I Think I Have All My Me Parts

Summer sees both a drop off in donations and, at least for our trauma center, a spike in traumas. Trauma centers across the US are in danger of running out of blood for our trauma patients TODAY, which is very scary but, unlike much of the other scary national news coming across our screens these days, is something you can help fix immediately and directly.

Many things that previously made people ineligible have been rolled back. If you previously thought you were ineligible, please consider checking current guidelines!

While O- is the most dire need as it can be safely given to anyone in an emergency, all types are needed! Our emergent release blood is being pulled for patients who have a high chance of death if they don't get blood within the hour. Once they're stabilized, they can have their type confirmed and get blood of a specific, matching type released to them so that O- can go to the patients who need it most.

Yes. Fucking is great. I enjoy it myself on occasion. But condoms are not free just because people enjoy fucking. Condoms used to be much, much, much harder to come by, and they were significantly more expensive. Many humans have always enjoyed fucking, but condoms have not always been available, much less for free.

This post was originally made in September of 2020. It was made after I got into a pitched argument with a straight cisgender woman, who argued that free condoms are actually oppressive in a society where free menstrual products are hard to come by. Her argument was that it is an act of violent misogyny for free condoms to be available anywhere when menstrual products are not, and that the prevalence of free condoms is clearly due to male privilege.

That is not why condoms are free, and if you think free condoms are in any way oppressive, you need to get your head out of your ass. You cannot drag free condoms into the conversation about free menstrual products without acknowledging the massive, grueling efforts of queer activists and allies–including WOMEN–that brought condoms into wider use.

Condoms are often free because AIDS activists put endless amounts of effort into education and distribution of resources for safe sex. Condoms are free because they keep everyone safer, not just the people (NOT JUST MEN!) who use them.

Free condoms are not patriarchal, and they benefit everyone. Please read up on the history of AIDS activists. There’s even a convenient Wikipedia page all about HIV/AIDS activism.

And since I didn’t include a source link in my original post (nor do I remember where I got that number by this point), here is some updated, properly sourced data on global HIV/AIDS infection rates, courtesy of unaids.org:

39.9 million [36.1 million–44.6 million] people globally were living with HIV in 2023. 

1.3 million [1 million–1.7 million] people became newly infected with HIV in 2023. 

630 000 [500 000–820 000] people died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2023. 

30.7 million people [27–31.9 million] were accessing antiretroviral therapy in 2023. 

88.4 million [71.3 million–112.8 million] people have become infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic. 

That’s only 60 years of “condoms are legal FOR MARRIED PEOPLE, WITH ADVICE FROM A DOCTOR.”

…Several people on the current SCOTUS are trying to figure out how to overturn Griswold.

That right got extended to unmarried people in 1972, with Eisenstadt v Baird.

Condoms used to be a felony. And then they were a felony for unmarried people. And even after that, they carried a lot of stigma - why would you need a condom, unless you were being promiscuous?

eyes hit serious diminishing returns wrt resource costs vs vision quality as they get bigger, so the question became: what the FUCK do giant (and colossal) squid need to see so badly that they couldn't see with swordfish-sized eyes that's justifying that massive energy cost? that nothing else in the deep ocean needs to see so fucking badly??

turns out the one strength eyes that big really have over much smaller eyes is: seeing large glowing objects in water deeper than 500 meters from an appreciable distance.

sperm whales are the primary predator of giant squid. sperm whales don't glow. BUT! water that deep is full of bioluminescent creatures-- these creatures light up when bumped into. something a sperm whale's size is continuously bumping into those critters, it's just surrounded by a glowing field all the time when it's swimming at those depths, visible from a distance-- if you have the right eyes-- as a massive glowing shape. so basically the only reason to have eyes the size of soccer balls is if you live in the deep ocean and your life depends on having a heads up when a hungry sperm whale lurking around

You will need:

Telescoping pole with threaded end

Screw-on spray gun attachment with cord

Spray can of black Flex Seal

Gloves

Mask

Sunglasses

Nondescript clothing

I bought the pole and attachment on Amazon. If you do so, use a gift card (buy one for yourself). If you shop in-person, buy with cash.

Wipe down the tools to remove fingerprints. Only handle them with gloves.

Scout the area in daylight, taking note of the direction of the camera.

Act at around 4AM. Take a route that avoids Flock cameras, but be mindful that normal street security cameras, etc. are everywhere.

Approach Flock camera from behind, extend pole, spray lens from behind, taking care not to spray one's self.

Update the DeFlock map as necessary.

Stay safe, comrades! Don't risk a felony!

I know this is not a platform where issues from the global south get any attention, but I'm still going to write about it because it's something I can do. For the past month, young people in India have been protesting the country's education system and demanding the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, following the leak of the country's medical school entrance exams after which 21 students committed suicide.

Today, 20 July 2026, police in Delhi and Mumbai beat protesters with batons, tear gassed them, shot them with rubber bullets and illegally detained them. Protesters included students, children, young people including young women whose clothes were torn, and people of all ages.

The Modi government has done this MANY times before. In Kashmir, in Manipur, multiple times in Delhi itself. They are banking on people getting scared and the protest losing steam. I beg you to not let that happen. I'm not a huge account, I don't have thousands of followers. The only thing I can do is speak with the voice I have.

Delhi isn't even the only place they have treated protestors this way TODAY. Police beat up adivasi protesters in Madhya Pradesh who have been trying to protect their land. This protest has gotten significantly less attention but it stems from the same vile nationalist government.

Waffle House is one of the few chains in America that’s open 24/7/365, and where you can get both breakfast and lunch/dinner options at any time (I have had so many Breakfast Cheeseburgers at Waffle Houses). The food is really good, and people eat there at all times of the day or night, but it’s particularly popular as a late-night post-drinking spot because it’s all that’s open and it’s the kind of food that tastes especially good when you’re hammered.

Part of Waffle House Protocol is that all the servers and cooks greet every single customer as they come through the door. It sounds lame, but I’ve never been to a Waffle House where that greeting didn’t feel completely heartfelt. My mom is a health nut who could barely find anything on the menu she was willing to eat and yet she describes the Christmas Day lunch we had there one year as one of the nicest meals she’s ever had because everyone was so warm and welcoming. That sense of camaraderie gets turned up to 11, of course, at 2 a.m. when everyone’s shitfaced.

The jukeboxes have Waffle-House-themed songs on them (once you have heard “Raisins in my Toast” you will be earwormed forever) and there is an arcane system of hash brown ordering: scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, topped, diced, peppered, and/or capped. The hot sauce bottles say “Casa de Waffle.” 

Once, in Oxford (UK), my husband and I walked past a kebab van very late one night and he said “why do I smell Waffle House”

The location of most Waffle Houses means there’s some… classism that tends to get tied up with Anti-Waffle House Discourse, which is probably lending itself, in part, to this being such a fraught topic. (I’m looking at a map and apparently I was born and raised right in the middle of the Peak Waffle House Density Zone)