Jun-Jul 2025

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It’s been a very strange month. As seems to happen every month for the past few months, it was both the best and the worst. I’ve had a difficult time truly thinking about or processing all of what has been happening to me, so I would like to apologize in advance because I know that this month’s entry will be scattered and relatively vague. Here’s to being open and vulnerable but not too concerning, I hope, because I really am doing better, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

What happened this month?? Well, I went to fucking Japan. And I couldn’t stop thinking about Frances Ha. I know I’m always quoting that movie, but Sophie saying “Japan, bitch” is one of my favorite one-liner quotes. It was an incredible trip filled with beautiful sites, sprawling greenery seen like a sped up strip of film, time to explore a strange fantastical place with my favorite person (for today), and learning to let go and allow myself to be expressive in order to have fun with a group of strangers with a mutual lack of understanding. There was so much incredible food. It was the best trip of my life, despite having to constantly fight off surrounding anxieties. I was artistically motivated as well. Being surrounded by beautiful scenery in every direction, rural and urban, and by people that supported and encouraged me made me feel very brave in allowing myself to shoot everything. I got a new lens for my DSLR while in Japan as well, and I started to figure out color grading to an extent. All of the pictures from below are from that trip.

I watched my brother become a doctor this month as well. It was a great thing, even if all ceremonies suck torture. But seeing how happy he was and the love his colleagues had for him really warmed me. I don’t talk much about him, but out of my entire family, I am proud to be related to Dominic. He works so hard constantly, is so driven, but is one of the kindest souls I have ever met. If every physician had the care and passion that he does woweewow.

I also became a doctor this month. Like for real for real. It sounds wrong. I shouldn’t be allowed to have this title lol. Luckily I don’t feel confident or competent enough to let that title go to my head. It’s nice to have a neutral prefix to my name though.

Oh yeah, and I officially moved to Washington. It doesn’t feel real either, and I’m certainly not adjusted. Not in the way that people normally think of being adjusted – sleeping isn’t an issue, my eating, when I do eat, has begun to be on a regular schedule. I know I haven’t adjusted because every time I look at the clock, I add three hours. My body is on the West coast, but my brain is still in the East. A lot of that is because there are still large parts of my life stuck in the East, and I need to consider that, but I wonder how long it’ll take before my mind settles and starts to think of here as ‘home’.

I’ve been having lots of weird feelings, negative self-talk, that sort of thing. I will have waves of confidence while ‘on the job’, but anytime I start to feel confident there’s a part of my brain that tries to put me in my place. Like how dare you feel good about where you are when you can (and should) be better? Like by feeling good about myself means that I think I’m better than other people. So I feel bad about being judgmental and internally condescending towards people. It’s been a long time since I felt these feelings this strongly. And it’s definitely a sign that I need to slow down, take definitive action to add intent to the things that I do. Last time this happened was at the end of college. It’s puzzling to think about how these things move in cycles. This has happened before, shouldn’t I be prepared? What did I do to get through it then? If this is familiar, why does it still feel so debilitating? How long will this last? And what’s cool is that there is no answer. Last time there was no quick fix or one solution. I was miserable, and I was miserable for a really long time. But I made it out alive. I found someone who gave me hope (and still does). And for a brief period of time, I had a group of friends that supported me. For now, I want to take a deep breath, grab my moment of quiet, and when I learn to cohabitate with the parts of my brain that are trying to pull itself apart like string cheese, I will look up and lock eyes with someone(s) who are willing to take me in and allow me the space to grow.

I bought a lot of music this month. Mostly in Japan. Some in Washington. I bought enough that the entire mix this month is pulled from recent additions. By far the one I’m most excited about is Yves Tumor’s Serpent Music. It’s genius. It’s beautiful. It’s powerful. It’s… not available anywhere on streaming. It’s also super out of print. So I’ve been listening to it again and again; it’s been one of my major sources of comfort this month. Especially because I haven’t been reading a ton. I finished a brief history of time, and it was just as good as the last time I read it. That work still has the ability to make me feel small and insignificant *non-derogatory*. Other than that, I am about half-way through James Joyce’s Dubliners, and that collection is certainly hitting a bit harder than the last time that I read it. Now I can more intuitively understand the beauty of his writing, the emotion and relatability to emotional epiphanies. Something I may have mentioned in the past couple months (I’m too lazy to look back) is the power of the subconscious, especially in endeavors that involve discovery, whether they are artistic, scientific, or personal growth. Turn your brain off, walk away, don’t think about it, and that’s when things become clear – through the periphery. Joyce captures this well, and when it hits, it really hits hard. I’ve been watching more movies since I’ve moved, too, but nothing noteworthy to talk about. You can follow along on my Letterboxd if you want to see what I’m getting down with. No ratings or reviews, it’s just documenting what I’m watching.

It feels like an abrupt ending here, but I’m out of things to say. I’ve been very tired, and my thoughts have been pulled in so many directions over the past month. I’m hoping things settle down soon to some kind of normal. I’m ready to settle into quiet routine, if that’s still attainable for me.

creative corner

i Will write another song this year, mark my words

currently enjoying

listening

• David Bowie – Low
• Yves Tumor – Serpent Music
• The Slits – Cut
• The Fall – The Wonderful and Frightening World Of…
• Tara Clerkin Trio – In Spring
• Fennesz – Endless Summer

watching

• Hacks
• The Bear
• Ru Paul's Drag Race

reading

• James Joyce – Dubliners

I love you. I hope to hear from you soon.

