SurroundedByBooks

Me in 2006: I’m still bitter about that

Libraries are sneaky, because once you go in, it's soo easy to get a library card, and once you have one, you can pretty much grab one of everything of all the stuff they have there with no consequence, and take it home. But then once you're home and you've read all the stuff you'll have to go back to the library to return the stuff, and once you're at the library again, you're at the library again, so might as well pop in to see what they got, and then you're hauling half their shit home again, and then you'll need to return to the library to return them, so you're at the library again

thinking about the time a former housemate said to me "hey I put these box fans in the living room because it's hot" while gesturing to the fans that I was actively sitting in front of because it was hot. and I said "okay thanks." and she kept standing there like she was waiting for something else so I said "am I blocking the airflow? do you need me to move?" and she said no I'm just letting you know they're here, in the living room, for circulation. and I said well yes, I did put that together. I am enjoying them. thank you. and she looked confused. so I asked "am I meant to do something with this information or are you just informing me?" and she said no I'm letting you know they're here because It's Hot In Here. she seemed a bit aggravated, and her emphasis seemed deliberate.

I have observed enough allistic communication to know that generally, if somebody points something out to you that you can already see or are already clearly interacting with, they are making an indirect request. but as I don't know what the request is, the only way forward is for me to guess (and likely get it wrong), or prompt the allistic to tell me clearly what they need.

one of the hardest parts of shallergies fic: hunting through to find the posts that inspired/contributed to the fic framework

My elderly father started talking about how frustrating he finds “the pronouns thing” and I was like. Oh no. He had such a good stand on this, he’s been they/them-ing his cishet siblings for god’s sake! Is he regressing?? And he was talking about how difficult it is to remember, and how onerous it feels to expect strangers to keep track of it, and I’m like oh no oh no.

I don’t have time to unpack my full thoughts on the whole argument of ‘you shouldn’t be a burden to the healthcare system’ but I would like to chime in on it: