January is finally over, after what felt like about five years. It was a long slog of a month with horrific news throughout, brightened only by incredible communities taking action to protect themselves and their neighbors. (If you are able to, please stand with Minnesota; if you’re in the US, you can also look for events and opportunities to get involved near you.)

I continue to try to limit my doomscrolling and news intake (while also trying to stay informed, a bit of a tricky balance) so I can stay functional and helpful in my own communities. I hope you are all taking care of yourselves, too.

Where I’m At

I have a confession: I am bad at geography… like, in a way that has always made me feel really ignorant. I can remember failing a test in my eighth grade social studies class, where the entire test consisted of labeling all 50 states. I wish I could say that spurred me to improve but it simply did not.

It is a cliche that a lot of Americans can’t find other countries on a map. That has always been depressingly true of me — as bad as I was with the states, I was even worse with anything international beyond Canada and Mexico.

Like I said, this has always made me feel really, well, ignorant and dumb, and it’s embarrassing to admit to. But the reason I’m sharing is because I had to look at a map of the states for work and felt that moment of shame… and then thought, “Well, I could just try to learn them now.”

Because that’s a thing you can do. You can realize there’s something you don’t know, and decide to go ahead and learn it. Not for a grade! Just for your own sake! There’s nothing stopping you!

I grabbed a map of the states from Wikipedia, loaded it into Canva to erase the state names, and started studying a few at a time. When I thought I had them, I’d quiz myself with the blank map. Within a week and a half, I could locate all the US states on the map. Hooray, I’m a little less ignorant!

I do not have a visual mind at all, so I was pretty shocked when I realized, when I hear someone mention a state now, my brain actually pulls up an image of where it is, giving me a lot more context than I’d have had otherwise. It is really neat to feel my brain work like that.

Anyway, I’m expanding now to try to learn countries, too, which I suspect will be harder since I’m less familiar with most of them, but I’m going to give it a shot. (In fact, since I first drafted this I memorized Central and South American.)

Because not only is there nothing that stops you from deciding to go ahead and learn things, but it turns out it’s fun and cool to learn things, too.

A Thing I Made

I’ve had a slow start to my studio time this year as I try to get back into throwing, but luckily I made a ton of gifts before the holidays so I’ve got a few months’ worth of stuff to show off.

This one is a trinket tray made for my friend Jen, who I will forever associate with pink and black butterflies. The tray itself was made via a hump mold (shaping a slab of clay over an oval-shaped mold), and the butterflies from a sprig mold.

After it finished the first firing, turning the clay to ceramic, I used underglaze to paint over the butterflies in black, then wiped it away as much as possible. The underglaze collected in the crevices, and continued to show through after I painted over the whole thing in pink glaze, giving it a weathered look and making sure the butterfly details popped. I’m really happy with how that turned out!

Something I’m Enjoying

Looking back at the last half-year or so, if I’m gonna think about one thing that’s managed to give me a ton of joy, it’s the Youtube series Jet Lag The Game. If you are not familiar, let me pitch it to you: three friends (and sometimes a guest) turn kids’ games into a travel challenge show, and shenanigans ensue.

It’s important to note: there is no prize. There are no stakes. This is a show that is silly and fun and low-stress because nothing bad is going to happen. (Someone playing hide and seek might get found, oh no! That’s about it.)

For example: they’ll play tag across Europe, using the trains. The runner is trying to get to their end location and gets a 45-minute head start; the chasers follow, trying to guess what trains he’ll take and find ways to cut him off. The runner needs to do challenges to earn his way onto the trains (challenges are things like “acquire an egg and oil and make mayo from them”), which can stall him and make him catchable.

They’ve got a bunch of formats and have tried a bunch of games. Hide and Seek is another recurring one (probably my favorite); they turned the states in the western US into Connect Four, New Zealand highways into a board game, and Japan into a field for Capture the Flag. They players’ personalities bounce off each other in fun ways; they’re competitive but also friends, and you really do want them all to win all the time. (Luckily, again, there is no prize, so who wins kind of doesn’t matter.) Watching someone get screwed over by bad challenges is just as much fun as watching someone win.

Episodes range from half an hour to an hour or so, and there are now sixteen seasons. (The most recent season, Hide + Seek UK, just finished up and it’s an absolute banger.) That makes it a great length to watch while I’m doing my nightly physical therapy for my dumb joints, which is how my sister and I managed to get through sixteen seasons pretty quickly, and why I’ve rewatched a lot of them since then.

I really recommend giving it a shot if you need some fun nonsense in your day! Even the mediocre seasons are still fun (and the good seasons are so delightful), but if you’re looking for the best jumping-on point I’d recommend starting with Season 3: Tag Eur It.

That’s it for now. I’m sending you love and strength.