reading in the starlight

Hello and welcome to my blog! Please call me Luna or Tuesday (not my real names). I'm a huge fan of women's college hockey (go Terriers!). I also enjoy reading (fantasy and romance), math, animated shows, baking, and creating art with watercolor pencils. My ask box is always open, but I don't always come on tumblr regularly.  Spoonie with Long Covid, ADHD, and Autism 27 years old She/Her My profile picture is my finger

[vulpes-aestatis]

Baby sphinx trying to be like mama and waylaying travelers, but all its riddles are completely non-sensical like the ones a 1st grader would tell

[thecactifindahome]

[violentthingsss]

[exeggcute]

one of my favorite this american life segments of late is about the people who played orchestra pit for phantom of the opera on broadway and how, like, a sizeable majority of them had literally been playing the show since it opened in 1988 (on broadway. I know it opened in 86 on the west end, you random pedants, but I am specifically talking about broadway musicians) because their contracts stipulated that they'd have jobs throughout the show's entire run... but nobody anticipated that phantom would become the longest-running broadway show of all time.

and none of these people wanted to walk away from a guaranteed job, so very few of them ever quit. they just kept doing the same show eight nights a week... for twenty or thirty years... and by the time it finally closed last year most of these musicians (who had been working together for DECADES) hated each other and really really fucking loathed phantom. I can't stop thinking about it. it's indescribably hellish to imagine but also the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life.

[exeggcute]

can you imagine.

[bisexualshakespeare]

[ID: excerpt from an article reading: One of my favorite stories, which should drive anyone who has every played in a band crazy-- there’s this bassoon player who has sat next to the same clarinet player since 1988. She’s convinced he plays half a note4 flat on every note he’s every played. He denies this. /]

[cleverlittlefox]

[cleverlittlefox]

[cleverlittlefox]

[jpeg-dot-jpeg]

721: The Walls Close In - This American Life

Here's the link to the full transcript. An absolute goldmine. The section on Phantom of the Opera starts in Act 2.

[vampiresandsistersihaveascheme]

@autisticandroids this is so your shit babe

[juliaanoia]

A little Silna to cleanse your dash

[parabins]

tumblr isn’t considered a social media because everyone on here is just talking to themselves

[parabins]

yeah i agree

[bleu-guacamole]

What does the backend of this website look like that it enabels time travel

[worldheritagepostorganization]

World Heritage Post

[notbecauseofvictories]

good morning exclusively to the atlantic’s science editor, or whoever it is that titles their animal biology articles

[notbecauseofvictories]

fellas, they’ve done it again

[notbecauseofvictories]

me, weeping openly: potato

[notbecauseofvictories]

DEFECTOR HAS TAKEN UP THE MANTLE

[demareth]

sorry snakes have clitorises??

[krshush]

Oh, yeah, I wonder how that map's progressed si--wait MISHA COLLINS?

[sunspotpony]

Tags passing peer review, gonna share.

Anyway, homie is, like all wealthy white dudes, egregiously imperfect, but he’s definitely fucking trying. So in that regard, he’s valuable because he’s reaching audiences that you personally probably wouldn’t be able to reach, and if you find he has specific stuff on topics you need to persuade people on, he’s a valuable avenue.

[depsidase]

[idiopathicsmile]

Visit Original Link

In pulling together the Kickstarter funding for the pilot episode of my paranormal rock musical audio drama Everyone Leaves Alive (out now!), one of my backers generously gave at a level where I agreed to write an original song for him. When asked what to write about, he said either municipal zoning or car dependency.

LYRICS

Well take a good damn look At the ride you’ve got A truck the size of Texas in the CostCo parking lot A hood high as a flag pole and there’s just one catch: your monumental Chevy has a blind spot to match

All the cyclists are shaking a disaster in the making There’s a reason they think you’re a pig: You don’t need a truck that big

And just from making car hoods of a kickass larger size In eight years, three thousand more pedestrians have died And people shrug and say that it’s the land of the free (Free to get pulped by an SUV)

Is it worth it, the lost lives? Worth it, the gas price? Worth it, just to own those libs? You don’t need a truck that big

It’s not as if you’re moving loads of two by fours Your flatbed is as empty as those words of yours Yeah you live in the suburbs you ain’t hauling hay but we pay the blood tax for your cosplay

