Category / About Me

by Lexine

The Toronto Trip, Pt. 4 – “Falling For Niagara”

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

Part 3 here

On November 1st, I ventured out to a region that only the locals knew and was mostly free from tourists. On November 2nd, I would venture out to one of the biggest tourist traps in Canada that everyone and their grandparents knew: Niagara Falls!

This was one of the places I HAD to go to if I were to visit Toronto. And I couldn’t have picked a better day to go: the weather was clear, and I needed some major eye bleach after the mess that was Game 7 of that World Series from yesterday. Photo dump time!

Fall colors blooming at a nearby park
View of the Rainbow International Bridge that connects Canada to the US.

I was a bit tempted to cross that bridge step into New York state for the first time. But with border crossing comes the modern-day Gestapo border patrol, and with the last name and skin tone I have, some of those officers may see me as a target.

Another images of the Falls
Fall colors by the Falls!

A friend of mine who had visited Niagara Falls told me to stay in the area past sunset, as the falls do a “light show” at night. She didn’t lie!

The Falls shortly after sunset (with a near full moon in the sky)
Another view of the Falls at night
Rainbow falls!
A rainbow and a moon

What my friend didn’t tell me about Niagara, however, was this gaudy but intriguing strip right by the falls: Clifton Hill.

One view of Clifton Hill
Another view of Clifton Hill
If the gift shops by the Falls doesn’t rob you of your money, the casinos by the falls will.
A catch-and-release find at a local souvenir shop.
The Sky Wheel, part of the fun attractions found at Clifton Hill
View of Clifton Hill and beyond, from atop the Sky Wheel

I guess if one gets bored by the falls, they can always escape to the flashy lights, the casinos, and the uber-large Ferris wheel found at Clifton Hill. Not pictured are the miniature golf course and the go-kart speedway. I was a bit tempted to go go-kart racing, but I drive a shit-ton (whether for work or play) to begin with, so I watched a race instead. All I took part of was the Sky Wheel, as you can see. $15 CAD (or around $11 USD) to ride five cycles on the wheel. 

A little pro-tip: if you’re going souvenir shopping at the Falls, do so at one of those discount gift shops at Clifton Hill instead. I saw some shot glasses at a gift shop by the Falls and they were at least $9 CAD. The glasses I bought at Clifton Hill were only $2-$3 CAD.  

Loved my time there! Another trip I can now cross off my bucket list.

I got one more part left to my Toronto trip. Stay tuned…

by Lexine

A Holiday/End Of Year Sale!

Happy Holidays! 🎄🎁🌟

Now through January 1, 2026, get a copy of my eBook The Playgirl for half-off its original sale price! Far cheaper than a tiny cup of Starbucks coffee, and a lot more ethical as you’re supporting an independent artist with no corporate ties at all! Did I mention my work is also 100% free of A.I.? And racists and transphobes need not bother with my book; they’ll hate the hero. *hint-hint*

This sale is exclusive to Smashwords–nowhere else!

Click here for your copy…

by Lexine

The Toronto Trip, Pt. 3 (Halloween, Apples, and Baseball)

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

One nice thing about my birthday trips is that I get to celebrate two consecutive holidays: my birthday and Halloween! While I expected a place like Toronto to be full of Halloween activities, there was one event I looked forward to: Halloween On Church. 

It sounded similar to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval (an event I’ve gone to in the past), which meant I HAD to go to this. It had also been years since I’ve had some actual Halloween fun. Last year, my Halloween plans in Vegas had to be dropped, but for a good reason. This year, I made up for it. 

I thought about posting this on my Bluesky the day before Halloween, hinting at what my costume would be this year. But I had also brought another costume with me and mulled over which look to choose. In the end, Lily from Duolingo won. 

I had a purple wig, some purple clothes, a Duo plushie (albeit an imperfect one), and I nailed down her unamused look (though you can’t tell, I know). I also had four people compliment my costume, which I’ll take as a win because I rarely get compliments over my costumes! 

