:･*.ೃ⋆Blog⋆.ೃ*:･

October 25th, 2025

las cruces mountains

mountain on the mind...

i’ve been thinking a lot about reflecting lately -- not in the emotional sense of looking back, but in a more literal sense. reflections. mirrors. shadows. glass. window. water. etcetera, etcetera.

i love the idea of seeing something through something else, like the world is layered, and you only catch the truth when it’s refracted. a tree lined street through a rearview mirror. subway ads mirrored on my phone screen. the shadows of branches stretching across my blinds.

when i was around elementary school age i would stare at myself in the mirror, and wait for the “other me” to finally break character and be free from having to be me all the time. not sure what that meant to me then but when i think about it now, i imagine i just thought it must've been exhausting to live the same life twice when you had the option of another reality.

i think i’m constantly chasing that feeling of seeing two realities at once: the real thing and the version that lingers behind it. and i guess that’s been showing up in my dreams, too. lately they’ve been mountains, volcanoes, forests, and stars. i’ll wake up with dirt in my teeth, a train through my heart, and starlight still buzzing behind my eyes. i can never tell if it’s exhaustion or inspiration, but it’s been bleeding into everything i make.

i’ve been reading robert macfarlane’s mountains of the mind (or maybe mountain on the mind...too lazy to fact check right now, sorry). i read his other book underland for a creative nonfiction class earlier this year, and i fell in love with the way he writes about the earth, not as something to conquer, but as something to listen to. his books make me feel small in a good way.

anyway, ever since i started reading this one, i’ve been dreaming of climbing and falling and glowing as bright as the sun; things that feel both terrifying and almost holy. in one of my dreams i was hiking an erupting volcano with pinkpantheress and my geology professor, dr. mora (who has actually hiked an erupting volcano). it felt so absurdly real that when i woke up, i needed to write it all down before it completely dissolved to whatever part(s) of my brain hold dream memories. as i was recounting the dream in my journal i listened to pink’s song “internet baby” and ended up writing these two unfinished pieces. i’m still not sure if they belong together as one whole piece. but, i do know they exist within the same fictional world in my head, so that's a start?...i guess.

i wrote these in less than 5 minutes and haven't really looked back at them since thursday morning.

the first piece feels like the dream itself--the warmth, the distance, the pretending everything’s fine even as you’re slowly drifting apart in a sea of molten rocks and ashen earth. it’s that half-awake kind of feeling, where you’re aware of the space between you but still holding onto the rhythm of what used to be.

  i’ve got this rhythm for you,
  it's a melody i sing 
  when the sky turns to blue.
  i hum it inside ur car, whistlin
  little notes hoping it'll go far.
  what do you see in the stars?
  heard you wish upon a light
  to take you somewhere you aren't,
  why don't we stay where we are
  i like that we pretend 
  we're not falling apart.

    take myself, split in two
    putting back the pieces
    that make up me & you.
    im not the light in ur eye,
    you've got a hunger for something 
    hotter, it's a spark you can't hide.

    for you, i'd do, i'd do, i'd
    take a star out of the sky,
    let it burn bright and through i--
    all that i feel for you, i'd fly into
    the sun, scorned wings of the past,
    take a life then take another 
    if it brought you back, to me,
    if it brought me back, into you,
    can we go back, redo?
    

October 13th, 2025

what makes you move/what moves you?

some days i only move because my bladder forces me to. that’s probably not the noble place to start, but it’s the most honest. there are mornings where the only thing that gets me out of bed is the fact that i physically cannot keep laying there without consequence. and i guess that counts as movement. biological emergencies as motivation.

i’ve been thinking about what actually makes me do things. not the version i would say in a cute interview or some journal prompt bullshit, but the real stuff. like the panic of realizing i haven’t eaten all day and my stomach is starting to fold in on itself. or remembering i told someone “i’ll leave in 10” when it was already 12 ago. or the way my phone starts buzzing and suddenly i remember everyone i owe energy to. or when i tell myself i’m going to clean my room and then end up just moving clothes from the bed to the chair and calling it progress. movement adjacent.

