This movement is about generating moments where the viewer feels suspended, caught between awe and paralysis. It’s not about confusion but about the intensity of the encounter, where the experience transcends language and rational thought. We want art that touches something beyond everyday understanding.

We take inspiration from Philip Shaw’s definition of the sublime as a force or experience that pushes beyond the limits of what can be comprehended or fully grasped. The sublime isn’t about prettiness or surface beauty; it’s about rupture and scale, a confrontation with something so vast or intense that it unsettles the mind and body.

This sensation is felt before it is thought, a physical and emotional response that disrupts normal perception. The Sublime movement is interested in these moments where experience exceeds explanation, where meaning dissolves into something raw and powerful.

The Sublime movement does not rely on any single style or material. Instead, what unites artists in this movement is the focus on creating works that provoke a strong emotional and sensory impact. The artworks are often complex and layered, designed to overwhelm the viewer’s senses and mind. This overwhelming quality is intentional. It leads to a state where the viewer feels almost paralyzed, unable to fully process what they are seeing, but compelled to stay in the experience. This paralysis is not negative; it is a space for deep reflection and emotional connection. Our art resists easy interpretation and prefers to hold onto mystery and openness. Scale plays a crucial role, not only in physical size but also in the emotional weight a work carries. Sometimes emptiness or silence within a piece can amplify this feeling of being overwhelmed.

Artists in the Sublime movement are free to use any materials or techniques that help create these intense experiences. This can range from large-scale installations and immersive environments to more intimate, intricate pieces that invite close attention. Many works explore repetition, layering, and spatial relationships to build a sense of depth and complexity. The focus is always on how the viewer physically and emotionally reacts. The goal is to create moments that feel heavy and significant, where the presence of the artwork is undeniable and unavoidable.

In today’s fast-paced world, people are barraged with images, information, and constant noise. It’s rare to find space for real emotional depth or moments that truly make us pause. The Sublime movement responds to this by creating art that stops viewers in their tracks. Instead of entertaining or simplifying, this movement aims to make people confront feelings that are overwhelming or difficult to put into words. At a time when immediacy dominates, we believe there is a need for art that offers a slower, deeper encounter… one that reminds us of something greater than ourselves.

While the Sublime movement is new, it stands on the shoulders of earlier artists and ideas. We draw inspiration from Romantic painters like Caspar David Friedrich and J.M.W. Turner, who captured the overwhelming power of nature. Contemporary artists like James Turrell and Walter De Maria influence us with their immersive use of light and space that creates intense physical experiences. We also look to artists like Chiharu Shiota and Ryoji Ikeda, who work with complex sensory environments that challenge how we perceive reality. Minimalism has influenced our focus on space and form, but unlike minimalism’s cool detachment, our work aims for emotional intensity and depth. What makes the Sublime movement different is its dedication to moments of paralysis and overwhelming awe.

This movement isn’t about strict rules or a single style. It’s a shared approach to art that values emotional impact and mystery over clarity or explanation. If your work seeks to create moments where viewers feel overwhelmed, silent, or deeply moved, then you are already part of this movement. We want to bring together artists who believe art can be a powerful experience, one that is intense, mysterious, and beyond simple understanding.

Sarah Sze, Timelapse (Guggenheim, 2023)

Sarah Sze’s Timelapse exhibition at the Guggenheim in 2023 was a powerful example of what the Sublime Movement is about. The show filled the entire rotunda with large, complex installations made from everyday objects like wires, mirrors, pills, and chargers. These pieces looked like they could fall apart at any moment, barely holding itself together, creating a feeling of tension and uncertainty.

A long projection called the “River of Images” moved through the space, blending time and movement, which added to the overwhelming experience. Walking through the exhibition felt like being inside a constantly shifting world, full of detail and scale that was hard to take in all at once. It was this sense of awe mixed with disorientation that made the work truly sublime for me. It’s one of the only works (in addition to Nelly Light’s, below) that has brought me to tears. I want this almost religious and revelatory experience in the art that I create and seek.

Nelly Light, I Do Not Know Much About Gods (2024)

Nelly Light’s installation, I Do Not Know Much About Gods, is one of the most moving works I have experienced. The piece uses running water dripping from the ceiling onto a blue wooden plate with a white circle painted on it. The water flows over objects like chairs, tables, cloth, and wheat, creating soft sounds that echo around the room.

The dim lighting and large shadows in the space make you feel both small and protected at the same time. The installation wraps around you, making the room feel bigger but also intimate. This mixture of awe and safety is a perfect example of the sublime, the feeling of meeting something larger than yourself but still being held. This work, together with Sarah Sze’s, is one of the few that has made me feel overwhelmed and breathless. It perfectly shows what the Sublime movement aims to do, no matter the medium or form.

noah

Irreversible Gaspar noe

buttons in birth control pill pack

associations - first, think of the most obvious/salient association for a thing. then, the least salient/relevant (or most oppositional - the foil, the antitheses). find the in-between’s - things that you wouldn’t emphatically put together or set apart. like tomatoes and traffic cones - no one ever seriously considered what might happen when one puts tomatoes and traffic cones together. explore the uncommon, the unlikely, the unexplored.

black umbrellas look like crows

hire a POLYGLOT translator(s) for the next jury so that people can speak in their native language; teachers and students wear bluetooth earbuds as the translator(s) relays what the presenting student is saying

pay taxes

using stones from a space to create seats (nah)

teeth fix with toothbrush bristles (nah…mmm maybe?)

ants got into my werther’s

marble bench, carved butt imprint (eh)

panspermia

clockwork orange

imitating cracks in glass using hair (yeah)

google earth satellite image all over print tank top (nah)

cake (ex: tiramisu) in medicine measuring caps (hm)

70 year old slavic woman in 80s disco-sporty attire (fluo windbreaker, terry wristbands) and quasi-mullet (blown out) eating a bag of generic cheese crisps

stinesampers

cream lace and brass studs (mhm)

waffle fries in waffle maker (yeah)

pre-waffled waffle in waffle maker - keep waffling the waffle (lol)

032211333

fake window with photo of view, behind the window and photo is BLACK (wait, what?)

using individual blinds (like the long vertical ones i have @amerikalei 75) to represent beams of light coming through the standing blinds

a dark room with sound installation - jingling sound whenever sunlight passes over the building - reacts to environmental stimuli (light, wind, rain)

creating a ‘surround-sound speaker’ using a group of people and their cellphones - everyone plays the same song at the same time on their respective phones - would be cool if the space was domed or if people could be positioned at various heights within the space (to create depth)

figma website builder

0474778752 - simon rental at lange doornikstraat

tuesday 5:40

lange doornikstraat 10

tmr 5:30 kipdorp 61

(646) 212-2320 - my US number

8086307172 - jeanette

feet pics - need to find a niche - geisha, ancient chinese foot-binding

pantry:

flour eggs butter sugar vanilla vegetable oil corn starch

fresh produce:

strawberries

frozen blueberries

9611

—

mass block alarm 1938a

printer follow me - 1576

singular bean on toast

singular pepperoni on pizza (centered)

singular sprinkle on ice cream

singular chocolate chip in cookie

singular flower in kraft paper bouquet (no)

glazed brown egg on a burnt foam mattress (big bean on giant toast)

silke devreese

zoë hendrickx

shisha using repurposed lamp bases

91.9 FM klara

parchment

cig rolling paper

tapioca flour

cheese

eating the sun

on a plate

fork and knife

vitamin D, male

i think the sun must have a big dick

anthropomorphized house (prison, barred windows - no one walks out, no one walks in)

an ungodly amount of keys on a giant ring (or maybe a spiral? no, it must be a ring. or what presentation would feel more oppressive and daunting?), and one lone door (it’s a pretty door, smells like pie - or something of your dreams - behind) - and one of the keys on the giant ring of many keys is the key to this door. so you must go through them, test your luck - turn one, or two, or a thousand - to open it. and perhaps there is nothing behind the door…or perhaps there is (maybe an object that functions like a rorschach blot of sorts, where viewers can project their wishes and/or fears onto)? and so - what’s behind? is it what you were hoping for? (is hope even part of your language?) did the keys tire you out? to the point where you stopped caring and lost interest in the mystery, the could be’s, should be’s and the would be’s? or did it fan the flames of your desires and expectations?

…

so you opened it - and was it worth it? however many keys it took

what is the distinction between something that is a waste and something that is worth your time? (i like wasting time, it can feel rebellious and fresh). what knowledge do you need to make informed decisions, on when to forge on and when to let go? even still, the relationship between knowledge and truth is asymptotic.  so is it always, at the end of the day, a bit of a gamble?

