You can wear rainbows! But also you might get disowned!

There are honestly queer people out there who believe that straight folks are just grasping onto any excuse to call themselves queer.

Like being queer is some sort of country club that everyone is in awe of, as opposed to a marginalized identity that gets you poor treatment from most of society.

Give it another few weeks and maybe I'll be back to normal

Progress: now instead of laying in bed listlessly browsing the internet, I am sitting at my desk listlessly browsing the internet.

Also, my body has decided that today is a pain day.

My brain on someone else's religion

I'm not Protestant - in fact, Protestant Christianity isn't even the dominant religion of my people/country - and yet, just by living in the United States, I've picked up some really unhealthy tenets of it.

For example, I feel bad complaining about my life because of course there's someone out there (possibly even someone in my audience) who has it worse.

Why can't I do this over email like the socially stunted adult that I am?

I finally worked up the motivation to put away the box that's been sitting in the middle of the house for a week.

Now I need to get around to making a few phone calls...

I'm going to reward myself now

I made a few phone calls and got quotes.

Dear god why is this fucking city so damn expensive.

It just gives me bad feels

Most people: "Moist and jowl are horrible words!"

Me: [just fine with moist and jowl, cannot say or type the word 'pink' without brain pain]

Half-baked thoughts

It feels like a lot of people in the West (I can't really speak for any other region) have picked up this idea that if someone does something Wrong (and that word is defined differently depending on which subcultures a person belongs to), then the proper solution is to punish them, potentially by keeping them out of society altogether.

The justification for the US prison system is this, but ultimately it goes back at least to the Christian idea of Hell.

I used to be able to READ ACADEMIC PAPERS!

(I am confident that many of the opinions I present on this blog are more eloquently outlined by people with bigger audiences in academic papers and press conferences. Unfortunately I no longer have the patience for dealing with either, so you end up with my opinions on everything instead.)

Only the privileged can afford not to care

Striking a balance between "I don't care what people think, I'm going to be a glittery gender rebel" and "I need employment and healthcare and getting these things when I'm gender non-conforming is exponentially harder" is not a fun time.

(She got yelled at until she left the stage)

So, some context: my first full-time job out of college was on an R&D team working to create things to help sick and disabled people live their lives more fully. (I'm being deliberately vague here for anonymity, because we were one of five companies that worked on this specific technology and otherwise it's way too easy for someone to recognize me.)

So anyway, the company sends a few of us to a conference about this accessibility thing. Predictably, everyone at this conference is an able-bodied, healthy(ish) scientist or advocate.

At one point, this late middle aged white lady dressed entirely in salmon goes up to present her piece, and it's basically "why are we worried about [safety thing that the field has been struggling with for two decades], a healthy adult person doesn't need to worry about it if that safety feature isn't there!"

Me, whispering: "She does realize that this technology is for people with [list of diseases/disabilities] who can't survive the same things an average person can?"

My equally incredulous boss, also whispering: "Uh, no, I don't think she does..."

Nope nope nope noooooope

Sometimes I feel like the only person in the US who doesn't absolutely love Halloween.

On appropriate things to tell people as an ice breaker

My first memory is actually of my mother upending a bowl of hot soup onto my head because I refused to eat it.

But when people ask about my earliest memory, I generally tell them that it was walking through the city at night and seeing snow falling in front of the lamppost.

[aggressively morning persons in their direction]

I secretly hope that my sibling's fiance is a morning person who wakes up very early in the morning and makes a lot of noise, stomping around the apartment and banging pots together.

It would be cosmic justice for all the times my sibling got on my case because I wasn't an evening person like them.