Barcelona – Apr 2025

Posted on January 28, 2026 by Thistle

So back in the post about my 2024 travels, I mentioned a trip that didn’t happen re: medical emergency. The refunds that I managed to get for that trip involved a roundtrip ticket to Barcelona that needed to be used before June 2025 and had to be on a specific airline, despite booking/getting the refund through Expedia. (Y’all, I had so much trouble with Expedia that I will never, ever trust them again. I even bought insurance for my hotel rooms and such, and they still refused to give me any money back!) In the late fall, when Rainstorm and I were just starting to flirt and almost-date, we talked about possibly meeting up in Barcelona. Then our friend Roxy, who is from Italy, said that she and her family would be in Barcelona for one day in late April – literally the day after Rainstorm’s birthday.

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Strange New World, by Vivian Shaw (audio)

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Thistle

As this is the 4th (ish**) book in a series, I’m not going to go into plot details. Instead, I’m going to talk y’all through my experience of reading this book.

1) I began this book not really knowing if I would read on. I’d read most of the series many years ago, and my memories of book 3.5** were sketchy. I said in the review of that novella that I was more inclined to read on now than I had been before, but nine months later, I just didn’t know if I had the interest any longer. The only reason I even had the audiobook was because it was free on a deal in Oct/Nov. I figured I might start it, then cull it from my list.

2) The book opens with an angel getting hit by a poisoned dart. He’s an angel who has been on earth for a long time and enjoys his time there, though he feels a bit guilty for it. He has a counterpart, a demon from hell who is a surface operative, that he meets with periodically and is friends with. Sound familiar? Yeah, this was me immediately saying what the hell, is this suddenly Good Omens fanfic?? I don’t remember ANY of this from Bitter Waters!

3) I went back to check my reviews of the previous 3.5 books, specifically book 3 (Grave Importance). While Bitter Waters was about vampires and such, Grave Importance – and presumably the previous two volumes, though I didn’t look into them specifically – involved angels and demons and armageddon. The whole series was published prior to the GO TV series, and def wasn’t fanfiction. Well, I couldn’t say how the book may have acted as an influence. I’m not the author, obviously (heh). But in any case, angels and demons working together on earth was apparently a big part of the series prior to Bitter Waters.

4) Intrigued by both the opening premise and by the extremely stellar review that I gave Grave Importance in 2019, I kept listening. And this turned out to be a phenomenal book. It was well-crafted and intriguing, pulling together so many different threads before the climax. Additionally, it was so funny in places. I wasn’t expecting the humor in places, like the conversation between the devil and his admin/right-hand-man, where the devil says he wishes he could show up to the diplomatic meeting with the angels in his giant snake form, and the admin says that it wouldn’t be very nice. It would be especially not nice if he showed up in normal form, turned into a snake halfway through without a word, and all the other demons/monsters continued talking as if all was normal while the angels freaked out. Corporate/bible humor at its best, honestly.

5) At the end of the third book, I thought this series was complete, and given that it took ages for another book to release, perhaps maybe it was intended to be. I’m really glad that it came back and that I gave it a chance by whatever combination of circumstances. I’m tempted to go back and reread the first three books of the series.

6) The audio is read by Catrin Walker-Booth, who did a really good job, especially with all the different accents.

**Technically, it’s the 4th book of the series, however, there is a novella that is considered book 3.5, a kind of side plot called Bitter Waters that I read in March last year.

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Tattoo Tour: 16-20

Posted on January 23, 2026 by Thistle

Here’s the next roundup of tattoos, these being the five that I got in 2025. These were mostly tiny tattoos, because of finances.

— Ghosties 1/2 (16)
As mentioned in my recent post about the Feb 2025 Germany trip, Rainstorm and I got complementary tattoos. This was a silly little thing planned prior to when we began dating, and basically it came about like this: First, we became beta partners for Good Omens fanfic. Then, I wrote a silly ghost story AU fanfic in the summer of 2024. Then, I decided to put together the idea of Good Omens and silly ghosties and my love of all things spooky! Mix all that up, and you get one happy ghost with a bowtie and button-down shirt, and one grumpy ghost in sunglasses and a smirk. When I was in Germany, Rainstorm and I got these tattooed on our calves so that they could stand next to each other when we did. They’re kinda at the perfect height, too, because they peek over the top of socks!

