I talk sometimes

Male and female brains aren’t wired differently

“I want to live”

Yeah, heres the thing, yeah I’m an addict, but that’s literally no excuse to expose others to it.

The ONLY time I smoke at a cross walk, or any other public area is when I’m alone.

If I’m near people (more specifically, friends or a group of people I’m talking with) I stand downwind, I blow my smoke, downwind, I respect other people right to not get lung cancer.

If kids are able to see me, but not close enough to get exposed to smoke, I hide that shit, I’m not trying to make kids think it’s cool.

If a kid is close enough to get exp to smoke, that shit it get put out and hidden.

If I’m out in a public place (with no one around, as stated above) guess where I put the cigarette butt when I’m done with it (and theres no butt can) in my pocket, I dont want to litter or expose animals to the toxins that are in a used cigarette butt.

If I can put forth the minimal effort to not expose people to my cancer sticks, so can every other smoker.

Dont be a dick.

OH WOW THIS IS BEAUTIFUL 

Video shows Maryland cops REPEATEDLY pepper spray 15-year-old honor roll student.

5 ft 105 lbs girl, whose name has not been officially released yet, was brutalized by Hagerstown police after she on her bike was hit by a car, but refused medical assistance. 

Her family’s attorney says that when police arrived, they grabbed the little girl, lifted her hands above her head and slammed her face into a wall.

“They slammed her against a wall, arrested her for refusing treatment, maced her 4 times in the police car while handcuffed, and took her to the police station instead of the hospital.”

She was put in the car, which is when a bystander began filming the incident. The video shows the 15-year-old with her hands handcuffed behind her back kicking at the police car door and later a cop is heard saying: “Put your feet in, or you’re going to get sprayed!” Officer proceeds to pepper spray her a few times. 

The girl can be heard screaming: “I can’t breathe!”

The girl was only taken to hospital when she was released to her parents. 

Three hours after being pepper sprayed she was finally able to wash her eyes.

She is now charged with disorderly conduct, two counts of second-degree assault, possession of marijuana and failure to obey a traffic device.

#BlackLivesMatter    #StopPoliceViolence

(Please don’t repost or edit my work. Reblogs are always appreciated)

Many wealthy countries—particularly Western, white-dominated ones—treat Southeast Asia as their playground and dumping ground, then have the nerve to blame Southeast Asian countries for the poverty and pollution they helped create. These countries—which enrich themselves by devastating Southeast Asia through war and colonization, and by exploiting its labor and resources—have the capacity to process contaminated plastic waste, but because it’s expensive, they instead export the burden to Southeast Asia, which has far less means.

They’re just like the begpacker, who has the capacity to fund their trip with their own money but instead chooses to leverage their white privilege and exploit the kindness of Southeast Asian locals, and ends up draining rather than boosting the economy for the sake of personal “adventure.”

They’re just like the sweatshop-owning corporation, who has the capacity to pay a living wage and provide safe working conditions but instead chooses to exploit and abuse Southeast Asian labor because turning a profit is more important than valuing Asian lives.

They’re just like the sexpat, who has the capacity to pursue a romantic partner who is a peer but instead chooses to prey on desperate or even trafficked or underaged Southeast Asian victims because they expect no consequences for their depraved and violent behavior, and usually receive none.

These are only recent examples of the ongoing colonization of Southeast Asia. Southeast Asians around the world have long been regulated to positions of service/servitude such as maids, nannies, and nurses. We’re expected to clean up privileged people’s trash because we are seen as trash.

So when we talk about climate change, it’s not enough to call it a crisis—it’s a climate apartheid. We’re not all suffering equally and that’s by design. Southeast Asia and other countries who are majority Brown or Black are being hit first and worst thanks to white/waste supremacy.

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to Patreon or donate to Paypal. I recently lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent.

https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304

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The PTA moms in attendance do not respond. In some of their faces I can see the same desperation. Their teeth bared, eyes too bright, too wide.  We exchange looks, the companionship of animals caught in the same trap.  Others don’t seem to notice.  They were always this way.

The men, caught up in their own little social swirl, mostly associate with one another, but now and then I see a strained look, a back a little too tight, the hard knot of jaw muscles clenching, laughs just a little too hearty to be real. The trapped among them suffer, too.  Differently, but no less horribly.

Rachel has pulled a large knife from my Pioneer Woman knife block.  Its factory edge is a little dull with use, but the plastic handle still a vivid and cheerful blue.  Rachel has triplets; her arms are very strong.  I know she will stab deep.

“Please,” I cough.  I know she hears, I know she understands.  The Game is about to start. I can’t do this again.

She raises it. For a moment my heart leaps, I dare to hope, then she passes me.  “I saw this neat video on how to slice an avocado,” she says, pulling one from the thrifted vintage glass bowl I stenciled my children’s names onto after a sleepless night spent funneling Pinterest directly into my eye sockets as my husband slept beside me, unaware.  She garnishes the guacamole with fresh slices, her movements displaying the expert precision of someone who was taught with pain.  “I’m sorry,” she murmurs.  “I tried.”

