Evening talks with my 10-year-old

(and my new jean jacket obsession)

Or not. She asks if we can “just talk” instead of reading a book at night. It’s fair because our book is boring and we can’t seem to muster that final push to finish it. It’s in French and about Billie who is a dancer at an elite dance academy. The students are always competing with one another and it feels like a toxic environment, which yeah, is an overused word, but this place really is. Madame is always yelling at them to WORK HARDER. DANCE BETTER. Thank goodness for Billie’s passion for the art form. That’s saving her.

Unless we don’t finish the book…ever and just play with slime and talk about its evolving texture over time. I find a hair in the slime. “It’s fine,” Violet says. She’s super chill about hairs in her slime tonight. Then we talk about the dynamics in her class and how her teacher lectures at them which is so boring too. She’s dying of boredom. And also still processing how she didn’t get the task of doing the phone. Instead she got recycling. How she could have asked for the phone and gotten recycling? I suggest she draw a picture of a phone and give it to her teacher. And maybe her teacher will think of her next time she assigns the phone job. Violet’s intrigued by my proposition, “Maybe we could also buy her new whiteboard markers?”

My friend Jessica’s latest art exhibition—a paper installation: “A silent dirge for birds who have been declared extinct in her lifetime.” So refreshing to stare at extra large paper ripped and dyed and sewn and on the subject of birds.

On that note, I’m looking for more bird content. Got any recos?

It’s jean jacket season.

I’m loving this one from FRAME too. Now to find the vintage version!

Or you could all just wear one of these. Thanks for modelling

Simon Alfred

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