The royal We sure did! It is a small couch, it is an IKEA couch, it is not a zoo, but it is the first new couch I’ve ever bought, so I guess couch arrival day was the first day of the rest of my life.
The buried lede here is that I was finally able to indulge in such an expenditure because I got a new remote job this summer, with (surprise!) a distributed tech company. That’s right: after years of searching for a full-time position in a lively office with in-the-flesh, bubbly co-workers, I managed to land a job where I still never have to leave my apartment. Why start now?!
I was also able to upgrade my work setup and get a desk top that I can actually fit things on besides my computer. I don’t think I’d ever had a desk surface in my adult life that was wider than 39 3/8″, so adding another 20″ to that (which is mostly just taken up by a printer, cool) was the other first day of the rest of my life.
A legitimate desktop! Why are printers so huge and ugly! Also, have you ever googled the transformation of Kylie Jenner’s face?
Working for a tech company is pretty cool because even if you abhor hoodies to the furthest depths of your soul, you can still freely order one with your company’s logo on it as a joke in order to stage some sort of Mr. Robot photoshoot. And then later, as you find yourself just casually putting on that same hoodie when you're a little chilled because you want a bit of another layer but perhaps don’t want to go to the effort of pulling an entire sweater over your head, you will realise that the joke is now on you. You are hoodie.
Channelling Rami Malek.
But really, let’s get back to the couch. I worked entirely from my couch the first week I had it. How did I go four years without one?! If you’re wondering what I had before, I had a big lounge chair. A lounge chair is decidedly not a couch. I know this now, despite convincing myself otherwise for many years. Let’s look at some more photos of myself with this couch:
You are never alone when you have pillows.
Why yes, I am twinning with my throw pillow, for these are the kinds of things that just happen when you have a couch and increasingly sporadic human contact. Can I also say that even though I actually got this couch in July, it’s still solidly the highlight of my year? The good news is that 2020 is almost over, and I for one am very much looking forward to things going back to normal on the very first day of 2021 because that’s how things work I’m pretty sure!!
Oh by the way, if you are ever interested in working for an intentionally distributed company, we’re hiring. Free hoodies?
Colophon hoodie: staff swag store; sweatpants: Alternative Apparel; slippers: some little shop in DUMBO; the glasses so cheap I bought them in two colours: Zenni, ugh; couch: IKEA; matching shirt & pillow: originally a clearance Marimekko dress from UNIQLO; other pillows: Nathalie du Pasquier for HAY; red throw blanket: textile market in Peru; new job: Designer at Automattic; full-time employment: VERY THANKFUL I have some; 2020: VERY THANKFUL for the health of myself and my loved ones; 2021: vaccines, new POTUS, systemic racism ends, police crimes are punished, prison system is reformed, billionaires are taxed proportionately, wealth gap disappears, public education is funded, socialized health care is declared a right, world-wide abortion legalization, Regé‑Jean Page marries me, pigs fly
WOW, everything has realllllly changed in the last few weeks due to coronavirus, and it sounds like everyone that still has an office job is now working remotely in a social distancing bubble. The consensus seems to be that it’s great news for introverts, while everyone else is going nuts. For me, it’s obviously same old, same old!
While friends and I take turns panicking and calming each other down via phone, I would also like to extend emotional support from Brooklyn to my massive online audience in the form of a lighthearted and completely forgettable blog post. It would be quite the missed opportunity to not write something right now about my, like, one area of mild expertise: staying inside.
I’ve passed on a lot of Homeworking™ trade secrets over the years (Smoothies! Natural light! Yoga! Kombucha!), but since I’ve never done a listicle, here’s my top ten personal recommendations of ... things... related to working from home!
1. Talk Radio
I really hate having to “DJ” while I’m concentrating on work, so I just listen to the one thing I can “set and forget” for 16 straight hours: NPR! (Or the CBC, if I’m in Canada.) Does listening to talk radio make you feel like you’re not alone? You bet! The hosts are often the only friends I talk at on a given day, and they are usually very knowledgable. Also, after 12 years of repeated daily background use, I can attest that it makes you really good at accidentally tuning people out IRL.
Warning: generally involves hourly news briefings, so maybe not great if you’re trying to avoid that.
2. Tea
Is your brain turning to mush? Can’t concentrate on your work? Take a physical break, make tea! Make tea when you wake up, make it after lunch. Make tea all day, every day! It’s hydrating! I recommend the flavour “green”.
3. Soup
If I’m in the middle of a work hole, I really hate stopping what I’m doing to make lunch, therefore I tend to prep A LOT of soup for easy midday meals. (In the summer, I switch to salads.) Easy to freeze, easy to reheat, easy to feel like you have the diet of an invalid with dentures. Fun fact: one of my Slack channels is now just a recipe sharing channel.
(And yes, that’s “The Stew”. Here’s another one that’s pretty yummy.)
4. Laundry
If you live in a building with a laundry room that closes at 8pm (like me), now is your chance to use it during the day! I highly recommend before 11am, Monday through Thursday to beat the rush, though I’ll admit this optimum timing was determined pre-COVID-19.
Can I tell the story of how once, when I was in LA, I went into a Howard Johnson hotel to try to find a toilet? I politely asked the front desk if they could tell me where to find “the washroom”. They pointed to a corridor, but walking down it I only saw laundry and utility closets. It then hit me that by using the Canadian term “washroom”, they thought I was referring to a laundry room, hahaha! What a simpler time!
(Ridiculous image via this site.)
5. Facemasks
I actually rarely do facemasks, but this creepy picture was in my camera roll and it felt like an opportune time to throw in a thirst trap. Facemasks seem like something people can do while working??
6. This Particular Deodorant
If you’re quarantined inside, you might be one of those people that still needs to get up, shower, and get dressed every day (weird!). Or, you might live by yourself and basically never change out of your pyjamas or shower for days at time (normal). TMI, but one of the reasons I’m able to be this disgusting is thanks to this unisex Real Purity roll-on deodorant. I recently tried switching to “industry disruptor” brand Native, but my pits started smelling like onions by day two. This stuff somehow keeps me smelling fine faaaar longer than any deodorant should, and if my BO ever gets bad, it’s in a pleasant, musky way (no onions). Highly recommend!
Hot tip: it’s way cheaper to order off their site than Amazon.
7. Going Outside
You know what breaks up a day? Taking a walk! Yes, the outside is a foreign world rife with contagions, but as long as you stay 6 feet away from other humans, you can still safely enjoy it (apparently). I take this time to call a friend (see #9), go for a jog, or just sit down on a bench with a notebook and brainstorm. You can probably also just use “going outside” to whittle away hours in the name of “self care”, because I don’t think anyone will penalize you for that right now. Don’t forget to re-stock your liquor cabinet on the way home.
8. Caroline in the City
After not thinking about this show for several years, I’ve just appointed Caroline the Patron Saint of Homeworking™. Gurl lived and worked from her loft with an employee!
Wow, all episodes are still on CBS?! How did she live in Manhattan and employ an often-around colourist when she just had a single daily cartoon (which, let’s be real, only needs colour on weekends)? Remember that her friend Annie was in the broadway production of Cats? Am I still attracted to Richard? I really appreciate that the writers named each episode with a “Caroline and the ____” titular structure. “Caroline and the Condom” aired August 5, 1996. Again, wow!
9. Talking to Other Humans
Some people might have work conference calls for 8 hours, but I often go days without talking to another human. Of course I text like a madwoman, but something I’ve personally come to realise over the last year is that talking to another human massages your emotions in ways that texting can’t. Half an hour of chatting or venting to a good friend can ease you out of a depressive rut, help you escape from an anxious downward spiral, or just make you remember you’ve got a loving, caring network around you. If someone you know sounds down, don’t just text, offer to call!
(Image of the jealous girlfriend, in better spirits because she’s TALKING TO SOMEONE, via this site.)
10. The Bag in a Tree
There is a plastic bag that’s been stuck in a tree outside my window for well over a year. It’s very "Firework”, very “American Beauty”, and very calming to stare at for long periods of time while you’re contemplating the future of human existence. Are we all just plastic bags... stuck in a tree? It’s also a bit of a relic now, as single-use plastic bags were banned in NYC a few weeks ago. I encourage you to find your own “bag in a tree”. You’ll thank me.
And so on...
If you need any more ideas for your period of self isolation, the editors of Desk Lunch have also compiled a great list of things to occupy your time with.
Take care, y’all. My heart goes out to those who are suffering during this time of global uncertainty. Keep your mental health in check, don’t hoard, practice social distancing, and call your loved ones. xo
Owing to my own promise of “writing more about what I do”, I recently composed a personal essay for the lovely Desk Lunch newsletter about blatantly embracing late-stage capitalism—while female!
The big message of the essay is to respect your own worth and not be afraid to ask for fair compensation, as inspired by my very exciting recent adventures in venting about it on Twitter. What I didn’t have room to include is how this all kind of backfired on me last year. Pull up a chair!
