(Click to enlarge)

I have actually been using them too, you can see Rustic Copper, an almost impossible simultaneous navy and orange-red, in the ears of this Xolo I painted per Clark's request. Another treat I received as compensation for missing the trip was this glorious gift from my brother and his wife:

THE LIMITED EDITION HONGKONG MCDONALDS MAH JONG SET

Jen and I had discovered it on IG back in January when it was released, dismayed to find that it was going for hundreds of dollars. They had tasked one of our least favorite cousins with two baby mamas in Hong Kong to buy it on their version of mercari while he was out there and fly it back to Taiwan where they picked it up and brought back for me here in [REDACTED].

They also facetimed me from the PLOTTER store in Taipei which turned out to be better stocked than the flagship in Tokyo. We all geeked out together on their luxury paper goods. Brother's holy grail item is the whiteboard insert which had a brief and glorious existence at a pop-up event in possibly Chicago.

Did you know you can order custom stamps? the ka-thunking self inking kind? for like, 10 bucks? Every night when I write down what I did, I like to make note of what pen/ink I'm using. I have a few mini stamps that look like pens and others that look like ink. I saw an Eric Small Things stamp that seemed perfectly catered to that purpose but come to find that it's sold out and $30 bucks when it wasn't. Also come to find that Eric Small Things is a demigod in the Japanese side of journal world.

Hey. Heres something you may not know about me I am fucking obsessed with pens and inks and over the course of the past year have been building up a decent fountain pen collection. Here's a showcase of what came in the mail this month (the pouch is from Daiso and the xxxl zipper pull doubles as a phone stand!)

• THe OHTO MS01 mechanical pencil has a cool feature that allows you to dial the lead sleeve up or down and the length of the lead extended with each click.
• The kaküno is a limited edition color with a gold nib and trademark happyface currently inked with limited-er edition ink from a Kuretake Ink Cafe Karrapo pen Monster & Ghost -themed set I found in Taiwan a few years ago
• The TWSBI Eco-T is inked with my current favorite color from my all time favorite line, Kyokkou from Sailor's Yurameku series. Scan cannot do itjustice.
• My dad discovered the ZENTO series via youtube (he's a pen & stationery freak too) after watching this video sometime back in February, and became fixated on getting his hands on the Signature, which was sold out in the US and Japan. Undeterred, he set alerts and regularly refreshed sites, buying every other edition the pen came in until it was available. Both the Signature and the Flow were from him. If youre gonna get one, the Basic is just fine, and get it in a size .7, the ink is soooo juicy and light your hand feels like its flying as the blackest of blacks trails behind (not recommended for the left-handed). The Signature features a smooth, weight-balanced metal body with a magnetic cap that is a tactile joy to fuck with, while the Flow has an admittedly better clip.

Like most months, i spent most of it working diligently at a job I enjoy, this month even more so because I opted out of a trip to Taiwan and Japan to stay behind and keep up with my moneys. I was treated to several facetime calls from overseas stationery shops where I got to do some remote shopping. I got my BOOX ereader back when I thought I was going to be taking a pair of 14 hour flights, but its served me well regardless. One of my favorite online activities is going fucko on z-lib and downloading as many interesting books as I can. The one thing I can't stand is a boring cover, or none at all, and I'll often make my own to pretty up my digital shelves. Many had to be redone to remind me of what the books is actually about*, with the requirement of remaining legible at 125px-ish. Here's some I made:

My Version	Original	Description
		Jacques Derrida writes "The Madness of the Day is a story whose title runs wild and drives the reader mad, la folie du jour, the madness of today, which leads to the madness that comes from the day, is born of it, as well as the madness of the day itself, itself mad." Blanchot was a contemporary of Derrida and their prose often published together
		big book of aphorisms from western philosophy's angriest mustache
		Novel about being a wife, mother, and artist who wakes up one day to the fact that the idyllic life she sold herself on is bullshit. When she married him, she thought her and her husband wanted the same things, a creative life filled with joy and children. But it’s not long until Jane finds herself subsumed by John’s ambitions and ego; in short, she becomes a wife.
		A story about a woman obsessed with her glamorous neighbor living in the brownstone next door. Recommended in reading books about obsession
		Essay by C. Thi Nguyen recommended by CJtheX, Canadian freak and video essayist savant.
		Perspectives on Digital Humanism, or, The Internet is Dead! Long Live the Internet!
		"Twisting the politics of representation around the representation of politics, these essays uncover a rich trove of information in the formal shifts and aberrant distortions of accelerated capitalism, of the art system as a vast mine of labor extraction and passionate commitment, of occupation and internship, of structural and literal violence, enchantment and fun, of hysterical, uncontrollable flight through the wreckage of postcolonial and modernist discourses and their unanticipated openings." Whatever that means.
		A collection of essays that explore the concept of decay in various sociopolitical contexts. The book delves into the mechanisms, conditions, and temporalities of decay, providing readers with a nuanced and rigorous understanding of the topic.

