September & October have rocked me. I got to go to Disneyworld! I had a few first-time rides too. The ones I enjoyed: Remy’s Ratatouille’s Adventure, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and a different ‘version’ of Rise of the Resistance. Did Not Like: Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind felt like what I imagine dying will feel like - stomach-churning, universe-whirling chaos to the blaring absurdity of Gloria Estefan. No offense to Gloria - much love to Gloria. It was just existentially horrifying.

Then went to go see Dana & Greg Newkirk’s Haunted Objects Live tour at Fitzgerald’s in Berwyn, Illinois. I knew it would be a good time but I was actually so surprised how much I loved it. Fitzgerald’s was charming with outdoor firepits, a giant skeleton before walking in, lots of families milling around, and it was kinda cute how the young goth kids had the cheap seats where the older adults had reserved 4-person tables to order snacks and drinks the whole way through.

I don't know how well you can see with the picture above, but Lou stared at me from his glass case of emotions the whole show 😳

I also really want to credit Greg Newkirk for how chill and positive he was. So was Dana 100% but I couldn't see her reactions as well. There were a few times I laughed alone - and not even remotely from a place of mockery; stuff just strikes me as funny - and Greg and Dana could hear me because I was close to the stage. Instead of getting defensive, Greg would smirk, chuckle, or roll with it and improv something that'd crack me up further (the slow-mo lingering on Lou's tongue annointment was hilarious). Fantastic time! 10/10 would go again (and come earlier to enjoy the Fitzgerald's ambience).

The #NoKings protest on October 18 was 🔥. I posted more pics on Mastodon (after spending like an hour trying to find faces and put blue swirlies on them to protect people's identities) (because Wilmette, IL went hard hell yeah girl!). Related: on November 1, I deactivated my instagram account. Mainly because I heard anyone who participated in the protest is getting added to an internal list within Meta. Normally I like lists. And people. But lists of people is a no from me. And honestly, even if this were not true, I was so unsurprised that it was still a reality check. It helps I’m also reading Enshittification by Cory Doctorov, haha. Here's a gift link to the New York Times' full article about this new book (published October 7).

Halloween was magical. At one point I had 2 different groups of kids walking down the streets dancing to Golden ~ Huntrix and I felt like a DJ. Besides our picnicking skeleton (see below), our decorations on Halloween night included a fog machine and a mini projector airing the public domain Disney video Dance of Skeletons.

Lastly, I’ve watched loads of horror movies the past couple months. It’s been fun. The standouts were Sinners and Blink Twice. It might be the recency effect, but I really appreciated the Spanish zombie film Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End too (I really hope a sequel film or TV series follows it).

Library Monster signing off on the fall 2025. The horrors persist y'all but so do we 🖤