I don’t get when a fancy restaurant does it. If it’s not a Cajun boil or similar vibe, please don’t try to make me look polite deconstructing seafood.

Eg, why THE FUCK is Ryan Walters still in office?

Assault is the threat. Battery is the action.

The funny thing is, I probably wouldn’t have had gender surgery if it wasn’t a legal requirement. I barely had anything and could pass topless anyway. I just needed to be able to get a job, which was proving difficult with the non matching ID. It is 100% legal where I live to fire someone for being trans, and it had happened at multiple times by that point.

My current plan has an exclusion, which fucking sucks. I want to get bottom surgery and move across the country so that I don’t have to deal with this shit anymore.

When I had top surgery (getting the fat sucked out of my tits so I could put an “M” on my drivers license, funny how many jobs fell through right I9 verification…), I did a lot of research into what I needed to do to get it covered. I got letters from doctors and therapists, I’d been in hormone therapy for a while, and my policy said it covered it. I checked with a rep, they said yeah, you just pay for it up front and submit for reimbursement.

So I took out a $5500 loan, had surgery, and then attempted to file for reimbursement. Turns out that my specific policy, from my step-dad’s employer had a rider that exempted it. Somewhere buried in the fine print, didn’t come up until after I had taken out the loan.

It’s pretty common for trans people to end up turning to sex work to finance their medical care (and tbh, survival in general). That’s how I joined that statistic.

I like the classic Usenet “Micro$oft.” Producers of Microshaft Wind-blows.

Plastic recycling is a farce to make it appear as a “personal responsibility” issue.

Notice also how the labeling for plastics uses a sign that looks remarkably similar to a recycling logo - whether that specific type of plastic is actually recyclable or not.

It is all a public relation campaign, because fundamentally plastic is unsustainable and harmful. Governments have collectively shat the bed by placing the burden of dealing with plastic on the consumer. (This is very similar to the “carbon footprint” idea - which was a creation of the oil industry.)

I toured the place where my city collects its plastic recycling - the director in charge was very open about the fact that most of it isn’t used and can’t really be used anyway.

[W]e found a loophole. Their systems were programmed in such a way that you didn’t have to receive 10 books, you only had to order 10 books. So we found an obscure book about lichens that they had in their system but was out of stock. We began ordering the one book we wanted and nine copies of the lichen book. They would ship out the book we needed and a note that said, “Sorry, but we’re out of the lichen book.” One of these days we’re going to get all those lichen books dumped onto our front lawn.

Yeah - the condition I have is ARFID. I do see a therapist, but they can’t really “cure” texture aversion. I’ve found adaptations that fit my lifestyle.

I just wanted to share because there are a lot of stigmas around disordered eating - there’s an assumption that “picky” eating is a lack of willpower or a character flaw. Food is such a basic need that our brains can be very strongly wired in incorrect ways.

I got the manager certification a long time ago, and it oddly made it worse. Weird things like being convinced that my refrigerator isn’t consistently keeping temperature or that the plastic in the packaging has holes in it. Texture sets me off and there’s a lot of variation I’m sensitive to.

I can’t get a family sized bag of chips or cereal for example, because I can only eat them the same day I opened the package. I know that there is nothing wrong with them, but the thought of a stale one upsets me. I love apples, but rarely eat them because I don’t want to risk a mushy one. I know a mushy apple or stale chips aren’t “contaminated” but they feel intensely like they are.

It’s frustrating as an adult with ARFID/eating disorders. I can’t bring myself to eat leftovers because I worry that they are contaminated. I’ve thrown away so much food because I won’t reuse a pasta sauce jar if it has been opened.

A lot of the common “easy” meals are things that I absolutely will not eat - spaghetti, canned veggies, ground beef. Sometimes I struggle with eating ramen. It’s fucking embarrassing but I literally cannot help it. I will gag and puke if my brain decides I can’t eat something.

That’s what cliff bars/energy bars/protein shakes are.

Teenager I was traveling with couldn’t figure out how to use the turnstiles at the metro. Random French guy, in English: “you disgust me.”

Also got scammed by an Uber. The Louvre was worth it though, we hated Paris so much we spent the entire day inside the museum.

I have fairly severe social anxiety; when I went to France, the negative response to the French I was able to stutter out ensured I’d never try to speak French again. (I read it fairly well, because Candide was good enough to read ten times)

In high school, I had an assignment to go to a local Chinese restaurant and order in Chinese. The response to my “我要broccoli 牛肉” was so enthusiastic that I still do a set of Chinese flash cards everyday.

There has to be a motivating force for you to learn something. Whether that is social approval/encouragement, needing to be able to ask for certain things… Some people can be motivated by an intrinsic love of learning things, but for most I think this is confined to specific topics.

For language, I think you need a show that you want to watch, a space you can navigate by only using that language, something that gives you meaningful feedback and places to go that a grade simply doesn’t.

People who don’t use gay hook apps simply do not understand. You can hop on and find nothing but “straight” men, or blank profiles which are most assuredly married “straight” men. It can be frustrating if you are looking for a relationship/human beings who are okay with themselves.

We just need a black hat slutty queer to record themselves taking it from Mr. Couchfucker or some sufficiently big name Senator. It’s bound to happen eventually.

In this video, she’s using a nice chunky yarn, so it’s easier to see.

The good thing with blankets is that the size is whatever you want it to be. Just stop making your chain when you get one dimension right, and then finish with whatever row makes you happy. A single skein of the cheap SuperSaver/RedHeart can make ~8 sq. feet of area - a nice 2’ x 4’ baby blanket is a good size for a beginner. Blankets are also very forgiving of fuck-ups - which in crochet is usually forgetting a count (as a stoner, this is usually why I knit)

Single crochet is a stitch type. Crochet is about making chains, and then doing different stitches back into the chain. Single crochet is the most basic stitch. (There’s also double/triple/half-double, but these mean different things depending on where you are from).

The Woobles are a little pricey, but having that kind of cute project and video help can be a good motivator. I think starting with amigurumi can still be a little ambitious though. I’d suggest starting with a blanket of single crochets to get comfortable with the hook - all you need is the right size hook and yarn. No need to spend more than $6 at Walmart or Dollar Tree.

Because CNN was bought out to destroy its journalism. Same thing that happened to Twitter - they’re buying up all sources of information so that they can control the narrative.

Some of Ben Garrison’s drawings of Trump would make Tom of Finland blush.