As I mentioned earlier this month I’ve barely read anything at all in 2023, but I didn’t want to just list the same old favorites. I read all of these in the last couple of years.

The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Dr. Edith Eva Eger

I’m not sure I’ll ever be half as forgiving and positive as Eger, who tells the story of her imprisonment in Auschwitz, having to dance for Mengele, and her path back to a full and happy life. She’s an amazing human with an amazing story. The sequel, The Gift, is also excellent, but I love a good memoir, and this one was both uplifting and deeply harrowing.

The Woman Who Would be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt by Kara Cooney

I have mentioned I’m a huge Egyptology nut, and Hatshepsut, a woman who remade her image as a pharaoh into a King rather than a Queen is a fascinating story. Cooney’s book adds speculation about Hatshepsut’s life based on the available evidence – she talks about what it might have been like for the pharaoh navigating the world of Ancient Egypt, rather than dryly recounting the artifacts and inscriptions verbatim. The result is a sort of imaginative biography and it’s fascinating.

She Who Changes: Re-Imagining the Divine in the World by Carol P. Christ

You may have a hard time finding this one – I ordered it from a used bookseller online – but it’s so worth it. This was the first work on Process Theology I read, and it made my head spin around (like a record, baby). It can be a bit dry, so I recommend taking it chapter by chapter.

Spells for Living Well: A Witch’s Guide for Manifesting Change, Well-being, and Wonder by Phyllis Curott

As you may recall I am a longtime Curott fan. Her Witch Crafting is still among my favorite books on the Craft. This little spellbook is so refreshing compared to most of the recent spellbooks I’ve looked at; Curott’s focus is always on the spirituality, meaning, the Divine! There are more than just “manifesting” what you want type spells, there are those for the Earth herself, for the greater good, and to help you connect to Nature. But don’t worry, there are plenty of spells for your needs and desires as well. I looked forward to this book from the moment it was announced, and I was not disappointed.

Rebel Witch: Carve the Craft That’s Yours Alone by Kelly-Ann Maddox

I’m a big fan of Kelly-Ann’s as well – when I got back into the Craft after my long hiatus hers was one of the Youtube channels that drew me in. Her videos are both practical and imaginative, and she doesn’t try to fill your eyes with pretty scenery and cottagecore props; she sits there and talks to you (most of the time) and is straightforward, hilarious, sometimes emotionally raw, and always wise. There’s nothing wrong with the dreamy cottagecore vibe, I quite like it in fact, but sometimes I want more than something pretty, I want to talk to a friend about the wherefore and why of magic. She goes into mental health a lot and how you can work with the Craft to help your trauma and emotional well-being, and she’s big into deep self-care and self-love, not in terms of baths and spa days alone but in terms of doing your Shadow Work and truly healing. Her book Rebel Witch is a distillation of her ideas and applies them to creating your own form of Witchcraft that fits your life and your beliefs. I adore her and am gleefully anticipating her future books! Definitely try her videos if you haven’t.

Congratulations on bringing a Sylvan into your family! You can look forward to years of companionship, more or less, and a lot of quips! Please keep these instructions and tips in mind when setting up your Sylvan’s enclosure and caring for her.

Basic Care Instructions

1. Your Sylvan will thrive best in a quiet, cool room with ample blankets and pillows. She will also require variable light depending on her activities. A bit of sunlight is great, but be sure her enclosure does not overheat or she will fly into a sobbing rage.
2. Sylvans are herbivores, which means they do not eat meat, dairy, eggs, or honey. You will find your new friend is happiest on a diet of Beyond Chicken Nuggets, potatoes, and a ketchup/sweet chili dipping sauce. Frequent supplementation with fruits and vegetables is recommended to keep your Sylvan happy and healthy!
3. Sylvans eat irregularly if left to their own devices. They may completely forget to eat if they are in the middle of a project or just don’t want to get up.
4. Sylvans often refuse to drink adequate water, so, it is best to lure them into the idea by keeping their water supply in a cute bottle with plenty of ice. Speaking of ice, did you know one of a Sylvan’s favorite treats is a Starbucks iced Blonde Vanilla oat milk latte? Bring one to her and watch her light up!
5. Other safe treats for your Sylvan include Golden Oreos, soft pretzels, black bean chalupas from Taco Bell (please be sure there is no sour cream, avocado, or cheese as these are toxic for your Sylvan!), and Oatly ice cream.
6. Your Sylvan will sleep most of the day. This is natural! Sylvans are by nature deeply depressed and in order for them to function at all they require adequate rest, which will seem like a lot to the average human. Social interactions may leave your Sylvan sluggish for several days. Don’t worry, she’ll perk back up! Just be patient.
7. When not sleeping your Sylvan will want to spend a lot of time writing. For best results be sure she has a Macbook to work on. You may observe behavioral changes while she is writing, including wailing, gnashing of teeth, screaming, and erratic gesticulation. She may even dance around her enclosure in triumph from time to time. Have your camera ready!
8. Since your Sylvan is a rescue she may have a lot of emotional and physical issues. Your vet will provide all the necessary medications. Be sure she gets them per the dosage instructions. As long as she has a Coke Zero or iced coffee your Sylvan should not be difficult to pill. If she is being stubborn, hide the pills in a nut butter and jam sandwich (toast for best results).
9. In general Sylvans do not require a lot of external stimulation, as they are quite happy to spend time alone with books, a computer, and the occasional craft project. If you notice your Sylvan acting listless open her phone to Pinterest and let her browse for a while, or try one of the enrichment activities from the list below.

