Random stuff we like and feel like it's worth it to reblog and maybe comment on |
As a DID system, we *will* forget that we've reblogged something already and reblog it again | And we're almost exclusively on mobile, so formatting is weird
I think people dont know how difficult navigating the world with a wheelchair and a service dog is. I am very wide. Not very much is set up for the both of us to fit places. We get stuck a lot. There’s very few leash options that dont either get stuck in my wheels and therefore risk occasionally choking her or are capable of allowing her to tuck behind me and navigate around my chair for ease of access - and that arent very expensive.
On the topic of leashes, there are basically 0 long lines designed for wheelchairs. My dog is allowed a 50ft long line on trails. The closest we can get is a flexi leash strapped to my frame but that maybe gives us 20ft and is nowhere near the same.
Have i mentioned we get stuck a lot? Because we do. Aisles, doorways, curbs, bathrooms, everything. Try and wheelie with a whole extra living creature attatched 4 feet from you and if you move wrong you might wrench their neck and tell me how it goes. It isnt fun. I cant fit basically anywhere when were together. IKEA was a shocking surprise in how much room we had to navigate.
I love my dog and I rely on my chair more and more w my paresis getting worse but so much isnt designed for these to go together and that isnt cool. I shouldn’t have to decide between them just to access necessities or places everyone else gets to go. That isnt fair. That isnt safe for me.
“i would kill a pedophile to protect my child” ok but would you teach your child how to say no? even to adults? even to adults you like? would you teach your child the words “penis” and “vulva” and then use them? would you let them ask questions about their body? would you answer them honestly? would you learn how to cope with your feelings when you talk about human bodies, so they don’t feel ashamed? would you set a positive example for how you talk about your body? would you tell your child they don’t have to hug or kiss anyone? would you tell your family the same? would you stand by them when they refuse to hug someone? even someone you know has never done anything to hurt them? would you let your child avoid food they don’t like? would you let you child avoid people they don’t like? would you believe them? would you sit in the discomfort of not knowing all the answers and not take it out on them? would you love your child the same if someone did hurt them? would you make them feel valued just as they are? would you let them talk to doctors or nurses in private? would you let them express their feelings? would you show interest in their life? would you let your child say no to you? would you help your child feel safe coming to you when they make a mistake? would you apologize to your child? would you believe them? would you put aside your anger to focus on what would make your child feel safe and loved? would you put your ego aside for your child? would you take your child’s concerns seriously? would you listen to your child? would you believe them?
and if you’re telling yourself yes you would, importantly: do they know that?
I have written a poem about the current situation.
Not just ICE, but all of it. Months ago, a thinkpiece referred to the dissipation of Trans rights as the ‘canary in the coal mine’ for American Fascism. And then again, and again, and again… another issue, another issue, another issue.
The canary and the coal miner share a special kinship: they’re both trapped in the mine.
This is a beautiful meditation on the horrific situation a lot of us are living through right now, and the hopelessness of feeling born to die, or helpless to fix anything, or often both.
I hope it’s okay if I add something to the post that you inspired me to reflect on, OP. Though I normally lurk, I was a historian once upon a time, and one of my most emotional discoveries was learning about the machine invented to resuscitate canaries, which held its own oxygen tank in hopes of preventing the bird’s death if it was exposed to toxic gas.
There’s something to that, I think - how natural it is for humans to care, how connected and protective we are, how easily we pack-bond with things that are different than us because at our core it is our most honest state to be empathetic, cooperative, and caretaking.
I say all this to not to diminish the horror that is happening now - but to instead focus the lens on how much constant *work* a cruel and broken few must employ to propagandize us against our natures. The terror is the point. The hopelessness is the point. Maybe there’s a reason that we all learn the phrase “canary in a coal mine” as a sacrificial entity allowed by an apathetic overseer to die and be discarded, the truth of their importance as a warning only recognized in hindsight. Maybe there’s a very specific reason we never learn about the device invented to save them, and the miners that loved them enough to use them, no matter how heavy the added equipment was to carry, which endangered them too down there.
We help each other. We resist cruelty. We resist apathy. We invent new ways to live and keep our neighbors alive to spite the inhospitable conditions we are forced to endure. Hand in hand, we live. We outlast them. We all get out of the mine. Together.
