Reader

As many of you know, I recently moved to New England from California. As many of you don't know, I have a lot of health issues. Complex PTSD, a cyst in my brain causing awful headaches, old injuries that didn't heal right, possibly Long COVID... This was a long, drawn-out move at a difficult time that pushed me past physical & emotional exhaustion time & time again. It has forced me to find new ways to understand what I'm experiencing. It has forced me to find new ways of dealing with those experiences. So today, we're talking about spoons.

Spoons have many uses, in & out of metaphor.

Spoon Theory is a concept invented by Christine Miserandino to explain what it's like living with a chronic health problem – in her case, Lupus. I am going to link the entire article here, & I encourage you to go read it whether or not you or anyone you know is dealing with these issues right now. Here's a preview: > I quickly grabbed every spoon on the table; hell I grabbed spoons off of the other tables. I looked at her in the eyes and said “Here you go, you have Lupus”. It's a simple, brilliant idea. You have a limited number of spoons & an entire day to get through. Then another day. Then another. So how do you do it? I have been working on new techniques, because my old ones have not been holding up against everything that's been going on lately. So now I have assembled my top 7 ways to deal with being low on spoons.

1. Recognize which deadlines are ironclad and which ones you can fudge. I try to get this blog out every Tuesday morning. I do my best. But no one is paying me to do it, so sometimes if spoons are low I post in the afternoon, or on the next day. This article about spoons is coming out late because I am low on spoons, & that's ok.

2. Have a buddy. I couldn't function without my SO, & that is not hyperbole. Having someone who reminds you to take a break when you're pushing yourself too far is invaluable.

3. Listen to audio books. Sometimes even holding up a book is too much work!

4. Have an easy hobby you can pick up & put down easily. I love to paint, but that takes a lot of setup & cleanup. As my spoons dwindle, I shift to hobbies like hand sewing that don't require pots of water or drying time. (Sometimes I spend all my downtime just sitting & holding the thing I want to sew, without putting in a single stitch.)

5. Eat as well as you can. Food is wildly expensive nowadays! Eating well can be hard, but it is worth it. Eating junk doesn't fuel you the way that eating well does. Veggies like baby carrots or sugar snap peas that can be eaten raw or cooked are my favorite for low-spoon days. That being said, eating something is better than eating nothing. Don't stress if all you have energy for is takeout.

6. Breathe! Some days you don't have spoons & you have to keep going anyway. Taking a moment for a few deep breathes can make a difference.

7. Be kind to yourself. I started this list with seven tips in mind & now I can't for the life of me remember the seventh. I'm not going to beat myself up over small lapses, & you shouldn't either.

So that's it, seven scintillating spoon strategies for you. I am going to do a few things that can't be put off today & then I will spend the rest of today putting this list into practice, combining tactics #3 & #4: listening to audio books while I sew. I just started Emergency Broadcast by Boris Bacic. Yes, it's a zombiepocalypse book. Of course it is! It's cathartic- people living through zombie apocalypses are always having a worse day than I am, even when I am running on a deficit of spoons. Do you have a zombie book or movie recommendation for me? What do you think of Miserandino's Spoon Theory? Let me know on Mastodon or Ko-Fi!

Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

When the news event happened I wasn't immediately sure who it was. I'm old & the name resembles some from other contexts to me. And I even consume left political media. As I'm writing this I have a video paused about The Daily Wire's Mr. Birchum being appropriated as queer, even though the animated show is part of Ben Shapiro's attempt to “win the culture war.” I heard that & thought: “Culture War? A strange game, the only winning move is not to play.” I paused the video, came here, & started typing.

