Zoologist Rabbit: Imagine a little picnic with your beloved stuffed bunny, the threadbare and shabby old thing with the missing eye and the unraveling stitches and the patch on its little belly where the stuffing has begun to leak through, the one you’ve loved so much and for so long that there is no doubt in your mind that it is the very realest rabbit. And picture the most realistic mud pie you ever made, so true to life in fact that when you took a crumbling bite of it, it actually tasted a bit like a lightly spiced tea loaf, gently sweetened, with a soft, tender crumb– maybe a seasonal apple or zucchini bread, but minus the actual fruit or vegetation. As a matter of fact, there’s little to no greenery in this scent at all, even the clover and the hay is more honeyed sweetness than grassy or botanical, and I do think that verdancy, that sense of green growing things, is what’s missing for me. This fragrance is less Peter Rabbit and more Velveteen Rabbit, right down to the well-worn cozy, cuddly fuzzy, snuggly skin musk of it– and as a matter of here’s a fleeting there-and-gone curious note that seems to be aiming for milky and creamy, but briefly veers a touch sour and unwell almost like a hint of baby spit-up. Like your beloved stuffed bunny that served as a faithful childhood repository for various ailments and was never quite fully sanitized. Despite its peculiarities and what it’s missing, it truly feels like a love letter to something sweet and cherished, and so far back in time you can never reach it again–and I think that’s ultimately what makes it so evocative – it’s the memory, how you felt in that garden and that friendship with your soft, sweet companion, filtered through the lens of childhood wonder and a love so fierce it transcends reality.
Midnight Snowfallis a winter’s witching hour personified; Night Queen, shock of moon-pale hair glittering, cloaked in the dark unknown of ancient terrors looming beyond firelight, a creature born of the hush that descends upon the world as the last sliver of sun sighs into the dusk. Lunar dreamworlds, surreal shadow realms, secret starlit cities beyond time–limned in a single frozen glance, a soft, bitter stolen kiss, a phosphorescent lamentation of stars fading at dawn. The resinous nectar of champaca’s intoxicating warmth chilled by a shiver of pale, pearlescent moon flowers, swaddled, sticky, and senseless in a velvety oblivion of moonless night.
An olfactory altar to the transformative agonies of sloughing off your broken chrysalis, The Shedding Timeis a fragrance that calls for a moment, alone and in the dark. The clove is feral and sharp, a twisty slithering coiling around your awareness, deep in the shadows; each successive sniff draws it closer to the surface. Clinging to the bitter autumn honey of the serpentine spice is the shriveled exuviae of phantom flowers–a scorched and skeletal bouquet of tuberose and honeysuckle, mingles with the dissolving tendrils of earthy incense smoke. A rosy glowing emerges, the faintest sunrise blush on the freshly exposed skin, that much more alive. The body unshrouded, the psyche reborn, a perfume to witness the beauty of becoming through the crucible of transformation. Kick aside your broken carapace and step out into the sun.
I’ve got a sampler set from Marissa Zappas, and I don’t know if it is just me, but are all of these scents really subtle and subdued? Today I am wearing Maggie the Cat is Alive, I’m Alive!and, firstly, I should confess that I’m not coming at this scent from a place of attachment to its inspiration. With the exception of an overwrought snippet or two, I have never seen Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. From what I gather, it’s a whirlwind of melodrama and histrionics and conflicted, tormented souls. And considering that, this fragrance is quite an exercise in restraint.
It is the olfactory equivalent of hushed whispers, fading echoes, and pale shadows further muted by weak sunlight. The champagne is a warmed, still echo in its glass, the effervescence long gone. A delicate tension simmers between the dripping sweetness of peach and ambrette’s intimate, powdery musk, all set against an understated backdrop of cool, elusive floral notes and the gentle, woody humidity of oakmoss. Maggie the Cat isn’t at all the piercing shrieking experience that I expected but offers an introspective, understated moment instead
It initially unfolds with an autumnal chalice of warm, sweetened harvest grains – perhaps barley or oatmeal – generously drizzled with the forbidden warmth of stolen honey, strange tawny nectar, haunted with the dusky whisper of hidden hives in a lightning-scarred elm. This comforting porridge soon melts away, revealing a heart of soft, velvety, caramelized apricot resin and the airy musk of pear blossoms. As it lingers, the fragrance transforms into a rich yet weightless, creamy amber-vanilla essence. It becomes an intimate companion, close to the skin, and evokes the gentle murmur of bees nestled in the dark hush of winter, dreaming of sun-drenched fields.
Norwegian Wood from Folie À Plusieurs This is not actually the scent I ordered …I double-checked my receipt a dozen times in the past few days just because I always assume I am the one who is mistaken or wrong… but you know what? I’m okay with receiving what I got, and regardless of what I ordered, I like this a lot. Norwegian Wood is inspired by the Haruki Murakami novel of the same name, but I read that so long ago that I don’t recall a thing about it, so that’s not going to factor into my thoughts. So. While I do love the scent of a heavily wooded hinterland or an ominous evergreen Mirkwood Forest midnight–basically, a syrupy resinous coniferous balsamic dirge of a scent (think Norne from Slumberhouse or Dasein Winter Nights) this is…not that. Or, well, it’s sort of that, but remove all those associations with darkness and shadows and the macabre. Rather than the Huntsman chasing a terrified Snow White into the gloomy woods, this is instead the contentment of Snow White in a sun-dappled forest glade, surrounded by woodland creatures, a soft trembling faun on her lap, and a little bluebird perched on her finger. It’s the scent of weathered branches and leaves fluttering in the breeze, sticky sap and damp creeping moss, the faint sweetness of wildflowers crushed under your feet, the rosy golden musk of a sunbeam on your skin; it’s all of that, but it’s not overly sentimental or twee. Its the sheer, gauzy summer halo of a winter haunted forest emerging from a deep sleeping curse.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab The Storm While I am much usually much more expansive in my reviews, I am confident in saying that all you need to know is this scent is BPAL’s Antique Lace, those faded phantom attic-trunk florals, and the milky-musky-powderiness of cobwebby linens, caught up in the misty salt-air mystery and bitter cliffside botanicals of smugglers and shipwrecks on the windswept Cornish coast of Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab The Acrobats is the flushed exuberance of juicy-peachy apricot, its delicate brightness made unsettling with amber’s dimly glowing resins and the bitter tang of tannins. I don’t know if I am unduly influenced by the heart-rending painting upon which it was based, but it really does smell like a sweet memory tinged with unbearable sorrow.
I have two fragrances kindly sent to me by Noah from Amphora’s debut collection. Amphora’s offerings are “gay-hearted fragrances”, perfumes that are joyous, inclusive, and queer, and the first one I’ve got here, Sublimate, really feels like the utmost epitome of these sentiments. With notes of frozen apple, dried rose petals, candied violets, marshmallow, cashmere, and white musk, this scent is a disco ball piñata of Pixy Stix dissolving in a vat of liquid nitrogen, exploding into a supernova of candied campy Barbarellas. It is a technicolor cacophony of hyper-fruity absurdity, a celebratory sweetness that leaves your soul awash in glitter and makes you question the very fabric of reality, and truly, I think it is the penultimate recipe for euphoria. Primal Yell has elements of hot iron, cherry, and bitter almond in addition to patchouli, vetiver, and some other notes, and this is definitely the moodier and broodier of the duo. I definitely get that red fruit, but it’s swaddled in black velvet and furs, and encased in an ancient iron coffin. As a matter of fact, this is very much a blood popsicle shared between two very old, very chic, and jaded, too-cool-for-school vampire lovers. These fragrances, despite being wildly different from one another, share an underlying thread of a creator who is clearly having lots of fun– and who is joyfully inviting us along for the ride.
This Ember by Anka Kus As intrigued as I was by the idea of a fragrance inspired by the lore of the phoenix, this is less a solitary mythical firebird and more a gaggle of mean girls cackling at a sick burn. It’s the sort of ambery raspberry-smoky rose that I’m already disinclined to like, because I don’t love fruity florals, but there is something about this one that’s particularly smug and acridly unlikeable. It’s got the structure of a scent that aspires to an aura of power and allure, but it falls flat, it’s just a loud, saccharine veneer in the shape of a void where a personality is meant to be. And sure, you can tell me I need therapy for my high school trauma, but I swear I don’t even think about that stuff until a particularly awful perfume comes across my radar. This is one of those perfumes.
I got myself the Kayali fragrance sampler for my birthday as sort of a joke, which I feel a bit hypocritical for saying, as I am also someone who -most of the time- believes that if you are not doing something in earnest, then why are you even bothering to do it at all? I don’t feel good about the idea of enjoying things ironically, I’d rather approach things with genuine curiosity. So anyway, the whole reason I got the set was for a sample of Yum Pistachio Gelato, and the story for this is that whenever this scent was first released (sometime last year in 2023?) I recall that perfumetok was a bit in a dither about it for some reason…and not being all that plugged into perfume community drama, I wasn’t sure why, but I thought it had something to do with how influencers were talking or not talking about it, or maybe some people were butthurt about not receiving PR boxes? I don’t know, but I was curious as to whether the scent itself was in any way worth getting your nose out of joint about. It is not. This is a commonplace-smelling vanilla skin musk with the addition of what I think of as a sort of rancid shea butter sour baby puke element, something soft and creamy that’s gone all clotted and curdled. It’s not the worst thing I ever smelled, but if you didn’t receive a PR box about it, you no doubt lived through the ordeal of it and went on to smell better things.