At the beginning of 2019, I was frustrated by the feeling of floundering both romantically and in my career. I decided to institute a personal mandate for myself: NO COMPROMISES. The main reason for this was to avoid slowly backsliding in career path and compensation rate, as I feared was happening. (The secondary reason... well.)
Although it felt unfamiliar to be so black-and-white strict with myself, regularly returning to that credo simplified a lot of gray-area decisions I’d normally agonize over; maybe a lack of rigidity is what had always prevented me from becoming truly great?! I received some amazing interview opportunities that felt like a direct manifestation of this new, confident mindset, and I turned down a small retainer with a little studio that I really loved working with but who was having trouble affording me. I was moving forward!
But none of my interviews from that year amounted to offers. And although I convinced myself it was the right thing to do at the time, I now often question whether leaving the studio (which was definitely the most enjoyable job I’ve had in NY) was actually the correct decision. The problem with “no compromises” was not that I asked for what I wanted, but that I refused to leave room for negotiation.
I’ve since been getting by with some fixed-budget projects that, when broken down hourly, have amounted to roughly half of what I want to be charging. It’s not where I want to be (and I have no idea how I’m going to pay taxes this year), but I’ve accepted that it’s currently where I am. SIGH!
ANYWAYS, as a bonus takeaway from my personal essay (that will not make sense if you didn’t read the personal essay so just read the personal essay already if you haven’t), I made some phone wallpapers to happily remind you to reach for the privileged straight, white male stars every time you reach for your lock screen. Download here!
I’m learning from 2019 and trying not to be discouraged. The flag I’m waving in 2020 says, “Maybe some compromises?” Or maybe I just gotta keep looking at my phone lock screen.
Willkommen, 2020! Regular readers might have noticed I updated this here Homeworking™ Tumblr theme, which now boasts some cool new (free) fonts and cool CSS techniques. It is a very cool thing to spend the entire weekend by yourself, indoors, tinkering with code, I assure you.
Whitespace for days!
It has also come to my attention that I’ve somehow cultivated a reputation for being “successfully” self-employed, so much so that people have actually been asking me for advice! Specifically on getting into design and coding, maintaining a full-time freelance career, and balancing work with creative pursuits. Wow, I’ve done an impressive job of convincing people I know what I’m doing!
In addition to sharing my experiences with these question-askers, I’m manifesting a future where I also post my knowledge here, dear reader. It will be nice to add some content related to what I do for a living, since you can’t spell Homeworking™ without “me” “working”! Topics I'll probably cover include: building a portfolio, pricing your work, imposter syndrome, and the eternal struggle to not hate yourself. Maybe I’ll even throw in some examples of projects I’m working on?! (I’m having a very hard time writing this paragraph sincerely but know that IT. IS. SINCERE!)
The other benefit is that this will become a space to demonstrate to potential employers/collaborators that I take my work seriously, and that I am a regular contributor to professional discourse [about myself]. I hope you enjoy the updates to my 2020 editorial vision!
Do you have any questions you’d like answered through the lens of my very specific and irregular career path?! Please shoot me an email!
Colophon toque: Uniqlo; sweater: thrifted; sweatpants: Alternative Apparel; socks: Uniqlo; slippers: a brand called “bohemia” (ew yikes) BUT bought at this great little Japanese shop in DUMBO; glasses: thrifted; monitor wallpaper: Mac icon by Susan Kare 🙌; desk area: tidied; area just to the right of the camera: currently littered with crap; hair flip: so cool, so casual; ™: not actually legally trademarked, but trademarked in spirit; new Tumblr design: “How do you do, fellow kids?” (also may I add the caveat that I don’t think this is an exceptional design or anything but I at least updated it okay); expertise: untenable!!!
Hey there, fellow kids! Jumping on the already-parked annual back-to-school bandwagon, I bring to you an AWESOME new blog post highlighting my FAVOURITE 15″ LAPTOP BACKPACK PICK! Get ready for at least 145 paragraphs of preamble before I reveal this NUMBER ONE TOP 100% BEST 15″ LAPTOP BACKPACK PICK and DIY BACKPACK HACK!!
I also realised I needed a post in my “lifestyle blog” repertoire that might convince people to send me free products? So this is that post. Search engine optimization.
Backstory
On February 19, 2019, esteemed letterer and all-around Creative Professional Jessica Hische tweeted out that she was looking for a new, fashionable laptop backpack and wanted suggestions. I happened to see this tweet that night and thought, “Maybe I, myself also a Creative Professional, need a new, fashionable laptop backpack as well?” I read through the mostly terrible (???) suggestions from her followers, saw one I liked, and then, with the quick late-night text approval of my probably-drunken sartorial consultant T, impulse-bought a $235 backpack.
The Arrival
A week later The Backpack arrives. It’s partially leather! It smells very new! It’s literally made by a Creative Professional for Creative Professionals! It’s so nice that I’m already worried about ruining it with thoughts of biking or commuting. But the straps are kind of stiff and uncomfortable on my delicate mammary glands. And did I say it’s pretty expensive?!
It’s the kind of backpack I’d be happy to keep if it were, say, $79. Maybe even $89. But $235?! For a backpack that’s not even some sexy upscale Creative Professional household brandname?? My lower middle-class upbringing prevents me from committing to such an expenditure on which I’m only lukewarm. What to do?
The Virgo/Libra Cusp Solution
Obviously I go out and buy two more backpacks.
All my children.
On Being a Virgo/Libra Cusp-er
I’m on the Virgo/Libra cusp which makes me the perfect person to review anything because I’m really picky and really indecisive. This means that if I’m forced to make a decision about anything, I generally change my mind multiple times and lose sleep in the process of over-thinking every minute detail, what fun! (For the record, I’m also strictly adhering to the deeply-scientific, back-of-your-local-free-weekly astrology column definitions of these signs. [Also, unnecessary childhood trauma story, I never really knew how to astrologically-identify growing up because as a cusper my sign categorization changed from paper to paper? The struggle was—and I cannot stress this enough—real.])
Laptop Backpacks: Necessary?
“Why does one need a special laptop backpack?” you might ask. Obviously, you don’t. No one needs anything. Why do we buy things, to feel a brief sense of happiness or accomplishment in our lives? Does it work for you the way it definitely and always 100% works for me? Leave your response in the comments!
But also I’ve never had a bag that was made for a laptop, so I figured I should probably get a backpack that's actually functional and isn’t painful to carry heavy shit around in all day?
Criteria
In order to be considered for this review, a potential backpack had to meet the following criteria:
Must hold a 15″ MacBook Pro
Enough padding to protect that laptop without a case
Must be comfortable to use while biking
Unisex design
Is black/screams “Creative Professional”
Bonus points: also screams “... who deserves a large salary”
In addition to my a laptop, I assembled a weight/capacity testing control group with the following everyday accessories:
Work essentials: mouse, laptop charger, Moleskine notebook, pencil
Life essentials: overnight kit, moisturizer, deodorant, underwear, sports bra, water bottle
Um, glasses and some other crap: eyeglasses & case, dirty socks, folded blanket, Le Creuset 18cm cast-iron pot
🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒
The Backpacks
🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒
Bag option #1: The ISM Backpack
The ISM retails for $235 USD; it’s only available online but comes with free shipping and returns in the USA. It ships in a pretty box with a pretty branded dust bag and a bunch of tissue that smells of “Instagram unboxing moment”.
I wore this bag out in public a few times: to the work lounge at the Public Hotel (a hotspot for “cool-looking people” working remotely), to pay a visit to my old MoMA office, and to a job interview. Did I feel like a Creative Professional? You bet I did! But then my former coworker commented that the bag made me look like a “techy person”, which ruined everything it had going for it. (There is a fine line between Creative Professional and Startup Chic that I refuse to cross. It involves hoodies.)
Left: fancy regal satin lining, to remind you that you’re the millennial queen you are. Right: full bag, with front pocket that is great for fitting flat stuff and maybe only flat stuff.
It fit everything in the “capacity” control group, albeit quite snugly, but its real downfall was the straps: although they were quite hearty, being both wide and well padded (which would be great for those with flat chests), their stiff sturdiness meant they were very inflexible, and basically cut into my breasts any time I raised my arms together, as one would if biking:
MEINE POOR BOOBS.
ISM owner/designer Justin emailed me after I returned the bag, and explained they were working on a smaller version for 13″ laptops. I explained this doesn’t help people with mammary glands who own 15″ laptops. Per Justin:
I feel what you mean Christy, a bag that fits a 15" laptop and is unisex has been a tough design challenge given the size difference between males and females. We have been able to shorten the straps to accommodate though.
I get it. Designing for the fact that 50% of the population has boobs is hard! Did you know that basically everything is designed around men and their stupid bodies?? It's also subsequently a prime example of how e-comm genders backpack sizing: you’ll find that 15″ laptop bags are generally only found in the “Men’s” section of websites. I need a drink.
Pros
Looks and feels fancy
Separate laptop pocket from main compartment
Water and weather resistant
Good amount of padding everywhere
Real leathurrrr bottom
Bitches be loving gold zippers
I am weirdly very into the simple strap adjustment design (not pictured but trust me that it’s nicely done)
Cons
High price point for my feeble income
Cut into my boobs
Front pocket is pretty difficult to put stuff in due to being so flat
Makes me look like a tech bro
Did not get the job I interviewed for while using it
Rating
Comfort: ★★☆☆☆
Creative professional-ness: ★★★★★
Female compatibility: ★☆☆☆☆ (one star for gold zipper)
Value for monies: ★★★★☆ (if you don’t bike or have boobs)
Overall: ★★★☆☆
🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒
Bag option #2: MUJI Water Repellent Backpack
I bought this bag at the MUJI store for a very reasonable $49 USD. Like everything MUJI, it’s pretty decent quality both in materials and design, and feels like it’ll last a while.
Unfortunately, I didn’t end up testing this “in the real world” because, whoops, it only comfortably fits a 13″ laptop. But I did uncomfortably fit my 15″ laptop inside, really stretching the limits of the side panels, and then managed to cram the test “capacity” content on top (with room to spare!). I then did a “hunch test”, folding myself over as one would on a road bike, and found that there was barely any padding on the back panel, and my spine was knocking against the hard surface of my computer. Not cool! Plus the back did not have a mesh surface, literally making it not cool on a sweaty back.
Yes I get it, I have a big stupid computer.
Pros
Nice quality
Large capacity
Water repellent
Has a secret little back pocket you’ll probably never use
Has those tacky side pockets for water bottles which are surprisingly handy for sunglasses or pocket chargers
Cons
Made for a 13″ laptop
Non-meshed back
Not enough back padding
Rating
Comfort: ★★★☆☆
Creative professional-ness: ★★★★☆
Female compatibility: ★★★★★
Value for monies: ★★★★★
Overall: ★★★★☆+
🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒
Bag option #3: UNIQLO Water Repellent Backpack
Right after purchasing the MUJI bag I walked across the street and picked this up for $29.90. YOLO!
Realising that is was yet another bag made for 13″ laptops, I could immediately tell that the quality was much lesser than MUJI’s: it was much lighter in weight, and the fabric thinner. Look at those ugly shoulder straps where the fabric is bunching. The front pocket’s structure is so weak that it sags. Sad!
But: pretty good akshully?!
I again force-fit my behemoth laptop and belongings into the small frame, yet, contrary to expectation, this thing was comfortable AF?! And even had room to spare. The straps were super soft and cushy and malleable around my boobs, and the “hunch test” revealed amazingly thick layers of padding on two sides of the back panel, with a thinner center panel that relieves any pressure on your spine. What kind of ugly genius is this?
Pros
Stupidly comfortable
Large capacity
Water repellent
Again, tacky side pockets, this time with an angled top hem
Cons
Made for a 13″ laptop
Pretty cheap and ugly looking
Pretty cheap and ugly feeling
Rating
Comfort: ★★★★★
Creative professional-ness: ★★☆☆☆
Female compatibility: ★★★★★
Value for monies: ★★★★☆
Overall: ★★★★☆
🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒🎒
Other opshuns, you ask?
There’s a few other mid-range “nice” bag brands I was looking into online, such as the one which esteemed Creative Professional Jessica Hische ended up going with, but let’s just assume I left them out because they lack the quality needed for this rigorous assessment and not because the bag designer whom I went on a date with decided to ghost me after I sprained my ankle while in Canada. Ahem.
Final Verdict... and a Backpack Hack (!!) (...Backhack™?!)
Although I was quite impressed with the comfort the UNIQLO model provided (both to my body and my wallet), I was actually going to declare this experiment a failure and return all the backpacks. Until, that is, I took a closer look at the interior construction of the UNIQLO and MUJI bags: they measured as though they should be tall enough for my latop, and yet the MacBook corners stubbornly stuck out. Time to play detective! 🔍
Turning the bags inside-out, I noticed they both included a superfluous, space-reducing seam at the bottom of the main pocket. WTF.
UNIQLO bag before & after: the difference a simple seam (and lack of colour temperature matching) makes!
By removing this seam on the UNIQLO model, I gained a full inch of vertical room, ALLOWING THE 15″ LAPTOP TO ACTUALLY FIT IN THE DAMN BAG. Yes, it fits snugly, and some may argue that the superfluous seam protects the edge of the computer from hitting the ground, but the very bottom edge seam is actually pretty bulky and does a decent job of protecting as is.
Verdict: With the inclusion of this super deviant hack (and ONLY with this inclusion), UNIQLO wins!!!!!!!!
Epilogue
I’ve been using this bag for 7 months now. It looks kinda cheap and it tends to collect lint, but my shoulders are miraculously like never sore. And, even on a grocery run after stuffing a myriad of pokey-shaped food items in the thing until I can barely close it, it’s always very comfortable on my tender back when biking home (I did this very thing 2 weeks ago at the Farmer’s Market after buying Celine Dion tickets, because I am a white woman in her late 30s).
Oh, also: it’s black, so yes I am a Creative Professional, thank you for noticing!
TL;DR: UNIQLO; cheap; comfortable. Send me your products to review! 🔚
Colophon backpacks: ISM, UNIQLO, MUJI; socks: UNIQLO; t-shirt: from a Women Who Code meetup hosted by One Month; sweatpants: Alternative Apparel; laptop: Shmapple; glasses: Steven Alan clearance; stool: Target; plants: IKEA & Home Depot; blankets: Hudson’s Bay, E. Stocking; mirror & couch: IKEA; drawing above mirror: K. Freeman & P. Lyle; posters: Bruce Nauman and a Finnish Design Annual fold-out; calendar: Massimo Vignelli; bike: Miele; weight/capacity control group: thrifting, Peru, Amazon, HAY, more places; suddenly questioning the consistency of whether I’m listing where objects were bought or the brand name of the object itself: something I am going to pretend to resolve at a later date in time; brevity rating for this blog post: ★☆☆☆☆; fan appreciation: I am so sorry if you read this far
I’d normally avoid posting two interviews in a row, but honestly my life is a bore, and this one’s been burning a hole in my e-pocket for over a month, so why not!? Happy March, y’all!
I met Mary when my friend Jackie invited us to a friendly lady dinner because we all had a background in advertising, and when Jackie moved away, Mary and I kept hanging out due to us both being art director-types that like graphic novels and are into doing funny projects. Mary has great glasses and is both younger than me and has some legit awards/recognitions under her belt (Young Guns, anyone?), so if she wasn’t so damn nice and creative, I would probably have to claw her face off (because women can’t be happy for each other’s successes, of course). Every once in a while we meet up to work from home together, brainstorm ideas, or just hang out; a little while ago we met for lunch at baba cool to do just that!
(This is also the first interview I’ve done in person instead of via emailed questions, so like, please bask in its authenticity and the novel way I can ask follow-up questions.)
What’s your full name?
My full name is Mary Margaret Dauterman.
And where are you from originally?
I’m from Dallas, Texas.
What do you do for a living?
I’m a freelance art director and director, and I do lots of crafts and stuff I guess.
Where did you go to school?
I went to University of Texas, it was in-state tuition, and I have no loans, so that’s great.
What’s in-state tuition?
Because I’m from Texas, it was super cheap. But it was a pretty good school, and I got to live in Austin, and I love Austin. I was majoring in straight-up advertising, but in year 2 I found out there was a creative sequence you could apply to, so I got into that program and we made fake ads for 2 years, so I had a fake ad portfolio to get other jobs. That’s a thing only University of Texas has that was purely lucky.
Do you have a bachelor?
Yeah, I have a BS.
HAHAHA… so advertising is sciences?
I took so much biology and I thought I had every dramatic disease cause that’s all I was learning. I was like, I definitely have Marfan syndrome. It’s tall people who are near-sighted and have very long limbs and oversized hearts and a lot of them drop dead in their early 30s. The case study was this woman named Flo Hyman who was a volleyball player, and they think Abraham Lincoln had it, too.
Marfan syndrome!
I know you’ve done a lot of non-client side projects, can you tell me about them?
I do so much non-client work. I just made a video about an influencer who shits her pants. I have written and illustrated two books. I made a tortilla towel a few years ago. I guess I made more web-based stuff at first; I made an awards show for gifs when I lived in California.
Do you code?
No, not at all. That one, I had the idea at work and so there was a web developer who made it with my photoshop files. I’ve made a few tiny sites that I’ve made [my boyfriend] Kirill code, like yulebra.com. It’s just like a yule log, but a bra was burnt.
How do you find the time to do self-directed projects in between client work?
I guess now I’m trying to figure out the best way to do it. Now I’m really excited when I have downtime in between clients, when before I used to be mad stressed [about money]; you just don’t know what’s going to happen. And then if you’re making an expensive project you’re like, I need money for my project. But now I’m psyched about my downtime cause I can focus on my weird shit. If I get obsessive about an idea I just want to work on it all the time, just literally squeezing it in any time I don’t have to respond to other stuff. I’m a big old dork and I like working.
How do you negotiate work or rates as a woman?
