Reading

- Today is the day of the all- clear liquid diet in preparation for the joint endoscopy and colonoscopy tomorrow morning. Ew. I start drinking the vile prep liquid in about 6 hours, and I'm REALLY not looking forward to that. I'm very glad we got a bidet installed in the master bathroom.

- MCR announced two additional shows for 2026: October 30 & 31 at the Hollywood Bowl. Whaaaaaah! There's no way I can manage that, because the L.A. show I'm already going to is October 24, and I can't stay in L.A. for an entire week. But WOW do I wish I could see that Halloween show.

- The new Florence + the Machine album continues to have me in its clutches. My favorite song right now is "Sympathy Magic" (especially the chamber version). It's the first F+tM song that has lyrics that call to me for a tattoo: "So I don't have to be worthy / I no longer try to be good / It didn't keep me safe / like you told me that it would". This makes two song lyric tattoos I want, the first being "My childhood spat back up the monster that I am" from a Fall Out Boy song. Let's just handwave the psychological underpinnings of why those lyrics resonate with me, okay?

- Oooh, did I mention I got tickets to the Florence + the Machine concert in May? It'll be the first time I've seen her live, so I'm very excited. This means I have three concerts to look forward to in 2026: Ghost, Florence + the Machine, and My Chemical Romance. I LOVE live shows; the physical push of the live music soothes something in my body and brain.

- I've decided that I need to knuckle down and take photos of things I want to sell and get started on Poshmark. I HATE mailing things, but I need to do it. Any profits will be spent on that gorgeous custom dress from the Ukrainian designer.

So how are you folks doing?

I'm once again thinking of going to the permanent makeup tattooist who did my brows to get a star-shaped permanent beauty mark. I'm trying to decide between bright BRIGHT fuchsia, or the darkest brown she has (I'd prefer black, but I don't know what color black cosmetic tattooing pigment fades to. I don't want a blue star eventually on my face.

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As far as the Stroppy One and I have been able to tell, the ear goop medicine for Miss Erzabet No Biting's hyperthyroidism is indeed reducing her peeing everywhere. An interesting side effect is that Vlad is now spending more time with us in the evening, instead of staying in the Madwoman in the Attic's room. So that's nice.

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I had an insane urge to reread what I consider to be Anne Rice's crackiest books in the Vampire Chronicles: Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle. I've finished the first, and am about 1/4 through the second, and my god, I had forgotten how unhinged Lestat sounds during it. Lestat berates the people who didn't like Memnoch the Devil! (I am amongst those people.) Lestat fantasizes about becoming a saint and fixing everything wrong with the world! Everyone prays to him! Lestat imagines a conversation with the Pope about canonizing him! And that's just in the first chapter.

Also, you could tell me that Anne Rice was the person who wrote the mind-boggling fanfic classic My Immortal and I would agree. Look at how Lestat describes himself:

A list of random things

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