as my last chance to feel human begins to vaporize
I think it’s been a long time since my stars don’t seem to align with my life, but lately, with the exception of normal mercury retrograde shenanigans, that seems to be the case. Which is kind of a pity, because being aligned for Venus in Cancer would have been nice? There was one reading for my sign awhile back that is not fun if true, and yet it looks like it is.
(Sorry to be kinda all mysterious/evasive about this when it comes to details, but the gist of it is I had a not very nice reading and it not only seems to be accurate, it also was something I probably should have seen coming. Feel free to dismiss this as new agey/witchy bullshit. I know I do, sometimes. Despite practising it, lol.)
As always, after two long (and separate) breaks from work, I am now more tired and busy than ever. I’m like one person doing six people’s jobs, while earning maybe 2/3 of a person’s pay - being busy and tired at work is basically the norm. But I’m also a little too busy with things I want to do outside of work, which feels somewhat baffling and overwhelming.
For one, I am not making a single dent in my TBR. Just for my own reminder, these are the ones I’ve been looking forward to reading the most:
- A Power Unbound - Freya Marske
- We Could Be Something - Will Kostaskis
- Lion’s Legacy - L.C. Rosen
- Girls Like Girls - Hayley Kiyoko
- Night of the Living Queers - Ed. Shelly Page and Alex Brown
- Godly Heathens - H.E. Edgmon
- Just As You Are - Camille Kellogg
- The Night Lives of Puppets - T.J. Klune
- The Sun and the Star - Rick Riordan
And these are books I’ve been meaning to reread, or I have started to reread but paused due to “lack of time”(1):
- The Lost Hero - Rick Riordan
- Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones
- Year of the Griffin - Diana Wynne Jones
- Irregulars - queer SFF anthology
When will I actually have the time to read these? Who knows? My usual bus reading time is being consumed by this irrational need to start and finish Dimension 20’s A Crown of Candy by the beginning of next week. (This series consists of about 17-18 episodes of approximately 2 hours each. I may be in over my head.) (2)
And while all this sounds nice (and I am absolutely enjoying ACoC even as it stresses me the fuck out because of all the tense political intrigue), the same part of my brain that refuses to compromise on my spending my free time on things other than ACoC is still insisting that I listen to the latest episode of The Witch, The Wizard and the Wild One as it comes out. Like, wtf, brain. Make up your mind. (3)
Last night my friend was telling me that she bought new shiny math rocks, partly for Pride/Hellfire month, and even though I recently bought shiny math rocks myself I feel like buying more? (Dice goblin alert!) But more importantly, HELLFIRE MONTH IS COMING UP AND I AM NOT READY.
I honestly do not feel very celebratory, everything just seems to suck in the world right now and I feel like rather than doing stupid “LOVE IS LOVE” kinda word vomit right now I wish more corporations (4) and cishet individuals would focus more on the fact that, I don’t know, so many of us are dying. I am actively trying bury my head in the sand most of the time, and have deleted twitter from my phone last month because I just couldn’t take it anymore, but that just means that I am very privileged, even if anxious, depressed and isolated. Other people aren’t so lucky.
So I try to focus on the things that help me stay alive. There are all the books that I can’t read right now, that I’m hoarding for some unknown future, of course.
And there’s the D20/Dropout gang, especially Ally Beardsley and Siobhan Thompson (and Erika Ishii) who all just fill me with warmth every time I watch them in a show. The way every character in Fantasy High seems coded as ND in one way or another and there’s such a huge spectrum between them and how I just relate to Riz Gukgak so much, especially in Sophomore Year.
There are books like Casey McQuiston’s I Kissed Shaara Wheeler and Mariko Tamaki’s Cold, which still capture that feeling of isolation better than anything else I’ve read, and then there are books like Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper comics or the Tea Dragon Society comics by Kay O’Neill which are just imaginary utopias that I can at least imagine my D&D in.
There’s Charlie Jane Anders and her amazing newsletter. There’s her new New Mutants characters, every single one of them so precious to me.
So - I guess, this Hellfire Gala Month (5), I need to focus my energy on trying to stay alive. For these things, if nothing else.
The title of this newsletter is from The Mountain Goats’ excellent song, “Autoclave”.
- ok I know and you probably know that “lack of time” really means “there is time but this is lower on the priority list rn and I’m sad about it but what can I do” - at least this is the truth the way I see it, not just when I say this but also when others do.
- Update because this was in my drafts: I did finish it, but have not been “in the mood” for The Ravening War after that, being more in the mood for Misfits and Magic instead.
- I also did listen to The Witch, The Wizard and the Wild One that week, and in time to discuss it with my sis in law as is our norm every time a new episode drops.
- I do hope these stupid corporations would put out nice queer movies/series during Hellfire month as their yearly pretense of allyship, but I don’t have the level of energy to check what Netflix/Hallmark/Prime/etc. are releasing in June. Maybe I’ll just rewatch stuff instead.
- Speaking of the actual Hellfire Gala, Carol Danvers’ gala look this year is SO HOT? Also Jean Grey wtf are you wearing please burn it with fire.