girlofprey

So, England's in the midst of a vicious wave of the pandemic, we have potential flooding, and Joe Biden is being inaugurated today. Should be a very interesting day in the news.

Also, less than a month after finally leaving the oversight of the EU, the government are 'looking at' the employment laws we followed as part of them, including the ones that protected workers' rights. A 'select group' of business leaders have been invited to the consultation. I wonder if they've also invited any minimum wage workers? Or say, working mothers? Probably not.

America is going fucking crazy right now. It's one of those situations where it's somehow not surprising at all, but also completely unbelievable.

Half past 12 in the morning, and I'm trying to get anything on Youtube to load so I can watch the videos I usually do before I go to bed. On the one hand, everything but Youtube is loading fine, so I feel like maybe it's Youtube - experiencing a lot of traffic on this Playstation 5-eve. On the other hand, my game of the Sims (heavily reliant on the internet) froze and crashed twice tonight, so maybe it's not? Either way, I have the whirling circles of death.

I have everything to say and nothing to say. The American election happened, and it happened slowly, and mostly I just didn't understand enough about it to be relieved by anything that happened, but now I am somewhat relieved. To be honest though, I got quite a lot of relief on the morning after the election when it wasn't just a wild landslide for Trump. But it's a little sad that it was still as close as it was.

Like I say, the PS5 is out tomorrow - in America, and a few other countries, so that's probably when I'll have to swear off the internet until it comes out in this country, next Thursday. So far I am on track to pick it up, in a click-and-collect, one-in-one-out fashion, with help from one of my parents and their car. I don't know what the queueing situation will be like, but I assume my little local shop won't have hundreds of units, so not too bad. Then will come the wiping down, once we get it home. I'm not looking forward to that.

I have been getting texts from B&Q about an order I made, except I never made an order, and don't have much to do with B&Q. I tried to call them yesterday, and spent 24 minutes listening to their extremely annoying hold music with adverts embedded, and then my phone handset died. So I gave up. I checked my bank balance and no payments have gone out to B&Q, so I think it's just a mistaken phone number rather than fraud, but I still feel like I want to tell them about it, but they don't make it easy. I should just send them an email,. but who knows when those get read during a lockdown. Heck off B&Q. Your customers don't know when their orders will be delivered. Unless you are also sending emails as well as texts.

I'm a little bit awestruck and terrified about the temperatures they're predicting for tomorrow. And it's not even sunny weather - it's that weird close/stormy summer weather that's fun if it storms, but just sort of unbearable if it's just close. I think I'm going to take a walk today just in case I need to skip one tomorrow.

Today I saw Fox News criticising Donald Trump about the fact he's taking hydroxychloroquine. So you know things are fucking bad in America.

In other news, I may have finally learned how to wear earrings, after about twenty years. Instead of pushing the back onto the stud as far as it will go, crushing your earlobe, and then complaining about how your earlobe feels crushed, just push them on to the helpful, provided groove near the back of the stud, and then wear them and almost forget you're wearing them, it hurts so little. Amazing!

I don't know how the press are doing anything else at the moment than pulling out every soundbite or tweet Donald Trump ever made about how people leaking information from the DNC was good because "we found out vital information", and that one time he outright publicly said the Russians should hack Hillary Clinton's emails and show everyone what they found, and not just playing them constantly and endlessly right now.

Also, him saying his administration was doing everything it could right now to protect American citizens, 'including reporters'. Way to sound creepy and terrifying.

Tonight, the cleaner who asked me out yesterday asked me for my name, because apparently before this he didn't know it.

Two news stories I saw today:

1. Them moving the nuclear clock thirty seconds closer to midnight.


2. Tim Peake going back into space.

Me: Take me with you.

Also today, I saw an advert with a song about PPI, and if you love me you'll never, ever sing it to me. And yesterday I saw a personalised license plate I actually quite enjoyed. I find personalised license plates incredibly pointless and annoying, and the street I walk down to get to work has so many of them. But yesterday I saw a taxi with the license plate "TAX 3Y". And I will take that. I will take Taxey the taxi.

I hope the Wall drama goes on throughout Donald Trump's presidency.

I have so many feelings about things going on lately, and no idea how to put any of them into words.

The main one is, when will people actually see Trump is talking bullshit? Calling it 'fake news', really? Less than a month after Hillary Clinton made a speech about the dangers of fake news and how it's putting democracy at risk? Bernie Sanders is a cunt, but the fact the Trump just co-opted so much of what he said, about all politicians being corrupt, about draining the swamp, and NO-ONE said anything, that I could...it blows my mind. He's a pathological liar. And he still gets to say things. And people just believe him. Or support him? I don't know.

And then Theresa May said 'the NHS isn't having a humanitarian crisis, obvs, what would the Red Cross know?'. Because apparently words don't mean anything anymore.

And then today I was walking to work, through a fairly central square of Leeds, and I saw them whinging on on the sides of the statues about scanning a code and 'giving blahblahblahblah a voice', and I do not believe they really have a clip of blahblahblahblah's voice, he died in 1659. And then I got thinking "there are literally no statues of women in this square", and then I realised that no. There was! All around the square were statues that I'm assuming were supposed to lampposts, shaped like women dressed in literally a scrap of cloth, with breasts out, erect nipples, bums saucily partially covered. And then I just felt sick.

