#oh and kevin bloody mccarthy got elected speaker finally

[airyairyaucontraire]

Ever get your period a day or two before a trip and wish you could just shove the vacuum cleaner up there and get it all out in one go and not have to deal with that nonsense away from home and your own washing machine and so forth?

Look, I have to say I am not unappreciative for my good fortune in assorted ways but 2023 needs to pull its fucking socks up. First we spent the first week of the new year with COVID-19 cutting a swath through the household. My dad tested positive on New Year’s Day, his actual birthday. Long-time tumblies will be aware that my dad is a man of multifarious shortcomings but I really don’t think he altogether deserved that. So we’ve spent the week in semi-isolation with the weird feature that as the only adult who didn’t seem to get it, it’s like I’ve been quarantined in my room. (Tested negative daily the entire time, a rare feat for my generally very basic immune system.) There is nowhere to sit except the bed so I’ve basically been bedridden, while ACTUALLY PERFECTLY HEALTHY but endeavouring to avoid my closest relatives’ plague, and I’ve managed to fuck up the traitor muscle on the left side of my shoulder/neck/back axis due to inactivity/odd positions. The best thing that’s happened the entire fucking week is Little Nephew and I went out with masks on to buy Red Niece a new raincoat (Green Niece fits and loves his old raincoat but there’s only one of it) and had ice-cream/a milkshake before we went home, that was the fucking highlight. (Green Niece’s raincoat has a pattern of sharks. Red Niece’s raincoat has a pattern of butterflies and that is exactly what they are like as people.)

(It’s so interesting yet also sad to consider how different Little Nephew’s stillborn twin Harrison would have been from him, had he lived. I sometimes imagine two copies of Little Nephew scampering around here, but Harrison being as different from him as Red is from Green. I wish I could have known him and seen his individual ways. However, I also think “Christ Almighty, two sets of them would break us,” so it’s a bit of a thing all in all and I don’t share that thought with him or my sister obviously.)

My Red Niece comes to see me every day to demand an extremely specific My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic picture be printed off to be stuck to cardboard and cut out for her to play with rather than my sister having to source and purchase MULTIPLE discontinued toys from an earlier generation, and quite frankly even the current generation is not easy to find in New Zealand stores! We have been carefully preparing her psychologically for the fact that there is no printer at the beach house we’re going to for five days next week and she will have to make do with the ponies she’s got. I probably need to put in more time on this but it makes me a bit sad that other than describing the pictures she wants, she doesn’t really discuss FiM with me and as you know, I’ve got thoughts. And a purple wig I’ve worn to cosplay Human Rarity. I wonder where that is, or if I got rid of it in a fit of “The world has changed and this is never going to be my life again”? Because it was a cute wig and we’d make a swell Rarity and Sweetie Bell.

I’m sorry, you know I love Rarity (sobbing) so much

Also, am experimenting on myself and discovered that, per the neurologist’s suggestion, alcohol does reduce my leg tremor problem! Of course it also renders me unfit to drive and possibly to work, but that’s interesting to know, isn’t it!

And the weather’s been verily shit, so rainy, and forecast for rain every bloody day but one in the location we’re going to. There’s always hope for it to be nicer than forecast, I’ve certainly experienced that at times, but still, 2023, get your fucking act together! This is not good enough! You are going to be the Year of the Rabbit soon! Is this good enough for Sailor Moon? No! It is not!

And Little Nephew is having some manner of pre-pubescent hormonal surge that is apparently pretty common in eight-year-old lads and is on an emotional roller coaster which at times renders him dia-bleeding-bolical, my God, the fucking DRAMA

And I’ve just started my period and we’re going away the day after tomorrow

And I would just very much like 2023 to get its fucking shit together because it’s not easy for anyone but WE ARE BLOODY WELL TRYING