Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Kira B.'s 2021 Aussie Adventure, The Future and Past Two-Year Retrospecticus on Releases, and The Reason Anon Should Get Off My Areolas

Be like Kira. Stay in bed and stare at the wall.

I haven't done a substantial blog post since January 2020. 

I haven't done a properly set up review of items in my collection since Sept 2016. I haven't done a craft post since 2018. I haven't done a true Book Blather since May 2016, a Casual Friday since 2018 with Series One Hairdorables, a complaint department since summer 2018, a "Why I'm an Outsider" talk since 2016, and several other things in...whew. *mops face with sweater sleeve*

2019 got barely anything--certainly not any Blaire posts--and 2020 got two posts: the start of Joss's collection (and my joy over winning her for free) and my lamenting that I ever invested in a day planner by July, when I'd basically been no further from NethBae's House of Fabulousness and Sparkles than about a thirty minute drive since March, hadn't been in a group of more than two other people since that February, and masking up was the fashion of those not trying to die on a fucking ventilator.¹ And this is not because I don't care about American Girl any more. I love AG still. I can get things done on the Wiki, and snap pics for Instagram, and sometimes even sort a whole one bin of doll clothes! And Courtney was my 40th birthday present.

So why haven't I blogged in forever? Simple and complicated. Not only is there an entire pandemic throwing my entire groove off like an emperor in a Disney animated movie, but I have a wonk problem.

Wonk? Wonk. 

Cut for talk about my head, and then we can talk about Kira B.'s things to start to try again.

The State of the Neth Head
(and Why It's Not As Easy As "Just Do the Thing")

The truth is that my brain is super wonked, dear readers and assorted haterades. This is how I, at present, describe my neurodevelopmental brain misalignment. When I'm not calling it brain weasels, or brain dumb, or brain skew or brain fog. It's wonked. So is my body.

I've been wonked up in some form for years up here for as long as I can remember: depression, ADHD, invisible physical disabilities, and several things that just aren't the whole world's business. I tell some things but others are My Business and Not Yours unless you are Three F-ing² me, or my doctor and thus helping me handle the shit. 

One of my earliest memories is when I spent an entire section of a standardized test in first grade stimming on the slits of my chair and then had to have the questions re-asked of me one on one, and then got them all right because the problem wasn't that I didn't know the answers but that the test was boring and my brain just danced away from caring about rhyming words or whatever it was being asked. Or the time it took me twenty minutes to write "Sam w" from the sentences on the board because I was thinking about the book about duck feet, and then, when the teacher shamed me for being "off task" I furiously finished the rest of what should have been a full hour's work in five minutes so I could then happily get back to staring out the window and imagining what it would be like if I had duck feet. I was in the gifted program in elementary school, yes--which meant my mom was advised by the counselor (while they were watching me fidget and space out) to not get me diagnosed despite my constant report card lines of "Neth is a brilliant child but struggles to stay on task and pay attention, she must learn to apply herself" because it was either be undiagnosed and gifted or diagnosed and "learning disabled" and being labeled as a learning disabled black child in Reagan's America in Texas would have lost me multiple opportunities and mental stimulation that the gifted class at least gave me.

I've been for my entire known life off kilter, weird, abnormal, and thinking that maybe I was just bad at things. Stupid distractable unless I was super lost in my interests and building worlds in my head and adult me constantly saying that there's space in my head that could be calculus but we aren't going to forget eight regions of Pokemon League in specific order and their Type specialty to make room for that--look, in the past ten years calculus hasn't helped me like Pokémon Sword has. Listening to the same song on loop for days and days to help my brain line up to tasks, and then being exhausted after things were done because the reserves are out. Who just couldn't remember anything I wrote down and if I wrote it wrong I still forgot when I went back to read it, and if it wasn't in my line of sight then it might as well not exist. Day planners are useful when you don't lose them.

My mom still calls me Forgetful Jones. Yes, like the Muppet.

This is my brain on Sesame Street characters. Please praise me for not immediately taking the opportunity presented from a Google Search to end up getting lost in articles on the Muppet Wiki for thirty minutes.

I just thought this was me being a mess who needed to try harder and who fell apart when I didn't get better simply by trying to run with boulders tied to my ankles. That everyone else had their shit together and I only had a functioning brain like sex in the medieval ages: not permitted on a Wednesday, or a Friday, on a Sunday, or Saturday, on any of the sixty church feast days, during Lent, during Advent, during Whitsun week, Easter week, while a woman is menstruating, while a woman is pregnant, while a woman is breastfeeding, within the walls of a church, during daylight, if anyone involved near me was completely naked, or for the eight days leading up to my husband taking the Eucharist.³ Just walking around assuming I was broken until last last summer when a friend who's known me for 10+ years turned a mirror on me and told me I had what she had--hence caffeine working to calm my head--and I asked my mom and she explained what had happened to me as a child and why she opted to let me be seen as gifted in a prejudiced Texas education system, and that describing my symptoms to my doctor that fall had him tell me yes, I show all the signs, and advised me to a doctor to get a formal diagnosis. 

But oh did all my wonks come out to play~ay~ *clinks bottles on fingers* when an entire pandemic came out, reminded humanity we are but fragile meat sacks capable of dying by our bodies saying "fuck that air shit, am I right?" and swamped the world into maybe taking pause--well pause in America until assholes thought they might have to give money to people from the government. And then boy oh boy did Karen need a haircut and Grandpa need to die for the economy! Good news, both my grandfathers are already dead. Bad news, it was my very loved great uncle who died earlier than he deserved of covid in a Wisconsin nursing home instead. I hope the trip to Applebees was worth it, bitches. 

And it was during this entire paraesthesia⁴ we're still in the middle of when my brain decided, after realizing there would be no trips to Texas or Wisconsin or any the activities I enjoy or spin guild meetings monthly or seeing people I love, considered becoming the living embodiment of "lays down, cries a lot, do nothing" and opted to do so. Have you ever argued with a toddler that refuses to do what you ask it? That has been my brain since fucking mid-March. You can't motivate a stove to turn on when the knobs aren't there.

I was unable to blog here, do art with art stuff the way I wanted, check my own message board I run for how all my close friends there are doing, write stories, eat properly, sleep properly, wash wool and card it to spin into yarn, sit still to watch movies until literally the last day several of them were on Netflix, or enjoy lots or littles of anything. Some days I really couldn't do anything but occasionally put food in hole, poke the Instagram, try not to think about another murdered black person in the US and how it could be me, and lay on bed. Where did the month of August 2020 go? I don't know, I literally have no record of it in my head.

And while fighting my brain like the guy on the Seven of Wands and taking a moment mid fight to be honest to y'all why trying to blog and giving myself deadlines wasn't working because my brain threw them out the window every single time the deadline hit, someone made three very snotty comments about how the month is past and I hadn't blogged, and then the next month was past, and then--and I fucking quote, "I am dealing with the same goddamn disorder compounded by the same pandemic and political fuckery and I still bang out a couple thousand words worth of blog post every few days as the spirit moves me, also I try to avoid promising stuff by a specific deadline because I KNOW it's setting myself up to disappoint people."

So let's talk, since anon wants to say how easy it is to just write ~1K words a day, because since they have the same brain issues I do they clearly live in my head and the they know me and it's just easy, but I instead have been "posting nearly daily on Instagram, including things that absolutely could have gone here instead."

Let's talk how my brain is basically what happens when you know you saw a pop up alert in the corner of your desktop, and you knew that was important, but when you got to try and find it the desktop was like "lol you thought that was important? Well it was! But you'll never know what it said and you can think about that forever." Let's talk about how depression robs me of the ability to focus, and ADHD robs me of the ability to focus, and chronic illness and invisible disabilities⁵ rob me of the ability to focus, and across the three--four?--of them working together to kick my shit in I can barely get a single dopamine hit as a treat so maybe I can piece together the printed pattern that's been sitting on the printer for two months or do the dishes. Let's talk about how when I can't get anything done because The Brain is doing its best one-man interpretation of Scumbag Steve: The Musical, I get to feel like everyone should abandon me to my failures going back to the eighties. Let's talk about how missing a deadline or a goal for me makes me go "fuck it, guess everything is shit now and you can never go back and make it up, you fail, you suck, you're trash" and results in anywhere from hours to days to weeks--and on some fun occasions, months--of being unable to go back and just do the fucking thing. And then when I finally do the thing--including eating, real fun to be on meds that require food and forgetting to eat and only remembering hours later when you go "oh, that's why I've felt like puking for a half day"--the response from people without ADHD is "was that so hard" and I want to scream "YES YES IT WAS THAT'S WHY IT TOOK FOREVER TO DO" but instead I just wait until later to fall apart from the stress of trying to hold it together.

