I wasn't able to make a May post because things were just way too hectic. The end of the semester (with a final), the preparations for the start of the camping season (including de-winterizing the camper), and spring clean up all occurred in quick succession.
We delayed de-winterizing until just before we left for the first trip of the season because lows were still dipping down below freezing. Monday and Tuesday of the week before Memorial Day had frost and freeze warnings.
As is typical of North Dakota weather, though, when we broke camp at the end of our Memorial Day trip, we were packing up camp in 95 degree weather. So in the space of a week, we went from, "We can't prep the camper because it'll freeze" to "Ugh, breaking camp sucks because we are melting!"
In spite of the weather, about 400 ticks, 4 billion Mayflies, etc., it was still great to be camping again. I really missed it last year! All camping trips are good, some are just more challenging than others, lol.
The photo above was taken at sunset on our last night in camp, and that's completely unfiltered or altered. It was beautiful.
The writing update
I was able to finish a humorous cryptid story I really wanted to write, but I haven't had the time to dive into anything else yet. Writing has taken a backseat to all the other things going on lately.
I need to get working on something new again, and I need to get back on track and send out some of my returned stories, as well. My "Ink and Moss Summer" is not off to a rip-roaring start, lol. Nothing is going to get published if I don't send it off...or if I don't start some new stories and I run out of "story inventory!"
And speaking of published, my story, "Exotic Bites," can be found in issue #13 of Illustrated Worlds Magazine: Illustrated Worlds Magazine, Spring 2026 issue.
What I'm reading
The April selection for my regular book club was Through Gates of Garnet and Gold, by Seanen McGuire. It was okay, but not really my thing. I won't be reading more from that series.
The selection for May for my regular book club was Dungeon Crawler Carl, by Matt Dinniman. I absolutely loved it. It was a fun, nostalgia-heavy read. Fans of Stranger Things, the original Running Man movie with Arnold Schwarznegger, and Ready Player One will like this book, I think. I like it enough I plan to continue reading into second one! I also bought a "God damnit Donut" t-shirt, lol.
Next up for my regular book club is: Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon, by Mizuki Tsujimura. It's another one that sounds a little outside of my normal reading preferences, so we will see how it goes.
I didn't bother with the horror book club's April selection, The Library at Hellebore, by Cassandra Khaw. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to get into that one.
I did read the horror book club's May selection, but I did not make it to the meeting. It was The Hunger, by Alma Katsu. It wasn't bad, and I enjoyed it more than most of the other selections for this book club (except for Buffalo Hunter Hunter, of course, which was fan-freaking-tastic and still wins hands down).
Next up for the horror book club: Camp Damascus, by Chuck Tingle. I didn't even know he actually wrote books like this, because I'm used to seeing his name on titles like Scary Stories to Tingle Your Butt or Bigfoot Sommelier Butt Tasting (and yes, those are real titles and there are many, many more just like those). But I thought they were all just parody!
For the Lit League Challenge, the April read was a fail. I ended up forgetting to post my April book to the challenge website, so it's showing as not being completed and I won't get credit for it. But I did finish it. The challenge was to read a book that is a collection, and I read the Dover Thrift Editions The World's Greatest Short Stories. As usual, I beg to differ with some of the choices. But I had already read almost every story in it already. Two key take aways were:
- Every time I read "Bartleby the Scrivener," I like it a little more.
- And no matter how many times I read "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," I will never like it.
The May challenge for the Lit League Challenge was to read a book written by an Asian-American or Pacific Islander, and I read Blob: A Love Story, by Maggie Su. It was a weird book, but I enjoyed it. It's hard to categorize, but it's kind of a kind of a coming-of-age-story about a late bloomer/failure-to-launch type. It's also has a fairy tale/monkey's paw kind of vibe to it. It would have fit right in at the last UND Writers Conference, I think!
June's Lit League Challenge is to read a book about a trip or a journey. I've picked Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer.
I gave up on the distance student book club. The book selections were just not for me. If they end up reading something that interests me, I might decide to take part. But for now, I'm not planning on participating.
For an independent read, I checked out Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson. I'm pretty sure I read it before, but I just couldn't finish it this time. I know I saw the movie a very long time ago, but I don't remember much about that, either. So I'm guessing I was less than impressed. It's just not my jam.
My second "independent read" selection was Hole in the Sky: A Novel, by Daniel H. Wilson. I love reading indigenous fiction, and I love cosmic horror, particularly with a Lovecraftian bent, and this was an amazing meld of both. It gets really weird toward the end (weapons of the past and the future and that never were, god mind, creatures part machine and part bio), but that just really emphasizes the madness and unknowability of the cosmic horror. There's even a thread of the whole Cthulhu (but not Cthulhu, of course) lies dreaming throughout the book. It's really cool.
Next up in independent reading? Not sure yet. But likely something that will count towards the other two reading challenges I've joined.
I've added The New York Times's Summer Reading Bucket List Challenge and the Unearth a Story: 2026 Adult Summer Reading Program at my local library as reading challenges. Hmm. I'm beginning to understand why I might be finding myself short on time to write. 😂
What I've been watching
For a podcast, I actually watched two whole movies!
Even though I watch only about one movie per year (only slight hyperbole) and my film knowledge tops out at, "Oh, yeah, I think I've heard of that one," (not hyperbole at all), a podcast was kind enough to ask me back as a returning guest!
