In 2025, I Get By...
With a Little Help from My Friends
I have an active text thread with two chums, Franny and Lucas. They’re the kind of people you don’t want to mess with but who would do anything for you. We’ve done a lot together: start a business, drive across the country, draw and photograph each other for art projects, borrow the truck to move apartments, sit on a bus while going over a dusty road in Costa Rica, review each other’s portfolios... You know, real wind-beneath-my-wings stuff.
We were discussing my Substack, and one thing led to another. Welcome to the friends edition of my Substack! These submissions have been lightly edited for clarity and consistency.
Franny Rhymes with Granny: An Interview with Franny
Franny was introduced to me as Franjamin by a mutual acquaintance, but I’ve never called her that. Her real name is Francis, and she was once the frontwoman of a country band called The Yee-Haws! Rebel girl you are the queen of my world.
Where do you like to go on the Internet?
Zooniverse’s Projects. Become a citizen scientist! Pick a project and help work through the research. Some of the transcription projects are hard: cursive in quill and ink is tangled and challenging. I spend the most time on projects identifying animals from thousands of photos taken from trap cameras hidden in different wildlife refuges. My favorite photos from Wildwatch Kenya are included. Brag moment: I found a giraffe in a photo other people missed.
See! Isn’t this cursive intense? Pink lines are what have been transcribed. The photo above is a draft card from the Civil War. I saved it because I saw my last name.
Here are the wildlife photos:
CAN YOU SEE THE GIRAFFE? (In the photo below not above, obvi.)
*HINT: TOP RIGHT CORNER
Where is your favorite place to go in your city that’s not your house?
The beach at either Ave C just south of the lifeguard tower, or at the end of the steps at Knob Hill. Redondo has great beaches, and at the turn of the 19th century, it was a destination for rock hounds. After a storm tons of rocks would wash ashore. People would come and comb to find moonstone and opal. You can’t find moonstone anymore,, but there are other fascinating things to find. I like to walk south, (way down past R.A.T. beach), to look for shark egg casings and shells. The egg casings look like small corkscrew-shaped Nerf balls. If the egg casing still has an embryo in it, you can hold it up to light and see it swimming around. I like to spot them on the shore and put them back in the water. I'm not sure if it helps, though. These are not something I collect; that would be disgusting.
Shells, however, I do collect, but not all of them. The ones I like to find are wavy turban shells. These shells are bigger than a fist. They spiral up to a point, into almost like a pyramid shape, and have these wave-shaped ridges that wrap around the outside. I’ve only ever found three. The first time I saw one I didn’t know what it was, and I saw a little spot on the shell revealing a hidden layer that looked iridescent—very pearly! So, I chipped away at the outer layer and uncovered more of the pearly parts. I used baby oil after to make it shine. I was able to get most of the outer layer off the biggest one, which my old roommate shattered. I don’t know what actually happened because they just let me find it how they left it. Sigh.
I happily gave the smaller one to the little sister of my daughter Zoey’s best friend. It was sitting on the little bookshelf where I keep comics and shells, rocks, and sea glass I’ve collected. She asked to hold it and examined it over and over, and then just kind of kept it near her while she played with the older girls. So, naturally, it’s hers now.
I still have the third one and will have to revisit removing the rest of the outer layer. Right now there are sections where the pearly part has been revealed.
Best gift to bring to a kid’s birthday party, go!
Newborns! Baby Brief Case because even though it isn’t cute, it’s helpful and necessary in the first few months, when you have so many documents to keep track of. And then, as the babies grow, they can hold immunization records, preschool/daycare info, and report cards! So handy! And if you want to add to the gift, you can still throw in a cute outfit.
Preschool-age kiddos! Default art supplies. The Mondo Llama brand at Target has a great range for all ages. Keep in mind the mess factor for whatever you end up choosing. When in doubt go with basic art supplies.
Another fail-proof option is little board games from the Peaceable Kingdom. The games are designed for players to work together to win. Sunny and Stormy Day has three components: a puzzle, a tile match, and tokens with a sun, storm, and rainbow on them that fit in a little pouch. Oh, and a book! You can play the game in multiple ways depending on the child’s age and attention span. You use the tokens to talk about feelings and share stories.
