This past Saturday, my Handsome Assistant, some friends, and I went on a bone walk. This was organized by a friend in the Druidry group of which I’m a part, and it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like — a walk through an area where it’s common to find bones.
Late winter/early spring is the best time for this, because winter is harsh on wild things and this is when the snow melts and uncovers the earth again. It’s a meditation on mortality and privilege; we are fortunate to have access to the things we need to easily survive winter, but this isn’t universally true. And, regardless of how true it is, none of us will live forever. It’s kind of an antidote to modern western society’s extreme refusal to acknowledge the more visceral aspects of our own mortality.
(I’ll give you an example. When my grandmother passed away, she was sleeping in bed beside my grandfather. Her body was picked up, cleaned, preserved, and covered in makeup and a wig. Her cheeks were stuffed with cotton to hide the way cancer had eaten her away. Her eyelids were pulled over barbed plastic forms to make her look like she was sleeping. We filed in during the wake to see her, and she was carted off to her grave by unseen hands. Only, it wasn’t her grave exactly — she was brought to a kind of staging area, with her coffin set atop a white rectangular platform. There was a eulogy, the press of a button, and a mechanical whirr as the coffin descended into the platform. It was all very neat and methodical, with as little involvement from the bereaved as possible. Just lots of preservatives, makeup, and little tricks to maintain the illusion of life, and a closed casket gently lowering into a sterile, white box.
If this is the closest we come to experiencing mortality before going through our own, no wonder we’re so fucking weird about it.)
The bone walk itself was a lot of fun. We didn’t find many bones, mostly some vacant snail shells. The area we walked was a very diverse meadow, with horse nettle, lobelia (I even snuck some leftover lobelia seeds), native grasses, and more plants than I could possibly identify, so there were signs from an abundance of wild things. Shed feathers. Coyote scat, packed with rodent and rabbit fur until it looked almost like owl pellets. Tufts of winter coat from horses, where they’d rubbed against a fence. The stumps of trees, whittled to a pencil point by beaver teeth. Droppings from rabbits, deer, and horses. It was the traces of a healthy, vibrant population.
We chatted about all kinds of things, mortality-adjacent and non. Books. Music. The population of crows that visits here. The plants we saw. I haven’t been able to see anyone since late autumn, so it was nice to just catch up and spend time together.
We also talked about the idea of a burial forest, where everyone could be buried beneath a tree. One friend said they wanted to be buried beneath an apple tree, which would continue to feed people in a somewhat macabre fashion. I said I wanted to be buried under a bald cypress, so it’d grow cypress knees. Then I could continue to be a pain in the ass in death as I am in life.
(Alternatively, I want to go to a body farm. Then I want my picked-clean skeleton recovered, well-scrubbed, and adorned with thrift store junk jewelry. Then I want to be propped up on a marble throne in a mausoleum to confuse the shit out of anthropologists far into the future.)
Once we’d finished the bone walk, my Handsome Assistant and I had to go. (We had a rather long drive back, and I was in a hurry to get to my favorite stationery store before it closed because it would probably be my only opportunity to pick up Colorverse’s exceeding gorgeous 2025 ink, Blue Green Snake, without having to order it online.)
(I got the one with blue purple shimmer.)
We stopped at a placed called Kelley Farm Kitchen on the way back. We’d never been — didn’t know anything about it, really, but it said it was “100% Vegan.” I had some doubts when I looked at the creamy sauces and cheesy dishes on their menu, but they were not kidding.
My Handsome Assistant got a seitan cheesesteak and a little bit of macaroni and cheese (well, “cheese”), which were both delicious. I was debating getting the same, but I went with the pinto bean and avocado tacos instead, and you guys.
They were amazing. Just a little heat. Flavorful. Satisfying. The tortillas were soft, but with just a bit of crispiness on the outside. The grated carrots were a cool, sweet counterpoint to the salt and heat of the other ingredients. And the sauce!
For serious, I’d gladly make the trip just to get more tacos.
