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2025 Reading List

Welcome to a new year of reading!

I read 28 novels and 26 graphic novels last year. Not bad! This year, I’m putting recent acquisitions and reads at the top. That does not mean READING order, just PILE order.

The Piano Tuner, Cheng Naishan. An old novel (1989) by a famous Chinese writer. It’s called New Chinese Fiction.

Road of Bones, Christopher Golden. This guy is known for his horror novels (Snowblind, Dead Ringers) so I hope I like it!

Re-reading Taste, My Life Through Food, by Stanley Tucci. I enjoyed the stories and recipes.

Re-reading On Writing by Steve King. It’s time!

The Revenant, Michael Punke. Yes, the book that the movie is based on. I have a niche like of Westerns set in the great expansion West period. This one is well written – it’s my treadmill book, which means it’ll be finished in Jan 25. FINISHED! It did not end particularly well as far as wrapping shit up, but it is still great for historical semi-fiction (main character is real as are others and the locations). At least the afterword finished the story up. Not sure why he didn’t finish it IN the novel? Anyway, well written.

Bitter in the Mouth, Monique Truong. Got this one for xmess and it is EXEMPLARY. Truong is an excellent writer. This book explores Lexical-gustatory (LG) synesthesia, which is the condition that makes words have tastes. This was my initial interest in the book, but the book is about finding oneself and family. This is Truong’s second novel, the first is The Book of Salt, which I will acquire shortly. I also like that her books all relate to TASTE.

Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi. SO GOOD! It’s a quick read because it is highly entertaining. The ending was a little blah, but I loved this book! It’s about corporate greed and sentient life. Good stuff!

You Like It Dark, Stephen King short stories. Almost finished. I’m lukewarm on this story collection. I feel as if SK just dusted off some old stuff and published it. A couple are good, but nothing is really jumping out at me as great.

From 2024 list:
Learning to Bow, Bruce Feiler. Subtitled Inside the Heart of Japan. I got this one for the look inside Japanese culture, but this guy writes a lot of Christian crap, so we’ll see how it goes. It seems to be less novel and more guide? I’ll report. Started this as my treadmill book. It is a slightly outdated (1991) look inside Japanese culture. It’s written well and a pretty good read! It is from a teacher’s point of view, so lots of info about Japanese schools, which is fascinating.

Courtney Crumrin, Ted Naifeh. (Things I realised I’d missed!)
Courtney Crumrin Vol 4: Monstrous Holiday
The Crumrin Chronicles Vol 1: The Lost and the Lonely
The Crumrin Chronicles Vol 2: The Charmed and the Cursed
The Crumrin Chronicles Vol 3: The Wild and the Innocent

The Drowning Kind, Jennifer McMahon. This is a mystery/horror story – and a fairly good one. McMahon is a decent writer, but she still falls back on a couple of phrases a bit too much – barking laughs is one. UGH. Death to adverbs!! But it’s a pretty good read nonetheless.

The Woman in the Window, A.J. Finn. “A Netflix film”. Sounds like a derivative of Rear Window to me.

Leaving Time, Jodi Picoult.

Four Hours of Fury, James M Fenelon. The story of WWII’s largest airborne invasion and the final push into Nazi Germany.

Bunker, Bradley Garrett. Building for the end times. This is a look at prepper communities around the world and how they prepare for the apocalypse. Timely, no?

Thanks A Lot Mr Kibblewhite, Roger Daltrey. His memoir.

Alice Hoffman’s Magic Series
NOT reading these, as two have magically disappeared. I don’t remember loaning them out, so I’ve no idea why they are gone from the read pile. ??? The gremlins apparently do not want me to read them. So be it. I was lukewarm anyway.
(NOT in published order, but in storyline order)
Magic Lessons, Alice Hoffman. Part 1
The Rules of Magic, Alice Hoffman. Part 2
Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman. Part 3
Book of Magic, Alice Hoffman. Part 4

Paper Son, S.J. Rozen.

On Gold Mountain, Lisa See. I always get her books.

Born Standing Up, Steve Martin. His autobiography/memoir. I’ve read some of his fiction – he’s a good writer.

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Looking for VSG/Bariatric info?

