dear friend—

we’ve had a snowy winter. the most snow i’ve seen in many years, and the coldest temperatures i’ve felt in a while. in the mornings i wrestle with hazel to coat her paws in “musher’s secret,” a beeswax concoction that protects her from the cold and snow and road salt.

we brave the morning just long enough to make a circuit around the neighborhood, smell all the pee mail, do the business that needs done. we listen to the birds in the trees. if the weather smiles down on me, i luxuriate in the contrast of the warm sunlight that bathes my face and the sharp, frigid air that nips at it.

as a #environmentalist, i am hip to the ills of light pollution, and yet my lizard brain can’t help but love to see things at night. i love when snow blankets the world and the bright white of it reflects any and all light, so the landscape settles into a kind of swaddling of blue-grey instead of the usual inky black.

i have taken to doing monthly recap photo spreads in my journal! this was february’s, feat. elif shafak’s THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, which i am really really enjoying so far!!

THINGS I AM LOVING THESE DAYS!

✨ trying new things in art!

a few weeks ago, Alex and i went to a paint-your-own ceramic shop and i did a small ninetales fox statue. it was my first time doing this in at least a decade and i loved the experience of waiting to see how the final piece would look after it was glazed and fired in a kiln.

my son,,,, thank you alex for the photo

i also received fancy crayons as a gift and i’m actually obsessed with them. someone once told me that the key to painting is to paint the shapes of the thing instead of the outline. this has revolutionized the way i paint and draw. getting the basic shapes and colors down before i go in with the details—groundbreaking!! here is a small frog individual i drew with the aforementioned fancy crayons.

my other son,,,,

✨ being a teensy bit more off the grid!

recently i wrote an article about surveillance pricing, in a rare and happy opportunity to indulge my luddite tendencies while watching food and water.

as i write in the piece,

Every time we swipe a card, click “buy now,” or add something to our carts, we’re sharing information about ourselves that corporations hoard. Corporations can then feed this information into mathematical models that predict our interests, preferences, and behavior — including what we’ll buy, when, and for what price.

this web of surveillance is so vast so as to be inescapable by individual means, unless you go completely off the grid and use 0 digital technologies.1 but one of my small efforts at becoming less trackable is carrying and using more cash. this also has the benefit of saving small businesses the credit card fees.

read more about surveillance pricing

✨ the midnight bargain, by c.l. polk.!

bridgerton meets howl’s moving castle—need i say more?? this is the most fun i’ve had with a book in a hot second. it tore me from a string of 2 and 3-star books i’d been reading and it didn’t let me go.

the main character, beatrice, is about to make her debut in the chasland bargaining season, offered up to bachelors as a wife. while her family’s finances and fortunate have plummeted, beatrice’s powerful magical inclinations make her attractive for any man who wishes to sire a sorcerer.

however, becoming a wife and mother would force her to give up magic under chasland custom, as pregnant sorcerers risk giving birth to a child possessed by one of the spirits that give them their powers.

beatrice is determined to change her fate by doing what no chaslander woman has done before—bargain with and bind to a greater spirit. this may convince her father to give up on her marriage prospects and accept her as a spinster who uses the spirit’s power to restore the family fortune.

then, a chance run-in with the lavans, a wealthy and powerful brother-sister duo from a neighboring country, changes the stakes and calculus entirely. the potential rewards of beatrice’s future become much greater—but so do the risks for her, her family, and a budding romance.

the midnight bargain had a fascinating cast of characters, relationships that grew and changed satisfyingly, like puzzle pieces falling into place, and a complex, charming, and beautiful magic system. while the romance is, tbh, just okay in my eyes, the real star of the show is the friendship between beatrice and the lesser spirit she binds to, nadi. this book was such a treat.

✨ Sung Holly’s cover of “little bit more” by mk.gee!

angels DO walk among us!!

what has kept your heart warm this winter?

thanks for reading, chat soon,
—mia xx

1

also shout out to the state of california, whose DELETE act set up a portal where california residents can request data brokers to delete their data in bulk, for free, rather than pay a service to do it, which is the norm. (data brokers scrape and assemble massive quantities of digital personal data to sell to customers, including the u.s. government). this is the kind of POLICY CHNAGE that makes a systemic difference in how corporations can collect and use our data, rather than the terrible uphill battle of trying to opt out bit by countless bit.