This month brought more than a few exciting projects. Back in January, instead of making a list of new year’s resolutions, I made a bingo board on a dry erase board with 25 personal projects I wanted to do by the year’s end. This month I put one of my taxidermy squirrels on a new wooden base and framed my cyanotype prints, but the box I checked off for jewelry collaboration with a friend was the highlight of my month.
I partnered with my friend Marc, who collects fossils all over the country, to make a mold of a fossilized goblin shark tooth from at least 200 million years ago. We created a small jewelry collection and raised $350 for wildfire relief in Los Angeles.
Here is what I have been doing with some of my free time…
Listening
Song: Jetstream by Kacie Hill (Spotify link) I found Kacie’s music on TikTok a few years ago and have looked forward to every new song she has released. This one has been on heavy rotation as the weather starts to warm up just a bit! For fans of Phoebe Bridgers, The Chicks, and Pinegrove among others, she is a singer-songwriter with a voice like a bell and music with a little bit of twang.
Podcast: It’s a Clue (website link, available wherever you listen to podcasts) This is a podcast about the Nancy Drew book series and is hosted by two sisters who are re-reading the series. Their modern takes on the plotlines, Nancy never aging, and her terrible boyfriend Ned are hilarious and I can’t get enough. I’m currently around the 40th episode and I definitely plan on binging all of it and then joining their Patreon to get even more.
Watching
Show: Yellowjackets (IMDB link, just watch it and don’t go looking for spoilers) Sure, I’m late to the party… but that just means I got to binge it, so it balances out. This Showtime series debuted in 2021 and follows a group of girls and women in two timelines — one in the 90s when the plane carrying their high school soccer team to national championships crashes in the Canadian wilderness, and the other in present day as the women piece together their lives. If you like the mystery of Pretty Little Liars and the brutality of American Primeval (which I also watched this month!) you will love this show. Right now the first season is on Netflix or the whole show is available to watch with a Showtime subscription.
Movie: My Dead Friend Zoe (official website link) This movie premiers TODAY! Jason gets tickets to “blind screenings” of upcoming movies where all we know is what it’s rated, and you don’t find out what film it is until it starts. We thought maybe based on the R rating and the timing that we’d be seeing The Monkey, but what we ended up with was a beautiful and poignant film written and directed by a veteran who wanted to tell the story of two of his platoon members who had died. This film covers themes of war, of course, as well as PTSD, grief, and aging. Zoe is, as you may have guessed by the title of the film, dead. Her titular character is played by Natalie Morales, who I remember talking on TikTok about how hard it is to get funding for small films let alone getting eyes on them after they’re out in the world. If you have a chance, do yourself a favor and go see it — the actors who brought this piece of art to life deserve for you to see their fantastic performances. Starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, and Morgan Freeman.
Reading
Book: Die, My Love (link to publisher website) I’ll be honest, I hated this book. I don’t know if I’ve ever disliked a reading experience more. A short read translated to English, the prose follows an extremely mentally ill woman’s experience with (possibly?) postpartum depression and full-blown psychosis. However, it has been adapted into an upcoming film starring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, and LaKeith Stanfield, who always deliver. I’m very interested to see how exactly they adapt the inner monologue of one unstable woman into a motion picture, so I think (hope!) it will differ from the source material quite a bit but time will tell. Stay tuned for my take on that, I guess!
Eating
Recipe: Sue Li’s Beef & Cabbage (YouTube link, if you have a NYT subscription you can find the written recipe online) This recipe is a slam dunk, super easy, and works well with chicken too. Yes, I’m eating meat again! I started in anticipation of my trip to Kenya just so that I could fully experience everything that was offered to me.
Looking forward
Make sure you are on my email list for the official drop of my latest creation, coming in my March email newsletter.
That’s all for now! See ya next month!