My Shitty Reading List: ACOTAR

 Hi. So here's the thing - I didn't actually read it. This was my first ever audiobook and hoooooboy. Let's just get this over with. A Court of Blah and Blahs. 

Why did someone rewrite Beauty & the Beast as...as what? It's not exactly pornography. Not quite hentai. Smut? Can I call it smut? I don't know. I've read smut before, and it generally tends to be less Disney Katniss Everdeen than this. Like, when you're reading actual smut, you're usually reading it for the smut. This was just smut with extra steps.

It tried to be smut, and failed. It tried to have a plot, and failed that, too. How many times did Feyre really need to have every bone in her body broken there at the end? You might almost feel tempted to feel bad for her or something like that, but it just keeps happening. Oh nuuu, her spine cracked. oh wow, her ribs cracked one at a time. Oh gosh, there go her kneecaps. Oh golly, her neck snapped. I'm devestated, truly. And her stupidly useless fairy boyfriend, Tamlin - I've never been more bored in my life by a love interest. She stabbed him. Woo. He didn't even really react She should have hooked up with Lucien, or that vampire fairy guy instead. At least he tried to fight for her dead body at the end while Tammy-boy just kind of cried about it until it was too late.

. . . . .

Okay but here's the thing. It's been a month since I wrote the sad little entry above. I wasn't going to post it, because there's literally nothing to post. It wasn't an enthusiastic read/listen and I couldn't be bothered to try to fill it in with anything worth writing about.

Then I listened/read the second one. I don't remember the name of it, because it's still not very good. In the beginning, it's literally just a lot of "puking my guts up" every other paragraph, lots of crying, lots of begging Tammy Lion Man not to leave her alone. Our once noble huntress who saved all of fairy land was just a boring ass damsel in distress. Now, don't get me wrong, Book 2 wasn't exactly great, but getting kidnapped at your own boring wedding? That's way less boring than being a prisoner in your pretty fairy castle for 30 chapters. I even tried to be happy about our heroine realizing she was in lubz with Vampire Fairy Man, but like...come on, did we really need to drag that out the way we did? These characters communicate the same way we did back in 5th or 6th grade, back when your parent told you that boy was just pulling your hair because he likes you. Oh really? Is that the lesson you wanna teach your chirrens, mom? And Feyra is so fucking dramatic. MY SOUL IS SO STAINED I'M A BAD PERSON FOR SAVING EVERYONE HOW CAN THEY STAND TO LOOK AT MEEEEE? NO NO NO DON"T PRETEND I'M THE GREATEST THAT'S EVER EXISTED, I KNOW I'M A TERRIBLE PERSON FOR SURVIVING INSTEAD OF THOSE INNOCENT PEOPLE WHO WERE TOTALLY IRRELEVANT TO THE STORY THIS BEAUTY I POSSESS IS A MOCKERY OF THE MONSTER I AM. She'd make a great addition to the moody Cullen clan in Twilight, actually, with that attitude. It draaaaaaags on and on, but I think I'm supposed to be impressed with the scene of the starfall glitterbomb rooftop scene. I think I'm supposed to fist pump the air during the soup scene. Because fairy mating rituals involves heating up cans of soup. Fairies eat canned soup. Somewhere in fairy land, there's a canned soup factory. It reminds me of that one scene from Lord of the Rings where the hobbits feast upon McDonald's before taking that Boeing 737 to Mordor.  At least they're memorable scenes, unlike anything at all in book one. I don't remember that shit at all except that I'd rather wash public toilets than listen again. 

Ugh.

 

The 4th of July is Just Christmas For Doomsday Preppers

 My YouTube feed has been inundated with economic calamity videos lately. Housing and groceries and gasoline and fertilizer and concert tickets and healthcare and fast food are all on fire. 

I won't say none of this affects me, but I didn't have the privilege of growing up middle class, where acknowledging the plight of the poor was optional. Having to choose between rent and lights, gas or bread, that's just another average Monday in the world I grew up in. So now as an adult, I prep. Not in the underground nuclear bunker way, I'm not rich enough for that mess. I live in an apartment, so gardening isn't really an option, either. What I have is just good, old fashioned beans and rice. Canned tomatoes and spices. Flour, sugar, and powdered milk. you know, basics. Lots of them. 