As far as what I actually read.. I finished The Vegetarian by Han Kang, which was weird, fucked up and the ending was abrupt. I liked it. but it was weird. Found it on this list of 10 Kafkaesque Novels to Mess with Your Mind while searching for the book cover of another novel. Granted the article title is a little corny, but what's cornier is the author of the article self inserts her own book on the list. That being said there's a few good titles and most of the lists I've found in the Literature section of her site are perfectly fine, like 10 Transgressive Books by Weird Women where she is notably absent. Is she not weird or her book not transgressive?

Between chapters of the Vegetarian I read the real book version of Baby Blue by Bim Erikkson which was a delightful lesbian romp about fighting fascists in a sci fi future set in Sweden.

Read another graphic novel during the last days of April that I had heard a lot of good things about, Grant Morisson's Nameless. Psychedelic gore core, Event Horizon meets Inception with an Irish accent. Loved it. I'd put it next to Hard-Boiled (or just below).

• spent the afternoon with a one-eyed dog that was lost in my neighborhood, put up posters and posted to the neighbor app, and ultimately reunited the pup with his owner's adult grandchildren when I spotted a car driving slowly up my street and I ran out shouting "YOU LOOKING FOR A DOG? ONE EYE?". His name was Parker, I would come to learn.
• got rocked by a certified earthquake that was more than what I would usually ignore.
• I tried a new species of orange.
• Found god in an arrachera and adobada loaded baked potato (its the new carne asada fries and feels like the first time you had a -California burrito-). Access to "new" Mexican food being one of the biggest blessings of living along the border. Discovered canned coffee foam.
• Started walking chola's dad's neighbor's big doofy dog Molly multiple times a week.

Ps. Here's a pic of Molly pretending to be the same size as Chola.

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  (_) __ _ _ __  _   _  __ _ _ __ _   _|___ \ / _ \___ \| ___|    +
  | |/ _` | '_ \| | | |/ _` | '__| | | | __) | | | |__) |___ \ 
  | | (_| | | | | |_| | (_| | |  | |_| |/ __/| |_| / __/ ___) | *
 _/ |\__,_|_| |_|\__,_|\__,_|_|   \__, |_____|\___/_____|____/  + * .
|__/                              |___/                        

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                               + /       /+            //       +             
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                             //   + ////           /////  *        +         
                        + //+/    /// +          ////                        
  state is on fire       //     ///           * //  *           /            
                      /  /    // *       ______///_             /+           
                      //// +  /         /     //// \           //            
                 +  //      /// +      /     /////  \        //+             
                   /// +/////         |--------------|    +///     +         
  +:  ____________//___//_________    |              |    /       ::         
 ::  _/_______________/___________\_  | [+]  __  [+] |     //     :     +    
  :   |    o    o    //    o   o  |   | [+] |  | [+] |    ///   :::    :     
+ :+  |  o    o    o    o     o   |   |     | o|     |  +//    :+   +::  |/  
 :: __|___________________________|__ |     |  |     |_ ///___::__::_____|___
 

Beyond crafting and painting, I spent a large part of my downtime perfecting my cyber experience, tweaking system settings and downloading increasingly obscure utility apps.

-[Pause to code an entire tangent page highlighting my favorite productivity finds]-

utility.html
~.Click here to better yourself.~

idk some other shit happened but putting the above page together really drained my batteries. there was a fire? i got myself back into painting and so that was cool, nothing big, mostly sketchbook stuff. broke in my hibino (this year's hobonichi alternative), whipped up a little animation i ought not to share, obsessed over that avatar rig i did in december, saw a racoon, caught the planetary procession which was pretty nifty, put together a few non-official Temu lego sets... oh! 新年快樂! bing bong.

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 /  /~~~~~\  \     /  /~~~~\  \   *~*     .
 |  |     |  |     |  |    |  |   +*+  +  
 |  |     |  |     |  |    |  |   *.*     
 |  | Happy year of the snake!|    *.     /
 |  |     |  |     |  |    |  |   .*    // 
(o  o)    |  |     |  |    |  |    .  / /  
 \__/      \  \___/  /     \  \______/ /   
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  ^          ~~~~~~~         ~~~~~~~~~