This was a small adventure, but delightful. I’m glad that the thought of mortality doesn’t strike the same fear in me that it did years ago. I’m grateful that I got to see and socialize with my friends. I’m happy to spend time in a beautiful, biodiverse place. I’m glad for delicious food, good conversation, and beautiful ink.
These chocolate chip cardamom cookies are delicious, easy to make, and suit a number of dietary restrictions. You can even make them gluten-free if you substitute your favorite 1:1 GF flour for the einkorn. The cardamom gives them a unique flavor that pairs beautifully with the chocolate (and has some other unique properties, if you’re into that).
Chocolate Chip Cardamom Cookie Ingredients
Drys
2 cups of einkorn flour (I usually use 1 1/2 cups of white einkorn, and 1/2 cups of whole grain einkorn)
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
3/4 t salt
1 t cardamom
1/2 to 3/4 cup of chocolate chips (honestly, I just throw in handfuls until my soul says it’s good)
Wets
1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar (unbleached, raw sugar if you’re vegan)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup avocado oil
2 T chia seeds
1 t vanilla extract
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375° Fahrenheit.
Start by combining your wet ingredients. Just put ’em all in a bowl and give them a good stir, then set them aside to thicken a bit. (For our purposes, chia seeds serve as a wet ingredient — they’re our egg substitute. Some people make a “chia egg” by soaking the seeds in water first, but I find that this makes the chia flavor a bit more forward. I’ve found that hydrating them in the maple syrup, sugar, vanilla, and avocado oil avoids this.)
Sift together your dry ingredients, except for the chocolate chips. Add those after sifting.
Add the wets to the drys, and mix until they form a dough. Einkorn doesn’t absorb as much moisture as conventional wheat flours do, so the dough is likely to be a bit looser or wetter than you may be used to. That’s fine, but, if it’s so loose that it won’t even hold together in spoonfuls, add some more flour.
Place the dough by rounded spoonfuls on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 375°. (I make big spoonfuls, so I usually get about 15 cookies from this recipe.)
Allow to cool, then enjoy!
I love these chocolate chip cardamom cookies with milk (hemp or Ripple), but they’re also really good with a warm cup of spice tea. Sometimes, I’ll even eat one or two for breakfast — chia seeds are good for you, and the flour and maple syrup means these’re basically pancakes, right?
Hello (and a relaxed and happy Pride Month to all of my fellow LGBT+ people)!
I am freshly returned from a brief trip to Cape May, NJ. My Handsome Assistant and I wanted to take some time to be near a beach for a bit, and managed to time things so we would a) have nice weather, but also b) be there during the “off season” when accommodations are generally a lot cheaper and easier to get. Fortunately for us, the stars aligned and we got a very nice room in the Angel of the Sea bed and breakfast.
The Angel of the Sea even comes with its own ghosts. It’s a very old building that was actually kind of… cut in half and transported to its current location. As a result, parts of it aren’t very accessible — think the narrow hallways and steep staircases you get with historic buildings — but are super haunted. As many as four ghosts have been reported to make an appearance there. There’re electrical shenanigans, shaking beds, and mysterious phantom coughs.
Our room even had a complimentary Grandma.
I brought my ghost box, figuring it’d be interesting to mess around with during our downtime. I wasn’t able to get much on the scanner, but we also didn’t experience anything out-of-the-ordinary in our particular room, either.
We did meet a gentleman named Gary who was there with his wife. Gary was a lot of fun — always enthusiastic and down for a conversation, where he’d flit from subject to subject like a hummingbird. We talked about all kinds of things every time we ran into each other: history, haunted places, music, life, death, rehab, and more. He told us a story about someone close to him passing away. Even though this person appeared to have flatlined, they turned their head, looked into the empty doorway of their hospital room, and asked, “Which way do I go?” before they passed.
Even if you don’t find a ghost in your hotel room, places like this are generally home to absolute treasure troves of fun and interesting paranormal stuff. You’ve just got to know where to look. (Antique stores. The answer is antique stores.)
