Emily 🏳️‍⚧️ (Recovery Era)

I just saw a subreddit called "terf trans alliance" and I'm afraid that's proof we live in a vibe coded simulation.

Ah, my favorite part of my job: Debugging my own past work.

It is very much "We're all trying to find the guy that did this!"

I'm gonna guess -- it was probably me.

Okay getting rid of a deadname is a SUPER pain in the ass.

I legally changed my name over a year ago. I thought I'd gotten everything finally changed six months ago.

I just realized I was still under my deadname in my Google account (there's a separate 'legal name' field I don't even remember it having, much less filling it out!).

There's probably more out there.

So my first midwest spring is going interestingly.

I knew about the storms, of course. Until I moved here, I spent my whole life on the Gulf Coast -- hurricanes and tropical storms are familiar to me, and there's the occasional tornado even outside those systems.

I wasn't really prepared for how fast it happens, though. Hurricanes and tropical storms are huge and slow moving things. Heck, the worst ones of my adult life -- two of them stalled out on top of me, and the other was something like 400 to 500 miles wide and punched it's way through half of America and out the other side. All long, sustained winds with generally at least 24 hours of prep time -- if not days worth of watching a narrowing cone.

So going from "light rain" to "65mph winds" and "storm front moving at 50mph, ripe for spinning off multiple tornadoes" in the span of minutes -- and than just heavy rain 20 minutes later? It's a very different kind of feel.

So far, I think I'll take it over hurricanes. The power flickered perhaps once in the three or four times the tornado warnings have gone off this spring, instead of going out for hours or days or even weeks.

No worries about having to evacuate by boat because a stalled storm dropped 50 of water on you in 48 hours, either. Or dealing with the the awfulness that is evacuating a large coastal city ahead of a major hurricane.

Not sure if "wanna be her" or "wanna date her" or both, but 100% sure I want to learn to dance.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZKngwUqSpR/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Also, absolutely envy her hair...

Random question for anyone who might know:

Anyone know of a product I can use to temporarily dye white hair that does NOT dye skin?

It's for electrolysis.

I have a lot of pure white hair. And lidocaine injections turn the skin much paler. Turns mine, in fact, the color of my white hair.

Which makes them hard to find, especially ones that have been zapped previously but not fully killed, and so grew back thinner and finer.

It'd be great if I could add even a TINY bit of color to even just the tips of the hair for five or six hours, but that won't color the skin too and further blend the darn things in.

Any suggestions?

"Why do you pay someone to mow the yard, Emily? That's a lot of money you could be saving!"

"I've got allergies" I say, as I listen to my heart pound and try to ignore the headache and burning eyes from just the yard being mowed outside my window.

My lungs and heart and head and everything are protesting and I'm inside the house. It's not like the window are open either.

Just...proximity to everything that got kicked up.

I don't know what to call this sort of mental pothole I'm stuck in much less what to do.

I'm aware I'm fallible and biased. I'm aware that I want to overlook my flaws and focus on my virtues, that I want to skip over my mistakes and linger on my successes, that I want to avoid blame and responsibility -- especially when the damage is bad and the cleanup ugly.

And because I'm aware of that, I find that when it comes to conflict I just...bend. I won't stand my ground, I won't defend myself. That inner voice just keeps saying "But you're biased. You can it's not your fault, you can say it seems unfair, you can say it seems hypocritical of them, you can say it feels like you're the victim --- but you WOULD say that, wouldn't you? Because you don't like to accept blame, you don't see other people's points of view that well especially when they conflict with your own, and of course you place more emphasis on your feelings -- the ones you feel! -- than that of others, whose feelings you know only at a remove".

How do you balance that important inner voice that says "Thou too are mortal" with "But I think I'm right here"

How do you determine where you are on the line between totally self-centered and so selfless you're a doormat?

Especially when you'll second guess every placement you make short of "I'm always wrong"

I'm looking for a way to describe the internal difference between dysphoria, dysmorphia, and vanity to someone cis.

I know the definitions of them all, and the diagnostic differences between the first two, and I know how all three feel to me -- I can generally tell which is which, even when it's mixed up. (And yes, I can be vain! I see no problem with a little vanity).

But someone I dearly love, who is deeply supportive, can't quite understand at times -- because they look the same on the outside. Don't get me wrong, she trusts my word when I say it's different.

But....not having ever experienced dysphoria, her mental framework is her own experience with dysmorphia and vanity -- especially vanity in the 'body image issues as cultivated by media'. And I get it -- dysphoria is heavily rooted in the body, and in concepts of what my body 'should' look like. And "what my body should look like" is exactly what culture and media pushes on people, especially women, that causes body image issues if you're not exactly one specific size, shape, color, build, bone structure, etc.