Remember a few months ago when the US government shut down, and several services were shut off? People weren't getting paid but were still expected to somehow make it to work blah blah blah. I was on reddit, and r/foodstamps kept popping up. All the NewPoors™ were in a full blown panic because all these working class folks, mostly moms, suddenly couldn't afford to feed their children. Everyone was suddenly hitting up their local food bank(s) to try to supplement their meals. I'm not blaming them, because gods know how difficult it is to feed a picky eater who's been used to on demand chicken nuggets and Hot Pockets as long as they've been old enough to handle a microwave. It's impossible to cook sometimes when you're working 10 hour shifts on top of a 2 hour commute and 1,000 chores, homework, bathtime, whatever before you finally get to bed. Plus, these folks are modern poor. They might be driving an older car, but it's not being held together with tape and twist ties. They might not be wearing designer brands, but their clothes haven't been sloppily mended so many times it's now a shapeless, colorless blob of unidentifiable fabrics. For most people living somewhere along the poverty line, they can still afford to not live and look like medieval peasants, and that's a good thing.

But they're so dependent on the system, none of them had stopped to think about what would happen if that system were no longer dependable, even if it was only for a week or two. A month, tops. Reddit was suddenly flooded with hundreds of clueless people who don't follow the news, don't do politics, don't vote, who had no idea why their EBT card was rejected when they stopped by their local supermarket freezer section to buy a frozen pizza after work.

I've been there, though. I come from a long line of elite poor. My entire adult life, I've always kept stores of dry goods, even if we didn't have to eat them everyday, because you never know when shit's gonna hit the fan. It's not paranoia, it's not crazy, this is literally how our species has survived for thousands of years - by squirreling away extras during times of abundance for the lean times that always come sooner or later. Communities survived winters by making sure they rationed their spring and summer harvests. They learned how to preserve, ferment, dehydrate. I don't know how to do any of that, but fucking hell, I can buy an extra 10lb bag of rice, just in case.

So, back to YouTube. I've watched a couple of these videos going off about how to survive the impending economic calamity, and it's absolutely ridiculous but apparently Youtube pays well if you've got even an ounce of common sense. "Buy matches, in case you have to start a fire in the winter!" Oh really, Captain Obvious? Except that video will have 1.9 million views so maybe it's only obvious to us elite poors. I don't know what it is about July 4th, but the closer we get, the more I see these videos. I think it's because people are too broke to afford fireworks and grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for 20 of their closest friends and family this year (have you seen the price of meat?), no beach vacation in an Air B&B condo with a $700 cleaning fee where YOU still have to do the cleaning. Something must be wrong! You know there's something wrong when the middle class is worried about it, when the IT guy earning $105,000/y is looking up easy taco recipes because 3 "street tacos" and a Corona at his favorite mexican bar costs $60 now. He's been watching videos on how to build a primitive hut in the woods because he heard a rumor his company might be replacing 80% of their staff with AI soon. His nurse wife has been watching videos about canning your own squash and swears she's gonna start her own garden next year, probably. Somewhere in the mix, the algorithm has started slipping in videos about Walmart dynamic pricing and flock cameras and how to pack a bag with essentials in case you have to escape the country overnight. Independence Day is a lie, we're just dependent on corporations and China and Saudi Arabia now instead of England.

It's not untrue, I suppose, but it's been like this for like 50 years. You were fine with it before because it was cheap. For you.  

Death of an Icon

 June fucking sucked. MawMaw died, And then Mikey died. You don't know who those people are and that's okay, just be aware that it fucking sucked. Hail the Traveler(s).

There was another, as well. Not nearly as heartbreaking - more a sign of the times. I'm talking about the death of Golden Flake cheese puffs. I swear to the gods, I'm not trying to be insensitive. I'm genuinely disappointed.

When I was a kid, I used to live next to this - barn thing? - they used to house Golden Flake potato chips and snacks. One of my fondest childhood dreams was breaking into it and pigging out on all the greasy goodness. Those chips were a proper southern tradition, kinda like how Coca Cola once was, only a little less known. Coke is global. Golden Flake was still our own wonderful little secret. Cheetos? Hell naw, that shit's for pansy little city dwellers. We like our cheese puffs greasy, airy, and crumbly as all fuck. 

Apparently they were bought out by that Utz trash  snack company back in 2016. I didn't know that, but I recently bought a bag of cheese puffs...and y'all. Y'all. I could have cried. They were stiff, dense, and itty bitty. They were like.....I don't know how to word this, like if sawdust had a one night stand with an old cheeto and left while cheeto was still sleeping, and when the cheeto woke up she cried on the dusty bits he left behind on the sheets. Then she combined those dusty cheeto tears and made a weird baby out of it. And it's 100% as gross as it sounds.

 I'm not comparing this to the death of real people, but fucking hell if I'm not feeling some type of way about it. As if June hasn't already been mean enough, this is just one more pebble on the mountain of stones piling up. Most of us will never own our own home, unless we steal it from our stepfamily. A lot of people can't afford to have babies that they want, people are putting McDonald's on credit card payments, the price of ground beef is higher than minimum wage. I saw a compilation video of people opening up grab-bag size Doritos or Cheez-Its with 2 chips and some crumbs inside. 

Everything is shit, but y'all keep buying it anyway. it's like you love getting ripped off and hurting people. You know Amazon is basically satan, but you're gonna spend at least $500 there this year because those new Nikes are sooooo comfortable! I mean sure, you've got 30 other pairs of shoes, but they're not made from the soft, luxurious fat of unbaptized babies like these new ones! You neeeeeeeed them! 

Sorry if I'm feeling a little bit self righteous. I've been getting really friendly with my instant pot and pinto beans and rice. I'm not making 4 easy monthly payments of only $19.99 for a Big Mac. I've deleted Facebook, Instagram, and a bunch of other social media spysites. I've deleted nearly all of my stored cloud photos, because fuck data centers. I'm doing all I can to minimize my impact and not be a hypocrite, so it's a bit frustrating to watch others complain about the cost of things when they're the ones who keep throwing money at these things. 

And now I'm super mega frustrated that in addition to all those things, I now have to give up Golden Flake cheese puffs because they fucking suck, too. We lost not just one, but TWO people this month, so I get a bag of junky salty trash food to make myself feel fractionally better about it, and I don't even get to enjoy it because everything is just awful, this is just another reminder. Thanks for ruining my childhood, Utz! 

/EndRant

Cosplaying Poverty: A Totally Jealous Rant

 Assuming you read my last couple of posts, you'll know that I'm happily gearing up for #VanLife #YOLO #HashTag, more out of a sense of crushing money-not-havingness than anything else, even though I'm actually really looking forward to it. The idea of not spending $602,469,327 every month on rent, bills, bills, and more bills, and instead getting to do things like, idk, going to the dentist or on vacation is sending shivers down my spine.

Naturally, I've been spending a lot of time on YouTube, finding out the best ways to keep food fresh, storage tips, bathroom stuff, et cetera, but it's a lot more difficult than you'd think it would be. I can't relate to 90% of these people.

Just as an example, earlier tonight I was watching a Tiny Home video - you know the type, where they're living in one of those Home Depot sheds or something along those lines - it's not quite the same as van life but they actually share a lot in common given the space issues and need for efficiency. Anyhoot, I found one that seemed to be exactly what I was looking for, the title was something along the lines of "how we went from homeless to housed in only 3 weeks!" Score.  It started off promising. It really did. They were living in an old beat up 70s style giant van that broke down, they were very sad because that was their whole entire existence....omg where were they gonna sleep? How were they gonna survive? Oh noooeeessss, So scary! 

But then, they film themselves designing blueprints on one of their 3 (!!!) Mac devices. I looked up the price of a Mac Book Pro, and the cheapest I found was $1,500. They had 2 of those, and some giant desktop Mac I couldn't name but every one I looked up was still a minimum of $1,000. Now, I'm not saying poor people can't have nice things. It is entirely possible these were thrifted, gifted, or were purchased during a more bountiful period of their lives. 

