Open Sorcery

Category: Allēna’s Posts

  • On people crawling out of the woodwork…

    Eight’s ex, Juneau, resurfaced a few days ago. They broke up a whole bunch of times, most recently in early 2023 after a series of events beginning with what we now call Kiragate and ending with his polycule splitting in half over him dumping his ex, Leigh, and refusing to pick a side in the months-long conflict between his then-partner Sol and best friend at the time, whom we will call Birch. Juneau took the contingent who had bonded with Leigh and Sol in the divorce, as it were. You can read more about that situation here. We call all of this the Great Schism of 2022-23.

    He’s popped up a few times since then, but given Eight’s history with him and the fact that they would break up, get back together, and break up again over the years over a variety of things, he ended up blocked on most everything. He reached out via a comment on our old LiveJournal blog that I had honestly half forgotten about since I mostly post here these days.

    He didn’t know whether I was alive or not and he wasn’t sure if I was going to even respond. I responded because the fact that he’s popped back up after all this time made me laugh. He also added me on Snapchat. I despise that app, so I ended up giving him my number.

    I asked Hawthorne if he’d also reached out to them, and weirdly enough, he had.

    I’m wondering what the fuck he wants…

    -Allēna

  • I painted more today!

    This piece is called Dreamweaver: Sylphium.

    I’ve been posting Reels and TikToks three times daily to try and grow my accounts, and I challenged myself to make my three daily videos about it. Much to my surprise, I was able to do that. I’m usually much more camera shy and I find it very difficult to talk about my work and process, but it’s getting easier the more that I post.

    Today is also the 28th anniversary of surviving our stroke, which we call Brainhole, and Emerson surprised me with cake! It’s mostly eaten now, but it said “congration” on it 🤣.

    Here’s to staying alive to make more art.

    -Allēna

  • We went back to the Domes today for the bonsai show and it was lovely!

    I did NOT know that people could grow bonsai from seeds or young trees, I thought they had to be purchased fully grown. I know almost nothing about them.

    I learned a fair bit today and I would love to join our local bonsai club. It might be a problem, given that my body responds poorly to the sun, but apparently some bonsai can be grown indoors.

    I’m so happy. I’ve been interested in growing one since I was a teenager.

    -Allēna

  • Emerson and I saw model trains at the Mitchell Park Domes yesterday!!

    We’re gonna come back later today for the bonsai show. I love bonsai and have wanted one since I was a teenager. I don’t think I will be able to buy one, but at least I will be able to see some!

    -Allēna

  • I had a fun day with Emerson today.

    He convinced me to leave the house and we ran errands while playing this weirdly Christian questions game designed for kids. It started with a question like “if you could design the tastiest sandwich ever made, what would that sandwich be” and by the time we’d gone through all of the questions, Emerson had had to skip around a dozen questions because of how damn preachy they all were. That game escalated quickly.

    I don’t mind the occasional Jesus-related question. Hell, I’ll even discuss the Bible with Christians because I find a lively informed debate energizing and fun. But a bunch of questions along the lines of “if you could enter one Bible story, what would it be?”

    Uhhhhhhhhhhhh……..

    No.

    I’ve been there, done that, got the T shirt from my time as a Mormon and all the soul searching I did afterwards. I’m good. I’m a fan of Jesus as he’s portrayed in the Bible, but his father and fandom have a lot to answer for before I’m going to be okay with most Christian shit.

    More to the point, this is a game designed for kids. What is this, How To Indoctrinate Your Kids 101??

    We did get some funny answers out of it. Like my answer to the question “what is something that you don’t need but your life is much better because you have it?” or however it was phrased was simply “BEANS” referring to the cats because we were parked close to our apartment at the time. I took a video of Emerson imitating me with additional dramatic flair and that is making the rounds all over social media now, as best I can tell.

    I’m pretty tired, so I’m gonna wander off now.

    G’night everyone!!

    -Allēna (yes, the bitch is back)

  • Very slow day.

    My guts hurt and I feel like I was hit by a train, so I didn’t do much today besides sleep and watch TV.

    -Allēna

  • Hi, I (Allēna) am back in front and low-key panicking…

    I know that the people who know me will probably be like “what else is new” but I’ve honestly been so hung up on the fact that it’s been ten years since Xavier died this month that I forgot that all of the albums that I wrote and recorded in the wake of losing him will also be turning 10 as well until I saw a video of my Painter Guy headmate playing my arrangement of “Heroes” by David Bowie on a piano he found in the hospital we go to??? So that’s kinda fucking me up.

    I honestly didn’t think I would live this long. I know a lot of people when I was 18-19 certainly didn’t think I would live this long (I was a hot fuckin mess and it took me years to get out of that tailspin) so while I’m none too happy about having to figure out how to promote a metric fuckton of albums on what is soon to be the ten year anniversary of their release, I am also trying to be compassionate toward tiny grieving past Lēna and keep in mind that I didn’t have a blessed clue that I would live to see 28-29, my depression was so goddamn bad and I was constantly trying to blot myself off the face of the Earth and writing albums instead of doing worse dumb shit. As badly as I want to go back and kick Past Lēna and to some extent, Past Eight in the ‘nads for writing and recording music like they were running out of time in 2016-17, they really didn’t know what the fuck else to do and had just lost Xavier. So I can’t really be all that angry. That being said, a bitch is fucking tired and I don’t have anything close to a promotion strategy for any of this shit. I don’t even have regular access to a piano anymore.

    So yeah. There is all of that to contend with.

    Wish me mother fucking luck.

    -Allēna

  • Today was better.

    I did some painting and have some potential projects lined up.

    -Allēna

  • WE FINALLY GOT AN OIL CHANGE

    OUR CAR IS OPERATIONAL ONCE MORE

    SHE LIVES

    THE DAY IS SAVED

    -Allēna

  • I spent a large part of the day making social media banners for people.

    These are a few of my favorites:

    I was inspired to do this by listening to the podcast I Like Your Work, and I listened to the latest episode while making a banner that is unfortunately not shown here.

    If you want a banner, feel free to reach out to me on socials and we can set something up!

    -Allēna