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
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.
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!
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.)
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Posted on 2/23/24.
I wish I were an owlbear.
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.
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.
wake me up when timothee chalamamalala is walking around ass-out in the robot titty suit.
