Posted 4/6/24. Facebook.

I was playing with my formerly feral cat. She jumped up on the back of my chair and bit the back of my neck.

Isn’t that how cats kill prey? Did my cat just…kill me?

~

i’ve been lucky to read 2-3 books this year that i actually loved (i really struggle to find stuff that suits me) and everything i’ve read in between those books has really helped emphasize to me why i liked those 2-3

it’s always a personal taste thing, of course; there’s nothing actually wrong with the other books. i have narrow tastes/desires in books the last few years. i have to cast a wide net (or get recs from similarly aligned friends) in order to find a couple that stick to my ribs.

this year i’ve loved

BOY PARTS
THE BELL JAR (yes, my first read)
MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION

(i was REALLY in the mood for a book without a plot, so the lattermost item scratched the itch extremely well)

i didn’t love it, but i did end up liking NIGHTBITCH. the more i reflect back on it, the fonder i feel. i’m like “heh.” i love messy authentic flawed things, and that’s kinda the whole point of nightbitch. and all the books i haven’t liked at all make nightbitch stick out more, yk?

i dnf’d The Rabbit Hutch, but i might take a swing at it again later. the dialogue felt too stylized for me at the moment. i like the format enough that it might be worthwhile when i’m in a different head space.

i do not mention books where i’m like “pah!” and forcefully close them, so these are all compliments from the bottom of a deep pit of literary anhedonia.

loves/likes from previous years:

SPINNING SILVER, Naomi Novik
THE KILLING MOON, NK Jemisin
A LONG TIME DEAD, Samara Breger
THE SALT GROWS HEAVY, Cassandra Khaw
THE WORM OUROBOROUS, ER Eddison
BITTERBURN, Ann Aguirre
PARABLE OF THE SOWER, Octavia E Butler
UNDER THE PENDULUM SKY, Jeanette Ng
GARDENS OF THE MOON, Stephen Erikson
THE NOTEBOOK, Agota Kristof

i really like genre fiction written as literature, and i was hoping that moving into contemporary literature might give me more options for reading. plus i never used to read anything that isn’t sff. so i am trying to reach out a bit and generally pleased so far.

anyway, i post this in case someone on my flist has similar tastes and can recommend me something i’d like. i’m very fond of genre-as-literary, mythic and historically influenced stuff, big world building, devastating emotions, broad vocabulary, and mostly woman authors.

any recs??

~

Posted on Bluesky.

something about the title screen music for katamari damacy reloaded is so ominous

na…na na na na na na na na na na na na na na

---

Posted 4/7/24. Facebook.

i described the basic conceit of Hannibal to my 13yo, with the whole passionate death-spiral between Hannibal and Will Graham, and they said “So it’s basically Doofenschmirtz and Perry the Platypus from Phineas & Ferb?” and my entire life is changed

---

Posted 4/9/24. Facebook.

I actually finished writing a book today. It’s wild, I haven’t finished a book in a year. I’ve been doing a zillion other things.

This is Fated for Firelizards, the interactive novel I’ve been serializing on itch.io. I’m gonna finish posting it on itch and then edit a single-track novel version (Author’s Cut), so I’ll let y’all know when the Author’s Cut ebook is out. It’s NOT a Descentverse book, but kind of a fun silly thing. I think folks will enjoy it anyway.

~

The other day, my eldest came to wake up Spouse and me. They were down at the side of the bed. It looked right to have their adorable face at that level. I was petting their hair and sweet-talking them, which they tolerated like a champ.

Then they stood up…and up…and up…

And I remembered this is a 13-year-old human who is at least six feet tall, and increasingly lanky, and I just turned into the Crypt Keeper then blew away into dust.

~

Posted on Bluesky.

my vacuum-insulated cup is so bananas. i made hot hot coffee this morning and didn’t touch it, and it’s STILL HOT??? i know this is new to nobody but myself lol

it’s like friggin magic

~

I have been watching ghost photos/videos with my kid and it’s the brightest part of the day, and I’m still never sleeping again

~

hear me out: rootbeer float except it’s chocolate fudge ice cream in iced coffee

---

Posted on 4/10/24. Bluesky.

after watching x-men 97 i will never feel joy again

Thank god for the comic book revolving door of death or else my whOLE WEEK would be ruined

---

Posted 4/11/24. Facebook.

Amazing how one minute I’ll be like “omg I’m the artist of all time” and then the next minute I’m like “MY ARTS IS THE WORST, I AM GARBAGE, THROW ME IN THE COMPOST PILE”

~

Posted on Bluesky.

Nothing reminds me how long it’s been since restarting my computer as effectively as Adobe products, which will basically just fart all over my monitors until I reboot

---

Posted 4/12/24. Facebook.

I’m so committed to trolling my 13yo. They’re VERY pleased to be taller than me, even when I stand on my toes…so I ordered platform heel Crocs. Yep. I’m going to wear 6-inch Crocs around the house and pat them on the head.

~

I am “subscription to insoles for hip pain” years old.

~

Posted on Bluesky.

I just did a sinus nasal rinse and I think my brain came out, the pain, the burning

---

Posted on 4/13/24. Bluesky.

If you haven’t watched Scavenger’s Reign you’re living a hollow half-life, a shadow of humanity, unaware of the greatest adult animated show ever made

---

Posted on 4/14/24. Bluesky.

hoping that this analgesic will make my body feel less like shattered death, pray for me

~

From now on, I am only sexting with cuneiform.

---

Posted 4/15/24. Bluesky.

playing frostpunk

me + peasants: yay! we escaped the lords!
the lords: “hey can we move in with you?”
the game: WHAT A QUANDARY
me: lol die in a storm, lords
the game: …you must surely feel conflicted
me: WE DO NOT

the lords: yOu ToOk OuR EnGiNe
me: frozen dead lords say what
the lords: …what?
the game: WHAT A QUANDARY!

~

one of my friends is sending me screenshots from fallout 4, so i thought i’d grab it and try it

it’s so buggy (STILL) that i had to go do some modding to even make it wanna run. oh bethesda. <3 now i'm into mods and it's making me wanna go back to skyrim again lol ~ Downloaded a zillion mods, now to see if it’s any worse at launching than vanilla

---

Posted 4/16/24. Facebook.

I wish Facebook would let me hide posts but not, like…take it personally. I believe if you hide posts at all, the algorithm says “oooh this is a Bad Post somehow” and will ding the visibility of the individual or the post (depending on the overall metrics). I need a “it’s nothing personal, but don’t show me this one again” button for when it keeps bringing up someone’s really personal post 10x over three days. Like, that wasn’t any of my business the first time I saw it, but that person has every right to post it, and I just think it’s weird Facebook keeps reminding me that xyz person is having family drama with xyz family member I don’t even know!

~

My favorite gain from going fully sober and quitting cannabis? My singing voice is back, baby! Sometimes I start singing and startle myself with how full my range has become. I got so used to singing in a limited range because lower or higher octaves were so strained, and switching registers made things goOOoooOO crackLYEEYY.

Basically I had to sing like the episode of Friends where Phoebe had a cold, but I’m back to being a wee lil songbird.

The dreams are also rad. You’re not supposed to dream on cannabis (which is one reason people with PTSD love it), but I had dreams every night; they were just always a very specific kind of travel dream. Airplanes, cruise ships, trains. Very weird. But now I have a full spectrum of vivid dreams that are so wonderfully weird, I look forward to them every night. I can control them to a small degree. I usually dream about whatever I was doing right before bed. I was playing Fallout 4 last night, so I got Fallout dreams!

I really miss the act of smoking. I have a lot of really fond memories of sitting outside in nice weather and smoking up a bowl. It’s hard to explain what a sensory pleasure that is, top to bottom: breaking up nuggets (the colors, the smell, the texture), grinding them finely, scooping it into a bowl, patting it down, using the lighter to toast the edge, that first inhale of creamy white smoke…

But I figure it’s like a breakup from a romantic relationship. Of course I miss the nice things about her. I loved holding hands with her, and the smoothness of her neck, and the smell of her hair. I can’t have those things in isolation from all the things that motivated the breakup. That isn’t how life works. So I miss the smoking, and I say, “Thank you for the memories,” and then don’t do it.

---

~

Posted 4/16/24. Bluesky.

when i’m trying to talk myself into doing something, i call myself “self-bae” in my head

“come on, self-bae, you don’t even need to do that much”
“i know it’s hard, self-bae <3 you can do it" i know it is dorky but i used to be *really* hard on myself, so it's very healing to refer to myself like i'm my own girlfriend? my loved one? just soothing and reassuring myself ~ We dnf’d the fallout show on episode 2 on account of boredom ~

---

Posted 4/17/24. Bluesky.

Truly impressed and horrified by how many times my AirPods have enjoyed trips through the washing machine in my pocket

~

extremely bothered seeing how people talk about their teenaged and older kids on the internet. like, you realize you made those things, right? you know they still can’t read your mind? you know communication is hard and growing is hard and nobody magically figures things out, right?

i have some acquaintances who are not invested in having ongoing relationships with their adult kids, and i just hope they’re not unpleasantly surprised when those kids aren’t interested in having ongoing relationships with them either.

recently my sibling told me that not everybody likes their kids, especially as they get older, and it has haunted me. i wonder if that intergenerational divide is normal? if part of growing *demands* friction? am i going to wake up one day and be sick of my teenager’s shit?

~

i just love john leguizamo and dulce sloan on The Daily Show. i could watch the two of them every night forever. they’re so fucking out of pocket, it’s hilarious

leguizamo acting like biden wants him “but we’re both married men, it would be wrong *saucy gaze*”

~

playing games <<<<< playing games so heavily modded they're unrecognizable i enjoy adult mods for games, but i have to laugh at so many of the "sexy" outfits added. like people just cut random holes out and nothing looks remotely wearable (or even sexy!) and i'm like, girl, tuck your nipple into the strap, you're defying physics ~ no more agonizing over my letterboxd top 4. it changes weekly now. all movies are my favorite movies. chaos reigns.

---

Posted 4/18/24. Facebook.

Pulling together the “author’s cut” of my interactive novel is harder than I anticipated. I wrote *so* much material that only exists in one story track or another (meaning I have to go all over the file to see what I can possibly add), and a *lot* of text varies based upon reader choices. It’s one long personality test of a book, so…it’s a mess!

Also, the chapters read differently without the page breaks/questions/illustrations. Once it’s just text, I see so many things I want to smooth and fill out. It’s a bigger editing job than anticipated!

Fun project, though. Anything with dragons is fun.

---

Posted 4/19/24. Facebook.

Y’all, I had such a violent nightmare last night that I woke my spouse screaming his name in my sleep. Wtf? He thought something was wrong and got up to look for problems before realizing I was still asleep.

I couldn’t wake up, it was dreadful. There was a demon possessing my house. I couldn’t shut the doors to keep it out of my bedroom. It kept appearing as my beloved late cat, Annie, in really disturbing gory ways. I have the St Benedict’s prayer memorized (crux sacra sit mihi lux, non draco sit mihi dux, etcetera) but all the prayer and salt in my dreams wouldn’t keep the demon out.

This morning my spouse asked if he should wake me from dreams where I’m obviously distressed and the answer is OMG YES PLEASE DO.

Weirdly, I fell asleep in a great mood. Nothing is wrong! I had a beautiful nighttime walk with my family under a very bright moon. I was so chipper. But not my subconscious, apparently.

---

Posted 4/20/24. Facebook.

I gauged up my ears today from 2g to 0g. I thought it wouldn’t be too bad because they used to be this size, but OWCH. It’s harder to do it to oneself, bc ow.

---

Posted 4/21/24. Bluesky.

i was really trying to get into fallout 4, but i’m just not clicking with it. i couldn’t click with fnv either. i guess fallout shelter is the only fallout i want, lol.

i’m putting skyrim back on my computer. it’s still kinda my perfect game. which is weird! it’s the same engine as fo4!

~

i have napped twice today and i slept a lot last night and i think i could just sleep all of sunday, literally

i feel really good tbh, i walked a bunch yesterday in the sun and i think my body just wants to recharge

i walked in the evening & thought i wouldn’t need sunblock. i was wrong. i’m slightly toasty. i have found that i get sun sickness really easily; i didn’t get sun sickness yesterday, but i was probably close. if i’d been out an hour earlier, i’d be dead today. instead i’m just deliciously exhausted.

i’m not sure if sun sickness is a real thing tbh. i THINK i heard of it somewhere…it’s like where you burn, and your body has an immune response like you’re sick. i don’t have to be very burned to get some crazy flare. i really get very sick the day after even mild sunburns.

oh well, webmd calls it sun poisoning (for whatever that’s worth). after sun, i get fever+chills, nausea, exhaustion, aches, dizziness, serious dehydration. did i mention i’m basically some swooning Victorian lady who faints over everything? like a walking ghost.

(i do have two documented autoimmune conditions and god knows what else so this is pretty normal for me, tbh)

(i am a delicate hothouse flower)

OH i bet it’s also related to stretching my ears yesterday. i gauged up from 2g to 0g. i always have this weird shock response to piercings and tattoos. my poor body must have no idea what’s going on, stretching out my lobes (IT HURT) and then frolicking in the sun. “ahhh I’m dying”

~

my head aches even checking in on publishing world drama. this is why i now randomly publish stupid shit for an audience of me, myself, and i.

This isn’t about RTD, but rather gossiping authors and essays about authors who should go fuck themselves and etc.

omg just go write your friggin books and chill out.

There are extremes of “authors must always get along rainbows daisies” and “authors I disagree with should all jump off a bridge, and I disagree with everyone”

JUST GO WRITE YOUR BOOKS

---

Posted 4/22/24. Bluesky.

there is SUCH a difference between walking two miles when it’s mild and walking two miles when Nevada is doing its whole sunny hot thing

it was only like 80f but i’m still whooped. gonna be a heck of a summer when we get over 90-100f

i can still walk outside when it’s that hot, but i start wetting down light scarves (almost like veils) and covering myself in them, and then also taking an umbrella as portable shade. not bad when it’s also windy. wish i had a stillsuit.

---

Posted 4/23/24. Facebook.

It’s incredible how I can wake up and chug a half gallon of water like it’s nothing. What happens to me overnight? Do I completely desiccate??

I genuinely don’t eat that much salt, and i have an eye on my blood sugar so i can say i’m not diabetic

i’m just a Thirsty Betch

~

i told my kids to avoid internet content that seems specifically designed to make them angry (or feel other negative emotions) and it’s helped them a lot, so i am now sharing that advice with you

click away from outrage, you’ll feel better.

~

Posted on Bluesky.

It’s really incredible my husband is still married to me when I will text him live updates from the toilet, and half the time he asks what I’m doing and I’m like “…modding skyrim”

---

Posted on 4/24/24. Bluesky.

But why is Dev Patel SO ATTRACTIVE

---

Posted on 4/25/24. Bluesky.

It’s maddening how many people wanna shove AI down our throats when all datasets rely on theft. So it’s like saying, “I have no choice but to steal to promote my books 🤷🏻‍♀️ don’t blame meeee”

Just makes me realize how many people happily talk their way into ethical voids and truly do not mind being class traitors if it means they feel likelier to profit off exploitation rather than being exploited themselves

(Spoiler: it won’t protect you, it’ll eat you too)

And omfg it’s not that hard to learn how to Art, it’s completely natural to humans.

