Ten pounds of personality in a five-pound bag
Instagram apparently knows I love corporate astrology! I got recommended this video, about asking your partner if they’re a fairy, a witch, a princess, or a mermaid.
I can’t remember which is which and my Instagram timer has run out for the day, but I think I’d say “witch.”
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DK8Ec4PSYFm/
Which one are you? And what do you think it says about yourself?
(Don’t bring this to your next office mixer though.)
A friend’s priest had this to say, on the passing of James Dobson:
“On behalf of “strong-willed children” everywhere: There is no one I credit more for all my emotional and spiritual trauma than James Dobson.
I believe he is now fully in the presence of the radical love of God he so consistently preached against. My hope is that in the fullness of time he will be reconciled to that love.
In the meantime, sucks to be him.”
Imagine the torment it must be, to go your whole life believing in a God of hatred and exclusion, only to discover upon your death that your God is actually a god of love.
If hell is the absence of God? And this man is now feeling that absence, because God does not condone violence towards young children, the way Dobson does (well, did)? Then Dobson is in hell.
Good.
I’ve been mulling over the word “thick” or “thicc” lately. Like a lot of slang, I’m pretty sure it originated in Black English, and is generally seen as a compliment. But when I think about who it’s applied to, I think it’s generally just specific body types that are thicc (fat in an acceptable way), in the most common usage of the word.
As I’ve been getting older, most of my weight gain has been centered on my belly. Sometimes folks still ask if I’m expecting. It’s stopped hurting, but it’s always jarring.
But I think about that, about the fact that I have a thick waist/belly and no noticeable hips or butt and minimal (though finally, beautifully, extant) boobs; and I think of the phrase “unfashionably thick.”
But then I think more about that phrase. It’s the sort of thing you might see in a fantasy novel that has a female protagonist: where “unfashionably thick” is just code for “she’s conventionally attractive in our world, but not in her own.” And I think the word for my middle aged wine mom lib body is “thick, in the unfashionable way.”
But it is still mine; and I am grateful to have it.
A few years ago, I remember the Romney family getting in hot water rhetorically speaking because one of them (I think it was Ann?) said something very tone-deaf about financial difficulties. It was along the lines of “Yes, we too have known poverty. Why, one time during graduate school, we had to sell some stock to make ends meet!”
I think about this a lot, when I see finance getting talked about on the Internet. If you are well off, there’s a certain level of desperation that you will simply never know, because you have enough cushion/backup (whether that’s from your own savings, family support, or savings you have BECAUSE of earlier family support).
One of my friends and I have a running gag about the very un-self-aware articles that are sometimes published in places like Business Insider. You probably know the drill: “This plucky young lad paid off $120,000 of student loans before age 30! What an inspiration!” Then you read the article and (a) there is no budget presented, and (b) the most mathematically significant “tip” offered is something like “He chose to live with his parents to save money on rent” (good! If you can swing it!) “and also rented out the Harlem condominium his grandmother gifted him upon graduation for $4000 a month of extra income! What a hustle grindset, am I right?” (Laughably out of reach for almost everyone in the country).
The thing that makes these puff pieces laughable is the lack of a written budget and the lack of comparability to even the median American, let alone the lower quartiles.
Someone recently shared this article in a space I’m in, and people immediately started talking shit about the interviewee. At first glance, I agreed – if he’s got very wealthy parents, that’s why, right?
But then I actually clicked on it, and there were a couple features that made this different from the normal puff pieces.
I would have preferred slightly more acknowledgement that not everyone can join the military (due to medical restrictions and so forth) but overall? It’s actually a pretty good article.
Anyway. I was just having some feelings about that, and it made me think of the “Romney poor” concept at the same time.
It’s important to keep things in perspective, no matter what stage of the journey you’re on.
I don’t know how I got on the “person in a fursuit giving financial advice” side of Instagram, but you know what…it tracks.
I wore the following outfit to a friend’s wedding in April of 2019. Little did I know that one year later, Owl House would replicate it on Luz for Grom Nite!
Continue reading “Gender update: Luz edition”I’ve been playing Expedition 33, an excellent video game. (This post does not contain spoilers.)
After I discovered a certain character, and recognized his voice actor, I hollered “IS THAT JEAN DE FUCKING FLORETTE” or thereabouts.
The voice actor was, indeed, Gerard Depardieu.
But I discovered very quickly that he had allegedly Me Too’d some people.
And I am very tired of all this. Depardieu was the voice of my early adolescence. I watched SO MANY French films that he starred in. (If you don’t speak French, think Kenneth Branagh, but less conventionally attractive.)
But with all that said: I’m not going to let it ruin my enjoyment of the game. He may be a bad person, but the game is bigger than just that one fact about him. (And if you draw your line someplace other than where I did, that is your prerogative and that is okay.)
Wheeeeeeee
Edit: My friend informs me this is not true, and I cannot find the thing that confirmed he was, so I will chalk this up to either (a) having dreamed it, or (b) finding an incorrect AI summary and not realizing that’s what it was. But who knows! A
Anyway, sorry for the misinformation!
My friend B Brookshire wrote this essay recently, and I wanted to share it here.
https://brookshire-team-trash.beehiiv.com/p/the-neverending-stress-cycle
The news is the lion and I am a hapless zebra.
Our bodies and minds aren’t built to deal with this much stress all the time. We have to adapt our behavior to cope healthily.
My friend just pointed out that if you have the expensive kind of Magic cards, that’s a cardstock portfolio.
I will be using this joke at every opportunity.
If you are a person who’s fortunate enough to have the expensive kind of Magic cards, I recommend that you maintain a listing (perhaps a private deck list on Moxfield, or similar) to track the value of your “portfolio.” Cards can appreciate in value without you realizing it, especially if you’re not currently in the game.
When it comes to realizing (making real) those gains, though, I don’t have any advice. It’s not always easy to find a buyer, and if you’re unfamiliar with internet marketplaces it can be too easy to get scammed.
My own Magic card strategy is “buy and play,” rather than “buy and hold.” (Although I don’t get as much play as I would like.) (No, I will not edit that sentence.) In general, I recommend that people who collect things do so because they enjoy the things, not because they think it’ll have a payoff. (See: my grandmother’s Hummel figurines.)
But it’s never a bad idea to keep an eye on collectible value, just on principle.
Emilybook 