I Am Not Tolerant

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

You know how that roundabout goes.

You call out some jackass with a bigot complex for their blatant hate-braying and they get cute and say “You’re not being very tolerant.”

Well, joke’s on you, sport. I’m not tolerant.

Tolerance implies putting up with something or someone. But I’m not putting up with a bigot’s shit anymore than I’m putting up with, say, a trans person’s existence. I am not tolerant.

I am accepting.

I accept a trans person’s existence. I accept a non-white person’s reality of dealing with racism. I accept my fellow bisexuals’ experience of bi-erasure. I accept an immigrant’s existence. I accept a non-bianary person’s pronouns. I accept the realities that the poor in this country experience. I accept the need for body autonomy. I accept the existence and experiences of the disabled. I accept the neurodivergent. I accept furries.

I also accept those who choose to be bigoted. I accept those who invoke a religious exemption from kindness. I accept those who deny their privilege while also wielding it in a harmful way. I accept those who prioritize their convenience and comfort over the health and well-being of others.

And I treat them all accordingly.

I accept the reality and truths that are presented to me.

Because I am accepting, not tolerant.

I accept that you want to be a hateful waste of space and I will not allow you in mine. I accept that you had a wide variety of personalities to choose from and you chose to be as unpleasant as possible and that choice is incompatible with my personality. I accept that you chose to be a piece of shit and I will scrape you from my shoe as needed.

Because I am accepting, not tolerant.

I don’t have to put up with your “opposing views”. I don’t have to put up with your wrong-ass opinions. I don’t have to put up with your conspiracy theories and mangled facts and warped religious beliefs and anti-science screeds typed up on a science machine. I don’t have to put up with your hate and violence and general tomfuckery.

I don’t have to put up with any of it.

Because I’m accepting, not tolerant.

Keep that in mind the next time you want to get cute.

How to Library

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

A tweet talking about all of the good things that libraries do as a publicly funded entity which is probably why people talk about them being obsolete in an effort to be rid of them (I’m paraphrasing the tweet by a lot, but that was the gist) reminded me that I actually have inside knowledge about this that I could disseminate to the masses. Or the readers of this blog. Whatever.

For those of you just tuning in, my current day job is working as a part-time library clerk at my local small town library. Now, I’m sure you think it’s a great job, especially for a writer, to have because it’s a small town, so it can’t be that busy, right? How much work do you actually do? Especially part-time.

Kids, let me tell you…there is a lot that goes into making a library work.

Obviously, there’s checking out items, checking in items, and shelving them. I do a lot of that. It’s a basic of the job. And here’s some real insider knowledge: we all sing the alphabet when we’re shelving stuff. Always. Everyone. My boss is a librarian, master’s degree and all, and she still has to run through the alphabet while shelving. Think you know the alphabet? Work in a library. I guarantee you don’t. It’s amazing.

Other things we have to do every shift include getting the books out of the book drops outside (I curse the people who return half the children’s floor that way) and we get items on the pull list, which are items requested either by our patrons or patrons from other libraries in our system. Yes. You can order books from other libraries if your library doesn’t have it. Pretty neat.

But in order to have access those items they first of all have to be bought and then catalogued and then processed because yeah, this shit just doesn’t come in ready to go.

Cataloging involves putting each item in the system and then barcoding it. After that’s done, it has to be processed. What’s processing? Well, every library has their own way, but this is how we do it.. First of all, everything has to have the appropriate labels; spine labels, obviously, but also series labels on books and audiobooks; DVD’s, Blu-rays, and CDs have to have the appropriate color coded stickers for genre, as well as other relevant stickers; everything gets stamped or stickered as the library’s property; and then the books get covered. Which means laminating them. Paperbacks get hard laminate, which has to be measured, cut, and stuck on by hand. Hardbacks get soft laminate, which means the dust jackets are put through the laminator, cut, taped, creased, put back on the book, and taped down. Does this sound like a lot? Well, yeah, it kinda is. But we’re not done! Because after all that (or at some point during the process; depends on who’s doing it), everything has to be RFID’d. What’s that? That’s the system we use to check things in and out. So everything gets a special sticker and it’s encoded with that item’s information.

