Updates (test results added)

I have a discord server (sort of)! My bf created a discord server, and I'm part of it. Join us! https://discord.gg/y8RHrmgpJG (server name is Amaranth). It's SFW, verification gives you access to the NSFW sections.

I'm typing this in notepad++ on my laptop before posting, so I don't have any previous posts in front of me. I might repeat some info.

I've had a few messages from people asking me how I am. When those messages were sent, I was about the same as usual, but I didn't see them until recently. x.x So I'm going to go back a ways, and talk about the past couple years.

In Feb 2019, my partner (I think I've been referring to him as Tek, it's the same partner I've had since 2008) and I moved to the middle of the country. I've been in Central time zone for the past couple years, and it's weird. We moved here because Tek's other partner at the time lives here (she is no longer in our lives, but as far as I know she's still alive so I'll be using present tense when talking about her situation). She has a million physical and mental health problems (obviously an exaggeration), such that she can't work, and is reliant on her mother's insurance, which she can't get if she moves out of state. She has an infant son by a different man, but Tek and the son bonded through the magic of skype, so Tek felt responsible towards the son. The son was in the care of her mother under court order, so she was jumping through whatever hoops she needed to in order to get her son back. They were convinced she was a danger to her son. Despite everything that happens later, I'm convinced her son is in no danger from her, and as far as I could tell, he felt no fear of her.

We got a two bedroom apartment. The plan was, I cam, he gets a job, we save up and move into a bigger place before she moves in with us. The place where she was staying was a lovely place in actuality, except for the fact that they used weed to stay relaxed enough to deal with three disabled children (plus the disabled roommate partner). Of course, DCF doesn't like that. They were doing a good job of keeping that out of everything, but her mother managed to find some evidence and pushed for full custody, so she needed a different place to go fast. She moved into the room that was supposed to be my camroom. It was a disaster.

She and Tek were constantly fighting. The police got called three times. The last time, in June 2019, the only reason Tek wasn't carted off to prison is that I was able to counter her testimony. (She had lunged at him, he raised his arm in defence, she hit his arm and fell, and tried to claim he hit her). The police took her for observation, and she was forced to move in with her father.

All of this caused an explosion in my ptsd. In July 2019, I went back to therapy and applied for assistance with getting a job. I was given a bit of money to get a few work appropriate clothes. In Sept 2019, I got a job as a cashier at a thrift store. Tek and I set up a budget. He was making twice as much as I was, so we agreed that I would pay a third of the joint bills. We managed to get a second car right as our car was crapping out on us. I had found out that the lawsuit from 2016 due to the crash in 2014 had caused my license to be put on a national hold, so I wasn't allowed to drive (except I did drive to the store on the rare occasion that Tek waited to long between cans of Rockstar Energy Drink). I got my license reinstated in Nov 2019.

The thrift store was shut during lockdown in March and April 2020. Because I had only been working in my current state for 6 months, I wasn't eligible for unemployment. The government stimulus going to both myself and Tek, plus our tax returns, helped me not just scrape by, but get some new clothes I desparately needed since the ones I was wearing for work were approaching rags (excepting the ones I had gotten right before working, I'd had the rest of them since 2012 x.x). I was one of the first people called back when the thrift store opened back up. In November 2020, I was transferred from cashiering to processing the incoming media donations. Normally they are under the department called Production, but someone in upper management had convinced them to try out in our store having Donations (the department which receives the donations and initially sorts them to go to the proper Production section for processing) do some of the processing. (Cashiers are in Operations.) I was offered the transfer with the promise of a minor increase in pay, and the option to pick my own schedule. There were two caveats. I'm supposed to work the full 40 hours every week, and I'm supposed to work Mondays.

Sometime around then, my therapist brought up EMDR as a treatment for PTSD. I agreed to try it. The way it works, it targets the indicent which created the ptsd. I had two that I was pretty sure were working in tandem, and a whole bunch of others that were only traumatic because of those first two. I figured, let's deal with the incident that happened before I can even remember, which caused the second one to be more traumatic than it needed to be. So first we had to build a memory based on what I know happened and the vague sensory input that might or might not be related. Once we had that, I had to relive the memory multiple times as my brain slowly transformed the memory into something much better, and then I had an epiphany. It wasn't anything I didn't already know, but it was something that I didn't really know in my core. And just like that, most of my anxiety around the three h's (homework, housework, and hygeine), were gone. But only most of it. So we addressed the other one. That took multiple sessions. Maybe because there was a clear memory, so my mind resisted changing "what happened". The second memory also invovled me having absolutely zero allies in the situation in real life, so we had to insert a spiritual ally. Good thing I have experince with those!

At the beginning of January, Tek helped me get a car. It's a Ford Focus, and it takes flex fuel. The closest place is about a half hour drive away, so I have to go as soon as my empty light comes on.

A few weeks ago, I started a program to help with some lower back pain I've been having since my early twenties. (Back then, it just appeared if I did the dishes for more than 10 minutes at a time, or folded laundry for the same amount, but it's been getting steadily worse as I've gotten older). It has me do some exercises with sensors to see the angle of my spine, then report on how my health has been (if I understand correctly, it's actually a study), then read an article to educate me on the pain (most of it I already know, but it's good to be reminded).

So that brings us up through January 2021. But there's a bit more background needed before I get into the past couple weeks.

First off, Tek. Tek lives in a constant state of pain. He's resistant to most medications and his body doesn't react to opiods. Sometimes the pain is worse than others. I usually forget, because he lives through it. Rockstar helps the pain, which is why when he hasn't had it in too long I have to go get it for him. Tek delivers the healthcare test samples to the lab. He's the "advanced" version, so he takes over the routes where the normal person has called off or applied for vacation time. As such, his schedule fluctuates, but he always has either Saturday or Sunday off, usually both.

Secondly, my current schedule at the thrift store is 9 am - 7:45 pm with a 1 hour break for lunch, Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri. I need to bring home $500 per check (bi-weekly, so $1000 a month), in order to meet my third of the joint expenses. In order to meet that, I need 70 hours on the check, which is 35 hours per week. My job gives me 1 week of paid sick leave, 1 week of paid time off (vacation time), and 1 floating holiday (I am unclear if that's paid or unpaid). The sick leave will roll over for a year or two, so I started this year with 48 hours of sick leave.

Third, my schedule outside the thrift store. I'm currently taking a birth control pill. In order for it to be the most effective, I have to take it as close to the same time as possible every day. (That's just how all birth control pills work. The closer to the same time each day it's taken, the more effective it is at preventing pregnancy.) The particular pill I'm taking tends to cause nausea and vomiting if taken on an empty stomach. I'm taking mine at 7:55am. So I wake up at 7am, get my juice, do the exercises for my back, get breakfast, take my birth control, get ready and leave for work around 8:30 am. I shower at night, I put the exercises off till 9 or 10 on my days off, I do laundry on Saturdays, I get paid every other Friday.

Now I can get into it.

On the week of Feb 7th - 13th, the weather was bad enough that there wasn't much business. Since items weren't being sold, and items weren't being donated, production was sent home early on Monday and Tuesday. I also left early. So I used 8 hours of sick leave to make sure that I would get at least the 35 hours I needed.

On Friday, Feb 12th, I left work feeling very exhausted, and like my whole body hurt. On Saturday, I could barely stand, and slept for 1 - 2 hours after every little thing I did until 2pm. Then I felt just how it feels when I spend too much time sleeping, and was able to function normally. I was at the tail end of my period.

On Sunday, Feb 14th, still being on my period, I gave Tek a BJ for V Day. It took him longer than usual to recover from that, so I asked if he was okay. He explained what was going on with him, and I suggested he sleep it off, explaining that's what I did on Saturday. He told me it had been since Friday, so he didn't think it would help. I brought up that he might have COVID, but he brushed it off. We both went to work Monday.

Monday, the thrift store closed at 2pm due to the lack of customers. Production wasn't working, but I hadn't been told. I was told they would let me know if I was supposed to come in Tuesday. On the way home, the empty light came on for my car. Tuesday I called, found out I wasn't working. Tek asked me to look up the signs of a cold. His symptoms had increased to include dizziness and chills. When I read off the symtpoms, he said "so I have a cold", and I explained that they were also all symptoms of COVID. He called his job, they had him go in to get a test kit. He didn't get it till late in the day, so we didn't find out till Wednesday. In the meantime, I signed up to get tested at CVS on Wednesday (Feb 17).

On Wednesday, I borrow Tek's car for the COVID test, then drop it off to grab my car to go fill it up and then do some more groceries. On the way to the gas station, Tek calls and tells me his test came back positive. Everything I've read and heard has said that it takes up to a week after exposure for the up-the-nose test to show that COVID is present. It's also said that the incubation period is up to 2 weeks. I let the manager whose number I had know, as well as a couple coworkers. The one coworker I requested let everyone who worked with me on Monday know. She asked if I had manager numbers, I explained that I just had the one. She started a group chat with the other three managers.

On Thursday, my test came back negative. On Friday, I took the blood test. On Saturday, that came back negative. While I was in the office for the blood test, the doctor explained that Tek was most contagious from three days before he started showing symptoms, to three days after. Which the last day of that period was Valentine's Day, so I should get tested again on Monday the 22nd before going back to work. Tek was insisting that he would not be contagious anymore Monday, that 10 days after symptoms start is when a person stops being contagious. He's also insistant that the test shows it sooner than a week after exposure, and that two weeks is how long a person is contagious. I got my negative result back on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I went to work. I didn't have the right shoes on. So I only stayed 8 hours. I didn't have a drink for my station (I had milk, but I was out of kool aide to bring to work), so I checked my bank account before buying one in the machine. I had gotten my tax return. Yesterday, Feb 25th, I had pain in my legs, so I didn't do the exercises before work. But I recovered in time to go to work. I worked 8 hours.

More context. We got paid Friday, Feb 19th. In order to load the laundry card, the office has to be open. But since I didn't know if I had it or not, I was trying to limit how much exposure I had to other people. So I was checking mail at midnight. Except I forgot until I went to do laundry that I still had to load the laundry card. And I couldn't do that Saturday Midnight. On Sunday, I called to find out the hours, the office is closed on Sunday. I figured I'd wait until noon and see if they opened the gym (where the machine is) despite being closed, but it was closed. So now I couldn't do laundry until Monday. Except we spent Monday and Tuesday cleaning the apartment, and laundry involves hiking down and up a flight of stairs (I know, I know, only one flight. I have minor breathing problems!) So I didn't get around to laundry until just before bed on Tuesday x.x So I only did one load. He was expecting to go back to work, and I thought I had enough to get to the weekend, so I did one load of his clothes. Which was all of his clothes. Plus all my reusable masks that needed washing.

Yesterday, Thursday, I used my last pair of crew socks. During winter, I do the layers thing, and crew socks lets me tuck whatever I'm using as long johns (might be leggings, might be actual long johns, might be pj pants, might be yoga pants, and if it's really cold it might be sweatpants) so they don't ride up my legs as I pull on the outer pants. So after work I had to do a food run, then start a load of my laundry after eating.

At 3:30 this morning (Friday, Feb 26th) with an urgent need to both pee and blow my nose. So I went to the bathroom, and took care of that. And then I sat on the couch blowing my nose until about 6am x.x So I scheduled another COVID test for 10:30 am, and I'll get the results back... hopefully tomorrow. I'll post them as an update to this post, so check back in a few days to find out if I'm back in quarantine kicking myself for spreading this viscious disease.

As for Tek's progression, he did end up getting the breathing issues, and he got the lack of smell/taste thing for a couple days. He's been symptom-free for at least a couple days, but he can't work until his test is clean. So he's messing around with a bot on his test server and goading me to make a math tutor bot.

I hope all of you are well. 

 

UPDATE:

Test was negative. Been really busy, it's kicking my butt x.x

Where has Luna been

I feel like I owe you guys an explanation for my sporadic schedule. I want to have a stable schedule. I really do. But there are too many things in the way. So, here we go.

My partner is polyamorous. I might be as well, but I'm not sure. I knew he was poly going into the relationship, way back in 2007. To make this easier, I'll refer to him as Tek.

