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art · 1 year

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Creator Spotlight: @textless

Hi! My name is Amadee, and I am a librarian who lives in Arizona. I also love taking photos in my spare time.

Check out our interview with Amadee below!

What got you started in photography?

Both of my parents were very interested in photography. I’d always loved looking at their work, and in high school, I got a 35mm camera as a gift, so I could start taking photos myself. Back then (in the actual 80s), HS students in the Minneapolis area could take classes at area colleges for dual credit. I started taking photo classes at the University of Minnesota and had access to a darkroom and nearly unlimited film and processing supplies without realizing just how amazing that was. I took many photos of friends, acquaintances, and strangers, and I loved looking at work by Nan Goldin and Bill Owens. After college, without access to a darkroom, I stopped taking pictures almost entirely.

How has technology changed the way you approach your work?

Bluntly, technology allowed me to start taking photos again. The first digital cameras I tried in the early 2000s were terrible: slow, clunky, and with next to no storage capacity. Even so, they seemed like the first step in an interesting direction. By 2008 or so, I had a point-and-shoot digital camera and rediscovered what I loved about photography… except that I no longer wanted to take pictures of people. Soon I started taking photos of tiny things, especially insects, and my little camera wasn’t up to the task. I got a DSLR with a macro lens in 2010 and haven’t stopped taking photos since.

I know many photographers who are nostalgic for film, whether or not they were around in the analog era. More power to anyone who wants to spend the time and money, but I don’t miss film even a little. For the kind of photography I enjoy, which is almost entirely documentary, the ability to take an unlimited number of photos, and see what did or didn’t work right away, makes all the difference.

You've also written books in the past—what was the most challenging, yet rewarding part of the process?

I was a children’s librarian for many years and just love books. So, when I started writing, I hoped to create books that would connect with kids and spark their imagination. Cortez the Gnome was a book I would have liked to see as a kid, and the art project elements were fun and frustrating. Gentle Hands filled what felt like a gap in my storytimes and gave me a chance to work with a publisher I like very much. Alas, my biggest challenge is that I haven’t had an idea in years! I write occasional blog posts for Free Spirit on topics related to serving youth, but working with kids was the spark for new ideas, and these days my work is mostly admin. I enjoy it more than I would have guessed years ago, but as a wellspring of inspiration, it is not.

How do you create healthy boundaries in balancing your day job and personal aspirations?

Work comes first every time. That might sound like a drag, but I truly like my job and think library service is critically important. In some of the tiny communities we serve, the library is the only gathering place open to everyone, and the only place to access fast internet, enrichment activities for kids, books, movies, and all kinds of other good stuff. I love taking photos, but I would hate to make a job of it.

What is the hardest part of your process?

The process itself is just fun, and I’d stop if it weren’t. I used to stress about editing and posting photos soon after taking them because I wanted to create a sort of nature journal in real-ish time. That wasn’t sustainable, partly because the subjects that interest me are so seasonal. I might take 2,000 photos in August (peak macro season here), but only 100 in February. Now I just try to indicate when photos were taken and know that I’m the only person who particularly cares about that. For years I posted six new photos each day. Now I generally post two and skip days or longer whenever it suits me.

Right now, the biggest challenges are external. First, my vision is less and less sharp. It’s nothing severe, just a function of age, but it makes me think I’d better develop an interest in non-tiny subjects at some point. Second, some small but annoying health problems have kept me from getting out much over the last year. I used to take a hike or long walk at least once or twice a week, and more in peak bug season. Since last September, I’ve taken two longish walks and mostly stuck to the yard. On the plus side, it’s an excellent yard with an ever-growing assortment of interesting plants and insects.

While this is frustrating in some ways, it’s also a distillation of something I have always liked. Even when I was hiking all the time, I enjoyed going back to the same places, again and again, getting to know them in detail and watching the seasons roll through. Staying so close to home this year has been an extreme version of that, and some aspects of that have been very satisfying.

I should also say, for the record, that I am not technical at all. I’m not interested in new gear as long for its own sake, and I don’t like messing with camera settings or anything fiddly. My favorite piece of photo advice ever was “f/8 and be there,” which I took to mean finding a basic setup you like and focusing on the subject at hand. I like finding strange or beautiful things that other people might not notice and trying to make them interesting to a wider audience. (Wider than just me, that is.)

What is something you would love to photograph but haven't had the chance to yet? Why?

This is oddly specific, but I desperately want to find an Arizona Unicorn Mantis (Pseudovates arizonae; check out the photos here). Several have been spotted within two miles of my house, but I have never found one yet. They are otherworldly and just fascinating. Insect goals!

Are there similarities or differences in your workflow when it comes to photography and writing?

Mostly difference in that photography is relaxing, and writing is nearly impossible, at least right now.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

There are several excellent photographers who live in my corner of Arizona, and I love their work because it shows different aspects of a place I care about. Also, their photos are just gorgeous.

@fatchance is practically a neighbor and an all-around lovely person. He takes beautiful pictures of birds and desert flora, and unlike me, he takes the time to learn about and share good information about his subjects.

@thelostcanyon is another south-eastern AZ photographer I admire, and he is also a very good painter.

@inlandwest is actually my partner. We’ve lived all over the west together, and I like that his wide-open-spaces aesthetic is so different from my focus on the little things.

A little farther afield, I love @macroramblings, and Celeste, of @celestialmacros, @celestialphotography, and @occasionallybirds, for their beautiful macro work. @mostlythemarsh is another long-time favorite. He’s not a macro photographer, for the most part, but I like seeing familiar places through the seasons, and I like the stark difference between his environment (east coast/Canada) and my own.

Thanks for such wonderful answers, Amadee. Check out her beautiful photography work over at her Tumblr, @textless!

#creator spotlight #photographers on tumblr #writers on tumblr #macro photography #textless #insects #bugblr

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khaleesiofalicante · 1 month

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Okay, so I got NO work and No writing done today. The weather was too cozy so I just drank lots of tea and listened to music hehe.

So, instead of an LMCH or LBAF update, you get a glimpse into the Lightwood-Bane family in the RWRB AU. I'm so excited for you to all to meet them next week (?).

What was that mean tweet he read at the Jimmy Kimmel interview last year?

President Lightwood’s family looks like the cover of a diversity brochure of a community college.

Max had laughed out loud so hard that he almost fell off the chair. Because despite being mean, it was absolutely hilarious and you gotta give credit where credit is due.

Despite this kind of criticism, the Lightwood-Banes used their diversity to their advantage. They each had their own strength and a target group they controlled.

Dad, who was called the Orion of the Democratic Party - for his targeted initiatives and unmissable victories. His father, if he set his mind to something, always saw it through. Dad had the rich people and the white people and especially the rich white people under his thumb. The Lightwoods were famous long before Dad wanted to become president, so it also helped that their family came from old money and had friends in all the right places.

Bapak, who was nicknamed Saint Magnus, is kind of like a modern-day Mother Theresa – perfectly balancing Dad’s straightforward and no-bullshit personality with soft smiles and gentle words. Bapak, who used to be a refugee himself, got most of the minority votes –including racial minorities and second-gen immigrants. He was very appealing to the liberals - especially the activists and the scholars and the feminists.

People liked Dad. But people were in love with Bapak.

Well, not all of them, obviously.

Just because they have a gay president now, it doesn’t homophobia was dead and equality is achieved.

This is still the real world.

Rafael, who had dubbed America’s Future, is the visionary among them. Because what Rafael lacked in experience, he made up more than enough with his passion. Despite spending all his free time with bapak, if there’s any, and hogging all of bapak’s attention like the unapologetically selfish asshole he is, Rafael is a mini-Dad. Max, who grew up with the man, saw it a long time ago. But the people started to see it too.

However, while Dad had the upper class covered, Rafe wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty – not literally though. Bapak taught him to protect his cuticles.

Rafe is one with the people of the working class. He got his first part-time job at the local diner when he was in middle school, he volunteered for everything damn charity project under the sun during high school and by the time he was in college, he was already helping Dad with his next campaign.

While the rest of his family worked really hard to earn these titles and support, Max had barely done anything at all. He, anointed and appointed as ‘America’s Sweetheart, by the people themselves, just needed to be himself. A sweetheart.

It wasn’t the press the gave him the name. Max’s target demographic is Gen Z and the name turned into a thing shortly after someone random person on TikTok made an edit of him to Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince.

He’s fine it. Honestly, it’s much better than being called America’s Future. Yikes.

Since Max’s key demographic is chronically online and would rather die than go out, much of the work he does is also online. This means he needs to have a consistent social media presence and do the allocated number of livestreams every week and meet the expected number of social media reach every day.

It’s a little exhausting. But it’s nothing compared to what Rafael does, which is to do real work in the real world.

But there you have it.

The First Family of the United States of America.

The Orion, Saint Magnus, America’s Future, and America’s Sweetheart.

#ahhhhh bye #mavid rwrb au

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aspd-culture · 1 year

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Do you have any like actual tips for pro-socials who have antisocial loved ones, like friends or partners? So many sites are like “dealing with a [x]? Here’s ten ways to handle it!” and then it details abusive tactics (which is blatantly stupid, IMO, pwaspd/npd already expect the world to do this to them so idk where they’re getting the idea that pwaspd/npd wouldn’t expect this behavior because their upbringing TRAINED them to expect this behavior but hey, nobody said ableists actually knew what the fuck they were talking about).

I personally struggle with an aspd trait here or there alongside a bigger bpd/npd comorbidity so I get the pathological aspect of this disorder but truly, it is hard to like. believe them when they say they care or whatever because even though I know, mentally, that the bare minimum is pretty much their way of trying to care when they don’t get anything out of it like I do, a small part of me wishes for the mask back where I got the effort and adoration I used to. It sucks but I also don’t think pwaspd should also be left behind in society just because their relational instincts got fucked up before they had a chance.

Idk. I feel like there’s a lot of ableism that people without aspd need to unpack (myself included) but it’s also like, what do you do when someone quite literally admits to manipulating you (in an effort to hold themselves accountable) and frequently lies to make their lives easier? Like I get it Mentally and I can pinpoint why their actions Are them trying to care and show care, especially if they actually do care and well, aspd innit? but the mental understanding is one thing and the craving for the emotional connection with them is another.