~ani~

May-Jun 2025

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It’s been a wild, wild month. May specifically has given me the highest highs I have felt in a while, as well as the lowest lows. My diploma ceremony for dental school was this past month. Have I graduated? Am I a doctor? Not exactly. Actually, not at all. I should be by the end of June, though. There’s a lot of weird feelings I hold about that. It’s constantly looming overhead – it feels as though it is reaching through me and holding me back from moving forward by my small intestine. I get cut if I ignore it, and I get cut if I think too much about it. Somewhere in the middle is actionable goals, and when I’m having anxiety attacks, I’ve been writing everything I’m scared of in that moment and creating a list of actionable items that can help me out. It’s not perfect, and often I still don’t end up completing my list, at least not right away, but it has helped me feel like I have more agency. My little list allows me to get over the tidal wave of thoughts and anxiety, it releases my stomach from the bear trap it keeps falling into.

Two of my best friends got married this month. That’s where all of the pictures below came from this time. It was so beautiful. It was honestly, I think, the most memorable night of my life. For so long, I felt outside of it all. Outside of my body, outside of the group, hyperaware of who I’m with, how I’m acting. Am I doing and saying the right thing? Is everyone around me having a good time? Does it seem to everyone else that I’m having a good time? For a day, that all dropped away. I looked up and I was surrounded with people I love, celebrating the two best people I know, that we all love, and I was there. I was in it. Both literally and figuratively. I didn’t compromise on what I wanted to wear, how I wanted to look. And I was surrounded by people who were glad that I was Ani. That was a really nice change of pace.

It's nice to reflect on this after road-tripping to Spokane with my dad this past week. At graduation, I was Dr. Ani Wells. One of the most significant moments of my life and my parents got to see me choose who I am. I hope they saw the light in my eye as I walked across that stage, and as my friends came up to me afterwards and said my name. This has pushed my mom to, again, try to avoid deadnaming me by not referring to me by name (to my face) at all. After she deadnamed me in a group chat with my dad, I changed my contact card to notify and ask people if they want to update my information in their phone. I did this because I have seen that my parents never did it on their own. It’s going to be tough to convince me you’re trying if you didn’t think to take that easy step to set up a visual reminder. So I tried to force them to change it. I can see that my dad selected the change because the picture for my contact changed. My name is still the same. I’m 80% sure his phone changed the name for him and he changed it back. That hurts a lot lol.

I decided to actively try and cultivate a new friendship this month, too, funnily enough. We’ve known each other for a long time, bonding from outside the party, and we had hung out a number of times, but never really pushed to really be friends. It’s been nice to have that (a not-Lynn) that I can use to make all the same points to that Lynn has heard already (mostly joking). In reality though, it’s been incredibly validating and heartwarming to get closer to someone – it doesn’t happen often, and it often doesn’t happen deeply.

Media consumption this month has been fairly minimal, given the stress and time commitment of everything else that’s been going on around me. Music-wise, I’ve been mostly looking for things to calm me down. Surprise, surprise, Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill by Grouper has been a near daily listen for me. The feeling of distance on that record is so captivating, it always feels like I’m listening to her underwater or that she’s on the other side of the lake separated by a thick gray fog. Of all the albums, if I could wrap myself up in any of them, that one would be it. Hyper-recently I’ve also been listening to Souvlaki on repeat. There’s something I find comforting in being covered in sound it seems.

I barely watched any movies in May. I simply didn’t feel I had the time or the mental capacity to really sit and pay attention for 90+ minutes at a time. Before leaving, I made sure to rewatch Perks – it’s another comfort movie for me, even if it makes me feel like rotting garbage, and it’s the perfect love letter to this city that I’ve called home my whole life. I’ve talked before about my relations with that movie, so I won’t drone on about it here. I will, however, drone on a little bit about I Saw the TV Glow. After being begged for 6 months or more by Lynn, I finally allowed her to share the movie with me, and it was a really wonderful Basically Last Memory in Pittsburgh with her. The visuals were stunning, the colors and the cinematography both capture emotion so well without being too in your face. The story and the writing were heartwarming and heartbreaking. I love movies that quietly speak to who you are, and this one feels like it did just that. Perhaps I’ll have more to share on inevitable subsequent viewings.

I’ve spent a lot of time this month in hotels and airports, prime reading locations for me. I finally finished Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life by Alan Kaprow. Woweeee the last couple of essays in the collection were wonderful. I don’t know if I was just in the mood for reading them or what, but I found them incredibly inspiring. I can’t remember the details so well now because it was two weeks ago, and I didn’t make too many notes about it, so what I say will be rather sparse. I really liked what he was talking about of the separation of art from art contexts, that the logical progression of experimental art as it distances itself from the art world and is more inspiring by daily life things is for it to distance itself from the galleries and the theaters, eventually separating itself from the audience as well. In this instance, the artist begins to merge with the audience, and the art is the experience that you have while simultaneously making and experiencing the art. I’m not going to pretend like I fully understand the idea or represent it well here, but I liked the idea of creating art for yourself and allowing yourself to be affected by it as an audience, not just the artist. A quote I want to share as well deals with the idea of art and life becoming more entangled with each other, more difficult to separate and determine where one ends and one begins. The quote was, “we may see the overall meaning of art change profoundly – from being an end to being a means, from holding out a promise of perfection in some other realm to demonstrating a way of living meaningfully in this one.” Those lines really left an impact on me. I felt it speaks to how I want to view creation in my own life; I want to do it for the sake of doing it, to help me understand my own life. The process is the goal, not the product.

