It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these little life updates, and as we’re sliding past midsummer, it felt like the right time to share some thoughts and recommendations with you all.
It was almost a year ago that I learned of my father’s passing. It was complicated. But whomst among us doesn’t have a complicated relationship with a relative? Both of my parents were complicated situations for me. My father and I hadn’t spoken in two decades, but his influence on my younger self during one pivotal summer in Houston still echoes through my life in unexpected ways. From word games that sparked my love for language to a treasure trove of Heavy Metal magazines that forever altered my perception of art and storytelling, those memories have become a strange sort of inheritance.
As this anniversary approaches, I’ve found myself seeking comfort in the small rituals of everyday life – tending to my garden, discovering new scents, and losing myself in music. It’s funny how the things we surround ourselves with can become anchors in turbulent times, isn’t it?
So, I thought I’d share some of these anchors with you today. A bit of this, a dash of that – the odds and ends that have been keeping me grounded and inspired lately. Consider it a belated midsummer offering of sorts, from my strange little world to yours.
SUNFLOWERS
I’ve got a bit of a confession to make – and it might surprise you! Despite my love for all things dark and spooky, my absolute favorite flower is… the sunflower. Not very on-brand for someone who writes about gothic literature and horror, and dark fashion, I know, I know. And I know you know. I struggle with this disparity a lot, and it spills over into this blog quite frequently.
There’s something undeniably magical about these towering golden giants, these brazen yellow blooms, their faces turned unabashedly towards the light. They’re like nature’s own version of a Rorschach test – to some, they might represent pure, unadulterated joy. To others, they’re a reminder of the delicious contrast between light and dark, a symbol of life’s stubborn persistence in the face of entropy.
Plus, let’s not forget their slightly creepy ability to track the sun across the sky. It’s like they’re a botanical army of solar-powered sentinels, always watching, always turning. Sorry, had to make it weird. So there you have it, friends. My not-so-dark secret is out. Anyone else out there have any unexpected favorites that don’t quite fit their usual aesthetic?
TWO INGREDIENT BAGELS
So: two-ingredient bagels. No, no, no, I have not joined the ranks of the protein-obsessed gym rats or the preservative-phobic crowd, nothing like that. Sometimes you just want a bagel. Not those sad, freezer-burned discs masquerading as bagels from the grocery store. And definitely not the overpriced, underwhelming attempts at bagels that Florida tries to pass off as the real deal. Sorry, Florida (Bagel) Man, but you’re no Local New Jersey (Bagel) Man when it comes to bagels. And sure, I could spend hours crafting an authentic, complicated bagel recipe. But sometimes, you want a bagel without feeling like you’re auditioning for a baking show.
Enter the two-ingredient bagel: just flour and Greek yogurt. And seasonings and toppings, so it is not technically two ingredients, I suppose. It’s not terrible! It’s not going to win any awards in New York, but when the bagel craving hits, and your options are limited, it’s a surprisingly satisfying solution. I make extra to slice and freeze, and it’s a nice treat when you find a bagel buried at the bottom of the freezer underneath the frozen peas and the dubious pork chops!
I DON’T BELIEVE IN SEASONAL FRAGRANCES, BUT I DO BELIEVE IN SUMMER PERFUMES
I’ve always scoffed at the notion of seasonal fragrances. I wear what I want when I want! You can’t tell me nothin! Resinous incense and mossy stone castles and suffocating spices year round, please!
…Yet here I am, a prisoner of the merciless Florida hellscape, finding myself yearning for fragrances that offer respite from the relentless heat.
It’s not so much about capturing a bottled atmosphere as it is about survival. Those earthy autumnal and woodsy winter perfumes that once brought such cozy comfort and delicious decadence now feel like a weighted blanket in this sweltering humidity. They cling, they smother, they overwhelm – much like the soupy miasma of these endless summer days.
Instead, I find myself drawn to the ephemeral and the ethereal. I reach for scents that evaporate almost as quickly as they’re applied, leaving behind only the ghost of a proper perfuming. Fizzy floral effervescence, a fleeting joy in the sticky air. Crisp, soapy musks offer the illusion of a fresh start, even as the humidity threatens to undo their work. Citrus and ginger provide zingy, zippy zhuzh, their bright notes cutting through the muggy haze. And those elusive spa-like fragrances – all gauzy lavender threads and misty eucalyptus veils – conjure a spectral coolness that’s more memory than matter.
These aren’t summer scents in the traditional sense, with their sunscreen notes and tropical fruit medleys. They’re more like… olfactory air conditioning. These subtle, refreshing fragrances I once overlooked now feel like small mercies, in a season that shows no mercy.
Elizabeth W. Té smells like a gorgeous glass of Southern sweet tea
Jones Road Shower is good mostly because it reminds me of BPAL’s discontinued Danube, which smells like sinking to the bottom of the coldest, bluest swimming pool on the hottest day of the year, and seeing the sun’s glimmer wavering through the rippling water and thinking ha ha ha, screw you, sun.
Kyoto from Comme des Garçons is actually my all-time favorite, number one, anytime, anyplace scent. It’s the scent everything has to measure up to, and so far, nothing has ever surpassed it. It smells like a cool shadowy prayer in a dark forest temple, and it is especially nice on brutal summer nights.
LOUDERMILK, LISSIE, MOTHER, CHEESDUST
I recently traveled to Philly, where I spent a much-needed long weekend with my Best Good Friend. We, of course, did some urban exploration and perfume shopping and conveyor belt sushiing and some long drives in the countryside, and, weirdly enough, a surprise visit to Warby Parker for very gleefully ridiculous new glasses! (Ývan thinks I look like this guy in my new specs, but everyone else is pointing to her.) But the best part was just vegging out together, doing nothing. We basically barricaded ourselves in their living room for a solid 24 hours, binging the entire season of Loudermilk, decimating an unholy amount of Herr’s jalapeño popper cheese puffs in the process. My fingers are probably still slightly orange.
