredible things with colored pencil and i am very proud and in awe of them but i do not relate to them. watercolor pixel art is simply so much better on my wrists.

markers are really growing on me for 30 second figure sketches, like i did here. after doing a bunch, i went back with a second marker to use the fine point tip for accents.

i thought i was going to hate the chisel tip on these, but i actually liked how these turned out over past sketches i've done with brush tip markers. it could just be that it was a novel experience, so i'll definitely work with these more over the next few months before i dare buy an actual marker on purpose. again.

last week i made an order of printer paper and, to make free shipping, i threw in some crayons (disaster, don't do) and a pack of magic scented markers. there's something dark-sided about giving markers a scent, yeah? when crayola came out with magic scented crayons, i used to sell shavings of the bubblegum scent so my fourth grade classmates can chew on it. that was the first time i got detention - my dad said i was "basically a drug dealer" - so, since you asked, yes, that was my anti-capitalist villain origin story.

i love how the colors worked together during this session, but the headache from the scents was not worth it lol. i'm not even usually sensitive to smells like that! i think they were just too artificial. dr. sketch markers, like most cheap markers for kids, are water-based but probably don't say that on the packaging because water should be a basic human right and not something you pay for to save money on shipping printer paper. in this pack, yellow smells like "banana" but if you get a larger pack, the yellow smells like "lemon". dark-sided.

the cool thing about water-based markers is that you can play around with the ink by adding water. that seems obvious, but i was telling a friend about the marker scents giving me a headache and she was like "wait, it never occurred to me to treat markers like watercolors!" so there you go. just make sure they are water-based; it doesn't work with alcohol based markers. for those, you'd need to use...alcohol.

today i got billed for the next upcrate box which should be headed my way on the 15th. i hope it's not markers and colored pencils again. either way, i'll let you know, since you asked.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #5: are there brokers in the ocean?

2025-03-09T00:00:00Z

i'm just coming down now from a heightened state of agitation, caused by only just realizing at 5pm that daylight saving time ended while we were asleep. imagine the clock saying 5pm and your cat is not screaming for food and treats, it's terrifying lol! fortunately, pumagreg is fine and, as far as he's concerned, getting an early dinner.

i feel like this week flew by quite unproductively but as i look back, i actually did a lot. a few of you responded to my latest newsletter saying you would like to get blog posts sent to your inbox, so i set that up for you.

to be 100% dramatic, i recently had to change my entire morning coffee routine because my grocery store stopped carrying the vanilla almond milk i love. at the same time, though, they started carrying this oatmilk creamer that's, thank god, better than the other ones i've tried. anyway this isn't sponsored, it's just a resolution to weeks of personal coffee drama and i'm sharing it in case you too like your sugar with coffee and (vegan) cream.

i'm officially launching my online shop in a couple weeks, so i've been coding that up and doing more product testing. i'm very excited about how the candles are turning out, i have been doing a lot of work and i am proud of the outcomes.

business stuff has finally got me getting lost in flow states, which is great and not a feeling i've felt in quite some time off the treadmill. you can take the girl out of the tech job, but the girl will code a rainbow cursor trail until 2am while still in her workout clothes from 12 hours prior.

we got the news this week that our rent will be going up a percentage i've never experieced before, which means we're probably going to have to make some big decisions come next year. it's too expensive to go back to where i "came from" (10 miles away) and it's becoming too expensive to stay where i've been for over a decade. what a fucking bummer, but at least this time i have a partner in andy and we'll figure it out like we always had before independently.

perhaps it's for the best. there are little things that made me fall in love with jersey city when i got here that faded away over time due to rising rents - restaurants like litm (rip) where i used to be able to show my art. barcade is closing in june, where i had hosted the 2nd iteration of jerseyscript. and the art school stopped its weekly figure drawing sessions since covid, so i have to do it off a screen which is fine but definitely not the same.

there used to be an art supply store a short walk away, but that got torn down and replaced with luxury housing. i needed to buy paper online and threw in a box of crayons for $2.50 to hit free shipping and office max put it all in a polymailer instead of a box. anyone with 2 brain cells could guess how that went. it's hard not to think of how nicer things were 10 years ago.

i don't have many friends who still live here. lots of folks even left nyc during the pandemic and never came back. it's getting harder to find a reason - except the fact that moving is expensive and a pain in the ass - to not explore other places to call home. but then we'll go on a walk and find a birdhouse covered in googly eyes, and i am re-charmed.

how much do you think the rent is in the roku™ ocean? are the coral reefs rent stabilized? do the anemone have to write notes on the appliances to keep the clownfish from hanging things on and breaking them? i once met a roku devrel engineer at a devrel conference and i asked them how climate change will impact the roku ocean and they didn't get it.

brian, who took the above photo of me, gets it. also, he and i have been talking a lot about where we'll end up living in the future. this week we got matching tattoos together, now officially a tradition after our first matching one nearly a decade ago. shouts out to clara, who did a great job. that was a long but invigorating day; i had to rush to her spot in crown heights after doing an energizing virtual q&a with the codedex community, which i'll talk about more very soon - they're turning the conversation into a podcast episode!

it's been a few days since the tattoo so the second skin's off and i'm ready to go back to the gym, start a fresh new week, and let pumagreg near my freshly inked arm again. i asked clara if she'd clip the ear of one of them in honor of pumagreg and she loved the idea. sometimes when i play with his ear i feel bad thinking about how scary the experience of being trapped and released must have been for him, but comfort in knowing he was probably asleep for the ear clipping part and that he's clearly the most comfortable cat in the united states today. i mean, look at him, he's not worried about a thing. he doesn't give a fuck where we end up as long as there are treats.

treats i liked this week

those familiar with my work know i really enjoy p5.js and creative coding in general. on saturday, 3/15 is ccfest which is a free, virtual event bringing together lots of folks in the creative coding community.
wehaverights.us has rich video content in multiple languages to help us all know and understand our rights when we see or are approached by ICE.
this vocal tract simulator/synth is so funny, but also a helpful diagram for a part of our body we use so much
i have been waiting very patiently ever since descartes a kant said they did a kexp performance last year, and it finally went up. i love their look and sound!
speaking of cool music, spellling has a new video and record coming out later in the month!

this coming week is going to be a busy one. robot karaoke is in brooklyn on monday, jerseyscript is in jersey city on tuesday, and my therapist is finally back after being out a couple weeks. we have a lot to catch up on!

xoxo jenn

making custom matchboxes

2025-03-04T00:00:00Z

one of my favorite parts of buying from artisans directly is that there's always some surprise, personal touch added to the package - like a free sticker, candy, or a handwritten note. to me, it's proof of care and craft, and that's very important in this era of rampant ip theft and stealthy drop-shipping.

as i work towards opening my own art and candle store later this month, i have been thinking as much about shipping as i've been melting wax and swirling paint. with candles being my primary ware, i thought it would be fun to include a custom matchbox with orders. i did a test run last week to give out to visitors over the weekend and they were a huge hit.

here's how i made them.

materials i used

-blank matchboxes. you can get these in bulk from a lot of places online, i got mine from a local wedding favor retailer. they come out to less than 50 cents a pop.

-label paper. you can buy these by the sheet from onlinelabels.com which is where i got mine. for the pumagreg matchboxes, i used a sheet of white-gloss for ink jet printers.

-printer. i have an inkjet color printer. if you don't, please see if your library has one before buying an actual printer or paying a big box print shop. i've brought my own paper and paid like 50 cents for a color print at my local branch before.

-cricut. this is just to cut the labels. to me the cricut is like a javascript framework: it makes the rare, difficult thing easy and makes the common, easy things impossible. andy just happened to own one already when we moved in together and he very kindly lets me use it and talk huge shit about it ("i hate it too" - andy). what i'm trying to say is i do not recommend getting a cricut unless you plan to do a lot of precision cutting of paper and vinyl. for rectangle labels, a sharp set of scissors will suffice.

process

1.design your label. i took a photo of pumagreg i loved, then cropped and resized it down to the size i measured it to fit on the matchbox. in this case, i wanted the label to be 2" by 1.25" and 300 dpi. i use a mac and do most cropping and resizing in the native Preview app. remember to use print measurement units when printing, not pixels!

2.print your labels to the label paper. since i was using the cricut to cut, i used cricut design space to lay out 8 of the labels. if you're not using the cricut, i recommend photopea which is a free in-browser alternative to photoshop that i use all the time (and pay for because fuck adobe lol).

3.cut the labels. this is fairly straightforward...unless you're using a cricut. the "print to cut" feature was overkill for my 8 labels but i wanted to learn because i'll be making many more (hopefully). after printing from cricut design space, you'll get the labels within a black box guideline that the cricut needs to see where to cut. place the label paper on the cutting mat and into the cricut - design space will walk you through all these steps. if you're using glossy paper, put matte scotch tape over the black guidelines because the cricut is a big dumb baby and can't handle our shine. also, sometimes the cricut will need 500 hours to "calibrate."

4.place the labels on the matchboxes. the label paper i used is considered "permanent" in that once you put it on, you can't remove it without tearing the label. if you hate this, you'll want to explore printing on vinyl, but that's a bit much for matchboxes, yeah? just be mindful of how you place the labels and don't go crazy if any of them end up off-center. it's just matches.

custom matchboxes are a fun, easy and elegant thing to have in your home. you don't need to get married or baptize a child to make them, just put your cat on them, or your website. if you plan on shipping them, though, make sure you only do ground shipping because - and please withold your surprise and horror with this one - matches can catch fire near an open flame.

have fun playing with fire (safely)! xoxo jenn

weekly retro #4: the one where i have a party and then get mad at my computer

2025-03-02T00:00:00Z

i had a small, belated birthday gathering last night so, of course, so we split a cannoli at breakfast at 2pm and now i'm Ready To Blog™. or i thought i was until i started editing photos for this retro.

while pumagreg eats his daily spinch, i need to vent about computers. i updated my imac to the latest version of mac os sequoia this week, immediately turned off any apple intelligence nonsense and thought i was done. for some reason, now, i'm converting color profiles and figuring out why my iphone images for this post look fine on the screen but are desaturated when i upload them. i am to HEIC files and eggs as hank hill is to JPEGs and hot dogs.

speaking of eggs, that ceramic egg from collin garrity which i recently ordered arrived. in contrast to my computer update woes, the mail this week was actually quite fun.

andy surprised me with a desk nameplate to celebrate my new business. i can't overstate how thoughtful, supportive and affirming andy is of my wacky adventures and career moves. he was the one who got me my first candle making kit after i showed him candle making videos. i'm just saying, we make great moves together.

while my computer was updating, the weather was reaching temperatures in the low 50's. it felt nice to get to wear a smaller coat to run errands. as i'm wrestling with the after effects of that computer update today, the temps have dropped significantly. all the snowmen of weeks past are long gone but this drop tells me there will be more in our future.

when it's not as freezing outside it's, unsuprisingly, easier for me to get out the door and not negotiate my way out of exercise, especially during a busy week where i'm already low energy from my period. usually i let myself relax and rot as my cramps begin, but i recently, frustratingly discovered that when i don't lower my intensity before my period starts, i am less likely to end the cycle in a depressive episode. this in itself is depressing!

but that's not to say that i didn't give my body the rest it needed and deserved this week, despite all the cleaning and errands to do in the wake of my having guests come over. it weirdly helps that when pumagreg wants to lay and cuddle in bed, it's literally against the law to not oblige.

i took this apartment deep cleaning session as an opportunity to finally fix the door of our air fryer which we use multiple times a day and have been struggling with for several months. the hinge broke in a way where we couldn't get a new part, but we really did not want to have to toss an appliance that otherwise works away. i, a genius that needs several months to suffer and see if a thing fixes itself, fixed it with a safety pin. now we don't need to use our ceramic veggie steamer to hold the door shut.

and here are some stuffed bell peppers about to go into said air fryer. i didn't take a photo of them complete because i'm not very thorough at documenting my day. it's at this point of my writing this blog that i figured out how to convert my images' color profile and now they are uploading correctly.

computer woes, cleaning, and menstruating took up most of my time and energy from making candles, but i did manage to do a lot of wick and wax tests which are fun. playing with fire (safely, legal) rules.

i even managed to find time to wrestle the printer and cricut to make these labels of pumagreg and customize some blank matchboxes, a much-loved souvenir for my guests. i'll post a tutorial very soon about this.

now a new month is upon us all. between birthday happenings and it being shorter month, i did not do everything i set out to do initially, but i ended up doing other things that were probably better anyway - after all, i did not enter february with an llc or cannolis in the fridge! perhaps that's actually what going "in like a lion" means.

things i liked this week

not the latest mac os update, that's for fucking sure
but i do love a map, and this one visualizes USAID impact by state in case you were curious
dan tells some important history and, unintendedly and unrelatedly, inspires me to set up a blog-post-to-email integration for this blog. i have to have a talk with jenn nation™ about this first.
someone who i've recently come to know and enjoy the company of is brett bonfield, who reached out after i had announced my leaving fastly. we had a very inspiring, affirming conversation over coffee this week and it was another reminder that i need to write and share more (i know, everyone tells me this!).
my dear friend mike, who i once worked with at bocoup has helped transition the company into a worker coop. during my time there, 2014-2017, there was often aspirations from leadership to make it worker owned and it kind of became a meme for a couple of us, but mike and the folks still there finally made it happen and i couldn't be more excited. it's just a good, nice story among all the sad, aggravating news we hear out of tech these days.

the photo color thing turned this writing session into something way longer and painful than it needed to be! i'm going to get away from the screen and do some figure drawing because i hardly did any in february and i don't want to say the same thing for march.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #3: three teens in a trenchcoat start a business on their period

2025-02-24T00:00:00Z

i'm sitting here groggy, swollen and sore after a very poorly-slept night - a signal of my period starting any second. but it's hard not to feel invigorated about this week after seeing the next few days' forecasts having temperature highs in the low-50s after a very frigid and windy couple of weeks. time to crack open a window and finish this blog post. but first, a rorschach test...

staying active even as my premenstrual cramps start taking flight has, frustratingly, made me feel better and stronger. i know i say this about exercising in general regardless of my cycle lol, but what a tragedy (dramatic) it is that high intensity movement is a necessity in managing my thyroid disease on top of having a still-active uterus. i can't say i don't fear at all what menopause will have in store for me when that time comes, but i've gone through adaptations around hormonal chaos a few times now so i know whatever happens i'll figure it out.

i started an llc last week which involves paperwork, one of my top five enemies alongside estrogen drops, my dad's estranged wife, and my former dentist who will not stop calling and texting me - please, i told you you're no longer in network! while my body constantly reminds me i'm a grown, now-middle-aged woman, i still feel like a doofus and dingus when doing anything related to money. shouts out to my state of new jersey, though, whose online resources were very easy to navigate.

for years i've been making candles for friends and coworkers, and it's time to make my art available to others. now that the administrative (hard, painful) part is done, next is figuring out an online shop solution (probably also hard, painful). stepping away from the screen to go back to melting wax has kept me sane throughout this overwhelming, yet exciting process.

as i mentioned before, it's getting warming this week which is a much welcomed break from how frigid last week was. i'm talking "feels like" temps of 5 degrees fahrenheit (spelled that right without help on the first try, bitch) with winds. it feels like it's been a long time since i've lived around constant snow and ice on the ground.

i got my hairs cut last week. my stylist had taken a couple months off for surgery and recovery, unsurprisingly related to uterine issues, and i was her first client back. we were both very happy to see each other, catch up, and see my eyes again after that much needed trim.

when i start to feel worn down as my period approaches, i negotiate a lot with myself to try to stay indoors and on the couch. i was tricked the night of aerial yoga, i was only going to buy a pass if it wasn't snowing. as soon as i bought the pass, it started snowing. cancelling would have cost me $25 and the priceless feeling of hanging upside down like a bat.

because of the cold, i keep my socks on until the second class begins. my legs are very strong, but the friction of my doc martens against my socks is stronger and i only notice the holes in them when i'm in public. you probably cannot see them but i can. perhaps by sharing this with you, my hands typing it out will make me remember later to buy new socks.

saturday morning i went on an art date with myself, first in manhattan. i managed to get a spot in-person at a gesso workshop at kremer pigments, where i first got into paint-making several years ago.

dr. kremer himself happened to be in town and opened the workshop with a brief lecture on pigments. the workshop was super informative, and the shop's general manager, roger carmona, was a very patient, educated instructor (and he's a great artist too).

after the workshop, i came back to jersey city and walked through journal square to check out day one of the jersey art book fair. the air was dusty from all the salt and particles coming into the air after the roads had a chance to warm a bit after the cold week, but it was fragrant from all of the delicious restaurants and markets down the block.

the book fair was high-energy, with lots of young artists selling all kinds of zines, stickers, books and prints. i bought a couple of zines from a booth run by bfa students from montclair state, my alma mater. one was about eggs, the other about bugs and computers, my holy trinity of muses and a sign my practice (and business) could be headed in the right direction.

it was also a chance to drench myself, and my hat hair, in the lights of dan flavin. i've been telling people for years that it's a permanent installation, but now i see it's "only" until 2030. that's just a mere 5 years from now, but still seems so many lifetimes away.

my weeks often end with the usual housekeeping chores and watching pumagreg do what he does best: be soft and relax. still so much to learn from him.

things i liked this week

i love interactive maps, and i only just found that my main supplier, candle science, has one of top selling fragrance oils by state. do you agree with your state?
tammy aka uncomfy sculpted all of her meals in celebration of lunar new year. it's the intersection of craft process and culture that i love about youtube.
another youtuber i've enjoyed is eyol, a korean intern living in nyc and working in new jersey. her love of bread and adventure is so fun to watch and, as someone who has done the nj-nyc commute many times, i grant her way more street cred than all the grown folks who come to nyc and avoid crossing county lines.
i have been greatly moved by this crowdsourced, audio memorial of those who have died from the genocide in gaza, put together by friend and very talented colleague, ramsey nasser. so bittersweet it is, the feeling of seeing tech allowing the creation something so important but what should not be needed in the first place.

it's time for me to go back to fighting the urge to rot and put on some workout clothes to either sweat in on a treadmill or while mopping floors in preparation of a little birthday gathering i'm having later this week. stay warm, safe, and out of trivial arguments.

xoxo jenn

p.s. i plan on sending out my monthly newsletter later this week, so join the (free) list so i can consensually (took me two tries to spell that correctly) invade your inbox :)

weekly retro #2: lordy lordy, jenn is forty

2025-02-16T00:00:00Z

this week i turned 40 and i was very excited to hit that milestone so PLEASE spare me the "there's nothing wrong about turning 40" because you're PROJECTING! and onto this beautiful, perfect creature:

last weekend i told andy i was finally going to buy a scanner after researching and thinking about it since july, and he said "don't!" and the next day his very thoughtful gift to me arrived, a printer and scanner.

not only can i scan my art, i can also make high quality prints, stickers, posters, and other stuff that i'm excited to dive into.

it's been awhile since we've seen this much snow, last year we barely got any. i love the cold, but snow here gets really gross because of all the cars and dogs pissing. finding a snowman that hasn't been pissed on is like finding a shooting star.

i only went to the gym once this week, the day before my birthday, although i've been lifting weights sporadically at home. tomorrow it's back to the grind, jenn nation.

the grocery stores around here are starting to add limits. the multiple snow storms forecasted over the last week hadn't helped. it's kind of funny how i've been making and showing egg candles throughout all of this. make no mistake, though, i am pretty scared of bird flu, especially for pumagreg. he's an inside cat, but we still have to be dilligent to keep us and him safe.

the night of my birthday was jerseyscript. we had a good turnout, good food, and i was able to give lisa her butter candles. she got me a couple of lovely birthday gifts - a candy dish and beeswax candles in the shape of little chicken drumsticks.

i had always thought i'd throw a huge rager for my 40th birthday, and i still can - i can do whatever the fuck i want lol - but when the world feels like it's in crisis i have a hard time planning celebrations. it's like how in 2020 i didn't throw a big karaoke party like i always did because i was anxious about some new virus spreading in china. the vibes are not good my friends.

i'm not letting the bad vibes keep me indoors, though. i've been taking long walks around the city after therapy with my friend vijith, who seems to know where every cookie and public restroom in manhattan is - an envious superpower.

i like not having a plan and just walking through doors and looking at things. is that just tiktok but without a screen? am i crazy for being super underwhelmed by our crumbl™ cookie experience?

this week i locked down what a candle and crafts online shop launch would look like. i've been melting, photographing, printing, ordering more things to melt.

i'm excited and hopeful, and if no one buys a single candle then they're all mine hehehe.

someone at jerseyscript said "get used to feeling pain for no reason" in reaction to me saying it was my birthday - again, don't do that! but i'm feeling pretty good. i can do flips and i'm more flexible and strong than i've ever been. my end-of-week hang-upside-down-like-a-bat sessions at aerial yoga do wonders for my body and brain.

one thing i need to work on is getting more, better sleep. pumagreg is such an inspiration when it comes to that.

things i liked this week

howmanycigarettes.com tracks the number of cigarettes in films. i've never smoked a cigarette in my life as my grandma made me promise to never - and after watching her slow and painful death from emphysema i could never - but i've always been fascinated about its role in art and film, mostly from a conscious yet worried point of view. frustratingly to me, cigarettes are making a comeback in pop music - and i wrote that even before sabrina carpenter lit one up with dolly a couple days ago.
isopods! i love them every week, but this week i discovered meltknuckles' work on tumblr. their site is super cool and they raise isopods. this kind of art rules. bonus isopods content: isopods eat snowman

the pricemaster also had a birthday this week - 24 years! whenever i say something cost me 500,000 dollars, i'm referencing them.

xoxo jenn

making butter (kind of)

2025-02-14T00:00:00Z

happy valentines day, a good day to share a recent, small labor of love i did for a dear friend of mine. lisa and i went to college and lived on the same floor. when i got a remote job, she helped me find a new place in jersey city and so i've lived within a couple of blocks from her ever since - for over a decade now. if you've been to jerseyscript you may have had the pleasure of meeting her. lisa has a lot of style and her home has a lot of nice things that i like to touch and ooh and ahh at. one of those things is a ceramic piece of toast with a little butter candle by collin garrity.

lisa got the toast at a brick and mortar store, so she didn't know about the creator or the fact that he actually sells refill butter candles. she knows that now, but before i figured it out i offered to make some refill butter tabs so she didn't have to be precious about the one left that she had. i also wanted a chance to try out making molds for candles for the first time.

i got a this moldgel set on blick because it was cheap, plant-based and not very intimidating for a first-timer. i used distilled water, a rectangle candle mold to contain everything, and i made the "butter" out of polymer clay from a tracing i made of lisa's original candle.

when you mix 2.5 parts water to each part of the powder, it turns pink and then it turns white as it hardens. i fucking love science.

i poured the mold goo into the rectangle silicone mold and then popped my polymer "butter" tabs into it. it only took a few minutes for the mold to form, i think i left it in there for 10 minutes tops as i was melting the wax.

the mold was not perfectly smooth, see the bubbles, but that was probably because i didn't whisk it. wax can be very forgiving and i was able to carve and melt off the imperfections. these molds are technically single-use, by the way, and you're supposed to use them pretty soon after they're made because they shrink and crack as they dry out.

i poured soy pillar wax with yellow dye, no fragrance. i had some extra wax that i poured into another mold and then remelted it so i can make a second set of butter tabs. the mold held up pretty well through the two sessions over about an hour - the tabs are small so the wax didn't take long to harden enough to pull out and wick.

here's the wax almost hardened, and i stuck a hole with an awl in each so that it would be easy for me to wick them. i used a clay scraping tool to scratch off any bumps from the mold bubbles, and a heating gun to smooth the surface.

now lisa has 4 cute little soy-based tabs of butter to use! i shan't make these ever again now that we know that collin makes and sells refills and i'm not trying to get in his bag like that - in fact, i just ordered myself an egg because i'm on an egg candle kick as you know - but i at least learned a lot from this mold-making process. i even got to break out the polymer clay after a long hiatus from that, so i guess i need to come up with some new cute little things to make, mold and pour.

xoxo jenn

weekly retro #1: last full week of my 30s

2025-02-09T00:00:00Z

laws have become a gentlemen's agreement and we are not ruled by gentlemen - that's how i'd explain the last week at a higher level with what's going on in america and even on the streets of my own community.

amy wilson wrote a great post explaining the trouble that my city's non-profits are facing, ending with a call to action to donate to the waterfront project. i did, and i encourage you to donate to a similar org in your community that helps your neighbors avoid homelessness. giving and engaging in community is one way to keep grounded during a time of chaos and loss of control.

another is in finding daily joys in things i can control, like cooking new things. the moment i saw rainbow plant life post this braised tofu recipe, i told andy "i have a plan for dinner tomorrow".

one thing i cannot control at dinner is keeping pumagreg off the table.

this image was edited to hide my location using mac os preview, not with ai. that's the jenn schiffer guarantee™

another thing that i've found to help me through chaos is lifting weights, doing long, steep incline walks on the treadmill, and aerial yoga. intense, physical activity not only makes me physically stronger, but it really shifts my focus and attention to just not getting hurt or dying instead of all the many thoughts swirling in my head at rest. also a benefit: no screens.

on wednesday, jamie and i hosted robot karaoke at this really cool art and games space, boshi's place. i got us both hats embroidered with "karaoke professional".

i really enjoyed the space, it was our first time (hopefully not the last) bringing the weird algorithm there. if you're not from nyc, you should know that despite the loss of lots of our indie spaces to slumlords, pandemics and/or media monsters, the scene is still vibrant and these spaces have found new life or empowered entirely new ones.

our next show will be at one of those spaces, wonderville, on march 10th. it's free, there's a bar with plenty of non-alcohol options too, and - most importantly - gourmet hot dogs curated by my pal who is also named jenn.

i've also made great progress on designing and making sculptural candles. it's another no-screen exercise and i'm learning a lot. this week i hit a couple of breakthroughs and got to really put my new little wax melter to the test.

this month i'm working on opening an online store to start selling them made-to-order (a lot of these ones i've made will be given out to friends), so i'm getting to play around with product photography and staging.

andy and i found this during a walk home from buying non-alcoholic sparkling rose, which i'm drinking as i type this - NOT in this mug.

moving my body through exercise and community activities, and my brain through making food and art, has helped me feel less trapped during especially bad times. i'm trying to intentionally find the beauty and humor in my day-to-day amongst the unfairness. i'm also not trying to understand everything because everything feels really irrational and impossible to understand.

like, why is the ice cream bungee-corded and locked in duane reade like this, but the drinks aren't?

things i liked this week

colin's explainer on the google ai ad flop is really good because it isn't just "google bad, ai good", it is centered on how the web being consumed by ai is already pretty poisoned. that's not to say we should forgive google for making mistakes like this, though, because 1. they're the reason the web is poisoned (ads, seo) and 2. letting that cheese fact through was such a bonehead move and companies keep doing this!
casey's fosdem talk includes not just fun history, but questions and uncertainty, which i feel is often missing during conversations about creating any new technology, especially decentralized social media. the more unanswered questions we allow in conversation, the more thoughtful and careful we are about innovating human interaction. casey, i miss working with you!
nora has a new newsletter sharing progress and updates on their glass kiln adventures. if you like glass and pretty things, subscribe and even check out their wares.
i got some cool patches from jim in the mail. he's always been prolific and generous with his art, which is what i am trying to be in my candle practice.
jerseyscript is back on tuesday, february 11th aka my birthday, and yes i will be there because you all are my people!
this video:

i watch about 500 hours of youtube a day, especially of creators who talk about their process through creation and creative blocks - so i've been a fan of doechii forever. she's been so generous through her earlier years in sharing her progress through creative recovery. this video is one of my favorites of her earlier ones because core values are such an underestimated superpower in art, and life in general. i actually cried when she won a grammy last week. she's such a talented and special young artist who i'm so excited to keep following long into the future.

going through photos and posts this week was actually a nice way to remind me that there are people and events and pumagregs to be around and enjoy. i hope you enjoyed this weekly retrospective here, it's something new i'm trying. see you next time!

xoxo jenn

some figure sketches from january

2025-02-08T00:00:00Z

cw: drawings of nude people with the three holy b's: boobs, butts, bush

i have been drawing figures on and off for several years but fell off from it since my local art school stopped doing weekly live model figure sessions. last month, i decided to get back into it and wanted to share with you some of my sketches and paintings so far. none of the models were live, so huge shouts out to quickposes and sketchdaily for its expansive library of reference photos and timer resources. i am very rusty but having a lot of fun.

the following set has a gouache background i painted and then black watercolor on the foreground. i spent 2-5 minutes on each figure.

all of my sessions start with a warmup where i set the timer to 30 seconds and increment when i feel like i remember what a human body looks like. if you're one of my fellow web developers, starting a session can feel like coming back to your computer after a week off and it seeming like you've forgotten how to code lol. the warmups are also a great time to try different media and supplies. my favorite warmups have been with water-based paint markers - mine are poscas.

i also enjoy large graphite sticks, they feel nice in my large, beautiful hands. i have tried glass dip pens in ink too, but i am struggling to get them to work for sketching. brush ink pens are my absolute favorite, and i've only just started using them for figure drawings last month.

surprisingly, i really have fallen out of love with alcohol markers. actually, i don't think i've every loved them, i just used to only have a set of turquoise copic markers that i brought to every figure session - i even used them in a live model session i attended in berlin! maybe i'd love them if i had 100+ of them like a lot of artists on youtube have, but that seems like 80+ too many markers.

i've been focused on candle-making this past week so i haven't done any figures yet in february, but i've set an intention to get back into it this weekend. several years ago i took a 3-day figure and anatomy course where we primarily used charcoal and i remember really enjoying it, so i just got a new newsprint pad and found my charcoal stash from that time. this month i'm going to focus on that as well as refreshing my study of anatomy - and i may even make the time to do go to some live model sessions again in the city. i'll share my work on here next month!

xoxo jenn

p.s. here's a good time to remind you that this blog has an rss feed and i have a free newsletter, since those may be ways you prefer to keep updated on my work. (almost) weekly, i've been streaming on youtube, mostly fiddling with my personal site and sharing my candles. i have some really exciting candle and art stuff coming up that i can't way to share.

books i read in january and thoughts on medicine and literacy

2025-01-31T00:00:00Z

i have written previously about getting back into reading again. when covid quarantine went into effect, one of the things i stopped having the attention and appetite for was reading books. but since fall, i have been chipping away at a pile that had been waiting for me since 5 years ago, and i am intentionally trying to read at least 2 books a month. in january i read fuzz by mary roach, and natural causes by barbara ehrenreich. i'll write about fuzz and my thoughts about and journey in divesting from specieism another time. today i want to talk about natural causes and, especially, barbara ehrenreich's impact on my outlook on death, wellness, and how i have navigated those topics before and going into the trump administration.

it's hard to believe in what you never see, and what i never saw, until well into my thirties, was a healthy perspective on death and wellness. my mom died of aids while reagan (derogatory) was president and my dad shortly after married us into a violent, authoritarian home built on a foundation of religious psychosis, addiction, bigotry and the so-called "fiscal republicanism" that even as a kid i knew was stupid because the laundry basket full of pantry food items that i and my ccd classmates put together every holiday often ended up on my own family's doorstep. if you didn't know that already, well, that's my villain origin story, so a lot of what this current violent, authoritarian state built on religious psychosis, addiction, bigotry and so-called "fiscal republicanism" comes as no surprise to me - it doesn't make anything going on any less devastating, but it's built resilience into me and the ability to have hope.

barbara ehrenreich's villain (against systemic oppression) origin story was a dehumanizing childbirth experience that set her on the path towards exposing and fighting against the criminalization of the poor, mistreatment of women by the healthcare industry, and the wellness cults that orbited around her as she went through treatment for breast cancer. in natural causes, she taps into that experience, as well as her background in cellular immunology (which she had a phd in, queen), to examine how our society obsesses over and catastrophizes health, wellness, our bodies, and death. and it's more often profitable to the people who created our problems than it is to our well-being and mortality.

the main thing i took from natural causes was validation in how i navigate my own wellness and health journey. while i have the most prevalent autoimmune disease in the united states, it is a very lonely experience unless you buy into the wellness cults that i imagine ehrenreich herself experienced during cancer. and i don't fully blame people who do, especially in moments of hopelessness and lack of answers. a lot of us were raised to believe medicine is either "whatever the doctor says" or some kind of governmental control tactic, with no nuance taking into account the breadth and youth of science and techology as well as capitalism and authoritarianism.

medicine is a philosophy. i am the one who make choices about my body, but those choices are informed because i confer with medical professionals. i and they are humans who do not know everything and can make mistakes, but there's no deep state involved here keeping us all from some seed-oil-free magic potion to help peter thiel live past 120 years - and yes, ehrenreich mentions him and the other oligarchs terrified of their own mortality as they band together to make the rest of us face our own. this book was published 7 years ago, by the way, and a couple of years prior i was pleading with my colleagues not to accept the billionaire chase for immortality as something that wouldn't lead to what we're experiencing today.

what we're experiencing today, especially these last couple of weeks, is an authoritarian takeover of our health and well-being. these aren't changes that have been happening overnight, they are systems being built over time and what feels broken is by design - i highly recommend you read my mentor and friend anil dash's post about this because he goes into it in a really approachable way.

education is next, a system deeply coupled with our health and wellness despite what the powerful (and often uneducated and illiterate) want to make it seem. if it were not for my love of reading as a child, i would not have seen that there was a world outside my violent, authoritarian home. i simply would not have any kind of lifestyle to hope for and power through the violence to get to. as an adult, it gave me access to experts instead of turning to influencers, like rfk.jr (derogatory), who parade as experts and are presented to us on a silver algorithmic platter by platforms created by ceo's who look like the bottom of the canned wet ham donated to my family by the church that said my mom deserved her ending. outlawing education and reading is not far back in america's past and we are experiencing today that oppression tactics can have trend cycles much like fast fashion.

"Freedom to read is essential to our democracy." -american library association.

snake oil is back, babes, but these days we have way too much access to experts through technology to fall for it, and we have too much well-documented history of politics killing our loved ones and friends. it's okay to turn to alternative treatments or seek out diverse resources on your own health journey, but don't accept the teachings of people who are part of or celebrate an administration actively trying to disable, cruelly deport, and withold the power of literacy from us and members of our community. don't let influencers, artists or celebrities like and amplify rfk.jr and other grifters words because, among the bullshit, they say something you may agree with. it's that same poison as my dad's "fiscal republican" bullshit in the 90s that has strengthened and disseminated the rest of the poisons that come in the fascist playbook.

i'll close this out with words from barbara ehrenreich's son, ben, from when she passed away in september of 2020. they're words for us all to live by and hopefully truly embrace in both our health journey and fight against fascism:

“She was, she made clear, ready to go. She was never much for thoughts and prayers, but you can honor her memory by loving one another, and by fighting like hell.”

xoxo jenn

a pixel watercolor sketchbook i filled up

2025-01-26T00:00:00Z

a few weeks ago i finished a special sketchbook on stream (ahem, like and subscribe) and have been adding photos of it to my portfolio (which i've been coding on stream hehe). the sketchbook is a letterpress grid watercolor pad from case for making and the paints were gansai tambi which i've really been enjoying.

the book came with 20 but i forget what i did with the first page lol. the 19 pages start with a couple of fried eggs i free-handed:

then i free-handed some purple flowers.

at this point i started looking for digital pixel art i've done before but never in watercolor. this is when i finally got into a flow state with painting for several days straight. you may recognize some of these if you've been following my work.

i hate this flamingo one because i picked bad background colors:

this recreation of a steiner mural in pixel art is probably my favorite of the group:

mods are asleep, time to post pinup gumby:

one night i did a pixel art sketch of a candle i wanted to make. i did make this candle and then i dropped it on the floor so i'm going to remake it:

i love vintage cake decoration! this is my first of what i think will be many more pixel art patterns from cakes:

i want to get a scanner so i can start saving these digitally and giving away these and other sketchbook pages. if you have a recommendation on good flat bed scanners for scanning art, let me know!

xoxo jenn

2025: another year of blog on the desktop again

2025-01-08T00:00:00Z

i was thinking about how i'd like to set some intentions for the new year but have been blocked. i have more time on my hands than ever in my life, but i'm still working on moving forward without the paralysis that comes from having so many options and ideas (and adhd - a damn hottie disorder). then i realized tonight, while scouring the live laugh blog archive, that i wrote one of these posts when 2024 started, so let's start there.

"last year i picked up a lot of new things: aerial yoga, airbrushing and 3d web development, and so of course this year i want to get better at those and my other hobbies."

i really can't overstate how nice it is to have these old posts to go back to and remind me of all i've accomplished. my brain tends to default to forgetting my wins and replaying the fails, so going back to these posts have helped keep my brain honest. this should be your year to start a blog if you've not done so yet.

here are some highlights from 2024:

i wrote 26 blog posts, significantly up from the 9 i wrote in 2023. i would love to write even more, and i believe that won't be a hard record to break since i'm making way more things that can be shared than ever. just like 2023, i wrote and presented one conference talk in 2024. this time around, though, i presented at a community-centric conference, verses the tech and coding conferences i'd always done before. even though i'd been a community manager for several years, i'd not had the opportunity to speak to a large community audience before. it gave me very good perspective on what good community orgs are or aren't.

i also presented in a work event which was a rewarding experience as i collaborated a lot, leveled up my public speaking, got to be product lead for an exciting release, and gained all the perspective i needed to come to the decision to leave my job - which was by far the most smart and life-changing thing i'd done in a very long time, not just 2024. cpr/first-aid/aed certification was another cool thing i got to do at work, along with hosting monthly code jams and doing weekly livestreams showing off all the cool apps the glitch community made. as much as i love not working, i do really miss my team!

it's very hard to get me on an airplane, but i made an exception over the summer to co-host the final xoxo. it was the week before my last week at work, as well as the last xoxo ever, so it was very emotional for me. it was not so much from being sad about xoxo ending - i mean, it had to. it was moreso the thick flood of emotions i felt i had to carry as both the host and as someone who many had not seen in several years. hosting a high-EQ event is really hard!

speaking of hosting, i started co-hosting robot karaoke with my pal jamie brew. we first met at xoxo in 2018! he comes over often for tacos, coffee, hearing me vent about the patenting of weather-related algebra, and planning our shows. our first one of the year is on january 13th btw! it's fun and i'm glad jamie moved to new york, brought me into the fold, and joined me in the Summer Of Quitting Our Jobs.

after i quit, i started reading books again. i was such a voracious reader until the pandemic started, so to come back to it has been so much more rewarding than witnessing everyones lack of media literacy on bluesky. some of my favorites were my friend kevin nguyen's "new waves" and mary roach's "gulp".

i also joined a gym. if you saw how often i went, you'd think i "love going to the gym" or "enjoy working out." exercising is like working: i'd rather not do it! but i'm definitely not taking this time off for granted; when i say my job is gym/therapy/laundry, i actually mean it. none of those pay, so i want to explore how i can offload some of these drawings and candles i've been making to make enough cash to, say, cover health insurance.

from all of that being said, i pulled together what feels like good, achievable goals for 2025:

post more often on the blog
start selling my weird candle sculptures
make a collection of paintings showing off my figure and airbrushing practice
stream weekly as a vehicle for keeping my sites and art fresh
read more than 12 books
get involved in more in-person communities
run a virtual event, like livelaughconf 2.0 for its 5th (!) birthday
truly, deeply enjoy turning 40
don't chop my hair off
do 5 solid pushups

i'm fortunate to have gotten a head start on a lot of these, but i'm going to be very pleased with myself in january 2026 to be able to come back to this list and give myself the deserved time to celebrate my wins. i wish the same for you all, and a happy new year.

xoxo jenn

a collection of candles i made

2024-12-27T00:00:00Z

i've been feeling antsy from not having played around with my candle supplies in awhile. an exception was the weekend after thanksgiving, when a couple of friends came over and each left with their own candle. those were fragranced and poured in recycled jars, though, and i had said almost a year ago how i wanted to go more sculptural. the problem is that i didn't know where to start, which is a common roadblock to my creativity.

my urge to wait until i have sketched designs lead to me not making any for so long, so i decided to try an experiment: fill as many of my variety of polygonal molds over a couple of days with different colors, then then put together those wax building blocks in a way that would make a cohesive collection. the following is the output of that experiment:

my first candle collection

i can say i did a good job at cohesion because the candles just happen to fit in pairs, not something i did intentionally. the first one is a pair simply because i broke the base when trying to wick it, so i figured i'd break the other piece and make them siblings.

i love how the colors came out, and i think its simplicity is beautiful. i used a heat gun to smooth the broken ends a little which i think was a nice touch.

originally i was only going to make a video melting of one of the candles, as i didn't want the final collection to have two super similar candles, but i loved how the candle melted. so instead of reusing the wax, i just put in a new wick.

by the way, i intentionally did not prioritize burn time/functionality of the candles. i was going for something different, and more structural than functional - kind of like the decorative soaps your stepmom's aunt kept in her bathroom.

these candles remind me of those photos of kids before and after their first days of school.

right before i poured the wax for these, i got a couple of molds for candy at michael's, one with a variety leaves and the other some gems. they don't work so great for wax but i was able to get some nice ones to add, especially to make the spheres look like fruit.

it was quite laborious to get wicks in these molds. fortunately, a few of my clay tools came in handy and i was particularly patient during the days i worked on these - especially after i had broken the first block used in the first two candles.

another difficult part was getting the pieces to stick together. there are a number of ways to go about it, and i managed to fuck up each one along the way, but that's what experimenting is for: getting in one's practice and breaking - and/or melting - shit.

this is like an abstract rose. it was kind of a breakthrough realizing how many ideas i actually had for abstract sculptures once i had the wax (cooled and cured) in my hand. the flower was simple, but moving to me.

the candles that look like the kind of buildings where everyone would surely roll off and die at a light gust of wind were the most exciting for me to make, as well as the most difficult to put together.

playing with shapes and colors is super fun with wax, but playing with the wick placement, too, made the entire project really enriching for me. it was especially nice how all the pairs came together to make a unique, cohesive collection - exactly what i was aiming for.

this experiment was a lot of fun, and i learned so much about the possibilities - and limitations - of wax. i used soy pillar wax and liquid dye, all from candle science. i already have a new experiment cooling and curing right now that i cannot wait to show you so, so soon.

xoxo jenn

i appreciate you reading this far! as engaged as you are, you may want to also subscribe to my youtube channel. i am streaming there instead of twitch these days - it's where i first showed off these candles, and will be uploading more timelapses of candle rejects melting.

candle math

2024-12-17T00:00:00Z

a couple of weeks ago i started spending a lot more time on candle-making. unfortunately i was born to use a computer and write code on it, which means i ended up building a couple of apps to help me, and perhaps other candle-makers, to do their craft.

the first app is ~candlemath, which is a calculator for helping you and i get the right amount of wax and fragrance oil depending on the candle vessel. this is one of those algebra problems that is not difficult to solve, but can be tricky because you're working with a sum of variable percentages.

another app i made is ~candlemakinginventory, which is a table of my candle making inventory, it's less the app that's useful to anyone else but moreso the data. i keep a json file of the inventory and the app turns it into a nice, sortable table.

both apps are open source and remixable on glitch. if the calculator doesn't help you, i hope that at least the inventory app stops you from buying some of the worst fragrances i've ever allowed into my olfactory system.

xoxo jenn

ten years of cattoo, or a comparison of a tattoo i got 10 years ago and what it looks like today

2024-12-05T00:00:00Z

"that's going to age poorly" is a common refrain that's projected by people - who themselves are probably aging poorly - in the comments of any videos or photos of tattoos. or "you'll regret that" and (my favorite) "what does your mother think of those". my tattoos are pretty innocent, i only have a handful of them, and they're all on my shoulders and above the elbow so they're often not even visible. i love them and i'll get more.

yesterday i was going through photos from november 2014, just to see what i was up to 10 years ago, and it brought to my attention that the day after thanksgiving was the 10-year anniversary of my first tattoo, which we call cattoo. this has become a tradition, where the day or so after thanksgiving, my friends and i would go get tattoos together. it was a tradition that, like a few others of mine, went on indefinite hiatus when covid hit.

anyway, if you wanted to see what a 10-year-old cattoo on the back of my arm looks like compared to the day it was created, here you go:

my inspiration for the tattoo was m.c. escher's dodecahedron drawings and my black cat jefrey (rip). i'm gatekeeping the artist because i am afraid this post will enter some weird space that may bring negative attention to both of us because some of you are fucking weird. from my perspective, the only one that matters here, they did a great job at taking my vision and turning into beautiful art i literally carry with me everywhere. i even went back to them the next year to get another dodecahedron on my other arm.

tattoos, like any circumstance (except death, perhaps), is only permanent if you allow them to be. i've heard it's painful and expensive to remove them, but it's a common and more and more available option. i only say this so that those of you grown adults who want a tattoo but get told "it's going to age poorly" consider that aging itself is a blessing and privilege not everyone gets. i'm over a decade older than the age my mom passed away - i imagine she'd love my tattoos, by the way. so why avoid adorning the surface level of your skin because you're afraid of what it will look like in 10, 20, 30 years? do your research, stay safe and clean, and live laugh love out of the comment section.

xoxo jenn

the pee-hole post or a quick fix if your air compressor's drain valve is leaking and other sidequests

2024-12-01T00:00:00Z

i mentioned having drama with my air compressor in my last post. the issue was that the compressor's drain cock valve - the pee-hole, on this blog - was leaking air. notice how i said "the issue was" and that's because i fixed it. to celebrate, as well as deliver on my promise to jenn nation, here's...

the pee-hole post

the way an air compressor works is that it forces air into a tank which can then be released, for example, when you press the trigger of an airbrush. imagine the tank being a full balloon and the airbrush is your fingers holding the balloon closed and loosening to allow some air out of the balloon.

i own a california air tools (whatever) compressor and i use it for airbrush painting and just blowing air for dusting or drying stuff on my desk.

the tank has a pee-hole that you can rotate a ball inside it to stop or allow air to drain. you want to end each use of the compressor with an empty tank - of air, as well as any condensation. it's a pee-hole, see.

my issue is that when when i had the pee-hole closed, it was still releasing some air. i had been pretty good about draining it and it wasn't an old tank, so i figured that there must be a plastic piece inside the pee-hole that needed to be cleaned or replaced.

i used a hex wrench or whatever it's called to remove the insides so i can confirm there was a worn-down piece inside. i made an order to ace hardware for a new part. shipping was going to be twice the amount as the part so i added a couple of items to the order to tackle other projects: some sisal rope to rerope pumagreg's cat tree, and a new mop and bucket so i can clean up the place ahead of thanksgiving.

as a temporary fix to the valve, because i wanted to paint that night and had no idea how long an ace hardware order would take, i stretched a little bit of thread tape around the piece over the plastic bit. this greatly improved the leak and allowed me to keep using the compressor while i waited for the new part.

and then my spray pot lid broke and i found a model for andy to 3d print for me. of course, the jar i used to use was a narrow-mouth jar and the model needed a wide-mouth jar. so within hours of the first, i made a second ace hardware order - fortunately a set of jars was on sale and we'd use the rest for drinking anyway.

i was not happy about making 2 orders within a day, but i was pleased to receive both orders less than two days later. finally, i had my compressor's new pee-hole, mopping supplies, a roll of sisal rope, and 8 wide-mouth jars. what a girl wants.

here's my "spray pot" complete. you can find the model like i did on thingiverse. just note that you'll want to put a ball of cotton or something in the cone thing if the water level of the jar is lower than the pole beneath it. in the future, i'd remix the model to remove that thing entirely - i think it's so you can "easily" pour stuff out, but i'm fine with unscrewing the lid once in awhile.

before i show you how i installed the compressor's new pee-hole, i want to talk about pumagreg's cat tree. pumagreg is an absolute shredder, and fortunately he keeps 99% of his shredding to cardboard and his cat tree. i had been meaning to rerope the scratching posts - something i've not done before but figured was an easy, annoying task to do. i was right!

with a roll of sisal rope in hand, i tore off the rope from the bottom post first. and then i just wrapped the new rope around. it absolutely was both easy and annoying. rope shreds got everywhere! sometimes i got splinters but never got up to put gloves on! i also could have unassembled the tree to make it easier to wrap the rope, but part of my art is doing things the hard way. anyway, the amount of rope one needs is (warning: math):

height-of-pole / thickness-of-rope * diameter-of-pole * pi

remember this math but refrain from exclaiming how smart i am for knowing math...

...because after i completed the first pole, i realized i forgot to multiply that by the NUMBER OF POLES I WAS REROPING. so here's the actual math:

height-of-pole / thickness-of-rope * diameter-of-pole * pi * number-of-identical-poles

so, naturally, i made a third ace hardware order for another roll of sisal rope. and because i'm a sucker and cannot stand an order where shipping is the most expensive item, i tossed two treats into the order: a toilet paper holder and...well, you'll have to reach the end of this chaotic journey to find out the other one.

let's get back to the pee-hole.

every time i question whether i'm taking myself seriously enough or not by calling it the pee-hole, i remember that what i'm talking about is a "ball type drain valve [that's] ideal for replacing air compressor drain cocks". despite what a pain this entire journey was, i was happy that this particular drain valve promised a "long, trouble-free life". what a girl needs.

here's a side-by-side of my compressors old valve on the left and the new one on the right. funny enough, the rest of the hardware on the compressor was brassy and not silvery, so this new ball type drain valve ideal for replacing air compressor drain cocks actually fits the compressor's aesthetic better. this matters more than anything, even safety.

here's the compressor with no pee-hole. even though i'm incredibly strong, it's important to the safety and serenity of our household that i reserve that strength, so andy helped me remove the valve and put the new one in.

it was easy to install, but took a lot of strength to get it tight. you'll need a wrench, no matter how leathery your hands are.

pov: you're looking up at my compressor's newly-installed pee-hole

with that installation complete - and working fantastically by the way, thanks for asking - i now had to finish all the sidequests i started all because there was air leaking out of my air compressor pee-hole. unfortunately, thanksgiving was coming up so i had to wait like 4 days for my third, final ace hardware order. pumagreg waited patiently on his half-done tree while i mopped all the floors with our new mop and bucket.

he wasn't too patient though.

pov: you're removing the old rope from a cat tree while pumagreg stares at you from the top

pov: you realize that even though you ordered the identical sisal rope, they sent you a different one

this post was going to end in a glowing review of ace hardware and how big their selection is and how fast they ship, but this pissed me off! clearly, and we measured it, the rope on the left is 1/2" but it's got the same exact 1/4" label and UPC as the first roll of rope. there was no way i was making a FOURTH order to ace hardware, i was all out of projects and things i'd need from there. i just had to make it work with this DIFFERENT rope.

pov: pumagreg is watching you and judging the inconsistencies in the rope you're using on his cat tree

at the end of the day, pumagreg didn't seem to give a shit whether the rope was different or not, it got the job done. and i came away with not only a new compressor pee-hole, re-roped cat tree, spray pot, drinking jars, toilet paper holder, and clean floors - i came away with a long, drawn-out story to tell for hopefully many thanksgivings to come.

also a chia pet hedgehog, from that third ace hardware order. i always wanted one as a kid!

xoxo jenn

my airbrush library

2024-11-19T00:00:00Z

if you ever read anything about airbrushing on a technical level, you'll be told that it requires immense patience. there is nothing more truer in this world! it can be quite unforgiving and needs a lot of setup and cleanup, but the results are really beautiful and it's such a versatile tool. one of the things testing my patience with airbrush right now is that my compressor is leaking air from the drain valve. instead of shutting a window onto my neck about it, i figured to step away from the tank and show you my humble library of airbrush books. i've been collecting them for education, inspiration, and to feed my innate urge to buy used hardcover books that cover my somewhat niche and outdated hobbies.

air powered is a collection of small biographies of some of the more well-known illustrators using airbrush in the 70s. the book was written in 1979 and predicted that airbrush would completely evolve the advertising industry through the 80s. they did not see computers coming!!

i like how the inside cover shows the parts of a standard airbrush. there's no technical how-to content inside, though. also they only featured male artists. i figured the advertising/illustration world was male-dominated, but throughout the book they did show off some pieces by women but never acknowledged them beyond that. for example, they mention otis shepard a lot but never his wife, dorothy shepard, who worked with him at wrigley's (the gum company).

peter sato (above, left) is one of my favorite airbrushers. i would love to own a copy of his portfolio book without having to spend $100+ on it. the piece on the right is by judy markham. i am having a hard time finding any info about judy, quelle surprise!

i will give the book credit for not understating how important the influence of anna mae clift was on alberto vargas' work. you are probably familiar with his vargas girls - or varga girls, when he was being exploited (imho!) by esquire magazine.

radu vero's books are like the seminal handbooks for airbrushing, the most highly technical and recommended i've found. vero was originally from romania where he studied architecture, and then he ended up in new york as a faculty member of FIT and one of the most revered medical and scientific concept illustrators of his time.

like i said, these books are highly technical but not unapproachable. book one goes into what an airbrush does and how, materials, techniques, everything you really need to know to get started. he does a really great job at going into the math behind how and why an airbrush sprays the way it does, which could be very helpful if you're troubleshooting your work no matter what airbrush you're using.

book two goes really into the weeds on color mixtures and exercises on techniques building off of book one. i haven't finished book one yet, so i look through book two as more of an art book so not to intimidate myself. the page above is literally the draw an owl meme lmao!

in a past life i used to price and sell used books in montclair, and still i am very surprised at how affordable all these books are. i spent about $15 total on the vero books. shouts out to thriftbooks, but also please take that website away from me.

i recently got these two books, so i don't have much to say about them except i think that most airbrush illustrations that try to be photorealistic are hilarious. it's just constant uncanny valley through all the pages in this book and really any others that try to show you how to make a photorealistic illustration. i imagine that's why airbrush has been so embraced by sci-fi illustrators like h.r. giger.

when getting into airbrushing and studying its past, you have to be prepared to see the most ridiculous breasts and vaginas that make you wonder if men have seen a real woman naked before. the illustration above is actually very normal compared to some of the women you see in air powered. i've said this before, you can tell when an image of a woman was created by a man, and i'm rolling my eyes as i type that.

i'm looking forward to digging into the techniques book because they focus a lot on shapes and lettering, not bodies and faces. i definitely plan to work the airbrush into my figure work, but i've never been into photorealism. i love making spheres though, they're very easy!

my pal tasha got me this vintage, large paperback, iirc from a thrift store in chicago. this is my favorite of all the airbrush books i own because it's large and has really cool tutorials with a large focus on illustrative lettering. also, it was given to me by a dear friend and not, like the rest of the books, something i bought online while stoned - which i really need to stop lol but i won't.

the neon demonstration is my favorite, because it's my original work in bending glass for neon that got me into trying out the airbrush. unlike the neon studio, which is far away and sweltering from all the fire, my airbrush setup is right here at home and i don't sweat profusely while using it!

finally, here are a few paperbacks i found online and got myself for my birthday earlier this year. they're okay for self-published books, but i wouldn't recommend you seek them out. the airbrushing 101 has some good exercises that any intro book or video would walk you through. the stencil one is actually hilarious because it's literally just a book of black and white clip art. i have a hard time believing they had the rights to publish them but okay!

i hope you enjoy my little airbrush library. i'm very interested in finding more contemporary (as in, today) airbrush artists, especially other women. maybe once i get my compressor to stop leaking, i'll be able to finish some of my own work finally to share. 😫

xoxo jenn

update, 2025-10-27

here's an additional airbrush book i added to my library during a edible-induced shopping spree on thriftbooks.

it's called airbrush in japan 1, published in 1993 by page one publishing. i got it for $6.59.

the book is a magazine-like collection of airbrush illustrations from japanese artists, which range from erotica - including quite a few very weird looking butts - to mechanical illustrations of engines. the credits include the paint brand and canvas, which i haven't seen in many other books - it was nice to see so many watercolors!

i really enjoyed these "cyber sports" pieces by takashi yamazaki from 1988, considering what "cyber sports" mean to society nearly 40 years later.

that tfw when the world ends again

2024-11-11T00:00:00Z

since the election loss last week, i'd spent a lot of time on my screens watching people spiral, activate, argue, plan, fight, grieve, celebrate, move on…all the things. it’s very human yet overwhelming and i don’t want to contribute more noise to it, but i did need to get some of the thoughts swirling in my head down to make room for future action. in this, i tell a very personal, sad story that dominates my mind whenever i feel the world is ending, so the perspective may be helpful to those who feel alone in their grief right now.

the first time i remember the world end, i was maybe 8, 10-years-old tops, standing in my parent’s bedroom being told that the woman standing before me was not actually my mom. i had felt this already; she was cold, angry and violent with me in a way she wasn’t like with my younger siblings - who actually were her children, unlike me, which explained why they had baby and toddler photos all over the walls of our apartment, but none of me. i had recently taken notice of that and challenged my dad about it to the point when we were all sitting in a room i was only ever allowed in if i were folding laundry, finally being told some truth - even finding out some truth of my own (like, adults lie lol).

from a very young age i was paying close attention to the people and goings-on around me - there was no social media, or any screens in the small bedroom i shared with my dad’s wife who was not my mother’s real children, so that’s how i entertained and educated myself. challenging the things i noticed often revealed hard truths, disparities, unfairness, usually nothing good. it sometimes got me into trouble, or embarrassed me, but it always gave me information that i was able to use to navigate and survive a world where i was not wanted. i didn’t know what i looked like as a baby and so i challenged my place in the family and found out my role. the truth revealed fucking sucked, but it was the truth nonetheless.

my dad’s wife who was not my mother did everything in her power - with words, fists, and powers of isolation and control of food and housing - to get me to take my own life. let me tell you, that bitch almost succeeded! when you’re a child, the world is as small as how far you can get around, which in my case was often not outside our apartment, so it really just takes one figure of authority - add in a few of passive relatives too scared or stupid to help - to make you feel like you’re not a living creature, let alone a human being. it pains me to know that there are people who have a global movement that does not want them to exist. let me tell you, though, they HATE to see you survive. this could be your motivator, as it's been mine.

the world has ended for me many times, but then again i survived and that’s hope in action. also revenge. as long as my dad’s wife who is not my mother is alive, as she is unfortunately, along with all these other hateful people in the world putting my friends and our communities in danger, i remain motivated to keep paying attention to these systems and challenge them, which means doing whatever is in my power to survive.

i'll admit i’m absolutely not the best person to turn to when looking for hope because i do not share the circumstances that everyone who is hurting shared, as you do not share mine. your mom probably did not die of AIDS during and because of reagan’s administration like mine did, so i may have to try a little harder than you to not rage at the “we survived reagan” posts that some are making to soothe themselves. there are enough people educating those folks, i do not need to pile on. they don’t know my story and i don't know theirs. this may be their first time experiencing the world ending, and it won’t be their last - not that i am hoping for that to be the case, i just have that knowledge from paying attention.

i hope we all start paying more attention to what’s going on around us and the rest of the world, and challenging authority and using the response to help everyone adapt and survive on this bitch of a planet. conceding to hate is to accept death, and i shan't be doing either.

xoxo jenn

the only known photo that exists of my mom and i

photos from 2004

2024-11-04T00:00:00Z

the verge's allison johnson recently asked "where did our 2004 photos go?" and i know exactly where mine are: they're on my computer. i'll share some that i think best show the essence of what my life was like in 2004.

this 19-year-old angel (me) had no idea that in three years the iphone would be invented - also that she'd graduate college during the beginning of the great recession. haha.

two years before this, my sophomore year of college, i went halfsies with my dad on a nikon coolpix 2000. a couple years later he got a free one by collecting enough newport cigarette barcodes, which is insane but not as insane as the suede jacket (rip) he also got! FROM SMOKIN! sadly, it was inside his station wagon when it blew up.

i was the friend who takes photos everywhere. most of the photos i took were of my friends, but for their privacy i won't share those. as for where i shared my photos, i was a fotki and livejournal girly. my then (and still) internet-savvy pal aiko introduced me to both.

during semester breaks where i couldn't stay in the dorm, i rented a room out of my dad's coworker's house. this sounds insane, because it is. those with a keen eye might have noticed a road flare on the floor. i am realizing now that i may be leaving you with more questions than answers with this post.

i also owned a binary clock from think geek (rip), which was an online store where you can buy t-shirts that say diabolically dweeby shit like "there are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who know binary and those who don't."

i knew binary and i loved blue led lights. they had only been invented a decade before so devices with blue lights were kind of novel at the time. here's a good video on how the blue LED came to be that my friend dustin shared recently.

just so you know, i didn't own "those who know binary" shirt. i owned the one that said "no i will not fix your computer."

if the binary clock didn't give it away, i was a student of computer science with a minor in economics. which one of those classes don't seem like they belong? "rap and rock" was a culture class that covered my music elective requirement. i really enjoyed and naturally did very well at that class, but it was not my first attempt at a music course; my first was introduction to piano. despite the name, i was the only person enrolled who had not been introduced to piano and my teacher clearly was annoyed by me so i dropped it.

i never learned piano, but i never stopped challenging myself!

although i was a computer scientist, i was first and foremost an artist. this photo was probably for a livejournal post lamenting algorithmic analysis getting in the way of my social life.

data structures and algorithms are pretty universal classes that are actually challenging, so students who have survived them (often barely) tend to use such topics as a reason to be bad at interviewing software engineers and to gatekeep "real developers" later in their careers.

this may be the stupidest photo i took in 2004. i hope you know that i do push myself to be vulnerable on this blog, this photo making the cut is a key example.

i liked data structures and algorithms because i was good at them, and i had a good professor. but those exams! they were some of the toughest of my undergrad experience. i think the only harder class for me was physics 2. are any of you smart but remember having a hard time with physics? sound off in the comments down below (jk i don't have comments on this blog).

not only was i an artist and computer scientist, i was also the dorm building's resident boxed-hair-dyer. i think that one night a girl saw me doing my hair and suddenly i had a room full of ladies asking for my help. who would've thought that doing my dad's wife's highlights from age 12 would do such wonders for my college social life.

my shirt says gpukids.com (wayback machine link) which was an "interactive website" for kids to learn about energy from one of the new jersey gas and electric providers. my dream at that time was to make a living building educational websites for kids just like gpukids. these days, i think the kids should be building those sites (working at glitch was me successfully course-correcting).

this photo, obviously, was taken after i gave myself the dye job in the prior photograph. that's me in mudd jeans, giving my computer monitor its own dye job. if you're concerned about the computer, well, you're wasting your energy - i built that cursed thing from like 2 different computers i got from my dad's wifes's cousin's husband's office that they were throwing away. and if you're concerned that i was using a dorm building common room to spraypaint computers, try to be less of a dweeb maybe!

i hope you enjoyed this skip down a dark alley off the boulevard of my 2004 memories. perhaps it was a brief, needed break from the firehose of pre-election-day commentary for you. i also hope it left you yearning for a camera that's not your phone. did you know that digital point and shoot cameras are popular with gen z? i think that's great, as i'm not pleased with what my iphone does with my photos - both in editing them but also in making it easy for me to not organize them by dated folders on my computer like i used to do. it's no surprise to me that other people, especially younger generations, are craving something more simpler and logged off.

this was fun for me. i'm probably going to buy a used nikon coolpix 2000 now, and maybe try piano again.

xoxo jenn

p.s. today i worked on my streamlabs setup to start streaming again, but on youtube instead of twitch. you'll recognize where the thumbnail from my brief troubleshooting stream came from. maybe i'll share more 2004 photos on a future stream.

brighton boobs

2024-11-01T00:00:00Z

november the first be with you, my friends. i have done a lot these past few weeks, and naturally i have started to feel crushed by the five unfinished drafts of blog posts i've been writing on paper, screen and in my mind. i caught myself starting to feel really bad for not publishing anything since last month[1], so here i am 31 minutes before a zoom call sharing with you some of my bathroom art to push myself to write and publish.

in 2017 i spoke at a conference called ffconf. it's run by lovely people, and it had a lovely lineup and audience as well - it just so happens to be happening again a week from today, so if you're in the area i highly recommend. this was my first time in brighton and fortunately i was able to make time around the event to walk around the shops and shop for art supplies. i purchased a hard cover book of watercolor paper in accordion form, which i thought was novel but i just googled it and see that even blick sells them. whatever, i had never seen such a thing in my life. during that walk, i saw a bird steal an entire baguette out of a guy's backpack and his partner scold him with "i TOLD you not to put it in there." i am not going to victim blame, but i was also warned that the birds there were aggressive.

i painted 3 self portraits in pixel art with watercolor. i can't find the original files because i am so bad at organizing my digital art, but the watercolors are currently hanging up in our bathroom.

that bottom one of the two paintings is my favorite of the three. i gave it to andy as a gift years ago and i joke that i "finally let him move in with me" so that i can get my favorite painting back in my possession. i knew where he lived before, i could have just robbed him!

due to the nature of the accordion paper, each of these framed portraits are diptychs which is why you may find the spacing in the middle of each of the paintings weird - if so, you're right, and it's because they are technically two paintings framed as one.

fun, free, fact: the painting with the wooden frame is framed as such because i broke the original white frame when we were hanging it up. i won't apologize for exclaiming that custom frames are too fucking expensive. if you are looking for some affordable standard frames from a shop based in jersey (united states), though, let me know because i got a guy (legal).

i believe it was the two white-framed paintings that were up in the "women's future" art show at litm (rip) in 2018. the watercolors were i believe limited edition from case for making, "cobalt blue light" and "pinkcolor". during that show, andy would stand around and tell people "i heard that's what they look like" because a funny bit we have is that he's never seen my boobs.

okay, i'm going to publish this now, with only 4 minutes to spare before my call. every friday i connect with a dear friend who i used to work with - we never stopped our weekly 1:1s. i'll ask her if she's ever been to brighton or had a bird steal her bread.

