cornerofmadness

I'm getting to do absolutely nothing. Was going out tonight with my brother and SiL. Now they're sick. Monday is going to be a good day travel wise but everything is closed. Sigh.

I really got nothing done today beyond packing away Christmas and working up one set of notes.

Today was weird. My sugar was in the 80s all morning and even after a pasta dinner it's only 116. Who knows with me

So just have some depressed offerings (which seems apropos of how horrible this year is starting politically)
so have science saturday

January 'Wolf Supermoon': How to see the full moon rise with Jupiter this weekend

Centuries-old 'trophy head' from Peru reveals individual survived to adulthood despite disabling birth defect.

Ash Pendant: The only known depiction of a pregnant Viking woman

How Did Ancient Wolves Get Onto This Remote Island 5,000 Years Ago?

Mysterious Voynich manuscript may be a cipher, a new study suggests

Meet The Honduran White Bat: It's Tiny, It's Fluffy, And It Builds Tents

James Webb telescope spies a monstrous molecular cloud shrouded in mystery — Space photo of the week

The Man Who Drank Radioactive Juice Until His Bones Crumbled And His Jaw Came Off (I talk about him in class every year)

A Distinct New Type of Diabetes Is Officially Recognized.

I haven't been a great friend this month. I've not responded to about 80% of the comments I've gotten since Nov 7th. I've commented on a few posts and that's it. I've read no fanfic and barely any books. I've cleaned nothing. I didn't even realize I was out of insulin until today when I realized after I got back from Jackson. I thought one bag was my short acting humalog but nope it's all long acting toujeo. Now I have to spend time I don't have going back to Jackson tomorrow.

So yeah that's how out of things I am. The only constructive things I did was go to the coffee shop to write (finished another chapter in an upcoming Hazbin wip), hit kroger and cvs for some clove oil (as it occurs to me it can numb my gum and it's antimicrobial). And I managed to change my summer clothes for the winter. I need to ditch about 20 of these old t-shirts.

But there was some joy. Abney Park did something weird and fun a 'choose your own adventure' concert. The fans in the chat told them what game board square to go to as we thread a maze to the space ship and then they'd green screen a background and we had to guess what the song was and then they'd play it. Some of us fans were so damn fast we had the songs before they even gave a clue. It was different and fun.

And it is Science Saturday


Did a NASA telescope really 'see' dark matter? Strange gamma-rays spark bold claims, but scientists urge caution

We May Now Know Why Alzheimer's Erases Memories of Our Loved Ones

Neanderthals cannibalized 'outsider' women and children 45,000 years ago at cave in Belgium

New Diabetes Pill Works as Well as Ozempic For Weight Loss, Trial Finds Probably works similar to Rybelsus which made me so ill

A fossilized foot found 15 years ago belonged to enigmatic human relative that lived alongside Lucy, scientists say

Study Reveals The Anal Sex Techniques Women Love (And You've Never Even Heard Of) No, really and it was a study of thousands

Both midterms and yoga


Gave three midterms today and I have only graded one. On the plus side, plenty of writing time. I finished my last two fandomgiftbasket stories (to the tune of at least 2500 words, probably over 3K) (there is like one set of prompts I could do but they only want art. I'm not sure I'm good enough for that)



The other good, got two 100% scores on the exam. On the bad I had at least 6 (out of 24) less than 50%. I tell them don't leave the fill in the blanks blank. Give it a shot. I give it partial credit. I might have to start adding 'but think hard if it makes sense' because on the ceruminous glands make this question (ear wax) someone put BRAINS. I...I can't even. And two people on the what is the system called that we use to determine % of the body that's burned (rule of nines) and they said 'nervous system' I figure they cheated off each other because what are the chances two people would independently come up with something that dumb. (I am not pursuing the cheating suspicion because seriously neither got over 40%. doesn't even matter)


And I have two more sets of tests to grade :(



Yoga was well attended (yay), in a terrible room (boo). Hard floors even with a mat was hard on my knees. I could not push up from the floor into downward dog (I can go into it from standing). I handed the standing poses well but since there was nothing to hold on to, I couldn't return to the floor. My leg was shaking too much. I couldn't feel it at all. I know it'll buckle if I try to get down with nothing to hold onto. I had to stand and basically not do the second half of the exercise. So embarrassing. Also frightening was doing the child pose and realizing I can feel whatever the fuck it is in my throat blocking my breathing. I still have about 3 weeks before I see Ent. sigh.



Next week we're moving to a different room, one with chairs so I can either do chair yoga or at least have something to grab onto. This was so much harder than I thought (and I thought it would be hard even though I used to do yoga). I have to look to make sure my toes aren't folded over because I can't feel them. And at the end when I'm telling my parents about it dad's like 'you wasted money on an Amazon mat'


Me - what are you talking about? I've had this thing for years. I've been doing yoga since my undergrad days!

Dad - I've never see you do yoga, (very obviously calling me a liar)



Me - yeah well I have done (I should mail him the old vhs and dvds I have of yoga flows) but I'm thinking I would NEVER let your hyper critical ass see me exercise ever, not even at gun point.



What I Just Finished Reading:


The Cat Who Saved Books - I just didn't get the hype. It was fine but...I've already forgotten most of it



What I am Currently Reading:

Mirage City - the follow up to Lavender House, very different in tone. I would love ALL of the Hazbin fandom (and creator) to read this to see what being gay in the early half of the 1900s was like.


The Queen of Blood - a YA fantasy I've had on my shelf for too many years now. It's not bad so far but yes the first quarter is more dark academia, fit to survive school (eye roll)


Haunted Cemeteries of Ohio - you know why

Lackadaisy vol 2

clean sweep - I think that's the title some romance graphic novel urban fantasy might be decent if not for the icky romance tropes (sorry but alpha males make me want to shoot them in their smug faces, not drop my panties)


What I Plan to Read Next: The Gallery Assistant -got bored with this arc




More comic cons means more news so have some more of the Mighty Nein





and an uncensored trailer that wasn't much different than last night's. I'm still sitting here going why does Beau look so much like Sokka?!?



I posted this a year or two ago (it has a major spoiler if you are unfamiliar with the Mighty Nein) still a great animatic



And I've posted this before. But as I was watching Critical Role, this popped up a few years ago and got me listening to The Mighty Nein because I was so curious after hearing this (I just wished I liked Jester better (don't like Beau at all)

Tell me some good news, I beg you. Or give me a cool song, or kittens or something. It's personally been a horrible week and today was a really sad topper.

I gave a make up exam to a student who turned it in to me with an 'I know I didn't do well. I missed so much.' and then broke down crying because she'll miss so much more because her cancer is back. I'm used to consoling patients but let me tell you, it's very different consoling an 80s year old with life threatening news than it is an 18 year old (The people at St Jude's, you have my undying gratitude and your strength amazes me). I felt so bad for her. I told her to ask for any help I can give (but I also think I'm going to double check on medical withdrawals and money back but honestly if she's going to be getting chemo and is going to be gone, that would be the best for her. No one needs to face what she's facing AND knowing you're going to fail too)

Also did I mention that I got my abdominal CT scan back? No signs of more cancer so good for me.

ANd changing gears, have the fannish 50 weekly recs.

Moth’s Web Hazbin Hotel

Dinner And A Weevil Torchwood

Love Walked In FAKE

Doesn't Matter Hazbin Hotel

The Winner Torchwood

Buying Time Doctor Who

The Price of Your Touch Hazbin Hotel

Multi-Fandom Fictober!

Shoulder to Cry On - Day 1 Forsaken

Fractions of Never Hazbin Hotel

Seeking Sanctuary 911

Stuck in this Godforsaken Town Hazbin Hotel

Minor Malfunction Torchwood

His Beautiful Bride Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Kinger: Dad of Girls (and Zoobles) The Amazing Digital Circus

Art for Passing Through Doctor Who


Wedding Day. Teen Wolf

Spoils of War Stargate Atlantis

I think I mentioned that my fridge hasn't been working. So today I turned it off and defrosted the freezer in hopes that this would fix the problem because it's likely that since the compressor IS working that the airflow got choked off. Threw out more food that's been up there WAY too long.

The fridge filled with water which I took to mean that passageway defrosted. But the fridge doesn't seem to be cooling down (freezer is fine). I noticed that the rubber seal is broken. There's also a crack in freezer's plastic. I have SO much to clean if I get someone in here to get that fridge replaced (provided they dont' fall through the porch in the attempt. They WILL fall through the back steps to the kitchen)


I wanted to get pictures up to share. Depression said no. I don't even know where most of this day went. I did go to Jackson to try the new coffee shop but there was no seating and it reminds me of the one in Point Pleasant, mired in the drinks of 20 years ago, nothing new or interesting. Went to my usual one. I think the antique shop has already failed too. Not a surprise. Millenials and Gen Z have zero interest in it.

Even my brisket sandwich sucked. It was mostly dried out and tough. Sigh (usually it's good at this place)

Finally watching the second Black Panther movie. Been on my dvr forever. I am bored to tears and dislike everyone. Maybe I'm just tired of war. I appreciate how they decided to do Namor but I'm seriously not buying into why his people are strong as superman. (then again I don't remember him much outside of the Fantastic Four though I did have some namor comics)

There are only so many hits you can take in one day. Let me sum them up.

1. Starting at midnight I was getting nauseous. It woke me up at 3 AM. Luckily I didn't get sick and it was over by morning.

2. I drag myself to the BMV with the proper paperwork to get my real ID. No one is there and I'm like whoo hoo, gonna sail right through. And I did until I asked the question 'when can I expect this to be mailed to me?' (hoping 10 days because that's how long I have here) FORTY TWO DAYS. Are you fucking kidding me? As calmly as I can, I ask why wasn't that on the BMV's webpage that it takes almost 6 weeks to get a license? She looks at me puzzled. Why are you upset? You have a passport to get on a plane (as that is my form of ID). Um my driver license expires in a month? If I had known this I'd have shown up in April. Oh you can have this. She hands me a print out of my new id pic. I folded it up in my wallet thinking OMFG

So this means yes I DO have to come back here. This is non-forwardable mail (she even cautioned me, it looks like junk mail be sure to open it). Honestly I'm not that mad about it but it's a long way to go but there are things I want to do in Ohio (like Cosi's star Wars exhibit) and I DO feel better that it wouldn't have mattered if I had gone last week like I thought it might

3. I go to my coffee shop, try something new, Rose Cardamon matcha latte, pricey for very little but this was my reward for not setting the BMV on fire. It was a decent matcha latte. Zero cardamon. Zero rose and seriously how do you mess that up? Rose is a strong flavor and I'm a regular, if you're out of a house made flavor, just tell me that (sometimes they do, depends on the barista) So disappointing

4.Picked up two new mother's day plants (manager special) which is the good news for the day

5. CVS missed seeing one of my scripts (my wellbutrin, let's not forget my mental health pills dudes) now I have to go back tomorrow

6. Come home to get a letter telling me that because my ob/gyn oncologist is not a specialist in abdominal things they denied their request for the CT scan for my hernia because 'it's not in their field' (fuck insurance, seriously. You wanna play? Oh I'll play fuckwads. I can go right to a general surgeon but I'll make sure I get the PCP step in there just so you have to pay out more.)

7 Decide to check on my hotel reservation for the conference. Can I tell you how much I LOATHE these 'reservation call centers' that do groups of hotels? The automated system can't help me because they can't find my phone number (either of them) and I don't have my confirmation number (because my work email's search engine is broken and can't find it which is back in January or maybe even December) If you didn't use our service to make your reservation (I didn't because I went thru the HAPS site to get the conference block discount) you can't use us to find your reservation. Call the hotel.

