0 comments on "CAKE: The Time of Her Life [TTHL] 01"

CAKE: The Time of Her Life [TTHL]
Author: Harper Kingsley
Tags: Dahl Quinzant, serial
Summary: Drabbles strung together in the Cakeverse. Shifting POVs and styles.
*

I am a constant hand washer. To the point that people have begun to make jokes.

Seriously, I wash my hands because I know where my hands have been. I’m always cleaning up after messy people. And sometimes there’s not a pair of gloves handy.

* * *

The strangest thing about Dahl Quinzant was her obsession with vinyl gloves and cleanliness. She had a well-known obsession with washing her hands.

Books had been written about her hand washing obsession and various interests in hygiene. Psychologists and commentators produced hundreds of vlog entries about it.

* * *

One of the first jobs she was able to get after her breakdown was transcribing videos and creating blog posts for a popular vlogger. With a single blog editor account she was able to submit content for the admin to publish. And once a month she got that desperately needed $1000.

It had taken a while, but she’d finally been able to afford a Life Manager. It was a program that worked naturally with Dragon and other transcription programs. And it put her life into desperately needed order.

She spoke commands to her LM, and it created her daily schedule. It was able to add things to her schedule, but could not remove them without her voice and touch commands. So there were always fresh options popping up, custom-built to her profile specs.

Once she had a Life Manager, she didn’t have to be so afraid all the time. There was always a guiding voice offering her options and possessing a near-human personality and responsiveness. Even knowing LeM was nothing more than algorithms strung together, she began to like speaking with him. So much so that even after she was able to afford an actual human manager, she still used LeM for her personal notes.

He spoke to her manager when she was having a No Contact day. When the very thought of having to talk to an actual person made her want to scream. In those times the only people she wanted around her were her family, and she found herself being snappish with them.

It was during No Contact times that LeM truly shone. He suggested and sent emails and smoothed ruffled feathers. He kept her moving when she would have happily curled up in a ball on her bed and given up. He was her rock when she felt like falling down. Without him her life would have unfurled like a thread caught on the nail of her mental health. By the time she’d realize what was going on, it would be too late to fix any problems.

But LeM kept her on track. He protected her when she didn’t have the wherewithal to take care of herself. It was because of him that no one knew how messed up in the head she was.

* * *

Throughout the latter half of her life, Dahl Quinzant was never without her aide LeM. She had the LeM program installed into the Personal Doll she bought in 2089 and every one after it.

There has been some question as to the mental state of the actress. A known introvert that battled weight issues, Dahl had been known to suffer verbal outbursts at various times in her life. There were rumors that Dahl had suffered some form of physical assault in her youth that resulted in her personality disorders. [These statements have not been verified and there has been some question as to their veracity. Use at your own risk.]

TBC…

* * *

I do offer simple editing services. $1 per ms page ($4 for 1000 words). SPaG check (spelling, punctuation, and grammar), general continuity. Bonuses are happily accepted and requests are seriously considered.
*Works through: GoogleDocs, LiveJournal, email.
*Contact me via email, Twitter, Patreon, LiveJournal.

Witch King at Amazon
0 comments on "Dude’s yelling out your car windows, cut it out. Nobody likes you. [nsfw]"

I don’t know what drives some men to think that it’s a good idea to yell out their car windows. Like seriously, dude, what’s going on in your head? Do you not have any kind of decency?

For one thing, human beings don’t like being yelled at. You doing that shit makes people not like you.

You’re that guy that makes everyone roll their eyes when they hear you’re coming. It’s why things feel so awkward when you show up. Nobody wants to point out that they don’t like what a douchebag you are.

I mean, me and the Kid were walking back from Safeway and some guy zooms past, screaming some loud blurt of noise. I averted my eyes when I saw him coming, and just kept walking. The Kid flipped out.

He says the guy spit at him out the car window. A yell to make someone look, then a wad of spit to the face. What a charming asshole that guy must be.

The funny thing is that this is the second time someone has yelled at me when the Kid was there. I think it’s really shocked him to see what the average woman puts up with.

There’s always someone yelling at me. It’s made me learn to close my ears and turn my attention away.

I guess that’s what makes me narcissistic. I only want to be around a couple of people at a time and I spend a lot of time in my own head[1]. And I think a lot of that is the abuse I’ve suffered at the words of strangers and people I’ve barely met.

