Oh no, quester, I hope you aren’t getting sick.

Update: car is okay to drive, mechanic cleared all the codes and wants me to come back Mon so he can check them again. It might all have been because I didn’t tighten my gas cap enough, we’ll see.

Great night with inner circle. It was the first time R got to hang out with them outside of PARADES, which is not exactly conducive to conversation. My inner circle, by the way, is Heather’s fam here, so they are Buffista-adjacent. I wouldn’t know them without her.

It was, in fact, perfect and low key and sardonic. And R had fun, they like them too.

Also we may try to hold on to my apartment by kicking out current roommate and finding someone to pay more of the rent who’s cool with us spending occasional weekends here. R should start their new job 11/1 (hallelujah) and so our financial situation is about to get a lot less stressful. It’s significantly more than they were making before.

Smonster- I might have missed, does R like carrots?

I think so, but they prefer broccoli. Why do you ask?

I’m glad things are looking better, smonster.

Well, that stinks, Laura, I'm sorry. Asshole bone spurs.

Update after going to the chiropractor. Since things like shots and hip replacement sound awful to me I went to see what my options were. He did some stretching and deep tissue stuff, read my x-ray reports, and suggested SoftWave treatment. Have to do 8 sessions, but after the first one the pain is gone. Apparently it is good for degenerated arthritic joints, and will last a good long time, with potential refresher sessions down the road. Worth a try.

But still it's really nice to have co workers to geek out with about things.

That's great, askye. I hope that this ends being a good working environment for you.

Work drama, higher ups want to meet with some of us regarding issue with boss.

Eeep! I hope this results in an improvement, msbelle.

starting a new job on Monday and it's stressing me out. 

Lots of new~job~ma, quester! Along with a dose of health~ma.

Nilly, you always write the most thoughtful and loving posts at this time of year. Thank you for including us and educating us. It is such a pleasure to have you as part of this community.

Very much what smonster said.

Update: car is okay to drive, mechanic cleared all the codes and wants me to come back Mon so he can check them again. It might all have been because I didn’t tighten my gas cap enough, we’ll see.

That is a frequent cause of those annoying lights.

It was, in fact, perfect and low key and sardonic. And R had fun, they like them too.

That's great to hear, smonster. Sorry there was so much stress leading up to the inner circle gathering.

I almost have stairs, probably will by tonight. I've been sleeping on the couch this past week while my upstairs was unavailable. The upside being not having to go downstairs in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I pick up Brendon in Albany tomorrow night so it would be cool to be able to go upstairs.

In other mememe news, I dropped off my wedding rings to maybe have them redone. The jeweler needs to see if they can do what I want. Several years ago I made the mistake of giving my diamond to Bobby to give to his fiancé. In its place we put an amethyst because his intended and I shared February birthdays. Since the estrangement it has bothered me when I look at my hand and see that reminder. I decided to replace it with a pearl in the center and then two tiny diamonds that belonged to my great aunts on either side. The diamonds were on a ring of my mother's. Anyway, I hope they can make it happen in the bands I have. I hope they can make it happen.

Thanks, Erin. My stomach is still not terribly happy about the whole thing, but I’m rallying for date night with TCG. His birthday was yesterday. So we’re going to a movie and dinner tonight. Also Oppenheimer is 3hrs and 5 minutes?!? I must really love TCG.

Timelies all!

It is raining here and Mr. S is down until tomorrow. Trying to figure out how to keep him amused.

Enjoy date night, sj. Honestly, I have held off on watching Oppenheimer for exactly that reason. That is a mini-series IMO.

Nilly went and Nilly-ed up all of JZ's COMM's at my request. This one goes back to WX days, and was, I think, the moment when I realized what a good writer Jacqueline was. But the whole thing is very fun, so I wanted to share it again with everybody here.

• **********

Victor: We are evidently a nomadic web community...

Jacqueline Zahas: I'm imagining the Buffistas wending our way from site to site in colorful wagons pulled by shaggy ponies. Dangling from the wagons is a wild, noisy assortment of bells, pots, pans, and bootleg OMWF CDs. A sea of dogs and cats dances around the wagons, nipping at the ponies' heels -- DXM's stupidest dog in the universe, Victor's ferret, Beth's nutty cats and Isabella and Amber B's kitty in the sink.

And, though no longer permitted out in the non-virtual world, Malik and Smokey are running wild around our carts here. Resplendent in our corsets, ballgowns, and Bruins and Mariners gear, we wander the web, always in search of the Phoenix Board, our Mecca, our Jerusalem, for which we all long and in which we all believe, though few among us have ever actually seen it.

We eke out a meagre existence crafting screencaps and porn; at night we dance wildly with platinum-haired photophobes, and conjure up magnificent feasts of everything from challa French toast to digestive biscuits to white chocolate bread pudding to Velveeta fudge, all out of thin air. We descend in a horde on an unsuspecting site and decamp just as quickly. Restless, wandering, porning away in our incomprehensible dialect.

I like the idea. I just hate the actual nomadism. Where is our board of milk and honey? Where? Descriptions of some of the individual Travelers: Daniel the screencapper, squatting in a corner of an especially cramped and equipment-filled wagon, hunched over a dusty screen, poring over tapes, waiting for exactly the right moment; Googling Betsy, the seer, she who sees all, finds all, and knows all; Gigolo Hec; FayJay and Trudy, the pornmongers, hard at work crafting their wares in the Porn Wagon (always shaking and strangely lit, with odd indescribable noises emanating from it at all hours, rattling down the road with a trail of slash in its wake); the shimmering, hyperreal presence of the Canadians, who live one day ahead of the rest of us; and the Spoiler Whores, taunting us with their coy remarks and shamelessly flaunting their whitefonts in front of everyone.

Nilly, the Historian, keeper of the scrolls, she who has become a verb. And Miracleman, the Unholy Fool. And Mejia, who so closely studies the entrails of shows just past and scrutinizes the portents of what is to come.

DXMachina: JZ, are you referring to the penguin, or someone else's dog? Because my real dog is off playing with Malik and Smokey.

JZ: Ah, no, then, it's Miracleman with the stupid dog. But yes, your dog is there too. All of 'em are. All Buffista animals past and present, with the exception of Clovis the Devilbunny, who sits in a little wire birdcage in Jilli's lap, where he can't do more than growl at the rest of us.

scrappy: Hec is not only the Gigolo for our nomadic tribe, he's the stylist as well. John H. can be He Who Communes With The Mighty Chip. ita for protection. And Jon B can serenade us to sleep around the campfire with Theremin music.

Miracleman: If'n ya listen real close, late at night, you can hear the coyotes (*pronounced "kai-yoat") a-howlin' at the moon. The moon that is *always full*. And, if'n ya know *how* to listen, ya kin hear 'em talkin'. They're sayin' "Don't those damnfool drunk carvaners know how ta read a *map*?"

The phantom Buffista caravan has been travellin' these parts fer nigh unta a hundred years. Even though they only left last Saturday. They all blame Gudanov fer that.

But in the cold night of the high desert, ya kin see their ghostly forms windin' through the scrub. And ya kin hear them singin' their eerie song...
"Porn, porn, porn, porn. Porn, porn, porn, porn..."
"SHUT UP! Bloody Buffistas..."

I've always been a little wistful at not being included in that, but in another way, besides my not being noticeable, it makes sense. Maybe it's more like "If I'm at your door, you know why." Those guys don't get to talk a lot about what they do, either.

I loved that on first reading, and I love it still. Thank you for sharing it again with us.

Smonster, I think maybe you forgot the idiomatic use of "X likes carrots"