Krevborna: A Gothic Blood Opera is a system-neutral campaign setting for Gothic Fantasy adventures inspired by Bloodborne, Castlevania, and Penny Dreadful. I don’t play RPGs, but this makes me really rethink my stance, because it sounds freaking amazing. And it’s by my friend, the brilliant Jack Shear! And if that stunning cover art looks familiar it’s because it is from the hand of the very talented Becky Munich.
In the year that has passed since Mawga, my grandmother died, I have spent a great deal of time thumbing through the recipe book that she left behind. A small, black three ring binder; matte, plastic, unmarked, and which now holds the contents of its predecessor, a vibrant orange business, with jaunty illustrations of butter crocks and salt cellars and tea kettles. This newer version, you’d never mistake it for the vessel of gastronomic conjurations it contains. You might think it was an address book, if people used such things anymore. A booklet for business cards or bills, perhaps. Something filled with information for filing away. Things that no one actually wants to bother digging out and looking at again. As opposed to…well, the thing you reach for, not just out of habit, but of yearning, and of a craving. You would not know to look at this book and crave.
(Oddly enough, that previous portfolio seems to have been resurrected as a strange sort of literary journal/catalog in my grandmother’s remaining years. She refilled it with blank, lined pages and loaded it up with lists of titles she was looking forward to reading, book recommendations from various friends, Top Tens, and many other inscrutable literary lists whose themes utterly escape me. When I became aware of its existence, this thrilled me. In our souls, I think, my grandmother and I loved the exact same things: eating and reading.)
Despite the book’s bland camouflage and newer, sturdier spine, the pages are the same–blurry with stains, dog-eared and torn from marking a place, and, what I love most–intermittently scribbled with her enthusiastic notations and opinions: “Good!” for example, with regard to a certain oyster stew recipe that Mawga and my grandfather enjoyed. This in an incongruence that always makes me giggle and retch simultaneously. As far as I know, no one in the family but the two of them liked this particular soup. It was a foul, milky, bi-valve bath water. More for them, I guess!
Oyster soup aside, I love so many of her other recipes, so I thought it befitting to spend an entire week celebrating her life by preparing foods and cooking meals that are attached to some of my most beloved memories of her. I don’t know that these were all her favorite foods, but they are certainly the ones I recall with reverence and the clarity derived from a recollection distilled from a single, fixed point. That beautiful late summer day spent at their house by the creek, on Barre Road, with the supper of chili and cheese and hot dogs . The cozy evening with the steaming bowls of chicken and dumplings before watching The Dukes Of Hazard with my grandfather. Food, for me, are these delicious memories of bone-deep love.
I dined on cheese conies both at home and in restaurants when I was young, but I still believe Mawga’s version was superior. If you haven’t got a Mawga, if you happen to be in Ohio, Skyline Chili is the place for these things. If you don’t live in the midwest, you can try to cook it up yourself! It’s basically a hot dog on a bun and a little squirt of mustard, topped with “Cincinnati chili” (which is very different from regular chili) and an enormous mound of freshly grated cheese. Chopped onions are optional, I guess, but I personally think they are a must.
Oddly enough, there is no recipe for Cincinnati chili is my grandmother’s cookbook! Perhaps she made it so often that she knew the ingredients and instructions by heart? I found this one online and it was nearly perfect. Yes, it calls for cocoa and cloves and allspice, which sounds kind of weird if that’s not what you’re used to, but that’s what gives it its distinct flavor. I think that this one was a little tangier than I remembered, which my adult palate really appreciated–so don’t skip the apple cider vinegar. I don’t think hot dog brand matters, so use whatever your favorite is. I use potato buns, but go with your preference. The cheese is absolutely crucial! Grate it yourself and leave it out on the counter until it gets a little soft and skeevy with the room temperature. Pile it on top until you can’t see what’s underneath it anymore. You might not think with the cheese and chili, the mustard would even matter, but it does. You definitely miss it when it’s not there! If you have leftover chili, serve the leftovers on a plate of spaghetti. That’s a Skyline thing, too. I don’t care for it, but lots of folks love it.
My grandmother’s chicken and dumplings are not the most photogenic thing in the world (not even close) but they are without a doubt, the most delicious. Dropped, not rolled. Totally made with Bisquick. And no, we don’t besmirch their character with peas and carrots (ugh) or sprigs of herbs (no!) Mawga would be appalled. Actually she wouldn’t, she was pretty live-and-let-live. But I’d be kinda appalled.
This is another recipe that is not written down, but I’ve watched it made so many times that I could make it in my dreams. And it’s basically just a nice broth with some dough in it, so no biggie! While Mawga always boiled up a whole chicken for her dumplings, I am not nearly that ambitious. A packet of chicken thighs (skin on, bone in) in a big pot of water begins the broth for this dish. How big a pot? I would go with the biggest you have, because you want to have extra broth leftover to squirrel away in the freezer for future dumpling emergencies. Into your enormous cauldron, along with the chicken thighs and water, throw a couple of stalks of celery and a few carrots. You could roughly chop them, or just break them in half. Along with that, halve a few onions, and toss them in the pot, skin and all. Add a bay leaf or two and bring to a boil. I guess you could add some seasonings at this point, but I add those a little later in the process.
