depressing politics surrounded by cute

At the same time, I don't particularly think "taking action for the purposes of making someone uncomfortable" is good for a space, either. I think it's very easy for a space to produce a culture that makes existing users comfortable at the cost of making the space more hostile for new users.

But, uh, egg jokes are a part of transfem social reproduction. Venting about how men suck is part of being a woman (in fact, venting about how your oppressors suck is part of being part of any marginalized group). And, as a marginalized group, being loud is part of feeling safe.

I think "this is bad because it makes cis men uncomfortable" discourse is disguising one thing as another. Producing a reasonable sounding justification that preys on the listener's unfamiliarity with the problem (and, in fact, their tendency to center the experiences of cis men).

"on the wrong side of 40" "huh, which side is that?"

When the guy who started it showed me the picture, I looked at her, then looked him dead in the eye and simply said, "She looks happy." And I was right! She had the biggest, sweetest smile on her face.

I joke sometimes that my betrothed is really a superhuman hiding their secret identity. It honestly tracks based on how often they forget how strong regular people are. They accidentally hurt me just moving around and often overdo acts of strength. I’ve always been pretty waify so it’s bewildering to me.

On this occasion I was sitting calmly on our couch. Our kitchen has a cutout counter so you can see from the kitchen to the sliding glass door on the far side of the room. Between those two points, I lounged on the couch.

“Hey,” they said to me from the kitchen. I looked up.

They held up a mandarin orange, a small inoffensive fruit that didn’t deserve the fate what was about to befall it.

“Catch.”

Now, a gentle underhanded toss could have easily brought the orange to me from where they stood in the kitchen. It could have plopped gently onto my lap if I failed to catch it.

But I think you know that’s not what happened.

Instead, they cocked their arm back for an overhand throw and launched the orange toward me with enough force that I heard it whistle past me. It flew in a blur at high enough velocity that it exploded into a mess of juice and dismay against the glass door.

Not only had they launched the orange fully across the room but there was no conceivable universe that they were even aiming at me, as it’s trajectory was easily two feet away from my placid couch body.

I stared in shock at the wrecked fruit and slowly turned to stare at my betrothed, who was equally stunned. I looked back at the orange juice dripping down the glass, the sad husk of its corpse laying burst and spent on the ground.

“Wh-…. Why?”

There's hiding and there's finding, we'd say. And he'd say it was hide-and-seek, not hide-and-give-UP, and we'd all yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we wouldn't play with him anymore if he didn't get it straight and who needed him anyhow, and things like that. Hide-and-seek-and-yell. No matter what, though, the next time he would hide too good again. He's probably still hidden somewhere, for all I know.

As I write this, the neighborhood game goes on, and there is a kid under a pile of leaves in the yard just under my window. He has been there a long time now, and everybody else is found and they are about to give up on him over at the base. I considered going out to the base and telling them where he is hiding. And I thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out. Finally, I just yelled, "GET FOUND, KID!" out the window. And scared him so bad he probably wet his pants and started crying and ran home to tell his mother. It's real hard to know how to be helpful sometimes.

A man I know found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. And knew about dying, and he didn't want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn't need them, didn't trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn't say good-bye.

He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. "I don't want anyone to know." "What will people think?" "I don't want to bother anyone."

Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is It goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found.

Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines - by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end.

"Olly-olly-oxen-free." The kids out in the street are hollering the cry that says "Come on in, wherever you are. It's a new game." And so say I. To all those who have hid too good. Get found, kid! Olly-olly-oxen-free.

For example:

Penny: But do daddies carry babies?

Me: Well, some daddies can decide to carry and have babies. You usually see mommies do that but some daddies can, and that's not really any of our business.

Penny: cause it's their body? And they get to decide?

Husband: yes! Like in our family mommy carried you and I went and got soft pretzels whenever mommy wanted

Penny: oh I love pretzels. And I've decided to be a which mermaid

activist jennifer parker was harassed, told she didn't look "black enough" and had her accent mocked. other afroargentines were also told to shut up, accused of lying, racefaking and more. a black usamerican on tik tok took a picture of someone in an argentinian jersey and made a joke about calling ice, while a bunch of gringo latines in the comments were like "call them!!" and nobody said shit. and several black usamericans on twitter were salivating imagining 17 yo afroargentine fútbol player kiki ramos being hatecrimed.

when we pointed that out, they ignored it. when i told them they were ignoring it, they ignored that as well. because it was never about racism. it always boils down to the same shit: imperialism, usamerican exceptionalism, and the need to have a group you can hate in a "progressive way".