Now, for some really great costumes I saw at the event…

Someone dressed as mutant tic-tacs.
Another Tic-Tac costume!
A Borat sighting!
These masked party-goers
A guy in a blond wig holding a cutout sign that says “Coldplay Kiss Cam”
Doodlebob sighting!
The Smurfs
It’s Britney, bitch!
A fascist bitch
Dinosaurs roaming Toronto
Two cows and a pink shark
This person covered in crows…I think there’s a film reference to this?

However, Marge Simpson here wins it for the night!

This still has me in stitches. 

A barbershop/salon called Ho’s Place
A snippet of the crowd (it was HUGE!)
A damsel on the balcony

Though smaller than WeHo’s Halloween Carnaval (which encompasses one mile of Santa Monica Blvd compared to, oh, the half-mile party on Church Street), HoC gives WeHo competition with its eccentric costumes, festive atmosphere, and it being in Canada where (for the time being) people don’t have to worry about their human rights being violated or the costs of their health insurance. (I low-keyed envied all the locals because of those things!) 

The costumes weren’t the only things I had my eye on that day, however…

Continue reading →

by Lexine

The Toronto Trip, Pt 2 (The Birthday)

Part 1 here

As it has been every time I went on vacation, I post about it weeks after I finished my travels. Not the first time I’ve been late. Time for a photo dump of the day I turned 41, complete with my typical babble.

It had to rain on my party! Though it was cloudy when I took these pics from my rental condo, it would rain later in the day and into the night. Couple heavy rain with temps no hotter than the mid-40s (or at 7 Celsius since we’re in Canada) and you got me noping out on going out entire day. Which…actually worked fine for me. I have a birthday tradition where I choose not to go anywhere, whether I’m at home or on vacation. Last thing I want on my born day is for it to be ruined by stuff out of my control (traffic, people being pricks, etc.); at least when I stay home, most of the time, I can control my environment.

There’s no better food to have on a rainy day than sweets! Sugar-free sweets, in my case. What you see in the pics came from a sugar-free/Keto bakery called Yoona’s Kitchen in north Toronto. You may find this hard to believe, but this is the first birthday cake I’ve had since going low-carb. Cake is still something I’ve yet to bake, so I allowed them to bake it, complete with the Happy Birthday message (and my real name, which is why I had to censor that out). It’s carrot cake (my favorite cake flavor of them all), and it was muy delicioso! Those other sweets you see also came from Yoona’s. No, I didn’t eat them all that day. My favorite among them were the mini turtle cheesecake and nutella cupcake (the two sweets on the bottom right corner in the first pic).

My other birthday tradition that I started last year is watching birthday episodes of my favorite shows.

The End Credits version of Lisa’s birthday song with that sax solo still slaps to this day!

My birthday was the last full day at my lakeshore condo rental, and I made sure I enjoyed the rest of the amenities before I had to check out the next day.

If every birthday would involve staying home, admiring lovely city & lake views from my home, eating all the sweets I want & watching my favorite shows, and then have some pool-and-hot-tub time at night, that would be ideal!

I originally intended to post my Halloween here, but that will be in the next installment. Part 3 coming soon!

by Lexine

My Birthday Trip So Far

One of my long-time birthday traditions is staying home on my born day, whether I’m at home or vacationing somewhere. It’s currently showering here in Toronto *sobs*, and going out in the rain always blows, so it’s probably a good time to recap my birthday trip so far before I go back on the road tomorrow.

View of South San Francisco from my BART ride to SFO

View of San Francisco and Marin County from my plane ascending.

View of Lake Tahoe from my plane.

I don’t go fly that often, and I found myself looking out from my window seat during most of my plane ride instead of watching movies via the in-flight entertainment. I also finished up a chapter of my latest work-in-progress after stalling on it for days.

A sunset view from when the flight crossed the Canadian border. 

Touching down in Toronto!

Coming from Trumpistan, this was a welcome sight to see. 

Had a steak and poutine (omg carbs!) dinner at a place called Jack’s, courtesy of my auntie who picked me up from the airport. I’ve always wanted to try true poutine, and you may find this hard to believe, but I didn’t finish all that in one sitting. The steak stuffed me up.

Continue reading →

by Lexine

Forty-One

Hi, I’m Lexine, and I turn 41 today. Feeling fab (despite Toronto weather raining on my born day) and I know I look good. No filler (why bother) but I got some sugar-free birthday sweets (courtesy of Yoona’s Kitchen)! It’s also the first time having a low-carb birthday cake (I’ve yet to make one for myself), and it’s tastyyyyyy. 😋 (It’s also partially censored because my real name is on it.) 

And just like last year, I’m still not yet ready to show the rest of my face! 😜

by Lexine

Happy National Coming Out Day!

I originally saw this prose on Tumblr years ago, and despite it being so good, I have no idea why I didn’t bookmark or download/screenshot the text. It’s a good thing I was able to find it again, although I found it on one of the cesspits of social media. And while its message is 13 years old, it also remains relevant.

Also, it’s been 19 years since I came out as Bi. No social media posts, no party, not even another person in the room when, in the summer of 2006, I fully came to terms with who I was then (and still am). Not everyone who knows me in real life knows that I’m Bi, but that’s OK. That’s what Coming Out Day is all about: come out if/when you’re truly ready.

by Lexine

A Passport Saga

My 1st ever adult passport. Guess how long I had to wait for it? 

Confession: I never had an adult passport until this year. I know I had one as a child since I remember taking trips to Canada, South Korea, and the Philippines then. As an adult, all my trips have been domestic, with only one trip done by flight, and I flew way before the Real ID requirement. While adult me has wanted to take international trips, they were never within my budget, and so I never bothered to get a passport. Until this year, and it’s not just for travel needs (I have plans on taking a birthday trip to Vancouver). As a Bi woman of color with a look and skin tone that may make “Border Patrol” curious, I felt like having a passport would also give me some peace of mind, whether to prove citizenship or to get TF outta here if I need to. Along with cuts to federal agencies thanks to evil broligarchs, I couldn’t have picked a worser year to apply for my first-ever passport! 😵‍💫

*Appointment Date: 5/12/2025*

Since my birthday is at the end of October, I had plenty of time to get myself a passport. I applied for Routine processing, booked my appointment in advance (I refused to take a chance with walk-ins), and had all the necessary documents and the $160 money order.  A pro-tip: if you need a birth certificate, it’s better to go to the office of vital records of the county you were born in and buy one (or multiple copies, if allowed) there instead of having it mailed to you from the state, if you can. It’s cheaper, no notary service necessary, and you get your birth certificate on the spot. I happen to live 40 minutes from the county I was born in, though I wish I knew this before I applied to get my birth certificate in the mail way back in February this year. (It arrived in the mail in late April; a two-month wait is typical.) I just went to the city hall of my birth county to get more copies, as I needed another one for my Real ID application. 

Anyway, back to my passport appointment: I had it at my local post office, and some crotchety old guy looked over my papers and also took my passport photos. We had to do a few takes because the first few photos came out blurry. There’s more on this that I’ll share later. The guy told me to visit travel.state.gov three weeks after my appointment to check the status of my passport application, which would be early June. 

So, early June arrived, and I checked the status of my application. I got this:

webpage of the US passport application status that reads: Not Available

(Note: this isn’t my pic, but the message was the same. *source*)

I didn’t sweat it. I had well over four months before my planned trip to Canada, and I also opted for Routine processing, so I figured I would see an update by the six-week mark at the soonest. That six-week mark was end of June, and here’s what I saw then:

webpage of the US passport application status that reads: Not Available

Same message. OK. I’m still within the 6-8 week processing timeframe. Maybe in the 7th week I’d get an update? 

It didn’t help that I was reading other people’s passport stories on Reddit and this site. Some, if not many, were getting theirs on time, if not sooner than me, and they too also applied for their 1st adult passport and used Routine service. When the 8-week mark arrived in mid-July, I found myself checking the status every day. And, I shit you not, I got the same “not available” status message every damn time. I checked to see if my money order got cashed (it did, a week after my appointment). I went to my local post office to see if my application got sent in (it was, to some office in Irving, Texas). I even contacted the offices of my local congressman to help me out (they tried but couldn’t). 

Though my travel plans were still over three months away, I began to fret. Did my application get lost? Or was it received but the agency is being lazy in processing it? Why didn’t I apply for a passport two years ago? 

Continue reading →

by Lexine

Happy Birthday, Playgirl

My 1st eBook…in your two years of existence, you’ve gone through now four different covers, a slew of freebie giveaways just to get you out there, and I still await your first written review on that jungle site that I really shouldn’t be doing business with anymore. (Last time I checked, all my reviews on that site were all star ratings–no written review just yet.) I’m currently working on a baby sister for you *hint hint*, but I never forget my first-borns. Here’s to you on your special born day, Playgirl!  🥳🥂

And if you want to celebrate, go and give her a read today on any of these sites. She’s also on sale (till end of this month), exclusively at Smashwords! 

by Lexine

I Miss

— Physicians for a Healthy Democracy (@physiciandemocracy.medsky.social) 2025-07-07T15:32:20.925Z

I miss the days where I can live my life without worrying if my gender, sexual orientation, or/and skin color would make me a prime target for the modern-day Gestapo (even if I was born in the States). 

I miss having a proper, competent government at the federal level, where their social media posts were not written by 4Chan exiles. 

I miss having a competent Supreme Court that didn’t bow down to oligarchs. (Just three judges siding with democracy ain’t enough!) 

I miss the days when politics were boring and not “BREAKING NEWS” every damn day.

I miss knowing a time when the US was not associated with concentration camps.

I miss the days when Nazi/fascism shit was a vile thing to do, and you’d only catch glimpses of it being parodied on shows like South Park. 

I miss satire being satire and not an actual New York Times headline. 

I miss mainstream media being factual, objective, unbiased, boring, and informative. I think it was before Faux News arrived. 

I also miss news channels not being 24-7. I’m old enough to remember CNN not being all news all the time, and when they aired other programs, like Style With Elsa Klensch. 

I miss seeing people feeling genuine shame when they fucked up. 

I miss the Biden days. And the Obama days. And the Clinton days. And, dare I say it, the W. Bush days. As much as I still loathe W. Bush, things were quite bad then, but not as catastrophically bad as it is now. The person that throws shoes at Putin’s puppet will be considered an international hero. 

I miss the days when the US was one of the places people sought refuge in after fleeing from the violence in their native land. Now, the States is becoming one of those violent countries!

I miss escapism. I’ll get back to that soon. 

I miss destressing at the beach. Crowds, work, and other things are keeping me away from them at the moment. 

*pops a Werthers* 

I miss the days when young girls bought their makeup/skincare at the drugstores and not at Sephora because TikTok told them to go get their makeup/skincare at Sephora. I think I should be glad I grew up with Seventeen magazine (which hyped brands like Cover Girl and Neutrogena to us teens in the 90s) instead of social media. I also grew up in a town where we didn’t have a Sephora or Ulta, and that makeup at Macy’s (which we had) was “for old ladies”. 

I miss life before social media. Blogging here is my tie to the pre-SM days, since blogging existed before SM blew up. Also, I tend to write a lot, and you can only fit so many characters in a SM post. 

I miss pop culture before 2008. I don’t think pop culture really died in 2009, but it started getting mid when the 2010s arrived. I blame that fake AF family. 

I miss it when “celebrity” meant an entertainer or public figure who got famous through talent & hard work and sustained it all over the years, and not some who-dat who has a bunch of social media followers and blew up after one of their TikToks went viral. “Famous influencer”? “TikTok celebrity”?? I don’t know them and get off my lawn. 

I miss craftsmanship in fashion. Some of the outfits I see on fashion runways these days would make Yves Saint Laurent spin in his grave. 

I miss riot grrl rock, new jack swing R&B, and socially conscious messages in mainstream music. 

I miss being a cat mom. Even if I wasn’t thinking about fleeing the country, the rules in my apartment only permit service animals. *pouts* 

I kinda miss hash browns. There’s no low-carb equivalent for it! 

I will not miss the times I’m currently stuck in. I aim to be a survivor of these times, however.