This is all I wanted for you Will, for both of us.

I also only really do it once or twice a month so sometimes I do go out in public with hairy legs.

come on man i'm on my lunch break can't you wait???

but you deserve to give informed consent to that process.

the lies around pregnancy - that it's inherently safe, that it doesn't do you permanent damage, that it's only extremely rare for people to die of pregnancy complications, etc like

all of these are lies constructed so that more people will get pregnant w/o knowing all that

there needs to be more talk about the impact of miscarriages and how common they are, how different abortion processes are and how accessible they are

but also like. talking about how pregnancy fucks your body up should not be taboo

this is a process that permanently changes most people's bodies, and that's even if the pregnancy doesn't do them like. severe illness or injury

and i just think everybody should have a right to KNOW that

When I was pregnant I was in a million forums for pregnant people because (cough adhd hyperfixation) and I had something called SPD (Symphysis pubis dysfunction) (not Sensory Processing Disorder though I also have that) which is where your pubic bones separate early (more or less) because they get all loosey goosey as your body gets ready to crank that baby out.

Except my pubic bone got confused and got misaligned at like 3 months pregnant. I could barely walk. I couldn't roll over in bed. Doing something that required me to shift my weight from one foot to another like opening a door knob was like an excruciatingly painful knife being stabbed into my pubic bone, I can't express how intense and blinding it was.

So I am in one million baby forums like "am I dying what is happening why is there a knife in my pubic bone" and all these people are like "I have that too! my doctor says it's normal and not to worry because it doesn't hurt the baby. I just deal with it by laying in bed for months in excruciating pain and think about how lucky I am to be having a little miracle growing in my body."

So lol nope. I went to my midwife and they are like, "Oh squeeze a can between your knees look up a physical therapy youtube on SPD" and I did that can-squeeze thing and it CURED THE PROBLEM in ONE DAY. I had been SUFFERING, y'all, it felt miraculous.

And I was so full of rage (flames, flames on the side of my face) that people are being told "Oh, it's NORMAL just deal with it" "It doesn't hurt the baby." Like, look, yes it's NORMAL but it's 100% treatable!!! SPD (again, not Sensory processing disorder) affects 1 in 5 pregnant people.

I was lucky to have amazing midwives (need a gender neutral term for that profession, but they see pregnant men and women)(side note highly recommend midwives if you are gender nonconfirming/a man/etc) and I have DOZENS of examples of shit like this.

Some people in moderate car crashes are very lucky, and walk away with zero injury. Some are very unlucky, and die. But most people fall into the third category, where they'll be injured at the time, then heal, and then for the rest of their life they have some minor and liveable complication from the injury. Like a knee that lets you know when the rain is coming, or a back that doesn't like seats without lumbar support, or a shoulder that never quite gets its full range of motion back.

she's been suffering with this since she gave birth to me. I'm 38 years old. she had that surgery last week.

Granted, it still needs to be updated because not just women give birth.

Here is an etymologically equivalent but gender neutral term I just made:

and EVEN WHEN things were more muted/neutral, the neutrality was OFFSET by ACCENT COLORS and HIGH CONTRAST between the wood tones and everything ELSE

ALSO AMERICAN COLONIAL INTERIORS POPPED OFF, Y'ALL (IN TERMS OF COLOR/COZINESS)

PEOPLE USED WHITEWASH AND COLORFUL TRIM OR EVEN JUST COLORFUL FURNITURE IF THEY COULD AFFORD TO DO SO

AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON FRENCH AND BRITISH AND AMERICAN WALLPAPERS

"ELIZABETH" YOU CRY, "WHY ARE YOU BEING SO EXTRA THIS MORNING?! IT'S MONDAY"

Because, my friend, my war on GREIGE will NEVER end.

Historic interiors were filled with LIFE and LIGHT and COLOR. ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.

Part of the reason we don't see a lot of textile art is because, frankly, textiles tend to degrade over time - especially ones that had utility! And yes, pigments and weaving and dying all boosted the expense of things, when we were finally reliably block-printing fabrics and broad reams of paper, it was no longer just the wealthy who could afford pretty patterns!

In the Americas, a far wider variety of pigments also became available because of the abundance of... well, a shitton of flora and minerals, some of which weren't as common in Europe.

WHY THE HIGHLIGHTER COLORS? you ask.

CANDLES.

Those colors reflect candlelight and natural sunlight REALLY WELL.

Humans LOVE bright colors, it's NOT just a thing for kids. We live in a brilliant, vibrant, multifaceted world. We ALWAYS have.

(If ever you have the opportunity to visit the Stencil House at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont (pictured above at 3, 4, and 5), I highly recommend.)

And that's before you get into American painted murals:

All my New Yorker covers

They are all available on the Condé Nast Store where you can buy prints, cards, and other merch. I get a royalty from this.

@hellsite-hall-of-fame

Who do you think makes professional quality fanart and fanfic? People who've been practicing it for ten, fifteen, twenty years!

Or even people who've been practicing it for thirty, forty or fifty!!!!!

example: Diane Duane. Currently in her seventies. Star Trek fangirl since the original run. Goddess-level Ascended Fan who has created official tie-in works in more forms of media than pretty much anyone else alive, possibly even Rodenberry himself because they didn't have audiobooks or video games when he was with us. Writer of Spock's World, The Wounded Sky, Doctor's Orders in TOS. Co-writer of TNG script Where no one has gone before, and writer of the tie-in novel Dark Mirror among others. Writer of a half-dozen Star Trek Comics. She has adapted her own work for audio, has written for the Star Trek manga series, has written short Trek fiction for anthologies, and plotted and wrote the video game Star Trek: the Kobayashi Alternative.

In other fandoms, she was a personal friend of Terry Pratchett himself. As a scriptwriter, she's also worked in fandoms like Scooby-Doo, Transformers, My Little Pony, Gargoyles, Batman: The Animated Series, Spiderman: Unlimited (and a trilogy of tie-in novels still in print) and Barbie: Fairytopia. ...And that's just cherry-picking her imdb page.

While she can't give out specific details due to Obvious Reasons, she's still active in the Sherlock BBC fandom - and there's a specific subset of her fans who love guessing which of the legendary fanfics might be her work (I am not one of them, BTW, as it is None Of My Business. I'm old-school that way).

Fandom is not for teenagers. Fandom is for everyone of good heart and enthusiasm for a good (or even bad! No judgement!) story.