tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5758234655284425392024-03-13T20:03:06.146-05:00Notes From an Individual in a BubbleMy mission to remain unique in
a world determined to carve
out the idiosyncrasies that
make life beautiful.Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.comBlogger142125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-30637819707697927972024-03-13T20:02:00.002-05:002024-03-13T20:02:31.820-05:0033. I skipped a couple weeks here, just because life has been very busy. I actually did have things to write about both weeks, but didn't carve out the time to process and write them all out. But yesterday I turned 33. It's kind of wild and kind of scary and also kind of mundane at the same time. I threw myself a big Last Supper themed birthday party last weekend which was a blast butAleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-34295147359328207382024-02-18T23:55:00.002-06:002024-02-18T23:55:26.127-06:00Checks and balances, motherfuckers!This week I have been listening to the audiobook "We Were Eight Years In Power" by Ta-Nehisi Coates and it's had me thinking extensively about the systemic injustice cooked into the very foundation of America. Very little of it was new information, but it was freshly upsetting to hear about the different racial inequities that have been very intentionally orchestrated at all levels of government,Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-3101715825694626962024-02-11T15:30:00.001-06:002024-02-11T15:30:11.648-06:00Just A Few Books. Yesterday I participated in a book holiday called Novellus that a friend of mine created last year as a way to ease the drear of post-holiday winter. Eight of us participated and were secretly assigned gift book recipients. Then, we could go onto the website and add our personal book preferences and what we already own lots of etc. We could also send anonymous questions to our assigned Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-27663735732809498742024-02-04T21:26:00.003-06:002024-02-05T19:54:47.991-06:00On Holding Space.Something about me that most people find out pretty quickly is that I'll talk....probably beyond the bounds of social acceptability for any given situation. I actually have noticed that in public or with strangers and passersby I actually talk less than other people; I'll always use a self-checkout if one is available and I rarely go out of my way to engage with strangers. But put me in a Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-58637273674624541672024-01-28T21:54:00.001-06:002024-01-28T21:54:12.680-06:00On Luddism. I've been thinking a lot lately about the appeal of living a life that's less dependent on my phone. I have my phone set up to go into do not disturb mode for all of Saturday each week, and while I do think it has somewhat curbed my desire to waste hours of my free day scrolling mindlessly, it's still not as effective as I'd like it to be. Yesterday I tried turning my phone off for the day,Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-39293569948443056742024-01-21T21:22:00.001-06:002024-01-28T21:54:27.358-06:00On Warmth.I've spent a lot of time over the past week thinking about being warm. Mostly because it has been Texas cold for the past couple weeks, by which I mean it's dropped below freezing most nights and I've been wearing lots of layers for highs in the 40s. But some of the days had highs below freezing, too, which is objectively quite cold. So I spent a lot of time harrumphing about that and how I left Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-37873556117791216502024-01-14T13:32:00.000-06:002024-01-14T13:32:29.942-06:00What Counts As Genocide? I regularly attend a lot of monthly book clubs. Like, six (or more) each month. It might actually be too many, but it's fun to see all the different groups of people, so I will likely stick with them all for a while. I attended one on Wednesday where we read "The Lost Year" by Katherine Marsh. The book is a middle grade story that follows three narrators; a boy living through quarantine in Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-26839462400615960442024-01-07T16:50:00.003-06:002024-01-07T16:57:21.215-06:00A Thought Experiment. Last year I stayed mostly off of Instagram. Instagram is still an annoyingly necessary source of information for meetups, gatherings, and events I want to go to, so I took the app off my phone and relegated my usage mostly to the occasions I was at my computer (though as the year wound down I found myself increasingly invested in checking up on different people and re-downloaded it for Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-1569462937909401982023-01-07T15:00:00.000-06:002023-01-07T15:00:01.577-06:00New Year, New Problems.Hey Siri, play Swim Good by Frank Ocean.I actually don't have any new or pressing problems with the onset of this year, but I thought that sentence to myself earlier and it made me giggle, remembering when my friend Liam once said "Mohair, mo' problems" while knitting.I took Instagram off my phone in an attempt to spend my time in ways that feel more intentional to me. More luxurious. I still Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-15366916068046452522022-05-26T15:19:00.000-05:002022-05-26T15:19:01.773-05:00What is a Life Worth?As is true for most people in America, this week has been difficult and heavy for me. Unlike most, my week was emotionally tumultuous prior to the school shooting in Uvalde, TX on Tuesday. On Monday night I went to see Sigur Ros in concert here in Austin. You might be thinking that sounds fun rather than traumatic and you would be partly right; it was fun. Unfortunately, the reason I went to thatAleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-10300289060552372432021-02-13T16:26:00.002-06:002021-02-13T17:24:01.623-06:00On Home. Hey, hello, hi! I'm trying to flex my creative muscles more this year and one of those muscles is for writing so here we are. Besides, we all know I have plenty to say about pretty much any topic! I just need to sit down and commit to typing it all out.There have been several ideas swirling around in my brain for a few months that I want to write about but the idea of home is the one Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-22114726950264361262020-04-03T19:02:00.002-05:002020-04-03T19:02:54.366-05:00Greetings from Quarantine!Hello world!
It's been a minute. In fact, it's been nearly two years. A million and ten things have happened in these two years but the biggest thing is definitely that in February I packed up my life and loaded it all into my trusty Honda Civic, Guthrie, and went on a winding road trip all over the country before ending in Austin, Texas.
I'd been here for all of three weeks when the Covid 19 Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-30159342478328391132018-06-30T08:00:00.000-05:002018-07-02T13:46:48.895-05:00Life Update.Life has been astonishingly busy of late, and mostly that's been nice, although I could have done without the cold I think I got from not having three seconds to rest during the month of May. Oh well. You might have noticed that I didn't post here at all during the month of May and that this post is coming out on the very last day of June even though I was doing pretty well for the first four Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-71435782623416014142018-04-29T17:13:00.001-05:002018-04-29T17:13:06.856-05:00On Potable WaterAs any of you who live or work near me probably know, my town is currently under construction. They're tearing up the main road in order to level it out because it's basically been a huge hump my entire life. They named the project "Down with the Crown" which is actually pretty clever. Anyway the construction started at the beginning of April when they tore up the Northbound side of the road and Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-32668907823241798572018-04-07T15:37:00.000-05:002018-04-07T15:39:07.127-05:00Book Club!I've mentioned a couple times here about the book club I'm in now.
It's pretty great, so I wanted to share a little bit about that.
Now, despite loving books a
whole awful lot, I was never in a regularly meeting book club until now. I
believe there was one that my high school library ran, but they never seemed to
be reading books I was interested in (which is ridiculous, because I know for a
Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-23694609586328643842018-03-30T16:00:00.000-05:002019-01-07T10:23:51.597-06:00A Moment of Celebration.Some of you might remember when I bought my car. I never gave it its own post, but I did mention that I’d bought my first car in this update about my life back in July of 2015. It was a big deal at the time. And really, it still is. I had to navigate that whole process by myself and it was scary and overwhelming and I made a mechanic tell me whether or not I should buy the car. He said I should- Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-56476146557061378982018-03-20T08:00:00.000-05:002018-03-20T08:00:00.777-05:00The District Sleeps Alone Tonight.A couple months ago Facebook told me that one of my absolute favorite books from high school (and of all time, let's be real here) was being turned into a play and performed by high schoolers. Obviously I thought that was really cool, but assumed that it would be something that happened far away from my life in Maine and thus not really something I would get to see. But I looked it up anyway. TheAleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-62519349378310558872018-03-16T08:00:00.000-05:002018-03-16T08:00:25.315-05:00On Shame.A couple of weeks ago I started thinking about shame and how it informs the decisions I make and the way I interact with and present myself to the world.
(Okay, full disclosure, I started drafting this post a reallllly long time ago. Like two months ago. So when I said “a couple of weeks ago” that was really probably in December or something. But then I kind of stopped writing it because I Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-63636377714730268342018-03-12T08:00:00.000-05:002018-03-12T13:40:53.449-05:00Searching Out Culture.I’ve been trying to take advantage of cultural enrichment opportunities lately. As my friend (slash my friend’s mom) Jeanne said earlier this year, there are cool things that happen in Maine, but you really have to seek them out. They don’t just magically appear in your own town at regular intervals. You kinda have to look for them and keep your finger on the pulse to know what’s coming up.
It’sAleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-10996798906274333822018-03-09T13:01:00.000-06:002018-03-15T10:09:30.584-05:0027 Things About Being 27.One of my favorite YouTubers (okay, I'll admit, the only one that I actually watch at all.), Hannah Hart, posts a video every year about turning her new age. I did something similar last year, although I called it "Reflections on 25" and it was a written out thing, not a video. And this year I decided to follow her format more closely and write out a list of 27 things about being 27. (Which meansAleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-20165666710181093772018-03-01T08:00:00.000-06:002018-03-01T08:08:23.147-06:00Living Alone.As you all may or may not know, I moved into an apartment about a month ago. It's a short term thing, and I mostly just did it because I could and so why not? It's my first time living alone...ever. And it's been an interesting experience.
On the one hand, I'm neighbors with my mom (as in, we literally share a wall), so it's not as though I'm really far removed from my family. But my mom is alsoAleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-62049586920202919972018-02-25T08:00:00.000-06:002018-02-25T14:09:03.728-06:00Move In.
Last fall I read Brené Brown’s book “Braving the Wilderness” and it was a game changer. I already mentioned it in this post about the best books I read last year, but it’s honestly worth its own full post. I think everyone should read this book. Or at least every American over the age of 15 alive right now. It’s important.
The book is all about respecting people and honoring each other’sAleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-41727244034431845102018-02-21T08:01:00.000-06:002018-02-21T08:04:44.626-06:00Happy First Day of Shorts!
As you all might have noticed, I’ve been off social media
since Lent started on Valentine’s Day. Or maybe you didn’t notice. Or maybe you’re wondering what the hell I’m
talking about since you got to this post through my facebook, where I published
a link. To be honest, I’m not actually sure why it’s still possible for me to
do that, because I signed out of facebook on my phone and had a friend Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-74519440611376041122018-02-19T08:00:00.000-06:002018-02-19T08:00:30.025-06:00Growing Up.In January, I went out to eat with a bunch of people in my extended family. I was sitting at the end of the table near the children (my cousins' kids) and one of the little girls started asking me questions. It turned out, what she really wanted to know was whether I was married because she could see that I was wearing a ring. But before she got to that question, she started off with. "Aleena, Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-575823465528442539.post-3131988925414670312018-02-15T07:34:00.000-06:002018-02-15T07:34:29.540-06:00On Winter.It's midwinter right now. Typically, I am not a huge fan, though this winter has been pretty tolerable aside from one week in the middle of January where I thought I might need to curl up into a ball for about three months. But I lived. And it's been slightly better ever since. Potentially because after that week I started using a happy light on my desk at work every morning. Potentially because Aleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08892531186817310754noreply@blogger.com0