Sometimes, I joke about my first true love being something non-human. My so-called first true loves range from the piano to writing to black eyeliner. Honestly, though, I admit that one of my long-standing objects of affection is a good cup of coffee. If you have it in your head to interact with me in morning hours, you can butter me up by brewing coffee. I grew up drinking tea and continue to have a special affinity for it, but coffee has been my caffeinated beverage of choice since my teen years. I spent a brief period of my working life employed by the biggest coffee company in the world with a green siren as its logo, but had to jump ship due to the company’s starvation wages. From the French press to shots of espresso to the old standby of a drip brewer, I love it all. (Except Keurig. Keurig coffee tastes like someone scraped an ash tray into a mug of hot water and has a horrible environmental impact. I will not mince words here: Keurig can fuck off.)

So, it makes sense that when I saw the opportunity to support independent coffee companies in the midst of pandemic-induced economic peril, I seized it. A pal shared a referral link to Trade Coffee, a company that offers a customized subscription service for coffee hounds. Take a quiz, get bags mailed to you on a schedule, support indie roasters. Oh, and the first bag was my favorite four-letter word: FREE! In a moment of glee, I signed up and waited eagerly for my first shipment.

My initial bag was a dark roast from Gimme Coffee. I opted to get coarse-ground beans since I lack a proper burr grinder but prefer to use my French press. The press and this coffee were a match made in heaven, assuming my teeny kitchen is heaven on earth. I love a robust and nutty coffee, and my preferences steer toward beans that are grown in the Americas south of Mexico. Ergo, it made sense that this little bag was exactly what I wanted. I was sad to see her go.

Shipment numero dos fell short of my expectations. I don’t know if I received a bad batch or if it was just too light for my taste, but I found it to be bland and hard to discern much flavor. My stepdaughter and I powered through it, but we were not sorry to move on to bigger and better brews. Doma, if you guys are reading this, I have faith that you can do better. Maybe your medium roast just doesn’t gel with my taste.

My third and most recent shipment was one that I picked out myself. Trade gives you the option to peruse your coffee matches and alter the coffees in your queue, and when I saw a bag with a purple label, I had to have it. Misfit Coffee sells this house blend year-round, and they describe it as having notes of dark cocoa and praline. I second that, and would bathe in this stuff if I could. It is delicious.

I am eagerly awaiting my fourth bag which is scheduled to ship this week. My hope is that it will arrive in time for the start of NaNoWriMo since I will need ALL the caffeinated beverages.

Speaking of! NaNoWriMo begins on November 1 which is also the next time I am updating the blog. I have a plan to stay up past midnight on Hallow’s Eve to get started, so I may be able to share some of the early words here on the blog that same day.

Also, if you are interested in trying out Trade Coffee for yourself, I will drop my referral link here. As I mentioned above, your first bag is free. In a time when I can’t hug people safely outside of my household, I can at least share the love in other ways. Hope you enjoy!

Anyone else feeling really overwhelmed with everything that has happened in October? It’s like the bottom dropped out of something that had a very flimsy bottom to begin with, like we got the bottom of a paper bag wet and then decided to collect marbles in it. I have felt like I am all over the place between web-scrolling, figuring out how holidays are going to work this year with a blended family, and self care. I have no other way to phrase it: it’s been some tough shit lately.

Still, I don’t want to sink into doom and gloom even though that’s what October can be. In years past, I have used October to gleefully prepare for NaNoWriMo, and in truth, I am going to take the plunge and pants it this year. (For non-WriMos, that means I am going into November first without any plans; therefore, I will be flying by the seat of my pants.) Kudos to those of you who engaged with my Facebook and Twitter posts in addition to the polls I put up here. If you are browsing on mobile, the polls may not display; have a screencap or two.

What has really helped me keep my sanity in the months leading up to October has been implementing a weekly evening where my entire household disconnects from the digital world. If you are stranger to my life, I offer some background: I am married and my partner has a tween from a prior marriage, so we have two or three people under my room most of the time. As the weeks of quarantine stretch indefinitely into months, we are all having trouble shouldering our mental burdens and engaging in activities that don’t require Internet. So, back in spring or summer, I suggested we break our habit of staring at screens constantly during waking hours. The rules would be simple: from 6 PM until bedtime every Monday, we would not use electronic devices like smartphones, tablets, computers or TVs. While it would likely help our collective mental health to shut off the electronics more often, I recognize that we also need interaction from people who are not in the house for our sanity. Plus, with school and work relying heavily on remote access, it is not feasible to go offline too often. Even so, it would not be impossible to carve out a day to be disconnected. Thankfully, the other two agreed to sail this ship with me, and I have noticed it helps in a myriad of ways!

