taking notes: june 2025

on being boring, cold tangerine-ing, and fake rules

Good morning, say it back!! This month’s theme was Be Boring. Rest a little, hang out a little, putter a little. Forward my mail, leave a message. Let me reference my little page of “what did I do this month?” to jog my memory.

Sidequests

This month, I’ve been really organizing & culling my stationery collection. I was starting to feel overwhelmed with the amount of paper & pens I have acquired over the past 3-4 years in particular. I am very grateful for gifts & the opportunity I’ve had to try certain supplies, but going forward, I want to be more intentional with how much I’m hanging onto, because I’m actually not trying to have a small stationery shop in my apartment. I’ve found that I’m super content with various paper scraps, some quality markers, a few good pens, and of course, a high-quality journal (or four). The idea of sharing supplies with others also got me so much more excited than the thought of having a big collection, so here we are. I was able to curate + send off a few lil’ boxes of my stationery supplies for some of my paid subscribers this month, which brought me a lot of joy. Thank you, group chat!!! ILY.

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The Bentonville Film Festival took place last week and my friends Katelyn, Morgan and I were able to hear Brenda Song speak about her influences, importance of not letting your self-limiting beliefs take hold, and of course, the PRNDL. (I also got to try Sprite Tea which has Pool Day Treat written all over it). Check out Katelyn’s entire BFF weekend recap here.¹

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I’m down $15,000 in consumer debt, I live down the street from an American art museum, I made a really great bagel sandwich (and there’s an ADTR x Taylor mashup going around), I also made a burger bowl, I needed help deciding what to wear to this wedding. Back to lifeposting on Tiktok. Embrace the mundane, eat crunchy sandwiches, post your content.

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I’m sure I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, but I continued picking up hours working with adults at a nursing & rehab. It has been so rewarding! I am grateful for the opportunity I have had to spend some time in a different setting and sharpen my skills. (Speech language pathologists in this setting primarily work on cognitive communication skills, such as problem-solving, attention, sequencing, and memory, as well as exercises to target safe & efficient swallow function, but voice, alternative and augmentative communication, and fluency are also targeted!)

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Pool days, long walks with Cookie, restore yoga and stretching classes, naps, baths, sitting in silence, Sonic drink hangs in my friends’ backyard, iPad games, rest. I am so glad to have been able to take the past two weeks as a sort of pause. I head up to Illinois next week for some family time, which will be a nice recharge in its own way, although a little hectic. After a few months of working six days a week, this little break is very welcome, and I am trying to soak it up!

Stuff I’ve been loving

• Wearing this Free People set allll the time. I’ve been seeing it all over online, but I got coffee with my friend a few weeks ago and actually got to see it in person, which sold me. So many colors!

• Hypochlorous acid spray post-workout. Pretty sure I linked this last month, pretty sure it’s worth linking again!

• These dill pickle cashews are SO freaking good

• Strawberry syrup from Pink House Alchemy. This + some bubbly water + some mint or basil = summer mocktail!! Plus, I love supporting local!

• Can I just say I’ve been falling back in love with my Zebra Mildliners this summer? I bought my first pack nearly a decade ago in grad school and haven’t looked back, but they’re definitely getting more play this month

• Still spraying magnesium oil on my feet before bed. Stay up queens. Or, stay down. ZzzZzZZzz.

• I bit all my nails off on the night of June 21st, so I ordered a few things to help with the reset: OPI Repair Mode Serum | Hard as Hoof

• I know I link a playlist and movies-as-background-noise in this newsletter, but I’ve also been loving sitting in silence more than usual, or going on walks & leaving my AirPods at home. It’s been a nice change for me!

MEDIA CONSUMPTION RAAAAH

• Forever on Netflix. Based on Judy Blume’s novel ‘Forever…’ and one of my favorite shows of the year. Definitely put this on your watch list if it’s not already.

• Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders. Deep Chicagoland lore — interesting to learn more about this event that I was told about growing up!

• The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad. Creator of

  The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad
  here on Substack, Jaouad compiled such a lovely collection of essays & a true well of inspiration for anyone who journals or who would like to start.

• Love Island, obviously. It’s been fun to engage in banter and discussion with folks online. It’s also the most ‘think piece-y’ we’ve been as an audience and I do wonder how that will impact future seasons. I think the feeling of being surveilled and perceived is always on the islanders’ minds, but this is apparent now more than ever. All in all, I’m enjoying it, but 2024’s Season 6 was truly like lightning in a bottle. It was rare, most of us were there, and it’s tough to recreate. Tougher than some people were imagining, I believe.

• Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Abundance can fix America.

• Big Bootie Mix, Vol. 26

• Materialists. Listen. I loved it. I am learning some did not. I thought it was a realistic look at what the dating landscape is like today. My hot take is that too many people are rating this as a romcom and it is NAWT!!! It’s a Celine Song A24 masterpiece and should be regarded as such. I do love dialogue-heavy movies. It resonated with me personally, which is so much of what makes art valuable to someone and maybe why I rated it higher than some of my pals, but this is my truth.

• I’m not typically a ‘movies-as-background-noise’ kind of person, but I definitely have been this month while bopping around the house. The Devil Wears Prada, Sweet Home Alabama, Cheaper by the Dozen (1&2), The Last Song, While You Were Sleeping were all up. Classics.

On Being Boring

Like I stated earlier, this was my theme. I get questions weekly from people wanting to know how to ‘be more interesting’ in a journal entry, on a vlog, on a blog, or however/wherever one chooses to express themselves, because they think their lives are boring and that they don’t have much to say or offer.

