May 2026 Newsletter

From Dan, Your Friend on Summer Break

Dear Friends,

May was a month of finishing strong, making things, settling into spaces, and welcoming a new little creature into the family. Let’s get into it.

The final show of the semester was Antigone, and I worked really hard on the set and costumes for it (Fig. 20.0). The costumes are not pictured here, but they were absolutely part of the grand effort. I also loved how the lighting turned out. Honestly, I loved it so much that I am now excited to take that theatre class one day for lighting. Sometimes a project ends and leaves behind a whole new curiosity, which is always a good sign.

We also got a cat this month (Fig. 20.1). Her name is Alley, short for alley cat, named by my mother. Well, I suggested the name, but she added the reasoning. One of our favorite youtuber we watch together is Ali Spagnola, and my mom jumped on the opportunity to create a little pun (just like Ali would make).

I have my own office now, and I decorated it with only a fraction of my things (Fig. 20.2). It is nice seeing them in this space, like bringing a little bit of home with me. It also gives many of these pieces more room to shine. Sometimes I can develop quite the collector’s backlog in storage, so letting things get a spotlight on a shelf feels like a small but mighty victory for the archives.

Welcome my newest: Anakin the Manakin (Fig. 20.3)! For those who read my Mannequins research paper, you will have become familiar with the other two, and also with why I love naming them all versions of Annequin the Mannequin. This is one of those bits that makes perfect sense in my personal mythology, and I am delighted to keep expanding the cast. It was also a way to celebrate a very deep clean of my room, those who know that I like additive slow art (from my Slow Art paper) could imagine it built up quite a bit.

I also got to do some arts and crafts with my friend (Fig. 20.4). He designed a light-strip cutout of a torso, and I helped him stick all the letter-sized printer sheets together, with his drawing printed on each.

Finally, I am signing off for a good summer (Fig. 20.5). May started the season off right, and I am happy to finish the school year strong. After a month of theatre, decorating, cleaning, crafts, and welcoming Alley into the family, I am ready to head into the break with a little more room for the hobbies that keep me feeling like myself.

One of those hobbies is writing, and this summer I am especially excited to return to original fiction. Original stories take a different kind of energy from me because there is no existing world to borrow from. I have to build everything myself: the rules, the history, the biology, the culture, the relationships, and the emotional logic that makes the world feel alive. It is slower, stranger work, but it is also some of the most rewarding writing I do.

My newest original universe is a mushroom story about survival, connection, and what happens when humans stumble into a world that was never built for them. It begins underground, after humans flee the ruined surface and arrive in a bioluminescent fungal society. The air itself is dangerous to them, but one human mysteriously is unaffected.

That story is called Motes and Mycelium. Click the title to read it!

This is a big deal for me because it is my fourth original universe. That may sound like a small number from the outside, but each one represents a whole structure of worldbuilding made from the ground up. I am proud of each and every one of them, and there's so much more to them than even what I've written. This one is biological, tender, unsettling, romantic, and weird in exactly the way I want it to be. It feels like the right world to grow over the summer.

So that is where I am leaving May: school year finished, summer ahead, and a new story taking root. I am ready to thrive in my hobbies, enjoy the break, and see what grows next.

Wear sunscreen, drive safe, drink lots of water.

Dan out.