chat

I'm genuinely considering getting a replica, so I can wear it to demos and stuff

I made a friend over the last few weeks and he’s pretty cool and has a really nice beach house on the coast and me and my gf hang out there a lot because we both really like it. The old man is a cool person and reminds me of my grandpa but he acts weird sometimes but I think this is just how he is and I think he’s lonely so he sees a child he never had in me which is weird but I don’t really have a good connection with my family anymore so I understand those feelings.

He wanted to show me his toy collection so we went to a basement where he had lots of toy UFO and alien toys from the movies. He looked at me for my approval and I said “very nice” but then called me out saying “you’re a disbeliever that’s okay there’s still time for you young bloods” and I felt weird with what he called me especially the use of the word “young bloods” but maybe he meant like new blood. I don’t believe in UFO being aliens so I was like brooo what the hell?

He spoke for about an hour telling me how the universe is inside of an orb and there are multiple orbs including parallel universes that are just like ours. The orbs are of alien origin and we live in “the petri globe” and everything that goes on inside the orbs are part of alien research. The aliens use the things we create on earth in order to incorporate it into their own society, with a higher emphasis on art because art is relative to a lived experience which makes it unique unlike universal principles of scientific variety. He then said aliens are making humans stupid to prevent a “catastrophe” aliens experience time differently to we do because time is a construct that has been created for us and so they know the future and something like humans do something to the universe that fucks it up for these aliens so they imprisoned us in these orbs before we invent the tools we need to be capable of ruining their system.

I’m like “broooo what the hell?” But I didn’t say that I was just saying it in my mind. It sounded cool but it was mostly just creative writing from his end. I asked “so how do you know and who told you” and then he was like “I’m part of a group that has found evidence of these truths” ummm 😧. It was starting to make sense now why one of his favorite movies had Tom Cruise in because he’s an alien Scientologist so I asked old man if he was Scientology and he got kinda angry and shouted “don’t be preposterous!” I’m like bro chill WTH… but he was kinda cool about it and said that Scientology are “dumb American frauds and hacks that only want to sell books and by extension their packages which cost thousands or millions of dollars to complete.” He’s stopped talking about it and then said he wanted to make me Cubano sandwich.

I ate the cubano sandwich

Ranting here because I don't have anywhere else to do it. It's been 4 days and these people are already driving me up a wall. Some are very kind, others are just taking my groceries, not doing their dishes, constantly starting shit, and just generally being nasty.

Came in, the fridge was full of moldy and rotten food that had been in there from last year. Nobody had thought to throw it away. The dish situation has gotten so bad that the house manager is now going to throw away all of the actual dishes and replace them with paper plates and plastic forks which I hate in my soul. I can't bring any of my nice kitchen stuff here because these fuckers will just abuse it then get it thrown away by just not cleaning it. Dish doesn't get done? It goes in the trash. House manager's rules.

I bought groceries yesterday, nothing too major, came up to about $50 and it should be enough to feed me and a few other people in the house who are struggling financially for the week. Some bitch stole a can of beans all to herself yesterday. So now the tacos I planned on making later this week? No can do. Then proceeded not to clean the pot. She's also the person whose only interactions with me are asking me if she can have my food. And when I give her my food, she takes so fucking much that other people end up not getting any. Also always starting shit.

Go to take a shower for the first time since I've been here, and the water is fucking HOT AS FUCK. Now as many of you know, I've been in kitchens all of my adult life, I can handle some heat. This water was too hot even for me, I could barely take a shower in it, my head is minorly burnt from this water. I think this is what set me off so hard.

Then I go outside barefoot to get some sunlight (not smoking anymore!). Big mistake, there's a shit ton of broken glass all over the place nobody thought to clean up or warn me about until I stepped on the broken glass.

There are also meeting requirements in this house, so I have to go to 4 AA/NA meetings a week. No big deal, I already planned on doing this while I was in rehab. Problem, my home group is a zoom group and they only count one zoom group a week, so now I gotta put up with the bullshit local meetings with no car. At least there's busses here, unlike where I lived before this, but I don't know them at all, and I can't just leave the house to learn them until I'm paid up and working.

It's not all bad though, some of the people are really nice, and I do need the extra accountability to stay on top of my recovery. I don't know, maybe I'm just getting irritable because of PAWS, maybe I just need to stay in my own lane and things will get better eventually, but goddamn if this isn't annoying right now

I discovered it this week and I love it! Not sure how new the feature is.

It's easy. Just put the citation inside square brackets, and then preface all that with a caret. Like this: Beanis cures cancer.^[I made it up.] It automatically takes care of the numbering and shit.