The best thing is to keep it all in email, which I’ve actually been told not to do, but you can be as emotionless as possible and just send the info without making it about the fact that you’re a woman. Give yourself an hour to respond so you can think about it before you send something. Every time I send something out of anxiety it’s bad. Be a slower emailer!
So you work from home a lot of the time. I know you were in agencies before, so how did you make the transition?
My first freelance gig was in Portland, and every time they’ve hired me since they ask if I can come out there. Sometimes I’m like, “Sure”, and other times I’m like, “I don’t want to come live there for 3 months again, that was intense, and my life is in New York”. So for them I work remotely a lot. And then a couple of places here, I’ve said, “Hey if we don’t have meetings, I can just work from home”, and they’re cool with it. The best way to do it is to have a client that is nowhere near you so there’s no way to go into an office.
How do you find clients? Do they come to you?
Mostly the places I freelance for had recruiters that reached out to me asking for me to become full time and I said, "No, but I will freelance for you”. So that’s how it’s happened a lot. Sometimes, since I’ve worked at so many big agencies, all the people I’ve met there have dispersed and will sometimes reach out or I’ll bug them and find gigs.
What would your dream job be?
I think in terms of lifestyle, I like my [current] lifestyle, it’s great. Project-wise, I’m wanting to do more short films, so I’m planning on that. But it would be such a dream if someone else paid for that, not me.
I’m pretty certain I want to focus on directing but the aesthetics of things are still very important [to me], that’s part of why I like [self-producing projects], cause it’s all that stuff at once. I’m thinking I want to be directing commercials and then getting to do passion projects with that funding, but if there was no financial concern, it would be cool to just be directing movies… but that’s like, NOT REAL, haha.
But probably [my dream job is] no real job. Just lots of things at once.
In regards to working at home, what do you find yourself wearing?
Well I only have one pair of sweatpants. I’m looking for recommendations for a second.
I was in UNIQLO recently and I’m considering getting a pair. I know we’re both kind of tall, and you’re taller than me, but I have a hard time finding sweatpants that are long enough.
Long sweatpants are important. I bought some online and they had a drop crotch and I’m like, this isn’t going to work, even if no one’s ever going to see me. Just, no.
I also hate the ones that are low-rise. I need a high-rise on my sweatpants!
You want to be cozy!
Do you wear them everyday?
Lately, embarrassingly yes; sometimes leggings, sometimes I will put on comfy jeans. My boyfriend was making fun of me because sometimes I will get dressed from the waist up because I have video calls, but sometimes it’s literally the t-shirt I slept in the night before and then I’ll put on pants.
What’s your favourite thing to eat when you’re working from home?
I’ve basically been trying to recreate sweetgreen bowls. I’ve been doing lots of stir fried veggies and grains and stuff, which would be $15 if I weren’t at home.
What’s the most shameful thing you eat?
I eat handfuls of chocolate chips a lot. I went through a phase where I was just making myself a giant grilled cheese every single day, and then I was like, Why do I feel horrible?! It’s so delicious! Actually no, I take that back; the most shameful thing is when I just Seamless something to my house when I have plenty of time to cook.
How does your boyfriend like living with someone who works from home?
Recently I was bragging to someone about how I was really clean, and [my boyfriend] was like, “Uh NO, sometimes I come home from work and wonder, what the hell happened in here?!” If I’m intensely in a project I will still cook myself lunch and then just leave everything out, which is gross.
I get that, you don’t want to spend your precious time cleaning.
You’re like, Huuuhhhh I have a deadline!!
What do you listen to when you work?
Sometimes I watch movies when I’m working if it’s something mindless. I listen to podcasts and recently I’ve been listening to lots of classical music but it kind of makes me feel like I’m a serial killer plotting a murder.
How do you practice self-care* and work/life balance?
Well I just came from the gym. I have 2 gym classes I really like going to but I can only go to them if I’m working from home because they’re at 10am on weekdays. And I’m like, who are all the other people in here?! They’re packed classes!
I think a lot of people either work in the service industry at night, or they’re like us, or maybe they’re housewives?
I think at the Park Slope location, all housewives. And there’s always one 40-50yr old guy in this one pilates class I take and I decided he just sold a bajillion dollar company, that’s his deal. Although he would probably go to Equinox if that’s his story, not Crunch. So I dunno what he does.
Do you have any weird skills or talents I don’t know about?
I should be talented but I’m not. I took piano until I was 18 but I am not good at it.
Anything else you want to plug while you’re here?
I recommend getting a cat while you work from home. It makes you feel less alone, even if they’re passed out asleep. [My cats are] Lemon, from Liz Lemon, and Bobby, after Bobby Hill. Lemon loves conference calls and she comes running and sits on my lap during them which is really nice.
Mary with Bobby, last August
Are there any tv shows or books you're really into right now?*
Ooh ok I JUST binged all of Russian Doll in one day and I'm pretty sure I loved it. I'm also always re-watching old eps of King of the Hill and X-Files. I'm currently reading The Road Through the Wall by Shirley Jackson. I'm really into the graphic novel Beverly and got Sabrina by Nick Drnaso (your suggestion!). It was DARK and sad and good.
What are you wearing?
I’m wearing a sweatshirt that is red, a shirt that I sleep in a lot, and leggings that I think are my mom’s, and some Nikes, and a coat. I’m *so* glad this is my outfit for our interview, but it’s pretty accurate.
*Shoutout to Chanice Hughes-Greenberg and her inspiring bi-monthly interview newsletter Who Is She, who I blatantly stole these great questions from. Subscribe!
I technically met Fran through my friend/his wife, Sarah (who, coincidentally, I met through an ex named Fran!). About three years ago, Fran and I were both running late to a graphic novel panel discussion in Brooklyn that Sarah was speaking on, and I recognized him from her Instagram feed/comics, so I said “Hi, are you Fran?!” like an inept Internet stalker. We ended up hanging out all afternoon while she signed books and realised we had a lot in common (web development! pastries! Sarah! jokes!), so we became internet friends.
Fran is now a software engineer at Tumblr (coincidentally he is tasked with fixing the biggest problem I have with it), is a cartoonist himself, and has endured periods of homeworking, like when he didn’t yet have a greencard, or when we slowly tackled a year-long freelance project together (in the middle of which he had a baby). I would also like to state that we originally Powerlunched in December of 2017 and I didn’t get these questions back until I harassed him a few weeks ago, a partial cause of which may have been the baby(?).
What is your full name?
Francisco Tomás López. In 2003, RFC 3629 established UTF-8 as a standard Internet protocol element. It's 2019 now and I just signed up for the YMCA, but my name is displayed as "Francisco Tomás López".
Where are you originally from?
The lovely neighborhood of Villa del Parque in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
What is your legal work status?
"Don't ask, don't tell."
What is your healthcare status?
"See something, say something."
What do you do for a living?
I'm a software engineer that is able to legally work in the US of A, so my work and healthcare statuses are actually pretty good, at least until the tech bubble bursts. Once that happens I'm pretty much useless, but I'm married to very handy woman, she'll protect me.
What do you do for fun?
I do many things. Most notable in the context of this interview: I'm an avid baker. (Meaning: last week I made some muffins for the first time. Even though they turned out great, you refused to eat them. Why wouldn't you have my muffins, Christy?) [Editor’s note: Why did it take you so long to finish this interview, Fran?]
Do you miss working from home full-time?
Half of the time I do. I think my relationship with homeworking can be graphed in a continuous sine wave that peaks high when I realize I can work in my underwear and peaks low when I realized I've been in my underwear for a week. After that I try to get out more until I remember the comfort of staying home and the cycle repeats.
What's it like also living with someone who works from home? Are there any interesting anecdotes to share? Hot tips?
Sarah's work is much more fun and interesting to watch than mine. When we were both working full time from home it was great for me to take breaks and see what she was doing. I'm sure she LOVED the constant and unrequested interruptions. Soon after that we decided to have a kid together, so maybe that counts as "hot tip"?
You have a new-ish baby! Will you encourage your baby to also work from home? You could have a family business!
Yes! We could both interrupt his mom, I'm sure she'll love that even more!
Do you eat regular meals when you work at home?
¡Ja! (That's Spanish for "Ha!").
As the first fellow programmer I've interviewed (if I'm allowed to call myself one), tell me why you got into programming! (This is a question sponsored by STEM.)
I found a tutorial on Pascal somewhere on the semi-early internet when I was 12 and had a lot of fun with it. I wrote some dumb stuff like a program that would take a text file and use the buzzer in the motherboard to make a short sound for every character in the file (the pitch being a multiple of it's ASCII code). I spent hours listening to that and drove my family crazy. Fast forward to now and turns out I have an employable skill!
Do you prefer drawing or programming?
I guess I prefer whichever is not the one I'm doing the most of, so that's always been me wanting to draw more and code less. Capitalism assigned us the role of eternal consumers and to that end trains us to place desire in what we don't have.
If you could make a living off comics, would you drop programming altogether?
