Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

Doing a bit better today.

Got a new laptop! Old Ideapad's case was starting to crack and warp, so it was about time. HP Envy, liking it so far but it's reminded me every step of the way how little it feels like I own my devices in 2021.

OTOH, I solved most of the issues on my own, including a fairly subtle Chrome issue, so I'm feeling reasonably clever.

Stepdad is probably going to be discharged today. They gave him a pretty thorough work-up and couldn't find anything wrong with his heart! So it sounds like most of the scariest possibilities have been eliminated.

A little frightened of work, for once. Walking into a conflict with a coworker. It's a polite one, but they're basically bucking the advice I gave them and their e-mail explaining why rambles on for PAGES. *sigh* I've been putting this off.

ENT appt this morning. Still apparently have a tiny trace of swimmer's ear in my right ear. Pleasantly surprised the left one's made a full recovery. Not that big of a deal, I've got plenty of the medication left. Kinda enjoyed the cleaning tbh.

Still a little creeped out wondering how I got swimmer's ear when I don't swim. Still half-afraid it's something in the apartment.

Low-grade anxiety all around, even after getting relatively good news. I dunno. *shrug*

Have seen all six cats recently and they seem pretty happy so, you know, it's still a good day.

Oh, and our rental company finally got back to us about the wiring issues! And I still have some cheesecake left.

cases in point, plus a bonus coco

OTOH, I had an obscene brisket sandwich from a gourmet butcher shop this morning, got to meet their legally mandatory Mooch Cat named Porkchop (according to the four people who said "Hey, Porkchop" while passing by), and brought home a chocolate cheesecake made with local Creole-style cream cheese (which is its own special thing and apparently a dying art).

Also Deltarune continues to be a great source of perverted comfort and I expect to continue seeing great things out of werewires and Noelle's robot face.

Stepdad is back in the hospital for his heart. It sounds like it's not *that* bad so far. He had some chest pain, they got him checked out, and one of his blood gas levels was off.

My poor parents have been waiting in the ER since 8 am. They just want to transfer him to a better hospital 20 minutes away, in case they need to catheterize him, but they have to wait for a room first. I HATE knowing that it's probably because of covidiots.

Meanwhile... well, I was probably going to spend the day sitting around low-energy and stunned already and this just clinches it. I can't bring myself to feel like anything I do is going to matter. Can't bring myself to care.

I dunno.

One really nice thing about this stage of my life: when I see someone interesting, my first impulse isn't "OH MY GOD HOW DO I GET THIS PERSON TO LIKE ME? OH GOD, THEY'D PROBABLY HATE ME."

It's totally OK that there are people who look very interesting and I will never get to meet and never need to impress. This took a long time to get to.

I've largely kicked the esteem habit. Four out of six cats and one out of one dragons LOVE me. What more could I ask for?

It also helps that the urge was partly fueled by a desperate longing to find anyone who shared my kinks or my weird outlook on the world so I could feel less LONELY.

And I don't feel lonely. I have you folks here every day, mostly just being chill and letting me be a big fiesty tiger who's *probably* never even gonna get around eating anyone here.🐯​❤️​

So I can go out there to Birdsite and see some adorable pervert with electrodes in their sona's skull, or whatever, someone I would have NEEDED TO KNOW IMMEDIATELY back in 2005, and just go, "Huh. Neat kid. Glad to see the next generation. Good luck out there," and genuinely mean it and NOT FEEL THE NEED TO SLIDE INTO THEIR LIVES.

No more FOMO. It's awesome. My gunslinging days are over, nobody remembers my name, my revolvers are up on the wall, and they'll come down someday when I'm good and ready. It's... it's kinda NICE to be old and tired. :)

Kincaid is stirring. As I put it recently to a dear friend, she's strapped down to the laboratory bed, the ceiling is wide open, the storm is brewing... all we need is a bolt of lightning.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. The Celexa has wrecked the libido which used to be Kincaid's main psychic fuel. I still have a lot of lingering guilt around D/s stuff after the Seattle blowup. I'm not sure I'm ready _prepared_ to take on a ringleader persona again.

But there she is. I can't pretend that ain't her bubbling up through the cracks and out of the plumbing in crazy dayglo colors. And I think we might in fact still need her. So many people are DOING the things Kincaid was about and, expired lavavixen warranty be damned, I want me and my friends back in.

