Nous protègons ceux...

Mel. They/She. Middle-aged. Counselor, former teacher, bookwyrm, writer, musician, history buff, tree hugger, hopeless wanderer, exvangelical believer, chronically ill and disabled, neurodivergent, introvert, queer, childless cat lady, and more. Tags excessively and fangirls something fierce. Chris Argent owns my soul. ⚜

[exlibrisfangirl]

MUTUAL AID REQUEST

Hi, friends!

I hope and pray that you are all safe and well, or as much so as you can be. I hope you're at least doing better than I am, lol.

I have been fighting for the past year to get my Medicaid health insurance provider to cover the cost of so. many. things. a combination rollator walker/transfer wheelchair, which they have repeatedly denied on the grounds that they do not cover that type of DME (durable medical equipment) for any of the conditions I am claiming I need it for. The fact that I need it for MULTIPLE medical conditions - POTS (which causes fainting if I stand for too long), a vertigo disorder (which causes falls due to loss of balance), HEDS (which causes falls due to joint instability), *and* partial foot paralysis (for which I wear an orthotic) - and insurance has denied the device for ALL OF THEM should give you some insight into the plight of disabled people trying to survive and navigate the healthcare system in the United States of America right now. 😒

Anyway. I have to travel in mid-August, so my time is running out, and I'm trying to raise enough funds to purchase the walker/wheelchair I want and get it shipped to me in time. If you can donate in any capacity, I would be so profoundly grateful! Every dollar matters. I am Mellifluity8 on Venmo, and you can find my PayPal here.

Love & Light,

Mel 💛

[shyyycatsblog]

paypal • cashapp • venmo • gofundme

[keikomivra]

WEDNESDAY | 1.02: WOE IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER

[oysters-aint-for-me]

BJ has a very clear understanding of Objectives unfortunately he lacks that level of comprehension when it comes to tactics methods procedures etc. Thus: his Behaviors.

[oysters-aint-for-me]

[chemicalcain]

this is the single best description i have ever heard for a cat

[ariadne-mouse]

he is Calculating

[exlibrisfangirl]

Hello! I would like to take this opportunity to say three VERY important things:

FUCK Cancer

FUCK Capitalism

FUCK The Government

(Thank you for your attention to this matter.)

[exlibrisfangirl]

Life Update - 11th June 2026

I got my new glasses this morning, and I've been weepy all day about how AMAZING it feels to finally be able to see the world around me so clearly, cleanly, crisply again. Even the colors look more vibrant. I didn't realize just how bad my vision had gotten, and so quickly. Isn’t perspective powerful?

Since becoming too sick to work early last year, things have been really, REALLY hard... *AND* I am SO thankful for the disability aids and medical technology that have helped me muddle my way through it all. I'm getting better at holding grief and gratitude at the same time and giving them each the attention they need. I do not yet have any definitive answers regarding the cause(s) of the multiple cranial neuropathies that are resulting in vision and hearing loss (amongst other things), and I also have yet to find any treatments that are effective at managing the chronic pain conditions (trigeminal neuralgia, occipital neuralgia, glossopharyngeal neuralgia) resulting from those neuropathies, but I am clinging to these glimmers of gratitude - the neurostimulator I had implanted last summer at the bottom of my spine, my hearing aids, my new glasses - as I continue to navigate the grief of more and more parts of my body failing me all at once... with a cancer cherry on top.

Speaking of which, Cancer Surgery 2: Electric Boogaloo is scheduled for 3pm (PST) tomorrow, Friday, June 12th. I will see my new endocrinologist next week to plan radiation treatment (and hormone replacement therapy and ongoing monitoring for cancer after that).

Should you feel so inclined, please pray for the preservation of my voice, good healing of the surgery site, and careful handling of my neck and jaw during surgery (the latter caused some post-surgical problems in April). If you would like to bless me with a little recovery treat, I am Mellifluity8 on Venmo, and you can find my PayPal here.

As one of my favorite authors and chronic illness baddies KJ Ramsey says, “Hope is a team sport”... and I am so lucky to have YOU on my team.

Love & Light,

Mel 💛🙏🏻

[exlibrisfangirl]

Surgery went well! *jazz hands* My neck and jaw are killing me, though, so I am entering hibernation mode and crawling into bed with the cat. Thank you for your continued prayers and check-ins!

(And thank you sooo much to the couple of you who sent monetary gifts! Tbh, I will probably use them to buy a steady supply of ice cream, which I feel is 100% appropriate for recovering from throat surgery, lol.)

Love & Light (and Oxycodone),

Mel 💛🙏🏻

[exlibrisfangirl]

I have reached 1 week post-op! 🎉

Some things are good (e.g. my incision is healing very well so far, I've had no vocal cord complications, the pathology report was encouraging, etc.).

