Day 34 — Space Obsession, the Beginnings

There is a topic I remember being curious about as a child, but never quite having an entry point into—so it drifted off into the void a little: space.

I was gifted a book about the solar system as a kid and read it over and over again. The darkness and mystique of it fascinated me. It felt made up. Scary and beautiful at once. Like… surely this is fiction? (It is not. Slightly rude, honestly.)

It wasn’t until about a year and a half ago that I gave myself permission to return to it. To be the nerd I truly am. Cue a bit of David Bowie in the background, obviously.

I think a big reason it took me this long is that this kind of nerdy interest always felt very… male-coded. Star Wars, astronauts, quantum physics. Meanwhile I was over here painting, thinking about philosophy and culture, asking emotional questions about chairs. How exactly was I meant to bridge that internal canyon?

What changed was having a fellow nerdy, tech friend who would casually tell me about engineering principles and the logistics of international shipping (as one does). He was so unapologetically excited about things that most people find alienating. And in those conversations I realised: I might not have the same knowledge, but my way of thinking—analytical, curious, slightly obsessive—fit.

His trust in me gave me permission to take my own curiosity seriously.

So I started gently. A podcast called Astrum Space. I would listen to stories about planets and physics while drifting off to sleep. There was something incredibly comforting about a topic that had absolutely nothing to do with my daily life. No climate anxiety about Jupiter. No moral dilemmas about Saturn. Stars explode, planets form—it’s all beautifully neutral. The universe is just out there… doing its thing.

For a while, that was enough. But then I started building the bridge further—into shows like The X-Files and Star Trek: The Next Generation. I love watching them with my partner. They both intimidate and light me up. It’s exciting because I can feel how much I already resonate with these worlds, and intimidating because… I am very much a rookie.

But lately I’ve been thinking: maybe that’s the point.

Maybe this beginner’s perspective—this slightly chaotic, curious, “wait what is happening??”—is actually valuable. Space isn’t just science. It’s also storytelling, design, imagination, aesthetics, philosophy. There’s room for all of it.

So I want to start documenting the things I get obsessed with. Podcasts like Are We There Yet?, where I recently learned about tofu in space (yes) and growing vegetables in moon dust—regolith. Apparently you can even buy synthetic moon dust to experiment with at home, which feels like a slippery slope but also… tempting.

You can probably tell I’m a little obsessed.

I’m excited to share more about space, design, and slightly silly media explorations in the future. But for now, I just hope you’re doing well, wherever you are.

Celine