I have made the weird and occasionally embarrassing habit of going into antique stores, finding someone who works there, and straight-up asking them, “If you had to guess, what object here would you say is the most likely to be haunted and/or carry some kind of terrible curse?”
(If I had to guess, it would be any one of these things. Did you know the original Annabelle doll was a Raggedy Ann? Fun!)
As it turns out, antique stores are usually not super busy and are full of dead people’s stuff. I have yet to meet an antique store employee who has not jumped right in to talking about the weird stuff that goes on there at night. Some are more skeptical, but most of them will eagerly tell you about all of the things they’ve seen or heard.
For example, Antiques Emporia is home to the ghost of a little girl. She rearranges things at night and opens the packaging of vintage toys.
Capt. Scraps in Ocean City has even been the subject of a professional paranormal investigation. Multiple customers, on several separate occasions, have reported the sense that there was something there. Eventually, an associate of one of the owners brought in a full team with EMF readers, scanners, and the works. While investigating, they were able to decipher the words “Henry. Fire. Dog.” It was later discovered that a local antiques dealer named Henry had lost his shop, his dog, and his life in a terrible fire. Some of his paintings ended up at Capt. Scraps, and Henry decided to come along with them!
I don’t know if this was one of his paintings, specifically, but something about it really struck me and I had to get a picture of it.
This store also has its share of shadow people, odd phenomena on security cameras, and the general “sense” of a ghostly presence. It’s a really neat shop.
So, while I wasn’t able to get any recordings or paranormal experiences of my own, I did come away with lots of stories.
We also found a lot of shops that were right up our alley. Good Scents has a ton of local art and jewelry, candles, soaps, and incense. (We picked up some soaps, massage oil, and a box of “smokeless” Hinoki cypress Japanese incense.) Best of all, it’s quality stuff — not the kind of smells that immediately make my throat puffy and make me feel like someone is driving nails into my face.
They also had one of those boards that you can draw on with water. Usually, you use them to write little notes or affirmations. Because I am a giant obnoxious child, I used it to draw a rushed, ersatz Dickbutt. (Don’t worry, I didn’t leave him there for impressionable childs to see. I drew over it.)
Guardian is another delightful place to stop if you enjoy metaphysical shops. It’s small, but well-stocked. It has some tarot and oracle decks I hadn’t seen anywhere else, and a very nice selection of books. (I picked up one that I can’t wait to review here.) When we checked out, the proprietor had us choose cards from an oracle deck — we read the affirmations and she had us keep the cards as a little bit of positivity.
We also went on a bit of a hunt for vegan cupcakes. We’d managed to find plenty of meat-, egg-, and dairy-free meal options for me, and tons of fresh seafood for my Handsome Assistant at places like The Mad Batter (like their seitan hot wings and vegan tostadas) and Good Earth (which had an amazing cauliflower steak with chimichurri), so finding vegan restaurants in Cape May wasn’t a problem at all.
My Handsome Assistant also brought me some fancy chocolates, like the Gay Bar. It’s pretty much an Old Fashioned cocktail in chocolate bar form, and it was delightful. I’ve had boozy chocolate before, but mostly just those little chocolate bottles filled with rum. Nothing really cocktail-inspired and uniquely flavorful like this.
We did eventually find Chocolate Face, a bakery that had vegan cupcakes. The chocolate ones were even oat- and nut-free, so they ticked all of my “weird dietary issues” boxes. This was about twenty minutes from where we were staying, so we decided to poke around at a couple of neat looking shops we’d seen on the map.
And buddy, we were not prepared.
Just look at this idyllic-ass nonsense.
Don’t mind Longcat. He is protecting a stranger’s identity.
I thought it was going to be a couple of strip-mall type shops clustered around a parking lot. I was so wonderfully wrong. It was Woodland Village.
It was like… I don’t know. Little fairy cottages. Pricey goods, but not of the cheap, souvenir variety. All of this stuff was high-end. Handmade art and sculpture. Handmade clothing with vegetable-dyed fabrics. Handmade gemstone jewelry. Fine gemstone specimens. Handmade incense. Upscale men’s clothing. Teas. Perfumes. Spices.
In Red Door Gallery, I wanted to show my Handsome Assistant a pour-over coffee funnel in a beautiful, glazed ceramic. While I reached for it, I clumsily knocked over a small sculpture of a sheep. We thought he was okay, but, sadly, one of his ears was knocked off in the fall.
Obviously, I was going to bring him home and fix him.
Once we’d finished shopping, we brought our purchases (mostly handmade cat toys for the dummy squad back home). I set the small, broken figure on the counter.
“He was a casualty of the fall, but it’s okay. I can repair him. I have the technology.”
“You… really don’t have to do that,” the proprietor said.
As it turns out, she was the artist who made the little figures. She didn’t want us to buy him just because he was broken, and insisted we pick out a whole one instead. I thought they were cute anyhow, so I did — even though I felt bad about the little sheep with his broken ear.
“Can you fix the broken one?” My Handsome Assistant asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she explained. She said she’d likely end up throwing him away.
My Handsome Assistant came over and whispered to me.
“Okay, would you really rather have the broken one, or the other one?”
“I mean… They’re both very cute, but I am going to feel terrible if the broken one ends up in the trash.”
Sure enough, he went back to the cash register and asked if, since the broken one was likely to be tossed anyhow, we could have it.
So, a bit of glue and patience later, I now have two small clay sheep in my kitchen, and a partner who is very understanding of all of my strange bullshit.
We also stopped in Summer Studio Avalon, which I probably could’ve spent all day in. It was just filled with gorgeous, handmade things. (I got a rutilated quartz, moonstone, and pyrite bracelet, some incense, and a pair of flowy teal pants that I am probably going to live in from now on.) There was beautiful embroidery, handmade incense, artwork, accessories, sculptures, crystals, all kinds of the exact sort of things I could happily spend an inordinate of time looking at and/or smelling. The proprietor was also very nice — we got caught up in a conversation about writing things, painting, and the fact that rainbow moonstone isn’t actually a moonstone and is more like a white labradorite.
We also stopped in Northeast Man, mostly for my Handsome Assistant. I found some really nice shirts and a solid cologne (Duke Cannon’s Bourbon, which he bought and I have been sneaking from him because it smells excellent and is the exact way I want to smell forever), but everything fit me in a less “mysteriously androgynous” way and more in a “fourth grader wearing their dad’s shirt” way. Most of the things there weren’t quite my Handsome Assistant’s aesthetic — more “Boat Dad” than “Office Druid” — but there were some really nice, high-quality pieces that suited him very well.
Since the Angel of the Sea is about a half a block from the ocean, we spent some time doing sunset beach walks. The weather was gorgeous, and the slanting golden light made the crests of the waves seem to glow. We also came upon a very large (and extremely deceased) horseshoe crab, which my Handsome Assistant had never encountered before. (He’s from a landlocked state, so his experience with wild marine life is somewhat limited.)
We also kept an eye out for trash, like we always do. There really wasn’t much — I think we picked up two cellophane wrappers and a water bottle, all told. It was very clean, especially compared to some beaches and hiking trails we’ve been on.
Fortunately for my Handsome Assistant, we did stop at the Nature Center of Cape May. We watched gulls and ospreys overhead, listened to the songbirds on the balcony, and admired the large, live horseshoe crabs in the marine lab.
Am I disappointed that we didn’t find any ghosts ourselves? Not really. It would’ve been interesting, but I’m fully satisfied with the experience that we had. Even during the tail end of its “off” season, Cape May was a lot of fun. Woodland Village was great, the abundance of antique stores (and antique store ghost stories) was awesome, the food was fantastic, and the beach was beautiful.
Marble Crow 