Totally possible, but obviously I wouldn't be here ranting if it had stopped there. No, this video was like a condensed version of days, weeks, or months' worth of work that involved lots of saws and drills and other shiny metal doohickeys that tend to cost a lot of money. Installing windows and doors, painting, lots of wood and glass and fabrics and such. Meanwhile, every 2 minutes there's a new clip of them exploring some new picturesque bookstore in a quaint little bicycle friendly town full of flowers and colonial ass aesthetics. Probably New Hampshire or Connecticut or some whack ass faerie tale land. Hubby is wearing thousands of dollars of tattoos and wifey is frolicking in some flowy cotton peasant dress and collecting wild berries in her foraging basket. Wut. 

Now, I have questions. Like, y'all are homeless, supposedly. Where are you sleeping while all this work is happening? Where are you building this tiny cottage core house? I know those fruit trees and cucumber vines you planted did not start bearing fruit in the 3 weeks you said it took you to build this house. That garden dinner party at the end, the one that looked like something straight out of Alice in Wonderland and everyone was eating soup out of a tiny pumpkin with homemade scones and foraged berry cobbler....how much did THAT cost?

I'm not saying these people didn't work hard. I'm not saying they didn't have to budget around this build. I AM saying you're out of your mind if you think I'm gonna believe for one second that they're struggling. The millions of views on their videos and various sponsors they subtly sprinkle in say otherwise. 

And honestly, I wouldn't even CARE, if not for the fact that they gotta cosplay as humble, salt-of-the-earth types who overcame incredible odds and obstacles to create their home. Bitch, you just spent $20k on a built in apothecary and koi pond. If I get everything I want on my wishlist, my van will setup cost me about $2,000 and will take me MONTHS to achieve, barring any emergencies. We are NOT the same.

But it makes for great television. 

Here; have a badass Scottish folk song; your reward for making it this far. luh yew bai.

Rules For When I Rule the World

 'Tis I, Supreme Ruler Queen Nymphae, and this is my royal decree.

For far too long, our kingdom has been tainted by greed, corruption, and cruelty. Dumpsters are filled with food while millions starve. Homes sit empty while homelessness exists. CEOs of healthcare organizations deny lifesaving medicines to the sick so that shareholders can be 1% richer than they already are. 

Okay so, I'm not actually great at speeches, so here's another list for you.

IN MY PERFECT WORLD

• Corporations own nothing. That gold mine over yonder? That's public land. It belongs to the public. Any resources pillaged from the belly of the earth shall be used to build and maintain the community around it, not hoarded and sold off to the highest bidder. Every care shall be taken to maintain the integrity of the environment surrounding it. No more dumping filth and run-off into the river. No more clear-cutting the forests without discretion. No more mountain top removal. 
• Corporations own nothing. Landlording is a crime against humanity. People have a right to exist, taking advantage of that is now a crime punishable by being shot into the sun. Suburban sprawl is now illegal. Your power grid is owned by you and everyone connected to it. 
• Towns and cities and villages are meant for people, not cars. No more interstate carved through the center of Atlanta with 3 hour traffic jams. From now on, it's 2 lane streets with a maximum speed limit of 15mph. Pedestrian and bicycle traffic take priority. Vehicles with blind spots are shot into the sun with the landlords. WTF is a parking lot? High speed transit and public transportation are the norm for long distance travel.
• Taxes. Yes, those still exist. But, in our society, it is not people who are taxed, but money, itself. If you have a dollar, society gets $0.10 of it. if you have 500 dollars, society gets $50 of it, and so on. Credit and interest are forbidden. Bartering and the trading of goods and services are highly encouraged.
• CORPORATIONS OWN NOTHING. Factory farms are a sin of the past. For-profit prisons do not exist. For-profit healthcare and education and does not exist. Insurance does not exist. Wage slavery does not exist. If your company makes profit, it goes to those who worked to create it, not a CEO or shareholder. 

And, I think that's it for now. I'm sure I can come up with more, but Rome wasn't build in a single day, you know. 

Toodles!

🎶 A-Run-Run-Run-Run-Runaway🎵

 As long as I can remember, I've always had this intense urge to run away. I used to keep bags stuffed with whatever favorite toy or book and socks (on the occasion I had socks), maybe some kind of snack if I had it.  As a preteen and early teenager, I would write these long, often ridiculous lists and plans, plotting my escape down to the minute, drawing goofy little diagrams of what I'd be wearing or the escape route I'd be using.

Once as a little kid and twice as a 13 year old I actually succeeded, at least partially. Than at 15 I ran away and married that pedocreep, and then I ran away from him the day before I turned 18.

But I had children, and running away after that became more of a daydream or fantasy than a real option.  Even so, I've always kept a bag packed and ready to go, and I take absolute delight in filling it with little treasures, like toothpaste and other travel sized luxuries. The very idea of filling my van with essential treasures fills me with unbridled joy. When I think of goofy things like winning the lottery, my dream isn't to live in a big stupid mansion or drive ugly expensive cars or wear hideous designer clothing - I want a pimped out bicycle with all the trimmings, I want to fix up my van to be this solar powered, eco friendly stealth beast, and I want to build secret gardens and orchards in the woods not for myself (or more like, not just for myself) but for any who happen across them. 

 And it's not like I grew up with any lofty ambitions as a kid. Not in the way society sees ambition, anyway. Being a doctor for the sake of driving a BMW was never a goal. I love learning, but going to university and paying a billion dollars to learn how to be a good little cog was never appealing to me. Like I'm going to go learn how to code so that my boss can buy a yacht and I can...what? Pay student loans and a mortgage for 30 years with the occasional trip to Hawaii to break the monotony? No thank you.

I don't know. As it is, I don't currently get to do either of those things. I've been raising babies since before I could drive. I even have grandchildren now. I've written two books, which wasn't easy and doesn't pay well. The only success I've earned is not bring a cog in the machine, another brick in the wall, which by modern standards isn't a success at all. I don't want to succeed for society's sake, though. Capitalism isn't even society. It's not like I'd be making my world, my community, a better place by packing up plastic doohickies at an Amazon warehouse, or cold calling old people to con them out of their money for some big ugly insurance company. 

Call me crazy, but even after all these years, I still want to run away. I think I will, I just don't know when. 

A Wish List

Hello, lovey. It's been a while since I've made any lists. I'm not even sure I have any still up, after my last deleting spree. But I feel like it's time to make a new one anyway, because lots of little and big things have changed.

Okay so, a little backstory first - like a weekish before daddy died, he bought one of the big fleet work/murder vans from his employer. He was just 4 months from retirement and apparently the plan was to travel and camp and live that whole #vanlife experience. The van is literally a shell in the back, no seats, no insulation or interior furnishings. It does have an etrack on each wall, though. 

Since it's mine now and I hate paying $290,543,768,591 every month in rent and bills, I wanna live in the van and keep daddy's dream alive. 
So, my current van life list is:

• 500w portable power station with solar panels
• a butt ton of heavy duty magnetic hooks
• camp stove
• camp shower (the bag kind)
• e-track wood beam sockets (8) and
• 4 2x4s, length TBD, and
• plyboard, size TBD
• a small, basic tool kit
• carpet tiles, rug or some other kind of flooring
• USB lighting
• USB fan
• collapsible water jugs (5gal)
• camp toilet (owned)
• cooler (owned)
• weather radio (owned)
• small folding table
• insulation (wool)

 

And, I think that covers it for now? I have storage options, blankets and pillows and folding chairs and all that mess, most of it 2nd hand, as is my way. There are a few other things I want, like this super nifty manual washing machine.

I want it. I wanna be a washing wench in my modern gypsy caravan wagon. I want to build an easy suspended bedframe using that e-track thingy, with lots of storage room underneath. I want it all to be pepto-bismol pink or rainbow hippie goth witch, and frilly and girly af. 

I'm poor white trash, so it'll probably take me 500 years to get all these things, but I think I can do most of it for less than $1,000 with the most pricey bits being the power station and tool kit and this manual washer (it's $70!!!). That's a lot of money for me, I suppose it's a lot of money for a lot of people right now but in my head it's pretty reasonable compared to those vanlife videos I see where they build a walk-in shower, a mini-bar, a petting zoo, a helicopter landing pad, and an olympic sized pool for *only* $78,000.

In the words of Tame Impala - 
It's always around me, all this noise
But not nearly as loud as the voice saying
Let it happen
Let it happen

Or if you prefer Spongebob - 

I'm ready, I'm ready.