In 2012, he started talking to someone online. Female body, gender-fluid nature, prefers they/them pronouns (I will use she to avoid confusion, they/them/their will be used when refering to both people), heavily feminist (less so in more recent years), total Social Justice Warrior. Oh, and has a myriad of mental and physical health problems, which since I respect her feelings about it, I can't tell you which exact ones. Their relationship has always been rocky. In October 2015, he met her in person for the first time. She wasn't careful enough, and got pregnant. Despite her myriad issues, she has such a strong maternal instinct that she mentally can't abort a child.

In November 2015, she spent a month living with us. In December 2015, he moved in with her. On December 29th, 2015, she kicked him out, because he accidentally did something that physically hurt her, in a way that a toddler could physically hurt her due to previously mentioned physical health problems. He entered depression, I had to rescue him.

She put someone else on his daughter's birth certificate. The newborn daughter died in July 2016. I received a notice of being sued about three days before he learned of his daugther's death. He was not allowed to attend the funeral. He was not given the paperwork to allow him to take days off from work to grieve. He lost his job because of all this. He still took her back when she asked him to.

Part of her grieving process involved getting drunk and having sex with a different ex. Due to the grief and previously mentioned mental issues, she did not take proper precautions, and got pregnant. She had a son, he's about 15 months old right now. Her mother decided to exacerbate her mental issues in order to gain control over her son. She moved in with a friend, the foster system placed her son with her mother.

Since Tek's daughter died, I've had to take days off in order to keep him company when his depression gets too bad. This past spring, we moved to the city where she was living. When she was visiting us, sometimes it was fine, other times there were very bad fights (nothing physical). The foster system decided that she would be unable to reunify with her son if she didn't move out of the place where she was living. So about a month ago, she officially moved in with us. More fighting, because not only does she have those mental issues I mentioned earlier, Tek's mind doesn't work the way normal people's minds work, so getting along with him in personal life is a pretty steep learning curve. Plus, them fighting triggers some stuff from my past, so it takes me awhile to calm down. Thus, every time they fight, I definitely don't get on camera that day, and sometimes can't get on camera the next day either. I also can't get on camera when her son is visiting.

She has a service dog. We knew about this. We got vet stuff and paperwork sorted for him to move in with us last week, hoping that he could help calm her down when she has an episode. What Tek and I didn't know until after the dog moved in was that he's not able to be left alone because he'll make too much noise. This includes closing my door. So now, not only can I not work when they have a fight, I also can't work when she has any appointment, because Tek has to drive her and I'll be the only one who can keep him quiet. There's therapy for her mental issues once a week. Then there's appointments for her physical issues at random times.

I love camming. I want to be on camera. I want to show off, and play, and make you guys smile. Camming is my social life, not just something I do for money. Between the visits with the son, the fighting between him and her, and watching the dog when they're not here... I can't get on camera very often. When I can get on camera, I would greatly appreciate if nobody tries to talk to me about this. Please don't tell me I should leave him. It's impossible to explain what I get from this relationship, but rest assured, my life is still better here than it would be elsewhere.



I will try to be on camera as often as I can. Thank you for letting me rant.

Moving

Hey guys!

So, we're moving in the near future. And, I just started red week. Which means, for the next couple weeks, I'll definitely not be on camera. See you in my new place!

~Luna

Star Wars: The Old Republic

I have been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic as a free-to-play player. This means I never even bought cartel coins for it. Here's some gripes I have that make me hesitant to pay for the game.


1. Inconsistency of movement. Sometimes, my jump is two feet, sometimes it's five feet, and that's from standing still, jumping, then pressing the arrow. It's not exactly a game where you need to jump, unless you're going after the datacrons, which is actually something you're supposed to do to get as powerful as possible in the game.


2. Broken side-quest. The Bonus Series will not complete if you accidentally complete one of the quests within the series out of order. So after you finish your storyline on the planet, you need to run around and get all the quests that pop up at that point, but you can't complete any of them until you do the bonus series, so that you don't accidentally get stuck at the part where you turn in the quest before the one you've already completed. Oh, but you can complete the objectives, you just can't turn it in until that point in the bonus series. The thing is, why can you even get the quest before you're supposed to? When looking for why the quest was broken, I found out that even for subscribers, they won't fix the quest since it's not the main storyline. Really?


3. As a never-paid-before player, I can't trade. This means that when I get an item I can't use, I can't just give it to my partner who's playing a different class and can probably use it.