A blonde musician showed up in one of the later episodes, and it hit me: isn’t that the singer from the 2017 Twin Peaks: The Return? Isn’t that Lissie?! I was obsessed with that Wild West song, and then I was obsessed with her PERFECT cover of Danzig’s “Mother” forever, and now, thanks to this show about the misadventures of misfits in AA, I’m equally fixated on her song “When I’m Alone.” And also the beautiful kimono she is wearing in that scene!
The funny thing is, it’s over a decade old at this point. Isn’t it weird how you can re/discover music like that? One minute, you’re stuffing your face with cheesy puffs; the next, you’re having a moment with a song from 2011 that you never knew you missed out on way back when, but now you love it like you’ve loved it forever.
Anyway, I’ve been playing Lissie non-stop since I got back. It’s like my brain is trying to recreate that perfect moment of kinship, junk food, and unexpectedly poignant television.
REVISITING MY STEPHEN KING PROJECT
In early 2020, the world is still blissfully unaware of what’s coming, and I am armed with a Google Docs spreadsheet and a mission. The goal? To immerse myself in the Stephen King universe – reading the unread, re-experiencing the familiar through audiobooks, and diving into television and film adaptations I’d somehow missed.
For 80s horror kids, he was practically a god. The master of terror, the guy who could make a clown in a storm drain or a voice in a closet the stuff of lifelong nightmares. But if I am being thoroughly, painfully honest – as an adult, reading him can sometimes feel like listening to your out-of-touch dad try to be “hip.” You love him, but occasionally, you just want to gently suggest he stop talking before he says something so embarrassing you could die.
That said, there’s still this undeniable magic to his work. It’s comfort food for the horror soul. When he eventually shuffles off this mortal coil, I’ll be devastated. More upset than when my own father passed. Stephen King’s been more of a constant presence in my life, for better or worse.
Anyway, I’ve been picking up the threads of this project lately, diving into the Mr. Mercedes books and related stories. It’s been… interesting. There’s still that undeniable King charm, the way he builds a world and populates it with characters that feel both wonderfully and uncomfortably real. I’ve always loved the way he writes the relationships–the interactions, the dialogue, the bonds– between siblings, for example. I first read IT thirty-seven summers ago, but I still get shivers when I think of Bill and Georgie Denbrough. But there are also moments where I find myself thinking, “Oh, Stephen King, no…! When was the last time you talked to a 44-year-old woman? And have you EVER spoken with a Black teenager??”
So that’s where I’m at with the project right now. Detecting with Bill Hodges, solving crimes with Holly Gibney, and watching Stephen King try to navigate the modern world with varying degrees of success. It’s a strange experience, this literary time travel. Part nostalgic joy, part critical assessment, all wrapped up in the complicated emotions of revisiting a childhood hero with adult eyes.
As I sit here, writing these words, I’m acutely aware of the passage of time. It’s been a year since I learned of my father’s passing, a man I barely knew yet whose influence echoes through my life in unexpected ways. The games we played then shape the words I write now. The Heavy Metal magazines I pored over still influence my aesthetic sensibilities. And that tiny bird I cradled during the Harmonica Convention? Perhaps it was the first stirring of the caretaker in me, the same part that now tends to sunflowers and crafts imperfect bagels. Maybe that’s a stretch. Maybe I just like flowers and bread.
(Totally unrelated–I also like creepy antique dolls. The one above was a birthday gift to myself last month.)
As I navigate this midsummer, with its oppressive Florida heat and the bittersweet onslaught of memories, I find myself grateful for the small joys: the scent of lemon and ginger on my skin, the cackles shared over junk food and trash television, the rediscovery of a singer-songwriter that speaks to my soul. It’s funny, isn’t it? How life can be simultaneously mundane and profound, filled with both small pleasures and big questions. I’m learning that it’s okay to contradict myself sometimes, whether it’s in my fragrance choices or my relationship with authors I’ve loved since childhood.
As we head deeper into the feverish, overheated, and everlasting days, I’m looking forward to more unexpected discoveries. And Halloween! Always that. Summer can fuck right off straight into the sun.
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
Dionysius the Areopagite Converting the Pagan Philosophersm Antoine Caron
I post a lot of goofiness all over social media, but it doesn’t always make its way to my blog. So here is a little round-up of what I have been thinking about or observing lately, as told through various imagery and anecdotes.
Are you like that, too? Do you look at a painting or photo and illustration and give it an entirely out-of-context silly or surreal backstory? Or attach it to a bit of conversation you had with someone, or overheard or made up entirely in your head? I do that a lot. And I do mean a lot.
Anyway, I just saw someone post on Facebook last week that the eclipse “looked cool, but it’s not worth the hype,” and I don’t know why that’s so funny, but I was laughing so hard I fear I may pee myself. Not worth the hype, dummies! You can all go home now, I guess!
Give yourself fun pep talks with weird wizard advice, like, “When the instrument of sleep leaves the space of nourishment, begin the work.”
Which sounds way more magical than “I need to move the mattress out of the dining room so I can concentrate on writing again!” I want to write more, but because we are redoing our flooring and doing some renovations, our guest room mattress and related furnishings are currently in the dining room, and all of that precarious chaos is too anxiety-inducing for my brain to focus on working with words. Gimme my spaces back, please!
I still haven’t listened to Beyonce’s new album, other than her rendition of Jolene. It was fine, and I am sure the album is fine, and I should probably listen to it because it’s culturally important and so on, but first, I feel like we need to fix Jolene. I got my sisters on board with this idea over on Facebook, and we are working on it. That’s one of Mary’s contributions in the second image.
Someone commented on her FB page, “Oh, you mean Jolene, like the Dixie Chicks wrote it.” Oh, no, no. Jolene, if Circe and Mr. Rochester’s first wife had written it. Jolene, if Eileen Wuornos and Loreena Bobbit wrote it. No offense to anyone’s version, but no one is addressing the real problem here.
