Come in and have tea!

uhhhH

Jonathan: Well it’s always good to know the signs of someone being a vampire. But truly I wanted you to read it because you’re getting closer to an age where a woman might become a large part of your life.

If you’re not willing to damn your soul to hell and cut a vampire’s throat for her, she’s not the one son.

Always propose in private

It helps to be friendly with your beloved's parents

If rejected, withdraw gracefully

(probably don't ask if she's likely to change her mind later)

It is however okay to stay friends, give her your blood, avenge her death, etc

Good date ideas: going to the pops, boating, tennis, long walks with cows, graverobbing, visiting tea shops, strolling, admiring pretty girls, donating blood, riding, travel abroad, reading each other's diaries (with permission), telling cowboy stories, collating documents

Bad date ideas: psychoanalysis, forced imprisonment, funerals

If they won't respect your privacy, get out. Via the window if necessary

Do not attempt to kiss a guy just because he is passed out on your couch. Especially if he already belongs to your roommate

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR PARTNER

Corollary: a good partner would rather help you thrive than see you smile. If something is wrong, tell them - don't hide it for their sake

Watching someone sleep is deeply intimate

Never get jealous

Consider marrying three people at once (but only if you love them)

Corollary: just because someone loves you doesn't mean you have to love them back. It's fine. If they really love you they'll respect that

It is okay and in fact encouraged to hold hands in public, no matter what people will say

Everyday acts of kindness show that you care: a cup of tea, a new typewriter, a liter of your blood

Exchange letters while you are apart. Store up experiences to share when you get back together

Support each other's interests and be useful to each other's endeavors

Never bite someone without asking permission first. Mind control does not count as permission. Neither does threatening to beat their husband's brains in.

Maybe women should propose

Whenever you part, write down a heartfelt goodbye. Just in case you die.

You don't need to read their letters. If you can't trust each other, you shouldn't be together

Involve your partner in your end-of-life decisions

Don't abandon your partner even if they become disabled, mentally ill, or rejected by God

It's okay to kiss in front of your friends

Be happy to hear people praise your partner all day

You don't need to be voluptuous - your natural beauty is enough

Garlic flowers are not romantic, but sometimes they are practical, and practical gifts are romantic

Don't shoot into a room where all your friends are sitting. I know this is not specifically dating advice, but really just don't

Sitting down on your hat is not cool

Neck biting hot af (mind control less so)

Make sure your partner remembers to sleep and practice basic self care

Respect your partner by remembering to sleep and practicing basic self care

Seriously hold hands whenever possible

And, once more, C O M M U N I C A T E

the bible (king james edition)

a copy of the U.S. consitution

a copy of my school’s current rulebook

i do this so that whenever someone at school tries to make a point and then defends it by saying ‘it’s in the constitution!’ or ‘it’s from the bible!’ or something else along those lines, i can pull out my own copy and say, ‘where exactly does it say that?’

No one tells them their bowels are going to lose strength and coordination, so it gets more and more difficult to have bowel movements. No one warns them about obstipation, much less bowel obstructions. I have a saying I repeat often in clinic: “Proper pooping prevents problems!” I say it because it makes people chuckle, because it destigmatizes needing to poop. Everyone poops. And it turns out pooping requires both a complex network of nerves to create peristalsis, and stools soft enough to move through the bowels, and I have watched more than one elderly patient die because their bowels stopped working right.

No one talks about hemorrhoids, so I have patients coming in terrified by blood in their stools–and listen, blood in your poop is definitely a good reason to see a doctor; if you’re over 50 and you haven’t had a colonoscopy, get one. It’s the best health screening we have evidence for, in my opinion. Colon cancer is a bitch. But more commonly, people have bloody stools because they have either hemorrhoids that are bleeding or because they have an anal fissure after straining on a hard bowel movement. Do you know what a hemorrhoid is? I didn’t, until I was well into medical school. Everyone has them. They’re venous columns that surround the rectum and anus. Internal ones can bleed; external ones can itch. Most people will get them eventually. Be kind about them.

Everyone is going to have trouble peeing if they live long enough. Men can’t start, women can’t stop. Because people with prostates will often have benign enlargement of the prostate–it’s not cancer, but it gets bigger–and the urethra, the tube that lets urine leave the bladder, goes through the prostate. Bigger prostate = compressed tube, less flow. Meanwhile, people with uteruses have much shorter urethras, which means that when we lose that beautiful collagen and elastic, we also lose it in the two sphincters that help us keep from leaking urine, and so we leak urine. Especially when something triggers an increase in intra-abdominal pressure, like a sneeze or a cough or a laugh.

All these things people are taught to be ashamed of and embarrassed about–they are so common. They’re normal parts of having a human body and doing the things one does with a human body. Poop trouble? Welcome to the club! People have been writing about their cures for constipation for as long as written language has existed. Listen, you are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. And that means that when someone else has a gross problem, you must be kind to them, because that is going to be you. There will be a day when you have diarrhea, because viral gastroenteritis spreads like wildfire every winter. There will be a day when you cough a huge glob of mucus comes out, because mucus is a natural defense mechanism and kind of miraculous but also nasty. Every gross thing a body can do, yours is likely to do, if not now then later.

when we deny the grossness of our bodies, it also allows us to weaponize normal gross body things against marginalized people.

for example, Jessie Gender on YouTube has a video in which she calls out the way people will describe gender-affirming surgeries with the most disgusting terms possible in order to further stigmatize trans people, despite the fact that you could use the same tactics to describe any surgical procedure, really.

i’ve also definitely seen grossness weaponized against fat people. thin people get so weirded out about us having to “wash under the folds,” as if they don’t wash under their armpits and (hopefully) their butt crack. but no, basic hygiene is gross when it’s a fat person doing it, i guess.

and though i don’t have as much knowledge about this in terms of race, i’m sure people of color also have their basic bodily functions stigmatized moreso that white people. i know we (white ppl) get super weird about Black hair maintenance, for example.

You rang?

tumblr is probably gonna destroy the quality, but here’s a quick little comic i came up with last night! an asexual child of aphrodite asks for some guidance from her mom. 

(ACE EXCLUSIONISTS DO NOT INTERACT, THIS IS NOT FOR YOU)

my writing is a little bit illegible, so there’s a visual description with text under the cut: