4/18/25

hello diary.

today I worked at my studio for about 6 hours. I made some collage pieces out of alllllll my scrap fabric! this is a fun thing I do when I want to empty out a bin of all the good scraps of pretty fabrics i’ve used for other projects so I can put them to good use even if they’re really small pieces. I made 4 collages! and they’re super cute! gonna take some pics of them on monday and list them for sale on my personal website.

if you’re familiar with the fabric crowns that are popular on Pinterest, i happen to be the OG creator! I made one last batch of those recently and they dropped on my website this afternoon. half of them have sold so far. i’ve been moving a lot of my supplies home from my studio, and i’ve done so good about donating and using up supplies that it’s been a breeze so far! everything has a spot and I don’t have any clutter yet. phew! it’s gonna be hard for me to paint at home because I don’t have very good lighting in my apartment. but I do already have some ideas of stuff I wanna make soonish once my studio is cleared out. my goal is to be all done in there by the end of next week. it’s all so strange! I’m about to graduate!! what?!?!? crazy.

we’re going to Ikea tomorrow. gonna get a clothing rack for my room because I have no room in my closet. I sold some stuff on depop too so that’s good. i’m clearly in a spring cleaning needing to purge stuff state atm. which is good.

bye bye. <3

4/16/25

hello diary. it’s been a while! I’ve been working very hard today on all sorts of things, such as homework, fixing up this site, and getting some personal website/art stuff done. if you’re not here from my art account, it’s @madeleyess on instagram. hi!!!!!

I also did two loads of laundry today and had a yummy lunch of some leftover lettuce wraps which contained mushrooms, onion, broccoli, roasted potato and a very yummy sauce (which was a hodgepodge of other sauces mixed together), and an orange on the side. soooo yummy and refreshing. and we’re getting tacos for dinner!! yay!!

here’s a secret (since this is my diary, after all) - Allison and I are making a movie this summer which we are lovingly calling the “Boyband movie” for now because we don’t have an official title yet. if you happen to know of any Detroit or Ann Arbor based indie boy bands or musicians, send them our way. we’re working on casting some boys and distributed some posters around town the other day which was really fun and so far pretty successful! will keep you updated. perhaps.

are any of you familiar with Ryan ross’s old livejournal.com account? i’m thinking about that today. also, I had a dream last night that I was friends with lady gaga and I spent most of the dream driving in a car with her (she was driving) telling her how beautiful and talented she is. I feel like I should make a place specially for cataloguing my dreams on this site… perhaps i’ll give that some thought. gonna play guitar hero now.

love, maddie

4/11/25

dear diary,

today I worked at my studio for about 6 hours, and then came home because I didn’t have any snacks packed with me (still need groceries) and was scared if I didn't go home and eat asap I would get shaky. came home, made some pasta, and here we are.

while I was cooking I saw on instagram that Metric dropped out of their tour with Bloc Party, which Allison and I were gonna go see in June. I’m so sad about it! I don’t know why they dropped out and I can’t find if there’s any drama happening between the bands… we refunded our tickets because we really just wanted to see Metric, though I do love Silent Alarm.

I also finished up the extra page we’re adding to the site so people can feel more involved here. it’s not going to be diaries but will be a place for you all to chit-chat. people seem very confused about the whole concept behind this site, and why we made it and everything, which i’ve tried to explain. if we had the whole world entering diary entries, it would defeat the purpose. and I don’t know how to do that anyway. but, there is a plan, and I hear everyone’s requests and comments and i’m reading all the messages and emails. the new page will launch within the next week - just need to do some more prepping before I can open it up to everyone!

love, maddie

4/10/25

dear diary,

woah, things are getting crazy on our instagram. the reel I made to promote this whole diary thing is blowing up and directing a lot of traffic to the site and now i’m scrambling to get some more features going to feed the swarms of people hungry to blog! I feel like i’m coding or something. i’m nervous!!! it’s kinda scary!!

I had class early this morning and now I am exhaustedddd. after class I went to my studio and worked for a few hours and then came home and ate tuna salad. I need to get groceries. i’m gonna be sad when I move all my stuff out of my studio in a couple weeks. perks of being an art school senior, you get a studio on campus!!! but then… it all comes to an end after a school year. but someday i’ll have a studio again. that’ll be cool.

