*headdesk*

This didn't surprise me but I also like to think that I obviously read as some flavor of dyke and I immediately wondered why he had never mentioned his husband in conversation before. "Why today, after nine years of stopping by this store on my way home from work?" I thought. Then I got home and took off my wallet chain and noticed the new charm I added to it last week:

sharing it because it is

very beautiful

My goths, emos, scene kids, metalheads, lurkers, spooky thangs and bats:

This is the time be sure you're not in polyester. Check them fabric labels. Wear all black but stay in the SHADE.

You own the night. Go out then. Not in the daylight. Hiss. Boo.

A big dramatic caftan can be cotton or other natural fabric, has the proper drama, covers your lissome or luscious limbs from the daystar's lazer, AND will allow AIRFLOW AND works on any gender. 10/10, highly recommend you get your best spooky bedsheet or cotton "wall tapestry" off your wall or a local thrift shop, and stitch yourself a caftan. fold it in half the way you like,two seams with wrist holes left up by the fold, and a neck hole in the middle of the fold, and you will be a wizard. Or a bog hag. You do you. (i like t0 stitch around the neck hole for extra strength)

Speaking of bog hag, dampen the hair, the wrists, the neck.

THIS is when you finally get to crack out your parasol from that Ren Faire, and the lace fans.

Oh and? get a heckoff HUGE hat. SHADE is your friend. You can glue stars on it.

The first time he cheated death, Sisyphus had just angered Zeus by revealing the location of the Asopid Aegina whom Zeus abducted. Which is super valid, fuck Zeus.

Sisyphus knew that Zeus would send the god of death Thanatos after him, so he prepared a trap and trapped Thanatos in the chains meant for him.

After that, nothing on Earth was able to die so long as Thanatos was in chains. Which meant no animals could be sacrificed to the gods. This angered the gods, who made Sisyphus' life so miserable with pain and illness that he would beg for death. And so he released Thanatos.

But then came the second time Sisyphus cheated death. As he was dying, he asked his wife to dump his naked corpse in the middle of the public square. Denied a proper burial, his soul ended up on the far side of the river Styx, unable to cross.

He complained to Hades and Persephone about how his wife disrespected him, and begged them to let him return briefly to the world of the living to scold her and make her bury him properly. They agreed, and Sisyphus returned to life. He then embraced his wife, and refused to return to the Underworld.

It's only when he finally died of old age that he was sent to Tartarus and punished with the boulder.

I don't remember where I've seen it, but I like the interpretation that Sisyphus doesn't have to push the boulder. He can choose to stay in Tartarus and rest. But he was promised that if he managed to push the boulder to the top of the mountain, he'll ascend to Elysium.

And Sisyphus, in his stubbornness and cleverness, refuses to give up on a challenge.

Disability benefits: "I mean, sure, there are probably some sad sacks who are gaming the system, there always are, but hell, with the amount of taxes we pay, the government can afford a few freeloaders, right? I'd rather pay for a couple people who don't really need it than not have the system at all for if I need it, or my kids do, or whatever. I mean shit happens. What if some asshole drunk driver puts me in the hospital and it takes me a year to get back on my feet? Or Heaven forbid something permanent happens. I'll sure be glad that I can get disability then, won't I?"

UBI: "I dunno, the kind of guy who'll just sit on the couch playing Call of Duty all day if he doesn't have to work, I kinda don't want him on my job site anyway. That type is just taking up a place that you could fill with someone who'll actually get the job done, you know? You end up short-handed even though you technically have enough people because everyone else has to pick up his slack. And it'd mean that if your boss is a dick you can tell him to shove it and not worry your kids are gonna go hungry while you find a better place. We can sure as hell afford it."

he also said that it was incredibly unlikely that sexism will ever be resolved in the medical field. that the majority of medications i will ever take - even some of which are "for women" - will not be clinically tested on my body.

the problem, he said, was in getting any human clinical trial approved. to test on a body with a uterus - any body, even elderly patients or those who have been sterilized - was often nigh-impossible, because the concern was that the test patient may, at any point, become pregnant. once/if the patient became pregnant, the study would not be about "the effects of New Medication on the body." instead, the trial would fail - the results would be "the effects of New Medication on a developing fetus/pregnant patient."

it was massively easier, he said, to just test without accounting for a uterus. that's how he phrased it - accounting for a uterus.

at the time, i remember him talking about the ethical implications of testing on a developing fetus; how such testing could theoretically bankrupt a company if a lawsuit was filed. he talked about informed consent and about how long it took for any legislation to be passed about this - that in 1993; the year i was born, it finally became illegal to outright exclude women and minorities from clinical trials.

i remember him shrugging. "that's not to say it doesn't happen," he said. my ears were ringing.

i was thinking about how every time i have been rushed to the ER, the first thing they have asked me is if i am pregnant. when i broke my wrist at 16 years old - despite never having had sex - they made me wait three hours for the test to come back negative before they gave me pain meds. the possibility of a child haunts my health.

how many people have died on the table because they were waiting for the pregnancy test before treatment. how many people have died on the table because they were pregnant, and the only thing we care about is the fetus.

it is hard to explain to other people, but it feels like some kind of strange ghost. our entire lives, we are supposed to "save" our bodies for our future partners. but really we are just saving the body for the future child, aren't we? that hovering future-almost that cartwheels around in a miasma. you can't get your tubes tied, what if you change your mind? think of the child you must have, eventually.

Burger In The Stars will be at SJMade - Little Shops Village in Sunnyvale, California, on the late afternoons of July 10th and 11th! Find us at booth A23.

When I went to see my friends for the pride thing last weekend, we went out to eat before that and while we were talking about stuff while waiting for our bill, one of my friends who carries a whole medical bay in their bag took out one of those nice glass-cleaning wet wipes and started cleaning their glasses with it. Focused on the conversation I didn't pay much attention to it but the next time I looked at their direction I noticed them putting away glasses with a different glasses chain (they have like 35 of them, to match every outfit)

And I thought "hold on, how the fuck do they have the same kind of glasses chain pendants as I do? I made those out of earrings I found from goodwill!" until I realised that no wait those are my sunglasses. They just cleaned them out too since my glasses were right next to their elbow on the table and they had the glasses cleaning stuff out. Didn't ask whether I'd want them to do that as a favour, just casually took care of my shit too since it was conveniently there, just the same as they take care of their own things.

Me: why?

Vines Guy: well like in wrestling- what if they hurt the girls?

Me: i was a sports photographer for three years and any time I was covering wrestling, the teams were categorized by weight class instead of gender. There's always been a couple girls competing against boys. Effectively, wrestling at tge high school level has to be co-ed because there's rarely enough girls at tryouts for their own team.

Vines Guy: football, then.

Me: we had our first female running back in 1999 at my high school. Her name is Sarah.

Vines Guy: ... oh. I... was super wrong then.

And then I went to the USAmerican Midwest

Rains frequently, but the worst is like standing under a bathroom shower. Genuinely inhospitable rainstorms are uncommon.

Along the coast, it's pretty easy in most areas to walk to at least one store, or else there's usually a bus or shuttle available. There are sidewalks and bike lanes everywhere.

It's a temperate boreal rainforest, so while there are many freshwater lakes and rivers, they're usually pretty cold. The biggest danger is typically getting caught in a strong current, and the most dangerous animals in swimming distance are on land.

Earthquakes happen almost every day, but the vast majority go unnoticed. Buildings are designed to withstand bigger seismic activity, so unless it's a 5 or higher it just kind of feels like having low blood sugar for a second. There are no tornados

Rural Illinois, USA:

One minute it's sunny, then ten minutes later that distant smudge on the horizon has swallowed the entire sky in black clouds and the water is coming down like waterfall and you literally CANNOT SEE. Then there's a crash like cymbals and you need to get indoors because the thunder and lightening are on TOP of you

No sidewalks until you are in the smack dab center of town, which is a three hour walk or twenty minute drive from wherever you are.

There aren't many natural bodies of water other than small ponds and creeks, and because the environment is so much warmer, those are filled with snapping turtles that can grow bigger than a nine year old child and water snakes that are incredibly venomous. These are paired with leeches and mosquitos for that sweet umami flavor.