Hi there! If you’d like to see ONLY my extensive research on Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy, bariatric diet and managing GERD (reflux), you can filter out all my other posts and see just those by clicking HERE. You can see my vlogs about my VSG journey here.

To see any category (recipes, for instance), use the drop down menu to the right labeled “View Posts by Category” and select the category you’d like. Thanks for stopping by!

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The Things We’ve Lost

I woke up with this post almost fully realised in my head this morning. This is a good sign! I hope to get back to writing more this year.

I was thinking about the things we’ve lost to corporate greed. It’s a long list and I believe that these things that have been monetized to the hilt are part of the reason so many of us are depressed and bored. Here we go.

MUSIC & TV
Not only have we GenXers had to go from records to cassettes to CDs then back to records, we’ve lost radio to subscriptions. I’m happy that radio is rebounding a little here in ATL. 99x is back on the air and there are a couple of other stations still hanging on. But since the advent of the internet, the monetization of music has pretty much torpedoed free over the air radio. I have my curated list on my phone, but I have to consciously go forth and search for new music. This contraction is why TayTay RULES pop music and there are so few artists getting traction. I’ll also touch on the advent of AutoTune, which has absolutely devastated TALENT in music. That rant is for another day, but AutoTune has contributed significantly to the decline of talent being necessary to make it in music.

TV is the same: cable ruined over the air, but it *is* still available if an HD antenna will work for you (won’t for me). I’ve not had live TV in years. I’ve given up watching horse racing, ice skating and NFL amongst other things and it sucks. I’ve got Netflix, Disco+, AppleTV, PBS and free Peacock and still cannot enjoy the few things I like. NO JOY.

INTERNET
Back in the day, mid 90s, when all of us tech minded GENXers were CREATING THE DAMN INTERNET, things were pretty wild and wooly. Content was everywhere, socials were not clogging up things yet. You had to know how to create a search term (over on DogPile, REPRESENT) to find anything while using your Netscape Gold (which we called Nutscrape because reasons). Then Google happened: YAY! better searching! Then the socials started to show up. I remember a kid talking about FaceBook in the early aughts, and I thought it sounded stupid. Everyone had a MySpace page, complete with annoying music. Tripod was a place you could put together a website without hand coding! Miracle! Websites were hand coded, then DreamWeaver changed everything for us nerds who were into websites. THEN the corporations started to form around Google and the socials. The tech bros wondered if these sites with tons of users could be worth anything? By the 2010s, FB had gobbled up everything and the rest is history. I also remember Twitter and the awesome thing it WAS before bots and Felon Tusk. Now AI will continue to ruin all that is (was) good about the internet. And it makes me sad. Further reading about the enshittification of TECH by Edward Zitron: Never Forgive Them NOTE: This guy is young (b 1987), so he does not remember the Olden Days™, therefore I take a grain of salt with his writings. He is also a tech bro, which I don’t care for. The article is still worth your time, however.

SHOPPING
Back in the Olden Days™ (1900s!), Walmart was all about American Made. Most of their products had this proudly emblazoned on the labels. Then the old man died and the money grubbing children took over. In an effort to remain the cheapest place to shop (in consumer minds, it really is NOT, LOSS LEADERS, look it up), they decided that all their vendors needed to manufacture in China to bring down the cost of their products. Now I’ll tangent a little to tell you a story about a lady I met at some random job, whose company was forced to manufacture in China if they wanted to sell at Walmart, so they did. Then the Chinese booted them from their factory and the country and STOLE IT ALL. Walmart said ‘too bad, so sad’ and dropped them. This is why I have a bad attitude about the Chinese and their complete lack of integrity when it comes to copyrights and fair treatment. THIS story is why I will not shop at Walmart and I do my best to find American made products if possible. 99.9% of the time, it is not. Thanks Walmart for nuking manufacturing in America.

Then, of course, there is Amazon. The other elephant in the room that stomped out small business across the land and killed bookstores outright. I also do not shop at Amazon very much, I try to find things on eBay, which is the last bastion of small businesses online. You’ve got to be careful to avoid the Chinese on eBay, they proliferate. And even if you filter to N America only, they’ll still get you. I ordered some compression gloves from “Kentucky” which took 2.5 weeks to arrive. They were from China and repackaged no doubt.

HEALTHCARE
Not much to add about this, everyone knows how fucked up healthcare is in the US. Corporations (insurance) run it and they are out for money, fuck you and your health. Bravo to the shooter, I giggled with glee. I DGAF about that CEO – just like he didn’t give a fuck about how many people HE KILLED with his company. Fuck them all.

GROCERIES
Of course, we can all understand that the pandemic fucked up the food supply lines and things were pricey AF simply because it was so hard to get items moved from one place to another. BUT. Then the corporations who own the food supplies just left the prices where they were. Are we shocked? NO WE ARE NOT. These corporations are out for MONEY. Fuck you and your groceries. Food is up about 25% across the board – if not by price, then by shrinkflation, which is the method of reducing the size of the item but keeping the price the same. This has been going on for years – a “pound” of coffee has been 12oz forever. But now it’s in just about everything. This is earning the corporations 25% any way you slice it.

HOUSING
Not much to add about this, either, it’s well covered by many. The outrageous cost of buying or renting has been fueled by corporations buying up all the starter homes and rentals in the 08 crash. Corporations should not be allowed to own private residences, period. When corporations own all the property and control all the prices, this is what you get.

The bottom line is that allowing corporations to run wild is what is fueling this plethora of oligopolies that are controlling massive swaths of our economy (and our lives). For an explanation of OLIGOPOLY, I give you the first honest cable ad:




Link to the youtube video if iframe is not working HERE.

Corporate greed is the root of why there is no joy in ANYTHING any more. Listening to music, reading a book, going shopping, going out to eat, hell, even movies are foul now. Corporations have brought this country to its knees economically and beaten its citizens into two groups: one is just TIRED and SAD; the other is too stupid to see that there’s a problem. The next four years will be tough, my peeps. As corporations continue to aggregate power (a fucking rich fuck OWNS the goddam president FFS) and the rich continue to get richer, the rest of us will continue to barely hang on. I don’t want a civil war, but I think it could happen. What I do totally support is uprising against these rich fuckers and their corporations. We, as a nation, need to decide that we are not going to allow corporations to rule this country. We need to take back our nation and provide for EVERYONE, not just rich fucks. I’m fine with any method we choose to do that. Take that as you will.

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Here We Are

It’s now 2025 and we await whatever fresh hell will be rained upon us.

First thing out the gate: a crazed ex-military whackjob murdered 15 people and injured 30 more in New Orleans. He was promptly dispatched by the police. Of course, the wacky right media claimed he was an illegal immigrant. NOPE, SORRY, he was one of YOURS. (A MAGAt informed me that I should include that this guy was “radicalized by ISIS”, which is true, but honey, let me tell you: HE WAS ONE OF YOURS, MAGAts, and that is a FACT. So, sure, he was influenced by ISIS, but the guns and the killing of civilians is ALL MAGA. Accept your part in this fucking mess. Asshole.)

Then Cybertrucks start exploding. One blew up in front of Trump hotel in Vegas, killing the driver. I did think it was genius that it blew up THERE, tho. Then, here in GA, a Cybertruck caught fire and burned up on the dealer lot in Decatur. If I had one of those monstrosities, I’d not park it near my house.

We watched Amy Adams in Nightbitch last night. What an odd movie! It is very weird but basically a meditation on what women go through when deciding to have kids and the resentment caused when women give up THEIR lives to be SAH moms. The movie displays these feelings in VERY strange ways. It’s basically a vehicle for Amy Adams to show her amazing acting chops. She slays.

The movie confirms why I never had any interest in breeding. It also confirms what I sensed my whole life from my mother: RESENTMENT. She hated being a SAH mom and I knew it my whole life. I couldn’t verbalise it as a child, but I knew my mother was not a happy housewife. She hated cooking especially, which is why her food was gross.

