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The push is on to make 2026 the new 2016. Just in case you were wondering what yr Auntie over here was doing in 2016, I was working a “cool media job” in a midsized Midwestern US city known both for for its microbrewery, and arts culture. After work was small venue concerts, and art museum exhibition openings, and penthouse keggers with the city’s intelligentsia. I was the Queen of the Hipsters, you guys. I lived the whole scene life. 2016 was also the year I was formally dia

Bob: “Imma put my asshole on your antakarana, mom. Gonna make it real hole-y. Get it??”

Do you really want to help your disabled friend, your Hispanic friend, your otherwise BIPOC friend, your Palestinian friend, your Jewish friend, your neurodivergent friend, your queer friend, your unhoused friend… That’s the question. That is what you ask them. And it’ll usually be something like sharing their mutual aid requests. I have never once had a successful online fundraiser, because I share the link everywhere I can possibly promote it, and then it dies. No shares me

If you're interested in learning more about this dream phenomenon, check out Reddit's r/TheMallWorld You may or may not be the kind of highly online person who knows about the phenomenon of what's being called "Mall World," what seems to be a shared dreamspace for thousands of thousands of people where the dreams themselves are not recurring at all, but occur in the same dream places (a mall is a prominent feature, but so are a few schools, an airport, a fancy hotel, a hospit

Today is one week post-op. I was on the table exactly seven days ago right now. Today, I also was notified by US SSI Disability that my request to review my hearing from April 2025 has been denied. Which means I'm starting the application process over from scratch, for the third time in six years. Why was I denied last year? Because the "employment expert" at the hearing decided I could still be a receptionist, even though I have literally failed at being a receptionist becau

I'm getting asked this a lot lately, so here's the deal. And TW on pretty much every physical and mental health topic out there. tl;Dr, my genetics are such a bitch (comment where that's from if you know it!) And MeeMaw is Neurodiversity. My first flare happened in 2001, when I was 19 years old. It took me out of dancing and into reiki. And it involved my old hip... my left hip subluxed, and caused a severe muscle spasm in my piriformis muscle to hold it out of place (and sho

I also have two thumbs. Not to brag or anything. Also officially in a decent amount of pain, but I'm home! Just one overnight in the hospital, and I'm home now to manage my own pain meds, hooray! Which means alarms I have to set, although thankfully the shortest dosage time is every six hours, most everything is morning and evening. And now, I move like a tortoise and rest a whole lot until March. And smoke this infused pre-roll. Ayyyy. Things my care team were impressed by:

TW: weight loss, weight gain, fatphobia, medical neglect, medical advocacy. If you were overweight as a kid, and it just kinda got worse the older you got, and then you spent your adult life fluctuating between gaining and losing the same 20-30 pounds that didn't quite get you to the 60-100lbs you need to lose... Check your hormone balance. Get tested for food allergies. Get treated for "dopamine eating" if needed, whether you go the medication or therapy or surgery route. Ma

My mom got the ancestry.com swab kit and membership on Black Friday special, and all the leaves started popping up in earnest today... So, my grandma on my mom's side was raised Cherokee. Now, this was the 1940's/1950's and while she spent every summer with her Cherokee family, and she knew full well she was Cherokee, she dgaf. She passed well enough, as far as she was concerned she was a "modern American girl" and didn't really care about her ancestry. Her brother did, but u

Can we talk about a current turn of phrase? That seems to be accompanying the whole "How old do I look" meme on TikTok. (It's the one in the subject line, btw) [So witchy, I even have professional headshots for my tarot reading business. 2023, Elise Kutt for Mod Bettie Portraits, HMU Candace Lefke] More Auntie Lore time! When I was 16, so this would have been around 1998, I started to take an Arabic dance class (you know, "belly dancing") with my mom, and my teacher was like

Well. "Owala." It's the "Freesip" design, but I have no idea if it's "real" or not. Nor do I particularly care. The Freesip bottle seems to be number one on everyone's "What I'm Not Buying in 2026" lists. I didn't buy mine! [ cue lil' Miley Cyrus singing the Hannah Montana theme song ] I'm at my Surgical Optimization Appointment a few weeks back, and my Nurse Navigator comes in with all my goodies - the itchy af pre-surgery wipes (they're basically off-brand Hibiclens), the E