All he punchlines are waiting 'bout overcompensating are you prepared for that type of dig? You don’t need a truck that big

Well, it’s a driver’s world, carved into this land Public transit swept away by Big Oil’s mighty hand They say “jaywalking” if I just cross the street The only question left is how much dirt I’m gonna eat

Hear that El Dorado thunder oh it’s mankind’s classic blunder Hubris, final form: a giant rig You don’t need a truck that big You don’t need a truck that big You don’t need a truck…

[alchemistdoctor]

I am begging you. Please learn about stress/discomfort tolerance. Practice raising it. You need this to survive. If someone online can ruin your day with a throwaway comment, you desperately need to understand discomfort tolerance and consciously, systematically build that shit.

Also! Stress tolerance is such an important skill that having a learning disability in that area is a major symptom of a whole lot of other disabilities/mental illnesses! Struggling with it is a huge part of life! It sucks!

Am I saying everyone with misophonia needs to listen to chewing noises all day? No. But you need to find ways to tolerate it enough that you don't treat others like shit if they make a mouth noise near you.

No, you don't have to read the fic with your trigger tags. But you do need to be able to handle scrolling past the tags without being upset.

It is hard! But not having it also makes you so so so easy to manipulate. That grandma is racist AF because her mom raised her to be uncomfortable around black people and she never fought that discomfort. Trans people make so many cis people uncomfortable and that discomfort turns into bigotry real fast.

Letting your discomfort dictate your actions and beliefs about things is a great way to become a terrible person. Learn. Discomfort. Tolerance.

[bisexual-history]

[National Biways, Oct/Nov 1994]

[grendel-menz]

a fairy of seasonal change

[readinginthestarlight]

Okay one last thing before bed. I can pretend like people read these. When I got long covid, I sort of stopped being able to read books for a long time. I was still entirely capable of reading, but something wasn't processing correctly and it made reading fiction not fun. I've always been a big reader. So I switched to audiobooks. And even after I started to usually be okay reading paper books again, I mostly stuck with audiobooks. Then I lost my grandmother two months ago. Can't really do audiobooks right now. There's too much free space in my brain while listening and I just start to feel sad (which is bad because usually I'm driving). At first, I actually couldn't read anything, not audiobook or paper or even webcomics, except that in my grief-addled state, I somehow landed on rereading Project Hail Mary in Spanish and that felt okay when nothing else did. Anyways, I frequently have long drives (over an hour each way) mostly to see family and friends and I get really bored without audiobooks. For a while, I was just like talking to myself and singing and stuff, which was somehow better even though it's actually way more of my brain free than listening to an audiobook, but I guess it's a different part. But I was getting so bored. So I decided to try an audiobook in Spanish and that was okay (Beartown by Fredrik Backman, also a reread). Keeps my whole brain occupied just trying to figure out what everything means.

I'm not really fluent enough to be doing this though. If I didn't know The Book pretty well from having read it multiple times in English, I'd be Totally Lost. I took Spanish in middle school and high school and then a year in college, but I was never close to fluent and the most I've kept up with it since then is listening to some music. I've got the audiobook at 80% speed, but I can't look up words because I'm driving. But it turns out that that's okay and this is really improving my Spanish skills a lot pretty quickly. I'd say I would've done this ages ago if I had realized, but I don't think I had the patience for it. So yeah, grief is weird, but it has really helped my Spanish skills. Would prefer having my grandma back though.

[dreadwedge]

[teaboot]

Wait what's a buildings fire evacuation plan if you aren't supposed to use the elevator to get down

[lazodiac]

You go down the stairwell/fire escape. Is that weird?

[teaboot]

But what if you have a walker or a wheelchair??