I hope this is cohesive and I hope I’m not imposing or being an ableist dick or anything, I just. Don’t think it’s fair to hold the disorder against them and a grand majority of people who think “HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE” about mental illness advocacy is almost always punitive and withholding and expecting an exorbitant amount of groveling or self-flagellation on part of those with “scary” disorders and idk how to approach this with sensitivity and nuance that it deserves and requires.

Ok, so first part of your question asked for tips for prosocials who have antisocial loved ones. Here I go into how to support someone with ASPD (suspected or diagnosed).

Following the tips further down in this post can avoid conflict as well as help you communicate in ways that are effective to pwASPD.

As for dealing with someone telling you they are manipulating you, try and remember that much of the socially acceptable (and even some mandatory behaviors) are manipulation. Manipulation is just trying to affect someone's feelings, thoughts, or actions, or trying to change the end result of a situation. This includes flirting, job interviews, college applications/essays, pay raise negotiations, court proceedings (on the part of everyone in that room except the judge and jury), etc etc etc. If you have ever apologized with the hope or expectation that you will be forgiven, you have manipulated for your own gain. If you've ever bought someone dinner before asking them a favor, you have manipulated someone. One of the most romantic things someone can do - an elaborate proposal where you take them on a lovely date to their favorite places and make them feel special and then list all of your favorite things about the person before asking them to be with you forever is MASSIVE manipulation. It's just not malicious manipulation. Have you ever tried to convince someone to get out of an abusive relationship? That's manipulation for the purpose of sabotaging a relationship because you believe it is what is best for another person, even at the expense of what they think about it and what they want. Does that make it wrong? Of course not. There is such a thing as being manipulative in neutral and/or positive ways - society just doesn't like calling all of that stuff manipulation because the word manipulation has been given a nasty connotation.

As for the lying, though, if they are lying to *you* consistently and not making effort to change despite communication about it (including reassurance that you will allow them to explain themselves fully without interrupting and do your best to remain calm even after that no matter what they tell you - people with ASPD need that if you expect us to give up a coping mechanism as big as lying in a close, vulnerable relationship/friendship that we don't want to lose), that is a problem. It is not acceptable for them to lie to you. You are entirely in your right to make boundaries and separate yourself if they can't be honest with you, especially about big/important things, but honestly about anything. If they're lying to other people in a way that doesn't affect you, though, why is that a problem? They are dealing with their symptoms and making certain they are doing so in a way that doesn't harm you. That is very difficult for someone with ASPD, as it would be for anyone with any personality disorder, and that effort should be respected and appreciated.

Also who *doesn't* do things to make their lives easier? If you were being asked by a creep at a bar for your number, would you give it to them? Would you maybe lie about having a partner or give them a fake number or say you had to go for a pretend emergency to get out? Yes, those lies are for your perceived safety because that situation could be dangerous, but for pwASPD (people with ASPD), every interaction with other people has as much potential for danger as the situation I described. It is understandable to not be used to seeing things that way, but that was our life during vital stages of development and there are things we had to do to adapt to that reality. ASPD literally changes how your brain is wired, so there is only so much that you can expect us to change, and one thing you cannot expect from most of us is to get rid of that belief that we are in danger. Trying to only really makes us see *you* as a danger trying to get our guard down so you can hurt us.

I also don't think "the bare minimum" is a fair way to describe the way pwASPD show love. It not being what you're used to is not the same as it being the bare minimum. It takes an exceptional amount of work on the part of someone with ASPD to try to understand, accommodate, communicate with, and avoid hurting prosocials what with all the extra effort that requires for us. We literally work more than a prosocial does to be "extra" in a relationship just to manage what you call the bare minimum. What is caring about someone if not inconveniencing yourself purely for the sake of understanding them and making them happy? What is love if not effort?

I do understand wishing for the mask to come back, but as someone who has disorders you mentioned in your ask, I'm hoping you understand why asking them to do that would be unfair, unrealistic, and ableist. However, it is none of those things to privately miss that time, and it sounds to me like you're doing the latter which is in no way problematic in my opinion.

There are ways to ask for some of their previous behavior and treatment back without asking them to mask again, if it's things that aren't symptoms of ASPD themselves. For example, if they initiated hangouts/dates more often before, it's completely reasonable to ask them to do that again. If they no longer are expressing interest in your emotions, you can address that concern. Things like that don't have to be asking them to mask - it can just be asking them to do some things within your love language. That's not unreasonable if you're being kind, communicating with them, and making sure your requests are made within reasonable expectations with their symptoms.

You're allowed to have needs and most pwASPD will respect you much more if you can effectively communicate exactly what they are, rather than a generic "I don't feel like you care about me as much anymore" or expecting us to read social cues we aren't wired to understand/look for. I have given (and stick by!) more than one pwASPD the advice to not engage with guessing games and make boundaries expecting their partners to communicate in a way they can understand easily - and thus to not adjust behavior unless they have been told that it is causing harm unless it is *blatantly obvious*. When I say that, I don't mean obvious to prosocials; I mean things like physical or sexual abuse. Even raised voices are pretty normal to plenty of pwASPD, to the point where it isn't obvious that that would scare or hurt someone.

However, if no amount of simple behavioral changes or verbal reassurance can convince you that someone with ASPD cares about you without them basically not having the disorder or letting you cherrypick allowed symptoms, then I feasibly see two choices for you. This isn't me trying to be a jerk, just being objective to what I think makes sense for you and them. The first is that you can put in the work yourself to unlearn the ways that you're used to care being shown to allow you to accommodate your loved ones with ASPD without feeling hurt. If that isn't something that can work for you, that's okay. It's okay to have boundaries and be honest with yourself about what things you are incompatible with. However, at that point, the only thing to do that would be fair in my opinion is to separate yourself from the people with ASPD that are in your life.

I'm not suggesting you never speak to them again (although you are certainly allowed to make that choice for yourself). I'm suggesting you may need to restructure your relationships with those people such that feeling like they don't care (so long as they are doing their best to show they do) won't negatively impact you. In other words, for example, if you can't handle a partner showing they care the way they do because of their ASPD, then it's your job to end that relationship with them and either entirely remove yourself from their life, or just be friends.

If that's the choice you need to make for yourself, then I think it's important that you stress to them that this is not anything they have done wrong or need to work on - that it is an issue with how you are able perceive people caring about you. It's hard to say this in a way that won't sound ableist, because admittedly the issue would be rooted in some societal ableism (not really ableism on your part, just that the way children are taught to perceive love is incompatible with ASPD and even other disorders that can affect empathy and such).

It is very important to note that most of this does not apply if what you are dealing with is abuse - meaning for the purposes of this that they know they are hurting you, they are in control of the behavior that is hurting you, and are choosing to continue it without making any effort to change despite you clearly communicate your pain and what exactly is causing it. To evaluate that, you need to be objective and really ask yourself if you're coming from a reasonable place or not. Are you asking this person to either not have a disorder or allow you to pick and choose what symptoms you find acceptable? Or are you communicating boundaries to protect your wellbeing and making compromises that work for both of you while respecting their past and their symptoms? Those are two very different things, and there are shades of gray inbetween. Asking another prosocial who has not intentionally worked to unlearn their ableism against ASPD and done their research into its symptoms or a pwASPD who has not taken reasonable steps to heal their trauma and not hurt those close to them is not going to be truly objective. If you have a therapist who is aware of and respectful of ASPD, they would be a relatively objective place to evaluate what is abusive vs symptoms they can't be expected to control, assuming you could keep your language neutral (moreso than in your ask, which while not disrespectful or ableist, was definitely not entirely neutral). However, as a person with ASPD I would always prefer my partner speak to me about their concerns over my behavior before they ask anyone else - so if you haven't done that, I would certainly advise you to start there.

Even if any of the things I said are ableist or are rooted in ableism apply to you, it's worth noting I'm not saying or implying you are ableist yourself. Evidently, you came to a blog to get help with this situation from someone who understands the perspective of your loved one as much as possible, and that shows you likely aren't ableist - but as you mentioned one can have ableism to unlearn while not being ableist themselves. Please do not take any of this post as aggressive or attacking. It was all written in a neutral tone, I promise. I am aware how my text tone can come off to prosocials, which is why I specify this. If I was upset with the ask or thought you were just an ableist person or that the ask was disrespectful/not in good faith, I would just delete it.

I hope this helps and if you have or need any clarification, have any other questions, etc. you are more than welcome to submit them to me./gen

#aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome

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xiaq · 1 year

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(this can be answered publicly) Hey X, pardon me if you’ve answered this before, but I was just curious on how you ended up transitioning from academia to tech and what role you started with in tech? Also, so you have any advice for someone looking to break into tech from a non-STEM background? Thank you!

Hey! I haven't answered it publicly but it's a popular question, so I will now (warning, long answer is long).

So I was so fed up with academia for sundry reasons I won't get into here but I wanted a career that would allow me to A. retire some day (something that paid generally well), B. would allow me some measure of work/life balance without high stress, and C. Would ideally let me use my communication/writing/speaking/presenting skills in some way.

My parents and my partner all work in tech and were like, "did you know that we desperately need people with your skillsets in the tech world?" and my partner, who works in technical sales was like, "You would kill at my job, I am not lying." And I was like, every job listing in technical sales that I see requires either a degree I don't have or past experience I don't have, or both, and my mother was like "Do you know how many mediocre resumes from unqualified men come across my desk? Apply for the damn positions anyway." So I reworked my resume to focus on applicable skills/experiences and wrote a cover letter for each position I applied to saying "hey, I know I'm an odd candidate but let me tell you why that's a good thing." And I got a lot of positive responses!

I was interviewing at 2 different tech places when I accepted the offer for my job now. I had an initial screening call interview with HR, then a zoom interview with the hiring manager, and then I was given access to a limited demo environment and had a week to teach myself the software and put together a demo for a fake customer which I did for the hiring manager (my future boss), one of my current peers, and the VP of the org. I was offered the job the same night I did my fake demo. So in total it was a 2 week interview process, and I started working 2 weeks later. **

I'm a pre-sales solutions consultant, which basically means I'm paired with a sales guy who does all the money and business value talk with customers, while I get to learn about a customer's data problems and then demo for them how our products can address those problems.

