Personal Digest Saturday: January 16 – January 22

Life news this week: 

• Saturday wasn't very eventful; I was just kinda cleaning up some stuff I hadn't paid attention to during the week and whining to my friend Ronni through e-mail. I had a bunch of pictures to process and it was tiring.
  
• Sunday was . . . MY THIRTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY! I had a nice day, honestly--it was super lovely. I woke up when I wanted to, huddled under my Garnet blanket watching cartoons, and went out to lunch with my dad at Macaroni Grill. Then I did more huddling and cartooning until Mom came over with a birthday cake! And presents! I got new galoshes. Pink ones! We ate the cake and hung out talking about media and stuff. And I got phone calls from friends and family to say happy birthday. Such a nice day!
  
• Monday I went to work (yes, I had to work on MLK Day), and our new employee Deborah was starting officially. She seems really low-key and nice, so that's a relief. (Getting a new employee is a big deal because my office is TINY. We had four people, including me, before she started.) In the evening I dove into editing my friend Heather's book, which is why I did not read a published book this week--I was working on this.
  
• Tuesday was Meggie's fortieth birthday! I got her a Disney gift certificate she can use next time she goes to the parks. While grocery shopping I ran into an old high school friend who told me she heard me mentioned on a podcast a while back. It was Sex Nerd Sandra, with whom I'm marginally familiar because she was considered for a review copy of my book when it was first coming out. We chatted a little and I went home, proceeding with more editing, and helping my mom with a roommate ad.
  
• Also on Tuesday, I got my royalty check for the next six months of book sales, and that's always niiiiice.
  
• Wednesday was Jeaux Day. We ate at WTFBurger and had pizza and went comic book shopping, and at home we watched Galavant and ate cake. And after he left I finished reading Heather's book.
  
• Thursday I sent my book feedback out to Heather. She's going to be a big deal soon, I think. I spent the evening talking to my friend Victor on the phone and drawing my comic.
  
• Friday was rainy and I got to try my new galoshes. The good news is they kept my feet dry. The bad news is my rain suit doesn't do as good a job as the galoshes. I had to sit around wet at work all day which was gross. Mom came over after work for help with her phone and camera, and to give me a late birthday present--a cool CD I didn't have. Anyway I got the comic done and that was that.

New reviews of my book:

• Thousands of X's has a little run-through of what they think of my book so far, and it's not very nice, but oh well. I think it's kinda funny that they say stuff like "It consists of blog posts rewritten to form a book, and you can definitely tell," and . . . that's not even close to what it is or how it was written, but to each their own, right? But part of the reason I think it's funny is that they say you "can tell" something that isn't true, but then they recommend Asexuality Archive--who literally DID take blog posts and make them a book, and states explicitly that that's what he did. Heh. A lot of what they say seems to directly contradict what other people say about it, but to be honest I'm really glad the community is not an echo chamber and people don't feel obligated to review it glowingly.
  
• Ermisenda Alvarez gave it four stars on Goodreads, and there's no real review except that they specify that they actually mean 3.5.

Places featured:

• The Sex Nerd Sandra podcast I didn't know about until I was told I was mentioned on it (though I was not discussed extensively, but my book came up in a conversation about how some folks came out to their parents): "Sex Nerd Sandra #192: Asexuality 101."
  
• Over the Rainbow: I'm on the list for 2016 made by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association (ALA).
  
• A Tumblr post I wrote about fear of sex was listed on The Asexual Agenda's linkspam this week.
  
• Asexuality in a Sexual World recommended my materials for educating oneself. (Though the blogger refers to me as "SwankyIvy," which is a misspelling of my YouTube name.)

Reading progress:

• Completed reading: Age of Gramen by my friend Heather, beta-reading. :)
• Currently reading: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams.

New singing performances:

Here I'm singing "Justified and Ancient" by The KLF.

 

New drawings:

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0558: "Sharing the Victory."

New videos:

None.

New photos: 

Got a bunch of mail on my birthday!
Turned out only one of them was a gift though.

My birthday cake, made by Mommy!

Me on my 38th birthday.

New pink galoshes: gift from Mommy!

The new employee at the office gave me candy!

My royalty check came in!

Social Media counts: 

YouTube subscribers: 5,259 for swankivy (6 new), 549 for JulieSondra (1 new). Twitter followers: 735 for swankivy (7 new), 1,200 for JulieSondra (lost 6, lol). Facebook: 285 friends (no change) and 188 followers (3 new) for swankivy, 629 likes for JulieSondra (1 new), 55 likes for Negative One (no change), 119 likes for So You Write (2 new). Tumblr followers: 2,315 (4 new). Instagram followers: 49 (10 new).