…

the odds might be high, but im down on my luck. doesn’t matter, i’ll play it anyway.

im a gambler, to my benefit, but more so to my demise

…

and what is the sweet spot, the ideal ratio, between number of keys to a door? what number of keys won’t scare you away and what number of keys builds mystery and intrigue? what makes for something to be interesting enough, challenging enough, neither daunting nor boring - neither too difficult nor too easy?

i could run through a million keys for the right door. what makes a door right? what makes a door wrong? what is my right, what is my wrong? and my conception of right versus wrong, is it good for me - meaning, will following my right and avoiding my wrong lead me to a fulfilling and soul-affirming life? is it the right right? or is it the wrong wrong?

the grass is greener on the other side - something to do with this - two screens, displaying an image of a grassy plain (or something more symbolic, less literal; something that captures the dichotomy of vitality and desolation), placed across, opposite each other in a room. one would walk in between the screens, where placed sensors pick up your distance either screen and gradually, the image of a green grassy plain turns desolate and brown as one walks towards it, while the screen one walks away from becomes greener. the traveler is caught in limbo, bouncing back and forth between the two, trying to catch green -

there is also an illusion of motion or progress - yes, there is motion but not forward, left and right but from the same point (running in place, at the place you must seriously consider getting out of)

what you approach fades, tarnishes, crumbles, dissipates - turns to ash, rubble

thus, capturing the experience of constant disillusionment, life’s barrage of disappointments

a caged bird where every corner of its cage is filled with the same piss and shit

feet of fire, a less glamorous midas’ touch - it seems wherever i go, there is destruction - and i’m starting to believe that it must have something to do with me

i touch my heart with my feet of fire

…

marathon runner racing on a treadmill placed on the marathon course

the 12 tram reminds me of a cat with no tail

a fly in a spotless room

17 34 68 102 136

34^2 = 1156

^3 = 39304

34*982 = 33388

“Any series of repeating threes is likely a message of luuck or change in your career, success, ambition or focus. Angel number 88 is a sign of great success, abundance, and prosperity.”

plantation, fl 33388

fermented pan de tomate

so help me god (and he has)

for i have been lying to you and myself the entire time

find tl;dr below

-

the thing is, i don’t think i ever loved you

that’s my fault, in many ways. i don’t think i really even knew what love was. i thought i knew, but clearly, in hindsight, i did not. to be…

Read more

What do I feel if this is not love?

But if it is love, God, what thing is this? If good, why this effect: bitter, mortal?

If bad, then why is every suffering sweet?

If I desire to burn, why tears and grief?(...)

so light in knowledge, so laden with error, that I do not know what I wish myself, and tremble in midsummer, burn in winter.

and other things are on my mind

i’m leaving antwerp this year — july, august, september, don’t know exactly when

i’m going back to new york, no, not new jersey because i won’t be staying with my mom anymore

i realize i came here much too soon

i’m in debt and i can’t keep up with the expenses here, much less the tuition fee

so, i’m going back to work for a bit, a year maybe? hopefully not more, but who knows what’ll happen and open up for me in nyc

i used to (still do, a bit) blame new york for a lot

it was too much for a hawaii girl to handle but my tenacity led me to believe that i was just making a fuss and then i blamed myself for not being able to adjust

it’s a little scary to think of being back there but

now, i’ll take back what antwerp gave to me, some rejuvenation of the soul, a hint of a clearing in the densely tangled forests i’d been wading through

perhaps with this and the promise of return (to antwerp, or elsewhere even) or the promise that nowhere is the be-all-end-all — that i am not trapped!

perhaps all of this will color my experience differently this time around

i don’t know if i want to return to this school, as it has its fair share of issues, particularly in our department

two of my instructors are, for me as an artist, difficult. their ‘constructive’ feedback and suggestions are more of prescriptions and always towards a minimalistic end. and i don’t like minimalism, especially in my instructor’s works, which feel more like exercises in avoidance rather than anything more profound (to me). i’ve stopped sharing in detail my ideas, my questions, my progress because he doesn’t really care. i save my breath for the instructors who do. when i speak with him i end up demotivated. bad sign.

my other instructors are interesting — one is more of a motivational speaker, one strangely shies away from me and never initiates or is quick to end our conversations (he’s also younger than me, i think), and lastly, one is mythical-creature-levels of elusive. but they’re alright; the elusive one in particular sees through to me the best.

what’s tipping the scales for me though is the camaraderie between the group of students and artists outside of the academy i’ve met. definitely my friends too, though a lot of them will leave this year and probably be graduated once i return (or not!).

but yeah, as for my issue with the instructors, part of me feels like i’m not allowed to explore as much as they say i can. part of me thinks those are just pretty words because some really try to steer me in a particular direction, even if it’s not ‘me’. i’m trying to be strong and do what feels right, and i have to remind myself everyday that i’m not here to satisfy anyone but myself. it would be nice though, to have the support and curiosity and empathetic guidance of more of my instructors because then i’d feel more comfortable to explore in my way instead of having to fight their voices in my head so often.

anyways

i’ll reflect on this back home

i’m excited to go back because i realize there’s so much i want to experiment with and try, and i can’t because of financial constraints

it’s sad to explain that a work couldn’t be how i wanted it to be because i couldn’t afford it

it’s sad to explain that sometimes there’s so little going on because i’m too scared to invest in my ideas because i can’t afford for things to go wrong

i’m excited to go back because then i won’t be flooded with assignments i don’t have any particular calling to do and then i can focus on developing my personal work

there’s three weeks until my jury

it’s crunch time

i know i’ll make it out alright, i’m proud of the work i’ve done so far and i’m sure i’ll manage something i’m happy with by the end of this term (i’m planning to make a work with the ‘it must be green now’ poem(?)/text i wrote, among many other projects that need to be wrapped up)

it’s been a tumultuous couple of weeks for me; largely busy busy but also dealing with a recent swelling of grief.

[redacted]

[redacted]

but it’ll be ok.

i’m getting better at riding out the tumult because i know i’ll always make it to the other end if i stop screaming and just hold on tight

(milad ice cream has the best pistachio and chocolate ice cream i’ve ever had)

but i want to hear you say it.

it must be green now. i know it’s green now. i bet that forest sees you very often now. it must be so green. there’s no more bärlauch to harvest, right? they must have flowered. you can’t make pesto with bärlauch that have flowered; it’s too bitter. i had it, the last of it, with some dinosaur-shaped pasta. my favorite dinosaur pasta shape is the stegosaurus; everyone knows

but you don’t.

my duvet cover and pillow case are green, green like pine at dusk. what do you do in the forest? do you still visit that cave, or is it more of a nook? do you lie in there and dream? is it peaceful [there]? what else do you do? do you sing often? different songs now? i know the ones you sang for me. they still ring against the walls of my skull.

do you regret it? some of it? all of it? do you see a silver lining? or have i left you jaded? nothing to keep or treasure

i don’t know where to go [redacted]

where are you right now? somewhere i shouldn’t be. i must let you be, and you, i.

you, i

the comma between us, just how much distance does it signify? where you are, i am not, but where exactly am i that you are not? was always my question, from the very beginning until now. the distance i obsessed over, once to figure out how to close it, now to figure out how to keep it. don’t come back [redacted], don’t let me come back. don’t come back, you smell too good.

distance, we’ve always been far from each other. [redacted]. we must’ve been close, too. bound by something, i’m afraid, by something not too pure.

is it green now? for you? sometimes it’s green with me. the good green.

may it always be green,

for green is our favorite color

[redacted],

amy

people here have this impression of me, that i’m bright, bubbly, laugh-ative, affable. i’ve been told so! so they treat me like such — like they would treat a bright bubbly laughative affable person. and then i feel brighter bubblier more laughative…you get it.

for those that knew me prior to 2024 you probably knew me as a different person than described above. you may be in disbelief because i certainly am that somewhere for some reason a switch flipped in me. and suddenly (it seems) i’ve done a 180. i’m not totally unaware to how i’ve become so happy (yes, happy, i mean it and i really use this word wisely) but still, it seems like a tremendous shift since only half a year ago or so i was in the throes of emotional hell.

today i can sit here and comfortably say, i am happy, i’m so glad to be alive, so happy to be here, so very excited to live through all the rest. and no, i promise this is not a manic episode.

this year, i’ve been busy! but largely busy in fulfilling ways

i took part in two group expos — one in february and one this month. for the one in february (at kleine goddaard 5, full house) i put hair in all the exposed outlets of this four-story home and for the one this month (at my school’s open day, the in situ departmental expo titled dust and dirt) i made 31 cups of tea using dust and dirt collected from each student’s work station at our studio. it sounds a bit bizarre, but you had to be there. i loved what i did. so did those who were able to witness it.

i’m doing a lot of exploration right now as an artist. my head is filled to the brim with ideas. it seems i’ve taken a departure from the usual (dolls, drawings, ‘objects,’ broadly) and found myself drawn to making more ephemeral works. works that exist only in the moment, works that are subject to change, works that disappear! it’s nice to be free of the object, to exercise and realize the beauty (and sadness) of letting go (i feel this when i have to take down works). sometimes with objects i feel like how golem (edit: gollum) feels about that ugly ass ring. there’s this intense possessiveness and attachment, a reluctance to let go.

it’s nice how i’ve found myself practicing letting go via art; it wasn’t entirely intentional. i still love objects, making them, having them, what have you. my new explorations (into ephemerality, decentralization, and interconnection), which depart from my usual, have been beautiful, thought-provoking, and fun in their own ways. does this make any sense?

i’ve met so many beautiful people

here i will talk about jiji, who i mentioned earlier. jiji is my closest friend in antwerp. our friendship was nearly instantaneous. i felt a little ‘click’ in my head when i met her. it’s quite rare to meet someone who you feel you can coexist with almost effortlessly. i feel no strain whatsoever when i am with her. we are simply in tune with each other just as we each are. how can i say this? i can ‘hear’ our friendship and it sounds like the most beautiful chord of notes — harmony! every 5 minutes or so we both erupt into laughter. everyday there’s some sort of thing communicated telepathically (ex: each of us saying we want ice cream even without prior mention of ice cream). we walk with our arms locked and hug whenever we see each other and when we part. i’m so thankful for jiji and she already knows this. meeting her was one of the best things to happen to me!

so many other people who’ve made me laugh, feel safe, feel special…i wouldn’t be able to exhaust the entire list in the space of this post. nor do i really want to because i’m fresh out of work and tired as fuck

my little schoolgirl crush continues. i had a shower thought about her today. i was trying to describe people i know in one poetic sentence. then i thought about her. and i like what i came up with, which ended up being more than one sentence. this person is sunshine eternal, a bolt of lightning against a fully bowed rainbow. she is effervescent and refreshing. if she would be a drink it would be something citrus-y and sparkling. a homemade orange soda? blood orange? valencia? yes, valencia — sweet and lively. i talked with her for a long time. i usually never have the opportunity to. it was a beautiful talk. she laughs so much, unabashedly. and she does this thing where she turns her head to look at you while laughing and laughing and smiling the biggest crescent-eyed smile i’ve ever seen. slowly it seems i’m embodying more and more of what she’s got going on. this person who discovered the secret to this gorgeous joy of hers.

i feel fearless now

hopeful

stable

trusting

at ease

i beam beam beam even when the clouds are thick over the poor little belgian sun

tomorrow is kimbap day haha

jiji’s mom is making me, basil, and yujin kimbap tomorrow. we’re probably going to be really full and we’re also probably going to laugh until our faces hurt. i can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and live another precious fucking day

goodnight!

Amy Lee, Royal Academy of Antwerp, In Situ

Abstract

I despise the milk that remains after eating a bowl of cereal. I refuse to drink leftover cereal milk in large quantities. First, I dislike the taste of milk, regardless of whether that milk is dairy milk or plant-based milk. Secondly, depending on the type of cereal, the milk takes on an even stranger flavor and texture than unadulterated milk, becoming much too saccharine and more viscous (from the starches in the cereal, I assume). In addition, the warmer-than-starting temperature of the milk is unsettling and nauseating. Wasting a large quantity of milk, however gross, is out of the question. When left with a bowl half full of milk, in an effort to reduce waste in conjunction with my refusal to drink said milk, I add more cereal to the bowl to slowly chip away at the remaining volume, which leads to eating more cereal than I intended or am comfortable with eating. This is a problem. A problem that leads me to a very pressing question, which I attempt to answer in this paper: How much milk do I need for a perfectly satiating portion of cereal such that at the point of satiation, there remains minimal milk waste?

Introduction

Food waste and over-consumption are two critical issues with dire consequences playing out in real-time. Future projections and a look at the trajectory we are heading in promise an even more sinister reality than the one we are living in today. While they are differentiated as two separate issues, over-consumption and food waste are undoubtedly linked in a causal relationship (over-consumption → food waste). While the scale of these issues cannot be effectively ameliorated by something as negligible as cereal and milk eating patterns—the concern of this paper—I believe this example, as inane as it is, illustrates the core of both issues and pushes for an increased cognizance for consuming only what is necessary.

Each year, 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted, which amounts to roughly a third of all food produced each year. In the US alone, 60 million tons are wasted per year, ranking the country first in food waste generation. The primary source of food waste occurs at the production and processing levels accounting for 33% of total waste, but a significant portion of waste occurs at the consumer levels as well at around 17%. Each year, Americans waste $408 billion on food, with dairy being the item tossed out in the greatest quantity. The vast majority of this waste is sent to landfills, making up approximately one-fourth of the municipal solid waste (MSW) in US landfills. Only 5% of that waste is recovered for composting. The rest decompose on site and release methane (CH4) and other greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons. Emissions from landfill food are responsible for 11% of the world’s total emissions and is a major contributor to global warming. It is responsible for a slew of other issues as well, such as food scarcity and economic issues. Knowing all of this, it feels unconscionable to throw out my leftover cereal milk.

The first problem that comes to mind with regards to over-consumption is the rising rate of obesity, otherwise referred to as “the obesity pandemic”. Data from 2019 reported a rate of obesity in 35.7% of Americans and 52.7% of Europeans. Between 1975 and 2016, the rate of obesity tripled globally. The reasons for this trend are multi-fold. First, we are seeing an increase in sedentary lifestyles due to jobs requiring far less physical demand and involving little more than sitting in front of a computer screen. In addition, for many, leisure time is spent on social media and video games, among other stationary activities, virtually eclipsing many of the physically-involved hobbies that were more commonplace prior to the rise of technology.

However, while physical activity decreased, availability of food—especially “high-quality” and calorically dense foods such as meat, dairy, eggs—increased. Data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2000 reported a 3000 kcal/day/capita food availability at the retail level (i.e. grocery stores) in developed countries, with the US ranking first at 3600 kcal/day/capita, closely followed by Europe at 3500 kcal/day/capita. However, the average female adult only requires about 1500-2000 kcal/day, while the average male adult requires 2000-2600 kcal/day. These statistics show that food availability exceeds nutritional needs by approximately 1000 kcal/day/capita. Factoring in unavoidable food loss, the difference between need and availability rings in at around 700 kcal/day/capita, which either becomes food waste or over-consumption.

Food waste and over-consumption are deeply intertwined and rooted in a multitude of complex issues that are impossible to exhaust within the scope of this paper. To briefly recap the presented information above, food is produced in gross excess and wasted—approximately 1.3 billion tons per year globally—with most of the waste (33%) occurring at the production level. Even after these losses, groceries are able to be stocked at an excess of 30%, or at an amount 30% higher than is required to meet nutritional needs. Overstocked shelves in addition to a plethora of other factors affecting consumer behavior lead to people purchasing more food than they physically require—approximately 700 kcal/day in excess—which are either wasted or consumed beyond their daily recommended intake, leading to great quantities of food in landfills and the rising rate of obesity. The effects of overproduction, over-consumption, and waste are comprehensive and highly consequential, giving rise to environmental, economic, social, and health issues, to name a few.

The reason why I provide such context preceding a paper that has to do with something as inconsequential and inane as cereal eating patterns is because my issue with milk waste, as trivial and oddly specific as it seems, can be attributed to the broader guilt I feel with respect to wasting food. I wanted to inform the reader of the concrete underpinnings of this guilt and the situations unfolding before us so as to raise awareness for our consumer habits. Of course, there are other personal reasons that inspired this paper such as refusing to drink cereal milk and refusing to eat more cereal than I am physically comfortable with eating. I suppose this paper would not have come about had I had no problem drinking cereal milk. With that being said, this paper is ultimately very personal and potentially useless for many of those reading. For myself, however, I am finally solving a mildly annoying issue that has persisted (and has never been answered, until now!) since the beginning of my cereal-eating journey as well as indulging in hyper-fixating and obsessing over whatever my attention chooses to land on.

In the following sections of this paper, I detail the problem at hand, outline the parameters and conditions and perform an initial data collection to determine the necessary calculations, perform said calculations, and test the generated numbers on whether they meet the conditions set at the beginning of this investigation.

Study Objectives

This investigation aims to determine the ideal quantity of milk necessary to finish a fixed portion of cereal, with minimal milk waste at the end of the eating session. Answering this question is dependent on a multitude of factors that are very individual, such as my eating patterns and preferences, which I quantify for the following calculations. In addition, factors such as cereal type and dimensions of the bowl and spoon used can affect the results of these calculations. These values will vary from person-to-person, however, the calculations performed can be adapted to any cereal consumer and generate values suitable to their unique patterns and preferences as well as choice of cereal and equipment. For the sake of conducting this investigation, Frosted Flakes was the cereal of ch oice eaten from a generic stainless steel bowl using a stainless steel spoon from IKEA.

Method

First, it was important to determine how much milk I would be willing to waste or drink at maximum. I determined that amount to be at most 20 grams of milk. Then, I needed to set a fixed portion of cereal I am usually willing to eat, 50 grams of cereal solids.