My favorite part of unplugging on Monday is the fact that we will actually talk to each other during dinner, and no one is competing with external media to be heard. In a time when a lot of us are struggling to socialize, this is a big deal. Even before the pandemic, I tried to be mindful of how often I was pulling out my phone to capture a memory or to distract myself while out in public. Being totally engaged was never something I excelled at, but I have definitely enjoyed myself more when I am fully present at a show, a festival or even at a friend’s house. As grateful as I am to have the world at my fingertips with a smartphone, I am old enough to remember when having a cell phone of any kind was a novelty and often had little capability outside of making voice calls. There is a wealth of evidence about how heavy usage of social media can spell disaster for mental health, and as a person who has openly struggled with depression and anxiety for the majority of my life, I have taken leaves of absence from my social profiles to get back to a good place. Even when I am doing well with my thoughts, I get frustrated when I am spending time with someone and they interrupt our conversation to do something on their phone. When the devices are put away, I feel more connected with the people in the room with me. I cannot stress the importance of how much that matters.

Staying off the distracting machines also means I can get back into the swing of things I love doing, especially reading and writing. While I do have an e-reader, I reach for my physical books on Mondays (and in general, to be honest). At the start of lockdown, I made a deal with myself that I would read the monstrous Dostoevsky tome The Brothers Karamazov. Although it took me months to get through it, I failed to make consistent progress until I dedicated Monday nights to curling up with my books. An added advantage is that I have read novels and memoirs that have been sitting on my shelf for an embarrassingly long period of time. As fellow book collectors know, purchasing books and actually reading them can be two separate hobbies. My goal is to merge them back into one. Plus, the more I read, the more I enjoy my own writing. The prose penned by others reminds me that my story is important, too. When I go through dry periods of very little reading, my inspiration for writing anything at all evaporates. I have a goal to reincorporate reading into my daily life, but for now, having my weekly standing date with a manuscript gives me a welcomed escape from everything else.

I admit that I have been lax in enforcing unplugged Mondays since October began. If I circle back to where I started with this post, maybe there is a connection between staying glued to the screens and feeling like I am spinning indefinitely in a chaotic void. I will use this as a loving reminder to myself tomorrow to be unavailable to the outside world for a night.

Next week will be my last post before NaNoWriMo begins on November 1. The countdown is on!

Remember in years past when concerts were a regular occurrence? Sure, you always ran some sort of risk when going to one: your hearing could be damaged if you forgot earplugs, you might have to suffer through the Russian roulette experience of using a portapotty if the show was outdoors, or perhaps you would accidentally drop something and never find it again among the sea of stomping feet. If you are like me and your concert preferences tend toward the punk and metal side of things, you might even end up in a mosh pit. (Having been blessed with a petite frame and a resting nice face, I always luck out with good samaritans who pick me up and place me outside of the mosh pit whenever it breaks out. Appearing small and dainty has its perks when you don’t like getting punched in the face.) Still, my absolute favorite thing about going to concerts is that I can really retreat into myself and recharge my introverted social battery while also being in the presence of others.

How, you may ask? None of that makes sense. I can explain.

Concerts are underappreciated as an introvert’s paradise. You will be surrounded by people, sure; however, no one expects you to interact with them. You are likely not going to have a stranger come up to you and strike up conversation because neither of you will be able to hear each other. You will have a talking point the next time you do have to make small talk with someone because you can mention that you recently went to a live show. If you are fortunate enough to see one of your favorite acts whom others in your immediate social circle don’t know or appreciate, you will suddenly find yourself surrounded by others who have listened to the same records on repeat. As someone who struggled with fitting in and accepting myself throughout my entire adolescence, concerts aided me in finding my people.

So, once the pandemic worsened in later winter and early spring of 2020, concerts appeared to be going extinct. How could a band in good conscience gather together hundreds if not thousands of people in close quarters while they sang and screamed along, possibly infecting others with respiratory disease? How could the employees of major venues justify endangering themselves and their families by working these events? How could indoor arenas and halls safely gather music fans from near and far without creating a superspreader event? The answer for many months was to postpone or outright cancel everything until further notice. Sure, virtual concerts tried to fill the void, but it just was not the same. While I enjoy having the comfort and privacy of my own commode and not having to stand in line for overpriced beers while watching video feeds, I really missed being able to go to concerts. As time stretched on, I seriously wondered if my last show ever would be the one I attended in February 2019. (It was Coheed and Cambria, for those who might be curious. I’ve been a fan since my emo middle school days.)