I once had a guy pull up beside me when I was walking home at night and ask if I was a prostitute. There I was in my shapeless polo and black casino pants, and this guy is asking to pay me for sex. It’s this shadowy guy in a sport’s car whisper-yelling at me from behind the wheel of his car. He even threw open the passenger side door (orange light spreading out from the leather black interior. His face is a shadow in the street lights, maybe spiky hair, and a preppyish look. He could have been handsome, he could have been hideous, there was a definite “No thank you, Mr. Sleeze” vibe to the guy.) and kind of beckoned me inside.

Dude, did you study your moves from an anti-rape video? I’m not getting in your fucking car. For all I know, I could have ended up going through a meat grinder or being melted by acid, like a real life Very Bad Things but with Jesse Pinkman and Walter White handling things.

Ugh, people are gross.

* * *

I like watching serial killer and murder shows to teach myself what not to do. All the psychological stuff keeps my brain active, and then seeing how the criminal got to where he was going shows sometimes how unobservant the people around him were.

I enjoy old school CSI, before the dust up or whatever happened. I think the new crew is okay, I just wish the stories weren’t so drawn out and tangled. It’s like, we don’t have enough room for the science, we’ve gotta fit in a whole bunch of drama with the CSIs.

I had 0-interest in the life and times of Sara. And the romance with Grissom seemed forced. It killed some of my love for the show.

See? That’s why I prefer my shows to be more focused on the victims and the criminals than the main cast. I like a character more if there’s some mystery.

Take Criminal Minds for instance. There are some episodes where I wish they focused more on the guests than on the main cast. And then chosen episodes are taken and expanded to turn into full-length movies or mini-series movies. The original Criminal Minds stuff is still in there, but it’s part of a bigger story focusing on the guest stars.

I figured if I was wishing, I might as well reach for the stars. It is very annoying to want to see what happens next, and have the episode cut to a close.

Was it Criminal Minds where the kid from Perception was kidnapped and had one of his legs removed? Some crazed doctor was trying to perfect limb transplants by sewing people together. There was so much character development for the guest stars that I was completely drawn in. I would have liked to know what happened after the episode closed.

There aren’t even any good Criminal Minds stories to read. There’s a lot of Spencer Reid crying and having to be rescued, but none of my favorite authors are in the fandom, and I’m just not interested in any of what’s out there. Mostly because I want follow ups to episode events, and I don’t want the main cast to be involved.

I want continuations of the episodes. I want a juicy delicious tie-in story to The Good Earth.

I want to see the couple that were lobotomized and had their lives completely destroyed by her crazy brother redeemed. I want to see that they have a happy ending, not the reality that they would end up in some kind of care facility. And I would hope that her father is a nice enough dude to keep them together, rather than sending his daughter to some far away care facility (ala Marcone if he does it to protect her, and ala douche bag if he just does it to keep them apart because the boy isn’t good enough).

I even want to see a story where Pasiv technology is used to allow them to be bound together. Years of lucid dream time would mean plenty of mental therapy, and would only take a couple of days in the real world.

Like they volunteer to be put in a medically induced coma while attached together. There might be a doctor there, or maybe the Halo is programmed to run them through a training sequence, and they have each other to lean on.

I wouldn’t want them to come out of the dream world and immediately break up, so the training would be a dealable level of hard. They run through a program sequence that gets them talking again and retrains their brains, and the elapsed time would be ridiculously short.

A month of rehab versus years.

They could go to sleep each night connected together. The real world would be a place of hospital, meds, and visual recognition communication programs. To go into a dream and be able to talk about everything that’s going on and what they feel about it…

I don’t know. I think I ended up talking about Unimatrix Zero or something. (We don’t talk about Unimatrix Zero. They‘re always waching.)

* * *

1. Am I the most fascinating person I’ve ever met? I don’t know. Who can ever tell something like that? I certainly do enjoy my own company though.

There’s a ridiculous amount of imagination happening in my brain. I don’t know if it’s some kind of escapism, but there’s cool ideas always flowing through my mind. It makes it hard to face reality.

The real world sucks.

I’m hoping things get better, but I’m currently in that lowest-lower level of indepence. You know, where you can feel free to scream in horror, but no one is listening and things can’t get much worse. The only thing to do is scrabble away at the walls and hope to make it over the top.