Example:

Beanis cures cancer,^[I made it up.] and aliens will arrive next year.^[It was revealed to me in a dream.] More and more people are saying these things!^[https://hexbear.net/PPB]

Obviously it is, the question was rhetorical. I find that if one does anything left in a big city, you're bound to bump into NGO types everywhere. Nearly all are good intentioned and very left of centre. Most people I meet who work at an NGO are very critical of their job and the whole "NGO industrial complex" thing. People need to eat, I'm not gonna shit on someone for filling out grant applications and throwing events.

I was always really uncomfortable with the "But did you know that in China" spin that nominally lefty NGOs would try to throw into the discourse, uncritically sourcing the US State Department or VOA. It's been weird seeing these same NGOs, who have always positioned themselves as lefty yet not disclosing their funding, suddenly go public about their difficulty once USAID got gutted. Nothing previous to this disclosed nor thanked anyone for USAID funding, this is the first we've all heard about it. I'm at the stage right now where I don't want to listen to any NGO that doesn't list their funding.

For the record, I know dick about China and I'm happy to engage with some critique. Hell, I'll even read through Trot and anarchist commentary as long as they're not referencing their facts from the great Satan.

I did, though mostly secondhand (I had a couple of classmates who were into them). My main exposure to them was via an evangelical's huge multi-year writeup dissecting exactly why they were awful.

These things sold tens of millions and informed a huge number of Christians' religious views. Some highlights include:

• The very first words of the very first book are "Rayford Steele's mind was on a woman he had never touched. With his fully loaded 747 on autopilot..."
• Russia and Ethiopia fire their entire nuclear arsenals at Israel. This is because the authors see it as fulfillment of the Bible verse discussing "Gog and Magog." Divine intervention destroys every single missile and aircraft with no Israeli casualties. Somehow, this does not cause any of the characters to question their own religious beliefs.
• The Rapture happens. Billions of people vanish overnight. Somehow, this exact fulfillment of the Rapture prophecy is treated as something between "Huh. I wonder if the Christians were right" and "That's just a kooky Christian theory, it was actually caused by the electromagnetism from nuclear weapons."
• Less than a week after The Rapture, the world gets back to normal despite something like a third of the Earth's population having just disappeared. There is no sign of long-term trauma or logistical strain.
• The Antichrist is a Romanian who takes over the world by ascending to the position of UN Secretary General. His evil plan includes dismantling the world's militaries and using the money saved on weapons to pay for the development of the Global South.
• Female characters have two possible personalities: perfect tradwife and sinful harlot.
• One of the later books includes a graphic, gory description of Jesus simultaneously exploding tens of thousands of people.

Due to some events in my life I really don't have any friends or partners, my only real social connection is my sister and her husband who I hang out with infrequently. And for a while this made me really depressed, but now, I'm finding myself enjoying the solitude. I've gotten really good at keeping myself entertained, I take long walks, I read books, I watch movies. Sometimes I'll just lay down and meditate for an hour or two.

If anything I wish I had a bit MORE solitude right now. I'm living with two roommates and have a retail job but wish I could just get a cabin and a remote job.

While I was in rehab, I read a lot of books, some were really good, some I wasn't really feeling.

First one was great, a book called 2 Trans 2 Furious, a collection of poems, essays, stories, and art about Fast and Furious made by trans people. I could not stop laughing at this book the entire time, the sense of humor was on point. I had never seen Fast and Furious before this, and it made me love the movie when I did eventually watch one (I watched 4, wow it's so gay. Family.) The book has unexpected emotional moments, some decent body horror, and a lot of comedy. Would recommend. The cis people at my rehab wanted to burn it when I talked about it, so you know it has to be a good one. Check this out if you're trans and love a good high effort shit post

Second one I read was also great. Normal Sucks by Johnathan Mooney. This book really changed how I viewed the world. It's part personal narrative written by a person with ADHD and Dyslexia, part history lesson on the way normal came to be, part stories of the disabled. There's a lot in this book, and it's fantastic. I will warn, the author does use the r***** word a few times in the book, but in the context it's being used I don't find it offensive. Check this out if you want to be a nicer person.

Third book I read was Bible Belt Queers, a collection of art, poems, personal narratives and other such things from well queers from the Bible Belt. I was so so on this book, I found the essays and personal narratives to be really strong, but I didn't really care for the artistic side of the book. Some of the poems were good, but most of them seemed to drag a bit, and a lot of the art didn't really catch my eye or was too cluttered for a book page. Maybe I would have felt different about some of these if I saw them on a computer screen or a canvas, but wasn't a fan of the art in the book. Your mileage may vary though, check it out if it sounds interesting.