Fortunately, a random doomscrolling session on Twitter changed it all. The metal band GWAR was going to hold a drive-in concert. I, erm, gleefully and somewhat sadistically coerced a pair of pals to go to this horror celebration of blood, piss and outright tomfoolery.

Let me tell you guys: it. was. AWESOME.

I have to confess that GWAR had shown up as a blip on my musical radar in my teenage years, but they were not a band that piqued my interest. Instead, I veered off the metal course into punk. Before buying our car’s ticket for this show, one of my friends who had the pleasure of previously seeing GWAR live suggested that I give their music a listen before committing. While the lyrics themselves can be a bit too much for the pearl-clutching conservatives among us, I was unphased. Having lived in the horrorscape of the United States for 29 years, a few satirical songs about alien bodily fluids was far from the worst thing I’d ever heard. Besides, I was 1000% over being in my house but also wanted to be responsible as I went out to have fun.

I’m glad to say that the execution of this drive-in show was fantastic. All tickets and merchandise had to be purchased in advance, cars were limited to four person occupancy, bringing food from the outside was allowed (but no alcohol or illicit drugs, although I suspect that rule was anything but enforced), and each vehicle was spaced out so that attendees were socially distanced. While I missed the closeness of dancing in a crowd as well as chugging an overpriced beer while doing the white girl wiggle, I had a good time. The lights, the heavy sounds and the goofy stage antics were still there. The atmosphere was charged with excitement from the other concertgoers much like the shows of old. My friends and I were too far from the stage to be hit with the fake blood, urine and semen that is a trademark of a GWAR show, but I don’t find myself too upset by that. My hope is that my fellow Richmonders have proven that we can safely party at live music venues even while the world is ending. I have also resolved to budget more money for concerts in the future since life is too short not to experience the things you love.

I forgot to take more photos both because I was slightly inebriated and because I try to live in the moment at concerts, but I did snap this VERY short video right at the very beginning.
(video)

Next week will be…something. I haven’t decided yet. Please be safe, dear readers.

Once upon a time in a small town in rural Virginia, a tween girl rented a movie from the video store called Josie and the Pussycats. The glam, the sass, the soundtrack and the whole package enticed her. While this was far from her first venture into a passion for music, it sealed the deal. She signed up for chorus class in middle school and —

Ahem. Middle school was awful. High school wasn’t a huge improvement. College took ten years. The end.

Okay, I kid. Still, Josie is one of my favorite movies to this day and the music is bangin’. I wanted Josie’s hair, voice, and life. I stayed in the school choir throughout middle school, abandoned it in high school, and returned in my community college days. I was fortunate to have an electric keyboard and a guitar, but I had no formal instrument training until college. My brain responds better to keyed instruments like the piano and falters with stringed ones, and as quarantine persisted, I thought about I could use the time at home to practice something again. I looked at electric pianos and keyboards since moving an upright or grand piano in and out of a tiny apartment would be a disaster; however, the electric counterparts were not as wallet-friendly as I preferred. During a session of general internet perusal, I came across suggestions pointing to ukuleles. Their compact size would make them portable and generally inexpensive, although you can certainly drop plenty of money if you wish. They have four strings instead of a guitar’s six (yes, I know a bass guitar has four; don’t @ me), and the material is friendlier for breaking in fingertips that haven’t touched the steel-wrapped strings of an acoustic guitar in over ten years. Because I was bored, had extra cash on hand, and impulsive, my ADHD brain decided that I had to have this little guy.

I waited eagerly for the package to arrive. I tracked it on UPS like a madwoman. When it finally arrived, I was overjoyed. My uke! It was here! I was going to have a new way to entertain myself AND I could irritate the amateur musician living in the apartment above me. This was a win-win.

Well, unfortunately, ADHD flounders outside of rigorous external schedules. I bought my ukulele, watched about two whole YouTube lessons, and then put it in my closet for safekeeping. With it out of sight, it slipped my mind. Hopefully, now that I am shaming myself on the internet, I will be arsed to create a practice schedule and stick to it.

Next week will be a recap of my first concert in the era of COVID. Stick around and stay safe, friends!

