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36 novels in 2025 (list here)! I have been reading quite a bit: escapism! Here’s what is in queue for 2026 so far!
King Sorrow is wrapping up, so I’m leaving on 2025. GREAT read!
From 2025:
The Sweetest Fruits, Monique Truong. (another xmess duplicate, but the hardback is nice!)
Dream Girl, Laura Lippman. Turns out, Lippman is a pretty famous writer. This novel is the story of an author intertwined with a mysterious stalker of the author. Decent plot and characters. It’s OK.
The Golden Gate, Amy Chua.
2025 Xmess Hurl:
Filterworld, Kyle Chayka.
The Sweetest Fruits, Monique Truong. (another xmess duplicate, but the hardback is nice!)
Mediocre, Ijeoma Olouo. ST “The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America.”
Care and Feeding, Laurie Woolever. This is a memoir by the author of a Bourdain biography. This is her stories and her experiences with Tony Bourdain. I was happy to have my suspicions about that cunt Asia Argento confirmed. It’s a decent memoir and an easy read.
Fairy Tale, Stephen King. REREAD, but still counts! King Sorrow made me want to revisit this one!
The End of the World as We Know It, New Tales from Stephen King’s The Stand. A collection of stories spun off from the The Stand. Nick says it’s awesome, it’ll be my read after King Sorrow. WELL not exactly! I read Dream Girl and now I’ve gone back to re-read Fairy Tale. :)
I posted this on FB and realised it really should be HERE. It’s modified for my blog, but the content is the same.
I’d love to be optimistic about 2026, but I just can’t get past the knowledge that we WILL have an economic meltdown, we just don’t know when.
Nick got an official Operations Manager position and a raise, but we’ll still be lucky to break even with it. We currently run at a deficit, since this year’s raise was destroyed by the shitty economy. We are, as always, in debt and it sucks.
All I can tell you is PUT IN STOP LOSS ORDERS if you have stocks, because when the bubble bursts, it’s going to be a bloodbath.
But aside from the existential dread, I hope that we all can find time to visit friends and support each other. The only way through is TOGETHER.
My personal goal this year is to be a better friend. If you need something, just ask. I’ll try my best to help.
Let’s all raise a glass to the death of MTV and part of our GenX souls and try to make the best of an enshittified world.
Peace out.
PS: I will be posting about some shit that happened in November shortly, and probably another post about The Enshitticene we are living in. Stay tuned. I’ll also be wrapping the 2025 Reading List and setting up the 2026. BUT it will probably be the second week of January, since I’m swamped with TEV work until then.
I was going back and forth about writing out all my trials and tribulations since that’s all I do these days, but it’s that or not write at all, and I need to write. So.
Since I last wrote, Halloween came and went and the nastiest Mercury Retrograde I’ve endured in a very long time has finally ended.
We had a Super Moon on top of this Retrograde, and I paid the price for not listening to my instincts. Sigh.
I went out on Thu Nov 6 to make a quick run to Tower Liquor to reup supplies and get a bottle of Veuve Clicquot for my birthday weekend. I was feeling very unsure about going out, but pushed myself to do it anyway. Bad decision.
While driving on Chamblee Tucker Road, I hit a badly patched spot and it pushed me into a bit of curb that was sticking out – at 35-40mph. It was bad. Fortunately there was a neighborhood right there, so I could pull of just a few yards past the road hazard. I knew my tire was busted and I could see my busted windshield. It was a VERY HARD HIT to the right front wheel. There was no fluid leakage, so that was a relief. I was hoping that it was just the wheel and perhaps the suspension. I called Nick to come change the tire and help me assess the damage. I decided I should review the manual instructions about using the spare and good thing I did: my car cannot be driven with the donut on the front (they expect you to put the donut on the back and the back tire on the front. NOPE.). It could damage the differential. Great. So we called AAA to come haul Romeo to the mechanic. I was not going to drive him anyway with that busted windscreen and unknown damages. Good thing I did, he was VERY damaged:
– Bearings
– Hub
– Tie Rod
– Control Arm
– Strut
– Gravel diverter
– Alignment
TOTAL: $2980
New tire: $200 (somehow the wheel itself was not damaged)
Mount/balance $38
New windshield: $355
TOTAL DAMAGES: $3573 posted to our large emergency CC, which is now at about 40%.
Of course, I take to the phone and email to bring Dekalb County to task for this road hazard. Of course, they told me to go fuck myself. You see, Dekalb County is too trifling to have their own insurance, so when something happens, they see if ANY CONTRACTORS have been working in the area, so they can then force THEM to use THEIR insurance for claims. Nifty, eh? Fucking Dekalb bullshit. They don’t give a single solitary SHIT about anything going on, other than getting paid. I can’t WAIT to vote against the CEO (a stupid useless position in the first place) next round of voting. She is just there for the paycheck and sides with ICE and police teargassing citizens. CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson, you are a disgrace. I hope to get the office of CEO abolished, but not holding my breath about that one. If there’s one thing Dekalb is great at, it’s layers of bureaucracy and nepotism. The person in charge of pothole issues has FOUR layers of managers over her – all of which are determined to deny any and all claims. NICE.