As an aside, we switched over to this system during the early months of the pandemic. I, along with three other of my coworkers, tagged every single item in the whole library. It took us about three months.

Anyway. That’s just a small portion of what my coworkers and I do on any given day, and that’s just the “books ‘n’ stuff” work. Because even my small town library provides the community with a lot of resources and services.

Like…

We’ve got an outreach program so people who are homebound or at the nursing home can get items. We’ve got three different book clubs. Do you like ebooks? Audiobooks? Movies? Music? We’ve got apps for that. Yeah, you can borrow items from our digital collection, too. It was a big hit when were shut down in March/April/May of 2020. Also, remember how I said you can order books from other libraries. You can do that online, too.

We’ve got free programs and workshops. From teaching kids how to make hovercrafts to teaching adults how to effectively compost. We made pillows for the local nursing home, painted bottles, made tiny art, made Mother’s Day and Father’s Day presents, made friendship bracelets, taught people how to make pollinator gardens, and had kids do their own Coke and Mentos rockets. There’s crafts and skills and lectures and all sorts of things we provide for patrons and members of the community to do and learn.

Speaking of programs, do you need space for yours? How about a party or gathering? Or just a quiet room to study in? Yeah, we’ve got all of those available for reservation. And again, you don’t have to have a library card to use them, but a few of our rooms do come with a fee.

We provide free computer access and free WiFi. You don’t have to have a library card to use it. You can get copies done on the cheap and you can send a fax for a dollar a page (it’s going back to 1994 after all). We provide free notary services as well. Do you need something laminated? We can do it for a reasonable price.

We can help you find whatever information you’re looking for. We’ve got a list of e-resources for patrons who are looking for work or housing or legal help, etc. We can also help you check your email, print things, use Google, and other basic computer/internet tasks. We can also probably point you in the right direction if we don’t know the answer to your question. And we rec books, movies, music, and TV shows just for the hell of it.

My library has the Library of Things, which allows you to check out things like Rokus, WiFi hotspots, an Amazon Fire Stick, and even ukuleles. We also have a seed library where you can “check out” seeds.

We also have an extensive archive collection relating to the library, the city, and the surrounding areas and people can actually request items to look at in person. They’re also frequently put out on display and my boss talks about them in a video series she does on Facebook and YouTube.

Oh, yeah. We’re on the socials. During the lockdown, we did a major pivot to video for the kiddie story times, which are now happening in person again. We’ve also got a website that’s positively loaded with info and reference links. And we’ve got a podcast that you should totally listen to. Not just because I run it (which is a good enough reason), but because it provides a lot of insight into what the library has and what it does. Also, I’ve done some cool local history episodes that are quite murder-y.

In fact, I just completed a series of episodes in which my coworkers tell you a little more about what they do at the library and how that translates to benefits to our patrons and our community.

And that’s just my little library. There are other libraries all over the place doing similar or bigger and better things.

So check them out! And support them! Libraries are good!

And return your shit on time.

***

If you’d like to listen to my library’s podcast, you can find it on Anchor as well as bunch of other platforms. Check the links there to find the one you like best.

The Trash Panda of Movie Consumption

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Let this be the FAQ of my movie viewing habits.

Because I disappoint a lot of people with my movie viewing habits.

Have you seen…?

No.

Just accept it now that I probably haven’t seen it and may never see it.

Incredibly popular movie? Probably not.

Oscar winner? Most likely not.

Movie you just know I would love? No and you’re probably wrong. Leave me alone.

I had a friend a hundred years ago who was absolutely appalled by all of the movies that I hadn’t seen so he set out to rectify it. He gave me movie homework. We also ended up watching a bunch of movies together. Some I liked, some I didn’t. I’ll never forgive him for making us sit through Brotherhood of the Wolf.

The point is that he tried, but even with all of his efforts, I still probably haven’t see it. Accept this truth into your heart.

I Half-Ass Movies All the Time

If you ask me if I’ve seen something and I tell you I half-assed it, this is what I mean.

I’m notorious for watching movies without the sound on. I put on the closed captioning, put that bitch on mute, and let it ride while I do other stuff. If I find myself paying more attention to reading the closed captioning rather that doing whatever else it is I’m doing (probably writing, who am I kidding), then I put the sound on and watch the movie with a little more attention.

However, sometimes it takes a couple of half-assings before I bother.

Sometimes I never bother at all.

This happens most often during FearFest in October with the newer horror movies. I just leave AMC on for the duration and turn up the sound on the flicks that catch my interest or the classics that I probably have memorized.

I Don’t Wanna Watch New Stuff Because I’m Still Re-Watching My Faves

Okay, this actually applies to a lot of people, but I’m definitely a comfort watcher.

This is why I have Clue memorized. We watched it every day one summer when I was a kid. Ditto Police Academy 3, 3 Ninjas, Encino Man, The Great Mouse Detective, Fatal Beauty, and Tango & Cash. Yes, we were definitely watching movies we shouldn’t have been, but it was the ’80s/’90s. That’s just how we lived.

And it’s why as a grown person I watch Halloween when I’m having a bad day or The Fog when I’m in the mood to be cozy. It’s why I will spend all day watching the Alien movies or a Friday the 13th marathon. It’s why I watched Delicatessen ever day for a week and Ghostbusters: Answer the Call every day for a month. Don’t ask me why. It’s just the groove my soul needed at the time.

Occasionally, I will try new things and sometimes end up loving those new things so much that I will watch those things every day for an extended period, too. It soothes me and it makes me happy.

And we all want me happy, right?

The Movie Theater is Not a Religious Experience for Me

I know for a lot of people they need to see that new flick opening night in the theater and that’s great.

I’m rarely one of those people. There’s only a handful of movies I’ve felt the urge to see opening weekend, let alone opening night. Typically, I wait for a Thursday matinee to hit the theater here in the cornfield because it pretty much guarantees the place to myself. Or I’ll wait longer and go to an odd time showing at the “big city” theater.

The older I get, the worse my sensory issues seem to get. Seeing a movie in a theater can be a downright painful experience for me. It’s gotta be worth it.

That said, I do appreciate the big screen experience for some movies (Jaws was amazing, for example), it’s just that I don’t necessarily need to make that trip to Nirvana as often.

You Know That Movie Is Bad, Right?

Yes.

In fact, there’s a good chance that’s why I’m watching it. I have a true love for garbage movies. Maybe it’s because trash knows trash. I don’t know. But some of my favorite movies are objectively bad and they make my heart happy.

But there’s no need for you to go out of your way to point this out. I don’t care. If you wanna be Roger Ebert in your film viewing, groovy. I do not. I’m here to enjoy myself. Sometimes I can do that just by letting my brain go; sometimes I’m rewriting the movie as I watch it. But either way, I’m entertained and that’s what counts.

Whenever I choose to share whatever movie I’ve watched on Twitter, I always feel the need to accompany it with this disclaimer in regards to quality: I hate watch Jason Takes Manhattan every time it’s on TV. You do not want to debate quality with me.

So, the next time you get uptight about what I watch, or more likely what I haven’t watched, just remember that I am not your target audience.

Schrodinger’s Fatphobe

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Last week some unfortunate DNA construct posted this embarrassingly bad take on Twitter. And as absolutely fetid as it is, it’s not at all an anomaly.

You see this sort of hostile bullshit is actually pretty typical. Now, I went into it in a Twitter thread when this bebop posted this, but I’m going to do it here again for easy reference, thoroughness, and posterity.

Dollars to donuts says that this human equivalent of megaphone feedback would also trip over themselves to tell a fat person they saw in public that they need to “put down the fork and get in the gym.” And yet, should a fat person have the audacity to utilize gym facilities for the purpose of fitness, well, it’s too fucking late and what the fuck are they doing there aside from embarrassing themselves.

This is Schrodinger’s Fatphobe.

You need to stop being fat, but also how dare you try to stop being fat.

