The Friday Dispatch: February 14, 2025
If you're reading this I have 85 chocolates in my mouth
-muffled Rolo-and-saliva noises- -BIG gulp sound effect- -cough-
Oh! Hi. Happy Valentine’s Day. I was just eating my breakfast, which is sugar and coffee. How do you do?
Everything Is Happening and I Think You Should Be There
Listen!!! If you want to see me onstage at some point in the next three-ish weeks, great news. I’m going to be there. And you can also be there!
But if you do NOT want to see me onstage, well, how about some instant gratification instead? I was recently on Movies To Fall Asleep To, the podcast hosted by my very funny friend
, who, like me, is a big fan of When Harry Met Sally. We cover all the hot topics: Carrie Fisher’s infidelity subplot, Billy Crystal’s Ben Platt wig, how fun it is to walk around New York, and of course, Mr. Zero. At one point I said something which elicited this response:
It was a lot of fun!
You can stream the whole episode here, if you’re a subscriber, and if you want a preview, here’s me and Tristan talking about Ed Asner.
Hey, speaking of Tristan. Did I mention…Tristan is moving back to New Zealand? Spoilers! All of you Trizziots and Hattheads out there will be interested to know that I am co-hosting Tristan’s big going away show, which is February 22, at 5PM, at QED Astoria. We WILL be doing bits with guitar accompaniment. There is a chance to win prizes!!! There’s Trivia (that’s Tristan Trivia) (Tristan’s name is already pretty close to the word “trivia” so the portmanteau doesn’t seem that impressive). And if you can’t make the show, but want to support the move, check out Tristan’s GoFundMe. I can also text you Tristan Trivia directly, and then tell you if you’re correct or not!
“But Hattie,” you’re asking. “Hattie, that show sounds fun, but there simply weren’t enough props. Can you do something with props???”
Oh, my beloved newsletter recipient…of course I can. For you.
On March 5, at 8:30 PM, come see Prop in the Bucket at UCB! I am acting in it!!! Earlier this month, all the writers for PITB1 were randomly assigned props. Then, they wrote sketches centered around those props. What are the props? A centaur costume? Knockoff Pit Viper sunglasses? A lot of yarn? Could be anything!!!
I know the answer, because I’m in the sketches. I will also tell you that this poster, below, made by PITB writer and talented author
, contains hidden spoilers. Do you want to know more??? Well! Please! Come to the show, or livestream it, on March 5! Two options made easily accessible by following this link.
My Psychic Witch Morning Routine Indicates That Raccoons Are Mating
I have written about being woo-y before. In 2023, I talked about crystals, oracle cards, visualization and a whole host of activities which, at the time, made me say “Hmmm.”
Here’s what I said back then!
I sleep with a pile of rocks next to my bed. Crystals, rather. I’ve been on board with crystals since the beginning, not because I believe they have any power, but because I love cool rocks…These little talismans, right now, are a one-way portal to the past. But can I turn them into something multidirectional? Through faith alone, could they help direct me toward a future I want too much to speak aloud?
In the last two years, I’ve gotten more woo-y! But I’ve also gotten more…Hattie-y. Let me tell you what I mean. Here’s what I do, every day2 when I sit down at my desk.
I draw a card from my “Affirmations of the Fairy Cats” deck of cards. That’s what it sounds like: a lot of cards with pictures of cats, who are also fairies.
I draw a card from my deck of “Angel Cards.”
I read the advice/inspiration/affirmations from the little booklets that come with the cards. The Fairy Cat cards almost always include the phrase “from the smallest field mouse to the mightiest lion,” or some variation. The angel cards are usually more clear, but sometimes have wild or thought-provoking definitions. Most days, Myles also draws cards, and I read his “fortunes” aloud.
I write down our “daily draws” in a little notebook.
I consult my Farmer’s Almanac for 2025 to see what is significant about the date. Recently, it said…this?
Good for them!
This routine takes five minutes, tops, but it is helpful and inspiring, in a way that Hattie Two Years Ago would certainly begrudge. Sometimes you’re having a crap day, and then you glance across the desk to an illustration of a cat shaped like a bee, reminding you to find balance or courage or gratitude. And then you do! The cat/angel cards often seem to be in weird communion with one another. Once I drew the “death” cat card and the “birth” angel card. That was kinda crazy!!! A different time, I drew “music” and “harmony,” and then my friends surprised me with a karaoke party.
