Monthly Mayhem from someone probably having a midlife crisis (6.26)
Is anyone really surprised? You shouldn't be...
Whew, June has been a bit of a doozy for me. Between yard work, weddings, massive meltdowns, and what is probably a midlife crisis… yeah, I’ve kinda been through it this past month. Wanna hear about it?
Since I’ve been telling Riku’s story lately, here’s a picture of him passed out in one of his usual weird poses, getting surrounded by allergen beasts — that’s Teddy in the back; he was just a baby in 2022
PROJECTS & ARTICLES
June’s articles have been the continuing story of me and my late adoptive son, so if you’ve missed any of them, you can catch up here:
Riku’s Story, pt. IV: Microdosing Affection to a Trauma Victim
Riku’s Story, pt. V: Sleeping on the Floor & Who’s Going to Keep Me Safe?
Riku’s Story, pt. VI: “Am I Queer?” & The Destruction of Libido
Riku’s Story, pt. VII: Biodynamic Osteopathy vs Trauma
Since today’s slot is yet again occupied by Monthly Mayhem, pt. VIII will be coming on Thursday instead.
Worth saying… it’s been honestly very weird and vulnerable for me to tell this story to more or less crickets. I have the feeling that I will write three more articles about some of my favorite memories of him, and then I will do my big reveal about how I accidentally got him off drugs. But otherwise… I’m not sure if I want to continue, since almost nobody is engaging with this story one way or the other. Feel free to convince me otherwise if you’ve been enjoying it, because there are more parts to this story, but if I feel like I’m telling it to no one and it doesn’t matter to anyone… well, he and his story are very precious to me and I don’t want to keep sharing it if it doesn’t mean anything to anyone else.
Fabled Magazine
You should know by now that Issue 002 is out and you can order copies! Since they’re getting so many submissions now, I opted to not contribute anything to Issue 003 (unless the editor decides to use another article that I didn’t get finished in time for Issue 002), but I haven’t yet heard about what the theme is for Issue 004, so fingers crossed I’ll be back in the spring.
Here’s me with the two issues I’m published in!
The Vitmar Chronicles
As mentioned last month, I’ve been slowly and surely working on the third installment of this book, with an unofficial plan taking this series forward:
I am looking to potentially find an indie publisher, but if I can’t by the spring, I’m going to try crowdfunding, which means those who’ve been holding out because they don’t like reading digitally will be able to finally get their hands on a physical copy of the books.
The one thing that I’m a bit worried about is quality. I would really love to find a printer who is not going to charge me fully out the ass, but who does have eco-friendly printing processes. This is why I’ve never done physical books before and why I’ve not used Amazon or any of the other easy services for indie writers. I really, really, really want my book to be high quality and eco-friendly. If anyone has recommendations, please send them my way! I would hate to have to compromise on this if I don’t have to.
Also, someone apparently picked up my books after seeing me at a convention last year and left me the loveliest feedback, so thanks so much for that! If you’ve read and enjoyed TVC, nothing’s kinder than leaving a review somewhere — Amazon or Goodreads, namely, but Instagram too. Reviews are our lifeblood, so if you like the work of writers, let the world know! Even a star rating is huge, if you don’t feel like writing anything.
Off the Record / Gathering of Geeks
Nothin’ happening over here at the moment, unfortunately. One of the reps who promised me an interview this spring has been ghosting me now, which is a bummer.
Merch Mischief
I was up at Ankea Festival in the first weekend of June, which was brilliant. It’s a first-time festival from Nakha Agency [trans: Leather Agency, haha] from none other than Nahka Sami, who is more broadly known as the singer for Tyrantti (and his leather pants, hence the nickname). He’s one of the few people in the Finnish music industry that I genuinely like and respect and am happy to work with, so I was delighted to be a part of the festival and even more delighted that all the feedback was fantastic and I hope it did as well as it seemed to. It’s going ahead next year at least, so that’s nice to hear!
It was also friggin’ cool to see Katatonia performing “The Great Cold Distance” in its entirety, since that album lived in my car back before I moved to Finland. Bonus points that I got to see Rioghan for the first time too.
L: Rioghan ft. dancer Hanna; R: Katatonia
Reviews
I’ve been on a book reviewing kick this month, for anyone interested in such things. The first was a lovely cozy fantasy book that I picked up on a whim in Sweden last fall:
The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
Next was a something extremely cool and unique by one of my all-time favorite Finnish artists, JP Ahonen:
And last but certainly not least, a rather overdue opinion on a very popular book that came out back in 2006 that I picked up after having so many people recommend that I try out Joe Ambercrombie:
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
I hope to do more of these in the future. If you’re an indie author looking for reviews, feel free to hit me up! I need to read more. I’ve got a few ARCs in my bag right now and a partnership with a sci-fi author where we’re reading each other’s books, so expect more literary reviews from me in the future!
Oh, and here’s that final Eye of Melian report, at way too long last!
Where You Go We’ll One Day Follow pt. III
PHYSICAL & MENTAL HEALTH
So, on the upside, my physical health has been more or less stable since last month. The work my osteopath did on my pelvis has been sticking, and while it’s twisted out a handful of times, it’s been within the realms of muscle strain or minor tweaks, so I know how to manage and deal with that.