I don’t think I know how to talk about Fantosmia from Jorum Studio, , so instead, I am just going to run their list of notes through my internal translator and speak them to you in my language. This is the scent of a leather armor repurposed into a stewing pot into which you stir the sticky sap of a wounded tree, the sour scrapings of the inner rind of a pumpkin, the last few crumbles of Transylvanian honey bread blessed by the holy sisters and studded with spirit-soaked dried plums, and a scant handful of musty seeds and peppery herbs. Stir over stones that haven’t seen sunlight in one hundred years and trap the cookfire’s ghostly smoke in a glass vial for after-dinner divinatory purposes. This scent is a cryptic recipe written in a forgotten tongue; I can almost decipher the symbols, but ultimately it remains a mystery, a riddle that I can’t solve. I can admire it, yet I can’t quite call my own.
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In this video, I talk about why I collect tarot cards, four of my favorite decks, who I go to for my life-changing tarot readings, and some other extra fun tidbits, like if I were to commission a tarot deck, which artists I’d go to!
I really didn’t think I’d have much to talk about, but somehow this video is almost half an hour long! I imagine people think that because I have written about art inspired by the occult or arcane and esoteric practices, I myself am a practitioner of some of these things, but I am not, really. I pick up the odd tidbit of information here and there, but it’s something that fascinates me more in theory than practice. Just a heads up!
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Darla Jackson, This will hurt me more than it hurts you
When I was in the sixth grade, around 11-12 years old, there was a girl who made me very, very angry. We will call her Mary Jo.
Our grade was sorted into color groups, which didn’t make sense at first until you realized it had to do with what you were learning, how you were graded, and so on. I was in orange, and there was also blue, red, and purple. Turns out the oranges were the smarties. The purples…not so much. Mary Jo was a purple. She was also very popular. And very mean.
Children were bussed in fairly early, and before classes would start for the day, I would sit outside my homeroom door reading. That and along with the the fact I read during class, at recess and lunch, on the bus going home, naturally I was thought of as a bookworm, but I never thought it was a bad thing. I was actually really proud of how much I read! And then one day Mary Jo, who was in some sort of after-school thing with one of my younger sisters, said to her something along the lines of “your sister’s a NERD.” And not in an admiring way. In really nasty way, like she was trying to shame my sister into feeling bad about who and how I was.
I could handle being picked on myself, but using my sister as a punching bag? I was INCENSED. I was also a weenie and not being a confrontational or violent person, I never did anything about it… but for years afterward, I dreamed about walking up to Mary Jo and without saying a word, punching her square in the face.
Incidentally, it was around this age that I began getting cat-called and harassed by much, much older men. Freaked out and furious, I would daydream, in waking hours, about punching their faces, too.
Darla Jackson, This will hurt me more than it hurts you
When I first saw Darla Jackson’s birdie knuckleduster sculpt, This Will Hurt Me More Than It Hurts You, all of that long-ago anger and fear came back to me, all at once. Darla’s work resonates with that feeling of childhood unease – the disconnect between the safe, sunny stories we’re fed of what being a kid should look like, alongside the complexities of the real world.
Says Darla: “A four bird knuckle duster is where Snow White meets GhostFace Killah in my head. Cute but intimidating at the same time, it’s meant to offer ideas of protection and self defense that are so often needed yet usually suspiciously absent in portrayals of women in popular culture (I’m looking at you Disney movies!). The title, “This will hurt me more than it hurts you”, is a reference to the fact that women are often criticized for standing up for themselves.”
It’s one of those rare works of art that hit me in the gut and the heart simultaneously, and I was thrilled many years later when she permitted me to include the work in my book The Art of Darkness: A Treasury of the Morbid, Melancholic, and Macabre. And truly, there there’s something undeniably dark about this implement of fairy-tale violence both cute and intimidating. It’s saccharine and savage in equal measure, a weaponized quartet threatening both cuddles and carnage.
This, in a nutshell, is the captivating world of Darla Jackson’s sculptures.
Darla Jackson, Lost // The Water’s At Your Neck
Darla Jackson, The Nothing
This darkness lurks beneath the surface of Darla Jackson’s work. Not a brooding, gothic kind of darkness, but a sly, knowing one. It peeks out from the wide, porcelain eyes of her creatures, often rendered in clay with a disconcerting softness. These aren’t the friendly innocence of Snow White’s forest animal menagerie – they’re vessels for complex emotions, silent observers of a world, creations that are equal parts charming and disturbing. It’s a clever strategy – by using creatures as proxies, she avoids the baggage of human representation, allowing viewers to connect with the raw emotions on display, unfiltered by the pesky trappings of, well…people.