xoxo jenn

[1] i really appreciate all the kind words and cups of coffee that came from that, thank you.

i made a very hard decision this year

2024-10-01T00:00:00Z

a month ago i left a job i held for several years, a job that took me through a winding road of launching a product, going through an acquisition, lots of high points and lows...but ultimately i got to end the journey on my own terms, on my own time. i couldn't have asked for anything more, especially given the state of the world. i'm so very proud of my work at glitch and fastly, and it's special how i got to be one of just a handful of people who can say they have grown and lead millions of developers in creating the web and community! it was a lot of fucking work, though, and i need a break.

i've not not had a job since i was honestly way too young to be working, so not working intentionally was, and still is, a scary idea for me. the longest i've been without employment was a week i took off between bocoup and fog creek. i'm turning 40 in february and for once i actually am in a privileged position where i can and will wait to see what i do next. even in this time of unknowns of what's ahead of me, i am very excited about my potential. it took a lot of work to get there, to allow myself to not be scared and enjoy the fruits of my labor for once. i had to both trust my instincts but push myself hard out of an uncomfortable comfort zone.

fastly was not a culture fit for me and it was dimming my shine - which is fine, healthy to keep an eye out for, and not really any major indictment on my former employer - so please don't be weird. my shine is my responsibility to maintain and grow, and if i feel like i don't fit in somewhere and that feeling continues for well over a year, then that's a sign that there's no path for me to grow in that environment. even nature agreed it was my time to go: the gourd from last halloween that had been sitting on my desk finally started to rot on my last day.

i was debating even acknowledging me quitting on here, but live laugh blog is my lifestyle blog and glitch was a dominant part of my lifestyle for many years. and it will continue to be: this blog is hosted on glitch and i love being a part of the community. i imagine i'll fall even more in love with it now that i do not have to feel entirely responsible for whatever happens next. but for now my job is GTL - gym, therapy, laundry. i want to add blogging and making art again to that list. getting this all off my chest and into markdown™ is a significant step towards me finally work towards doing that.

over the past month i've worked on processing this major lifestyle change and trying to create new habits that are not workaholic-coded. i may have failed a little bit along the way - but our apartment has never been cleaner or more organized. every day truly is a winding road! i go to the gym and do aerial yoga quite regularly, and i've started saying yes to invites to hang out and see shows - things i couldn't do as much because it used to take all of my energy to be a director-level employee at a public, enterprise corporation with such a large community and a shitty thyroid. by the way, if you've ever wanted to invite me for a coffee, now's probably the time. don't invite me to apply for a job though - i'll let everyone know when i'm ready; i have a bunch of healing, writing, karaoke, videos and art to do.

when i told anil it was time for me to leave, i started journaling a bit to process the flood of emotions that spilled over once it was official that i was making this change. most of what i journaled were versions of answers to questions i knew i'd get and wanted to be ready to answer genuinely and with the right amount of vulnerability - an important part of my day-to-day work that i applied to my personal life. i'm sharing with you here an entry i wrote a few weeks before my last day, untouched since then. fastly had just done (piss-poorly announced, imho) layoffs and i knew i'd get flooded with the question i always get and hate, but regardless deserved an answer because most of the time it comes from love:

Is Glitch safe? I’ve gotten this question weekly since we were acquired over two years ago and my answer remains exactly the same as it was before Fastly’s layoffs last week: “As far as I know, Glitch isn’t getting shut down.” The team working on it is so smart, motivated, funny, imaginative, hopeful and caring. Everyone in the community - including myself - are and have been in very good, capable hands. If the higher ups were to decide to, at any point for any reason, shut down Glitch - something that is well within their power to do - I believe that would be very bad for their business and the developer landscape overall. But as far as I know, Glitch isn’t getting shut down. There’s no better opportunity than now, I guess, to acknowledge that being constantly asked if a thing I’m working on (but don’t own) is getting shut down is actually really demoralizing, and that’s something I’ve been carrying and looking forward to removing from my daily mental load for years. I encourage those whose go-to question is this, when they get the chance to talk to the builders of anything they use, to…come up with something else to ask. Make a feature request, ask what we’re excited to be currently working on…literally anything else. If I knew something was going down with Glitch, I’d say so in the way that I do with anything I communicate - especially things related to Glitch, as so many smart and lovely people are involved: with intention, discipline, transparency and compassion.

my only addition to this is that i want everyone to know that no one is more anxious about and invested in the future of your favorite thing than the people who are actually working on it.

i am not sure what i want to do next when the time comes to get a new job, it may or may not be the same thing i was doing a month ago. i am confident that my gift of gab, empathy for the user and builder, understanding of systems and community, and ability to type code and prose fast without looking at the keyboard will transfer to something helpful to society. but for now, society is not my priority. my priority is my own physical and mental health. then it's pumagreg and my loved ones. then it's society or whatever.

i am blessed to have community and support from so many people - from my glitch teammates, my partner andy, my therapist, the group chat™, and my collaborators in art, life and work. this includes anil dash, who gave me this role to basically create for myself and has been one of my biggest advocates and coaches. after several years of getting to see me cry at work so many times, it was perfect that my last cry as a fastly employee was in response to him presenting me with an incredible going away gift - if you know you know but, sheryl, call me and i'll happily explain!

the last thing i have to share is from my goodbye post on the work slack on my last day. most of it was me listing out everyone i worked with and appreciated, and i won't make that public for their privacy, but i did close with this important message from and for me:

Finally, I'm grateful for myself for being hot and smart and allowing myself to take a break to get even hotter and smarter - real ones know. Anyway, thanks a billion and I'll see you's all on LinkedIn and glitch.com/@jennschiffer 👽

it's been a whole month so i'm ready to drop "quitting my job" as a personality trait. i'm also done deep cleaning and reorganizing all of my home office space. my next challenge is taking in all the ideas and wishes i jotted down over the past several years and chipping away at the ones i never could do because of my past circumstances and finally make something new. i appreciate all of you who continue to follow me, i can't wait to show you what i create.

xoxo jenn

p.s.

ten years ago i let people fuck up my 8-bit art

2024-09-06T00:00:00Z

cw: 2014, nostalgia, spreadsheets, mentions of tub girl

releasing an editable document on the web for anyone to edit in any way is terrifying but exciting. that's in part why i worked on glitch for so long - letting millions of developers run arbitrary code for free allows incredible viral moments to happen that often shine brighter than any of the bad stuff. this facilitation of web building always comes with its moments of noticing someone is doing something you didn't intend. you immediately think "oh, that's it, we're fucked", but more often than not the next moment you're tearing up because the web can be so beautiful! this is all to say i absolutely understand the rollercoaster of emotions nolen royalty went through when he thought one million checkboxes was being hacked. please read that post and then you can come back to read the rest of this one.

in ~2013 i put out a tool called pixelchat that was an anonymous chat client heavily inspired by pictochat where your messages were an html canvas - you can view the source on glitch but i doubt the twitter sign-on works. within 30 minutes of tweeting about it, someone embedded tub girl (don't google it) into the canvas and i had to shut the thing down. my surprise wasn't seeing tub girl, it was that it took a half hour for something like that to happen. real sickos on the web (SOTW™) don't worry about if, they wonder about when and are ready for the if. i updated the app to require twitter sign-on with an allowlist of users who can join so i can keep it running - adding guardrails helps mitigate abuse.

by the way, to the person who posted tub girl on pixelchat: i know who you are and whenever i see you post i think about how learning to set up twitter sso helped me get a job but don't think that absolves you of your sins. i would have learned it eventually if i needed to.

10 years ago, from today exactly, i figured it would be fun to put out a spreadsheet that anyone can edit and see what happens. my guardrails for preventing abuse was setting the tone for the project by turning the spreadsheet into a pixel portrait of my cat and giving some "rules" or guidelines to follow. i forget the rules (the doc appears to be deleted) but i'm pretty sure i just said to keep it chill and also don't change the cell size so to maintain the pixel art canvas.

i wish i did a better job at documenting the first hour or so of changes but it turned out i had somewhere in the city to be that night¹ and so i set up a terminal script to take regular screenshots off my computer. i also had the sheet on my phone so i could monitor it during my travels and make the sheet private if things started to get harmful - fortunately i never had to shut things down.

click here to see the full (18mb!) gif of the many automated screenshots

try to guess what i forgot to do before i left the house! if you guessed "you forgot to set your computer to not go to screensaver" you'd be correct². here are some random manual screenshots i took before i realized i had to go out and automated them, i just found them while i was gathering more screenshots. is everyone else's computer 50% screenshots or is that just me?

putting your immutable work out into the world wide web is very scary. even scarier is putting out mutable work. if nolen royalty had been too afraid of being hacked and having his crowdsourced performance piece ruined, we'd never have one million checkboxes and the heartwarming stories about how the community interacted with it. if that loser didn't embed tub girl in my pixelchat, there's a 5% chance i would never have learned how to set up a third party single sign on in an app, nor would i have been confident enough to let a bunch of strangers fuck up my 8-bit art while i went out for a night on the town.

happy birthday, fuckupmy8bitart. may everyone go out and let people help them make and/or fuck up something on the web!

xoxo jenn

¹ i just looked it up on swarm and it was a velvet teen show at baby's all right after a brief stop at silent barn, rip.

² also shouts out to the band big star and the og sonos app for their joint cameo appearance

there's a good reason i didn't blog this month yet

2024-08-26T00:00:00Z

the last several weeks have been a lot, between plotting and executing a major life change and co-hosting xoxo. i have so much to say about those things, also past events like devrelcon that i've gone to...there's been a lot. i just need to finish my last week at work and process the past month and then i'm confident i'll never shut up on here.

xoxo jenn

kissy lips again, this time about an art residency i did at the ace hotel in 2015

2024-07-07T00:00:00Z

in my last blog post i talked about the kissy lips mac osx icon and how reactions of my use of it shaped the direction i took a lot of my art going forward - essentially, if i choose to express myself in a way and people tell me it's not professional simply because of misogyny, i'm going to double down. it was in september of 2014 when ben sisto, artist and expert on the song who let the dogs out, reached out to me about an art residency program he was running at the ace hotel, 24 x 36 - where 36 artists spent a night at the ace hotel in nyc over the course of 24 days.

i documented the chaotic (my fault) experience on my old tumblr, which i fortunately have the archive of so we can relive the experience together. my night was january 5, 2015.

for this residency i wanted to take something i've been doing but with a twist: this would be the first time that i made analog pixel art by taking a digital artwork and bringing it to paper. much to the chagrin of my wrists, i originally got into using colored pencils. i've since moved to the less physically strenuous and more versatile watercolor. i started my drawing in make8bitart of course.

this was 2015 so of course i was using snapchat to document the evening for my inner circle.

then everything took a dark, gritty turn. i had leaned the drawing against the wall at the back of the desk and it slipped and fell behind a small crack between the desk and the wall.

and - get this - the desk was bolted to the ground and had a full back panel that my drawing was resting, unreachable, against. i tried to fashion a device to use tape to catch and drag it up.

in case you're wondering if that worked:

i never asked ben if they finally got the art out from behind the desk, the last i heard they got the ruler. despite the drama that i and a bolted-down desk created, i really enjoyed this experience and am grateful that ben gave me the opportunity. i really admired his work in bringing culture into a space like the ace hotel in collaboration with artists like me that didn't have much of a name. sorry i was a pain in the ass, ben, and thanks for the photo booth, ace.

it's pretty cool how one free night at a hotel helped me focus on what kind of art i wanted to make, what media i wanted use, and the threshold for storytelling i wanted to add to the process as it's often as much a part of the art as the pigment and paper are - if not more. by the way, who knew that 6 years later to the day i checked out of the ace residency an insurrection would happen at the white house that would ultimately lead my variety twitch stream, hoobastank2, to come to its conclusion. if you know half of those words, congratulations but please drink some water.

xoxo jenn

p.s. in case you missed it, i have a new mailing list and also you can follow me regularly on mastodon. i figured it was a good time to remind you's.

kissy lips won't delete 💋

2024-06-22T00:00:00Z

since the dawn of time, mainstream operating systems have offered a set of default avatars to choose from when creating your user profile. these avatars often had no context related to the software they came with – last night i learned that andy's old xbox 360 avatar was a pair of lemons. naturally, i had to introduce him to the iconoclast, my own founding mother of default avatars: the macosx kissy lips.

these lips were my default avatar from the moment they were available. it absolutely sent some of my academic colleagues into a spiral of performative worrying about my being taken seriously, definitely not an admission that their rubric for respect includes what a grown woman chooses as the default user avatar of her fucking computer. in fact, the reaction to me making the kissy lips my avatar lead me to double down on it which became a major theme in not just my art, but my career moves as well.

the kissy lips are cute as hell. they went perfect with my "princess jenn" terminal greeting which i'd still have today if apple didn't pull a flash on bash as i was entering my "too busy to care about my dot files anymore" era. moving on...

it was really hard to find any info on the origin of the kissy lips, let alone a hi-res image of it. please let me know if you know the story of them. i assumed that susan kare made them but the only kissy lips in her book of icons – which, major flex alert, i have a signed copy of – is the one she made for facebook - perhaps they are related?

what wasn't hard to find were people asking about them, and by that i mean losing their minds trying to remove it.

while apple steers you towards using emoji or mememoji as your default avatar these days, i was delighted to find that we can still set default avatars as the kissy lips. come on, everyone, join me! you can find them under suggestions > classic when you click to edit your avatar in the apple id settings.

in a future blog post i'll show you how the kissy lips shaped my philosophy and subjects of art. until then, 💋 mwah!

xoxo jenn

join my freaking mailing list

2024-06-19T00:00:00Z

ten years ago there was a true taste-maker who was ahead of her time, named jenn schiffer, who started a newsletter and it got to just over 1700 people. this was pretty wild because in 2014 there were only like 5000 people on the internet. hi, i'm jenn schiffer, and i have since deleted my mailchimp account so i could only find the first issue in a reply to an email someone sent.

this mailing list has gotten some mileage. i used mailchimp for several years, tried substack for like a month, and then landed at that one service twitter used to own, revue. i actually really liked that one! everyone i encountered that worked there were really nice and helpful, but it was shut down pretty much immediately after caffeine free diet coke and a glock bought twitter.

last month i mentioned thinking about starting a new mailing list and i'm a woman of my blogged (pronounced 'blah-gid') word, so - whoops - buttondown.email/jenn is where you can subscribe. this is a fresh new list, so if you were an og e-news money dollars subscriber, thank you but you gotta subscribe to this one for continued valor.

the reason i went scorched earth here is slightly rational: because i have "director" in my corporate job title, the cold emails i get are absolutely feral when it comes to handling mailing lists - i basically get offered the "opportunity" to purchase attendee data for any large tech industry event on a weekly basis and i find that to be extremely fucking disgusting. this is in part why i decided to delete the 1700-row mailing list and start anew with this one - like, i've been carrying these email addresses for so long, rarely even emailing them, that if they REALLY want to be on my list they will find their way: by you subscribing to the new one. i said the reason was slightly rational!

if you're worried how often i'll be sending email out, don't piss me off. this list is literally to let you know when i've written a blog or have cool events coming up - we're talking like 2x a month, tops. if you're a sicko who wants an email from me more frequently, just email me lol - the whole reason i'm sending this out today is because an old friend of mine sent me a hilarious email and said i should email her my blog posts as i write them. so this is really for you, alice - but the rest of you are welcome join us. as i said 10 years ago in the first newsletter i ever sent:

you're probably not going to regret subscribing to this but, who knows, i'm not psychic

welcome to inbox hell!

xoxo jenn, sole co-ceo of live laugh email

just some upcoming events and things on my mind

2024-05-23T00:00:00Z

my fucking allergies!!

just kidding, that's not what this blog is about, i just wanted to acknowledge it. here are some other things i want to acknowledge, separated by "these need your attention and action" and "no call to action needed here":

these need your attention and action

monday may 27th is my and jamie's second robot karaoke show at wonderville in brooklyn. eat your barbecues and then join us with an updated catalog!
the final xoxo festival is happening in august, the lottery for tickets is open right now, and i'll be co-hosting with open mike eagle! oh, and we're bringing back the art and code showcase. it will actually be fun, even if my allergies will be even more on tilt in portland.
my friend zach is going full-time on building eleventy (which is what i use to power this live laugh blog). i love this for him, for eleventy, and the community - so contribute if you can so he can do this work sustainably!

no call to action needed here

next week is the 10 year anniversary of me launching my sorting algorithm, jortsort at jsconf. i was going to make a documentary in time for it but it was not enough for me to get a new camera and microphone, i also got depression. something is in the works, it will just take some time. i got vitamins at duane reade about it because they had a BOGO deal on their store brand, so keep me in your thoughts and prayers.
i've been thinking of signing up for my 20th newsletter platform (i quit substack way before it was "cool" btw) to crosspost my blogs here to the inboxes of you dinguses who had joined my mailing list over the last 10 years. anyway, you may get an email from me soon about it and i encourage you to unsubscribe if you don't want it - i just ask you not to announce your departure to me because i'm not an airport but i am fragile.
i had some downtime the other night during an event and so i searched my name on twitter to see if anyone's been talking shit since i deleted my account 1.25 years ago. all things said about me were very kind, and i was reminded of a thing i said at causal islands last year that i think is worth sharing this week:

oh whoops, my bad, i meant this one:

there we go!

xoxo jenn

p.s. i didn't delete twitter because of any founder of slack (stewart and cal have been nothing but kind to me) but what i think happened was i had accidentally deactivated my account instead of deleting it and so i reactivated it to delete and there's a bot that tracks tech founders' follows that clearly had some kind of bug. anyway, i don't think the gag of posting that screenshot was worth the effort of me to explain but whatever you asked.

p.p.s. i know you didn't ask but i'm just not (currently) in my rumors era.

last week i learned cpr and now i've got a new personality

2024-05-13T00:00:00Z

my employer hooked us up with cpr/aed/first-aid training so you should let me perform cpr on you, it would be real, certfied, fresh and fun. i'm coming for the forklift cert next...

i saved these men

all the training materials were about saving men - like i felt (sarcastically) like i cracked the code as to why fewer women get the cpr they need than men do. i acknowledged this to the instructor who told us she had an order of more diverse dummies. tit size representation finally i guess! anyway ffs if you see ANYONE who is unresponsive, get them help and an aed and you won't get in trouble for any good faith attempts at reviving them.

i saved this baby

i started to feel like absolute garbagio that day! the only reason why i went into the office the next morning was because i had to go into the city anyway for my wednesday morning ritual: getting an iced almond milk latte at gotham roasters and then going to therapy. shouts out to those baristas and my therapist - my literal glam squad. i took friday off to make art but i was just so exhausted (thyroidly) that i took the day to just recharge because saturday i had plans to meet up with my twin brother juan pablo and pretend we live in high-end furniture stores.

i saved this man

on the way out a freaking butterfly landed on me. for some reason i thought that was a bad omen but everything online tells me that's actually the opposite of what that means. exciting!

i saved this butterfly

oh! so juan and i accidentally came across the portal? it was cool, i just never thought i would see it because they usually keep this kind of stuff up in times square.

i saved the portal

the actual wildest thing we saw that day, though, was this "arcade" which is literally just a mini casino right off union square - i mean, there were grown women with fanny packs full of quarters there. unfortunately, i'm not beneath casinos even if they are designed to attract children and the photo booth wasn't working.

i saved this kiddy casino

i then spent the next 48 hours with absolutely zero energy and with symptoms that i hope just mean a brief hormone imbalance and not, say, a full blown hashimotos flareup coming. i went gluten free a couple of months ago and have never felt better until this week so who knows. my body's got until wednesday morning at almond milk iced latte and therapy o'clock to figure it out.

xoxo jenn

wonderville turned 5! also we're doing another show there this month

2024-05-05T00:00:00Z

yesterday andy and i went to wonderville to help celebrate their 5th birthday! in this middle school standardized test essay, i will talk more about what that means and also close with a call to action related to a new show i'm doing this month.

here's a BeReal (rhymes with "cereal") crop of us on the way to wonderville. i had to take off most of my rings because my period is due soon so i'm retaining about half a hudson river's worth of water. you asked!

wonderville is an all-indie arcade bar in brooklyn that hosts a wide variety events almost, if not actually, every single day. and the fact that every game is indie means that the artists and developers have room to do really cool shit with the medium. my favorites there in the current rotation are Hair Nah, Icarus Proudbottom’s Typing Partylike, and this cake game that i gotta go back [foreshadowing] to catch the name of:

you don't know how bad i want to eat a cake that looks exactly like this. like my uterus is quivering right now thinking about it. you asked!

wonderville was opened by our friends mark and stephanie, who have been involved in so many cool spaces in the scene over the past decade or so. if you had any hope of running or experiencing diy spaces in a world plagued by viruses like covid or corporate real estate, you should absolutely follow their work.

here they are, absolute angels, on stage as we all gave a toast to 5 years.

it's a special scene that i'm proud to be a part of, and whenever i make it out there i always get to reconnect with folks i've not seen offline in forever - like jenn de la vega, who catered the event.

there were too many people (a good problem) to take a photo of the spread, but it looked exactly like this but way better and fewer dolphins and less being in a boat or sub underwater

jenn contributed to the first livelaughconf that i put together to celebrate launching this blog almost 4 years ago. i should do another one, yeah?

POV, you're peeing (legally) at wonderville after chugging a shirley temple

if you're in the nyc area and looking for an excuse to check out wonderville, you should just check it out whenever you feel like it and/or...

you can come to my and jamie brew's next robot karaoke cage-match at wonderville on may 27th at 7pm!

this will be our second time co-hosting this on wonderville's amazing and unique polygonal stage! our last show generated their 2nd most viral tiktok - in that you can watch me singing "like a prayer" with lyrics coming from stack overflow posts.

it's probably the most responsible way to spend your memorial day evening, so i hope to see some of you there. if you thought karaoke was hard or bad, wait until you see how we use technology to make it even harder and worse!

xoxo jenn

an april photo dump before april is over

2024-04-23T00:00:00Z

in the girly world of working on projects, being depressed, and blogging, you often can only pick two of those - and my brain loves to work on projects and be depressed. it's been a busy april, but first a word from our sponsor: pumagreg.

pumagreg and i, along with many others in the region, survived an earthquake AND a solar eclipse within mere days of each other. i was getting my haircut during the earthquake, but i was at work for the eclipse. our office is on union square and there were hundreds of people outside staring at the sun in what can only be described as wonder and definitely not kinship in having had survived an extremely mild earthquake just days before.

i was wearing a blazer the day of the eclipse because that morning i made a visit to a local high school to talk to them about my career. i don't know if the blazer worked at making me look professional to the teens, but it clearly convinced a stranger in union square to ask me "what IS that?" while pointing at a helicopter in the sky. "a helicopter" i said.

a few days later i went to boston to speak at a conference for community managers. recently glitch turned 7 and it felt like the right time to start talking about the things i've learned when it comes to leading a community for the over 7 years i've been doing it. i met a lot of great folks who work in community and developer marketing, and i got some great feedback and ideas for a future iteration of the talk which i'll make sure is available for everyone to watch.

i wouldn't recommend wearing a white t-shirt to give a talk and avoiding any food or drink beforehand to not get a stain on it because you'll just be hungry, fiending for caffeine, AND the clip-on mic will stain the shirt anyway. it's sitting in my bathroom until i get a tide to-go pen, so every morning of mine starts seeing it and grieving. honestly what the fuck was on that mic???

the monday after my talk was the boston marathon so most of the people i encountered outside of the event were germans who had traveled into town to run, and my pal mike who used to work with me before i went to glitch. he and i went on a really cool art walk and, oh boy, does boston put on a spooky art walk. i don't think it was intentional even? like, this woman swinging in the air would have given me nightmares as a kid:

i have A LOT to say about boston in general but i don't want to express negativity as my edible is hitting. i WILL say though that it's WILD that everything closes at like 9pm! and every hotel i ever stay at there is so unhinged - my room literally had a giant painting of paul revere holding a gun and staring down at my bed while i was eating my gluten-free hashimotos struggle meal from 7-eleven. it reminded me why i stopped traveling when i first got sick.

on the other hand, when i got out of penn station back in new york, the rangers game was getting out and so i was actually very close to turning back around and telling the conductor to bring me back to paul and my 7-eleven eggs. the conductor would have told me "i can't, you have a dentist appointment" and he (the conductor of my mind in which i am solely imprisoned) was right. here i am on monday morning, realizing i'm a lot grayer than my bathroom lighting lets off.

as i'm typing this can hear my late grandma's voice saying "why would you post that" which is funny because she died just as "posting" became a thing so really i'm just projecting. sorry grandma, miss you, you would have absolutely hated "posting" and seeing how "logged on" i've been. also i'm making this the thumbnail.

do you like boston, the dentist, the rangers, cheese sticks or staring at the sun? sound off in the comments! jk this blog doesn't have comments 😈

xoxo jenn

the intersection of candles and code

2024-03-10T00:00:00Z

last month i said i'd be experimenting with more sculptural candles and that's exactly what i did this weekend. and because i had also recently finished my three.js journey certificate, i figured that starting this weekend's session by rendering the candle on the web first would be a good practice and a cool way to show off the candle i had floating in my mind for weeks.

i built the following app with react-three-fiber that shows a simple 3d orange. when you click it, the scene shows a box whose faces are a photo of one of the actual IRL 3d oranges i made in candle form.

using round molds for wax is a huge pain in the ass, especially because i was especially impatient yesterday. it's been an anxious few weeks for me and fucking up a couple of the candles really reminded me that i need to and can chill the fuck out at home.

fortunately they are all very cute, and i did get a very smooth one!

i'm happy with the exercise of both code and candle making together. now that i'm a little refreshed on the three.js code part of the experience, i need to dive back into blender so i can make more complicated models that are still performant in the browser.

oh! this is totally unrelated to candles, but related to code i also worked on this weekend: i'm collaborating again with jamie brew, this time on his next robot-powered karaoke show in brooklyn, later this month on march 25th. it's going to be a fun time whether you like to sing karaoke or not. and it's at wonderville, so you can always just ignore us and play some of the really great indie arcade games.

xoxo jenn

falling for prince's fridge

2024-03-03T00:00:00Z

as a former professional satirist, i know that you can always make someone fall for something. as it's finally march, which means april fools day approaches us again, i'd like to share what i believe was the only good april fools joke ever: heavy table's "what's in prince's fridge". click that right now, read it, and then come back. heavy table is a reader-sponsored culinary online zine based in prince's home zone, minneapolis and they are absolute legends for this one.

now imagine it's 2011 and you read that post on april fools day, because that's the day it was published. would you have fallen for it? ignoring the date, likely - it's just funny enough and prince enough to be real - i mean, that guy was hilarious. at that time, dunkaroos were not in production and that just made it even funnier. so naturally, many people fell for it.

jennjourney (not an ai, just my own brain) prompt: copy and paste prince from that iconic fall photoset onto a high-res photo of dunkaroos

anyway, it was most definitely an april fools joke and so many fell for it. romper wrote about it three weeks later but added a note admitting they fell for it, which i honestly admired and you'll see why when i get to how other publications handled it. buzzfeed wrote about it 3 years later and of course they never corrected it, they would have if it was under buzzfeed news. by the way, non-news buzzfeed is virtually unreadable and that's not a stab at the writers, it's the fact that 90% of the content is embeds that are either all gone from their original services or blocked by ad blockers.

i looked up the price of dunkaroos and you can still buy an individual pack for $1.99. i still think that's so expensive in a world where arizona iced tea is still just 99¢. don't get me mcstarted on filet o fish prices when i don't even eat seafood!

the only thing funnier than media publications falling for an april fools joke is when they fall for it...five fucking years later. in april of 2016, prince sadly passed away and i can't articulate "why" right now (but we all know), a bunch of publications started reflecting on the part of his life where he did an interview with a local culinary zine and described the contents of his fridge–wait a second.

cbs news "Remembering Prince's lighter side with a look inside his fridge" - yeah so cbs just has this post out there for anyone to read and believe, bless.
eater "Prince's Love of Dunkaroos; Hillary and Bernie on a Soda Tax" - eater gives a brief mention that has remained unacknowledged since. just a week or so later, though, their twin cities vertical wrote about other publications that fell for the same post!
page six "Prince’s taste in food was just as bizarre as you’d expect " - i mean, not surprised about this one. when i saw this, i immediately searched for "dunkaroos" on tmz and the ny post (they're all the same to me) and all i found was them reporting on the dunkaroos comeback, so i can neither confirm nor deny their part in falling for the heavy table post
the daily meal "The Late, Great Prince's Taste In Food Was Just As Strange As You Might Expect - i don't know what the daily meal is but they credit page six for the reporting. but the way i am absolutely, literally lmfao as i'm doing this "research"

by the way, if you work at the daily meal or any other place that ADDS "READ MORE: [URL]" TO THE CLIPBOARD WHEN I TRY TO COPY AND PASTE THE TITLE OR ANY OTHER you're on notice!!!!

law and order: clipboard hijacking, starring ME

others fell for the post too but took the right approach: adding a note admitting they fell for it, just like romper had done 5 years prior.

mental floss "Nothing Compares 2 Prince's Fridge" - this is my favorite title of all articles falling for the post.
today "Off stage, Prince was a passionate and quirky food lover, too"
vice's munchies "A Look Back on Prince's Love of Dunk-a-Roos and Mustard"
delish "Here's Exactly What Prince Loved To Eat"

and then there's what i consider the biggest coward of the bunch:

maxim "prince's fridge" - it's just not there anymore. this pissed me off! i can't get the wayback machine to render the page either, so if you can find the original please send it my way!!

i think there's something to be said about how "fake news" wasn't really a phrase we used 10-13 years ago, and deep fakes weren't really a threat either. the world is very different today and the stakes are way higher than prince having an incredible reputation for being a man of taste when it comes to mustard varieties and maple syrup. anyway, happy march and stay safe out there this april fools and beyond.

xoxo jenn

catching up on candles

2024-02-18T00:00:00Z

i haven't posted a candle-making blog since june 2022 but i haven't stopped making them. i guess i just forgot to blog about them, but i'm pretty sure i took photos each time. let's catch up on my candle-making adventures.

i scoured my phone and then realized i got a new phone between moves, so i had to scour my camera backups. the first candle-related photo since my june 2022 session was taken on july 31, 2022, of a candle i know i made but have absolutely no recollection of making it.

and then a couple of months later, i have a photo of just two candles that i also don't recall making. i do believe i have the instant espresso one and more likely than not it is scented like "tomato vine" or something like that.

i maybe gave my pal lisa the peppercorn one because she gave me that container because i was raving about how much better it performed than my stupid pepper grinder. as i'm typing this i'm realizing why it's so important i blog this stuff as it happens, because my hashimoto's really does impact my memory. oh, and if that is lisa's candle, it would be "red sangria" scented.

i do know for a fact that this candle i gave lisa (not phil and celeste like i initially wrote, they got another of this scent) was "red sangria". this was an update from lisa* in august, 2023.

so the huge gap between these candle sessions is because i had gotten into making watercolors, had a conference talk to to give out of the country, and i moved. my next known session was october, 2023, in our new kitchen.

i fortunately had photos of my setup before and after this session, so i know the jars and their associated scents were:

wordcamp mug: blue spruce
peppers and capers: fallen leaves
blueberry preserves: blueberry cobbler (gave one to my coworker, melissa)
grape mugs: chocolate fudge (gave one to my coworker, hannah)

my biggest session every was in december, 2023, just a few months ago. there was so many and i did a lot of scent and color mixing and mind-changing, so i'm not 100% sure i'm correct about the jar and scents:

pesto jar: cardamom and creme (gave this to our pals robby and edna)
strawberry jam jar: cardamom and creme (claimed by my coworker michael)
hot jalapenos: fallen leaves (claimed by my coworker sophie)
dijon mustard: smoked oud (i think this was claimed by my coworker dj)
blueberry preserves jar: eucalyptus
jalapeno stuffed olives (mmm): blue spruce and eucalyptus (claimed by my coworker karen)
cento peppers: smoked oud
cafe du monde: blood orange and (i think?) citrus sunshine

i brought a bunch of these to the office and just told folks they're free for the taking. they got a kick out of the scents and colors not matching the condiments labeled on the jar. "cardamom and cream" is definitely in my top 5 favorite scents ever, i'll definitely be buying more. the cafe du monde double-wick i kept for myself and was recycled from the office.

here is pumagreg, taking credit for work he didn't do. i'm actually obsessed with this photo of him!!

and this weekend i was at it again. the jars were starting to pile up behind the sink so i got those out of the way and got to experiment with my votive and sphere molds.

glass from the smooth technology holiday party: honeysuckle
pepperoncini: lavender embers (this one is for a coworker)
peppers jar, cherries jar: macintosh apple
andy's old and damaged centipede glass: lemon poundcake
blueberry preserves: almond macaron

i think this will be my last candle session filling jars. i want to get into more artistic sculptures using wax and wick, so my next candle-making post will hopefully be a wacky one.

