Words are hard

Call me whatever names you wish, but I think this is a much better (and healthier) attitude than “anyone under 18 should never be allowed to see any sexual imagery ever”

(For reference: this was at the Tom of Finland exhibition, containing actual, queer, kinky af pornography. There were definitely some young people there, perhaps in their late teens. There was even a parent with their baby who was probably too young to understand anything at all. And guess what, all those people are probably going to be fine.)

Not as the goal, because adopting fitness habits does not always result in weight loss.

And it's the habits, like building muscle, improving flexibility & mobility, increasing nutrient intake & hydration, and getting quality rest & sleep that actually matter.

If you're successfully doing those things your health is quantitatively improving, no matter what your weight is doing. But if the metric your most concerned with is just loosing weight, you may actually be getting less healthy not more.

Fetch items. Big rings and other plastic trinkets

Crawl on the tiles of a shallow pool like a reptile or amphibian or perhaps an ancient lobe-finned fish

Locate fish. Observe fish. Chase after fish

Dive diagonally down into the water and then when you hit the bottom use your hands to propel yourself back to the top. Or if it gets too dark and scary just swim back up normally

Dive into the deepest part of the pool. Repeat until bored

Blow out all the air in your lungs and then sit at the bottom for a bit

Look at the surface of the water from below. Look at the shapes move. Blow bubbles and look at them slowly climbing upwards

Dive right under the surface of the water horizontally, watch as the light dances around, watch your hands when they make powerful strokes to pull you forward

Swim to the end of the pier or the pool, swim back (The First Feat of Strength)

Watch the surface of the water move while swimming, watch the horizon, watch the sky and the clouds

Find a good position and float. Listen to the silence

Dive vertically, watch the colour of the water shift when you get further or closer to the surface

Dive near the bottom and make the dirt and sand form clouds by shooting water at it (via waving your hands)

Follow mussel trails. Locate mussel. Look at the beauty of the mussel <3

Just dive along the bottom in general. I love to rapidly dive forwards along the bottom into deeper water until I hit the thermocline #benthicorganism

Locate swimming companion. Grab swimming companion‘s ankle

Feel the bubbles on your skin when they go past you. Can be done if you blow bubbles or slam your arms into the water yourself, or if you jump into the water from a higher place. You can also opportunistically wait for someone else to jump into the water and then you can strike

Freedive the distance you always dive every time you go to the pool to show you’ve still got it (The Second Feat of Strength)

Splash the water, move the water around with your hands, feel as it clings to you via surface tension

When it’s time to go, crawl in the water as long as possible #crocodilemode

Alternatively immediately straighten out and run to the shore like the beast you are

Locate aquatic plant. Observe aquatic plant

Swim against the current (river) like crazy and then float along with it

Playfight with your friends over a single floating mattress

I have never seen another allergy that has been so viscerally hated and mocked by people working in education like nut allergies. I’ve seen fellow teachers cringe that their classroom was the “nut free” classroom that year. Support staff that are trained and willfully don’t follow cross contamination protocol in the lunchroom because it’s too “tedious” or “time-consuming”. Full preschools + childcare centers that refuse to accommodate nut allergies. Schools where the only free lunch is a PB&J. Before/after school programs and summer programs whose food curriculum has nuts and doesn’t provide an alternative activity.

Allergy discrimination is so so insidious and prevalent. It’s happening behind their back and it is everything from the exposure joke to possibly causing someone to go into anaphylaxis from willful ignorance.

I was not downplaying this. The stigma is real, and people are 100% willing to let people with allergies die.

When my mom tried to enroll me in preschool, the school principal refused any basic accommodations like asking everyone to wash their hands after lunch before re-entering the classroom, not bringing straight up peanuts to snack time, etc. There was no such thing as a nut free classroom at the time. The principal told my mom and me (I was 4 at the time and definitely in the room when this happened) “if she’s so sick, she belongs in a bubble, not at school.” THE FUCKING PRINCIPAL! My mom had to threaten legal action under the ADA to get them to comply.

Look, I was on a 504 accommodation plan under the ADA for the entirety of my formative education (elementary thru high school). That’s all 12 years!!! And yet I have had teachers hand me items I’m allergic to as a “reward”. I have had other kids intentionally try to send me into anaphylaxis. One girl in 3rd grade asked me why I “wasn’t dead yet” when she had put on a lotion with almonds in it and then held my hand. I’ve had other parents write letters to the school saying what a terrible inconvenience it was to them to not be able to send their kiddo to school with PB&J, demanding I be Removed to a special education only class if my “needs” were such a “burden” to others. During elementary school “parties” held in the classroom on holidays and for student birthdays, I was always sent to sit out in the hallway or go to the library, because even though parents were only supposed to bring safe foods into the room (they had a list of all my allergies) they never once got it right. Administrators fought me tooth and nail for the right to carry my epi pen and other meds on my person at all times. Why they thought I would start dealing benadryl on the playground, I do not know. At lunch, I was always sat at a specific segregated table labeled the “Nut Free Table” alone because who the fuck is going to sit there with the literally segregated outcast? But ONCE notably I was sat on one side of a line of blue masking tape down the table top with the rest of my class on the other. One side was the NUTS side!!! As if allergens would respect that tape barrier. (Spoiler alert: they do NOT!)

Literally from preschool to my senior year of high school, I was “the peanut kid”. Other parents gave my mom books about how to “cure your child’s food allergies from HOME” by micro dosing with things they are allergic to (please never ever ever even attempt anything like a food challenge with a known allergen outside of the care and supervision of a medical professional, holy shit that’s so dangerous). My mom joined the PTA in my last year of high school so that I could maybe participate in all the senior-focused events like pool parties and breakfast at school on the first Friday of the month. The number of times another parent either (a) decided it wasn’t worth it to care or (b) intentionally brought peanut products to an event to spite either me or my mom??? I literally could not count. It happened constantly.

College was better, but I still occasionally had people BALK when I asked them to please not eat a Nature Valley bar with whole nuts in it right the fuck next to me in lecture, thanks. Work parties and catered lunches were always impossible. A few conferences I went to as an undergrad were SUPPOSED to be nut-free, but always fucked up the catering. At one, they set up snack tables by every exit of the conference auditorium so that when people left after the talk, they all congregated around the exits and opened macadamia nut cookies and granola bars. When I had subsequently had a massive allergic reaction and needed help getting home (I’d walked) after taking like 200mg of benadryl, the staff offered me a stack of napkins and a lukewarm apology.

Food allergy is a disability which touches literally every aspect of a person’s life. Everytime I share with someone new about what it was like growing up with my allergies, they have never heard anything like it in their lives. They’re always like “holy shit, seriously??? People did that??? Kids tried to kill you??? Parents wanted you kicked out of the classroom????” Yeah, man. Yeah. My own brother (who doesn’t have any allergies at all) doesn’t understand why I don’t “eat more adventurously” and why I won’t travel internationally. So, saying it REALLY LOUDLY for people in the back: