M. Belanger Profile picture
Feb 3 20 tweets 5 min read
Some of you (particularly in the US) may find yourselves in a fairly chilly situation today & tomorrow thanks to a harsh winter storm.

Here are some cheap hacks to keep your space as warm as possible if the grid crashes:

Spoiler: you’ll need cloth. Sheets, old towels, etc.,
Drapery: tack up a sheet, curtain, or long cloth across every doorway & entrance to a room. if you’ve got a tensor rod you can put in the frame and a way to hook the cloth over that, great. Otherwise, thumbtacks, nails, even a staplegun will get the job done. (cont’d)
If you have limited supplies, pick the room you’ll spend the most time in & put draperies over all its doors and entrances. This helps to seal in what little heat you have, including your own body heat. It cuts down on drafts. (cont’d)
You also want to seal windows. A lot of our heat leaks out of there even if they’re supposedly insulated. Heavy plastic is the best. Duct tape is your friend but masking tape will work.

Lacking sheets of heavy plastic, grab some plastic grocery bags & patchwork that shit.
If you can’t completely cover the whole window (establishing the seal around the frame) *at the least* check the joints & cover these with tape or stuff bits of rags in the gaps.

Failing that, tape the curtains down. Put up the heaviest cloth you have as curtains.
Outward-facing doors: Roll up some old towels & make a line along the bottom of outward-facing doors to catch the drafts that will whistle in underneath. If there are really big gaps around your door, consider draping a curtain temporarily over that door as well.
If your heat goes out, gather everyone into the warmest & most insulated room of the house. This might even be a big closet; you want a small space with its airflow controlled to trap in as much heat as possible. *Be careful about burning anything in sealed rooms! CO2 kills*
Seriously: unless you have a working fireplace, resist the urge to burn things in your home to keep warm. Without proper ventilation, that’s a recipe for disaster.

You can get away with a few candles, carefully monitored. They shed a surprising amount of heat in small spaces.
I was raised by folks who grew up in the Great Depression in a drafty split-level home built in the 40s. We used all kinds of hacks to try to keep that place warm when money was tight & the winters were long.

Plastic on the windows, draft catchers at doors, sealing off rooms
Stay safe. Keep warm. Pull out all the blankets & don’t be afraid to cuddle up together to conserve body heat.

And be *really* careful with space heaters, especially the old kerosene ones. Lots of ways that can go bad quickly.
Other notes: Rooms with higher ceilings will take longer to get warm as heat rises and it’s all hanging out unhelpfully among the rafters.

Basement spaces might feel colder at first, but if you’ve got a finished basement, it’s naturally insulated by being underground.
Pipes: If you think your pipes might burst due to the cold, turn on a tiny trickle of water. Yes, this wastes water. That sucks. But it keeps stuff flowing through the pipes & they are less likely to freeze.

Exposed pipes or ones close to outward facing walls are most at risk.
Believe me when I say running a small trickle of water all night is preferable to the damage caused by burst pipes due to the cold.
More on burst pipes: do yourself a favor and go figure out where to turn your water off now. There’s usually something that turns off all the water in the house and often controls for certain sections or individual appliances.
When it comes to turning the water off for apartments & similar multi family housing situations, it gets trickier - you may not have access to where the water gets turned on and off.
Also to circle back around draperies: I am a huge fan of curtains. Not only over your windows. Over doorways. Around your bed.

If, like me, you read a lot of books written pre-1900, you noticed they talked about bed curtains a lot. Those helped insulate where people slept.
There is a reason why my current writing space looks like this. It is basically a pullman car in my finished basement. These aren’t heavy curtains, but pulling them even partially closed significantly insulates the space. (I am seated on the bed) A curtained area in a home....
I no longer live in circumstances where we have to wonder whether or not we’re going to put the heat on today, but the lessons of my youth have stuck with me.

IMO it’s never a bad idea to conserve energy. Certainly never a bad idea to be prepared.
My home: curtains EVERYWHERE! (heavier curtains are great for muffling sound from room to room as well as catching drafts, cutting down on background noise while livestreaming) A black curtain serves as a...A rich gold and scarlet bro...A black curtain serves as a...A red curtain serves as a d...
Probably not the advice you expected to receive from that weird psychic goth person you’ve maybe seen on TV, but like an onion (or an ogre), I have many layers.