What it is vs what people think it is. Source: ADHD Alien, which has been invaluable in me figuring this brain out.

Let's talk about how much it sucks to have ADHD,  but not the ability to get it properly dealt with for decades because of prejudice, and when I finally figured out what's wrong I felt such a sense of relief so hard I literally cried with realizing how much finally things fit me. Let's talk about how when I got a referral in October 2019, that I lost the paper with it and so couldn't get the headspace or spoons to make the appointment because I literally couldn't do it without the paper. Let's talk how when I found that paper near the end of February 2020, I was like "finally!" while also thinking "shit, my entire diagnosis should be how I forgot for nearly six months to make a single phone call." Let's talk about how when I started to try and get help in March to try and get my shit together on that and two other medical fronts? An entire psilanthropism hit, and my husband's "work from home for two weeks, maybe" at the start of that month turned into "for the forseeable future" and we're still in that.

Let's talk about two relatives dying away from me, and their loss reminding me my daddy is dead and mortality is real and having to figure out how to contain all my grief about losing family without being able to say the goodbye I wanted to them even if I could have. 

Let's talk how a now clearly toxic, very much ex-friend broke my heart early February by screaming at me that I was a trash person for daring to say "hey this queer and/or PoC thing I'm talking about with others like me isn't for a cishet white girl to decide that the topic bores her" and while I was still grieving that loss and pain and the shock of the racism jumping out? An entire pararthria was gripping the world so one of the people who I'd hoped to heal with (because that girl jerked them around too, when we stopped playing her toxic games) couldn't come over and spend time with me like I hoped, and the ex-friend's actions killed a good writing group.

Let's talk about me and my Discord mods dealing with someone we hoped was a good person in our group Discord and who, when we told her "hey, stop trying to shout down everyone about how you're so great because you lived in Germany, and how we suck for thinking that Steven Universe isn't trash simply because you hate tourists but Call Me By Your Name is good because you like it" responded with "telling me not to be a dick is anti Semetic" and was an overall shit head and now, being the second only person banned from the Discord is very "woe is white women, don't call us Karen" and who needs to dunk her head in a bowl of jello. 

Let's talk about the event pre B.C. on another server where a twenty-year old tried to yell at me like I was one of her little friends and acted an entire shit because I accidentally spoiled Dr. Who for her by being happy that a black woman was being shown as a Doctor, and then banned me because I dared say "how could a traditional a poem documented in the early 1800s be inspired by Frozen 2?!" to someone who got upset that I didn't enjoy her headcanon, and was being mean--and also that someone else was mad I dared tell them that Sam didn't watch her parents die as a five year old "toddler" and knowing historical facts made me mean. And now is upset because her ban didn't bring peace and her server is but a graveyard for mood boards, said terrible person we yeeted, and people who communicate terribly because I took the people keeping your server hopping away to my own when they said "start a new place, you know how to run a damn group" and we're all thriving.

Let's talk how many things I couldn't touch for weeks that bring me joy, because my brain wouldn't let me have joy from them because of various thingers. Let's talk how stressful it was to see everyone be all "black lives matter" and then decided they were bored and walked away from that like black folk been done been seeing for years and now it's like "oh, do black lives still matter? Nah it's like Labor Day now, we're over that, got any steak?"

Let's talk how it's not motivation to say "I could do it, and I have your issues, so I assume you should do it just like me, because I think I know your ass." 

Or? Let's just understand that for months I could barely remember to put dirty dish under hot water, even much less crack open my blogging account and blog about doll things even as they made me happy. Because everything off and on, even when I tried, was like eating the worst kind of oatmeal. No sugar, butter, nuts, or fruit, just glop and it's probably been sitting out for four hours now so it's cold.

It's real fucking easy to go "your problems aren't big enough for me so I'm going to tell you how you suck to me." It's harder to sympathize, empathize, and maybe just fucking chill. Some people are really fucking bad at the latter. Don't be some people.

Yes, I've fucked around on Instagram a lot in the last few whatevers. Because an Instagram post requires just my phone, a pic that's still on my phone, and my thumbs tapping out maybe five and up to ten minutes of a few sentences and a couple auto-filled hashtags because I've used them a lot.

A post here requires me to make sure I've charged my phone so I can take pics--I don't have a nice camera anymore, my point and click doesn't work like it should--set up my photo stand, use the Wiki to get items right and sorted fully, set up the lighting properly because I've probably missed daylight hours so I need to do some large lighting, take pictures of every little detail I might want to talk about from sleeve cuffs to closures to underpants, transfer those pictures from my phone to my computer via USB cord--which means figuring out which pictures come off and which are just shots of books I had interest for in Costco--and then fix the ratio on them at times so they're not too long and off sized. Then I have to sit at my desk on my laptop--which has all the things that can distract me but I can't block because I need to research--with the outfit next to me so I can touch it to keep it in my head for bursts while I review, post and caption the pics to describe said components, give my openings and conclusions, crack open the Wiki if it's AG and use Google up and down the board to make informative links and snark and references and humor, and--when it comes to damn near every review post on here? Offer extensive deep dives into clothing, era, meaning, history, trivia, and actual data to cross ref down to the tightest details. 

And that's just an outfit review.  Book posts require me to have the book by me, read the book fresh again, and then read it as I snark on it lightly and make sure the facts are right and not nostalgia levels of  "Sam made a speech in a factory in front of the owner about how children died and feminism, and everyone clapped, and that speech? Albert Einstein." and interweave humor and history and scan pics that aren't clearly done for the wiki yet. That rants get deep research to be accurate. That even a basic rambling like later in this post I feel needs at least passable decent pics.

I am not a "A+++ would buy again/eeeeen plastic exists and I touched it/quivers and creams and racist plantation white male doll owners and pearl diving dolls/my knowledge of history is only AG books, denying slavery existed, and being a complete pile of poop that can't comb a doll's hair" AGPT reviewer or a "Theory: Tia Dolores murdered her sister, how edge!" podcaster or a "high pitched baby voice and treating toy collectors like they're six" YouTuber. I don't take pics in front of an iron table leg with too much flash from a terribad angle just to shit out content every week. I try to give a deep shit about everything I talk about on here. Which means a post can take up to four hours and often eight to write, format, footnote tag, edit to make sure my wonk brain didn't fuck off in the middle of a thought, proofread, and then post--and then find the typos and then fix those. I have to store up spoons in the dozens like a burst of "ya momma" jokes in the 90s to get a post out.  

I don't have autism, though I do have hosts of other things. Lucky me, I guess. I also don't have disabling anxiety, though I have had throw up panic attacks. Lucky me again. But I do have ADHD and depression, and let's be real? Y'all are getting this post right now because I'm shotgunning caffeine⁶ so I have some level of focus to make me sit in the chair and blog (since I still don't have ADHD meds and I could really use them to maybe do the things I want to do) instead of scrolling Twitter for little hits of brain sugarfood, twitching my feet, drumming my fingers, and simultaneously wondering how many hours I can sink into watching YouTube Cooking Videos. Damn, does my brain likes YouTube Cooking Videos.

This is one of my my methods of creative expression. Along with crafting, yarnwork, sewing, art, and writing stories--and on almost every single one of those since March 2020, guess what I also have been barely able to do since what feels like forever?!⁷ So I try to do it. And sometimes I fail, and I am trying to not let a missed blog post turn me into a curled up ball of "you suck" screaming in my head.

Last year was fucking hard. If you think, in an entire pyroballogy, that telling me how you're somehow better at being wonkbrain than me by writing 1k words every day, and you expect me to be endless content for you and riding my ass because I mentally shat the bed during an entire protanopia?

Fuck off. Then keep fucking off. Fuck off until you come up to a gate with a sign saying "You Can't Fuck Off Past Here." Climb over the gate, dream the impossible dream, spread your legs, and keep fucking off forever. 

Me just talking about my brain wonk and how this entire pudendum has affected everything has been about 2.8K words. I can, with focus, write upwards of ~10k in 24 hours. But I also fight my head all the time and can go a long time just going "brain, please" and Brain going "gimme the twitter thread dopamine or no executive function for you, bitch" and that's why my Animal Crossing island still hasn't done Thanksgiving.

You want me to produce content in bulk like popcorn instead of giving you the good filling meals I strive for? Then I'll consider a Patreon, maybe, and the "every day she makes content" posts can be there for money and "fuck you, pay me" can be real. 

I'd tell you to eat me, Anon, but you probably wouldn't do it right.

2019 and 2020 Retrospecticus

I am, after this section, going to talk about Kira Bailey, Girl of the Year 2021. I have pics of it from Friday the 1st when I met up with one of the two people in my entire proseuche bubble, we looked at dolly things, I bought cotton candy on sale, and then I hung out at her house with her dog and ferrets and she let my brain gush at her and every time I said "tell me to be quiet at any time" she was like "your brain is great and full of history!" and I felt good!  

