Viridian5's House of "...What?"

Discord on Desktop wasn't opening for me for two days, but then I went to a troubleshooting website, did one of the things, and now I'm back. I Ended Task on all the Discord stuff in Task Manager, which fixed the problem.

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I had a somewhat weird brain thing last night. Macy's decided not to set off the July 4th fireworks near Midtown, so Queens wouldn't get to see any, so I drove a friend around last night with us looking for homegrown, personal, illegal Queens fireworks or trying to get a view of downtown Manhattan where the Macy's fireworks were. We were on a deadline, so I had to figure out places to go in real time while driving instead of stopping and using my phone's map as I sometimes do for routes and live traffic conditions. I could feel my brain tilting and turning my mental road map as I figured out routes and locations while driving. I don't often have to change directions and destinations often enough and fast enough for it to be that noticeable.

My phone may have destroyed my memory for retaining phone numbers, but my map and direction sense (in areas I know) remain keen. (I am not someone who can instinctually know where, say, west is.)

Realizing I hadn't checked out my Manhattan window display stores since March and that the Met Gala coming in a few days might lead to some interesting displays, I drove into Manhattan around 12:30 am. I would soon be very, very disappointed.

Bloomingdale's windows still had the same California Love sets I saw in March. They changed the outfits, some mannequins, and some props, but they're the same sets. Surely Bergdorf Goodman would do better! Nope. Still has the minimalist waterfall windows I saw in March. Some of the new outfits were fun and weird so I took some photos.

Saks! Almost half their windows were shrouded, and the others were minimalist and in shades of brown. I might've stopped for a closer look if all the places I'd usually park hadn't been full. What I saw driving by hadn't been good enough to wind my car through New York City Midtown-length blocks to find somewhere else to park, so I didn't.

Kleinfeld! Same. Window. Displays. From March.

I really hadn't missed anything by skipping April!

No Met Gala displays. Manhattan stores used to do amazing things related to the Gala. I still, particularly remember the Alexander McQueen series and punk series! The McQueen windows at Bergdorf had Alexander McQueen ensembles that didn't even make it into the Met's exhibition. (I so wish I had a camera at the time that handled this kind of shooting better.) Lately, the stores don't care. (I hear they're having some financial troubles. Join the club. Creativity doesn't require a huge budget.)

When I have to spend a Congestion Pricing toll just to go see the windows, I have even less patience for getting my time and money wasted by lazy bullshit.

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While using my phone's Map function to find a less trafficked way home, I heard it say I should turn right onto "Bow-eerie." Siri, you have failed this city.

So life may have further blessed me for not having an uninsured dental X-Ray done for $150 in July (because Medicaid demanded more X-Rays for crowns to get approved but refused to cover the X-Rays and I said, Not today, Satan, I don't need that crown.) I told my dental office that unless I could get a guarantee that Medicaid would approve the crowns if I got the July X-Ray done, I wasn't paying to get an X-ray done. Of course they couldn't guarantee, so.

My dental office called today to say that Medicaid covers a panoramic X-Ray every three years, and I haven't had one done in three years. My dental office swears Medicaid is covering it, and I'm getting it done Monday, with them hoping this will get an affirmative on doing the crown.

See, if I did that X-ray in July (and probably still didn't get permission for the crowns because Medicaid sucks) and then found out today I could get a panoramic done now, I would be pissed. If the panoramic isn't enough to get approval on the crown, at least I didn't have to pay for the frickin' X-ray.

Hopefully the government won't continue to be shutdown for much longer and I won't lose my health coverage too.

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Overgrowth at the Mager site in (Lutheran) All Faiths Cemetery. So glad the ground crew took that tree out and knocked down and damaged Irving only for this to be allowed to occur. [/sarcasm] You can see Irving on the ground on the left. Shot 10/27/25.


Irving is still lying on his side on the ground seven months later, so I don't know how much more damage might have been done to him besides what's visible. They removed the broken-off pieces of his wing from the ground though. They're mowing the grass around him.

As a reminder, this is what Irving looked like in better days.

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I went to Stop & Shop Thursday specifically for their muffins. Fate said, Nah.

Shot 10/30/25.

The rainstorm had resulted in several massive leaks in the store. I had to walk carefully in some parts of the store because the floor was wet and slippery. The rainstorm also flooded one side of Union Turnpike that I didn't see in the dark until I was right on top of it and had to drive through.

I didn't go to look during the last week of June to see if Bloomingdale's did something for Pride like they'd done in previous years, but when I rode by June 22 and July 4 I didn't see any LGBTQIA+-related thing. I don't know if it was apathy or cowardice.

