A little project I thought would take a few days ended up taking all Summer and into the Fall, but now it’s ready to go into the world.
Update 11-14-24: Limited quantities of finished gloves sewn by me now available at my store!
Snake Tree gloves. The backs and the palms have different, complementary designs, and can be worn either way.
Here is my “Recovery Glovery”, art gloves for dermatillomaniacs, trichotillomaniacs, and everyone else. They’re lightweight stretchy cotton-spandex, designed for indoor use but can be used outdoors too; I’ve been wearing mine on bike rides.
Finger-Snakes design, worn palm-side out. I want as many eyes on the road as possible when I bike, and these have 6 per hand!
Wait, did you say dermatillomaniacs? What?
Finger-Snakes gloves worn the way I intended, with the eyes on the palm and snakey sun on the back. But it doesn’t matter, they can be worn either way.The Finger Snakes twirl around each finger!
Garden Snakes gloves, with a leafy eye on the palm and flower eyes on the fingertips. They’re SNAKES not sperm, okay?
Light stretchy cotton gloves are one tool to help dermatillomaniacs and trichotillomaniacs settle the hands and relieve the tactile “triggers” that drive them to attack their skin and hair.
Light stretchy white cotton gloves, sometimes called “eczema gloves.” This project started when I drew on a pair of cheap boring white gloves with a sharpie. It didn’t look great, so my only alternative was to design glove fabric from “scratch” (pardon my triggering language).
Gloves work! But they’re boring. If you’re gonna have fabric covering your hands, it should look cool. Hence, this project.
Night and Day gloves, backs
After designing, printing, and sewing 6 rounds of prototypes, I have made my gloves fabric available on Spoonflower, for which I get a whopping $1.40 per yard sold. I currently have no way to mass-produce gloves for sale, so sewing-your-own is the cheapest way to distribute them for the time being. However I kinda enjoy sewing them now, and will make small amounts of my handmade ones available for sale soon.
Currently I’ve only designed and sewn gloves to fit women’s more-or-less medium-sized hands. The cotton-spandex jersey stretches to fit a range of sizes (smallish to large-ish women’s hands), but there are limits. If there’s demand for it, I will make my next prototypes sized for men, or bigger hands in general.
The glove sides are paired up in my preferred combinations, but if you sew them yourself you can match any side with any other side design (except the “slim fit” ones, which due to printing distortions won’t match the rest, but will match each other). Be sure to order Cotton Spandex Jersey by the full yard only!
In addition to the highlights below, I continued to co-host the Heterodorx podcast with Corinna Cohn, and make $150 Drawings.
January
My 2023 started with crowdfunding platform IndyGoGo retroactively canceling my independent comic book Agents of HAG, automatically refunding all the backers and denying me access to all records.
I traveled to New Orleans with my pals Corinna Cohn and Shannon Thrace to attend a Quillette Social. It was a fun trip, my first flights since 2020’s COVID pandemic shutdowns, and I didn’t die.
February
I flew again with Corinna to Ireland, to visit our friend Alasdair who had been recently diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. This was my first trip ever to that country, and I feared my last time ever to see Alasdair. (SPOILER ALERT: Alasdair didn’t die. His immunotherapy treatments appear to be wildly successful and there’s a good chance that whatever kills him eventually won’t be cancer.)
I began production of my coolest merch item ever, Apocalypse Animated Lenticular Cards. These were very costly to print, so I crowdfunded some of the expense, this time through GiveSendGo because they supposedly don’t cancel artists. It’s a Christian platform so I did get a call from them later offering to pray for me and my project. As long as the so-called secular world is high on canceling, I’ll take any prayers I can get.
I returned to IndieGoGo with a campaign for Compliance Comix, which is just Agents of HAG (which they canceled) minus the words and pictures. Much to my surprise they didn’t cancel this campaign, so I actually printed them.
March
I embarked on the GENDER WARS Playing Cards. Once I committed to this project, the drawings just flew out of me. Meanwhile I made travel arrangements for events in New York City, Scotland, and Ireland. I may have been cancelled in January, but things were looking up.
On March 21 I came down with Covid. “Good timing,” I thought, “I have more than a month for this to pass before my travel starts. Better now than later!”
I then proceeded to have fevers over 103°F and was pretty much confined to bed for 4+ weeks.
April
Every day, I thought, this might be the day I start to feel better. Every day I continued to be very sick. I could walk from my bed to the bathroom and back. Occasionally I could walk to the kitchen. One time I tried to empty the dishwasher but it made my heart race. I occasionally tried walking, and struggled to the end of my driveway and back. I’ve been very sick before, but Covid was something else. It just pinned me down and didn’t let up.
On good days I could sit at my drawing table and work on the remaining GENDER WARS cards, which I was keen to finish. Somehow, I did.
May
On May 2nd I left my house for the first time since getting sick, to attend a party. I was back to bed the next day. The following day I rode my bike. May was mostly one day semi-normal, one day back in bed. Eventually I returned to almost normal, except for my resting body temperature, which stayed a full 1.5°F higher than it was before. My GP was utterly incurious about it.
I finally made a proper e-store for the Apocalypse Animated and GENDER WARS cards and other merch. Long overdue!
June
My Mom began preparations for moving from the house we’d shared for 7 years, to an “Independent Living” apartment at the local Geezer Place. After a very brief search for a housemate, my friend J was eager to move in in August.
I rode my bikes frequently and gently. I avoided overexertion, as that can cause the dreaded Long Covid. My rides got longer as I got healthier, and finally I rode my first Imperial Century of the year, 100 miles. It felt great.
