Where I've been the last 7 months. I've definitely missed this.
Hey everyone. It’s been a while. This is just a little life update for the blog. My last post was in March (March?! Was it truly that long ago? Sheesh) about 7 months ago. Hey, we all have our reasons for disappearing from the face of the internet, and boy– do I have a list of reasons for going MIA.
Of course, anyone can come up with a list of excuses for not keeping up with their passion projects. Life sort of gets in the way of the things we want to do, and I’m no stranger to that phenomenon.
So this will just be a look into my life recently! If you go forward, expect to read about:
Where I’ve been
What I’ve been up to
Current thoughts/rants
My current obsessions
A photo of me smizing with my prayer plant. This plant died dramatically during my 6 day trip to California. I was home daily, forgetting to water it all the time. I go on one weeklong trip and the plant suddenly turned brown and shriveled! I have since replaced this prayer plant with Prayer Plant 2.0, and he’s much more understanding.
Where I have been
I was just finishing my bachelor’s degree, and in the beginning of 2021, the last thing on my list was doing an internship. During the fall and winter, I considered an internship, but I was already doing full-time coursework. The pandemic (that I’ve complained about a few times before) also put a wrench in my plans, ultimately leading to me getting a 100% remote internship (I’m so lucky they do those now) as an SEO Content Writer intern with a copywriting agency.
The internship went for 2 semesters– spring and summer. The reason my last blog post was in March was because my job for the agency started at that time. The day-to-day tasks included keyword research and analysis, along with, well… blogging. That’s right– I quit blogging here because I was blogging elsewhere.
The content wasn’t what you’d expect when someone says, “I’m a professional blogger,” and it was based on some topics I was unfamiliar with, such as home improvement, hardwood flooring, windows for homes, and commercial construction. So, it wasn’t nearly as exhilarating as something like artistic creativity, some modern lifestyle, or traveling as a millennial. I was just writing loads of content about hardwood floors, which I enjoyed a lot. It’s a lot more challenging to write 800 interesting words on home improvement than it is to write a creative essay, honestly.
But yes, simply put, I would write 3,000 words a week, and that left me with no desire to write here. After the internship ended, I took a 2-3 week break from professional life, and as of late, I have been redesigning my portfolio site to include my new writing samples.
And that leads us to me, here now. I’m back! Hello. I’m happy to be back to blogging (for myself). My graduation is on December 10th, and I’m the first person in my immediate family to get a Bachelor’s degree!
The view from the Airbnb in Los Angeles. The hills almost glow in a gradient from blue to near black. I’ve never seen something like that before. I felt like this is the sort of thing you see in a Bob Ross painting.
What I’ve been up to
Outside of the blogging about hardwood, I was just busy living life, and for some reason I kept it mainly “off the grid,” for literally no reason at all.
I got vaccinated so I could go back to living outside of my apartment. (Pfizer crew, what’s up!)
I also went to California in June for my friend Sarah’s 30th birthday party. We stayed in an Airbnb in the Hollywood Hills, got dressed up with some friends, and drank way too much boxed wine! It was the first time in a long time seeing these friends of mine. It’s tough when one lives in NYC, and the other lives in LA. We take whatever chances we get to meet up, but the pandemic made it especially difficult. We just aren’t the type of people to ignore the guidelines, so we all got vaxxed as soon as we were able just to celebrate Sarah’s big three-oh, Los Angeles style.
It was my first time in California, and I’m such a cliché, because I felt the perfect dry heat and I took in all the vibrant desert plant life, and thought, “Wow, okay… so I love LA.” The nice thing about California is that it’s just Minnesota with palm trees, so I felt totally comfortable in the LA and San Diego environment.
That’s the other thing– Eric and I also went to San Diego. We have family, or well… Eric has family in that area. We rented a car and went to an even Socal-er Socal city. The beaches were beautiful. We tried to swim with sharks, but the sharks were nowhere to be found, but we did swim with stingray and guitarfish. We also ate some burritos and went to the San Diego Zoo. (I might still write about that trip eventually, but more likely I will write a blog in the future about my next trip to LA in December! Yes, you read that correctly. I’m heading back to sunny California in the very near future.)
Recently speaking– Eric and I always do an annual camping trip to the North Shore in early September. This year we did as we always do, just hiking trails and walking around in big cold Lake Superior. I actually wrote a whole blog post about it a month ago, but I haven’t published it yet. I’ll try to get that up in the next week or so! (I would hate to spoil the future post, so stay tuned!)
