The last few days have not been great for me. My spouse managed to ruin my holidays - something she has always been very adept at over the nearly forty years we have been married. Yesterday, the mail arrived as I was walking past our front door. You see, in my neighborhood, the mail carrier walks from house to house delivering incoming mail and picking up outgoing mail.
Yeah, I know, which of these things is not like the others? LOL - believe it or not, they have a lot in common this evening.
I had just finished reading Emma’s latest posting this evening, part 6 of 8 of her story Who Makes Intercession, and was leaving a comment when my youngest son came in the house - he was eating dinner with us this evening. I finished typing my comment regarding Emma’s story, and got up to eat dinner.
Fake It Till You Make It, and the main character, Holly, expressed how thankful she was on her first Thanksgiving as her real self. It made me cry, and it made me think of all the things I have to be thankful for.
I truly have much to be thankful for, as I expect most of us do if we think about it for a moment.
I was perusing some older stories this evening - as I often do. A comment by another reader at the end of a current story got me started looking at an older story I had not seen before, which in turn led me to going through an author’s previous works. As a coincidence, it was an author whose work I had read quite a lot of before, but I decided to go through some of her solo work I had not previously read. I tend to be attracted more to multi-part stories or serials rather than solo stories, and as such I had ignored her solo works for the most part, much to my loss.
Yeah, 39 years……… probably 38 more than I deserve, lol.
I fully expected that my marriage was over a decade ago when my spouse and I had our first discussion about my gender dysphoria. And then again multiple times after that, but especially when I told her I was going to transition.
We had gone through a lot, between my time in the service and the ensuing issues it left, to my civilian career which kept me away from home about 75 to 80% of the time, and then eventually due to my gender issues.
I jumped on the site this evening just to see if there were any new posts I was interested in reading, only to be reminded of a terrible loss. What did I see? Beyond The Pale By Elsbeth.
It has now been some four and one half years since Elsbeth last posted here - and I still miss her. She possessed a unique talent and my world is more than little less bright without her in it.
Recently, Willow Dancer posted a blog reminding us all of the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of Elsbeth, a much loved author on this site. Like many, I followed her work religiously - especially her stories The Lost Queen and Frejya’s Daughters.
Four years ago this week was her last posting. During the height of Covid, while many of us were stuck at home living vicariously through her wonderful writing, she was still hard at work. Until she wasn’t.
I am so sick of the stupidity being spouted by Donald Trump and his cult of morons - it just gets worse and worse.
Their latest claim is that the Transgender community purposely scheduled Transgender Day of Visibility on the same day as Easter in order to mock Christians. That is total bullshit, and what’s more it is intended solely to stir up hate against the LGBT community.
If you have ever searched for a job or done any hiring, Indeed is a well known and often used company that helps connect employers and job seekers. But apparently it is also a good place to work as well.
My day started out very well. The weather was gorgeous - sunny and warm, with just a light breeze blowing; much nicer than February should be in upstate NY. I actually had a reasonably decent night’s sleep the night before, which has not been a given for me since I was a teen and especially moreso over the past few decades.
I recently responded to a comment by another member here. The original comment was posted regarding Amazon making a change which resulted in the comment’s author losing purchased reading material on kindle. However, my comment was regarding another comment made in response to that comment.
Is anyone else having problems with Patreon? I have been trying to update my credit card info for two days as my bank issued me a new card due to a fraudulent charge on my card.
When I attempt to change the card, it will not allow me to. It will not even allow me to add a card. For two days it has been saying “Unable to add card at this time. Please try again later.”
In just a few days, it is going to try to charge my old card and it will not go through. Yet it will not allow me to update or add a new card.
Yesterday I read a story posted here by Emma Anne Tate, For Us, the Living. Like all of her work, as well as the work of many others on this site, it had me crying. But more importantly, it had me reflecting on my life, my family, and the lives of others.
“If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but I am without love, it will do me no good whatever.
I was sitting on the couch in my living room this evening, just catching up on my e-Mail from the last several days, while my wife watched TV. We had been watching the news, and when it went off the show ET came on. It was a special broadcast about Celine Dion, so she left it there even though she usually doesn’t watch that show.