Another important question relating to the quality of the cereal-eating experience was answered as well. Namely, I wanted to know how much milk is required to adequately submerge a portion of cereal. There can neither be too much milk nor too little milk. Too much milk causes the cereal to disperse too much throughout the bowl, making it difficult to get a satisfying spoonful that is not overwhelmingly milky. Too little milk results in a dry and overly crunchy spoonful of cereal, which scrapes at the roof of the mouth and lends itself to a rather painful eating experience. Performing a visual test to determine the amount of milk for ideal cereal submersion, milk was poured into a bowl containing 30 grams of Frosted Flakes (an arbitrary amount). I stopped pouring the milk as soon as it appeared to cover the flakes to my liking, which amounted to 150g milk. Conducting a second test with a portion of 20g cereal, 102g milk seemed to satisfy my submersion preference. Thus, I concluded a milk-to-cereal ratio of approximately 5:1 was necessary to cover any given portion of cereal.

The following question was also crucial to this investigation—how much milk to cereal actually reaches the mouth and gets consumed? A test with a bowl containing 150g milk and 30g cereal (following the 5:1 submersion ratio) was conducted to determine the “consumption ratio” (see Image 1). The entirety of 30g of cereal was consumed and following this, the remaining milk was weighed. A total of 75g milk remained in the bowl (see Image 2), and 75g milk was consumed along with the 30g cereal. Another trial was performed with 102g milk and 20g cereal, which yielded 50g milk remaining. Thus, I tend to consume approximately 2.5g milk per gram of cereal.

Given the discrepancies in the submersion and consumption ratios, we know that more milk is poured into the bowl than is actually consumed. Therefore, there will always be leftover milk for any given bowl of cereal following these two ratios.

Based on the consumption ratio of 2.5:1 milk to cereal, the amount of milk it takes to finish the ideal portion of 50g cereal would be 125g. However, 125g milk would be too little milk to adequately submerge the entire portion of cereal. According to the submersion ratio, 250g milk is required for 50g cereal to be covered. If I submerged a bowl of 50g cereal with 250g milk, however, then I would be left with 125g milk waste, which far exceeds the maximum of 20g.

It follows then that it is impossible to eat the ideal portion of 50g cereal in a single bowl without generating excessive waste and therefore must be split into multiple helpings.

Another thing to note is that the more you replenish the same bowl with the same milk, the sweeter and warmer the milk becomes, leading to a decline in enjoyment in subsequent helpings of cereal. Based on past experiences, the milk becomes much too sweet to continue eating from after around 3 helpings. Therefore, I set my maximum number of helpings to 3.

With all of these conditions in mind, we can proceed with the calculations. Below is a list of all values determined and used in the calculations:

• Submersion ratio: 5:1

• Consumption ratio: 2.5:1

• Allowed milk waste: ≤ 20g 

• Maximum helpings: 3 

• Ideal cereal portion: 50g 

Calculations

Cereal variables

• c₁ = starting amount of cereal in first helping 

• c₂ = starting amount of cereal in second helping 

• c₃ = starting amount of cereal in third helping 

• c₄ = starting amount of cereal in fourth helping = 0*

c₁ + c₂ + c₃ = 50g cereal

*the fourth helping will not contain any more cereal since the aim is to finish the cereal within 3 helpings

Starting milk variables

• m_s1 = starting amount of milk in first helping 

• m_s2 = starting amount of milk in second helping 

• m_s3 = starting amount of milk in third helping 

• m_s4 = final amount of milk remaining

Milk consumed variable

• m_con1 = milk consumed with first helping 

• m_con1 = milk consumed with second helping 

• m_con1 = milk consumed with third helping 

Following submersion ratio of 5:1, 

• m_s1 = 5c₁ 

Following consumed ratio of 2.5:1, 

• m_con1 = 2.5c₁ 

Subtracting to get the remaining milk after the first helping, or the starting amount of milk in the second helping (m_s2 ),

• m_s1 = m_con1 = m_s2 

Then, 

• m_s2 = 5c₂ 

So, 

• m_s1 - m_con1 = 5c₂ 

And, 

• m_s1 = 5c₁ and m_con1 = 2.5c₁ 

Therefore, 

• 5c₁ - 2.5c₁ =  5c₂ 

• c₁ =  2c₂ 

Repeat operation to find that c₂ = 2c₃

The ratio of 5c₂ to 5c₂ to 5c₂  is thus 

• c₁ = 2c₂ = 4c₃ 

Knowing  c₁ + c₂ + c₃ = 50g cereal and c₁ = 2c₂ = 4c₃, we can calculate the amount of cereal needed in each helping:

• c₁ = 28.57g cereal in first helping

• c₂ = 14.29g cereal in second helping

• c₃ = 7.14g cereal in third helping

Since the submersion ratio is 5:1, you’ll need 5 times the amount of cereal for milk. In order to finish 50g cereal, you’ll need:

• 5c₁ = 5(28.57) = 142.86g milk 

Once you finish the last of the remaining cereal, you will be left with 17.86g milk, which lies within the range of acceptable milk waste values (≤ 20g). 

Since c₃ = 7.14g and m_s3 = 5c₃

• m_s3  = 5(7.14) = 35.71g milk in third helping

• m_con3 = 2.5c₃ = 2.5(7.14) = 17.86g milk consumed

Therefore, 

• m_s4  = m_s3  - m_con3  = 35.71 - 17.86 = 17.86g milk waste 

To conclude, to eat 50g of Frosted Flakes cereal, I will need 142.86g milk to eat 28.57g, 14.29g, and 7.14g of cereal respectively across three helpings which will result in only 17.86g milk waste, a quantity I do not mind drinking to finish off. 

Since variability is inevitable in something as imprecise as cereal eating patterns, I decided to put the calculations to the test. In a bowl, I started with a helping of 29g cereal (rounded up from 28.57g) and 143g milk (rounded up from 142.86g). Upon finishing the first helping, I weighed the remaining milk, which came out to 57g. To this milk, I added 14g cereal (rounded down from 14.29g). I repeated the process of eating and weighing the remaining milk, which came to 25g by the end of the second helping. For the third helping, I added 7g cereal (rounded down from 7.14g) to the remaining milk. Upon finishing the third helping, a mere 11g milk remained (see Images 1-9). Therefore, despite the slight variability in values between this test and the previous test, both tests yielded a milk waste within the acceptable range as well as maintained an acceptable submersion ratio throughout each of the three helpings.

Discussion

These steps and calculations can be taken by any individual to determine their necessary cereal and milk ratio. While the values generated in this study are only pertinent and useful to myself and my preferences, this procedure and system of equations factors in a range of individual differences and preferences from cereal type to differences in consumption ratio and all other relevant parameters and variables. Thus, if milk waste is a concern and drinking plain cereal milk is similarly disturbing to you like 28% of participants reported on a survey on cereal drinkability, the methods of this study may be useful to combat this issue. 

The data collected in this study is limited due to several reasons including supply shortage and a mild stomach illness due to the sudden sharp consumption of sugary cereal. Although the procedure and calculations are valid and follow a clear logic, it is important to validate these calculations even further with additional cereal-eating trials to test the values generated from this study. A replication of this study will be conducted to verify these initial findings.

Conclusion 

This study was an attempt to combat food waste and over-consumption on a micro-scale as well as draw attention to these issues and their large-scale impact on our environment and well-being. Through my pages-long and weeks-long obsession with these issues in possibly the most inane and arbitrary way, perhaps I have gained your attention, bewilderment, and maybe annoyance as well. It is possible you maybe be asking yourself (I may have as well), why couldn’t she just put this amount of time and effort into something that targets these issues much more effectively than ruminating over a negligible amount of milk at the bottom of a bowl of cereal? If so, I ask of you to direct that question back towards yourself. Can you put the same effort that I put into doing this research on becoming a better consumer and inhabitant of our planet? It doesn’t take very much, certainly, it takes much less than the work I put into this paper to make a noticeable impact. Things such as eliminating meat consumption once or twice a week to start, buying only what you need and making smaller and more frequent trips to the grocery store, or educating yourself on proper food storage techniques are a few of the ways you can begin to ameliorate the ongoing issues. 

References

Bhatia, L., Jha, H., Sarkar, T., & Sarangi, P. K. (2023). Food Waste Utilization for Reducing Carbon Footprints towards Sustainable and Cleaner Environment: A Review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 20(3), 2318. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032318

Balan, I. M., Gherman, E. D., Brad, I., Gherman, R., Horablaga, A., & Trasca, T. I. (2022). Metabolic food waste as food insecurity factor—causes and preventions. Foods, 11(15), 2179. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11152179

Food waste in America in 2024: Statistics & Facts: RTS. Recycle Track Systems. (n.d.). https://www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste-america

Gustavsson, J., Cederberg, C., Sonesson, U., & van Otterdijk, R. (2011). Global Food Losses and Food Waste. FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS.

