I’m Alive (Technically) & I’m Pretty Cool, Too

Hello friends. I meant to write an update on Halloween. Then I meant to do it on Midnight Mischief and Mistletoe‘s release day. Then I meant to do it this past week. If you recall my semi-mad laundry list of Fall Activities from my last post, well, you’ll see why I’ve been a bit knackered. And in this exhaustion, I am reminded of some pretty important stuff.

Release day happened! It’s official! I’m a PUBLISHED author! You can get a physical or e-copy of it here. I kept saying it wouldn’t feel real until I had the physical copy in-hand – add that to my to-do list, whoops. We had a Facebook Takeover event that was an absolute delight (and where some of you new folk came from. Hello new folk!). I made cupcakes. I had a minor exhaustion-fueled breakdown about the completion of said cupcakes.

My aerial showcase went AMAZING. The “technically” part of the above post title comes from this. Aerial acrobatics and circus arts are one of the coolest things I’ve ever tried, and will always come with challenges. With the adrenaline of the show finally happening and the culmination of all our hard work right in front of us, sometimes mistakes happen. We rehearse to minimize them, but in the moment, sometimes, shit happens. For me, on night one, I struggled with a move in the beginning of my piece I’ve never struggled with, and I almost fell. It was apparently nerve-wracking enough that my coach gasped. I couldn’t hear her over the music, but my internal monologue was mostly,

Oh hell no, no you don’t, get on the goddamn HOOP, what the actual HELL, this NEVER happens. Oh the hoop is running away a little, that’s not ideal. NUH UH. NOT TODAY ZERG.

After the third try, I managed it, I was safe, and the rest of the piece went perfectly fine, as did the next two nights. When retelling it to my fellow performers, I was met with sympathy and commiseration. Almost ALL my fellow performers had moments they felt weren’t their best or were a little hair-raising. When telling non-aerialists about this moment, the reaction has consistently been shock, fear, and great concern. It always takes a moment for me to remember – this is not an activity a lot of people do.

And that’s something I have to remind myself about my other hobbies or passions as well. Here’s where the “pretty cool” part of the title comes in.

The number of times I’ve brushed off a thing I’ve done as “well I know lots of people that do this or do it better”… But when I offer to fix a button on a coworker’s shirt and hear, “Oh wow you’re so good at that!” I think how simple a task it is for me, a cosplayer with a sewing background going back decades. When a fellow cosplayer praises how cute the crochet accessory I made on a whim is, I think about how it was nothing special because I know people that make whole crochet outfits in a day. Or when I get published in a short story anthology and my fellow aerialists tell me how cool and exciting it is, I think, “but I have friends who have published whole BOOKS by now!”

Because we all, sometimes, forget—not everyone does this. Not every writes books. Not everyone cosplays or sews or does circus arts or draws or fixes classic cars or LARPs. And judging yourself by the metric of your fellow niche-people is doing yourself a disservice, because the people that DON’T do it recognize the work and effort that goes into it.

So, yeah, I gotta remind myself sometimes: I’m capable of some pretty cool shit.

And now I’m a published author to prove it. And that’s pretty cool.

What Am I Up to?

(I’ve seen a few author/bloggers do this and honestly it’s adorable, so…stealing)

• Reading: Just finished Kiri Callaghan’s The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic and Murder. Cozy sapphic murder mystery with some hints of solarpunk in a wainscot fantasy world? Yes please. Delightful, charming, and such a joy to read. Get it and learn more about the amazing author here.
• Listening: A very odd mix of EPIC the musical, K-Pop Demon Hunters, and Spotify’s suggested radio for League of Legends’ pop music. My tastes are deeply eclectic, so typically, it’s my entire music library on shuffle, but those 3 are the standouts for when I’m stuck in traffic.
• Drinking: So much caffeine. I just finished my bag of Early Grey Warden from Lady Grey Kitchen. If you’re a nerd who likes thematic, well blended tea—get the hence. Also just opened up a coffee flavored, yet free, herbal tea from Morelitea. They’re delightful folks I met through the steampunk corner of the internet and have lore and worldbuilding surrounding their blends. I LOVED the Hercules Blend.
• Eating: I love baking to share with others. While the werewolf cupcakes were a box mix, I did make Pumpkin Bread as well! I throw in some extra cinnamon and chocolate chips, but this Samhain recipe is my go-to. I only use 1.5 cups of sugar and the consistency is still perfect. Even my spouse—who has a history of food-service related dislike of it—enjoys it in small quantities.
• Playing: I’ve been vicariously living through my spouse’s playthrough of Hades 2. I struggled with Hades and have a backlog of other games I do want to play and know I’d enjoy. I have so many planned playthroughs of Baldur’s Gate 3, and absolutely none are finished. And yes, they’re all based off TTRPG characters I’ve played before.
• Crafting: I sew, crochet, and have taken a stab at a myriad of other crafts. There’s always SOMETHING I want to make. Right now, I’m desperately trying to catch up on my 2025 Reading Blanket. Think of it like a Temperature Blanket, but it tracks how many pages I read a day. I found a pattern for these gorgeous mosaic tile blocks, and the creator of the pattern even included a PDF for tracking all the little details. Doing a block per week instead of stitches per day has definitely kept me more invested and interested in finishing it.