“Most Unusual, So Peculiar”

The weekend, which was quite sexy, featured some reconnecting with some friends (via text), uploading lots of older poems (about 100 I think), creating and posting several more Jason collages (which makes me feel very vain, even if I’m cutting else out to protect them) and finally watching 2 major finales: “Heartstopper Forever” and the Season 1 finale of “The Vampire Lestat (S01E07 “The Failures”) – both had me crying.

Aaron and I watched “Heartstopper: Forever” on Saturday (after finishing Season 3 on Friday). We both felt the film served as a very good series finale, which are always very difficult to pull off in a satisfying way. We felt that it wasn’t quite perfect, but again, was better than average – or – one of the better series finales that we’ve ever seen. I was impressed by several elements, including a powerful scene calling out the rollback of trans rights, and also how the film (and the series in general) did a really good job of giving everyone a moment to shine before all was said and done.

The season finale of “The Vampire Lestat” was weird and a little disjointed, but similar to “Interview With the Vampire”, this feels like the first half of a larger story, even if the next half is a different novel, “The Queen of the Damned” – but that’s how the books felt too. The story for the episode gave rise to adaptations of several moments from the novels, including a horrific aside from “The Vampire Armand” and what I think was a reference to “Memnoch the Devil” – but I read both of those books when they were new and haven’t ever read them again – more than 26 years ago? So I’m amazed that I remember these things. I should reread them all. A few years ago I reread the first 3 and started the 4th + I reread “Prince Lestat”, “The Witching Hour”, “Lasher” and part of “Taltos”. I’d like to read all of Rice’s novels someday. I read nearly everything up to “Blood Canticle” but there are several after that which I never even owned, so there’s a lot left to explore.

As I mentioned briefly, there were some sexy shenanigans this weekend, which I won’t share here. And there were also plans for more, which is exciting.

Edit: I lied, as I feel I won’t remember what the fuck I was talking about if I ever read this again. lol There was a threesome. I don’t need to go into the details because I’m sure I’ll remember those. lol I have an odd history with threesomes, actually. There were several in the 90s, but I was always the third and most of those were boy / boy / girl. But in my current relationship (which has lasted nearly 15 years so far) I’ve had 3 threesomes (all men), all of which have been spectacular in very different ways, though not without consequence. Still, overall, the experiences have been extremely positive. That should do it.

I might be going on a trip back to the Florida house. But that remains unclear. If I go, it would likely be over a week from now. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about that, but maybe I’ll talk about that more when I’ve decided.

This week will mark the beginning of the penultimate season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which I’m mostly excited about. I didn’t actually love Season 3 (which I’ve never rewatched) and I feel like I don’t really want to rewatch it or Season 4 until we have Season 5, which won’t likely arrive until next year. I hope the series ends well. But also, I’m curious to see how this season plays out. And despite how it might sound, I do look forward to seeing the entire series in context – I’m just a little sad that we only have 16 episodes left and that it might take a long time to get those last 6.

The other big news coming this week likely has to do with Marvel. Tickets for Avengers: Doomsday go on sale this week and Marvel returns to Hall H at San Diego Comic Con this Saturday – so the first trailer is likely imminent. There will also likely be news of other Marvel programs on the way; Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens next week, but there other projects in the pipeline like Avengers: Endgame Encore, VisionQuest, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Season 2, Daredevil: Born Again Season 3, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, X-Men ’97 Season 3, Marvel Zombies Season 2 and probably others, so there’s a lot that could be discussed. Personally, I’m hoping for news about VisionQuest which is what I’m most looking forward to – and nervous about. But…keeping in line with tradition, we have something scheduled during the panel, which means that my plans to sit at home reading the news as it pours in, are unlikely, unless I’m not feeling well that day or just decide otherwise. We’ll see.

Today’s journal entry title song quote is from “Status Report” which a song on the soundtrack to a musical episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (S02E09 “Subspace Rhapsody”) featuring the cast discovering that they are all singing for some reason. I love this episode.





