you know even if a homeless person or a starving person is in that position because of their own “bad decisions” i don’t care. it doesn’t matter. no supposed financial misstep is enough to condemn someone to homelessness or poverty.
Search and rescue teams do not ask if a hiker was properly equipped and prepared before they go out to look for them.
EMTs do not ask if a driver checked their mirrors before they take them to the hospital.
Lifeguards do not ask if a swimmer made a mistake by going into a riptide before they dive in after them.
Judgement doesn’t help anyone, including you, the person doing the judging. Just help people. Just shut the fuck up and help people.
So yesterday I was thinking about how femme clothes fit my sibling weird sometimes cuz of their lack of tits and then I randomly remembered this nonprofit that knits and crochets prosthetic breasts for cis women that have had mastectomies due to breast cancer (knittedknockers.org lol) and their patterns are free! So I am knitting them some tits which I find very amusing.
For those that want breastforms, the patterns are free. Takes sport or DK yarn. There’s a DPN version and a knit flat version and a crocheted version. You can find them on Ravelry under the name Knitted Knockers but make sure you have mature content enabled
If I had a nickel for every time someone said “gonna crochet myself a neon green cock” I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it never occurred to me that it might happen twice. Go you funky folks. Make the neon green dick of your dreams.
Everyone owned this effing couch. Or one similar to it. But you could not walk into a house in the 80s and not see one of these bad boys. This one comes complete with beige carpet rough enough to sand down your calloused feet, and dark wood paneling which is sure to dim any room you install it in.
I spent a lot of time handcuffed and in a cage in high school, for a charity bit the grocery store I worked at would do
the bit was that I was “put in jail for having too big a heart” and customers could donate to my bail to get me out (and the money would go to a children’s hospital or something)
now. I was very clearly a teenaged employee handcuffed inside a large cage. and I would honestly tell people that I had been in there for hours. and people would say, that’s terrible! that’s awful! and I would show them my wrists red from the tight handcuffs, and say but I’m sooooooo close to making bail.
and then they would dump some cash in the basket, I’d thank them, and they’d walk away.
and every so often, one of the managers would come by and collect some of the cash, so I could keep being soooooo close to making bail.
I was very good with this bit. Parents with small kids would pay $5-10 if I told their children I had been placed in jail for not cleaning my room/doing my homework, etc. For people in their 20s, I’d threaten that I was very bad at playing the harmonica, but I WOULD play it and we’d all suffer unless they paid me. and for the most amount of money, older men in suits would almost always pay $20s if I avoided eye contact and stammered a lot.
eventually, the managers started to feel bad because I was in the cage so fucking long and often, that I’d need someone to brace me when I got out because I’d have no feeling in my legs. wobbling like a newborn giraffe.
but I would also rake in at LEAST $100 an hour in charity.
so they were like, hey champ. can we, uh, give you a pillow to sit on. in the cage. would you like a pillow so you’re not just sitting on a cold metal slab. can we give you a pillow.
and I had to explain to them that if they gave me a pillow, people would think I was more comfortable, so they wouldn’t feel as bad, so I’d bring in less money.
the compromise was that they’d bring me a nice coffee every couple hours, which I would have to try to block with my body from the customers.
all this money went to charity. that’s what the money was for. it’s what was on the sign. but how much they were willing to pay was very contingent on how comfortable I looked, never mind the fact that I was still a teenaged employee handcuffed inside a cage.
and out of the dozens of shifts I did this on, not ONCE did ANYONE say, hey kid I’m going to go talk to your manager because what the fuck is going on here. they would just drop money in the basket, and I’d thank them and sip from my secret drink.
I actually had people get MAD at me that I told them I was far away from bail, they donated like $15, and then 20 minutes I got let out because my shift ended.
again. the money was for charity. it was on the sign that was very clearly placed on the upper half of my cage.
so yeah. even when people think they mean well. people can be really, really fucking stupid.
just remembered one time one of the managers was walking by and then noticed me. and stopped and frowned.
and I aggressively rattled my handcuffs against the bars of my cage while we both made dead-eyed eye contact.
and he said, “Is this ethical? I don’t think so.” Pulled out some cash from his wallet to dump in my basket, and asked me what my favorite drink from Starbucks was. went and got it for me with a “keep up the good work.” and then quickly walking away
Former federal employees from various organizations who were affected by the Trump administration’s mass firings share with @stephruhle on @11thhourmsnbc the significance of the work they did and their motivations for entering civil service.
If the Democratic Party had any damn sense, they’d be doing this day in and day out. You wouldn’t see a D congressperson appearing to make a comment or speech without a fired federal worker next to them. They’d be hammering on this point over and over.
But. You know.
Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA17) is making a major point of doing this. His office is taking calls and stories from Feds and facilitating media appearances like this one. (He’s also been publishing op-eds on a weekly basis advocating for our civil infrastructure and our Feds.) He’s not my rep, but I’ve been really impressed by his efforts to turn his media access towards our federal employees so that more of the public hears about the important work they do.