I spent my time in Nebraska to begin reading some Willa Cather. I intended to read My Ántonia, but I misread page numbers and read One of Ours instead. It took me a while to get into, even with the beautifully descriptive language. After a while, I finally got invested in the character and really sympathized with the main character searching for purpose while being tied to his family that has different ideals, different thoughts on what he should do with his life and aspire to be. Finally he finds his purpose when he picks up and leaves, moving across the ocean, even if it’s for dirty ugly nasty war. Either way, I’m excited to dig deeper into Cather’s works. I like reading stuff that validates my view that the grassland of this country are beautiful.

My favorite book I read this month though? Blindsight by Peter Watts. It’s not even close. Big shoutout to Lynn who’s been yelling at me about this book for years now and for lending me her copy. The language was so dense and aggressively vivid. It was an onslaught of prose, heavy with the science. It was a super cool mix of horror and sci-fi, reminding me a bit of Alien or The Thing. It was so anxiety inducing and existential dread causing. Highly highly recommend if you’re looking for a unique read.

creative corner

have you listened to the demos i made before??

currently enjoying

listening

• Talking Heads first five albums
• Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg
• Grouper – Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
• Brian Eno – Ambient 1: Music for Airports
• Life Without Buildings – Any Other City
• The Velvet Underground – White Light/White Heat

watching

• Jane Schoenbrun – I Saw the TV Glow

reading

• Peter Watts – Blindsight
• Willa Cather – One of Ours
• Alan Kaprow – Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life

I love you. I hope to hear from you soon.

~ani~

Apr-May 2025

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Another month past, and it was another month where I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to publish. Everything has come together now, but there were a solid couple of weeks where I figured without divine intervention, we wouldn’t be where we are.

This month was bookended with trips to visit dear dear friends Steven and Bri in Philadelphia. Both trips have made me sick to my stomach with anxiety because I still have clinical requirements to complete, but feeling guilty about taking time for myself and seeing friends is counterproductive. Weekends like these have been instrumental in solidifying my self-image and boosting my confidence a little. I have been very nervous regarding big events – events celebrating me, my friends, and our accomplishments and lives. But I keep being hyper-aware about how I’m perceived, the seeming lack of acceptance (or bare minimum level of effort) I’ve received from people that will be around at these events.

It's been starting to hit me that I need to begin saying bye to people and that it’s truly the last time(s) that I’ll be able to see them in any kind of convenient way for the foreseeable future. I actually full on cried for the first time in I don’t know how long thinking about not being able to cook dinner with Lynn – it’s a small thing that feels so routine, but thinking about not having it in my life anymore made evident the substantial joy it brings to my daily life. With that being said, I’m maybe hoping to have some kind of going away party. You’re all invited. Everyone you know is going to be there. They hope you’ll come.

My watching this month feels like it’s been supremely deficient. Aside from ripping through Bob’s Burgers like it’s no one’s business (I’m loving it, by the way), I decided I want to dedicate myself to watching/studying more queer cinema. That was first put into action with a rewatch of Pink Flamingoes. This time it truly hit, like godDAMN. It’s infinitely quotable and clever – funny in a way so few other movies are. I also rewatched Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman. The gays have a way of embodying humor in everything they do. It’s definitely a survival mechanism, but I always find myself resonating with it. There’s something about a shared queer experience I’ve realized that even before I really understood who I was, I found myself gravitating towards these types of stories and the people that tell them. My subconscious is always clocking me before I even know it fr fr. But The Watermelon Woman is another example of peak 90s queer cinema – funny, esthetic as fugg, heartbreaking, stupid good fashion. Check it and get back to me.

Huge thing that happened this month is that I found a PS4… in my building’s garbage… fully functioning… with Uncharted 4 in the disc drive… maybe that’s why I haven’t been watching as many movies. I’m not certain right now how many hours I’ve played, but I have gotten significantly more comfortable moving around and intuiting next steps etc. I always said I didn’t have the coordination required to play videogames, but I’m slowly starting to learn. It’s been endearing and exciting to connect with friends on a different level, too. After years of feeling left out of conversations when they turn to videogames, I will have a small window of entry now. And I love seeing people’s eyes light up when I ask them for recommendations. So – if you have any PS4 games I have to check out, as always, hit my line.

Listening, I have declared Summer 2025 to be Neil Young Summer. I’ve finally come to appreciate his solo work, and it’s influence on so much indie music I love from the 90s to present day is very palpable. I feel like a proper dad, but damn I love it, and I don’t care who knows! Specifically his run of albums from 1969 to 1975 has very few misses song to song, and if you feel the sun on your face in the next few weeks, I suggest listening to some Neil Young.

This month also started with me finally getting to see Still House Plants live and goodgoddamn they did not disappoint. The tectonic force that is each of the members was made even more apparent live, and their ability to lock in while playing parts so disparate was even more mind blowing with the band 15 feet in front of me. The moment I was awaiting for the past 5 years finally became a reality, and I have no notes.

