how strange it is to be anything at all

t/lesbian(they/them)/27/white personalblogging/lesbianposting/ag foghlaim gaeilge/whateveriwant also rbs to: ditzytwinks, weatheredseadyke

[cursedvenusian]

tdykevenusian -> wildevenusian

might be temp idk life’s feeling full of change lately

[scratchzane]

hey y'all ~

i finally have commissions up for these two styles of mask chains!

check them out on ko-fi <3

[98cherub]

[covid-safer-hotties]

What baseline proper public health guidance for covid and other airborne illnesses should look like: "Some people are at higher risk, and you can spread this illness to them unknowingly. Public health is a collective responsibility. Wear a tight-fitting mask in public spaces to reduce rates of transmission, and stay home when sick to keep others safe and healthy."

What public health guidance for covid and other airborne illness actually looks like: "Don't be scared! Don't do anything! Go on vacation and spend lots of money! Cough on your grandma! Who are we supposed to be, health authorities or something? Who are we to dictate public hygiene? Live your life! You only get one! Maybe get a vaccine, but also it's a personal choice!"

[cursedvenusian]

came into grad school recovering from a traumatic era of my life and ended it having experienced another deeply traumatic but transformative era

[paper-wounds]

Fortesa Latifi, from The Truth About Grief.

[slightly-sigilant]

I have a new standard for the level of haterdom to aspire to, and it's Reddit User KismaiAesthetics, who hates doing laundry so much that he got really good at it, so that he can (I quote) do it right the first time, every time, and get back to watching cat videos on the Internet.

and by "really good at it," I mean that he does a bunch of reading on the chemistry of laundry, subscribes to academic journals about laundry, and buys a bunch of different laundry products (including from outside the US) to scrutinize their ingredients and test them for himself. he writes a bunch of incredibly detailed longposts about his findings on /r/laundry and his website, which is also about laundry. he even got interviewed about his laundryposts, in which he revealed he's writing a book about laundry. this man is like ahab and the white whale, if ahab had a reddit account and moby dick was a pile of clothes with cheeseburger stains on them

[slightly-sigilant]

anyway the reason I encountered this guy was because recently, the household washer has been leaving these gross little oily brown flakes on anything washed in it. this is kind of a big problem for me, given that I not only have (literal, diagnosed, medicated) OCD which includes a contagion phobia, I also sew a bunch of stuff with the intent of gifting or selling it, and sometimes that involves prewashing fabric. only, you know, washing is supposed to make things cleaner, not dirtier.

and my research brought me to (gross photos warning!) Kismai's post on the very topic. apparently this stuff is called "scrud," and it's basically a residue that forms over time inside the nooks and crannies of a washing machine - leftover detergent reacting with mineral traces in tapwater to form a buildup that also traps dyes, grease, and other dirt, which bacteria then feeds on, because it wasn't already gross enough. it forms faster if you have hard water, use too much detergent (which most people do), use fabric softener, wash only on cold and the list goes on and on - point is, scrud is the reason that you have to actually clean your washing machine, or be super fastidious about how you do laundry.

(I'll take "things I wish school/my parents actually taught me" for 800)

so now I am engaged in a lengthy battle against scrud, armed with a tub of oxiclean and a sack of citric acid crystals. (we're renters, so disassembling the machine is out of the question.) pour in a scoop of oxiclean, run a machine clean cycle, pour in a scoop of citric acid, run another machine clean cycle, all while wiping piles and piles of scrud out of the drum at the end of each cycle. I'm on the eighth cycle now. there's still so much scrud. the reddit record for "how many cleaning cycles were needed to get a machine entirely free of scrud" is 22 cycles. help

[slightly-sigilant]

hey so like

it turns out that laundry sucks significantly less when your clothes and sheets and etc actually come out of the machine looking, feeling, and smelling clean, rather than looking, feeling, and smelling like despair dipped in slime

like, I have this pillowsheet I call my Depression Era Pillowsheet, because during a Real Bad Time of my life when 90% of all I could do was lie in bed and cry, that was the pillowsheet I laid and cried on. this went on for weeks, and it was never changed out because, again, 90% of my waking hours were Lie In Bed And Cry Hours. it did eventually get changed out, but no matter how many washes I put it through, it remained stained and slimy. like I'd throw it in every time I washed my clothes and it would still come out feeling like someone had applied a fresh layer of Weeping Slime Laminate to it. someone with more sense probably would have thrown it out but idk, I just never did for some reason

anyway! taking some pointers from the freaks over at /r/laundry, I grabbed an enzyme-based detergent, a booster (thing of More Enzymes and oxygen bleach that you add alongside detergent to make it clean gooder), and washed everything on hot (in a machine without a scrud problem), including the Depression Era Pillowsheet. it finally came out looking and feeling like fresh clean cotton?? what?? I hadn't even done the whole "soak it for 24 hours in various unsettling substances" thing??? wack

[ralfmaximus]

At last, a pill that can prevent COVID after exposure to infected people

Drug arrives years after pandemic’s peak, but could still offer protection to vulnerable populations.

An antiviral pill has, for the first time, been shown to prevent COVID-19 in people exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus at home, according to trial results published today in the New England Journal of Medicine1. The drug could be a lifeline for those who still face real danger from the virus, such as care-home residents or transplant recipients on immune-suppressing medication.

There are good things happening in the world.

[meret118]

You can read about it here without a paywall.

Households exposed to COVID-19 now have an oral drug specifically cleared to prevent infection after contact with a sick person. The FDA listed Xocova, the brand name for ensitrelvir, as a 2026 novel drug approval for post-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 following contact with an infected individual. The decision fills a gap that has persisted since the pandemic’s early years: until now, no oral antiviral carried an FDA-approved indication for prevention rather than treatment.

[tpwrtrmnky]

The thing is, right, that overworking yourself is still harmful if you're doing it for politically good reasons. It's not the presence of a Capitalist Boss demanding overwork that makes it bad. It's the other way around, incentivizing overwork, a bad thing, is one of the reasons why capitalism is bad.

Whether you're overworking yourself out of a sense of moral obligation, or because you're super passionate about the thing you're working on, you still have to take care of your health and take breaks.

[cloudofbutterflies]

A 19-year-old black trans girl was shot to death this month, and there has been absolutely no media reporting on it - despite extensive reporting on almost identical incidents in the same part of Florida, at the same time. The police, as usual, misgendered her in the police report and have done nothing to find her killer. Her name was Jayla Mcgee. Black trans people deserve to grow old.

A Black trans teen was shot and killed in Florida. Almost no one reported it

Police misgendered Jayla McGee, local media overlooked her homicide, and her community was left to make sure she was not erased.

[probuccalfat]

i’m printing this out and i’m putting it on the mirror so i can confront myself with it

[covid-safer-hotties]

Source(ish)

[evidently-endless]

being offered ai at every turn

[estrogenesis-evangelion]

30 days hath September

April, June, and November

All the rest have 31

Except for Zenquish, which has none.

Zenquish: the month with no days, which falls between July and August. celebrate with me

[diatere]

happy zenquish

[sailermoon]

all my life I’ve felt like this guy

[yellow-cat]

(voice of a person spiralling) its embarrassing but i still havent figured out if its ok for me to be alive

[covid-safer-hotties]

Source