I've put up a ton of stuff on my Flickr since I last mentioned it: a lot of window displays (33 photos), some cemetery photos from May, a graduation photo, and a shot of hydrangea.

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I've been doing a lot of driving lately and working in a new-to-me fandom and have been getting so bunnied. It's been a long time since I've been spinning at this output. The night of July 4th, I got and wrote down a 600-word piece. And 1870 words on a WIP.

Trump or not, congestion pricing currently continues in New York City, so I grudgingly paid the toll to do a run at Manhattan's window displays. Kleinfeld Bridal, alas, still hasn't changed its windows, and Bergdorf Goodman just did some minor adjustments since my last visit in February, but I was very happy with Bloomingdale's Alice + Olivia displays and some of the colors in the displays at Saks Fifth Avenue. You can see Bloomingdale's, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, and one heavily branded Dior store ensemble at my Flickr now.

New York City has so screwed around with its streets and some formerly familiar areas that NYC sometimes feels hostile to me, very "not for you," in ways it didn't used to and sterile.


I wanted to see the lunar eclipse, but it was just too cloudy.

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I recently watched Villeneuve's Dune (2021) and was once again deeply unimpressed and bored by his visuals. Often so much beige or so much darkness. Get long, long looks at his beige or too much darkness! The fan friend I complained to said part one was mostly vibes, while part two, which she liked better, has more plot and character development. I'll give part two a try, since I can see it for free.

I think she enjoyed my descriptions of Jodorowsky's Dune that I shared with her though, since the documentary of that never-made movie details quite a wild ride. The intended casting alone!!

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Recently, exercises I did in physical therapy and massage therapy there would give me sharp, hot pins and needles sensations in my face, head, and sometimes other parts of my body, which shouldn't happen and didn't used to happen in PT for my neck and head issues in years past, but they'd fade within an hour after I finished and my body is strange so I wasn't too bothered. This week I started getting pins and needles and sometimes numbness that lasted, came on and off at random, and that I'd sometimes wake up with. That's happened every day since Wednesday. My physical therapist became very concerned, demanded I talk to my neurologist about it, and canceled our Thursday session because he didn't want to chance further inflaming my condition, whatever it is. (My physical therapist: "This shouldn't happen!" Me: "Welcome to the story of my life.") Our theory is that the impact and whiplash during my December 30, 2024 car accident misaligned and/or inflamed something. It didn't show up in my normal life practices, but trying to do PT and massage therapy to improve me were more than it could deal with.

After having to stalk my neurologist by phone calls over two days to get her to write a prescription for a cervical/spine MRI she herself suggested (to give us a better idea of what's going on in there), I now have an appointment for said MRI Thursday afternoon, which was the closest appointment NYU Langone radiology Forest Hills could give me. The ER the day of the accident only gave me a CT scan. Having to go through an MRI sucks, but it's good to get one done to keep track of my ongoing, evolving cervical/spine idiosyncrasies.

I drove into Manhattan last night hoping more stores had done Lunar/Chinese New Year windows but only Saks had (so far?). It'll be the year of the snake in a few days. This was also my first time driving into Manhattan since the Congestion toll bs started; since I drive in for window photos during non-peak hours, I now have to ask if each photo haul is worth $2.25 a trip. (Like hell I'm taking a bus or subway train that time of night: unreliable and very limited service, longer wait times, potential psychos riding with me....) I had my E-ZPass up on my Forte's window but don't know if the city's sensors are doing just license plates or E-ZPass reads right now. The toll hasn't shown up as a debit in my bank account yet.

After the all-out excess of the holiday window season, the stores tend to strip way down for January, but I found some things I enjoyed, though not so much at Bloomingdale's, Kleinfeld, or Dior. I've posted Saks, Bergdorf, and a tiny bit of Bloomingdale's to my Flickr. Bergdorf has some of the pigeons from its holiday displays show up in two windows.

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I dyed my hair red today, and hilariously it is exactly a year since last time: January 25, 2024 to January 25, 2025. It'll take a few days for this L'Oréal box color to fully cure and I get to see what my hair will actually look like from now on.

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I also wanted to share a short video of this flying floof: "Fluffy Cat Runs As Fast As A Cheetah And Beats Her Dad In Every Race."

My horrible month continues to be horrible. My car hit someone's car Friday. Because he sped up but that's unprovable so fault looks 100% mine. I haven't had an accident prior to this for over five years. No injuries at least.

I really don't need the expense of paying the deductible or renting a car, but what I need doesn't matter. Gotta be done.

I hadn't even had the Forte a month yet. The car's registration stuff arrived in the mail just the day before, which was great since the auto repair place asked for my driver's license and registration to make copies of.

It used to be that bumpers protruded out from cars so only the bumpers would be damaged. These days, it's all car. It's all the front of my car. This is so stupid. The damage is over $3,700. Of which I pay a $500 deductible via bank check or cash when the repairs are done. The scheduled completion day of the repairs is Friday the 29th because I was dumb enough to rack up my car a week before Thanksgiving.

My first rental car's seat was more uncomfortable than my Forte's uncomfortable seat. A comfortable seat seems like the very least thing a car manufacturer could provide. Along with real bumpers! But seats are cheaper.

First rental, you might ask. In more "this might as well happen" news, I had to trade in my first rental, a Chevy Malibu I disliked since everything was in counterintuitive places, because the remote fob stopped working the next morning, locking me out of the car. Due to previous "omg, my life" shenanigans with my Elantra, I knew there were other ways to get into some cars when the fob dies and looked up how to unlock and get into the car manually when the fob dies. Good thing I found this out around 11 am, because that Enterprise location closes at noon on Saturdays. I would've been doing workarounds to deal with the fob problems with that car until Monday. I drove myself to Enterprise in time.

The Chevy Malibu looks like a car, albeit a modern one.
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The 2023 Kia K5 I'm now driving looks like it murders people for fun. (It's from Tennessee, so it doesn't have a front license plate like we New Yorkers are forced to.)
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Ironically, aside from the somewhat uncomfortable seat--how have car manufacturers forgotten how to make comfortable seats?--I love this car. When I sit inside it, I feel at home. More than the Forte I settled for and am currently poised to get back Friday.

Am I alone in thinking that aside from the mandatory computer stuff, the interior is retro-styled?
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I've been getting some kudos in the last few days on an X-Files fic I wrote in 1998, "Addictions." I wondered where it's being recced.

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It's funny reading Thousand Autumns after the other danmei I've been doing like Heaven Official's Blessing, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, and The Husky and His White Cat Shizun. They come off as rather fanfic-y in comparison to Thousand Autumns' deeper dive into history and mystical swordsmanship; warring and scheming political, ethnic, sect, and philosophical factions; and quest for enlightenment. It's far less concerned with demons, gods, and ghosts. The others are more pairing-based, while the pairing in Thousand Autumns is slooooooooooooooooooooow burn. Shen Qiao also goes through a lot of character development. (Note: I'm three volumes into the series so far.)

It's not necessarily worse or better, but different.

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A cable that connects my CD player to the 2020 Kia Forte's stereo system via aux port works great. Unfortunately, my 1998 CD player turns itself off if it gets jostled a little, which is a problem while driving. The Hold switch being on makes no difference; whether I'm using batteries or have it plugged into my car's cigarette lighter for power makes no difference. For unknown reasons, it's more resistant to doing so within playing two songs, but afterward is absurdly sensitive.



The car lets me play music via my phone with USB hookup or through Bluetooth, though I think the USB hookup version sounds better, but I also have CDs and would like to be able to just play them too.


For some reason, this Whole Foods parking garage lends itself to creating dramatic photos.

I saw Deadpool & Wolverine Saturday and mostly enjoyed it, though I thought it was too long in places and the pacing was sometimes a bit off. It's unfortunate that I'd inadvertently gotten spoiled on one thing--( spoiler )--because it would've been a fun surprise. ( spoilers )

I visited my due South friend of nearly 25 years to see it, and my Elantra did the 100+-mile round trip, something I was a bit nervous about. With the too many places in NYC that have a 25-mph speed limit these days, it was healing for me to fly down two highways at 65-75 mph in New Jersey.

After seeing the movie, Kasha and I figured that AO3 would soon have slash fics set in ( spoiler ), and sure enough, they immediately started showing up.

By the way, the episode of Hot Ones that has Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds was fun.

New York state Governor Kathy Hochul (indirectly) gave me the best birthday gift yesterday: indefinite suspension on the NYC congestion pricing plan, with it not starting June 30. If my fan friend invites me to New Jersey to see Deadpool & Wolverine in the theater with her in July, I won't have to pay a substantial additional price to travel through Manhattan to get there.

I can drive into Manhattan in the early a.m. to look at and photograph window displays without paying additional money for it. Which is especially great, since I'm far more restless in the summer heat and need to get out and travel.



Oh, there was also talk that since some people would drive to the edge of the pricing zone and park there before using mass transit, the city might need to stop charging people a monthly fee for a permit to legally park in their own neighborhood. The Outer Boroughs don't need to get their wallets picked this hard and get more pollution.