June 2024
Signs of life, music recs, project planning, little pics, and more.
Image above: an illustration drawn from memory of the house next door
Signs Of Life
Upon retuning from vacation in the middle of May, we realized our neighbor’s screaming had stopped. My husband and I have lived in our home for 7 years and ever since the day we moved in we’ve experienced our neighbor’s wails at all hours of the day and night. At first we read the cries as pained outbursts and were concerned for him, wondering if he needed our help. After hearing a cry, we would listen and wait for another sign to intervene— this sign would never come, and we’d go back to whatever we were doing. As time went on, we got used to the sounds from next door and invented new reasons for their existence (reactions to sports games, video games, stretching, frustration at a loved one, etc); rather than sources of concern, the sounds became a daily reminder that someone was there, that we were members of a community, albeit one that was not very good at checking in on one another.
So when we came home from our trip and noticed that the cries had stopped, we knew something was wrong. Rather than go knock on the door or reach out to another neighbor, I found myself constantly at the window facing his house, wondering what had happened and if we would ever see him pass through his kitchen again. A uniformed man at his door one night signaled a wellness check with unknown results, but that weekend when someone came to begin boarding up his windows we knew our neighbor must not be coming back.
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The night the windows were boarded up, I had texted a friend from another town to see if he wanted to facetime together to watch Physical 100, a Korean reality show in which a hundred contestants participate in physical challenges and are eliminated until one victor remains. Normally this friend texts back immediately, but this time he never responded. I soon forgot about the text, figuring that he had plans and would get back to me later.
Three days later, I suddenly realized I still hadn’t heard back from him (I know this might be common for some people but it’s very unusual for this friend!). I immediately texted him “ok, how many days am I supposed to let pass before I call the police to make sure you aren’t dead??” No response. My mind started spiraling to horrible places— should I have followed up sooner? What if he was long gone by now? Would a good friend have called his work on Monday to make sure he had shown up?
I was deep into making a list of my friend’s next of kin to contact when he texted back, confused, stating that he was alive and had never received the first text (my husband has an android phone and this sort of thing just happens with group texts sometimes). I was relieved but still left with an uneasy feeling— how am I supposed to know that my friends are okay? When should I be calling for wellness checks? During our eventual facetime we brainstormed ideas like location sharing, sending daily texts, etc but arrived at the conclusion that we likely simply can not and will not know moment to moment if the other person is alive or not.
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During our brainstorm, I realized that one app I already use does give me some sense of security: BeReal. In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s an app that sends you a notification once a day that signals “IT’S TIME TO BE REAL!”, meaning it’s time to take a front and back facing photo of whatever you’re doing in that moment to share with your friends. My BeReal community is purposefully very small and consists of friends eating sandwiches, staring at work computers, and very rarely doing anything out of the ordinary. I’ve been very consistent on this platform for years and have often wondered what it is that keeps me so engaged— is it the opportunity to share what I’m up to? The feeling of being with friends without physically being with them? After these recent experiences with my neighbor and friend I realized that part of the appeal is simply seeing my friends and knowing that they are alive and well and that they can see that I’m alive too. My posts serve as proof of existence; maybe if I were ever to miss a day, someone would call in a wellness check for me.
A week after our neighbor’s windows were boarded up, I arrived home from the grocery store to find two county sherriffs outside our neighbor’s home talking to another neighbor. “NOW’S MY CHANCE,” I thought, and hurried over to them to introduce myself. It turns out this neighbor, who has lived in our neighborhood for 71 years, was equally ashamed at never introducing himself to us and knew equally little about our neighbor who had died. Although I’m pretty sure he still thinks my name is Phill due to hearing difficulties, I felt relieved and proud at having finally made this connection. Now, every time I pass by this neighbor’s house I look for little signs of life— a light on in the hall, a trash can brought to the curb— just to make sure he’s still ok. I hope he looks for signs from our house too.
