live laugh blog

weekly retro: the 'late because i went to boston' retro

this week's retro is late because i was out of town for the weekend and am, today, finally able to Go On The Computer™ and Blog™ - you know, the two things i was born to do.

selfie of my reflection in the treadmill during a tuesday walking workout

the week started off chill and typical. i did my usual treadmilling, aerial yogaing. it was a full week without knee pain, which i was especially pleased about because i knew the rest of the week would be quite active.

photo of two plates of braised tofu and bell pepper on rice i made for dinner

also typical of-the-week behavior: i braised tofu. i don't need to look at a recipe at this point, and i already have added my own tweaks to it. i love cooking!

photo of bright pink flowers in someones yard

i thought it was going to be hard to wittle down the flower photos from the neighborhood, but turns out i only took one non-blurry photo lol so that was easy!

bathroom selfie of me at the venue where we did karaoke, i've covered most of my face with my "karaoke professional" baseball cap. there's a sign on the wall.

jamie and i hosted a robot karaoke show at boshi's place which was really fun. they're a very chill, smart and fun group of folks and it was cool that they had us back.

photo of the bathroom sign saying "button doesn't work (u can open the top and dip your hand in lol)"

they did have a working soap bottle on the sink, i'm still obsessed with this sign though.

photo of an drawing (on the wall of a coffee shop in boston) of the boston tea party and paint marker is used to give the people party hats, and one person is wearing a shirt that says "i like to par-tea"

then i was off to boston by train to spend the weekend with my buddy mike. turns out potch was in boston, too, for pax east, so i got to introduce he and mike and we sat in a cafe for hours while it downpoured. the weather was cold and rainy as shit most of the weekend, wtf!

photo of a large screen on a theater stage that says "ZIWE FOR PRESIDENT" on it

mike and i went to see ziwe perform. she puts on such a good show, she's very good at crowd work, improv, and pop culture. i mean, she basically is pop culture herself - did you know she was interviewed to be on rhony? that would have been something to watch, unlike this last cast of rhony let's be honest...

photo of a large fountain in the middle of the hancock-adams common in quincy, ma

mike is from quincy and took me around a lot of historical sites, the library, and what some would call a diner.

photo of the river alongside great esker park in weymouth, ma. it's very serene and the sun is setting

we hiked across most of the great esker which was very cool and probably one of the steepest hikes i've been on while talking. if you're reading this, mike, i know you didn't take me on that walk to get me to shut up, but if you were that was a great try.

photo of the first ever dunkin that says "established 1950" and mike is using himself and the umbrella to hide an obnoxious instagram logo. there's a plaque that says this is the site of the original dunkin

did you know that the first ever dunkin is in quincy? i didn't and then i did and then we went there. this is real american history. mike kindly jumped into the photo to hide the very obnoxious instagram logo on the wall.

photo of the wall of the downtown jersey city dunkin that says "jersey city runs on dunkin"

while it was great to hang out with my friend and get out of town for awhile, it's great to be back home now.

things i enjoyed this week

this week i started reading casey johnston's a physical education. her original column was in my 2020 gratitude thread and i continue to subscribe to her. i'm 1/3 of the way into the book and i highly recommend it to anyone interested in how strength training works, how to decenter diet culture from your life, or just learn about how casey did just that and made an awesome career out of sharing her journey and knowledge so generously with so many people.
these vegan lemon poppy cookies mike and i made over the weekend. i love lemony baked things!!
whatever this freak of a flower we saw at a grocery store in quincy is, it's like seeing AI in real life and really bugs me out but i'm glad i saw it:

some kind of weird rainbow colored orchid that i'm sure is some proprietary breed

now that i'm back home, with no traveling on the calendar in the foreseen future, i can go heads down and get ready to launch bugsrock.online on 5/31, which happens to be the 5th anniversary of live laugh blog wowowow. i have three wick tests burning near me as i type this!

xoxo jenn

this was published May 13, 2025 under living laughing health working weekly-retro jersey-city candle-making boston travel mike potch robot-karaoke dunkin flowers

weekly retro: crunchy flowers and interesting feline shapes

after a week and a half of weird joint paint, i was starting to accept that this was perhaps the moment every person who has sat for 4 hours in an endocrinologist's waiting room is told may happen (rheumatoid arthritis), but as of today i've been 5 days without any pain.

weekly retro: the one where i became a walking weather stick

this week was one of those week where i made a point to not do much outside of my scheduled obligations, so to give my body a rest. my knees were SCREAMING in a voice i never heard before, but joint pain is a pretty common symptom of hashimotos. this is the first week in 7 months where i did not go to the gym!

figure drawing session - april 16, 2025

last week i went back to jc print room for a live model figure drawing session. this time the model was male. we don't know what kind of models we are going to get until we show up which keeps the experience fresh. i get super bored drawing the same body type, especially when they're similar to my own.

weekly retro: playing radio, chandlery and blue prince

my upstairs neighbors are doing construction and it sounds like they tore out all the floors and/or they filled their pockets and boots with heavy weights, so i've had to take about seven (7) breaks as i try to write this.

weekly retro: the one where i accept that i can't have a humanoid body like krang

this was a week of processing the blues of my prior week and trying to push myself through the discomfort by saying 'yes' to opportunities that get me outside and away from screens and even wax. i started feeling a creative block coming, but i believe it was largely in part to my frustration with the weather going from warm to cold and shitty like a haunted see-saw.

weekly retro: seeing deftones, drawing nudes, and practicing patience with myself

if i had one piece of advice for everyone, but that i need to take myself, it's *you can acknowledge your weaknesses while also being kind to yourself*. when i started writing this retro, i was not being kind to myself at all; there was a lot of "i need to be more patient" and "i wasted a ton of time"...so dramatic, jennifer jean! i had to step away from the screen and revisit it the morning after.

figure drawing session - april 2, 2025

i went to my first live model figure drawing session in over 5 years last night! the host, jc print room, was great and so was everyone else there. it felt like my first day at school, except i wore grubby sweats because i make a huge mess no matter what media i'm working with. overall, a+ vibes and will come back. the following are my pages from the 3-hour session.

weekly retro: touching grass

ah, it's the last weekly retro of march. it went in like a lion and out like the trailing cough i've had for the past two weeks. april should have fewer coughs and more spreadsheets as i prepare to launch bugs rock.

weekly retro: despite the haters (germs) i'm back

coming off of being pretty sick last week and then continuing to heal from that *whilst* starting my period - yes, that keeps happening for some reason - i was starting to doubt that i had anything to even write about this week. that's when it's time to just start typing what i'm thinking.