Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

Hey. Cafe neighbor. You. The squeaky college student. I realize you can't help speaking in frequencies only us cats can hear, but I'm wearing decent headphones and I can STILL HEAR YOU OVER THE GODDAMNED CLASH, so perhaps you are being a tiny bit too loud.

(n.b. the game does not actually have a Yellow Pony -- yet. That's just an Electric Company reference. Give them time. Soon STS will contain ALL THINGS.)

SLAY THE SPIRE.

OH GOD THEY KEEP ADDING NEW CONTENT

IT'S NOT EVEN OUT OF EARLY ACCESS YET

THE NEW LORE IS HILARIOUS

WHEN WILL THEY STOP OH GOD MAKE THEM STOP

NEOW YOU BASTARD WHEN WILL YOU DRY UP THIS RIVER OF NEW CARDS I SEE BEFORE ME

ALSO I WANT ORANGE PELLETS, A NINJA SCROLL, AND A YELLOW PONY

The kid was on the 44 bus to Ballard. She saw a Large Woofer out the window, and spent the rest of the bus ride insisting, quite loudly and repetitively, "DOH DOGGO DE DAH DAH!" Easily 150 times by the time we got there.

On a worse day, with fewer spoons, she might have annoyed the hell out of me. But today I'm fairly chipper, so I just nodded approvingly at her observations from the back of the bus, receiving her as the anarcho-monarchist champion everyone on that bus needed to hear.

Made two single-serving friends this morning. The best kinds, too: a kid and a cat.

The cat is a little grey cutie who apparently hangs out in the alley behind our house. I spent a few minutes chatting with him so I could get close enough to see if he had a collar (he did), and got myself ferociously nuzzled.

Peg assures me she sees him out there all the time and he seems pretty well-fed, so I wished him a great day, petted him some more, and left him to his Shed Adventures as he disappeared.

Okay, this gaming event sounds fuckin' radical: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/8zeox2/watch_the_skies_or_what_the_heck_is_a_megagame/

You know what's really fucking surreal? I have found myself missing office life purely for the social contact.

My brain keeps telling me that's because my social circle imploded and I'm a terrible person and nobody wants to see me anymore.

I suspect what's really happening is that, no longer living in a Big Furry Social Nexus, I now have to arrange my own damn social life and am essentially stuck in the same 9-5 rut as everyone else... just without coworkers. *shrug*

And I could almost buy into a dream like this again, even on mornings like this when she's (very understandably) depressed and skittish about the whole thing. I don't know. I keep seeing evidence that the main thing we _really_ have to fear is the urge to give up, and just slide back into the cozy assumption It Could Never Happen To Losers Like Us.

I don't know. It's not like I had any other really urgent plans, or anything else on this planet I was super-committed to.

Doing a little better. It's just become real clear that Peg and I have to finally start Adulting in the next year or two, in a way that neither of us has ever been well-equipped for. n.n;

It would be super-neat if the "Adulting" involved was just getting serious about our comic book, and I'm so torn. It sounds like such a dumb thing to treat as a Plan A... yet, here Peg is with her Charlie Stross DMs and her tarot deck and her history of pulling things off by sheer fae stubbornness...

(Mostly at this stage, I guess we're just looking for opinions about the character designs and visuals and so forth, whether they made any semblance of sense. We're not quite far enough for there to really be much of a plot to make sense of yet, so we're not actually that surprised people have been quiet. n.n; )

(Admittedly, we're aware that the storyline[s] have barely even gotten moving yet. And yes, we're aware that the webpage I linked to is kind of a mess -- it's honestly more of just a dump page for finished pages right now. The real action, such as it is, is on the Patreon!)

You know, to be perfectly honest, if you REALLY want to do something to help my mood, there's something very specific I can ask for...

Go to http://egypt.urnash.com/parallax/ and tell us what you think. Constructive criticism, especially a DETAILED "I don't get what's going on here and here" would be super-welcome. And tell your friends.

We don't expect you all to read it regularly, but man, if anyone finds our work interesting -- or can explain why it's not -- I could sure stand to hear it today.

screwed

Several of you should know that you've been called out:

So in summary, my belief in the power of friendship is still permanently damaged, my country is still being run by Lobotomy Nixon and his yes men, and I am still largely convinced that my encroaching health problems and underemployment will lead to doom for me and the woman I love.

But I had REALLY good shrimp & grits, got to look at many cute doggos, and made jokes about committing piracy on the high seas against spoiled-ass yacht owners. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

Despite my chronic bronchitis acting up... a certain Stephen King novel triggering the hell out of my Station Beta trauma... and falling back into Total Writers Block on Parallax... today was a pretty good day.

Peg and I wandered out to the Ballard Locks and accidentally found a street fair. We had a lovely and much-needed day in the sun, worked out a few relationship issues in fun and playful ways, and put a lot of ice down each other's clothing while giggling like loons.

#moodsnapshot: I want to build a shrine to this Revered Martian Ancestor and celebrate his martyrdom by mauling and eating some Russian guy, preferably a Trump acquaintance.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129551459