Author: Jen
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This post is proof that my 18-year-old Livejournal self is still alive and well
It’s a good day for writing, and things are starting to look up. I’m probably a morning person by biology or upbringing, if not by preference. I think those preferences have to do with evenings being mostly unscheduled, and my formative online communities were available during college, but I actually do like being up with…
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A Billion Inner Lives
As I write this I’m savoring the quiet of a friend’s home, watching a backyard teeming with little lives. The favorite is a chipmunk, striped and small and round, bustling around the patio planter it’s made a home. Every so often it pauses on the corner like a gardener surveying fresh beds of vegetables. What…
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Shiny Math Rocks and Communal Storytelling
Here I am amidst a pile of polite rejection letters, redesigning my portfolio and resume for the fourth time as my beloved institution winds down to a sad silence. I’m in desperate need of distraction. There’s a topic that’s been on my heart almost since the beginning of this blog, but I’ve struggled to find…
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Alignment isn’t just a stat in D&D: Attention to Detail in Graphic Design
I. Why does it matter? Often in my industry, I read that effective graphic design isn’t that hard. In some ways that’s accurate. It’s certainly not as time-consuming as it used to be, thanks to the tools and technology developed to streamline every part of the process. Graphic design was way more complicated before the…
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A Soft Landing for the Introvert
How do you unwind after a demanding day? A demanding day for me involves a lot of people or a lot of careful social navigation for one or two people, so what I do to wind down is what a friend calls “unpeopling.” I go away. Soft lights, soft blankets, water or hot tea depending…
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The Show is Over, Say Goodbye
Not too long ago, after 35 years and nearly 14,000 performances, The Phantom of the Opera dropped the curtain (and prior to that, the chandelier) for the final time on Broadway. Since its arrival, Phantom has been a pop culture phenomenon and a musical institution. My opportunities to catch the show have been in streaming…
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I Live Here
It’s been a fulfilling Saturday, after a very long pair of weeks. I am on my porch right now – our porch – sipping at the little cooled coffee left in mug while I listen to the neighborhood. There’s the constant bass thrum of traffic. Some of the rumbling comes as far off as the…
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Practice Today
Your feet are on the track today. Your brush is in the paint this moment. Your hands are on the keyboard right now. You’re practicing. So practice now.
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New Gig
My first book review – of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and a Culture in Crisis – has been published in The Hawk Eye, my local newspaper! You can read an excerpt of it here. I’ll be writing periodically for The Weekly Read in the future. I’m so excited!
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Living With Anxiety Brain
I can’t look at death and say Yeah But Not Me anymore. I CAN say Yeah But Not Yet.
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Locked Out
I yell at horror movies. Not scream. Yell. Like an exasperated, uncertified life coach. The main characters in typical jump scare-peppered torture porn are not life choice role models. I ask them why they’re not calling Triple A about that cut fan belt after their girlfriend just tumbled into the pool of decaying roadkill. I suggest they stay…
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February
The dye washes out of reality in an Iowa February. According to weather experts, the worst part of winter is the last week of December, and the first weeks of January. That certainly accounts for frigid weather and hip-deep snow, but not much else. February takes January’s misery into itself, and compounds it. The product…
Jen Koch 