UN: 17% of all food available at consumer levels is wasted. UN Environment. (n.d.). https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/un-17-all-food-available-consumer-levels-wasted

in any case, the trajectory is looking good. and i received good feedback at the jury, things like ‘conceptually mature’ and ‘you clearly know what you’re doing’ (which i beg to differ on, but if i made that impression, then cool), and i blushed a bit. and also good (but not positive) feedback like me never physically being in the studio, for example. i had my reasons but now i’m feeling much better to be more present. so i’m looking forward to this semester! i have so many ideas… it’s hard to keep up and narrow them down but it’s better than having no ideas at all. we’ll see what i choose and what i’m able to manage.

i have my cereal paper in queue on substack. it’s a bit hard to translate the format onto this platform but i’ll find a way. i need to edit it a bit as well.

hm the tone of this substack is a bit dry and lackadaisical. likely due to being sick with a cold, thankfully mild this time around but still a bummer.

i have work tomorrow - first day. it’s a little korean restaurant that puts a modern spin on popular korean dishes (kimbap, mandoo, bibimbap…). if you know me at all, you’d know that i am against modernizing korean food—especially dishes that are fundamentally meant to be fast and cheap or rustic and hearty. i’m all for experimentation and innovation, but against the modern take, especially in asian foods, because i think a lot (but not all) of these attempts pander to the western palate and to the people who first met our food with ‘ew’. i question how much of it is good for being an easier introduction to the cuisine for some people (like how you’d slowly ease new foods to a baby) and how much of it is just white-washing lol. i might be overthinking it but it’s ok. however i will concede that korean temple food probably fits the ‘modern’ concept best out of everything from our cuisine and the artisanship and artistry involved warrant the higher price tag too.

right. so i start work tomorrow. for once, not as a server or anything service-related but in the kitchen, cooking, plating, using my hands!

i’m feeling a resurgence of my sapphic side. for a while i thought i had lost it for good and it’s such a relief that that’s not the case. i love women, i love being a woman. even though right now i have quite the crush on (yet again) someone i’m not allowed to date, it’s kind of nice to feel. she’s also much older than i am but do i care? no. she’s exactly the type of woman i deify and would call a ‘goddess’. goddesses are women who are comfortable being in their own skin, who exude grace and warmth and confidence (the soft kind). the type of woman who simply exists as she is regardless of the presence or absence of others. a beautiful woman (there are stars in my eyes)

iris murdoch wrote that the experience of beauty is a selfless one. take the beauty of nature, for example. the trees, the flowers, the birds—they were beautiful before you and will continue in their beauty well after you. you are not involved in this beauty. perhaps that might sound harsh (for our ego wants the self to always be involved), but by this murdoch tries to express that beauty allows us to step out of the self-obsessed ego and enter into a more self-less contemplation. what a relief! to finally not have to think about ourselves for once (self-obsession is oppressive and draining and lonely, too) and appreciate what was only a mere shift of attention away.

a goddess, in the same way of the trees and flowers and birds, is beautiful.

and i don’t mind at all that the trees and flowers and birds and goddesses might have nothing to do with me. admiring beauty, no matter from how close or how far, is such a privilege.

i hope one day to be a source of such beauty… i also can’t help but want to be in relationship with those things and beings that possess that beauty. classic case of ‘don’t know if i wanna be her or wanna be with her', but in this case, it’s both.

i digress. this woman is poetry, so i write poetically.

tomorrow i’m going in to the studio again. i hope i feel better by morning. the master’s students are having their juries, and i want to be there to listen and learn. i might stop by the ceramic studio afterwards and make a few bits and bobs. gonna gather my ideas and sort them into a binder. then after work i’ll head to the closing of my friends’ exhibition.

thanks for reading and see you soon!

it looks like i’m staying in belgium (i’m 85% sure) at least until next summer. that’s great; i like it here. i have no particular enthusiasm (nor noticeable dislike) for antwerp the city, but i do love the people i’ve had the pleasure of meeting here. how did i go years without nights of drinking in big warm groups, walking, huddling through narrow antwerpian streets for 2am kebab, laughing, laughing, laughing so loudly, so resoundingly that i can hear my laughter echo back to me? what a miracle! no, no miracles. joy!! fruits of my labor, fruits of the hard choices i’ve had to make

i can’t tell you (nor do i know of) each and every reason why i’ve ended up so lonely and isolated and barely accessible to myself and others in years past, but i am fortunate now to finally be opening myself up again. i am actually present sometimes wherever i am.

it’s my spring and i can see through the chrysalis now

but i still grieve, nothing’s perfect. i still lay in bed all day sometimes. i still think about you (sometimes, everyday). but the fact i can enjoy myself while grieving is a revelation to me. i’m really thankful for that bit of growth. seriously. i remember being so consumed by my sadness that no matter where i was, who i was with, what i was doing, the thick cloud of fog around me was simply impenetrable.

.

.

it’s the 2nd day of 2024 a minute from turning the 3rd. it’s the 3rd.

i’m continuing the entry without a beer this time - that is the norm. i don’t drink that much. a liquor cabinet sounds fun though. but first i need to get a cat before that.

today i thought a lot about you

this will read cryptic and disjointed, if it hasn’t already

everytime you leave me, everytime i leave you, a pandora’s box gets made. we put the storm back into the box, shut it, lock it, and then it’s quiet again. quiet in good ways, quiet in bad ways

can i ever know you without it opening up and spilling spewing hurtling - torrentially - its guts everywhere?

1 2 3 4 5…..6? i play each time in my head in succession and it begins to sound like the tolling of a funeral bell. 1….2….3….4….5…...october, december, june, august, november. i might have lost my count.

must we slip away into strangerhood? no 6 no 7, not even a chance?

i remember when you told me you were afraid of me because you feel you might always come back to me. i don’t remember the exact words

it’s funny because i fear the same

sometimes i hope that you would forget me, at least the parts that make you feel that you could come back to me. one day, you might look back, and in the recesses of your mind stumble across your representation of me again, this time impotent, flat.

maybe you’ve already forgotten by now. in that case, part of me would be really happy for you, part of me would wince a bit.

i was so close sometimes to forgetting why i had chosen you. sometimes i’d think about you and feel nothing - no love, no hate, plain apathy. and i hated it. the apathy, i mean. it hurts just as much to feel nothing as it does to feel everything.

i watched eternal sunshine of the spotless mind today. i avoided that movie for years because i hate the manic pixie dream girl trope (flighty, effervescent, man-rescuer, man-exciter). but it was an ok movie, 6.9/10.

spoiler alert - it made me think. if we both erased each other from our memories, do you think we would find our way back to each other again? if we were healthier and forgot all the ways in which we had hurt each other…. silly

it’s just a movie, there is no memory-erasing machine and i think i’d rather keep our memories (yes yes the painful ones too).

tabula rasa is wishful thinking; i’m learning to like the stains anyway

the lust for purity….isn’t it funny how in our pursuit of purity, we end up sinning even more? i’m thinking about the church, hitler and his genocide, israel and their genocide, monocropping in agriculture. oh, all the lies we must tell, all the things we must obliterate, all in vain

.

ah my brain

it goes and goes like a motorboat without a helmsman. it’s fun though, i never know where i’ll end up and i just keep going and going…

well

oh, i washed the scarf. it smells like cheap detergent now. i’m ok with that.

i don’t have a coat with a hood so i learned to fashion my own scarf hood from this one tiktok and now i look like a babushka on most days (because most days it rains here).

i’m getting better. i still miss you though. can’t blame myself that i do. it’s gonna be ok :)

and lastly

happy new year (i have no particular allegiance to the gregorian calendar, but for those who do…i wish you well, this year and always)

upcoming post: a research paper i wrote on the ideal cereal-to-milk ratio

hope you are all well

just popping in to wish myself and my substack a happy anniversary

it’s been one year since i started my online diary, which i originally intended to share with a handful of close people but it has since taken up 50+ subscribers, which is a little funny but kind of sweet too

i started this because i am a chronic overthinker (+adhd) and without an outlet or an opportunity to collect and organize and materialize my thoughts, i feel perhaps my life would be a bit more chaotic than it already is

this substack is my favorite corner of social media because i feel this is a space where i encourage myself to process and learn and where i can say anything i please no matter how mundane, unimportant, or uninteresting. it feels that my musings here make up the truest representation of myself so far.

thank you for reading so far however long you’ve been here! it’s been fun!!