No, I actually like programming. And doing comics full-time will probably drive me crazy. Maybe I would dedicate my programming time to do personal projects. I have this cool idea about a little program that takes a text a file and then uses the buzzer in the motherboard to...
Do you often get compared to the guy who played Christopher in The Sopranos?
Only by the most discerning of persons.
Your Twitter handle is @FranniferLopez. Do you feel you have a personal connection to Jennifer Lopez?
Years ago I found this great photo from 1999 of Fran Drescher and Jennifer Lopez hanging out in a club. I've used it ever since as my profile photo in all the different online systems of any job I had. How people react to me using that photo is my way to make sure if I should keep that job or start looking for something else. So yes, I feel very connected to Jennifer Lopez (and Fran Drescher, of course).
What were you wearing when we last hung out A YEAR AGO when I took the picture of you eating fries with mustard? (No, you're not allowed to look at the photo, which is also a pretty horrible photo, I’m sorry I backlit you.)
First let me say that I think the English speaking part of North America is a beautiful place with rich culture that I'm taking in with my full, open heart. That being said, you guys could be using mustard for so much more! As for clothes: If I was lucky, I was wearing my favorite sweater, which has a flowery pattern in bordeaux over a dark, deep blue background. I don't remember anything else. [Editor’s note: incorrect, but you can see that sweater below, in a much better photo, partially because it includes me!]
Holy shit it’s 2019! What did you get up to in 2018? What were your achievements, your successes? (Tumblr, I see that you have quasi-upgraded your blogging platform so I can have proper post titles AND photo layouts, congrats! Except they don’t really work!!)
One thing I did was upgrade my workspace, cause holy fuck it was starting to get depressing having my desk in a dark corner.
Welcome to Homeworking HQ (Ditmas Park) 2.0! Now I get to push pixels beside my big, bright, plant-adorned window, which allows me to bathe in all the reflected sunlight I can take and more easily spy on the people across the street at all hours of the day. In addition to relocating my desk, I got rid of another shitty table I didn’t like/need and replaced it with something useful: colour-coordinated S-T-O-R-A-G-E!
Behold!
Since apparently I don’t know how to purchase anything that isn’t red, yellow or blue, I found this not-Bisley™ wheeled filing cabinet online and then filled it with shit to organize other-shit-that-was-cluttering-up-my-apartment. There is nothing quite as satisfying as hidden things unnecessarily matching other things that are also hidden!
The only other surface I now have to eat off/do anything at is this IKEA “kitchen island” which I mostly end up standing at if I have a guest over like some awkward personal bartender because I currently only have one tall stool:
December: back on the holiday caramel-making bullshit.
Anyways, so far, it’s been a success sitting 10 feet closer to a natural light source, measurable by the fact that I really actually enjoy sitting at my desk again.
Wow, I’m sitting beside a window! Ok!
But how else does one define success? Purchasing objects to improve your quality of life is one thing, but measuring success in your career and personal life is trickier.
Warning: the rest of this post is basically me practicing long winded/unfunny/unresearched existential thought diarrhea so feel free to maybe skip it!
When I was younger and still unsure of what direction my life would take post-art school, I knew that at least no matter what I ended up doing, I wanted to be successful at it, and loosely defined that “success” as being able to make a living from it (growing up in a financially unstable household, self-sustained monetary security was of high importance). I was very lucky that I fell into a creative line of work that I not only found enjoyable and challenging, but was able to turn into a relatively fruitful career.
But the thing with a low threshold of success is that as soon as you achieve it, you need to begin rescaling your definition of it to keep moving forward: you need to embrace AMBITION.
O, ambition! What highs! I remember in my late 20s working a full-time advertising job then coming home and joyfully working a number of assorted freelance jobs. I loved it! (My then-boyfriend hated it!) I was productive! I was building a portfolio! The future! and! amount! of! work! was! limitless!
But now I’m TIRED. Thinking about work makes me TIRED. Just seeing my phone display “January” made me TIRED. Last year when I had a temporary full-time gig, with a 1.5-hour daily commute, I got home and ate take-out sushi with 13 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and ignored my freelance work and fell the fuck ASLEEP.
And still, despite a lack of energy (vitamin B and heme iron be damned), I feel guilty every minute of the day before 10pm that I’m not working on something. Even if all my client jobs are complete, I still feel like I should be taking advantage of that rare “free time” and work on a personal project (this post itself is a direct result of the joy/guilt from staying in on New Year’s Eve).
There’s the concept of a healthy work/life balance, but who has time for that? No minute can ever be wasted, because ambition is always perched on your shoulder whispering: you need to produce MORE THINGS; you need to work HERE, or teach THERE; you need to be on THIS WEBSITE, or THIS LIST, or in THIS GALLERY, or work with THIS STUDIO, and have THIS TITLE, or give THIS TALK… or you’re not really achieving success. Even if to outside eyes it might look like you’re doing pretty damn good, when you measure yourself next to your industry peers, you’re ultimately a smidgen above average, at best.
What’s sadly comforting is that achievement insecurity pervades almost everyone. A friend that I consider to be extremely successful (owning companies, property) once confided that their own family doesn’t see their achievements to be very worthwhile. Another friend, who puts so much work into running their own small business, is realizing the energy they’re pouring in is not resulting in a sustainable existence. Yet another friend, who seemed to have achieved the whole perfect job/house/marriage/dog combo, felt inadequate for having trouble conceiving.
So what if you’re not reaching the level of success you think you should have by now? Does yearning for more keep you moving forward, or just make you feel shitty? When do you abandon ambition? As my friend Amil Niazi recently commented on the Sheryl Sandberg concept of “leaning in”, when can we just give up and “lean out”?
What I’m realising is that what possibly makes the idea of abandoning success so difficult is that I, a single woman, don’t know what I’d replace it with. As 20-somethings unburdened with families to raise or households to maintain as earlier generations were, we were instead burdened by the freedom and expectation to become who we wanted as early as we could. And if we millennial women are not trying to live our most ambitiously fulfilling lives [on social media], do we even have an identity?!
If a woman chooses to forego ambition, there seems to be only one acceptable reason for that: motherhood. (She can have it all as well, but god forbid she have neither!) But I’m not sure I want that either, and so giving up success without starting a family means I will have to decide if I not only want to let myself but also society-at-large down.
Your 30s (ironically the decade that I’ve decided is about learning to not give a shit) seems to be the ultimate reality check; either you’ve already “made it”, or you need to embrace that you haven’t, probably aren’t going to, and are too damn tired to keep trying. Do we just need to give ourselves a break at this point? Re-evaluate our definition of success yet again, instead of abandoning it altogether? Maybe the better question is WHY I feel the need to measure my own success in the first place, when everyone’s definition is different anyways... someone’s definition might be having a baby and a white picket fence; mine should be managing to survive in New York without health insurance while self-employed.
Me, exemplifying the self-satisfaction that comes with writing about yourself on social media while simultaneously exhibiting how my apartment has been reorganized.
I was recently told by an older friend that your 40s is about learning to love yourself. So I guess I’ve got 4 more years of trying to “make it” before I can officially give up and force myself to be happy with (or at least acknowledge) what I’ve achieved thus far, and worry about nothing more. Looking forward to that menial office job and craft room in the sky!
Colophon sweater & socks: UNIQLO; toque: Army & Navy; sweatpants: Alternative Apparel; mug: some print-on-demand company; glasses: Steven Alan clearance; plants: IKEA & Home Depot; couchy thing & kitchen island: IKEA; stool: Target; status candle: Diptyque; filing cabinet: Walmart.com; wall poster: Grilli Type; everything nice: probably MoMA Design Store deep discount; caramel recipe: David Lebovitz; optional subtitle: “Or, How I Never Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Hustle”; most horrifying thing I remember from a dream last night: Kylie Jenner; most stupefying thing to waste time image searching: Kylie Jenner’s teenage face transformation; best thing to snog as the clock strikes midnight when home alone on NYE: duty-free booze
Have you ever wanted to “exercise” but didn’t really want to? Then you’ve probably tried yoga, the lazy man’s workout. Have you ever wanted to do that yoga but also didn’t want to have to leave your hermitage or your significant other (laptop)?! Then perhaps you’ve discovered the joys of Homestretching™, aka just doing yoga, at home, but branded my myself!
Homestretching™ is one of the few physical activities I will actually do because: A) you don’t have to pay to do it (I’m horrifically cheap); B) it requires little-to-no equipment (again, cheap); and C) it literally involves laying down and resting!
Homestretching™ is also particularly wonderful for the avid homeworker because you can do it on your own schedule, and possibly even in your underwear if you don’t feel like getting dressed. Also, you can just sit down on the mat after and boom: you have an entirely new work environment. You can even blow your nose mid-Sukhasana and just litter your floor with toilet paper shame-free since apparently you and everyone else has seasonal allergies now; try doing that at Bikrams!
I hadn’t done yoga since 2010, when I was between jobs and used to go to lunchtime by-donation drop-in at the DTES women’s clinic with 60yr old ladies who were all stronger than me (I once had an anxiety attack mid-session because I couldn’t hold a pose). But back in February I woke up with a hangover headache, and when the next day the hangover was gone but the headache was still there (a headache that now seemed to stem from neck pain), I realised I had a larger problem on my hands... something that was maybe due to 12 years of continuous computer slouching.
