no one asked: embracing the amateur, daisy jones and the six, and my new favorite coffee shop

09: what i'm reading, looking forward to, and not spending my money on...

Looking forward to…

Taking things day-by-day and enjoying the process of whatever I’m working on instead of having goals that always move the moment I reach them. In my recent piece called Leave room for the amateur for How to be a Woman on the Internet, I talk about challenging myself to make less goals and take myself less seriously in order to find more enjoyment and freedom in my projects. I reflect on the ways that I felt pressure — from myself and from friends and family — to have things all figured out when it came to me working on my own in social media consulting, becoming an “influencer,” starting Seen Library, and writing these newsletters.

I end with this: Leave room for the amateur. And embrace it. In a time when the internet compels you to look perfectly packaged up, ready-to-sell, and fully realized, push back on it. Instead, make space for yourself to grow and find your way and develop organically. See the benefits in not being so sure, so established. See how the need to be perfect or make comparisons with others who seem to have it all figured out often paralyzes us and prevents us from starting at all.

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Watching…

Daisy Jones and the Six, much like everyone else who read the books during lockdown. And I have thoughts. Daisy and Billy are annoying. Warren is an unproblematic king. Karen is an unproblematic queen. Eddie is gross. Justice for Camila and Simone.

jordan santos @jordanrisa

midnight rain by taylor swift was written about karen and graham actually #daisyjonesandthesix

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Eating…

Well, this one isn’t so much about what I’m eating, but what I’m drinking. A friend told me about a small coffeeshop in South Pasadena called Two Kids Coffee, which happens to be Filipino-owned. They make their own almond milk, which tastes so good — especially in their chai lattes. I’ve been three times in the week that I visited for the first time. They also have a bookstore connected to their shop called Prospect that sells vintage cookbooks and food-related books.

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Not spending my money on…

I was inspired by a recent newsletter by Sara Li, where she shares what she’s not spending her money on and I wanted to start sharing some of mine, too. Her and I have some of the same things on both our lists:

• Membership fees - I left Soho House in 2020; you never go as much as you think you will and having a membership to something like that limits restaurants you try because you want to go back to a place you pay to be in (where the food is an additional expense)

• Food delivery - I proudly never order from delivery apps

• Pricey cocktails - I don’t drink much and not spending money on alcohol has been such a money-saver! And while we’re on expensive drinks, I’m not buying $20 smoothies, either… I much prefer getting my smoothies from small, local businesses like Rick’s Produce

What else is on my list? Getting my eyebrows done, my lashes lifted, my hair professionally cut and colored, and my nails manicured. For too long, I spent my time, energy, and money on things that I thought I had to do. It wasn’t until lockdown when the pandemic first started and I couldn’t get these things done that I realized that I didn’t enjoy doing these treatments and I didn’t need them, either. The Unpublishable by Jessica DeFino, a challenging but necessary newsletter about beauty culture, validated these feelings. She talks a lot about how we’re conditioned to think we need to do these things to be acceptable and desirable. And while I am far from ridding all beauty obligations from my life — like doing my makeup and getting facial treatments — I am slowly learning which ones I am willing to immediately cut and see the many things labeled as “self-care” for what they are: obligations.