May 3 2026

hello again!

I didn’t get anything out for March because I was putting a lot of energy into Experiencing Things and very little into making anything, and then I got sick right at the start of April and it was all too much to bear. But now I’m alive and well (ish) again and making things and I have so much to talk about.

I read like three novels in March which was very exciting. It felt like being a kid again. First up is Turtles All The Way down by John Green, which was extra nostalgic considering how much of his work I read in middle school. Highly recommend if you want to be swept up in teenage angst, or if you have OCD and want to watch someone else suffer with their OCD in a way that really viscerally captures what it feels like to be drowning in thoughts that you know are wrong but can’t make shut up. Also great if you want to get scared about your own mental health prospects. I would not say that I enjoyed the experience but I did read it in one sitting and I did cry a lot during the course of that evening, so like, that’s nice I guess.

Next came two novels by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Elder Race was a lovely sci-fi/fantasy mashup, alternating perspectives between “overwhelmed princess trying to recruit an ancient sorcerer to help fight a demonic evil” and “depressed intergalactic anthropologist who isn’t really up for saving the world and also can’t find the words in the local language to explain the difference between sorcerers and scientists.” I found it very funny. I really liked the way that our sorcerer grapples with anthropology as a field, the ethics of meddling versus standing passively aside, the entitled and colonial contradictions at the heart of the field. It reminded me a lot of my college anthro courses and the vicious debates within that field. It also reminded me a lot of Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers, in which an alien anthropologist (as in studying cultures, not studying humans specifically) visits a human generation ship and gets to reckon, a little, with the tensions of the field. Though I must say, Chambers does a much better job of crafting an evocative and nuanced culture for her characters to study.

Shroud (again by Tchaikovsky) gripped me much more strongly but that may be because I am a bit obsessively delighted by a good hivemind. The story centers on some low level scientists working for a vast interstellar corporation, and I believe did a wonderful job of crafting a miserable capitalist dystopian culture. Disaster strikes and this pair crash land onto an alien world of pitch darkness, skittering mechanical fauna, and endless screaming on all frequencies. It reminded me a lot of a Tchaikovsky book I read in January, Children of Ruin, particularly in how he puts you into the mind of alien creatures with completely inhuman ways of experiencing and understanding the world. Honestly, the more of his work I’ve read (and I’ve read a couple more since then) the more similar they all feel. This man is fascinated by a few narrow themes and is producing work on them at an astonishing rate. All of which is to say, I’ve quite enjoyed every work of his that I’ve read, but I don’t think I’ll be checking out any more of them for a good while.

In late March I drove up to Seattle with a few friends and saw a couple amazing shows. Cirque du Soleil’s Echo was a stunning performance. It was my second Cirque show, and while I did really miss the more circus theming of Kooza, the acrobatics was all top notch. Echo’s costuming was all abstract white animals and surprising color blocking, which was fun but not so much to my tastes. I did prefer Echo’s contortion act over Kooza’s. And it was, despite the comparisons, a fantastic experience. We had a blast. I dressed up.

Show #2 was Operation Hail Mary, which, I think the word is out by now that it’s a very fun movie. Much better than I expected. I cried a little (though I was also in a lot of pain this weekend and kinda generally weepy). I think it would’ve been better if it had ended a couple scenes earlier but I very much enjoyed it until that point.

And then show # 3 (what a jam packed weekend this was) was Pilobolus, a contemporary dance troupe that I frankly don’t have the context or vocab to explain, let alone review. I don’t know that much about dance. I loved it. I believe it to be high art, in that I often didn’t fully understand what they were doing or trying to express and I was thoroughly impressed with the technical prowess on display. My pain levels were Quite High by this point so it’s a real testament to Pilobolus’s skill and showmanship that I still had a nice time of it.

And then, as soon as we were home from our fantastic weekend, my partner and I got sick. We’ve spent basically all of April taking turns being sick, never quite recovering all the way, churning through tissue boxes at an astonishing rate. We seem to be mostly better now but goddamn has it been a rough time. We’ve spent a lot of this month laying on the couch watching TV which has ironically been Really good for my chronic pain issues. So, you know, not quite worth it but I’m finding the silver lining here. And then as soon as my energy started to return I dove head first into a new creative project! Dolls! Finally!

I am deeply proud of how these dolls are coming out. I’m using this sewing pattern by PommePatterns on Etsy, and some fabric that’s been sitting in my stash for years at this point. They’re stuffed with wool roving because I have so much of that on hand already. I’ve made some dolls before but these are the first ones that are fully soft, no plastic heads or hands or anything. Joints I guess, plastic beads, but their bodies are basically all fabric.

I’ve made a little dress for the gray one, and I’m working on some overalls for this yellow one.

I’ve drafted the clothes patterns myself, and everything is hand sewn. I could definitely whip through things a lot better if I busted the sewing machine out, but I’m enjoying how precise I’m able to get by hand. Especially with details this small.

The pattern matching on the gray one was a real beast to figure out but I’m Immensely proud of the result. The way that the pattern lines up along the joints is so pleasing to me, and the print on the face is so close to being actually face-like that I’m thinking I won’t add anything to it after all. And then the flower eyes on the yellow one got lined up basically perfect. They’re people, but they’re not humans, and I like the vibe that the fabric itself brings there. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to give them hair or not. Maybe some wig caps that I can put on and take off without damaging their actual heads.

The bead joints are what sold me on this pattern. I think they’re so clever. The gray one is a little floppy, but I knew what I was doing better with the yellow one and so its joints are tight enough to actually hold poses on its own.

(please ignore the mess here, I am mid-project, it’s always a disaster.)

I have more of these bee-themed cotton fabric samples and I haven’t decided if I’m going to make them all up into dolls or just have this pair. There’s time to figure it out while I finish these two up. I can feel my interest drifting and it is a lot of hand sewing — the full set might only be possible if I resign myself to doing some by machine, and I don’t know how to feel about that. After these are done I have some vague ideas about doing some fantasy landscape paintings, and there’s a couple dresses that I want to sew, so lots of directions that I can pick between for the next project. Unless I get too cozy in the summer heat and spend all of May lounging in the hammock, which is looking more likely by the day.

We’ll see! Thanks for reading, I hope you have a lovely May!