I also listened to three or four new songs on Taylor Swift’s new album, and it bored me tremendously. I know my baby sister reads this blog and will be sad to hear that because she is a huge fan, and Melissa I am sorry. There was not enough torture in the tortured poets’ department. There was like, zero torture. I feel misled.
“Isabella and the Pot of Basil” {1867} By William Holman Hunt
“Listen, that’s between you and your pot of basil,” is a thing I am going to start responding with when people are trying to tell me shit I don’t need to know.
I have been irrationally angry at whoever was just before me in library holds line for Diavola. They took the whole two weeks to read that book! Come on, man! But my holds for both Diavola and The Familiar finally became available (at once, of course ) and so far they do not disappoint! I usually read about 10 things at once, but because the queues are so long for the both of these, and I will not be able renew them, I am focusing on them exclusively …no great difficulty there, they both drew me in immediately and entirely.
Pemberton-Longman, Joanne; Professional Jealousy
I have been writing and sharing on the internet for a long time. Both personal blogs and social media, as well as more widely read websites. But. As a writer of things, I could never say something like, “y’all liked my X thing so much, I’m back with another!” I mention this because it was something I saw over on fragrance reddit this week. Man. I don’t know. That seems wildly, toe-curlingly cringe to me. When I read that, I was stricken with the most intense fremdschämen.
But there’s an admirable audacity, too. Like… you truly believe people enjoyed the words you wrote. I love that for you. I want that, too.
On Tuesdays we wear gold. And hearts and moons and eyes. Light aloeswood incense. Find a perfectly preserved moth behind a picture frame. Listen to the owls’s hoot fluttering through the wind chimes. Slurp a scalding soup of bitter greens. Plant a crimson sunflower seed. Tuesday stuff.
Vertigo, Leon Spilliaert 1908
A joke, but it’s a recurring nightmare from another life; a joke, but it’s a voice from the moon in the dark; a joke, but it’s a beckoning finger from a broken mirror; ha ha haa ahh ahh.
The Vegetable Gardener, Giuseppe Arcimboldo
I forgot the word for “vegan” and was like, “You know…vegetable edge lord?” VEGLORD, if you will.
Something I tried to sneak into each of my books was at least one instance of an image that had been shared and memed all over the Internet without credit. Something that you see people repost all over the place with “artist unknown.” I want people to know there were actual human artists that created these works! I wanted it in black and white, something that couldn’t be lost to 404 errors and lazy reblogs.
If you enjoy these musings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
I am going through a weird time. I’m reading a dozen things and not paying attention to any of them. I have been halfheartedly knitting the same socks for two months now and somehow not making any progress, and I was just realizing that I haven’t tried any new and fun recipes for a long time. We eat soup and salads daily because I just feel like I don’t want to be bothered with the whole business of cooking. Don’t get me wrong; we’re not turning into ascetics over here; these are exceptionally loaded soups and salads; nothing minimalist about them (like that kimchi stew in the image above) but still…it’s a lot of the same thing, over and over again. And I’m …kinda fine with that? Which worries me for some reason that I can’t put my finger on?
I feel like…I’m not looking for the New Thing anymore. I guess I was forever trying new things because I was always looking for the holy grail of *something.* And there’s something that always felt necessary and vital (to me, at least) in that pursuit of that Best Good Thing, whatever that might be. But could it be that somewhere along the line, I found it? And if so, what was it? And why don’t I feel satisfied? But also, why don’t I feel like looking anymore? Why don’t I feel like doing anymore?
I guess that’s what I’m struggling with: whether these feelings I am experiencing right now are of being content? Or is this more like..stagnating?
Another thing I feel like I have sort of given up on is Instagram. Or I guess I should say, I have stopped trying to be good at it. I struggled with this last year, but it turns out the weirdest, most counterintuitive thing is what helped me. For three years, I have been posting perfume review videos on TikTok, and until the end of 2023, I kept it mainly on that platform. I did talk about perfume from time to time on Instagram, but not too often because people aren’t really into it, and those posts got very few views and engagement, and it just generally made me feel shitty about myself. I shared the TikTok reviews in my Instagram stories only because it cut off at the 30-second mark, and it was only on the app for 24 hours or so, and then it was gone.
But a friend encouraged me to post these video reviews on my main Instagram feed because many people don’t have TikTok and don’t get to see them. I waffled about it at first, knowing that these are the exact things that would flop when I post them because it’s a niche thing, and not many folks/friends share that interest. But I gave it a shot. And I do think it made some people happy. But I was right; the perfume video posts on Instagram are all very unpopular duds.
Here are some numbers. I have 13.4K followers on Instagram. Most things I post get around 100 likes on average. That seems a little weird and low, but I am used to it by now. Sometimes it’s more than that, but between the vagaries of the algorithm and people in general, I have no idea why or how. My perfume videos, which I now share as reels on Instagram, get about 20-25 likes on average, which is awfully pathetic. But you know what? I kept at it for the past two and half months, and while the numbers have not increased or changed, my attitude about it did. I’m used to it. As pitiful as it sounds, I have adapted and become inured to those butthurt feelings of rejection and moved on, so all in all, I am actually glad that I started doing it. I’m sorry if it’s not what people want to see, but oh well! So now you could say I am actively leaning into being bad at Instagram. The above image is from my Lorenzo Pazzaglia Van Py Rhum perfume review. If “slutty bloofer lady” is your vibe, you may dig this one.
Wow, all of these sounds like a bummer, and it all sounds like dumb, petty problems. I wouldn’t disagree if you said so. Of course, other things are going on with me, too, things that are much more of a bummer and a whole hell of a lot dumber… but that’s too much for this little blog. Let’s move on to something nice.
We are celebrating our two-year wedding anniversary this week! With yard work! How romantic! The constant threat of a letter from the HOA keeps us on our toes; we are a corner lot on the main road through the neighborhood, where a prominent founding member of the community once lived, so I feel like we are under extra scrutiny. We have a lot of trees on our property, and the leaves are falling perpetually, matting up in the shady areas and killing the grass, so it requires constant vigilance and dedication to keep on top of it.
