
titsay
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Claire Keane
DEAR READER
KIROKAZE

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
almost home
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Not today Justin
Misplaced Lens Cap
Keni
$LAYYYTER
One Nice Bug Per Day
Cosimo Galluzzi
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸

No title available
will byers stan first human second
dirt enthusiast

@theartofmadeline

Love Begins

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@maturina
Gay Puppy Gay Puppy Gay Puppy
I’m sure this will get buried but for the sake of answering all your FAQs
- they’re Opawz pet specific dyes. Non toxic made specifically for dogs. Once they’re set and rinsed they can groom themselves normally, they pose no danger to her in any way, no fumes, there’s no bleach involved
- my dog is trained with cooperative care skills, the process is not stressful for her, she gets paid heavily for her cooperation and looks forwards to the opportunity to earn extra snacks with the grooming
- she’s a mini American shepherd, her name is Yoshi
shawngus is so good the most dynamic ever. local weirdo who's only weird because he's angry at his father is in love with mr. normal upstanding citizen whose side gig is being the most neurotic man ever & their top love language is committing to the bit. if you put them in a situation where they can either follow the law or wear silly little costumes they will choose door #2 every single time & manage to destroy several other doors in the process
the pine guard! 🌲
I’m so grateful someone uploaded this video to YouTube because I saw it on here years ago but for whatever reason every trace of it has been erased from this website
If you go too long trying to write without also reading stuff by other people, you can wander off down a weird dark path where you forget how to do it and everything you attempt feels like nailing jello to a tree.
Look I love unconditional devotion love stories as much as the next person, but there's really something so deliciously raw about conditional devotion.
I have served you and I have loved you for decades, but I will not give up my principles for you. You cut out part of my heart and took it with you down that path that you insist on walking, but you walk it alone. Even when the bleeding, gaping hole you left in my chest kills me, I will not follow you.
[Image IDs: all three are screenshots of responses to the article "A white doctor based in Colorado has teamed up with a conservative legal group to sue the online directory, "Find A Black Doctor," by Black Enterprise.
Image 1: response by Doll Face (@ Smoke_nd_pearlz) "In 2012 i was diagnosed with a deadly blood disorder known as TTP. I was in the hospital for a month. A white nurse almost killed me because she thought i was drug seeking. I kept telling her my central line in my groin was hurting& she wouldn't give me any morphine just Tylenol.
I went septic later on that night because of the central line. I went into SVT and had to go to cardiac ICU for a week. I was 18. My TTP flared up again in 2016 and i went to the ER. I told the (white) doctor that i had TTP and that i needed to be admitted. He had my records right in front of him. I was just there 4 years earlier, the same hospital diagnosed me.
He told me that i didn't have TTP...i had ITP. He sent me home with steroids and pain meds. I cried and cried and sat at home all weekend until i could get to my hematologist. I called them and they had me come in immediately. Got labs drawn...my hemoglobin and platelets were VERY low. They did a direct admit: I had to get 14 bags of platelets and 3 bags of blood. My hematologist and his NP told me if i would've waited any longer i would've died.
More recently in 2022 i went to a freestanding ED because i thought i had the flu. I was in pain, my blood pressure was elevated, i had a fever. I told the black NP that i have TTP and asked them to do a cbc and ADAMTS13 level if they could. I got pain meds, waited for the (white) doc to come and see me. He told me ny labs were "fine" and that i just had a stomach virus. I didn't believe that so i asked him what my platelet count was. He told me 30k (normal platelet count in non chemo patients are 150k-400k) i almost lost my shit on him.
He went back and further with me for 10 minutes about how i wasn't having a TTP flare up and i told him to call the fucking hospital that I'm usually treated at and find me a bed. He begrudgingly did it. He came back not even 10 minutes later and said that the hospital i usually go to was full (it was around Christmas time) but after the on call hematologist at the level 1 trauma center downtown saw my blood work they wanted me to come in IMMEDIATELY. Hematologist told me if i would've waited any longer i would've been dead before Christmas.