see you again

acronyms are cheesy

i like this one though

these are some questions you might want to ask yourself before saying something. i don’t think it should be adhered to very, very strictly but a general understanding and mindfulness of these qualities might be helpful in conversation. i also don’t think all five letters need to be covered before saying something. at minimum, two. and i’m leaning towards prioritizing kindness and truth, personally. i guess though, everyone has their own definition for each of these words. hopefully, there is enough convergence in definitions between myself and the people i meet such that healthy conversations are possible and plentiful, even

you gave it to me before i left (the warmer one of the two). i’m really glad i didn’t give it back. i wore it on the train coming back home from yours. it was comforting and necessary because the weather was brisk, but it stung, too. when i looked down at the fronds of your scarf around my neck, i winced as i would touching a fresh wound. but i kept looking down anyway; i’m a wound-picker

i didn’t have any other scarves (now i have three, including yours) and antwerp was starting to get cold, so i kept wearing it, daily for a bit. i didn’t mean to, but i snuggled half my face into it as the wind picked up, and i smelled you

big whiffs and conservative sniffs; i wanted to immerse myself in you but also wanted to preserve you (of what is left)

how many of your scent molecules are even in this scarf? without a doubt, a finite amount. when will the sweat from my neck, my breath, the smoke (i don’t smoke, but i’ll sit in the smoking room at bars), the air in my room after i cook an earthy stew—when will all of it be more than you? when will it no longer be you? maybe i need to wear it as much as you did before giving it to me, maybe less, maybe more. maybe you’re stained all the way through

i don’t know why i am writing so poetically. i think it’s because i love you. i can’t help it. i’m in my luteal phase now though, so maybe it’s making me a bit sappy. but i do love you and have loved you through each phase of my menstrual cycle over the last two years

. .

i’ve had some really good days, days where i don’t miss you, days of relief, days where i feel i can take on the entire world (if i had more money), days where i am so proud of the trajectory i seem to be moving in (will continue to). and i’ve had some less-than-good days, days where i feel bitter and indignant, days where i languish over the pain i’ve caused you (and myself, for that matter), days where i am not much more than a sack of wet, cold sand

but today is a new day and a day i find myself missing you a lot. i couldn’t stop replaying the last few minutes before i left you. the clinging, the clawing, the desperation, rage, regret, shame, the pockets of warmth and comfort, even. and finally, the last kiss you gave me holding my face in between your palms before the doors of the elevator closed between us. how beautiful, how confusing

i was sitting in the row second to the front in class today when my mind went there. i had to shake it off over and over, bat my eyes to dry the tears lest i burst out sobbing mid-lecture. i took in maybe about 30% of what he was going on about (something about the materiality of language). he wasn’t a very captivating lecturer anyway

i’m home now. writing, crying (freely, thankfully), and soon to take a nap (even though i promised my friend that i wouldn’t)

. . .

your scarf is in a loose mound on my dining table, fronds hanging off and all.

i’m in belgium now. in art school now. have an apartment now. in debt now. out of the same relationship - for the 5th (or is it 6th?) time now. a bit lonely now.

there is so much apprehension. there always has been. i’m afraid that i won’t be able to stay here as long as i’d planned. i’m afraid i’ll have to pack up and go despite all the work it’s taken to get here. though my relationship with my ex was riddled with dysfunction, his place in my life gave me the strength to forge on. not only was i doing this for me, i was doing it for him, too. i was always teetering on the edge. now with him out of the picture, reorienting and shifting my balance once again is proving difficult and brings up the question of - am i strong enough to do this? i don’t know but it’s my goal.

after all, it’s only been two days since i left him. of course it’s hard right now.

i broke up with him. we were always battling something big in our own respective lives. we are both with troubled pasts and wounds that haven’t healed yet. all of that created distance, an irreconcilable one. at least right now, we’re too far away from each other - the circles of our venn diagram do not even touch much less converge. except - we both love each other and always have. i will repeat the cliche but true saying - love is not enough.

there are innumerable reasons why this is so difficult to endure. i’ll spare you the details; it’s always complex and layered like this, you know what i mean.

here i am. confronted yet again by the utter vacuousness felt in my chest alternating with an utter numbness. over and over again, i find myself here. i feel embarrassed by my lack of self-respect and delusional hopefulness (it’ll be different this time) that led me back 5 or 6 times more.

one silver lining is that i’ve learned something new and profound each time about myself, about others, and about relationships. this time i learned that my perfectionism, impatience for in-between states, and tendency towards all-or-nothing thinking (it must be perfectly good or irreparably bad) corrupts so much of my life.

i want to learn how to be comfortable with discomfort, i.e. the discomfort i feel when things are unclear, undefined, and uncertain. there are usually no one-shot solutions or incredible breakthroughs - that shit is for the movies. even if it happens, reliance on the fast and miraculous ultimately renders you weak for the 99% of times the miracles don’t come - then what? i decide now to trust the process, to anchor myself in the present moment no matter what that moment contains, to move myself slowly and not succumb to my anxiety. in order to do that though, i need to build trust in myself that i will be able to take care of myself no matter what happens. if i trust myself to be able to face any outcome that might come up in the future, i can finally let go and live in the present moment and also avoid the often self-fulfilling prophecy of catastrophizing the future (focusing on your fears leads you to act in ways that ultimately lead to outcomes that confirm those fears).

this will be a slow and arduous process. painful, non-linear, grueling at times. like i said, there are no miracles and even if there are, i’d rather work towards becoming someone more reliable than a miracle ever could be.

i’m here once again but today i am bringing back, by popular demand (david’s demand; he is popular), the dream journal. you can skip the foreword below and hop straight into 4/13’s dream.

lately, or rather, since forever ago, i’ve been having vivid dreams on a nightly basis. i’m not sure how i feel about that fact. while i do feel rested from my sleep, i wake up feeling slightly activated from the drama of my dream content. i also wake up with a mild sense of dread (which sounds oxymoronic, so maybe it’s not dread). the air around me feels heavy and serious. i wonder what that’s all about.

interesting thing i’ve noticed about dream amy is that they’re a lot more unbothered than real-life amy. i think it must do with the fact that i am somewhat evenly split between feeling like both the spectator and the actor in my dreams.

there is a certain balance between feeling safe (hidden-away, cozy little spectator) vs. feeling autonomous and present (actor making deliberate decisions), detachment vs. involvement, that contributes to the ‘unbothered,’ calm, safe, and maybe even empowered(?) experience of dream me.

i still feel my emotions and think my thoughts, but they’re a bit ‘softer’ if you get what i mean. i’m neither completely numb/de-realized (i dissociate quite a bit in my waking life) nor drowning in emotion or thought (i also spiral quite a bit, too).

in essence, dream me is a great example of how i’d like to exist. i aspire to strike this dreamy balance in my waking life someday soon.

thank you for reading this long-ish foreword to the actual dream content, which is not that interesting, so keep that in mind:

i’m certain there was more dream content prior to the dream event i am starting off with here, but i forgot.

pt 1: i am walking down a grimy street — it looks like a typical street in the lower east side. it is overcast and humid and the air is thick with pollen. i notice a man walking slightly ahead of me, close enough to me to catch my attention but not so close to raise suspicion. i turn now towards a dark and empty storefront; perhaps it just went out of business, or maybe it’s closed for renovations. i should know, because i live here, and we own this storefront, too.

anyways, i enter through the store and lock the door behind me. in the corner of my eye, i see the man turn into the alley adjacent to the store (i can see him because the wall facing the alley is glass. i realize there is also a door along the alley-side of the store, so i quickly pace over to make sure it is locked. it’s unlocked; i am slightly panicked because the man is approaching this door - maybe he just needs to go down this alley. i turn the lock, but before i am able to finish the turn he slams the door open.

i am in a full sprint towards the stairs and so is he. he is after me. the feeling of being chased is like nothing else, and thankfully i’ve never experienced it in real life. he chases me up the stairs, and i am screaming for my mom and my sister who are in the rooms upstairs. first, my screams are muted despite the full physical force i am putting into them. finally i am able to scream audibly but at that point, i’ve blacked out (yes, it went black in my dream); i think i am dead.

pt 2: suddenly, i am awake in this new episode. there are two dogs in my closet. i really don’t know why, but i do know that i put them in there and promised them i’d be back for them. i forgot to come back for them for four days.

uhh… right so i approach the closet door and i am scared to open it because i don’t know what i will find. if i see two dead dogs, i will be devastated. how do i forget that there are two dogs in my closet for four days? why the fuck did i put them there in the first place? am i ok? they are ok. they look tired but relieved. one of them is golden, the other white with brown spotting. they must be so hungry, so i tell them i will go make you food and i will be right back. i close the closet door again.

in the kitchen, i look for some dog food cans (the pâté type). i open them up one after the other only to find that they are rotten. mercilessly colonized by blue-green-white mold. it looked like:

the smell was putrid.

finally i find a few cans that are ok. i serve that along with some flank steak that i fried and minced. the dogs are dm-ing me on instagram. they are asking me when i would open the door for them.

for some reason, i am also trying to make some tracks for them to listen to while they eat their meal, but i wasn’t able to synchronize this one melodic line to the rest of it so i gave up on that. the dogs got their food but i was sorry they couldn’t have my music too.

they eat and leave.

we are now all in a train car together, me and the dogs and some other people. the dogs have since morphed into human men. they look like pop stars.

the golden dog turned into a man with a long blond fringe:

the spotted dog turned into a man with dark brown hair wearing a black leather jacket:

they’re not upset with me for keeping them in the closet for four days without food or water. we are all laughing about it in the train car.

ok that’s all - thank you for reading. it got pretty bizarre and absurd towards the end but that’s how the brain goes sometimes.

i am itching to write a little bit today. something like a progress report, something to organize my thoughts because there has been a lot going on (central theme), and something to look back on someday and think, ‘wow i’ve come so far.

