Appreciation for Bath & Body Works

Over the weekend before Thanksgiving, I went on a mother-daughter-son trip to the Orland Square mall. One of the stops was of course Bath & Body Works.

A space mostly for soaps, fragrances, and candles, Bath & Body Works is one of my comfort shops. I don't know the limit when it comes to my sensory intake of smell as an autistic person, but I enjoy smelling the candles.

The accessories for the shop are genius. Here's an example:

The photo is rotated, I know.

Anyway, if you haven't been to Bath & Body Works, the holiday season, or any season, is your chance to go see the items and experience the unique atmosphere. It's not a retailer, but it's a different experience.

The Dreams I Had About High School That Was Different From My Former High School

I want to share with you guys the recurring dreams I have about my former high school, or the distorted version of my former high school.

To give a quick backstory, the high school I went to, and graduated from, was Back of the Yards College Preparatory High School, or BOYCP. I graduated from the school in 2017. I had a rocky freshman year, but things slowly improved from sophomore year; senior year was not only the most crucial year for me, but it was also the best year of high school for me.

The dreams began to happen during my final semesters in college. I do recall seeing the hallway of the third floor of BOYCP, but something told me that the school I knew and adored had been morphed into my dreams; and it felt too good to be true.

At first I didn't mind how distorted BOYCP was in my dreams, but overtime, I just wished my dreams could make an exact, and correct, replica of my former high school. What's worse about those dreams was that none of the people in it were fascinating. I did see my favorite people from high school, like Omar, in those dreams, but they were infrequent.

Nowadays, the distorted high school began to infuse my past academic experiences, from middle school, into the dreams. God, it's been awhile since I looked at my high school yearbooks.

Before I end this post, I want to share an old mirror selfie I took at a classroom at the art wing. I was a senior when I took the photo. I remember hanging out at that classroom everyday with my favorite teacher, Mr. Nagle. Here you go...

One more thing: always remember the place you hold dear to your heart.

So It Started Snowing in Chicago...

On November 20th, snow began to fall in my hometown of Chicago. Specifically when night began. I saw through the window in front, it was rather wonderful AND calming.

I woke up in the morning of November 21st, seeing that the snowing had continued. Here's how it looked like:

I think 3 inches of snow occurred. I think.

Anyway, I know for sure it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. I turned on the wax warmer lamp, carried the CD boombox to turn on the radio, and made the living room holiday central for myself despite the fall/Thanksgiving decor. I highly recommend doing this activity. It truly romanticizes Christmas during November.

My Thoughts on the Targetcore Aesthetic

Target is one of those retail stores we, and I, can't get enough of. That's common knowledge. If that's new knowledge to some of you, there you have it.

I have a mostly positive reception for Target. It has been my comfort retailer since the Kmart near me shut down a long time ago. The store feels like a wonderland to me.

Lately, Target has become an aesthetic. With the bullseye logo, and mascot, the center of how the stores sell products, the franchise has become its own identity with Targetcore goodness.

In my opinion, I find Target influential, as well as inspirational, for shoppers across the board. When it came to the holidays. Honey, I go to their site or app to do some online window shopping.

I find inspiration from Target much so that I made a collage on Shuffles by Pinterest.

Almost all the cutouts were from the screenshots I took from the Target app.

So yeah, I embrace the Targetcore aesthetic.

KUWC Now Has Substack!

EDIT: I created a separate newsletter for Keeping Up With Cristobal, so my username for my profile is @cristobalmartinez, while the site for Keeping Up With Cristobal newsletters will have a separate subdomain on Substack. Find the KUWC site here.

To my KUWC fans,

It's me, Cristobal Martinez. I know I said that this blog started as a current newsletter for my therapist, but I can now share my creative thoughts with ALL of you thanks to Substack!

Now, you can subscribe to my Keeping Up With Cristobal newsletters with this link. My username is @keepingupwithcristobal, since my name appears as a publication name.

I'll still write for this blog, and on Medium (if I have the urge), while speak my thoughts on Swell. As for the "newsletters" to my therapist, I'll have to give it a new name: Cristobal's Water-cooler. It's basically me giving personal updates to my therapist.

I hope you'll join me on Substack! I'll be happy to live inside your inbox whenever you check your email.

Imaginary Friends Are Easy to Interact With

What is the purpose of having imaginary friends? Coming from someone who has an overactive imagination that has issues with actual people, I'd say they are beneficial for many creative outlets. Even if I have executive function, I would create something different inspired by an imaginary friend or two.