Every time that I've almost died it was either at the hands of a white nurse or doctor. They don't take our pain or complaints seriously! They think we are drug addicts. I literally became a nurse because of this. We need black doctors. That lawsuit is just a bunch of fucking racists who are mad. Fuck them."
Image 2: response by Emmanuel Felton (@ emmanuelfelton), "A peer-reviewed study found Black patients matched with Black doctors were 27% less likely to die in the hospital. A separate study found Black residents live longer in counties with more Black primary care physicians. "Find A Black Doctor" exists because the disparities are real"
Image 3: response by Patrick (@ PatrickJnmarie), "If white doctors took the complaints of black people, especially black women more serious they wouldn't have to worry about people finding doctors that look like them and who they're more comfortable with" /end IDs]
SICKO MODE 👹
it’s so nice to see people join together and work towards a common goal
Paper Organization
Okay so this for the anon from last week who requested this. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you… things have been crazy.
Important Paperwork
First it’s important to identify some of your important paperwork. These are what I keep set aside, but this is not a definitive list!
Personal identification like your social security card or immigration information
Tax forms I would keep copies of both your last year’s forms and your current forms (original goes to your tax man)
Driver related like copies of your insurance information, certifications or disciplinary information
Rental related like leases or rental agreements
High School/College like degrees and official transcripts
Voting info like voter ID cards or other registration info
Pay stubs keep these for up to six months
Contracts like any agreement you sign with your Internet or electric providers
Expensive items/warranties keep receipts for any item over $1,000 just in case
1. Make a folder. This, of course, doesn’t actually have to be a folder. It can be a binder, a box, I actually use an oversized Ziploc bag to store all my important paperwork. The key is that you choose an item that is easy to handle and secure (so that you papers don’t come tumbling out accidentally).
2. Setting. Find an out of the way place to store this information. I would store it in a private part of your apartment or dorm room, somewhere not easily accessible. Obviously don’t go around telling everyone and their aunt where your documents are.
3. Commit to it. Anytime you receive a piece of important paper, immediately store it in your previously chosen place. Remind yourself that it will only taken a few extra seconds to properly secure your documents, and doing this sets an important precedent.
4. Proof of residency. Proof of residence is something that any institution from your university to your health insurance provider may ask for. Proof of residence can be in the form of a rental agreement, utility bills, or pay stubs with your address on them. Always scan these documents and send copies to whatever service is requesting them, never send the originals.
5. Pay stubs. I recommend keeping a backlog of your voided paychecks. Voided, in the sense that you’ve already deposited them into your bank account or had them direct deposited. When applying for insurance or a new apartment, you may be asked to provide several of these paychecks. Since these can stack up and become bulky, I wrap them with a large rubber band and keep them beside my important paper file.
6. Clip together. I like to paperclip together similar documents from different years. For example, I keep my different lease agreements clipped together.
7. Organize. Every six months, devote a half hour or so to organizing your file. Clean out any paperwork that is unnecessary or duplicated. Keep your documents up to date and as easy to navigate as possible. Always remember to black out any personal information on documents before throwing them out. I’ll clean my cats’ litter box, and dispose of my old important documents in a garbage bag with the poop as an added security measure. If you’re going to steal my information I’d like you to have to sort through my cat’s shit first.
I hope this helps!
When you say you're anti-CAM what does that mean? Like what does CAM mean in that context? I genuinely haven't seen that acronym before and I'm assuming you aren't anti-camming as in like the form of sex work
Complimentary and Alternative Medicine.
I am capable of turning off my inner annoying atheist, I am incapable of turning off my inner annoying quackwatcher.
I have had real life fights with people I genuinely love about this and I do not regret it. I will absolutely not regret shitting all over someone's $500 herbalist certification.
Warding spells are real, if you want me to stay far away from you forever tell me that you practice reiki.
