They might look messy, but they're fabulous.
Awhile ago Bastian asked if I knew how to make cream puffs, and I said sure do, super easy, though it looks gross almost the whole time you're making it.
Obviously, being 7, they wanted to get in on that.
But I can't just make a plain...
2025-11-03 20:29:44 +0000 UTC View Post
After the straight-up saga of Velveteen's incredible journey east, I thought you might like the happy ending. In case you don't follow me on 2025-11-03 18:15:26 +0000 UTC View Post
I’m just so proud of this I want everyone to see it!
Also it took almost a year of assembling patches from various sources.
And then just...a REALLY long time hand-stitching every single patch because, as it turns out, "iron-on" is apparently just a total lie it's perfectly...
2025-10-30 17:16:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello, this is a free and open post because oh my god what a month this has been!
If you follow me on BlueSky, you may have seen what's been happening over the last five or six days...and now that it's really, actually happening, I want to tell you all about it in greater than 300 character...
2025-10-27 00:00:25 +0000 UTC View PostWarning: I'm about to get REAL contemplative about home DIY and design. This started out as the post for the RAM tier, but got longer and longer and more and more thoughtful and about other things, so it's become the essay for the month, though a little more personal and meandering than usual...
2025-09-30 23:41:13 +0000 UTC View PostSo.
There's a reason I try to keep my political writing away from Patreon unless one of you really wants to read it.
I want this place to be cozy. I want us to talk about art and love and life and good things that still shine in the dark. I value so deeply that the way this little com...
2025-09-13 23:29:38 +0000 UTC View PostNote: This essay is not the regular monthly essay, but cross-posted from my Substack, where I keep all my uncozy rageful political thoughts. My policy has always been to cross-post any paywalled posts there, here if requested by a paying member. Thus...voila.
******
While I w...
2025-09-09 15:56:31 +0000 UTC View Post
I lied.
I've made the joke about meeting Stephen King several times over the last two weeks.
I very nearly almost didn't cry.
And I did try. I was oh-so-valiant. I told myself: don't you fucking cry in front of all these New England mens and horror fans, Cat, don't...
2025-09-03 20:13:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Just want to say up top: do not go near this thing if you have a nut allergy. You WILL die.
(You could make a regular short crust pastry shell and top it with fruit or granola or a glaze or a brulee-style sugar crust and not die, though.)
So I got a massive bag of oranges I didn’t o...
2025-08-30 18:18:24 +0000 UTC View PostTHE BOOK IS DONE.
My god, it’s been hanging over me so long I hardly know what to do now that Nobody But Us is with my editor. Thank you everyone for being patient while I focused on it, LIFE CAN BEGIN ANEW NOW.
I am on my way to Bangor for the launch of 2025-08-19 14:42:32 +0000 UTC View Post
I was reading about horses the other day.
It’s what we do, from time to time, we who in some small part never outgrow a terrifyingly single-minded love of horses, imagining infinite adventures that involve forming a deep soul-bond with black stallions and white unicorns, doodling fl...
2025-07-30 21:14:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Do you hate yourself? I KNOW I DO!
Do you ever wake up, look at yourself, and wonder what you’ve become?
BOY HOWDY!
2025-07-29 21:27:08 +0000 UTC View PostI am alive!
Is the book done? No. About ten chapters left, because, as the Denizen and up tiers know from the photos, everything that could go hilariously wrong last week, from a massive heat dome in New England to my ceiling flooding and falling through, did indeed happen, plus more outlan...
2025-07-02 15:50:53 +0000 UTC View Post
It’s too hot.
Too much work to do.
But the body must eat. IT'S A CONUNDRUM.
I've always loved cold sesame noodles, which are always also cold peanut noodles, but people only ever say one or the other because I have no idea. But they've never been quiiiite right at home--til n...
2025-07-01 18:03:20 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone!
Just wanted to let you all know I appear to actually be near to finishing Nobody But Us, the weird-ass gender dystopia novel I've been posting bit by bit on the excerpt tier (click the NOBUS tag!) for what feels like a hundred thousand years.
I'm not disappearin...
2025-06-15 17:11:28 +0000 UTC View Post
Like many others, I watched the second and final season of Andor over the last month, a show I love more than is totally socially acceptable to express.
This isn't a review of Andor, though, and this essay isn't about whether Andor is good or very, very good. The ...
2025-06-01 00:46:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Welcome back to your nuclear hellscape of infinite human torment already in progress! What a fucking beautiful day in the goddamned cursed-ass neighborhood of slowly-deflating dreams, in which the very concept of hope is being pilloried daily in every town square. King Friday just sent a kinderga...
2025-04-30 16:13:51 +0000 UTC View Post
BONUS DENIZEN FOR ALL THIS MONTH. Because it was TOO MUCH to not share.
And I did it this way on purpose.
So there would be a reveal. You know, like on Drag Race, only instead of revealing something even more glamorous, we’re going to reveal LITERALLY A CRIME AGAINST DECENCY AND CHI...
2025-04-27 22:45:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Now, Bastian has been to many conventions before. Somewhere near 20, I think. But they were a baby, or at Worldcon and thus in the childcare suite, so they never could really participate or comprehend what exactly was going on.
NO LONGER.
What you see in the first pic is my k...
2025-04-27 21:40:10 +0000 UTC View Post
The innocent mind of a child keeps coming up with genuinely great baking ideas, I don’t know what to tell you.
Do they eat the baked goods I design from their specifications? Ehhhhhh sometimes. BUT I SURE DO.
This one certainly came from the Childe realizing I'm KIND OF INTO pistach...
2025-04-27 20:59:43 +0000 UTC View PostMany times at conventions, people have asked me to post my con schedule on Patreon so it's easy to know where to find me, and I ALWAYS say "Oh that's such a good idea, I totally will next time!"
And then I fully ADHD that into the sun and forget next time.
BUT HUMANS CAN GROW. I AM DO...
2025-04-17 20:26:05 +0000 UTC View PostWELP.
In addition to literally everything being on fire on every level, Patreon has chosen to not delay their marvelous billing changes and plow on ahead with them as of this month.
Many changes took effect at Patreon today, with more to come in November--pretty much all devastating t...
2025-04-05 19:25:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Continuing the 6-year old’s journey through Baked Goods vis The Great British Bake-Off, I bring to you another Bastian Original.
They asked if we could spend the afternoon watching "a whole Eurovision, not like some songs but a whole one start to finish" and making "strawberry lemonade" m...
2025-03-31 19:47:10 +0000 UTC View Post
I am so excited to show this to you all I can barely stand it. (Unlike most denizens, I am posting this to everyone who gets the experiment, and also, since it's my work desk, this won't be just our secret forever, I'll show the world soon enough, but for now...)
Before I get into it: yes, ...
2025-03-27 15:33:59 +0000 UTC View PostCross-posted from the Uncozy Substack. As the Laboratory is always my priority, anything paywalled there will be cross-posted here if a patron directly requests. I prefer to keep this place cozy, but don't want anyone to not get their money's worth.
***
Good afternoon, this i...
2025-03-19 15:31:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Did I do too much?
Yes.
Am I sorry? No. And also I had all this around the house due to a mixed-up grocery delivery presenting me with someone else's MASSIVE FUCK-OFF JAR of guava preserves and several Asian pears that immediately started to go south. I even had the pears poached in r...
2025-02-27 19:02:33 +0000 UTC View PostNote: This is cross-posted from my Substack, where I keep my Extremely Angry Political Writing. I don't like to post it here, because it is Decidedly Not Cozy, and I want this place to be for art and community and...
2025-02-11 23:43:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Ugh, it's the middle of winter and everything is hard. Dinner is just like WHATEVER, MAN.
So this was last night's whatever--everything that is good and right about a club sandwich, taken apart (dEcOnStRuCtEd) and reassembled into a creamy, tangy, fresh-yet-wintrily-ribsticking pasta dish. ...
2025-01-31 17:41:26 +0000 UTC View Post
While I've been nursing my cat back to something vaguely resembling health, a whole lot of very unsettlingly, nauseatingly specific things came out about a certain very famous author of dark fiction and how he chose to conduct himself over the last many, many years.
I'm sure you're aware. I...
2025-01-28 19:40:48 +0000 UTC View Post