Another journal

It's very funny, I was looking at my bff's LJ and mine through Wayback Machine but neither of us much used the various mood/music/etc. Though I was a more thorough tagger than her.

I did remember I'd imported my blog entire over to my *actual* blog, which has been WP for about one million years (I actually just dug into my email and it's been bzedan.com since 2007, before that it was bzedan.us). I'm glad I did. With Twitter I just did the mega-erase, didn't import a thing to Bluesky. What's done is done. But my blog posts? My wretched little written memories from as far back as 2007? Can't tear them away. I'm not sure what happened to posts from 2005-2007, but that's fine, we can't remember it all.

Anyway, point of this is to see what the bells and/or whistles look like.

They’d only just ordered drinks and already Birch was swearing she’d never go on a blind date again.  Dammit, she really should have known better. Aster was always trying to set her up with minor heroes so the dryad would leave her six brothers alone.  Birch sighed, thinking about the youngest, the one who still had that swan’s wing.  How great would that be in bed, those soft feathers trailing up—

“Tough choices, huh?”  The melodic voice broke into Birch’s daydream.  Right.  She still had to get through this date.  Tucking her short silver-green hair behind her ears she cast a glance at the menu, searching for something polite and empty to say.

“Oh, y’know, choosing something at a new restaurant is always difficult.  It’s so easy to be disappointed.”

“That is so true.”

Birch looked up at the face across from her.  Gods, he was so earnest.  With his golden hair pulled back, the late summer sun glowed shell-pink through his pointed ears.  She could imagine him at Midsummer, wreathed in flowers and winning all the archery contests.  He was too pretty, she decided.  That was always the problem with the Sidhe.

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Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

A friend of mine is doing a project called “Secret Chicago”, which now has a wider-ranging LJ group.  They’re ultra-short vignettes that open little mind-doors of (often dark) magical realism into whatever place the writer is from or holds dear.  Some places have strong existences, once you’ve lived there a while and you go past that shop that has been closed for years or take public transit daily it can start your memory reeling into possibilities of whys and what ifs.  Secret Cities is a fascinating project, expanding pocket worlds from chance impressions.

I’ve played with the idea of writing a couple myself, but I think what magical realism I’ve found in the Portland metro area is already being tapped in a couple of ways.  The area in and around where I live I photograph.  Yes, rural suburbia is weird, but in a way I mostly enjoy by living in it.  The city I work in I have a love-hate relationship with and I’ve already got the place drawn up in a different genre of writing experiment.

Besides, the magical realism aspects of the city are, for me, incredibly tied up in someone else’s work.

If I’m waiting for a bus and start a cigarette, I think of Jo in Anvil (#6).  Ghost bikes have a new dimension.  More or less, when I’m looking at the city I’m either wondering what it would look like if the plants went un-battled or if that’s the Safeway in book eight.

It’s a kind of nepotism, I guess.  I am of course fond of my own ideas and I know the writer of City of Roses, who is damned charming—except maybe for how his saga totally overwhelms my impression of the city and keeps me waiting for the next instalment like my own personal narcotic.

Which is still rather charming.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

    When I’m at home alone I’m rather careless about where I kick off my shoes. I figure, if I trip over them, it’s my own damn fault. So when the front door eased open a few inches before hitting my little Miami Vice slip-ons, my first thought was, “Oh shit, Chase is trying to come in and I’m an ass.” But instead of barrelling though and pushing them aside, the door suddenly jerked closed and I heard a lady stranger’s voice.
    “Oh.”
    Our building is the result of a particularly unique house reconstruction. In another era our apartment and that of our closest neighbour would be the servant’s quarters, accessible by side stairs and situated above the garage and the expansive two-bedroom flat below. It makes pizza delivery difficult, trying to explain how to find the side door that opens into a narrow, knotty pine panelled stairwell. So I figured this lady, whoever she was, had to be lost.
    Trotting over to the door, I kicked aside my shoes and opened it just enough to poke my head out and lean a shoulder against the jam. It’s not so much that I’m paranoid, I just really hate people.
    At the sound of the door opening, the woman in our entryway-mudroom spun around, in an off-putting mix of surprise and mild terror.
    “Oh!”
    Her easy-to-care-for short hair was plastered down from the rain, matching her coat, which was so saturated it might as well have been black. She had a little damp scarf peeking from the collar, one of those frizzy, foofy things seen around the necks of middle-aged coffee shop knitters. Quiet clicking nails brought my attention down to a small dog at her feet. The two of them had been out in the rain for a while.
    “Can I help you?” I tried out my nice voice. I figured, the lady got turned around or something, no reason to pull out the solicitor sternness, even if she’d attempted to open my door.
    I did not expect what she said.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

With my craft things packed up for the move, I’ve only a few scraps of fabric to embroider on during my commute.  So I’m focusing on lots of detail.  Lots and lots and worked over and over itself.

This thing is about two and a half to three weeks of commuting (about 30 hours). This is all the stitches I could think of offhand, which means mostly buttonhole and chainstitch variations.  There is also a lot of gathering and netting and weird things done so that the haphazardly pieced-together bits lie flat (I did piece them together weird on purpose, to give myself a challenge).

It is worked on pieced-together bits of velveteen, bleached muslin and stretch lace hem edging—stuffed in places with acrylic felt and with black and white cotton print on the ends. This is going to make one weird wrist warmer thing.  When I unpack and can get to my Velcro and snaps again.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

Tie-Dyed Scruffables

Hunks and Punks

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.