yoooo it’s actually looking great omg

I mean this as the highest possible compliment:

OK I MIGHT WATCH THIS. I LOOKS LIKE PEOPLE MADE IT WITH LOVE.

crisp glass of water moodboard

And At Night We Dance - 24x30” acrylic on wood for the Hi Fructose magazine 25th anniversary show at Roq La Rue in Seattle this June.

SOUND ON.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you let something slide because you were too shocked to react in the moment, you can bring it up the next time you talk to that person, you can text them, you can let them know it won’t slide again in the future. you don’t have to just accept that behavior indefinitely because you couldn’t gather your thoughts to say it made you uncomfortable when it first happened. you’re not making anything awkward, you are giving someone an opportunity to show care for you, and telling them you trust them enough to change their behavior. there is literally nothing wrong or bad with voicing discomfort even if the moment has already passed.

This is SO IMPORTANT and speaks to the political role of what feminist philosopher Sara Ahmed calls the “killjoy” — an interlocutor who introduces necessary friction to the normative functions of oppression by, in essence, Making it Weird.

Not laughing at the racist joke. Not letting ‘little comments’ slide. Being a humorless feminist. Being a cunt. Holding a grudge. Complaining. Insisting. Holding up the works.

This is and long has been a crucial form of noncompliance in a world obsessed with maintaining oppressive structures through, among other things, carceral norms of politeness, decorum, and subservience. The killjoy disrupts the flow of violent norms & reification of “commonsense” discourses that harm and marginalize people by Making It A Thing: forcing people - esp those with relative privilege - to truly look at inconvenient truths.

And: Not to be all “now more than ever,” but like. It’s really really important right now not only not to obey in advance, but to create obstacles to collective passivity. Kill the sick joy that comes with compliance.

very true! thank you

something I tell myself is that I’m not the one making it awkward.

on one level, you can view it as the other person made it awkward and you are responding.

on another level, awkwardness is a relational experience where it doesn’t exist within individuals but instead emerges on the level of social interaction and relationship. In this sense you’re not making it awkward, it is awkward and you are bringing that awkward tension to catharsis by bringing it up. It’s like a release of pressure.

so in the op, I didn’t intend to say that it wouldn’t be awkward, but that the general “you” wouldn’t be responsible for that awkwardness. things already are awkward whether you respond or not. there is nothing you can do to prevent awkwardness, so it’s a choice between acknowledging it and dealing with it in relationship or silently enduring it forever in isolation.

but all that are just ways of looking at it that help me actually say something, and I think it’s true and correct that we all need to build tolerance for that necessary friction

Tfw the new hyperfixation comes along and you write 5k (and still going) in one day.

*points and laughs*

it is weird that celiac stuff has become part of the 'culture war'. because it's literally just a medical thing.... I get super anemic unless I cut a certain protein out of my diet, because it bulldozes the villi in my intestines. but if I post about it, right-wingers send me gore images. I guess you can't expect shitty people to be logical, but I've even heard lefty people make fun of gluten stuff, and it's like why are you mad about this??? why are you pissed off that I'm eating bread that doesn't taste as good so that I can have blood in my body? it's so morally neutral.

I'm sorry, I know you weren't actually looking for an explanation but I always have a rant about this locked and loaded.

As far as I can tell the reasons that this happens are:

Anyway, in conclusion: it sucks, I'm sorry.

The fun flipside of this is that I've seen people who are more right wing become aggressively pro regulation and pro accommodation when they or their family members have to suddenly take on the individual burden of making up for a society that doesn't include them by default.

US specific:

Is your ham made with vinegar? Does your ham have the generic word "spices" on the ingredient list? Does your ham include "smoke flavoring"? Does your ham include caramel coloring?

Because malt vinegar has gluten in it. "Spices" may include wheat products in a mix. Smoke flavoring may be made with barley flour. Caramel coloring may be made with wheat or barley syrup.

If the label says "gluten free" that means that the "spices," caramel coloring, vinegar, and smoke flavor are certified to contain 20ppm or less of gluten.

If the ham is cured in any way, it may include gluten. If the ham was marinated, it probably includes gluten. If the ham was prepared in a facility that processes wheat in any way, it might be cross contaminated with gluten.

There's a company out there called "Gluten Free Water" that makes water in plastic bottles, poking fun at the idea that too many things have a gluten free label. I fucking hate that company. Because that company is functionally saying "lol, people are so sensitive and over the top about this, let's be a little silly and laugh about how crazy people can be with their 'gluten free' nonsense."

Did you know that there are sustainable food containers and straws that contain wheat? And that you don't have to label them? There are definitely people with celiac who have been sickened by biodegradable plastic straws in their "obviously water is gluten free there's no risk here" water.

"It's over-labeled so it looks trendy" just means you don't know how foods are made or what foods contain gluten. Gluten is ridiculously common in foods in general, and also in packaged meats.