The learning curve was (and still is) steep. But it was basically like going back to school, and I've always loved learning new things. The job is super fun. It fulfills all of my wants I listed above with the added bonus of being completely remote (aside from occasional travel to meet with customers for in-person demos). The people I work with are supportive, management is communicative and constantly giving me feedback/talking about my trajectory. I've won internal awards, already received two raises and one promotion and I haven't even been there a year. I'm making more than double what I did as a professor and the concept of retirement doesn't feel like a laughable pipe dream anymore. I miss teaching a lot, but I'm healthier, happier, and better prepared for the future now. And my work is genuinely fulfiling because I'm showing people how they can fix problems. Also, playing with data management software and putting together custom demos is neat. It's like all the best parts of a college project--research, making a preso, knocking everyone's socks off while giving the preso, but I'm getting paid for it. I'm glad I followed my mom's advice.

So I guess my advice is the same as hers: even if you're not "qualified," apply for the position anyway. Make custom cover letters for each position and if there's not a way to include the letter with the app, do some googling and find the hiring manager on LinkedIn and message/email them. The person who hired me said that my cover letter was what got me the initial interview. So that shit works. If you have friends or family working somewhere with open positions, use those connections. Having an internal referral will go a long way to getting your resume looked at. I know we're all like, boo nepo babies, but networking is a huge part of any industry. Use it to your advantage if you have the advantage (no, I'm not working for my parent's companies, but if there'd been an open position I was interested in, I would have applied for it. No shame).

**I also, on the side, applied for the Austin Fire Department because why not. After a whole lot of mental and physical prep, I was accepted to the academy (in the first class, no less, holla) right before I was offered my current job. But I had to be realistic and say that probably wasn't a good long-term career option for someone who is 110lbs and was barely meeting the physical testing requirements who also has issues with getting overwhelmed in high-input sensory situations. So. Into the tech world I went. This side note just to say, I was keeping my options very open and there's nothing wrong with that either, lol.

I hope this helps!

#answered asks #tech world things #academia #tech #career things #x abandons her dream career so that she might retain a modicum of sanity #i don't remember using that tag but I love that it was suggested to me #because yes exactly #mylife

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likesaly · 8 months

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Nanase and Arumu for the headcanon ask?

Just woke up srry for late reply

Nanase

HC A - Nanase picked up alot of hobbies during the time he was a shut in so he knows how to sew, probably learned small stuff about cooking from Mikado etc.

HC B - (based on a mem) The line Nanase (2222) has w Misane is still intact so when Misane goes to her original timeline she can still communicate with him; Future! Nanase sometimes stops in to say hi, Toukai just doesn't question it and Nanashi (2222) just helps Misane cheat on tests because there is no logic explanation how the fuck are they gonna explain "oh dw I'm talking to my best friend who's in another timeline!" (The only two (both 2222 and future) who see through the bullshit is Aira (ripple proof memory due to Android) and Izuchi (reading the bitphone data) )

HC C - Nanase probably has some vague memories of the bad and normal ends due to deja vu and gets it when the timeline restarts. And considering he's able to remember the past into the future; The whole mikado identity crisis is another thing.

HC D - Toukai adopts Nanase; Nanase is Misane's older brother (accutallly fuck canon w their relationship) Nanase gets adopted in around the time he's 16 bc Nanase managed to get into college at a young age due to credits and such and that's how Toukai met him (Toukai goes to school again could study more for his job and to keep the family afloat) and they just happen to be close upon meeting, a little shaky at first but they got there. Minisane seemed to get attached to Nanase when Toukai invited Nanase over to babysit her for the first time.

Arumu

HC A - Arumu probably had a passion for writing as a kid: She probably was the one who made morning announcements during her school years, had a blog where she takes notes and does street interviews etc, was into photography at a young age which is why she has an old Polaroid as it's sentimental to her. Because of all this she decided to pursue her interest as a reporter.

HC B - Arumu probably took so many photos during 1beat I feel like she's probably gotten couple photos of the fatcats knocking people over, nomare starting shit w his crab, shinobu when he's not paying attention, mb Sataka and Namoto when drunk etc, girlie just has alot of photos of everyone being goofy as hell that's it; everyone else just tries not to piss her off bc they know she could get more dirt if she wanted even though she wouldn't. Misane recommends to probably not to say anything Abt getting photos like that while as Nanase encourages her to keep doing it: Arumu listens to Nanase. /lh

HC C - Arumu has probably been a witness to other crimes due to being involved in press and new developments get made, though 1beat was the one that sticks w her the most due to it turning into a national tragedy by File 03, she says she's okay but with the stuff that happened in File 03, yeah that's going leave some mental scarring considering it was a variety of death causes so some would've been worse than others.

HC D - Arumu eventually joins the force w the help of Misane and Nanase due how much of her being willing to help: she still keeps her job as a reporter but she uses it as more of a side and cover up for investigations by that point. Arumu also has turned into that one friend that's always over at Toukai's place so she's practically in the family but not officially, Toukai finds her antics tiring but accepts her anyways since Nanase and Misane are very fond of her, Toukai now has 3 homosexual detective kids!! (A lovely silly happy found family :33!!)

Here's a bonus as compensation for the late reply:

I don't know what the vision was but it works

#Cyril asks #ask game

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superlinguo · 1 year

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Linguistics Jobs: Interview with an Artist

This month’s Linguistics Jobs interview is with Lucy Maddox, an artist based in Melbourne, Australia. You may recognize Lucy’s work from Lingthusiasm, a podcast enthusiastic about linguistics. In this interview, Lucy shares how her training and a linguist influences her work as an artist (often in unexpected ways). You can find Lucy on Instagram at @lucymaddoxart or on her website.

What did you study at university? I did a Bachelor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania (graduated in 2008), then did a Master of Applied Linguistics at the University of Melbourne in 2014. A few years later, I went back to school, but this time to a TAFE, Australia's version of technical or vocational school, to study visual arts. I felt like the workload was much higher for my visual arts program than for my undergrad or graduate studies! What is your job? I'm an artist, which generally means I do about 5 different jobs. To pay the bills I write visual arts curriculum for TAFE institutes in Victoria, and I also teach painting and drawing at the Victorian Artists Society. I'm an exhibiting artist so I spend time creating work for exhibitions and applying for art prizes. I also create art and illustrations on commission, such as the work I do with Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch for the Lingthusiasm range of merch! How does your linguistics training help you in your job? It's been really exciting to see how two totally different worlds - linguistics and art - actually feed into one another. In terms of my own practice, my paintings are often related to gesture, body language and hands. More generally, art is influenced by linguistic studies in terms of understanding it as a series of symbols and communication devices. Who knew semiotics could be so artsy? I've also really enjoyed getting to create work that marries my two areas of study. In addition to the work with Lingthusiasm, I've also been working with Dr. Gawne on a series of hundreds of updated gesture illustrations to accompany her work at La Trobe University. It's shocking how old-fashioned, gendered, Euro-centric and downright ugly current gesture illustrations are. (For instance, see François Caradec's 2005 "Dictionary of Gestures.")

What was the transition from university to work like for you? I graduated in 2008 which was probably the worst time to look for a job. My first job out of college was working for a medical journal reading and editing manuscripts. It was a nice first place to work but it wasn't a topic I was passionate about. I ended up moving to Seoul to teach English for a year, then moved to Australia. I taught English as a Second Language for about 10 years before moving into art. Happily, this meant that I got to use my linguistics skills in my everyday life, writing the International Phonetic Alphabet on the board and even drawing my own anatomical mouth diagrams to illustrate the differences between sounds like /r/ and /l/ to struggling students. However, eventually I realised what I really enjoyed about the job was the teaching and connecting with students, rather than English itself, and I returned to my first love: art.

Do you have any advice you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?

I was away from uni for about 5 years between my bachelor's and master's degrees, and it took another 5 years to go back to art school. I really think that taking time away from school to actually work in the field is so crucial, and it helps you understand exactly what you want to do (or don't want to do!). Plus, the lack of structure outside of school is a real sink-or-swim moment. Related interviews:

Interview with a Performing Artiste and Freelance Editor

Interview with an Exhibition Content Manager

Interview with a Museum Curator

Interview with a Freelance Writer!

Recent interviews:

Interview with a Research Scientist

Interview with a Language Engineer

Interview with a Natural Language Annotation Lead

Interview with an EMLS/Linguistics instructor & mother of four

Resources:

The full Linguist Jobs Interview List

The Linguist Jobs tag for the most recent interviews

The Linguistics Jobs slide deck (overview, resources and activities)

The Linguistics Jobs Interview series is edited by Martha Tsutsui Billins. Martha is a linguist whose research focuses on the Ryukyuan language Amami Oshima, specifically honourifics and politeness strategies in the context of language endangerment. Martha runs Field Notes, a podcast about linguistic fieldwork.

#linguistics #linguistics jobs #ling jobs #linguist #language #artist linguist #artist #art #gesture #gesture art

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an-aura-about-you · 4 months

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I Was a Queer Salvation Army Bell Ringer

Part 1: Job Searching and the Application Process

I have decided to just bite the bullet and start writing about this to get it all off my chest. I had been doing some research, and there is still some research I intend to do, but it is beside the main point of this mostly anecdotal writing I intend to do. I also decided to make it basically a miniseries as opposed to one long post dumping about everything.

So here we go.

It was the end of October of this year, 2023, and I needed a new washing machine. Between that and the upcoming holiday season, I figured the time was right to get a seasonal job. Surely there would be plenty available, right?

Well, honestly, no. Even during this time of year, job searching was pretty miserable. Job searching has been pretty miserable in general, but even the added jobs to cover the busy Christmas season were pretty miserable. They have a reputation for being easy to get, but I didn't get any sort of word back from most of the seasonal positions I applied to. And that didn't even factor in my limited availability, which would have been the nail in the coffin for most retail positions since I wouldn't be able to help out on any infamous Black Friday sales.

But while hunting for a seasonal job, one listing caught my eye that seemed unusual: Bell Ringer for the Salvation Army.

Not unusual for the reason you might think, however. I had actually worked as a bell ringer for the Salvation Army before back in the autumn and winter of 2006. I was a college student and unaware at the time both of the Salvation Army's anti-queer reputation and my own place in the queer community. I was starting to get hints that I was queer in the classic bisexual-to-asexual pipeline, but I wouldn't learn the term asexual and realize it applied to me until 2010.