Darla Jackson, It All Comes Out Wrong AnywayDarla Jackson, A Dangerous Expedition // A Damned Fine Game
A shaper of narratives with a knack for capturing vulnerability through the animal kingdom, she meticulously collects fragments of inspiration – a photograph, a song lyric, a fleeting observation at the zoo – and molds this wellspring of ideas together into a cohesive whole, unquiet critters and foreboding fauna that provoke and compel in equal measure.
Darla Jackson, CHAMBER XIX Bring the motherfucking ruckus
I was extremely intrigued by Darla’s little avian iron maiden, that to my eyes, looks like its spiky insides are caked with coppery dried blood. If you ask me, this is where all cat-callers belong. About this one Darla says:
“As a kid, I was always obsessed with medieval torture devices…I couldn’t wrap my head around how people could do something like that to one another. The same goes for how people treat one another to this day, verbally, emotionally… I suppose I’m very interested in how people treat one another and even more so, how people treat themselves, often being harder on themselves than anyone else could be.”
Darla Jackson, Counterpoint
Darla Jackson, CHAMBER I You are born, ok
Whether it’s a rabbit in a crow mask or winged things packing a punch, Darla’s sculptures remind us that vulnerability doesn’t negate strength. By embodying complex emotions in these animalistic forms, she invites viewers to explore their own vulnerabilities and grapple with the realities of the world, both beautiful and brutal. Whether it’s the memory of childhood bullies or the ever-present threat of harassment, these sculptures give voice to the unspoken anxieties we carry within, and with a little Darla Jackson-esque grit, we can all face the world, birdy knuckledusters at the ready, prepared to defend ourselves and rewrite the narratives that try to limit us.
Darla Jackson, A Place To Come Home To
BONUS! I always love to get to know the artists in my books as whole people, with lives and interests beyond their art (as incredible and fascinating as that art might be!) I am going to make more of an effort to include an extra little tidbit or two in these artist spotlights in the future, and starting today, I thought I would ask Darla about…perfume! Because OF COURSE.
According to Darla, these are some of her favorites!
Ok, so one of my first favorites is Bourbon by Hans Hendley. I was drawn to the idea that it was oak aged and made me think of an old fashioned, which is my adult beverage of choice. I am also very fond of his Amora but Bourbon has my heart.
Trompette 8 is my very favorite perfume. Made by Filippo Sorcinelli, it has all the smoky notes I want in a perfume and his packaging is always stunning. His Unum Laavs is amazing too.
Darla Jackson, How it feels (Tiger’s Eye Edition)
Darla currently has a collaborative exhibition, along with Paul Romano at Arch Enemy Arts…
LAMENT + BLOOM is the second installment of HOLD SACRED, a multi-part collaborative series. It is a collection of sculptures, installations, and paintings inspired by “the idea of what is sacred” while navigating the emotional aftermath of loss. Together, Jackson and Romano ask what thoughts, objects, concepts and relationships do they hold dear; what do they cherish and sanctify while “growing through grief?”
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Frederick Sandys, King Pelles Daughter Bearing the Vessel of the Sangreal, 1861
I recently shared the following on Reddit in (probably unhelpfully) answering someone’s question about a process for writing perfume reviews, and it occurred to me that it’s something I should share here as well. In case you ever wondered about my perfume review process or lack thereof!
Wrapping up with “Be true to yourself” is cheesy as hell, and I KNOW IT, but it’s the only way I can write about anything, and it’s the best advice I can give.
“I’ve been writing perfume reviews for almost twenty years, and when I saw your question, I had to admit to myself that maybe I don’t actually have a process. I’m kind of all over the place with it. It’s chaos.
Also, I realize that my reviews are probably pretty frustrating because I don’t really write them to be helpful to other people. Perfume reviews, for me, are more of a creative writing exercise than an attempt to paint a factual, by-the-numbers picture of my experience with a fragrance. True, I do share them on review sites and various subreddits like this one, and if they resonate with someone, great!
I don’t write on a schedule, though I do try to write about fragrance every day. I might not always share it immediately or at all, but I am always sniffing things, thinking about them, and making little notes and connections for myself.
But –and I am being totally honest here– my perfume reviews are very much an example of “boy, she sure likes to hear herself talk, doesn’t she?” Ruminating on and rambling about perfumes as I do provides a more complete experience beyond the smelling of the thing, you know? I have to write about things to understand them, and as unaccommodatingly wacky as my resulting thoughts might sometimes be, it’s the process of writing them down that brings me to that understanding.
That said, as abstract or circuitous or as unhelpful as my perfume reviews frequently are, I suppose I do have some things I try to work into my reviews. Perfume notes? Not really. Thoughts on the perfumer or the house? Rarely. I might talk about how the notes translate for me (like tobacco usually manifests as stewed raisins, for example), and I might talk about whether or not I smell the perfumer’s inspiration in their creation, but as both a reader and writer of reviews who doesn’t care about the nuts and bolts of the scent, I write about it the way I would want to read it.
Which is to say…I want to know what the perfume made you feel. Don’t tell me it smells nice. What does that even mean? Is “nice” a yellow daisy on a crisp spring day? Is “nice” a sudden rainstorm on a humid summer night? Is it a lurid orange bucketful of teeth-rottingly sweet candy and a cheap, sweaty vacuum-pressed Frankenstein mask circa October 31, 1980, the only Halloween you can ever recall snow on the ground? Do those things summon a memory, unearth a dream, did they trip a nostalgia or a deja-vu wire in your brain? Do they smell like a story, forgotten lore, or some unwritten fable from the future that trips off the tongue as the notes unfold on your skin? That’s where I write from, and I guess I write for people who think along those lines.
I also keep a running list of book and film quotes, song lyrics, poetry, heck, even things I have heard Nigella Lawson say! She waxes poetic about food; I recall her referencing cauliflower’s “Victorian pallor” and “fat coral curls” of shrimp, “aubergine confetti,” and “flakes of terracotta,” and sometimes these descriptions of flavors and hues translate beautifully to scent! I think these are all wonderfully evocative things to include in a perfume review. I’d honestly rather read that a fragrance reminds me of Mary Oliver’s words, “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine,” than learn that a reviewer thinks x perfume smells like y perfume.
Will the way I talk and think and write about perfumes change? Sure! It’s constantly evolving as I collect life experiences and catalog more scents, and I can even track my flickering interests and fluctuating passions in my perfume reviews throughout the years. (One year there was a lot of Star Trek and Lawaxana Troi mentions, ha!) And I bet your perfume writing will change as well. Whatever your process ends up being, just keep it fluid, and have fun with it and above all, be true to yourself.”
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Just last month, right before I turned 48, I opened up an IRA. For you see, in all my years of working, earning a paycheck, and yes, sometimes even saving a bit of it–I had absolutely nothing set aside for retirement.
I am not going to beat myself up about that; for the entirety of my working life, I have been employed with very small businesses that did not offer a 401K, and up until a decade ago, I was mostly living paycheck to paycheck. Luckily, I did not have student loans to contend with (if anyone is curious, not that you need my credentials–I barely have an associate degree from a community college, and even that took me ten years!), and I did not have a car payment, because back in 2010 I bought a used little 2005 Toyota Matrix that I have driven into the ground. It’s still in our driveway today! And speaking of “us,” many years later, I am in a partnership where both of us have solid employment, and we were able to buy a house outright. Which I realize is a massive privilege. That major purchase, however, mostly drained our savings, and so we basically had to start from scratch two years ago.
And so last month, I was finally in a position to start putting some money aside for retirement. And that is when I realized that I know nothing about managing my finances. Especially when I read an article that said by 50 years of age, we should have a cool 600K in our retirement funds.
W H A T.
I don’t have 600K in that account! I don’t even have the tiniest fraction of that! I went to Facebook to consult the masses, and while some of you are doing great (yay!), most of you don’t have that kind of savings, either! Which was, on the one hand, nice to learn I am not alone, but on the other… I feel pretty anxious for all of us!
Enter my friend Hayley.
The TLDR; story is that Hayley makes soap and sells it on the internet (Ývan’s favorites from amongst her offerings are The Hermit and Heima, and I love her sugar scrubs for my feets!) But that doesn’t even begin to give you a glimpse into what a canny, creative, compassionate human she is. And a wise dispenser of advice! Hayley has a way of taking the practical sort of subject that it might pain you to think about otherwise, and she makes it not only palatable, but inspirational, and most importantly–she makes it seem doable.
Who better, then, to gently talk to us about …money? And you have to imagine I am saying the word “money” as an incensed John Mulaney does in that bit where his college is calling and wants MONEY. It won’t let me link to it but look it up because that tone is the way thinking about money makes me feel sometimes!
Even thinking about money is scary as hell and talking about it can be immensely awkward, so Hayley, I am incredibly grateful to you for writing the following for our Ten Things series. Especially as we are talking about money, and I didn’t even pay you to do this! You are a generous soul and I am so appreciative of all you do.
