Reading

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Quote of the Day

Free food doesn't turn me feral.

Such a great description of how some former cow-irkers respond to free food at the office.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/10/lets-discuss-chaos-at-work-restaurant-meals.html#comment-5247387

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history,
quotes

Quote of the Day

And of all the eras where I would not be allowed to vote or own property, the Regency is my favorite.
D. M. Beucler

Derecho 10/08/2020 (repost cause it came across my fb feed)

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Friday - It’s the little things

I ordered a sweatshirt from The Gap. That says “NAP” on it. It's green. It’s so me right now. I’m in my Couch Goblin era.

I don’t usually eat donuts anymore. But I’ve been really enjoying the seasonal apple cider donuts from Wegmans. Unlike Dunkin Donuts, they don’t feel greasy to me. So I’m indulging for the month of October. Then I'll go back to not eating donuts for the next 11 months.

I ordered a "Good Trouble" t-shirt from Etsy. It should be arriving today or tomorrow, in plenty of time for next week’s No Kings protest.

And I think I’m going to have to order this t-shirt to go with my new skeleton sweater.(holy crap, the price has gone up since I bought it only a couple of weeks ago!) Which I adore. I’ve been wearing it every time I leave the house since it’s arrived. I think I’m also entering my Goth era. Can you be a Goblin and a Goth at the same time? 🤔

We’ve had some gorgeous weather this week, and the trees are starting to change colors. I’m planning to do some running around this weekend. A chance to enjoy the sun, my new car, and the fall colors.

Current Mood: confused

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I Wish The Metrics For Value Were Completely Different

My book has only been out for a day and I've already had an epiphany: that it's not just being employed that makes me depressed, it's also thinking about the prospect of earning money, or I should say, the prospect of doing something to earn money on purpose. If I earn money by accident, I'll be happy.

But how do I Survive if trying to earn money (rather than money coming as a consequence albeit not the main intended consequence) makes me depressed?? Like??? I asked Vara on our walk today after trying not to relapse ALL DAY and Vara said, "Maybe you're finding that what you thought to be truth might have been an assumption." Like!!!

THE LAST TIME I WROTE A BOOK, I DID NOT HAVE A WHOLE EXISTENTIAL CRISIS, SO WHY NOW. As soon as I think about whether this book will profit, or earn out, or earn at all, I'm very blue, as blue as the bottom of the ocean where the sun doesn't reach. I thought it's because of a lack of hope at first, but really it's about everything above. Whenever I'm doing something, whatever it is, I don't want to have to think about money. I don't want to feel anxiety about spending. I don't want to feel anxiety about earning. Spending five years in the formal workforce didn't help my anxiety about either. Having been laid off from the workforce and existing as I am now isn't helping my anxiety about either.

Also early readers have been telling me that the book reads like fanfiction and I'm heartily saying, "Then I have accomplished what I have set out to," that is, prioritise pleasure; but when getting these reactions I remembered this tumblr post about fanfiction. Especially this bit:

fandom exists in a completely different environment—an unacademic one—a rare non-monetary one—so the metrics for value are completely different. And if you stuff fanworks into containers of capitalistic consumption, you're gonna be very frustrated. "But was that journal entry good?" "But was that meal among friends good?" "Was that time we spent in the idea that I shared good?"

I am aware that I should be compensated for the labour of writing this book, and that I need money to live, but
I Also Wish The Metrics For Value Were Completely Different.

I put on pants yesterday (twice!)

I put on pants and left the house yesterday. Twice!

I've been in a huge rut lately and really had trouble motivating myself to do anything that resembles adulting. Even being out of tasty foods, it's been hard to motivate myself to head to the grocery store outside of my weekly run on Friday mornings.

Yesterday I ran out at noon to the Post Office to mail bills (adulting!) and then treated myself to a burrito at Chipotle for lunch (tasty foods!). This also included a trip to the dumpster on my way to the car (more adulting!).

And then after work I drove up to Trader Joe's because I wanted some more of their Dill Pickle flavored potato chips (my current obsession). Then I hit Hannaford for a few groceries that I can't get at Wegmans. On my way home I learned that when the New Car gets low on gas, it doesn't just turn on the little light, it also makes noise at you. So I hung a U-turn and went to fill 'er up. Because I never remember that I need gas in the mornings, so it always makes me late for wherever I'm going.

