Perch @perchingpath@eldritch.cafe

There are drunk girls in Santa caps moping in doorways all over Old City. Did an elf die.

Registering for a plot of the local escarpment to raise a crop of guillemots on. One does often have to wait until a current plot-holder passes, but, y'know, the rocks are slick & the sea's cold.

"I'm drafting a notification to Satan that I have a zit in violation of our blood-sealed contract," I joked, then I saw a sable-furred creature scrambling in the brush, unidentifiable, combining the shape of a pug puppy and the motions of a marten.

I found a pair of 2 & 1/4" heels sturdy enough to still hop fences or whatever in, so I'm once again ready to attend your outdoor wedding, rapidly lose interest, and wander off cross-country until I find a horse to stare at broodily.

Haunted by the still, attentive spirit that split from you as you first lay down on a lover's bed, always staring from the corner of the ceiling despite your beckoning, you stared back until you drew & were drawn inside & skeined & fell 9 feet, cracking open your skull.

They watch your hands as you try to unlock the box. The key is delicate, teeth threatening to bend. You lose focus for a moment, and it falls through your palm. Your knuckles briefly dip through the surface of the table as you snatch it back up. The coachman's eyes are steady, as if nothing's happened. His young assistant has turned to the window, intent as if that mudded landscape could still hold any interest for him after their trip up.

Garden talk sets a lot of people at ease. You can have a nice chat about this year's disappointing tomato crop with your assassin as you bleed out.

@checkervest I had a couple seasons where I did that too! Goth for children, pretty much.

If you make a soup with green peas & small pasta shells, many of the peas will make their way inside the shells to form green-pupiled eyes which will roll wildly as the pot roils, then gaze calmly at you from the bowl.

Reaching the point in a stretch of insomnia at which I begin barring myself from touching, literally or metaphorically, anything of importance.

@checkervest For sure. Some alchemists were totally the Jesus-metal dudes of their era.

Definitely one of the easier & more palatable posited methods of homunculi-formation, though I suppose it would necessitate some form of birth.
(from William Newman's The Homunculus and His Forebears)

Transubstantiate your handful of macadamias into gravel & feel yourself exalted by the splendid puissance of your teeth.

What occupations even are there for a woman so suited to working in the cold, wet dark, besides icicle-honer, window-tapper, drowner of strayed travelers, etc.

A man in late middle age alternated between trying to flirt with me & boasting to my mother about his excellent finances, which I guess has been one of the more historically common experiences of courtship.

I'd really rather game designers (etc.) & occultists (etc.) (& etc.) never tried to give me a sense of accomplishment. Let me fidget & mull with matches & buttons; I don't need justification.

A game, possibly best suited to other women with a diminished but extant interest in men:

1. Remember the last at least mildly famous man you were attracted to, and do an image search.
2. Ask whether the 1st resulting image of them shows any hint of what drew you. If not, consider the 2nd, the 3rd, etc.
3. Write down the number at which you answer affirmatively, if any, and stare at it as you'd stare at an untidy circle of blood & feathers on the snow outside your home.

I ordered a finial riser from a place down in Texas & it arrived in an envelope strongly redolent of barbecue.