Lower heat and put the lid on, and leave it be for about an hour or so. Fish out the vegetables and throw them away, we’ve drained all the life from them at this point. Remove the chicken from the pot and once cool enough, pick the meat from the bones and set aside. Put the bones back in the pot and add your seasonings; I usually use a tablespoon of Better Than Bullion, which Mawga never used but I bet she would have if she’d known about it, and some black pepper and maybe some Lawry’s seasoning salt. I also add more water to the pot at this point or maybe even pour in a carton of store bought chicken broth to supplement it (which begs the question, why bother to go the home-made route at all?) Leave it on the stove at low heat for the rest of the day to make your house smell amazing. If you have thought ahead, then you will have made this broth on a Saturday. Turn the heat off and the whole thing cool off. Pour through a strainer to remove detritus and bones, pour back into pot. Rearrange your entire refrigerator to accommodate your broth pot on Saturday night. On Sunday afternoon, place the pot on the stove, skim the fat off the top, portion out the extra broth (whatever you deem extra) into tupperware and freeze. Heat the remainder (leave, oh, 5-6 inches of broth in the pot?) up to a boil. While it is heating, make your dumplings with the directions straight off the back of the Bisquick box:
Dumplings: Mix 2 cups Bisquick and ⅔ cup milk until soft dough forms. Drop dough by spoonfuls onto stew (do not drop directly into liquid). Cook uncovered over low heat 10 minutes. Cover and cook 10 minutes longer.
To serve, place a little of the chicken meat into the bottom of the bowl. Or you could forgo it altogether, the chicken is beside the point if you ask me! But some people feel like it’s not dinner if there’s no meat in it, I guess. Ladle a portion of broth (which will have thickened up considerably) and as many dumplings as your eyes think your stomach can handle, on top of the chicken. My favorites are the soggy dumplings, while Mawga preferred the fluffy ones, but I really have no idea how to control the sog vs. fluff ratio. You get what you get!
I think my grandmother probably fancied herself a good, Christian woman—and she was!— but I also like to think our Mawga was a magnificent kitchen witch, as well. And while I don’t suppose she was ever thrilled with my spiritual path, I do believe that she was happy to know that I, like her, thrilled immensely to the delightful magic of dreaming up meals, enjoyed the playful ritual of experimenting with recipes, and reveled in the spellbinding peace to be found in a room full of loved ones with sated appetites and full bellies. I dare say she even dabbled in a bit of cookbookmancy! Purely for dinner divination ideas, of course. Her “brown bag tuna salad” (original recipe via a newspaper clipping, circa 1973, but recopied by her, above,) while certainly not glamorous, would definitely be among the first noted in her culinary grimoire, for as often as I recall them freshly prepared and waiting in the refrigerator.
I served the tuna salad on Wasa crackers with her deviled egg recipe (boil eggs, scoop out yolks, mix yolks with mayo and mustard and a little white pepper, spoon back into egg white shells, dust with paprika) along with some garlicky herbed, roasted sweet potato wedges, and while I know beyond the shadow of a doubt I never saw sweet potatoes in any form on her table, I know she’d appreciate the practicality of using up something that’s been living in the veggie drawer too long, and not letting it go to waste.
I thought I’d be much sadder about it all than I actually was after spending a week cooking from her book, but it’s been such a joyful experience, recreating these meals, and with them, my happiest memories of her. Even this macaroni, a recipe not hers, but one that she requested I make (and then pushed away, because she had no appetite for it) is a lovely bowl that recalls her trust in me to care for her as best I could during her last few months, and to prepare something cozy and delicious and heart-warming. The recipe, by the way, is from Serious Eats. It could have been a little creamier and oozier, but that’s my problem with most macaronis, I think. Baking it gives you those delicious, chewy, browned edges, but then it also dries every thing up. I’d rather prefer to eat it oozing straight out of the pot, before it goes into the oven!
At any rate, here’s to you, my marvelous Mawga—may we enjoy many warm suppers together in the next world, and until then I’ll be using what you taught me and honing my skills, such as they are. I know you’ll be impressed. Or you’ll at least pretend. And I’ll love you for that through every lifetime.
It has been over >a year since you left us, Mawga, and the world is a much less delicious place for your passing.
Kiss Me As The Undead Armies Approach And My Talking Skull Weeps Diamond Tears: The Sarah Elizabeth Story {Artist: Pino D’Angelico}
I have been often accused of both taking things too seriously and yet somehow I do not take things seriously enough. Well, which is it? I wish I knew.
I can tell you that I do have a great love of general foolishness and absurdity (except for pranks, which are just awful and hateful, and candid camera type baloney, which is even worse). In my heart of hearts, I’m a massive goofball. Some might go as far as to say that I revel in idiocy, but those are just my sisters saying that and you can’t pay them any mind.
This manifests itself in a number of situations, mostly private, I think, because I am very much internally motivated and most of my trials and tribulations, my comedies and tragedies, occur in the stage of my own mind. This all sounds very dramatic but I guess what I am saying is that I talk to myself a lot. And I’m not even embarrassed to tell you that personally, I think I’m hilarious. Except when I’m working myself up to a good cry, because, well, you know, that happens in these conversations, too. I can be very cruel. But also very sensitive! There are sometimes tears.
But mostly I am making myself laugh, and oftentimes it’s with regard to art, especially olde-timey stuff or pulpy comics schlock–but whatever I’m viewing I can’t help but to impose my own ridiculous inner dialogue onto the canvas. I normally post them up on facebook or instagram or twitter and I know I’ve got a number of friends who indulge this behavior–and I love you for it. You’ve created a monster, and now I can’t stop.
I’ve collected several of them below, for posterity. Do you do this, as well? Feel free to share in the comments, or just tell me about the silliness you get up to when you can’t help yourself.
