a little (long) life update from me :)

yeah...it's long. 🤷‍♀️

Hey, hi hello!

It’s been a minute since I posted here.

I also sent an email of this same post to my personal email network, so you might get two updates from me - they both have the same content.

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SO. I wrote this to harken back to the days of blogging. Of Xanga. Livejournal. All of those sites where we used to spill our guts and write wistful verses about someone (just me? oh, ok) before subtweeting somebody was even a thing. before Facebook and Twitter taught us to simplify and shorten our life updates.

Social media is, yes, a great way to stay in touch, but it’s become so passive. We throw an update out there, and then move along. We think we are “keeping up,” with people by scrolling through moments in their lives - but we aren’t actually interacting or intentionally reaching out, making plans for coffee, etc. The pandemic shifted so much of our social interaction, and we haven’t exactly bounced back yet. When we do try and make plans, they often get rescheduled, until both ends of the line go silent. I am absolutely guilty of this, and I’m trying to get out of it. 

So… what’s going on in my life? 

🎧 I MADE MUSIC AND RELEASED IT ON A LABEL 🎧

Album art for “exploded views,” by Ben Tatlow 

My music project, Housekeys, has shifted sound over the years, but currently, it’s an ambient/drone/post-rock(ish) project, and I just released a new EP called “Exploded Views,” and worked with the label Slow Echo to release it. It’s my first ever label release, and it’s being really well-received, getting international radio play + has been included on 14 Spotify playlists! In today’s world of streaming, playlists are really important, whether we like it or not. 

I wrote the EP in NYC and ATX, mostly on a Fender Rhodes, Nord Electro, with guitars and pedals to create the atmospheric textures and drone. 

It would mean a lot, actually - more than a lot, if you listened to and shared the EP. Whether you share on social media or just a text to a friend, it doesn’t matter. Artists nowadays need support more than ever to get their music out there, especially outside of our own artist circles. Artists are really good at supporting each other, but we need non-artists too!

👉 Stream/Listen/Share/Download Here 👈

🐴 BACK IN TEXAS 🐴

After bouncing around Boulder, Denver, Seattle, and New York City for the last 8 years, I’ve returned to my original stomping grounds of Fort Worth, TX. When I last lived here, I was paying $400 in rent… not the case anymore, but I found a really cool old warehouse loft apartment in the Southside area.

I was living in Seattle when the pandemic hit, working at the most amazing historic hotel - Hotel Sorrento. We had to shut the hotel down twice in 2020: at the onset of COVID, and in the winter of 2020. It was heartbreaking, but I still keep in touch with dear, dear friends who I know will be in my life forever. That place was a respite for me for so many reasons, and I will forever cherish my time there. 

🗽 LIVING IN NYC DURING THE PANDEMIC 🗽

One of many times I walked all the way across the Brooklyn Bridge

During the early months of 2021, I realized that I had no ties to Seattle anymore: I could go anywhere.

So, I used my unemployment/stimulus money and made the move to the place I have forever wanted to live: NEW YORK CITY (cue, Hamilton’s, “In New York you can be a new man…”)

I found a place on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, paying ‘COVID rent,’ because at the time, NYC was still experiencing a bit of an exodus. There were hardly any taxis on the streets, and we all still wore masks outside.

My apartment was tiny, the floors drooped, the ceiling and windows leaked, the shower was in the kitchen…but it was the perfect place to spend a year in The City. 

I felt like my time there was almost a vacation - like, deep down I knew I was just visiting, but surface-level me thought I’d try and make a home there. But ultimately, I spent most of my time alone in a place with 8 million people living on top of each other. I was *around* people all the time: in yoga classes, tap dancing classes, acting, and of course walking the streets everyday, but still very alone. New Yorkers seem to keep to themselves, and plus, being a non-drinker, I never went out to the bars at night which is 75% of the social life there. 

I have a lot more to share and say about NYC, but it needs its own essay and I’ll eventually get around to doing that. 

🎵 PLAYING SXSW FOR THE FIRST TIME 🎵

My SXSW artist wristband :) 

In January of 2022, I got an acceptance email to perform at SXSW 2022. If you don’t already know, I have a music project called Housekeys, and I had applied to SXSW almost every year for the last few, and finally got accepted. I couldn’t believe it. 

With that opportunity, also came a shift from focusing on acting/theatre back to music. I had put Housekeys on the shelf during most of my time in NYC and did not really write much until January, because now I had a 40 minute set to fill. 

I wrote all new material for that set, and performed alongside some truly prolific and talented musicians at my showcase: Christina Wheeler, Lucy Gooch, Randy Randall, Christopher Royal King, and Nico Rosenberg. You can listen to my set from SXSW here.

