I wrote two poems this week I'm considering posting, and this is the one I'm less sure that I will, so now it is here! All the working titles are terrible, so call it Zappos.

One of the many upsides of Introvert Lunch is that no one I have to appear competent in front of just witnessed the clown show process of me attempting to eat a caprese sandwich.

I have been slightly obsessed for like a year with the idea of getting into book binding- HOPEFULLY now I am getting my act together to actually buy all the things for it and put in the work. My early experiments were terrible, but I want to be able to do it so bad!!

My best friend is currently reading IwtV, and I am occasionally throwing fun facts when she mentions what part she is on, including the fun fact that everybody in Anne Rice's work is always playing chess with their dad. Her biography does mention her playing chess with her dad. Obviously. Duh.

As proof of life, I will now share the single most useless piece of knowledge I have about The Vampire Chronicles: the actual image of Botticelli's Primavera on the cover of The Vampire Armand is on Getty Images and you can still license the exact same photo of the painting:

Sometimes, I write nothing coherent for months, and then I write two things that are pretty okay in 24 hours, and I assume these must actually be bad, but result from a rare madness of self-confidence.

I was going through a few drafts of things I'd written and not posted yet, when I stumbled on most of this. I remembered starting to write it, so I tried to finish it the way it was intended. I hope, if you read it, you'll be able to understand what I mean by that.

I really am just deeper than most people. What a burden.

Today I decided to not have introvert lunch and actually hang out with people on purpose, and now I am turning this room people use for zoom meetings into the Introvert Closet because it turns out I still need to pay the Introvert Lunch Tax so I don't go insane.

I tried to go to bed early but unfortunately my past hubris that thinks I want to sleep in an actual refrigerator set my timed smart thermometer to hypothermia and now I'm still awake because the dog won't give me her body heat so I can get warm faster. I paid for those calories! The HVAC is slow!

Oh my God, I finally found the title of that song that the Chinese content engines on Tiktok put on top of clips from medical dramas! This has been bothering me for years!

I am satisfied.

Something about consumer power, in general, but including in this situation (where whatever I would see as the "conclusion" of this Disney thing hasn't fully come to be)- Companies only care about appeasing you if they think you will come back if they do. People often forget that.

Just realized that I get to finish this list when I finish Taltos! 1-3: My precious favs 4-7: I love, but some sections of them are not absolute favs 8-10: Like a lot but have pacing or tone issues 11-13: Still like, but I have more issues 14-16: Some parts of these are good 17: Vittorio dungeon

If you're a person based in the Atlanta area, just to save you time if you're wondering about the next steps in certain situations, our local ABC affiliate is WSB-TV and they are owned by Cox Media Group, which I do not believe has yet issued any statements about it.

Listen, I care about very few things like this, but I do need the gif of Sam Reid just saying "I love Armand" for my Purposes, said Purposes being Lesmand posting, and I need it TWENTY MINUTES AGO-

Just as an FYI, when you argue in favor of a specific interpretation of a text, not being accurate about what's in the text and pretending it contains confirmation of your interpretation/doesn't contain contradictory info actually makes your argument much worse. Like, much much worse, actually.

So I think free speech is good like, inherently, but the issue with a lot of the legislation about NSFW material is, besides that, bad from a consequentialist perspective too. These laws only matter to people who will follow them. You're just sending people to places that are less safe.

I keep mentioning Unitarians in the last 24 hours. I both am and am not a Unitarian, in that when people ask me to write my religion on forms that's what I write, but also I informed the church last year that I can't attend services the "ungodly hour" they have them, which they pointed out was 11am.

I love the extremely long essay you have to scroll past to get the cook time for anything! They're filled with great writing, like this:

Oh, I finished The Pitt! I watched like ten hours of it yesterday! Very good, very intense, would recommend, content warning for fairly (I assume) realistic wound gore that is not gratuitous, otherwise just general "storylines you could imagine involve an ER" blanket heads up to look up if needed.

The squirrels are fighting to the death on the roof again... Mochi does not approve, but they don't really think of her as someone with jurisdiction. Mostly because, as a smallish dog, she can not get onto the roof.

Lest this somehow be understood in a way I do not intend, any gender can also wear any variety of clothes that are not pants. Wanting to wear pants or not wanting to wear pants is not inherently a sign or an indicator of a person's gender. Usually, someone telling you their gender is a better one.

The problem I have when I listen to the Taltos audiobook is that my mind keeps wandering to really niche lore questions in how this is part of the interconnected universe with The Vampire Chronicles, and I get distracted. Thread of what those questions are, therefore a bunch of spoilers, below:

In grad school, I was the grad student advisor to the undergrad queer alliance, and after like a full three months, one of the kids complimented me on being such a great and well-educated ally. For a moment, when I said I wasn't an ally, this kid clearly thought I was going to say I was homophobic.