“You're in the war whether you want to be or not,” I can imagine someone telling me. And as I say I do consume left media. I'm a frequent viewer of The Majority Report, but I wouldn't be if it was entirely dunks on right wing media. I appreciate the interviews with authors, academics, & labor leaders more than the partisan attacks. Like, I'm happy if Hasan Piker appeals to young people but I can't watch him much—strikes me as maniacally immersed in online politics. I don't think “the battle” (or war) is online. Yeah you can say that's what swung '24; I'll still say that appealing to the oppressed & disengaged is more important. I believe it's a much larger number of people for one thing. And I want a politics of substance more than of rhetorical skill. Both are needed but I choose substance over rhetoric for the long term. “But, Rob, the American voters don't understand substance.” That's the challenge that I care about. I'm not in a culture war because I refuse to enlist. Not on those terms. I believe if we are always fighting on their terms then we are losing. I focus on self improvement, and respecting others. That's the content I want to share. That's my strategy, my battle, or my war. But those bellicose terms do not apply because I see victory by force as defeat. I'm a lover not a fighter. I do what I love. I seek to inspire others not convince.

Liberation is the goal. I don't believe freedom can be imposed. I do understand that tyranny is being imposed & must be opposed. I believe the way to achieve lasting liberation is only by the majority of people choosing it. I think that people must be awakened & inspired. The person I'm most concerned with is myself. I work to liberate my mind & emotions. I have ambition to share my journey with others. My path to freedom has been long, winding, & slow going. While I do not fault others for their methods, I seek to avoid commercial distribution. I watch plenty of YouTube videos but I know I won't feel comfortable with my output until it no longer subjects viewers to the harm of commercial platforms. The only sponsors I seek are individual donations. I never look at detailed metrics on any platform I use. These are my choices in order to keep my values in focus. The “race to success” is less important than my life satisfaction.

I describe the actions that work for me. I am grateful for the many others fighting for me & all of us in the ways that work for them. Respect for diversity is a core value in the better world we are building together.

Thanks for reading.

This year we're arting the alphabet from A-Z. Letters like æ, ñ, anything with a diacritical mark, etc., can go anywhere you like.

Congrats on making it this far into the year! We've reached the letter S Any art subject starting with that letter is fair game, no matter how abstract.

S is for Szyslak

Let's make terrific art!

Each challenge lasts 2 weeks from the day this post was made. You can submit a new picture every day, work on one picture for 2 weeks, or post pics randomly. This is the most laid-back art challenge on the internet, & that means you have plenty of time to make your art however you want.

Use #ArtABCs & tag me @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

A change, a final change includes potatoes ※

Post title comes from Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons, an experimental prose poem that's been a foundational, inexhaustible influence on my creativity. I set up a bot to randomly post selections from the work @tender_buttons@mastodon.social

This is the day the blog has changed,
let us rejoice & be glad in it

31 August Update: It's my birthday week! There will be no article on 2 September. Have a fantastic week, draw something for my art challenge, see you on the 9th!

This year we're arting the alphabet from A-Z. Letters like æ, ñ, anything with a diacritical mark, etc., can go anywhere you like.

Congrats on making it this far into the year! We've reached the letter R Any art subject starting with that letter is fair game, no matter how abstract.

R is for Red Fox

Let's make terrific art!

Each challenge lasts 2 weeks from the day this post was made. You can submit a new picture every day, work on one picture for 2 weeks, or post pics randomly. This is the most laid-back art challenge on the internet, & that means you have plenty of time to make your art however you want.

Use #ArtABCs & tag me @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

and as the sun rose again, summoned by the birds and their morning chorus, in spite of its death the night before, and in knowing that it would die again come evening, so too did the Doll take another step forward. it would stumble, it would fall, yet on it walked.

As many of you know, I recently left California for the forests of New England. The move started in June and was supposed to be completed in July, but instead our things just arrived a few days ago, as we near the end of August. I had planned on finishing a quilted shawl I started in California so I could talk about that this week, but instead I have only just starting on the hand quilting in between bouts of unpacking.

Seen here with the stacks of boxes I am ignoring in order to sew

If you're interested, you can read all about how I made a palm thimble & how you can make one, too! It really helped me with sewing a coaster, a scarf, &, currently, a shawl. Come to think of it, this would have helped a lot in making zokin.

If you aren't interested in sewing, great news! I have written about a lot of other things, as well!

I am going to spend today resting & listening to audio books while I sew. I am currently listening to The Citadel by M. A. Robbins. Zombie apocalypse stories are my absolute favorite! Do you have a zombie recommendation for me? Let me know on Mastodon or Ko-Fi!

Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

This year we're arting the alphabet from A-Z. Letters like æ, ñ, anything with a diacritical mark, etc., can go anywhere you like.

Congrats on making it this far into the year! We've reached the letter Q Any art subject starting with that letter is fair game, no matter how abstract.

Q is for Quail

Let's make terrific art!

Each challenge lasts 2 weeks from the day this post was made. You can submit a new picture every day, work on one picture for 2 weeks, or post pics randomly. This is the most laid-back art challenge on the internet, & that means you have plenty of time to make your art however you want.

Use #ArtABCs & tag me @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

I have not had a sale for the first few months since I set up shop, but this time I can take some responsibility for that, because I was initially not very clear about what I could provide to the audience besides my art and my update posts. It's also been a while since I spoke on this matter as well. You also may have also noticed that I don't post much art outside of the Untilted comic strip. All that is explained on my personal blog.

Regarding art business, I've done a lot of introspection and research on what specifically I want to do these past few months, because of the lack of subscriptions and interactions and mostly due to my thinking that I would be mostly passive while customers come to me. It seems that no matter where I set up shop, whether it's Mercari, Fiverr or some other marketplace even if run independently by me, I don't get much traction anywhere. There was a whole moment where, despite consistently putting up stuff on Mercari for weeks, I went a whole year without a single sale, which led to my frustration and led to me eventually deactivating my Mercari account. All this despite putting up stuff most people want to see. And I'm being regularly blamed for not being proactive enough when I just want to not have to think about how to woo people in my business, which apparently I must actively do or else I'll be treated with suspicion. But guess what? It was like this under actual employment as well. When I signed up for a temporary summer painting job at my community college, I was also being seen by my manager as “not doing my job and constantly disappearing” despite the fact that I actually was consistently painting on the areas I was assigned to the entire time, and despite me showing him. Which led to me quitting a day before the official employment term ended.

It turns out that I'm not very traditionally well-suited for any type of business or profession due to my nature and attitude towards it. And I think the main reason for this is because, going by how people promote their own products and all, from Mastodon to Pinterest, everyone HAS to be proactive and initiative at ALL times and everything HAS to be attractive and acceptable to the general public (or at least a well-defined popular demographic/audience) or else I'll be viewed with suspicion/contempt and eventually ignored in favor of more popular and marketable influencers. And I don't really like that notion. At all.

It also turns out that there are some things in the art business that I am not exactly comfortable with doing, that I've seen everywhere I go in a lot of art circles:

1. Art prints. I feel like only photography is best suited to be printable, but I don't exactly have the budget for a high-end camera (although I do have Photoshop and Lightroom, but I rarely use it) so I will probably never be able to successfully pull it off.
2. Art merchandise (like stickers, bookmarks, shirts, etc.). I do actually do my own stickers and bookmarks using my own materials and whatever else I got but I just do not like the idea of turning my art into marketable merchandise that dilutes almost all meaning my art has. It feels like I am using my art in a way that indicates that it does not deserve respect beyond being marketable and trendy.
3. Stock photos and stock illustrations. At one point I did attempt to sell stock photos with Adobe Stock, and they rejected my photograph for being low-quality and, most irritating at all, “not representing the broader human experience” as if a stock photo has to mean something beyond being used by businesses to showcase their products without actually showing the actual product. So I stopped. I'm not even sure if someone can sell stock photos beyond a marketplace, because most people are bound by marketplaces that either prohibit content with resale rights or have heavy restrictions on them anyway, and stock images are technically such content. So I will not be doing stock images.
4. Sending physical and handmade art/jewelry. I currently do not have the means or support to do so due to preservation concerns as I live in an apartment building that's not very suitable enough to preserve high-quality artwork beyond the ones that take low maintenance to preserve.
5. Anything that can be sold on Fine Art America, Etsy, Pixels, etc. due to my experience with marketplaces I just explained at the beginning.
6. Anything photography related due to the high expectations associated with it.
7. Any type of art commission that feels informal (like character base templates). Now, I have no hostility or hatred towards people who do art commissions. But a lot of the scene and their ideas feel, how do I put this in a nice way, too simplistic and informal. I do not mean to say that they are unprofessional at all, or anything overly negative like that. I am not one of those people who judge other people's career choices based on perceived professionalism and I am actually very accommodating about this stuff. However, I have a preference towards commissions that convey a higher level of seriousness and that give me something simple yet also challenging to do, while not burning me out, but also helping me learn something new at the same time. And I don't feel that certain types of art commissions meet that standard for me.
8. Any type of art commission that feels too easy to do to the extent that it can be exploited by someone who wants to rip it off and pretend they did the work themselves when they stole it from me (like profile picture commissions done in the same kind of style, “adoptables”, etc). See 7.
9. Any type of art commission that has loopholes that may violate my boundaries and could get me in trouble (e.g. non-explicit fetish art that isn't obvious to the average viewer that it's meant to be fetish art). I've had this boundary way before the whole UK Online Safety Act thing (which I technically may be bound to due to me being on a UK-based marketplace website, although my website contains no objectionable content) but I would just like to reiterate that I do not do any kind of content that may be considered harmful to vulnerable audiences, legally or not, no matter how implicit or hidden it is. Although all my art is created for a general audience and is not primarily directed at either children or adults, I do not do any kind of adult content whatsoever. This is not to judge those that do, just to set things straight.
10. Anything that requires software I may not be familiar with.
11. Texture/brush packs (because I am not familiar with them)
12. Online teaching (for obvious reasons)
13. Anything involving cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens, and artificial intelligence due to ethical risks
14. Anything beyond my current skill level and budget.
15. Anything outside my personal taste unless I'm sure I'm comfortable with it. I do not discriminate against anyone for having an art style different from my own either.

I do like the idea of putting up membership content for people to subscribe to me and see all my content there, even if it's just for a month, which is why Untilted was initially a subscription-based thing before I realized that no one knows me well enough to want to subscribe to me. But I haven't even figured that out well yet, as I see some people put some behind the scenes art in public, and other art behind a membership paywall. As a result I am stumped as to what I want to put on my membership tiers, and I am open to ideas. I was thinking maybe I could do alternative versions of certain Untilted comics, or maybe some GIF animations.

I would really like everyone's help and input with this.

a Doll with a voice that is only half their own. they speak confidently, comfortably, though they often rush and slur—an artifact of their cultural upbringing, combined with a dwindling pool of energy to put into speech. they can embody eloquence and resplendency, though they'd just as soon settle for the comfort of a simple bogan lexicon, replete with colourful swearing.¹

but it used to sing! sometimes it still does, in the quiet, on its own, and it really does enjoy it, but... its voice never quite did the things it wanted to, despite training and effort and practice. it's never been sure how to produce some of the sounds it's always wanted to, though it does some things others have wanted to emulate. lately, though, it has songs deep in its... in what would pass for its soul, songs it yearns to get out, that it just cannot physically produce. whether it's the pitch range, or the timbre, or the specific techniques required, the Doll just... can't do it. as time goes on, the Doll experiences this more and more, and each time it happens it feels that disconnect between itself and its voice grow wider.

but at least it's quite happy with the way it talks, usually. that's a big accomplishment.

¹ farkin' oath

it puts down the pen, folds the paper gently, and tapes it all together.

down by the river, carefully placed, floating; a small candle flame inluminates the vessel, delicately glowing upon the waters:

and so the Doll says farewell to the ghost that haunted it for so many years. again.

maybe this time she'll finally leave.

a Doll and a Witch, standing in a mirrored chamber, seeing nothing but their reflections, stretching out to infinity. and reflect they have, both learning to see themselves differently.

a Doll and a Witch, at the centre of the maze. one final challenge, one final choice.

the mirrors flicker and glitch, the reality of this unreality bending to the will of... her. the girl in the mirror appears before them both. at first, the Doll sees itself, but then it recognises that the girl is made of flesh and blood. the Witch, having seen her before, knows that this is the single greatest threat to her existence.