The nice thing is that I will probably never bring this kind of thing up. I'm never going to go out of my way to figure out if the people around me are, like, really into homeopathy. The less nice thing is that if you bring it up with me I am never, ever, ever going to shut up about it and if you attempt to show me a *study* on the healing power of prayer or the use of chiropractic to treat asthma we are forever enemies and I probably won't talk to you again but I will use the several hours of furious debunking that I did after our conversation to make arguments against your beliefs in the future. You are already a lost cause to me but other people are less stupid about the way that ice crystals form and I can work with them.
I *loathe* medical woo, it kills people and the people who engage in it are shitty human beings who are hurting other human beings.
RE: Herbalism
I don't think that there's a proponent of science-based medicine alive who doesn't understand that plant compounds are important in medicine and it is important to research them. We *DO* get a lot of medicine from plants.
But "medicine from plants" and "herbalism" are not the same.
The example that most people like to bring up is aspirin and willow bark tea. You can use willow bark as a painkiller, you can collect your own and brew it up when you've got a headache.
What you can't do is control the dose. You can't do this for a number of reasons, including having little control over the conditions the tree grew in and variations in preparation technique. If you're measuring very exactly you can control for some of these things, but even if you were in charge of the willow tree you collected the bark from it's not going to be the same at different places on the trunk or in different seasons.
That's not a huge deal if you're using aspirin for a headache, it can be a much bigger deal if you're using aspirin as a bloodthinner.
And the example that people LIKE to use is aspirin because it *isn't* a big deal. The example they *don't* like to use is foxglove (digitalis, which produced digitoxin, which can be used to treat heart failure) because that's a medicine from a plant that you can't fuck around with using herbalism, it needs extremely careful extraction and preparation because if it's done wrong it'll just straight kill you.
And then you get into herbal treatments that are generally safe and largely not harmful even if they may not do anything, and it can feel totally reasonable to recommend red raspberry leaf tea to a friend who is having cramps. As long as that friend isn't diabetic because red raspberry leaf interacts with insulin. And as long as your friend isn't on an anticoagulant because red raspberry leaf can ALSO act as an anticoagulant.
And those are just examples of what can happen if you know you are actually getting the plant that you think that you are getting and that it is unadulterated with fillers and uncontaminated with anything else and is properly prepared (or is prepared the same way as the last batch you bought and so it can be dosed the same way).
There are two ways that Kava Kava can be prepared; do you know which of those two ways is associated with more deaths and liver transplants? Do you know not to take Kava if you have a history of liver issues or if you are on antidepressants? (ctrl+f for "Hema Ketha" for the study from that overview that goes in depth on that; for whatever reason you can read the whole article in the overview but if you click on the link you only get the abstract)
Are you attempting to take therapeutic doses of turmeric? There's some evidence that it can help relieve joint pain. However you need to take really, really high doses because the medicinal compound in turmeric has low bioavailability. And because you're taking high doses you may be swapping out the risks of NSAIDs for the risk of lead poisoning, because it is unfortunately very common for turmeric to be contaminated with lead.
One of my big, big problems with CAM - including herbalism - is that people turn to it because they think it is safer than "allopathic" medicine. They think "it's better to drink raspberry leaf tea than it is to take midol because midol is full of chemicals and raspberry leaf tea is just tea." But midol doesn't interact with insulin, and most people are *aware* they're taking a blood thinner when they take NSAIDs.
There's this tea shop I go to that has maybe a hundred different kinds of herbal teas, some of which are clearly supposed to be medicinal, but the one that always stands out to me is the St. John's Wort tea that has "NOT FOR PREGNANT" on the label. It's good that they're recommending that pregnant people don't select that tea, but that tea is also not for people on antidepressants, triptans, birth control, warfarin, stantins, protease inhibitors, or people who have had solid organ transplants.
But it's just tea. And what could just tea do, right?