• i’ve started smoking again after 7 months nic-free; at first, it was purely social. then, things got really stressful and i kept smoking to hold it together (it worked). unfortunately, i brought the habit back home with me.

  • i feel i’ve hit an incredible balance mentally, and i am afraid to go cold turkey just yet for fear of tipping the scales again

  • tangentially, i was never good at self-regulation to begin with, but looking back, nicotine definitely took some of the responsibility off of me. anxious? smoke. depressed? smoke. angry? smoke. and i used it as a crutch for 6 years, meaning for 6 years, i never really got to learn the hard lesson of how to rely on myself. in essence, i thought i was less reliable and less trustworthy to depend on than nicotine, weed, people who aren’t good for you, etc etc etc

    • so, quitting after 6 long years (which is long, given that i’m 24 now and that is a quarter of my life) i really do feel that the last 7 months that i’ve been nic-free were as difficult as they were because i no longer had that as a crutch and didn’t have much else in my arsenal of self-regulatory practices to depend on instead. in addition to life just being a bigger bitch than usual to live, i had less now to get through it with and my anxiety, depression, and anger bled out in unsavory ways.

    • i say all of the above so i can give myself more grace and understanding. i know that a lot of the time, the way i’ve acted (particularly in the last 7 months) made me feel like a horrible person or that somehow i was regressing and getting worse; i was utterly confused by the trajectory i was taking, but now i feel i have some explanation for it.

    • that’s not to say that nicotine (rather, the lack of) was 100% responsible for every bad thing ever. definitely though, it played a large enough role to be acknowledged here and acknowledging its role helps me to feel more confident about going forward and growing because addiction/underdeveloped self-regulatory skills are concrete things that can be worked on

• speaking of, in a new therapy program. i’ve only been to one session, but the woman is great. i felt heard, seen, safe from the very first consult call, which is something i value a lot. i think i will see lots of benefits here especially since a nice therapeutic base is being laid (feeling heard/seen/safe).

• my aunt went back to hawaii; she decided without telling any of us and the whole thing devolved into a literal spectacle and i will spare the details; i’m in close contact with some people in hawaii who are trying to help her, but she’s non-compliant, so it makes things a lot slower and more difficult. for the most part, my hands are up.

  • needless to say, im proud of myself. i did everything i could (and continue to).

• i’m currently working on a ‘collection 0’ and will be selling some stuff by the end of this month. there’s been about 70 or so people who’ve been inquiring about them, which was very unexpected for me given that i started my instagram with the purpose of being a public portfolio type of thing as well as to connect with other artists i admire —

  • which, btw, one of my first and main inspirations for abscess (doll) and soft sculpture in general has been talking to me and asking to do an art trade ;_;

  • they live in nyc and invited me to come hang with them and get hot chocolates and shit and talk about art and SHIT

    • i am blushing and beaming

  • anyways, i thought about giving a theme to the collection, ‘tabula rasa, ad infinitum’ is what i wrote in my sketchbook, but i think i might skip a theme for this one. i think going forward it might be great to have a theme, or whatever that will make a collection look and feel cohesive. also prob a lot easier than having to make x-amount of completely unique pieces

    • i’ll return to tabula rasa ad infinitum in the next one

    • the theme won’t always be as abstract-sounding as ‘tabula rasa’ i mean a potential theme could be something like ‘buttons’ and it’ll literally be as straightforward as that sounds

• i’m working on a commission rn too! so excited for that one

• i’m feeling at ease; i am feeling powerful and largely unbothered. i know the reasons why i am feeling safe and empowered and im also very proud of myself for those reasons

• oh but seriously though. the new followers and engagement i’ve been getting on my art ig has been helping me get through a lot of the tough times. i’m so lucky and happy to have been found by some of the sweetest people — thank u if ur one of them!!

it’s finally sunny again, and it looks like the rest of january is (un)surprisingly temperate. ***COUUGH* global warming :3

this coming saturday is my 7-monthiversary of no nicotine! i also am planning on submitting my first application before the end of this week. david has offered me his place to stay this weekend while he’s skiing in the poconos (where donna was cheating on her husband with michael scott). i’m thinking about celebrating with a rave and some new/old friends. then, i’m going to make david tuna salad. i promised.

yesterday night, i had a sort of ‘creative orgasm.’ do you ever get those? when i hit a little bit of genius in my work, and the creative decision *just*. *feels*. *right*… i have to exclaim a bit (“UGH fuckkkk yeaaaassssss”), and i feel like a god. but also incredibly human.

i’m almost done with my largest ummmm what do you even call this… textile sculpture? that sounds so pretentious, lol. but it’s also not simply a stuffed animal or a doll that you might buy at the store. basically, i’ve stitched, stuffed, painted, embellished three mew-looking (the pokemon) dolls this past week. they’re going to be assembled in a circle, their backs to each other. two hands up to each sternum (where the pain and the ants emanate from), but neither hand belongs to the doll whose chest/sternum is being touched? basically each doll’s chest is being touched by the the hands of the other two dolls. if that makes any sense. so they’re kind of in an…arm-y ring???? nvm JUST wait, i’ll post after i finish it lol.

you know what i particularly like about stuffed animals (fancified: textile sculptures) though? stuffed animals are more or less a universal symbol of comfort, warmth, safety, relief, invitation, etc. they’re what you run to when you’ve had a bad day at school. they’re what you tell your deepest secrets to. what protects you at night from the monsters.

thus, “textile sculptures” feel like a perfect vessel for sharing my (our) truth because i want my truth to be familiar and inviting. i want it to be accessible. i want it to nurture and console and be earnest. i want to engage people on a very intimate, sincere, and honest level. i want to be human and celebrate human.

sometimes, works of art feel really pretentious to me. sometimes, it seems like the primary motive in creating it was to impress, to awe, to create a feeling of reverence, perhaps? i do like being in awe and wonder. mystique and queerness are things i can appreciate, for sure. but personally, i want more than to simply be impressed, perplexed, awed.

some art feels an intentional departure from us (people, humans). some art feels very inaccessible, arrogant, and selfish, and therefore, insecure as well. it feels guarded and afraid. my awe and wonderment fizzle out at the impasse i hit when looking at such a thing. it does not want me (it does not mean for me) to go any further. be dazzled, and leave.

personally though, i want to feel like the art that i am looking at wants me. i want to feel like it needs me, appreciates me, involves me, wants me to stay. i don’t want to be anywhere where i do not feel wholeheartedly wanted. anyways, a bit of a ramble just to say, i like stuffed animals. i want my art to feel like how a stuffed animal feels. warm, earnest, sincere. a bit of transcendence and mystique is great, but i want to always link it back down to the core (aka i want to be relatable and loving).

took another personality quiz today called “are you a soldier, a poet, or a king?” linked to me by david, naturally.

both are relevant and scary. however, the one i chose was:

to me, this means that i continue to exist but stopped healing or growing. instead, i am existing to prove something, aka absolute stagnation. ew. ewewewewwewwewew. i’d also lack self-awareness (or awareness in general) since according to this excerpt, my anger blinds and overcomes me. i become Anger itself and whoever i once was is eclipsed and lost. NOOO!

results of this quiz will go on the ‘tiny little brushstrokes’ post.

oh, right. mom’s birthday. i made the paella, i made the sweet potato cake, and i made the burnt basque cheesecake. my efforts were seen and appreciated, and it appears as though it was even touching, even if brief! i had a lot of fun making these. also, who knows, i might not be able to celebrate my mom’s birthday next year if i’m away at school somewhere.

i meant to take a picture of the mise en place before cooking, but i realized i forgot to take pictures, so instead i took tiny bits of the already processed ingredients and assembled them on a plate to give you an idea of what ingredients went into each thing.

here:

bye

i know it’s 3am but lately im stretching my waking hours because im furiously stitching away/drawing/storming the brain before my first application deadline. thankfully, most of my other applications are due past march, so i have time to submit more of my artwork. but yea, im pretty much ok with submitting what i have so far.

i missed my substack and am itching to write anything at all, so im spending a few more minutes here before i go to sleep.

i don’t have that much in the way of updates but :

my mom’s bday is coming up in a day — im making paella and a sweet potato birthday cake. i’ll prepare some dishes with pickles and peppers, a medley of fruits, and some warm bread. a feast for peace, i hope. mainly, im excited to have a reason to cook and bake something more extravagant than usual.