4. Some of the quest rewards for content that has been there since before the expansions were changed so that you need the expansions to use them.


5. There's a limit to how many times you can collect the loot for flashpoints. I don't mind so much that the flashpoints always provide loot a free to play player can't use, they're not part of the main story, they're not even part of the side-quests. They're extra. But going through all that work, and you can only collect loot from the first five, and one of them is part of the actual story, and there's no warning in the game. I had to find this out while searching something else.


6. Party loot only affects how loot works inside the flashpoints. Outside the flashpoints, it's always round-robin. And the loot is specified for each player, but we can't trade, so very often I end up with stuff my partner member could use but I can't, and vice-versa.


7. Despite free-for-all where first player to click gets it all is an option, the default option is to area-loot, and there's also an option to auto-collect the loot on click. We went through a quarter of a flashpoint before I managed to get my partner to understand that I wasn't getting any loot at all. Except from elite enemies, who would drop assigned loot.


8. Enemies tend to fall inside walls when they die. Sometimes, they are completely inside the wall, and you can't get your loot.


9. It's inconsistent about whether you want to right-click on something or left-click on something to use it.


10. You have to actually learn gathering skills, and you only get one skill slot.


11. Respawn rates are inconsistent. I'll do a quest and have the enemies respawning within a minute or two, then my partner will do the same quest but the enemies take forever to respawn for him.


12. If you have the same class, joining the other player's storyline means you have to play it twice, even if you're both on the same segment of story and you both wanted the same exact options throughout.


13. There are points within the personal storyline quests where the other player can affect the outcome. We're both playing republic characters, his is a jedi counselor, mine is a jedi knight, and a few times the part where you choose your response allowed me to participate despite it being his personal quest.


14. There are many places where the game ignores your choice and acts like you chose something else.


15. There are a few times where the choices you can pick from, none of them are what you actually want, but you choose one anyway, and then your character says something along the lines of what you would've picked if it had been an option.


16. The targeting system sucks. I pick my first target for each fight, as usual, but the autopick for the second target never picks the one right in front of me, and a few times has picked a target that was behind me and at a distance. Jedi Knight doesn't have ranged attacks. Which I don't mind except for the fact that it keeps picking a target far away. Quite often, one that isn't even in the fight.


17. The game keeps using free-to-play and preferred interchangeably, despite the fact that there are differences (higher credit cap for preferred, more skills, more character slots). So tooltips which talk about what free-to-play can and can't do, sometimes it applies to preferred, sometimes it only applies to the truly free-to-play. Sorting out which is which can be a mess. And because the game does that, people in the forums do that. Occasionally, you'll see a person complaining about the posts from "free-to-play" players, but only subscribers and preferred players can post in the forum. Which also means there's no way but posting on a blog for a  truly free-to-play player to explain to the company who owns the game what I'm posting here- why I'm having a hard time deciding if I want to actually support the game with a bit of discretionary funds.


18. More about looting. The beams that show me I have loot available are often not where I need to click to get my loot, and occasionally disappear completely if the other player in the party takes their loot first.


19. I am getting conflicting information on how many people can be in a party. One thing said four people, including companions, meaning only two players. Another thing said four players. Another thing said you need three other people in your party to create a guild. Another thing said you need four other people in your party to create a guild (and it even specified that was five people when including yourself). Still another thing said that some flashpoints are designed for groups of six people, but you can't join the flashpoint unless you're in the party, so...


20. Lots of guides say that free-to-play players have a credit cap of 350k. No. That's the preferred player credit cap. This goes back to the gripe from 17. The free-to-play cap is 200k.




(if you're completely lost, credit is what they call the in-game currency, similar to "gold-silver-copper" in fantasy games. Fairly sure the equivalent of one credit is one copper. Which makes the currency cap roughly the equivalent of 10 gold. But the free-to-play content only gets you to the level 50 cap, so 10 gold isn't too shabby.)


-----------------------------------------------------


All of the inconsistencies point to the game having been patched and patched and patched. I get that people want updates to happen quickly, but part of an update that changes code has to be deleting the old code so that it doesn't cause conflicts. People will gripe about the update speed, sure, but it won't make them not pay for the game. But inconsistent gameplay and badly programmed quest choices that get ignored will make people leave without paying. We're not even done with Chapter 1, and the only reason we've played it this long is because it was helping with his depression.


