Insanity: In the Eye of the Beholder

My wife pointed out to me the other day that apparently most people were literally only taught how to say Sorry and not how to Apologize or even that they are different things so here.

When there's something you want to explain (your grandma just died, they said something your middle school bully did, you were on two hours of sleep because of the puppy)

When you know the behavior will likely reoccur, either because it is impossible to change (like memory issues) or is hard and slow to change (like a trauma response)

I think explanations can be very helpful. But what's the difference between an explanation and an excuse. To me, the focus on and excuse is about saying "I have this going on, so you can't be mad at me" (which is a way you can feel, but isn't an apology). An explanation is about saying "You didn't do anything wrong and my behavior wasn't a reflection on how I feel about you or our relationship."

This means also not going on a "I'm sorry, I'm the worst ever, I'm trash, you should leave me."

I also think it's important not to promise things you can't do (you cannot promise to stop having your disability or to never get cranky again). If you think it will absolutely happen again, just leave out that part. But, even if you know it will happen sometimes, you can take steps to explain how you're working on reducing the behavior (setting alarms, working through trauma, getting more sleep, asking for space before you blow up.)

For example:

"I'm really sorry I've been so out of touch these past few months. I've been really struggling with my depression, and I ended up kind of going silent on everyone. I want you to know your friendship means the world to me, and I'm really sorry I haven't been able to act that way."

"I am so sorry I forgot we were supposed to hang out Saturday. I know how hard it is for you to cancel day of. I've been having a lot of trouble remembering things, but I want you to know I love spending time with you and was really looking forward to it. I'm going to set an alarm next time to make sure I don't forget."

The only things that work without rest are machines; literally everything that lives requires rest.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: as a transfeminine butch it took viewing my masculinity from a transmasculine perspective to emotionally divorce myself from the toxic notions of societal normativity.

I was never an effeminate kid but I was SEEN as one. My masculinity was butchness even going that far back and all my peers did look at me and said "that kid's a sissy". I wore a suit and tie to school the first couple years of primary and I wrote cringy poetry for girls that I had crushes on and all my peers would look at me and say "that kid's a faggot".

And when I then came out and began transitioning, it was like shedding falser skin that never was me to begin with. But then the idea that I was now to conform to normative notions of "womanhood" hit me like a stack of bricks.

And it took trans men. It took transmasculinity. It took seeing the biggest, butchest dykes, it took looking at women, men and nonbinary people so UNLIKE EVERYTHING society broadly views as attractive who looked similar to me to learn to LOVE ME.

To learn to love the soft fur on my body, the coarse hair on my legs and arms and hands. The pits, the rolls, the bulging stomach, the small boobs, bigger upper pubic area. The stubble on my face, the way my nose hooks just so slightly. The shadow cast by hair upon my face, the way I smell when I do exercise.

It took being around people, LOVING people to whom all these things I was conditioned to believe to be fundamentally at odds with my closeness to womanhood were DESIRED traits that they STRUGGLED for. It took surrounding myself with people to whom the way I was and wanted to be wasn't things to be erased.

I'm butch. I love my body hair, I love my masculinity. I love all that. I'm not on estrogen to be less of me, myself. I'm on estrogen to be MORE of me, myself. Surrounding myself with people who love their masculinity, who STRIVE for masculinity. To whom testosterone is NOT a poison. To whom the way I am is not a state that's to be shunned or overcome.

It brought me peace. It brought self love. It brought serenity. I feel more at ease inside this body I inhibit and I have now to thank for that: trans men, transmasculine people, transmasculinity. Manhood.

I have to thank for all the love that I have found for my own self.

@thatgarden

and that's the thing: I know that the very binary and transmedicalist leaning focus on "womanhood first, trans second (or never, if stealth)" and "manhood first, trans second (or never, if stealth)" is very big because its a narrative that gets validation from a cissexist and horrifically normative society but the way I see it I will always have more in common with a trans man than with a cis woman without any of the non-normativity on her part.

My womanhood, my gender, my identity is shaped and molded by my experience of it being considered transgressive.

I wasn't a woman until I forced my way out of the norms that I was raised in and I couldn't BE a woman until I asserted MYSELF as that.

A trans man or even a cis woman whose womanhood exists on other intersecting axes of societal marginalization will ALWAYS exist in a way that is more closely related to how I experience the world than a binary, societally conforming cis woman.

And let me be very clear here: this is me saying that ANY aversion, divergence and anti-normativity in a societal sense is what connects and unites me as a nonbinary transfeminine butch dyke with others.

A cis person can 100% be transgressive against societally enforced gender norms and I will always be in solidarity and unity with that person.

happy 20 year anniversary of Neil banging out the tunes!

though every rat is special, it's a wonderful and unusual thing for their accomplishments to be remembered and cherished by so many people so many years later. we're all so fortunate to know about the rat who banged out the tunes!

thank you to all the people who sent me reference photos of their beloved rats for this piece!!! credits under the cut!

