cornerofmadness

Evil Little Dog and I had a leisurely morning and then I took off. over 100 miles on I-64 and not a single rest stop. Not. One. Had to stop at a Pilot truck stop. Finally north of Louisville KY there was a rest stop. It was closed.

I got off the road to find food twice only to see no restaurant anywhere. Dudes if your restaurant is more than a mile off the highway DONT be on the highway sign. Finally found a rest stop just outside of Florence KY (Meaning I'm nearly in Cincinnati) and in there was a mom trying to get her daughter to take a picture talking on the pay phone. Yes you read that right, there was a living pay phone.

Finally found food in a freaking sit down Skyline chili (it's now like 330) and then I realized I'm literally 20 miles from Jungle Jim's in Cinci. I was going to stop there but I was already not getting home until 730 and I'm like are you really up to shopping (I just wanted the cheese) If I had realized I was almost there, I would have skipped Skyline and stopped there to eat.


On the negative side, I realized that my eyes were tired so I shut my left eye and things went bad. The right eye, the one that has been inflamed twice...I could barely see through it. Couldn't see the cars in front of me, not the road signs or the billboards. I mean I could see them but they were unreadable, like everything was smeared with vaseline. I thought it has gotten a little better and the eye doc said he saw nothing wrong but this was worse than I realized and when I was on 32 which has relatively few cars, I played with it more just to prove to myself this was real. Sadly it was. I have another eye doc appointment on friday. If he STILL says there is nothing wrong with my eye when it is demonstrably worse (and frankly it was when we did the eye test) I'm going to find an eye specialist because I'm not fucking around with my sight. Did that inflammation damage my cornea? Has the cataract gotten bigger? Because there is no way being unable to see anything but blurry shapes with one eye is normal. And I'm honestly scared about it.


Also my card got declined at breakfast. I figured it finally had enough. But I got a text later in the day saying I'm at my limit. I thought I had a 10K limit on this card. I'm hoping to hell they lowered the limit and didn't tell me because there is no way I spent 10K in a week.


Rocket is fine. Being here has sent my anxiety up and I hate that. There are things I need to fix because I can't have my home be a place of anxiety.


It's music monday 30 weeks of music. This week's prompt is #28 A song that makes you feel empowered

( meh, I don't really get that kind of thing from songs )





here's the whole prompt list

( All under here )

This was the first morning here that I was awoken by noise, thunder I think at 6 AM and I did fall back to sleep only to wake up an hour later when it sounded like a drawer slammed in my room. It didn't of course and I'm at the end of the hall so not sure where it came from.

Even waking up early I was late getting out of here in the pouring rain which wasn't fun especially since there was no time for breakfast. Worse I forgot my list of addresses in the hotel but luckily GPS can also find things by name. I did get to Union Station in time and they had the same coffee shop chain as here so I did get breakfast after all.

The Gangster Tour wasn't as expected. In spite of all my worry I was the first person on the bus. The driver and the tour guide were both in 1920s period dress (okay for men that's just a suit (pinstripe) and fedoras. It was a mix of the guide's patter/info dumps and a tv screen with a news reporter, Johnny Holiday's (our guide) brother or his girlfriend so it looked interactive. Really nice info about John Lazia and Tom Pendergast the underworld crime boss and the political boss respectfully. Pendergast apparently never found a thing he couldn't turn into graft (like literally everything his cement business was involved in) and yet oddly he was also a friend of Harry Truman even after his corruption (Pendergast's) was exposed. Learned a ton about various buildings (including places Al Capone partied and where Pretty Boy Floyd was in theory involved in a massacre outside the Union Station. It was almost a 2 hour tour so worth the money.

After lunch in the Union I headed to the Steamboat Arabia museum (which is closing down at the end of the year) but it is in some artist market district with nothing but food traffic and zero parking other than on street which was never going to happen. After circling around for several minute (and thinking I could try tomorrow morning) I gave up and said fine, WWI memorial museum it is...right back at Union Station but up the hill.

SO...every road to the parking garage was closed. After circling it three times I gave up and since it was still raining off and on I decided no zoo. I went back to the Nelson Atkins art museum. I could have gone to the Kemper Modern art museum but I think it was 20$ and I am not a huge art fan.

Revisiting the other museum is good call. Found a whole wing I missed the first time. Found my hotel mate there too. I rode up in the elevator yesterday with a lady who liked my Huskerdust shirt. Found her again at the Red Lotus Asian restaurant (in the casino) and found her again at the museum. Told mom watch me see her again tonight.

And I go to the sports bar at the casino and who's there, my hotel mate sitting with an African American woman at the 6 seater table, the only thing open in the place. She said sit with us. She's Marta (Mexican American from CA) and Melinda is her table mate, retired today. They were also happy to see me because the two trainee waitresses kept ignoring them but responded to me. On our way out, Marta said she wondered if there was a racial component in addition to the two waitresses being new to the job and bad at it and got better when I showed up. Yeah...probably

Slot machines gobbled my money and I came back and after fighting for days to get my room to cool off, now it finally is (and almost too cold) and looking outside the street lights look like shower heads its raining so hard. Figures because I'm driving towards home tomorrow. And ooooo that was big lightning. Gonna be a fun night

Seems like this post needs Husk as I'm now at the casino/hotel (and have already had cocktails and lost money)

So I got to sleep in some today because nothing opens before 10 AM. I checked out of the Sheraton and rolled out for Independence MO. Now if I knew this nearby town was so stinking cute I would have picked a third place (or at least planned to take the horse drawn carriage thing).

I went to Vaile Mansion It's a gorgeous home (that popped the dream bubble of owning an old home when I saw the 1.5 million dollar repair bill it's working on). Vaile was a lawyer/vinter whose wife (as these stories almost always go) died moving it here and he never finished the third floor billards/ballroom. It went to a lady lawyer next, his friend because his family tried to break his will giving it to a girl's college. It took so long to break the will his family was out of money and sold this house for a buck.

And SO much like Marietta's The Anchorage, they kept it up as a sanitorium for the wealthy and then a nursing home until the mid 1980s and unlike The Anchorage it didn't sit vacant long.

This place is filled with chocolate marble fireplaces, every ceiling is a painted mural. Sadly all the original furniture is gone (sold to pay that lady lawyer) but they tried to replace it as close as possible (the auction list was in the house so they knew what was there) There were tons of hair memento Mori in the house from the hair museum which I had wanted to go to but couldn't find times. Turns out even though the webpage is still there, the museum is not. The owner died in her 90s after covid and her daughter has sold off all the hair pieces. I didn't want to leave this place.

From here I went to the historic jail
. It's in that stinking cute down town and what fun was this? It's thought the limestone prison was built in the 1870s but they're learning it's probably the 1850s and the brick part is 1907. They have a little one room school house that was moved there years ago and every 1st grader in their school district goes there for a field trip to do class like they would have then. Sounds fun. The brick part of the jail is a little museum of local h istory (I need to look up what the priests of pallas was).

The jail was interesting. I was getting the cold, ghost chills standing there only to find out I was directly under where they dropped the prisoners to hang them (not a lot of hangings there mind you but still). Jesse James' brother had been imprisoned there but he was so well liked/folk hero status that they let him Al Capone that prison cell (before Al was probably even born) filling it with his personal stuff and he had it to himself. Most of the people were jammed in there 3 to a cell.

However during the Civil war, they had up to 11 women jammed in per cell. Most of my civil war travel (which is min.) has been in the north. Until I was in Louisville and now here, I didn't realize that the Confederate sympathizers had their land grabbed and they were imprisoned if they didn't leave. Tried to get my dad a book on this but the only one they had was a skull buster that even I couldn't see the print. Did get me a ghost book and some true crime book because I need books and make good choices. Also the kid running the cash register saw my Hazbin purse charms and he was very excited.



From there I went to the John Wornall Majors house but I missed the tour and didn't want to wait 40 minutes for it since I wasn't feeling it. I did walk around and read the placards. I did appreciate they were honest about the house's entrenchment in slavery (also ditto the jail which was built by slaves)

But since it was only like 230 I didn't want to go to the hotel because I couldn't go in for another 2 hours so I went to Nelson Atkins Art Museum. Turns out if you have a handicapped tag you don't have to pay the 20$ to park. Woot. So I sprung for the Alphonse Mucha exhibit which I really wanted to see (but if I had to pay for parking it would have been a 45$ ticket for it all)

The Mucha thing was SO nice but since my camera has a light (not a flash) I couldn't take much in way of pics because the docent was right up my ass. The flash is off, I swear. Wanna see?!? So I didn't get a shot of this but I'm putting it here, they had a bronze light fixture of Sarah Bernhardt's head he'd designed. To be honest I know very little about Sarah and had NO idea that she played several male roles including Hamlet.