[durpacerangerrogjro]

in america at least, in this situation, there isnt one. either your loved ones or the firemen can get you out using the emergency fire escapes or stairs, or you die 

[teaboot]

That's fucking horrific, thank you

[official-lucifers-child]

“fun” little story:

last summer my friend who is an amazingly talented artist and i were in this super tall building, and she’s in a wheelchair and i’m pushing her around the room. it’s an art exhibit and some of her art was chosen to be showcased there and so it’s all fine and dandy until suddenly an alarm starts going off

a FIRE ALARM

everyone starts running for the stairs and my friend just looks at me with this forlorn look on her face

“i can’t go down the stairs”

but i’m a stubborn bitch “i’ll carry you”

“what about my chair? it’s too expensive for me to be able to get another one if i can’t get this one back”

“i’ll carry that too”

and i did. we went to the stairs (by then most people from our floor were gone) and i lifted her up in a fireman’s carry over my shoulder and then lifted her chair up and used the ridiculous amount of adrenaline that was coursing through my veins to make it down approximately 20 half-flights of stairs until we met some people exiting lower floors, one of which who kindly took the chair. I changed positions so i was holding my friend bridal-style which was, somehow, easier and the person who took her wheelchair (with her permission to handle it of course) accompanied me to the ground floor and then out the doors

basically there is no real protocol for people who can’t use the stairs in an emergency. it’s up to the people with them, if anyone, to help them or the person to somehow make it down the stairs alone, unassisted

thank fuck that it was just a faulty alarm system, because if i was unable to carry her down those stairs and the building was on fucking fire???? then i don’t know what would have happened to her, but i don’t think it would have been very good.

it’s fucking ridiculous and ableist to the absolute max.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

I use a cane. When I did a day-long fire safety training at my northeast American university (UMass Amherst), I asked that exact same question: “what am I supposed to do if the fire alarm goes off and I’m in my lab on the twelfth floor?” 

the fire marshal hemmed and hawed for a while and then said to take the elevator- you’re supposed to leave it free for the fire department to use and they want able-bodied people out fast not waiting for elevators. if the fire alarm has just gone off the building probably hasn’t suffered enough structural damage to make using the elevator dangerous, and modern elevator wells are heavily reinforced. many large and high-trafficked buildings on my campus have fire rated elevators that link in with the fire alarm system so they won’t let you off on a floor with a possible fire. 

if the elevator isn’t working, wait in the stairwell and call the fire department to let them know where you are. modern stairwells are also heavily reinforced- it might not be pleasant but modern building code usually requires fire-resistant stairwell doors in office and big residential buildings, also to help firefighters get in and out safely. older buildings’ stairwells may or may not be retrofitted with fire-resistant doors but a stairwell is generally the safest place to wait if you can’t get out. 

what happened to your friend was horrible, and i’m very glad you were there to help her out, but you can absolutely use the elevator to evacuate if it’s not shut down. those don’t-use-the-elevator rules are for abled people.  

[tisfan]

This is GOOD TO KNOW. why do they not tell people this??

[ravynfyre]

Okay, firefighter here. If you are not physically able to use the stairs, and the elevator is NOT compromised, use the elevator. But you MUST be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the elevator is NOT compromised before you get into it, because there is always the chance that once you get into it, you may not exit it. Power could go out. The elevator may actually BE compromised and you just couldn’t tell from where you were until you were in there, and it suddenly shuts down on you. Something else could happen. 

Understand that once you enter the elevator, you could POTENTIALLY be taking your life into your hands there.

It is NOT LIKELY, to be perfectly honest. It’s only in a pretty catastrophic scenario - think the Twin Towers, USA, on September 11th - that the elevators will be compromised and out of service. But there is a NOT ZERO PERCENT CHANCE and you need to understand that and accept it.

As for leaving the elevators free for the firefighters, okay, here’s the deal. Unless your nearest fire station is literally right next door? Your first on scene fire truck is NOT likely to be there on scene and needing that elevator before you get to the ground. It takes us TIME to find the address, gear up, and drive to the building. Then we need to hoof it into where the elevators even ARE, so YOU HAVE TIME to use the elevator to get down to the ground floor... BUT ONLY IF THERE’S NOT A RUSH ON THE ELEVATOR! And THAT is WHY we don’t tell people this shit. That’s WHY we tell people to NEVER USE THE ELEVATOR... because every self-entitled asshole will use it because they don’t feel like walking, and then put YOU in danger by delaying the elevator’s arrival to you.