(It could make your anti-rejection meds so weak that it kills you. That's what just tea can do. But maybe one cup of older tea, or one cup that is more leaf than flower, or one cup that wasn't steeped as long doesn't hurt, so you drink it and you think it's fine, it's not a problem, and it isn't a problem until it is but you don't know the difference between one cup of tea and the next because this shit is impossible to dose)
This is also why I'm extremely leery of the "you can try CAM as long as you are using it alongside your doctor's care and you do what the doctors say" thing because that is relying on:
People reporting every supplement, tincture, tea, etc. that they are taking to their doctors (which they often don't do because what's the big deal it's green tea extract and billions of people drink green tea every day)
The ingredients in the supplements being exactly and ONLY what is on the label (which is a long shot - it seems like every three years there's a study or a report that finds that supplements - usually in the US but also around the world - don't contain what they are supposed to and often contain stuff they are not supposed to)
Doctors being aware of all of these possible interactions (which is a stretch; pharmacists are likely to have a better handle on it but even then, there are all kinds of supplements being labeled all kinds of things all the time; medical woo scammers LOVE to rebrand their supplements)
So long story short I'm not particularly bothered if you try herbalism on yourself after looking into things that you think will help you. I do have a problem with people who *recommend* herbal treatments without A) a full medical background understanding of the person they recommend the treatment to and B) comprehensive knowledge of whether the thing that you're recommending will interact with any medications they might be taking or exacerbate any conditions that they might have and C) some kind of accountability mechanism in place - like a malpractice suit or the loss of license - like a doctor might if they prescribed a medication that was dangerous to their patient.
Because that's the other infuriating thing - CAM practitioners often aren't held to the same standards as medical professionals. Patients who trust CAM practitioners often think of them like doctors, but they don't have the same protection from CAM practitioners like they would from doctors. If your herbalist tells you to treat your cancer with apricot pits or black salve - even if that's in addition to chemotherapy - it could end up seriously injuring you and they're not committing malpractice because there's no legal standard for their practice. Nobody can remove their license because there's no such thing as an herbalist license, so whatever harm they did to you can be done to other people after you with no professional consequences.
I have pretty much limitless tolerance for things that people want to do to themselves. If you want to take valerian because you think it helps you sleep (in spite of essentially no evidence that it does so and more adverse reactions among natural sleep aids than things like camomile - which also has no evidence that it's an effective sleep aid) I don't care, just make sure to check for drug interactions first.
If you want to replace your elderly parent's NSAID painkillers with clove oil, fuck you.
I just want to point this out because this is a great example of why people end up using CAM.
It is totally normal for a cough (even a pretty bad one) to last for weeks, but that is not how people conceive of having "a cough," so getting treatment for a "long cough" that wasn't effectively treated by OTC or prescription meds (because there's not really an effective treatment for it for most cases - your body just has to chill and get over it so the best you can do is temporary cough suppressants and soothing drinks) *seems* like it works because you do get better when you didn't before (probably because you saw a doctor who recommended OTC meds and avoiding cough triggers early in the process and went to the CAM practitioner closer to the normal time for that symptom to end).
It is much more likely that your cough got better after you saw the homeopathy person simply because your cough was on a timeline for getting better because a month is an unexceptional amount of time to have a cough.
It's the same thing with people who take vitamin C on the fourth day of a cold and have it cleared up in three more days. Most colds don't have symptoms that last more than a week anyway.
"You can take this medicine and be better in just seven days; if you don't take it you'll be sick for a whole week" kind of deal.
But also yeah folks if you didn't know it is very normal to have a cough for like 3-6 weeks after a cold or other respiratory illness so don't panic if your cough hasn't gone away after a couple weeks; keep an eye on it and if it's debilitating talk to a doctor about treatment (steroids and inhalers are prescribed for some people) or talk to a doctor if it lasts longer than 8 weeks.
at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you
at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.
at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly
at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.