What I was surprised about is that I thought they were volunteer only for bell ringers NOW, because it had been some time since I had seen a listing. On top of that, the pay was. Ok, the pay wasn't good by my own personal metrics because almost none of the local job listings are paying well. But the listed pay was better than the state minimum wage. More on that later.

So I decided, "Fuck it. If they choose to hire me, I can't resist the irony of the Salvation Army willingly giving a queer person money."

I clicked the 1-tap apply button on my job search app.

This resulted in an email being sent to me asking me to apply online through the Salvation Army's website. Weird since that defeats the purpose and convenience of the 1-tap apply button, but whatever. I do the thing we all have to do nowadays where you create an account that you know you're never going to use again and apply for the job.

I get a call a couple of days later. It's the woman from the Salvation Army heading up the red kettle program. She asks me to come to the office and fill out a paper application. For some reason, sunk cost fallacy perhaps, I agree and continue with the Sisyphean effort of applying for this job.

When I actually go to the office, I find flyers for the bell ringing job. These advertise that no, they are only offering minimum wage pay for it instead of the range listed on the app. I wish I had taken a screenshot of it because I can't find it now, but my best guess on what happened is the job search app added an estimated range on the job, as it sometimes does, and I missed the part where it said, "estimated pay." My memory is not necessarily a thing to be trusted, but job listings aren't either, so at least we're a match on that.

I fill out the paper application, and I'm informed that orientation is next week. No job interview, no hemming or hawing, the simple act of applying has got me in. They're just looking for warm bodies that are mobile enough to ring a bell. This makes sense to some degree, and indeed it was part of the appeal of the job. I knew from past experience that it is a simple job that requires minimal to no training, theoretically the easiest money one can make without being born into it.

Just like that, I was once again a bell ringer for the Salvation Army.

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whentherewerebicycles · 1 year

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somehow it’s noon already!! but it’s been a productive morning. in my earlier research i’d been so focused on their first-gen numbers i somehow missed or didn’t fully register the fact that fully 40% of this school’s incoming students each year are transfer students from two-year colleges, which is obviously !!! a specific student population with unique needs that i should be prepared to address in whatever presentation i put together! so i did some initial research and reading in the secondary literature + then also reached out to two former advisees who transferred from community colleges and always had a lot to say about the types of support structures they wished they’d had. they were v happy to help so i set up calls with them tomorrow and on wednesday so i can pick their brains on how to effectively engage & support transfer students in undergraduate research. i made a promise to myself earlier in the week that i would only do rabbithole-style research if it felt like the topics would’ve been fascinating to me even if i didn’t have this interview, but i actually DO find this question super interesting and it’s also a fun excuse to reconnect with former students i haven’t caught up with in a while.

also man i just feel really happy and so much more like myself when i’m in this mode. my brain is WORKING again! i’m overflowing again with thoughts and ideas! i do think that trying a job outside of academia was a valuable life experience for me... and i do realize that this particular job is not representative of ALL non-academic jobs (if i didn’t have such a difficult manager i might’ve been able to stick it out here a lot longer). but also: i feel like you gotta pay attention to what energizes you vs. drains you in this life! and i am so energized by teaching, mentoring, program design, and doing any kind of research on those topics. i also feel my heart LEAPING at the thought of being immersed in a university community again. it’s funny because i get all the petty academic politics stories from macky and i knoooow how difficult & prickly & impossible academics can be but idk! as far as lightly dysfunctional work environments go, i find this form of dysfunction familiar and comforting! and i feel like the joy of working with students is sufficient recompense for the at-times harrowing experience of working with other academics lol. i’m just ready to be back in a place that i love and i’m really excited about this school in particular.

i was rereading the job posting earlier this week and thinking about how much more work it’s going to be than my current barely-anything job, which i know will probably cut into my loooong leisurely walks and my hours-long cooking sessions and my ability to lie around in bed for hours every day. it’s been nice in some ways to have so much time to do non-work things and to really get myself into good routines with cooking/exercising/etc, but i just DO NOT THRIVE when i have too much unstructured time and i am really, really starved for the casual friendly daily social contact i got from my old job. i feel like too much unstructured time = more time wasted because the time doesn’t feel valuable to me.

and idk i need people time! i need relationships with others! i need it both in a social energy and in an intellectual way... like, my conversations with students and the interpersonal conflicts you have to navigate and the unexpected things that come up in a teaching/mentoring relationship provide so much grist for the ol’ reflective mill. i feel like part of the reason i’ve felt sooooo bored and so annoyingly self-absorbed the past six or seven months is that i just don’t have enough INPUT you know?? i need all those interactions to spark new ways of thinking about something or new ideas or new interests to research. otherwise i’m just stuck in my own head, endlessly turning over my small cares and petty little resentments, without anything to challenge me or push me out of myself or force me to recalibrate the way i’m viewing a situation. anyway idk it’s all good data! as i am always telling students even bad or meh experiences can teach you something useful about who you are & what you need to thrive!!

#personal #i think i will mostly hibernate today as i am going to do TWO social things tomorrow #i'm gonna put aside campus visit research for a bit because i'm trying to put parameters around how much time i spend on it #i'd like to finish this novel today (it's so good!)#and i want to leave comments on two fics (i keep saying that and then not doing it but today i really want to do it!)#and i'd like to run a mile to a mile and a half outside - just an easy slow run since i did run yesterday too #and then if it's not raining i think i want to take the dogs on that 90+ min loop to the new trail system we found #i might do that first and then do the mile after i haven't decided

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 5 months

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I have just had the longest fucking week. It got to the point where it was so frustrating that I haven’t even talked to people I know about it, I just didn’t want to think about it and didn’t want to have to keep expanding on the fucking ridiculous story of my quest to fulfill my basic autism-related desire for stability and knowing what the fuck is going on. Because that’s a big deal to me. I like being in places I know. I like doing tasks that I know how to do. I like having systems that I understand. I like a community where everything’s familiar. I do not like being in transition. I feel like I’ve been in some sort of transition for ages now.

Okay, here’s how my year has gone (just in case people are wondering if this will be one of those posts I do where it’s starts about one thing and then ties into fandom in some way or makes some sort of point, this one’s just an entirely self-indulgent personal post, written entirely because venting feels nice):

- Begin the year still in the really bad emotional breakdown I had at the end of 2022, which involved breaking up with my girlfriend, taking fewer hours at my freelance editing job (pretty much no hours during the too depressed to get out of bed phase), not looking for new jobs despite having just finished my college diploma in autism studies that was supposed to lead to a stable job in the field.

- In the spring, the company for which I do most of my editing work hired a new fulltime staff person, and a couple of other things happened to mean I couldn’t take more editing hours even if I wanted to, which I now did, because money was running out. Over a few months, money ran out to the point where I got very very worried about whether I’d be able to keep paying rent on my downtown apartment, or would have to be move in with my parents in the suburbs.

I very much did not want to do the latter, because, you know, I was 32. Not ideal to be unable to afford a place to live at 32. Also, I loved my place. I’d been there for four years. I had my bedroom set up exactly the way I wanted, with all my stuff in it that all came from something that had mattered to me over the years, I found nothing in the world more comforting than sitting in there and looking at everything around me and it was familiar and safe and mine. That house was the longest place I’d lived since I’d moved out of my parents house; I spent my twenties moving somewhere new every year, but now I finally had a place where I had stayed multiple years and really gotten to know the house and gotten probably unreasonably attached to it because, as I said, autism and the personification of objects.

Also, I was just starting to sort of get a life back. I’d started coaching again, and the practices are downtown or near it. I’d started going to watch local comedy shows, and those were all downtown. I’d started occasionally seeing friends again. The whole “life outside my bedroom” that I had shut down hard since 2020 was just barely starting to open up again, and I knew that if I went to live in the suburbs, I’d never do it. I found it hard enough to start doing that stuff again when it was a short walk; I wouldn’t manage it if I had to take three buses across the city to get there.

- I went through about six weeks of not applying for jobs because even looking at the applications made me incredibly anxious about the fear that I would apply everywhere and not find any jobs and then go the rest of my life living in my parents’ basement because no one would ever hire me, so I just avoided ever thinking about it so I wouldn’t have to find out whether that would happen. These six weeks did not improve the crisis in my bank account.

- Finally managed to start applying. Almost immediately got two interviews. One with an autism centre, directly in my field, one with a day program for group homes for disabled adults. I didn’t get the first job but I did get the second. Amazing wave of relief. It’s okay. I can stay in my house. I can make money. I can build my life back up.

- During this, my roommate of four years moved out, and had someone else sublet his bedroom. I didn’t mind this, because he was a dick who took over the whole house and treated it like I didn’t live there, and his subletter was more like me (as in, someone who tries to show consideration for a roommate in a shared living situation), so that was nice enough. Until two weeks after I started this job, when my roommate texts me to say he’s decided to move out altogether, and he has another friend who wants to move into the house with her boyfriend and their baby, so his subletter and I need to move out by the end of the summer.

- I, after initially having a panic attack, go through all my papers to find the original lease and see if he can fucking do that, and find he can, in fact, do that. Legally, he’s the official tenant and I’m an “addition to the household”. I hadn’t even realized that, as I’d been pretty desperate for a place to live when I first moved in there at the end of 2018, and this guy from the team whom I’d known (known, but not gotten along with well, but didn’t actively hate) for fifteen years was looking for someone to move into the second bedroom in his house, so I took it and signed the forms without paying much attention to the legal stuff. My fault, I know. I’d just assumed we were equal tenants, since we did pay equal rent and both pay half the bills.

I then panicked even more. I couldn’t lose this place right then. I was only just starting my new job, and finding it (as I’d expected) really really hard to go from barely leaving my bedroom for three years, to having to work in person, in a high-pressure environment around lots of people, all day every weekday. I came home every day exhausted, and just tried to sleep enough to be able to get up the next day. I could not deal with the stress of moving at the same as that, I need time to adjust. I also needed time to save some money, which I hadn’t done yet, and moving costs money.

Also, as I said, I was very attached to that place. Also, there’s a massive housing crisis all across the country that has hit my city hard, in addition to the general cost of living crisis. I had a very good price on the rent in that place, and I looked around and learned that anything in an even slightly comparable location would be more than I could afford. I’d be back with my parents again, while I figured out something else. And whatever else I could figure out would have to be some bedroom in some stranger’s house in some terrible location, nowhere near downtown, so I’d have the same problem of losing the parts of my life I’d just gotten back. The coaching, the comedy, the social life. I’d put them on pause while adjusting to the new job, it would be so hard to get them back if I had to take lots of buses to get there.

- So it turned out that he, as the sole tenant, could unilaterally end the lease if he wanted to. I went to the landlord to put in an application to take over the lease after he ended it. He found out, called me, accused me of betraying him by going behind his back to the landlord to try to take his house. He told me I was being “difficult” and making this full of “animosity” rather than just being nice and leaving when I was told to, as I was supposed to do because it wasn’t my house. And it wouldn’t work anyway because he wasn’t ending the lease, he was just kicking me off it and would then add this family onto it, and then transfer tenancy over to them and he’d leave. And yes he could legally kick me off the lease because tenants can choose who the additions are.

I asked him why he was doing this and he said it was his house and he wanted it to go to someone he cared about after he moved out, rather than having it go to some random person. I asked him why I wasn’t a consideration, and he said he’d always thought of it as his place, where I was just renting a room from him. I pointed out that 1) maybe we’d never been close friends but I had known him/shared a sports team with him for 15 years so I’m hardly some random person, and 2) we paid an equal amount of money so did he manage to view that as me just renting a room in his house? What I didn’t mention was that, genuinely, that explains a lot. A lot about how he lived (having his girlfriend stay for 4-5 nights at a time most weeks, having her work from our living room all day so I couldn’t use it, taking over the kitchen all night, never cleaning up after himself, making noise all night, power tools early in the morning doing woodworking projects in the backyard, generally living as though he didn’t have a roommate), if he thought it was his place and no one else’s. He told me there was nothing I could do, I told him I was going to go to the landlord and find out if I had any rights to stay as someone who’d been living there for four years.

- The next day, I got a message from him saying he’d decided I could stay, on some conditions. I didn’t known why at first, then I talked to my best friend, and he told me that my roommate had called him (my best friend is the guy who runs the team with me, so my roommate has also known him for 15 years) to ask him to talk me into just leaving. My friend told him he was being ridiculous and it wasn’t his house and he should just let me stay. I’m not saying my roommate is the kind of guy who will listen to men but not women, but I am saying I regularly heard Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson’s voices come from his bedroom, and in this instance he did ignore the woman’s opinion and then listen to a man saying the same thing.

- I was so relieved about getting to stay that I agreed to way too many conditions. He wanted $600 for the washing machine, which didn’t even make sense, as it was there when he moved in. He didn’t own it. By paying for it, I wouldn’t own it. He just said it was there and I’d get to keep it so he wanted money for it. He also said I had to pay $150 for an AC unit that didn’t want. And I had to pay the full September rent, my half and his half, so that he would stay on the lease without adding another person to it, giving me time to find someone else to take his place. Because during the confusion, his subletter had moved out since she needed to find a place that wasn’t trying to kick her out, so I’d need to find someone new to cover his half of the rent.

I agreed to it all. I sent him so much money just so he’d clear the fuck out of the house. So much money. It wiped out nearly all the money I’d managed to save from my new job, putting me fairly close to where I’d been early in the year, in terms of being very short on money. Though at least I now had a way to earn the money back.

- I started going online to look for new roommates, which scared me. I’d never lived with strangers before, I guess that’s the advantage of having a large sports team that’s a tight-knit social community. I had social connections to enough people through that so there was always someone looking for roommates, and I lived with various combinations of people from the team through my twenties. But now, everyone my age could afford their own place, and I’d distanced myself from that team enough so I didn’t feel comfortable just asking around, so I went looking for strangers.

Until my best friend, who lived on his own very nearby (another reason why I wanted to keep that place, I’m always walking over to see him and walking home late and love the convenience of that) said he was planning to move out of his place for various reasons. I asked if he wanted to move in with me, there was some back and forth while he thought about it, and then he agreed. He said he was trying to save to buy a place, but wasn’t ready yet, will probably buy a place late next year. But in the meantime, would move in with me. I was really excited about that. The perfect solution. I get to keep my place, and I get to swap my terrible roommate for a guy I love spending time with.

- Oh yeah, I forgot to say that during all this, it turned out that the place that hired me was pretty much a crime ring. I could see as soon as I started there that they weren’t big on labour laws. Had us work seven hours with no breaks, we were allowed to eat lunch while working but on my second day I was admonished for eating a banana in the storage cupboard because we have to continue doing our jobs while we eat. Way too many large adult clients stuffed into small rooms, enough to be a fire hazard and therefore way beyond a comfortable amount for disabled people who struggle in crowds. Incredibly low staff to client ratios, so we couldn’t properly supervise them, even the ones who could be a danger to themselves or others. All of this worsened the rampant physical and sexual violence for which we were given no training to handle; there weren’t enough staff to control the violent clients, stop them from hurting staff or non-violent clients. I got physically and sexually assaulted multiple times in two months, and at no time was I offered so much as a five-minute break after.

That’s not even getting into how they abused the clients. One guy who wasn’t toilet trained was not allowed to wear pull-ups anymore, he had to wear regular underwear and then wet himself every time, and often sit in it as there weren’t enough staff to have time to change him often. A guy who ate incredibly slowly was put in a room with a guy who compulsively steals food, we asked the managers to be allowed to take one of them out of the room and were told no, they had to stay there with the door closed. Even though another guy in the room got very upset about being a room with closed doors, due to PTSD from childhood abuse in locked rooms. On two occasions in two months, clients came in very sick, we said they needed to be sent home, we were told we had to work with them anyway because their group homes couldn’t handle them all day, we took their temperature and found high fevers, we weren’t given any PPE when doing physical work with them, on both occasions I learned informally that they had tested positive for COVID, but the staff were never officially informed of this. Every day we had to write logs about what each client had done all day, and we were instructed to lie on them, to never write anything negative – even if that client had had a violent meltdown that day, we had to write that they had a good day and made a craft or something.

I also spoke to my coworker, who had come from Peru for this job, and realized she was being horrifically financially abused. Have you ever read those news stories about labour exploitation of migrant workers? Because this had all of it. Lying to her about the working conditions and nature of the job before she came. Paying her less than I got paid, just because she was foreign. Having her live in a house they owned and charging her twice as much rent as they’d told her would be before she came, taking the rent directly from her paycheck (very illegal), sometimes taking it on random days instead of the day they’d said would be rent collection day, sometimes taking even more than rent was supposed to be. Not paying her for her training or her overtime. When she tried to move out because conditions in the house where they had her live were terrible, she was told not to leave. She couldn’t quit or she’d get deported.

At this point, I had some amazingly good luck: the autism centre for which I’d also interviewed messaged me and said the candidate they’d hired over me hadn’t worked out, and they wanted to know if I was still interested in the spot starting in early August. I said yes, so I was able to quit that terrible job after only two months, even have two weeks off in between, and then start the autism centre job, where I’ve now been working for almost four months. It’s much, much better. It’s long hours and high-pressure work and low pay, but not incredibly low pay (not, like, minimum wage), and those hours involve the legally mandated numbers of breaks, and I work one-on-one with clients in a building with enough space and other resources, and we’re given training (oh yeah, forgot to mention my previous job threw me into the classroom on my first day with literally no training), and workplace violence is very rare and handled when it happens.

However, I felt terrible about leaving me old job, knowing that staff and clients alike were being abused and I couldn’t do anything about it. But a month after I left, my coworker called me and said she needed help. She’d taken medical leave from the company after a client had hit her in the face and broken her glasses, and the company had no only offered her no compensation (for, if nothing else, the cost of new glasses), but wouldn’t give her information about where to go for medical help, which she didn’t know since she’s not from here. She found it on her own, told the doctor everything, the doctor said he’d sign off on medical leave for her and also she needed to report this to the police. So she did, and what followed was a long and horrible legal battle in which the company lied to the cops about the working conditions, it was her word against theirs, also the company was calling her and making threats, they’d even somehow found phone numbers for her boyfriend and his parents and were calling them to leave threatening messages too.

She told me it was her word against theirs and the authorities needed a statement from someone else to back up her story. So I broke all the confidentiality agreements I’d signed to write a witness testimony about all the ways my coworker had been abused by the company, which I sent to her lawyer, and he sent to the Ministry of Labour, and apparently, they said that one corroborating voice was all they needed, and she won her case. The company had to pay her ten thousand dollars in stolen wages, and they had to be pay tens of thousands of dollars more in fines to the government as penalty for wage theft and human labour trafficking. They also lost their licence to bring people in internationally for jobs, because I guess the government takes that away if you commit human trafficking. And now a disability rights organization is lobbying for a full investigation into the company.

Oh, and the government let my co-worker out of her contract on compassionate grounds due to workplace abuse, and gave her a work permit that isn’t tied to that job, so she can stay in the country and look for other jobs. I recently gave her a reference for a job at a different organization, where she’s now working and is very happy.

- So that was happening, in the middle of me working out where to live. I didn’t even have time to adjust to the first job before I started a second job, and then I had to adjust to that one. Learn the place and the people and the rules all over again. It was much easier with actual training, of course, but still stressful because 1) any new job is stressful, and 2) as I keep saying, autism. Autism and not enjoying having to transition to new things. So in August, I was still in a position of trying to adjust to a new job, still anxious and exhausted from that, still did not have the energy to move or even find a strange new roommate. Was so relieved when I could just stay there and live with my best friend.

- However, before that got resolved, I was offered a housesitting situation from some rich people that my dad knew who were going away from September 5-December 1 this year. They were way out in the suburbs, so definitely not compatible with my plan to have a social life/go see comedy and live music, that sort of thing. However, it was a ridiculously nice house, they had a hot tub and treadmill and home theatre and two lovely cats, and also, I didn’t know if I’d have my own place in the fall. I took it because I figured if I did lose my place downtown, at least I could spend the fall living there while I figured out my next step, rather than living with my parents. After that, things with my house did get resolved, but I’d already committed to housesitting for the fall, so I moved out there.