July
I returned to my usual summer occupation, long bike rides and recovery. Corinna and I flew to Denver for the ICONS summit July 21-22, one of the best conferences I ever attended. I was really inspired and encouraged by the badass female athletes and their supporters.
August
My sister and her husband visited Urbana to help my Mom move. My supposed future housemate J backed out of moving in at the last minute, leaving me with a bunch of problems and significantly less trust in other people. My Mom moved successfully and her new apartment is so nice I’d love to live there myself, but I can’t afford it.
I had some minor digestive health issues, not really unusual.
September
I got to test ride a fancy AZUB trike with battery assist!
I finally furnished my Mom’s former side of the house, which had been eerily empty since her departure. I hung my handmade art quilts around the space and suddenly it became pleasant and beautiful.
October
I had my first AirBnB guests in the Quilt Suite. I rather enjoy being an occasionalinnkeeper. If you’d like to stay here please email me directly for a better rate:
I tried some elimination diets in hopes of discovering what was causing my digestive troubles. I ate no wheat for a couple weeks. I avoided dairy. I avoided chocolate. I could not find the culprit before I flew to Houston, TX to marry MK Fain and Alex Gleason. I’m seldom even invited to weddings, due to my bad attitude and unromantic nature, but these two wanted me to officiate their ceremony! It was a pleasure and an honor.
Then I flew to Denver and hung out with my friend Lisa, who made this amusing little short about Menopausal Woman.
November
Still in Denver, I attended the Genspect conference shortly thereafter. It was fun, intense, and socially overstimulating, but worth it to see all these people I knew from online in 3-D/360°. I flew home after 11 days of travel.
Also after Genspect, the so-called Gender Critical movement blew apart, due to what’s now called AGPgate. I had planned on making a 2024 edition of GENDER WARS cards, but the illiberal behavior of my former compatriots put me off. I’m still not sure if I’ll make that deck or not. Regardless, I have other things to occupy my time and attention, because I finally visited a doctor to discuss my not-resolving digestive issues.
December
“Your symptoms could be colon cancer. I’m not saying you HAVE colon cancer. But you’ll have to get a colonoscopy.” So I was referred to a GI specialist, which usually takes months, but there was a cancelation so it only took days. I had my blood tested and my poop tested and a colonoscopy was scheduled, which would have taken months but — miracle! — there was a cancelation so that too only took days. I was soon diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and have been on the rollercoaster of “acceptance” ever since. A follow-up with another specialist determined my case is moderate-to-severe, its only redeeming quality that it’s of such recent onset I may escape bad scarring if treatment (monthly hospital-administered infusions of a “biologic” drug called Skyrizi) puts it in remission. My infusions still aren’t scheduled because we’re waiting for “prior authorization” from my insurance. Meanwhile I’m on a low-fiber diet, which as a formerly-healthy vegetarian is bizarre. My attention is consumed reading Crohn’s disease forums, trying to guess what foods might ruin my guts, and getting to know my new masticating juicer that arrived a few days ago (so far, so good). I’m pretty confident my Crohn’s was triggered by Covid, as that is a Thing; I call it Covid Reactive Autoimmune Pathology, or CRAP. It might explain why my temperature has been elevated since my Covid Spring.
On the bright side, I’m receiving lots of love and support, for which I feel much gratitude.
I neither regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. As we stumble into 2024, I feel mostly curiosity. Whatever happens in the next 12 months, one thing is for certain: more will be revealed!
GENDER WARS Playing Cards were a hit of 2023, and I intended to make a 2024 edition. But recent schisms in the gender world have put me off, so I’m pivoting. I got into the gender mess because of my interest in Free Speech, and would rather focus on this subject. Therefore, I request your nominations for CANCEL CULTURE Playing Cards:
When a friend recently suggested a deck of playing cards featuring major players in the “gender wars,” I knew I wanted a set. I tried to find other ways to make it happen – photographs? Filters? AI art generator? – but decided the most expedient option was to just do it myself. Which isn’t particularly expedient, as a deck requires 54 designs (if you include 2 Jokers).
I generally suck at caricatures, but decided my limited skills would have to be adequate. I Can Do Hard Things, just not perfectly.
This is probably my most successful caricature so far. Do not expect this level of resemblance throughout the deck.
Working furiously, this week I made the first suit, Hearts. Red suits (hearts and diamonds) will be more-or-less gender critical, and black suits (clubs and spades) will be more-or-less transactivist. If this sounds like inside baseball, it is; that’s why my friend suggested a deck in the first place. I’ve turned into a gender nerd, and “civilians” have no idea whom I’m referring to when I gossip. Edutainment!
I want to crowdfund for this project, but as I don’t trust any major crowdfunding platforms, I just set up some PayPal pre-order buttons. Yes I know PayPal sucks too, all online payment platforms suck, and cryptocurrency is still too volatile.
I don’t want to promote $150 Drawings right now because I really need to focus on another project, so please don’t order any. Nonetheless, I have done a few recently:
“Goat Rodeo” for Pam“Ladybug Hound” for Jason“World’s Most Adorable TERF” for myself (and Elaine Miller and JK Rowling)“Santa Mechanic” for Doug
What is this other project I need to focus on? A new comic book, Agents of H.A.G., starring Menopausal Woman and Sidekick:
So please don’t distract me. I have some weird starting-a-new-project anxiety and am procrastinating too much already.
the DisenchanterBan HammerThird Wavethe TERFinatorBaby TERFWhite Feminist
