Dumbass

I, knowing that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, waited carefully for the lab director to be deep in conversation with someone else on the other side of the laboratory. And then I took my chance.

Test tubes, as it turns out, are really bad as shot glasses. Their shape turns any liquid inside into a stream, so you really can't knock it back quickly - it takes a couple seconds. Additionally, the best way I can describe the taste of virus concentrate was "sterile rot". A very unique kind of bad! Made worse by the test tube's inefficiency as a shot glass.

(by the way we were studying bacteriophages, not animal viruses. these viruses are too specialized on attacking prokaryotes to even recognize our cells as targets at all, according to studies.)

(but also like. if the viruses managed to successfully switch hosts and killed me with a violent infection, itd still be worth it.)

The most popular browsers in different countries in 2012 and 2022.

I have a friend who works in education and he told me about how he was working with a small group of HS students to develop a new school sports chant. This was a very daunting task for the group, in large part because many had learning disabilities related to reading and writing, so coming up with a catchy, hard-hitting, probably rhyming, poetry-esque piece of collaborative writing felt like something outside of their skill range. But it wasn't! I knew that, he knew that, and he worked damn hard to convince the kids of that too. Even if the end result was terrible (by someone else's standards), we knew they had it in them to complete the piece and feel super proud of their creation.

Fast-forward a few days and he reports back that yes they have a chant now... but it's 99% AI. It was made by Chat-GPT. Once the kids realized they could just ask the bot to do the hard thing for them - and do it "better" than they (supposedly) ever could - that's the only route they were willing to take. It was either use Chat-GPT or don't do it at all. And I was just so devastated to hear this because Jesus Christ, struggling is important. Of course most 14-18 year olds aren't going to see the merit of that, let alone understand why that process (attempting something new and challenging) is more valuable than the end result (a "good" chant), but as adults we all have a responsibility to coach them through that messy process. Except that's become damn near impossible with an Instantly Do The Thing app in everyone's pocket. Yes, AI is fucking awful because of plagiarism and misinformation and the environmental impact, but it's also keeping people - particularly young people - from developing perseverance. It's not just important that you learn to write your own stuff because of intellectual agency, but because writing is hard and it's crucial that you learn how to persevere through doing hard things.

Write a shitty poem. Write an essay where half the textual 'evidence' doesn't track. Write an awkward as fuck email with an equally embarrassing typo. Every time you do you're not just developing that particular skill, you're also learning that you did something badly and the world didn't end. You can get through things! You can get through challenging things! Not everything in life has to be perfect but you know what? You'll only improve at the challenging stuff if you do a whole lot of it badly first. The ability to say, "I didn't think I could do that but I did it anyway. It's not great, but I did it," is SO IMPORTANT for developing confidence across the board, not just in these specific tasks.

Struggling is part of the process, and I've had a lot of people argue with me that it shouldn't be who fail to see the point. When you replace an composer with an AI music generator, an artist with an AI-generated image, or an author with an AI-generated fanfic, you are missing out on the critical, fundamental experiences humans need to learn and grow. You are robbing yourself of essential skills you need as a person.

seeing stuff like this is so upsetting because these terms were well known and widespread in the ace community but because of exclusionists many people stopped using terms like this because they felt uncomfortable and unsafe.

i loved these terms when i was in highschool, i loved the feeling of community, but i lost that because i didn’t feel comfortable openly and proudly calling myself asexual.

Going through all those blogs and seeing validation, learning more things about my newfound orientation was so incredibly as a questioning and unsure 15 year old. It’s devastating to me that this community has fallen quiet so much. So I started my tags, hoping to spread some more positivity and maybe inform people. This community is full of incredible people and the fact that so little of them remain, it heartbreaking.

We have dinner on Saturdays.

Arcady always cooks. I’m never certain if it’s out of irony—spending all that time on something they can’t even eat—or if they actually enjoy cooking. I think they like the ritual of it. It might almost be arcane, from a certain point of view. A specific (religious, even) set of instructions, ingredients and chemical changes. Strict instructions for a desired transformation.

And isn’t that what spells are, after all? Instructions you don’t understand, but hope will work any way. Arbitrary rules, which may or may not matter. Either it works or it doesn’t (or something in between) and we have no idea until it’s done with, and there’s nothing we can do.

Well now I’m just being theatrical.

That’s another part of our epicurean ritual—Arcady sitting down to ask me how it tastes. They sit across from me, hands folded on the table, and stare intently, waiting. I think they can guess when I lie—it’s good!—so I’ve started telling the truth. In the beginning they used far, far too much salt. I choked a little, on the first few meals. Asked for too many glasses of water.

Across the table, Arcady is talking, recounting things they read this week. Things they learned and researched, thoughts they had. Ways they tried to make sense of the world. I’m eating slowly, savoring the taste. I don’t quite enjoy it, not yet, it’s not familiar enough. It occurs to me that Arcady has never repeated the same dish twice. I wonder how—why—Arcady knows how to cook. They’ve spent most of their life unable to eat, to taste. Perhaps if I’m lucky, they’ll share that story with me one day.

I focus on the spoon in my hand, on the voice across the table. It’s a bit of a treat for me, having them carry the conversation. More often they’re so… self-contained. In the early years of our friendship, I was the one keeping the conversation alive. Babbling even, nervous at being stared down by an unblinking gaze. Twisting in my seat.

And why not? You meet someone many centuries older than anyone has a right to be, you assume they’re going to have answers. You are eager for approval. You assume there is some grand truth they might conceivably share with you, if only you are good enough. If only you are worthy. So of course I was desperate to impress, terrified of disappointing.

It’s a bit of an experience, opening a refrigerator to find rows of plastic water bottles filled with blood, but you get used to it. Still more hygienic than most people’s fridges. At least Arcady keeps it clean. I keep yogurt in there.

I sit on a kitchen barstool and spin clockwise while Arcady retrieves sterile supplies from a cabinet. They are always so careful in this. Disposable exam gloves, alcohol wipes, hypodermic needles and standard plastic tubing. Just like getting blood drawn anywhere else. Medical. I’m not sure what I expected. I asked about it once. Arcady just looked confused and asked, How else would I do it?

Survivors who are not women

Survivors who developed hypersexuality

Survivors with personality disorders

Survivors with anger issues

Survivors with did/osdd

Survivors with substance abuse issues

i want things to change

i want a different life

today was a shitty day/week

i don’t want to live like this

i want to be somewhere else in life

i’m not where i want to be yet

Wack

Unfortunate (can be shortened to unforch)

Sub-par execution

I would prefer the opposite of this, actually

Not a fan of this approach

Silly

Goofy

Wacky

Etc.