gold star bisexual

And then there's a bit right at the end of the story as the wife and the husband are walking out of court:

Jill turned abruptly. "What is your name? Your real name."

The man's gray eyes flickered. He smiled a little, kind, gentle smile. "I'm afraid you would not be able to pronounce it. The sounds cannot be formed..."

Jill was silent as they walked along, deep in thought. The city lights were coming on all around them. Bright yellow spots in the gloom. "What are you thinking?" the man asked.

"I was thinking perhaps I will still call you Lester," Jill said. "If you don't mind."

"I don't mind," the man said. He put his arm around her, drawing her close to him. He gazed down tenderly as they walked through the thickening darkness, between the yellow candles of light that marked the way. "Anything you wish. Whatever will make you happy."

And I. God. There's something there. A soupcon of monsterfuckery. To tell your partner in a moment of intimacy that yes, you're something so inhuman that the lips you're stealing can't speak your actual name. You're a parasite that not only had the ability to burrow under this man's skin and take over his life, but you were so desperate to escape a dead, dry, blasted planet that you did.

The only way to completely eliminate risk (of cyclospora specifically) is by eating only canned or frozen veggies. Cooking kills cyclospora, but there's always a risk of cross-contamination during food prep if the veggie starts out raw.

People love to throw out lists of things to avoid, always implying that if you get sick it's because you're stupid. So here's some actually useful info for if you get sick

1) The food that made you sick was something you ate in the last week. Throw out any leftovers & do some cleaning of cooking surfaces just in case

2) Normal symptoms: watery diarrhea, "loose" stool, abdominal/stomach cramps, maybe a little vomiting, nausea

3) NOT normal symptoms: bloody diarrhea, dark & tarry stool, fever, lots of vomiting. If you have any of these (or start to get these later), it could mean complications due to cyclospora or it could be something else. Go see a doctor asap

4) Most infections are self-limiting (they'll get better with a few days rest). Sometimes symptoms go away and then come back a few days later. That's normal & fine. If you're sick for longer than 2-3 days without any sign of getting better, that's NOT normal & you should see a doctor. The infection can persist for a month if not treated & you happen to be one of the cases that isn't self-limiting

5) if you need to see a doctor, do your very best NOT to poop beforehand. they will want to do a stool culture and it sucks so bad to do that at home

6) there are rapid tests for shiga-toxin that they'll do on your stool sample which will be done in about a day. The other tests for non-cyclospora diseases take ~2 days to complete. The centers that do cyclospora tests are completely overwhelmed right now, so that result might not come back for weeks so...

7) DEMAND A TREATMENT PLAN FROM YOUR DOCTOR. this is critical. At your first visit, get them to make a plan where after the negative tests come back, they will prescribe an antibiotic & do not wait for the cyclospora test

8) The antibiotic for cyclospora should be Bactrim (TMP/SMX), which has a 96% efficacy by 3 days. It might be something different if you have allergies tho. There are lots of options, it isn't hard to kill. You'll probably start to feel better in less than 24 hrs.

9) Take ALL of the pills they give you (2/day for 7 days). Do not stop just because you feel better and the pills make you feel nauseous and it's probably fine right? Wrong. That's how you get antibiotic resistance & that can kill you stone dead

please do yourself a favor & watch this rock climbing–themed drag king/burlesque performance set to “roxanne” by the police with all the lyrics but “rox” edited out

It's the Royal Academy of Art Young Artist's Summer Show. One of my favourite exhibitions of the year. Like. Not only are the older kids insanely talented, the younger ones' artist statements will just punch you right in the face.

Jeffrey is my cat and he feels like my heart

but still, sometimes, things surprise me. and i was surprised today. because today an old man approached me at the park. and he said, you know, im a pediatrician.

which is already a weird start to a conversation, because i didnt know that. and maybe i should have just rolled with it, but instead i went

wait. i dont know that. why did you think i knew that?

which didn't even put him slightly off balance.

cuz you're bald, he said, so confidently that i didnt even question it until the conversation was over. now. i was - i was over there, sitting -

and he gestured across the park to a giant pile of soft dirt that had an almost cartoonishly exaggerated ass print on it which derailed me for the second time. right? because whoever sat on that dirt, clearly, had an ass like two coconuts being fired out of a spanish cannon. whereas this man had an ass that could probably only be detected with powerful scientific instruments. i told him this in more succint terms by simply saying that was clearly not his buttprint.

now at this point we'd gotten derailed twice, and as unflappable as he'd been the first time, he was starting to get a little defensive. so he said perhaps someone with a large butt sat down after i got up, and i said why are you lying about where you were sitting, and he said why would i do that? and i said if i knew, i wouldnt be asking, and he said fine, i was driving by - and i said why didn't you just say you were driving by?!?!?!?! and he said because i didn't want you to think i was the kind of crazy person that would just stop his car to tell a stranger in a park that he, as a pediatrician, could tell that your parents REALLY cared about tummy time!

then he left. angrily. he actually stomped back to his car. i dont know when i started laughing but i didnt stop until i got home. my voice is still all scratchy right now. ive been in a little bit of a writing funk but i had to get this down while i could still remember it so perfectly.

eyes hit serious diminishing returns wrt resource costs vs vision quality as they get bigger, so the question became: what the FUCK do giant (and colossal) squid need to see so badly that they couldn't see with swordfish-sized eyes that's justifying that massive energy cost? that nothing else in the deep ocean needs to see so fucking badly??

turns out the one strength eyes that big really have over much smaller eyes is: seeing large glowing objects in water deeper than 500 meters from an appreciable distance.

sperm whales are the primary predator of giant squid. sperm whales don't glow. BUT! water that deep is full of bioluminescent creatures-- these creatures light up when bumped into. something a sperm whale's size is continuously bumping into those critters, it's just surrounded by a glowing field all the time when it's swimming at those depths, visible from a distance-- if you have the right eyes-- as a massive glowing shape. so basically the only reason to have eyes the size of soccer balls is if you live in the deep ocean and your life depends on having a heads up when a hungry sperm whale lurking around

aliexpress is seriously the best place to look at sex toys because they can’t show nudity so they have to finding other ways to show off the use of the toys.

one of my favorite things is when they decide to give you the whole hard sell.

instead of just being like “hey this is a good sex toy”, they instead try to explain why you’d even need a sex toy, from first principles. and that principle is usually “your boyfriend/husband sucks”. or doesn’t, I guess. 

so the sound of this sex toy is between a flower and a clock! 

I’ve posted about the Hammer Sex Toy before, but it turns out it’s not alone. There’s also… 

found another tool! it’s scissors this time.

another fun trope in aliexpress sex toys: just listing off all the rooms of your house you could use it in!