Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

@chandra Yeah, not poking my head back into HoC is one of my big regrets from the last couple years. It's... it's been kind of a blur.

I think one of the things that's been really getting to me is the contraction of my social life online.

I haven't really been reaching out here, I keep changing Twitter accounts and losing people in the process, and for real-time chat I'm just hanging on to Telegram even though most people seem to have moved on.

So. Where is everyone? Are you all on Discord? Are there ANY good chatrooms there or anywhere else? Is there ANY roleplaying left except for F-List?

You really have to respect a comedy troupe with the balls to end their show with lavishly reconstructed bloopers from a movie that none of them was actually in.

(The State does the entire Cannonball Run blooper reel, verbatim, at the end of S04E04. It's funnier than it has any right to be, especially since Cannonball Run wasn't funny.)

On the other hand... I do have a stable job that's draining but still oddly fun, I have a patient and talented wife who things are going well with, I have six adorable fuzzy creatures who seem to like me, and I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, one that's barely got a winter.

And I have a classic Taoist Farmer kind of situation here, because the plague isolation has SUCKED... but if anything, I was a lot whinier about the social isolation and increasing distance from any online community back then.

Suddenly, none of it was even an option. And I sat at home and made the best of things with Peggy for a year. And it was good. And we didn't get washed out to sea. And we haven't died, so far, of any pandemics. And when/if we get through this, the world -- hell, just this city -- is going to seem SO EXCITING.

All I have to do is not steer the metaphorical car off a cliff in the meantime. And some days that just feels really hard, because I'm REALLY getting tired.

@Austin_Dern *hug* Yeah, see last reply to Leucrotta -- basically, we're OK, there are just a lot of reminders of how screwed up and precarious everything is right now. I'm more concerned about them than me, present company included, but it still pings the anxiety. We're... OK. We'll be better if we get a stimulus, and better still if my boss keeps failing to notice the slow degradation of my ability to focus over the last year. n.n;;

The cats are kind of a whole different thing. Just... far more responsibility over other living beings than we ever, ever, ever set out to have. We'd even avoided having pets as an adult for that exact reason. And now... here they are, and they're sweet and beautiful and wild and I love them and they scare the shit outta me and nothing I do for them will ever be enough to buy my sense of security back.

@Leucrotta I guess a lot of it is really just... missing people and missing the sense that I was part of anything that meant a damn. Though it is nice seeing Peg kinda shoulder that burden, playing Dragon Witch Mom Lady for a while while I"m the relatively quiet obscure one. Scary but kinda restful. :)

@Leucrotta (And yet, i still feel like I have ZERO right to complain, because in actuality... yeah, everything is ok at the moment. Even the cats seem relatively happy. Main worry there is a night of 32 degree weather coming up, and I think they've got pretty good shelter in the abandoned basement next door...)

@Leucrotta And the weirdest thing is the SURVIVOR'S GUILT. The snipers keep missing us and hitting people we care about, and there's no real REASON for it. Our fundamentals are pretty good. We're a lot less precarious than a lot of people right now. But I keep reacting badly to all these reminders that we live in a society with virtually NO safety net...

...and that I had a community in Seattle that might back me up if the shit hit the fan-- or at least felt like I did, and deluded myself I had done things important enough to deserve it.

Now it's really just me and Peg, with a little help now and then from my parents-- who are both over 70 now, are comfortable but not rich, and just add to the sense of precarity with their own health problems. We know a couple of people down here, but nothing like I had... thought I had... in Seattle.

Everything STILL roots right back in Transliminal and I'm coming to think that, even as much as I've recuperated, it always will. I came SO CLOSE to achieving my Plan A for surviving this hellworld, and it all just slipped away the moment the veil of illusion was jostled.

Haven't had much to say lately. Been scared, stressed, and mourning my old social life.

Worried about the cats almost every day, even when they're apparently healthy and happy, because I can't stop anticipating what MIGHT and probably will happen to them someday.

Doing pretty much the same thing with Peg, too.

@Austin_Dern Yikes. Best of luck, hun, and keep us posted. *hug*

some random youtube music critic described the velvet underground's genre as "proto-everything" and... yeah, that's about right

@JulieSqveakaroo That is severely enviable. Dare I hope there's purchase info for these?

@Leucrotta oooops, honestly, i'm gonna attribute that error to early-morning poor reading skills -- I'm gonna stand by it, though, that was a... a... a very Coen Brothers bunch of people in general. :) Not all necessarily bad, but definitely the ones I met were conservative leaning and... peculiar.

@Leucrotta My dad was safety director and later vice president of a trucking company, and I'm shocked, SHOCKED to hear you talking in such dismissive terms about truck drivers...

...because they're remarkably accurate and it makes me wonder when you spent so much time around them? :D

Granted, this was the 1980s and I've actually got friends who have driven trucks -- Rowan for one -- but my god, were the truckies I met through dad's business trips dumb, reactionary, and all-around sleazy.

It was like being introduced, five to ten years too young, to every Coen Brothers story just waiting to happen. :p

sometimes you just need one of these now and then

Saw Snowshoe today! Their new Food Guy was out on the porch and called us over to visit!

Apparently, yeah, he is a MUCH better Cat Whisperer than I am, 'cause he actually managed to train Snowy to stay inside. Or possibly Snowy is just a big scaredybutt. They looked great, though, growing so fast.

We also got to meet their new neighbor Smoky, who is apparently jealous as hell of them but was still happy to accept some petting.

Also, just before we arrived, I saw a small black blur dart under a nearby car -- I think Sugarfoot might have gotten a glimpse of her kid. She declined to comment. Empress Shadow, however, upon being informed that we saw her grandkittens and they are well, commented "Mew" and lowered her royal head for a scritch.

@xinjinmeng This all reminds me of a very pleasant dream I had years ago, about a far-leftist butch ratgirl sentai team with the code names Anthrax, Brucella, Cholera, Dengue, and Ebola.

I miss them.

@zx3 So, when I was a preteen, before my fundie phase, I channel-flipped into an episode of the Trinity Broadcast Network's flagship Fake Christian talk show.

Every year they would go through a bunch of that year's childrens toys and cartoons and tell us Why Each One Is Satanic. And after finding traces of demonic influence (usually any trace of magic whatsoever) in Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, and so forth... they answered a letter from a parent who was concerned about Popples -- which they could not think of a single possible way could corrupt children.

Cut to 1993. I have just discovered my first Internet mailing list for plushophiles...

Do I really even need to finish telling this story? Formative experience. For like, 90% of the subscribers.

@zx3 I don't know, but I have a terrible story about Popples. Wanna hear it? >:D