Chaotic Curations #2
Forgotten Things: October 2025 Edition
You know when you forget things exist? I’m not going to pretend this is a universal experience, but I hope I’m not the only one who this has happened to. For example: I constantly forget the Foo Fighters exist. While this may seem like an insult to Dave Grohl, I choose to look at it as: I get to rediscover the Foo Fighters every single time I remember they exist. I am programmed to be a glass half empty kind of gal, so I am actively trying to be more ~positive~.
On a separate note, I’ve been dealing with persistent brain fog recently, and trust me: it is very frustrating to forget things. I generally have a good memory, which I’m grateful for, but to have a thought about something I need to do - and then have it fly away 3 seconds later? Outrageous. Usually I can trick myself into remembering pretty quickly, but it has once again forced me to give myself grace and discover the joy of remembering something I’ve forgotten.
This month’s curations include a few forgotten items that are now back in rotation.
But first:
This month’s Chaotic snippets
Where else you can read me
I’ve got a few reviews in the works, so nothing new to promote at the moment. But in the meantime, if you want to read some other spooky stuff I’ve written, here’s some links to meandering bookish posts on cemeteries, vampires, and the like.
Binaural Beats
I meditate to binaural beats, so it’s not like I had forgotten what they were. I had forgotten about the SleepTube YouTube channel, though. It primarily has videos to fall asleep to (as its name suggests) but they do have a few videos that are Study and Focus based, and oh wow are they great. I’d used them before (back in 2023) but had forgotten they existed - mainly because I don’t need sleep videos, I need focus videos! Welcome back to my ASMR YouTube playlist, SleepTube.
Fluffy Dogs
Not something I forgot - but I haven’t seen the Fluffy Dogs in over a year. Who are the Fluffy Dogs, you ask? Two Huskies that I dogsit occasionally. They are very, very fluffy. And they sing me the songs of their people. Or, well, one of them does. Together they outweigh me, so if they got their act together they could take me out, but they never have so that’s a point for me. They are also very good cuddle buddies. It’s nice to revisit pet friends that I haven’t seen in a while. In addition to just snuggling the fluffy dogs, I do not listen to music while I am on walks with them. I have to be alert as Fake Mom, after all. I’m the responsible adult. This means that I spend a lot more time with my thoughts,1 which led to some writing progress as I had to force myself to puzzle through some writing quandaries while the dogs sniffed things and tried to convince me to walk to all their favorite treat places. Dogs + writing = my happy place.
Being with the fluffy dogs also gave me the chance to revisit Somerville. Again, I haven’t forgotten Somerville existed, but it’s been a minute since I’ve had the chance to wander around, especially in my old stomping grounds (aka Davis Square.) There’s something to be said about revisiting certain places in your life at different ages, but I’ll save that for another time.
(Also I forgot how nice it is to snuggle with dogs. 10/10 highly recommend.)
Puzzles
Ok I never forgot how good puzzles are, and how much I enjoy them. It’s that I haven’t done one recently. Puzzles are so good for you brain; if I thought they’d cure my brain fog I’d be doing them constantly.2 But again, dealing with limited energy means that I have to be judicious about what I spend my time on, and for a month or so in there, puzzles weren’t it. But! I have returned to the puzzling fore. Puzzling has a similar effect on my brain as walking without listening to music: I am undistracted and therefore must think my thoughts.3
Concerts
I need to state this up front: I have never been cool. I was not cool in high school. I did not go to concerts. I doubt that this is the image I’ve given of myself thus far, but if so, please disabuse yourself of that notion now.
Anyways, earlier this month I went to Portland with my DnD group and while we did play DnD, the main point was to go see a concert. Specifically: Mariana’s Trench, who I had never heard of before. This isn’t surprising; I’ve always been more of a pop girlie.
This does appear to be the only way to get me to sample new music though; the last concert I went to was Sub-Radio, and I had never heard of them before either. Now I’ve got songs from both of these bands in constant rotation. Sometimes you really do have to force the hermit out of her hidey-hole. It’s a good reminder that life is lived out there, in the outdoors, not in front of or behind these little glowing screens, as enticing as they are.
Did any of these things have to do with books? Not really, but many have to do with how I think and process information, which is a critical process in book writing so. It’s allowed in the name of chaos. As we’ve stated before, everything is writing, so everything is fodder for the writing.
No New Books™️ Challenge
You know what, we’re doing good. Holding strong. Keeping steady. Whatever other metaphor you’d like to insert here regarding my book buying ban. That’s all I can really ask for at this point.
Longest streak: 50 days (June 18th - August 6th)
Last streak: 14 days (September 18th - October 1st)
Current streak: 14 days (October 15th - Present)
You know what I did do over the weekend though? Went to the opening of Rhode Island’s first romance bookstore, The Little Bubblegum Bookshop. I didn’t buy any books, cause I’m responsible like that, but I did get a very good sticker and bookmark. Obviously I will be returning when their shelves are less depleted; my friend and I had to wait in line to get in, and there was such a good turnout!
Mug Moment of the Week
I am not a big Halloween girlie. Christmas is my jam. Hence the excessive amount of Christmas mugs.4 But, it did seem glaring that I did not have a Halloween appropriate mug. Or at the very least, something witchy. So I needed to fix that.
Behold, my new Halloween mug:
It is from Emma Bridgewater, which is a British brand. I was influenced by another Emma (Gannon)5 as I saw this in one of her latest newsletters and thought, well yes, of course.
What I particularly liked about this mug was that it was not only covered in words (a personal favorite, if you couldn’t already tell) but also had a design on the inside, too. Sure, it’s more words, but how often do you see a design on the *inside* of a mug? Exactly.
So now I have a Halloween mug, and will be sipping out of this on Friday night and that shall be the extent of my holiday celebrating. My building is all young professionals (no children that I can tell) and I do not really do costumes, so I shall be sitting on my couch, ensconced in a blanket, drinking tea out of this mug and eating gluten free treats.6
If you are indeed of the partying vibe, I wish you many happy haunts.
The horror!
Only more iron in my bloodstream is going to fix that.
There seems to be a theme here…
Though excessive can be applied to just about anything I collect: books, mugs, etc.
I wrote this before I had plans on Halloween so while a lovely image, I will not be doing this ha.
I ALWAYS forget that cool things exist. I forgot that Magic Puzzles exist until I read the rest of your piece. They are high-quality puzzles with a surprise at the end. Have you ever done one? If not, I highly, highly recommend!