The twist of this Nabokov story gives me similar fascinated-squick vibes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vane_Sisters

(Cynical thought: I need to figure out a way to stick these emotions in a bottle and uncork them when it's time to write Chapter Two of Parallax. I already had a hoofer who needed some top-flight traumatizing for plot reasons. :| And Kirt and Noa's story is gonna come distressingly close to the same themes as Noelle@Deltarune's as they get drawn into Mixolyne psi politics...)

Current mood: haunted by Noelle Holiday's plot line in Deltarune: Chapter 2.

I'm not even an Undertale fan, but the just-revealed "Snowgrave" genocide route hits home pretty hard.

Spoilers: basically the painfully kind and meek reindeer character is manipulated into becoming a murderous, psychologically abused, tranced-out ice mage by your PC and a series of cursed rings.

It's so closely kink-adjacent for me. The idea of a hypnotized, empowered minion as a conduit for someone's will is HOT. But god, not in that form and not poor Noelle.

So much of my hypnosis/mind control kink comes from a deep, deep separation anxiety I had when I was a preteen. I'd have nightmare after nightmare about various Forces possessing my friends and family and making them emotionally unavailable.

But honestly? Like so many of my nightmares, they were kinda fun-scary. And like with so many scary ideas, they got transmuted into kink. And there's still that edge of horror to them.

And seeing Noelle suffer-- especially 'cause my oldest and dearest headfriend is ALSO a Neutral Good pokey hoofer named Noelle-- is gumming up my emotional works today in a fascinatingly complicated way. I can't look away from it.

i adore my mother but man this is just peak boomer :)

Currently what is keeping my sanity afloat is the discovery that there are collections of MST3K on Youtube that are just all the host segments by season. ::>

e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlrPtf05gP0

+ Crazy Cat Lady: Unknown, presume resolved. Haven't heard a thing.

+ Foot Injury: Looks like it's almost healed!

+ Cable: Back on.

+ Ears: No ache, no itch. Got an ENT follow-up coming.

+ Cats: Seem OK. Haven't seen Shemp or Sugarfoot in a day or so, but it's been rainy. Peebles is very very very definitely here. *loving sigh*

- Wiring issue: some kind of AC backfeed on our cable line, possibly a fire hazard? Have talked to multiple people including a friend with electrician experience and am reassured house isn't going to randomly incinerate or anything.

- Peggy's License: Denied an "F" at Louisana DMV, am kinda furious over it. Sounds like there is a good hope she can qualify for a doctor's note but the information online is really ambiguous.

- Laptop: definitely starting to have issues with the case, no new cracks, case is now loose enough that the trackpad buttons can be triggered by accident *sigh*

Doing rather better today.

Ear is barely acting up today and I have an ENT appointment which should be cheap and low-stress.

No word from Crazy Cat Lady at all so far. Still a tad twitchy there but not like yesterday.

Actually got some work done. And got a full week of vacation for Ida thanks to my angel boss. He even rushed it as an emergency payroll.

Internet still out. Appointment is tomorrow afternoon. Thoughts and prayers. *smirk*

Still got a big ding out of one of my toes. Basically the first layer of skin rubbed off-- probably because of a bandage I'd put on to protect a blister on ANOTHER toe. *sigh*

It looks about the same as yesterday and I probably won't be able to walk much until I see it start healing. Oh, well. Could have been worse, no blood-- just an unnervingly neat disc cut out of the first layer of skin.

Also, I think this whole stupid adventure has instilled me with just enough pettiness that I'm gonna leave myself a reminder for six months from now:

"Subscribe Crazy Cat Lady and Angry Anti-Cat Neighbor's postal addresses to as much gay porn, aluminum siding marketing, and Scientology propaganda as humanly possible."

Nothin'. Not even a text to arrange to pick up her cat food, which kinda surprises me.

I'm really hoping this is the last we hear of her. My last text to her was a Hail Mary attempt to explain to her that looking her address up on a public directory during a crisis SHE involved us in is NOT an "invasion of privacy."

Maybe she did actually realize she'd fucked up and burnt her last bridge. I'm not hopeful, because there are still so many red flags over her and she sure wasn't listening to me at all Monday night.

Still. I went back through our last exchange and she didn't really make any threats or anything, just... berated me for helping her in the wrong way.