Ten Things About Money From Hayley Jay Croom
Confession: I am a fifty-something micro business owner, with a house & a car & all the trappings of adulthood. And I am, at this moment, fucking broke. I say this not out of some compulsion to overshare, but to make it super clear that I am just three raccoons in a greying meatsuit, and not some financial whiz with all the answers and none of the worries. I’m wading through this capitalist hellscape right alongside you. I have been broker than this before, and fully expect to be so again, and in between there will be some more money, and then it will be gone.
Unless we have incredibly good fortune, we’ll all struggle with money at some point in our lives. Money is fluid, capricious, and subject to all manner of unforeseen circumstances. But just because we’re struggling, it doesn’t follow that we have to panic.
There are lots of spooky scary things slinking in the shadows, but our money health doesn’t have to be one of them. If the thought of even thinking about your financial nuts & bolts is terrifying, here are ten things that might help. Let it be known that I am in no way a qualified financial advisor, nor should anything I write here be taken as financial advice. I’m just a weirdo who found some ways to make money less awful for myself. A LOT of the following assumes certain levels of stability and access to intangible resources that I know are not common to everyone. These are not answers to everyone’s money problems, just some tools that might help some of us.
1. We carry our families’ stories about money, but we don’t have to accept those inheritances.
How our parents & other adults treated & talked about money as we were growing up has a huge influence on our own ideas and habits surrounding our finances. We can mirror our family’s patterns, because it’s all we know & it’s comfortable (even when it isn’t), or we can chase the polar opposite and find ourselves foundering in totally unfamiliar and sometimes just as dangerous financial waters. Our lives as GenXers, Millennials, and Gen Z are completely different from what our parents & grandparents experienced, and our available tools are as well. What worked for our families in the past is likely impossible now for us, & their advice, while maybe well-intentioned, can often get us into even more trouble. It’s up to us to do the work & find our own financial path through this modern wilderness.
2. Money is neutral, just one tool in our arsenal. So is credit.
Being rich isn’t an automatic win at life, & struggling with money doesn’t make us bad people. Wanting more money isn’t a moral failing; money is a necessary tool in modern western society, and we need to learn how to use it to create the life we want. If you’ve grown up in a household where money was a point of friction, it can be hard to see it as a neutral mechanism. Being broke can be frightening, but having money can be just as triggering when we don’t trust ourselves to make “good” decisions with it, or when we’ve seen money make monsters out of people. A lot of us with money trauma are set against using credit cards, or taking out loans, because the prospect of instant access to money we don’t have feels too tempting, or because we saw our parents abuse credit cards and pay the literal price. Credit can be tricky to manage, but can also give us breathing room, especially in the beginning of our money journey while we set up better systems for ourselves. (I want to take a sec to acknowledge that our current system of credit ratings is biased and deliberately manipulated to keep people playing the credit game for fear of losing access to the loan industry. But this is our market-driven dystopia, and we have to live in it for the moment, so let’s use the system in ways that lift us up without grinding other people down.)
3. Focusing on our own values & priorities makes managing our money more rewarding.
It doesn’t matter what we should be planning for & focusing on; if those things aren’t important to us, we won’t care enough to make them happen. The old model of buying a college education, buying a new car, buying a house, going on big vacations, is laughably far from reach for most of us, even when we’re making “grown-up” money, and not something we all categorically even want anymore, so it’s time we let ourselves stop chasing it. Instead, we need to focus our spending on the things that really matter to us, both the practical (safe housing, our preferred foods, transportation that gets us where we need to go) and the philosophical (supporting nonprofits, buying local, taking classes). Obviously, some things are nonnegotiables; we can’t just decide to stop paying off our student loans because they no longer speak to our hearts. But we can take stock of where our money goes and what we can change about that to make our expenditures less soul-crushing and more satisfying.
4. We have to look at everything before we can make it better.
Avoidance gets us in more trouble than anything; we have to be honest with ourselves about our habits & situation. Taking stock & laying out all of our expenses & debts is the first step to finding a way to make things work better. Here are two tools that I’ve used for the past few years, that have made a huge difference in my money awareness:
This dirt-basic Google sheet. Save a copy for yourself, and edit the categories to reflect what your own spending & income looks like. I have two of these sheets, one for my business & one for my personal expenses, and every dime I spend gets logged. It’s very analog, and yeah, there are plenty of shinier apps and programs out there that will auto import your bank information. But doing it manually, once a week, with a nice cup of coffee and a little treat, means I’m up close & very personal with my finances. It’s impossible to pretend that I’m not spending too much on restaurants & putting too little towards my savings goals. It makes me look at all of my bank and credit card accounts every week, so I’m rarely caught by surprise with overdrafts or late fees.
The free dashboard at Undebt.it. Before Oh My Dollar turned me on to Undebt.it, I would throw haphazard amounts of money at my debts, like handfuls of mud at the barn door. It worked about as well as mud to get my debts paid off; I’d pay down a bunch, leave myself short on cash, and have to put charges right back on my cards to cover expenses. So setting up a plan where I could see how steady, planned progress could eat the proverbial mountain was amazing. It’s so much less appealing to just charge something or miss a payment when I can see how many more months that would add to my debt-free goal.
5. Your budget isn’t my budget.
Once we’re tracking all of our expenses & income, we can start figuring out a budget for ourselves; we can see our spending patterns, and start planning for them ahead of time, instead of scrambling to cover bills. If I know I typically always spend $50 a week on gas, it becomes easier to make sure I have that cash on hand. If we’ve decided that $400 a month is too much to be spending on going out, we can set ourselves a goal of only spending $300. A budget isn’t set in stone, even one we make for ourselves, and we’re inevitably going to have unexpected expenses. But having a framework for what we’re aiming to spend where helps us find room for things like bigger goals, savings, and retirement.
6. Make your money make sense for you, for now.
We don’t have to fix all of our financial puzzles right now. Chances are, there’s something in your current budget that isn’t ideal, or that you’re unable to do at the scale you want. Maybe your car payment is higher than you really feel comfortable with, or you’re not contributing to your 401k yet, or you can’t seem to save for a rainy day. Anything we do is better than doing nothing, so take $5 a week and stash it in a savings account. Set up a 1% withdrawal to your 401k. See if you can refinance your car loan to a lower rate. Starting with small steps and getting comfortable with those makes taking larger steps later more possible. We don’t need to have thousands of dollars in our hand to start changing our financial lives for the better.
7. Make your money work for you, for the future.
Despite what we grouchy GenXers have always espoused, working forever isn’t really an option or a goal for anyone. Refusing to save for our later years only makes them guaranteed shitshows, and foists stress and financial crises onto our families. Think about what later life might look like for you, & what you might have to account for, & work backwards. Use retirement calculators to figure out what you might already have in play, like Social Security & existing retirement accounts, and how much more per month you’d likely need. Utilize any & all 401k options offered through your employer (ESPECIALLY employer matching), or if you’re self employed, start a Roth or SEP IRA, the sooner the better. Again, we don’t have to throw thousands of dollars into these plans right away; every dollar we invest is a dollar more than we had.
8. Chase the dopamine.
This was the really transformative part for me – realizing that I LOVE crossing things off on lists & spreadsheets. So setting up my financial tracking with lots of boxes to check and visible, quantifiable progress reporting like Undebt.it made it super fizzy and something I now actively look forward to doing every week. Figure out what gets you excited & motivates you – stickers, pie charts, spreadsheets, body doubling with a friend; and automate what doesn’t – bill pay, automatic distributions, retirement contributions.
9. Don’t be afraid of the taxman.
Given the ever changing and arcane nonsense that is our tax code, messing up your taxes at some point is inevitable. But putting off filing only ends in tears & penalties, so we have to put our big people pants on once a year and do the proverbial thing. Take time every January to set yourself up for success by collecting W2s and tax forms as they come in the mail, look over the new 1040s before you start filing, & file for free online. Looking at last year’s tax return can show you what you need to have ready for this year. And if you really don’t want to manage it yourself, hire a qualified CPA who will take care of federal, state, & local returns, & help you make adjustments to ensure you don’t owe or overpay the following year. Unless you are actively trying to defraud the IRS, no one will come to arrest you if you make a mistake.
10. It’s okay if you hit a rough patch, just keep going.
Have I mentioned that I’m broke right now? Even with all my planning & utilizing all these great tips, I’ve had to put some things on credit cards and cut back on my savings for the past month or two. It happens. Inevitably we miss a payment, have an unexpected expense, lose hours, change jobs, & set ourselves back. That’s life, babes, not a moral failing on our part. But that also doesn’t mean what we were doing wasn’t working & we should just chuck it all. Take a deep breath, touch grass, and try again. Go back to #4, make some adjustments, and get back on your plan. It’s just money, & with a little effort, we can make it work for us. We won’t get rich, but we just might get by.
BONUS: Hayley mentioned some great financial podcasts to me in some of our chats, so I wanted to be sure to share them with you all as well! Meadowsweet Money // Oh My Dollar! // Planet Money
BONUS BONUS! Did you know that some of our favorite people have interviewed Hayley? Learn more about this savvy saponatrix at Allison Felus’ I’ll Follow You and Nuri McBride’s Aromatica De Profundis.
For years, I have been weaving these dark narratives, not through words, but through threads and textures. Long before this blog took root, hundreds of these shadowy ensembles emerged from my imagination. Now, I unveil a haunting selection, my favorites from a bygone era.
