A New Devious Chapter

In the mornings right after I put Squishy on the bus, I often sit and finish my coffee while looking through some of the articles our google overlords recommend, and being trapped under a snuggly puppy. And a while back, there was near a week where every day I would see a headline talking about toxic masculinity or similar things, and want to read it.  Every time, I would get about a quarter of the way through, and find myself upset with how toxic the articles were themselves. They talked about how women don't want men to be taught about toxic masculinity.  Saying that it makes men too passive, and then the women actually have to approach men.  That men are simply using this as an excuse to not pursue women at all, and become too busy with video games. They talked about how horrible it is that people claim they don't feel that their gender matches their body.  That it's a mental illness rather than simply an orientation, and saying that it's terrible that paren...

There's a movement going on, even if I'm a few weeks late. I can't post it on a lot of socials, because unfortunately people involved in shitty ways follow me and I don't feel like dealing with them. However, I too have dealt with multiple occurances of sexual assault and consent violation over the course of my life.  When I went to get my exam, during the interview beforehand they asked if I had gone through any of it before, and when I said yes, they had to ask if I reported it.  They looked disappointed to hear another person not being able to report things. And here's why I didn't bother each time: I was four.  The people around me didn't listen to a word I said, and I didn't yet have the words to even explain what had happened, let alone know it was something to report. We were dating at the time, so people told me I shouldn't frame him as a bad guy for just doing what he wanted.  When I told people after, I was told I was too stupid ...

I've had several reminders lately about just how many places I have touched on, and how many things I've done. Apparently, I happen to have done way more interesting things than the vast majority of people. It's always so weird to me when others only have a couple of interests, or a single circle of people they see.  To bottleneck themselves into a small segment of the world. Then they see how I know people in all corners of the world, and at all different things.  They welcome me happily, rather than simply short meetings.  That I share stories and time with all these people, and have done things with all of them.  Having built connections on various levels. And then I talk to people who have more mundane lives.  The standard vanilla day to day, content with that and not much else.  I talk about the things I've done like they're nothing special. Scaring people by chasing them with a chainsaw at a haunted house. Doing escapism for a freak show. ...

When I started getting my period, many years ago, I had absolutely horrendous cramps.  I remember having to go home from school often and not sleeping for three nights out of the month.  I frequently told my mom, who would claim I needed to go to the doctor, but would never make the appointment, because she didn't want to have to go to the gynecologist herself. Because of her own cowardice, my medical issues were never addressed, and where they likely would have given me some form of hormonal birth control, I had to just deal with it, and not have anything as a backup to condoms. So, when I got pregnant, and everything that came with that (a long story unto itself), I wanted to make sure it didn't happen again.  My doctor wouldn't do a tubal, for stupid stereotypical reasons, and so I went scouring over my options, looking for what would work the best for me.  I knew I wouldn't have a reliable schedule with an infant, and honestly didn't want all that many extra...

I recently went about the process of replacing my IUD, which sported a ton of conversations with parents. More on the replacement later, because that's a long write up of its own. A few weeks ago, I scheduled a regular exam.  I had to go to a new office because my previous gyno had left her practice, and I wanted to take care of that before scheduling the replacement.  It also gave me a chance for a round of sti testing, which I hadn't done for a bit. Upon scheduling it, I was talking to my mom.  And here we go. First, was the conversation simply of having another IUD.  I have always.  ALWAYS.  Said that I didn't want kids.  I have been firm on that from my teens.  It has never at any point wavered.  While saying that I had wanted to simply maintain my method of birth control due to the ease of it, she of course had to bring up "Well if you ever change your mind you can have it removed". To which I mentioned my firm stance on not ...

Weeks ago, Lux, Dansa, and I had made plans to visit a historic village near me. Lux and I had intended to go for years, but never got to it, and Dansa loved the sound of the place as well. After everyone comparing calendars, we found a weekend that would work, which was this past weekend. A few days prior, Dansa contacted me.  Her new boyfriend wanted to come visit, which she later had said she wanted to see how we felt about him after having more time in a more casual setting.  This was presented to Lux in a poor way, but after we spoke, he seemed to be a bit more ok with it. The weekend happened though, and it went fairly well.  We burned up a ton of the scrap in the basement on Friday, and then Saturday with a very casual day, we went about wandering all sorts of cute places, which they loved exploring.  In particular, they had a party in the coffee roaster, and the peanut butter store. I saw quite a few friends, to the point where Dansa seemed curious as...

Recently, a friend of mine got engaged.  He'd talked about it for a long time, and has consistently been set on marrying her. The thing about it is though, he can never tell me what he likes about her rather than her having some personality traits that he's attracted to.  They have a ton of incompatibilities, on many many levels.  In general, from my interactions with her, I find her insecure, immature, and overly compensating at best. I've tried several times to point out the severity of these issues, but he is so busy with work constantly that she is the only person he sees outside of that, and has the thickest of rose colored glasses on because of that. And unfortunately, which I called a week or so before, they asked both Lux and I to be in the wedding.  Wanting to be there for our friend, we both said yes. I wound up spending a day with them recently, and she said I was going to go with them to pick out the suits, and look at a venue. Holy hell. Firs...

On top of feeling better mentally, I've been able to keep up with a lot of things right now. I've finished reading most of my pile of books, and need to invade a book store to pick up a new pile.  Finishing books always makes me feel good. I've finished drawing both a smaller coloring book, as well as drawing and publishing the Pennsic one.  I'm so ahead that I'm actually able to take a couple weeks off of drawing to do lots of cleaning and digging out of my closets and such. A couple of other small projects have gotten made, which made some friends happy. Finally, I got around to opening a kofi page, which I've been posting to somewhat regularly. With everything going on lately, I actually picked up a planner to try keep track of everything I have happening and what I'm constantly doing. Halloween is exploding in the house, and there's a ton to balance. There's going to be a lot to do in the coming weeks, especially with everything pla...