Still, they did a good job with not making things which were necessary for gameplay out of reach of free-to-play players. 200,000 is a bit low for the credit cap, but preferred players get 350,000. The minimum credit cap still lets you unlock all but two of the rooms in a stronghold, and if you're careful about your skills, you can do the crafting. And as I said, it did help us through his depression, so I do plan on purchasing something. Not sure yet if I'm going to do a month of subscription to get the rest of the content, or just some cartel coins so we can trade and access the cargo hold. Oh, and those two rooms I mentioned for the stronghold- the one that calls itself a garage is not out of range for a preferred player (someone who spent money at least once, often many times), but the balcony costs so much you either need to go subscribed, or buy enough cartel coins for it.


Good news for anyone who only wants to subscribe one month, but doesn't know how to save up the credits with the cap. First off, there's the escrow account, which holds all your credits above and beyond 200,000 until you subscribe. Secondly, since you can never see how much is in the account, we've gone over the 200,000 inside our legacy banks, so you can use that to keep track of how many credits you have, and can plan to subscribe when you have over what you need to buy everything you want. I'm aiming for 60 million, assuming the legacy bank will let me hold that much. And if you play the heroic missions, a few hours can easily get you 75K credits in the Chapter 1 areas. I can't wait to find out how much we can get in the rest of it.


Anyway, time to stop griping about a game that I've just spent five days playing every chance I get. It's as addictive as one of those phone games. Another big reason to go ahead and support it, despite it's many, many flaws.

Back again, I just can't stay away!

My day job was draining me in every way, so I quit and came back to camming full time. I quit on the 1st, then was promptly thrown into red week, making last week my first week back. And what a week! You all very prominently displayed your pleasure at my taking to camera again. Thank you for the warm welcome =)

During red week, I had my wisdom teeth pulled, so last week I was on too many painkillers to be truly coherent. That also meant that I wasn't very aware of the damage to my body... and... well... my abs got a major workout, day after day, for 6 days in a row. x.x That's why I've been taking it easy this week.

My goal is to be working noon - 4, and 8 - midnight, Mon thru Fri. (Times are US Eastern).

So, here's how it's going.

On Streamate:

The focus is private.
The person who initiates private decides what happens in the private, within the boundaries.
I will not show nude boobs, pussy, or ass in public chat, not even for tips.
I do not have toys for pussy use. I have one dildo for sucking.
I still do not do any taboo roleplay.
I will not call you Master or Sir.
I will not take orders, but I will take requests.
I do not have any spanking implements.
Spanking with my hand will only be if I'm in the proper mood.
I cum when I'm ready, not before, not after.

What is Offered in Private:

lingerie
panties or thongs
costumes
outfits
nylons, socks, stockings
pantyhose (with or without crotch)
pussy play w/ fingers
closeups
poses
lotion or oil
lightly slapping ass
lightly slapping tits- exclusive only

Forgot the Title

There are three books... well, two books and one compilation... that I read awhile back, which I don't remember the titles to. I don't remember authors, I don't remember character names. I just remember a couple scenes.

1. Back in high school, I borrowed a book from my school library. There's a dude on a space ship with a bunch of passengers. I don't remember if the dude in question was the captain or not. During the book, he learns the personalities of the different passengers. They find a planet. This planet has a mystery, and they get really close to solving the mystery, and the answer to it is that the one dude is actually God in human form. And he reacts by giving them all new bodies. One of the passengers becomes the queen bee. Literally. And two of the passengers, a paralyzed girl and her young female nurse, are transformed into a non-paralyzed girl and a boy of roughly the same age, because they were obviously in love. That's pretty much the end of the book.

2. Also back in high school, or maybe it was during college, I borrowed some books from my dad. One was a compilation. It was of three books from a sci-fi series, and those three books centered around the hospital in the series. In one of the books, the cook specified certain ingredients, but due to the way bulk ordering works, had to get 10 years' worth at a time. The cook went away for something, and the person left in charge of the kitchen noticed, so increased the amount of those spices by 10, and people got sick from ingesting too much. In another of the books, someone is brought in from a wreck, but he heals himself way too quick. Turns out he is carrying a parasite which causes him to heal quickly. The parasite keeps changing hosts, and when they almost catch the parasite, it hijacks a ship to infect a star instead.

