a few months ago my friend called me and told me she was moving back up near me from 7 hours south in the middle of nowhere and asked if i would help her because she couldnβt move the furniture by herself and the town was so small there was no moving company (there were actually only 5 or six businesses in the whole town including both restaurants) and she had no one else down there to ask.Β
And even though money is pretty tight for her, she told me I could name my price if I would help her, because it was so far away.
I told her she was a dummy for thinking i would take her money but that i would accept the traditional helping-a-friend-move price: a meal (i know she would feel wrong about herself if she didnβt do something for me in return, thatβs just how she is) Tradition suggests pizza and beer, we opted for enchiladas and a margarita.
we crashed on the floor of the empty place and left back north in the morning - when we got back to the city three more friends met us at her storage place (the place she was moving into wouldnβt be vacant for a couple months) and we started to move all her stuff up to a storage room on the THIRD FLOOR (because large city storage places be like that)
we had just taken the first box out of the truck when the (only) lady working there walked by and told us they closed in an hour and twenty minutes, and she couldnβt stay even a little late because she had to get to her other job.
One hour twenty minutes. To completely un-jenga a large uhaul and re-tetris it back into a similar sized room on the third floor.
We all just, shared a look, took off hoodies, and got the fuck down to business.Β
It was actually.. I still cherish look we passed around. The tiny eyebrow quirks and chin nods. The eye glints. The bigger breath we each took as we prepared to kick it up several gears. That moment of wordless connection, when we all just silently agreed that we were damn well going to do the impossible and didnβt even waste the time it would take to say anything, just got to it.
And we did it too. Finished with exactly two full minutes to spare. And then we all went for dinner and drinks to celebrate. And my friendβs friends that came to help? Two of them were acquaintances/friends of mine already. Like I lived with one for a year a decade ago sort of thing. But this experience? Brought us all closer. Made myself a new friend too.
And the friend i helped move? She and I are closer than ever because of it.
When i left our storage success diner to go home, she asked me again if I was sure i wouldnβt take any money.
I saidΒ βI ever tell you when I was 22 I went down to Hollywood to try that scene out? Anyway ten months later, when I just couldnβt do it anymore, and needed to come back, I called one of my best friends and said i canβt do this anymore i need to come back.
You know what he said? He said: Iβll be there tomorrow. Not how much will you pay me, not what do i get out of it, not will you be able to cover my gas, just: Iβll be there tomorrow. Okay? Youβre my friend. If you need help, Iβm going to be thereβ
If helping someone move ruins your friendship, youβre doing at least one of those two things very wrong.
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Don't feel bad, OP. Experimental replication and blind testing are important to scientific research. By publishing your findings, you have provided valuable input to the field. π«‘
Thereβs a certain folkloric idea that if you die at sea, your soul is sort of. Inextricably stuck in the sea. Because your body is irretrievable, your soul is also irretrievable, down out of the reach of the gods who look at the surface of the world. In Norse mythology, they said that the souls of sailors who died at sea are caught in the sea-goddess RΓ‘nβs net and dragged into her domain, a distinct and separate afterlife alongside Hel and Valhalla. Davy Jones Locker. The funayΕ«rei. A lot of cultures agree that once sea has a hold on you, even when your body has rotted and dwindled and been made food for crabs, it still wonβt let you go.
Do you think weβre going to wind up saying the same thing about astronauts.
This is something Iβve been dying to talk about.
Thereβs something called culture. People (especially USAmericans) think of culture as cultural dress, cultural food, cultural music. These are culture, but they are only the very superficial aspects of it. Like the icing on your cake. Far more deep rooted is the more meaty bits of culture: the attitudes, the ideas, the taboos.
Thereβs a guy on tiktok who has done a series that shows this very well, of Germans Vs Irish. In one video the German offers the Irish person two kinds of tea, green or black. The Irish person keeps putting off the choice with things like βOh sure whatever is easiestβ, βWhich have you more of?β and, βAh sure I donβt want to cause a fussβ whereas the German just wants a straight answer. This is a cultural difference of politeness.
Here in the UK, accents mark your class very openly. They let everyone know where youβre from (though this has become less pronounced in the last 50 years,) and what your background is. A lot of people (especially northerners, but also a fair contingent of working class southerners) face discrimination on the basis of their accents.
Some of us (myself included) even change register (though I believe USAmericans call it code switching) in and out of our regional accent and a close approximation of RP. We learn to do it because it makes us seem more intelligent (even though it shouldnβt) and helps us be taken more seriously.
Thus, our country carries a lot of baggage when it comes to accents. Especially those of the working class who have had their accents made fun of, or have faced discrimination based on it.
So when someone outside the country (usually USAmericans) makes fun of our accents theyβre stepping on a lot of cultural taboos and boundaries. Especially because the βItβs Chewsday, gonnae wot-ch sum yewchube innitβ is a working class accent.
Now, thatβs not to say we canβt take a joke, but this is the kind of joke you share with someone who you have been friends with for a while. My boyfriend often will pick up on the way I say certain words, in much the same fashion I pick up on his idiosyncrasies of speech (English isnβt his first language so he says stuff like close the lights, which is adorable.) If we arenβt predisposed to liking you, then the joke youβre trying to make is more like an insult.
The way I like to think of it is if you were in a pub, and made those sorts of jokes to someone. If they knew you, and they liked you, theyβd probably laugh along. If they didnβt like you or know you, they would punch you in the jaw.
HOWEVER: I recognise this post as a joke. I donβt personally find these jokes offensive, but then no one really makes fun of me or considers me stupid because of my accent.
Oh that actually makes a lot of sense! Itβs like how itβs assumed in media that the southeastern Appalachian (βhickβ or βredneckβ) accent is audible shorthand for βthis American character is stupid.β That sentiment reinforces negative stereotypes about that region which has historically been home to a large working class population that has suffered from an underfunded education system and other systematic abuses. It is ultimately an underhanded joke, but not everyone from America (or even the region necessarily) considers it to be offensive despite its classist nature.
yes, thatβs basically it! it grinds my gears when certain Very Online Americans will quite rightly say that europeans have no right to mock the usβ lack of healthcare/gun control and working-class accentsβ¦but then turn around and act like working-class british accents and foods are hilarious and should be mocked βbc of colonialism and the bp oil spillβ as though all british people are directly responsible for the oil spill. and then some of them conveniently forget that there are in fact british people of colour - in the wake of brexit, a smug american blog defended saying that british people upset by the referendum were getting βkarmaβ for the british empire, even when british poc pointed out that they were the ones most likely to be negatively affected by brexit, by saying βobviously i donβt mean youβ, to which said british poc responded βTHEN WHY DID YOU SAY BRITISH PEOPLEβ
The hatred, by the privileged of England, towards Scotland and any Scottish accent was so pervasive that my mother wouldnβt let my brother and I develop a Scottish accent. She was born in Jamaica but her family moved to London when she was 11. She moved to Scotland when she was pregnant with me. Both my brother and I were born in Scotland and spent out entire childhood there. Mum was adamant that neither of us would have the local accent. It was βcommonβ and βlow classβ and βwould hinder us in the futureβ. She used to fine us half our pocket money if we used any Scottish slang or said anything in a Scottish accent. I got bullied at school for having a βposh English accentβ but she thought my job prospects were more important than a modicum of happiness at school. My outsider status was doubled by that. I was brown and βEnglishβ.
Even now, after decades in Scotland, I still donβt sound Scottish. The English hear a slight lilt but that disappears as soon as I spend any time with them.
I feel alienated on two fronts now, skin colour and accent. And one of those was avoidable if it hadnβt been for the prejudice against against perceived lower class accents. Even in Jamaica Mum learnt to speak in an English accent like the white girls at her school. She could switch between the two. Jamaican with her parents, posh English everywhere else. Why couldnβt I have had that?
The fact that a lot of regional actors are expected to code-switch their accent patterns the a kind of neutral English accent in Britain shows how pervasive the classism is.
When Christopher Eccleston was cast as the Doctor in Doctor Who, people were surprised that he used his own northern accent, instead of performing with an accent like every Doctor before him. That was only 15-ish years ago.
Even now, this still happens - James McAvoy made a very vocal protest a couple of years back about a critic who complained about the use of Scots accents and only applauded the βplummy Englishβ accent of one character in a play.
Regional and working class accents were used as joke accents for decades in British media. Look up old broadcasts and notice how many people only speak RP English (ie. the formal pronunciation that smacks of elocution lessons and enunciation). As media accessibility and productions expanded, there have been more regional accents showing up, but itβs still a big problem.
I would like to add that there was a study by the Worcester College that found that people talking with a Birmingham accent were twice as likely to be accused of a crime as people who speak RP. Accents carry huge baggage in Britain.
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"Asexual people are often assumed to βlackβ attraction. But in reality, many report rich and varied forms of attraction that donβt map neatly onto sexual desire.
So instead of asking βhow does attraction work?,β we asked:
What do people actually mean when they say they feel attracted to someone?"
"Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data, we identified and validates seven different forms of attraction:
intellectual
aesthetic
emotional
platonic
sensual
romantic
sexual
These arenβt just theoretical distinctions. Statistically, they show up as separate but related dimensionsβmeaning people really do experience attraction in multiple, distinguishable ways."
"Our findings demonstrate that both asexual and non-asexual experience multifaceted forms of attraction.
Put differently, the seven forms of attraction our study identifies are not βace-specificβ categoriesβtheyβre general features of human attraction. But starting from an asexual lens helped us see those features more clearly."
"If you only measure sexual attraction, you miss a huge part of how people relate to each other. And thatβs true whether youβre working with asexual people or not."
it bothers me when someone brings up misogyny in shounen anime and people shrug it off with "its designed for teenage boys, what can you expect." like well. idk i think its actually pretty important that shows for teenage boys are normal about women. i mean i think all media should be normal about women but teenagers are impressionable i think we could put a little bit of feminism in the teenage boy shows. it might do some good. you never know.
Rewatching Truman Show for the first time in a long time, and the detail thatβs stuck with me this time is the set design.
The characters drive modern cars and hock modern products, but itβs all presented with a veneer of 1950s wholesome applecheeked Americana. Trumanβs life is presented as an escape for the audience from the drudgery of the modern day, and the aesthetic theyβve chosen for this is the post-war economic boom. This is the simple time, the movie says. This is the good time. Doesnβt the modern day suck? Letβs go back and see our friends from the days when life was good.
And itβs a lie. Trumanβs life is a lie, and the image of white picket fenced suburbia theyβve presented is a lie. Itβs an elaborate construction to recreate a false memory thatβs comfortable for advertisers. The movie is a satire, but itβs also a very blatant statement against the nostalgia for a golden age which never existed. Itβs a lie. It doesnβt exist.
I donβt know. Iβm spitballing. Iβm biased because I despise mid-20th century Americana and I naturally treat it with hostility, but itβs very gratifying to see a movie kind of agree with me.
Earlier in the summer, I went to Florida with my friend. We decided to visit a town nearish to where we were staying called Seaside, as we had heard it was a cute place. What I did not know at the time was that Seaside is the place where they filmed The Truman Show. It was a "master-planned community," constructed in the 80s to be the perfect beach town.
Seaside, FL
Seahaven
And yes, it really does look Like That. Not just in their tourist-agency photos, in real life it looks like that. Arguably the irl Seaside is even prettier than movie Seahaven, because the the office buildings where Truman works don't exist; the town is 100% cutesy homes and little shops.
Every single house is pastel with white trim and a white picket fence with the family's name on it in a handwritten font. The streets are paved with red bricks and lined with palmettos, and families bicycle past. The streets are clean, the lawns manicured, the sidewalks pristine.
Soon after we arrive my friend says as we walk, "God I wish I could live in a place like this. Imagine having the money to live in a place like this." I reply, "I don't actually know for me...it's gorgeous don't get me wrong, but there's no grime, you know? Where's the grime? I'd feel uncomfortable. It feels like there's not a dive bar for a hundred miles."
We reach the town center, which is a wide square lined with shops on one side, food trucks on the other. We have a lovely time looking through the shops, though I start feeling kinda weird, and I'm not sure why. Probably the extreme cleanliness of the area is making me feel off-kilter. And the surreal feeling of walking through areas I recognize from The Truman Show only adds to the weirdness.
We go into a clothing store, and it's crowded with people who appear to have stepped out of a Land's End catalog. It sells boring tshirts, shorts, and sundresses in whites and blues, all needlessly expensive. Employees walk through, refolding already-pristine shirts. So perfect. "Anyone buying from here is so rich they can probably smell the poor on us," my friend jokes, "that's why they have so many employees refolding things, it's to fix anything we brush against." "Or even breathe on!" I add.
We continue on to the grocery store where, in the movie, Truman finds Marlon stocking the vending machine and first tells him he suspects his world is wrong. I buy some pasta salad there to eat for lunch (all the cafes are quite expensive), and we find a place to sit and eat. As my friend finishes up her food, I write a postcard to my sister, telling her about my trip overall and my day in Seaside, describing the town as 'vomit-inducingly picturesque.' (It has been weeks since my visit and she still has not received that postcard)
Lunch done, we decide to walk down to the beach and have a swim. And I realize something about the surreal feeling. "Weird question," I say to my friend, "have you seen any non-white people here? Am I imagining that?"
She pauses. "The lady cleaning the bathrooms?" she asks.
"No I mean vacationers. Guests, customers. Other than you, I haven't seen a single one who wasn't white."
"...No. I haven't either."
