Hello dear Reader 🐉

I can't believe how fast time flies. This is the 10th issue already!! Damn. I am so grateful for each and everyone reading my ramblings. My business is not called Daytona "Mess" for nothing.

Friends, life is being odd lately. But not necessarily in a bad way. I mean, I've reached 8 months sober from alcohol a few days back - without realising. And yesterday, I only realised in the metro that I had put my pants backward. It's the year of realisations.

To be honest, I'm in an funky half state. I'm in the midst of a huge overhaul of my habits, lifestyle, and focus. I want to take each of my fucking demons by the neck and force these fuckers to bite the dust. Caffeine, I'm looking at you; it's literally called Monster, and I am done pretending I haven't replaced alcohol addiction with caffeine addiction.

Lately, I am trying so hard, in particular, to narrow my work to 3 projects. Two of these I cannot talk about yet, frustratingly; and the third is teaching, which, as much as I adore it, is heavy to me lately. But because all I want to do is focus on the first project. I love my students and colleagues, and I am extremely grateful to teach.

So yeah. I took the decision to go ALL IN, and I mean ALL IN, on these 3 projects, and as a result, I've been incredibly quiet from my usual on social media. Though I'm slowly becoming a bit more active, but nothing compared to my usual.

I codenamed the first of the trifecta, project "Arkore". As you know, Ark (short for Arkando) is the alter ego I use to motivate myself to become a better person. I don't even care about being cringe anymore tbh. I take ownership of this. It helps me so much. And Arkore is a play on hardcore, because trust me, this project is first, heavy font weightlifting asf, and second, its topic itself is hardcore at core. In the best possible way. God. I adore working on it, but it's brutal; mostly bc it's one of the things I've ever wanted most in life, and I am for the first time trying to keep a project secret as much as possible. I am drawing stuff I have never ever drawn before. It's extremely hard. It's unbelievably scary. I have ABSOLUTE, complete, utter blind faith; I don't allow myself 0.001s to think I can't make it. In fact I will. Why not me? Literally? I can do anything I want. I take a decision, I do it. The only reason this might not happen, and it will, is because I decided it won't. By not working for it. But I still have to work for it. And the more I care, the harder it is. Anyway. Sorry, I'm ranting. I believe everything that happens happens for a reason, and we'll see; not if, because it will happen, but when it happens.

Also, on a lighter note maybe, I finally watched Jujutsu Kaizen 0. And not to be a walking cliché, but I admit it, it's genuinely so MFFF GOOOOD. The animation goes of course hard asf, absolutely stellar, but what I like the most about this universe is that in my brain, it's wired to my friend who made me watch the show; I didn't want to that much, because mostly I have the attention span of a spoon, and now I fucking adore it - mostly because it's PURE fitness and self improvement motivation for me. I find it really, really, really energising, in the cheesiest and so most delicious way. I feel like a 16yo skinny teen trying to put on muscle while managing their homework and motivating themselves in their room.

But it's not homework I have; it's type design, and the more life goes on, the more I realise I want to extremely fiercely be independent. Above all. Fitness and work come from it. Not the other way around. I don't think I could ever work in a foundry to be honest. I'm very curious to know how I'd fare technically, but I would not be able to stand it. I know, I fully understand how much I am in a privileged position to even say this. I would be desperately unhappy; and being lucky enough to have teaching and other resources not to, is a huge blessing I'm incredibly thankful for.

Speaking of this, I have micro lucidity moments constantly during my days recently, where I realise how fckn lucky I am to be living alone, in what I consider the best area of Paris, in a fucking amazing flat, and working from home. My place, my work, my health; only things that matter to me.

And so; for my independence win of the issue, I'm so excited to say I've taken big steps to improve my setup as much as possible. I will share pics in the next issue, still waiting on some items. But most prominently, I jumped the gun, friends: I bought a freaking walking pad. I got one in huge sale, coming up next week, and since the whole point of me improving my setup was to facilitate my standing desk situation, to say I'm hyped is a huge understatement. Been wanting one for months. I simply cannot wait. I'm a massive setup enthusiast; I have over 1k pics of setups on a neatly organised folder on my Mac, which is also my way of telling you I'm a straight up psycho.

By the way, this is also my muscle mother win for the week, because I haven't been to the gym in a month. I'm publicly shaming myself and I deserve to. I have everything at home. I have zero excuse. I still keep my 5mins of stretching a day, and I'm slowly moving back to wanting to go, but man, it's a lifelong struggle for me. I love exercise, hate the gym. But I need the gym to have the workouts I want. Sigh. Hoping the pad takes the edge of. I lowkey want to cancel my gym appointment. I even own an Olympic barbell like...

And in terms of pure type design win, well, I think you got the gist. I feel so frustrated; on one hand, I NEED to ultra narrow my focus, or I am immediately overwhelmed, as BPD and ADD is a nasty combo; but also, I feel so bad not type designing for pure fun.

Honestly, I was telling my friend the other day about how, the more time passes, the more I focus on my work. I have been wanting children for most of my teenage and early adult life. But. Ok big breath. I think I'm aromantic. I am not asexual, God noooo lmfao, quite the contrary I'm VERY pan; I wish I was asexual though, because aro without ace is excruciating. I'm a type designer, what can I say, I like contrast!

But yeah. Here it is. I only like letters. I think ALL THE TIME about this story my cousin told me once about this French rugby player. To cut a long story short, she said of him, "he doesn't like girls, he doesn't like boys, he only likes rugby". MAN. FUCK. This is 10000% what I feel about letters. And it only grows more into this direction. I am way too independent, and, absolutely not self centered bc on the contrary my self esteem is fucking atrocious, but self focused, in the sense that precisely, I want to be better. I like girls, I like boys, but I would never want to be in a relationship the more I think about it; I just want to work. Because it's what gives me the most purpose. I genuinely, dear reader, love type design, with all I am, with all I have. It could be rocket science, medicine; it could be climate awareness, it could be anything; but it's type design. Type is communication, pure communication, and it communicates for me everything I ever want and wanted and will want to communicate. I was put on Earth to draw letters. And that's enough for me.

Friends, thank you for 10 issues. This one is a bit different, again; I apologise, because I am still navigating myself knowing what I want. That's not true actually. I KNOW EXACTLY, extremely precisely in fact, what I want. I know also extremely precisely how to get to it. AND I have the absolute doubtless mindset of knowing it will happen. Why? Because I'm working for it. I have never ever ever cared about "winning". I think it's absolute bullshit. It's trash. I'm being harsh but it is. There is nothing to "win". I'm not in a competition with anyone, even myself. I just want to learn, improve, and draw letters.

Looking forward to the next issue; I am excited to tell you guys about the advancement of my projects, because I sure am working for them. I will be the Type Monk I want to be. It's already almost there. Baldur's Gate is close. LFG.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here.
Take care ⚔️🔠
Ando