Tips for Keeping Your Sylvan Busy and Engaged:

1. Provide crossword puzzles and trivia games for your Sylvan. They are masters of useless facts.
2. Your Sylvan will enjoy videos just like you do! She will appreciate dollhouse and miniature project tutorials, ASMR videos (especially before bed!), vegan recipes, and programs about paleontology, archaeology, Egyptology, and disasters both man-made and natural; as well as nature documentaries narrated by Sir David Attenborough. She may also enjoy videos about Witchcraft and Paganism, but pay attention to her cues to be sure you don’t force her to sit through the irritating “aesthetic” stuff.
3. As for other visual enrichment, introducing your Sylvan to new content may take time. She will gravitate toward shows and movies she’s already seen 100 times, but if you leave hints and reviews of a new program around eventually you may pique her interest. If she seems agitated default to Lucifer, The Sandman, Golden Girls, Jurassic Park films, Disney animated works, and the first three or so phases of the MCU. Above all do not inflict “comedies” on her that involve men farting/defecating and behaving in misogynistic or homophobic ways.
4. Books! Books are important to your Sylvan even if she never seems to read them. She appreciates nonfiction the most, particularly history, archaeology, and other subjects she likes on video. Books related to forensic anthropology are appreciated, as are books on religion, metaphysics, mythology, and cooking. She will probably never cook; these books are purely for her enjoyment.
5. When it comes to her own books, it is imperative that you do not let her peruse reviews of her work – no, not even great ones! Studies have found that even good reviews cause her to have difficult feelings including inadequacy and a sense of failure. These will interfere needlessly with her current work. If you need her to work under a deadline, she will do great, as long as you provide additional iced coffee and snack supplementation.

Follow these hints and instructions and you and your Sylvan will have many happy years together! Don’t and, well, she’ll be a raving bitchmonster or at least super whiny and prone to soul-barf all over Facebook. Good luck!

Yeah, I’m sucking at this, aren’t I? LOL. I’ve been having a few hard days, mentally, so my executive functioning has taken a dive. Hopefully in a few more days I’ll perk back up, but in the meantime, I’ll try and get the rest of the prompts as done as I can. Bear with me.

Day 26

“Excuse me.”

The man looked up from the label of the last pint of Cherry Garcia. “Huh?”

“I was reaching for that when you grabbed it. I was here first.”

A withering glance. “Yeah, well, I’m faster.”

“Sir…I’ve had a bad night and I think for your own safety you should try a different flavor. Please.”

A laugh, derisive. “Man, fuck off.”

Four sounds:

1. The sound of a leather coat being opened
2. The sound of a sword being partially drawn
3. The sound of footsteps retreating rapidly
4. The sound of a pint of ice cream being caught one-handed as it flew through the air

A sigh. “Did you really just threaten someone over ice cream? Again?”

“…I said please.”

I apologize that these images aren’t “aesthetic” or anything. I think I may do a separate post soon that’s just supplies I use in my Grimoire, but for now, these are things I reach for time and again when doing any sort of craft or art. This is not a smallish post, but it was fun!

Note that I don’t really have favorite paint brushes – I do far more craft painting than “art” painting, so I’m kind of whatever on brushes as long as they’re synthetic. These are the ones I’m using right now but I wouldn’t call them “favorites.” I’ll try to add links to the products where I can; please note they are all Amazon links because it’s the most accessible to the most people, but most of this stuff you can find in other craft stores or online stores if you don’t shop at Amazon.

