January: Week One

Every so often I do a daily self-portrait project for a set period of time. Once I did it a whole year but this time I’m gunna stick to just January. Every picture is taken on my phone with a remote timer in my hand.

Sunday, January 1st

First boba tea of the new year, hellllll yeahhhhhhh. I was filling out some of the Unravel sheets (see this post) and then I texted The Girls (Lucy Bellwood and Danielle Corsetto) about scheduling our next monthly Business Ladies meeting and then it turned out we were all available at that moment so we jumped on the horn (FaceTime) and did our thing for the next hour.

Monday, January 2nd

Working in the home studio in my winter coat and cap because it’s winter and my century-old house has no insulation.

Tuesday, January 3rd

Making oatmeal. I get up before Matt so I make the oatmeal every morning.

Wednesday, January 4

Taking the creature on her morning constitutional.

Thursday, January 5th

We had our friends over for dinner, while they’re visiting Portland from overseas. I accidentally brought up a subject which activates the FEAR!PANIC portion of Matt’s brain and had to figure out how to redirect the conversation away from that landmine without tipping off our guests that Matt was silently choking on anxiety and we needed to talk about ANYTHING ELSE RIGHT MEOW. It worked! We moved on to the topic of infertility and the endurance test of trying to conceive through every means possible, subjects that no person has any complicated feelings on 😮‍💨 (I am making that sound like it went badly for comedic effect. In reality, it was a good, heartfelt, human conversation).

Friday, January 6th

Motherfuckers, I have been practicing my DBT like a champ today. I’m so proud of my little broken brain. You can’t avoid pain in life, but you can reduce the amount you suffer- that’s what they told me at Space Camp. (Also it is cold as balls so I’ve been wearing this blanket my friend knitted as a cape all day.)

Saturday, January 7th

A couple days ago I made friends with a lady who got off at my bus stop and it turned out we live literally a block and a half away from each other on the same street. I gave her my number and today we met up for beverages (coffee for her, boba tea for me. We each brought our own specialized cups in our bags without coordinating ahead of time.) while exploring a park and our extended neighborhood. We’re both turning 40 this year, just three months apart! We talked for two hours without stopping and we’re probably going to meet up again soon (unless she was just saying that to be polite) because she’s only in town until the end of the month. I love making friends on the bus.