Lost Souls actually arrived yesterday, but I didn’t get it until today, since I had it shipped somewhere else, for safety. Never know if I’m going to be home to get my packages. Had a bad experience with a fancy lip balm order going missing. Expensive organic flavored lip balm.
Was thinking about the characters while running my errands.
It’s a phenomenal novel, but I would definitely caution anyone interested in checking it out, to look into trigger warnings associated with it. Not sure if that was much of a thing when it was first released. Maybe not. If it were published today, it would doubtless come with a well-earned laundry list attached.
***MILD SPOILERS AHEAD***
Not gonna lie. I had yet another major setback this morning, going over health insurance options. Keeping my present med team, while no longer being eligible for state insurance by a rather slim margin, is going to be costly.
Enough so that on the way back from a cat-litter-and-tea run, that I got VERY dramatic and imagined flinging myself at Zilla with reckless abandon. One night of wild fun in exchange for gruesome death.
Because that’s how all vampiric pregnancies end, in this fictive world. And apparently the budding fetus is intelligent enough to evade direct efforts to remove it, somehow? That’s more implied than explained, I believe. But I think there was something about it then attacking the mother.
Yeah, no. I wouldn’t actually go through that. No booty call, no matter how enticing, is literally worth your life.
I definitely felt for Nothing, the half-vampire left in suburbia, ignorant of his own nature, as a fellow former outcast of sorts. Christian and Ghost drew me in the most. For different reasons.
Christian’s “I’m too old for this sh!t” despair is so relatable. Not only has he seen a lot, experienced a great deal of pain, lived with more than a healthy dose of solitude. He puts himself through so much, to keep Zilla and his cohorts around.
There may have been times in my life where I tolerated people I shouldn’t, or behaviors I should have set hard boundaries against, to avoid feeling empty and alone. I think you end up feeling that way regardless, even with those people in your life.
It’s like a faery banquet.
Everything looks delectable, otherworldly. Tempting in the extreme. Once you try to eat any of it, either you only grow hungrier (thinking mildly of “Goblin Market” here, even if it had definitely-problematic antisemitism vibes), or else it’s poisonous.
And Ghost. The suffering of the sensitive soul.
I may have developed a better barrier against any sense of being an “empath,” as I’ve aged. Is it callous to protect yourself in this way? Maybe not.
Younger-me prioritized maintaining the vibe in any situation, in order to feel safe, I think. It felt like my job, to keep an eye on that sort of thing. Track everyone else’s moods.
Like Ghost does for Steve.
Probably a trauma response, in my case.
I’m not sure if I still believe some people are inherently empathic and others are not, based on my own experiences with the phenomenon. Or at least, I would question if it’s some kind of woo-woo “gift” or a knee-jerk reaction to having a rougher background.
Ghost is something altogether different, however. His gifts are beyond. While there are times they come in handy, tracking other characters, etc., they also seem to bring him a great deal of misery.
Perhaps too much insight can be a dangerous thing. Is there a point where introspection or esoteric pursuits taken to extremes, inhibit healthy personal growth? Or discourage simple joys?
That might be the kind of question that leads nowhere in the abstract, though there is that adage that an unexamined life isn’t worth living, with the much more modern addendum that an unlived life isn’t worth examining.
Well, anyhow, I suppose that’s enough of that, for one post.
On to specifics.
I redid my hair color yesterday and today. Took 3 boxes. I’m not sure if actually going in to have it done at that point would be more cost-effective? But alas, I did not. The top of my head is really stubborn about bleaching out, and tends to wind up brassy, til it’s had a few rounds.
My ends are a little fried, not gonna lie. Only did my roots, but it washes through all your hair when you rinse. On the bright side, I did find a hair mask treatment that I’d forgotten about, languishing in the bathroom cabinet. Will likely apply that later. For now, I am dressed, and NO MAS to having to hop back into the shower!
I shared that one on Instagram, along with some older pics. Had a couple messages on a dating app asking if I was real or if I was really 46. Not that it isn’t all incredibly flattering.
BUT it was my thought that since my Instagram feed will pop up there, BAM, proof that I have, in fact, aged over the years.
That’s my fave of the older shots, I think. I had earlier bleached either just my roots or all my hair but only the roots faded, and they’d turned kind of a yucky orange-ish yellow. On another hair experiment whim, I borrowed kiddo’s Manic Panic Vampire Red and dumped that on top, achieving the above results. In my Instagram post of this pic, I quipped that it was a fitting choice, because as I recall, I was pretty manic myself at this point (or so I believe). I think I’m about 34 there.
I dunno. The differences seem obvious to me? My skin looks older, etc. Not that I am asking for point-by-point analysis. So. Not a vampire. Actually my real age.
The red was awfully fun, though.
I even found a pic of me with the blue hair I had for a time, while employed at one of my video store jobs. In that one, I have a massive volcano cocktail in front of me, that I had been sharing with a high school friend in town to visit. He’d captioned it, “Michelle decided to pace herself.”
Given that I no longer drink, I’m hesitant to repost that at this point. Seems like false advertising. BUT… I must away! I have some friends coming to pick me up, to head downtown and check out some live music. Hopefully there will be food trucks or beverage tents or the like? I had some pizza and a protein bar, but that was it, all day.
I may check in post-outing. If not tonight, then possibly tomorrow. It’s good to get fresh adventures in, when you can. For anyone. I like to think it’s especially healthy for someone with a creative mindset. That could just be my take.
Anyway, since I mentioned it in the earlier post but didn’t link it, here is my fairly-epic werewolf playlist. May have shared it here before at some point, so stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before…
I did crib from other wolf and werewolf lists on Spotify, but NO ONE had added Danzig’s “Killer Wolf.” Am I that much older, that it’s on my radar and not theirs?! Who knows. Maybe?
Anyway. Here’s to a great night ahead.
All the Bright and Sparkly Things 
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