Fourth was Fast Time in Palestine by Pamela Olson. The library I was at was fairly conservative, so there weren't a lot of picks for books on Palestine that weren't Zionist, so I picked up this one. My biggest criticism of this book is it's written by a Midwestern American and it often shows, but as she spends more time in Palestine she seems to understand the local's positions more and more as she sees the oppression they're under. It's split between her personal narrative and the stories of horrific violence her Palestinian friends had witnessed, with occasional bits of information about how the genocide is enabled by the rest of the world interspersed throughout. This book is a good read to anybody who isn't 100 percent sure about what's going on in Palestine, definitely one I'd hand off to lib friends, not sure if anybody here would really care for it though.

Fifth and final book is A Land with A People, a collection of essays, poems, and art from Palestinians and Jews confronting Zionism. This was a much better read than Fast Times, diving much deeper into the problems of Zionism, into its history, its effects on both a wide scale and a personal scale through both art and essays. This book is really high quality, albeit a bit hard to read as a monolingual English speaker (I was in rehab, I couldn't Google the anglicized Arabic words, give me a break) but even with the occasional linguistic problems I still got a lot out of this book. I wouldn't give this book to libs because it goes hard on terms like settler-colonialism, but I appreciated it actually tackling that so much. 10/10 would read again.

What should I read next? What have you read recently that's interesting?

“My brain is 78% microplastics”

Mosquitos may have beat me today. They arent like Russian Taiga in the summertime bad but still, fifteen minutes is about all they need to bleed one dry.

I brought deet, picaridin, and a thermacell. I brought my hammock, which has a bug net built in. It has been treated with permethrin some weeks ago, is unwashed, and i figured the treatment would be current enough to provide protection. Boy am i wrong.

Deet applied to exposed skin to the point of being tingly. Picaridin on top. Thermacell chugging away. And still not quite enough. More of the fuckers are getting thru my defenses than im ok with. The bananas i had during my hike arent helping.

So i go get in my hammock, which is great mostly. Bugnet keeps them off my head, and the thing has been treated with permethrin so it should be helping some too. But it just isnt, really. I brought my spreader bar hammock because im a side sleeper, so the bug netting is only on the top half. Since it is in the 70s&80s im leaving my underquilt at home, which helps to keep things cool but the lack of under quilt means that wherever my body touches the hammock the mosquitoes have direct access to me. And they are biting me.

Im going to be a misshapen mass of hamburger before much longer. Im probably going to have to go sleep in my car. JFC.

I have been thinking about education a lot these days. Mostly because the sharpened cleaver that is student loan debt hangs over my head at all times. I think about my experience personally as well as my younger family members and family friend’s children as many of them are graduating. I’m proud of them and most of them are actually pretty bright kids (one of them is God’s dumbest creatures but their heart is pure so they’ll be alright). I was thinking about all this technology advancement and stuff and I was just curious what would it be like if education online didn’t suck.

The hooks and fangs of the private sector are all over online education. Countless for-profit websites, applications, and services that gamify learning. Even most textbook publishers have their own online learning platforms (which are all “AI POWERED™®©” for some reason) . They vary in quality but all uniformly paywall education which could also be said of traditional higher education system but at least traditional education is built on the premise of social reproduction and social utility rather just the profit motive alone.

There also non-profits organizations that provide some education online, though to be frank the term “non-profit organizations” can be a box of vipers. Some are groups are rock solid and genuinely want to do good, others are hedge funds that help people as a side gig. I don’t know how I feel about places like Khan academy for example. I think it has probably helped a lot of students but also if that’s the goal supposedly why not just make open?

There is an existing patchwork of open/free courses universities all over the globe. all manner of courses which is of course rad as hell. There also Shadow libraries and other 🏴‍☠️Yarharr 🏴‍☠️ sites that provide substantial academic resources. There also of course tons of venerable and good hearted teachers and instructors of all fields that put their know-how on places like YouTube and share pretty freely and openly. Which is also cool and good.

I feel like online education with a more open internet type mindset would be a great way to get people to learn, or at least supplement their learning. There is so much human knowledge that is locked behind gates when it ought to just open and out there. The free exchange of information was one of the core principles of the advent of the internet and it just seems like a good fit for education. It seems like a good counter to everyone using the machine to learn for them.

I don’t know just sort of thinking out loud on the internet but what do you think? I feel like internet/online learning could be a real boon for students and people everywhere and implemented in some sort of PBS-style open not for profit way. Like a local library for everyone on the NET.

"The rich give away a smaller proportion of their money than the poor do."

I always think about this whenever people praise people like Bill gates for giving money away.