Your ham has to say gluten free because it distinguishes it from the hams that do contain gluten, which is a fucking lot of them. And you're annoyed that your ham has to say gluten free and I'm annoyed that I'm standing in the grocery store calling a ham company to figure out where they source their caramel coloring so I can figure out if the damned ham is safe to eat.

"lol, oats don't have wheat in them, are people so stupid that they have to be told what is and isn't wheat? why does this oatmeal have a gluten free label?" Cross contamination; gluten free oats are not grown near wheat and are not processed in facilities that process wheat.

"lol, rice doesn't have wheat in it, why is this rice labeled gluten free, all rice is gluten free" Cross contamination; the rice isn't processed on equipment that processes wheat.

"lol why does this turkey breast say gluten free, it's just fucking turkey" read the ingredients on your "just" turkey, lots of packaged meat is packed in broth, some of which contains modified food starch, which may contain wheat.

"lol why are these strawberries labeled gluten free? they're fucking strawberries" WAX, BUDDY. SOME FRUITS ARE COATED IN PRESERVATIVE WAX FILMS BY THE MANUFACTURER AND SOME OF THOSE FUCKING FILMS CONTAIN GLUTEN.

I think that part of the reason that people are so irritated by g-free labels is because it exposes them to just how vast and alienating their food systems are.

"Ham should just be meat from a pig, maybe with sugar and salt; what on earth is happening that there might be wheat in that process? Nothing in that process should involve wheat." And then you might have to think about it for a second, might have to wonder what "sugar" and "salt" mean when someone is producing a million hams to be delivered thousands of miles away. It's not just sugar and salt; it's preservatives and nitrates and batch cooking and getting corn syrup instead of sugar and getting smoke flavoring instead of smoking the ham and turning your "whole food" into all the ingredients that make up the ingredients that make up the ingredients.

A "gluten free" label says "you can eat this" to somebody with celiac disease, who has already pounded their skull against the shittiness of the medical system and the food system.

But to someone who doesn't have to worry that their food is going to disable them, a "gluten free" sticker on ham takes a known quantity and turns their sandwich into a hyperobject that contains animal agriculture and industrial additive production and shipping pollution and the ongoing assault on regulation.

If it doesn't have the label, you can just eat your lunch. If it does have the label, you are haunted by the specter of RFK junior imploding the FDA.

Turns out that everyone in the US with celiac is already constantly haunted by the possible implosion of the FDA because food regulation is an up-close and personal part of our daily lives that most people would rather not think about.

Hey, people with actual celiac who are seeing this in the notes, this is a great way to make yourself incredibly sick. There are no enzyme treatments currently on the market that will make it safe for you to eat gluten. There are a couple of treatments that are in trials but the otc jar of glutimase in the drugstore is not like taking lactase for lactose intolerance, and consuming gluten while taking otc enzyme treatments will increase your risk of malnutrition and intestinal damage and will add to your long-term colon cancer risk.

This isn't like lactose intolerance where your body gets mad at you because it can't break down and process a protein or sugar so you get gassy, this is an autoimmune condition that is triggered by tiny trace amounts of gluten and can cause vomiting, diarrhea, anemia, malnutrition, and intestinal damage that takes literal years to recover from and permanently increases your cancer risk.

Do not trust *your ability to absorb vitamin c* to an otc enzyme.

Also for folks with mast cell diseases, you might not test positive for celiac in the same way, but the mechanism by which gluten makes us ill is the same, it just manifests differently.

It can also be an anaphylaxis risk depending on the severity of your mast cell symptoms.

Which is also why having cosmetics labeled as gluten free is helpful because some of us react to skin exposure to gluten, even if we test negative for wheat allergies because mast cell diseases are a fucking nightmare.

Gluten free labels aren’t marketing scams to raise the price on things, they are a vital necessity for people with complex medical needs.

Also because not everyone knows this, gluten can stick to things like cast iron and non-stick surfaces so just in case you’re wondering why you don’t feel better after cutting out gluten, it could be your utensils. We had to replace Everything in our kitchen when I got my MCAS diagnosis to avoid remnant contamination. It sucks.

It's really important when you're at work to go out there and really give it your 60%. Maybe 35%.

Shoutout to by far the funniest tags on this post

Just a psa for fic writers who use the “trauma bond” tag, please make sure you’re using it correctly. A trauma bond is not two people who experience similar trauma and bond over it. It’s a carefully curated, manipulative bond between abuser and victim to keep the victim coming back because of the addictive highs and lows that come with abuse.

If you want to tag two characters bonding over shared trauma, a good substitute tag would be “bonding over shared trauma.” Trauma bonding is, by definition, an abusive relationship and may steer people who have experienced it away from your fic. Please spread the word and happy writing!

Feel like this is relevant again, so just gonna leave this here for anyone who needs it (been seeing this term used incorrectly a lot lately).