— Possum 1/2 (17)
Speaking of complementary tattoos, my friend Stephanie and I decided to get a similar matching set for Christmas. We booked with an artist she knew, and unfortunately, the appointment got pushed back a few times, which meant that instead of Dec 2024, we got the tattoos in late Feb 2025. It took us a bit to figure out what we wanted to play with, but eventually, we put together the idea of having a raccoon (her) and possum (me) posed in a Creation of Adam style. We both got them on our calves – my other calf, so I have a complementary tattoo on both calves, ha!

— 8 of Swords Mirror (18)
I’d long wanted an 8 of Swords tarot tattoo, and I chose my primary tattoo artist to put it together with all the various inspo I sent to her (broken victorian mirror, multiple faces, the mirror handle as one of the eight swords). This is the same artist who did my big cat and the moth on my arm. We went with a mostly black tattoo because I was still unsure if I was allergic to the second skin or the colored ink. I’d had a reaction after the ghost tattoo, which was only in black, though, so I chanced a bit of color for the shading of the face in this one. We did it in two sections. I might have a bit more of it shaded in the future, but at the time, I couldn’t do more because the second session was right after my divorce started and I couldn’t afford anything extra. It feels a bit unfinished because of that, but I’ve worked with this artist for a number of years now so I feel like I can go back again later for extra detailing.

— Gherkin (19)
I hadn’t planned to get this tattoo, not after the divorce started, but then my regular artist (same one) was talking about having a small time slot for small tattoos, and I had the itch, and I thought it would be nice for her to do one of the cats for my back. My back tattoo has nine frames for the nine cats that I’ve had in my adult life, and I want each cat to get its portrait from a different artist. My first happened to be done for Atticus, my baby who passed away in fall 2024. I sent this artist the names/pics/personality details for my other cats, and she chose two to play with, Ash and Gherkin. I had a hard time choosing which one to go with, but in the end, I couldn’t pass up Gherkin. This cat likes to lay with her back feet propped up on cat beds, so that she looks like she walked halfway out of bed and fell asleep. When she was a skinny kitten, the pose became known as the Gherkinoodle. Now, she’s spayed and very tubby, as many spayed cats become, and my artist took a photo of her on her back and turned her into a fat macaroni noodle. It’s the best!!

— Christabel (20)
This last tattoo was from this past November, when I was on my last vacation. It was a transatlantic cruise (more on this in a future post) on Virgin Voyages. VV has a tattoo/piercing salon on each ship, and I’ve gotten a tattoo on every cruise I’ve done with them. I wouldn’t have on this last one, due to the money issue, except that my voyage came with a built in $200 spending money. The Halloween flash tattoo sheets were out, and there was a perfect cat silhouette that fit right into the tiny frame on my back. The tattoo, with the colored tips, cost exactly $200 (they’re overpriced tattoos, but never mind), so it was a perfect match. Christabel, one of my first cats as an adult, only lived for a few months before succumbing to lymphoma, and so I barely knew her. She was sick the whole time, and I didn’t really have a personality to draw on for tattoo inspo. In that way, this Halloween flash was perfect for her, too. It came out beautifully.

[Note: The rainbow tips are only for cats that have passed away. Gherkin is still alive and kicking, so hers is currently without rainbow. Assuming that the cats aren’t rehomed in the divorce 😭, the rainbow tips will be added at a later date after she crosses the rainbow bridge.]

So now I’m up to 20 tattoos, and def slowing down re: money issue. I also want to make sure I keep plenty of real estate for larger sleeves and such down the line. So far, no tattoos in 2026 (yes, I know it’s only January!!). None planned either, at least as of this writing. You never know when something fun and reasonable might come up, though…

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I Think They Love You, by Julian Winters

Posted on January 21, 2026 by Thistle

When Kenneth Carter decides to retire, his son Denz steps up as a candidate for the position. No one trusts that he can be serious or dedicated enough for this kind of job, so he makes up a fake boyfriend. In walks Braylon, ex-boyfriend, once breaker-of-his-heart, who has a favor of his own that only Denz can provide. Now the two are fake-dating for the next few months… only Denz is struggling with how blurry the line between fake and real can be.