Back during the camping trip on Labor Day weekend. I managed to find the one red leaf on the North Shore. Usually these trees are every shade of orange you can imagine by Labor Day. This year they hadn’t quite changed yet. Stay tuned for the blog on the trip, possibly in November.
Thoughts: The slow death of Instagram and rising authentic content
In the world of Instagram influencers and viral tiktok sensations, it feels as though blogging is an ancient practice in the realm of internet influence. I should clarify: I’m not an influencer, but I do want people to read this blog. One of my main vessels for traffic is Instagram. But this last year there’s been a lot of talk on the internet in places like twitter and tiktok saying Instagram is a millennial social media thing, and that it’s played out.
The main reason is that by posting content that is polished and perfect on Instagram, we present this “fake” version of ourselves, and everyone knows its fake, so nobody likes it anymore, when there are more “authentic” platforms like tiktok and twitter. Also obviously there is the dilemma: If we are all influencers, then none of us are influencers, etc. The reason I’m personally thinking about it, is because I tried to change the entire way that I post on Instagram for the sake of not being “cringe” and just being more “authentic.”
My new totally cool and casual Instagram content revamp:
I now post photos where I don’t blur out a giant pimple growing on my forehead
I “photo dump” photos that I didn’t throw through a filter first
I no longer edit any weird body issues, like if my leg is at an angle where my foot looks like a nubbin, I no longer reshape it to be normal looking.
I use less hashtags now, because apparently, they look desperate, even if it’s just for archival and navigating purposes. (Heaven forbid my content reach the target audience, and not just Robert who sat behind me in 10th grade Algebra, who I haven’t spoken to in over 10 years, who is for some reason still following me?)
It was a big learning curve, accepting my flaws completely. Once I gave up caring about my image and caption quality, I was met with such fine and amazing backhanded comments like, “Remember when you were trying to become an Instagram influencer? Haha,” and, “I’m surprised you’re not taking more photos for ‘the gram’”
But I would argue that having good photos doesn’t make someone an Instagram influencer. I just enjoy taking photos! I’ve had a heavily curated and color-coordinated Instagram since 2014! I feel like I was in the second wave of people who woke up one day in 2013 and thought, “hmm… maybe nobody wants to see a grainy picture of my oatmeal” like 6 years before influencer culture came and went.
Anyway, I have decided I still enjoy keeping a visual diary, and I don’t think my desire to document my life via aesthetically pleasing images will ever end. I started on Myspace, moved to Tumblr, then focused on Instagram, and now I have a blog where I post my photographs and life experiences.
Basically, what I’m saying is I won’t quit posting content of a visual nature, even if Instagram is where photos go to die, I’m going to take my carefully taken photos elsewhere.
My extremely old, I think the end of 2014 instagram feed. Maybe a year prior I suddenly became obsessed with trying to create inspiring imagery via my instagram account. Like you can see the wheels were turning in the early days. I just wanted my life to look as beautiful on social media as I felt in real life.
Finally, my current obsessions
I read 2 books in the last 2-3 months. I have been trying to get into reading, and I am failing at it.
The books I read:
Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
You can read my thoughts about these books or just follow and monitor my reading activity over at my Goodreads profile. I never use it, but you never know when I will suddenly update. As of right now its once every 3 months, but don’t hold me to it!
Click here to go to my Goodreads Profile
Something I haven’t written about on here is my not-so-secret obsession with horror films. I mean, I love films in general (hi, I worked at an indie movie theater for like 2 years), but when I want to unwind and laugh, I always turn to horror. I have a blog post in the works just talking about good horror films for the spooky month, aka: Halloween season! I will try to get that up sometime this week maybe.
Films I enjoyed recently:
Drag Me To Hell
Signs
Underwater
In the meantime, follow my film watching journey on Letterboxd!
Click here to go to my Letterboxd profile
Just a little send-off photo of my baby cactus! I bought it at Mother Cacti Co. in Northeast Minneapolis!
If you made it to the very end of this, thank you. Thanks for reading, and thanks for waiting for me to come back. I’m happy that my life is (almost) back on track! I’d say that the fall season is a great time for motivation and inspirational content. I hope that anything I said here today was inspiring. Even the part about me having adult acne that I’m apparently now unabashedly flaunting for authenticity’s sake on social media.
Stay safe, stay healthy! Wear a mask. AND, read my next blog post when it goes up sometime this week!
Kind Regards,
Cody
