I had to work sunrise to sunset this christmas so I guess we're doing a christmas work rant. The young employee who's always tried to bully me high school style has been trying not so subtly to get rid of me, right? Well anyway, I can't tell if she's lying about the corporate boss plotting to give me the boot or just trying to scare me into leaving. If it's the latter, joke's on her because it's next to impossible getting hired anywhere else as a noticeably neurodivergent 'too old to still be single' queer woman? whatever guy with 3 dogs & a senior horse. Doesn't matter that I still don't have any tattoos.

The work 'evaluation' meeting we had recently seemed to go well with the boss even admitting that she'd short-staffed the business for the hardest part of the year and caused me to have problems. Corporate types are all snakes though. I don't even trust her as far as I could throw her, which is probably only 1 or 2 feet because a 5 gallon bucket of water is about the limit of what I can toss without messing up my back.

I was just thinking back to the clash we had over the summer. I'd been picking up the slack for months. Doing 50 hours a week of ranch work on average, and not even logging all of it. My one coworker (the 'manager') was slacking off and taking tons of vacations. I was tired all the time. I had no life outside of work. I even put my 3x more profitable illustration work on hold. And still when I asked to be paid for 2 hours too many the boss turned on me like grandpa Bilbo seeing the ring. She actually accused me of trying to "steal" from the company. Because I was requesting too much overtime in order to keep her damn business running somewhat smoothly in a 3 month 100+ degree heatwave.

After that I had a long talk with my corporate CEO uncle, who loves talking about Business. He said it was my mistake all along. That was hard to take but I can admit I messed up. I had to reevaluate my whole life from that point. Again.

When you're raised with that puritanical 50's martyr-like work ethic you're set up for failure. "Nobody wants to work anymore"? I want to work! I want to work harder than anyone will pay me to work. And like a fool I did anyway, and I got burned for it. Again.

Sometimes I really can't believe where I am now. Like true, I am insane by some metrics, but I still got a degree with honors, customers love me, I speak 2.5 languages, I have management experience, I've successfully run a whole boarding stable on my own, and my personal hobby that I do for FUN is finding the most efficient way to do the most tasks possible. Time blindness who? I don't need to see that bitch, I know exactly how long it takes me to walk across the room. And here I still am getting paid 2k a month, stuck living behind a barn, with a boss who was deeply offended when I told her the 31 cent raise (gotta appreciate that extra penny) she gave me was the second lowest I'd ever gotten. The only lower one being the automatic $.25 raise I got for working at the roach infested college sandwich shop for 2 semesters over a decade ago.

But nah, it's a always been a me problem. I should've known better than to work harder than they were willing to pay me. Am I also about to get nerfed by corporate for not volunteering to do extra unpaid work now? Uh—YEH. Of course I am! Foolish of me to imagine there was any way to win this.

I just can't get over the fact that I was giving them so much value for the pennies they were paying and it still was barely enough to qualify for basic survival. The boss doesn't even see or understand a fraction of what I did for this business. At one point she haughtily tried to remind me that I was also getting 'free rent' and board for my horse, but it's like, 'yeah, and you're getting someone present at your business 24/7 and a worker who can better connect with boarders.' Don't act like you're doing me a favor. I'm not your charity case. I'd rather have an extra 2K a month and live offsite. Except I'd need another 3k a month to afford rent within 50 miles.

I'm just so angry at every hustle culture shill and out of touch boomer who's still out there lying—saying that all it takes is a 'can do' attitude and maybe a college degree.

Apart from the year I was too ill to work I've worked multiple grueling jobs, 40+ hours a week for my whole adult life, I've lived on eggs and bologna for most of it, and if I lose this job in January I'll be homeless. Again.

Make it make sense. Make the meritocracy they hallucinate exist for me for FIVE MINUTES. Just once.

I just want someone with money to see everything I can do and say, "you're cool, I think you deserve to live. Not only that, but here's enough money that you can afford to do something crazy-banana-town like some regular maintenance on your car."

What's worse, sometimes, is that I know if I just gave in and played the stock market and did the credit card schemes and maybe did a few other crimes and exploited some other poor saps, I could probably actually make it. I hate it so much.

I am the ghost of christmas future.

For those that care about Lesbian Zombie books

The first chapter is done! I actually have several books planned so far for the series. These are the names, ( Wont be the actual names but just funny replacements for now) Nom Nom Lesbeans Wanna U-Haul? Zombie edition Who Zombie? Me Zombie? Zombies, The midlife crisis. Dad Edition. All are connected in some way.

