monsbrick

What are you up for today? Are you doing your favorite craft or reading a good book? Watching your favorite show?

Tell me something about your life or your day or the weather. I love random glimpses.

Thank you for rating me!

Please let me know if I send you a postage due item! I’m happy to make it up to you. My local post office has reduced hours still:(

Welcome to my profile! I am 54 years old and live in Alameda an island town in a suburb outside San Francisco, California.

A few of my favorite things: Free random things Surprises Pink, Blue, Brown, and all the exotic names for all the colors, I love all the colors of the rainbow and more colors that are in mind's eye but not in the real or material world Dreams Films Cooking channels Fixer Upper Glamping at home like a princess!

Handmade anything. Dabbling in drawing, doodling, some variation of zentangles, watercolor, gel plate printing, stamping, collage, acrylics, sewing, painting, coloring, knitting, and other fiber arts, beading, cooking, and more.

Penpal writing and journal writing are some of my favorite pastimes.

💜Bella Grace& Daphne’s Diary & Somerset Studio are magazines I read.

Here are some of the YouTube people I subscribe to: Maremi Smallarts, Nik the Booksmith, Mystele, Ana Bondu, Susanne Rose Art, The Paper Outpost, Creationsceecee, My Arty Heart, Lisa Oxley, Joie de fi, Gel Press, and Gelli Arts.

Food: Cooking and nutrition are big for me. Recently I started using HelloFresh for meals. They send you the food supplies. Meal prep is all done for us! It’s super easy! Loving it so far. We do still supplement breakfasts and fresh salads and fresh fruit, sprouts and seeds. But for dinner and some lunches I depend on HelloFresh for most meals. We eat everything from veggie to fish and shellfish and meat. We like American, Asian, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Moroccan it’s all good.

Postcards: Exploring ways I can save or share my collection. What do you do with your postcards? How do you share, save, or recycle? ♻️

Paper: I love stationery and all kinds of paper.

Junk journals, funky scrapbooks. I'm not that coordinated nor designed. My style is eclectic and messy and Bohemian. But I love to save all kinds of little bits and pieces. Ribbons, book pages, washi tape, wrapping paper, home made paper, yarn, tissue, packaging, even washi tape. I secretly love stickers though they seem not that popular. I've started a mini collection of recycled stickers, like people save used postage stamps. There should be a name for us like philatelist! But for stickers. It's a mini collection because it seems to be politically or socially incorrect to confess to this love here among "serious" arts and crafters. But then, I'm not good at being serious since I'm exceedingly serious at my day job.

What are you reading or listening to? Would you recommend a book to me?

Black Lives Matter and even beyond that I have loved James Baldwin since I discovered him by wandering around my local library and picking up books. I love everything he has written from fiction like Another Country to non-fiction, Price of the Ticket. The latest tv show Lovecraft Country has a voice over excerpt of James Baldwin and I was jumping up and down in my living room screaming that's James Baldwin. He writes the kind of words that make me want to cry and laugh and dance. When he talks or writes about jazz it makes me want to play the piano or dance and sway like I can feel the drums beating. He became an ex-pat and moved to Paris and France and explored the Negro experience in that country, which has its own struggles and history different from ours here in the USA but I could gush and gush. There are times when I feel so raw and realize that is how I am, I come across to other people at times, deep and raw and oversharing. But it's epic. And beautiful and yet some things a person has to experience on their own. They can't just read about or hear about. They need to go out and walk the trail, or smell the rain, or watch the waves crash at the ocean. Not everything can come through a book, but it is nice to find an author or a book or movie/tv show that can convey some of the beauty.

Apocalyptic Fiction:

*Hugh Howey *Paolo Bacigalupi *John Joseph Adams

That word Apocalypse used to really scare me. My Mom always thought that the end of the world was eminent not quite a Doomsday Prepper but she had friends that feared the ends of the world.

One day I accidentally ordered a Hugh Howey audiobook and I was hooked. I ordered the Shell Collector and was trying to get the one by Anthony Doerr. For fun I listen to excerpts of audiobooks to peruse them. As a kid I could read all my grandfather’s Readers Digest magazines cover to cover. Listening to excerpts is like that. I drive my husband crazy because I love to open books to random pages to see if I like the book. It gives me a sense of the mood and tone and feel for the book. He prefers and Sabrina my stepdaughter also prefers to read books from start to finish in one direction. They think I’m ruining the book by starting in the middle. For me it’s less about the plot of the book and more about the journey the environment the flavor and taste and dream of the world of the book.

Anyway, Hugh Howey I have read everything I can by him. It’s rare to find his books in paper. He publishes online though now and then I see paper versions. And the Shell Collector is probably the least Apocalyptic book by him. It’s romantic without being too romantic. It is like a chance romance. Two people driven by their passion for finding seashells and rare rock fossils. Now I want to read it again.

