Currently... (23)

I found the Currently post at Kate Hart's blog, who got the idea from Amy Lukavics, who found it here. Please join in and link me in the comments if you do!


LOVING: Netflix's version of Queer Eye. If you need a pick-me-up, this show is it!

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Jun 25, 2018 at 10:40am PDT

Celebrating friends' milestones - turning 30, launching books, getting married, exciting new projects, my cousin graduating from college, and so on.


READING: I just finished Claire Legrand's new epic fantasy FURYBORN. It is a page-turner, immersive, and thrilling. I love how high the stakes feel, how vulnerable and alive the characters are, and seeing just how the 2 timelines relate to each other. This is your new fave YA fantasy. Trust me.

Also, I'm just so happy I finally got to meet Claire earlier this month. I've been Twitter friends with her since her debut (a creepy Middle Grade book called The Cavendish Home for Boys & Girls), and it was a delight to actually talk to her in person and give her a big hug. Plus, she crowned me at her signing.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Jun 11, 2018 at 11:37am PDT

WATCHING: The Staircase on Netflix. Need to start Marvel's Cloak & Dagger and Luke Cage. Binge-watched Big Little Lies right before our trip to Monterey and loved it.

Saw way too many movies recently - Incredibles 2 (cute but a little bit like why did this take 14 years as it's very episodic - but the short BAO was ALL THE FEELS), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Blue!), Hereditary - which was not nearly as terrifying as everyone was going on about!


THINKING ABOUT: Comic Con plans - what I'm going to see, what I'm going to wear. What project I'm going to work on next. The need to KonMari my life. Would anyone be interested in buying a ton of my clothes because I need to purge my closet!


ANTICIPATING: Comic Con! More immediately, the 4th of July because yes, days off!! Seeing all the amazing photos @thisdorkynerdgirl took of me for her Elhoffer Design clothing review for Temple of Geek. Here's a few from the Star Wars-inspired collection!



WISHING: For more certainty and less doubt, for more confidence in my abilities, for more kindness in the world. For my country to be less of a trashfire.

• The SCOTUS news yesterday and today are particularly disheartening. If you're freaking out like I am about all of this, read @celeste_pewter's ACTION thread on Twitter about the incredible importance of DEFENDING the Senate. We need to band together to make sure no Dem Senators lose their seats, and we need to flip some. This means donating, volunteering, and calling. 
• See @Roadto18 for the necessary info on Senators and commit to helping one or two - it's like those assignments in school where you had to pick a Congress person to study or run a fictional campaign for. We're doing that, BUT FOR REAL.

MAKING ME HAPPY: Pretty much everything in the "Loving" category above. Oh, I recently was invited to an advanced screening of Netflix's movie adaptation of TO ALL THE BOYS I'VE LOVED BEFORE by Jenny Han. I'm not allowed to say too much about it, but I LOVED IT and I can't wait until August when everyone else can see it, too!

My newest poem is out in Liminality's Summer Issue, and it's called BEAUTY ROUTINE. It's about beauty and, like so many of my poems, about transformation. I hope you enjoy it and the rest of the issue. Liminality always publishes such exquisite work.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Jun 18, 2018 at 11:14am PDT

Q4U: What have you been up to? Tell me in the comments!

5 Fandom Friday (29): Follow Friday

5 Fandom Friday is a geek-blogger community building project originally started and hosted by The Nerdy Girlie and SuperSpaceChick. Every Friday, post a top 5 list based on a topic of your choice. Participate as frequently or infrequently as you like. Use the #Fandom5 hashtag so we can all connect!

I haven't updated in a while, but Life has been happening. In any case, here are some cool people/things you should definitely check out!


1) Jordandené x (writer & Space Witch) Sam Maggs' collaboration, The Fangirl Galaxy collection: It's Jordandené's signature hand-lettered style paired with phrases for the discerning fangirl - like fake geek girl and complex female character. Love these ladies, love these designs. I want like everything, and if you do too, use my code ROAM25 for 25% off your order.

2) The poem A View from Inside the Refrigerator by Andrea Tang is skillfully structured and so clever. If you're familiar with the trope of "fridging," you'll really appreciate this poem. I loved it.

3) I'm sure I've talked about FIRST DRAFT podcast before, but in case you need a refresher, First Draft is hosted by YA author Sarah Enni and features interviews with your favorite authors (and other publishing people)! The original batch of interviews were collected on a cross-country road trip as Sarah plotted her move from the East Coast. I encourage you to take a listen if you love books (especially Young Adult) and/or writing, and follow @FirstDraftPod on Instagram & Twitter because Sarah is currently on a new road trip down the East Coast and documenting that on those channels. The interviews she's collecting on this trip will be shared later in the year.