You see the main problem this person has, that all fatphobes have, that most people who wouldn’t even call themselves fatphobic, but it’s a rhetoric so baked into society that no one can avoid it have is that fat people should not be seen in any context. Period. Society absolutely wants you to not be fat, but even in that context they want you to fix the moral failing that is your excessive weight in the solitude of your own home or some forgotten cave until you are fit to re-enter society a beautiful butterfly freed of your fat cocoon. Should you choose to remain a squishy caterpillar of a person, then it’s your own fault for daring to allow your existence to encroach upon public spaces and you deserve the ridicule you get.

Do you not see the conundrum?

Fat people exist. We exist in public. And we exist in various states of health with various fitness and/or weight loss goals. Some choose to pursue their goals in a gym. Some people take that walk around the block that fatphobes are so eager to insist upon. And some have no interest in this sort of thing, they simply leave their houses from time to time to do things, and that’s fine, too.

The point is that at no time do any of us need to be exposed to whatever dogshit opinions a fatphobe might be steaming in that rotten cantaloupe of a head of theirs. Shutting the fuck up is free and minding your business comes at no charge.

Let that last bit be a general reminder.

***

Full disclosure: My 255 pound self exercises, but I do not go to the gym. This has nothing to do with the worry about encountering some fatphobe with mouth-control issues. As you can see, I also have mouth-control issues. Somebody’s gonna cry and it ain’t gonna be me.

No, I don’t go to the gym because leaving the house to exercise gives me one more excuse not to exercise on the days I’m feeling unmotivated. It’s a hell of a lot easier for me to force myself to put on the ol’ sports bra if that’s ALL I have to do. Gotta work with your laziness, kids.

Murderville: So Long, Neighbor–Episode 8

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

A Wake for a Neighbor

The very last episode of Murderville!

Thank you for joining me on what turned out to be a five year project. It wasn’t always fun writing it, but I’m happy with my little industrial city of 70,000 people and the characters I created. I’m going to miss them.

But they will always be there for you to enjoy. And I hope you did enjoy them.

Special thanks to all of my patrons. You guys are simply the greatest.

 

I’d Take It Easy (If I Understood What That Meant)

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

July was a super busy month for me.

I finished revising The End of the (Werewolf) Curse early on and ended up spending most of the month re-designing Kiki Writes About as well as creating aka Kiki Writes. I also did a lot of work on two podcasts. I’ve been busting tail to get ahead of the game on the next season of Book ’em, Danno. Seizing the opportunity of getting Season 2 finished early, I got a jump on Season 3 with the game plan of getting the first two episodes recorded before the end of July, as well as some other prep work finished. I also got the show distributed to two more platforms, Stitcher and Spotify.

I’m also in charge of the podcast at the library I work at and last month I had the goal of finishing a couple of short episodes before launching into the huge project of do individual episodes with everyone I work with to give them an opportunity to talk about their jobs. This is the brainchild of my director, who heard it on a different library podcast. She thought it would be a great way to inform the community (and anyone who listens) about all of the things we do to keep the library running and make the library experience enjoyable. So, I was tasked with coming up with questions and outlines to help my coworkers write their scripts and then scheduled times to record them. But getting there wasn’t easy. Even though my boss was excited about doing this, it seemed like no one was comfortable with it. It was a challenge to get everybody to get their scripts done before I could even get them scheduled. Because I work the night shift, it meant coming in during their shifts to record. Luckily, I don’t have an excessive number of coworkers and I managed to get them all recorded in two sessions. As of the writing of this post, I have everyone recorded and I’m in the process of editing.

Speaking of work, I also found time to participate in our tiny art show, painting a beach scene on a little 3in x 3in canvas.

In more personal matters, I once again changed up my exercise regime in the hopes of improving my workouts while also avoiding some of the issues I’ve had with maintaining real good consistency. Meanwhile, I had a horrible issue with fatigue and my sleeping issues took a turn for the odd (it wasn’t full on insomnia, but I wasn’t sleeping for shit for an extended period either). The roofing and siding that lasted all month long didn’t help, but my house looks pretty now.

