I always thought I'd be a grown up when I grew up

I watched The Vampire Lestat's season premiere episode and I'm somewhat intrigued, though I don't know if I'll be able to handle so much undistilled Lestat through a whole season. Only one way to find out.

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Today I managed to get back to the cellular store 52 miles away near my dad's home that I got my iPhone 17 from six months ago, and they helped me re-sync my phone to my car so it'll link automatically again like it used to. Yay!

While driving home from it, Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" came on, and it's definitive to me that I can't sing that song without at least some of Weird Al Yankovic's "Perform This Way" lyrics sneaking in. Especially the "My mama told me when I was hatched" and "Express yourself!"

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Since I've been taking digital photos on an iPhone for twelve years and keep a lot of my favorites in its Photos app, my iPhone 17 has a lot of contenders to choose from when suggesting lockscreens and homescreens for me. This was one of them, and I'm using it to be festive for June.

( photo/lockscreen image )

It uses part of a photo I took June 30, 2022 of the main branch of the New York public library on Fifth Avenue.

Since my laptop computer is nine years old and its fan cooling pad was only feeling lukewarm, I bought a new cooling pad to hopefully extend my computer's life. Plus, summer's coming.

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Previously, I thought my area's local birds were rock pigeons, mourning doves, sparrows, American robins, starlings, the occasional northern cardinal and blue jay, a woodpecker I can hear but have yet to see, and the very occasional hawk, but the sound ID function on my phone's Merlin app has let me know that within three miles of my Queens home in the last two weeks there have also been American redstart, gray catbird, chimney swift, northern mockingbird, barn swallow, and Carolina wren. I had no idea.

I put about 45 new window display photos up. (I still have more Saks Fifth Avenue to go, but I gotta take a rest.) You can see them at my Flickr.

Unlike the deeply disappointing run I did May 1, late May netted me some good stuff, even if Bloomingdale's is still using the same sets and concept in its window displays as it did in the middle of March. I start my night trips with Bloomingdale's, so I was worried I'd be seeing an early May rerun with all my stores.

I got so excited that the Gucci windows had mannequins with hair and makeup in them. Alas, I think a lot of the hair and makeup wasn't done well. Look at the hairlines on a lot of these girls! (Also, look at how one mannequin has no lighting on her whatsoever, wtf.) But given how rarely anyone does it anymore, maybe it's becoming a lost art.

I was amused that Paris Theater is holding its "Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair" movie series starting June 5.

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I'm still writing and posting "A Long, Long Way to Go."

It's named after a song, like many of my fics. My go-to when I'm stuck for titles is song lyrics/titles. I go for a long drive or walk with Shuffle on and see what the universe throws at me. My funniest Shuffle run for one WIP where the setting is "apocalypse in NYC due to (murderous) aliens landing" (A Quiet Place: Day One) included “Subterranean Homesick Alien,” “Rx 4 the Damned,” or “So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.” I ended up going with a Sade song from the run, finding out that a lot of the Soldier of Love album actually applies pretty well for that canon.

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The last three times I went to the Plainview Trader Joe's, the music selection wasn't the elite, often deep-cut alternative songs I'd loved in my previous visits, just some rap, Whitney Houston, and 70s classic rock. I hope the person who gave me the music I loved gets another chance in a future visit I make.

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The stiff-soled sneakers I bought late August by my podiatrist's demand are starting to come apart already, and when I asked the salesperson and my podiatrist's office about it, I was told that six to eight months is standard for mesh sneakers! I paid $80 for these Easy Spirits but some of the shoes I looked at ranged to about $200, and they have about the same life length! I'm currently Krazy gluing my Easy Spirits as I decide whether to go for more of the same or spring for a pair of New Balance that would be $150 that their salesman said could last five months to a year. I don't have the option to go back to my sturdy but flexible SAS Free Time walking shoes because these stiff soled sneakers have seriously saved my ankles a few times. Like the night I shot these window displays, when my left foot went into a hole in the street I didn't see. A lot of Manhattan's streets and sidewalks are trash.

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I'm still waiting for news on my Medicaid recertification, nerve-wracking given our current administration and the fact that I mailed my recertification paperwork a week and a half before the May 10 deadline. I know the office got my paperwork May 5 by checking with their phone system, so????

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I've been informed that I have to start using a new Medicare ID number and card June 17 due to "problems" with my current ones. What did somebody do?

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I have somehow messed up the pairing between my iPhone 17's Bluetooth and my 2020 car. Before, they paired automatically, now I have to laboriously manually pair them back up every time after I turn off my car or use the USB cord. Like, stopping to get gas with my car turned off is long enough to break the connection. Help!