I have not showered since…

I have not showered since Saturday. My hair is a ball of frizzy fluff on top of my head. My drains have not drained properly since Sunday–‘drains’ being the kitchen sink and bathroom sink and the shower drain (ALL THE DRAINS!) in my flat because they all converge to flow down the same pipe. I called the building manager Monday and said to him, “So, hey, six doses of four different drain cleaners have not stopped the disgusting regurgitation from my shower hole (courtesy of the people upstairs); can you, like, send help?”

He promised the plumber will call.

The plumber is MIA.

This morning, my shower drain gifted me with disgusting black vomity stuff in my shower that it spat up in the night.

Obviously the drain cleaners with 100% guarantees are doing 100% nada. And so–

Lo! I wrote again to the building manager that until the plumber comes, he should ask the people above me NOT to shower or wash their clothes, because they will flood my bathroom.

Not that he will do it, BUT! He will at least have to live with the knowledge that if he doesn’t tell them, then he can shoulder the guilt for this hell of vomiting shower drains.

Add to that my cat, who has never been sick in her life (other than the OTHER time the flat drains didn’t drain and she picked up some SUPER NASTY bacteria from the flooded bathroom and got so sick it took four weeks of antiobiotics, four vet visits, way too much money, too much stress, and me losing my bank card to get rid of), got a bout of diarrhea and is now traumatized when she sees me with toilet paper in my hand (cuz that shizz sticks to fur, y’all, and I’m not letting her sit that on my pillow!), and I almost ALWAYS have toilet paper in my hand now to wipe up shower-hole regurgitation.

HOWEVER! The good news is that the cat diarrhea is on its way buh-bye. I never thought adulting would mean rejoicing in NOT finding cat poo of pudding consistency in the litter box, but the turds are turd-shaped again! Rejoice with me.

In an attempt to NOT spiral into a goo of complete non-productivity, I have been trying to lessen the stress by making stories in images for my short stories and books (hence my previous two blog posts about Samorost and Unbeautiful Corners). This has led not only to hours sucked into oblivion, but also to some interesting interactions between me and AI. It has not left me bored. (Not that I ever get bored, mind you; who has time for that?)

At one point, for example, while generating images for the prompt ‘woman kneeling in cobblestone street’, I got this image (censored for your delicate senses):

And I’m like, “Well, that’s pretty risque! What is it trying to tell me?”

And then comes:

Not sure what to think of that.

Then I get:

Me: “Is it trying to seduce me?”

It:

Me: “Those are definite seduction vibes.”

At which point my friend wrote that the AI was saying “look at pretty computer lady! We will draw you into our artificial thirst trap!!”

The next AI-generated image responded to that with:

I’m like, “Is she literally rolling her eyes?”

And so I told my friend what the AI thought of THAT (her comment), and then the AI got into really fun games.

It started to play Find the Thing, because after I changed the prompt to the much safer one of “Girl holding apple”, the generator is like “Yay! Game time! FIND THE APPLE!”:

And if I generate a crap-ton of images for the same prompt, it gets facetious, y’all. Case in point, this image which I titled “Dude, look at the awesome castle!”

And when I used the ‘handsome young man lying in grass’ prompt too many times, I got this lovely image which I titled ‘bleeee’:

This one titled “I just… cannot… anymore”:

After that, I figured I’d better change the prompt.

The prompt ‘Couple kissing’ got this gem:

I’m like: is she trying to ESCAPE him while drowning him in her abundance of hair?

There is also this image that I titled ‘lookie at me, I’m a magnet for weapons’:

And last night, after far too many generations of ‘man with dagger’, I got this image which I lovingly titled ‘ok I am bored now’:

That’s one of my faves, dude sick of it all.

And LET IT NOT BE SAID that AI gives no warm fuzzies, because when I randomly put in ‘protector’ as a prompt, I got:

Y’all, thank God that’s PROTECTING us rather than against us! I feel safe now.

Too bad that protector can’t fix my drain. Pour roaring fire down the pipes to incinerate the crap that’s clogging it!

Le sigh. I must be off to earn monies for foodz. My lovelies, I hope your week is going wondrously! Find the joy in draining drains. Enjoy the sky that’s raining rains. Sorry, that is my rhyming side coming out. Please excuse it. (Shoo, rhyming brain, be off with you! “Thrice the shadow,” it replies, which I dunno WTF that means but it is a thing now.)

We have no power here. Thrice the shadow.

Be kind, y’all!

If you want to give me some love (or feed me 😀 since I’m almost always low on food), you can send $1 (or more) via buy me a coffee, or for regular support, you can join the patreon I’ve been seriously neglecting (but want to resume), or get daily snippets I like to share on Facebook (lol though this is on hiatus…), check out my books I don’t want anyone to buy, or join the newsletter I haven’t been writing (but intend to). THANK YOU for any and all love!