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It’s the holiday season again. Celebratory times down in the village. The lights are up, the tinsel’s out, Old Tup and his fellows are a’roaming for beer money. Locals keep thanking me for ensuring the sun will come back over the next few years. Not really sure what they mean, but as I’ve been invited to be guest of honour at the seven yearly village feast I’ll put up with the local turns of phrase. Last feast was just before I moved here, actually. Oddly enough, the guy who rented Blot Cottage before me was guest of honour then. Poor guy tripped and fell on a “flint knapped biface”,whatever that is, up Ritual Rock on the moor where they have the feast, I heard, so it became available at a great price. I hope you all have a nice time as well! Seasons greetings to all of you!

What I said: “7 oz can of chipotles in adobo.” What the phone heard: “7 oz can of Chipotles in a dildo.” Even my grocery list is not safe.

I’m juggling a lot of stuff in my life right now, from watching shows people want me to watch (Frieren most recently) to trying to overcome fears about my appearance to sign up for a dating site, but I hope there are still some people around here. I feel bad that I don’t post things as often as I did when I showed up here...six and half years ago now. I may not be one of the OGs, but I’ve been here a while, haven’t I? 😄 The good news is that I actually have a new story in the works! I’ve finished the first chapter, and will keep working on it. I don’t really want to start posting it until I’m done, but it’s a sci-fi/adventure fanfic and I had a lot of fun with that first chapter. In broader terms, I hope people here are doing as well as they can. I know I don’t show up as often as I’d like, but I think about you guys a lot! 🙂

The saddest little face in the world…

Pro tip: When it comes to burying bodies, remember to call 811 before you dig!

For all of us who celebrate, may the light return after this longest night. Solstice Blessings! 🌅

A nice quiet birthday was today

The great thing about writing Star Trek fanfic is that there’s almost nothing canon about Vulcan and Orion genitalia, so you can pretty much make their bits work however you want.

Never trust any book with a tagline or summary of this would make Lovecraft scared. Lovecraft is not a viable reference of fear. Man was afraid of Penguins, Air Conditioners and the Welsh.

Kids these days will never experience many of the rites of passage my generation valued more than gold. For instance: saving up your allowance for three weeks during the summer so you can buy one of those giant plastic Pixie Stix at the public pool’s canteen and downing the whole thing in one go to use it as a snorkel and spending the rest of the month with a burning feeling in the back of your throat that tastes like cherries, chlorine, and stale pee. …those lucky saps.

This day 6 years ago, I landed in New York, my first time in the US. Hard to believe it was that long ago. That trip was when I saw snow for the first time. That was very exciting. Although I soon realised what a pain in the arse it is.

It Kinda feels weird when you’re finishing up a series. But Writing the ending to Duncan and Co feels cathartic. <3

Got my Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy on 12/2/25, before the surgery I was 75lbs down but now in total I am about 85lbs down since the surgery

I’m currently looking for active forum members interested in beta testing the New Archives system that is currently under development. Message me if interested.

Winter Holiday 2025 is UP!

I’m probably way too busy and appalled at recent world events to be this bored. Or at least, I ought to be. Someone accused me of not being able to write properly. Someone in an official capacity. I should be too rageful to be this bored. Meh.

The people who leave negative reviews on e-books reporting sex scenes are my heroes. It’s easy enough to filter in smut when you’re reading fanfiction, but the e-book writers get coy about it in their descriptions. If not for sex-averse reviewers, we’d risk reading a “spicy book” that never passes first base, get clam-shelled over the lack of smut, and have to go start a fight with our husbands or something. ...not that I’m speaking from experience, or anything. But yeah. Someone left a squicked one-star review on a book I was considering. Granted, the review was just the word “sex” written three times – like they’re starring in a demonic possession porno or something - and shoop, there the book went. Right into my cart. I hope it’s filthy. People like that are heroes.

I know it is a first world problem, my life is not in danger and no one is trying to kidnap me off the street, but dealing with FAFSA under this regime is beyond frustrating! Are we great yet?

Earlier tonight, I fed one of my non-fanfiction short stories through Pro Writing Aid’s “chapter critique” to see how it measures up against my fanfiction. I never thought I’d see the day when AI would smut-shame me. Yep. Seriously. “…some might find the level of detail in the sex scenes excessive.” What if I don’t wanna associate with that sort of person, huh? Fade to black is for wishy-washy people and FFN, not my filthy shapeshifter plowfest. Stay in your lane or bend over.

