Hood morning, y’all. Everyone in The Flat is up and out of bed. The cats are camped in windows on opposite sides of the house, surveilling the town’s comings and goings.

Saturday was pretty typical of our busy weekends. I took my human form and we drove out to Slightly BiggerTown for food. We didn’t have to hit all the spots this week, but we filled in with some unexpected stops before we hit the grocery aisles. The hardware store was open again; we went in to look for a clamp, but left empty handed. There was a town wide yard sale happening, and the thrift shop opened up special for the occasion. I snagged a tank top, and some embroidery hoops. I’ve been on the look out for a new tea kettle, because I like to leave it on the stove, and the one we currently have is weirdly tall and easy to knock over and Podrick likes to stick his head into it. Shawshank found us a lovely red Kitchenaid kettle, we paid, and then wisely left before I could find something we didn’t need and bring it home with us. We finished shopping, grabbed lunch, and drove home.

Our regular weekend schedule was shuffled around because of work and doctor appointments, and we had dinner at Shady Acres last night. Shawshank‘s mom gave me a little craft tackle-box to hold my embroidery thread. Tomorrow is his birthday, and they got him a new Roku for the TV. I did my needlework while we watched the best wrestling match I’ve ever seen. Today, we’re having brunch, more wrestling, more stitchery.

And cheeseburgers.

[Current Mood | socially exhausted ]

G’morning, y’all. It’s looking rather meh out there today. I was up a little early. Podrick came up for snuggles a couple of times after the robofeeder dumped pre-breakfast at 5:30am. He’s stalking a finch on the front steps right now, while Pippin crunches on her own breakfast.

I had a better shift last night, but it almost wasn’t. I made a point to set up and log in by my normal time, not the ~1-2ish hours late. I’m sitting there, ready to hit “Start Streaming” in OBS, and trying to get the fancy menu back on my video. I gave up after about 5 minutes. The on-screen menu isn’t needed, so I logged into Chaturbate and figured I’d have to point out the menu while I was yapping, and maybe increase the frequency it pops up as a notice. To my annoyance, my whole ✨teledildonics✨ system was down. Dejected and half-naked, I logged out and sat on my beanbag. It was a shitty end to a shitty week.

… Or was it?

I reinstalled the software that connects the toy to the laptop, then reinstalled the browser extension linking the toy to my chat. The last step was re-entering all of my settings, because they can’t seem to carry over when Lovense makes changes. I was back online in about 30 minutes. It was busier from the get-go. Rather than my cue-card aura readings, I brought out a deck of tarot cards this time. They’re not great cards: a sloppy interpretation of the Rider Waite deck, they’re little on the small size, and the meanings are printed right on them. I shuffled them a bit, then pulled a card for anyone who entered the room. In and out? Too bad. Don’t care. I’m reading that card for you if you’re in the room or not.

It kept me talking, which kept traffic a little steadier. I riffed on the people who came in via #milf when I pulled cards with motherly archetypes. If I pulled one of the more negative cards, I’d pull another to flesh out the reading a little. By that point, someone else would have come in, and I’d read for someone else.

We’re taking the weekend off. We’re going out this morning for groceries and lunch, and then dinner at Shady Acres. I’m going to do crafty things, and not talk to weird guys on the internet.

[Current Mood | drained ]

[Listening To | the breeze through the open doors ]

TGIF, bitches. Podrick is stalking around the house, Pippin is in the bedroom eating her breakfast, Shawshank is looking up prices to Country Thunder, and I’m just here. It’s warm as hell already, and I’m loving it. I’m finally having comfortable sleeps.

Yesterday was the worst night on Chaturbate since the first week I started. It’s been so bad lately. I know I need to just stick it out. It’s a fucking pain in the ass to sit there yapping at an empty room. I made an HTML file that rotates through about 100 “messages from the spirits”: someone in here’s aura tastes like expired yogurt, or you’re giving off big soup energy, and that soup is canned chowder, or you deserve forehead kisses. When I realized I had nothing but anonymous viewers again, I switched into TV show mode, and started riffing off whatever rotated onto the laptop screen. I grabbed a deck of playing cards – dramatically pulled out with the warning “there’s something darkly sinister about a deck of cards first opened in a cell” – and would flip them over dramatically with each of my proclamations.

I’d been streaming for about two hours when I heard a big thunk from the living room, followed by a second thunk, which meant I needed to log out and see what the fuck happened. I couldn’t tell if someone was at the door or if the cats were on the run, so I pulled off my wig and put on my robe (the spiritual opposite of “I put on my robe and wizard hat”) and went to look. Fortunately, nothing was out of place. I think the “thunks” were simply the cats running and jumping off their cat tree. Between the absolute shit time I was having in chat and the thought of having to redo the wigs I had on, my mood was in the toilet. I logged out, made dinner, and played Civ until Shawshank came home.

We’re both back to the grind today, but today’s the last day of our work week. Today is supposed to be a little cooler than yesterday, which will be nice.

[Current Mood | unbothered era ]

[Listening To | news, and it's never good ]

Hello, world. It’s a sunny Thursday, and we’re all up and out of bed. Podrick was up early this morning. He’s very interested in sniffing the breeze that comes in under the edge of the shades, and kept trying to slip his head under the Velcro edges.

The week of boring nights on Chaturbate continued last night. I streamed using my data instead of the wifi, thinking a better connection would keep people in the room, but it didn’t help. I still languished at the bottom of the pack, just me and a handful of anonymous viewers. With nothing better to do, I switched over to cable access mode, and amused myself by pretending to be just a little 🤏crazy, getting secret messages from a dildo and “answering the unasked questions”. I think I’m going to go with a wig today, and open the shades a bit to let more natural light into the room.

After I logged off, I smoked a big bowl, and decided to make a TikTok. Every time I fucked up, I hit the vape. After about 4 minutes of attempts (and some accessory changes), I had successfully channeled Macho Man Randy Savage and hit POST. Then, too high to do anything else, I watched ER until Shawshank came home.

The weekend is almost here, and it’ll be good.

[Current Mood | amused ]

Good morning, world. The sunny weather continues today, and we’ve got the windows and doors open. Even the bedroom window has been opened, blackout shades be damned.

:cb: sucked yesterday. I’m still clawing my way out of the depths of the rankings. Before The Crash™, I was streaming from the bed. I think I managed to do two streams after we bought the beanbag, then I was forced to take 3 weeks off while I waited for my upgrades to ship. Since then, I’ve pretty much changed the whole look of my “set”. According to some models, :cb: removed the “view next cam >>” and “<< view previous cam” links on cam pages, and I think that also cost me some traffic.

I’m using my dead room to teach myself about the shit that OBS can do. I made myself a BRB screen so I can take breaks. My biggest lesson was learning how to add scenes and applying filters to the webcam that only affect one scene. Applying filters to the webcam source carried across scenes: exactly what I didn’t want. It took forever to figure out a way to make the filter stick to each scene rather than to the cam. In case anyone needs a solution, put the cam source in a group, then apply the filter to the group, not the actual source.

The multiple scenes let me take breaks and switch into retro mode. I tweaked the colors a bit, and I’ve got a couple of filters that can make it look like an old VHS tape, or CRT mode. I’ve also downloaded some fonts, so I can have that authentic cable access show feel– once I figure out what my “show” is, anyway. Either way, I’m going to have fun.