And the thing is…we are neither vigilant nor dedicated, and I think I can speak for Yvan in saying that what we lack in vigilance and dedication, we make up for in simmering resentment about all of it. We just want to let our lawn do its thing! And in a neighborhood without an HOA, that would be fine. But that’s not where we live, so we both took off work on our wedding anniversary to rake leaves. We could be mad about it, but we’re gonna have a little picnic lunch and make the best of it. Recommendation time! I know I have mentioned these before, but they are probably my favorite thing in the world: these Duluth Trading Company gardening overalls. Pair that with a tie-dye UV protection tee shirt, a Garfield bucket hat, and my neon blue ponytail; I definitely cut a colorful figure when I am out in the yard, even if I am grumpy and scowling the whole time!
We went to a local brewery yesterday for an early celebration, though, so it’s not all manual labor and aching limbs… we celebrated with a tipple, flipping through a seed catalog, and ignoring each other in favor of our books because we know how to party!
I guess February is a little late to chat about New Year’s goals, but I somehow forgot to talk about it at the beginning of the year, so here we are. This year I made four goals for myself, and my face is the featured image for this section because I’m thinking real hard about my goals, okay?
Start downsizing my book collection. The goal here is NEVER to load fifty boxes of books onto a moving truck again. I am slowly selling the things that I know I will never read again over on Pango, and I’m doing okay, I think; I’ve already sold 60 books! I upload new titles every week, and I run sales every weekend, so if you are looking to supplement your bookshelves with some weird and spooky titles, go give my Pango shop a little peek.
Figure out how to do Downward Facing Dog. Sure, I could say, “Start doing yoga every day,” but that’s a very broad and nebulous goal, and it’s easier for me to focus on one very specific thing. Since January I stretch for about five minutes every morning while waiting for the kettle to boil, but here’s a confession. I’ve been working on the version of this pose that exists in my mind, but I only just this second looked up how it’s supposed to look and how to do it. Classic Sarah!
Get back to taking the time in the morning to write down my dreams. I have been doing this on and off for twenty years, and I fell out of the habit right before we moved,
I have begun writing fiction. It’s all I have ever wanted to do in my entire life, and I’ve come at it through my writing in every way: from the side, underneath, essays, poetry, interviews, articles, blog posts, and reviews–every kind of writing BUT fiction because I’ve just been too chicken to try! So I try to get as close to it as possible through all these other writings! It has been super scary, and nothing might ever come of it, and I am trying to be okay with that. To clarify, it’s not the thought that it won’t be published and people will never read it that’s giving me pause; it’s just…I’m not sure what my end goal is here. My writing has always had an end goal: post it up on the blog or review site, send in the article for publication, submit the chapters for the book deadline, etc. I have difficulty thinking about nebulous projects (see “yoga,” above.) I mean, I guess at this point, the point is practice and building writing and thinking about writing muscles that I don’t know how to use, but beyond that…what then?
A few more recommendations before I toddle off to bed early because YARD WORK…
In the first several episodes of Harlan Coben’s most recent Netflix adaptation, Fool Me Once, Michelle Keegan’s lips are practically blue, and I don’t think this was intentional, but I want the look. The hydrating shine lip balm from MOB in sheer black is super, super close.
Not a recommendation per se, but I know that me and a thousand of my close friends need this sweater from Batsheva’s Fall 2024 Ready to Wear collection.
This headband and wristband combo for washing your face (I hate it when the water splashes up your arms! Thanks for giving me the head’s up on these, Shar!)
While it says it is a noodle basket/colander, I love it for washing and straining vegetables and leaving them to dry while making a meal.
I’ve written before about how I can’t stand the feeling of not wearing a bra, but I also hate traditional bras with pokey wires and pushuppityness. Last year, I finally found something perfect for daytime, which sort of swaddles and flattens (which may not sound ideal, but I love it), but everything for sleeping seemed too restrictive. This cropped tank from Girlfriend Collective doesn’t really provide any kind of support, but it turns out that it’s exactly what I want under my tee shirt for sleeping.
If you enjoy these musings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
This past weekend included a three-hour drive through the scariest thunderstorm to the dreamiest little hideaway. Back to the stomping grounds that were never properly ours, a dream that never quite came true for us.
Even though we desperately wanted to move away from Florida, we thought, for the longest time, well, if we *have* to be here, we’d sure love to be in this particular part of Orlando. With this little ramen place, and this little record store, and this corner coffee shop. With my best friend on this end of town and my sister and her swimming pool just ten minutes away and so and so forth. But the timing was never right. I had family responsibilities in town at that time. And then folks started moving away from Orlando, and then we had to move to another part of Florida for other obligations and responsibilities. By then, it was too late.
But we had a free weekend, and we found ourselves reminiscing about a place we never knew as well as we would have liked and for some friends we hadn’t seen in a while. So! We planned a brief Orlando jaunt close to all the places we loved best We rented a cute Airbnb. We met up with some friends for soup dumplings, we met up with other friends for board games and beers, we went out for sushi, and then the next morning we went out for coffee and stopped by our favorite nursery for some garden treats before heading back.
I guess you can’t go back, and you definitely can’t-can’t go back to somewhere you never lived in the first place. But still…it was good to see you, Orlando. For those interested in such things, I shared a “what I bring in my travel bag” over on TikTok!
Baby-me in my mid-twenties wanted to start a food blog with tons of gorgeous bread photos but it turns out I couldn’t even make a decent no-knead loaf. It wasn’t till my 40s that I learned patience with sourdoughs and the no-fail certitude of plush buttery enriched doughs that I had the confidence to revisit making just a regular old yeasted loaf of something.
This is a whole wheat oatmeal flaxseed loaf using a recipe from Minimalist Baker. It rose perfectly, it’s nice and sturdy for toasting, it’s exactly as I envisioned, and I did it! Only took me twenty years! Gonna start that food blog now; people are definitely still reading those, right?
