The tip jar closes tomorrow! This is your twenty-four hour "time to get out of the pool" reminder! For those who missed the initial post, basically, this is where I take "tip jar" donations to fund the next InCryptid story or stories. To tip, please PayPal to...

delirium@xocolatl.com

Please choose "friends and family," not "goods and services," as I have no physical goods to send, and PayPal gets weird (and takes fees) when there are physical goods to send. The tip jar will close tomorrow, and I will post a total.

If I get $200, I will prioritize finishing and posting "The Way Home," aka, "the next generation begins."
If I get $300 or more, I will prioritize finishing and posting "Lay of the Land," aka "Thomas and Alice are awkward cookies."

"Star of New Mexico" will be posted this year even if no one tips me a penny; I'm not holding anything finished hostage, just trying to justify my perpetually shuffling things around. Thanks so much to everyone who's ever donated in the past; you've done a lot to make my current situation possible.

Thank you!

Thomas met us at the door last night, tail puffed out, already singing the song of his people. Alice shunned me for about an hour, skittering from room to room, refusing to let me look her in the eye. When she settled, she announced it by crawling on top of me and purring for an hour solid, making it impossible to sleep.

Home.

I always think, when I'm traveling, that I'll come in the door and be stunned by how much stuff I have amassed. "I'm finally going to see the mess for what it is, and be able to get rid of half of it with no regrets," I think, and then I get into my room, and crawl into the mass of plush toys that is my bed, like a Pokemon into long grass, and I remember that this is why I have so much stuff: because it defines the borders of my space. It claims the space in a way that is very precious to me. It's not careless clutter. It's careful assertion of my right to exist, safely, in this space.

Home.

I am so tired that I can feel my bones, and I'm working my way through a dozen slow to-do lists, some of them time-sensitive, others that just need to be accomplished. I am where I belong, at least for a little while, at least until I have to leave again.

Home.

There's no place I'd rather be.