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Some Little Pictures:
(from top left to bottom right)
1. Paul Ferney
2. Carly Jean Andrews
3. Eline Van Dam
4. Trà Phạm
5. William Grill
6. Stay Home Club
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June Playlist
First, I simply have to share the amazing list of music recommendation sources that a friend sent to me in response to my call for recs in last month’s newsletter. I hope these reccos also help you discover new gems un-algorithmically!
Grimy Goods - Female owned / focused music blog. They publish weekly charts and I usually grab their top 10 to listen to
Anthony Fantano / The Needle Drop - Does pretty great weekly roundups of the best / meh / worst new music and well thought out reviews of specific albums. Also on IG, Tiktok, etc
Pitchfork is dying / dwindled a lot, but still pretty good for their “Best New Music” picks
I went to Outside Lands last year, and am going again this year, and I've used it as a forcing mechanism to stay in touch with new music. Also, good for diving deeper into older artists I have never delved too deeply into
As for my June playlist, I’ve been pretty podcast-heavy this month but did throw a few things I like into my monthly bucket here. Hope you like!
Image above: a snapshot of my 2024 notion page, complete with vision board and the beginnings of my project plans
Recent Work: Project Planning
Every month I waver back and forth between wanting to “get projects done” and being ok with my free-flowing, do-it-when-you-feel-like-it way of working that doesn’t often lead to any sort of completion. I do feel like, over the past year, these two paths have begun to converge a bit to find a healthy middle where I can do “what I feel like” but still work towards completing projects. One strategy that I’ve been trying to implement more is project planning— breaking down projects into their teeniest tiniest parts and then completing things bit by bit until they’re done.
Although I often resist structure, I know that personally I need it in order to feel more creative— I’m one of those types who creates better when given parameters (and I have a hunch that we’re actually all like that! The wild and free creative is a myth). Doing creative work for myself instead of clients has definitely been a challenge but I’m finding that through taking time to project plan as if I’m my own boss, I can give myself the boundaries I need in order to create good stuff and actually get some larger projects done!
In case it’s helpful, here are some tools/methods I’m currently using to get things done:
Notion for planning out projects and writing down allll the details. I still don’t LOVE this tool (I find it annoyingly hard to use for something that’s supposed to be “intuitive” and simple??) but it’s the best I’ve found so far and works for me! Bonus: I love all the templates people share and that are included on the platform.
Focus To-Do for daily task management. I love a good pomodoro timer so when I have a good chunk of time to work, I’ll usually list out my tasks in focus to-do and check them off there as I go rather than working straight from notion. There’s just something really satisfying about it and the timer really helps me stay on track!
I recently took the Prophetic Project Plan class from Holisticism and while I don’t necessarily recommend this specific class, I do love watching something to boost my skills and get me back on track. My favorite part of this class was the notion templates she provided and walked us through!
There are LOTS of great videos and templates online— in an example of the shared brain of the universe, as I was working on this newsletter one of my fav artsy youtubers FurryLittlePeach shared this fun Notion Girly video. Not every youtuber is for every person but rest assured that there will be one out there who will speak your particular project planning language!
Do you have any project planning tips/tricks/tools that work for you to help get personal projects done? PLZ tell me!
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Some Other Good Things
It’s the 10 year anniversary of Monument Valley! Love this little article celebrating it’s creation and - spoiler alert - sounds like MV3 is set to release soon! Great news.
A fun ted talk about designing for joy. Never discount joy as a measurable outcome!
Also related to joy: This episode of lifekit about finding joy was really life-affirming. I’ve always been so self conscious about my desire for frequent variety and change and it turns out this is one of the components to a happy life. I will continue with my constant (but not too constant) pivoting and be happier for it!
I’m trying to learn Spanish and recently discovered Spanish with Dante and Dreaming Spanish, two excellent resources. Now I just need to work on actually practicing…
Recently discovered r/drawme — so fun having so many reference pics for portrait drawing!
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Thanks for reading – see you next month!