So I've got this friend whose nervous because she's trans and dating this guy who she hasn't told yet because they've only been on a two dates. For this story let's call the friend Jane and the guy she was dating Jason. Happy ending don't worry.

So I tell Jane to bring her boy over to a bbq I'm having and she can tell him she's trans at my place surrounded by queer and trans people who love her and will support her if he ends up being awful.

She waits till the end of the bbq to tell him the news, by which point the rest of us have learned that Jason is a kind, friendly, empathetic, hard working, dummy. So we sit down, all of us a little worried about this gym bro's reaction when she tells him she's trans, and that she understands if he doesn't want to keep dating her it's no big deal.

He's baffled, so we explain what trans is, and after the disclosure that she hasn't had bottom surgery yet...

"Oh you have a dick?"

"... yeah."

He look's around at the room full of people with baited breath, his clearly a little afraid girl friend says

"Oooohhhh! I get it! You think- don't worry Babe! Watch this!"

And ya'll this man jumps up, runs into the kitchen and returns with one of the bratwurst we had for grilling and proceeds to tilt his head back, put it down his throat, hold it in his mouth for a moment, and spit it up without even a whisper of a gag and then looks around at the group absolutely beaming with pride.

My mans saw his worried girlfriend and her support network and thought to him self "Oh they don't think I can't please my girl, but I'll show them!"

My boyfriend, again blending together fanfiction tropes: So what if when you finally find your soulmate, that’s when you discover if you’re alpha or omega, right?

Me, hands shaking as I frantically search for pen & paper: KEEP TALKING

Imagine a far-future society, we don't know what's happened but the Earth is dead, I'm vaguely picturing them all living on space stations or something, there are only precious few species of plants and animals being kept alive, very few indeed, you couldn't quite count the remaining species on your fingertips but you could certainly check out all of their Wikipedia pages within the space of an hour. Future Wikipedia I guess, I mean whatever it is they have. No edible fruit or vegetables have survived at all, I'm not sure what they do for food, something futuristic presumably. Some kind of... future powder?

But there's this project that's been in the works for decades, they've figured out they can synthesize an apple. I don't know how that works, but the scientists have figured out a way. They're going to make an apple and this is like landing on the moon for them, everyone's insanely hyped about it, nobody's seen an apple for millennia... well see part of what's going on here is that the historiography of the time back when Earth still existed is irreparably bad now, it's super impressionistic because so little survived. And I guess partly because the Genesis story has been all blown out of proportion (there's more to it but that's a big part of it) these guys have a really exaggerated idea of the importance of apples to Earth humans, they basically imagine us eating apples all day long and worshiping apple gods and making apple art and all stuff like that. It's pretty silly but remember they have NO fruit or veg, they eat powder or whatever it was I said, they don't even have a rough concept of what "eating an apple" might be, like does it get you high for example? I bet they think it does, like a really spiritual special kind of high! They must have embellished it so much right? Gotten real carried away.

So like I say it's really hype, they're going to finally make an apple! A real one I mean, not like an approximation of what some scientists theorize an apple might be like, they've figured out how to definitely do it accurately (somehow, idk, just trust the omniscient narrator that they're doing it for real). But: they can only make one. Too much resources required or some shit, like I said this is their equivalent to the first moon landing except maybe more so, it's not a sustainable plan to reintroduce apple trees or something, they can only make one apple ever and that'll be it.

So as you can imagine, quite apart from all the scientific resource that's gone into this project, there's been a ton of resource invested into (not to mention endless public fascination and debate over) the question: who gets to eat the apple? It's a big deal! Everybody envies whoever's gonna eat it; most people also don't envy them. Since time immemorial, the essence of the apple has been defined by centuries and millennia of myth and speculation and storytelling holding together scattered fragments of a mysterious glorious past. Very soon, the essence of the apple will be defined by whatever this guy says it is, whatever the apple eater manages to communicate of the ineffable experience that will always be theirs alone. Humanity will demand a report, and the apple eater will have to be a poet of rarest genius at the very minimum to be trusted to deliver it, they hold the most privileged position maybe anyone will ever hold by being allowed to do this, and all that will remain of that briefest experience for all eternity will be their words. They're an instant prophet, no questions asked. I don't know about you, but if that was me I would definitely shit myself.

Well anyway forget about all that stuff. I was only thinking of this because it occurs to me, you're kind of like the apple eater of your own life, right? I mean nobody's making a big song and dance of it like those crazy apple space freaks, but it's true no?, you *pokes you in the face quite hard* with your highly specific soul positioned in your highly specific situation, that's only going to happen once, you're the only one who's ever going to know what that's like, assuming you aren't going to give some sort of big testimony, somehow. Only difference is like I say, no one really cares in your case, although actually I do sometimes, I hope that doesn't weird you out. I'm just saying imagine being asked the question! As if the answer really did matter! In theory anybody could just walk up to you and do that! I promise I won't ask you, if you promise you won't ask me.

i love how weird kids are. they make up the most bizarre stuff when left to their own devices and it's never what an adult would naively predict a kid would do in their imaginative play

my friend's 5 year old recently got a toy veterinary medicine set - it's super cool, like one of those mini play kitchens a lot of kids have, but it's set up to pretend to be a vet (it's this thing) - it has stuffed animals and things to weigh them, give them medicine, take x-rays, write on their charts, etc.

