I wanna be there with you

I got a gorgeous hand-drawn Steve and Bucky birthday card from aurumcalendula in the mail--not only does she make wonderful vids but she can draw too! I am in awe of people like that.

I've been buried in work, which always seems to arrive at exactly the same time. Like, I was working with a new-to-me author who is very popular and so of course the magazine that I work for decided it was proofreading time, and then as soon as I finished both of those projects, the publisher that hasn't had as much work for me the past few years suddenly ramped up with multiple offers. I picked the wrong one, of course, and ended up doing what was supposed to be a light copyedit but that is bleeding metaphorical red ink. I think it was the whitest, most suburban mom thing I have ever read.

All that was going on while I was hemorrhaging money with the dead computer, car troubles, then my phone went from needing to be charged constantly to barely staying on, and appliances dying and just...a lot of stuff. So I bought myself an early birthday present of a purple iPhone 12--the 13 didn't come in purple so, you know, priorities. They couldn't get my carrier to recognize me, and when they put in the SIM card from my old phone to the new one, the bars disappeared, so I had to go to the absolutely awful T-Mobile place, which has bought out Sprint, and pay $30 more for the privilege of migrating officially to them--and all the promised savings vanished and I'm now paying more. Grrrr. But it's nice not to have to constantly be near a charger and to be able to use my phone for work-related things now; once I get a recurring issue with my work email ever figured out, too, I'll finally be able to use my work address on a phone again. And it's pretty purple, my fave color. There are still a bunch of issues with my new computer, but I'm hoping now that work has slowed a bit, I can deal with that. I wish I knew what to do with my phone, though--it's in perfect condition physically.

I'm also hoping I can work on some fic now. I've let my WIP lapse, and I also have wanted to do my tradition of posting fic on my birthday, but I have only a few days to write it. (Hey, if you're into benign or harmless conspiracies or urban legends, let me know your favorites--I'm...afraid of looking things up on the internet because of what conspiracies mean now.)

Then it's on to Yuletide, which I am so stumped by because of the conflicting statements that I'm not sure what to do. I have never defaulted in all my years doing this...ugh, I don't want this to be the first year!

One of the biggest money drains was my cat's dental--he has the worst teeth of any cat I've ever had, and it's been put off for a long time because of the pandemic and our double whammy of the bridge into the area being down. So they had to redo his very expensive bloodwork, and then I was scared about the actual procedure because of just the general things going on--short staffing, we can't go in, reduced hours and services because so few vets and techs. He came through well, though he's been acting really weird, completely the opposite of what the instructions said he'd be like. Basically my kitty was stoned out of his gourd and continues to be four days later, he's restless and edgy but also purry and ravenously hungry. It's kind of hilar and kind of irritating and worrisome. But holy hell was it all expensive and the insurance doesn't pay for any of it, so next year, I think I will just skip the renewal on the insurance. I thought they did pay for dentals, but it's only for injury type things. I got the insurance because of his multiple trips to the emergency, but between the deductible and the things they don't pay for, it's not turning out to be the safety net I thought it would.

Anyway, I need to get focused on writing now that I have a pause in editing. Hopefully, I won't get a new book until after the holidays.