I finished two more books this month: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Philip K. Dick’s The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. The latter blew me away – it was a super fun read that broke down the nature of consciousness and reality in a way that really resonated with me, and some of the ideas and images brought forward would leave me stunned for a few minutes. It was a pleasant surprise because the Man in the High Castle was a supremely boring, lackluster piece of “I bet you saw This coming, hmmmm???” literature that really ground my gears. Which is a lovely transition to Brave New World. I have some friends who have loved this book, so I’ll be gentle. I was disappointed. I was bored. I didn’t vibe with its conservative “can you believe no one cares about religion anymore?? Or FAMILIES???” messaging. That bit was all too familiar to everything all the people in my life 60 years and older have been yelling about to The Youths for my entire life, and I just did not find it engaging or interesting. But that’s just me.

Finally, a little update on art making. As mentioned previously, one of my BFFs Steven (and Bri!) is getting married, and we get to play a short set at his wedding. It has been super fun to play bass again, especially in a group setting. I have a hard time motivating myself to play without that external motivator. I also finally got my first roll of film developed from my new (to me) SLR! Some of my favorite pictures are below, but in general I learned two things: 1) My manual focusing still leaves a lot to be desired and 2) I kind of hate Kodak Gold 200 outside of some very specific circumstances. If it is not a bright, sunny day, I really don’t want to be using this film stock. Most obviously that’s for practical reasons since it is such a low ISO film, but also because I think the way colors are rendered on cloudy days looks like dookie. But that’s just one girl’s opinion. Hopefully the expired Fuji 400 I have in there now turns out some results for me to share next month.

Overall, things don’t feel like they’ve changed all that month from last month. I’ve had more good moments with some people I haven’t seen in a long time, and I’ve been appreciating the time I’m spending with people I see all the time a little bit more. Next month will be a cyclone of emotions, so if you reach out or have trouble getting in touch, know that I care about you, and it’s not on purpose. Big kisses to all.

creative corner

maybe in june

currently enjoying

listening

• Neil Young 1969-1975
• Buffy Sainte-Marie – It's My Way
• Yoko Ono – Approximately Infinite Universe
• Laura Nyro – New York Tendaberry

watching

• John Waters – Pink Flamingos
• Cheryl Dunye – The Watermelon Woman

reading

• Philip K. Dick – The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
• Stephen Hawking – A Brief History of Time

I love you. I hope to hear from you soon.

~ani~

Mar-Apr 2025

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updates

Another month gone by, and things are beginning to thaw out. I’ve always said I enjoy fall and winter and that the gray doesn’t bother me, but these first days of spring when the temperature rises, and you can feel the sun on your face do sure hit real good. Some of my favorite memories from March have been those times where I got to walk home, listen to music, and reminisce about the days when the rising temperature meant upcoming summer break and porch beers with friends.

I feel as though every month when I go through my notes and reflect on what has happened, it all feels so distant, as if I’m reading the memoir of someone in the same situations as me that isn’t me. I can remember the circumstances, empathize with the narrator, but it doesn’t feel as though it was me who felt those feelings and did those things. Because I usually feel the necessity to write while experiencing overwhelming or debilitating sadness, I used to view this as a good thing. A way to reflect and remember the darkest moments that didn’t last. But it’s still a weird out of body sensation to read my own handwriting so matter of factly, unable to truly feel those same emotions.

It's been a big month – one that caused me more stress than I’ve felt since towards the beginning of tooth school. I completed and presented my senior case project. I became board certified. I began applying for my Washington state dental license. As I’m writing this, I just returned from a trip to Spokane where I found an apartment, saw the clinics, and met the people I’ll be working with starting this summer. The highs are always accompanied by lows, though, and I struggled a lot this month, most significantly with how I am seen by other people, especially those close to me, and how that affects what I can and can’t say or do. The idea that I don’t have much control over how others think of me has always been a struggle for me, not because I feel like I need to be liked by everyone, but because I have a certain image of myself and my likes and who I am, and it hurts when I feel mischaracterized or distilled into someone I’m not, and it’s even more jarring when it’s someone I consider as knowing me very well. I’ve been trying very hard recently at generally “being better”, and it’s been frustrating to feel like that hasn’t been seen. Though now it seems like I’m whining for not getting due credit. I hope I’m getting my point across.

This isn’t to say I don’t struggle with how I view myself. Do you feel that you are full of contradictions? That there are two versions of you fighting for power? I don’t feel this way per se, though I am constantly surprising myself, positively and negatively. Of course, I have accomplished incredible things. I have made it to the other side when I was certain things were over for me. I have created art things that are, at minimum, good. I have pushed myself beyond what I thought I was capable of and succeeded. But so often, I experience the flip side of this. I am surprised at the things I do, potentially irredeemable acts that I have done – actions that until they happen, I think never would. I am surprised at my capacity for vile thoughts. Thoughts that typically do not progress beyond thoughts, but it sickens me at times to know that I am capable of them.

On this subject, I recognize that I am always my own biggest obstacle. This is an oft repeated phrase, but I personally feel as though it is often stated as a form of motivation – You are the only person/obstacle/barrier you need to overcome. I understand now how evil and cunning and destructive that opponent often is. And I can’t tell if I am inspired by this realization, or if I feel even more defeated. Because of course, I am in control of my own actions (supposedly), but if I’m in control how can I be so vile, so retched – if I truly view myself as a person, one who is deserving of love and kindness, how could I treat myself the way I sometimes do? Beyond thoughts. My actions are evil when viewed externally. I could never treat another person that way, so what does that say about the way that I view myself? That’s a though that has never fully consciously been realized. That’s one evil I have yet to be capable of – I hope I’m not surprised by it in the future.