However, I didn't start my creative journey with that in my mind, in the past. Throughout my life, I was a perfectionist. I still am. I struggle with perfecting everything and I usually blame it on Happy Gonzales, my imaginary friend. But not anymore. At first, she was quite a handful, given that she was a cartoonish version of the little girl who once bit my finger too hard when I was a little kid.

I didn't get along with Happy throughout my youth, and my early 20s. But, as I am currently in my mid-20s, I knew she had potential in being part of my creative works. I evolved her into a Plotagon character for my animated web series, Dr. Camay's Slice of Life. Here's her in the first episode.

I since used the Plotagon character version of Happy for an episode of my podcast, The Cristobal Martinez Podcast, and, as part of my hobbies, flipnotes.

Here are two collage photos that feature Happy Gonzales, in which I made with Shuffles by Pinterest:

The latter image is my favorite of her appearance.

How to Make Flipnotes Using Google Slides

A flipnote is a form of media that originated from an animation software application called Flipnote Studio, a DSiWare app for the Nintendo DSi. It consists of moving drawings from page to page, of as a comic strip that takes multiple pages.

My favorite experience with Flipnote Studio was making comic-like flipnotes and pretend they're either a movie or a TV show. My siblings did the same. We then branched out to making comic-like flipnotes on Google Slides. Slides is not an animation software application, but it's a gateway for collage and comics to combine into transformative work. I'll teach you how to make a flipnote on Google Slides.

1. Make a flipnote folder on Google Drive. Then, in that folder, add additional folders for your flipnote actors, your locations, your props, and optional, production company logos.

2. For locations, search for images of locations on Google Images, or Pexels. Put those images in your locations folder of your flipnote folder.

3. For flipnote actors, you can search for images of people or characters either on a search engine, or take screenshots of people or characters with your phone or tablet. Then, crop the images, if desired. You'll then go to remove.bg to remove backgrounds from the people or characters. Put those images in your flipnote actors folder.

4. For props, repeat step 3 for images of objects. Put them in your props folder.

5. On your computer, create a blank Google Slides presentation, and make sure the layout is blank. That is where your images come together, along with text and shapes, to make a flipnote.

Here's a sample of three slides from a recent flipnote I made with Google Slides:

It's basically a minimalistic collage, but make it a comic.

You may share these flipnotes privately but not publicly.

Here's a link to a PDF copy of my mini zine of the same premise:

How to Make Flipnotes Using Google Slides Zine.pdf

Happy flipnote-making!

Here's an App to Try: Shuffles by Pinterest

I would like to show you guys a collage photo I made with Pinterest's increasingly popular new application. The collage photo in the app is called a "shuffle." Here's the first shuffle I made:

There were app users who used the cutouts I created for their own shuffles. My cutouts were taken out of my screenshots from Target's app.

Anyway, this app is called Shuffles by Pinterest, or Shuffles, for short. It's where people get to make collaborative collages using their own photos, or photos from Pinterest. The end products are photos suitable for phone wallpapers.

In my opinion, I think Pinterest succeeds in giving people, like myself, a creative outlet. It's basically a virtual playground that anyone can participate in.

As an autistic person myself, this app does feed my imagination. It helps me think outside the box, and it does incorporate visual stimming due to how interactive the artistic app is.

Download Shuffles by Pinterest on iOS or Android.

KUWC Introduction

Hello, everyone!

My name is Cristobal Martinez. Welcome to my blog, Keeping Up With Cristobal!

It started out as a series of newsletters I sent to my therapist, Alex. Then, it became a podcast that lasted two episodes until I was better off with my podcast on Swell, Cristobal's Thinking Bits. Now, it becomes a blog.

Here's a little info of myself: I'm a Chicago-based content creator (filmmaker, writer, podcaster, artist, zinemaker, poet, and playwright), I'm autistic, I'm bisexual, my pronouns are he/him/his, and I'm a first-generation Mexican-American.

For my posts within this blog, I'll be offering lifestyle recommendations, thoughts, and experiences. I hope you'll stick around for future posts. Until then, that's it for this post.

Here's my socials:

Instagram: @thisiscristobal

Pinterest: @hereiscristobal

Medium: @iamcristobal

Linktree: @thisiscristobal

Swellcast: @cristobalabroad