Bad days, man. Sometimes I think I’m getting better at handling them, but then sometimes, I have no idea what I’m doing. But this day is over. And I made a pretty good mushroomy fauxganoff meal, even though I wanted to order tacos and queso. I planted serrano and melon seeds. I’m having a nice little foot bath, and I’m trying a new whiskey that a lovely friend got for us. A stupid day doesn’t have to turn into a stupid evening. I’m gonna knit some muppety stitches and do my grandma knee strengthening exercises and read something deliciously creepy and be glad that I am alive in this world to have any kind of day at all. Am I doing this right? Any of it? Will I ever know?
P.S. I am fine. Most of my bad days consist of being very agitated and working myself up to a tizzy. I’m working on the “not working myself up” part. Hee hee, but, if I am being Very Real here, I will confess that my most of my agitations are for very bratty reasons. I consider it a good day if I can work on personal projects alongside Day Job things, and on days where work-work is nuts and becomes my entire focus, I get SO CRABBY. These are super privileged, very entitled crabulations and cranks, but I can’t help it.
I WANTED TO FINISH KNITTING MY BLANKET BUT MY BOSS KEPT YAPPING: The Sarah Elizabeth Story
I’m trying to keep better track of what goes into my guts and fuels my bod and my brains. This may be very triggery and I don’t want to freak anyone out, but I’ve become fixated with and terrified of the idea that as soon as I turn 49 in two years, I’m going to wake up dead.
I remember that happened to Michelle McNamara (46) and Julie Powell (49) and maybe for different reasons, but I don’t want that to be me. And you can’t foresee or control these things, I realize that, but there are some things I can control and I at least want to know that I tried my best. So logic dictates that if I do not eat at least 20 kinds of vegetables per day, I will literally die.
This not-at-all upsetting multiple ongoing existential crises brekkie thoughts brought to you by zucchini and enoki miso soup, eggy salmon rice, and lots o’ pickles.
This pattern is the Anthology throw from Curious Handmade, and it was so good for using up the gazillion scraps and scraggles of sock yarn I have amassed.
It broke my eyeballs and turned my joints to jelly but it was actually an easy-peasy project and I’d probably knit it again while my traitorous old body disintegrated around me. I will eventually gift you a pretty blanket with my skittering skellington hands and hopefully, you’ll be too enchanted to scream?
….it’s here!!
Or, well, at least my author copy is. The books haven’t hit the warehouse yet, so advance copies won’t be sent out for awhile, and regular old copies won’t be available until the publishing date of September 12th. But anyway…it is HERE! I know I keep saying this, but I can’t believe I even wrote one book, let alone three, and yet here they all are!
Please be sure to place your preorders! Preorders are important! And etcetera! I don’t want to do the whole song and dance about it but they’re important, they really, really are!
and don’t forget…
Pre-order your copy of The Art of Fantasy by August 1 from any retailer and be one of the first 100 readers to receive bonus goodies! Details here.
To be honest, I started this blog post about three weeks ago, and about five minutes into it, I got bored and thought, “ok, done now!” and gave up. Today I’m realizing that there’s not really been any more of the personal-in-nature, lifey-bits on this blog (I’m guilty of putting all of it in my newsletter now), and maybe I actually need to buckle down and finish this. To make it look like a real person lives here, I guess.
Anyway, I had totally forgotten what the title of the blog post was about, what was I referencing? But now it’s coming back to me, and actually, no one gave me that culantro. I bought it by accident when I thought I was buying stemmy spinach. We’ve found a very low-key, no-frills local farmer’s market somewhat nearby, and in the last few months, I’ve been stupidly excited about our visits loading up on herbs and veggies for half the cost of what we might spend in the grocery store (I need that extra money for books and perfume!) It’s just a few stalls of produce; there are no artisanal bread or cheese sellers, no coffee stalls, nothing fancy like that. Just a few people selling fruits and veggies.
Instead of going there with all kinds of plans and recipes in mind, I’ve decided that I will just show up and see what looks interesting and grab it! And then figure out what to do with it on the fly during the course of the week. I’ve sort of fallen into a rut over the last few months. Not without good reason, I guess. I was writing a book and working toward many deadlines, and it was easier to make a lot of simple meals, salads for lunch, and easy brothy soups for dinner. I didn’t have to think about it too much, and I didn’t have to expend a whole bunch of energy. Now I’ve got more time on my hands, and I am realizing that I really miss experimenting!
So what did I do with all of that culantro? First, if you’ve never even heard of it (I had not), it’s an herb that is similar in taste and smell to cilantro, but it looks quite different, and the taste is a lot stronger. I made sofrito with it, except I didn’t have peppers, so I used celery (!!) instead. I realize they are not interchangeable, but, eh, it was an experiment. I also made a dipping sauce for dumplings –and then realizing we had no dumplings, I had to make some of those, too–but Yvan and I agreed this would probably make a better salad dressing.
SO. The featured image for this blog post is not culantro. It’s a random flowering plant from our garden, which we’ve finally begun working on. It’s a mess right now and making me very anxious, so let’s change the subject.
It’s a slow, rainy day today; everything is gloomy and dim. All of my favorite corners looked especially haunted, so I thought I might grab a few murky photos, light a candle, play something atmospheric, and cobble together a cozy space for writing.
Our friend Pam just left from a quick overnight visit, and I’m recovering from the gardening she helped us with this morning and the ONE cocktail I had last night. Lordy. As I am becoming An Old, I am coming to the realization that I can barely drink anything without feeling absolutely woozy and wooly afterward. I need to find some tasty mocktail recipes, except we need to call them something else because I hate the word “mocktail,” it’s just too dumb.