And you’re not entitled to others’ nonconsenting labor if you don’t feel like doing that learning.

Omg I really can’t talk about this I just go into constant outrage feedback loops it’s bad for my blood pressure

---

Posted 4/26/24. Facebook.

Yesterday I saw a trio of ravens mobbing a young hawk. The hawk was so small, I thought it was a dove at first. But doves don’t soar like that. I made out the ventral patterns when it came low enough. It was a hawk, just a baby, probably not long out of the nest.

First there was one raven chasing it, making big heavy flaps with those big black wings. Amazing how fast they can move. The little hawk couldn’t seem to flap enough to get away from it. However lighter the hawk was, the raven was clever, and it seemed to know where the hawk planned to fly next. The raven kept cutting it off.

Then came the other two, circling around to flank the hawk. You should have heard the noises. Sad, angry, fighting type noises. Squeaks and squawks.

The aerial dogfighting was amazing to watch. They covered blocks of the neighborhood as the four of them swirled around, heading north until I couldn’t see them, then reappearing south of my position.

Sometimes the hawk would fold its wings and suddenly plummet a hundred feet in midair, escaping the fog of shiny black feathers. But only ever for a moment. The ravens were too smart to lose it for long.

I don’t know how the fight ended. It’s hard to imagine the hawk won. A bird that small can’t have too much energy, and the second it touched down somewhere, those ravens would have been all over it.

There isn’t much room in the ecosystem for birds of prey. We already have quite a few, and they’re territorial. My house is part of a territory claimed by an older, larger hawk — one of the parents of the unlucky little guy. I guess this is one of the ways nature winnows down the numbers.

I couldn’t cheer for anyone. I have a soft spot for hawks, but I admire these ravens specifically (they’re around a lot), and nature is just being nature. What a stark reminder of how unfair it all can be. Let’s hope the little guy found somewhere to hide and will move further afield, away from the ravens, away from the other hawks’ territories, and find a place his own.

~

Granular edits on fiction are exhausting 😮‍💨

I’m a big picture guy. I love working with plot-level edits. I have never been good at details, like copy editing and proofreading.

But I am proofreading something now and my brain is like “no, please stop.” I’m taking breaks every chapter or so. I don’t know how anyone does this full time!

Time to level up this skill tho ⬆️

~

omg. just trucking along proofreading and discover i spelled a character’s name two different ways.

in the same sentence.

~

Posted on Bluesky.

I got to pet three (3) dogs on my walk today which is a pretty good level of dog petting, I’m satisfied

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Posted on 4/27/24. Bluesky.

Bluey is an emotional assassin

~

Watching dog agility competition and feeling irrationally offended when they criticize a dog’s performance

HDU every dog is perfect

Knock over poles? PERFECT
Skip an obstacle? PERFECT
Murder the judges? PERFECT

---

Posted 4/28/24. Facebook.

I really thought quitting weed would eliminate my daily nap, but…nope. Two hours+ every day. And it feels like being reborn every day. ❤

---

Posted 4/29/24. Bluesky.

We keep getting angry letters from the school because we keep our 9yo home when he’s sick and they don’t like all the absences 🙃

His grades are excellent, he’s a gifted-and-talented kid, and he always gets sick FROM SCHOOL. What are we supposed to do here exactly?

1) I am not dragging him to a doctor every time he’s got symptoms of a head cold. Thats how you spread sicknesses further.

2) nobody masks in this unventilated-ass school.

3) even if they don’t care about disease spread, he deserves to rest when he’s sick! I’m not sending a miserable dude out.

I’d say they can suck my dick but I don’t want their snotty faces near any part of my body

~

Finally finished the Fallout show. It did pick up after the first couple episodes. I got into a vibe once we got to Ghoul and Lucy’s Fetish Funtimes. Looking forward to all the great novel-length Ghoul/Lucy & Dogmeat between-season fanfic we’re gonna get – also hoping for Maximus/Dane.

If God hates monsterfuckers then why do monsterfuckers keep winning

The whole Fallout franchise just doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t like the cynicism, I think. The 1950s retrofuturistic nostalgia, while purposeful, also just doesn’t do anything for me. I generally dislike Americana. But the actors were excellent, the story coherent, the effects decent.

Maybe we’ll get an Elder Scrolls tv show at some point????

---

Posted 4/30/24. Facebook.

I showed my 13yo a picture of their brother as a little baby. 13yo: “Revolting. That looks like a can of biscuits that didn’t pop all the way.”

~

13yo Moonlight and I encountered Canadian geese with fluffy yellow babies on our walk today. Aww! Right?
NO, the geese were ENRAGED. They hissed at us! We ran!
We almost got killed by dinosaurs!!!!

~

Posted on Bluesky.

Bsky threw a 20-year-old sexworker in my discovery feed and the full-body NO THANK YOU I felt was staggering

I’m like omg I’m almost twice your age!!! I could be your mum. I support your life choices but I do not want to see your life choices in the bath please

~

i watched a scary ghosts movie with my 13yo and now there are so many weird sounds in my bedroom suite

and my 13yo won’t even sleep over in my bed tonight to protect me :< the 9yo is sick and needs daddy so it's just gonna be me, the cat, and SPOOKY WEIRD NOISES IN MY BEDROOM SUITE absolutely should not watch spooky ghost movies before bed, i am too susceptible to spooky ghost stuff in a way that no other horror does to me but 13yo wanted it 🎶the things we do for love🎶 my cat is being weird and staring through the doorway

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Posted 5/1/24. Facebook.

The variety in books I’ve written the last few years is pretty bananas.

I’m almost done editing Fated for Firelizards, which is incredibly lightweight (albeit brazenly didactic). It’s written in language almost as casual as my posts on here, with lots of “like” and “ish” and “you know, whatever” sort of attitude. It’s mostly supposed to get you from one sezzy scene with the dragon to another. Fun fetish content with plot made secondary. I usually put a lot of care into plot, so I feel paranoid and weird about how lightweight this one is.

But! I also am doing deep edits on Atop the Trees, Beneath the Mountains, which is plot-heavy, and then some. It aspires to be a proper fantasy doorstopper like Wheel of Time, although it’s more obscure and anarchistic like Dune. The world building is intense; sometimes the language is archaic. It’s very much a multigenerational gothic romance epic. And gay.

And I am also trying to finish a weird horror novel called “Insomniac Cafe,” which is NOTHING LIKE EITHER OF THOSE PROJECTS. It’s like Friends vs Fallout (the tv shows) done in the style of internet horror, a la The Backrooms. It’s surreal with a labyrinthine narrative and…insects. I just added 500 words of Rachel Green trapped in a septic system. It’s *gross*. I am told reading it makes everyone feel like they need a shower in Borax.

Oh, and there’s a really heartfelt small town romance called “You’ve Got Nudes” I never published. Which I’d like to do this year.

I think what this says about me is that writing like a hundred urban fantasy novels based on the same style guide, with similar tones, in the same universe, made me snap and go completely crazy and now I can’t write the same thing twice.

---

Posted 5/4/24. Facebook.

It’s not too hard to avoid doing specific things to your kids. “I will not traumatize them like THIS,” you thought as a child. And then you didn’t do THAT THING.

But you did other things instead. And your kids thought, “I will not traumatize my kids LIKE THIS.” They probably won’t. They will inflict their own bespoke traumas.

More important than anything, I think, is being open to listening to your kids. You can’t be perfect. You can, however, accept your kids’ feelings, listen to them, and forge real relationships based on growing. You can remain supportive instead of becoming defensive. Accept your own flaws so your offspring have room to process their hurts with you. Cuz there will be hurts.

This is just something I’ve been thinking about a lot. Just gotta keep working on it together, as a team, like my kids and I are allies, instead of in opposition to one another between generations.