Since your 30s is the time when your body starts falling apart unless you proactively put the decay on pause, I decided it was finally time to deal with my horrid posture, so I found a chiropractor to align my shit up, ordered the least-ugly-yet-affordable mat I could find on Amazon, and embarked on a 30 Day Yoga Challenge with Adriene. (I later discovered she’s the YouTube yogi-of-choice for a bunch of my friends; 3.5 million subscribers can’t be wrong!)
I must admit I still haven’t finished the 30 day challenge (ended up going on a semi-spontaneous trip to Asia for 3 weeks and starting over) but after doing ~30 minutes of yoga almost every day, my posture is better, my problematic shoulder has not been problematic, and I can actually touch the ground with straight-ish legs, something that used to be entirely out of the question!!
Homestretching™ is also a great winter activity, where you have an excuse to go hang out by your window in the sun and feel like you’re outside without actually having to go outside! But who am I kidding, I’m doing that now when it’s 20 out. As you can see, there are literally no limits to the benefits of Homestretching™... namaste!
Tag your posts with #homestretching and show everyone* how you Homestretch™ at home!
*no one; possibly me
Colophon T-shirt: hand-me-down gifted in Seoul by RT; leggings: UNIQLO; slippers: some clothing fair thing for vintage fashion; yoga mat: Gaiam and already wishing I’d bought better; lappytoppy: Apple; lappytoppy photo hot tip: always display code on your screen so you look smarter; sunlight: Gaia; allergies: also Gaia; toilet paper: Charmin; upper body strength: now exists; pipes: forthcoming; photo captions: surely hitting rock bottom this time; trademark: okay not a legit trademark, just trying to build a personal brand here, let me live my truth.
Hey, guys! Have you heard about this crazy fermented beverage thing called “kombucha”?! Did you know that consuming fermented things is supposed to be really good for your body?! Did you know that it costs $3.99 USD for a 480ml bottle, but you can trick yourself into thinking you enjoy making it at home for just pennies a glass?!
Kombucha brewing is a perfect hobby for people who have recently experienced gastrointestinal problems, people who spend way too much time at home, or people who simply just want some sort of low-commitment responsibility in their otherwise meaningless lives but don’t, like, want to join a religion or get a dog or anything. It may not be as visually rewarding as a plant, but it’s nearly impossible to kill, AND it tastes great with alcohol; why have a baby when can you can birth your own unconditionally-loving and endlessly-giving kombucha offspring right at home?!
The Homeworking™ Guide to Home-Brewing Kombucha
Visit your friend in Toronto who you know makes kombucha and just casually be like, “So I’ve been thinking about making kombu–”
Friend puts their finger on your lips, says “Say no more,” and proudly foists upon you a SCOBY (aka a Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast, aka The Mother!)
Carry that weird alien globule around for another week, including taking it on 3 flights, in a <100ml container that you realise isn’t leak-proof until it spills all over your luggage
Get home, prep some ginger lemon tea, get excited about how you’re going to CHANGE! YOUR! LIFE!
Find some instructions online and realise you’re doing it wrong
Continue to do it wrong 3 more times before finally reading the entire instructions start to finish; take 2 more trips to grocery store; somehow blame millennials for everything you did incorrectly
Finally make some damn kombucha tea, ferment it, secondary ferment it, consume it
Repeat for the rest of your life!!
Advanced kombucha brewers may want kick their process up a notch by trying a technique I started today purely by accident, which involves timing your kombucha ferment with the start of your menstrual cycle! It’s a win/win for both your digestive system AND your probably barren uterus; no need for pregnancy, as simply by uttering the words, “I guess I’m making kombucha?” you are now The Mother! to The Mother!
If you don’t think kombucha brewing is for you, and you secretly scoff at all your friends with huge jars full of cloudy golden liquid and phlegmmy SCOBYs atop their kitchen cupboards, and you even just hate saying the word SCOBY because it kinda sounds like annoying stoner vernacular, hey, I’ve been there! But then I remembered that your post-20s is a continuous series of self-reflections wherein you find yourself saying, “Welp, I guess I’m this type of person now!” and so here we are! Hot Tip: pair this activity with a kale salad to really hit peak Single White Female 2017.
In other news, it snowed two days ago, so it’s officially turtleneck weather, aka my favourite time of year! Which is why I also just got back from a spontaneous trip to LA (pictured) with my friend T (not pictured). Life is just full of surprises, and I really can’t wait to see what previously-abhorred activity I hypocritically embrace next!
Colophon Turtleneck: UNIQLO; sweatpants: Alternative Apparel; t-shirt: $0.99 Katy Perry California Dreams tour shirt; socks: UNIQLO; undies (not pictured): Aerie; glasses: Steven Alan Optical deep sale; glass jug: IKEA; glass bottles: Amazon, free with AmEx points; manicure set: Sephora, used twice; mammogram pamphlet: William F. Ryan Community Health Center; ponch: ice cream + terrible posture; mixing bowl: Rosti via MoMA Design Store; cutlery: MoMA Staff Caff [sic]; LA hallucinations: Runyon Canyon, “difficult level” trail; future: so bright I gotta wear a brimmed cap; Aronofsky: probably could have made some better “jokes” but I’m just appropriating the punctuational device because I am lazy and haven’t! seen! the! film!; oh yeah: Happy Holidays!
I “met” Michael once in Vancouver when he was dating my cousin, and I don’t even think we talked. But he ended up moving to NYC shortly after I did, and I discovered that he was smart and funny, so now we are friends! He’s also self-employed to some degree, so occasionally he guilts me into hanging out with him on weekdays if we’re in the same hood. We had some mediocre tacos for lunch in Lefferts Gardens on a Monday back in August, because the sushi place I want to marry doesn’t open until 5pm.
–
What is your full name?
Michael Jacob Onyango Okech Milanya
What do you do for a living?
I am a movement therapist and personal trainer.
How often do you work from home?
Never. [Editor’s note: Michael has twice worked magic on my fucked-up shoulder on a massage table in his Harlem apartment after which I exchanged money for his services, so he’s lying.]
How early do you start drinking if you're working at home?
Whence I get the urge. [Editor’s note: See?! Caught in his own lie.]
Where are you from originally? What passport(s) do you have?
Well I was born in Tuscon, Arizona, but I am from Kenya. Passport US and A.
Do you spell "colour" with a "u"?
I am multicultural and multifaceted so I spell it both ways. “Colour”, however, is the correct way to spell it. [Editor’s note: Correct!]
Why did you move to NY?
It's the best place on earth? Multiple reasons. Wanted a challenge, more opportunity work-wise and education-wise. Way closer to Kenya and Europe. I love Jazz.
This might be a trick question, because I have never seen you not wear sportswear. Do you only own sportswear? Do you have "nice clothes" and what are they?
I generally wear sportswear. I have two button down shirts and one pair of slacks. My nice clothes are jeans.
I've heard you refuse to ever wear a blazer. Why, and under what circumstance would you actually agree to wear one?
I had to wear one in high school. Would wear one if I got invited to a Nobel Prize presentation.
What about runners? Do you own any shoes that aren't runners?
I do have some decent shoes. No dress shoes though. That will change next week.
How often do you spend the entire day without leaving your apartment?
Not so much in New York. But if I could do one weekend a month I would like my life more.
Is it true you're related to a former president of the United States?
Yep. He is my cousin.
Can you share a quick & easy lunch idea/receipe?
Most all my cooking is elaborate.
How likely are you to go back to the place we had tacos?
Hahahah. Probably never.
When are you coming back to my hood so we can get sushi at my favourite sushi place?
Send us an invite.
You have claimed that you make the BEST BROWNIES but I have yet to taste such brownies. Why is this? How can we finally make this happen?!
My brownies are fantastic. Brownies will be tasted next time I come to BrooooKlyn [Editor’s note: 3 months later and this still has not happened.]
Bonus question: I've had the runs for 12 days now. Do you think I am dying?*
This is definitely a bad sign. Where's your fibre what are you allergic to. Maybe sushi is a bad idea.
*Update: I was severely dehydrated due to C Diff, so I was kind of dying!
Greetings from my apartment! Summer is here, and so is my classic summer wardrobe aka the pyjamas I woke up in. This is also my current work wardrobe because, hooray, I quit my job in July and am officially back to Homeworking™!
Why did I quit my job, no one asked? Although my coworkers were lovely, I’d been itching to leave since last summer (taking a full-time position was an extremely lateral career move), but found myself in a super fun American situation called “job lock” wherein I had a medical ailment and needed the health insurance benefits that only an employer could provide. After one abdominal myomectomy, $70,788.29 USD of coverage, six weeks of medical leave, and three additional months of highly unmotivated 9-to-5-ing, I am a whole new fibroid-free, born-again self-employed woman!
