Distracted By Something Shiny

So Sis wore her unicorn head and gave out candy every time it was a little, little kid because she was worried my costume would scare them. Several of them were scared of her giant unicorn head too. I’m not surprised - its eyes follow you everywhere you go! I just did a quick makeup job. Hadn’t decided until last minute if I was gonna go happy-creepy or creepy-creepy for the clown. I mean, Sis was happy-creepy, seemingly cute & sweet but somehow still terrifying. But when it came time for makeup, I decided just to run with the creep factor. The costume is actually pajamas, so yay, I now have an extra pair of pajamas. One little 7 year old told me she loved my costume. Her parents should maybe worry about her, lol.

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Sis at work.



Me, going creepy-clown.

We had a 13 year old girl Castiel come to the door. She was super cute & I told her I loved her costume, but oops, I thought she was The Doctor. She didn’t have a blue tie, just a striped tie, it threw me off! I felt bad. I told her about my Castiel Angel wings I got from the Halloween store though and she’s gonna go look for a pair. We also had a teenage Michael Myers who just stood on the porch, said nothing and stared. I was like, “Damn, that’s scary,” and then he said in a very deep voice, “Trick. Or. Treat.” It was freaky. Then we had a 9 year old Venom come to the door and he was so surprised I knew who Venom was, even his Dad was like. “Someone got it!” I’m guessing people had been thinking he was Spiderman all night. I asked if he’d seen the movie and if they did a good job and then his dad and me talked for a minute about Venom, so that was cool. We also had a little 6 year old Black Panther. After I gave him his candy, I looked right at him and said, “Wakanda Forever, little sir”. His whole face lit up.

Sad for me though, I had a tooth pulled yesterday, so no candy for another week, but we had about 2 little sandwich baggies of candy left, so that’s my special treat for when I’m back on solid foods. Let me tell you, if you need to diet, just switch to soft food for a week. I mean, you will be ravenous and starving, but I gotta be losing weight, damn. What a sucky week to be on food restriction though - I want my candy!

Anyways, hope your holiday was a good one! Share costumes pics if you want - I’d love to see em!

Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 12:14am. I just clicked “publish” on my first official published book ever. Amazon says it can take up to 72 hours to appear on the site & I want it released on Friday so.../deep breath/...here we go.

I will give you all a link once it appears on Amazon. In the meantime you can follow my professional Facebook page, Westword Books. I’m also on Twitter, @Westword_Books.

Omg, I have a release date for my book! You guys!! Friday, October 26th. Just 11 days. I’m freaking out. I never thought this day would actually come. I started this project by writing a single chapter for my Grandma Ava for Christmas, 2015. Nearly three years ago. And now…just 11 days to go.

I simultaneously feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, as well as feeling like my chest is caving in on me. I have never really shared my writing with people in my ‘real life’, but so many of them are going to buy this book, it’s kind of nerve-wracking. Of the few that I have shared my work with, it has been a divide between very supportive and whatever the complete opposite of that is. So you can see why I’m slightly flipping at having more ‘real life’ people read my stuff. The thought of ‘outsiders’ finding it and reading it though is actually exciting!

Anyways, I have been so preoccupied this last year with editing, formatting, designing, setting up accounts, figuring how to upload a fixed layout, figuring what fixed layout even is - all of those things have consumed my last year and I’ve not written a thing. My word muscles are going to need some stretching. So I think, once the book is up and running, I will flex them with some short fics. The Nephew has requested a Nightcrawler fic from me and I have an idea for a Supergirl fic for his little sister – her first fanfic from me. Maybe I’ll do some for the Canadians too.

Also, there has been some issue with the paperback version – mainly that we realized the pdf my brother made would amount to an 8x11 sized book and that is weirdly too big for this type of book. We want something closer to 8x6. But when he tried to resize, it messed up the photos. (yes, there are photos in this book, of my sweet furry babies!) I didn’t want to make him redo everything, but he was insistent. He said if we are gonna do this, let’s do it right, And that an 8x11 would be a weird size and he’d rather do the work than always look at the book and feel like we got lazy. I agree the size would be wrong for a book of this type – non-fiction anthology of pet stories, not like a children’s book or a cookbook or something. So the e-book comes out first, then the paperback, once he’s fixed it up.

Look, you have all been so supportive of my writing, and I never would have made it here without the support of fandom, and all of you in particular. So thank you. Really, thank you.

Now, go follow my professional FB page! Westword Books If you aren’t on FB, don’t worry, I will give the major announcements here, but if you can follow me on FB, please do so. Soon I will make announcements on Twitter, Tumblr, other authors’ blogs who are going to interview me – and if people who find me through there, ‘outside’ people so to speak, come to my professional page and see only 30 people follow me, it’s gonna look kinda lame. Help me out, ya’ll! Plus you’ll get exciting content like an early chapter release. ;)

October 26th – mark you calendars!

Welp. This just walked into my bedroom. I looked up & it was standing there. I always tell people how happy I am to live with my sister. Today she made that a lie.

She says she’s wearing it to hand out candy on Halloween. So I have to think of a costume that would go with a giant unicorn head. She claims she’s just going to wear work clothes with it, but I’ll see if I can convince her to at least get a rainbow cape.



Unfortunately I have to have a tooth pulled the day before Halloween, so I’m not gonna be feeling super great. Luckily it’s just a regular tooth, not impacted or a wisdom tooth or anything. Still, nothing will keep me from celebrating Halloween! You all know that’s true. What about you all - thought about your Halloweens yet?

Winston got ill Friday & was diagnosed with pancreatitis. He’s had it before, but this time he isn’t bouncing back like before. He went in to the vet tonight for IV meds since he can’t keep his down. He is sleeping in his crate now, with his favorite blanket, his toy monkey & his pillow from Mom’s bed. The next 24 hours should tell us which way he is gonna go, but I just want him to rest comfortably tonight, either way. My old man pupper, I love him so.



I’m so anxious & sad tonight.

I just suddenly remembered that I woke up in the middle the night and made notes about a dream I had. So in the dream dugindeep and I were watching TV and a commercial came on for a new musical and I said, “Oh yeah, I heard about this, but I didn’t know they had made it.” It was a new musical that was going to premier live on TV and then, if it did well, it was going to become a Broadway musical.

It was a cross between Beauty & the Beast meets Jurassic World, that’s how it was billed. It was starring Jensen Ackles in the lead, but like as...idk The Beast? The Beauty? It also starred Chris Pratt, Emilie de Ravin, Will Farrell, Rob Schneider, Kristen Bell, David Bowie... ‘s ghost? Lin Manuel Miranda, Lauren Graham, Kevin Nealon, Matthew Fox, Joseph Gordon Levitt & Michelle Williams. Those are all the ones I can remember anyways.

At one point it had three SNL guys in a row, Kevin Nealon, Rob Schneider, and a faceless guy I think may have been Jason Sudeikis. They were old timey radio announcers and Joe DiMaggio had died and was donating his organs and so they were announcing every time another of Joe DiMaggio’s organs was placed with a recipient. “Joe DiMaggio’s liver! Dunduh. Joe DiMaggio’s spleen! Dunduh.”

Another line I recall in the musical, that was being sung, was...”This tastes like Chris Pratt fell...from a Sharknado.”

Jensen looked freaking amazing and he was singing and I turned to dugindeep and said, “I think I will die if I see this. Then I’ll be reborn again just so I can see it again and die again.”

She said, “You know you can just tell them you’re dying and it’s your last wish for you & your friend — I said *you & your friend* — to see this live. It won’t be a lie really, if you then do die from seeing it, right?”

So that happened in my brain. My sister says I took too many drugs in my goth phase.

Omg, it's been so long since I've posted. The summer has gotten away from me. It's been full of houseguests & niblings, non-stop. I have tabs open from like May to comment on all your posts & I've just never gotten around to it. I've lost track of my Flist. I'm behind on Tumblr shit too. There has just been too much irl socializing. In Michigan, we hibernate all winter & party all summer long! But I do *hope*, at least, to get back on a semi-reasonable track with my social media, as summer winds down here. I hope you've all been well. Please drop me a comment & tell me how your summers have been going - I want to know!