Don’t invite me to yr bachelorette party unless there’s some crazy shit planned. {image: Geisterjäger John Sinclair- 37 Die Hexeninsel}
Get you a Pierre who can deal with you at your corpsiest. {Cover art: Forbidden Worlds #24 }
Best meetup group. {“I have been looking at your squirrel.” The adventures of a squirrel : supposed to be related by himself. Darton and Harvey, 1807.}
…but do you have this in black? {The abbess from Basel’s dance of death by Matthäus Merian.}
Me, after penning a particularly obnoxious Yelp review and deeming it a literary masterpiece. {“What a paragraph I have written.” From Vermont Hall, or Light through the Darkness by M. A. Paull, 1888}
I wanna read her okcupid profile. No judgment. {Artist: Averardo Ciriello}
TRY AGAIN MY EYES ARE UP HERE. {Ophelia (1880), de Madeleine Lemaire}
This is the clothing subscription box we deserve. {A History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art by Thomas Wright, 1875.}
outta my way there’s autumn things happening {Illustration from Favorite Fairy Tales, 1861}actual photo from when I was in the girl scouts {Three Witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, 1840, George Cattermole}
#beachbodygoals {From Loraine and the Little People by Elizabeth Gordon and illustrated by M. T. Ross, 1915.}
Jesus, Larry. Quit breaking my shit. I told you not to touch anything. {From The London Journal, 1863.}
friday night, gang’s all here {Art: Jack Thurston}
RE: invoking demonic entities. It pays to be discerning when selecting a child with which to tempt your demon. You wouldn’t want to pick a dud. Pro-tip: thump the youngster on the head, lightly, as when choosing a ripe melon. Listen for a lively exclamation of outrage. You’ve got a winner! {Engraving from Macé’s Fairy Book. Home Fairy Tales (Contes du Petit-Château). By Jean Macé. Translated by Mary L. Booth. With Engravings. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1868.}
If I’m being honest, my soul is forever dying slowly due to the fact that I am not living in Portland where so many friends and talented people and wonderful things reside… but my not being local to the area is causing me extreme suffering today, as there is something very special happening that I cannot attend!
The Creeping Museum, whom I’ve written of at Unquiet Things previously and whose creative vision I respect tremendously, is the labor of love conceived between two friends in North Portland, whose mission is to help artists and independent creators give back to their communities by turning their strange and unusual work into tiny pieces of affordable art, for which to support wonderfully worthy causes. And right now they are gearing up to introduce a new project that I think will resonate on some very heart-deep levels with so many of us.
Tonight, Thursday, February 15th at 7PM, at their Little Free Library in North Portland, The Creeping Museum will present an opening celebration for The Haunted Menagerie: A Celebration of Spirit Familiars and Ghostly Pets which will include a miniature group show featuring original artwork as well as an artist bookplate(!!)“exhibition”–and oh, how I wish I could be be present to see all of it! Please go in my stead and take lots of photos and beautiful selfies with the enchanting art and the brilliant minds who pulled it all together, ok?
The bookplate collection will benefit the Portland Audubon Society and includes art by the following artists: Layla Sullivan, Amy Earles, Benjamin Dewey, Marybel Martin, Becky Munich, Pantovola, Christa Dippel, Canvas Menagerie, Hidden Velvet, Alex Reisfar.
The group show in the miniature gallery will include original art by the following artists, and the proceeds from the sale of each piece will go to the nonprofit of the artist’s choice.
– Dena Seiferling
– Darla Jackson
– Stephanie Buscema
– Jenny Fontana
– Diane Irvine Armitage
– Joe Vollan
– Gretchen Lewis
Next week-ish, or sometime thereabouts as I understand it, The Creeping Museum will have a shop update with all sorts of magical items and spells and wonderment related to The Haunted Menagerie concept. I will be writing about it at length over at Haute Macabre, and will be certain to share all of the wonderful details and secrets at that time!
In the meantime, I have been granted a tiny sneak peek of some of the beautiful bookplates and have permission to share them with you…
Welcome to another installment of Stinkers & Duds, wherein I complain about the products that really gross me out! Don’t expect thoughtful, articulate commentary on these things (I hope you have figured out by now that you should probably shouldn’t ever expect that from me). These are beauty products and cosmetics that usually make me a little bit irate, so it’s basically just a lot of cusses and hate.
Why is it that when someone gifts you with something awful, it’s a jumbo-sized version of that awful thing? Yes, I’m a jerk for complaining about a gift…but…it’s not like I’m complaining to their face, right? Aqua di Gioia from Giorgio Armani was a Christmas present this past year, and I am fairly certain I already knew I would hate it; a very similar scent was gifted to me right after high school, as well. And true, when we are young, we haven’t really developed all of our tastes, we are still trying to figure out what we like, but I can assure you that when it came to fragrance, I knew what I was all about–and it was not “shower fresh”, “soapy clean”, or “the world’s most watery glass of lemonade.”
This is a bland, polite scent whose very inoffensiveness offends me. ALSO, and here is a loathsome confession. I am kind of addicted to the youtube channel of this really horrible celebrity; I don’t know why I continue watching her, but I just cannot look away. There is really nothing at redeeming about this person or her place in the world, including and especially her horrible taste (which I know is so subjective, and I am sorry, but she’s pink and UGGS and spray tan and oh my god why can’t I stop watching her?) Anyway, she bought herself Aqua di Gioia as a Christmas gift and as soon as I saw that this dumb dummy loves it, well, that just summed it all up for me. It’s just a dumb, pointless perfume.
Oh my god, I am such an asshole. This LUSH Shoot For The Stars bath bomb was a gift, too, and even worse, it was a gift that I suggested someone buy for me. It’s beautiful, right? It purports to smell of bergamot which sounds super classy, right? Well, we would be wrong for thinking that. It smells like a peach gummy scented urinal cake. Which is the exact opposite of classy. It also left both the tub, and my post-tub bod, super greasy. I know this for a fact because when I went to bed that night, I snuggled up against my partner, who remarked, “…ugh…you’re super greasy.”
Joseon Beauty of Joseon Dynasty Cream was highly recommended to me, first by friends, and secondly by the internet–reddit threads, facebook groups, beauty blogs. It has a cult following, all sorts of heavy-hitter ingredients, and it seems to be everyone’s Holy Grail multifunctional skincare cream. It’s supposed to be brightening, anti-aging, and give you beautiful, bouncy skin. Use it as a face massage, a sleeping pack, with your bb cream, whatever. It was starting to sound like coconut oil, in that regard, right? Like, what can’t this amazing stuff do?
Well, I could not use it long enough to find out. While I didn’t love the powdery-cucumbery scent, it was the slimy, sticky texture that I couldn’t get past. It had a this horrible jellied, stringy consistency (if you are familiar with snail mucin products, you know what I mean), and if I am being honest with you, it looked like someone jizzed all over my face. It was really bad. Like, Faces Of Jizz 18: The Jizzening bad. To add injury (injizzy?) to insult, not only did I look like a glazed fucking donut the few times I used it, it really reddened and inflamed the sensitive areas on my face. Not cool, Joseon Dynasty Cream*. Not cool at all.
To be fair, I purchased this product through amazon. I am aware that purchasing things like this through third party sellers can be risky business, but I truly think I was using the actual product, and it just didn’t work with my skin.
So that’s it for my recents Stinkers and Dud products? What about you? Tell me what you’ve been hating lately!
I don’t quite recall when we first installed this spacious landscape of shelves into my office, but what I can assure you is that they have been amassing quite a lot of junk ever since! (The above is an “after” photo, and as you’ll see, I still have a lot of junk.)
It occurred to me that there was a great deal of empty space just begging to be filled with all of the books that were lying around the house because the other bookshelves were already dangerously full. I figured hey, I’ll take this opportunity in finding a home for all the wayward books, to do a bit of organizing…and who knows…maybe that will clear up space for more books!
I posted a few photos on Instagram of this process and several folks requested that I share some lists of the titles I was reorganizing. I am happy to! See below for a shelf-by-shelf breakdown of what got moved where and why, my probably-logical-only-to-me reorganization system, and where to find each of the books if you want them for your own shelves.
A shelf of mostly haunted anthologies that have covers illustrated by Edward Gorey.
A shelf of poetry that didn’t fit on the other poetry shelf, zines, and weird booklets that defy categorization. And a funny little goblincat to watch over it all. Also, the best candle.
And the rest of the shelves…well…they’re a bit of a work in progress. There’s my mom altar, my shelf of incense, potions, and elixirs, and then an entire shelf dedicated to perfume samples! And as you can see from the photo at the very top of this post, there’s still a few shelves that need some work; they’re in odd or hard to reach spots with relation to my desk and where I sit, and so right now they are home to weird little action figures and toys that still need some sorting.
…so that’s it! And in case you are wondering: yes. Yes, I did clear some space to make room for even more books.
There is nothing as irritating and frustrating as scrolling through your video service of choice for twenty minutes or more and not seeing anything that looks even halfway decent or that grabs your attention. This makes me very angry! I’ve been known to toss the remote across the room in a snit over this very vexation–I mean why are we even paying for these services? I know, this is a really dumb thing to complain about, but it is one of those things that gets my dander up.
A couple years ago, on a whim, I started up a free trial for Shudder (“Curated Thrills, Horror, and Suspense That Will Make Your Spine Tingle”, whee!) through Amazon, and promptly forgot about it. But when I was compiling films to watch this past October for my 31 Days Of Horror project, I realized that Shudder really has some amazing selections. If you’re into super current releases, you might be a bit disappointed, but if your thing is slightly obscure cinema, or previously difficult to find movies, or films with a cult following–there is really a treasure trove of riches to dig through here. Don’t go by current line up of titles they show on the welcome screen at any given time–there is so much more available than that. Which isn’t to say that there’s a magnificently huge selection, but I have found that the really interesting titles are is not the ones featured on the front page.
But let’s say you’re on the sofa, you’ve got your popcorn ready, and you want something NOW. You don’t want to dig around and scroll endlessly for hours and then it’s midnight before you settle on something. I hear you, and I am here to help.
(By the way, how do you eat your popcorn? I like mine with butter, flaky salt, aonori, and nutritional yeast! I could eat it morning, noon and night. Popcorn for life.)
Below are twenty(ish) films that I found in their 50 or so pages of selections, that have my stamp of approval. I mean, don’t tell anyone that. My stamp of approval is sort of worthless, so no doubt they’ll just laugh at you. But between you and me, you cannot go wrong with the following choices, some of which I have mentioned or reviewed previously, and some of which appeared on Unquiet Things as part of a guest blog post, just last week!
And here are some films that I have read about over the years, or which have been on my list of things to watch, and I was very excited to find them on *Shudder as well! Have you found any gems or must-see movies on Shudder (or amazon prime, or netflix, for that matter–we have all of them!)
Yes, we are halfway through the month of January in the new year, and here I am still talking about what I accomplished in the last year, like that high school quarterback whose glory days you have to hear about every time you go to get your car serviced, because there’s that guy who peaked in his senior year and now he’s changing the oil in your Toyota Matrix. I mean, I don’t personally know that guy. I don’t have any friends who played sports. And I didn’t have any friends in high school. And I quite frequently forget to get my oil changed!
But because I am a busy lady with stuff and things to do and who is living her best life and every day is a glory day (right? right!) I am just now getting around to gathering up all of the projects I finished last year. It makes me feel like I have been productive, like I have been industrious, like all the time I spent watching things like Broadchurch and Jordskott weren’t hours totally wasted, because I was also creating something beautiful! Just let me have this, ok?
January
These are the Froot Loop socks by Kristi Geraci from the Spring Issue of Knitty, 2008. I have knit them up several times now, and they are one of my favorite sock patterns. I think the yarn is from knitpicks. I believe they now reside with a Russian poet.
February
The Blue Dahlia shawl by Andrea Jurgrau, which you can find in her book New Vintage Lace: Knits Inspired By the Past. I thought this was going to be a major challenge, but nce I got the hang of the pattern, I daresay I enjoyed it; I ran into a snag and panicked, but rejoiced when I realized there is some errata, and it was not, actually, my fault. Yarn is a steely grey from knitpicks, and the shawl now lives with a creator of jewels and magic.
June
I guess it took me three months to knit up these socks? They are the Rib and Cable Socks by Nancy Bush from Interweave Knits, Fall 2005. I didn’t really love the heel and the toes in this pattern so I just used the instructions from Charade, instead. There may be some tiny differences, between the two–one of the cuffs is slightly longer, one of the toes is shorter. I’ve nicknamed them the wabi-sabi socks, because for whatever little flaws they have, I still think they are perfect, and they currently warm the tootsies of a dear friend of mine, a jeweler and artisan who has elevated jewelry–and friendship–to an art form.
August
In August I went through a phase where I wanted to do something with my funky-colored sock yarns other than make socks. Reyna by Noora Laivola was an excellent pattern for this! A pattern designed specifically to work with the variegation of colors, instead of getting obscured underneath the color changes, it is supposed to work with a single skein of sock yarn, but due to some miscalculations on my part, it took a bit of a second skein of the same color way that I just happened to have on hand. Reyna flew off to sweet friend who is a sculptor of curious critters and is one of the most generous souls that I know. (Top photo by said friend.)
In August I also knit another pair of socks, using the Charade pattern, by Sandra Park. I have knit this pattern countless times, it is one of my favorites, and my go-to for whenever I get new sock yarn without a specific idea in mind. These were gifted, along with the shawl immediately above, to the same person.
This is…an unfortunate photo of the second version of the Reyna shawl that I knit. I finished it in a hotel room, and gave it a bit of a soak and lay it on a towel to dry. I shared a photo and someone pointed out that it looks like a slightly rounded bottom, wearing a pair of undies! I’ve nicknames this version the “secret butts shawl”. It was knit up in some old hand painted lace in lovely earthy tones, and gifted to a perfumer who already owns the sister shawl–a piece I knit ages ago, with the same yarn. It was my first ever fancy shawl! I am so pleased that this wonderful person now owns both.
September
Eir by Caitlin Ffrench was among the hurricane knits I busied myself with while we were waiting out a violent storm in late summer of this year. It was a lovely, mindless triangle shawl project, with an interesting border that I really love. Knit up in knitpicks city tweed, it now lives in TX with lovely friend who makes gorgeous jeweled creations. (The top photo is hers.)
Siren’s Song by Caitlin Ffrench (you’ll notice that a Caitlin Ffrench obsession has begun) was knit up in Knitting Fever Painted Desert yarn and was another really nice pattern that kept my interest but also allowed me to watch a lot of teevee at the same time. I gave this to a wild, wise, bohemian spirit out west who shared some poignant insight with me several years ago when my mother died and I have never forgotten her words or their impact on me at the time.
It’s strange how sometimes you will make something and already have someone in mind to be on the receiving end for it. And in extra-special sometimes, you were right to think so! I completed the Elk Tooth shawl by Caitlin Ffrench and upon sharing it on instagram, a friend immediately commented upon it. The funny thing is, the pattern, the name, the yarn–it all had me thinking of her as I was knitting it! And so of course it had to go home to this person, a far away friend that I would love to spend time with in real life because I think we would get on splendidly. The bottom photo was taken by this very friend.
October
Sometimes people ask me if I sell my knits. I do not. I knit because I enjoy knitting, and I give my finished knits away because I enjoy giving. Selling the product of an activity I enjoy lessens the enjoyment of it for me, somehow. Also, I do not write my own patterns–everything I knit is from a pattern that someone else’s work and creativity has gone into–and I am not sure of the ethics or legalities involved in that. However! I do trade my work! This particular knit, Mabon, by Caitlin Ffrench, was traded away and you may very well see the other side of the trade showing up on Unquiet Things here soon!
These two altar cloths were each knit up in the span of a day, another wonderfully satisfying little pattern by Caitlin Ffrench. I sent these to a longtime friend and purveyor of enchanted & esoteric perfumes, and hopefully they are sitting around in her laboratory, witnessing all kinds of sorcerous stinkery!
November
Ostara by Caitlin Ffrench called for a much bulkier yarn and larger needles, but I knit it up with lace weight and sizes twos, just to see how it would come out. It doesn’t work for my purposes, but it’s beautiful, nonetheless, and a fairly simple, engaging pattern. In the meantime, I am knitting up several different version of this pattern–different yarn, needles, pattern modifications–so I’ll get the perfect shawl eventually! Subsequent versions of this shawl are all headed off to the same very special version, for a very special event, and I am hoping one will work. If not, that’s okay. I kind of foisted the idea on them anyway, and they don’t have to use it for this express purpose! They can use it for whatever. I just wanted to make something special for someone dear to me. This first test version, however, lives with an artist and photographer and amazingly creative mind who I admire tremendously. She snapped this bottom photo of the shawl for me– and this, too, is a small piece of art that blows my mind.
December
I closed out the year by knitting up another version of that Steam and Brass kerchief, simple stitches whilst watching Dark on netflix (which was excellent and you should watch it now if you have not already!) This was a trade with an incredible artist for which I received a most exquisite photo in exchange.
And that’s it! If you’re curious though, here are some things I plan on tackling in 2018:
I spent some much-needed quality times with my sisters over the Thanksgiving holiday. We sat in companionable silence, ignoring each other in favor of our various quiet pursuits while eating mass quantities of junk food–and it was utterly glorious.
I snapped a photo of my baby sister’s afternoon pastime (forgive me, she’s in her late 30s now, but you know how it is–the youngest is always the baby. I’m the oldest, if you didn’t know!) She was earnestly carving out time in her planner for this, that, or the other thing, and while she was doing so, I snapped a photo and shared it to Instagram. It garnered such an interesting response! Some folks were much like me, in that we can’t be bothered with planners, but still find the concept and execution fascinating. Some people thought it was quite a work of art! And others were keenly interested in learning more, for they too, yearn to make sense of their schedules and set things to order.
She and I decided that it might be fun for her to put together a little guest blog for the New Year, when everyone is trying to pin down their plans and get organized for 2018. See below for her journey from a sad, struggling soul who felt like life was something that happened to her, to a woman with purpose …and plans! She discusses regaining a feeling of control and a sense of empowerment through the use and implementation of her planner (and all of the little gadgets and doohickeys that make planners so much fun! Or so I hear. Still not a convert tbh.) And additionally, we have a bit of a Q&A, wherein I encourage her to spill the beans on all of the incidentals and details and accompanying planner fripperies.
The late May sun was just starting to set in the west; another day in the deserts of Southern California was drawing to a close, exhausted by its own unending heat. The pinkish-gold glow of the sky made the brownish lumps of the San Bernardino Mountains (piles of god-shit, as I sometimes sourly observed) against that sky curdle and hulk in surly, resentful, passive existence.
At that moment, though, I could scarcely register the brilliant sunset or the hulking mountains; my eyes kept blurring with tears.
I was driving my colleague, Dustin, home from a work party. He kept glancing over at me in vague dismay–this snivelling, exhausted, melancholic woman in the driver’s seat was a hollow echo of the brash, boisterous colleague with whom he had become familiar. He knew I was experiencing a bout of depression, but he didn’t know the causes–such as my own failure to execute basic acts of self-care (LIKE TAKING MY ANTIDEPRESSANTS), the fact that, despite my knowledge of my husband’s repeated infidelities, I had just committed with him to a 30-year-mortgage on a house in a place that I hated more with every passing minute. I would grow old in that house, with that man, and life–if I could call this existence “life”– was simply happening to me, with neither my consent nor my dissent, nor any effort on my part to steer things. I was good and trapped–so I thought.
Like any man who has no profound emotional attachment to a person, Dustin simply wanted me to stop crying. He tried to cheer me up. “Do you have something nice to look forward to? You should make some plans. Everyone needs something to look forward to.”
I tried to pull myself together. I stopped snivelling (on the outside, at least), and carried on with my evening, but I had heard Dustin’s words, and I didn’t forget them in a hurry. Or ever.
Not long after that, I started to plan.
My immersion into “the planning community” has been very gradual. In 2012, 2013, my forays into “the planner life” consisted mainly of weekly lists and goals, broken down into categories. But I was lacking a grasp of the big picture (who am I kidding? I still am), and I knew it wasn’t enough. I flitted about from one planner to another, not ever quite finding the right fit for me (I know now that “the right fit” has a name: “Planner Peace.” Go on, roll your eyes. I’ll wait.) But in early 2014, my Middle Sister directed me to The Life-Changing Magic of Erin Condren, and by extension, “The Planning Community.” What can I say about Erin Condren Life Planners? They aren’t everyone’s cuppa, but they are mine. They aren’t hideously expensive, but they aren’t cheap, either. These customizable planners have helped me organize my life (I currently juggle three jobs and try to have an active social life), direct my intentions, energies, and projects, and generally just help me stay on top of things. I like being busy and productive, I like setting goals, I like checking things off my lists, and if you think that I am the type of person that would schedule sex in my planner, well…I’m here to tell you, if I actually ever bothered to have sex, I absolutely would.)
Since using Erin Condren, I’ve noticed more and more that life is no longer something that happens to me. More and more, day by day, I happen to life. I’m not saying that joining “the planning community” got me to divorce my husband, find a new job (or 3) , move across country, and build a whole new existence–but I AM saying that these accomplishments of mine were a hell of a lot more easily achieved through maintaining a planner and a planned life.
Recently, I traveled down to Florida for my annual Thanksgiving jollifications with my sisters and their partners. From Orlando with Middle Sister to Daytona with Eldest I traveled, and it wasn’t until I was getting settled into the captain’s bed in Eldest’s office that I realized I had left my planner behind in Orlando.
Not long after, Eldest’s partner observed, not without amusement, “Your sister’s been without her planner for half an hour, and she’s a bit of a mess.” I had to chuckle; it was true. As soon as I realized I was without my planner, I promptly began making a to-do list for the next day on a piece of scratch paper. It wasn’t my planner, but it would have to do.
“It’s the ritual, I think, that you need as much as anything,” Eldest observed. And she’s right! On Sundays I light some candles, play some music, drink some wine, and plan my week ahead. In the mornings, I settle down with some coffee and contemplate what needs to be done in the hours ahead. It’s a ritual, a routine that helps me feel like I have agency in my own life. The sense of control is fictional, of course, but the planner in my hands, the intentions, the goals are very real, indeed. The Black Dogs of my depression and my anxiety–not discussed here, but no less potent for that–are longtime companions of mine, and I’ve found some ways to manage their less-than-cherished company.
Some folks laugh at me, I think, for trying to plan and stay on top of things, but I know now: planning is my way for me to perform self-care when I am anxious. It’s my way channel my energy and to try to give my struggling, sometimes sad life some intention and purpose. I invite you to find a way to incorporate planning into your life to achieve your own kind of comfort and care.
Q&A
You mention Erin Condren planners–what makes them so great?
Well–and bear in mind, everyone is different in what they like and need in a planner–for me it’s that the EC planners have a certain amount of regimenting, and a certain amount of customization. (And space for lists–every week, every month, and at the back of the planner.) Each year, the designs change in response to what people ask for, and each year, they just keep getting better!. When I first started using EC planners, they were only vertical layouts, non-time-slotted, with chunks for morning-noon-and-night, Now you can get horizontal or vertical layouts, time-chunked or non-time-chunked, and you can decide how your days and priorities and projects are broken down and planned out. Furthermore, there is plenty of space and ways for folks to get all artsy-fartsy and shit.
Plan out you typical day for me!
Okay, so, I use the Erin Condren vertical layout planner, which is divided into three sections. I use the top section for my scheduled stuff, the middle section for my to-do list, and the bottom section for self-care/adulting stuff. So, here’s my Monday:
Schedule:
📖 7:30 AM Labwork at Clinic
📖 8:30-5 PM Work
📖 5-6:15 Run to campus, grab dinner
📖 6:30 Movie with Joelle
📖 8:30 Go home, do chores, putter, etc.
To Do:
📖 Pick up library books
📖 Renew professional membership
📖 Fold laundry
📖 15 minute clean
📖 Work on packing
📖 Text my friend Jo
Self-Care:
📖 Take pills
📖 Journal
📖 Hail hydrate
📖 Continue Dryuary Project
📖 Cuddle Cats (For the record: I am in the middle of moving, so pretty much all of my energies are focused on that, and not so much with anything beyond the very basics of self-care. Long-term goal: Get better about that.)
How do you differentiate or prioritize different kinds of plans? Need to do vs. want to do?
For me, to a greater or lesser extent, everything is a NEED to do! But I tend to categorize my plans and to-do lists and action items and routines: Work, Health, Home, Social Obligations, Correspondence, To Buy, To Read, General To-Do Errands, Project Steps, and then under each category, try to list stuff in order of descending importance.
What are some of the other planners currentpopular in the “planning community?” What are some “planner trends” right now?”
📖 BuJo (Bullet Journaling) was HUGE a year ago. (I tried BuJo, but it was too time-consuming.) This year, it’s Travelers Notebooks. Both of these are more customizable than your manufactured planners.
📖 Other planners that seem to have quite a devoted following are Passion Planners, Plum Paper Planners, and Kikki K Planners
📖 PenGems, I’m told, are a thing, although I suspect that they could be more a flash in the pan. 📖 The planning world, much like the makeup world and the crafting world, is one that responds to the free market, as far as I am concerned. If there’s an interest in it, then by god, there are products to fulfill your interest!
📖 Planner Conventions
I know there’s some facebook pages (and probably LJ communities and reddit groups, etc.) dedicated to “the planner life”, what can you tell me about them and the communities built around them? How do you find them helpful? 📖 Again, it’s going to depend on what you need. Do you need inspiration for ways to plan out your ECLP (Vertical)? Do you need to be reassured that you are not the only one with 7+ planners? (You’re not.) Are you just going through some shit and need to reach out to someone? There are many, many different planner communities out there, but I would suggest for a general, and gentle, introduction, Planners with Manners would be a good starting point, and they can direct you to other, more specific groups. 📖 BohoBerry, a really fantastic lady who has a website/blog about creative goal setting and bullet journaling, has a tribe, which includes a facebook group; I’m actually really excited to look into this more. She also encourages a lot of journaling and self-reflection.
📖 Lisa Marie Landreth, of Paper and Glam, designs her own planners and stickers, and runs a bit of a planning community and book club. She might be a bit feminine and conventional for many folks’ tastes, but I find her to be very earnest and sweet, and her “glam family” seems to grow every month.
📖 “MAMBI” (Acronym for the brand name Me and My Big Ideas) produce “Happy Planners”, which I actually use as a bit of a scrapbook (there seems to be quite an intersection between the planning and papercrafting communities), and the Facebook Group Mambi The Happy Planner Divas focuses on that particular brand. And of course there’s always the We Love EC Facebook Group for the Erin Condren fans out there!
I’ve peeked through your planner and have seen all kinds of wacky decorations–what’s that all about?
STICKERS, dude. It’s all about the stickers. There are so many different stickers that will help you theme and customize your planner, day, week, month, Gallifreyan regeneration cycles, whatevs.
Do you have any planner recommendations for readers of Unquiet Things? I think you know our aesthetic. I think you referred to it once as “dead people stuff.”
