he swears he read it

Dave says he read The Game of Kings but the rest of the Lymond Chronicles was just too much of a commitment. If someone gave it to me now I probably couldn’t read it for the first time so I see his point.

Writing seems pointless and yet I keep doing it. I have to figure out what the heavenly character is doing… Crowley writes himself, the bugger. (more GOmens references) Also, Neil Gaiman is sick with COVID right now.

I am not happy about Hamas and the dead Israelis, but that doesn’t stop the Israeli state from being an apartheid pariah with the power of life and death over Palestinians. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. I’d sure like it if North American Jews (and end of the world Republicans) quit raising money for Israel but that’s not going to happen, and I’m a fool to even post it.

 

 

qahveh save me

Qahveh being the original word for coffee, which I only know because of Dunnett. All the threads lead back to her. Of course I can’t get Dave to read l’œuvre but at this point if he ever did I’d have to own up to all the shit of hers that I outright thieved for various aspects of my own work, and how embarrassing would that be. Besides, he doesn’t read ‘light’ fiction as a general rule, although it was kind of him to read Totally Boned. Speaking of which Suzanne is finishing up Totally Boned yes. and yes there are Dunnett squeaks all through TB.

Suzanne is not having a good birthday week. She found out about two weeks ago that her youngest son’s gf was pregnant, but since nobody told S that she was VERY pregnant, the birth announcement this week was a bit of a surprise. Learning that you have a new grandson who’s detoxing in the NICU when you have zero access must be a horrifying experience. mOm asked me to send her a hug and a kind word and I will.

On the plus side, this week somebody sent the most good looking man you can imagine – to offer himself sexually to her – WHILE SHE WAS SITTING RYKER so after she unswallowed her tongue and ungoggled her eyes she said, er, no, and he wandered off to find the woman he’d been prepaid to bang. (This is the kind of stuff that only happens in novels so I’m going to steal the anecdote for a fanfic because he showed up in house slippers and a revealing outfit and said he was ‘auditioning for the bedroom’. I can see it all now, hommina hommina)

ALRIGHTY THEN. and at no point did Suzanne say anything othering about the sex worker. Damn I love that woman. I should get the rugs she washed out of the dryer. The washers in her building are crap and SUPER expensive so she’s ALSO been doing laundry here.

She said Ryker loves coming to Grammy’s house; he gets second breakfast, he has a million versions of Lightning McQueen, CARS runs hot and cold in the background, and there’s a cat to chase. WHAT COULD BE BETTER. He’s learned to say MCQUEEN and he apparently never stops.

I do not have Alex until Tuesday, but I’ll see him for a Thanksgiving meal. Apparently Peggy’s old friend is going to deep fry a couple of turkeys at church and I’m simply overwhelmed at the prospects for catastrophe why I may even bring a camera.

Putin claiming that Prigozhin died ’cause Wagner soldiers were providing in-flight entertainment by tossing live grenades is like an entire Russian army of MOODS.

WROTE almost a thousand words yesterday on an aziracrow fanfic that no one but me will ever look at. Nobody asked for it and it’s fundamentally flawed but I wrote it anyway. The new Brad and Omar story has a shape and I will slowly pursue it.

Laid out my pills for a week just now.

Whatever shall I do with no childcare required of me until Tuesday morning??

Congrats to Leo and Linda on getting the last kid married off (Kevin, and of course I have embarrassing memories from his last visit to us LOL which I will NOT share) and this is all teasing because of course they didn’t do anything but help celebrate!!! it’s not like they hosed’em down and pitchforked ’em to the ceremony…. anyway it’s happy family news and the pics were lovely thank you.

Alex birthday tomorrow

He will be nine. I love telling my mOm that her oldest great grandchild is nine.

I will be getting him Huggy Wuggy Merch. He takes an adult small now, zow. I told him it wouldn’t be right on his birthday.

I am communicating with my first ever boyfriend on facebook. The communications consist of:

Snarky posts

Liking the snarky posts

Sad posts about rock stars we used to love dying

Liking the sad posts

Duelling videos – I post one, he posts a chaser.

Cat pics

Dog pics

Capybara pics

Liking each other’s travel photos.

