The burning question: When she has her hands on either side of her face, right at the start, is this the moment she realized, “I’m gonna have to marry this guy” ?
Personally, my answer to that question has always been YES.
One of my favorite things about this clip is my sense that we are not only watching a man OWN a stage, a crowd, and himself, but we are also privileged to watch a woman fall in love with him in real time. :)
Do you have any advice for someone else who is in the very beginning stages of the "life is a precious gift rapidly escaping me, I have to change to become someone better and be happy before I've wasted all of it" transition? I'm tired of losing so much life and joy to grief and trauma and I also want to start creating and seeing and enjoying as much as I can for my tiny time as a carbon based lifeform but it's overwhelming to say the least
Actively seek out things that inspire wonder
Look for the good parts. There are good parts. There are interesting parts. There will always be good and interesting parts.
Treat yourself kindly. This one is difficult.
Do things out of ridiculous whimsy.
Practice cog itive behavioural exercises to self-examine and address beliefs and behaviors that are causing suffering.
Don't argue when people compliment you.
Don't rush yourself, and don't assume it'll be like this forever when you have a backslide. These things happen. Over time, they happen less.
Be honest with the people you love and trust.
Tell people how much they mean to you and what you like about them.
Help others and find satisfaction in being the stranger that did something good
Consider speaking to a medical professional, my antidepressants and anti-anxiety medical took some time to figure out but life is WAY better.
Have a silly little craft or hobby.
Let yourself be bored sometimes. Stand outside in the rain and let yourself get wet. Go on a walk. Put your phone in a different room and wander off. Meet up with a friend and go on a long walk together to nowhere in particular
Start doing things because you want to and it feels good, not just because you think it's something you should say yes to.
Say yes to things.
Take a random day of the week and go into a store or a business you've never been in before.
Compliment strangers when something about them is striking.
Read books and watch movies that make you feel the exact right amount of ecstatic and embarrassed, and make all the silly noises about it.
Collect scraps of fabric and little trinkets and all the little textures and colours you love and stash them in a shoebox or something like a tiny dragon's hoard.
Start a collection of something small and inexpensive. Like corks.
Make food with ingredients you've never used before
Make long lists of all your favorite things- flowers, bugs, songs, foods, places
Start a trash-book to fill with scraps of neat wrappers and bits of paper and colored fabric from old ruined clothes
Imagine yourself as a alien from a dead and barren world who has just arrived on this planet for the very first time and imagine how excited you would be by every little thing
Cannot recommend enough that you befriend a creature
personally I am of the opinion that vegans who are like “the way our food system currently works under capitalism on a large scale is exceptionally cruel to all animals including humans and is not sustainable, so I’m doing what I can to make the most ethical choices available to me about what I eat and encourage others to do the same” are generally very reasonable people who I agree with in spades. but vegans who seem to think human beings are not themselves animals who are ultimately also part of the food chain but instead some kind of other paternalistic higher entity that can never engage in ethical and sustainable hunting practices (and especially the fringe I’ve seen who think other carnivorous animal predators are also evil and need to be eliminated) are people I regard as foolish at best if not actively anti-indigenous and racist
if theres one thing that really pissed me off from my 3 years of architecture i took in high school it's learning about how we used to have all these little techniques to maximize or minimize heat or warmth and now we just merrily abandoned all those to have the same copypaste style buildings everywhere that are often INCREDIBLY unoptimized to the local weather and climate so we can just throw more money at our heating and cooling bills
I recently saw a headline in a british newspaper about 'this one manor house has so many hacks for climat econtrol without hvac!' and it was just... "orient the building and windows to catch or deflect the sun", which is something I learned just living in southern california and having a bedroom on the west side of the house.
Most houses that are older than the McMansion boom are oriented to catch the most HEAT. That's why bedrooms are on the west and south sides of the house usually. Because people used to worry about the cold more than the heat, in most places!
I read a lot of midcentury plan books and most of them are still oriented in this way, despite saying the plans can be mirrored.
Colonialism has fuelled this idea of people ignoring the true seasons of their biome in favour of just using "winter/spring/summer/fall" for everything, everywhere. But that's not how all of the world works, and so that's not the environment we should build for in the desert, the everglades, the pacific northwest, etc.
Houses should not be commodities or investment portfolios. Houses should be for the people that live there, and should be anchored to THAT reality, that biome, and those plants and weather patterns, as well as the materials available in that environment. And we should make use of hills and build into the sides of them--that will regulate the temperature of our house much better than sticking it on top of the hill!
With a warming planet, it behooves us to build for coolth, not warmth; we should look to indigenous architectural styles from hot places for cues on what will help keep the building cool without needing expensive HVAC systems. Sinking the house down even a few inches into the ground will help cool it off, so will going back to using lathe and plaster and other "mud" building materials, building into hills, and being mindful of wind currents and using breezeways and window alignment to create breezes--my childhood home was like this and stayed surprisingly cool even in 100F California summers, because the breezeway was oriented to catch the south-to-north winds, and opening all the windows and doors meant it sucked the air through the whole house. The deep eaves of California-style houses act as awnings and shield the windows from the sun, keeping the house shaded and cool even without trees surrounding the house (which is dangerous in fire-prone environments like most of california!). Mud walls are extremely effective in desert environs, as well as being very cheap--and plaster is a kind of mud btw, so is stucco and adobe. All very good cheap building materials used in deserts all over.
