amazing news for the bisexual community

"oscar isaac" "kristen stewart" "vampire" "thriller" "80s" ???? please

Some days you get to work and find out that not only do you have an absolute trainwreck of a union issue to deal with, but also no one is in up in the admin office, no one's sure who's supposed to be in charge, and a group of patrons are doing a thing they were told not to do and somehow, even though it's not happening in your department and you're definitely not in charge, you're the one who has to handle it. And it's all hitting on the tail end of an absolute killer of a past month that would have had you hiding in the shower in the pre-sertraline days. And on days like that, it's nice to get home after work and curl up with someone you love and a snuggly pet and have a snack and a little nap.

CW for hospitals, emergency surgery

This past Thursday, my husband called me at work. He was in horrific pain and needed to go to a hospital. I dashed out of work so fast, I honestly don't know how they handled me leaving. I was gone. We got to the ER, were taken back for scans, and told "Oh yeah, his gallbladder is ANGRY. It's got to come out, like, ASAP." He was admitted. He had an MRI and antibiotics, and in the morning, he went into surgery.

I got to take him home yesterday, five days later. Gallbladders are little bastards and his was so bad they had to convert to open surgery so they could get it all and not damage anything else. The surgery took two hours longer than expected. The recovery in the hospital was prolonged by some frustratingly badly timed test orders (yes, please, order an MRI at 6:15, 15 minutes AFTER dinner is served). But hey, he's home now.

We have to move in a couple of months. My last remaining great-uncle is in the hospital and likely will never leave. Got that news while my husband was still in the hospital. My parents are talking about moving into a graduated care building. I'm on three committees at work, plus the union.

All this is to say, bless modern biochem and the existence of sertraline.

Whereas in 1994, when we had a visible solar eclipse, my high school English teacher threatened disciplinary action against any student who left his class early to go observe it. He told us at the time "You'll have plenty of chances to see a solar eclipse." I don't remember what the hell we were reading at the time, but I remember being so scared of getting in trouble, I missed the eclipse.

Seeing an eclipse at 92% coverage a few days ago was the culmination of 30 years of waiting. We haven't had anything that high for that long. I finally got to see my solar eclipse, Mr. Smith, at the age of 45.

A scene from the library

This has happened at least three times a day for the past week:

Sign on the desk: Solar Eclipse Glasses - ONE PAIR PER PERSON

Library patron, after looking at the sign: I need six pairs

Me: I can give anyone present a pair, but we need to make sure we have plenty for the event itself, so I can't give out more than one per person present.

Library patron: But my family all want them!

Me: I'm afraid I need to stick to our posted limit

Patron: I know, I read the sign, but can't you be flexible?

Me: Not that flexible. But if you come to see the eclipse at the library, we'll have them available then!

Patron: Oh, we're going up north to see the full eclipse, I just need the glasses before we leave.

Me: One pair per person.

Given the news I just got, I'd fuckin' LOVE some happiness right now.

Happiness Will Come To You.

Why is there a watermelon there?

So, back in the day, I worked at a video store that was part of a small chain, and yes, we're talking pre-DVD era. The chain had a mail and phone order business (and a very early online catalog) and a warehouse to ship products. Word from the warehouse folks was that one of the most popular sex toys they carried was a very large silicone item nicknamed "the fireplug" due to its girth. So, you know, it's all laughs, but legit the above? Not the weirdest thing I would have heard working there.

When my cat is sitting near me and I say "kisskiss?" she will, most of the time (when she wants kisses), lean her head over to me and I will deliver kisses to her noggin. This is usually followed by her rubbing her little kitty face against me, and sometimes, if I'm lucky, she makes a little noise that sounds like she's imitating a kiss as best as she can.

My cat before her, a male who literally reached out for me in the shelter and gently took my hand and guided it to his face for nuzzling, used to sit in my lap constantly. Most of the time he was curled up or sprawled in my lap, but when he sat up he would stretch his head up towards me and make a little inquisitive noise. I'd kiss the top of his head and he would bump his head up to meet me.

Cats understand.

cats don’t understand what it means when you give them kisses ):

I really need people in their 70s and 80s to stop telling me how great it is that we have such mild winters now.

We live in New England. Our winters should be cold. There should be snow. That is what should be normal for this area. And yet, here we are. It was 60F out yesterday. There was supposed to be between 4-10 inches of snow and we've got bupkis. This is not good. This is a sign that we as the resident caretakers of this planet are failing to do enough to keep it livable for ourselves.

