August 28, 2023

Sunday foodie adventure chez Stas: lion's mane mushrooms. They were bright white when I bought them on Friday, but a couple of days in timeout in a paper bag in the fridge seemingly dampened their mood. Still, they're delicious, and just as fluffy to the touch as they look. 😋

 

August 27, 2023

Saturday night special chez Stas: a French Canadian tourtière, or meat pie, traditionally served on Xmas Eve (whoops).

 

August 23, 2023

Early this morning (as in 1:15 AM), I received an email from a journal informing me that they had accepted for publication 1/3 poems I submitted back in January. That lag time isn't unusual (they apologized for it anyway), but what really made my day were the following:

(1) The piece is one that I doubted anyone would want since it's quite raw (it's about the sexual fetishization of trans women) and is based on something fairly arcane outside certain queer circles (a photo supplement at the back of a landmark 1966 book on trans folks).

(2) The journal, the New Plains Review, selected it as "one of the leading submissions" for their annual issue of The Central Dissent: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality. I remember submitting this poem to them thinking, "Welp if anyone will be interested in it..."

I'm not sure when the issue is coming out, but I'm tickled that my little monster will be among its highlighted pieces!

August 9, 2023

The ratio of rejections to acceptances where creative work is concerned gets dispiriting sometimes. 😞

August 2, 2023

A martini nobly sacrificed itself last night to a celebration of Trump's latest indictment. Rest in peace, comrade.