Some things are bad. As with the first surgery, my neck and jaw are a mess from how my head had to be positioned during surgery, and my glossopharyngeal, trigeminal, and occipital nerves are all verrry angry, so it hurts like hell to chew, swallow, and talk. Of course, they only give you like a 2-day supply of pain meds, which I managed to stretch out over 4 days, but I don't even need it for the pain at my surgical site - that's totally fine, lol - the problem is everything else that surgery triggered. I'm reeeally hoping this isn't the start of another massive neuralgia clusterfuck flare-up. 🫠

Radiation won't be until August because my new endocrinologist wants me to take levothyroxine for 8 weeks beforehand, so I'm on Day 2 of that. I hope it works fast because my hypothyroid symptoms are WILD. 😵‍💫

Anyway. I'm alive, yay!

Love & Light & NO MORE ☹️ Oxycodone,

Mel 💛🙏🏻

[exlibrisfangirl]

Life Update - 11th June 2026

I got my new glasses this morning, and I've been weepy all day about how AMAZING it feels to finally be able to see the world around me so clearly, cleanly, crisply again. Even the colors look more vibrant. I didn't realize just how bad my vision had gotten, and so quickly. Isn’t perspective powerful?

Since becoming too sick to work early last year, things have been really, REALLY hard... *AND* I am SO thankful for the disability aids and medical technology that have helped me muddle my way through it all. I'm getting better at holding grief and gratitude at the same time and giving them each the attention they need. I do not yet have any definitive answers regarding the cause(s) of the multiple cranial neuropathies that are resulting in vision and hearing loss (amongst other things), and I also have yet to find any treatments that are effective at managing the chronic pain conditions (trigeminal neuralgia, occipital neuralgia, glossopharyngeal neuralgia) resulting from those neuropathies, but I am clinging to these glimmers of gratitude - the neurostimulator I had implanted last summer at the bottom of my spine, my hearing aids, my new glasses - as I continue to navigate the grief of more and more parts of my body failing me all at once... with a cancer cherry on top.

Speaking of which, Cancer Surgery 2: Electric Boogaloo is scheduled for 3pm (PST) tomorrow, Friday, June 12th. I will see my new endocrinologist next week to plan radiation treatment (and hormone replacement therapy and ongoing monitoring for cancer after that).

Should you feel so inclined, please pray for the preservation of my voice, good healing of the surgery site, and careful handling of my neck and jaw during surgery (the latter caused some post-surgical problems in April). If you would like to bless me with a little recovery treat, I am Mellifluity8 on Venmo, and you can find my PayPal here.

As one of my favorite authors and chronic illness baddies KJ Ramsey says, “Hope is a team sport”... and I am so lucky to have YOU on my team.

Love & Light,

Mel 💛🙏🏻

[exlibrisfangirl]

Surgery went well! *jazz hands* My neck and jaw are killing me, though, so I am entering hibernation mode and crawling into bed with the cat. Thank you for your continued prayers and check-ins!

(And thank you sooo much to the couple of you who sent monetary gifts! Tbh, I will probably use them to buy a steady supply of ice cream, which I feel is 100% appropriate for recovering from throat surgery, lol.)

Love & Light (and Oxycodone),

Mel 💛🙏🏻

[exlibrisfangirl]

Life Update - 11th June 2026

I got my new glasses this morning, and I've been weepy all day about how AMAZING it feels to finally be able to see the world around me so clearly, cleanly, crisply again. Even the colors look more vibrant. I didn't realize just how bad my vision had gotten, and so quickly. Isn’t perspective powerful?

Since becoming too sick to work early last year, things have been really, REALLY hard... *AND* I am SO thankful for the disability aids and medical technology that have helped me muddle my way through it all. I'm getting better at holding grief and gratitude at the same time and giving them each the attention they need. I do not yet have any definitive answers regarding the cause(s) of the multiple cranial neuropathies that are resulting in vision and hearing loss (amongst other things), and I also have yet to find any treatments that are effective at managing the chronic pain conditions (trigeminal neuralgia, occipital neuralgia, glossopharyngeal neuralgia) resulting from those neuropathies, but I am clinging to these glimmers of gratitude - the neurostimulator I had implanted last summer at the bottom of my spine, my hearing aids, my new glasses - as I continue to navigate the grief of more and more parts of my body failing me all at once... with a cancer cherry on top.

Speaking of which, Cancer Surgery 2: Electric Boogaloo is scheduled for 3pm (PST) tomorrow, Friday, June 12th. I will see my new endocrinologist next week to plan radiation treatment (and hormone replacement therapy and ongoing monitoring for cancer after that).

Should you feel so inclined, please pray for the preservation of my voice, good healing of the surgery site, and careful handling of my neck and jaw during surgery (the latter caused some post-surgical problems in April). If you would like to bless me with a little recovery treat, I am Mellifluity8 on Venmo, and you can find my PayPal here.