Left to right:

1. Wooden coffee stirrers are useful for just about any miniature craft. They can be flooring, trim, railings, picture frames, and on and on, and they come in boxes of at least a hundred for not much money.
2. These Fiskars microtip scissors are awesome.
3. I love my little hand drill, which comes with a billion bits, and is much easier to deal with for tiny holes than some big electrical monster.
4. I’m currently using Arteza acrylic paints for most of my miniatures, mostly because the box came with 65 colors and wasn’t all that expensive. I’m not sure how well they’d work for fine art, but they’ve been great for my dollhouse.
5. My pen of choice for both lettering and drawing is the Uni Pin. They’re waterproof and don’t smudge, and they work well in my bullet journal as well as on drawing paper.
6. In the back we have Mod Podge matte glue/sealant and one of their newer products, Dimensional Magic – it’s essentially the same thing as Ranger’s Glossy Accents, but GA is getting hard to find in any of the stores near me. Mod Podge brand things are everywhere. (And if you say Modge Podge I’ll scream.)

1. I got this tool box from Temu, but don’t worry, I’m not shopping there anymore (although honestly if you’re willing to buy from Amazon or Wal Mart you have no business lecturing people about Temu); it was very inexpensive and isn’t what you’d call professional quality, but it was a great size for my miniaturist’s tools. I added the Pusheen stickers.
2. I started out my dollhouse using wood glue, but working with it kind of annoyed me, so the last few months I’ve gone back to good old Aleene’s Tacky Glue. This fast-grab stuff lives up to its name pretty well. I especially like how you can get these stand-up bottles so you don’t have to wait for all the glue to run back down to the tip every time.
3. On the left front is a silicone clay shaping tool. I ordered a set for working with polymer and air-dry clay, but discovered that this one is great for applying tiny amounts of glue, and the glue comes right off when you’re done. (Link goes to a different set but it’s the same thing.) I think people also use them for nail art.
4. The three little pots are ground up chalk pastels. They’re excellent for shading and coloring polymer clay and other things; I use a paintbrush to apply them.
5. In the back we have a razor saw – a godsend when you’re working with craft wood! An X-Acto knife can only do so much, but this wee saw, which came with a very useful miter box, is a great and inexpensive tool to have and it comes apart for easy storage. Mine finally needs a new blade but it lasted over a year.
6. I also use a lot of nail files for sanding. I do use sandpaper for larger things but a two-sided nail file is so much easier to work with and travel with.
7. Lastly we have strong double-sided tape, which I use in all my artsy-craftsy projects. There are a lot of brands out there and as far as I can tell they’re all exactly the same product. I don’t like anything smaller than 1/4″ in width because it’s very hard to keep on the roll, but sizes up to over an inch are available. 1/4″ and 1/2″ are my faves. It tears easily and sticks firmly.

I added some of the tools I use for paper crafting and bullet journaling (including my BoS), but many come in handy for miniatures as well.

1. Left to right we have a white rubber eraser, in my opinion the best kind – I also love the ones in a plastic holder that click up. You can get refills for those, yay! But the block one shown here is great for larger areas.
2. My pen of choice for everything is the Pilot Precise V-5. Unfortunately they’re not water resistant so they’re not all that great for using with wet media or markers, so I adopted the Uni Pin for those purposes. I love a smooth inked 0.5 pen.
3. The Kuru-Toga mechanical pencil delights me – because of how the lead rotates it almost never breaks. Again, I prefer 0.5 width.
4. The Uni Ball Signo gel pen in white is very popular among paper artists and crafters – it’s so hard to find a white pen that’s opaque enough. The popular variety is the broad nib, but I prefer these “Angelic” versions that are a finer nib on Jet Pens (a very dangerous website for writing implement enthusiasts).
5. Ahhhh, Zebra Mildliners. They work as traditional highlighters in non-screaming colors, but they tend to be used all over bullet journals for adding gentle color. I particularly enjoy the neutral color set, but I have all of them. I even use the brown one when doing miniatures – it stands in for wood stain very well in small areas.
6. This particular Scotch glue stick is in my opinion the best for gluing paper to paper. It hangs on a lot more firmly than regular glue sticks.
7. I almost forgot to include my tweezers! Very important for making miniatures! I think these are also made for nail art, but their tiny tiny points are exactly what I need for minis. The bent neck is especially helpful for those hard to reach places.
8. For color both in art and craft I use my Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils. They don’t use animal-based colors in their lead, and because the lead is oil-based they don’t break constantly like, say, Prismacolors. I do however use a Prismacolor blending pencil since Polychromos doesn’t have one of its own. I’ve been meaning to try gamsol for blending but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
9. A bone folder (not made of bone, of course, I think this one is just hard plastic) is handy for everything, but it’s even useful in miniatures for folding tiny paper boxes and book pages.
10. Last of all is a completely free tool! If you use washi tape for anything at all, don’t bother with expensive cutters, just get yourself a gift card. It tears the tape perfectly and is also good for smoothing it down. There are all sorts of cutters out there, but I have yet to want anything more pricey than my old Target Pharmacy card. I cut it in half so it would fit better into my travel kit.