Here's the dilemma – I do love myself. Or at least rationally I do. I recognize that I am deserving of love. And I think I hide from how destructive I can be because I never out loud say how worthless I subconsciously seem to think I am. No living creature is completely ravished by another while still respecting them and valuing their worth. So, the question stands: If I truly feel that I am valued, if I truly value myself, how have I been able to continuously enact a plan of extinction? My actions are as concealed to myself as my feelings – no other enemy could be so effectively inconspicuous and ruthless. This is the paradox I have to deal with at the moment. Maybe solving this puzzle will help me take bigger steps towards healing the part of me that seemingly wants me buried alive.

In a series of essays “The Education of the Un-Artist”, Allan Kaprow first brings up the idea of art necessarily imitating life and ‘reality’ in order to advance. That art will naturally become increasingly more similar to life until they are (nearly) indistinguishable. He argues that experimental art, and the work of his idea of “un-artists”, needs to follow this pathway. I disagree with this for many reasons, the main one being that this idea is a touch ridiculous. Of course, this was the focus of his art. His happenings were intended to eventually be completely indistinguishable from everyday life. While generally I agree with the sentiment that anything presented in an art context can be art, he takes this idea to the extreme. I, at this moment, cannot fully agree with the sentiment that something is art just because it is labeled as such – specifically in the sense of naturally occurring or societal events. Witnessing the flow of rush hour traffic and how people manage and move with it and deciding to call it art does not for me instantly make it such. These phenomena resemble art, but without a guiding hand, cannot be art. In this scenario it is my opinion that the civil engineering and design and direction of people would be the art, but not the movement of the people themselves. Does this make any sense? Please talk to me about this if you wish. I can send you the essays I’m referencing.

I started writing about this idea though because of another idea brought up in the context of the un-artist, and that is the idea of reintroducing play into one’s practice and life and profession. I’ve talked briefly before about wanting to do this in my own life, but I believe he articulated it a bit better than I did. I mentioned that I want to create without an end goal in mind, without any expectation. Kaprow describes this with the idea of play vs. game, two things often seen as synonyms. He describes that difference as “Play… offers satisfaction, not in some stated practical outcome, some immediate accomplishment, but rather in continuous participation as its own end. Taking sides, victory, and defeat, all irrelevant in play, are the chief requisites of game. In play, one is carefree; in a game one is anxious about winning.” I had never thought about mine, and many others’, approach to art as a game, but in this context it makes a lot of sense. And again, I am inspired to continue to strive for this carefree attitude with my own creative pursuits.

What I find equally compelling is the application of this idea to life. The idea that you have to get ahead or accomplish certain things to be successful. The focus on power as a measure of success and ultimately happiness. That there are “winners” and “losers” in all aspects of life. This game mentality is pervasive in our society. It’s in our idea of family, the workplace, politics. Even in leftist circles that supposedly reject these power structures, there is a focus on being the most progressive, the most accepting, having the most labels; it can feel like a competition, and the penalty for breaking any unspoken rule, sometimes no matter how seemingly trivial, is ostracization.

As everything falls to shit and individuals become increasingly isolated, this focus on game and success, especially as it pertains to individuals, will continue to divide. Acceptance comes from community. Safety comes from community. Security comes from community. I don’t believe anyone can be happy with a game mentality – I have only seen it as a vicious cycle with consistent potential for personal and societal destruction.

This is of course an oversimplification of so many things, but I believe this change in the way that I think will be necessary for me to be that little bit happier and climb out of the Pit of Despair I seem to continuously find myself in.

Phew – now on to the fun stuff. I’ve read a bit more this month. Two standouts were A Breath of Life by Clarice Lispector and A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre. I have mentioned Clarice Lispector before, but she really blew me away with this latest read, and I feel it will color how I go back and read her other works. Everything I have read of hers so far as been extremely heady, that is the prose mostly takes place inside people’s thoughts and feelings. A Breath of Life starts with the sentence, “This is not a lament, it’s the cry of a bird of prey.” I’m sorry??? I am not well. The best opening sentence of any novel I have ever read perhaps. She proceeds from here to build a web of inner dialogue between two different parts of the narrator’s brain, but the parts are separated so that one is created as a whole new person, who goes about their own life and writes about it, which the narrator then edits and shares his thoughts on. The prose switches between these two perspectives quickly, often after a paragraph or two, sometimes after a single sentence. Clarice Lispector can describe the dark thoughts that lie deep in the mind in an indirect, almost impressionistic way. She doesn’t say exactly what it is, but if you’ve been there it cuts straight through you. It is dizzying, but illuminating, and very obviously inspired a significant section of this month’s writing.

A Leopard-Skin Hat is another work that is communicated entirely through thoughts and ideas. It is the narrative of a long friendship between the Narrator and Fanny, who struggles with her mental health. It is told in third person, but the Narrator is only referred two as that – it is very much so his perspective that is being told, but it’s not directly his voice. It was jarring until I got used to this style, but I was rewarded with a deeply effective short novel exploring the depths of human emotion, often investigating some of our darkest thoughts. It’s starting to make sense why I was so in my head and moody these past few weeks.

