...the light at last, silver on the tree

every time a stranger asks me why i'm in a mask i spin a wheel where the only two options are "be a good disability advocate. answer them kindly, broaden their horizons so the next person in a mask they encounter doesn't have to explain" and "tell them that if i answer them, i get to ask them one random medical question about their body too."

atheists call it project hail darwin

agnostics call it project hail maybe

Unitarians call it project hail whatever

Meteorologists call it project hail

Trace amounts of Monica in my life

A statistically insignificant level of Monica in my life

My life manufactured in a facility that also processes Monica

#mambo number 0.0000000000005

it should be illegal for things in drawers to accumulate dust. you were IN the drawer WHAT is your problem

sad they give tissue boxes plastic labia folds but no clitoris

I'm begging everyone to get their flu shots

You are either going to the bathroom with me or going to the bathroom against me

Yesterday my little brother told me something very sweet and touching, that when he was a kid and had nightmares about monsters chasing him or whatever he would be able to end the nightmare by finding me in the dream and I would protect him by fighting off the zombies, or carrying him away. This is adorable, and makes me feel like the greatest older sibling in the world, but the hilarious thing is that when I was a kid I had nightmares of needing to save him from zombies and such. so many dreams where he was in trouble and I needed to save him. Like my nightmares began where his ended. Low key I think he mastered the ability to psychically transfer his nightmare to me as a child and I'm kind of annoyed with him.

There's a recurring online tendency to aestheticize consensus itself. The imagined future village is full of emotionally compatible people who enjoy communal gardening, conflict resolution circles, acoustic folk music, mutual aid potlucks, and repairing bicycles together at sunset. Which is nice for the people who genuinely enjoy that lifestyle. But plenty of humans are solitary, prickly, obsessive, urban, nocturnal, sensory-seeking, technologically attached, contrarian, novelty-seeking, private, or just plain difficult. Those people do not evaporate after the revolution. They do not get Left Behind while you are Raptured into the Utopia. They become your neighbors.

I'm reminded of the television series "Tales from the Green Valley" which is part of a series where historians and archaeologists pretend to go back in time and live how average people lived long ago for a year (specifically this season is the reign of James the First). The main cast spend most days together, at least large chunks of their time, but then we meet the charcoal maker. The charcoal maker is a transient man who goes from farm to farm, camps out, makes his charcoal through the day and into the night for as long as the farm owner wishes and then leaves. He spends little time with any other human, just him in the forest. Even in this idealistic historical setting of a rural farmer, there is still a job for the loner. The charcoal maker left little behind historically, there are no last names to indicate it was a family business and very few written records about them. It was the job of the solitary, prickly, obsessive, nocturnal, contrarian, private or just plain difficult man. So yeah, I urge people to consider that there will always be a place for a guy who wants to spend all his time away from people and there were jobs like that even under the reign of King James the First. They'll find their place, as they always have.