Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
It’s only been a couple days but so far, it’s great–organized, friendly, kind of pointing out how dysfunctional the last job was in every respect.
Also, this is a Slack channel at the company with 40! members!
And my first project is a series of harm reduction spots to help people not die from fentanyl overdoses–meaningful work! It’s early to call it but this move is looking really great.
Remember how I thought 2022 would be the Year of Cake? And I would make a cake a month to practice? Well, I got as far as February before it turned into the Year of Stress instead (work started imploding in March, Toby was sick from April to September, Doc went to the hospital in August…yeah).
But I was finally feeling ready for cake again and made Altair a birthday cake over the weekend and wow was it fun to go all-out:
This is a “stump cake,” which I first saw on Pinterest alongside buche de noel decorating ideas. I didn’t want to attempt anything rolled and filled like a buche but I knew I could do layers. And decorating it meant I got to play with marzipan for the first time!
I got the raspberry mushroom cap idea from Martha Stewart and then threw the rest of the raspberries around the edge of the cake when I assembled it: 
I used a cake mix for the layers but fancied up the frosting with whipped bittersweet ganache; it was all good but a lot of chocolate for me. (And the nephew agreed that the frosting could be sweeter.) But what a fun project! Maybe I’ll try for more cakes in 2023.
It’s my sister-in-law’s birthday today! I grew up with a brother–and in general my family isn’t great at normal relationships–so I still sometimes have moments of, “Is this how you interact with a sister-in-law?”, even after all these years. But then I text her out of the blue with something like, “Do you want to take a flower arranging class?” and she replies immediately and signs up and I think, “Oh yeah, she’s family. This isn’t hard.”
And Altair makes it easy. I know astrology isn’t real, but there’s something to be said for archetypes: She and Doc have birthdays four days apart and they share so many excellent traits. Neither of them want to be the center of attention, but they’re just out there quietly doing the right thing and building community. Altair works to make the world a better place for her son; she’s creative; and she’s understanding.
I’m grateful she’s part of the family, even if my own brain makes it harder than it should be sometimes. Happy birthday! We love you.
1. Sometimes New Yorker humor hits: “I’m Thrilled to Announce That Nothing Is Going On with Me.” I mean, this is meant to be funny but it’s also so accurate! “Personally, my life revolves around the half-dozen things that comfort me, and nothing more.”
2. This is also accurate and wow, it gets old being my own zookeeper sometimes:
3. I wore something I made in my last interview before I got the new job and we talked about it and now I am wondering if I can wear anything I haven’t made.
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Poems are everywhere–this one was in a Hell’s Backbone Grill email. It’s lovely and something to remember as we (I) fight the crowds and the traffic for the end of the year.
Big Lesson
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Today it feels so simple:
we are here to take care of each other.
How could we ever forget?
As if soil could forget
it is here to feed the trees.
As if trees could forget
they are here to feed the soil.
How could anything
ever get in the way of generosity?
How could we ever greet each other
with any words besides,
How can I help you?
As if light could forget
it is here to help illuminate.
As if dark could forget
it is here to help us heal.
Life is funny: I got on Doc’s insurance and thought I’d be doing freelance for the foreseeable future, and then a place I’d applied to when I was just thinking about doing all of that got back to me and, well, I start there on Monday.
They call themselves a “social change agency” which means that instead of trying to convince people to buy clients’ sandwiches or mortgage services or video games, I’ll be trying to convince people to stop smoking or tell them about resources like food benefits. In other words…meaningful work (!) but still in an agency environment.
I’m really excited, honestly. Freelance life was great for going on afternoon hikes but the sporadic paychecks were rough. And this seems like a genuinely good company. And since I can’t be Toby, it sounds like a pretty good compromise.
I got Doc’s nephew in his family’s gift exchange this year. The nephew plays Dungeons and Dragons (and I’m 100% sure he doesn’t read this) so I sewed him a dice bag with themed fabric:
The outer fabric is a fat quarter from Spoonflower, in a print that has PG swearing/puns/cats–these are all very popular in the family:
I paid $5 for a basic tutorial on Etsy because I didn’t want to figure it out on my own…and then ended up doing the openings for the cord differently and figuring it out on my own anyway (but it’s a good tutorial all the same).
When I was pondering making this, I asked my own friends who play D&D if such a thing would be useful/welcome and they said yes, especially with some more dice inside. So I got him this set–more puns and general wackiness.
Will he like it? Probably! Was it a fun little make? Yeah! Did I deep dive into the world of game dice and see so many different kinds? You know it.
It was a gray weekend but we saw some blue skies on a hike…
…and I sneaked in some block prep between Christmas sewing (another quilt coat is in the works for 2023!)
1. Enjoy this Twitter thread from a historian:
2. I feel this so strongly– “I’m not earning a break, I already earned it…during the whole year, when I was alive.”
@elysemyers send this to your boss #restisproductive ♬ original sound – Elyse Myers
3. Speaking of years, we’re in the last month of this one? This is accurate:
Twitter is more of a garbage fire than usual lately but there are still some gems to be found:
instead of being a human with anxiety I could be doing whatever this is pic.twitter.com/mEGzVqXzpW
— Owl! at the Library 😴🧙♀️ (@SketchesbyBoze) November 29, 2022