February was a rough month. Let’s get to it.

• Tarot of the month (full year, month by month, drawn Dec 2025): Page of Cups – This is essentially the embodiment of childlike innocence with regards to emotions, a person who experiences the full range of emotion without more complex factors to dilute them. It can be a card of NRE (friendship or otherwise), but it can also be a sign to experience your emotions rather than analyze them. // This version of the Page of Cups comes from the Linestrider Tarot (no affiliate link).
• Song(s) of the month: Rain (Sleep Token); Birds (Imagine Dragon)

General Life Stuff
Well, I guess the Page of Cups is an accurate read on the month, because I spent the first few weeks in a state of intense grieving. Learning that you need to rehome your kitty-babies is devastating. I’d known for a long time that I would be losing them personally, and had come to terms with that grief, but learning that their whole world would be turned upside down? That is an entirely different kind of grief. Five of the six of them have been with this family since they were kittens. One of them has been with the family for almost eleven years. It’s not fair to them. If there was anything at all I could do to keep them, I would, but I’m going to find myself couch surfing in the near future and I’ve spent six months fruitlessly trying to get a job with nothing to show for it. I hope I can find good homes for all of them and that they don’t have to go through upheaval twice – to a shelter, and then to a home – but that’s unlikely. And I’m… just really sad for them.

Beyond the grief, there were good things too: really exciting news on the Good Omens front this month; a couple special things happening in the fandom that cemented friendships; learning a friend is finally cancer-free. But overwhelmingly, it was a really hard month. I finally clawed my way enough out of the grief to start cleansing my environment of garbage, literal and metaphorical. March 1st is my birthday, so it’s like my own personal New Years, and it feels good to take the trash out and close the door on a bad month / all the other crap that has happened since April 29th.

Beyond emotions: I actually saw two movies in theatre this month – 13 Going on 30 (solo) and Titanic (with a friend). Yeah, both are older movies, but it was nice to see them both on the big screen. I also got my 21st tattoo – more on that in a future post. Started watching Heated Rivalry with Rainstorm, completely ignored the Olympics, cheered for my Seahawks in the Super Bowl, had a few sessions with a new therapist before deciding it wasn’t a good fit, and scheduled to meet up with some friends I haven’t seen in awhile. Unfortunately, I also ran out of one of my medications. The doctor’s office didn’t have samples for over a week after I ran out, and in coming off the med, I ended up with severe painful facial rashes. (This is a terrible pic of me, but I was taking it as a reference photo for a doctor to show her the rashes, so don’t judge!) I’d also had them when I got on the med, but at the time, I attributed it to coming back to Texas from Europe and being in an environment that feels basically poisonous. Apparently it was med-related though. So now that’s like a fifth med for my autoimmune disorders that the doctors are crossing off their list. Sigh.

Goals
I had a little progress on my writing this month, but otherwise, most of these are still at a standstill. The one that went well is in reading – I actually did finished my fic-priorities list, mostly by aggressive culling but I obviously also read a lot. I have to say, though: my goal-making this year was haphazard at best, given that my intention is to move, so I’m not fussed about not getting more done.

Writing
Back in January, my friend Lutra posted a lovely little before-the-beginning™ artwork, and I knew I wanted to write a short story to go along with it. I was unable to write anything, though. Then about a week into February, I finally started to write, and I ended up with a 7k kinda-bittersweet-kinda-hopeful story that built on that artwork. Lutra and I ended up chatting a bit because I was planning to gift it to them, and it turned out that the day I was going to gift it was their birthday. Complete coincidence. And they decided to turn the art into a cover for my story. While one-shots don’t get as much attention as longer fics, obviously, this one got a fair amount of people leaving long comments dissecting the story and telling me all the things they loved. I’d worried it would be too bitter and not sweet enough, but people found a lot of hope in it. It was lovely.

Then, despite my general writer’s block, I decided to sign up for the Summer Omens Big Bang, and had the vague idea of writing something related to a haunted adult summer camp. Heh. I spent a lot of time planning out all the classes the staff were going to present, getting all the logistics together, but having no plot to speak of. Then, after watching 13 Going on 30 in theatre, I realized I had been spending a lot of time on logistics with each attempt to write something, and not enough on the important things. I’d gotten off track. And as soon as I realized this, my brain started clicking into gear. My SOBB story basically put itself together in a dream one night, putting together all the plot points. It looks absolutely nothing like my original thoughts. I haven’t started writing yet, but will soon!

Favorite Photos

Exciting stuff
Obviously, we got a release date for Good Omens season 3. That was the number one most exciting thing. While I’m really not a fan of how hot it has been so early this year (we’ve had days up to 95 (35) degrees already!), I like that all the butterflies are out. I’ve loved taking photos of them. Last but not least, I had an ah-ha moment at the end of the month that helped me to get over a few trauma-related psychological barriers. Come to think of it, that’s possibly because this month I went back and read my trauma-dump fic from 2024. I hadn’t read it in full since then, and the experience of rereading it went so much better than I expected. So maybe this beautiful story is still helping me to unpack all the bs I went through over the last few decades. Anyway, I hold my head up high as I enter a new year of my life.