It can be really hard not to flinch away from your own wounds (because kids having complaints/criticisms feels like getting stabbed sometimes) but embracing it is how you heal. I think? I’m still figuring it out.

Posted on 3/13/24. Facebook.

I’m still on Windows 10 and the urgings to upgrade to Windows 11 are getting more demanding. I’m like, nice try. I would still be using Windows XP if y’all hadn’t forced me to Windows 7, and I’d still be using Windows 7 if you hadn’t forced me to Windows 10, and we are WELL ESTABLISHED NOW that I am not going anywhere until someone shows up at my house and shoves a new computer into my arms.

~

Bluesky.

you can tell my husband loves me because he laughs at my really bad jokes

me: next play-thru, i’m gonna respec everyone into bards and call it Barder’s Gate

him: genuine hearty sustained belly laugh

that’s true love

---

Posted on 3/14/24. Bluesky.

the anhedonia is STRONG today

---

Posted on 3/15/24. Facebook.

Thank you all for the birthday wishes. ❤ I spent my day disassociating tbh. Dealing with a lot of anhedonia and mortality-related anxiety. But mostly feeling nothing at all, except when I saw all the lovely birthday wishes of course! Definitely a bright spot in the ten-thousand-yard stare of death at my wall, wondering wtf life even means.

I’ve always been really weird about birthdays. I had my first mortality-related meltdown when I was like, nineteen. Nuts, right? It’s some kind of anxiety trigger.

I feel bad because I wanna show my gratitude for all the effort people put in around my birthday. I recognize it and genuinely appreciate it so much. But I feel uniformly horrible on the days surrounding my birthday. (It’s gotten markedly worse since 2020, when my birthday was the beginning of lockdowns!) My difficulty showing gratitude and pleasure is not at all a reflection on the love I receive; I just don’t have a filter and can’t conceal how dead I feel.

Anyhoo, thinking about my 2020 birthday, I was just telling 13yo Moonlight how the person I was in 2020 doesn’t exist anymore. Much of my days are occupied with crochet and plants now. I did not have *either* back then. I devoted a LOT of time to dieting and exercise. I also never played video games at length because I was always stressed out in a working frenzy. I worked hard and played hard. Basically 95% of my time was mindless frenzy, and 5% was getting wrecked on vacations. Now I am sober (!!!) and extremely moderate in my behaviors. I am a whole different Sara, which has been a lot of work to achieve.

My progress has been, in a way, a lack of progress – comfort treading water, finding smaller joys, spending time with my kids growing SO fast. It’s extremely strange to be an entirely different person every few years. This version of me is good too I guess. I’m still feeling pretty empty right now. Emotions will be back later, I assume.

---

Posted on 3/15/24. Bluesky.

i’m watching paula pell on seth meyers, and i’m wondering if sixty looks young to me these days because i’m getting older, or if people really just don’t age like they used to

like she looks sixty, but…not an old sixty?? idk, my mom is also sixty and i swear sometimes she looks younger than me.
i just got off a video call with my mom the other day and it was like this

me: byyyeeee love you mommy

*hangs up*

me to sibling, in a monster voice: WHY THE FUCK DOES SHE LOOK YOUNGER THAN US

---

Posted on 3/16/24. Facebook.

I am not sure if anyone is okay. Are you okay? I often am not. But I strive to be loving, purposeful, curious, kind, nurturing, and overall authentic – a good mother to life and a good roommate with myself.

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Posted on 3/18/24. Bluesky.

My 9yo introduced me to skibidi toilet and the phrase “sticking out your gyat for the rizzler” and I feel very, uh…educated?

---

Posted on 3/19/24. Facebook.

Breaking news: Writers ain’t robots. If it’s taking a long time to get a book out, we’re not happy about it either. It’s not about torturing you.

---

Posted on 3/20/24. Bluesky.

I’m out walking my dog and some car drove by with the window rolled down

A masculine voice catcalled me

He said “I RESPECT YOU!”

it was my husband on the way to work.

~

Little Sunshine is so thoughtful. I told him I was feeling all crampy from my period, and he ran downstairs to heat up a rice sock for me. 🥹 Didn’t even ask, his own idea, SO SWEET

~

i’m trying to finish creating content for my FILTHY ASS interactive novel (just need a few more scenes and drawings and then to code it out), but i simply wish i would stop embarking on projects with key fetish content when i know i never wanna finish it. lol

whatever my tolerance for writing/drawing sex is, it’s always about 50% of what i feel like a fetish-themed story demands narratively. my author sense says “i need scenes x, y, and z” and i’m like “woo, scene x!” and then “sigh, scene y” and then “i’d rather die than finish scene z”

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Posted on 3/20/24. Facebook.

Charlotte Brontë and I are very excited to go through this New Surrealism book. It’s a really good read/flip-through so far. The binding is divine. I appreciate that it included a bit on dadaism so that I could use it as a homeschool lesson.

My only complaint: I picked it up partially because I love Miles Johnston, but the Johnston pieces included are absolutely not his definitive work, nor my favorites, and I’m like. why these? WHY? This big beautiful printing doesn’t include the stuff that made him a notable name in surrealism. One of the paintings is a really nice one tbh, but I literally see movie posters emulating some of his more iconic work, none of which they included. Bah!

Surrealism is a really fun art movement to approach with a teenager who isn’t sure about fine art, btw. Moonlight confessed they’re 50/50 on “fine art is good” vs “this is nonsense and you’re pulling my leg,” but I think that the internet’s love of memes, random humor, and dadaism helps sway them toward understanding surrealism.

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Posted on 3/21/24. Facebook.

I have been escorted out of a coyote’s territory before. It’s super cool, kinda haunting, so magical. These are my favorite wild animal that live in my neighborhood (although the hawks and corvids are up there too). I am always surprised how many people *hate* coyotes.

Bear in mind the statistics show overwhelmingly that coyotes do not present any threat to humans; last I looked, there had only ever been one recorded death of a human by wolves in the Americas (a solo female who broke her leg hiking), while coyotes haven’t killed anyone.

If you dislike coyotes because of their risk to house pets, I will gently inform you that you should not have outdoor cats. They devastate the local bird populations. Your cat is *perfectly happy* indoors, no matter how much that liar tries to yell at you about it. Also, pet dogs belong inside, too, especially the cute little (delicious) ones. Cats and dogs have a lovely symbiosis with humans over the millennia; it is better for everyone involved if we keep them close.

When you’re escorted or have a sighting in a populated area: I recommend coyote hazing. That means shouting, waving your arms, throwing rocks near them. You don’t have to hit them or anything. You just want coyotes to continue feeling like humans are scary and hostile and that we shouldn’t be sharing spaces. It will help avoid tragic interactions.

Large predators are really important to a local ecosystem. We are also part of this ecosystem. It befits us to live alongside coyotes, wolves, predatory birds, etc. Don’t be afraid. Don’t hate. Just respect the delicate interconnectivity of nature and do your part by spooking the coyotes properly.

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Posted on 3/24/24. Facebook.

Tom Ellis was really born to play Lucifer.

~

There are so many things I’ve never done sober. Like Beat Saber. The game where you swing laser beams around to slice blocks in time with music. Never done it sober until the last week or two.

Turns out I am so much better at Beat Saber while stoned. You wouldn’t think it, but there you go.

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Posted on 3/25/24. Bluesky.

stepping away from my interactive novel’s code for two months while i was distracted/finishing the novel means i have absolutely NO IDEA where anything in the code is, or what it means, and i hate Past Sara sooo much

~

i still can’t get over my 13yo being taller than me. i’m 5’10”. they’re at least six feet now. i don’t know what to do with myself. THAT CAME OUT OF ME.

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Posted on 3/26/24. Facebook.

You know what kind of day it is? I had my phone pinging my headphones, and I could HEAR THEM, and I was looking for them everywhere. But the sound seemed to move.

Because my headphones were in my pocket the whole time. Yyyyyeeeppp. It’s THAT kind of day.

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Posted 3/27/24. Bluesky.

I need Kristen Stewart to dress me like a lesbian

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Posted on 3/30/24. Bluesky.

I’ve been enjoying Beyoncé’s Jolene but I can’t stop singing “Gay Dean” from Community

🎶 your lifestyle is alternative, your influence is positive 🎶

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Posted on 3/31/24. Facebook.

Man, spring break is always chaos. Totally throws me off my stride…whatever little stride I’ve had this year, lol.

But it really strikes me now that my kids are growing up so fast. 13.5 and 9.5 years old. They’re so much easier than they’ve ever been. They can entertain themselves when I need to take care of myself. Emotional self-regulation is at an all time high. Taking care of them when they were small was like getting emotionally run over, lol. Small kids are hard! Big kids are an absolute dream.

I’m okay getting my “stride” thrown off ad infinitum for a few more years while they’re still mine.

~

Bluesky.

I got cactus spines in my hand and THIS TIME I remembered not to pull them out with my teeth (thus transferring spines to mouth)

Please clap

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Posted on 4/1/24. Facebook.

I’m reading THE BELL JAR for the first time and wondering if I should worry about how relatable it is

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Posted on 4/4/24. Facebook.

I took Stoker on a walk early this morning, since it’s getting warm during the day. I try not to walk him when it’s more than ~65F outside because he pants too hard. He’s a French bulldog, and that means his sinuses are dreadful, his paws are delicate, and he’s a FANCY BOY who needs pampering. So we were out around 7:30 today (it gets more like 6am in the summer).

Lately I’ve heard dogs barking in back yards long before I approach with my dog, but I don’t see anyone else out walking. I haven’t been sure what was getting the dogs wound up. Maybe just a morning bark?

Today I saw the cause: A big ol’ coyote. She’s smaller than my pitbull and shaped more like a cat, and she moved like there’s no gravity. Just effortlessly bounding over sagebrush and slipping under trees. She kept looking at me over her shoulder as she ghosted into the fields.

No wonder the dogs have had so much to say!

I know there are coyotes on that trail because they mark it with scat and hear them crying at night. They sound like little babies. It jolts through me every time because I think I have to go check on one of my children…but they are big now and don’t cry out like that.

Sometimes I’ll see coyotes off other trails carrying rabbits in their mouths, but I think I’ve only *seen* a coyote on that trail once before, and only at night. What a beautiful animal. I feel so lucky. ❤ I hope she’s enjoying all the rabbits because we had a warm, wet winter and everything is kinda overgrown!

The toads in my backyard are also extremely numerous this year, which means I’m going to have even more garden snakes, which means I’m going to have even more red-whatevered hawks. (I can’t tell the species tbh.)

I LOVE this time of year.

Posted 2/25/24.

I’ve seen art students go from stick figures to fully rendered oil painting style in less than four years of study. Most people don’t need to get that good, and you’ll start getting drawings you like a LOT sooner, and you also get loads of dopamine from the process.

AI feeds into your insecurity. So many people are like “I’m going to sit down and do this!” and then they can’t handle the fact they suck at it, so they quit. To paraphrase Adventure Time, sucking at something is the first step to being awesome at something. You just have to accept sucking a lot for a while. Don’t be a coward.

Use of AI to illustrate is cowardly and lazy. You’re going to be here in four years; the time will pass either way. Work on your shit. Take classes. Study technique broadly. Practice what you like a lot. (I mostly stick to an illustrative style and it’s REALLY SATISFYING)

…I don’t like the grumpy tone of my own thread because I want to be nurturing rather than mean, always, but I get SO FRUSTRATED. this AI shit is death by a thousand knives. I struggle to be at my kindest when it feels so awful all the time.

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Posted 2/26/24.

Why Is My Decade Old C-Section Scar Bothering Me Again? And Other Reasons I Find Body Horror Relatable: A Memoir

~

repeating to myself: two dogs is enough, two dogs is enough, two dogs is enough–

~

9yo Sunshine told me that emoticons are better than emojis. “Do you know what emoticons are?” he asked me, like I wasn’t using them twenty years before he was born.

Apparently : ) is better at expressing emotions online than 🙂, which is cartoony and cheesy.

I birthed tech hipsters.

~

My 13yo and I were watching an interview with Biden from last night (the one on Seth Meyers). I knew what Biden was talking about so I could follow him, but it was difficult; 13yo couldn’t follow him at all. Then I put on the 2008 Obama acceptance speech and blew my kid away.

I’m like, “Can you believe we ever had a president who could actually talk?” and they were like “wtf that happens?” They were born in the Obama era but don’t remember him. As far as they’re concerned, America is defined by Trump. Ain’t that depressing.

fwiw Obama had a *lot* of problems because, you know, president of an incredibly violent empire, but also, on the shallowest level possible, he was *incredibly* attractive.

I am biased toward Obama because his administration had such massively tangible helpful impacts on my life. Thanks to his admin, I had insurance through my parents until I was 26; I also *had* to be given space/time to pump at the office. I would not have been able to nurse Eldest without the ACA. I have always been Medically Complicated so I have an emotional attachment to the president spearheading the admin that spared me a lot of active fear and gave me better access to healthcare. god, his admin also passed the laws that let me buy my first house. like! they helped me so much.

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Posted 2/27/24.

I was joking with my kid about naming our next dog “Jesus” and the idea is so funny to me, I can’t get it out of my head

Imagine yelling for Jesus at the dog park

Calling the vet to make an appointment for Jesus

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Posted 2/28/24.

I must come to grips with the fact that I am fully a conspiracy theorist who loves random drama. For instance: I still totally believe in Fake Melania, Disney made “Frozen” so you can’t easily google about Walt being frozen,

and I am SO eyeballs-deep in Kate Middleton conspiracies.

~

snuggly bedtime with my 9yo is still just the best time <33 also brushing my 13yo's hair <33333 ~ I thought I could handle doing a Dark Urge BG3 run if I skewed toward redemption, but there’s no preventing what happens when [SPOILER] joins your camp and they are one of my FAVORITES and now idk I don’t wanna I get really attached to everyone in this game ~ After being off cannabis for a bit over a month now, I think it's safe to say that I am just a silly nonsensical person in general and that's not going anywhere. 😆

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Posted 2/29/24.

Another smoldering migraine day. Can I just chop my head off maybe?

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Posted 3/1/24.

I had two writing sessions today. I want to reorient myself toward writing-for-publication, but it’s been hard. I had to learn a lot of new skills to write my gothic fantasy book – it was extremely intense to write, and extremely meticulous to edit so far – but it was really easy to commit myself to writing sessions because it’s all I wanted to think about. Working on ATTBTM feels like a beautiful dark dream.

The Descentverse never felt like that. It was something I wrote to cope because I didn’t have any coping abilities. You’ll recognize Rylie’s werewolf as a metaphor for mental illness run rampant and autistic meltdowns. Elise represents so much of my anger toward men (fathers in specific). My overwhelm from medical trauma, and a desire to be hurt, is all over Deirdre’s books. And so on.

But nowadays…I feel better. I have other ways of working on my stuff. Which means I need to find a whole other way to write books that I’m not using to cope, and which aren’t a dreamy love affair like the gothic fantasy book. I want to be able to write projects that I *choose* rationally. I don’t need to do a *lot*. I just need to be able to put out a book or two a year that has some relationship to the market.