sometimes i think i only move when something is about to go wrong if i don’t. hunger, guilt, need, urgency---those are the little engines. no one talks about that when they say “find what drives you.” survival drives me. embarrassment drives me. needing to pee drives me.

i started taking these eight mile walks because sometimes i need proof that the ground exists and that i'm not just play-acting my own life. it's weird how walking feels more believable than anything else,like if i'm sweating and my feet hurt, then the day is actually happening. i tried running for a while because i thought maybe that would make me feel like one of those people who woke up with purpose. i hated it immediately. i stopped pretending i liked it and went back to walking, with an occasional jog when i'm embarrassed someone might think i was running but am too tired to keep going.

i leave the house without a plan and let the sidewalk make the decisions. sometimes i end up where there are trees or water and that's when it feels the most like i'm in on something real. touching a leaf or kicking a rock does more for my sanity than any deep conversation i've ever had. i don't think nature cares whether i’m introspective or delusional.

some days, movement is brushing my teeth before noon. or answering a text. other days i’ll deep clean my room at 2am because i convince myself that if i don't, i’ll never do anything again. i’ve scrubbed a sink with the intensity of someone starting a new life, then gone right back to bed like nothing happened. i think i move out of boredom, panic, instinct, nosiness, and spite. i don’t always move forward--sometimes i just move around. there’s a difference. my momentum is just pacing in circles until the inside of my head quiets down.

the walks help me remember that time is passing even when my brain won’t admit it. i’ll notice things like a crushed water bottle stuck in a fence, a kid dragging a stick across the sidewalk, a woman talking to her groceries like they wronged her. small proof that everyone else is improvising too. i'll stop to stretch my back or pretend i'm checking something on my phone just so i don't look like i'm walking purely to avoid evaporation. movement isn't always productive. sometimes it’s changing my clothes at 5pm just so the day feels segmented. sometimes it’s scrolling, deleting apps, redownloading them ten minutes later, then pretending that counts as an emotional reset. i’m not one of those “my phone is on do not disturb because i’m centering myself” people. my phone is on do not disturb because i forgot it was on do not disturb three weeks ago. half the time i’m moving just to outrun my notifications. if i’m not careful they multiply and that is always daunting.

my version of movement is inconsistent. i don’t have a morning routine or a health arc to post about. i just know staying still too long makes me feel uncomfortable. if i can put one foot in front of the other, even slowly, even aimlessly--then i’m not dissolving yet.

there are days though, where i feel fully glued to the mattress and somehow still manage to feel tired from all the things i’m not doing. thinking about doing something takes almost the same amount of energy as actually doing it. which feels rude.

i'll be lying on my bed thinking about whether slugs know they’re slow or if clouds feel territorial. i’ll imagine conversations that never happened and still get tired from them. sometimes i move just to interrupt my own thoughts. like: stand up. open a window. drink water. go outside. go anywhere. walk past houses and make up fake lives for the people inside so i don’t get stuck in mine. i’ll walk by a person on their porch and immediately create a backstory about how they almost moved to montana but didn’t. it keeps me entertained and slightly grounded. then there are days i don’t move at all and convince myself i’ll make up for it tomorrow. tomorrow becomes next week and suddenly i’m cleaning the lint trap in the dryer like it's some sort of ritual. i’ll stretch my arms over my head and pretend it counts as exercise. sometimes it does.

i don’t need every action to be meaningful. i just don’t want to vanish while i’m still technically alive. and maybe movement isn’t something noble or dramatic, maybe it's just whatever keeps me from flattening into the couch. walking, stretching, disappearing into a crowd for no reason, circling a block twice because i missed the turn on purpose. at this point in my life i’m just collecting proof. proof i exist, proof i can move even when my brain checks out, proof that walking in circles is still movement. proof that i don't have to run to get somewhere, that wandering counts, that going outside to feel the wind smack me in the face is enough to remind me that my life is mine & it’s real.

