hi, i'm jenn schiffer and this is my lifestyle blog

weekly retro #60: spoony time

congratulate me on my first load-bearing gray eyebrow hair
— jenn schiffer 🕷️🕯️ (@jennschiffer.com) March 29, 2026 at 3:11 PM

it's taking everything i've got to write this lol. i multi-tasked too close to the sun and burnt myself out from the computer, but at the end of this file and deployment is a scoop of peanut butter covered in chocolate chips waiting for me. i call it "spoony time". welcome to the weekly retro.

photo of my black cat pumagreg sleeping in a pile of my gray robe and green sheets. over his head is an eye mask that says wfmu and has two white vinyls with red veins to look like eyes

my allergies were so bad this week, it messed with my sleep a lot. i think i should go see an ent, but i also think i need to see my primary care doctor to get a referral first. it's such a stupid system.

photo of my hand holding a bluish-gray wax mold of a doll head

i made my first silicone mold ever and it was a nightmare lmao! at the very least, i got the most cursed part of a doll head molded, so it wasn't a total flop. when i'm not in the ceramics studio, i'm often coding or reading about code and so i've been very slowly working on my next candle collection which will be out in may along with some ceramics wowowow. speaking of code, this weekend i remotely attended atmosphereconf, which was fantastic thank you for asking.

photo of me in the gym bathroom mirror after a workout and bundled up to go outside in my black beanie, gray flannel and jacket

the weather's been nice so between studio sessions and remote conference sessions i'd go to the gym and to the yoga studio i've been trying. i took my first ever silks class and i really liked it but oh boy does my core need work! i think i want to do more conditioning before i go back and try the intro class again. i've got a lot more heavy muscles to pull up into the air than most of my classmates!

photo of a box marked "free" that has a bundt pan, leather sandals and what i think is an immersion blender inside on the street

i wanted to try out a different platform for small blogging (you're reading my big blog) and so i started a little art blog on pckt, which is pronounced as "pocket" and is atproto-connected. i wrote about a strokes album cover and adapting to tremors. tumblr ads are insane so pckt has been helping me post and find small blogs without being harassed about sports betting and prediction markets.

photo of two closed vessels i threw and trimmed at the ceramics studio. they look like urns, one has a handle i threw on it and the other is like a smooth orb

i bought my first underglazes and a glaze! this week i'll be putting them to work and experimenting with painting onto clay. while i understand that ceramics are quite unpredictable, i think my vision is possible and i know how to get it there. anyway this week in class we learned how to trim our closed vessels. i even threw that handle off the lid - which means i threw it while it was on the lid i trimmed vs. making it separately and attaching it or making it while i was throwing the lid. i don't know if this makes any sense, moving on...

things i enjoyed this week

we met up with some pals at sappe in manhattan, and everything was so good. the shrimp fried rice was maybe my favorite of the dishes we got for the table. i love drinking a thai iced coffee at dinner time, it's one of my favorite special treats.
i follow a couple of professional ballerinas on youtube because they are good models of discipline and not taking themselves too seriously in an art form some take way too seriously. anyway, i was especially moved by this don quixote performance vlog by madeline woo of the sf ballet
this breakdown of the vomit mechanics in rollercoaster tycoon went so deep into such a weird part of a game i never played, i now want to play it so bad.
normally i'd wait until i finish reading a book to recommend it, but i'll make an exception for cookbooks. i made two dishes out of ham el-waylly's 'hello, home cooking' and i was, as expected, very pleased. the fact that he opens the snacks chapter talking about final fantasy 7 helped make him a better prep cook is so funny and real.

okay, it's spoony time. and tomorrow is robot karaoke @ wonderville time. if you're in the nyc area, join us there from 7-10pm!

xoxo jenn

this was published March 29, 2026 under living tech art weekly-retro ceramics code candle-making atproto molds gym aerial-silks circus atmosphereconf conferences

weekly retro #59: kicked, burned, but still spinning

i'm starting to write this after seeing jamie off for his trip to london. he's going to be hosting robot karaoke for an event at the london games festival, which i recommend for any of you in the area. when he gets back, we're both hosting at wonderville together for all of you in the jc/nyc area. we're also super stoked to be hosting a special tax themed robot karaoke at caveat nyc on april 15th! it was a gorgeous day out and a bird shit on us outside my local taqueria.

what i made during my second ceramics class

a couple of months ago i shared what i made in my first (hand-building) ceramics class just as i was getting into my 2nd class (first at wheel-throwing). i'm now in my third week of my third class (second at wheel-throwing) and just brought home my final glazed piece from class two. that means it's time to share what i made during my second ceramics class.

weekly retro #58: logged off, touching clay

last week i had posted a couple of ai-related threads on bluesky and started to feel gross from letting the subject use up so much of my time, time i could have been making something with my hands and brain. it's the same feeling you get when you've eaten too many twizzlers and you're like "i think i do not need to eat another twizzler for a few weeks". you know that feeling, right? _right?_

10 years of getting hotter and smarter

on march 13, 2016 i tweeted "i just keep getting hotter and smarter." tweeting was a thing a lot of people used to do and it was often fun and free, but that website doesn't exist anymore, so i can only prove the existence of the post with this screenshot i found on a 2019 post about motivational quotes

weekly retro #57: the usual amount of clay, blood and lasagna

this week was a week of starting new routines to make up for lost ones and keep me mentally and physically well. did i do a good job? well, i was in an active, mild allergic reaction to an edible for 2 days before i realized my throat wasn't swollen because the air is dry lol. that doesn't matter though, i am here now, breathing well, and reflecting on the week.

weekly retro #56: didn't have to shovel but my back hurts

here we are, a new month. february was a slog and i was hoping it wouldn't be to naive to ask for peace in march, but here we are.

weekly retro #55: forgot the title lol whoops oh well

i come to you from the first blizzard here in the jc/nyc area in like a decade. it's coming down really hard, and it's going to be quite a week for all of us.

weekly retro #54: failing to be birthday neutral

birthday weeks are tough because i feel like everyone either puts a lot of pressure on me to enjoy it or they project their fear of aging and dying onto me about it. i very much want to be neutral on birthdays, but i also want to celebrate that i lived far longer than i was told i would or should by adults in my life growing up. here's to 41 years of i lived, bitch, bitch.

weekly retro #53: below zero temperatures should not be allowed outside

as i begin writing this, quite late on a very, very cold sunday, i am surrounded by the (organized) messes of my activities throughout the week. some instant film camera stuff in a pile on my desk, staging from my bugs rock product photo shoot, wax scrapings from future offerings in the shop...it reminds me of how much i've made this week and also how i need to be working on three projects at a time to finish anything.

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