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Hey y'all, it's Bandcamp Friday again, that wondrous semi-monthly holiday when Bandcamp waives its fees so more money goes to the artists. A lovely day to check out music from me or any of the other fine musicians you can find there!
Willa LaLonde. Watertown, New York. Quirky Gen X transfemme, making music for the weird and the weird-curious
Willa LaLonde (willalalonde.bandcamp.com)
I just released my first song of 2026 over on Bandcamp. This one was inspired by listening to a lot of K-pop/J-pop, and a desire to see how many voice banks I could corral into one song. It tells the story of a girl band that goes hiking in the woods, finds a spaceship, and decides to take it to Mars to party. As one does. 
Road Trip to Mars by Willa LaLonde, released 28 January 2026 Road Trip to Mars (Yi Wei) We packed our bags, laces tight, the sun was bright Trails winding up the hills, hearts light Turn a corner, what's this in the sky? A rocket stands tall, ready to fly (Ayame, Eri) Do we dare, do we dare? Step inside, catch the air? Countdown starts, the engines roar Adventure waits, we want more (Solaria, Mai, Etta) Road trip to Mars, dancing past the stars Pink dust on our shoes, forget the scars Rocket fuel hearts, glitter in our veins On Mars we party, no earthly chains (Eri) Touchdown, who knew itโd be pink? (Ayame) Martian skies make us stop and think (Eri) Craters wide, lights neon bright (Ayame) We own this galaxy tonight (Nyl) Here on Mars, we got LCARS, we got Pon Farr, 400 megaklicks from our star (Yi Wei, Mai) Dreams and queens and flying machines (Nyl) Gravity ainโt for me we can bounce in point four gees (Eri) Akai suna Fune ga poton to Donchan-sawagi [translation: red sand the ship goes plop raucous party] (Solaria, Mai, Etta, Yi Wei, Mo Xu โ with ad libs by Ayame, Eri) Road trip to Mars, dancing past the stars Pink dust on our shoes, forget the scars Rocket fuel hearts, glitter in our veins On Mars we party, no earthly chains (Eri, plus crowd) Pink sand Girl band Got a whole new world in our hands Time dilation Party elation Here on Mars on a permanent vacation (Nyl) We came for a hike, but we stayed the night Pink Mars, bright stars, everything feels right (Solaria, Mai, Etta, Yi Wei, Mo Xu, Ayame, Eri) Road trip to Mars!
Willa LaLonde (willalalonde.bandcamp.com)
Winter often fills me with an oppressive sense of doom, as nature, which is one of my best friends for the other 3/4 of the year, is now just continually trying to kill me. 
Hey, it's Bandcamp Friday!
And sure, you could go listen to my music there (link in my profile), but you already know about me, so here's some of the albums I've bought from other artists that you might want to check out:
๐๐ฆ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐๐ถ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ต๐บ by Strange New Places
https://strangenewplaces.bandcamp.com/album/second-puberty
๐๐ณ๐ข๐ฏ๐ด๐จ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐๐ต๐ณ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ต ๐๐ฆ๐จ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฅ: ๐๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ฏ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ญ๐ฐ๐จ๐บ (๐๐ด๐ด๐ช๐จ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ช๐ญ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ ๐๐ต ๐๐ช๐ณ๐ต๐ฉ) by Left at London
https://leftatlondon.bandcamp.com/album/transgender-street-legend-the-acab-anthology-assigned-compilation-at-birth
๐๐ฉ๐ฆ/๐๐ฆ๐ณ/๐๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด by She/Her/Hers
https://sheherhers.bandcamp.com/album/she-her-hers
๐๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ ๐๐ข๐ญ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ ๐๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฐ ๐๐ช๐ณ๐ญ by Katie Dey
https://katiedey.bandcamp.com/album/never-falter-hero-girl
Wishing y'all a warm International Day of Persons with Disabilities:
The International Day of Disabled Persons aims to promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society and development.
United Nations (www.un.org)
I made it through the weekend alive, and am now in recovery mode. 
I am sooo disheartened that this is my second weekend of 12-hour shifts this month, ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ I have to go in at noon today. I want to be in a festive mood, but my heart's just not in it.
I'm just trying to hold on to the fact that I basically have all next week off to recover. But I have to make it through the ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ธ to get to the ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฏ.
So they've finally emailed me back, and want to meet with me the next time I work, which is tomorrow (Friday).
So, you know, I'm not freaking out about that at all. /s
So, no email back. No one said anything when I went in to work. Nothing but crickets. ๐ฆ
My best guess is either:
1) They're doing the ol' "Let's pretend this doesn't exist and hope the problem goes away on its own."
2) Or they're trying to figure out how to respond, probably to tell me to just deal with it but in some way that won't get them in ADA-based trouble.
I mean, I guess could also be optimistic and say they're just scrambling to get people to cover all the extra shifts they planned to dump on me. 
I'm a "casual" employee at the hospital where I work, which basically means part-time with no benefits. I specifically applied for this sort of position because I can't do full time. 20 hours a week is about my speed, and that's what I told them (and what they agreed to) during the job interview.
For the first week of November they scheduled me for 6 out of 7 days, a 56 hour work week. I assumed it was an isolated incident and didn't complain at the time, although I was so burnt out by the end I needed multiple days to recover. The new schedule is out, and they've scheduled me for the same thing the last week of the month (6 out of 7 days, 56 hours). 
So I spent much of this afternoon carefully crafting and sending an email about my concerns with the scheduling, and how this was not sustainable for me. I tried to emphasize how much I appreciated the job and enjoyed the work when scheduled within my capabilities, but also carefully explained how my capabilities are not the same as the next person's and why I need reduced hours.
Self advocacy does not come easy to me. No matter how careful I am with my words, I'm afraid they're going to take it the wrong way, because I don't really understand how allistic people think. Maybe they're just going to get pissed off at me for doing it in an email rather than in person, but I tried to explain why that was, too. But who knows how they'll take it.
Best case scenario they email me back about how they're adjusting the schedule to accommodate me. But I'm afraid they're just going to wait until my next work day (Tuesday) and want to talk to me in person and accuse me of wanting special treatment and tell me I just have to live with it.
And then what?
Psst... wanna hear a scary story?
I have today off, but then I have to work the next 6 out of 7 days at the hospital, starting with two 12-hour days this weekend. 
Remember me fondly...
You may recall that I sporadically make and release music. Well, I just released the latest song that I've been working on, an ode to neurodivergent love, over on Bandcamp:
Quirky by Willa LaLonde, released 27 October 2025 (๐๐๐ก๐๐๐๐) When all I hear is static and I can't seem to gather my magic I wanna crawl under covers and make a blanket fort my home. But then you pull a corner aside to ask me if it's fine to join me and hide we're so cozy side by side there's something I gotta ask you: We could get married on a train or in a patch of lilacs or in the rain or we could just stay home and watch the T V and I would do it all again cuz life's a multiplayer sandbox game. Your eyes are the only eyes I see say forever you'll be quirky with me. Will you? (๐โ๐๐๐๐) Well... We're better together than when we're away Whether penguin pebbling or parallel play I'll infodump to you and you can infodump to me. But if we both run out of spoons we'll pile on the plushies and go hide in our room. We're so cozy yes, it's true there's something I gotta tell you: We could get married on a train or in a patch of lilacs or in the rain or we could just stay home and watch the T V And I would do it all again cuz life's a multiplayer sandbox game. Your eyes are the only eyes I see say forever you'll be quirky (๐๐๐ก๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐โ๐๐๐๐) and we can be ourselves and take all the masks off from the bedroom to the forest in the light or in the dark. We could get married on a train or in a patch of lilacs or in the rain or we could just stay home and watch the T V And I would do it all again cuz life's a multiplayer sandbox game. Your eyes are the only eyes I see say forever you'll be quirky with me.
Willa LaLonde (willalalonde.bandcamp.com)
#music #FediMusic #BedroomPop #indietronica #ActuallyAustistic #NeurodivergentMusic
It's Tune Tuesday, and it looks like the theme is Wide Open Spaces. So I give you "The Stars" by Steam Powered Giraffe:
Sunday would have been my mom's 78th birthday. She's been gone 4 ยฝ years now, but she was one of my best friends and I'll always miss her. 
So now that I can post pictures again I have to get back into the swing of it, because I can't just post what I was originally going to post on Monday because those were specific pics for hashtag moth Monday and hashtag mushroom Monday and my brain won't let me post them today because it's not the right day and it just wouldn't be right.
๐ง 
@risa I was considering doing something like that, like posting on my old tech.lgbt account and boosting it or some such. But there's a limit to the amount of complications I can deal with right now
Well, I've been unable to post pictures here since the weekend. Scrolling my feed is painful, as every image just shows up as "Preview not available/Click to open" which I can click to open in a different tab but then I have to navigate back to my feed every time...
As you may have noticed, 90% of my communication here is image-based. So these have been a very stressful few days.
I'm not blaming the instance admins, as they're dealing with a difficult situation with the media server, but for my own mental health I'm seriously considering migrating to a new server.
It's another weekend of 12-hour shifts at the hospital. 
Is it a drone shot of an alien planet, or is it a closeup of one of the benches at the local high school athletic field? 
Been working midnight shifts at the hospital these last few days, but I am irrevocably a morning girl and I am sooooooo tired 
Tonight's my last midnight shift before getting a blessed day off. But after that it's time for my monthly weekend of 12-hour shifts. 