Yes! "Trauma bonding" and "bonding through trauma" are two different things!

Its come to my attention that a lot of people do not know how to deal with a hot car in summer. A lot of people will get back to their car, after hours of it being parked in the full sun, and will open the door to be blasted in the face with furnace-level temperatures, and you'll just clamber in and shut the doors and leave the windows closed and you'll start driving that thing, and you'll wait for the air-conditioning to battle and overcome the heat.

Thats. Insane to me.

The inside of a car can get up to 40°C/104°F hotter than the outside temperature. Why would anyone get inside that????? It's gonna take your air-conditioning at least half an hour to combat that and bring the temperature down to something even remotely reasonable, and in the meantime you're sitting there risking heatstroke.

Now, I understand that it's currently winter in the northern hemisphere, which is where most of this site lives, but a) I'm in the southern hemisphere and today was Lots Of Degrees, and b) y'all should read this now and commit it to memory or queue it to reblog in summer or whatever, because it boggles my mind that some of you get into a car whose interior is literally oven-hot.

So!!!! Some tips!!!!!

If you do this, your car will be a hell of a lot more comfortable a hell of a lot sooner than it would be if you got into a 60°C/140°F cabin and just.... endured that, until your aircon could overcome it.

This post has been brought to you by an Australian who knows not one but TWO people who get into 60°C cars and wait 15 to 30 minutes for their car to drop back down to a temperature that's even REMOTELY tolerable.

Until like a month ago I lived in Phoenix, Arizona where it hit 99° before the end of March this year. Almost nobody cracked their windows. I've never understood why.

it’s so important for your health to regularly interact with people at least a decade older than you who aren’t family, especially as a young person.

When my 45 year old teammate gives me advice on mental health and I know she understands because she’s had a tough adult life.

When my 32 year old friend tells me his life started improving for the first time the year she turned 30.

When the 60 year old man at the soup kitchen gives me permission to grieve by telling me I’m ‘just a baby’ with only gentleness in his voice.

It’s so much easier to abandon and break out from the cultural idealisation of youth when you surround yourself with wonderful people in all stages of their lives.

Reblog if, no matter the size of the role, you would agree to work with the Muppets if offered the chance to do so, no questions asked

THEY WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO FINISH THE PITCH BEFORE I TELL EM I’M IN

Recruiter: Hello, I'm with the Muppets and...

Me: Where do I sign?

I’m at a sociology conference and just attended a memorial for one of the giants of our field, and one of the panelists told this story…he was at a meeting with this guy, who he got his PhD under and had a long standing relationship with, and he was bemoaning the current state of the world, and he asked this old professor, “how can you be so optimistic? I can’t ever be anything but a pessimist.”

and the old professor said, “you little fucker, I’m going to make a statement and then I’m going to take you out to the parking lot and beat your ass. What good does your pessimism do?”

and that really struck me. not the least because I also knew this old professor and he very rarely swore, so I know this was something he was really worked up about. what good does your pessimism do? What GOOD does your pessimism DO. I’ll be thinking about that for awhile.

- Lois McMaster Bujold, Borders of Infinity (1989)

"It helps me be prepared!"

As a recovered pessimist raised by a horrendously toxic pessimist: No, it doesn't.

Foresight and practicality are completely separate qualities that can exist without pessimism. You can acknowledge the worst that might happen and prepare for it without having a completely negative worldview.

And pessimism can absolutely exist without those qualities. Which is a miserable way to live.

There actually is academic work that point out how cynicism can make you more gullible, and how fascists take advantage of it. The Jewish German political scientist and philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote about it in Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). I wanted to include this passage, even though it's long, because incredibly important. And true.

"In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and nothing was true. The mixture in itself was remarkable enough, because it spelled the end of the illusion that gullibility was a weakness of unsuspecting primitive souls and cynicism the vice of superior and refined minds. Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leader for their superior tactical clearness.

This leader is spared from ever having to be accountable to his own statements. Naïve are those who thought then (or believe now) that such a leader would be brought down by his lies, or made to adhere to his promises. ‘The totalitarian system, unfortunately, is fool-proof against such normal consequences; its ingeniousness rests precisely on the elimination of that reality which either unmasks the liar or forces him to live up to his pretence’. In yesterday’s totalitarianism and in today’s totality, the fake dominates. Gullibility embraces the fake, and cynicism embraces gullibility. The totality is immune from truth because the very idea of truth is dissolved within it."

Silence Amidst Chaos - 26x32” acrylic on canvas. Available.

controversial opinion but unfortunately you are your actions and what you say. if you are mean to people, it doesn’t matter if you sometimes have secret kind thoughts. fortunately you are your actions and what you say. if you are kind in your actions and your words, it doesn’t matter if you sometimes have mean thoughts. the power is in working against inner negative thoughts and being a better person despite it. you have the ability to cultivate the person you want to be.