But anyway. I'm playing Stardew Valley again. Shane still doesn't love me. I'm torn between patiently role-playing a slow-growing relationship, and using everything I learned in my first game about which gifts he loves the most to make him just love me now. I can't remember exactly when I figured out that the fact he was in the bar drinking all the time meant he probably liked beer. Anyway, I've hobbled myself with a forest-based farm, and it's annoying that I don't have all the up-to-date items I had last time, like the best fishing pole and a completely upgraded house. But I'm still enjoying it. I do find it kind of hilarious that I've just built a fairly expensive, powerful new gaming PC, and I'm using it to play a 2D game that actually ran pretty well on my old laptop. But the colours are prettier this time around!

I had a dream about the apocalypse last night. Well, first I had a dream about a storm that literally ripped apart most of my home town. Then I had a dream about a proper, everything destroyed, deer and lions in my garden apocalypse, and told my dad (in the dream) "I had a dream about this last night". I think it's from reading the comments in too many posts about the state of American politics at the moment. Although the actual posts are becoming no better - yesterday on ontd_political there was a post by someone saying there was no 100% conclusive proof that Russia was involved in swaying the election, so we shouldn't act like they might have until there was 100% conclusive proof, and the CIA were always lying, and I didn't understand it at all. Until I got to a paragraph about how "anyone who had opposed the smooth, self-entitled rise to power of Hillary Clinton is now accused of being in line with the Ruskies", and I understood what it was actually about.

By the way, can't really explain how furious them calling Hillary Clinton's bid 'self-entitled', when American politics is dominated by men and she has literally been hounded by the Republican press for years, actually makes me. People still say awful things about Hillary Clinton, and I worry sometimes that I'm eventually going to get Truth Delusioned into believing them. But for now I still take inspiration from her.

Anyway. I did end up getting a little stressed out by the overtime last week, although some of that was just about buying so many parts for my computer, and feeling like I had to rush into buying my mum's present so I could hide it within those packages. It totally worked though, because she ended up taking the delivery including her gift, and had no idea about it. As for the PC - I'm in a funny sort of waiting game right now. When I went to buy the PSU I'd been recommended it was out of stock, and Amazon were like "buy it now, we'll send it when it's back in stock". So I did. And now it's been back in stock for more than a few days, and I haven't received any sort of email saying they're sending it to me. Meanwhile, they're promising anyone who orders one now that they can have it the next day, if they choose express delivery! Hmm, Amazon. I'll probably send them an email if this continues. The PSU being the power supply for the computer, it is a pretty important part. And I can't really check if any of the other parts I've bought are faulty or super or whatever till I build the entire thing. But apart from that I've got everything else I need. Apart from an OEM version of Windows I've been recommended by my games shop guy, and - since most of those I've seen are on disc, and nowhere does it suggest the computer I'm currently building has a CD-ROM, a plug-in CD-ROM. I have no idea when I'm going to build it, though. Certainly not before the PSU comes.

Other than that though, yesterday was pretty productive. I took some stuff to the charity shop, finally, and picked up some wrapping paper and a card for my YN's birthday tomorrow, and even managed to pick up my MN and sister's presents. I also got an idea for what to buy my dad this week, and I can pick up my ON's present in Leeds when I'm there for work, which only leaves my YN's Christmas present, and I'm told he loves Paw Patrol. And I'm looking forward to going back to my regular hours next week, and I have the Last Guardian and Trico's amazing, and generally everything's going quite swimmingly at the moment. I am bleeding again though. Which is kind of annoying.

Anyway. Speaking of female artists I used to love and then forgot about, do you remember when we learned to Hit Em Up Style?



I don't really love this music video like I do the last one, but I do love the song.

Seeing people genuinely blame Hillary Clinton and anyone who supported her for Trump's win is almost soul-destroying. Seeing people genuinely claim it all happened because of the economy, when - in Britain, and quite a few countries outside of America - worries about the economy and racism pretty much always go hand in hand these days is mind-boggling, and almost makes me want to despair of those people's abilities to have their political shit together in the next few years.

But anyway. Happy things:

1. My cat is amazing, and loves me.



2. My mother is also pretty good. She's been looking up things about the election in America, because she knows it's upsetting me.



3. I have been listening through my CDs recently, and have found many amazing songs I didn't even know were there. Most of them are either by women or about women, or both. Because that's how I roll apparently.
   
   "I was a child in Mississipi,
   But I am ashamed of it today"
   
   
   
   
   The Bessie Smith song that made me want to buy her album.
   
   
   
   
   Florence and the Machine are/Florence is a genius.
   
   "And I heard your voice,
   As clear as day,
   And you told me I,
   Should concentrate"
   
   
   
   
   So is Ruth Brown:
   
   
   
   
   This song is a little bit Christian for me, but it is genuinely uplifting, and I've found it quite helpful to listen to over the past week.
   
   
   
   
   This song genuinely makes me wonder why Erma Franklin isn't as well known as Aretha Franklin. More amazing songs, obviously. But still.
   
   
   
   
   These are not all songs I have discovered/re-discovered in the past few weeks, but they are all great and I love them and I wanted to share them.

Today, Sky News claimed that one of Trump's election promises was to "make torture great again".

Is that a thing?