ostermad (she/they)

At which point they will find an ovarian cyst, but they now get whatever fucked up satisfaction they derive out of proving you wrong, because you didn't believe it could a cyst at all, but guess what? They did find a cyst! It's such a good thing you didn't listen to your intuition and came to them to verify your lay diagnosis from that third party! Bonus? Doctor doesn't have to feel like they look stupid in front of a patient, which is really what all this is about. Not your health, why would you think your medical diagnosis is about your health? It's obviously about a doctor's potential ego.

And apparently this works. Apparently you just need to be able to always play 4D chess with your medical professionals in order to find an avenue of advocating for yourself and getting you medical needs met. Isn't that great?

Every now and then a difficult period like this comes along: so it's time to request some assistance.

I've kind of been neglecting my vision for the past year or so, aware that I needed new glasses (and to go have a consult for possible eye-related surgery), but putting it off... and now the situation has, as it were, come home to roost.

The other day, when I was typing something and then (to check it before posting) had to pick up the Mac and hold it up to my nose to see what I'd typed... I realized that if this went on much longer, even with dictation (because after you dictate, you still have to edit...), I wouldn't be able to write.

That would be bad.

I need to go see my Eye Lady, get examined, and get both sets of glasses re-fitted with new prescriptions. This—as usual, each time it needs to be done every year and a half or two years, due to Weird Eyes—is going to run into a low-four-figure-ish kind of money. And due to other recent unexpected medical expenses, right now there's not enough dosh around (or spondoolicks or whatever term you prefer...) to get things sorted.

Therefore: can I get people interested in keeping a writer, you know, writing (as I've got three novels working at once at the moment...), to consider doing one of these things?

(a) Go over to Ebooks Direct and buy a book. (Or a bundle. Or a gift card for somebody else who might like my work.) And if you do: thanks so much!

(b) Stop by my Ko-Fi and drop a little something in the pot. It'll be most appreciated.

And if you can't do either of the above:

(c) Reblog this and let other people see it?

If she dies then well that kinda just happens sometimes. Send her family a gift basket, a thank you card, and how their daughter died a hero’s death. Do NOT explain in detail how she actually died, that’s not important and they’re in mourning they don’t want to know.

But if she doesn’t die then you get a 68.5% of getting a hardened mech pilot that’ll push her machine to the extremes and be an amazing ace that new recruits will look up to.

However there is also a small, minor 31.5% she becomes too delusioned to the horrors of war and starts killing everyone in an attempt to bring “peace and prosperity” and to quiet the “voices” in her head that probably aren’t real and she’s just having a horribly prolonged psychological breakdown.

1. My original post was talking about the ways I watched my mother get harassed for bringing toddlers to *the grocery store.* Jumping to "omg so you think kids should be allowed in BARS?!" is a hell of a stretch.

The reason according to the college is that they want to sell the building to fix the school's budget; they also claim the wood tech college has a severe budget deficit, but they've failed to follow through on any promises to try to fix that (including hiring a permanent dean, so the school has someone to advocate for them... which they haven't had in at least a decade).

The reason according to some students & staff is that Seattle College's VP has a grudge against the lead carpentry instructor & has been trying to get her program shut down for years to get rid of her.

Students are trying to make some noise about it, in hopes that the college backs down and they can work towards the long-term fixes Seattle College keeps failing to follow through on.

If you can sign this little petition & share this around, it'd help the school out a ton!

It shows the school they're going to get pushback, which has changed their mind about this in the past.

It would be really cool if we could help get this to 1k!

There are less than 200 students at the wood tech college, so makes a really big impact when anyone else signs and shows that people outside of just students really care about this.

They even link to it later in the article.

This really is one of those cases where every little bit of effort has a HUGE impact. This program is tiny, and Seattle Colleges is expecting it to disappear quietly. Every signature makes it more obvious that isn't going to happen, and that makes it harder for them to follow through on closing & selling the school.

These numbers have also been a huge surprise to the students working to fight this-- they didn't expect this many signatures at all, and it's incredibly encouraging to see so much support for their efforts from the wider community.

I don't remember the details but I recall how the guy had the looks of a rough life written all over him, ragged clothes in contrast to the police officer's pristine uniform - though obscured by motion blur as he was rapidly approaching with hateful intent - and the much finer burial clothes of the deceased. A small, skinny man with black hair, holding onto the bottle that's about to be confiscated like it's something precious to him.

I felt like something wasn't adding up and went to the comments to see if there was additional context that was missing from all this, and there was: The son and the father were Romani, and at least at the time it was still very much a tradition in Swedish Romani culture to bury the dead with little gifts - not necessarily extravagant or expensive, but things that the lost loved one would have liked.

Had to go find the photo, it's indeed Swedish. Taken by Åke Borglund and photo of the year 1958, apparently.

The photo comes from an article on a Swedish Romani funeral in Karlstad (a city 300 km west of Stockholm). The text is pretty exoticising and othering, I won't bother translating the whole thing. But I will relay the most interesting information.

First of all, the deceased man is Josef Dimetri (1903-1958), who was a Romani chief. From what I can tell from the Swedish censuses, he left behind a wife and six children, ages 18-31.

Which means that the photo is a bit deceptive on its own - the chapel is still empty there, but the article states it was taken shortly before the rest of the guests arrived. Because there were plenty of guests - and there are more photos of them!

The article doesn't explain why the police was there, but it says they had to step in and break off some fighting and arguments that broke out between guests, which is more likely what they were there for (rather than just inspecting bottles). They can also be seen talking to spectators in the last photo, so staving off curious or hostile people might also have been a reason.