While I don’t think that’s true, I definitely get the sentiment: it’s hard to invite novelty into our day-to-day lives as adults, and… look around! We’re all reading the same five rom-coms, eating the same Crumbl cookies, drinking the same Poppis, watching Love Isl-

“NOT ME!”, you say? Fine, but you get my point, go on with your bad individualist self! Send us a postcard from self-actualization land. Anyway,

What if instead of trying to be more interesting we just leaned in to the routine, the popular and mainstream things we enjoy, simple notes of gratitude, current events and how we’re processing them (please give

Journal As Altar

a follow). You can be a little “boring”, as a treat.

A sampling of what I wrote in my journal this month, as someone who prioritized Being Boring:

June 2nd: What should I do?!?!?!?!?!
June 6th: I’m trying to read a magazine by the pool and chase down an ice cream truck this summer.
June 14th: had to work, no protest. Don’t like the brunch signs. That’s the whole issue
June 15th: Talked on the phone with dad for a long time. Driving up two Mondays from now. Cookie and I will be adventuring.
June 21st: [redacted] IS MOVING LESS THAN A MILE AWAY!!!!!!
June 22nd: I bit my nails off last night.
June 24th: I need to remember to get beaver nuggets next week.
June 26th: 150th class at Body Balance tonight. Can’t do 5lb weights at mat pilates

Franz Kafka

TikToks in my saved folder

I hate when people are funnier than me | Summer pasta salad recipe | GET UP!!!!! (We need you) | Kid Pix nostalgia | 2001’s Internet | When Mother Meets Mother | Bee Burr | Your aesthetic is being sold to you by capitalism

“_____ Summer”

90s Childhood summer? Tomato girl summer? American Girl summer? No Kings Summer? Brat summer (redux)? There’s really something for everyone. Check out Rachel’s round-up here:

what's your vibe this summer?

Here’s my submission (and a few hopes & wishes for July): a Shauna Niequist summer. (“Oh, so you’re Cold Tangerine-ing” - my friend Caitlyn.) An early-morning jaunt downtown to our farmers market to get big juicy pints of berries from McGarrah Farms and a huge loaf of sourdough bread, admiring front porches and gardens on the walk back. Savoring hot coffee while I write in my fancy Japanese five-year diary with my favorite fountain pen. Ice cream and popsicles. Dipping my toes in Lake Michigan (next week and I cannot wait). Walks in the creek (once I get my Chacos back from being Re-Chaco’ed, COOKIE DOG). Writing. Freckles. Stone fruit and sharp cheddar and crispy crackers. Basil or mint on anything and everything. Spending time with family. Taking photos, documenting life, sharing meals, homemade gifts, lightning bugs, sparklers. Re-reading Cold Tangerines, ofc, and maybe even Love Does by Bob Goff for good measure (anyone else ever call him in college?). Snail mail, making s’mores over a fire, this playlist on the sound bar.

The rules are fake, I made them up, and I can break them if I want

In the past three years, I’ve tried 75 Hard, 75 Soft, a 75 Medium, 75 Sunny Side Up, Whole30, The 12 Week Year, A low buy year, a few social media breaks here and there, The Artist’s Way, a few month-long vlogging challenges, and probably something else I’m forgetting. The jokes really write themselves². There are so many times I’ve logged off on a random Wednesday — this is it, I’m through, I need a BREAK³ — just to come back the next Thursday to post a video of my coworkers and I slapping each other in the face with a tortilla. It’s funny, it’s playful, it’s The Damn Phone, it’s on-brand. I’m Claire From Online.

Every time I do a little Instagram Q&A, I get a few iterations of these same questions: What happened to the Artist’s Way? Are you still using [this planner I haven’t shown in awhile]? Are you going to talk more about your social media break? What happened to doing a 12-week-year? You said you were going to do this, and you didn’t. WHAT SAY YOU? Are you ever going to finish anything in your life?

And why wouldn’t I receive these questions? This is how I move through the world: I enjoy gamifying my life, naming my chapters, tracking random stuff, curating a playlist, starting a new journal. I’ll tell you a secret: my playful nature, progress over perfection, the whole Not Afraid of Paper thing, “I love the way your brain works”, enjoying hobbies without fear of messing up, “how did you think of this??”, enjoying the damb road trip almost much as the vacation itself, it’s-the-journey-not-the-destination vibes… that’s the same brain, personality, and sauce that starts creative projects without finishing them, tries things to see what sticks, makes changes when things aren’t working, QUITS THINGS, changes her mind, verbalizes and processes things outwardly without a finished product to “show off”. I’m here, I’m doing this, and I would like a witness (even if I don’t finish or it’s not traditionally productive). It’s two sides of the same coin. Of course I could be more disciplined. Many believe this about themselves probably, and really beat themselves down because of it. But what if I have other ‘goals’ while I’m here? This is an affirmation to myself, and for you to take with you out into the world. Maybe this doesn’t resonate with you, and that’s okay. It really doesn’t have to. It felt nice for me to do.

If ‘to live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong’ is a thing, couldn’t we also say ‘to live an authentic life, we must lose our need to finish everything we ever start?’ I’m going to continue to play and explore and try stuff out and report back. You know, for fun. Join me? I’ll be here.

and stay tuned.

1. and definitely follow her if you’re local to NWA!!! I learn about so many new spots from her, haha

2. and other times, one of your IG mutuals logs onto Reddit and does it for you!

3. Also, a break can be 20 minutes! Like, just in general. Resets of any type can happen at anytime. Y’all like power naps? My parents used to call it ‘resting their eyes’