Also this is like my 3rd or 4th time writing non fanfiction! I really hope I am able to showcase how different the characters are without our preconceptions.

Music well versed

I’ve wanted to write this one for a while.

Finally getting around to it now. It’s late or early for some. Sleeping problems as usual.

Through my life and (skateboarding especially!) Im pretty well versed in music. For the last nearly 8 years I’ve been stuck in 1 genre particularly. I want to write about music I’ve been into throughout life.

When I was a child I had to listen to pop/hit radio music when riding in the car with my mom.

I can’t stand 90s music for this very reason And when I hear it anywhere it reminds me of this feeling.

When we would go on road trips it would be some mix tape my dad put together. Or the Smashing Pumpkins. He was a really big fan of them.

Im not into them but always liked “We only come out night.” And would perk up from a long car ride slumber when I heard it come on!

I wasn’t much into music at this age besides tracks I’d hear in video games I’d being playing.

It wasn’t until the end of 4th grade I got a real taste at music when my friend Erik Mueller let me borrow his Rammstein cd, Sehnsucht. I didn’t know the words at all but the industrial beats and metal sound was very appealing to me at the time. I remembering trying to get into Metallica then too but didn’t feel em. A few months later it was summer before I was in 5th grade and I was staying the night at my buddy Justin’s watching MTV late night and saw and heard the coolest thing my 10 year old self could imagine. A dude in a backward red Yankees cap walking downtown the street telling people he did it all for the nookie! I was instantly drawn into Limp Bizkit and wanted the Significant Other CD so bad. My parents were hesitant though because of the parental advisory rating. I eventually got the Family Values Tour 98’ with parental advisory. This was such a big deal to me at that time! Eventually shortly after they got me Significant Other. I got my copy of 3 Dollar Bill Y’all from Walmart and it was censored and still to this day I’m pissed about it! Started listening to some Korn after but they weren’t as appealing to me as Limp! Moved to Texas that winter and the older cooler kids that skated were into Slipknot! So I got that CD shortly after coming to Texas. That first Slipknot album was pretty decent. I’ve been listening to it lately skating with Anthony! Still holds up. Got into that first Papa Roach Album for a little bit but they didn’t hold up for me. A few rap albums… slimshady and Ludacris, wasn’t all that into hip hop and rap then. Started skating in middle of 6th grade and then music started to change for me.

My dad got a bunch of tickets to the Vans Warped tour 2001. I was new to skating and about to be introduced to the punk scene. I started getting into all this punk not only through the concert but new skate friends. The Vandals were a big one for me through 7th grade. some Casualties, the Dead Kennedy’s, the Queers (thanks Matt!) The Misfits, Guttermouth. Was really into CKY then too!

8th grade Flip Sorry just came out and I was blown away by Arto’s part and the Bowie score! I was curious about this stuff and asked my dad about him and the Velvet Underground. This was when I was starting to get into Bowie. Most of 8th grade was listening to music strictly from skate parts. Trying to get into other rock (Rush, Zepellin, The Who). Most didn’t stick though. Except Bowie! Had a GnR phase end of 8th grade through 9th grade.

Went into 9th grade listening to the Doors I was a full “Baker Clone”. This is Skateboarding just came out! Baker overtook Flip for me. I was fully submerged into all of Bowies discography continuing on from the previous year. Was trying to get into I’m a Robot. Cause of the Boss. Mostly only listened to Bowie. Lots of Swisha House stuff then too. I was finally coming around to liking more rap.

10th grade I was getting burned out on Bowie. I would be playing through GTA San Andreas and didn’t realize the station I listened to and liked on there would be the genre that was planted and would forever change music for me…. SFUR. Quality Haus music! I really enjoyed all of it… 808 State, Mr. Fingers, Frankie Knuckles A Guy Called Gerald! All the House pioneers!!!. I spent hours playing this game! It was my favorite GTA by far! That was my intro to House! The music I’ve always liked! My buddy Lucas let me borrow a Requiem for a Dream Remix Cd and I remember loving this Guy Called Gerald Track Fear and Body! I never fully got submerged into House til a few years later though. But I knew the real quality stuff! Started listening to 89.9 KTSW and other strange music while out skating. The weirder the better. 89.9 was always a good station and continued listening to it over the years, they got me into lots of music (Enon, I Am the World Trade Center, Prefuse 73, Stereolab, Crystal Castles naming a few). More rap especially SA locals 3rd Degree.

11th grade the year I quit skating, when I was in my prime. It was my midlife skating crisis. Once I quit skating I was fully into rap and hip hop only. Classic Screw tapes. All Texas rap. A few other artist. NERD. Anything produced by the Neptunes. Pharrell. Kept up this music along with a mixture of 89.9 music and weird electronica stuff (Unkle, Cornelius) for the coming years until 2013. Oohh yea 2011 I was really into Jelli radio in LV, the concept was brilliant and the after hours community was fun.

CavEmpt introduced me to this obscure record label The Trilogy Tapes and that’s when it came around full circle for me on House music and techno. It took years but the seed was already planted from GTA San Andreas and I’ve really only been listening to that music since! It’s hard to listen to much of anything else these days for me!

My good friend Nick got me into some great stuff

Ryuchi Sakamoto

David Sylvain

Tangerine Dream

And he has a great ear for Haus/techno too!

So there’s my well rounded music evolution!

Learned lots from friends and skating over the years.

“Music is my Life.” - ChopTop TCM 2

I've managed to miss the first four-ish days of @proxyjammer’s TFILF already (somehow) so I decided to put together a rec post for each day's theme before I can lose track of time again! I read a lot of angst and AUs which...made this surprisingly difficult, so some most of them are also AUs in addition to the main theme. but here we go!

Feb. 1st: Fluff

Confirmation Bias by Galena 

a short and sweet little friendship story with Rung taking care of an injured, slowly starving Whirl in an alien prison. complete with cuddles!

Feb. 2nd: Angst

Too Buff to Buff by enthusiasticinformedfragging

another Whirl and Rung one, which kind of teeters on the edge of fluff as well. mostly a character study of Whirl and his trauma, interwoven with soothing massage and paintjob time. 

Feb. 3rd: AU - (aka THE HARDEST CATEGORY BECAUSE I READ TOO MANY AU)

You Are Listening To by @zekkass

this fic has it all - Soundwave/Optimus, nonbinary Soundwave, fascinating worldbuilding, complex communication hub-mech politics, Soundwave and Optimus racing around an AU Cybertron that seems so fleshed out yet alien through Soundwave’s perspecetive...it’s just a ton of fun!

Feb. 4th: Humor/Crack

Champion by @astolat

all of Astolat’s fic are interesting, but this one is the story of how Rumble and Frenzy somehow accidentally sort of wind up cooperating with Autobots in the name of Sick Fucking Beats and end the war with poetry along the way. Astolat's fic are all Quality (especially And I Alone Have Escaped To Tell You, a close runner up for the one-shot...) but any fic with the tag Underground Dance Party wins the crack category in my heart.

Feb. 5th: One-shot

Blank Page Waiting by @spockandawe

the adventures of Prowl and empurata!drone!Megatron! based on art by @larrydraws. featuring Prowl having a midlife crisis over the mysterious poetry showing up all over his apartment, like a dope. with Pushkin! 

Feb. 6th: Multichapter

Mirror Mirror by @albawrites 

an old classic - Krok winds up in an IDW Shattered Glass universe through shenanigans, and has to find his way back to his version of the Scavengers. this is one of those fics where I wish there was a million words-worth of it, because the world building is phenomenal and I want to bury myself in more of what we just scrape the surface of. Shattered Glass done right is a beautiful thing, and the SG!DJD alone are super entertaining!

Feb. 7th: Your choice!

Technical Difficulties by Cici_Nota

eleven chapters of Ratchet desperately trying to save the Lost Light as he relives the same sequence of events over and over again in a time loop, with mounting frustration every time something goes awry and he’s forced to start all over again from the beginning. the slow one step forward, two steps back nature of the obstacles that keep getting through in Ratchet’s way as he becomes progressively more desperate, the subtle relief when Drift starts to casually accept the weirdness and help Ratchet partway through - it’s all so good. 11/10, definitely need to read again...

Feb 8th: 18+ Smut

Mend What is Broken by @warlordenfilade

reccing the whole series, because it was one of the first fic series I read while dipping my toes into Transformers fandom, and so one that is near and dear to my heart. Drift and Ratchet and oodles of hurt/comfort/fluff smut that I have reread...an embarassing number of times...