I will miss you, Workhorse Coffee.

Having my favorites loads of times before I likely never see them again 😣🖤☕️

Hi! I’m Mara, welcome to what became of my need to dump vagrant thoughts and musings in the process of moving from Minneapolis (U.S.) to Manchester (U.K.)

Some things:

- I am 32 and married to the love of my life. We have two cats who are making the international move with us. We decided to move for several reasons, but the recent occupation was the final straw (my husband is an immigrant, we are gtfo’ing back to his home country).

- I am a professional body piercer and a stained glass artist, and sometimes draw Spooky Little Dudes in graphite.

- I like a lot of metalcore, and weird alternative pop music I have no name for (what even IS Purity Ring?). Big fan of Sleep Token, I have seen them live five times since finding them in 2021. I also like classical piano very much. Shoutout to the people making the classical compilation playlists on YouTube, you are my religion.

- This blog will likely be safe from the vast majority of triggers, and aside from the occasional strong language, is not inappropriate for minors to follow or interact. The only potential trigger warning I can think of is that again, I am coming from Minneapolis, which has been occupied by the Gov. Some political commentary and photos may happen.

- I absolutely understand my privilege in being able to move out of the U.S., especially on short notice. This blog comes from a place of awareness of that fact, and deep gratitude.

- I’m happy to give advice where I can for others hoping to leave the U.S., especially going to the U.K. However I am not an immigration lawyer!!

Thanks for being here! I will try to be interesting!

M

Thailand Land Ownership & Visas: Legal Realities for Foreign Investors

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E poi così … improvvisamente luci e colori ti inondano e la sua dolcezza ti lascia fiorire emozioni.

Many expats come to Thailand thinking they understand the basics of visas, extensions, and immigration rules. But there is one rule that catches people off guard again and again.

It is not something most people talk about. In fact, many foreigners live in Thailand for years and never realize it even exists until immigration brings it up.

The problem is that by the time most people discover this rule, it is already too late. That is when the fines show up, or immigration starts asking questions you did not expect.

This rule does not usually lead to deportation, but it can definitely create unnecessary problems that are very easy to avoid if you know about it ahead of time.

If you are living in Thailand, planning to move around the country, or staying long-term, this is something you should understand before it becomes an issue.

Che bello, ieri ho ri iniziato fisioterapia dopo un mese di stop.

Oggi sento un dolore alla caviglia del gamba sana…

Metterò del ghiaggio? Metterò del ghiaccio…

Questa cosa mi fa sentire vecchio e decrepito?

NO COMMENT.

In the center Antwerp / Anversa.

Quartiere dei diamanti .. lí è stata fatta una delle “rapine del secolo” .. architettata e portata a termine da Italiani … alla fine li hanno beccati ma non hanno mai beccato il bottino. Geni del male …

Living in the UK vs Singapore, A Dad’s Perspective After 15 Years Abroad

Living in the UK vs Singapore, A Dad’s Perspective After 15 Years Abroad

Can You Buy Property with Crypto in Thailand in 2026? | Legal Guide

New Thailand investment visa for property buyers. Minimum THB 3,000,000 investment. Freehold & leasehold options available. Discover how to legally buy Thai property with crypto and secure your visa. Contact our lawyers for an eligibility review.

Sometimes I hear my “nannying voice/accent” and it’s a very chaotic mix and British, Australian, New Zealand and a little bit of Swedish accents lol

Also my Swedish speaking voice is so bad because I tend to only speak it when nannying so in a store I either sound too Australian or too much like I’m talking to a baby

Thinking of starting up a YouTube channel about how my life in japan is. Im not sure what the videos should be about though.

Just a bunch of videos of me cleaning my house and no talking?

My life as an autistic and disabled foreigner living in japan?

If I do it then I want something easy to do and low key. No tourist stuff, I dont want to have to stress about dealing with large crowds just to make a YouTube video. I also dont want to do anything filming out in public

Got a condo in Thailand? Earning rental income? 💸 It’s tax time!

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Need help setting up your Property Investment Visa or filing taxes? Message us on WhatsApp: +66846764436 or apply here: https://re.sukhothaiinterlaw.com/thailand-property-investor-visa/

4 Years in Thailand (What Most Foreigners Don’t Tell You) feels very different when you live it long term. Living in Thailand is exciting at first. The culture is vibrant. The cost feels manageable. The pace seems relaxed. But after four years in Thailand, deeper truths become visible.

Some expats grow stronger here. They build routines. They protect their mornings. They train their bodies. They develop businesses. They choose friends who push them forward. Thailand becomes a platform for expansion.

Others slowly drift. Late nights increase. Discipline fades. Structure weakens. Comfort becomes the new normal. It does not happen fast. It happens gradually. Living in Thailand makes drift easy if structure is not intentional.

The country itself is neutral. It gives space. That space can help you grow if you bring discipline with you. It can also magnify distraction if you avoid responsibility. Environment reflects internal standards.

Your circle matters deeply. If you spend time with focused people, you stay focused. If you spend time with people escaping pressure, you absorb that energy. Expat life can look free from the outside. But freedom without direction becomes slow decline.

Four years in Thailand teaches that identity shapes outcome more than location does. Habits, standards, and daily structure decide your direction.

In the center city , Hannover

ALT

Re: No more holiday cards?

[republished from an email correspondence on February 18th, 2026 at 6:22 p.m.]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 6:22 PM trevor brown <bboyblu72@gmail.com> wrote:

I mean I have like twenty-seven or maybe twenty-eight. I guess its understandable if you updated your mailing list. But I at least wanted to get to a full set of thirty.

On Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 11:18 PM Dave Prager <davepraeger@aol.com> wrote:

Hey Trevor - we haven’t done one for a few years. Every year we talk about it but never do it 😪 the last one was in 2024, back when AI image generation was unique. You’re still on the list! Is this still your address?

ALT

But now that you’ve got me thinking about you, I just found this!

Are you still taking photos? 

Dave

On Wed, Feb 19, 2026 at 6:20 AM trevor brown <bboyblu72@gmail.com> wrote:

Good morning Prager/Steeves, my first holiday card that I remember was Mr. Prager in front of an unemployment office. Well that was nearly thirty years ago so my memory may not be trustworthy. But the cards clearly followed your life-phases. 

•Dave Prager, single dude

•Dave Prager, boo’d up

•Dave Prager, married

•Dave & Jenny, being un-childrened adults

•Dave & Jenny, new parents

•Dave & Jenny, we got this parenting thing on lock

Personally since I think they started in the late nineties, I just wanted to get to thirty years. That would have felt like a full collection. Maybe it is 30, I am really bad at numbers, and the cards are decorative elements in my apartment, so its hard to find them all.

I moved into my forever apartment right after I started at Kirshenbaum, I haven’t left since, and will even keep it when I retire, which should be soon, I am already in pre-retirement. Just need to figure out how to move into full retirement mode.

OMG My WNYC New York Moment, that was such a time I was one of the artist who’s work was on sale at the Brooklyn Youth Chorus benefit with Felicia Stingone from kpb, it was one of the pieces from my Bombay Sapphire solo exhibition, then I was off to debut at Art Basel in Miami where Russell Simmons twittered me (this was before his me-too disgrace, we now don’t talk about that).

But to answer your question, I have fully embraced all of my artistry, writing, fashion, interior design, formerly website design and of course my original medium photography and the various styles there-within. With Apple’s new Journal I write on a daily basis and a lot of those entries turn into short-form essays that I publish on my digital obituary 

@xtrablak674 · Stylishly Queer & Vintage Specific

That might sound morbid, but unlike others I know my family has been short-lived, all my parents are dead, I am unmarried/uncoupled, and have no progeny. I thought it was a good idea to write about my life, my accomplishments how ever meager, and talk about the people and things that were important to me. 

I have revisited old blog post and writings as far back as the eighties, adding my present-day perspectives in an essay. Sometimes I will talk about my artistic process, which I have a clearer voice for now then when I was actually actively exhibiting. I am about to launch a new series where I publish a poem hopefully daily, but probably weekly of my dad’s. I finally just digitized his work. I want to add my images to his words in a post-humous collaboration.

I have no beliefs that Tumblr will be around forever, but part of my unpacking of my life has had me exploring things from Internet 1.0, like my old livejournal which is still alive on the web and old photo files from images taken in the early aughts. I have been amazed at my artistry on archive.org looking at some of my old website designs, and also learning that things are indeed finite on the internet. The only sure way to possibly leave a mark is to just put things out there and hope they may survive. And I am trying just that.

Y'all for all intensive purposes look like y'all are doing well, I mean whoever really knows what goes on inside of some one’s personal life, all due respect. But you see happy, and your still together, which might also be good, I make no assumptions.

Someone posed a question on one of my many shows, I think it was a 70s British sci-fi program, when is a photograph finished? Albeit I have taken thousands of photos I only printed what I needed for exhibition. And even though my home is infested with artwork I am making the room to bring to life images I have loved, but never finished. So yes, photography is still a part of my life, thank you for asking. Please excuse my long-winded reply, writing daily means you have a tendency to over-express yourself, all the time.

Peace, love and hair grease

T

[Reflection: You know I don’t think I have ever spoken about Dave Prager, with all due respect I met Jenny Steeves later. Mr. Prager was an intern in the interactive department at Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, now this is way back in the late nineties. I think I had only been with the agency maybe a little over a year when young Mr. Prager joined us from Syracuse University. Yes, I remember little things like that because I think he published a newsletter or something that I was exposed to from him during that time. It’s eluding me exactly what it was, but he had a unique sense of humor which is why Ms. Van Aarle bought him on with another David, Steketee who had an interest in photography, I have included one of the two photos he took of me within this post.

As I recall I was the youngest staff member in the i-dept, I was bought in primarily to assist in integrating the niche department into the wider agency, but back to Mr. Prager. I am so reaching, but he also had design skills, whatever he was doing up in Syracuse had a design element. Albeit I think he was interning with us as a copywriter, I think we had him do some production work, because hey, warm body, and he knew Photoshop!

ALT

I still think of him as young Mr. Prager, which is something my late mentor Leslie Loeb would do with me, she called me Young Trev, it felt like a form of endearment more than anything. I have to think Mr. Prager was no more than four to five years younger than me. I was never really sure, it wasn’t my business to interview interns, so I am guessing. My general assessment of my relationship to Mr. Prager was the mildly older eccentric co-worker. To say I knew who Mr. Prager was, would be a false assumption.

I think I can say definitively we became friends, I am not sure exactly how or when, but I think my supporting his endeavor of PoopReport.com helped, I think he has scrubbed that site from the internet, which is weird to me because he also wrote a book based on the same subject material. I recall attending a reading at Barnes & Nobles in Park Slope. It all felt so fancy, my little intern was a big author now, well under a pen name Praeger, I think is the change he did to his last name. I am sure I still have the copy of the book on my shelves somewhere, I hope he signed it. I can sell it on eBay with my Jesse Jackson presidential run buttons.

Now, yes I know you’re probably not suppose to start a sentence with whatever kind of word “now” is, but I write like I talk. The next big interaction I can remember with Mr. Prager was his year long stay in India with his now wife Jenny Steeves. Total aside, I am so pleased she kept her maiden name or is just name name? I am not really sure how that works. I am not about to go-on about a feminism thing or whatever, but it just feels better to me for a woman to keep her identity when she gets married, why does she need to become a part of his family? They should become a part of each others families. Sorry, I will get down off of the soap box.

Okay so the Prager/Steeves were in India, and I had never been, so I was curious about what it was like. Now, yes, that again, I think they said they were coming back to the state in May, the hottest month, and I said sure I would love to come to a foreign country I have never been to in their hottest season. I can recall emails from Mr. Prager very concerned about if I could whether the weather, as it were, or is it weather the weather? Obviously not an English major.

I loved the heat, I loved the culture, I really loved Ganga’s dishes that she would create out of I think no more than $500 rupees. Ganga was the reason I decided to hire a cook on my sabbatical in Baja in ‘21 after the witch melted. I also loved that I went to this very foreign country with little to no plan whatsoever, and had an excellent time. All of this was recorded in my ninety-second vlog entries which still exist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL88D32B9CC81E87F6&si=93lSA11IP_-w75Hh

I can say definitively that I got to know the Prager/Steeves a little better during this trip, we went to the mall, I experienced an authentic Indian movie experience, with intermission and everything. I think we even shared some meals together, oh and Dave and I ate at a Subways. Nothing I love more than traveling to a foreign country and eating at an American franchise. Don’t think I didn’t also go to the McDonald’s and have their alternatives to burgers.

They were only there a couple of days, before they left for the states. So I would still say me and the Prager/Steeves were friendly, but not close, not that there was anything wrong with that. Now all during this time, I had been on Mr. Prager’s holiday card list, I think the first one was of him photographed outside of the Brooklyn Unemployment office, I knew this because I had regularly visited that building. I will have to say one of my favorite holiday cards, in the about thirty years they sent them out, was the photo of the actual Indian movie poster they had made while they were in India, next to that elephant artwork they had, I was so jealous of that, it was such a brilliant idea, and an excellent cultural memento of their year of ex-patriotism.

Then as it eventually happens with homo-romantic couples they had kids **cue disdainful face gif**, I know its a thing the breeders, well that word isn’t very nice, how about the Straights, do. Yes, non-straights do it to, but logistically it can be harder. The normal progression of any friendship with folks with kids is non-existent. They have their little mortgages, so you won’t hear from them for at least two decades or so.

ALT

Even the holiday cards reflected their new found parent-ship, I was lukewarm to say the least about some of those cards, they just hadn’t found the stride of Jenny & Dave as a couple, that is until the New Yorker one, another on my top ten, if not five easily. Now that wasn’t their full set of kids, I think, just the first one. (Don’t ask me their names, I wasn’t really paying attention) But the energy was more unified then some of the earlier attempts. I mean I still don’t get that one with the fake kids and the dogs, before they had kids, I did mention Mr. Prager had a unique sense of humor.

Cut to yesterday when I just decided to email them using the email addresses I had from '08, wow that India year was the last time I had communicated with them, as I said, you know progeny. Mr. Prager responded with updated emails for both him and his wife. I assumed his uncle stu domain had some kind of forwarding, Prager’s technical knowledge was always quite good.

Oh, did I mention the one time I designed a portfolio website for him? It primarily contained his photography and writing samples, I can recall I was so proud because I had recently learned CSS and the site was entirely in CSS, cascading style sheets. I am not sure if he ever actually used the site or not, it was just a nice creative flex for me. My favorite site design during that period was the one for our co-worker Jeff Casto, who I also managed to stay friends with after kb&p.

Anyway, this is all a bit meta, since I just told Prager/Steeves my digital obituary talks about people I found important, so I sort of wrote this because I felt guilty that they weren’t really mentioned, I am not really sure, I have over four hundred entries as this point, but they were more than likely just a passing mention. But we have now rectified that, since the prompt of their email inspired me to write about, not knowing them, and sharing the things that I did know.]

[Photo of the Prager/Steeves last holiday card courtesy of the Brown Estate]

I’m a 38-year-old Filipina who officially reached the age where I need a calculator just to remember how old I am.

Most of those years have been spent right here in the Philippines. Aside from a brief stint in the US as a toddler (of which I remember exactly zero), my life has been a map of moves: Quezon City to Makati, then Los Baños, and finally, Bacolod.

Bacolod is where life really happened. It’s where I settled down, got engaged, and brought my daughter into the world. It’s been a beautiful, steady life. But apparently, the universe (and the US Embassy) had other plans.

Out of nowhere, I received a letter. It turns out a petition filed by my mom all the way back in 2014—nearly twelve years ago—is finally being processed. In a couple of months, my 4-year-old and I are headed to The Big Apple that could change our lives forever.

I’ve always harbored this secret dream of being a journalist or a columnist. Think Carrie Bradshaw, but minus the “diva villain” energy and plus a lot more rice. Maybe this is it. Maybe this move is the niche content I was born to write.

It’s a massive adventure, and honestly? I’m not ready. But I’m leaning into the chaos and taking the ride anyway. Stick around—it’s about to get interesting.

11 Febbraio 2024 più o meno in questi minuti venivo a sapere qualcosa che ancora oggi, alcune volte , mi dà da pensare… la vita va avanti .

Il prezzo è stato alto .

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