So Pam and I watched some great movies while she was here. Yvan is not a horror movie fan, and I don’t subject him to it, but I’ll always take advantage of having company if they swing the way of spooky movies. As a matter of fact, the last horror movie of any kind I watched was last October, yikes! Last night we saw Huesera: The Bone Woman, which came highly recommended by Andrea at Rue Morgue. An artful pregnancy-as-body-horror/dark side of motherhood story, it follows Val, a former punk-rock rebel turned somewhat domesticated wife, who is caught between what she wants for herself and what society wants for her and who is stalked by a sinister entity after she realizes she has become pregnant. I really enjoyed this one (I especially loved the mid-century modern artsy decor of her apartment!) We also watched M3GAN, and I am sure that I do not need to tell you anything about that one because I am the last person in the world to watch it, but it was delightfully silly and a lot of fun.
My Best Good Friend stayed with us a few days last week, and holy moly, I am just realizing that one. we have lived in this house for over a year now, and two. we have had more guests here in a year than we had in a decade in the old house! Despite the fact that as of April 8th, we’ve lived here for a whole 12 months, the place still doesn’t look very put together…however, BGF is quite good at configuring rooms and maximizing spaces, so they gave us lots of good ideas for temporary solutions while we are still figuring things out.
I don’t quite know what my interior style sensibilities are anymore; I never went full-goth, and creepy-cute never resonated with me, dark Victorian just feels way too extra and high maintenance and cluttered…I think I’m leaning toward something sort of Scandi/mid-century modern, but also rustic fairy tale/cottage witch and a touch of dark bohemia/shadowy eclectic…and that’s not even a thing! How do I make all of this work? I don’t know!
Well, to throw everything off entirely, during the course of their visit, we stopped by a vintage shop, and I bought this splendidly pretty, strawberry-festooned teapot/pitcher, cream jug, and sugar bowl. Where do I put it? What does it go with? There are currently no answers.
To wrap up this little update, here are some current favorite things…
an ergonomic keyboard and mouse for my poor fucked up thumb and wrist
Linghun by Ai Jiang is a heart-haunting novella on how the melancholy of loss makes for desperate ghosts among the living
the time and space dissolving synthy dreaminess of Spirit Exitby Caterina Barbieri
also obsessed with turning my billowing wardrobe into more of a Lagenlook thing, but also mori-adjacent, and also from The Shire
re: the above look, I think @kelseamori on TikTok is my inspiration
I’m wearing the shadowy forest temple vibes of Kyoto from Comme des Garçons and realizing for the millionth time it is my all-time no. 1 favorite fragrance
I have perfected miso soup (to my taste): add miso to a hot broth of dashi powder, a tiny bit of both soy sauce & Shaoxing wine
add chopped zucchini and dried, soaked, and sliced shitake mushrooms to the above
serve the above with a rolled omelet or rice and pickles, and this is my breakfast for the past two months
I am back on my cake-a-month nonsense! This time around, I am baking exclusively from Yossy Arefi’s Snacking Cakes. A recipe from this book–though I didn’t know it was from this book– was recommended to me last year: the powdered donut cake, and so far, that one, plus the espresso chocolate chip cake, above, as well as the All The Spices Cake with Vanilla Bean Glaze that I made in January, have all been winners.
I have become delightfully obsessed with Lauren Rad’s elegant sock designs, and the oatmeal-colored Cromulent socks are the second pattern I have knit up! The first pair were the plummy Tiramisu socks, which I photographed blocking on what I later realized was an inadvertent altar to Arachne! You can’t see all of the spider art on this purple wall, but in addition to the spider cauldron embroidery, there is a whole wall to the right, just out of the frame, with 5 or 6 spider-centric artworks! Now that I’ve realized this, I need to make a more intentional little space here for my knits to stretch and shape themselves in a more sacred, symbolic way (but still lowkey because I am lazily ritual-averse!)
We are to the time of year where, even though I know it is only 50 degrees out, I am just freezing cold all the time. So I wear layers upon layers of clothing. I thought I might share a few of my current over-layers that I’m piling on right now.
I am currently wrapped up in Silvia Moreno Garcia’s SilverNitrate, which is scratching my itch for characters who are deeply immersed in some sort of obsession (film or art, usually) and then there’s a connected occult or supernatural element. If you enjoyed Gemma File’s Experimental Film or Archive 81 on Netflix, you might dig Silver Nitrate.
I have also just finished an audiobook version of Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died and Josh Winning’s Burn the Negative, one being a nonfiction memoir about a former child star, and the other, a book of horror fiction about the present-day gruesome murders surrounding a former child star. I read these both at the same time without really knowing what either was about, and there were some interesting and surprising parallels. I love it when this happens, and it happens far more frequently than you might think! What was the last instance you experienced of this type of book selection synchronicity?
Time to marinate! Every month I’m selecting a quartet of fragrances from my collection cabinet and giving them a primo spot on my vanity so I can clearly see them vying for my attention! This month’s lineup includes:
—Diptique Fleur de Peau (Sarah Waters sapphic Victorian ghost lovers)
—Frederic Malle Synthetic Jungle (rubbery raincoat verdant jungle painting Stendahl Syndrome weirdness)
—Nobile 1942 Malia (a Belladonna of sadness standup comedy special scored by Grimes)
—Kiehl’s Musk (the world’s skankiest, nastiest musk, or at least a contender for the title)
And finally, I am revisiting what was probably my favorite album of 2016, the darkly euphoric electronica of HÆLOS’ Full Circle. I don’t write many album reviews here on the blog, but I was moved to write about this one; it made me feel WAYS. If a whole album feels too much to dive into, start with “Dust.”
“There is a surreal stretch at the end of an evening of good times that have carried on perhaps an album’s length or a bottle too long. A half-lit, fuzzy spell between two and three in the morning where … You’re in the cramped backseat of a car, cocktail-fevered forehead resting against the cool glass of the passenger side window, your reflection too dark to see. The palm trees are towering overhead–mesmerizing, celestial giants as far away as the distant planets–and the glimmering streetlights are stars that stretch and fade to the edges of your vision like you’re jumping into hyperspace. You want to laugh at the absurdity of the imagery, but all of a sudden, and from out of nowhere, this late night is on the other side of too late. This beautiful, astronomical onslaught is too much; it’s triggering memories more terrestrial and summoning that nostalgic, aching void that’s perpetually lurking at the edges of your experience.
