chase_acow

and ended up spilling eye juice all over the place when my relief came in. It was definitely a feeling of helplessness at being poorly positioned to support my shift, pre-anxiety for a meeting on Thursday where I need to bring up issues and try to resolve them on behalf of my department with the big boss, an overreaction to a new officer who is of the old school gentleman class of casual touch, and then an embarrassment loop because I freaked out when he touched my back as we passed through a narrow spot in the stations and somehow it is now documented in his training file that he was reprimanded for not keeping his hands to himself. And like . . . you shouldn't touch people you don't know very well, but now it feels like my freakiness is on display for everyone to see. And if the LT comes down and tries to peer support me tomorrow, I'm gonna lose my shit.

I am a person, who in the past and apropos of nothing, started to daydream about how to get out of theralpy if an alien civilization showed up and I could save the world if I finished a session so they could know me completely. The world is doomed.

The Big Bad Wolf series by Charlie Adhara is available on Kindle Unlimited. And yeah, Amazon is bad, my public library system/Libby doesn't have the widest selection of m/m, and I love these books. The main character is an emotionally constipated porcupine who is trying to be better for the love of his life. The mysteries are so good, the clues are all there for you to figure out if it's your jam, and otherwise there's always a satisfying reveal. Anyway I think I've pushed these on y'all before, but I love them, I bought the ebooks, and if they were available in print, I'd buy those too.

I've also been drowning in nostalgia and reading all the old Valdemar books I loved in my childhood, but that's another post once I've finished the Storm books.

So like always when I feel guilty and embarrassed that I was supposed to do something and couldn't do it, I retreat away from posting anything. You know, why do I have time to do this, but not that other thing?!? Trying to get in the habit of giving myself the same grace I'd give others. I go back to work tomorrow after a roller-coaster of five days off, and I plan to finish out the couple of ficortreat surprises I still have outstanding.

My college football team is 3-6 and if I had to take a guess is going to miss going to a bowl game for the first time in 18 years. The coach is an ignorant piece of trash who complained that anyone complaining about this year's team is probably a failure at home and can't pay their bills. He offered up a shitty insincere apology the next day. We're never going to be rid of him because he's successful enough but such a whiny asshole in front of the media that no one else will hire him away. We pay him a shit ton so I'm not holding my breath on a buy out.

I gave up reading Jeff Vandermeer's new book Absolution - a prequel of sorts to the Southern Reach trilogy. The first part with the biologists was fine, but I do not care about Old Jim in the least and caught myself skimming trying to get to the good weird bits before I gave up and returned it to Libby. I'll try again later.

I am reading Scratch the Surface by Mary Calmes and enjoying it quite a bit. It's m/m love at first fuck, but as individual characters they are fleshed out, quirky people, who are not just interchangeable because they (unlike a bunch of these boilerplate romance books) actually have personalities. So their romance is a nice steady march toward trusting each other, and then the weirdest and most outlandish things happen to one of the characters to keep the pace and plot(?) going. IDEK but I like the two boys and I'm cheering for their happily ever after.

( and then there's the orange fucking elephant in the room )

and I'll be glad when April is over. And then even happier when the first week of May is over. Justin Timberlake and lazy taco and Star Wars memes are the worst.

But I am admittedly in a grumpy phase. I wrote a post about Dasher's (my shepherd) last day, but I ended up making it private. I feel so guilty and anxious and not sure that it was the right decision. The house is so quiet without him, which admittedly is a good thing, but I still miss him. I don't need any well wishes or anything. They don't really help.

Media I have enjoyed:
- Love Lies Bleeding - this movie zigged hard at the end and convinced me I did in fact love it. Two dumpster fire lesbians falling in love in 1989. One is a body builder, and Kristen Stewart is the daughter of a gun runner. Features - weird sex (the older couple next to me got up and left when the third sex scene started with toe sucking), love, murder, roid rage, and a happy(?) ending.

- Mary Calmes Timing series! Really the first two books (they're shortish) are a thing and then the third one is from a new POV in the same family. They're just fun, full of interesting characters, decent dialog (and you know I have a high bar) and entertaining plot. The sex is honestly the least of everything. I really enjoyed Stef and Glenn, and the ranch.
( Blurb from book 1 )

-Spotify suggested 'Let's Duet' on my weekly Discover list. I laughed a little, and was then surprised to find out it was John C Reilly from his movie Walk Hard. I enjoy him as an actor, but I didn't think I'd like that movie so I've never watched it. But here you go if you need a little suggestive humor:
( Let's Duet )

- The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare - I like Guy Ritchie and his queerness (I'll skip Aladdin 2 though), and this movie was just entertaining. Mostly bloodless violence and clever characters doing weird things.

Media I did not enjoy as much:
- Monkey Man - mostly because of the frenetic camera work and the choice to go with realistic (the gross gore) violence, and that it was humorless. Dev Patel is an amazing, beautiful man, but I've really only enjoyed The Personal History of David Copperfield of his.
- Late Night with the Devil I think they missed an opportunity there.

IDEK what to write around here anymore.

I'm at 34 out of 40 books for the year. I think I can make it without cheating as much as I did last year. The last fun book I read was The Bodyguard which is all over the best of lists.

This is the most fun I've ever had with a book that starts off with mom dying of an alcohol related disease and then getting dumped by boyfriend. The dialog is fast and clever, the situations are bonkers but fun, and the ending very satisfyingly ties everything up.


I didn't think The Santa Clauses series would be for me, but I noped out of the first episode and didn't even get to Peyton Manning. I do really like Kal Penn, but ugggg, I don't know if I can do it. ( Tim Allen is an asshole, but he can't ruin Home Improvement or the original Santa Claus. New stuff however, I just can't stand him. )


Kitten update: ( When Bear is the slightest bit inconvenienced she makes this groan mutter that sounds exactly like when Marge Simpson is upset. )

covid and flu shots achieved today. I'm kinda hoping I feel terrible tomorrow so I can guilt free call in sick. Though it will mean inconveniencing my coworkers, so I might just suffer at work.


I read this book, and I liked it a lot. It has absolutely no point. I don't think there's a plot? It bothered me at first, but when I gave up waiting for sense I was able to read it better.

A gothic coming-of-age tale for modern times, When We Were Animals is a dark, provocative journey into the American heartland. So the main character is suburban housewife with a son and a nice guy husband who doesn't fit in great. Every night she sneaks down to the kitchen to write a kind of memoir about her childhood growing up in a small town where teenagers spend a year during puberty running wild during the full moon. They are straight up beautiful monsters, and the language used is such poetry.

Dune -> It was on my TV and I watched whenever Oscar Isaac was there. Timothée Chalamet annoys me - seems awful full of himself.

Squid Game -> I am not cut out to watch Korean dramas, I could not handle the acting which to my comfort zone looked like incredible OVERacting. I went through the eps a little faster on the computer where I could skip 10secs over some of my worst cringes. I think it's a giant conspiracy to get people to eat more fried chicken.

Eternals ( I liked it. But maybe I liked it because of the implications instead of the text? )

I'm now watching Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac in Scenes From a Marriage and wow they are brutal.

free books from around the world! I nabbed most of them just in case, but a lot of them look real good.

I have a ticket reserved for Endgame Friday morning at 10. We'll see if I manage to make it inside the building, though I'm hoping it won't be absolutely packed. (when to restroom if you need it) None of the spoilers so far are giving my any trouble, though obviously Sam and Bucky aren't the headliners so they need less worry. I wish I knew when one specific spoiler happened so I'd know I only had to suffer for so long until it happened.

I'm not even in The Magician's fandom (I tried to watch the first couple of eps last month and just nawed away from characters who irritated me), and I am so sorry for the people still hurting over their season finale, and I think it was a shitty thing, and I think TPTB who are being real smug about their creative vision are kinda shitty people at the moment. However, for my own well being, I'm trying to avoid the conversation, and I'm not really that thrilled that the argument is being applied to the MCU, because I don't see it really applies the same and I don't want it. But hey, don't like, don't read. And I hope it's helpful for someone, but I'll nope away.

strikeouts I did see/read/whatever
bold for stuff that I liked
bold italics for stuff that I really liked

( books )


( movies )


( TV )


( video games )