This will be different than the usual post I do. Mainly because I have now had enough time to look back on my various experiences and think about it all.

I am writing this while taking public transport back to my place. The sex was alright, although nothing amazing, nor was I reciprocated, but that was expected. A faceless profile, although did post his face after asking, discrete “full top” older man that was uncomfortably inching closer to my parent’s age more than I would have liked.

It was a boring day, I went in not expecting the sex to be great but mainly curiosity on my part. A confirmation of my own preferences really, and this has sealed the deal.

After the event, we talked a tiny bit. He complained that he was on night-shift having to travel into a town that was 100% outside the city we were living in. I asked about his rent in his place, because it painfully reminded me of the place that I lived years ago. The number that came out of his mouth was a bit unbelievable considering he did not even have a shower head, and that the flat was clearly haphazardly built on top of the roof of the council building, which is why the elevator doesn’t even lead to it and you need to take stairs that is definitely too steep for anyone with mobility issues.

He complimented me right after the sex, said that I should have it chopped off since I would look “so sexy”, and after making a face of disbelief he clarified that people in Thailand usually do that. I tried explaining to him in a language he understands - “I am not a girl”. And he instantly asked - “oh so you want to get married?”

I should have expected that response, and my answer to that is a solid no, but not how he would have interpreted it. I don’t believe in same-sex marriage as an end that is beneficial for anyone but the upper class gays who rarely face the brunt of discrimination anyways.

I quickly cleaned myself up and packed up as he also had to get going to his work. I had to walk across a park to reach the nearest station and decided to sit down and think about what just happened. I have had a lot of “fun” with many people now, of age gaps that would definitely creep out any straight person.

Looking back, I just find it all a bit funny. For many years, I lived a similar story of so many, internalised homophobia for much of my early teenager years. A lot of years of guilt and regret for something that has yet to happen. I have now lived multiple years in weeks. Getting a glimpse of many gay lives, both closeted and open, both young and old. Every life a unique and sometimes common, and sometimes a sad story to tell.

I myself am an interloper in this megacity, a so-called Third Culture Kid, an immigrant, a person with an “international accent”, a person with torn identities. The cliche continues running amok, there’s no point in containing it.

I could say I regret what I have done so far, but I have not. I could say that I am scared of the future, but I am not. I could say I am an hyper-sexual sex addict, but I really am not. That’s what I have learnt.

We continue walking on this Earth and cross heavily convoluted paths. We learn. Constantly. Sometimes without wanting to.

Stay safe all.

Capitalism has delivered me a great boon today, time to run to the store and make myself go bankrupt

Well, it's been a while. Didn't expect to stay 44 days in a 30 day program, but that's what happens when someone forgets to put out a cigarette and burns the building you do classes in. There were many trials (mostly cis people being cis people) but I made it through and I'm better for it. I'm going to a sober living house for trans people, so I'm hoping that's better.

This is the longest I've gone without weed in a while, and I feel a lot better without it. Alcohol was my problem, but I can't say that weed wasn't a problem either. I got it cheap and I sold it, so it didn't effect my finances, but I'd go without eating because I was too lazy to cook, I was too lazy to read. I didn't want to do anything for myself but smoke more weed and zone out.

I just got out, so I don't know what life is going to hold for me, but I'm excited about life. I didn't think I could do it sober for a while, now I don't know how I did it drunk and high.

This kind of semantic reasoning goes so hard. Sucks that it got picked up by the Atlantic but ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

I wanted to download some A2 or A1 prints of some of my favourite ones and there were a few on etsy. Then I remembered that I hate small businesses (large business too but especially small businesses).

Is there anywhere I can get some suitable hi-res posters and print it somewhere?

So there's this thing people do, it's harmless enough, but it also sort of hints at a completely incoherent style of thinking. It is absolutely unfair to judge people by random shit they write casually, after all I write like 3 geeked out baboons stacked atop one and other and yet I am a noble and refined rat.

Nonetheless I'm a judgy shit so I do. Ok so the thing? It's when people use a quote or situation from fiction as a predictor of what will happen in reality. A concrete example from earlier today paraphrased:

p1: I think blah blah thing will happen

p2: Ah but remember men in black? a person is reasonable, people are dumb panicky animals

me: teakettle noises

The causality is utterly confused, MiB cannot be used as evidence, it is written that way because the writer wanted a character to say that. It's possible a writer wanted a character to say that because the writer believed it to be true, but it's also possible that it was included for many other reasons.

screeeeeeeeeee

Anyway, share your thoughts. Also your own ridiculous rhetoric irritations.