Time, however, has taken its toll. Many were born in a bygone era, crafted on a digital loom that now lies dormant (RIP Polyvore). The details may be lost, the textures a faded memory, but their essence remains–a testament to the enduring power and mystery of darkness. These are not simply “how to wear” guides. Each is an ode to a muse – a film noir heroine, a gothic poem, an eerie melody (or a blog post or a playlist, in which case those are all linked!) They compelled me to translate their whispers into the glamour and grandeur of fabric and form, an elusive language I do not pretend to understand but which I have forever been under its thrall.
So, step into this spectral showcase, and please enjoy these spooky lewks from yesterday. A love for the little black dress, or perhaps its grander, more dramatic evil queen ballgown cousin, is a must!
Miss Vampire 1970It has always been winterThe nodes of the moon are mystical pointsThe Mystery of the Mysterious Headdress Lady (the mystery is actually solved a decade later)Countess Wolfenbach is expecting you for tea…Forever…and ever…
Business As UsualI JUST WANT TO BE LOVEDIt’s nothing, just a hanged man.
Your head wound will seem insignificant… when I am draining your blood into my bath!An awkward moment in evolutionHad I known eternal life was so crappy, I would’ve opted out.
The Tragedy of Belladonna
The UnveilingThe sound of a thousand souls slipping underSummoning the gloomIt always gives me a shiver when I see a cat seeing what I can’t see.Almost nobody dances sober, unless they happen to be insane
You, too, can feel the joy and happiness of hating.
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Unfurl your optic nerves and stretch out your retinas because this installation of Eyeball Fodder explodes with vibrant hues, captivating shapes, and transcendent visions. Prepare for sights that map the path of your dreams, a visual feast that will expand the horizons of your perception.
Welderwings, The Eyes With Which I Observe The World
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When I was younger, from childhood through young adulthood, I was told I was slow, lazy, aimless, and lackadaisical. I often flaked out and had no follow-through. But I wasn’t any of those things. I was scared and anxious all the time, and didn’t know how to express that, so I would often procrastinate, drag my heels, and I agree to things I didn’t want to do (and then be a no-show or ghost people) because I was afraid to say no at the onset.
In reality, as an adult, I am a very hard worker, tireless, ceaseless, a perfectionist. But sometimes I wonder if that’s because I’m trying to prove something to people who thought otherwise? That I’m not lazy and worthless? And when have I proven myself enough? To people who are quite literally dead and gone?
I am still scared of everything. Everything. Even though I have almost reached the half-century mark. But if there is one thing I have learned, it is that the fear of actually doing a thing is outweighed by the dread of thinking about doing the thing. So I just pick the lesser of the fears and get on with it. And since no one is around anymore to see these small victories, I’ve continually gotta prove myself to myself.
This is how I have written three books. Thank you for coming to my TED talk 🤣
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Even though I’d be the first to encourage you to practice the soft, sweet rituals that elevate the quotidian day-to-day, the little beauties and tiny marvels that make life more special, I always forget to do things that make life less of a struggle.
Mornings are coming earlier and earlier this time of year, and I am one of those people who wakes with the sun. As soon as I feel daylight on my eyelids, I am done with dreams. And that is fine, because most days, I am definitely a morning person! But there are some mornings that, despite the evil day star’s glaring insistence, I want to snuggle back under the quilts and snooze all cozy a little longer…and it never actually occurs to me that there are things that I can do to facilitate that.
sleep mask tableaux; photo by me
I’ve been loving this gorgeous sleep mask from Altar + Orbfor this very reason! It’s a silky swaddle of darkness for my eyeballs and a beautiful “oh fuck off!” to that blazingly brazen sun. And what’s more—I have been remembering to use it, reminding myself “you do not have to suffer—you can fix this!” And what an eerily charming fix it is!
I’ve adored every bit of everything I’ve gotten from this decadent shop—from their darkly whimsical blank notebooks that I use to record my weird internal conversations, to my “creatures of the night” tee, to the World’s Most Perfect goth sweatshirt. Well done, Altar and Orb! You are an enchantingly, brilliantly rich slice of darkness in a world that is often too blandly sunny and tiresomely humdrum.
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Hello friends! Just a little update video from my birthday weekend to catch you up on various things and to share some favorite things! This video was pretty spontaneous and not very well edited, so please excuse that random photo of skincare stuff that pops up in the perfume segment (or screencap it if you need the details!)
Anyway, grab a cup of tea or a fancy c/m-ocktail and come along with me while I show you my messy house and some favorite things. And you should definitely leave me comments on the video because I don’t ask for much in this world, but it’s my birthday, dangit!
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