ION, we had a scare with Winston, my mom's old man dog, the other day. I thought I heard him miss his step off my bed, early in the morning. Sis found him a bit later on the living room floor, unable to stand up. I was sure he'd hurt his leg when he missed the step, but when he did finally get up, he was titling to one side. Sis was convinced he had a stroke. We got him into the vet a few hours later & by then he was able to stand and take a few shaky steps on his own. The vet said no broken leg, just a sprain, but yes, he was leaning to one side. She said it was vertigo - common in elderly pets. She put him on a super decongestant. When I heard the medication name, I was like, "Hey, that's what I take for my vertigo episodes!" Lol. Winston & I are now on 2 of the same medications. Within in 36 hours, he was almost completely back to normal. His only issue now - 2 days & some change out from it - is he seems to be a bit dizzy when he goes from laying to standing, which is normal with vertigo. He will be 15yrs old in October, so age is finally starting to weigh him down. I am just so glad it wasn't a stroke. I know we will be lucky to get another year with him, but so suddenly like that when he had been just fine the day before, I wasn't prepared. Thank goodness he seems to have bounced back.

Lastly, I thought I'd share with you the review for "Gifted" I put up on Twitter & FB last night. I highly, highly recommend you all watch it. If you don't have HBO, find it some other way. It will be worth your trouble. It's about an uncle raising his genius niece & fighting a custody battle with his mother over her. **Still sniffling. Just finished watching “Gifted” starring Chris Evans & it was beautiful. Tears of despair, then tears of happiness. Was a cleansing cry, think I needed that. Also, McKenna Grace was the lead little girl in it & she was absolutely amazingly brilliant. Available on HBO, go watch!** (Sidenote: Chris Evans should always have a beard. Always). ;)

Spent a few hours at Dad’s this Father’s Day. Brought him his favorite pizza - which I’m not a huge pizza fan, but damn do they make a good pizza. We took him a Fuchsia plant. Told him we’d also got him a cribbage set, but then realized he has Grandpa Lynn’s old board — which is in the shape of a toilet seat/lid — so instead I said, “My gift to you is that I bought Sis & I a cribbage set so you can teach us how to play!” Lol. We have The Nephew this week, so we took him with us. We ended up playing euchre, a long standing tradition in our family gatherings, euchre tournaments. I learned how to play in the 4th grade. I was 9. We taught TN how to play - he’s 12, so long past due for a kid in our family to learn to play euchre! TN caught on fast. He & Sis whooped me & Dad.

It was a nice Father’s Day with Dad! (But I remember how hard Mother’s Day was for me this year, so if you’re missing your dad or father figure this year, I feel for you and I’m sorry.). Anyways I hope you’re all good & I know I’m behind on comments, replies and my Flist. I hope to get to all that later this week/next week. We shall see!

Literal 5min sketch, free hand, with nothing but a pencil & eraser. Sketching is not my strong suit, but this isn’t *terrible*, sorta. Making myself share it even though it’s not my strong suit, bc I fucking drew it. Like the face is weird, but the hair came out good and the eyes aren’t bad and those are the parts I was focused on. Am attempting to do a painting of Storm, but wanted a little practice, a little refresher, since I haven’t picked up my art supplies in a year, probably. Was thinking of doing something with the lightning being commanded by her, but then realized it would be eerily similar to a Castel piece I did a few years back. Like I apparently really like painting lightning, Idek. Anyway, sharing this piece, in part to procrastinate getting up and going to get some more of my supplies to start on the bigger piece, but also because I need to share more of my art around here, even the stuff that is only so-so. (I know, no one is a bigger critic of their art than the artist themselves.). So here, have some Storm.





Alright, procrastination over. Off to my closet to get more supplies.

A few of my favs from Motor City Comic Con 2018 thus far. Sis said, “I always knew Rey & Supergirl we’re friends!” Negan had the voice down pat, “Well shit, Rick, I’m having a damn good time!” Was surreal just chatting in line with Pennywise - everything except the boots was handmade by this cosplayer, count me impressed.

Just let Groot chill while engulfing our heads with his hands! Sweetums may have been the coolest one I saw all day!

And Michael Rosenbaum enthusiastically yelled, “OMG, you’re the shit!” when he saw that I was dressed as Kaylee from Firefly & had decorated my wheelchair with a stuffed Serenity and a bunch of plastic toy tools. That made my day!

( Pics under the cut! )

See you nerds tomorrow for Day 2!