So there's something of a gap in understanding when talking about things, one I'd like to bridge.

Any tips?

Woke up today with the worst breakout. Look at my new skincare products. Do a quick bit of digging.

Argh, what do you mean it can make things worse for a bit as part of cell turnover?

ACK.

I wish I knew what was up with my right ear piercing.

I pierced my earlobes a decade ago. The left one is fine. The right one is generally just a massive struggle to get an earring through.

If I don't have an earring in a few days, placing one in that ear is just an exercise in frustration. It's like the opening isn't quite clear, so it's a struggle to get the point in (even though I can see the hole!) and then as I try to push the earring through, it never seems to want to find the back opening so I'm kinda probing around with the tip of the earring until it finally finds it's way out.

It's almost like it's twisted or constricted a bit inside. Maybe it is. can't imagine HOW. When I got them pierced, I left the piercing studs in for two or so years (they were titanium ball studs, front and back. Super comfy and looked good even back in the before times).

Maybe I just need to visit a piercer and have them run a needle through again, and just leave piercing studs in both ears for a few months.

I've noticed the Google AI summary is now frequently preserving my typos and misspellings.

So that's fun.

The glorified text prediction engine is now struggling to correct typos.

So just as a fun question -- what books had a fantastic concept, rich and memorable characters, or a truly amazing setting but whose writers couldn't live up to what they'd started?

Stephen Donaldson and Dan Simmons are the first to pop into mind for me.

@FinalGirl@blackqueer.life @Impossible_PhD@hachyderm.io

Puritanism. The whole predestination thing infected America from the beginning.

It's embedded into the whole mythos of America, from top to bottom.

Are you healthy and wealthy? It's because you're smiled upon by God, one of the elect. If you're not -- well, you're being punished by God and humans shouldn't interfere with your punishment.

You can see that strand of thinking in everything, see it's rot in every strand of America. You can see it in Christians embracing the prosperity gospel, in justifying endless cruelty to the sick and poor -- because they must have done something WRONG, committed a SIN.

It winds it's way through every justifications for slavery, for torture, for cruelty, inequality, for ignoring the plight of our fellow humans.

Because "God wills it" is the perfect excuse for anything anyone wants to do.

Thanks to fucking Calvin, buried deep in Western Christianity -- despite more than a few attempts from churches to stamp it out -- is the belief that God smiles on nobody more than the straight white male, who God has given the Earth -- and all the people who aren't straight white men -- to.

Give me one wish, and I might just spend it on erasing Calvin and his entire shitty theology from existence.

Oh we'd still have rampant racism, sexism, hatred of queer folks, poverty, misery, torture, worship of the wealthy. But fuck me, maybe I wouldn't have to listen to them be fucking sanctimonious about it.

So I've picked up two new skincare products and two new makeup products to experiment with.

On the skincare front, I got a toner (with Niacinamide -- B3) and vitamin C serum from Good Molecules, to go with their wake-up eye gel I've been using.

The toner is a brightening toner designed to kind of even out discolorations and reduce pores and dullness.

The vitamin c serum is also brightening and to support skin (I am 50!), but I got it mostly to put under my eyes to help with the dark circles there.

So last night I took a shower, washed my face, and then patted in the toner before following up with the vitamin C cream and finally moisturizing.

Overall, the two combined made a noticeable improvement, and doubly so under my eyes. Everything looked ever so slightly evened out, and the undereye discoloration looked like I'd gotten two extra hours of sleep.

The combination left my skin the slightest bit tacky to touch for awhile. I think I applied both a bit too heavily and then moisturized too soon after the serum, and so it all didn't absorb fully.

Assuming that dialing in the right amount fixes the tacky feeling, I'm absolutely integrating this into my daily routine. If the touch feeling persists, I'll just look for a different toner or vitamin C serum (depending on which one is the culprit).

On the makeup front, I grabbed elf's 'halo liquid filter' -- it's basically a lightly illuminating product that you either put under or mix into your foundation, and works well with tinted sunscreens and BB cream. I'm hoping the shade I picked works, because if it doesn't none of their shades will. (I've pale, cool skin with an olive undertone. Even the pale/fair shades in most products are too orange or too peachy),

The other is a Nyx primer designed to hydrate as well as prime skin, and with my insanely dry skin I need all the hydration i can get. I have not yet tried either.

I can absolutely believe you got that tattoo, if it helps.