I've probably got between 20-40 years left in me and I'd rather not spend them living out the cautionary tale from The Inner Light, thank you very much.

But no, it's awesome that we didn't have to shovel today. Yup. Super awesome.

(Why am I hearing this from so many people in their 70s and 80s? Because I work in a public library within two blocks of three different senior and assisted living buildings and many of my patrons think my sole purpose is to listen to them, not to, you know, be a librarian.)

My experience on a boat was not really the same as the above, but even in a limited situation like mine was, I can see how it would reach that point.

I was at sea for two weeks on a two-masted schooner, doing marine research and learning how to operate a tall ship. I was in high school, as were most of the rest of the people on board. We had eight adults on board and twice as many teenagers. My mother had done a similar program two years prior, with a ship full of adults, most of whom were science teachers. And let me tell you, we both came back semi-feral. I had never heard my mother swear prior to her coming back from this program, but when she did? Something not fitting where she wanted in the dishwasher was cause for a string of obscenities I had never heard from anyone, let alone my 5th grader science teacher mother. When I got back? Showering was a luxury I couldn't comprehend. I either spent half an hour or more, or avoided showering like the plague. There was no in-between. I had an urge to climb things no one should climb. My sleep schedule was fucked from the watch schedule and I would be up at 4am, looking for things to do with no regard to anyone else. The weirdest things struck me as hilarious.

I will say, that at 4am, after a shift on bow watch, staring out into the dark horizon with the ocean swells coming up to meet you and bioluminescent plankton glowing where they've been disturbed, making waves of pale light in the water, something changes in your brain. You have to cope with the size of the sea and all its weirdness. You have to cope with both realizing you are alone out there and that the people on your ship are the only people you will see. You adjust. It was one of the coolest things I've ever done, and it's nowhere near the amount of time that people spend on ships in the military or in shipping, but even that small bit, yeah. I can see it. It changed me as a person and while I've been reacclimated to society for the past 25 years, I'm not the same person I was before I stepped on board that ship.

love the sailing boat discourse and all but i have to say being on a ship for a prolonged time does change a man and i don't mean in a hardened but wisened sailor kind of way i mean that everytime my brother returns from sea after a few months he has to be reintroduced into society like some sort of feral beast. being on a boat might not give you scurvy but it WILL erode your impulse control and ability to react normally to any situation whatsoever. that's just what months of hard work and inability to leave while the ground moves does to a mf

Some days you're just moseying along, carrying your little backpack of stressful knowledge and responsibility, and someone comes along and is like "Hey, hang on, I can take that one weird and intensely stressful thing out of your backpack for you!" And you're like "Oh shit, thanks, that's so much better!" And then they're like "Now you have room for this OTHER weird and intensely stressful thing!" And they put a different thing in your stress backpack and anyhow that was my day yesterday. How are you?

When I was in high school my biology teacher was a former nun. She'd left the convent specifically to teach biology in a secular school. She told us this during our first class. She told us about how when she learned about cell mitosis and all the other various processes that make plants and animals grow and live, she got chills. That these were the miracles she'd been looking for when she became a nun, and she wanted to show young people how those miracles work.

You can believe in miracles and know that every step in the process that makes flowers bloom is one of them.

“magic isnt real” — plants just grow out of the ground. for free. everywhere.

In honor of 2023 being the 40th anniversary of Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness quartet, these are the beloved and much-read paperbacks I bought with my allowance money in 1992, when I was 13.

"What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist – the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art."

-Rose Schneiderman, 1912

This is part of a discussion on the phrase "bread and roses" in labor strikes in the US in the early 1900s, initially used by activist Mary Todd. The phrase was later popularized in the song, Bread and Roses, based on a poem by James Oppenheim. In that, you have the following lines:

"Our days shall not be sweated from birth until life closes— Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses."

Sometimes you just want something nice, okay? And people should be able to have something nice, regardless of their financial situation or class status.

The last thing I posted was all "Things are stressful and a Whole Lot and I'd like if they'd maybe cut that shit out."

And then yesterday I had to run into work early to deal with some stressful union shit and met a coworker in the parking lot who was like "Oh, so, this other stressful and bizarre union shit happened and also the daughter of one of our coworkers died unexpectedly over the weekend."

What do you even do with that? What do I do? How cope?