Personals on Transgender Forum, 1995-1998
Kōno Michisei - Self-Portrait (1917)
Kohno Michisei, seen here at twenty-two, presents himself in a pose modeled on Western Renaissance master Albrecht Durer's (1471-1528) self-portrait produced in 1500. Between 1914 and 1924 a remarkable quantity of high-quality portraiture was produced by Japanese artists who blended Western and East Asian painting traditions. While some of these painters had first-hand knowledge of Western painting, most, like Michisei, culled their images from books and magazines. The young artist was raised in an environment filled with powerful iconic images. His father was a portrait photographer, an artist in both Japanese and Western modes, and an active member of the Russian Orthodox Church. These influences are readily apparent in this self-portrait. Michisei's perceptive understanding of classic Western images was based on constant perusal of his father's extensive library; a portrait's potential for psychological and spiritual impact was impressed on him through exposure to religious icons used in the Orthodox liturgy. (source)
Rocky on the trip back to Erid registering that Grace has defaulted to using he/him for him for sexism reasons and that they don't actually have to go by he/him. xe does some research on the human computer and spends several weeks cycling through different pronoun sets. starts switching so frequently Grace becomes convinced sie has started being difficult on purpose. after a while Grace is like omg will you just pick one and stick with it. Rocky is like okay i have decided. rock/rocks. rockself. Grace like well i can't argue with that.
#see the hill that I will die on is that if Andy weir was cooler rockey would use either they them or xe xir#you’re telling me cool middle school teacher Ryland grace is unfamiliar with the concept of fun new genders#absolutely not. his students have taught him about singular they them and neopronouns
Grace trying to explain to Rocky that they can be whatever they want to be and presenting a whole list of different pronoun options and Rocky (who has no concept of gender) being like 'why would I care about any of this'
Rocky: which pronouns does Grace use question?
Grace: he/him
Rocky: okay. Rocky will use he/him too
Grace: okay but I feel like defaulting to he/him promotes a patriarchal kind of mindset and we should be more thoughtful about it
Rocky: okay so use the other standard pronouns
Grace: she/her?
Rocky: yeah
Grace: okay but that feels weird too
Rocky: why weird question
Grace:
Grace, later, lying awake: I never considered that Rocky might wanna be a she... Am I a bad person?
Rocky: Grace mix it up suggestion
Grace: I guess I could
Rocky: Rocky he/she/they/it
Grace: I don't know if you can use it
Rocky: why not question
Grace: it's just considered dehumanising?
Rocky:
Rocky, being a little shit: I choose it/its
Rocky: this conversation boring, let's go back to Grace tones
Grace: okay so you won't pick a pronoun but I have to pick a tonal inflection?
Rocky: my thing more important statement
Grace: okay fine can't you just your tones for me?
Rocky: but Grace not qualified engineer
Grace: well is there a schoolteacher tone?
Rocky: uhh no
Rocky: schoolteacher not
Rocky: schoolteacher not prestige profession statement
Grace:
Grace: WOW.
Grace: is there not like a default tone to use when you don't know all this stuff about a person?
Rocky: yes but very rude to use for close friend statement
Grace: wait hold up 🤔 you think of me as a close friend?
Rocky: yes maybe Grace shut up now
Grace several years into their voyage, finally getting good enough at understanding Eridian to clock when Rocky has switched back to using the Neutral Tone for him, thereby implying that they are no longer friends: HEY??
Grace, in the middle of a big argument: did you just. dead person inflection me?
Rocky: uh-huh
Grace: does that mean what I think it means
Rocky: it means what it means statement
Grace: come ON
New procedure
FAQ for this post:
The trans guy neck hump, or “dowagers hump” is not exclusive to trans men but it is a result of a specific hunching posture trans guys often use to hide their tits. It’s barely noticeable to the average person so it’s not worth getting insecure about, but there are ways to get rid of it. I got rid of mine with lifting/stretching/being more aware of my posture.
Many have noticed that the medical professional is wearing a San Francisco Giants jersey, this is because it’s legendary baseball player Barry Bonds who holds the record for most home runs in a single career, making him the most qualified man for this maneuver.