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103/100⠀ ⠀ My friend Bella has only ever used one perfume, it’s her signature scent. Not me. I can trace the evolutionary epochs of my life by the fragrance that escorted me through each one. Middle-school-me felt a bit too edgy (in the nerdiest spelling-bee-champ-straight-A-student way possible) for the OG Love’s Baby Soft, so I went with rain scent. This is not my last rain perfume. There was also a phase in my twenties marked by both grass and dirt perfume. Looking back, I can see I needed a little grounding—and had also been at sea for a while.⠀ ⠀ I’m currently on my second bottle of Flowerbomb—which is usually the death knell for any scent for me. Three squirts into my second bottle of Mark Jacobs and I was over it, just like with Issey Miyake. An earlier era, I woke up one day and couldn’t bear the overpowering nose of my beloved Angel. Now I can smell it three aisles away in a grocery store and always wonder why someone is wearing such an overpowering nighttime scent during the day.⠀ ⠀ Just for shits and grins, recently I gave myself a few squirts of Benneton Colors, what I smelled like in high school (when I didn’t carry the characteristic waft of McDonald’s French fries after work.) I expected a lighthearted fun experience. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It made my brain hurt, I had to drive home and jump in the shower. I still think fondly of it, but I now know there is no going back.⠀ ⠀ #the100dayproject #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #stuff #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration #perfume #smellgood

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102/100⠀ ⠀ Hubby asked if I could pick up some dish soap so he could wash his 60-year-old motorcycle. This conversation followed:⠀ ⠀ Me: [excited] I got you New Zealand waterfall scent so you could remember when we were there and hiked to that waterfall in the North Island.⠀ ⠀ Him: [squirting soap into a bucket of water] did that happen?⠀ ⠀ Me: you don’t remember it?⠀ ⠀ Him: No⠀ ⠀ Me: It was cold and slightly rainy? We drank a thermos of hot tomato soup, passing it back and forth between us?⠀ ⠀ Him: ⠀ ⠀ Me: we still have the thermos?⠀ ⠀ Him: ⠀ ⠀ Me: we thought it was the best soup we’d ever had?⠀ ⠀ [sounds of a soapy rag swishing around]⠀ ⠀ *********⠀ I still don’t know if he remembers the hike. How many other adventures have we shared but don’t share memories of?⠀ ⠀ I also can’t quite figure out what a New Zealand waterfall smells like, why that would be a compelling dish soap scent, how the average American can distinguish between that and say, an Irish waterfall, and if marketing tests indicated a preference. ⠀ ⠀ And I’m glad he didn’t use my fancy organic honeysuckle dish soap. ⠀ ⠀ #marriedlife #thepersistenceofmemory #memory #the100dayproject #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #stuff #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration

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100/100⠀ ⠀ As part of my MFA studio work, I experimented with embroidery and food. I stitched into beef jerky, toast, saltines, lemons, melons, and even McDonald’s cheeseburgers. I sewed vintage purple lace around one burger bun, and beads atop another. I displayed them in my studio for a show, then promptly forgot about them. After the weekend they were still sitting on my studio bench, fine, a bit dry, but not even vaguely gross. I threw them into a box, and again forgot about them. Two months later, drier but still not vaguely gross, I invited them to hang out in my kitchen cupboard while hubby and I worked on a boat we took to Thailand from Florida. Almost one year later I returned home and walked through the front door straight to see how they were doing. They were gone. All four people who had access to my house during that time claim they did not touch them. ⠀ I wasn’t done with the cheeseburgers—I wanted to see what would happen. Back in school to finish up my MFA, I revisited my McDonald’s cheeseburger. This time I commemorated the purchase date by gluing rhinestones onto the bun: 7-29-8. Three days later I gave the same treatment to a Twinkie. 8-1-8. I nicknamed them Patty and Pammy.⠀ So, it’s been 10 years. They’ve never seen the inside of a fridge, nor have they seen anything that looks like mildew, rot, mold, or decay. I’ve had ants and mice, and any other crawling thing the South can offer. The mice prefer my dirty underpants. Nothing in the natural world recognizes this as food.⠀ I probably shouldn’t have been so cavalier about them. While they’ve mostly lived in my wine rack, they've a few chunks missing from being toted around in my bag. The original wrapper feels soft and fabric-y. They mostly look old and desiccated.⠀ This food is not actually food.⠀ With the help of my friend @perblkbird at Location Gallery in Savannah we’ve created a group art show called “Fast Food?” to celebrate the 10th birthday. The show opens tomorrow, Friday night July 13. Patty and Pammy will be there. It’s open to the public. ⠀ ⠀ #mcdonalds #cheeseburger #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #fastfood? (at Location Gallery)