I overheard a conversation recently in which it was mentioned that oftentimes one forgets that words ending in “-algia” indicate some sort of pain. So while we frequently refer to nostalgia in terms of sentimental longing or wistful affection, we cannot deny the twist of the heart that accompanies it, the grief and distress that tinges it. The pain that gives definition to these wispy, amorphous moments, this euphoria we summon and cling to for far too long on evenings like this.”
Well okay then! I have, as of this past week, just sent off the final batch of chapters for the book I am currently working on (The Art of Fantasy!) That means I am KINDA SORTA DONE! I will probably have to make some edits, and then I will have to write a few intros–which are easier to write after I’ve written the thing being introduced, hee hee!–and then start reaching out to artists for permissions to use their works and then get a lot of rejections and then go back to the drawing board and start researching appropriate imagery all over again…so, yeah. I still have a lot more to do, but the hard part is DONE.
It’s been a bit of a struggle, this latter half of the summer. I did not expect to be writing a book while sick with Covid. Nor did expect that I would ever get Covid. I know, I know–that’s a really naive and privileged thing to say. But being vaxxed and boosted to the max and not ever going anywhere, doing anything, or seeing anybody, I guess I thought I could avoid it forever. Not so. Yvan had to attend a week-long corporate team-building exercise thing, and guess what he brought back? UGH. As I’m sure many of you can attest to, this is pretty miserable stuff. I don’t think I’ve ever been so unwell in my life. I tested positive on the 23rd of August and it was really just this week (the week of September 10th) that I am starting to feel normal again.
…and I just deleted a whole bunch of gripes I have about people’s cavalier attitudes about all of this, because you know what? Typing it out was really getting me wound up and upset and furious and that’s not what I wanted to bring here today. I realize it’s my blog and I can write about whatever I want…but all things considered, I don’t actually want to dwell on that. I have a habit of feeling some kind of way and then just stewing in it, really settling into a swampy morass of fury and resentment. It’s not good for me and it’s just a GROSS feeling, and I am not going to do it. I wanted to write a little blog post about how I had just finished something that I was struggling with, how I was feeling better after some “health challenges,” and now I am feeling pretty good again and want to do all the things!
All of the AT HOME things, that is!
A home in which we have lived for five months now! I get that to some folks, settling into a new place is a really exciting venture, but to someone who craves stability and doesn’t love change, these past five months have been weird and unsettling (ok, maybe a tiny bit exciting too, I am not a total monster.) But coupled with having to head back to the old place every weekend to fix it up for sale–which is a four-hour trip total, but in some instances, we just got a hotel and stayed the whole weekend–and then the frustrations of trying to sell it, well, it’s been a PROCESS. I don’t know if it’s indicative of the market or if our house just wasn’t super appealing, but we put it up for sale in May and we’re finally closing on a sale right now, the second week of September. OOOF. That took a while, but…I think…we are done!
So, this summer I had big plans for ~tending to and treating my inner child~ but I didn’t always have the time and energy to devote to it. I’m putting together a more detailed YouTube video about this, but here are a few things I did in service of little Sarah: we got the Jem and the Holograms rockstar hair we’ve always wanted; we’ve been wearing fantastical clothing all summer long, tops and dresses that make me feel like I’m in some sort of fairy tale or enchanted garden, or napping on top of a treasure chest, helping a dragon guard their loot–this magic sword top above is by Jordan Piandedosi; aaaand I have been doing so much reading! Nearly 30 books in the past three months! I think that definitely gets all the sticker stars on my Book It! pin (IYKYK) and so therefore I most definitely deserved a personal pans pizza. And if you are curious about all of the titles that I read, I hope to be sharing that here on the blog as soon as tomorrow.
Here’s the recipe I used, which I think is extra cool, because the person narrating the voice-over sound pretty young (and bonus-bonus! I think they live in the same town I moved to!) Anyway, if you are interested, it came out PERFECT but be prepared to spend five hours making it and five minutes snarfing it down.
Here is a very crooked photo of what one would see if they were to walk into the front door of our home! Yvan’s mother painted this adorable gnome couple for us as a wedding gift, and we wanted it to greet people as they walked in! The only problem is, no one really ever uses the front door, we all come through the garage, hee hee! At any rate, the underneath of the painting was looking pretty bare and we found this small table at a neighbor’s house. She is getting ready to move and had just sort of…invited the neighborhood to come in and poke around? I felt a little nosy, but I recall more or less doing the same thing when I left NJ. It’s the perfect space to display my sunflower bouquet from the day of the wedding!
Here’s another few pieces that my mother-in-law painted and which are hanging in the kitchen! I hope to have a whole freaking gallery in the next few years. She paints the sort of storybook canvases that I just want to crawl into and wander around in for a while. Maybe dangle my feet in the sea, hang out with the fisherman’s wife who is yelling at her husband to not forget his lunch!
Anyhoodle, it is September 18th and fall is hopefully just around the corner and perhaps next time I check in I will have some more interesting things to share. Or, at least I won’t be so hot and sweaty when I am sharing them!
Just a series of impressions and lists from the last month, which seems like a blurry dream thing that never really happened, and yet here we are…
⌛ I think I finally have my desk the way that I want it. Except for that old fossil of a work phone, which, unfortunately, stays until I am no longer working my day job. Which you know, is what pays the bills, so I kinda need it for now. UGH. I do want to add a little plant propagation station and this adorable mushroom lamp. I am afraid I may be unduly influenced by mushroomparasol’s Instagram account.
⌛Speaking of Instagram, I am finding that place profoundly depressing lately. I hate complaining about likes and views and “engagement” but man oh man. I have almost 12K followers over there. 11.8K, to be exact. I have been hovering at that number for the past year, and I have had that account on Instagram for over a decade now. TikTok, on the other hand, I have about 10K followers there and I only created that account a little over a year ago. So I have gotten nearly the same amount of followers in one tenth of the time? Huh.