I still want to talk about things from the last two years. But to be real, I don't know what I took pics of, what I didn't, and what I took shit pics of.  And a lot of it is just not there anymore. I might own it--look, I have been collecting and sorting, let's talk about Courtney!--but I missed like, several modern Mix and Match sets alone and some of them didn't get to AG Seattle properly because, again, entire psalligraphy. 

So what I'm going to do about it is tentatively called the Future and Past Two-Year Retrospecticus, or tagged "retrospecticus" for short. Like I planned with Blaire last January, but again, entire promachos.

Select parts of the brains are just Simpsons refs.

When I can--hopefully once a week, likely whenever me and my brain have an understanding--I will talk about releases going back to January 2019, when my brain can do it. In order of release? No. In fact, my next two posts will probably be Joss's last stuff, then Courtney who is the Best, then maybe Blaire because again, I just fucked off mentally for her whole year. Even though I have Fifi. And maybe some talks on AG attempting to fix years of shit diversity, even if they're not fixing it just yet because they're not Sony and can't just click change a doll to East Asian or make Stranger Things references for free.

Where I have decent pictures from my several years old Android phone? I'll use those. Where all I have the stock images from the Wiki? Stock images it is. Where I have a thing? Hey, I'll talk about me having a thing! When some news happened? I'll talk about it!

And we'll all hear my rambled opinions and general snarkiness, and we'll be like "I missed this" and I'll be like "I missed you too" and we'll smile and think about the time of B.C and A.C.⁸ and we won't be a shit about it, because we can still like hearing about things two years later without whining that Neth isn't dancing for your mental entertainment.

*~*~*

Intermission

Let's all go to the lobby, and get ourselves a treat!

*~*~*

2021: Kira B. Has Two Great-Aunts (and they're Gay~) 

Kira: The Ultimate collection! Because we do those now.

Kira B. is walking proof that AG does not plan entire prisoptometers or racial discussions to throw their one to two-year plans off kilter. Now, her story is at least less off center less than Joss, whose books unfortunately became AU in March when her May-set books talked about attending school freely and large gatherings in public with no one wearing masks on Huntington Beach.⁹ Previews of her books show a discussion of both the Australian brush fires and a mention of the the entire pralltriller that prevented her from going to Australia in 2020--and like Jess before her, her entire story doesn't take place in the US and she's from Michigan. Kira B. loves animals and wants to help them in any way she can, and she does that during her trip to her great aunts'  wilderness sanctuary. 

Yes, Kira B.--we'll talk about soon enough why we're calling her that here--is the third white girl in a row after "Victory Pose for Disabled Representation" Joss and "I'm allergic to cheese, but I be cooking" Blaire. And it's not a massive face difference like people thought would be the thing after Joss; she's a green-haired, blonde Josefina mold, and that might be a slight newness but not really. I don't memorize what moddies look like, especially the light ones.

But she's not a basic white girl, looks aside. Two topics come up in her stories that make it clear we kind of needed a white blonde to cover it just to avoid lots of issues.

The first one is the Australian brush fires of the past year. My friend Erin, a twenty-one year old Australian collector (who has grown up so well!) and can be found on IG under The Downunder Dolls, knows more about her country than I ever could. So I will default to her for y'all to get more details about the significance of Kira B's story. And she's white--Erin--and not Native Australian, but she's done very well in representing them in her Downunder Dolls stories. So if you have IG, follow her and spend this time learning from her and other Aussie collectors about why their country being represented this year is very important.

The short version from me is that the recent Australian brush fires were devastating to Australia. They killed over three billion animals, some people, wiped towns and homes off the map, and are poised for just as ugly a situation this Australian summer and fall--which would be right now! Climate change is real, fuckos. Kira's books cover the dangers of not caring about how humans are screwing over the planet and how we have to do better to keep the planet we're on able to keep us alive. Ther'es no B Planet. American Girl is, as part of Kira B's year, supporting WIRES--NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service Inc. This is the largest wildlife rescue organization in Australia and purchasers of AG stuff can also make a $1, $5 or $10 donation; AG will be matching dollar for dollar up to $25,000. I dropped $10 in the pot.¹⁰

The second topic is gay. No, really. Kira's Aunt Mamie--her grandmother's sister and her great aunt--is married to a woman, Kira's Auntie Lynette. The image of them in the dramatis personae at the front--the same corkboard style as Joss--shows the two of them at their wedding. (Kira B. couldn't attend. I'll read why soon enough.) They show light affection, on the level of Disney couples. Quick kissing, hand holding, casual love.

This is likely to have bigots bigoting.

I don't know how many of y'all have been in the fandom long enough to remember the I Can Bracelet reactions or the "Foster Kid Discusses Fathers in the magazine" controversy, but the short version is that AG got shit on twice for daring to to be anywhere near anything that might hint that queer people exist in this world. And here we are with not just queer aunts, but queer aunts over the age of  30. Old queers exist and are thriving in this world and are accepted parts of families. This is both wonderful for representation and likely to get dander the fuck up when it gets to the bigots. And while we could have done this with a girl of color? Doing this with a general white girl maybe, maybe might soften the blow and get kids ages eight to twelve to read about kangaroos and in the process see that queer people like me exist and are just as valid and happy as het couples! And that people didn't just starting being gay in 1969 to piss conservatives off.

At least, until some bigot sits in front of a camera and yells how this doll might make their child think about lesbians as people and then Focus On Nonsense will try to get people protesting outside the closed AG Kansas City in an entire popocracy. 

Anyways. 

To the shiny things.

Kira, two kinds of accessories, koala--kangaroo plush--

Kira Bailey, Girl of the Year 2021: Having covered the character details slightly, let's cover the doll herself. Like I said, she's not a very new look. And I doubt I'll get her at all. Unlike Fifi who was a semi unique combination that I liked in face and eyes, or Joss who is representation and bounced in my lap for the cost of a drawing slip,¹¹ Kira B. is not a doll I particularly want in my gang. Not only did I recently get Courtney and Mari-Figgi,¹² but I already have a Kira--hence me calling this one Kira B. My Kira is Kira Hickman and she's named after a friend of mine I had in high school, as part of the AGC cousins. So, no Kira B. here. I won't say never, but I'm saying very low chance.

Kira B's meet outfit: Her meet outfit is pretty simple, relatively. A pink design print tie up tank top, a dark olive skort, boots to stomp on the grass, socks, a bracelet, and what I assume might be panties but I can't touch the dolls to inspect because entire parabola. Joss had a set in the box, she likely does too. I'll check next time I'm masked up at the store burning a certificate. (And then, mid-writing this post, I was informed that yes, she absolutely has panties.) As for the outfit? It's clothes. If anyone I know gets her I'll look at it closer then. Otherwise, eh.  But no kid sized version. I think those are starting to get phased out. Prove me wrong, AG!

Kira Down Underand  Kira's Animal Rescue: Books! We bought them Friday! We're gonna read them! You should do that even if you don't get the doll! Yes, good. See above for why books and the stories matter.

Kira's Accessories: Kira B's main accessories consist of a very Australian Hat (ETA: it's called an akubra, thanks Erin!), a pink printed backpack, a koala key chain because Australia, postcards to write, and some photos. The only thing appealing to me slightly as someone who isn't likely to get the doll is the key chain, and I'm not paying that much for a key chain. But that's not all for accessories, because--

Kira's Outdoor Accessories: --we've got two separate sets of accessories in an entire piscifauna! A print sleeved jacket, tortie sunglasses, and a scarf for ten dollars a piece. Bbbbbph. At least these might look good on someone else.

Kira's Koala: She's in Australia, so she absolutely gets to be near a real koala! Well, a real plush one. That is definitely an Australian Animal people know. And I might get that one. Later.

Kira's Kangaroo and Joey: Kangaroo plushie, kangaroo plushie, kangaroo plushie! Okay so ya girl is a side furry,¹³ and if my fursona wasn't very much a cat, I'd lean towards kangaroos. It's likely I'll eventually make an OC one, like the Deerling one I've been playing with as a side. *taps head* This bad boy can hold so much Pokémons. However, being a kangaroo enthusiast means I'm very selective about my kangaroo plush. A good kangaroo plush has to have a removable joey that has legs instead of being, like, a goddamn finger puppet or a head sewn to the belly pouch. The very moment I saw that the joey came out and was its own smaller plush, I was determined to get it--and the very first thing I stuffed in my plastic shopping bag¹⁴ was this pair. Names later, kangaroos now. 

We're gonna rescue the fuck out of these animals.

Kira's Casual Outfit: We have to show where we are, of course! Using tourist clothes. So Kira B. has a Australia t-shirt, a pink vest over it, a wrap blue skirt, sandals that if she had split toes would work better, and a headband for hair decs. It's quite similar to the World Traveler sets that also came out,¹⁵ so I'll get it for that reason alone. It almost hopped in the plastic shopping bag, but I bought Ireland instead for Nellie. It's what she deserves.

Kira's Wildlife Rescue Set: Gotta haul animals to the center! In a wagon! I thought the animal with it was a quokka at first but it's a baby wombat? I'm bad at animals sometimes. Also we can talkie, but only one talkie. Regardless, I have no reason for this in my life.

Kira's Animal Exam Table: And once the animals are at the center, we gotta weigh 'em, wrap 'em, and poke 'em with sticks next to the computer that makes beep boop sounds. It costs a goodly amount and has a baby koala. I ain't geeked by animal rescue play, so not coming in my house. I'd rather buy city markets for $25 less.

The other seat is for the CYO we're using to be a stand in for Alexis.16

Kira's Comfy Camping Outfit: Chilling in a very comfy outfit. Wow, I like pink paired with yellow quite a bit. I think it's cute and it reminds me of 80s clothes. Another later outfit buy for me.

Kira's Comfy Camping Accessories: Can't fathom the entire tent? Get some sling back chairs, drinks, and a lantern. Oh and a rug. It's cute but do I have a use for it? Can't say I do, to be honest. But now I know what fairy bread is even more.

Finally, a tent! The large death-bite spiders can't get us through netting!17

Kira's Comfy Platform Tent: ...are we getting away from giant ass vans and massive bakeries? Are we doing this? That'd be nice. This one isn't showing the legs or the stairs because AG Seattle had to stick it in a box so people didn't grope the toothpaste in an entire phacochoerine. I love the hanging poster in the back with wildflowers of Oz, so if someone who gets this could scan it in for me that would be super cool. Other than that? I don't know that I need this. I have other things to invest in. Like maybe Dolly play the Pac-Man. Or tiny doll shoes. Or other things. 

This isn't me talking myself out of it, this is me being direct to y'all that I have no use for a doll tent when I can buy clothes and Rainbow High dolls.

For sleepings. Outside of the tent, I didn't see it on the doll.

Kira's Koala PJs: This is the outfit that hopped in the bag. Look, I'm a sucker for decent pajamas, mint green, and cramming doll feet into fuzzy animal shaped heads. These are damn cute. Maybe we'll put them on Kira here. 

Kira's Care for the Earth Tote: Hah, guess what Neth forgot to get a picture of? Next trip to the store. It's a tote bag, it's nine bucks, and with us being in an entire phototonus, the stores won't let you bring them to the store anyways because you might have done some dumb shit like gone to an NYE party because you "have to live your life" while my ass just stays home more often than before and couldn't go see my nearly 90 year old grandma this summer. I am likely to buy this because it's not the $30 of past bags and I can put things in it like yarn and feel neat. 

Good job, Kira B. Enjoy your year.

*~*~* 

Here we are, all trying to get through an entire perpilocutionist together. At least, some of us are, because others are doing their fucking damnest to give us all spiky boi infections by not covering their nose in the mask. Fuck's sake, do you not realize your nose is connected to your lungs or are you just being a loophole ass?! Cover your face up. Don't make me post the "dicks out of underpants" picture. Stop coughing on me.

I'm going to try to make 2021 around here on AG Outsider better than the last two years were. Will I have a blogging schedule? I don't even have a hold on my sleeping schedule. If I fuck it any more than I already have, I'm going to have to introduce it to my husband as my new girlfriend.

And since Anon hates the idea that someone might not be the entire paragon of perfection around particular neuro-impairments that they clearly are, and they're content doing what I can--when my brain hyperfocuses on my writing?--in an hour, let's promise this so I don't get a half a paragraph about how content is owed to anyone for free at the best cases of things, never mind in an entire panatella. 

The only promise I'm going to make is that I'm going to try. Trying is all sometimes I can fucking do with the brains the gods gave me and I haven't been able to get help on because of *waves glove-covered hands outside at all of it.* 

I mean, at least I got to garden this summer.

I'm at least grateful that more people understand than not that I'm not slacking on working on a very detailed post about the doll shit I enjoy because some days it's all I can do to put toast in my mouth before four p.m.

Now let's see if I can remember to eat dinner before midnight. That'd be nice.

