ΘΔ

I need help with August rent. I'm a disabled unemployed trans woman.

Please share if you can't donate.

Anything helps. Thank you 💖

paypal.me/androgynophore

venmo @Leah-Esther-Rose

What do you mean, that's not something everybody can do?

[gets to the end] What do you mean, that's not the same as popping your ears??

Ah. Wikipedia clarifies that the click I hear at first when I flex my tensor tympani is the pop of popping one's ears. I...honestly, I'm not sure if I've ever experienced an ear pop that wasn't done deliberately (outside of when it happens while swallowing or yawning), and accompanied by the rumble of a flexed tensor tympani.

This means that looking at lists of suggestions for how to pop your ears is baffling--why do all that stuff? Just [flexes ear muscle that supposedly not that many people can consciously control. Click! Rumble.]

Reading more Wikipedia: "A patulous Eustachian tube is a rare condition in which the Eustachian tube remains intermittently open, causing an echoing sound of the person's own heartbeat, breathing, and speech." [flexes ear muscle, mumbles to myself...yeah.]

I wonder if it's really something that most people can't control, or if it's more something that anyone can control, but most people don't think of figuring out how. Mom taught me (when we visited The Sears Tower when I was a kid) by having me pretend to yawn and pay attention to what was going on inside my ears. But! I suppose it could be a genetic quirk that I inherited from her (like being able to curl my tongue), so still not something that just anyone can do. So much for that science fiction idea I had as a teen that involved computer interface implants that you activated by double clicking your ear canals.

Anyway! I got to the above because I had my monthly "estrogen normally docks on the trigeminal nerve, and when cyclical estrogen levels drop, they leave the trigeminal nerve vulnerable to having other stuff plug in which means RING AROUND THE HEADACHE" (paraphrased) phase, and I wanted to look up exactly where the trigeminal nerve is, because I was pretty sure I could map it out by where the pain points on my head were.

And I was right!

[from the Wikipedia entry on the trigeminal nerve]

but then I noticed the label marking "Tensor Tympani" and thought "Huh! What's that?" and here we are

That's what opens the Eustachian tube, but it's kinda sorta connected (physically) to the tensor tympani. Maybe.

hi hiiii it's j again .. thank you to everyone that's helped keep me afloat over these last few months,, it's been! rough! on a lot of fronts! but we're pushing through.

my partner got us a house and we'll be moving over this next month! thankfully our first big house payment won't be until the beginning of august, but moving is an expensive endeavor, i still have utility bills to pay, and i need to eat :')

any and all help is appreciated, even if it's just a reblog 💕

v: @jmaeveb

c: $jmaeveb

i'm so sorry to keep asking i just literally have no other options right now