Ooof. Here we go. Good thing compound sentences are my jam.

I am a Witch and a UU, and I believe both in magic and science, as well as in a deity that evolves, loves, and sorrows with their children; who is neither omnipotent nor omniscient but eternally present and benevolent; and that deity manifests itself to me as a more-or-less dyad Goddess of forest and moonlight, life and death, and above all things love.

Day 20: Five things I love about life right now.

1. Vanilla iced lattes with oat milk are readily available.
2. When I’m at home I can have a cat to pet pretty much whenever I need one.
3. When I have good days I’ve learned how to appreciate them more and not sink as low when I remember they won’t last long. I’ve spent decades learning to think of my mind as the sky and my mood as the weather – always changing, never one way for long. Even a torturous summer or the depth of winter will eventually give way. I’m not always successful but I’ve gotten SO much better at navigating the forecast.
4. My most recent hobby – making miniatures – is really fun and I’m still enjoying it immensely. My big project is just about done but there are always plenty more little ones to try!
5. In spite of everything seeming to get worse about the world, I still see little acts of kindness and beauty, little works of art, little moments of grace all over the place. Sometimes the hope of those little things is all I’ve got where humanity is concerned, but as long as you have hope for the world, there’s hope for the world.

Day 21: The best thing about Summer

The end of it.

Oh and also snow cones.

Day 22: It’s embarrassing but true…

I haven’t read a single book this summer. In fact I’ve only read two or three this whole year. Isn’t that awful? Normally, I at least read nonfiction – I love learning about new things and history and archaeology and all sorts of philosophical and metaphysical topics. The last one I remember reading was a book on process theology by Carol Christ, which I think I mentioned a couple of months ago. Months!

Also a bit embarrassing: I hardly ever read fiction. I’m not sure why, although it might have similar causes to the fact that I almost never want to start a new TV series. Both require a massive emotional investment, or at least they do the way I enjoy things. And I almost never read urban fantasy because it starts leaking into my own work; I’d rather be inspired for my novels by Marvel movies or mythology and have to figure out how to twist those ideas into the kind of fiction I write. (Also I am incredibly insecure and often reading novels makes me despair for my own talent, which stops me from writing.) I can’t actually remember the last novel I read.

So embarrassing.

Day 19: Today the Sky Is…

…trying to kill us all as it has been for a couple of weeks now, but we got a moment’s respite this afternoon. While my roommate and I were safely in the Alamo Drafthouse air conditioning watching Mission: Impossible, a tiny patch of rain made its way into our area of Austin and it’s been raining off and on since. Walking out of the theater the petrichor was so strong it nearly knocked the breath out of me. The temperature was a good five or six degrees cooler, like paradise.

The Sun has been punishing this month – the sky that blue so intense it hurts your eyes. But at least today there was a rainbow. As much as I love to see those, and as much as I wanted to enjoy the brief moment of relief from the heat, the thought occurred: This is probably the coolest sumer of the rest of our lives.

First, since we’ve reached the halfway mark of July, let’s see where we are:

Today’s topic was a substitute for the original, which was “my Patronus.” I choose not to engage with Rowling’s work anymore out of a) outrage and b) love of my trans friends, so, I needed a new term – and “spirit animal” is a Native American phrase I’m not comfortable stealing either, so I remembered once a friend called a particular cat their “soul kitty,” and thought, that’s what I want to use.

Now there are two ways to go with that – an individual animal that was precious to me, or an animal out in the world that I love and perhaps identify with.

For the first I would reach into my still-grieving heart and tell you about Owen, my panda cat, who died two years ago after a long illness I didn’t identify until it was too late. He was a huge cat, not just fat but huge. He was grouchy and snuggly and I could pick him up and do anything I wanted with him; he was just an absolute love, and just typing this is making my eyes burn. I adored that cat for eleven years, from the day someone gave him to me (covered in fleas, lol) to that last moment in the vet’s office that completely shattered me. I still cry almost every time I see his picture, which is why I’m not posting one here. My sweet chonk. I love Darcy, our latest kitty, to a ridiculous degree, and I’ve loved other cats like my Stella and Cosmo, but if I had to call one my soul animal, it would be my Boogerfish.