I started to (re) get into some of the short film works of Peter Tscherkassky. They’re similarly assaulting, definitely don’t watch if you’re affected by flashing lights. I had the chance to watch a few on my parents’ Big Television, with the lights turned off, and I don’t think I blinked. They’re another example of me not really understanding what’s going on, but I sure do Feel Something afterwards. It’s fast. It’s freaky. It’s affecting. Check it out if you find yourself appreciating the weirder parts of David Lynch’s work or you just like experiencing new things. If you’re familiar, or interested in watching and talking about these weird, fascinating short movies – talk to me. You know how to find me.

creative corner

try again next month

currently enjoying

listening

• Radiator Hospital / Martha – Split EP
• Destroyer – Kaputt
• Gastr Del Sol – Camofleur

watching

• Peter Tscherkassky's Short Films on Mubi
• Luca Guadagnino – Challengers
• Magnus Von Horn – The Girl With the Needle
• Al Warren – Dogleg

reading

• Clarice Lispector – A Breath of Life
• Anne Serre – A Leopard-Skin Hat
• Allan Kaprow – Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life
• Stephen Hawking – A Brief History of Time

I love you. I hope to hear from you soon.

~ani~

Feb-Mar 2025

monthly mix spotify

monthly mix apple music

updates

How do you deal with potential cognitive dissonances in your own life? Subconsciously, I think that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out this past month. Many things feel like they’re happening to or around me. Life has been incredibly overwhelming. It seems like I’m mostly taking it in stride, but at the same time I’ve been fairly checked out. It’s been a rough stretch for essentially the past three weeks. Every day, except for maybe two or three days, something has happened. Occasionally a minor inconvenience. Sometimes emotionally catastrophic. But for the most part, I’ve taken it as it comes. “Let’s get after it” has become a sort of mantra. Not in a toxic productivity kind of way, more in the “today has the potential to be good” kind of way. More often than not, it hasn’t been good, but I’m still along for the ride. Not necessarily enjoying the ride, but I’m hopeful I’ll “get it” son enough. A lot of people have said it’s worth it.

At the same time, one big realization from February (that’s obvious now) is that I really need time to figure out how I’m feeling, especially to articulate exactly what is going on. I’m talking about beyond “good” or “bad”. I often wander a bit until I run into the correct description suddenly, finding light in the dark. I often wander a bit inside my head until the light comes on, and I’m staring directly into the emotion’s eyes.

This has essentially been where my head was for the past month. If you’re having trouble deciphering if I’m doing alright, if it’s authentic optimism or if I’ve checked out and am hanging on for dear life, if I’m horribly depressed but oblivious and in denial, then take a ticket, have a seat, we’ll call your number soon. I think they’re on 14? My ticket says 256, but people say it moves quick.

As previously mentioned, my perception of reality has been that things are happening at me; I don’t have much agency to affect life as it surrounds me. This has translated to a period of relative stasis. There has been very little creative output or consumption. I wrote a poem for the first time, actually focusing on the cadence and tone of the words and phrases, trying to ensure they convey the same message. This is something I admire in nearly all my favorite writing of others, and it has always felt unattainable for me. Even though it was on such a small scale, I am still proud and feel like I’ve grown and truly accomplished something.

Another thing I’ve noticed recently is that I’m finally starting to figure out cooking. Growing up, my mother was always a recipe follower, and it was easy for me to be too because of my many science lab courses. I’ve started to be able to immediately recognize how to alter a recipe on instinct alone. And another development - one day while hanging around the apartment I was hit by a bolt of lightning. I saw the face of God. I had to make coconut rice. I worked backwards from there to put together a “menu” consisting of parmesan roasted broccoli and lemon glazed salmon. I worked hard ish on presentation, and similar to the poem, I had accomplished something that previously seemed unattainable: a little bit of creativity in the kitchen. I hope I can continue this. Cooking really does bring me a lot of joy.

I began reading a collection of essays this month that I had spent a while looking for titled Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life. More thoughts on this collection will likely be discussed next month, but for now I wanted to share an anecdote that put me at ease, and I hope will inspire me in the weeks to come. The author writes of a donkey that starves to death between two bales of hay because it cannot decide which to eat and that pursuing the idea of “best” ultimately becomes a game of avoiding the idea of the “worst”. The author states, “on the edge of such an abyss, all that is left to do is act.”

Listening this month consisted of a lot of the Fall. From the first track on Live from the Witch Trials, Mark E. Smith set his intentions and executed this vision until he died. POS person, but good lord the music is good. HTRK’s Marry Me Tonight carried me through several days. ML Buch’s Suntub floored me. I got back into Joanne Robertson and allowed Adrianne Lenker to soothe me when I got anxious or sad or scared (all too often). But mostly I just listened to Frightened by the Fall.

I’ve been watching Severance and The Pitt, and I’ve started rewatching Succession (late at night by myself since the former two I’ve committed to watching with Lynn). They’re all good, just very very well written overall. If I watched any movies in February, I don’t remember them. Again, it’s been a slow month for me.