Fourth grade! This is where we are now, and it’s tough because Zoey’s friends all want expensive skincare. While it’s great to have healthy attitudes toward taking care of one’s skin, young girls need hobbies that aren’t centered around the way they look. But, since I still want the kid to enjoy the gift, I usually try to stick with gift sets from Lush. Their products are vegan and handmade with ethically sourced ingredients. The boxes come curated and beautifully wrapped. The company also has a Lush Anti-Social Media policy. Subtle dissent, wink wink!
Share a drawing made by your daughter.
I forgot I made this drawing of us back in 2002. $170 is how much we made the first week we opened our vintage shop, Retropia.
Stalloney-Onie-Onie: An Interview with Lucas (aka Cobra)
Lucas loves Sylvester Stallone and used to say “Stalloney-onie-onie” in a sing-song voice when he was dissecting Over the Top or Cobra or Rocky in front of friends—I forget. He’s a creative dude; a real live wire.
Describe in detail your favorite celebrity encounter.
Gallagher called me from a Walmart once. He was bored and waiting for traffic to die down. He got my voicemail and left this long meandering message where he just sort of narrated everything he was looking at. “They have a shark pillow, and you open up his mouth and sit in it!”
I got notified recently that whoever has his phone number now just got on Telegram. I asked them what they thought about watermelons, but they never replied. I wonder if they know who had the number before them.
Write a haiku or a chorus of a song that would describe you.
oh fuck a car bomb!
oh fuck the car is airborne!
oh fuck it's on fire!
What’s the most rebellious thing you’ve ever done?
In college, I discovered you can fill your car with gas and then just leave without paying. So, I did that for more than two years until they made it to where you have to pay for it before filling up.
Where do you like to go on the internet?
These days I’m really in and out. There is one blog I enjoy checking in on every now and then called Retired in Delaware. When I first found it the author was helping his husband with assisted care living. Since then he’s become a widower. It’s been an emotional thing to follow.
What’s the best job you’ve ever had? And the worst?
I like what I do now, working in advertising. It’s swell.
My first job was probably the worst. I was a “scrap boy” for a place called Lee Air Conditioning. I was 14 or 15 and just wanted to make enough money to buy stupid beatnik books. The job was using a sawzall to stip all the copper parts off old ACs in this hot-ass warehouse. Sometimes freon would leak and I’d get super high.
What books should everyone read?
The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe, The Tunnel by Russel Edson, Nox by Anne Carson, and What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund.
Give a shout-out to an inanimate object you respect.
Hello, math! I think you’re super important, even if I don’t fully understand you.
Top three movies, go!
First Blood, The Piano Teacher, and Empire of the Dark
What’s the last thing that made you laugh hard?
My toddler
What keeps you up at night?
My toddler
Where is your favorite place to go in your city that’s not your house?
Share a drawing made by your son.
Not finding one from Victor. Here’s one I made of Victor!
A Mind Map By Chris
Chris is a designer who loves adventuring! This November, he showed me and Dustin a mind map he made for a baseball cap idea. “Clarisa, you remember mind maps!” I asked if I could publish one of his maps for this post and when he shared this I asked him what inspired him to create this.
I've been wanting to ponder and write about "macro effects" or "macro factors" for a couple of different reasons. Forces so large, they sometimes feel difficult to see, shape our lives, societies, work, and relationships. I started noticing them in small things I was working on and thought about how the same factors affect other things. It's still pretty vague and hard to pin down for me, which is a good situation for a mind map, in my opinion.
Friendly Link Love
Dustin has been digging through old newspaper stories and writing interesting pieces of El Paso history for his Substack. Check out his series Borderland Vice.
I just met a cool woman named Sari who is organizing a photography tour of Sicily this summer.
This cool woman I knew in middle school, Jen, started an awesome vintage western clothing and accessories business on Instagram called From The Past.
My friend Katie is immensely talented. She started The Unfolding Travels, which has a ton of great recommendations for places to visit in Europe and it’s filled with gorgeous photos from her travels.
This made my day!
Wait, how did you connect with Sari? We've done photo sessions with her. What a crazy small world.