In all my art classes, I was never taught HOW to use the various tools of art.

Like yes, form, and shape and space and color theory and figure drawing is important, but so is KNOWING what different tools do.

I’m 29 and I JUST learned this past month that India Ink is fucking waterproof when it dries. Why is this important? Because I can line something in India Ink and then go over it with watercolors. And that has CHANGED the ENTIRE way I art and the ease I can create with.

heres some of mine, pls take with a grain of salt im a total gotdamn amateur:

a lot of the time, the ability for colored ink to bleed will vary wildly WITHIN A SINGLE BRAND OF COLORED INKS. my cobalts bleed like fucking CRAZY compared to my reds, which, when u reference manuscripts that tend to put white ink ON TOP of either red or blue… you see where shit gets real and real annoying. 

u can buy an aeresol, fully transparent workable sealant for like 5-10 dollars at your local art store. when i realize a piece ive been working on needs a color on TOP of a bleed happy ink, i give it a layer of this stuff. trouble is it CAN warp the paper so its important as soon as it dries to use heavy things (paperweights, books) to counteract the paper curling.

WD40, found at your local hardware store, will remove Sharpie marker from almost any hard surface. 

 Acrylic inks will show brush strokes in large areas but are waterproof and quick-drying. 

 Acrylic gouache is vivid, fluid, dried matte, is UTTERLY opaque on black paper, handles exactly like watercolor, and is waterproof. 

Putting an oil painting in the sun will turn the yellowed portions back to their original white and wont hurt the painting. 

 Cheap acrylic paintings will bleach out if left in the sun - get UV protectant spray or varnish. Nicer acrylic paints are less prone to sun bleaching, but they still do. Plan accordingly. Oil paints are much less prone to this. 

Solvent-based markers blend together MUSH MORE SMOOTHLY than alcohol-based markers. 

There is an acrylic paint medium for literally every effect you can conceivably think of (fabric paint medium, gloss medium, fluid medium, sand medium, fast-dying/slow-drying medium, etc.). 

 If you’re going to buy student-grade paint to save cash, buy earth-tones (burnt sienna, ochre, etc.); they are made with cheap pigments already, and you wont tell a difference. You WILL tell a difference between student-grade and artist-grade bright colors (all yellows, blues, and reds). 

If you’re working with markers but aren’t using marker paper, you need to switch. Markers don’t blend on printer paper, they just layer (even expensive markers). 

If you want a glass palette for paint mixing but don’t want to shell out the cash, buy a giant picture frame at Goodwill, take the glass out, and electrical tape it to a piece of foam board the same size for stability. 

 Hog bristle brushes are for oil paint, sable brushes are for watercolor, and synthetic brushes are for acrylic and oil (but not watercolor because synthetic bristles can’t absorb water). 

- Palette knives are for mixing paint and TRUST ME you want to learn how to use them. When you mix with your brush you loose paint and it’s hard in your brushes.

- DO NOT FIX YOUR ARTWORK WITH HAIRSPRAY. If you’re proud of your work and want to keep it, buy the actual spray fix. Hairspray is not archival in the slightest and will damage your work.

- On top of that, be careful how you store your work. Newsprint is handy and cheap, but also not acid-free and it will yellow your paper. Foamboard? Matboard? Also not always acid-free (but you can get them acid-free).

- There is no food-safe paint. Period. There are lots of ways you can decorate pottery that aren’t glazes, but only glazes are food safe (and even some of those aren’t).

- Also not food safe: Polymer clay (sculpey), air dry clay, oil-based clay, ceramics that have not been glaze fired, oil pastels, sharpie, glues of any kind, or mod podge (even the ‘dishwasher safe’ kind).

- Don’t even get me started on mod podge. It’s not consistent. It’s not archival. It’s not a sealant, it’s a glue (setting aside some of the weird hyper-specific ones they make that I’ve literally never seen in real life).

- If your glue isn’t archival or at least acid-free, don’t use it in your artwork.

- There are so many different kinds of paper out there, just go try them. But also make sure you know if it’s acid-free or not (it probably is).

- Marker paper is usually 15 to 20 lbs. News print is usually 30 to 35 lbs. Tracing paper is usually 25 lbs. Rice paper can range from 20 to 50 lbs. Printer paper is 20 lbs. Vellum paper is usually 48 to 55 lbs. Sketchbook paper is usually 50 to 60 lbs. Drawing paper is usually 70 to 80 lbs. Cardstock can range from 50 to 110 lbs. Charcoal paper is usually 50 to 65 lbs. Pastel paper can range from 70 lbs to board. Bristol paper can range from 50 lbs to board. Mixed media paper can range from 90 to 140 lbs. Printmaking paper can range from lbs 90 to 300 lbs. Watercolor paper can range from 90 to 500 lbs.