Cor blimey, that’s a tough one. Because I feel guilty about type-casting folks. I mean, here I am using those cutsie-pootsie stickers from Switzerland, but then I am listening to Dropkick Murphys and contemplating the feasibility of open relationships as I plan my month. So, folks can be a bit…eclectic in their tastes? But then again, I am a liberal librarian who rejected California for Indiana and says “dude” and I am also burning a Bath and Body Works candle and drinking some Starbucks coffee as I plan, so perhaps some tastes will out and folks are hard to pin down, so hey hey y’all, let’s make some assumptions…
ANYWAY. Customizing planners is one of the big things in “the planning community”, so I would say that Etsy shops that supply stickers, covers, and charms according to the aesthetics that I am PRESUMING y’all have, would be something I would recommend. Naked Eye Studio on Etsy unfortunately only has a few items up for sale, but some of their stuff would be PERF.
This is really just an excuse to share with you the Google docs list that I have been updating for myself of all of the film and teevee that I’ve been feeding into my eyeballs over the past year. I tried, when I remembered to do so, to add the dates in for when I watched the individual things. Also, I am a terrible movie reviewer, so there isn’t much in the way of additional thoughts here, though I have put a * next to the ones I really enjoyed, and would recommend. (Though if you want to read mini reviews on anything I watched in October–and there was a lot!– go over to Haute Macabre and you’ll find it all there: Part 1 // Part 2.)
P.S. If you read all the way to the end, you’ll see I have listed some upcoming movies that I am very excited for. What about you? Any favorites from this year? Anything you are looking forward to in 2018?
2/1 Trouble Every Day
2/2 Blair Witch
2/3 The Love Witch
2/4 Dracula (re-watch)
2/6 The Editor*
2/7 The Village
2/10 VHS
2/26 Get Out*
March
3/5 Ouija: Origin of Evil
3/9 Don’t Breathe
3/20 Salome’s Last Dance
3/23 Song of the Sea*
3/28 Prevenge*
April
4/1 Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
4/1 Rogue One
4/2 Ghost In The Shell
4/3 Moana
4/8-4/11 Taboo*
4/15-4/16 Steven Universe*
4/16 The Void
4/26 Fortitude*
6/3 Wonder Woman*
6/8 Phantasm III
6/17 Star Trek
6/22 Raw
6/24 Frankenhooker*
6/? Riverdale*
6/29 A Dark Song
6/30 The Belko Experiment
July
7/1 From A House On Willow St
7/3 What We Do In The Shadows (rewatch)
7/4 Kong Skull Island
7/5 Attack On Titan Season 2
7/6 Lake Bodom
7/17 Split
7/20 Logan
7/22 Martin*
7/23 Creepshow
7/26 Dawn of the Dead*
7/29 Zeder*
9/9 10 Cloverfield Lane
9/10 Lavender
9/16 Lord of the Rings trilogy (again)
9/23 mother!
9/25 Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (rewatch)
9/30 Body
October
10/1 Shelley
10/2 The Transfiguration
10/3 The Haunting of Julia*
10/4 High Tension
10/5 Dark Signal
10/6 Jacob’s Ladder
10/7 Pet Sematary
10/8 The Asphyx & Last Shift
10/9 The Whip and the Body
10/10 I Am A Ghost
10/11 White Zombie
10/12 Under The Shadow
10/13 Dragula Ep 1&2
10/14 P
10/15 Devil’s Backbone*
10/16 Devil’s Backbone (it took me two days to watch this)
10/17 Shiki, Corpse Party, When They Cry
10/18 The Vampire Lovers
10/19 Blood And Roses
10/20 Slumber Party Massacre
10/21 Kill Baby Kill
10/22 Maximum Overdrive
10/23 John Dies At The End
10/24 Le Manoir du Diable
10/25 The Devil’s Candy
10/26 Audrey Rose
10/27 American Horror Story: Cult
10/28 Shivers
10/29 Repulsion
10/30 Channel Zero: Candle Cove
10/31 Stranger Things
November
11/12 Scream Queens
11/20 Exorcist
December
12/2 Broadchurch
12/5 Exorcist*
12/7 Vikings
12/14 Thor: Ragnarok*
12/16 Howl’s Moving Castle (rewatch)
12/17 Dark*
12/24 Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Dr. Bloodsucker: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love My Pet Leech
In the year that has passed since Mawga, my grandmother died, I have spent a great deal of time thumbing through the recipe book that she left behind. A small, black three ring binder; matte, plastic, unmarked, and which now holds the contents of its predecessor, a vibrant orange business, with jaunty illustrations of butter crocks and salt cellars and tea kettles. This newer version, you’d never mistake it for the vessel of gastronomic conjurations it contains. You might think it was an address book, if people used such things anymore. A booklet for business cards or bills, perhaps. Something filled with information for filing away. Things that no one actually wants to bother digging out and looking at again. As opposed to…well, the thing you reach for, not just out of habit, but of yearning, and of a craving. You would not know to look at this book and crave.
If I’m being honest, my soul is forever dying slowly due to the fact that I am not living in Portland where so many friends and talented people and wonderful things reside… but my not being local to the area is causing me extreme suffering today, as there is something very special happening that I cannot attend!
Why is it that when someone gifts you with something awful, it’s a jumbo-sized version of that awful thing? Yes, I’m a jerk for complaining about a gift…but…it’s not like I’m complaining to their face, right? 
Oh my god, I am such an asshole. This 
A shelf for perfume and the dark arts.
The Death & Stuff shelf.
I spent some much-needed quality times with my sisters over the Thanksgiving holiday. We sat in companionable silence, ignoring each other in favor of our various quiet pursuits while eating mass quantities of junk food–and it was utterly glorious.