This begins by finishing the most important outstanding projects: Fated for Firelizards and Young Swords. Neither of these scratch my happy itch. I don’t need to hide from reality in them. So how do I build a healthy working relationship with writing instead of… *gestures at the wasteland of my life*

I think it’s going to involve scheduling somehow. Schedules are hard. BUT today I managed to get myself in for two writing sessions, and that is super good. Longer sessions, or a third session, could get me back to a reasonable rate of writing, but I think it’s gonna be more important to write *daily* since I like to spend whole days crocheting/drawing now. Gotta figure out how to balance it. I’m sure I can do it now.

Once I’m done with those, I can finish my horror novel, and THEN I can start on the litfic I’ve been percolating. It’s a take on Bluebeard’s wife among the nouveau riche, it’s gonna be a real spicy one! The only other project that jumps to me is a cyberpunk-sorta thing that I’ve been percolating *even longer* (literally a decade now) but I kinda hope that publishing litfic will better position folks to understand what I’m doing with the cyberpunk thing.

(I think this will also be easier now that I quit weed, but quitting caffeine is a special added challenge lol)

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Posted 3/3/24.

As a loud, energetic, imaginative youngest child, it took me a LONG time to contextualize the Annoying label. I got it a lot. I still think of myself as annoying occasionally, but it’s okay to be a little annoying.

I was just talking with my spouse about the labels we’re given in childhood and how they can really stick with us. I was also labeled Liar by my dad. Nothing I said could be believed. I was constantly told I was doing things I absolutely was not. I was an Annoying Liar. Y’all, that is a LOT for someone to come up with.

I know some of y’all have come up with even more, even worse labels, and I think sometimes those attitudes follow us into adulthood when we should have long since let them go.

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Posted 3/4/24.

i’m a lil bummed that my most popular review on letterboxd is currently snark about j.lo’s documentary. all the time i’ve spent writing thoughtful review essays, and of course the one that gets any traction whatsoever (still quite minor) is when i’m just snarking about batshittery.

i remember the first time i read a sarcastic recounting of a movie. it was oooold internet, talking 2002, early livejournal. someone recounted the events of queen of the damned sarcastically. it was seismic! a major influence on how i regard *everything*. of course i also review like that sometimes.

but i don’t really wanna do that as a THING because it’s also a little bit mean and it plays into our less-favorable instincts as humans. yk? i wanna have fun without the mean bits. it makes me wanna just delete the review. don’t LOOK AT THAT ONE

~

Cutting caffeine out of my system has killed me. I am dead. Nothing works. Don’t have words. Life is sleep.

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Posted 3/5/24.

I wish I had a salon chair at home tbh. I do everyone’s hair and I’ve started also doing skincare for my family, and it sorta feels like tending five people is excuse enough for the setup. I like fussing over everyone. It’s very pleasant. It would be easier if I could just sit them in a chair and recline them to a sink to do the wash/rinse. facials would also be easier like that.

but salon chairs are not exactly small and it’s not like i can just…leave it in front of my kitchen sink. or any other sink. and once i start thinking about putting in a sink just for the chair, it gets into “too big/messy/expensive/complex” territory.

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Posted 3/5/24.

Natalie Portman got divorced, so I’m pretty sure that means I have a chance

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Posted 3/9/24.

did i ever tell y’all about the time i met a friend’s boyfriend for the first time, and he said “i don’t like man-hating feminists” and i whipped around to growl at him with demon eyes: “I AM THE MAN-HATING FEMINIST”?

i’ll take “least surprising stories about sara” for twenty, alex

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Posted 3/10/24.

My grandpa visited me for my birthday. It was also just his birthday.

Me: Happy birthday!

Grandpa’s girlfriend: He’s eighty-three now.

Me: Wow, grandpa! You’re finally old enough to be president!

I just had to share that with you guys because I think it’s the funniest I’ve ever been in my life.

That said, this dude still fully does all his manual labor around the property (he has a pretty big acreage) and he’s sharp as a tack, which is why I don’t really care about any presidential candidate’s age. It’s all about policies. But that’s not the point of my story, the point of my story is that I’m hilarious.

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Posted 3/12/24.

I know I’m an idiot because every time something I’ve written gets ripped off/copied, my reaction is mostly “good, you never could have made something that great on your own. Out here improving the mean quality of writing and not even trying 💅🏻”

Posted on 2/12/24.

I am getting my bff cat’s cremains back this afternoon and I’m a wreck all over again

I have found I do okay the day after they die, and a couple days beyond, but receiving cremains makes it feel extra final and devastating

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Posted on 2/13/24.

Sunshine wants to use my ouija board to commune with my cat Annie, who died a week ago today. On one hand, I want to encourage him to explore ways to process his grief. On the other hand, I’m still way too sad to feel up for a cat seance. On another other hand, what even is this life.

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Posted on 2/14/24.

Playing BG3. Halsin hits on me. Invites me to be with him, and bring my boyfriend Gale. I’ve been really enjoying Gale. I broke up with Astarion for Gale. But I go tell Gale that Halsin is interested in sharing, and Gale is SO OFFENDED. I don’t actually want Halsin but I’m not owned by Gale.

Torn because I am offended by how offended Gale was, but I wouldn’t pick Halsin over Gale, aside from this one element. The fearfulness and jealousy of forced monogamy is GROSS.

omg all the monogamy i hate it so much, i belong to NOBODY but MYSELF. if i choose monogamy it’s from joy.

irl i am ethically nonmonogamous (or polyamorous? idk the difference) but i haven’t dated in ages just because i’m so happy with my spouse and i don’t have any unfulfilled needs or desires, and we’re busy. so it’s like, chosen monogamy. i think that’s nice.

possessiveness and jealousy is theeeee biggest turn-off in the world to me, i just don’t wanna be with gale anymore but idk that i’ll hook up with halsin either. just, i’m not into halsin in this play through. i’d rather be single than be with someone jealous and possessive.

insecurity and jealousy should be approached with an open heart, curious mind, and full honesty. multiple relationships are never a competition but an expansion of one’s heart. i can (and have) love multiple people at once, the way i love both my kids, all my cats, and there’s no comparison

really the main limiting factor with romantic relationships is time. i don’t have time for more right now. but i do flirt, and so does my spouse, and then we come home and over-communicate about stuff and reorient ourselves all the time, even though we usually find ourselves unmoved.

in a video game i have played for 800 hours, time is not a concern. to say the least. lol

give me the fantasy of healthy relationships that support rather than confine, stupid game.

anyway gale isn’t a nice fantasy for me anymore so we broke up. Killdead the Slayer is single on the streets baby! watch out Baldur’s Gate!

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Posted on 2/15/24.

My gothic fantasy book was written and edited entirely on psychedelic doses of THC, and this is my first time reading it sober-sober.

Frankly surprised the book is readable at all, tbh. ahahahah

God I love this thing

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Posted on 2/16/24.

thinking about also pirating doc martin (i have an acorn subscription) just so i can watch ahead in the show without my 13yo realizing i’ve cheated on them

maybe if i download the episodes to my ipad, disconnect from the internet, watch the episodes, then delete the app before reconnecting to the internet

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My first actual novel was a fabulous 100k-word fantasy novel about five girls who each controlled the elements in a world without men (I was 12)

Before that I wrote the most amazing novel length Animorphs/Sailor Moon crossovers

I didn’t start writing terrible books until my 20s tyvm shit was GOLD

Notes—

I did include lesbian relationships. Gender apocalypse books sometimes don’t.

Babies were all divine foundlings or divine pregnancy, but gods were girls too.

I did not have a nuanced understanding of gender and it was actually sex based. And I didn’t know about intersex conditions.

My first major series published as an adult (after the teen werewolves) had a central intersex woman as the heroine and she remains my most popular ever character. I figured it out eventually lol

My first fantasy book had the heroine dying and going to a Hell-like place! A recurring motif.

The fantasy series led directly into my popular urban fantasy series, which I began drafting when I was 15, and reuses several elements from the fantasy book. When I tell you guys I have been at this for a long time, I really mean one thing specifically 💀

It was all really excellent tho

I am turning 36 this year and I wrote my first original novel about 1/4 of a century ago. It’s wild, man. I wrote that first book (and its fanfic predecessors) on an IBM compatible, in WordPerfect (iirc), saved to 3.5” floppy. Eventually upgraded to windows 3.1 with a GUI to make editing easier.

I did my 8th grade book report on my own novel. My mom used to let me skip school whenever I was finishing a book. It happened 1-2x a school year. I wrote longhand in classes and told off teachers trying to interrupt me.

I think 2023 is the only year since ~1998 I haven’t written at least one book*

* I finished one novel from a previous year and started a couple others tho

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Posted on 2/17/24.

I think 3/5 of my cats are autistic as fuck

I have two cats that are normal levels of cat weird (which is Very Weird) but then I have three with obvious sensory processing issues that make them EVEN WEIRDER in various ways

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omg self do not even type out comments like “crush me mommy” on hot author lady photos without hitting enter, someday i will hit enter on my intrusive thoughts and there will actually be consequences

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i’m gonna complain in the style of an Internet Old via greentext. (if you don’t know what greentext is, just read these as a weird blog post, it’s fine.)

> be me
> login to website host to register a new silly domain
> notice my payment info expired
> panik
> realize I have a Really Really Important domain that will expire in 2 weeks
> domain is registered somewhere else completely
> cannot login to Somewhere Else
> try recovery with every email I know
> fail
> panik
> submit request to recover account managing domain
> will take 3 days
> panik
> consider backordering my own domain so i can bid on it if this fails
> realize that this domain came from one place originally but does its management from yet another place
> start logging into every related site via Really Ancient Email i barely remember
> find that my payment info has expired on all the sites
> autorenew is disabled for domain
> cannot enable
> definitely going to lose my website in 2 weeks
> PANIK
> update payment info literally everywhere because i can’t tell where the renewal actually occurs
> still can’t enable autorenew
> finally access Somewhere Else
> update payment info there too
> still can’t enable autorenew
> can’t renew right now because that’s disabled too
> initiate transfer to normal website host
> still panik but less
> remember that i have now asked to have access restored to domain management that i am simultaneously trying to transfer
> worried but incapable of doing anything about it
> realize i would have never remembered to check on this or do anything about it in time if i hadn’t quit weed
> PANIKKKK
> remind myself that never would have happened because i’m psychic and my psychic powers clearly compelled me to start this journey tonight
> optimistic that everything will turn out ok as long as i didn’t clusterfxk it with multiple recovery attempts
> suddenly 10pm
> too wired to sleep, still kind of PANIK

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Posted on 2/18/24.

I kinda think everyone should learn to crochet *only* to make socks. Socks are really fun and easy to make. Plus, I can churn out socks while watching tv/movies, and then I just like…have lots of socks around. I use yarn so distinct that they’re easy to scoop out of the laundry. They fit perfectly because I crocheted them to my foot shape. They become incredibly soft in the washing machine.

also i had a great hair hour yesterday, between taking down my bun and brushing my hair. I’ve been trying to treat my hair like it’s curly to see if I’d get more of a wave pattern. Eldest Moonlight has the most amazing naturally curly hair, like big heavy ringlets, naturally as wide around as your fist, that lay across their back gorgeously. I suspect this happened bc of my family’s slightly-wavy genetics and my husband’s much-thicker hair follicles (mine is fine but dense). I mess with my hair so much (SO MANY CHEMICALS) that i don’t have a clue what my actual texture is like. But I’m sleeping with a silk bonnet, *usually* combing with a wide-tooth comb rather than brushing, squeeze-drying, and doing curly-specific conditioner, and it does seem to be helping waves form.

FWIW moonlight loves having their hair brushed and played with and that makes me feel SO LUCKY. They got all the good genetics but at least i get to play with their hair

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If you’re an American, it’s really fascinating to search for the indigenous names for local features. I was looking up indigenous names for the Truckee River. My region sits on unceded land home to Washoe and Northern Paiute.
Northern Paiute call the Truckee “Kuyuinahukwa”, wherein Kuyui- refers to a type of fish (the cui-ui) that you find in Pyramid Lake (called Kooyooe Pa’a Panunadu – note again the “kooyooe” as cui-ui). Washo calls Pyramid Lake “Á’waku dáʔaw” meaning Trout Lake.

Meanwhile the Washoe have different names for different parts of the Truckee River, which makes a lotta sense. The river goes through a lot of different biomes between Tahoe and Pyramid Lakes and has different characteristics in these areas. Át’abi wá’t’a would refer to the Truckee nearer Pyramid; Dawbayódok refers to the Truckee nearer Tahoe.

If you’re not familiar with my geographic region, Lake Tahoe is a cold alpine lake in the Sierras, while Pyramid Lake is in a much more arid region. You’d drive through there and say “oh this is a proper desert.” In between, we have a mix of wetlands and whatnot. The whole thing was prehistorically underwater in one giant lake mass we call Lahontan.

It’s fascinating to think how definitional the fish in the system are/were to indigenous folks. The nation who live around Pyramid Lake have a name translating to (sorta) the Fish Eating People. When I think of my area, fish are the last thing I think about, but the source of water and food for our predecessors would *obviously* be so important. It should probably still be important. But life is so muddy on a day to day basis, I have so little connection to the actual hyperlocal conditions that I live among. My brain is on the internet, I eat stuff out of wrappers from a grocery store, I walk around a golf course inhabiting wetlands.

Management of Pyramid remains in control of the Northern Paiute afaik, and I really wanna read more about local indigenous involvement in ecological matters. I believe that American land resources should all be under the management of the nations who used to manage them, but I don’t know what that looks like. How different would things look with non-colonial watershed management, food supply, etc? Why don’t I eat more pine nuts?

One of the reasons I’m thinking about local indigenous populations is reading more about my own Irish background, and learning about indigenous Irish people, and kinda trying to draw parallels between my own ancestry and the indigenous folks I have as neighbors. My bloodline isn’t remotely noble or recently indigenous (we’re very working class city people), but we were cut off from our indigenous language only two generations back (for example) and it’s fascinating piecing together a puzzle of what human life looks outside of empire.

(My apologies if I have shared any improper detail or inappropriately Westernized spellings; my intent is to be accurate & respectful but I am not fully aware of my own biases, as most people are not and cannot be, and it’s wholly possible I am being unknowingly offensive somewhere here.)

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still waiting for my 13yo to realize that having young parents means that their tastes are nearer my cringe tastes than not

gonna laugh my ass off when they realize mid-Millennial and Gen Z/Alpha cusp are not so different and start looking at real estate on zillow for fun

mock me now, beloved offspring, because if you mock too long into the abyss, the abyss will mock you back

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Posted on 2/19/24.

I’m slowly studying French. If y’all want a recommendation: I’m really enjoying an app called “Learn French” by Reword on iOS. It’s not expensive, like $10/year? I really like the flash card and review method.

This is mostly for expanding vocabulary, not learning language rules. I’m also watching dubbed Disney movies and bothering my family by gargling random French words in their direction. Like grabbing my kid’s ear and shouting “l’oreille!” and saying aujourd’hui every time I have any excuse.

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Posted on 2/20/24. Facebook.

The ONLY thing I don’t love about French is having l’accent aigu est l’accent grave. You don’t need two. Pick one.

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I’ve been having funny heart symptoms since I quit weed. Not sure how to describe the sensation. Just like, I can feel my heart sometimes, like it’s beating funny, or I’m anxious for no reason. It’s an incredibly common experience quitting weed, but I thought I ought to get myself into the doctor for an EKG regardless.