The fight is not over, but I doubt anything will be reimbursed to me. I tried a bunch of lawyers and they won’t take on the county – and I was also informed that my car was “too old” to bother with. Fucking hell. I fucking hate lawyers and bureaucrats, so lots of annoyance.
This ruined my birthday, which was not a pleasant one to begin with. Big milestone one. BLECH. And on top of all this, some very good friends didn’t even wish me a happy day, so that didn’t help AT ALL. I pretty much spun into a 2-3 wk bout of anxiety and depression.
I finally came out of that crap in time for Thanksgiving. We put up the tree last weekend and the interior lights. Just the big tree this year and only Trek ornaments. There are 41 of them, so it’s not like the tree is bare! LOL We got the Titan and the Star Trek arcade game ornaments this year. I cooked a modest meal and had a good friend over. It was nice.
I am 100% exhausted by this year. There won’t be much going on around here for the foreseeable future. We’re selling some games to offset the Romeo Debacle™ and not doing very much in the way of xmess gifts. FUN. SIGH.
I hope everyone ELSE has a great holiday and New Year.
That’s all I have to say about that.
We can STOP any time we want! As of 2025, we’ve got 41 full sized and 3 minis. ;) We’ve been working on these for at least 20 years!
USS Enterprise NCC 1701 Constitution (TMP)
USS Enterprise NCC 1701 Constitution restyled 2022 (SNW)
USS Enterprise NCC 1701 Constitution (TOS Pilot 50th Anniversary Gold Edition)
USS Enterprise NCC 1701 B Galaxy (Generations)
USS Enterprise NCC 1701 C Galaxy (TNG)
USS Enterprise NCC 1701 D Galaxy (TNG)
USS Enterprise NCC 1701 D Galaxy (TNG 25th Anniversary)
USS Enterprise NCC 1701 E Galaxy (Star Trek First Contact)
USS Titan NCC 80102-A (Picard)
USS Franklin NX 326 (STBeyond)
Romulan Bird of Prey (TOS)
USS Voyager NCC 74856 (Voyager)
USS Defiant NCC NX 72405 (DS9)
Romulan Warbird (TNG)
USS Reliant (STII)
Klingon Battle Cruiser (TOS)
Klingon Bird of Prey (TNG)
Scorpion (Star Trek Nemesis)
USS Discovery (DIS)
Shuttlecraft Galileo NCC 1701/7 w/ Spock voice (TOS) 2 of these
Runabout USS Rio Grande NCC 72452 (DS9)
Hand of Apollo 2023 (TOS)
Starfleet Phaser (TOS)
The Menagerie Kirk, Pike and Spock (TOS)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Bridge scene w/ dialog (STII)
The Needs of the Many scene with Kirk and Spock (STII)
Mirror Mirror Spock and McCoy (TOS)
The Man Trap Kirk and Nancy monster (TOS)
Data Ode to Spot 2023 (TNG)
Picard and Data 30th Anniversary (TNG)
Locutus of Borg Picard and Queen (TNG)
Capt Daddy Pike (SNW)
Star Trek Command Arcade Game NCC 1701 (TMP)
Capt Jean Luc Picard figure (TNG)
Capt Kathryn Janeway figure (Voyager)
Mr Spock figure (TOS)
Commander Riker figure (TNG)
Lt Worf figure (TNG)
Capt Benjamin Sisko figure (DS9)
The Doctor figure (Voyager)
Commander Trip Tucker figure (Enterprise)
Sub Commander T’Pol figure (Enterprise)
3 mini ornaments Klingon Bird of Prey, Enterprise 1701D and Enterprise 1701
It’s almost birthday time and I typically get a bit depressed about it. This year is especially bad if you know the number I’m looking at. If you don’t, well, just know it’s HIGH.
This year has dragged on as we watch our country get closer and closer to fascism. We attended the No Kings protests a couple of weeks ago – my FIRST protest! – and it was heartening to see about a thousand people of all ages peacefully protesting the destruction of our country.
I’ve been reading a lot, I log my reading in my Book List posts, this year’s is pinned to the home page if you’re interested.
I’m just tired. Tired because I’m old, tired because I’m out of shape, tired because of the constant negativity of living in a country run by fascists and morons. I’ve zero motivation, hence the out of shape part. I just cannot gin up enough fucks to bother to exercise. I have GOT to get over it, and I’m working on it. It’s just slow and difficult.
When I was thinking about my future when I was young, I never thought to add worldwide pandemic and fighting off fascism. I guess this is what my grandparents felt when WWII happened. THEIR parents are pretty much where we are now: they endured the flu pandemic and WWI, then WWII on the heels of that. SHITTY, I tell you.
But here we are.
Nick and I still dream of having our own business, but we also know that it is not very likely to happen. We just do not have the resources and never will at this point. Hell, we’d just like to secure our fucking HOME FFS.
It’s been a rough year all round. I’m sure we’re not the only ones.
I am just going to put up the Xmess decor SUPER EARLY (like in the next coupla weeks since we didn’t do Halloween) and try to pretend things are normal.
We did get two new Trek ornaments: USS Titan (Picard) and the Star Trek Arcade game. We can stop any time we want. ;) I am going to post the list in another entry for your entertainment!