Allison is at work so i’m hanging out by myself for the night and working on website stuff. if you’re reading this, leave a comment (you have to click the date and it opens this entry in another page to leave a comment). I wanna know how many of you are seeing these.

xoxoxoxoxo, maddie

4/8/25

hi!! long time no chat. I rearranged my room the other day because when it becomes spring I desperately crave some sort of change in my environment. it’s incredible what moving my bed to a different corner of my room can do for me. my room is now in the third arrangement since I moved into my apartment, and definitely in the best configuration yet to maximize space in my small bedroom. bed is now in opposite corner of door so my room feels way bigger now.

on another note, mannnnn am I feeling the rush of the end of my senior year! i’m speeding my way through the last couple projects I want to accomplish before moving the contents of my studio back to my apartment (nightmare). squeezing the last bits of juice out of my thesis to feel like i’m getting all my ideas out of my brain and into real life. so many ideas!! need to move faster! ahhhh!!!!!

on top of that, Allison and I have something really awesome planned that we can’t really talk about yet. but it’s in the works. and that’s where my energy will be shifting when I’m done with school. more on that soon (maybe)

xoxo

4/5/25

dear diary,

this morning I had a dentist appointment. UGH. it’s fine. I don’t hate the dentist that much because I like knowing my teeth are shiny clean and perfect after. but, they always tell me I need to be better about flossing, and then I feel like a disappointment.

to add to having to be at the dentist at 9am on a Saturday, I ran into my EVIL PSYCHO NINTH GRADE BIOLOGY TEACHER. he was AWFUL. if you know me personally you know exactly who this man is. he’s terrifying and desperately needs a therapist or something. to give those of you who don’t know an idea, he’s one of those power-trippy teachers who likes to make fourteen-year-olds cry to feed his ego. if we didn’t have our homework on his desk BEFORE the bell rang (with only a 5-minute passing time between classes, btw), we would get a 0. he once yelled while we were watching a video in class to scare us. the most infamous moment for students in his class is the goldfish lab: gradually add ice cubes to a beaker containing a goldfish to throw off its homeostasis and slow its heart rate. if the fish died, we would fail the lab. I partipated as little as possible in this lab, trying to protest it for being cruel without having to actually face him reprimanding me. Being in his class gave me so much anxiety (on top of what I already have) that I will probably face some sort of health consequence in the future. I think most of my friend group including myself cried at least once in his presence. i’m sure you can tell that I will never let this go for the rest of my life given that this was 8 years ago. I hate to say that I will never forget him.

anyways, I walked into the dentist and he was sitting in the waiting area. he looked right at me like he was trying to figure out who I was. I almost turned around and left out of fear and then remembered that he is a middle aged man and I am 21 with a kind heart and my whole life ahead of me, and he doesn’t deserve the satisfaction of knowing I am scared of him.

now I am home, playing on my computer and writing, and it’s raining out. Sophie and my mom and I are ordering carry out for dinner later and then we will watch a movie (aiming for watching The Birdcage). signing off, love maddie.

4/4/25

good morning. I just finished writing a new blogpost about why I love Arcade Fire so much. go check it out! i’m currently trying to think of ways to amp up the carouselthirteen instagram presence. I want to gain an audience here! share with your friends! keep in touch with when we post new stuff! I really miss blog sites and it feels so special and happy and fun that we’ve invented our own little space on this website. leave comments and send us messages! let’s all be besties!

anywayssss… today Sophie and I are gonna go thrifting. I have no expectations of what I hope to find. sometimes it’s best that way because you can’t be disappointed, and other times it makes the whole thing way too overwhelming because I have no direction to guide me through racks and racks of clothing. we’ll see how it goes.

speaking of clothes, i’m trying to sell some stuff on depop if anyone wants to look. i’m kinda an amateur at using depop but i’m learning.

signing off. love maddie.

4/1/25

good evening. on this fabulous April fool’s day i’ve made a discovery about myself, which is that I think I have auditory-visual synesthesia. I think this because I was describing a very specific “scene” to Sophie that I can see in my head when I listen to “Save A Prayer” by Duran Duran. One of the best songs ever, btw. First of all, I associate it with night time, and rain, and being in the car late at night as a kid, even though I didn’t know the song as a child (or maybe I just have deep subconscious memories of it locked away somewhere?). It’s the same exact sensation with “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode. But, on top of legitimate associations I make with these two songs, I can see a completely made up scene for save a prayer. Like something that I feel I have a memory of that is completely made up.

The only reason I question whether or not this qualifies as synesthesia is because I don’t really do the thing where I see one specific shape or color when hearing a certain sound. It’s only entire highly detailed images that give me specific feelings, like I’m watching a movie or recalling an actual memory. does this still count as synesthesia?? lmk.

bye bye.