Classic ex-lovers, fake-dating story, with the added bonus of family drama, sibling rivalry/friendship, and sorting out the difference between who you are and who you think you’re meant to be. Weirdly, I thought I’d tried to read this story once a few years ago, and I spent most of the read thinking this was by the same author as the first book I read in 2024 (A Dash of Salt and Pepper by Kosoko Jackson). I finally figured out that this was not, in fact, the same book. I’d instead started and chose not to continue with Jackson’s I’m So (Not) Over You, which has a similar exes-to-fake-dating premise. Heh.

Anyway, I like the fake dating trope, and I liked the way this one featured strong family and individual growth and really good support systems outside of romance. I liked that it talked a lot about the importance of work-life balance (something that is woefully skewed in the US). I liked that none of the characters were wholly good or wholly bad. And I’m really excited that the next book by this author, coming out soon, will feature two of the side characters from this one. It’s already on my virtual TBR.

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Germany – Feb 2025

Posted on January 19, 2026 by Thistle

Last February, I traveled to Germany for a week to spend some time with my theyfriend, the one I call Rainstorm online. We had met in person once before, long before we started dating, but this was our first time meeting in person as partners. The nerves and excitement were equally out in full force! And once we were together, it was all giddiness and shyness and can’t-get-my-fill-of-seeing-you-or-holding-your-hand. I’m very limited in what photos I can post online, but for that first trip, the two of us were very good to take plenty of photos that didn’t include Rainstorm’s face.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever talked on the blog about how the two of us met and began to date. We both wrote fanfiction, and their first longfic was one I was reading. At one point, we began to talk in the comments about something I can’t even remember, and it prompted me to talk about my own fics (something related to characters deciding to rebel against you, maybe?). They checked my list of fics, and found the one I was currently posting was already on their list to read. So we began exchanging comments in both places.

Then in late January 2024, I started working on the trauma-dump fic I mentioned in my last writing post. When I put up the first chapter, I gave it a tag that said, “No beta how do people get betas anyway?” and Rainstorm commented “extensive talking in the comment section.” We started chatting on tumblr and decided to exchange beta services as they were starting a new fic then. We didn’t start dating for another 9-10 months, but we were fast friends long before that. And that friendship was the thing that has been the most important to us to maintain, far more than the relationship.

Anyway, back to Germany! That week of vacation, we visited several nearby cities, saw the most amazing cathedral I’ve ever seen (seriously – nothing compares to the Cologne cathedral!!), went to a farmer’s market where we got flowers (more on this in a minute), had a day-long celebration for our three-month anniversary (including a trip to a cafe that we “visited” together – me remotely – on our first date), visited a queer bookshop, watched But I’m a Cheerleader together, took a long walk along the river, kissed in the rain, found a random cat cafe and went in to pet all the cats, visited the gay district of Cologne, got coordinating tattoos (that had been planned well before we were dating), drank coffee in bed with angel/demon wing mugs, went to a wine bar, sampled local beer, visited the craziest lock bridge I’ve ever seen (Paris has nothing on Cologne’s!), saw David Tennant’s MacBeth in (movie) theatre, crammed ourselves into a photo booth for ridiculous photos, and cried when we had to separate at the end of the week. Was it the most lesbian of lesbian vacations? Yes. Yes it was.

And to cap all that off, I have to tell y’all about the farmer’s market. Again, in true lesbian fashion, we both planned to surprise each other with flowers. Only neither of us are very good at keeping secrets, so we ended up revealing the surprise at the same time (prior to any flower-purchasing), and decided instead that I would choose the flowers for them and they would gift them to me. In the end, that didn’t work either. We were at one booth and I saw what I suspected were purple thistles, but they weren’t labeled. Rainstorm asked (I barely spoke any German at this point) and confirmed that they were, indeed, thistles. Considering my chosen name, we agreed that these were perfect. Then the proprietor, when asked how much, gave them to us for free since they were the last bundle of thistles. It was kinda straight out of a fanfic/rom-com, tbh. Just perfect.