I was in Texas for about two weeks, connecting with old friends and in Austin, I stayed with my brother T.R., and my sis-inl-law Nina, plus my niece and newphew: Bodhi and Kai. Being back “home,” geographically and humanly made me want to come back to Texas. 

It was like a switch flipped in my head: I knew my time in NYC was over. I have NO regrets about living there - I needed to do it, and now I know I don’t want to live there. It is forever one of my favorite places, but visiting will suffice from now on. 

🌌 RETURNING TO SCHOOL FOR PHYSICS! 🌌

I have been working on finishing my degree, which used to be English/Medieval History. However, I have switched over to pursue a B.S. in Physics. I have always wanted something in Geosciences, Meteorology, or some other earth science field (volcanos!), but I could never get through the math classes. 

Earlier this year, I started to brush up on Algebra, and discovered that it was finally clicking in my brain, and I felt this incredibly satisfying itch I needed to keep scratching. So, I’ve been taking classes online through Dallas College, where I went years ago after high school, and I’ll eventually transfer back over to UTA in the Spring or Summer of 2023 to finish up by the Spring of 2024. I’m not sure what field I’ll eventually enter, but I’m obsessed with Cosmology and Astrophysics..and weather, volcanos, particle physics, planetary science… needless to say, getting a general Physics Degree to start will help me eventually niche down.

🇮🇸 RECORDING MY FIRST ALBUM IN ICELAND 🇮🇸

Heather and I - 2012 in front of Gulfoss Waterfall in Southern Iceland. 

The first time I visited Iceland was in 2012 with my best friend Heather, for Iceland Airwaves: the annual music festival there. I saw Sigur Rós, Of Monsters and Men, Olafur Arnalds, Ulfur, Ghostown Jenny, and so many more incredible acts. We stayed with Bjorn - an absolutely kind and welcoming local who was also on Icelandic Search and Resuce Dive Team! 

We explored the Southern part of the island, seeing frozen waterfalls, gushing geysers, and how that country is still so alive in winter. We explored the incredible geology of that amazing place, which sits on two tectonic plates, which is why it’s so volcanicly active. We ate chocolate-coverd black licorice, “hardfiskur” aka, the local snack of dried fish, learned about the Huldufólk, or hidden people of Iceland/Faroe Islands who might be human…or elves.

I’ve returned to Iceland three times since 2012, and will be returning again this Fall to record my first full-length album at Sundlaugin Studios - where Sigur Rós, Bjork, Damien Rice, Of Monsters and Men, Dry the River, Sóley, Jon Hopkins, Amiina, and so many more incredible artists have made records. 

I’ll be working with local producer and recording engineer, Albert Finnbogason, as well as local musicians and artists to play on the record. Contributing to the local creative economy as a non-resident is important to me, especially since Iceland has seen such a burst of tourism, bringing over people who only want a stupid Instagram selfie and aren’t interested in the culture, people, natural wonders, or history of the place. Yes, I could bring my own folks over, but I want to collaborate outside of everything I know, with people who embody the place I love so much, and strangely feel at home, despite never having lived there. Maybe in a past life, my energy/matter/particles were something else, existing in Iceland: a flower? A volcano? A puffin? 

✨ LASTLY ✨

Just another selfie in my giant-ass mirror.

Lastly, if you follow me on social media, you know I am vocal about my mental health. I have dealt with the symptoms of depression since high school, and have never really figured out the root cause.

Lately, my hormones have been out of balance (per a blood test from my doctor), and are causing a little more chaos than usual, despite my having years of therapy, sobriety, medication, exercise, etc. 

I’m currently on a mission to figure out what the heck is going on, and I really want to get off my medication, and rely on nutrition, intention, and community to heal, or at least cope. 

Community-care over self-care. We have had ENOUGH self-care. The pandemic isolated us all, and we literally had nothing but self-care. But now, as we are still trying to emerge and integrate back into a world that doesn’t exist anymore, it’s really difficult to connect. I work from home, so I am alone most of the day and am finding that I have to drag myself out of the house to connect with others. I am so used the cocoon and comfort of home, and pride often creates a barrier between myself and reaching out to others for connection. 

So, this little (long) email is one part of reaching out and connecting with intention, and action.

So here’s the action, and I want you to be a part of it, if you want to:

If you are local to DFW, hit me back and let’s get coffee or go on a walk.

If you aren’t local, let’s FaceTime of Zoom.

Let’s be penpals. 

Let’s collaborate on an art project. 

What are you working on? Is there something I could help with? Spreading the world? Sharing?

What DO you need help with right now? Ideas? A new recipe? A way to deal with the stress of climate change?  

I hope you’re well, and I hope I hear from you. 

“Self-care isn’t enough. We need community to survive.” 

💌,

Tiffiny