I’m not much of a witchy-ritualistic person, but I’m also not a hardworking data scientist. The almanac is about as scientific as I get, and it seems to be accurate. Today the almanac said “the ice on Valentine’s Day would not bear a finch,” a sentence which feels like inscrutable nonsense on first read. But, sure enough, the ice on the Hudson River finally started melting this week, which means it will certainly be spring soon, and the finches can sit somewhere besides unstable floes.
All just to say, if you’re going to infuse your life with some oddity and cosmic power and hand-illustrated cat-angels, make it part of your routine. What is a ritual but a routine with a little bit of pageantry to it? And who am I to ever scoff at pageantry?
Daphne’s Brave Heart, for Valentine’s Day
I’ve been boosting the signal on a lot of fundraisers in this space recently, and I appreciate those of you who have shared the posts or contributed! Today, I’m writing about my friend Kassi, her husband Connor, and their late daughter, Daphne.
Fair warning that this section of the newsletter deals with infant loss, and you might need to skip it—that’s okay! If you need to scroll to the next header, I understand. If you would like access to Daphne’s memorial fund, it’s at this link.
Kassi and I were work friends who became friend-friends, a privilege I am lucky to have experienced with many of my awesome Ohio-based coworkers. Even after we stopped working together in late 2023, we kept in touch, and I was thrilled beyond measure when Kassi announced she and Connor would be having a baby girl. In October of 2024, their beautiful daughter, Daphne, came into the world, all smiles and enviously thick hair.
Early scans indicated that Daphne had some congenital heart issues which may require surgical intervention. At three months old, she was scheduled for open heart surgery, and the procedure, while scary, was expected to be fairly simple and fast. However, the surgeons, doctors and nurses working to navigate Daphne's congenital heart defects encountered more challenges than they anticipated. Along with some already-diagnosed conditions, Daphne also had cor triatriatum, an extremely rare heart defect with no known genetic cause. The team at Akron Children’s Hospital spent the day trying to stabilize Daphne, but ultimately, Kassi and Connor were faced with the devastating loss of their daughter at just three months old.
In a move that reflects the generosity of spirit that Kassi and Connor embody, they have poured their energies into helping other parents of children with congenital heart defects. Daphne’s Brave Heart will fund family support, as well as research and advocacy measures, with a particular focus on babies and children who need open-heart surgery. You can donate directly through the Akron Children’s website.
Thank you for reading this. If you aren’t in a position to contribute monetarily right now, please keep Kassi, Connor and Daphne in your prayers. Or, if you can, find a way to do good in Daphne’s name this week, so the light she brought to her family can continue resonating, and her memory can bring forth the same joy as her life.
Here Is What I’ve Been Getting Up To
If you’re a longtime subscriber of this newsletter, you might have noticed some changes. For one: I have a new header image. For two: The newsletter has a new name.
I had been considering a newsletter refresh for a while. The primary reason for that was…ugh…branding. I read a really good newsletter about this, but, of course, I didn’t bookmark or like the post, so it is lost in the ether and I can’t link to it (Substack PLEASE add a “reading history” tab)!
Here’s what it boils down to. I want to increase the discoverability of this blog, across the Substack network and the internet at large. “Hattie Jean Hayes” is only a descriptive name to people who know who Hattie Jean Hayes is. “Craft Supplies,” on the other hand, provides potential new readers with a vague idea of What This Is All About. The idea of craft, as in, your writing craft, the poetry prompts which served as the initial basis for this newsletter. And the idea of crafts, as in, having fun with glitter and paints, doing something not to feed the beast of profit and prominence, but for the love of the game. I want this newsletter to do all that. All I want to achieve is to demonstrate how unnecessary “achievement” is, when it comes to This Stuff.
If you missed my post earlier this week and want to read more, here it is.
And even though I just said achievements are antithetical to establishing the fulfilling creative lives we desire, or whatever…I want you to know that I hit another milestone on Duolingo! Yesterday, I celebrated 1000 days in a row of using the Bird App. Now, I know enough French to order a croissant, AND send it back to the kitchen if it is bad! Wow! The next unit I’m working on is about spending money, and includes phrases such as “You must not spend all your money on clothes.” So maybe I will quit!
