cornerofmadness

Do not want to talk politics but holy fuck this is worse than I imagined it would be and I imagined the world on fire.

And I'm going back and forth again and again on my project. If I change it one more time, someone come slap me. I tried to add more to my bibliography (which I might not even add) but my new computer is opening every PDF as purely black but I can't get that off nor change the text color either. WTF

Work stress was through the roof

And speaking of which, no one bothered to clean the school of science's gutters. The water from last night's deluge was knee deep on the roof (they were up there bailing) and the water was pouring into the chemistry side of the building.

Then I was hit with an email from Nanowrimo and they're done. I will be honest. That is some mixed emotions. They have made so many missteps lately this isn't a surprise. That said, they have been part of my life for over 20 years. Almost all my local friends who aren't work friends came to me via the local Nano group. It's their own damn fault. I will miss it anyhow even if I didn't do it officially last year after the whole Ai debacle.

And now the chest pain/coughing is back. More and more sure this is a hiatal hernia but I need to find a way to deal with this.


Let's do music monday. I have an idea brewing for the future here but that's for when my brain isn't a mess. But since we did rain last week, let's do sunshine this week (it's still raining) And boy there are a lot of sun songs in the 60s and 70s.

( Sunny here because it's dark inside my head )

Still don't have a car rental. My aunt and uncle came and were here...for hours and hours. That doesn't mean I did nothing. While talking to them I made up a page of addresses for everything I want to see. It's 2 pages long but I'm ready for the gps.

I also found out that my so called historical hotel isn't. All the blather about it being from the 20ss is just that. Apparently one tiny piece is from the original hotel and it's built in the 90s (that is explains a lot) but the true disappointment is they have an amenity fee 25$ for wifi/parking/pool/gym. Um you know I don't complain about in-town parking fees but that you are going to charge me for wifi?!? You know what I've had that before. Now it might be one of those deals where you 'join for free' and get some emails and you get it for free then. That said if I do need to pay that for 5 days that is SO going in my review.

By the way it's World Goth day. Wish I could have celebrated better. Instead I spent it looking at my brand new shirt fresh from the wash going WHY does it look like I splashed a bottle of oil on it?!? WTF?

I'm now up to looking at food. What does disappoint me is that everything I want to see in old town is 2 miles from the hotel, too far to walk but i'm not getting a car until it's all over.


What do I have for music monday?

The snake charmer putting an Indian spin on an old Irish tune


And a fan made song so popular it got its own remix

That was the plan and then my gaze caught on a news article and my mood nosedived off a cliff. Honest to fuck I DO NOT need little areas of my toolbar to automatically bring up the news if I so much as glance their way. I don't need a fucking stockticker in the corner. Hell I want to be able to get to the browser without seeing a dozen news articles that damage my mental health. Is that too much to ask? Sigh.

I was thinking about my ankle brace and I KNOW I have that one here somewhere but it's not where the rest of them are. Sigh. Naturally.

The one saving grace today was during this mental health free fall, I was talking online with a friend from my Elfquest days that I haven't had time to talk to in a while. She's been rereading Elric and told me a few things I didn't know like it had been revamped a bit and put in a new reading order. However after reading that graphic novel I'm not sure i'm up for Elric again but I like her analysis of character because she is particularly GOOD at it, better than I am for certain. She sees things I don't. Rather wish we still had fandoms in common (I think Buffy might have been the last of them) because it is fun to talk fandoms and my last two fandoms...most of them have drifted away from twitter and the last one I suspect the bulk of the fans are so signficantly younger than me the conversations wouldn't be what I'd want them to be (though I could be wrong).

Oh and the other saving grace is I DID finish my 300 word flash fic...at 322 words. Anyone able to do a quickie beta read and help me kick a few words to the kerb. Downside I need to turn this in by the weekend.


So instead of meta, you can have some old filk songs. Last night's post sort of bumped off friday's and in my head you all remembered me mentioning filk music in that post. Anyhow last night's post lost the line I meant to be in there that said I haven't seen filk music since my college days. I seriously do not remember this in Buffy fandom or Saiyuki and Fullmetal Alchemist and well ANY of my anime fandoms. Definitely not in Prodigal Son so I was shocked to see it now.

In fact the last time I remember hearing any filk was a few years ago with Aurelio Voltaire at the Steampunk Symposium and I bought his album Bitrektual. I really love some of the songs (Bitrektual is good, Bigger on the Inside and Expendable (the latter being the strongest)) but some are just too crude for me.




One of the very first filk albums I bought was for the first fandom I wrote in that I actually interacted with other fans with. Elfquest (and I still talk to some of these people 40 years later)




Soon after I bought this one for Mercedes Lackey's Herald series

and her Star Trek filk

I wore out multiple cassettes of these. Funny thing cassettes are coming back! (I still have a cassette player) That boggles my mind because their sound was often warped and they broke and yes I did love them. I also see all of these have downloads available. Hmmmm


So i'm going back to obsessing over my big mouth opening at work again. Sometimes I worry about being TOO frank in class. I have to teach body parts but every so often (like today) I worry when is someone going to report me for mentioning penises or vaginas or something and I get fired without a second thought. Sigh.