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99/100⠀ One day after I’d watched an octogenarian friend transported into a reverie of pure bliss sorting through some of her own jewelry, and hours after chatting with my one year old niece about which pieces of my jewelry she’d eventually inherit from childless me, I met Ruth Puff. ⠀ This is what I know about Ruth Puff: She never married, had no children. Her middle name was Starr, her mother’s maiden name. She liked flowers. She volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. When she died at 95, her obituary said nothing about her roommate of 45+ years. She never pierced her ears. She had two nephews who inherited her estate, but weren’t interested in her costume jewelry. Ruth Puff was the kind of woman who would hire the kind of probate attorney that when instructed to get rid of her jewelry, he couldn’t bring himself to toss it out. ⠀ It had been sitting in the same corner of a law firm in Hartford, CT for 4 years, lonely, bored to tears. The probate attorney had been instructed to just toss it or something. But he couldn’t. He didn’t know what to do with it, but he knew there was joy in it still. I could’ve taken all of it, maybe I should have. But I picked out the flower pieces, mostly brooches and earrings, to use for some sort of art, a portrait, maybe. I’m not sure yet. I tried wearing a locket, inside was a picture of a stern looking woman (Ruth’s mother Grace?). At the end of the loud and fun night, while I was getting ready for bed, the clasp got stuck. I pushed and pulled the tiny little knob. The clasp finally gave. The heavy locket flew off the chain. With precise alacrity it ¬navigated itself through a crack in the floor at the top of my stairs. Gone forever. Back into the dark and quiet.⠀ Until I can decide what to do with my collection of Ruth Puff’s jewelry, I treasure it. My friend Libby came over and we cleaned and polished everything. For hours we talked and played, arranging them in different shapes, imagining Ruthie’s stories. Occasionally I wear a brooch or a necklace. I call it “taking Ruthie out.” I pour her a drink. She seems to like Sauvignon Blanc, which is good, I’m allergic to red wine. ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ #the100dayproject #the100dayprojectOP #jewelry

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98/100⠀ ⠀ My birth certificate is a hot mess; my middle name is XXXX’d out. My parents argued about it. My dad wanted it to be Jean, and spoke first and loudest in the registry office so that’s what they wrote. Two seconds later he walked across the hall to chat with one of his buddies and my mom convinced the woman typing the form to change it to Jane. ⠀ But I didn’t agree with either of them, especially with their choice of my first name, Cynthia. They called me Cindy. I can’t explain it, but that word has always felt like nails on a chalkboard, except the chalkboard is my skin. It’s not their fault, I just never felt like a Cindy. At 13, I adored @CyndiLauper (that hasn't changed) and wanted to switch my spelling to be like hers. My parents forbade it. Through my teens, I tried on Cynthia, but that wasn’t me. I tried CJ. I tried a lot of stuff on. None of it fit until I found Rubi, and it felt like exactly who I was. ⠀ I’ve been Rubi almost twice as long as I was Cindy. My family were the hardest converts, it took my dad almost 10 years to call me Rubi. Most of my post-high school/college friends have no idea about my membership in the Secret Society of Cindys. I don’t ever talk about it; there isn’t much to say. Recently, a made a new friend named Cindy. I opened our friendship bluntly asking her how she felt about her name. She didn’t miss a beat telling me she hated it, and recently came out as Cate.⠀ When I took hubby’s last name, a friend came down hard on me. “I never thought you, of all people,” she poked, “would be so old fashioned and patriarchal.” I explained that I was making a choice between my father’s last name and my husband’s, and mostly I liked the way Rubi McGrory sounds. ⠀ The weirdest thing about changing my name is having completely different initials.⠀ ⠀ ⠀ #saymyname #secretsocietyofcindys #truecolors #cyndilauper #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #significantobjects #stuff #tradingcard #tradingcards #affinitydesigner #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration

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97/100⠀ ⠀ My nonnie, Battista Ricci, was born 9 months and 2 days after her parents disembarked from "La Lorraine" on Ellis Island. When her parents Alfredo and Ermenia fled their village in the Marche region of Italy they weren’t married, but by the time they boarded their ship in LeHavre, France they were. There’s a lot we’ll never know. They worked hard to barely make their way in this new country. Battista felt the shame of being a poor immigrant. She hated how her name marked her as different—why couldn’t she be a Helen or an Ethel. She hated even more their poverty. Her family lived on polenta, a filling, but inexpensive meal of boiled cornmeal. Every night at dinner, the polenta board was set out on the table, then hot polenta poured on it. If they could, that was topped with a stew of whatever cheap meat the family could afford and vegetables they could grow. Otherwise it was plain. What Battista didn’t understand is that her friends were probably as poor as she was, but that didn’t stop her from hiding the polenta board any time she had a friend over to play. The polenta board was her symbol of poverty and shame.⠀ As a young woman, she met a man, a butcher. They fell in love and married. His name was Michael Battista, she went through the next 60+ years of her life as Battista Battista, still working hard but never wanted for food again. ⠀ I learned the story of her polenta board shame when I made truffle polenta for my mother, Battista’s daughter. The irony of my use of one ingredient so expensive it could've bought a year’s worth of food for them was not lost on me. I hadn’t truly understood their immigrant experience; this was a first step for me. ⠀ ⠀ #nationofimmigrants #immigrants #immigration #polenta #nonni #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #significantobjects #stuff #tradingcard #tradingcards #affinitydesigner #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration

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96/100⠀ ⠀ We spotted a pot plant (not the one we’d recently used) growing on the side of the road. When I say “side of the road,” I don’t mean hidden away behind some brush, I mean right there, on public beach land where hundreds of people –even cops--drive by daily. The four of us encircled it, performing a full examination to confirm our original diagnosis that there was a marijuana plant one inch from the road. It was about 5 feet high, no buds, lots of leaves. Immediately we were all botanists, despite our recent English and Journalism degrees. We debated the probability that this weed was self generated vs cultivated by humans (specifically ones that lived across the street), since it was actually growing in sand—which was clearly great for the thicket of reeds that lived on the beach, but questionable for such a vital crop. Someone could’ve thrown a seed out of their car window and it took, there were small wildflowers at there as well, so there is some fertile soil. Our discussion moved to what we should do about it. We decided that standing around it was most likely to draw attention to it and us, so we pinched a leaf off and walked back to the house. Two of us felt that we should do nothing but keep a watchful eye on the plant. Two of us wanted to wait until dark and pull it up—knowing it was useless with only leaves and no buds. Like a hung jury, we tried to bring the others over to our side. Then we got distracted playing games and listening to music. I uncharacteristically hid all of my belongings. We went back the next morning and the plant was gone. Like we never saw it, like it never happened. ⠀ But remember I said we plucked a leaf off? One of us put the leaf in a book for safe keeping. I would’ve sworn it was a thesaurus, although my first choice would’ve been “Leaves of Grass.” My brother claims it was Gay Talese’s “Honor Thy Father” and further, he asserts that 25 years later it still exists within the pages of that same book. I need photo evidence.⠀ ⠀ #decriminalize #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #significantobjects #stuff #leg #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration #lega

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95/100⠀ ⠀ ⚠️❤️🧀⠀ We’d wandered around the labyrinth of old lanes in Brighton, England looking at rings, but avoiding any other big conversations. A sapphire and diamond number caught my eye and we returned to visit it a few times. The day we left, we paid it one last look and tried it on. With only an hour before we caught our flight back to our 100 hour a week yacht job in Rhode Island/Caribbean, we stood in the middle of a centuries old cobbled street trying to decide what to eat for lunch. A light drizzle fell on us. He grabbed my hands, looked in my eyes and told me he couldn’t imagine a life without my laugh, my smile and my light. Would I share it with him forever? ⠀ Ha ha. That’s not how it happened. Instead we had crappy samosas (the peas inside were still frozen) then flew home. He decided he wanted that ring, so his brother went back to buy it. They couldn’t find a company to ship jewelry; but another brother’s girlfriend had a friend who was flying to JFK. She wore it over and my brother met her to collect the ring and drive it to Newport. I wasn’t supposed to know about any of this, but brothers shouldn’t keep those secrets. Also I was literally sleeping on it, it was hidden under our bunk—which was storage for accounting materials. Weeks later, the night before my parents were due to visit, he turned to me, shrugged and said “So do you want to do this or what?” ⠀ Almost 20 years later, there are times I’ll be in a car, plane or sitting at my desk when the diamond catches the sunlight just right and sends out a shower of rainbow sparkles, like a mirrorball reflecting how much hubby loves me.⠀ ⠀ #cheese #ring #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #significantobjects #stuff #tradingcard #tradingcards #affinitydesigner #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration

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94/100⠀ ⠀ One summer in college, my parents were away a bit and we may have used it as an opportunity for entertaining. Four of their five kids worked at McDonald’s down the street, so that was the better part of our social life. During a spell when she was home, my mom changed my brother’s sheets and found a pair of women’s underpants. She asked about them. He’d honestly never seen them before and managed to stammer “I think they’re Tina’s, she slept here one night when they got out of work real late.” (I’m thinking he’d never been as far as second base by then, so panties were out of his ballpark.) A crafty lie, and believable, Tina was a close family friend who lived a whopping 5 miles away. I guess since my mom has four daughters, she’s used to seeing underpants everywhere, so the story didn’t sound fishy to her at all. ⠀ ⠀ Flash forward a few weeks. My brother, who maybe weighed 90 pounds, had been carrying a 50-pound frozen fry box up a crazy steep flight of stairs at McDonalds. Towards the top slipped on a greasy patch and fell backwards down the stairs with the box. Since we lived so close, the manager called my mom. When she arrived, my brother was sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs, very disoriented, Tina by his side, looking after him. My mom surveyed the scene from the top of the stairs and shouted “TINA! TINA! WE HAVE YOUR UNDERPANTS!” Then she asked about my brother.⠀ [names may or may not have been changed]⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ #mcdonalds #underpants #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #significantobjects #stuff #tradingcard #tradingcards #affinitydesigner #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration

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93/100⠀ ⠀ I walked to work one day overwhelmed by the depth of the blue sky unmarred by a single cloud. My job brought me to Oyster Bay, Long Island, just outside of New York City. I lived about a 25 minute walk to the boat. My commute that morning was longer because I kept stopping, looking up and confirming that it was, in fact, the most beautiful day I had ever seen. I sang. I skipped. The color of the sky filled me with joy. I honestly had no recollection of such an intense blue, such a perfect temperature, such a clear sky. This color and clarity, I decided, is what poets and songwriters mean when they talk about the perfection of September.⠀ Whenever I see a sky like this now, which isn’t very often, I think back to that morning, to that joy and what followed. It was 8:45 a.m. on September 11, 2001.⠀ ⠀ [this is an actual photograph of the sky, taken in Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 19, 2108]⠀ #the100dayproject #the100dayprojectOP #the100dayproject2018 #blue

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92/100⠀ ⠀ Here’s a tip: don’t ever rest your hand on the hinged side of a safe while waiting for your manager to make change. Especially don’t do that if you just started your shift at McDonald’s on Fourth of July and half of your co-workers called in “sick.” It’s also a really bad idea to rest your hand on a safe when you have a long line at your register, and if you are hopped up on all of the caffeine that comes with a fountain of free flowing diet coke. And, definitely don’t do it if you need the money from three summer jobs to pay college tuition. In general, it’s a very bad idea to have any part of your body come in contact with any part of a safe door. You know what could happen? The manager could slam the heavy metal door very hard and your thumb could be trapped in the creaky side and you don’t realize it and you try to walk away but your hand doesn’t come with you. And then you have to have surgery to pick shards of broken nail and bone from your finger and it bleeds for three days and you don’t make any money over the next 8 weeks. And you have a wonky nail forever. So, just keep your hands away from the safe. ⠀ ⠀ #ouch #workerscomp #goodadvice #mcdonaldslife #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #significantobjects #stuff #tradingcard #tradingcards #affinitydesigner #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration #mcdonalds