- In September, my best friend and I signed the lease as official, equal co-tenants. My old roommate was legally out of there. I’d paid so much money to get rid of him, but it was worth it. I’d live in the suburbs until December 1 and then move back downtown and it would all be fine.

- This stability lasted two weeks. Two weeks after signing the lease with me, when he was about to move in, my best friend bought a house. There were five days between him finding the house and buying it. He’d just been vaguely looking around, not planning to actually buy until next year. But then he found this place, which is literally two blocks from the place where I lived downtown, and it was amazingly cheap for a three-bedroom house, so he bought it.

He asked me if I wanted to move into one of the bedrooms there, for the same money I paid at my old place (the price of my half of the rent there, which is very cheap compared to rent on comparable places, plus half the utility bills). It was a really, really good deal. Also, I was so fucking exhausted from all the change and transition throughout the year, that I did not have the energy to go back and start looking for a stranger to be my roommate again. I just couldn’t do it. I also didn’t want to risk having a stranger move in and be terrible – after I just spent four years living with someone terrible – when I had the option of moving in with my best friend, and guy I’ve known for twenty years and love and have fought with at times but I know he isn’t terrible.

So I said yes to moving in with him, even though I’d just spent the better part of a year expending massive amounts of time and energy and stress on fighting to stay in my place. Not to mention all the money I’d paid my roommate so I could stay in that place, now wasted, even though I’m hardly rich enough to be able to afford to waste that kind of money. And, as I said, significant emotional attachment to that house that I’d now have to leave. Also, it would mean I’d have to move – and not just move out of my bedroom, but clear out an entire house – after I had no had to move for four years and was desperately trying to avoid the stress of moving on top of my still relatively new fulltime job.

- My best friend never actually moved into my new place. We put in our notice to leave the place shortly after signing the lease on it. He also gave notice at his own apartment that he was moving out. Then moved directly from his own apartment to the new house. We had to give two months notice on my place, which we gave at the end of September, so had to be out by November 30.

- So. This brings me to last week. My terrible horrible no good very bad week. Basically, the reason the week was terrible was I had to clear out a three-story two-bedroom house, at the same time as I had to move out of my housesitting situation, as they both ended at the end of November.

Last week I got quite sick, called in sick to work on Friday and spent all day sick in bed, would have done the same on Saturday, but on Saturday and Sunday, I had to go downtown and spend all day moving my stuff from my own place to my new place that was two blocks away. My three years of hardly leaving my bedroom have significantly loosened my connections to that tight-knit community, so while in past years I had people from the team come help me move, this year it was just my mother and I there all day, and my best friend came to help with his truck for the last few hours (to be fair, he would have helped more but he was away coaching tournaments all weekend, and also I probably could have asked around the team and gotten help, but I’ve been so distant that I don’t feel comfortable doing that anymore).

We moved all my stuff, which was all in my bedroom, because I only lived in my bedroom. But also, shockingly, my roommate had left huge amounts of stuff in the house. I’m pretty sure this is the real reason why he wanted to kick me out and give the house to a friend of his when he moved out – he wanted to have his friend live there because his friend wouldn’t mind that he never moved out most of his stuff. So I had to move out lots of his furniture. The giant piles of wood he left in the front and back, from abandoned woodworking projects. I had messaged him to say I was moving out and needed all his stuff out of here, and he said he’d move it, but of course he didn’t. And because he was legally off the lease, it would be my best friend and I who had to pay the fine if stuff got left in that house for the landlord to deal with (if you leave stuff in the house, the landlord charges you for the cost of getting rid of it). Legally, my best friend and I were responsible for the house, as the tenants. But because my best friend had never lived there, he didn’t really feel fully responsible either. He helped the way you help a friend move, not the way you help move out of a house that’s actually yours.

Also, during the process of moving I broke down crying several times because I was so upset to take apart my bedroom and lose the place to which I'd grown attached. I kept thinking of the Kitson show where he had to leave a home he loved and paid builders lots of money to take the place apart for him, had them do not just the moving but also all the packing, so he didn't have to do the emotionally difficult thing of seeing the place taken apart. I kept thinking I really see why someone would do that, all I need to do is become the greatest comedian of my generation and then I can afford to do the same.

We managed to get all my and my roommate’s stuff dealt with on the weekend. Most moved to my new house, some stored at my parents’ place, and a massive pile of stuff to be thrown out, mostly belonging to my roommate, in the basement. Wednesday was garbage night, so on Wednesday after work, I had to go back downtown and spend another three hours moving all the garbage, including things like my roommate’s old giant mattress, from the basement to where the garbage truck collects things.

The other nights of the week, I spent cleaning the very nice rich people’s house where I’d been living since September, and gathering my stuff from there to move out. On Thursday, my mother came over to help me finish cleaning and let me use her car to move my stuff from there to her place. We were up late but managed to get it all done. I brought the stuff to my parents’ place so I could crash there for the weekend, maybe the week, I don’t know. The rest of my stuff is in a disorganized pile at my new house, I don’t have the energy to deal with it. I might just stay with my parents until I deal with it next weekend.

- Here’s another thing: I bonded with both cats in the three months I was housesitting, but especially hard with one of them. I’ve known a lot of cats in my time, my parents always had cats when I was growing up. I have never known a cat like this one. When I first met her, she was violent and aggressive, she’d scratch up my hands and feet when I tried to touch her. After a couple of weeks, she started crawling into bed with me at night. Then she started sitting on my lap when I was on the couch. By the end of three months, she was the most affectionate cat I’ve ever known. Would follow me around the house squeaking. Slept with me every night, sitting right on my chest and purring until we fell asleep. Cuddled with me everywhere. I got so attached to her, I was really sad about having to leave her.

On Thursday night, after cleaning, my mother helped me clip the cats’ nails so that the owners won’t have to do that when they get home. Obviously, this high-strung cat got upset about that. I was sad about having to leave while the cat is mad at me, which I realize is silly, but a fair bit of this post has been about how I was sad to leave a house because I loved the house too. We tried giving her treats, but nothing cheered her up. Finally I picked her up even though she was still upset, so I could hold her and say goodbye. She was growling and my mom warned me that she might attack, but I said no, she was violent when I first met her, after a few weeks she stopped attacking me, she hasn’t scratched me in ages, she doesn’t do that anymore once she gets to know someone.

Obviously – obviously – she reached up with both paws and scratched hard at both sides of my face, and at the same time attacked with her face and bit me on the nose, drawing blood. Luckly she didn’t draw blood with her claws because she’d just had her nails clipped, though I do have visible scratch marks on my forehead, quite close to my eyes, very luckily she missed actually getting my eyes. I panicked and threw her away from me, scared that if I just put her down gently she’d still be able to reach my eyes. So I’d wanted to have a nice moment of saying goodbye to this cat I’d grown attached to, but the last contact I’d had was her scratching up my face and me pretty much throwing her across the room.

- Oh, did I mention that everything I own fell apart at the same time? Last week, my laptop went from randomly shutting down a few times a day to doing it almost constantly. So also during this week, I ordered a new laptop online. Which was at least a bit of luck, that it happened during Black Friday sales. I got one that I think is quite good, for a good deal, so I’m at least pleased about that. But it was another thing to worry about in the middle of worrying about everything else.

Yesterday I worked from 9-6:15 (with the legally-mandated number of breaks in the middle because this is a reasonable job), after having been up late the night before cleaning, and the night before that throwing out garbage, and all week dealing with moving out of two places, and my face hurt from cat scratches and the cut on my nose from a cat bite kept opening up, and when I finished work I was fucking exhausted, but I still had to go out after and buy a new phone. Because also my phone stopped working. Well didn’t 100% stop working, but various things happened to it to make it basically unusable, and they started happening this week.

My headphones have also been fading for a while, shutting down without warning and not staying connected, it started getting worse lately, so I got a good deal on new headphones for Black Friday. So that is cool – I have new headphones and a new laptop and a new phone. All good things. Except that they put a pretty significant dent in my bank account, especially because I’ve also just paid for half of a week’s stay in Edinburgh next year (the other half isn’t due until July, I figured paying in installments would be better). That hasn’t wiped out everything I’ve managed to save from my new job, but it has made me go from being really excited about how much money/financial stability I’ve built up, to being worried about money again.

Also, I’m fucking tired and don’t want to do any more fucking admin, and setting up the new laptop and new phone is admin. Even though it is fun admin, I actually do enjoy doing that sort of thing and will spend this weekend doing it.

- So that’s been my week, and my year. The week is finally over. It’s Saturday morning and I’m at my parents’ place. I have lots of stuff in suitcases and garbage bags here, and lots more stuff in a huge mess at my new house downtown, and I need to organize it all before I have a stable home base (by which I mean, bedroom where all my stuff is set up exactly the way I like it so I can sit in it and be comforted by the presence of all my things from all my years and know this is mine and I am safe here, because I do tend to lose my mind if I go too long without that) again. But at least I met the deadlines for getting out of the places where I needed to get out. The unpacking can happen in my own time, no official deadline. The worst of it is done. And the first four months at my current job are now almost done – I passed my three-month probation so I’m a proper employee. I’ve done some of the hard work of figuring out a new place and new people and new expectations. And maybe, once I get everything set up – the house and the laptop and everything – I can start 2024 with some stability and some things that will last for a little while and I won’t have to do any more transitions for some time.

I am aware, by the way, of how incredibly first-world problem this post is. How incredibly lucky I am to have parents who have the resources to help me (ie. a house where I can stay when I need to and store my things, a car they can use to help me move), and who are willing and generous enough to help me. A stable job. A place to live that’s free from violence. A house where I can afford to live in the city centre during a housing crisis (due to being lucky enough to have a friend who could afford to buy a place and was kind enough to offer me some of it at a cheap rate). The money, now, to afford a new phone and laptop when they both fall apart in one week. Birthright citizenship in Canada so I didn’t have to stay in that abusive job for the visa. High enough functioning ability so I don’t have to live in an abusive home like the clients at my old job. I’m ridiculously lucky in many ways. This post is venting about how hard I’ve found things, but it’s also about a life that’s a lot easier than a lot of people’s.

And I know that none of the problems I've described are even that bad. But they're hard for me to handle. I hate chaos. I hate transitions. I hate knowing a transition is coming soon. I hate adjusting to new things. I like knowing that the major things in my life are all set up and will stay they way they are for some time. It feels like fucking ages since I've been able to know that. And not knowing that makes me anxious and makes everything so much harder.

However, I did gloss over one thing there. You know what else I did last week? I booked a fucking place in Edinburgh! First week of August, 2024. I’ve put in a request for time off already, and I’ve pretty much been told anything requested this far in advance will be granted. I booked a room in an Air B&B that’s a 50-minute walk or 10-15-minute bus ride from Edinburgh’s city centre, at a price that I think is quite reasonable compared to what I’d been warned to expect from prices for accommodation during the Edinburgh Festival. I’ve spent so much time in the Edinburgh city centre via Google Earth that I feel like I know it backwards and forwards, but obviously I’ve already started exploring the neighbourhood where I’ve book the room via Google Earth, by the time I get there I’ll know that place too. I can’t stop going on Google Earth and looking at the house and knowing that’s where I’ll be for a week next year.

It’s real this time. Since 2020, I’ve been talking about wanting to do a trip to the UK. I’d saved some money for it a while ago, but when my editing work dried up at the end of 2022/beginning of 2023 (by which I mean, I stopped working when I was depressed post-breakup, and then the worked happened to dry up shortly afterward, the combination of those things was bad), I spent all the money I’d saved for a trip. I’d tried so many times to plan something, but it always fell through in one way or another. Even this year, I’ve been hoping for the last few weeks that I could do a trip to London in February, but the dent made in my bank account by having to buy all new electronics at once (even getting the non-fancy versions of those electronics and Black Friday sales) has made me say that’s not going to happen anymore.

But this one. Edinburgh 2024. That’s fucking real this time. This is the first time I’ve taken a concrete step toward committing to a trip, rather than just theoretical planning and looking around Google Earth to decide what I want. I booked the place. I messaged with the owner. I paid half the cost upfront. That is something to look forward to. Also, my workplace closes down in the last week of July, so my plan is to go to London for that week in July, and then have the first week of August at the Edinburgh Festival.

So 2024 is looking better than 2023. I think. Like I said, I haven’t even been sharing a lot of these life details with my friends for the last couple of months, I've just wanted to try not to think about it, so it has felt nice to write it all down. I woke up in my childhood bedroom at my parents’ place this morning and just started writing, because I’m so relieved that the worst of it is done. 2024. Edinburgh year. It’ll be good. I absolutely cannot be bothered to edit this post, so sorry that it’s full of errors (I know they always are, but I often try to do at least a quick skim to fix the worst of them, can’t be bothered with this so it’s probably worse than most).

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questionablepastries · 10 months

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Personal life frustration ramblings (super long)

I don’t think my coworkers understand the ramifications my personality took as a result of basically 26 years of poverty with zero social life (and therefore no social skills), and never ever leaving my house. I was asked earlier by coworkers why a year into this job I haven’t put in any vacation days yet and I told them it’s because I want to save money, (my lease ends soon and moving is expensive) but really it’s because my brain is on pure survival mode 24/7 I always think the rug is gonna be pulled out from under me and I’ll go back to living with my mom and worrying about school (tests, quizzes, homework, succeeding — if I didn’t pass my classes I’d have to pay back the government aid program giving me money) and tying my success in school with my self worth & a way out of poverty/being the only hope my mom has for a comfortable retirement. We had lived off of food stamps and medicare (Medicaid?) insurance for so long I thought we were always going to be like that. In fact right now I’m making more than my mom has and I think I have more money saved than she does. What freaks me out is the realization that I never ever left my place or bought things for fun like clothes — all I ever did was thrift shop clothes, occasionally getting new things to wear but even so. I think the only thing I was allowed to splurge on was videogames and even then it wasn’t often that I got a game just like one or two every year which is what drove me to be a completionist when it came to those because I couldn’t exactly leave and go out?? My moms overprotectiveness and my own social skills led me to being a shut in for like . Well to this day I guess. I always think back to a school acquaintance coming up to me at community college and just really loudly asking “ARE YOU A SHUT IN?” Or something very similar to that I can’t remember properly it’s been almost a six years I think, at the time though I didn’t exactly have the mentality to respond to that and didn’t really give a proper response. and it was only through forcing myself to take public speaking and holding several jobs that I finally learned how to properly hold a conversation much less find a speaking voice to respond to normal things with. Took me 24 years to learn how to talk normally lol

That being said, tearing up about it as I type this isn’t solving anything but lately, um. Im realizing how shitty a majority of my life was, & that I just kinda repressed all of it severely as I focused so hard on succeeding in school that I finally now have the luxury to reflect on it now that I’m out of my survival mode mentality. I never thought to have aspirations in fact my pure motivation for succeeding at school was job security and money and that was it. I even told the guys in charge of letting students into the super competitive program at my university (we were a graduating class of 12) that the reason I pursued the program isn’t some lofty thing like saving lives or whatever. My main motivation is money, and job security, that’s it. Surprised to this day they let me into the program with that being my reasoning during the interview lmao.

My “family” is just my mom and my sister. That’s it. That’s another thing I can’t relate to anyone ever with. People talking about their aunts and uncles and cousins and nephews and grandfathers on their dad side and grandma this and family group chat that it makes me fucking sick with envy. But also hate towards people with those kind of relationships because I never had that luxury. my mom, sister and I never not once ever got this kind of familial support neither emotionally or financially. In fact, my only interactions with my family worth mentioning is the trauma I had that I carry with me to this day when a majority of my aunts called me retarded behind my back so often I still believe it to some degree to this day despite having my current job and a bachelors (a degree none of those name callers even have) . I only associate my extended family as a large group of indifferent people and they’re all essentially strangers, to be honest they make me sick and I’m glad I’m not in contact with them because from how my mom talks about them they sound toxic as hell plus a lot of my aunts that were rude to me are just married into wealth (and married into military lmaooo)

Point is, I can’t relate to conversations my coworkers have either on televisions shows that aired in the past on the cable I never had (I never pick up the references), can’t relate to them on their family plans and trips to who knows where or , I don’t even have the communication skills to keep up with them. I still stutter and slur my words from time to time (not to mention there were also these other coworkers that quit some months ago that also called me retarded behind my back but not due to anything I was doing behavior wise (I worked out those behaviors by then and I like to think I’m mostly normal passing) but mostly because I was new to the field and unfamiliar with a lot of how work .. uh..worked…) thankfully those name calls from them only stung a little and not as much as it would have in my pre teen years when I was also called that by my aunts.

I don’t feel too bad about being essentially unapproachable though, I’m still awkward and my general disposition/demeanor makes people my own age not want to interact with me, I still struggle to hold conversations I really do. but I know that this is only because I’m just behind on these social skills that I need to learn and improve on and that was rly just due to my upbringing that was somewhat out of my control, so really it’s uphill from here? I think I might be too hard on myself too. But I think this post is just my frustration that. Um. I can’t relate to people on anything. And that I have this survivalist mentality still, I don’t think that’s gonna go away soon — in fact it’s due to the mentality that I keep thinking everything I’ve obtained will be pulled out from under me and my years of only school focused mentality— I never allowed myself to have dreams or ambitions. This whole time. I just told myself I can only allow myself those things as soon as I got a bachelors and from there a job. So now that I have Both I look behind me and it’s just years of not enjoyable living that I kinda repressed super hard in order not to process so that way I could keep focusing on academics lol.

I can’t blame this all on my poverty or whatever, I keep telling myself if only I’d put a bit more care into my appearance then maybe I’d seem more approachable but at the time it genuinely didn’t matter to me or I think I was just extremely indifferent about it, again at the time only academics mattered. didn’t help that when I told my mom that I got a B on things she would ask why wasn’t it an A no matter how difficult the topic lol. Oh well. Typing this all has improved my mood somewhat

Not sure what I will accomplish by posting this but if anyone finds any part of this relatable im sorry you’re going through this. Will probably delete at some point this shits embarrassing I don’t think I’ve ever posted this much about myself bleh :/ I am not a person ~~~ woooo~~~ I am chicken icon questionablepastries who posts memessss~~~~ woooooo~~~~ lol

Wanted to add that the pulled rug from under me feeling was a result of me failing to fill out something properly on financial aid for school leading me to have a skip year of no classes, and also my THREE attempts at getting into my program at uni not happening either due to missing credits required to go into it and that happened twice (thank you school counselors for the help (super sarcasm)) like seriously every time I thought I finally had a shot of getting in it was some stupid thing holding me back. Having hope snatched like that academically when all I ever thought of WAS academics was so damaging ugh that sucked I’m so glad I’m done with school forever now

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laegless · 9 months

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Studyblr community - long time no see

Wow it’s been a minute since I’ve been on tumblr. Almost a year I think? Maybe less/more. I forget. Lots has changed and I’m not sure anyone actually followed me before anyways, but here’s an update for anyone who might have.

I graduated in December with my BS in Bioengineering (concentration in bioinformatics). The year prior I got to work on a super sweet senior design project which went well and overall ended my college career with a bang. Since then I have been having trouble finding a job in my area, so I expanded my search to all around the country and I think I’m positioned to have 4 (?) job offers which will be wonderful coming from a point where I couldn’t even get the first interview. Most of these jobs are bioinformatics/bioinformatician related jobs but a few jobs relate to data totally out of the biology sphere. A company (non-biology) is flying me out to their site next week and that job is probably my #1 and I’m so excited - I’ve never been flown out anywhere *ever*. It’ll be wild to move wherever I go because I’ve only ever been… here. But I’m excited.

As it relates to studyblr, I guess I’m no longer a part of the club (not like I’ve been active anyways LMAO). For now at least. I do plan to go back to school as soon as I can to get a masters in CS but that’s still a bit away. Overall I’m in a such better place after being off social media for so long and also just gearing up to actually start my life. I’ll by no means be posting consistently on here going forward, at least for now, but I just remembered I still had this tumblr and wanted to see what had changed which thank god isn’t too much.

I hope everyone in this community has been well - whether that’s with school or finding a job or just in general with life. Thanks for those that still follow an inactive blog like mine - it’s cool coming back and seeing new notes on old posts of mine.

