Hello again

In which I unsuccessfully try to not be weird about trying to get back into writing here again

I have a problem with having too much of an online presence. It would likely take me a couple of months to scrub my digital footprint altogether (not that I was planning to, but you know), and it probably doesn’t make sense to have a blog, a Substack newsletter, a Twitter (sorry, X) feed, a handful of Instagram accounts, on top of dormant Tumblr and LiveJournal and VSCO and Pinterest accounts. Somewhere out there my unused Medium account still exists.

The last time I posted here, I had just started working full-time at a swimwear company. I still feel weird saying “I work in fashion” – or worked, as it were – but I suppose it technically was fashion, or at least fashion-adjacent. About a month and a half ago, I left that job, and I’ve been rudderless ever since.

That’s not entirely true, but it does feel that way a lot of the time.

From showing up to a desk-bound 9-to-5 job every weekday, being surrounded by mostly women who love to yap, but like, productively, to being the MASTER OF MY FATE and having only my poor husband to yap to has been a big change. And even when I do make it to the studio, it’s not like I can yap to anyone there.

I opened a new solo show at Blanc Gallery between my last day at work (8th of April) and the point of sad desperation (9th of April until present). The job market is so horrific right now, to say the least, and it’s kind of mind-boggling because I’d like to think that I have a pretty good amount of experience under my belt. These days, the hiring teams are nicer and way more of them reply with rejections instead of just airing you forever. It was also a pain to have to update my portfolio, which I hadn’t done for over two years, but it’s nice and neat now, so there’s that. (carina-santos.com, if you care.)

Anyway, the show is called The Gesture is the Prayer, and you can view the works at Blanc Gallery at 145 Katipunan Avenue until 31st of May, or just go to this link if you live elsewhere or can’t be bothered.

Between my last post (the dream of writing for Nilo Ilarde realised!) and today, I also got married. It was very cute and low-key, but I still get shit from my family for us not having family around the day. Which, I get why they’re upset, I just didn’t want to make them apply for a visa to the UK again only to bring everyone to Lahore and the pub and our flat after the ceremony.

It was kind of dramatic at the time, and I fully prepared myself for an earful the next time we went home. But then when we did, my grandma died. We flew in for our family’s show (To See a Landscape As It Is at Silverlens) and the minute we sat down to eat our chicken inasal after our long-ass flight, my mother got a call that her mother slipped into a coma, shortly after which she passed.

The first week of the trip was spent in the hospital, while my grandma was in the ICU, and then her cremation, wake, and burial. It was kind of crazy and sad, but it really felt like fate that we happened to be able to be there. I was especially happy I got to be there for my mom. I wasn’t particularly close to my grandma, and I realised most of the sadness I was feeling was sadness for my mother.

I don’t really know where to go with this, but I thought I’d say hi and let you know how things have sort of been. Of course, there have been other things in between all these big things, but there is no time or reason to do a big rundown of events from September 2023 (!) to now.

A few things I’ve been enjoying:

• Overcompensating – scratches the itch of aughts-era comedies set in college, and it’s kind of refreshing (?) to see how precious some people still are about coming out. I know it’s not the most cutting edge or like, groundbreaking story about the queer experience, but not everyone grew up in liberal households, me included. Adam DiMarco: a revelation as a douchebag, and also I did not realise he was in The Magicians.

• Death’s End by Cixin Liu – I actually still have about a hundred pages left, but the third instalment of The Three Body Problem trilogy has been such a ride. I think people get scared off by the very heavy science it’s based on, but Liu actually takes the time to explain it to his readers like they’re 5 (or at least, like they’re laypeople).

• Rewatching stuff that’s very “of their time” – cases in point: How to Make it in America, Girls, Desperate Housewives and Gossip Girl. I read a while ago that people with anxiety like to rewatch things because there’s nothing new to uncover that will cause trepidation, but I still hollered a lot at jokes I’d forgotten about.

• It’s kind of a funny thing, but I got into relatively louder music as I was rage-designing at my last, very commercial, very girly job. I’ve really enjoyed Joyce Manor, Title Fight, and Turnstile, who we are seeing at Outbreak next month.

• I feel compelled to say that I’ve cried a lot these past few weeks, but some notable occurrences are when Pope Francis died (btw, Conclave was so good, I watched it twice in a span of 6 months), when “Wolves (Act I and Act II)” by Bon Iver came on at the last scene of The Place Beyond the Pines and also when we were watching Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.