There was this really strange period in the early stages of quarantine where everyone was baking bread. The demand for yeast was so high that supermarkets cited a mass shortage. Flour, sugar, and other baking ingredients flew off the shelves as everyone panicked at the idea of being unable to safely leave their homes for indeterminate periods of time. While I do not like to think of myself as a prepper or a doomsday conspiracy theorist, I definitely saw the value in knowing how to make my own food staples at home from scratch. Besides, for those of you who have known me in my adult life, you are well aware that baking is one of my FAVORITE activities. Sure, writing was my first love, but giving someone a carefully crafted pastry and watching them delight in my hard work never gets old. I had three notable successes in quarantine baking: bread, pizza crust, and apple brown betty. I decided to start with bread.

As luck would have it, I happened to have a couple of yeast packets in my house from the 2019 holiday season. A passion for baking is shared by my husband, and he had quite a lot of fun making all matter of goodies between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My newsfeed was flooded with recipes for homemade bread, and I wanted to join the fun. I knew I had yeast and some whole wheat flour that I wanted to use, so I considered giving it a go. How difficult could it be? As I pored over methods, I saw that proofing was highly suggested. (TL;DR proofing is giving your active yeast a chance to do its thing. It feeds on your raw ingredients and makes your dough expand. It takes time where you have to let your dough sit while you go off and do something else.) When I discovered a recipe that required zero proofing, my interest piqued. This baker claimed that one could make bread in a slow cooker without proofing beforehand. The hell was this sorcery? Could it be true? Would it be edible? I opted to take the plunge and find out.

A lovely brown crust, a soft and fluffy middle, and a taste that was mild enough not to overpower other toppings made this a winner. However, it did NOT keep well and was quickly reclaimed by nature after a few days of being kept on my counter in airtight Pyrex. I have opted not to make this again until I know that it will be eaten within one to two days. I get the feeling that if we are still in this awful timeline by the time Thanksgiving is upon us, I will bring this baby back.

Eventually, the great yeast shortage of 2020 subsided. Once I had procured a jar of active dry yeast, I decided to up the ante. Pizza is hands down one of my favorite comfort foods. It’s hard to screw up bread, sauce and cheese. It occurred to me to take a stab at making my own dough. Unfortunately, a lot of pizza dough recipes assume that you are both in possession of a standing mixer and have procured a dough attachment. Since I do not own a standing mixer, I opted to BE the standing mixer. It’s a messy job and can aggravate repetitive motion injuries, but it gets the job done. Also, when you’ve had a particularly stressful day, sinking your hands into pizza dough is therapeutic. I found this recipe that was simple and permitted the omission of a hefty kitchen appliance.

What I learned about making pizza crust myself is that it is a labor of love and requires a good bit of preparation beforehand since the dough HAS to proof. I also discovered that making the dough into a nice round circle is not nearly as easy as it appears. Many of my early pizzas were more ovoid than circular, but still yummy. To be truthful, the first pizza or two was not photographable as it resembled an amoeba that I remember seeing in my high school biology textbook. Not sure about you guys, but amoebae are not appetizing to me.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Is it delicious and worth it to make pizza dough from scratch? Absolutely. Would I continue doing this in the future? Definitely. I even bought a special pizza pan for future pies, and I am so glad I did. Maybe one day, I’ll splurge and get myself a pizza stone. (Might need to get that standing mixer while I’m at it.)

I have a major sweet tooth as well, and I have used quarantine to remake some old standbys like brownies, cookies, and pumpkin scones. My introduction to a new dessert came from none other than Peggy Hill on King of the Hill. In a few episodes, the Hills mention Peggy’s apple brown betty dessert. I had never heard of it, and after finding this vintage recipe, I had to make it myself. I don’t have shortening on hand, so I substituted butter. Still, it is absolutely delicious and pairs well with vanilla ice cream. Having made it twice, I can also confess that it disappears in my house within twenty-four hours. Super weird how that happens, eh?

I’m still up in the air as to what I will post about next Sunday, but I’m confident that I’ll think of something. See you next Sunday!

I know it’s Saturday and it’s not the Amazon wardrobe post that I said would be next, but I need to get this out.

This blog is about new things I’ve done in quarantine. Last night and today, I am mourning the death of a Supreme Court justice for the first time ever. One of the women I have idolized has taken her last breath as of September 18, 2020.

Justice Ginsburg wrenched opened doors for women in the workforce that were supposed to lock us out. She studied law and made her mark with the American Civil Liberties Union by cofounding the Women’s Rights Project. She was the second female justice in U.S. history to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, and she was never shy about speaking up when she disagreed with a court decision. (Read some of her dissenting opinions. You can find SCOTUS opinions at their website.) She refused to retire even when she lost her husband, battled cancer and found herself in the hospital multiple times.

My heart is heavy. The fear and terror I feel with her passing is real. I am so grateful for all the time she gave us and I hope we can proudly live out her legacy by ensuring the most vulnerable minorities among us are treated equally.

Thank you, Justice Ginsburg. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I remember learning basic facts about mammals in elementary school: they have warm blood, live births, and body hair. I’m sure there are exceptions to these rules, but I am not a biologist nor am I here to discuss biology.

It is a quirk of western society that we should want to rid ourselves of body hair, especially when we identify as female. Although I’m a firm believer in doing whatever makes you happy (all the hair, no hair, or some happy medium), I have wondered if it’s worth a few minutes of pain to give the razor a rest. Yes, friends, I am referring to waxing: a practice in which you spread goop on yourself and yank it off, revealing bare skin. Ideally, I would go to a licensed esthetician who would get the job done; however, in the era of COVID when non-essential businesses have been closed or offering limited services, going to a salon continues to be difficult.

So! Much like my tresses, I decided to experiment. To pay respects to the title of this post, I have opted to tell the tale in poetry.

There was a young blogger named Mary
Who wanted to do something scary
She purchased a pot
Of wax and then got
To work on becoming less hairy

She chose to begin with her face
Because there was plenty of space
To use all the strips
That came in the kit
And RIP! There was no time to waste

She saw her brows as subpar
For they looked like caterpill-ars
She warmed up the wax
And placed it on flat
But WHOOPS! She went in too far!

She promptly went to her spouse
And said to him, quiet as a mouse
“I think that I may
Have gone quite astray”
And his laughter shook their whole house

(The end.)

I suppose I could also talk briefly about waxing my legs. I don’t have quite as much to say, so these haiku ought to suffice:

When waxing one’s legs
Be sure to buy coconut
Oil for stickiness

You will likely bruise
But this is somewhat normal
If you’re sensitive

Stick around next week as I delve into the good, the bad and the repulsive finds of online clothes shopping!

Let’s go ahead and preface this with a disclaimer that this post, blog and blogger are in no way affiliated with the alt right hate group by the name Boo*galoo, okay? Okay.
Now, the fun part:

Quarantine Salon 2: Electric Blue Boogaloo

Having tried purple and pink hair, the next logical step in my quest to have the most badass hair of my life was to go blue. Blue is easy to coordinate with clothing; jeans pair with everything from blouses to t-shirts, right? I even remember a time in the early aughts when jeans under dresses and skirts was in fashion. Maybe that trend will return in this warped timeline where we find ourselves.
Ahem. Moving on.
Outside of clashing concerns, I quickly learned the pink was a huge pain to maintain and faded to a sad reminder of what it once was. I did my homework this time around. I was going to do it right: no horrible bleach jobs, no panicked drives all over the metro area to get supplies, no holing up in my bedroom stuffing my face with Keebler cookies while I felt sorry for myself. Actually, I still like those cookies, but I would gleefully eat them out in the open.
My research led me to the Britain-based company Punky Colour. I was intrigued by positive reviews as well as a wide range of inexpensive yet bold shades. I stripped out the Barbie pink in favor of platinum white-blonde before tumbling into the cerulean sea. While the Pepto Bismol hair tried desperately to cling to dear life, I banished it from existence.

So! The hard part done, I was ready to go. I set to work with tools in and on hand: tinting brushes, hair color bowls, and protective gloves. I was delighted at the outcome: just look at that ocean on my head!

I suppose the story could end here, but fear not, dear reader; I would not leave you hanging.
Did I look better in azure? Absolutely. However, much to my husband’s chagrin, it felt like everything else in our apartment was stained blue. Hurricane Sapphire made landfall in my bathtub as one would expect. It also splattered my bathroom sink, ran through my towels, bled into my pillow cases, and soaked into my fingernails. In my zest to avoid losing my security deposit, I learned some tips:

1. Wear gloves. Not just when you’re coloring; keep them around for shampooing and maintenance.
2. Invest in towels and linens that are dark, are bleach-friendly, or have been so well-loved that you wouldn’t mind staining them.
3. Makeup remover and nail polish remover gets dye off of your skin and nails. Bleach works on porcelain. Shout works on laundry, but be timely.
4. Apple cider vinegar. No, seriously. Watch this video.

Continue reading “Quarantine Salon 2: Electric Blue Boogaloo”