I'm also not sure I knew just how much of Mucha's work was for calendars and ads. They had a whole room with 60s-70s rock album cover art inspired by his work (Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd) and I didn't know about the Slavic Empire set of 20 paintings he did at the end of his life that were hidden from the Gestapo because they inspired Slavic patriotism

From there I went to the main art area (the whole wing was closed where Mucha was except for that) This is the largest art museum I've been in I think. It was one little room after the other. I was so happily lost in this place. It was getting on 430 so I hit the gift shop wondering why people were still checking in when everything closes at 5. Had a gorgeous mucha umbrella and scarf (45 and 75$ respectively hard pass) and went for the car only to realize Wait it's thursday! It's open until 9 so I go back up to the second floor that I hadn't had time for. But there is art in here from Egypt to early 20th century (I assume the rest is in the Kemper modern art museum)

I head off to find the casino. I didn't realize it was SO far to the north west. I'm sure it wasn't super far (I remember google directioning all of this so I wouldn't make a bad choice) My GPS tried to murder me in a roundabout repeatedly. Americans suck at round abouts. I pulled out, no one was there (I have sensors on this car soo I know that there was no one there) and this guy comes whipping around SO far he nearly hits me and the guy in front of me while he's blowing his horn like he's not the idiot. When the GPS tried to make me go around a third time I said fuck it, I'm going straight and you find me another way there. It did and I have no idea how it didn't figure that out from the get go.

The argosy is done up like a roman street. Nice room, fancy bathroom BUT the shower is designed for wheelchairs so water runs everywhere, the rain shower head is the only one that works and so far I can't get it to be hot water. eye roll. I hit a little jackpot put it all back in and now I'm quite tired. no pictures yet. Maybe tomorrow.

I had a hypoglycemic event last night so of course the correction left me over 300 this morning and for some reason my phone did not go off when I set it. It went off when I was getting up the last two days so I was cranky about getting to the breakfast with barely time to get to the first workshop.

It was an oddly laid out place with workshops all over the damn place (I did not bring my cane. I will bring it tomorrow) My first workshop was moved all the way across campus so I went to the one next door. Not really a topic that interested me that much but I did get some helpful things from it for the syllabus.

Work shop number two was canceled. Boo. I wanted to do the dungeon crawl case study escape room thing. I went to the one next door. This one was interesting, talking about how out dated some of the graphics and concepts we still use are and I was wondering why some of it hasn't been adopted.

The lunch hour was something else. I have been going to these off and one for 16 years and this is the first time the line was insane (I was literally in a different building) They had one table of food and RAN OUT. There is no real excuse for this because they know how many people have registered, not sure who messed up. Luckily more food was cooked up (didn't go with the rest of it mind you). I got my food 10 minutes before the afternoon session started.

That was a case study one by a former doc turned teacher (similar to my story) and...for the first time I used ChatGPT to create the case studies and I was a bit terrified at how fast it did it and relatively accurate too. In talking to a few others I might remove the extended responses from my exams and put in simple case studies (as the nclex for the nurses are all going to those). Also it made me very sad to write this case study as a SOAP note (even though I am relieved I no longer have to write SOAP notes any more, the medical record a doc writes every time they see you).

My last workshop was a bust. No one showed up. I moaned not again. I don't want to sneak into another workshop late again. And my table mates say why bother? Let's just go get on the bus and go home. And so we did. The fun thing was before that we were talking and I mentioned my age (it was relevant to whatever it was we were talking about) and the guy I was with said I would never have guessed that (his partner agreed) why thank you. I don't think I look nearly 60 either.

Also at lunch I brought out my heavy ass laptop because the blaster box for Hazbin Hotel was dropping at noon (10 minutes late as it turns out) it's their new card set and it will sell out. I managed to get it...twice over because I fat fingered my touch screen and it would NOT let me empty it out probably because it sold out in minutes and I'm like fine, I'll buy it because I can either sell it whole or more likely get the cards out and sell them separately. These cards have been selling out in under 5 minutes and people are reselling them for hundreds. I won't do that but I can sell it for easy 10-20 a card if I wanted to. I can recoup this and each one has an ultra rare and rare and other specials. Those I'll keep. Have I mentioned I love cards? I've been collecting them since 1977 with Star Wars (I even have the 70s era Planet of the Apes tv show), I have shit tons of Buffyverse and Fullmetal Alchemist cards. I have the entire Sandman set including chasers (probably worth a lot less now that we know how skeevy Gaiman is)

Dinner was chicken speidini at Garozzo's, yummy but I almost wish I had ordered the other chicken dish (they're credited from turning the traditional beef speidini to chicken) because I didn't like the pasta that came with this. I would have enjoyed the garlic/olive oil one with the other dish. I haven't eaten the tiramisu yet.