You know, I’d forgotten just how much we did together in that first visit! It was lovely to go back down memory lane and through all those photos, to see the giddiness and excitement of new love almost a year later. I’m glad I decided to write this up in full rather than cram all of my 2025 trips into a single travel post!

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Pride

Posted on January 16, 2026 by Thistle

Last summer, I wrote about going to Cologne Pride. I briefly mentioned that I’d attended my first Pride event the previous summer, that time in Texas. I went with my friend Stephanie, and unfortunately, it was an extremely hot day (over 100), so we didn’t get to stay for long. However, the bit that we stayed for was lovely!

It was a park event with a bunch of booths that were selling/giving things out. By that point, I’d come out with my chosen name, started embracing the nonbinary label more fully, and begun learning about comphet (compulsory heterosexuality) on the way to realizing that I was never bi/pan but 100% a lesbian. There’s not much really to write, but considering it was my first Pride, I wanted to mark it on the blog. 🥰

 

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The Librarians, by Sherry Thomas (audio)

Posted on January 14, 2026 by Thistle

A series of murders all seem to tie back to a small branch library and their first-ever game night. The four members of staff all have secrets, but are any of them the culprit, or are they all potentially the next victim?

I’m not sure how this book came onto my radar. I’ve read Thomas’ Lady Sherlock series in the past and this sounded new and interesting, so I decided to give it a chance. I was sucked in immediately. This story is fast-paced and told from multiple points of view. Secrets are peeled away slowly. I never had a clue who would end up being revealed at the end of the mystery. The characters were delightful, from the primary narrators to the insane library patrons (that were all too real!).

On the negative side, some of the mystery ended up quite convoluted, especially as so many characters had their backstories wrapped up at the end. I wasn’t particularly sold on the reveal, either. However, I liked the story well enough not to let those things tarnish my experience of the book as a whole.

My last point is on setting. The book takes place in Austin, TX, which is just up the road from where I live. The author is also from the area, and took pains to make the setting an integral part of the book. There is a particular vibe when Texan authors set their fictional books in Texas that I don’t sense when other authors write about their own locations. I’m not sure if it’s just something I recognize more, having lived a big chunk of my life in Texas, or if it’s something about the culture of the state itself. It comes over in an “oh hey btw did I mention this book is in Texas? Look at this neat thing about Texas!” in places, but is that only because I know the area so well? I have lived in other states, and I don’t feel this when those states are written about by local-to-them authors – however, I have never lived anywhere as long as I’ve lived here, so this might entirely be due to familiarity/proximity.

This is not a criticism of the book. Thomas writes Austin exactly as Austin is, and it is very much an in-Austin book. The setting is practically its own character, and I appreciate that. But I’m curious if other people (not from TX) would see it the same way, or if they would see it the way I might see a book set very firmly in Los Angeles, or Savannah, or Provo. Or is this a product of the way Texans view themselves and their state? Because I’ve never read a Texas-set book written by a Texas-local author that didn’t have this quality. I’d love to know how much is me and how much is sociological!

Anyway, tangent aside, I enjoyed the book despite a few of those minor things I mentioned. I was quite annoyed when my spotify audio time ran out halfway through the book and I had to wait a whole two days (ha!) before I could continue. The narrator (Louisa Zhu) did a great job with the narration, and I spent hours finding reasons to listen even when I should have been doing other things.

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The Last Decade in Writing

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Thistle

In August 2023, I left this blog after a series of things happened very rapidly. I watched the second season of Good Omens and became hyperfixated. While I said on the blog that I was obsessed, I didn’t adequately describe the extent of said hyperfixation, mostly because I didn’t yet understand what it meant for me. And to make sense of this, I need to go all the way back to 2014-2015, the year I lived in Boston.

While I won’t go into details, that year was extremely traumatic for me. I spent years afterwards dealing with health issues, deferred grief, and learning to fold myself into a specific shape in order to survive. As part of that process, I stopped writing. I’ve written fiction my whole life, and I loved doing it, even if I hadn’t managed to actually get more than a handful of short stories published. And suddenly, after that year in Boston, I couldn’t write anymore. I managed to finish the second draft of the WIP I was in, finishing in the summer of 2016, but after that, nothing. No matter how many times I sat down to write, no matter how many nights I went to bed planning the things that needed to happen next in various WIPs, no matter how much yearning I did, the words wouldn’t come. It took years, but eventually, I stopped believing that I would ever write again. This was just another thing I had to come to accept.