And now that we see it, we can't unsee it. It's a wealthy area, so I had been expecting it to be pretty white, but the fact that there is not a single nonwhite person who isn't working a service job feels so gross. It's as though the place is somehow still segregated, like we have stepped back in time, but not to the fun, fake, rock-n-roll-and-soda-parlor-nostalgia version of the fifties, but to the real racism-and-repression fifties.
It is so fucking weird and sinister. I feel I have stumbled into another realm. All these people giving us sideeye, riding around on their golf carts in their pristine $45 seaside-branded tshirts, taking pictures of the perfect houses all lined up in perfect rows. A whole town of Meryls wearing lulu lemon.
We walk on. It's hot, and a swim is exactly what we need. Surely they can't ruin the ocean. I myself am extremely excited to swim, because now that we've spent a few hours among the pompous populace, I want to piss in their perfect ocean more than anything in the world.
We walk along behind the beachfront bar patios that line the beach toward the access point, and the ocean looks so blue and inviting. Although the hedge growing between us and the dunes is strangely tall. "Huh," I think. "It's weird that they'd grow it like this, it blocks the view for everyone sitting on the patios."
We arrive at the boardwalk, and there is a man standing there. He says "Hold on! Do you two have a beach access pass?" I look at him in disbelief. It's a public beach, but the sign behind the man says you have to rent a beach chair to use the beach, and it's $35 per person. We glance at each other, turn wordlessly, and head back to town.
I seriously consider trying to sneak onto the beach somehow, because at this point I am very invested in the idea of pissing in their ocean, but I realize that with the tall hedge it would be nigh-impossible.
We went home after that.
So many reviews for Seaside on travel websites mention how they love to visit Seaside because they feel transported, they feel it reflects a "simpler time" or a "peaceful life." It's been weeks and I can't stop thinking about my experience. It really drove home how...complicit people can be in their own ignorance. A lot of people want to live in that perfect bubble, and especially if they have the money, they can maintain that barrier. It reminds me that part of the reason I often have trouble persuading these types of people is because they simply do not want to be persuaded. They're so proud to be the place where The Truman Show was filmed, but I rather doubt they really think about what it means that they live on a movie set, in a surreal dream.
Honestly visiting Seaside was a 10/10 unique experience. I would highly recommend it as a place to go for a couple hours if you're gonna be nearby and want to feel like you've been kidnapped into The Truman Show and/or your brain has been put in an easy bake oven. It's like a zoo for superrich WASPS. We had a really good time loudly making fun of how insane it all was, invading their little paradise with our riffraff energy. Treat it like an excursion into the jungle; you're gonna have to park a half mile away minimum, and bring all your food and water with you so you don't have to buy anything. You don't want to give them any money. They have enough.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, next time I go to the panhandle, I will be going to the nearest free public beach access to Seaside, and I will walk to the Seaside area of the beach, and I will piss in their ocean.
watching my husband get diagnosed with and treated for sleep apnea over the last year was not the thing that radicalized me re: weight and healthcare but my goodness it has solidified my stances.
sleep apnea is more common in people who are fat.
society decided for some reason that this meant that being fat causes sleep apnea. its often difficult to get referrals for sleep apnea treatment if you are fat, because some PCPs will tell you try losing weight first.
turns out!! having untreated sleep apnea causes weight gain in a not-insignificant number of people. it also makes it fucking impossible for many people to lose weight.
my husband worked out the same amount before he got a cpap as he does now. there have been no major diet changes either. yet he has been losing weight -- and gaining muscle tone -- consistently since he started using a cpap in january.
also, his blood pressure -- which was high, which docs blamed on his weight/diet -- went down significantly within one month of starting cpap treatment, before his weight changed significantly.
ANYWAYS. this is getting long. two final thoughts.
- I Want To Strangle Medical Fatphobia With My Bare Fucking Hands
- if you are exhausted constantly for "no reason", and especially if you snore, you should probably ask your doctor about getting tested for sleep apnea. it is extremely common -- estimates are around 1 in 10 people -- and is also wildly under-diagnosed. like, some estimates suggest that 80% of people with moderate-severe sleep apnea are undiagnosed.
βThings were never like this under Varevesenaβ is such an important line coming from one of Varenechibel's assassins. Especially with the clarification that the guy wouldn't have even been born when Varevesena was in charge.
Like throughout The Goblin Emperor, Maia's struggle in getting the court to accept him has been framed as him being the opposite of his father.
Varenechibel was sexist, Maia actively supports his sisters' right to choose her husband (or lack thereof) and study the stars.
