Many Hot Secrets Revealed!

Not really, but I answered some questions

Thanks to everybody who responded to my recent open call for questions. This one’s a freebie, and it was a lot of fun. Hopefully some answers will help you in your own creative endeavors, by making you realize you’ve got more than enough talent to answer questions about cheesesteak versus roasted pork, and/or by inspiring Sarah/Sarai Biblical slash fic.

In future, it’ll be available to paid subscribers only (everybody gets at least four issues of SARATONIN per month; paid subscribers get two bonus posts, including an AMA - unless you tell me it’s boring, and then we’ll change it up!)

Anyhoo, thank you no matter what. Money is tight and if you can’t afford to subscribe with monies, know that I STILL APPRECIATE YOU A LOT. Let’s dive right in!

Brooklyn, 2023

How’s the cat?

This is the most important question on everyone’s mind. She’s great. She hisses at my parents and occasionally brushes against their legs in a manner that vaguely appears to be loving. She runs away from small children. She doesn’t seem to mind dogs at all!

Here is more info from a recent Instagram post. What you won’t see here is that she actually escaped during the stress and strain after her cat dad’s death and her cat mom needing to be moved into full-time nursing care, so the rescue organization had to trap her. That and her life as a street kitten accounts for some of her feral tendencies.

Where did you end up moving to?

By the looks of your question, I can tell you read “I’m Moving, Turns Out.” Thank you! I’ll excerpt it here for folks who didn’t see that one.

You [subscribers and patrons!] make it possible for me to make the art I love, and to carry on an ongoing conversation with people I may never meet in person, but who are also on the path of figuring shit out in creative and sometimes weird ways.

With over five years without alcohol - and nearly five years without alcohol or recreational drugs of any kind - I have found that this has been the year to dig in deeper to some other issues previously masked by addiction, panic, depression, etc.

This is not shit you have the time or ability to look at when you are drowning.

Once you get your head above water, and then your shoulders and chest, you come to realize there are still things swimming around and biting you in the ass (is this an ocean metaphor? Is this a lake situation? A river? Who can say? All I know is, it ain't elegant.)

Thanks to the work I'm doing in recovery programs, I came to realize that while I was so much happier and healthier than I'd been, I was still hustling my ass off all the time, sinking deeper into debt, and not really living a life that prioritizes my favorite things.

Anyway, I’m mostly in New Jersey but will probably be based in ye ole Middle West sometime soon. I have a career that sometimes takes me to NYC or Los Angeles, and I love both cities, so I’ll rent short-term places when necessary.

What is your favorite color?

For years, it was pink. Then it was red. At the moment, I’m in a very basic autumnal burgundy moment like 75% of people I know who care about such things. However, I gravitate to bright royal blue as well. Orange used to be verboten but lately I’m very into it, as well.

Therefore, my answer is…ALL OF THEM?

Thoughts on Sara/h with and without the “h”?

Sarah with an “h” is a tragic Pilgrim woman who did not choose to become a colonizer in the Americas but was forced into it by her terrible husband. She quilts and experiences seasonal depression but it’s the 1600s so she has no options. She is thrilled to be drowned as a witch.

Sara without an “h” is a Jewish woman living in New Jersey in the very early 1960s. She abandons her husband and children for a life of crashing in drafty, cold artists’ studios and making a living posing nude and doing her own painting, which will not be recognized by a wide audience until a feminist retrospective at MOMA which occurs 15 years after she dies happily of an accidental barbiturate overdose in Andy Warhol’s own bathtub.

Alternately, Sarah and Sara are white women born in the United States in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

These are my thoughts on Sara/h.

What are your thoughts on the Haunted Mansion ride?

55,000 out of 10. Absolutely zero notes. Couldn't have fewer notes. Perfection.

Cheesesteak or roasted pork?

I wish I didn’t eat animals. That said, roasted pork. Also, pigs are smarter than dogs and worthy of love. I hate that I eat animals.

I've heard cats classified into two general categories (which also track re: my own wigglers): wily schemer and beautiful idiot. Into which camp would you sort your cat?

Oh she’s a wily schemer. Major dom energy. Major mom energy. Nurturing, gorgeous, tense, loving, and sometimes vengeful. An ideal person.

What is your favorite place you haven't been to?

The Alhambra in Spain!

Thank you all for asking, reading, and being sweet silly creatures!