woe, be gone

- she/her - older than I was yesterday - queer - married - this is gonna be art and other stuff I think is cool or amusing -

[jupiterjames]

Did I just employ the "Treat Them Like You are A Kindergarten Teacher Again" method with my insurance company today? I surely did. Did it work? Probably better than intended because I made an actual doctor feel contrite.

So, my insurance has been trying to not cover my SNRI because it is new on the market and no generic available yet, so pricey.

I apply for a refill and the request gets locked for review. Again. For the 3rd time.

This time I call and immediately ask to speak to the actual doctor making these clinical decisions. Very politely. Must be a slow day because they allow it.

ME: [Teacher voice] I'm calling in regards to the SNRI you have placed a lock on. Why was this decision made?

DOC: Well, there are dozens of other medications on the market in that tier, and far cheaper for you and [insurer]. We have sent a request to your doctor to consider alternatives.

ME: I am aware of that. So, can you do me a HUGE favor and look up my prescription history really quickly and tell me how many SSRIs and SNRIs were only filled once in 2022 for me, showing they were poorly tolerated?

DOC: It looks like eight.

ME: Great job! Now, can you please look at my genetic test for psychiatric drug tolerance and tell me how many medications are listed in the safe category?

DOC: Two.

ME: Awesome! Now, can you tell me what type that other drug is that I'm not taking?

DOC: Yeah, totally, it's an MAOI.

ME: That's correct, you're really knowledgeable! Should I be taking something as dangerous as an MAOI with my other medications, or even just in general?

DOC: It's contraindicated for sure.

ME: It is! So true! So, last question since you've been incredibly smart and helpful. Is it less expensive for [insurer] to pay out for the medication knowing they already get a huge manufacturer discount anyway, or is it more expensive for them to pay for me to need potentially long-term inpatient psychiatric care?

DOC: I'll clear the code, ma'am and flag it as medically necessary. I'm sorry about this.

ME: I appreciate you SO MUCH. You have a great day now.

WALGREENS PHARMACY TECH WITH 5 NOSE RINGS AND PURPLE HAIR STARING AT ME: ........... OKAY! It'll be ready in five minutes. You wanna come work here?

[headspace-hotel]

Kill them with kindness

BUT KILL THEM

[jonotmac]

@desiderium-nowintechnicolor is this you???

[desiderium-nowintechnicolor]

Oh em gee, stoooop 🥰

But, yes. This is me. They know they messed up when I bring out The Voice™️.

[desiderium-nowintechnicolor]

Asking my sugar daddy (the library) to buy me books (acquire a copy) because he's loaded (with my tax dollars) and loves me (wants the best for communities everywhere). 🥰

[allsortsoffuckedup]

Hey hey, as a librarian, can I just say don’t pace yourself at the library. I get a lot of customers saying “oh I shouldn’t get too many books out at once” but like you should!!!! Max out your card, take everything we have on a subject you’re interested in, make a book fort in your home. We love that shit! It doesn’t matter if you read them or not; just take them for an adventure and bring them back whenever they’re due!

For public libraries, one of the ways we secure funding year to year is lending. Governments don’t want to fund more books if they’re not being used and the way we measure use is by issues. Regardless of whether you read it or not, whether you have it for a day or a month, if you issue it to your library card, we get the stats! It makes the library look good!

Help your local library; get books out even if you know you can’t read them all!

[wholesome-animal-images]

[jonotmac]

@desiderium-nowintechnicolor I found an untagged picture of you!

[rkherman]

A butterfly pea latte is perfect for the hot sunny weather~ A swan and her cygnets enjoy the cool water in the shade of a willow tree, while butterflies dance among the flowers in full bloom.

Shop | INPRNT | Cats 2026 Calendar | Instagram | Bluesky

[desiderium-nowintechnicolor]

Thrilled to have family coming to visit in two weeks, but not thrilled about the doctor appointment gauntlet I’m gonna have to do next week because of having to schedule everything before their visit. Truly puzzling to me how many three and six month follow ups wound up falling on one (1) week.

I’m also just super excited to have all of my extended siblings (read: in-laws) and my mother-in-law and father-in-law coming to visit. I’ve been looking forward to it for so long now. I’ve missed them all so much, and between my health being so wack and pretty much everyone outside of them forgetting my birthday last month, I think it’ll be really lovely to have them all in one place with us. I haven’t even seen one brother-in-law and his lovely wife in almost two years!!!

Now we just have to find one more air mattress, or someone’s gonna end up sleeping on the floor when all the siblings are at our house for the first night lol

[quietwingsinthesky]

did i tell you guys i failed at being sexually harassed at work today?

