Welcome to The Museum of Small and Important Things’s Mind Museum! This is the place where I share the small treasures have been occupying my mind over the past week. Let’s begin!
On July 7, I opened the front door of my building and found a dead finch on the doormat. Not even on the doormat—pressed up against the foot of the door. I wondered if it had been attacked by a predator and was trying to get inside.
In general, aside from dogs, I don’t have much contact with animals in my corner of the city. There aren’t even that many birds. No outdoor cats. Hardly even ever see a bug. Lots of dogs, but dogs are basically humans in San Francisco. So I was honored to be the one to gently pick this bird up and usher it its final resting place. I found a sheltered spot in a raised planter bed nearby. Within a couple of hours, the ants had begun to feast.
And then I returned to my busy city life and forgot about Birdie. Until three weeks later, when this crazy specimen appeared on my doorstep and reminded me of her.
According to Google, it is either a dead mushroom infested by a parasitic pin mold or a hairy moth cocoon, most likely belonging to a tussock moth or a flannel moth species. SO BOTH EXTREMELY COOL. Any biologists in the house who can identify?
Anyway, I was reminded to visit Birdie at her grave. I had the honor of seeing her in her new, fleshless form. Ants were still feasting.
Whether you’re a renter, a home owner, ballin’ on a budget, or just plain ballin’, I’m convinced that pantry JARS (Just Arrange Responsibly, Sis) are a top-ten-most-satisfying post-1858 home improvement.
Jars can be a “free” home improvement since so many delicious foods are packaged in quality reusable jars. Most of our jars are former homes to kimchi from Woori Market (who recently switched to plastic, sad!) and that good French jam (my mom buys it and donates the jars to us). I derive immense pleasure from opening my cabinet, seeing everything neatly organized in jars, and watching the little bugs FAIL at their efforts to steal my goodies. Nice try!
I started calling myself a writer in the past year or so, which leads people to ask me what I write about. Or they ask me what I ride and I’m reminded that I need to work on my annunciation. There’s so much pressure to define oneself and have an artist statement or a mission statement or an elevator pitch. But I feel like I'm just getting started, and I'm still in the phase of writing as writing practice. It’s such an awesome phase to be in, I don’t really want to pick a lane. Maybe I just lean into the who rider misunderstanding. I ride the pencil! I lasso ideas! I follow my curiosity wherever it takes me! Giddy-up!!!
You know, that spicy sweet sauce that causes severe acid reflux every time but for reason you keep going back to it? Yeah, that’s right, I’m talkin’ about INSTAGRAM. I deactivated mine again this week.
When I think about leaving the app, I tend to think about what I'll lose. I’ll lose out on illustration jobs, for sure. I’ll miss out on events. I won’t gain new followers. But what about all the things I will gain??? Like, oh I dunno, time… focus… brain working good… positive outlook on life…
I loved this recent essay by mandy brown, which Robin Sloan shared in his newsletter. So many great ideas in there, including this one:
“We do not attend anything when we doomscroll or binge watch or tap tap tap one notification after another; we abandon—ourselves, our bodies, our kith and kin.
Nor do we read when we slip through the stream or flick through the feed. Reading is an awakening of attention, not a deadening of it. We read to come alive to ourselves, not to forget who we are or what we are doing, or what is being done to us without our consent. We read to encounter the world, to connect what we know to what we do not know yet, knowing all the while that such understanding is always temporary, lovely precisely because it is transient.”
I’ve gottttta start transitioning away—consciously decoupling—from that gosh forsaken app for sooooo many reasons, I really think we all should. I’m gonna try to stay off for as long as I possibly can this time, accept what I'm missing out on, and focus on what I'm gaining. I dream of the day that I tell you that I deleted my Instagram account completely.
Thanks for reading, hope you’re having a lovely summer! I’d love to hear what’s in your Mind Museum this week in the comments.
You can find the full archive of Mind Museums here!
Thanks for reading The Museum of Small and Important Things! My name is Allie Sullberg and I’m an artist, writer, and illustrator. If you liked this post, a huge way to support my work is by liking, commenting, sharing, and of course subscribing!
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.