Marguerite Duras used to give me this same sense but her characters were more violent. There was always a violence and struggle and in both writers there is a class struggle without greed. There is a pull between romance and doing things for political or moral agendas. Hmmm her books are also rare but the way she writes is lovely to me. I used to copy out phrases and passages of her books.

Jim Harrison used to do it for me too. He has a gross not pedophile but yes maybe an old guy going for young teenager thing. I would try to put that aside when reading his books but I finally gave all his books away. And Marguerite Duras’ books. I didn’t want to experience any more inappropriate romance.

Seems like this pandemic Year I dipped deeper I to the violence without romance and without sex. I read or listened to most of Scott Silver’s zombie apocalypse work. Why I felt comforted? I guess because it was like watching the movie Home Alone. My little sister had a movie poster for Home Alone in her room as a kid. My parents left her alone a lot while I was away at college. She had all the escape routes planned out and the means to defend herself. While the mutant variants are taking of the world, I can revel with Scott Silver’s heroes in fighting the monsters and zombies. It’s not an intellectual choice but a gut level action movie kind of book experience. Audiobook usually.

Now I’m reading a book by Lame Deer. Paperback print version. I’m also listening to Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. More grounded and peaceful.

Cyber fiction:

*William Gibson *Neal Stephenson *Scott Sigler

Horror

*Anne Rice *Chuck Hogan *Guillermo del Toro *Scott Sigler *Edgar Allen Poe

Teen Fiction

*Annette Marie *Sarah Cameron

Travel Writing

*Paul Theroux *Henry Miller

General Fiction

*Jon Steele *Francesca Lia Block *Anais Nin *Jack Kerouac *Gabriel Garcia Marquez *Danielle Steel *George R.R. Martin *Haruki Murakami *Robert B. Parker *JD Salinger *Jim Harrison *Ursula LeGuin

General Non-Fiction

*Oliver Sacks *Jeffrey Toobin *Angela Duckworth *Malcolm Gladwell *Jack Kerouac *Esther Perel
*Gabrielle Bernstein *Eckhart Tolle *Jack Kornfield *Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner *John McPhee

Naturalist

*John Muir *Henry David Thoreau

On writing, mostly I write for myself. I've kept a journal or diary since I was a kid. Lately I’ve joined journal swaps to make and share art and words with swappers. Sometimes just a page and for other swaps a whole notebook.

Swim, walk, run, yoga and dance. I keep sanity by getting outside in nature and breathing fresh air.

In the Spring through our mild Autumn seasons, we set up a table and lawn chairs outside. A big umbrella keeps us shady for hot days. I love to work outside and lounge. The bright jewel colors in my flower garden keep me inspired from lemon to purple lavender and Mexican deep purple sage blooms.

Themes or Genres or things I like sooo many to list but including: Firefly Lord of the Rings Fairies, Gnomes Studio Ghibli Electric Dreams as in Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep The Warrens Dune

In college during my first week of classes about 40 years ago I met a cute boy on the campus green. He invited me to his film class. We never dated though we did go see a few Humphrey Bogart films, Jon was after a beautiful Russian girl who had also been on the green that day and also took film with us. He quit school to make films and I skirted with film production but never went to Hollywood I do have some silly stories. I mean I’m the sort of girl who can swim laps next to Keanu Reeves and not realize until weeks later who he is. Ohh right! He’s another very handsome guy or you know 30 years ago when we were all much younger he was not hard to look at. He did smile at me in between laps. I’m very serious when I swim my laps too.

Oh but film, I could make lists of 1000’s of favorites but I’ll just list a few. How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, Splendor in the Grass, Get Him to the Greek, The Last Emperor of China, Gladiator, The Hunger Games, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Marie Antoniette, The Seven Samurai, Hero, Mulan

Artist Trading Cards or ATC and other arts and crafts creations. Recently I started really trading artist cards and that is super fun. I'm enjoying swapping these cards, other peoples' beautiful, fantastic, creations!

Love all kinds of music, all genres. I listen to electronica, opera, soundtracks. I download all kinds of podcasts and news on YouTube or other online sources. Spoken word.

I love to change my daily playlist with my 5000+ songs in my collection.

My husband and I have planted a small victory garden. We have had a garden for over 10 years. This year we planted with the intention of reducing our dependence on the grocery store.

Blooming this week are new flower annuals from our local nursery. Volunteer or return visitor mache (if you don't know what mache is think of butter lettuce but mini or microgreen). Green onions, various herbs, blackberries, strawberries. Scented flowers like jasmine and lavender and rose. Have you ever bathed in rose petals or rose hips? You can also bathe in lavender though I'm allergic to it so I watch it from a distance. Try it you will feel like a QUEEN when You bathe in rose petals!! You can scoop them out with a mesh strainer when you are done. They are also high in vitamin C which is good for your skin.

What about you? Do you grow anything?

How are you serving these pandemic times?