Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

"When you're young, it seems like there's people everywhere-- even when you don't want there to be. But then you get older and it's like... where did everybody go?"

--David (Nathan Fielder), "David: The Story of David" (findable on Vimeo)

Feelin' this one hard today.

Just a moment of appreciation.

While chatting with Peg, I reflected on how there is so much I would just come right out and TALK about here on Masto that I never would on Twitte.

Twitter feels like Outside with everybody watching. Twitter feels like a crowded TGIFridays in your hometown, where you always might be twenty feet away from some motherfucker who knows you JUST well enough to feel entitled to come in and tell you off, if you say something they don't like.

Masto doesn't feel like my home, and it doesn't feel like a party, and there are entire rooms it's better if I just never open the doors to. But it at least feels like it's Indoors, and anybody I gotta deal with will probably at least have some context and sympathy.

It's interesting. I mean: I'm notoriously contentious, and probably obnoxious, as fuck. I am not known for holding back online. But I don't fight here. Like, ever. It's a place where a rhetorical brawl is unlikely to break out, and there's plenty of incentive to call it off immediately if it starts.

This, to my shame, is part of the reason I went back to Twitter. Sometimes I do want to walk straight into a Wretched Hive and pick a good old honest bar fight. But it feels really good to have a place where I don't feel like I have to watch my back, put up a front, or most importantly, listen to ideologies that make me want to smack people.

(er... that CW should be "hopefully ONLY -" obviously i'm hoping for a plus here in the long run -- sugarfoot might be my least favorite of her clan but that only means i just love her a few tons :) )

Oh shit, I forgot to mention. Earlier today, Artie excused herself by getting up on the windowsill and leaping straight out.

She was totally fine, made the jump neatly. But this is a MAJOR CHALLENGE to the cat-reduction security measures we have in place. If she learns to reverse the process, she will have Window Entry technology.

Only Shadow and Sugarfoot have previously been able to make the leap from fence to sill and get in through the studio window. We were really kinda hoping nobody else would learn. :)

At least it wasn't Peebles. I know how persistent that girl is and I'm not sure a CLOSED window would even stop her from trying over and over again...

Aaaaand the little white/bald spots on Sugarfoot's nose have not only spread to her ear, they might be a little crusty.

Vet time. She is NOT gonna be a happy kitty. Still, after a little research I'm... reasonably assured this ain't "might lose her" level of bad. I'm suspecting it's fleas or ringworm or something. It *is* summer in a very, very fertile area of the country.

Still. JUST enough scary stuff on the veterinary web to be unnerving. Peg's gonna try to haul her in this week. If it ends up being anything complicated or pricey, we might pass the hat, but if it's routine we probably got this one. ^_____^

behold:

princess artiemuss

(not pictured: lair; invisible jet; weather-control ray; satellite network; minions)

(each sold separately)

We spotted Shemp on the way home from the cafe and he was pawbing along just fine on all four feet. Must have just stubbed something. =^___^=

Feeling pretty meh, big ball of anxiety and pessimism today, but tomorrow is my Immunity Day (vaxx + 2 wks) and I gotta admit I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Meanwhile Shemp has a limp, poor guy. :( He won't let us pick him up to have a closer look, but there's no blood trail or obvious injury, so I'm hoping it's just a little bruise or something. He and Artie have both certainly turned up in the past with limps that mysteriously disappeared in a day.

And I'm starting to seriously grapple with the possibility that my brain might just be done with Parallax, that the plot just can not be repaired to my satisfaction. It would only take one good creative jumpstart to get it going, but with life starting to go back to normal, I'm running out of excuses for why that jumpstart hasn't happened. And it's had a year and a half.

ARRRGH

TIGER ANGRY AT UNDERLING FOR LINKING THIS

https://www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com/merchants/

I DID NOT NEED TO LOOK AT TASTY THINGS

*deep breaths*

OK. OK, cat. It's OK. You live in New Orleans. It's gonna be OK.

no seriously, why do people do this

it tells you everything you need to know about me and my damage that, on a day where i have a full to-do list, i spent 15 minutes painstakingly ensuring i had four suitably random emoji after the champagne bottle

it also tells you something that i spent another three minutes rewriting this post because i'd originally said "the four most random possible emoji" but realized that was probably not accurate. something deep inside me didn't want to mislead you into thinking i thought i'd objectively determined this.

we're dropping parallax completely to work on our NEW killer pitch:

"Tony Catblest, Attorney At Law."

He's a perfectly normal, serious professional in a perfectly normal, serious legal drama.

Except an ancient family "blessing" means that he is followed by 2d6 cats at all times.

This turns out to be completely covered and protected under the ADA. So he and his coworkers have pretty much gotten used to, say, having to slide important documents out from under snoozy floofers, and the judges all have special padded gavels so they don't wake anybody up.

Attorney Catblest wins 99% of jury trials. For some mysterious reason.

i am proud of this and i mean every word >_____<

this will suffice until we have bullets and a clear aim

raccoon feels

if you're queer and don't still see yourself at least partially as an outlaw you are of no value to the movement whatsoever

ill K @ may 88888 👬​

if anybody invents some fake hidden meaning for this totally innocent random string of characters i will be outraged because you clearly just don't understand the context

I think "I bear you no ill will but I can no longer guarantee your safe passage through my lands" is the best kissoff I will ever deliver to a former friend. One that dates all the way back to the last time I was interested in socializing with "reasonable" Republicans.

old teletext is basically the closest i get to woo

if there were a formal body of magickal practice associated with it i'd probably become some kind of ceefax witch