It was so much fun to meet up with Sara Farizan while in Boston! We talked about intersectional identities, basketball nerdery, and writing oneself a happy ending. Look out for her newest, HERE TO STAY, out this fall! Can’t wait to share our convo 😻📚⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ This is one of the many interviews I’m gathering on my June 2018 Podcast Road Trip! Look forward to hearing this interview in the near(ish) future, and find out more about the road trip at the link in the bio. ⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ #yalit #sarafarizan #heretostay #ifyoucouldbemine #tellmeagainhowacrushshouldfeel #reads #reading #igauthors #firstdraftpod #ownvoices #pridereads

A post shared by Sarah Enni (@firstdraftpod) on Jun 13, 2018 at 1:09pm PDT

4) The world continues to be a trash fire, but @celeste_pewter on Twitter is still helping us fight the good fight. If you feel lost on current political events, need to know what issues to focus on, and/or need call scripts for calling your U.S. representatives - Celeste provides info and scripts daily! If you have the funds to spare, maybe drop a tip for Celeste for all the hard and often thankless work she does for free - ko-fi.com/A012IFW

5) Recently, Jordandené has also launched THE SARTORIAL GEEK which includes a newly launched magazine (Issue 2 is out now!), a podcast, blog/Twitter/Insta, and an online community! If you're in the NYC area, they also started hosting a monthly in-person meet-up in Brooklyn. Their first event was an Avengers: Infinity War wake, in which yours truly contributed a sad poem for the program.

A post shared by alice (@threadedpages) on May 13, 2018 at 4:47pm PDT

Bonus: This is waving my own flag, but in the last month, I've had 2 poems published. Would love it if you took a look, and I would super love to hear from you if you enjoyed either of them.

• MY TEARS ARE NOT FOR YOU in L’Éphémère Review's National Poetry Month Anthology Beyond the Shallows – April 2018. This is short and angry. Don't doubt your own strength.

• THE FOOTRACE in Strange Horizons. I also read this poem on Strange Horizon's poetry podcast. It's linked at the top of my poem's page.
• I wrote about this poem's inspiration and my year-long struggle to write at the Girl on the Roam blog: Anger, Art, and Atalanta.

Q4U: What are some cool things I should check out or who are some new people I should follow?


P.S. I've crossed off a few items from my The 30 List, so hopefully will have some write-ups on that soon. But in my recent trip to cross off one of these items, I stayed in a creepy AF Airbnb and have lived to tell the tale! So... I will probably tell the tale sometime soon. Look forward to it!

Guest Post: Why One Style Won’t Fit All

Can you believe we're already almost halfway through the year? I've got a few blog post ideas in the works, so hopefully things will be a little more active here soon. Until then, I'm pleased to have this guest post from Ashley Lipman, who runs a blogger network called The Blog Frog!

Since A Nudge has evolved to cover topics outside writing/reading to include geek fashion, I thought it'd be appropriate to have Ashley write a little bit about personal style. So without further ado, here's Ashley on style.

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Why One Style Won’t Fit All

Photo credit/site- https://www.pexels.com/photo/adult-casual-collection-fashion-296881/

It goes without saying that all people are different. Even people who wear the same size clothing wear them differently. This has been a challenge for fashion designers for generations. While they provide their styles with various options, it's up to the wearer to select the right style and size for them. Herein lies the problem.

How do you know if something doesn’t fit?

This sounds like a silly question, but it is a very real issue. People often go for style and comfort without stopping to see if the clothing fits them properly. The fact that you can put it on doesn’t mean you should.

The very first thing you must accept is that the size printed on the tag means nothing. Designers and brands are often sized differently. If you get hung up on the size on the label, you will miss out on some fantastic looks. Use the size printed simply as a starting point and nothing more.

The trick is using fashion to accent your best features and to camouflage your problem areas. Fashion is the tool you use. You do not conform to fashion; it works for you.

Below are some easy tips to help you determine if your clothing fits you well:

• You cannot hug someone with your jacket on. 
• Your shirt gaps open between the buttons. 
• The waistband of your pants or skirt is so tight that you cannot slip your fingers behind it. 
• Your shorts (or underwear) are continually riding up.
• There is never a time where your clothing should be overlapped with your flesh. 
• When you sit down, your skirt doesn’t cover your undies.
• If your skirt doesn’t cover your panties when you sit down, you need a larger size.
• Bra fit
• Your breast should not bulge over the cups of your bra or dig into your shoulders. 

