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Of Life and Other Happy Things

@bllbabaggins / bllbabaggins.tumblr.com

My name is Mackenzie, HoH, they/them pronouns (new and exciting whoohoo!) NB lesbian, nearer 30 than not

🚨‼️ IMPORTANT UPDATE ‼️🚨

Hi friends,

Hi friends,

I need to clarify something very important. My GoFundMe page is still active, and I am the organizer in Gaza. The issue is not with my page.

The real problem is that the beneficiary’s GoFundMe account, The person the funds are supposed to go to was suddenly deleted by GoFundMe without any warning or explanation.

Because the beneficiary’s account was deleted, all transfers have stopped, even though my page is still running.

But life doesn’t pause.

My family in Gaza is still facing a brutal daily reality, and their basic needs can’t wait for a review email or a support ticket.

I have to redirect all support through chuffed

If you are able to help, even the cost of a cup of coffee, you are providing my family with food, medicine, and shelter from the cold and rain.

I’m not asking for something easy, but I’m asking because the situation isn’t easy.

Your support is the one real thing keeping us going right now.

The link is below.

Thank you to everyone who still believes that solidarity isn’t just a word. Solidarity is life.

📌 Fundraiser vetted (#167 by el-shab-hussein & nabulsi)

Israel has forced many aid groups in Gaza to shut down. The only aid left for the people of Gaza is distributed by grassroots organisations such as Relief for Rafah, who are working to provide families with tents and winter clothing in the midst of freezing rain and flooding. You can help by donating to R4R's chuffed campaign here:

Everyone wanted to be thicc but nobody wanted to be fat. Everyone wanted the dad bod but nobody wanted to be fat. Everyone wants fat mommy milkers but nobody wants mommy to be fat. Everyone wants to be a bear but not like, an actual fat bear. You get what i’m saying

Everyone wants the mistique of fatness or use the language of fatness to denote hotness without actually being fat or acknowledging that fat people or fatness can just be hot.

Us, arriving to Austria to a tiny family hotel owned by an elderly lady

Us: speak only limited German

Lady: barely speaks English

Us:

Lady:

Lady: Czech? Slovak?

Us: Czech

Lady, to herself: Czech, that's a Slavic language right

Lady: understand Yugoslavian?

Us:

Us: yeah that works

Shit like this can really only happen in Europe. Reminds me of the time I took my best shot at ordering at a restaurant in Spain in spanish. The closest language to spanish that I actually speak is latin.

Waiter: Germany?

Me: No, Czechia.

Waiter, in a heavily accented but intelligible Czech: Why didn’t you say so before! We get you guys here all the time!

Já v roce 2019 na Ukrajině: OK, takže když použiju tohle staročeský slovo, přidám polský sloveso, své chabé znalosti záhoráčtiny a řeknu to s ruskym přízvukem, tak to projde.

[Me in 2019 in Ukraine: ok so if i use this Old Czech word, add a Polish verb, my poor knowledge of the Záhorie dialect of Slovak and say it with a Russian accent, it might pass]

Reminds me of the time when we were in Poland and I tried to order a burger using a truly unholy mix of Slovak, Russian and Ostrava dialect (which in itself is like an unholy mix of Czech and Polish).

I did get the burger

[#my grandpa called this "Slavic Esperanto"]

I know Ukrainians who can do this on purpose and masterfully, and it was mind-blowing to hear a speech as immediately understandable to an audience of native speakers of three different native Slavic languages, not just two languages as is common

During one student exchange I (a Pole) got acquainted with two students from Czechia and Russia. At first we talked in English or German, but after a while we’ve noticed, that we could understand each other’s native languages just fine. And if some word was unknown in one language, another one had the right synonym.

*Each of us talking in their mother tongue*

Me: Bla bla bla.

Russian: I don’t know this “bla”.

Czech: Oh, we have “bla”! We also call it “that”!

Russian: Oh I know “that”! It’s a very old version of “this”.

Me: Oh, we have “this” too, but it means something slightly different.

German acquaintance: Was für nen Scheiß zieht ihr da ab? o_O

the reason there aren't slavic people in the bible is that they wouldn't have been surprised or awed to hear the disciples speak in tongues and be understood by people of many nations at once

Slavs walked away from the Tower of Babel mildly inconvenienced.

As a non-native speaker of Czech who is only conversationally proficient and has terrible grammar, let me tell you, no one was more surprised than I was to discover that I can understand Slovak just fine. And when the two moving guys finished hauling my furniture to my new apartment and we were chatting a bit before they left, I discovered that the reason I'd had a little trouble understanding one of their "accents" was because he was speaking Ukrainian the whole time.

"Slavs walked away from the Tower of Babel mildly inconvenienced." killed me

Floating face down in a blank word document file, while not physically possible, is nevertheless a tangible authorial state.

Original Post: Keith Porter was tragically taken from us by an off-duty ice agent, and his family is seeking justice during this difficult time. Every donation can help support their fight for truth and accountability. Please consider clicking the link below to contribute or share it with others who might want to help. Thank you for your support! https://gofund.me/530afb61e

In times of great stress, panic, and unfolding news stories, you really don’t have to post. You’re not an embassy. You don’t have to make a statement. The world won’t stop because you decided to read a book this afternoon instead, and current events won’t stop being bad if you just post hard enough. Posting has never been activism. Consider saving posts to your drafts and then returning to them at the end of the day to see if you still want to post them. Consider that those who came before us also went through hard times, but they weren’t mentally tortured by a device in their pocket that blasts bad news into people’s eyeballs for several hours per day. Sometimes you need to ask yourself what you’re really doing besides exacerbating your own misery. You’re already informed, and if something else big happens, you’ll surely see it without having to be glued to your phone.

Oh, and you absolutely do not need to fuck yourself up by viewing real gore and murder, and you should not trust anyone who says otherwise. You can be against a murder without seeing it. You’re not sinful for wanting to spare yourself the mindfuck of seeing real death, because you’re not virtuous for making yourself suffer by seeing it. Again, fucking yourself up helps no one and nothing, and don’t let people guilt you into Catholic martyrdom by convincing you suffering is righteous

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