do you even know who I am?? because i don't

Bitter sarcasm aside, I'm gonna go ahead and risk sounding a little paranoid here:

I want to show people what food/financial assistance forms have been asking since trump was elected. They've refined the questions now -at the beginning of 2025 the first question was "Do you use any pronouns?"[sic]- and I feel like that's worse, since at the beginning at least it let you know immediately who was asking and why. The way it sounds friendly and supportive now is even more sinister.

I cannot stress enough that these questions were not asked before 2025. The first time I renewed since they went into effect was over the phone, so I was able to ask point blank why they needed to know, and was told that it was now required by the government -so no, this isn't just a liberal state trying to be more inclusive. There isn't and never was a legitimate need to know this information in order to provide benefits. This is solely to keep track of queer people. I'd also like to point out that they are required to list your assigned sex, and you cannot edit that field. So even if I listed myself as boy/man without stating that I'm trans, it would out me, and that's the intention. There's also a huge detailed list of race and ethnicity options now that really do everything to try to get hyper specific answers out of you, including if you're jewish and what kind (I'd recommend not answering any of that either, btw)

They also waited until the forms were fully filled out and being submitted before informing me (in a footnote) that sexual orientation is protected on a state level but not federal. Not just gender identity, orientation.

The absolute mildest ramifications of collecting this data could be the administration using it to claim that queer people are disproportionately draining government resources and add more fuel to our persecution. The fine print states that this info can all be requested and accessed by various government agencies for several purposes including making arrests. I'm begging all of you to refuse to answer any demographic questions you can on forms like this, no matter how tempting or validating it seems to have such detailed options to acknowledge your identity, because it is purely a trap. The government DOES NOT need to know how you identify, and there is no plausible benefit to telling them.

Every single detail in this picture is so important for me to capture all the little things I imagine Max misses from his childhood.

The chickens roaming in the backyard. He probably loved to feed and interact with them, each one of them had a name and one of them was his favourite.

The floral drapes hanging to dry. His mom used to decorate the tables with them every time they had guests over for lunch/dinner.

The metal tub. His mom always did their laundry in it. It's same she used to bathe him in.

The large tree. He used to love sitting under the shade during hot summer days, playing with his toys or doing his homework.

The old wooden shed. His dad had all sort of little projects stored in there. Max still remember the smell of oil and sawdust.

odysseus and diomedes would be terrible coworkers. the office mean girls who hate their jobs, are overqualified, and only like each other