[quietwingsinthesky]

okay so, guy at work, who i find out afterwards is famous at this place for being a sex pest, comes up and starts with what i also learn is his favorite opener to conversations where he’s going to be a sex pest, namely: “Do you know where the term ‘blow job’ comes from?”

and here he made his first fatal error. his moment of hubristic sex pesting. because of course i know where the term blow job comes from, i love learning about sex and the history of sexual terms! i know so much about oral sex that i could write a book on it!

his second error: approaching a little autistic freak with what he intended to be an uncomfortable sex question that would make me feel weird and gross. Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I Have Never Misjudged A Man’s Intentions So Incredibly In My Life. because i did not realize he was trying to harass me. because i love talking about sex facts, albeit not usually at work. unless. someone prompts me. my coworkers are the kind of people who are generally online enough to know terms, but not exactly what they mean, and they realized they could ask me a while back and get good answers without the resulting awkwardness because i do not experience shame. i am primed to answer questions like the one he has proposed.

So I Answered It.

and well, really, what happened is that I began answering it, then realized the answer required a bit more context. I mean, you can’t just say “oh, well, the term first appears in writing in the 1940s” without first explaining that ‘blow’ by itself already had sexual connotations for centuries, and then, really, are we talking about the origin of the term or the origin of the act. and well we have a ton of literature and art depicting fellatio throughout human history, did you know a lot of it was men performing it on other men? oh, that reminds me, there are a multitude of latin words for oral sex performed on penises, and hold on let me quote you the entirety of catullus 16 from memory and explain it’s fascinating insights into the roman world of homosexuality-

i do not know how to turn any of this ^ off, by the way. i’m sure some people out there have a switch that disables their infodumping mid-speech. i do not. and i also didn’t realize he wasn’t looking for a real answer until my other coworker explained so hours later. he could not excuse himself from the conversation he started, and i made a conservative man at least 30 years older than me to listen to my catullus recitation. i will sodomize and facefuck you, indeed.

anyway, i think i got a bad grade in being sexually harassed. my pro tip is maybe don’t start with what a very autistic individual will misconstrue as you earnestly asking them to explain sex to you. the special interest shield will cause splashback damage.

[i-speak-graffiti]

🫵 HEROES in the tags

[desiderium-nowintechnicolor]

Makes me think of the time I had taken our dog on a walk and had a guy catcall me and yell, “Hey, sexy!”

I responded to this by looking at our dog, giving her an enthusiastic scratch behind the ears while continuing our walk, and loudly stating, “Goosie! Did you hear that! That man thinks you’re sexy!”

He did not say anything else to us.

[yokolate]

Qifrey (キーフリ) Witch Hat Atelier (2026) — 1x05 Kamome Shirahama

[desiderium-nowintechnicolor]

Husband and I watched this scene alone two or three times just because it was so jaw droppingly beautiful.

I was really nervous when I first read that they were making an anime adaptation, but they are blowing it out of the water. At this moment, I couldn’t be more pleased.

[desiderium-nowintechnicolor]

Also, while I’m on the topic of Witch Hat Atelier, I’m thrilled that so many people are falling in love with this amazing story that is, as I said previously, one of my all time favorites. Truly so close to my heart.

One of the things that I’m really, really looking forward to though? The anime onlys getting to the adaptation of Chapter 40.

[ruporas]

sleep a little longer (id in alt)

[fiafey]

this is not enough

[desiderium-nowintechnicolor]

One of the best things that happened while I haven’t been on here is my all time favorite book series finally premiered its anime adaptation. It’s every bit as beautiful as I hoped it would be, and I’m almost on the verge of tears with every episode because I’m so dang happy.

[desiderium-nowintechnicolor]

Realized I haven’t posted on here in a loooong time.

Still alive! Just not using social media all that much lately. I’ll scroll on here every once in a while, but not like I have in the past. Realized I wasn’t enjoying my feed all that much, so I’ve been curating it to something that brings me more joy.

Been reading a lot of books, writing a lot of letters and cards, watching a lot of birds at our feeder, going to the doctor a lot, and spending a lot of time with Husband and our dog. Hoping one of those doctor visits won’t result in me having to have shoulder surgery (found out I tore my rotator cuff), and dreading a biopsy in August (doctor wants to find out once and for all if my gluten allergy is celiac or non celiac).

Anyway! That’s all I’ve got for now. Might queue up some stuff if I’ve got time. Peace and sunshine.

[desiderium-nowintechnicolor]

This is the first time in a really long time that Husband and I are not in bed before eleven o’clock, and, while we really enjoyed watching a movie together (despite starting it wayyyy too late), I cannot see a reason to stay up this late anymore.

Did we have a habit of staying up late for a good long while? Yes. But we broke it with the power of ✨self control✨.

It’s like how I realized that I didn’t like how much time I was spending on my phone, and I didn’t want to do that any more. ✨Self control✨.

I think it’s easy sometimes to make all sorts of excuses for why you haven’t started a new habit or broken ones you don’t like (genuine addiction is something else entirely), but if there’s something you actually want to do? Sometimes you just gotta fuckin’ do it through the power of ✨self control✨. It might suck for a bit, but ya just gotta do it.

[zandrapaints]

& all shall be cozy and safe // watercolor, gouache, pen on paper

[entreri]

[kateammann]

Chickadee!! 🥰

[maaarine]

Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? (Celeste Davis, Oct 6 2024)

"White flight is a term that describes how white people move out of neighborhoods when more people of color move in.

White flight is especially common when minority populations become the majority. That neighborhood then declines in value.

Male flight describes a similar phenomenon when large numbers of females enter a profession, group, hobby or industry—the men leave. That industry is then devalued.

Take veterinary school for example:

In 1969 almost all veterinary students were male at 89%.

By 1987, male enrollment was equal to female at 50%.

By 2009, male enrollment in veterinary schools had plummeted to 22.4%

A sociologist studying gender in veterinary schools, Dr. Anne Lincoln says that in an attempt to describe this drastic drop in male enrollment, many keep pointing to financial reasons like the debt-to-income ratio or the high cost of schooling.

But Lincoln’s research found that “men and women are equally affected by tuition and salaries.”

Her research shows that the reason fewer men are enrolling in veterinary school boils down to one factor: the number of women in the classroom.

For every 1% increase in the proportion of women in the student body, 1.7 fewer men applied.

One more woman applying was a greater deterrent than $1000 in extra tuition! (…)

Since males had dominated these professions for centuries, you would think they would leave slowly, hesitantly or maybe linger at 40%, 35%, 30%, but that’s not what happens.

Once the tipping point reaches majority female- the men flee. And boy do they flee!

It’s a slippery slope. When the number of women hits 60% the men who are there make a swift exit and other men stop joining.

Morty Schapiro, economist and former president of Northwestern University has noticed this trend when studying college enrollment numbers across universities:

“There’s a cliff you fall off once you become 60/40 female/male. It then becomes exponentially more difficult to recruit men.”

Now we’ve reached that 60% point of no return for colleges.

As we’ve seen with teachers, nurses and interior design, once an institution is majority female, the public perception of its value plummets.

Scanning through Reddit and Quora threads, many men seem to be in agreement - college is stupid and unnecessary.

A waste of time and money. You’re much better off going into the trades, a tech boot camp or becoming an entrepreneur. No need for college. (…)

When mostly men went to college? Prestigious. Aspirational. Important.

Now that mostly women go to college? Unnecessary. De-valued. A bad choice. (…)

School is now feminine. College is feminine. And rule #1 if you want to safely navigate this world as a man? Avoid the feminine.

But we don’t seem to want to talk about that."

[xcziel]

very good tags from @downwarddnaspiral

[van-del]

literally saw this tweet this morning

[werpiper]

behold, the privileging of ignorance.

[amuseoffyre]

It's also interesting to look at the way the gender-shift in roles changes how the roles are perceived.

Secretaries are a perfect example. Back in the day, secretary was a prestigious position, usually the right hand of a figure of authority. The term comes from the 1400s, or thereabout, and the fact that high political offices are still referred to as Secretary of Defence and Secretary of State show how important the position was.

There were, of course, women doing the secretarial tasks - for example Marie Maitland transcribed the family folio in the 16th century though skeptical Victorians insisted a woman couldn't have so fair a hand and Dido Belle wrote her uncle's correspondence in the 18th century, which was noted to be unusual for a woman to do such a task - but secretarial duties primarily fell to men.

However, outside governmental roles, as more and more women entered the workforce, especially during and after the World Wars, and were very good at secretarial work, the gender dynamic shifted.

The number of male secretaries diminished rapidly and with it, the respect due. Misogyny coloured how secretaries were treated, no matter how skilled or professional the women in question were, and even now, there are still the stereotypes of the sexy bimbo secretary.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

If we get enough women all over the workforce and then push workers' rights far enough that raising a family on a single income becomes viable again, maybe we can create a world where the manliest thing to be is a tradwife.