- The heavier and rougher the paper is, the more it will absorb. If you’re using a paper too smooth for your medium it will take forever to dry and may smudge. If you’re using a paper too light for your medium, it will warp and curl.

- If you’re working heavily with water, you need to stretch your paper (aka seal down your edges of the paper to a hard, water resistant surface). If you don’t like doing that because it’s a hassle, buy a watercolor block instead of a pad/individual peices.

- If you’re working on a thicker paper, and make a mistake that your can’t erase or cover- you can scrape and/or cut it out! With a really sharp exacto knife, you can very CAREFULLY remove the top layer of paper fibers on most paper.

- DO NOT USE ACRYLIC AS BODY PAINT. It’s plastic.

- If you paint with oil, buy a silicoil jar. It’s the best $10 you’ve ever spent.

- Acrylic paint is basically water-based plastic. It will basically fuse with anything plastic (like a plastic palette), and will not stick to anything oil-based.

Hey everyone,

It's Your Local Bardic entity, Gallus Rostromengalus of Bread Jesus and other Weird Tumblr Story Fame.

Despite my best efforts to mitigate mt Terrible English Dental DNA, today two of my teeth broke.

I don't even have a fun story about this, it's literally terrible genetics and stress-grinding my teeth in my sleep.

I just got back from emergency surgery to get the pieces pulled and the hole in my jaw closed so I don't get an infection, but a second reconstruction surgery to give me a bone graft and dental implants will be needed so I can actually chew and use my mouth for it's intended purposes.

I do not currently have dental insurance. I haven't talked about it here much, but my husband was unemployed after getting laid off for almost all of last year. He has a job again, but it pays like 2/3rds of his previous one and the benefits are crap. Like no dental insurance until he's worked there at least a year.

So I'm on the hook for the full cost of Today's emergency surgery, Medication, and the necessary follow-up reconstruction, which my dentist estimates will cost between $5000-$7000. Our dentist has given us every discount she can and we have a payment plan, but losing half our household income has left us with no savings and credit cards at their limits. Even though I only need to come up with $500 this month to go ahead with the reconstructive surgery, I do not have any money to spare. It will also be VASTLY cheaper overall to pay for everything up front rather than pay interest over the months with the payment plan, but literally anything will help me right now.

Link To My GoFundMe

Link To My Ko-Fi

Thank you all so much, Gallus

me: yeah i know, they’re all primary colors, it’s perfect

When you go for an MLS (Master’s of Library Science, which is a thing, and which is usually required for “professional-level” library work [which is also a weird and contentious concept that I won’t go into here]), one of the things you study is the organization of information. This deals with how to determine what a book or other material is “about"—a concept we tongue-in-cheek call “aboutness"—and how to convey that to a potential user of the item and make it easy for them to find. Things like keywords and subject headings, do I put this book about how often wild birds attack aerial drones in with books about birds or with books about technology, if its a fictional novel do I put fantasy in it’s own section or mix it in with all of the other fiction, so on and so on.

OP is organizing books by how they would look for them. OP’s partner is thinking in terms of aboutness. This is a system that works for OP because it’s their personal library: they know basically what books they own and they only own books that are relevant to them, and if they know what the book looks like, that can be a quick way to find it.

In a library that assumes the public (or people who do not own that particular collection of books) are using the collection, that doesn’t work. Books are often re-issued in multiple covers, or re-bound in new covers when they get worn out, and if the user doesn’t know what the book looks like or is expecting a different cover, they’re lost. That’s why non-personal libraries used standardized cataloging systems like the Dewey Decimal System or Library of Congress System to organize a book by what it’s “about”, and then put books about the same or similar topics together, marked with labels and signage so a person unfamiliar with the book or collection can find their way to it.

Basically, OP’s system works for their own personal library, because it’s best suited to how the primary user—OP themselves—looks for books. OP’s librarian partner is coming from a background of thinking in terms of a public-facing collection, where aboutness is the key criteria and communicating it to a user unfamiliar with the collection is the priority.

[ID: question by anonymous: did they answer the question though ///end ID]

the navy officer i asked about cyber attacks did answer my question very thoroughly. he also answered other questions such as "when refueling on sea, which boat is the primary course holder?" and "would switching to another government branch affect your retirement benefits?" and generally provided a lot of information over the course of a fascinating hour that as a former government employee myself i am pretty sure he should not have told me. but i also think he would have told me his social security number if i asked nicely (i didn't, I was busy learning about the tactical advantages of speedboats).

the guy obsessed with boat refurbishment that i asked about his tendency towards preservation gave me a really haunted look, said "holy fuck" and then after a moment of consideration "i think i am too drunk. i'm going home" and proceeded to leave. in my defense, it was well and truly meant as genuine curiosity and not as the attempt at psychological warfare it turned out to be. he unfortunately did not answer my question.

“They’re not smarter or faster they’re buying up others’ lifetimes to do their chores”

I see this reaction a lot, and I gotta say, it always makes me a little sad. Whenever the conversation of exploitation of labor comes up, inevitably someone finds themselves struggling with the guilt of “It is so important to me not to contribute to exploitation but I cannot do this thing myself and need someone else to do it for me, so how do I even approach that?”

Exploitation isn’t in the hiring of a service worker. Exploitation is in the respect you show them for their ability to perform the service you need from them.

I have been on a cleaning service staff before, and also been someone who hired a cleaning service, and I can tell you for sure that a lot of cleaning crews (especially worker owned ones) absolutely LOVE their clients and are genuinely happy to be able to make their lives better. The clients they don’t like? Those are the ones who disrespect the workers.

When I was involved with a cleaning service, we had everything from little old ladies living alone to McMasions with five cars as clients, and I can assure you that whenever there was someone who clearly hired us because they were overwhelmed or unable to keep their space clean, those were the households where you put a little more elbow grease in and did a deep clean even when it wasn’t paid for, because you could see how much these people were trying and struggling, and they were always so kind and generous and often embarrassed when talking to you about the job.

I only hired a service a couple if times in my life, but whenever I did, I worked with the same people as often as I could, tipped as well as I could afford, and tried to be the kind of client I would want to have, and that’s how I often ended up with my baseboards cleaned too, or my fridge scrubbed and organized or a restorative clean done in a high use room even when that wasn’t what I had scheduled or paid for.

I’ve heard the same thing from all manner of service workers over the years. Many of us like our jobs! We enjoy the work. It’s the customers that can do a number on you.

They’ve gotta eat too.

You are putting money in their pocket. That is not a bad thing.

Listen, let me tell you, okay?

Shortly before I got laid off, I went for a pedicure at my favorite place for the first time in over two years. I’d decided to switch places because it’s a 30-mile-round-trip drive and I wanted something closer to home, but I’d been deeply disappointed by local options, so back to my original spa I went.

Over two years.

I WALKED IN THE DOOR AND THE OWNER GREETED ME BY NAME.

This is a busy place. She sees several hundred people a week.

I didn’t ask, but I’m pretty sure I know why she remembers me, and do you know what I think it is?

1) I’m polite

2) I tip well

3) on the occasions when I’ve seen someone in there decide to get racist over most of the staff being Vietnamese, I give them hell because I know the staff can’t and also I’m white so, sadly, they’re more likely to actually be embarrassed if I do it.

Am I exploiting my pedicure tech? I guess that depends on your definition of exploitation. I have terrible feet (thanks, family) and I appreciate the work of someone trained to deal with the calluses from my weird gait and the toenail that likes to grow into my foot. I make sure they know I appreciate it, both verbally and financially. Is that exploitation?

.

also like. if you’re paying the cleaning service enough to cover a decent wage for the cleaning staff’s time plus a share of the cleaning supplies and admin staff pay and whatnot (which you probably are) and you’re treating the cleaning staff like people? it is still possible to likely that the cleaning staff are being exploited. by the cleaning service.

that’s not on you. that’s on whoever is pocketing the profits that should’ve been part of the cost of labor, or pocketing the profits that should’ve been part of the cost of health and safety measures, or.

anyway write your legislators about making minimum wage a living wage with annual cost-of-living increases, and about stronger labor protections, with enough higher fines for noncompliance that paying the fines will cost employers more than it’ll cost employers to pay and protect its staff properly

This, of course, is kind of ridiculous if you think about it for a few seconds: even if we start counting from, say, ancient Mesopotamian Uruk, usually recognized as the oldest city, it was 2007 when the world's urban population surpassed the world's rural population. Throughout history, most people did not live in a setting when restaurants or street food made sense.

This is because "they went out to eat fast food" is a more palatable answer than the truth: throughout history, work was done by wives, children, servants, and slaves.

Ultimately, that is the answer. The people you learn about - the Roman senators, the Renaissance artists, the Aztec emperors, the ancient philosophers, the nineteenth century scholars - had the drudge work of life being done by their wives, their children, servants, or slaves. Even grad students spending all summer in the field and then writing their doctoral dissertations in the 1970s usually had their wives doing most of the work for them - and in fact, grad students to this day have workloads calibrated to the assumption you have a live-in housewife doing all your cooking and cleaning for you! It's not good!

(The other answer is that for a lot of people, for a lot of history, they owned maybe three outfits, and they ate the same thing every day. If you lived in The Past odds were good that 90% of your meals consisted of the staple grain of your region in a pot that could be left simmering over the fire for hours while you did other work.)