so this kid, who is five and to my knowledge has no experience in the administrative bureaucracy of modern healthcare, puts a stuffed pig named Piggy on the exam table. she pretends to draw blood from Piggy using a fake syringe, and the blood goes into a toy test tube vial that she calls "the resulter"

i'm playing with her, right, so i'm like, awesome, what are the results of Piggy's blood test? and she says "we have to send it to the scientists." so we send the vial to the scientists (put it in her bedroom) and when we get back to the vet playset i'm like awesome what did the scientists say? and she says they have not gotten back to us yet

so she rolls her eyes, exasperated, and says we have to call the scientists. she pretends to call them. apparently, they tell her that Piggy's blood test is "at the bottom of the list" and "we have to WAIT." she frowns. we wait a bit longer and call them back. they tell us it will be a while! she says we should go ask the scientists in person so we go back to her bedroom and she inquires at this imaginary lab, at which point the scientists yell at her and tell her now they will make us wait even longer!

keep in mind she is 100% directing this play. she is making all this up. she is fully in control of this game, and she has decided that what we are going to pretend is that we are dealing with this exhausting nonsense, not actually treating Piggy.

finally the blood tests come back. they are inconclusive. the scientists do not know what is wrong with Piggy. the little girl walks back to the stuffed pig on the exam table, sighs deeply, and says in a very serious voice "we can never help you."

i'm obsessed with this kid. when given complete control over a make believe scenario, instead of becoming the heroic rescuer administering effective cures, she is instead a beleaguered vet making multiple calls to an overworked lab only to be left unable to help her patient.

10/10 no notes. kids are amazing

my corner store guy is a 50 year old man who's my best friend in the world and recently he was like "you're too pretty to be single I have some nephews you should meet. very handsome!" and I was like "a niece might be more up my alley" and he just got more excited and said "ah even better! I was overselling my nephews but my nieces are very beautiful"

AITA for realizing that my best friend is actually a ghost and not telling him because i'm worried that if he realizes he's dead he'll finally be able to accept it and fully pass on and i won't be able to hang out with him anymore?

it's healthy for academics to have professional feuds. enrichment activity

it is hilarious to me that cishet men have yet to notice the ‘best friend cockblocking her friend you’re chatting up in a public place’ thing is planned, consensual on the part of the girl you’re uncomfortably hitting on and not a result of the bestie being jealous her friend is getting more male attention. they’re completely oblivious to the hostage eyes and silent nod to someone in the background because they’re too busy telling that poor girl about what a bitch their ex was.

Just had the wildest experience with a door to door solicitor.

I have a friend who lives down the block from me, and I drove her to the hospital today for a procedure. When I got her home, we had some lunch together, and a guy comes knocking on the door representing a new internet provider.

My friend can't really stand up at this point, so she asks me to deal with it. I politely listen to about one sentence of his spiel before letting him know that the owner isn't interested.

Anyway, afterwards I run some paint supplies that my friend had borrowed across the street to another friend who lives nearby. She runs a small dog rescue out of her home. So when the doorbell rings and she's dealing with a dog issue, she asks me to answer it. So I do, accompanied by the cacophony of a dozen reactive dogs. It's the same guy, who gives me a bewildered look. I let him know that I'm just there to help out, but that I happen to know the actual owners are happy with their current internet provider.

A little bit later I return to my own house. Only to find the exact same guy on our front porch trying to talk to my husband, who is currently also on a work call. My spouse gives me a frantic look and I'm like "I got this". At this point I'm pretty sure this guy is worried that I might be stalking him or that I just like breaking into people's houses. I tell him that I actually am the owner this time, and if he had a flier I would be more than happy to look over it.

He didn't have a flier so I sent him packing. Anyway, it's fun being friends with your neighbors!

There's this sort of anthropomorphizing that inherently happens in language that really gets me sometimes. I'm still not over the terminology of "gravity assist," the technique where we launch satellites into the orbit of other planets so that we can build momentum via the astounding and literally astronomical strength of their gravitational forces, to "slingshot" them into the direction we need with a speed that we could never, ever, ever create ourselves. I mean, some of these slingshots easily get probes hurtling through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour. Wikipedia has a handy diagram of the Voyager 1 satellite doing such a thing.

"Gravity assist." "Slingshot." Of course, on a very basic and objective level, yes, we are taking advantage of forces generated by outside objects to specifically help in our goals. We're getting help from objects in the same way a river can power a mill. And of course we call it a "slingshot," because the motion is very similar (mentally at least; I can't be sure about the exact physics).

Plus, especially compared to the other sciences, the terminology for astrophysics is like, really straightforward. "Black hole?" Damn yeah it sure is. "Big bang?" It sure was. "Galactic cluster?" Buddy you're never gonna guess what this is. I think it's an effect of the fact that language is generally developed for life on earth and all the strange variances that happen on its surface, that applying it to something as alien and vast as space, general terms tend to suffice very well in a lot more places than, like... idk, botany.

But, like. "Gravity assist." I still can't get the notion out of my head that such language implies us receiving active help from our celestial neighbors. They come to our aid. We are working together. We are assisted. Jupiter and the other planets saw our little messengers coming from its pale blue molecular cousin, and we set up the physics just right, so that they could help us send them out to far stranger places than this, to tell us all about what they find out there.

We are assisted.

And there is no better way to illustrate my feelings on the matter than to just show you guys one of my favorite paintings, this 1973 NASA art by Rick Guidice to show the Pioneer probe doing this exact thing:

"... You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me. ..."

Gravity assist.