The Best-Paying Lit Mag is NOT What You’d Expect
Would you believe a dating app has the one of the best-paying lit journals on the market? AFM, which, depending on who you ask, stands for A F*cking Magazine or A Feeld Magazine, is published biannually by the dating app Feeld. It is also, hilariously, the abbreviation “MFA” in reverse. Learning about this magazine was, to me, the emotional equivalent of encountering a “Honk if you’re horny” bumper sticker on the Bennington or UMich campus. In other words, extremely relevant to my interests.
But! Why am I writing? Because, inexplicably, AFM offers some of the best rates in lit-journal-land right now, and I wanted to make sure you knew about them, writer friends. Something something joke about submitting and also link to submissions. Per the website:
Fiction starts at a flat rate of $800USD
Poetry starts at a flat rate of $500USD
Essays, features, profiles, interviews: $1/word, with a typical word count of 1500-2000 words
Photography commissions and essays have a $500/day rate, with additional expenses negotiable
Art/design commissions are $500 per visual asset
And there’s a host of columns/series they’re running which start at $500.
Feeld members are especially encouraged to apply! I’m not on this or any apps, but hell, I’ve got some poems and a pitch for a column ready to go, so! Here’s that link again for anyone who may be interested. And! Relevant Facebook ad.
WIDNBTW
Wow, lots to talk about today. Proud of us for getting through it all. Phew!
Here’s What I Did Not Buy This Week.
These Schiaparelli heels, which look like raw feet. I am in love with them. They…are…my size…and if I had a spare Infinite Money, I would buy them and then wear other shoes OVER them.
An articulated wooden artist's model OF A HORSE that I saw at Janoff's Stationery. It was $67. In the words of Beyonce: Look at that horse, look at that horse, look at that horse.
A lot of other great stuff at Janoff’s. Man I love them. Are they still “Janoff’s Typewriter and Stationery?” Because they did not have ANY freaking typewriter paper. However, they did have Paper Poetry journal stencils, a four-dollar frivolity I snapped up right away.
This Cinnamoroll satin pillowcase!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bedtime:)
These sleepy Cinnamoroll stickers. He’s just like me!
Adorable silicone bows, which are like tiny pot-handle holders. I do HAVE and USE these. I did not buy them! This week or otherwise. Santa brought them to me because my mom told him “Hey, Santa, Hattie will LOVE those.” And I do! They are ideal for taking hot bowls out of the microwave. They’re like tiny oven mits for just your li’l fingers. The cutest and most practical stocking stuffer.
AXE Cherry Spritz, a deodorant spray which I WILL be tracking down and WILL be buying for myself. For a long time, I thought trickle-down Tom Ford was a major egg on the face of the fragrance world, but now that we’re in Lost Cherry territory3 I am fully onboard!
This wedding ring, which has a SKELETON that POPS OUT, and is eighteen thousand dollars. I was fully prepared to buy his-and-hers rings until I saw the price tag. I’ve gotta stop clicking on these luxury resale ads!
The La Roche Posay Anthelios Mineral One BB cream tinted sunscreen, apparently not available in the US
The Nintendo Switch games Lemon Cake and Tales of the Shire, two cozy games I learned about from my friend Emily, and which are going on the wishlist4 until they go on sale!
Well, that’s that, I suppose. It’s Friday! It’s Valentine’s Day! Go eat something with red dyes in it! Or beetroot powder. Or just eat a Lip Smacker! I support you!
Oh!!! And!!!!!!!!!!! Most important of all. Happy Birthday to my oldest friend: Seel!
He is my favorite stuffed animal, and we became friends 26 years ago today. He’s very, very small, which makes him the perfect traveling companion. He has seen me through all the best times of my life, and all the parts that were less certain, with uncanny ease and comfort and understanding. Here he is right now, on my desk, in a little chair, wearing a little outfit which my Gram Cracker made for him. Hooray!
I like that it has the same abbreviation as “pain in the butt”
Every day that I remember. Which is most days!!!
cherritory :)
I originally typed “wish are going on the whichlist” hehahahehhahahahooooha
I enjoy reading your dispatches immensely. I like reading about your adventures, stories, and the things you didn’t buy. Such fun! Good luck with your props and Tristan trivia. Thanks for being a good friend to him.