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

weekly retro #79: just an italian girl from new york

my doctor told me to get bloodwork done on the second day of my period and i scheduled it for tomorrow in hopes it would work out so i wouldn't have to miss ceramics class on tuesday, and can you believe that my period started today just in time. it's important to call out and celebrate one's wins and also add a disclaimer that the following was written and edited throughout a series of cramps. ciao amici, and welcome to the weekly retro.

august is full of robot karaoke shows and so i have been working on both my endurance and threshold for heat. i've been going outside a lot, and so far no weird sunburns thanks to my diligence with applying sunscreen.

photo of a purple-background painting of a grayscale nude pixel figure i made, and the fiture is crouched down and pulling a band like the arrow without a bow

another part of my "training" beyond my fitness and saying-yes-to-hanging-out regimens is staying as offline as possible. i have been filling scroll time with painting and ceramics. i started a new wheel-throwing class this week, and i finished a painting instead of letting it languish on my easel for months.

photo of a 100 ceramic kong dog toys on display at the whitney's biennial

these ceramic kong toys at the whitney were handmade with clay by emily louise gossiaux, imagining a heaven for her late service dog. there were a lot of really moving and colorful works at the biennial. a thunderstorm started while i was there, an hour earlier than forecasted, so i got home feeling like a wet vienna sausage out of the can. that's starting to feel more normal as this sticky, wet summer rolls along.

photo of my black cat pumagreg sitting on my chest and looking at me slack-jawed and eyes wide open

this week was my and andy's 9-year anniversary! in the photo above i am telling pumagreg that this means it's basically he and andy's 9-year anniversary as well. one of my favorite things about living with andy is getting to experience his relationship with pumagreg - they're truly two peas in a pod and i am proud to have facilitated that coupling. not only is being with andy easy, but being my full, real self with him is. there's a lot of love in this rental and wherever he and i go.

photo of me outside holding a strawberry iced matcha latte on a very hot, sunny day post-gym

this is me, earlier today, with my first ever strawberry iced matcha latte. i was happy to have found this cafe vendor in contrast with all the newer bumpy ai slop food banner'd vendors at the italian festival this weekend. i think of the classic italian american aesthetic and how commodified and corny it's become even without ai, but ai has taken it to an even grosser level. the latte was great though lol.

things i enjoyed this week

la lune mauve wrote this lovely post (in french) where they give a very kind and generous shout out to me and this lil blog of mine <3
took a break from a book i've been reading to read "not like other girls", a short story by al goldfuss who is a very talented writer i am proud to know!
i've really enjoyed playing big walk with some of the greatest minds in gaming (andy and his pals)
this court st grocers vegetalian sandwich was worth the trip, as my friend vijith said it would be. definitely the best vegetarian italian sandwich i've ever had.

tomorrow i exchange blood for diagnostics first thing in the morning on the worst day of my menstrual cycle on the hottest day of the week before i can have any coffee or food. what a blessing it is to even be able to go outside, though, and even to have blood to give 🤌

xoxo jenn

p.s. this coming weekend is hope and jamie and i will be doing a robot karaoke talk and taking requests on friday night there. if you're attending the conference, stop by!

this was published August 9, 2026 under living art weekly-retro ceramics jersey-city manhattan whitney-museum museums pixel-art painting gouache pumagreg

weekly retro #78: making art, taking trains

after spending a lot of today on trains and out of town, i almost completely zonked out for the night as soon as i got home. fortunately for you, i caught a second wind. fortunately for me, it happened before 10pm.

weekly retro #77: blue skies and painted pixels

after a week of smoke in the air and severe thunderstorms and heat, we got to see a week of blue skies and an atmosphere that doesn't burn one's nose more than it usually does around this car-dominated hellscape. this week we were all outside and it ruled.

weekly retro #76: hazy shade of whenever

this week was one of those weeks where i felt like i was just going through the motions, living in the moment but feeling a bit out of body. i think it was a mix of the heat, the wildfire smoke, my period, and the windup and down of the world cup.

what i made during my fourth ceramics class

technically i had scheduled myself to spend this hour in the ceramics studio, but i didn't want to go all the way there and find that my bisqueware isn't ready, so i've decided to push that time to tomorrow and instead publish the latest in the *what i made in my ceramics class* series.

weekly retro #75: bingo

this week began in recovery from the heat wave and being outside so much in the direct sunlight the few days before. i said i didn't want to see the sun for at least 48 hours and it obliged, although we could have done without the massive amounts of rain.

weekly retro #74: heat dome

it is presently a cool 84 degrees (F) out according to my laptop as i type this in a well air-conditioned room. don't be mistaken, though, your beloved princess of hating the heat (me) spent a lot of time outdoors despite, and in spite of, a three-day "heat dome" bringing over 100 temperatures to the metropolitan area throughout the 4th of july weekend.

weekly retro #73: frequent stops

this past week was a test for how bad i really want to be off my phone, and the answer is *very bad*. it's a tough habit to kick though, requiring intentional moves like deleting apps and logging off of web pages, keeping the phone further from me than other things i could fidget with my hands and eyes, and simply going outside. in an algorithmic world, making intentional moves is really hard.

weekly retro #72: cone's off, cramps on

when i was in college learning software engineering, my professor told us that there's no way to say with 100% certainty that your software is bug-free. even if everything is working perfectly now, there's always a chance that some kind of race condition or memory leak will rear its ugly head down the line. that doesn't mean you should never celebrate a release, just that there's a level of humility needed to align with reality. i bring that up to show that i know that there are caveats when i say that pumagreg is cancer-free. as far as the sarcoma in his leg is concerned, he's all clear, and that's a huge win!

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