Summary of caption with Pride flag motif.
Itβs Thursday, and that means itβs Queer Night at Pe Metawe! This is a community focused, staff-facilitated drop-in game night in a safe and inclusive space. Age 16+, $5 drop-in fee optional π
"Do you think it's appropriate that a person with no experience was tasked with choosing grants to cut?"
"I think it's fine because you can get experience from reading books."
"What books did you read?"
"There were no books."
Happy for Luna!
I could swear Max was meditating with me this morning. During the part where I count my breaths, he was purring gently and evenly.
When the teacher in the audio said "now let your thoughts flow freeβ, he stopped purring.
Maybe he was counting his breaths, too.
She wasnβt attracted to the right by the romanticized aesthetic of βtraditional Americaβ β big beautiful houses and bread-making and families with half a dozen children. Rather, she says, βI was in love with the frisson of transgression.β The online right had begun to engage more explicitly with forbidden subjects: nativism, race science, and gender essentialism drawn from evolutionary psychology. βThere was an element of gnosticism to it,β she says, βthe sense that you know secret things that other people donβt know.β After college, in the waning years of Trumpβs first term, Anna wrote for popular right-wing outlets, worked for conservative institutions, and attended movement conferences. She fell in socially with the young firebrands of the New Right; she remembers it as partially happenstance. βYou kind of meet people and proceed on and then suddenly you find yourself being a part of this thing,β she tells me. A portion of her early writing was about feminism and gender: βI was doing the typical right-wing female thing where all these men will kind of pat you on your head for saying the edgy thing β about women, as a woman β and they need you to be their mouthpiece.β
Usually, she silently endured her peersβ soliloquies on womenβs deviance and the urgent need to curtail their rights. When she did manage a retort, it was not well received. On one occasion, at a professional dinner, a male acquaintance spewed out some βreally grossβ things about women (she declines to share details for fear of being identified), and she gently pushed back. βHe freaked out,β she says. βHe was banging on the table, screaming at me, saying, βNobody cares what you think, womanβ β using the word woman as an invective.β She worried he would become violent. No one at the table came to her defense, men or women. βYou almost donβt realize whatβs happening until five years later,β Anna says, βwhen you look back and youβre like, Oh gosh, I was being used.β She also blames herself: βI was too frivolous with ideas.β
More seriously: when you get people who speak honestly -- as I do think this person is doing -- what you see is that a lot of the people who get involved with this stuff really do so for basically frivolous reasons. it's a game, then it's a livelihood, then suddenly it's Real and not funny anymore
#121
CANADIANS
Please consider signing Elizabeth May's petition to have the federal government recognize endometriosis and adenomyosis as part of the disability law in Canada.
www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...
I would wave at a kitty, too.
Traumatized dog who has experienced the worst possible thing: a bath and blowout. She is looking away while I pet her paw, canβt even open her eyes, sheβs so distressed.
She accepts some ear rubs, but still maintains her stoic, unhappy demeanor - despite her little pink bandana.
Now in the kitchen, the dog has freshly accepted (grabbed) a treat out of my hand and finally, I think we are forgiven.
From yesterday: Lucy got a spa day, but she was very dramatic about it until I bought her smile with a snack.
CW: CSA mentioned, bad moderator behavior.
Okay, so.
I had a book come out yesterday (BUTTERFLY EFFECTS, available now from a bookstore near you), and as is often the case, I went out last night to promote it. Bookstore event, whee.
a neil gaiman defender contests a response of 'no' to a link to a substack, and is told 'I see that like Neil Gaiman, you don't understand that no is a complete sentence'
you want to see a murder
Renaissance artists seemed to understand something todayβs art world doesnβt: sometimes a woman simply needs to hold up a freshly removed head.
www.jezebel.com/theres-not-e...
"Just try to advocate for yourself," she said. "Stand up for yourself the best that you can β¦ I guess it didn't go great for me, so β have better luck."
ββThis must be Thursday,β said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer, βI never could get the hang of Thursdays.ββ
quick reminder that NT's production of The Importance of Being Earnest, starring human ray of sunshine Ncuti Gatwa, will be streaming FOR FREE on YouTube this weekend
www.radiotimes.com/movies/ncuti...
this just makes me want to write really impenetrably weird books
Hot take: donβt hate-read books. One wild and precious life, and you want to spend it mad? DNF and go find something you like.
This video is imparting genuinely amazing news about the shingles vaccine, but also contains a description of vaccines that made me laugh so hard I had to sit down. βWe inject the dead version so that when the live one shows up it knows weβve killed beforeβ is both accurate and SO FUCKING FUNNY
The antiviral version of "punching the biggest guy in the yard on your first day". Take that, polio!
"You let your cat..."
Yes. Whatever the rest of the sentence is, yes. Because I fear them as much as I love them. They are organized. They always watch.
if it wasn't a world-destroying atrocity it would be kind of funny how much time and money and energy is being put into convincing everyone to love AI and still the general consensus is like "meh"
What do you want to bet this little tantrum on the WaPo's opinion page is because someone ahead of Professor Jakub Grygiel in the queue at some coffee shop had an elaborate coffee order and he hasn't been able to let it go ever since
Young authors writing older characters: 70 is not that old. Pls drop the nostalgia for Elvis & fear of smart phones. A 70-yo just left her corporate job a year ago & has been on the internet longer than you have. She isnβt afraid to drive on the freeway, sheβs commuted for decades. π
s.e. is writing the advice column none of us want, and yet so many of us need <3
a ticked-off looking fluffy grey tabby, sitting in a cat bed (not visible). over him is a whiteboard with the word 'nerd' written on it and an arrow pointing at his head.
Him nerd
the cast of Star Trek Voyager in street clothes awkwardly posing with late-90s computer hardware and consumer electronics
this is what it feels like to post on bluesky
the sewing helper has logged on (and perched herself atop her fabric portrait) π§΅πͺ‘π§Ά
You literally made two movies about feelings having feelings sis
*Sees unhappy cat with claw stuck in arm of sofa*
"Let me help you there, my friend."
*Gently and patiently rescues cat from its uncomfortable predicament, with enormous care*
Cat (leaving): "I will never forgive you for this, for as long as I live.
