📝 Jami Attenberg in today’s Craft Talk newsletter:
it’s important to write the things you can write.
Today in Year of Making, LEGO set 40658, Millennium Falcon Holiday Diorama.
Anybody know if there are vampire stories, in any medium, that address the question of neuroplasticity? I feel like an animated corpse shouldn’t have it, but it seems like it’d be useful to help you make the most of your potentially very long life.
Finished reading: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado 📚
A bunch of excellent and chilling stories. Horror and make it literary. Uncertainty that is maddening but then that’s kind of the point.
I just want to be able to feel grief in my heart and also sleep. It doesn’t seem like a lot to ask but my body disagrees.
It’s never too late to start a year of making, so here I am starting my Year of Making 2023 on November 20. This is the Goldberry shawl, designed by Michele DuNaier in Lion Brand TruBoo in the Goldenrod colorway. The pattern contains many delightful Lord of the Rings references.
❤️ The loss of a loved one 🦋
CW: Parental Death
My husband, W., has been blessed to have two mothers: the one who gave birth to him and the one who has been a constant presence since his birth as a friend of his parents and who married his dad after his dad and mom divorced. This bonus mom, as I call her, is named Cindy, and she died last Wednesday after a lengthy and unidentified illness.
Her sister wrote a beautiful obituary for her that does a great job capturing her beautiful spirit. It’s especially hard to lose Cindy right around the holidays, as so much of their magic has been fueled by her beautiful energy and hard work.
I know that I’m in the midst of grieving my dead when they come to me in dreams. I had a dream on Thursday night that my little household was traveling with Cindy (a thing we actually did sometimes, whether in Scotland or South Carolina). It was a super normal travel experience and a super normal dream and I woke happy to have had such a boring dream about her.
I’ve been thinking through little moments that make Cindy who she is (and as she lives on in our hearts it’ll be a while before I use past tense to talk about her), and I might write about it later.
In the meantime, I’ve been thinking through all the little holiday things I can learn from her to make this time special.
Want to read: Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found by Frances Larson 📚
Want to read: Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey 📚
If you’re in North Carolina and interested in having natural organic reduction (aka human composting) available as a funeral option, please consider using this form letter I built with resistbot to contact your NC legislators.