3. Sometime after college. The book centers on an incredibly deadly planet, where the humans in the surviving colony bond with these bear-looking creatures. The book revolves around a visitor to the planet, who is the star of the entire series the book belongs in. The visitor is running from someone. The visitor learns that there is a company which wishes to mine these incredible knots found in some trees because the knots can be pressed for an oil which grants immortality. The visitor also learns towards the end of the book that the knots are really what happens to the bears when the human they pair with dies. The people looking for the visitor land a small scouting party on the planet, and one of them picks a flower and puts it in her hair. The next day, she's complaining about sickness. They meet one of the residents of the planet, who says how many people they have, but gives one less than the number. Then he says that one of them is already dead, but doesn't know it yet. That's when roots burst out of the woman with the flower, and the flower plants itself at the tree. The resident quips that you don't wear that kind of flower, that flower wears you.

I thought book 3 was part of the Ender saga, but I was very wrong... but I figure that info might help someone know what it actually was.

If anyone knows the title of any of these books, or for the 2nd and 3rd, the title of the series these books come from, the information would be greatly appreciated. It's not a huge thing, but the fact that I can't remember the titles of these books has been bothering me for quite awhile.

Coming Back

So, um... Hi.

I've been gone for such a long time... I thought, you guys deserve an explanation about it all. So, let's see. The last you all heard, I think was when I got my new job. A bit of context to help you understand the metaphor I'm using here. I have a phobia that I generalize as a phobia of bathrooms, but is really a phobia of bodily waste, with an emphasis on shit, and a separate emphasis on my own bodily waste causing a mess. So when I say "the universe dumped a pile of shit" I'm talking something major, that affects me deeply, and changes my life somehow.

End of June- I get out of training and start my new job.
Early July- I start thinking I can get back on camera once the next red week is over.
Mid July- The universe dumps a pile of shit on me. Cue the shock.
August 2nd- The universe dumps a pile of shit on my partner when I've just barely gotten my head out. Cue deeper shock.
August 4th- the shock ends and I break from the strain.
August 31st- partner is fired due to having been gone from work for so long (I don't blame him considering what his pile of shit was).
September 16th- We can almost breathe again when the universe dumps a third pile of shit on both of us.

The first pile of shit, I haven't heard on the status of it in awhile. I need to get on finding out about it, but I've been a bit busy dealing with all the rest of the shit.

The second pile of shit is not the kind of thing that can get resolved.

The third pile of shit is not going to be finished being resolved for at least a month, possibly longer. (It required moving out of our apartment while they repair some damages, and we'll be moving back in once they're done with the repairs)

Here's the problem. I broke. Like, really, truly broke. This changed me. I'm basically... who I would've been just out of college if I hadn't had any friends in high school or college and hadn't had a fuckbuddy in college.

I will no longer be offering toys.
I will no longer be offering any kind of bdsm play, regardless of who is on top.
I will not even be doing spankings anymore.

I offer dancing, stretching, exercises, nudity, clothing, costumes, panty-play (no stuffing), stockings, hose, fingers-in-pussy, oil play, lotion play. Please note- for oil I will have to get it from another room. All nudity is now paid shows only. Not even flashes for tips. I will still change clothes for tips, and as always that will be done off-camera.

Moving out has left me exhausted. I need a couple days to recover. Hopefully, the universe has run out of piles of shit to drop on us. But I can't count on that. So no promises. Only this- I will try. I will try to get on for a few hours Sunday evenings. I will try to get on for an hour after work- but they started me on the flex-schedule, so when I can do that hour will vary.

Getting back on once I was used to the new job was always the plan, even before he lost his job. I just wasn't planning to have to change things this drastically.

Take care everyone. See you online.

Updates

Hey Guys!