Photo credit/site https://pixabay.com/en/jeans-tee-t-shirt-white-blue-1234687/

The World of T-Shirts

Everyone loves tee shirts. People collect them and wear them for years. They are great for branding and advertising. If you have a corporate event, family reunion, or charity happening, you should consider personalized shirts for your event.

Tee shirts are the one item of clothing you can wear in a size or two larger than you actually wear. People wear them casually and as cover-ups over swimwear, dancewear, and with just about anything. Even so, if your tee shirt will not stay tucked in it is too small.

In conclusion, you can wear fashions that are current and stylish. But you must be honest with yourself. Do not try to impress anyone with the size or cut of the latest trend. Instead, commit yourself to finding clothes that are fashionable and fit you well. If you do, you will always be stunning and beautiful. You are worth the effort.


About the author:
Ashley Lipman is a super-connector who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships, and networking. She frequently writes about the latest advancements in digital marketing and focuses her efforts on developing customized blogger outreach plans depending on the industry and competition.

Year in Review: Whirlwind 2017

In some ways, I'm getting a late start into 2018. We're already nearly through January and I'm just doing this 2017 review. I almost didn't do it this year, but I do like having a document of the year before - and 2017 was the first year of the Resistance. And we're still here! The world has been a weird place.

So without further ado: 2017 - a year.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Dec 31, 2017 at 3:00pm PST

JANUARY

• Celebrations: Kicked off the new year with Rogue One & hot butterbeer at Wizarding World. We celebrated Founding Daddy, Gennia's upcoming bb with a pinterest worthy baby shower. Unicorn birthday treats. Lunar New Year.

• Resistance: the first annual Women's March - 750K showed up in Los Angeles, and I couldn't have felt more inspired and hopeful. Getting a crash course on active democracy & calling my reps all the damn time. Protesting travel bans at LAX.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Jan 22, 2017 at 1:35am PST

FEBRUARY

• Author friends: Saw so many of my favorite writer people this month & met a few others. Worked on writing with the LA YA crew. Received a lovely pre-order gift from Julie. Finally met my writer-crush poet-sister Roshani.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Feb 8, 2017 at 10:32am PST

• G's baby arrived in the world!

MARCH

• Iceland: I could write a million blog posts about it, but it was one week in the most magical place on earth. I could myself supremely privileged to have seen some gorgeous places in the world, but Iceland takes the cake. It is evocative, awe-inspiring, untouched, and straight up poetic. I danced on a frozen lake, floated in a hot spring under the dancing Northern lights, rode fluffy horses, hid behind waterfalls, and slept under the stars.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Apr 23, 2017 at 12:59am PDT

• Writing / Books: I wrote a lot of poems in Feb & March - quite a few fueled by rage. I don't want to hype it up too much because you might hate it, but I also finally finished a poem that had dogged me for a year! It'll be out in April! Also, SKIN was nominated for a Rhysling. Oh and I finally met Lori, who I've known online FOREVER, and Garth Nix, author of one of my all-time favorite books SABRIEL! EEEEEEEE!!!

• Girl-time: Spent time exploring LA with the Daddies and ConSquad, celebrating birthdays and women's history.

APRIL

• YALLWEST: Maybe the most fun YALLWEST I've ever experienced. I was adopted by a group of sweet book bloggers, who helped me get in lines for signings and ARCs. I also got to hang out with and/or meet up with all of my favorite YA author people.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on May 2, 2017 at 3:29pm PDT

• Poppy super bloom: We didn't make it out there last time, but the Sis and I played hooky and drove out the Antelope Valley to catch a little of the California Poppy super bloom. It was windy and glorious.

• Bodhi Brigade: some of us met up to see the Swet Shop Boys and our space bae Riz Ahmed perform at the Echo.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Sep 21, 2017 at 2:59pm PDT

MAY

• Benvenut Wedding: my dear college roommate Shelly got married! It was nice to be back in NorCal, and it was so fun getting together with all my old apartment mates again. Benvenut love!

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on May 9, 2017 at 3:52pm PDT

• San Francisco: While we were in the Bay Area, the Sis and I finally did some tourist-y things like see the Golden Gate Bridge, visit the Yoda Fountain, go to Pixar! Oh and we saw the touring cast of Hamilton, too - 3rd row seats right before the wedding, lol.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Jul 14, 2017 at 9:56am PDT

• Book releases: So many book releases from my writer friends, but I was especially excited about Maurene's I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOVE. Such a delightful, funny book!