I had a hard evening emotionally realizing that all the vacations I want to go on I might never be able to do again on my own. Almost all of them have woods and hiking in them. It's going to be such an adjustment to have to depend on people.

Mom found some tours for me. The one to Cape Cod has promise. On the other hand I found some stuff to do in Rhode Island. THanks to Atlas Obscura I found Brown University's library has anthropodermic books and now I want to go. That's not weird right? Also there are a few other things I would love to see. Of course if I take the 8 day trip from Providence I could see some of the Providence stuff too. They have a fantastic looking little Italy.


My biggest fear of doing a tour or flying right now is if my knee acts up (like today when I could barely get thru the grocery store) then I am stuck. If I go on my own and go where I can drive to, then I am going to be better off. I can go back to the hotel and rest or cut thing short and go home. I need to think about this

So have some women scientists here. I have 4 degrees in science. I heard of NONE OF THEM in school other than Jane Goodall but not in school, just in the news. We got Marie Curie and that. was. it.

And on International Women's Day we have news of a GOP candidate in Michigan saying if women are going to be inevitably raped we should just lay back and enjoy it. At least the rest of the GOP is yelling at him but who wants to bet nothing will happen to him (He's a Qanon person)

I wish I could say this day went well. I did get a laugh One of my students told me I was dressed like a Batman villain. To be fair I was wearing a 1920s styled suit with a wine pinstripe complete with a feathered cloche. I said it wasn't quite right for The Joker. No I meant the Penguin. Should you say that to someone about to hand you a test?


My chest has been tight for hours, anxiety. I know what it's caused by. I don't want to talk about it openly. Maybe I will under a lock.

I got one of the short stories done. I need to get the rest at least attempted. It would be easier if I could stop crying every few minutes. I am going to have to get past the bad therapy experiences in my head and try to find a therapist.

As always thanks to all the Veteran's out there.

And happy belated birthday to sylvanwitch.

I am proud of myself I walked up the ridiculous two flights of stairs to the leg press and did my work out there (mostly because two old dudes watching Newsmax were on the bikes and I didn't want to walk right back out, only two bikes. sigh). It wasn't so bad. I need to do this every time now. I didn't know the old guys were watching newsmax til one moved to the treadmill. I was not about to watch a "news" show of any kind but especially not one peddling QaNon theories as truth. I left early.

Then just a few minutes ago something happened that has really caused me no end of anxiety, literally a chest crushing anxiety attack. Honestly this thing shouldn't have triggered SUCH a big attack. I want to blame it on me coming out of big hypoglycemic attack but it's becoming more and more obvious that I need to see a therapist.


Snippet “Laura, you here?” Grace called.

“In the living room.”

“You decent? We brought Dan home.”

“I can go back to my dorm now.”

Alessia shook her head. “Stay. I don’t want Tony sending anyone to your dorm to make life miserable. Besides it’s late. Crash here.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll take the couch whenever Laura gives it up,” Grace says. “I fit better on the couch than you, long legs.”

Dan huffed, sauntering to the living room. “All right. Laura, did you report in to Javier?”

“And tell him you three went to a frat party? I think not. We can report in the morning.” Laura shrugged. “I was ready to put in a movie. Should we make some popcorn?”

“The answer to that is always yes. I’ll get it started.” Grace bopped off to microwave some.

“I’ll grab some drinks, coke or water I think that’s all we have,” Alessia said.

“I’m good.” Laura hoisted her glass.

“Water’s fine. Need help?” Dan asked.

“Nah, it’s good.”

Alessia tried to let the confrontation at the Chi house go. Sometimes she preferred the monsters. Those you could kill and be done with. The human monsters were harder to deal with. Tony would be a problem but she was ready for him. Forcing him from her mind, Alessia got the drinks and then settled in with her friends and teammates for some movie fun but that sense of unease didn’t leave her. Something wasn’t quite right.

16639 / 50000 words. 33% done!

Trying to do the night of writing dangerously. Failing. Probably because it's been three days of hell. I don't get this way as often as I used to but it's been three days of obsessing on worst case scenarios. Haven't slept much nor eaten much for that matter. The vasculitis is back. If I can get thru the next two days I think it will be okay.

My only relief has been thanks to LC and R on Jana's FB and the word sprints. I don't see my friends like I used to. Hardly anyone chats any more. A lot of people text of course but I have limited texts and don't want to burn them all in a couple of nights when I could do the same in FB's chat window for free for example. Having them there was a life line.

Tomorrow will either go fine or fulfill my nightmares. I'm trying not to think about it because it's sucking my creativity dry.

On the good side I've broken 30K (I'll bbl with a final score widget) and I'm impressed by, jealous of and proud of silvrethorn for finishing her nano novella (she still has more to 'win' nano but she has this done). Way to go!

Also I finished the edits given to me by evil_little_dog and tinhutlady so thank you very much for that.