Setting goals for the next month will be hard. I have a huge assignment due. I’m taking the last parts of my dental boards. I have tons of lab work to do. I’m going to be traveling for a weekend. But still, I want to finish off the roll of film I started in January. I want to finish some of the music I’ve been working on. I want to read and finish some of the five books I’m currently reading. It’s only the second month, but it feels like the end of the year. I’m already experiencing that sense of lost time. But we persevere. We push on. I have to allow myself to choose an imperfect bale of hay. Let’s get after it.

creative corner

still no new music this month

currently enjoying

listening

• ML Buch – Suntub
• HTRK – Marry Me Tonight
• Joanne Robertson – Blue Car
• Julie Doiran – Broken Girl
• The Upsetters – The Return of the Super Ape

watching

• Toshio Matsumoto – Funeral Parade of Roses

reading

• Allan Kaprow – Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life

I love you. I hope to hear from you soon.

~ani~

Jan-Feb 2025

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monthly mix apple music

updates

It’s been a very long, very trying month, one that I am very glad is over, as arbitrary of a marker as that is. For all of the past week, I was pretty sure there was not going to be an addition this month. I was certain there just wasn’t enough time - I hadn’t laid enough of the foundation to build a full entry; I wasn’t working throughout the month and it was going to be My Stress V. the Clock to get it out on time, and that was the opposite of what I wanted for this project. This isn’t supposed to be an additional stressor, one more “thing to do” on top of everything that I’m already doing. I believe it was stated before, but I’ll say it again – the purpose of this site is first to get me up, out of my head, and primed to create something, and second because I thought building a site like this would be really fucking cool. This month, for some reason unexpectedly, put that to the test in a big way. In the midst of my crisis about if this was going to be published or not, I was reckoning with the possibility that I would have to really analyze and adjust my relationship with this project. Why? Because depression is a nasty beast that wraps you up and whispers in your ear that this is your reality – there exists only the overwhelming emotions you’re holding and the distractions from that. At the same time, the Spritely Depression convinces you to lean into bad habits, indulge in a negative sense, turn on and tune out. It perpetuates itself, and like a tooth being pulled, the worst is often the moment before things get better. Post(-ish) depression and crisis clarity is telling me that this project is very doable. Because some of the times that I felt the most like me and a real person this past month was when I was intentionally getting myself intellectually and physically “out there” to feed this website. It’s a start. These are things that I enjoy doing, it is mostly a matter of taming the beast and getting myself to do them.

Some good from this month is that I’ve really taken some steps to take better care of myself. I at breakfast every day this week. I worked ahead on a few school things. I’ve kept my apartment mostly clean, partially by instituting some habits to make that a little bit more effortless. I tackled some big scary mini-talks I had been avoiding. I listened to more new music and watched (mostly actively) some new movies. I’ve significantly reduced my drinking. I did yoga like three times this past week. I put myself out there socially a little bit. And I officially got accepted into the residency in Spokane, Washington. Holy shit, I am terrified, but so excited. A lot of my fear comes from the impending near total isolation in a near foreign land with a nearly different culture. It’s going to be the most physically alone I have ever been, and the farthest I’ve been from people I can wrangle for an easy or quick hangout. But I’m going to be doing cool stuff, I just hope I can get myself outside and find the people around town worth being around.

For some of what I’ve been consuming, let’s do a quick recap. I’m still reading A People’s History of the United States and Ocean of Sound – two works that I’m seriously taking my time with and attempting to pull as much out of a possible. I finished Mieko Kawakami’s Breast and Eggs (incredible). I began rereading To the Lighthouse (incredible). As someone who is fascinated by the idea of alternatively perceived realities, Virginia Woolf’s writing scratches the itch of constantly wanting to know what is going on in other people’s minds. I began reading Sally Rooney’s Normal People (I don’t get it, even though it’s well written and I find it decently enjoyable). The new FKA Twigs album is very very good. I got super into Terry Riley. Not all of his work, but his Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band. Taken from an all night performance sometime in the late 60s, it’s a beautifully crafted piece built from Riley’s saxophone and tape loops. It’s gorgeous and transportive and one of the most modern sounding drone works I’ve heard from that side of 1985. I also got reacquainted with Brian Eno’s Before and After Science, a record I put on when I need to be reminded to just have fun with the process, and the joy you experience making the art will often translate to joy that is felt when interacting with that art. It’s never that serious. I watched a lot of movies in January. Nosferatu (2024) was disappointing. Kim’s Video was bad and annoying. Fallen Angels and In the Mood for Love did not live up to my adoration of Chungking Express (though they’re both still gorgeous). Kurosawa’s High and Low was a masterclass in framing and blocking and quiet drama building similar to 12 Angry Men. Jiro Dreams of Sushi was my favorite watch, inspiring an awe of anyone who is disciplined enough to become a master of their craft, and gifting me the desire to have an unhealthy work ethic that thankfully I do not feel I have the ability to execute.

With this new project front and center in my brain, it makes sense that the main thoughts rattling around in my brain for the past few weeks have ben about creation and my relation to that. Since I was a child, I identified as an artist, but it came a lot easier as a kid, and that idea has been causing me a lot of grief this past month. Thought like Why? Was I less self-conscious? Did I have more time and energy? Was it because I didn’t have easy access to consumables like music and television/movies? When did I stop making things? How did it stop becoming the main way I keep myself busy and entertained? How do I find that ease of creation again? The reality that I had stopped making art and seemingly lost the energy to even try made me profoundly sad. So what do I do? The answer for now lies in my love of Before and After Science and my evolving relationship with this project. I need to let it be fun. It will be difficult to rewire my dopamine pathways back to creative endeavors, but I’m trying, and slowly it’s starting to show. Very slowly. Even at the beginning of the month, I knew that I really wanted to focus on just doing things and not caring about the end product or parading it around for praise. So I bought some fabric and over the course of a day, learned enough about the sewing machine I had bought 2 years ago to make a shirt. I loved it. A pure act of creation. Fabric alchemy. The shirt doesn’t fit right. The pieces are cut unevenly. The stitching is incredibly messy. But a shirt exists where one did not before. Because of me. And that is magical. And it made me happy.