who are you? the voice fills their minds, echoing inside their heads. it comes from nowhere, it comes from everywhere.

the Doll speaks its name, something it doesn't do often. the Witch hesitates but for a moment, then speaks the same name.

who are you? the Doll repeats its name, but the Witch stays silent.

who are you? this time the Doll just looks confused. the Witch trembles slightly. “I don't know.”

the Doll squeezes her hand.

silence.

taking its time, the Doll formulates an answer. some minutes later, it pipes up: “we are doing our best.” the Witch tilts her head. that doesn't seem to answer the question of the girl in the mirror. the mirror flickers again.

what do you need? the Witch blinks. apparently that was the right answer. the Doll smiles with its painted lips. neither know how to answer, though.

what do you need? “each other!” the Witch blurts out. “... we need each other.” this time it's the Doll who doesn't understand. it hasn't seen the Witch since it came into being all those years ago. a lifetime has passed since then. the girl in the mirror nods.

the mirrors glitch out, the room shakes.

“Doll, we don't have long, and I don't know what we'll remember from this place but... I'm sorry I haven't been there for you, and I'm sorry that you've suffered in my place all this time. I need you to know that—”

the Doll squeezes the Witch tightly as it whispers, “no. no it's okay. you were scared, and it's my role to protect you.”

the mirrors shatter, shards of glass raining down around the pair, never touching them.

“we'll just keep doing our best.” “together?” “together. we've always done it together, apart.”

the mirror realm is consumed by light; all that was contained within, obliterated.

she swears she heard her heart shatter. two painted eyes, shimmering flecks of pearl white and glittering gold lie between them. it takes every ounce of her power not to just fall to the floor and break apart herself.

the broom! oh, of course, the broom! carefully, gently, she sweeps up the pieces, collecting them and laying them out in vague humanoid shape. but... wait... the furnace? it was warming a crucible filled with... yeah, with gold! she starts to levitate the crucible, bringing it over to the Doll, but...

no. it deserves better than this. all these little pieces, it'd end up more gold than Doll. no. the Witch takes a deep breath, steels herself, draws her blade and cuts open her palm, pouring out thick, wispy shadows that have long replaced her blood. umbral tendrils reach out and caress the porcelain shards, rearranging them in the air. as they come together, the pieces spark with a brilliant radiance, welded together by the light of life.

the Doll comes together, not as patchwork, not as kintsugi, but whole and unblemished. new.

as the last piece is welded into place, as the Doll takes its first breath, the light surges back along the dark tentacles. a torrent of pure essence of life forcing its way into her veins. for the first time in an eternity, she feels alive, and it burns.

with a tortured scream, she falls to the floor. the Doll blinks, immediately dropping to its knees to hold its Witch.

I've been posting some magick and ritual themed lyrics of mine over at the Ovro blog side, have a peek!

keep quiet stay quiet

you're just a voice in my head you're just a voice of the dead

stay quiet be quiet

you're just a voice from the past you're just a voice that won't last

be quiet keep quiet

I keep my secrets shackled I keep my lovers boxed in

keep quiet stay quiet

your manhood on my mantelpiece your flesh cubed, wrapped in plastic perfectly preserved

stay quiet be quiet

your liver cut,friend an' served your guts fed to stray dogs

be quiet keep quiet

your heart dried fin'lly true size friends found you tasteless

keep quiet stay quite

your hide tanned sold on market little baggies made of skin

stay quiet be quiet

your bones bleached hung out to dry i hid them in plain sight

be quiet die quiet

stay in the box I put you in stay in your plastic wrappers

do not make me come and get you do not make me come and cut you

again

you just wait 'till I get home

die quiet keep quiet

  #lyrics #poetry #DarkAmbient  

Background info

Shut-off is a sister track to Absent, with both appearing on Id|entities. Of all the different voices and stories on that album, Shut-off and Absent definitely happen in the same universe. With the others one can speculate about but these two leak into each others, include voices from each others and tell two sides of the same story. Whether there are two or just one body containing the voices – that I leave for the listener to decide.

The video for Shut-off was fun to film and got me some worried looks in Tampere train station.