As one of my favorite authors and chronic illness baddies KJ Ramsey says, “Hope is a team sport”... and I am so lucky to have YOU on my team.

Love & Light,

Mel 💛🙏🏻

[exlibrisfangirl]

This, my friend, is an ambush (I'm rewatching Robin Hood because I got sad, and it made me think of you so I wanted to say hi. I was going to send a gif but tumblr's search is being mean and mostly giving me gifs of Alan Tudyk (also lovely but not who I want right now) and Edgar Allan Poe if I search for Allan by name and Batman and Guy if I search for Robin Hood 😅)

Except this one. So have a sassy Allan for your day instead.

A SASSY ALLAN A DALE IN MY INBOX IN THIS, THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2026?!

I LOVE YOU, SHYE 😘

[itseasytoremember]

So this one time I was in a hospital recovering from an emergency surgery on my leg, and had to be there long enough that they had to change my bedding, so, doped up on three kinds of pain meds and antibiotics my dad wheels me into the hallway while the nurses work.

"dad" I say, my eyes barely open "it's Colonel Sanders" while pointing down the hallway. He looks, and at the end of the hallway, there's a portrait of an old man, the donor who paid for the wing of the hospital I'm recovering in.

My dad explains as much to me, and goes "I mean the guy *kinda* looks like him, but why would Colonel Sanders pay for a hospital wing Mississauga Ontario? I think those drugs might me messing with you"

Then the nurse comes out of the room. I go "hey, who is that picture of?"

She looks at the portrait. She looks at me. She looks at my dad. She looks at the painting. She looks at me again.

"you don't recognize the Colonel??"

[marian-mama]

I had to look this up, and it's true! Colonel Sanders lived in Mississauga Ontario for some time with his second wife while expanding KFC into Canada, and he funded several hospitals up there. He was also a freemason. Huh, you learn something new every day!

[depsidase]

[barkingbarghest]

Here is an article from NPR about it (May 22, 2026):

Carolina Milanesi, an independent technology analyst, said Google is trying to make its cash cow business — search — richer and more personalized, and it will make shopping easier. But there is a risk that users may have fewer choices about what to click. "Right now it's: I ask a question, I get a bunch of answers and I feel that I'm in control as to which answer I take, or if I'm looking for something, which product I'm going to end up buying. That is going to be less so going forward," she said. Milanesi envisions AI-enabled search and agents proposing products to consumers — perhaps even those they have requested — but with less clarity or choice around where it's coming from. "If you're going to say: 'I want a pair of Jordans, go find them,' you're not necessarily sure what steps have been taken and whether the AI has used a source or a store that was paid for and therefore came up in the search results," she said, "or if AI actually went and did their due diligence and picked the best for me as a customer."

And here's one from Time magazine (May 20, 2026):

While Google already has “AI Mode,” the company will now power the whole search bar through its new Gemini 3.5 Flash model.  Instead of the classic list of blue links, Google Search will now also generate a custom page with an AI-generated summary of what you’re searching about, which will then trigger a conversation with AI Mode on the main page, allowing users to ask follow-up questions—similar to the kind of layout you would see when opening ChatGPT.

And a little more from Time's article on how this may affect the websites that we are trying to search for:

When Google first started implementing AI-assisted results, news publishers warned of “catastrophic” impacts on the industry, much of which relies on Google search to drive users to their websites.  Last year, news websites saw significant traffic declines as chatbots increasingly replaced Google search as the primary way to find sites and ask questions.  Small businesses also noted drops in traffic to their sites from Google, which has traditionally delivered customers.   Lily Ray, vice president of SEO strategy & research at Amsive, a digital marketing agency, warned as early as last year that Google’s planned changes to search are “going to have a devastating impact on the Internet.”  “It will severely cut into the main source of revenue for most publishers and it will disincentivize content creators who rely on organic search traffic, which is millions of websites, maybe more,” she told Technology Magazine.  

[anarchopuppy]

noai.duckduckgo.com blocks all AI content in search results automatically

[thatonelonelydude]

Rewatching teen wolf and thinking of the horror Derek must have felt seeing Jackson's body reject the bite, already knowing what happened with Paige

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Meanwhile in Denmark: My mom knitted a hat for my cat

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

The face of a woman who isn't disappointed that her only grandchild is a cat

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Just one day later she sends me this... My cat in different homemade hat. The woman is unstoppable!!!

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Taking over the world... One silly hat at a time...

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

The source of her power:

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

The most delicious little strawbebby...

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Presenting the politest of little gentlemen

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

This little alien is kinda done with our bullshit

[rockifresa]

[kamil-a]

I NEED A SICKO… im holding out for a sicko till the end of the night ..and hes gotta haha and hes gotta say yess at the window with a look of delight

[high-val-you]

[everything-but-the-not-natural]

@0dde11eth @catscraftsandcommentary

[wonderstruck]

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading