I'm on the Amtrak to Boston. I'm passing through Providence at the moment, which is where I went to school.
I went to RISD now a sort of long time ago. When I passed Providence, I told a few of my friends. One friend asked to see if I could check the lost and found there to see if his formative joy and suffering was laying around anywhere. I told him my trip was too short to check, but I'd look on the way back.
I've been working on some new websites. I really want to try to live my [manifesto-like writing](https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/laurel-schwulst-my-website-is-a-shifting-house-next-to-a-river-of-knowledge-what-could-yours-be/) I published a couple weeks ago on TCI. It's about freeing yourself and realizing a website can be anything. Some websites are beautiful mounds that take many weeks to create. Others are just weird scratches. They're both great. They don't really have goals. They're just ways to explore. It totally depends on how you're vibing at the time of creation. Websites are temporary publications.
Zach Mandeville just updated his "writings" page, which is super exciting. I was especially compelled by his notion that "[Print will die when awkwardness dies](dat://ea4168eca518686d53dacef7dd99d4cd1f0cdb32e91ecfa5480dce52230fbe25/writing/media-party-essay.html)"...
Print will die when awkwardness dies. When coffee shops die. When meeting for dates at coffee shops die. And when before you meet, you read every flyer on the coffee shop bulletin board, so you can pretend you’re not nervous your date won’t show, you’re just super into four-week intensive Spanish courses and Ways to Make Money from Home…when that dies. When idly reading the spines on the bookshelf at a party dies. When reading each city, state, and Pantera West Coast Tour date on the back of the shirt of the kid in front of you, as you stand in the bathroom line, even though you don’t have to use the bathroom, you just want to be part of something larger, dies.
He says, "Print will live for as long as we’re anxious and waiting."
When the Amtrak was pulling into Penn Station, all the lights went out in the train car for a while. The outlets and wifi no longer worked. I put away my devices and started reading the material in the back of the seat.
Speaking of waiting, thanks for reading my writing here at ellipsis notebook. It's been great to have you.
Anything specific you'd like to see here? Please feel free to email me (laurel.schwulst@gmail.com). I love email.