Moved To Chronicducks

A place that is well-lit and has lots of natural light will help many visually impaired people, but it will be a nightmare for anyone with photo-sensitivity. A small, dimly lit, quiet space might be ideal for somebody with sensory overload, but not for somebody with claustrophobia. A solarpunk utopia where the cities are filled with plants and trees and green might massively help the population’s depression and general spirits, but it would be hell for anyone with autoimmune disorders and allergies.

At the LGBTQ+ Christian group I go to, there are some really flamboyant, loud, and excitable extroverts there, who love to sing their hearts out and clap and dance during worship. There are also people who have sensory issues and anxiety exacerbated by loud noise. It cannot be a safe-space for everyone to express themselves freely, if it’s also a safe space for those with anxiety.

In a learning environment, one child with ADHD may need to bounce their leg or fidget with something in order to concentrate, while another autistic child finds that incredibly distracting and makes them anxious.

A small, tight, cosy space that’s reminiscent of a village pub or small cottage might be ideal for making me feel comfortable, sheltered and reducing my anxiety and social exhaustion, but it wouldn’t be very accessible for a wheelchair user or someone with physical mobility issues. I am both of those people.

Nobody is doing anything wrong, nobody is being victimised by another person, there’s no right and wrong in these situations. It’s just that those people have opposing needs that can’t be accommodated in the same space at the same time. And we need to talk about that.

‘I am casting this vote out of solidarity with our most marginalized and vulnerable communities’ — Rep. AOC on why skeptical progressives should vote for Biden

Roommate: Did you want to come to church with me, or do you have your own church you’re going to?

Mom: Well, I don’t really go to religious services, but if I did I would go to a synagogue, not a church, because I’m Jewish.

(Long silence. My mom opens one eye to see her roommate staring in shock.)

Roommate: You … you don’t look Jewish.

Mom: (Who looks VERY Jewish) What do you mean?

Roommate: Well, my pastor always told me that Jews have horns and a tail.

Changes in this part of the brain were previously used to previously used to argue that women are the ideal primary caretakers of children in all cases. And apparently, it’s false. The reason they found these changes in women was that women were already the primary caretaker in almost all cases, not because there’s something inherent to women that makes them better parents.

Do I really want to come out to my Uber driver?

If mention my fiancee, in casual conversation, what pronouns do I use? Most cishets won’t read “they” as queer, and she doesn’t mind me using it to keep myself safe. She has a gender neutral name. I’m lucky she has a gender neutral name. Cishets hear her name and think I’m engaged to a Christopher.

(I’m safer if they think my wife is to be my husband. I wish that I could give her the same gift, the same cloak of plausible deniability, and I hate myself for it. We are both bisexual; we would both be “gold star lesbians” if not for that inconvenient fact.)

My grandmother, who had for 22 years called me her soul-sister, proclaimed us kindred spirits, disowned me for not being straight enough. My father has not spoken me since he found out I’m marrying a woman.

I live in Chicago. I live in a queer neighborhood and work in a queer industry and visit a queer practice for my medical needs. I can clock other queers like a goddamn rainbow swatch. I eat breakfast at a queer cafe and I feel absolutely aglow when I see a cis-looking beardy dude wearing a he/him/his pin so the man I’d misread as a woman can wear that same pin himself and feel normal doing it.

When I was younger, I made a big deal about how my sexuality didn’t DEFINE me. (Because I’ll find a nice man and settle down and be safe and no one will know. Then it might go away.)

But as I’ve grown older I’ve come to understand that who we love and how we love are fucking important.

It’s not a privilege to be read as straight, it’s an insult.

This isn’t passing. It’s hiding.

Baby falcon

Proff: What’s the first step to solving any problem? Class: Don’t panic. Proff: And why is that? Class: Because we know more than we think we do.

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut

And he went WOW.  That’s amazing!  And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.” 

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them.  I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”