“My Superstitious Games”

What happened this week? Well, I got outside a few times but stayed in a lot as well, mostly because we keep getting alerts that our air quality is poor and on some days there have been alerts that it could be dangerous for anyone to go outside. Nightmarish stuff.

Wednesday I watched the new X-Men ’97 episode (S02E05 “Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs”) and another of the original animated series (S03E19 “Love in Vain”) – which means I have 2 seasons left of the original show and 4 more of the current season of the newer program. Later that night I had a bit of a freakout about food. I wanted to cut for the first time in a long time, and many the things I would normally do to ride that wave out weren’t possible. It was incredibly hot outside. Our water was being worked on so I couldn’t take a shower. And I couldn’t actually tackle food because the water line is in the kitchen, so there was a guy in there working on it, and the counters were covered with his tools. It was tricky, but I was able to communicate with Aaron, who was wonderful.

Once I’d calmed down, we started watching Season 3 of Heartstopper with Aaron. I watched the initial season in a single sitting before getting Aaron onto it. We binged Season 2 together the day it was released but I’ve put off watching Season 3 because I knew it had a major storyline about disordered eating – and I was worried that could be triggering (which it was) – but the film that wraps up the whole series was released today so now’s the time to watch it all.

The thing is, at a certain point, the character in question speaks to his parents about it, having written down his thoughts in advance and asks for help. I did that too, 30 years ago, in late May of 1996. The character also says that he feels like something horrible will happen if he eats. That was jarring. That’s what happens with me. And I’ve never heard anyone else describe it that way. I told my therapist about this on Thursday and she said she’d also never heard anyone describe it like that. The reason is, the character also has OCD (which I don’t), so he has all these rules in place about how and when he can eat. But that’s where we are different. My disordered eating is the result of trauma, related to food, but the food part is essentially a symptom of my PTSD. Still, it was very similar. And hearing it outloud on a TV show I was crying. And Aaron, who has heard me all this time, he was crying. And we were also both crying because the character’s boyfriend is in a similar position to what Aaron has had to learn and struggle with due to my condition. It really resonated. Due to the ongoing story we watched the season in bursts, rather than in one go, so I can make sure I’m okay. But we finished the last episode a bit ago (On Friday, July 17, 2026) and we’ll watch the movie tomorrow. The season has been rough, but very good and I’m hoping the movie wraps the stories up nicely.

As mentioned already, I saw my therapist (in person) on Thursday. I wore a Catherine Wheel shirt. I’ve really enjoyed getting dressed up and going out lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve lost some weight? Or maybe it’s because I’ve come to the conclusion that wearing sunblock, which I’ve always hated but needed due to my vitiligo, is probably why I look so much younger than basically everyone I grew up with – so I look forward to wearing it now. My appointment went well. I had a lot to talk about with the TV story and how I’d dedicated the black iced tea to my mom the week before. She was surprised that it has been 5 years since my mother died. We’d had 2 or 3 weeks off from each other when I told her originally, and I will always remember her shock that my mother had passed, and how I was dealing with it, and all the things that came with that.

I went to bed early last night. I didn’t really sleep well though, doing my old split shift routine, where I sleep for 4 hours, get up for a few, then lay back down for another couple of hours. It’s fine. I felt rested. And I ate well today. A lot of fruit, veggies, water, smoothies, nuts and seeds. I just ordered some more varieties to try in the coming days. I’m very tired but wanting to finish this before I sleep. I did several collages for my photos section. I wrote a new poem the other day, though I’m not sure I like it. I need to start posing more poetry again soon, and movie reviews. I was doing so well at first but it’s become a bit intimidating; I don’t like trying to find where I left off – I’m so disorganized!

Today’s journal entry title music quote is from “Crank” by Catherine Wheel, from their 1993 album “Chrome”. I didn’t discover the band until 1993, but I found them by randomly picking up their first CD – and they became my favorite group. I also didn’t learn that the second album existed until 1995 when they used to play this song at City Club in Detroit. I was so associated with the song that one of my friends (Steve) came rushing to tell me that my song was being played. I’ve probably shared this song here before and likely will again. Love this band. Love this track. Love this album.

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