Peace Out, April!

Easter cookies received as a gift to help usher in a new season and era!

Easter cookies received as a gift to help usher in a new season and era!

A month is not inherently bad, nor does it cause pain on it's own or without provocation. In fact, April has brought me a number of highlights and joys we'll break into in a minute. But it also brought me these things:

  • A phone so broken it wouldn't even turn on and a phone company insisting on a pretty high payout to do anything about it or turn a new one on.
  • My queerplatonic partner getting extorted for money without any evidence or proof over something that happened over a year ago and getting verbally abused in the process.
  • A tax bill I wasn't quite ready for. (This one is, admittedly, on me. Lesson learned.)
  • AND A mystery illness that is forcing me to get a neck/throat ultrasound this week and sending me to specialists. I can barely eat. It's....awful.

I spent the entire month near breakdown point in spite of friends and family helping out every time they could and things otherwise going swimmingly. Things thawed out towards the end, but I had to catch up putting together a community garage sale & one act festival, running a tarot business, and writing deadlines. It's been...a lot. Even so, I'm very proud of what I've accomplished in my career and the adventures I did squeeze in. Such as:

  • Tarot Hits: I acquired a Mystical Spiral from Lo Scarebo that is not my normal hyperqueer, feminist fare but is so delightfully absurd that I adore it. In actual tarot business life I'm working on TWO tarot e-books at the moment. It is my fondest, greatest wish to get a quick, popcorn take on Queering the Tarot out this April. I've got a bigger project that's more of a workbook on learning tarot the storytelling & art theory way that I'm slowly chipping away at. In the meantime, I LOVE the Sunday shifts I've picked up at Eye of Horus, the clients I've seen at my studio, and seeing my student pool grow so much this month. I'll have a couple of classes to announce soon which is VERY exciting. I also had the very distinct honor of being featured on one of my utmost tarot hero's blog as well.
  • Stuff I Wrote: I had a wonderful time at my steady writing gig, including this review that breaks down why casting cisgender people in transgender roles is stupid and goes into ways NOT write a trans character in the first place. I've officially queered all the wands of the tarot too. Right now the King is only available at The Column, but will be dropping into Little Red this coming month.
  • Theatre Kid Chronicles: Not a ton to report, but I'll be blogging about June one act festival a lot over the next couple of months, I'm sure. My company is running a huge community garage sale tomorrow from 8-2, so if you're in the Twin Cities, come on down to the Fox Egg Gallery!
Rocking this theatre kid life with my biz & queerplatonic partner.

Rocking this theatre kid life with my biz & queerplatonic partner.

  • Reading & Watching Recommendations: I think this was technically May, but there's a recent episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that seriously addresses the intersection of being black and a cop. It is so so good. I read much more than I zoned out to the TV for this month. I devoured the most recent Saga graphic novel. I also maybe cried or something over it. I dunno. I read Unholy Night, a semi-horror retelling of the three wise men tale, and it was really silly but weirdly gripping.
  • Other Adventures: MAYBE my best friend's oldest kid hid a bunch of bananas around her house and I went to help her find them, only to have my queerplatonic partner turn around and re-hide them all. Maybe. I also went to a bunch of really great live shows: a comedy show at Lush run by my friend Sarah, a flash theatre project at Patrick's Cabaret, and a modern retelling of Prometheus Bound were all super exceptional.  My favorite was a night featuring Venus DeMars and a slew of A-List Minneapolis performers raise money for The Aliveness Project called Last Call. It was beautiful from start to finish. I ended the month with my best adventure for it--checking out the new Lotus restaurant in Uptown and ending up walking around a Thai New Year's Festival where I got blessed by monks (the bracelet they gave me went right on my altar) and got to hear some great Thai music.
Lanterns for luck at the Thai New Year Festival I ran into.

Lanterns for luck at the Thai New Year Festival I ran into.

That's pretty much it for my April. I had some beautiful moments, but am not sorry to be into May which has already been amazing so far. Wishing you and yours a month of laughter and brightness.

Blessed be y'all!