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More from @sethanikeem

Feb 1
JFC … what fucking panic-inducing drivel is this? Travel Channel has my goddamn number and *this* is the show on vampires they greenlight?!? 🤬 Image
If you never again see me on another episode of any show on any channel connected to these folks you will know this was the last goddamn straw.
I mean, what the fuck is next?

DEMON-HUNTERS: join our crack team of totally-legitimate-demonologists as we hunt witches making pacts in woods with Ol’ Scratch ?!?

Followed by:

WITCH-SLAYERS: They kiss the Devil’s asshole. We investigate by burning them at the stake!
Read 10 tweets
Feb 1
We can all agree the #Briarwoods are hot, right? (Catch #TheLegendofVoxMachina to see what I mean)

Who doesn’t enjoy a good story of #VampireSexyTimes?

On February 14th, indulge yourself as I lean into every steamy trope of vampire romance in my solo RPG, Midnight’s Kiss. Image
The best part about writing this solo journaling RPG was making it something you tailor completely.

Queer-positive. Trans-positive. Kink-positive. Polyamorous, steamy, ace, whatever body type you please - there’s room for every story in Midnight’s Kiss.

Vampy, romantic fun 💋
Of course, it helps if you like vampires.

Spend your Valentine’s Day with the vampire lover of your dreams.

All you need is the PDF & a few standard dice or equivalent apps to randomize a moments in the story (although room is left to simply choose your preferred outcome) 💋 Image
Read 5 tweets
Feb 1
For those intrigued by tales of my youthful adventures with Ouija boards, haunted cabins, & strange spirits in the woods, I am pleased to announce my collection HAUNTING EXPERIENCES is back in print. Order on Amazon or buy signed copies directly from me: michellebelanger.com/signedbooks/ha… Image
2022 will be the year of the -Second Edition, Revised- for me.

We have successfully gotten the rights back to a number of my earliest publications, including PSYCHIC DREAMWALKING, the PSYCHIC ENERGY CODEX & the PSYCHIC VAMPIRE CODEX.

Expect slick, updated editions 🔥
Because all of these books were written 15+ years ago now, these new editions allow me to revisit & reassess concepts that may have changed as my practice has evolved, not to mention update language like pronouns to reflect a more sensitive and inclusive world.

So excited.
Read 5 tweets
Oct 26, 2021
So, today is #IntersexAwarenessDay.

Intersex people like me are born outside of binary gender. There is a wide range of how that presents, but we are neither male nor female by traditional definitions - down to our very biology.

This is me. Every day of the year. 🏳️‍🌈 A colorful yellow and purple logo for Intersex awareness day
A side bonus of how I am #intersex involves my voice. It gives me a range a little like Farinelli. I don’t normally brag about that, but a few years ago, together with @NoxArcana, we co-wrote a song designed specifically to show off my four octave range:
A difficult side of being born intersex is the fact that we are still grossly misunderstood. Our natural state is often perceived as a medical anomaly that must be fixed.

This means many of us undergo non-consensual and mutilating surgeries throughout infancy and childhood.
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Oct 25, 2021
A very curious thing just happened:

Roomie is rearranging their altar. As they go upstairs, I hear them say, “Oh, hello Bliss,” & talk as if the cat is following them upstairs.

However, that specific cat is & has been in the office with me. I have eyes on her …
When roommie comes back downstairs, I ask if they I actually saw Bliss on the stairs. They describe the cat walking upstairs with them.

Bliss is the smallest of our three cats & unmistakable.

We both had eyes on her at the same time in two different parts of the house. 🤷🏻
This is not the first time Bliss has apparently been in two places at once.

However, it is the first time that two people saw her in the exact same moment in different locations.

And, yes, we both are familiar with the cats and would not mistake her.
Read 5 tweets
Apr 22, 2021
I have a (former) friend who is law enforcement (OH State Trooper, last I checked).

He was Nat’l Guard, but only because his wife did not want him to go full military.

He often expressed regret at missing his opportunity to freely kill people in “the sandbox.”

THREAD
His primary reason for becoming law enforcement, stated openly multiple times, was to carry a gun & have the chance to use it.

He joked often about being a sociopath.

Our friendship deteriorated the more he leaned into this (I used to think folks could be reasoned with)
Some weird things: he started out a Goth. A Pagan. Was a DJ. Was bisexual.

By the time he had a badge, he was “straight” - wore an honest-to-gods cowboy hat - wore at least one gun at all times in the house - and somehow discovered a Southern accent.
Read 7 tweets

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