Sometimes I see young people, very chronically online young people, talk about things in a way that makes me wonder if we live in the same reality or speak the same language or interact with the same species that we call humanity on any level whatsoever. Did you know any gender can wear... pants?

Mochi has very strong opinions about what a dog should train their human to do! Humans should not be doing self-destructive behaviors like looking at phone or looking at television or cleaning house or read book, humans should be staring directly at the dog at all times and mostly scratching them.

Also: Mojo and the Body xD

There is some kind of college student party where they're all wearing near identical outfits somewhere near me, so driving home right now I got stuck behind like 30 oblivious 19 year old boys with broccoli haircuts walking in the road, totally oblivious to my car. My street has sidewalks! What?!

Mochi the Dogʻs favorite activity is when there is a little stone retaining wall next to a walkway and she can walk on it and be very tall and impressive.

Progress! ...again! One round further than I was when I had to frog (undo) four entire rounds because of a counting error 😭

Guess I'll make this a mini thread for The Pitt thoughts. Victoria has a cruuuuuUUUUuuush it's cuuuuUUUUuute~

After succeeding in not crying for most of the show so far, episode 8 of The Pitt finally broke me. Jesus CHRIST.

The most important skill in crochet is gaslighting oneself into thinking that a mistake you made two hours of work ago is fine, actually! The second most important skill is "knowing how to count," which is much harder.

Time to revise my weekend plans from lying around in mental anguish and despair, and change them over to lying around in moderate physical discomfort and annoyance! Happy day, this is the dumbest best/worst thing to celebrate, and I get to do it regularly, I love being uterus having person, so fun.

Oh god I just remembered the secret sixth reason why I might be Feeling Like This, having a uterus is a nightmare womanhood is a cosmic joke and if I suddenly decide everything is Fine Actually in two days lets forget that I forgot how any of this works and agree to never speak of it again-

My father texted me this morning to wish me a "Happy Paul Williams Birthday," so happy 85th birthday to this Goth Icon.

Mochi has a foot phone. Her foot is a phone. It's that thing where she scratches her ear with her hind leg and then pauses, so it looks like she's holding her foot to her ear and asking, "what did she do? Well, what did you tell her?" I have a song about the foot phone. She does not find it amusing.

Today the evidence points to #1... As a person whose main mental issue is dysthymia, it is quite hard to articulate how annoying I find Regular Depressed Time, or, its wacky real name, Double Depression, aka Can I Please Get a Motherfucking Break, Thank You. Still really hoping it's just 2 or 3.

There is no chill easygoing way to tell your landlord that the guy he has come by to do building inspections (and I assume show the building to refinancing people/potential buyers) sure does not have a lot of basic, hard to define but easy to notice, respect for the fact that I FUCKING LIVE HERE

Me: "ah yes, watching a show outside of the Fandom Zone, nice little break... ex-fucking-SCUSE ME WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"

Roger and Dora art because I think they're neat!!! #MemnochTheDevil #tvc #vampirechronicles

As someone attempting actively to neither doom!post nor hype!post about shows that have not finished filming yet for the sake of my own hypothetical future enjoyment of them, I ask again if having onset security is illegal in Canada? Is it not allowed? Is it too expensive? I'll do it for free idgaf-

Oh Mona Mayfair, I wish my enjoyment of you as a conceptual framework for ideas for how sexuality and motherhood relate to actually being an adult translated to more enjoyment of scenes where you are on the page and saying words...

Mochi has a little box. I call it the Mochi box. She goes in there 7,000 times a day to sulk, to take a nap, to inform me I am dismissed, or for literally no reason at all. She requires the box. The agreement we have is that I will not remove her from the box unless it is absolutely required.

Uh oh I'm accidentally posting a photo of myself (The quote is from the book No One is Talking About This and it's very good)

One time, I compared Marius de Romanus to a licorice jellybean, in that I am not a fan, but I don't see enjoying him as a moral failure, and I will reserve my licorice jellybeans for others. Anyway, today he's canceled because I was just eating jellybeans without looking and Jesus Christ, EW, WHY-

The Pitt is a good television show. I'm the first person in history to have learned this. Everyone celebrate me, this is a real accomplishment of mine.

One of the issues with living in the hip cool kid urban area is that you don't really have access to an Olive Garden. Which usually isn't a problem. It's almost never a problem. Until it is.

Just realized I maaaay want to clarify this so I don't do things like post about feeling down and then disappear for 20 hours when usually I am Extremely Active Poster- I am back to working hybrid after many years of being fully remote! I don't tend to open social media at work because work!