So. Anyway.

I fell down. I also updated some resource lists. And there's a big sale planned for the Etsy store for after Thanksgiving.

The other evening, I was carrying the cat’s upstairs water bowl into the bathroom to clean it out and fill it up for the night. Yes. My cats have an upstairs water bowl because the ones that like to be upstairs don’t like to go down for food and water. And I am trainable.

So I am walking to the sink and I slip in a patch of water. I catch air, the bowl flies in the air and smashes on the bathroom tile. I’m now covered in water (the bowl was not completely empty) and glass. Why is the water dish pottery? Because the cats don’t like metal or plastic bowls. And as mentioned earlier, I’m trainable.

Now I am sitting in the cold water puddle I slipped on. And the cold water that landed on me when the bowl went flying. And I am picking up all the broken glass around me before I stand up. Because of course I am barefoot and the bowl matches the tile floor and I don’t want to slash my feet up.

(The cats don’t have an aesthetic preference of it all matching, I just got lucky.)

I look for my reading glasses that are essentially always on the top of my head so I can see the bigger pieces and realize they aren’t there. They must have gone flying off when I bit it.So while remaining seated in my puddle, I turn around behind me to look for my readers.

Reader? I found them. They had landed in the toilet.

I’m not done. It gets better.

I have a CatGenie in this bathroom. A CatGenie, if you don’t know, is a super expensive cat box that not only autocleans whenever the cats use it, it dumps everything into your toilet bowl so you can flush it. You don’t have to change out litter bags at the base of the unit or anything. I love this expensive-ass thing. But, you guessed it, the CatGenie was on it’s auto cleaning cycle and there was a drain line spitting catbox sludge right on top of my readers that were now floating in the toilet.

I was just trying to get ready for bed, and instead I had quite the series of ridiculous fuckery to contend with. And a bruised butt. I got up, got out of my wet drawers, cleaned up the mess, cleaned up the water, found a new heavy pottery bowl to fill for them, rescued my glasses, and carried on.

And I dunno, there might be a 2024 metaphor to this story. Or it may just be fucking funny. That’s hoke, too.

Thanksgiving is this week. And for everyone else who has mixed feelings about that, please know that the Choctaw (Chahta) word for turkey is fvkit. It is pronounced exactly as you would hope it is. So consider it an official blessing from your Indigenous auntie to enjoy fvkit this week, even if you hate the holiday itself.

And a couple of things for you! I updated my hotline and warmline lists this month. There are separate lists for mental health support, for assault support, and for addiction support. I did a few things. I added info on the populations served (like is it a line for teens and young adults? Queer folks and allies? Native women?). I also looked at the privacy policies on each program to see if and when they may call the police or another entity on your behalf. Some support lines will absolutely call the police if unable to help you safety plan. Others will only call if you give them enough information to do so (versus tracking your call), or won’t ever call.

I also removed all the hotline numbers where their privacy policy indicated that they have paid sponsors for their hotline and they route calls to these providers. This has become increasingly typical for some of the addiction hotlines, specifically. Meaning you’re going to give results from treatment facilities and clinicians who paid to advertise there. And they are for-profit treatment centers. The federal hotline will give you contact information for all the treatment centers in your area, not just the spendy one. So that’s the only referral line left on that list.

I have a feeling we are going to have increasing need for this support and increasing concerns about how the information is utilized.So all three lists are available as free, downloadable PDFs here.

And yes, biggest sale of the ever for the Etsy store starting Friday the 29th and running through Cyber Monday. 35% off! So if you are ordering presents, put Baby Nephew to work shipping stuff next week! No zines, you can order those through Microcosm if you can’t find them locally, but nearly all my books and decks.

And I gotta knock out 15K more words on my next book over the next couple of weeks. Ironically writing about holiday stress. Wait. Is that actual irony or Alanis Morisette irony? Either way. Writing and fvkit awaits.

Keep staying alive,

Faith