#obviously the re-recordings and eras are intertwined

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Taylor released a documentary about the last few years that includes both the re-recording process and the Eras Tour.

[bisluthq]

I became a hardcore fan during Joe's era's (kills me to say that a woman is not whoever their dating) but I have the sense to not make any brash assumptions about Travis and Taylor already being engaged. Already. Or assuming the end of the tour will mean a slow down of her career Over the last three years being engaged with Taylor Swift's persona means everything is up for grabs and keeping the openingst brain. (and I wasn't even shocked TTPD was mostly about Matty either) .

I just think it’d be kinda weird for them to already be engaged? They literally don’t know each other that well. People compared them to Maggie and Jack the last time I said this, but Maggie and Jack were proper attached at the hip from the minute they started dating. Taylor and Travis aren’t, and this isn’t their fault because they’re making a big effort to spend time together but they’re very very busy people with very very busy lives and rn neither can wfh (Travis can work on the pod wherever but that’s just one of the many things he does) so like OBVIOUSLY (and correctly) when they do get a chance to spend time together they’re doing Fun Things™️ and that’s not really the same as living life together. Which isn’t imo enough info to have on someone to decide if you really want to legally intertwine your lives (which is what marriage is lol - it’s not just a fun party, it’s a legal contract that you enter into that will have repercussions for the rest of your life because even if it doesn’t work out and you divorce, which is another legal process, a ton of things require you to produce your divorce decree/s forevermore). So like… if they’re indeed in a HEALTHY and not a manic place then yes I’m sure they’re discussing it since they both want that but they’re waiting until life slows down a bit to make those kinds of major decisions.

I also find the speculation about Taylor taking a break very odd and not in keeping with existing info that we have. She has two re-records left to do. She’s signed on to direct a movie. She trademarked a musical (that whole Female Rage business). If Travis is creatively inspiring, she’s writing about her life now. Like the odds of her taking a full on break to raise a family are very low, not in keeping with her personality/interests at all, and are contradicted by pre-existing commitments that she has now made. And I agree with the anon who said she’ll want to release new music asap to shut down speculation that Eras was a farewell because, again, pre-existing commitments/plans strongly suggest that it’s not.

anyway, yay you for being a sensible (if new) Swiftie.

[rehearsingformysmalltalk]

super chismosa girl: another photo essay

As i near the beginning of my masters in information studies program at UT this fall, becoming more evident is the lack of information organizing and record-keeping that was required of myself and my family, ever.  Every year, as a child, i would visit my grandparents’ house to spend the summer-- the obvious alternative to summering at home in Texas (where it was either do “nothing* at home or join some expensive soccer club or something, which required money, which didn’t exactly line our pockets, so it was do nothing at home). I’ve always been a super metiche girl, so the goal of my summers would be to go through every inch of every purse and shoebox of my grandmother’s closets, armoires, buros, drawers, dressers to find memories, to get lost in another era. Typically, the items found were, in no particular order: batches of photographs; mixed with official documents of my grandfather; his miners’ badges; letters to my mom from my uncle from prison. I don't imagine my grandparents re-visit and re-arrange their mementos often throughout the year; therefore, frequently i would run into the same photographs, letters, untold stories. One of my favorites, which has become an old friend, is a polaroid photograph of my lanky, young father, standing in a hallway wearing only shorts, and this subtle, almost eraser head hairdo, but handsome. On the outside border, he wrote “para mi gordita. Houston, TX” My father was a migrant worker, and he would travel back and forth from all over texas, back to Muzquiz. He and my mom met at a baile, “Yo estaba alli parada, esperando que me llamaran para bailer y se acerca tu papa todo mojoso, con una camisa de coca cola y unos chores bien rabones.” Shortly after that fateful night, he continued his border-crossing, meanwhile keeping their love alive via images of himself. in my grandma’s stuff, I’ve found several other envelopes addressed to my mom from papi (i don’t dare to read them), but nothing has ever been found from mami t’ papi. Mi papi no guarda las cosas muy bien, so i imagine those are lost forever.

