Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

@kistaro Do kings play chess on fiber glass stools?

(Bonus mnemonic: How I want a drink, champagne or scotch, after the heavy chapters involving quantum mechanics!)

@Austin_Dern *hug* You too, hun. Community is almost as painful to watch as MLP, anymore...

This is why I've decided the main running theme of Parallax is gonna be "sometimes there's nothing you can do but give up and move on, because good intentions and persistence don't always just magically fix it."

@kelseyhusky I'm gonna feel like such a rube, but I'm terrible with faces anyhow... what media is that shot at the bottom from?

Seriously. Totally emotionally removed from everything else that's going on in the background...

If you ever get into a serious interpersonal drama, START A NOTEPAD ABOUT IT IMMEDIATELY. Preferably a modern-type one like Evernote that you can have everywhere and paste other relevant media into, like conversation screenshots.

This goes double if, like me, you have a temper you can never be 100% sure is going to remain in check, but that you sincerely want to work on. Having a safe place to rant and store up your bad feelings is an incredibly helpful way to keep yourself from launching them at your opponents before they've had time to simmer properly.

And when you're scared, you can take confidence from the sense that you're DOING something about it... but something slow and cautious. You don't NEED to take it to your opponent, because if they ever come for you themselves, you'll be ready.

And if they never come, so much the better. You'll still have a little journal of every little reason you have to trust yourself, have faith you're doing the right thing, and not let the fear of them coming and upsetting your apple-cart drive you to do something rash.

I never wanted to be a warrior anyhow, and I'm so happy to have found a way to fight like a scholar. Never fuck with someone with research skills and a willingness to write EVERYTHING down. :)

@001zlnv Yeah. She was a lot like a Vorlon. :)

@mona@cybre.space That's a frighteningly effective tactic these days, a frighteningly good niche for his kind to breed in, but I keep seeing glimmers of hope we're right on the cusp of that tactic losing its power. It's subtle, maybe I'm just so tired of it myself that I assume everybody else is.

Maybe it's just hope/confidence that the Red Queen's Race will kick in and we'll develop an immunity because we HAVE to-- there's no other way forward, and this give-and-take between predator and prey is natural and eternal in all things that evolve. But I still think we'll see the day that his kind of bullshit, at least on this topic, will no longer work at all...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEGbjR1Y9Qo

#community
#andthelackthereof

As a dear friend who is long gone once said... "we will always have been here."

And I have now assembled my Arsenal of Peace, my huge list of arguments in my defense -- and evidence from their own communications -- for use if this nonsense ever comes up again.

I'm finally confident that I've got more than adequate defenses, if the other side's not content to stand the fuck down, even in the face of mutual friends asking them to, even after today's gambit against me totally failed.

So now, thus girded, I feel like I never have to go on the offense about this matter ever again. (And fuck me if I ever do, because it's my own stupid fault and you should really have no sympathy for me.)

It feels real good. I hope that iron-barred gate is NEVER opened. If it ever is... it ain't me who forced it, and I hope to god none of you have to hear word one about it.

This is my public declaration: I Am Done With The Thing, and the people involved in it. Feel free to ask about it, but I'm probably going to remain coy-- much the way I would remain coy if you asked me where I buried all that unrefined plutonium. >_<

Good. Fucking. Deal.

@mona@cybre.space <3

(That "what's your deal" line people keep using on him seems to be the most calculated way to annoy him...😽​)

Still twitchy and raw from another painful exchange regarding The Thing That Did Not Go As Well As The Other Participant Had Assured Us It Would.

But I'm having more and more trouble seeing how it matters. And more importantly, I have a sense of clarity, vindication, and self-assertion that I have not had in ages.

No, excuse me: RECLAIMED a sense of...

You don't need to know unless you know. None of this had to go this way, but I feel like I have absolutely unassailable evidence that I did everything I could, it didn't do a thing, and I can move on.

And if it ever comes up again, I can prove to anybody's satisfaction that I really, truly tried no matter what anybody says.

I am so exhausted, so worried Other Parties are going to try to provoke another round, and yet, happier and more relieved than I have been in something like three or four years.

Again, if I'm a terrible person, the gods must love terrible people, because they removed a huge lingering burden of guilt and stress from me today.

@mona@cybre.space @kara@witchcraft.cafe Jesse Singal seems like a fine choice of enemy. I had to look his name up: what a complete and utter prat. Bon chance, mon comrade.

@eredien @anthracite We'll get that to ya when we're settled!

So very many questions about the last eight years of my life have been answered today. That alone makes today worthwhile.

We will probably be moving on a VERY tight schedule, possibly as little as two weeks. We will visit everyone we possibly can, and try to get some vacation time up here as soon as we can.

Some people WILL PROBABLY BE MISSED in the process, and well... you will be missed sorely. It's absolutely not a sign of any lack of affection. I'll do the best I can, might have to arrange for some group dinner stuff.

Today... has been a very strange day.

There are a lot of things I could say. I could announce good news, but I never trust good news until it's 100% confirmed.

I could possibly, with some justification, launch a huge public drama over A Thing that suddenly went much worse than expected, revealing years and years of worst fears confirmed to have all been true.

But I see the opportunity to pull the biggest Karma Houdini of my life, instead, by trusting my benign feline indifference to all this petty shit to pay off. ^____^;

I did the best I could, and another's overreach has finally taken a huge, lasting, and agonizingly ambiguous burden off empathy of my shoulders.

And I could get my work done setting up the new grading team, which is due in like an hour... Yikes, bye! >_>;;

@001zlnv Yeah. Yeah, I may have made 40 or 50 references to that song in the last two months. :D

Honestly, though, I'm kinda glad it happened, 'cause I was still stressing about a bunch of other situations that are probably resolved for the best, but my hindbrain hadn't quite accepted no longer needed to be fretted over.

And man, there's nothing like being locked out for an hour, and then getting back inside for a nice dinner, to reset your concept of what to worry about. :)

Peg left the keys to our hosts' house AND her phone in the guest room while we went out for groceries, because "it'll be fine."

"It'll be fine" seems to be a very NOLA sort of concept. It does not work for me.

Yeah. Our hosts went out to get dinner while we were gone, and we got locked out. It was JUST to the point where it was going to make up its mind whether it was going to be romantic comedy or romantic tragedy, when they pulled up into the driveway... and saw Peg trying to break in by vaguely waggling a toy lightsaber through the catdoor.

So yeah. Definitely comedy. I love my ditzy-ass dragoness, but I do hope this will be a lesson in the whole notion of "measure twice, cut once" that seems to elude these whimsical creatures of air and fire. :)

@Austin_Dern Yeah. We... we, um... we ran into a lot of this on Puzzlebox. Great concept, zero clue how to play it. And that definitely applied to me too...

D'awww. My boss and I have been trading off some information I needed for the rental and planning my pseudo-promotion logistics... and he said "Thanks for being such a trooper, we couldn't get this stuff done without you. :) "

Well, my stress level just plummeted. I almost feel like a... what do you Earth folk call it... an ay-dalt?