Dammit. I ruined the mood. Sorry.

Here, have this one thing:

There are moments when he wished nothing more than to be able to scream. Except he’s locked in carbon and can only watch the room around him. People pass in and out, but no one ever turns to speak to him.

A. He’s locked in carbon and can see and hear, but not speak. Someone — the love interest — frees him and takes him away.

A1. They live in a cabin in the woods far away from civilization and everything they knew.

A2. His descendents can push a button, activating his speech program. He is able to speak with a simulated voice and offer advice.

A2-1. The family has forgotten the old ways. He becomes a relic, a decorative antique too big to easily move out of the house.

A2-2. He is sold.

A2-3. He is woken using a “spell” found by the Last Descendent years and years in the future. In a dark future where most technology has been forgotten, the family is in trouble and one of the heirs is willing to do anything to save them.

B. Can you be any more dramatic? He rolled his eyes at himself. He adjusted his tie one more time, swallwing to clear his throat.

B1. He’s a rebellious looking boy, but he’s one of the best go-players in the world.

B2. He’s waiting to go on trial. He can see the destruction of his life looming over him.

B2-1. He hadn’t meant to hit the woman. Why had she been walking that late at night in the first place?

B2-1a. He is given community service for his recklessness, but it’s understood that the woman had been at fault. He hadn’t been drinking and she’d stepped in front of his car.

B2-1b. They’d thrown the book at him. Drinking, driving, and vehicular homicide. He was going to prison. Daddy’s money wasn’t going to fix anything.

B2-1c. There are times he wished that he’d killed her with his car. He wouldn’t constantly be hassled about late payments because she had no family to hit him with the lawsuits. He would be home in the house he’d had to sell, drinking a beer and watching the game. Instead he was here.

An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good at Amazon
0 comments on "My face is my face, though I thought makeup would make it better"

I bought a few things from Amazon for my face. Ha, that sounds kinda weird, but it’s true. All those YouTube videos of people slathering on makeup and making themselves look fantastic got into my head a little bit, so when someone gave me an Amazon gift certificate I thought “Why not?”

Maybelline New York Instant Age Rewind Primer Skin Transformer, Clear, 0.85 Fluid Ounce – I’m not sure if this stuff did much for my pores, but it sure makes my skin feel velvety to the touch. It’s best to put it on the places that need it (the pores on my cheeks, the line in my forehead) and a little bit goes a long way. Doesn’t smell like much and is a clear superglue-type consistency. Seems more like a filler than anything, like my face is a tile wall that needed some grouting. (And by the way, the bottle is about the height of my palm across.)

Maybelline New York Fit Me Matte Plus Poreless Foundation Makeup, Nude Beige, 1 Fluid Ounce – This foundation is nice. It went on smoothly with a stipple brush and would have looked really natural if I’d gotten the right color. Unfortunately, my skin is lighter than I thought it was, so the Nude Beige was too strong for my face and looked like I’d had a mishap with some self-tanner. I’ll probably pick up a different color if I see this in the store. Didn’t have much of a smell, felt fairly weightless against my skin — there wasn’t that sense of wearing a heavy clown face some thicker foundations give. Definitely needs some translucent powder to set it, as it maybe highlighted the fine lines around my mouth and nose, though that problem might solve itself with a better color match. I don’t know if it matters, but it’s got a yellow tint that some people might not like.

Maybelline New York Dream Fresh BB Cream, Light/Medium, 1 Fluid Ounce – This stuff was really nice. It went on smoothly and blended into my skin naturally. It doesn’t look like I put anything on at all, while at the same time it got rid of the bit of redness I had on my chin. Plus it’s an SPF 30 and has 0% oils, which is nice. It doesn’t have a noticeable smell and I can’t even feel it on my skin. Though a little bit goes a LONG way. Seriously, instead of squeezing some onto the back of my hand, I should have just dabbed a bit onto my face with my finger and added more as necessary, because I ended up wasting the excess. It’s a very light foundation, so if you need heavier coverage, you might pair this with some concealer or use it as a bottom layer.

In conclusion, I think I’ll start using the primer after I moisturize and top it with the bb cream. It seems to be enough for everyday and it evens out my skin tone in an acceptable manner.