So as productive as I was, it was only a matter of time before that battery ran out.

I woke up on the last Friday of July staring at the wall I was poised to run into. After a week of sleeping better, I’d slept like garbage. Exercising seemed too hard that morning. My To Do List seemed overwhelming: I needed to promote the Season 2 finale of Book ’em, Danno and also record Episode 28 for Season 3; I needed to clean and make the grocery list and do my language lessons. In that moment, I decided that I was going to take it easy that day. I wasn’t going to worry about exercising. I’d do the have-to things and leave the rest. I would avoid hitting the wall for once.

Instead, I ended up doing everything on my To Do List, got in a workout later that evening, and even did an additional recording since I already had everything set up.

I am not saying this to show how I’m capable of getting things done despite being exhausted and near-burnout. This is not an inspirational “You too can push yourself too hard and achieve…something!” post.

This is to illustrate how badly wired my brain is. That I sabotage my own good decisions to take breaks by not only doing the work, but doing more work. Call it stubbornness. Call it my Capricorn workaholic tendency. Call it years of conditioning that cause me to fear being seen as “lazy” and equate my productivity with my worth. Call it ill-advised. You’d be right on all accounts.

At least now I can recognize this as a problem and can maybe one day in the future take steps to correct it. I’m already planning on this taking a while. I’ve been this way most of my life. This kind of hard-wiring is hard to redo, especially when you’re a terrible electrician like me.

Good thing I have such a great work ethic.

Welcome to Kiki Writes About

Featured ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

As the name implies, this is where I write about…whatever. Myself, life, writing, sexuality, weight, my random issues and obsessions, if it comes into my head, I may just put it into words here.

If you’re looking for my fiction, you’ll find everything on Read Me. Everything I’ve published (either traditionally or self) is there. If you’d like to be convinced that I’m worth your time and money, check out the Writing for Tips section. It’s all of my free short stories. However, if you read a few and decide you like them, feel free to buy me a coffee over on Ko-Fi.

Murderville is my Patreon project. It wrapped up in 2021, but watch this space. There could be a new project coming soon.

If you’re looking for my podcast ventures, like Book ’em, Danno, or my ramblings on reruns, you’ll want to check out aka KikiWrites.

So, kick back and enjoy some words.

They could be about anything.

Book ’em, Danno–Episode 26

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It’s a short episode as I don’t have much to say about the Season 2 finale “Kiss the Queen Goodbye”, though I should say that this episode is full to the brim with fabulous fashion. It makes the Governor’s yawn-inducing speech worth it. I also do a little Season 2 wrap-up. I know you’re aching to find out how many times Steve said, “Book ’em, Danno.”

Listen in on Soundcloud, iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Wait, what? Two more places to listen? Yes. Two more places to listen.

As I did with Season 1, I’m once again going to take a hiatus before starting Season 3. Look for the next new episode in September over on aka Kikiwrites, which will go live on August 1st!

As always, my eternal gratitude to everyone who listens. This little podcast is fun for me and I hope I’m making it fun for you as well, and I look forward to the fun will have together next season.

Until then….FASHION!

Don’t Fear the Changes

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

As you may have noticed, Kiki Writes About is undergoing some major changes. I’m bored and it’s time to shake some shit up.

I haven’t been using the blog like I used to. I used to make a lot more posts about a variety of different subjects, but over time, that creative flow slowed to a trickle of have-to posts about what writing projects I was working on, Murderville posts, and Book ’em, Danno posts. Part of the reason for that is that Kiki Writes About was starting to feel a bit cramped. I started second guessing anything I might post because it might not fit with everything else.

With my creative productivity already at its lowest, I ended up even more stifled.

This is my attempt at un-stifling myself.

The biggest change is that I’ve created a whole new site that will be going live on August 1st.

aka KikiWrites will be the new home of Book ’em, Danno, any and all other podcast ventures, and Rerun Junkie. I’m not deleting the first two seasons of Book ’em, Danno or the Rerun Junkie posts from Kiki Writes About. In fact, the last episode of Season 2 of Book ’em, Danno will show up here right before the new site goes live. But from Season 3 on, everything will only be found on aka KikiWrites. The Book ’em, Danno page and the Rerun Junkie page will also be disappearing. They’ll be replaced by a page for aka KikiWrites to help direct traffic to the right place.