creative corner

no new music this month

currently enjoying

listening

• Terry Riley – Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band
• Brian Eno – Before and After Science
• Various Artists – Mono No Aware
• Josephine Foster – Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You
• FKA Twigs – Eusexua

watching

• David Gelb – Jiro Dreams of Sushi
• Akira Kurosawa – High and Low
• Rachel Lambert – Sometimes I Think About Dying

reading

• Mieko Kawakami – Breast and Eggs
• David Toop - Ocean of Sound

I love you. I hope to hear from you soon.

~ani~

2024-Jan 2025

monthly mix spotify

monthly mix apple music

updates

This has been a long, miserable, slow, stressful, powerful year full of firsts and lots I’m incredibly proud of, as well as many of my lowest moments. Throughout so much of this year, I have felt utterly helpless. I came out to my parents in July after the lowest point in (probably) my entire life – I might as well have said nothing because they still have never referred to me properly or spoken the syllables Ani. I also became aware that I have ADHD (this was professionally confirmed in October), something that, whether I was aware of it or not, has negatively affected me for a very, very long time. However, it was a (approximately) ten-month journey to finally be seen by a psychiatrist and arrive where I am now. Both of these anecdotes still have some hope attached though. This month I received a letter from my twin addressed to one Ani Wells – this was one of the first times in I-can’t-even-remember-how-long that I teared up from positive emotion (movies excluded). And! I’m medicated now! A few weeks ago (at the time of publishing) I began a starter dose of Bupropion. At the time of writing, I have finally gotten past the first week of treatment, an experience I am profoundly relieved to be finished with. For approximately five days I had a constant headache, constant nausea, and I was so goddamn grumpy, even in the best of company I couldn’t shake a constant irritation that my space was being invaded. But that part is over. I haven’t really started feeling any of the positive effects yet (again, at the time of writing), but hopefully by the time this is published things will be looking better for both my ADHD and depression.

Other firsts for this year include continuing to do new things at teeth school (and feeling more confident) as well as making the decision to move very far away from Pittsburgh. Nothing will be 100% confirmed until January 17, but it’s looking like this upcoming June I’ll be moving to Spokane, Washington, truly alone. This will be my first time moving more than one hour away from my family and my first time moving somewhere without any local support system. However, I did find out that a dear friend of mine lives only 1.5 hours from Spokane, and I am very excited at the potential to reconnect with someone I love and miss so much.

I’ve read extensively this year – the most I’ve read since 2022. I realize there was only one year between then and the start of this year, but last year I read so little that 2024 felt like a big step, not to mention that 2022 feels like it was a lifetime ago. Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad was a whirlwind of characters and their interlocking stories of trauma and casualty. I dove a bit deeper into the world of classic (pre-WWII) literature as well, finding love for Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (shout-out “book club”!!), and Melville’s Moby Dick. I also took another step into the world of Clarice Lispector, an absolutely fascinating writer from mid-century Brazil. I cannot recommend her works enough.

I fell in love with lots of movies this year as well, most notably the strange, surreal, queer-as-hell universe of Gregg Araki’s teen apocalypse trilogy. With so much in flux in my life this year and constant searching for myself, I have found great solace in movies centering teenagers, specifically Perks of Being a Wallflower and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (both Pittsburgh!) in addition to the works of Gregg Araki. There’s much to be said of the comfort I find in these films; in all of them I see outcasts within a community where they feel accepted and able to grow, an experience I wish felt more available to me at that time in my life. Not that I didn’t have friends, but it never felt that queerness could be centered in a group of friends when I was growing up, even though the undercurrents were always there. All three of us now have more fully realized our identities (and continue to grow and change) and identify as some flavor of queer.

Although my consumption flourished, I struggled more in my personal creative pursuits. I started doing more digital photography this year (21st century, whaddup), but I have barely gotten through two rolls of film (and an additional one that was loaded improperly, sacrificing images I thought were going to be some of my best ever to the void). Despite slowing down my photography, I feel more confident in my ability to create results I am actually happy with. My music and writing has slowed nearly to a stop, but that is something I am working to reverse. Moving forward, I am hoping to decentralize the results and focus more on the process. I just want to have fun with it :) and I think whatever results I end up with will do justice to that.

Reflecting back on this year, the strongest thing that I feel now is hope. Things can get better for me, and I have some level of agency in this. Things are not hopeless, and I am not helpless. That’s what I’m choosing to believe for today.

Thank you for reading this far. And thank you for caring. If you’ve ended up here, I care about you. I care about you deeply.

creative corner

link for two old songs that never saw the light of day

currently enjoying

listening

• stil house plants – if i don't make it, i love u
• destroyer – destroyer's rubies
• princ€ss – princ€ss
• fine – rocky top ballads
• grouper – all works

watching

• gregg araki – doom generation
• miranda july – me and you and everyone we know
• peter bogdanovich – paper moon

reading

• all fictional works by jorge luis borges (thank u lynn)
• karl ove knåusgard – a time for everything

I love you. I hope to hear from you soon.

~ani~