August is my birthday month, and I often make a bit of a fuss over it. There's usually a big sale in my Etsy shop, with discounts that spike on my actual birthday (22 August) and again at the close of the month. There's also usually a big overstock in my Etsy shop waiting to be marked down, but this year is different. I've been trying to juggle a bunch of different things, all of them urgent, for the past howeverlong, and jokingly saying that I needed four of me to be able to keep up. One of the ones I haven't kept up with is getting enough actual workbench time until lately.
So this August Birthday Month sale will be a little different. I do have new pieces to put up, and it wouldn't be a Birthday Month without marking some things down, so for now I am going to try putting a new piece up and marking an old piece or two (or five) down. We will see how that goes. As usual, anyone who wants to have everything shipped together at the end of the month (and thereby to save shipping on the things that get marked down to ten dollars and so forth) can tell me "LET IT RIDE" and I will accumulate treasures for them until the end of the month. (I csn give you a code that will let you skip paying for shipping on anything for the rest of August; just tell me LET IT RIDE and request the code.) The Etsy shop, for those who might have either forgotten or successfully resisted temptation until now, is at
https://www.etsy.com/shop/LionessEliseSomething else I've mentioned here is my eBay sales of queer history, comics, model railroading things, odd sartorial treasures and so forth. I am lioness_online there, so named because I am an Old and that's what we were naming things back then when eBay was a smaller and simpler place. I'll be putting up comics next, along with the rest of the queer history, which has brought out a nice bunch of archivists to whom I am most grateful for their contributions to both clearing my house and keeping it. Here, have a link:
https://www.ebay.com/usr/lioness_onlineThe third thing I have needed an extra me for is finishing the Kickstarter project. As soon as all systems are go, I get to make a happy announcement about what we're doing and who's doing it. The few of you still waiting for your backer rewards will, I hope, be pleased -- as well as the everybody of you who is waiting for the video work that is the whole point of the project. (Not as pleased as I will be to finally get it to you, though!)
The fourth thing I have needed an entire me, or possibly a me and a half, is very boring to everybody else but essential for our household, is wrangling paperwork and pensions and powers of attorney and payment arrangements for various and sundry things. I am by nature more of a grasshopper, and this ant hat fits oddly and so does the rest of the ant uniform, but somebody's got to ant, so I am anting as antfully as I can. (If you want to assist, spread the word on my Etsy sale or my eBay treasures. My deepest gratitude to everyone who does.)
Besides all that, I'm proceeding through various parts of the landscape of grief. My father died in January, twenty days after his diagnosis. In clearing out various bookshelves and boxes for eBay or other bestowal, I have found some of his correspondence telling me I am bringing dishonor upon him and my mother and admonishing me to stop, mend my ways, and return to God's Law, which strictly disallows me speaking publically in favor of homosexuality. (That one is going to one of the archives that have collections of my work.)
He had very nice penmanship.
Anyhow, the other thing I'm doing, as usual, is going through my stash of perfume oils (mostly Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, but also Haus of Gloi and Nocturne Alchemy, all from years ago) and enjoying the weird time-travel that scents can enable. Today's keeper is BPAL's O, which was one of the very first BPAL perfumes I fell in love with around 2004 or 2005. (If you are an ancient BPAL fan and are looking for some particular discontinued treasures, let me know if I should look in my Go-Away Box to see if I have some to swap or sell.)
OK, so to end today's ruminations, before I go put a thing up in the Etsy shop and mark a few other things down, here are my reactions to BPAL's O. It has some musk to it but also something curiously bakery-like. When I first tried it, it reminded me of some of the mornings working at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, that hotbed of baked goods and romance. I miss walking up from the campground back in the really old days, coming up past the cappucino stand and getting a Prince Orange, and whatever pastry was on offer. I don't remember the pastries as well as I do the Prince Orange, which were revivifying drinks indeed, cold and citrussy, good to have on one's way up to cast call where we gathered under Bobo's direction and heard the announcements of the day and sang a little bit to make sure we were awake.
So you've got the announcement of the day, above. And I have promised to sing a little bit for my Patreon people, to whom I owe a song about Oobleck in the Bathtub which is true and happened at a local convention some years back. (Oh, right, there is a Patreon. It's here:
https://www.patreon.com/elisem It's mostly for dispensing writing prompts, getting Beads of the Month in the hands of people who want them, and telling true life adventure tales. Ergo, oobleck song.) I'm slipping backwards and forwards in time a little bit due to the powers of perfume, but I was already doing that because of sorting out all my papers and ephemera and reference material and comics and books, so it's fitting, I guess.
And so goes the first day of my Birthday Month. Your kindness in stopping by and reading my musings is much appreciated. How is the day going for you?
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