Here in the northern hemisphere, summer begins. May the sun shine kindly upon you and not burn up the world. (It’s so hot, y’all, I struggle to be happy with the onset of the summer season, but the sun makes life possible, and it’s not the sun’s fault we seem determined to make the worst of it.)
Meanwhile, in the yard…
For the second year in a row, the solstice pole decorates our front yard. The sunny ribbons will be blowing in the summer heat until the end of August. My father made the base, the pole, and the part that attaches the hoop of ribbon. Dad no longer lives with us, but I’m happy with the things he made for us. If he thought the idea was weird, he didn’t say.
Reading!
From one of my favorite bookstores, Curio MrVosa, I bought two Baba Yaga books—Ask Baba Yaga: Otherworldly Advice for Everyday Troubles and Ask Baba Yaga: Poetic Remedies for Troubled Times by Taisia Kitaiskaia. I’ve been fascinated by Baba Yaga since I first learned about her in Bulgaria (where I was a Peace Corps volunteer many moons ago). These two books are darkly weird (in text and images), so perfect for me! I think I shared the first Baba Yaga book in a previous newsletter, but now I have the second one.
Do not hate yrself for growing. ~ Baba Yaga
The funniest book I’ve read in years is Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson: The Bloggess. To be clear, it’s funny (I really did LOL), but in the way that your deeply traumatized friend is funny. Laugh at the horrors, y’all. Laugh at the horrors. #LATH
I am the Wizard of Oz of housewives (in that I am both "Great and Terrible" and because I sometimes hide behind the curtains. ~ Jenny Lawson
For Christmas, my husband gave me Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction. Whoa. Some of the stories punch you in the gut. Some are terrifying. If they were made into a tv show, I probably wouldn’t watch because I’d have nightmares, but, that said, I loved reading them. If you love Black Mirror and Twilight but crave such stories from a perspective not often offered by mainstream publishing, here you go!
…I gazed at the sea and it gazed at me. My breath went shallow. I buried my toes under cold grains of sand in pursuit of answers that didn’t exist. ~ Moustapha Mbacké Diop.
You are reading my newsletter (THANK YOU!), the Paper Octopus. Now I’m working on a tangible edition. I’ll be sending it to my Patrons and anyone who buys my art. Want one? Let me know! I love publishing and zines and so many other things made of paper. Maybe no one else will care, but I make them for my own happiness! And we all need to help happiness.
Did you know that an octopus can taste through its skin? You’d think I wouldn’t like octopuses because they’re terribly spider-like and I’m arachnophobic. They are strange creatures. An octopus’s brain wraps around its esophagus, like a donut.
Had a person attempted to taste me so soon after we met, I would have been alarmed; but since Athena was an octopus, I was thrilled. Although we couldn’t have been more different — I, a terrestrial vertebrate constrained by joints and bound to air; she, a marine mollusk with not a single bone, who breathed water — she was clearly as curious about me as I was about her. ~ Sy Montgomery, “The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness”
I started reading this book today, and I’m already hooked. More in the next edition!
I’ve drawn very little recently, and what I have drawn, I haven’t liked. It’s unfortunate for several reasons, but it disappoints me especially for my newsletter. I want to share my art! There just isn’t much to share. I went through a notebook and found this. I’ll share it because I want to share something.
Finally.
Recently, I watched Andor, a Star Wars spin off—a prequel to Rogue One which was a prequel to A New Hope. When they first announced Andor, I thought, why? Who needs that? It turns out, I need that. I loved the first season. I LOVED the second. Andor is a masterclass in storytelling. And, no lie, it inspired me to work on the plot of my own manuscripts. I went back to The Fairy Tale Asylum (which is nothing like Andor, to be clear), and reworked the plot. Here’s an excerpt. Hannah, our heroine, is trying to learn the truth about the disappearance of her grandmother, and her father is no help whatsoever. This scene is in chapter three.
Hannah waited until her stepmother was in the shower to talk to her dad. “When are you going to really start worrying about Gran? The police haven’t found out anything and she’s still not home.”
“Han-my-girl. Gran is where she wants to be.” He stopped in the middle of adding Lipton to the grocery list. “Trust her to know what she’s doing.”
“Trust? I trust her more than I trust anyone. But I don’t trust the world. Where do you think she is?”
He picked up his list and looked at it as if it had previously unknown advice on dealing with unwanted questions. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember.”
Hannah suspected he was lying. He wasn’t a good liar. He didn’t like lying. But it was odd how determined he was to keep to this story. “Dad. Why aren’t you worried? You love Gran too.”
He glanced in the direction of the hallway. “Look. Han. Do you have to be so curious?” It was a question he’d often asked her as a joke after finding her dirty or injured from one exploit or another. This time he sounded truly annoyed. His face scrunched as if pain had found him again.
“Somebody has to be,” she said.
He put the list on the table and added yellow cornmeal. “Don’t bring any of this up around your mother.”
“Angie Dee’s not my mother.”
“I know. I know.” He muttered something about a pain squeezing his skull. “I have to tell you something.”
A dark thought bloomed in Hannah’s mind, but she pushed it aside. “Yeah?”
“We’re selling the house,” he said.
The words didn’t make sense. “What?”
“You know Ang’s never liked this place.”
Hannah stared. “Sell the house?” Her head spun.
“We can sell it for double what I paid for it 20 years ago.”
“Double what you and mom paid for it, you mean,” she whispered. Her room, Gran’s room, all of it gone? She rested a hand on the bar between the kitchen and the living room. How often had she and Gran sat there, talking?
“That’s right. You can understand why Ang wants a place that feels like hers,” her dad said.
“But nearly every stick of furniture and picture on the wall is hers.”
“We can get a new place over in Bay’s Head. We found a place with a pool. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You and your friends could go swimming.” His voice muffled.
Hannah wondered if he were possessed or mad or not her dad at all. How could he say such things as if asking what she wanted on the grocery list? “Bay’s Head? Swimming? When do I ever have friends over for anything?” Angie Dee was terrible to her friends, refused to let them eat anything, and kicked everyone out before dark.
Her dad set aside his pen and notepad. “I don’t know. Sometimes. Don’t you?”
“No. I don’t! And my friends live in Lake Belle, Dad. Not Bay’s Head.”
“It’s not far.”
Hannah didn’t care if it was across the street or the moon. “You’ve been looking at places and not telling me? Did Gran know?”
He turned away from the counter and turned back. “This place needs a lot of work. And…” He picked up the pen and worried it between his fingers. “It’s from another time, Hannah. We can get a good house, nice and new. We want something new.”
“I don’t. I don’t want anything new. This is my home. And Gran’s home. Your home.” Her voice dropped. “Mom’s home.” All those times she’d rolled her eyes at her gran’s insistence that her mother’s spirit remained within the walls where she died. Now this seemed absolutely true and wildly important.
“Anywhere can be your home,” he said.
“Not if I don’t have a say in it!”
He flinched. “You’ll like the new place when you see it.”
The sound of the shower cutting off interrupted Hannah’s thoughts. She wasn’t about to be there when Angie Dee walked in. “I’ll be in my room. MY room.”
“You’ll see, Han-my-girl. You’ll have a lovely new room. With a big window and a walk-in closet.”
“Whatever.” Hannah turned her back on her father. A punch would’ve shocked less.
In her room, she threw herself on her bed. Grabbing her pillow exposed the notebook. “Oh, Gran. Where did you go?”
Thanks for reading!
Happy Summer Solstice!