Wow, customer service is exhausting x.x

I'm in the higher ups, so by the time a customer talks to me, they've been though at least two other people, and are starting to get tired and frustrated. I've been lucky though, only a couple people a week get pissed at me, and I get people apologizing for "acting badly" b/c they're pissed at the company when I haven't even noticed it. Lots of compliments and happy people at the end of the calls, which is nice.

I adore helping people. I dread every day because I *still* don't feel like I'm qualified, and I have no idea if I'm doing things right enough by the company to not get fired. x.x I'm just doing my best to help the customers, to hell with the metrics about time on call and stuff like that. I don't take forever on purpose, and I do try to do things as quickly as I can. Some days I get it better than others.

Despite all this, I'm finally starting to find my rhythm. There's no time for housework between calls, and my breaks are really short. Plus I'm working more hours (I was scheduled for 35 hours a week on camera, and you all know that I usually only worked about 30 of those if I include the short break after every private; now I'm working 40 hours a week, 2 paid 15-min breaks and 1 unpaid 30-min lunch per day), so my time off is very... stressful x.x

I'm pretty confident that I will not be getting back on camera. I'm hoping to do a video or two a month, but... well... you know my track record on stuff like that. I'll post on twitter any time I upload a new video.

I still check the eve_matteo hotmail account every day, so if you want to buy a video using mfc tokens, that is still an option. Just send me an email regarding which video you want, and make sure you pay the tokens listed, and I'll check on that and all.

Take care everyone!

Scheduling

So, let's try something different.

Fri and Sat will be my days off usually.

This week, I plan to work Fri afternoon.

This Thursday or sometime next week, there should be a memorial service for one of my partner's family members (it depends on when other family members are able to attend). If I don't appear for a day, that's where I am. I'll try to post on twitter if it does happen on a workday.

My break will be roughly two hours long. When it starts will depend on when my partner's break is, I need to be off  45 mins before his break so I can have dinner ready for his break. I will not know when his break is until 4 or 5pm day of, so... not much warning for you guys. Sorry. His earliest scheduled break so far has been 7pm. His latest so far has been 8pm. Thing is, sometimes he gets tied up and his break doesn't start for up to an hour into it. If that happens, I won't be back until his break is over. Hence the roughly 2 hours, but maybe as much as 3 hours if it takes an hour past scheduled for his break to start. (45 mins before scheduled, 1 hour late, 30 min break = 2.25 hours). On Thursdays, break will be roughly 6:30 - 8:30.

So, we're looking at 2pm - midnight, with a break somewhere in there for dinner.

To ensure that I get my break on time, I'll be doing a gold show just before break starts each day starting tomorrow. Exactly when the countdowns start and such will need to be planned and will depend on the day.

See you on Streamate!

Adventures in Visual C#

Dear Microsoft,

When I'm typing, if I finish the word that I wanted, I hit space bar without thinking. It's really a bitch that spacebar also happens to tell intellisense that instead of what I typed, insert the selected code. Same goes for typing "." . It would be nice if instead of intellisense deciding that my normal typing is me selecting options, there was a different key, one not used nearly as often during coding, that told intellisense I wanted to use that selection. That way when I'm looking at my notes instead of the code I'm typing, I'm not going to look back to check for errors and recognize exactly nothing of what I typed. I like intellisense reminding me which syntax is required for what language, because python, java, and C# all have different requirements and sometimes I forget which is which. But it's not worth it when I have to break the flow of my typing to NOT use intellisense. So I turn it off, and lose the use of one tool which makes Visual Studios so nice.

This message was inspired because I'm doing the Visual C# Basics course through Microsoft's virtual academy. During lesson 10, there's one line that says:

char[] messageArray = message.ToCharArray();

Every time I typed "message." in the second part of the line, it changed what I typed to messageArray. So when I looked back, I got

char[] messageArray = messageArrayToCharArray();

There was another part of his code where I would press space and end up with something I'd never seen before, because I'm not that far into the course. I turned off intellisense, so I can't really go through and find out what I typed and what I got. Throughout the lesson, fighting with intellisense about what I really meant to type cost me 10 minutes.

"." and " " are so ubiquitous throughout coding that they really shouldn't be keyboard shortcuts on their own. Maybe make it "ctrl + space", so that it's something relatively easy to type that won't be typed by accident.

Sincerely,
Someone Actually Using Your Stuff