The Fictional Hero

I learned a while ago that when someone does something mildly shitty (like saying something hurtful, or being in the way, or being annoying)

assume ignorance, not malice.

Big Oil poisons our politicians. Our planet is on the brink. It's time to rescind the subsidies and push out all opponents of green and renewable energy.

Over the span of 8 years, there have been 17 trans-femme athletes competing in high school sports in the state of ohio.

In different sports.

The trans girl track team wins every meet because theres no one to compete against. The football team gets disqualified every time because theres not enough people to play.

Pilots and other transportation workers have absurd hours of service requirements that start your rest period as “the moment you shut the vehicle down” and can be as short as 9 hours in some cases.

Railroad workers have to be available on-call 6 days a week and be ready within two hours notice. They don’t get sick time.

Retail workers have to keep a veneer of politeness against any and all abuse or they can be fired.

Truck drivers get paid by mileage and rarely see pay for shipper or receiver delays.

I'm in university, studying biology right now. I'm at a top 1% university and Biology is one of their hardest programs. They BRAG about how it's one of the hardest programs. There's a guy who dropped out of med school in my year. He got straight As, but dropped out anyway, because, in his words, "I had no life. I did fine in school, but I had no life. I could end up being proud of myself for becoming a doctor and hate every other aspect of my life. What's the point in that?" He wasn't the only one who dropped out for that reason. In biology itself, we started with 100, and in the first quarter 4 dropped out. One of them from my study group, she said: "What's the point? I might be able to make it, but I'd be killing myself just to get there. I want to live a life". But the part that absolutely disgusted me? Our second quarter, was the toughest one of our entire study. For some reason, they put all the most difficult, most demanding, most harrowing subjects that all required SEVERAL lab reports along with entire days spent in the lab (when were we supposed to write those reports when we spend 08:00-18:00 in the lab, and everyone has like an hour and a half travel time to get home? We also need to eat and sleep maybe?) in one quarter, all togeher. Why did they do this?

"To weed out the weak ones."

It was designed that way. On purpose. To make it hard. To make sure we suffered. The next quarter had three very do-able subjects, only one of which required labtime (and only afternoons). They could've so easily switched one of those subjects around. It would've absolutely not mattered in how much we learned in the end, except it would've been easier on us. But university's not meant to be easy, right?

If someone were, as a random example, say hospitalized for over two weeks with no explanation, I think that should automatically trigger a special election to replace them.

If you're still able to do your job, then prove it. And if you're not, then you're actively obstructing democracy by not stepping down.

Which is to say, that if a public official were to pass away or into a coma, and their handlers choose to obfuscate that fact, this should be seen as intentionally obstructing democracy.

I don't mean you can't get good at things through repeated practice. You can do that, I have done that, but I don't trust it.

I was driving this morning and thinking about how I have never developed the blasé contempt for it most people seem to despite never having caused an accident in 20 years because my sense of time is such that I might as well have been driving for a week. I'm a good, safe driver, but I do not have a heap of confidence in my driving despite having regularly done it for two decades because my sense of time is such that those two decades may as well not have happened.

I finished editing a novel today. When I publish it, it will be the 64th novel I have published in the last 10 years, not counting ghostwritten work. You'd think after a decade and 63 novels I'd be confident that I was capable of writing, editing, and publishing a novel—even be confident about the timeline for this—but no. No, I feel like I'm doing it for the first time, every time, and I was surprised to have finished the editing at all, let alone on time. Because those other 63 novels were published in a past I have a vague at best concept of. I have a record that says it happened but I do not feel it.

I cannot trust my future behaviour because for me there is functionally no past. I know it occurred, I have records, but I don't feel it the way people without this kind of memory issue do. I feel inexperienced at everything I've ever done and I cannot accurately estimate my skill level at anything, particularly not on the fly.

Which is to say, that now that I have a baby of my own, I understand so much better the common cultural practice in which unmarried women wear their hair loose and uncovered, while married women have their hair covered and/or bound back.

I want actual menus, not QR codes, I want paper airplane tickets, not QR codes, I want an actual lock and key, not a passcode, I want paper money and coins to hand out, tip with, or give as gifts or to homeless people, not pay with my phone. I want to pay with money to ride the bus, not buy a special-wecial expensive card for the one time a year I have to take the bus, I want to buy things to own them FOREVER not have a million monthly subscriptions

my mom is in fact aware that dandelions exist. she temporarily forgot the name and there was some miscommunication.

the truth is actually weirder

she's aware dandelions look like this

she is familiar with this flower. she knows the name of this flower. she declines to believe, however, that these are also dandelions

she does not believe these are the same plant. I tried to explain, and she thought I was either misinformed or lying. so I asked her what exactly did she think the yellow ones were called?

gosh I enjoy this website