I know I shouldn't feel this way, it makes me a hypocrite, but I can't but find it righteous when I hear a story about nature taking back what's hers. We were on a trip the other day, up a magnificent gorge, and the remains - about 100 years old - of three large structures disrupted the pathway by a tiny little river. The guide explained there used to be three very large sawmills here, the most industrious of the region, cutting down trees and cutting material for builders and carpenters at a remarkably profitable rate - horses and carts carried the wood in and out non-stop. Until one day a freak debris dam blocked the water and during a storm a flash flood took out the entirety of the industry, leaving not a single saw whole. 

I am sure there must have been people who suffered greatly from this loss, families who lost their jobs and investments which probably generated debt for generations. But that forest took back what was theirs and banished the henchmen of its trees forever. Respect.

Japanese throne sucession and why I never liked Dune, the book

In light of the latest princess to elope and marry in a hotel room, losing all rights to the throne, I remembered how back in the day the empress was known to be so depressed, she was virtually catatonic. The emperor of Japan has no male heirs, only a girl, whom I am sure is a nice girl, but she looks like she's never been allowed to speak in the presence of males and can't even sign her name correctly without a PR directing her. Namely, the Japanese royals treat their women so badly, they all suffer from clinical depression and have simply stopped reproducing. Their rule that only men can inherit is likely to bite them in the behind. As it well should. 

I thought of this and thought of why I never liked Herbert's Dune. 

The first thing to bother me, as I mentioned, was the names. Paul, Jessica, Dunkan, such nice midwestern wholesome proper names. Vladimir, Piter, as Russian names, are the disgusting imperial villains, and everything in concern with the Middle East is, well, exotic and primitive. The Middle Easterners - sorry, Fremen, are cave-dwelling, spitting, superstitious primitives, waiting for a white saviour, who love the desert and are loyal. I understand this was written in '65, when nobody really knew anything about them. But come on.

My problem, though, is the women. Worthless, sneaky, violent women. In the whole book, you only have two kinds: the scheming witches for whom nobody is good enough and have zero issue with slaying children, and mothers. The super saviour guy has a hot mother, that's her only role - until she has another saviour girl, and then she's done. The saviour super human male's chick is dead after she gives him the kids. His seed is so precious, the whole galaxy's politics revolve around it. The scheming mega witches need it so badly, no war, no genocide is too big to get it. And not like they give a flying duck about the quality of his character - don't forget Feyd-Rautha was the other candidate for the super mega saviour, in case Paul kicked it or was, you know, born a girl, whose only role would then be to get fucked by Feyd. Paul politically marries a chick he's never met, decided on treating her like shit for no other reason than the fact he decided it would be a good idea to marry her. If there are any other females in that story, you bet they are either scheming witches or wombs. 

Dragged G to see Dune.

He agrees. I only ever liked the first book (and in the second main women just die dropping better people from their wombs or retire after dropping better people from their wombs, and Paul's seed is so special he goes off and seeds half the galaxy, because, you know, his seed is so special) and the music IS too loud - RIP Hans Zimmer - the movie is astounding. It's not true it lacks the charming esoteric kink - I always find there's too much of that even if there's just a little. The weird-sounding names are esoteric enough, considering the main characters' names are freaking Paul and Jessica and Ohio, like they're from west Connecticut. 

Artsy Oubliette novelties

 #Slowreader11

https://linktr.ee/ArtsyOubliette

Finally got the damn thing off the ground!

Finally. After endless mornings of fog, rain, drizzle, wind and ever lower temperatures, we finally launched the fussy little bugger. It would have been a lovely flight, too, if 

- battery (old battery, I imagine) didn't decide to drop drastically in mid-flight, causing all kinds of screaming alarms

- connection wasn't lost due to the phone getting disconnected, consequently erasing the memory of the return-to-home location

- a fucking ultralight plane didn't fly directly over us at some point ...

... But I stayed calm, focused, bringing the thing home manually, landing it flawlessly on a doggy mat in the middle of a grassy field. No planes crashed, no parachutes needed to deploy. The General nearly shat himself, but that happens almost every time I suggest an adventure. Now all I have to do is get used to the controller and learn how to take nice video. (Also photos, but that's just one click. My problem is not the settings, it's not yet being able to smoothly get cool shots. Course, it's only been ten minutes.) :D

Coffee divorce, final

I would say the tragedy of me not drinking coffee anymore is that the difference is night and day. I didn't even think that three white Neskafes per day max, but often just one, were such f a big deal. Alright, yes, I still have a wee bit of a headache, but it's nothing worth mentioning. Plus I got a nib of a cold, walking outside in furious winds with my hair wet yesterday. My atlas feels like a wedge. 

      However. I am not tired all the time anymore. I'm not nervous. I am not irritable. I am not anxious. I don't throw fits or go into tantrums five times a day, because someone said the wrong thing or some kids screamed in the street, playing. I'm not snappy. I think I even focus better, although me focussing better is like saying garden snails are a pinch faster than slugs. It's not a given. 

Fucking tragedy, really. I so miss it. Not YEARN it, because I'm not, at all. Just miss the smell and the taste and the warmth. Cikorija is a wonderful substitute, except it has no kicking effect and tastes like a granite brick powdered in arsenic. 

General's line of the week:

Regarding a new toy we just bought (and my ill temper): "Just promise me, when I come home tonight, I won't find you breaking all the furniture and our last tableware, because you tried to start the damn thing indoors and it went wzzzooom wzaaaap bzzzuut and crashed into all the lights and all the windows and then exploded? ... I better take the batteries, just in case."

Oh, hey, on the plus side, after nine fucking days of hell parade, my head doesn't feel like it belongs to a space monkey stuck in ice water. So of course I open today's grocery store leaflet and they have my dream coffee machine replica for 10% the original price. Of course they do. 

In my JK Simmons phase, watching Whiplash on repeat, drumming on everything that doesn't run away from me

Day seven of the coffee withdrawal - the headache is still very, VERY persistent, joined occasionally by a spell of vertigo and a relentless sense of apathy. I miss you, too, coffee. You be a good girl, now. 

My head actually feels like I'm wearing a large iron crown that's compressing my skull and constantly threatens to fall off, taking my head with it. 

Nice hunt yesterday, a fox, a hare and a bird suffered for it, (but a naive house cat got away) but I promise to do worse next time. By the end I smelled and looked exactly like someone who spent five hours crawling, sliding, climbing and marching through a forest, and found not a single edible mushroom. 

In the meantime, while my Etsy store continues to stagnate for reasons unknown, I've launched one more shop (still working on it), a tip jar, new social media branches and connected them all by Linktree. Let's see if that elevates my financial strata in any way. I should probably also get some Blog and TikTok shit going. Though I really have to start a shop selling photographs. I have so freaking many. 

First and latest sets, though. How cute are those mix charts?? 

Revenge of the coffee high

 Uuu, coffee is having its sweet vengeance upon me - four days of abstinence through, the headaches are almost unbearable - and I meant that AFTER I take quite a few painkillers. It's starting to feel more like a migraine than a minor withdrawal effect. Supposedly the symptoms should last between two days and nine and, knowing my luck, we'll be pushing on eleven. It's the morning of day 5 now. I'm downing my masala-chicory mug, which does not thing to help my misery. I do miss you, my beloved coffee, but you weren't nice to me, you made me irritable and nervous. You were smooth and gentle and fine on the lips, but you made me bitchy. (Well, bitcihyer.) Chicory is like getting kicked in the mouth by a horse by comparison. But better for the soul.

I need a chatty geologist in life. I need to name all these little buggers. This is what happens when you no longer wish to portray people :D