sustainable systems & storytelling
“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.” --Jean-Paul Sartre What if we could wrestle down life’s big questions using the scientific method? What if we could systematically improve human thoughts, actions, and environments... Continue Reading →
Hello, friend! What have you been up to this week? How are you doing? I attended my aunt's funeral via a YouTube live-stream due to a local breakout of the covid-19 delta variant, and I have such mixed feelings about the experience. It was nice, however, to see visiting family members, though the interactions remained... Continue Reading →
Do you want to know a fun fact about Phoenix? Despite being a desert, we typically experience a few flash floods per year. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, the terrain is flat and the ground dense clay, which is not particularly porous. Secondly, the monsoon storms often entail Seattle-like days of drizzling interspersed... Continue Reading →
Hello, friend! What have you been up to this week? How are you doing? Over the last week: enjoyed plenty of rain (and nickle-sized hail), I saved a 3-week old white-winged dove with my partner (shutout to Liberty Wildlife Rescue!), sewed up the cutest little romper for my niece, almost perfected my pho recipe (Vietnamese... Continue Reading →
My good friend has an 8-month old daughter and I have been meaning to make her a little outfit. This last weekend, it finally happened! I sewed up the Ruffled Romper pattern from OhMeOhMySewing on Etsy. It was such a fun project, through it took far more time and thread than I had anticipated! There... Continue Reading →
Hello, friend! What have you been up to this week? How are you doing? It has been raining in Phoenix, which we have needed desperately following a record-dry year. Having been born and raised here, I can confidently saw that the only two things I don't hate about the Valley of the Sun are the... Continue Reading →
In Phoenix, for at least the last 30 years, any chance of rain under 75% has meant almost no chance of rain. Sometimes the rain comes, and the drizzle with sizzle and dissipate the moment it hits the group. On other rare days, like today, the heaven open up and drown the desert in life-giving... Continue Reading →
Hello, friend! What have you been up to this week? How are you doing? Austin Kleon shared in his newsletter yesterday that the year is 52% over. Is the year half-full or half-empty? I feel like I'm feverishly treading water and getting nowhere; yet, on the other, maybe I'm just allocating my time to current... Continue Reading →
Hello, friend! Are you having a good day? Awesome. Just so you know, some kids refer to the 90s as the late 1900's. You're welcome. What have you been up to this week? How are you doing? This week, my aunt passed away and my sister came home to visit for the first time since... Continue Reading →
Yesterday, I received a call at 8am. It was my mother, calling to let me know that my aunt, Virgina, had passed. Eleven weeks ago, Virg was diagnosed with brain cancer after a fall. Eleven weeks ago, doctors said she had a few days left to live. As devout lifelong Catholic, I like to think... Continue Reading →
Hello, friend! How are you? What have you been up to as of late? A lot has happened since I last checked in and this work-in-progress log-of-life post is now outdated. Oh well! It has been a hectic month with health, work, and family, but I do have good news. Recent testing has evidenced that... Continue Reading →
I have been abysmally absent this last month or so. I hope you've been having loads of fun without me! I just returned from a trip up north where it was *only* 100° and there *only* a little ash in the air. Phoenix is being ravaged by several wildfires and the sky looks like London... Continue Reading →
Hello, friend! How are you? How has you week been? We're still in the midst of testing, but it's becoming increasingly clear that I'm dealing with some kind of immune dysfunction, which hopefully means identifying the root cause and resolution. Mast cell activation syndrome (aka overactive histamine response) seems likely. Follow-up cardio lab work shows... Continue Reading →
Hello, friend! How are you? How has you week been? I encountered several days of inexplicable insomnia this week, which receded just as quickly as it arose. I was very close to pulling out my old prescription for LDN. After two nights of rest, I'm beginning to feel like myself again. I spoke to my... Continue Reading →
Happy Thursday! Has your day been as bizarre as mine? Here's just a snippet of the last six hours: I woke up to an anaphylactic reaction. I'm not sure what the trigger was. I guess I'm allergic to myself? Also, I realized that the gross feeling I have experienced with almost every meal throughout my... Continue Reading →
Throughout my 32 years of life, I've always been kind of weird. For the last six years, I've navigated up and down the illness spectrum--sometimes bedridden and sometimes passably semi-functional. Recently, new clues are making sense of the mess and I am way more excited than I should be about my likely genetic fuckery. Apoptosis... Continue Reading →
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