in <3 weeks i will meet marisa at jfk we will be traveling for 2 weeks together and getting friendship wedded. oh, i think in barcelona we should get paella. then, i will compare mine with barcelona’s and hopefully mine prevails as the superior paella.

i’ve started rewatching the office again — it’s been two years — and it is simply amazing, the effect it has on me. i am feeling some peace and calm trickling back in; it really is my biggest comfort show. i’m sorry to myself that i took so long to get back into it, haha. but it’s really nbc’s fault for getting it removed off netflix and then creating the dumbest streaming service which david says offers tiers of subscription which determine how many seasons/episodes of the office you’re able to watch…

lastly, and this one’s a little weird, but i’ve been thinking about closets for the past couple of weeks. it began when i saw david’s harry potter closet and thought how nice it would be to sleep there. the height of this closet it quite low, with a slanted ‘ceiling,’ which is the perfect distance above the face when lying down in there for a small mounted tv or monitor.

perfectly snug and cozy but not stuffy or tight for someone my size. one knows about me that i am obsessed with cozy nooks (e.g., hideyholes, blanket forts, greyhound buses at night, etc.).

i couldn’t really stop thinking about this closet. i also couldn’t stop thinking about how big and hollow my room felt. my room makes me feel exposed and unsafe, and lately it had been feeling even more cavernous than usual, so. i decided to clear out my own harry potter closet (which i use for art supply storage) and set up temporary(?) camp in there. yea, it’s been nice also because it’s much warmer in the closet. my electric fireplace isn’t that great at warming the room up.

anyone who knows me knows that i cannot do without background noise, especially when alone. i always have a show on, or two. music is often either too mentally or emotionally laborious to have on for too long, so no music.

but yeah, another cool thing about the closet is that i can layer my background sounds nicely. i play some youtube on my computer which comes with me to the closet and then the office on the tv in the room outside. i like that the tv is slightly muffled and distant while my computer is warm and near. all of it contributes to the feeling of being nestled, cradled, sheltered.

i want to feel just as the smallest babushka doll might feel.

goodnight

as long as i was under my threshold and able to keep at least my nose above water, i could do it. sure, i was alive but i was also just barely holding it together, which is no longer how i want to approach and live my life.

a video a few months ago told me to make a list of wants, needs, non-negotiables. when i tried making one, i found that i couldn’t really think of very many items, and the few that i did, i was hesitant to write down and ‘etch into stone’.* i’m so used to accommodating other peoples’ needs over my own that i know i didn’t put much time and consideration into figuring out my own. so i’ve had a pretty hard time until now (where it absolutely ends). at this point, i am pretty thoroughly disgusted with people-pleasing and being people-pleased to.

i was afraid setting boundaries and standing by them can cause others to reject, leave or be hostile towards me.* this fear (aka self-preservation) has been stronger than my self-love and respect a lot of times. i don’t wanna be on self-preserve mode forever… i wanna be many notches above that.

so if you couldn’t tell, i have reached a point where i am pretty wearied by all of this. i wanna be happy, not surviving. ive realized as much for a while, but like i said, fear is blinding and counterproductive sometimes.

now, im gonna be telling myself that knowing and sticking to your wants/needs/etc will weed out the toxic and overly difficult relationships and reveal the ones that add and benefit my life. i don’t need to fight and labor to keep things that refuse to work for me. there is so much goodness in this world meant for me, why have i been fighting to have scraps instead? i want to make the space for the experiences and relationships that allow me to flourish in this world. so here’s a working list of filters that i’ll be doing my absolute best to apply when judging my relationships henceforth. i know i can be firm in this without becoming inflexible. everything listed also applies to me, this is the kind of person i am working on becoming everyday.

what i want in myself and from others:

• dedication and commitment

• trustworthiness and dependability

  • keeping one’s word, following through more times than not

• confidence and trust in self and others

• accountability and responsibility for one’s actions, especially those in which unnecessary (or avoidable) hurt or damage was caused

• self-awareness and a willingness to improve and grow

• sincerity and *honesty*

• ‘raw honesty and humility’ - kim polinder

• graciousness and benevolence

• kindness, empathy, and respect for self and others

• generally optimistic and hopeful and supportive of life

• intuitive and shrewd (but not directed by jadedness or moral superiority)

• humility — very important

  • which does not mean one should intentionally downplay themselves and their strengths

  • it means not putting oneself on a pedestal, not wanting to appear “more” than others, not drawing reductive binary comparisons between the self and other, but rather, appreciating the absolutely incredible beauty of living among (and being a part of) 7 billion unique and singular individuals, all of whom are united by virtue of being different (and incomparably so) from each other

things i will no longer tolerate in myself/from others:

• defaulting to defensive speak/behavior,

  • i want myself and others in my life to respect each other and our relationship enough to prioritize repair and resolution and not default to pointing fingers and deflecting

• self-righteousness, not apologizing or fully acknowledging mistakes due to pride and/or shame

  • in general, being remorseless and haughty pisses me off no matter what. arrogance is a dealbreaker for my relationships.

• passive aggression, and stubbornly denying when called out for it

  • ex: taking advantage of the inherent plausible deniability in passive aggression

• sending subtle hints and/or communicating through the subtext instead of being clear, direct, and honest.

  • no more indirectly implying very important information in the subtext - why make people do unnecessary guesswork just because you’re too afraid to assert yourself?

• on the flip side of this, reading too deeply into truly innocuous things or being hypervigilant or overly anticipatory of the worst (which is a self-fulfilling prophesy as these expectations color the experience and influence the outcome)

• half-assery (i dont half-ass stuff ans i sure as hell wont take half-assed shit from other ppl)

• savior/hero complex; differentiating yourself as someone who “saves” others creates a very queer type of power imbalance. what i mean by this is that it feels weird and off-putting even though it appears socially appropriate or encouraged (saving is a good thing!), which means it may easily go unnoticed and may perpetuate itself in masquerading as something good/altruistic/etcetc.

  • however, savior behavior (hah) patronizes and objectifies the people who’ve been assigned (or perhaps subconsciously coerced into) the role of someone who needs saving (classically, the damsel). it seems those who exhibit this complex and associated behaviors assume and (attempt to) covertly signal their superiority (moral and otherwise) over others.

  • inherently, this complex involves objectifying people who are struggling; the savior, more or less, does not see the damsel for very much outside of what makes her a damsel (their issues). the damsel has a very important functional purpose in the savior’s life, aka allow the savior to do the saving. a savior only exists if there are people in need of saving. outside of fulfilling this purpose, it seems there is less of an interest in who the damsel is outside of the damsel role, or if there is an expressed interest, it feels vapid and insincere. this is why it feels objectifying — “im not that interesting outside of my problems.”

  • heroes assume too much responsibility in other people’s issues/outcomes/affairs. it feels disavowing. they also expect some sort of laudatory showering of praise and exaltations (some variation of “oh, my hero!” likely in a similar tone of voice as usually performed by damsels post-saving)

• subverting, perverting, deflecting, hiding, masking,

things that irritate me but aren’t necessarily dealbreakers (but *may* become dealbreakers):

• unnecessary or over-the-top complaining/contrarian attitude

• long-winded monologues, tangents, conversation hijacking

• overly facetious, masking (aka, post-irony which imo is just layers and layers of complex deflection/refusal to confront something uncomfortable or painful) — i don’t want to waste my time with people who are not interested in connecting authentically, vulnerably, and deeply.

  • to expand (cuz i didnt realize i already wrote a bullet on this but i don’t wanna delete it):

    • aloof and disengaged (i’m working on this too) and overly facetious about everything, all of which i consider defense behaviors that might thwart potential conflict/hurt but also prevent opportunities for intimacy and deep connection.

• oh also consistent use of post-irony/“i was just joking!” as fallbacks or excuses when called out for something lol

• basically ANYTHING covertly manipulative; the sneaky shit pisses me off because it’s as if they believe i’m too stupid to catch on. perhaps it’s more reflective of their fear of directly asserting what they want/need due to past experience. still, i won’t have it.

• humble bragging. almost worse than overt bragging. just the fact that there is a sneakiness and involved in humble bragging feels weird. also it’s like the ‘socially appropriate’ way of bragging, also weird.

  • tangent: a weird thing is, bragging about something feels viscerally different from sharing your successes. like when i’ve bragged, i later realized it was 1) not relevant to the convo, 2) said to compensate for some insecurity, and 3) caused a weird combo of feeling slightly frantic, desperate, and guilty? sharing feels warmer and more involving of the person who is listening to you share. bragging feels like you are intentionally trying to separate and differentiate yourself from people, make yourself appear ‘more special,’ which ultimately, creates a very lonely experience.

  • anyways, a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself, “why am i saying this?” and be very honest in answering that question. no shame.