A Macaron of a Person

I was wandering through a gallery when I turned around and saw a portrait of a woman and audibly went 'oh fuck.'

This is extra funny because I've only ever had this reaction once before, on a painting I saw in a museum in Fort Worth, Texas (extremely far away from where I was yesterday). The painting in Fort Worth was this one:

It's a painting of Alice Vanderbilt Shepard, by John Singer Sargent. I was so affected that I bought a print of this painting in particular when I got home, as the museum did not offer this particular painting in print.

Yesterday, the painting that yanked me out of my art museum stupor was this one:

Important notes:

It was in a gallery of many different painters

My left eye wasn't working great and I couldn't read any of the signs until I got up close

I have never seen this painting in my life

Gang do you want to know who painted that painting? Do you want to take a stabbling? A little baby guess?

Because apparently it was John Singer Sargent.

And this guy nonstop slaps? Every portrait is an absolute banger? Some selections from the first handful of pages on wikiart:

Turns out you can roll a 7 on a d6

So I tell Jane to bring her boy over to a bbq I'm having and she can tell him she's trans at my place surrounded by queer and trans people who love her and will support her if he ends up being awful.

She waits till the end of the bbq to tell him the news, by which point the rest of us have learned that Jason is a kind, friendly, empathetic, hard working, dummy. So we sit down, all of us a little worried about this gym bro's reaction when she tells him she's trans, and that she understands if he doesn't want to keep dating her it's no big deal.

He's baffled, so we explain what trans is, and after the disclosure that she hasn't had bottom surgery yet...

"Oh you have a dick?"

"... yeah."

He look's around at the room full of people with baited breath, his clearly a little afraid girl friend says

"Oooohhhh! I get it! You think- don't worry Babe! Watch this!"

And ya'll this man jumps up, runs into the kitchen and returns with one of the bratwurst we had for grilling and proceeds to tilt his head back, put it down his throat, hold it in his mouth for a moment, and spit it up without even a whisper of a gag and then looks around at the group absolutely beaming with pride.

"Honey, I must tell you, i am in fact trans and I have not had bottom surgery."

"i'm so basic.....i just like a lot of butter or jam :(" (as though those are not god's best and most beloved condiments and his greatest gifts to mankind)

"FUCK health guidelines FUCK my cholesterol and most importantly FUCK diet culture i'll put a dumpster full of butter on my toast and not even GOD will stop me" (no notes. god would encourage this)

doxxing one's self by mention of polarizing regional delicacies (i am so curious about vegemite i must admit)

"does a grilled cheese count as toast?" (not for the purposes of this post)

"i don't like toast please don't kill me" (i appreciate the honesty but i fear this post is not for you)

people who put full ass meals on toast (based)

people who do not but eat toast as a full meal (based)

melty peanut butter (absolutely based)

"it's a guilty pleasure but...nutella 😳" (relieve yourself of fear and enjoy your dessert toast)

The Reasonable Childhood Independence Law unanimously passed both chambers this year. It seeks to shield Hoosier parents from child welfare investigations solely for allowing their children age-appropriate independence.

State Rep. Victoria Garcia-Wilburn is a Democrat from Fishers who co-sponsored the bill with South Bend Republican Rep. Jake Teshka.

"It really is in regards to developmentally appropriate age-related activities, as defined by, mainly the parent, and of course this does not in any way diminish laws that we already have on the books, like it is irresponsible and illegal to leave a child in a hot car on a hot day like today, for example."

She recalled testimony from a parent who was investigated by child welfare officials after neighbors were concerned that four siblings, ages 10, 9 and two 7-year-olds, rode their bikes to a park, played there for hours and then came home and were alone for an hour. Garcia Wilburn says it sounded like a typical day in her childhood.

Too often, Democracy is presented to us as the boring, moderate option, only chosen by conformists and the indecisive masses. I am here to tell you:

Democracy is not Moderate. Democracy is Radical.

Democracy is the last major political ideology to insist that legitimacy rises from the many and not the few.