xoxo jenn

i made a second watercolor palette from eyeshadow

2024-02-10T00:00:00Z

about a year and a half ago i turned an eyeshadow palette into watercolors and it really was one of the most fun watercolor projects i've done. a couple of weeks ago, i finally cleared a space and weekend to make another palette.

along with the space to do it, to make watercolors you need binder, a slab and muller, pigment, and somewhere for the paint to go (a palette).

watercolor binder, $24

i had a supplier on etsy that i always bought binder from, but this time she never sent the order or responded to my messages so etsy eventually just refunded me. it's actually super fortunate that this happened, though, because i then ended up getting a 4 oz bottle of this binder. i love this binder and you will too if you like the scent of clove oil, i assume a preservative - binders really only have a shelf life of a couple of weeks in my experience. also, please don't ask me why i don't just make my own binder, i don't do a lot of things.

glass slab & muller, $70*

i paid $70 for a small glass slab and muller from an etsy shop that shut down. every time i see an etsy shop shut down i imagine it ended in a virtual FBI raid and everyone are Club Penguin characters on the screen. i really want a larger slab and as i am typing this i am realizing that we just happen to have a large slab of glass? jenn. why. it's a long story but i think it might work, stay tuned for a Future Blog.

a year ago i upgraded the muller to 3" heavy glass muller from kremer for $65. i wanted a muller that was more like me: ergonomic and locally blown.

as i'm mulling and changing pigments, i'll paint with the muller on a piece of paper. it gives me a sneak peek of how the paint will look and perform. when you're stoned, you'll think you are THE next fucking claude monet doing this but please don't quit your day job until after this fake recession cycle orchestrated by wall st and tech company boards (redundant) in order to lower wages comes to its inevitable conclusion.

bh cosmetics glam reflection eyeshadow palette, $15?

i got this palette in a mall in berlin in 2019. i was on the hunt for a hot pink eyeshadow to match the staging of the conference i was there to speak at and picked up a few other items, including this palette of neutrals. i have no idea how much i paid but bh is an affordable brand. this palette got the job done, i just didn't need it any more and its metal packaging makes it a great watercolor palette.

making the paint is easy - you add binder to the pigment and mull it and pour it where you want it to dry. the drying process takes a couple of days. don't ask me for actual measurements because i'm an italian american not otherwise categorized. what i can tell you is that you shouldn't let the palette close before the paints dry.

watercolor cards, ~$10

i use watercolor cards for pouring the extra paint that doesn't fit in the palette because of the binder being added. i got mine at blick but i can't find the listing anymore, mr. dicky blicky please advise? i did find these "slim" ones which i honestly wish i had instead and will get when i run out of my current stash.

for this batch i made 3 cards and gave away two - one to a coworker i knew would appreciate it and another i mailed to my dear friend jim. the third i consume like food in a spiritual artist ritual. that's not true, i always keep one for photos and potentially to give as a gift in the moment. even though eyeshadows and binder are typically non-toxic, you really don't need to eat them so don't.

that's my "tutorial" on how to make your own watercolors out of eyeshadows. i've made a couple of paintings with the palette and they perform very well and i love the subtle scent of clove oil from the binder. ok bye!

xoxo jenn

grade school entrepreneur

2024-01-27T00:00:00Z

i was just watching emma chamberlain tell some childhood stories and early into it she talked about under-the-table selling stickers and erasers to classmates when she was a little kid and it feeling drug-dealery. i basically had the same experience.

the first time i ever got in trouble in elementary school was in 4th grade because i was caught selling shavings of crayola magic scent crayons. these were scented crayons but i swear on my fucking soul some of them event tasted like the scent - especially the bubblegum one. i'd shave the crayon and sell the shavings for 5 cents a curl.

my teacher told me to stop selling crayon shavings because it's not allowed. to just be told i did something bad was punishment enough, honestly. naturally, i interpreted my crime as being "getting paid to have kids chew crayon shavings" part, not simply the "selling things" part, i pivoted to selling comic strips. i'd draw 3-panel comics about a heroic, crime-fighting shrimp named after my classmate andrew in a beautiful notebook (i'll get back to that) like a dozen times and then fold the paper to rip them apart. this was the first time i ever got detention.

elementary school detention ruled but let me tell you about that beautiful notebook. the notebook was fine. it just wasn't from the local grocery store, which made it fancy and rich to me. it was merely a large spiral notebook with brass hardware with a cover thicker than the normal spiral notebook. i think a neighbor gave it to me; at this time i had no fewer than 3 best friends who each were old women who lived in or across our apartment building. those women never betrayed me the way i felt that my 4th grade teacher did by punishing me for and stifling my entrepreneurial spirit. jk, [redacted], lol i forgive you.

xoxo jenn

2024: another year of blog on the desktop

2024-01-16T00:00:00Z

there are only 2 good things about being a blogger:

the piles of money that come in every single week from Big Blog Enterprises
the pleasant surprise that you wrote and totally forgot about your resolutions and intentions from the year prior

hello, fellow billionaires. i'm jenn schiffer and this is my 2024 blog, a lot has changed since my 2023 post.

i've got nothing to lose with going into the new year hopeful, though: i'll be hitting 4 years of no alcohol in april, i've got a job, andy and i are (generously) 1/5 through the playground scene in powerwash simulator, i can still afford therapy even with the new year's fee increase, and i'm pretty close to perfecting a recipe for vegan mac and cheese sauce that's i've been working on all year.

it will be 5 years of no alcohol in april! i still have a job, but i did have to go on indefinite sabbatical from my small business (power wash simulator) because it was awful for my joints, but i'm pretty sure we finished the playground scene and a few others. the therapy fee increase this new year is half what last year's increase was and girl math tells me that means i'm making money off of those sessions, now. i'll share the vegan mac and cheese sauce recipe soon, i forgot about that.

as for my 2023 resolutions, i did a really good job considering that i forgot i even had resolutions - i started the year off with a bad hashimotos flareup that also triggered depression. anyway this all simply proves that manifestation is real and that ugly, cunty book "the secret" was not just a foreshadowing of today's society. last year i picked up a lot of new things: aerial yoga, airbrushing and 3d web development, and so of course this year i want to get better at those and my other hobbies.

new years resolutions for 2024, in order from easiest to most difficult

don't chop my hair off
experiment more with my candle-making
stay consistent with my weekly aerial yoga routine
start making nice paintings with the airbrush
get back into figure drawing
make a really cool 3d web project
incorporate a new activity into my fitness routine
drink fewer fizzy drinks
do 5 solid push-ups
stop making jokes about my hypothyroidism being from eating microplastics

what a nice list, time to set it and forget it until next january!

xoxo jenn

ps. thanks for reading my blog. you should follow me on mastodon. also, did you know this blog has an rss feed? yee-haw 🤠

10 years since i warned you's about bitcoin

2024-01-08T00:00:00Z

10 years ago i was working as a senior front-end engineer at the nba making way too little money for what they had me doing and writing extremely niche web development satire as a hobby with my coworker – normal 20-something lady in tech things. this was last time i ever remember being truly bored, which was the big driver behind me writing things on an invite-only blogging platform (medium the dot com in its infancy) that i knew were very funny and therefore would piss off a certain demographic.

i talked more about the satire and some aftermath in 2016 at xoxo if you need more context, but today i want to take you back to january 31, 2014 to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of me going outside my comfort zone of making fun of javascript, and rudolph the red nose guiliani before it was cool, to write about mother nature's version of kohl's cash: bitcoin.

before i get into the actual post, let me paint the scene: normally around lunch time at work i'd think of something stupid i should write about that i knew my friends would think was hilarious and that men in tech who take themselves super seriously would hate. i would write the thing within 20 minutes and then publish and share on IRC (slack for old people) and twitter (x for old people). i would then read what i wrote and fix typos that i notice (editor's note: i am doing that right now lol, 3 typos so far). i wasn't getting paid for this so i wasn't taking it seriously, i was just having a goofy time. also during this month i was looking for a new job and keeping my yogurt in a tampon box in the fridge to stop my coworkers from eating it. okay, knowing all that, let's get into this journalistic chaos that i called:

A Case Against Bitcoin

Climate change is real and it has hit our economy

Crypto-currency is a hot topic in technology. I do not know all there is to know about Bitcoin, but I know enough about microeconomics and digitization of e-commerce to know its importance — but also how it could lead to another bubble burst.

i didn't study humor writing, i'm just a funny lil babe who reads a lot of tech blogs, and i read a lot of boring white papers in college. through that experience i learned that to trap the reader into feeling safe about your writing being sincere, you need to start off sincere, serious and stating why you have authority, or lack thereof, and leave a bit of the truth out - like all i knew about bitcoin at this point was that someone i was casually dating talked about it a bit and they were perpetually late to every single date because they insisted on buying a new shirt before every time we had a meal.

With so much real money flowing through the industry, it is important to come up with a digital currency so that banks and the wallets of top execs do not literally run out of space (a case made for making websites instead of flyers for entertainment events back in the early years of ARPANET). Not many people think about that, nor do they think about how the number of bank branches is decreasing as the big companies (ie Chase and Bank of America) take over the smaller guys. So actual space is a legitimate issue.

i swear this was not me predicting the 2023 bank run crisis, it was just me venting about the 2008 one. also, if the mention of ARPANET seems unhinged, that was intentional. i liked to throw in old, incorrectly cited, histories in order to start helping the reader realize that they are not reading serious article. of course this did not work for a lot of people, because a lot of people do not study their history. if this blog post is boring you, feel free to switch to my talk at causal islands about the last 20 years of history repeating itself.

But Bitcoin does not solve the space issue in the long run. Servers are needed to save them, and as more Bitcoins are created, more servers will be needed. I imagine that bank branches would open solely to house the hardware. Hardware has a large carbon footprint, so is digital currency really more environmentally friendly than real money? It’s not. This debunks the number one reason Bitcoin miners use when asked “why Bitcoin?”

i am proof that you don't need to know about bitcoin to have foreseen the environmental impact, you just need a fucking brain and care for humanity outside the scope of your inner circle - a lot to ask, i know, but fortunately for you all i was born with it 💅 by the way, have you looked into literally any research on how much water it takes for chat-gpt to correct your while loop?

Being digital means that Bitcoin is more susceptible to hacking. Unlike in-person robberies, the Bitcoin robbers are anonymous, hidden behind the safety of their computer screen. NSA can get their information and tap into their webcams, but that’s only if they use Apple products (they all come with cameras built in). I imagine that the majority of Bitcoin miners use their iPads for mobile transaction confirmations.

a week after i published this, mt gox halted withdrawals and basically turned my satire into a suspicious foreshadowing #AnyoneWithABrain. the apple products mention was just a cheap trigger for the fan boys in web development community at the time because, well, i love cheap thrills. i also love watching videos covering all the rug-pullers and scammers since - huge shouts out to coffeezilla and his detective work and his team's excellent 3d productions.

Being that Bitcoins are on hardware, something at simple as a refrigerator magnet can bankrupt an entire series of wallets. Tangible money, like dollars, can go through the rain, magnets, and basically all of the other elements of nature without total destruction. With Bitcoins we are not so safe.

i think this is a fun time to drop that my mentor and boss for almost 7 years recently won a webby lifetime achievement award for laying the groundwork for nft's at an event only a few months after i published this post. with all tech innovations, even cosplays of them, there's a stated intention of doing good for the world with said innovation. the hard, but most important part, for us schmucks is to actively decipher who actually intends to help the greater good or just fill their (bitcoin) wallets. i wouldn't be working with anil if i didn't witness and believe in his work to enable creative people to thrive on and build a weird web in its most fragile era.

but nft's though jenn! some of you are going to get big mad at me for this, but nft's are like cars to me. i hate cars, i don't like seeing them, being in them, my friends having them...but i know some people need them now, and i appreciate that need (although that doesn't apply to most of you), but i also think there's gotta be a better way through public transit, neighbors helping neighbors, actual accessibility, etc. i'm not going to be buying nft's, but i do know that there are a lot of other good people who tried to benefit from nft's with their art, or tried to make sure it wasn't all full of rug-pullers. some of you may think i'm naive, but you didn't predict the 2023 bank run or mt gox scandal, did you? anyway, i don't think nft's are going away, much like ai and vr and covid and my thyroid disease and bitcoin and javascript and cars. but there may be less of it, just the right amount we all need to coexist in peace. i'm not naive, i'm holding onto hope ok!!

Another issue with Bitcoin is adoption. Go to most of your local shops and I bet that none of them accept Bitcoin. They accept dollars or credits. Imagine having lots of worthy Bitcoins but no where to spend them. This renders the Bitcoin useless, driving down value and wasting miner’s time. With dollars, we can leave that work to the government and other more financially-knowledgable entities, like banks, so we don’t have to spend our time with transactions and handling the hardware requirements of mining.

i'm starting to understand why people thought i was serious here, because i actually was for the majority of it. these critiques actually make a lot of sense, but i was ahead of my time and also a woman. i've never paid for anything with a cryptocurrency because there was never a situation where it would have been convenient. do they take bitcoin at claire's?

Bitcoin — like meritocracy, communism, and misandry — is a nice idea, but it will never be implemented in a way that could possible make it useful or replace the current currencies. To think it does would be irresponsible and glib. I say stop wasting time exploring it, and leave it to the people you voted into office to handle the economy.

this line is fire actually, probably the only paragraph here that didn't make my skin crawl. do other writers enjoy reading their old writing and if so what is wrong with you? the meritocracy mention was a call back to the week or so before when github got rid of their meritocracy rug. remember that? i wish i lived in the woods sometimes.

Jenn Schiffer studied economics and is the tech evangelist for a think-tank that explores past currencies like Planet Lunch Points and pogs.

i'd intentionally end every "article" with a made up bio that was intended to make my friends laugh and make the people who fell for the entire article finally realize that they got increasingly mad over something stupid. do you think it ever worked?

my personal preference for any satire is that the writing is overshadowed by the response, otherwise the writing is too smart or too flat. the best part of this stupid bitcoin "article" i wrote was the response on the bitcoin subreddit. one of the exceptionally rude commenters emailed a week after the post apologizing for their angry response (and begging me to remove my tweet screenshotting it) and explained that they were just so tired of seeing "all the FUD around bitcoin" being shared by people who "know nothing about it." they were wrong though, i didn't "know nothing." i grew up poor, i've seen family members both scam and be scammed...none of what's happening in the cryptocurrency industry was shocking to me, then or now. and the claim of FUD was so interesting to me because what is more valid to have fear, uncertainty, and doubt about than a new financial concept that depended on technology to make it correct and secure - in a society full of people trying to take advantage of others not practicing discernment, doing due diligence, and being cautious when it comes to money.

i probably would have bought an nft from an artist i enjoyed if it weren't for the backlash to this post several years prior, and not because i would have feared the backlash from my peers online who were ride or die againsts nft's. blockchain technology bred a cult of personality that makes it hard for me to take seriously or incorporate into my lifestyle and work, and also trying to make it go away is absolutely not a hill or subreddit i want to die on. but i do hope that people consider the intersectional impact of new innovations, be it crypto, artificial intelligence, the phones they buy, etc. i also think we need to be making fun of people who explode at the tiniest bit of critique - hell, it got one of them to send me a nice email.

xoxo jenn

jenn schiffer writes like a 16 year old teenager on her blog. wait it is

my 2023 year in code

2024-01-01T00:00:00Z

i know how to code and i'm pretty good at it, but it's not something i do for my full-time job anymore - this is great for me, honestly. so, obviously, i do not write as much code as i used to, but i still made a lot of interesting things this year. here is my 2023 in code.

live laugh blog

that's this blog you're reading. i started it in spring of 2020, and it's both my blog and my sandbox for trying out new styles for my personal sites. this year i went through a "slime green" era that i am still holding onto like a dog and its favorite bone.

i wrote a whopping 9 blog posts in 2023 and that's pretty good - how many did you right, you lil scamp? it's still hosted on glitch and built with eleventy, my ride or dies.

honorable mention: my personal site, jennschiffer.com. you can draw on the background because being able to doodle in unexpected places is THE spice of life.

newsletters for work

coding the emails that comes from glitch is a thing i do, and anyone who has to code emails knows that this is worthy of a big mention on this list. mjml is my bestie and should be yours too if you are coding newsletter layouts.

honorable mention: all the sql i write at work lol

make8bitart as a pwa

apple finally was like fiiine i'll recognize your progressive web apps but we're only going to call them web apps. make8bitart.com, if you're not familiar, is a pixel art editor i made like well over 10 years ago, and i don't have to do much to update it. this year, though, i made significant changes so it would be a pwa. yee-haw.

glitch community code jams

a couple of months ago we kicked off glitch community code jams and for that i started streaming on the glitch youtube account fridays, which is about 50% me live-coding. my self-portrait submission was this eye-following-chips app, and for the gift-giving jam i made this app where everyone on the page can be a present or a cockroach.

honorable mention as part of the gift-giving jam i did a major refresh on my websockets knowledge and created a couple of starter apps. this work helped me out with a work-related feature we have coming out soon, so i was excited to be able to help out.

webwing

instead of bracing myself and holding onto the walls of billionaire-owned creator platforms and hoping the turbulence gives out, i've been exploring ways to bring the old web into the new web in a way that's not pretentious and likely only to be appreciated by my fellow former geocities users, respectfully, xoxo.

i recently decided that "discovery" is going to be my journey through 2024 - a prompt that inspired me to finally get glitch community code jams out the door, and i made webwing as a prototype for enabling people to build their own discovery tools. i think we're beyond just using rss for folowing - you should be able to pull in rss, glitch playlists, csvs, scans of photos of your tv screen, etc. iframes are a rough element to work with, but i'm still working on this and will "figure it out" somehow lol.

honorable mention: i remixed webwing to create inspowation to show the rest of the glitch team my inspiration behind glitch community code jams.

my mastodon server

i maintain my own mastodon server at pixel.kitchen. it's just me, no you cannot join, yes i pay $19 a month in digital ocean usage to host it...anyway, it's not really a "code" thing but i would be remiss not to brag that i also have a background in setting up and maintaining servers for various kinds of apps.

honorable mention: my coworker casey made postmarks, a social bookmarking site using activity pub so you can follow it on other fediverse platforms like mastodon. i remixed it to create postgrunge and i am still working on styling for it before i really start sharing cool apps on it. casey is a great person to follow if you, too, are on a journey to rediscovering how you do discovery on the web.

unhonorable mention: i made a fork to joinmastodon.org to update my old, private mastodon account with my new, public instance and now i get cold emails every week from entrepreneurs who think i'm the creator of mastodon and that my name is santa claus (my github display name).

three.js

i started taking this three.js journey course online a few months ago and posted a few of my projects so far but not all of them. i have to revisit to finish the last 2 lessons of the course, which is a goal of mine for january. i love being able to make 3d models and goof around with them in code. btw, blender is super difficult to work with for what reason?

macropad

a couple of years ago i got an adafruit macropad as a holiday gift from work and i just love it. it's so versatile, i'm always programming new things into the keys. you can see my code here in this glitch app. i'd love to see what others are doing with theirs, and if you know how i can get glyphs (like arrows) to show on the screen please reach out to me asap, my children are starvingggg!

other stuff

shouts out to greg wilson's 'software design by example' for javascript, it was a great read and i still have some excercises to get through, but learning by doing and the doing part relates back to the work...chef's kiss.
shouts out to the glitch community who write in to ask for support. most of my remixes over the past year have been remixes to help you get your projects to work - you all have had me writing javascript, bash, css, html, php, python...and lua? did you know roblox is build on a fork of lua?? bless.
shouts out to the 4 projects (that i can remember) that i have started but have not finished. at least 2 of them will be done soon, keep the others in your thoughts and prayers.

happy new year, may your code bring joy to yourself and others and harm no one. xoxo jenn

get a sticker book

2023-11-14T00:00:00Z

during covid quarantine, i decided to try to organize the decade of stickers from my career in the tech industry. i figured that i could fashion a sticker book out of a binder and plastic dividers from the dollar store. this proved to be a major fucking pain in the ass.

so actually found a custom sticker book on etsy in december 2022 and i can say that almost exactly one year into owning it, i love this freaking thing.

i mean, come on, it has MY NAME ON IT! it's just so flippin cute, ok i need to relax. i'm 16 1/2 11x7" pages into the book. here's that page so far lol: makeup, deftones, my employer playing on the live laugh love phrase, and weed (legal)...these are a few of my favorite things.

anyway, i'll make an app where you can page through my sticker book, but that's going to take awhile and i wanted to share this with you before the holidays. a sticker book: awesome gift for any age!!

xoxo jenn, NOT SPONSORED!!

my 2016 electric objects interview, revisited

2023-09-02T00:00:00Z

wanna feel like shit? 2016 was 7 years ago lol!

that summer i had done a couple of collections for the late digital art display startup, electric objects. they shut down and sold their apps to giphy in 2017, who then got bought by facebook but then i guess the government decided THAT was the line mark zuckerberg crossed as far as being anticompetitive. they were forced to sell for an embarrasing loss to shutterstock who i assume is the reason every electric objects url is now broken? as it stands, i have a large digital frame that's basically useless unless i hack it (which i probably will), and a bunch of broken links i just had to remove from my "portfolio".

every day is a winding road.

i figured that i'd revisit my interview with eo since it now only exists as a semi-working page on the wayback machine (the best machine imho). what i'll do here is copy and paste all of the interview and add some commentary, ok? this should be fun.

“pixelbabes/emotions follows a neon character’s journey through a range of emotions who at times has to fake happiness, an exercise many of us know too well.” — Alex, Electric Objects

alex and literally every other person i interacted with at electric objects were very cool and kind and i hope they are all thriving rn! i loved this interpretation of my collection, alex absolutely nailed it.

Can we see a picture of your workspace and/or desktop?

This is a corner of my humble home office. I’m a web developer so I have 3 screens.

since then i've upgraded to web developer community management and also upgraded to only 2 screens - it's just that one of the screens is the width of 2 screens. i'll do a blog soon about my home office setup nowadays since it's like a million times nicer than it was when this interview was done.

Where are you typing this from?

From my bed.

i recently moved from this apartment and had a hell of a time taking down that hot pink artist tape! it left a shadow of the art behind in the form of beige and flaky residue. fortunately my landlord was legally required to paint the place so i didn't get dinged on my security deposit. but lesson learned, i shan't be using artist tape on the walls to make art!

What do you watch/listen to while working?

Only the good stuff.

i use tidal now.

What have you been working on lately?

Drawing with robots, playing with watercolors. Just figuring out different ways to bring pixel art from the screen to IRL.

i just hit about 40 hours into this three.js course that includes working in blender. i've been primarily making (!) and using watercolor over the past couple of years, and last month i picked up an airbrush which has been a lot of fun. i'll share more about that soon. i still have the watercolorbot safely tucked away for when i have an idea of how to use it again. basically, i'm in an exploratory period at the moment where i'm experimenting a lot and just playing with my supplies until i figure out what the next leg of my art journey is.

What work of yours are you most proud of?

My first pixel nude ever. It ended up in this Dutch newspaper alongside a sexy pinup Ned Flanders I drew. I like that underneath the butt is a pull-quote that says “Herbie Hancock was fantastisch.”

i'm still proud of this because it's just so fucking stupid (in a lovely way).

What tools do you use in your work?

My digital stuff is drawn with a web app I built called make8bitart.com. I also use Photoshop for animating my work. IRL I use ink, gel pens, watercolor. I own a lot of rulers and have a lot of patience.

i canceled my creative cloud subscription several months ago and have been using aseprite for pixel art instead. i gave up the pens for watercolors. i still use make8bitart.com for scribbling and sketching stuff before i get serious about them in aseprite.

Can you tell us about your process?

On paper I draw grids and then just color in the squares. On the computer, I built a lot of the tools I use, so as I draw pixel art I end up breaking away to work on software bug fixes. A lot of my art, especially the nudes, come from poses I found while going to lifedrawing classes.

this is still the same when i am doing this kind of art, except i primarily use watercolor. i haven't done a pixel nude in quite some time, nor have i been to a figure drawing class! i've been meaning to see where i can go these days, but in the meantime there is plenty of figure poses online - like justsketchme, quickposes, and sketchdaily.

Any last advice for the folks just starting out?

Always be making stuff and always be a good person.

i'd update this more specifically to "always be making stuff and minimizing harm".

Top Five Most Influential Visuals

these are still true and very iconic to me. i still cannot find who made the skateboarding lizard - please let me know if you have any info on it! the light installation is dan flavin, the trash icon is by susan kare, the word art is by animatedtext, and the dodecahedron drawing is by mc escher.

Favorite file formats?

.gif, .js, also .docx for its birth being a seminal moment in post-grunge file format creation

still true! some would say they are surprised i didn't say "spreadsheets" but those are at a higher level than any mere files could be.

What are the best places to see your work?

Jennmoney.biz, twitter.com/jennschiffer, instagram.com/jenn

shortly after this i deleted my facebook and instagram. earlier this year i deleted my twitter. jennmoney.biz redirects to jennschiffer.com and i'm still trying to figure out the best way and place to share my art.

What sites do you visit for inspiration?

Instagram & tumblr

now i find inspiration from pinterest, tiktok and youtube

Whose work do you follow?

Dan flavin, susan kare, jeanette hayes, miranda “lazy bones” lorikeet, henri matisse, all my friends

lol at me "following" matisse's art. still waiting for him to follow me back on pinterest. joking aside...i gotta say it's much more difficult to follow artists without an instagram or twitter account and i'm very much hoping that the art community is able to embrace decentralized social media someday so their content is not locked behind login screens. i wonder if artists know that it's very hard to see their posts on instagram and twitter if you don't have accounts!

What are your favorite galleries, museums, exhibits, etc.?

MoMA, Whitney, the Met, David Zwirner gallery, anything with neon lights

i haven't been to a museum or gallery in about 5 million years. actually, that's not true - i find myself dropping in on the sprinkling of galleries in the tribeca/canal st area as i'm often around there. i've been avoiding larger museums because people there are always coughing without covering their mouth??

Thanks for the interview, Jenn

thank you actually. sorry that electric objects didn't work out and was ahead of its time - the nft community would have fucking came out of their eyes about it if it had held out another 5 years lmao!

xoxo jenn

karol polak made 8-bit art

2023-08-21T00:00:00Z

one of my favorite things in the entire world is receiving email or coming upon posts of people using make8bitart.com, which is a free in-browser pixel art editor i've built and been maintaining since my own learning-to-javascript journey back in 2011 - 12 years ago! over the past 12 years teachers have been using it to teach their students how to make characters for stories and games, game developers have used it to prototype scenes, knitters and cross-stitchers have used it to plan out their next beautiful artwork, and parents have even used the source code to teach their kids how websites are made.

back in november, i received an email with the subject "make8bitart is fun" and the following kind words:

Hello! I'm writing just to let you know that your website ( https://make8bitart.com ) has served me as a tool to make my Master's Degree prints! :) You can see them on my instagram if you're interested
https://www.instagram.com/karolxpolak/

Best regards
Karol Polak

i was in love with what i was seeing and asked if i could buy a couple of pieces and know more about the project.

"These prints are part of my Master's Degree in Graphic Arts at The Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. I named this cycle 8-bit Rain Garden (it rhymes in polish :D ). I focused primarily on the search for painterly pixel values and the transformation of the impressions characteristic of the screen into a material object in the form of a print on paper. The themes are based on the language of digital culture. Old computer games, pixel art, and the lofi theme (low accuracy) inspired me to create the composition (and obviously make8birtart.com!). The process of creating the works is a combination of digital processing and manual dissolving of the print with water."

after moving apartments, a bit of drama around a former neighbor hiding my packages for some strange reason, and the (pleasant) surprise that these works were not - as i assumed - the size of standard printer paper, we have these beautiful works on display. this one is called XRAY:

i have RAINBOW hanging on the opposite side of the wall. i bought the poster hangers off of etsy. if you find yourself on a video call with me while i'm working from home, or if i do any streaming in the future, you'll get to see XRAY bringing beautiful pixels and colors to the rest of my curated backdrop.

these are a couple of my most prized possessions and i thank karol for letting me purchase their artwork from the other side of the globe. and i thank the jenn of 2011 for building something in the open so others can use it and connect using art.

if you use make8bitart.com i'd love to see what you create - my email is jenn@dotbiz.info.

speaking of creating things, i've had the month of august off of work and been exploring the answer to the question "what do you do when you're not at work" which has been impossible for me, but i'm doing a lot of work on that and making good progress. i look forward to sharing more soon.

xoxo jenn

arnold palmers for people who are trying to cool it on the sugar

2023-07-04T00:00:00Z

somehow over the last couple of months i ended up living in a whole different apartment! with a 3rd name to add to the crazy straw collection!

while the situation as a whole is an absolute banger of an upgrade, i am still adjusting to having a smaller kitchen. the appliance situation is nice, though. it's our first steel refrigerator and working dishwasher. the dishwasher was such a foreign concept to us that it took me over a month to work up the nerve to use it lol.

andy was craving an arnold palmer (half lemonade, half ice tea, half pro golfer) today, but the ones in the grocery store have way more sugar than we like to consume in a drink, so i decided to make some at home. i followed most of this 'perfect arnold palmer' recipe with just a few changes. for one, i only needed to juice 4 lemons, which is great because my compost bucket was overflowing already and i am too scared of getting struck by lightning to walk it to the collection bin.

instead of 3/4 cup of sugar (which i keep spelling "suger" as i type this, what the hell) i used 1/2 cup of monk fruit sweetener and i only kept it on the heat until it boiled, i didn't boil for 2 minutes. the tea i used was pg tips, which was the right move.

andy told me i should take a photo of my cute mint garnish in my little adamjk egg dish. i'm thinking of hiring him as creative director of live laugh blog industries. i will pay him in exposure and also freshly brewed and squeezed beveraginos.

it's so good and refreshing, and i couldn't imagine enjoying this with 3/4 cups of sugar, even as a sugar fiend. i'd go so far as to say this drink is more of a concentrate; i've been pouring one part tea and one part water and then adding a bunch of ice.

now i have to figure out what to do with all this fucking mint. in the meantime, andy is sending all of the dirty dishes to mount splashmore (i've just decided that's what i'm calling the dishwasher).

xoxo jenn

condemned to blog

2023-06-27T00:00:00Z

welcome to my blog. i've been busy, thanks for asking!

january: depression
february: depression
march: depression, working on a conference talk
april: working on a conference talk, apartment search
may: apartment search, moving
june: moving, unpacking

i am presently not depressed, living on the moon, and here to share the talk i gave at causal islands in april. the talk title is "CONDEMNED TO COMPUTE: HOW WITNESSING THE LAST 20 YEARS OF COMPUTING TELLS ME WE’RE GOING TO BE PUNISHED WITH AT LEAST ANOTHER 20" and you can watch it in its entirety, for free, here:

this was my first conference (attendance and talk) since 2019, and it turns out that it's just as much hard work and chaos as it's ever been plus there's the newly added anxiety of traveling in a post-andrew-cuomo-cancelled world. andy (my partner, not a cuomo) came with me and we got to eat a lot of good food along with what one restaurant boasted as "the sofia loren of tiramisu." i think it just was sofia loren's recipe? it was okay! they garnished it with 3 blueberries, which was certainly a choice.

i very much enjoyed the other talks i watched (i specifically gave a shout out to mauve, david ogborn and geoffrey litt's talks in my own). it's an honor to be considered a a peer among such a creative group of artistic, academic, and future-thinking educators that advocate for community governance and a decentralized web.

a few things i wanted to note:

if you are giving a talk with a q&a, be prepared to answer "have you considered using large language models?" even if your talk is about how to make (for example) iced water.

actually that's the only thing i wanted to note. was i prepared for this question? yes, but no one asked it because i addressed it in my talk. i think if i were asked, i would have responded with "are you an ai? this sounds like something an ai would ask." you can borrow that answer if you ever find yourself in the hot seat.

xoxo jenn

how to grow a web presence, 1/n

2023-01-17T00:00:00Z

in 2013 i grew a significant following after entering the javascript conference talk circuit as the "art and code" girl at the basketball company who also wrote tech satire which scared a generation of web developers into reading more critically and commenting more kindly (if at all). i never really loved twitter as a platform, but i loved a lot of people who worked on it and it was fun to goof around on, just like medium.com was fun to fool and get yelled at by web developers who could not fathom a woman being wrong online on purpose. it's been almost 10 years since i entered the scene and would you believe that everywhere is less fun and everyone is more dumb!

the places we grew our careers and social circles on have all been damaged beyond repair by men who, despite having billions of dollars, look like they have the suds and the emotional intelligence of a paper straw 5 minutes after it has entered my iced latte. they're surrounded by yes-men with less-money who are about half as smart as the character i played in my early satire days. i truly hope they all find the immortality they seek, and also that they then get trapped in quicksand, respectfully.

now that i have laid my credentials out on the table, it's about time i start talking about growing one's web presence. a coworker was telling me today how they were hoping to create more developer content and share it on social media and mentioned twitter. this lead to me going on this whole spiel about how we should work to remove "twitter" from the words in our strategies for connecting to communities and growing our personal (and professional) networks. i think our focus should be on content and messaging; how and where we post is like how we plate or package our meals in that it can be done in many ways - but i typically don't come up with recipes with packaging only in mind.

it sucks, but we're all going to have to shift gears and learn some tough, but important, lessons about the social media we contribute to - not just consume. i beg of my peers to consider portability of their following (ie. have a mailing list and a blog), consider the risk of a platform you use cutting off access for seemingly no good reason, dramatically shifting goal posts or whatever elon "krang but with an exo-skeleton of a 2016 boomer meme facebook group in physical form" musk is doing with twitter.

anyway, i need to find a new service to move my mailing list to because revue shuts down tomorrow. man i love this industry and the earthworms with asses on both ends that get to call the shots in it.

xoxo jenn

fmk: butterfly clips, thyroid disease, seventh grade?

