"the everyday turned solitary"

Another month

 

I read books. The five best were

 

Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys. The best description of anti-lovecraftian I've seen was something along the lines of writing about things Lovecraft would hate using the world he built. And sure, this is a story rife with conflict between parts of the mythos, but it's also loving and about the tension between found and born family and the tension between inward and outward ways of being and who does what for whom and why. Oh and faith. Oodles of stuff about faith that actually didn't piss me off.

 

The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater by Alanna Okun. Series of essays about crafting and anxiety, though the crafting was mostly knitting, and definitely put me in a small funk about not really having inherited any skills from anyone. (much like she unfortunately turned me off of math when I was young, my mother has also turned me off of knitting). But they said super-cogent things about anxiety and it's definitely going on the list of books I got from the library that I now want to own a hard copy of.

 

I would heartily recommend both of these (thought start with the first Emrys not this one). The rest come with caveats.

 

The Wicked King by Holly Black. I didn't love The Cruel Prince, the first book in this series, the heroine was boring and annoying but somehow, having maneuvered herself into being the power behind the throne and having all these additional layers of intrigue made it much more enjoyable. I still prefer Black's short fiction though, so we'll see how their novella in this universe turns out.

 

The Girl in the Green Silk Dress by Seanan McGuire. This is the second book in her hitching series, though the first book was more a loosely strung together series of shorts they'd mostly already published. The main character and her True Love make me (give me the opportunity) to roll my eyes a lot, but oh the world building. I'd read endless novels to get more of this world. Routewitches, who gain a sort of power by travel.

 

Pride by Ibi Zoboi - Retelling of Pride and Prejudice with Black characters. I think I needed to understand the neighborhoods of New York to understand this more, but I thought the equivalent of eloping to Gretna Green being distributing nudes was super-clever. And for all that I dislike much of the Austen world rewrites this was elegantly done.

 

Top five favorite dishes of February

 

Molle Katzen's Fully loaded buttermilk corn cakes - sort of like cornbread pancakes full of vegetables. Part of the reason this was my favorite is because of the soothing attentiveness frying a plate full of cakes while home alone and in absolutely no rush. But it was also on the favorites list because it was delicious.

 

From my childhood - spaghetti pie. Cooked spaghetti mixed with egg, butter and parm, topped with a mix of mozz and ricotta and then topped with fake meat cooked in tomato sauce.

 

Moosewood's Enchanted Broccoli Forest chocolate honeycake, For Hips' birthday ostensibly. (Hands and Hips made some ridiculous cakes that made me want to take my ugly lumpy thing home) but I still think it's kind of like the platonic ideal of a brownie, except a cake. However, I'm going to commit myself to learning how to do something fancy in 2019 to really turn it out in 2020.

 

also Moosewood's Enchanted Broccoli Forest curried peanut soup with fried bananas. I love this soup, it feels like the perfect antidote to grim weather. Frying the banana slices never really works out the way I intend (the instruction is to buy bananas you think will be ripe 2-3 days from now, but my cooking timetable is never that exact and so you end up with a ridiculously delicious fried mess)

 

From the Moosewood Restaurant Table's Fall Root Vegetable Stew. So many root vegetables, so much deliciousness. I maybe (definitely) minced where I should have chopped, and it definitely should have been served over rice instead of eaten solo and there was definitely enough turmeric in it to stain my hands and the takeout containers I stored it in, but it was so good. Celeriac, I feel like I might have finally conquered you after all these years.

 

Broad overview of things that happened in February

 

Arisia Debrief, informative if mildly alienating

Colonoscopy with 48hr clear liquid prep sucked a lot, diagnoses less scary than they could be

Poetry Brothel for valentines, Light bought me my second poetry bang (the announcer stated "we've got a rich weirdo, folks"

Tabled at the Flea

Kris Delmhorst Concert

Rebecca Loebe Concert

Delight went back to work

Dogwalker accidentally ruined our driveway fence.

Went to a bunch of open houses, decided we want Mech's house the mostest

Scheduled next tattoo

 

Just like last month, there are other posts at my fingertips, about trying to weed a closet when I don't know who I'm going to be, about tattoos, about failures, about conversations and how to have them (not specific ones, general ones) about the intersections of emotional labor and anxiety. But this is for the triumphs and the accomplishments.