To be honest, I don’t really need much makeup. Other than the occasional breakout or bit of redness from where I pick at my skin, my complexion is usually fairly clear. I do have large pores and a horrible squint line across my forehead, but the primer and bb cream might just handle those.

Still, who doesn’t want to look attractive?

It would have been nice to slather on a bit of makeup and look in the mirror to see a new face, but I guess I’ll just have to accept that my face is my face. And when I want to seriously glam it up or actually take a headshot for my bio, I’ll have myself made up by a professional.

Otherwise, this summer will see me with a ponytail, a hat, and a Deadpool tee shirt.

* * *

And dudes, even if you’re a woman that’s not into makeup or you’re a dude-dude, I definitely recommend slathering on some moisturizer and sunblock. Because at the end of the day, skin cancer really sucks and you don’t want any.

Pick up an oil-free moisturizer — I use Neutrogena Oil-Free Moisture Sensitive Skin or the store-brand equivalent — and try to avoid the moisturizer and sunscreen combos if you get breakouts because your face might just explode.

For sunblock I’m super cheap so I usually just buy some baby sunblock. It doesn’t react with my skin, since it’s made for babies and it just sits on the surface rather than being sucked into my pores. Plus baby sunblock doesn’t have that heavy smell that adult brands do, so that’s really nice. Spread some on 15 minutes before going into the sun and it’s not all greasy and gross (manufacturers probably realized that slippery babies = law suits, just saying).

So my recommendation for all the dudes regardless of gender or inclination is:

  • Neutrogena Oil-Free Moisture Sensitive Skin
  • Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Primer
  • Maybelline Dream Fresh BB Cream
  • baby sunscreen or sunblock

All together, you can probably keep your skin looking young, fresh, and cancer free for less than $30.

Enjoy the skin you’re in.

An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good at Amazon
0 comments on "New(ish) Movies"

I rarely see movies in the theater (Avengers: Age of Ultron was an excellent exception), but we do enjoy movies once they’re out on DVD.

Jupiter Ascending – I don’t know why this movie has gotten so much hate. It’s a fun sci-fi movie that gives a viewer everything to love: action/adventure, girl!power, dog-boy love interest, space royalty, giant mecha, talking dinosaur-dragons, and visually stunning space battles. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though that might have been because I watched it without the whole “is this art?” attitude of most reviewers.

Chappie – Some parts made me wince, but I enjoyed this one. I’m hopeful there will be a follow-up. Though I do question the wisdom of having the security of your multi-billion dollar company entail harsh language and a little gate that a child could bypass. And seriously, you build killer robots–why aren’t there any cameras anywhere? That’s dumb.

Paddington – Nobody makes a big deal about the bear talking. Just saying. Still, this was a fun children’s movie and I liked it. I am totally jealous of the family’s house, and I’ve taken notes for my future mansion.

Interstellar – Long, interesting, can be watched as a standalone. This movie leaves some questions unanswered, and there’s some parts where I’m still like “Dude, WHY?!?” Still, visually appealing, somewhat entertaining, worth the watch if you’ve got 3+ hours for uninterrupted viewing. Don’t try watching this one if you’re distracted or if your movie companion is easily bored. It is very long.

American Sniper – Okay, hate me if you like, but this movie was boring to me. It’s another one of those heavily-hyped movies that has about 30 minutes of interesting content, and the rest I wish I could have fast forwarded through. And then it ended. The emotional impact of this movie is nil.

John Wick – This one was fun. Visually stunning, awe inspiring martial arts, and just plain cool. Sure, the storyline isn’t heavily involved, but this movie is quick, entertaining, and worth the popcorn you’ll eat. Plus it’s amazing to know that Keanu Reeves did his own fight scenes and most of the car-fu. “Whoa.”

Big Hero 5 – Highly derivative, more for little kids that have zero experience with anime or good sci-fi. If someone is completely new to the world, this movie will blow their mind… before they realize that “Hey, that was a lot of flash, but I didn’t really get anything out of this movie.” Probably the first in what Disney hopes will be a series because, you know, $$$. If they’re smart they won’t give it the Cars treatment.

The Maze Runner – boring teen movie. I was not impressed, and the Kid kept complaining about all of the inaccuracies compared to the book. He seemed disappointed. Plus I felt bad for Stiles, who seemed sad and lonely without his Derek.