#studyblr #laegless #bioengineering #bioinformatics #life update #into the void #can’t believe I remembered some of my tag system still LOL #so silly

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candaceparkers · 2 years

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Candace Parker Is a Force in Basketball and Beyond

Candace Parker was already enjoying a monumental run in her life last year. One of the greatest women’s basketball players of all time had just won her second WNBA championship, capping a storybook return home: the Naperville, Ill.-raised athlete had signed with the Chicago Sky before last season and delivered the franchise its first-ever WNBA title. Parker served as the face of an emergent WNBA. Parker’s media work, providing commentary on TNT’s highly popular and influential NBA program, was receiving rave reviews. Parker was a basketball force.

Then, late last year, her journey took another significant turn. On Instagram, she revealed publicly, for the first time, that she had been married for two years to Anna Petrakova, a former Olympic basketball player from Russia who played with Parker on a pro team there. Parker, who was previously married to former NBA player Shelden Williams, shared pictures from the couple’s Dec. 14, 2019 wedding—which 50 guests, plus workers, were required to keep secret. Parker also announced that the couple was expecting a child. Their son, Airr Larry Petrakov Parker, was born in February.

During an interview in suburban Chicago on an off-day for the Sky, who are in first place in the Eastern Conference heading into the WNBA playoffs starting Aug. 17, Parker, 36, reflected on her decision to take her relationship public. One reason she and Petrakova kept their marriage under wraps Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies: Petrakova was concerned she’d be subject to discrimination. But with a baby now on the way, Parker and Petrakova felt the timing was right. Plus, she wanted to send a strong message to her daughter Lailaa, now 13. “I always tell my daughter to be herself,” says Parker. “I always tell my daughter to be proud of who she is. And I always tell my daughter to speak for herself and speak up for those that she loves. And I can’t say that to her if I’m not doing it myself. I don’t want her to ever think that I’m ashamed or not proud of our family. That was a step that we had to take. But we had to take it on our own terms.”

Parker’s announcement resonated with both her family and the LGBTQ+ community. Her message, plus her continued accomplishments on the floor—in May, at 36, she became the oldest WNBA player to record a triple-double before he got another one in June—her strong performances on TV, and her ability to manage the demands of motherhood and a full-time sports career, have set her up to become one of the key figures in American sports and culture, for years to come.

Hoops savant

Parker grew up breathing basketball. She attended her first basketball game—a middle school contest featuring older brother Anthony, who would later play nine years in the NBA—when she was less than two weeks old. At age 5, at a Chicago Bulls game, she told everyone in earshot that Michael Jordan’s team had no shot at winning unless they rebounded better. A college recruiter once visited the Parker home, trying to woo Anthony; Candace, who was 6 or 7, told the coach about his team’s defensive shortcomings.

She was the Gatorade Girl’s High School Player of the Year in 2003-2004; she is still the only girl’s basketball player to receive this accolade in back-to-back years. She became the first female to win the dunk contest at the McDonald’s High School All-American Game, beating out future NBA players like J.R. Smith and Rudy Gay. Parker was one of the most highly recruited players in girls basketball history: she chose Tennessee, coached at the time by the late Hall of Famer Pat Summitt. As a sophomore, Parker became the first woman to dunk in an NCAA tournament game. Tennessee won back-to-back titles in 2007 and 2008.

As a first-year pro in 2008, Parker won a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, and was named league WNBA MVP and Rookie of the Year playing for the Los Angeles Sparks. She was unknowingly in the early stages of pregnancy with Lailaa. “My daughter was along for the journey,” Parker says. “She got an Olympic gold medal, won the MVP and rookie of the year before she was even born. That’s so special for me because it encompasses what women are capable of.”

Parker spent her WNBA off-seasons playing professionally in Russia, China, and Turney where salaries are more lucrative for female players. (Even after a 2020 collective bargaining agreement made notable improvements in WNBA pay, the maximum salary for this season is $228,094; Russell Westbrook of the Los Angeles Lakers will make $47 million next season). During the WNBA season, she continued to thrive, winning a second league MVP in 2013 and a title with the Sparks in 2016.

But during her final years in Los Angeles, Parker and then-coach Derek Fisher had a rocky relationship: Fisher benched Parker down the stretch of a 2019 playoff game, which the Sparks lost, ending their season. So before the 2021 campaign, Parker decided to return home to Chicago, signing with the Sky as a free agent. The 2021 season started out rough: Chicago was 2-7 at one point. The Sky finished .500, good enough for a sixth seed, but rolled to the WNBA Finals. Sky guard Kahleah Cooper recalls a particularly tense huddle in Game 4 of the Finals, when Chicago was trailing to the Phoenix Mercury. Parker’s calm and experience made all the difference. “We were all a little disheveled,” says Cooper. “And Candace is like, ‘hey, hey, like, snap out of it. We’re fine. We’re a really good team .’ She just gave us these reminders and the reassurance that everything was going to be OK. These things happen during big games. It’s normal to feel how we felt. And in that moment, Candace literally flipped the switch for us.”

Dunking on Shaq

Parker, who has had eight knee surgeries, is still unsure if this will be her final season. “I live in the moment,” she says. But whenever retirement from basketball arrives, Parker has a luxury unavailable to most athletes: a thriving second career awaiting her. She first signed on with Turner Sports to analyze men’s college basketball games in 2018: her strong showing earned her a contract that added NBA responsibilities too, making her the first woman featured on TNT’s NBA studio programming. “The biggest thing for me when I came in is that I said that I’m not trying to be one of the guys,” says Parker. “I’m trying to be one of the players. That line is what I established. I’m Candace. I’m not going to change who I am.”

Her exchanges with Shaquille O’Neal have stood out. In March of 2021, for example, Parker patiently explained to Shaq that since, in the modern NBA, very often all five NBA players on the court can shoot three-point shots, defensive players must switch assignments when they are screened. If you’re not always near someone, an open shooter will do damage. When O’Neal argued that he and Dwyane Wade, who was also in the studio, won a title using different defensive tactics, Parker looked around quizzically, as if to say dude, it’s not 2006 anymore. “It’s a confidence that she walks with,” says Wade. “She knows she’s an expert. So it’s so dope to sit next to her and hear her perspective on the game, because it always gives me a different way to think of it.”

Parker’s success is also helping attract a new audience to the WNBA. “It’s not only important and inspiring for young girls and women to see that, but I think it also makes men look at women’s sports and female athletes a little differently,” says basketball Hall of Famer Rebecca Lobo, who analyzes WNBA games for ESPN. “Like, ‘oh man, you know, Candace Parker would be fun to have a beer with to break down the NBA.’ You wonder, do people tune in and be like, ‘oh man, Candace Parker makes me laugh on TNT. Let me check out her game.’”

“Those of us who cover the W, and have for like a long time, have been talking about how, in the last couple of years, it feels like the WNBA is becoming more mainstream,” says Lobo. “It feels like it’s at that tipping point. It feels like it’s going to break through culturally. And I think, you know, the coolness factor of Candace on Turner, that can only help.”

From Russia with love

In Russia, Parker played for UMMC Ekaterinburg, the top women’s team in the country, from 2010 through 2015. Brittney Griner was playing for UMMC Ekaterinburg at the time of her arrest in February. On Aug. 4, a Russian judge sentenced Griner, whom the U.S. government has designated “wrongfully detained,” to nine years in prison for carrying cannabis oil in her luggage.

“Everybody is just ready for this unjust detainment and now sentence to be over and for her to be back,” says Parker. “You talk about something that’s valuable, which is your freedom. And you talk about what’s valuable, is your time. We can help fight for her freedom, but she won’t get the time back. Let’s not have her lose any more of either.”

Russia is where Parker first met Petrakova, about a dozen years ago. Petrakova joined UMMC Ekaterinburg in 2012, which was when her friendship with Parker blossomed. Parker and Petrakova would stay up late and talk. “There were some drunken nights,” Petrakova says, laughing. “And it would just go further than we would think.” During one of these evenings, they kissed for the first time. “We’re scared, and we’re like, ‘what the hell was that?’” Petrakova says. “You are kind of scared to look each other in the eye and then you’re like, ‘OK, well, what are we? We’re lying to ourselves here.’”

Neither Parker nor Petrakova had ever imagined themselves married to a woman. “We literally denied it to ourselves for three years I think,” says Petrakova. “Then we just finally accepted it. That was a long, hard process.”

In 2019, Petrakova planned a birthday trip for Parker in Mexico. On a boat, surrounded by about 15 friends and family, Lailaa held a cake. Parker got on one knee and told Petrakova to look at the cake. “It literally took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on,” says Petrakova. Written in icing was a question. “Will you marry us?”

“She knows that Lailaa is the center of my entire universe,” says Parker. “So we come in a package deal. It was important for the dynamic duo to be upgraded to the Big Three.”

The crew is now a quartet, with the arrival of Airr Larry Petrakov Parker in February. His first name is pronounced “Air,” as in Air Jordan: given the name, Parker knows her son has no choice but to take up basketball. “So here’s the thing,” says Parker. “With my daughter, I’ve taken the sort of backseat approach. If you want to play basketball, if it’s your passion, I want you to find your passion. With my son, we’re just out of the gates, your name is Airr. There’s going to be pressure with that. If you shoot an Air Ball, it’s going to be a problem.” While Parker did her son no favors by giving him an ideal name for basketball heckling, Airr’s genes could more than make up for it. “A drop step dunk is definitely in his future,” says Parker. “His hands are huge.”

Parker and Petrakova had long feared that the social media blowback to their relationship would be hurtful to them and most importantly, to Lailaa. But they’ve both been pleasantly surprised. Aside from an occasional ignorant comment, they received mostly positive feedback. “I was always against ‘coming out’ because I felt like in this society, in this day and age, you shouldn’t have to do that,” says Parker. “Society had a way of putting this pressure on people to come out. And I don’t think it should be that way. I think there were a number of media members who knew about my family. And they supported it. They didn’t out me. Or they didn’t put pressure on me to expose my living situation. We live in an oversharing world. You should be able to choose the parts of your life that you share and the parts you keep private. And I hope I was able to open up the door of conversations. And open up the door of how valuable it is to have support.”

#💕💕💕#candace parker

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