Some other things i find in my grandparents’ things are many official passport photos, pens, wigs, bra enhancers (which began to appear a few years after my grandmother survived the shame of a mastectomy and her hair grew back). More curious than those things, though, was a album i recently resurrected, containing a half-page full of inch squared size photographs of young men. “mami quienes son estos? los conoces?” She gasps. “son todos los novios que tuve.”  Este es *****. TE acuerdas mari (my mom’s sister, my aunt, who lives an hour’s drive away, and always visits my grandmother when my mother does, and when is not cleaning, is sitting next to my mom, gossiping), de *****. el era bien bueno. el era dueno de la carniceria de palau. She tells me other stories of other guys she went on trips with, dated for a while, jealousies from cousins who liked the same guy she was dating. Eventually, the same photographs were too familiar, and finding something new became more and more an elusive feat. The oldest thing i’ve found in my grandmothers’ time machine home, is ironically the newest thing i’ve found. it is a photograph of my grandfather, sitting in a circle of other men, wearing the same white button-up, jeans and boots and cowboy hats. in the middle of the photo is a radio, obviously the thing keeping those men sitting together. My grandfather died in 2016. I got a call from my sister the night before taking my last final exam, about to finish my penultimate semester in grad school. He died at the hospital, in his hospital bed, during a nap. I took my exam the next morning, holding back tears, wondering how in the world i would find the money to buy a flight home, in a matter of hours**. I eventually arrived at the San Antonio airport, where my brother waited for me, and we drove down to Palau, just missing his wake and burial. My arrival was met with many hugs, a cookout, laughs and tears. For the next few days, faces i’ve never seen before or rarely saw approached my grandmother’s house, to pay respects or to just sit and reminisce (i met one of my grandfather’s brothers, who looks eerily like him). Meanwhile, my grandfather’s spirit played in the background through the speakers of the little radio he required be on at all hours of the day. That little radio was the little radio that could. as a kid, i would wake up at 9 am, to the rhythm of the broom. i would run outside to meet papa as he swept the nogal leaves out of the dirt driveway, followed by the mangera showers to pat down the dirt. and always was La Rancherita del Aire in the background, playing and replaying songs from the most iconic artists in regional nortena, colombian cambia, mexican cumbia. Diabetes, beer, and age soon caught up with his health and he reluctantly lost his ability to do many, many things. But he always had his radio. If anyone turned it off, i can probably almost guarantee you that hell would actually break loose. when everything else was gloomy, the radio continues to play Ramon Ayala, and my grandfather lives on. In the days after people came and went to say their pesames, my mother was tasked with closing papa’s chapter, and opening my grandmother’s into head of the household, which required: filing a death certificate, creating my grandma’s own bank account, obtaining her debit card, and a pin number that she would now need to remember forever and ever. “donde esta tu acta de nacimiento, ama? y la de papa?” Filing the acta de defuncion proved a feat comparable to nothing else. It required many documents, voting cards, marriage certificates, wedding certificates, more documents, intertwined with signatures from the union president, and this guy, and her, and they and them.    My mom has much anxiety she copes with on a daily basis. Because of this, and my rudimentary introduction to archives, I found myself, in the role of assistant to Mom, returning to my grandmother’s shoe boxes, purses, in the dressers, armoires, buros-- in pursuit of entirely different documents than i had searched for in the past. I now sifted through prison drawings from my uncle meaninglessly, in search of “credenciales de votar”, and “un papel que se llama asi”. We soon discovered that my grandmother’s way of record-keeping was to put anything of importance either under her mattress, or in between pages of her many bibles. As I near the beginning of my masters in information studies program, I realize that as an archivist, I want to be able to protect the basic rights and interests of underrepresented individuals. I want to pay close attention to the way i organize my information. and the information of my parents. Ever since that event, which was a BITCH, i have wondered ways to help my mom maintain better records of her documents. Recently, i was searching for my naturalization certificate through my mom’s important papers-- located in the bottom drawer of her nightstand, intertwined with batches of my schoolwork from kindergarten, and could not find it. Within the next month i plan to move back home with my parents, to create for them a way to store their information. Additionally, i plan to help them learn to use the computer. This is a whole other chapter, however. So, this story is to be continued.