with warmth,
andi

October 1st, 2025

the irony of this image will make sense after reading this post

jane goodall passed today, and i found out about an hour ago. and now i'm sitting here trying to process the death of someone who genuinely stood for something in a time where almost no one does.

we live in an era where people will literally follow anything for the sake of belonging. slap a slogan on a t-shirt, post a recycled "awareness" infographic, and you're a prophet. nobody needs depth anymore, just digestibility. the average person is so deprived of meaning that they'll worship anyone who gives them an ounce of power.

so when someone like jane goodall dies, someone who didn't just brand compassion, she lived it, it hits different.

she didn't make activism aesthetic. she didn't curate care. she just… DID the work. no theatrics. no virtue signaling. and yet her presence had more impact than a thousand corporate partnerships stamped "for the earth" in a soft mossy font. and i don't fully blame people (well...mostly) for it. capitalism trains us to survive, not reflect. when you're drained by bills, deadlines, and existential dread, sometimes all you can do is double tap something pretty and move on. i get that. some things are just pretty, so you like them. whatever. i've been guilty of the same cycle.

BUT there are artists, influencers, politicians--people with serious reach, funding, faces sculpted by gods, plastic surgeons, and dermatologists, who could change everything with one ounce of conviction, and instead choose to produce nothing but palatable noise. that's not a crime. but it is pathetic. it is so fucking pathetic. no one has a voice anymore. no one wants to say anything, step on toes, or rustle feathers. it's cowardly.

say something that actually costs you something. say something that empties you out.

jane goodall believed in interconnectedness, not as a cute pinterest quote over a fern background, but as a daily ethic. everything on this planet affects everything else. nothing stands alone, which means nothing we do is without consequence or possibility. tree to paper. lake to glass of water. human to chimpanzee. action to consequence:

1. we burn fossil fuels → the planet gets hotter → wildfires get worse → people lose their homes.
2. we clear forests → carbon levels spike → weather patterns destabilize → crops fail → food prices rise.
3. we dump plastics in the ocean → marine life ingests it → it enters the food chain → we eat microplastics.
4. we poison the soil with pesticides → insect populations crash → birds disappear → ecosystems unravel.
5. we overfish → fish populations collapse → coastal economies crumble.
6. we chase convenience → we drown in e-waste.
7. we build cities without green spaces → temperatures rise → mental health declines.
8. we prioritize profit over planet → natural disasters become annual events instead of anomalies.

a simple concept that most of our "leaders" are too self-absorbed to grasp.

being under our current administration, already feels impossible to hope. every attempt at progress gets strangled by bureaucracy, greed, or incompetence. and when everything feels rigged to stay broken, hope becomes embarrassing. but when things look the bleakest is when people have to come together--not out of positivity, but principle. not because it's likely to work, but because it's morally unacceptable not to try.

hope as an act of defiance.

that's fighting the good fight.
by actually giving a damn, consistently, unfashionably, and without applause.

rest in power, Jane. thank you for proving that conviction doesn't have to be loud to be legendary.

September 22nd, 2025

the birds and the bees...to be perceived or not to be.

i get this feeling every year: the wanting to be known, and the wanting to know. it's a small, hungry thing that surfaces in places that are supposed to be ordinary, like walking home, during a shift, or scrolling past someone who almost looks like an idea. i am not someone who craves relationships the way some people do, cycling from one to the next like it's just the rhythm of their breathing. and if i'm honest, i'm good at being alone. too good, maybe. isolation doesn't really frighten me but even solitude has its limits. sometimes i ache for someone to see me, and not just see me, but recognize the shifting parts i can't always name out loud.

dating has always been strange for me. it's awkward and beautiful in the same breath. it's exciting and absolutely terrifying. a first date is a feeling unlike no other.

earlier this year i was dating a girl i really liked, we'll call her Li. we met on hinge (yea i know). let me explain: it was january & i had just got back from studying abroad in london, i was curious to see what the dating scene looked like. i was on hinge but i wasn't really ON hinge. i was honestly just there to see who else was on there, but then one day i saw Li in my likes. we matched, we went on dates, we hung out, we got to know each other. it was great, really great honestly. then fast forward to the end of march, she texted me the day before april fools day. i was at work when her message popped up. the timing was impeccable because i was literally mid-sentence telling my friend i thought she was soft ghosting me after being radio silent all weekend. she wrote about uncertainty, about still figuring herself out, about not knowing what she wanted. and i understood, my friends say i was maybe a bit too understanding. but i've lived in that fog too, i've been in her shoes. then she added the thing i didn't quite understand, she said, we could be friends, and maybe, if something romantic/sexual arises, we'd see where it led.

what i heard in that wasn't possibility but contingency, "stay here while i decide." and i hate that. i can't be that for someone. i can't be the body they rehearse tenderness on while keeping an eye out for another stage. i'm not sure if that's selfish or not, i don't think it is.

the harder part though, wasn't even the rejection of it all. it was the shadow beneath it: that sense that what she wanted, what she almost wanted, wasn't me exactly, it was a version of me that fit her idea of desire. i've felt this before, too many times actually. when i lean masc, i'm wanted. when i let myself be more femme, i'm invisible. it makes me wonder, am i being chosen for who i am, or for how i look arranged in someone else's fantasy?

maybe Li wasn't categorizing me like that. maybe it was just a coincidence that on our last date i happened to dress a lot more feminine than she'd ever seen me. could've been dumb luck. but i can't ignore the pattern. not with her specifically, but with almost every person i've dated within the last 2 years.

i wear what makes me feel alive in my body, what reminds me i belong to myself first. and yet, in dating, it can feel like everyone else is busy curating me. like i'm an aesthetic they get to pin down for a season.

so when she texted me, it wasn't just her uncertainty that stung. it was the reminder of a larger pattern i've noticed in my dating life: that i am too much and not enough at the same time. too "feminine" to be seen as strong, too "masculine" to be seen as tender. too in-between to be chosen for the fullness of it. (sorry, i just lol'd a little. this sounds like a 'too black for the white kids and too white for the black kids' sentence but i have to speak my #truth).

i know how to be alone. i even love it. but there's a specific kind of loneliness that comes from realizing someone can't imagine you outside the role they've already written for you. that's the ache that lingers. that's the one i haven't yet figured out how to outgrow.

wrote this in my notes app a few days after it all happened and my brain was in a gender envy frenzy:

can you see me beyond this body
is everything about the love & holy
i want you but don't know if you want me

you only want a man
can i be him for you?
you like it when i wear the pants,
take control over you
am i enough for you?
i'll play into the cards you've stacked
ace of spades, i'm the fool
i'll take it, if you give the chance
i can be strong for you
i can be what you choose

September 13th, 2025

first post

i created this web to start a blog. that was it. that was the whole idea. as i've said in other corners of this site, i just wanted a place to write. a place where all of my non-academic work could live, where i didn't have to worry about citations or structure or whether something sounded "professional enough." just writing for the sake of writing, a place where i could be loose, messy, and unrestrained. but then i started wandering deeper into the indie web, and i realized i loved so many other aspects of it. the design, the interconnectedness, the smallness of it all. suddenly, this site didn't feel like just a blog anymore. i wanted it to be something larger, something living, something that could grow alongside me. because of that, i put all this unnecessary pressure on what my "first post" should be. i convinced myself it had to be big--something grandiose and profound, something that would shake the ground under anyone who read it.

i thought, "this first post has to be the hook, the thing that keeps people coming back." so i drafted and redrafted. four different essays, all circling around topics that feel central to who i am and how i see the world. but none of them felt good enough. they were polished, sure, but they also felt like i was trying too hard. and that's not what i wanted. i don't want to perform here. i don't want to put on a mask and create some heightened version of myself just to impress people--especially people i don't even know. i want this space to feel like me, not like the stage version of me.