IF, however, the elevator IS compromised, or you just can’t get it to come for you, or whatever, and you either don’t have anyone with you who has the adrenaline fueled BALLS to be able to toss you over their shoulder and hoof it down the stairs with you - because, let’s face it, that is RARE AS FUCK, then HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:

You call 911 and tell the call taker that you are in the building that has a fire alarm going off, and you are not able to evacuate because of a physical disability, and you tell them what floor you are on, and EXACTLY what stairwell you are waiting at. And the very FIRST thing that the firefighters are going to do once they arrive, if it is, indeed, a REAL emergency, and not a false alarm, is come get your ass and bring you down. Whether that means carrying you down the stairs, or whether that means locking out the elevators so that no one else can override them and coming to get you themselves, they WILL come get you FIRST THING if it is a real event. And if it is a false alarm? You will probably be the first person who is not involved with the building to know, because the call-taker is going to stay on the line with you until you are under someone’s care and out of danger, or until the scene has been sorted out as real or false, and you are out of danger that way.

These are pretty standard operations in the fire service throughout the United States. There may be some minor variations based on specific municipalities, but, for the most part, this is pretty typical: LIFE BEFORE PROPERTY. So, as long as SOMEONE knows where you are - hence why you call 911 - Firefighters will come get you. You are NOT alone, and you have NOT been abandoned. I PROMISE. It’s like, our whole reason for doing the shit we do: to save lives and to break shit. Sometimes, we get lucky enough to do both at the same time.

High rise fires suck ass, and I always hated them. But the very FIRST thing I asked anytime we got one was if we had “any entrapments” - which is what we call anyone who could not self-evacuate for ANY reason. We ain’t leaving you behind. And yes, your friend who doesn’t have the stamina to carry you down can stay with you, too. Because I would never ask that of someone, honestly. 

Also, just a little FYI... MOST fire alarms are false alarms. Not to make anyone complacent or anything, but, yeah. Most of them are either system malfunctions, someone accidentally hit a pull station, or someone burned popcorn in a break room. So don’t let a fire alarm freak you out until you need it to - by smelling or seeing smoke or flames. 

[gentle--riot]

i have had multiple nightmares about this very thing because NOBODY BOTHERS TO ACTUALLY TELL WHEELCHAIR USERS THIS STUFF

[downwiththebad]

I am loving these additions!

If you're disabled, this is worth the time and focusing energy to read through!!!

[kyraneko]

Short version:

If disabled and the fire alarm is just happened, you're allowed to take the elevators down but there's a small possibility you could get stuck if the elevators are compromised.

If you can't use the elevators or don't want that risk, go to the stairwell which is reinforced against fire, close the doors, and call 911 to let them know you are in that particular stairwell and can't get down.

Fire will strongly prioritize finding and rescuing people who might be still in the building during any actual structure fire. This is a major component of their job.

Fire people won't arrive in the course of one elevator run and actually half the deal with "don't use elevators" is supposed to be "leave it for people who need it in the emergency" which is both fire AND disabled people.

[identittykrisis]

a fire is my worst nightmare as a disabled person, thank you to everyone who helped put this post together

[covid-safer-hotties]

Ableist discrimination, pure and simple.

[covid-safer-hotties]

[covid-safer-hotties]

[lynati]

"they were asked to show their faces...and decided to leave instead of following our rules."

What is the difference between that and, "you can't stay here if you won't take off your mask" ?

They never described it as being kicked out, either. You added that term to try to help spin what happened, while admitting that you did exactly what they said you did.

For shame.

[spoonies-and-knives]

The alt didn't include a description of the photo attached to one of the tweets so here's an id:

[id/ A photo of a white person with a blond buzz cut wearing a marbled KN95 face mask, sitting in their car directly looking at the camera /end id]

The alt also doesn't include the owner's comment (in response to a review on Google Maps it looks like) so here's a transcription:

[transcription]

I'm sorry, but this is a lie. No one was kicked out of Art of Recycle for wearing a mask. Two people, yesterday, were asked to show their faces for the safety and comfort of our staff and patrons and they decided to leave instead of following our rules. We could never recommend Art of Recycle to immuno compromised people who can't leave their homes, because AoR is a very active community center filled with children, families and adults with intellectual disabilities. We aren't a cancer center, we provide free resources to non-profits and schools and field trip activities. It's a place where you go to get dirty. [laughing emoji]

[end transcription]

[valtsv]

parents love giving you job hunting advice that's like Have you tried destroying and betraying yourself for nothing