2023-01-10T00:00:00Z

i've been using the butterfly clips i bought last week to pull back my bangs when i work out. it works so much better than a headband, which often creased and ruined my wavy fringe.

what you can't see in that photo is the fresh quarter-sized bald spot smack in the middle-back of my head. i've documented a bit of my alopecia journey on here before, and i thought i finally stopped the losing-hair part, but...lol, i fuckin thought huh!

i stopped crying about my hair loss back in august when i stopped going to the dermatologist for steroid shots. my friend died and i was grieving and i was just tired of all the fucking pain and grief that i couldn't even take personally because how do you get revenge for something that was no ones fault but, like, nature? [editor's note: i tried but could not bring myself to make a joke here about how i'm going to start littering as revenge.]

i decided to go back to the basics last week and try to get my hashimoto's disease into remission ahead of my next round of tests in a few months. i am going to the gym, doing the strength training program i did over 2 years ago, going on more walks, and trying to go to bed earlier. with these adjustments and more, i am pretty optimistic - i guess!

anyway, the butterfly clips are real cute, surprisingly practical, highly recommended, etc.

4 other things i remember from 7th grade besides butterfly clips

in french class i coughed and my friend, who was going through one of those "i want to be an emt when i grow up" phases, said "i know your lungs aren't filled with water because if they were you'd be dead" and i thought it was so fucking funny and out of nowhere that i couldn't stop coughing and the teacher made me take it out to [intentionally offensive franglish] la nurse's offeese
i had a crush on my homeroom teacher's wife who i never met and literally knew nothing about except for the fact that she looked like mariah carey in the photo of her he kept on his desk - at least i thought she did, who really knows!
a science teacher put his hand on my desk and told the class that if he stood there for some unrealistic number of years, the atoms of his hands and the desk would merge together and i was too shy then to say "i think you'd die and decompose actually" and i carry that regret to this day. you can blame my shyness back then on trauma, though, so i really need to give myself some grace there!
the girl who had a locker next to mine had a small handbag made out of a coconut and i thought it was the most creative, clever thing in the world.

xoxo jenn

command strips and lemon dill chickpea pasta

2023-01-07T00:00:00Z

i was in target earlier this week looking for a couple of things for my home. i know that target has a reputation for being full of really annoying women, and it’s true – i am really annoying women. the reality, though, is that behind every actually annoying woman in target is an even more annoying college-age son who she’s trying to match the energy of so they get get the hell going without her taking on herself whatever adventure he is on. i salute the moms actually trying to get their crusty sons through life without falling into the ✱ndrew t✱te pipeline! 🫡

i was in the aisle looking at the velcro command strips that i like to use to hang up paintings and posters and stuff, when an annoying college-age son was hollering 1 foot away from me to his mother who was all the way in a different aisle. he was yelling “what the fuck are these” so i told him what the fuck are those. command strips are renter-safe velcro stickers that you use to hang things on your wall instead of using nails. they rule.

the thing about annoying college-age sons is that when they ask a question and it gets answered by anyone other than their mom, they freeze like a deer in the headlights for a moment and then say that actually they do know what they are, he was just wondering about…[picks up the same product in another size].

our current society’s first target haul of 2023

command strips - includes a tiny little level that looks like it’s filled with ecto cooler
clear shower liner that i have to cut in half for my stall-sized shower
10-pack of washcloths for the gym because i joined a new one that doesn’t do towel service and theirs cost $2 a piece
2-pack of microfiber hair wraps, which i use after showers but they are also great for wearing during at-home workouts
1 large claw clip
10-pack of butterfly clips that were popular when i was in 7th grade
2-pack of shrimp ramen cat toys (for pumagreg, not for me)

what target didn’t have:

tiny drain cover to keep the cockroaches in the pipes from getting trapped in and shitting all over my impossible-to-climb-out-of sink

this was fine because i ended up finding the perfect size cover at c.h. martin yesterday.

lemon dill chickpea spinach pasta to eat while blogging about your next target haul

ingredients:

1 tbsp of olive oil
fresh dill, how ever much makes your heart sing
juice from 1/2 lemon
1 cup of pasta (i use veggie-based because they have hella protein)
handful of spinach
1 tbsp of vegan butter
1/2 can of chickpeas
salt and pepper

while the pasta is boiling, saute the chickpeas in a pan until they’re browned a bit or however you like them. turn off the heat and then put the handful of spinach on top and cover the pan so they can wilt.

when the pasta is done, drain it, put it back in the pot with the butter, dill, and lemon juice. turn the heat back on and add everything in the other pan and add a bunch of black pepper and a little salt.

make sure to eat the pasta with a spoon like a serial killer would.

xoxo jenn

2023: the year of blog on the desktop

2023-01-02T00:00:00Z

remember when i brought back blogging, single-handedly, in 2020? then i got depressed lol? a lot of things happened, some really good and some really fucking awful. a year in review, more like a year in the fucking bin!

i've got nothing to lose with going into the new year hopeful, though: i'll be hitting 4 years of no alcohol in april, i've got a job, andy and i are (generously) 1/5 through the playground scene in powerwash simulator, i can still afford therapy even with the new year's fee increase, and i'm pretty close to perfecting a recipe for vegan mac and cheese sauce that's i've been working on all year.

here's my first list of the new year:

new years resolutions for 2023, in order from easiest to most difficult

avoid tax evasion
drink more water
don't wait 6 months to get a haircut
eat different vegetables (not just spinach lmao)
be more active
paint more paintings
learn a new web development skill
stop forgetting my wallet so i don't have to jump turnstiles (allegedly)
do 5 solid push-ups
stop making jokes about my hypothyroidism being from eating microplastics

i have off of work this week and i'm using the time to organize my scattered notes through the last year, update my glitch in bio to include more of the art and stuff i've made, and i need to find a small drain cover because the roaches traveling through the pipes of my building seem to think my bathroom sink is the wardrobe into fucking narnia.

happy new year, ya scamps. BLOGGING IS BACK, BABY!!

xoxo jenn

ps. i'm not active on twitter anymore, but i made my own mastodon instance, and i've been microblogging on cohost during my hiatus from PURE UNADULTERATED BLOGGING.

i spent the last month on a pretty cool watercolor project

2022-07-23T00:00:00Z

welcome to my blog. i know it's been over a month since i've lived, laughed and blogged, but this project i'm about to talk about has been taking up my free time and i think you'll find it worth my absence. if you don't find that this is the case, then keep that to yourself 💜

last month i announced, unsolicited, that i was making watercolors, but i was finding the shades of my old eyeshadow to be uninspiring. my problem was solved when, after therapy, i found myself wandering into the tj maxx on 6th avenue and 19th street - the one across the street from the container store and shares an entrance with marshall's and bed bath and beyond, an actual vortex into hell if there ever was one. turns out hell is both hot and the best place to buy throwaway makeup that at least 100 tourists have opened and swatched in-store. i got this sea turtle themed (?) palette for like $8.

this palette made some great paint, so i would imagine it is a good eyeshadow formula for the price - if you can find one that no one has opened and touched already. over the course of several nights after work, i'd eat a couple of gumgums (legal), mull paint, and then make these weird abstract paintings with the tools as i was cleaning them off between colors.

being high and making paint and then painting with the paint has been one of the most euphoric experiences i've ever had - it's like the polar opposite of going to the tj maxx on 6th avenue and 19th street.

the amount of paint i could make with each color was more than i could fit back in the pan, so i was making mini-palettes out of watercolor cards so i could send to friends. that actually made the project even more special for me, being able to send a piece of it to some of the people i love.

one of the cool things about turning an eyeshadow palette into paint while high is that you don't have to think much - the color scheme was already chosen and go well together, and imperfections basically disappear once you start painting.

the hardest part of the process was keeping cat hair and dust from getting in the paint, which is hard when you have a pumagreg who thinks the kitchen table is a runway. but again, all those imperfections basically are moot once you're adding and painting with water. also, i have no aspirations of selling these or making money. i'm just trying to fight the war in my mind and also not spend every night melted into my couch.

i wasn't sure if the mini-palette watercolor card idea would work but i think they came out great, and the folks who received them were super stoked about it.

the cards also gave me a chance to properly swatch the new paints and i think they came out so great! and after years of using my drafting table as my work desk, i finally got a proper desk for my computers so i can reclaim the table for painting a large grid showing off all the new colors in my new palette.

i had originally planned to do a grid showing every combination but "attention to detail" is not a strength of mine after the chewables hit, so i ended up making a weird tetris board?

the palette held up so well through this week-long process. once you get past the stupid (respectfully) turtle illustration on the palette, it is actually a great form factor for painting - it's got a tin exterior, the mirror is great for mixing and holding it up, and it can handle the spray of water it kept getting to activate and stay wet.

and that is the final product that i finished last night. it's like if ellsworth kelly illustrated that kids book with the fish that apparently everyone, except me, read.

in conclusion, that's what i've been doing over the past month and i wanted to share because it's probably the one thing that has been keeping me from spiraling into an actual vortex of hell – at least tj maxx on 6th avenue and 19th street has a visible exit.

xoxo jenn

i've been microblogging my progress on cohost if you want sneak peeks between blogs. my next adventure is a set of neon pigments i bought on etsy to turn into paint. also, i've recently been streaming with potch again, tuesdays at 8pm eastern on twitch. i plan to restart my old morning standup stream again once i'm settled into my new desk setup and job.

oh boy, she's making watercolors again

2022-06-19T00:00:00Z

there's this beautiful store in san francisco called case for making that a dear friend recommended i visit the last time i was out there (5 years ago, i think!). i bought some beautiful neon half pans from them and they've been a favorite online shop of mine since. here's a video that gives you the gist of how they make their watercolor:

it was through CfM that i found out about kremer pigments who basically neighbors ny penn station. in january of 2018 i took one of their "make your own watercolor" courses. i had planned to go with a then-coworker but there was some sort of miscommunication where they decided not to go and just didn't tell me, so i was on my own except for other strangers with a shared interest in doing one of the hardest arm workouts of our lives in the name of art.

here's the palette i brought home after it cured overnight at the shop. ignore that middle row of half pans, and bear in mind that this palette is over 4 years old at this point.

it was a pretty awesome experience and paint haul for what cost me $120. i didn't mix all of those paints, a few were from my classmates who had mixed too much and had pans to spare. it was a lovely class, my arm was killing me from all the mulling, and i was equipped with the confidence that i could make my own paint if i wanted to.

a few months ago i was going through my old makeup to fit it into a smaller drawer and came across a small bag of single-pan eyeshadows that had long expired but remained in my drawer so i can try making watercolors of them. i had the glass and the muller to do it, but not the binder fluid. i went on the etsy of a tiktoker i follow who makes pigments and paints and bought her recipe for binder. it's a great guide but i just haven't found myself in the headspace to track down all the ingredients. fortunately, she started selling ready made watercolor binder so i got that. she also sells...freeze dried skittles. i have not gotten those yet.

so today i made my first watercolor at home, and i'd like to share my process.

the eyeshadow i used was "hollywood" from nyx and is a dry white shimmer that has absolutely no pay-off on my skin or anyone else's, it seems. i couldn't even get a good swatch of it on my hand.

and here is the "pigment" in powder form after i used the palette knife to break it up and remove it from the pan. yes, this was very satisfying, no i did not record it for you.

the hardest part about making watercolor paint is not the constant mulling or the cleanup, it's keeping pumagreg from getting too close and getting his hair in the paint.

the second hardest part is the constant mulling. it's basically like mixing something really well by hand when you wish you had a standing mixer. still, it's another satisfying part of this process, unless your fucking cat doesn't just pick a spot to park instead of wandering back and forth shedding hair everywhere!!

the cool thing about using makeup for making watercolor is that you can reuse the pan it came in. this one is now curing, open, in a safe-from-cat-hair spot (if such a utopia exists).

this was a good eyeshadow to start with because the pan was big enough to hold and overflow of the paint, and making it into paint will give it a new life instead of it ending up in the trash. i hope it cures well! like my candlemaking, i base my measurements off of vibes, unless there's a fire hazard which there is not with this kind of paintmaking as far as i can tell?

anyway, this isn't a paint that i could do much with on its own, but i think it will make a really cool topper or glitter to mix with other colors:

i have about half a dozen more eyeshadows to upcycle into paints and i want to then do a big painting with them all. it's been too long since i've painted after developing hand tremors several months ago, but lately i've been having more better days about them than bad. it's time to get back into practice! 🎨👩‍🎨

xoxo jenn

candle-making my way to a cento fine foods sponsorship

2022-06-12T00:00:00Z

i took an afternoon off of work last week to make up for working on an office holiday – typical for hot, smart babes whose job it is to support their users. with a new set of candlescience fragrance oils delivered, i ate a chewable (legal) and tried to see how many candles i could make before it hit.

i may not have blogged about making candles in several months, but don't let that create ASSUMPTIONS that i have not been melting wax all this time. this afternoon's session was special: i have been saving this old-branding vegenaise jar. the grapeseed oil vegenaise comes with a purple lid and that's why i get it over the other options. andy finds this very cute, so i'm sharing it with you so that you also feel that way.

i had grown quite an inventory of empty jars from cento fine foods' collection of condiments, and it was time to upcycle them. look at how delicious and nuclear the colors look when melted!

a tin mug i got at xoxo in 2018 had become rusty recently, so i figured i'd make a candle with it too. i also had a maraschino cherries jar left from a maraschino cherry phase i was going through a couple of months ago.

shouts out to pumagreg for being a good, soft, curious, and not-getting-in-my-way boy that entire session - sincerely! a funny thing that he started doing a few months ago is sitting on the kitchen table, watching the stove and meowing when water starts boiling. that little weirdo thinks he's helping!

the photo above showed the whole batch the next morning. i love how they turned out - notice how smooth they cured! here are the fragrance oils i used, all from candlescience except for sandalwood:

cherries: baby powder
jalapeño peppers: cinnamon candies
pepperoncini: peppermint and eucalpytus
vegenaise: custom mix of sandalwood and fresh-cut grass
artichoke hearts: red sangria
roasted peppers: fall leaves
tin mug: hazelnut coffee,

i'm very surprised at how much i like how this hazelnut coffee tin mug candle came out, but i can never keep it at my desk or on the kitchen table because i may accidentally drink it.

if you're looking for an affordable, peaceful and productive hobby, i highly recommend candle-making. it's a great way to upcycle jars, and they are fun to give out to friends. that's what i'm going to do with this latest batch.

xoxo jenn

pickling red onions

2022-06-08T00:00:00Z

andy and i pickled some red onions over the weekend and i feel like we instantly leveled up as both tax-payers and adults with kitchens.

i own a spiralizer with a ribbon blade, so i used that to make the onions more consistently thin and my fingers more consistently not chopped off from the palms. we filled up two ball jars, each with one ribboned red onion, then made the pickling liquid that the AI Of My Mind™ came up with after reading about 30 recipes online 3 weeks prior:

2 cups white vinegar
2 cups water
a splash of apple cider vinegar ("why not" i say as i pour a couple tablespoons)
1/3 cup of raw sugar
2 tablespoons of salt

we heated those ingredients up in a pot until the sugar dissolved, let the liquid cool, poured it into the jars of onion ribbon, and threw in a diced clove of garlic each and several peppercorns (another "why not" moment). we refrigerated them overnight, but you can basically start eating them in an hour - it's a quick process!

here it is on top of my lunch yesterday: english muffins (has to be killer classic!), just egg™, tomatoes and spinach - topped with hot sauce and our own pickled red onions. 😛

from what i've read, these will be good in the fridge for 3 weeks. if you're wondering what you could put these on, the answer is virtually anything that is food: i've had red onions on schmears, tacos, naan sandwiches, hoagies, salads, etc. if i put it on something and it comes out terrible, i'll let you all know.

xoxo jenn

p.s. if you hate onions, here's a recipe for celery soda instead lol

circling back on the aquatic toilet seat

2022-06-07T00:00:00Z

when i blogged last week that i'd finally order the aquatic toilet seat that i've been thinking about for 8 years, i held up my end of the one-sided bargain and followed through. it was $59.99 when i ordered, and it arrived 3 days later.

the box was right, it was easy to install! and it is very elegant. unfortunately for you all, it's against my "no showing bathroom online" rule to show you it in its final form, but i staged a dramatized reenactment of it existing outside of my bathroom:

within moments of taking it out of the box, i decided that i'm taking this toilet seat with me into my grave. no matter how stupid they look, i love every one of these fish like they were my own children.

treating myself to an elegant, unconventional toilet seat with non-rust aluminum hinges and easy installation has not only unlocked a new chaos within me, but it makes me almost like my terrible bathroom. after i publish this blog, i'm going to find a deep blue transparent shower curtain to go with it.

xoxo jenn

p.s. here's the official twitter thread where you can congratulate me on my new toilet seat

this isn't necessarily the aquatic scene toilet seat i will get but it illustrates my 'point'

2022-05-30T00:00:00Z

we're two weeks shy of my 8-year anniversary of moving to jersey city - hard to believe that around this time i was packing my tiny studio in montclair! as a then-shopper of amazon, the e-commerce website, i was looking for things i'd need for the new place and was recommended a toilet seat with an acquatic scene. it was blue resin, transparent, perfect, and had fish and sand in it. also it was $80 – you can probably buy an actual parrot on amazon these days for under $80!

up to that moment, it had never even occurred to me that you can just have different toilet seats for fun. the price was a bit rich for my blood, though, but at least once a year since then i've thought for weeks about getting it. and with the pandemic helping create hordes of new resin girlies, there are so many more to choose from and you can shop from a smaller creator than jeffrey penelope bezos. i think that makes them worth even more than $80.

let me cut to the chase: i convinced myself that i should get one at least four years ago and the only thing holding me back has been [room goes silent] needing to measure my toilet.

[cacaphony of booing]

if you asked me how long my toilet seat was, i couldn't tell you until an hour ago, when i checked after starting this blog and realized how fucking embarrassing this should probably make me feel (but it doesn't!). here's a website that helped me learn that i have a "round" or "o" toilet. i theoretically could have learned this 4 years ago, but i also theoretically could have passed a C in senior gym if i simply complied and ended every class doing the cha-cha slide™. yes, i have been sacrificing my peace to avoid complicitness in cringe since at least 2002. measuring your toilet isn't cringe, just having to get up and do math when i just want to buy something is cringe.

anyway i'm going to get a freaking aquatic scene toilet seat this week, ok sorry!!

xoxo jenn

p.s. i had a cool idea for a graphic for this post, but i had to install adobe cloud and photoshop on this old work machine so i can bring my vision to life. photoshop is still installing though. 🙄

p.p.s. here's the official twitter thread where you can congratulate me

carousels, cashews, candles and community

2022-05-28T00:00:00Z

when i was little, my grandma and i used to take the car service to coney island to ride the carousel. i loved my time with my grandma so much that i kept to myself the constant anxiety in my tummy as we rode in a stranger's car, encountered sketchy men on the boardwalk, and rode the horses in a circle over and over again in the hot and sticky air. i never told her i was scared or that my tummy hurt, because i didn't want her to stop spending time with me. as far as i was concerned back then, my grandma was all that i had.

when she passed away, i was a freshman in college, so at that point my community primarily consisted of late-teen dumbasses like me. i remember someone at our dining hall table, upon hearing the news, responding with kind condolences but then "if my grandma died, i think i'd die." it was a really unhelpful thing to say, and i wish i had spoken up and said it at the time, but even on rollercoasters of extreme emotions - tragedy, celebration, whatever - i've always felt pressured to complete the ride gracefully and just appreciate any expression of condolences, congratulations, or whatever response was in order.

even these days, so many tragedies and celebrations later, i catch myself wondering if just living my life in complete solitude would be easier for everyone and also my tummy. but then i open my apartment door and there's a bag on the door knob with a plastic jug of cashews that my older neighbor occasionally left me as a gift.

the first time this happened, all she knew about me was that i was very good at carrying large cases of water upstairs. she left me a bottle of wine, not knowing i'm sober. she still doesn't know i'm sober - for some reason i feel bad about possibly making her feel bad for not reading my mind, because i'm a weirdo who constantly feels bad for not being able to read minds. these days, she knows that i have a computer she can use whenever her's isn't working, and that i make nice candles - i mean, i assume she likes the candle i made her lol. i love how she puts a gift tag on a snack box with her name, because it shows how thoughtful even a box of peanut butter crackers could be. i imagine she's such a loving grandma, but i don't know if she has grandkids and i'll never ask, as that could be a subject as sore as my no longer having a grandma is. her and i know very little about each other, but we know enough: we exist near each other and we're here if i'm hungry or her groceries are heavy.

i have been hungry a lot this month. my stomach has been doing loop-the-loops over the past couple of weeks for reasons of celebration, like my hair growing back and a huge career milestone, and of sadness and tragedy as i navigate chronic illness while the world outside my little home office escalates in cruelty and violence. work/life balance feels impossible when the life part sucks, and if it weren't for those cashews, i probably wouldn't have eaten much over the past few days.

i'm never really kind to myself, but i try hard to be to others. i know that the more i'm unkind to myself (or "kicking my own ass" as i put it to my therapist), the less energy i'll have to be kind to others. it's something i'm definitely trying to work on but the difficulties of navigating everything going on in the world makes it feel impossible sometimes. i guess that as i got older and more successful, trauma turned to survivor's guilt and it slaps me on my big fat vegetable ass at any moment of feeling good about myself.

the light for me in all of this darkness is knowing i have a community to take care of and to help take care of me. i cooked myself a nice meal today and took a long walk between thunderstorms. i took photos of my neighbors chickens that were eating a hanging cob of corn that looked like a penis, and my favorite bush of tiny pink flowers that i think are petite roses is in full bloom. a friend dm'd me today and said they miss my writing and i do too. i've got a bag of red onions for andy and i to pickle when he comes over, a new thing for both of us to enjoy together.

xoxo jenn

a few very good youtube videos

2022-05-14T00:00:00Z

want to watch some cool youtube videos? how about three cool youtube videos?

shouts out to my pal, mike for recommending me this video breaking down the vocal harmonies in alice in chains' catalog, something anyone who likes music (fan of aic or not) should watch:

ixi does a really great job of explaining music composition to an audience without that background (very much me), and does a great job advocating for the artistry of the band. i'm a lover of music, but i don't know much about composition or theory, so i appreciate youtubers like ixi taking their incredible knowledge and love for music and giving us dorks ways to articulate why we love the bands that we love.

after you watch that, turn on this video about how different animals percieve the world and prepare to have your worldview changed:

i am a computer scientist, not an animal scientist, so i don't know how much of this stuff is hypothesis versus scientific fact, but it's still fascinating to consider the differences in perception that animals have - not just time and space, but color as well. i heard that some shrimps see different colors than we do. is that true? is that fair? guess we'll never know.

that video was shown to me by andy, who also saved this video in our shared playlist:

i grew up watching dinosaurs and this video does a great job of explaining how great they were at storytelling and teaching important lessons that, looking at the world today, no one learned i guess 🥹😓. i found myself mouthing the words to clips of the show i haven't seen in like 25 years, like i was shocked at how much i internalized from the show.

hope you enjoyed these videos :)

xoxo jenn

welcome to year 3 of live laugh blog

2022-05-09T00:00:00Z

hello friends,

if you haven't been to the site in awhile, honestly same. i had to take a break for a whole salad of reasons (what's your excuse???), but over the past week i've been updating the site's theme to signal a comeback that the haters will surely be punching the air about – just in time for the 2nd birthday of this beautiful blog i made as a performance of my personal spiral during quarantine.

time to enter year 3 of the spiral 🤘😈🤘

xoxo jenn

the grey muse, an etsy pin haul

2022-02-27T00:00:00Z

in an effort to make my etsy stop showing me a cannoli dildo (true story, and no i won't link and ruin both of our recommendations), i organized my favorites and started searching "pretty pins" and other queries that would save me from the algorithm.

in that journey, i found a local (jersey city!!) seller, the grey muse who makes really beautiful pins and other items. i ordered some and they arrived quite quickly!

the lavender pin is what first caught my attention, and then i figured the colorful set of blobs would look really cute lined up my denim vest or a blazer. and, because i'm a absolute ding dong for interactive pins, i got the really cool color wheel.

check out the grey muse on etsy to see all the other beautiful flowers and other kinds of wares. by the way, the reason why etsy would show me a cannoli dildo is because i used to search weird stuff for hoobastank2 stream segments (lol "used to" sure, jennifer). i can announce with pride that they've stopped recommending erotic fishing lures.

xoxo jenn

she's still balding

2022-02-14T00:00:00Z

content warning and disclaimer: this is a brief post about a health issue, specifically autoimmune hair loss. i'm not soliciting diagnoses, treatments, advice, apologies, sympathy, or proof-of-work cryptocurrencies.

i'm overdue on an update about my alopecia, which i've written about before: my current status is ughhhhhhhhhhh...

i found a new small spot today. it is pretty frustrating because the other two spots finally stopped losing hair and there's a lot of early growth – all it took was a few months of painful steroid shots injected right into my scalp and a topical treatment that i should be doing daily, but my brain cannot get it into my routine because topical steroids scare the shit out of me!

i'm in a weird mental space where i know i am "blessed" to have a lot of hair left to hide the spots, as seen in my birthday post here, but i also want to...like...shut a window on my head. you know, really give my scalp something to cry about 😌🤌

by the way, i'm not looking for advice! i have an endocrinologist who listens to me and a dermatologist's physician assistant who is as gentle as they come. and we're pretty confident, collectively, that we know the root cause and are working on treating it. that's a tale for another time, maybe!

xoxo jenn

outfit: top by linkin park

on friday i turned 37

2022-02-13T00:00:00Z

...and all i got was an increase in my thyroid medication dosage and dns issues. nevertheless, i'm so glad i'm done "being 36" and highly recommend skipping that year if you get the option!

xoxo jenn

outfit: top by savage x fenty, skirt by universal standard, socks by no fun

this is a post about a haircut, spicy candle, elusive vegan turkey roast, gray cake, etc.

2021-12-01T00:00:00Z

in my last blog i said i booked a hair appointment, and i'm happy to report that i followed through in that i've since had that hair appointment.

i told the stylist "i want a dramatic change, but on my own terms" which she totally understood, both having had clients with alopecia and having had it herself before. i'm happy with how it came out!

i took the thanksgiving week off of work to get some blood work done ~~#theranos~~, crawl my slug of a body down the supply chain to score a last minute vegan turkey roast, and host a very tiny dinner. like last year, i didn't get to do my typical friendsgiving where i host 20-30 folks, but this year we did invite our dear friends, phil and celeste. oh, and andy and pumagreg were there of course.

before our guests arrived and after the food and the cursed cake were baking or ready to go, andy and i somehow found some time to made a candle obviously.

a couple of weeks ago, andy and i found this mug in a dollar store and it was too pretty not to buy, and i wanted to make the wax a orange-pink to give a sunset vibe.

the fragrance oil i poured was sweet orange and sriracha which smells citrusy and spicy (are you surprised?) and is one of my favorite fragrances so far.

andy did such a good job as both blog-boyfriend and chopstick engineer when the wax hit the wick holder and i had to lift it up somehow. anyway here's some food:

i managed to get the last vegan turkey roast that was "reasonably priced" - $19.99 at my local store versus the only one vegan essentials had in stock that cost EIGHTY DOLLARS??. anyway, i highly recommend the now in-stock gardein roast (cw: .aspx file extension).

then there was the cake. before i go into what went wrong, i will say that it was absolutely delicious thanks to "the best vegan chocolate cake" recipe i found online the day before. the only photo i have of it is this blurry one i took while phil was pouring andy some milk:

there were four things i did wrong with this cake:

i knew i had two round pans, but i didn't know until it was time to pour that i had two different sized round pans. i can solve this in the future by getting a matching pan for at least one of them.
my vanilla extract appeared to have evaporated. i can solve this in the future by...i don't know, making sure the lid is closed tightly?
i didn't leave enough vegan butter out to get to room temperature so i had to microwave some more, and so i was adding all these different temperatures for the buttercream. i can solve this in the future by not doing that.
i didn't whip the buttercream enough, so it started to sweat the wet ingredients while i was icing and it made the cake look kind of gray. i can solve this in the future by not doing that.

i'm going to make this cake again soon and do a better job of documenting the process and taking my time. stay tuned, and happy december.

xoxo jenn

she is beauty, she is grace, she is balding

2021-11-12T00:00:00Z

alopecia areata is an autoimmune skin disease that typically leaves you with coin-sized bald spots. here is one, for example:

i found that spot a couple of weeks ago, and an even bigger one on the back of my head the next day. fortunately, i come with a lot of hair which became extremely obvious to andy (best human) as he painstakingly surveyed my scalp for spots.

i started treatment for the alopecia specifically on monday, which entails getting all the bald areas injected with steroids over a few monthly visits. the injections are quick and shallow, like getting little tattoos. the hair is expected to grow back, but if not i will probably get actual little tattoos there.

such sudden hair loss has unsurprisingly lead to me instantly and emotionally detach from all of it. i mean, many of my follicles have betrayed me, and there is no telling how many more will continue to do so! i think about cutting it all off daily, but i know my lane and cutting hair is not in it.