So, yeah, welcome to 2025. We have plans to get ourselves out of CC debt and start actually LIVING our lives. We are being brave and doing what needs to be done to sever this anchor of debt dragging us down since Nick’s three years at Minuteman working a low paying job. We are getting rid of the debt and starting fresh. NOT a bankruptcy, but we’re draining our investment account. Once the CC debt is gone, we will be able to actually use the money we make to move forward rather than simply tread water like we have for five years.

We want to reconnect with people who matter to us and we want a fucking vacation this year. It’s been over a decade since we’ve gone anywhere. That is just SAD.

So, cutting loose the negatives and setting a course to better ourselves. I hope this country doesn’t collapse or whatever. It will derail our plans and piss me off royally. I hope the infighting of the Shitgibbon brigade will render them ineffective and they’ll piss away their four years. Then we can get the country back on track. Hopefully.

It’s a new year. Let’s get on it.

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And the Hits Keep Coming!

Small update 12/4: This person had another blowout with some other friends and pissed them off, too, so I really do not think this has anything to do with me. They are obviously going through something. Whatever it is, I hope they get back on track.
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The end of the year is always a challenge with the holidays and spending and all that crap. But I did not have end a long term relationship on my Bingo Card.

As I said in my whiny post on Oct 30, I am tired this year and I doubt I’ll do many social events:

I am typically maudlin this time of year, but this year is really bad. I doubt I will do much socializing. Don’t be offended if I pass on invites and/or don’t offer them.

Apparently this friend did not see that post (or did not care) and a dust up occurred when I told them that I was not doing a big Thanksgiving this year and only having two dudes (who have no local family) over. Cooking for four is the same as cooking for two, but I assume they think it should be THEY rather than the guys and they’re incensed that I’d not want to cook for six. If I cook for six, I may as well do eight, since I have to double the recipes. Slippery slope. I DO NOT WANT TO DO THAT MUCH PREP, COOKING OR SPENDING THIS YEAR. This is about me, not anyone else.

They say that I “made plans” with them in early October. I most certainly did not make plans – trust me, when it comes to cooking, I know exactly what I’m doing and when. This has nothing to do with them at all, really. Yet here we are.

Then when I said that they were getting VERY upset over ONE event, they lost their shit. They accused me of cutting them out of plans and then proceeded to bully and gaslight me in an attempt to get their way. Very bratty. (I have the whole convo saved; RECEIPTS) They even went so far as to say that Thanksgiving is not about food, it’s about hanging out. UM, SINCE WHEN? Apparently they think I’d be cool making popcorn and toast like Snoopy? That is not how I roll and I find it offensive that they’d even say something like that. I can see why they might think that, since every occasion is a party and not about food for them. Then they said ‘merry christmas and happy new year, too!’ (paraphrased) Ok, so now in their mind I’ve cut them out of everything forever and even amen? I did no such thing! This is 100% in their head. Yet here we are.

I think the real reason this blow up occurred was that we’ve been having Sunday Canasta for a while and they’ve been mad that we won’t invite them. THERE IS A REASON: we actually play cards. Canasta is not a simple game and we don’t feel that they’d have the concentration to play. It is not a party occasion, we might have a beer and perhaps some food, but WE PLAY CARDS. We don’t even really chat that much! I think they have the idea that it’s a big party every week – it is not.

I am not happy about losing an old friend, but it is not my decision and I can’t control what other people think. They think that my not wanting to do a big Thanksgiving thing is all about them and there’s nothing I can do about that. I took them off my FB for my sanity. They can read this or not. They can contact me or not. I am open to fix things, but damage has certainly been done.

But I have done nothing wrong and I will not apologize for not being obligated to cook for them on demand. For me, it is about the food and always will be.

I like to party as much as anyone, but DUDE, I am old and tired. And frankly, I’d rather spend time playing cards or having small dinner parties with people who actually do care about the food and want to enjoy it, than staying up all night partying. Parties are great, but there are more things in life than that.

All I can do is move on. So, this is me, moving on. Sigh. Comments turned off, there really is nothing to discuss. :(

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The Season Finale I Expected

This timeline sucks.

I knew the mouthbreathing hillbillies would win. This country’s history of racism and misogyny is not getting better or going away. Clearly.

I knew that Obama was an anomaly. I also knew that many, MANY male democrats simply could not bear voting for a woman. I wish voting was PUBLIC. Let’s see who you REALLY are, fuckheads.

I’ve been saying for YEARS that the majority of this country consists of uneducated, ignorant people who have no intellect with which to understand even the most basic concepts of government and society, nor to determine what is propaganda and what is not. I have, AGAIN, been proved right.

This is what happens when you have a populace that has been taught nothing of history, has no reading comprehension and can barely write. This is how the fascists WANT IT. Dumb people are easily manipulated. As for the fucking Boomers whose PARENTS fought Nazis to give them the best economy in the history of the US, welp, I guess they are just so narcissistic and self centered they really don’t give a single FUCK about anyone. I do find it amusing that they are voting to take away their own benefits. I will enjoy watching them struggle with no social security benefits or healthcare. I hope they suffer.

I am too old to get out of this fucking garbage country. I am stuck here. The rest of my life will be affected by the shitshow of T**** and V****. When the orange shitgibbon gets tired of ruling, the young Nazi will have a field day. The Supreme Court will be packed with fascists who are there FOR LIFE. (I use * in their names to keep Google AI from pinging this as an article FOR the fascists.)

It’s awesome to know that the REST OF MY LIFE will be dealing with this. The goddam Boomer motherfuckers will DIE soon, but the rest of us are stuck. We will not get rid of the Electoral College. We will have a packed Supreme Court for decades because the terms will not be shortened. Democracy is DONE, my friends. This country is now in the hands of neo-Nazis and Christian Nationalists who cannot wait to put in their sharia laws. (Yes, the word sharia is associated with Muslim law, however, I feel that it can encompass Christian religious rule as well. The Wiki article is long but worth a read since the tenets of it will be in place here soon enough.) IT WILL HAPPEN. IT IS THEIR PLAN.

The Handmaid’s Tale was not intended as a fucking instruction manual, you idiots.

For those of you who are trying to say “oh, just be nice to them, it’ll all be ok”, well you guys can go fuck yourselves. And for those who did not vote or voted third party you can fuck yourselves, too. And let’s not forget the businesses who support companies who funnel millions into far right causes, you can fuck off, too.

Chick Fil A, Home Depot, Hobby Lobby and Uline – which is the LARGEST DONOR OF ALL – dump millions into the far right. THESE COMPANIES SHOULD BE BOYCOTTED. If your business buys regularly from these far right corporations, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. Especially Uline. Fuck them, use SE Paper or ANYONE else. And check your local vendors to see if THEY use Uline. They probably do, since Uline is the Sysco of paper goods (meaning pretty much a monopoly). I know you can’t just not get the materials you need to do your job, but you can at least TRY to be aware and choose wisely.

Of course, SpaceX is the second largest behind Uline, but we all knew that M*** dumps millions into the right. Remember that every time you see a Tesla. Here are the first nine top donors with red being R and blue D. Notice the first D donor is less than HALF of Uline’s contributions. This is why the right is winning: corporations who pay off the government to avoid taxes. In a word: GREED.




You can see the whole list HERE. If you think that goods and services are higher because of Biden you are an idiot. The pandemic was a great excuse to raise prices to cockbag levels, then your boi T**** made sure that corporations had zero oversight and could keep prices artificially high. Do you think record profits have nothing to do with inflation? If you do, I again call you an idiot. If the populace had enough intellect to understand economics, taxation and oligopolies, perhaps the corporations would not be running things. Alas…

Corporations are all about the right because T**** will eliminate taxes for them while taxing the shit out of the rest of us. We’ve had tax bills the last several years because of the changes the shitgibbon made LAST TIME. It will only get worse. We pay about $150/mo ALL YEAR on our tax bills. And we DO NOT have the money for it. Even with Nick’s new job, we are far from flush. And now it is guaranteed that we will never be flush. Never.

We will work until we die if we are not strung up for being queer first. In some ways, just getting it over with would be a relief. I’m just too old and tired for a civil war.

So, I hope you mouthbreathers are happy. I can’t wait for YOUR social services to be taken away and for YOU to be taxed to the hilt. It will be my pleasure to hear your cries of “no fair!!” when you get exactly what you asked for.

Assholes.