idk man

Granted, all the people in this group were like middle-aged, middle-class white cis people with kids so.

But they were all SO nice to me right up until we were discussing a task and I mentioned that I go by they/them pronouns - suddenly their whole vibes changed.

This one lady started getting all defensive being like "Well how can you expect anyone to know that?!! You don't look or sound or dress like that?" (What does looking/sounding/dressing non-binary even mean??? I dress very androginously, bind my chest and have super short hair - my voice is just a little high.) I explained super politely that I didn't expect anyone to know - I hadn't told them, it's the same as if I hadn't told someone my name yet - they're not psychic. But she still started talking over me insisting that people are too sensitive now days.

Another lady INSISTED that her 'friend' worked in a school where some kid identifies as a cat and the school 'HAS to let them and provide them with a litter box!', and doubled down that teachers aren't allowed to disagree with ANYTHING even when I told her that story is 100% fake and even proved it by googling it.

Some other lady kept interrupting every conversation I had with this weird argument about how women NEED their own private spaces (I never said otherwise???), and when I spoke up about the gender neutral toilets in the building being totally safe spaces because they're enclosed cubical rooms with your own sink and toilet, she went off on a rant about how men might have used it before her and could put cameras in there or pee all over the seat and how people like me are creating unnecessary issues and unsafe spaces for women.

I've been on a training course for three days and at the start they did an ice breaker where we had to introduce ourselves and talk about our hobbies.

I went first. I introduced myself and mentioned I like to do arts and crafts, I like to paint and bake and garden. I didn't even mention everything else - I do archery and pottery and make puppets and crochet and sew and read books and learn new things.

After that, forty people introduced themselves and said either 'I have kids' or 'I go to the pub' or 'I watch the telly'

Like. Forty people and not ONE of them had a real hobby. None of them did any sports, none of them did any creative things, none of them read or sang or foraged for plants or wrote poems or went fishing or built models or played boardgames or did puzzles.

They just. Watched TV. Drank alcohol. Could not comprehend doing anything else?

I get that parenting takes a lot of your time and energy and I'm not shaming anyone for that - but like???? Even if you did hobbies WITH the kids - take them on walks, do paper crafts with them, teach them to play a ballgame???

Baby hatching crows have an 'egg tooth', which is a tiny horn on top of their beak which they use to help break out of their egg. Like little rhinos. The horn falls off after a couple days and never grows back.

Get some cheap acrylic paint and mix some cornflour into it - about 50/50, but eyeball it until it's a THICK but still spreadable paint texture.

Slap it onto some canvases or bits of board or any hard painting surface that isn't paper, making thick brush strokes and lots of cool texture.

Go to bed.

Wake up in the morning and your now dried painting will not only be super textured but also covered in interesting little spiderwebs cracks.

Now use paint pens or regular paints to paint any simple image over the top and suddenly it looks like some beautiful vintage piece recovered from a thousand years ago.

You're welcome.