Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

being a tigress was a real good idea

just in general

this definitely feels more than anything like a me

and it's a good warning for those who can't handle a whole lot of someone ^____^;

also hir majiste wud liek to ishu yirly compleant abowt solir cownsil roolin that empris gota uz asasterisksk(??) 4 titul

i am reel empris* liek it or nawt and v smart & regil -------- huj mantakor pawz just nawt gud for rasist erth humin keebord

eet bad humins an brake ther stuf

so komand marz empris*

plz

had a big ol' italian-style mutal bitch session with mom, about damn near every topic on earth, from the general suckiness of the DNC to the staggering selfish idiocy of my
stepsister to the enduring golden-girl awesomeness of my niece

mom is still full of piss and vinegar and her sterling sense of humor is untarnished. she's gonna be ok i think. at least until the next shoe drops. *shrug*

meanwhile my throat is getting scratchy and i'm very nervous... could easily be the fact my parents smoke and the household reeks, or lingering vaxx effects, or just the usual sinus fuckery, but... yeah. would NOT appreciate the irony of being the one to bring omicron home.

God dammit my niece tested positive. And she's the SMART one who actually got vaccinated and did everything right. Now she's in tears because she 'ruined Christmas" and mom is a mess because there's nobody to eat all the food she cooked.

They'll be fine. They'll do Christmas in a few weeks. I just... I kinda... this is why I hate Christmas, you know? It's just a bunch of opportunities for tragedy as people get their hopes up to unrealistic levels.

Just... dispense with this useless pseudo-Christian residue and VISIT YOUR FAMILY AND HAVE A GOOD TIME AND TELL THEM YOU LOVE THEM. Assuming you even like them-- otherwise DON'T.

I hate this. I absolutely hate it. Christmas has almost completely transmuted into "my yearly chance to see how poignant and tragic my family is as it circles the mortality drain."

Mom needs me. Otherwise, I'd be on the next plane.

"Rationalist" is one of those words that it's really helpful to see in a Twitter bio, because they're always for guys you'd never have realized are rational just by reading their actual tweets.

"show me in 50 characters or less that creativity does not define you"

yeah, at this point i'm definitely here to see my mom off, protect peg, and see the cats thru as long and as good of a life as we can offer them

the moment i am free of that, hopefully not anytime soon, i am going either need to be restrained or combat trained, your choice >_<

because it's gonna be real hard to convince me not to just Take A Few Bastards With Me

seriously, it's bad, and it really is everything

passing reference to Vampire The Masquerade: nauseous loathing of the gothsnob elitism inherent in the slang terms like "lick"

passing reference to HexLatex drones: nauseous loathing of the sameness and perfunctory Joiner nature of it all

trying to watch old 80s cartoons: nauseous loathing because i can't forget all the executive meddling that went on and how it permanently scarred our culture going all the way back to the fucking Hays Code

twitter: violent nausea at twitter

trying to look at pictures of cats: heartsick terror because cats are sick and unhappy sometimes

talking theology with an old and near Actual Feed The Poor And Love People Type Christian friend: nauseous loathing at being reminded of the furry anglican priest wannabe piece of shit who he used to argue with and all the damage he did, fuck you scott

madison cawthorne ranting about a definition of "communism" that only exists in his head and would also apply to Ming the Merciless and Adolf Hitler: i just want to see him die

earth: can we just agree on a doom and get this shit over with? my whole family is dying off and peg and i are doomed anyhow

sometimes it feels like there are precisely one (1) dragon, six (6) cats, and one (1) elderly dago lady between me and going postal

i read far too much news and social media and am doing the existential equivalent of projectile barfing right now

i feel utter nausea about the world i'm in and the people in it and the things they value

it feels like the only non-palliative cure would be to beat a Proud Boy to a bloody pulp *immediately* after catching him say "you know communism has never worked" for the 700th time

Sky Atlantic's Landscapers is a really interesting show and I'm probably the only person here who would give the faintest shit about it. :) It's... slow. It's like a Joe Pera murder podcast. If you know who the hell that is, it might actually be worth seeing. :)

It's about a doddering middle-aged couple that's completely confused and harmless except that they probably, and perhaps justifiably, killed their parents.

But it's the formalism that's really doing it for me. I haven't seen a show less dedicated to realism since Legion, though it also reminds me of some of the impressionistic scenes from Only Murders In The Building.

It's... ponderous but feels oddly lighthearted. It's a postmodern dissection of a superficially (and perhaps genuinely) very sweet couple with a very big problem. Big CW for parental abuse issues after Ep 3 or so.

Home safe in Ohio!

Hey, folks. Lyft for the airport leaves in 20 minutes. Will be in Ohio until the 26th with questionable bandwidth (but lots of spare time). Getting up from snuggling Peg was one of the hardest things I've done recently.

Still have that dark, deathy, doomy reading from Dawn on the mind. Every deal I've done since has been much more benign, so I've chosen to take it as Dawn fretting over her steptiger traveling without having gotten the booster. (I think the side effects have finally cleared up, wasn't too bad, SUPER glad I got it.)

But yeah, feeling pretty attached to life, such as it is right now, and if this whole post does turn darkly ironic... I love you all a lot and have had a great time, please take care of Peg (and through her beneficence, the cats) and tell the world of my weird, stupid, horny deeds. <3

OK, got off a lot easier so far than I expected. Been woozy and tired and faint all day, but not nearly as bad as I expected. Made it out to a cafe with Peg, though it was a bit of a struggle and I do kinda want to flop over.

The side effects are largely over, I probably just need a nap. Again, that was a Moderna booster, for those of you keeping score at home.

(this is the first scene that's come naturally to me in months and months, so i figured i might as well do it the courtesy of typing it out -- now, brain, could you maybe DO THAT FOR PARALLAX sometime soon?!?)

ARCHER [impatiently strangling a security guard]: OK, buddy, just go to sleep. Go to sl... god dammit, go down, you big baby. It's just a sleeper hold, it's never killed anybody.

LANA: Uh, Sterling? Choke holds kill a lot of people. Especially young BLACK people.

ARCHER: Oh. Seriously? I feel kinda bad now. I've been doing a lot of those. Mostly white people, though.

LANA: This poor guy's probably got brain damage.

ARCHER [laughing]: THIS guy? Come on, Lana, he's like fifty and he's still working as a security guard. I don't think we lost a great mind here.

LANA: Fifty? The guy's not a day over thirty.

ARCHER: No way. Hey, buddy, you coming around? How old are you? Probably fifty?

[He's dead.]

ARCHER: Oh. Well, crap. Sorry, buddy. Lesson learned.

LANA: See?!

ARCHER: Well, I'd never really stuck around to check. I just kinda assumed they'd, you know, go to sleep. I mean, who the hell puts someone in a sleeper hold and just... hangs out with 'em?!

LANA: Dammit, Archer.

ARCHER: Oh, but mostly white people. That I've been, you know, "holding." Is that the proper terminology?

LANA: We should really get outta here.

ARCHER: Lotta Russians. Is that still racist?

LANA: Now.

ARCHER: Wait. [examining the dead guard's ID card] YOU'RE THIRTY-SIX? Buddy. I am so sorry. [sniffling] YOU HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL.

LANA: Jesus Christ. Could I at least get you to leave him his wallet?

ARCHER: [pause] Hard pass.

in case you were ever wondering, peggy and i finally worked out my parents' species:

mom is a bear. stepdad is a moose.

this all feels so... predictably... ohioan but i double-checked our math twice and yup, there's no doubt

haven't really worked out my late dad yet but i have a suspicion here's where i get the big stripey asshole dna from

my dad was the kinda guy you grow up thinking is a complete heartless jerkass and then years too late you figure out what "sarcasm" is and realize he loved you as best he could with the limited toolkit given him

*toasts Dad with a beer mug full of gazelle blood*

here's to you, you stripey asshole. miss you.

Are "severely itchy balls" a known side effect of the Moderna booster?

Asking for a couple of friends.

And those friends are my balls.

Got spooked by the news about omicron-- and by a DIRE-looking reading from Dawn, with Death and two Void cards-- and decided to get my booster after all.

Looks like I'm gonna be set up for peak symptoms right around the time of my flight home to Ohio. *sigh* Definitely feeling something, aches and fatigue.

Mostly just wanted to share data for anyone keeping tabs on booster reactions. Mine is Moderna, seven months after 2nd dose, and so far symptoms are mild but definitely happening. Will keep you posted.

Oh, and I don't personally accord Dawn much (or any) precognitive power, she's just a hell of a good storytelling. But when one of your friends (let alone your stepdaughter, cardboard or not) says she had a dream about you ceasing to exist, you take measures to reassure them.

And FWIW, her last reading was more like "Let me tell you a story of a very sweet tiger with a very overactive imagination and the time they made MUCH too much out of their step-daughter/tarot deck fretting over them and she felt really bad about it..."