At the Irvine Arboretum there's a museum house that was built and oriented so that a small breeze always circulates through the house from down to upstairs. It's amazing to witness!!! All because the builders used to care about that sort of thing.
Building codes are written largely to ignore environmental concerns in favour of just sealing the house up hermetically into this yucky box, and I think they need a bit of looking at because of it, because some times "updating to code" actually makes things worse. I am one for following safety rules, but the thing is sometimes you have to update them as you learn new information about safety--which includes the health of the planet and the humans using the building.
I need everyone to be talking about how Qween Jean, a Black trans woman (founder of Black Trans Liberation Kitchen!) won a fucking Tony last night, first openly trans person to do it!!
Israel systematically targets the health of pregnant mothers and infants in Gaza. This is a reality every parent in Gaza knows. It has also been confirmed repeatedly by others. Pediatric healthcare professionals in Gaza have been bravely speaking out about how Israel is currently using restrictions of formula into Gaza to torture and kill Palestinian babies.
My friend Nader recently became an uncle to his newborn baby niece, Masa. Due to the traumatic stress and malnutrition experienced under genocidal conditions, many mothers cannot produce breast-milk. Masa, like tens of thousands of other babies in Gaza, relies on formula to survive. Today, Nader told me that this little girl is in the hospital now due to a severe chest infection. She is only 8 days old. Please help her.
I woke up today to the tears of my brother's wife, the mother of little Masa, who is suffering from a severe chest infection and is currently in the hospital under medical care. We implore you, friends, to help us get out of this situation and donate to buy milk and other necessary baby supplies for this child so we can leave Gaza. Please don't hesitate to donate.
Nader's fundraising is vetted (gazavetters #4) and supports his large family of nine people, including small children of which little Masa is the youngest. Israel's systematic targeting of children means that the price of formula, diapers, medicine, and other basic supplies are extremely expensive. Please help him raise the funds needed to help innocent Masa survive genocidal conditions.
Transphobia is about to be signed into law in the UK. We can fight this.
I am begging the UK trans community and its allies to attend the Mass Lobby at Parliament on June 25th, 11am-4pm, organised by Trans Solidarity Alliance.
Last year we broke the record for an LGBT+ mass lobby of Parliament. Will you help us break it again? Join us on 25th June 2026 to demand be
The new EHRC Code of Practice pushes trans people out of toilets, hospital wards, and community spaces. It normalises gender policing based on appearance and stereotypes. It becomes statutory guidance in the UK by the end of June.
Trans people are now legally their assigned gender at birth and must join gendered spaces accordingly, but if they are perceived as their lived gender, they can also be ejected from those spaces. The guidance says: either break the law, or don’t pass too well.
A mass lobby is where you invite your MP to discuss your concerns with you in-person. Ask your MP to:
Demand full parliamentary scrutiny, debate, and use their free vote on the EHRC Code of Practice.
Support any motions rejecting the EHRC guidance. As of June 4th, Labour MP Nadia Whittome has submitted a prayer motion - Early Day Motion 240.
Write to Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities about our concerns
Your MP does not have to be an ally, they do not have to respond to your email for you to show up and greencard them (details below the cut.) What matters is that as many people as possible show up.
I cannot stress this enough: Showing up in person matters. It is much more effective than petitions, emails, and letters.
It is a horrible, stressful time, and I am so sorry if you're trans and live in the UK. But I was at last year's mass lobby and the line for greencarding alone stretched around the back gates. It was a record breaking mass lobby and made us impossible to ignore. Let's do even better this time. Details under the cut:
Worried about what to say?
Bring your personal worries about transphobia being signed into law, and trans friends being excluded from public spaces. You are a living person who deserves dignity. Remind your MP of that. You will also get guidance and brochures from Trans Solidarity Alliance that outlines our demands. This is mine from last year.
Money issues?
Trans Solidarity Alliance provides a travel bursary that you can sign up for via the link.
Got a refusal or no response from your MP?
Come anyway! You can request a same-day appointment with your MP through a process called greencarding. They will come and see you if they’re already in Parliament. Even if they don’t, they’re made acutely aware of your cause because you showed up in person. This is my greencard from last year.
Here is the EHRC Code of Practice in full. It's a tough read, but some highlights are:
Organisations can’t provide trans-inclusive, single-sex services, or they risk being sued for discrimination.
e.g. domestic violence support for women including trans women, men’s rugby group including trans men (12.68).
Trans people will have nowhere safe to pee.
If you’re a trans man, businesses can't allow you to pee in the men's, and you can also be ejected from women’s bathrooms if you’re perceived as a man. Vice versa for trans women. EHRC suggests a ‘third space’ bathroom, which is discriminatory and unworkable for most businesses. (13.130-133)
Sports organisations must exclude trans people from single-sex competitions (13.73).
A women’s only sports competition must exclude trans women because of their biological advantage or face potential lawsuits (13.74), but a trans man who has undergone testosterone treatment can also be excluded based on fairness rules (13.81).
Trans women are stripped of the legal definition of ‘lesbian’, and therefore no longer have legal protections if they’re discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation. (2.50, 2.92).
Here is the Good Law Project's better explanation of the EHRC Code.
I have also made a PDF printout of QR codes for the government petition, email your MP tool, and mass lobby link to pass around your communities. DM me and I'll send it to you.