Happy Birthday!

Would really like a portkey out of here. Or a timeturner?

Happy New Year to everyone on the Gregorian calendar! Just happy to be here to everyone else!

Happy New Year from NYC, and good riddance to 2025… 🎉🍾 (As a friend said last night, he’s giving 2025 zero stars on Yelp—does not recommend)

Happy Birthday!

I’ve said countless times before, on various platforms, that I’ve given Spotify an identity crisis with how varied my listening habits are. My 2025 Wrapped dropped the other day, and hoo-boy. It’s a mess. My most listened to songs were Labour (Cacophony) and Rasputin; I play them on repeat as background noise while editing so the whine of all the electronics, the sound of the furnace, and even my own breathing won’t drive my misophonic ass bonkers. (I’ve tried countless other sounds, playlists, and various colors of noise, but it all either irritates my ears – my hearing is mildly fucked – or it has “water” sounds that make me need to pee every five minutes. The best substitute I’ve found is, oddly enough, a celtic band that combines bagpipes with hide drums, but I have to tweak the hell out of my sound settings to make it not painful.) My most listened to artist, on the other hand, was Steeleye Span; I listen to a custom folk playlist when I’m trying to write or edit for a certain story that isn’t going anywhere, and it’s disproportionately full of Steeleye Span. My most listened to playlist, however, is 11+ hours of nonstop oldies; it’s “safe” for when I’m outside, with family, or both. Because it’s gotten so much play, the app pegged me as over 70 years old. My second-most listened to list is full of punk, emo, and nu-metal, so I guess it assumed I’m letting my nonexistent grandbaby mooch off my account. I’m a millennial. They just stopped carding me. Ouch. I feel like I should apologize for gaslighting the app, but...yeah. Nah. I’ve got work to do and my brain is working against me enough. (You sure make me do a whole lotta labour.)

Happy Turkey Day! <3

For those that celebrate it today, HAPPY THANKSGIVING! p.s. Also, remember to set your bathroom scales back 10 to 20 pounds.

A very happy birthday to @DemonGoddess! Hoping the day, and the coming year, are happy, healthy, and safe!

I think someone might have cracked out a phial of starlight, or perhaps a million of you all did. Start spreading the news… 🎵and so on and so forth... [message ends]

When one considers the size of the target and the size of the projectile, one would think a cat’s foot would miss tender spots more often than it would hit. So why do they always—always—manage to stomp right on nipples and testicles? How does that make sense?

This just in: some school districts in the US are banning books about cats. Apparently, somebody needs to have a chat with the administration and tell them those books “aren’t about that kind of pussy.”

I’ll be heading off tomorrow for my holiday. I’ll be landing back in Australia on 15th September local. Try to keep the place tidy while I’m gone.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite (age-appropriate and modern) books described a place as “a screen door town.” The explanation was that every time something happened, no matter how trivial or innocuous, every screen door up and down the street would open and slam shut twice in a ripple effect—once when the occupants came out to snoop, and again when, having discovered it was unimportant, they went back inside. Last year, Cold and I moved into “a lawnmower neighborhood”—meaning every day, there’s at least one person outside mowing somewhere on the block, and most days, their neighbors join in whether or not they need to mow, and the ripple travels further and further until everyone in earshot is mowing. Cold and I sleep during the day and we can only deal with the lawn very early or on his days off, so the constant mowing is a sore point. Well, earlier today, I heard the mowing start up again while I was trying to drudge through beta-reading a chapter from someone who might not have proofread first. As close as the mower sounded, I figured it must be that one neighbor who has an overpowered mower and an undersized lawn. I suffered through reading the same sentence half a dozen times, then stormed into the kitchen to get some tea and wait it out. When I heard Cold come through the door, I started ranting about “whatever asshole is mowing this time can kiss my ass” and a few things otherwise. Then I saw him and I froze. My husband was sweaty and covered in grass clippings. “Hello,” he said. “My name is Asshole. I mowed your lawn. Prepare to give me butt.”

Awhile back, someone on a random Reddit post suggested I might be neurodivergent. I’d only heard the term used for people with autism – yes, I live under a rock – so my initial response was disgruntlement. My husband, after all, is autistic, and I had a mental image of the time he met my prudish religious neighbor for the first time and made a joke about his dick; if we were both that awkward outwardly instead of just on the inside, we’d be a right mess. There was also a sidenote of, “shit, I’m even more fucked up than Cold, how dare this person compare him to me? He doesn’t deserve that insult!” indignance. Come to find out “neurodivergent” applies to several diagnoses and disabilities; it applies to most (any?) condition resulting from deviations in how the brain is wired...including mine. Apparently, I am neurodivergent. So is Cold. So many things make sense now. That Redditor was right and I had no idea. That said...I’ve been editing a chapter of my novel with Boney M.’s “Rasputin” playing on repeat for...uh...an hour? ...or three? Because it’s stuck in my head? Okay, so maybe there were signs. Maybe.

Cicadas when I’m trying to write late at night: “I respect you and want you to succeed, so let me sit on your window and scream about it.” I just opened my office window and told the damned bugs on the screen to go get laid somewhere else because I couldn’t think straight from their noise. Our neighbors probably think I’m nuts. Meh. They drive ugly cars; people who drive ugly cars don’t get an opinion on my sanity or lack thereof.

The other day, I noticed a draft coming through gaps in a few of our windows (it’s an older house, but not old enough to have been built well) which led me to this long list of actions: Find appropriate sealant. Fix one window (it looks like a toddler finger painted with dad’s tools but whatever) and move onto the next. Prep window frame. Realize the windowsill was probably last cleaned in the 90s and is full of grease, lint, dust, and animal hair. (Hurk) Decide you don’t want to seal that junk into permanence with something that dries clear. Grab cleaner and scrub the gap clean with a bristle brush (cleaner sprays brown crap everywhere, barf) and knock loose some paint that may have been white back in the 80s. Realize the cleaner will need to be rinsed out and the paint touched up before sealing the gap. Give up. Sit on the couch and question your life choices while staring at the tube of sealant and convince yourself that cussing at inanimate objects is immature and you’re better than that. (I’m really not.) Realize that the entire time, you were standing in the window with the blinds open and the lights on at night wearing a man’s shirt and no bra with People-of-Walmart hair, and your next door neighbor is out on their porch watering their plants…at night. Homeownership would definitely keep my millennial ego in check if it ever got big enough to worry about.

A very big birthday shout-out to WillowDarkling! Happy Birthday, Neko-baby!

May the fourth be with you all!

2k words today

🍀 Happy St. Patrick’s Day! (We need the luck this year.) 🍀

There are many unmentioned benefits to marrying your best friend…benefits such as them bringing you a cat to cuddle because said cat got too comfy in their lap and ripped a loud, wet, nasty fart. Yep, it was Heiferlump. Also yes, Cold did run away cackling afterward. Boys.

today i join the jack benny club! Im gonna be 39 til im in my 80s! LMAO!

Another day, another chance to catch up on my New Year’s resolution

People love saying, “Love is blind.” I have to disagree. I think love is looking at someone, knowing that somewhere out there, a tree gave its all to ensure they have air to breathe, and feeling feel sorry for the tree…and knowing you’d burn a whole forest to the ground if a single tree took offense at supplying your idiot with oxygen. I love my husband. He’s an idjit, but he’s my idjit. I’d love him even if he had to be reminded to breathe.

Fanfusion 2025 was a blast! Had to cut it short to Con Crud! Haha!

Looking for work but getting the jitters as it looks like self/indie publishing might be viable. Idk the garbage collectors may over 30+ an hour here lol.

Beware the Ides of March! 🗡️

Happy PI Day everybody. (It’s also my character Jeff’s birthday!)

Thank you for your review of my story, “First Date.” I did work for a while on the dialog between Zuko and Jin about going all the way getting it to sound plausible – clearly in the series she was hoping for more than she got. “But Mai would kill him,” becomes a recurrent phrase when talking about Zuko boinking anybody but his goth-girlfriend.

Rewrite is doing better. Felt like I had to separate it. Now for some reason I have a romance story prequeling/concurrent with the dark fantasy one. … No I don’t know how that happened.