However, I did mention that my mental health tanked this month. There was a big trigger for it that I’m not going to discuss (too personal), but I’ve noticed that my nervous system is taking longer and longer to recover from these incidents when they happen. This happened on the 13th and it wasn’t really until about the 26th that I started to feel a bit like myself again. That’s a pretty hefty bout of depression for me, considering how much better I’ve been doing this year on that front.
And I’m not all better yet, either. To be honest, I think I’m having a midlife crisis. This is possibly the worst time in history to be an artist, thanks to AI. People on the wrong side of this battle (yes, I’m picking sides) are pushing that it’s okay soulless plagiaristic slop to exist while data centers use up all the water that the life on earth needs to survive, while people on the right side of this battle have gone too far and started witch hunting all writing based on, frankly, the stupidest bullshit. Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble always says they don’t have shelf space for indie writers, but apparently they have the space to put in a full section for plagiarism. Yay art.
So yeah, it sucks to be an artist right now, and it sucks more to think that I missed my pre-AI window because I was wasting my time doing music journalism. And yes, I do still call it time wasted, even though I learned a lot and met a lot of cool people and all that sort of thing. I could write a whole article on my feelings on this. Maybe I will. Either way, I’m just feeling like my entire life is a steep uphill battle against avalanches of shite and it’s really tough to keep your head up and keep fighting the good fight. I’ve been wondering if I need to give up on my dreams, and that’s the worst feeling in the world.
GENERAL BEARSNESS
I was supposed to hang out with one of my favorite peoples on the 13th, but that was the day after I had those two deeply severe meltdowns, so I had to cancel because I was unable to person. In fact, I was also supposed to hang out with friends at juhannus [midsummer], but I had to cancel that also for mental health reasons. It sucks to do that because you feel like such an asshole, especially when it’s very last-minute. I’m deeply grateful that my friends are kind enough not to hold it against me — they know what it’s like, unfortunately.
The bigger event this month was that my father-in-law got married. He’s been with a wonderful woman for 6 years now and it’s been really nice to see him so happy. He’s a lovely person and I’m glad he’s found someone who’s much more on his level to spend the rest of his days with. Also, his new wife’s family are really wonderful. All three of her kids are younger than us by a decade or maybe more, but they’re really great and they all speak English, so that’s nice for me. Finnish weddings can be pretty painful when my FSL brain gets burnt out, especially since I’m not really a dancer. Bonus points for wedding karaoke too, heh. We had a lot of fun at the end of the night — the new siblings-in-law are all great singers, and I even convinced my partner to do “Livin’ La Vida Loca” with growls, inspired by a friend of mine from forever ago, haha.
My job was making the bridal bouquet, some decorations with reeds, and the altar trellis. My partner was sweet enough to fetch the flowers for me to use for the trellis. Everything (but the hanging baskets) came from their yard — isn’t that awesome?
Our garden’s looking great as well, and we had our first taste of it recently, with one nice radish (most of the first run just turned to leaves, unfortunately) and a nice collection of chard, black kale, and beet greens in a stir fry, and when we got back from the wedding we had our first wild strawberries of the year from our yard. I’m thinking of doing a full article on that later in the year to talk about all we’ve learned of gardening this time around. Let me know if that’d be interesting.
Now, there is one last thing I want to mention this month, and that’s that I’m going to be pivoting a bit with Substack and my newsletters. I’m not getting much engagement using it as a social media and my growth has been pretty stagnant this year despite posting regularly. Considering the Google SEO doesn’t really pick up Substack articles often, I think I’m going to go back to using my website for most of my articles and only Book of Balance articles will be released here once Riku’s story is done. I’m not sure if I’ll be continuing to release articles weekly, or if they’ll come whenever I have something I feel like I need to say. However, everything I do write will be included in these newsletters, so if you want to stay up-to-date, this is still the best place to follow me.
Stay balanced, you beautiful people, and I’ll catch you again next mon
th! ❤️🐻
“Edith, I was raised on the Torah, my wife on the Qu'Ran, my eldest son is an atheist, my youngest is a scientologist, my daughter is studying Hinduism, I imagine there is room there for a holy war in my living room, but we practice live and let live.”
— The Man from Earth (2007)
Coming Next Month…
I’m working another festival in July, as well as hoping to make up for some of my cancellations this month. I still haven’t decided if I should try to go to the Auri show at Coolhead Brewery, and I also haven’t yet made up my mind about what I want to do on the Dark River Festival/Kosmos Festival weekend.
Here’s my best of 2026 so far on Deezer! Can’t say I’ve been especially pleased with Tidal so far, unfortunately. It has a worse selection and it’s harder to transfer your playlists. Not sure I’ll continue even trying.
LINK TO BEAR
Bear’s Homepage || Bear’s YouTube || Bear’s Instagram || Bear’s Creative Writing
Bear’s books on (Finnish) Amazon || Bear’s books on Google
Find them serialized here if you’re a paid subscriber!
💯 understand and love you my dude ❤️