Was it meeting other comrades, or going to a big demo? Or somehow feeling like you were being useful to the movement itself?

So, I work in the agro industry and my boss said she had to make an unscheduled trip to the "land down under", to go to her brother in law's wake. She gave me a bunch of weirdly specific instructions. I had to go inform other company executives (who were also her relatives), and she hinted that she wouldn't be safe there and might need their help to return. Maybe something about the immigration customs? But she made a huge deal out of it, like I had to beg them to rescue her.

The three first I asked laughed at my face saying

Nah, what the hell she doin over there? Bitch had all she wanted above and she also wanted what was below?
We already warned her, I aint rescuing that greedy hoe."

Which, honestly, was perfectly reasonable and sounded like they knew her well. Word came up that she tried to usurp her sister's place as soon as she arrived and had gotten killed (?), but I didn't really believe it and just kept going. The fourth guy was like "Oh no, babygirl's in danger? I'll send two goons to take her back". And he did. And they came back with my boss, unfortunately unscathed. And a goon of the Australian branch. Apparently, someone else had to go to the land down under and take my bosse's place if they were gonna let her back (how did she make herself so essential? She was there three days!). Aussie goon asked if he could take me (excuse me?) but boss said no, because I followed all her instructions (thank you!). So they kept looking among the branch managers. All of them had bought into the stories of her death and made small memorials, minutes of silence, wore mourning clothes... All of that pleased her so none of them were taken away.

Then she found out her husband hadn't been mourning, so she got mad and got the aussie goon to take him away. I would've found it funny if be wasn't the head of the cereal department, the most important one; and he was kinda very important.

Producticity plummeted. The boss eventually let her husband come back, but his sister had to go replace him in the southern branch. Productivity climbed up again, but then she sent him back six month later so his sister could return. Then the reverse six month later, they just kept switching them every six month, and basically, we're only producing grain when the original department leader is here.

This fucking sucks, never work for the goddess of fertility.

/s

Standing in line at will-call at Ferguson this afternoon, I called the office to get a PO number. Its a small plumbing shop so the business tyrants are involved with all things to some extent; since she is answering phones today, she answered when I called to get my PO number.

For some reason I said “OK I love you, bye” when I hung up, like a dumb ass.

I didnt have to call, or go back to the office before I finished my shift today, so I didnt have to hear about it yet. Nobody has texted me or called me either so maybe she didnt say anything. Or maybe she did and theyre all waiting to fuck with me tomorrow.

Anyway, thats my faux pas for the day.

I'm coming up on 14 years of experience in my field, and I feel like because I like to have fun at work and joke around while we work, I don't get treated like an adult. I'm 37. I work circles around some people and I feel like I leave it all on the field every day. I help everyone, I do just about anything they ask, I help get new people up to speed, I come in early often, I don't come in high.. you get the picture.

So my manager has like a year of on the job experience and is just about the worst manager I've ever had. Nothing is ever good enough and I'm always "wrong". I've tried standing up for myself, and I've tried letting it roll off my back. Neither approach solves any of my problems.

Today, my manager waylaid my team member on a break and asked her what I do back there. I'm never not doing stuff and everyone but my manager sees it and knows it. I'm the type of worker that you don't have to worry about.

So I text the manager after she left and asked if she had a problem with my work. Of course not! I'm gods gift to bread! Blah blah blah...

She calls my teammate after hours and discusses why I have a problem.. doesn't ask me why I am upset. Instead I'm the asshole for standing up for myself.

There's a guy I work with that is basically checked out and refuses to make decisions or small talk. He's a good worker though. He told me one day that I should just turn off my brain and do what management says no matter how stupid and just let the pieces fall where they may. I'm trying. I really am. But the leftist in me is screaming at me to stand up and try to fix it. It's against my nature to prostrate myself to people like this. My new strategy is to turn my brain off and just be a soulless husk of a man at work who just keeps his head down and isn't friendly toward anyone. I'm only going to talk about work and work related stuff.

It's hard to do and it's so lonely! I have to listen to the same garbage music every day hear the same "working hard or hardly working" jokes every day and eat the same bowl of shit every day because the management doesn't pay any attention to the yahoos they pull off the street to do this job that should realistically have some training. It's a daily shit show and me and a couple of people have to "deep state" fix everything behind managements back while they chortle at the wine bar and take credit for all the fires we put out.

I should just quit, right?

My job is recession proof, it pays pretty well and on a good day, I enjoy it. I'm also hitting that age where I'm slowing down a bit and I don't know how to do anything else. I live at least 25 minutes from towns where jobs are, and they all would be a significant pay cut. I'm scared of the trump economy and rolling the dice on a different job.