Weekly thingy and a new project!

First, a little news – I had surgery on my airway Monday (thus my not quite getting around to posting last week) and I can BREATHE. It’s fucking amazing.

Second, I’m getting started on my next embroidery. This one is going to be based on The Red Shoes, using old photos of myself dancing for the central figure. I’ll write in more depth about my sense of connection to that story as I go on, but for now, it’s about that fulcrum point in my life when dance changed from being the thing that rescued me to its own abusive relationship, but stopping was unimaginable because my whole identity was built first and foremost around being a dancer.

Anyhow, here’s my EXTREMELY messy rough sketch where I was figuring out a pose – you’ll see a lot of overdrawing and half-erasing and experimenting with what felt like it had the right sense of both movement and being pulled forward against your will by your own feet.

And here are a few old photos of me playing Louise in Carousel at summer camp that helped me work out where I was headed.

Places to buy stuff!

• The Gamecrafter: your home for the new and slightly improved Neurotic Owl Tarot. AND Neurotic Owl’s Faerytale Tarot! https://tgc.link/Faerytaletarot
• TEEPUBLIC: mostly t-shirts, a few other products.  Watch for sales, when shirts drop from $20 to $14!
• REDBUBBLE: Just, I don’t know, a ton of different stuff.  T-shirts are more expensive than Teepublic, but there are a lot more options.
• AMAZON: Home of the Geeky Gals Coloring Book!  Daydreams and Whimsies!  AND NOW, The Neurotic Owl Compendium!
• https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/naralesser
• ETSY: paper dolls, a knitting bag pattern, and a bunch of vintage dolls of various sorts from my collection. I just added more Sculpey buttons so go take a look! Aaaaand I’ve finally made a listing for pet portraits!

Did I miss something?  I think that’s everything.

What’s making me happy this week:

Did I mention breathing???? *slaps throat like used car salesman* I can fit so much air in this baby!

But really, as both an ex-dancer with a lot of body issues and a lot of shame around what I perceived as being so out of shape that I was gasping for breath with even very mild activity, I almost cried in relief several times when the doctor found the scar tissue tightening my throat and confirmed that it had nothing to do with my weight, and was amazed that I’d been managing even as much activity as I had with an airway 4mm wide. None of it was my fault and all of it was FIXABLE.