Every other system - no matter how it dresses itself up - rests on the same grim foundation: that power must be concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite. Sometimes it is in the hands of The Party's Politburo, sometimes it's the Guardian Mullahs, sometimes a Noble Bloodline, sometimes it's the President-for-Life and his pathetic cadre of sycophants.

It doesn't matter what ideology props up Tyranny. The labels differ, but the structure is identical - a small group decides, and the rest of us obey. Strip away the slogans and you find the same contempt underneath: a profound distrust of humanity as a whole.

And that is how it has always been - in most places, and for most of human history. But Democracy is the rejection of that structure at its root.

Democracy is not tidy. It is not efficient. It is not comforting. It is a stubborn, defiant insistence that ordinary people - in all their conflicted ignorance, prejudice, generosity, and brilliance - are entitled to govern themselves. Not because they are perfect, but because they are human.

It assumes that the people are not livestock to be managed, nor children to be shielded from dangerous thoughts, but moral agents capable of judgment, disagreement, and correction.

There is nothing moderate about that.

And that is why Democracy and Freedom of Expression are inseparable. A system that depends on the people’s consent must allow the people to speak - to argue, to offend, to be wrong, to be foolish, to be alarming. Either you trust the people or you do not.

Democracy cannot survive on curated truths and sanitized discourse. It requires exposure to bad ideas so that better ones can defeat them in the open. It requires citizens who can hear something repulsive and reject it for themselves.

Authoritarian systems have no need for Freedom of Expression. They do not require educated citizens, only compliant ones. They do not need critical thinking, only discipline. Speech is dangerous to them precisely because it invites comparison, skepticism, and refusal. So the Authoritarians of all colors regulate it - not for any public good, but for their own survival.

Here in America, Democracy is strained. The public sometimes chooses poorly. Demagogues rise. Falsehood spreads. But the system is showing its cracks precisely because it allows us to see them.

The answer to bad democratic outcomes is not to abandon democracy - it is to defend it more fiercely. A system that permits error is the only system that permits correction.

I know that the temptation, in moments of fear and frustration, is to reach for guardians - to wish for someone stronger, smarter, cleaner to take the wheel so that you do not have to confront it yourself. That temptation is ancient, but it has always led to the same place: The surrender of voice. The criminalization of dissent. The quiet suffocation of truth.

Democracy asks something harder of us. It asks us to believe that people, together, can learn - can improve. That exposure to ideas does not inevitably corrupt. That sunlight does more good than silence. That freedom - including the freedom to create and consume shocking, offensive, unsettling ideas - is not a threat to legitimacy, but its foundation.

Democracy is not easy and it is not perfect. Democracy rejects the fantasy that some flawless leader will come along to save us. It does not falsely promise us good outcomes every time.

She is the Earth, from the claws of winter to the bloom of spring. Eva, Gaia, feels everything—every sandcastle and forest fire, every brilliant smile and wail of grief. If Grace knew the magnitude of suffering and love that she feels in every second of her existence, she believes he would go of his own accord. Maybe she can show him what is worth saving…

he spent his whole life being strong and threatening, someone praised for their aptitude for violence. now that he's trying to move on from that, i think he'd be afraid to indulge anything close to those impulses. the butcher was mean and physically aggressive and commanding; simon is gentle and loving and sweet. it's difficult to reconcile those two sides of himself when he so thoroughly hates one of them.

he'd need to really warm up to domming. grace would be so encouraging, reminding him that what he does during scenes doesn't make him a monster, but he'd still start off as the gentlest of doms, highly focused on grace instead of himself. he can't bring himself to physically harm grace, not even a swat to the ass. he can't restrain grace without having flashbacks to being restrained himself, how scared he was, and panicking at the thought of making grace feel the same way.

for a long time, the most he can do is be a little demanding, telling grace not to move, overstimulating him, a bit of verbal teasing. even then, he drops hard after; he needs to lay his head in grace's lap or be spooned up in a soft blanket and reassured over and over that he's not a bad person, he has nothing to be guilty for, grace loved everything he did.