Visa wise, I strategically have a second recently-renewed TN with another company I do occasional jobs for, so I’m legally allowed to be here another three years. But I’ll definitely be looking for a new full-time job in the fall, and one that won’t make me question why the f*ck I’m there and what the f*ck I’m doing with my life every minute I’m on the clock.
Other notably dull events from the last 6 months:
Taxes! Dear lord, if you never have to learn the meaning of “dual-status return” consider yourself lucky. (But in the chance you do, I am now an overconfident novice, and have promised to pay forward all I’ve learnt.)
Lease renewing! Bish gonna keep this apartment another year!
Hoarding! I went from, “I’m not going to accumulate stuff while I’m in America” to “GIVE ME ALL THE THINGS” because working in the retail division at MoMA is a very slippery, discounted, design-object laden slope.
Tooth pulling! As evidenced by the bruise still on my cheek!
Furniture! Not only did I get more things to sit on, I also scored a proper desk from the 2017 stationery trade show aftermath, so now I have a table/desk hybrid mega surface; posting this DIYdea on Pinterest later.
I put together the bed that was in my closet for 6 months! This was the day I became an adult.
It’s offish hot, so I’m dangerously balancing my moderate use of AC with how much skin I can reveal without getting goosebumps. While I’ve pretty much not worn any type of leg covering since last Wednesday, I managed to find the wherewithal to cover my decrepit underwear for the benefit of YOU, dear reader. My hair is also pretty damn long, but keeping it up in a loose rat’s nest of a “bun” that I ineptly re-restrain every morning prevents me from having to expend energy washing or brushing or remembering I have it.
Also real talk, I’m also questioning how much longer I’ll be in the States. While working here has been at times equally enriching and spirit-crushing, in the long run I want to work for myself. Unfortunately it doesn’t make financial sense to do it in the USA because a) one needs an O-1 visa to freelance freely and legally (expensive to obtain), but more importantly b) The $400+ per month you’d be putting towards health insurance could be better spent on a mortgage downpayment, pyramid scheme dues, a drug habit, or literally ANYTHING ELSE. Unless I’m magically pulling in $100k on my own, or have any other reason to stay put, it doesn’t seem worth it. I mean NYC is fun, but also Drumpf.
Boy, it sure if fun to update this desperately public diary lifestyle blog; hopefully I’ll get to do it again before we are killed in a nuclear attack. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to the goddamn endless work I cancelled a trip to Europe for *, hooray!
* Thank you loyal clients, I love you!!
Colophon Tank top: 2007 H&M; shorts: xmas gift from my aunt in the 90s; babouche: some sale thing in Sunset Park; face bruise: Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery of Ocean Parkway; corner couch: IKEA; white & blue ceramic vase: gift courtesy LC; everything else that’s nice: MoMA Design Store; everything else that isn’t: found IKEA; abdomen: less fibroid, more bloat; bloat: possibly C Diff lol no really; paleness: Maybe She’s Born With It™; looking like shit on the Internet: truth to materials; imminent death: welcome!
It’s also MLK Day here in the USA, which = long weekend, which = HOME WORK SO FUN YAAAAY! I have to complete 3 sites by the end of the month! Why am I still doing freelance?! WHY IS ANYONE DOING ANYTHING, THE WORLD IS GOING TO END THIS YEAR.
Speaking of, I’m also having surgery at the end of Feb (to remove these super fun/huge uterine fibroids I’m incubating in my abdomen), and boy oh boy am I thankful for having great health insurance through my full-time job at a non-profit. It’s not going to be free, but it’s going to be an affordable fraction of its listed cost (which is obviously completely unaffordable otherwise; costs for everything health-wise are inflated beyond belief).
To wax politics for a moment: I’d say one of the largest differences about working in the USA is how people are tied to their jobs because of health insurance. Without it, a median-income freelancer might pay upwards of $400/mo just for “affordable” coverage... coverage that still involves co-pays (a fee for a doctor appointment, for instance) and usually ridiculously high deductibles, only really being “worth it” if you have a major problem. (Medicaid, which I’m glad my taxes fund, is only available to low-income households.) Generally, insurance through an employer will be much less for monthly premiums (mine is around 50% more than I was paying in Vancouver), though depending on its quality, might still not leave you with many cost benefits beyond that.
A lot of workplaces will tie employees on as full-time contractors, refusing to hire them on salary because then they will be obliged be to cover their health insurance. Even if they do, the maternity leave is yet another thing to balk at, with only 12 weeks guaranteed leave... but depending on your employer, not guaranteed paid leave. (It’s appalling, as a Canadian, to think of any mother having to return to their job 3 months after giving birth. One woman I know here described it as being emotionally traumatic.) For contrast, with my particular insurance plan, I would be able to get up to 6 months of short-term disability leave at half my salary (I also believe this applies to the employee only, so if my wife were expecting and covered under my plan, she would not be entitled to those same benefits). Not that I plan on procreating tomorrow, but know a lot of my decisions in the next few years (job, city of residence, financial saving, human babies) will depend highly on what type of health insurance situation I have or will need.
I would never vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act (insurance companies being forced to accept patients with pre-existing conditions alone is saving countless lives), but it’s definitely not perfect, and I feel like America’s right-wing affinity for privatized systems, capitalism and corporate greed might probably prevent any sort of real universal healthcare system from taking hold. But at least Obama started the process of change, and it’s sickening to now see its fate in the hands of an inept con artist leading a gang of clowns. How fucked is it that in a first-world country, if you need emergency care, an ambulance ride to the wrong hospital (because it’s not the closest hospital that matters, it’s the one that’s in your insurance network) could mean financial ruin?!
I say this all while knowing a) I’m not an expert; these are just my musings as a Canadian learning to navigate the “system”, and b) I’m incredibly lucky to have the job, income & insurance I do at this point in time when I really need it. God knows there are many who are much less fortunate, especially when who knows what the fuck is going to happen in the next few months.
Today I woke up in these navy blue leggings and a Katy Perry tour t-shirt. Then I put on a sweatshirt. And socks. In addition to coding and drinking tea, it’s the perfect outfit for drafting passive-aggressive tweets in your head about ex lovers and contemplating how soon it will be before you mass adopt 14 cats. I complement this look with a fierce gold acrylic manicure that I haven’t gotten filled in 4 weeks. Because nothing says trying as much as “I tried like a month ago, so”. But hey, it’s sunny out!! So happy to be inside!!
In closing: the day after the election I saw a woman on the subway just openly reading 50 Shades of Grey. BECAUSE NOTHING MATTERS ANYMORE.
Colophon sweatshirt: H&M; leggings, socks: UNIQLO; glasses: Steven Alan Optical sale; babouches: some vintage sale thingy; hand-illustrated birthday card: KF&PL; ceramic vase: gift from LC; bedside book: Rolling Blackouts by the wonderful SG (highly recommended); nails: Precious Nails Spa Inc.; plants: most likely Home Depot; calendar: Stendig; pillowcase: HAY x Nathalie Du Pasqier; Canada flags: Billy Bishop Airport; mammogram pamphlet: American Cancer Society, the Official Sponsor of Birthdays™ (wtf?); xmas card: nephew & family; uterus size: equivalent of 5+ mos baby gestation; rant: clearly Canadian; upcoming roadtrip: DC BISHES, WE’RE WOMENS MARCHIN;
I must admit I’ve really been avoiding homeworking recently, only because in February I got a 3-year visa and started working a proper 9-to-5er. Which in New York actually means 9-to-”bet you wish you got paid overtime”, i.e.: “FOREVER HAHAHA”. (People eat dinner late here for a reason.) I don’t know how I used to work full-time and then come home and work on freelance all night back in my 20s, cause now the only thing I want to do when I cross that apartment threshold is get into lethargy mode i.e.: put on a muumuu and eat jalapeño Cheetos Crunchies in bed while binge watching something I can ignore while I second screen.
Speaking of home, I ALSO MOVED!! To my own studio apartment just steps from Prospect Park, where I don’t have to deal with [insert laundry list of roommate complaints]. I think I’ve vented enough to [un]willing ears, but I will say that the highlight of settling my damage deposit was being forced to pay $20 for two unexceptional dishes I broke and $40 for a vacuum part I didn’t break. [insert laundry list of emojis]
ANYWAYS, I now have Swifferable hardwood, a Pinterest-worthy floor mirror, and more space to taint with flatulence than I know what to do with! (Eat more hummus I guess?!) I even did some illegal electrical rewiring so I didn’t have to reach behind the fridge to turn on my lights, fun!! Also managed to give myself a nasty scar, which I’m trying to pass off as very cool!!!!
I’m keeping my workstation extremely minimal these days, as I scavenged 90% of my furniture from a trade show and no one left behind a desk. So I’m doing that thing normal people do, and working from a normal table, without a second monitor! (¡BoNKerS!!!1!1!) With my definite lack of motivation to actually work, though, it’s clearly ne pas de problème.*
*If you’re one of my clients, please ignore the last sentence and know that I’m definitely working hard towards our deadlines!! :D
I’ve also got a new uniform which I strip down to the moment I walk through my door, this delightful muumuu that I thrifted in Toronto! It literally shouts, “I don’t remember what ambition is!” in unremarkable floral micro-patterned red cotton.
