From the river to the sea, palestine will be free.

Fat Horse No. 4

It’s the year of the horse and I’ve always been a horse girl at heart, so I’m finally taking advantage of the excuse to fill the world with fat little horses! These felted friends are about the size (and shape!) of an apple, and if you happen to have any apples to share I’m sure they’d help you out!

If you have EDS and feel like your symptoms don’t “stay in one lane” — you’re not imagining it.

Many women with hypermobile EDS also experience:

• POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) • MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome)

These three conditions commonly travel together.

But why?

Here’s the simplified explanation:

EDS affects connective tissue — and connective tissue exists everywhere, including:

• Blood vessels • The autonomic nervous system • The gut • The immune system

When connective tissue is lax:

❤Blood vessels may not constrict properly and nerves become dysfunctional  → leading to POTS symptoms like dizziness, tachycardia, and fatigue.

Mast cells (immune cells involved in allergic responses) may become dysregulated → leading to MCAS symptoms like flushing, hives, GI upset, reactions to foods, medications, heat, or stress.

The result?

A body that feels unpredictable.

Rapid heart rate. Food sensitivities. Joint instability. Fatigue. Brain fog.

These aren’t separate problems. They’re often connected.

And understanding that connection changes treatment.

Instead of treating symptoms in isolation, we stabilize joints, support the autonomic system, and calm mast cell triggers — together.

If you’ve been told “that’s unrelated,” save this post.

Well. First of all. Nobody owes you a list of their chronic conditions. But that comment did make me stop and think about the way I talk about my Long COVID. I realized that when I describe those two years I was down for the count, I use the term "Long COVID," but when I talk about the time after that, I say "MCAS." I've always had MCAS, and when I got COVID in late December 2019 my (theretofore undiagnosed) MCAS went absolutely FERAL.

To be honest, from the research I did at the time (with my body so fucked up, there wasn't much to do between doctors appointments besides researching and fanfic-writing) I wonder how many of what we call Long Covid cases today are actually MCAS cases caused by COVID (...assuming that's even a distinction worth making).

"An observational study conducted by Weinstock et al. [21] shows that patients with long COVID-19 have virtually identical mast cell activation symptoms and severity as previously diagnosed MCAS patients without long COVID-19." [Immunological dysfunction and mast cell activation syndrome in long COVID]

Anyway. I'm curious how many other people say "MCAS" or similar multisystemic diseases rather than "Long COVID."

please don't go.

If you’ll all pardon my Americentrism for a moment, the amount, visibility, and flamboyance of Pride merch available in clothing, home goods, and comestibles stores is a DIRECT reflection of how safe it is to be queer in public in the United States.

How? Simple. Out groups aren’t profitable. If you’re not “acceptable” in the current social climate, big franchise businesses will not market to you. (Prime example - Look how quickly Target dropped all their Pride merch after having been wall-to-wall rainbows every June for almost a decade prior.)

Sure, capitalism sucks and being viewed as an exploitable marketing demographic isn’t a fun concept.

HOWEVER.

The grim truth is that being normalized enough to be considered profitable by corporations IS A GOOD THING in terms of the barometer of social acceptance.

Same thing goes for smaller businesses that throw kitschy Pride events or even just put a token rainbow flag in the window or somewhere inside the shop. That’s a level of acceptance that DID NOT EXIST thirty years ago, and I can tell you because I was there.

The fact that we can scoff and bitch about being an exploitable marketing demographic nowadays means we have made GIGANTIC strides since the 1990s. It also speaks to the fact that the drive and the conversation surrounding LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance are continuing. And getting louder.

You can be cynical about it if you want. But I will take a store that puts out lip-service rainbow merch over a world that pretends we don’t exist any day of the week. Because that will always mean something.