Monthly roundup #2 - August 2024
August 2024
A small life update - I quit my job this month! I’ll be starting at another agency as an Associate Creative Director of Copy after Labor Day. The day-to-day won’t change much, but it’s a much cooler job title :D
Dublin, Ireland
It’s been years since my last proper solo trip, so this month I popped over to Dublin for a few days. It was wonderful - the city center is about a mile in diameter, making it extremely walkable and perfect for a long weekend.
Of course I did all the touristy things: Christchurch cathedral, the Book of Kells, the whiskey museum, Temple Bar, the Spire and Portal. I took trips out of the city, too: one to Howth, a coastal town with an absolutely beautiful cliff walk; another to Glendalough in the Wicklow mountains and Kilkenny, the setting of the movie Wolfwalkers.
My favorite part of solo traveling, though, is setting aside a few hours each day to just wander through the city and see what I can find. In Dublin, I stumbled across a free standup comedy show, made new friends each night, and got to watch a park groundskeeper feed the park swans.
There’s something magical about short trips like this. It always feels like I’m stepping into a pocket dimension, where time has stopped and something incredible lurks around every corner. It’s lovely to be a stranger for a bit: to feel like I could disappear at any moment, and to feel the thrill of discovery each time the city leaves a new mark on me.
Running Close to the Wind
by Alexandra Rowland
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
He had the kind of build that meant he could have crushed Avra between finger and thumb if he’d felt like it—so basically he was exactly Avra’s type, inasmuch as Avra had a type beyond “just so incredibly mean to him all the time.”
If you know me even a little, you will not be surprised to learn that this paragraph is the exact moment I fell head-over-heels in love with this book.
Running Close to the Wind is a queer pirate comedy that features, in no particular order: a nonbinary love interest; turtle astrology; a plot-relevant cake competition; an inconvenient vow of celibacy; glowing blue dogs; and (it must be said) a truly impressive number of dick jokes.
Look, this is not high literature. This is a fun book. This is a silly book. This is a charmingly, irreverently, utterly ridiculous book that had me grinning so wide that my face actually hurt when I reached the end. This is a 5-star book that I almost hesitate to recommend to other people. But I must. So that we can all drool over Brother Julian together.
Mind the rating on this one, kids!
Jekyll and Hyde - sad alex
YouTube autoplay has hit it out of the park again! I actually stumbled across Everything is Fine first, but Jekyll and Hyde quickly became my favorite off the album.
Honorable mention to this meme song about the Dr. Doom news that lodged itself into my brain for like a week afterward.
Listen to Jekyll and Hyde on YouTube
September 12 @ 6pm: SPLASH networking happy hour
📍 VERS, 714 9th Ave, NYC, 10019
🎫 Free to join! Just show up :)
📝 Come join me and the rest of NAAAP-NY PRIDE at a chill, low-key event where you can expand your LGBTQ+ AAPI professional network! SPLASH is held monthly, so no worries if you can’t make it this time around — we’ll see you at the next one :)
Getting back into stained glass
About a year ago, I took a class on making stained glass art and fell in love with the process. There’s even a glass studio in NYC where you can rent out the tools for a nominal fee to work on your pieces. Unfortunately… the studio is an hour away, so eventually I stopped trekking out and just bought all the tools myself.
I finally got everything set up and figured out how to use the soldering iron without burning anything, and now I can do stained glass work right from my living room! As a treat, I finally finished these stained glass feathers that have been languishing in my glass bag for the last year.
I will be choosing an easier pattern for my next project 😅