Whew. Some of the earlier stuff, I'm like "that was just THIS year? The one we're still in??" Considering the state of the world at the end of 2024, we all knew we were in for a doozy with this one. We also knew 2025 was a 9 year (2+0+2+5=9) with the energy of completion, and that it would be followed by 2026 (2+0+2+6=10 1+0=1) with the energy of new beginnings, so. I went into it hanging onto my butt, as Samuel L. Jackson says in Jurassic Park. Within the first 5 months of t

TW: weight loss, weight gain, dieting, food addiction, exercise & injury, weight loss medication, medical trauma & grief processing. Disclaimer - this blog is un-monetized, and I have not been paid to feature any of the products I have linked here. I just really like them and actually use them myself. This whole blogging my life experience thing is making me very introspective, which means I'm making connections as to why x and y happened the way they did... And I realized ov

tl;dr - no. That's me, just a few days ago. 43 years old and just past my half-birthday. No makeup, no filters or alterations of any kind, physical or digital. Selfie camera on my iPhone SE 2020. Mix of natural and LED light. Not saying I'm "beautiful," but my hair is awfully dark for being virgin, and my lines are awfully fine still. Say it with me, ladies - I DON'T OWE ANYONE "PRETTY"! "Pretty" is not my function as a human woman on this planet. I have a personal philosophy

I probably should have made this appointment when I didn’t notice the ingrown toenail until I ripped it out and it started bleeding everywhere this past summer. No pain, or sensation whatsoever at any point during all of this. A couple of days ago now, I learned as I was grooming my toenails that I have no feeling in my toes anymore, to the point where I sliced the nailbeds of 4/5 nails open with the nail file. So, now I see my new podiatrist on February 2nd to talk about fut

At the pre-op appointment on Tuesday, my nurse navigator tried to help me work out a plan to sleep away from the cats for two weeks. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the last time I was cut open for medical purposes, it was at 9 in the morning, and by 5pm I had become the Mumma of a micro-runt from a polyesterous litter (like internet sensation Baby Corn). And that I immediately started pottying him with the incision hand. I could have worn gloves. That occurred to me

Left was taken 9/28/25, Right was taken today, 12/12/25. Both show my hair stretched but not straightened, and freshly cut using the Manes by Mell Pigtail Cut. I took about 4” off in September, and 1” off today. That’s just 2 1/2 months of growth 🥳🥳🥳 Introducing my hair: 3a/b, ringlet curls about the diameter of a boba straw (it took me a minute to think of a comparison that wasn’t “middle-sized vaginal dialator,” guys), highly, HIGHLY porous, medium thickness but super f

What the title says. My first encounter with major surgery and thus with general anesthesia as an adult was with a double laminectomy (at T10-11 & L5-S1) in June of 2021. At that Surgical Optimization pre-op, I was told to stop using THC products of any kind two weeks prior to surgery. I went back in for some scar damage work on the L5-S1 site in October 2022, and the THC requirements before surgery were the same. When I had to go back in again in March of 2023, however, a ne

Violet, Michael Myers, and my new panties TW: weight loss, weight gain, weight loss medication. The problem with learning you need surgery in five weeks on literal Black Friday is that shipping isn’t any “two days” like it usually is. This is why we order early! As long as it’s here by January 4th, we’re good. I’m getting an anterior hip replacement, so my surgeon will be going in from the front… and I need Hi-Cut panties that won’t sit the leg seam right on the incision. Bu

One thing about being a middle eastern dancer in the 90's is that the Algerian pop music scene was happening, and I was there for it way more than a teen girl from Michigan should have been. I discovered I was hypermobile when I started an Arabic dance class at 16 years old. I could bend in ways no one else could… and also just could never develop the muscles in certain places to do certain things. While this led to frequent muscle spasms in my lower back starting at 19 years