ErikaMoen

Estranged Mother's Day (AND BEAN PHOTOS)

The older I get and the more years I've had without contact, the more I appreciate how hard my mom was trying to be a good mother, to keep her family together, to share love with us, with me.

I went no-contact in 2010 and my life got substantially better but my heart still hurts.

She wasn’t a bad person, though she did bad things.

She was mentally ill and traumatized and had zero resources to deal with it, let alone ev...

ART: The Making of Consentacles

Remember that baller Consentacles and Consenticles faux-Ancient-Greece disk painting-thing I did for my friend, Clare?

Clare requested illustrations of two characters: Consentacles and Consenticles, deities who provided consensual tentacle and testicle touching, respectively. Originally, I had pictured this as two separate pictures,...

April Round-Up

Here's my round-up of projects and posts from April! 

• COMIC: I Miss You (2003?) 🔒

Y'all ready for some Vintage Erika Comics? This one comes fresh out ...

From RIP to Repair: Sleeping Bag Edition

Sometime after I moved to Portland, I bought my first sleeping bag. Considering that that was 17 years ago, this guy has held up really well! But time comes for us all and the case-thing that keeps it wrapped up tight has developed two spectacular tears with frayed edges that are large enough that they're actually getting in the way of stuffing and hauling the rolled up bag around. 

2023-05-03 06:13:21 +0000 UTC View Post

Lemon Leaves

Lemony Snicket is my potted Improved Meyer Lemon tree that I got abouuuuut…. three years ago? Oh wait, it was not too long before the pandemic, actually. I remember because we had a couple stay at our house for a few days and we had to relocate Lemony from her spot at the dinner table so all the humans could sit together. We were supposed to have more houseguests later but then quarantine happened not long after that first batch of friends and then we didn’t have anyone stay with us for years afterwards.

March 28th

...

18th Century Pockets - Completed?

Well, I finished them!

My 18th century pockets, I mean.

They’re ‘sposed to be worn like this ⬆️ underneath all the skirts and whatnot, with a slit in the outer layers to allow access to the pocket. (Above photo from the 2023-04-22 07:02:00 +0000 UTC View Post

COMIC: I Miss You (2003?)

Y'all ready for some Vintage Erika Comics? This one comes fresh out of the oven circa 2003ish, when I was experiencing my very first heartbreak as a 19/20-year-old. 

<...

Wandering Raspberry Patch

Today is Friday, April 14th, and I am walking my cat on her leash around the yard. Literally, right now, as I write this, I’m typing with my right hand on my phone while the loop of her leash is hanging on my left wrist.

But that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about what I found in the newest grow box that Matt built for me and I sowed with sugar snap pea seeds several weeks ago.

2023-04-18 03:44:18 +0000 UTC View Post

Joy Project: Sketches

I did it! I drew all 171 word prompts that you guys shared with me for the Joy Project! (This is a giant collaborative fiber art piece illustrating the things that bring people joy)

I numbered each of the words that were submitted. Here's some of the sketches.

114 Floating

2023-04-12 23:36:07 +0000 UTC View Post

March Project Round-Up

Here's all the posts and projects I got up to in March!

I Still Stand By This (drama-alert) (🔒 Private!)
Locked because the internet is literally insane and I needed a place to talk about it.

The Joy Project
First video update on the giant collaborative fiber project I am creati...

20th Anniversary DAR!

Ok, so I was sitting on our couch just now and the setting sunlight was casting the most amazing shadows through our thin white curtains. There's this curvy little crabapple tree dead center in front of the living room window. The trunk and branches aren't, like, gnarly, but they're lightly swoopy and the twisting shadows they cast are even more pronounced. 

Writing this now, I just realized why those shadows triggered an intense sense-memory of being a college student: my campus was full of curvy, swoopy trees; ...

The Joy Project - Video Update

I did my first creative work on the Joy Project (working title)! You remember? That collaborative project that I used to lure a bunch of you into signing up to this Patreon? Yeah! That one! 

Watch the video above or just read this transcript of what I say in it below as Youtube-Erika: 

Ok, so remember how, lik...

2023-03-26 04:34:32 +0000 UTC View Post

Sober Sex (PODCAST)

In my last post, I mentioned that my recovery from COVID has been rough, but I didn’t really get into details. And even here, now, where I’m posting the photo/text updates I shared privately with my friends-only list on Instagram, I still don’t really express just how shockingly bad this has been for me and- by extension- Matt, who has to deal with me losing my fucking mind this last week.

Honestly, it’s been scary and also really demoralizing. Like, I went through 2023-03-21 07:18:02 +0000 UTC View Post

It is time. (VIDEO)

Winter is over when I can turn the external water supply back on 🙌 (If this collection of footage looks completely random to you, you probably live in a climate where your pipes don’t freeze)

COVID has completely derailed my life for the last few weeks and honestly it’s been a rough recovery, both physically and mentally. Yesterday the sun came out, though, and I just couldn’t let the opportunity pass by to put my fingers in the dirt for the first time this season.

2023-03-20 05:13:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Show Us Your Holes (VIDEO - Visible Mending)

Matt is an avid climber (indoor bouldering, specifically). Even though he's invested in pants specially made for the activity, he climbs so zealously that he regularly reduces them into scraps.

After some small mending jobs, his pants were getting so threadbare that just attaching new patches would actually tear the jeans material, creati...

2005

Matt found some photos he took of me (on film!) in 2005.

I  was 21, an American spending her semester abroad in France while he was  a 19-year-old student in England who had been reading my comics on  LiveJournal for a couple years already.

We  met in London over a weekend, texted furiously back and forth on our  flip ph...

Look, it makes me happy, ok? (Art Post)

This is my first day of feeling comparatively better since I got knocked off my ass by Covid (first time around for me! I only coughed up a little blood, hardly worth mentioning U_U) 

You remember that I am obsessed with the late 1980s fantasy princess doll, Lady LovelyLocks, right? I've got that whole Instagram account documenting my totally healthy and normal collection of LLL artifacts and my own hand drawn fanart?

...

I Still Stand By This (drama-alert)

(Cross-posting my essay from the Oh Joy Sex Toy Patreon! For patrons on both accounts, this one has some minuscule tweaking. See if you can spot it!)

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Two years ago, Let's Talk About It debuted. This is the comprehensive sex and relationship book that Matt and I desperately needed when we were teens i...

February Round-Up

What the hell happened last month? Let's recap.

February

New eBook added! (🔒 Private!)

Oh Joy Sex Toy: Volume One joins the collection of eBooks that Bookworm patrons get to download for their reading pleasure! There's now six books available, including titles that are way out of print or...

Lemony Snicket, The Tree

I squawked in delight when I spotted the beginnings of tiny white flower buds on Lemony Snicket, my potted Meyer lemon tree!

January 29

Her last two batches of flowers blossomed and died without producing any fruit, even though I diligently hand-pollinated them with an old paintbrush nearly every day. I shouldn’t get my hopes up for this batch but oh no, too late.

February 2

2023-02-24 19:11:52 +0000 UTC View Post

Last Minute Pockets

In the 18th century, dresses had pockets. And I don’t mean, like, little pockets that can barely fit a chapstick. I mean, they had industrial-size, heavy-duty, strap-on pockets the size of bread bags that were tied on to the body separately from the dress itself, which simply had discrete slits cut in on the sides that the wearer would plunge their hand through in order to access the cavern bag hidden beneath.

(Photo from the 2023-02-17 23:59:19 +0000 UTC View Post