I turned my alarm clock off for yesterday and today, and boy howdy was it ever the right choice. Insomnia hasn’t been biting as hard as it used to, but a night and a half of it is a danger sign I’m not going to disregard. Plus, today’s February 29, which only rolls around every four years.
When a bitch needs a goddamn break, a leap year’s extra day will work as well as any other. I’m only going to work on things which please me today, and that might mean fanfic. It certainly won’t mean anything I have to strain over. Oh, and also in honor of leap day, Selene is $2.99USD in ebook through these retailers (it doesn’t go on sale often, but I heard the pleas of my Danny Valentine fans…), Rose & Thunder is $3.99USD through these ones, HOOD‘s Season One is $1.99USD through these, and The Complete Roadtrip Z (all four seasons) is deeply discounted to $9.99USD in ebook here. There are other sales in March and April, but since this is a frabjous day I went all out scheduling these.
We’ve had hours of rain and it looks like the trend will continue through the weekend, which pleases me to no end. Of course I’ll be physically miserable halfway through my morning run, but that’s more than balanced by the joy of getting home, slithering into a warm shower, and drawing dry socks over my lower paws. I have officially reached the age where good socks are a blessing, a luxury, and damn near a courtship gift.
You may have also noticed the site looks subtly different; there’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes to get rid of certain plugins and services provided by companies who have drunk deep the “AI” Flavr-Aid. No more Google, thank you very much–I am weighing even turning off Analytics–and I’ve done a lot of work over the past few days to make sure I can switch away from the Jetpack plugin wholesale if Automattic tries scraping sites where it’s installed. To be strictly honest I don’t think the latter will happen, but I’m not leaving any openings. “AI” and “machine learning” enthusiasts have proved themselves so rancid and exploitative they will never be welcome in my house, world without end, amen.
It’s a huge goddamn grift and I’m tired of it. Even the faintest whiff of that nonsense is enough to turn me away entirely.
On the bright side, my coffee tastes exceptionally fine this damp grey morn. I mean, the first hit of caffeine is always a blessed event, but sometimes the stars align and one receives a superlative jolt. Perhaps some of it has to do with also getting a decent night’s rest after a week of uneasy-at-best toss-turn, or the fact that the Muse has turned away from certain types of input and is back to history books. The latter is a profound relief. I’m not me when I’m not writing, and I’m even less me when I can only get a quarter-hour’s worth of uninterrupted daily reading.
Boxnoggin will not enjoy beginning our walkies in these conditions, but he’ll like skipping them even less. I suppose I’d better finish this marvelous set of espresso shots and amble for the toaster.
Give yourself a wee bit of a break today if you can, my beloveds. You’ve earned it.