My wife and I had a nice dinner out this evening - December 25th is my youngest son’s fiancés birthday, so we all got together and surprised her with a dinner for her birthday at a nice local brew pub, Hank Hudson’s. We finally got to meet her parents (a very, very nice couple), and had a truly wonderful time. After, the two of us stopped and got a coffee, and then took a nice ride to look at all of the Christmas decorations - an annual tradition for us.
Without meaning to brag, the people at our house did a really spectacular job, lol.
Someone thinks I should try writing a story, and thank you JoanneBarbarella, I am flattered. I know this is in conjunction with the recent blog about trying to get new authors involved here, and I truly am stunned that anyone would approach me.
Maybe it’s just my perception, but it appears to me that recently there have been more stories on this site which seem to revolve around forced fem, rape, and other objectionable topics and actions.
I have been trying to get into the Whateley Academy site, or the Crystal Hall site, to read a few of the stories I haven’t read in years.
Unfortunately, I am unable to get in. I can’t remember my old account, so I tried to create a new one - but it keeps telling me my account has either been locked or has not yet been verified.
When I try to recover my user name or password, I get a message that I will get an e-mail with a code - but I never get the e-mail.
So here I sit, less than three weeks away from a trip to Orlando, FL for a ten day vacation, and suddenly I have to worry about some asshole objecting to my using the Lady’s bathroom.
Because it’s “safer” to force me to use a bathroom because I am “a person belonging, at birth, to the biological sex which has the specific reproductive role of producing sperm.”
Who cares if I am a woman. Who cares if I can no longer use a urinal. Who cares if I am liable to be beaten to death in the Men’s room.
Yeah, thinking this may be my last trip to the so-called Sunshine State.
I was wondering what to read this afternoon when one of my sons happened to show me a miniature figure he had just finished painting. He purchased a new game just after Christmas, and he has been painting the figurines that make up the playing pieces. He is very good; a skill which I am proud to say he inherited from me.
I spent many an hour working with him and one of his brothers painting Warhammer 40K figurines and vehicles, and showing him the modeling skills I developed through my childhood and later in engineering classes.
I just read an article on Fox News - and yes, I know, it’s Fox. Don’t kill me for reading Fox, but the only way to be truly informed is to read multiple news from multiple sites and from multiple perspectives. Yes, I am a Republican - but I am also not a Trumper (God, how I hate that man and his ilk!), and do not vote the party line. I am a fiscal conservative, and became a Republican because I believed in small government and what the REAL Republican Party stood for decades ago. So please don’t get on me for reading something that Fox posted as I also read MSNBC, CNN, the BBC, etc.
I have much to be thankful for this year - I have survived yet another year, it appears that my immunotherapy has been successful in that I have been cancer free for over a year and a half, the reaction which I had to the immunotherapy seems to have settled down and I am no longer in constant pain from my joints, my mobility has returned to very nearly 100% of what it was previously, and I am still surrounded by my family.
I was looking through my bookmarks this evening, deciding on a story to read, when I started thinking about the authors that I have become acquainted with here and those that I am missing.
Has anyone heard from Elsbeth? She is one of my favorite authors, but she disappeared suddenly around the beginning of Covid.
Bailey Summers posts sporadically and is another of my favorite authors. I hope to see more from Bailey soon as I basically owe my life to Bailey. We’re it not for Bailey, I would probably have eaten the muzzle of my .45 nine or ten years ago.
Just a quick note which is only of significance to trivia buffs and possibly readers of various stories on BCTS, I have seen Swamp Pop Soda mentioned in several stories. The authors have referred to it as being from Louisiana and hard to find.
Over the time I have been on this site I have seen many an author, reader, or simply a poor tortured soul who has expressed themselves either through their writing, or through a posted blog. I myself have found it useful at times to post something, using the site to express my frustrations with some aspect of my life or society in general - or crying out over some emotional issue which is tearing me apart.
As I was reading a story today - one I recently stumbled upon - I noticed an error which seems to be very common and always annoys me. Apparently many authors miss this one, or perhaps I should say many editors miss it.
Some time back, I posted about having a mole removed from my back and finding out it was melanoma. So, after seeing an oncological surgeon, she sent me for a PET scan. My PET scan came back negative, which was of course great news - but there was of course the fact that my mole still tested out as stage four melanoma. After the PET scan, this was reclassed to stage three based on the results of the scan.
Checks can be made out & sent to:
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