ABSOLUTELY NO DIRECT COMS

I am very happy about this. We’re exactly as friendly as I want to be, and we’ve probably cheered each other up many times with all the goofiness. I posted a video of an Amish guy in a trap doing chewies in a dirt parking lot, horse style …… he liked it, but JeriLynn felt sorry for the horse…. obviously I’m a terrible human being!

Suzanne will be here today

Jeff’s helping her with her taxes and they’re being jerks to her so she may be here a bit early. THEN THE ENSHINENENING!!!!!

Alex is in a phase of his haircut/dye job where he looks incredibly well groomed and that’s GOOD because it was picture day yesterday at school. I wait for him half a block from the school to avoid the worst of the jammed up part and I can see him all the way down the block and it just makes me happy.

I’m going to have the last of my pad thai for brekky. SO TASTY.

I HAVE LEARNED YOU CAN HANDWRITE A CHINESE CHARACTER INTO GOOGLE TRANSLATE AND I’M THRILLED. This is how I could tell that the translation of something on a website was off!!!

 

funnies with Alex

Alex just showed me a series of some of his fave youtube videos and there were a couple where the two of us just folded up laughing. (About Chinese knockoffs of well known fandoms and toys… the names ARE PURE FIRE.)

Superlative meal from Rice and Noodles last night. Thank you Jeff

Did something heinous this morning, critiqued someone’s spelling on AO3. If you can’t stand the typos, spellcheck in English for the love of Crowley’s quiff.

BUT IT WAS IN THE FIRST LINE OF THE STORY… I’m actually doing them a favour.

or not. Maybe I’ll get roasted. At least I had the fucking sense not to do it under my own name.

Keana Reeves is dating a wonderful age appropriate woman and I just want them to be happy and never inconvenienced by paparazzi.

Anya Taylor-Joy wore a blush princess gown embroidered with a hummingbird, and her husband took her last name. YES. In a Dunnett squeak, *she could play Gelis van Borselen* (or Katelijne Sersanders god help us) and *this is bride Anya standing on a 15th C Balcony in Venice.* Of course there’s only one person reading this blog who cares about any of this and it ain’t my mOm.

but just in case mOm is annoyed with me for the celebri-fluff, here’s a knitted pillbug from a deeper blue on tumblr:

 

them Ukrainians, lord lord

The link

 

David Axe Forbes staff, wrote

While any tank can be temperamental, the list of malfunctions Kochevnik was dealing with might speak to inconsistent workmanship at Uralvagonzavod’s factories.

A Russian who gave his name as Aleksander Anatolevich, who clearly was unaware that Kochevnik is a Ukrainian soldier, promised he’d bring up the problems with the design bureau in Nizhny Tagil—and that he’d also contact the engine-manufacturer in Chelyabinsk.

Kochevnik wasn’t done trolling. He also got ahold of Andrey Abakumov, a Uralvagonzavod director. Abakumov asked Kochevnik to describe the tank’s problems in detail on WhatsApp.

That’s when Kochevnik finally revealed he’s Ukrainian, and his army had captured the problematic T-72 around Izium late last year.

Laughing, Kochevnik ended the call.

weekend means something now

Took Alex to his sleepover with Rynn last night. Keith was here briefly, getting all nostalgic, watching Alex play Burnout.

I am just quietly happy at the moment. I briefly spoke to Mike, off to a family dinner for the moon festival, and mOm, and Paul who absolved me of any duties. I wrote some more and sent it to mOm. I ate my leftover pho, and it was so good I almost cried. I had raspberries and cream, ditto.

I hope everyone has a simply splendid day, productive and soulfully nourishing and peaceful and full of love.

DEMAND AVOIDANCE

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ace-and-ranty (TUMBLR ACCOUNT)

Well, goodness, this one resonated much more than I was expecting. I mean, I get it. My mind was also blown wide open when I found out “demand avoidance” was a thing that existed, and that I’m not the only weirdo in the world who suddenly wishes it wasn’t her birthday after anxiously waiting for her birthday for days.

Loads of people in the tags are asking how I do it? I feel this won’t be groundbreaking advice, but here is what I have learned:

  1. Previous experience. Really no way around it. Now that I hit thirty, I feel like I have done enough things to know, intellectually, from experience, what will feel nice if I overcome the avoidance, and what won’t. For example, every time I go to the beach, I wake up early and would rather eat a tire than get off the bed. But I remember that every time I got up and went to the beach, I was glad I did it. So I just get up, feeling like shit, and get ready, feeling like shit, and I get to the beach and magic!! I feel great, I love the beach!! Sometimes you just gotta do it scared feeling kinda like shit.
  2. Am I avoiding the thing or getting to the thing? I have a lot of demand avoidance around just, y’know, getting up, getting ready and going out the door. Universal human experience. If I notice that doing the actual thing (Swim in the pool!) sounds nice, but I’m avoiding having to rally myself to go do that (Fetch swimsuit! Sunscreen! Towel!), then I know it’s demand avoidance and I should just fucking go.
  3. Is the thing making me feel excited at all or just anxious? I have had previous occasions when I did the opposite; I convinced myself it was just demand avoidance when I really just. Hated the thing. And wanted to stop. If you feel a mix of excitement and dread, or excitement and anxiety, that might be demand avoidance. But if thinking of doing the thing just makes you feel actively anxious, then yeah. You don’t want to do the thing.
  4. Do the thing a little bit. Used often with dishes. I’ve seen this advice float around Tumblr a lot and it’s correct. Commit to doing just a bit of the thing; a little bit of the thing; the smallest bit of the thing you can do. Getting started will make it clear right away if you don’t want to do it (and in that case, you have permission to stop), or if you just having trouble getting started.

Writing again!

jfc anything rather than edit. I mean it’s only 189 205 words so far but that’s still ‘pushing the peanut.’

The Lad is off to school and I’ll be calling Paul AGAIN today. Yesterday wasn’t good enough for him. I fed him pho. I helped him get his medications. I helped him get a toilet riser. I took him to get a charging cable and box for his Motorola phone. I did not yell at him for taking an hour to eat. I stayed with him as he walked, slower each day. And he took all the stuff I helped him buy out of the car and before he slammed the door bitched me out for not helping him get a box of wine when I specifically said I had to go get Alex next. He is not supposed to be drinking so much as a drop of alcohol. (Same same for me although I will occasionally…)

SOOOO now I’m waiting for brekkie at the old folks to be over so I can call him and arrange to do yet more things for him today which I am heavily disinclined to do. And I still have to get the new windshield wipers on the car. I tried to install one and nope, even a diagram was of no assistance.

LATER…. Paul called back, he has other plans for today (goddess keep and bless Rob W), he apologized for anything rude he said, acknowledged that I’m very helpful, and said he’d call me on the weekend if he needed me. ALL THAT IRE 4 NUTHIN. Story of mah fucking life. hi mOm lol

Diane Feinstein’s dead. The woman was a fucking menace to American democracy, no sadness here.

I am disgusted by the arrival of a neo Nazi in Parliament, to be given plaudits by people who don’t understand history and don’t care to. Fuck every parliamentarian but two and I’m not very keen on them anyway.

Bluesky continues to be a very pleasant refuge. Twitter I view but I’m not making content for them any more. I now have FOUR WHOLE UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS signed up for my weekly digest, coming November 2023.

Alex and other things

Alex is helping me feel better every day. Cuddles, jokes, a few words about school. Sometimes we record stuff.

Part of the happiness is watching him and Jeff interact.

Yummy Alfredo from White Spot last night, Jeff had the chicken strips and then helped me finish the Alfredo because for some reason his order didn’t come with fries.

Hoping to get some writing in today, who knows.

Off twitter

I just deleted one of the most bilious tweets I’ve ever tried to post and so, realizing that the end has come, I bid you adieu, twitter. I pay for my own platform so it will feel sad to have an audience of ten instead of 500, but I sing just as hard for a big crowd as a small.

I will delete the account later today. The above is my last tweet. CAN’T DEACTIVATE, DON’T HAVE PASSWORD. So I have to just not look, lol.

I actually ate something healthy just now and I’m feeling awesome.

Jeff emptied the dishwasher.

Got hold of Paul, will hopefully get hold of him again to confirm that he talked to Janice’s roommate. Got hold of him again, told him to call Keith since he can’t raise the roommate.

Alex is blowing up cars with BURNOUT:REVENGE a game from 2005