• Misc: Celebrated Mother's Day with my mom & also G's first Mother's Day. Commissioned my first icon portrait from the superbly talented Kate Trish & I'm in love with it still. Received my comp copy of the Rhysling poetry anthology. Museum of Ice Cream!! (It needed more ice cream)

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Jun 28, 2017 at 12:26pm PDT

JUNE

• Disneyland: First Disney trip of the year was courtesy of a friend. Thanks to her we got to try the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride, which replaced The Tower of Terror.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Jun 5, 2017 at 12:21pm PDT

• NIGHT SWIM was published in Liminality's SUMMER ISSUE.

• Geekery: Wonder Woman happened, and it was actually mostly good, and I was definitely all kinds of emotional about the Amazons and Diana. It was so wonderful to see. My dear friend Jordan sent me a bunch of Jordandene shirts and I ended up briefly as a model on her page!

• Founding Daddies Las Vegas trip: Middle school dreams come true - we went to see BSB, and it was the best night ever. It was so. much. fun. The rest of our time in Vegas included a visit to the small but lovely Neon Museum, the Beatles Cirque du Soleil show LOVE, and food (best lasagna ever). Oh, and after the trip, our Mr. Burr-lesque, Eva, got engaged!

JULY

• Convention season: kicked off the summer with Spider-Man: Homecoming with our line-friends turned real friends Esther and Laura. We also just resolved to see more of each other since we live in the same area.

• D23: our first time at this Disney convention! We went for 1 day, and though we didn't make any panels, the show floor was fun to explore. The random parade down the center was weird, but brought me weirdly close to a handsome pirate (Colin O'Donoghue), and we got to jump into Scrooge's money bin.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Jul 16, 2017 at 11:24am PDT

• SDCC: my worst Comic Con ever in that nearly everything that could go wrong did the first day we were there. However, the best part of SDCC is always meeting up with friends and dressing up and all the photo ops. Most of the Bodhi Brigade assembled (and we were acknowledged by Riz Ahmed weeks later online, like OMG), and I met so many of my geek fashion gal pals - like Jordan, finally!

AUGUST

• Game of Thrones: For the first time, I watched this show at a weekly watch party with a few of the ConSquad girls. Such a fun time! We ended the season with a game of epic pies.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Aug 28, 2017 at 9:26am PDT

• Disneyland again: Thanks to Jenn, we did an all-day trip where we were Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. It was fun having people recognize our Ducktales Disneybound. Got to see the new Fantasmic, which is always wonderful, though I do think some of the sequences in the older version were still better.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Aug 29, 2017 at 5:53pm PDT

• Birthday: I went lighter with my hair, turned 31, and Hamilton opened in Los Angeles on the day of my actual birthday. I went out to the Pantages to enter the lottery and be part of the live Ham4Ham crowd. It was lovely.

• Misc: There was a solar eclipse! I fell in love with porgs and Rose Tico. A Star Wars heroine played by an Asian American actress?! FUCK YES. My overseas lipstick gal Rebecca Barrow had her book debut: You Don't Know Me but I Know You.

SEPTEMBER

• Force Friday: I only mention this because I was so excited to buy Star Wars Action Figures of not one, but TWO Asian women characters, and they're sisters!! *weeps*

• Sriracha: We joined Esther and Laura on a trip to Huy Fong Foods for their seasonal open house for sriracha sauce's chili grinding. We met the founder and had spicy ice cream!

• Disney Halloween time: the Sister's favorite holiday is Halloween, and September is her bday month. So we went to Disney to enjoy all the fall and spooky decor. I took my first pair of hand-made ears from @twodapperdames for their park debut and did an appropriate Disneybound. We also found out later that night our space bae Riz Ahmed won an Emmy.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Oct 4, 2017 at 9:17am PDT

• Level-up adulting: we closed escrow on our first home!

OCTOBER

• Book releases: My two amazing friends Julie (Forest of a Thousand Lanterns) and Tracey (Gray Wolf Island) had their book debuts!! I adore these ladies and their words so, so much. Highly recommend both their books!

• Apple-picking: we missed New England fall, and especially the apple cider donuts. So we found out where there was apple picking out here and went with ConSquad to pick apples and eat donuts and BBQ. It was way too warm for Fall but a lovely time.

