Ana Mardoll's Ramblings: February 2020

Open Thread: Light Through Foggy Glasses

Sort of a glimpse of how I see things. Picture taken Wednesday night by holding my glasses lens in front of my camera lens.

We have special open threads set aside for discussing various movies, said discussions including plain text spoilers. This is currently the only one:
● Star Wars: Episode IX -- The Rise of Skywalker

You do not need a special open thread to discuss a movie. Provided you encipher any spoilers (the standard method is by summoning Cthulhu) discussion of movies is quite welcome in the regular open threads.

The special threads are for cases where movie-talk might threaten to drown out other discussion, is expected to take place over multiple weeks, or both. If you believe a given movie calls for one, simply say so.

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Friday Recommendations! What have you been reading/writing/listening to/playing/watching lately? Shamelessly self-promote or boost the signal on something you think we should know about - the weekend’s ahead of us, so give us something new to explore!

And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!

Open Thread: Just Some Clouds

So, on the one hand, this is a day late. On the other hand: four weeks in a row!

I really am sorry for failing to keep up with the open threads. Too early to say that that's changed, this streak is, at least, promising.

On the topic of the picture, for a while I thought the micro USB port on my camera was broken because I couldn't charge the camera and had great difficulty getting the connection to remain active for long enough to get pictures off. As such, I haven't been taking many pictures lately. This picture is over a month old. Specifically, it's from January 14th.

I believe it was taken from a Marden's parking lot, where I happened to be sitting inside my sister's van without much to do. For a very long time, "Marden's" was known to me solely from a catchy jingle I heard on the radio, which went:

I shoulda bought it
When I saw it
At Marden's.

(The catchy nature of it was tied up in delivery, not wording.)

After 2010, that changed for me because I learned that Paul LePage ran the company. I've sort of spent the decade (slightly less, but not by much) thinking of them as evil because of that. That's honestly unfair. While I question their staffing decisions, given that they had someone like him as general manager for four years,* his association with Marden's ended when he became governor, and it has never been reestablished.

* The same can arguably be said of the State of Maine. While LePage never received a majority of the vote, and under current rules definitely wouldn't have won election and probably wouldn't have won re-election, he came pretty damned close to a majority when he ran for re-election.

Now, having told you all more about Marden's and LePage than you ever wanted to know, we can get on to the rest of the open thread post.

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~~Friday~~ Saturday Recommendations! What have you been reading/writing/listening to/playing/watching lately? Shamelessly self-promote or boost the signal on something you think we should know about - the weekend’s ~~ahead of us~~ here, so give us something new to explore!

And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!

Open Thread: Eventide Sky

Taken from my porch on October 7th.

Open Thread: Ice on a Windshield

Not much to say about this one. While I think the liquid water in the upper right adds to the picture, it doesn't add enough, in my opinion, to make it into the title.

Sorry that this is late again, but at least it exists.

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~~Friday~~ Sunday Recommendations! What have you been reading/writing/listening to/playing/watching lately? Shamelessly self-promote or boost the signal on something you think we should know about - the weekend’s ~~ahead of us~~ basically gone, so give us something new to explore!

And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!

Open Thread: Puppy

There are sixteen dogs in my sister's house now. Her two adult dogs, their thirteen puppies, and a housemate's adult dog. This is one of them, her name (for some inexplicable reason) is Panda-dora. When the picture was taken she was a month and a week and a day old.

Sorry there was no Open Thread a week ago. Sorry this is so late.

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~~Friday~~ Sunday Recommendations! What have you been reading/writing/listening to/playing/watching lately? Shamelessly self-promote or boost the signal on something you think we should know about - the weekend’s ~~ahead of us~~ almost over, so give us something new to explore!

And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!

February Newsletter (2020)

I'm actually terribly ashamed to realize only now that I never put up a January newsletter. I thought I did! I distinctly remember writing it in my head and posting it, like, mentally. Just apparently not online and I am so sorry for that. I hope you haven't all been left wondering if I'm okay and were able to see on my twitter feed that I'm still alive. I live! Woot!

January was a tough month full of nevertheless wondrous things. Kissmate escaped a profoundly bad situation and moved in with me, which has been basically the best thing that I've ever experienced, ever, and I'm informed that they feel the same way about me. (eee!!) My mother's health reached a plateau where it wasn't getting worse (good), came through a difficult surgery with flying colors (good!), and is doing so much better that she's even able to urinate a little now without a catheter (great!!).

I myself was sick with a very nasty cold-flu-thing that played hell with my voice for the first week of January, got better, and acquired my first urinary tract infection in the last week of January. What a wild ride! Not helping was the fact that my insurance cut me off my meds-which-work to move me onto meds-which-don't-work for purposes of saving money for the shareholders. My doctor is fighting with them, but it's a process that takes literal months and in the meantime I have no recourse but to be in agony. That part sucks quite a lot, I won't lie.

It's hard to be a productive writer when you're in worse pain than usual, and I've been distracted by a lot of bad things (health, parents, politics) and some amazing good things (kissmate, online friends, cats). But I am taking steps back towards productivity because I miss writing and I miss being able to write for you all.

Old Projects

A big roadblock for my older projects was that when I'd sit down to write on them, my brain would take me back to the last time I worked on them, which was when my ex was here. Going over my old notes was an exercise in pain because it was like I was reliving a lot of really awful experiences each time. It's clear that this isn't going away with time, so I'm taking steps to speak with a writing mentor to talk about my old notes and try to "push through" those bad memories to build new ones.

New Projects

By the time this posts many of you will have already seen the first part of my new vampire story. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while, and explores a cult survivor escaping childhood trauma with someone she's been told is evil and damned. Kissmate is helping me write this one and it's been very cathartic. I think it'll end up a long short story rather than a short novel, but either way I'm excited at the prospect of exploring a world that has previously been too painful for me to really write about. (There's a reason most of my protagonists are non-religious.)

Other News

- I want to get back into my Let's Plays now that my voice seems to be back. Knock on wood that I don't lose it again just for saying that, lol.

- I do plan to get back to live-watching terrible films. There's been a bit of a delay because (a) Kissmate and I are trying to backfill old episodes of Great British Bake Off and Critical Role (sort of... we're still on episode 1 of campaign 2, which is where we started), and (b) because it's hard for me to be witty when my pain meds aren't working. I see my doctor on the 7th to talk about switching prescriptions to something else.

- Please let me know if you're in the $5 tier and haven't received a No Man of Woman Born bookmark. I had excellent records of whom I had mailed and who I hadn't but then I stopped tracking subscription changes when I fell ill and now my records are a mess.

In Case You Missed It

Index to Blog-Reads: Here.

YouTube Let's Plays: Here.

Tumblr Funnies: Here.

@DivorceKittens: Here.

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I hope you're all very well.

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