And as of the beginning of June, my account seems like a frigging ghost town. And I have to ask myself, is no one seeing what I am sharing, or is it that I am really boring and no one cares? I mean, I get it. You can look at stuff on these platforms but you are under no obligation to like it or comment on it or interact with it at all. So no, just because you’re my friend, or just because you generally enjoy the things I talk about, that doesn’t mean you have to “heart” everything I share. Of course not. BUT man. It’s weird. My earnest posts usually, or at least in the past, get around 100 likes, and my stupid jokes or memes usually get like 500+ (so frustrating when people pay more attention to the thing you only gave half a second’s thought to as opposed to something you spent time on or care about, but whatever.) Anyway. This week? Posts are getting like, 20-40 likes. Even a BOOK post! ALL of my friends love books! I don’t get it! I’ve heard it’s an algorithm thing, and I don’t know exactly how that works, but ugh. This is a bummer. And I am not even trying to make my living off of what I am posting there! I imagine full-time artists and writers and small business owners and people who provide services must really be feeling it. Influencers, too.
But fuck those guys. I don’t give a shit about influencers. So. I don’t know what to do about any of that other than start spending more time elsewhere. So if you are on twitter or TikTok or Facebook (yes, I am still over there) feel free to say hi!
⌛ Two things I have watched lately and really enjoyed: Severence, which apparently is nothing like Succession. But I had lumped them together because they had similar sounding coporate-speak names. And which I had no interest in until I realized that Severence is actually a sci-fi tinged psychological thriller. And it is GOOD. (Still don’t know what Succession is, but I also still have no interest.) Also, Shining Vale, a horror comedy starring Courtney Cox and which was a ridiculous delight. If I am being honest I have never given a thought to Courtney Cox (I’m sorry Courtney Cox) but man she was a hoot in this. Also I don’t even know where Warwick Castle is but because I am me I had to find this shirt that she was wearing in a certain scene from a certain episode.
⌛ We’ve gotten most of the wall art hung up in the house! Here are a few peeks…
⌛At long last, we have a proper guest room! With a proper guest bed! And now that William Morris bedding is finally getting some use! I bought it a few years ago and then we promptly went and got a bigger sized bed. Le whoopsie.
⌛I have been looking for the perfect canisters. A sort of vintage situation, enamel, with rosemaling or some sort of Scandinavian floral motif art on them. I found them on a site called Chairish and I am sure I overpaid for them, but that’s okay because they were –exactly–what I was looking for.
⌛I have made some version of this spicy “honey” garlic broccoli and tofu 2-3 times a week for the past two months. I use actually honey because I am not vegan and often swap out the tofu for soy curls, but they’re both good.
⌛ I have been obsessed with the idea of the grinder salad sandwich that’s all over TikTok but then I saw that someone skipped the sandwich part and just turned it into a salad and we have been eating some version of this every single day for lunch.
⌛ I started reading Janelle Monáe’s book, Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computerand I wasn’t far in but I was really enjoying it, but then the library took it back from me. Rude. I look forward to picking it up again.
⌛ I’ve really been excited about getting titles from NetGalley, where you have the opportunity to obtain advanced copies of books that haven’t been published yet, for review purposes. I’ve gotten some really excellent ones that I was really looking forward to and some really incredible things that I never even would have heard of! Well, at least not until after it had been published, and then people got excited about it, maybe. At any rate, MOTHERTHING hadn’t been on my radar but I got it through NetGalley and now it might be my favorite book of all time.
⌛Yvan and I have been walking in the mornings. This is such a lovely neighborhood to walk in, with lots of trees and birds and bats and even some hills (in FL!!!) and a view of the river. We’ve been waking up around 5:30 and making a circuit of two miles or so. Not a lot, but enough to wake us up and sort of give us a feeling of “well, even if we get nothing else done today, we did THAT.” But on the days we do it, we both remark throughout the day how much energy we have, what a good mood we’re in, etc. I know it doesn’t cure all ills, but man. Walking. I love it.
⌛ We’re still working on getting the old house ready for sale, so we haven’t really spent most weekends in the new space. I can’t wait until that’s off our plate. Maybe this new house will finally start feeling like home, like I really live here, when I plan to go nowhere and do nothing and finally have a proper FUCK OFF WORLD! weekend. Fingers crossed!
Hello friends! Here’s some progress in the new house, mainly in the form of art that’s been hung on the walls. We have a lot of art! Also, here are a few favorite things from over the past month.
Welcome to our new place, our gnome sweet gnome if you will! Here’s a peek into some spaces, some more tidy and interesting than others, as we still have a lot of boxes and moving-related junk cluttering up the place.
We moved about an hour and a half or so north, to be closer to Yvan’s parents, as they’re getting on in years. We’ve been a bit resistant to the idea, locale-wise. We’ve been wanting to move to the Pacific Northwest for quite a while now, but hey, this is just a stop along the way, we’ll get there eventually! In the meanwhile, it’s definitely good to get away from our old place, which was sort of falling apart around us, and our old town, where we’d both, more or less, grown up. Although we didn’t really know each other until we moved away and come back!
Where we are living now is much closer to a bigger city, and has interesting things and groceries and restaurants…for example, there was a Sprouts less than ten minutes away (the closest one before was over an hour’s drive) and a very cool nursery five minutes up the road! We are practically right on the river and this new neighborhood is shaded by lots of enormous old trees, so even though we are still in FL, it definitely feels cooler and breezier, and and just…different.
So, it’s all a work in progress but right now I am making my first loaf of bread in this house and in the three weeks that we have been here I have already read four books, so it’s finally starting to feel like home!
In this video, I mention the Wheatberry Salad from Heidi Swanson’s Supernatural Cooking. This is a lovely cookbook to have at hand, but if you’re just looking for the recipe, The Amateur Gourmet shares it here in a very old blog post. Lordy, 2009. I feel ancient.