Honestly? Given what I did learn about her background-- quite unwillingly, I assure you, over the course of 4-5 rambling 30-minute phone calls-- I kinda wonder if she doesn't have an immigration issue she's afraid of getting exposed.

Dammit, I gotta stop sympathizing with this woman. It's OVER unless she makes it not over. I just hope she's recuperated enough to be able to feed those poor cats, because they're the ones who are most likely to suffer because of this. :(

Artie is a very very long cat. I apologize for not having pictures, but there was just a whole lot of her to pet and I had to use both hands. She would accept nothing less.

God, after all the shit I've taken in the last few weeks, it's good to have a feisty selfish little cat come up and want NOTHING more than my attention. <3 <3 <3

So in case anyone was wondering where I've been post-Ida...

@anthracite and I got into a dispute with the Crazy Cat Lady we were trying to help. She is now convinced I am stalking her on the dark web. I'm 80% sure that in our final phone call she mentioned dating Harry Connick Jr.

What actually happened is that she sent a text to us during Ida that said she was without power and low on phone and to contact... the other people who had been feeding her cats, who proved later to BARELY KNOW HER EITHER.

They didn't answer so we Googled her first name and phone number and found the front desk of her nursing home, who we asked to go check on her. Apparently that was an "invasion of her privacy" even though SHE asked US for help and never told us not to contact anyone else.

And now she's gotten it in her head that I used some "secret Internet site" to find her information-- uh, it was the first result on Google, darlin'. And I am now a "force of chaos" in her life.

Just yesterday morning, she'd told Peg we were "angels." That's how fast she turned.

But then our neighbor-- who she's been sparring with over these cats for 8 years, and she ASSURED us would mind his own business-- spots us going to feed the cats and starts harassing us. And we call her to tell her we just can't fucking do this anymore. She ARGUES. She PLEADS.

And then the moment I mention that I went over to that guy's house later and attempted to apologize, suddenly I have done something terribly wrong and she's told me not to go over to that house or feed the cats again, and I'm some kind of hacker violating her privacy.

So yeah.

I am emphatically not okay today. This is all on top of a bunch of other post-Ida crisis. Crazy Cat Lady told us herself that she once threatened to shoot that neighbor's kneecaps off. (I am somewhat assured by the fact he still has kneecaps after 8 years of her shit.)

We blocked her texts last night. And I know how narcissists are. I'm really afraid that she's going to come try to force the issue. I'm worried she might try to take it out on OUR cats. People reassure me she'll probably forget about us now that we've stopped rewarding her...

And they're probably absolutely right. This is a feeble old woman who seems to have burned every bridge in her life. (I'm not even BEGINNING to detail all the sketchy contradictory stuff in her stories.) But I am already traumatized and having even that vague worry that she MIGHT be deluded and vindictive enough to try something with us won't leave my mind.

I am in really bad shape, folks. I think I'm at the point where I don't feel guilt or shame in saying I have some genuine trauma happening here.

I didn't even fucking like Norm MacDonald in the slightest and I am too fucking traumatized to pretend that I was not kind of a bit chuffed to see that he's trending because he's dead. I was honestly expecting they were just quoting obnoxious he'd said about the culture wars. I can't really look beyond my own emotional needs right now, and I'd take the dead Norm over the live annoying smug one.

So the latest is that I got subjected to a lengthy tirade about "looking into her private affairs" and "prying" because during Ida she had texted us (WHY?!?) saying she was stuck with no power, phone battery, or lights.

We found her address with a very basic Google search, LITERALLY just her first name plus her phone number, and had her landlord come check in on her.

Because she'd asked us for help, we couldn't contact the other people she asked us to contact (who apparently ALSO barely know her). And we did what we could in a BIG FUCKING PANIC because this old lady came to us saying she needed help and then we couldn't contact her.

She swears this "prying" has opened up a "whole can of worms" for her and she's sounds like she's determined we hacked her or something. Maybe she didn't want her landlord contacted during the storm, maybe she has something in her past she wants to hide, IDFK.

I have blocked her number and told her that she can contact Peggy to arrange to pick up her food IF AND ONLY IF she doesn't harass her about anything else.

I am so afraid, given all the signs that this woman is an obsessive nutcase with a history of harassing people, that we are now on her Shit List and we or our cats are going to have to suffer more for it down the line-- for trying to help an old lady we didn't even WANT to get involved with.