Dreams and Money

I couldn't sleep last night so I read the latest Sirenia Digest, which didn't help me sleep but was pretty good. It contains a new short story from Caitlin R. Kiernan called "Terra Mater (Dissolve)". In her prolegomenon, Caitlin includes a quote from herself in which she talks about the stories for the digest being "dreamlike". The new story fits that bill especially well, consisting of two women voyaging through some kind of dark underworld. The sense of living myth mixes well with Caitlin's talent for credible dialogue.

Like a lot of people lately, particularly writers and artists, Caitlin has been struggling financially. If you've enjoyed her work, or hope to some day in the future when you get a chance to read it, I recommend visiting her GoFundMe and donating.

The year's not been kind to me financially so far, either. By the way, if you ever decide to cancel your subscription to Amazon Prime, be prepared to put in some labour and creative thinking. I had two Amazon Prime subscriptions, one for American Amazon Prime and one for Japanese Amazon Prime. Japanese Amazon Prime is much cheaper, only about five dollars a month, and I can order products from all over the world on it. So there was no point in me paying 149 dollars a year for the American version. I went to the subscription page and clicked the end subscription button and the note on it changed to say my subscription would end on April 18. I thought it was settled. But about a week later I found I still had that subscription and I'd been charged 149 dollars. A little quick googling turned up this article which reveals the FTC claims Amazon Prime has been actively sabotaging customer attempts to cancel their subscriptions.

I went back to my subscription page and tried to cancel again and discovered Amazon is willing to refund me the money it charged me against my wishes on the 18th. It's supposed to take three to five days to come through for some reason. We'll see if they're good as their word this time. Does it seem to you various services are getting more and more crooked?