Maybe
#I don’t know tumblr etiquette #genuinely hope I’m not overstepping #this is a beautiful poem OP and it just made me Think Things #I hope we get out of this mine OP #lets survive and see the sun again
Alpha News, our local fascist outlet that “leaked” Jonathan Ross’s video of him murdering Renee Good, which also pushed George Floyd conspiracy theories, with an anchor married to loathsome fascist police union boss Bob Kroll (Liz Collin), has set up another doxx line, this time for ICE observers.
WE NEED THEM TO BE OVERWHELMED WITH USELESS INFORMATION.
Please help us! We are under occupation!
Their post about it:
This is something you can do 100% remotely that is VERY HELPFUL to stop observers from being intimidated out of doing this vital work. It is not an exaggeration to say spamming this line will save lives: the more observers we have, the fewer people ICE can abduct, abuse, murder, and send to concentration camps.
People: I know that you want tattoos but you shouldn’t get them as soon as you’re eighteen!! You need to be sure that you’ll still want them when you’re grown up!!!! You might like a tattoo now but you can’t be sure you’ll still like it in your forties or fifties!!!!!!!!
Me, a person who has trouble visualising the future and literally cannot imagine themself living past about 25: okay…
Hey op did you ever get the tattoo? Do you still like it?
Fuck this is a wild one to see again, especially as someone now about 3 weeks away from officially making it past 25:
- I remember 2016 as being the worst year of my fucking life, in ways it’s gonna be hard to beat and the universe better not fuckin try
- since 2016, I’ve gotten a degree in a field that I love, been in a toxic relationship, had a toxic relationship end, been in a kind but ultimately not what we wanted relationship, had that end too, been single for a while, learned I’m trans, started hrt, gotten in a different lovely proudly queer relationship which I’m very happy in, made friends, lost friends, mourned friends, made new friends, gotten a job I liked, made manager, quit, got another job that lets me do a bit of good in the world, gotten top surgery, travelled, swam shirtless in the warm sea, written half a dozen zines and a poetry chapbook, performed poetry, accepted I’m probably never gonna make a career out of poetry alone, gone on and off and on again various mental health treatments and hopeful that this one will stick for as long as it needs to, walked probably a thousand or more cumulative miles wearing through the soles of half a dozen or more boots, laughed, cried, rested, collapsed from fatigue, crawled back out again
- if I could reach back to the kid making this post… buddy, I’m not gonna say it’ll all be alright, because that’s pat and trite and diminishes the very real struggles of growing. But we cut our hair and change our name and grow a beard and we’re not Quite out of the shitty little hometown but we’re getting there. I think you’d like the jumper I’m wearing. I saw mcr live and I know you’d kill me with jealousy for it. I took you with me, as much as I could. I still think you’ve got great taste in movies, and I’ve got some new recs for you.
- I now have 4 tattoos! None of them are the ones I thought I’d have, but that’s okay. The first one is not an art style I’d choose today but the design holds a ton of meaning for me, and always will, and I don’t regret it. The other 3 are a more cohesive art style - maybe I could have changed the placement or tweaked some details, but I don’t need to, they’re part of me now and they’re beautiful for it. I’m excited to get more and to live long enough to reflect on them like this again and again and again
- 25 felt impossibly old to you. Right now it feels both impossibly old and impossibly young. I’m glad I got to see what it brought me, even the shit parts
- I’ll put aside a slice of cake next month in your honour
I’m glad I asked. I’m glad you’ve made it this far. I hope we both make it another 10 years and it keeps being worth it.
executive dysfunction is legitimately physically uncomfortable. i’ll be trapped between two things, weirdly caught on how-much-time-it-might-take-me. i take hours worried im going to take hours doing things. i’ll sit on the floor for the entire day, caught up in the middle of not-doing the chores i actually do want to be doing.
& the amount of mental energy that goes into it. & the legitimate amount of anger and discomfort and self-hate. is not “being lazy”. it’d be a lot less work if i didn’t have to fight myself to just get up and do it.
i just need you to understand it’s not effortless. it’s never effortless. it’s not “okay let me just get up and finally start doing this.” it’s more like. i am slamming my foot on the pedal but the car is in neutral and nothing is moving. it’s more like shouting instructions into a dying telephone. it’s more like being trapped in a small electric box, and someone who hates me is administering shocks.
Brain fog is not an adequate descriptor, actually. Fog can be kinda nice and beautiful and ethereal and refreshing. The thing we’re describing is more like a brain BOG; everything moves slow like you’re wading through water, it’s clunky and heavy and you keep getting stuck in the mud. It’s uncomfortable and inconvenient and everything takes so much effort. You lost a shoe, probably.