The Writing for Tips page can now be found under the Read Me tab. I wanted to consolidate all of my available stories in one space just to clean up the look a little bit.

As of now, the Murderville tab remains the same, but if I decide to do another Patreon project, I’ll end up creating a main Patreon page for all of those projects. So that could be moved in the future. Heads up!

Also, no more monthly writing project posts. There’s really no need for it while I’m taking a writing break and even before the writing break, I was working on the same project for months at a time, so it was sort of pointless. With Book ’em, Danno moving and Murderville coming to an end, those updates aren’t really necessary either.

What I’m hoping is that these changes will inspire me to get back to writing on whatever is on my mind and allow me to better explore a variety of topics that I’ve been wanting to write about, but don’t really have the motivation. And I mean that for aka KikiWrites as well as Kiki Writes About. There’s been Rerun Junkie posts I’ve been meaning to write for months, but haven’t gotten around to it.

Let this be the kick in the ass that I need!

Murderville: So Long, Neighbor–Episode 7

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Autopsy Results

The coroner’s office was in a small building that didn’t give much consideration to the living. The magic, as Lu Jones said, happened on the first floor; everything above them was administration. The break room was up there, too, but most people hung out in the death investigator’s office. Lu said it was more fun there. Vince wasn’t so sure about that.

Nobody was in the office when Detective Carthos and Detective DeMarte arrived. Which was a shame. It would have been an excuse not to go into the autopsy room. And Vince could have used the comic relief from Lu or Jerome. He was still reeling from the stunt DeMarte pulled with Christabelle Calder. Absolutely astounded by the fact that he actually insinuated that she was somehow involved in Lister McKinney’s death. This was the excellent detective that all other detectives in the Munsterville Police Department were held up to in comparison. This was supposed to be the gold standard.

Gold standard of crap. The only thing Detective DeAndre DeMarte was concerned with was making himself look good and he had no reservation about bludgeoning people with his authority while he did it. Detective Carpenter might have been tripped up by the Winchester Harmon case, but he was nothing but thorough and respectful. He’d never once been embarrassed to be associated with him.

Vince followed DeMarte into the autopsy room. It wasn’t his favorite place in the world to be, but it was all part of the job. The room was brightly lit and smelled strongly of disinfectant, which was better than what it had smelled like on other occasions that he’d been there. Dr. Pascal stood at a table on the other side of the room, an old woman laid open before him. Vince was surprised that he’d gotten through the autopsies so quickly to get to the old woman that Lu had bumped. It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet; he wasn’t supposed to get to her until after lunch.

There were three other tables between Vince and the autopsy in progress and he still felt too close.

“Good morning, Dr. Pascal,” DeMarte called across the room. He didn’t look like he wanted to get any closer and for the first time since his two weeks of DeMarte hell had started, Vince agreed with him.

“Good morning, detectives,” Dr. Pascal called back. He was a short man with wild eyes. To this man, everything was interesting, everything was an adventure. “I’ll be right with you.” He muttered something in Russian -his mother’s language, according to Lu- and looked at the assistant weighing the woman’s organs. “Grant. I need you to do a full toxicology work up on Mrs. Jefferson here. Include all of the heavy metals and known poisons.”

Vince shrunk back a step. Lu said the old lady’s death looked natural, but Dr. Pascal wanted to test for poisoning. He hoped Lu wasn’t going to get into trouble for bumping the old lady’s autopsy back.

“Now, gentlemen,” Dr. Pascal said as he stripped off his gloves and dumped them in a biohazard disposal bin. “You’re here about Mr. McKinney, yes?”

“That’s right, Doc,” DeMarte said.

***

Can you believe it? Murderville is almost over! Don’t miss out on the last couple of episodes of this five year endeavor. Become a patron for as little as $1 an episode.