For the second, much less sadly, I would 100% say pigs! I love pigs! They were one of the reasons I went vegan, learning about not only their torture and horrifying deaths in animal agriculture, but also learning that they’re smart (they can play video games, and are said to be smarter than dogs or toddlers), have complex emotional lives, and, like fat women, have been maligned as lazy and sloppy and gross when they are none of those things, just based on what they look like. One of my online usernames is Piggy Stardust. And, knowing how much I love them, one of my bestest good friends brought me back a pig ornament from England that I used in a spell to help me stick confidently to my vegan practice.

It was inevitable that I’d get behind, I suppose – at least I had this weekend to catch back up! My mental weather has been stormy the last few days so, once I realized how morose and crappy I was feeling, I decided not to inflict any more of that on you guys. 😀 I apologize for the post complaining about my career – that’s an example of how I think when my depression works the graveyard shift, as the songwriter says.

Anyway, let’s catch up!

Day 13: Something I’ve Always Wanted to be Good At

I’m good at a lot of things. I’m a good writer (sometimes awesome), I can bake deliciously, I can draw and letter (not nearly as well as I’d like, but well enough for what I do with my art), I can build miniatures (some of my construction ends up pretty shoddy but it always seems to look great by the time it’s in the house – plus I’ve only been doing it for a year, so I think I’m doing pretty well). I’m very good at my day job (I basically start businesses for people, including nonprofits). I make all kinds of things.

No matter how great you are at how many things, though, there are always those “but if only…” skills and talents. Writers wish they could draw. Musicians wish they could write. Actors and writers both wish they got a decent deal with studios. (Stand with WGA-SAG-AFTRA!) We all want to do what we don’t already do even if what we already do is amazing.

I’d still like to play piano, though. I’ve wanted to do something musical my whole life – sing, which I do anyway even though I can’t hold a tune very well; or play an instrument, which has always taken time and money I didn’t have or wasn’t willing to devote. That’s why I always write musicians – I can’t play but I can write! (Well, that, and violinists are inherently sexy. I don’t make the rules.)

I’ve also always wanted to learn Spanish, but fool I am I took French in high school and college, little of which I remember now, merde. I can still learn Spanish if I put my mind to it. It would be so useful! Not to mention most of my coworkers are of Mexican descent and banter in Spanish all the time, and I’d love to eavesdrop on their conversations, because I am a nosy Scorpio.

Day 14: A Weird Thing I Do When I’m Alone

I talk to myself. And yeah, everyone talks to themselves, but not everyone runs the dialogue from their novels aloud in character when they’re alone. That’s why my dialogue sounds like it does, I say it all out loud, while imagining the scene playing out. It’s a utilitarian form of playpretend, I suppose.

I also sometimes narrate what I’m doing in the kitchen as if I were hosting a cooking show. I almost always do that in some weird half-assed accent like snooty British or dreadful, dreadful Scottish. Back when I let my cats sit on the bar while I cooked I would explain the process to them. I still do that with the dog sometimes.

Day 15: An Unsent Letter

Dear xxxxxx,

I do not regret ending things with you, as I was not happy at all. What I said was true – I give the impression that I’m cool with polyamory in my writing, but in real life, I have yet to see it work without painful implosion. I don’t think it’s wrong, just very wrong for me! The whole situation was untenable for me, and the fact was I didn’t love you nearly enough for either of us.

However.

I was such an asshole. I didn’t mean to be! I don’t know how to do relationships, and at least back then I was not good at hard conversations. I run screaming from confrontation of any kind, to this day, but you deserved much better than how I handled things. I am profoundly sorry. I’m glad that you were able to do better.

Best of all things to you,

Sylvan

Day 16: 3 Celebrity Crushes

Hmmmmm let’s see. I still suffer from a massive ladyboner for Tom Hiddleston. He has that tragic poet kind of vibe in most of his roles, and in general I think of a character as sexy before the real person. Let’s face it, what can we really know about someone whose job is to convince us they are someone else? You can know a fictional character, though. World-weary vampire (Only Lovers Left Alive), damaged inventor (Crimson Peak), broken god (MCU), bratty prodigal turned king (The Hollow Crown), anguished vicar (The Essex Serpent), YUM.

By the same token, nothing against Tom Sturridge, but while I have zero interest in the actor, I want to climb Dream of the Endless like K2 and plant a goddamn flag.

And while I consider myself more or less heterosexual, I have two words for you: Rachel Weisz.