oh, the hazards of love!

i heared were gonna have an age of heroes & monsters soon

as a regular donor to Gaza Soup Kitchen I get their email updates, and they said today that while they've continued to be able to expand, donations are slowing down as Gaza gets less coverage. If you have a few dollars to spare, I encourage you to send them here to continue the amazing work that Hani and his team are doing.

the losing dogs and i are engaging in insider trading

tetanus fact: it's an old wives' tale that tetanus is caused by rusty metal. it's actually caused by puncture wounds substantially deeper than they are wide, which introduce ubiquitous anaerobic spores (i.e. the "seeds" of single-celled organisms which cannot grow if exposed to oxygen) into a warm, poorly-oxygenated space in the body. so receiving shallow cuts from a rusty knife is not likely to give you tetanus but puncture wounds from clean but non-sterile objects can. this is great news if you like receiving superficial wounds from rusty knives and blades and swords all over your dumbass body

The most basic, intractable fact about mental illnesses is that you simply cannot willpower your way out of them. The only exceptions to this rule are the ones I have, which continue to disable me due to lack of determination and other grave personal flaws

like what if i go to the kitchen at night to get some water and an underwater cave system is there

I’d die on the hill that “stranger danger” is a deeply unhelpful mentality to have. “Ooooh everyone is out to get me they’re all gonna perpetrate harm that’s actually more likely to come from someone I already know. I better never talk to anyone in my community who I don’t already know, just to be safe. I’m sure there are no other biases interwoven with this mentality” like oh my god human traffickers do not just randomly spawn in every parking lot. You don’t have to go solo hitchhiking across the country but you also don’t have to live in fear that every guy on the street is the knife man who’s gonna get you. Like have situational awareness, yeah. But most of the time the guy on the street is not knife man he’s actually just a guy on the street and he’s probably pretty chill, and you’re driving yourself crazy by living in a constant state of unnecessary fear.

Like always safety comes first, especially if you’re in a marginalized group more likely to be targeted by random people around you. But that’s different from stranger danger. I might even say that stranger danger is something that contributes to marginalized groups getting targeted by random people. Which strangers do you find distrust worthy? Why? Does vague distrust justify harmful actions in the name of self defense? Stranger danger draws everyone away from more important issues of safety (underlying bigotries, systemic injustices, abuse in the home, etc) and towards an amorphous boogeyman that has no solution, because it’s not the real cause or culprit.