Anybody else pre-order an ebook a month in advance, just to take care of their future self? Wading through Lev Manovich’s latest book, Cultural Analytics, and thinking on the politics of art history. I was reading a novel by a poet with precise vocabulary, which really messed with my Arabic lessons. What does “غريب” mean on a granular level? I need to know the boundary, so I can smudge it or erase it. My bravery toward writing poetry in Arabic has only extended to the labels I make for my studio materials: غريب/weird fabric (yet to learn the word for fabric).

I dream about visiting eternal springs in the Californian desert. Packing and unpacking dirty laundry, making breakfast for forty with only my 6-cup French press and the slowly crazing cookware from my childhood. Sharing studio space with strangers (أستاذ غريب) and blind to what I am working on.