Aurora Dimitre's Books and Rambling

So I've decided to give up on Book Wall Shrinkage 2020.  I mean, I'm still planning on not buying books online for the foreseeable future (apart from when I need to go and buy some more warrior cat books, because I'm still working my way through those), but I filmed a wrap-up to the big long fun video that I'd started, and I'll be editing that today. So instead of being The First Part in a Huge Series Where I Get Rid of The Book Wall it will be A Failed Experiment: Book Wall Shrinkage 2020 .  Don't know why I'm telling you about it now, it'll be a long-ass time before it goes up. But yeah, I've decided I'm giving up on that. I'm still trying to shrink the book wall, and I'm still going to be posting BW Updates on twitter at the beginning of every month, but I was doing that long before I started the project. And you know--four months of me trying is four months where I didn't buy an inordinate amount of books, which I'm counting a...

So my Kindle came yesterday. I know, I know--Aurora, you've got 945 unread physical books sitting on the floor of your bedroom, why the fuck are you adding eBooks there? Why are you adding another way to read books when you have so many already, and, furthermore, you had a Kindle when you were younger and hated it because you liked real books better, so why the hell did you buy another one?  So, pretty much every night ends with us on the pull-out couch. I have a bed, but it's more like, a twin mattress on the floor, so the pull-out couch in the living room in front of the TV is better. And the living room doesn't have a ceiling light. It doesn't. And we don't have any lamps. We do have a string of LED lights above the TV, but even at the white setting that's not quite enough to read by. So I've been spending a lot of fucking time on my phone. "Well, Aurora!" you might be saying. "If you want to read books, just download the Kindle app o...

So I've been done at Pizza Corner for a week. Apart from the obvious intense lessening in activity that expresses itself in my body being sure it's not done moving yet when I'm trying to get to sleep, making it pretty difficult to get to sleep, and the lack of getting two or three dollars in my pocket at the end of every day, I don't miss it. It's nice to not have to go every day, and it's funny--going in the front, now, to pick up pizza, it smells like it used to, before I worked there. School starts August 19th. I haven't been in my classroom yet. I should go. I don't know, though. The first day after I was done at Pizza Corner, I was full of so much... I don't even know, but I read the entire Harry Wong "First Few Days of School" book, so there was that. I worked through and got all the American Board stuff figured out so I can get certified. And now... I don't know. I don't know? I should be more prepared, but I'm real...

I've been in the post office more than often lately; before this month, the last time I was inside was last fall, when I went into go buy stamps. This was before I realized that you could just, you know, order them on the internet, thus giving the USPS more money when you pay to have them shipped to you. But lately I've been having to send out these big manilla envelopes of things; fingerprints to ESPB so they can background check me, and a title correction to a guy because he traded a car to his friend who sold it to me who promptly fucked the title up, so now I get to mail a guy in Park Rapids I've never met some paperwork that hopefully he signs and sends back in the pre-addressed&stamped envelope I also stuck in there, because otherwise I'm fucked. Each time it's been a line. Yesterday I was there right when they opened back up after lunch; I decided to walk down, and so I just managed to catch them right when their lunch started, so I wandered around. Sli...

Well, it's my 23rd birthday today. 22 was... a weird one. It was my first year moved out, supporting myself; it started out with me determined to power through as a 9-1-1 dispatcher (which lasted... a month and a half of 22), and ended with me working at a local pizza place. It's my last day there today. 22 I got my first real boyfriend (90s Jacob, you only semi-count), and he moved in. 22 I self-published something I've been writing and rewriting since about 14, and 22 I bought two cars, total. 22 was not bad. The thing about being incredibly shy throughout your formative  years is that, once you get over that bullshit, every year gets better. I'm looking forward to new things at 23: I'm going to start teaching this fall? Say hello to your new high school English teacher, kids. I'm self-publishing two books: October 13th is Serial Killers with Cookies and February 13th is Circus Wings .  I'm going to continue dating Steven if I have anything to ...

I have two shifts left at the pizza place I've been working at for the last near-ten months (an easy way to remember how long I've been working there: two months in, I started dating Steven), and while I am just absolutely jazzed to be not working there anymore... I'm gonna miss people. Oh, don't get me wrong: it's been crazy fucking busy, apart from last night, which was crazy fucking not busy, and it's a harsh whiplash from 'no dine-ins' to 'dine-ins are okay again but we get maybe three groups a night' to 'uh-oh, we're out of seating, this hasn't happened since Customer Appreciation Month.' But I do really enjoy my coworkers. Last week, most of them went to go take a picture with an old employee who is currently not doing great health-wise, and we all got a copy with our checks this week. I wasn't in the picture--I had a lot of 'prepare-for-rest-of-life' stuff going on that day, and I couldn't make it. So no...

Author's Note: Very very very old one. This is one of the first ones I wrote, and I ended up really digging it, but it's just languished on my hard drive since. Way longer than most of mine, but it's... I think it's a fun one. Reminder that if you dig my writing, I've got an Amazon author page for longer works and a ko-fi if you're just feeling like being nice. 

I got a new car yesterday. By new, I mean, 2004, which is to be completely honest, the newest car I've ever had, but either way--it's new to me. The title's still sitting next to me because I need to figure out how the DMV is operating nowadays, so I'm sitting here waiting for it to reasonably be open so I can call down there and see if I can just go in, or if I need to make an appointment, or what the fuck is going on here--either way, goodbye Grand Marquis. My new car is a fucking monster . I used to drive a Ford Explorer, that was my first car and despite his issues, I loved him. Sure, half of the doors didn't open and the AC didn't work, but I loved him. Now I am the proud owner of a Ford Expedition , aka, 'The Big Explorer.' My Boy had two rows of seats, this one has three. Gas mileage is horrendous but my god, after driving a Grand Marquis for eight months, it is so nice to be big on the road again. This is him--the Big Boy.  Why I swappe...

I posted this on Twitter the other day, but I did add a back-cover kind of summary to Goodreads  for the next book I have coming out, Serial Killers with Cookies -- Justine Hoffman's parents are dead, and it was cookies that killed them. Yeah, she knows that sounds like the plot of a kitschy cozy mystery, but it's true: two young women showed up on their doorstep the night they moved into a new town with a plate of cookies and Justine was the only survivor, thanks to her gluten intolerance. Now she's living in small-town North Dakota with her grandparents, hoping that she can at least try to have a normal year. But when a boy she goes on one date gets kidnapped, Justine's going to have to confront this. On her side? Adam Ford, who is as small-town North Dakota as you can possibly get, and Lisa McDaniel, who dresses like it's 1957 and listens to music like it's 1999... and maybe someone on the inside, too. So that's where we're at with that. We'r...