3/31/25

dear diary,

i’m already impressed with my consistency in writing these. three days in a row. I guess I just have a lot to say. Allison didn’t have work today and I didn’t have class so we drove to Ann Arbor because we like to go adventuring there. we got tuna sandwiches at Zingerman’s deli (tuna salad is always best with celery, which is the only instance in which I like celery…besides in the occasional soup). we then got hot drinks to warm us on our walk to the music store, and then we walked back to the car. super eventful. it was freezing out but worth it.

i’m at a time in my life where i’m returning to drinking hot chocolate instead of getting coffee. coffee makes me feel insane. I have to get decaf or else I freak out. so lately i’ve just been getting hot chocolate because it’s not about the caffeine for me, though I do enjoy the taste of a yummy latte. but when you could get hot chocolate why wouldn’t you?

Carousel Thirteen Spotify playlist is official. we’ve decided to make it a rotating playlist that’ll change each month with fresh songs to enjoy! so save it to your libraries, Spotify users! and if you don’t use Spotify, we’re sorry. link to it is on our front page and in our Instagram bio.

love, maddie

3/30/25

Greetings. today we went to the mall (and by we I mean me, Allison, Sophie, and Stella). I like the mall. I like being AT the mall. there’s a feeling to it. But I don’t usually find much joy actually shopping at the mall because I become overwhelmed and annoyed by how not cute things are. but, today was not one of those days.

i’ve been on the hunt for cute knee socks for some time now. and today, a spontaneous trip into free people brought me some beautiful powder blue knit knee socks with some sort of embroidered lace at the top. and some little white ones with lace also. so THAT’S a win. and then, to make things even crazier, we went into urban outfitters and I found a notebook with monchhichi pictures all over the front and a pair of sunglasses. i’d like to say that I don’t like spending money at the two of these stores, because they both make me mad. but sometimes I must give in to shady business ethics for a monchhichi notebook.

not only did I need a new notebook because i’ve actually almost used all of mine up, but I’ve been searching for a pair of sunglasses for quite some time. see, i’m a glasses wearer, and putting my contacts in is usually reserved for special occasions because they’re annoying. however, I think finding the right pair of sunglasses can be really important for a person’s spirit. sometimes I need the sun out of my eyes. and will my use of these sunglasses align with days when I actually put contacts in? mmmm… probably not. but it’s okay, because now I own them and I will never again have to try on another pair of sunglasses at a store wondering if they’re right for me. I found them. and they’ll be there if I need them.

we stopped into Gap as well. it’s not THE Gap anymore, right? idk. but I think the Gap is doing really well at keeping up with what the people want. last night, we went down a rabbit hole of watching old Gap commercials (and by “we” I mean me, Allison, and Sophie), and I was filled with a sense of both hope and dread for the future. hope because the Gap knew how to make good commercials back then. the one with Daft Punk in it?? awesome!! dread because I realized when watching these that nothing will ever come close to the feeling that old iPod commercials give me (that’s where the Gap commercial rabbit hole began). hope again because now one of my goals in life is to guide society back towards the beauty of old iPod commercials. There was a cute powder blue sweater at the Gap that I really liked and I will likely obsess over. I think the Gap is gonna make a major comeback. I feel it. and i’m rarely wrong about these things.

anyways, after the mall we got ice cream. it’s not really that warm yet in MI, but it’s getting there. my ice cream was black cherry flavored and the same color pink as this page. isn’t that cute? I feel happy that I found so many things that i’ve been looking for for a while. it’s satisfying. and the mall was packed, which makes me feel happy. the mall will not die. at least not Somerset.

my next endeavor on this fine Sunday night will be to make a little Spotify playlist to share with you. yes, you! is anyone gonna read this? I am trying to find ways to share more music taste related things. so a playlist is a good place to start. maybe it will become a rotating playlist situation? we’ll see.

bye for now. love, maddie.

ps: I wore my I love NY shirt and my polka dot pants today. just wanted to share.

3/29/25

this is my first diary entry.

As I am approaching the end of my college career, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on how I will be keeping creative after school is over. I’m currently restructuring this very website, to include this very “diary” area that you’re reading now. for some reason, I have desires to share all of my thoughts online, but I haven’t felt like i’ve had an outlet for where to put them. So now there’s a diary.

I like to write things in a more “official” style too, so the “read” section will remain the same, for essays that we write. But I love the idea of a real, true “blog” where I can talk about whatever I want. So here we are. No rules.

There’s a lot of things in the works and I hope you will follow along. I want to post more about music, because that’s always on my mind.

Thinking I should play Guitar Hero soon. Need to keep up my skills. also I trimmed my bangs.

- maddie <3