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Travels of 2024

Posted on January 9, 2026 by Thistle

In 2024, I had a number of planned trips, and a number of spontaneous(ish) trips. While I was originally going to write about them all individually, I’ve decided to wrap them all up in one post. This’ll be long…

Northeast Birthday Bash
These trips began, as they will end, with a birthday. Two birthdays, in this particular case: mine and Josh’s. I met Josh on the Mediterranean cruise from 2023, and we discovered that our birthdays are only a few days apart. He and I, along with two other friends from the cruise (David and Brandi), all went up to Josh’s place in Rhode Island. We ventured together down to NYC for a few days and some memorable moments, including a birthday burlesque brunch (with bottomless mimosas for three hours – we were sooooo drunk that day) and seeing The Book of Mormon on Broadway!

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Unmaking Autism, by Devon Price (audio)

Posted on January 7, 2026 by Thistle

I don’t really have adequate words to describe this book. It’s about neurodiversity, the masks we wear as neurodiverse people, the way we are viewed/treated in society, and the things we can do to help ourselves in advocacy, authenticity, and self-care. It’s written and read by an autistic trans person with his own experience of unmasking in many different parts of life, and I think that’s what makes this book so authentic and real.

It wasn’t until my 40s that I came to understand that I was autistic. Because I communicate easily, enjoy social connections, and am sensory-seeking, I thought I couldn’t be neurospicy. Some years back, I began reading a romance series focused on autistic protagonists, and while said protagonists carried many of the symptoms often associated with media-typical autism, there was more to them as individuals. The author left notes about autism, especially about the way autism presents in AFAB individuals. It got me thinking hard about the subject, and though I dismissed the idea for awhile afterwards, I never forgot. Hearing about other autistics’ experiences, especially about communication patterns, helped me to understand better the truth. And as soon as I realized and accepted my own neurodiversity, so many things began to slot into place.

So much about Unmasking Autism made me feel very seen. I didn’t resonate with all the parts, because every individual’s experience is different. And because I’ve spent quite a number of years now analyzing my own behavior, traits, tendencies, and speech patterns, I didn’t learn a lot that I don’t already know. However, that’s not saying the read wasn’t worth it. Like I said, I felt very seen, very understood, and I’ve long believed that one of the fundamental joys of humanity is feeling connected with others on that deep level. For neurospicy folks, we often find ourselves on the outside looking in… until we find others like us. Learning and confirming and knowing there are others who communicate and exist the same as you? That’s priceless.

This was also a difficult read at times. Price addresses the realities of living in a world where so many of us are forced to mask, and where we believe we are inherently broken or wrong or incapable of being as good as. A few times, I had to stop the audiobook because a story was deeply unsettling in how exactly it mirrored a traumatic personal experience. Other times, I had to stop simply to give myself time to digest something I hadn’t considered, to do the unknotting inside me that related to the new information. But any difficulties were worth pushing through, and giving myself space/time to process. Normally, I struggle with reading a book for longer than three weeks – I get this urge to finish and then binge my way through the rest – but I let this one go as slow as I needed for it to be useful, rather than just finished.

I couldn’t say if this is a book that would help neurotypical people understand those of us on the neurospicy side. But if you’ve ever wondered if you might be on the spicy spectrum yourself, I think this is a really, really good resource. If you already know you’re one of us and struggle with unmasking, balancing safety and authenticity, learning to self-advocate, finding support communities and personal communities, and so much more – this book can help. Two thumbs up. I’d give five if I had the thumbs for it.

Performance: This audiobook was read by the author. Usually, I avoid books read by the author, but Price is a lecturer and I was told by another listener that his narration was great. And they were right – it’s a phenomenal performance that I was very engaged with the whole time. Again, no clue how the narration might come off to neurotypical folks – I only recently learned about the concept of “autism voice” and it took me ages to realize that autism voice sound perfectly normal to me because I also have it. Heh. So maybe Price does too. In any case, I thought he did great. And I’m looking forward to reading some of his later books on autism as he continues what appears to be a series of nonfiction works on the topic.

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