Morning Walk Report: Another cloudy-cool day. Boxnoggin nervous at slamming car doors, jumpy when the crows swung close to politely inquire about peanuts, needing lots of reassurance. Birch trees soaking up sprinkler water. Summer roses trembling on the edge of blown.

"Far from being the autonomous money collectors retailers were hoping for, self-checkout stations require supervision, maintenance, and IT support..." https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-costco-kroger-facing-self-checkout-reckoning-2023-10
1/2

I *love* self-checkout as an option, and I also laugh at how these price-gouging companies thought that if they could just get rid of employees who expect to be paid everything would work out fine.
2/2

So that Stanford study scaremongering about Mastodon is…interesting. I wonder who paid to commission it and why it doesn’t mention that bad actors are overwhelmingly defederated by the vast majority of instances.

I also wonder why it doesn’t mention the comparable problems with that sort of content on, say, Reddit, which is run by an actual company instead of being a collection of volunteer-run, loosely affiliated instances.

Took the afternoon off and finished another Elric book. I can see why these were so formative for a lot of people; they're great fun.

I am breaking my sabbatical because my child has a a question.

My daughter has suggested renaming the days of the week. Because, and I quote, “So much has happened we need a major bitchin’ update.”

A little bit of pumpkin spice in the ground coffee, because I am That Bitch year-round, my friends.

Commit to the bit, and all that.

Morning Walk Report: Warmish, bands of rain, Boxnoggin loving the longer walkies. A hummingbird circled us a few times, and several bumblebees hid in lithadora, waiting out the rain.

As for the morning’s run, it was a hard one. Gutting out every single kilometer like it owed me money and had done me wrong, too.

I woke up with “It’s A Long Way to Tipperary” in my head; it’s probably time to eat DAS BOOT again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYA7YVPCfww

I don’t know quite when DAS BOOT became a comfort watch, but here we are. Jurgen Prochnow is a stone fox.

My kids were telling me crazy animal facts from him and zefrank at the table, and I was so baffled and charmed I HAD to look him up, and well, now I’m addicted, cool.

One of the few things getting me through this week has been Casual Geographic. My favorite so far is his extended riff on Jenga and keystone species. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxXrFa_Rsqg

Some of you seem to feel my caffeine consumption is perhaps a tad excessive. To which I reply, honey, you honestly don’t want to see me without the (quite counterintuitive) sedative effect it has on my temper.

Me: “Stop it. I have all the ideas I could ever want. I’m busy with the werelion thing—the werelion thing YOU shoved me into, I might add. Go sit down.”

The Muse: “But it’s really shiny."

Me: “NO."

The Must: “But…aliens.”

Me: “It’s Friday night, I should party. Or something.”

The Muse: “How about another book idea?”

Me: “I already have three projects on the burners and revisions on two more.”

The Muse: “But none of them are this shiny NEW thing.”

The Muse: “…so then they find out it’s been there THE WHOLE TIME.”

Me: *makes short, desperate noise*

The Muse: “You’re not writing this down. You should be writing this down.”

Me: “I hate you.”

The Muse: “And yet you need me.”

Me: “Shut up.”

The Muse: “But not space aliens! I mean, they were space aliens once, but they’re SEA aliens now!”

Me: “How does that even—oh, no.“

The Muse: “I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED!”

Me: “Fine. 200 words. But that’s ALL you get.”

The Muse: “I just love it when we spend quality time together.”

Me: “190 words.”

The Muse: “What?”

Me: “189 words.”

Having a highly combative, dysfunctional relationship with your own brain certainly isn’t required to be a writer.

But sometimes, I could be forgiven for thinking it helps.