"Etlu"

Sleep deprivation

Drugs

Pretty girl

Pretty not girl

Hungry

Stressed out

at my old work things were getting Pretty Diabolical™ in the work politics side of things, and at one stage for some reason someone brought a pack of Uno cards to the lunch table. It started with just a couple of the younger team members at first, then we taught the seniors how to play, and eventually it became a ritual. Everyone would get their lunch, grab a seat, deal cards, and watch in abstract horror as everyone plays their draw 2s and draw 4s all at the same time.

The common set of our era is known as the "Staunton" set. Designed by either Howard Staunton and / or his brother in law John Jaques in the 19th century.

Previously, chess sets were highly embellished and usually carved from ivory, both of which made them prohibitively expensive. They were usually carved to represent the culture of the commissioning party, which made it difficult to play across cultural lines. A shame for a game that eclipses language.

The problem presented itself in that in many eras and cultures, warriors either dressed too similarly to clergy, or the design was just so intricately muddled that all the pieces were similar.

Is this guy the knight just because he has a horse?

What about this shield biting bustard?

(I'm partial to this one for obvious reasons if you know the history of my blog name.)

Could you identify the knight in this Elizabethan set if the board weren't ready and you knew nothing of European culture?

The Staunton set changed all that. It took standard designs of the day and removed the intricate carving work that made the pieces delicate, prone to breaking and often ambiguous.

Now anyone, from any background or culture could play if they knew the rules.

The knight became standardized as the horse and not the rider to differentiate it and stayed somewhat intricate because it was the easiest piece to keep embellishments without confusing human elements.

I thought about just tagging this 'nuff said, but it's not.

I want to say something to all of the women under 50 on this site. Ready? You do not have to be over 50 to start taking up space.

The above is a video shared by smrchildsadness on Twitter, showing a person participating in a pride parade exchanging a pride flag with a person standing on his (am using his pronoun based on the TikToks/Tweets of what happened) doorway who had a Portuguese flag. There are sounds of cheers and crying and the two people hug each other as they exchange the flags. The man at the doorway then waved kisses to the crowd within the pride parade.

The Tweet says: "NO YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HE WAS WAVING THE PORTUGUESE FLAG BECAUSE HE DIDN'T HAVE A PRIDE FLAG AND THEY TRADED FLAGS AND HE'S SO EMOTIONAL TO GET HIS OWN PRIDE FLAG I'M EMOTIONALLY RUINED"

For context, apparently they were worried that maybe he's a nationalist because he was waving the Portuguese flag and some nationalists opposing the pride march were waving that flag. But upon interacting with him, it turns out he didn't have have a pride flag and he wanted to wave *a* flag in support of the pride march. So they had an exchange and now he has his own pride flag 😭🥹.

The image above is a Tweet by kunwara_ladkaa that says "I'm crying so much right now (Image taken by Manuel Fernando Araújo/Lusa)". The image shows the same man from the pride parade crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

The above image is a Tweet by dudz_zZzz that says "ainda não parei de pensar nele," which according to Google translate from Portuguese to English is "I still haven't stopped thinking about him." The image is a drawing of the person from the pride parade, crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

This elderly gentleman lives alone in Porto, when he saw the march coming up his street all he knew was he wanted to participate, so he ran home to get the only flag he had to wave as they passed by, when they did he was overcome with emotion and called over one of the activists, they hugged and exchanged flags, he felt so overwhelmed that he could only hold it and cry.

This isn't a story about a closeted elderly man, António lives and has been living alone for many years now and that little moment made him feel included in something for the first time in many years.

Says the article:

"The act was "of support”, guarantees the man, especially because “each one is as they are and we are all the same”. “The joy I felt at this moment. I cried,” he recalled, still emotional when looking at the photograph offered to him during this report.

However, even though it reached thousands of people, the moment screams a feeling of belonging, of joy and also a portrait of loneliness as a consequence of aging.

Behind that door, whose image spread across the country, António is the portrait of a condition that affects many others like him.  He lives alone, but the walls of his home are full of memories of a life shared and full of love. “Memories I preserve,” he stresses.

He's not gay, nor does he need to be to support and respect the cause.

“We all have the same color blood. We are all the same.”

Still with an emotional look glued to the photograph that immortalized his gesture at the march, António remembers: “I felt embraced by all of them”. After a sigh, he says: “See this photo? I want to take it to my coffin.”

Nick Barlow, Clusterfuck/Keep It Together, 2022

A little bit for Monica, she's my wife

A little bit for Erica, for her strife

My books all go to Rita, cause she reads

My greenhouse goes to Tina, she plants trees

The furniture is Sandra's, on my lawn

Jewelry for Mary, she can pawn

Ashes go to Jessica, that's my plan