You can get these monthly updates delivered via email (which also enters you into a monthly giveaway!) or by trusty ol’ RSS. I despise most social media platforms, and this is a more direct way of keeping in touch, so i hope you’ll give it a shot. You can hit reply on the email and it’ll go to me, not a robot!
Art
Nearly everything this month was unfinished, but i at least had fun painting it! The too-bright green lake with a little cottage is from my Twitch stream on the 18th. The collections of graves are original postcards from a now-closed subscription tier called Shark Seekers.
News
- Reminder: when there are updates on nomad progress, they’ll show up at handbasket.org (there’s one coming soon)
- Our storage unit is empty! Now we just need to make some changes to our rigs so we can begin moving in
- I am the most exhausted i can remember being in my life lol
Pet Tax
My sister’s cat Hera was the prettiest this month, but Watson made an attempt. The others were all too busy zooming around in our pitiful almost-snow to compete in the Gorgeous Pet Olympics. Perhaps next month.
Anecdote
In case anyone doesn’t know, there’s a fandom convention in which you make a portmanteau out of the names of two characters who you “ship,” or imagine in a romantic or sexual relationship. Just like celebrity names, but for Sherlock/Moriarty (Shoriarty? Merlock? I don’t know, i’m not in that fandom) or Shrek/Donkey (Shronkey, maybe, who knows).
Sterek is Stiles/Derek, from Teen Wolf. And i was about 99% sure that my sister Daneka wouldn’t know that when i wrote it onto the bottom of her grocery list. She is one of the most generous, sweet, eagerly helpful people in the world, so while she was at the store, and she reached the bottom of her list, she figured she’d ask where the Sterek was and bring some home for me.
The employee she asked didn’t know, so they went to a computer console with her and after typing it into their system said, “Hmm, we don’t have it.”
Daneka wondered what it was, and so did the employee, so they typed it into the real internet. Even though they were clearly looking at results, which if you put it into a search engine you’ll know were all steamy fanfic from AO3 and awkward manga porn, they said flatly, “We don’t have that,” and they didn’t offer to tell her what it was.
So Daneka came home and apologized to me that she couldn’t find any Sterek for me, and actually, what is it? I’m still a little shocked she didn’t punch me when i told her.
Get Goods
Newsletter Giveaway
Congratulations, winner whose email starts with “runby”! You should email me at [yourfirstname]@inkshark.net and include the mailing address you’d like your prize sent to. (Yes, your name will work–it’s a magic trick!)
The art will be a surprise but if you have a phobia, you should let me know. I don’t want to send a snake painting to an ophidophobe.
(In the future, i’ll show you what the previous month’s winner received, but in all the moving chaos i didn’t manage to send it, so you’ll see two images here next month.)
Merch
This month was the Month of Letters, and it’s over, so it’s a little late to be pointing you toward my postcards, but then again, this entire past year has been a year of renewing community spirit in the face of fascism, and reaching out to people you haven’t spoken to or who you know may be scared is always a marvelous use of your time, not just in February.
You can receive stickers and postcards every month so you can send them to loved ones or very surprised strangers. The Reef Rover and Daring Diver subscriptions are available at Comradery, Patreon, Ko-fi, and Buy Me A Coffee, if you have a favorite among those.
If you only want one month’s worth, you can use PayPal.me (or Ko-fi or Buy Me A Coffee) to just send $11 (for 3 stickers, 3 postcards) or $7 (for 2 postcards, 1 sticker). Don’t forget to give me a mailing address!
With a slow-motion apocalypse crumbling infrastructure all around me, i can’t be the only one thinking about how many people i’d like to reach out to before affordable postal service no longer exists. Maybe if we use USPS enough, we can keep that one small aspect of a civilized society alive! ❥
…Okay i was trying to be optimistic, but i think “bleak yet joking about it” is as close as i’m going to get the day after a sitting President declared war without congressional approval. See you next month if we’re all still alive! 😀
