because i am asking

when i asked whether their autistic classmate's meltdown was dangerous or merely uncomfortable, they said, "i felt like i was in danger!"

yes you should, actually. that's life. upsetting things happen. no one should have to experience any discomfort. but we do. we get stung by bees and sunburns and headaches. we live in bodies in the world.

autistic people are human beings who have the right to exist in society, including during meltdowns. having one class of your entire semester interrupted by a singular meltdown is not anymore of an infringement upon your entitlement to education than having your class interrupted by a fire alarm or cancelled for a snow storm.

one of my peers once experienced a cardiac event 10 minutes into class. it was terrifying. it was desperately upsetting. i was contacted by the school and offered counseling because i happened to be the one who managed the situation until paramedics arrived. everyone was worried about my classmate first and foremost, and then about me. no one blamed anyone, and certainly when my classmate happily recovered and returned to school, no one thought they should be removed from the program.

We will never achieve liberation for all genders if we continue to buy into gender essentialism and gender segregation. We will never defeat patriarchy if we pretend that patriarchy is simply "what men do to women." Patriarchy is systemic, perpetuating itself through patriarchal-minded people of all genders, and we must all work together to defeat it.

Feminism is for everybody.

New from my blog #myblog:

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Since we last checked in on our woebegone Boston Hunters, they had just earned their first win of the season. In an unexpected move, right before their game the day after the win, the WPBL then canned the Hunters’ manager, 2004 World Series winner Keith Foulke, and replaced him with LA Queens assistant coach Jemile Weeks.

WPBL Commissioner Justine Siegel told the Boston Globe that the Foulke’s firing was about fit, and finding a coach that could work with Boston’s young roster, the youngest in the league. Foulke claimed the move was the league second-guessing a preexisting agreement that allowed him to commute to Springfield from his home in Arizona; though, as paraphrased in the Springfield Journal-Register, he also privately expressed that he “thought the talent levels for the other three teams in the league were higher than the Hunters' team that was drafted,” remarks that were then shared separately to the team itself. For this or other undisclosed reasons, Foulke does not appear to have been beloved; the day the change in managers was announced, Lexi Hastings, a Boston Hunter player, posted this on her public Instagram story:

In the two games from when Weeks took over for the Hunters, the team has begun its ascension from its shallow roost at the back of the four-team standings. The Hunters pushed the New York Heights all the way to extra innings before a loss on Sunday, then on Thursday, they secured their second win over the Heights, 6-1. The Hunters now tie the Heights for fourth in the standings at 2-3 a piece, though the Hunters still have the slightly worse run differential, -9 to the Heights’ -4.

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The Hunters looked a very different team on Thursday night. Carried by the “Denver Disposition,” coined by broadcaster Jenna Becerra, referring to Denver Bryant’s strong competitive energy at the plate and on the basepaths, the Hunters have been playing like a team that now believes in itself, that’s acting like it’s been here before, that can win on its own terms.

Here’s a prime example of the Denver Dispo: in the top of the fifth on Thursday, with Bryant on third, a passed ball from Denae Benites sent a pitch to the backstop. Benites scrambled after it while Rakyung Kim covered home. Bryant read it well and charged down the line, sliding in one foot to pretty handily beat the tag from Kim, who was positioned too far away from the plate to reach her in time. Bryant got her foot on the plate and popped straight up, pumping her shoulders as she stared down her teammates in the first base dugout. “Aura farming,” as the kids say. It put the Hunters up 4-1.

In the bottom of the fifth, the Heights were looking for a tit-for-tat that never titted nor tatted. Denae Benites got a leadoff walk and advanced to second on a wild pitch, then Claire O’Sullivan dunked a little blooper into short right field that an overeager Benites tried to stretch into a go for home. Molly Paddison relayed it to Maïka Dumais, who stuttered one second as Benites hauled ass down the third base line, then Dumais hucked it to catcher Hyeonah Kim to get the out. Boston’s teenage woes be damned: it was an eighteen year old Paddison to an eighteen year old Dumais who pulled off that play, the first close out at the plate I’ve yet seen.

It’s hard to tell from the broadcast, but it looked like Benites had only just rounded third when the ball hit Dumais’ glove in the middle infield grass. By rights, Benites needed to stop there. Perhaps she blew past a sign from the third base coach. I wasn’t there, I didn’t see. Regardless, Benites was not happy with the out call: she kicked her helmet and mouthed some things as she huffed into the dugout. Without Benites, the Heights weren’t going anywhere. Benites alone has scored or driven in nearly half of the Heights’ runs to date. On Thursday’s loss, she only went 1-2 with 0 RBI. Add to that the tough out at home, and a couple of passed balls and dropped flies, and you have yourself a hexed night. That’s the trouble with being carried by a superstar. You need her to deliver every time. I’m sorry I jinxed you, girl.

While Boston has yet to have a win of more than single-digit runs, this game was the first sign of a cohesive offensive threat from the middle spots in the lineup. Ticara Geldenhuis, player of the game, hit three doubles in the five hole, drove in two runs, and scored one. Geldenhuis and Bryant may yet become a scary pair; in all three of Geldenhuis’ doubles, Bryant was on first ahead of her and made it to third after her, though Bryant only scored once, on that passed ball. Hyeonah Kim also hit a double, combining with Geldenhuis to double the Hunters’ extra base hit total for the season in just one night.

Proper flowers must also be bestowed to Alli Schroder and Gigi Schiano, who opened and closed the game with seven hits and zero earned runs in six innings, though with only one strikeout each, it was the Hunters defense that was most on point. Besides the play at the plate, there were several well tracked and caught fly balls in the outfield, balls we haven’t always seen this outfield get to. Olivia Bricker, who pitched in the middle of the game and let in New York’s only run, also only did so on a sac fly. Boston ended the night with zero errors, their first game with none since their first on opening weekend.

How much Weeks has to do with this change in the Hunters, who can say. Late 2025 and 2026 has seen a smattering of successful and semi successful managerial firings, from the Buffalo Sabres ending a fourteen-year playoff drought after firing their manager, to the Mets going from stinky to simply smelly after parting ways with Carlos Mendoza. So far, what has changed around the Hunters is a noticeable amount of joy.

i think i found my new favorite artist on twitter