Oh, and the moon last night was BEAUTIFUL. Can't remember the last time I was out of the house late enough to see the moon.

Current Mood: tired

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Bloodhunt Academy's release

Bloodhunt Academy is officially out, in all its glory. Right now it's available on the Zon and KU but gradually, as spoons allow, I'll be looking at how to make it available to digital libraries (perhaps via Hoopla? And Overdrive to get the book into Libby?) Research is pending.

If you know someone who'd like to read a polyamorous romance about bisexual vampires who fall in love with humans, trust-building, and rebels in dystopia, word of mouth helps. And that's enough promo for today. (I have sent the launch newsletter, updated website and posted to Instagram. I should post to Bluesky but don't feel like. I'll do it tomorrow.)

Current Mood: indescribable

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This strangeness (is this a crash out lol)

I have been feeling strangely isolated as of late, despite actually socialising. Usually this feeling would go away if I went to my Reading page, but it hasn't.

I've gone on a walk with Vara. That was last week, but it was nice, and usually I can go longer without getting lonely. Especially as I have done other social things since!

After X-pole started selling poles in India, someone I know from the pole studio I had to quit bought her own pole and started classes. I've been going to her to train, and that's a roughly weekly thing where I talk to her as well. She has just the one pole so she doesn't do group classes yet (group classes were one avenue where I'd meet new people, possible future friends). However, my instructor organised a get-together of pole girls, including her students, and I met a new friend, Nikki. We went and got cheesecake together and talked for two hours! It was lovely.

I also had a real-time discord typechat with a DW friend recently. So the data says I am connected, but I feel disconnected and I don't know why.

It feels different from the loneliness I used to struggle with before, because back then it felt like, life-threatening. Like an animal fear. But now it just feels like vaguely melancholic discomfort. I decided to write about it here because I've also had weeks of isolation without feeling any discomfot at all, especially when I was editing Bloodhunt Academy and doing little else. There are periods of writing that feel like Hermit mode and also feel comfortable. My theory is that I might feel differently once I'm deep into writing Book Two.

Sometimes it feels like the only way I'll know I'm not stuck in a timefreeze is by measuring the progress in my writing. I don't know if it's my brain, my circumstances, or the state of Everything, but thinking about a future is making me anxious instead of hopeful right now. I think it's definitely partly because tomorrow I'm launching the book and will have to reckon with how it does on the market, but it's also Everything in General. Like, TikTok kind of intimidates me, but is supposed to pair well with KU. I did a tarot reading asking about whether I should venture onto Booktok and drew Justice. At first I didn't know what to make of it, then cursory YouTube research enlightened me. About the new ownership it's going to pass into and associated legal agreements and political implications and... yeah. Now I know exactly why the Justice card showed up.

I don't even know how to explain what this anxiety is. It's not even my country and yet it's affecting Everybody. There's a certain amount of dread that I can't seem to disconnect from, unless I don't think about anything in practical terms at all, unless I stick to escapism, not even once in a while but All the Time. I've been meaning to post about k-dramas and CIX, and I haven't been able to, and I think it's because these feelings were in the bottleneck.

Well, tomorrow I'll do a launch post for Bloodhunt Academy and then I'll do the posts for all the fun escapisms I've been escaping into, now that this post has cleared the way, or something.

There's so many 'I think' and 'it feels like' in this post because nothing feels... certain or like it makes sense? I'm not sure. I don't know. How did my understanding of myself and my inner life fall apart like this when I'm literally spending more time with myself and my own thoughts than I have in years? I'm struggling to articulate anything going on within me. I'm also struggling to think about anything going on outside of me, except for random spurts of rage, which also aren't very logical or articulate. For example, someone has an opinion that is so harmful to people, that I don't even think about how to counter it or fight it with words, I just want to rip their tongue out and shove it down their throat until they choke and take their dangerous self out of this world. I don't want to have a moral high ground, I'm just angry and fantasising about violence feels like justice.

EDIT: That was not the note I wanted to end on, so. One thing about being in what feels like a timefreeze is that I'm trying to notice the things that seem unchanging? Mostly that's the critters I see on my walk in the apartment complex. The squirrels and cats and birds.

Gloomy day

It's a cold and gloomy day here at Frogholm. Currently 68 F (20C) and raining. Temps are supposed to fall all day even though the rain is supposed to stop after lunch.

I really wish I had enough PTO left to play hookie so I could curl up and nap.

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Writer Beware

AI has come for the book clubs!

https://writerbeware.blog/2025/09/19/return-of-the-nigerian-prince-redux-beware-book-club-and-book-review-scams/

https://www.patreon.com/posts/genre-grapevine-139940838

And publishers (even when contractually obligated to do so) don’t always register copyright for published works.

https://writerbeware.blog/2025/08/29/if-your-publisher-promised-to-register-your-copyright-check-your-registration-now/

As cloth is gently tendered about your hips - reverie

Water in a plastic cup - sensible and obedient knowing such acquiescence in rigid form...or in the color of earth - yielding and forgiving - remembering its supplication in the potter's hand

What is beautiful, without regard is continuous and outward always as the rambled interstate which travels through your heart

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marla

the murder slays

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In the periphery

One may never want to feel lost such that intimacy becomes less important than the trappings of an every day life together. Whether complicated or simplistic: matters of career, housework, social media, politics, television, alcohol or other mind-altering substances can take us, in a blinding way, to places we might never have expected to be.

Watch on YouTube

cartopology, jetbridge

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WTF Wednesday

This article about a tourist resort in North Korea is just so very weird. Reading through it you can’t do anything but wonder, WTF? Why is a closed country building a tourist site? And saying they want it to restore their economy. But then restricting how many people are allowed to visit? A couple thousand tourists can’t bring that much money into the country.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c707d1ez0kno

Anastasia traveled there last month with 14 other people. The visit was tightly controlled, with guides and guards accompanying them and a fixed itinerary that could not be diverged from without permission from North Korean authorities.

She says the guides told her the guards were needed to "prevent situations where we interacted with locals and startled them".

"When we walked down the street, they [North Koreans] looked at us with great surprise because the country has been closed for a very long time," says Anastasia.

Anastasia says her group was also told not to photograph construction sites and was expected not to wear revealing clothes.

Yet despite the restrictions, she says she "enjoyed a vacation without people" on almost-empty beaches with white sand.

"Every day the [beach] was cleaned and leveled perfectly. Everything was immaculate," she says.

"The loungers were absolutely new, everything spotless. The entrance to the sea was very gentle, so yes, it really was a very good beach."

Since the Covid pandemic, international tourism into North Korea had been on pause to prevent the spread of the virus.

But last year, the republic began allowing Russian tourists to visit again.

In February, it also started receiving tourists from the West, including Australia, France, Germany and the UK, though it abruptly halted this weeks later, without saying why.

Wonsan Kalma has been touted as a key part of Kim's ambitions to boost tourism in the country.

He says Pyongyang deliberately limits the number of tourists and closely controls their movements, in part so North Koreans won't compare themselves unfavorably to richer foreigners.

"Ordinary people might begin to wonder, 'How is it that even without our great leader, or his son or daughter, they seem to live so well?'", Lankov says.

In 2024, about 1,500 Russians traveled to North Korea for tourism, according to Russia's Federal Security Service border guards.

Wonsan Kalma is seen as key to reviving North Korea's ailing economic fortunes, but it's not been without controversy.

Current Location: top shelf, back right
Current Music: Karma Police duh

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sticky

Imagine me waving at you with both hands and a very very big toothy smile

Twenty something with a brain that wont leave me alone! I write to dilute the electric buzzing in my brain. I am a woman who is like a man who is like a refrigerator. strangers are the only people welcome to this part of my life, so I hope it serves you even a little bit, because it is surely serving me to shout into a slightly populated void.

I am not borrowing trouble that does not belong to me, but unfortunately there's already plenty of trouble I am forced to call my own. that is why I am here. To talk to myself, and maybe the ears passing through.

So, here I am here I am! and im so glad you are, so glad you are.

Current Location: 2112 feet from you! a palindrome
Current Music: Glass, Concrete, and Stone!

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Dont Squeak!

I wish I had more time to explain, I wish I had someone to explain to. I feel so removed from my safest place, where my sister and my best friend would have never let this happen. I feel so different from every single person I meet. Is it possible that the angel and the devil on my shoulders are swapping shifts? There's not a whole lot of balancing as much as there is pendulum swinging. I feel it swinging like a body from a noose. Am I still evil if I love my friends this much? Am I still wretched if I cry when I see the dead birds on the sidewalk? Am I still good when I hurt you on purpose? When I go for the jugular at the first sign of any conflict? Am I still kind? When I throw my knives with my eyes closed?

The multitudes inside of me are pin-balling off of my bones. The movement heats me up, the pressure makes me scream in your face. The heat makes me spit my venom. I see myself in your eyes, I am seven and I am holding both the blades and the sutures. I am holding the water, I am holding the matches. I am holding the moon for you in admiration, until I am hurling it at you in anger. A woman so opinionated and steadfast, but whiplashing herself into oblivion in all regards, is a pathetic, spineless woman. Maybe the weight of duality took my spine.

The weight of my multitudes vaporized my spine!

Current Location: 46 minutes from her hometown.
Current Music: O Superman!!!!!!!!

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i hate your ex girlfriend

The Relics

Oh, you don't know me, but I know you.

We are sharing sheets! You are warming my side of his bed, you are warming both sides of his brain. I wonder if we used the same towel, I wonder if you miss the hair elastic I stole from the medicine cabinet. We are two three letter names! But I am not Y-O-U, and you of course are H-E-R, T-H-E O-N-E, or so it seems. Worst of all, you are free from the burden of knowing me. You are free from the burden of knowing him, after we get high together and he tells me about how he could have married you. Maybe thats why your name is ringing in my head like this. We even rhyme! And you don't even know who I am.

You were so big to him that there was no option but for you to overflow into me. I feel like I should love you too at this point. We're sharing toothpaste, we're sharing your makeup wipes, we're sharing your lover. I wish you weren't so smart. I wish you didn't seem so undeserving of what he does to you. I think about what I would say to you, if I saw you on the streets that we are also sharing, but who am I to pull the veil fro your ignorance? Who am I to proclaim myself as your inferior? The thought of you is petrifying my brain, like ants in amber, but I won't bring you to this place. I can't reach the pedestal you are on, anyways.

How does a woman who doesn't know I exist make me feel so small?

Current Mood: confused
Current Location: 10 minute walk to your place
Current Music: Got You (Where I Want You)

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Au Revoir!

I don't care if you leave, but I left one of my elastic hair ties on your nightstand. I'll come get it now, it's necessary. Sentimental. Maybe before you walk away I can dance on your toes, and we have those constellations to rename. Stars to redraw. Supernovas to facilitate in my bedroom. There's that dog we have to pet, I haven't met him yet but I know he will have those eyes you say are too human, and we have to laugh about it of course. Nothing serious. Nothing crazy, no commitments to each other but we have a date. We have a concert. I have a beer that will only kneel to the bottle opener on your keys.

Leave! I told you that was fine, I'm a woman of my word. I just wonder if you want the half drank gatorade in my fridge? I can bring it over. It's taking up too much space. You took up my space! I'm glad to have it back, it's just swallowing me a little. Leave then! I just have one of your socks, I found it when I was laying on the floor, thinking of how many planets it would take to fill a solar system. Thinking about how, after a few drinks, the cold linoleum *almost* feels like your hands.

But I have two hands! I use them to find quarters and pennies, I think I owe you four dollars? We should settle that before you go. It's not my emotions, it's just my integrity. While I'm there maybe I could make you laugh, and that would be for my own selfish reasons. I just need it to spark some creativity in me, to give me an idea. I want to mold the sharp highs of the notes of your laughter into shears! I want to use them to cut your rope, to slice my own tendons and bestow double-jointedness upon me, so i can untie this fucking collar you keep trying to put on me. Being loved like a pet is no trade for the humiliation of being owned. I kill birds and neighborhood cats! I bite I bite. I will never be yours, my tail wags at the thought of doing it all myself.

But maybe we could take a walk before you go?

wormholes [an intermission]

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