March recap – What is even

Hello everyone! Whew! What a month, right? What a 17-year long month! I’ve resorted to keeping track of time by counting the squirrels that walk on the wires outside my home office. In which I now live, apparently. When I got my Surface last year, I cleared my desk of all the wires and clutter, dusted, installed a nice plant and thought “this is an interior design blog-worthy desk!” Oh boy, that went out the window REAL FAST in the past weeks.

Alright. First of all, I hope everyone is in good health, still sane, with enough food to avoid going to the now forsaken grocery stores. I won’t get too much into the pandemic, because I wrote about it two weeks ago. Since then, not much has changed. I go on walks, I talk with friends via Facetime, I work a little and I spend an unreasonable amount of time doing dishes. There are always dishes, I swear… Taking it one day at the time is pretty much the only thing to do right now. I’m incredibly grateful to still have work, projects and healthy relatives and friends I can call when I need. This situation made me realize… I’m lucky.

When I learned my favorite local coffee shop launched a GoFundMe to stay in business, I decided to give them a hand by advertising the illustration I made of their storefront last year. The response has been overwhelming! Tons of people bought the print and I was able to make a donation that I couldn’t have made out of my own pocket. I really hope it can make a small difference. It’s still available for sale on my Etsy store! I’m gonna need help packing and shipping everything 😂

So amidst all this chaos, some work got done, at least. I finished the second Utown chapter, sketched some covers and managed to survive giving my first remote class. My anxiety levels have gone up and down throughout the month but each new hurdle is a learning experience. I now know how to stream Photoshop on Discord, and what it feels talking alone in front of a screen. Hint: WEIRD.

What even was March. Here is what kept me semi-sane during the month. More than ever, music, movies and books are a lifeline.

Listening: I returned to Bandcamp after years of neglect, because it felt right to start paying for albums again. I bought some stoner rock by King Buffalo, and next on my wishlist is Little Dragon’s new album. The title “New me, Same us” is strangely appropriate? And because it feels like the end of the world, some Muse is always in order.
Watching: Oh hello binge-watching! Beastars was pretty good, shocking even. I’m in no mood for heavy, serious gritty series, unless it’s animated! Enter Castlevania, in which you can tell what characters are important based on their hotness level. That simple! It had some pretty dope fighting sequences as well. And why not marathon Lord of the Rings, the ultimate escape? All of this, in three weeks. Geez.
Reading: Rumble, a beautifully rendered comic about old gods and immortal warriors caught in a battle in modern time.