the truth is, there might not be anyone reading this at all. maybe this site will exist in silence, floating out here in the web with no eyes on it but mine. and if that's the case, then who am i really writing for? the answer has to be: myself. it has to be me. i need to write because i want to, because i need to, not because i'm hoping for someone else's reaction.

a professor of mine, in one of my intro to creative writing courses, once gave advice that was so plain it almost felt meaningless at the time. they said: "just write." that's it. two words. and i brushed it off at first, but the more i sit with it, the more i understand how much weight those words hold. just write. no overthinking. no waiting for the perfect idea. no pressure to perform. just put words down. pen to paper, fingers to keys, whatever it takes.

so that's what i'm doing here. no research, no citations, no carefully crafted thesis. just me, working my way through one long, wandering train of thought. and maybe that's exactly the right way to begin.

and while i do hope people read my blog, and maybe even find something in it worth returning to, i can't let that be the reason i write. i write first and foremost for myself, and if anyone else happens to listen in, that will just be a quiet bonus.

with warmth,
andi

December 13th, 2024

something new, something strange, i call it procrastination plague.

i have a problem… i'm plagued by the procrastination bug. it's real, and i'm living proof. when i have too much to do and plenty of time to do it, i never actually start or finish the things i need to. it's this endless loop i get caught in. and when i'm stuck in it, my instinct is to run, not from my work exactly, but out into the world. to wander, to explore, to pretend i'm busy in other ways. on this particular day, my wandering turned into a top secret spy mission at the natural history museum in london. my partner in crime: kaylee. we can't disclose who or what we were spying on (classified information) but we did have another agent planted inside the building, handling business of her own.

this mission ended up being the perfect way to waste a day. both of us are women in stem--kaylee with biology, me with environmental studies--so the museum was basically our playground. we nerded out the whole time, trading facts and excitement, and it felt like a safe little bubble of joy. there's a statue of charles darwin perched at the top of the steps into the gems and birds floor. we couldn't see his face clearly at first (blind baddies), but once we got closer and read his name, it clicked at the same exact moment for both of us. our voices mirrored each other in cadence and tone, saying "charles darwin" like we'd rehearsed it. it cracked us up, it probably doesn't read as funny now, but in the moment it was pretty funny.

we spent lotsssssss of time in every exhibit we stepped into, from creepy crawlers (which kaylee loved more than i did, too many legs for my taste) to the ladybugs (which i was obsessed with). and we didn't just linger at the exhibits, we also made a point to stop in practically every gift shop the museum had to offer. me and kaylee share a deep love for trinkets, so we obviously got lost among the pins, postcards, and shiny little objects almost as much as we did among the fossils and specimens. we stopped in about 3 of the gift shops, each were very different so that was sort our justification as to why we haddd to make time to stop in them all. at onepoint we were huddled around different themed rubix cubes. i don't know how to solve one but kaylee does #shescool, so we stood there for a few minutes as she showed me how to solve it.

i don't remember how much time we spent there, but i think we stayed until they closed. the natural history museum is huge, in order to fully take in everything they have you have to go two days in a row. the first floor alone is this cavernous space with smaller exhibits tucked into the walls. right at the entrance, you're greeted by a massive whale skeleton suspended above, impossible to fully capture in a photo (i tried). my favorite part of the entire exhibit (2nd to fossilized trees) was the taxidermy section. if i could be a taxidermy animal, i'd pick a bird, everyone loved the bird section they were #popular.

eventually, kaylee and i wrapped up our mission. we left the museum and headed to the five guys down the road, where we met up with our fellow agent roselyn. she had been on the inside the whole time, tending to her own top secret mission. over fries and burgers, she debriefed us, sharing how it all went.

looking back, i think about how much i'd love to work in preservation if i could. not just the exhibits, but the care behind them. i'm fascinated by the way old things, bones, stones, creatures, & more are given new life in museums, admired in ways they couldn't be in the in the outside world. if money and practicality weren't always in the way, i think i'd choose that path without hesitation.

with warmth,
andi