I pat her shoulder in sympathy and forgiveness and move on.  I try to exclaim happily when my heavily-pregnant friend Karen talks about her impending gender reveal party, complete with “Guns or Glitter?” cake, but it’s more of a sad moan. The blade of the gender binary cuts so deep.  I feel bad for her, really.  She never knew the freedom of pronouns.  Never knew the elation as the status quo, the good and God-ordained order of things, the English language itself, crumbling under the onslaught of the singular “they”.

Her words remind me, though, of the gendered marketing that segregates my day and I suddenly feel a crushing pressure in my ribs.  I steal a moment to take my pink Lady Bic pen out of the drawer with the chalkboard label reading “this + that” and make a note on the grocery list. We need more girl Doritos and princess-themed goldfish crackers for the girls’ lunch boxes, and my husband is almost out of Dude Wipes and Bearglove.  The compulsion eases.  I sigh in relief.

Melissa, a hungry-looking size 10 brazen in her “Real Women Have Curves!” shirt, compliments the shabby chic washboard hanging over the sink, the one with the elegant script writing.  I had tried so hard, so, so hard, to form the shapes that would unbind me from this hellish existence, but all that came out was “Bless this Mess”.  I don’t even believe in God anymore; at least, not His power.  If He exists, He too is powerless before the grinding fist of heteronormativity.

I manage to retreat into my craft room, away from talk of the Homeowner’s Association’s tribunal coming up.  The Carsons put up a rainbow wind sock last weekend, and the Nextdoor.com post about it is already over 1,000 notes long.  The HOA had to take action.  They’re talking about a straight pride parade to bring the community together again after so divisive an act.

My craft room, my haven, is so much smaller than my husband’s man-cave, but it’s big enough for my Cricut machine, and there’s a small table where I shoot photos for my organizing and homemaking mommy blog, the one I had to start to end the nightmares.  I sit among my washi tape and scrapbooking papers, heart as empty as my mason jars.  The small things I make in here are beautiful, and the work of my hands is creative and clever, but it no longer satisfies me.  It’s not genuine anymore.

For ten years I have floundered in this soft-focus bokeh heterosexual hell, ever since the cursed post came across my dash, the 20,000-likes-strong spell that ruined my life.  February 4, 2018.  Six months to the day before my marriage to Brad.

My former life is ruined. I don’t know where my girlfriend went.  My last glimpse of her was in the sporting goods aisle at Wal-Mart, a pair of pink camo-print boots in her strong, scarred hands and a look of indescribable horror in her eyes.  I love her so much, still.  I can’t even remember her name.  I would trade every crafting supply I own, every scrap of burlap, every button, every bead, for one more night, one more hour, with her.

I open the small cupboard beneath the cutting mat table. In it is a shrine, festooned with icons I have painstakingly assembled and painted.  Reproductions of every good luck post I could find. The tip toad, Roger the magical good luck fish, Joe Biden eating ice cream, the devious doggie of destiny, the bagel with its sacred tongue of flame, double luck double banana, the lucky cat with coins on its belly, the endless “money” animal memes – cats, dogs, fish, monkeys, alligators, enough to fill out a full tarot deck – even a desperate slapdash Pepe, the rarest, its arcane energy jabbing through the rest like a rank smell in an otherwise immaculately landscaped garden.  But he was not always a symbol of evil and his power is undeniable, so I added him to the rest.

I pull out my craft knife and cut my finger, and I let three drops of blood fall on the strongest icon of them all. One I created myself, from my heart.  It is the image of Freddie Mercury astride a unicorn, a shooting star falling into his open hand.

Simcoe (left) and Citra (right), both girls. Both rescues. Both biological litter mates (sisters). Both long term loving projects to teach human trust to.

Simcoe got 100% of the meowing capabilities.

Women fought to not have to wear multiple layers of petticoats in the summer, and so a new “crinoline” (technically, a crinoline is an underskirt made of stiff horsehair) was invented, the “cage crinoline” (think hoop skirt) which became dangerous in its own right as women burned to death, became caught in machinery, and were otherwise harmed by the very design meant to be helpful.

Women fought to get rid of restrictive corsetry, inventing “emancipation waists,” (basically a sort of fitted undershirt), Union suits (yep, originally for women but quickly adopted by men), and even the “healthy” S line corset (healthy because it didn’t constrict the ribs. Sadly, like the cage crinoline, it was adopted by high fashion and became a tool of tightlacing.)

Women fought to have more comfortable clothing. Look up the aesthetic dress movement, and the earlier dress reform movement.

Women fought and fought to have swimming suits in which we could actually swim. Once we wore full dresses made of wool to go ocean bathing. Only slowly did the hemlines rise. Pants were added, then the shape became more streamlined. Women were arrested for public indecency. Still, they persisted.

Women fought to have appropriate garments to go cycling in or to ride a horse astride. Women fought and continue to fight to be allowed to attend school in comfortable clothing. I’ve said this before, but when I was a girl, I was required to wear a skirt unless the temperature stayed below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. I was not permitted to wear pants under my skirt, instead wearing woolen tights which itched and would pull down, requiring me to concentrate on keeping my clothing in order as well as my schoolwork.