Well, dumbasses, if the hotel's number came up when I googled the hotel I wouldn't have called your dumb asses. I change up my search and come up with the hotel's phone number (wrote that down) and call them. They can't find my reservation either (cue low key panic). She searches around oh are you at this email? Yes that's me and yes that's my cell phone. The problem was when I filled out HAPS reservation form it changed it from Dr Dana E to Doctor as my first name....the reservation is fine and I'm glad I talked to them because I got to ask where my handicapped backside needed to park (because I KNOW that area of Pittsburgh is shit for parking). You could literally hear her wince. You need to use our valet (because the parking garage is down the street a few blocks which I know) parking for 45$. Sold.

8. Rocket is sick, feverish and naturally tomorrow I can NOT take him to the vet because I have to go make sure I don't have an aneurysm in my skull or a brain tumor or something equally horrible. He was a little improved tonight. I naturally worried he'd get infected post operatively because of his FIV. Might be happening.


Did anything good happen? Maybe. On the second day of the conference (as I already threw my hat into the ring for another one on day one) is another sales pitch lunch with 100$ honorarium. Oh yes let me sign up for this one too. If I get them both, I don't have to worry about lunch at all this conference and I'll make 200$ in Amazon money (what can you do?)

Also at Kroger I found out Farm rich now has a mozzarella stick that has a center of Frank's redhot. This is how I die, yinz.

It's music monday. I'm doing songs from 2020-2025 and running the alphabet. I'm up to F let's hear your recs. Here are mine

[Bad username or unknown identity: F, the letter of this day, lemme tell you]

Actually not a lot of them.




I'm very lukewarm about Miley in general (I'm torn between a woman can do whatever she wants and the oversexualization of her stuff does no woman any good) I do like several of her songs though


And two from Abney Park. They love the story telling song and both of these are that.

Because it's so dark out there and today's light was a student from last year stopping by to tell me he's graduating next week and he wanted me to know I am the best teacher he's ever had. He thinks I'm stellar.

My computer is back to acting up, the browser is randomly pausing videos now and it won't go to sleep and stay there so I'm fairly sure there's malware in it but nothing that the antiviral programs can find. sigh. Know what I regret? Not going to into computers, even now when I had the chance when I first got here. I hate this helpless feeling.

Another point of light: my MRI to look for the aneurysm/tumor/etc in my head to see if we can figure out what might be causing my stupid trigeminal neuralgia. But I think it's at the same time as my endocrinology appt I will move the MRI that'll be a shit ton easier than moving endo. I really need to go there too because of my thyroid. I'm tired of being so sick, yinz, so tired.

This fannish 50's fandom question is brought to you by Blue Exorcist anime (or at least the one from a decade ago) and the question is how close to the source material do you want your adaptations. I know this is a hard one to answer and definitely YMMV. For the most part I like it to be close. This older Blue Exorcist adaptation is SO off the rails it's hard to enjoy it (I know there is a new one, I thought this one was going to be that but no). I felt that about the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist. There were some things I liked about the off the rails stuff (the homunculi) but things I absolutely hated BUT in that case (and I think is the same thing in the older BE adaptation) is they were jumping on the band wagon before the manga was done and making it up (badly) as they went.

On the other hand, there are adaptations I think were better for some editing (the Harry Potter books, Lord of the Rings).

There were ones that were absolutely bad adaptations, Constantine, the Percy Jackson movies, which actually weren't bad movies, they just sucked it as adaptations and should have been presented as something original (especially Constantine)

Then there's just bad bad, most of the early Stephen King ones, the Anne Rice Vampire movies etc.

Does anyone have any adaptations you think were as good as or better than the source material? Oddly I do. Maybe it's because I watched Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and Murdoch Mysteries before I read the books I much preferred the TV shows. Honestly I think the Fisher books are so dumb I don't even know how we got an adaptation (again YMMV, if you like them great) How To Train Your Dragon (that book was so weird and honestly I think they only kept the names and nothing else) Howl's Moving Castle is good as book and movie but very different.

Since no one wants to hear about the depression and crap and my day was boring. that said I DO hope taking iron will fix some of this for me. I am getting tired out by going shopping. I don't want to go on like this if I can do something about it. I feel 90 not 50something

And let me say, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to lordgloria Hope it was a good one.

But I did write today and I'm happy with this story. It's silly and hopefully fun and I hope you enjoy it if you read it.

Title: My Own Pink World

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Summary: Arackniss didn’t think his brother would set himself up as an overlord once he killed Valentino but he had. Now he needed to see his brother’s new castle but he wasn’t prepared for this much sensory overload.

Rating: teen

Author Note - Written for spikesgirl58’s six word challenge. The words were Asset, Crude, Undermine, Lean, Respectable, & Common.

( read the story at AO3 at the above link or under here )



Welcome To The World The Owl House

A Night For Velvette Hazbin Hotel

Green And Gold Torchwood

A Tasteful Easter Egg Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Welcome to Pacific Tech Stargate Atlantis/Stargate SG-1/Real Genius

It’s A Breeze Torchwood

Far Too Long Torchwood

Standards Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Promises Batman

When the Scream Subsides Oxventure

Decisions have Consequences Teen Wolf

Emotionally. I'll save the work issues (other than say HR should ASK if we're working on Friday other than buying into the rumor no one works on friday because three of us can't meet with the potential new hire. two can reschedule themselves. I can't and won't because it's my oncology appt) for a locked post sometime.

I've been having creepypasta dreams one with me walling someone up in some strange organic polymer because I was mad at him. (I have no idea who he was) I had gotten up to his face when I woke a half hour before my alarm this morning.

Another was me being furious with my cat who was hiding under my bed (a gray kitty I've never owned) and I was so mad I threw my bed and dragged this poor thing out by its scruff (I would never do this just so we're clear)

Another was my uncle (the one who just passed) lying on bedding in my closet, getting madder and sicker as we went (this one went on forever).

My brain is mad obviously.

What I Just Finished Reading:

Floating Hotel - here's the thing, if I hadn't been reading this for a prompt I might have given up. That said, I'm glad I didn't. It was interesting how she focused on one character per chapter giving their reason for being on the hotel and what's happening now and it was a jigsaw building to the climax which was well done

Les Normaux - gay paranormal romance graphic novel, lovely art, good enough story (webtoon) but I wasn't wowed. You might be (I'm not a romancy type)


What I am Currently Reading:

Another Fine Mess -Didn't realize this was book two so I am annoyed with myself because this is 100% spoilery for book one. It's a strange book, I'm liking it

Raised by a Serial Killer - so far I'm not blown away. I'm mostly sitting here going does ANYONE have this many clear memories from the time they were 3-6 years old.


What I Plan to Read Next: I forgot Bossard Library (it's in Gallipolis, not my usual library) does an amazing giveaway as their winter reading program so I grabbed a boat load of graphic novels to power thru by Monday to be able to put in for the giveaways so those.

I wish it was happier but today was sad and honestly that's all I want to say politically or I might start screaming or vomiting or both.

Mom got bad news too with that bad toe of hers. I was on her in Mexico because it looked awful. It's all open again and honestly I expect it to need amputated.

So I'm trying to concentrate on things I can control which isn't much. I can't even get an appointment to have my jaw looked at before the end of May. I don't know how to condense my sabbatical research into a short talk because omg there is so much of it.

I did, however, finish my Women of the Weird West story during my monthly writers group meeting of which almost no one showed up (which is unusual) It was good to just turn off all the worries for an hour and a half.

Because I've been nauseated all day. I think it's partly too many OTC meds for my stomach and anxiety.