--Neth

¹ And frankly? Let's keep it that way. I can't believe I used to just go to the store breathing everyone's breath and having people stand right against my ass in the toy aisle at Target. Stay six feet away from me forever unless I know you and like you. I'm gonna be the new verison of Grandmary. Masks from Sept til May like long underwear. This is the first goddamn summer I wasn't laid up for at least a week with a form of lung slime. 

² Feeding, Financing, or ....Finding time to snuggle me.

³ He's not Catholic and neither am I. We're one "ehhhhh?" and one filthy pagan. 

⁴ A fun game for you! See how many times I use other P words in place of the word "pandemic" in this post. Search for "entire p."Only one use isn't about that. First person to count them all and let me know and I like you might get something nice.

⁵ A not fun game for you! I had someone say that, after I told them to stop deleting the word "disabled" from the wiki and ultimately banned them, that I wasn't disabled enough because I "only" have depression and that's not a physical disability which matters more--and also I should call disabled people "people of accessibility needs" because disabled is too clinical and government. Even though I'm disabled, and practically every person I know that's disabled calls themselves disabled. Fuck outta here. You can also fuck off forever. I'm still angry about that.

⁶ And some tea, but that means using honey and lemon juice and so not flavored teas like I am rocking. We're out of milk today, I can't call my Bae to bring any home because he's sitting on the other side of the living room at work and so can't just cut to the store on the way home because his commute is now "from bedroom to living room" and I'm trying to make Scumbag Brain not bother him more than I need to because it craves that stimulation mineral. And I really like milk tea. I can now make London Fogs at home. We froth the milk with the immersion blender. Someone get me a nice double walled clear mug and I'll show off lattes on Instagram.

⁷ I did do Nano this year, despite it all. Thing is, because I couldn't focus on anything long enough to research any half-planned books I wanted to work on and was in a very messy depression during pre-Nano planning, I went hard in the past paint. I have been working on what I call Indulgent Furry Girl Gang Books that, no cap, I've had one character created since I was seven. I've been been writing the series style books since I was in seventh grade on college ruled notebook paper I stapled together instead of doing useless things through middle and high school like learning pre-calculus and participating in the mandatory journalism class I was made to enroll in. I handwrote and planned and scribbled images of the MC and all her friends. I had--and still have--stacks of notes and notebooks and art and binders about this series. So that's what I did, and I again won. The only straight thing about me is sixteen straight Nano wins. I planned to work on multiple books, but one took over in my work and I got to 80K for the month. Now I just have to do more work on it, including one writer friend helping me by doing a faux-therapy writing session once I can focus again. Hopefully in a week or two.

⁸ Before Covid and After Covid. 

⁹ I plan to add some fashionable masks to her collection. Several. I'm looking at an Etsy for some and making others. Speaking of which, Joss IRL would struggle to deal with everyone being masked up as a lip reader. Poor darling. 

¹⁰ I tried to do $5. It kept scanning in at the register as $10. The gods clearly wanted me to do $10. So I did. 

¹¹ There wasn't a drawing for her, I think. If there was I didn't stand around to look for it. Entire polyphagous. 

¹² More on her customization later. It involves me being an absolute nerdlinger.

¹³ Furries might have been the buttmonkeys of the internet in the bad old days of Early Aughties: Edgelords Rule The Net, but they are a damn fine fandom. They do good, are very creative, are often very open minded about gender and sexuality, and make a concentrated effort to yeet the bigots. Shit, I can't even say that about American Girl. 

¹⁴ AG has been offering those to use while shopping instead of the usual red cloth shopping bags since they started reopening stores in about May to use, so the bags can be thrown away afterwards. Speaking of which, WA State has banned single use plastic bags across the whole state in a show of saving an environments. Damn, gotta keep all my trash liners I've been saving for years inside each other. But because of the entire pickelhaube, it's not liable to be enforced until February at the earliest.  

¹⁵ Speaking of which, I got pics of that and as stated, bought one of the sets. And I have thoughts! But I wanted to finish this post before 11 pm, so set reminder. Hope we actually listen to it, wonkbrains.  

¹⁶ Or are we using a Truly Me? We're using something. Not best friend collections. I must remind you best friends didn't work and specifically tanked hard eleven years ago in the GotY line. Just buy/make a moddie rather than have AG make one for you. 

¹⁷ The large death-bite spiders can totally get us through the netting. Everything in Aussie is trying to kill you.