Varenechibel was a racist (even towards his own wife), Maia is mixed race and seeks a closer relationship with Barizhan.
Varenechibel was incredibly traditional, Maia is scandalously progressive.
But over the course of the book, there are some hints that things weren't so black and white.
Don't get me wrong, Varenechibel was still a bastard, but it's significant that the Wisdom Bridge (which promises greater job opportunities and freedom for the peasantry, while diminishing the power held by nobility in the area) was his βcloud-fancyβ before it was Maia's.
It's significant that he seems to have been the first emperor ever to marry (let alone have a child with) a non-elvish woman.
It's significant that he was apparently starting to look into ways to improve the lot of poor factory workers, even if his reforms were minor.
Like the big reveal of the book is that the supposedly conservative icon Varenechibel wasn't murdered by the Cetho Worker's League or agents of his progressive nephew.
The people who actually carried out his murder were a group of radical communists, yes, but the people who funded the plot and arranged for everything to happen?
They were a right wing faction of courtiers, who were pissed off that Varenechibel wasn't conservative enough.
Like the message of the Goblin Emperor is that there's literally no point in trying to bend your politics to try and please the people who want to go back to the Good Old Days, because you literally can't please them.
They're not expressing a specific political ideology, they're just hearkening back to an ideal world that likely never existed.
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Some people in asylums in the 50s were crazy. Some of them were psychotic, screaming at things nobody else could see. Some of them were aggressive, kicking and punching and biting without provocation. Some of them were a danger to themselves. Hell, some of them were a danger to others. And they were people. They were human beings. And all human beings deserve human rights, something those people, by law, didn't have.
Some people in mental hospitals now are crazy. Some of us are psychotic. Some of us are aggressive. Some of us are a danger to ourselves. Some of us are a danger to others. And we are still humans, who deserve human rights, which we legally do not have.
Some of us, a few of the crazy people you talk about, are exactly what you say we are. Psychotic, aggressive, a danger to ourselves and others. That doesnt change the fact that we are human. That doesnt change the fact that every individual human that exists, has ever existed, and will ever exist deserves human rights. That doesnt change the fact that we don't have those human rights in every situation. "Few of us are aggressive," while true as a statement, fails to acknowledge and insist that those of us who are still deserve to be treated with the same dignity and respect as any other person.
I need to start making cooking tips for all the things I've learned.
The first thing is that you have to preheat your oven, and also your pans on the stove. You think "oh I can just throw Thing in the oven and wait for it to come up to heat" that is the devil talking. Whatever you're cooking, you want it to go in the oven and the oven be a consistent temp and start those tasty chemical reactions that cook your food: crisping edges of veg, causing cookies to rise.
You also have to preheat your pan on the stove. Every time. You think "oh the pan is fine I'm gonna put Thing in it now" and then nothing happens so you turn up the heat thinking the stove needs to be hotter because Thing isn't cooking and then all of a sudden it's too hot and you ruined the Thing. Let the pan preheat. For several minutes. To test if your pan is hot, run your hand under the sink and flick a couple drops of water onto the pan. Sizzling? Good your pan is hot. Water just sitting there? It's not preheated.
Can't tell you how many times I've talked to someone who "can't cook" or "the recipe didn't come out right" and when I asked if they preheated the oven or pan the answer was no.
First rule. Preheat the stuff before you put the food in.
This is easily one of the CRAZIEST videos I've ever gotten. I was rafting down a river when a Yellow Jacket came, landed on my bright pink waterproof phone pouch, and started drinking from the water droplets that had gathered there.
The most amazing part is how the water droplet magnifies the Hornet's mouth parts, so you get to see them up-close!!!! It was FASCINATING to witness!
Here's some of my favorite still shots from that video:
On the topic of bg3 though, of course there are a million and one reasons why Wyll and Lae'zel deserve more love from the fan base overall (not just in fandom circles) but probably one of my favorites is that THEY DID ALL THAT SHIT IN THEIR TWENTIES!!! What do you mean you saved the world and started a revolution in your motherfucking TWENTIES??? They out here getting shit done, not perfectly, but they're putting in the work. I love them.
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IDK I think if cis men are being told that being fat will lower their testosterone and make them Insufficiently Masculine, and cis women are being told that being fat will raise their testosterone and make them Excessively Masculine, and fat trans people are being denied the right to medically transition if they're fat, and thin trans people are warned against HRT because it will make them fat (and this is said about both testosterone and estrogen HRT), and androgynous-presenting people are told that only thin people count as androgynous...
Then maybe...
Maybe...
Maybe the weight loss industry is just using Gender to enforce fatphobia.
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