[note: i took a break from writing this to book a hair appointment with a proper professional ✔️ how amazing, the power of blogging!]

by the way, nothing makes me more frustrated than the pattern of doctors thinking i care more about the hope of my hair growing back than i do about actually fixing what's triggering the autoimmune response. hey doctors, what's your damage? please advise lol!

this post exists simply to let folks know that–yes–hot and smart women face hair loss too, and also to announce that i am now able to make fun of other peoples hair loss and it won't be punching down. i won't do that because it's not my style or of my energy, but i can if i wanted to. people who have lost more hair than me would disagree – but i don't make the rules, i only make the magic.

xoxo jenn

brb, circumnavigating the globe

2021-11-11T00:00:00Z

...haha jk. my pal tyler kellen is, though! tyler was my manager for a significant (and actually productive) part of my time at my last job. i hadn't heard from him in a long time when he messaged me a few weeks ago to announce that he was sailing around the world and would be in my area soon. every day is a winding road!

tyler anchored near ellis island and came over this weekend. he asked if we could make candles and of course i was like don't threaten me with a good time! after a trip to the diner for brunch, i took him to the dollar store to pick out some vessels. he picked out 5 shot glasses.

i had just received my order from candlescience the day before, so i had 20lbs of wax and several more scents to choose from. and i made tyler smell all of them. he wanted to make rainbow layered candles with sandalwood and grass scents in every other layer, and one candle without scent in case it's too much for the boat.

tyler, now that i'm typing this out, what a ballsy and ambitious commission lmao!

those of you with hawks for eyes or eyes of a hawk, you're probably wondering "hmm, why are there only 4 shot glasses in that photo of the wicks set up?" well, annoying, i definitely dropped one of them and it shattered into way more pieces of glass that made up the thing to begin with. thrilling!

that's a photo of me taking the photo and looking extremely natural and in my element. the gourds are rotting and i just haven't had the time to walk them to "the farm" (city compost bin). in order to have my own souvenir of this project, i made the same kind of candle in a larger salsa jar i had laying around.

the candles came out looking delicious, starting out looking like sorbet or candy corn. the funny (ha ha) part about these first three layers is that after we poured them, we got stoned and kept forgetting to put fragrance in the rest of the candles' layers.

tyler did a great job, especially with the idea. my brain comes with its own set of ideas, and collaborators help me execute on ones i'd never even consider. like, i love my rainbow candle and it wouldn't have existed if tyler didn't come over and enthusiastically ask to make candles.

pouring into the shot glasses was the hardest part. in the future, i'd set out newspaper and pour into glasses onto the kitchen table so there is more space between the containers. i found that when they were so close together, it was hard for me to move one out of the way without spilling the wax.

the whole process took a few hours because each layer had to cool. we spent the time between talking, drinking non-alcoholic sparkling wine, and paying more attention than we could afford to pumagreg, who worked the hardest out of all of us that day.

i'm really stoked about how these came out. there was some separation of the wax from the shot glasses, and i think it's because i didn't warm the shot glasses before i poured. the salsa jar came out perfectly and i've since removed the label.

i wish comfort and safety to tyler on his journey around this bitch of a earth. i hope he finds really cool pals along the way to share these candles with. and i look forward to being able to host more friends who will, in turn, get to enjoy my rainbow candle.

xoxo jenn

i spent most of halloween chaotically making candles

2021-10-31T00:00:00Z

today is halloween and, no, i do not have a costumed addendum to my costume roundup from last year. i did wear a wig that i recently got so i could see what i'd look like with long blonde hair, though.

this look gets 4 out of 5 pumpkins 🎃🎃🎃🎃

i had no plans today except to make candles. i have not made any in a couple of months and my collection of jars to use was starting to get out of hand. i even prepped the night before and tweeted about it to hold myself accountable.

the selection of fragrance oils i have is embarassing – enough to be accused of anti-vax delusions, but too few to impress the deluded – so unfortunately the scents do not match the labels. i did pick colors based on the accent colors of the labeling.

i only have one wick bar, so i had to create a rube goldberg machine of holding all the wicks up. shouts out to my girl, cholula, for helping out. also, pumagreg helped:

i think the two pepper candles came out great, but there's something about the brambleberry "basil" fragrance oil that i don't think i like at all! it smells a bit like fernet branca, which makes me want to spew.

i'm most pleased with the red pepper candle. i'm going to gift it to my friend jenn. she doesn't know this yet, maybe she's reading this and wondering if i'm talking about her! i'm also really fond of my first completed scrap-wax candle:

i started the day planning 3 good candles, and ended it with 2 excellent candles, 1 good candle, and one candle i find absolutely repulsive but i imagine everyone else would love. you're all weirdos, not me!!

exciting news: i took a break half-way through writing this post to buy more wax and fragrance oils. i'm trying out candlescience because i discovered that brambleberry is charging almost twice as much for the same wax??? i'll do a haul post when these new items arrive!

xoxo jenn

here's what i bought at some dollar stores this week

2021-10-28T00:00:00Z

i'm having an awful time and also i don't want to talk about it - i just don't want to create the perception that my life is perfect right before i show you this siiick dollar store haul, made between two shops in sunnyside this week.

a sudoku book. if you love doing sudoku, crosswords or any other word/number puzzles, your local dollar store (if you're so lucky to live near one) will have plenty of them. if you don't love doing puzzles, what's your damage (respectfully)?
4 mosaic mirror sheets in purple, blue, red and gold. these are mirror stickers that i am going to try to make some rad pixel art with! i was very excited to see this and will keep an eye out for more colors in other stores. by the way, pbs kids is quite a departure from the bazic brand i'm used to seeing at dollar stores.
a black and irridescent glass skull mug. dan akroyd and his gimmick (respectfully) vodka are SHAKING. i'm going to make a candle with this!
2 gold photo frames. i love buying frames from the dollar store, they come in so many varieties! i've been making some small paintings that would look great in these cheaply ornate ones.

if you're paying attention, yes, that's kate hudson. i'm lucky that it was a nice frame, but regardless i would have purchased it anyway because (as i'm sure most of you do) i collect dollar store frames with celebrity stock inserts.

i've only seen white blonde celebrities, which i'm sure has to do with some white supremacist image search algorithm, but if you see any other celebrities used as stock inserts out in your local stores, please send me a photo!

fun, free fact: i look concerned in that photo because the phone kept falling halfway through the timer. the above was the best shot i could get after about 5 of these:

a few of you have reached out to say you miss my stream and watching me virtually "window shop" so i hope this post in particular finds you well. browsing through dollar stores with andy is my second favorite pastime next to jaywalking, and sharing this kind of stuff with you is my third.

xoxo jenn

i’m giving an important talk at “internet explorers” on saturday 10/9

2021-10-06T00:00:00Z

first off, i learned how to type “smart quotes” at work yesterday. i gotta be honest, it’s an awful lot of work!

secondly, i let andy pick my next nail color and he requested "emerald green" and added "metallic." the only one i could find at duane reade was "combustealable" (dumb name) by sally hansen. i'm super impressed by the miracle gel formula, zero chips after 3 days! i may buy more colors, but i'll also use a different brush because the one it comes with is awful.

"disco gumby" is what i'm calling it from now on

thirdly of all, i'm giving a talk this saturday at internet explorers: one night only big tech bonanza! hosted by my dear pal and partner-in-tech-humor-crimes, mark vigeant, i'll be joining a lineup of experts and comedians to use laughter as a defense mechanism against the horrors of big tech – by the way, wild week we're having, huh?

it should be a fun show, and it's my first speaking event in a very long time. i am contractually obligated by my own brain and ego not to tell you what i'm talking about, but if you're on the fence about coming, maybe this photo of mark and i demoing my game "apology hero: the game" at a past show will convince you...

...or not!

xoxo jenn

some foods that have been comforting me this past shitty month

2021-09-28T00:00:00Z

this month sucked, which is why i have been hella logged-off for a lot of it. things seem to be headed in the right direction, though, so instead of dwelling on negative stuff i want to focus on the following foods which have been a great comfort to me this summer:

mushroom eggs is a dish where i slice a portobello mushroom and fry it in a pan with a tiny bit of oil. after a couple of minutes i pour a little bit of teriyaki sauce and let it simmer. on the other side of the pan i'll then add a handful of spinach, let it wilt, and then add some just egg, fry and cover in cholula. that's mushroom eggs.
the good stuff is an entire box of upton's naturals cheesy bacon mac. the noodles are already cooked, you just have to mix and reheat! it's my favorite boxed vegan mac and cheese.
coke zero is the only offering from coca-cola of which they seem to change every few years in order to humble me. they recently made the label like the classic coke red but with black text instead? the absolute madness over there at coca-cola hq!
apples and peanut butter. i like gala, honeycrisp and macintosh apples. i core and slice them and eat them with a huge tablespoon of super chunky peanut butter. perfect snack!
almond milk iced lattes. is it emotionally manipulative to respond to critiques on how much caffeine i consume with a veiled threat that i would relapse if i didn't have coffee? perhaps, but i never said i was perfect!

i'm feeling better already. by the way, if you watch my stream you're probably wondering where i've been! i'm right here, but i'm not sure when i'll be streaming again. all i can say with confidence is that it will be before coca-cola changes coke zero again!

xoxo jenn

yes, i am trying to get back into painting pixel art again

2021-08-22T00:00:00Z

it's been, probably, years since i've painted any pixel art. yes, i've had artist's block for a long time! no, i don't want to talk about it! earlier this week i made a pixel art painting of this japanese candy mascot named noobow, while andy was streaming a game based on it.

"country boy, i love youuu, ahh"

here's the high-res version andy sent me of our slow, swole boy:

i always start by drawing a pencil grid. folks always ask why i don't use graph paper. i always ask folks why they don't let me simply live my life.

i used black and white watercolor pigments from case for making. they're an awesome shop in san francisco that i often visited back when i used to travel for work, and you can buy their stuff online.

as this painting was created entirely because of andy sending me the noobow pixel art, i put it in a little dollar store frame and took it to his place, where it now sits on his record player.

i'm not sure if my artist's block is surrendering or not, but i'm having andy find me some horny sprites and we'll see where things go from there.

have you ever jumped from one landing to another using a bedsheet as a parachute in order to help santa claus and his angels find 8 gifts that were mysteriously hidden throughout a warehouse, simply so you can convince santa to help you find your way after you somehow woke up on a deserted island? sound off in the comments!

xoxo jenn

domesticating feral tomatoes

2021-08-20T00:00:00Z

i don't think i've ever officially "gardened." i was simply never told that it was a thing i could even ever do. several years ago i lived in an apartment building with a grassy front lawn in montclair, new jersey, and during a visit from my uncle vinny, he said "what's with the grass, you should pave it." it's absurd to most, but there was virtually no grass within sight from our bay ridge apartment when i lived with him as a baby. what i'm getting at is, basically, a balcony counts as "nature" to me.

several weeks ago a neighbor had a bunch of tomato plant babies on her stoop, along with a sign saying "free." i never really garden or grow things so i figured it would be cool and low-risk to try. i took one of the several planters fashioned out of a plastic fage yogurt container and have watered it regularly on my fire escape (allegedly). today i harvested my first tomatoes from it!

i approached this plant like i were a cave person by not looking up anything on the internet about how to actually maintain the plant and keeping it in the same fage container the whole time.

i'm not sure if they are supposed to be this small! pumagreg was unimpressed.

i figured that the only substantial thing i could make that i could use my 3 little tomato babies on was a small flatbread. but because i'd still be hungry and also i had store-bought tomatoes (embarrassing), i decided to make a big flatbread and have 1/3 of it be my tomatoes.

add some sauce to nann (mine was store-bought), lay down the tomatoes, basil and vegan ricotta, and sprinkle on red pepper flakes generously.

bake it for 10 minutes on 400 degrees fahrenheit, then turn off the oven and leave it in there for 5 more minutes. i'm excited to report that the cutest third of the flatbread was the one with my little tomato babies!

i'm filing this post under "quick meals" because it really was super quick, but how good it looks makes that surprising. and, yes, i should have added the basil after i baked it; i don't know why i did that.

i have about 6 more tomato babies growing, and i'm going to start actually looking up how to properly grow tomatoes. andy gave me a variety of flower and vegetable seeds awhile ago and i think i have the confidence i need, in my ability to grow, to start learning how to plant those.

do you like and/or grow tomato(es)? sound off in the comments!

xoxo jenn

reverend jenn

2021-08-04T00:00:00Z

"getting married" is not something i want to do ever, but that's not to say i am against marriage. all the weddings i've been to were fun as hell! also, i became a reverend a couple of years ago so i could officiate the unions of my besties, phil and celeste. i bring this up seemingly out of nowhere because phil sent me this photo, seemingly out of nowhere, today:

"dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to go through my binder of pokemon cards."

this was my first time being a part of a wedding and it was super special, fun, and one of the most relaxing unpaid gigs i've done. phil was an empathetic employer, who was open to questions and making sure i was in the best position to do my best work.

the dj at the reception did play will2k

they say variety is the spice of life, and this wedding was definitely spicy. the day before the wedding, one of the top twitter explore page topics was "mark ronson says sorry, but he actually doesn't identify as sapiosexual."

the day of the wedding, i went hyperlocal-viral on nextdoor doing the ol' "post a photo of dumped ice and ask if someone lost their pile of ice" gag. it always kills!

no, don't leave this site, ur so sexy

the day after the wedding, my content boyfriend and i documented my mailing of the marriage certificate.

it's funny how i didn't know what to write about today, until phil's text appeared out of the blue with a freshly-unlocked memory. i love when friends send me old photos just because, it's a nice mental break from the current chaos.

have you forgiven marc ronson for actually not identifying as sapiosexual? sound off in the comments!

xoxo jenn

bug vs. shark

2021-08-02T00:00:00Z

last night i sent a newsletter after about 5 months of elecronic mail silence, hehehe whoops. a couple of folks wrote back asking for me to send pumagreg updates. for those who do not know, pumagreg is a black cat i adopted about 6 and a half years ago, and he was probably about one year old at the time. he's the softest and cuddliest bug in the united states with the sweetest little voice. he's equally intelligent and dumb, much like myself.

here's a photo of him this afternoon wrestling a plush shark.

and here he is losing a wrestling match to a plush shark.

the plush shark was given to me by melody, who is a really kind and talented developer, designer and community organizer. you should follow them on twitter at @pixelyunicorn. the cool thing about having pumagreg around is that no matter how far up my own ass i get, he's always there to remind me that it's his world (and plush shark) and he's v kindly allowing me to live in it.

"look into these eyes, then you'll see the size of these flames" - william frederick durst

xoxo jenn

hello, august 〰️ ➰ ➿

2021-08-01T00:00:00Z

it's a new month. it will be a true blessing if it's even only 99% as aggravating as july was for me. for a better chance of that, i went into it with a fresh haircut and looking like a living, breathing doodle. the gel set was done at chillhouse 10 days ago, the sneakers are adidas, and the shirt was thrifted (tag says "bb dakota").

i just scarfed down an entire scallion pancake and feel like i'm about to spew both out and up. do you have any fun plans and goals for august, too? sound off in the comments and be sure to click the bell on some random youtuber's page.

xoxo jenn

my truth

2021-07-31T00:00:00Z

this was a notification i got yesterday:

but i had already blogged yesterday and, as you know, the olympic committee made it illegal to blog twice in one day. so i'm writing this today: happy first birthday to this happening:

until now, only one other soul had known about this. now, you all do. finally, i am free.

xoxo jenn

a review of the remarkable 2, or 'i love my cutting edge digital paper technology!'

2021-07-30T00:00:00Z

my adhd is making things very difficult this month, and it honestly took me five (5) times to search my email client for a receipt because i couldn't remember what month i bought my remarkable 2. i bought it in february.

another device photo showing low battery for the internet to scold me about, thrilling!

my remarkable 2 is "cutting-edge digital paper technology". basically, an e-ink notebook. an expensive e-ink notebook, i'm now being reminded as i look at this receipt. it was a birthday gift, jennifer jean. you deserved it.

let me tell you, friends, the remarkable 2 is worth every penny i spent on it ($530.98 usd for the device, the marker plus and tax to be precise). i gave it a few months before i exclaimed that, yes, but it was truly love at first sight (some of you saw that when i unboxed it one of my first streams ever hehe).

you can read e-books on it, but i have that condition where i stopped being able to read books once the pandemic hit. what is most important to me is that it's an extremely portable and incredibly customizeable library of notebooks.

here is a list i've been keeping in this doc over the past months as i've been procrastinating on writing this review:

feels nice
feels and sounds like paper
v little if any noticeable latency
haven't lost the pencil...yet
templates on etsy
consistent software updates
not broken yet

the one thing i want to call out on that list is "templates on etsy" so bear with me here:

my most powerful weapon when battling my adhd is taking notes for everything, every day. it's quite literally the reason i bought this thing. normally i'd buy a nice notebook with a cool planner layout, then a month later decide the layout isn't working for me, so i put that notebook away and i buy a new one. it's expensive, frustrating and absolutely demoralizing. having a digital notebook as versatile as the remarkable 2 makes things so much easier and empowering for me with this big dumb hot and smart brain.

and this brings me to those "templates on etsy". there is a whole marketplace there for templates compatible with the remarkable 2 and other devices. my absolute favorite is ePaperTemplates. i got the starter pack and some planners. the creator even reached out and let me test out a beta version of a particular template, like i'm basically the dutchess of "cutting-edge digital paper technology."

so you're probably wondering what is on my feature wishlist for this and, predictably, it's an api. yes, they already have apps for all the platforms so you can read your notes in case you leave the notebook behind, but i'm a CSS Pervert™ and want to build my own! oh i also want them to open a marketplace for selling stickers for the back of the device, and where they can commission artists to create them and of course they choose me first so the only stickers available to all remarkable 2 owners are nude pixel art butts.

do you have a favorite digital notetaking workflow? do you have to write literally every thought that comes to your head because it would be unhealthy to otherwise tweet it all as they form? sound off in the comments!

xoxo jenn

ps. if you are interested in purchasing a remarkable 2 because of my raving about it, here's a referral link that will help me gain e-ink influencer status <3

my candles needed thicker wicks

2021-07-05T00:00:00Z

happy july! how incredible is it that june simply did not exist? wasn't expecting that! anyway...remember in may (a month that did happen) when i made candles and they burned a tunnel instead of all the way through? my hypothesis was that i needed thicker wicks. before i get into that adventure, i first want to tell you a tale of the ultimate betrayal of friendship.

a tale of the ultimate betrayal of friendship

one night when i was streaming with potch, he told me to try putting a paper cone over my tunneling candles in order to get more of the wax to melt. so i did just that.

of course, i got carried away and decided to cover the whole cone with hot pink tape. it was a lot of effort that, unsurprisingly, i was not given in return.

i will give potch and his betrayal cone some credit, the wax around the tunnel did melt a bit. i imagine this is more a tool for prevention of tunnel than for treatment.

anyway, here is andy giving pumagreg a massage:

for my second batch of candles, i purchased a couple of bigger sizes of wicks from bramble berry. i was feeling pretty confident that these wicks were big enough and high quality, and so this batch would melt all the way out.

the left-most wick is clearly the thinnest and the one i used for the previous, tunneling batch. i'll use this for tea light candles if i make those in the future. oooh, maybe i'll dip them to make birthday candles! i just got that idea as i was typing this, wow, the power of blogging.

andy and i started saving our condiments jars for me to make candles out of. they're usually the perfect size, come with lids, and it's simply funny to light up a b&g jalapeno jar only to fill the room with the scent of tobacco and bay leaf. we are living, we are laughing, and – my friends – we are loving.

i used that middle-sized wick in both candles and am happy to report that there was no tunneling between either of them. i still encountered some cratering as the wax cured. next time, i'll heat the jars so that the wax doesn't cool too fast. i love how the blue wax matches the cobalt glass jar, which was from another candle i had burned through. the color of that blue candle is my favorite color, by the way! many folks think purple is my favorite color but that is offensive to folks whose favorite color actually is purple.

i hope you enjoyed this episode of "jenn makes candles!" since it's not going to be 95 degrees fahrenheit every single day this week, i'm going to finally be able to make a couple more soon. stay cool and hydrated, wear spf, and don't leave lit candles unattended!

xoxo jenn

i bought a heatless curling rod on etsy, and then i used it!

2021-05-29T00:00:00Z

my hair is fantastic. i appreciate it and love it every day, except the day before my period when i hate everything about myself! i use some hair products here and there, but i attribute its beauty purely to genetics and avoiding heat; i often fall asleep with slightly damp hair.

here's how it normally looks:

while fantastic, it certainly has changed over the past year and a half: it's gotten long, and it's gotten grayer. the pretty dramatic change started occurring during an anticipated but still pretty traumatic withdrawal from cabergoline in 2019. that withdrawal was also the trigger of the start of my sobriety but ANYWAY...

i've been starting to experiment with different hair styles and tools to see what will work with my new (old?) hair. it's still thick and holds a curl if i need it to, but the ends often have a life of their own which i do not think they deserve. i find myself once a week needing to bring out the flat iron to tame some strands and There's Got To Be A Better (heatless) Way™.

a couple of weeks ago, i was playing my favorite sport, "being high and on etsy on pay day" and "won" a satin heatless curling rod set. i wanted to see if it would bring some order to my ends without the heat and – spoiler alert – it did. let me show you this thing:

these curling rods have grown in popularity on social media, so lots of folks are selling them. but i can tell you the ones i got were high quality, although i have only used them once - but sometimes you can just tell! how it works is that you take damp hair and wrap it away from your face over the rod, as if you were making a french braid. then you keep it in place with scrunchies, sleep with it on, and wake up in the morning with effortless, beautiful, curls.

in the photo above you'll see me with dry hair in need of a shampooing, and then what i look like with wet hair. if i remember to, i'll often put on some kind of wave-defining cream and then let the fresh, clean air by the holland tunnel do its magic. and on the right is me with the curling rod "installed" and looking sassy because the edible was just about to hit.

i was expecting to not be able to sleep with this thing on my head, as i'm a side-sleeper, but it gave me absolutely no problem at all! above, you'll see me first thing in the morning, then with it removed but the two long curls are untouched. finally, i fluffed my hair out and it came out much nicer than i expected it to. this was great, because i was about to head out to meet up with some girlfriends.

outfit check: tea towel on the floor by areaware x susan kare

a few days ago it was 90 degrees fahrenheit and sunny outside, but today it was rainy and under 50 degrees. how am i supposed to keep up with that? had i known it was going to be shit weather, i would have saved my heatless curling experiment for another day. fortunately, the hair held up super well. here i am after about 7 hours of being out, and i only touched the ends up with some argan oil once:

if this kind of look is your style, i highly recommend this heatless curling rod. i'm going to experiment with tighter and looser curls to find what works best for me. the look is definitely a bit conventional for my taste, but i can definitely see myself using this the night before an event where i could stand to have a less chaotic look.

it will be interesting to see how the curls hold up through the night! follow this thread on twitter for updates as i document the passage of time's effect on the curls throughout the long weekend.

xoxo jenn

lemon cake, hold the shingles!

2021-05-17T00:00:00Z

when i was little, my best friend got something called "chicken pox" and i was extremely jealous of the days off school, attention, and lemon cupcakes he got. the cupcakes, probably from a box mix, were baked for him by my dad and were the most delicious baked good i had ever had.

as my dad had anticipated, i got the chicken pox a couple of weeks later and, with that, my own fresh batch of lemon cupcakes! i realized very shortly that, yes, the cupcakes were good, but they were not THAT good. the chicken pox totally sucked. they also sucked when i got them a second time later that year. oh, and when the virus came back in the form of shingles when i was 26 years old? long story, short: this week is the 10th anniversary of when my symptoms had started and i still suffer from the nerve damage.

puts on my "geriatric millennial" trucker hat to try to pass as 50+ at the duane reade pharmacy

i was telling andy a couple of weekends ago about these cupcakes as we were talking about our recent covid vaccinations. i had my second shot coming up and i was so anxious, both from the weight of being excited to be vaccinated and being terrified that it would trigger shingles. i'm a computer scientist, not a chicken pox scientist, but from what i've gathered the virus is simply hanging out in my spinal fluid waiting to strike again or not.

i've since had my second shot and am, after a rough few days, feeling footloose and shingles-free. i don't have the ability or interest to articulate things that i have not fully processed, so i won't talk much about how the pandemic affected me, but i will say that it forced andy and i to not see each other for months. we actually navigated this extremely well and the experience has me (and probably andy too 🔫 right babe???) seeing our time together in a different, beautiful light. and that beautiful light is the reflections from our televisions playing youtube.

one of our favorite youtubers is nisha of rainbow plant life, a vegan lawyer-turned-blogger. i once told andy that i trust her with my life, and he agreed that i trust her with my life. and later in the exact day i was telling him about those chicken pox lemon cupcakes, a video came up in my recommendations of her mentioning this lemon olive oil cake. and with outstanding timing, she posted a "youtube short" just today of her making it. spooky (in a good way)!

so of course we made the cake the next day. it came out really good, which is surprising, given my history of making cakes.

look at this beautiful loaf, and the cake cooling next to it.

i forget why, but in my late twenties i went through a phase where i avoided cooked fruit. young, dumb jenn is quaking right now.

nisha wasn’t kidding when she said it was super easy to make this cake and that it was delicious. i'm definitely going to make this again and again – only next time i’ll make more of the strawberry compote topping and not forget to save some of the lemon zest for the end. i also could have baked this one a few minutes longer, but i was afraid of it drying out. the recipe being vegan afforded me some room for undercookedness since there's no raw egg danger.

check out more vegan recipes at rainbow plant life and on her youtube channel - andy and i have already made and loved the lentil shepherd's pie and these quesadillas with a vegan queso that deserves its own post, honestly!

i know this is an absolutely foul thought and a terrible way to end a perfect, brilliant blog post, but the compote topping makes it look like the cake has shingles, right? sorry!

xoxo jenn

we began a candle-making adventure, i messed up!

2021-05-12T00:00:00Z

i love candles, you know this! and a couple of months ago andy got me a candle making kit so i can make my own with the collection of jars from candles i had burned through already. after rearranging my apartment, buying way too much fir tree essential oil and not enough soy wax, i'm excited to report that we finally made some candles, and that i did an absolute shit job! let me show you some of the process:

this is my kitchen table with all the things, most catching to the eye are those little baggies full of wax dye flakes. the colors are way more pigmented in that flaky form than when they are added to the cream-colored wax, so i definitely now appreciate homemade candles with more brilliant, bold colors! andy chose "horse piss yellow" for his candle and i chose "yes i made up these color names blue" for mine.

if you don't have a digital scale in your kitchen, why? candle making, like baking, is scientific and measurement accuracy is very important. not having the right amount of fragrance and dye can leave your candle not scented enough or too oily for the wax to cure. you also need a thermometer and a double boiler setup - my candle kit came with a metal container with a handle that i was able to hold in a pan of boiling water "safely" and "easily." fun, free fact: i found that pan, now officially my "candle-making pan," in a haunted basement in 2008.

here i am, a huge weirdo holding a bag of wax. not surprisingly, melting wax is like cooking spinach in that you start with a lot and the output is very little. this bag will probably make me 4 8 oz candles.

shouts out to andy for taking great mid-pour photos. speaking of andy, what's the blog version of "instagram boyfriend" - is it just "blog boyfriend?" as the wax is melting in the double boiler, there's a point where you want to melt the dye flakes in and add the fragrance oil. what the amounts are depend on the wax being used, the oils being used, and probably also how well all the cryptocurrencies are doing that hour. our candles looked and smelled great in the jars, we just had to see how they cured.

it certainly didn't turn out great but i didn't do a terrible job! i think what happened is that i poured the wax too quickly into the jars and that the wax should have been hotter when i poured. the yellow candle, which i made for andy, was scented with a fragrance oil called shave and a haircut which i'm still not sure was even made for candles, but it works!

my blue candle, the problem child, was made with a mix of two different essential oils (fir + sandalwood) because i honestly don't know how to fucking chill! the morning after, we watched some videos on how to fix soy wax candle mishaps and it turns out that heat guns are another handy tool for this craft. i melted the top of the candles to fill up the craters and that worked pretty well!

i put cute felt smiley face stickers on the jars because i'm an artist and then encroached upon pumagreg's personal space like he does to mine on a regular basis. what's the blog version of "instagram cat?" the final step to making candles, and the best part about them, is lighting them on fire on purpose.

now, if you thought i fucked up with the quick pour and were wondering how finnicky this process could actually be, wait until your candle "tunnels" instead of melting the full width of the jar because your wicks are too small. maybe. i'll need to try this process again with bigger wicks to see.

tunneling, craters, or not, it was really fun to make these - and they still light up and smell really good! i currently have a shipment from bramble berry on the way with more wax, some new fragrance oils, and bigger wicks. i can't wait to try this again and hopefully not find some new and exciting way to totally blow it!

do you have any tips for making candles? if so, sound off in the comments. jk, i don't have comments on this blog ha ha!

xoxo jenn

an early birthday gift to my blog

2021-05-06T00:00:00Z

content warning: nude pixel art

you better believe it, this blog turns 1 year old at the end of the month! and if you've been paying a little bit of attention, you'll notice it has been on hiatus for about a month. and if you've been paying a LOT of attention, you'll know that the reason for the hiatus is that i've been getting into streaming and sharing my journey as i move livelaughblog from tumblr to its own app on glitch.

why would i rip everything up and start again, besides "new year, new blog?" while i do like tumblr for its community and short form content, i didn't feel like writing there worked very well for me this past year. i'll try to break this down in a few short reasons:

i couldn't figure out a way to get reblogs to fit in with the flow of the blog so i held back from ever reblogging. this made me feel less part of the community unless i put the effort into managing two tumblrs sites. this would be fine, except...
their beta version of the post editor has no markdown setting and that is a dealbreaker for me! the html and wysiwyg editor have caused me much pain and frustration, and i've had enough of losing content or having to refactor tumblr's unintuitive image scaling and html generation.
most importantly, i want to write more about my art! and this would mean posting photos and illustrations of erotic pixel art that tumblr has (in my opinion) very opaquely and unfairly flagged in past tumblr sites i've managed. i hate that i held content back for a year because of their unpredictable moderation.

here's a low quality scan of my favorite painting of mine. it's currently hanging in my partner's living room.

don't get me wrong, i still enjoy tumblr, and i am excited to reblog with reckless abandon on my rebooted microblog there. moving the blog over to glitch was also a practice of dogfooding the new generated static site feature we launched last week (this is a remix of our new eleventy starter!), as well as giving me a much more reliable, yet portable, markdown editor.

but the biggest reason is that i simply love redesigning and building my personal sites, and i'm no stranger to not holding back from an unnecessary dramatic change here and there. this is why i couldn't possibly wait until may 31st to switch the domain over to here where you are now. there's still some more work to do, and if you're interested in following that journey more, you should check out my tuesday morning "standups" on twitch.

thanks for joining (or continuing) this journey with me and, yes, there will be a livelaughconf 2. stay tuned :)

xoxo jenn

illustrations of procrastination: semi-homemade vegan chicken wrap

2021-04-03T00:00:00Z

a couple of weeks ago i embarked on an exciting new journey for live laugh blog (that’s the blog you’re reading right now): an extreme platform migration and custom built theme to celebrate its upcoming 1st birthday.

i love tumblr, but the post editor is honestly writer-hostile - which is fine because the best content on tumblr are images and that’s what it’s good at. i’m not leaving tumblr, i’m just moving my long-from content over to its own space. today i copied and pasted just under 50 posts and it was a nice journey through the past year of this "pandemic project"! i wish i wrote more, but also i’m glad i didn’t because that would have made today’s chore of copying and pasting markdown be longer than ever.

i have, now, a lot of coding and qa to do before the "year 2" launch at the end of the month. i really should go heads down again on that. but first, here's one of my go-to quick and hearty meals for when my brain tells me to eat instead of work: semi-homemade vegan chicken wraps.

they're "semi-homemade" because i don't have time to make fake chicken from scratch!!

warm a tortilla up
pan fry 4 gardein crispy tenders (or bake if you're a dutchess that has the time)
on the tortilla add the tenders, chopped or whole
add some veggie toppings; i usually go for spinach and tomato, but it depends on what i've got around

i smear some veganaise and drench the wrap in cholula before wrapping it all up. this satisfying wrap clocks in at 32 grams of protein, haters.

okay, now that that's all out of the way, it's back to coding!

xoxo jenn

a lady of the evening's nails

2021-03-21T00:00:00Z

when i was a teenager, my father once joked that my freshly painted red nails made me look like a “lady of the evening” which i only realized later on meant “whore.” i imagine that any color would have offended his sensibilities, but that’s his journey!

anyway, after a few months of not loving myself enough to find the time, i painted my nails, and i painted them red.

i purchased that wolf card from a stationery/ephemera shop in montclair called parcel, many years ago when i lived a 10 minute walk uphill from there. i am so glad they’re still around, it is an absolutely beautiful store that, remembering them now, almost makes me miss living there.

i’m not sure what compelled me to buy that wolf card, but for the past several years it’s lived on top of this painting by my dear friend jim doran that i chose to hang upside down.

i’m the skeleton.

xoxo jenn

a good video on how to make soy candles

2021-03-19T00:00:00Z

andy got me a candle making kit and we spent the weekend watching a bunch of videos and this one is my favorite:

london’s videos are so comprehensive and filled with good tips, i spent a good chunk of live laugh yawn earlier this week on the bramble berry website and buying wax and fragrances i think we’ll enjoy. i can’t wait for it all to arrive so i can reuse all these used up candle jars and share with y’all!

xoxo jenn

live laugh yawn, a tuesday morning stream

2021-03-17T00:00:00Z

hello livers, laughers, bloggers. hello gamers. hello streamers. hello candle makers. hello dolly.

a few weeks ago i started streaming tuesday mornings at 8:30am et on twitch before it’s time for me to do Real Work™. it’s a variety stream, mostly me chatting and online window shopping. unsurprisingly, lots of candles.

i also have been streaming on thursday evenings with my pal potch at 8pm et (he lives in california, so he can't get up early for morning streams with me lol. we've been playing this awful horse girl simulator game called horsez.

as is the true blogging experience, i wrote up this nice post about candle making and then my curiousity got the best of me and i toggled the "beta" tumblr editor and lost it all. that may be my cue to move the main blog off of here and keep this tumblr as my "jennterest board" - do we like that, "jennterest"???

hope you can join me on tuesday morning next week. i am going to start designing and coding a new template for this blog and, whenever my 2 lbs of soy wax arrives, making candles.

xoxo jenn

demand justice

2021-02-25T00:00:00Z

it's been a couple of years now that i've been an ep at women's prison association so it only makes sense that our stars would align in just the right formation to bring a partnership with a candle company!

for every candle sold, $8 will be given to wpa in order to work on our mission to help and empower women touched by the injustices of the so-called criminal "justice" system. it's available until march 8th, so grab them while you can! the notes are black currant, jasmine, tonka, black tea, and amber, which sounds really smooth and comforting - i can't wait for mine to arrive!

if you want to dig deeper into prison abolition, mariam kabe's new book we do this 'til we free us is out. i preordered it and it hasn't arrived yet, but it's no surprise that all the reviews from folks i'm seeing are great.

xoxo jenn

pumagroggy

2021-02-24T00:00:00Z

day one of my period and i think pumagreg is feeling it too. hope you’re having a cozy saturday, without cramps.

xoxo jenn

happy 36

2021-02-24T00:00:00Z

you don't become a year older just on your birthday, it's something that happens continuously throughout the year – unless you're me, who literally stays the same age all year round but then ages a year on my birthday. this phenomenon happened again a couple of weeks ago. i forgot to post on here about it, but i write a newsletter to reflect on my birthday when i was half my own age.

back then i loved taking photos with my nikon coolpix 2000 and was just "getting started with computers." here's a photo i took of a photo of a sunset in 2002:

i want to get back into taking fun candid photos and writing more, which are both v hard to do when there's a pandemic. i'm going to have to create my own adventures at home like i did with and for this blog! i'm starting a new routine this month that i think will help me become creatively unblocked, and i'm excited because it seems to already be working - i already streamed twice this week on my own, which is a milestone since we ended hoobastank2 earlier this month.

anyway, you asked! also, here's the last mirror selfie at 35:

xoxo jenn

there exist more palatable fusions of “italian for kids” and baked goods than just that spaghettio pie

2021-01-27T00:00:00Z

you may have recently seen a video of a woman making a "spaghettio pie". i won't try it, i honestly don't think it will work. i also, not to get too high off of my own supply, own an actual rolling pin.

i do get what she's trying to do; she wants to take a food her kids love (spaghettio's) and make it a bit more grown up yet still fun in order to refine her kids' palates and/or create instagram-viral mommy lifestyle content. who among us is not? but i think she's going about it all wrong, and not just where where she added milk to make it "juicy".

see, there's no way you can just put spaghetti-o's in a crust with cheese and skim milk and expect it to come out with the textural fortitude of hearty pie! so, for hoobastank2 this week, i proposed some more sound and reasonable ideas for kids-italian/baked-good fusion cuisine.

pain au marinara

instead of rolling your pain au chocolat with a chocolate bar, roll in a a frozen stick of marinara sauce - preferably of the chef boyardee kind.

lasagna toaster tart

instead of icing a toaster pastry, ice a damp cooked lasagna noodle

thumbprint cookies

it's just a classic thumbprint cookie but with a totino’s pizza roll instead of a hershey’s kiss.

😋

there's a lot to be said about the pressure put on moms to keep meals exciting and simple and quick, so i absolutely don't blame spaghettio pie mom for trying. these are just some additional recipes that she can (and you can, but definitely i shan't) try that may turn out a little less...juicy.

if you like or dislike these ideas, make sure you join us wednesday nights at 8pm est on twitch for hoobastank2. and as julia child, twice, said: bone apple teeth!

xoxo jenn

repurpose your alcohol vessels as flower vessels instead

2021-01-26T00:00:00Z

i am almost 2 months away from 2 months of alcohol sobriety — so in this household, tiki mugs are for holding flowers. lavender freesia, to be exact.

how do you add an extra pop of color to your work day? sound off in the comments!

xoxo jenn

how to cheat at nail art

2021-01-18T00:00:00Z

wow, friends, would you look at that incredible nail art - the colors, the variation in style and shapes! they’re all so different, but yet it works somehow?

yes, i am quite proud of my work here. it would be a damn shame, though, if i was unable to recreate the art of my dominant (right) hand with my left.

oh.

“oh wow, how smart, jenn,” you’re probably realizing. “you do most of the intricate art on your left hand with a single color on one nail that you then make the color for most of the nails on your right hand.”

in this house we work smart, not hard.

xoxo jenn

dear planet fitness,

2021-01-18T00:00:00Z

a couple of weeks ago i was off of work and trying to check some items off my todo list. one of them was canceling my manhattan gym membership.

i am happy to report that they received, and understood, my letter:

xoxo jenn

napping on the job

2021-01-11T00:00:00Z

i wanted to share this photo i just took of pumagreg mid-snore.

when i take calls from my kitchen (like i did this morning) i will put my cushion on the table so i’m at a better height with my macbook camera – and so he’s got a little bed to rest on that’s not my keyboard. the world is pumagreg’s bed, we’re just all living on it.

xoxo jenn

how do sunscreens work

2021-01-10T00:00:00Z

of all my opinions on skincare, one of them is that you should wear spf every day. that’s easier said than done - your complexion, skin type, budget, and even which country you live in all have an impact on what your best options are. i’m still figuring it out for myself, and i’ll do a post about the products i use at another time.

in the meantime, i really recommend this video from one of my favorite content creators, lab muffin beauty science. michelle has a phd in chemistry, so some of the videos like this one gets very...science-y...but it’s really good info and not pretentious at all.

if you’re afraid to dive right into molecule charts, you can work your way up to it by watching her video on wearing spf and makeup together or any other videos she lists in the description to catch you up.

it’s not just about slowing down aging, it’s about preventing skin cancer!

xoxo jenn

my 2020 gratitude thread

2021-01-04T00:00:00Z

every month or so when i am feeling destructive, i’ll run a script to delete all of my tweets – except for a choice few, of course. this year i’m going to avoid doing that, but just in case i want to immortalize a “gratitude thread” thread i made on new years eve.

i am thankful for my alcohol sobriety (21 months next week) 🧃 it is totally a valid badge of honor after the year i’ve had.

thankful for my two fellas, here 💕 when quarantine started, andy and i were apart for a solid 3 months and that fucking sucked! but i am forever indebted to pumagreg for letting me stay in his apartment which i pay for.

i am thankful for animal crossing coming out just in time for my physical and emotional adjustment to being stuck at (pumagreg’s) home as the sole human for months.

i am v thankful for @Hoobastank2TTV & my dear friends + collaborators bijan, ryan, mark, & karl. i love hanging out with these goofs & talking shit every week. i am v excited for what we have in store for the new year & i am not thankful for “skype”

i am thankful for everyone following and contributing to my lifestyle blog/performance (this blog you’re reading now hehe) y’all helped me raise over $10k for the wpa at the first livelaughconf and i am excited to expand the live laugh “brand” in 2021.

i am thankful for my 2020 album of the year (17 years in a row!), @AFI’s sing the sorrow. my sweet boys, if you’re reading this, your spotify streams may have dropped significantly this year but that’s just because i switched to tidal.

i am thankful for my neighbors and the deeper connections i’ve made with them during the pandemic. it made me feel less isolated and more at home.

i am thankful for my therapist!!

work this year has not been fun for me, but i am thankful to anil (my skip-level manager/ceo) and alexa (my manager/vp of marketing) for coaching me through the lows. i made it a point to stop saying “i’m blessed to have a job” because that’s just me being brainwashed by capitalism but i am blessed to have those two on my team.

i am extremely thankful for the glitch community for giving me so many cool apps to look at, asking great questions and giving really important and needed feedback as we rode this turbulent carousel of time together. the community is my favorite and most important colleague.

thankful for newsletter/columns that brought me much joy and intelligence: ryan broderick’s garbage day, david farrier’s webworm, casey johnston’s ask a swole woman, and dm’s from my style muse, rachel.

thankful to plants and legumes, and my access to them, for sustaining me in my journey of valuing all living creatures, not just humans.

i am thankful for good memes and iuds

i am thankful for all the animals who made surprise appearances in all my zoom calls

and of course i am thankful for my many incredible talents 🎉

i’m wishing you all a lively, laughful and loving 2021!

xoxo jenn

emotionally stable woman crushes baskin robbins turkey cake challenge

2020-12-31T00:00:00Z

last month we had a special stanksgiving episode on hoobastank 2 (a cool twitch stream i co-host). all the guys were bringing “cursed foods” so i decided to bring a vegan version of baskin robbins’ thanksgiving turkey ice cream cake – and vlog through the chaos. the video above are those vlogs and the on-stream reveal edited together. my new ethernet adaptor was stuck in customs that week, as y’all will be able to tell 👽

xoxo jenn

today i put jeans on, on purpose!

2020-12-30T00:00:00Z

i got dressed to go to duane reade and use my “$7 off purchases of $25 or more” coupon on allergy medicine but then it immediately got dark outside so i changed my mind and changed into my pajamas. guess i’ll try again next year 😏

button up from everlane, turtleneck crop from asos, jeans from cos, boots from cole haan (recent collaborators with IRC competitor, slack), belt from target. everything except the belt and jeans were thrifted. i just noticed the cat toy on the floor in front of my feet; i’ve been looking all week for that thing!

xoxo jenn

illustrations of procrastination: sweet potato and black bean bowl

2020-12-13T00:00:00Z

it’s a beautiful day outside here in jersey city, one after a few weeks of what feel like gloom but which were probably my own brain’s weather forecasts. it feels really good to, after a long walk and some chores, sit by an open window and blog! over the past few months i have been trying to pull myself up and over this large, theoretical wall built by capitalism and millennial shame (redundant?), with my energy coming solely from constantly telling myself that i am hot and smart and don’t deserve to have to feel tired and sad as much as i have been lately. therapy helps a lot too!

for this simple, vegan dish you just need sweet potatoes, a chopped onion and a can of black beans. peel the potatoes and cut into cubes. promise your cat that you’ll make him a new bed of potatoes next week.

in a bowl, toss the potatoes with oil, salt, and some brown sugar if you’re feeling dangerous. put them on a baking sheet and place in the oven on 375F for 30-40 minutes, checking in on them about halfway through to do that thing where you move the pieces so they get cooked on each side, i forget the word. is there a word for that? sound off in the comments.

while the sweet potatoes are roasting, clean all of your makeup brushes instead of doing the task that you know you have to do but are dreading.

when the potatoes have about 10 minutes left to go, start the beans. in a pan, heat up some olive oil and saute the chopped onion until they start to golden. add the rinsed can of black beans to the pan along with spices and mix - i use taco seasoning which is basically chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, cayenne, and onion powder.

mix the two in the bowl (or put in a tortilla, which i usually do except i’m out). you can put salsa and/or avocado on it, it’s your life.

i hope you, reader, are staying safe and healthy. if you haven’t done so today, drink some water, get some fresh air, eat some good food, and clean your goddamn makeup brushes.

xoxo jenn

halloweens of yesterjenn

2020-11-17T00:00:00Z

a couple of weeks ago we did a halloween episode of hoobastank2 where pj vogt of reply all came on and talked about the spoooky topic of improv comedy – it was really good, check out the interview here. the show was so chill that it ran pretty long so i volunteered the slaughtering of my segment for time - if the show went any longer my face makeup would have gone permanent.

i love halloween because dressing up is fun and fun rules. because of these unprecendented times™ i didn't have any parties to go to, but fortunately i had the stream to dress up for. and i scoured through every photograph on my computer taken in the months of october and november over the past 30 years to find me in past halloweens. it was a journey. anyway, without further delay as this is already over 2 weeks late...

let’s take a tour through halloweens of yesterjenn.

1990, lydia from beetlejuice but dressed in white

i'm dressed in white in the center. i wanted to be lydia from beetlejuice but i didn't have a red dress, but pretended i was her anyway. my best friend, jimmy, was beetlejuice and his aunt and uncle were clowns - which was cheating because they were actually clowns by trade.

i give this costume one out of five pumpkins for "one of many times my guardians have disappointed and embarrassed me" 🎃

1993, waitress who has been through some shit

my dad's wife printed me a label that said "Jennifer" and "Waitress" and i carried a notepad and pencil. i don't know how i got fake blood on my white sweatshirt, but let's just pretend it was part of the narrative.

two out of five pumpkins 🎃🎃

2007, hot nurse

i got a sexy nurse costume that was too big, and shortly after this photo was taken i almost passed out from exhaustion. a week of testing later and i was diagnosed with mono. this was my first quarter of graduate school and i had to spend most of it on the couch because my organs were so swollen.

three out of five pumpkins 🎃🎃🎃

2011, hot hamburglar

this halloween was almost cancelled due to a bizarre snow storm that shut down most of the town. i danced my ass off that night and looked spectacular doing it.

five out of five pumpkins 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

2013, dinosaur jr

this year my pal lisa and i went as musical puns. she was "french kiss" and i was "dinosaur jr." i wore a dinosaur onesie with flannel and a little backpack. at least lisa got the joke.

four out of five pumpkins 🎃🎃🎃🎃

2015, garth

here is my pal lisa again, but as elvis, and me as garth (from wayne's world) and our other pal bram was pizza rat. yes, we're just casually hanging out in a cemetery - it's a long story that jersey city folks know. what's actually important to point out is that this was part of yet another platonic couples costume:

juan and i decided to go as wayne and garth because we both wanted to wear wigs. i paid $40 on aerosmith's website for that t-shirt and it was most definitely drop-shipped from zazzle.

three out of five pumpkins 🎃🎃🎃

2016, wayne

it was only natural that the following year that juan and i swap costumes. pure laziness.

two out of five pumpkins 🎃🎃

fortunately, i stepped my game up just a couple of days later...

also 2016, hot wayne

honestly, schwiiing!

six out of five pumpkins 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

2017, cassowary

cassowaries are considered the most dangerous birds in the world and they can't even fly. idiots! i fashioned a beak out of paper, and you may recognize the dinosaur onesie there that i lent to my pal phil.

creative but not horny, three out of five pumpkins 🎃🎃🎃

2019, elizabeth holmes

everyone at work was going to be dressing up for halloween, so i bought a blonde wig at the local pop-up costume shop and went as an american business woman with a fear of needles.

four out of five pumpkins 🎃🎃🎃🎃 even tinashe lol'd.

and that leads to this years costume:

2020, hot alice cooper

it only made sense that i put some skills i learned over the summer to work and show up to our stream in full, glorious all-over-the-face eyeliner. from the amount of makeup used, it's probably the most effort i've put into a costume, and it was worth it.

six out of five pumpkins 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

i hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane with me. hopefully next halloween the world will be a bit safer to go out in and i can finally go and party dressed as an anarchist cheerleader from the smells like teen spirit video. maybe some of y'all can join me!

xoxo jenn

commemorating a nice sunday with a large fake snake skeleton (as one does)

2020-10-19T00:00:00Z

welcome to my blog! i had an uncharacteristically pleasant sunday and i wanted to document it. it started with waking up with my partner, andy. if you like playing video games, you will probably love this web-based multi-emulator that he’s been working hard on over the past several months (i, ceo of blogging, built his personal site by the way).

he was over all weekend and had to head home in the morning which is not great, but for a couple of hours my cat, pumagreg, still smelled like him (good). i planned to not get out of my robe and just watch youtube, read mariah carey’s memoir, and also clean up the huge mess in my kitchen that i made breading eggplant whilst stoned the night before.

plans were meant to be broken, though. my good friend and neighbor, lisa, needed to go to target to buy some halloween decorations and asked if i wanted to come along. she’s making a long tube to distribute candy safely to trick or treaters from her window. lisa is great at many things, including being my instagram boyfriend, which is important on walks around jersey city. this area is rich with unique street art.

i hadn’t been to our local target in 5 years. i live in a pretty reasonable part of new jersey where everyone has been wearing masks with minimal drama, and it was pretty much the evening so there were not many people there. i bought a 6.5 foot-long snake skeleton, which i wore like a scarf on the trip home.

pumagreg, who at this point smelled like his usual self (still good), was “fine” with the snake skeleton.

i closed out the days activities by completing the last workout of the 12-week strength-building program by alexis claire that i’ve been doing. i’m not happy it’s over, i’m just happy that i completed something. sticking to a workout program (hell, even starting it) is hard enough, but 12 weeks is a long time! a few of you have reached out to me after my last post to tell me you’re doing the program now and so i wish you hella strength and healthy gains! today i started a new workout program that’s 2 weeks, which i’ll write about once it’s complete.

i’m hoping i didn’t cash my entire good-day-cheque on this weekend, but even if i did i’ve now got this cool long skeleton to show off on hoobastank2 this wednesday night. i do it all for the blog/stream! anyway, hope you all are doing well and spooky (good).

xoxo jenn

some things that are helping me get through october

2020-10-11T00:00:00Z

i just read through 3 months of magazine subscriptions and realized that i'm long overdue on sharing some lifestyle happenings on this, my lifestyle blog. september brought everyone an extra amount of bullshit that we're still seeming to process on top of what october's been bringing our way. i wanted to take some time to talk about some things that have not been disappointing or stressing me out.

alt pasta

i have been hitting my protein goals while satiating the comfort craving of pasta by eating alternative forms of it in chickpea, lentil or cauliflower form. my local key food (grocery store) carries some different brands and varieties, like tolerant (my go-to) and barilla even has varieties now! these pastas often provide 4x the protein that normal pasta does! i love making a quick and vegan version of hamburger helper by sauteing a chopped up veggie burger and adding it to some pasta and sauce (as in the above photo).

another high protein alt food i’m into: pea milk. yes, pea milk, trust me!

rare beauty’s lip souffle matte cream*

this liquid lip dries matte, builds well and wears so comfortably! the color names are silly and hard to remember (i think the lavender i’m wearing above is called “daring” - remember, pastel is goth), but the colors are great. i’ve got the red one and one of the brighter pinks. they do stain a bit, but i personally prefer a stain over a lipstick that disappears after 2 sips of a drink.

another beauty item i’m into: good molecule’s clarify & cleanse bar, which i can use to wash my face before and after workouts without it leaving my face feeling dry and taut.

watermelon mocktails

speaking of drinks, i’m still on my adult soda game and even though summer is over i still am obsessed with watermelon drinks. today i mashed up some watermelon cubes, added ice, and poured over equal parts seltzer and melon kombucha from big easy bucha. i must be some kind of classy bitch or something.

another beverage item i’m into: my aeropress. my boyfriend makes my favorite cup of coffee, and so in an attempt to replicate it i got one. turns out i can't replicate the whole experience, but it is fast and so easy to clean. i can dump the grinds right in my compost bin in the freezer without making a mess.

i wish you all a cozy october. as i started writing that sentence, pumagreg’s tail knocked over my empty watermelon mocktail glass and he got scared and dug all his nails into my tits as he ran away scared. feels appropriate these days, anyway please do take care of yourselves!

xoxo jenn (bleeding) + pumagreg (thriving)

i’ve made it 6 weeks into a 12 week strength training program, so i’m ready to talk about it

2020-09-08T00:00:00Z

the last day i stepped foot into the gym was on february 24th. it was the second week i was “back in the gym” after a 3-month upper respiratory infection took me out. i did a HIIT workout and ran a mile, i felt good, and took a selfie after as i usually did.

i don’t remember thinking that would be my last day in the gym, i don’t even remember if the pandemic was even on my radar - it probably wasn’t. looking at other photos on my phone from that day, all i could gather was that i was on my usual bullshit: watching music compilations on my phone with dangerously low battery.

i hated working out at home. the gym was nice and cool, had all the equipment i needed. it had a SAUNA! holy shit do i miss the sauna. i liked my short walk home from the gym, through the park. it was always late enough that the park was fairly empty, but early enough that restaurants were still open so it felt safe.

when our office closed and we became fully remote (we were a "hybrid” company once upon a time), i stopped doing anything but working. i think a lot of us threw our entire selves into work by making sure our reports were adapting as best as they could, continuing to ship product to feel in control and normal about something. i stopped working out, i stopped reading, but i did start focusing on vegan cooking and cleaning my apartment.

i’ve learned that going through quarantine is much like going through sobriety; you have to learn to take things day by day and be forgiving of yourself. even when i wasn’t sober, i always kicked my own ass left and right, holding myself to such high expectations. the quarantine forced me to be by myself for a long time (andy and i didn’t see each other for 3 months) and i had to recreate routines to give me some new sense of normal so i could put less pressure on myself to “succeed at quarantining” - and i couldn’t use alcohol. i’m forever grateful that my therapist moved to doing sessions over the phone - btw if they’re reading this: thank you, but also stop reading my blog! that’s cheating!

i started watching a lot of tiktok, youtube and twitch streams, and following a lot of fitness trainers and watching so much accessible fitness content that i finally got bit by the bug. one tiktok’er, alexisclarefit (she goes by that handle on youtube as well), is one of my favorites. she’s a fitness coach who lifts and is vegan!

a couple of months she started what will be a 12-week free workout program, called the build program. i am now on week 7 (i had to redo week 6 because i was sick the week before last). i’ve been having such a fun time and loving the results so i wanted to share it. here’s her intro:

alexis is not only super knowledgeable about her craft, she’s also super relatable – [tips fedora] hello, fellow bi vegan stoners who lift. the program is designed to be at home with minimal equipment (dumbbells, resistance band), but the first two weeks she uses just a large bottle of laundry detergent so you can order the dumbbells and band and start the program whilst you wait for their delivery. her boyfriend, cat and dog often enter the frame. again, it’s all relatable and accessible, and she also includes nutrition advice and tips.

one thing that i really like about her videos is that she gives predictable, structured breaks and reminds you to drink water. she also talks a lot about the “mind-to-muscle connection”. i’ve not had workout programs, before, remind me to to connect my mind to the muscle i’m working - it sounds weird, but it really has helped me level-up on my form and make my workouts more effective.

so, yeah, i’m feeling v good about my new workout routine, and gaining the muscle i lost from the upper respiratory infection (and then some). gyms in new jersey are opening up, but i don’t think i’m going to enter one for awhile. fortunately, i am used to working out at home and don’t hate it like i used to - i just have to do a better job at taking selfies every night like i used to!

if you’re looking for a routine to ease back into working out (or to just get started), i highly recommend the build program. if you’re not active and feeling bad about it - remember that the pandemic is not a hackathon, sporting event or conference, it’s a health crisis that none of us consented to. you do what you gotta do to make it through the day.

xoxo jenn

i dropped off my food scraps and no one yelled at me

2020-08-30T00:00:00Z

i've been going through some non-contagious health issues over the past week and today i finally worked up the energy to do some chores! one of them was dropping off all the food scraps i had been hoarding in my freezer this month. this is my first time "composting" so i was nervous about not doing the drop off correctly and someone being mean to me about it. spoiler alert: no one was mean to me.

please enjoy my composting live laugh vlog:

xoxo jenn

i vividly remember the first time i was made to feel dumb for asking a question

2020-08-29T00:00:00Z

a few days ago i was sitting outside the pharmacy waiting for a prescription and ~~as one does~~ decided to match my mental pain to the physical by going on twitter. sure enough, the first thing i see is a viral tweet of a young woman calling another young woman’s tiktok “the dumbest video” she’s ever seen, as it was questioning the realness, reasons and origins of mathematical discovery.

these questions raised in the video are at the core of mathematical philosophy, which often doesn't have room in our education system because, i mean, how could you possibly represent that subject in standardized testing – the real enemy, honestly! anyway, this video is probably not the dumbest video anyone's seen – even if it was at least one day before any of us watched the video of elon musk presenting the neuralink.

this is actually a smart video and she is asking great questions that our parents and education system train us to be afraid to ask because there is a huge stigma on actually being wise (knowing what you don’t know) https://t.co/Z0GZTOtm33

— jenn (@jennschiffer)
[August 27, 2020](https://twitter.com/jennschiffer/status/1298995606002663425?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

later in my thread i said "i vividly remember (and am reminded of constantly, even though it happened in 1st grade) the first time i was made to feel dumb for asking a question" and i wanted to share that story with you, today.

when i was in first grade, i worked up the nerve to finally ask my doctor the question that was burning in my brain for what seemed like forever: "why do all of my nails have white marks on them?" instead of answering my question, the doctor chuckled as she took my blood pressure (my favorite part of doctor appointments) and said "that's a silly question, let's talk about why you're here." my dad chuckled, too! i remember it vividly because it's the earliest memory i have of feeling both embarrassed and betrayed.

by the way, my hypothesis is that the leukonychia was caused by my nervous nail-biting habit which i finally kicked once i was living on my own, bless.

believe it or not, i was a super quiet kid. as an adult, i'm definitely not! i think that the voice i have today grew largely in part from the frustration of not being satisfied with the answers that adults gave me to my questions or calls for support. today, my voice continues to get louder with frustration as adults continue to dismiss the validity and power of "i don't know" as an answer. this is what motivated me to post that twitter thread; here is a young woman saying she doesn't know and asking the questions she has, and people were calling her dumb for it. not on my website!

at the heart of this discussion, i feel there are two things that are unfair: people declaring that all of math is a construct, and the certainty that we're still being conditioned to think it's bad to ask questions or (especially for underrepresented groups) have the answers. while it unnerved me to see young people torn down for questioning anything, it warmed me to also see that social media gives them the space and confidence to post that questioning and reach older folks like me to encourage and join them.

i'm going to continue to encourage that curiosity, and also remember to mute twitter threads before taking naps.

xoxo jenn

i was a virtual fan at an nba playoffs round 1 game

2020-08-19T00:00:00Z

basketball, which is basically the perfect sport and something i am quite fond of, was paused during the quarantine for obvious reasons. fortunately, the nba figured out a way to bring it back safely via a resort bubble in cahoots with disney – someone please go back in time one year, read that sentence to me and let me know my reaction.

i got into today’s game 2 with the nets and raptors. the nets are my team, and the raptors won the playoffs last year, so i was excited about the match-up. to be honest, i’m not taking these play-offs too seriously — i mean, they’re all in a bubble, there are no fans in-stadium, not all of the players opted in to playing in the bubble, and there is still a pandemic happening. i’m just happy to be getting any basketball.

getting into the virtual seats is like waiting to get on a plane; you end up in arbitrary groups that they say you get seated in order, but you get the sense they’re just trolling you. i had to upload a photo of my id and show my webcam setup, then waited “in line” for like a half hour to even get into the microsoft teams meeting (yes, i downloaded microsoft teams for this). all of a sudden i was in a group video call with over 100 basketball fans, video and audio on.

it was pure, fun chaos until someone working at microsoft temporarily muted us all so they could show us how to set stuff up, which stressed me out way more than 100 sports fans talking shit all at once. i was using a mac, and i don’t think the microsoft folks even acknowledged us - they were describing clicking buttons that i couldn’t find anywhere, and i was worried i’d not get on screen.

but then i saw myself in a virtual seat and was like “oh, i guess it just works!” here is the screenshot of teams showing the fan board, and also the live broadcast we got to watch alongside it. notice how there were like 32 spots in this section and over 100 in the chat.

if you turned your video off, it would open a spot for another person in the chat to show up in a seat. they tried to get us every quarter to turn off our cameras so that others can come in. many outwardly refused, so a microsoft person would force everyone’s camera off. here i am hydrating with water i got for free from my sink, instead of an $8 12 ounce bottle from a barclays center stand.

everyone was having a blast! the shit-talking was minimal, but about the normal, reasonable questioning of whether the raptors actually earned their win last year or was it just because of the warriors’ injuries. regardless of the hard truths, the most important thing is that halfway through the game someone had finally brought a dog.

i was very happy that everyone followed the code of conduct; i saw zero dicks on stream. once in awhile a kid would show up in a chair, and they’d get so excited to see themselves on a screen! one kid asked everyone what their favorite cereal was and someone said “joe harris” which is of course the best, correct answer.

the nets lost but it was a super close and entertaining game the entire time. i often get very stressed during the last quarter of games, as you can tell here during the last several seconds (at this point i switched my cap to a new jersey nets one):

i think that basketball games are too long to sit in a video call for, so i probably will not sign up to be a virtual fan again unless the nets make it to the next round. the teams chat is definitely not the same energy as being there in the stands, but i think it was a nice adaptation given the constraints. when the game ended, we were told that we were part of history as one of the first groups of virtual fans, which is hella cool but holy shit do i wish it was under different circumstances. and also that the nets won.

xoxo jenn aka Pg9s5fan20

getting a tofu press made a huge difference in my faux “egg” salad and my stress levels

2020-08-16T00:00:00Z

for the longest time, i've been pressing tofu in a completely inefficient and painus-in-the-anus way: putting the tofu block on a plate, putting a plate on top of it, and then putting a cast iron pan on top of the plate. i'd have to stay in the kitchen to make sure it didn't tip over (it always did) or that my cat didn't mess with it (he always did). and i could never press it for too long because it was out of the fridge. it may sound silly to have so many issues about preparing tofu, but as bon jovi said, it's my life![[MORE]]

when i started getting into reading vegan blogs, i saw how all of their tofu recipes looked so perfectly crisp and not soggy and my hypothesis was that they were properly pressing their tofu (spoiler alert: i was right). after reading some reviews, i got myself a tofuxpress. it arrived a couple of days later and i broke it in with some faux egg salad.

i often "forget" to "read the manual" or "look at the box" when i get things, so i immediately set up the press upside down on a plate before realizing...this is probably incorrect.

so i read the instructions and they said that i did put the tofu and spring correctly together, but that i don't have to put it upside down; i can put it spring-upwards in the fridge and then, after pressing for as long as i need, i can pour the water out that came to the top. so don't do what i did above, i'm just showing you what a dumbass i am. the instructions also show that the bottom piece is a lid if you want to use it for marinating the tofu, so that's pretty cool and clever.

after pressing the tofu for a few hours, i broke it into small chunks with a potato masher and mixed in the following ingredients to make a faux egg salad.

1/2 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp black salt, for the eggy flavor
1/4 cup vegenaise to start, add more at the end if you need more moisture
2 tbsp spicy brown/dijon mustard
a splash of distilled white vinegar
some chopped scallions
salt and pepper to taste

getting the water all pressed out meant that any moisture would be from the added flavors, which made a huge difference from past batches i've made. the tofuxpress was easy to clean and my tofu came out in one piece - which matters for some recipes! i'm quite pleased with it, and with my sandwich. the box says it can be used to "press vegetables and fruits - eggplant, cabbage, spinach, salads, fruits and more" so if you're looking to press fruits such as "fruits and more," you may want to try this out.

sometimes if i'm feeling like a fancy baby (i always am), i'll add everything bagel seasoning and cholula to my "egg" salad.

xoxo j$

here’s a “what a vegan eats in a day” post for me to point folks who are artificially concerned about my protein intake to

2020-08-09T00:00:00Z

hello friends! before i jump into things, it’s very important that i prefix this post with a number of important disclaimers so that no one is harmed:

this post is about food, specifically food that i have eaten today
i am a vegan who lifts. if you’re interested in veganism and/or lifting, it is imperative that you talk to your own doctor. i do/will not offer nutrition advice, only my personal experience.
i am not soliciting nutrition advice or critique on my macro or micro nutrients. i take advice from my doctors and not the internet, and i encourage you to follow that same rule!

ok cool! let’s start with what protein has to do with veganism.

when someone finds out i am vegan, the number one response i get is “i couldn’t LIVE without (bacon or cheese)” which likely isn’t true but i probably wasn’t even asking anyway. i’m vegan because i can be, not just because i should be - and that’s a very important distinction for me personally. food is personal and i often don’t mention my diet unless i am offered non-vegan food.

the second response is something along the lines of “well where do you get all your protein?” this isn’t an unforgivable question, it’s just that it often comes from someone who isn’t even interested in any response other than “oh my god, i totally forgot about protein! pass me that bacon!” by the way, a slice of bacon really only has a few grams of protein. if you’re new to actively thinking about protein sources, you’ll find that it’s in a lot of plant-based foods!!

protein is important, especially when trying to build muscle. there are a number of ways to figure out what your intake should be - talk to a nutritionist and/or a certified trainer to find out yours.

my current daily minimum goal is 80 grams of protein. today i hit 86g. here’s what i ate:

this morning i started with a homemade almond milk iced latte, sweetened with a little maple syrup. i ate half of a fresh dragonfruit and then i mashed up a small avocado with red pepper flakes, lime juice and cholula. this all came out to 5g of protein.

i worked out (leg and buns day) and had a rice cake with peanut butter - skippy now makes a high-protein peanut butter that’s 10g of protein a serving (normally peanut butter is 7g). i had a late brunch zoom call with some good friends, for which i made some chili flavored top ramen and added snow peas, fresh corn, mushrooms and spinach. i also had my b12 supplement with this meal (that is a micronutrient that is not really found in plant-based foods). all of this together was about 26g of protein.

after brunch i went for a walk and had another almond milk iced latte. my walk ended prematurely after a squirrel pissed on me from up in a tree. if this was the first time that happened, i’d be hyped about possibly waking up with super powers, but this is the second time that has happened.

for dinner i boiled some rainbow carrots and smothered some tempeh in cholula. tempeh is a rich source of protein; the meal was about 23g altogether.

for dessert, i made a protein shake with vegan (pea) protein powder, powdered peanut butter and almond milk. you can trust that i will not lie to you about food tasting good - for example, vegan cheese? hard pass. but this shake is really good. just as good was a glass of coke zero and these jalapeno kettle chips. altogether, this was 32g of protein.

another important thing to lifting (or being alive, in general) is water intake. as i’m writing this, i finished my 96th ounce of water which is my average daily intake but i’d like to bump that up to a gallon (128 oz). but if i don’t soon, that’s totally okay! the most important thing for me about water and food is that i enjoy myself when i consume it.

i’m very fortunate that veganism has introduced me to fun, delicious foods and recipes i’ve never eaten before. and a cool thing is that plant-based foods are not solely for plant-based diets - you can have some bacon with that mashed avocado if you must.

xoxo jenn

6 statement pieces that really make a statement

2020-08-06T00:00:00Z

as a student of sustainability on a quest to become more of a friend to the planet than a foe, i made it a point in 2020 to stop buying new clothes. i make exceptions for underwear, bras, socks, masks (🙃) and merch that supports artists and organizations i love, but other than that i go for second-hand or (less simply) trying to just not buy anything. it’s super hard – i love shopping – and the pandemic put an end to one of my favorite hobbies of walking around nyc and thrifting.

to satiate my shopping desires, i’ve been doing a lot of virtual window shopping, which is just me browsing clothes online with the rule that i cannot buy anything. i’ve found that simply sharing cool stuff i found with my friends is enough for me.

you’re my friends, now, so here are six statement pieces that really make a statement.

my style is a mix between manhattan super villain and jersey health goth, so most of my clothes are black but i do enjoy heather gray shirts (i’m wearing one now). i also like to cuff my sleeves so my cute shoulder tattoos peek out a bit. the chuck taylors are classic and great for when you’re lifting.

when i’m not in the mood for heather gray, but not in the mood for black, i love to go for the inbetween: dark heather-gray. i normally tie my shirts in the back for front depending on if i’m sitting down or working out on a mat, but i should try to the side like it’s styled in this photo! i’m honestly not a fan of keds, they just always take years to break in and stop shredding up the back of my foot.

when i’m feeling dangerous, i’ll wear a crisp white tee. i don’t sort my laundry, so the crispness is always very short-lived. i’d pair this classic with a pair of black leggings and a brooklyn nets cap.

if i wear any colors lately, it’s usually a pink like this or goldenrod. i went through a brown ankle boot phase in 2013 before i discovered gray ankle boots. changing careers from academia to the tech industry is core to my super villain style origin story.

i probably would never wear this color unless the shirt itself smelled like irish spring, but i included it here because it has the tie in the front. what i’ll do with the tie is tuck it under the shirt high enough so that my neighbors could wonder if i have three tits.

believe or not, i LOVE this heather gray + pink mix, and i am really pleased to see the heather gray hybrid shades becoming more prominent in t-shirt fashions as of late – they simply catch stains and cat hair way better than solid colors do.

i encourage you to think about your consumption of clothing, and consider intentional digital window shopping over actual shopping. it’s a sustainable way to pass the time, learn the latest fashion trends, reflect on what you currently own and be inspired to take what you have already to express yourself.

i am a stamp collector now

2020-07-31T00:00:00Z

happy friday, friends. on monday i go back to work after a week off of self care and catching up on hobbies, old and new. i wanted to tell you about my newest. it all started a couple of weeks ago when a coupon insert told me i can get 200 used stamps for "–only $1.00" and i was like "hell yeah, count me in." [[MORE]]

the act of me actually filling out a form with my credit card info or mailing a check for $1.00 was not going to happen, but the form had a link to the mystic stamp company’s online listing so that’s how i ordered.

the mystic stamp company is a mail-order postage stamp dealer based in new york and has been around for almost 100 years – that’s older than i am! upon purchasing the grab bag, they have sent emails every single day and, to be quite honest, i will never unsubscribe. the earnestness and love and care of stamps that exude from these emails assured me that i wasn’t being scammed, that one day i’d get 200 used stamps. yesterday they arrived:

by the way, welcome to my bed this morning. i was going to wait for later in the day when i was at my table but i was so excited to see what i got that i even opened this before i made coffee.

here is the bag of 200 stamps:

but there was more! they sent other sets of stamps for me to check out and decide if i wanted to keep them and pay, or send them back. i don’t know long they’ve been selling this way, but i’m sure it predates today’s subscription box models of “try before you buy.” truly iconic and also a way to easily debilitate me.

i didn’t want to not purchase more stamps, but i also didn’t want to keep these from “real stamp collectors.” fortunately, i caught myself early on before fully entering yet another guilt and impostor syndrome spiral that we older millennials love to spin in, and decided to choose the stamp set that had harriet quimby in it and send mystic stamp company $1.00.

this gave me a chance to fill out the form and let them know that i like artists and bugs (they asked!). i’m wise enough to remember the day princess diana died, so i was not phased at all when i saw her name in the shortlist of stamp collecting guides.

i mailed this out later in the day and, as i’m writing this and looking at this form, i could absolutely KICK myself for checking off “i don’t think of myself as a stamp collector.” stop trivializing your strengths and interests, jenn!! also technically i do collect stamps already:

i have several sheets of these ellsworth kelly stamps (he’s one of my favorite artists) and i have this one shirley temple stamp that andy gave me when we first started dating.

after an afternoon of chores and watching the nets lose in their first bubble game, i organized my grab bag of "200″ stamps on the kitchen table – there were actually around 220 stamps!

i’m going to go through the categories of stamps i came up with as i sorted them. by far, most of the collection were "patriotic” and “faces of (mostly white, male) people in history.”