SoCal folks, if Khanna is your rep, give him a call and thank him!
This isn’t really meant to be a comic trashing my dad.
I do truly appreciate his commitment to education. I do truly have a soft spot for his style of humor, which certainly influenced the development of my own. I appreciate how he had this VHS-C camera that he was always bringing out and would let me use, sparking my love for movies and starting me on a path that led to me going to film school.
All those good things about him were real.
But so was the colossal amount of damage he caused.
If you happen to be a parent and are reading this right now, I’m going to ask that you consider this suggestion from a childless thirty-six year old:
You need to consider how you communicate with your child, and how communication doesn’t just mean the words that you use.
You’re telling your kids something with the foods you eat, the activities you engage in, etc…
…you communicate to your children with the media you consume.
The rhetoric against the trans community wasn’t as much in the spotlight when I was growing up, but every time my dad turned on the radio, he’d have my sister and I listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, etc… One of the topics that’d come up frequently was queer people.
Issues about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, gay marriage, gay boy scouts…
The “gays” were an issue. More than an issue really, they were a problem. If someone was queer, these radio hosts were quick to villainize; “this teacher is going to turn their students gay,” “this troop leader is going to abuse his scouts,” you don’t want your kid to end up like that, do you?”
My dad would listen to these folks non-stop and nod along in agreement, all the while his extremely queer and aware of it child was sitting right behind him, listening to how she was some kind of monster.
So I hid.
There could be no sharing about aspects of myself. My parents would be listening to 770am or Fox News all the time. If I share that I was queer, I’d be finished. How couldn’t that be the case? Every day they chose to listen to people that hate me, so they hate people like me.
So I can’t let them know me. I won’t let them know me.
Even though they never said that they hated queer people with their own words, they told me that they hated queer people every day with the media they chose, and in turn forced me to consume.
So again, if there are any parents reading this right now, consider my words. Hate is a choice you make, and hate can be communicated with more than just words.
If for no other reason, you never know if that kid in the back seat is listening, listening to how you hate them.
I want to get a job at the strip club near my house and then I want to see how far I can push pretending to be an actual irl vampire. if you’re unfamiliar with sex work you need to have the context here that there is no stupider person on earth than the average hetero male sex work customer and that this idea has a nonzero chance of actually no-joke seriously convincing more than one of them and I just think that would be funny
so there’s a local craftsman named Victor who has been making customized vampire fangs out of real dental resin for something like 30 years. I got my first fangs from Victor when I was 13, and he had already been making fangs for and unknown number of years before that. he’s a legend. every time I lose a pair (they don’t deteriorate, they last forever) I go back and get another pair, and he has never raised the price ($60) even though his profit margin has to be tiny by now. the fangs look incredible. better than the majority of vampire fangs you see in major Hollywood movies. and because they are molded directly onto your teeth (this process is unpleasant and smells really bad) they snap on and off, and do not require glue, and are incredibly secure. you can absolutely bite things with them. in fact he has a little info sheet specifically telling you NOT to do this because people immediately do and end up hurting themselves or others. I consider them a last resort personal defense item frankly. you can bite holes in tin cans, and I have
anyway all this is to say I think I could pull it off and since stripping is mostly about suffering through intense boredom while the worst men on the planet treat you like an unpaid focus group I think it would be extremely entertaining
Oh G-D you must do this. And tell me stories.
I also have fangs from Victor, who is indeed a top-tier fang smith. I’ve seen fang caps by other artists, and they just don’t compare. Ones by Victor look real.
If you haven’t already heard the sad news, ALL JoAnn stores are closing (it was previously reported that only some stores would be closed).
Important: JOANN GIFT CARDS WILL ONLY BE HONORED THROUGH FEBRUARY 28. If you don’t have time to get to the store, use them on the website.
Spreading the word for my fellow crafters, cosplayers, and fiber fans. RIP.
Oh, this sucks so hard and is yet another reminder why private equity firms should not fucking touch long-standing companies that were doing fucking fine. Because Joann didn’t have some grand sales crash; they had a steady business that couldn’t be ramped to the “next level” and the people who handled the money rolled them into a billon dollars of debt. See also Toys R Us.
Anyway, this sucks especially for people who are in the smaller cities and smaller towns that now have to hope Michaels has what they need and, if there is no Michaels, decide if they’re going to grit their teeth and go into Hobby Lobby.
As a loud queer, no one is surprised I don’t shop at Hobby Lobby. But also, it’s because I have many options that AREN’T Hobby Lobby. And I also have the budget to have other choices that AREN’T the big box craft stores.
So, please pay very close attention as I say the following: You are not a bad person for shopping at Hobby Lobby because Joann closed. You are not required to order online and wait from Knitpicks or Hobbii (which have reasonable prices) in order to not shop at Hobby Lobby. You do not have to drive an hour to the next town to go to the Michaels there in order to not shop at Hobby Lobby.
Look, fuck Hobby Lobby, but also, do not fuck yourself to fuck Hobby Lobby.
ALT
amhrancas 