sarahbeniel

1. last song: True by Spandau Ballet

2. favorite colors: Green

3. currently watching: nothing. I’m trying to avoid purposeless screen activities. It feels, maybe irrationally (maybe not; who can know?) that I have too little time left in life to waste my recreational time on passive stuff instead of the hobbies I truly enjoy but complain that I have no time for. This is directly at odds with how burned out I am and in need of true rest and relaxation. Alas, I am terrible at true rest and relaxation as I will do anything at all to its extreme, which means that if I begin a new TV series, I will stay up watching until I am doomed to only 3 hours of sleep, thus totally defeating the rest part of that equation. My unmet “top priority” goal for the past many months has been improved sleep hygiene. I’m terrible at it in spite of trying.

4. currently reading: nothing, but my current bedside pile is One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer (Nathaniel Fick), Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan (Del Quinten Wilber), How Plants Work: The Science behind the amazing things plants do (Linda Chalker-Scott), and Welsh Family History: A guide to research (J. Rowlands, et al, eds).

5. current obsession: Sewing. I took 2 weeks off of work to make a regency outfit (linen shirt with high starched collar and ruffles, fine linen cravat, double breasted waistcoat with stand-up collar, high-waisted fall-front trousers, and fitted wool tailcoat) for my kid’s junior prom. I worked on it about 16 hours a day, loving every second of it. I needed this— haven’t had time to sew anything substantial in ages, and it has been so much FUN. The prom was last night, and I finished everything except for the tailcoat so I had to send him off without it, sadly. He was fine with it because he looked very dressy in just the flouncy shirt and waistcoat and beautiful ivory corduroy trousers, and we agreed that if anything he would seem sexier for being scandalously partially undressed 😂. I have no idea what the rest of his group wore; the prom theme was “masquerade”. He had a simple black mask with black ribbon to tie on; matching the cheap dance oxfords we found for shoes and relaced with black ribbon. We purchased some era-appropriate button braces to hold up the trousers. He tied back his long red hair with black ribbon, exposing his red mutton chops to great Regency effect, which probably mitigated his non-era-appropriate hair length. With the full effect the Regency era garb and mask, etc, he probably looked like a romantic vampire. I’m awaiting group photos. I still need to finish the tailcoat but it will take a long time as I have to go back to work on Monday. It was incredibly hubristic of me to think I could pull all of that off in just 2 short weeks. All of the pad stitching on the coat alone will likely take many, many hours to do properly. In a way it’s good that I didn’t have time to rush it through; it deserves proper care. The Melton wool we got is a lovely deep dark color that appears forest green, teal, or even navy blue, depending on the light, drapes beautifully, and is an absolute dream to work with. Same with the linen (for the linings, and 100% of the shirt and cravat). I hand-stitched most of the linen shirt, which was actually enjoyable as hand-stitching linen is also just wonderful (compared to, say, cotton). Linen is just so easy to mold and bend and true and can be coaxed to do what you want. I usually don’t enjoy hand-sewing very much, but this was different. I did a narrow rolled hem on the entire length of the front opening ruffle and normally something like that would make me want to scream, but with linen it was actually meditative and satisfying. Anyway. Enough about sewing.

6. currently working on: if this refers to writing, then nothing. Ever since getting an actual paid job a bit over a year ago, I haven’t had the time or brain-space to write. :( Every now and then my brain gives me some sparks for my last WIP, which is a comics Bucky and Nat caper set in Alaska, and I open a file to jot down the notes, but no real time has been spent. It’s in competition with 12 other hobbies I have little time for, and coexisting with severe burnout (see #3 above).

7. last Google search: lispo shortage reddit [my prom kid is a T1 diabetic and I just got a note from pharmacy that they could not fill his insulin rx this time around, because of an industry-wide shortage. Terrific. T1’s must take insulin or die, but multiple manufacturers are discontinuing their insulin products because weight-loss glucagon products like Ozempic and Wegovy are far more profitable than insulin vials. This is an unintended (but predictable) consequence of the well-intentioned price-capping of insulin. What a disgrace. Anyway, now I need to scramble with his endocrinologist to get an alternative insulin rx that will work for him. He’s only ever been on this type since he was diagnosed a couple years ago, so I have no idea how to navigate this. Crap like this is one of the reasons that T1s are wise to hoard insulin as much as possible.]

8. current desktop picture: A very, very overgrown mossy woodland scene, completely saturated in green.