Now, back to my sitcom-worthy task of making wedding websites after having just gone through a breakup. Punchline: ...and I’m nearly 34!
(But don’t worry not preggos. #teamIUD)
Colophon muumuu: Value Village Toronto; babouches: this NY vintage trade show thing; glasses: Steven Alan Optical sale; hat: thrifted; umbrella: HBC; backpack: Baggu, MoMA Design Store staff sale; Or Gallery tote: Or Gallery; Black & canvas tote: Inventory Press x Slow and Steady Wins the Race; plants: IKEA, Home Depot; sultry ceramics: Maggie Boyd Ceramics, gift from LC; Eames Hang-It-All: MoMA Design Store employee discount; tables & chairs: aftermath of the NY Stationery tradeshow; shelf: generous coworker; air conditioner and electrical supplies: Home Depot; scar: fresh boxcutter; blank walls: lack of gumption; frighteningly large abdomen: overzealous uterine fibroid + exaggerated posture; future: unknown
A belated happy new year to everyone, especially me! I recently got back from 17 days in Peru & Bolivia (would have been 15 but thank youuuu Storm Jonas!) and boy are my arms tired... from carrying home loads of alpaca-based textiles, which apparently are all in the colour family of RED (see title of post). I’ve never seen me looking so cozy as I did today!
It’s been a little surreal to come back to snow after weeks of humidity and avocados, but luckily the distraction of work helps you eat your emotions. See also: booze.
I can actually get away with posting about this trip on this here Homeworking blog since I had to design some signage and build two websites while away, although there is no photographic evidence of this. All I managed to capture is evidence of an International Netflix n Chill binge sesh (which could really be anywhere if you ignore the vague clues of Inca Kola, tres leches, potato bread, and subtitles). Also, I include some travel steez shots here: modelling my excellent flight wardrobe colour coordination; the sophisticated look a touch of duct tape adds to luggage; my own face adorned with a missing crown; and appropriating photoconceptualism in a home improvement store.
Quick rundown of the trip: Lima, dentist, Cuzco, altitude sickness, poop issues, Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu, long bus rides, Puno, Lake Titicaca, Islas Uros & Taquile, Copacabana, stomach issues, La Paz, El Alto, Cholets, #architecture, markets, Lima, more poop issues, buses, taxis, food, Central, leaving ;(.
(For more visual evidence of travel see the other blog I rarely update or the Instagram account I refuse to acknowledge I own. Or the documentation [and images of Lima life in general] of my lovely travel partner, P.)
In other news, the last month has dealt me a crazy array of new things: confirmed my 2010 Macbook Pro was officially failing (spontaneous restarts don’t really bode well for deadlines) and had to get a new one; new computer glasses for home use; new cement for one of my fake front teeth that decided to come loose right before my departure*; and new technical travel gear I will be abusing a lax return policy to get rid of. Hopefully some paycheques are in the mail right now, and a full-time job fairy visits soon. :-s
Gotta say, I’m pretty excited to have these mass-produced artisanal warm-toned knits! The multi-coloured sweater (which was clearly the “reject” among the greater sweater population) especially reminds me of something I would have worn in art school and subsequently gotten rid of to pursue a more “professional” wardrobe, and the scarf (a gift) is like ketchup and mustard made a soft woven baby so comforting that I don’t even need to emotionally eat a hotdog. They’re warm as eff, and their thickness psychologically disables me from thinking too hard about what the future holds. They effortlessly pair with my existing gray sweatpants, Lettraghetti mug, and the Katy Perry tour shirt I am of course wearing underneath. Blanket is also a very good extra security layer when laying in bed and hiding from decisions/tax season/clients. I hardly know these beautiful weaves by my side, but I’ll never forget the way they look this afternoon.
Also, bonus.
*Coincidentally, I had to get a surprise root canal on my other front tooth the morning of the day I left Vancouver last August. What the fuck, teeth.
Colophon blanket: Cusco; scarf: Cusco; sweater: Puno; sweatpants: Alternative Apparel; glasses: Steven Alan, sale; nails: J&S Nails; mug: Christy Nyiri special; laptop: Applestore Refurbished; tres leches, avocado, tomato, soda: Lima; Netflix: author’s own; suitcase: Army&Navy; runners: Nike; mom jeans: Value Village; puffy jacket: UNIQLO; socks: UNIQLO; airport carpet: Miami; trench: Value Village; white shirt: variety store somewhere on Fulton St; dental bib: random Lima clinic; backpack: REI; Pro Mart: Juliaca; feelings: all the
You guys, I’ve got some BIG NEWS (nope, didn’t get whim married for US citizenship): I can legally work in America! In fact, I already am; specifically, at a major cultural institution that happens to rhyme with BLoMA, and specifically in an assistant visual design manager role. (It is also specifically a part-time position, so I can keep up on my Homeworking!)
Now most of you (Canadians) regarded October 13th as the one-year anniversary of 2014’s Thanksgiving, but for me, it also became the marker of A BIG ASS anxiety-ridden car ride: a 9-hour trip across the border to NYC with absolutely no plan as to what the hell I was going to do with my life beyond a 7-day couch crash. Plus I had a deadline for a really complicated website on top of it. I probably also had my period? Why not!?
It was then that there was only one set of footprints in the sand, so I want to give a BIG SHOUTOUT to a bunch of people from the past year that I’m thankful for:
People whom you love dearly even though you manage to get in a big fight right before you leave the country
People with couches and/or housesitting/subletting needs
New NYC friends I’ve made
New cyber friends I’ve made
People that love karaoke and art openings
People that love late-night fried chicken
People that let you rewrite their HTML/CSS workshop curriculum
People that remotely deposit cheques for you
People that return your IKEA shit when you’re out of town
People that let you steal their kids away on roadtrips so they can draw giant posters for you
People that make you food
People (with & without) vehicles that help you move your shit into storage
People with vehicles that will wear Katy Perry shirts with you then haul your couch to the dump
People with vehicles that take you for sushi & drive you to the airport
People with spare rooms for when you get turnt away at the border
People that buy you wine midday when you get turnt away at the border
People that strip the horrendous silver paint from your bedroom floor while you’re out of town
People that ship your bike from Bellingham
People that give you job leads and referrals
People that give you jobs
People that give you jobs 1 block from UNIQLO
People that pay you in USD, and
People that give you endless shoe buying opinions
All this thankfulness feels so good in a Katy Perry tour shirt, for which I am also thankful, as it was merely 99-cents at a discount store by my subway stop. Magically, I was actually at that very concert stop in Vancouver (complimentary tickets through my old office that thankfully no one else wanted)! I’m also trying out some shoes, because I’m quite thankful for the American free shipping/returns way-of-life, and have decided that I’m going to be one of those chicks who gets new gel nails every 2 weeks. I’m not thankful my penis cactus has just died, however. ;-(
So, New Balance, Nike or neither?
Colophon t-shirt: Fulton Street special; leggings: Uniqlo; socks: American Apparel clearance; glasses: thrifted; #basic shoes: Zappos; nails: J&S Nail Salon; work visa: United States Customs and Immigration, YYZ Pre-Clearance; employment: MoMA; cactus: IKEA; hair: clean; Gmail theme: High Score; basic betch status: near completion
After 10.5 months abroad, I’ve returned to Vancouver! I discovered my plants had grown exponentially (thanks, sublettors!) and although I’m already knee deep in meetings and projects and visits, this return is but a temporary one... I’m moving back to NYC, permanently! Just six sweet weeks to soak up the Pacific Northwest and engage in my favourite civic pastimes: thrifting for things I don’t need, buying discounted goods at Sunrise Market and park drinking.
Today I’m wearing an outfit that just screams “these clothes have been packed in a basement for a year” with which happens to pair perfectly “greasy hair with a dull trace of cornstarch”. It’s a loose, carefree ensemble that lets your physical self relax while you put all your mental power into contemplating why you’re unpacking boxes of things you’re just going to be repacking in a few weeks. (Also, deciding if you really need to keep your entire collection of concert ticket stubs, and pondering what a genius marketing move it was to extend the Small Batch trend to the big world of Beef Jerky.)
I’m basically going to be getting rid of 70% of my belongings, though, so if you or anyone you know needs some weird furniture (funky pipe closet system?! So DIY-chic!!), shoeboxes full of random fabric/electronics pieces, assorted house plants, or clothes clothes clothes come August, keep your ears perked: some deep de-cluttering shall abound shortly!
Colophon tanktop: UNIQLO, clothing swap; pants: Balance, thrifted; glasses: thrifted; nail polish: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri® in Sonic Bloom; beef jerky: pretty good akshully; closet system: Home Depot special; concerts: courtesy of Wasserman Advertising’s media department or my bank account; terrible complexion: new mainstay; apartment: will be getting renovated before going back on the market at approx. $1200 in the fall, email for details, you blood sucking real estate mongers
