Might As Well

wake up babe new (possibly sculpted between 27 BCE to 14 CE) Athena statue just dropped (found during the excavation and restoration work for the western theater of Laodicea, known today as the Denizli province)

And it’s BEAUTIFUL

Look at the details on her aegis. The fabric of her peplos and chlamys!!

i wrote this while working in a program for new writers. on wednesdays, two of the teachers would be contractually obligated to read our writing aloud to the group of 300+ teens. i had never read my work in public before. i had something like 6k poems and was panicking about it. none of them are good enough. sometimes the train is howling. it is hard, actually, sometimes, even as an adult.

and then i thought - what is one thing i wish i could tell all of them. each of these 300 kids. what did i need to hear, at 16?

i wanted to tell them about the day you wake up, and the sun feels warm finally. i wanted to tell them about carving a life out of soapstone, your hands turning bloody. i wanted to tell them that sometimes yes - it actually does feel easy. i wanted to tell them about weddings and cookie dough and long road trips. about albums of new music and old friends laughing and the sound of snow falling.

you will learn the pattern of the train. you will learn to close your eyes when you hear the engine rumbling. you will learn to let yourself have the grey days in their lily-soft numbness. sometimes it will feel like life is wet paint, and god has smeared your canvas across a sewer grate. sometimes it will be so boring it isn’t even pronounceable - the tenacious, soundless blankness. survival isn’t just ugly nights and wild mornings. it is also the steady, unimportant moments. it is just driving with your seatbelt on. it is calling a friend on the way home. it is burying your face into the fur of your dog.

when i had finished reading this poem aloud, the auditorium was silent for a solid minute. someone stood up to take a picture of where it had been projected onto a screen, and then three more people followed the action, and then - like a bad internet story, people remembered they were supposed to be clapping. kids came up to me after it - thank you for writing that. i think i hear a train coming.

i would write this differently now, i think, but it has been 7 years. i still live by the tracks. i also haven’t picked up a blade in over 10 years. the scars are still there, but these days i only pick up scissors to cut my hair. i know why you can’t tell your mom about it. i know how the numbness slips over everything, a restless horrible cotton. i know how when you dropped the dish, you weren’t crying about the broken glass. i know about feeling like all the roads have closed their exits, that you aren’t supposed to still-be-here - and yet.

i am still here, and still yours, and i haven’t forgotten. what i’m saying is if any hope is calling to you - i know it’s hard, but you have to listen. i’m saying keep driving, but slow down the car. sit down in the shower, i’m not judging you. we can stay in the dark with the good hot water and do nothing but stare. notice the stab wound. make it through another tuesday.

i know what it is like to miss yourself. do what you need to. come home to me. i am writing to you, my past self, from the future. i’ll be waiting for you.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

I love you being trans I love you trans women i love you gender exploration I love you self discovery

[link to the Reddit post]

[ID: two screenshots of a reddit post on r/offmychest by user awaythrowjessie, titled "My girlfriend made me realize I'd be happier as a woman". it reads as follows:

I am 33, born male, and have had major self image issues my entire life. I hated seeing myself in mirrors, pictures, you name it. I honestly thought it was kinda normal so I just accepted it.

Now about 3 weeks ago I was at my girlfriends house, we have been dating a little over a year now, and have plans to move in together soon. Now recently she has shaved her head to support of her friends with cancer (side note thenl treatments for that friend are going very well). She had since bought some wigs to wear while her hair grows back out. We were joking around as I have male pattern baldness, and when she went to the bathroom I jokingly threw a wig on and waited. She came our, saw me we laughed for a bit and she said "you know I think you'd make a pretty girl" we laughed some more but those words triggered something in me.

Cut to a few night's ago she asked why I've been acting weird lately and I just told her how i was feeling. She said "alright let's do this " and when I asked what she told me she was going to give me a bit of a makeover and put me in one of her dresses and if i liked it then good. I was nervous and asked what if I did like it would she still be attracted to me. She just responded with "Baby you know I'm bi, guy or girl you're still mine." Her words reassured me honestly i love her so much.

Anyways she finished the make up, fitted a wig on me perfectly and got me in a dress and even helped me put a bra on and stuff in a little so i could see what breasts would kinda look like on me. Now I expected to see myself in the mirror, laugh this off and move on right, but I didn't. She did an unbelievable job, like I looked like I had been born a woman, and when I saw myself in the mirror for the first time in my entire life, I liked what I saw. I probably stared at myself for a good 10 minutes before she finally asked me something. She asked what I wanted to be called. After a few seconds I said Jessie, I always like the name Jessie. She whispered in my ear "well Jessie, you look beautiful." And that was it, I knew this was who i wanted to be.

I'm nervous now though, my friends will accept it but my family are, well let's just say not very progressive. But this is what I want.

[link]

[ID: A screenshot of a Reddit post from r/offmychest by user awaythrowjessie, titled “I went out as Jessie for the first time and I was honestly surprised”. The screenshot reads: Hello everyone, this is an official follow up to my previous post that went viral and caught me off guard.

So me and my girlfriend, (Who has officially agreed to disclose her name lol) Emily, had gone shopping for me to get me outfits and the like. Earlier today i put on one of those outfits and officially faced the world as Jessie for the first time.

To say I was nervous would be an understatement. We went to our local mall and I was almost shaking, thankfully Emily calmed me down and said if anyone said anything mean to me she'd handle it, then playfully threw up her hands like a boxer lol. We stepped inside and started walking around going in stores and I noticed something, no one was staring. Like at all. I live in an area that still has issues with LGBTQ people so I was afraid of staring or aggressive people. But none of that happened. People greeted me, the store workers were kind and nobody looked at me like I was weird. I felt comfortable, and Emily even said she saw someone check me put, though i doubt that.

This was unbelievable to me and honestly I felt like myself. I feels nice that I can go out without worrying about Judging eyes.

a BOG is a wetland that is acidic

But from what i can gather thats Crystal Thierry, also known as page73girl. Who seems to have been a model for the now defunct biggestletdown.com…

to Immanentize the Eschaton means to bring about utopian conditions and create heaven on Earth

the phrase is first cited in the Discordian religious text, Principia Discordia (1963), for whom Discord (aka Eris) is goddess:

the first line of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s 1975 The Illuminatus! trilogy: “It was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton.”

in Frederik Pohl’s The Eschaton Sequence (1997 - 1999), the human race is caught up in a galactic war between two alien races attempting to immanentize the eschaton

in Ken Macleod's The Stone Canal (1997), one of the chapters is “Another crack at Immanentising the Eschaton”

I Am A Lazy Asshole With No Motivation Because the World is Broken Potato Soup

This is a great, comforting, extremely low effort soup. Who among us has any motivation right now? I like to serve it with a buffet of toppings, by which I mean go ahead and dig around in your fridge for anything to put on top of it. I’ll give you some ideas! 

3-4 pounds of potatoes, cubed into about 1-2 inch cubes. Not to go full Cooking 101 with Holligay, but there are two major types of potatoes, starchy and waxy, and you want waxy type for this or the texture will be off! Easy to find waxy types are Yukon Gold and Red. 

1 medium onion, chopped

6 cloves of garlic, chopped lazily. 

2 tbsp of dried thyme or dill or basil or whatever your herb of choice generally is

2 tsp (or more) smoked paprika

4 cups chicken or veg broth. 

A heaping spoonful of whole grain mustard

Salt and pepper (Or Alpine, which is the greatest choice. I use alpine and pepper) 

1.5 cups heavy cream. 

Toppings! Anything you like, but ideas: chopped green onion, bacon, cheese, sour cream, sauteed mushrooms, go nuts. 

Toss everything but the cream and toppings into a slow cooker. Cook on low eight hours or high for four hours if you MUST but it tastes better on low for eight. 

Find the pattern here

Invisible stranding, also known as ladderback jacquard 🧶 🧶 🧶

This is a technique for catching floats which is completely invisible from the right side. To work it, cast on an extra stitch behind the work and purl it on every round with the colour not in use. This creates an extra layer on the wrong side, like a spider’s web. When the pattern is completed, the extra stitch is eliminated by knitting it together with its corresponding front stitch.

This method is ideal for sweater yokes with isolated motifs and very long floats.

I once tried it on socks, but I wouldn’t recommend it for that purpose: the extra layer on the inside tends to catch when pulling them on…

You can practice this technique with square 28. The Invisible One of the Learn-to-Knit Blanket. Find the pattern in the book Learn to Knit in 50 Squares.