I also DID buy my Kansas City Gangster tour ticket for Saturday at 10. All the afternoon ones were sold out but you know what I don't mind. I have been getting up early for days now and once I get that over with I'll have time to do my afternoon stuff. Now to sit down and figure out my tourist days. I know what I want to do Thursday but now for the rest of the weekend.

Have fannish 50 the questions, I'm using Buffy for this

Day 4: Least favourite female character. This was much harder than it should be. I decided I wasn't going to use any one off characters and using Joyce or Dawn felt too easy. I didn't hate them. Joyce made a lot of bad choices that annoyed me and Dawn was...supposed to be younger than who was cast so I don't actually blame the character for being off.


I went with Kendra. She was a poorly drawn character. I liked that they went with the naivete/lack of social awareness because she was never a girl. She was just a weapon to be used until she was killed. That was a nice contrast to Buffy's wild side. Maybe it was that she came off as rather...dumb and that the one character of color on this whole show (other than Giles' girlfriend and Mr. Trick, a villain) was there really to make the white characters look better. It was uncomfortable. She was there to die (so much for the traditional training).

( all questions under here )

I mean I'm just sitting in lectures and walking around one exhibitor hall but I feel like I've worked 36 hours without a break.

Okay had to stop for a second after three loud explosions. Not lightning. Not fireworks. No clue. Pool people were looking around too but maybe it is a storm, just one I can't see lightning for. But it was nice all day. Weird.

All the little kids are gone but now there are new ones in this hotel (it's huge, 40 floors) and they're doing the same thing, running floor to floor taking up the elevators and screaming down the halls. eye roll (seriously I had a focus group today, left a talk I was enjoying early to give myself 15 minutes to get upstairs for my lap top and back again only to still end up 5 minutes late. Slow elevators. We also have an Indian wedding going on with all their beautiful finery (one of the boys was talking to me in the elevator, he was the sweetest thing)

Speaking of sweet, man it's a matter of outside perspective isn't it? I was SO disappointed in my not-violet hair color but people have commented about how nice it looks but between last night and today like a half dozen strangers have come up to tell me how much they liked my purple plum hair one young professor (grad student?) told me that it matched my plum flower shirt perfectly and even my hair style reminded him of flowers. And here I thought people would think it was ugly because it wasn't the color I had originally wanted.

I learned a few things in the update seminars today including the huge role of vitamin A in craniofacial deformities (cleft lip, cleft palate etc). Planning a child? Get some A in your life. And while I knew that pigs were very close to humans physiologically (more so than mice but I don't normally talk animal testing because of people's feelings about it), I didn't know we were looking at them in terms of fertility. Nor did I know that male fertility has dropped 52% in the last 50 years (so 1% a year which doesn't sound like much until you really see the math) I missed why they think it is other than endocrine disruptors and environmental health, like pesticides nor did I know we had transgenic pigs with the glowing green jellyfish gene that they are using to test a few theories about breast milk which is another cause of lowering fertility, immunologic health and probably more. Breast milk has more than colostrum and fats/sugars in it. They have EVs (extracellular vesicles) which they're tracking with those transgenic pigs but we do know be it human or pig, breast milk leads to the healthiest of babies, cow milk is a close second but formula and plant milk are way behind (sorry vegans) Soy milk especially has the ability to be an endocrine disruptor because it's an estrogen mimic (this I knew and I don't eat much tofu any more or drink the milk at all because my cancer is estrogen sensitive and why risk it)

The focus group I was in was interesting but way harder than I thought. It was on escape rooms and I mean it was HARD. It took me and my partner a half hour and some hints to get out. It's not available to buy yet but I think it might frustrate my students because you really have to not only know your stuff but solve puzzles too. It is a virtual game, fantastic graphics etc and like a true professor on a labeling exercise there were more than you needed to get it right (and it took me a second to realize that randomly capitalized letters were the code for getting a lock open) some things you really had to know your shit or you were staying locked in there. My students are never escaping (and hell I barely made it past the match the emoji string part but mostly because I couldn't see it on the labeling part, too small, I'm too old) I think the overall feeling was shorter ones with just key systems would be good versus trying to tie multiple systems together this was tough enough to be a final exam prep (I'd have to give them major points) I think it was fun and if it was reasonable I would consider it. However, with all due respect to the very cool VR tool another vendor let me use 1000$ a student to use it is not reasonable. A full lab would cost me 25K (but it's only 3K in years after that. Per student? Per class? Don't matter, that's the entire budget for my entire department.

I never met my mentee. We just played phone tag. I did have a great idea handed to me at breakfast (there was that explosion sounds again wtf IS that?) one of the profs is sharing her pintrest and what she does is collect AI generated anatomy stuff, much of which is wrong and she prints it and makes the students fix it.

And yeah no writerly ways other than links (because I'm just sitting here watching Insidious while eating dill pickle corn puffs and whatever that sound is, it's shaking the windowpane. It seems mechanical almost like a train track.) I did make progress on my merfolk story and the sapphic divinity story crapped out today (mostly because I have a character and a setting and no plot and I don't know the Rifreddo Witch festival. I need to research it more)

Oh it IS Fireworks. I can't see them in the sky because my view is wrong but I can see them reflecting on the glass building across from me. Probably some baseball game or memorial day celebration.

and as I wrap this up it's nearly 1130 and people are running and yelling in the hall and I am not amused

OPEN Calls


81 Publishing Opportunities for Historically Underrepresented Writers (keeping in mind this isn't just people of color, LGBT, disability etc count for some of them)


28 Journals with Fast Response Times

Fun In The Dark. Small town weirdness, uncanny communities, strange local traditions, unsettling suburban or village horror

The Submission Pit May 2026 Window Open speculative fiction

Spookane: A Spokane-Based Horror Anthology Horror stories connected to Spokane, Washington and nearby regions

The Monstrous & The Divine This is the one I'm trying to write for once I do more research on that witch festival in Italy

Crooked Spine Issue 1 Open horror / debut issue horror fiction

Movie Horror Themed Anthology Horror centered on movies, filmmaking, or watching films



From around the web

YouTube Is Crawling with Pirated Audiobooks Made Using A.I. This is behind a pay wall but the title tells you all you know. I did find someone (real) reading classic short stories and after listening to a few of them I am FLOODED on YT with AI readings of all the classics plus I'm sure if I clicked on it AI pirated books. Can we just not.

How and Why I’m Creating a Physical Archive of My Writing

Association of American Publishers Applauds Sweeping Default Judgement Against Notorious Pirate Site Anna’s Archive

Authors Guild Wins Default Judgment Against TouchPoint Press.

The Ghost in the Machine (Inherited Creative Blocks).

How to Pace Your Prose for Greater Impact another one for the current book


From Betty

Anatomy of a Fable.

Five Surprisingly Successful Characters and Why They Work


Giving Your World Fantastic Skies.

Should Your Tale Start With Dark Backstory?

Literary Pathways for Microtension

How to Spot and Plug Plot Holes

Revisited: “Your Brain on Writing”

The Kind of Short Stories People Really Want to Read

Why Writers Should Never Make Smart Characters Act Dumb

How Writers Can Use Pinterest to Drive Traffic and Build Long-Term Visibility

Why Consistency Matters More Than Ever for Author Email Newsletters

Do Authors Really Need a Book Launch Team? What Every Writer Should Know

Do Authors Really Need a Book Launch Team? What Every Writer Should Know

What to Do When Someone Writes ‘Your’ Book

Thoughts on How the Marketplace Is Shaping the Stories We Tell

The Weird Editing Habit I Can’t Write Without

A Plot Twist with a Twist

Why Research is Important when Writing Fiction

Your Voice Is the Point. Stop Toning It Down

The Art of Withholding Information I need to contemplate this one for my current novel

Coping Mechanism Thesaurus: Visualization

Yeah lane assist, I'd do that IF I could see it. It rained for 335 miles from my door to evil_little_dog's. Some places I couldn't even see. From Cincinnati to Louisville I'm not sure we ever got above 25 mph.

Luckily it was mostly uneventful (lots of accidents none near me) and the Jetta gets surprisingly good gas mileage.

have some recs for fannish 50


Undeserved Mercy Torchwood

Through The Ring Stargate Atlantis

Live! Starsky & Hutch

Musical The Owl House

Soulmate The Owl House

Protocol Torchwood

All Roads Lead To Haven Hazbin Hotel

Childhood The Owl House

Opposite Hazbin Hotel

Gambler's Fallacy Hornblower - C. S. Forester Hornblower

Unwritten 镇魂 | Guardian

Recuperation 9-1-1

Handyman Teen Wolf

Flyer Derby The Owl House

Picnic The Owl House

Play Time Teen Wolf

captivated captive Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates

Horror (Movie) The Owl House

Seasons The Owl House

Cozy Evening Stargate Atlantis

Before The End Torchwood

Human Realm The Owl House

Fairytale The Owl House


The Salvage Yard The Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn KennyThe Three Investigators | Die drei

Bedridden Teen Wolf

Normal-ish Hazbin Hotel

Learning to Compromise Teen Wolf

It was so dark this morning I had to leave the bathroom light on to see to get into the living room to find the light switch.

I popped to work to put the plants in the greenhouse and then down to Gallipolis to return and book and see Copper Moth to fix that necklace. Well she exaggerated about that. The old Woolworth is an antique mall with various vendors. They've never even seen her. Eye roll. I ended up trying to fix the necklace and my malocchio one as well. I have SO much jewelry bullshit that I feel guilty about it. But not. one. silver. jump ring! I found some but they're these weird double loops that you can't get into easily. I ended up using 2 copper ones and using an old bracelet to extend the necklace I needed the longer chain on.

Had the writers group meeting tonight. that was good.

What wasn't good, I looked over that Undead Appalachia open call and it had a strange caveat: email us for submission guidelines. Why isn't that on the web page? I email and it keeps bouncing back as a non viable email so I poke around the webpage which...has nothing but two open calls. Now I got this from a trusted source but it looks like someone didn't do their due diligence (self included) so I guess that story probably isn't going anywhere just now.

On the other hand I just found a demon open call by flame tree press (very small window of chance) and I know them. They are legit. I might send them my woman of no consequence. It's about 500 words outside the sweet spot but I'll try anyhow (they're taking 4 stories so I'm not going to twist this story so it's 4K like I just did to my ghost story because they would not read outside of 4k)

What I Just Finished Reading:

That Which Feeds Us - Hawai'ian Gothic, very creepy, low gore horror, one of the best things I've read this year so far

We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune this didn't work for me

What I am Currently Reading:

The Gay Disaster Detective Agency - one of my arcs. I usually like Lev AC Rosen but this isn't working for me.

The Death Card - currently struggling to get into it

The Antique Hunters Guide to Murder - I'm enjoying it

The Kindness of Strangers - another arc and I'm not sure this is going to work for me


What I Plan to Read Next: some of my looming arcs


And finally here are my pictures from last weekend in Louisville. evil_little_Dog took the pics of me.

( all the pictures from Louisville and the con )</lj-cut<

I finished my undead Appalachia story (probably not enough ghosts) by writing 3300 words today and that's with me doing 30 minutes writing mixed with 30 minutes of cleaning. It's a story I've wanted to write for a long time. My characters are named for my Uncle Joe and Uncle Libertino (on both sides of the family) who died in the mines. The spooky thing is I called it Number Nine mine and checked with Mom only to learn Number Nine IS the mine Libertino died in. (It must have been in my subconscious). I need to get this quickly betaed because it's due next week.

But can we say enough is enough? I went with the casino as my alternative hotel to the con hotel (I'll be staying there for the con but I plan to stay in Kansas City for a few days as a tourist after the con and the con hotel's price goes to 280 a night). And it's 110 a night. I book it for 4 more days. Afterwards I get a bill break down and it's 110 on thursday. 120 on Friday and Sunday but Saturday balloons to 230 a night. WTF.

Look I can see the price going up some on a weekend but to DOUBLE your damn fee for a hotel room that doesn't change? It's insulting. I wouldn't have complained if it was you know 10 or 20$ but 120$ price hike?!? I looked for cheaper hotels. Found them but they are SO sketchy looking. I'll probably suck it up at the casino because a) it's safer with all the security b) has cameras everywhere so again safer c) has five restaurants right there so if I don't want to go out I don't have to suck up all the door dash fees and just eat at the casino. d) it'll give me something to do after five. I'm not ready for bed at 8 and literally everything I want to do closes at 5.


It's music monday 30 weeks of music. This week's prompt is # 26 A song from your favorite band


( I hate picking favorites )





here's the whole prompt list

( All under here )

I was at the coffee shop for the new latte release. I wanted to try the salted honey rosemary latte. Not enough (read any) rosemary flavor but over all good. However somehow I hit a ctrl button or the touch mouse or something and shut down my document without the save, don't save, cancel options (or it hit it somehow). I lost an hour's work and 2K worth of novel. Gutted.

And then it started storming. Where's my umbrella? in the car. Did not go to the new store opening because it was lightning everywhere. Did go to the library to pick up two hard copies of arcs I failed to read. And Jesus why the fuck did I ask for an arc of this TJ Klune novella? It's depressing AF and I can't get my head around the worldbuilding. The world is ending but someone is still refining oil into gas and people are showing up for their shitty gas station jobs?!? I mean how else is this RV getting across the country (yes, yes I know, it's not the point but weirdly I can't get past it)

My brain is a nest of snakes lately too. Partly because I don't have work distracting me, partly because something has brought up old insecurities, like really old, ingrained ones. I've sorted through dozens of Bourbon City Steam photos, literally hundreds of them and outside of the one picture where I won that trivia trophy, that is the only photo of me from all three days. I didn't see one of me doing my stuff (but I know the camera man was in there). I didn't make the dances but I was there for most things.

It's like high school and college all over. I'm in every play, multiple bands, an officer in my sorority and I barely exist in the yearbook. I know it's just ego talking but it's odd to me that I don't seem to catch anyone's eye. Would anyone even remember me? Other than two people there would anyone notice if I wasn't? I know the answer. No one would. My one friend didn't even realize I had never been to this one before. Maybe he imagined me there. Maybe that's a good thing.


Sadly I can't put I fucking love science links here for science saturday. They've started a paid subscription to read them. So have these.


High-status Roman woman was buried in a lead coffin with jet hairpins and exotic resins, archaeologists find

Homo erectus genetic material sequenced for the first time, and it shows 'deep genetic links' with modern humans

A combination of amazement and horror': Hitchhiker fish hide in manta ray buttholes

Microplastics absorb heat in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming — as if they weren't bad enough

Pollution may fuel depression, anxiety and other mental health problems, emerging research suggests

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So the day started well. I ran to Gallipolis on flimsy excuses: I wanted the hard copy of an arc I failed to read on time and knew I never would as an ebook and the library had it. While I was there I was taking my new pendant to its creator to get a longer chain.

I get the book but the store the jeweler was in was closed for the weekend because the power died in that old woolworth building. Ugh. This is like 20 miles away.

I get home and try to do the laundry only to find the lock has been changed. I get the new passcode and yet again some fuck has their clothes just rotting in the washers. I'm too depressed to bother with it (if it's still there tomorrow I'm tossing it on the folding rack)

I go to call for my car and that's when I hit a snag because that's what my anxiety and depression needed today. When I got the hotel room back around Christmas, the schedule wasn't out yet. They had just put out the calls for speakers at that point. I didn't realize that it wasn't on its usual time frame. It's started on a Sunday but I have myself arriving on Friday (It usually starts Saturday) so I call Sheraton to change it and they say it's too late to do that but if I want to call the hotel direct just dial back and click the talk to front desk option. I'm ripping because it's 10 days in advance not 24 hours (which most hotels will let you do).

I call back. There is no front desk option but I get the operator and he drops friday off my reservation in 30 seconds. So much for you can't do that. Apparently when you find someone willing to do their job....

I call Enterprise and in spite of using the card I was given yesterday, I don't get a local agent. I get someone who didn't even know the name of my town. I say thanks but no thanks. I'll drive back up tomorrow...twice, no problems. gah.

And I'll have to make my hotel reservation for my siteseeing part of the trip after the con which is okay because that means I'm not trying to cram into something the holiday weekend which when ELD and I did that two years ago it didn't go well.

I really wish I had a local writers group or at least someone who is interested in my new novel to talk to. It would be helpful. sigh. I miss sharing enthusiasm with others for my project and theirs. Would be nice to have again (or at least something more than indifference)


Speaking of my luck I had something happen today that has never happened. I had FIVE offers direct from the publishers to read their books (and one sounded really good) but three were for June 9th. I already have three for that date and knew I could never commit to these (pouts) two others I might take since one is a series I like and not due for a blog tour until Nov. What are the chances of all this?