The *important* part of this story is that my EKG doesn’t show issues, although she heard a PVC while listening to my heart (beating “out of order”). We’re gonna look at my thyroid again because I do have a thyroid autoimmune disorder and if that’s all good then I’m going to see a cardiologist for a more thorough scan. But right now everything seems ok.

The *unimportant* but *hilarious* part of this is that I saw a new-to-me nurse practitioner. She’s so hot. Probably around my age, dirty blonde, slow to speak, very dry and sarcastic. Soooo hooootttt. I was VIBING ON HER. And I think she liked me too (probably not in a gay way) so we were bantering.

Well Hot Nurse is listening to my heart. She’s standing close enough that I can smell her perfume even through my mask and I’m getting all ~gazey~ at the pretty lady. She remarks, “Well, your heart rate just went up.” My husband SNORTS. He instantly knows I am in a GAY PANIC.

So I had to lay through this EKG for my heart rhythm when I am bantering with the HOTTEST SARCASTIC NURSE and I’m like, lady, you’re gonna have to be way less hot to get reliable results out of this. (I did not say this part out loud.) But she kept remarking on how my heart was perfect, just perfect, and I’m like, omg you’re perfect.
My husband was just cracking up, he loves witnessing me do a lesbionic flopsweat. I was grinning the whole way home lmao.

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I had a doctor appointment today. She walks in and asks if some program can listen in via her phone to make transcripts easier, analyze the appointment for the associated hospital, etc.

I asked, “Is that powered by AI?” Yes. Yes it was.

reader, how quickly i said no

i let them use me for medical student practice and stuff, i honestly have no shame. but i’m also a writer and artist and at this point, if i can say “NO” to having AI absorbing *any* part of my life for usage, i’m gonna say no.

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Keep thinking about an author who posted something that said (paraphrased): “everyone has books they read to make them feel better about their writing, don’t lie”

Because I seriously don’t and i don’t know why you would

I am very secure in my writing. But even if I weren’t, why would it make me feel better to get judgy and mean about someone else’s writing? What would I learn from that? Would it make me feel more confident REALLY, or would it make me think people hate-read me to feel better too?

Writing is so subjective. I am a really good writer and still, loads of people have no time for what I write because it’s not to their taste.

Very few people write to my taste. That doesn’t mean the rest of the world is *bad writers,* but just kinda up to something else. Yk?

I have increasingly little time for commercial genre fiction because I find it hollow, unambitious, and inauthentic. Hate-reading would only make me feel worse. I still would never say it’s Bad Writing because it’s like falling in love…there’s something for everyone.

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Professional jealousy is completely normal among authors; it’s weird and difficult to handle. I have never found that feeding into professional jealousy will give me anything. Good things always come out of acceptance and collaboration.

I think the professional jealousy thing springs from personal insecurity. A desire for external validation you aren’t getting. Writing is one of the most vulnerable arts (imo) because it’s very unfiltered and personal and solitary; you’re REALLY putting it all out there.

What’s strange about publishing success (probably all successes) is that none of it is going to make you feel better if you don’t figure out how to internally validate yourself. It will never be enough. You will always want something else. Even once you get your type of success, you can be bitter.

It’s a brutal industry; odds are never good. It can be frustrating to see others succeed and feel like you lost that opportunity. But you didn’t lose an opportunity. You weren’t gonna get that thing. There is nothing to be jealous over. Literally nothing. You must be secure in yourself + writing.

This isn’t about anyone in specific. I’ve just been around ages and the Professional Jealousy Bear rampages all over. I don’t know many people who haven’t struggled with it tbh. But some people really feed into it and that’s why you get some VERY strange author drama.

Looking for validation from an industry with extremely narrow odds of the loftiest success is a quick path to misery. It’s never gonna heal your hurts. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive for success. Just means you should also strive to feel good inside yourself despite it.

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Posted on 2/22/24.

If you’re feeling bleak about the news today, make something. Anything. Make something pretty or ugly and awkward or meaningful or silly or…whatever occurs to you. Build something new. Add something to our world.

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Currently reading My Year of Rest & Relaxation. Just finished Boy Parts.

It’s weird reading litfic in the subgenre of “horrible women being dreadful” because I relate *so* strongly. I’m like, oh, who went and wrote about my entire twenties for me?

I should write one of these books. It’s basically the horror for the mundanity of a white woman’s existence writ large.

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Posted on 2/23/24.

I wish I were an owlbear.

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Posted on 2/24/24.

I want to start a web ring for people who maintain websites that are interesting, independent, and mostly not paywalled. We’re losing an internet where we could have All The Information straight from passionate interesting people and discoverability engines are just about selling products.

This isn’t a project I’m embarking on just yet, but eventually I do actually sincerely want to make an old-fashioned web ring. It’s how we used to find our way around to random interesting and semi-related websites in the 90s. Literally you’d have a couple buttons on your site that led to others.

Thing is, I’m not even sure where to go looking for people who have fun independent websites these days. All the interesting people are still on social media or some platform or other. Substack and Patreon have paywalled most blogs of substance and benefit dodgy companies.

Nobody seems to have the time, money, or inclination to wing it anymore. Or at least, if they are winging it, the discoverability engines are making sure it never crosses into my space!

(oh, medium is another one, medium is also where a lot of the people are atm)

My lil blog Egregious is almost entirely movie reviews, though it does have flash fiction, short stories, personal diaries, etc too. Basically wherever my ~special interests~ have been leading me. I just wanna have a web ring with other people who have ~special interest~ websites. It’s my dream.

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I am so sober you guys~ ❤

Over four weeks without weed now. I’m still “peeing dirty” (which is to say, my tests are positive) so it’s STILL in my system aplenty. I think withdrawal is really going to just be a long slope of symptoms cresting and receding as my brain/body reorganizes itself. I’m certainly not at a baseline yet.

If anyone else has an addiction history, here are thoughts I find helpful:

1) Whatever problems (in the world or in your life) send you to ~Substances~, remember the ~Substance~ isn’t going to change it. Period. At best you get to turn your back on it for a few minutes (but does it reeeaaally console you? be honest). All you’ve done is spent money on another problem to babysit.

2) Withdrawal means you’re free. You don’t have to have the Thing around anymore, you’re not captive to the need to keep it around, you don’t have to pay for it. Use cravings as a chance to think “Ah ha, that’s the sign I’m getting out of this! I’m freeeee~”

Also: if you’re addicted to something (especially something with a high-demand pattern like nicotine), you’re already experiencing lots of withdrawals in between using. So you’re actually dealing with it already. Don’t drag it out. Face the withdrawal and it’ll end this time, *forever*.

These two thoughts are actually so helpful that I’m quitting caffeine at the same time I’m dealing with the weed stuff. When I left nicotine, I was so shaken, it took me over two whole years to work myself up to quitting weed. I think if I’d understood these (should-be-obvious) things, I might have quit weed sooner. I can handle weed + caffeine now. Kinda cool.

I also would have quit sooner if I’d known that weed would be easy! The dependency is NOT the same. Weed really is a friendlier friend than the other guys, but it was weighing me down. The relationship didn’t serve me anymore.

It’s nice that I have positive associations with weed but don’t wanna use anymore. It feels like I’ve broken up with a girlfriend who I’m still distant friends with. I think break-ups are almost never failures, but a natural stepping stone in life, and it’s healthy to say “thank you, I have so many fond memories, I love what I got from you, but it’s time to move on.”

Unlike with nic and booze where I’m like “omg f0ck you so much, you f0ckerito.” Still pretty shaken by my experiences with those. No love lost. Abusive boyfriends, the both of them.

Fond feelings about weed aside, I’m looking forward to having non-stoner cognition back…at some point. I still can’t keep track of a darn thing. Where are my headphones? I literally JUST HAD THEM. A month out and I’m still halfway tonked. omg. you guys.

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wake me up when timothee chalamamalala is walking around ass-out in the robot titty suit.