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91/100⠀ ⠀ ⚠️ I worked with a Dutch yacht stew who increased our vocabulary. It came in handy when we had a horrible guest who we referred to secretly as “Mrs. Kuttekop.” Because calling her “Mrs Derisive-word-for-vagina head” to her face would be unprofessional. It worked great until one day a new crew member didn’t get the code-name memo and said “Good Morning, Mrs Kuttekop” to her. She was multilingual. We didn’t get a tip.⠀ Another word I learned from this stew is “Kutbrommer,” which freely translated means “derisive-word-for-vagina moped” or more specifically: vibrator.⠀ [I should note here that the entire world outside of the US sees the word “cunt” as very benign and inoffensive.]⠀ Years later, one foggy night in Newport, Rhode Island three women, 2 were friends of mine, drove from dinner to one of their boats in a marina. There was no barrier marking when the shipyard ends and the harbor begins, and in the fog they never saw the edge. The coroner says they didn’t suffer, that their death was a quick single lungful of air. Hubby and I flew up the next day to help our friend who'd lost his wife. I learned a lot then about how great the Dutch health care system is, and getting her remains repatriated to her home country. One of my duties involved packing her clothes to ship to her sister in Holland. Bluntly, it fucking sucked ass in the hardest way possible. I could barely keep my shit together, but felt I had to be strong for our friend whose life had just imploded. Beyonce’s “Halo” pumped into my earphones on repeat for hours, it was the only thread that bound me. As I neared the end of my task, in the back of a drawer full of very practical underpants and support bras I came upon her enormous Kutbrommer. I laughed. Hard. For the first time in days I felt myself breathe. There is no pithy wrap-up to this story. Two friends who were both in the happiest time of their lives are gone. Their absence left a devastation of heartbreak. Sometimes, life just plain fucking sucks, and the only beacon you can see comes from the indicator light on a Kutbrommer.⠀ ⠀ ** this weeks color pallette: this pic was taken over a craphole marina in Ft Lauderdale. I love the colo

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90/100⠀ ⠀ “We lived in a little house that had gaps in the floorboards full of pearls from wedding dresses.”⠀ ⠀ Hubby wrote that, it is beautiful, eloquent and succinct. But I’ll embellish the details. It wasn’t just pearls, there were crystals, beads and sequins crammed between the planks of the floor. The gaps in the floor were so big I could tell if I left the light on in the basement and also, if I vacuumed, I felt like we lost a bit of insulation. ⠀ But back to the beads. The previous owner created wedding veils and embellished wedding dresses. There are so many layers of memories there, not just my memories of the sparkle and shine coming from the old wooden floor, but the memory of the maker, creating every single stitch and sewing every bead, hundreds of thousands of them. Every thought and conversation that occurred in the making process, imprinted into the stitch. And then the memory of the wearer, on her wedding day, festooned in shimmering, sparkling beads and pearls. ⠀ ⠀ The owner before that made piano keys in the same house.⠀ ⠀ #newportrhodeisland #makers #pearls #sequins #rhinestones #weddingveil #weddingdress #oldhouses #woodfloors #memories #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #significantobjects #stuff #tradingcard #tradingcards #affinitydesigner #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration

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89/100⠀ ⠀ This is how I can tell if we should be friends: you get into the spirit of New Sponge Day. Yes, New Sponge Day is a thing. The fact that you asked makes me question our association. Sometimes, you find yourself on a boat in the middle of the ocean with zero stimulation for weeks on end. There are no birthdays or holidays, no place to go on Friday, and every day you’re in the same uniform. You need something to celebrate, and notice the sponge is a bit skanky. And well, the rest is a party that happens every few weeks and whenever I visit my mom. I could turn this into some spiritual babble and post a pic of myself in a peaceful warrior yoga pose holding a new sponge talking about how every day is a chance for a new beginning, to get rid of the old gunk that is holding you back. But that would be tedious. Instead, I’m saying life is short, people are assholes so let’s celebrate all of the little things that we can. And also, sometimes you don’t notice how nasty your sponge has become; then one day you see it with fresh eyes and know it’s time for a change. This also happens with underpants. (That might be a spiritual metaphor, or I might be trying to tell you that you can’t clean dishes with a dirty sponge.) Either way, Happy New Sponge Day.⠀ ⠀ Here is a sample script to help:⠀ me: Hey everybody! Guess what today is?⠀ you: It's New Sponge Day!!!!⠀ all: YAY!!! WOOHOO!!! YIPPEE!!⠀ #newspongeday #yachtcrewlife #spiritualbabble #offensivefonts #worstfontsever #monotypecorsiva #peacefulwarrior #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #significantobjects #stuff #tradingcard #tradingcards #affinitydesigner #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration

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88/100⠀ ⠀ In grad school, my professor challenged us to create a basket on the concept of animal, vegetable, or mineral. Hubby one-upped it and challenged me to incorporate all three. [Take your art school underwater basket weaving class jokes and shove them up your ass. Weaving a basket is hard af and now you just look ignorant.] So I wove a basket of sea grass and rawhide on a rock—the rock was part of the basket. In order for it to work, the rock had to be suspended by the rawhide spokes, which had to be kept wet and under full tension (see process pic). The whole process is exceedingly difficult and made me cry and swear a lot. The dean of the college loved the baskets and thought I should mass produce them to sell at Pier One. HGTV selected me to teach the method on one of their shows –the same episode where some lady turned oatmeal tubs into poodle footstools. A local hotel commissioned me to make some very large versions—which ultimately failed. These f*#king baskets are such a different kind of art than anything I’ve created before or since—very earthy, muted and non-verbal. But truthfully, I’d love to explore how I can make them better and push the form. ⠀ ⠀ #iswearalot #basket #animalvegetablemineral #gradschool #mfa #hgtv ⠀ #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #significantobjects #stuff #tradingcard #tradingcards #affinitydesigner #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration

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86/100⠀ ⠀ I believe in the power of baked goods, in cookies as a currency: a means of saying I see you, or thank you, or hello & welcome or I’m sorry you got herpes. I have batches of cookie stories, like the time I was so devastated over the results of a presidential election I made a package of chocolate shortbread for every boat in the marina, or the time I brought cookies to a party and a local coffee shop owner held one aloft to the crowd and declared it overcooked. But these particular cookies, apricot, cornmeal and sage are my brother’s favorite. He was working for a political campaign in DC I didn’t believe in. I wanted to send him cookies, but I didn’t want him to share them with his coworkers. I didn’t want his fellow campaign staffers to feel like they had my support. So my friend and I took a bite out of every single cookie in the batch, knowing full well that my brother has no problem eating (taking) a cookie I’d already bitten. Despite how aesthetically perfect each bite was, my brother assumed they’d been broken in shipping and shared them anyway.⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ #ibakeforelections #cookies #brothers #packages #carepackages #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #significantobjects #stuff #tradingcard #tradingcards #affinitydesigner #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration

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86/100⠀ ⠀ Eighth grade girls are possibly the most savage creatures on the planet. I went to a small Catholic middle school; our whole grade was one class of 30 people, and only a dozen girls. I had these friends, that’s what I called them, because I didn’t know any better. They were not nice people, they were the template mean girls. Some of the incidents that stick out were the time they hung up signs proclaiming their hatred for me (the teachers ignored), or the times the Queen B would shut me out for sport. Which was no different than all of the other times she would stop talking to me, which were less painful than the times she would corner me and tell me I was a loser who didn't deserve friends, let alone one as awesome as her. This was always in front of other girls. After a week or so of being soul-crushingly shunned, I’d be invited back in her good graces and we’d pretend that nothing had happened. The only way I knew I was forgiven for whatever misdeeds she’d invented for me was when she’d ask for a sip of my juice box then drink half of it. I gladly gave it to her. Because that's what 13 year old me thought friendship was. I had no other reality.⠀ ⠀ I am pleased to report I’ve not actually seen or spoken to this toxic bitch since 8th grade. I’m even more pleased to report that the friends I've made as an adult, the ones I proudly call mine, are the best, most amazing friends a person could have. I'm so grateful for them that instead of juice boxes, I share wine boxes with them. And they don’t judge me for it. ⠀ ⠀ #bitchesbetriflin #itgetswaaaaaaybetter #the100dayproject #the100dayproject2018 #the100dayprojectOP #objectpermanence #significantobjects #stuff #tradingcard #tradingcards #affinitydesigner #toxic #bully #virtualcabinetofcuriosities #art #autobiography #illustration⠀