how the fuck did all of those renaissance dilettantes learn so much crap? Like they spoke 3 languages and were foremost in several branches of science, plus they wrote poetry, played the violin, and were master artists? And they still had time to be gay?
The emotional and physical labor necessary to maintain the lifestyles of Renaissance and Enlightenment polymaths was shunted almost entirely to their uncredited servants, slaves, wives, and daughters.
Whenever we compare ourselves to the ‘genius men’ of the past, and wonder why we fall so short, remember this: their intellectual capacity, energy, and freedom was because there was someone else washing the damn dishes.
Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia
Cosplay done by me (Enilokin Cosplay)
Photoghraphy by Silas
I love these pictures beyond belief! I still can’t get over the fact that I was allowed to have this photoshoot inside the actual Opera in Paris! <3
A few years ago, when I was living in the housing co-op and looking for a quick cookie recipe, I came across a blog post for something called “Norwegian Christmas butter squares.” I’d never found anything like it before: it created rich, buttery and chewy cookies, like a vastly superior version of the holiday sugar cookies I’d eaten growing up. About a year ago I went looking for the recipe again, and failed to find it. The blog had been taken down, and it sent me into momentary panic.
Luckily, I remembered enough to find it on the Wayback Machine, and quickly copied it into a file that I’ve saved ever since. I probably make these cookies about once a month, and they last about five days around my voracious husband - they’re fantastic with a cup of bitter coffee or tea. I’m skeptical that there is something distinctively Norwegian about these cookies, but they do seem like the perfect thing to eat on a cold day.
Norwegian Christmas Butter Squares
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 egg
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
Turbinado/ Raw Sugar for dusting
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Chill a 9x13″ baking pan in the freezer. Do not grease the pan.
Using a mixer, blend the butter, egg, sugar, and salt together until it is creamy. Add the flour and vanilla and mix using your hands until the mixture holds together in large clumps. If it seems overly soft, add a little extra flour.
Using your hands, press the dough out onto the chilled and ungreased baking sheet until it is even and ¼ inch thick. Dust the top of the cookies evenly with raw sugar.
Bake at 400 degrees until the edges turn a golden brown, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven. Let cool for about five minutes before cutting the cooked dough into squares. Remove the squares from the warm pan using a spatula.
It basically makes the platonic ideal of commercial sugar cookies, only in bar form. When I give them to people (which I do a lot, because this is one of those simple recipes where the results seem very impressive), I just tell them they’re sugar cookie bars.
There’s a lot of stuff in life I can’t do but at least I can put my foot behind my head. That’s the important thing that’s really gonna carry me through life.
Thanks for all your patreon content! I love the short stories
Thanks for your note! I appreciate it. I really hope people like my original writing. Writing it makes me feel a lot more fulfilled and I can do things that didn’t necessarily fit in the framework of any ff. A lot of time it’s me processing various personal issues or exploring themes I’m preoccupied with, so it’s personal to me.
As for Japan- I’m still here! I’m working on a move to (probably) Korea in a little more than a year, though. My life is going alright, but I’m putting a lot of my mental and other energy into studying Japanese. I’m trying really hard to get my language certification in a level/timeframe that’s kind of a reach for me. I feel both really satisfied with my progress and preemptively defeated and bummed out that it really seems like I can’t do it in time. I’m studying out of 6 textbooks at the moment and I spend maybe 15-30 hours per week on it, but it’s just not enough. Japanese language is a huge time sink.
The other main priority in my life is my sport. I’ve picked up some judo and yoga to supplement my BJJ training. I’m going to compete in June and judging by the fact that I got a concussion the last time I sparred with someone new, I really ought to develop Some Chill and figure out how to not go 100%.
On the other hand, I want to fight.
(Oh! I have a daughter. A high school girl joined my gym and she is smol and adorable and she is always So Enraptured by my violence and tbh it kinda spurs me on. Every girl deserves a role model who shows her it’s possible for a woman to be better than men who are bigger and I want to be worthy of her admiration. I’m learning gentleness when I work with her though, it’s probably good for me to have a training partner who I am teaching instead of smashing through the floor. I love her so much. my babyyyy)
Work is like, a distant fourth priority (1 BJJ, 2 Japanese language, 3 pursuit of breakfast, 4 work) but it doesn’t take much energy because I’ve done the same job for 4 years now and I pretty much have it on lock. I do feel better there sometimes in that people trust me and like me more than they used to, as evidenced by giving me responsibility for things and going out of their way to talk to me.
I absolutely failed this week at flirting with a handsome coworker, though. He was trying to flex by dramatically carrying something heavy? and he implied that maybe I couldn’t do it. I cannot resist a challenge. On one hand: victory! On the other: onlooking coworkers cackled and handsome man was mildly deflated.
In retrospect, I realized I was supposed to go, “oh no, you are so strong, I could never ever.”
4 but also very funny because no one at work knows I do martial arts so they keep delicately tryna ask why my face is a bruise and I’m not explaining shit because I don’t talk about my personal life at work
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