Needles & Nilbogs

 If you see this on Thursday, it means scheduling posts works! (If you see this before Thursday it means I screwed up.) The reason I’m scheduling a post is because I’m gonna be completely offline Tuesday through Friday for senior retreat (both very excited and very worried, none of my friends are going on this one), and I don’t want to miss two weeks in a row.  I’ve been doing some embroidery lately, and I have lots of pictures! That’s what I’m going to show you today — all of these were done at school, usually on clothing I was wearing. I did these on the inside hems of my pants during a boring assembly Flowers from when I was bored at lunch  Emergency repair for my jeans when they developed a hole in the knees; it’s a woven patch, and I’m quite proud of it! (It’s fancy because, you guessed it, I was bored. I sense a theme here.) This is part of my Halloween/cosplay plan — it’s going to be the preservation logo that I put on the jacket I’m making! (It’s unfinished as of ...

 Happy Thursday! I swear I’m not dead, yet. Just busy. Anyways, it’s almost Homecoming (actually, today is day 4 of hoco spirit week) and I’d like to share a thing I wrote. It is a gaming thing. I have been alluding to it on and off since June.  It’s about homecoming. Specifically, it’s a game about having fun with your friends at homecoming and then realizing there’s an eldritch being at the dance as well. And then figuring out what to do about it. It’s not meant to be a scary game, it’s supposed to be pretty light and cozy.  Anyways, it’s called Rock This Dance and there’s a PDF that looks all pretty and a gdoc in case the pdf doesn’t work. Let me know what you think!  (Technically this was beta read. If you call throwing a pdf at a friend who then skims it beta read. Point is, comments very much welcome and encouraged.)

Ugh, club day. Too much being a smiley person for me, thanks. It was not helped by the fact that I was running on like no sleep. (I stayed up to make triboards for two clubs, which might have been a bit overly ambitious.) Anyways, that’s why I didn’t post yesterday. So tonight I used family movie night as an excuse to project all my complex emotions about club day onto some characters from a story I’m writing. I don’t know whether I’ve ever talked about this on the internet before, but I guess this snippet I’m really happy with is a good start.  The bare minimum context is that it’s about a bunch of high school theater kids, about half of whom are magical in some way; this includes the main character, eleventh grader and threadmage María Soledad “Solí” Armijo Riveras, and her banshee girlfriend Elia Graydaughter. Everyone involved is queer and magical and just trying to get through high school, and they have shenanigans and friendship and stuff.  (CW: mentions of transphobia, ...

 Sorry about last week. Blogging has kind of fallen by the wayside, in favor of school stuff. Happy senior year to me.  Anyways, on the bright side, now that I’m back in school, I’m back to cavandoli work, aka friendship bracelet making! For school, friendship bracelets are one of my favorite fidgets because I can stick them in a pocket and work on them any time I have a free second.  Pink and purple four strand braid, green and yellow and metallic blue stripes, green and blue braided, green and blue thin candy-stripes, rainbow candy stripes, pink and gold braid, gray and blue and red asymmetrical fun.  This is my current assortment, four of which are relatively new — one was a birthday present and the other three were things I did this week.  There are a few reasons I choose bracelet-making as my fidget craft during the school year, which I thought I might briefly mention. Obviously, it’s small, and easily put away, so it’s okay to have in class. It’s also a lo...

 Today was the second day of school and I have opinions but mostly trip photos. And some from senior sunrise this morning, and a super amazing thing one of my best friends sent me for my birthday.  (Blogger turns photos sideways for some reason but) The City Spies, as drawn and painted by one of my besties!!! Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s a scene from book 1, and if it wasn’t late I’d find the exact page reference, but it’s amazing and gorgeous.  Drone on a model coaster  Beach sunset, seen through trees CA museum!  Went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, saw lots of kelp Asilomar at high tide — just as cool as at low tide More Asilomar  Beach sunset again! Meet Lilac Lavender, the purple tardigrade plush I got from the aquarium  Steinbeck museum had to have Steinbeck somewhere… CA museum again, this time the quilt Senior sunrise, spindle sunrise… take your pick! Birthday cake! Lilac in a tree at the campground Coals at night  More senior sunrise, without th...

 Believe me, I should have done something fancy this week, but I’m at the stage of the semester where I’m just kind of done and I don’t want to do anything but read my phone and wait to be all the way done. So, instead, I present a thing I started back in October, around Homecoming season, and picked up again last week in time for Prom season. I have a second, related thing, but that again must be pushed to next week while I wait on a friend who promised to playtest it.  If you had a “typical” american high school education, you might remember Prom and Homecoming. Two big dances, one more casual and open to everyone (Homecoming or HoCo), and one very formal, for upper-classpeople only (Prom). For people like me, dances are either really really fun, or horrible agony. Sometimes both. So I present: Ways to Handle School Dances and the Emotional and Physical Stimuli Attached to Them.  Basically, this is my list of things that helped me survive hoco and prom without dying, an...