• Geek fashion: I joined a geek fashion group - the Geek Fashion Blogger Alliance. We do style challenges every month, and I've loved the challenge. (January's theme is Disney!) The first challenge was, appropriately, Stranger Things, which also gave me my Halloween costume.

• Halloween: Esther and Laura invited us a Yelp event, and the Sister super last minute DIYed a brilliant costume to go with my Eleven; she was an Eggo waffle. I wore the same thing to work, and we made Loki into a demogorgon. We hadn't watched Season 2 yet, so we didn't know then how on-the-nose that costume would be, lol.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Oct 31, 2017 at 2:41pm PDT

• New neighborhood: started doing house stuff - fixes, furniture, checking out the neighborhood. It's how we discovered one house nearby builds a pirate ship every year for Halloween. We visited on the 31st, and it was incredible.

• Geekery: I also went to Stan Lee's Comic-Con, my hometown convention, for the first time thanks to Danielle of Little Petal! It was great meeting her IRL and seeing her incredible convertible dresses in person. Also got to say hi to Tony at Hero Within and Katie at Elhoffer Design - all wonderful geek fashion small businesses doing awesome things!

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Nov 8, 2017 at 10:09am PST

NOVEMBER

• Ragnarok: My most anticipated Marvel flick and it was amazing. Taika gave us so much. We went to see it opening night at the El Capitan. It also gave me an excuse to wear my ElhofferDesign Loki dress. Thor was also the style challenge for the month, so 2 birds.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Nov 9, 2017 at 8:17am PST

• Hamilton: 5th time at the show, 1st time in my town. How lucky we are to be alive right now.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Nov 17, 2017 at 10:08am PST

• Thanksgiving: I celebrated a lot of birthdays in November, and I celebrated Thanksgiving. November was a month of reflecting on 1 year since the election and a month of joy for my friends. I changed up my traditional hedgehog potato dish for Porg-potatoes.

• Infinity Rooms: reunited with the Mischief Managers to stand in mirrored rooms and look at polka dots at the whimsical Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Broad.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Nov 23, 2017 at 6:20pm PST

• Taika Waititi: I was going to put this as part of the Ragnarok bullet point, but OMG I MET TAIKA WAITITI AND IT WAS AWESOME. So it's here by itself. He is hilarious and charming, and 3 times over, Ragnarok was still so freaking funny. Thanks IMAX and Collider for the screening.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Nov 30, 2017 at 12:41pm PST

DECEMBER

• Puppy party: Diana's birthday was in November, but we threw her a surprise puppy party / tea party in the first weekend of December. Definitely one of the most successful parties ever.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Dec 6, 2017 at 9:31am PST

• Hamilton again: Hamilton for the 6th and final-planned time. Who knows what 2018 will bring, but 2017 is the year I saw it 3 times, and I'm still not over it. I will never be satisfied.

• 29 Rooms: this was mostly an Instagrammer's heaven, but it definitely had cool installations - like the Dreamer's Den and Make Yourself the Masterpiece.

• Christmas: Long-awaited catch-up and farewell with Maurene before her temporary move. Caught-up with another friend and saw her new house. Annual Founding Daddies holiday brunch and gift exchange. Family Xmas potluck. Work gift exchange, which resulted in the face-off of BB-8 and BB-9E at my cubicle.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Dec 17, 2017 at 8:41pm PST

• STAR WARS THE LAST JEDI WORLD PREMIERE: I blogged about the experience at Girl on the Roam (In a galaxy far, far away post), and it is still the most ridiculously epic thing that has ever happened to us. Red carpet. Early screening. After party. WHAT.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Jan 1, 2018 at 1:12am PST

• Geek Blessings: Other geek blessings included going to Wizarding World for hot butterbeer and seeing the new light show (super cool!). When we were there, we were chosen for the wand ceremony!! At the end of the year, the Sister won the lottery for the Broadway show SOMETHING ROTTEN, which I'd been wanting to see. So we got to see that from like 4th row center. It was SO FUNNY.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Dec 29, 2017 at 11:03am PST

So yeah, it was a WHIRLWIND end to 2017. I'm still catching my breath from it, and to be honest, the beginning of 2018 has been nothing short of non-stop. So it's appropriate that my newest jacket arrived just in time for the New Year.

A post shared by alice (@akangaru) on Jan 1, 2018 at 8:43pm PST

Because that is exactly how I feel. But I'm grateful!

Head over to Girl on the Roam next week to see what my One Word Resolution for 2018 is!


Q4U: How was YOUR 2017? What do you hope for in 2018?