99% of these were boring. for some reason i feel like the boat named after rob*rt . l* belongs in the “faces” section.

then we have the "nature” and "science” stamps:

today i learned that my favorite one there, the 4 coral reefs, together make a plate block. i also like the catfish. the “atoms for peace” ones i probably should have put under “patriotic” as it was a presidential speech. unfortunately there was only one bug (butterflies, my least favorite) - good thing i listed “bugs” as an interest in the form i mailed out to them!

the next two categories are "places” and “probably december.”

i was excited about the brooklyn bridge one because i’m from brooklyn and it’s just nice to feel represented somehow. i’m indifferent to christmas, but they do stand out from the other more boring groups.

finally, here are “art” and “transportation”

i was super stoked to find a mary cassatt stamp. if you want to learn more about her, i wrote about her for an art + code project i did a few years ago called vart. i also liked the “stop traffic accidents” psa stamp.

okay, so that was all the sorted stamps. i put them into separate envelopes to organize and store, but not before creating a separate category envelope for “greatest hits” which include the following:

now that i have a “greatest hits” collection, the next thing i’m going to do is spend hours researching literally everything about each one of them. and then i’ll write about them here because everything i do is for the blog.

i hope you enjoy my new collection, and that you’ll share with me your cool collections – especially stamps, but anything cool is cool, you know?

xoxo jenn

this blog is not even two months old but i’ve already given it a new look

2020-07-26T00:00:00Z

hello, friends! i am currently going through what some would call it, and when i’m going through it i cope by reorganizing the things around me that are reorganize-able. before i go any further, let’s put on some appropriate music.

okay, so the first thing i did was reorganize my apartment. i moved lots of furniture around, organized things, moved art to different walls, etc. the place now has a whole new, fun energy that i am desperate to have pervade throughout the rest of my life. with my living space in order, it was only natural that i start reorganizing my online spaces. first order of business was to iterate on this site's template.

a big part of the process and performance of creating this blog was hiring professionals to design the branding. one of my myspace top 8, juan pablo, introduced me to this incredible couple of women, maria and nataly of asísí felicia. if you're starting a blog and are not a designer by trade, i 200% would recommend hiring a designer, and them specifically. i have a sense of style and an aesthetic when it comes to my in-home and online properties, but i knew that if i tried to do the brand design, this thing would never be launched. and it was launched! remember, we raised over $10,000? lol, keep up!

i did much of the blog's layout and element design before and during the brand design process. what i launched this site with was never what i intended to be official/permanent – but it got. the. job. done. here is what the site looked like this morning:

there was something about this template that felt extremely incomplete and simply too minimalist. i knew adding box shadows would help, but i really wanted to add something special that would have folks who know my work think "this is extremely jenn schiffer." i think i captured that with the latest template:

now, you probably won't see a pixel butt on your screen. you'd have to draw one yourself, which you can do because behind the content of this blog is a graph paper drawing app. what fun! if you want to play with an isolated version of the app, check out my original app, grafpaper. i have plenty of these drawing apps that i'd like to incorporate into the backgrounds of other sites i own.

i hope you enjoy the site design, and that you'll let me know if you encounter any buggies. i shan't promise that i won't make a new template again soon – i took this week off of work so i would not have to work, so i have some extra time to rip more stuff up.

xoxo j

finally, a classic smoky eye tutorial that works for my down-turned, hooded eyes

2020-07-26T00:00:00Z

compared to my lifestyle blogging peers, i am fairly new to “makeup,” but i’ve been having lots of fun with it over the quarantine, both by putting it on and also watching how other folks put it on. it’s truly an art form and a great medium for creative expression. but there are so many different kinds of faces that it's hard to find an eye look that works for me.

i have down-turned eyes which are kind of hooded. little boys with big typing hands often comment on videos of my conference talks remarking how i look high, which by the wayyyy i’ve never done a conference talk while high, only hung-over. anyway i love my eyes. they are sunken in, i know, but they’re not yours, they are my own. it’s just hard as hell to do a classic smoky eye!

after minutes of searching this weekend, though, i finally found a tutorial for a smoky eye that not only works for my eyes, but i think would be universally flattering on everyone who tries it. i’ll show you how it’s done.

step one: start with a clean face

after i went out for an iced coffee, i came home and washed my face and did my usual morning serums and moisturizer. i’ll talk about my skincare regime in a future post, as i’m still experimenting. half of the reason i am glowing here is because i was still sweating (it’s like 95 F here)

by the way, welcome to my bedroom. i recently moved my workout clothes dresser, which doubles as my vanity, into here. this makeup tutorial is chaotic because taking photos and holding a mirror at the same time is impossible, but i figured out how to get around that:

step two: lay the foundation of your face

this is my daily “foundation” which doesn’t actually include foundation. i use the tarte bb tinted primer, spot conceal with the kosas revealer concealer if necessary, and then use the supergoop daily correct cc cream (i try to get as much spf into my skincare as possible).

i set the face with the fenty instant setting powder in lavender and apply some lip gloss. for this eye look, i don’t need to worry about concealing my under-eye circles or brushing my eyebrows, but i do usually do that daily. i don’t know how to contour, or drive a car.

here’s my face, ready for smoky eyes:

step 3: draw on the smoky eyes

the tutorial says to use black grease paint, but i didn’t have any, so i primed the eyes and used black eyeliner to circle the eyes and draw them in.

to fill it in and get a really rich, smoky look i set the eyeliner with the black from this bh cosmetics take me back to brazil palette that i bought in berlin last year.

then i went back to the eyeliner to draw lines coming out of my eyes. i feel like this draws attention to both the eyes and my cheekbones.

step 4: line the mouth

in order to pull off a dramatic smoky eye, you really need to balance the rest of the makeup you use. i’m not going to put anything on my lips except a clear balm, but i’m going to balance that with some lines coming down from the corners of my lips. this wasn’t my idea, i got it from the same tutorial.

step 5: finish the look with a setting spray and see what the cat thinks

i use supergoop’s defense refresh (re)setting mist to set the look (and throughout the day to refresh my spf). then i wake up pumagreg from his sun-soaking nap to see what he thinks.

pumagreg approves.

i really like how this look came out, and the lip lining kept up really well after i ate some roasted broccoli and chickpeas for lunch. if you want to try this look out for yourself, you can find the original tutorial here on wikihow. i would love to see how it turns out for you!

xoxo j

celery soda for adults (real grown ups only!)

2020-07-19T00:00:00Z

when i was a junior in high school, linkin park's hybrid theory was popular and i was a low income, straight edge, nerdy jock, so you probably could never imagine the kind of lunch table i sat at. one of the folks who sat near me was a kid who i’ll call cb for ”celery boy” which will make sense in two sentences, trust me. cb was both a senior and the first person i ever met who was unapologetically queer, making him the only "grown up” i trusted. he would occasionally bring in a can of celery soda in for lunch and everyone would be grossed out, but then he'd let me have a sip and it was such a treat! the drinks in the fridge at home were always so sugary - coca cola, kool-aid, tropicana orange juice, TANG - which i loved but also i was a ~female varsity athlete~ so i was always concerned about what i was consuming regularly. celery soda wasn't necessarily healthy, but it felt and sounded healthy and grown up, and that's what i wanted to be!

i had compartmentalized the memory of celery soda until a couple of months ago when i hit one year of sobriety. the past year had been a journey of replacing cocktails with mocktails, essentially fancy and professionally crafted sodas. drinking a mocktail allowed me the dignity of feeling grown up and tricked others around me at tech events into thinking i'm "normal" like them, allowing me to avoid repeatedly giving the "why i'm not drinking" monologue to every stranger making lazy and nosy small talk.

while quarantine makes it easy to avoid work and networking events with flowing alcohol, i still wanted to feel grown up and so i tried my hand at celery soda. most recipes for the syrup i found online were too sugary or had spices i don't have (celery seed? in this economy?) so i truly was running an experiment here and i love how it came out.

in a saucepan i brought the following to a boil and stirred for a few minutes.

1 1/2 cups of water
4 stalks of celery, chopped
5 tbsp raw sugar
1 lime, quartered
1 sprig of fresh parsley, chopped

i took the pot off of heat and let it sit, covered, for an hour. then i strained it into a mason jar. it smelled really good and looked like piss.

similar recipes online say that this syrup can hold for two weeks in the fridge. i added a couple of tablespoons to a glass and added seltzer water, ice, and a quarter of lime because i'm a healthy grown up.

it was as refreshing and sophisticated as i remember nearly 20 years ago. also, my satellite radio started playing a linkin park song as soon as i poured it??? stream “hybrid theory”!

xoxo j

rating some of my favorite photos of me, except they were augmented by my friend gianni to have weird smiles

2020-07-13T00:00:00Z

one of my favorite things about lifestyle blogging is the ~~collaboration~~ and with this post i’m kicking off my first one with one of my dearest friends, gianni. one of his best gags is taking any photo you post online and texting you a version with a huge scary smile. it’s horrifying and absolutely uncalled for.

last night i called for it.

tonight, i am sharing and rating 6 of my favorite photos of myself and his machine-learned smile augmentations.

here i am in a cool pink elevator in a berlin hotel a couple of years ago. i just look super cool drenched in pink. the smile is so weird but if you've never seen me smile ever i guess it could pass.

6/10

i was already smiling in this photo, so he made my eyes and mouth closed and with a berry lip for some reason. disgusting.

8/10

this is a very nice photo of me taken by arin sang-urai at an event. this probably wasn't hard for the app gianni uses to generate and i can see my smile being pretty close to that.

9/10

this was a cool selfie i took in my kitchen and gianni made it look like a completely different person and also changed my hair color?

2/10

this photo was taken after i was baptized. it's a long story and this photo is absolutely terrifying.

10/10

gianni said "also for one of these i mixed our faces. it’s rough"

-100/10

shouts out to gianni for collaborating with me - make sure to follow @gf3 on twitter if you're looking for a terrible time.

do you have cool ideas for future collabs? leave them in the new comments section below! i am very excited to engage with you all, expand my live laugh brand awareness cross-platform, and never smile again.

xoxo j

the first ever live laugh conf was both two weeks ago and a huge success

2020-07-12T00:00:00Z

we did it, pals: on june 30th we launched a blog together and raised over $10,000 united states dollars for the women’s prison association.

if you’re wondering what the hell i’m talking about, well, it's complicated. i started this here blog in a very extra way and wanted to celebrate it's launch similarly. so i invited several friends to submit 5 minute lightning talks about anything that isn't work related, and they did! and then i asked friends and followers to join me during a live stream of me emceeing those talks, and you did!

well, maybe you did. if you didn't, you can watch the whole thing here:

let's do a mini retrospective together, yes?

was the event a success?

yes, 100%. these were my goals and we knocked it out of the park:

my goal was to hit the $10,000 campaign goal, and we did at just the right moment of the event, too! and i got to show off my cheap disco ball light becasue we hit the goal. and it worked! now i must protect it forever since it's now officially live laugh canon.
i wanted to start building a community around non-tech topics using tech community building tactics, as that's what i know best! the speakers really came through, some even surprising themselves - which is what a big part of the live laugh mentality is: being creative and surprising in positive ways. the event chat also was lively and friendly, and i really had a fun time revisiting it the next day (as i couldn't pay a lot of attention during the stream).
my internet connection was :chef's kiss: stellar. it was probably the thing i was most terrified about, but my 28 foot ethernet cable (even though i was 4 feet from the router) really came through.
folks actually used my extremely rushed photobooth app to post on social using the #livelaughconf hashtag. it was especially fun to see folks actually engaging with it, because i really threw that together super last minute as a manifestation of my pre-event nervous energy.

my last minute rush of stuff like that also falls into, and is the theme of, the next section:

what could i improve

my equipment setup was amateur and, again, rushed! i was using a usb mic that's meant to be clipped to my computer but i couldn't get the sound loud enough unless i held it like a hand mic. i also used my macbook camera, which got the job done, but having an external camera would have been extremely convenient.
i need to practice using streaming software more - i didn't realize i was muted at one point, and i forgot to use all the cool drops that chris bannon, one of the speakers, had given me. it was my first time doing a livestream with obs, so i know with more practice i'll have a better handle on those controls and feel/look more natural
with better planning and more time (and a million dollars while i'm listing things i'll never have lmao), i would love to explore doing live q&as with speakers. i don't want to fly too close to the sun, but it's a goal for a future event!

thank you over 10,000 times to everyone involved!

i'm really excited to come up with and execute other fun things, including future livelaughconfs. i must admit, though, that with livelaughconf and this retrospective post now done, it will be nice to go back to simply livelaughblogging. get used to me prefixing everything with "live laugh" - it's called brand identity, love.

xoxo j$

ayyy i‘m walking (more) here!!

2020-07-06T00:00:00Z

i’ve been on this journey over the past month or so to recreate routines so i can get back into them and adapt to this pandemic vs. wait for a “normal” that’s not gonna happen. some of the routines i’ve already got locked down are:

working from home comfortably
following a morning and evening skincare regimen
wearing spf
drinking water

the “drinking water” routine is fairly new. as i stopped going to the gym i stopped drinking water and this only occurred to me like last week! so, yeah, until 1.5 weeks ago when i started a hydration routine, i was just a shriveled up raisin with good skin (because of my skincare and spf regimens, which kind of are not complete without the hydration part of the equation, whoops).

there are a few other routines that the quarantine stopped in its tracks and that i’m working to adapt this month:

going for walks
weight training at home
reading books
drawing/painting

this weekend i decided to go for an hour (at least) long walk every day, weather permitting. here is the health app’s chart of my steps over the past year, which tells a tale as old as covid-19-time:

as you can see in that chart, i used to walking a LOT! but i’m also very easily bored, i hate the sun and wear mostly black, so a lot of that walking was for the purpose of getting somewhere (work, therapy, andy’s, coffeeshop, gym). the purpose i’ve been giving myself this week is to get that bar chart up to where it was in the winter and to photograph neighbors’ cool flowers for me to draw and paint.

while wearing a mask in 90 F heat can seem p brutal, it’s not so bad as spreading a virus and/or getting sick. i look extremely hot (temperate-wise and boner-inducing-wise) with my mask on, and i gladly embrace the mouth sauna these unprecedented times have bestowed upon me by putting on an intense lip mask before i head out. you can peek my latest gel manicure i had given myself that afternoon:

the problem with depending on “the outdoors” for exercise instead of gyms is that i can only partake in walks when it’s not thunder and lightning outside (as it literally is as i type this). i did get a short walk to the cafe in before the storm started, then i noticed some asshole stole our tomatoes. thrilling!

RIP my large, not quite rip son.

if you’re routine/streak-driven like me, try to list all of the things that you stopped doing because of the pandemic and pick one thing at a time to get back on track. a very good start is to make sure you’re staying hydrated and applying an spf; they are low effort routines with high impact for your health and state of being. take care of yourselves, friends!

xoxo j

3 quick and healthy dishes i make when my last meeting went 20 minutes into lunch and my next meeting is in 40 minutes

2020-07-01T00:00:00Z

tuesday night was livelaughconf (which i’ll write all about later this week) but today it was ~~back to work~~ and i was wondering,

do you ever find yourself in a meeting that has run long (about 20 minutes) into your lunch time, and you're hungry but your next meeting is in 40 minutes?

we live for the thrill!

here are a few quick and healthy dishes i often turn to for fuel to hold me over. they're not fancy, they're only a few ingredients, and they make me feel a hell of a lot better than trying to make it through another hour on zoom without food in me.

roasted carrots and broccoli

roasted vegetables can get very boring, sure, but you can literally and figuratively spice things up in different ways and, again, this is just to hold you over during a busy noon. set your oven to 450 degrees Farrahfawcett, wash a couple of carrots and a broccoli crown. peel the carrots, break up the broccoli, and lay them in a pan. pour a little bit of olive oil and salt over everything and toss around lightly with your chafed-from-all-the-washing hands.

i like to put a ton of black pepper over the carrots and squeeze** lemon juice **over the broccoli. then i put in the oven for 20 minutes and forget to let them cool but it's okay my mouth is made of leather this point.

sauteed kale parmesan

carl sagan once said that "imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere." and he was talking about the day i started my stove up to make spinach but then discovered that i was only imagining i had spinach; in reality it was kale. up until that point i had always eaten it cold or dehydrated them to make kale chips.

put about a half cup of water and a few pinches of salt into a saucepan on medium heat and throw in some washed kale. stir until the kale gets tender and the water evaporates (add more water if needed). pour **a little bit of oil **into the pan when the water's evaporated and saute for a few minutes. put into a bowl and cover with grated parmesan cheese. my favorite vegan grated parmesan is follow your heart.

sausage, peppers and onions

vegan sausages are more junk than health food but they're high in protein and, honestly, if eating vegan kielbasa for lunch is what kills me, i'll take that over being run over by a self-driving car literally any day of the week. this is my journey.

put some oil in a pan on medium heat. slice up sausages of your choice (this week i had a kielbasa left), and cut up half a yellow onion and a green bell pepper. throw onion in the pan and when they start to get translucent add the pepper and the sausages. this is a good time to throw any spices that complement the sausage in - i often turn to onion powder, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. make sure to cook both sides of the sausage slices. when they're cooked to your desire, usually just a few minutes, take off the heat.

you can eat off a plate like you're some kind of duchess, or put on a roll. if you're going with kielbasa, make sure to add plenty of spicy brown mustard like you would with the real stuff.

try not to go into meetings hungry, and eat your goddamn vegetables! xoxo jenn

here is the latest on "candles"

2020-06-21T00:00:00Z

my buddy nick messaged me on twitter today asking if i’m into candles. friends, i’m into anything that is on fire on purpose.

when it comes to candles, if it smells like a cemetery or field hockey practice in central jersey, i simply must have it. unless it’s over $50, or not vegan.

i go mostly for performance over aesthetic – my apartment is usually dark or drenched in neon, and i have a cat who literally runs this place, so i don’t try to invest in fancy candle holders. that being said, i don’t (live laugh) tolerate corny phrases or weird shit on the candles, no matter what etsy seems to think.

typically i’ll have 3 candles in rotation, one for each possible state you will find me at any given moment: working, cleaning, and being horny. let’s go over this season’s rotation:

note: none of the links below are affiliate links, not that i think that matters - i just see bloggers saying stuff like that all the time and i’m just trying to fit in. i wish they were affiliate links and that yankee candle would make me a paid influencer, ok back to the list,,,,,,

working

palo santo patchouli, by chinesha’s closet

i am an indoor cat, but i like to bring the outdoors into my working space with, what i call, working candles. the scents i’m into right now are palo santo and patchouli, and this 100% soy scented “palo santo patchouli” candle has literally both of those in its name.

cleaning

mrs. meyer’s clean day lavender

there are two rules for cleaning candles: they have to smell like, and be sold along with, household cleaning supplies. i had a sort of toxic friend in college who hated lavender and so i learned to love it, especially for cleaning scents. having a cleaning candle burning really motivates me to keep cleaning, like the scent hitting me immediately already makes me feel like i’ve made progress before i even started.

being horny

midsummer’s night, by yankee candle

midsummer’s night, a true iconoclast! this has been my official candle for being horny for at least 5 years. it comes in a wide variety of form factors and, despite being a yankee candle, is hella goth. described as “an intoxicating and masculine blend of musk, patchouli, sage and mahogany cologne,” much like myself, it’s basically the smell of a really hot person who showered before coming to see you. the only problem with this candle is that it looks a bit too much like a mason jar full of diet cola, which is kind of risky in my household.

i’ll update you on future rotations as they change. if you have candle recommendations, i would love to hear them and pass them onto nick! you can dm me on twitter or send me an email.

xoxo jenn

how is this for "aesthetic"

2020-06-16T00:00:00Z

over the weekend i did some gel nail art for the first time! to show it off, i’m taking a detour from my usual invisible-handjob manicure pose and instead including a little slice of my kitchen–which doubles as my “day office.”

this photo has all of the essentials:

a tooth pick with a pink skull on it
two instax mini photos, one of pumagreg and the other of andy and i hanging out in a cemetery
a print by one of my favorite artists, laura callaghan
my left hand, freshly manicured by yours truly

happy friday!! jk it’s tuesday

xoxo jenn

shocking: cursed woman makes cursed spaghetti and "meatballs"

2020-06-14T00:00:00Z

this is the tale of my cursed spaghetti and meatballs.

i cannot eat beyond or impossible brand “meats” because they are made with coconut oil and one of my personality traits is that coconut makes me red, itchy, and unable to breathe (and they say superheroes don’t exist!). but a few weeks ago i found this brand, the meatless farm co, who makes ground beef without coconut oil, so i grabbed a package of it.

then, while putting it into my freezer, i remembered that i didn’t even like ground beef when i wasn’t vegan, so it sat in said freezer, untouched, until last night when i decided to make spaghetti and meatballs.

please enjoy my recipe for Cursed Spaghetti And Meatballs™

it’s cool that fake ground beef is not made of real ground beef, but that doesn’t make the fake meat look any more appetizing to handle. also, like, what if they used real meat just to fuck with us? after about 5 minutes of pacing back and forth as i came to terms with this uncanny valley of fake flesh, i finally put half the package in a bowl and added the following wet things:

3 shishito peppers chopped (i wish i had jalapeno though)
¼ large white onion, chopped
a few leaves of fresh basil, chopped
some minced garlic
a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce and olive oil

and then my attention deficit hit. i was cooking while music was playing AND i was watching youtube videos of people making hats for their little frogs and, once i snapped out of it, all of the other ingredients i had added were on my cursed kitchen table, lined up around a new round stain which i caused with a hot bowl of chili earlier this week.

freshly ground salt and pepper
parsley
garlic powder
onion powder
oregano

speaking of “round,” i rolled up the meatballs with my hands, oiled a pan and threw them in the oven at 425 degrees - not because the box or literally anyone told me to do that - it just felt right.

with the meatballs in the oven, it was time for me to make my “it gets the job done” sauce. i threw another ¼ chopped white onion and some minced garlic into a saucepan with oil and, once the onion was browning, i poured in a whole can of what i thought was crushed tomatoes but NO it was a can of cherry tomatoes.

this was the first time i put my head in my hands. this wasn’t a disaster, though, because i figured i could just throw it in a blender when it was done cooking. upon releasing my head from my large hands’ grasp, back in went my head when i realized that i forgot to use an egg replacer and vegan parmesan in the meatballs.

a dramatized reenactment:

it’s just food, though, and i was the only one who was going to eat it. after 20 minutes in the oven, with 2 times using tongs to move the meatballs around, they were ready and they looked exactly how you would expect them to: cursed, but edible looking. it’s a good thing i didn’t opt to fry them up, they would have crumbled to dust without that faux egg as a binder.

back to my sauce: i added the dry basil and green pepper cholula from the above “spices of the round-stained table” and then threw some gluten free spaghetti in a pot to boil. i am not on a gluten free diet, it’s just that (as you can tell from the canned tomato incident) my brain refuses to read the packaging of things i buy. this ineptitude, given my allergies, will probably kill me.

live laugh anaphylaxis!

when the spaghetti had a minute left to go, i drained it and saved about a quarter cup of the pasta water. i then put it back in the pot with the saved water and a bunch of sauce on heat so it can emulsify. oh, and before that, i had blended the sauce to smooth out the cherry tomato skins:

when plated altogether, it looked like regular not-cursed spaghetti and meatballs! it was all actually really good and, perhaps, worth the strife.

here’s a broken meatball zoomed in for texture:

i could have chopped the shishito peppers better, but honestly i could have done a lot of things better during this absolute clown show.

i am eating the leftovers as i write this, and the fake meatballs reheated pretty well! i’ve only paused editing this twice (two (2) times) to put my head in my hands. if i had a chance to do this again (i mean, i do - i only used half the meat), i would probably change everything!

i think i’m going to use the rest of the meat to make stuffed bell peppers. one way to help me try to lift the curse so those come out way better is to donate to the women's prison association. wpa advocates for alternatives to incarceration and supports women in all stages of the criminal “justice” system in nyc. i’ve been on their junior board for a couple of years, now, and am proud to bring awareness and your money to this cause and important work. live laugh love y’all!

xoxo jenn

lizzo told us to fry oyster mushrooms so i did

2020-06-07T00:00:00Z

"hey so i’m eating my feelings because the world continues to let me down" says lizzo as she begins a tiktok of her cooking up some vegan comfort food. i love lizzo and i love reminding people that i caught one of the bouquets of flowers she and her dancers threw into the audience at her 2016 xoxo festival performance, which technically means we are married. look at us, just two hot and talented vegans!

seriously, though, she's been posting a lot of really great vegan meals she's been cooking her herself during the pndm*c. i'm very jealous of her garden and also i used to play flute in elementary school but never was good at it (my teacher blamed my house-sized hands). what CAN'T she do?

anyway today i fried up oyster mushrooms too...

like most folks who do cooking tutorials on tiktok, lizzo kept it realistic and did not give specific measurements. measuring is for the weak, well-adjusted and compensated! here are some instructions:

pull the mushrooms into smaller baby wing sized pieces
cover them in some dry flour and seasoning mixture. today i did all purpose flour with sriracha seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, and paprika
dip them in a wet mixture. today i did one part unsweetened almond milk and one part just egg™
dip them back in the flour
heat up a pan of oil, get it hella hot and fry those mushroom pieces until they're golden brown
when done, place them on a towel to soak up the excess oil and cool a little

i plated and then covered them in cholula™ and vegan caesar dressing. i also added a side of cooked spinach because even lizzo says to take a break to eat something healthy!

it must be said, the food does not look cute, but it got the job i needed it to do done:_ comfort and spice me. _i’m wishing much comfort and spice to all my friends (and future friends) taking part in actions across the nation to let everyone know that black lives matter.

xoxo jenn

if you like fried foods and/or any of the words that i wrote here, individual or put together in various phrases and sentences, then i encourage you to donate to the womens prison association the wpa is based in nyc and provides trauma-informed support to women in all stages of criminal "justice” involvement.

6 very important things that had been sitting in my work bag since before the quarantine

2020-05-31T00:00:00Z

it feels like both 5 years and 5 hours ago since my job went from partially to 100% remote in response to the covid-19 pandemic. after my last day in the office, i came home and dropped my work bag to the side like i did every night and that’s where it remained, basically untouched, for about two months. i would like to share with you the six (6) most important things i found when i finally cleaned it out.

going clockwise from the top:

a builders protein bar (chocolate peanut butter flavor) which is a great vegan source of protein and sweets. i always keep something like this in my bag in case i get stuck during my commute and hungry. i likely won’t be getting stuck in a commute anytime soon so i’m now eating said protein bar as i write this.
a $50 gift card from a very fancy restaurant that my partner andy took me to for my birthday. even though i told them over phone, text and in person about my coconut allergy, they still served me a dessert with coconut in it. i will say that when they realized the mistake, they handled it extremely well (they even comp'ed our mocktails). i would most definitely go back if they survive the shutdown.
a pair of indian runner duck earrings from cardboard reality, a shop run by a couple of artists/farmers in ontario. andy got me these and some of their pins after i started becoming obsessed with indian runner ducks. i plan to repurpose them as pins, because as earrings they’re not quite my style (andy knew this would be the case).
a foursquare pen that i got from their booth at a twilio product conference in 2017. i wanted to become friends with the foursquare folks, so i had left some glitch stickers and a note for them for when they got back from their break. as soon as i walked away, though, i saw some conference attendee go to the booth and steal all of the stickers! it’s been three years and i’m still seething!!
a $5 coupon from my local indie bookstore, word. this bookstore rules and i cannot wait to be able to go back and look at all the pretty notebooks and pens even though i have more than enough at home.
a whole coffee bean, thrilling!

of course there were more things in my bag, like my umbrella and a variety of drugstore lip glosses that never really got the job done, but this post is about the important things.

take care of yourselves, xoxo jenn

hello world

2020-05-31T00:00:00Z

"what if i become a lifestyle blogger" —some very hot person

two months into the coronavirus shutdown, i took a week off of work to cool off from burnout and try to rediscover a means of creative expression that isn't tied to my job; normals would call this "finding a hobby".

i became a lifestyle blogger.

many folks who know of my work already were introduced to me through my writing, be it my tech satire or my conference talks. a couple of years ago i stepped back from that in an attempt to balance life and work and performance. then i, as one does, finally found the grave of my mother, went a bit too hard on the alcohol, got sober, went vegan again and then recently found myself sheltered in place alone and surrounded by all my things that i once used to express myself (art supplies, computers, paper, etc). it only made sense to go back to the basics, but be extremely extra about it.

so livelaughblog is my new hobby; a personal blog where i'm going to write again about whatever i feel like. and i'm going to take it both seriously and not seriously, as i always have done with the tools made available to me by the internet. all i need from you, dear reader, is to share my work with all the cool, kind people you know and to give where/what you can to those who need it.

that's all! i mean, i did tell some of y'all that the hype i was creating for this blog wouldn't be worth it! anyway, while you're here, here's an exploration of the time capsule that was my work bag from before the statewide shutdown.

xoxo jenn