from the Autumn Asks: Pumpkin, Corn, Pine Cone? <3
Pumpkin: I’m not the biggest sweets person as a general rule, but I have a couple favourite desserts: Black Forest cake, and the lavender-lemon old fashioned cheesecake I made during hard lockdown.
Corn: My favourite thing about my job is helping clients and staff - I’m really good at it (I think) and I get a dopamine bump from feeling like a decent manager. I’m a supervisor at a group home for at-risk teenage boys. The worst part of it is literally everything else - the hours, which don’t ever really end, the micromanaging boss I report to who questions me about tiny details with such ferocity that I feel like I’ve committed a crime whenever I talk to her. I’ve been at this job for six weeks and it’s one of most exhausting jobs I’ve ever done, I’ve got a job interview elsewhere on Monday, wish me luck.
Pine Cone: This year I read all of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. I bought Swann’s Way when I was 17 turning 18, in September 2003; 17 years later I read it from beginning to end. I absolutely loved it, and am still informally studying Proust through materials available online and at the library. It triggered an artistic awakening in me - this year I’ve recorded my own music for the first time since I was a teenager, and I’ve been painting a lot in the evenings with acrylics and gouache. Realizing how important making art is to me - even if it’s bad, even if no one ever hears it and sees it - is a big part of the driving force for me wanting out of this abusive job situation I’m in ASAP.