This time, they were discussing a non-zombie Romero movie. While I actually have seen many Romero zombie movies, I actually have read more anthos where he is a writer/editor. So, I think I've READ more Romero than watched!
Interestingly, one of the lesser-known Romero films I HAVE seen was The Amusement Park, his social commentary on ageism. But I had never heard of the film that was the focus for this episode of the podcast, Martin.
It really was a journey watching it, lol. The first few minutes of the movie had me ready to shut it off. Thankfully, I powered through and finished it. As it turns out, it's a great example of how good Romero was at what he did. In this movie, he "swept the leg" right in the first minutes of the movie, disgusting and disturbing the viewer and making them want to shut the movie off. But by the halfway point, you are actually feeling a little sorry for the main character. And by the end? Well, you might just be compelled to shed a tear for the poor bastard you found so repugnant in the beginning. Sheer genius.
The bonus movie was another Romero film that I had never heard of, Knightriders. This one is about a troupe of ren faire types not just performing but living the ren faire as a lifestyle. Oh, and they joust on motorcycles. It's a wild ride, but it really is great. In a twist, Savini ends up being the one posed for the 'sex sells' PR shots when a subset of the troupe decides to go fully commercial. Seeing him in a teeny tiny metallic bikini bottom (is it still called a bikini bottom when dudes wear it?) was something I never imagined!
In the end, I enjoyed Martin for it's depth and the genius work of Romero, while I loved Knightriders just because it was so fun and such a wild ride.
On a similar note, did you know Romero also did a RomCom? Yep. There's Always Vanilla. Of course, keeping my standard of cinema-illiteracy, I haven't seen it yet, but now thanks to the podcast, I've heard of it! 😉
Anyway, you can find the podcast here. I recommend the podcast highly for some great discussion of some pretty out-there movies, but I recommend any episode other than the ones where I show up as the derpy, movie-illiterate guest, rofl.
I Can't Believe You Made Me Watch That podcast
The only other thing that I've watched in the last two months was the Good Omens finale. And I sobbed like a baby! I wouldn't call it the perfect ending I would have wanted, but it was good, and I'm so glad that they got an ending at all (and that it was generally a good one).
I'm still waiting for the second season of Alien Earth. I absolutely hate that some shows have such long breaks between seasons. Before it premieres (in 2027, for goodness sake), I'm going to have to rewatch the whole first season so I can even remember what is going on.
But I promise I will watch at least one more movie before Alien Earth premieres. 😂
Education update
I found out I am three classes away from graduating with my BA in social science/computer science minor, so now I'm taking a summer class. This will put me on track to graduate in Spring of 2027.
Then I'm going to apply to grad school and try to pursue my Master's in Human Technology Interaction. If I end up not getting in, I guess I will start another bachelor's in....hmmmm. I don't know. I suppose I could get a cert. I recently found out that my employee benefit does cover some certs, and there is a certificate in Writing, Editing, and Publishing available.
As for my summer class, it got off to a wee bit of a rocky start.
I was nervous about the class to start, because summer classes are always intense due to the shorter semester. And since I have lots of plans this summer, I wanted a class that didn't span the whole summer. So I signed up for a class that is just six weeks long. A full class, in six weeks. The class is fourteen modules, which means doing 3 modules a week for the first two weeks, and then two modules per week for the rest.
Each module has a quiz. I went to take the first quiz, and the quiz had questions that referred to a lecture and a textbook...only... there were no lectures in any of the modules, and no textbook was required for the class!
I emailed the professor. She emailed back and said that there was no textbook required, but the textbook materials that were on the quizzes were covered in the lectures. She told me to please watch the lectures and that she had uploaded supplemental materials in a specific section for a reference.
I checked Blackboard again. No lectures. Anywhere. And nothing in the section where she said she had just uploaded supplemental materials. So I sent her a screen shot of the empty folder. And that's when the mystery was solved. It turns out, Blackboard had defaulted to "hide from students." Once she changed that setting, the course materials (some 100 things in total, lectures, etc.) all appeared like magic.
So while I was thinking, "Is this professor crazy?! There's nothing there!" She was probably thinking, "Is this student blind?! Everything is right in front of her!" What's really odd is that I was the first student who brought the issue to her attention!
Now I'm a couple of weeks in, and I like the way the course is structured. It's actually one of the best that I've taken in a while! A rocky start, but a well-thought out and solidly structured course!
On the other educational fronts, I'm still learning Spanish through Duolingo, 3-Minute spanish (Udemy) and El Metodo (Udemy).
I haven't been doing any of my programming stuff through Udemy, because I signed up for Coursera and am earning official certficates for things like Google AI. I'm not sure how it's going to work in the future, because supposedly Coursera bought Udemy, but for now, I have subs to both.
But in general, my learning focus has moved from programming to AI.
And speaking of platforms, in the last post, I talked about how I had lost a platform: Skill Success has shut down. This month, I'm intentionally abandoning a platform: Codecademy. It's a good platform, it just make more sense for me to focus on platforms that cover a lot of topics (more bang for the buck).
This month's playlist. The ten songs I'm listening to on repeat.
This month's editorial.
No editorial this month. Since this is a double-edition, this is already TL;DR!
That's it for this month. Until next month, Stay Spooky, my friends!
~~Here be monsters . . . and corgis.~~